---

• “So you’re just not gonna come out?”
• ‘…no… not safe…’

In a burrow underneath the great oak tree, Alice had made herself a large open chamber with a single entry, every surface of it lined in a thin layer of web nearly invisible even to Alicia. She only noticed it because of the faint glistening of it in the light near the entrance and the surroundings of the burrow. Having learned how to read the vibrations of webs she knew that Alice had excellent awareness of the outside even if she doesn’t have eye contact. At the back wall of the hollow, a number of egg sacs, seven in total, were suspended above ground hung up by threads of silk. And their mother guarding them in position above them. Perfectly still without disturbance or single twitch of a muscle as she refused to move, a statuesque image of maternity.

Giving up on convincing her to come out Alicia turned back to the entrance.

• “Alicia…”
• “Hey you can speak if you try, what is it?”
• “don’t… leave…”
• “I… can’t stay here until they hatch. But you have nothing to worry about, I’ll always be close. You can call me no problem, right?”

Despite her assurance there still lingered some reluctance to let her go… but Alice didn’t stop her.

• ‘I will listen…’
• “You mean… you’ll be with me through Telepathy? That’s fine… I might have to extend its range to go anywhere useful.”

‘Not a lot but I can work with this… I need to stock up on more points too… though progress is slow as of late… Four should be good… Alma if you will?’’

>Processing…

‘One and a half kilo… I would’ve liked more but this will have to do for now… And those points aren’t going to appear out of nowhere… should get used to my new body.’

---

Ever since she separated from Alice there was a stinging pain that kept growing in her chest, like a heartburn and pinning down the cause difficult since Alma’s telemetrics reported that everything was fine, with her health being at one hundred percent. It was the day she was told to receive her bow and convincing Alice that she’ll return soon was no easy feat. Apparently Faenas had some issues with the production process and it had to be delayed. In the last few days Alicia had spent most of her time hunting various magical beasts to attune herself to her new more restricted powers as well as experimenting with the Void. And Alma had made significant progress on restoring the ‘test subject’s mind’. Bizarrely the treatment process included delivering routine electric shocks to its brain among other things. At first she was skeptical but after considering brain activities were firings of electrochemical signals and impulses it longer felt as outlandish though she still had some restraints to it. Unfortunately for the rat, full recovery was impossible. So Alma was instead restoring various other normal functions it needed to survive.

Just as she was starting to get worried, Rufus came back with his pack of followers numbering in the single digit who seemed eager to take on orders. Alicia had suspicions on why they seemed so worn out, questioning their leader revealed that Rufus had basically shown off his might given to him from Alicia and convinced them that, if they ‘proved their worth’ so to speak they might also curry a favor. Unfortunately for them Alicia didn’t have anything in particular she needed help with.

---

Alicia came across a trio of rangers who were sitting atop tree branches drinking a mug of goat milk. She seemed to have caught them off guard regardless; they helpfully told her that Faenas was in the village and they hadn’t seen her come out yet. Making her way to her cottage attempting to knock on her door Alicia noticed it was open. Gently pushing it aside she entered, the low ceiling, smell of wood and dust peacefully floating in the rays of light coming in from the small circular windows are what welcomed her. Hearth in the middle of the room hasn’t had a lick flame for a while now.

High up on a wall shelf, handmade trinkets, idols and figurines of wood were neatly arranged. Judging as how a single speck of dust had yet to settle on them showed that someone still cleaned and cared for them. Underneath them on a bow holder Faenas’ weapon hung with a quiverful of arrows in a corner near it. Against the wall across the room on a table and a chair various tools of woodworking strewn across and an incomplete work, with vague familiarity to it rested over the table, along with an oddly shaped wooden ring.

Sounds of shuffling and movement could be heard from the back room what Alicia guessed to be the bed room. Loudly tapping on the door behind her to make her presence known.

• “Faenas, are you there?”
• “Coming just hold on a minute!”

From the room emerged a lightly covered girl with untamed red velvet¹RGB 114/1/15 also called venetian red but nobody would know what that color is without googling it. hair clutching a bow. For Alicia it was the first time seeing her without the usual ponytail that she favors.

• “Sorry about the getup…”
• “It’s okay… ‘No it’s not, no it’s not! Can you put some more clothes on? It’s your own home I get it, but…’ tell you what, you get dressed I’ll wait here, or even better outside if you want.”
• “Are you sure?”
• “Yes, of course.”
• “Thanks, It’ll take just a moment. Here check up on your bow, get a feel for it and you can tell me if there’s any adjustments to be made. Only thing left to do is to string it.”

