#rootlike

[nuclearblast]

i wish i could give specific system members nicknames like u can w discord so i could name silk rizzboo.

[tribbetherium]

While a relatively secluded ecosystem, the caverns of Arcuterra have expanded greatly over the last few million years. Consisting of a network of tunnels, chambers and crevices spanning for miles underground, the floor space of the caves have now exceeded those of a small island comparable to Earth's Tasmania-- and has gotten large enough to have several sub-biomes within itself, some levels more superficial and closer to the outside world where the abundance of nutrients trickling in allows the lush forest-like growth of subterranean pseudo-flora, and others beneath the upper layers where groundwater and detritus accumulates, forming stagnant, muddy swamps where, against all odds, life finds a way to thrive.

One of the ecosystem's most abundant animals are the feelerflits: the caverns' only flying animals. Descended from dipteran flies, their forebearers once did lose their wings in their initial colonization--yet over time re-evolved this ability through atavistic mutations once the caves had expanded enough to make flight advantageous again: though now, in pitch black darkness and without vision.

Feelerflits, however, managed to adapt by developing especially-hypertrophied feelers both on their antennae and their abdominal cerci, giving them the ability to detect movement both forward and behind. This, coupled by pressure sensors and long hairs on their feelers, allow them to discern their environment in flight, while olfactory and theroreceptor cells allow them to pick up thermal and chemical signals to recognize food, enemies, and conspecifics.

Most of the common feelerflits (Phantasmusca spp.) are generalist omnivores, feeding on decaying matter, shroomor spores and fungi, but some, in the abundance of resources and lack of competition, have ascended a rung in the food chain. The murksquitoes (Anophelomimus spp.) have become part-time parasites, supplementing their diet of mocklichen spores by biting larger animals such as daggoths, especially females that require additional protein in producing their eggs. Others, the darkdarters (Quadropteroides spp.) have become predators, preying on other feelerflits. With their halteres enlarged to resemble a second pair of wings but used as organs of balance instead, they are agile in the air, seizing other, smaller feelerflit species with spiny grasping forelimbs and using a sharp proboscis to pierce the bodies of their prey.

This abundance of insects, arthropods and other invertebrates has led to other unique specializations among the daggoths: the cavern systems' dominant troglofauna. Many are specialized insectivores, typically smaller species, but also some unusual outliers among the larger kinds.

One such creature is the trunked tendrilcrown (Oroproboscimys nasocephalus), a member of the cavehopper family that, unlike its other grazing kin, has adapted an elongated snout from the elongation of its lips, forming a trunk-like appendage with its mouth opening at the end, out of which emerges a long, sticky tongue equipped with small barbs, ideal for piercing through mocklichens to get at the interior, reaching into crevices to pull out rootlike mycelia, and most importantly to raid insect nests and feed on the inhabitants. Its trunklike appendage only contains its mouth, with its nostrils set far back behind the top of its head, keeping the vulnerable orfices far from reach of its biting insect prey.

Tendrilcrowns, like most other cavehoppers, are gregarious creatures that seek safety in numbers from predators like blindmutts and tendriltooths. They use their tail, atypically long for a daggoth, as a scent-marking organ to set territorial boundaries and identify related individuals. Yet, as their social behavior are merely for protection, their individual bonds are rather weak. When startled by predators, they individually flee with powerful thrusts of their leaping hind limbs, displaying little concern for their fellows whose company they only partake in to reduce the chances of individually being caught.

The cavehoppers may be agile and flighty creatures, but in the limited space, not all daggoths share their energetic means of movement. Some daggoths are content with a slower-paced life: especially those that live in the lower levels of the cave systems where fewer food is available and energy is better off conserved.

The gloomy squonk (Trogloporcimys nasoculus), one species of the gloomhogs in relation to the biblarodons, lives in the basement-levels of the cavern systems: where the muddy deposits gather into the large, wide chambers into a sort of underground marshland. Here, underneath the organic sludge, specialized filamentuous fungi grow in soggy, fibrous clusters, absorbing and converting the detritus back into biomass that, in turn, is the primary food of the gloomy squonk. Its ghostly eye-like orfices are in fact enlarged nostrils on its inverted, upturned snout, as it has adapted for spending much of its time wallowing in the subterranean swamps scraping off the fungi from the bottom, surfacing time and time to breathe. With larger nostrils as well as a markedly larger lung capacity, it is able to take in more air per breath, allowing it to make the most of the thin, oxygen-poor atmosphere so deep beneath the ground.

Its sluggish demeanor, large fat-storing body and glycogen-storing liver allow the gloomy squonk to survive for long periods without food, in one of the less-hospitable regions of the cavern system, where growths of its preferred forage follow irregular boom-and-bust cycles depending on how much nutrition is available from higher rungs. This, however, makes it an ideal potential meal for younger tendriltooths that may wander down lower crevices to avoid competition from aggressive and cannibalistic adults. However, while slow and typically placid, the squonk is not entirely defenseless. Its jaws, strong enough to tear fungal mycelia from rocky anchors, can also inflict a vice grip onto a would-be predator, after which it submerges into the muddy sludge in an attempt to drown its assailant.

Similarly, while some of the blindmutts became active, pouncing ambush predators, others, the cavegleaners, took on a more slow-paced lifestyle, wandering along as foragers and scavengers, picking on shroomors, insects, small daggoths and carrion, and thus alleviating competitive pressure from the tendriltooths, who now seldom consider them a threat and rarely bother attacking them.

The ridge-headed whiskersaw (Heliconasodon rubrilophus) is one such cavegleaner, often drawn to the leftover kills of tendriltooths to finish off the remains left behind once the predator is sated. Like the tendriltooth, the whiskersaw is equipped with sharp keratinous serrations on its nasal tendrils that function much like teeth. Yet now, with its foraging lifestyle, the whiskersaw now puts its false dentition to a strange use: coiling its two most prominent tendrils into tight spirals with the spines pointing outward, it then rotates them against one another as they uncoil back and forth: forming two abrading "polishers" that cleanly scrape the last residues of meat attached to bones, especially those out of reach of other predators. When uncoiled, these spiny appendages can also be inserted into hollows of bones to access the marrow, or be probed into the burrows of small prey to be extracted from their hiding spots.

The other conspicuous feature of the whiskersaw is of course the two fleshy ridges that adorn its head: the frontmost rims of which are made of highly-vascularized tissue that can be engorged and distended with specialized blood vessels to release a small amount of body heat. These are picked up by the thermoreceptors found on the nasal tendrils of other whiskersaws, in essence being used as a display organ by a species without eyes to see visual cues. Being mesothermic, like most daggoths, the display is a very energy-intensive effort in relative terms, and to the solitary creatures only means one of two things: a dominant male asserting his strength to a potential rival, or a receptive female advertising her readiness to breed. Also like the majority of other daggoths, the undeveloped but precocial young recieve minimal parental care, nursing for only a day or two before being deposited near abundant food sources conducive to their growth and survival.

A wide variety of large fauna now thrive among the drier regions of the caverns, which, while still smaller than surface animals due to the more limited space and resources, nonetheless reach impressive sizes for a cave-dweller. But the aquatic biomes of the caverns are not left out by such trends, as some aquatic daggoths have grown quite large, in particular the deeplake trogadile (Troglomyosuchus pennadactylus) which can reach lengths of up to a meter long or more.

While the tendriltooths are the top predators of the land, the trogadiles are the apex carnivores of the underground rivers and lakes where an impressive array of organisms thrive: aquatic insects, shrish, pescopods, hampreys and tubesnouts alike, dependent on a base producer of chemosynthetic bacterial mats and aquatic meatmoss, growing in thorny fronds like animal kelp. All of these are food for the trogadile: not a picky eater, it catches food with its muscular fused nasal lobes as well as two smaller tendrils equipped with sharp claw-like points, and using its extensible snorkel-like nostrils to breathe at the surface every few minutes, sometimes lying motionless just below the surface with only its snorkels exposed, waiting to strike at unwary prey.

Their specialized limbs, modified into flipper-like paddles, undulate rhythmically to propel themselves through the water, but, conversely, now make them practically immobile on land as grown adults, entirely helpless and vulnerable if beached. Young individuals, a few inches long at birth, however can manage a clumsy scuttle across dry land, enough to be able to disperse into other bodies of water. Once grown, they are permanently waterbound, though populations can still intermingle genetically despite isolated pools being separated, due to the amphibious capabilities of the juveniles.

Many branches of the daggoth evolutionary family have thus produced a wide variety of some of the strangest and most alien-looking forms ever assumed by a rodent: to such an extent that many are scarcely ever recognizable as such. Many of these arise from derived lineages, but, from the gothtles, one of the most basal lineages, bizarre yet oddly familiar forms too have since emerged. These animals, in their basal forms once top predator of the caves, now find themselves at the bottom of the food chain, preyed upon by their distant kin: while some such as the xenomures adapted to flee and hide, others armed themselves with strange weaponry to to ward off and injure their enemies.

The veiled sixclaw (Hexaceratonychus cryptocephalus) is one such unusual species that, when threatened, conceals its face and sensitive nasal tendrils in a fold of thick skin as it curls itself up into a tight ball: leaving only six prominent defensive spines exposed. These long, horn-like projections are, surprisingly, actually elongated claws: attached to mobile, specialized digits, they can point in any direction to painfully stick into a predator's mouth, and, even when moving about and actively foraging, the sixclaw bears its weaponry in arms, raised above and behind its body to make it difficult to grab. Able to move together, they can pinch the tendrils and toes of an enemy, hard enough to draw blood, even if successfully picked up.

This ability for the digits to grip in junction has been put to good use by some species. The shield-faced pintler (Durocephalomus carcinychus) specifically has hypertrophied the first two pairs of its digits to use almost as grasping pincers, able to partly oppose and each equipped with a large, retractable claw. These serve it good use in excavating burrows, tearing apart food, defending itself and, most remarkably, used in intraspecific combat. Males can be up to twice as big as a female, and sport greatly enlarged claws and a larger keratinous facial shield that, while used in the females merely to protect their faces while burrowing, are defenses for males when they fight over territory, mates and resources, lifting each other up and tossing each other away as they tussle for dominance, with the losing combatant occasionally losing a few digits in the process.

