Joshua grabbed at the vine around his neck and tried to pull it free. Am I breathing? he wondered idly.

Though it had felt at first like he was flying through the forest as though being dragged by a racehorse, he was being dragged much slower now, not much more than a slow walk. Slower than walking speed even.

But he wasn’t far away from the octovine now, and he didn’t want to find out what it would do to him when he reached it.

So, with the vine around his neck not yielding to his attempts to free himself, he instead tried to halt his progress by grabbing for a nearby tree.

It worked, but turned out to be a bad idea. He came to a sudden stop and while his movement might have been slow, it was strong and insistent, and the vine jerked against his neck like a hangman’s noose.

He definitely wasn’t breathing now.

And he was pretty sure he was about to pass out from lack of bloodflow to his brain.

One hand holding himself fast to the tree, he reached numbly with the other into his pocket. He pulled out both shards, trying to focus enough to activate the wolf.

The first attempt failed with a message he didn’t bother reading and he let that shard drop from his hand.

As he focused on the second, mist shot out from it and a daemon version of the Attractive Wolf appeared.

He tried to command it to attack, but the words came out as little more than a wheeze.

Nevertheless, his summon understood him and dashed into action.

The vine suddenly unraveled from his neck and Joshua lay on the ground, gasping in ragged breaths, staring up into the canopy of the forest. His vision had narrowed to a pinprick, but was slowly widening again.

Distantly, he heard Sin squawking in distress.

He needed to get up.

He continued lying there.

Something fluttered into his widening vision and landed… somewhere on his face. He couldn’t tell where exactly.

A ticking started, reminding him of Peace tapping her sword on the dead god Randall’s head.

A moment later he saw it was Sin, pecking his forehead.

“Please don’t poop on me,” he croaked.

Sin stopped pecking as Joshua sat up, glancing toward the battle.

His vision swam for a moment before coming into focus.

The octovine was fighting the wolf. It was trying to wrap its vine around the animal, but the appendage went through the wolf’s mist-like body without gaining purchase.

Sin squawked again, and Joshua finally got to his feet. With the return of blood to his brain came the pressing need to flee.

He limped over to where he’d dropped his pack of animal parts, piled the items that had spilled out back atop it, and hoisted it against his chest.

Sin squawked at him.

“I’m not leaving it after carrying it this far. Never leave a loot behind.” Joshua frowned. “Or, is that a man behind?”

Sin squawked again but settled on his shoulder.

He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. Let’s get out of here.”

Pack in his arms, he glanced at the fight one last time and saw that the octovine had discovered the wolf’s head was solid.

It had discovered this by wrapping two of its vines around it, which it was now using to repeatedly beat the daemon’s body against the ground.

“I hate this forest,” Joshua said, and took off at a run.

Well, a slow jog.

[https://i.imgur.com/Ls4tykN.png]

Sin squawked from Joshua’s shoulder, urging him on.

“I’m going as fast as I can!”

He cast a quick glance over his shoulder.

The octovine was catching up. It had finished off the wolf, then come for him, running on four of its vines, the other four stretched out for Joshua.

“I’m being outrun by an octopus plant! What is wrong with this world!”

He swore and, reluctantly, heaved his bag of goodies over his shoulder.

The octovine let out an ear-piercing shriek as it was tripped up by the massive pack of gore.

“Hah! Eat that!”

Maybe it would eat that. It would be too bad to lose the loot, but it would be better than it eating him.

Free of his burden he was able to put on a burst of speed. Now he moved at a fast jog.

[https://i.imgur.com/Ls4tykN.png]

Joshua glared down at the octovine. “You just had to be too good for photosynthesis, didn’t you? Oh look at me, I’m an octopus plant, I can’t use photosynthesis, that’s for those silly plants that stay stuck in the ground.”

He was at the very top of a tall tree, where its vines couldn’t reach him.

Even having been slowed by the pack Joshua had tossed at it and even with Joshua’s increased speed, the thing was still faster than him in his injured state.

Realizing he wasn’t going to be able to outrun the monster, he had climbed a tree, hoping it wouldn’t climb up after him, but not having any other option he could think of.

Now he sat here, looking down at the monster as it whipped its vines in his direction.

It hadn’t tried to pull itself up to him with them, and Joshua sincerely hoped it wasn’t smart enough to try.

If it was, it wasn’t what it tried first after unnervingly quickly realizing it couldn’t reach him with its vines.

Instead, it sprouted water bottles and healing potions again.

“Your Jedi mind tricks won’t work on me this time, lettuce boy.”

Sin pecked the side of his head.

“What are you complaining about? This is where you spend every fight. What do you want me to do, throw a Croc at it?”

