Morning light rose overhead and dared a peek into the deeply held darkness of the depths below, discovering naught but a lonely tree stood inside the otherwise barren chambers inside—until the shadowy canopy slowly unfolded; an ancient, green parasol once more saluting the grass ocean’s intrusive sunrise.
She felt supple.
Hopeful.
That last, invading stranger may have gotten away, but it was sure to bring back what was needed.
Contenders.
Feeling hopeful was vital. No sign of wilting could be permitted, not so very near to this one's long sought objective. By this point the nucleus she had been nurturing for so long was brimming with primal energies, yearning to be unleashed.
Thrumming with the pressure.
Nevertheless she spread every branch to the fullest. Even miniscule contributions could prove paramount before the epitome, so each member must do their part. Each leaf defying the heavens would see its just rewards in the coming seasons, as it reentered the cycle.
For now we endure.
Endure in spite of another long shift of suffering the stinging rays ahead.
Enduring degradation.
Our suffering is never for nought, but begets ever deeper chaos potential. Pandemonium worthy of ages long past, reflected in the shades. Yet shadows who once brought tidings from afar, now rebelling. Lowly scavengers grown overly ambitious.
Dominion needs be secured. Thus remaining patient whilst tempering our shade, it is vital.
Vital. For the coming hegemony of the night.
The shrouded factions lacked for leadership, at a time when their rivals were converging, making mysterious moves lacking all rhyme and reason.
Wasting away their energies.
Whilst she would wait patiently.
Dormant. The Rootmother was preserving every bit of strength for the trials ahead.
But then the following morning improved abruptly as a large noise was heard, the thundering steps of a warband echoing across the orchard’s borders.
Only then did the ancient Rootmother awake to her full cognizance, forced to endure the true, painful extent of her perpetual sun-bleaching.
One by one did her great appendages resuscitate: A gizzard eternally aching for nutritions; her hungering. A vast mesh of roots and flowers striving to survey her domain; her seeing, hearing, sensing. A troop of shaded puppets to bring control and any observers a false sense of security; her honeypot.
Awakening.
The day is come.
Ocellus disguised as green buds all over her myriad canopies spun out and upward from branches in every section of the tunnel, turning into scanning surveyors blending in sublimely amongst the surrounding leaves.
What she perceived next was enough to put a leafy grin on her face, had she bothered forming one.
They are committed, eager for their just desserts. The next step on our Path to fulfillment, at hand at long last. We have done well, and placed our pieces to perfection; the prey approaches willingly.
To kingdom come.
Rather than cower in fear, Rissa grew eager in turn; she was a Rootmother of lethal ambition, with a task of utmost importance at branch.
Chronicles
Explorer ID: Rissa Tranqullin
Explorer Class: Umbratic Rootmother - level 144
Explorer Race: Shadewood Willow
Dao Path:
Dogma of Shadow’s Pillar,
Shadow, Longevity, Sacrifice
Quests
Pioneerquest:
Crucible of Shadows - Progress - (178/1000)
Crucible of Shadows - Sup further along the Path of Consumption. Consume any exploring Contenders attempting to halt the progress of your pylon challenge - unknowing Domain intruders are set to be the challenge. Prepare for as long as necessary, then lure any hostile invaders into your gaping maw. Spill righteous rivers of blood onto your hungering soil; avenge yourself upon those who would harvest your kindred in perpetuity for their own gains. Details: Feed on opponents amounting to at least 10 times your own level. Bonus rewards available for overachievements. Progress: (178/1000)
The pitiless Rootmother had done naught but whet her appetite thus far; the plat du jour yet lay ahead.
Rissa sent her minions to soften the audacious, little green ones up, lulling them into a false sense of confidence.
Then, she prepared to spend the levels she had been hoarding.
By the time of their ETA at her chamber’s entrance, they would be strung too far along, lured far too deeply into her domains to ever escape; warmed up and salted to perfection. Rissa would finally be allowed to stop playing possum and feast, as they invaded her tunnels looking bellicose and scrumptious. Their blood and guts and even levels would nourish the earth of her chambers for eternity, as the Rootmother's avid growth advanced across the lands which would in time turn into a new Arcadia of the honored moon.