These defenses, armor and burrowing abilities all reach their peak in the armored crustster (Carcinocricetus memeticus), a smaller and more placid relative of the pintlers that has evolved a more compact body and a single enlarged shield covering most of its back that, with its sharp-spined edges and smooth curved shape, makes it resistant to all but the most specialized of predators. Its powerful front claws are primarily used for digging, while its back, reinforced by a thick and sturdy spine with multiple interlocking vertebral processes, allow it great strength for its size, able to use it for leverage to wedge itself under large stones or into crevices, both to make itself inaccessible to enemies trying to fish it out of its hiding spots, as well as access small invertebrate prey taking shelter underneath.

[gemmy-wemmy]

went wild playing with an fallen angel afterlife design of sorts

design notes under the cut!

gonta’s wings are based on the death’s-head hawkmoth, both for its theming of death and its rather fitting colour scheme

the greek theming was mostly on a whim, but i ended up being fond of it? his shattered halo was considered to be a laurel crown instead

those with an eye for bugs may pick up that his wings are in pinned position, rather than that of a live specimen

if you were to look under his tunic you would see a gnarled scar running along his stomach, sort of star shaped and rootlike. as if something is grasping him, poisoning him.

his blood is gold like ichor, but it dries dark red

[not-a-space-alien]

Tinytopia Chapter 12: Monoculture

Story Masterpost

On AO3

Thanks to my beta reader, @appelsiinilight

In this chapter: Advanced botany lessons

***

Thistle tightened his grip on Marigold, to his right, and Pixie-Jax, to his left.  “Okay, on three.  Ready?  One.  Two.  Three!”

None of them moved.

Moon, hovering in the air next to the tree limb, tut-tutted.  “Come on, now, you’ll never fly if you keep your feet on solid ground.”

They were all learning how to fly.  Thistle had a new prosthetic wing.  Marigold had only recently recovered from a catastrophic injury, and his muscles were atrophied.  Jax had never actually flown before.

And they were all discovering just how scary it was to learn how to fly.

“I’ll go if you two go,” Jax said.

“I’m sorry,” Thistle said.  “I’m just nervous.”

Marcy was waiting down below to catch them.  “You can do it!  You can start with just jumping down.  Thistle and I were making good progress just doing that.  Just jump!  Do it together!”

“Okay,” Marigold said.  “On three.”

“One.  Two.  Three!”

None of them moved.

“For God’s sake, do I have to push you off?” Moon said, exasperated.

“You don’t have to be holding each other’s hands,” Marcy said.  “It might be a better idea to go separately?”

“No!” Thistle yelped.  “I need to be holding hands!”

Marigold smiled.  “Do you remember the old, old oak tree where Mother’s Mother taught us to fly?”

Thistle felt warm and fuzzy at the memory.  “Yeah.  We were so small, and so high up off the ground.”

“You still are,” Moon said, perching behind them in a threatening way.  “I’ll push you off if that’s what it takes to make progress.”

“All right, Moon, let them go at their own pace,” Marcy chided.

Moon dropped down, hovering under the branch once again.  “Come on, I know y’all can do it!”

“Okay.”  Thistle crouched down.  He’d done this before.  Surely he could do it again!  It shouldn’t be that hard!  “On three.  One.  Two…”

An image flashed in his mind, suddenly and forcefully–a startlingly clear picture of him throwing himself off the branch and successfully flying.  You can do it!

It took Thistle a moment to remember that was how dryads communicated, beaming images directly into your head like that.  He startled and hugged the branch, looking around wildly.

Trilloras was down by Marcy’s ankle.

“You!” Thistle raged.  Suddenly he found it within himself to dive down; he spread his wings and flapped in a controlled fall towards her.  “You have a lot of explaining to do!”

Trilloras shied behind Marcy’s ankle.  Marcy stepped to the side.  “Oh, did you come to cheer them on?”

“Forget that!”  Thistle hit the dirt and stormed over.  “You’ve got a lot of nerve to just ignore us, you know!”

Trilloras scratched the dirt with her foot.

“Here’s something interesting, a lot of new magical creatures are showing up and telling us a dryad told them to come here.  You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

Trilloras’s leaves all wilted inwards, and she dashed away and smacked into a nearby root, disappearing into the tree.

Moon wafted down to land gracefully beside him.  “Thistle, my dear, you really need to speak to her less… forcefully, if you want her to be less shy.”

Thistle sighed.  “Fine, fine.  Sorry.”

Marcy knelt down.  “You can come back out.  It’s okay.  We’re not mad at you, we just want to know.”

“I’m mad at you,” Thistle muttered.

Trilloras very slowly reformed from the bark of the tree, her two beady hollyberry-red eyes watching them all.

“I’d like an explanation,” Marcy said.  “If you have one.  Please?”

Trilloras’s rootlike feet planted into the ground.  Another image flashed out–her roots going down, way down, and something akin to spectral, magical roots branching out even further.  The sinuous knots expanded out until they touched a tangled network of similar structures, like a nervous system.

“Are the… dryads all connected?  Like vines?”

Trilloras nodded.

“Do you… share information that way?  Communicate?”

Yes.

Marcy thought for a moment, then sat back, laughing.  “Oh my God.  Everyone started showing up here because they heard about us literally through the grapevine.”

Trilloras flashed them an image of Marcy shooing small creatures away from the house–turning them away.  Are you going to?

“Thistle, should we tell the dryads to stop sending people here?” Marcy said.  “It makes me a little nervous that everyone knows we’re here, but now that word’s out, it seems like we can’t really undo that anyway.”

Thistle was torn.  It went against everything he’d been raised with to advertise their location and invite everyone in.  On the other hand… it was exciting having new people over.  And if they needed help, like Auburn and Jax, how could they say no?

“No,” Thistle said.  “Well… not right now, maybe?  You’re right that I don’t think we can realistically keep people away now… But I think we’re going to need more space, if, um, if more are going to show up.”  Maybe they could have something in the yard, for people who were new and not sure if they were trustworthy enough to let into the house yet?

“I can talk to Colin about it.  Thanks, Trilloras.”

“It really would have been better if you’d asked first,” Thistle said, grinding his teeth.  “Before telling everyone about all our business.”

“All right,” Marcy said placatingly.  “Nothing we can do about it now.  Although, um, Thistle is right, Trilloras.  Maybe in the future, ask first.”

Trilloras bashfully pulled her arms in.

Marcy held her hands up for Jax and Marigold to step into, but Trilloras tugged on Marcy’s pantleg to get her attention again.

“Oh?  Do you need something?  Is that why you came out?”

Trilloras nodded, then flashed them another image:  across the tangle of magical information-sharing roots, Trilloras showed them the feeling of another dryad: this one in terrible pain, raging helplessly and directionlessly.

“Oh no,” Marcy said.  “Does someone need help?”

Trilloras nodded.

“You only came out because you needed something!” Thistle said hotly, prompting Trilloras to scuttle behind Marcy again.

“Come on now, Thistle,” Marcy said.  “It's for someone else, not her.”

As much as Thistle loved being angry, he couldn’t deny it was much more in-character for him to help.  Thistle crossed his arms.  “Fiiiiiine.  What's the problem?”

Trilloras dumped a very complicated image onto them:  images of a cornfield, a dryad whose consciousness was split between all the plants.

Marcy gasped.  “Is there a dryad occupying crops?  That can’t be good, right?”

We told her not to.  She wouldn’t listen.

“So this other dryad is in somebody’s corn?” Thistle said.  “Who cares?  She’ll just leave when it’s time to harvest it, right?”

Trilloras looked uncertain.

“What do you need help with, Trilloras?”

Her mind is fragmented.  She was too ambitious and took multiple plants.  It split her apart as it grew.  She was upset her plants were destroyed by humans, so she took their plants instead.  Bad things happen to dryads when they take humans’ cultivated, unnatural plants, and even more bad things happen when they take multiple plants.  But she would not listen, and now she can’t hear us.

“She can’t hear you?”  

Trilloras flooded them with images of this other dryad driven to pain and aggression, stalking through the corn agitatedly.  Her mind is gone.

“Okay.  That’s… bad, for sure.  Are you worried she’s going to be found by the humans there?  Or hurt?”

Yes.

“I don’t see how that’s our problem,” Thistle said, still being petty.  “Dryads have managed themselves fine without us till now, I don’t see why you have to draft Marcy to help.”

“I want to help!” Marcy rushed to clarify.  This sounded fascinating.  “But is there a way to help her?”

The forest is coming to fix it.  She will die if they get to her before we do.

“Oh,” Thistle said softly.  “So, when this has happened before, the other dryads normally just fix it by killing whatever dryad this happens to?”

Trilloras nodded.  Sap welled up suspiciously near her eyes.  Thistle felt acutely her desire to save her sister’s life.

“Okay,” Thistle said.  “I guess we can try to help.”

“Yes!” Marcy said.  “Okay.  We’ll do our best.  Will it help if we convince her to leave the corn?”

Yes.

“Okay.”

She won’t listen now, but if we were there with her, maybe…

“Okay,” Marcy said.  “We’ll go there, and we’ll see if we can talk to her.”

Trilloras nodded rapidly.

Marcy held out her hand.  “I’ll take you there.”

Trilloras blinked at Marcy’s hand, then eased into it.  Her roots grew and entangled around Marcy’s fingers, like a snake.  It felt weird.

Thistle climbed into her other hand with Jax and Marigold, and Moon landed on her shoulder.  She felt a bit like a mother possum.  “Okay, everybody ready to go back inside?”

She ferried the small creatures back inside and set Jax and Marigold down next to their houses.  “We’re going on a bit of a field trip to help Trilloras,” she announced.  “Does anyone want to come too?”

When Thistle repeated the query in Pixish, Severa slithered over.  “I will join.”  She climbed up Marcy’s arm rapidly and settled around her shoulders.

“Can I go?  I want to go!” Jax said, bouncing.

“Sure.”

“You have to ask if you want some of Trilloras’s hair though,” Thistle butted in.  

Jax sheepishly climbed into Marcy’s hand next to Thistle.  Privately, Thistle thought having a dryad who was actually willing to talk with them on demand would be immensely useful, so he hoped Jax could manage a dryad incarnation.

Auburn, who’d been clinging to the pullup bar, sleepily said, “I want to go too.”

“Did I wake you up?  Sorry.”

“It’s okay.  I want to help.”  He spread his wings and dropped down, clinging to the back of Marcy’s head.  She briefly had a thought about her childhood fears of a bat getting tangled in her hair.

“It’s okay if you don’t want to.”

“I want to.  I’ll help.  I’m helpful.”

