Sen stepped into the building he’d nad the Spider’s Lair in a mont of poor decision-making. The na had stuck, mostly due to Glimr of Night’s imdiate approval. The building itself was set in a mostly unused corner of the compound. It was also one of a handful of buildings that were off-limits to virtually everyone because Sen didn’t want Glimr of Night to reflexively kill so foolish qi-gathering cultivator with more curiosity than sense. The existence of the building ca about as a matter of pure necessity.
When he and the spider had first co up with the idea for the communication cores, it beca almost instantly obvious that it couldn’t be located at Fu Ruolan’s ho. Any information that ca through the cores would likely need to be handed off almost imdiately. While her ho was close enough for Sen to go back and forth without too much trouble, the sa was not true of pretty much anyone else in the sect. Beyond that, even if she were willing to let what Sen suspected would beco a strategic resource be there, she wouldn’t tolerate the presence of all the ssengers it would require. Hence, the Spider’s Lair was born.
Not that the inside of the lair would seem particularly special to anyone who saw it. It was basically a stone box with no windows. The cores themselves didn’t require any kind of special surroundings to function, although Sen had worked a few basic formations into the walls. Most of them were simply there to strengthen the building and increase the qi density inside a bit. The cores were housed in a cabinet-like structure that was full of small cubby spaces. That made it easy for Glimr of Night to monitor them and alert Sen if people were trying to contact them. Sen also knew that eventually, they would need to let other people inside. In fact, they would probably need a much bigger building with individual spaces where people could monitor a few cores exclusively, but they weren’t there yet. It also wasn’t the reason Sen had co that day.
“Were you able to do it?” Sen asked.
Glimr of Night was actively manipulating a web in one corner with threads so fine they were almost invisible. Sen watched as the threads moved through a series of tiny adjustnts. He didn’t know if the spider could always do that or if it was a sign of improved control, although he suspected the latter. Apparently not finding what he was looking for, Glimr of Night made a tiny gesture and the threads dissipated. He turned to look at Sen with his liquid black eyes and nodded. He walked to another corner, picked up a bag, and held it out. Sen walked over and took it. He glanced inside before simply putting a hand into the bag and moving all of the cracked cores into a storage ring.
“Is that enough?” asked the spider.
Sen guessed that he had about fifty of those cores in his ring now.
“I certainly hope so. If it isn’t, that probably ans that my plan failed utterly and not having enough cracked cores will be the smallest of my problems.”
“Fair.”
Sen hesitated to bring up the other thing he wanted to talk to the spider about. He’d been putting it off for most of a year with the excuse that there was more ti, but ti was swiftly running out. Of course, it was mostly his own discomfort he’d been avoiding. The spider wouldn’t be offended by the conversation.
“So, I have to ask this,” said Sen, certain that he sounded as awkward as he felt. “Will the other spiders choose to fight with the spirit beasts? Will you?”
“I will not,” said a wholly unruffled Glimr of Night. “The Great Matriarch set my path with you. I won’t abandon that because of so petty war.”
Sen felt sothing unclench inside of him. Glimr of Night knew a lot of Sen’s secrets. It wouldn’t have been a full-blown catastrophe if the spider had chosen to fight with the spirit beasts, but it would have been a huge setback. Plus, Sen had no desire to fight Glimr of Night. The spider had been unfailingly helpful to Sen’s goals and patient with Sen’s constant questions. While that patience had only enabled Sen to make incrental progress in understanding the web patterns that all spiders seed to understand intuitively, it had been progress. He was loathe to give that up. He even liked the spider. He was hesitant to use the word friend. The spider’s motives were too opaque for that, but he would certainly consider their relationship friendly.
This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.
Sen was less certain how to interpret the use of the word petty to describe the coming war. Part of him wanted to think that the spider had simply misspoken, but an arrow of doubt shot straight through that notion. Petty wasn’t the sort of word that Glimr of Night used incorrectly. That begged a lot of questions that Sen supposed he’d need to get answered at so point, but he didn’t want to get distracted.
“And the rest of the spiders?” asked Sen.