Saying so she went into the back to get changed leaving Alicia with the unfinished composite recurve bow to peruse. Recurves were much longer and aggressive than she had seen before and the whole structure was much more straighter without the strings to give it the iconic bend. While the Belly side of it was reinforced with strips of horn, the backside had sinew reinforcements, Alicia could pick up on the faint yet distinct smell of glue they used. Most detailed parts were located on the handle portion. The grip was wrapped in some linen to prevent slipping, arrow rest had smoothened grooves. Strangely somehow the bow itself seemed to be thrilled to see her…

‘Right you’re made out of a living tree… Just have to string you eh…? I think I can probably handle that on my own…’

⟨ Weaver ⟩

↳ ‹ Constitution ›

↳ ‹ Regeneration ›

Expecting a lot of stress on the string she spun her strongest silk and fortified it with constitution and regeneration as an extra insurance. Twisting threads clockwise direction while braiding the bundles in a counterclockwise direction made a stiff but sturdy string for the bow.²This is called reverse twisted bowstring. If you’re having trouble visualizing the bow terms go down and look for an image that illustrates them in the AN.

‘This needs one of those knots that fit into the arrow’s nock…³This is called a nocking point and can have various forms. Has to be slightly above the arrow rest… sounds like a delicate work but I can cheat. Since I can just remake it from scratch until I get it right… then just slot it into the string notches…’

Multiple tries later she made a double hitch knot in a place she was happy with. After then she felt around the recurves and tried to tie loops into the stringing notches but gave up after a while. Alicia then made a separate silk string loop to go onto the notch and stuck it together with the bundled thread that was to become the bow string with adhesive webbing. From the tension of the strings the bow bent and finally looked like it was complete.

By the time she was finished stringing Faenas came out of her room dressed for the day. Judging by her crooked stiff smile she wasn’t expecting her to have the bow stringed.

• “I brought my own strings.”
• “I can see that, I just didn’t expect you to have it strung.”

With a shoulder shrug…

• “I had some minor issues.”
• “That…”

Giving up on questioning Alicia’s unusual displays she overlooked the many difficulties involved with the process. Although it wasn’t impossible, it was extremely difficult to do the whole process alone, not to mention the drying process usually entailed with the strings.

• “Can I?”

The Elven girl requested to see the bow more closely.

• “Oh, Sure.”

To her the bow didn’t just look more complete but it felt… alive. The stringing was put on fairly well. With how tight they were it was amazing  how she managed to bend the limbs. Placing a practice blunthead onto the bow she pulled the strings, what came to her as a surprise was how heavy the draw was. She had to put all of her effort into not accidentally letting go.

• “Everything seems to be in order. It’s yours so you should name it.”
• “Do I have to?”
• “Naturally. You might want this too.”

Picking up something on the table she handed her a ring. Now in a new context the ring made more sense, it wasn’t a normal ring but a thumb ring meant for archery. Alicia wasn’t very good with names and after finally settling on a name she liked for her sword now she needed another one for the bow.

• “What about yours? Does it have a name?”
• “Of course Nymphis Fae.⁴Reference to one of the songs from one my favorite composers “Phyrnna” or for OG EBF players; HalcyonicFalconX. Breaking it down means something like ‘Magic of the Nymphs’ in our world but… Dance of Flames.”
• “Huh… What made you think of that…?”
• “From my name of course… Faenas Lyrrea ‘The Fireborne Songstress’. Our names are more titular than anything. They are flexible and change over time. I got that name because well… At birth my hair was much redder than it is currently; Faenas meaning ‘born from fire’. Later they thought that I was pretty good at singing, so Lyrrea ‘The Songstress’, feminine of Lyrren. And there you have it. You can also translate it as ‘The Poetess of flame’ too.”
• “Ugh… So I have to name it after something I do?”

Letting out a small giggle…

• “You don’t have to, I was mentioning that as an example.”
• “Huh… Then since you helped me make it: The Flaming Threadripper.”
• “You’re not serious…”
• “Oh I am! It would be nice if you could tell me what that is in your language.”
• “Why do you do this to me…?”
• “Because it’s fun!”

Covering her face she sneaked out a pained answer.

• “Ingin Felrae…”

Letting out a long sigh she composed herself.

• “The draw weight is pretty heavy. I don’t need to tell this to the founder but when you loose an arrow, guide it with wind magic. Arrows I’m assuming you’ve placed an order for them to the smith right?”
• “Yup.”
• “I’ll pick them up myself, you can take my quiver over there. After that you’re straight as an arrow.”

She returned Felrae to Alicia.

• “Thanks! I-”

In the middle of her sentence a sting of burning pain shot through her chest causing her to wince slightly.

>Notice. Perception of agony originates from kindred connection to Administrator ‘Alice’…

>Adjusting feedback…

>Task Complete.

As the invisible work process was completed the pain went away as suddenly as it came leaving only a sinking feeling in her stomach.

‘What? Alice! Is she okay?’

• “I should be going now…”

• “Alicia? Are you feeling unwell?”

The tone and the expression of her voice indicated some concern she held.

• “Something just came up. I’m fine.”

Still uneasy;

• “I see… There was… something I wanted to talk about, by all means it can wait. When you have the time could come see me?”
• “All right, sure thing. Thanks again.”

Hurriedly she went out the door, leaving behind the troubled elf. After her friend was gone Faenas was left longingly staring at one of her incomplete works of wood. It depicted a woman’s torso on the top half however its waist down it was unfinished, a block of wood far too large for just a single pair of legs…

---

‘Those aches… if because there’s something wrong with Alice then it’s a given why it wouldn’t be shown as something wrong with me… How bad is it that I could even feel it?’
The sudden knowledge of Alice’s torment made her nervous which gave birth to acronymous feelings directed to herself.

