"Fuck!" I yelled, back in the safety of the catacombs. "Fuck, fuck, fuck!"
A couple of patrolling zombies peered at
strangely, but I really couldn't be arsed right now. Even if my zombie twin was watching through their eyes, I needed to vent.
I don't surrender while I still have moves left to make! I don't give in! If it hadn't been for that final taunt by the bloody tree... I'd have just lay there, letting myself be absorbed. And worse, I'd have enjoyed it. I was enjoying it. No, it was even worse than that; I don't think it even was a taunt. It was legitimately pleased with .
"Argggg!" I scread.
I did not like being manipulated, and the tree was a master of doing so in a way that my skills could do nothing about. Disease immunity helped, but once it was overco, how did I defend against sothing directly screwing with my brain? Was there such a skill as pleasure resistance, and would I want it if there was?
The scariest part was that so small part of
kept wondering why I was so furious. Why not give in, it asked. Why not let myself feel that pleasure all the ti? Did I want to be angry, afraid and in pain, rather than living my life in bliss?
No, I damn well didn't. I wanted to burn the bloody tree to the ground, and that would give
far more pleasure than the fakery it was offering. At least now I knew why the limby blobs were so scared of the guidance. Maybe they'd had so breakthrough, using the information they'd got from ? I placed my hand against the statue and fast travelled.
The first village wasn't a great success, with the statue having been enclosed in a stone box. The second village was even worse, with the statue enclosed in a poisoned stone box. Apparently, I wasn't welco at either, but given my reception the last ti, that wasn't a great surprise. I'd have to take the long way around instead.
After a walk through the catacombs and a comforting hug from the zombie queen, I made my way down the stairs and along the passage, which ended in a stone wall.
Okay... Apparently, I was no longer welco on the fourth floor at all. But why? Why would the carnes multiformis block ? Yes, I'd dabbled with both sides, but that shouldn't be any reason for them to unite against .
I tapped against the wall as a theory ford. I could see why they were so scared of getting infested by the guidance, but how did they get infected? Surely all they needed to do was avoid the pods? But I'd already had capped disease nullification when I first set foot on the floor. The skill was always niggling away in the background, complaining of whatever weak diseases were around. There was disease everywhere, after all. There was a reason common sense would advise against, to pick a random example, licking cave walls. What if there was a background level of seeds in the air, so low that I'd ignored it?
'An island, standing alone in my perfect garden,' the tree had said. What if everyone was already infected? What if the pair of villages were kept around purely for reproductive purposes, to maintain the drone supply? Or at least, if not directly controlled, manipulated. Keeping them fighting each other, so that they wouldn't unite against the tree, but keeping things balanced so that neither village would ever win. That would explain the insane war. Was it the tree that was trying to keep
out?
Regardless of who or what was trying to keep
out, I needed to get back in. Since I was here already, I may as well try to get through this wall rather than the shrines. If that failed, I'd try the poisoned one in the hopes they wouldn't have guards on the outside, trusting to the poison.
I drew out my pickaxe and started mining. It was possible I could lt my way through, but the hour I would take to respawn afterwards would give them more than enough ti to repair whatever damage I did. If I was to use my fla breath, I'd be better off doing so in one of the villages, in the last few seconds before trigger respawn activated, so I could respawn there and then before my own flas killed .
Mining advanced to level 5
The wall was thick enough that I couldn't simply punch through it, but wasn't so thick that I had trouble penetrating it with the pickaxe. Sense presence didn't pick up anything behind it, but that hadn't responded to anything on this floor. It only needed one more level to evolve. That would be worth doing at so point, but it was a bit late right now. Sense mana drew a blank too, but again, I hadn't caught anyone with magic items down here so far. It would tell
if soone tried to use magic to repair my hole, though.
Things remained silent as I enlarged the hole, and even when I stepped through. Neither traditional light nor olfactory perception picked up anything. Had they really underestimated
so badly that they'd left the wall unguarded? I took a few tentative steps, and in the absence of any volleys of arrows or flying rocks, made my way towards the first village. They were the ones I'd treated with most recently, so had less reason to be cross at
than the first, but given the unified assault force I'd seen last ti, I doubted I'd be welcod at either.
In fact, when I arrived at the village, it was deserted. Of all the options I was considering, that hadn't been one. Where had all the fleshy blobs gone?
And now I had a moral quandary. I was alone in a village that had at least so level of magitek, and while they'd given
one mana crystal, they'd implied they had more. Reaching out with sense mana, I could pick up a few items of interest in my vicinity, just waiting for
to go and loot them. On the other hand, I wasn't sure where the owners were. Chances were very good they hadn't left by their own choice, whether that was because they were being manipulated by the tree or sothing else had happened. Stealing their stuff while they were out fighting for their lives or freedom would be a rather dick move.
It wouldn't hurt to look around, though. Where was the closest signature?
Sense mana advanced to level 10
Bonus, but no evolution for it. I followed the trail of glowing mana into a building, the front door not rely unlocked but wide open, leading into what appeared to be soone's house. I hadn't considered what a bed for a ball of arms might look like, and the answer turned out to be a sort of hammock with carefully arranged holes for half their arms to dangle through. The chairs were bowl-shaped stools with three holes.
