Plants Can Just DIE

Adalinda needed out of the guild, and out of her house. It had been a while since she had gone on a job outside of the guild, as well as a while since she did anything other than training with her mentor too. Yeah... she didn't mind all the training with Cirven, but she did want some time alone to herself where she enjoyed being on her own. And what did Adalinda decide was best for her to do to solve her issue here? Simple. She had decided that she needed to go and explore the island she calls home. Tamaria had been against it, she didn't want to have to watch over the children on her own, but Adalinda had ended up lying to her by saying she needed to go into town and buy some groceries, so she was able to ditch the Exceed alone with the triplets. They were still growing in their pod though, so there wasn't much that needed to be done besides to watch over them and make sure they were fed accordingly anyways. The mage still couldn't get over the fact that she was having three babies at once. It was a big shock to her. Slowly, she had started reading up on how to care for babies and listened to some advice from others. But there was so much that she would have to do, even with Yuudai's help, and most of the advice she was given contradicted themselves and nulled one another. The only two things that someone said that really stuck to the new mother, was that she was the one to ultimately decide how to raise her children, and to ignore the rest since she'd be judged no matter what more than likely. Her only hope had been that she would be able to handle all three of them while working at the trading company. She couldn't sit back and twiddle her thumbs.

The dragon slayer smiles to herself as she yanks herself up on a branch of a tree and starts to quietly observe her surroundings. There wasn't much going on around the area. Silence was all the mage could hear. Taking a deep breath, Ada starts to walk across the branch and steps on another for a bit. The wind started to pick up, so she decides to jump down off of the branch and onto the ground once again so her black skirt wasn't flared up too much by it. Her sword, Ihai Agneya Talizar, lightly clinks as the tip touches the ground when her knee hits the ground at the same time. Talizar was belted on her triple belt that held her black skirt, and black tank top, in place on Ada's body. The floral and fauna seemed to be relatively the same. On occasion she'd smell a beast here and there, like the sabre tooth behemoth or a wyvern. She wasn't afraid of them, they couldn't touch her with how strong she's gotten with Cirven as her mentor. She chuckles to herself. Tammy would have said that was pretty vein of her to say, if she were to say it aloud even. She slowly stands up again, removing the hilt of her sword from it's spot and popping off the pommel before bringing the opened hilt to her lips and sipping the alcohol within it's hilt before she closes it and attaches the hilt to the cross guard again. She then continues to travel about the place, wondering what new things she could find. Her thoughts were traveling to the extremes, thinking she'd find a lost city that still had inhabitants, or even a ruins. Maybe a few artifacts or five. Skeleton remains of either an animal, or person. A dump sight of a serial killer or mob gang group thing. Her thoughts on the matter were getting quite outlandish really.

The scents she was getting weren't too different or strange from those scents she's smelled before, so she wasn't stopping as she traveled farther into the forests that claim a chunk of Tolgalen. "I wonder how far I can run here..." She murmurs to herself as she stops for a moment. As she did so, something flashed passed the corner of her eye. She blinks as she whips her head in the direction and sniffs the air. A new scent was there. Her curiosity was now getting the better of her as she quickly climbed a tree again, and started racing through the branches. She bent low to keep her balance, and to try to block the wind from being able to knock her over too easily. She couldn't see what it was that had passed her. All she saw was various shades of green in the mid-morning light. Animals were darting here and there, or were sleeping. The scent she was following didn't seem to be wavering from it's path it had though. "Where... are you...?" She grumbles to herself before she stops. This was starting to frustrate her as she stands up on the thick branch. Her eyes were scanning below. At first she noticed the bunches of leaves of a bush being pushed around, till she realized it wasn't a bush of leaves and there was something red under it the farther it went from her. It was like it was wearing an extra large had of oversized leaves upon it's head or something. The mage jumps down from the tree and takes off running. Her eyes were set on the thing before her. It seemed to notice her, more than likely hearing her whip pass a bush and smacking the leaves with her hand, and started to run away in turn. Whatever it was, the thing on it's head didn't seem to bother it too much as it was probably a bit faster than her.

Adalinda starts to smell various different scents, and makes a face as she was starting to see red and purple becoming a more common color among the stems of the plants here. They were starting to look different than normal. Even the trees had a red vine wrapped around them that made it seem like the trees were being strangled tightly. In fact, Ada was sure that was what was exactly happening with these vines here. She grits her teeth and continues to run. She hated this. She was hoping like hell these weren't like those other plants. She makes a face as she shakes her head and locks her eyes on the target before her... which was now gone. Muttering incoherent profanities under her breath, Ada sniffs the air and continues to follow the trail the strange thing left. She honestly hoped it was just a strange hobo person out here dressing up with the earth and maybe had a shroom or two while they've lost their sanity.

