"It seems as if we have some very problem some guests... Minions, kill them."
And thus the plan without a plan began a new plan for a plan that was never supposed to take place. In other words, chaos. Or at least in Richard's eyes, death. Richard reaches out and manages to grab hold of another flower before he quickly finds himself flung away from the buck. The controlled bucks' antlers begin to radiate magic energies and the nature around them begins to grow even more agitated with a lime green light.
Richard grabs at his throat as he starts to feel his windpipe getting crushed from some roots and vines attempting to choke the life out of him. It doesn't last long as Blake quickly frees him from the all too soon attempt at his life. The only downside seems to be the new burns along his neck from Burnabus.
"Fuck!" Richard yells rubbing at his neck and gasping for air as he backs away from the creatures and Dryad.
"You're welcome!" Blake says before lashing out at a descending bat shadow skewering it in one flawless movement.
The one free buck is quick to get to work at the plan without a plan as he manages to disrupt the others and their magic by tackling and bucking. Whoever this mysterious Deer is, he certainly makes up for the quantity with quality. Of course, that doesn't mean anything if he gets overpowered.
Richard's mind, despite being lower on oxygen for a short moment, seems to be lagging as he attempts to come up with some sort of rational plan to get through this. They've avoided death up to this point by sheer luck and motivation so this time shouldn't be any different. Or at least he hopes so. Last time they were in a situation like this...
Richard looks to Blake with concern in his eyes, but they never meet Blake. Blake is too busy coming up with his combat plan. He's quick to activate his powers to jump right into the bloodbath of it all.
Blake growls as nearby bark covers his body from nubs to hooves. Burnabus grows into a full-body length stick-staff before Blake charges into a dense section of the shadow creatures. In doing this, Richard finds himself alone with enemies on all sides and no plan in mind what so over. Not only that, but there's a mini-boss that is quickly becoming angrier the longer they're alive.
The plus side of this all is that despite the quantities of enemies, almost all of them are lower level than the two of them. With this in mind, death can take a small back burner for now. Though once the little damage starts building up...
Richard grits his teeth shakes his head and comes up with a plan on his own. First and for most, there's the controller of all of this. All of this seems to be the power of the Panda. He's not sure how the Dryad is forcing the Panda to continue this, but it is problematic.
The second issue would have the be the Dryad itself. its level is higher than his own, but not by much. Still, this little difference could mean everything when it comes to fighting in their realm. Especially when his only attacks come from Blake, seeds, and mushrooms.
But if he was going to fight anyone, he would first fight the creatures around the Dryad before ever going after the Dryad itself. The problem with that is that the Dryad seems intent on engaging in combat as the treant underneath her begins to pull itself out of the ground.
Richard curses his luck and runs towards the tree where the Panda is in lockdown. The mad dash is quickly stopped as bushes filled with thorns grow in front of him. A movement to his right causes him to duck under the trunk of a tree.
"Aim lower next time." The dryad says from atop of her new perch.
Richard's eyes widen as he falls backward and looks up in awe at the sight before him. A treant, unlike the many he's seen before, with the dryad atop its head. This treant seems to be much larger than all the other around it. It seems to bleed dark energy and is even using a deadened tree to swing. Richard can't recall Blake every summoning something like this and can only think of one thing in this situation.
"Smokescreen!"
Richard slams a few shrooms into the ground before scrambling backward. To his right, the buck gores another shadowed creature with Blake bitting into the arm of another. Richard makes his way towards the two to find his way blocked off my vines and bushes sharp with thorns.
He glances to his right to see the Dryad glaring down at him as she makes her way through the quickly dispersing dust cloud. To say she's furious would be an understatement.
"And where do you think you're going!" She yells.
Richard doesn't bother with words as his legs answer for him. He quickly moves away from his spot as the treant makes another step to only have its leg blown away from the few shrooms that he planted before scrambling away. He could feel her rage through her shout.
"Blake! I need some help buddy!"
"I can't get to you! They're pouring out of that tree where the Panda is tied up at! The other deers are free, but we're still getting overwhelmed! Isn't it awesome!"
Richard stops and looks back to see the treant pulling itself back together as the Panda begins to shake violently along with the tree it is tied to. And true to Blake's words, creatures of shadows are pouring out just as fast as the creature can control them. Blood is starting to pool out of the Panda's mouth and eyes as the now determined she begins screaming out in pain and fear.
