Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="spyscribe" data-source="post: 2816812" data-attributes="member: 5808">Part the One-Hundred Eighty-FirstIn which: it’s only a plant… right?As the vine hoists Reyu off her feet, the rest of the party swings into action.  Eva hurls a dagger, hoping to sever the vine before Reyu loses her air supply.  The blade spins through the air, razor-sharp edge singing through the air.  She misses.Thatch readies his sword, taking a mighty swing, and cutting a beautiful swath through the air.  Lira and Annika let fly with the magic missiles, which hit at least, but aren’t enough to convince the vine to let go of its victim.  And so, Reyu take matters into her own hands and wildshapes into a black bear, planning on using the sudden shift in size to break the vine’s grapple.  It doesn’t work.Kiara flies straight up, shooting above the canopy where she has room to shift into her hybrid form.  From her new vantage point, she sees that the vine throttling Reyu is not just a rogue tentacle, but an appendage anchored in a massive tangle of vines.  Vines that are on the move.“Look out!” Kiara shouts, but her cry comes just an instant too late as five more vines shoot out of the tangle, straight for Annika, Lira, Anvil, Eva, and Thatch.Lira lets out a shriek as a vine wraps around her ankle, jerking her upward sharply until she is dangling upside-down some seven feet above the ground.  She tries to magic missile it, but the vine constricts painfully around her leg, shaking her so hard she’s unable to maintain her concentration.Annika is soon dangling beside her, while Anvil has fared slightly better, with the vine wrapped around one arm, at least leaving him in a more conventional orientation.  Unfortunately, Thatch is hoisted by his neck.  Only Eva manages to evade the grasping tendril, escaping with only a welt on her shoulder as it slaps at her ineffectively.A second vine goes after Reyu, and she simply gives up on getting free.  Instead, she swings herself over to the trunk of a nearby tree and climbs it to bring herself within claws reach of the nest of vines.  More vines emerge and slap at her, trying, but unable to get purchase on her heavy coat and thick, ursine limbs.Anvil and Thatch each swing wildly, trying to hack themselves down, while Kiara and Eva concentrate their attacks on the creature’s central mass. Can a plant be a creature? Eva barely has time to wonder as she nocks an arrow for another volley.Meanwhile, the vines further entangle their helpless victims and squeeze.Annika struggles valiantly, but it’s no use.  She can’t concentrate.  She can’t aim her wand of shocking ray properly.  The vine is squeezing her tighter and tighter, and darkness is starting to creep in around the edges of her vision.  She can feel Kiara in her head, worried, and for good reason.  Although she tries to shield the thought from Kiara, she’s pretty worried too.Kiara shoots the central nest, and her arrow at last strikes true, burying over half its length, its end quivering.  She lets out a cheer, the suddenly turns into a scream.  Below her, Annika’s body has gone limp.The plant drops Annika’s unconscious body to the ground.  A few seconds later, Lira’s follows.  Then Anvil’s.And just like that, almost half the party is down.Thatch swings crazily with his sword at the vine holding him, grazing it, but still unable to cut himself free. Eva swears, ducking as the three vines no longer throttling her friends come after her again.  Kiara is still peppering the plant’s “body” with arrows, but it’s hard to tell if they’re making any progress.   Although it quivers slightly as Kiara continues shooting at it, it’s impossible to tell how injured it might be.  And with most of our divine and all of our arcane firepower unconscious and bleeding to death— Eva stops in mid-thought.  Firepower.  She ducks behind a tree-trunk, and starts digging madly through her pack.Above, the central mass of vines sends out a series of new, shorter tendrils and pulls itself slowly through the canopy. It shows no interest in the unconscious party members it has just dropped, instead focusing on Eva, the only free one on the ground. Unluckily for the plat, as it pulls itself slowly forward, it passes right by the tree trunk where Reyu still clings.  She reaches out with one paw and claws a great chunk out of it.  The knot of vines wriggles madly for a few seconds after being ripped away, then goes limp and drops off Reyu’s claws to fall to the ground below.  The vine wrapped around Reyu’s neck goes with it.She turns to look for Eva bringing her head around just in time to see the young rogue step out from behind a tree, a flask of alchemist’s fire clutched in one hand.  She takes her time, aims, and hurls it at the plant, hitting dead center of the mass of vines.The flask breaks on impact, coating the plant creature with viscous green liquid that immediately bursts into flame.As his vision dims, Thatch sees the vines burn.  It’s almost eerie, he thinks distantly, the way the plant doesn’t scream.  Instead, it writhes, silently and violently.  And in its violent shaking, it loses its grip on Thatch’s throat, and the fighter falls to the ground.  He waves for a few seconds, but keeps his feet.  A few more arrows from Kiara, and the vines go slack.  The tangle falling, charred and smoking, to the ground.While Reyu brings Anvil and Lira back to consciousness, and Kiara feeds Annika a healing potion, Thatch walks over to the heart of the plant creature and hacks the central nest in half with a single stroke of his sword.  The thing is solid vines, all the way through.  He kicks over one half, and to his surprise, finds that they are not the first to have encountered this plant and lived.  On one side, it bears a brand.</blockquote>

Verification