12 – Sickle Against Plant

Two vines tightly bound around her ankles, Alexandra reached for her sickle. She barely had the time to grab it before the vines started pulling. Augmented by Sickle Mastery, she leaned down and severed the one holding onto her right ankle.

She wasn’t able, however, to cut the other one before it displaced her leg, making her fall. Still, she was swift, and yanked her foot toward her chest, reached behind it with her blade, and pulled, cleaving the vine in two.

Rushing to stand up, she scanned the area. Everything was plants. The two appendages she just severed retreated back into the earth, leaving two gaping holes behind.

Whatever it was, it wasn’t over.

Right as she thought that, another vine tore the ground open beneath her feet, and tried to grab onto her. She reacted in time to jump away, but the vine chased her.

She turned around, clutching her sickle in both hands, and swung it at the vine. The spine of her blade grazed against the vine without severing it, her skill instinctively informing her that it was bound to happen.

Still, it was enough to repel the plant, if only for a second. She used that time to cast Inflict Weakness, unsure if it would work on a plant.

If it did, her ambusher didn’t show a reaction. She ducked to avoid the vine’s whip, and rushed from the spot where it was jutting from the earth. Reaching the base of the vine, she wrapped her sickle around it and pulled, cutting it clean.

The vine collapsed behind her.

Two more broke the surface immediately after, flanking her. She took the left one first, severing it clean, then spun to hook the right. It caught her wrist instead, not tight enough to hold, and she shook it loose and cut it.

Another. Then another.

She was breathing hard. The ground around her was pitted with holes, severed vine ends poking out of the dirt like the tentacles of a kraken. She counted eight. Nothing had changed. No reaction from whatever was beneath her. No sign that any of it mattered.

She stopped moving.

The vines stopped too.

Standing in the middle of the torn field, sickle raised, she waited. The orange blossoms were ten meters to her right, undisturbed. The bees were gone. The sweet smell was stronger than before, thick enough now that she could taste it at the back of her throat.

She took a step toward the flowers.

Three vines erupted simultaneously behind her. She cut two and took a glancing hit from the third across her forearm. It left a red welt but didn’t break the skin. She kept moving toward the flowers.

The smell was getting worse. Or better, she couldn’t tell the difference.

Behind her, the remaining vine didn’t attack. It slithered on the ground, like a predator ready to pounce.

She noticed it first in her legs. A faint unsteadiness, like the ground was shifting slightly beneath each step. She planted her feet wider and kept moving. The sweet smell pressed against her like something physical. Her eyes were watering.

Stepping on a loose rock, she stumbled, and caught herself on one knee. The dirt was warm under her hand. She pushed back up.

The orange blossoms were directly ahead, motionless in the still air. Up close, the clusters were denser than she’d realized, the individual flowers small and tightly packed, their petals almost translucent at the edges. Pretty.

She reached out.

Her fingers were almost on the nearest cluster when she stopped.

She was reaching for it with her hand. Not her sickle. Her hand.

She stared at her own fingers for a moment.

Right.

She straightened up, switched her grip, and severed the cluster at its base with a single pull. The smell spiked violently, sweet turned acrid, and she clamped her mouth shut and held her breath.

The ground exploded.

Not the surface. Beneath her, something massive shifted, and the earth buckled upward in a wave that threw her sideways. She rolled, came up on one knee, and looked back.

It was large. That was the first thing she registered. A central mass the size of a cart, pushing up through the soil, shedding dirt and roots as it rose. Dark green, glistening, ribbed like a fist. Vines erupted from its base in every direction, a dozen at least, tearing channels through the flower field as they spread.

Three came straight for her.

She tried casting a second Inflict Weakness directly on the beast, and felt a strong resistance, her mana emptied and fizzled out, unable to complete the spell.

She moved right, let the first two cross in front of her, hooked the third and pulled it into the path of the second. They tangled. She cut through both while they were still caught up in each other.

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The third circled wide and came at her from behind. She felt it before she saw it, the displaced air, and spun in time to deflect with the spine of her blade and hook it on the follow-through.

Her head was still swimming in an orange colored haze.

Was her curse even doing anything?

The main body had finished rising. At its crown, clustered around the top like a collar, more orange blossoms. Smaller than the patch she’d severed, but the same. She could smell them all the way from where she stood, even through the acrid edge the first cut had left.

She stopped engaging the vines.

They kept coming. She deflected, retreated, cut only when she had to, keeping her eyes on the crown. Two vines caught her across the shin and she stumbled again, went down on both knees, pushed back up. Her arms were heavy.

A glance at the main body, she ran straight at it.