Too much time wasted today.
The muddy tortoise bellowed, its pale green eyes bursting with hatred. It stomped each foot forth. Slowly. Carefully. An armored fortress, not the least bit perturbed by the dinky rounds that bounced off its hardened chassis. It knew that even if it failed today, it would always have the next. And the day after. And the day after that.
For this was a machination of Natura, and Natura never, ever stopped. Always waiting. Always building. Always working to destroy its prey the moment they got too weak. An infinite grind to defeat a lesser foe
But two could play at this game.
Naomi [Dashed] right for the center of the muddy tortoise, ignoring the other mobs. For all its use as a mobile fortress, this manifestation had one exploitable weakness. She rushed under its legs, clutching her iron musket close. She took aim.
[Deadeye] was perhaps her best skill to date. It gave her an inhuman sense that let her find the critical gaps at the expense of mobility while she concentrated. But with the other mobs still seconds away and her own experience drawn, Naomi had more than enough time to pierce through the softer parts of the tortoise’s underbelly, through the tangle of reeds weaved together with clumps of moss that defined its circulatory system, and onto the glob of biomatter that counted as its heart, where Natura’s magic pulsated strongest. She focused on this point and let everything else fade away.
Thunder roared from her musket’s barrel. The round cut through her enemy with lethal precision, and the muddy tortoise roared.
Naomi [Dashed] a second time, escaping before its monstrous body could collapse atop her own.
Only to be surrounded. A swarm of clay hulks and vined alphas formed a ring where she landed. The mobs pounced.
Naomi reflexively pulled a smoke bomb from her pouch. She winced as its nightmarish power siphoned off the vitality tax, and she blinked through the sudden weakness.
But it worked. Her enemies hit nothing but air as Naomi shifted to [Wallfoot] and ran up the nearest tree. Gravity tugged powerlessly against her stance while her feet gripped its rough surface.
With the battlefield now perpendicular to where she once stood, Naomi pressed her advantage. A trio of [Quickloads] gave her the leeway to eliminate the clay hulks before they could throw rocks, and a final [Barrage] cleared a spot for her to land once [Wallfoot] ran out. She moved mechanically and without error in loading her musket lest she not take full advantage of this moment.
But then something rough slithered around her legs, locking her in place. Before she recognized the ambush, a dozen more roots roped around her lithe form.
They slunk in everywhere. Her arms. Her chest. Her elbows. The gap between her legs. She gasped for air as one tightened around her throat, her body burning as it got yanked unnaturally.
The tree split apart. A chasm formed along its trunk, with a maw filled with wooden spikes laced with resin. Pale green torches the size of her head suddenly erupted from fresh fissures, narrowing onto her. This new monster moaned, its root-like tentacles pulling her into its mouth.
An ent? Seriously? Only now could Naomi see this ambush for what it was. The muddy tortoise had just been a distraction. By dangling the shiny object during a fight, Natura had used the weight of its mob to shepherd her in the direction it wanted. The second she wandered onto the ent, it was game over.
Thorns sprung from the tentacles, adding laceration on top of constriction. Naomi screamed as a dozen fresh wounds exploded from her body.
The world blurred as crippling pain took hold. The ent slowly pulled her into its vacuous, cavern-sized mouth. Those demonic green eyes watched her own, hateful contentment forming, knowing that her end would soon come.
And Naomi could not stop it. Not this time. She’d made the mistake of wandering too far from home this afternoon, intent on apologizing to some kid who wouldn’t even last another day. Because of this singular act of kindness, she’d doomed herself. All to mollify her own sense of guilt.
Why did she do that? Why didn’t she see that fresh Expat getting mauled inside a cairn he didn’t belong and just walk away? Was she really so desperate to “save” someone, only to rob him for whatever he was worth and tell herself it was for her own good? After everything she and the others had faced in that overpopulated hell they’d started at, why would she bring those same tactics here?
Better yet, why would she treat someone else like her husband had always done to her?
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She coughed blood, knowing the truth. Naomi saw an easy win, took it, and, like always, couldn’t handle the consequences of her own indecision. Now, that kid was as good as dead, and she wouldn’t be far behind.
