It wasn't long before we found ourselves in the mansion again. Seralyn was present in the dining area, restocking her pack of elven necessities.
"What are you guys up to?" Seralyn asked after Velariah had simply said hi to her and started making her way to the bathroom.
Velariah took a spool from her pack and held it up for Seralyn to see. "We're gonna have a look and see how far Elania can push this 'Silk Weaver' inherity of hers."
Seralyn grinned slightly. "Yeah, you guys have fun with that."
I knew she was going to spin it in an awkward way.
Yet I smiled at her comment as Velariah and I entered the bathroom.
Before we got to work, I decided to check how Minia was doing. She was still standing motionless in her web bed. I knew she was alive which was the one thing that kept me from panicking. The conclusion of her molting wasn't a far-fetched one.
"Told you she was cute," Velariah said, as she sat down on the pillow again.
"I hate to admit that you're right." I sighed. "Who knew I'd ever come this far?"
Velariah chuckled. "I knew."
I smiled as I got in position, my head resting on my arms on the edge of the tub. "Let's get this experimentation underway," I said as I thought of my silk as being elastic, somewhat like rubber bands.
Rubber…
Could I make something resembling rubber?
I thought about it as deeply as I could. Forget elastic alone, I'd try to have it mimic rubber's properties. If I could create something like that, I could potentially use it to create tires for carts. They wouldn't necessarily have to be filled with air, just rubber alone would already be useful. I could look into it deeper from there.
If this worked…
I felt Velariah's touch and refocused on what I knew about rubber. The clearest image I could come up with would be rubber bands. I simply took that as a start.
"What the hell is this?" Velariah asked after a few seconds of pulling out silk.
That sounded good.
"Just finish that spool," I said. "I'll check it afterward and explain what it is. From your voice, I can make out that it's exactly what I want it to be."
"Okay then," She said, sounding puzzled.
A few minutes later she completed her work and tapped my rear.
"Time for you to explain what the hell this is."
I turned around and took the spool which she was holding up for me.
I touched the silk and smiled. I then pulled on a string slightly and released it, causing it to snap back in place, much like a rubber band.
"This, my dear Velariah, is called rubber. At least the properties are like rubber. I'm quite surprised it was this easy to make. I'm not drained or anything like that."
She squinted at me with a quizzing look.
I continued. "I thought of this instead of it simply being elastic. Rubber is elastic, water-resistant, and durable. I thought we could maybe use this to wrap around wheels. That's pretty much how vehicles moved in my old world. It made vehicles far more shock-resistant and allowed for much more comfortable transport. It also provides more traction for when there are low-quality or no roads at all."
"I can't believe this. You've done it again," She said with disbelief.
"Of course, we have to be careful with this. I didn't intend to implement that all of a sudden, but I wanted to know if I could create something like this."
I looked at the spool in one of my hands and smiled. "Turns out, I can."
"Rubber you say? Interesting..."
"It has all kinds of uses," I responded. "Too many to name, honestly. You can also put this under your shoes, for example. More grip means you can run faster, something that would be quite useful in this world."
"That's… amazing..."
"I think we should try that out first, at least for our party. I imagine you have a shoemaker or something in Dawnleaf?"
Velariah shook her head. "The tailor has some simple shoes for sale, but the closest shoemaker is located in Duskleaf. I imagine you want to find something to hide the fact that it's silk, right?"
I nodded. "Exactly where I was going."
"Dyeing is probably the easiest way to hide it. Compress it so that nobody can judge it from its structure and then dye it."
"That's more or less what I thought as well."
"Can I...?" She asked as she pointed to the spool.
I gave it to her and observed her do the same things I'd done before. She pulled out the thread to its maximum elastic capacity and let go, causing it to strike her finger when it snapped back.
"Ouch."
I covered my face with a palm and grinned. "You have no idea how much that happened back on Earth. You fell prey to one of the classic blunders."
"This stuff is crazy. You're right that it seems like this provides a lot of grip. Just from running my fingers over it, I can already see what you mean."
I let her play around with our new invention for a bit before I got back in position. "Let's see if I can give my silk a color now, shall we?"
"Sure," Velariah said. Her voice sounded a bit sad at having to put away my newly dubbed 'Rubber Silk'.
I sure sucked at naming things.
I thought of normal non-sticky silk, seeing as that seemed to be my 'default'. I imagined if anything could be dyed it would be this. As the elf slowly pulled it out, I tried to think of different colors, just in case some of them didn't work.
"Nothing's happening," Velariah soon said. "I don't think this works."
I shrugged. "It was worth a shot. What else do we have?"
