I teleported to the second floor, the shrine still in the middle of a small patch of clean stone in the larger area of scorched and barren rock. The staircase down was completely unguarded, defence left to the shrine's barrier, not that dupliKatie would launch an attack even were it totally undefended.

Actually, that was an interesting point. She could pass straight through the barriers unhindered, and that extended to her zombies. I'd seen them in the catacombs' shrine room. If the fox-kin were relying completely on the barrier, they would have a shock if the zombies ever did decide to invade.

I made my way towards the fox-kin cave, reacting without surprise at the long range web net that came at me. I nimbly dodged with a single flap of my wings, bursting forward and burning a hole through a second web with my flame breath.

"Will you hold off for two seconds?!" I yelled as I dodged a storm of icicles. "If you're that desperate for a kidney, you can have one when I leave!"

Whether she was ignoring me or couldn't hear me, the attack continued. First another web net, followed by a burning pain in my wing as powerful decay magic tore into it. But my corrosion nullification had ranked up to immunity since my training session with queeny, and her magic did little more than sting.

Heat immunity advanced to level 31

Oh, bonus. I hadn't been using my flame breath in the arena, focusing on boosting my combat skills, but apparently it did enough internal damage to keep levelling me past thirty now that I'd got the evolution. But even so, I'd prefer the damn spider stop attacking me!

"Will you cut it out, or I'm gonna roast you!" I yelled, the spider now within range of my breath. She was small and agile enough to dodge, but would she be willing to risk it?

Sense danger advanced to level 10

Evolution conditions met: Sense danger ranks up to perceive danger

Few beings would pass up the opportunity for a surprise attack, and any adventurer must keep a constant watch for traps and ambushes. Having faced terminal danger on a near constant basis since the moment you stepped out of your first cave, was there any question of having earned this upgrade? This skill provides awareness when something is targeting you with malicious intent.

A fireball came flying at me, forcing me to evade once more. Queeny couldn't use fire, so where had that come from? Glancing ahead, I saw a group of fox-kin had rushed out of their cave, and were supporting the spider queen in her attack.

More fireballs flew at me, combined with more decay magic attacking my wings. This was a stupid idea. Why had I thought the fox-kin would act towards me any differently this time than any other, just because I'd decided to give up on my quest? They didn't know I'd given up, and had more than enough reason to hate me even if they did. Heck, they hadn't known about the quest at all back when they'd first tried to enslave and torture me, nor had I given them any reason to dislike me at that point other than merely existing. Any idea of cooperation between us seemed no more than wishful thinking. I should just leave.

I dodged another wave of fireballs, the decay magic still not impacting my manoeuvrability, then turned to get out of there.

"Wait!" came a yell from below, and I glanced down to see Mi'taan staring up at me.

One of the other fox-kin took advantage of my distraction to launch another fireball, which I dodged, straight into the path of one of queeny's icicles, tearing a hole right through my wing. That had rather more effect than the decay magic and sent me plummeting to the ground.

"Seriously..." I muttered. Thankfully, my blunt damage resistance absorbed the entire impact, physics be damned. I'd landed on my feet, bent my legs a bit, and it felt like I'd hit the ground after a gentle jump rather than from a ten metre fall. Another fireball came flying at me, but still recovering from my fall, I wasn't able to dodge. I batted it away with a wing instead, the fireball being rather less powerful than queeny's ice, and me having my heat immunity skill.

"Will you stop it!" yelled Mi'taan at his fellow fox-kin, but I could see them all preparing more spells. How much mana did they have?

Perceive mana advanced to level 13

Plenty. Well, that was enough. It was well past time to start fighting back. I took a deep breath.

"Enough!" boomed a deep voice as another fox-kin walked out of the cave, interrupting my attack. Perceive presence told me it was a big one; one of the surviving caste leaders that I hadn't yet been introduced to. His presence was finally enough to get the fox-kin to stand down, and cause queeny to skitter away.

"Why are you here?" he practically spat at me. "Haven't you done enough already? Leave us to spend our last days in peace."

Last days? As expected, the arch-mage had told them. Why couldn't he have told me?

"If your 'last days' comment has anything to do with believing that the world's going to end as soon as I get the holy sword, forget it. I've given up on that already."

Proficient empath went wild. Surprise, disbelief, anger and hope poured off the fox-kin in equal measure.

"You expect us to believe that?" asked the big one, who was one of the larger sources of disbelief. "Why would you, the Goddess' chosen hero, discard your Goddess given quest?"

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That brought back to mind the conversation I'd had with the arch-priestess, when she'd called me out on an almost-lie. "My quest wasn't Goddess given," I pointed out. "And what sort of hero would sacrifice one world to save another? If only that damn arch-mage of yours had thought to mention the fact that this world's existence was tied to the presence of the holy sword instead of hunting me down and trying to mind-wipe me with soul magic, perhaps your town would still be standing!"

There was suddenly a lot of anger. From everyone, Mi'taan included. Perhaps reminding them that I wiped out their town wasn't a smart move.

"He tried! You refused to listen!" yelled one of the mages, which was news to me. When had he ever...

Actually, he'd come to visit me in the temple personally, and had Mi'taan with him. And that other mage upstairs had explicitly said that he only wanted to talk to me, but I'd shot him down. But then that mage had thrown sleeping gas at me. If they wanted to regain my trust after how they'd treated me, that wasn't the way to go about it.

