Chapter 29: Chapter 29: Return

I'd paid for my stunt, but not in any way my pain resistance couldn't handle. Totally worth it. That would teach him to give ambiguous orders. I knew it hadn't been what he meant, but I'd been correct in my assumption that it was far easier to twist an order to something that matched the wording but not the intent than it was to reject the order completely.

Poor Si'janrii had not had a good time. From what I'd overheard before he'd been bundled out of the room, it seemed that healers were all members of the clergy, and the warrior and priesthood castes were currently not on the best of terms, for obvious reasons. If one of the guards seen taking me away suddenly turned up to a healer with that injury, people might start leaping to all sorts of conclusions. And those conclusions would be completely correct.

With all the fussing around, no-one had any time for me beyond a bit of general, thoughtless cruelty, and for the moment I was being completely ignored. A fact that I was very glad of, given that final order. I'd been ordered to enjoy it, and I had. Compared to being ordered to shut up, or not move, that was pure evil. What was worse was the way I'd justified it to myself. It wasn't anything to do with the order, but that I was taking revenge on my tormentor, so of course I should enjoy it! It had taken me a few minutes afterwards to realise just how unnatural my feelings had been, and I no longer had any doubt that had he ordered me to not want to escape, I'd happily sit here letting them torture me until trigger respawn kicked in or my tolerance levelled up enough to save me.

Could he have ordered me to think I was a monster? To not realise I was being controlled? There must be some limit, or he wouldn't have made that comment about cooperation. Surely this small item couldn't replicate the full power of the giant centipede?

Side quest complete: Defend the shrine

Oh, cool. Random level up! But that implied that the commander had left the temple. Who won? Was he about to come here in person, or would it be the arch-priestess? Honestly, I didn't want to see either of them, and with the timer on trigger respawn almost up, I hopefully wouldn't need to. What new skills could I pick this time?

Faster respawn: Cut respawn time by 90%.
Magic focus: Gain magic skills much more easily, and level them faster. Counts as an achievement for the purpose of evolving all tier 1 magic skills.
Combat focus: Gain combat skills much more easily, and level them faster. Counts as an achievement for the purpose of evolving all tier 1 combat skills.
Scouting focus: Gain scouting skills much more easily, and level them faster. Counts as an achievement for the purpose of evolving all tier 1 scouting skills.
Crafting focus: Gain crafting skills much more easily, and level them faster. Counts as an achievement for the purpose of evolving all tier 1 crafting skills.
Resistance focus: Gain resistance skills much more easily, and level them faster. Counts as an achievement for the purpose of evolving all tier 1 resistance skills.
Healing rest: A reasonable night's sleep completely restores health, stamina and mana.
Register spawn location: Mark an additional location as an alternate respawn point. Custom respawn point can be reset once a day.
Stable equipment: Damage to equipment is dispersed across the whole and repairs can be conducted by merger with construction materials. Equipment is indestructible.

This level's pair of new skills were additional focuses. Of the existing skills, stable equipment had the biggest upgrade. Presumably that meant my equipment could end up in an unusable state, but never go beyond a point I couldn't fix it. Register spawn location had its cool-down slashed, and everything else had an incremental upgrade. In terms of immediate use, there wasn't anything. Resistance focus would help against the collar, and faster respawn could potentially get me out of today's bondage predicament, if it counted the time I'd already spent after triggering a respawn, but neither would do both. Best to wait for trigger respawn to kick in, and then see how things went.

While I was staring at my skill list, So'layn returned, and for some reason he looked nervous, his stoicism gone completely. So did the other guards with him, and the few still in the room peered through the open door and then suddenly paled too. What was going on out there? My chair was facing away, and strapped to it as I was, I couldn't see out. I was still under order not to use my abilities, so I couldn't check with sense presence, but I thought it a safe bet that whoever was out there was high ranking and wasn't friendly to the guards. The arch-priestess? I heard the door click shut, and then So'layn stooped in close and started practically hissing at me. Not the arch-priestess then; she wouldn't have let more guards enter the room while she patiently waited outside...

"We have some very important visitors coming to inspect you. You will tell them you have not been mistreated. You will tell them that you understand our concerns, and are prepared to cooperate until we determine your safety. Do you understand?"

Visitors, plural? Did some even higher ranked fox-kin pop in, knock the commander and arch-priestess' heads together and come to see what all the fuss was about? Or did the commander and arch-priestess make up somehow? There were three other caste leaders, beyond the two I'd met. Was it them?

As to So'layn's question, all I could do was stare. Literally; I was still under the shut up order, and my head was too tightly restrained for me to even nod. But even if I could answer, did he really expect that to work? If there were important visitors outside, would they really trust anything I said when I had a slave collar on and after its owner had walked into the room ahead of them and closed the door?