"I just had an idea. Do you remember how you said you could use your Steelthread to perhaps cut into animals who run into it? Do you think there is an option to infuse it with venom at the same time?"
"That would be quite something, wouldn't it?" I replied. "I believe my inherity sheet said I should be able to infuse silk with magical properties, so I don't think venom is outside the realm of possibilities. Do you have anti-venom ready?"
"I do." I heard her take out a vial from her pack.
"Well, let's try."
I thought of a weak venom, just in case things went wrong. I didn't quite know the extent of how specific I had to think in order to come up with the results I wanted. When I thought of the strongest venom I could produce when we fought the monster in the dungeon, it appeared to work just fine. I decided to think along the same lines and think of the weakest venom I could come up with, while thinking about Steelthread at the same time.
As Velariah worked, I could clearly notice that this needed more effort than just thinking about silk. It wasn't terrible at all, but I needed to focus. This was a good sign, in my opinion.
"That's enough," Velariah called. "This clearly works."
I stopped producing silk and opened my side eyes and slightly turned my head so I could see her.
Velariah held up a string between two fingers on each hand. The most noticeable thing was that the string was dark green. More importantly, it was still Steelthread. I was wondering if combining those two would work, and apparently, it did.
"Neat. It's got camouflage to boot. This is great knowledge for when we're going to fight the goblins."
Velariah grinned. "I guess we found out you can dye your silk after all. Though, I doubt the tailor would be happy with something that could kill his customers."
"That's a bit of a problem, isn't it?" I chuckled. "What's next? Hmmm."
I started thinking.
Magical properties, huh?
I wonder what exactly that meant. Could I make a thread that would spontaneously combust when something ran into it?
I imagined I wouldn't use something like that in the forest, for fear of causing a fire, but it could be worth trying out on a smaller scale. It could have its uses in dungeons.
But… could I?
"Let me try something," I said as I stood up. I then, very carefully, created a small line on the floor. I picked it up with one of my pedipalps with the utmost care in the world, before I struck the lower end of the thread with my other pedipalp.
The results were nothing short of awe-inspiring. The thread caught fire and got consumed by it before a second had passed. A small wave of heat reached my face after the fire had disappeared just as soon as it had appeared.
"What… The fuck," Velariah seemed at a loss for words.
I stared at where the thread had previously been. I was just as lost as the elf.
"I had no idea I could do that..."
I scratched my head.
"Just what the hell am I?" I continued.
It was a rhetorical question, yet Velariah seemed to find it needed an answer.
"You're just you, Elania. Don't think this makes you a monster."
"I wasn't looking for an answer to that question. This just seemed a bit… excessive, which is why I said what I said. I know who I am. Don't worry too much about that."
I smiled at Velariah to let her know I was feeling fine.
"I'm honestly surprised that this is within my capabilities. I have no idea how to look at this. It seems extremely strong, but I can see this backfiring too."
"I guess it fits your style of planning wherever possible before engaging in combat."
I nodded. "That's right."
I shook my head. Combustion Thread. I still couldn't believe it.
Just what was present in my rear? Would I ever explode if I caught fire?
Not something I wanted to find out.
Was this created biologically, or through magic? I wonder.
"At least we found something that can easily start a fire if we are ever out of torches or anything," I chuckled.
"Good point," Velariah said with a smile. "Just don't ever use that kind on me, please."
"I'll try," I grinned.
"Any other ideas?" Velariah asked me, her face changing back to a more serious expression.
"Let me think..."
There were probably going to be too many kinds of silk that I could produce, the problem was that most of them would likely be very niche. At the moment, I was focused on thinking about what could be of use in combat. It appeared I couldn't color them, so I assumed transparent silk would be out of the question. The closest I would get to camouflage was going to be my venom combined with the forest background. Very thin threads might work too, but they wouldn't be strong enough to serve any use.
Besides, I would have no idea how to control individual strands. Somehow, all my silk, besides the spread variant that I had dubbed 'shotgun silk' would merge together in one thread from my spinnerets. I wondered if there was something that could solve that.
Maybe if I could move each individual spinneret?
That would probably look creepy, though.
"I don't quite know… do you know of anything?" I concluded after a while.
"If you can use your venom on your silk, I assume you'll be able to use the paralyzing venom too, no?" Velariah said.
"I'm going to assume that's the case. I can see scenarios where that might be useful. I'm going to try to create some. I planned on refreshing my inherity sheet. I might as well make sure that everything I know will show up on it. It will also give me an idea of their potency."
Velariah nodded.
