Nothing responds to Sephram's shout. He sheaths his weapons and continues to walk around a bit before returning to where he crossed the barrier.
“It seems to be safe to travel on at the very least, though I would suggest that you stay close just in case there are more of those.” Sephram's tense posture returns as he stands near Lady Averdine.
“That was impressive. Who taught you to fight like that?” Sam follows the question with a glance around checking the bodyguard's armor, not even a scratch where the two hits connected with him.
“My mother was a Templar of The Hammer, my father was a master of unarmed combat, they taught me from earlier than I can remember.”
“That's an interesting sword you have. I haven't seen one designed like that, what is it?”
“It's a kodachi, a sword from my father's homeland. He came from far to the northeast of here.”
I've heard of some of the far off lands, but have never seen someone from that far away. I wonder what other weapons they have that are also different in style.
“Well, if it's safe to walk across, I think we should probably see if we can find any more of those plants and destroy them before they eat something that let's them move.”
We decide to do so until sunset. The sun is already low in the sky, we'll still have a decent enough amount of time, though. We can come back tomorrow, if we feel it's necessary. The lady and her bodyguard go off in one direction and we take the other side to cover more ground.
They look like they used to be pitcher plants, and they give off a deeper aura of darkness than the rest of this field. They seem to be able to sense us coming. The first one we come across turns, albeit very slowly, toward us. Though unnerving, none of us are afraid of this display. Halberds are long and these things can't move. It's obvious after destruction that there is a lot more under these plants than I would think, seeing the size of the leaves above ground. Instead of roots there is what I can only assume is a large pocket of a stomach, I guess that is why they can eat things larger than bugs now. Perhaps that stomach used to be the bulb they grew from. Luckily, we don't find anything in any of these.
For the most part, the plants are very easily dealt with. Just as I'm wondering how these things caught anything to begin with, the rookie gives me an unintentional demonstration. Whether out of boredom or just inexperience, he decides to try and stab through one in a small cluster instead of cutting. Reacting much faster than the rest we have encountered, its mouth widens and grabs on to the head of his weapon, good thing he knows enough to drop his weapon rather than allow himself to get pulled in to the group. We manage to kill the plants and let him retrieve his weapon, though it's now covered in goo.
“Way to go, rookie.” Sam probably has more against working with a rookie than the rest of us, with all of his time spent investigating solo.
“What the hell? That one was way faster than the others.” I'll give the rookie that much, it was that much faster, and he did manage to avoid being dinner. I should probably give him some pointers when we get back to the guardhouse.
“Maybe we should have gone back and gotten the gardener from up at the keep.”
“Why's that?” Gordon probably wants a real story but I'll only give him this much for now.
“I heard that when Iztram was in charge, he had the poor guy taking care of strangle vines.”
“I didn't even think those existed.”
“You should go find him, Gordon. He tells the story a lot better than I do.”
Not much of note happens along the rest of our path to clear the area. Occasionally we find one that has sprouted a pair of legs, but is still tethered in place. The darkness around the area grows faster than the lowering of the sun, we call it a day early before it becomes too dark to see. As we leave and discuss what should come next we hear a group of approaching horses.
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