They managed to make it back to the building before nightfall, everyone deciding to wait until morning, before rampaging through the last of the roseborn gate all in one go. They gathered all of their belongings on the second to highest floor of the building they thrown the roseborn off of. Sleep that night thankfully went mostly unbothered. There were several occasions that Briar had made an attempt to roll away to go eat some of the corpses, but Peggy kept it in a tight hug for the rest of the night after that.
When the sun finally peeked over the horizon, the seedling had become almost ravenous, doing just about everything it could to squirm out of Peggy's grasp. When nothing worked it would randomly wriggle, to see if she had released her grip at all, but of course, she hadn't. Owen then taking Briar from her, set down the stairs, with Peggy and Myra close behind. When they made it to the bottom floor, Owen laughed as his familiar was practically gnawing on his hand. Setting Briar gently on top of the stack of corpses, Owen turned with an evil smile on his lips.
"Let's take care of those giants." There were a little more than a dozen of them, and Owen pointed out the closest three. "If we can coral those closer, each of us should be able to take on one ourselves, use it as an opportunity to test out our strength and new equipment." Looking between the two women, he saw only determination and excitement. Pulling one of the corpses away from Briar, Peggy lit part of the it's hand on fire and rosebuds began to form and then bloom releasing the red mist. Taking the hand, Myra slowly moved forward with it until the closest couple giants had gotten close enough to recognize it.
It didn't take them long after that to charge at the three humans standing before them. Intercepted one each, Owen charged mana into his new sword and smiled, "I've fought way worse than you already."
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Myra was feeling ecstatic. She now had the perfect opportunity to try out her new gear and on some durable opponents as well. Channeling Into the Fray and Empowered body, she dashed forward. Once she built up enough momentum, she blinked out of existence for but a moment, but it was enough for the giant to get confused. Then she was crashing into the chest of the monster with both axes blazing with green energy.
Whipping her body around she left another gash tearing from shoulder to hip, causing the giant to stumble back a few steps. Myra didn't let up as she slowly fought through and cut down every defense the giant could muster before inevitably falling beneath her twin axes.
Myra began getting antsy, while waiting for the others to finish and when she saw the look on Owen's face she grinned and dashed towards the giants that hadn't yet been aggroed.
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Owen had also been preparing and when Myra dashed forwards for her fight, he prepped himself and got ready to pull aggro from the giant that had started to course correct towards Myra to help it's comrade currently in battle. Intercepting, Owen began channeling mana into his bastard sword and electricity began dancing up and down the length of his blade. Darting forward, he put all of his strength behind a slash to the giant who had dared turn it's attention away from him.
He hardly noticed their being any resistance as he cleaved one of it's legs from the rest of it's body. His follow up slash was just as powerful. Each slash seemed to vibrate at the same time in his hands. As the sword would make it's slash the electricity would cause the giant's body to clench up for a moment and burn the section that had been cut, not allowing it to heal. He looked like a master chef preparing vegetables as piece by piece was removed in clean powerful slashes. Dodging every attack it managed to throw his way, he couldn't help but laughing at how strong he felt.
Looking towards Myra, he saw the excitement as well as slight disappointment at how easy the fight was. Seeing her take a peek towards the giants in the distance he let out a laugh as he raced her towards the waiting monsters.
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Peggy had never been the biggest fan of fighting, but she was really started to hate monsters. She usually liked to take things slow and a fight every now and again was okay. She had always been one to try and find a balance between all of the aspect of her life, but she was just so sick and tired of this gate. She danced through her opponents attacks effortlessly, not making to many attacks herself. She knew she couldn't go at it with reckless abandon like the others had, seeing an opening she, in excitement, shouted. "Shower of Flame." The fire poured out of the bracelet and acted almost like a liquid and it coated her rapier.
One quick thrust had broke through all of it's defenses and began to cook the monster from the inside. The monster began to groan, but Peggy noticed the rose buds that had begun forming across the giants body. Wanting to finish the fight fast, she made a quick thrust with her rapier and dodged another swing, before placing her new dagger into the wound and tore it in a circle, perfectly decapitating the roseborn giant.
