Lance went to the waters edge and began to drink some of the water from the pond. Surprisingly the water didn't taste all that bad so he continued until he was sloshing about. He wanted to see if being full on water alone would kick his other passive ability into motion. The other members of the party looked at him like a weirdo after guzzling a slime filled pond's water. The next dilemma everyone faced was getting to the next floor. The ledge to the opening in the ceiling above them was at least fifteen feet higher.

  Jack decided he would make an effort at getting them above. " Dorian, let me jump off your shield above. Afterwards let Lance and Sandra stand on you, Reilly climb up on them, and then after that we will try to pull you up." Afterwards Jack stuck the torch they had into the dirt by the wall in the soft sand. Dorian obliged Jack. With a running start and a good heave Jack made it up to the ledge and then pulled himself up. Lance climbed on Dorian's shoulders and then Sadura climbed atop both of them and was able to hold onto the ledge. Just barely keeping their cheerleader style ladder from wobbling down. Reilly in her small stature climb over all of them with ease to the next floor. Sadura then gripped the edge tightly while Jack and Reilly held her arms. Dorian then climbed over Lance and up to the ledge. Lance held on for dear life as the Group then began to pull the two of them up the ledge.

  Lance was almost up the wall when he felt something crawl on his arm. A large spider on the wall promptly bit him on the forearm and he freaked out and went to smack it off of him. Falling all the way back to the ground on his back. With a loud thud and a few gasps. Everyone looked over the ledge in horror.

  " Lance! Lance!!"

  "Shit he's a gonner."

  " Ohh noo I feel so guilty *sniffle* "

  " Guys I barely held on there's no way I can do that again. He can just re-que and do this level again..."

  Lance heard these things as his eyesight went black he saw his health fall to one and blacked out.

  Lance woke up from a darkness that whelmed him after his fall. Unknown to how long it had been he tried to call out to Spex. Only as soon as he tried to was met with a screen the plainly stated console functions are suspended while in a dungeon. However what did pop up with that statement was a countdown. 6:48 Lance immediately understood it must have been a few hours. In "console time".

  After the brief notion of wonder he felt his body's pain wave over him. He thought of his class menu and brought it up showing that he was sitting at one health. The unbearable pulsing he felt all over was a sure sign that he was on the last lick of survival he could muster. With the party members nowhere in sight. He began to feel hopeless. He rolled in the sand and pushed himself up with his back to the wall he fell from. His sight was fading in and out, the roll of his pain coming and going with the faint rhythmic thump of his heart. A lone tear began well in his eye. Lance cursed at himself...

  " just my luck...shitty stupid chef class.. they just left me... they didn't even bother...fuck em... nothing I did even.." Lance in his squalor then thought back to what he had accomplished. He had defeated bats, defended his archer, throughout the cave made basic food to replenish everyone's energy, helped strategize, and found their treasure.

  " I feel so weak.. heck even with my sight I helped lead the way in some places.. I even thought Discern Ingredients was.."

  just then as he said it he had reactivated. Lance's eyes caught a faint glimpse of a red hue in the sand next to him. He focused and low and behold the spider that had crawled on him was there half smashed into the sand, presumably from when he fell. Just then Lance's eyes lit up and he remembered the moss and mushrooms he had picked. He grabbed the spider and with the spider in hand accompanying the slimy moss and mushrooms he tossed them into his mouth.

  The spongy and moist moss actually held a decent crunch like texture with an earthy pine like light taste. The mushrooms almost became liquid as soon as it touched his mouth into a gooey slime with a pistachio like bold flavor. Surprised Lance really held out hope that his mouth would soon fall victim to poor taste, the continued chew met a smooth finish with a hairy textured piece of meat of the spider had finally rotated around his palette to come to the forefront. The innards of the spider oozed and quickly rolled over his tongue with a beefy finish, a superb little aftertaste left his mouth surprisingly watering for more.

  "Huh... who'd have thought.. like a nice little spider salad."

  Just then in response to his declaration.

  Recipe created. "Cave Spider Salad"

  Cave Dew Moss

  Pond film Mushroom

  Cave spider

  Effect - +1 health - Dark vision for 10 minutes.

  Cave Spider Salad consumed

  Grade - Dishwasher

  Effect - +1 health.

