Curse tolerance advanced to level 5

Well... That sucked. Had she betrayed me, or was the suit of armour controlling her somehow? It didn't help that novice empath didn't respond to her, just like it hadn't responded to any zombie. I wanted to believe she was being controlled; given her—or rather, my—normal personality, if it was a betrayal, then she wouldn't have been able to resist the urge to make some sort of witty or cutting remark while I was dying on the ground. Then again, if it was my normal personality, I wouldn't have been able to betray me, so there was an incompatible assumption in that logic.

I'd assume controlled for now, based on the way she had plenty of opportunity to kill me, and there was no advantage to waiting for that specific moment. And she didn't appear to have done anything about my respawn; an hour would have been plenty of time to get back here to camp the shrine. Which, again, should have kept her out from the beginning if she meant me harm.

Which meant that I had to get back there, avoid being overrun by zombies, then destroy a suit of metallic armour while avoiding attacks from a zombie that was far stronger and faster than me, and who I didn't want to hurt. Possibly a second zombie version of me, too, although having my heart stabbed out certainly didn't qualify as leaving my corpse undamaged, so hopefully it wouldn't be another self-aware one. That sounded so far beyond my abilities that I rated the chance of success as only slightly higher than slaying the dragon.

Checking out of interest, the top floor shrine was indeed still active. The temple shrine had gone dark again, and my original respawn cave was still out. I could actually go and visit the dragon, should I desire. But I didn't; levelling my heat tolerance wouldn't help me here. Besides, there might be fox-kin up there after revenge for me blighting their town.

Actually, that raised another interesting possibility. The loss of the temple shrine suggested something bad had happened there. Could I return to the town and loot the place? My class unlock requirements confirmed I'd infected over a thousand, but only that I'd killed over a hundred. In fact, the infected might not even be fox-kin at all; it could just as easily have been a swarm of beetles we happened to pass while I was knocked out. Or perhaps they had been cured. It only said they were infected, not that they had succumbed to the infection, and I knew the fox-kin didn't seem able to repair shrines on their own. Using class unlock requirements as a form of scrying would be a seriously cool abuse of my blessing, but I had my doubts as to the reliability.

I'd make an attempt at rescuing my zombie twin, and if that didn't work, I'd check out the fox-kin town for extra resources. Assuming the shifting maze would let me back upstairs.

I wrapped a new mask around my face and stepped once more out of the safety of the shrine room, and into the blight filled air. Actually, given that my body was reset each time, how come I'd respawned with my new monstrous features intact? Shouldn't they need to regrow each time? Guess I'll file that one under the same category as me keeping my memories.

Disease nullification advanced to level 28

Almost at the maximum, and I was still far away from being able to ignore the blight. My only hope would be an evolution, but so far I'd not managed to evolve any skill above tier three.

Now that I was alone, I concentrated on sneaking, doing my best to decapitate zombies with minimal mess and noise, avoiding big fights or getting myself sprayed with infected blood. The passageways had shifted again, which I suppose was fortunate, or else the shrine would presumably have been cut off from the throne room. Alas, it did mean that there was a new batch of zombies around. Just how many were down here in total? There must be thousands of the things.

Could be worse, I suppose; they could be as numerous and densely packed as the centipedes.

Novice stealth advanced to level 10

Proficient dodger advanced to level 16

No evolution for sneaking. A pity, but I suppose I'd never successfully hidden from anything particularly scary.

A couple of rooms away from the throne room, I checked it out with sense presence. I could only pick up one, but my zombie twin hadn't been visible to it to begin with. A surprise, given her obvious strength, and a pain now that I wanted to know where she was. Nothing for it, I thought, so I walked in.

She was standing behind the throne, her tattoos spread across her full face, and the sclera of her left eye now as black as the right one. The inhuman grin was still on her face, and if anything, only grew as she turned to face me.

The animated armour was back on the throne, as it had been on my first visit. My second corpse was... not looking good. It hadn't reanimated, but the head had been sliced open, and the brain was missing.

"Seriously?" I asked my evil twin as she walked towards me, sword and shield in hand. "Brains? Decided to lean into the stereotype?"

"If you have to blame someone, blame yourself for being so tasty," she answered, licking her lips.

"Oh? You can still speak?"

"Of course. What's your problem, anyway? You let the tree and spider queen eat you. Why not me?"

"That's different. They didn't stab me in the back! Well, side."

"They kinda did, actually. The spider queen tortured you for killing her kids, and the tree blatantly murdered you the first time around."

"You... What the heck did that rusty pile of armour do to you?"