All for nothing she could use too. No more than a minor Boon, some purified water, and a mere steel knife…
The knife! she remembered. That cache contained a steel combat knife, which she’d forgotten about until this moment.
As a wall of wooden teeth got ready to crush her tiny body, Naomi flexed her wrist with all her might. Inside her troll-hide cloak, where her treasured loot remained. Her finger graced the hilt.
She breathed deep, activating her ultimate skill for this moment.
[Flourish].
In half a heartbeat, the steel blade slashed through the tangle of roots, severing every connection with the speed and grace that could never be accomplished by mere practice alone. Her body became weightless as she tumbled below.
But Naomi wasn’t finished. Not yet. Time slowed to a trickle as she reached back into her cloak and grabbed her reinforced hand cannon. Even under Annwyn’s alien rules, nothing brought her more comfort than the familiar grip of her fingers around a pistol.
This was it. Her final trump card. The latest contingencies in a long list of contingencies she kept on hand to ensure she never fell during the night. A single-shot, flintlock pistol stuffed to the brim with gunpowder, upscaled iron, and lead, forming a devastating [Shattershell Round] that could cleave through armor a full rank higher, especially after she slipped into [Black Rain] before the shot
Naomi aimed her nuclear option at the behemoth in front. The ent hissed at the sight of the hand cannon, its eyes too trapped in rage to see that its end had come. Another wave of roots began to spring from its trunk, too slowly to make a difference.
She fired the round. The recoil dislocated her shoulder, but it was her enemy who faced the full wrath of a [Shattershell Round]. The ent’s demonic face evaporated under a veil of fire and smoke. As Naomi struck the ground and the dust blew away, she no longer saw the monster that had almost claimed her life but a tree that disappeared into a mess of ichor-coated brambles. The top half was gone altogether. Sap soon rained from above, as if victory champagne had just been popped.
And the rest of the manifestations bleated their disgust, seeing that the trap had failed.
Naomi stood back up, popped her shoulder back into its socket, and turned to face these enemies. Blood trickled down an eye as she drew her knife. Without the boss monster to finish her, these pathetic mobs wouldn’t stand a chance. Natura had lost its best trying to pull this stunt.
Naomi screamed her own battle cry and [Dashed] forth. The forty remaining manifestations braced for impact.
It was over before anyone could count to ten.
Naomi limped away from her defeated foes, her troll-hide cloak now covered in Natura’s monster ichor. She breathed deep, savoring the taste of another successful evening.
She had won the night. Again. But how much more could she pull this off? How much longer until she got overwhelmed, just like so many Expats before her?
Never, so long as Naomi was concerned. She might have been reincarnated into this hellhole like everyone else, but this wasn’t where she planned to die. No matter what it took, she’d make it to the other side.
Even if alone at the end.
A fire roared on the plateau where she’d come. The entire place went ablaze, wooden workshop and all.
Naomi sighed, remembering how this close call had come about. That poor kid had gone above his level and would no doubt have died had she not intervened. But even saving him today would do nothing to spare him from an inevitable death. Without an Expat Core of his own, there was no way he’d make it through. Not with a handicap so debilitating.
It would take a certain level of genius to survive without a crafting class to guide the path forward.
Perhaps it was better that he died today. Perhaps he wouldn’t have to struggle like the rest of them, and could have a quick and painful death before his very soul rotted out from the cruelty this world inflicted. Perhaps he wouldn’t need to become the monster he’d need to be to survive as long as they had.
Or maybe not. Naomi took out her spyglass and narrowed it onto the plateau. There, Jay Reis stood, laughing like a maniac while an army of Natura’s manifestations burned inside.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Naomi said aloud.
Regardless of her mistake or his impossible circumstances, he had managed to see the night through as well.
It wouldn’t stop here. Natura would come for them both. Again, and again, and again. That was the reality their benefactors had thrust on them.
But winning this fight now? Nobody could take that away from either of them. So long as Jay kept his head in the game, there was no telling how many more of these moments he’d gain.
Naomi smiled.
Whether he knew it or not, Jay had just entered the endless grind.
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