“Okay.”  Laden with Thistle and Jax in one hand, Trilloras in the other, Severa around her neck like a fashionable scarf, Moon on her shoulder, and Auburn’s little hands gripping her hair, Marcy was suddenly very afraid of falling over.  She felt a bit like a rock climbing wall.

She carefully made her way over to her laptop on the dining room table and opened it.  She opened it and opened her preferred maps program.  (The author will decline to specify the brand since they are not paying for product placement.)

“Can you show us where we’re going?”

Trilloras blinked at the screen, completely uncomprehending.

“This is a map.  Do you know how to read a map?”

Trilloras transmitted a single, intense emotion: confusion.

“It’s like–it’s like an aerial view, like we’re flying looking down at the ground.  Here.”  She flipped the toggle to the satellite view, so they could see all the trees and greenery.

This seemed to catch her attention more, but she merely climbed out of Marcy’s hand and craned her neck in a very interested way.

***

It took some doing, but they eventually managed to get Trilloras to help with navigating to their destination.  

Marcy started her car and dumped the menagerie of tiny creatures onto the passenger’s seat.  They formed a little pile inside the semicircle of Severa’s coils, which was so adorable Marcy struggled to keep her eyes on the road as she drove.

Auburn snuggled the closest to Severa's torso, clearly trying to gain some maternal affection.  Severa’s reciprocation was limited by the fact that he was a grown ass man and not an actual baby, but she allowed it and didn't pull away, which she would have with basically anybody else besides Thistle.

“So what exactly are we going to do?” Jax asked eagerly.  “Are we going to fight the big dryad?”

The word big gave Marcy pause.  It hadn't occurred to her till just then, but… she had no idea if this other dryad would be the same size as Trilloras or not.  “Um, we're just going to talk to her.”

“I'm sure between all of us, we can come up with an appropriate diplomatic strategy,” Moon said.

Marcy was secretly very relieved he was here.  As effective as Thistle's “just be nice and make friends” strategy had been… she wasn't looking forward to the inevitable first time it failed.  “I hope so.”

Trilloras’s route led them into a dusty back road.  The car bumped ungracefully and kicked up gravel.  Farmland replaced trees out the window.

“We must be getting close,” Marcy said as the crops changed from kale to corn.

Marcy had to keep prompting Trilloras for directions, but eventually she pulled over at the dryad’s instruction.

The dust settled around the car’s tires and the heat assaulted Marcy as she stepped out into the bright sunlight.  A bird cawed somewhere in the distance, but other than that, it was quiet.

She walked around the car and opened the passenger door.  The collection of tiny creatures all climbed up onto her like she was a bus.

“Okay,” Marcy said.  “Um.”  She turned towards the cornfield, unsure of what to do.  Trilloras was being incredibly unhelpful with regard to what their strategy should be.  “Trilloras, does she have a name?”

Cordyca.

“Okay.”  She looked out over the corn, which waved gently under a breeze.  “Um… Cordyca?  Hello?”

Nothing.

“We know you’re there!” Thistle shouted.  “Come out!”

That prompted some movement.  Apparently a pixie was a more worthy conversation partner than a human.  The stalks shifted, as if with anticipation.

“Um,” Thistle said.  “So, we’re here with Trilloras, and, and she says you need to leave, or something bad is going to happen.”

The corn rustled far in excess of what the light breeze would suggest.  A single stalk creaked and bent over, pointing an ear of corn directly at Marcy.

“Um.”  Marcy clasped her hand on it like it was a microphone.  “Hello.  Trilloras said the other dryads have been telling you that you need to leave the cornfield, but you weren’t listening to them.  We thought it would be harder to ignore us if we came out here in person–I mean, if we could talk face to face.”

A second stalk of corn bent at an unnatural angle, seeming to peer at Marcy’s face, the silk scruff wiggling like fingers.

“Um,” Marcy said.  “We can help you relocate, if you want.”

Trilloras climbed up Marcy’s arm, shivering her leaves and roots, clearly communicating with the other dryad privately.  Marcy really wished Trilloras would just work with her.

“Oh, for Heaven’s sake,” Moon huffed.  He removed his sunglasses from his breast pocket, put them on, and hovered in the air over Marcy’s head.  “Look here, you, I think what you need is someone to give you a firm talking-to.  You can’t keep simply ignoring your sisters, and you can’t keep sitting around here in some hapless humans’ corn being all pissy.”

No response.  Moon gestured around.  “Look at this place!  It must have been cleared for farmland five decades ago!  You have to move on!  The wellbeing of the collective depends on us all working together to avoid disrupting humans too much.  Trust me, I know, and they are going to make sure you do your part even if you don’t want to.”

The stalks groaned and shifted, and the dryad reached out and touched them mentally.  It was jarring, scary, and overwhelming in a way none of them had ever felt before.  Marcy knew instantly this dryad was older than Trilloras and much, much larger.  She was suddenly sweating more.

“Don’t make her mad,” Auburn pleaded.

“Ah,” Moon said, now considerably less confident.  “Uh, well, what I’m trying to say is your dryad brethren, or, or sister-en, have to put you down like a mad dog if you won’t behave yourself for the sake of us all, and your little sister, here, Trilloras, cares for you very much and would very much like to see-”

The plants rumbled, now a gathering sound like a predator growling, and the leaves reached out towards him.  Marcy stepped back slightly, and Moon grounded himself on her head.  “Ah,” Moon continued.  “Really, what I’m trying to say is, is, you need to-”

A particularly long stalk whipped out from the field and snapped Moon off Marcy’s head, dragging him into the corn.  He let out an undignified scream, which instantly turned into outraged shouting.

“Shit!”  Marcy turned and dumped all the other small creatures back into the car.  “Shit!  Shit!  You all stay here.”

Trilloras wrapped her roots around Marcy’s wrist like a bracelet.

“Except, you, yeah.”

“Be careful, Marcy!” Thistle shouted, which was drowned out by Marcy slamming the car door shut, terrified of anything happening to any of them.

“Moon!” Marcy yelled, trying to peer over the stalks, afraid to touch them.  “Moon!  Shit!”

“You won’t have me like this!” Moon’s voice shouted faintly.  “You scoundrel!  You bombastic cur!”

“Shit.”  Marcy delicately slid her hands between the stalks, parting them.  She took a step into the corn–not only did it physically resist her, but it prompted another growl.  The leaves near the ground started climbing towards her.

“Shit, shit, shit.”  She took a step back, and the corn that had been reaching menacingly towards her retreated.

Moon’s voice was getting further away.  “I’ll tan your hide, you rakish ginger-snap!  There’s only room for one rumbumptious creature here, and it isn’t you!”

“Moon!” Marcy yelled.  “Try to get above the corn!  If you can fly back over to me, we can get out of here!”

“You chicken-hearted fribble!” Moon’s outraged voice echoed.  “How about a taste of this?”

Marcy heard a jet of fire like a flamethrower.  “Shit!  Moon, you’re going to burn the field down!”

“Maybe that’s what this white-livered sneaksby needs!”

Smoke rose up over the field.

“Moon!” Marcy screamed.  “For fuck’s sake!  I’m serious!  I can’t help you over there!”

To her immense relief, she saw Moon’s figure flit up into the air above where the fire was.  An ear of corn was hurled into the air after him, which he dodged.

“Over here, doofus!”

Moon turned around, dodged a tentacle of cornstalk trying to grab him, and jetted over, landing in Marcy’s hair.

“Fuck,” Marcy said, seeing the mass of plants agitatedly getting more and more full of motion.  The plume of smoke thickened.  “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.”

Marcy dove into the driver’s side, started the car, and slammed the gas.  A curling tendril that had been trying to ensnare her back tire snapped off.

***

Well…  They hadn’t helped quite like they’d wanted to, but Trilloras seemed less worried–apparently a dryad could survive their plant being burned if they fled.  Which was what Cordyca needed to do anyway.

Marcy came out of the donut shop and sat back in the car, turning the A/C on.  “We’re clear.”

The creatures which had been hiding in the center console emerged.  Jax was first onto Marcy’s lap.  “What did you get?  What do we have?”

“Um.  There’s a few cream-filled ones.”  Marcy put the half-dozen donuts on the passenger’s seat with the lid open.  “It was cheaper to just get a box of them, so I guess everyone can just have their own.”  It was wildly excessive, but whatever.

Severa sniffed the donuts disdainfully.  “Thistle can have mine.”

Marcy sighed and pulled up her phone, where the news coverage of the burning field was still going.  “I guess just burning the whole thing down is one way to fix it… though not the way I would have picked.  Are we going to get in trouble?”

Thistle stood on the doorhandle to peek over the window.  “Surely not.  Nobody saw us, right?  And they’ll be able to tell where in the field the fire started, so even if they saw you, it wouldn’t look like the fire started from where we were.”

Moon stood in the donut box, picking off sprinkles one by one to eat.  “You’re welcome.”

“Moon, respectfully,” Marcy said.  “If we’re going to meet freaky shit like giant dryads, maybe you should choose your words a bit more carefully.”

Moon reddened.  “Ah.”  He licked a bit of frosting off his finger.  “I suppose I can be a bit overconfident at times.”  It was probably as close to an apology as they would get.

Auburn was trying to nibble on a donut and evidently not enjoying the taste.  “Is she going to be okay?”

Marcy started the engine.  “It seems like it might be clear by now, so… I guess we can go look.”

They retraced their steps, past firetrucks with no sirens going, tired-looking rednecks that Marcy felt the need to apologize to.  She pulled over in the same spot as before, then got out.

The field was mostly gone, charred stubble all that was left on the ground.  A bit of it was still smoking.  Marcy took a few steps in, shoes getting dusty instantly.

She let out a sad sigh.  “I’m sorry, Trilloras.  We just made it worse instead of better.”

Trilloras slithered down Marcy’s leg and into the fertile soil, picking her way over errant stems.  She didn’t seem upset–in fact, she seemed to be homing in on something.

There, pushing its way up between the bits of blackened plants and white, charred mass, was a second dryad.  It was smaller than Trilloras, just a whisper of a sprout, and its body was dried and burned like charcoal.  It was crying silently.

Trilloras came over and knelt down, scooping up the second dryad into her arms.  The crying stopped.

Marcy knelt down.  “Is that her?” she whispered in awe.

Trilloras nodded.  Everything has been burned away.  She can start over.

Thistle hopped down.  “That’s wonderful.”

“She can take one of the plants in our front yard, right?” Marcy said.  “We can keep an eye on her and make sure everything is okay.”

Trilloras hugged her sister to herself, washing them all with relief and the feeling that everything was going to be okay.

