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ROUND ONE

Lucretia, tugging on his gauntlets and drawing his short sword, starts to pull at the brambles, pushing his way deeper into the bush as he tries to reach the bodies. Behind him, Ceely and Vaslin look on, with the others strung out along the trail back towards the camp behind them. Lucretia hacks at the brambles, cutting his way in towards the bodies several feet in. When he has progressed only a few feet in, he pauses. "Not sure..." he starts to answer in response to Yvandel's question, but stops speaking, as there is a rustling noise and the brambles and vines around Lucretia start to move. One of the dead bodies flips over as something that looks a little like a mottled olive green tree trunk starts to slither out from under it. Exactly how big the thing is is difficult to see, as it vanishes off into undergrowth beyond the bodies, but at least sixty feet or more of brambles and bushes appear to be moving, connected in some way to this huge snake like creature! Lucretia, forgetting the bodies, takes a step back, looking all around at smaller movements of foliage around him. A vine suddenly curls up around his left leg, looking and moving similar to a large well camouflaged snake, albeit one with leaves, minor branches and thorns. Lucretia jerks his leg free of it's grip in horror, as three other similar looking vines slither towards him as well, starting to wrap themselves around him, one of them pinning his arms. Staggering backwards a little, he manages to break free from all of them, using his strength to keep them off him, and chopping at one of the vines with his short sword. The blade thunks into the thick woody vine, cutting into it, but not severing it.

Simultaneously, there is other rustling from the other side of the trail, and further "snakes" writhe up, attacking several of the other members of the party. Four vines, appearing to come from a different section of the main "trunk" of the main plant, rapidly wrap around Ceely, two of which she manages to initially break free from, before the other pair wrap her too tightly, crushing her in their grip, one tightly binding around her legs, the other winding up her body, overcoming her efforts to push it off and curling around her arms, pulling them down. (OOC: 6hp damage - now on 27/33) Ceely cranes her head, biting the vine. Fibres splinter beneath her teeth, and a foul, bitter taste enters her mouth. The vine doesn’t seem to react.

Similarly, Vaslin is attacked by a couple of vines, however they merely flail around near her, failing to wrap themselves around her. She flails at them with her staff, bashing at the vines to try to keep them from her as she tries to back away.

Herod and Yvandel, standing further back, try to escape, but it is too late for them, as vines from the undergrowth up behind them rise up and wrap around them as well.

As two vines curl up around Herod's legs, he jerks his battle axe free and quickly chops at them, but his blow is at an awkward angle and fails to cut very deeply. The two vines contract, crushing Herod's lower body within their loops like a boa constricter. (Herod takes 5hp damage - now on 28/33)

As the vines curl similarly around Yvandel's legs, writhing up his body, he manages to grab his dagger with his right arm, and stabs at the vine that curls around his back and wraps around his left shoulder, pulling his lefts arm down. Not that used to stabbing things, Yvandel barely scratches the surface as the blade skitters off the hard woody surface of the vine. The vines flex and crush the young mage, making it harder for him to breath. (Yvandel takes 5hp damage, now on 10/15)

Further back still, Milo and Cleo, are also surprised as the brambles at their side seem to come alive, a pair of great snake like tendrils wrapping around their legs to bind them tightly, the coils constricting and tightening hard on each of them (OOC: Milo takes 7hp damage - now on 22/29, Cleo takes 4 hp damage - now on 37-42). Milo grabs his holy symbol, and calling for Ilmater to help him, is suddenly infused by a bright glow. Flexing muscles he didn't know he had, Milo pulls one of his legs free, but still fails to pull the other one out.

At his side, Cleo chops at the vines binding her legs, her enchanted broad sword cutting deeply into one of the vines.

Merrell, Blondung, Dorn and Larz, a little further down the trail appear to be out of reach of the vines, or at least are not targeted.

Merrell, moving a little further back down the trail, quickly unleashes a pair of magic missiles, the two magic darts of energy zipping around everyone to dart into the base of two vines, one of those attacking Cleo and one of those attacking Milo. The two vines jerk, but don't release their grip.

Dorn rushes forward, leaping over a writhing vine, and hacks sharply at the remaining vines around Milo, his blade glancing off the tough woody exterior of the vine, shearing off a number of leaves and branchlets, but failing to sever it as it wriggles, making Milo lurch and nearly fall over.

<Larz aka Eric wrote>:
> ooc: move forward to Cleo's position and hack
> at the vines holding her arms.

OOC: Actually, Cleo has only vines trapping her legs, not her arms. Ceely has a vine around her arms, but she is further in. I'll stick with Cleo however, as she is closer to Larz.

His cousin Larz also runs forward, his battle axe raised to chop at the vines holding Cleo. The blade slams down, cutting cross-ways across the vine, hitting it cleanly and severing it. One of the vines around Cleo's legs suddenly goes limp.

Blondung yells at Merrell. "Burn it!" before starting to cast his own spell. A large ball of fire about three feet wide suddenly appears, about 8 feet in front of him in the middle of the bushes. Almost immediately, the bushes start to burn, causing smoke to billow upwards. There is a flurry of movement, as the vines withdraw from close to the ball of fire, which, with furrowed brow, Blondung starts to direct closer towards Lucretia and Ceely, trying not to get it close enough to burn the vines, but not too close to burn them.