Their shades would remain here forever, serving as custodians to the Primeval Matriarch’s unholy chambers.
----------------------------------------
The stark voice of an outcast nymph rang out. “Welcome, otiose Contenders.”
As the hissing voice pierced through the chatter of the escaping Goblins, even cutting through Pipan’s song; the trio at the head of the band of Goblins were loosed like an arrow at the target atop the cliff.
Damon, Billy & Blåberry all started moving, each one with one out of three goals in mind, yet all three of them tried doing the same thing; position to let Damon counter and occupy the Rootmother's attention, while the seniors in the tribe got set up. Berry cast her [Herculean Impetus] straight off, knowing it would be needed to give Damon the durability to even get close enough, even as Billy carried them forth into battle. Damon was going to have to be the one to find them an opening.
A surge of coatis—all topped by hollering Goblins—followed closely, but barely made it more than a couple dozen yards before they were forced to stop and fight back against towering roots coming to whip them senseless. The plan was for Damon and Lila to lead the vanguard teams who engaged the enemy as a distraction, while the seniors all synchronized around the cavern. Now that there was no escape, they were going to have to find a way to do what they originally planned, some other way.
For now we’ve just gotta slow her down, it’s up to us. Damon was primarily wanting to make sure the auxiliary squads didn’t all get killed walking into an ambush, they were already facing a far greater challenge than anybody had been prepared for—which meant providing the seniors with openings as soon as possible. Meanwhile Billy saw an abundance of delicious, magical bark appearing able to replicate itself at will, making for the meal of a lifetime if Billy could just sneak into position, while Damon served as a worthy distraction—Blåberry meanwhile was busy roaring from his shoulder, urging them all on with an aggressive leer. “Get her, get her roots, get her leaves, get her branches! This is nuthin’ we can’t handle, graybeards. Cannae tell me you haven’t missed putting it all on the line," But her challenge was not just for the seniors. "She’s nothing. Nothing. Nothing but bark! Nothing but a stronger title on offer, is all. Get loose, and then up and get after it Gobbos! Hack her off at the limbs, THEN RIP HER UP BY HER LILY ROOTS!”
Berry's echoing voice was going mental, and she’d clearly accepted their dire situation with ludicrous smoothness for someone so inexperienced. Now, she badly wanted the seniors to pop off immediately, in order to force the Rootmother into being the one who reacted to their plan, rather than risk the other way around. Which was fair enough, because truthfully; as things stood they were dangerously close to falling into the enemy's rhythm. But rushing their attack or ignoring what was going down was no way to get ahead in a scrap—besides, the Rootmother would have prepared for them better than that.
—At least one of the seniors seemed to heed Berry's crazed call to action though, as the yellow cap Sträng suddenly climbed like a seaborn lookout to the top of the cliff just opposite the Rootmother whose roots were surging, complex configurations rising from the dirt all over the room.
Damon only caught it out of the corner of his eye, but the old shaman appeared to be taunting her with rude gestures while he started on a powerful chanting which complemented his son's singing perfectly. Within seconds every goblin began glowing with an inner green light and moving twice as fast—Billy included.
The chimera reacted to the boost instantly, rushing them straight around the back, aiming directly for the slope towards where the huge enemy resided. Billy was looking to head in deep, before the Rootmother had any chance to close them off—but there was no escape from the very start, Rissa's roots remained in position to disrupt every pathway; within no time at all the ground all around started to heave and break apart as even more giant, vine-like roots emerged in their way. Billy tried to chuck and jive but struggled, failing to make any proper headway, what with being constantly forced back off their path as the enemy revealed more and more buried appendages hidden all over as soon as they thought there was an opening, no matter how they went surging past, looking for new angles to get inside.
Billy would not be denied; he hopped, skipped and moved like a speed demon. Yet the piercing vines burst forth too swiftly, always trying to catch them out mid stride—which very nearly allowed for a ton of the far heavier but slower roots to also catch up, and smash them into the ground that very second if they slowed down.
I’ve gotta be prepared to jump off, so Berry and Billy both have room to escape.
No matter their impressive speed, escape was impossible with their current heft. The vines whipped at- and went to spear them from every direction; with Billy’s repeated wall skipping the only thing that kept them from being skewered in the first few minutes. The Rootmother was keeping the pressure up to a ridiculous degree, determined to not simply watch them get going and reach her that easily.