Not to mention the way I was covered in blood. Not much of it was mine, but that wouldn't be obvious from first inspection, and they seemed to have forgotten about their no-leaving-marks rule in the aftermath of my attack on Si'janrii, so there would be obvious signs of torture too, if anyone looked. Then again, it wouldn't do to overestimate this race's intelligence. It had long since been obvious that the dragon hadn't done a particularly great job. Would his important visitors hang around outside for long enough for him to give me a wash?

"I said, do you understand?"

I rolled my eyes and mimed speaking.

"Fine, I permit you to speak. Now, do you understand?"

"Yes," I whispered, to fulfil the order to answer, before yelling, "he's going to kill me for biting off Si'janrii's penis!" at the top of my voice. I heard the door crash open just as trigger respawn kicked in.

I burst out laughing back in my respawn cave. Okay, maybe that wouldn't achieve very much; in a town where the clergy seemed to be able to discern lies, presumably they would believe So'layn and the other witnesses when they said he hadn't killed me, but the timing was just so perfect that I couldn't resist. I was sure he'd have an interesting time trying to explain my heavily restrained corpse, especially given the blood and wounds. Even Mi'taan didn't know anything about trigger respawn, so what exactly had happened shouldn't be obvious, however innocent the guards claimed to be.

Alas, as I'd expected would happen, the collar had come with me, and I was still restrained from moving or using my abilities. Respawning in my original cave should at least buy me some time. I could talk too, for all the good that would do. Despite being immobilised on the ground, with no-one around to give me new orders I was sure I could eventually come up with something.

The current question was whether I wanted to spend my skill slot on resistance focus, or whether I could overcome the collar on my own before any uninvited guests turned up, letting me use my new skill slot for something more generically useful. Register spawn location would be handy for bypassing fox-kin territory later on, and stable equipment would be great for preserving my kit. Even faster respawn was looking tempting right now. With only two skill slots left, I wouldn't be able to get everything, even without including any new skills that showed up next level.

Ironically, the quest had been triggered by me. They were only trying to break through the barrier to get at me, and the barrier was only blocking them because of, I assume, their unjust actions towards me. Should I go back there and try to trigger another attack in the hopes of getting myself another quest? Could I try to lead one of the powerful flying monsters from the centipede cavern towards the shrine on this floor? Given the shrines' apparent ability to sense intent, it would probably be ill advised. But, if anything strong enough to threaten the shrine but weak enough for me to kill does happen to want to attack me, please do.

But not right now. I still couldn't move.

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My tolerance level-ups had come from twisting or subverting orders. The downside of no-one else being here to order me around was that I couldn't do that anymore, and struggling to will myself to move for a few minutes failed to achieve anything. With a sigh, I spent my skill point on resistance focus, not wanting to risk fox-kin making it up here before I'd freed myself. To be fair, it would be useful in the future too; I was bound to meet with all sorts of different magic and abilities, and the faster I grew resistant to them, the faster I'd stop dying.

Pain resistance advanced to level 16
Pain resistance advanced to level 17
Pain resistance advanced to level 18
Pain resistance advanced to level 19
Pain resistance advanced to level 20
Poison resistance advanced to level 15
Poison resistance advanced to level 16
Poison resistance advanced to level 17
Poison resistance advanced to level 18
Corrosion resistance advanced to level 11
Corrosion resistance advanced to level 12
Disease resistance advanced to level 17
Disease resistance advanced to level 18
Disease resistance advanced to level 19
Disease resistance advanced to level 20
Mind magic tolerance advanced to level 8
Mind magic tolerance advanced to level 9
Mind magic tolerance advanced to level 10
Heat tolerance advanced to level 4

Evolution conditions met: Pain resistance ranks up to pain nullification
Pain is essential for letting you know when you're injured, when something is wrong, or simply when you've pushed yourself too far and it's time to stop. At least in small doses. Sometimes you already know exactly what's wrong, in which case the pain is nothing more than a distraction. You have experienced far too much pain in your short life, having had limbs ripped off, wounds agitated, suffered an internally injected dose of aranea volito venom, been consumed from the inside out while you were conscious and watching, been melted by a dragon, and spent time in a vulpes sagax torture chamber. You even picked a class specifically to give you this evolution, as if you needed that on top of everything else. For surviving such traumatising experiences, albeit having your personality corroded as a result, your resistance has been upgraded to nullification. This skill greatly dulls all sensations of pain and permits you to ignore all pain below a certain threshold if you so desire.

Evolution conditions met: Mind magic tolerance ranks up to mind magic resistance
There are few classes of magic more insidious than mind magic, and it is feared for good reason. How do you deal with someone who can make you see allies as enemies or a cliff edge as a paved road? Someone who can rip secrets straight from your head or even completely overwrite your personality? You have successfully endured the mental attack of a chilopoda sagacitas, earning the right to upgrade your tolerance to resistance. This skill will help to shield your mind, and will aid in sensing that your mental defences are under attack.

