New skill gained: Earth magic tolerance

While the earthen class of magic is better suited for defence than attack, no-one would deny that a giant rock to the face is going to hurt. This skill will offer a small amount of protection from earth-magic powered assaults.

New skill gained: Blunt damage tolerance

Clubs, war-hammers, staves or even a fist, plenty of weapons work by subjecting their target to sudden, overwhelming momentum. This skill will allow you to absorb a small portion of the impact.

I opened my eyes, but it made no difference. Weren't the catacombs supposed to be lit? Don't tell me the fox-kin trapped it again? I made an attempt to stand up, and couldn't. My limbs wouldn't respond. Great, captured again. I activated trigger respawn on general principles, not that it would do much good if I'd already been caught once without even noticing. I shifted my respawn location to the top floor, just in case that was better. At least my memories hadn't been wiped yet. Hopefully, Mru'walyn had been their only soul mage.

Then, as I returned to full awareness, I remembered the last moments before I lost consciousness; the boulder had drastically slowed just before it hit me. I had still been crushed between the wall and boulder, but it was possible it hadn't killed me. The feedback from pain immunity was telling me that I wasn't paralysed, but that my limbs had been removed. From the amount of pain I should be feeling, the removal hadn't exactly been surgical.

Okay, new theory; I hadn't been captured at a shrine without even waking up first, but had been taken prisoner by the mystery creatures instead. And they'd left me alive with my limbs removed. So, this would be the heavy bondage phase I'd predicted then. What had I guessed would be next? Getting eaten, wasn't it?

As further confirmation, I was still diseased. It still didn't seem to have any negative effect on me, but my body was fighting a losing battle against it, and it had spread somewhat since I'd been knocked out. And as final confirmation, I had my map, which showed me only a few tens of metres away from where I'd been knocked out.

Drat... My anti-teleportation bracelet! I couldn't item box it, so it had still been around my wrist. With my arms chopped off, it wasn't on me anymore. I reached out with sense mana, and picked up a few signatures nearby, but nothing I could identify.

...Was it wrong that I was more concerned about losing a magical item than I was about losing my limbs? Yes, that's probably bad. My limbs were admittedly easy to get back, but it still wasn't a healthy state of mind.

"Grrxxkzkwtwxxxlz," said something right in front of my face, making me flinch in surprise. I'd had no idea whatsoever it was there. At least, I assumed 'said' was the correct term. There were inflections and pacing in there that suggested some sort of language, but nothing that I could understand. Or even pronounce. For all I knew, it was gargling gravel.

"Grrxxkzkwtwxxxlz," it repeated, louder.

"Have you never heard of vowels?!" I shouted back.

I was lying on my back, so even without limbs, I had options. I summoned my torch onto my stomach and at long last beheld my attackers.

I kinda wish I hadn't...

There was one right in front of me, presumably the one speaking. Two more stood behind it, if standing was the correct term. They were another species that didn't use something from Earth as a template, vaguely icosahedron in shape, with a limb at each vertex for a total of twelve. Three were in contact with the ground. Each limb was identical, with two joints dividing it into three equal length sections, and ending in three symmetrically arranged fingers. For the limbs in contact with the ground, the fingers were splayed open, increasing the size of the effective foot. On the other limbs, I could see that all three fingers were opposable, and could be used to grip. It was the crystal spears pointed at my face, each held in three limbs, that gave that away.

There were no sharp edges to the monsters, and if it wasn't for the regular placement of the limbs, I wouldn't have been able to recognise the shape. The skin was grey and translucent, and I could see through it to pulsating tubes and brown slabs of flesh beneath. I saw nothing that I could identify as the usual facial features; eyes, nose, ears or mouth, yet it had been speaking from somewhere.

The closest one pointed one of its limbs at me, opened the fingers wide, and in the middle, flaps opened up to reveal a triangular maw.

'Krxlktvvlzz,' came out of it. So that's where its mouth was. Did it have one at the end of every limb? And where were the ears?

"Yeah, I really don't speak your language," I replied.

It didn't seem to like that answer, judging from the noises and threatening motions it was making with its spear.

[Untranslatable], carnes multiformis

This intelligent race of monsters are capable hunters, skilled with spears, bows and earth magic. Their structure leaves them less capable of using short, bladed weapons, nor are there many capable of using magic of other elements. With four distinct genders, their reproductive process is more involved than with most species, leading to them typically gathering in large communities. This particular specimen has average physical abilities and advanced magical abilities, specialising in the element of earth.

So, it had a name, but whatever was creating these displays had no clue how to render it into English. Given their language, I doubted I'd be capable of pronouncing it even if it could.

'Krxlktvvlzz!' it repeated, this time in a scream that sounded like someone tipping a bag of jagged rocks down a steep hill, the spear aimed directly at my neck.

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"You might as well just kill me," I said, storing the torch again before I lost it. "There's no way we're going to understand each other, and thanks to you lopping my arms off, I can't even draw you any diagrams."

Moments later, I felt the spear pierce my throat, and my last thought as I bled out and drowned in my own blood was to wonder how it knew my throat was a good target when its anatomy was so different to mine. I couldn't imagine them coming into conflict with the fox-kin, given the catacombs between them. What else was down in that cavern that I hadn't encountered yet?

I awoke for the second time outside of the expected catacombs, and it took me a moment to remember I'd changed my spawn point when the weird many-limbed blobs had knocked me out. What the heck was I supposed to call them? I suppose I could just use their real name, carnes multiformis. I wasn't sure what to make of the things. They'd made an attempt at communication, but only after shooting me repeatedly and hacking my arms and legs off. That seemed the wrong way around to me, if they expected any sort of sensible discourse. Heck, if I'd been one of them, with my mouth at the end of an arm, I wouldn't have been able to talk back at all.

