My eyes snapped open in my respawn chamber. For once, I didn't gasp for air, or clutch at any formerly missing body parts, or try to cough up nectar from my lungs. In fact, I had no idea what had just happened. The last thing I remembered... I'd been grinding my crafting skill, but had started feeling decidedly ill, presumably from the spider. Rather than trying to work through it, and not particularly wanting diseased diarrhoea anywhere in the murder tree's room, even in the pool, I was planning to hit the reset button. Yes, it made no difference whatsoever whether the contents of my digestive tract were inside or outside of me when they hit the pool, given that I was going to end up in there regardless, but it just felt gross.

Since I was about to die anyway, I figured I might as well do a potentially fatal experiment first. I was still putting off making any use of the spider's acid sac, so instead I decided to test if the mushrooms were edible, in the hopes of getting a food source other than raw monster meat.

Given my current position, I think it's safe to assume that they were not edible.

I climbed to my feet and made my way back to the tree's chamber, where I could do nothing but stand slack-jawed for a full minute. Status!

Name: Katie

- Combat skills -

Unarmed dabbler: Level 5

Novice dodger: Level 2

Spear dabbler: Level 7

Novice blocker: Level 1

Dagger dabbler: Level 4

- Resistance skills -

Fear tolerance: Level 4

Pain tolerance: Level 8

Poison tolerance: Level 7

Corrosion tolerance: Level 5

Disease tolerance: Level 2

- Crafting skills -

Makeshift crafter: Level 6

Artistry: Level 4

- Scouting skills -

Novice stealth: Level 1

I'd gained two levels each of pain and corrosion tolerance, and three of poison. Also, a new skill; artistry. Personally, I wouldn't call the... rather phallic images that now decorated the cave walls 'art', but whatever. My corpse was lying next to an unfinished one, so I hadn't died in the pool. The poison tolerance must have come from the mushroom.

On inspection, I was covered in acid-burn wounds, and my fingers were reduced to stubs. The pictures were etched into the walls, and apparently I'd been making them by applying spider acid, using my fingers as brushes. The occasional small bone was lying on the floor, dropping off as my fingers melted away. I suppose that confirmed that the stuff was a powerful corrosive agent of some sort, and not just enzymes, or it wouldn't do anything to rock. But if it was the same stuff that the spider injected me with, how was any of the resulting mush nutritious? Maybe it wasn't; they were magical monsters, after all.

Well then... In this case, procrastination worked, I guess? Normally it didn't, but this time I had the benefits of applying acid to myself, with the added advantage that I didn't remember doing so. Drugged up me had apparently not been bothered by the pain, either, judging from the way I'd carried on making 'art' right until the point I dropped dead. The acid sac was lying next to my corpse, but either had been used up or had spilt, and there was nothing left.

Regardless of the gains I'd made, I didn't think I'd be eating those mushrooms again. I briefly considered chopping them all down and chucking them into the pool, but the thought of the carnivorous monster tree high on oversized magic mushrooms was so disturbing that I was surprised fear tolerance didn't level. From now on, I think I'd just pretend they weren't there.

"This one is in exchange for some dodging training," I shouted over to the tree while shoving my latest corpse into the pool. Although, before that, I had housework to do... As well as not being bothered by the pain, my previous instance hadn't been bothered by leaking fluids from any orifice, leaving current me to spend far too long trying to rinse the room down. There was, alas, nothing I could do to remove the pictures... "And as an apology for the graffiti," I added to the tree.

I spent a while hanging around at the pool edge, keeping a close eye on the roots and dodging each time one grabbed at me. They weren't particularly fast though, and were easy enough to evade as long as I stayed alert. Worse, after a dozen or so attempts, the tree seemed to give up, leaving me in peace.

Novice dodger advanced to level 3

Not the significant gains that I hoped for, but at least I did get one level. After that, I ate more diseased meat, then returned to crafting. This time I tried to make clothing out of silk, as some more serious practice for my new armour set. With no sheeting, and only the two types of thread to work with, my attempts weren't great, but I ended up with things I could wear and remove, and they did at least provide some coverage. I did want more than just cords to tie on the pieces of shell, given how tough the silk was; it would offer protection in areas the chitin plates didn't cover, and given that my cocoon was completely intact while the contents very definitely weren't, it would protect against the acid too, if I ran into more of those spiders.

I did have the option of wrapping myself with sticky threads, gluing on the plates, then covering up any stickiness with another layer of the non-sticky threads. It would be simple and effective, but wouldn't really count as clothing, because I wouldn't be able to remove it without destroying it. My average lifespan at the moment wasn't sufficient to take that option.

Ideally, what I needed was a cooperative spider. Given the flexibility the sadistic one had shown while producing webs, I bet they could spin me some outfits within minutes. I could even pay them in human flesh for their effort...

