-Gin POV
Now that everything is planned out I need to figure out what I want to do with this one. I have to think of something as she needs food. The larders are empty and I don't have anything to give her so, she may starve if left alone. Hmmmm...
Xelu's web grows flesh around itself so maybe..... That's a terrible thought but, it may be the only option for the moment. Will it have aftereffects? Well can't be helped.
"Xelu I want you to spin a small amount of web here." Gin
"Yeaaaeeuurrggg Mashta." Xelu
"AHHH IT TALKS!?!?" Sigrid
Xelu fumbles over on her appendages and spins a couple of vein webs. After a couple minutes flesh starts to slowly cover it and a eyeball swirls around on it. I don't think she will want to eat it but there is nothing else so..... She is looking at me with confusion.
"We don't have food here as none of us 'need' to ingest anything. The food we usually stock is all gone so this..... Is all I can do for the moment." Gin
She looks pretty baffled.
"This... Fleshy.... Eyeball.... Thing? Nononono! I can't, Anything else! Wretched should be fine! Please!!!" Sigrid
I don't know what to say. I can't go out and kill wretched for her. Perhaps if it was possible to kill individual ones, but, they are all massed into a group so trying to take them down individually is impossible. Lure them away? That would risk luring how many others along.
"I'm sorry but this is all I can do..... Sure it gives off that.... Twisted aura, however, I think it should be fine to consume? Right?" Gin
I look over at Xelu and she tilts her head. I should've guessed as much. Trying to make it not seem so bad may have had the opposite effect as Sigrid is having a panic attack. I should make an emergency larder for situations like these. Kess may bug me about that though.
Preserving corpses for long periods would be a problem as well. Kess usually eats them within a few days so they may have only rotted a bit. Although, from what I have seen, it does takes longer for them to rot in this world. Perhaps.... Magic? I have no clue.
Anyways, I don't know what I should do in this situation..... I'll wait until she is done panicking. She may try to escape now that her situation is a bit.... No, very awful. Best to keep an even tighter watch on her.
--------
A few days pass uneventfully. Sigrid still has not taken a bite but, she is actually starting to look tempted..... Kess comes back to inform me of the progress. Two spawning rooms have been carved out. They still need to layer it in with plenty of webbing but, after that is done, we can start filling it. Each of these rooms can fit around 20 mounds or 30 sludge pools. I plan on filling them with mounds though.
Calling it a room doesn't do them justice as they are ridiculously wide. More like a hall I guess. Still, Kess is not as bloated as I thought she would be. Sure she is pretty fat.... Those halls are massive though so to eat all of that rock and still be able to move is an impressive feat.
Filling the spawning halls with mounds will take a while. It uses up all of Kess' Resource in one go. I can probably have her watch Sigrid while I do other things. Well, not like I have much to do either..... This is going to be boring....
-------
A week passes by slowly. It has been a bit slow. Kess has almost filled the rooms entirely and I've been messing around. I was experimenting with my poison. I'm not testing it on living things but, it's actual properties. It is highly corrosive in nature melting organic and metallic substances with ease. The only exception is Kess' webs which is the foundation for the nest.
I tested how it affects me as well. The corrosion property doesn't affect my body but it will destroy armor. Luckily, I used a seperate set of common gear before trying that. It does affect comrades too, though to a lesser degree. I didn't try that myself. One of the Xelu's subordinates smacked against the roof and fell into one of my poison pools. It seems they take reduced damage as only a bit of its wings and limbs were scorched. Even that was superficial.
Another point of research is twisting threads of metal webs together with eldritch ones. It hasn't produced any real results though. Xelu's webs produce flesh which just covers the two. I guess it would be better to build future flesh nests with it. That's a ways off though. Why build flesh nests when Metal ones seem to be superior? Efficiency. Having Kess, Xelu, and their spiderlings all building is the best option. Plus, I think I may have missed something about her nest.
---------
There are quite a few new spiderlings in the base. About 900 spiderlings roam the nest. I will make more sludge pools at some point but that is for the future. Eldritch spiderlings will be my main attack force in the future. Metal spiderlings are obviously for defense so, they have a much higher priority... I may need to expand the base soon as it is getting a little crowded. We aren't at capacity but, with the new mounds It may happen if given another 2 weeks or so.
.... Should I open up to the outside?..... No the numbers aren't enough. After I get enough mounds built then I don't have to worry about defense. Then, I will focus on building sludge pools. The eldritch spiderlings will lead the attack on the wretched. If they produce indefinitely, as long as we can kill faster than they produce then a stable source of exp will be available. On top of that, any that attack our base will be also provide energy for the territory.
I don't know how to allocate that stuff. It seems to automatically go towards strengthening the core in me. Now I haven't had any increase in stats from that either. I think the wretched scared everything off. So, nothing really dies around here even though it should be the one of the most dangerous areas.
Now there is the issue with Sigrid..... I didn't mean for it to happen, I swear.... There was no other choice. It's not like there are mushroom farms down here.... So, she had to eat the flesh.... Perhaps? I wander if turning her into a broodmother may fix this?