We don't wait too long.

I felt something - it dies just as quickly. My mind moved to that part of the forest, and I formed an eye. It wasn’t a hoard of monsters, or anything else that I’d expect from the horny goddess.

It was another wagon - not under attack this time and coming from the opposite side of the forest this time. There were two humans in front of it, one carrying what appeared to be a spear and the other…

Oh, it’s trying to cut pieces of me off.

Motherfucker!

“Can you hurry up? It’s just a forest, they grow places.” The one with the spear said. Sounds female but I’m not right up with them right now… Time to use the flowers. “Just signs that we need to keep pushing back the darkness if we want to bring life back to The Sunscar.”

Irony, I love it. A few Sensual flowers started blooming within the forest edge. Just enough to let their scent, their skill float on the wind. The effect wasn’t immediate, which annoyed me - hadn’t I waited long enough for some entertainment? The other human tried to cut me again, but my bark was too hard for their knife to manage - could be a result of my level. Another human came out of the wagon.

“Do you smell that? It seems… nice? Maybe a fruit of some sort!?” The knife-wielding human said. Male from the sound of it. “Imagine if we could get a bunch of fruit from this place - no-one would know but us about it!”

“Until someone follows us. Plus, what if those goblins are lurking here?” The spear woman said, to which the third human scoffed - another male.

“That’s why you’re here, ain’t it?”

She seemed to growl at the comment. “I’m here to protect you as you make your way through the Sunscar, not to protect you as you walk into a possible goblin village.” She said, but followed as the other two moved past the treeline and into my domain. I formed eyes closer to them. The two men were hardly worth thinking about - maybe. The woman was more to my liking. Brown hair cut into a shoulder length pixie cut that was quickly covered by a leather skullcap with a built in mask. Through the eyeholes, I could see bright blue eyes, and she’d looked decently tanned before she put it on. The rest of her body was covered by some kind of bodysuit, and over that leather armor. The material on the bodysuit looked thin - probably breathed well and served only as sun protection. The spear in her hand on the other hand was a bit out of the norm.

As far as I could remember, spears had wooden shafts with metal tips - this thing however looked more like a solid metal javelin - and she had at least ten more of them in an oversized quiver on her back. The fuck is this chick? God’s Eye time.

Name: Kaitlyn Barsuk

Race: Human

Level: 35 (Barbarian)

Skills: Power Throw, Rage, Polearm Mastery, Two Weapon Mastery, Impale, Split Weapon.

Huh, well shit, she’s mildly terrifying.

The other two didn’t feel worth the God’s eye use, or my thoughts - they also seemed to be following the sensual flower route without any extra coaxing, so they’re probably not worth worrying about. I have my target; I just need a way to separate them from the group. The first chance comes quickly - a thicket of vines. The two men **** their way through without even thinking, the one using a knife initially trying to cut through the vines unsuccessfully. As they move through, I shift the vines to get the men to go one way while the woman goes another.

The two men break from the vines and find a number of trees with no fruit… but plenty of my Fleshworm children hanging from the tree branches and squirming along the ground between groups of Sensual Flowers. The two men look like they’re about to scream when the Fleshworms all launch at them in unison. The wave of writhing flesh swallows them and muffles any kind of scream they might make.

Did… Did they really lose to those things that fast? I use a vine or two to pull one of the men out of the mess - he’s shaking in horror as I pull him out, the other half of my mind leading the woman on a goose chase after she realized she got separated from her two meal tickets. “W-What is thi-”

I form a mouth and hold him over it, he screams for a moment before I shout. “Enough!”

The man goes quiet as I bellow from beneath him. There’s a crying whimper before I shake him a bit. No knife falls from him. “Your partner, is he the one who attacked me?”

“A-Attacked you?”

I form eyes all around him, then shape them into mouths. “Me.” I say through each mouth at once, and the man goes deathly pale before passing out. I mentally roll my eyes as I reach into the mass of flesh and pull the other out. He’s **** on his own blood already - the Fleshworms have been burrowing into his body and he looks like a torn-up mess. I look at him for a bit before shaking the body furiously. The worms get the idea and let go, slipping out of the soon-to-be corpse as I come up with an idea. I form a vine with a large thorn at the tip and impale the torn-up man. There’s another gush of blood from his mouth before the body goes limp around my vine.

I form plates of wood, various erosarkic tendrils, and start to fuse the two until I’ve made a vaguely human shaped container… and put the body into it before closing it. I focus my core and move it through the forest to the hole I made in the humans’ chest. It takes some shrinking, but it eventually fits in place as I take control of the container, making the tendrils fill in the holes made by the Fleshworms. Some simple exercises later… and I’m able to move as if I was humanoid again. My connection to the forest isn’t gone, which is good, I can feel as Erlen starts recording the process into our memory for later use as I walk towards where the woman is. She’s reached a clearing and is cursing up a storm, seemingly realizing they were well beyond out of their depth now that I’ve pulled back the Sensual Flowers.

Speaking of which, I grab a few and they realize what I am. They start to wrap around my bark, giving me an incredibly serene appearance as a humanoid mass of flowers. Their scent is strong now, there’s even a mist of pollen around me because of these things. I start to experiment with it as I walk, using small wind spells to collect the pollen in midair and keep it around me. The mist swiftly turns into a near fog of pollen and more and more Flowers join in as I have to start increasing the level of wind magic I use to contain it.

With this much, I could easily overwhelm the clearing with this stuff - I’m not sure the horny goddess or that angel dude knows what would happen if this much ‘Warmth’ flooded someone’s senses. That makes it an experiment I’m very much interested in seeing the results of.

I continue to keep the pollen contained until I reach the clearing. She spins to see me, and her eyes go wide. I start swirling the pollen outside the clearing with one half of my mind, making sure to surround her as the other half commands the body forward. This Kaitlyn doesn’t seem to care about the serenity of the living bouquet I’ve made and instead draws another metal javelin before rushing forward with one in each hand. She launches one forward with enough **** to pin the corpse, despite my body armor around it, to the ground before leaping into the air. She draws another Javelin in midair and descends with both, impaling the corpse beneath her.

I tighten the wind spell, making the pollen start to move in as the body armor breaks open and Erosarkic tentacles wrap around the woman, pinning her to the corpse she impaled. “H-Hey, you - what the fuck!?”

The corpse looks at her with blank eyes as she thrashes against her binds, then she sees the pollen and her body glows red. Her thrashing gets worse, and I start growing roots under her. She screams as the roots start to wrap around her, leaving only her head free as the pollen finally reaches her and forms a spiraling column around her. I release the spell and let it all fall down, burying her and leaving her like that for a good minute or so. Another cast of the spell whips the pollen back into the air - for the most part.

I form an eye on one of the roots, looking up at her.