Gayle Garnetstar, like most dwarves, preferred life underground. Stone was a durable, dependable substance out of which to literally carve a society’s civilization. She was far from agoraphobic. She loved the colorful, natural beauty of the surface world. She loved feeling the wind on her face. But, the surface world just wasn’t a practical place to build anything lasting.

The great dwarven cities she had seen as a girl, the metropolises that existed at the roots of mountains, had lasted and lasted, for hundreds of generations of her long-lived people. Indelibly carved in stone, virtually forever. Nothing on the surface, with all its rapid erosion and exposure to a sky full of elements that literally rained down it constantly, even had a chance at permanence. And the plants, with their implacably persistent root systems, could, over time, split boulders as surely as blows from any giant.

She looked at the ruins of Lunchmeat as an example of the power of plants to erase things. Already the jungles of Jasmia were overgrowing the former colony profusely. In just a few centuries, Gayle thought, folks who didn’t know Lunchmeat was here might stroll down what had once been a busy market street and never even know that a town had even been here at all. There was greenery everywhere. Some of the greenery had been useful for finding the privacy she needed to take care of her business, though.

As she finished refastening her clothes and started back to the rest of D.R. & Associates, however, her beard tugged on something behind her. Her right hand instinctively reached up to feel what was wrong with the flowing tresses of her facial hair. Immediately, her hand became stuck in some sticky substance, like glue or syrup. Turning around, she swore by all the beards of all the dwarven gods.

“Leggo me, you son of a bandersnatch!”

Her beard and right hand now immobile, she fumbled to release her axe and bring it to bear one-handed, and left-handed at that. She lost her grip and her axe fell to the ground.

“By the Hells! Stupid plants! I hate plants!”

Though not a plant expert, Gayle recognized the giant sundew from her association with Don Espino. Years ago, in his very first adventure, as an even younger elf child, before Gayle had joined the Associates, Don Espino had almost been killed by a garden infested with Chaos. Instead of becoming afraid of magical, predatory plants, the young elf had instead become fascinated with them. When he and Deldric spoke of things they would like to have someday if they settled down from adventuring long enough to have their own Mage Towers or castles or palaces, Espino always described the magical garden of security guard plants he would grow there. The dwarven warrior had gained some knowledge of aggressive plants vicariously from listening to the elf and gnome discuss them together.

The sundew was covered in thin filamentous leaves called trichomes. At the tip of each trichome was a drop of what looked like a dewdrop, but was in fact a combination of glue and digestive juice. Normal sundews were very small, a threat only to the flies and other insects drawn to the smell of the glue drops. Places like the jungles of Jasmia, however, grew species of sundew that could be as large as a small house. This one was so large that its glue drops, rather than being the size of beads of real dew, were as large as croquet balls. The dwarven warrior chided herself for not noticing it when she had chosen her spot to be alone and vulnerable for a few moments.

The strands of the plant slowly, inexorably pulled themselves inward, toward the center of the plant. Unlike some monstrosities Gayle knew of, there was no mouth or anything like that waiting in the center of the plant for her. Rather, in the center of the plant, there would be so many  of the viny, leafy branches, each one covered in more giant drops of glue, that their near-smothering dense thickness would make escape impossible. Already, the branch to which Gayle’s right hand and beard were bound was being pulled inward toward two more branches on which glistened many drops of shiny glue. If Gayle did not escape, the digestive juice in the glue would slowly digest her over many days, probably after she had already thirsted to death.

She quit cursing, slowed her breathing, and calmed herself to think. At once she heard two sounds, one that relieved her, and one that terrified her.

“Buddy system, people! Buddy system! Natasha, you should have gone with her.” Hiln and the Associates were coming, That was good.

The other sound, Gayle had never heard before, but she had heard enough folks in Newtown describe it. If she wasn’t mistaken, it was the sound of stalking velociraptors, a throaty call answered by several others, moving through the jungle, closing in around surrounded prey. She thought of the tracks Natasha pointed out when she had scouted ahead. She had said they weren’t fresh tracks, but apparently Lunchmeat was part of their territory. They had probably helped themselves to folks stuck in the giant sundew before.

She tried even harder to calm herself. She thought it ironic that, only days ago, she had leaped off a building right at a T-rex, but now she was terrified of dinos only a fraction of that size. She realized it was because she couldn’t reach her axe and she was stuck. She began to tug furiously to get her hand and beard back out of the plant’s glue. If she left some of her beard behind, at least she'd be alive. To her dismay, her struggle made the sundew’s branches contract more quickly and with more force. Her boots suddenly slid about six inches in the dirt toward the center of the plant’s mass.