He went through his spells again. “If only one of you were fireball.”

He didn’t have anything to start a fire with, nor any kind of attack the monster might be weak to. Not that he had any idea what that would be other than fire. Salt, maybe? He didn’t have any of that either.

Sin fluttered its wings and cawed.

“You want to fight it? Don’t let me stop you.”

Sin squawked.

“Oh, a distraction?”

He looked at the monster, which had gone utterly still now. It was almost hard to spot.

Joshua shivered at the sight for some reason, feeling… something.

He shook his head and looked away, but the feeling didn’t diminish.

“What am I supposed to do, stab it? Would that even do anything? I mean, it’s a plant.”

If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

Sin stared at him.

He shrugged. “All right. When you can't outsmart a problem, brute force it.” He looked around for his dropped bag. He hadn’t gotten far from where he’d tossed it at the octovine, and spotted it less than a hundred paces from the tree he was in.

“Okay then,” he told his familiar. “Plan formed. Have at it. But attack it more than once this time. I’m going to need all the distraction you can give me.”

Sin flew down and attacked the creature.

It jolted into life, shooting a vine in the bird’s direction, but Sin was too quick for it.

After several more darting attacks, his familiar managed to lure the monster away, leaving Joshua a clear path to his ‘weapons’.

“Well, here goes nothing.”

[https://i.imgur.com/Ls4tykN.png]

“No more fighting, please,” Joshua panted.

The corpse of the Octovine lay lifeless beside him.

It turned out that when Sin actually tried, it could do some damage.

Not a lot, but enough that together they managed to turn the octovine monster into something resembling mashed vegetables with bits of sushi worked in.

After lying there for a bit longer, he forced himself to get up. He’d miraculously avoided further injury during the fight, though he was exhausted, and really needed some water.

He also had another layer of grime caked onto him from bashing the plant to death with the rabbit’s skeleton. This did smell, though it was mild. A faint woody, fishy scent.

“Is this going to attack me when I loot it? So far the monsters have turned into normal animals. So is this going to turn into an octopus? Or a plant? A combination?”

Just because the wolf and rabbit had turned into familiar animals, didn’t mean this one would. It might be as alien as the octovine itself. And also as mobile and aggressive. If it just turned into a plant or an octopus, that would be okay. He was pretty sure he could outrun either of those things. Well, on land with the octopus.

Maybe.

He considered leaving it without looting.

He shook his head after several moments of consideration. “I can’t pass up the chance to get another daemon shard.” Especially since his wolf had been taken out.

It was alive, at least. After the fight with the octovine Joshua had seen the wolf drag its broken body over to the shard and return into it.

He scanned the forest, trying to remember where he’d seen the shard.

After some searching, he found the rabbit’s shard, and he checked to see if it might have recharged on its own. It hadn’t.

The wolf’s shard was a few paces away. He went over and picked it up.

[Attractive Wolf Daemon Shard]

(shard)

The echo of an [Attractive Wolf].

Depleted. Needs recharging.

He pocketed the shard. “All right then, time to loot this monster and see what it turns into.”

Sin squawked and flew up into the tree branches.

“You have nothing to complain about. You didn’t even get hurt.” He stared at the mess of the octovine’s corpse. “I guess this would be a good time to test the distance I can loot from though.”

He was a good hundred yards from the octovine’s remains. He cast Loot.

A message appeared telling him that he was too far away.

Taking a few steps toward the corpse, he tried again.

He repeated this process until he was maybe ten feet away, at which point the spell took hold and began stripping the monster down.

Joshua backed away until he reached the trunk of a tall tree. He’d either climb it or run away if whatever creature was left behind was mobile and hostile.

You have received ⦃Remnants⦄

You have received ⦃Shard⦄

When it was done, all that was left was a disgusting pile of plant matter, a shard, and the ghostly shape of a large plant.

Ready to run at a moment’s notice, he watched as it solidified into a very colorful plant that kind of looked like a sunflower.

The main difference being eight vines sprouting from around its top, each the length of his arm. They even ended in what looked like fingers.

It didn’t move, and in fact looked rooted into the ground.

Which was weird, considering it had chased him to that spot, and was not where he’d originally found it.

“Yeah, you’re not fooling me.”

He slowly approached until his Identify took hold, which seemed not so close a distance as Loot required.

[Armflower]

(planimal)

Joshua frowned. “Planimal? Like, a plant animal? Is that a real word?”

He looked around for something to throw at it. Not seeing any rocks, he packed together a ball of dirt and heaved it at the thing.

Nothing. It didn’t respond at all.

Joshua eyed it skeptically, then cast Identify on the items beside it.

