Charlie woke up with a start when she felt a foot make contact with her stomach. Hard. Charlie gasped for air as the kick left her unable to even think clearly for a moment.
"That's for last night," Hannah said. "Now we're even."
Charlie was able to get her eyes to focus in time to see Hannah walk out of the hut calmly.
"Are you okay?" Charlie heard a worried voice ask.
She turned to look towards the direction the voice came from and saw Arachnia. Charlie smiled at her, trying to hide the pain that was still coursing through her stomach from Hannah's kick.
"Yeah, I'll be alright," she assured Arachnia. "Believe it or not, we're friends, she just felt she owed me that."
"Why?"
"Well, because last night I kinda stepped on her when I came back to your village," Charlie replied, unsure how else to describe it.
"Now that everything's settled, would you show me that forest you mentioned yesterday?" Arachnia asked, her eyes looking like big saucers somehow.
"I have no problem with it, but would your mother be alright with it?"
"Probably not, but that's why I didn't ask her," Arachnia replied.
Charlie couldn't help but laugh, then groan in pan, then laugh again, followed by another groan. The kick Hannah gave her didn't let her laugh very well without making its presence known again.
"What's so funny about that?" Arachnia demanded. Charlie had to admit her voice definitely made her think of a little kid's voice.
"It's just that putting it that way sounds like your mother would tell you no, so you're just planning on doing it and hoping she doesn't find out," Charlie replied. "But I doubt it'll be that easy."
"Why not?"
"Because I have a feeling she's planning on either going herself or sending a delegation to meet with the unicorn that lives in the forest," Charlie replied.
"Then maybe I could be part of that!" Arachnia brightened up and almost ran out of the hut.
Charlie couldn't help but stare after Arachnia in surprise. Maybe there were things going on in this place that she just wasn't familiar with, but it was making her head spin a little trying to figure it out on her own.
Sighing carefully, Charlie began pulling on her magic in an effort to try and heal where Hannah kicked her. However, the process was rather slow going. Each time she applied her magic to herself, she felt her abused stomach complain by shooting out more pain as she tired healing it. Though, eventually she felt the pain go away, either because she succeeded in healing it, because it went away on its own, or a mixture of both. Either way, she felt better and got up.
She walked outside and was almost immediately dragged by Hannah and Amelia to where apparently breakfast was being served. Both seemed eager to get Charlie to try whatever there was.
"You've never had anything like this," Amelia said, while Charlie struggled to keep up.
"Even the smell of it is something else," Hannah added.
They pulled Charlie into another tent, where it was clear that everyone else had spent the night in. Their packs were resting in various places on the wall, clearly each marking who's spot that was.
In the center of the hut was a pot full of large round objects. Charlie couldn't really tell what they were by looking at them, but they almost seemed like eggs of some kind. Charlie assumed the pot had been pretty much full when it was brought in here, but now it had less than a quarter of it filled.
Are they really that good? Charlie wondered as she reached in and pulled one out. As she picked it up, it certainly didn't feel like an egg. At least not one that she was used to. It was almost like a soft piece of bread, with how squishy it was, but at the same time, there was a solidity there that seemed like it was something else.
Charlie put it to her mouth and carefully bit into it. What she found was the outer part seemed almost leathery with how much it took to get past it. Then after that, there was a tasty solid part that was very easy to bit into. However, the core of it was something else. When she tasted it, she almost coughed it out in surprise.
Pulling the food item away from her, she looked at it carefully. What she saw indicated she was holding some kind of egg that she'd just eaten. The yolk was the center that tasted so good to her, yet she couldn't figure out what kind of egg it was. Aside from a soft boiled egg, at least. Though, the red color of the yolk did make her feel just a little queasy.
"Sooo good, right?" Amelia asked Charlie, as she examined the egg.
"Yeah, but what kind of egg is it?" she asked.
"Not sure," Hannah replied. "We just found how good they were and started eating them. Wes had more than any of us and he went outside to walk around."
Charlie sighed. If all of the others had already had what they wanted of it, then she could indulge herself and have as much as she wanted. Though, given how her stomach felt at that moment, she might only have about four at the most. If nothing else, these eggs seemed to be rather filling.
"Wait, Wes had more than Amelia?" Charlie asked as she reached for a second egg.
"Ha, ha," Amelia replied dryly. "These are just too good to eat without enjoying the flavor."
"You got that right," Beth commented, coming into the tent.
"Did you find out what kind of eggs these are?" Hannah asked.
Beth shook her head. "No, I couldn't find anything to indicate where they got them from. I mean, I didn't even see any chickens or other kind of livestock around here. It's almost like they gathered these eggs, but if that's the case, I don't think they'd make so many at once," Beth replied.
"I could ask them," Charlie offered as she started on her fourth egg.
"Maybe, but not right now," Hannah replied. "Let's finish off these eggs first."
Charlie didn't argue with that. Especially since there were only five left. Which meant it was almost a race to see who could get more than the others.
In the end, while Charlie had only managed to get six of the eggs herself, she found that she was almost full to the point of being stuffed. She couldn't imagine what the others felt like, since they'd had so many more eggs than she had.
"You know, I wouldn't mind having more of those eggs before we go home," Amelia said, everyone around her laughing at that, including Ralph who just walked up.
