he Second Forbidden Zone was situated on the dividing line between the Northern province and the North-eastern province of Regiis. It was a rocky wasteland. A frigid rocky wasteland. A place of vast snowfields littered with towering spires of dark rock and riddled with a vast network of underground rock caverns – it was home to a colony of arachnid beasts.

There were two main varieties of spiders – wind and earth. The wind spiders wove their webs among the tall spires of rock while the earth spiders didn't weave webs, inhabiting the underground caverns instead. The two varieties were perpetually at war with each other, which was the reason that they didn't cause much trouble beyond the Forbidden Zone. But, at the same time, if anyone tried to invade the Forbidden Zone, and tap into the rich magical resources formed by the naturally formed Wind and Earth super-topologies, then the two would unite and pursue the foreigners.

Also, there were many sub-classes of the wind and earth spiders, each of them forming small tribes according to their habits and infighting amongst each other as well. It was the second largest Forbidden Zone in the entirety of Regiis, dwarfed only by the First Forbidden Zone – that too only because the giant swarm of locusts that made up the First Forbidden Zone was migratory and all the regions in its path of migration was considered to fall within the range of the Zone.

A large section of the income of the Northern and North-eastern provinces came from organizing expeditions into the Forbidden Zone. If there was a successful one recently then the markets would soon be flooded with spider silk. That was definitely going to be a better material than fire ant hair.

"What species of spider silk would be the most appropriate?" asked Ceres.

She had read up a lot on Forbidden Zones and the usual tactics used to explore and conquer them in preparation for our expedition into the Sixth Forbidden Zone. She was quite a bit more knowledgeable about this topic than me.

"I was thinking Cloud-surfer silk would be the best. If we can't get that.. then Scarp-weaver silk is the next best." Noticing that Ceres seemed to recognize the names, she commended, "Well.. you're quite well-informed." Then realization hit her. "Ahh.. right. I can guess why. It must have been quite the experience," she said sympathetically.

"Yes," agreed Ceres, "it was.. Anyway, we'll need a bit of time to consider. Do you mind?"

"Oh no, not at all. Take all the time you need. But just try to decide within a fortnight.. I need time to contact the adventurer's guild after all."

Ceres nodded in acknowledgement.

Seeing that the business part of the meeting was over temporarily, Lara burst into the conversation. She looked like staying silent for so long had physically hurt her. "I saw your husband engraving runes on a knife outside. Does he do both the metal work as well as the runes for the weapons?"

"He only does some basic rune work. He mainly works the metal. Most of the advanced stuff is done by me. " she said, smiling proudly.

Lara's eyes widened in surprise. "I saw one of your weapons in my father's arsenal. The rune work was really impressive. Don't you find it difficult with your cultivation base?"

Marge shrugged. "Tier 2 is more than enough for any sort of engraving. I just have to take more frequent breaks to recover my mana. It takes a bit more time, is all. Blindly chasing a high cultivation without any skill is just silly in my opinion. Which weapon are you talking about? I remember making both a glaive and a bow for your family."

"Ah. The glaive.."

They went on to discuss runes. It was interesting for a while before they devolved into jargon and I stopped being able to follow. Lara seemed to have quite a bit of expertise in this field. Thankfully, she didn't continue the conversation for too long, Lara managing to wrangle a promise of another appointment from Marge before we left the store, assuring her that we would let her know of our decision as soon as possible.

"So, you're a runic craftsman?" asked Phobos as we made our way towards the Fire sector so we could take an elevator to the Water sector, towards the library.

Lara adjusted a lock of her fiery hair embarrassedly. "Ah.. no, just a hobbyist."

"Well, you seemed quite serious while you were talking with Marge. I might ask you for help sometime."

"Sure. Why not? I'll be with you guys most of the time anyway in the following weeks."

Before they could continue, Ceres interjected, "Excuse me, could you tell me if any male in our generation from the Lupin family has married a Salamandra.. or is slated to."

The Lupin family was a family of hereditary nobles descended from the Demigod known simply as the Wind Wolf. I could guess why Ceres was asking the question.

Lara narrowed her eyes slightly at Ceres before relaxing and answering, "Yes. There is. I guess you know that we hereditary nobles are only allowed to marry someone out of our own clan and amongst ourselves. It's so that the thickness of our blood is maintained and also so it doesn't get too thick if you get what I mean."

Not to mention that it would forge closer ties between the families and the Demigods as they would, in effect, be one large extended family. I could understand why they would be miffed at the sudden addition of a hereditary noble family.

Lara continued, "It's Erin, my cousin sister, who is marrying the Lupin heir: Ivan. And before you ask, we were searching for a bridal gift and the fire needles sound perfect. I do believe Marge was making a sales pitch by demonstrating them." She shrugged. "Well, she succeeded. If you choose to go for the spider silk, we can help you through our channels. I think we have some Cloud-surfer silk in our storehouse."

"What's a Cloud-surfer?" asked Deimos.

Pushing up her glasses, Ceres answered, "It's a type of spider found in the Second Forbidden Zone. The webs it spin are naturally lighter than air. The silks clump together in the form of clouds that float in the wind and the spiders live above these clouds. The silks are tougher than steel wire and extremely light and long. They are perfect for razor wire."

Reaching an elevator, all of us got in and once again Deimos injected her mana into the palm-print and it took us to the surface.

Turning to Ceres, Lara said, "I know that it'll be an unfair deal for you guys as the spider silk you will get will be Tier 3 at the most while you have enough Tier 4 and Tier 5 needles to make a full set that will last a mage their life. I'll tell you what.. sell us this favour and we guarantee that we'll collect the material for you. After all, Tier 2 and 3 wires will last you a long while yet."

She chuckled. "If nothing else works, I'll just have to sacrifice my dignity and act cute in front of grandpa."