Chapter 4: The Grove
by**Ding! You have been afflicted by Lesser Cave Spider Venom**
Even as Kaius read the notification, he felt a burning inflamed heat growing from the wound.
“Blasted depths, not now!” he muttered to himself.
Numbness spread through his arm. He had to pick up the pace. A quick look satisfied him that no more spiders were coming to ambush him from the ceiling so he ran forward. Bringing the fight to the remaining handful of spiders.
Without the element of surprise they fared as well as the rest of their brethren. Their sticky ichor coating his boots and the blade of his sword.
Kaius threw his head around, looking all over the walls and ceiling for more of the creatures. Nothing. He could feel his heart thumping in his chest, failing to calm even as he leaned onto the soiled cave wall. Pain, thankfully easy to ignore, shot through his arm and back, radiating out from his wound in lockstep with his heartbeat.
His Health was burning by the second, expended to stave off the violent effects of the venom.
“Gotta get back to the entrance room…” The thoughts came slowly, impeded by the thick fog that had begun to cloud his mind. If he could get there he would be safe from attack, would have time for Rapid Adaptation to work its magic.
With shaking hands Kaius managed to sheathe his sword, too preoccupied by the pain and weakness coursing through his body to bother dealing with the ichor that still coated its hilt. Leaning on the wall with his good arm he began to stumble towards safety, the venom spreading through his body by the second.
He had to make it back.
He would make it back.
Step after arduous step.
He would make it. He had to.
The walls of the cave swayed precariously like a deep sea galleon under Kaius’s feet. Grasping for the roots that dotted the wall with a steadying hand did nothing to help with his vertigo.
Stumbling slowly, he made his way through the tunnels. Often he had to stop, convinced he was getting turned around even though his hand never left the rightmost edge of the cave. How many steps was it supposed to be? He was sure it wasn’t this far. Wasn’t he supposed to be going left?
It was only the radiating ache on his shoulder that kept him grounded. The writhing tendrils of expended Health had retreated from the surface of the wound. Concentrating around the deep well of venom left behind. Coursing through his veins with every heartbeat.
Insistent. Heightening his pain with every throb. Drawing him back from the fog.
He coughed, chest shuddering. A light splatter, his eyes drawn to the red blood.
Kaius checked his Health. The interface flickered into his eyeline a second later, the heavy weight of the poison slowing his thoughts. He watched its value drip away. It might have been slow, but it was decreasing all the same.
“Just need to survive long enough for Rapid Adaptation to do its thing…”
It was a trickle. Slow enough he might make it. As long as there weren’t any more spiders – any more venom and his healing wouldn’t be able to keep up. The entrance room. That was where he was going. He had to get to the entrance room.
With a groan, Kiaus forced himself to take another step as he leaned heavily on the cave wall.
That’s all there was to it. Just one foot after another.
Slumping against the wall of the cavern, he heard a splash. Something soaked through his pants. Was he sitting on the floor?
**Ding! Rapid Adaptation has added a new Resistance: Venom!**
Rapid Adaptation activated. Energy flooded out from his centre, corralling and encapsulating the venom as it purged it from his system. He gasped. The leaden weight on his mind and body retreated quickly.
**Ding! Rapid Adaptation has reached level 11!**
“Finally.” Kaius thought to himself
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Rapid Adaptation:
Level 11
Heroic
Danger lurks in every corner. Adapt or die.
This skill allows you to develop resistances to all damage types and afflictions. Novel dangers require a period of adaptation to develop a resistance. Certain sources of damage are harder to adapt to, such as physical harm and esoteric mana types.




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