Right. All me to the meeting room to discuss the defense of me.

It seems pretty evident to me that at some point or another a druid or ranger will come around to kill my stuff. I don’t want that, but how would I even defend myself?

Based on the timing of that elf and those goons, I’ll assume I’ve got a few days to prepare at least. If anything, I think my best chance at defending myself won’t come from more plants. I’d bet money on these being the RPG style druids, and I don’t think plants would stop those.

What if I made Cytra big enough to fight? Would that work? She’s pretty big now, I’m sure if I threw all the blood mana I’ve got saved up at her, I could make her big enough or give her strong enough venom to fight back. I just don’t want to put her in harm’s way like that. Also, she’d be very hard to feed at ‘unusual size’.

I have been attracting worms and stuff to eat the bug corpses Cytra casts aside, maybe I could make a defender out of that? Maybe out of the wasps or beetles?

I don’t think I could get enough of them to a scary enough point… No matter how I think about it, Cytra is my only established creature. The two goons also brought up a couple things I should probably be treating with the same gravitas as my imminent demise, so I’ll mull over what to do to my favorite spider later.

The birds, I really should bring those back. It’s not impossible to change the baitplants now, but they are so effective at baiting bugs, so I’ll keep them. Instead, I should start moving on to bigger fruit, both figuratively and literally.

I can’t pull the grab and squeeze technique on a tree, no, but I can do the same thing I do to command Cytra to them. I think if I just focus a little harder, and give it a bit of time… There we go! Ha! Tree absorbing magic hand! I am a god!

…

I might be getting too excited. Still, that is a lot of plant and water mana coming my way, enough that I think it’s worth it to go ahead and eat a few more trees.

I’m not an idiot, I only do so in a way that preserves the vaguely circular clearing. Without the leaf canopy I’m exposing my plants to more sun than I designed them for, and I can tell. Reluctantly, I scatter some plant mana over everything but Cytra with the intention to make them less vulnerable to sunlight.

Now, what to do with all this plant mana? The answer is simple, and delightful to me, a big tree.

That’s right, I’ve got a week to live at most, and I’m spending it on a big tree. I hope it will turn out to look something like a massive oak tree. I want the type of tree that you could build a town with from its wood alone. Why? Because I want to have it grow around my orb, and then give it incredibly thick and hard bark.

Layer of defense one: Tree armor.

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I had to spend a few hours eating more trees to get the mana for the baby version of my design, and a few more rearranging my garden to make space. Finally, thought, I can seed the tree directly underneath my orb. It’ll be a bit of effort to ensure it properly centers my orb inside itself, but it’ll be worth it, I know it will.

The root structure of my plants is always the first thing to grow, and I can see the ground shift around as it expands. Not enough to cause damage, but enough to make me question if maybe those druids concerned for the environment have a point. Regardless, it’s me or the other trees around here, and I’ve already eaten a good forty of them, so my answer is in my actions. Actually, I’ll eat a few more to be safe.

Right, tree armor is growing, excellent, step two, actually aggressive defenses. I should probably make some of those…

I don’t like it, but Cytra does make the most sense, but not right now, I need more of an ecosystem to support a giant spider before I try and make a giant spider. So I need to bring the birds back. But how? I mentally sigh and send a wave of blood mana over my baitplants. They need to be less disgusting to living creatures, I think that’s probably all I need to do on that front.

Shit, that was a waste, I should have specified they should still remain thoroughly unattractive to humans and such, oh well.

Next, I grab a beetle, mentally ‘save’ its design, and then send it on its way. I need some more engineered bugs, and I think the best place to start is ants, which are a bit difficult to reverse engineer from a mosquito-beetle, but I have faith in myself.

Sure enough, an hour later, I’ve got my tentative ant and ant queen designs, and so two more beetles are grabbed for their respective genders, and squished into submission. I decide to drop the two unfortunate victims on the ground beneath a green sea plant closer to me, and poke Cytra to leave them alone until they’ve set up reproduction.

Not sure how smart she is, but she does listen well.

Next, I grab a wasp, and this one I don’t think I need to do much too. In fact, the only thing I’m going to do is make it less mean and more cooperative. Oh, and I’ll make the one I just grabbed a queen. I grab a second, make similar alterations, and place them underneath an emergent root of my tree, with hopes that they will build their hive safely in the ground.

Fungus is up next, for the ants to eat. Simple enough, there’s plenty of it around, though I do make the minor alteration of a bit of blood mana, with the intention that it might thrive on fleshy corpses more than other matter. Recycling is important, after all.

Next is biodiversity in general, I love my green sea and baitplants, but they can’t be the only greenery. Well, for a start, making my green sea plants flower every four days or so will be good. Normal flowers, nothing fancy. Next is the baitplant’s last alteration… I think I’ll have them mature into large, woodlike stocks, after which they will stop producing fruit and start producing… I’ll get back to that.

I take some time to design what I envision to be half asparagus and half goldenrod, which has the sole purpose of existing to be eaten by bird and bug alike, and then I scatter them at random. They’ll grow just fine, vile weeds that they are.

I’ve decided on the baitplant situation, I’m switching away from the big stalk design, and going for smaller berries on a proper bush. I’ll put thorns on the branches, too, and let the plant flower as well. It’s still a baitplant, but it’ll look a little different and hopefully be open for more comers and goers than before. Something might even get caught in the thorns, which would let me test if bleeding is enough for me to get blood mana, or if something has to die.

All these changes… It’d be best if I gave these a day to sort themselves out, my tree is indeed growing nicely enough for me at present too. So the final thing before my momentary rest… Cytra, darling, can I make you a little bigger?

…

I don’t think she’s smart enough to consent. I guess I won’t make her that much bigger, but I will throw in the intent for some serious venom. Half my stockpile of blood mana later, and it’s time for my-

Nap. It’s morning. And my clearing looks like it’s on it’s way to being the very archetype of what I’m sure druids don’t like. My tree isn’t much taller than the other trees yet, but it is three times as thick, so I think I’ll stop growing it for now.

I don’t know how much time I have left now before the moment of truth, but I need to check on Cytra. I don’t know how to make her smarter, maybe I should work on that…