I was dealing with a monster. The spider had never pretended otherwise. Our deal was premised not on trust, but on the fact that a betrayal on either side wouldn't cause any great inconvenience. We both had little to lose and plenty to gain. That was no longer sufficient. With her unwilling to use force, whether she was correct or if it was a psychological effect of the barrier, the only other idea I had required faith on her part. And even then, it was only an idea, with no real way to gauge the chances of success.

Now she'd poisoned me with something that had boosted my already high resistance level immediately after injection. I didn't feel any problems from it, but that was more disturbing than if it had immediately paralysed me or something.

"Attach your collar and let's get this over with," said the queen from my shoulder, not even acknowledging that she just bit me.

"Wait, what was that?"

"Insurance."

"But I could just ask you once you're wearing the collar..."

"You could, and that would immediately reveal your insincerity. I do not believe myself to be so weak as to be unable to fight your control."

What the heck had she just stuck me with? Given the unknown situation, I activated trigger respawn, then retrieved one of my stolen collars. It was far too big for the spider, but she managed to tie it around her bulbous body with her own silk. It was also very obvious that she could fight it if she wanted, and I could see her doing her best to relax and let it take effect.

With the not-really enslaved spider sat back on my head, wearing the collar like some sort of oversized hula hoop, I once again tried walking into the shrine. This time, the barrier didn't impede our progress. I had, however, neglected to account for another variable; I could hear voices in the shrine room. Some discussion about who owed who money from some card came. The conversation wasn't relevant, and the voices belonged to no-one I recognised, but if the visitors were there for long enough to be playing card games, I couldn't just wait for them to leave.

"Don't fight in the shrine room, or the barrier will kick back in," I half warned and half ordered.

"Understood," she answered in a curter, flatter voice than normal.

I snuck forward, but to anyone with an ability similar to my sense presence, I was basically wearing the sun on top of my head. Wearing the sun on my person unsurprisingly made sneaking very difficult.

"The strong presence from the jungle didn't just move to the entrance, it's coming down the passage!" exclaimed one of the mystery voices in a panic.

"What? Are you sure? What about the barrier?" asked another.

"Between the centipedes and our target, and now the temple's barrier acting up, we obviously can't rely on them."

Yay, I was a target. Still. Great joy.

"What should we do?"

"We retreat. We'll return once it leaves. If it heads down our passage, we will do our duty, as best as we are able."

By the time I got to the shrine, it was completely deserted; none of them had noticed that the big scary monster wasn't alone. The pair of us continued to the plateau, where I removed the collar once we were safely outside the shrine's area of effect.

"That was unpleasant," she commented the moment it was off.

"I know. I've been on the receiving end of one too. But you did give the impression that you could have shattered it any time you wanted."

The spider queen radiated smugness, confirming my guess. It made it even stranger that we fooled the shrine, if she could have broken it any time, but I wasn't going to complain about it having worked. "I shall wait here for your return," she commented, which didn't make much sense.

"My return from where?"

"Death," she answered. "I can't blame you for not noticing, given that the venom I chose causes no pain or discomfort up until the point it stops your heart, and that the visible symptoms are hidden under that shell you wear."

I'd almost forgotten she'd poisoned me. I swapped out my armour for my nighty, causing the spider some surprise, and saw thick, black veins tracing their way down my arms and legs, still visibly growing.

"Interesting insurance policy..." I muttered.

"While I was certain my power was too great for some vulpes toy to control me, I didn't know how long it would take me to remove. In practice, the control was weaker than I had imagined, and I could have dealt with it instantly. The insurance was in case I could not. I was betting that it would take you longer to recover from death than it took me to remove the collar. And given how little you appear to care about this revelation, it seems I concluded correctly that you would not consider the measure to be inappropriate."

I just shrugged; it did indeed seem a reasonable precaution. Ha. She'd basically time-delayed murdered me, and I was calling it a reasonable precaution. Well, whatever. I'd got her back on my side of the shrine, and I'd got a resistance level for it. If she had immediately run off, climbing down the cliff on her own, I'd have been annoyed, but since she seemed to want to wait for me, it was nothing more than a bit of inconvenience. I wasn't going to hold it against her.

I watched the black veins wrap themselves around my hands and feet with interest. I really couldn't feel a thing, even after double checking that the pain removal feature of pain nullification was off and poking the black veins. And then, as soon as the veins reached my toes and fingertips, my heart stopped.

Poison resistance advanced to level 20

Evolution conditions met: Poison resistance ranks up to poison nullification

Poison is everywhere. It may be in the darts of an assassin looking to score a silent kill. In the traps of a hunter. In the fangs or claws of a predator. Even in the flesh of would-be prey. Any adventurer needs to be prepared for it if they wish to survive. After consuming powerful drugs, bathing in pools of poison and surviving the kiss of death from an aranea regina, its ubiquitousness is something of which you are well aware, allowing this upgrade from resistance to nullification. This skill greatly reduces the effects of natural, artificial and magical poisons, providing outright immunity to weaker toxins, and you purge poisons from your body far more quickly. You also know when your body takes in poison.

