Damon was laying splayed and buried amidst the rubble, every muscle feeling on fire and like they must have suffered major inner bruising—if those bruises hadn't burst and begun bleeding already. Yet he was somehow alive, and feeling positive it was solely due to how his skin had turned tougher than hardened steel for a while there from all the buffs, from Berry and the late Sträng both; else he would have been long dead by this point, for sure.
Might be I took one too many risky chances, I really thought we had her.
Despite the heavy abuse, his engine was sputtering and protesting, but thankfully still chugging along.
We’re not dead yet. Not broken, not entirely. Just one minute's rest, then we can finish this. Just one minute.
Damon's whole body objected his even having the thought.
Loudly.
I really can't fight back? Despite how we're all about to get killed, not one bit?
Fuck. That.
Damon refused to stop trying, rivers of sweat soon streaking lines in the dirt covering his skin, but he kept gritting his teeth through the flaring pain.
A few minutes passed before he sensed Berry moving around in his hood, which spurred Damon with the desperate need to shift the huge rock off of his torso before [Herculean Impetus] wore off.
Ugh.
It finally shifted, stirring the hazy air all around.
Less than a minute later, as what felt like a hundred points of Strength left his body, Damon nearly sunk another level into the ground—or that’s certainly how bad it felt. In reality he was simply back to suffering the full effects of gravity as normal, which really fucking hurt, it turns out.
The combination of buffs had made his body damn near indestructible. But the sense now was very different from when his limbs had mostly turned numb, whenever he'd been injured before. I’m running out of adrenaline. I've gotta find a way to move, or we really are dead.
Damon tried pushing up to his elbows again, gingerly, but each attempt kept agonizing his numerous throbbing pains. He'd clearly overtaxed something, or a lot of somethings.
Before he could muster his energy, Damon felt a tremendous stomping making the walls tremble, as something huge descended towards the chamber floors. The Rootmother’s steps were rocking the huge cavern as her roots tore free, allowing the predator to finally prowl, right on the edge of where the spotlight from above shone down. Mere moments later, the shadow shifted and there she was; fully revealed in her darkest radiance, an almost aquatic-looking new form. Her root-like limbs were all swimming in the deepest of shadows, moving with an alien grace that put creatures like the lamprey and octopus to shame.
While she had certainly been far larger than the average tree before, albeit with a strange menacing air, the Rootmother had still been looking rather normal while standing squarely in the sunlight previously—statuesque even.
Now the grotesque, gorgonian tree was wholly transformed into a nightmare creature of loathsome proportions. Tendrils of pure darkness kept stabbing into the ground as her wooden tread stomped indomitably across the floors, searching for victims among the rubble—unmistakably hankering to snuff out any and all signs of life and movement remaining within her reach.
She found one coati-less Goblin squealing in terror to get away, as Damon watched with cold chills running down his spine.
Damon could recognise her from the class he had briefly held the day before. She’d been among those most eager to learn.
I think her name was Ärtan. Damon watched her desperate attempts to move her small, injured legs, to run and scramble out of the way, but just like his own—her body failed at the crucial moment.
Something stirred in Damon’s hood, but then Berry looked away. The Rootmother scooped the young Goblin up, lifting her high with a shadowy tendril, having skewered her just beneath the collarbone, black veins already pulsating from the wound. Then she was flung, eliciting a pitiful yelp. Her grotesqueness spared only the briefest glance before carelessly tossing Ärtan's body over her shoulder, chucking her flying across the room like so much dross—sending the body of brave Ärtan crashing into jagged rocks with nary a thought; the Rootmother’s ocellus already busily resuming her careful scanning for further victims.
Blå was quietly sobbing for her lost friend.
Damon tried to say something, but failed to find the breath. Instead he renewed his attempts at stirring, lest the two of them end up becoming the shadow Mother's next prey.
How he wished he could do more.
Damon well and truly hated the weakness remaining in his body at that moment, with all his guts. Hated the powerlessness he'd been struggling to overcome all his life. He cursed all the days he’d neglected his training, feeling deep regret welling up within. He regretted ever taking time off from growing increasingly proficient and mighty, transforming himself into someone who could handle all this. Who could still get up, when it really counted. But it’s not our fault, it’s hers. How strong do we need to be to roam freely, to be allowed to pick fruit when we hunger, without mortal danger?
Damon didn't know any of the answers in this strange, new world.
So, simplify.
That's when it hit him.
Stronger than the Rootmother. Stronger than all the Rex' above, and whatever else, even worse, sleeps below. Stronger. Even stronger than the System.
Damon felt poleaxed, sight flashing white for a second. Upon his vision returning, Damon found his body able to move again, albeit shakily—only for the gravel to make his foot skid, causing Damon and his rider both to fall back over.
Berry felt his energy returning, and whispered in between sobs. "Take heart, brave Damon. You, if anyone can, you can still do it. You can still get up, fore she finds another. I cannae know how much it hurts. But please. Please, show me ye can.”
Damon almost believed her.
Meanwhile, the Rootmother had stomped over towards a different corner. Searching the rubble there, she found another three white caps in hiding within minutes. However, the great horror did not lay shade nor branch on any other young, shivering Goblins.
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Then the opening at the top of the dark chambers suddenly widened, first growing twice as large, and not stopping there by a long shot.
