"Fuck!" I yelled, back in the safety of the catacombs. "Fuck, fuck, fuck!"

A couple of patrolling zombies peered at me 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 me.

"Argggg!" I screamed.

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 overcome, how did I defend against something 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 some small part of me kept wondering why I was so furious. Why not give in, it asked. Why not let myself feel that pleasure all the time? 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 me 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 some breakthrough, using the information they'd got from me? 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 welcome at either, but given my reception the last time, 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 welcome on the fourth floor at all. But why? Why would the carnes multiformis block me? Yes, I'd dabbled with both sides, but that shouldn't be any reason for them to unite against me.

I tapped against the wall as a theory formed. 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 me out?

Regardless of who or what was trying to keep me 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 melt my way through, but the hour I would take to respawn afterwards would give them more than enough time to repair whatever damage I did. If I was to use my flame 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 flames killed me.

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 some 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 me if someone 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 me 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 me than the first, but given the unified assault force I'd seen last time, I doubted I'd be welcomed 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 some level of magitek, and while they'd given me 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 me 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 something 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 merely unlocked but wide open, leading into what appeared to be someone'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 arrangement of three ladders, each with offset rungs. I tracked it down to an obscenely smelly 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 assumed to be something 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 seemed to be some sort of barracks? Or maybe a hospital ward? There were rows of beds, each with equipment 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 immediately. I followed the sound out through a side door and into another room. I was used to strong smells in this settlement, 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 smelling liquids dribbled out of holes where some 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 me 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 flame breath, I would have.

They hadn't reacted to me 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 me. 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 seemed to be some sort of bathhouse, despite the houses I'd explored already having generous bathrooms. Another was obviously something 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 shame 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 some 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 claimed. 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 me again. I'd finish exploring the cavern, then start destroying the vines and mana collectors.

I turned around to leave the chamber, bringing me face to... limb-mouth-thing with a group of three carnes multiformis.

"Suffer," came the tree's whispered voice from behind me, as sense mana picked up a burst of something from all three of the monsters.