Glimr of Night went still for a few seconds, which Sen had eventually realized was a sign that the spider was giving sothing special consideration. What answer he would prefer to get to the question was murky in Sen’s mind. Having the spiders as enemies would be awful. They were terrifying, particularly when moving as a mass. Human beings were instinctively afraid of them. It didn’t take any imagination at all to see a ti when mortals and cultivators simply abandoned their positions at the sight of a mass of spiders rushing toward them. Of course, the prospect of them as allies wasn’t much better. While they would almost certainly make ideal scouts, he could easily see jumpy cultivators getting startled and cutting them down when they appeared to report their findings. Sen struggled to think of a faster way to turn allies into enemies, and they would be very good assassins.
“It isn’t clear,” said Glimr of Night. “My people don’t move as a singular group. Clusters will often war with each other over territory, natural treasures, and other resources. We have no royalty as you think of it. I believe so clusters will choose to side with the spirit beasts. Especially any with a grudge to settle with humans. So clusters will likely sit out the conflict. A few might seek to ally themselves with you.”
It wasn’t ideal news but none of it shocked him. If they chose to side with the spirit beasts or remain neutral, that did simplify things. Sen’s thoughts ground to a halt as Glimr of Night’s last comnt rolled through his mind again. A few might seek to ally themselves with you. Sen desperately hoped that didn’t an what he feared it ant.
“When you say ally with , do you an with humanity or with—”
“With you, specifically.”
Sen took two deep breaths before he asked, “Why , specifically? There are many other cultivators in the world. Many more famous than .”
“You kept your word,” said Glimr of Night.
The tone suggested that this should have been obvious to Sen, although he couldn’t imagine why it should be so. Plenty of people kept their word. He wasn’t unique in that way. He had to assu that this was so aspect of spider society that he didn’t fully grasp. ℟Â
“Why should that matter?”
“The Beast King does not.”
“I see,” said Sen.
On the surface, it seed like a trivial reason to base a decision about which side of the war you were going to be on. The more Sen thought about it, though, the less trivial it seed. He wouldn’t want to take the side of soone he knew was going to lie to him and possibly betray him. The problem as Sen saw it was that he wasn’t going to be in charge of the human side of the war. Which is why they’d want to ally themselves with directly, he thought. They wouldn’t be trusting humanity to keep its word. They’d be trusting him. Like the war itself wasn’t going to be enough pressure and responsibility, he now had to deal with the potential problem of allies he’d need to personally keep safe. It was a responsibility he wasn’t sure he could fulfill. Beyond the bounds of his own sect and the town, he had very little influence over how cultivators behaved. I’ll have to deal with that when or if it happens, he decided. It’s not a problem for today.
“Are your preparations nearly complete?” asked Glimr of Night, who had apparently decided the previous topic was settled.
“Yes, I think so.”
“When do we leave?”
Sen found himself once more flummoxed by the spider’s words.
“We?” he asked.
“I was instructed to learn from you. You go to practice war now. How can I learn how you conduct war if I’m not there?”
“I—” Sen couldn’t find another word to follow that.
He’d never once considered that spider would go with him. This wasn’t Glimr of Night’s problem. As far as he knew, the spider hadn’t even encountered them. Of course, the spider wasn’t thinking about it in those terms. He saw the whole thing as a learning opportunity.
“You could end up in substantial danger,” said Sen. “I never intended to put you in that position.”
The spider went still again before he shrugged.
“The danger isn’t relevant. When do we leave?”
Sen thought that the danger was very relevant, but he got the distinct impression that Glimr of Night simply didn’t care about that. Nor was Sen confident that he could convince the spider, regardless of how long he talked. Shaking his head, Sen considered the benefits. The spider was all but without fear. He was good in a fight. He also had so unique skills that most sects wouldn’t see coming if it ca down to it. Perhaps the most important thing was that Glimr of Night wanted to co. It would be one thing if he were trying to talk the spider around, but there was no reason to deny the spider.
“Two days,” said Sen.
User Comments
0 comments from readers