{
  "$type": "site.standard.document",
  "canonicalUrl": "https://serpentsquiggles.neocities.org//posts/vermin/covert-zeal",
  "path": "/posts/vermin/covert-zeal",
  "publishedAt": "2026-03-07T00:00:00.000Z",
  "site": "at://did:plc:ivoe7cntxuy6at7uzmxzs2ft/site.standard.publication/3mfk6cpprzt2t",
  "textContent": "Chitinous tarsi lighted down on cold stone. The sound was lost in the\nenveloping patter of rain rushing down sloped roofs.  Droplets of\nwater beaded ineffectually on waxy exoderm, repelled by the two\nbodies. Only their setae-furred antennae and locks of silken hair\nneeded any cover.\n\nDarkling sky over chilled air over empty streets.  The two chrylurks\nhad retained stealth so far, gliding and bounding over the city's\nrooves. Now nearing their destination, they had to descend to the\nstreets, courting the great risk: a mortal spotting them.\n\nBut mortals were why they were here.\n\nThey touched down beside a cobbled road, a short stretch bracketed by\nhard turns, each leading to larger road.  This short extent served a\nlittle clump of buildings all packed tight.  Ahead a cart lay on the\nside of the road. Above them, lamps of burning oil leaked light from a\nfew windows.\n\n---Does the trail still linger? (sent Heresy, strumming the ghostly\nsilk between them.  Clear yet fuzzy: the rain inflicted the barest\ninterference.)\n\nThe two were stepping under the eaves of the roof they'd leapt from.\nCipher, the smaller chrylurk, was pulling a woven sheath off their\nantennae, segmented lengths shivering in the wet air.\n\nA chrylurk's marks could stick well in fair weather, but the rain only\ntrapped the scent.  Cipher's antennae waved then flinch-froze.\n\nThe familiar scent of ==Sister Disgrace== had guided their journey.\nThis was her hunting grounds, and she'd left marks all across the\nterritory.  Old scents, though --- this was fresher, meant to be a\nmessage.\n\n---This is where it went wrong (Cipher said.)\n\n---How can you tell?\n\nAcrid notes of ==distress==, metallic notes of ==pain== --- an odor so\nmuch like hemolymph, not by coincidence.  Drawn morbidly, Cipher\nneared an alley, thin gap between packed buildings.\n\n---Scents for warning and tracking, and here.  (She crouched,\ntugging at the shawl covering her hair.  Her silk fell out, a pale\nwaterfall.)  Cast a line. This is her silk.\n\nHeresy did not cast a line, though a spiderlouse crawled down her\nneck. The chrylurk plucked it with a claw and tossed it toward Cipher.\nA dragline stretched the distance; upon it, the roof-filtered drizzle\nwas caught and suspended.\n\nDiscarded silk, scattered among the grime and puddles, was faintly\ndrawn upward by her hair's evanescence, like iron filings to a magnet,\nwhile the spiderlouse dug about for the same and began to chew.\n\nThen Heresy's swarmling found it: a hooked spool of shed chitin, still\nbearing knots of preserved serivane.\n\nHeresy seesawed her antennae, a nod.\n\n---Her belaying spool (sent the hunter.) So she clipped her\nhive-bindings here.\n\n---Three reasons you might do that (sent Cipher.)  One, to protect\nherself: she needed quiessence to hide from an alchemist.  Two, to\nprotect us: she needed to cut her trail so an alien hive couldn't\nfind ours---\n\n---Why leave tracking pheromones, then?  Why lure us?\n\nCipher rose, hair waving in an wind that did not exist.  Her apertures\nnarrowed to slits at the interruption, but she continued:\n\n---Or three, she had no choice.  She lacked the sanguimel reserves to\nmaintain hive-bindings.\n\n---She dropped everything.  Maintaining one thread or even sending a\ndistress signal would not deplete her unless she was already\nstarving.\n\n---You think that makes it impossible.  I think it makes it so much\nmore concerning.\n\n---It would mean she might be---forgotten.\n\nCipher took a step toward her sister, a clawed leg reaching out\n(reaching up; the hunter was taller) and touching a coxa-shoulder.\nReassuring, except for the sharpness of her prod.\n\n---If the alternative is she fought an alchemist? (sent Cipher.)  I\nthink both these threads tie the same knot.\n\nCreak.\n\nCipher had to turn her head --- Heresy could see it already.\n\nWhile they'd investigated, a door had opened further down the alley.\n\nA human bore a lantern in hand and carried a pot stinking of refuse\nand waste, fit to be tossed among the alley's garbage.  He dropped\nboth at the sight of the two shadow-black bugs skulking.\n\n'(I wonder if he'll answer our questions,)' Cipher thought.\n\n\"More of them?\" came his whisper aghast.\n\n'(Nevermind,)' Cipher thought.\n\nChitin-hooves smashed against cold stone.  Abound as the pair were,\nwhen Heresy leapt high, Cipher was already crouching low.  They moved\nin concert; the larger hunter lunging and the lithe weaver skittering.\n\nCipher's silken hair writhed akin to a pit of snakes.  Rope, woven in\npreparation for this operation, unslung itself.  The jab of one\nprimary claw hooked a rope, and a flick of her secondary hand sent a\nthorny loop toward her prey, while finally the grip of her tertiary\ntalons kept her braced to the stone of the alley.\n\nHeresy fell with a predator's vicious grace.  The man witnessed\nsudden, vision-eclipsing violence.  