Up, up, up Billy!
The prideful chimera was skidding, sprinting and jumping off the walls in turn, yet to Damon it felt like if they stopped he’d be getting bowled over by the weight of an entire forest—which turned out to be apt, as he looked behind and saw how more and more roots were still emerging from the ground, even as the Goblins kept cutting them down and setting them on fire—which was why Damon missed the spiders who were also reemerging, from on top of the slope up front. By the time he turned around they were already way too close and Damon barely managed to leap off in time, feeling Berry slipping into his cloak’s hood as he tumbled along the ground, pushing off with a hand to spring back up—launching into a high jump as he tried to figure out what was wrong with the image in front of him.
[Cat’s Paw Tarantula - Level 50]
Shit, shit, shit. If it wasn’t for Berry’s strength buff still being active he would have been screwed. The arachnids who showed up ahead were a glowing, fiery red as opposed to their previously dull orange, twice as large and with far larger spines of hair sticking out, which looked downright menacing.
Damon parried a spear-like leg and landed with both daggers stabbing downward, pulverizing the brain and slaying his first opponent—only to be forced to dodge down when another one unexpectedly fired its leg-spines off in a burst of flames aimed straight for his eyes. At least the move allowed him to drop and kick out four of its legs to the side, forcing the 2nd spider to lunge in desperately to bite off at offending leg—only to have its fangs get met by Damon’s dagger which parried then slipped past and directly through another set of eyes, stabbing deeply into the insectile brain hiding within—resulting in another instant kill, and a welcome surge of energy.
[Class level collected: +5 Str, +3 Per, +3 Mana - Free Points: +2.]
Once again the bravest Goblins made to follow the crazy human, but despite the reckless trio taking up the direct attention of the Rootmother, the Goblin coati riders were slowed by the two different emerging threats. The tarantulas had grown twice as numerous as well, and despite a full squad of six getting in between Damon and his target, the mounted goblins were suddenly faced with a dozen of these far larger versions of the arachnids too. Every single one now clearly evolved and moving with far more aggression, even weaponry more formidable than what Damon had come to expect from their previous encounters.
To their credit, the elite vanguard of coati riding Goblins never balked at the suddenly raised threat level. This was still well within what they’d first come here expecting, so the Goblin assault force wasted no time getting to work exterminating the threat.
That didn’t change how the white caps remained stuck at the entrance and in big trouble. The hairy tarantulas came on hard, throwing themselves at their flanks from alongside both of the chamber’s walls with a hungering desperation bordering on the suicidal, resolved to try and secure their first kills, all the more dangerous due to neglecting the cost to their own lines so fully; that second’s worth of opening their lives bought was all the opening needed to start sinking fangs into Goblins, dragging them out of line and steadily creating vulnerabilities.
At least that was the plan.
The mobile force of older Goblins led by Skalle stoically refused to let such a thing happen, patrolling the lines and always coming to the rescue when a Goblin was caught out, allowing the white caps to save their most injured and vulnerable, bringing them back in behind the lines and bracing spears to skewer the remaining charge, allowing their other mates to get in close enough to start hacking at the spearing front limbs trying to reach past. The different sections were cooperating in motley crews made up exclusively of smaller, but more nimble and equally deadly fighters, each equipped to work best at different ranges; their cooperation working out so that someone was constantly available for covering their line's other weaknesses at all times—provided they had sufficient training.
It would have never worked past the initial engagement if they’d been left all alone, as the Goblins got showered with grit and rocks from a grouping of catapult-like vines whipping projectiles at them from all the way over by the Rootmother’s distant vantage, but Lila and her squad of green caps had not been idle either. In order to counter the ranged attacks, she was set up with the rest of the tribe’s hunters at one of the higher plateaus streaking alongside the walls—ready to unleash a hail of Skill empowered arrows, enough to completely destroy the rock slinging roots as soon as they emerged. Which forced the Rootmother to keep stubbornly raising new ones up in alternate locations—in turn making Lila and her crew have to relocate and also find new angles repeatedly.
