New skill gained: Heat tolerance

Fire is one of the more common elements of magic, and is used by mages and monsters alike, but magic isn't required to create excessive heat. Maybe an adventure will take you to a desert, or a lava filled dungeon. This skill increases the upper end of the temperature range in which you can comfortably operate, and slightly reduces the damage when you go beyond your limit.

I wouldn't say no to a new skill, but I doubted even the evolved form would be enough to protect me from that... I didn't even feel it; I was dead before my brain had registered the fire. Bloody dragon. And it could speak! Did it not realise I could talk back, or did it simply not care?

It hadn't occurred to me before, but if this was supposed to be another world, how come both shouty-guy and that dragon were speaking English? Well, shouting English, in shouty-guy's case. Either way, they both spoke my language. It didn't seem to be some sort of auto-translation magic; that would have resulted in odd gaps or pacing as he spoke, if things had different numbers of syllables. That sort of thing should definitely be noticeable.

My respawn cave was centipede free this time, so I pulled my armour, shield and spear out of my item box, where I'd desperately stashed them when it became obvious I was about to get flamed. My shield and spear were okay, but the front side of my armour was a mess. Swaths of silk had been burnt away before I'd managed to store it. That was irritating. I still had spare silk, but I didn't really want to spend time on repairs right now. What if the mother centipede recovered?

I made some hasty, half-hearted repairs anyway, because I had no intention of continuing my anti-centipede crusade in my nightie, before heading back out to the shrine. A different passage this time, I thought, given that the dragon was a serious grumpy-pants. I only found a couple of centipedes in the passage outside my respawn cave, and neither attracted their mother's attention when I stabbed them. Perhaps it was getting worse rather than better? That would be nice. Maybe it would just die on its own at some point.

There were more of the critters out in the cavern, but I had no trouble fighting my way through.

Novice blocker advanced to level 8

I had an additional skill to level this time, with my shield available to block with. Should I be trying for a parrying skill too? Probably not; given that my spear was just a snapped off horn and had no hilt or guard, trying to parry with it would be ill-advised. Same with my dagger. That would probably need some real weapons, or at least for me to take the time to build something better.

I made it as far as the shrine without feeling the attention of the brood-mother on me. This time I planned to take the last level passage, leaving the downwards one for last, but as soon as I stepped into the shrine, I felt the attention snap on me. It was... different. The centipedes didn't react at all, continuing their mindless crawling.

I felt a prickle in my mind, alerting me that this time it wasn't controlling its own spawn, but turning its power directly onto me instead. Fearing what it could do, especially given the description of my mind magic tolerance skill, I immediately activated trigger respawn. No way was I going to risk it knocking me unconscious or overwriting my mind and memories. The skill description was spot on; something with that sort of ability would be terrifying. I only hoped that if it did do anything, my respawn would reverse it. Not to mention how glad I was that trigger respawn didn't have a cancel button. I couldn't be manipulated into stopping it.

Pain. Anger. Helplessness.

It was the same as before. I could feel the thing's emotions, and to some extent, thoughts. It was in pain, and it hated me for causing it, but at the same time there was nothing it could do about its own situation. Wait... It hated me, specifically, for causing it. It knew.

Mirth. Resignation. Compromise.

I stared, slack-jawed. Not that I could stare at it, with all the walls in the way, but I did my best. It found it amusing that something as inferior as me thought I could fool it, but then it remembered that inferior little me had wounded it so badly. It begrudgingly admitted that I shouldn't be ignored. That much was fine, but the last bit... It wanted me to willingly walk into its lair and help it. Why the hell would I do that? Even if it offered me something I wanted, what would stop it from just trying to use me as breeding stock again the moment it got its strength back?

Agreement.

Wait, it was admitting to it? It isn't exactly helping its own case here...

Trade. Exchange.

Okay, that was just... fucked up. If I understood its mental imagery correctly, it didn't want territory. All it wanted was to increase the size of its swarm, to generate spawn until they filled the cavern from floor to ceiling. It was asking me to volunteer, with the knowledge I'd survive. Not just once, but repeatedly. It wanted me to devote a fraction of my time to expanding its swarm, and in return, it would withdraw the swarm back into its own territory, along with... It wanted to know what I wanted.

Stolen novel; please report.

I think it said a lot about my broken mental state that I actually stopped to consider the sort of payment I'd take for that. The respawn ability did enough damage to my sanity all on its own, but adding friend of fear and pain resistance on top of that was making me act completely... irrationally was the wrong word. The opposite word. Rationally. Since when do humans ever act rationally?

Anyway, even if I seriously considered it, it wouldn't work. At least, not for long. Disease resistance would level, and eventually my skills would kill off the eggs before they hatched. One more reason to be glad I didn't take the perverted masochist class.