Suddenly, Ada's foot catches on something. She goes flying forward and tumbles a bit, smacking a piece of stone with her face. "Ow..." She groans as she feels her head before sucking in a deep breath. She removes her fingers after she feels something warm, and sees that there was red on them. Blood. "Great..." She mutters as she looks up after noticing another red thing out of the corner of her eye. Her jaw hangs slack as she sees a ruins of a city of sorts before her. Her eyes were starting to shine practically as she scrambles to her feet and starts to jog to the edge of a crumbling wall. There were plants everywhere. There were plants wrapped up around everything imaginable here. These plants had the same red and purple stems around them like she saw earlier, and it concerned her, but what concerned her more... these buildings didn't seem like they were too old. Maybe a few years, five or so at most. They were only ruined from the destruction of these plants rapid growth. Just what the dragon slayer needed... more plants that take over things. She growls as she glares about the place.

Rustling to her left made her scream a bit as a plant was moving to wrap itself around a pole not too far from her. She watches as a bird came flying over. The bird didn't seem to aware of the surroundings and what was going on there. The leaves of some of the red stemmed plants started to have a slight maroon color to it with bright pink stripes in the center of the leaf. If one didn't watch, one would think that the pink stripes were actually worms. The bird lands on a leaf and started pecking at the pink stripes, which was ultimately not a great idea for it as as soon as it ingested some of the pink part of the leaf, the bird started to choke and was starting to grow warts on it immediately before it crashed to the ground at the plants base. The plants were slowly weaving their way up, scaling over the buildings to get to the top where more light was. Her eyes went over the buildings as she begun going into this abandoned city more. There were carts turned on the side with plants seeming to feed off of the wood, and the remains of toys left on the ground tangled up in some other vines. She makes her way to what seemed like a market area. The amount of red and purple plants that consumed the area appalled her. Where was everyone? Was was going on with these plants? How did the guild not know about this?

Her mind then snapped back to the figure from before. Who was that? Her nose stuck up in the air as she immediately starts to sniff about. The scent wasn't too far from her. Grabbing the pommel of Talizar, Adalinda begins running to where the person thing smell was coming from. She didn't get too far as another plant came in front of her from around the corner. Would one call it a plant? It looked like it had short stubby legs with an enormous purple butternut squash shaped stem (body?) type thing. There were offshoots to the stem that had extended to seem similar to fingers with the same maroon leaves as the one Adalinda just witnessed kill a little bird. It had a bush of leaves on top that seemed similar to that of a sun hat with a bit of a point from a stick of thorns on it. There was no indication of face or front other than the direction the 'arms' were and how it walked. She was going to assume that all these plants were poisonous and assumed a stance to pull her sword out if she was to be attacked. There was no way she was going to take a chance at suffering the same fate as the bird. This plant didn't look like the other one she had come across, being it didn't have the same body shape, and was a different color than the other one.

The plant scrunches forward, letting the top of it's head point right at Adalinda before it starts to run after her at a surprisingly fast speed. Adalinda barely was able to jump out of the way as she growls rather loudly. "I absolutely fucking hate plants! I'm not gardening! I'm never going to touch a fucking flower! No one is dragging me on another plant raid again!" She growls as she shakes her head. She was trying to keep the whine from her voice coming through. Instead of turning around and charging back at her, the plant that was trying to spear her with it's weird hat spike thing, it just kept on running and didn't seem like it was going to stop. She stands still for a moment, looking at it rather confused till she quickly shakes her head and goes back to sniffing the air. The scent was starting to go away. She couldn't let it go. "Here... planty planty planty..." She calls out as she keeps her right hand on her swords hilt on her left side. She takes off in a slow trot as she looks around, observing the various plants. She noticed a couple other squash-like plants roaming the streets, but they hadn't noticed her. Various other animals that had traveled into the city lately had fallen to their doom at near the roots of the plants. The animals near the roots of the purple plants seemed to have a happy-like expression on their faces while their eyes were wide open. Ada determined she didn't want to touch that plant, at all.

