Mana.

Delicious, unending, ceaseless mana—I had my fill and then more, vast pools flooding through my core. A welcome reprieve from the distinct lack of mana I'd been able to utilize during the invasion.

The mere presence of rotten humans had torn at my control, absorbing my mana and actively using it for their own spells; I'd been able to send commands to my creatures but that had been it. With the first human she'd had no abilities of her own, nothing to absorb the mana beyond a passive pull; these were far different. For future adventurers, those with actual power and numbers behind them, I would be stripped of my control and left to just watch them enter.

But that had been the same for today, and we'd seen how well that had worked out for this particular batch of idiots.

Idiots ripe with both mana and souls. Souls rather full of information, little scraps and pieces of memories—quite annoying memories actually, given as humans only had rather primitive eyes through which they saw said memories—but I could start to piece together the outside world, what lay in the white walls I'd only gotten a glimpse of.

Calarata, city of liars, home to the Dread Pirate.

All of their memories, as fractured and broken as they were, shuddered with fear of his name. Taxes, an iron fist ruling, only their greater fear of being discovered by the Leóro Kingdom keeping them under his thumb—but that didn't explain why he'd stolen my hoard. Why he'd killed me.

Not that, say, finding out he had a good reason would spare him, but I was at least curious.

A message crawled over my consciousness, points of awareness flicking to the one who'd triggered it. A lone spider, huddling under a rock outcropping, curled around three broken legs from the woman's hit; the same one that had bitten the bear, actually. Ambitious little brute.

Your creature, a Cave Spider, is undergoing evolution!

Please select your desired path.

Webweaver (Common): Spiders are a territorial species—but this beast has ignored that and created a communal web, the work of dozens all spanning together to create an inescapable trap. Not yet a hivemind but through releasing pheromones, they communicate across the miles their webs can span, and any foe that falls to them is split evenly between the lot.

Angler Spider (Uncommon): When webs aren't enough to attract prey, this spider creates glowing orbs to scatter over its silk, captivating insects who don't yet understand their position on the foodchain. Through the release of hormones from their thorax, they can turn the lights on or off at will, avoiding larger predators and feasting to their heart's content.

Jeweled Jumper (Common): Foregoing webs entirely, it spends its life constantly on the hunt, jumping between trees and stalagmites alike in their hunt for prey. As active predators, they ignore smaller insects and use their potent venom to take down larger prey, draining their insides and leaving the husks as a warning.