It only took Devon another ten minutes of exploring to find something interesting.

He'd found himself at another split in the path, but this one was quite different than the ones before it. The way forward was completely blocked off, and the base of a sheer cliff face stood before him, reaching a couple dozen meters in height. There was a short path off to his left and a longer path off to his right.

Ordinarily, he would have just continued right to try and find another split in the path that could take him further up the mountain, but something on the left caught his attention. Against the wall of the cliff face was an opening, a passageway that looked like it led to some kind of small cave.

Devon made his way over to the opening. He was only a half hour's trek away from his current camp, so he didn't quite need a new one just yet. Still, he figured it wouldn't hurt to poke his head in and check it out.

Past the opening was what seemed to be a large cavernous space, with a familiar crack of light providing a soft illumination to the surrounding walls. A terminal. He softly stepped through the opening, cautiously making his way into the cave.

He made it several steps in before he bumped into something sticky on the ground. He tried to pull his shoe free but found it to be stuck to whatever he'd stepped into. A feeling of immense wrongness shot through his being, and he slipped his shoe off before leaping back towards the entrance.

Less than a second after he moved a huge figure slammed into the ground he'd been standing on. The light coming in from the entranceway revealed the creature's eight spindly legs and hulking body. Devon also saw the glint of liquid reflected off a poker that had pierced through his shoe.

[Mountain Trap Spider?? - Level 19]

[Discovery Bonus]

Devon quickly scrambled out of the cave. There was no way he could fight a level 19, especially not one like that. He cursed internally, frustrated that the system had spawned a terminal in the middle of a monster nest.

He had noticed something interesting about the monster though. Unlike everything else in this world, it hadn't seemed to attack him on sight. It had waited until he had stepped into its trap to pounce. Devon wondered if maybe he could use that to bait out an attack and then strike, but he scrapped the idea immediately. There was just no way he could kill a creature twice his level.

He sighed outside the opening. The spider's body was just slightly bigger than the opening in the wall, so Devon wasn't afraid of it coming after him and took the moment to take a breather.

He looked down the ravine that extended alongside the mountain. He debated continuing on that way, but the scramble out of the cave had reminded him just what a pain it was to walk on the rough stone under his feet without shoes.

After a minute of thinking he decided to leave the ravine temporarily. He needed a terminal, desperately. Yet if he continued exploring the canyons below he'd be greatly limiting his visible range, and he might miss a terminal that he passed on the surface.

So he reluctantly started climbing up the rough stone wall at the end of the path next to the cave entrance. Traveling topside would be extremely dangerous and potentially ill advised if the overseers he assumed were looking for him had made it this far up the mountain, but that was a risk he was willing to take to get some damn clothes.

If I don't find a terminal to get supplies from I'm probably as good as dead anyway.

It took him five minutes to scale the wall. It was a much easier climb than the first one since he didn't have to blindly search for footholds beneath him.

He clambered up over the ledge, but immediately regretted his life choices and slipped back down over the edge. Around 30 meters away from him, looking down into the ravine he'd been traveling along earlier, was a reptilian figure that stood on two legs.

[Overseer Tal'o Dar - Level 24]

The overseer was dressed in some strange chitin battle armor, and held a savage looking axe in its hand.

This was terrible. He didn't know what to do. If he exited the ravine and made a run or tried to hide somewhere the overseer would probably see him and kill him before he had a chance to resist. If he went back down into the ravine he would eventually just get run down by the overseer anyway. It was already looking over the canyon he'd been in just a few minutes ago. If he tried to cross the branching pathway that led to the unexplored portion of the system of narrow ravines the overseer would probably see him cross, so there was no point trying to hide.

He was cornered. The only options were to try and run, which wouldn't work, try and fight the overseer, which definitely wouldn't work, or try and fight the giant spider, which almost certainly wouldn't work and would still end up with the overseer finding him once the lizard heard the noise of the fight.

Then an idea popped into his head as his mind raced.

Profession. Create Plot.

