I poked at a dinner-plate sized fragment of chitin with my spear in an attempt to dislodge it from where it had become embedded in the ceiling. Unlike the walls, it turned out not to be completely indestructible, and while the shrine's autocleaning functionality had tidied up most of the resulting mess of the Katie bomb, the fractured chitin chunks and some of the larger remaining pieces of charred flesh remained.

My zombie twin would no doubt lament the loss of the brain, but it had alas been far too close to ground zero, and no trace was left.

That wasn't the way I'd been expecting to learn more about the behaviour of how the shrine rooms cleaned themselves, with the cut-off point being a lump of flesh around fist sized, but I'd take it. At least the shrine hadn't been damaged in the explosion. Or viewed another way; drat, the shrine hadn't been damaged in the explosion. Now I couldn't get a new side quest to repair it.

I'd need to make new armour again. That last set had a life span not much longer than my own. Annoying, but not much I could do about it. Not that armour would be any use against whatever had attacked me last time. Despite exploring the entire cavern and finding nothing but the carnes multiformis and the tree, I'd been attacked first by an imp, and then by a group of imps and something else with mind magic powers. The tree had found a new army to attack me with, and I had no idea where it was coming from, or what else might come out. I was clearly outclassed.

Perhaps it was time for the nuclear option; blight the whole damn floor.

I returned to the throne room, not seeing a single zombie on the way. That was odd; as my zombie twin was fond of complaining, they respawned very slowly, but they did respawn. There were normally some hanging around the shrine room, if only for my twin to point and laugh at me by proxy. There were usually a few aimlessly wandering the catacombs, too. Where had they all gone? Feeling slightly concerned about my twin, I sped up. I sped up more when perceive presence picked up tens of signatures ahead of me.

The throne room was a war zone.

The carnes multiformis were pouring up the staircase and out into the room, where dozens of zombies were engaging them, desperately trying to take them out at a speed faster than they were coming in. Apparently my skill evolution now let me sense them. I saw my zombie twin flickering from group to group, leaving fresh corpses wherever she went, but there was only one of her, and the lesser blighted husks had nowhere near her power.

At least the corpses she made didn't remain corpses for long, twitching and climbing back to their arm-feet within minutes. At this point, most of the zombies were actually the many-limbed monsters, rather than fox-kin or my own corpses. They weren't moving right though, and seemed to be fighting against the vines that infested them.

Mindless drones vs mindless zombies. There was probably a half-decent B-movie plot in there somewhere.

"Katie!" yelled my twin. "Flamethrower the corridor! Now! I can't hold them much longer!"

Even if I killed off job lots of them, with the amount pouring up, I doubted it would buy much time. Presumably she had something else in mind, like sealing the wall. I did as she asked, sprinting for the staircase, but the drones reacted, moving as one to block me. Normally, turning their backs on their current opponents would have been an immediately fatal mistake, but the symmetrical monsters didn't have backs. They could defend equally well, no matter which way they were moving.

My zombie twin moved in, attempting to clear me a path. Her sword skills were still far beyond my own, but even she couldn't take out a half dozen monsters in a few seconds. She could tie them down, though, and that was all I needed. This room had a high ceiling, and I had wings.

Even if I couldn't fly perfectly, I could use them to get a bit more height in and make a world-record long jump. I flew over the top of the drones, landing in front of the corridor, and let loose my flames.

I woke back up in the shrine room and immediately sprinted back to the throne room. Zombies were busy eating the leftover mess, while my twin was stood where the passage downstairs used to be, one ear held against the wall.

"They're waiting outside," she said when she saw me. "I can't reopen the passage. It only works when no-one is looking."

"They have no eyes though," I pointed out. "They can't look."

"Whatever they do instead, then. My point still stands. Regardless, if they take out the shrines too, you're going to get trapped up here. You need to go and defend them right now. Or very soon. First, you can explain what the hell is going on. The abridged version, please."

