"This is going to suck, isn't it?" There was no one to answer my whispered question, though I could easily imagine that there was some god up there laughing their ass off at the poor mortal schmuck hanging from a cocoon. There were only two things to do at the moment. Shut up and jump. A single hard lurch, and the cocoon gave up its grip on me; I slid out into the open air. As the air rushed past, my stomach climbed up into my throat as I plummeted towards the water below. As the water rushed up to meet me, I had to wonder, was it deep enough? All thought fled my mind as I tucked my arms in and tried to point my feet at the water. From at least fifty feet up, I was not willing to risk falling into a flop. It was more than just a small possibility that hitting the water that hard would end with a broken spine for me, if it didn't split my belly open completely in the first place.

  As I met the water I was greeted with a shock of extreme cold that nearly blew the breath from my lungs. I plunged through the water, waiting for the inevitable impact of my feet striking the stone at the bottom of the pond. Only that impact never came.

  I opened my eyes in the crystal clear water of the pond. My vision was a bit blurry, but thankfully, I found myself alone in the water. Eaten by a swarm of vicious monster fish would have been a shit way to go after escaping the nightmare Rex and the spider above.

  I pumped my arms in tandem with my legs and shot towards the surface. My fall had plunged me something like ten feet below the surface, not terribly far, thankfully. I broke the surface of the still water gasping for breath and wiping at my eyes to clear away the water. It took several moments for my heart rate to settle back down, and I began to look around. The walls of the cave were relatively featureless, just an expanse of smooth stone, except for a single tunnel entrance with a small outcrop of rock poking out of the water in front of it. The chill was already beginning to get to me, settling into my bones. I needed to get moving before the water leeched all the heat from my body.

  The swim to the outcrop only took a few minutes, which I was thankful for. It was just long enough for the exertion to let me build up some heat. Then I was hauling myself out of the water, flopping down on my back to stare up at the web above while I caught my breath.

  I could feel the panic setting in, the shock of the last few hours. I lay on the outcropping, shivering not just from the chill and the damp. My breaths were rapid keeping rhythm with my heart rate as the shock set in. I lay there on the cool stone. I knew I was going into shock; I could recognize some of the signs. I needed something else to focus on. Other than the terror of the last few hours.

  In the past, whenever the world had been too much to deal with. When my mother passed. When I came home from school bloody and bruised from fighting. When nothing made sense, I had retreated into games and books. The infinite myriad of worlds, wonders, and magic had become a haven for me in my formative years. I pulled up my status sheet with a mental prod. I knew this wasn't a game. I knew that to my core at that moment. Yet treating it like it was, just a little, might help me cling to my sanity.

  I had some gains to go over.

  Looking at my updated character sheet, a calm gradually settled over me while my heart rate lowered and my breathing deepened. This was familiar; this I could figure out. I'd played enough games that picking up the nuances of a new system shouldn't be an insurmountable task. I could take this and make it my own. Leverage it to survive whatever the hell was going on.

  The gains from awakening my bloodline had been significant to say the least. A new title, a fair sized boost to my stats, some sort of secondary class related to my blood-line, and several new skills also related to my blood-line. I focused on the new title, [Bloodline Hegemon], first to see if the screens would provide me with more information.

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  Well, that explained the new numbers on my stat sheet. The brackets were showing the breakdown of my stats. A base of twelve strength, plus three points from my bloodline. As well as a single extra point in Luck. As I leveled and got stronger it would only increase as well. If I ever got up to a hundred strength, I'd get a whopping 25 points extra from my bloodline alone, though I didn't know how many points I'd get for a level, since I hadn't actually leveled up at all yet. I'd been too busy scrambling to survive the insanity I'd woken up to.

  Shit, that explains how I was able to get out of the cocoon.

  Honestly I wanted to be a little disappointed with the ability, it seemed like it would be somewhat niche in it's usefulness, but at the same time it had most definitely already saved my life once already. So there wasn't much I could actually complain about. I moved immediately to the next ability.

  That was less than informative. A vague single-line description was not a good indicator of what the Skill would actually do. It was somewhat self explanatory but I was already willing to bet that there were both restrictions on what the Skill could do and probably at least one area where it would really excel. I put it to the side, along with the ever growing pile of unanswered questions that was growing in my mind now that I had moment to think and wasn't running for my life. I'd either go insane or have a mental breakdown if I spent too long pondering things, like what was going on? Where am I? How did I get here? Why was the word Skill automatically capitalizing itself in my mind? I had no answers to any of these questions, and contemplating them wouldn't do me any good. The here and now was all that mattered for the moment. Which meant I needed to understand all the tools I had to help me survive whatever this situation was.

  I moved on to the last Skill, this one concerned me, just by the name alone. Something called metamorphosis, when related to spiders, did not sound pleasant. It, in fact, sounded a little heinous. Spiders had never bothered me much before, but neither did I have any fondness for them or a desire to be anywhere near them. I was just as likely as anyone else I knew to squish any spider I found in my home with prejudice.