***

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[sirowsky-stories]

The Old Prince

Part 12

Author's Note: For once it didn't take me two weeks to finish a new chapter! Wohoo!!

Description: Things take a steep turn for the worse after you find out what's happened to Oberyn.

Rating: Mature 18+ONLY Warnings: Monster Oberyn Martell x Female Reader, AU fic, obviously Halloween themed, reader cusses. Angst. Descriptions of assault and injuries. And Simon's starting to become a warning of his own at this point. I really hate him. Word Count: 6240 Author's Masterlist

   Your use of the light is probably what draws out the spirits, because you’ve just managed to create a perimeter of glowing soil around you when they appear, coming at you from all angles to try and trap you.    Somehow, they feel even bigger now, and maybe they are, having had another day to feed on the darkness since you last saw them.

   The glow left behind by your light-ray makes the ground impervious to the rootlike creatures from below, but while it does seem to damage their feet, or whatever part they use to transport themselves, the spirits walk over it all the same.    Ursa’s the closest so you try firing a beam at her. It hits her right in the chest and makes a lot of damage, but the moment the beam fades, the darkness heals back up. For a moment you can see the faint shine of the trapped spirit inside, through the torn exterior, but it’s gone again just as quickly.

   Still, it proves you were right. They can be saved, if you can just figure out how to maintain the beam for long enough.    Equus advances when Ursa is slowed by the damage, so you refocus on her and using both hands, throw a double beam at her which you try to maintain for as long as you can.    It takes no more than three seconds before you lose it, and while you do cause a lot of grief for the evil mass which clings to her form, you’re nowhere close to freeing her from it.

   The light comes out so concentrated that it burns you as well, every time you use it. So long as the bursts are short, you heal up fine, but as soon as you try and hold it for more than a second, it feels like the blood in your arms boil.    After three seconds your hands are so badly burned they’re charred, and you can’t move your fingers. And of course, that’s when all nine of them have closed ranks around you.

   Surrounded, you suddenly remember what Oberyn had told you about how you’d saved yourself from the spirits after they’d tried to chop you up into fish-food and dropped you in the ocean. That light hadn’t come from your hands and hadn’t seemed to damage you at all.    Doing your best not to panic at the rapidly approaching threat, you close your eyes and try to concentrate all your power towards your heart.

   It would be nearly impossible to describe exactly how you do that, though. The power isn’t like a typical weapon, where you press a button or pull a trigger to activate it. Kinda like Peter Pan and his ability to fly, it comes from happy thoughts and heartwarming memories. And while the light might appear to have the same properties as a weapon, what it actually does is contaminate the things it touches with that happiness. Which is why it doesn’t hurt anyone who isn’t infected by darkness.

   Although, that does beg the question… Why does it hurt you?

   There isn’t time to reflect on it right now, you need to keep your thoughts on the positives. And it works. The light gathers in your chest into such a massive energy that you struggle to contain it while building it further. You want to strike as big a blow as you can against the entire group of spirits, hopefully hitting them all hard enough that the light will overcome the darkness in one fell swoop.

   You can feel them closing in, and you’ve reached the limit of what you can hold back, so you open your eyes and unleash the power.    It’s so immense that from a distance, it must look like half an orb of pure white light engulfs you and everything around you, lighting up the entire eastern coast of the States for a few moments. Too bright for you to see anything at first.

   But when it fades, you can see that the spirits are almost freed. Their smaller original forms have been brought back as the blackened and evil versions of them have been partially blown away, and you smile widely through the fatigue which rapidly spreads through you.    The light continues to eat away at them, freeing more and more of their bodies, so you drop to your knees and wait, ready to defend them should something attempt to stop the transformation.

   Equus is closest to you, and when just one of her hindlegs remains trapped within the crumbling remnants of the creature, she regains her sense of self and starts snorting and stomping, itching to be free. But out of nowhere, something hits her. Hard enough that she’s hurled a hundred yards away from the group, hitting the ground hard outside of the area which has been purged by light.    The darkness immediately swallows her again, reclaiming her to Simon’s army, and before you’ve had a chance to react, there’s another swoop beside you, and another five spirits are knocked out of the safe zone.

   This time, you do catch a glimpse of what hit them. Something massive and much larger than anything your enemy has thus far thrown at you.    You trace the movement back to its source… and then all light and hope leaves your heart in a single shuddering breath.

   “Oberyn…” you whisper, unwilling to believe it could be him, but there’s no mistaking it.

   The size and overall shape alone is proof enough. He looks nothing like Tyrannus anymore, corrupted by the Darkling’s influence until his entire body has become unrecognizable. Covered not just in the same oily substance as the rest of his army, but fundamentally altered. His wings scarcely look capable of lifting him into the air anymore, turned fleshy and then torn to pieces, while his snakelike body has been reduced to little more than bones covered in what looks like strips of meat dipped in tar.    He has no eyes anymore. Just two black holes in a skull that seems filled with oozing slime. And when he uses his flame, he sets himself on fire as well.

   “No… no, please… not you,” you plead, staring in disbelief at your one ally in this war.

   Your reason for fighting in the first place.    Your everything.

   “I can’t do this alone…”

   Somewhere deep down, you know you have the entire world on your side, but right now, all you can see is that the man you love is gone, and it robs you of everything.    The spirits are once again returned to their full evil forms, and you don’t have nearly enough strength to try and free them again.    You sit there on the ground, waiting for the Earth to swallow you. For something to kill or change you. Because you don’t want to fight now. You can’t fight Oberyn.

   “I tried to tell you, sweetheart,” Simon’s smug voice reaches you from your left. “You’re not gonna beat me. Light isn’t enough to chase away darkness, your precious Oberyn is proof of that.”

   You can’t even muster the strength to answer him. Not even the disgusting tone of his voice is enough to irk you anymore.

   “And what about you? The great Day, queen of all the spirits. Your heart is no more impervious to my influence than anyone else’s.    Look at you… giving up the moment things didn’t go as planned. Some fucking champion you are!” he ends on a laugh, and then tears his leg free from the wormlike tendrils which connects him to the ground, so that he can kick you in the face.

   He hits you so hard that several bones in your head break while you’re hurled several feet sideways before you hit the ground. Your nose is all but crushed, spraying blood both out onto your face and backwards down your throat, leaving you coughing and spitting blood as you lay there on the ground, unable to find a single reason to stand up and at least protect yourself.    All you want in that moment is just for him to kill you.

   Another kick lands in your gut, and the sudden deflation of your lungs sends a red cloud into the air in front of you, as the blood in your throat and mouth is forcefully expelled, along with what seems to be some pebbles.    It takes you a couple of beats to realize that you’re missing a few molars.    Then he stomps on the side of your ribcage which is facing up towards the sky, and somehow, the pain inside your body triples.

   “Oh, sweet little Boo. Where’s your never-ending optimism now? Where is that annoying superiority you were always so ready to flaunt?    Are you really this pathetic? Really? You’re not even gonna put up a fight?”

   Clearly, he’s doing everything he can to try and rile you up, just so he can keep pounding you down and prove how superior he’s become. He wouldn’t be toying with you like this unless he’s fucking dying for you to admit he’s smarter and better than you. It’s not enough for him to beat you physically, his twisted ego needs to hear you say it.    But that’s not a privilege you would give him even if you could speak.

   You’re on your side, curled into a little ball to protect your broken ribs and probably massive internal bleeding at this point, when he walks around to your back and prepares for another kick.    But when he steps out of your view, something peculiar becomes visible behind where he just stood.

   There’s a strange light gliding over the undead vegetation. Not pure and white like your light, but misty and mysterious.    It slips effortlessly through the air, seemingly unaffected by gravity, and when it dives into the slithering vines and worm-grass, it cuts right through them like a blade, burning their detached limbs into dust.

   Realizing your vision’s blurred by spatters of blood, you blink a few times, and when the tears have cleaned your eyes, you can see that it’s Caelum.    Oberyn must not have managed to throw her out of the safe zone in time, allowing your light-bomb to have full effect on her.    And seeing her glowing wings, her sharp gaze and clear intent, sparks a small ember inside you.

   Not enough to get you back on your feet, but just enough to raise a barrier around yourself. Just enough that Simon’s next kick never reaches you. Because for all his talk about how light can’t defeat the dark, even this frail little defense is beyond his power to penetrate.    The owl is coming right at you, so you muster the strength to get to your knees and raise your hands into the air, just in time for her powerful claws to grab them midflight.

   She takes you high above the battle, aiming for the clearer atmosphere above the ash clouds, and you can see how the dragon reacts and tries to pursue.    But his body isn’t as nimble or agile as it was when he was alive, and by the time his broken wings have arduously taken him off the ground, you’re already passing through the cloud, reaching the cleansing brightness of the sun just seconds later.

   It takes you out of the worst of your despair, helping you to understand that even the landscape itself which Simon has created fosters and nurtures anything negative it finds, whether out in the world, or inside a single person’s mind.    Once back in the fresh, clear air with the sun on your face, you’re able to see what really happened back there. How Oberyn’s fears about you must’ve left him vulnerable to this evil’s influence, and that it had nothing to do with him not believing in you or not having the strength to fight the darkness beside you.

   You’d felt so alone in those few minutes. As though not just your lover had been lost, but as if the entire world had turned against you.    It’s a relief to once again know in your heart how wrong you’d been to think that, and to feel how the light you’ve poured into the population is still there, even stronger now as it’s had more time to spread.

   The Atlantic coast is closer to Simon’s castle than the Pacific, so Caelum heads due east. Her claws are deeply embedded into your hands to ensure she won’t drop you, and while it is painful, you’re easily able to ignore it since the rest of you isn’t doing much better.    She flies as fast as Oberyn did in his smaller green alter ago, so it doesn’t take her long to reach the Portuguese Acores islands, less than a thousand miles from the European coast.

   She sets down on the closest one, perhaps aware that her handling of you isn’t ideal, and you’re a bit surprised at how carefully she lowers you to the ground before prying her claws out of your wrists and palms. None of the spirits have ever shown you any kindness before, and while you’re no longer the threat they used to believe you to be, they’re still supposed to be neutral towards all living things other than Darklings.

   If you could talk, you would’ve thanked her, but your jaw is broken. And so is your cheekbone, eye-socket and nose. You’re pretty sure there’s at least one fracture in your skull as well.    As soon as you’re down, you slump into a pile on the volcanic soil. Before yesterday, you’d barely even heard of these islands. But your journey of enlightenment passed here as well, so you now know that this is Ilha Do Faial and that the outcrop you’re currently sitting on is actually the westernmost point of Portugal.    Not that it matters much, you’re just a bit fascinated to remember it.

