Chapter 483: The great tree laboratory
It seemed giant, Maker-cave bats didn’t like screaming. Well, or else they really liked it. Either way, a good half of the screeching swarm turned and plunged back down, straight towards Mason.
He didn’t have a plan, exactly, but better him than the others. And he realized he couldn’t stop climbing and fight, because the other half was still a major problem up top. He needed to get up there, and he needed to do it quickly.
The bats had some kind of hooked claws on their back feet. They took turns dive-bombing as he climbed the wall, catching bits of skin and flesh. One even snagged his God damn nostril, ripping off a chunk of his nose. He roared in pain and anger, swiping and catching the little bastard before crushing its spine.
Its death didn’t seem to concern the others. They just kept diving and hooking, and he just kept climbing and waving them off. He did his best to listen to the room up top. But mostly all he could hear was shrieking bats and rock cracking beneath his fingers.
Except was that—chanting? Hopefully that meant Night Eyes was defending himself. Chanting was better than screaming.
Mason lost a bit more skin and flesh and killed a few more bats before he made it back to the hole. He grabbed the edge and hung, lifting straight up before getting a leg to the lip and scrambling over.
The hall was total mayhem. Black wings covered half the room, the random collectibles and objects all smashed and scattered over everything.
Streak was covered in blood, rampaging back and forth across the room ripping into bat wings like they were pig ears. Through their bond, Mason could tell he wasn’t hurt enough to care, and that the main emotion was…fun.
Night Eyes looked like he felt a bit different. The centaur shaman was on the platform, guarding the druid with his body and a dark shield of magic, chanting with his arms wide. A few bats lay splattered and twitching in front of him, and the rest had obviously given up and flown off, or went for Streak.
Despite the chaos, Mason felt himself relax. He wasn’t really sure what powers the centaur had. It seemed like he’d been vulnerable to a single arrow from the tribesmen. But maybe he was only weak if he was surprised.
Mason summoned his bow, ever-increasing senses and aim meaning he didn’t even hesitate to do what was objectively kind of insane. With inhuman shot after shot, despite the annoyance of his claws, he plucked the speeding, chaotic bats from the air in rapid succession.
A few dove at him, and he raked them down then went back to shooting. In less than a minute, whatever bats were still alive decided enough was enough, zipping back into the hole. Streak almost leapt after them, sliding to a stop at the edge with a few growls and snarls, then an almost pathetic whine like he’d lost a toy.
[Defeated Corrupted Cave Bat Swarm. Experience awarded.]
“You alright? And the druid?” Mason walked towards Night Eyes, and the centaur took a step back. His dark pupils scanned for a panicked moment as if ready for another threat. Mason could hear the creature’s heart pounding and smell its fear. But the shaman relaxed.
“I’m…we’re both alright. Thank you, Hunter. I was just…surprised.”
Mason nodded, very glad the shaman had been there. If he hadn’t been, would the bats have killed the old man? It seemed like yes. In fact from the pattern of scattered corpses, it seemed like they’d specifically targeted him.
You’d think a druid would be considered friendly, or at least not hated. But Mason realized he hadn’t felt much in the way of ‘natural’ affinity for the creatures. He supposed the word ‘corrupted’ in their name implied some other kind of energy at work. But what, exactly?
Just another damn reason to have someone who could actually identify things, no doubt. But if he had a civilian, how would he protect them? Even if his Strength of the Pack worked, he doubted his regeneration would save a normal person from a hoard of hook-bats. Or an angry centaur tribe.
If he had civilians, he’d probably need someone like Rebecca with him, too. The idea of having his cowgirl and maybe Rosa along as he went around the world wasn’t the least appealing thing he’d ever thought of. If he could sort out the feywalking problem, it might not even slow him down much. But that was a big if.
“Well. I’ll get back to it. Be ready for anything, apparently.” Mason walked back to the hole and gave Streak a scratch. “No, I’m not carrying you. I can probably just send you back and re-call you somewhere down there. But there’s a cooldown. “
The wolf stared with incomprehension as he whined, and Mason rolled his eyes.
“Just stay here and watch them, alright? I’ll see you in a bit.”
He dropped back down and damn near lost his grip this time before he reached the wall. Despite knowing he’d live, the thought of falling still sent his heart to the races. He grit his teeth and tried to control it, working his way back down to the bottom. It wasn’t easy to overcome a lifetime of being breakable.
Once back in the cave, there was only two visible paths, so Mason just had to pick left or right. Both had visible tree roots growing through, into, and out of walls and stalactites. Wherever the great tree was down here, it was obviously huge and growing through everything.