"Nothing really. Just reminded me of what I really wanted from life: good food. I know you agree; at one point you were planning to rob the fox-kin town to get some supplies, and you almost took the flame mage class just so you could cook."

Well, yes, but that was robbing other people, not other people robbing me. And they started the fight! It was completely different! Bah... I felt like I definitely had the moral high ground here, yet I couldn't find any way of wording 'that was different' that didn't make me sound like an arse. Fine, if she could speak, time to improvise.

"Let me make you a deal, then. Help me trash that rust-bucket, and I'll give you three of my brains."

"Why would I trade for what I can just take? No, don't answer that. No doubt you're thinking that you won't come back until you're strong enough to beat me, so I'd only get one. And I'd end up dead. Well, all I need to do is camp the shrine, and I can take as many as I like. In fact, why didn't I do that this time?"

Crap... Ah well, they couldn't all go as well as the spider queen. Perhaps I'd need to use the upstairs shrine sooner rather than later. But why did she wait here for me? Even if she couldn't get into the shrine anymore, she could have waited outside it. Best case, proximity to whatever the thing is on the throne was needed to keep her drooling over my brains.

One way to find out. I turned and ran.

But not very far, on account of the way that where the exit of the throne room had previously been, there was now a wall. Damn.

The footsteps approaching from behind informed me that my zombie twin had broken into a run, so I turned back, heavy shield ready to block. At least this time my blight infection was mild, so I wasn't risking creating another intelligent clone. Even less so, if she scooped my brains out again afterwards.

Throughout all this, the damn set of haunted armour hadn't even moved. Despite still shining to sense presence, it looked completely inanimate.

As expected, the battle went poorly. I already knew the zombie version of me was far stronger than I was from our earlier sparring, and it would take more than a few skill levels to make up the difference. I couldn't get any cuts in with my sword of paralysis. I had my webs, but I couldn't fire out ready formed nets, and there was no way I could bind her while she was resisting. I had the collars, but I knew she could fight them if she wanted, and she wasn't giving me an opportunity to attach one anyway. I had my paralytic fluids, but how would I get her to drink enough of them? She seemed to have been manipulated into finding me tasty, so would the alluring scent be enough even without the real nectar's hypnotic effects? But I kinda needed my blood, and enough to affect her would leave me rather short. Bah, I should have stockpiled urine in my item box...

Now there's a sentence I never thought I'd hear myself think.

There were no opportunities to break away from combat to charge the boss sitting on its throne, and it wasn't long before my zombie twin started getting in good hits, shattering the thinner centipede plates and cutting into the silk. With the force of the blows reduced by my armour, my toughened skin was enough to prevent her cutting me, but at this rate it wouldn't be long until I had no armour left.

There didn't seem much point in suiciding, given that she was trying to kill me and not capture. What else could I try? What if I focused this fight on making things easier for next time.

I stored my sword, shield and armour, just as she launched a swing, and her sword carved through my side, slicing open my chest and cutting deep into a lung. Then I grabbed it and invoked item box. I wasn't certain it would work, given that it seemed to effectively be a part of her, but my gamble paid off and the sword flashed out of existence.

I reached for her shield, but she leapt backwards, and I was in no condition to follow. How could I die and be absolutely certain I didn't give rise to another zombie? I wasn't certain I could decapitate myself in one strike, and even if I did, I wouldn't be able to store the weapon I used to do it in my item box again afterwards.

"Give it back!!!" screamed the intelligent zombie.

I'd have liked to make some sort of reply, but I was in no condition to do that either. I once again crumpled to the floor, blood pooling around me, and hoped that my zombie twin would either eat my brain or, in her anger, do enough damage to my corpse that it wouldn't rise again.

Sword proficiency advanced to level 17

Proficient blocker advanced to level 18

Evolution conditions met: Novice parrier ranks up to proficient parrier

It is commonly said that a good offence is the best defence. Using a weapon to defend with isn't quite what the originator of this phrase had in mind, but it's close enough. You have crossed swords with a powerful undead and lived to tell the tale, earning you this upgrade from novice to proficient. This skill aids you in parrying and deflecting blows with any weapon.

Proficient parrier advanced to level 11

A good crop of skill gains. Once again, I'd had a skill tier up for surviving a death. More importantly though, I hurriedly looked around the shrine where I'd respawned, still in the catacombs for now, and as expected, saw no sign of my zombie twin. Looked like the manipulative suit of armour really wouldn't let her out of its room.

Something else I saw no sign of, that was rather more unexpected, was an exit. All four walls around the shrine were sealed. Damn. Thank goodness I could still travel back to the top floor, but what the heck was I supposed to do now?