Luckily for me, not long after that, the little white spider found me and had a few of its bigger relatives with it. They came bearing gifts of silk wrapped ‘Preserved Mana Rat Corpses’ to feed me with and I was able to add some more time to the… well, timer. What they originally brought me wasn’t enough and they had to catch me more. I happily feasted on what they gave me, but I eventually succumbed to the mild paralytic venom they used to subdue their prey and collapsed.

The system assured that it would wear off in a couple hours and that I shouldn’t worry about it too much. I had also eaten enough to have 12+ hour buffer so I didn’t really need the reassurance, but I think the little white spider could have used some. It was panicking after my collapse and was scurrying all over my motionless and unresponsive form. There wasn’t really anything I could do to reassure the creature so I just watched what I could of it until I drifted off to sleep.

When I woke up though, it was because of pain. My…. everything hurt with a thudding headache sitting on top of it like a rotting, throbbing cherry on shit sundae. Add to it the flashing red messages of me having dangerously low health and mana, and I was able put two and two together. For some reason, I had overslept, and my 'Starved' condition was far more dangerous than either me or the System had thought.

There was also a thin sheet of webbing covering me that I was able to see through when I opened my eyes to see if I could fix things fast enough for me not to die. Luckily for me, there was pile of silk wrapped mana rats within arm’s reach and the silk covering me was easily torn apart by my movement. I grabbed two from the pile and downed them quickly in succession with my skill for a rough estimation of breakfast.

While I waited for my meal to digest and regain my energy, a familiar white spider came into view. I held my hand out to it, and it crawled hesitantly on, giving off the impression that it was scared and ashamed of what had happened to me. I had a pretty good idea of why it was feeling that way, and I did my best to comfort it and tell it that it hadn’t done anything wrong.

Yes, it was a mistake. No, I wasn’t mad. No, didn’t know I could be poisoned by the mana rats either. Yes, I was going to be careful. No, I wasn’t going to throw the rest away. It’s going to be okay.

The brief impulse to put the spiderling into my mouth and swallow it in order to comfort it further, to take way its ‘burden’ but that was impossible. My insides weren’t safe – at least not yet anyways at the very least – for it to be in. If I were to give in to that impulse, I would have killed it for sure. I didn’t want that and forcibly pushed it aside and focused on comfort the little spider in a more traditional manner.

To that end, I started to fill the empty spaces in my inventory with the extra rats to show that its good will wouldn’t be going to waste. I soon found out that each one could only carry two before I started to feel a weight in my mind. I had a feeling that was important and somehow related to my strength stat since the System had told me earlier that both were used for the inventory skill. I only managed to get seven of the pre-package rats into my inventory before I had to start rearranging my items.

There were only a few rats left so I started with the cloak since that was meant to be worn anyways and tossed a couple into the slot it had occupied. I went with the cloth wrappings next to see if I could use them to cover my tattoo like marking and its freaky eye. As it turned out, there were enough to indeed cover it and I had a feeling the System had put them there for that exact reason, but I never thought to use them like that.

I tossed the final rat into the slot it had occupied and got up to go back to where I had left the knife. The little spiderling had calmed down by then and had begun to clean me of the silk it had covered me. I gave it a few encouraging pets while I walked to let it know that it was doing good.

When I arrived at the site where I had left the system gifted knife, I found it and something rather interesting. Something had dug a trench through the mat of plant life I had been trying to cut my way through while trying to follow the line of pulsing energy. The trench made following the line much easier for me, so I collected my knife and worked on cleaning it as I went to see where the line lead.

Which, as it turned out, was a wall. A very blank, impassible wall. It also, interestingly enough, brought me to the cave spider that had brought me the little white spider after it had healed. At least I thought it was the same one. It was giving me a hopeful look and I sighed as I gave it some head pats and one of the rats that were in my inventory. It had worked hard and deserved a bit of a reward after all of that. It wasn’t the spider monster’s fault that the power line had led to a dead end, it was only trying to help.

