The forest being not too far from the campsite and three of the six having already been there, the journey to the forest was smooth and without any accidents. Chronus had memorized the layout of the locations they had explored the previous day and quickly led them through a safe path towards the depths of the forest.

The team stood in front of the border of the middle area of the forest soon after. The density of the vegetation sharply increased right before them, swallowing all light from outside. Even though Edward, Alice, and Kenan had already heard the descriptions of the area, seeing it in person was much more intimidating.

Much more prepared than the previous day, the group took out torches and lit them. A large part of the shadows around them melted away in the firelight and the addition of Chronus’ flashlight.

“You want to test Griffin’s ability on the trees we encountered yesterday, right?” asked Chronus.

“Yes, if he agrees,” said Edward, glancing over at Griffin.

“I’ll do it.”

Hearing a positive answer, Chronus led the group towards the location of the whipping willows. Knowing that even the vegetation could attack them, they advanced cautiously in a loose semicircle, some holding weapons and torches, others turning over anything that seemed new or unusual and scanning them with their tower cores.

They had been attacked close to the entrance to the middle area of the forest, so it didn’t take long to reach the location of the attack. Chronus directed his flashlight forward and shone it on a willow that didn’t look anything out of the ordinary.

“It’s these trees.” The three who had been curious about what had so heavily injured Leopold scrutinized the indicated tree and were shocked. If not notified, they would have never realized the ordinary looking trees could attack.

“I’ll go now,” said Griffin, stepping forward. He took a deep breath and approached the whipping willow. Spurring the connection between him and his tower core, a refreshing breath spilled out of his body. The branches of the willows stirred on feeling the aura, then ceased moving. They let Griffin approach until he was right in front of the trunk of one of the willows.

Griffin placed his hand on the trunk, feeling the cool bark under his skin. Even now, the trees showed no intention to attack, welcoming his touch. Having experienced the effects of his ability, he walked back towards the team.

“How is it?” asked Alice.

“When I approached the tree, I could feel its emotions. When I released kindness to it, it felt happy and let me approach.”

“Then can you make it not attack us?” asked Kenan.

Griffin frowned. “I have a feeling it won’t agree. It only let me get close because of the aura from my ability.”

“How much energy was consumed?” asked Alice.

“Barely anything. I can almost have it permanently active.”

“That’s fine then. Since you can feel out these special plants and they won’t attack, having you blaze a path would be perfect,” said Chronus.

Griffin took Chronus’ place at the head of the party and they began their search of the middle area of the forest.

“Sure enough, opportunities are accompanied by risks,” sighed Alice, “The resources here are so much richer and more special than the ones in the outer area.”

“We also have to keep an eye out for a water source,” reminded Edward.

They continued their sweep through the forest, with Griffin a distance ahead of them, occasionally reminding them of potentially dangerous plants. With his guidance, the team managed to skirt around all of them. Chronus identified a bombing tree, another grove of whipping willows, a piranha plant, and two strangling thorns.

The collection of materials was fast with the help of the human danger detector. After half of the day passed, they managed to fill a large basket with assorted plants that looked special or had unique rule fragments. Chronus didn’t know if his luck was bad, but he hadn’t found any that he actually needed.

While they were rummaging through the darkness, the team suddenly heard Griffin’s scream. They rushed toward him and pointed their light sources toward where the sound originated from. In the flickering light, they saw Griffin standing still, petrified. Tightly coiled around his leg was a writhing mass of red, with an occasional crimson leaf poking out of the clump.

“Help, cut it off! Kill it!” shrieked Griffin, seeing they had arrived. The tentacle-like vines squirmed and snaked upwards, wrapping up more of his leg and reaching towards his torso. His face was already turning white from blood loss.

Chronus’ face turned serious. Vampire vines. They fed on the blood of creatures that strayed into their grasp, draining them into a husk. Highly resilient and with excellent recovery abilities, they were a popular plant for tower masters and mages to modify and use as a guard or a trap.

Chronus and Kenan were the only ones with cutting tools, but Chronus wasn’t too optimistic. As expected, Kenan’s knife cut a nick into the vine, but before he could draw his knife and strike again, the small wound had already closed.

Chronus’ axe had been enchanted, and in an arc of silver, one of the vines entangling Griffin was severed. Thick pungent blood sprayed from the location of the cut and the vampire vine writhed in pain.

Before Griffin could breathe a sigh of relief, more and more vines snaked out from the surrounding undergrowth and latched onto Griffin, completely undoing their progress. Some reached and swung through the air, trying to feel for the vine’s attacker. Chronus relied on instinct to barely dodge past the groping vampire vines.

The vines regenerated too fast for Griffin to be cut free, breaking Chronus’ illusion that it might have been a newly grown vampire vine. Now, there was only one way left to potentially save him.

“Try to burn it!” shouted Chronus.

A torch was thrown onto the knot of blood red vines. They recoiled at the sight of the flame, but quickly struck at the torch and extinguished it.

“Light the surrounding plants on fire!”

The remaining torches were thrown onto the vampire vine and the surrounding vegetation. The damp air of the forest wasn’t conducive to lighting a fire, but it was their only choice. The group scrambled around, digging up dry leaves and woods and tossing it onto the struggling bonfire as fast as they could.

The vampire vine flailed around and slammed the ground, attempting to put out the fire, but with the work of the five traversers, the fire was finally stabilized. Feeling the searing heat, the vine reluctantly uncoiled from Griffin’s body and retracted into the forest floor, out of sight.

They pulled out Griffin from the flames and laid him on the ground. Examining his injuries, he had experienced substantial blood loss and had blisters from the fire. He was covered in black ashes, his hair singed. After struggling for a while, Griffin managed to envelop his body in his healing light. The burns slightly receded and he collapsed onto the ground gasping like a fish out of water.

“Water!”

Kenan took out a bottle of water and handed it to him. Griffin started gulping down the water, and finally relieved, placed it down. He stretched out his leg, wincing at all the puncture marks the vine had made. The circular gashes densely covered his leg and spiralled all the way up to his body.

“Did your ability not work on the vine?” asked Edward, noticing Griffin had recovered a bit.

“That plant is a monster!” exclaimed Griffin, with a lingering look of fear on his face, “I tried to express kindness to it, but it struck anyway! The only emotion I sensed in it was bloodlust! It wanted blood! All it desired was to kill me!”

Hearing Griffin’s ominous words, the group was faintly unnerved. Emily started to want to give up on this expedition.

“We can’t give up now,” said Chronus, “Our supplies are running out, we only have two bottles of water remaining. Collecting materials for our towers is also a priority.”

Kenan nodded. “Now we know how to deal with this vine and we know Griffin’s ability isn’t omnipotent. We should continue once he rests.”

The group sat down and waited for Griffin to catch his breath. An hour later, they continued their search through the forest, albeit much more cautiously than before. While they were advancing, Chronus’ breath quickened. He detected a pocket of high magic density in the direction they were heading.

There were many possible reasons for this, but he knew one thing. The core material for his future tower was likely to be there! There would have been a lot of trouble if it couldn’t be found in this forest, but now that it was found, he could set down his worries. He calmed his emotions and continued with the team’s search, trailing behind Griffin as they had before. When they neared the location Chronus sensed, the group pushed through a curtain of vines then stopped in their tracks, stunned. Right before their eyes stretched an oasis of bright green.