But Mason realized another way of thinking was maybe ‘follow the bats’, or ‘don’t follow the bats’. Wherever the little bastards were running probably meant food or water. They’d make their lair near something useful, like an underwater river. Which maybe meant the druid’s animal would go there, too. He wasn’t afraid of them, especially not alone, and decided to follow the logic.
He also decided Streak would be useful down here. His nose was still far better than Mason’s, even shapeshifted, and he could probably track the druid’s animal. He unsummoned just to get the cooldown going. It ticked down to 59 minutes in his profile, and with a deep breath, he followed in the direction of the swarm.
**
The Great Tree’s roots were even thicker ahead. They ran all along the ground like cables, slipping in and out of the stone, following every crack and curve. It didn’t make a terrible amount of sense. If there were roots everywhere down here, shouldn’t the tree be above? Somewhere near the top of the mountain?
But Mason sure as hell hadn’t seen a Great Tree outside. Especially not one the size you’d expect with such large and prolific roots. And the druid had implied it was definitely down here somewhere. Mason mostly just accepted it with a ‘post-apocalypse world’ shrug. But he was awfully curious to see the thing.
He carefully stepped over the uneven and trap-like ground, trying not to catch and foot and trip. Unlike most natural terrain, this place didn’t feel familiar, or like he belonged. It took a long time and the caves felt almost endless. When Streak’s timer had damn near cycled, Mason sighed and stopped at a root.
He took a breath and decided to use Speak with Nature, a bad feeling it was about to go about the same as it once had when he spoke with the frozen tree of the north. He lowered to the ground and cast.
Pain. Low and deep and endless. It radiated like heat from the living tendrils, from the stone, from the air itself. Mason shivered but couldn’t find the mind of the tree. He followed the roots with his power, feeling the agony grow in one direction. It didn’t take long to know which way to go.
As he walked down the winding, sometimes narrowing pathways, the air began to change. It almost hummed, and stunk to Mason’s senses with the familiar scent of arcane magic. He also started seeing claw marks—just like the ones from the hallway upstairs. The druid’s pet knew this place.
He wasn’t sure how he’d ‘help’ the creature yet. If it was some kind of enraged, frenzied bear, he didn’t see what he could do except maybe try and trap it, or beat it senseless, then bring it back to the old man. He’d speak to it first, obviously, but somehow he didn’t expect that to work.
The winding passage again opened up into a larger cavern, and Mason froze as he tried to understand. First off, he saw the tree. Right in plain view. It was different than the others—more like a spreading shrub or bush with branches and roots growing out in every direction. And it was suspended maybe fifty feet in the air, in the center of the cavern, like a giant spider hanging from its massive web.
The same pain thrummed in Mason’s ears like a bass drum, or a pulse. The air itself seemed to shimmer, the walls shake, the cavern dance to the rhythmic beat of the tree’s agony. Whatever was happening to this thing needed to stop.
But the tree wasn’t alone. A handful of goblin-like machines were scattered around the cavern, though these were far more sophisticated looking. Some were cubes, others cylindrical, all attached to the tree’s roots like plugged in electronics.
In fact they looked, Mason realized, a lot like Nexus beacons. He stepped into the cavern, and a blue light flared entirely around it all.
[You have discovered Challenge Zone: The Maker’s Great Tree Laboratory. This is a non-repeatable, mortal peril event designed for a small group of players. You have ten seconds to withdraw.]
Mason clenched his teeth, briefly entertaining the thought of leaving and getting a few players. Once again he realized his ‘explore the world solo’ idea was maybe not so good—though he wondered what would happen to any civilians who happened to be here, too. Would they be shunted safely outside? Protected until the event was over?
Ultimately, Mason stepped forward. Even since the tutorial and facing horrific odds alone, he wasn’t afraid of whatever this system threw at him. It liked to reward his particular brand of madness, too, with titles and experience and who knew what else.
The countdown ticked and the blue light grew then formed into solid rock walls, and Mason saw that he was trapped. The tree pulsed with that same feeling of pain, of anger, of helplessness. As it did, the stone ground shifted and cracked as creatures emerged.
They were made of bone and mud, plant root and jagged edges. They looked like skeletons wrapped in elemental shells, lifting broken pieces of earth as if they were wielding spears. As he watched them, he couldn’t help but stare. They were…familiar.
He’d seen creatures like this in his ‘druid dreams’—walking dead things coming for his forest, fighting orcs and men. Not just ‘undead’, like the kind he’d fought in the Nexus. But something…animated. Constructed. Built by something like Makers.
The awful things moaned and lumbered towards him, more and more rising up from around the cavern as the tree that formed them pulsed with a thing like horror. Mason grew his Claws and started walking.
He didn’t know if whoever had done all this was still alive, or if this was just some leftover monstrosity of another age. But he was going to put an end to this. Then he was going to find out. And if they were still alive, they might soon wish they weren’t.