Chapter 65: Chapter 64: Poison Sanctuary & Mistress of Webs

Ahh..., taste that disgusting smell of poisoned swamp. Lovely. 

I tracked on past various swamp creatures that I didn't wanna fight with for the safety of my clothes and started looking for clues.

My goals here are to find out the sudden increase of bugs in each area, or at least why there are so many caterpillars here in the Alpha region, and I wanna find the source of the parasite that infested Bloom before I met her. It's sorta a personal matter, and honestly, the idea of NPCs being infected by something so gross is freaking me out. I don't wanna end up with a zombie apocalypse, or something similar. 

Moving around isn't that difficult. The monsters living here are too low-leveled to get past my [Detect Monster] skill. The problem is that anything that's not a monster will slip past my eyes, and that could include the clues I'm looking for. 

Due to that, I'm treasure hunting. That's what I do best, after all. And sometimes, I kill the caterpillars I discover on the way. Nyx is more than happy with assisting me with the hit-and-run strategy.

I sometimes see other players in the distance, but they're busy relying on their priest-looking partners to cast antidote-like spells (I think that's what they do) on them and fighting the monsters that are seemingly attracted by the spells. Maybe even the monsters living here want antidotes? I'm not planning on getting involved though.

After a while looking for treasures, I found something strange on one of the branches of a dead-looking tree. More specifically, the branch itself is strange. [Detect Treasure]'s going crazy about the whole, thing. It's sorta black-and-silver colored, and it's almost as long as I'm tall. Despite all the other branches being barely half a meter long.

I cut it off and tried to Identify it, but nothing came up. Seriously strange. I'll have Bloom take a look at it when I get back. 

But just as I was gonna put the branch into my storage, it turned itself on its own, almost as if someone had used some telekinetic ESP on it or something. The branch pointed toward a rocky wall, and since I had nothing else to do, I followed its lead. Games are to be enjoyed, down to every random event. 

The wall looks..., pretty boring. Is there something here? Like, a hidden switch or something? Oh, magical branch. Lead me the waaaay~..., hey! Stop pulling! You're gonna-*splatt*-, make me stumble...

I tried to clean off the mud to no luck before looking at where the branch had pointed me to. There's a strange rock that extends out from the rock in a suspicious fashion..., and press.

*Clack*

I heard some mechanical sounds after I pushed the button-disguised-as-a-rock and part of the wall moved to reveal a secret doorway. Did I just stumble across some ancient legacy hidden in the swamp!? ...nah. It's prolly just some ol', nasty drug ring if I know my luck.

After walking through the hidden passage, I reached something that could be described as a concealed sanctuary, outside the reach of the rest of the world and its problems..., except that the whole place stinks of poison! Disgusting!!

To be more precise, I'm inside a dome-shaped cave inside the rock walls. There are lots of fauna here and there, but they are black and purple-colored. Lots of mushrooms here too, plus other diabolic-looking plants. There's even a river going through the cave, but it's poisonous green. Not drinking water.

While holding my breath, and lowering the real-world settings in my game menu to cut off my sense of smell, I started to explore this "poison sanctuary". What's over-

---

...I died. 

The second I opened my eyes and saw the ceiling of my Player Room, it hit me. I'd died.

"You're back already?" - Bloom

"...Bloom, have you ever heard about some secret sanctuary in that poisoned swamp?" - Garami

"Huh? Did you hit your head or something?" - Bloom

Rude. But I would have reacted in the same way, so I won't punish her. Much.

---

And I'm back. It took a while, but I managed to reach the secret entrance faster than my first time here. I recorded my progress with [Auto-Map] the first time after all.

This time, I stepped carefully so I wouldn't get caught by whatever killed me the first time. I took out the branch (which I'd completely forgotten to deposit in my Player Room) from my storage and tried hitting the ground with it. A small plume of purple dust came out after a few hits. This is poison, no matter how you look at it. 

I advanced while hitting the ground as if my eyes had failed me, and then..., something hit my head and I respawned at my Player Room. Again. 

Not wanting to take the trip yet again, I bought the [Detect Trap] skill, and the [Disarm Trap] just to be safe. and had Fox teach me how to use it. It took a day, but I finally reached Lv.4 and Lv.3 for the two skills respectively before I went to bed. 

Oh, and the effects of the two skills are to warn me when there's a trap nearby, and give me a passive correction on my trap disarming skills, plus giving me hints on how to disarm them in the first place.

The next day, I did some more training with [Detect Trap] and had it reach Lv.5 before I left for the poisoned sanctuary. Again. 

This time around, I could see the "trapped" spots that released the poisoned gas through my new skill and efficiently found a way around them. Then the skill noticed me of something else. A trap wire. Keeping my head down, I tried to trip it from a distance and with my head down. Several arrows flew toward where my head would have been if I had stepped on the wire without knowing anything.  