"Never. Touching. Plants. Again. Ever." She hisses to herself quietly. Adalinda makes her way farther into the city. As she looks up. Near what she was assuming was the center of it were two huge trees wrapped around one another, one had a red trunk, while the other had a purple trunk. Both of the trees stood taller than any of the buildings in the city. She wondered why she didn't see them before... Maybe it was because she wasn't focusing up in the sky at all. She then blinks as she the smell of the plant thing, from earlier, was suddenly stronger. "Got ya..." She snickers as she pulls out Talizar and held it in one hand as she lightly taps her feet on the ground while she ran. The plants roots and vines helped to muffle the sound of her boots as she moved. 'Around a corner. It's close.' She thinks to herself as she transfers her sword to her left hand, letting herself skid around a pole as she held it with her right gloved hand. When she was around it, her sword was pointing at the neck of a plant girl wearing a red tulip like dress that covered her breasts and her hips area. Her skin was greenish yellow, and she had long grasslike hair that went down to the ground. "Well you're different than the rest..." Adalinda mutters as she glares at the girl. Her bright green eyes were staring down the blade of Talizar before they went to Ada's bright blue ones.

"H-How did you find this place...?" She asks in a panicked voice. Ada raised an eyebrow and jabs a thumb back in the direction she came from before she brings it back and taps her nose. "I followed your scent... What happened to this place?" The girl reaches her hand up hesitantly before she pushes the sword away, taking a step back as she holds her hands up. She seemed like she was ashamed of something. "A spell gone wrong... And a Wizard who took advantage of it..." She mumbles under her breath. If it wasn't for Ada's enhanced hearing, she would have had trouble hearing the girl. "Please... don't kill me..." She pleads as she looks up at Adalinda. "I don't know how to fix it... but... m-maybe I could help you find the wizard. I don't know if killing him will help... but, it might lighten the spell." "Where is all the people who used to be here? Did they leave?" The girl shakes her head as she shrugs her shoulders, but her eyes travel to the two entwined trees that were to Ada's right. Ada pursed her lips and perks her eyebrow to her as she presses the dragon head on Ihai Agenya Talizar, letting the flames light up. The girl shrieks as she jumps away from Adalinda and her sword. A smirk was now on her face. "So you don't like heat? Alrighty. Now I know how to demolish the rest of these beasts." She snickers as she nods. "Take me to the tree..."

The girl nods slowly, but shakily points to the sword. "P-put that away... please?" Ada nods as she presses the dragon's head and makes the flame disappear. She then takes the hilt off and takes another sip of her alcohol, smiling softly to herself as she knew Yuudai made it specially for her. The plant girl was confused at what she just saw, and Adalinda just snickers and rolls her eyes as she puts her hilt back on the blade once more. She motions for the girl to lead the way, but keeps her hand on her pommel once again as she followed behind her. As they walk, they come across the other plant things, but they seemed to just bow to the girl before her. "I'm Tanish... And I've come to call these things 'Jugs' as they look like jugs to me... they don't hurt me... but they seem to guard the city. I'm allowed to leave and the like at my leisure, but I have to be back before dusk... I only came back so soon because I saw you and wanted to get away quickly..." She explains as she had seen Adalinda's expression towards them. "One of the Jugs already tried to ram you... didn't it?" Ada nods now as she pouts a little. She didn't like having the girl know that she was nearly rammed, but she couldn't deny her expression showing she had already encountered one. "The red ones straight up poison... the purple ones make you hallucinate while poisoning you at the same time... Or so I've seen. They use the bodies of their prey as fertilizer." She says as she makes a face.

As they walk, Adalinda leans over to look at Tanish's face, as she was looking down at the ground. "You weren't originally like this... were you?" Tanish shakes her head before she nervously chuckles and scratches the back of it, ruffling the grass. "No... this was because of the spell... I tried to make my garden grow faster... but I'm a novice witch, and messed up the spell... I made the plants grow a bit too big. That's when the wizard came in and took over what I started... creating this..." She motions around them. Adalinda nods as she looks to the tree. She wanted to get going to it faster. Tanish follows her gaze, and takes a deep breath. "The inside of the trees are scary. But... come on." She says as she quickly starts to run. It seemed this girl read her mind. Adalinda grins as she quickly is following after her and running alongside her.

It took the girls a matter of five minutes just to reach the trees. They seemed to crush a few houses that were around the area, being that both of the trunks were a good 50 meters wide each. At the base of each trunk was a crack about 4 meters high and 2 meters wide. Clearing her throat, Tanish points to the purple trunk. "I've only been in the purple trunk once... It... it doesn't look pretty..." "And the red one?" "That's... that's my home..." She admits and hangs her head. Adalinda snorts as she raises an eyebrow to Tanish. "You live next to the tree that scares you? You're brave. C'mon, lets go find the wizard guy, since I'm assuming you're saying he's in his castle of purple." She snickers as she starts walking in. Tanish was right behind her, kind of close though.