   Caelum lands right beside you and folds her wings away against the strong winds, then she just stands there, staring out over the sea as if waiting for the dark cloud to come looming over her once more.    It will, given enough time. Especially if Simon orders the dragon to fly over the oceans and attempt to help the darkness spread faster. Although, you’re not certain that he could do that without his master present.

   You’ve gotten the impression from all this that it’s only the Darkling himself who can birth and spread his evil into new territory, no matter how many minions he might have. The army helps to feed the cloud by consuming and infecting living things, but it probably can’t go into the light at all. The most important function of the cloud must be to shield the creatures of the dark from the burning rays of the sun.    Which would mean that if you could get the dragon to chase you into the clouds and then disorient him, you should be able to get him high enough to be cleansed by the natural light.

   A longshot perhaps, considering that the creatures you and Oberyn had chased in Detroit had seemed to do just fine with the winter sun, but the thought still gives you hope. Which you’re in dire need of at the moment.    After all, those monsters had existed separate from the true evil.

   Either way, what you need now is to heal. Opening your jacket and lifting your shirt reveals a completely purple abdomen, and there’s a very uncomfortable crunching sound coming from your ribcage at every breath. Maybe not a collapsed lung, based on your breathing, but definitely at least three shattered ribs.    You can see a tower on the other side of a second rise behind this one, and you wonder if you might be able to walk there, so you try standing up.

   You have almost no stability in your frame, which means the wind damned near knocks you over as soon as you get to your feet, but you do manage to stand.    It’s slow progress with your entire left side mostly malfunctioning and having to focus so much on balancing in the rising and falling terrain, you end up worsening your pains by making rapid corrections with damaged muscles to prevent falling. But you won’t heal fast enough without food, so you soldier on, even though each step seems to take several minutes.

   The owl keeps scanning the horizon to the west, but she follows you on foot, waiting until you’ve covered a few meters before she walks or hops to your side, and then waits again.    When you’re finally outside the building, which turns out to be a lighthouse, your efforts seem in vain at first, since the building is just a remnant, not a functioning lighthouse. But on closer inspection, there seems to be an underground structure nearby which might connect to it.

   You’re lucky enough that a person is leaving that structure just as your strength fails and you lose your balance and fall to the ground. He’s likely a tourist, going by the very German accent you hear from him as he shouts for help, but he comes to your aid without hesitation.    Within moments, there are people all around you, shouting in several different languages, someone seeming to want to carry you inside while someone else insists on you remaining still. So, to settle their argument, you gather your remaining energy and clamber to your feet, swiftly aided by two gentlemen, supporting each of your sides.

   The strain on your body has left you barely conscious, but you do your best to walk however far it is they’re taking you, and before long the sunlight is replaced by lamps and the sound changes. Stone walls, you’re guessing.    It surprises you to see Caelum having followed you inside, as you would’ve expected her to stay outside and keep an eye on the advancing darkness. But it seems, for now, she finds your condition more urgent.    No one else here can see her, so she risks nothing by accompanying you.

   Then finally, someone decides to find out what language you speak, starting by asking if you know Portuguese, then French, for some inexplicable reason since you haven’t heard any French accents, until they eventually arrive at English. But you still can’t speak, so your barely coherent response consists of nodding, which unfortunately hurts your entire head badly enough that you pass out.

   When you come to, you’re on the floor but you’re not cold. There’s something soft underneath you. Pillows of some sort, but not the kind one sleeps on, more like cushions from a deckchair or something.    You’re still incredibly tired, but your jaw has healed well enough for you to try and communicate, so you locate the closest person, a woman wearing a nametag. Andreia.

   “F-food…” you half-wheeze, half cough through the dried blood in your mouth and throat.

   You’d forgotten about the missing teeth, but the effect it has on your ability to form sounds quickly reminds you.    The woman is sitting cross-legged beside you, apparently keeping an eye on you, because she reacts immediately when she hears you.

   “Food? You want to eat?” she asks in a soft voice with just a hint of a Spanish or Portuguese accent, and you nod again, very carefully this time. “Are you certain you can? Your face is very badly damaged?” she observes, and she looks truly concerned as she lets her gaze roam over your broken features.

   “Need… protein,” you croak, to which she responds by nearly leaping to her feet and leaving your field of vision.

   You can’t see anyone else, but you can hear low voices further away, although you’re too worried about causing yourself another fainting episode to lift your head and find out if it’s someone who might be able to help you.    But then Andreia returns, and she’s got a tall glass with a straw in her hand.

   “How about a protein shake?”

   Perfect.    You carefully nod your agreement, and she helps to lift your head so you can drink without choking. It’s not exactly delicious, but you can tell it’s one of the better brands because it doesn’t taste of any artificial sweeteners. It’s strawberry flavored and the natural taste of the berries is actually there, although somewhat tainted by all the supplements.    It makes all the difference in your energy levels, though. You empty the glass without pausing and within minutes you start to feel a boost.

   “Do you have more?” you ask the woman, who bewilderedly nods and then gets up to go and prepare another one.

   While she’s gone, a different person with a nametag shows up, only this one looks a bit more authoritative.

   “Boa tarde, senhorita. My name is Miguel Marques and I run this Center. We are all very concerned about what has happened to you. Can you tell us who did this or where it happened?” the man asks in a thicker accent than the younger woman.

   But you can’t answer him. He would never believe or understand any of this. He’s likely just looking to find out if he should involve the police, which you’d rather avoid, and while you’re trying to think of a plausible explanation, he continues.

   “There is an air ambulance on its way here to pick you up and take you to the hospital in Horta-…”

   “Where am I?” you cut him off, partly because you’re genuinely curious about what this place is, and partly because you have no intention of going to any hospital.

   “On Ilha Do Faial,” he unhelpfully explains, and you’re too spent to waste energy on pointless conversation, so you try to indicate your meaning by looking around the room. “Ah, this place? It is Capelinhos Volcano Interpretation Center.”

   You’ve never heard of it, or anything like it, before. But you suppose that it does explain why the place looks so unique.    It’s not terribly useful information, though, which is why you’re relieved when Andreia returns with another protein shake right then. You weren’t all that interested in the place anyway, it was just a convenient distraction.

   Just as you start drinking through the straw, there’s a loud crack in your head as your jaw realigns and reattaches itself, but it must’ve been just as loud outside of your skull because both of your temporary caretakers jump at the sound.

   “Are you okay? What was that, did something break?” the young woman asks in a mild panic, just before there’s a series of smaller cracks indicating your nose has begun to reassemble itself.

   You pause your efforts with the drink as you suddenly feel the urge to move, managing to sit up despite quite a sharp complaint from your ribs. It’s probably the internal organs repairing themselves which prompted the need to shift positions. So, once you’re up and have found a somewhat comfortable position, you continue with the drink, using it to avoid having to answer any more questions for a minute.

   “Uh… Why don’t I get you some towels and warm water to clean up some of that blood,” Andreia suggests and then leaves again without waiting for a reply, clearly rattled by what’s going on with you.

   Mr. Marques is still standing in front of you, but he looks very nervous.

   “Relax. No one on your island is responsible for this,” you reassure him just as you begin to feel new molars being formed in place of the old ones, which is an odd but also satisfying sensation.

   You finish the shake thinking about how you’re probably the only human who can re-grow teeth, while the older man just stands there awkwardly, probably thinking about how odd it is that you seem to be getting much stronger suddenly.    Andreia returns a couple of minutes later with a bright red bucket filled with water, and six small towels, unfortunately crisp white.

   Having something to busy her hands with seems to calm her, so you let her wash your blood-soaked hands and face until she abruptly stops and just stares at you.

   “How…” she starts, but then needs a moment to find the rest of the words. “It’s all gone. All the cuts and bruises… the swelling…”

   Well, there’s no way to convincingly lie your way out of this, so instead, you lift your shirt again, and see them both gasp at the sight of unbruised skin, right before there’s another loud crack followed by several strangely popping noises, as your ribs are pieced back together.    It’s not painful for you, in fact, each time the bones pop back into place or are melded again, some of your existing pain lessens. But the sound is jarring.

   “I guess I could sit here and try to convince you this isn’t what it looks like, but that would quite frankly be incredibly rude to your respective intelligences,” you say, because you’re just too exhausted to think of anything more elaborate than the truth. “I got hurt trying to stop the worst fucking evil you’ve ever imagined which is spreading from the west, but fortunately for me, my superpower is being able to heal myself.    And spread hope to all living things. Not that I’m feeling all that hopeful myself today.”

   It’s your turn to flinch, however, when Mr. Marques suddenly gasps loudly, and then excitedly starts to gesticulate while rambling in Portuguese for a while before he remembers you can’t understand a word of it.

   “Senhorita! It’s you! I saw you in the garden behind the regional offices in Horta yesterday!” he animatedly explains, recognizing you now that all the blood and visible damage has been removed. “I saw the-…” he starts, but then suddenly halts himself and his tone shifts, becoming quiet and serious before he adds: “I saw the dragon.”

   “Yeah, he’s kinda hard to miss,” you sigh, turning your gaze down to your own hands to avoid having to meet their eyes as you recall the feeling of Oberyn’s human hands touching you last night.

   Was it really just last night he’d been making love to you in that hotel room? It feels like a lifetime has passed.

   “You wouldn’t recognize him now, though. The evil got to him, just like it’s gonna get to all of you if I can’t stop it.”

   You’re not sure why you tell them that, except you feel like you need to say it. As if it’s the only way you’ll ever really believe it yourself.

   “I wasn’t there, in the garden,” Andreia says then, and while you can’t see her face since your head is still downcast, you can hear something familiar in her voice. “But I felt the same thing those people did when my mother came home and spoke to me about it.    I felt how my worries just stopped having any power over me. And if you did that… if you can do that for so many people, then I can’t imagine any evil could defeat you.”

   Wonder. That’s what you hear in her. The same wonder as you see in children before they’ve learned how hard the world is. The wonder of innocence.    Because that’s what all these people are. Against the malicious darkness, everyone is innocent.    You look up at her just as the same German from before shouts something and several people start running towards the exits.

   “What’s going on?” Andreia asks, looking to her boss, who seems just as confused.

   But you know without understanding the languages shouted around you. You can feel the change in the air, the heaviness of the oncoming storm.

