I looked around for options. I had like seven or eight paralytic venom bolts in this wolf’s body. They were bound to take effect soon. The wolf, however, showed no sign of letting up. It had climbed the tree and started to slowly walk onto the branch on which I was seated.

The only option I saw to buy time would be a jump to the branch of a nearby tree. The jump was about five feet.

Why was I even doubting myself? I had been a jumping spider for goddess’s sake. I could do this.

I reared up my hind legs, aimed, and jumped.

I reached the branch on the other tree, but felt my large abdomen hit the wood after my legs. I felt a shockwave of pain as it did so.

I quickly cast healing light on myself to heal any internal damage I may have sustained before turning to face the wolf who seemed dumbfounded that I’d escaped it.

I could still jump just fine, but my body didn’t seem made for it anymore…

I had escaped danger for now, though. I doubted that wolf was gonna get me anytime soon.

The wolf was still looking at me with anger in its eyes, but I saw that some of that anger had been replaced by… was that fear?

The creature’s legs slipped off the branch and it fell down onto the dirt below. It whimpered in pain as it tried to get up, but once it stood, its legs gave way again.

That was my venom kicking in.

I started casting my fireball spell at the creature which was currently immobilized. I felt my mana flow into the spell and cast it.

Hitting a stationary target was easy. It seemed the synergy between paralytic venom and spells was one of my deadliest combinations.

The spell engulfed the wolf in flame while it howled in pain. Fortunately, it didn’t take long for my spell to put it out of its misery.

Crap, that was a messy fight.

I’d made great progress with today’s kills. I decided to head on home as I knew my venom reserves, at least the paralytic venom’s, were completely empty. My mana wasn’t faring too well, either. Despite my regeneration, I would need at least some time to recover.

I could cast a few more spells, sure, but I wasn’t going to risk anything finding me and trying to kill me when I was unprepared for a fight. I was happy with my work today, and decided to call it here.

I skittered back to Cellestra’s home as quickly as I could, and by the time I arrived, the sun was low over the nearest trees.

The elf wasn’t outside as far as I could tell. I saw the wolf pelts hanging over a line that had been hung between two trees.

The door was open and I entered. I found myself looking forward to talking to Cellestra again after my earlier battles. If only I could talk…

Oh well, I’d gotten pretty far today. If I had five evolutions to go for speech, and I’d almost gotten through one today, I imagined I would get there soon.

I wondered how big I would be by the time I could talk. Would I end up too big to fit through the door? That would be… quite undesirable.

I found Cellestra sitting in her chair. Her eyes were closed and she had an elbow on the table, her fingers on her forehead. A cup of tea sat under her nose and she looked… tired? Worried?

I quietly sat and waited for a moment to see what she would do. I was confident she hadn’t noticed me yet. When her eyes didn’t open after a full minute or so, I made my presence known by skittering up to and climbing on the table.

“Oh, hey Kealyna,” Cellestra said as soon as she noticed me. Her mood seemed to be elevated almost immediately. “How did your hunt go?”

I started pointing at the letters. “Went ok. Killed two wolves and boar. How are you? You looked sad.”

“I was just… lost in thought,” She said with a sigh.

I had a feeling there was plenty she wasn’t telling me. I wanted to know what was wrong, what was bothering her. I just… I didn’t dare to ask. Maybe there was something seriously wrong with her… with this curse. Would I want to know?

I felt pain shoot through my body as I thought that. I didn’t want to think about that.

“I’m sorry if I scared you with that.” She smiled after saying that.

Her smile burned away my worries. They were still there in the back of my head, but when she smiled like that… I imagined things would be okay in the end.

I wanted to see more of that smile.

The kindest soul I knew deserved to be happy.

“But did you seriously take out two wolves and a boar?”

“Yes,” I replied by pointing. “One of wolf was giant wolf too. Gave lots of experience. Can almost evolve again.”

“By the goddess, Kealyna. Don’t make me rewrite all those letters again so soon!” She giggled.

Oh, how I wanted to smile. That comment would have just forced it out of me. I didn’t know if she was joking at first, but her giggles afterward had confirmed to me she was.

I realized now that I didn’t know what I wanted to talk about. Earlier when I wanted to talk to Cellestra I didn’t bother to think about topics, I just… I wanted to talk to her…

What was wrong with me?

I simple observed the elf’s giggle die down to a sweet smile. It was as if she was expecting me to move my limbs in order to “speak” again.

“Want practice magic again?” I wrote.

I felt so lame for asking that. It was the only thing that popped up in my head. I was such a terrible talker…

“I’d love to. Let me see...” She murmured the last part before looking out the window. “I’ll have to prepare dinner in a bit as well, but let’s see if I can solve the puzzle regarding this mana flow in the second part of your spell, shall we?”

I nodded with my pedipalps before she placed her hand on my abdomen and allowed her spell to flow with my mana. I then cast the barrier and noticed Cellestra close her eyes to focus.

“Hmm.” She let out. “Could you do that again?”

She kept her eyes closed as I repeated the spell.

She asked me to repeat it several times while she seemed to be in a trance-like state. I hoped it helped her concentrate. I imagined having her learn how to use this magic would make her quite happy.

We continued for a bit before Cellestra started preparing dinner. She went down into the cellar outside to retrieve another cut of boar. I imagined we’d be eating that for a couple of days before it spoiled.

In the meantime, I looked at my enhancement screen. I had accumulated 182 evolution points with the levels and the achievement from today. It was quite obvious that I would take the very strong mana regeneration for fifty points, but I was left wondering what I should do with the rest.

Even with this many points per level, and the added achievements, there was no way I was going to be able to get everything. It would seem I might need this supposed other way of getting evolution points later down my evolution line.

I wondered what it was.

I looked at my skills and enhancement options once more and started doubting whether I should get anything at all. With this next evolution, new skills would appear, and if there were any good ones, I’d be able to upgrade them far if I had points stored up.

But I also didn’t like sacrificing strength to do so…

I ultimately gave in to my knightly instinct and evolved my exoskeleton to its maximum attainable level. Those points would be no good to me if I ended up dead. To prevent that, I’d make myself as tough as I could.

With this, I would still have 77 points left over, more by the time I hit the level cap. There were also quite some achievements that I had yet to earn…

I went through the enhancements one by one as the elf cooked.

“Are you hungry?” Cellestra asked from the kitchen where she was stir-frying small pieces of pork.

How was I supposed to answer that without speech?

I wasn’t that hungry, but I decided I’d say yes so she wasn’t doing all that work for nothing.

I moved my pedipalps up and down to indicate yes.

“Neat. Unfortunately, I don’t have potatoes. Personally, I like them with some meat, but I hope this is to your liking.”

I chuckled mentally. I was sure that anything she cooked would be to my liking.