The moment the two enter the purple trunk, they were hit with a putrid smell. Adalinda gags a bit more than Tanish, as she had enhanced sense of smell. This was one of the few times she hated it. Looking around the trunk, one could see at least 100 purple shallow caverns and stairs up the tree. In the caverns, there were at least four pods stuffed in each of them. Adalinda tries to sniff the air, and can't smell anything past the rotten smell. "Lets go up the stairs..." She mutters, hoping the smell would go away.

"Don't you even think about it..." A voice says from behind them. Adalinda turns around to see Tanish being held by a plant looking guy with his hand over her mouth. "Hello... You're trespassing... Mind if I... show you the door?" His hand was purple with the gunk that lined the walls of the inside of the tree. Adalinda quickly removes her sword. "Pardon me? I happened to be passing by... I came to admire the purple gunk I plan on destroying." She snickers as she lets her sword come aflame once again. The guy snickers as he throws Tanish back out of the crack of the tree, and reaches into the wall... quite literally reaches into it, and pulls out a sword. "I wonder how you'll beat me my dear... you're surrounded by death... but then again... it could be happy for you. Thank you, Tanish, for being so gracious to add another person to my collection!" He cries out happily before he started to charge at Ada.

Adalinda was able to quickly dodge the man without touching the walls at all. She was cursing that she wasn't in her uniform, as she wasn't as protected from the purple slime in her skirt on her legs, or even on her arms with her tank top. She was glad she had kept her gloves on though. They make a difference. Ada held Talizar with her left hand, and snickers as she goes to charge at the guy herself now. When she met him, their swords hit together, but unfortunately for the guy, the flames of her sword flick off onto him, starting to burn him. He gets distracted by the flames, trying to put them out, that Ada was able to slap his leg with the broadside of the sword, causing his leg to catch on fire. A grin is on her face as his eyes grow wide and he shakes his head. "No! No! No. No. No! Stop!" He shouts at her as she comes at him again. She grins as she raises her sword above her head before she swings it at a diagonal, chopping deep into the guys shoulder, but it struck something that made it stop before it could cut through all the wood. He lets out a shout of pain, making Adalinda figure out the reason why her sword didn't slice through him like butter. "Release the spell..." She hisses. She wished she had more control over how much fire her sword could give. She shoves down on the sword a bit more, making the wizard cry out in more pain. "The fire won't stop, not even after I let go of the blade... So might as well not touch me... and might as well remove the spell..." Her voice was low and menacing as she glares at the guy.

Slowly, he starts to nod his head. His face was contorted into that of shame, pain, and embarrassment as he waved his arm and the spell starts to slowly dissipate and dwindle down back towards the trees. The stuff that was smallest disappeared the fastest. The bigger the object, the slower it started to go away. Adalinda yanks the sword out of the wizards shoulder, glaring at him as he slowly started to change. The wood on the outer edge of his limbs was dematerializing. She didn't dare turn around to check on Tanish. She didn't trust this guy. She kept her sword in her hand as she sneers at him. "Make it go faster." He shakes his head as he didn't have the power to do so. She let up a growl and grabs his shoulder. The purple gunk was off of his arms, so she put out Talizar's flames and sheathed it before she grabbed his wrists in a tight grip. Only then did she noticed that Tanish looked like she was a normal human once more. She had long, bright red hair and wore a green dress that made her pale skin pop. She smiles brightly to Adalinda as she was crying. "Thank you! Thank you so much!" She cries happily and turns around. There were a few Jugs starting to come over to them, all seeming ready to attack them. Adalinda shoves the wizard forward and glares at him.

Before she could tell him to do something about it, the plants started to get jittery with their movements till they collapsed before them, sliding on the ground to the trees. Adalinda grips the guys, now bad, shoulder as she watches the plants retreating off of the buildings now. "So... Tell me why...?" Ada grins as she grips the guys shoulder more. He was biting back another scream from her torture she was giving him. "I was experimenting with plants! And I wanted to see it flourish! It flourished! The great Vinci was able to make the most beautifully deadly plants ever! And the people were what fueled the gorgeousness of it all!" He was starting to rave like a madman, and Adalinda takes a deep breath. "Enough!" She shouts as she knocks him hard enough on the head to knock him out. "I... am never planting... or associating myself with plants... ever again..." She grumbles as she glances to Tanish, who was excitedly watching the plants disappear back to the tree. It was a long twenty minutes till all that remained were the trees. The trees begun to rumble as leaves fell towards the earth once more. Slowly, the trees seemed to start to shrink down. "Why do I feel like the people of the city are in there...?" She mumbles as she looks to the guy still knocked out on the ground. She makes an iron kunai, and hands it to Tanish. "Make sure he stays down if he wakes up..." She mumbles before she takes off running inside the tree.