What scary venom, I thought, as I woke back up in my respawn cave. With two levels and an evolution from it, the kiss of death seemed an apt name. Pulling myself back to my feet, I made my way back to where I'd left the queen, but there was no visible sign of her. I could still feel her through sense presence though, and knew full well where she was, so I gave my corpse a kick. Apparently, this spider queen didn't need to liquidise her food prior to consumption.

A few seconds later, a bulge grew on one of my thighs, before it tore open and the spider queen poked out a couple of legs and the front part of her body.

"That's kinda gross," I commented absent-mindedly. It wasn't the worst condition I'd seen one of my corpses in, with no visible external wounds beyond the entry point and the black veins of poison, but I wasn't normally talking to the one doing the eating.

"Actually, it's not bad. I'd still prefer some vulpes sagax, but you certainly have your good points. These, for instance, are delicious," she said as she emerged fully, dragging a kidney behind her.

"I was referring to the sight, rather than the taste. Can't say I've ever tried eating myself." I considered it briefly, but then discarded the idea. I'd lost a lot of mental barriers since starting this adventure, but I'd never be able to reintegrate back on Earth if I discarded all of them.

"You should," she continued. "When you have such a ready supply of meat, why waste it? Regardless, I must admit my surprise that you do indeed seem to have 'got over it', as you say. How interesting. How do you reform your body? If I could capture your spirit, I would have an infinite food supply."

I glared at the spider, who had now managed to fully extract the kidney from my body without breaking it. I was fairly sure that she was joking, if only because if she was actually planning that, she wouldn't have told me.

"Yes?" she asked in response to my glare, causing me to smile. She was far easier to deal with than the fox-kin, and lacked the mind-screwing powers of the centipede. I just hoped she would follow through on making my rope.

"Nothing, and thanks for waiting. Shall we head over to vulpes sagax territory?"

Over at the cliff, my attention was caught by the cluster of lights that made up the fox-kin town. Areas were dimming and shimmering in a way that suggested I was viewing them through a haze. In other places, I could see periodic flashes of light. It looked like some portion of the town was on fire, and that there was still a fairly significant fight going on down there.

"Either something got there before you, or they've decided to have a little civil war," I commented. The spider queen couldn't add anything; her sight was poorer than mine, and she had no other senses that could perceive the town at this distance. My efforts to sow a bit of chaos on the way out were supposed to delay people looking for me, not start a war. Oops. I'd just have to hope they were under centipede attack again or something.

"Down there is their territory. I can't climb the cliff on my own, so what I wanted was some way to get down safely. I don't need to be able to get back up."

"Interesting, so you can only create a new body for yourself up here then."

Okay, maybe she's not so easy to deal with. I still wasn't fully convinced she wasn't plotting something. "Not quite, but the vulpes would interfere if I tried to do it down there."

I could feel curiosity radiating from my new conspirator, and tried to convince myself that she really was just interested in my abilities for the sake of the knowledge, and not because she wanted to build herself an unlimited larder.

"Very well," she said. "It is not a difficult task."

Grasping my kidney in her legs like some sort of cuddly toy, she dived off the cliff, leaving a barely visible thread attached to the cliff edge. Given her small size, I had no hope of being able to see her descend, so I waited for the thread to stop wiggling, then threw myself over, trying to slide down it.

Amazingly, despite being so thin that I doubt I'd have spotted it had I not been deliberately looking, it held my weight with no trouble. Being so thin also made it hard to keep a grip, and by the time the clifftop was out of sight, I was having serious doubts about my chances of surviving the trip to the bottom. I really hoped for some sort of skill from this, because making this trip every respawn was not going to be fun.

It must have taken almost half an hour to descend, by which time my hands were bleeding and my limbs felt like jelly. I flopped over onto the ground, glad that the thread was just as imperceptible from this side as it was from up above. Hopefully, I wouldn't be having trouble with anyone discovering my method of descent.

"So slow," commented the spider queen, who I noticed was now only carrying half a kidney. Her body hadn't increased in size at all, despite the way she must have eaten far more than her own bodyweight already.

"Sorry, I'm just not built for that sort of physical labour," I panted. I felt her react oddly to the word 'built'. Another wrong theory of hers, perhaps? "I'll get the hang of it, though. Thanks."

"Very well. Then with that, I believe our deal is concluded. Should you wish to donate to me more of these delicious morsels, I intend to set up my new home in that copse." She pointed with a couple of her legs, and I noted the location on my inbuilt map.

The spider queen wandered off, leaving me alone, still laying on the floor, unwilling to trust my legs to support my weight. Well, that deal had gone pretty well, all things considered. It wasn't the most convenient method of descent, but I had to admit the lowered visibility was a big advantage. The ladder or thick rope I'd been assuming would have been far more noticeable.

It took ten more minutes before I felt confident I could stand up without immediately falling over. What should I do next? Being here as an intruder rather than a guest made me see the cleared crystal trees in a different light; with the cleared space, I could be seen from a distance. I would need to avoid getting too close to light sources, but where did I want to go? Did I need to explore this whole floor? Should I focus on trying to find the next, and unlocking a spawn point beyond fox-kin territory? Wouldn't that require fighting through another of the checkpoints? That wouldn't be easy, even if their guns were facing the wrong direction.

Worrying about it wouldn't get me anywhere, so I stood up and set off into the unknown. My first goal would be to find the passageway down to the next floor.