Poison Resistance: 3

I eyed the single line on my character sheet with a frown.

A day had passed since I’d met with Barum, and my time thus far had been pleasantly productive: Just as he’d recommended, I’d met with an alchemist (in fact, an Alchemist — the wizened old woman had had plenty of time to get past level 10), a jeweler, and a crafter.

While I’d gotten a chance to ask the Alchemist a number of questions, she hadn’t trained me in anything yet: The necessary steps and equipment were a touch more involved, and it wasn’t the kind of thing you could do in the corner of a shop. Still, once she’d seen the snake roots, she’d had a similar reaction to Barum — the rarity of the mana-infused reagent had convinced her to help me out. We’d be meeting the next day.

The jeweler was the least exciting trip. He opted not to buy any of the chitin, saying it would likely snap if he tried to cut it like he would a gemstone. Still, the trip wasn’t a complete waste: He recommended trying to saw it before sanding the edges, and had sold me some sandpaper to that effect. He’d also recommended mounting it with a wire setting, or using some form of resin to glue it onto the bracelet.

It was the last of the three — the general crafter — that was the source of my current conundrum. She’d been delighted when I’d taken out all of my spider fangs, going on at length about how rare it was for someone to bring her something new. While she was happy to buy the fangs themselves, however, she quite notably did not want to buy them with the venom. Something about accidentally poisoning her customers.

Initially, I figured the Alchemist could use the venom for something, but she turned me down flat. While in my head, fantasy alchemists thrived off poisons of all sorts, in reality, with the exception of a few weaker mixtures for rats and bugs, brewing and selling poisons was illegal in Ftheran.

While I wasn’t currently strapped for cash, it still felt pretty wasteful to just throw away all the venom I’d gathered. Was there really nothing I could use it for right now?

It was while following that train of thought that I realized something rather unfortunate: There was a use for it.

I just wasn’t sure it was a good use.

“Well. It’s not like I don’t have a healing spell, right?” I was never huge on the whole ‘no pain, no gain’ mentality, but I could get behind ‘waste not, want not’ right? It was just a little bit of resistance training. It was practically free experience.

I sighed. This is incredibly ridiculous, and if two months ago, you’d told me I’d be doing this, I would have laughed in your face.

Still, I did it anyway. Opting to start small, I pulled one of the spiderling venom sacs from my inventory, and after shutting my eyes like a total wuss, I pricked my arm with the attached fang.

You have been poisoned! Take 1 damage every 5 seconds for 20 seconds.

I winced as the sharp pain was slowly replaced with a lower intensity burning. Much to my surprise though, my actions had an unforeseen consequence: A prompt popped up.

You have received a quest: Mithridatism I

Congratulations! By willingly poisoning yourself to build up a resistance, you’ve followed in the vaunted footsteps of kings, assassins, and random people who are just kind of paranoid. The road to true immunity from poison, however, is a long and painful one. Should you wish to pursue it, half measures will not suffice.

Requirements:

Take 10,000 accumulated damage from self-inflicted poison - 1/10,000

Dose yourself with at least 10 different types of poison - 1/10

Dose yourself with at least 3 different types of poison of Rare or greater rarity - 0/3

Dose yourself with at least 3 different types of poison that confer non-damaging status effects - 0/3

Rewards:

+750xp

Dependent on your current level of Poison Resistance, up to 5 additional levels in Poison Resistance

+10% reduction to the duration and severity of all secondary poison effects

I read through the quest once and then twice. Was the universe really rewarding me for filling my veins up with poison?

Well, at least that makes it easier to convince myself this isn’t a giant mistake.

I pulled out one of the larger venom sacs I’d looted from a spider prince and jabbed it into my arm before I could second guess myself.

You are poisoned! Take 4 damage every 5 seconds for 20 seconds.

Unfortunately, it didn’t seem to count as a separate type of poison from the spiderlings’, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t still useful. Against the pleas of my body, I kept at the grim task for a while, alternating between poisoning myself and healing myself up. After what seemed like an eternity, a welcome message finally popped up.

Poison Resistance has reached level 4!

With a thick coating of sweat across my body and having had more than my fill of pain, I decided to stop.