A chrylurk was upon him --- two\nprimary raptorials stuck down to disable his arms --- one secondary\nhand thrust forward, strangle-tight at his neck to silence the\nscreams.\n\nHe could do nothing --- not even run.  The rope Cipher had thrown\nalready whipped past him and curled around his legs, thorns digging\ninto linen.  All his limbs were bound.\n\nHe fell: the thunk against the stone was wet in two ways. Cipher\nstill skittered forward.  Swarmlings crawled out from the nest between\nher legs, and she sent them seeking onward, destined for the\nstill-open door. But her focus on was on her over-eager sister.\n\n---Bite him (Cipher advised.) Tranquilize the threat.  We can drain\nhim later.\n\n---No.\n\n---More useful to us alive.   Can't drain or parascixtize dead meat.\n\nHeresy lifted a claw and slammed it down.  Blood gushed as her claws\ndug in, then a gurgling sound, then she ripped.  The man's trachae\nwas gore dislodged from a bloody cavity.\n\n\"Exšh't,\" she scraped.\n\nCipher thought of Disgrace, those acrid notes of distress and the\nhive-bindings clipped and spooled with panicked abruptness.\n\n---I don't blame you (Cipher sent.)\n\nHeresy rose, her hooves giving the corpse with a bone-shattering\nstomp.  Her head snapped to her sister, proboscis curled sneeringly\nhigh, toothed mandibles bare.\n\n---Obviously.  How could you? (she sent, but her hive-song was more\ntone than message.  Brutal satisfaction and hate radiating.)\n\nAgain, a shared thought and two moved as one.  Heresy lifted her\ndripping secondary hand, and Cipher rose from her skitter-crouch like\na flower growing.  Rivulets of blood descended from the\nmurder-drenched hand and fell upon Cipher's mouthparts.  Her\nhypopharynx darted forward to lick blood warm from the killing.\n\nHeresy's other hand came forth, brushing across Cipher's head.  A pat\nfor one second before she gripped the voluminous silk-hair and pulled\nher sister up the rest of the way.\n\n---Let's finish this (the hunter said, chiding.)  You were yapping\nabout what's useful, but this---\n\n---Cost nothing (the weaver interrupted.)  I sent my swarmlings to\nscout the building, and I await a report.  Three more heat signatures\non the ground floor, smells like two humans and a freemouse.\n\n---And Disgrace?\n\n---Her scent's strongest behind a door my bugs cannot slip past.  No\nway to reach her but through the mortals.\n\n---Do you want me to wait around for you to spin up a plan?\n\n---I was thinking about the utility of that.\n\n---So \"yes\".  That answer is \"yes\" and takes six words less.\n\n---It's \"no,\" I think.  The sound of your violence was muffled by the\nrain, and I wove a vaneweb --- reckless, but telling.  Were any of\nthese mortals alchemists of the most dangerous sort, they would have\nsensed it and stirred into action at once.\n\n---So they're all easy pickings.  That also takes less words.\n\n'(Disgrace would tell you to be nicer to me)' Cipher thought.  But she\ndidn't send it --- not when that rift in their hive's fabric had not\nyet been stitched.\n\nAnd there was no way to mend it but to cut.\n\nCipher stepped aside.  The door was on the right side of the alley,\nand she'd skittered along the right wall.  Now she followed a hair's\nbreadth behind Heresy --- an easy distance to manage when both moved\nin concert.\n\nHeresy opened up the door gently.  For all her ferocity, she knew not\nto spook her prey.  She stepped inside and did not even need to scan\naround.\n\nCipher's swarm had carried forth lines of silk, so both chrylurks knew\nthe lay of the space.  The side door opened perpendicular to a\ncorridor which joined to one room rich in heat and scent (likely the\nkitchen) and one room with mud tracks (likely the entrance).\n\nThe two humans were behind this wall before them, but reaching them\nmeant going around.  The freemouse stood in the kitchen, pausing at\nthe door's faint creak.\n\nSwarmlings relayed all they heard and all they vibrated their\nsilken lines.  Cipher's stout scalp-hive integrated all these\nnoise-waves, but it was guess-work.\n\n\"Malkom ------ so long.  Trash's ------ hold up?\"  Snatches of\nalmost-intelligible speech from the other room.\n\n\"He's ------ing.  Patience.\"\n\n\"Keep going w------out him.  Just skip ------.\" Followed by a laugh.\n\n\"Not fair, n------ fair.  Maybe ------ can check in on him?\"\n\n\"R------, the help'll fetch 'em.\"  Then he continued in a louder voice\nthat carried through the house:  \"Hey! Yoneymums!\"\n\nThe freemouse perked up.  \"Yes, master-mine?\"  High-pitched, squeaky.\n\nBefore her parascixion, Cipher had known freemice could be proud.\nThis? This was affected.  Embarrassing.\n\n\"Malkom went out!  Fetch him, see what's up!\"\n\n\"As you-you wish!\" \n\n---The servant is coming this way.  Think you're for taking out the\nhumans? (Cipher sent.)\n\nIt was bait.  '(Disgrace would say be nicer.)'\n\n---Thinking that mouse might be too much for you? (she replied.)\n\nBut they both moved, Heresy stalking rightward, back toward the\nentrance.  This time, Cipher leapt, her claws finding purchase in the\nwooden walls.  She climbed, weaving lines behind her, and soon found\nherself on the ceiling, held up by hooked claws and bound silk.\n\nShe could continue down the corridor.  Or...\n\nThe freemouse darted forw",
  "title": "Zeal of the Covert"
}