"I exploded a bit of the tree, and that seems to have convinced it I'm a threat. Now it's trying to defend itself against me, rather than turn me into one of its drones. It knew I was coming from up here, so maybe it was launching an invasion in the hopes of stopping my respawns."

About half of the zombies in the room were now carnes multiformis, but their vines looked dessicated, shrivelled and cracked. Had the blight infected them? They were obviously connected to the tree, despite not being physically attached, given that it could perceive and talk through them. How did the connection work? Was it magic? If so, had the blight spread through it, given that it infected mana?

Perceive presence picked up something ascending the staircase. The same something that had crushed my mind before. Already I was glad of the upgrade that let me identify species.

"Run!" I yelled. "Get away from the wall! There's something coming up with mind magic!"

With a look of alarm, my zombie twin bolted from the room. I followed her back to the shrine room, where I leant against a wall, panting. She, annoyingly, was fine. One advantage of not needing to breathe. If I maxed suffocation resistance, would that mean I could exercise forever without getting out of breath?

"How did you know?" she asked, now that we'd taken a safe distance.

"I evolved sense presence. I can feel out what things are now, and whatever was coming up the stairs was the thing responsible for my last death. It knocked me out despite my mind magic nullification from a considerable distance, without giving me a chance to react."

My zombie twin clicked her tongue in annoyance. "I'm not even certain I'm safe here. We already know spatial magic can bypass the walls, and if a mind mage has come out of nowhere, what's to say others can't too?"

"Won't these things fall to the blight before getting too far? For that matter, isn't there blight on the outside of that wall? If the things are massed outside, shouldn't it have infected them?"

"It's not infallible. You aren't the only one who we've seen walking around in it. But yes, it may be spreading downstairs already. If it is, this crown doesn't let me see it."

"One way to find out..."

I activated trigger respawn, tapped the statue and invoked fast travel, jumping down to the first village. It was no longer unoccupied, with a neat ring of... things standing in a circle some distance from the shrine. There were carnes multiformis in there, but there were also daemonium volucer and a half dozen other species I didn't recognise. Perceive presence informed me of the existence of three of the mind magic creatures, which I could now see as floating brains, a metre across, hovering in the air.

daemonium cerebrum
These denizens of the abyss have no strength of their own, blind, deaf and only able to float at a sedate pace, but their impressive mental abilities permit them to control far stronger monsters to act as their senses, hands and feet. They will always be accompanied by several mind-slaves, but they tend to value utility over fighting strength; their mind magic is typically the only defence they require.

In a spot of irony, the brains were wrapped in vines. The slavers had become the slaves.

A five metre tall, red-skinned humanoid monster stood at a distance, out of my appraisal range, completely naked, aside from his puppet-string vines, and very definitely male. He was unarmed and unarmoured, and had no visible claws, fangs or other inbuilt weaponry, but perceive presence was telling me he was spider queen level. Not something I wanted to fight.

None of the other new species were even vaguely humanoid. There were several daemonium vermis, which looked like extra long, lightly segmented slugs, if slugs had discovered teeth and decided to run with the idea, but hadn't realised they were supposed to live in mouths. Appraisal told me they were more low-level denizens that survived by scavenging. There was a tentacle monster, daemonium crinis, which was a conical pillar of pulsating flesh with about twenty tentacles sticking out seemingly at random. There was the most beautiful female face I'd ever seen, with perfect, blemish-free pink skin, a petite nose and bright blue eyes. Alas, rather than being attached to an equally perfect body, it was set into a red, fleshy disk, from which six black, bat-like wings sprouted at the edges. Appraisal called that one daemonium siren, and suggested that listening to its voice would be a terminally bad idea.

The only thing all the creatures had in common was the way they were staring at me, but not making any other move. For now, was I protected by the shrine's barrier? Wasn't it supposed to shield the entire village? No, probably not; I'd been told the barrier was the only reason the guidance didn't affect the settlements, but it had already been inside. The barrier must only cover a small area. The villages were lost before I'd ever arrived.

