It took a couple days to completely recuperate from her experiments. Liv had finally figured out time keeping while exploring her borders. She couldn’t see the passage of the sun behind the gray shroud; however, the shadows around her puddle did, in fact, move. It felt good to have a sense of time. Honestly, it probably would have only taken one day, but for the sake of accuracy she wanted to be absolutely sure she had a full tank of gas before she did anything.

Another observation; she hadn’t made any more mosquitoes in a few days and she’d seen plenty get eaten by frogs, yet if anything it seemed like there were MORE than before. We’re they breeding? Could she get around the SP cost by letting things breed on their own? That was something she’d have to investigate. But for now, EXPANSION!!

Based on occasional muffled splashes, she was pretty sure there was another little pond a ways out past the Roach-Coach. She could even see the fuzzy shadow of what might be a tree!

Her pale shoulders slumped a bit at that. Good gods, how dull was her life that she was this excited about seeing a TREE… She shook it off, trying not to let that thought take root. Then gave a dry snort at her unspoken pun.

“Right! Let’s do this!” She tried to crack her ephemeral knuckles, accomplishing nothing. Which was kind of where she was at with this border project. “GROW!” She commanded. No change was forthcoming. “EXPAND!” Still nothing. “Uh… Claim territory? Move!” She floundered. “Go Go Gadget DUNGEON!” She cried, flinging out her hands. She wiggled her fingers after a moment, as if that would be the secret that made this work.

“Gods damn it, just GO THAT WAY!!” She said with a silent stomp of her foot. The air buzzed as her massive swarm of mosquitoes flew right through her and into the fog where she pointed. As they left, she felt them fade from her awareness, the air oddly silent and still without them.

“Wait. Did I do that?!” A plopping sound came from near her feet as a frog slowly hopped the same direction. “Wait Wait Wait!” She waved at it, and the frog paused. Liv gasped, grinning.

“You there!” She pointed at a salamander. “Come here!” The slithering amphibian did as she commanded and she hopped with glee, clapping her hands. Not what she wanted, but still handy!

Looking at the fog she cleared her throat and shouted.

“Okay mosquitos! Come back!”

Nothing happened. She waited, calling out several more times, but it seemed they were beyond her reach.

“Balls…” Oh well, she’ll just have to follow them.

Stepping up to the border, she pushed her hands against it, feeling a soft, semi flexible barrier. Hunkering down, she planted her feet, focused her thoughts, and PUSHED.

Her eyes opened wide as she felt it give. It moved! It was working! Taking a wide stance, she pushed forward as hard as she could, and felt her knees go weak as every ounce of her strength was sapped with the effort. Falling to the ground, she looked back, and saw she’d gained at least a few feet.

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Yeesh, a few feet?! That was it?!

“Hey Wile! Come here, buddy!” She rasped, flopping onto her back to catch the breath she didn’t really need. The little guy was about a foot long, and she could use him to kind of measure her progress. It took some fenangling to get the excitable amphibian to cooperate, but eventually she lined him up and got him to move in a vaguely straight line one body length at a time.

In total, tapping herself of everything she had netted her five square feet, the end of a log covered in fluffy moss, and a tiny little shrub… At this rate it would take her WEEKS to reach that shadow of a tree. Especially without her mosquitoes… Crap.

It was then that movement from the periphery caught her attention. She looked upward, rolling onto her side, but just saw the log, the shrub, and Wile. She was staring, trying to figure out what she’d seen, when the shrub shuffled over a few quick steps toward Wile while the lazy salamander wasn’t looking.

The BUSH… moved…

“What in the actual f-“ Dropping all pretenses of shrub-ness, the cat-sized creature launched itself at Wiley. It crackled and creaked like wood, but had an almost humanoid shape. Wile bucked and rolled as the tiny demon slashed at it with little wooden claws. Liv flailed.

“SHIT! GET IT GET IT GET IT!!” She waved towards the other salamanders. “HELP WILE!!”

The yellow striped salamander slithered towards the water, the evil doom shrub on its back. It didn’t look too great for Wiley until Masque suddenly lunged up from the water and bit down on the shrub’s arm. Then came another salamander, and another. Before long the little plant demon was flailing in panic as a maelstrom of enraged salamanders dragged it beneath the water.

Tiny crackling sounds amidst the splashing signaled its demise at the hands of the amphibious defenders.

“Hell yeah!!” Liv pumped her fist, crawling over. “Wile? Buddy? You okay?” The salamander was pretty cut up. It was then that the rush of heady energy flooded into her. It was almost too much! She felt a bit drunk. There was no time for that, though. Wile was hurt! There had to be something she could do about that, right?

Laying her hands on Wile, even though she couldn’t really touch him, she said a soft prayer to Idunn for healing, not knowing what else she could do. Then she felt a trickle of SP leave her, and Wile’s eyes opened wide. The tears in their soft, thin skin began to knit back together as Liv stared down at the beast, stunned. Liv grinned like an idiot as Wile expressed their joy by peeling out on the mud and skidding into the water with their fellows.

She turned to look down at the remaining bits of leafy wood floating in the skum. That was NOT natural. What in Hel was that thing?

Trepidatiously, she held out her hand.

“Plant… man?” She wasn’t sure what to call the thing, but she pictured it clearly in her head. She fell to her knees as all that fresh SP flowed right back out again.

The thing that fizzled into reality before her eyes looked like what would happen if Treebeard wandered onto the set of ‘Honey I Shrunk the Kids’ and got zapped. It was maybe a foot and a half tall, vaguely humanoid, and most definitely a PLANT. It blinked at her, before stretching its arms wide and giving a tiny yawn.

“Ho-ly shit…” Liv whispered.

She definitely wasn’t in Kansas anymore.