"Oh, Blight!"

"Oh, Blight!" you almost forgot.

Focusing again in the passageway you notice the group going slowly and picking their way, suspicious of everything. Concentrating you sprout your flowers all along the passage and open them up spreading toxic pollen throughout the air. The magic drain was horrifically high for such a short duration when I was using it for the length of the entire passage.

The heroes, caught in the middle of your unavoidable toxicity begin coughing and run for the exit. The speed-freak exits first and expertly dodge the ranged shots from your newly sprouted seedlings, circling away from the entrance of the passage.

The Xenia knockoff came out next, looking perturbed by the poison damage she took in her flight, and after taking a few knocks from the ranged attacks of the seedlings, she let out an enormous yell throwing up leaves and loose branches all around her creating a small clean swept clearing of 3 feet across.

Tilting forward, my enormous form creaked as I brought my "face" closer to the group. It had an immediate effect, the barbarian and the speed-freak looked up, awed by my overwhelming power.

"I didn't know there were mini-bosses in this area!" shouted the speed-freak with a childish joy.

"Well, let's knock it down fast then. I think my axe is up to the job." replied the She-barian as the mage emerged coughing from the tunnel. Seeing the mage with tears streaming down her face, I let the Toxic Pollen ability fade. With the hideous cost of that ability and the current batch of seedlings, I was almost out of mana.

Rather upset my glorious stature didn't inspire fear and cowardice, I had to face the grim reality that these heroes were rather powerful. Thankfully, it was sunny out, and Meira was handy, combined I was able to refill my magic to about 3/4.

The few spiders had lept into the fray, but one of them was smashed out of the air immediately by the barbarians axe. Firing at her with ranged attacks my seedlings were scoring minor hits, and I added my ranged attack as well.

The mage who seemed heavily distracted before began a quiet spell in the back. That was not a good sign, and I had lost track of where the speed-freak got too.

Just then a blade scored a hit on me from behind. A huge hit, taking down a portion of my hp bar. Goddamn hero backstabs, so she was a rogue! Unable to turn to her atm I fixed my focus on the barbarian with desperation, dealing handfuls of damage with the combined hits from spiders, seedlings and myself.

The speed-freak was a blur, she sprinted through the spread out line of seedlings, knocking them down with ease. As the last spider blew up in a small cloud of XP and the seedlings rotted back into the ground, it was now mano-a-mano against the hero party.

The She-barian gave a groan and toppled over, her health being ticked down by consistent poison markers. I guess those spiders were helpful for something aside from cannon fodder. Firing once more into the She-barian created an explosion of XP and a loud *Ding, Ding*

Just after the barbarian was gone, the mage finished her casting. Both the mage and the speed-freak glowed green for a second and all traces of poison was removed along with any other status effects that the wizard had gained from the pollen, due to her low resistances. That was almost perfect, it probably would have saved the barbarian had the spell went off a moment sooner, which means your luck is holding.

The speed-freak ran again, but this time you were keeping an eye on her, not allowing her any openings for a second backstab.

The mage began another casting, and this time you have a feeling it is coming for you. Forcing your tendrils to uproot you smash them down on the mage knocking her prone and you quickly spammed Absorb draining her mana and effectively limiting casting as well as any possible movement.

With my magic topped up, I was feeling pretty good despite the health I had lost.

The speed-freak begins to run over but the mage yells to her "Don't bother, it drained my magic, I am useless at the moment! Go get it!"

The speedy rogue became a blur. Her movements became nearly impossible to track, and she scored a few more minor hits on my truck at ground level. Had she been holding back before?

Firing out some more seedlings, they only proved a momentary distraction for her to destroy before turning her attention back to me.

Whipping my long powerful tendrils in her direction felt like it might end things right there if she was so speedy than maybe she would be weak to incoming damage.

The trouble was hitting her, as she effortlessly dodged the tendrils and scored a few gashes on them. Hitting the tendrils didn't reduce my health in any way, but she was becoming a huge problem that I didn't know how to handle.

Glancing over at the mage I wondered who this party was to travel with a rogue of her power. Just in time, I saw the mage pour the contents of a blue potion into her mouth, straining against the bounds of the tendrils to do so. A quick Absorb took care of that, and for good measure, I used Absorb Meira too.

Feeling a few more slashes open up long gashes in my surface, I was losing Hp to a **** I didn't know how to counter. I could feel her climbing my branches, and stepping over my tendrils, dancing her way higher through my foliage.

As she got higher and made more cuts, my health kept shrinking, and I was getting ****. Nothing was working. She destroyed new seedlings outright, the tendril strikes were too slow, and I couldn't effectively fire my ranged attack with how close she was.

The mage was grinning as her companion showed me her mettle and her metal, damaging my beautiful exterior. With a joyous smile spread across her visage, the elven mage's face was transformed from merely beautiful into a breathtaking gorgeousness.

As my hp bar dropped into dangerous levels, I knew I only had a few seconds left and almost no options. Then, I realised that she barely took any poison from the passageway, that her hp was still significantly damaged by it. I didn't know if this would work, but it was the only option I had.

Concentrating all my focus on my body, I sprouted flowers along my entire truck and nearby tendrils. The rush of magic out of me was almost painful, but it turned the air around me into a pollen nightmare.

The rogue began descending as fast as possible, the only way out of the danger, and I stopped concentrating on the higher sections to conserve magic for where it was needed most. Unable to escape the **** cloud, she dropped from my boroughs and fell to the ground. She was instantly knocked out, but more importantly, her Hp kept ticking down at a rapid rate.

Damn it; I wanted to keep this one.

With a sudden burst of inspiration, I removed my tendrils from the wizard and said: "Your friend needs your healing now."

Naive of my intentions, and damning her friend to a future unknown to either of them yet, the mage took a potion and began casting her spell. With only a few hp to spare she was able to stop the poison manifesting within the rogue and all other status ailments.

Quickly using Absorb on the wizard again I also covered both of them in restraining tendrils, keeping them locked down and immobile.

"I thought you wanted me to save her!" The wizard shouted

"You did, you removed the poison I caused, and now I can do the rest."

Using Sweet Nectar on the rogue made her moan in her **** state but quickly started to bring her health up while applying the tenaciously addictive effects.

Finally, through the worst of it, I was able to breathe again.

Just then, the sky began to drizzle, and my little remaining hp began to rise slowly.

Oh, frabjous day, callooh callay.

"So, what brings you to my neck of the woods?" you ask ever so softly of the elven mage.

"Look, we are just adventurers, just let us go, and we won't come by here again," she responded with tentative hope in her voice.

Able to inspect the speed-freak rogue for the first time, you can see that her ears are actually, really, truly fox ears and that her tails are also real.

"What is your names, and what is she?" you ask unwilling to talk about releasing them.

"I am Erendrial, and she is Honyia, daughter of the Fox of Nine Moons."

Hmm, I had never heard of her patron before, but apparently it was some npc that sided with the heroes. Well, that pissed me off, a daughter to a traitor. Well, you will have to find a fitting punishment for her and her adventurous companion.

Using Absorb again on Meira, I brought her out of the foliage I stuffed her in and plonked her down next to the others.

"Finally done with the Noobs? I can't believe you struggled to beat them and managed to overcome me, ME!"

Erendrial gasped as she realised who Meira was.