Disappointment. Persistence. Hope.

Apparently that wasn't enough to convince it to give up. Its own efforts to find prey had been unsuccessful. It wasn't just the dragon, but nothing sent through the downwards sloping passage had returned either. Large chunks of the swarm had been lost. It had found prey up the other corridor, but hadn't been able to retrieve any through the shrine's barrier, and after my injury everything there had ended up dead. It had no other options remaining but to beg me...

Annoyance.

Okay, it didn't like the word beg. Ask politely then. But again, what would I want from such a deal? I doubt it had the holy sword to hand. Mana crystals came to mind, given that I still didn't know what they were. Actually, if I had mana crystals, would repairing the biome around here give them more prey? But if I did agree to peace, no doubt I'd fail my latest side quest, and goodness knows what failure penalty that would impose. And there was still the problem that if pulling the spike out of its brain restored its full psychic abilities, there would be nothing I could do to prevent it from reneging on any promises. It seemed relatively trustworthy, but if it could reach me like this while injured, what could it do when whole?

Willingness. Efforts. Rewards.

That was harder to parse, but I think it was keying off my earlier thoughts about disease resistance. It picked up that I grew resistant to things when exposed to them repeatedly. It was offering resistance training... And it showed me an image of a blue orb. Was that a mana crystal?

Agreement.

I had flashbacks to the first time I deliberately fed myself to the murder tree... Just like then, I couldn't believe I was even considering this. In exchange for getting the spike out of its brain and offering my own body up as a host for its spawn up until the point disease resistance made it impossible, it would pull back its swarm, give me a mana crystal and give me mind magic resistance training.

I knew I could trust it, but it would still pay to have some safety nets. It obviously couldn't tunnel or it would have done so already. With the shrine restored, it wouldn't be able to send its spawn to other parts of the dungeon via this route. With resistance training, even if it wouldn't protect me from a close ranged assault, I bet I could at least avoid being taken over from the other side of the dungeon.

Wait...

Mind magic tolerance advanced to level 2

Yeah, I thought so. Why the hell did I think I could trust it? It was subtle, but it was definitely messing with my mind. Forget it. How could I make a deal when I couldn't even be certain I actually wanted the terms? Was it really a mana crystal I wanted for the quest, or was it tweaking my memory to something it had? Would it do something even worse if I got closer?

Panic. Apology. Desperation.

Fuck off. No deal.

Regret. Hatred. Acceptance. Concentration. Fatigue.

I stumbled, the impact of master's desperate telepathy too much for my inferior brain. He was normally more careful than that, but given how frantic he had sounded, it wasn't a surprise he was a bit more forceful than normal. Some enemy had managed to infiltrate the heart of our territory, even as far as the breeding chambers, and had inflicted a grievous wound upon him while he slept. Such a cowardly act, attacking someone in their sleep! Still, master had emerged victorious, the surprise attack having been repelled and the intruder slain.

They had, however, left a contaminated wound. One that master or my kin couldn't reach. I'd often wondered why I was born with such a malformed, grotesque body compared to my more seemly kin, but maybe it was all for this. Hands and fingers could do what mandibles and claws could not. I immediately ran towards my master, my kin standing aside to let me past, knowing full well the urgency of my summons.

I summoned my light source as the tunnel darkened, fashioned from the skull of one of our livestock and covered in bioluminescent plant matter. If there was one point of pride that I held in my appearance, it was that I shared my master's ability to sense light. It wasn't an ability my kin coveted, but from my point of view, anything that lifted me closer to the level of the master was something to be thankful for.

He had moved from the heart of our territory to the end of the passage, but it still took me precious minutes to reach him. No wonder he had seemed desperate; he was comatose on the ground, having used the last of his strength to call me. I clenched my fist in anger. The assassin should be glad master had dealt with them already, because if I had the chance to get my hands on them, I would have shown them the true meaning of regret and despair.

Once again I bemoaned my lack of proper legs as I struggled to climb master to reach the wound. My kin did their best to help, giving me hand and footholds where possible, but my full weight was too much for them. It took more precious minutes to climb onto master's brain, such a prodigious organ that it didn't even fit within his head. Once he's recovered from this, I should make him a helmet. An exposed brain is an unacceptable weak point for someone so important!

Master had tried to indicate the position of the wound, but his brain was too homogenous, and one bit looked very much like any other. It took yet more precious minutes to find the stab wound. Minutes that I didn't have. I... couldn't remember why, but for some reason I knew I needed to hurry. Probably just because I didn't want to leave master in this sorry state for a second longer than needed. I knelt down and stuck my arm into the wound, feeling for the shrapnel that he wanted me to remove.

There! I could feel it! I shifted position to ensure I could get a good grip, then reached once more for the shard that was causing my dear master such pain.