  "Whoa." Lance sat up a little straighter, the throbbing subsided just a little and his health ticked up just a little more. Thoughts raced through his head back and forth. " Wait a recipe... how.. I'm a Chef so I can make recipes? Was that a skill?" Lance checked his class menu only to see that it wasn't there. Nothing about it said anything about recipes or grades of them etc. " So there's much more to this than it seems. Well I think.. I think I have a way out of this." Lance stood up. The pain and sharp shooting sensations shot throughout him in most areas his hands and feet tingling with numbness making it difficult to stand he leaned against the wall for support. He began to look around with his D.I activated. Again he saw the mushrooms and moss littered around the small pond. He then inspected the wall looking for more spiders. In the end of his search he only found just a few more that were within reach. A good smack of his pan and he held the two in his hands. Limping and slow he made his way to the waters edge and filled the pan with moss and mushrooms. He took everything and diced and cut them with his knife in a grueling few minutes. He hands shaking the whole while and aches everywhere. He barely willed himself through it all. In the end he held a pan full of mostly moss and mushrooms with diced spider bits that served as hardly even an ingredient due to its lack of volume. Lance sitting at the waters edge looked off into the distance seeing the hardly even faint hue of red remembered the bat meat was near. He neither had the strength nor the care left in him. Even more so without fire there was sure to be a level of discomfort in its consumption.

  Uneager but willing Lance bit into the still unfamiliar look of the Cave Spider Salad he just made. By normal standards this looked like absolute slop to him but he couldn't deny its strangely good flavor. Before he knew it.. he finished the whole pan.

  Large Cave Spider Salad consumed

  Grade- Dishwasher

  +2 health

  10 minutes of Dark vision.

  While his health became restored he felt the ebbing throb recede. Also his vision altered completely now giving view to the cave around him as if a huge contrast had inverted. After blinking his eyes in the strange blinding changes they eventually settled at a level of sight that seemed normal but instead of it being dark here the light had simply "turned on". Lance sighed and felt a bit of relief. He looked around and saw that they really had reached a dead end. Ironically the dead end could have been the small pond where he couldn't help but think about the slimes but they had luckily taken care of them. Lance looked into the water. He could see small sphere-like balls in the bottom of the lake as well as one large sphere. He thought back and immediately noticed how it must have been something left behind by the slimes. They had a blue hue too, except the large one was purple. He decided to submerge himself and grab them.

  After a few trips back and forth underneath Lance held 8 small white ping pong size balls and another that was very large and approximately the size of a small coconut. While in D.I the blue color was nice and solid and the purple had a very deep luster. Inspecting them closely he could see through them very faintly and with a good shake he could feel a liquid inside. Lance was conflicted. Wondering if he should eat them he decided against it. Partly because he gave one a lick and it was probably one of the most bitter things he had ever tasted. He simply put them into his box but couldn't find room for the large one. He just put it in his shirt as a way to not have to hold it outright but it was surely to be noticed if he met up with the party members again.

  Lance began to walk the path around the small pond and gathered more moss and mushrooms but after awhile he began to feel better and then realized his passive Full Stomach must have activated because his health had gone up to 12. Near full health he felt much better and decided it was time to get a move on. Looking at the wall Lance grew puzzled. How could he scale a sheer 15 foot wall without any items to assist.

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  He could only think of one thing.. Rope. Rope was the only way and even still he needed to have it grapple onto something with a hook of some sorts. The only problem was he didn't have any. And his Dark vision was soon to end. With three minutes remaining Lance began to frantically search for spiders. Quickly he ended up finding some between the stalactites as well as some web which he also gathered because of their blue hue.

  After consuming another large portion of salad he extended his timer by ten minutes. Full to the brim he could feel the slosh in his stomach. Then the idea came to fruition. " What's gonna be a better rope? Bat wings or Bat guts? Guess we'll find out." Lance held his pan in one hand and his knife in the other. And ran into the darkness determined to make his way to the checkpoint.