ROUND TWO

Cleo, frustrated by her lack of success last time, slams her broadsword into one of the vines around her legs, the blade cutting deep into the vine and virtually severing it. Instantly, the pressure in her legs halves, as one of the vines wrapping them goes limp. The other one continues to tighten, bruising her legs. (OOC: 3hp damage - now on )

Nearby, the two dwarves also chop at the vines. Larz, seeing the vine he had been aiming at go limp, changes target, and chops instead at the other vine wrapping Cleo, but it writhes out of the way at the last moment, and his axe blade does nothing but plough a furrow in the soft loam of the ground.

Dorn seems to have little success either, getting his legs entangled in the shifting undergrowth, and barely managing to stand upright, let alone swipe at the remaining vine around Milo. (OOC: Fumble - sorry!)

Yvandel, with vines rapidly trying to bind his body tighter, desperately tries to free his second arm, to no avail, the dagger seeming to have no effect on the woody vine, merely scratching it's surface. The vines tighten harder, and he gasps as he feels his body crushed (OOC: 6hp damage, now on 4/15)

To his left, Herod pauses in his own hacking, and instead calls upon Tempus to aid him, causing a ball of fire to appear in his upraised hand. Jerking his arm forward, he releases the fire to blast against
the base of the vines a few yards away. The small ball of fire blooms
into a ball about three feet wide, encompassing several of the smaller vines, which jerk away, pulling Yvandel and Herod off their feet. The main vine also starts, more slowly, to try to shift itself away from where the fire burst. Some of the smaller undergrowth continues to burn, but not vigorously, producing thick white smoke as everything is fairly damp. The two vines around his legs continue to squeeze him, making him start to loose sensation in his feet. (OOC: 8hp damage - now on 20/33)

Ceely, wrapped by four vines, can do nothing as they tighten on her body. Over the noise of everything, she hears a crack as one of her ribs snaps. (OOC: 10hp damage - now on 17/33) As the main vine shifts, she finds herself pulled sideways, no longer standing, merely held at an angle by the grip of the powerful vines.

Out of the corner of her eye, she catches glimpse of a ball of fire, Blondung's Flaming Sphere spell, rolling so close to her that she can feel it's warmth. The vines around her jerk, pulling her in different directions, before suddenly relaxing, writhing to get away from the intense heat of the magical fire. As he directs it in an arc around Lucretia and Ceely, the vines retreat from the two of them, and Ceely instead finds herself grabbed unceremoniously by Lucretia as he starts to try drag her out of the loops of still writing vines.

Vaslin, having given up trying to bash the vines with her staff, beats a hasty retreat instead, taking advantage of the vine's retraction from the fire.

Meanwhile, Milo tries to break the remaining vine around him, but it is too large for him to decently grip it with both hands, and he grits his teeth as he feels it curl tighter around his leg. The other vine he had pulled free from, plus another one snaking towards him, curl again around him, quicker than he can push them away, and he can easily see how the other party they had come across died! There were just too many vines! (OOC: 9hp damage - now on 13/29)

Merrell, keeping well back from the vines, finishes his own spell casting, forming another ball of fire similar to Blondung's. As he directs it towards the main body of the vine, running it along it's length, the vine pulls away as fast as it can, but it is still far too slow compared to the speed of the ball of fire, and the various smaller vines twist and jerk, burning. Cleo and Milo, pulled from their feet by the unravelling vines, find themselves released, and half crawl, half stagger away from the terrible vines.

A moment later, Yvandel and Herod similarly find the pressure released as the vines retreat, burnt by Merrell's flaming sphere.

The group stagger back, Merrell and Blondung concentrating on directing their flaming spheres, and Herod hurling ball after ball of fire towards the main body of the vine, the thing all but obscured by the thick white steam and smoke arising.

It is a short while later, that the spells finally expire, and the party look on cautiously as the smoke begins to clear. A lot of the undergrowth appears to have been trampled and charred, and the main vine has moved a fair way away, but although seriously blackened, and now missing a large number of the peripheral vines that had been attacking them, they can see that it is still moving. The area around where the bodies had been is at least now free of vines.

Wiping sweat off his brow, Blondung glances at Merrell, nodding in appreciation of the other mage's similar spell. "Maybe you should use that wand of fire and finish the bugger off!" he says.

ROUND THREE

Merrell draws a short rod of wood, blackened at one end from his robes.
Pointing the blackened end towards the moving undergrowth, he hesitates, gesturing with the wand to outline the area of effect, before uttering the invocation words.

"Grelleth Incendia"

Immediately, a large rectangular area of purple red flames burst up, some twenty feet deep and sixty feet long, covering a fair proportion of the horrible vine, which disappears from view under the flames, and the new burst of dense smoke. The flames roar away, the air filled with the crack and pop of sap exploding in the small trees and bushes consumed in the fire. A huge pall of smoke rises into the air, drawn up by the heat of the fire, which the party can feel from where they are, close to the willow tree and the canoe again for the moment. The flames roar on for several moments (OOC: 6 rounds worth), before finally dying down, leaving a more normal fire behind as the undergrowth continues to burn.
Nothing moves within the area of fire.

As the noise of the fire quietens, the roaring of the large feline can be heard again, issuing a challenge. It sounds like more than one of them now.

High in the sky, the plume of smoke rises, drifting off slightly in the light wind.