Wow, epic wall of text! The skill was retroactive? I gained one level for every two levels I already had, with gains and costs doubled for tier two? So a fifty percent boost to advancement speed? It wasn't often I got to put actual numbers on things, but this time it was easy. Shame I didn't get an evolution for disease resistance, but given everything else I had, I wouldn't complain. I was sure I'd be kicking myself in the future when my equipment inevitably broke, but for now, it was exactly what I needed.

Also, I think that pain nullification description was subtly mocking me. I didn't remember the dragon being particularly painful...

The evolved resistance was enough. I forced my limbs to start moving, happy to find at least some response, and then focused all of my mind on activating item box.

Mind magic resistance advanced to level 11

The collar vanished from my neck, and I immediately re-summoned it and seized ownership before storing it again. Another weapon for me.

Glad to finally be free of the thing, I pulled myself back to my feet and equipped myself properly. It had only been ten minutes since trigger respawn activated, and I probably had an hour before anyone got here. Longer, if I caused sufficient chaos with my abrupt departure. Which side the people who got here would be on, I had no idea, but right now I didn't want to meet either. I'd rather avoid them all if possible. Incompetent allies could be more dangerous than enemies, and that arch-priestess was deadly.

I kinda wanted to stab some of the more annoying guardsmen, but doing so would risk everyone uniting against me, and they were far too numerous for that. I didn't want to genocide the whole town, even if I was able. Best to leave it with the damage I'd done to Si'janrii's manhood and whatever fallout they suffered from kidnapping me and letting me die on their watch.

With a sigh, I donned my armour and went to check in on my pet tree. I hadn't been feeding it recently, and the pool was starting to look rather empty, with only half-dissolved scraps of chitin and bone covering the basin. "Sorry, but you can't eat me today," I told it sadly. "My corpse is lost in an interrogation chamber somewhere."

There was no sign of anyone or anything else having been here, and the furniture and baggage I'd left behind that didn't fit in my item box was untouched. Leaving it alone, I moved on to the wolves' cavern and headed for the cliff. I was going to need some way to get down there, but what exactly that would entail, I wasn't sure. Silk would have been best, especially the sticky stuff so it could cling to the cliff face and not need to support its own weight. Maybe the jungle plants? Even better would be taming one of the flying monsters from the centipede cavern, but somehow I doubted that would go well. Maybe if I got one of the collars onto them?

Actually, another option would be to jump. Could I get falling tolerance? I hadn't gained any physical resistances so far, but my new skill did say it made it much easier to get new resistance skills, so maybe I could now?

The problem with visiting the other caverns was that reaching them involved crossing the shrine room, and if there was anywhere the damn foxes would keep under constant watch, that would be it. But there was nothing here I could use, so I had no choice. I doubted there would be any of them there yet, but by the time I got back there likely would, not to mention that I was going to need to make dozens if not hundreds of trips to gather the ridiculous amount of materials I'd need. Just thinking about it was enough for me to want to try busting through their blockade instead. Never mind falling tolerance, was there any skill that would grant me wings?

Avoiding putting it off any longer, I made my way to the jungle, carefully sneaking my way through the thankfully empty shrine. The large presence was still there, which wasn't exactly reassuring, but it wasn't moving or paying me any attention, so there wasn't much I could do but ignore it and hope it ignored me.

I started exploring the jungle, looking for long vines, or anything I could twist into rope, while doing my best not to get eaten. There was nothing else in the area that responded passively to sense presence, but the feline shaped thing I'd seen last time turned out to be some sort of monstrous panther that came pretty close, and they were quite numerous. I could feel them once their attention was on me, thankfully, or I'd have been clawed in the back a half dozen times.

Sense presence advanced to level 6
Proficient blocker advanced to level 12

No weapon skill levels or new evolutions, alas, despite the amount of dodging I needed to do. Also no vines, or anything else that improvisational artisan hinted as being suitable. This place was a bust. Maybe I should go and see what the overly powerful presence was? Perhaps it would prove talkative. Not that I'd had any luck with any dungeon denizen so far, but there had to be a first time, right?

I made my way towards it, pushing through the thick undergrowth until I saw the webs spanning between the trees. Damn... It just had to be a spider, didn't it... Why a bloody spider?! I'd had enough of them already. Why not a unicorn, or a phoenix, or some other proper fantasy creature that wasn't an oversized creepy-crawly? But silk was exactly what I wanted right now, even if it was just enough for armour repairs and other general construction rather than the massive ladder I needed. I carefully made my way to the web, wondering how much I could collect without risking detection.

None, the answer turned out to be, as a feeling of attention strong enough for me to not need sense presence bore down on me, practically driving me to my knees.

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