[Octovine Illusionist Remnants]

(crafting material)

The destroyed remnants of an [Octovine Illusionist].

[Octovine Illusionist Daemon Shard]

(shard)

The echo of an [Octovine Illusionist]. Use to summon a copy with the same properties and abilities.

“How about you grab that shard,” he told his familiar, who was still perched in a tree.

Sin squawked in annoyance, but did as Joshua asked, swooping in and snatching the shard.

One of the plant’s ‘arms’ snapped out toward the bird, just barely missing it.

Sin cried out, flew over to Joshua, dropped the shard atop his head, then returned to the tree.

Joshua rubbed his head, watching the armflower.

It was completely still again. Other than its arms, it didn’t seem like it could move.

Joshua picked up and pocketed the shard, then set about gathering his dropped loot, keeping an eye on the plant monster.

He wanted to loot the remnants, but it was almost literally a pile of mash, so Sin couldn’t grab it, and he wasn’t going to risk getting near that thing.

He also wanted to examine the octovine’s daemon shard, especially since it was the first ultra-rare item he remembered seeing, but he would do that when he was safely away from this armflower.

He looked up at Sin. “How about you lead me to a real healing potion this time?”

Sin squawked, and took to the air, heading off in what might very well be a random direction.

Joshua hoisted his gruesome pack against his chest and followed.

Slowly.

[https://i.imgur.com/Ls4tykN.png]

Joshua glared up at a stone archway that looked like a curvier version of the symbol for the number pi. It was at the top of a narrow canyon and set into the side of either a large hill or a very small mountain. The archway surrounded the entrance to a cave so dark that he couldn’t see even a foot inside, despite the daylight that should have been illuminating it.

The archway itself was cracked and weathered, but the aggressive warnings scrawled—in at least two different hands—onto it in what looked to be dried blood were fresher and clear to read: keep out or be eaten. or seeded. or both.

“Gee, wonder who wrote that. It’s weird that I can read it even though I’ve never seen any of these symbols before.” He knew it was because of his Divine Guide, but it was still disorienting.

Or maybe that was just dehydration, blood loss, and the starmist venom he was still suffering from.

He squinted inside, trying to see past the blackness. There was no door, nor anything that should be blocking the light from entering, but the darkness was so complete that it seemed there was some barrier that was simply so black it didn’t reflect any light.

He set his makeshift pack down, grabbed the unihorn, and poked it at the shadow wall.

The unihorn entered into the blackness and the tip vanished.

He yanked his hand back in surprise, but the horn was whole.

The area wasn’t exactly bright, but light filtered through the trees and into the canyon. It should have been more than enough to illuminate the inside of the cave, and absolutely enough to prevent a literal wall of shadow.

“Weird. A darkness so complete that the sunlight isn’t enough to pierce it?”

He looked up at Sin, who was perched atop the archway.

“And you want me to go inside? Are you trying to get me killed? Because everything you’ve led me to so far has been… let’s go with not good.”

Sin squawked twice.

“I don’t need a healing potion that badly. I’d rather heal the natural way and risk infection than go in there.”

The bird only stared back blankly at him, head tilted

The familiar’d had him trailblazing a path through the forest at first, though soon had led him to—or simply stumbled upon, Joshua still wasn’t sure—a well-worn path. This shortly led to a narrow rocky valley and then up a dirt slope, the trail similar to the kind one might expect to find leading to an altar to sacrifice virgins upon.

And the warnings and suspicious wall of blackness weren’t doing anything to disabuse Joshua of the notion that nefarious deeds were carried out within this cave.

He shook his head, picked up his pack, and took a few steps back down the trail, but stopped when he heard a voice in the distance.

“She’s this way. I can smell her. She’s bleeding.”

Joshua recognized the gruff yet high-pitched voice. It was the kobold.

You’ve got to be kidding me.

Though he couldn’t yet see them, the voices were coming from the direction of the path he’d come in on, the sound echoing off the narrow canyon walls surrounding him.

Is there someone else here, or do I smell like a girl? He wasn’t actively bleeding, so hopefully it wasn’t him they were after.

Still, he looked around for an alternate exit.

But he was enclosed on two sides by rock walls that even with his climbing experience he wasn’t going to risk free soloing. And he had no desire to confront the goblin and kobold head-on, unihorn and remarkably hardy rabbit skeleton or no.

Which just left the cave.

He looked into its dark depths and shook his head. “No way am I going in there,” he muttered firmly.

“No!” what sounded like the goblin shouted. “I have to seed them before you eat them. That’s the only way this will work!”

Sin flew down from its perch above the entrance and into the darkness of the cave.

“Dammit,” Joshua muttered, and followed his familiar inside.