  The further back he traveled the more he realized that they had missed. By taking the straightest route with the torches and not treading over any stone spired areas the group simply went with the flow. Lance half believed it was almost luck that led them to where they ended up in the first place but then dismissed the thought, it is level one after all. Heading back through though he had found different paths some littered in faint blue tinged dirt in his D.I but upon closer inspection the ground was covered in bat dung. Not wanting to spoil his nor ingest poop he didn't bother to grab any, however he smashed and took every spider he could find. After jogging for a while and after another round of salad Lance eventually found his way all the way back at the entrance. Through different routes it seemed as if there were faster ways through but most noticeably the path they had taken was likely the simple but longest route. Twenty minutes versus a couple hours, being able to see certainly helped a lot. Also very noticeably he hadn't encountered bats or other beasts.

  Part of Lance tossed around the idea that perhaps the path of least resistance wasn't the path that was the simple choice. Maybe the game was designed in that fashion that ease held its own truths and what was viewed as difficulty may hide falsehoods. Simply put Lance concluded that fear was the detrimental view and that both had their respective boons. Alone on one path fighting the consistent threats of bats versus alone on a more specific path with less conflicts if any, one could see who may live easily, while the other hardship may barely live but prosper. Preparedness. Lance vowed to keep that in mind. Something like being prepared instantly shook him to his core.

  " Be prepared to resolve your fears in the unknown, overcome, adapt... spider salad" Lance tapped his box like it held a treasure beyond the enlightenment he found.

  Back at the entrance and able to see he looked around and pondered. Before him lay three paths. One he had taken to get back here. Another they took to get further, but in the darkness and to the left behind a thin wall of stalagmites he could see a path that went in a different direction. Knowing that heading back the path they originally went on he could likely find the carcasses of a handful of bats. However Lance chose the new route. Stepping over and shimmying through a few tight squeezes he ended up in a narrow path that led to a completely new area of the cave. Very soon down the path he met a wall with an entrance and a narrow passage that seemed naturally built into the stone that went down and winded where he could no longer see.

  Lance gripped his axe. "Let's do this"

  Stepping onto the path Lance noticed a difference in temperature. Immediately a chill ran up his spine. He just bit his lip and pressed on. The gentle slope of the path brought him to a cavern at which the path ended abruptly and before him was a large drop into nothingness. Slow drips of water somewhere far off echoed as if to preclude an impending silence. Had this path been followed blindly to doom?

  Looking around, Lance noticed a small outcropping. A very thin narrow path hugging the wall to the right of the stone hallway he came down. It widened a bit after its entrance but would be all but invisible to see as it sloped gently downward and followed the wall in and out into the distance. Only vermin or the bold would ever dare to tread the path. Lance nearly left, walking back up the path he came down, and even he had barely seen it. Regardless Lance pressed on. Pressed for time and pressed for progress the slim path gave the impression that it was a task left to those with resolve. And so he began.

  After roughly 8 minutes or so, Lance had to pause. His sight had returned and the darkness was pure, not even a hand in his face could be seen. Being prepared, the small box sling he had as a pseudo lunchbox held great purpose. Giving it a good shake and reaching inside he ate a few handfuls and the buff returned. He quickly dismissed the alert but then paused. There was something off. The timer had been adjusted. "An hour?!" Lance thought and bewildered, forcing him to check his log.

  "Cave Spider Salad with Slime dressing" recipe created

  Effect - Dark vision 1 hour Mana Regeneration 1 minute.

  Cave Spider Salad with Slime dressing consumed.

  Grade - Busboy

  Effect - Dark vision 1 hour +1 mana every 20 seconds for one minute.

  Lance immediately looked into the box. He had shaken the box a bit too much and one of the small spheres had burst in the jostling. Leaving all of the rest of the ingredients covered in slime as well as the interior of the box. " Well shucks. I mean that's good but also mana... for what?" The most alarming thing was that the taste was only slightly off; the texture hardly played true to the fact that there was even slime. The subtle difference only lay in that it was just a little more salty. Like sand had been powdered on your lips. Lance wished he could have known more because the grade went from Dishwasher to Busboy, which in retrospect made him want to face palm. " I thought the dishwasher was good like someone would clean their plate, not that they didn't belong in the kitchen! Even still, Busboy? Are we only now clearing tables?" Lance grew furious at the notion, "The burnt char of bat meat did have its appeal but at least this was a recipe! ugh.. bat on a stick isn't even something worth a recipe who wouldn't skewer meat if that was the only option. Damnit give me real food so I can make a sandwich!"

