Since the presence came it to continued to live in a state of trance. Sometimes a pleasant dream filled with wondrous spectacles. Other times, a horrific recount of the nightmarish life it led before. Reliving its memories, absorbing and integrating the new found memories from the presence, it was in a metaphorical chrysalis, hibernating and transitioning into something else. Much like a developing fetus intently listening to the outside world, it too heard of what its former self was doing. More specifically what it was thinking. It could interpret little scraps of words formed from the thoughts of the presence. At first simple words that had no meaning to it. Eventually it began to learn the implications of those words. And through it, it learned of the name of the presence; ‘Alicia’. Though it first had to learn the concept of a name.

Rarely when the sun sets, it comes to. Though it has little control, its body weak, it could still move. Feeding on the ‘leftovers’ kept hidden on the tree it filled its hunger. The presence ‘Alicia’ was both knowledgeable of things beyond its comprehension and clueless to the ‘simplest’ of things. Sometimes unaware of the body’s hunger and forgetting to ‘molt’. It had to cover for its other half. Despite its admiration it could not meet ‘Alicia’. When it awakens, they are sleeping. And when it sleeps, they awaken. A chance for both to be awake and converse is unlikely. Thus it could only meet ‘Alicia’ through a hazy half awake state with a wordless and distant adoration.

Recently it has started to work on large sac, through impulse and instinct that grew more intense. It was just like a molt, but more demanding, more ‘exciting’. It knew not why, it just had to. So for ‘two’ ‘weeks’ it worked on it. High up on the tree, a huge sac was being spun. A grand undertaking that is not known to its other self. Time for this ‘molt’ grew ever closer and closer. It felt new emotions, however now it could tell what those were. ‘Excited’, ‘Anxious’, ‘Nervous’ and ‘Delighted’, though it was the first time it was experiencing these emotions it knew them from the memories it inherited from ‘Alicia’. It didn’t dislike them at all...

Some days have passed since I hung that bird to have it work as a scarecrow. When I recently went to go and check up on it, it was gone. Which is understandable, some animal came and snatched it up made it its meal. But what happened next is…

After taking that bird down my rank was 32 and now its 47. I didn’t do anything notable other than continue on business as casual, working as a glorified pest exterminator. I already feel like a cranky old man who’s always mad and yelling obscenities at the neighbourhood kids playing on his yard. Except I’m a spider and instead of a yard I have a web and instead of kids I have insects, biggest difference is that I’m not yelling obscenities, I’m just simply walking up to them and murdering them.

Point is my crimes against the insect kind shouldn’t exactly net me in 15 ranks of increase, though wasps may beg to differ. Therefore my hypothesis is; the creature that ate the envenomed bird also got food poisoning and died; because that technically was of my doing their death was attributed to me in turn explaining the large income of rank. That is the best explanation I have at the time and since there’s nothing else to prove it otherwise. It’s also the explanation sticking with.

With that mystery out of the way, I’ll think about getting these points to work rather than just having them hang around as a useless metric. So currently I have… 

With my options being…

Not a lot of choices… What am I needing the most? Legs arms and human body would do me good, but I can’t get those now can I? Since I can’t think of anything new that I need on that list, let's see what I can improve from the things that I do have.

I honestly underrated Pallesthesia, it’s quite helpful at determining number of things. From not only knowing what kind of bug is on my web, but also their size and through their movement where they are even if they’re not on a web. The venom has gotten a lot better and it doesn’t have any immediate issues. But why wait for it have issues, it’s better to be prepared. Instinct gives me a vague sense of danger from certain bugs like wasps and centipedes but interestingly doesn’t react that much to bigger creatures like wolves and the green children with clubs - Now that I think about it those were goblins weren’t they? Although getting started on magic seems like a good idea. Conversely, I have no clue if it's going to be helpful or not. Ideally concealed action, the ability that came up after stealth reached level 10 might be better investment at this point.

Although everything else plays a part, they have a more impact right now. So Pallesthesia, more points into Venom Fang, Instinct and Concealed action, since instinct is tied to presence detection, I have to account for that as well. Before doing anything I need to see what exactly concealed action does, after that I can start distributing the points the way I want.

Another word like pallesthesia, alright hope it’s not too complicated... “Somatosensory refers to one’s ability to perceive touch, pain, pressure, vibration, temperature and more.” Sounds good to me, and apparently it’s connected to stealth just like instinct is to presence detection. With Stealth already being level 10 I don’t need to worry about that. Since it works on the sense of touch does that mean I’ll be able to touch those unicorn rabbits without them bolting off now? Need to test that one out…

At this point I should just go all in on Venom fang so that’s 5 points, I want pallesthesia to be above average at level 6 so that’s 4 points presence detection included. I already used 1 of the points to know what concealed action does so leftover 10 points, I can afford to have both presence detection and instinct to level 6 and still have some leftover for concealed action. Here we go then… 

And all 20 have been used. I feel like I just splurged all my money. Furthermore just like that time with Stealth, Venom fang 10 also gave me a new trait… 

First of all, that’s macabre as it gets, but most importantly I’m not kissing bugs, I’m biting them. I refuse to be in an affair with a bug or kiss one for that matter. And what’s with all this rumbling noise? Wait…
Without much straining he could differentiate all the vibrations far and wide, created by the fauna around him. Each and every movement no matter how subtle, he could perceive them.

I think that’s pallesthesia… God that scared me for a moment there, felt like there was an earthquake happening. Still feels like it… And I thought construction zones were noisy. Here it feels like a war is going on right next to me… I need to learn how to tone this down…
While in distress trying to figure out how to lower the sensitivity of pallesthesia he was interrupted by the tugging of one of his webs.
Oh for god’s sake why now. Why did you pick now of all times to get stuck in my web...? Really I am turning into a cranky old man…

If only he knew what was in store for him in the near future, he would have absolutely wanted to become a cranky old man...