The next time I woke up I found myself strapped to another chair, albeit one slightly more comfortable than the last and with a few less instruments of torture placed around. Instead, I was in a lowered section of the floor in a large room. Five ornate chairs were on a raised platform directly in front of me, with less ostentatious seating lining the walls on either side. Statues of important-looking fox-kin lined the walls, arranged such that they were staring down at my lowered area. Presumably the effect would be more pronounced if I had any idea who they were.

Plenty of guards were standing around, half a dozen of whom responded to sense presence. I could feel seven more presences directly behind me, out of my sight. And that didn't include the three sitting in the chairs in front of me, who were spider queen level and I would be willing to bet were the merchant, artisan and mage leaders. I wasn't fighting my way out of here, even if I wasn't tied up again, with the cursed manacles still on my wrists and ankles, my hands fixed behind the chair.

Not that I needed to fight my way out. A check of trigger respawn told me I had less than five minutes left.

My disease nullification skill was telling me that it was successfully fending off a minor blight infection, which meant I'd almost certainly infected the mage. It wouldn't be enough to save me this respawn, but hopefully it would cause enough chaos that no-one would come chasing after me for a while. If they did, I'd have to be a bit more forceful in my escape attempts than I was this time. Of course, I'd still have the problem that the manacles would follow me... Maybe I should run to the dragon? Or hop to the dragon, given my bound ankles. I bet they wouldn't stand up to his fire, but that would leave me needing another hour to respawn. Same problem as if I chopped my limbs off. Hopefully my sword could cut through them.

"This session has been called to investigate the 'human' known as 'Katie'," intoned one of the three. I had no idea which was which, given that they all seemed to be wearing matching formal robes. "In particular, to investigate her identity, claims of her possessing a blessing from the Goddess, claims that she damaged the Lord's shrine, claims that she subverted the temple's barrier, claims that she repaired the temple's barrier, claims that she forced pet collars onto two citizens, claims that she colluded with a disaster class monster, claims that..."

There were a lot of claims, and I quickly tuned out, looking around the room instead. I'd be gone before they finished, at the rate he was going. I actually saw a bunch of people I recognised in the room, sat together near the front in a roped-off section. Witnesses, maybe? Ja'yakril, Do'myrith, Si'canna, Mi'taan, even the priestess from the spider queen. She really was a monster of her word, apparently. Was I on trial here? Maybe I should have stuck around to see what would happen. Too late now, though.

"Excuse me," I whispered to the guard standing next to me.

"Silence," he hissed.

"But it's important," I continued.

"Silence. You'll have a chance to speak at an appropriate point in proceedings."

"But I'll be dead again by then. I have blight, you see." I watched the guard visibly pale before continuing. "Caught it down in the catacombs. If I start groaning or oozing black pus and stuff in a few minutes, you might want to stab me a few times."

That caused a disturbance among the guards, which in turn caused the speaker to grind to a halt. "Silence," he called, echoing my own guard.

"She claims to have blight, sir," shouted up one of my guards, which caused the disturbance to immediately spread among the whole audience. I mean... wasn't it common knowledge that I'd been down in the catacombs? It shouldn't come as a complete surprise. Alas, I didn't get to see the resulting commotion, because at that point trigger respawn kicked in.

I reappeared at the upstairs shrine, still with bound hands and feet, although thankfully the whole chair hadn't travelled with me. The disease resistance hadn't completely purged my body of blight before my respawn, so hopefully that meant that my old body was now going full-on zombie in their trial hall, having lost the worst of its bindings.

The room was blissfully free of fox-kin, giving me time to free myself. With my hands bound behind me, things were a bit awkward, but I managed to pull my sword out of my item box and cut my ankles apart with the aid of my sword proficiency skill. My wrists were harder, but holding the sword between my feet I managed to separate them, too. After that, it was simple enough to slice the shackles off. I couldn't keep them, since I couldn't unlock them, but I had stolen a third collar.

As well as the fox-kin no longer guarding the shrine, the barrier had been deactivated. Even better, one of the fox-kin watchmen had left behind one of their portable light crystals. A source of light that wouldn't be infected by blight. Hoping that the cage around the temple statue was deactivated too, I hit fast travel.

It was, and minutes later I'd rushed down the completely deserted corridors and started down the stairs. Disease resistance soon kicked in, and wasn't at all happy about my situation, but it didn't seem like blight alone would actually kill me anymore. Another level or two, and I might even be able to start fighting back.

"You sure took your sweet time. Just how long were you hanging out with queeny? But it's okay, I can forgive you; we both know you secretly enjoy being tied up, and spider silk is just so, well, silky."

I missed my footing on the last step, crashing to the ground.

"Hah, brilliant! I've been looking forward to that reaction for days! I knew you'd give a good one. Or that I would. Whatever. Hello, me."

