“Gus,” Liv cried out as she threw her arms around me. “How the hell have you been man?” She pushed away from me while leaving both hands on my shoulders, looking up at me. “We haven’t seen you in ages.”

“I’m good...” I stammered out. “Just, doing stuff. Busy.”

My eloquent speech is what really endears me to people. Liv never really cared, though. With a squeeze she dropped her hands from my shoulders, hesitating only for a moment. I made eye contact, unable to ask the question I really wanted to and hoping that she would. She looked down and then brushed an auburn strand of hair away from her eye, revealing a long scar above her eyebrow. “You should come in,” she said.

I shuffled in awkwardly, unable to make eye contact for too long. I dreaded what I was here to say, and I couldn’t stand the thought of letting them down again. Not after everything they had done, especially what Liv had done. And lost.

The house was spotless, except for the cardboard boxes littered haphazardly around the small apartment. The walls were bare, with fading wallpaper, stained yellow with age and still bearing a child’s faded crayon drawings along the border. Small squares of slightly less yellow wallpaper showed where photos, now relegated to one of the many boxes littering the room, had once hung. I could smell the scent of lemons, bleach, and freshly baked cookies – common smells in any area inhabited by the cleaning obsessed baking master that was Liv Swanson.

The sound of college football was coming from a TV in the other room, a sound mixed in with an unusual amount of profanity. Smiling I asked, “Is Troy around?”

Smirking, Liv just pointed towards the room with the TV as she walked away. “Do you want some tea, Gus? We’re out of coffee,” she called out as she entered the kitchen.

“None for me, thanks,” I yelled back. “I’m only stopping by.”

I walked in to the other room to see Troy decked out in full black and garnet regalia screaming at the TV, still oblivious to anything else around him.

“Go Tigers,” I shouted, knowing it would get his attention.

“Fuck you, asshole,” Troy mumbled without any real anger. “We’re getting our asses handed to us and you come in here with that fucking mojo.” Troy looked up at me, and despite his words still put his arms out to give me a quick side-hug. “You doing okay? You look terrible. Like Chewbacca fucked the Slender Man. Then abandoned the devil-spawn for being too fucking mopey.”

Before I could manage what would have undoubtedly been a witty retort, I heard Liv’s voice from behind me. She was holding something, a piece of paper. As she clasped it to her chest I gently reached out and took it from her.

“Is this what I think it is?” I asked.

***

Gasping I woke up, the vague memory of a dream I desperately wanted to be real dissipating into nothingness. Around me was darkness, a constant motif in this god forsaken place. I could smell smoke, and a bitter whiff of body odor and something else, something worse.

Congratulations! Venom coursed through your veins paralyzing your muscles and setting nerves afire, your body was racked in pain but you were unable to scream as your lungs were slowly paralyzed and your flesh dissolved. You have survived, not even this can overcome your Reactive Adaptability Ⓛ!! Your body has adapted, and you have gained a new skill! Poison resistance © 2/10!

Poison Resistance © -…

C…

I was able to push away the following pop-ups by sheer force of will, a power brought on by copious amounts of annoyance and the total lack of shits I had to give about anything that wasn’t immediately relevant to my survival. A quick inventory of my limbs showed that they were all attached, but that I was bound by something wound tightly around every part of my body save for my face. My bindings were sticky and smelled like a new silk shirt, pleasant and earthy. I remembered the eyes and limbs of the creature that attacked me, and I guessed that this was silk webbing of some kind. A cocoon meant that I was probably kept alive on purpose, likely to be eaten later. Though it was equally likely that the monster meant for me to be liquefied so that it could drink me up like a Soylent Green milkshake.

I was facing the ground, so my view was limited to the dark stone of the cavern floor, but it was enough for me to tell that I was being moved somewhere. I was slowly swaying back and forth in time with the clicking sounds of hard feet on stone.