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Determined not to give up, I consumed one of the stored rats with my skill to ‘top off’ my timer and went about investigating the wall. The makers of this place had to have a way through the wall, otherwise they wouldn’t have been able to lay the ‘power line’ through it. Unless they had made a hole and then sealed it up after they were done. This world did have magic after all so that made it an all too possible outcome.

The other was that there was a hidden door here and I just had to find it or the switch that opened it. Hopefully it wouldn’t be a key word or something because then I was fairly certain I would be thoroughly screwed over. I ran my hands over the seemingly bare wall in search for a switch to open the possible door.

The two spiders watched me for a moment before joining in themselves. The little white one jumped onto the wall while the cave spider swept the ends of its feeler legs over the stony surface. I chuckled at the little one’s antics while I worked but it was the cave spider and its feelers that ultimately found what I needed. It tapped insistently at a spot that was about a foot to the right of where I was looking and wouldn’t stop until I placed my hand there.

When I did, runes came to life all over the wall and lit the place up before there was a deep rumbling sound that vibrated the floor. The little one jumped back to me at the noise and hid behind my right shoulder for safety. A moment later, there was a grinding of stone on stone as a door sized hole appeared in the wall over the pulsing line. There was a proper hallway through the stone beyond it and it was brightly lit with glowing runes. Bright when compared to the perpetual gloom I had been living in for over a day at least.

With the way forward opened, I turned to my two companions I had made decided to give them a couple of names. They would need them later if I came back changed and they didn’t recognize me. If I could get the names to stick, then they would know it was me since I was only one who new them. I hoped.

“Alright, now that I’ve found this, I’m going to have to leave you two here. I don’t know if you two can understand me or not, but where I am going will be very dangerous and I don’t want the two of you to get hurt. I may not come back the same either but that will be on me. So, that you know it's me even if what comes back doesn’t look like it, I’m giving the two of you names so that you two know that it's me. I’m also going to tell you two my name, so you know it as well.” I told them before putting the little one on the big one so I could look at them both while I was talking.

“I’m Samuel.” I told them, pointing to myself before pointing to the little one.

“You’re Silkie.” I said to it and moved my finger over to point down at the big one.

“And you’re Bruce. Understand?” I asked them when I was done.

They just looked at me expectantly, so I went over the names a few more times before testing them on which name belonged to who. When they finally passed with flying colors, I rewarded the two spiders. Bruce got another rat and head pats while Silkie got some pets and cuddle time. While I was doing that, the strange urge came again, this time to lick them. I pushed it aside like I had the last one and got down to business.

“Alright, now that we all know each other’s names, it's time for me to go. I may not come back to you the same as when I left, but I will come back. I can’t say the same for you if the two of you get hurt so I need you two to stay here, where its safe. Understand? Now Stay.” I told the pair of them, and I pointed down at the ground to punctuate the last word.

I got a chorus of churring from the pair of them and assumed that they understood. The door had closed in that time, so I had to open it again. While I waited for the stone to move, I felt something small crawl onto me and up to my shoulder.

“You don’t listen very well, do you?” I told it as I glanced to my shoulder with a sigh to give it a look of disapproval.

I stepped through the doorway once it was open and looked back expectantly at Bruce. He backed away and I nodded in approval.

“Good boy, Bruce.” I told him as I watched the door close behind me.

There was a kind of sterile finality to it once my way out was gone in that well-lit place. I didn’t care for it or the light and neither did Silkie. She held her furry feeler legs in front of her eyes to protect the sensitive orbs while I had to make do with squinting. Luckily for me, my eyes adjusted to the light unlike Silkie’s. Feeling sorry for the naughty little hitchhiker, I carefully tucked her into my shirt to give her some relief and protection from the light.

With that done, I took a closer look at the hallway that I was in. It was lined with a scattering of open doorways, and I couldn’t help but take a peek into each one as I searched for the so-called containment area. Most of the rooms looked to be either offices or labs and one of them even looked like the control booth of the place I was looking for. I headed into it with some hope only to find out it was a defunct one connected to a destroyed containment room. I looked around at the flickering and fizzling runes with a sigh and gave the rubble strewn pit a disappointed look before leaving.