By the fourth every limb felt like it was weighed down by a particularly hefty oxen. Even chewing became a struggle. Kaius could help but let out a large yawn.
Slumping off his seat, he sprawled out in front of the hearth, the fire warmed stone feeling as soft as a fleece filled pillow.
As his eyes drooped closed Kaius's thoughts wandered.
"I hope this works…"
**Ding! Rapid Adaptation has reached level 14!**
**Ding! You have resisted Gladeplum Lethargy**
Kaius groaned, rising to wakefulness with agonising slowness. His eyelids felt like they had been cast from lead, his whole body did really. Forced to squint, he blinked rapidly in an attempt to clear the indistinct blur that coated his vision.
He lifted his head, straining against the weakness that held him stuck to the floor. Slowly, control of his body returned to him as his skill eliminated the last remnants of the poison that had incapacitated him. He shook his head to clear the drowsiness, clicking his tongue against the bone dry roof of his mouth.
"Need water" the thought was basic, primal, but his remaining lethargy wasn't exactly conducive to higher thought.
A few minutes later he stood, empty water skin in hand, and rubbed at his eyes.
"Well, it worked." He thought with a grin. It was a massive find. The biggest struggle with Rapid Adaptation was that most methods of levelling it by their very nature carried a deadly risk. Especially since most things capable of afflicting him also had a vested interest in turning him into a corpse through significantly more active efforts. It was far too dangerous to infect himself with unknown afflictions in combat.
If the worst had come to pass, and he had still not capped the skill as his class selection closed in, he would have been forced to take drastic measures. He was no masochist, but pain would have served to level the skill in a controlled manner, as gruesome as it was.
The plums represented another avenue, something that he thought he would never get access to in the depths. A poison that didn't physically harm the body. That was the original plan, up in the forest below. If, in the months preceding his class, he hadn't capped the skill naturally they had planned to travel to one of the larger frontier cities and enlist the skills of an alchemist.
"Though, completely disabling myself for who knows how long is not exactly what I would consider 'safe'." Kaius thought, looking at the ageing barred door that secured the church.
The plums were too useful, too plentiful, and too plain delicious to ignore, but next time he would have to make some preparations to ensure his safety. Quietly, with more than a little abashment, Kaius admitted he might have been a little hasty.
In his defence he didn't think that they would have quite so potent of an effect. Plus, he had been living off a diet of plain water and smoked meat for far too long. Fresh fruit was too much of a temptor.
With a sigh Kaius adjusted the blanket he was using as a skirt, before unbarring the church door to check on his pants and boots that he had left outside to let his cleaning enchantments work their magic. Pulling the clothing off the headstone they were draped over, he inspected them before nodding in satisfaction at their reasonable level of cleanliness.
A few minutes of getting changed and he was all suited up, pack rearranged to fit his scavenged chain shirt. He only had a few more skills to gain, and he still had more scouting to do. Pushing deeper into the glade was an option, but he hadn't missed that as soon as he had made tracks for the centre he had quickly ran into stronger and better geared undead.
If that was an indicator of growing danger, he wanted no part in it. At least, not yet. On the other hand, the thin clear strip that separated the glade from the cavern walls would give him good sight lines, allowing him to spot any more camps similar to the hunters lodge from a distance far enough to avoid significant danger.
Scouting out the various exits tangling deeper into the biome was something he would need to do anyway, so a circumnavigation served as good a goal as any in his opinion. He decided to bring his empty water skins with him. It had been a few days since his last trek to the stream, and he was down to a single one, half empty at that.
Rolled tight he managed to squeeze them under the flap of his pack.
"May as well start where I came in. It's close to home and as recognisable a spot as any." He mumbled, leaving the church and vaulting over the small stone wall that surrounded its boundaries.
Kaius strode along the thin stretch of grass that existed between the glade proper and the walls of the immense cavern that held the glowing forest deep beneath the earth. He kept close to the tree line, happy to let the canopy and endless wall of trunks break up his figure as his feet ate up the distance beneath his feet.
He'd been walking for some time now, moving counterclockwise from his start, and already he had passed a couple of exits from the immense space. Much like the tunnel he had entered from, these passageways were relatively small. Maybe big enough for three men to walk abreast, they were covered in rooty vines. Barely lit by the luminescent moss that was omnipresent in this biome of the Depths, they quickly turned off, barring him from deeper insights into their destination.
He had simply noted them, and moved on. He'd already decided that he wasn't going to leave the glade until he had at least acquired his next merged skill. It would shore up his defences nicely, and for all the glades danger it was still far better than ambush-ridden passageways that were no doubt covered in traps.
Fighting was always more fraught in confined spaces, and he had no intention of taking unnecessary risks. Not when he still had another two years stuck with almost no chance of rescue. Somehow he doubted that some high level delving team would just so happen to take a swim at the bottom of a remote waterfall deep in the foothills of the mountains that sealed off his home from the rest of the Arboreal Sea.
Soon he would come across the spring that breached the wall of the cavern, supplying the small stream that he had been using as a water source. He was pretty sure he could already see it, the distinct spray of water refracting the soft light of the cavern as it erupted from the stone.
He hoped he would find something there to fight, if he didn't before. His hunting clothes weren't quite light armour, but they were pretty bloody close with all the leather reinforcement that covered the almost-jacket that was built over his tunic. It should be enough for his needs at least.
The ground continued to fall away beneath the measured pace of his strides, the spray of spring water getting ever closer.
The faintest hint of rustling undergrowth was the only warning Kaius got before a grey blur streaked towards him through the undergrowth