Fetch Quest Chapter 54: Guidance (Patreon)

"Are you... well?" asked my guide, with obvious concern. Or maybe fear? I think he was more worried that I was infectious than he was I was going to keel over and die.

Wait... I'd just used 'he' instead of 'it'. It was suddenly so obvious that he was male. And I could see two females and two males behind him. And all this time, I thought they were naked! They were wearing... So bright... I turned away again, feeling another bout of nausea.

"I'm okay. It's just a sensory overload," I answered, pinching my nose shut. It made no difference. I'd probably grown a whole host of olfactory sensors over my skin or something. Turning away had helped, but only a little; I could still 'see' behind me. It was blurry, as if out of the corner of my eyes, but it was there. Apparently, I had three-sixty degree directional scent detection. With depth perception, too, however the hell that worked. No wonder I was feeling sick. This was nothing like my eye upgrade, and it was going to take some getting use to.

"If you say so," he said, but novice empath told me he was unhappy. "I would ask that you don't enter our village while ill, please."

I nodded, and the carnes multiformis departed, hurrying back to their village. They'd been fearful and twitchy ever since stepping outside of their barrier. Given how terrified they were of this guidance, now that they'd deliberately infected me with it, I got the impression I would be rather less welcome than I had been. But I'd obtained some information, and a new class perk, so I wasn't unhappy.

Speaking of the perk, I was glad to see them leave; they were the stinkiest things in my vicinity by far. Or at least, two of the five were. While I'd thought them completely naked, with even their skin translucent, the elder and researcher actually wore fragrances as clothing, tracing decorative patterns in different smells. The guards wore the scent of stone, blending into the rocky background. If their main enemy was the other village, that was unsurprising; they wouldn't want to advertise their position. They were effectively wearing camouflage.

I, on the other hand, now looked completely naked, given that my armour smelt mostly of me. How ironic...

I spent some time after they'd left getting to grips with my new smell-seeing ability, taking a full half hour before I felt it safe to start moving. Even half an hour was impressive, though. I didn't have the relevant bits of brain to process a new sense, so how did it even work? Yet another item to add to the list of things I'd need to keep secret on Earth if I wanted to avoid the rush of mad scientists trying to autopsy me.

Despite the initial overwhelmingness, being able to perceive my surroundings without light would be useful. And the additional perk wasn't the only benefit new monster relationships gave me. Did this one add new skills to my list of options?

Crystal metabolism: You can metabolise mana infused crystal in addition to your species' regular food.
Prehensile feet: You can grasp with your feet with low dexterity.

Yes, but still nothing I wanted. Although the combo of prehensile feet and an enhanced version of extra limbs could turn me almost into one of them, if I ever fancied being a dozen-limbed monstrosity.

My new olfactory sense wasn't unlimited in range, but did let me pick things up further away than I could see with my torch. Some things, anyway. I couldn't sniff out the vines at any further distance than I could see them, but the bowls were detectable from further away, and the pods further again. And even beyond that, I could tell I was in a wide open cavern, and sniff out what I could only assume was the tree. Much like the pods, but on a far greater scale. With the distraction of suddenly sprouting new sensory organs dealt with, I once again began my trek in that direction.

There were no harvested bowls in this direction, and the density of both bowls and pods increased significantly. The background level of the guidance picked up to the point disease nullification was complaining about it even when I couldn't see any pods, and at the rate of increase, it was obvious that I wouldn't be able to safely approach the tree itself.

Making myself a silk mask didn't help, but that was no great surprise; if a simple mask worked to block it, the carnes multiformis wouldn't be so scared. If I wanted to approach the tree and see if it did indeed guard the way down, I would either need to evolve my skill, or come up with a better defence. For the defence route, helping the carnes multiformis more earnestly would probably be best; they had far more experience with the stuff than I did. For the skill evolution, how many achievements did I have now?

I had the three from when it evolved to nullification, and the one from resistance focus. I would need two more. What else had caused disease nullification to level? There was the guidance, and when the spider queen borrowed my kidney. Would the spider queen have counted as an achievement? The centipedes eating me from inside out did, but they were described generically as a 'massive parasite infestation'. That was a maybe. I hadn't died to the guidance yet, or allowed the disease to progress far, so that probably didn't count yet. In that case...

I activated trigger respawn and walked bravely towards the tree. What was the worst that could happen?

As I got closer, the bowls and pods died out completely, but the levels of pathogen in the air continued to rise. The vines were still present, but were linked together into thicker branches. Or roots, perhaps? With sense mana, I could see them pouring mana towards the tree.

Disease nullification had started to lose its battle, and even if I backtracked, I'd still eventually be overcome. Probably not before trigger respawn fired, but it would happen. The same was true of my first dose too, though, so I kept walking forward, regardless.

"Come on!" I shouted into the darkness. "I've taken on the undead blight, so you're going to have to try harder than this to get me."

The darkness rustled back.

I paused. I was pretty sure something had just responded to my provocation. That wasn't expected. My new smell-sense couldn't see anything other than vines and the nebulous mass I was walking towards, so I pulled out my torch for a proper look.

I was surrounded. There were carnes multiformis all around me, forming a circle and moving in time with me, keeping me at the centre. That was strange enough already, but the monsters were all wrong. They blended in with the generic plant and disease smells so perfectly that I hadn't noticed them at all. Their skin was still translucent, but was tinted green, and their bodies were infested by vines. Some of them were flowering. These must be the drones my guide was talking about, but why were they just following me like this? If I tried to turn back, would they attack? Were they just waiting for the disease to take hold?

