Fetch Quest Side Story: What if? (Chilopoda Kin) (Patreon)

Katie lightly leapt over another one of the pulsating, orange vines, once again noting the direction in which the mana flowed. How strange, she thought. It was obviously a single giant organism, rather than something like her own swarm that was made of countless individuals, but whatever was it doing with that much mana?

She continued her search of floor four, discovering the crystal collectors, and at least a part of what the mana was being used for, in the fleshy, disease producing fruits. Then another part of the caverns found her.

Tink.

Katie looked around and spotted the cracked crystal arrowhead on the floor. Fortunately, her shell had been stronger, and hadn't even taken a scratch. Her flesh underneath, on the other hand...

"Argg! Whoever that was, you are evil!" screamed Katie, scratching completely ineffectually at the chitin plate that covered her back. Given its rigidity, her attempts did nothing for the itch beneath. "Seriously. It's bad enough having an exoskeleton in the first place, however much better it is than my old armour, but how am I supposed to scratch myself when it itches?" she muttered.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, her attackers responded not with an apology, but with a larger rain of arrows. They clinked harmlessly against her chitin. "Okay, you asked for it!" exclaimed Katie, activating her sense vibration skill in an attempt to locate her attackers. They were surprisingly close by, but the complete darkness of the cavern had hidden them anyway.

Katie charged, and her aggressors shifted sideways, apparently not realising she could perceive them. It wasn't until she matched their movements that they ran. From the skill feedback, Katie could tell they ran on three feet, but the rhythm was wrong. It was as if they kept growing new feet at the front and losing the ones at the back. Whatever method of locomotion they used, they were fast, but their pounding on the floor was easy to track.

Katie slowed slightly, not wanting to run into a trap, and tracked her attackers until she ran into a gate set into a tall stone wall. A wall on which many alien creatures were taking aim at her with their bows.

"Ah, so that explains their rhythm. They were rolling..." she muttered to herself, as yet another rain of arrows bounced harmlessly off her shell.

"Look," she said, more loudly. "Isn't it obvious by now that your arrows can't hurt me? You're just pissing me off more now."

The monsters replied with yet another rain of arrows.

"Okay, that does it. I'm... Oh. Crap."

Realising that their arrows were useless, the monsters switched strategy, their earth mages striking with a giant boulder, crushing Katie against the floor.

She reopened her eyes sometime later, noting that the trigger respawn she'd activated in her panic was still running, with half its time remaining. She'd been out for half an hour, but hadn't died. It was still pitch back though, so where was she?

Her attempts to move failed. Pain immunity had made her slow to notice, but her limbs had been torn off. The attempt had been messy, and her captors had obviously struggled to penetrate her shell. Bringing a light out of her item box, she could see the cracks and gaps over her torso, where something had tried to peel her protective plates off her, tearing off a lot of her skin in the process. This return to consciousness would be brief; unlike her old armour, her new shell was as much a part of her as any other body-part, and ripping it off like that meant that she would soon bleed out.

Something else the light revealed was three of the monsters, standing around her with spears pointed at her throat.

"You've torn off my arms and legs, left me bleeding and dying, and you're still afraid of me?" asked Katie, failing to suppress a smirk. "So you should be."

She activated the second of her class skills, summon kin, dumping her full mana pool into the attempt. Hundreds of chilopoda burst forth from the portals that opened around her, and immediately got to work. There were noises. Gravelly screams and the wet thuds of torn flesh, all set against a backdrop of manic laughter, still going strong right until the point Katie finished bleeding out.

Katie respawned and spotted the newly registered shrine, using it to fast travel directly to the village, where the fight was still ongoing. Although Katie had been under guard, they hadn't been expecting an invasion of that sort of scale, and had been instantly overwhelmed. While a few hundred of the centipede-like monsters would have achieved very little attacking from the outside, from the inside, with no organised defence prepared, they had caused a massacre.

Katie added to the attempt by invoking the skill a second time, and the village's feeble attempts at resistance fell apart.

Half an hour later, ninety percent of the population of the village were dead. The remainder were pumped full of paralysing venom and left in the village's central plaza. Katie invoked summon kin one last time, bringing in a slightly larger specimen. She did, after all, need to replace those of her kin that had died in the fight. It would have greatly stimulated her sense of irony to know how similar the chilopoda's method of reproduction was to their own.

"What strange monsters," she commented, petting one of her cute chilopoda on the head. She watched the breeder go about her work, injecting eggs under the transparent skin of the alien creatures. "They must be intelligent, given the village, but they never even tried to talk to me. Then again, maybe they don't have mouths?"

The chilopoda responded by biting her on the hand, its fangs cracking through her shell on her fingers, where it was thinnest, and pumping her full of its venom.

"Whu? Why?" she managed to get out, before the paralysis took her and dropped her to the floor, her face a mask of betrayal.