The wall I'd come across, and the appraisal comment about large communities, suggested that I'd bumped into some sort of town. When I'd woken up after my capture, I'd certainly been indoors, or at least in a much smaller cave than the cavern I'd been knocked out in.

Again, I was glad of waking up with no fox-kin interference. Even better, the new plaque hanging up on one wall, which certainly hadn't been here the last time I visited, suggested that the fox-kin weren't something I'd have to worry about ever again. It contained a message thanking me for resealing the catacombs, congratulating me on my victory over Mru'walyn and promising never to attack me again as long as I stayed away from the mine that housed the surviving refugees, and didn't drop any further blighted monsters into the middle of it.

I was happy to abide by those conditions; I couldn't blame them for not liking me, and I wasn't a fan of them either, so staying out of each other's way seemed the best solution.

So, what next? Did I really want to take the time to dig out my pet murder tree? I didn't need any of the stuff I'd left in there, I didn't need the aid of the tree to respawn in a painless manner, and as for my 'art', the longer that stayed buried the better. Maybe the mushrooms would make a good poison source? The nectar, too, now that my item box stopped time.

No, maybe some other time if I had a definite use for the poison. For now, I'd continue my explorations of the dark cavern. I'd avoid the settlement I'd run across this time, and map out the rest of it. Hopefully, I'd find some other points of interest, preferably of the sort that didn't immediately try to kill me.

I placed my hand against the statue, started to invoke fast travel, and discovered, much to my surprise, that I had a new destination available. I hadn't unlocked any new respawn points that I'd noticed. How did that happen? Out of an abundance of caution, I invoked trigger respawn, armoured up, then jumped to the new location.

I came out in pitch darkness, and checking my map, I was right in the middle of the town I'd just decided to avoid. Probably the record for my swiftest broken promise ever. Maybe they'd carried me past a statue while I was unconscious, and it had unlocked without telling me? Or at least, without me be being in a fit state of mind to pay attention to my messages.

I heard strange noises all around me, which novice empath translated as expressions of surprise. Oops; guess this was somewhere public. I pulled out my torch, and found myself in the centre of a triangular courtyard, with buildings along the three sides, all fashioned from unadorned, plain grey stone. These monsters really like things to come in threes. With the exception of their genders, apparently, although they all looked the same to me, despite the lack of clothes to hide anything.

Novice empath advanced to level 8

The level up was nice, but with creatures so alien, I was surprised it worked at all.

While the creatures nearby were rapidly retreating, I saw nine bulkier individuals, armed with spears again, moving swiftly towards me. I hadn't seen one of them move before, and they did so by rolling, swapping over the limbs that were in contact with the ground. And that answered the nickname question; they were blatantly d20s. But as interesting as it was to watch, it was time for me to leave.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you," I called out, reaching back to the statue.

An earthen wall shot up between me and it.

"Seriously?!" I yelled.

I shouldn't have let go of it in the first place, even though I'd only done so to pull out my torch and have a look around. Now what? If they were going to be aggressive to me, I had no qualms about fighting back, but I didn't really have the means. Now that I knew how virulently it spread, I didn't want to resort to weaponising the undead blight again, and I was far too outnumbered to fight conventionally, even without their earth mage support.

None of them actually attacked, but took up guard positions, spears aimed at me. After that, nothing happened.

"So... Now what?" I asked, not expecting a response and indeed not getting one.

Appraisal couldn't tell me the names of any of them, but did identify one of them as an earth mage. Probably the one that blocked me off from the statue.

The stand-off continued for a few more minutes, and the only assumption I could make was that they were waiting for someone else to arrive. Either someone who spoke my language, or someone with the authority to decide what to do with a random human teleporting into the middle of their settlement. I hoped for the first option; I was legitimately interested in having a conversation. Given previous experiences, the second option would likely result in more delimbing.

Another group arrived. Four of them, this time. Three were armed, and the last was not. He moved awkwardly, shifting from side to side in an apparent effort to avoid putting weight on a couple of his limbs. His central body had strange growths, too. Was he sick? He certainly smelt like it, a strong earthy scent coming from him that I hadn't smelt from the others. Or, from his appraisal results, which called him ancient, maybe it was just old age?

"A flllatttt oneee," he droned at a glacial pace. "Llllong hasss it beeeen."

Yay, English! Ish, anyway. His pronunciation could use some work, but given his lack of a human mouth or throat, I could forgive it. And 'flat one'? That's... okay, I could sort of see it. It's a description I'd reserve for something close to the ground, but only because I use myself as a baseline. Compared to them, I guess I am rather flat. The other half of his greeting was definitely inaccurate, though.

"An hour isn't long," I pointed out. "That's when the last one was here. You cut her arms and legs off and stabbed her in the throat."

The elderly blob wobbled a bit, then started rumbling in its own language. One of the spear wielders that had come with him rumbled back, at which the elderly one prodded the guard in the central blob, an action which novice empath informed me was equivalent to a human whapping someone over the head. Apparently, the elderly one hadn't liked the answer he'd just been given.

Nor did the other guards, and when sense danger informed me of another unavoidable incoming rock attack, I hurriedly stashed my equipment once more.

Something smashed into my head, hard, and as I lost consciousness, I pondered that maybe calling them out on their lie may have been a mistake.