"I know...I know, dad. But I just don't feel right treating...him...like a stranger, even if he isn't the real Karkum." Plono said, not tearing her eyes away from the floor as she spoke to her father.
Cypius stood up from his chair, walking to his daughter with patience in his walk. He grabbed her shoulders, looking at her lovingly, before speaking.
"It is difficult. Even for me, it is hard." Cypius paused. "But it gets better. They are still part of Folrost, all of them. We will live with them always, together in our land. They are with you, with me, and yes, with Karkum. Things are quite complicated right now, but you can do this."
He pulled his daughter close, holding her to his chest as he hugged her.
Plono hugged her father back, silently crying in his embrace, hiding her face.
Cypius stroked her head as she cried, only wanting to give support to his hurting daughter. His biggest regret in life was being unable to give her the life he wanted for her. Circumstances didn't allow it, but he couldn't help feeling as if it was his own fault.
"Do you think 6 is coming back?" Plono asked once she calmed down, her voice breaking as she spoke.
Exasperation crossed Cypius' face as he thought about how difficult their helper was. They moved Folrost so close to the spider's nest to be raise the odds of the adventurer assigned to it coming to Folrost, as the information they had was too important to keep to themselves, yet too dangerous to openly share.
They needed the adventurer to figure these things out, yet the one they ended up with happend to be ridiculously difficult to work with.
It was hard enough to follow 6's thought patterns, let alone leading him onto the right ones they needed him to be on.
At this rate, With how erratic the young man seemed to be, combined with his propensity to throw himself at death, they would never get the chance to lead him to the answers they needed him to have.
It was like 6 wanted his mission to be harder than it needed to be.
Of course, 6 himself had no idea he could gain more information just from staying around Folrost. Then again, with how absurd his mentality for finding interesting things to discover, he might actually still choose to act the way he has even if he did know.
"Who know, my dear. Though he seems to be suicidal at every waking moment he has, it also seems he is either capable enough to live that was, or lucky enough to survive it constantly. It seems we will have to wait and see once again, but something tells me he'll be back, for better of for worse." Cypius said.
Plono nodded after her father finished speaking.
"Come, let us walk about the village. Some air will do us good." Cypius said, letting go of his daughter after patting her head gently.
In the spider's nest.
6 slipped through the opening in the outer edge of the nest, shocked to find that instead of a thin webbed wall, he was actually entering a ten foot long web tunnel.
The walls of the nest were significantly thicker than he had expected. The small hole he entered seemed less like a pin prick on the surface of the nest, and more likea cannon blast show through a massive cement wall.
Spider silk, even from regular spiders, was a frighteningly tough material, known for its tensile strength. What's more, this was the silk from giant spiders, weaved into a massive wall. The toughness was absolutely on a different level than a cement wall, to an absurd extent.
Putting a hole, even one as proportionally tiny as this one, into something like this was something 6 couldn't even fathom doing, even with artillery from his homeworld.
He was confident that the artillery could get through, but not in one single go like this.
6 had nothing but respect for who, or what, managed to accomplish this.
The level of this world seemed to be higher than he expected.
He had been gauging it based on the strength of the spiders, as well as the inhabitants of Folrost, but this single feat made him rethink things.
He had been told that Erver was much stronger than Folrost, but they hadn't really given him any type of perspective on that.
Nor did he have any perspective to imagine how strong Folrost was before they attacked the nest, losing most of their village.
But to be entirely honest, 6 didn't really care about it. As long as he could do his mission here, and hopefully get some sweet, sweet rewards, the other details didn't matter.
Keeping his mouth shut as he snuck into the nest, despite how much he wanted to speak to himself, he looked around, awed by something in front of him.
On the outside of the nest, as he had looked in, it appeared entirely dark, as if there was no light at all.
In fact, 6 had been prepared for that, as he didn't expect the spiders to leave sun roofs to help any intruders find their way about the nest. He had already trained himself to work in blind situations, from training his eyes to deal with nearly no light and still being able to see, to being able to function without eyesight entirely, in case he ever went blind, so it hadn't bother him that much.
It would only make gathering information more difficult, not make it impossible.
Bringing a light source was something he had considered, but that would obviously be a giant beacon broadcasting his presence to the spiders, so he abandoned that idea as soon as he thought of it.