Standing above me was, well, me. Mostly. The iris of both eyes had turned bright yellow, and the sclera of one was completely black. Her hair was pure white and slightly longer than it should have been, and she seemed to have acquired some rather foreboding tattoos across her forehead. But, despite the superficial changes, it was my face. It was my equipment, too, even if the colour scheme seemed to have changed from whites-and-browns to I'm-an-evil-queen-and-want-everyone-to-know-it.

She was even holding the sword and shield that I'd had out when I'd been fighting zombies down here the last time. Except that when I was using them, the shield didn't have a big eyeball embedded in the front of it that kept swivelling around looking at things, and my sword of paralysis didn't glow red. Mine didn't glow at all! Was this, like, the cool version of me? The one that didn't keep getting caught in a multitude of bondage predicaments and then dying every ten seconds?

Katie, blighted husk

This corpse has been infested with undead blight, reanimating and strengthening it. The corpse was carefully prepared, infected while still living and protected from the damage caused by the blight until the whole body was overrun, after which the soul was deliberately and precisely removed, allowing the blight to take control without resistance. As such, it retains the full memories and personality of its lifetime, making it far more dangerous than the usual mindless husks.

"Was that appraisal? What does it say about me? Do I have a cool new species?" asked my undead twin.

I did note it lacked the spreading-the-blight bit of my previous husk's description, which was promising, but it still had the bit about being more dangerous. Far more dangerous, in this case. I read it out anyway, because what else was I supposed to do? "Sorry... I didn't know," I added at the end. She even had my name! "You really have all of my... our... memories?"

"Hah. Carefully prepared? Who writes this crap? It was a complete accident, and we both know it. And I know you didn't know; I thought maybe you'd be suspicious if your equipment didn't travel with you, but looks like it did, and I somehow got duplicates. To be fair, it took me a while to notice too. I'd taken out the entire zombie army before it twigged that far more than an hour had gone since trigger respawn. Shame I'm just another husk, though. I wanted to be some sort of revenant or lich."

"I think you need to be able to do magic to be a lich."

"All the more reason to want to be one. Anyway, want to team up? And don't give me that look; I know you can't trust me, but I can trust you, and you made it work with queeny, so I'm sure we can manage."

"This isn't fair! You've had days to plot how you want this conversation to go, and I'm just being dragged along! Also, it turned out that those ten spiders we killed? Queeny's kids. So while I did indeed make it work, let's just say that the resistance training session was... effective. I've capped pain nullification. And pretty much every other resistance skill that protected against something she could inflict."

My zombie clone winced at that. "Ow. She hid that well... Kind of glad I split off from you before that happened. Not sure what's up with my own skills though; I can't bring up my status and don't even have my health bar. I thought maybe it was pegged at zero on account of me being dead already, but I've lost the ones for mana and stamina too. I do seem to have skills of some sort, because I'm far better with this sword and shield than I have any right to be. Stronger too. The cold doesn't bother me either, but I think that's just this body. Hey, why are you laughing?"

"Because I'm listening to a zombie duplicate of myself talk about RPG skills? Worth a laugh, don't you think?" This world just kept throwing curveballs at me, but if there was one person in this world that I could trust, surely it would be myself. If only I could be sure that she was. "So, what ideas do you have for making me trust you?"

"Just acting like myself. You can shove one of those collars on me if it makes you feel better, but unless you've learnt a lot the past few days, I doubt you could be certain it was working."

Yeah, I could fight them, so there wasn't anything to guarantee that she couldn't, too. "True. Then how far can you go? Are you confined around here? Can you get up the staircase?"

"Dunno. I decided going upstairs would be a bad idea, in case I spread the blight up there, so I haven't tried. Hmm? What's that face for?" Zombie-me crossed her arms and glared. "What did you do?"

"Sru'taklin did something to our respawn cave, so now it isn't selectable as an option for respawns, and the fox-kin built cages around the two statues. They were able to catch me on respawn, and were using sleeping gas, so I distracted them by infecting one of them with blight."

Zombie-me facepalmed.

"Oi, don't judge! You'd have done exactly the same thing in my position!"

"I'm fairly sure I would have, yes, but I wasn't in your position, so I get to act disappointed in you. Did you get the mana crystal from the centipede?"

Odd change of topic. What does she want that for? She wouldn't be able to steal it out of my item box, so no harm in admitting it. "Yup, and it's a big one."

"Awesome. I found another shrine exploring this place, but I'm pretty sure it's broken. Let's get it repaired, and then you can respawn down here. Not exactly ideal, but better than spawning into a cage."

She started leading me through the catacombs, and it quickly became obvious that they were a maze. My mapping skill might show greater use down here. Even if she tried to get me lost, I'd know where I was. But everything came back to one question; could I trust her?

