The sun came up slow and indifferent the way it always did in the Barrens, painting the damage in shades of gold that made it look almost peaceful from a distance.
It wasn't.
Chris stood at the eastern wall and looked at what the night had cost them. Three sections of thorn defensive line had been reduced to splinters, there was a large gap in the Ent wall where the Minotaur's had driven through, the wood still weeping sap that smelled sickly sweet, more beast corpses than he thought possible sat scattered across the soil outside had already beginning to draw the carrion birds that circled overhead with their multiple red eyes and sharp patient beaks.
The plants were quiet in a way Chis knew meant many were hurt and focused entirely on healing.
He could feel it through the network as various dull aches that wasn't his own, coming from the many roots and vines that had taken damage, he could even feel the Ent trying as hard as it could to regrow, how the spike bushes had taken to try and firm up and fill it for it, stitching the hole closed in an extremely macabre manner that he felt it appreciated and even seemed to be working. The ache wasn't unbearable but instead like an itch he couldn't scratch, just a reminder that everything he'd grown out here could bleed in its own way.
"The wall Ent will recover." Korr's voice came from behind him, steady and unhurried. He easily noticed that he was looking at the gap, his own red eyes now moving across the damage with the practiced assessment of someone who had spent decades reading battlefields. "Weeks, no, it will take a few days at most, it's roots are still intact and may even be sooner if those thorn bushes really are helping it recover."
"I know." Chris rubbed the knot mark on his wrist. "But that doesn't make it easier to look at, and you aren't the one feeling everything, I know it meant well but this gift is more a curse."
Korr said nothing to that. He didn't need to.
Not far from them Sera was sitting on an upturned root, her jaw set and her leg stretched out in front of her while the shadow berry vine did its slow, patient work on the gash the wolf had left, a mix of its leaves and sap doing what it could well the grass and other vine helped it. She hadn't complained once. She also hadn't put her sword down either though, the blade resting flat across her knee even now, still dark at the edges where she hadn't fully cleaned it.
"It knew where to push," she said without looking up. "The wolves going for the thorn gaps and drawing our attention well the Minotaur's targeted the wall directly during our distraction. That wasn't instinct."
"No," Korr agreed. " But we knew they were being given direction, but the level of mastery was unexpected."
Chris had known it last night but hearing it said plainly in the morning light made it sit differently in his chest. The dungeon hadn't just sent more beasts like it had been doing. It seemed to have either been directing them itself or having had something do it for it. The Voice had warned him and yet he still hadn't expected this.
He turned from the wall and walked deeper into the village, needing to see the rest of it. The cloud tree had taken a glancing hit from something, one of its lower branches hanging at a wrong angle, the mist coming out thinner than usual and somehow, he felt it had taken the strike to shield the other two. The Critic was already working on it as well; its various patches had been using their roots to quietly reroute nutrients through the night to keep the various plants going well healing and helping wherever it could. The moon drops and blood lilies had mostly survived, being among the few that suffered little to no harm, folding up tight and low the way they did during fights but having slowly begun to open now in the morning sun with a slowness that felt exhausted, seemingly wanting to use their songs to ease everyone's nerves and feelings.
The world tree was fine. He'd felt that much through the network even before checking up in it. Its little root found his ankle almost immediately when he got close, wrapping around it with a grip that was slightly tighter than usual, during the fighting it had tried to help, using its roots to trip and squeeze various beasts to try and help him.
"I know," he told it quietly. "I know."
He almost walked past the strangle vines entirely. He'd expected to find them depleted, pulled thin from the night's work or just being busy digestion the feast they had, having gorged themselves last night.
What he found instead stopped him short, his mind trying to make sense of what he saw.
They weren't depleted or still and digesting. They were somehow even larger and thicker than before, something he didn't think was possible. He hadn't expected any of this, one vine extending gradually outward from its base making him notice and realize There where more of them, now separate from the big and thick vines well the smaller ones, offshoots he realized, growing from the main bodies, each one slender and pale compared to the parent but already moving with the same slow predatory awareness. Their needled flowers were smaller too, more numerous but clustered tightly together, but still unmistakably the same.
He counted seven of them before he stopped counting.
"When the hell did this happen?" He asked in a whisper.
They happily told him during the third push of the tide. When one of the main vines had been at its limit and couldn't extend further without losing its grip on two wolves already caught, it had pushed outward differently instead, an instinct or feeling taking control and from there the offshoots had emerged and began handling the targets the parent plants couldn't reach. When they'd consumed what they caught it would feed it directly back into the parent. Less strain. Wider reach and being able to spread them from any point of their vines, the catch being that the parent vines needed to have the energy to spare, something he realized could be endless in theory if they spread, grew and created constantly offshoots to feed them.
Chris crouched beside the nearest offshoot with interest. It turned toward him with that unsettling awareness they all seemed to have, its needled flower opening slightly but being careful not to prick him.
