The White Hare

Dungeon

With a groggy sigh Jack cracks open his eyes. Trying to stretch out his stiff back from the awkward sleeping position he scratches behind one of his fluffy ears. The new bruises on his body aching as he stands up. The dried clay on his side crumbling with the slow movement, revealing a new scar.

Slowly dragging himself to the door, the buck leans on the wall of the tunnel as he makes his way back to the upper levels of the warren. Before he could even make it halfway to the exit he is redirected by his mother. "Good morning dear. Where do you think you're going?"

"Out to-"

"Hunt? No. You're staying right here and eating what we bring you." She helps him down so he is sitting in the playroom.

"Where are the others?"

"Clay has them helping with making another playroom on the lower tunnels." Jullia walks out of the room for a brief moment before coming back with an armful of fruit. "Your friend dropped off a few things for you so I suggest you eat."

Not bothering to argue, Jack starts to eat some of the overripe fruit and treebark before his mother comes back into the room... dragging a few goblins and a bunch of long legged rat looking beasts. Both the goblins as well as the rats were torched so it was difficult to tell. The only reason he knew they were goblins and rats was because his appraisal skill said <<Roasted Goblin Hunter>> and <<Roasted Goblin Hunting Rat>>.

"So she killed a bunch of goblins and rats then sent them here with fruit? She could have taken it easy with the fire if she planned on giving them to me but I'm not picky." Jack rips a limb off of the rodent and starts to eat when his mother speaks up.

"Oh she didn't, I did. The rats were covered in fleas and mange. Since your hellhound friend brought them with the goblins I burned them as well. Last thing I need is a warren full of mites and fleas..."

After eating the home cooked meal Jack gets a notification.

[Thanks to your [Eldritch Mind] skill you have determined one of your hidden traits: ["Bottomless" Stomach] allows you to eat an unnatural amount of food in a single sitting without feeling full.]

Then a second notification starts flashing red in front of him.

[Warning!!!: Adverse Effects Detected!!!: Because of the [Gnaw] skill synergizing with ["Bottomless" Stomach] and [Removed Limiter] you are experiencing [Caloric Level Drain], causing you to suffer from an abnormal metabolism spike after every level increase. Now that you have been made aware of this effect and you possess the [Eldritch Mind] skill, you may choose to disable leveling for a limited time in order to build calories. Should you fail to get your body weight up within the time limit you will begin to experience [Stage III Starvation]. When you disable leveling you will lose all experience surplus that you acquired during the duration of disabled leveling. Do you wish to temporarily disable leveling? Yes / No]

"I figured that bit out back at level 3." Jack frowns. Zooming in on [Caloric Level Drain] he reads it as he moves the other screen off to the side for now.

[Caloric Level Drain: A status effect that normally occurs only when a juvenile of a current or previous dungeon dwelling species gains their first level. Rapidly converting stored fat and calories into energy to grow and increase base stats before losing the effect. Sometimes the effect returns in the presence of a drastic change in evolution without giving the body time to adjust gradually over a certain period of time. This is most common in current or former dungeon monster species but outliers occur in native Terra species. With [Removed Limiter] uncapping your stats and the synergy of ["Bottomless" Stomach] and [Gnaw] providing an unnaturally quick experience acquisition rate, you are simulating the requirements for [Caloric Level Drain] to be required. Yet you do not gain height or mature faster past the first level. Instead your [Flexible Biology] is attempting to acquire new skills at an increased rate in exchange for the adverse status being repeatedly activated within a short period of time.]