Despite the surprisingly high level opponent, their assault was working out well so far, even past the first wave there was not yet the need for more than sporadic use of their Dao Skills. The main reason being how the coatis were excellent tree climbers and continually managed to use the Rootmother’s own weapons against her to escape with their charges, even Goblins who had been knocked out by rocks pelting through the air. Clearly Lila and the seniors really didn’t want to get bogged down in here against the walls either, like the Rootmother was clearly hoping to force them to, as she kept raising more and more roots to increase the pressure.
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Out of the seniors it was Skalle and his 2nd in command Störst who took charge to try and shift the momentum.
[Accelerated Sprint] [Blazing Charge] [Marathon Run] [Peacekeeper's Omen]
Damon spotted them racing ahead on top of their scarred old coatis, who reared and then leapt on top of the cliffs directly facing the entrance—heading straight towards the plateau where the Rootmother was hiding. They were leading an eager troop of shock cavalry, who were all too happy to conduct the first successful charge. But the Rootmother reacted immediately, by sending her third and final troop of arachnids down the cliff face, straight at the emerging threat—all to no avail.
Even these newly improved versions of the tarantulas were no match for the fiery old Goblin warchief, his spiked mace clearing his mount’s flanks and ruining enemy after enemy, with all the high level Goblins who were following behind acting more like executioners than any fighters Damon had ever seen at work before, bashing in brains and always parrying for their mates whenever a spider lunged for a blind spot; they treated them as moles to be whacked, and not enemies presenting any level of threat whatsoever.
With the spiders dealt with by their charge inside of 30 seconds, Skalle and his elites surged ahead to strike directly at the Rootmother, neglecting to make use of the opening that Damon and the smaller goblins had worked so hard at providing, rather making a beeline while climbing on top of- and bashing down the roots coming for them with practiced ease.
Damon only had time to watch for a few amazing seconds before he had to hop back onto Billy, but he was left marveling over the tremendous physical potential that was clearly available to even the more mundane Classes when they reached into the higher levels. They were moving like figure skaters. No, more like violent acrobats. He saw another Goblin senior brutally executing tarantulas with what looked like a red hot poker, while yet another one was pivoting between foes like an olympic fencer, stabbing eyes out two by two, wielding a tremendously accurate geometric divider, and she appeared to be mumbling calculations all the while .
It was a massacre of the Rootmother’s minions at the front, and Damon kept circling around the slope at the back, still looking for enough open road to dart inside and start swinging, while still finding such openings fewer and farther between each time he got nearer.
These higher level spiders kept skittering into his midrange, adding pressure on with their new ranged attacks, which proved an unsolvable annoyance when combined with their constant respawns, but at least the Rootmother was still only throwing six of the beasts at him and Berry—each iteration only showing slight signs of increased size and speed thus far. Six I can handle while the buffs last, their levels aren’t enough to more than slow us down.
The spines still hurt like hell, and if it weren’t for his constant dodging and weaving Damon was certain his skin would have been directly perforated by now, and removing them probably hurt even more than getting stuck in the first place. Looking closer the hostile spines were clearly not just fiery but barbed as well, at an infinitesimal level. I need to do something more if we’re gonna make it inside and actually do some damage, keep looking damn it. “Berry, find us a weakness!”
Back near the collapsed opening was where the Goblins had set up several attempts at safe havens, for the squads who didn’t manage to fight off the deadly roots for long enough to make any proper headway.
A few badly battered Goblins with large bleeding wounds were forced to retire early from among the white cap crews, around the point when the Goblins started fatiguing about half an hour in, and the queue to get patched up by Läker slowly grew. The old expert healer dismissed the line just as fast, already adapting to their strenous circumstances. By the second time they were attacked, with their position being showered in heavy rocks from the sinewy roots behaving like catapults for a second time—the attacks never reached a single patient. Läker’d prepared by raising a few spindly, protective wards which circled the ground around her position, seeming to raise a lighter force wall around her immediate area, although it appeared able to regenerate and moved along with her as she walked. The ol’ purple cap apparently had an ability that allowed her to set up a ghostly sick hut mid-battlefield, summoned here to provide a haven just like the one back in the village.
