Halfway covered by the dirt was the biggest pinecone I’d ever seen. The demonic looking plant seed was the size of a minivan, covered in black segmented spikes, and had ominous light green smoke drifting skyward. Thick tendrils of pulsing roots grew around the conal structure.

From my vantage point in the underbrush, the thing radiated a high level of danger. I wasn’t the only one that picked up on the promised danger; nothing grew near the plant or its tendrils. Yet, in the last twenty minutes of observation, it had only sat there emitting foul vapors.

My trekking through the fungle had produced little mana to harvest. The occasional grub or mutated insect netted me advancement here and there, but anything substantial was sadly lacking.. Thus, I pushed out further outward, hoping to discover a greater source of progression or a much desired exit.

In my wanderings, I discovered that the fungus habitat was smaller than I expected. And over the last day, I mentally divided the area into four territories.

Close to the entrance I’d arrived at was the bugmen territory. I made a point of staying away from the interior of their land, only ever creeping around the edges. As I didn’t want to actually engage in a war with the creatures. I didn’t think they were monsters, just some strange fae race that kept to themselves. A notion that I not only respected, but empathized with. Fortunately, once I knew where to look, I found evidence of their markings amongst the toadstools of the fungle. They carved out a strange symbol that looked like a hexagonal eye.

East of their location was the bat people's land. I found three different villages stretching northward, all looking virtually identical save for the enormous temple of Valmmuz that I’d found at the first one. They had a constant stream of gatherers going into and out of the fungle to provide food for their people. What I found interesting about this was that the mana enriched environment produced edibles at a prodigious rate. The flora they consumed grew back with no required effort on their behalf, like a farm running on autopilot.

For whatever reason, the bat people were used to having no natural predators, and it showed. Between them and the bugmen, there was an obvious truce, as I never saw either group go near the other’s haunt. Their guards were lazy, and they resolutely noticed no signs of my obvious trespassing—to where I wondered if the creatures were blind as a bat.

With such an idyllic life, I wondered how they advanced. Abatur was a brutal world that brooked little peace amongst its denizens. At least in places with high amounts of mana.

The answer to that question was the western region. A large underground lake sat nestled against the territories of both of the strange races I’d encountered. Large shrimp monsters routinely crawled on land to engage in a never ending war. Though, the crustaceans never went far from the shore, ensuring that the bats and bugs got to pick the battle.

As much as I wanted to get in on that sweet seafood slaughtering action, I restrained myself. Because, unlike their fungle territories, the hunting parties that came to the lake were far more vigilant, leaving me to conclude that this was where their proper warriors lived. Further, to fight the monsters, I’d have to be exposed outside of the protective treeline.

So, to the north I went, which brought me before the unmolested pinecones. How the things grew, or where they’d come from, was a mystery, as I didn’t see a humongous tree dropping them. The alien malevolency of the plants reminded me of the eye mushrooms from earlier. Although I didn’t think they were related.

Tentatively, I aimed one of my spare spears before tossing it at the outer portion of the fleshy green tendril branching from the pine cone. The spearhead sunk into the root with a meaty squelch, seeming to agitate the plant. After it twitched a few times, I hit it with my Famine spell, causing the recent wound I’d inflicted to ooze green sap.

That really pissed it off.

The “pinecone” opened up into three equally sized segments, revealing a terrifying maw. From my vantage point, I could see thorn like teeth and razor sharp ridges spiraling down the throat.

For a tense moment, nothing else happened, then, an explosion of green gas swept through the area.

I stood back in the treeline retreating until I was certain I was out of range. Then, once the cloud settled, I waved a fern leaf into it. My goal was to test the acidity, but making shapes in the green swirls was so much fun I got distracted. It reminded me of swirling bubbles around in a bubble bath.

The chemical appeared only poisonous. Which was great news for me, but bad news for the plant.

I’d just stepped into the clearing to go retrieve my spear when the plant monster unleashed its second attack. The ground swelled up, as if being pushed by a giant from below, then abruptly reversed, turning the earth into a sinkhole. I danced back to the tree line, laughing at the audacity. Then I hit it with a second Famine, inducing black lines to spread up the wound I’d already inflicted.

Going to have to be faster than th—

A terrible pressure descended around the glade, sucking everything toward the human sized garbage disposal. The unexpected vacuum swept my feet from under me, yanking me toward the waiting mouth. Only my enchanted agility saved me from getting wood-chipper’d. My hand snaked out to grab around the trunk of the large fern tree I’d been standing next to.

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But it wasn’t enough.

Slowly, the force of the suction pulled me backward, tearing apart the body of the plant. The leaf I’d held with my right hand got torn away completely, sending my hand flapping behind me with a jerk. Meanwhile, the unshakable grip of my Rigor Mortis infused left hand facilitated the entire tree getting uprooted!