Feeling proud of herself, she looked to see where the others were at and sighed when she saw them flying at breakneck speeds into the still almost dozens giants. Dashing after them, she couldn't deny she was also a little excited. They were all really strong
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Briar meanwhile was having it's own type of fight for it's life. There was so much food and the weird pink being were making it more. It had finished eating through one of the corpses and still had dozens to go. Forcing itself to continue, it had never felt more invigorated as it continued to eat and eat and eat. Briar would have to thank it's master for all of the amazing food and give him something. The thought barely lasted for longer than a second before the food reentered the seedling's line of sight and getting excited, it once again began to chowing down.
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Owen wasn't sure how long it had actually taken them, but was surprised and a little disappointed when the fighting was done. The three of them had not really run into nearly as many issues as the first time they had ran into these giants. In fact Owen was pretty sure the only thing they had lacked in the previous fight was the confidence to win. But he supposed that's what happens when you kill a boss more than twice your level and force yourself to constantly balance between life and death battles.
They were all sitting in a circle waiting for resources to come back for all of them. "We need to find a way to take on the last of the elites before we take the chance against the boss. I'm still a ways from the next level up, so we are kinda already as ready as we can be for this fight." The others nodded and Myra spoke up. "I think that we could probably take on the boss fight, especially if we managed to control the flow and get it to a roof top, but maybe not. We should probably scout out where this Mother is hanging out so we can try and clear it out quickly."
They shot the shit for a while longer, before all of them had refilled their resources. Briar had managed to finish the stack of normal roseborn corpses and was in the middle of eating the first body of the giants. "Do any of you guys feel worried about Briar? Cause they are huge now." Myra asked. Owen realized he hadn't used keen eye on them in a while and so decided now was as good a time as any.
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*Superior Roseborn Adolescent Level 12.*
"Holy fuck, guys check this out." Owen said slightly shocked. Sharing the system panel with the two women both just grinned and Peggy gave Briar some pats while it chowed down on a corpse. Thinking about it, Owen knew something was weird about Briar, it was nothing like it's normal brethren and it hadn't stopped eating things for several hours at this point. It had always been weird though, it had originally just been a ball of plant stuff and now it had begun to grow arms and legs. Arms and legs that it used to tear through the tough exterior of the some of the bodies.
It was somewhat cute though, he had to admit, well at least in a nightmare before Christmas kind of way. It could shift the plant life on its technical face and whenever it noticed Owen or one of the other watching, the plant life would shift into a weirdly grotesque kind of smile, that was still somehow cute. Deciding to let Briar grow as strong as possible, they waited for another couple hours letting it consume the last of the bodies including the body of one of the elites they had beaten earlier.
After Briar had finished with everything it could eat in the area, Owen was surprised that it had reached level 15 and when he used keen eye on it to see that he also decided to look at its new stats.
Briar Level 15
Vitality = 9
Strength = 9
Resilience = 9
Agility = 3
Perception = 2
The little monster was starting to get pretty strong, and it's levels didn't make any sense if they compared them to the stats points that Owen got per level, which was one. But based on the first time Owen had looked, in ten levels Briar had gotten something like 2 stat point per level, which was just unfair. Which made him think, Briar had also become a superior version of a roseborn, despite the adolescent tag. And it looked like it had started gaining more stats since reaching that evolution, but it was hard to say since he hadn't looked at Briars stats very often.
Pushing the thought from his mind, he and the others got their things together and began moving back towards the center of the city, where they were pretty sure their final fight against the boss would be. They ran into some random roseborn along the way and surprisingly Briar was able to take care of them by themself.
Though it led to a slightly unsettling sight as the corpses were dragged behind Briar as it consumed them as fast as possible. Reaching the building at the city center they all entered. It was one of the last buildings they hadn't been in yet and they were all pretty sure with how big the building was it had to be something important.
They walked floor to floor, not seeing many enemies if any. When they had finally made it to the roof without seeing anything however, they were started to feel restless. "Do you guys think maybe it's out on a patrol or something?" Owen asked hopefully. No one agreed and Owen sighed knowing that it was a big stretch.
The only one that didn't seem bothered by it at all was Briar who was happily munching away on the most recent roseborn it had found. As they made there way back towards the bottom, Briar seemed to somehow pick up a scent and had begun walking around like a dog, sniffing the ground and following some scent.