All according to the plan~...except that a too-big-to-comprehend wave of poisoned mush came toward me after that. Another retry...

---

This time around, I've gone all the way! Both trap-related skills are at Lv.8 now! Along with some other skills that Fox managed to squeeze into the training program. Even if I needed to spend the rest of yesterday after the mush-wave to train them all!

Meaning this is the 3rd day of exploring the sanctuary, in case someone didn't follow. AND I'M GONNA CLEAR IT TODAY! Half a week has already passed, and I've made barely any progress with this event! Then again, there have been no haunts that have been reported as "cleared". It's just a matter of time though. Probably.

But after clearing this trap-gauntlet, I've finally reached the other side of the cave. Phew. That last one, the flower that suddenly grew five meters big when I got too close, was a freaking surprise. Especially the "freaking" part.

Back to the present, there's a new passage here at this side of the cave. Maybe there are multiple of these sanctuaries? I'm not sure what to expect further down this cave, but after all the work and time I've used to clear that trap hell back there, there's no way I'll be satisfied with just leaving now. 

Since there's no one against it (I'm an eternal loner...), I'll be charging in! Guns blazing! If I had any. 

Oh? Ooh? What's up with this place? 

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The passage led to yet another dome-shaped cave, but this one seems to be the last. I mean, a big castle in the middle of a pretty (yet venomous) garden does feel like the home of some last boss (since the place's filled with poison). 

It's not all fun and games though. Because in addition to all the above-mentioned stuff, there's a bunch of a certain something spread all over this cave. Something I'm damn familiar with.

Webs. Spider webs. 

Yeah, time to get the old magic bracelet up and running. Not to mention "burning"-whoa!? Something got my leg! 

Before I could even react, both my hands were tied up and I was dangling upsidedown from the ceiling. Crap, so this is how it feels to be thugs in New York...

And then came my captor. It's a..., purple Arachne? The spider with a human upper body. Pretty hot-looking one too, except for the spider parts. 

This one is a female, with a fancy dress that showed much of her human half. She got light-blue hair that reaches her..., "hips," I guess, slightly purple skin, and bloody-red eyes that seem to shine on their own. The spider-half looks outright demonic, with long fangs and feet that end in vicious claws. 

Yeah, I'm dead. Can't beat this one. I can't even summon Nyx or Nala. Guess it's back to my room and make a plan on how to defeat-

"...you're so not fashionable, you know that?" - Arachne

"Okay, WHAT?" - Garami

"I mean, black on top of white? What are you supposed to be? Some kind of edgelord or something?" - Arachne

Screw plans. I'M GONNA KILL HER RIGHT NOW!

"Not that your uncoolness is of any importance-" - Arachne

Where is the spider swatter when you need it!?

"How did you manage to reach this place?" - Arachne

"Ugh..., it wasn't easy," I told the spider-woman off while struggling to get the webs off my hands. "Those stupid traps kept on killing me all the time!"

"...a Migrant then. But you couldn't have died that many times. This location is impossible for your kind to enter if they fail to do so more than 5 times." - Arachne

Yikes. I was cutting close there.

"And that is not what I was asking about. How did you locate this area? There should have been nothing that told of the existence of this place." - Arachne

"I got lucky! And my wish twig, I mean, my wish branch showed me this place!" - Garami

"Your..., what now?" - Arachne

Hey, stop looking at me with those pitying eyes! I'm gonna smack you! Hard!

"Were you talking about this?" said the Arachne as she revealed..., my branch! When did she-, rather, how did she-!?

"Give that back!" - Garami

"That is fine with me. I was getting bored of staying sheltered in these caves anyway." - Arachne

Sheltered? And how's giving back my branch related to her...entertainment...

"It seems you have connected the dots already~." - Arachne

Don't say it. Don't say it. Don't say it!

"If you wish this "wishing branch" of yours back, please try to reach my parlor inside my mansion. And we can add these to the pot." - Arachne

Gah!! That b*tch!! She took my Helheim and Pandemodium daggers! How!!?

*Snap* *Crash*

Ouch! Who drops people to the ground like that? Damn rude spider-woman..., who's not even here anymore! Argh!

So, I gotta find that stupid wh*re again, give her a Fireball in the face, then steal back my items. And if what she said is true, this place is off-limits if I die two more times or something like that? Great. Just lovely. Hurray.

Why is it that I and spiders can never see eye-to-eye? Any eyes would be fine. Argh...

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Skill List:

Attack Skills:
Magic Skills:
Crafting Skills: Active Skills: Passive Skills:
Perception Skills: Leadership Skills: Elements: Monster Skills:

Title List:

Hunting Titles:
Status Titles:

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