Chapter Nineteen

After three days, everyone had some form of shelter, and Loap still refused to purchase clothes even though she'd earned enough points for them. The spear from the empress spider leg was much more valuable to her.

"Any progress?" Harmony asked the beast kin as she stared up at the obelisk.

"You were right about the layers. Jessica can see the heat spell out more text if we can get Tyler to stand here so she can use his eyes. I haven't ruled out the outside being a distraction. The ticking, though, signifies something coming soon."

"Ticking?"

"I suppose your adorable tiny ears wouldn't be able to hear it. At first, it was like this." She bounced up and down slowly. "Now it is like this." She hopped up and down at a rapid pace causing her whole body to jiggle.

That was certainly one way to represent it. Tyler was out hunting, so that show was for her. [Poise and Bearing] was only leaned on a smidgen to keep composure. "I understand."

There had been no time to risk getting stuck for hours delving into the obelisk with her necromantic senses. [Recall] captured some of it, fuzzy, and indistinct. The best she'd been able to do was practice on the spider corpses she'd used to craft armor and weapons to improve her focus, rather than cheating with the seals she now needed to grow and understand the sense. Minor improvement, but with [Renew Spirit] she could more clearly see where the energy didn't flow to define the walls and internal structures in containers.

Tempting as it was to try again now, she'd heed Loap's bouncy-jiggly warning. "Carry on."

"Delightfully tiny royal ears," Loap murmured as Harmony walked away.

The three buildings that weren't buildings had yet to be understood. At least the obelisk had writing. Using extra senses, skills, or tools had proved useless in gaining information or getting inside of them. As easy as it would be to use their walls to help with shelters, no one wanted to build a sleeping space like that just in case they entombed horrors. Because of that, their little mock village was sprawled out. Building a wall was on the list to gain contribution points, but the spiders had so far shown no interest in leaving their forest.

"Malik, Good work. Benny, this wouldn't be successful without you. Owlsley, that sloth of yours is a real boon." [Recall] helped keep everyone's names straight as Harmony made her rounds. Part of her liked managing people. The newest parts. It's what royals do. As an eraser, they were more tools to deal with issues. The necrotuned aspect whispered about how it might be more efficient if they were all dead and did exactly as told. Complete balderdash as most of the undead, spirits, and such tended to be more erratic than the living. That was a strict reminder not to trust these kinds of instincts. All she was doing was encouraging anyway. Adric was the one actually keeping them in line.

Adric ended up being the perfect manager. The added responsibility might have been a slight punishment, but someone needed to be the target of the ire that came with pressuring people to do tasks they knew they should accomplish but lacked motivation. Not that they hated him for keeping them busy. It was hard to hate someone so pretty who'd also drop everything to assist you. Though when he did it was often a little incompetent either through unfamiliarity or lack of skill. It almost became a weapon against some of the unmotivated members as they were thrust into action to fix, correct, or halt Adric's help before it became a complete disaster.

The prince skidded to a halt beside her, ending one of his speed-boosting skills and kicking up a pile of dust that Harmony immediately flattened with her maid skill to keep it from irritating anyone. "I've got them all running smoothly. It helps that Tyler is out with the hunters pushing into mimic space for those rewards. Too many pets can't live off fish and spiders alone, yet those full-meal bars work perfectly for everyone."

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Adic was exceptionally sensitive to issues with pets. Being away from Bowe must be awful for him. As for having things running smoothly, Tyler practically hauled Eric and some other problem-makers with him for the Hunt. Probably tired of Eric's refusal to make eye contact with any of the women in camp. "Every day I had to raise the contribution point value for those. Greed is a useful motivator."

"Motivation is good. Everyone feels like they're waiting for some big thing to happen and that anxiety is starting to show. Two-thirds of them were just whisked away because the opportunity was presented to them and now we've been sitting at this site for days."

"They'll miss the anxious waiting if moments of sheer terror are introduced. This is a vacation compared to needing to climb Nae's Garden alone every day."

"Greept." Hyacinth agreed from his new favorite napping spot having woken mid-conversation. The sleeping was fair because he guarded, roamed, and hunted at night. He'd been one of the few to show up with rewards from the mimic region in the mornings, nothing like what they'd earned from the big mimic, but enough to make sure the more unique pets didn't starve.

"I'm not sure I can keep this pace up," Adric admitted.

"You're doing wonderful. You're making this leadership thing work more than I am. But I wouldn't worry. With the first clash of tribes, and people getting eliminated things will change." That was with a cheery tone, but one of the more likely changes was that they would be the ones eliminated if it came down to a vote.

Cries dragged their attention to the edge of the town. Happy ecstatic cries. The hunters have returned. It was time to welcome and congratulate them for their hard work and award them their contribution points.

Tyler proudly had one of the larger spider corpses over his shoulder. [Analyze] showed it to be a king spider, not as big as the empress but impressive all the same. In his other hand, he held his stone-crafted maul that had been crafted by a mason-based profession. The spider's sharp legs or pincers made better cutting, slashing, and piercing weapons, but nothing beats good old stone if you needed a blunt object to wield.

Eric was all smiles holding up one of the healing water vials one got rewarded for defeating mimics. Harmony could almost look into his eyes as she approached until they dropped down below her neckline. Him, he was getting voted off first, if she had to talk to every woman at the site. They had the numbers.

Four others had gone out with them and all six had returned. Ignoring Eric's gaze, Harmony gave them all a big wave. "Welcome back! How was the hunting? Anything you want to exchange for points?"

Tyler stepped forward. "This king spider is tougher than the little ones. I was hoping you could use it to make me better armor. You can keep the parts you don't use."

His armor was currently overlapping pieces of the smaller spiders that were more like tough leather armor than the full plate he was used to. One solid piece she could cut from the large one would be closer to what he usually wore. The solid black material was everywhere now. Spider shoes. Spider pants. Spider shirts. Spider weapons. Spider underwear, but that was at least treated webbing. It wouldn't hold together but at least provided cushion and prevented chafing until it needed to be swapped out.

The red clothing they'd been awarded for arriving had started to wear out after a day. The scraps of red were now mere decorations or for the few who were less active, their underclothes. Black was the "in" color because it was the only color they had.

The long king spider legs were a valuable resource on the contribution board. The smaller spiders could have their small ones turned into daggers, but long ones for swords or spears were rare. "Fine. leave it by my hut and I'll get to work on it."

The rest of the negotiation was easier. Trading material for slips of paper with contribution points on them. A paper mache artist was able to craft the stuff thankfully, otherwise, Harmony feared she'd spend all day making money out of odds and ends from the spider corpses.

A loud thrum cascaded out from the obelisk. Their time was up. The notification came for them all.

Meet at the Sacred Valley for the first competition!

A new area was highlighted as a destination. Time to see what these games are all about.

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