Before entering the next chamber, it was necessary to deal with several new achievements. No sooner had the unnamed caught his breath than another message from the AI showed up.
** CONGRATULATIONS! **
You’ve just received the Grin and Bear It achievement for mitigating damage that should have killed you! Without that handy-dandy Sanitized Aura ability, I’m afraid you’d be dead right now.
Super dead.
Achievement Bonus: +1 Poison Resistance
This will help you resist poison. However, when walking through a poisonous gas cloud, I’d still suggest holding your breath.
** CONGRATULATIONS! **
You’ve just received the Dangerously Close to Copyright achievement, for very nearly being killed in identical fashion to the first release of a certain well-known film franchise. You know the one. Just don’t mention it by name; otherwise, our Disney overlords will be displeased!
Achievement Bonus: -1 Legal Defense
The lawyers are on the hunt, so watch your step.
** CONGRATULATIONS! **
You’ve just received the Captain Custodian Combo achievement for using more than one custodian ability at the same time! And yes, in case you’re wondering, this achievement didn’t originally include the title Captain Custodian, but what the hay. Your friends are already calling you that, so why not lean into it?!
Achievement Bonus: +2 Custodial Effectiveness
Five percent effectiveness increase to any custodian spells or abilities when they are used at the same time.
The unnamed endured the snarky achievement messages, brushing them aside as he prepared to move on. He was getting used to the constant interruptions and the repeated antagonism, to the point that they were mostly becoming background noise. He reminded himself that his primary task now was to get through the Rat Run in once piece. Once he’d managed that, he could deal with this rogue AI training collar business.
The next chamber wasn’t immediately familiar, but as the unnamed began making his way through the room, he felt an eerily familiar sense of impending threat. He couldn’t help but smile as he turned to Tusk and Vella.
“Okay, I’m gonna start running in a few seconds. I need you both to follow. There’s a fountain up ahead with a huge spider statue on top. You need to drink from the fountain to stop the spiders from attacking.”
“Drink?” Tusk asked. “What are we drinking?”
The unnamed shrugged. “Some kind of milky stuff. It’s not great. Smells like bleach, but as soon as you drink it the spiders leave you alone. Also, the chamber exit won’t appear unless we drink.”
Vella and Tusk both nodded. “We’ll be right behind you,” Vella said as the unnamed prepared to run.
He set off down the corridor just as spiders began to fall from the ceiling and jump off the walls. Legs and arms pumping, the unnamed ran as fast as he could manage, noting that Tusk and Vella were right at his side, clearly having no trouble keeping pace.
As with the first Rat Run chamber he’d tested, the stone floor began to slope down, leading toward the stone fountain with the spider figure and the pool of strange milk. Despite the fact that he was sprinting, something struck him immediately. The figure on top of the fountain was different. Instead of a larger version of one of the other spiders he had seen on the fountain previously, a far bigger, more lifelike figure resided in its place.
It looked more like a spider queen than an expanded version of one of the smaller arachnids. At around twice Tusk’s size, it loomed above the fountain, its body a mix of black and purple, with shimmering indigo eyes clustered on its face. A bulbous abdomen extended behind the creature, with long, multi-jointed legs hugging the outside of the fountain, perfectly still and lifelike.
The unnamed realized too late that this wasn’t a statue of a spider queen, but the queen herself. The figure moved its head as the group approached, fangs bared, shuffling itself around on its perch and hissing like a snake.
The unnamed could already see that the spider queen was so large that it wouldn’t be possible to reach the white liquid in the fountain without passing through her legs and within reach of those fangs. Dozens of smaller spiders were converging on the fountain as well, coming from all sides and dropping from the ceiling as the unnamed and the others reached the flat floor and came within twenty feet of the fountain.
“What about that!?” Vella shouted, pointing toward the spider queen.
“It wasn’t here last time!” the unnamed yelled in reply, still running.
He had no idea whether the spider milk would shield them all from the queen as well as the smaller arachnids. He also had no idea how they would get past her without being speared through the abdomen by those vicious-looking fangs.
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Thankfully, Vella was already several steps ahead of him. Somehow she’d managed to slip the backpack from her shoulders while she ran and, as she came within ten feet of the spider queen, tossed the pack up into the arachnid’s face.
The spider queen reared back, legs moving at speed as it rearranged itself on the fountain and skewered the backpack with her fangs. Within the space of two seconds, the unnamed, Tusk, and Vella all plunged into the fountain, their momentum carrying them over into the milky liquid before the spider queen could react.
The smell of bleach filled the unnamed’s nostrils, stinging his eyes and burning his mouth as he gulped down the strange liquid. A boot kicked him in the side as he struggled to right himself and raise his head above the liquid, and his foot was held fast, caught on something solid. For a moment he thought he was going to drown in the fountain of spidery bleach, but a hand grabbed him by one arm and hauled him up out of the liquid.
He wiped away the milky substance, seeing Tusk on his left side and Vella on his right. Neither of them seemed particularly pleased with the situation, but the unnamed noticed that the smaller spiders within the chamber had already calmed down and were slowly moving back to their hidden alcoves.
The three figures all looked up together, staring into the alien face of the spider queen. She loomed above them, still clinging to the fountain but seeming much larger and more menacing than she had from a distance.
The queen moved slowly, lowering her head and revealing the backpack skewered by one of her fangs. The giant arachnid moved so that the pack was hovering just above Vella, who reached up and pulled the bag free from the fang. Venom dripped from the pack as Vella wrenched it free, dropping into the fountain and hissing as it connected with the milky liquid.