   “The Darkling is coming,” you tell them, and see a shiver pass through them both at Simon’s real name, as if their very souls know how dangerous such a creature is.

   Rising to your feet, you find your body feeling strong once more, and see Caelum perched on the backrest of a lounge chair, spreading her wings and flapping them a few times in preparation, knowing the next battle is looming.

   “Whatever happens,” you say, turning back to the people who have cared for you, “don’t let your lights be taken. Don’t let despair steal your hope. I’ll need your strength to carry me against the tide and the wind.”

   With that, you too start heading for the nearest exit, emerging from the underground structure via a concrete ramp. In front of you is the massive volcano and behind it, the rapidly darkening evening sky as the sun has begun to set. But when you reach the end of the ramp and turn around towards the open ocean, it isn’t a sunset which meets your eyes.    Instead, something similar to, but infinitely more sinister and destructive than a hurricane, fills the entire horizon from north to south with shades of grey, brown and black. There’s a sense of foreboding about it, where it hangs overhead, too close and moving too fast.

   Lightning cuts through it but doesn’t manage to illuminate it, and you can’t help but think it’s Oberyn who’s flying around in there, spewing his flame into the atmosphere trying to relieve frustration.    You wonder if he remembers you now. If his fear keeps you alive somewhere in the deepest recesses of his mind.

   Something flutters behind you, up against your head, and you look up to find Caelum positioning herself with one foot on each of your shoulders, but she doesn’t lift you. Her claws sit lightly on top of your jacket, as if she’s just using you as a perch.    If she is, you don’t mind. She doesn’t weigh much of anything even though she’s got her wings folded down. But the longer she sits there, watching the approaching cloud with you, the more you begin to feel like there’s a voice inside your head.

   Not like what the dragon could do, it’s much more subtle than that, and more of a melody than an actual voice, but it’s definitely trying to tell you something.    It feels a bit like Obi-Wan telling Luke to use the force, which you dismiss without much thought because it must be some rogue interpretation error made up by your brain.    Until you realize that this is exactly what she’s saying. Whether using pop-culture to help you understand her, or if that really is just how your brain interprets the odd melody, but she is telling you to use the force.

   Which must be a reference to the power of hope you’ve put into the world, but you’re still not sure what she means, or how you’re even supposed to wield it. You spread the light as a defensive mechanism to keep the dark contained to the American continent, and give the world a chance to protect itself, but you never thought you’d be able to use that same power yourself.

   Now though, having learned of the possibility, you suddenly become aware of just how much of yourself exists within all other living things through that energy.    You’re connected to all of it, from the smallest insect to the largest whale and the tallest mountains to the deepest trenches. You can feel the accumulated strength of all their light, but you still have no clue how to turn it into a weapon.

   “What do I do?” you ask the owl, feeling tears form in the corners of your eyes from the soot and ash which is already reaching you on the wind. “It’s just you and me, Caelum. How do we stop all that?”

   “Who are you talking to?” Andreia asks from your right.

   You hadn’t noticed her coming to stand beside you, so her voice surprises you. She sounds… calm. As if the cloud of death almost hanging over her island is of no consequence.

   “There’s an owl sitting on my shoulders,” you say with a small smile, certain she won’t believe you.

   But she looks up into the air above you and you’d swear you can see her trace the contours of something large up there.

   “Assombroso…” she breathes, surprising you again.

   “You can see her?”

   “No, not exactly. I just… know she’s there… somehow. Like I can almost see how she distorts the atmosphere around her.”

   “Huh. Then the barriers between worlds must be really thin right now. You shouldn’t be aware of these beings at all, no matter what’s going on.”

   “Beings? There are more of these invisible owls?” she asks, and there is that wonder in her voice once more.

   Strangely, hearing it makes you happy, despite everything.

   “Not owls, but there are more of them. And they’re all trapped in there,” you say, nodding towards the impending darkness. “If I can’t save them, we’ll all die.”

   “Oh. How are you gonna do that?”

   You’re about to answer you don’t know yet, but just as you open your mouth to say it, there’s a literal click inside your head which distracts you.    At first you think it’s just another fracture healing, but then the wind shifts direction, heading due west towards the enemy, and you know Caelum’s doing it on purpose. Just like you somehow know that it’s because she senses a shift in you, which apparently means it’s time to go to war.

   And then it hits you.

   The Darkling’s power comes from the fact that all living things have darkness in them, while Day’s power comes from the fact that all living things also have light in them. But where his strength is limited by his need to physically infect the living, yours isn’t limited by anything.    You can exist everywhere. Absolutely everywhere. All at once. Because light can travel through almost everything.

   “I’m gonna create my own army,” you answer Andreia, with a huge smile on your lips, before turning to her to test your theory.

   Like flipping a switch, you let the part of you that’s inside of her blossom, and within a single second, her entire body starts to shine like a star in the sky.    She’s still aware of herself, you haven’t taken over her mind or her ability to control her own actions, but your light is a shield, and it was put inside her for the purpose of protecting, so that’s what she now feels compelled to do.

   Reaching out across the island, you find everything your hope has touched, and one by one, the population begins lighting up the evening from the ground, and the animals and vegetation soon follow.    Within minutes, the whole island is glowing. An oasis in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. The first line of defense against the thundering cloud in the distance.

   Everyone turns to face the darkness without your asking or commanding them to. They all know the stakes and they all choose to fight; all you’ve done is given them a choice.    Simon’s cruelty would have consumed them, leaving no one with any choice, but because you’ve inoculated them against him, unless they decide to surrender to him, these souls will remain free until they die.    That’s their superpower. And a mighty one it is.

   It’ll be less than half an hour before the cloud reaches you, at which point, you will face the first real test of your character. And this time, you’re not gonna sit on the ground and let your enemy beat you half to death. ��  This time, you’re gonna teach the darkness to fear this world and the ferociousness of an army shielded by Lux herself.

   “Remember,” you tell Andreia, who’s still standing right beside you, “the evil which that cloud protects is gonna do everything it can to make you think of everything bad that’s ever happened to you. It’s gonna try to magnify every fear and insecurity within you since that’s how it’ll reach past your defenses and corrupt you.    So, no matter what it whispers to you, cling to the love and happiness you have in your life, however big or small it might be. Because those things are all you need to keep that evil out.”

   She listens intently, and then a flash of memory from her mind passes to you through the connection of your light, and in the memory, you see a face you recognize.    You’ve seen so many new faces over the past couple of days that it takes you a moment to place this one. It looks very different in the memory compared to when you met her, but there’s no doubt.

   “Daniela is your sister…” you say to Andreia, who turns her head sharply to stare incredulously at you.

   “You know her?”

   “No, but I met her today. In Antarctica.”

   “Really? Is she alright?” she asks, but still with a smile on her face and no hint of worry in her eyes.

   “She’s doing wonderful. I helped her to let go of your mother,” you add, testing to see if the mention of someone who was likely not a good influence on either sister’s life might put a crack in the shield.

   “Good. She never did manage to get past it, and she’s always refused help from everyone around her. I’m so happy to hear she’s still alive.”

   No cracks. Not even a dent. The light shines just as strongly even as she tackles this difficult subject.

   “She’s fighting with you today,” you remind Andreia, while also reminding yourself of just how vast your army is. “Everyone is fighting for each other today.”

Part 13

The Ten Spirits of the World Air - Forest - Water - Stone - Night - Autumn - Winter - Spring - Summer.

Thank you so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed it! If you wish to be notified when this story is updated, follow @sirowsky-stories and turn on notifications, or just ask nicely, and I'll tag you.

@harriedandharassed @kittenlittle24 @joelswritingmistress @pedrostories

[ultimate-word-tournament]

Ultimate Word Tournament!

haustorium (English, Biology Dialect) [hɔˈstɔriəm] 1. Rootlike structure or a structure that grows into or around another structure to absorb water or nutrients. 2. A root of a parasitic plant modified to take nourishment from its host.

γαλῆν (Greek, Typo Dialect) galên [ ɡa.lɛ̂ːn] (I think, let me know if this is wrong) a weasel. Famously said by Hegelochus instead of "γαλήν" (calm sea), putting him out of a job and mocked by all to this day.

[mjhartwork]

Dryad's saddle, reference is from May 26th, 2023

The huge mushroom is just an extension of the even-huger mycelium, a rootlike structure rotting the heart of its host tree.

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[zondearts]

can you talk about wolf au. I'm like an ipad baby and PRSK AUs are how i stay occupied

Oh you don't know how that ask delights me!

It's gonna be a long dump (cuz I've been brainroting for a while) so all that stuffs under the cut

So the prsk Wolf au, was this lil stray idea I had around the time when the werewolf shiho card came out. Basically what if I write a fic in german to improve my german and use the german fairytale inspired set as a base. The original plan was to write a semi long polyneed/shihosaki fic, but that turned into me only writing about the world building and culture, which turned into me writing smaller sidestories to get back into the mood, what turned into... must be around 20k Mizuena slowburn. (but I still haven't managed posting anything aside from some art :P)

I will genuinely try my best to formulate anything coherent, because I am a scatterbrain who suffers under "has to mention small details lest they burst" disease.

Anyways the setting of the au is in the medivelesque city Diva in a country called Sekai. Sekai is a small to medium sized country, around the size of Bayern (the biggest German state) and is under the rule of the Ootori royal family. Next to them four other families rule over parts of Sekai, the Asahinas, the Hinomoris, the Tenmas and the Shinonomes, who all currently reside in Diva.

For each I have selected some symbols which appear in ornaments and patterns.

The Ootori naturally have the phoenix as a coat of arms, they're tbh the only family I haven't properly fleshed out, but they united Sekai (it previously was several smaller countries at war) and at one point almost seperated Sekai, yet that's all I managed.

The Asahinas are a more interesting bunch. Coat of arms and Ornament vise they mainly have symetric rootlike meandering purple patterns, with occasional snowflake-shapes, mostly to potray how the family is connected and interwoven in Sekais politics and how they uphold order. (Their territory is also more Renaissance esque for that reason) They are a family of perfection, which delights most and creeps out some.

The Hinomoris coat of arms is a white Hare looking at the moon. They also have a more forest animal theming, since they control most of the forestry and hunting. (architecturally they have more of a gothic architecture, but only for the nobles and the church (oh the church wai wai)) They're next to a massive forest which I oh so love thinking about. They are a old family next to old trees and in possession of an old church in need of restoration.

