[Level up! 18 > 19]

  More mana, fuelling my [Suppression] of the tide. We walk, and walk, and walk on. Behind us, the sound of fighting echoes through the caves, but I hardly care about it. We carve our way through the critters, and eventually, we come out the other side.

  There are only so many in each horde, and they’re all rather low level it seems. None of the insects were above level 10. It was, nonetheless, exhausting. My mana is low. I can barely see from my good eye, as my vision is clouded by blood. I pour the rest of my power into [Flesh Restoration], knitting the blood vessels in my face back together.

  That also means I feel the horrible ichor in my socks again. It’s terrible. Disgusting. I pull off my shoes and throw them aside, my socks soon following. Then, I turn at the remains of the insects. I look at them for a long moment.

  “What are you thinking about?” Jess asks.

  “We need to eat,” I note.

  Faces twist with disgust. “No,” Amelie protests. “No, absolutely not. Never. Forget it.”

  I want to reach down and grab a bit of flesh, but it’s all sticky ichor or tough chitin. Almost nothing that seems… edible. We could make a stew out of it? I can feel my food aversions come up.

  Maybe I would rather starve.

  Slowly, I nod at Amelie. “Yeah. Let’s… see if we can find something more palatable.”

  We move on. Kuro delights in the remains.

  - - -

  The rocks poke against the soles of my feet. It’s still an uncomfortable experience, but with my toughened up body, they don't really hurt as much. I would prefer shoes, but… well. Not with what happened back there.

  The tunnels are boring. Just long stretches of empty grey. Occasionally, they open up into caverns, and occasionally we stumble across other groups, but we never break out into hostilities or fights. Not yet, at least.

  Until, of course, we stumble upon a group that’s different from ours.

  It’s not hiy’ht, or wulven, or humans. Instead, the members of it are all a species of lanky humanoids, with almost entirely featureless faces. They have six small, circular holes, looking kind of like a mask, each of them dark.

  One of them spots us, and my senses brush up against it.

  [Pathfinder, lv. 33]

  The creature shivers for a moment, then takes a step towards us. A moment later it stands in front of me. Its voice brushes against my senses, and I blink. The way it speaks sounds almost like TV static. A continuous buzzing noise, going up and down in frequency.

  “I don’t understand what you’re saying,” I tell the creature, and it pauses. It tilts its head, leaning forward as if appraising me. I feel mana spill forth, brushing against my skin. It’s not painful, just somewhat unpleasant. Then it makes some more noise, in that buzzing speech of its.

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  A moment later, we’re surrounded. Tall, slender creatures, faceless things with holes in their heads, look at us. They tilt their heads, buzzing and droning ominously as they surround us. I select one of them, a thin grey tether spilling out of me and sticking to it - only to have it cut to ribbons.

  The creature waes its arm through the air as if to dispel some smoke. I note that where there once was a hand, its appendage now ends in a knife-like point. I guess this time, I won’t be able to learn the language faster. As if to punish me for my slight, the creature picks up a small rock, and gently tosses it against my forehead.

  I blink. More buzzing noises. One walks a little bit, then turns around and looks at us. More droning. A step, then another look. “I think they want us to follow them,” Inu says.

  Slowly, I tilt my head. “Huh,” I hum. “Alright, then.”

  If they wanted us dead, I don’t think we would have lasted too long, so they must not be too hostile. All of them keep chatting away, in that same ominous droning noise that they make. I think they might be trying to get our systems to implant the language in us already, so that we can communicate. Do we learn it faster the more we’re exposed to it?

  Curious. How curious.

  They lead us down one tunnel after another, taking long, big steps, surrounding us, as if to keep us from escaping. Or to keep us safe. It’s confirmed to be the second, when monsters finally appear.

  This time, it’s not the simple horde of insects we’ve dispatched before. It’s a single, large creature, made of glowing chitin and mushrooms growing on it, and rotating teeth for a maw.

  [Gloomstalker lv. 46]

  Instantly, it lunged towards us, turning into a pale blue blur. One of the grey-skinned tall ones buzzes with loud urgency, then steps in front of me. Briefly, I wonder why the monsters always go for me. Then I realize that all of the more wise people in my party actually stepped back when the monster showed up, instead of stepping forward and sending mana at it, like me.

  Ah. That’d do it.

  The gloomstalker collides with one of our temporary guides, sending the tall humanoid to the ground in a heap. In exchange, the gloomstalker becomes frozen in the air for a moment. Instantly, the other guides descend like harpies, tearing into it in the brief moment it remains paralyzed.

  A second passes and the stalker thrashes again, chitin limbs stretching from its hide, jabbing at our guides. One of them places a hand on the ground, and earth rises to envelop a leg. Another one draws back an invisible bowstring, manifesting a glowing blue arrow, and shooting it right through the stalker.

  It breaks free, but receives two stabs through its body from floating spears. Then, it strikes the guard it knocked on its butt again, a single bladed foreleg dragging against their body, as they move to shield me. I look at them. I could have dodged, they could have dodged, yet here we are.

  After that, the monster freezes again, and a second later, it’s dispatched. The guide who got hurt slowly raises, but I pull on the cloth it’s wrapped in. The creature turns to me, humming and droning, tilting its head. “Let me see that,” I say, pointing at the wound. It tilts its head some more.

  I step closer, and the other creatures suddenly come up to me, hovering around. One even holds a sword in front of me, but I push on. “Let me see,” I say. “Inu, project my intent.”

  She nods. “Alright. Ready,” she confirms, and I think very hard on the idea of healing them. Those wounds look nasty, and I can close them. It got hurt because of me. That’s needed.

  A pause. Very slowly, the sword in front of me gets pulled aside. I step up to the creature, sitting on the floor, staring at me with those six holes in its face. Then, I reach out and channel my mana into a healing spell.

  Its biology is different from humans, of course. But that doesn’t matter. My spell already checks the intrinsic blueprint of a person. I don’t quite know how it manages, but it’s malleable enough for this. Well, almost. I do need to push it a little.

  [Flesh Restoration 1 > 2]

  The wound closes a little. Shocked silence. I cast the spell a few more times, until the grey flesh underneath its strange clothing is entirely intact again. It took three quarters of my mana pool, but it’s done. Then I step back.

  Instantly, the party erupts into excited buzzing.

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