I vaguely remembered learning that the best time to escape capture was during transportation. If I was going to act, it needed to be now. Likely the creature would believe me still paralyzed by the venom, which gave me a single chance. After that I would lose the element of surprise. Unable to move other than to blink, I had no choice but to put my faith into this new system of skills and feats that seemed to have replaced sanity and common sense.

Every time I closed my eyes I still saw the burning red eye glaring down at me as tendrils of darkness devoured the world. Perhaps, as it had claimed, this 'Hegemony of Worlds' was able to stop that destruction, or perhaps had been behind it all along. Either way, I would use everything that had been offered to me and find a way to escape and survive in this new hell. Hopefully some of my old world, and my old life, would remain.

I quickly thought “stats” and a screen, hopefully invisible to others, appeared about twelve inches in front of my eyes. My physical and mental stats ran from six to eleven, with intelligence being my highest. Eleven hardly seemed impressive, however, as my perception was ten – this was likely a representation of my average eyesight of 20/20. From this I decided that 10 was likely the average stat, and that my degraded physical stats were a biproduct of the relative ease of surviving in the modern world.

Looking at “Strength” a message explaining it was presented, the system was intuitive and capable of responding to my intentions, it seemed. A useful invasion of privacy, as far as mind reading goes.

Strength is a measure of your physical capabilities. Strong individuals can punch harder, jump higher, and run faster. As your strength improves your muscles will become denser and more responsive, increasing the amount you can carry, your melee damage, and your speed in and out of combat. Each point increases Health by one.

It looked promising, but I wasn’t sure the three points of unallocated stats I had would be enough to break the silk webbing that had bound my body. I quickly scrolled through my other stats and skills, but nothing seemed likely to aid my escape. Looking again, a thought struck me.

If I’m not smart enough to think of a solution, maybe I should make myself smarter?

It was crazy, and I was wary of letting this new system mess with my mind. I could let it increase the density of my muscles or the flexibility of my joints and tendons and remain me, but if it made me smarter would my mind still be my own? How does the system even measure intelligence, maybe it would just turn me into an automaton unable to think creatively or imagine any solution outside of a set of pre-decided parameters? I would have my memories but lose my humanity.

Concentrating on the stat brought up its description once more.

Intelligence is a measure of the speed and adaptability of your mind, as well as your ability to notice and interpret patterns. Intelligent individuals can solve problems faster, learn more quickly, and remember things longer and with more clarity. Each point of intelligence increases Mana by 5.

It wouldn’t break my bonds, but it could possible help me to find a solution I wasn’t seeing. Having decided, I stopped hesitating and mentally clicked on the (+) next to intelligence three times.

Congratulations! You have put three points into a single stat before completing the tutorial!! You have unlocked the feat(s) – Able Learner ®

Able Learner ® - Having focused on Intelligence during the earliest part of your training you find that you are more easily able to pick up new ideas and concepts. Where others struggle to learn new skills, you are adept at it. Decreases the difficulty of learning new skills and increases the rate at which you improve Intelligence based skills!

My mind did feel clearer, more focused, but the change was minimal. No genius solution presented itself, and no cool psionic powers developed. I let out a sigh of disappointment. I was better at learning, which might help me out the next time I needed to survive a classroom. Maybe the next demon would be a succubus posing as a sexy teacher? Being carried by a giant spider-demon and, no doubt, its unseen army? Not so much.

“Don’t panic,” I remembered the voice of my father. “Take stock of your surroundings, inventory your assets, and formulate a plan. The enemy will make a mistake, wait for it and capitalize on it.”

The memory seemed to come unbidden, almost like a flashback. Was this the system’s way of helping me to solve problems, by conjuring up old memories? Or was this my own subconscious?

Yet, what were my assets? A weak arcane bolt, and the ability to learn. I also was a little more resistant to poisons and venom. With some experimentation I found that I could blink out Morse code, something I realized I wouldn’t have been able to remember how to do without the new clarity brought on by my increase to Intelligence. With nothing to do, I watched. I focused on the world around me.

