### 225

You focus your Magnakai skills of Nexus and Curing upon your bitten leg in an attempt to neutralize the spider’s poison and reduce the swelling. Eventually this treatment works, but only after you have suffered a great deal of discomfort and fatigue: lose 6 ENDURANCE points.

You return to your bed and, as you sit down, you see that the spider is still alive: it is clinging to the far wall. You hurl your boot at it and it scurries down to disappear through a crack in the uneven bamboo floor. Your close encounter with this potentially deadly spider plays on your mind and you find it impossible to go back to sleep. At first light you gather together your equipment and go down to the paddock to collect your horse. The hostel-keeper calls you from the kitchen window and you wave the man farewell before you mount your horse and ride away across the courtyard.

Turn to 314.