Chapter 47: Chapter 44: Visitors

Evolution conditions met: Curse tolerance ranks up to curse resistance
Not all magical attacks aim to deliver raw damage. Sleep, weakness or paralysis are common effects. Having quickly recovered from the sleep magic of a powerful mage, you have earned this upgrade from tolerance to resistance. This skill will aid you in rejecting the negative effects of curses.

The message didn't directly reference surviving, but I knew full well that I only 'quickly recovered' on account of my death.

My sword had stopped levelling it at level twelve, at which point I brought out my zombie twin's special demonic edition sword and started again. It was a better blade than my original sword, but was one that I wouldn't want to wield around anything I didn't want to corrupt.

Blighted demonite longsword of paralysis
This high-quality demonite longsword has been enchanted with a paralysis effect and infested by blight. Successive attacks will progressively weaken the target, eventually leading to muscle failure. They will also infect the target with blight. This item is bonded to Katie, as much a part of her as any limb, and cannot be wielded by anyone else.
Attack rating: 40

It was a shame it didn't explain exactly what it meant by bonded. Would my zombie twin know where it was at all times? Did it have anything to do with the way I hadn't been able to appraise it while it was still in her possession, and I only got her appraisal results instead? It was supposed to only be wieldable by her, yet I could use it. Was that because we're the same person?

The small amounts of blight it struck me with weren't enough to level my disease nullification, given that I ended up too badly paralysed to continue cutting myself before picking up a significant infection, but it got me a couple more levels of curse resistance. Level fourteen. Somehow I doubted it would be enough to defend against the fox-kin arch-mage. I hadn't been able to read him with sense presence that time, but I had in the past, and I knew he was giant centipede level. Even so, every scrap of extra defence would help.

"Look, the readings are clear. She's just through that wall."

"But we've done a complete loop around it, and there's no way in."

What? Fox-kin, here?! Shit, I was still paralysed! For the first time, I was thankful for being blocked in, but wouldn't whoever's controlling this place just open up a gap if he noticed those guys were hostile to me? And what readings? They had something to track me now? I took a look with sense presence, and there were four of them I could pick up, one of whom was giant centipede level. Had Mru'walyn come here?!

"Then let's just make one."

...And that voice was the first I'd recognised. The bloody warrior commander. Was he strong enough to cut his way through? I wasn't going to risk it, so I activated trigger respawn. Nevertheless, I was thankful. If the giant presence was him, then it wasn't Mru'walyn.

"Wait!" shouted someone, but the resounding crash that followed strongly implied that he didn't. The lack of a wall collapsing on top of me implied that he didn't succeed, at least.

"You utter fool!" yelled a female voice. "There's no way I can purify the amount of dust you just kicked up! We need to flee, now!"

Well, as fox-kin encounters go, that was one of the better ones. Still, from their previous reactions, I'd assumed they would never set foot down here no matter what. Not only was I wrong, but the route upstairs must still be intact despite the destruction of the temple.

As I waited for the paralysis to wear off, or more accurately, for trigger respawn to kick in, I spent more time considering the walls. If the fox-kin commander hadn't breached them, then nothing I could do would. He had kicked up dust, though. Probably obliterated the coffins, although the phrase 'kicked up' wouldn't have been my first choice for that.

...Wait.

What was I lying on? The floor wasn't brick. It wasn't soil, either, which was my excuse for not considering it before. It was smooth, carved rock. Could I tunnel through it? Did I want to make a permanent tunnel with fox-kin around, even if I could?

"I'm not lost. I'm telling you the walls are shifting! We've been blocked off from the exit."

Oh crap.

"Stop making excuses. You've obviously just made a mistake while recording our path."

"Oh, really? Then what are they?"

"Coffins? What's your point?"

"My point is that not ten minutes ago, you blasted them into dust."

The voices were indeed coming from the same direction as last time. So it wasn't just walls moving around then... How the heck did this maze work?

"Stop... Arguing..." came a panting voice, the same one that had complained about the dust earlier. "You have... five minutes..."

"Damn. I said we shouldn't risk this expedition! We can't afford the loss of one life, let alone a whole party!"

Once again, they'd come after me, and once again it wasn't going at all well for them. I hadn't even lifted a finger this time. I couldn't, at least on one hand; my paralysis would last until trigger respawn fired.

My voice still worked, though.

"If you can tunnel under the walls, the shrine in here keeps the room blight free. You're welcome to rest here, as long as the shrine doesn't reject you."

...I was so going to regret this. The commander was going to barge his way in, destroy the shrine again, and we'd all die together. I'd respawn one last time on the top floor, get captured by the arch-mage, and my quest would be over. But I'd recognised that last voice. It was Mi'taan. One of the few fox-kin who had been both sane and friendly towards me. Whatever insanity I'd inflicted myself with during my time here, I still wanted to maintain some shred of humanity, and I couldn't just leave him to the blight.

"Well, you heard her," said one of the unrecognised voices. "Let's start digging."

"How? There are no earth shapers here."

"Commander?"

"Why in the abyss would I follow the instructions of our enemy?"

"Because in less than five minutes, Do'lelenii's mana will run out. Five minutes after that, you'll be oozing black blood from a hundred sores as your skin starts to fall off, as well as coughing up chunks of your own lungs. And some time after that, you'll return to our camp, and the vulpes sagax will cease to exist."

"Only because she's controlling the passageways!"

"That's not me," I shouted. "It's trying to keep me trapped too."

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"For... what it's worth... truth..." stammered the one I assumed to be Do'lelenii.