The smell of the tree hadn't disappeared, but Ada was able to smell people around. She gasps as someone broke free of their pod that held them captive for a few years. "Hey! Help others get free of their things down here! Get others to help you out! I'm going up to help anyone up there!" She cries out to the confused guy, but he quickly nods as he sees someone's arm break free of their own pod. He was weak on his feet, but he still pushed himself to help. As he got the other person out of the pod, Adalinda quickly races up the stairs to the top. Already a few people had gotten out of their pods, looking disoriented and confused. Adalinda instructed them to go down the stairs carefully as she ran up them to the top. When she got there, there was only one pod that wasn't opened, and people looking confused, still. There was a couple holding a young child who was at least six or so, but the they weren't moving. "Quickly, get down the stairs and find your doctor... I'm no healer." She says as she covers her hand over her mouth. She wanted to snuggle her babies immediately now. She then goes to that last pod on this top floor and breaks it open. Unfortunately, there was just an old man inside who had passed on ages ago, but she pulls him from the pod anyways. Someone would want to claim him still. One of the last people on the floor came and grabbed the old man from her. "I'll take him down..." He says to let Ada go and help the rest. Fortunately there was someone willing to help her on nearly every floor she had found someone who passed on, but she didn't like the sight of it at all regardless.

When she was halfway through the floors, she noticed that the tree was starting to shrink width wise, and even height wise. She only hoped everyone could get out fast enough. When she finally made her way out of the tree, Adalinda looks around. This was a whole city of people who's homes were destroyed. She looks up to the sky. It was passed noon now. That's what the sun told her at least. When she looked for the Wizard again, Tanish was standing behind him with the kunai at his throat. "Alright, Wizard." Ada says as she glares to him. He was sporting a beautiful lump on his head. Seemed like Tanish smacked himin the head and he hit the ground. "Fix the city." She orders him as she held her hand on the hilt of her sword, threatening to release it from it's sheath. She nods to Tanish to remove the kunai. The wizard takes a deep breath as he closes his eyes and stand up. "I am called Vinci..." He simply muttered. Ada didn't care though as she made her sword come out of the sheath a bit more. He flinches as he starts to speak in an ancient language. Tanish gasps. "He's turning back the time on the city itself..." She breaths as she knew this was a strong spell.

After Vinci was done with the spell, a man who was dressed in a guards outfit quickly came over and yanked his arms behind his back and slapped on some anti-magic cuffs on him. One last rumble was heard behind Adalinda, as she dared to look back. The two trees were gone. In their place was four buildings, and a fenced in area where a garden was. There were large fresh fruits, veggies, and flowers that littered the area. Tanish gasps and quickly rushes to her garden. "It's alright! Everything is fine! Nothing's too huge!" She cries out happily before she rushes at Adalinda. She effectively knocked the mage down onto her back, causing her to cough from having the wind knocked out of her. "Thank you so much! Uh..." Tanish's face dropped as she didn't know who she was. A grin forms on Ada's face as she pats the girls head. She was maybe a couple years younger than her. "Adalinda. I work at the West Fiore Trading Company... mind telling me what this place used to be?" Tanish grins and helps her up. "Well... Adalinda, this is Borillis, city of gardens." She muses happily to her. After Tanish said that, the people smiled and nodded. As Adalinda looks around, she would see some buildings have private gardens on their roofs or balconies. "I'm never coming here again..." She mutters to herself. She then had a thought. "I... need... I need to go tell someone at the company about this place... I'm sorry I must leave so soon... but this is a big deal that should be taken care of quickly." She motions to the guard with the wizard to come with her. "Let me have him. I'll make sure he's locked up nice and tight." She snickers as she starts to yank him along with her. "What have I learned from my adventures today? Plants... are... evil... most definitely." She nods to herself as she was far from earshot of the people of Borillis. The wizard snickers at her comment, making Adalinda glare at him. His snickering stopped and she nods in approval as he was done.

The whole way back to the guild, Adalinda was ranting and raving about plants being evil. She had taken him back to the guild to have him locked up after telling either of the Vice Presidents, or the CEO what he had done, and of the apparently lost city. She was glad to be done with that crazy madman and his dreams of wanting a 'beautiful poisonous plant'. She couldn't even see the beauty in those plants...

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