The hallway of the Vine

A desk shoved aside as Vyncynte Tyshauun bent his full force on it from behind.  Atticus Cyrane was the first into the hallway, looking about furtively, then called back “Clear” in a whispered voice.  Tolorian was next, lithely bounding up the 3 foot difference in height from his previous position to stand beside Atticus, while Vyncynte hoisted himself up to join them with a noisy grunt.  Their party had entered the hallway, and if any luck was with them at all, their host wouldn’t even know that they had made it.

Atticus, a human cleric in robes of white, light blue and silver, was already scanning the hallway.  His mace was out and primed, but all he found, even seeing invisible, was an empty hall, save for the rows of junk piled up to the walls.  The floors were hardwood, spit polished and well kept, while the walls boasted hardwood paneling up to the one third mark, while the top two thirds showed a rather ugly beige paint job.  It took Atticus’ keen eye for detail to notice the natural wood cover, a barely visible hue of green, where most of the surfaces where painted deeper browns.   Iron sconces controlled the lighting, hosting tiny flames every three feet, ensuring more than adequate lighting.  Atticus’ eyes settled on the vine that climbed the far wall, branching off and out of sight.

“Harrumph!” this was Tolorian, “Beige and brown.  Lord Wrynne hoards all of the money, protected by dozens of traps, and he still can’t afford good taste.”  The elven wizard himself wore robes of bright amber, bordered by black.  His blond hair and fair complexion stood out. 

Brown haired and plain Vyncynte only sniffed, a common inflexion of his that usually meant “Who cares?”  His banded mail ended shy of his arms, which were heavily ripped with muscles.  “We found the trail yet?”

Casting detect magic, Atticus pointed ahead and straight through the wall with the vine.  “That way, about 50 feet.”   

Vyncynte replied “Don’t look at me like I’m some kind of wrecking crew.  Find us a way to it then.”

“Indeed,” chimed in Tolorian unhelpfully, “the last time we went straight, we took a detour through a grave yard.  Such terrible taste in traps too, this ‘lord.’”

“There’s not a soul in the corridor,” advised Atticus, “but keep your voice down.  Any one of these chairs of cabinets could be a host for a listening spell or something.”  The corridor stretched on and was filled with junk piled to the sides.  Every hardwood shelf or and cabinet carried a potted plant.  Vyncynte strolled on, loud foot falls being as quiet as he ever got. 

As the group reached the large vine, they found its soil bordered by pretty stones.  The soil pit covered most of the corridors width, and Atticus paused a minute, wondering why the corridor was clearly given to this vine.  Vyncynte was totally unconcerned, though, and wandered on to the right passage, looking for a way around the wall that stopped his progress on straight.  Tolorian paused a minute to consider the left hand passage, which ran on straight to a door, with ever more junk piled up by the sides of the hallway.

“Hey, Atticus,” Vyncynte boomed, “I found a switch!  What’s it do?”  Atticus broke away from contemplating the vine to scamper after Vyncynte, or at least reproach him for making so much noise.

“Hey, don’t touch random switches!  We know this place is loaded with traps.”

“Well, why did you think I asked first?”

As they argued, Tolorian’s eyes met the vine, a split second before the vine, met his neck.  But a split second was all he needed to signal for help.  “Heylk-“

Vincent and Atticus turned, but as they did every potted plant in the corridor began to shake vigorously, noisily.  They saw the vine grappling Tolorian, eyes wide and struggling to concentrate on his spells.  The smaller vines grew alarmingly, not at Tolorian but right for them!

“What is it?” called Vyncynte as he drew his battle axe. 

Atticus, moving off to the wall and standing over a hardwood chair, called out loudly “By the wisdom of Ambros, Identify Monster!” His eyes flashed, and he knew instantly the name of this foe, but only some of its weak points.  “It’s an Assassin Vine. I knew it looked odd.  It’s another trap!”

Vyncynte rolled his eyes, wishing for something a little less obvious.  He drew back and cleft the advancing vines with his axe, moving toward Tolorian as he could.  The vine clearly didn’t like that, and the vines drew back.  Vyncynte readied himself to charge to help the still struggling elf, when numerous loudly scrapping sounds, some before him, and some behind him, caught his attention.

“Uh, Vyncynte,” called Atticus, calmly.  Vyncynte half turned his head enough to see Atticus no longer standing, but caught in the chair he was formerly standing over.  “I don’t get it; Animated Objects should have been visible when I cast my Detect Magic spell…” Rows of cupboards lined up behind Vyncynte.  Ahead, more shuffling and scraping, and still more furniture turned the corner to block Vyncynte from the scrabbling elf Tolorian.

“Great…” Began the axe man, but he was soon engaged in a fairly intense melee on all sides.

Meanwhile Tolorian had his neck free and began using his free hand to search his satchel bag.  With a deadly vine wrapping about his left, he was grateful the monster’s attention was occupied elsewhere. He produced a scroll from his satchel and grinned in triumph.

Atticus glared at the evil furnishings that had eluded his magically enhanced senses so thoroughly, trying to divine why.  But for some reason, while ‘Identify Monster’ was still active, all he learned from each stare was that the furniture was ‘plant.’  This wasn’t unusual, since they were all carrying small, wiggling, menacing pot plants, he had overlooked it.  But now that he was looking harder, the chair he was sitting on was registering as ‘plant.’  Even this might not mean anything, since rich folks paid handsomely for Livewood for its artistic properties, and Livewood wasn’t killed by felling the tree or working the wood.  So what were these…?

“Oh!” shouted Atticus.  He could have kicked himself if he could have only stood.  The furniture was Livewood!  The Assassin Vine was controlling all plants!  Even the Livewood furniture, because they were all still plants!

“Burning hands!”  A cone shaped burst of flames erupted on the further side of Vyncynte, as the now free Tolorian carefully measured the distance and range of the spell to roast the wall of furnishings attacking Vyncynte from his side.

Atticus disbelieving, asked “How did you get free, Tolorian?  Surely you can’t cast spells grappled.”

“Fear not, scholar, for I have in my possession a bewildering plethora of scrolls for every occasion, and the plant beast had only in its possession one of my casting hands.  The creature shall be long bound by my Scroll of Empowered Charm Monster!”

Vyncynte, grateful for the reprieve behind him, turned back to help Atticus.

“No, no, no, “ shouted Atticus, “the plant!  That’s why I didn’t detect the animate objects!  Because it’s the plant!  The plant is manipulating the furniture, not magic!  Attack the plant!”

Turning back on the plant that so recently bound him, Tolorian readied his verbose magic. “So, Assassin Vine, it now seems your carefully prepared role in this ambush has been revealed.  Know that what follows is but a taste of the fury your wicked and tasteless master shall experience when I let loose my awesome magical might upon…”

Vyncynte cleft the Assassin Vine with his axe, cutting the long winded diatribe short.  The Vine was felled in one blow of the magically empowered axe, and the furniture immediately ceased moving.

“For what reason did you interrupt my arcane vengeance?” Tolorian was quite irate.

“Sniff.  To save you spells,” was Vyncynte’s reply.

Tolorian replied “But, it was charmed and helpless before me.  I was on the verge of painlessly and with all swiftness dispatching the creature.”

Vyncynte “So was I.   Hey, Atti, I need healing.  And can I press the button now?”