"Do you guys think that's the red mist it's smelling?" Myra asked confused by Briar's behavior. Both Owen and Peggy shook their heads as they watched until they were guided towards a far back corner where there was another set of stairs, going into the building's basement. "Of course it has a hidden base inside of the basement, since for whatever reason all bad guys are against the ground floor and above." Myra groaned and Owen barely stifled a small chuckle.
"Alight if we are going into a creepy basement, then we should all prep and be as ready for a fight as possible beforehand." Peggy said in a matter of fact tone.
No one argued and Peggy whispered. "Pursuit of change." Owen watched his total hp increase by around 50 points and Myra nodded as the ability was then used on her. Peggy nodded and she moved around the last couple things, before giving the go ahead to make their way into the basement.
They did their best to stay quiet as they made their way towards the basement. It was only two flights of stairs, but because of their attempts to stay quiet it made it feel like it took forever. Reaching the bottom, they all turned to the only door and Owen gasped. Red mist was everywhere, hugging against the ceiling and with it they could see dozens of figures moving past the small window the door had built into it.
Before they had had a chance to turn around and try to come up with a plan, Briar had already moved close enough to push part of the door open and went inside. "Goddammit, okay I guess new plan, we do our best to rescue Briar, but if it looks like we are going to be overwhelmed then we turn back and come up with another plan." Nodding, they all prepped their weapons and rushed through the door.
The room was already empty of enemies without any sight of Briar. Pushing forward, Owen couldn't help but marvel at their surroundings. Every wall was stinged red with plant life interwoven into the building's structure. Not paying it more mind than that they moved through room after room, beginning to hear the departing enemies. Eventually, they made it to what looked like an meeting room of some kind. Briar was struggling in the hand of a giant enemy that had to crouch to move through the rooms, but the most interesting thing about it was it's type.
*Superior Roseborn Giant Elite Level 18*
Now they are just getting lazy with the names, Owen thought, but without thinking, he dashed into the small group of enemies swinging his sword without reservation for their surrounding, but careful to avoid accidentally slicing Briar in two. The enemies were cleared out quickly after Myra and Peggy joined in as well, with the elite in the party having been less than impressive. "I'm glad we didn't have to fight that when it had the ability to move easily." Peggy said panting slightly. "Yeah, that would've been a real monster." Myra nodded.
"Let's take a break, I want Briar to be able to get a strong as possible." Owen said as he began pulling the bodies into a pile that the dog sized Briar was already sitting on munching through all of the bodies. Another hour went by waiting, with each of them getting antsy. They felt like they were being watched and Owen didn't like it, it made his skin crawl and the feeling only got worse as they found a another staircase going down.
As they followed the path, they ran into several roseborn, but they didn't attack instead they turned and ran, but only so far as to let Owen and his group still follow. It made it a legitimate pain to keep Briar from charging and feeling like he was at his breaking point. Owen sat the plant monster down and stared at it's nonexistent face.
"Stop chasing them, we will kill them when given the opportunity, but if back towards the beginning of coming downstairs had been worse, you could've gotten us all killed." Owen said angrily. Peggy grabbed his arm, "Owen, it doesn't understand, so don't get mad at it." But as Peggy spoke, Briar just nodded its head. Surprised Owen wanting to make sure it knew he was happy, gave the plant monster a head pat. "Good job," he said slightly confused. And Briar walked just behind him after that. Even when roseborn drew close by before running away, Briar didn't so much as flinch.
They finally made it the the end of the hall of rooms and Owen was pretty sure there wasn't a basement on earth with this many rooms and that the system or whatever made this place had designed it as another awful way to try and search and find the final boss. Though at this point it was getting harder to find than the 'hidden' boss had been. At the end of the hall however, several sections of the wall had ben dug out and a wide cavern spread out before them.
Standing at the back of the cavern was an almost 3 meter tall boss monster that they all recognized as the monster they saw earlier, Mother. They all made to move back, but somehow the earth moved completely blocking them off from backing back into the protection of the building.
"Welcome, welcome! I suppose with you coming here bearing gifts, it is only right that I accept them." Mother cooed, a soft smile on her face.