First, the trunk leaned toward the expanding toothy hole. I had the preposterous thought that I was going to be okay for only a second, because shortly after, the roots pulled out of the soil.

I dug my right hand into the earth, hoping that an arm full of dirt would keep me grounded against the terrible weight.

Soil-er alert: It wasn’t.

I was airborne directly after the tree I’d been holding flew out of the ground. Along the way, I brought the armful of dirt with me, both of us cartwheeling toward certain death.

The fern tree landed across the ten foot wide mouth opening, wedged between two sides of the pinecone beak-mouth. I smashed into the trunk a second later. Together, we continued being yanked downward, but unlike last time, the tree held.

Somehow, despite having no obvious sensory organs, the death pit realized tasty morsels had gotten stuck on its face and turned off the suction. That was when I learned what the pinecone pieces were for.

All three sections of the spiked beak began spinning in our direction.

Oh, you need to eat shit and die.

I pulled up my shield and dove between the narrow gap of two of the spinning death wheels. My strength and weight were enough to arrest the motion of the one directly in front of me, but the one on my other side caught the handle of my bastard sword and flung the weapon into the pit.

Then I rolled clear, not stopping until I reached past the treeline.

Sir Galahand had stayed back much further away, along with my backpack, while I engaged the plant monster. When I approached, he gave me a finger-tap dance in encouragement, but it only helped a smidge.

What had just happened was a disaster. I lost my magical weapon, a spear, and worst of all, my pride.

I would not stop until I had satisfaction.

Knowing what to expect made planning the next attempt much easier. It took two hours to get my rope web in place. I triangulated the cord around three different sturdy tree trunks, then I set to work on ruining the little shop of horror’s life.

Before attempting anything else, I tried to force another poison release, casting Famine until I ran out of mana, Y’know, in the off chance my swallowed sword would cause an internal explosion. By the time I’d finished that first tendril was a decaying sludge on the ground, but still the poison didn’t come. I reasoned that there was a timer on the ability, or the plant monster had written that tendril off as a lost cause.

My follow up attack was a large rock I tossed into the pinecone, breaking off several spikes. That worked, cajoling another wave of poison. But for whatever reason, unlike my gas, this plant didn’t have a flammable variety.

In hindsight, that was probably a good thing. When I’d first lost the sword, there was probably enough gas in its stomach to blast me into the stalactites above the monster.

Next, I went to work on the roots with my warhammer, smashing into the pulsing tendrils with two-handed swings and casting Famine when I could. The plant beast really didn’t like that. And for the first time, I heard a screeching sound from within the giant maw. The only way I could describe the bizarre sound was whale noises, if the whales were lifelong smokers and stuck in a well.

When the expected suction came around, instead of nearly losing my boxers, I had the time of my life. With the rope around my waist, I spread out my arms and pretended to fly like Peter Pan.

Look Ma! I’m flying!

I was almost sad when it ended.

Bit by bit, I worked my way around the perimeter. Measuring out how much slack to give the rope each attack took the most time. Too little give and I wouldn’t be able to reach my target, and too much, well I’d be dead. Naturally, I erred on the side of caution, and didn’t give myself enough room for a few tries.

Once I’d eradicated all the roots into a black pulp, the creature could no longer buckle the ground. Soon afterward, I went to work on the pinecones, and discovered that they were the real poison sprayers. The interior of the wood-like structures had balloon shaped organs for expelling the toxin.

After I broke the spinning mouth beaks down with my bludgeoning tool, I made the creature eat its own face by tossing the pinecones down its gullet.

I didn’t get a swell of mana after destroying the exterior of the monster, but I also hadn’t expected it to be that easy. The creature was far above me in level, and I’d have been almost embarrassed if that was all it took.

Instead of circling again, I found a spot near the outside of the maw and began digging up dirt with my shield. The hole took hours, but with my strength and inability to exhaust, I steadily toiled my way to the true body of the creature. Along the way, I whispered vicious threats that I really didn’t mean, whilst the disabled plant shuddered and sucked at the air futilely. Being so close made it impossible for it to affect me.

Though I only got to see a portion of its body, the actual monster reminded me of an upside down turnip. The warhammer had a difficult time breaking through the wall of its body, so I ended up having to carve out a chunk with my enchanted dagger. The new wounds, together with my entropic magic, proved too much. With a decent size cut to the exterior, breaking through the rest of the way was only a formality.

The first thing I noticed was that the interior of the stomach smelled like hot dogs. Peering through the hole revealed a bunch of organs of unknown purpose, and an acid pit. I started randomly sticking things with my spear and casting my plant killer spell.

The dying creature tried one last gambit, inhaling to suck me through the hole I’d created, but my rope still held me firm.

Nice try.

I finished caving in an entire section of the monster before I finally got my mana reward.

You have sufficient mana to advance a tier II → III