The passage, for the first few yards, was the same natural looking tunnel as the rest of the cavern, spotted with glowshrooms. But after that it was teeming with plant life. Broad leaves, creeping vines, and large orchid-like blooms covered the walls which quickly widened, leaving a comfortable five yard wide path out into the apparent forest.

He scanned behind him, then slowly advanced. The giant mole monster was one thing, but the most dangerous threat of all might be ahead: other people.

James stepped through the path, shield up, [Reflect] active, firmly gripping his Earth War Hammer. He scanned continuously around through the narrow field of vision his bucket helmet afforded him, but it wasn't enough. His lack of peripheral vision was a mistake.

A natural creeping vine merely grows in a way that looks as though it is creeping and extending to places beyond the main plant. A monster creeping vine actually moves and creeps about to ensnare passing creatures to bind or crush or drag said creatures back to the main plant for consumption.

A deceptively thin vine, as big around as a young lad's finger, crept behind James, following his footsteps. It quickly caught up to James, who was moving slowly and cautiously, and gently wrapped itself around his iron boot. All at once, it constricted, halting his movement.

James, for his part, was splitting his focus between his footwork and scanning around for threats. As he tried to take the next step with his right foot, it felt as though he was about to trip on something. Almost instantly he slammed his Green Iron Tower Shield into the ground as an anchor and after one last scan around for threats, he tried to kick aside the stone he thought was in his path. But his foot moved oddly. Almost as if it was tied up, it was free to move back, but not forward.

He firmly planted his foot down with a slightly awkward posture, driving the spikes of his boot into the ground to further anchor himself. Then, he peered down.

A rope-like vine had wrapped itself around his ankle, and other vines were creeping up to join it.

James felt more curiosity than anxiety at this new development. He watched as the additional vines crept up and gently wrapped themselves around his boot before suddenly constricting.

There were now three vines wrapped around his iron boot.

The force of the first vine would have been enough to cut off circulation had his foot been unarmored. The force of three vines would have been enough break his ankle, had his foot been unarmored.

But the Smith had forged his armor to withstand the razor claws of the mole monsters, and he had over-engineered his armor a lot.

And although the vines had now started to pull, trying to drag their prey back to the main plant, the Smith was anchored with spikes driven into the earth and was wearing a full suit of heavy armor (even though it was green iron, the sheer quantity of it was quite heavy), and on top of that his Green Iron Tower Shield was also anchored.

Of all this, James was blissfully unaware, as his boot was resisting the compression entirely, and he was not moving despite the pull of the vines.

After a moment of thought and observation, he lifted his Green Iron Tower Shield, brought it around to his right side, and slammed it into the ground, severing the vines.

The bitter ends on the other side of his shield writhed around for a moment, before withdrawing back into the foliage, trailing small amounts of sap as they went. The vines wrapped around his boot merely fell limp, loosening around his ankle.

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James bent and brushed them off, and noted the vines were a tripping hazard.

That taken care of, James stood again and looked up, hoping to see the sky again for the first time in a long time.

But there was only more plants, dangling vines laden with leaves and flower blossoms and creeping tendrils. In the few bare spots of rock on the ceiling, clusters of growshrooms sprouted, and even more glowshrooms were growing on the plants themselves.

Rustle rustle, squeak squeak

James hurriedly fixed his posture and prepared for a bat monster to tackle him, but the rustling sound continued overhead. Looking up, he saw the bat flutter around the plants before descending on the broad leaf of a plant, glistening with some kind of dew or nectar. The bat supported itself on all fours with its hind claws and wing claws and lapped at the dew.

Ah, thought James, so that's what the bat monsters normally eat-

Suddenly, another leaf folded over the bat monster like a mouth closing, and although the bat monster struggled and squeaked desperately, the leaf managed to hold it down, closing tighter and tighter. After about a minute, the bat stopped thrashing and merely quivered, and after another minute, it stopped moving entirely.

Looking deeper into the passage, the path narrowed gradually until it was entirely overtaken by the plants.

James sighed. There might be a path to the outside this way, but it looked like more trouble than it was worth. He turned to head back up the passage back to the cavern and found that he couldn't move his feet.

He looked down. Over a dozen vines were wrapped around both his ankles, pulled taut towards both sides of the path, locking him in place. And from the foliage slowly emerged a walking tree, heavily laden with vines. Turning the other way, James saw the same sight.

He was being pincered.

Swiftly, he raised his tower shield and dropped it like a guillotine, forcefully severing the vines on one side, then the other. The tree monsters branches shook and swayed like they were being blown by gusty wind as they paused, then continued advancing at a slow walking pace.

But they were mere yards away.

James made the split second decision to bend over and try to pull the vines off of his boots, to prevent tripping on them as he retreated. He knew that trying to fight enemies coming at him from both sides of the bar- er, from both sides of the passage, was a bad idea, and that repositioning himself, preferably with a wall to his back, was the smart idea.

The tree monsters were basically upon him by the time he got the vines untangled, mainly by ripping them off with his Smith's strength. He felt and heard whipping pings as their branches and vines struck his armor. With no time to look, he moved as quickly as he safely could towards the exit.

After a few yards, the situation had changed drastically in his favor. The path was wider here, and now both of the tree monsters were grouped up in one direction, rather than assaulting him from two directions. Although they moved slow enough for James to outpace them, their vines had enough range to continue whipping at him. But James' armor withstood the continuous assault.

A few yards shy of the end of the passage leading back into the cavern, James turned, the monsters right behind him. He raised his shield to block the vines, and after a moment of whipping, the vines started to wrap themselves around the shield, as though to rip it from his hands.

Even as James' panic rose, his body was already moving on its predetermined path. He stepped forward, pushing his shield further into the ensnaring vines, and swung his bar stoo- hammer horizontally in a broad arc, empowered by [Heavy Blow].

Smash-crunch-boom.

In quick succession three different sounds rang out and his hammer was buried spike deep in the tunnel wall to his left; James' whole body having rotated with the swing.

[Heavy Blow] had expended itself on the first tree monster, smashing straight through it and tearing it in half as it passed.

The natural momentum of the hammer continued, crunching into the second tree monster, and carrying it into the wall where finally the hammer tore that monster in half as well and buried itself into the stone wall.

James pulled his hammer out and reset his stance. Vines dangled from his shield but no longer animated and attempting to pull it from his grasp. He scanned around, noted the tree monsters were no longer moving, then scanned behind him towards the cavern.

Nothing.

Panting heavily, the adrenaline slowly faded from his body leaving fatigue behind. Although the whipping hadn't hurt James at all, he could see dents in his bracers, and surely there was damage to the rest of his armor as well.

Once he caught his breath, and having confirmed that the tree monsters weren't moving anymore, he took a length of vine, tied it around the remains of the monsters and dragged them back to his ward at the entrance to the cavern. After dropping off the tree monster remains, he carefully made several trips to retrieve the mole monster carcasses from earlier as well. During his trips back and forth, the mole monsters too heavy to retrieve more than one at a time, even drained of their essence-filled blood, a bat monster started attacking him.

James, fatigued, just ignored the tackles and scrabbling, trusting in his armor. He would let the ward deal with it until he was rested and ready to take the time to swat it out of the air.

Back in the ward, surrounded by the mortal remains of his enemies, James wished more than anything that he had some bread.

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