Chapter 60: Chapter 56: War

Sense danger advanced to level 5

I followed the advice of my skill and took a step to the side, just as a crystal arrow shattered against the ground where I'd previously been standing. Our group of guards had spears only, and couldn't fight back, reduced to defending themselves against the storm of arrows. To be fair, they were doing every bit as well as I was, at least until the ground shook and their dodging faltered. Four of them were hit in the next volley, bleeding a clear liquid I assumed was their equivalent of blood. The three limbs one of them was standing on buckled, and he fell to the ground.

The elder had built walls of rock around himself the moment the attack started, and hadn't said a word. It seemed he wouldn't be any use here. The guards were silent, and, despite the slew of injuries, smug. That was an odd emotion, given how outmatched they were.

Light flashed in the distance, the first I'd seen on this floor. Again and again, and it was accompanied by noises that suggested something very unpleasant happening to something soft and squishy. Or many somethings. The barrage of arrows stopped, and the wall of rock folded itself back into the ground.

"I apologise for the interruption," he said, continuing to walk, or perhaps roll, as if nothing had happened. The guards followed, three of them picking up the one that was unable to walk under his own power.

"Wait, what just happened?" I asked.

"Obviously, it wasn't only us who noticed where you came from. The other village was watching too. I imagine they ignored us at first, expecting you to rebuff us or attack. When you didn't, they launched an ambush to prevent us from taking you to our village. We expected that and had a second party ready to ambush the ambushers. They'll protect us for the rest of the way, and our enemy won't have time to organise a sufficiently large force to counter them, so the remaining journey should be uneventful."

"And you didn't think to warn me? What happened to promising no deceptions?"

The elder stopped, giving me his full attention. "I apologise again. Once more, I seem to have taken something for granted that wasn't obvious to you. We are at war, and are bringing a valuable asset to our village. It would be natural for our enemy to do their best to prevent us reaching our destination, so I failed to consider the need to mention the possibility."

I blinked. When he phrased it like that, it was obvious. Keeping a separate squad like that stank of using me as bait, but that probably wasn't it at all. Proficient empath was telling me the elder was completely sincere. He'd simply thought the second village launching an attack was so obvious that he hadn't needed to mention it, and the second squad was the best strategy. If those extra defenders had been waiting for me in the open, the second village might have fetched a larger attack force. Or if those defenders should have been protecting the village, they could have launched an attack there instead of on me.

I was lacking the proper mindset for a war. Even if it was only two villages, they seemed to be legitimately trying to kill each other, and I'd been casually strolling around their battlefield. Of course they'd attacked me for entering their territory. In these circumstances, why would they assume anything other than me being a spy, or new type of weapon?

The ten members of this party were all wearing camouflage, but I wasn't. I probably stood out like a beacon to our attackers. They were taking a big risk travelling with me like this.

The remainder of the journey was indeed uneventful, and I entered their village safely. It was a very different place with my new sense. The buildings, which I had thought built from plain, unadorned stone, were suddenly covered in colourful patterns. The residents were walking around in a wide variety of outfits. They had writing. I couldn't understand it, but there were patterns of scents above doorways and on signs that were clearly not decorative.

Was this why their names weren't pronounceable? They couldn't be rendered into any combination of English letters because they were scent based instead of sound? What a strange society. An interesting one, but completely alien.

Also, a suspicious one. My olfactory perception let me smell the difference between genders. The appraisal information told me there should be four, yet every pedestrian we passed was one of two. A different two from the few I'd smelt belonging to the other village. And that other village had accused this one of kidnap.

"Has the other village been kidnapping your females?" I asked, my suspicions growing to a full theory.

"Yesss," answered the elder, his pronunciation slipping. He was angry, but I was reasonably sure it wasn't at me.

Thought so; neither village was self sufficient. They need each other to reproduce. "So, when you win the war, and wipe out the other village in its entirety, what happens next?"

The elder didn't answer, but I doubted they were that stupid. They would wipe out the fighters of the other village and enslave the rest. How had they split apart like this? There was no way this was sustainable. How long would Earth last if war broke out between our two genders? This situation was insane.

"How did the war start?" I asked.

"A xkkrckt assassin poisoned our ruling council. The despicable cowards."

He slipped back into native for a moment there. Was that the name of the other village? The collective word for the other pair of genders? Something else completely?

It wasn't my problem. I'd get my mana crystal, then get out of here. If my disease immunity let me past the tree, awesome. If not... Could I make myself a silk hazmat suit and get suffocation tolerance high enough that cutting off my air supply for that long wouldn't be a problem? Or what would happen if I started cutting the vines, and choked off the tree's mana supply?

Once again, where were my damn fireballs? Why did I not pick flame mage for my second class?

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...I'm going to need to befriend the damn dragon, aren't I? Although, even then, I'd probably just get scales or a tail, instead of the flame breath I actually wanted. Still, being part dragon would be far cooler than being part spider or centipede. How would I get him to stop flaming me at first sight?

We reached a structure which was once again labelled in some way I couldn't read, where an overly excited researcher deprived me of quite a lot of blood in exchange for a sizeable mana crystal. I knew size wasn't a perfect indicator of power, and it was a pity appraisal didn't give me any hints. With my increased sense mana level, and comparing it to others I'd seen, I was certain it was over five hundred, but also that it was nowhere near the giant centipede's. Not quite what I was hoping for, but it would do.