Besides, why did he send a subordinate when those other two fox-kin had sighted me upstairs. For something that important, he could have just come himself. The spider queen had said that the caste leaders were too arrogant to leave their town.

Or perhaps that wasn't it at all, and they were simply programmed not to.

"Is that true?" I asked Mi'taan.

"So he claimed. Certainly when you entered the town with Ja'yakril, he rushed out to meet you, and dragged me along with him with the excuse that he had something of vital importance to talk to you about and you'd be more likely to trust me than him. When he explained himself after the soul magic incident, he claimed it wasn't until your blight attack that he changed strategy."

My proficient empath skill wasn't a patch on the priestess's truthsense, but as far as I could tell, no-one was lying. But just because that was what the arch-mage had told them didn't mean it was true. Or make their actions any less stupid.

"Trying to talk to someone usually involves less sleeping gas," I commented dryly. "Given how my first encounters with you involved enslavement, torture and attempted rape, you can see why I might be loath to trust you. Yet rather than trying to regain that trust, people kept tossing sleeping gas at me. When one succeeded and I woke up to find myself with another slave collar around my neck and cursed irons around my wrists and ankles, I think I could be forgiven for assuming you didn't 'just' want to talk. Of course I would employ every means at my disposal to escape! Besides, when I woke up again, I was tied to a chair in some sort of trial, with someone reading nonsense accusations at me. Certainly no-one mentioned anything about the world ending!"

Come to think of it, the face of that person reading out the list of claims looked remarkably similar to the big guy who'd come out now. I was keeping too much of a distance from him to use appraisal, the enhancement alas not having increased its range, so I still had no idea if he was the crafting or merchant leader, but he was definitely the one who had been speaking.

"And if Mru'walyn had deigned to share his findings, perhaps we would have approached things differently..." he muttered.

"No you wouldn't," snapped Mi'taan. "You arranged that stupid trial believing she was a servant of the Goddess. What difference would knowing the nature of the world make other than turning you further against her?"

"Keep your disrespect in check, mage," he snapped back.

Mi'taan scowled, but held his tongue.

"Now, back to my first question," said the big guy, turning back to me. "Why are you here?"

"I'm looking for some way to let my accidental clone walk around without blighting everyone."

That answer got me treated to nothing more than a glare.

"I think... you should leave," said Mi'taan. "Whether you've given up on your quest or not, you're not going to be welcome here."

I wasn't sure what to think. In my mind, I'd been defending myself against guards who wanted to sell me, a warrior captain convinced I was a threat to the settlement, an arch-mage who was trying to reset me back into a mental baby... The guards kinda sucked, but the warrior captain had shown remarkable restraint once he'd been convinced of my legitimacy. Had So'layn not lied to him, the attack on the temple would never have happened. On top of that, the arch-mage apparently wanted to discuss their existential threat with me, and had only started to attack me once I blighted their settlement.

From their point of view, a couple of guards had legitimately thought I was a monster, and acted appropriately. From Ja'yakril's behaviour, if he'd collared me and found out about my quest that way, he'd have likely got the priestesses involved. The arch-mage wanted to talk about the consequences of me completing my quest, and was frustrated about me ignoring him. Terrified of me ignoring him—if I completed my quest before he succeeded in re-earning my trust, his world would end. The other caste leaders, dealing with the aftermath of the fight between warriors and priestesses, had every reason to put me on public trial. As far as they were concerned, the only one who had acted at all inappropriately was So'layn.

I'd had some stupid idea that I could talk to them and explain myself, tell them I wasn't a threat, and we could all make up and be... probably not friends, but at least develop some sort of working relationship. I'd been looking forward to their reactions when they saw that I'd grown wings, but they hadn't even mentioned it.

Their actions were stupid. Given So'layn's behaviour, what did they think I would think when I got gassed, and woke up bound and collared? I didn't know it was some sort of convoluted mess, where this one caste leader wanted a trial, and the arch-mage was using it as an opportunity to forcibly talk to me.

"There's still information I'm missing. Why did So'layn lie to the warrior commander?"

"That's no business of yours," snapped one of the mages. A stronger one, according to perceive presence. "But I'd like to see how you'd react if you discovered you were a soulless pawn, with no hope for the future."

I'd seen exactly how I'd react; I had an unliving example downstairs. And it was a hell of a lot better than So'layn. I opened my mouth to snap back, but missed my chance.

"I had a wife and three children," interrupted Mi'taan. "All dead from blight. I didn't even get to say goodbye. I appreciate that you were only trying to defend yourself, and for telling us you've given up on your quest, but nevertheless, I don't think you'll ever be welcome here."

"For what it's worth, I'm sorry," I replied, before I turned around and left without another word, needing to travel on foot thanks to my crippled wing.

I had to admit to some amount of regret. I'd never even considered that the arch-mage could have changed strategy, and I'd assumed that since he was trying to mind-wipe me at the end, he must have been at the beginning too. In retrospect, it was obvious that killing so many of them would make him antagonistic regardless of how he felt before. I'd decided that even with hindsight, I'd behaved correctly, and that doing otherwise would have resulted in me falling victim to the arch-mage.

If I had let Ja'yakril collar me. Turned around when Mi'taan called me in the temple. Played along with that stupid trial... How differently things might have gone.

With the information I had available at the time, I couldn't see myself doing anything differently, but it was funny how hindsight could change so drastically with one new piece of information.