‘I should have noticed it earlier… I should’ve known sooner…’

Eventually she came close to the place recognizable. Entering the burrow she saw her counterpart, lurched over herself. Barely drifting the boundaries between awareness and unconsciousness.

• “Alice!?”
• ‘…? Wel...come… back…’
• “What happened to you?”
• ‘…’
• “Hey!”

‘Damn what the hell happened?’

•  

>Retrieving biometrics data…

>Recent surge of rampant digestive fluids caused severe damage to internal organs…

>No damage to following organs:
Heart
Guts

>Limited damage to:
Ovaries

>Prognosis: Subject is undergoing self digestion.

‘Why? When did it start?’

>Biological reaction consistent with maternal care strategy of subsocial species of Araneae.
Nutritive fluids created by self digestion occurs after reproduction. After offspring is born for the subsequent 10-15 days the mother will regurgitate its internals and becomes food for the progeny.

>Current situation originates from Regeneration.
Accelerated reconstruction of internal organs offsets with rate of digestion.

>After death the subject's soul will repatriate to an available body - to the Administrator. No further actions necessary.

• “Like fucking hell it is! I’m not going to just stand here and watch her die! Tell me how to correct this!”

Stirring awake from the sounds, weakly bringing herself up:

• ‘…it… is fine…’

Alice responded by breaking her corpse-like placid expression and forming a smile so subtle that no one except Alicia could visibly discern it, delicate and fleeting.

• ‘i… will be… like a Matron… we are expected… to die…’

To Alicia that pleasant smile was insulting and the statement was a mocking one… Going to her with a stomping the steps she placed her hands on her shoulders and brought her face against hers.

• “Is that it? Just because there aren't any repercussions you’ll let yourself die?! That’s fine if it is your wish! But what about me?”

Alice couldn't understand her reaction so she looked on in confusion.

• “You should know this better than anyone. When I died I felt lost, hopeless. Next thing you know even though I was alive, determined to live, it felt empty as if it was all an act. I was apathetic to my life. To live or to die it didn’t matter to me.”

Overcome with emotion her voice was starting to crack.

• “Then I knew about you… I realized…
  That this life wasn’t just my own.
  That I couldn’t just go get myself killed
  You gave me a reason to keep going, to keep living.
  You gave me a purpose…”

Her sight was watering up, and she could feel the sensation of a streak of warm liquid flowing down her face. Perhaps in an attempt to hide it Alicia faced down placing her crown against her chest, her hand wrapping around her;

• “Even if there’s nothing to lose… Even if it’s just for a moment… Don’t leave me.”

Slow and weak but sluggishly a hand brushed her soft hair…

• “i… have something… to ask…”
• “…What is it…?”
• “i… couldn’t die… as a spider… can you… teach me… how to live… like a human…?”

Wiping her face, - a messy one asymmetrical with a mix of emotions but the most evident one was of joy - she turned to Alice.

• “You taught me how to be a spider… It’s only fair isn’t it?”

>Feeding regularly will drain excess digestive fluid, prevent damage to internal organs and alleviate discomfort.

• “You better be feeling hungry. I’ll tear down this entire forest if I have to. But before that…”

• “Feel better?”
• “mmhm…”
• “Good… you still feel a bit of a sting don’t you… Let’s get you something to eat…”
• “…thank… you…”
• “I want you to never not forget this… Come hell and high water, I don’t give a flying fuck about what happens, we’ll go through everything, together. And we’re gonna live forever.⁵Reference to David King and maybe this…”

---

Going out of the den, Alicia noticed her followers and companions were gathered. With just a cursory look over them she knew they were waiting for her to do something… Recognizing this as something she could use, she had found a task for the wolves…

• “You all came here for me to give you power. But I don’t always give handouts so earn it! Bring me as much food as you can find, prove your worth to me, Go!”

Looking over to Rufus…

• ‘I don’t need dead meat, I’ll leave it to you to keep them alive but don’t let them know that.’
• ‘At once!’

‘Wait when did the synchronization… ah whatever he talks like Ramiel now.’

• ‘I shall go as well.’

The caprine was also raring to go but…

• ‘You’re no hunter or a predator. After I send my kin to go out as well the perimeter defense will be thin. You will fill their gaps. Protect Dryssia and this place.’
• ‘Understood.’

With that a final instruction and the first command to her kindred went out…

⟨ Kindred ⟩

↳ 〔 Control 〕

↳ « Fiat voluntas Dei » 

• ‘There’s a soon to be mother starving in that burrow… Are you all just going to do nothing? We will feast, Tonight, Tomorrow and on!’

After assigning the respective jobs for everyone… the only thing left to take care of was her own work…

• “Dryssia I’ll be out, take care of Alice for me won’t you?”

⟨ Void Vault ⟩

From the crack betwixt this world and another she pulled out her new bow and quiver filled to the brim with arrows…

‘Let’s go practice archery…’