The chamber of Grandmother Gruu was round and high of ceiling, its walls pocked all over with the circular entrances to tunnels great and small, the whole area illuminated in red by patches of the glowing moss that had led him here. The Grandmother herself sat at the center, larger and taller than a house, her overlapping curtains of fat rolls covered in strange, bubbling abcesses. Her skin was as glossy red as that of her progeny, and the size of her maw of shiny, jagged, irregular teeth put theirs to shame.

She was the size of a house, indeed, and those jaws could consume a house in one or two bites.

The Grandmother sat, slowly inhaling, and then releasing long shuddering exhalations that made her fatty tissues jiggle and carried the stench of gore. The abscesses on her body swelled. Redmane noticed one of them was beginning to grow teeth.

So… The Gruu were spawned directly from her body.

Grandmother Gruu

Monster Type: Gruu

Level 30

Redmane took a breath to steady his nerves.

There was a plan. It seemed a good plan. Now was the time to put it into action.

“They dig out a spot for the Grandmother,” Valtr had said. “Leaving space all around, so her spawn can fall off her and they won’t get squished.”

It was as he said. The space around Grandmother Gruu was clear on every side, she sat at the precise center of her burrow.

Redmane took one of Vengarl’s flasks from the makeshift belt on his waist.

Then he activated Stalk.

He emerged into the chamber with the Grandmother, crouched and creeping along slowly, his eyes on all the tunnel entrances near him in the hope that he wouldn’t run into any sentries. So far there were none. But that wouldn’t be the case when he began to throw these flasks.

Redmane imagined the Grandmother would screech like a demon. He’d have to remember to cover his ears.

He reached a satisfactory spot to begin, close enough to make accurate throws and far enough to get a head start when it was time to bail out. Shook his head as if to wordlessly clear away any doubts. And then reared back and pitched the first flask.

It broke against the Grandmother’s side, splattering its contents all over her lowermost curtain of fatty tissue, and as soon as its contents were exposed to the air they burst into flames.

There was no time to cover his ears.

Her scream of pain shook the earth so hard the cavern crumbled, raining rocks and dust down on everything.

Redmane dropped Stalk and broke into a run.

He went sideways, snapping off another flask and hurling it at her. It struck, as did the next one, as did the next one.

While the Grandmother howled and flailed, Redmane surrounded her with a ring of fire.

The reason why became evident immediately.

Perhaps the Grandmother didn’t keep defenders by her side because she could spawn them at will. Those boils on her skin began to pop off, one by one at first but then soon in clusters. The freshly spawned Gruu fell into the growing fire all around her base, and as Redmane had previously observed, they did not tolerate fire very well at all. Their squeals of pain echoed hers as they flailed and burned like dry leaves.

This did nothing to improve her mood.

Redmane kept sprinting around the Grandmother, throwing flasks until there were none left and she was completely encircled by fire, trapped within it, her deafening screams making him glance for the nearest exit because it seemed quite likely this cavern could cave in.

as he was about to make his escape, she spotted him.

Her round bulbous head snapped around and focused on Redmane, a snarl twisting her jagged maw.

She screamed at him, and he had to hold an arm up to shield his face from the storm of charnel breath and spittle.

And then, with an alarming squirt, that head burst from its body as if it had been shot from a cannon.

Redmane dove to the side and it sailed by, crashed into the cavern wall. There was a muffled growl.

Then the Grandmother’s head sprouted nine spindly limbs, all different ones, the legs and arms of wargs, squirrels, birds, insects. There was even a human arm and hand. It pulled itself from the wall, rotated so its mouth faced Redmane, and charged at him, howling with rage.

As it ran it at him it sprouted two more long human arms, with which to grab him and pull him in for eating.

Redmane focused. His sense of the passage of time seemed to slow, albeit faintly.

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There was no fire. There was no imminent collapse. There was no horde of Gruu surging back here to save their master.

There was only he and the foe before him.

Grandmother Gruu howled and grabbed at him, and the axe of the Morholts cleaved off her arm.

She made to trample him and he rolled to the side, clipped off two of her legs with a single slash.

She cornered him against the cavern wall and charged as if to crush him, and he leapt onto the top of her head and gashed into it with his Rending claws, as many times as he could get away with.

Bleeding (1)

Bleeding (2)

Bleeding (3)

Bleeding (4)

The Grandmother bucked him off finally, but her cry of frustration seemed weaker now.

She grew three more hands in an instant and grabbed at him. He severed two with his axe, the third arm caught him and tugged him in close enough for a single bite.

A bite that severed his left arm at the bicep.

Pain bloomed in his lost arm, so intense Redmane thought he may lose consciousness. He rolled away from the Grandmother and gazed down at the bloody stump, panting.

He gritted his teeth. Willing something to happen…

And then, like the Gruu, a fresh arm shot out from the stump.

It tingled as if he’d rested on it too long. He gasped and smiled, flexing its muscles, stretching out its claws.

But there was no time to stand here and marvel. Grandmother Gruu barreled at him again, howling her displeasure that the interloper in her lair was still quite alive.

