The New Queen

What I saw when I stepped inside was a sight to behold. There were at least twenty Royal Spidders waiting for me at the entrance, fangs barred, while a dozen or so more skittered around the inside of the hollow tree, tending to mushrooms, grapes and other crops that I couldn't identify at a glance.

The memories of the dead queen flashed through my head, 'Is her daughter back to reclaim this nest? I thought Royal Spidders only had one tree per queen. Why would she leave and wait this long to come back? What else do we not--'

My thought process was cut off by a rush of ten Spidders suddenly appearing in front of me. If I couldn't sense their presence I wouldn't have been able to react in time. I could also sense the remaining ten closing in slowly. Unlike the ones on the attack, which had lightweight thin bodies with sharp front legs, these had larger, thick bodies with wide front legs, almost like shields.

'They're gonna force me out of the nest at this rate. If I'm forced out like this they might go after Conner and the others.' I thought as I blocked a strike with my staff and saw the bladed leg sink halfway through it. 'What? This is supposed to be as strong as iron. What're their legs made of?'

I took the chance to kick the Spidder away and broke the staff in two, using the amber to grow the halves into a shortsword and shield. 'I've never trained in how to use these, but its better than nothing.'

In the next few seconds, despite the sword and shield helping considerably, I wasn't able to do much more than graze any of the Spidders as they whizzed by, leaving deep gashes in my shield. I was able to repair it pretty quickly with the amber, but it wasn't enough to keep myself from being pushed into a corner.

By now both my arms were almost numb from the force of their blows against the shield and sword. I had multiple gashes across my arms and chest too. 'Damn, I really should've asked Conner to come in here with me.' I thought before a strong feeling, that was almost commanding seemed to echo from behind the wall of Spidders, followed by panic and worry.

Just as the commanding feeling washed over me, all the Spidders around me stopped and backed away, parting in the center of the barricade to reveal the source of the emotions, a Spidder much larger than the others, that I recognized from the memories of the former Spidder Queen by the scar across one of her left eyes.

After seeing me covered in cuts and bruises, the feeling of panic increased from the New Queen. She made gestures to the spidders who had attacked me and they dispersed, with a feeling of fear emanating from each of them.

The New Queen approached me and, while I could tell she was concerned, I couldn't understand what she was trying to tell me. All I could hear were hisses and clicks. Through a few quick breaths I managed to say, "What? You?" and suddenly, my vision blurred and I felt my body hit the ground before I passed out.

I woke up somewhere else higher up in the nest. I could somehow tell that only around half an hour had passed, so I still had time before Conner came in here. I could sense the Queen and two other Spidders nearby, and there was something sticky across my body. I quickly sat upright and found that there were spidder webs across my cuts, keeping them from bleeding. The Queen quickly made a motion urging the other two to leave, and once they did a feeling of relief came from the Queen.

I turned to sit on the edge of the wooden slab I was placed on, assumingly by the other two Spidders. I found I was able to move around easily, and my cuts and bruises didn't hurt, they were only a little sore. Moving my arms around to get a feel for my range of motion, I noticed the amber was glowing green, like it does when I'm using it even though I wasn't.

I then stood up and turned to face the Queen and, to my surprise, she was bowing. Not only that but she was trembling and afraid. Yet she showed no signs of hostility towards me. I was flabbergasted, I couldn't think. And I didn't think when I slowly walked over to her and lifted her head.

When I did so, I could tell she was shocked, but more importantly, I could sense her experiences with the Dryad and how she was reprimanded for killing her mother. Suddenly everything clicked into place, as if the one missing piece of the puzzle was suddenly found.

The power of the amber is almost identical to the power of the Dryad, if much weaker. The queen must've thought I was serving the Dryad, and was afraid of what would've happened to her and her subjects if a servant of the Dryad had died.

I couldn't tell exactly what the relationship between the Spidder Queens and the Dryads were, but if I see the Dryad again I'll have to ask about it.

"It's okay," I said, "I'm not a servant of the Dryad, although we are acquainted. I cannot understand your speech, but I can tell you were worried for me, even if it was under false pretenses."

A click followed by a short hiss escaped the Queen's mouth, and the feeling of relief from earlier grew stronger, along with a feeling of happiness.

"I'm glad this has made you happy. I'll have to go for now, but we can talk later." I explained, "I didn't know what I was walking into, so I asked a friend to come looking for me if I was gone too long." By now the soreness in my body had faded, and the amber stopped glowing, "I'm going to go let him know I'm alright, and then come back to ask you some things. Is that okay?"

The Queen felt confused once I mentioned asking questions, so I decided to clarify, "I met the former Queen, your mother a while back, after you had left her to die. I want to know why you did that, and why you're back here."

She backed away a few steps, then seemed to nod as I felt regret and sadness well up inside her. I nodded in return and said, "I'll be back," before walking through the pathways of the nest.

As I walked, I took off the Spidder webs to avoid any suspicions. 'Although the Queen has allowed me in, I don't know if she'll allow Conner to come with me, and it would be difficult for him to understand since he can't feel what the queen feels, and its complicated to try and get thoughts from images of actions,' I thought.

As I was almost at the entrance to the nest I realized, 'Conner's gonna see all the bruises and cuts and think something bad happened. Well, something bad did happen but it's all sorted out.' I stopped walking to think for a moment about what to do and noticed, 'Wait, where are all the cuts? Is that what the amber was doing earlier? It'd make sense, but...' My thoughts trailed off and I just decided to accept that the amber has the ability to not only grow plants quickly, but also to heal wounds.

Thinking back to what happened when I first used this power, all my fatigue from when the Drafis slammed me against the wall was gone, and my hair grew out, so I guess I just never noticed until now.

When I finally left the nest I saw Conner waiting just a few feet outside the nest.

"Ah there you are Prestin, I was starting to worry."

"Yeah, sorry to keep you waiting. But I'll tell you what I saw in the nest, because it turns out it's not abandoned."