What is the objective of new plot?

Set objective as… claim terminal.

Calculating… Done.

Reading user intent to auto-generate Tasks… Done.

Accept Plot?

[Claim the Terminal]

Tasks: [Kill Mountain Trap Spider], [Kill Overseer Tal'o Dar]

Accept plot.

Confirmed.

He made his way back down the cliff as swiftly and silently as he could. Once he reached the bottom he took a deep breath. There was no time to mentally prepare himself for what he was about to try, he simply had to trust his instincts.

He stepped out into the intersection of ravines and looked back the way he had come. He saw a scaled face peeking over the edge only a dozen meters away, and the reptilian eyes of the overseer instantly locked on to him.

He didn't have to fake fear this time. He wasn't protected by the system any longer, and the lizardman had a true motivation to kill him now.

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He bolted back to the dead end and went inside the cave. As soon as he was beyond the threshold he pressed himself against the wall just around the door and tried to make himself as still and silent as possible. He silently thanked the heavens that the spider had reset its position at the top of the cavern.

Seconds later the overseer burst into the cavern as well. He came to a stop just a few paces away from the entrance, not far enough in to step into the webbing, but far enough for Devon to spring his trap.

Devon bodyslammed the reptilian, feeling like he might as well have just bodyslammed a wall. The stat difference between a level 9 and a level 24 wasn't anything to scoff at, and Devon would have bet money that the shove barely even registered as an attack to the overseer. But that was partially because it wasn't an attack.

The force of the blow was enough to send the reptilian stumbling several steps forward into the cave, where it got its foot caught on a web and tripped, sending it fully into the webs.

It only took an instant for the spider to land on top of the reptilian and pierce him with its venomous stinger. The overseer screamed in pain, but the level difference between a level 19 and a level 24 also wasn't anything to scoff at.

The overseer swung its axe with a snarl, embedding the weapon in the spider's giant body, but found the weapon ripped from his hand when the spider twisted its body away. Then with a great burst of strength, the overseer kicked the spider's hulking mass off it, sending it a few feet up into the air until it crashed back into the ground 3 meters away.

The overseer pulled on the webs around it, pushing them to their limit before they broke with snaps that echoed in the cavern. It got back to its feet and turned to Devon, eyes full of a primal rage. It didn't care about the spider, under normal circumstances the reptilian probably wouldn't even have considered it a threat. All it cared about was seeing Devon dead.

But the spider didn't have such reservations. It was already back on its legs when the overseer took a step toward Devon, who was frozen in place. The spider, determined not to let its prey move toward the entrance and escape, hooked pieces of the scattered webbing on the floor around its legs and gave them precise yanks.

Large swaths of the webbing from both the floor and the walls of the cavern were lifted up into the air. The spider, like the master weaver it was, converged the trajectories of all those layers to slam into the overseer. The reptilian tried to leap towards Devon and the entrance, but the webbing it had stepped on was strong enough to stop his movement for the moment it took for him to be confined in the trap.

The spider made its way toward him at a slow and measured pace. Once it was on top of the poor fellow ensnared in the webs it started pulling more in, dragging in all the webs scattered around the room to create a cocoon around the overseer. Then it stabbed its stinger into the ball, repeatedly.

Devon winced as he heard the muffled screaming from within, but continued to watch for perhaps a dozen more jabs before he made his move. There was still one more hurdle to cross.

Task [Kill Overseer Tal'o Dar] complete.

He took his sword out of his inventory as he slowly stepped forward. The spider was big enough that he wasn't confident he could reach its head with his spear, so he was betting it all on being able to figure out this damn command in the heat of combat.

In his focus on the creature before him, Devon didn't see the rock he kicked to the side, but the spider heard it.

The creature rounded on him, and in the dim light Devon saw a massive slit on its head open up to reveal a massive eye. The instant it locked gazes with him it roared with a bestial rage.