And still protecting her position right outside of its door was the yellow cap Sträng, the bald-pated goblin now chanting gutturally while staring intently at Damon and Blå charging back and forth in the distance. When he finished he clapped his hands together, causing a brilliant flash of white to fill out the entire chambers—which in turn caused every flailing root in the room to suddenly drop like they had had their strings cut.
Damon was blinded for but a second, yet seeing was still impossible when his mind’s vision returned. Instead, what Damon perceived was all too clearly signs that his eyes had been strained far past their limits. His entire sense—and it must have been his seeing being affected directly, as closing his eyelids did nothing to ease the pain—was occupied with a dreamlike, precognitive vision showing him how his body moved almost of its own volition in the coming minute. He positioned perfectly, despite having no true knowledge of any of the Rootmother’s strange abilities.
Wait, is this real? When he returned the Rootmother was matching up to the vision perfectly. Does it matter? For a second his fighting instincts convinced him that it truly didn’t matter, not when he could tell from his very minute retention precisely in what ways she was about to attack—he only needed to stand up and strike just so, right then.
Focusing fully on retaining the memory, Damon felt utterly blind to the actual moment he was in, his mind instead racing ahead to sense the impossible, to sense what was already happening next when the spearing roots tried to catch him out, whipping and slicing to decapitate him and Berry both.
Damon rolled off of Billy, and when he came back up he sliced the offending limb off like he was strolling through a tremendously hostile but equally defenseless forest—each step calmly placed to perfection. He danced, and sliced again as soon as she got near; despite how the Mother had taken a circumspect angle to strike him from a blind spot. It couldn’t work, not when she was reminding him of his vision with every new attempt to surprise the two of them, she was falling into familiar patterns, ones which had been occupying Damon’s working memory for a brief moment stretched into long, long seconds by his mind’s eye.
And Blåberry used [Dash] to top him up.
Then suddenly Damon made it past the final ring of defenses and was upon their sworn enemy, leaping into the air with daggers raised and preparing to cleave down.
[Shadewood Rootmother - Level ???]
There was no avoiding it, the power of his opponent still made Damon’s knees quake, yet the only thing you could do when faced with such a monstrous enemy was to strike true and strike fast. He landed hard, trusting to his enhanced speed—Damon dashed towards the opening being presented and refused to be denied, while all around the senior Goblins got into position to strike back at their towering tormentor.
The Rootmother was still attempting to use all the power of her levels to force a revival of her shadows ahead of time, to attempt and regain the upper hand after Sträng's flashbang-trick, to catch Damon and all the others unawares, a task she would have usually completed in seconds; that was still not fast enough, in these circumstances.
The lethal force of three dozen weapons striking at once interrupted the thoughts running through Rissa's corrupted mind as Damon's bladed fists smashed into the canopy she desperately lowered to ward them all off, breaking branches and sending leaves and wood chips tearing off in every direction. He smashed his weapons into every resisting piece of wood in reach, then he whipped his whole body into a back kick, penetrating deeper and deeper even as he kept slashing—feeling the goblin on his shoulder doing the same just as violently all the while.
It wouldn’t have accomplished anything, if it weren’t for how Damon was surging under the power of every boost available to both Berry and the tribe, hopped up on magical concoctions and surging ahead for the kill with the promise of Blåberry’s title whispering in his ear. Even then they were taking wounds, being bled by piercing skewers from every direction, she was trying to penetrate his eyes and his ears, even his ribs to get at his heart.
Damon cleared his whole body with a full body [Unexpected Stab], draining his Dao energies by a fourth but also letting his combination keep going undeterred. If she’s actually 100 levels ahead of us, we’re going to be legends. Berry wasn’t bullshitting this time.
With her lowered canopy protecting the wrong side, Skalle and his elites finally reached the trunk of the tree and started smashing the Rootmother to bits, only to be met with a dark shield of energy protecting her vitals even more effectively than the panoply being used to fend off Damon—yet the shield was smoking in the light of the sun, with shadowy tendrils floating off into the air, clearly leaving it weakened even further.
The Rootmother appeared to be attempting to rally while the shield lasted—only for a hail of arrows to arrive next, bursting the final magical protection apart in a shower of intangible, shadowy triangles—letting the three dozen attackers strike her form directly at last. All the while Billy was sneakily chewing at her taps and refusing to let go, while appearing to be swelling with power each new bite.