High up there stood an elder Goblin of rotund proportions, peeking down suspiciously, one that certainly wasn’t looking happy. He wore the guise of a violent drunk who’d been stolen away from his favorite spot of bar hopping, forced to abort a fine day of inhaling spirituous fumes; only to now be forced to descend into a musty cavern, one filled with dark memories.
He was only the first that Damon spotted, but the rest of the remaining seniors were suddenly popping back up all over.
One and all they felt different now. Ever since the Rootmother cast the chambers in complete darkness, shades had been stirring all over, rising mostly in the areas where green bodies could be seen. When the Goblins unleashed their cries of vengeance, only to hear them cried back, something was clearly deeply wrong.
[Cat's Paw Goblin - Level 29]
The sunlight erased a few, but Sträng's shadow suddenly stirred as well, only for Läker, who had been busy trying to find a pulse, to stomp down through his brain and then pull out the corrupt spirit trying to rise.
With the Rootmother's advance stalled by the light, each of the Goblin's pulled out and proffered what looked like ancient, deeply personal sets of items, and it looked like they were kissing them goodbye. One of them was only doing it to the same weapon they'd been wielding previously; the Goblin with the geometric divider.
One and all they started shining with bright, inner light that flashed and flashed repeatedly, while Damon felt the energy in the room grow thicker and thicker until it felt like he was breathing ketchup.
Damon risked an [Identify], hoping against hope that something would have changed.
[Redcap Goblin - level ???]
Holy shit, what just happened? Each and every senior, they had all just turned into powerhouses.
Damon’s vision swam, and he didn’t see who specifically he’d targeted, but he could hear them all speak.
“What in the bleeding hells happened here, ash and lilies. What utterly staggering umbrage hath been levelled against Selma’s kith and kin, shadow creature?”
More shades were stirred, among the deep shadows away from the spotlight. Goblins who’d been lying still for too long all over the room were suddenly having their shades rip free, some unleashing the same alien chittering as the spiders that had come before.
Those very shades now turned predatory eyes to look across the broken chamber floors at their former family.
Skalle stirred from beneath some rocks, brushing off the debris and multiple bleeding wounds to stand back up to his full height, staring the Rootmother down despite the discrepancy in size.
“We have erred gravely. Gone where we did not belong, where we never could. Never should. As ever the meek have paid the cost. You. Late again, Såsen. You d— were where?”
Läker’s voice. “She got Sträng. He put too m— I could not save him, despite… She must die. Now. No further risk. Skalle, you will focus on the matter at hand.”
Damon heard the voices but struggled to make sense of the hurried exchange. His eyes would not leave the deadly creature still roaming the chambers. For a moment it had looked like she was coming towards him, right before abruptly switching directions again. Mere minutes had passed since the chamber's implosion.
Then a younger voice spoke. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I said we should go. I’m sorry you had to do this. That you had to cut your Paths short, that you—”
Läker cut the Redcap short instead. “Nonsense. If we need more time still, that remains our own damn fault. Clearly things in the wider world are moving too swiftly for such old bones as ours, the creature we have found here proves as much. Nevertheless this whole mess is on our plate, not yours. Never pick up a burden devised before you were born. Leading us now, that is burden enough for such young shoulders. Instead, find your own freedom."
They said no more.
The Rootmother was not waiting.
Damon tried to hang on, yet he barely caught the last part before fainting, despite a persistent echo in his mind.
----------------------------------------
One and all the twelve remaining seniors spent their hoarded levels, moving from the verge of Rex territory and well into its very limits.
From that day forward they would be on the clock.
Even now, they still couldn't match the Rootmother blow for blow, or Dao for Dao—yet there was a dozen of them, and only one of her. Including the goat who was still happily munching on any root devoid of the deadly shadows, and within range.
The seniors meanwhile, dealt with all the lower-level shades in seconds, sending them screeching back into shapeless shadows, only to then use the light from above to trap the Mother herself within a tomb of her own making.
Såsen never left the grass above, but just kept widening and widening the opening until the sun became truly inescapable—while torching every attempt by the shadows to take him out with his fuming, liquid yet fiery breath attack.
Combined with two dozen more Dao empowered Skills, it meant the isolated tree was finished.
In the end they watched her burn, all except for Skalle, who walked dejectedly over to where Ärtan lay, holding his lost grandchild in his arms one final time.
The screeching fiend had ultimately failed her pylon challenge by that point.
All those of the tribe who remained saw their just rewards in accordance with the System’s creed.
Including Damon, and Berry.
[Class level collected: +5 Str, +3 Per, +3 Mana - Free Points: +2.]
[Class level collected: +5 Str, +3 Per, +3 Mana - Free Points: +2.]
[Class level collected: +5 Str, +3 Per, +3 Mana - Free Points: +2.]
[Class level collected: +5 Str, +3 Per, +3 Mana - Free Points: +2.]
[Your Dao Class Specular Duelist has reached Level 42.]
[Skill Quest Completed.]
Nobody had it in them to celebrate the occasion.
Too many Goblins lay still, awaiting burial.
Meanwhile, Billy was still gnawing furiously, on every bit of remains that the Rootmother had left behind.
The hungry, hungry chimera had only just begun.