The swinging of my cocoon caused by the creature walking would change my perspective just enough that I could see each of its legs. All twelve of them, hairy and segmented. The front most legs were not used for walking and were instead covered in barbs, each limb with a long stinger at the tip. Behind the monster trailed a long flat tail that was curved downward and tapered as it got closer to the body, much like the tail of a lobster.

Upon analyzing my bindings, I found that they had some give, and I could stretch my arms and legs out somewhat. Despite this give, the bindings were completely unbreakable. I imagined that the flexibility made them much more difficult to break. My new power of memory, however, was enough for me to realize that the bindings were becoming stickier and had more stretch to them than when I had first woken up. Perhaps they degraded with time?

Congratulations! You have learned a new skill(s)!

Analyze ©- While others fight, you watch and listen. You learn mysteries and secrets unknown to others, secrets obvious to those with the ability to see them. Passive; reveals Name, Class, and Level. Activated: 1 Mana per second, reveals the background, strengths, and weaknesses of objects and creatures.

My new skill immediately seemed useful, just not useful enough. What I really needed was firepower. Or lightning power, I really wanted to shoot lightning from my hands. What was the point of having magic without flashy powers or gizmos?

The passive use of the ability immediately became apparent as I caught a glimpse of the monster’s leg.

Gwerlum, the Gloomweaver. Arachnid Matriarch. Lvl 24.

The name was highlighted in purple, which probably had a significance I was unaware of. The level told me I stood no chance against this creature. It also gave me hope, it meant the system had the ability to feed me information. If I could find a way to access more of that information I had a chance of learning what was going on, and perhaps making sense of this situation. First, I had to survive the immediate situation.

Fighting was out of the question, but if I could analyze the silk binding me perhaps I could find a way to break free. I immediately activated Analyze with a thought, and I could feel the pull on my mana that I hadn’t noticed before. It didn’t tire me, but a part of me deep in the back of my mind rebelled at the drain much like lungs cry out for oxygen when none is available. Though momentarily stunned, I quickly recovered and turned my attention to my bindings.

Cocoon of the Gloomweaver. This cocoon was spun by Gwerlum to capture her prey. The silk has a tensile strength greater than steel, but it is the elasticity that truly makes it unbreakable. It is vulnerable to fire, slashing, and magic, but cannot be torn without truly prodigious strength. Gwerlum has sprayed this cocoon with her venom, this deteriorates the strength of the silk but helps to digest the prey more quickly and increases the adhesive properties of the silk. This process is unnecessary for common consumption and is only done in preparation to produce an egg sac. It is likely that the prey trapped in this cocoon is intended as food for the spider’s spawn, thereby continuing the unholy lineage of Ungoliant, the Primordial Spider.

I wasn’t too thrilled with being food for spider tykes, but it meant there was hope. It would likely take some time before I was expected to be properly digested, and my venom resistance should help keep me alive. The key thing was that the silk was slowly being weakened. If I could wait till Big Mama sprayed the cocoon with more venom, it might weaken enough for me to escape. In the meantime, I needed to focus on speeding up the process.

Over the next few hours I focused on using my arcane bolts to try to destroy some of the silk around my left hand. My current mana was enough for me to cast five arcane bolts, but it slowly regenerated enough for me to get off an additional bolt every few minutes. When the spider queen finally stopped I had created a pocket of free space around my left arm and had drilled a hole large enough for a single finger to poke through the cocoon. It was a start, I only had to hope that I had enough time.

Additionally, I had gained 3 levels in Arcane Bolt and Analyze, and a single additional level in Poison Resistance. It seemed that the first three levels of each skill were relatively easy to learn, but I was unable to advance any of the skills to their fourth rank. There was not much to analyze during the trip, but there were the occasional rock, mushroom or fungus that caught my attention. What was curious, and potentially helpful, was that it seemed each increase in skill gave me something called FP, a counter was kept on top left corner of my stats screen calling out for my attention.

I mentally selected FP, and I smiled at the results.