Cellestra turned around, if only briefly, to wave at the two guardsmen sitting next to the closest wagon. One of them replied with a wave of their own before the elf turned back to me and slowly walked onto the road.

“They knew you were leaving?”

“Yeah,” Cellestra replied. “I knew you’d find me here. I was going to leave as soon as you showed up.”

She let out a small chuckle. “I also heard you’re hungry. I don’t want to make you wait.” She paused briefly, then continued, “I kind of want to go home as well. I don’t want my curse to take hold in the nearby wildlife.”

“I don’t see much wildlife around here, though,” I said.

“Which is exactly why I want to leave. I attract them to a certain degree.”

I turned to walk next to the elf. We both started walking in the direction of the forest. I was much taller than her, but I could adjust how high my torso was above the ground. I kept it as low as possible without getting uncomfortable. There was always the option of getting to our destination the fast way, but this would make talking a bit easier.

It would feel awkward to carry Cellestra now that I had at least some part of my former self back…

It was odd. I have wanted to give her a proper hug for so long. Yet, now that I could, I worried so much about what she’d think if I did or even asked about it…

“About your curse,” I said as we started our journey back. I had to walk slowly as my large legs unintentionally covered quite a bit of distance. “Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to get any skills that can help out with it.”

“You don’t have to worry about it,” Cellestra said. “I would like to say that if there’s nothing that can be done about it then so be it, but I can’t… I’ve grown tired of trying to find a solution to it, but I don’t know what else to do. If you do plan on visiting one of Elysa’s temples, do you think you could maybe ask her about it?”

“I should ask her. I don’t see a reason not to.”

I saw Cellestra stare down into one of my large spider eyes.

“I believe you told me your hair was also white when you were a knight, correct?”

I nodded.

“Would you hate it if I said that it fits with your other… hair?”

I chuckled slightly as she made reference to the soft white hair that covered my body. I ran a hand over my spider head, feeling the softness between my fingers, but also feeling a hand run through it. It was… nice.

“You’re right,” I said. “It is soft and fluffy.”

Cellestra turned her head and saw me petting myself. A smile grew on her face as I was still enjoying the sensations that this brought.

“Told you,” Cellestra replied, suppressing a slight giggle. I couldn’t blame her. This whole situation was quite incredible, yet funny in some ways as well.

I sighed deeply as I threw back my head and gazed at the sky above for a few seconds before closing my eyes. It would probably take time getting used to being able to close my eyes while still being able to see everything that was going on around me, but that didn’t worry me.

“You know I never expected anything like this. I thought I would be forever stuck as a spider. You have no idea how happy I am right now.”

I let out a deep sigh and let the warmth of the sun permeate the new skin that I’d gotten. I never was one to pay attention to such things. Though, I guess that was in part because I’d hardly ever been outside without my armor. The feeling of the sun kissing my exposed skin was something I could definitely get used to.

“Not to speak of me,” Cellestra said with a chuckle as she reached a hand into the leather pack she always carried with her. She pulled out a stack of papers and ripped them to shreds before tossing the shreds into the air.

“Nothing against you, obviously. There was nothing you could have done about it, but talking like that was getting on my nerves.”

“Same,” I added, as I faced forward again, and opened my eyes. “I can finally use full sentences. Never mind how much I can say now that I can communicate at the speed of speech.”

“Thank you, by the way…” I spoke softly. “For everything you’ve done for me since the day you found and cared for me. I cannot thank you enough…”

I felt a tear form in one of my eyes, but I quickly rubbed it out without Cellestra being any wiser about it.

“I was happy to help,” Cellestra said. “When I learned about your… situation, I just couldn’t help but feel sorry about what happened to you. You’ve been of amazing help with your spells in return, so I guess we’re even, now?”

“I guess so,” I said before pausing for a few moments. “About my spells… It appears I’ve lost a significant amount of the power I had with my last evolution. Elysa left a message that specifically said something about it. There seems to be something that interfered with her blessing when it gave me this… elven torso. Elysa had to balance out the power between my spider and elven half…”

“How bad is it?” Cellestra asked, her eyes wide open as she looked at me.

“I just feel weak. I used these threads to cover myself,” I took a few threads at the side of my breasts between two fingers. “But they aren’t nearly as strong as they were before. I haven’t actually tried any magic yet. Let me just cast my barrier…”

I cast my multi-barrier spell only to find out that it worked exactly the same as it did before. Nothing about the spell had changed. It didn’t feel any weaker.

“Strange,” I said with a frown. “Either this spell isn’t affected by it, or I just don’t feel a difference.”

“Best not to try it out,” Cellestra advised me.

“Agreed.”

A minute passed in which I thought about my spells and how this blessing would still be a large aspect of my life. I wasn’t sure if I could get the strength that I’d lost back through the devour ability or whether it would only add new enhancement options. I guessed I would find out… eventually.

Hopefully, it would be soon. I was getting hungrier by the minute. With some luck, I’d see the effects of this skill.

Breaking the silence, I cast my fireball spell, simply aiming into the distance. A fireball the size of my fist materialized before me and flew out. There was still power in the spell, but it wasn’t as destructive as it once was.

I repeated the same with a high-velocity ice lance. It was smaller than the ones I’d used to strike down the bandits from afar, but because of its speed, it still seemed like it would be deadly versus most monsters, and possibly unarmored targets. I concluded that I was still deadly, and strong enough to kill anything that I would encounter in the forest.

“That doesn’t look too bad,” Cellestra said what I was thinking.

“You may be right. These spells do feel weaker when I use them, in contrast to my barrier. I’m almost certain that my barriers are still of the same strength.”

I thought about some very specific spells I had and something came to mind.

“The good news is that I still have two spells, well, actually three that are much less affected by this apparent power drop. My mana reserves haven’t changed. There are some spells that increase in damage and cost more mana the longer I channel them.”

“That’s… good, I guess?” Cellestra said. Her tone made it seem that she wasn’t sure why I said what I said. “But I wouldn’t worry about those things for now. There are probably other things that you should concern yourself with.”

I turned my head to look at her.

“You know, like what will you wear and stuff like that.”

“Hmm,” I let out as I looked at the silk that covered my chest. “Do you have any idea how much more comfortable this is than armor?”

“I can imagine. Silk is expensive for a reason,” She turned her head further to look at the massive spider abdomen I was carrying behind me. “And as far as I can tell, you have no short supply of it.”

“That’s true I guess,” I said, smiling at her joke. “Though, I’m not going to pick up tailoring, if that’s what you were expecting.”

Cellestra smiled and shook her head. “Wasn’t expecting you to. But maybe, somewhere in the future, you could sell it. Might net you some good coin.”

“Good point.”

“Speaking of the future, I imagine it’s looking quite a bit brighter now, isn’t it?” Cellestra spoke with her soft, caring voice.

I simply nodded in response before tilting my head to stare at the white clouds in the distance, far beyond the forest. “There’s still so much to do and find out, but yeah, it truly is.”

Faragi

We're back people!

Let's celebrate with a bit of a chapter dump <3

Heads up: Things will be a bit slow for a while regarding upcoming events in the story.