Milo passed through the large cavern, noting the types of common mushrooms and vegetables that were being grown here.

All of the plants were grown in raised beds with water carefully poured in by the bucketful.

A large water cart went to each field where water was poured into the buckets and then into the fields.

Another field hand was spreading pungent fertilizer around the plants.

Milo was glad he wasn't a farmer.

He understood the process of growing things with hydroponics in the real world, but next to nothing about doing it here.

He'd much rather be mining.

His time in the Hollow was feeling like a vacation.

He was relaxing more and more.

There were problems here, but he didn't feel like the responsibility of solving them was on his shoulders.

He did like solving problems though, and applied some thought to his current job.

He needed to gather rare shrooms for two different people.

One needed the tastiest to reseed his planters.

The other needed the inedible ones to make medicines of some sort.

He was curious about that.

Maybe the old alchemist would teach him a few things? He had warned Milo against the cavern patrolled by the spiders.

Sort of.

It felt almost like a challenge.

Milo realized he also didn't know the old teacher's name.

Surely someone in the Hollow would know of him.

He'd just take a look at that cave, and be cautious as he had promised Master Bleusnout.

If you were cautious and sneaky enough, did that count as being careful? He mulled that over as he walked and decided it was outcome based.

If you didn't get caught, you were careful.

If you had to run away with giant spiders nipping at your tail, you weren't.Milo had gone past the area where the Hollow had its farms, and into the caverns beyond.

Mushrooms and lichen grew all over, but not the ones that he needed.

The next cavern was quite dark.

He felt his eyes adjust to the complete darkness, but something was bothering him.

Where were the lichen that gave off a soft glow? It was like this area had been scrubbed down to the bare rock.

He slowed down, moving low to the ground and skulking off to one side.

And then he saw the trap.

There was a void in the rocks where there should be solid stone.

A pit that felt open to the air with his stone sense but that looked like bare rock to his eyes.

He scanned the ceiling but saw nothing hiding in the stalactites.

No one was around to see him use his magic.

He brought out the Claws of Alta-Viator and the Spine of Volax-Repat.

Bone plates covered his hands like gauntlets and along the top of his feet and long his shins.

His tail grew longer, looking like a whipping spine with a slashing blade on the end.

Soundlessly he climbed the wall of the cave, and skulked across the ceiling until he was directly above the pit.

Whatever was down there was used to ambushing its prey.

It wouldn't be happy to have prey ambush it first.

Milo took an ultra-sharp claw and began to cut into the stalactite directly over the pit.

This would be a good way to say 'Surprise'.

The sharp cone of rock was five feet long and a foot thick at the base.

It took Milo ten minutes to soundlessly carve around the outer edge, not letting any of the rock fragments fall to the ground.

Pushing on the stalactite, he heard a small cracking sound, and the three-hundred-pound spear of stone fell fifty feet to the ground where it poked through something soft and then into something very squishy.

Milo couldn't help but mumble "Surprise!"He was surprised himself when a very large, and very angry spider erupted from the hidden pit and pounce on nothing at all.

The stalactite was stuck through it's thorax which was oozing greenish ichor.

The maddened arachnid raced around the cave, looking for the attacker that had hurt it until it chanced to look up and see Milo on the ceiling.

The spider hissed at him in pain and anger, and raced up the wall and across the ceiling towards him.

Milo was already moving to the side of the room, using his tail and arms to swing from one stalactite to the next.

When the floor was only thirty feet below him, he dropped to the ground.The spider tried to do the same, but the wound was hampering it.

More green ichor poured out.

Milo raced away, trying to judge the spider’s speed.

He could tell immediately that it wasn't as fast as he was.

He moved to the side, slashed with his tail and then rolled as Master Gilad had taught him.

A strand of silk shot from the abdomen narrowly missed him.

The leg he had slashed was hanging by a thread.

Twice more he repeated the tactic and the spider collapsed with only one leg on that side.

The spider tried to crawl towards him.

Milo moved behind it, content to let it die from bleeding.

It was nearly dead when a black garbed figure raced forward, leaped into the air high enough to perform a double rotation before sticking the landing onto of the spider, just behind it's head.

"Surprise." Twin daggers stabbed into the spider, at the junction between head and body, multi-faceted eyes glowed green with hatred as it twisted to spit a mass of sticky saliva at the new attacker before it collapsed.

You have slain a foe with the aid of someone you are competing with.

They seek to claim the victory.

Please choose:-Share the victory with this helpful person as if they were in your party, and you have a truce from competition for one day.-Claim victory for yourself.

You will gain 70% of the experience and CSP.

Competition continues.-Declare that you are attacking the kill-stealer for daring to take what is yours.

Combat is to first blood.

You will gain all of the experience and CSP.You have a minute to decide.

Normally much sooner but the second attacker is in a bit of a sticky situation at the moment.