"Fuck me!" Richard yells running towards the Dryad hoping for the best resolution to this confrontation, "Fine! I'll show you what I can really do!"
The dark treant reaches out with a hand to grab hold of the chef to find his hand crushed beneath metal and wires. Richard stumbles slightly from the sudden drain on his mana, but this was for the best in his mind. He moves around the staggered arm of the creature to find vines heading his way.
As the vines begin to grab hold of him, his clothes burst into flames as both they and himself are burnt. Richard bites through the pain, and into a seed, and keep running despite the burning sensation all over his body and the ticking of his health bar. Multiple alarms are going off in his head letting him know that this most certainly is a bad idea. No matter what his past thought thought it was.
The Dryad screeches at him as he runs past telling him to stop before he ruins everything she worked for. Whatever she was working for is certainly not worth the health and safety of a fellow champion. Every plant-based creature seems to give him birth as puts his body against the Panda and vines holding her to the tree. This has the effect of freeing her, burning her, and setting the tree on fire as well.
The tree screams in pain as the Panda is ripped away and falls unconscious with several vines burning away out of her back and into the base of the tree. Truly the thing of nightmares. And the start of an explanation into all of this.
The foliage of the tree begins to fall away at a rapid pace to reveal a swirling mass of black.
"Well, shit," Richard says feeling himself becoming drained from everything happening as she puts the Panda to the ground, "If only things could be easier huh?"
"I'll remember this!" Dryad yells as she dives into the ground.
With the control broken, the darkened creatures begin to stumble and lose their initial goals which give Blake, his army of freed treants, and the deers enough time to overwhelm what's left of the army that's been freed.
Richard begins to focus on the orb. Things are still pouring out of it, mainly the blacked bat creature, which could prove to be an obstacle for him. Before that, Richard tosses the burning shirt and pants off of him to finally free himself from the ticking damage of his clothes.
"Never. Again." He says glaring at his own hands.
"Hey!" Blake yells next to Richard causing him to jump.
"Jesus... Look, there's the portal but the creatures are going to be a problem. So I'm going to need you to get up there to close it while I support you."
"Or the Deer can capture all the creatures within the branches of the tree because of their magic."
Richard follows Blake's outstretched finger to see that they had done just that. At the apex of the tree, a birdcage had been made to prevent the escape of the others.
"I... I mean sure. I... I don't know how that's even possible tho. I was sure this tree was alive."
"Because it is. Everything is alive. I thought we had this conversation when you talked about turning the treants into firebombs."
"No. And we still need to talk more about it. I kind of did it without the explosion part. It hurt like hell, but I think we could make it work. But before that, I mean as in like shadow creature alive. Not like plant and cosmic yada yada alive."
"Wouldn't it be darker than? Like... a shadow?"
"I don't know how these rules work man. All I know is that this tree was controlling her and screamed when I burnt the vines away."
"Maybe the Dryad did something to it and it stopped upon her leaving. Speaking of which, we should probably tell somebody about her."
"I... You know what. Go for it. You got this Blake. I'm a go sit down and... I don't know. Read my menus?" Richard makes his way away from insanity as Blake proceeds to scale up the tree, goal in sight.
Blake jumps down from his perch and gives a mock roar causing the deer gathered around the story stump to chuckle. After clearing out the area of the shadowed creatures and making sure the Dryad wasn't going to return anytime soon, the Deer and Blake began to share stories and talk animatedly. Richard chimes in every so often from his position of nearby chef to correct some fantastical magination of Blake.
Further away from the noise, yet not out of sight, lies the Panda breathing steadily. A better sign than the earlier irregular breaths. It took a bit of work, but Richard was finally able to stabilize her before she hit zero.
Richard glances to his menu with bright red words above the tool bar reading update is ready. It appeared after Blake closed the portal. He hadn't gotten around to updating... himself? He's not really sure what he's updating, but if it means something will be better he'll happily take it.
Perhaps a power boost lies beyond it. But Blake hasn't brought up anything about receiving an update. Perhaps he hasn't checked his menu? He couldn't really say. Richard continues to stare at the update button a moment longer before deciding to hold it off for a moment longer. At least long enough to get Blake by himself to question the young buck on what he knows.