With the backpack removed, the spider queen moved back into position, shifting her head so that those many eyes stared off toward the entrance of the chamber, as though she were now waiting for more visitors. The unnamed and his companions were apparently of no interest to the arachnid queen or her children, so the trio climbed out of the fountain and made their way toward a newly opened exit on the other side of the room.
Tusk grunted. “How long did it take you to get past this chamber the first time?”
The unnamed shook his head. “Too long. I tried to fight my way through it. Thought maybe this was a wave deal where I’d just have to kill off all the small spiders and then the door would open.”
“How’d that go?”
“About as well as expected. The venom works too quickly, so even if you kill a bunch, if one of them gets you, it’ll drop you soon enough.”
Vella squeezed her hair, trying to get as much of the white liquid out as possible.
“How did you figure out you needed to drink that stuff?”
“I kind of fell into it. Well, I literally fell into it. Just luck, I guess.”
** CONGRATULATIONS! **
You’ve just received the Mother’s Milk achievement for drinking, you guessed it, mother’s milk! That noxious liquid you were swimming around in was actually milk taken directly from the spider queen herself. Once a mommy’s boy, always a mommy’s boy, I guess.
Achievement Bonus: +1 Lactose Tolerance
Seeing as you like it so much, enjoy some more milk!
The unnamed coughed and spluttered, eyes wide.
“What? What is it?” Vella asked.
“That stuff we just swallowed. It came from the spider queen. It’s spider milk.”
Tusk roared with laughter. “Dude, that’s rad!”
Vella clearly didn’t share his sentiment. She was spitting the remains of the milk out of her mouth, holding her hands out in front of her and trying to shake it off her fingers.
“Oh my God, that’s…disgusting!”
She and the unnamed spent the next few minutes trying to rid themselves of the milk, a pointless task given that their clothes were soaked in it. Tusk simply laughed, shaking his head and making a range of increasingly unsavory jokes relating to their predicament.
The unnamed was troubled, not only by the fact that he had ingested spider milk, but by the fact that the spider chamber had been different the second time around than it was like when he’d first encountered it. What did that mean for the other chambers he had previously faced? Would they each have differences, increased difficulties that would change the requirements to clear each room?
What did that mean for The Knowledge? Dread suddenly began flooding his mind. What if he hadn’t given his fellow initiates a guidebook to successfully getting through the Rat Run but instead had sent them into the jaws of certain failure? Luck had allowed him and his companions to clear the spider chamber on this occasion, but who was to say the other initiates wouldn’t encounter more significant changes?
He immediately checked his stats, looking to use the fraternity points he was being awarded as a guide as to whether his fellow initiates were still able to use The Knowledge to clear rooms.
** RAT RUN INITIATE 012 **
Total Score: 3900
Fraternity: 3150
Perception: 450
Endurance: 300
Martial Prowess: 0
He was somewhat taken aback by the sudden jump in his score and especially the huge number of points awarded to fraternity. That meant that the other initiates were using The Knowledge, but as he continued to dwell on the problem, the unnamed realized that it didn’t necessarily mean they were clearing rooms. They could be using his information but still dying over and over again while he racked up fraternity points.
He was suddenly shaken from his contemplation by a slap on the back from Tusk. The half-orc was still grinning.
“You got any more gross fluids you plan on getting us to drink?”
“Not if I can help it.”
Vella came walking over, grimacing. “I know it’s not real. I mean, this is all part of the simulation but…that taste! And just the thought of where it all came from.”
Tusk frowned. “Where does spider milk come from? I didn’t think spiders had boobies.”
Vella rolled her eyes. “They don’t have boobies, bagel brain! They’re arachnids, not mammals.”
The big half-orc made a tiny milking gesture with the thumb and forefinger of one hand. “Then where do they get the milk from?”
“Enough!” Vella snapped. “I don’t want to think about it, so can we just never talk about this again? Please!”
Tusk held up his hands in mock surrender. “Hey, I was just asking. Besides, you know you were both thinking the same thing.”
The unnamed shook his head. “The spider queen wasn’t in that room the last time I was there. Everything else looked the same, but it was just a statue on the fountain. No spider queen.”
“So?” Tusk said. “You still got us through it. Still knew how to clear the room.”
“Yeah, but I thought that all the chambers would be more or less the same no matter when they show up. What if they’re not though? What if there are differences like that in every room?”
The half-orc frowned, struggling to see what he was getting at.
Vella nodded. “You’re worried that maybe the info you put into The Knowledge won’t be a hundred percent accurate?” she asked, cutting right to the point. “You think it might be causing problems for the others?”
“Yeah, exactly.”
She waved away his response. “You’re getting ahead of yourself. First, you don’t know that all the rooms are going to be different. Could be that the spider room is the only one which isn’t exactly the same. Also, you’re forgetting that the initiates would have nothing to go on if it wasn’t for you. At least having some idea of what’s out there gives them a head start. It’s much better than going in blind.”
“Is it though?” the unnamed pressed. “What if they head into a chamber thinking it’s gonna be a nice easy path through a few simple puzzles and then a pack of rabid bears are set loose?”
She smiled. “You’re not responsible for the other initiates. You’re in our team, so all you need to do is help us get through. That’s it. Don’t worry about anyone else, and don’t worry about The Knowledge.”
“Yeah,” Tusk said, throwing an arm over the unnamed’s shoulders. “Now all this talk of milk is making me hungry, so can we please, for the love of Pete, have lunch?!”