The Tenmas coat of arms is obviously the Pegasus (more of a alicorn, but psshhh Tsukasa said it's a Pegasus and his word is law). They have a rich mythological beasts theming, since they're from a long bloodline of dragonslayers etc. They're also paired with Lions, for example one of their cities outside of Diva's called Leo. They're somewhat the spirit of Sekai and enjoy allot of goodwill from the people. (They have a more romanesque building style)

The Shinonomes coat of arms are two Wolfs standing next to a color palette and chisel. Their theming is more prominent in their social standing as respected artist, but rotten family. Their wolves with turned heads, but still wolves. They don't own much land and only work in the arts, closed off in a giant building.

The church shows it's leoneed influences. First Miku is the main deity, the god who creates with song and put the world in harmonious order, which is the geocentric worldview (which I have thought about too much, like man alchemist sure as fuck loved they're geocentricm) besides her, the other cryptonloids are gods aswell. The religion is more music oriented, most prominent in the festivals each month (which I wish to elaborate on, but I can't make this dump that long)

The interesting part of the beliefs is what the heavenly order deems as good and bad, since those are the main sources of conflict here.

Because next to humanity and the gods are the others (die Anderen) a generalized group of those who are not part of the divine order. Those can be simply animals like Ravens, bats, wolves and cats, but also mythical beings like fae, fairies, elves etc.

The normal attitude towards them is neutral, stay away, don't call lest they answer and so on.

All fine and dandy, but the country has been hit by a wave of werewolves gone mad because of a bloodmoon (mythologically speaking, the wolf in the sky (inspired by norse mythology) bit the moon coating it in blood and declaring hunting season) muddying the already blurry borders between human and other.

That attack caused hate and unease to spread around, folks are willing to purge anything other to strengthen the borders between normal and abnormal, healthy and sick, good and bad...

Anyways all the blorbos are other in some way shape or form.

Starting from the ones who are other before the bloodmoon:

Shizuku and Airi:

So Shizuku is the future heir of the Hinomori family (becoming heir after her father dies a bit before the bloodmoon), but she's a bit of a clutz, a bit of an airhead even, so there's some obvious struggle there.

Well she once went into the forest in one restless night and attracted Airis attention. Airi is a Fairy who's also lord of the forest, the same the Hinomoris claim as their territory. Because of that Airi snuck into Shizukus house, hidden as a maid to test if she's worthy to be the "representative" of her forest. (she's just gay)

I have written a bit about their relationship at that time before the bloodmoon, exploring Airis conflicted feelings about where her feelings towards Shizuku belong. Typical "You can't love me! You're a girl and I'm a worm!" plot, mixed with the themes of wildness (symbolized by a lynx) and domestication (a dog). After the blood Moon Airi works with Shizuku, who kinda sorta is about to start a civil war...

Anyways Minoharu:

Haruka is a travelling hunter, who hunts down monsters and other beasts. Minori is a gay nature spirit....like...yk? I also considered writing about their relationship before the bloodmoon, trying to find the idol vibes in it. Atm it appears to be that Haruka hunts down the most unruly creatures thus garnering the admiration of the people and the others.

For most of the time the gratitude of the others would be expressed by odd gifts, like feathers, nuts, pebbles and flowers, for Haruka can't see them. Minorin (the gayass) has been following her for a while, occasionally aiding in Harukas hunts and gifting her stuff like the rest. At some point Haruka noticed her and they kinda sorta got to be partners (sorry didn't manage much development on that yet) After the bloodmoon Haruka got commissioned by the king to kill off the stray werewolves, that's when they started working with Shizuai.

Then Rui and Nene:

Rui is human born with hagstone eyes (dual colored eyes the center is a different color etc) he can see the others. Therefore he got ostracized, because of his weird behavior. Being a exentric doesn't help, so when he found a trapped Siren (Nene, who got kidnapped from her homeland and now chills with Rui), he decided to just... hermit it up, goes full on mad alchemist (raaah). His presence before the bloodmoon is during the Mizuena prebloodmoon plot. There he functions as Mizukis strange friend who asked them to transport riddled letters to An.

An here is a affiliate to Rui, ex knight and of a lesser known nobel family, she and Kohane are the owners of a tavern. Ans task is keeping check on Rui and smoothing relations between the town and the others.

Mizuena:

Mizuki is a changeling chased out of their village after their family found out that they infact weren't their son. They wound up hanging out with Rui for a while, since they have a similar stance of being an unwelcome mix of other and human. On their journey to Diva they met Ena in a small town far from the city (she ran from her family for art reasons) Ena joined them in their journey, finding comfort in their relationship, since Mizuki doesn't treat her as part of "his" family. They bond together, Mizuki assists her in her impulsive new goal of becoming a knight, they have the classic Mizuena runaway story and wham. Gaē

I have written a lot about that in a fic (might finally manage posting the first chapter sometime, still it's in german soo...) focusing on falling out of humanity, searching a future etc. swell stuff to ponder about, but ngl I fear Ena got a bit too ooc

Kanamafu:

So...Kanade's dead...she died...womp womp. Aight lemme explain. Mafuyus presence before the bloodmoon is just being the friendly neighborhood knight, until she ends up standing in ominous mist, talking in a monotone hollow voice how people are cursed, or damning themselves. She has the same eyes as Rui, can see the other, but she's a Asahina, so that can't be, no good girl stares at the corner for hours tsk tsk. Welp that leads to some mental damage, seeing the tortured ghosts of the past, but pretending that everything is fine, mixed with the already present Mafu...trauma, yeagh not fun. Anyways one night Mafuyu heard a haunting song and finds out it's Kanades restless ghost, who cursed herself with the duty of singing prayers to save folks...so they ended up being besties :3

Now! To the after bloodmoon stuff:

So around the time before the bloodmoon, like around one/two months, Saki left the country to get some better help for her illness. While that happens the horrendous bloodbath occurred and Shiho (who was a knight atm) got bit by a Werewolf and spread the curse on Ichika and Hona before running off into the forest. Yay.

Since Shiho only was freshly turned Ichika and Hona got about...wowza two years until the curse takes hold on them. Naturally the panicked people aren't fond of two (there were more but...those didn't make it) future werewolves in their mids, but here comes Shizuku with a steel chair.

The Hinomoris are next to the Asahinas one of the most powerful families in Sekai (excluding the Ootoris) ,so Shizuku, the new head of the family, threathens a civil war if the city harms any people injured by the attacks. She got some backing, since the family helped out a lot of the people affected by the attack. This in mind they came to a conclusion that the cursed will live under their watch until they turn and welp...get executed.

Nice and dandy, back to Saki out of country.

Girl has no clue and will not have any clue for a while.

Her entire friendgroup affected by the perils, Tsukasa and Ichika came to the conclusion to not tell her the entire thing.

So after she returned, still stuck in a room with fabeled beasts painted on her walls, she listens to Ichikas monthly lies. It's all she has.

Until Ichika acts weird, Tsukasa kicks her out, leading to a debate between the Tenmas, where Saki hears the truth and runs away into the forest like Shiho.

There the plot scatteres.

So Ichika? she was under the surveillance of a troop of knights...to be precise niigo. Officially Ena and to balance it out Mafuyu, but Mizuki and Kanade are their plus ones. They have a sorta neat relationship, especially Ichimizu, which I really need to explore more. That aside, Ichika is about to go full wolf and niigo is in crisis mode. Mafuyu is of the opinion to kill her before Ichika reveals their secret. Ena is full, no...no we shouldn't?? unwilling to follow some orders and kill a bro. Mizuki and Kanade are the middle ground, going, hey so killing Ichika is bad actually, but if we let her run away, Ena will be blamed and might even get killed in her place.

They come to a conclusion that they have to surrender Ichika, but find Saki for her, who's disappearance was announced by a very concerned Tsukasa rushing through the streets.

On Honamis side, she already got put in a cell for being a bit too dubious at the monastery. She managed gathering some tolerance, by cutting of contact with Ichika and going full people pleaser, but one bad day and schwomp jail.

One day Emu just spawns in the jail, since a kind friend of her wound up getting put behind bars. Through the conversation Honami gathers that Saki vanishes and admits her concern, motivating Emu to go on a search for her.

And Kasa? his character is a fun one ngl. Tsukasa in this au is enamored by the heroic legends of his forefathers. He has a bit of a self-absorbed vibe for most of the time, but after Saki left he had to face the reality of his beloved fairytales.

So emu contacts him and leads him to her odd friends in the odd forest, Rui and Nene. So that forms the wxs Saki search party.

Aight now where's Saki?

In a gay cottage.

Yk Shiho running off into the forest? Yeagh she got caught by Shizuku. She and Airi put the Shiwolf into time out in the hidden Hinomori hut (hidden by Airi, for I love myself some twisting reality and creating hidden spaces :3. Rui does that as well)

Haruka and Minori who got commissioned to hunt down wolves like Shiho almost found her, but Shizuku managed convincing them otherwise, so they now hang out with Shiho.

How Saki ended up there? Shiho found her collapsed in the snow and idk man unnecessary feelings aside, she wouldn't let anyone die in the snow, let alone Saki.

So she brought her to Minoharu to care for and just hides in the sidelines to maintain distance.

The entire gay cottage part is just slowburn Shihosaki (at least that's what my notes say) and Saki getting the mobility aid she deserves.

Back to niigo, Mizuki managed getting close to finding where Saki may be, but got caught by Airi. Now Niigo has a new sidehussel, overthrowing the government (more precisely the Asahinas).

Luckily, since Ichika is...in prison, Mafuyu has to go back home, so Mizuki can follow her there and snoop around.

From that point things stop being concrete

Around some time, Wxs managed to find Saki, but now they have to figure out how to yk...not let the rest of leoneed get publicly executed.

And well there's a struggle, since even if they save Ichihona, they still have to completely convince a paranoid country, that the others are actually swag and maybe they should hold hands and make out with them.

Either that or run away, something that niigo suggests.

I still didn't manage to find out what is the best solution....

Aight so this is my...~2k long ramble about the Wolf au, only leaving out, traditions, the other vocaloids, myths, interesting motives, changing seasons, further political affairs, horses, different povs, my attempts in using the german language in a interesting manner and...Akitoya.

Idk if that dump is coherent, might make a more coherent one in my prsk account (to shill said account @sleep-deprived-luka )

[ruthlesslistener]

Are pk eggs soft and translucent like centipede eggs or are they hard? Love me some eggs.