Even while in the opening to the nest, carefully crawling through the small makeshift tunnel, he had seen no light on the inside, confirming his suspicions about having to operate in the dark once he was inside.
But the second he actually entered the nest, stepping fully inside, he was gobsmacked by what he saw.
It wasn't light, not exactly, but rather it felt as if everything was visible, in the dark. Like night vision goggles, but without the odd colors. He could clearly and crisply see everything, ignoring the fact that it was pitch black, save for a bit of light coming in from the opening.
The sensation was so strange tthat he could barely vdescribe it to himself, much less someone else.
'Trivrium, is this you? Follow up questions in case it isn't, can you see this as well? And what the hell is happening?' 6 thought, not speaking aloud to Trivrium unlike usual, to keep himself from alerting any spiders inside the nest to his presence.
He had no idea how many spider there were, and how keen their senses would be, but it was almost guaranteed that there would be more inside than there are outside, and they would be more perceptive as well as stronger. He had to take every precaution he could.
Though...yelling as loud as he can while running to attract as many spiders as he could would be a good way to find out the number as well as the variety of spiders he could expect on the inside of the nest.
[No, Trivrium is not responsible for the phenomenon you are experiencing. No information pertaining to this has been recorded. This may be your personal reaction to whatever force is causing the nest, or it may be a special trait of the nest in general.]
'My vote is for personal reaction, that makes me more badass. But what do you mean, what force are you talking about.' 6 asked her in his mind, pleasantly surprised that she could communicate with him based off of his thoughts.
[The moment you stepped into the nest, Trivrium felt a presence. The lands of this world contain a presence that can be felt, but it is not the same as what was detected here.]
'What does that mean for me?'
[It means be cautious. If it has a presence, then it should already know something has entered it, even if it does not know where. Something in this nest has power over it, or the nest itself is alive.]
'Alright, alright, thats good to know, but absolutely terrible news for me. Thank you.'
With that out of the way, 6 began taking in his surroundings in closer detail.
The inner area of the nest wasn't quite what he expected to find. Rather than sprawling webs, like branches interconnecting everywhere, it was more like a corridor.
It was massive, an entire aircraft cruiser could fit through here if you could get in inside.
Leading in both directions, 6 could see all the way down both corridors until they hit a turn that blocked it from sight.
Whatever caused his eyes to be able to see in these conditions left them entirely unburdened by the distance, which was useful for deciding which was to head.
In one direction, he could see basically a straight shot path that eventually followed the general curve of the outer edge of the nest. Aside from that, there was one single thing that strayed from that passage. There was what looked like a passageway that may lead upward, to a higher area, on the roof of the corridor, but 6 couldn't see well enough to confirm what it was, as it was too far away from him.
Even if it was another passage further into the nest, without some way of scaling the walls all the way up the passage, he wouldn't be able to follow it anyway.
The opposite direction, however, ran the same length, following the curve of the nest till it was out of sight, but had many more different features along it.
Including 2 more passages that seemed to run directly upward, as the one in the opposite direction had, there were several other.
A few led directly into the nest, away from the walls that blocked it from the outside, and there was even one that surprisingly led directly down, beneath what should be the surface of the ground.
The passage down was interesting enough on its own, as well as the few passages he could walk along rather than having to climb for, to make the decision easy.
Without hesitation, he began walking toward the passage downward. It was the most interesting option presented to him thus far, and if 6 knew anything, it was that as long as it looked interesting, something would surely happen there.
Before he could reach that passage, however, he came upon one of the one that led directly further into the nest. To satiate his curiosity, and for the sake of convenience as he was already near it, he looked into the passage, curious to see if he would find anything more interesting to explore than the passage downward.
Slowly, not putting his entire body in front of the passage, 6 peaked his head around the corner, and immediately froze, not moving an inch.
Rather than a passage, it was more of a room, a large room, but a room nonetheless. there was a small opening in the back of the room, but that was only small compared tot the room itself.
The opening was at least twice the height of 6, yet it looked like a speck in the entire room.
That wasn't what made 6 freeze however.
Above the room, near the ceiling of it, was a massive, enormous spider, hanging on a razor thin canopy of webs.