Sellas shut the door firmly closed, blocking out the sight of the boar laying dead in the flowers. Shuddering, she leaned down and rubbed at her legs again. Her hand came away sticky, but she wasn't paying much attention to the fact. She'd only just escaped a similar fate to the creature outside, she was sure.

Pressing against the wall for support, Sellas worked her way around the edge of the bar on floppy legs. Her first stop was the fireplace, where she relit the flames, and her second was the water spout near the back of the room. There, she grabbed a quarter-full wooden bucket and a mess of rags from under that.

Sellas brought them all to the center of the bar and sat. She'd still yet to sweep up the wood shavings and smaller debris, and this seemed a good as good a time as any. For the next hour, she scrubbed at the floor beneath the tables. Splinters and sawdust were swept up by wetted rag, while anything that didn't stick to the cloth was pushed into a more centralized pile and dumped out the door. At the end of it all, she'd still yet to get the furthest corners back near the countertop, but the majority of the space was clean.

And she was a bit calmer from the work.

Groaning, Sellas draped the damp rags over the bucket's sides and rolled. She landed face up on her back and stared at the ceiling of the bar. There were two main struts up there; both lay parallel to the door. Six supporting beams crossed them perpendicularly, holding up a roof she wasn't entirely sure existed. Each was of the same material as the door's frame: a dark and pitted wood that swirled with an ever-so-slightly lighter shade. She noted each fact absently as she stretched.

After a few moments of painfully pleasant pause, Sellas flicked herself onto her feet. On steadier legs than she'd started the job with, she walked the bucket to the door and tossed its old water out before returning to the spout again. Once there, she wedged the container between the stone pipe and its basin and activated the runework.

When the bucket was about a third full, Sellas lifted her hand and let the water peter out. Laying the container back on the floor, she left it for the next time she might need it. The mostly-dry rags were stuffed into her pocket, and finally, she shook her wrist free.

Standing free of work, Sellas took the time to re-check her legs. The calf-level cuts had closed more firmly, even as the degree to which they stung continued to increase as she moved around. She took that to mean the remainder of the plants' anesthetic had worn off.

Checking her shoes in a similar fashion, Sellas could see some scratches across their leather hide, but nothing that indicated they'd been genuinely damaged. The same was true for her shorts, though she wasn't actually sure if the plants in the field could reach that high.

With both legs and shoes in working order, Sellas firmed her resolve and decided to move to the door. Sticking a hand through the opening, she could feel the ever-present discomfort that came with leaving the bar. For the moment, however, it was a background hum; it'd be safe to exit for a bit.

Sellas stepped outside and looked around. Night had nearly fallen, and in the sky, the clouds lit up in a confusing mess of reds, purples, oranges, and blues. Back at ground level, the flowers that encircled the cliffside seemed to have begun closing their buds for the day. The shadow that stretched over the field had passed the baton to a whole new section of the forest's wildlife.

Lightning bugs now danced around the white flowers' leaves, occasionally blasting the sky with the bursts of static they generated. They alighted on the plants to eat the smaller insects that lived there, seemingly unhunted by the flowers themselves. Even so, however, Sellas could spot more than a few of their burnt-out shells fertilizing the grasses around the field. Victims of their own kind.

Still lower than that, Sellas was able to both see and hear chirping, ground-bound insects. They bounced around the strands of grass and screamed if she got too close. Long, spindly legs and a silver body defined them, reflecting light as they moved around.

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As for anything larger, though, Sellas could see no sign. Much the same as in the day, the forest seemed practically devoid of anything bigger than her hand. Boars non-withstanding, of course.

Shaking her head in vague annoyance, Sellas drew one of the cleaning rags from her pocket and wrapped the cloth around the fingers of her right hand. She then walked to the edge of the seemingly dormant flower field and suppressed her trepidation to snake a hand under one of the plant's bulbs.

Sellas's index finger and thumb bent the covering flower back with a flick of the wrist, exposing a haired-stem and rows of serrated prickles that ran down the plant's spine. They seemed to flex beneath her fingers.

Sellas sighed and nodded to herself. It'd been the flower field that'd gotten her then, both for the cuts and the numbness— there could be no doubt. Still, it was interesting that they seemed to have occurred separately, despite being directly related. The prickles had clearly sliced her, but the hairs appeared to be behind the numbness in her legs.

All across the flower's stalk, Sellas could pick out the little stingers. They extended from every shoot across the stem, their presence missing only on the leaves, prickles, and the flower bud itself. Each hair had what looked like a solid, ovoid base, while the breakage-point glistened with what she could only assume to be the anesthetic secretions.

After a few additional seconds of inspection, Sellas let the bud go. She had what she wanted. It popped back up from its bent position but didn't quite return to its full height. She rolled her eyes as she saw that some part of it had caught against the cloth around her hand. Moving carefully to disentangle the rag from the flower's hold, she adjusted it with the pad of her thumb and—

The plant shifted, worming its way around the edge of her palm. Sellas jerked her whole arm back with a yelp, and the plant's prickles lost their hold. The thing continued to move for a few seconds more before becoming inactive once again.

"What in the gods' names—" Wide-eyed and breathing heavily, Sellas sputtered and checked her hand.

It was still fully covered; she remained unstung. Slowly, and after recovering from the surprise, her expression transitioned into a near-furious scowl. Wrapping a second rag firmly over the first, she reached into the field again. This time, after taking hold of the plant's base, she yanked it back with her. Its stem snapped off near the dirt, with the roots that had held it to the ground proving more firmly anchored than the shoot was strong.

Taking a couple of steps back, Sellas flicked the flower and the upper wrapping of cloth into the cliffside behind her, suppressing a disgusted shake as she did so. The stem of it had continued to curl around her fingers even after she'd plucked it, encircling them like a carnivorous snake.

From the plant's thrown position on the rocks, its prickles rippled where her fingers had pressed against them. They slowed as a greenish-purple liquid dribbled out from the jagged tear in the stem but still occasionally twitched in the darkness. After a minute of passive observation, the stalk itself began to wilt, loosening its grip around the cloth she'd thrown with it.

When it'd mostly stopped moving, Sellas gave the hand-sized plant a distasteful grimace and picked it up again. Bringing it into the bar, she stripped off her hand-coverings and put it all on the table. The liquid that trickled out proved to be more green than purple under the room's light, but she could still see a slight blue shimmer that faded quickly after it exited the plant.

Squinting closer in curiosity, Sellas dabbed at a bit of the liquid with the tip of her finger, careful to avoid the plant's stinging-hairs. It fizzed as it came in contact with her flesh, and she flinched. Still, when there was no immediate reaction, and her skin failed to slough from her bones, she relaxed again.

The liquid sparked for a few moments more, then finally stopped, leaving behind only a sticky sap that dried and flaked against her skin. Wonderingly, Sellas scratched at her nose and thought. On reflection, the brief feeling had been surprisingly similar to when she used the runework scattered around the bar; it'd been a buzz, much the same, just... outside her body. The sparks of blue themselves had caught her attention, too. They matched many of her initial trials at using the runes to previously limited success.

Glancing down at the plant again, Sellas hummed. Powering the runes around the bar remained a relatively consistent balancing act. Between keeping enough water to drink, the rare need to refresh the bar's lighting, and the practically constant requirement that she fend off the outside chill, powering things was always an issue at the back of her mind.

If she could find a use for the deadly little flowers here—

Well, she'd hardly be opposed.