I then created a small amount of silk that I tried to infuse with the paralyzing venom from the mushrooms. I found that it took no effort to create this once more. I hypothesized that venom-infusing would not take a toll on my body whatsoever because it combined my other inherity with it. I did seem to be quite… proficient with venom, after all.
The resulting silk took on a yellowish color. It wasn't hard to see where the color came from, but I was a bit disappointed. I would have preferred for it to be green, for obvious stealth reasons.
I held the small string before Velariah.
"Seems that works, too."
I nodded. "I would have not thought this possible, but then again, it appears these inherity sheets don't lie."
For a moment I thought about creating barbed wire silk, but even if that was possible, I was not looking forward to creating it. I imagined it would be quite… painful.
"What are you thinking about?" Velariah asked. "You look as if you just hurt yourself."
"Oh, it's nothing, just a random idea that I won't even try." I simply shook it off. "I can't quite come up with something else at the moment, can you?"
"We'll probably come up with more things later," Velariah replied. "How are you doing, by the way, do you feel like we could do ten more spools, or do you need to eat first?"
"In a hurry?" I asked.
"We still owe Dworag twenty gold. If we can do ten spools of water-resistant silk, we'd have that paid off."
"Oh shit, you're right."
"Seems someone is of the forgetful kind," She said with a smile.
"Yeah, that's me alright."
I sighed before continuing. "I'm actually feeling perfectly fine. I think I'm still running on that Borer. I haven't noticed myself getting hungry in the slightest. I should be okay with ten more spools. I reckon when we are in the forest, I can probably find something to hunt and... You know… 'eat'."
"Elly's cooking isn't good enough anymore?" She asked with an evil grin.
I shook my head. "Elly's cooking is the best. It's just that… you know… The other way of eating seems to keep me going for much longer." I peered into Velariah's eyes. "That doesn't mean I won't enjoy a grand meat tonight. I'm just aiming to be economical here."
"You're so convincing when you put it like that..." She said with a sly smile. The elf then stood up from her pillow.
"I'm going to check on Elly, I imagine she is working on dinner right about now."
"That late already, huh?" I said.
I couldn't say I minded it. In fact, I'd like to get to tomorrow as soon as possible. My adventurous self was beating my frightened self pretty hard.
I was also curious how my new silk tricks would hold up in a fight.
Velariah left the room and I got in a position to produce more silk. I then closed all my eyes and let my mind wander off.
One of the thoughts that ran through my mind was whether it would have been better for me to stay human when coming to this world. If the same things happened that had happened after I appeared here, I was positive I would have died very early on. Not only that, but a human female with no combat experience to speak of, no training or gym prowess, in a harsh world such as this… I would have been weak, very much so.
I smiled.
This body was truly amazing. There was no way I could still deny its usefulness. I had everything I needed in this; power, speed, and, not completely unimportant, a steady supply of cash.
I had but one worry remaining, not that it was important. Well, maybe it was, I didn't know. I was simply left wondering how this body and my inherities would scale once our party gained more strength. Would my (mostly) physical abilities be able to keep up with actual magic? If Velariah could replicate anything that resembled her father's attack, I didn't know if I could compete with her anymore.
I wasn't even calculating Draco's and Seralyn's abilities. If Draco could summon an actual meteor, and if Seralyn could create massive explosions with her arrows, I truly feared I would fall short without abilities such as those of my own.
Then again, some of my abilities were still unknown, even to this damned inherity sheet that was supposed to be oh-so all-revealing.
It made me grow a pair of eyes in addition to my human ones, that was it. While they had their use, I wasn't denying that, it was still just that, a pair of eyes.
I sighed.
Maybe I was getting too far ahead of myself. I hoped I'd be able to get some abilities of my own, but only time could tell. There was no need to worry about it now.
Velariah returned and locked the room. I simply acknowledged her by opening the right of my side eyes, before closing it again.
"Well, that's kinda creepy," She said chuckling.
I responded with a hearty laugh of my own.
"I just talked to Elly. She will try to have dinner ready at about the same time we finish."
"Perfect."
"I also brought your inherity sheet with me."
"Thanks, Vel. Let's get Dworag's payment ready first, shall we?"
"Yeah, let's do that. I hope you're looking forward to steak," Velariah said in response.
"Elly's making steak? Lovely," I answered cheerfully. "In my old life, I was hardly ever able to afford steak. It's quite expensive back in my world, you know?"
"Lucky you."
"And even then, this world's tastes much better."
I started salivating already at the thought of delicious food. I almost didn't notice Velariah touch my silk-producing organs.
I relaxed once more as money started flowing from my behind onto the spools that Velariah held.
Yep, this life was just perfect.