I actually headcanon wyrm eggs to be like snake eggs, with a leathery shell that has varying levels of calcification upon development! Gives them a little bit of a chance toughing out hot, dry conditions if their parent didn't manage to dig a den deep enough to get a good moisture layer going for the clutch. I tend to envision them as being more firm than snake eggs, but not totally hard or brittle. They'd feel like leather balls stuffed with a water balloon if you held them, and are pretty similar in composition. In PK and WL's case, their eggs had softer, more leathery shells bc WL's body packed them in a seed pod (which could grow rootlike tendrils to absorb water), which meant that they didn't need to harden up to avoid dessication.

Doesn't mean they are always that way during the reproductive cycle, however- I headcanon that wyrms are capable of ovipositing mature eggs into another's brood pouch during rough times, which occurs before that tough exterior forms. Oviposited eggs are soft and transluscent, like frog eggs, but that's because they're unfertilized cells surrounded by a membrane and packed with nutrients so that the receiving partner already has half their work cut out for them. The ovipositing reproductive technique only occurs with long-lasting pair bonds in sparce environments, however, so it's much rarer for it to be triggered (the idea is that since ovulating wyrms usually pack on more fat and muscle than non-ovulating wyrms, they can do the work of making nutrient-rich gametes and then pass them off to their partner so that they can go hunting for them and guard the nest more efficiently). While PK did have the environmental cue of a long-lasting pairbond with WL, Hallownest being a food-rich area would have reduced the likelyhood of that switch being flipped.

Them being transparent like centipede eggs would be a pretty good vehicle for angst at them being voided, however, so feel free to toss all that shit about calcified eggs out the window if the alternative sounds more emotionally appealing lmao

[scoutbot]

yknow how in plants vs zombies the plants bios talk about them like every instance of the plant is the same singular person?

that makes most sense for the mushrooms - irl (and presumably also in pvz) the mushroom itself is a very small part of the overall organism (specifically the reproductive organs) - the vast majority of it exists underground in the form of mycelium, a thin, expansive rootlike structure.

basically what im saying is that in plants vs zombies its likely theres only one of each of the mushroom "plants" and what we see in game is just a small aboveground protrusion

[jander-sunstar]

Magical Plants of the Core

Vampire hunting is not my only hobby. Despite my black thumb curse, I consider myself to be quite a capable gardener, and you’d be surprised at how often the two overlap!

So, let’s talk plants.

Many Vampires have specific horticultural weaknesses; garlic for the young and the weak, fresh flower petals for those of elven stock, and burning tobacco or pipeweed for Vampiric halflings. But those are all mundane herbs, common enough and with a hundred other uses besides repelling the undead. Magical plants are much, much rarer, and also much more potent in the hands of a hunter.

------

Blood Seeker Garlic is an unusual item, a plant made magical through action and not nature. Ordinary garlic can be cultivated in such a way that it acquires something of the nature of the Vampire itself; water the growing herb regularly enough with Vampire blood, and the resulting bulb gains a taste for the stuff. This can then be thrown or otherwise pressed against bare Vampiric flesh, upon which it actually sprouts rootlike tendrils and tries to burrow into the creature to feast!

This is one of the rare plants on this list that I can actually make use of; I wear gloves as a habit, have little aversion to garlic due to my substantial age, and, obviously, shedding my own blood for a horticultural project is child’s play. Some hunters reject the use of Vampire blood as black magic, but I provide occasional gifts of blood seeker garlic to those of my acquaintance that will accept them; any edge is worth keeping, in our line of work.

------

Nightblight is a species of wolfsbane unique to Kartakass, in an example of the land providing a counter to its ruler’s evil, and though its effects are not limited to Vampires, it is a preeminently useful herb for any hunter - provided you find yourself within its very limited growing range. 

Nightblight is, put simply, utterly repellant to anything that even resembles a wolf. To humans and ordinary animals the scent is barely detectible, but any shapechanger with a wolflike form - werewolves, wolfweres, and yes, many Vampires - will refuse to go anywhere near the stuff unless possessed of the most iron of wills. Natural wolves are likewise repelled, and even those transformed into wolves by arcane magic find themselves loathing the smell of the plant. I can speak from personal experience here; even on two legs the scent is vile, and my attempts to collect some for personal use failed utterly.

------

Lilies of Eternal Slumber are native to the jungles of Valachan. These nightblooming flowers are pale on the outside and bright crimson on the inside; upon contact with Vampiric flesh, the petals act as holy water does and burn quite severely. So strong is this effect that a lily can be presented as a holy symbol and used to keep an attacking Vampire at bay, and if a wreath of four blooms is placed around a Vampire’s neck, it mimics the full effect of sunlight - up to and including lethality.

The lily has passive effects as well; any mortal that holds a bloom is more easily able to resist a Vampire’s charm, and anyone already dominated in such a way has a chance to break free upon touching the flower - although they will resist doing so.

The most potent ability of these flowers, however, is that which gave them their name. If but a single bloom is placed on a Vampire’s resting coffin, the Vampire within will be sent into the deepest sleep possible for our kind, short of true death. This effect can only be ended if another creature removes the flower, and a Vampire trapped in such a way risks starvation over the course of many years. I cannot help but wonder if the lily was not an ingredient in the poison that was Strahd’s punishment upon his grandniece, my dearest Lyssa, for her attempt to unseat him as ruler of Barovia.

Unfortunately my efforts to cultivate the plant outside of Valachan were unsuccessful - and, really, even I am not foolish enough to keep a stock of such a plant close to my own home. As a hunter I cannot make effective use of it, and as a Vampire I am as vulnerable as any other to its effects.

[cyberneticlagomorph]

Crverse gnomes:

Gnomes are small, mouselike creatures that are related to dryads as well as dwarves and have a symbiotic relationship with certain plants.

They have developed a special layer of fatty tissue just beneath their skin that they plant seeds or starts in and let them grow as a form of camouflage and an emergency source of food through photosynthesis.

Their trademark pointy hats are family specific, containing special embroidery that denotes family history/family name/birth order, they also serve as very tiny bags of holding.

Gnome tails are long, branching and rootlike. Occasionally ending in flower bulbs or leaves. The rootlike appearance is not completely superficial, and is used to gather nutrients from their surroundings.

It's traditional for gnome spouses to trade seeds so that their beloved becomes "a part of them", gnome pups (babies) are planted with one of their mother's plants. A common place to do this is on the top of the pup's head, this often results in the pup looking like a pikmin for awhile until they get their first hat.

They also have similar whiskers to dwarves but not as many since they have much better eyesight, but gnomish and dwarvish are very similar languages. Gnome whiskers cab feel as well as taste and smell, like Dwarven whiskers and catfish barbels, they're also highly prehensile.

All gnomes have large round ears like mice, and intelligent dark eyes. Their bodies are covered in thin coats of fur, also like mice.

Unlike mice, they have opposable thumbs and the intelligence to use them

Despite living in wild places and gardens, gnomes are very accomplished engineers and mechanics, this has earned them the moniker of "gremlins" as they've been found sabotaging human war planes and tanks, as well as farming equipment if it threatens their home

Gnome burrows aerate soil

Redcaps are the gnome warrior class who dip their hats in the blood of their slain enemies and often bathe in it to feed the plants on their backs. Many Redcaps are planted with toxic, thorny or otherwise dangerous plants to make themselves more formidable

The current gnome queen is Rosebud the Black-capped, she is planted with roses and uses her thorny tail like a whip or garrot. It is said that she's killed multiple humans single handedly. Her cap is so caked in blood it looks black, hence her title.

[funeralprocessor]

Kind of a crack lore theory, but I think it's interesting that there's an association between trees and dragons in both dark souls and elden ring, the humans in dark souls 3 were turning into flying rootlike things with an affinity for light magic, and afaik elden ring humans are descended from dragons. So maybe the DS3 pilgrim butterflies and angels and such survived whatever ending occurred and evolved into the dragons, and eventually returned (degraded? Evolved?) back into humans.

[botanical-feverdream]

God had poked His finger down into my nerves and gently, almost without thinking, brought a little confusion among those threads. And God had pulled His finger back, and behold--there were filaments and fine rootlike threads on His finger from the threads of my nerves. And there remained an open hole behind His finger which was the finger of God, and a wound in my brain behind the path of His finger.

But after God had touched me with the finger of His hand, He let me be and touched me no more and let nothing evil come upon me. He let me depart in peace and He let me depart with the open hole. And nothing evil will come upon me from God who is the Lord through all Eternity....

[pkm-obsidian]

Seepip

The Stomp Seed Pokemon

Grass

Small Pokemon with a permanent pep in their step. They travel in large groups, up to 40 members, all marching in step. Their dried leaves are used as an energy boosting additive to drinks.

Laxaflurr

The Bushroot Pokemon

Grass

Very chill and relaxing, these Pokemon emit a sweet scent that puts anything to smell it at ease.They spend countless hours in the sunlight, rootlike feet deep in the earth. Wherever they root, thick vegetation sprouts up beside them. There is rumor that some of the world's forests are where ancient Laxaflurr took their final rest.

[ardenrosegarden]

I had the thought on the verge of sleep of modern AU John, Duke of Bedford collecting gemstones and fossils and having a very organised collection. What would be his favourite specimen do you think?

Ohh, I'm kinda in love with this image

Jenny Stratford mentions a lot of the historical John of Bedford’s collection had a strong preference for St. George, St. John the Baptist, and certain heraldic motifs like the root device that are also helpful for picking out which pieces are his.

I couldn’t pick out anything pointing to a specific taste in rock/mineral type, but I am kind of drawn to the root device bit, because I immediately thought of the dendritic crystal habit, which has a very plant-esque, rootlike look. Several minerals, like hematite and manganese oxide, and rocks like moss agate have that sort of trademark root look (I don’t think a modern AU John would really care too much about stuff looking like the root device itself, I just think he’d be drawn to them because he thinks they look neat).

In terms of fossils, after rotating him in my mind a little, I've become partial to the idea that he would be a fossil echinoderm enjoyer. They're a pretty common fossil in a lot of limestones, but they often disarticulate after death and getting the entire fossil is a lot harder. I feel like John though would have a pretty good eye for detail and be able to recognize what he's looking at.

Part of me is also kind of fascinated with echinoids in particular’s ability to call back to ideas like loss and life after death, and items like the Bedford Hours through the the fossils' possible folkloric ties as a symbol of resurrection. There's also fossil echinoids collection sites in places like Herefordshire, Oxfordshire, Normandy, and Burgundy.