"Because this is my village, not yours," said the chilopoda, which was a neat trick, given that it had no voice box, nor any other organ capable of generating complex sounds. "But don't worry. You weren't to know any better, and you have brought me a gift far greater than those carnes multiformis. Now, allow me to give you an appropriate reward."

With her poison immunity, it was a matter of seconds before Katie regained the ability to move, but her own kin seemed to have turned against her, swarming her and pinning her to the ground. They dragged her into the biggest building in the village, and then to its centre, where a number of the orange vines grew through the floor, merging into one of the fruiting bodies. She'd seen them outside, too, and had a response from disease nullification about them.

Her kin did not share her resistance skills. They would be vulnerable to it. "A mind control disease?!" she screamed, activating trigger respawn the moment she made the connection. "Damn it. Give me back my kin!"

"Fear not, for you will join them soon enough, and you too will enjoy the bliss of servitude."

The fruit ripped down the centre, releasing a cloud of pestilence that tore straight through Katie's nullification skill. She screamed and struggled to get away, but with almost the full hour before trigger respawn kicked in, and her own allies pinning her to the ground, her actions were limited.

Despite keeping her pinned down, her kin continued to nuzzle into Katie. There were obviously not in any pain. In fact, novice empath was telling her they were happier than she'd ever seen them. If it made all her cute centipedes happy, whatever this thing was couldn't be too bad, could it?

"What is it you want?" asked Katie cautiously.

"All you need do is grow your swarm," came a voice, seemingly emanating from the vines. "As generous as I am, I shall even provide the breeding stock."

All the mystery voice wanted was for her to grow her swarm? But that was what Katie wanted to do anyway. It wouldn't hurt to go along with it for a bit, right?

Her friends released her, and a curious Katie poked her head out of the door, only to see more of the many-armed blobs rolling into the plaza, and cooperating as the breeder filled them up with her eggs.

Cooperating! When she'd raided the fox-kin cave in an attempt to stop the arch-mage's attacks, she'd lost more of her kin than she'd been able to replace with her captured prisoners. She'd needed to use her own body to replenish the lost numbers. Having cooperative hosts was amazing. Just how many of her cute centipedes could she produce?

Maybe... she could reach an agreement with this weird vine thing. Even if it did make one of her cute family bite her.

Katie watched on happily as more of the blobs were impregnated, the limiting factor being how fast the breeder could produce her eggs. She'd soon have so many more friends to play with. This was perfect! The only shame was that she'd activated trigger respawn. She wanted to miss as little of this scene as possible, but at least it would only take a moment's effort to fast travel back down here.

The skill activated and sent her back to the catacombs, where she lay in confusion. The past hour seemed strange and blurry in her memories. Why had those blobs been willing? And the way her kin had been acting wasn't natural. Right, mind control! And she'd been under it too! Made all the more insidious because of the way it hadn't made her do anything she wouldn't have wanted to anyway, and had only hidden the strangeness of the situation from her.

She'd been happy. So had her swarm. Wasn't her family's happiness what was most important? But did it count if it was artificial?

No, creating the swarm was obviously not the end goal. Whatever was responsible for the mind control wanted an army for some reason. They'd already had one, but Katie had handed them a better one. Because of course centipedes were the best. Once they had built up the swarm, what then? The normal reason for wanting an army was to fight. They mustn't be allowed to abuse her family like that! But how was she supposed to rescue them? She would need to find the one responsible for the mind control and kill them.

She once more entered the fourth floor cavern, shifting into her own centipede form, and using her body's natural weapons to speedily sever every vine she came across, far more quickly than she'd have been able to with her sword in her human form. Following the direction of the mana as she went, she soon came to the central cloud of pestilence that shrouded the great angelica arbitrium, the puppet master of all life on the floor.

More of the carnes multiformis surrounded Katie, visible only to her sense vibration skill. "Why do you attack me, when I have only improved the lives of your kind?" they spoke in unison. "But I forgive you, and will allow you, too, to enjoy the bliss of servitude."

Why had she been attacking? The voices were right. It really had improved the lives of her friends. They were so happy, as were the blobs that surrounded her. Novice empath was practically screaming at her about how much bliss they were feeling. And she'd been trying to take that away from her kin. She was a bad friend...

No... Katie shook herself, desperately trying to throw off the thoughts that weren't hers, shifting back to her human form as she did so.

"You?" the monsters exclaimed in surprise.

Katie stood stunned and unable to respond, requiring all of her effort to keep thinking through the disease that was invading her mind. It was, alas, a losing battle, as the filaments of plant matter invaded her brain, reworking it to their own ends.

"No... stop..." she cried, this time more aware as her thought processes were subverted and rewritten.

"Relax, my poor, confused child," spoke the monsters. "You are safe here. You will be happy here. Happier than anywhere. After all, good girls will be rewarded."