"Maybe, but maybe not once you learn what kind of eggs those are," Ralph commented.
"You found something?" Beth asked.
"In a way," Ralph hedged. "The eggs didn't come from the village, but I found a path that only adult arachnoids seemed to go along. I followed it and no one stopped me, but when I got close enough, they wouldn't have needed to."
"Get on with it, Ralph," Hannah snapped. "You're dragging this out again."
"Fine," Ralph replied, as if getting to the point was such a onerous task. "There were giant spiders."
"Wait, you mean the eggs we ate were probably giant spider eggs?" Beth asked.
Charlie thought for a minute about it, but quickly decided she didn't care. They tasted too good. Though, she did wonder how Wes might take the news, especially since he ate so many.
"Should we tell Wes?" Charlie asked.
A mischievous gleam entered Ralph's eyes. "Oh, this is gonna be great," he said, laughing.
"What's going to be great?" Tim asked as he and Wes walked up.
"Ralph found out what kind of eggs those were," Beth said, looking pointedly at Ralph.
"What kind were they?" Wes asked. "Lizard eggs? Snake eggs?"
"Giant spider eggs," Ralph said, his tone rather subdued, indicating he wanted to drag it out a little more than this.
Charlie looked at Wes, who looked like he might be sick. Though, the moment quickly passed.
"H-how do yo know this?" Wes asked, his voice suddenly rather quiet.
"Well, I found where they have their livestock, which are giant spiders. I saw them removing those eggs from an egg sack that spiders use to hang the eggs on their webs and to protect them," Ralph replied quietly. It seemed to Charlie that he didn't want anyone to hear him speak outside of their group, but couldn't figure out why.
"At least the eggs didn't look like spiders," Wes said, as he quickly sat on the ground, his breathing getting a little shallow.
"Just don't go that way," Charlie suggested. "I mean, the eggs were clearly good, so it shouldn't be a problem, right?"
"M-maybe," Wes said, though Charlie wasn't sure if he really heard her.
"I'll keep an eye on him," Tim said. "Why don't you guys look around the village some more? Maybe we'll learn about something else that we could use that they make here."
"I was wondering about the silk they have here," Charlie commented to Beth.
"Then let's go find it!" Beth said, confiscating Charlie's arm again and started to lead her around the village.
Charlie was mildly surprised she didn't care about that as much anymore as she followed Beth. Maybe she was getting used to it or maybe there was something else. Though, she hoped it wasn't because she wasn't sure how long before Beth died in the way she saw in her dream. Regardless, she was happy to be exploring the village with Beth.
_
"That's what she asked you?" Beth asked Charlie when they finished their tour of the village.
"Yeah, apparently they're looking for a way to get around that part in the agreement the have with the dwarves," Charlie said.
"I mean, I can understand that, but there's so much room here. Why aren't they able to support, like twice this amount of arachnoids?" Beth asked.
Charlie shook her head. "Maybe its because they need so much room for the giant spiders?" Charlie really had no idea, but that could be a possibility.
"Let's go ask," Beth said, changing their course for the hut that seemed to be where those in charge of the village stayed.
Charlie wasn't as interested in finding out, she mostly was ready to call the trip a success and return home already if not look at one of the other worlds that Petals' forest connected to.
As they entered the hut, the scroll was still there, though she could tell that it was now open to a different place on it, given the amount of paper, or whatever material the scroll was made up of, was now on the other end of the scroll holder thingy. Though aside from that, there wasn't anyone in there.
"We tried, let's find something else to do," Charlie said, starting to leave, but had to stop when she couldn't get her arm out of Beth's grip.
"Nah, we can wait," Beth replied cheerfully. "There's some thing I needed to talk with you about anyway."
"About what?" Charlie couldn't think of anything that was either pressing to talk about or that had been mentioned previously.
"Actually, it's about how you can understand the arachnoids when the rest of us can't," Beth replied.
"What about it?" Charlie asked, hoping she sounded as casual as she wanted to while inside she was starting to panic.
"Actually, I spoke with Shirley a couple weeks ago, and she had mentioned about something called 'thought mages.' One of the things she mentioned was about how they could understand languages they never learned first," Beth said.
Whatever she expected Beth to say, that was nowhere near it.
"Sooooo, what does that mean?" Charlie finally asked, not sure really how to respond to that.
"Well, I was wondering if there was anything else you were able to do," Beth replied. "She mentioned that there were a few different kinds of thought mages, but that all of them would be able to know what's being spoken even when it's a language that they wouldn't know."
"I really have no idea about any of that," Charlie said, unsure herself what she should say about what she could do herself.
"Care to talk about it?" Beth asked.
"I'm not really sure," Charlie admitted. "I'm still trying to figure all of this out."
"Let me know if you'd like to talk," Beth said. "I think you might need it, and I promise that whatever you tell me, I'll be there for you."
"Thanks," Charlie replied, and she meant it. However, she wasn't sure if that was the problem at the moment. It felt like there might be a problem, but wasn't sure what it was at all.
"But that said, we'll still have to discuss it later," Beth added, smiling at Charlie. "Anyway, any idea where the leader of the arachnoids is?"