Portia, restless during a silk sculpture honoring her crew, slips away to clear her mind above Seven Trees. Fabian, her quick and devoted assistant, finds her and performs a courtship dance to steady her nerves on the eve of a dangerous mission. Below, art concludes; above, Portia steels herself for history.

Elsewhere, Bianca, a polymath who has driven the mission’s conception, works late. She cross-checks calculations with an ant colony model and contemplates the lineage of knowledge that led here, feeling reverence for the venture and responsibility for future generations.

At dawn, Portia’s twelve-strong team assembles beyond the city. The vast Sky Nest floats in, and the crew climbs aboard. Viola assumes command, interfacing with the airship’s systems while the adaptive gasbag expands. The airship’s ant-driven neural network continually reshapes the vessel, coordinating its complex responses faster than any crew could manage.

As the Sky Nest rises, suited crew check the “god-engines,” propellers turned by bioelectric fields inspired by the Messenger’s ancient directive. The capsule’s insulated silk layers and reflective skin prepare them for thin, cold air. The crew’s excitement grows; Portia remains solemn, calming herself with the familiar mathematics of the First Message.

Viola confirms all is well by radio. In the Great Nest district, Bianca receives the signal and transmits a bolder one outward: an announcement to the Messenger that the spiders are coming, marking the moment their ascent moves from ambition to declaration.