I… could kind of use a drink right now. And why not? I’d let my liver rest for a full day now. Plus, if I was going to fill myself with poison, it might as well be the fun kind. After a quick shower, I got ready to go.

And when I get back, I’m going with the woodworking. No poisoning myself while drunk, thank you.

“You see this thickness? Too thick. You try brushing that on wood, it’ll agglutinate and get all clumpy.” Alchemist Holga dipped a thin metal spoon into the mixture in front of me, pulling upwards. The whitish fluid stuck to itself, forming a thin trail from the pot to the spoon, the sight slightly reminiscent of pulling on melted cheese.

Drinks with Nadja had been solid, if uneventful. Temrin and co hadn’t shown, but at the very least, Nadja and I had set a day for us to hang out once again, a week from today. Now, a day later, I was at last learning the mysterious art of alchemy from Alchemist Holga, a kindly, gray-haired woman of few words.

We’d met after she closed her shop for the day, and she’d pulled me into the back room where a host of stereotypical alchemist flasks, cauldrons, and vials cluttered the space. Despite looking just as a fantasy alchemist workshop should, however, what we were doing was far from fantastical. Instead of teaching me how to brew magical elixirs or high-grade health potions, our goals were a touch more mundane: lacquer and glue.

For some reason, she’d insisted that if I was going to craft something, I should try to make as much of it as possible from scratch, which apparently included the lacquer to coat the bracelet and the glue to bind the chitin.

To start, we were working on the glue. While there were apparently a mind-boggling number of glue variants and recipes, Holga had selected the simplest of them that would work well for my project. Though I’d earlier joked about the extent of my alchemy experience being cooking, it turned out that making glue really was like making soup. The main difference was that it smelled markedly less appetizing.

I’d measured out an assortment of chemicals, tossed them into a pot, and set it over a flame. From then, it was mostly a waiting game with occasional notes from Holga.

“Still salvageable, I’d say. It’s a physical issue, not a chemical one. Lower the heat and add more water, then stir for a while.” She pulled the spoon further from the pot until the glue broke off before she placed it to the side.

The flame was controlled magically, sprouting from a gemstone which sat beneath the pot. Similar to how showers worked, it was accompanied by two smaller gemstones which could be pressed to make it hotter or less hot. I tapped one of the stones a few times to lower the heat before throwing in a splash of water. I mixed and mixed, adding small amounts of water again and again until Holga nodded.

From there, we let it sit for a time until it was ready to be bottled. The end result was mostly clear, with a thin white tint, and while it was mundane, the system governing skills counted it nonetheless.

You have learned a new skill: Alchemy

“Excellent. Now we start the lacquers.”

It was well into the evening by the time I finished my lesson with Holga, and the cool, fresh air was a much-appreciated boon after enduring the chemical fumes of the alchemy lab.

I think that’s everything I need now, actually. At this point, it was just a matter of practice. Maybe I’ll make something for Nadja before we meet up. Pay her back for the bracelet she got me.

In fact, that’d be perfect. It’d be like a friendship bracelet! Maybe that was kind of dorky, but I decided to roll with it anyway.

Largely ready to retire for the day, I turned towards the central plaza to find some dinner before heading back to the palace.

About halfway through my journey, I felt what by now was slowly becoming a familiar sensation.

I was being watched.

I continued along as naturally as I could, focusing intently on the feeling. It seemed to require a good deal of effort, but after a time, I was able to faintly pick out which direction the gaze was coming from.

I spun abruptly towards the source of the sensation, earning me a few strange looks from nearby pedestrians.

There, atop a distant roof, was a cloud of blue mana. Under the gaze of God’s Eye, it slowly resolved itself, revealing a shadowed figure cloaked in black. Their legs dangled loosely over the edge of the roof.

The Shadow. Again.

Seeming to realize that they’d been spotted, the Shadow waved to me lazily. They jumped from the building, disappearing from sight, and even had I wanted to give chase, they were far too distant.

The entire experience, though brief, left a foul taste in my mouth.

Why me? I wondered. And just as importantly, what am I going to do about it?

I sighed, coming up blank on both counts. It was a problem, sure, but a problem for another day. For now, I had an empty stomach to fill and some chunks of wood that were calling my name.