From her behaviour, she certainly had my memories, and if she had them, she knew the best ways to incapacitate me. That didn't mean she could incapacitate me, because I would need to be rendered unconscious very quickly to stop me using trigger respawn. Knowing that I'd have to respawn here though, in an area she effectively controlled, where it wouldn't matter to her if I used trigger respawn... I would need to trust her for that. Would the shrine barrier keep her out? I think the difference between those that were kept out and those that weren't was whether they intended me harm. The latest group just wanted to transport me unharmed to that courthouse, which must be why they were let through. So if zombie-me could also get through the barrier, it would be a major point in her favour. But all that talk about respawns highlighted another important point. "You... aren't going to respawn, are you?"

"I... You read my species description. I won't just not respawn; I won't do anything. You're the real one. I have no soul. No reincarnation, or afterlife, or whatever happens to souls when they die for real. There's nothing I can do to change that. I'm just a corpse that hasn't noticed it's dead yet..."

"Wow... That's heavy... I'm sorry."

"Not your fault. Just... be careful about dying while infected with blight, please? Twins are enough. No need to make triplets... And it does mean that if we run into anything nasty, I'm throwing you at it first."

Crap... What happened to the corpse I left in that courtroom? I'd been hoping it was zombiefied. Now... not so much. I'd been infected, but I was fighting it off, and the infestation was far milder than what I had when fighting down here. Had it been enough to raise the corpse? If it turned into another intelligent zombie, I'd owe her a far bigger apology than this one. She wouldn't even get cool armour! In fact, the fox-kin would very likely kill her immediately...

After many twists and turns, we finally reached the shrine. It was a room very much like any of the others, except that the alcoves were coffin free, and there was a statue sitting in the centre. If anything, it was even more crumbled and featureless than the first one. We hadn't encountered anything on the way, apparently because zombie-me had already cleared out the area, so this place should be safe. The fox-kin wouldn't come down here.

That didn't mean it was perfect; there was no food or water. I hadn't spotted a brook flowing through these catacombs, and wouldn't trust its water if I did. Nor were there munchers. I had a few days' worth of water in my pack, but I had no food with me. Would I need to rely on respawning instead of eating? If this was to be my new base, I was going to have to refind my living necessities.

The amount of stuff I'd lost upstairs was also annoying. My bed and blanket, my small amount of furniture, the spare spider claws and beetle horns that I'd stashed to avoid filling my item box. Not to mention the unharvested giant centipede corpse and spider queen webs. There was enough silk up there to remake this armour three times over, and enough chitin for hundreds. Once I was strong enough, I would be returning up there to take back what was mine.

New side quest: Make an offering to the blighted shrine

You have encountered a blighted shrine, whose power has been sapped by the encroachment of the undead blight. Make an offering to restore the shrine and establish a beachhead against the evil.

Clear conditions: Sacrifice mana crystals worth a minimum of 100 mana to the blighted shrine.

Reward: Gain one class level

What would additional class levels do now that I had the maximum number of skills? There was one obvious way to find out. "You might want to stand back, if you think the barrier will hit you."

"Nah, I'm fine. From what we've seen, it acts on intent, and I have no intention of hurting you or the shrine."

If she insisted...

Side quest complete: Make an offering to the blighted shrine

For making an offering worth more than 500 mana, additional reward granted: A strengthened barrier provides sanctuary from the blight.

For making an offering worth more than 1000 mana, additional reward granted: You have gained one new class slot.

New respawn point activated

Wow, that really was a big crystal. I felt my disease nullification heave a sigh of relief as the blight in the area vanished and it started clearing out my infection. Even the temperature picked up, although my cold resistance had ensured that the previous chill hadn't caused problems. And zombie-me was indeed standing there, completely unharmed. Given the extra reward, I was worried it would have vaporised her. That had gone very well. Suspiciously well. I'd even gained a second class slot, completely out of the blue! I held my breath, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

New side quest: Clear the blight

This floor of arx sanctus has been infested with the undead blight, twisting monsters, people and even the structure itself to its evil cause. Purge the blight and destroy all that it has infected.

Clear conditions: Destroy all sources of the undead blight on the third floor of arx sanctus.

Reward: Gain three class levels

And there it was. I glanced over at my very much infected zombie twin as I read the quest I'd just received to murder her.

"What's wrong now?" she asked.

"Nothing," I replied, hoping the failure penalty wouldn't be too harsh. "But I got a new class slot for fixing that shrine. Up for some skill grinding before I pick it?"

"Oh, that'll be fun. You can finally try out all those fetishes that you couldn't satisfy on your own, but were never willing to admit to anyone else."

...Ah, another downside to her having my memories. She knows all my secrets. This... might be a mistake. Still, that was two floors over and done with, and I was onto the third. One stage of my adventure was over, but I still had no idea how deep this dungeon was. How many more were left?