"It's not worth shit. We've known she can fool your truthsense since the beginning."

"As another for what it's worth, the control lines are heading off in that direction," said Mi'taan, presumably pointing somewhere. He could see how the walls were controlled? "Which is the opposite direction from the room Katie is in. Now, dig us a tunnel or die of blight, along with us all. Take your pick."

I heard a series of bangs from outside, so presumably he'd chosen to cooperate. I was hoping he wouldn't, so I could at least reassure myself that I'd tried to save them, without having a fox-kin search party assaulting the shrine.

Using my one good arm, I dragged myself to the statue. In the worst case, I could fast travel to the upstairs shrine, although that was a big risk in itself. I only had a few minutes left on trigger respawn, too, so that would be fun with fox-kin in the room. Should I spawn here or upstairs? The known invaders here, against an unknown potential trap above.

Another bang caused a cloud of dust next to one of the walls, and the next launched a burst of jagged lumps of stone into the air. Mi'taan stuck his head through the hole and climbed in.

"Long time no see," I called. "Forgive me for sitting down, but I'm dying again. I'll be back to full health in a few minutes. You get to be the second group to watch me switch bodies."

"Those are some nasty cuts," he said as the second fox-kin pulled themself in. Someone I didn't recognise, but that appraisal told me was from the warrior caste, and called So'ballash. "What did you fight?"

I answered by briefly summoning my new demonic sword. "Forgive me for not keeping it out, but it's blighted."

"Look at her eyes!" exclaimed So'ballash. "Just like Mru'walyn said. She's one of them!"

"She is... clean..." panted the next one up, wearing the robes of a high priestess. She must be Do'lelenii. "So is... the room..." She didn't even stand up, worming her way out of the hole on her stomach, then doing a half roll onto her back.

"These eyes were my reward for repairing this shrine," I said. "Rather handy for being able to see down here."

The fourth was another mage, one I'd not seen before. Appraisal identified him as Mo'teckit. "A reward?" he asked incredulously. From his voice, this was the one who was talking about readings, but I didn't see him carrying any suspicious items that looked like they might have been used to track me.

"Yes, reward," I answered. "And I really can't be arsed to explain the details."

The final one through was Sru'taklin, the warrior commander.

"Why in the hells is the barrier letting you through?" I asked, now the incredulous one.

"Because he's been sworn not to attack you, only capture you," said Do'lelenii, rapidly recovering now that she wasn't doing whatever she had previously been doing to defend their party from blight.

Novice empath advanced to level 7

Yeah, didn't really need that. His face was enough. How he was resisting the urge to stomp over and drive his fist straight through my face, I had no idea.

"Did you ever figure out what So'layn was up to?" I asked, on the off chance they'd answer.

"No-one was up to anything," growled the commander. "We were simply doing our duty."

"I honestly believe that was true of you, and even Si'janrii and Si'chieen. Not So'layn though."

"And what do you mean by that? When you deluded Do'myrith into bringing you through our walls, his report matched Si'chieen exactly."

"I know. So imagine my surprise when, in your torture chamber, it turned out that he believed every word I'd said. After my death there, I was hoping he'd be questioned, but that overly impulsive arch-priestess went and spoilt it by killing him without giving him a chance to speak."

"You dare to denigrate one of my captains, one who has already lost his life in the line of duty?!"

Wow... That was a surprising response. Who knew this big guy could use a word like denigrate in a sentence? "I'm not going to argue. I was just wondering if you'd found anything. No chance of it now, if you haven't. Anyway, it's time for me to die again. Be right back."

Trigger respawn kicked in, and I found myself staring at the ceiling in front of the statue, as my previous body toppled over forward on top of me from its sitting position. At least I wasn't wearing spiky armour this time, so it didn't cause so much of a mess as the last time that happened. I shoved it off and stood back up. "Yay, functional legs again."

All five fox-kin were staring, slack-jawed. Even the priestess, who was still on her back, neck twisted at an odd angle in order to see me.

"What?" I asked. "You already know I do that. What are you all staring at?"

"You... You..." stammered the commander.

What? Did I just miss something? I suppose I've never seen my respawn process from the outside, being dead and all, so maybe it looked surprising in some way? The only other fox-kin to have seen it were the two mages in the temple, and they'd seemed rather shocked too. My zombie twin had seen it plenty of times though, and she'd never mentioned anything.

Mi'taan burst out laughing, stumbling backward until he was resting against a wall. Do'lelenii closed her eyes and smiled. So'ballash had frozen in place, and was in danger of drooling if he didn't pick his jaw up soon.

Mo'teckit recovered more quickly, and a look of determination set on his face as he drew a dagger and threw it at me. The barrier didn't react, either to him or to the dagger already in flight. Without time to dodge, I invoked item box to equip my armour, and summoned my shield in its path. Perhaps that was overkill, but given everyone's exaggerated reactions, I was risking nothing. Obviously, something he had just seen had spurred him to attack.

The dagger struck the shield, and despite bouncing off apparently harmlessly, I was assaulted by pain that made my time with the spider queen feel like a gentle tickle, leaving me writhing on the floor.

The commander reacted instantly, but much to my surprise, didn't move on me at all, instead spinning around and planting his fist straight into the face of the mage, his head exploding like a watermelon. That was another one that no-one would be able to question, then.

Not that I was in any position to complain. I reached out to activate trigger respawn again, but the attempt did nothing but redouble my pain, leaving me screaming and wondering how the hell I was still conscious.

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