The Hawthorne Mansion: Sadistic Shrubberies

Mist clung to John’s face, warm and damp, as he ran into the greenhouse alongside Erica. If the source of the golden light was, in fact, Moira, then she was probably engaged with whatever trap or monster lay in wait for them. Beside him, he could see Erica’s axe materialize in her hands, a smaller version of the monstrously huge weapon that was probably better suited for the close quarters they were in. His fingers gripped the handle of the Thorn tight before he dismissed it in favor of the Fang. A whip in such a tight space was equally likely to harm his allies as his enemy.

A few steps into the greenhouse, he saw the shadow beside him vanish into the fog and John instinctively came to a screeching halt. He thrust out one arm into the white, swirling mist and clawed his fingers through thin air.

“Erica!” he called out, running towards where he’d last seen her. His foot caught on something and John tumbled forwards, the edge of a planter suddenly appearing out of the colorless haze. He twisted his upper body and caught the pottery on his shoulder. He could hear a muffled crack, as though underwater, and a brief spree of -1 hp appeared in front of him as shards of the pottery stabbed into his arm and upper back. John gritted his teeth and held back his pain to a hiss and a slightly whimper, both of which were barely audible even to himself.

Overhead there was another flash of brilliant energy accompanied by a muted shout. He pushed himself up onto his knees and staggered to his feet. He’d dropped his dagger in the fall, and looking down at his feet, they were awash with mist. He couldn’t see it, or for that matter, anything more than a couple of feet away. It was so dense that as he reached out, his wrist vanished into a seeming wall of moisture.

Okay. Calm down. Slow breaths.

John centered himself mentally and surveyed what little he could see. The door was too far away to be visible and he wasn’t sure exactly which direction it was in at this point. The source of the light wasn’t clear either, but he had a general sense it had come from his left. On his right, a row of potted plants were nestled against a larger planter strip that he guessed might be a foot or so wide. The remains of the pot he’d broken just peeked above the surface of the mist floor, along with a couple of fern leaves.

Inside the planter strip was a mess of vines, most as thick as his wrist, looping over and through one another before burrowing back into the soil. They looked unnatural, alien, like the sort of thing that he’d seen in video games like Birdwoman: Boatmeat Day.

That feels dangerous.

John took a single step away from them, eyes locked on the plant. The vine rustled and one length of it pulled free of the planter to twist in his direction. John froze. The plant lifted and slithered over the edge like a python into the fog. There was a faint crunch and it pulled back with the fern wrapped tightly in its grasp.

Definitely dangerous.

Stranglevine Cluster
Level 11 Plant
Native to the sunside of Soluna, these plants thrive in **** heat and are docile while exposed to solar conditions that would kill most life forms. In their absence, nutrients must be obtained through other ways, leading to the origin of this carnivorous flora’s common name.
319/319 hp

The vine curled tighter and tighter around the fern, crushing the life out of it so intensely that he could see green fluid dripping down into the soil.

John felt something brush against his right arm and whirled around. He saw green curled around his wrist and had just enough time to swear before a second vine pulled him into another planter he’d backed into. In an instant his arm was swallowed up by greenery all the way to the elbow and his jaw slammed into the cluster. The **** brought him to his knees, which hit the greenhouse’s concrete floor, and the intense pain from it barely registered. His nails tore at the surface of the vine, stripping leaves and a thin layer of periderm.

Panic surged through him as John conjured up a cast of Rend and grabbed at the vine entangling his arm. The spell ripped through the thick foliage and momentarily exposed his skin, but the plant retaliated instantly.

-36 hp

John felt his arm break.

He couldn’t hear the bones snap and the agony blended together into pure white as he screamed loudly enough that even the fog couldn’t suppress it. He felt as fragments of his bones pushed through the muscle and out of his skin. He could feel blood running down his arm and time seemed to slow down as adrenaline surged into his brain.

You have been afflicted with Broken Limb (Right Arm)!
Actions requiring this limb cannot be taken until this affliction is cured.

No… shit! It fucking hurts! It hurts so… much…

-12 hp

John’s vision wavered as he felt the Stranglevine tighten its grip even further. Fuzzy, black patches of static obscured his view for a moment, hiding the other vines that were reaching out towards his throat and sides. As they faded, he saw one lunge for his neck.

He ducked, pulling as hard as he could on his ruined arm, and the sheer torment dropped him even further, his other hand slamming into the ground to keep him from collapsing completely. The vine passed overhead, twisting in midair to coil up for another attack. John lashed out at it, grabbing it with his left hand, and caught the vine before it managed to attack again.

The surface was slippery and he struggled to maintain a grip on the plant as it writhed and tried to pull away. Driven by adrenaline and pure, mindless rage, John sank his nails in as hard as he could and pulled on the vine until it was close enough for him to bite into it. The taste of the Stranglevine’s sap was bitter and unpleasant but it didn’t matter to John. All he cared about was that the thing felt a fraction of the pain it was causing him.

Another blast of light shone through the mist, blindingly close to where John was, and he made out the silhouette of a person against a much larger shadow that stretched up to the roof and across it. As the light struck his body, John felt the pain fade and some of the weariness bleed away, though his arm remained limp and non-functional. More importantly, the plant relaxed for a moment and a moment was all that the Gamer needed.

