Speed of the Serpent is a skill taught by the University of Progress. The skill allows one to concoct a cocktail (at a kitchen with a grain mortar) of cobra venom, cobra blood, and garlic. When consumed, this beverage will grant 24 hours of offline waypoint time.
Drinking the cocktail causes permanent harm. Anyone who drinks it must then consume a glass of cabbage juice once every 28 days, or die. Death is permanent. Subsequent drinks reduce the time between cabbage juice drinks by a decreasing amount:
You are warned of this before you drink the cocktail, and you will be reminded of the need to drink cabbage juice.
This can only be learned by a paid character who has initiated into all seven disciplines.
A cure is now available. According to hearsay
As of the 28th of November, Speed of the Serpent claimed its first victim, Teti (who provided the above per-shot data).
Note from silver: I've been trying to kill a mule, but he had his first drink 20 days ago, and only has 11 days to live. It appears that drink SotS resets your timer much like drinking cabbage juice would (it just resets it "lower"). Using the above numbers from Teti, if you drank every day for 28 days, you'd still have 3.5 days to wait in order to die. Which means it's actually slower to kill yourself by drinking everyday (in fact, every time you go over 24 hours and drink "late" you've already added a few hours to your life). I now believe that if you are trying to die of SotS, then it will always take at least 28 days and the most efficient method is to drink once and never again. It also seems likely that unless we already have six characters in the pipeline (well, five additional ones beyond my mule, who will be dead in 11 days), we will not see a cure this telling.
From Solalique: With Slyfiend, it looks like we are down to four needed. I know of at least two in the pipeline (Dovey and Morkeleb). Dovey is due any day now, don't know the exact date. Morkeleb probably has about two weeks left. It still counts if payment expires, doesn't it? P.S. I have reason believe the cure will remove all accumulated waypoint time (aside from the fact that it just makes sense -- with a known cure available, one wouldn't want to allow a player to boost time with SotS, cure it, and then keep the time.)
| Number | Name | Date/Time | Comments |
| 1 | Teti | 11-28-2003-18:05:00 | Death was announced twice, an hour apart. Later time given. |
| 2 | Narkho | 01-02-2004-18:55:00 | Time given is the last announcement. For some reason, the death was announced in system channel 9 times over a span of 11 hours. (Also, player is now back in Egypt as new character, NarkhoII.) |
| 3 | Cylan | 01-21-2004-05:08:00 | |
| --- | Somebob | 02-05-2004-14:31:00 | Somebob suffers a death that will eventually be overturned on appeal, as out of bounds griefing. The theory is that a griefer was able to obtain unauthorized access to his account and feed his character SotS without his knowledge. |
| 4 | Devalin | 02-20-2004-20:31:00 | |
| --- | Guardian | 02-21-2004-00:49:00 | Bug with SotS timer, not actually a death. |
| --- | Hodhr | 02-21-2004-01:28:00 | Bug with SotS timer, not actually a death. |
| 5 | Inles | 02-25-2004-12:17:00 | System message begins to announce total number of deaths. System message records this as death number 6, while Somebob is "away". |
| 6 | GordonFreeman | 02-28-2004-04:19:00 | System message records this as death number 7, while Somebob is "away". |
| --- | Somebob | 03-02-2004-02:06:00 | Somebob resurrected. |
| 7 | Nia | 03-03-2004-07:40:00 | |
| 8 | Enjiro | 03-04-2004-05:43:00 | |
| 9 | Utzi | 03-25-2004-01:36:00 | |
| 10 | Aewl | 04-09-2004-23:46:00 | |
| 11 | xsspl | 04-11-2004-18:08:00 | |
| 12 | NeophantsSlave | 04-15-2004-20:03:00 | System message announces total number of death and adds the expected number of deaths needed before a cure can be found. We learn that a total of 24 deaths will be needed by the scientists. |
| 13 | Joklin | 04-24-2004-21:44:00 | Password is j0k3r is anyone wants to see Death (neonil) |
| 14 | Chichis | 05-07-2004-12:03:00 | |
| 15 | mkmssrt | 05-08-2004-13:08:00 | |
| 16 | BushPig | 05-10-2004-20:17:00 | |
| 17 | Salann | 05-14-2004-23:14:00 | |
| 18 | Cryo | 05-23-2004-05:46:00 | |
| 19 | BelaLugosi | 06-13-2004-13:44:00 | And with strange aeons... |
| 20 | Slyfeind-Hotep | 06-24-2004-09:17:00 | |
| 21 | Guardian | 06-26-2004-21:54:00 | See 02-21-2004, Guardian's previous bug death. |
| 22 | Hodhr | 06-29-2004-20:08:00 | See 02-21-2004, Hodhr's previous bug death. The two of them died sequentially, twice. |
| 23 | Dovey | 06-29-2004-22:18:00 | |
| 24 | Morkeleb | 07-06-2004-23:35 | |
| Cure Available | |||
| --- | Dyant | 07-07-2004-01:08 | Killed by a bug; Dyant had taken the cure a few hours before his death. The death was quickly reversed. |
| 25 | Akabar | 07-12-2004-07:27:00 | |
| 26 | Azerman36 | 08-06-2004-13:44:00 | |
| 27 | GarrettH | 08-07-2004-00:56:00 | |
Just for interest, the second victim (narkho, who died by accident due to being unable to log in) reported:
<narkhoII> ok, i just tried, it says 'your character has died' if i try to use narkho
Example of original system message:
Scientists at the Great University of the Human Body announce: There has been a death. M:Teti has succumed to the effects of the Speed of the Serpent.
Example of system message after body count added:
Scientists at the Great University of the Human Body announce: There has been a death. M:Aewl has succumbed to the effects of the Speed of the Serpent. Our experiments with the blood serum of victims lead us to believe that there may be eventually be treatment. We have collected serum from 10 victims.
Example of system message after remaining body count added:
Scientists at the Great University of the Human Body announce: There has been a death. F:BushPig has succumbed to the effects of the Speed of the Serpent. We have now collected 16 vials of serum from those who have died of Speed of the Serpent. With another 8 we expect a cure.
(Volunteers are sought for this important medical experiment. Remember, it's for the good of Egypt!)