It was connected to him aswell, he could feel it clearly through the network but not as its own voice? Form? Rather it was an extension of the parent vines. Like fingers on a hand rather than a separate creature. They told him that if it was cut off it would keep moving for a while, aggressive and directionless the way a lizard tail kept twitching but more violent and deadly before it faded. But the parent could simply grow another.
"You really did this yourself," he said to the main vine. Not a question.
The feeling that he got was one of deep self-satisfaction.
"Of course you're pleased with yourself." He shook his head but he was smiling despite everything. His plants had a habit of solving problems, either those for themselves or even ones he couldn't find an easy solution to. It was one of the things he'd stopped being surprised by and started being quietly grateful for instead.
He stood and looked at the offshoots moving slowly through the morning air and thought once more on the potential they held should the parent vines grow further. What it could became if the other vines could learn to do the same.
The smile faded slightly.
"Korr," he called.
The demon coming over unhurried, a look of thought firmly on his face as he gave a small nod. "I know, I had already seen them, I found them quite interesting with a vast amount of potential."
"Oh? And what exactly are your thoughts on them? They could already reach out across the village but this new development solves their problem of being overwhelmed."
Korr studied the offshoots for a long moment and nodded. "It will definitely change how we will be using them. We will need to stop thinking of the strangle vines as fixed points with a long reach and start thinking of them as a network with a reach that expands every time something attacks us, each wave will now become a means to strengthen them and increase our might." He paused. "Which means last night may have accidentally made us significantly harder to hit the same way twice, the usual waves have now become a strength for a powerful trump card now."
"The dungeon will notice, what if it adapts as well? Sending stronger things like a swarm of those damn spider things or a herd of Minotaur's."
"That is a concern." Korr's expression didn't change. "It will adapt once it realizes these changes, but that spider creature was no doubt a room boss so it will take time to send more such as that, I can't speak about the Minotaur's though but my concern would be other room bosses, hopefully it won't notice till the vines have grown far stronger and numerous."
Chris looked back toward the eastern wall, toward the slowly filling gap before looking at the various carrion birds circling patient overhead, a few having already begun to feed on the fallen.
They barely managed to hold out but they managed it.
He reached through the network and began directing what repairs he could well not being connected to the Rootmind, guiding new growth into the damaged sections and urging the thorn bushes to try and greatly explode in number again, to save what they could and knit together as best they could.
He was still working when Sera's voice came sharp from the eastern gate.
"Chris."
Her tone pulled him out of his thoughts immediately, noting something in her tone, not panic but rather something else. Quieter and harder to make out.
He crossed the village in quick strides and followed her up to the rampart, following her gaze toward the Barrens.
Something was moving toward them from the direction of the dungeon cliffs, but watching it they noticed how it moved wrong, different from the various beasts sent to attack or even the hardy, rushing Minotaur's, it was to too hunched and wobbled as it moved, too large to be a wolf, to disproportionate to be a person. He could have used the network to get a better look but felt a over reliance would be detrimental, especially not before he makes it clear he wouldn't want anymore surprise 'gifts'.
It took him a moment to recognize the shape.
He soon noticed it was a Minotaur. The one who only had one-eye and would often watch each time they attacked and seemed to be in charge along with controlling the rest. Over his time living in the village, he had seen it retreat from his walls over a dozen times with that infuriating intelligent caution but this time it was alone.
As it drew closer he noticed how its massive body was covered in wounds that hadn't come from his plants. They were deep and ragged in a way that spoke of something with a deeper hunger and far less mercy than anything he'd grown, the wounds fresh and dripping crimson. It was dragging one leg as it made its way over. Its single eye was fixed on the village with an expression that Chris had no framework for on a dungeon beast's face. True terror and fear.
It wasn't charging or even hunting, instead moving with caution and in what Chris realized was an attempt to appear non-threatening.
It stopped ten paces from the wall and looked up at him, its chest heaving with the effort of just standing as it let out a stream of hot air from its nostrils, mixing into the slowly curling mist.
Chris stared down at it and for a long moment, neither of them moving.
"It broke away from the dungeon," Korr said quietly from beside him with surprise. Chris hadn't heard him climb up. "They look almost as if something had tried to eat him."
Chris's eyes widened as he realized the reality that the thing was using its own creatures as food without hesitation or restraint.
The Minotaur's legs buckled. It caught itself as it felt, its massive hand hitting the ground with a sound that carried as it tried to hold itself up before looking up at him again, that single eye showing desperation as it collapsed.
Chris stood at the wall looking down at it for a few beats, simply staring at it as the carrion birds already beginning to descend at the edges of his vision.
"It ran," he said quietly. "It actually ran from whatever is down there."
Korr's voice was flat and certain beside him as he nodded slowly. "And it ran here, coming here for protection or some other reason."
"One we will never know." Chris said softly, already ordering his plants to bring the body in. He wouldn't let the birds feed it.