How disgusting. So that's why it didn't aggro on me like everything else. A creature probably has to see me to become enraged, but since the spider was just acting based on touch impulses from the webs, it only ever registered me as something moving within the web.

Devon stepped forward, determined not to be deterred by the overwhelming pressure of fighting something several times larger than him and twice his level. He shoved his fear aside, leaping towards one of the legs of the beast.

Activate Sever!

His sword made it a decent way into the girthy leg of the spider, but it didn't go deeper than he thought he could manage on his own. He barely managed to yank the sword out before dodging the stinger of the spider.

As I thought, the thing is pretty slow and clumsy on its own, so it won't bother trying to move out of the way. It'll just attack with that damn stinger.

He swung at another leg, Use Sever.

Once again his attack didn't have the desired effect. He looked toward the thing's ass, ready to dodge the stinger, but as he started to pull his sword out he felt a massive weight slam into him as the leg he cut into slammed into him.

Devon was sent sailing and slammed into the rock wall. He felt the breath knocked out of him as he slammed into the stone, and again as he collided with the floor. He scrambled to regain his balance, but his head was spinning from the force of the blow. He saw the spider advancing towards him slowly but surely.

He jogged away, kiting the monster around the cave while he recovered. He picked up his sword that had been tossed aside as well. Once he felt he was well enough he once again moved in.

Come on, you bastard! Activate skill; Sever!

Devon felt something change in his attack. It was as though he was suddenly able to put twice as much force into the slash, and his sword sailed cleanly through one of the legs.

He dodged past the incoming stinger and Severed another one of the creature's legs as he darted out from under it, trying to make it confused by constantly shifting his position. He realized his mistake when he stepped on something sticky.

As he'd been kiting the spider around the cave it had been leaving a trail of webbing that Devon couldn't see because of the low light.

The spider lifted one of its legs and Devon saw a barely visible thread lifted into the air with it.

Nice try, but I've seen this trick already. Activate skill; Sever.

As the spider tried to yank him along with the thread of webbing Devon swung his sword down, Severing the potentially deadly trap. Next he rushed back towards the spider, heedless of the fact that he was dragging what looked like a trail of toilet paper behind him.

He Severed the third leg on the spider's left side, and he didn't even have to dodge the stinger, the spider's aim was so off. He saw the spider above him lose balance and quickly dashed back the way he'd come, intending to take the fourth leg as one last precaution.

Insufficient mana to activate skill [Sever]

His sword stuck into the spider's leg, but he didn't bother stopping to pull it out as the beast toppled. He had to avoid the three flailing stumps of the amputated legs as they came down, and scowled when they splashed spider blood on him.

The creature flailed on the floor of the cave, but with more than half of its legs missing on one side it couldn't summon the leverage to prop itself up. It was defenseless, which meant that this was Devon's victory.

He stood back and panted as he admired his work. The spider had been brought low, and its whines sounded pathetic in the ears of the victor.

Devon leaned his head back and gave directed a yell towards the roof of the cavern. The scream had come from deep within. It was a cry of victory, earned from the exhilaration of toppling two giants.

It took considerable effort to shake himself out of that state of extreme satisfaction. Taking a deep breath to calm himself down, he returned to the still unfinished task at hand. He quickly took his spear out of his tile and finished off the spider with a few quick jabs to the eye.

Assisted kill - [Mountain Trap Spider - Level 19] - 164 Talons

[Level up. Level 10 obtained.]

[Level up. Level 11 obtained.]

New title obtained: [Ambitious]

New title obtained: [Giantslayer]

Task [Kill Mountain Trap Spider] complete.

Plot [Claim the Terminal] complete.

Calculating resulting Karmic Influence… Done.

Karmic Influence nominal.

Calculating difficulty… Done.

Complexity set at Normal.

Factoring Plot Karmic Influence and Difficulty into reward… Done.

[Claim the Terminal] added to Completed plots.

[Cursed Schemer] has reached Level 2.

Skill [The Mask] learned.

[Callous] has become [Vicious].

Classes are available for selection.