He put all the energy he had into his legs and pushed off the ground hard, jumping over the planter towards the source of the light. Agony ran through his mangled arm as he caught the end of a broken bone on the vines surrounding it, but he pulled it free nevertheless. The wave of light continued onwards and the Stranglevines came alive once more, but John had already fled into the mists.

Surrounded by white, John closed his eyes and opened up his Astral Observe. He instantly regretted it. Every single direction was filled with coursing multicolored particles that made his head intensely ache just by looking at them. The magical composition of the mist was seizure-inducing, but he **** himself to keep his senses open and active. He looked past the technicolor mess to two glowing hotspots of magic in a sea of glowing green tendrils and leaves. One, whirling and cleaving through the air with glowing runes, could only be Erica. She was in the far right corner of the greenhouse, maybe twenty or twenty five feet away through the mist. When they’d gotten separated, she could only have been maybe a few steps away. He wanted to rush to her side and help her but fragments of a plan were forming in John’s pain-addled brain.

He found the other hotspot in the center of the room, pulsing golden energy against a cylinder of gritty, disgusting brown. Small droplets of crimson seemed to be flowing from the golden aura up and into a mass of leaves above. It was a huge tree, he dazedly realized.

Moira. There she is. We need her light.

Between her and him was a set of three smaller planters, overgrown with more Stranglevines. He could already see them reaching towards him as he stumbled forwards.

I can do this. Remember the Sun. Make this count.

John gripped his arm to keep it against his side and let Astral Observe deactivate. He was suddenly plunged into darkness, eyes closed. All he could feel was the humid warmth of the greenhouse’s cursed air and the deep ache of his broken bones. He pushed those aside and reached deeper, grasping mentally for the soothing warmth he could harness. A flame flickered and grew, his skin glowing as a radiance similar to Moira’s overtook his body. Muscle rewound and bones **** back into place as the healing energy pulsed outwards in a glowing sphere. As it touched his companions and their bodies absorbed the magic, John’s eyes snapped open.

He ran a couple steps and leapt, reaching for the outline of the paladin through the fog. The mist parted in front of him and John landed in the eye of the storm, as it were. The coiling moisture was thinner here, slowly falling from the leaves of a great tree that didn’t fit fully into the greenhouse. Its thorned, dessicated branches pressed up against metal and glass, which had cracked and deformed in places. Instead of a single trunk, dozens of thin trees were all bound together into one entity, much like a banyan tree but with the rough, reddish bark of a ceder.

Suspended a foot off the ground was Moira, the paladin’s red hair tangled in branches that wove underneath her armor and in-between the cracks. Blood dripped constantly from them onto the tree’s great roots, which burrowed into the concrete below, but she was still moving. The paladin was trying to bludgeon the tree with her gauntleted fists, without much visible impact.

A searing pain ran through John’s broken arm as the shoulder reset itself, the healing magic of his Radiance still flowing through his body. He couldn’t resist crying out, and the noise rang clear in the thin mist. Moira tried to turn herself away from the tree to look, only able to partly manage it, but her eyes still reached him. They widened slightly, then relaxed before hardening into the look of command she’d held before.

“Newman!”

John felt his body unconsciously try to snap to attention, but his broken arm made saluting impossible. “Yes, m… ma’am?” he stammered.

“Shield! Over…” Moira tried to point towards the far side of the tree, where he could see her shield resting awkwardly against a potted violet. “Get… Aaaagh!”

Her body writhed in pain as the thorny branches pushed into her armor, one emerging from her gorget to whip across her face, causing dozens of small cuts and forcing her to instinctively close her eye before it blinded her. She grabbed the branch and snapped it loudly, the thorns crushing to paste in her armored grip. Despite it all, she kept her glare on John.

There was no time for debate, much less questions, and John rushed towards the artifact as Moira barked out another one-word command.

“Erica?”

“With me.”

Though she didn’t say anything, John could tell that was the answer that she’d been hoping for. He grabbed the shield, and with effort, hoisted the heavy piece of armor up with his left hand. He had to brace it against his chest to keep from dropping it as he staggered back towards Moira.

She roared in pain and thrashed at the branches, reaching for one that retreated out of her grasp, but her eyes stayed locked on John.

“Newman! Feet!”

The ground a foot in front of John bulged and small fragments of concrete scattered over the shield and into his face as something tore free of it. He tried to keep his balance, but holding onto Moira’s shield with his offhand and without his main hand to help him stay upright, John was thrown onto his back as a gigantic root ripped out of the earth and then came crashing down onto his chest.

It impacted the shield as John rolled to block the attack and the reverberations sent through his arm made his bones feel like jelly.

Moira always made this look so easy, but this…

As the tree raised a root again, John slammed the shield into the ground above his head, scraping it along the floor as he pushed himself forward. The root hit the ground hard enough to crack the surface and started sweeping towards him as John stumbled up to his feet. It caught his legs right as he was close enough to the paladin to reach the shield out towards her, and he was thrown a foot forward, landing on his healing arm with a familiar crack. Pain washed over him as he heard a booming female voice cry out.

“For the Lady, you overgrown matchstick!”