NOVEL WEB Chapter 27: Kindred spirits
After a long eve of feast, a lone girl was sitting atop branches leaning against a tree. Though the residents invited her to spend the night with them inside their homes she refused…
‘Everyone except those on guard went to rest… I just noticed this now but I don’t sleep almost at all… I don’t know why this didn’t bother me till now…’
>Hibernation, low energy usage, recovers energy reserves. Administrator natural energy recovery exceeds active state energy drain, vulnerable during inactive state, redundant action.
‘Then why did I feel so tired and fell asleep after being… gored?’
>Any skill action depletes energy reserves, low activity accelerates recovery.
‘I guess that’s regeneration? Fair enough that thing reconstructed my organs. Does that mean stealth and mimicry also uses mana?’
>Confirmation.
‘I don’t feel very bothered by it though?’
>Recovery rate exceeds energy expenditure of ⟨ Stealth ⟩. Can maintain indefinitely.
Maintaining ⟨ Mimicry ⟩, ⟨ Stealth ⟩ in conjunction results in net energy loss. Estimated depletion time in 9 hours 47 minutes 19 seconds.
‘What if only mimicry is used? Also use a shortened time.’
>Estimated depletion time in 12:47:19.
‘Just 3 hours, mimicry uses that much energy? I should look into what those new skills are doing actually…’
‘It appears mimicry does more than just attaining their form… Since I’m physically changing into their race it’s probably correcting my stats as well uhm… Alma? Can you show me the corrected numerals?’
>Updating…
‘Huh, helpful. What other skills have I missed that looks interesting…’
‘Kinetics should be body language and hand gestures. Pneumatics… I don’t think gasses have anything to do with this…’
>Pneumatics. Related to Pneuma: Spirit and Psyche.
‘Ah so this is what makes it possible to use magic without shouting out their names… I remember the Water spirit saying something like that… Apparently using magic is at its basic just communicating with the lesser spirits and offering mana for their work. How you convey your intentions is a matter of preference. Body language like a dance or commanding, pleading and wishing for the events to happen vocally each has the same purpose but reaches their objective in a slightly different nuanced way. Reading out a poem like aria seems to be related to this.
Early people thought magic to be some sort of divine power and invoked it using hymns, rituals to gods and what not. 1The Exorcism prayers are spells in the Holy Bible, the best spellbook. Don’t even @ me. Eventually culminating in the use of wands, staves along with chants. However obviously saying out loud what you’re casting is detrimental as the opponent can understand what you’re saying and predict what the purpose of the magic you’re casting to counter it. With that in mind they started to look into ancient texts, other languages to make their magic less predictable until the last word or conjunctive word, usually the spell’s name to give little time for others to react to it.
Evidently this makes using magic without any cue to be the best option and one who is capable of doing so would be highly regarded among their peers, unfortunately this establishes little to no communication with the nearby spirits causing them to be distressed in a way. I can guess why… It’s like when someone wants you to do something but they’re not telling you what exactly it is that they want… Frustrating… No wonder she dislikes it… Incantations and gesticulation fortify a person’s image of their magic allowing them to give more and more precise ‘instructions’ in shorter and shorter time. Ultimately resulting in the ability to cast it using nothing but the given name of the spell or simple wave of the hand…
I didn’t notice this but I was using ‘weaver’ with just my hands back then wasn’t I? I thought it took years of practice… well it’s not like my webs are particularly complex in structure…’
‘Ah I got off track… What was I at again… Ah compound synthesis… I understand it’s basics but not much about the details…’
‘Compound synthesis… should be making chemicals?
What are classes? And is that another skill that’s related to Compound synthesis?
What else… Kindred has one of those things, what were they called? Educements I believe? Conjure, summon, control… and Mirror image has doppelgänger, transposition, martyrdom, deadringer this thing just keeps getting more stuff by the minute huh…
>Note. As the system adapts to the user's soul more paths of predestination will become available.
I was supposed to use this to make my own fate or that sort of thing. How is that related to all of this…? Do skills determine someone’s fate? That doesn’t sound like the whole story though… And what those little voices at the end of the skills, feels like an echo from somewhere.
>Lingering memories of previous administrators.
Memories of my predecessors eh? I suppose I’m not the first to get reincarnated and used this exact scenario… Anyway Conjure, might as well give it a try.’
‘Hex crawler? Let’s see what it is…’
Faint silhouette of a creature manifested, glowing in dull white, forming into a familiar organism in no time.