Was I going to create another new intelligent clone of myself, when trigger respawn plucked my soul out and left my body to this disease? I probably should have thought of that earlier... Too late to worry about it now, but it seemed unlikely; novice empath actually responded to the drones. They weren't dead. There were, in fact, alive and very happy.

I continued walking, and my entourage followed, walking in perfect synchronisation. There seemed to be no communication going on, and no-one had taken the lead. They were moving as a single organism. Maybe they were drones in a more literal sense than I'd imagined, being controlled directly, rather than having their minds warped? Or, given what I was feeling from novice empath, maybe a combination of the two? How would that even work?

As I drew closer, the air grew sweeter. The great cloud of miasma faded away, revealing the scenery beyond. An enormous tree, hundreds of metres in height. The vines were its roots, connecting at the base of its trunk. The first branches didn't start for tens of metres, and they were completely bare of leaves. The bark was blackened, looking almost burnt. If I didn't know better, and couldn't see the amount of mana flowing into it, I'd have thought it dead.

It was beautiful.

I still had ten minutes before trigger respawn fired, so I set about exploring the area. The way down was easy enough to find, an open staircase at the base of the tree, built into a platform of white marble, with more vines trailing down it. There was no point in heading down there now, though. Instead, I continued to look around, seeing dozens of the drones climbing about the tree's branches. What they were doing up there, I had no idea, but they certainly looked busy. I saw one stop and twitch, novice empath telling me it was in utter ecstasy. Maybe I should go and get a closer look? But how was I supposed to climb the trunk?

Using spider claws as climbing picks? Or even taking the extra limbs skill and using my own claws? But both options would damage the trunk. A difficult problem indeed, so I lay back to think. I could make myself a grappling hook by typing a spider claw to a length of silk?

I was distracted from my planning by something tapping against me, and opened my eyes to see a couple of the drones poking at me. Odd, but they didn't seem to be doing any harm, so I ignored them, closing my eyes once more.

Evolution conditions met: Disease nullification ranks up to disease immunity
Dirty water, contaminated food or infected wounds are all things that an adventurer needs to be wary of, even before considering even worse things like undead blight or magical plagues. You have survived a necrotising virus, a massive parasite infestation, a parasite of great power, the guidance and even the dreaded undead blight, feats for which your nullification has been upgraded to immunity. This skill turns the interior of your body into a fortress, and only the most virulent of diseases have any effect on you. It will also alert you when your body is under attack by disease, and what symptoms to expect.

I opened my eyes again, this time back in catacombs, and sighed. More mind fuckery. Given the description, and a name like the guidance, that wasn't a complete surprise, but the subtlety of it had taken me by surprise. Presumably it wasn't magical, given that my mind magic resistance didn't react. Some sort of pheromone based thing? I'd thought the air had grown sweet when the scent hadn't changed at all. If anything, it had got worse. I'd thought a dead-looking, burnt tree had been beautiful. I hadn't taken the stairs, even though that was my aim, and if I'd found a shrine at the bottom, I could have respawned there to skip the fourth floor. I'd wanted to climb the tree, but had been worried about hurting it. I'd let a bunch of drones...

That made me sit upright pretty quickly. What had they been doing?

I tried to store my armour, to give myself an inspection, and found that I couldn't. The appraisal results showed a couple of points drop in the quality rating, but it was otherwise unchanged, so not cursed. My item box shouldn't suddenly be full, but dropping out a couple of panther corpses just in case made no difference. The only other thing I knew of that would make item box fail was if I tried to store something living.

As if trying to confirm the theory, I felt something brush against my arm, on the inside of my armour. Then I had the same feeling on a leg. With some amount of alarm, I tried to inspect where the monsters had been touching, and saw movement. A small amount of silk pushed outwards, then split, and the tip of a small vine poked out. I could see it still growing!

They must have been planting seeds over me. All the drones had been vined, so this must be where they came from, rather than being a symptom of the guidance. They'd been in the middle of preparing me for becoming a drone, but must have been unfamiliar with the concept of clothing, or the human type, at least, and hadn't bothered removing my armour first.

Now what? Removing my armour required the use of item box! I'd have to cut it off, clean out the vine infestation and repair it. I pulled my sword out of my item box, grasped the hilt, and my arm seized up.

That wasn't good... I strained and heard the noise of cracking wood, giving me some movement back. I made another attempt to start cutting my armour off, but fighting against the restricting vines left me without the strength to slice the spider queen's silk. Damn my armour for being too strong.

I could feel the vines regrowing, wrapping around my limbs, growing lower until they reached my hand. They forced it open, causing me to drop the sword. Something intelligent was obviously controlling them, given that they hadn't restricted my movement until I'd tried to remove them. They still weren't restricting my movement, at least until I reached to grab the sword, at which my arm locked up again.

I made an attempt with a dagger, swinging my arm and pulling it out of my item box mid-swing, to not give my puppeteer a chance to stop me. It didn't try, jerking my other arm backwards instead, out of the way of the attack. So something intelligent, but at least it wasn't in my head; it didn't react until after I pulled the dagger from item box, so it didn't have advance warning of my plan. It must be able to see me, though, given that it reacted to the dagger summoning.

The vines were still growing, and I could feel them snaking around my torso, wrapping themselves around my stomach. My chest. My breasts. Sliding against my crotch.

So, apparently I now needed to add living tentacle armour to my growing list of bondage predicaments.