"Umm... Hello?" I tried, given that none of them had moved or attempted to attack me in any way. From the sadistic spiders, I knew they should be able to use ranged attacks through the barrier, but none of the demons were even trying. "This is sort of creepy..." I added, when I didn't get any response.

What were they waiting for? Were those floating brains already inside my head? Were they waiting for me to make the first move? I couldn't burn the whole circle of monsters, and my combat skills had barely been enough to deal with one imp, while here I had a full menagerie.

"You allied yourself with the blight," came an unprompted voice after another ten seconds of silence.

"The blight wears your face," came a second, from the opposite direction. This was a change from the synchronised speaking it normally did.

"The blight cannot have it!" exclaimed a third voice, louder and angry.

"All life in this dungeon is mine. Mine to take. To control. To reward or torment. MINE!"

This thing saw the blight as competition? But I wouldn't say I allied myself with it, as such. It's just that the queen of the blight happened to be a good friend of mine.

Apparently done with the waiting, one of the giant brains made a move. Not an outright assault this time, but something more careful. I was angry, and I was confident. Between my flames and sword skills, I knew I could rush out there and fight. I could kill them all.

Mind magic nullification advanced to level 24

I stayed right where I was. The manipulation felt too similar to a slave collar for me to be fooled by it.

A second brain made a move. I couldn't fight all these foes, but I didn't need to. My draconic wings would carry me away from here at a speed none of them could match. All I needed was to leap upwards, dive towards the tree, and I could flame it before any of them caught me.

Mind magic nullification advanced to level 25

Nope, not falling for that one, either. The imps were faster than me and had the added advantage of actually knowing how to fly. This was good resistance training, so I turned towards the third brain and waited to see what it had in store.

The demons were angry. For centuries, they had been held back from leaving the abyss, the path to the upper layers too well guarded. They pushed and pushed, to no avail. Then things had changed; the guardian began to push back. It spread its roots down into the abyss, feeding off the burning mana that pervaded it. The guardian changed, its bark burning and charring as it took in the fiery mana of the abyss. Its vines started infecting the demons, rather than merely consuming them. The guardian spread a pestilence that took the minds of those it touched.

The king of the abyss fought back, delaying the guardian while a defensive wall was constructed. The progress of the guardian stalled, and for a time, things reached a stalemate. Then the new infected had come. Strange creatures of flesh and limbs, wielding powerful magic of earth. They built bridges and tore down the walls, rapidly overrunning the defences. The guardian pushed forward once more, taking ever more mana and turning demons into its puppets. The guardian had never given up; it was simply biding its time as it built up new forces.

I blinked. That one wasn't an attempt to get me to leave the safety of the barrier, or do something stupid. Had brain number three just shared a new chunk of backstory with me? So that was where all the demons were coming from? The abyss that the fox-kin kept swearing by was a real place, only one floor down from here? And the tree had used the carnes multiformis to launch a raid down there, tear down their defences and start puppeting a new set of drones. Interesting information, for sure, but I wasn't sure how it helped me. From the sounds of it, the guardian had changed after absorbing mana from the abyss. What if I cut it off? Severed all the vines around the staircase?

Of course, as with the other backstories in this place, I had no idea how much of the vision was actually grounded in reality. Basing future strategy on it was risky.

The third brain started squirming and pulsating, before a thousand vines burst through the surface. Bright red blood sprayed from the holes as the brain fell from the air, hitting the ground with a wet squelch. Bad children will be punished, the tree had said. Apparently, that didn't apply only to me.

I couldn't win this. How could I fight an enemy that controlled an entire army of monsters? Many of these demons could beat me one on one, and I was surrounded by an entire horde. I should fast travel back upstairs, as much as it galled to give in. Or I could surrender and beg forgiveness. Hope that if I helped it to the best of my ability, it wouldn't punish me too badly for my earlier defiance. Maybe I could eventually earn back some of the pleasure it had teased me with, that I had so ungratefully cast aside?

Mind magic nullification advanced to level 26

"Have I ever mentioned how much I hate having my mind messed with?" I asked, before flaming the surviving pair of brains.