‘Heavy labour is the dreamy breath

of fallen souls waiting on the grass.

Resting their eyes but not their mind,

for the escape from this blurry maze 

they must find. Then start running again.

Many lungs overworked in a 

sleepless dream speaking

in tongues in a frenzy of Demons and monsters chasing fat kitties on a plain.

Am I the demons now?

I am...

Overbearing the heavy tigers,

strengthening the snake girl.

At least this, i know.’

‘So how is she?’

Her vitality tanked at 5.

‘We need to move.’

?

‘We can build a hi-tech automated hospital right? Let's bring her to the drones crash.’

Oh! Yeah, actually we can use the nanites to block her pain receptors. We can build computers to run simulations on use and deterioration after the surgery itself, so that we may fix them permanently, or make her new ones.

‘Ok, let's go’

Where we left the magic logs the grass is now shining in brights of yellow, all animals seem to avoid this like a sanctuary. But...

Wait, are we going to carry her on our arms? How about the logs?

‘Huh? We are going to piggyback her’

What!? That could kill her. We don't have any suspension system at all, if we run at half speed she would still be shaken into a seizure.

‘Hmm, what would I like to travel on if I was five and from a tropical land…’

We dont have time for that… look let's ask for a carriage from the dragon and pull it.

‘A HAMMOCK!’

Just how do you intend to make, actually we could simulate that… but how to carry a hammock with a fragile child inside??!

‘We mount it on the logs, chill.’

What will we mount on  the logs?

‘The hammock’

What hammock?

‘You tell me. I'm not the one with the treasure map.’

There's nothing on the dragons nest that remotely looks like a hammock but there are some magic robes we could improvise into one. Oh, there's an arachne here. Let's ask her, bring the logs.

The half woman half spider greets us with an ambush, but is smart enough not to attack. She has seen my status, so no surprise.

“What have you lost in our forest, metal slave?”

‘Should we play good cop, bad cop?’

Play the character. We want one thing. We barely know what negotiation is.

“Me-” ‘want net.’

…

“I want a hammock made from your net.”

“Hou, how brave to make demands deep in someone's territory. Aren't you afraid of being seen as a threat, slave?”

“What do you want for it?”

“How about a game? Answer three riddles correctly and I will spin you a net your master will never want to get out of. Get it wrong and you must drive the dragon away from this jungle. Normally i would ask for your face and feed on your emotions if you failed, but I don't suppose it works on you?”

“Ok”

‘Oh God, why does she take so long to say every word!? Is she trying to seduce the snails?’

Patience or we will have to beat her and force her to spin it, it's only self defense until the force to spin part. I will answer her questions since they will be mundane, so please only say what I say.

“What floats on water but does not get wet, rises up but never falls-”

“Listen,-”

Here, talk in spider.

“why don't you ask me for something that is actually important? I can tell you about the location of any item you may want, the chant for any spell or anything like that.”

First hisses from the spiderlings, then silence as I start to speak in their language an offer she can't refuse.

“You mean anything.”

“Yeah, three question. Just don't take too long or I will choose a random question to answer to.”

I'm lenient on the first question and in a minute she asks the chant for a spell of area poisoning and subtle passive control.

But for the second she seems to be taking strategic decisions that might take an hour.

‘You mean a millennia.’

“One question left. The gods did not create this “upper” world. The surface had been destroyed by a cataclysm they were powerless against. The tales of creation you have learned were spun out of shame and fear.”

She immediately rose to refuse that as the question, but her mandibles opened wide and coughed some venom as she couldn't digest these words.

“Who are you?”

“Third question?”

“...”

The spiderlings stood there like normal, if the skies fall they hide in the caverns. The smarter ones trembled, they weren't supposed to hear that there are greater things than all the gods together, there is no such thing as shelter.

I think she would have doubted me and attacked to call me a liar were it not for the masses of pure mana i carry on my shoulders. Instead she reaches with a leg and starts spinning her net, a soft and flexible texture she stretches and nibs on. Lost in work, she looks nervous as if calming herself by being busy. Also i don’t mind waiting since she’s spinning the hammock of our snek gurl and removing the stickiness by mouth. 

“Where?”

“?”

“Where is safe?”

‘Nowhere right? But should we just tell her that?’

Up to you.

“...”

“Is there anywhere where my children could grow in safety from the horrors even the gods fear, learned one?”

“No.”

She stops her spinning for a moment, looks back to the net in her hands and begins again. Four of her many eyes then focus on the many webs she has spread on her part of the jungle, in anger born of frustration she tears them down. Her newly spun net joins with the sticky traps and schemes as she vomits venom over them taking away their strength, making them soft and comfortable. The hammock is becoming thrice as big as necessary but i don’t have the guts to tell her vicious spinning to stop.

