Prudence, fighting to stay awake, tried to free herself of the snake’s grasp and the pool of her own blood that she sat in. Through her desperation, she was able to tumble over the serpent’s body. Blood poured freely from her leg and torso as she fell, barely able to keep her eyes open. She made a feeble attempt to escape using her good leg. She realized she was too weak to go on and turned over at the hallway entrance. “This is the beginning and the end,” she thought to herself. She was so tired and wanted to sleep so bad that she closed her eyes. “No! Don’t let yourself do it,” she told herself. “You’ll never open your eyes again.” Her blood still poured and her time was quickly escaping.

She finished ripping her tunic and pants that the serpent’s fangs had started. She wasn’t able to rip enough with her little strength and wouldn’t have been able to tie a descent bandage anyway. It was discouraging, and to make matters worse, there was nothing between her body and her plate mail armor save her personal garments. Her vision blurred as she looked around for a solution.

Prudence took one of the arrows and punctured her own leg with it. Strands of webbing wrapped themselves around her leg many times over in a tight, constricting way. She took another arrow and stabbed herself in the stomach and created another silk binding for her lower body.

Prudence breathed a sigh of pain as she felt the poison flowing through her veins. She hoped since most of her blood was on the cave floor that most of the poison was also. Prudence began to struggle against the cave floor again. Her vision blurred to the point of total obscurity and she groped around blindly, trying to find her way up the corridor. Her hands and feet tripped over many sharp rocks. Her energy was drained and she could not climb upward. Prudence closed her eyes. She struggled against the poison as darkness filled her eyes, but it was stronger and she fell asleep.

She opened her eyes in the morning to see familiar faces over her. She was on a bed in the Church of Selenica with her wounds tended.

“We’re lucky,” said Galin. “We thought we were going to lose you a few days ago. Dilvish found you in that cave you went to.”

She took Dilvish’s hand and managed a “thank you” and tried to get up. “No,” instructed Galin, “stay there until you get your strength back.”

“Dilvish,” Prudence called. Dilvish bowed and closed the distance between their faces. “Where’s Tomei?”