After many hours of practice, I felt I had a good enough idea of what I was doing to try my armour set for real, but my tummy was feeling icky again, so it was time to switch my training regime once more. On the bright side, a few hours was almost nothing. I could never have done that at home. Despite the skill effects being subtle, they were certainly there. It wasn't as if years of experience had been downloaded into my head; I just seemed to have picked up some pretty good instincts for what sort of things would work, and what wouldn't.

Makeshift crafter advanced to level 7

Disease tolerance advanced to level 3

Moving closer to the pool, I held one of the spider claws in a shaking hand.

Fear tolerance advanced to level 5

Hah. Self inflicted fear. Well, it was fair enough. I was indeed frightened, but controllable pain now in exchange for an easier time later was a trade I wanted to make. Trying to hold my hand steady, I cut into my arm.

An unpleasant time followed. At one point, I even jabbed the spider fangs into my leg and tried to flush any residual corrosive fluids out of them. While it was certainly true that self-inflicted pain was in some way easier to deal with than an uncontrolled situation, it also seemed that the gains were reduced accordingly, and my efforts were only lightly rewarded.

Pain tolerance advanced to level 9

Injured, bleeding and diseased, I gave in and once more hit the reset switch, not even getting a level of poison resistance. Returning to the murder tree's room again, I would swear it was getting bigger and brighter... It probably hadn't been this well fed ever.

This reset, I once again ate from the spider. The taste was... different from before. It was hard to call it 'off', given how rancid it tasted to start with, and since I was trying to disease myself anyway, it hardly mattered if it was decomposing a bit, but I wasn't sure how much longer it would last.

Disease tolerance advanced to level 4

My next task was making my real armour set. As expected, it took many hours, but I ended up with a combination of silk and chitin that would provide great coverage, was comfortable and easy to move around in, and could be reused. It didn't look great, but fashion was so far down on my list of priorities that I'd have to dig out new levels of basement for it. I made some proper grips for my various weapons, too, even the wolf claws, which I kept around just in case. When I could easily lose my weapons in inaccessible places, backups were welcome.

Makeshift crafter advanced to level 8

That took up the last of the silk I'd gathered. There was still more back in the spider's lair, the chamber exits at the least, but for now my crafting activities were over. How much more effort did I want to put into skill gains before I set off there? There was the possibility of more spiders, but on the other hand, the unnatural room seemed like it might have more interesting things to offer than just monsters.

I had already diseased myself again, so I'd do one more batch of resistance work, then set off on my way after my next reset. With my remaining time I took a quick nap on my mat, which I hadn't used yet, having been resetting rather than sleeping the past couple of days. Then it was back to pain tolerance training. Perhaps something interesting would happen at level ten?

Pain tolerance advanced to level 10

Evolution conditions met: Pain tolerance ranks up to pain resistance

Pain is essential for letting you know when you're injured, when something is wrong, or simply when you've pushed yourself too far and it's time to stop. At least in small doses. Sometimes you already know exactly what's wrong, in which case the pain is nothing more than a distraction. You have experienced far too much pain in your short life, having had limbs ripped off, wounds agitated, and even suffered through an internally injected dose of aranea volito acid. For surviving such traumatising experiences and even, to some extent, keeping your sanity afterwards, your tolerance has been upgraded to resistance. This skill dulls the sensations of all pain, both magical and mundane.

Something interesting did indeed happen, and the pain from my myriad cuts and slices immediately lessened. What had changed? It was a shame I couldn't retrospectively look up the descriptions of skills, which meant I'd probably never get to see what artistry did, but I remembered that it originally stated that only debilitating pain would be dulled. Now it affected everything. It was a welcome upgrade, but it wasn't as if I could turn pain off completely, so I still had no desire to experience another dose of aranea volito acid. Or sadistic spider acid, as I'd been calling it. The skill description was using different terminology to me, but I'd just been making stuff up, so I suppose it was probably the correct one.

Actually, that was a bit of a bombshell all on its own. The skill description was personalised to my activities, and it named the monster. Perhaps that implied I could get an identification or appraisal skill at some point. What was it referring to by wounds agitated? Probably the time the tree stuck a root into my severed leg, which was bad enough that I had gulped down the nectar without even knowing I'd respawn... And it was only one limb. Not limbs plural. I already knew how poorly I was doing here without my skill descriptions exaggerating matters.

It answered the question of how to rank up skills, too. Apparently it needed some sort of significant related achievement, or possibly several of them. Would the sadistic spider acid on its own be enough to rank up corrosion tolerance? My first experience with the tree for fear? The panic I'd felt when it first pinned me to the bottom of the pool had been unmatched since. Between the mushroom and willingly drinking from the nectar pool, I'd bet poison would rank up, but that was the only one I was confident about.

Saying that I had, to some extent, kept my sanity also implied that I had, to the rest of the extent, lost it. As I tossed my knife back towards my cleared work area, then flopped over backwards into the poisonous pool, doing backstroke towards the tree until a root rudely grabbed me by the waist and dragged me under, I didn't feel like I could disagree.