Katie gasped, her face flushed red beneath its chitinous shell, falling to the ground as her legs trembled and failed to support her weight.

"Do you understand?" asked the monsters.

"Yes... Yes, I'm sorry for attacking you," sobbed Katie. "Please forgive me. Please let me stay here."

"Of course. My wayward child has returned, so how could I not forgive her? But, now that you're back, I do need you to explain. How did you return, when I saw you die? And how do you fight my control so strongly?"

A very thankful Katie was led further through the darkness, coming to a giant tree, where she gushed out her explanations, holding nothing back, desperate to earn the forgiveness and trust of her master. A master which grew increasingly concerned when it learnt of the true nature of the world, and of Katie's quest. And of the fact that she'd activated trigger respawn before entering the haze of seeds that blanketed the area, and had no way of cancelling it.

"You have been a very good girl, so let me give you your reward," spoke the tree, sending Katie into spasms of pleasure. In the mind of the angelica arbitrium, granting such a reward gave the best chance of the respawned Katie returning here of her own free will. Alas for the tree, it had focused its questions on the mechanics of Katie's abilities, and not her personality.

An appropriately apoplectic Katie awoke once more in the catacombs and charged directly into the throne room.

"Oh, wow," said her zombie clone. "What happened to piss you off this badly?"

"I'll tell you after I've ended its pathetic existence," said Katie. "First, I need that black blight stuff. Lots of it. Canteens full. Bathtubs full. An ocean. That tree is going to suffer."

"Umm... Are you sure you want to blight another floor?"

"It's better than what's there already. Trust me."

The queen of the blight did trust Katie, and so an incredibly angry young women, armed with the most evil biological weapon ever devised, charged towards the mind-controlling tree. How long could she stay in the cloud without losing her mind? Long enough, she thought, as long as the tree didn't delay her or try to stop her from getting close. She'd just have to pretend to be there of her own will, and keep the blight in her item box. Also, she should activate trigger respawn beforehand, in case her plan went wrong, in which case she could come back and blight the vines instead.

Sense vibration soon informed her that she was surrounded once more, but the tree itself was still far out of range. She still needed to get closer.

"Please, do that to me again. I've never felt anything like it. I promise I'll be good. I haven't activated trigger respawn this time."

Lying her angry little heart out, Katie kept jogging. The puppeteered monsters didn't stop her, and soon the trunk of the tree was once more in sight.

In one fluid motion, Katie pulled a canteen of blight-stuff out of her item box and threw it.

The tree writhed, branches thicker than a bus waving around like twigs in a gale. An inhuman screech seemed to come from every part of it at once. Perhaps it was trying to talk, but if so, it managed nothing coherent. Large lumps started to drop out of the branches as signs of decay sped down the roots.

As for Katie, unwilling to risk either the tree taking her mind or the blight taking her corpse, she took a beetle horn and drove it hard into her eye socket, piercing the brain behind and falling to the floor, dead.

"Well, that was cathartic," she said to herself upon respawn, walking much more sedately to the throne room. It was unfortunate that so many of her kin had been caught up in that. In the best case, the death of the tree would have freed them from its control, and she'd be able to retrieve them. Worst case, they were dead or blighted. It would take weeks of effort to respawn them all, if so. The breeder had been caught too, so she'd need to wait for a new one to develop. At least if they were blighted, her zombie twin could get a bunch of new friends. Despite how they shared literally everything, for some reason the zombie had never found the critters as cute as Katie did.

"What did you just do?" asked the zombie queen when Katie entered the throne room.

"Blighted a big, evil, mind-controlling, rapist tree?"

"And then what?"

"What do you mean, and then what? Then I died, on account of not wanting to be mind controlled again."

"So you weren't there? I felt the blight spreading below for a while, and then it all just... went away."

"Went away?"

"Yes. Gone. Re-dead. I didn't even see what did it. One second, the blight was spreading, the next, nothing."

That information caused Katie some alarm. Had the tree managed to cure itself, somehow? She still had a canteen of blight-stuff in reserve, so Katie hurried downstairs to see what was going on.

There was nothing left. The vines were gone, as were the bowls and fruits. The tree had gone, along with the diseased air. The village had gone, with nothing but scoured rock where it had previously stood. The shrine had gone. There was no sign of any life anywhere on the floor. There was a staircase down, and a couple of destroyed shrines to repair, but as to what happened, Katie could find no clues.

The mystery unresolved, and with the newly spawned carnes multiformis unwelcoming, Katie proceeded down the staircase and began her efforts to tackle floor five, where a veritable fortress stood between her and the way forward. How many of her friends would need to be sacrificed to breach that wall? As she crossed the narrow bridge over the lake of lava towards the dangerous-looking demons, who were yelling at her to stop with weapons in hand, she wished she had a class skill that would let her fly around it.