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“Okay, so with the iron here, the emzhir bark can go there, right…?”

Around the deer, different components filled the sections of circle she’d scrawled into the ground with the branch nearby. A curious mix and manner of things really she’d needed to scavenge really, from old bones and feathers to mossy muck she’d had to go scoop from the edges of the fetid swamp herself nearby placed onto the old symbols the former archdruid had detailed in his journal. The different ‘aspects’ of the Gaia around her, both living and dead that would supposedly open her up to a direct path of communication to the grove itself past all of the interference she’d been getting while she was stuck there.

Supposedly. Vylske puffed her cheeks out, getting her bangs out of her eyes as she knelt down at the shaman’s circle she’d arranged around herself and made sure of the arrangement. Assuming the old methods still actually worked.

Make no mistake, she’d tried the correct way of doing things. It should’ve been as easy as simply using her natural abilities to channel the essence of the place and summon an avatar to interact with, but every time she’d tried to do so more of those awful living brambles seemed to spring to life around her instead.

They had to be some level of alive, some sort of twisted creation of the taint poisoning this place as it stalked behind every step she took out here. Sure, the hut she’d found was a decent enough sanctuary for her rare forays out, but whenever it found her was a separate problem itself. Thankfully they hadn’t managed to catch her yet, but after months trying to survive out here with little contact back to the church, she’d already lost a good amount of the clothing she’d brought with her to the abundance of tears and holes those interactions tended to leave fleeing back to the hovel the old archdruid had nestled in the thickets of all the overwhelming brush. Hell, what she was wearing now was a tunic she would’ve been swimming in before coming here, packed on accident from her old dorm-mate with much more robust proportions before she’d left on her own mission and the deer had been unable to give it back.

…Not that it didn’t exactly fit her at the moment, Vylske had to admit feeling her hand settle on the sponginess of her hip. A feeling she’d had to get used to as her ears perked up to her own stomach growling as it pressed a soft layer of cervine chub into the midsection of gown and the recent additions to her breasts cup-size swayed freely in the open, backless shoulders.

Almost unconsciously the deer reached down at the pile of fruit at her side to snack on, but hesitated to eat it. Of course she hadn’t trusted anything growing around here to be actually safe to eat, but she needed something to live off of. By now she'd eaten through all of the rations she'd brought with her- just being in this place seemed to make her so hungry for some reason, and scavenging for food hadn't yielded much else she wanted to trust. Not that these fruits seemed 'safe' either, especially by the way they hideously swelled to burst like tomatoes, splitting at the seams and overlapping over itself grotesque with tender, overripe flesh. And yet...

“Mmh!" She suppressed the moan as the juice hit her taste buds; overly sweet, and utterly delectable if a bit seedy.

...But obviously still tainted though, she knew that much putting it aside. The place was baiting her, leaving such temptation within view of her shelter where it knew she couldn't resist. Where it could watch what it was doing to her too, as the munching cervine saw her reflection in the puddle nearby– growing softness spilling into double chin was proof of that much as her features had rounded out significantly. More alarmingly though were the growing, curved spurs of horns slipped underneath the headband keeping her hair in order without the aid of a barber shop nearby. Draping to the nape of her back, uncharacteristically untended to ever since she'd arrived. What was happening to her?

Luckily, as the last pieces were put into place for the ritual the doe was certain she was on the verge of such answers. Maybe the last pages of the journal were detailed with the dead guides' fears about war eroding the heart of the glade, but the fact that there was such corruption parasitizing off of it meant it had to be alive somehow. Meaning maybe there was something to speak to about how to get rid of it.

Once it was all prepared, the heavier deer leaned down and placed her hand into the center as she willed her magic to infuse it and send out that calling. To beckon it in a welcoming manner as the essence of the primeval hummed within her, pulsing out into the awful conditions around, opening her very soul to the unbearably complex host of life that was the very earth itself.

And when Vylske opened her eyes again, a black, thorny briar had sprouted from the earth and wound its way up her arm.

“Ah!” She shrieked, stumbling to her feet as it coiled around her like an inquisitive snake. “No! No, no, no! G-get off me! GET AWAY!”

And yet her cries failed to unwind the sinister plant, only serving to unearth more of its length like she’d placed her hand in a buried rope trap as the doe flailed to try and get it off. To her horror, more tendrils seemed to be sprouting from the ground now too along with it, breaking apart the ground as rooted, rhizomatous nests of hardy bramble unearthed themselves like hydras that reached and grasped for the heavyset cow as she pulled away. Out of instinct as they came closer her hand shot out and an ember of flame burned at the center of her palm.

“Las!”

A plume of fire enveloped the swaths of cane that’d overtaken the circle, and as they began to writhe like they were in pain the deer slipped out of the branch as its grip slacked. As she turned on her heels and left as quickly as she could, Vylske could almost hear the crackling as it burned like a plants ability to scream– but soon enough she’d made enough distance that the smell of smoke was far behind her as the winded ungulate leaned on a tree to catch her breath with more of her jostling around than the last time she’d engaged in such athletic activity.

Looking back, she could still just see the flames flickering from far away, faint shadows dancing against the trunk of the tree she’d come to rest against. Burning away some of those ugly, winding, parasitesfor sure as the blaze seemed to simmer down with its fuel retreating underground– but not all of them. Never all of them. And surely as more of those wretched brambles lingered, as long as those magic vines epitomizing the shadowy atmosphere remained, binding itself across every trunk and bush and inch of the ground, any attack would be useless as it fed off the stand around it. It would take burning it all away, purging whole of this blight to free this place.

…So maybe, as Vylske pushed away from the charred life she’d left in her wake, it was time for her to start looking for a way to do just that.

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The second part of a recent sequence from  Volkenfox!