Soon she’s finished.

‘Not soon at all…’

She walks over to me and hands over the hammock.

“You give me despair, i thank you with comfort.”

‘Oof.’ 

“Thanks, can you help me attach it to the two logs?”

“...Yes.”

‘Hmm, i guess we can say at least this?’

Go ahead.

“Also, i’m building somewhere safe for my kind under the guidance of my god. It will be safe for those of metal and stone like me but not you. There are ways of making those like you into those like me, then you would be safe. We could easily avoid cataclysms like the one that destroyed half this planet.”

“How could the likes of us hope for safety if even the gods are powerless against nature. Weren’t them it’s creators?”

‘Not the ones here, but maybe others did. Anyways let’s smugly leave it at that since we have already answered her questions.’ 

“I don’t suppose you need help, but once you have it built please do come. I might be too old or dead, but my heiress will take you up on that. Could i know your n- I suppose not, until long.”

‘Just to make sure, the venom won’t hurt our loli right?’

We should come up with an excuse to bring her with us for the shaman. Ah? No it won’t, the venom made the web not sticky then she neutralized it with her spider magic.

‘We will look like a really crude carriage don’t we.’

We carry the logs upright and diagonally and in any way to avoid thrashing too much in the jungle. But out of here we will run with these two thick logs longer than our body united by a dense, pristine white net and extending a bit forward and a lot backwards,.

A carriage that treads on jungle ground is not bad, but we are camera. Anyways, the magic from the logs is slowly seeping into the hammock, i hope it helps with healing.

‘How would it help?’

If she could use healing magic she would be able to do it constantly, but if her body learns and does cast regeneration by instinct, the infections caused by the mismatching bodyparts would be gone.

‘We can no longer use these logs as bats to rampage in the dungeons but it’s what it must be.’

You were planning on that? What if it lost its energy content, or exploded?

‘Explosion damage, so OP. But yeah, you’re right we need to conserve it. I would only do it against a boss or something, the final boss of the second dungeon is a dragon right?’

Yeah. Tell the shaman something like being requested by the goddess of life to take her to a ceremony of priesthood.

‘Old man looks shook.’

“I will clear a path you can move from here to the magic forest. Bring the girl to this hammock, I will take her to where she can be cured from what prevents her strength from shining… Also, what is her name?”

“Linda! Thank you! *thank you*”

For a moment i thought they would turn hostile, but it seems they were just shook by the logs I laid down. A snake woman shouted while the others were in a daze, the mother of the girl cried in relief. Thankfulness spread from her and no one questioned my actions. The shaman started pray for blessing for the hammock, but then stopped to praise and pray to the log itself. So intense it’s mana it looks more divine than their statues.

I left the village and immediately started uprooting the trees and bushes around. The ones that had nests in them I moved with care, the ones only with small insects I threw like fire wood. Forward there’s only these many leaves and uneven ground, obstacles and blocks for my balanced walking but not for my vision. I am unable to see through them, but I can understand what comes next after them, more leaves falling, rocks and roots jutting out, veiny wood to break apart and lives to uproot.

‘So, can Essay make a party system?’

Too conspicuous.

‘The gods will notice right… but they are going to notice anyways right? Let’s go with the “I serve a master greater than thou’ attitude. Besides with that we could also level up the golems faster.’

We need to stay under the radar as much as possible.

‘Come on, I am sure she can do it, we just have to tell them it was big head who made it.’

We shouldn't cite names when bluffing by the way. Erebus might be hated here, we don't know.

‘Let's just try and ask her at least.’

SA-02. Can you, without alerting the administrators, implement in the system a form of redistributing the value “Experience” for set groups of individuals? I am sending the idea as imagery.

“HU-01. No, i have over exhausted the resources available to you. There is however such function already implemented in the system, only it is deactivated and i do not have permission to reactivate it. Using the processing power of the system itself, I have copied all the methods and objects onto a new package under a different name. You may access  it under ‘Grouping individuals for distribution of rewards’ instead of the previously inaccessible ‘Party’ package.”

‘H4X0R NEE-CHAN BEST GIRL.’

Our plans losing shape, the dungeon bosses waiting and with the overgrowth on the edge of the jungle overthrown, we have a way forward. In the distance the sleeping bears are still running in their dream, and inspired, so do we.

MagicKing

So, tests this week, am going to try for a scientific initiation? (Dunno how it's called in English) I have no choice but make the right choices and be productive now. And my PC bricked e.e. This might have come Saturday but all my efforts went into getting my PC back working. (I had the foresight to write on Google docs so no loss I'm so proud of myself rn e.e) Also thought up the nature dragon epic about the dragonling in the nest in this jungle that throws itself into the abyss so as to come out on the other side. Where's  the pause button.