  Lance grew silent and calmed himself. He now understood that while he was a chef these lowly meals must amount to garbage in this world as well, what struck him as even more of an affront was that if that was the case the benefits of slop even outweighed the most basic of tools. Even Dorian had a mask that gave him dark vision. That was a boon, an item, a reward. Lance killed some bugs and harvested what life could even live in this darkness and made something of it. Even though not permanent the effects of his tinkering seemed to bare fruit of an entirely different vein. Perhaps one day he could make a lasting and permanent effect take place with his food, but at what level? What ingredients? What would it taste like? The ideas stirred him. " I will be the best chef this game has ever seen, YOU WILL ALL EAT MY SLOP!!!" Lance yelled at the top of his lungs into the darkness.

  As if to answer him the cave began to rumble and groan far off from him. With a squint of his eyes he could see a tide of darkness, like a cloud billowing into his vision. Upon closer inspection a sea of bats seemed to be flying towards him. Lance's heart sank, "Ah shit" he darted along the narrow path it was too late to turn back. He had a minute before they would reach him. Where was he going? He didn't even know, as long as it wasn't here. Running and coiling along the path eventually he came to another entrance that was low hung to about his waist. Quickly he ducked and slid into it. The momentum carried him a few feet in at which point a frantic crawl on all fours ensued. The rumble grew louder and louder still, now with the piercing screeching and scratchy calls of the bats being more perceptible. Lance crawled for his dear life into the darkness. Looking back he had already gone 50 or so feet before the waves of bats finally caught up. He watched the entrance awaiting his doom. Hundreds of bats must have flown by. Only until two of them came crashing into the entrance. He realized that they were in a fight. Bat versus Bat. Except these two bats were different then he had seen previously. The dark vision allowed him to see clearly. These bats had a lighter shade to them a bit more brown. And it seemed like they didn't have eyes. As the bats fought for their lives with one another the wave of bats eventually passed and the rumble began to lower, the two bats snapping and clawing, flapping their wings rapidly at one another the horrendous battle continued. He watched on in terror as one of them eventually got the upper hand and pinned the other one. It screeched menacingly into the other's face, clearly the victor. The bat, not even looking up to the other, seemed to have given up, at peace that it was likely to die. A swift swipe of a wing talon into its neck by the victor left a large gash and blood began to spray and sputter from it onto the walls. Lance gasped in shock then covered his mouth. These little beasts were far worse than the bats he had dealt with before. With his gasp the bat looked up sniffing and dancing its ears in his direction. The eyeless face of it proved how much they relied on hearing so Lance immediately went still and held his breath. After a long moment of silence the bat looked down then turned around and flew out of the small tunnel.

  Lance watched it fly into the darkness and the other bat seemed to stop spraying blood which left Lance a victor of spoils. With a slow crawl towards the mouth of the cave he got up to the bat. It lay there still in a blood puddle still warm to the touch. Lance looked at its size and realized that it was much larger than the others; Its wingspan alone must've been 8 feet. Lance grabbed his knife and dug it into its head right through the ear hole, just to be certain it was dead. He was met with a considerable amount of resistance but with his weight pierced the skull. When he did, a small notification popped in his view.

  "Level 5 Blood Bat killed" - Shame tier drop available

  "Achievement unlocked - Astounding kill"

  Description - Kill a beast 5 times your level. - Class skill awarded.

  Lance paused the blade still in the skull. “What it wasn't dead? It.. it didn't fight back. Was it not done bleeding out? What the hell, I don't get it.” Lance pulled up his log. He checked to see if what he had done even showed up.

  " Knife - 2 Damage. Blood Bat -01/67"

  " No fuckin way. It was still alive? Remind me not to mess with these in the future." With luck on his side Lance swiped again through his menu and clicked on the mail tab.

  Award available (Y/N)

  Class skill available (Y/N)

  With a press of yes two more notifications went off.

  Blood Bat Leathers- Shame tier

  Novice Attire with cloak.

  +2 Defense

  Smells like Bat.

  Class skill award

  .

  .

  .

  Pan Sear - Active skill

  While holding a pan, heat its bottom without a fire for a flash sear finish.

  Active time 1 minute - 1 mana

  Mana bar generated.

  Lance leaned back and took a deep breath. Just before he yelled he remembered what happened last time and then whispered

  "... fuck yehh..."