System Lost: My Own Best Friend

Marching down the seemingly endless tunnel gives me a lot of time to think about things. Things like "Why is the stone here so flat and smooth?" and "How damn long is this tunnel supposed to be, anyway?" Mostly, though, my thoughts keep drifting back to the argument earlier.

I don't know why I'm wasting precious brainpower on it. Why should I care what those philistines think? Okay, maybe I got a little overenthusiastic about optimizing for magic but Violet didn't even give me a chance! Even after I said I'd cooperate and agreed to her stupid plan, she still kept attacking me for no reason. What did I ever do to her?

I don't want to deal with all this stupid drama. I just want to do more magic. As much as I hate to admit it, though, I'll probably die if I try that right now. I think that these candles might be a reasonably safe source of magic that I can tap into until I'm strong enough to handle the real deal, but I still pretty much passed out when I tried it earlier.

I blow a stray strand of hair out of my face and frown as I try to come up with a solution. I might be able to find an even weaker source of magic to draw from. Should I apologize? Maybe the lizard eye will work—though Allie already tried that. It's probably not a good look that I just wandered off in a random direction instead of heading back. What kind of spells can I make?

"Ugh!" I groan in frustration as I swipe more hair out of my face.

Why is this so distracting?! It doesn't matter whether they accept me or not, I'm here and they can damn well deal with it. But...I guess it will be easier if we get along. Except that I tried that, and Violet was a total bitch about it while Allison just sat there ineffectually like always!

I snap when my hair gets in my eyes again, frantically trying to brush it away. "What the hell are these worthless hair clips even for?!"

I pause, realizing that the hair is sticking to my hands in an unusual way...and isn't orange...or hair. I lift the candle up and peer more closely at the darkness around me. I have to wave it around a bit, but eventually I catch a little glint of reflected light and grab at it.

In my hand is a tiny, almost invisible thread of sticky silk.

"Cobwebs?" I wonder aloud. "That's weird..."

In our entire time down here we've never actually seen any bugs—unless you count giant snails. In fact, the rock snails and laser geckos are the only living things we've seen at all, which is also weird. There was that one skeleton, but it's a bit hard to call that "living" with a straight face, and now that I think about it I'm starting to wonder why we've never encountered another like it.

Nothing here makes any sense, and it just serves to further reinforce my opinion that Violet is an idiot for trying to get through this dilemma by relying solely on survival skills that we don't even have.

Anyway, webs. Now that I know what I'm looking for, they're actually kind of all over the place. Little silvery streaks glinting in the candlelight all around me. It would be pretty if it weren't so concerning. I don't see any spiders around to take credit for the webs, and the crisscrossing network of gossamer doesn't really resemble the net-like patterns I'm accustomed to.

Then again, even back in my own world, I'm pretty sure only a tiny fraction of spiders make webs at all, much less that particular kind of web, so maybe that's a stupid expectation.

I'm tempted to turn back, but my curiosity drives me forward. It's a bit of a pain as the webs get thicker and I have to keep swiping them out of the way, and I'm getting covered in cobwebs. Eventually, though, I finally stumble on something promising.

Dangling from one of the threads is a cocoon about the size of my fist. Wait, no—I hold the candle up closer to see that the "cocoon" is translucent and not made of the same stuff as the threads. There's a little black wormy looking thing inside, though it's not moving and I honestly don't know enough to tell whether it should be.

"Well that's odd," I ponder. "If the silk isn't part of the egg then how did it end up...dangling..."

I trail off as I follow the thread up towards the ceiling of the tunnel, which is completely covered in eggs. I curse myself for going exploring so shortly after tanking my Awareness. The candlelight is barely enough to illuminate the ceiling as it is, and maybe I would have noticed it sooner if I hadn't switched classes.

The stray threads that have been bothering me this whole time are just bits that have fallen from the huge web adhering the eggs to the ceiling, which explains the lack of a cohesive pattern.

"Okay, time to go," I muse, turning on my heel to march back the way I came.

Of course, it's not that simple. A wet plop behind me draws my attention and I glance back just long enough to see that the first egg I noticed is now empty before another lands right next to me. I look down to see a pair of little black...worms? Caterpillars? Things writhing on the ground.

If I'm being perfectly honest, they're actually kind of adorable, but then they start inching towards me followed by the distinct sound of several more of their brethren dropping from the ceiling. I'm growing a little concerned at this point, so I go back to plan A and start heading back the way I came.

The worm creatures aren't particularly fast, but they are starting to fall from the ceiling at an alarming rate, and I might be on the verge of panic. I pick up the pace, trying to speed-walk as best I can while hauling this unwieldy sac of raw meat.

Ohhh, it's totally not a coincidence that these started hatching right around the time that a convenient source of protein just happened to stumble into their nest, is it?

I barely complete that thought before one of them lands directly on my exposed shoulder.

"Eeeek!" I shriek in dismay, accidentally dropping the skin as I brush it off in a panic.

Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.

The meat that Violet worked so hard for scatters across the floor, and the worms waste no time swarming it.

"Shit!" I curse, bending down to snatch up the skin and as much of the meat as I can before the worms get to it.

With my hands full, I turn tail and run. I'm less burdened now, but I'm also just awkwardly clutching a bunch of raw, bloody meat in my arms, so it's still not the most dignified run. Thankfully, the worms are distracted by the stuff I left behind, and after maybe a minute of dead sprinting back down the tunnel, I make it back to the cave intact.