With that safely stored, it was time for another stint in a stone prison, with only a broken off pod for company. Unlike the second village, this one was carrying out their experimentation on the inside, but that didn't mean they were any less afraid of it. I debated using trigger respawn, and decided that I should. Given the subtle mind-altering effects, I didn't want to get trapped in a situation where I mistakenly thought I was fine and chose not to activate it later. The carnes multiformis only wanted my infected corpse, anyway, and were planning to poison the prison after leaving me for some time, so I didn't even need to admit to my suicide, or that their poison probably wouldn't achieve much.

A mage freed the pod from its stone cocoon, and sealed me in.

"I see you," hissed the pod, a low-pitched, slow voice, sounding remarkably like that of my armour earlier. "You, whose spirit can abandon your body. Who has survived a dragon's breath. I will consume you. I will feed on your secrets. I will feast on all that you are, and you will be nothing."

"Wow. How villainous... Are you about to start monologuing? Please don't, I'm trapped in here with you."

"Your frivolity. Your sarcasm. I will take them."

Huh? It understood emotions? "For a giant tree, you..."

Alas, my complaint was interrupted by the pod not just squirting the usual mist from its tip, but splitting fully down the middle, shrivelling up, dead, but spraying the biggest cloud of pathogen I'd seen out into the air and filling the prison with dense fog. I coughed and spluttered as I stored my torch and covered my own face with silk, making very little difference.

Disease nullification had the feature of letting me know when my body was under attack, but disease immunity let me know in detail what the attack was trying to do. This was no bacterial or viral infection. Countless millions of microscopic seeds were landing on my skin, or ending up in my lungs, where they germinated and sent tiny filaments into my body, wrapping themselves around nerves, plugging into muscles and parasitising my blood vessels. Some seeds made it into my bloodstream and were transported to my brain, germinating there. No wonder mind magic resistance did nothing; this wasn't magic. It was quite literally rewiring my brain.

First the blight, and then this. Both diseases were utterly insane, if this could even be called a disease. No way in heck were they natural. Were they made by the Goddess, just as thematic background for the dungeon floors? How many thousands had I killed with the blight? The thought that a deity had produced them as decoration was as insane as the diseases themselves.

Disease immunity might have had an exaggerated name, but it was trying its best, and I could feel the microscopic tendrils dying off almost as fast as they could grow. Almost. The dose I'd been hit with was too high to deal with completely. Whatever consciousness was in control here was again showing alarming levels of intelligence. Did it know I was resistant, and hit me with such a high dose to overcome it? During my last respawn, it hadn't been able to read my mind, but I hadn't had all this gunk in my head. Could it do so now?

My last time being so badly infested I'd had no idea what was actually happening. Now that I did, my skill informing me as the plant matter invaded deeper and deeper into my body, it was harder to be so sanguine about the experience. It was hard to resist the urge to slit my own throat there and then. But I'd made a deal and would stick to it.

"Still you fight," I said, which was interesting, because I hadn't intended to. "You will become a part of me, as will all life. Your struggles are meaningless."

"Oi, get your filthy vines off my voice box!" I replied to myself.

"Your voice is mine. Your body is mine. You are mine."

'Like hell I am,' I tried to shout, but I couldn't. Well, there's yet another one for my bondage diaries; I had a plant growing in my brain and spinal cord, robbing me of my own ability to move and leaving me lying perfectly still on the floor. It was even breathing for me, which was a strange experience. Dammit, I should have cut my throat while I had the chance! But my mind was still clear, this time. Or at least, I thought it was. Maybe that was being faked, too? I wasn't enjoying the musty smell of my sealed stone room, or feeling relaxed and blissed out like last time, so on the balance of probability, I thought I was safe.

The scent of the air changed, but not in the direction of sweetness. Quite the opposite. It was far earlier than planned, but presumably my situation was being monitored, and those outside knew the pod had self destructed and that I'd started talking to myself. They'd started pumping in poison.

"Not yet. It's not time!" my mouth said. Time for what? But at least that confirmed it still wasn't reading my mind, because whatever poison was in the air wasn't enough to overcome my poison immunity. It was doing nothing to me, and I still had half an hour before trigger respawn kicked in. I had no body control, so couldn't suicide. It still had plenty of time to do whatever it wanted to do, so its frustration was meaningless.

"You will return to me willingly," the plant said through me. "Let me give you a taste of how your obedience will be rewarded."

My body flushed with heat, and thanks to my skills telling me exactly what the 'disease' was doing, I knew why. It had just knocked my hormones completely out of balance, and it felt good. I wanted to moan and squirm, but was completely unable to, the parasitic plant holding even my breathing steady as I lay motionless on the ground. I remembered the drones I'd met, and how blissed out they had all been...

So, this was finally going to happen. There was no way out of this one by biting off an offending organ or dragging myself to a friendly neighbourhood dragon. Even if I dunked hardening fluid on myself again, I wouldn't suffocate in time. I was left a prisoner in my own body as the heat built up, and remained just as helpless when the plant directly stimulated my nerves, instantly delivering me into the biggest orgasm of my life, the pleasure rolling on and on until my mind went completely blank.

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