‘A spider? Yeah I should’ve seen that coming I am a spider after all, so my ‘kindred’ would be more spiders.
Good grief, your abdomen is large for your teeny size. I can hold you up with my finger and you’re mostly white… just like me. Aren’t you adorable with your little legs and almost a hunched back abdomen.
Are you hungry?
No not yet?
Don’t patronise me?
How- Well I assume I can understand my err companions even if they can’t speak normally.
What do I want you to do?
Hmm… nothing specific for now… Actually what can you do by the way?’
>Soul Echo acquired.
‘You’re like a smaller, more compact version of me…
Happy? Why?
That’s a compliment?
Do you want friends?
I’ll give you some… 9 more to even out your numbers should be fine… Alright play nice you lot.
Crawlers unfamiliar with their creator’s humanoid body were curious. This meant creeping all over her body, as due to their nature as spiders, creatures who feel around with their legs. ‘Hey hey! That tickles! Stop someone’s gonna wake up and hear me!’ Eventually after quelling their curiosity they rested in her hair after some places were designated as prohibited areas. This includes the inside of her ears among some other openings along with certain areas around her chest.
‘It’s warm and dark in there? Don’t you guys wanna make your own… nests?’
‘You guys like my hair? Won’t you get hungry in there? You can just leave then, really? Well suit yourselves…’
‘I got something new didn’t I?’
Huh might be handy later… And I’m probably infringing on some privacy laws… if they exist over here… next up…
At surface night might seem to have passed quietly, but it was a busy period for Alicia trying to familiarize herself with her soul lost in immersion. Eventually as dawn draws near the village starts to become lively with activity.
‘They get up pretty early, the sun hasn’t even fully raised up yet. Faenas should be waking up soon.’ In order not to get lost she was atop one of the trees above her dwelling. Due to her previous background she couldn’t help herself from inspecting the houses not caring that modern standards wouldn’t apply to them in the same way.
⟨ Pallesthesia ⟩
‘Ah she’s up maybe I should… No that’s a bad idea… I’ll just wait for her to call out for me. Kind of creepy that I can tell someone’s awake just by their footsteps.’
Deciding against meeting her the first thing when she wakes up she stays on top of her tree, observing the villagers rise up and go about their daily lives. Not long after Faenas came out looking for her.
‘How do you not notice me, I’m right infr- Oh right.’
- “Hey!”
- “UUUEEAAAH!”
- “AAAAHH! What! What is it?”
Not expecting to frighten Faenas, Alicia was startled as well by her shriek.
- “What do you mean what is it?! You scared me to death!”
- “You scared me…”
- “Stopping appearing out of nowhere!”
- “I was sitting on top of that branch over there… That’s not nowhere.”
Baffled by her argument Faenas was opening and closing her mouth, she wanted to say something but nothing seemed to come to her.
- “Just! AAAAAH!”
Irritated she could only shout to the sky.
- “Okay! Okay! I’m sorry for scaring you, but you also scared me so let’s just let bygones be bygones. It’s morning see, you were going to introduce me to the person who knows how to handle weapons.”
It was an obvious attempt at changing the subject and she knew it, but deciding not to dwell on it she reluctantly complied.
- “I’ll lead you to the old head. Follow me, don’t wander off now.”
- “I’m not a child in a shopping mall…”
Not catching the latter half;
- “Well you’re more mischievous than any child I’ve ever seen.”
- “Then being played fool by someone with a child’s antic would that make you a toddler?”
- “You cheeky little…!-”
So the two started the day with such back and forth friendly chaff…
AN: To help visualize some elements.
Hex weavers are based on Velvet spiders. Physically they’re based after the Gandanameno Sp. as shown below.
And behaviourally they’re similar to Stegodyphus Dumicola (African social spiders also common called velvet spiders)
These velvet spiders in real life are quite docile to humans and are not very averse to being handled. As shown here. Still they’re spiders and loners by nature so don’t go grabbing one, they like to be left alone.
With this dropped a big hint on what kind of real life spider Alice is based after. First one to guess it correctly gets internet clout points from me. You can use those clout points to blackmail me into adding something to the story or whatever. However Alicia's behaviours may cause confusion as she's after all was previously human.
By the way of the 4 classical elements’ symbols I’ve shown one of them is odd. If you can correctly explain all the meaning behind them you also get clout points.
For both answers you have until this Friday to answer according to UTC +8 timezone. Goodluck!
Oh yeah and here's your trivia I guess, there are spiders that can tolerate other spiders of its species.