My lungs burn as I slump down against the wall, desperately gasping for air. My face feels hot and my vision is blurry. Shit. Shit shit shit! That was so stupid. Why did I do that? What was even the point of going that way? Because I was mad at Violet? Yeah, I sure showed her by losing most of our supplies and completely proving her point about me being a liability.

"Fuck!" I groan, gently knocking my head against the wall behind me.

"Language," Allison corrects me.

The sound of her voice startles me. "Shit! Allie you—hic—scared me..."

Damn it! Now I'm out of breath and I have hiccups.

"Sorry," she says. "Are you okay?"

I wipe some moisture from my cheeks. She's now two for two on opening our conversations that way.

"No," I grumble. "Violet's gonna be so—hic—pissed."

"Probably," Allie confirms. "But I think you kind of earned this one."

"Yeah, rub it—hic—rub it in, why don't you?"

She sighs. "That's not what I'm trying to do, Maggie."

"Could have f—hic—fooled me," I counter.

"It's important to be able to admit when you're wrong, so that you can apologize and make amends."

Oh great, just what I need right now—preaching.

"Tell that to Violet," I complain. "She's the one who—hic—ugh, who started this shit."

"To be fair, you've been pretty rude to us from the beginning," she points out.

"I was—hic—!" The hiccup's timely interruption makes me realize that I'm not sure what I was about to say. Coming down from that first vision of magic was...difficult. It hurt to look at, and it hurt to look away. I can feel my heart rate accelerating just from the memory of it, and whatever word was on the tip of my tongue dies there. I take my fogged up glasses off and rub my eyes, sniffling as I'm forced to find a new one instead. "Confused."

"I understand, but that doesn't justify the way you acted," Allison reminds me. "Nor does the way you acted justify the way Violet treated you."

"That doesn't—hic—argh!" These damn hiccups are driving me insane!

"Try holding your breath," Allie suggests. "That sometimes helps when I'm..."

She trails off hesitantly, but doesn't finish whatever she was about to say.

I shrug. Sure, why not? Not like I was just sprinting for my life or anything. I take as deep a breath as I can and hold it. While I do so, it gives me some time to think. Allison is just trying to help. I was rude, and while I didn't really mean any harm it isn't fair of me to judge people by their actions when I'm only judging myself by my intentions. Violet's biggest concern is and always has been keeping us alive, and even if I think magic is the best way to do that—and I do—it's going to take a lot of investment, and we still have to survive in the meantime.

I still think Violet is a complete bitch, and she probably thinks the same of me, but at least I've never doubted her intentions. I guess that's why it hurts so much that she doubts mine.

My chest starts heaving reflexively, and I'm pretty sure I'll pass out if I hold my breath any longer, so I let it out in one big gasp and start panting to catch my breath.

"Better?" Allison asks.

"Maybe," I sigh. "I'm still...not happy."

"I don't think any of us are," she confesses. "But all we've got is each other."

"I mean, we had a big sack of meat before I went and screwed it up," I gripe.

"Sorry to interrupt," Violet cuts in, "but I'm afraid we need to move. I don't think our new friends were satisfied with Magdalena's sacrificial offering."

I jerk upright and look back down the tunnel. Sure enough, there's a writhing mass of black worms slowly making their way down the tunnel towards us.

"Damn it!" I curse. "How'd they get here so fast?"

"You're not a very fast runner," Violet comments blithely. "Now move!"

"Aaaargh," I groan in frustration as I gather up what's left of our supplies and get moving.

I've got a nasty stitch in my side from the sprint earlier, but I try to limp as quickly as I can without wasting energy. I should count my blessings that they are so slow. If it really had been spiders, we'd be screwed.

"Uh, I guess I'm sorry about losing the meat," I say sheepishly. I'm still a little embarrassed about that.

"Accepted." Violet's response is terse and clipped.

"You're not mad?" I hedge.

"I'm livid, but there's nothing we can do about it now," she says. "Just keep moving and watch your step. The tunnel ends in a sudden drop."

"I remember," I growl. "I'm not stupid."

"Uh, Vi?" Allison interjects. "Do you think maybe you owe Mags an apology too?"

"What for?" she asks.

I can already feel my hackles rising. What does she mean "What for?"

"I think you were a little too harsh on her before," Allison clarifies. "Maggie has a different way of going about it, but she wants the same things we do, right? We all want to survive, and we all want to get out of these caves."

"I actually don't mind the caves," I comment.

"Maggie..." Allison groans. "Not helping."

"What?" I protest. "It's true! Would you rather I lie to her? We have no reason to think the outside is going to be any better than our current situation, and at least here I can work on magic while we have some understanding of the local dangers."

To my surprise, Violet just laughs.

"Actually, Allie, that does help a little," she says. "I think I might have a better understanding of you now, Maggie. I'm not entirely convinced, yet, but...you deserve a chance. I'm sorry for not giving you one before."

Eh, close enough I guess.

"Thanks. And I guess I'm also sorry for being rude before, though I can't promise not to call you stupid the next time you act stupid."

"Likewise," Vi says, her voice slightly strained.

"Oh boy," Allison sighs. "Well, at least we're all getting along now, right?"

[Level up!]

Unified Wanderers is now level 5.

+2 Resilience.

+2 Ego.

I guess someone seems to think so.