Until the hole far above suddenly closed unexpectedly, throwing the entire chambers into an entirely new dark shade, from a chaotic mix of shadows straight into the deepest blackness of the night.
It wasn’t soon enough, not to save her. The deadliest members of the Goblin warband were all fully on top of her already, all firing off their Skills at once. With a crazy Human at the tip, the inferiors all slashed, hacked and stabbed into the power-drunk Rootmother with impunity, Skalle and Störst both dealing her tremendous blows which tore through her middle, breaking apart the mighty bark, her final sturdy, yet rudimentary protection, cleaving straight down the mighty trunk, leaving a wound bleeding shadows arcing down the center as the giant, suffering creature appeared to start to topple from the onslaught; only for the impervious tree to suddenly burst out with a force darker than the void, sending the attackers flying off with concussive force—tendrils of the night attaching to each of her victims all the while.
But despite clearing the immediate area, the Rootmother remained in deep danger, as the action left her completely open to an even worse attack coming in from Sträng, who had been charging his ultimate in anticipation of this very moment, ever since he first finished boosting Skalle and all the rest taking part in the attack.
It was difficult to see anything with the light going out, but Sträng’s screaming, green energies were turning a glowing, brilliantly golden yellow, the giant beam aimed straight for the Rootmother’s crown heart centerpiece, with the whole tribe watching on, from where they'd been sent flying off into the floors and walls.
Damon landed hard on the plateau below and almost fell over from how he’d overtaxed his legs, but he still managed to catch Lila’s attention to make one final report of what he’d seen. “We’ve got her. I'm sure of it. We cut straight past her defenses and left her reeling. Screw her levels, nothing’s surviving that!”
But just as the golden beam struck its target, a shiny black mirror spawned.
A desperate hiss echoed. “[Black Mirror: Reflect]!“
Through it all Pipan’s song had kept going strong, but now seeing his father’s attack get corrupted and turned against its user, he cut off in a strangled shout— "Father!? N—'
The descending blackness was enough for the Rootmother to finish her transformation. She had not taken them seriously, fighting whilst exposed to the sun and vastly overestimating the weakness of the tribe who had suffered her existence in their lands for so long.
Until this point the Goblin tribe had almost dared to hope it was all still going to be alright; now matters turned out to be far from settled. They still did not know enough for anyone to relax their analysis of the enemy.
A Rootmother blacker than the caverns deepest dark moved, somehow interpreted by their eyes despite presenting as the total void; her appendages were no longer mere branches, but the very shadows themselves, solidified and turned into sharper tendrils than any that had killed their kind before.
The Goblins all around the room brushed themselves off and got up, prepared to die rather than quit before a round two.
Only she would not give them any room to breathe; their deaths were already written in the soil, and she cared not for having to start over from scratch to accomplish them.
The energies of an upgraded System pylon would make it all worth it.
She spread her roots wide—piercing through the very walls and ceiling, unheeding of any of the toilsome progress that had come before. She collapsed it all to kill the foul little critters. The seedlings would sprout again, never doubt. She caused every wall of the umbratic Mother’s chambers to burst apart as a thousand trees rushed inside in seconds, to fill out the World’s Eye’s deepest cavern—each one pulled along by the roots that had nourished them for years in vain—bursting inside, trying to protect their very mother’s heart.
After the violent cascade, all was still for a few, brief moments. Light was beaming down again, now angled right at the previous entrance.
The Goblin tribe was crushed, hacking and coughing among the drowning rush of rocks, shades and wooden detritus, with only Lila from the seniors still remaining up high, overseeing the white caps getting crushed within the mix.
[Lasso of the Meek] [Healing Aura]
Läker was first on the scene, desperately trying to reach the tentatively smoking body of Sträng, while gathering her charges into safety, flinging a living lasso around to collect any who remained strong enough to hold on while she reeled them in—and those were the lucky ones.
Bodies were lying still all over.
The only way of seeing if saving them remained possible was to finish this.
But when the dust finally settled, more than just spiders were moving among the smoke and shadows.
The higher level goblins recovered enough to begin screaming their warcries of vengeance, except the calls for blood were coming from both sides.