The signature was upstairs, which was reached not by stairs, but by a triangular arrangent of three ladders, each with offset rungs. I tracked it down to an obscenely slly room that appeared to be where they applied their 'clothing'. It was a five-pointed star with a bulbous central section.
[Untranslatable]
Auto combinator, applicator and [untranslatable] for [untranslatable]. Can accept up to five [untranslatable].
Okay. That could stay where it was.
Alas, many of the signatures turned out to be similar things. Every house over a certain size had one of those applicators, which I assud to be sothing to apply the scented clothing given the stench of the rooms I found them in. After the fifth one, I decided to ignore the structures that were obviously houses, and moved on to a different sort of place instead. It seed to be so sort of barracks? Or maybe a hospital ward? There were rows of beds, each with equipnt that my appraisal could offer no useful information about.
I ceased poking at one of them when I heard scratching. The deserted village had been completely silent, so despite being quiet, it stood out imdiately. I followed the sound out through a side door and into another room. I was used to strong slls in this settlent, but this room was rank. The reason why was obvious; ten icosahedral lumps of flesh, missing all twelve of their limbs. They surrounded a central pillar, from which tubes ran into the amputated monsters. Foul slling liquids dribbled out of holes where so of the limbs had been. Seven of the ten had protrusions growing from their bodies, two of which were producing the quiet scratching. Babies.
Apparently, I'd found what happened to the kidnapped females from the second village. And no doubt the second village had a similar setup for their own kidnap victims. So, I'd been completely wrong. This was neither barracks nor a clinic. It was a baby factory. How long had they been stuck here? What a hellish existence.
It was enough to make
feel sick. This was, in a way, even worse than the centipedes' breeding chamber; all ten of the victims were alive. Barely. No doubt those tubes were there to feed them, but with the village abandoned, these victims had been too, and the tubes and containers they were connected to were empty. The reason why five of the baby sacs were silent was simple; the children had starved. I looked around, but there was nothing at all I could do for them short of hastening their deaths. Heck, I wanted to burn the whole building. If it wasn't for the backlash from my fla breath, I would have.
They hadn't reacted to
entering, and proficient empath shared nothing but despair. Given what I'd seen so far, chances were good that any sense organs they had were on their limbs. They were completely blind. Or suffering anosmia, or whatever the correct term would be for these things. I walked right up to them, and still nothing. I plunged my spear into an important-looking organ, visible through their transparent skin. Proficient empath shared the pure relief she felt for the last few seconds before she lost consciousness, bleeding out and dying a minute later.
Proficient stealth advanced to level 11
That just added another level of wrongness to the whole experience... Nevertheless, I repeated my attack on the other nine, every single one of them glad for their release.
Proficient stealth advanced to level 12
So much for my moral quandary about stealing from the deserted village. I was looting this place for every penny it was worth.
The next building I tried was an armoury. Rows upon rows of identical spears lined one wall, but the length and gentle curve made them unsuitable for . Appraisal didn't rate them any higher than my fox-kin spear, anyway. The bows were similar; impossible to operate without at least four hands. I couldn't find anything I could use for myself, and none of the materials used were better than what I had. There wasn't a single magical object in the building. Nor was there any armour. That matched with what I'd seen of their fighters.
I explored more buildings, few of which I could work out the purpose of. Appraisal was no use, reporting almost everything as [untranslatable]. One of them seed to be so sort of bathhouse, despite the houses I'd explored already having generous bathrooms. Another was obviously sothing to do with the mages, given that mana sense showed it gathering and concentrating mana into one of the central rooms, and it was there I found a few more mana crystals, although I couldn't use them for levelling without finding a fresh supply of damaged shrines. It was a sha the blobs hadn't destroyed their own on their way out. I also found my stolen anti-transportation bracelet, which I'd almost forgotten about.
That just left one more structure that took up a full side of the plaza the statue was situated in; a three-sided pyramid. The door to this one was closed, but not locked, so I pushed it open, only to be greeted by a burst of guidance. So, the tree really had been involved in the villages. The inside of the structure was a single room, lightly terraced seating along all three sides, pointing towards the centre. The central triangle was unfloored, with vines running about it, congregating at a central spike on which grew one of the pods.
"Are you one of the talkative ones?" I asked it, but got no response. Guess it wasn't.
There wasn't very much in the way of seating. From the appearance of the place, it was so sort of council or debating chamber. So the village's rulers, at the least, were puppets.
That was the village explored and a rather disappointing amount of loot claid. I might as well smash the wall around the shrine while I was here, then I'd take a look at the other village. After that... I was still pissed at the tree, but I didn't want to get close to it if it was just going to mind-fuck
again. I'd finish exploring the cavern, then start destroying the vines and mana collectors.
I turned around to leave the chamber, bringing
face to... limb-mouth-thing with a group of three carnes multiformis.
"Suffer," ca the tree's whispered voice from behind , as sense mana picked up a burst of sothing from all three of the monsters.
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