Fern

Jason has visited Plants Unlimited and we find Fern sitting at a small desk. The room she is in has dirt walls and the floor is solid rock. On the table sits a small tree with leaves of amber and a deep golden bark. You would almost mistake it for a normal bonsai tree if you didn’t look under the table. Underneath it can be seen that the tree isn’t on the table. Rather it has grown through the table with a root piercing down into the floor below, cracking in the floor. Fern is sitting there twiddling her thumbs while she waits.

A knock at the door is heard before a small golem made of twigs and dressed in a maid’s uniform enters the room. With a bow the twig golem hands Fern a small packet of letters and backs out of the room. Fern opens up the letters and runs her hands over each of them, reading the text by touch while she stays focused on the tree. Not that she had to at this point. The local spies just used form letters at this point when they wanted to ask her something. She couldn’t really blame them for it. After the first handful of spy organizations got uprooted to the last man when they got too nosy the bunch got a lot more careful. She chuckles to herself, uprooted was the best way to describe it.

This time though she expects to have some fun. The boy would bring in outside forces and those types never knew how to limit themselves. In fact, it seems like it is time for her to act. One of the amber leaves shows the scene of a man attempting to rent the room next to the boy’s. The person at the desk of course has their orders and the spy will have to settle for a place a few rooms away.

In another leaf it disappoints Fern to see they must have sent idiots. The fool spy actually tried to make a move on Plants Unlimited. Their gardens were always looking for more fertilizer. Almost a waste to harvest the idiot’s life at such a low level. Then again, even if they are known for their specialty plants, they still need to grow the more normal stuff.

Time passes as each leaf shows scenes from near and far though Fern currently isn’t looking. Instead, to show the minimum amount of face for the local powers she is composing response letters to the local spies. Mostly informing them of the outside powers who would be looking into him. Then she is drawn back to the amber leaves. The spy who rented a room was finally making his move. Idiot wasn’t even going to try a normal approach. Instead, he is trying to go through the walls. Fern shakes her head, that won’t get him far without her permission. Still this is more excitement than she has had in a while. With a mental command the wall gives way to the spies ministrations.

Then it makes more sense. They spent a good bit of money on this mission. The spy was actually carrying some high grade repair scrolls and those don’t come cheap. Not only that, but it seems he plans to use it both ways as he repairs the wall he just broke through. Fern chuckles to herself at this. Makes her plan that much easier as she settles in to see how long it takes for the spy to notice.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Five rooms is the answer. The fourth room confused the spy when it wasn’t the Jason’s but they still tried to go one more. Nervous the spy backtracks or rather attempts to. Six rooms in the opposite direction and they start to panic. This turns into a mind breaking fear after going down ten floors and breaking through a door only to find themselves in another room. It honestly disappointed Fern when he finally can’t take it anymore and brings out an escape talisman. She shrugs, playtime is over.

The wooden walls of the room the spy is in all wriggle. What looked like a normal wood grain is actually an uncountable number of roots, all of them now streaming at the spy. Before he can even think to activate the talisman, it is taken from his hand as the rest of his body is bundled up. The room fills up with roots and the spy is gone. Fern ponders for a moment on whether to ask the guy some questions but decides against it. No longer held back roots so fine as to be invisible to the naked eye slip through the spies skin. Not long after all the roots retreat back to their previous form. It leaves nothing of the man, not even a single bone.

With that done Fern congratulates herself on being so kind. He didn’t even feel any pain from that. From what she could see the other foreign spies were not so lucky. Though a few lost spies doesn’t stop the idiots. All the way up until Jason leaves Wasteland’s Edge they keep trying. Those that tried their hands at Plants Unlimited ended up as living planters for some nasty funguses. A couple went to the leather ork. Normally that would be a swift death but they sent halflings. While frowned upon the ork can never hold himself back when provided with special materials. Sadly for the spies to keep the mystical connection to shadows a halfling has to be alive when the future leather is taken. Though most amusing is the idiots that had gone into the merchants’ district to ask around. They were technically still alive. If they had just paid the price offered or left it, the group would have even been fine. Instead, when they found the price not to their liking, they tried to strong arm a discount. The devil is in the details as they say. More Specifically ‘details’ is the name of the place that sells info in town.

Though now that the boy has left with those traders Fern sighs. She knew he wasn’t going to stay around but still. Most people know not to mess with the area and those bumbling spies had stirred things up. Not much she can do. Fern stands up and stretches before leaving the room. As she does a pulse surges through the tree and into its roots. Unseen by most others this pulse surges through the whole inn and spreads out. If looked at from the sky, an observer would see it spread for hundreds of miles only being stopped at the wasteland and the rabbit plains. Up in the inn proper Fern excuses herself from the tavern. She goes into the kitchen where she promptly unravels into the finest of root filaments as she steps out from the cellar door. She grabs a plate of food and then goes back out into the tavern.