She charged and he evaded her. Their forms were silhouettes against the growing fire using her body for kindling. Its orange light blended with the natural red luminescence all around. Redmane found it a fitting environment for two existences centered on eating.

Like her progeny she was fast, strong, and fought with pure aggression. Redmane found the same strategy that worked on the Great Gruu worked on her. She came at him and he ducked, leapt to the side or overhead, and answered with one or two claws at a time.

Bleeding (5)

Bleeding (6)

Bleeding (7)

Fortunately most of the smoke was billowing out of the tunnels in the cavern’s upper layer. Even so, Redmane’s eyes stung and he coughed when he breathed too much of it in, and the occasional floating ember would land on him and burn. Grandmother Gruu seemed less affected, but perhaps it was because she was singularly focused on eating Redmane.

But she wouldn’t succeed.

Redmane would be the one feeding this morning.

Again and again she came at him and he eluded her, punishing her bullishness with stacks of the Bleeding condition. She had more vitality than the Great Gruu, much more, but eventually even she began to weaken and wane in strength and speed.

He didn’t wait until she was finished. Merely when she became too listless to fight effectively. That was when he leapt onto her back and began to eat her.

She let out a gurgling groan, feeling him tear out chunks of her head and swallow them whole, faster than any being had a right to eat. What limbs she had left weakly grasped and scratched at him, until she finally had no strength at all to resist and lay still.

Grandmother Gruu Slain

Tasks Complete 1/3

Level Up

Level 24 —> Level 25

Level 25 —> Level 26

Level 26 —> Level 27

Quality Points awaiting allocation: 3

—

Monster Skill Learned

Spawn

Bloodline Skill [Monstrous (Gruu)]

Rank 1

Active - Variable Cost

The Monster is able to spawn smaller creatures out of its own flesh, which are commonly used as assistants and spies.

Each Spawn begins its existence with whatever quantity of Corpus and Gnosis its master chooses to bestow upon it. The master must also bestow the Spawn with its modes of defense, respiration, perception and movement. The Monster may utilize any traits it has gained from use of the Carnivorous Metamorph Skill for this purpose.

The Spawn may also be granted any Skill the master knows, at a cost of 50 additional Corpus per Skill. If the Skill bestowed has a Gnosis cost, the Monster must bestow it with a supply of Gnosis with which to activate the Skill.

The Monster may give the Spawn simple commands, which it will carry out autonomously to the best of its ability. At will, the Monster may borrow the senses of the Spawn, seeing through its eyes as if it were the Monster’s own. During this time the Monster is insensate with regard to its own surroundings.

The Spawn remains under the Monster's absolute command at all times, and can be called back and re-absorbed into the master's body, at which time the master will regain whatever Corpus and Gnosis the Spawn possessed at the time of re-absorption.

—

Remarkable…

But there was time enough to consider the possibilities later.

Right now he had to get out of the fire pit, fast.

----------------------------------------

The frenzy of the Gruu was a sight to behold.

When he’d gone down into the burrows in search of the Grandmother, the bulk of the horde had run off to chase after Valtr and Vengarl. Now they were concentrated in an angry mass above the general location of her former lair, swirling around like a whirlpool of red, devouring themselves as quickly and savagely as they could. Smoke continued to pour from various holes in the ground nearby like chimneys.

Redmane had met up with Valtr and Vengarl upon the rock he’d used as his first vantage, and the two Hunters stood there with smirks on their faces. Valtr had his arms folded, Vengarl dropped into a seat to witness the spectacle.

“Quite a show, eh?” said Valtr.

Redmane grinned and nodded. “Aye.”

As Gruu ate each other, they grew in mass. Eventually the bodies would get larger and larger until there were only a few contending for supremacy. In the end there would be a new singular Gruu, the next Grandmother.

But the Hunters weren’t going to let that happen.

More fire traps had been laid out in the area by Vengarl. He could get quite close to the roiling mass of Gruu now, since their focus had changed so inexorably. They waited and watched for a short while, because one didn’t get to witness such a thing very often. But before the eating competition could come to a conclusive end, Vengarl stood and picked up his crossbow.

Valtr did the same with his bow. One by one they aimed for and fired at the traps they set, detonating them.

The storm of blood and teeth became a second storm of fire, and it was too late for the former to escape the latter.

The remainder of the Gruu colony went up in smoke and flames and a din of screams.

Level Up

Level 27 —> 28

Quality Points awaiting allocation: 4

Redmane took a moment to consider his Qualities.

He decided to bring his Grace up to equal his Fortitude, and put the last point in Might.

Grace 8 —> 11

Might 17 —> 18

Evidently Valtr and Vengarl were leveling up as well. They gazed blankly ahead, at messages from the System only they could see.

“Damn good experience,” said Valtr.

“Aye, lucky we ran into a third!” said Vengarl.

Vengarl turned to Redmane after he was finished allocating his own points, nodded his head in the general direction of the brigand camp.

“Fine work for a morning,” he said. “But we’ve more business to the southeast, townsfolk to rescue. Care to tag along?”

Redmane nodded. “I have a Brigand Chief to slay.”