Lydia

I told Conner about the Spidders in the nest and the number of them, although I told him they largely ignored me unless I got too close to their crops. I didn't tell him about the queen, because he didn't know about the old one, and I didn't want to complicate things this late at night.

"Ok, I was wondering what was taking you so long, but you were just being careful."

"Yeah, since they weren't chasing me out, I wanted to learn as much as possible about them, but I almost lost track of time. I should've come out sooner to let you know."

"It's no big deal," Conner said, yawning, "But I'm gonna rest for a bit so I have energy in the morning. How about you?"

"I'm going to keep taking notes on the Royal Spidders," I said, looking back at the nest, "This group seems more advanced than the ones back in Riverhold, so I'd like to gather more information on their society."

Conner nodded and turned back to the campsite to sit back down. He's probably going to stay on watch, even if he said he's going to rest. Yesterday I saw him sleeping standing up, and when a large leaf fell from a tree, the sound of it hitting the ground woke him up, so I don't need to worry about the others.

After reentering the nest, I found some of the thick-legged Spidders forming a path leading from the nest entrance to one of the inclines leading higher up in the nest. Once I got to the incline, two of these Spidders walked behind me, probably as a security measure, in case I would try to deviate from the path.

While walking around the nest, I was able to get a closer look into what the Spidders were doing, and I could barely believe my eyes. They were farming mushrooms alongside grapes and strawberries, building a bridge between two ledges from wood and webbing, and carving out an area to store water. It was magnitudes more advanced than the other Nest in Riverhold.

I made some more notes about the different types of Spidder I could see in the back of my journal. Including the Queen, the big ones guiding me, and the small ones that attacked me earlier, there were almost a dozen different types. I walked along in awe of the society I found myself walking through.

Eventually we stopped, and was motioned to climb up the wall in front of me, and I recognized it quickly. 'So up here is where the old queen died. I guess it makes sense I was led here, I did ask her about why she killed her mother.'

I took a few steps back and ran up the wall. It was easier than the first time, and I was easily able to push myself up and onto my feet.

The ledge was cleaned off of most of the other bodies, the only one left being the former queen's. But her body had been taken apart and rearranged. Her body was gone, and a large rock had been carried up here, and the former queen's legs and head were positioned around it, as if depicting the queen laying down.

The new queen was laying down in front of this grave, and after hearing me come in, felt shock and grief as she stood up slowly. She gestured towards me with one of her legs. I walked over and she touched my arm, and I received a mental image of her bowing in front of the grave. When she did so, I followed, bowing to the old queens grave.

After a moment, feelings of remorse and guilt so strong they made me start to cry flowed from the new queen. I put my hand on her back, and memories began flowing so quickly I couldn't process them all, so I removed my hand, but they all went about the same.

The new queen had an idea, and the old queen would put it to action. This happened over and over, until the old queen started to reject her ideas, which led to the new queen feeling betrayed and slowly accumulating hatred for her mother, who refused anything she brought to her.

Eventually, she grew overconfident in herself, and decided to take her mother's place as queen, and using her authority over the other Spidders, she started a revolt, and killed her.

After a few days, she began to feel overwhelmed by all the duties required of her, so much so she couldn't come up with new ways to benefit the colony, which is when she realized what her mother was going through and that she was wrong.

That's when she came back here, cleaned up everything she made a mess of, and conducted the proper burial writes for the old queen.

I stood and took a step back, reeling from everything I just saw. Noticing me standing up the Queen turned to face me, and when I saw this I faced her and knelt.

"Your majesty," I said, "thank you for showing me your memories, despite my harsh wording earlier. I see that you aren't an aggressor, but someone like me, who just made a mistake."

'Although this was a pretty big mistake, she does want to benefit her subject's lives, and felt that the old queen wasn't doing that.'

"So I will give you this." I said, using the amber to create a smooth piece of wood the right size for a Spidder to hold, with my name carved into it in my handwriting, "Bring this to one of the two human settlements and they will recognize it as my name and let me know. I will be near the mountains in the direction the sun rises most of the time, so do not hesitate to ask for my assistance, especially with problems involving humans."

The Queen felt shock when I kneeled and gratitude at my gift, handing it to a bodyguard, who then crawled down the ledge and left. The queen then began carving something into the wood ledge. L-Y-D-I-A.

"Lydia?" I said, wanting to make sure I understood things properly "Is that your name? You gave yourself a name?"

When I said this the Queen felt happy. It's probably the first time anyone has called her by her name. It also got me thinking, 'The Queen understands my speech, and is able to use human writing. That's odd. Come to think of it, when I spoke with the Dryad, we spoke the same language. I thought she was just using our language to make things easier, but do the gods speak the same language as us? No, we speak the same language as they. How did we learn the god's language? How did Lydia?'

Then I asked a question of Lydia, the queen: "What is the connection between the Queens and the Dryads?"

She then extended her leg, and when I took it, she shared with me the story of the first Spidder Queen.