Sen stepped into the building he’d named the Spider’s Lair in a moment of poor decision-making. The name had stuck, mostly due to Glimmer of Night’s immediate approval. The building itself was set in a mostly unused corner of the compound. It was also one of a handful of buildings that were off-limits to virtually everyone because Sen didn’t want Glimmer of Night to reflexively kill some foolish qi-gathering cultivator with more curiosity than sense. The existence of the building came about as a matter of pure necessity.
When he and the spider had first come up with the idea for the communication cores, it became almost instantly obvious that it couldn’t be located at Fu Ruolan’s home. Any information that came through the cores would likely need to be handed off almost immediately. While her home was close enough for Sen to go back and forth without too much trouble, the same was not true of pretty much anyone else in the sect. Beyond that, even if she were willing to let what Sen suspected would become a strategic resource be there, she wouldn’t tolerate the presence of all the messengers it would require. Hence, the Spider’s Lair was born.
Not that the inside of the lair would seem particularly special to anyone who saw it. It was basically a stone box with no windows. The cores themselves didn’t require any kind of special surroundings to function, although Sen had worked a few basic formations into the walls. Most of them were simply there to strengthen the building and increase the qi density inside a bit. The cores were housed in a cabinet-like structure that was full of small cubby spaces. That made it easy for Glimmer of Night to monitor them and alert Sen if people were trying to contact them. Sen also knew that eventually, they would need to let other people inside. In fact, they would probably need a much bigger building with individual spaces where people could monitor a few cores exclusively, but they weren’t there yet. It also wasn’t the reason Sen had come that day.
“Were you able to do it?” Sen asked.
Glimmer of Night was actively manipulating a web in one corner with threads so fine they were almost invisible. Sen watched as the threads moved through a series of tiny adjustments. He didn’t know if the spider could always do that or if it was a sign of improved control, although he suspected the latter. Apparently not finding what he was looking for, Glimmer of Night made a tiny gesture and the threads dissipated. He turned to look at Sen with his liquid black eyes and nodded. He walked to another corner, picked up a bag, and held it out. Sen walked over and took it. He glanced inside before simply putting a hand into the bag and moving all of the cracked cores into a storage ring.
“Is that enough?” asked the spider.
Sen guessed that he had about fifty of those cores in his ring now.
“I certainly hope so. If it isn’t, that probably means that my plan failed utterly and not having enough cracked cores will be the smallest of my problems.”
“Fair.”
Sen hesitated to bring up the other thing he wanted to talk to the spider about. He’d been putting it off for most of a year with the excuse that there was more time, but time was swiftly running out. Of course, it was mostly his own discomfort he’d been avoiding. The spider wouldn’t be offended by the conversation.
“So, I have to ask this,” said Sen, certain that he sounded as awkward as he felt. “Will the other spiders choose to fight with the spirit beasts? Will you?”
“I will not,” said a wholly unruffled Glimmer of Night. “The Great Matriarch set my path with you. I won’t abandon that because of some petty war.”
Sen felt something unclench inside of him. Glimmer of Night knew a lot of Sen’s secrets. It wouldn’t have been a full-blown catastrophe if the spider had chosen to fight with the spirit beasts, but it would have been a huge setback. Plus, Sen had no desire to fight Glimmer of Night. The spider had been unfailingly helpful to Sen’s goals and patient with Sen’s constant questions. While that patience had only enabled Sen to make incremental progress in understanding the web patterns that all spiders seemed to understand intuitively, it had been progress. He was loathe to give that up. He even liked the spider. He was hesitant to use the word friend. The spider’s motives were too opaque for that, but he would certainly consider their relationship friendly.
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“Are your preparations nearly complete?” asked Glimmer of Night, who had apparently decided the previous topic was settled.
“Yes, I think so.”
“When do we leave?”
Sen found himself once more flummoxed by the spider’s words.
“We?” he asked.
“I was instructed to learn from you. You go to practice war now. How can I learn how you conduct war if I’m not there?”
“I—” Sen couldn’t find another word to follow that.
He’d never once considered that spider would go with him. This wasn’t Glimmer of Night’s problem. As far as he knew, the spider hadn’t even encountered them. Of course, the spider wasn’t thinking about it in those terms. He saw the whole thing as a learning opportunity.
“You could end up in substantial danger,” said Sen. “I never intended to put you in that position.”
The spider went still again before he shrugged.
“The danger isn’t relevant. When do we leave?”
Sen thought that the danger was very relevant, but he got the distinct impression that Glimmer of Night simply didn’t care about that. Nor was Sen confident that he could convince the spider, regardless of how long he talked. Shaking his head, Sen considered the benefits. The spider was all but without fear. He was good in a fight. He also had some unique skills that most sects wouldn’t see coming if it came down to it. Perhaps the most important thing was that Glimmer of Night wanted to come. It would be one thing if he were trying to talk the spider around, but there was no reason to deny the spider.
“Two days,” said Sen.