  That was, concerning. I read over the Skill again. I really wasn't liking the idea of turning into a giant spider, but I couldn't deny the utility it might offer outright either. If I was able to turn into a spider there were solid odds I could just scurry up the wall and out of the cave. Well, probably not, I had a feeling I wouldn't be able to fit through the tunnel I crawled through to get here as a spider. I doubted I’d be turning into something small enough for that. I had a strangely assured gut feeling that the Skill would would make me quite large. Still, trading soft human skin for arachnid chitin would likely mean I wouldn't get as banged up either. Just the idea was enough to make my skin crawl though.

  I slowly dragged myself from the cool stone to my feet; my body was feeling more and more abused by the minute. I hadn't exactly been in great shape before this, and the mad sprint through the forest, and the ordeal with the spider had taxed me quite a bit. I didn't feel nearly as bad as I thought I should have. I should be a wreck right now, barely able to move, especially after all that spider venom. Yet here I was, up and moving.

  There are always more questions.

  A sigh escaped my lips as I turned to face the tunnel entrance, down was the only way out and I wasn't looking forward to finding out what else lived in this cave system.

  I made my way into the tunnel, a grin tugging at the corners of my mouth at the fact that I could see quite well now. Several of my favorite characters in different franchises had excellent night vision and it was a nice distraction for my tattered mind.

  The tunnel was damp and smelled like the clear water of the pond, there was no hint of earth or plants just damp stone. The unfamiliar smell was accompanied the by the sound of occasional drops of water plummeting down from somewhere above. I was surprised by the size of the tunnel; my six-foot-two frame fit easily, and I was able to walk without hunching over, hell, I could probably spread my arms out and maybe, touch the walls, maybe.

  As I made my way further into the tunnel, it began to slant downwards at a gentle grade, and I had an interesting realization. I could hear the plop plop echo of droplets of water hitting stone, but what I couldn't hear was the sound of my own footsteps. As soon as I thought about it, I nearly stumbled, and my cheap running shoes scraped against the stone, sounding like a cacophony of noise in the near silence of the tunnel. It took me a moment but eventually the dots connected in my mind and I grinned.

  "It's [Web walker's grace], it has to be, I was never that quiet," I muttered to myself as the gears of my mind cranked over and started turning.

  Which means these Skills, especially the more vague ones, might do more than they come right out and say.

  The realization kept me grinning as the gears churned in my mind, working over everything I might, or might not have at my disposal. The list would only get longer whenever my main class resolved itself. Well, if, it ever resolved itself. That was admittedly, a concern, and not a small one. 'The System' as I'd decided to refer to it had informed me back at the beginning that I was undergoing some process to prevent whatever Soul-Sheer was, and was doing to me. It had also said that it couldn't assign a class to me until the soul-sheer was resolved.

  It hadn't spelled out what would happen if the soul-sheer wasn't resolved, but I figured not getting my main class would likely be the least of my worries at that point.

  There was nothing for it, worrying about the future wouldn't get me anywhere. As I continued down the tunnel it began to narrow. It was gradual at first, and I almost didn't notice it. It went from being so wide I wasn't sure I'd be able to touch both sides with my arms spread out, to so narrow that my shoulders were almost brushing the sides of it in the span of a few minutes. I could see light ahead, though, actual light; it was, however, absolutely not sunlight. Far too blue for that.

  I approached the opening in the tunnel with more than just a degree of caution, my streak with new places in the last little while hadn't been great and I wasn't eager to go for the hat trick of giant things that wanted to eat me.

  What I saw when I peeked into the new chamber stunned me for a long moment.

  It was beautiful.

  What lay before me was a massive cave, but one unlike anything I'd ever seen before. Something I was certain could not have existed on Earth. It seemed to stretch on for miles, though I couldn't be sure thanks to the massive green trees draped in pitch black vines that glittered with streaks of vibrant blue, almost like arcs of electricity. Above the canopy of strange trees, I could see what looked like clouds or fog banks floating through the air. It was like someone had made an entire underground ecosystem in this cave. Similar to how some people kept terrariums inside of glass containers.

  "Vicky would love this…" I trailed off muttering to myself as I stared at the strange jungle spread out before me. My sister was the green thumb of the family. Or rather, the one who wished she had a green thumb.

  The sounds of the strange jungle greeted me as I stepped out of the tunnel, the sounds of insects, at least I assumed they were insects, and small animals rushing through the undergrowth, it sounded alive. The air was moist here and had a warmth to it that the cave and tunnel had lacked, though I had no idea where it came from since there was no sun. My first thought was that perhaps it came from those strange blue and black vines, perhaps the odd flickering carried more than just light as they shimmered across the surface of the myriad vines that seemed to be everywhere in the underground jungle. If I didn't know better, and couldn't see the stone ceiling of the cavern far above I'd swear I wasn't underground at all.