“Son of a bunny!” She began cursing again as she dug her feet in, leaned back, and engaged all her might in a tug-of-war with the giant plant.

*******

D.R. & Associates sprang into action, following Hiln back the way they had come, toward where Gayle had ostensibly gone. Espino saw the Harmonizer group look at each other to decide whether to follow or not, or whether this was some kind of untrustworthy trick. Then, as the throaty hunting calls of velociraptors were heard, some of the predatory reptiles crashed through the trees, bushes, and shrubberies in ambush.

One of the monster’s jaws suddenly appeared out of the foliage at ground level right in front of Deldric, easily grabbing the gnome in its jaws, scooping him upward. The beast then rose to its full height and shook its head violently. Espino could hear Deldric screaming in pain.

Espino quickly cast his quickest, most basic combat spell, causing blasts of eldritch energy to fly from his fingertips into the main body of the dino that was tearing his best friend to shreds. The deadly reptile staggered, severely wounded, biting down a little harder on the gnome in its mouth. Deldric groaned.

 Bob, who had been running at his master’s side, cried out, “I’ll save ya, boss!” The brownie pulled a small cylinder from his belt, and toggled a switch on it. A bluish-green blade of energy, about three feet long, longer than the brownie was tall, was emitted from the cylinder, creating a type of energy sword. This weapon, known as a plasma sword, had been looted from an enemy slain by the Associates in one of their time-traveling adventures. Deldric had given it to Bob to make the brownie more formidable when on his own. The brownie swung the plasma sword at the raptor’s legs, severing one of them completely. The creature fell, letting go of Deldric, and writhed in pain as it began to bleed out.

*******

Gayle knew she was losing ground to the sundew. Already, a second glue-covered branch had ensnared her shoulder. A third was getting horrifyingly close to her face. With her beard caught, she couldn’t turn her face away. She thought she would suffocate if her nose and her mouth were covered in glue.

 Suddenly, though, Hiln was there. He didn’t say anything, but went straight to work. He already had his greatsword out. He hefted the mighty weapon back. Gayle could see on his face that he was calculating the best possible sword stroke through the gluey mess. Then, with something that was part-groan and part-battlecry, Hiln struck.

Gayle, leaning back and pulling with all her might, suddenly found herself on her butt on the ground. Her right hand and a piece of sundew plant were stuck in her beard. Another piece of sundew plant was stuck on her shoulder, like a bright green pauldron.

She saw Hiln reach down, but not to help her up. Instead he grabbed her fallen axe and buried it in the chest of a velociraptor suddenly springing from seemingly out of nowhere. She saw Hiln’s prize greatsword now stuck fast to the sundew.

*******

As Gayle and Hiln made their way through the ruined and jungle-covered streets of Lunchmeat, though they encountered no more of the pack of velociraptors, they could hear them up ahead, back where the two adventuring parties had been having lunch, around a stone circle that might once have been a well, but was now filled in with dirt and refuse. There, several of the adventurers of both groups were holding off about a dozen of the menacing beasts.

The Harmonizer bard, a jaunty human with a devilishly thin black beard and mustache,  stood on top of the well’s outer wall, plucking madly as his lute. Gayle could feel the bardic magic in the music, filling her with fervor and hope, making it easier to quell jittery battle nerves and fear. Below the bard’s feet, at the base of the wall, Ravenwood the Healer hunched over Deldric Rumble’s motionless form. Gayle grew concerned about the large volume of blood that trailed out of the gnome’s diminutive form. Next to the healer and gnome, Bob the Brownie, usually a sweet and kindly looking fey, with rosy cheeks and a quick smile, looked instead ghoulish. His face as illuminated by his plasma sword was a ghastly greenish hue as he stood ready to cover Deldric and Rave.  His fierceness reminded Gayle that fey could also be capricious, mean, and spiteful, filled with Unseelie rage. The dwarven axewoman knew that Bob would madly charge into the maws of a thousand dinosaurs if it meant saving Deldric.

The two dwarves swerved to go around the collapsed forms of a couple of fallen raptors, who had sprouted red-fletched arrow shafts from their eyes. Gayle realized the Harmonizer’s archer, an elfwoman ranger, was very good.

“Hiln, Gayle! Duck!” came Natasha’s voice over the din from somewhere to the left. Instantly and without question, the two dwarves faceplanted themselves into the ground. Dirt and grime coated the glob of glue mired in Gayle’s beard and encasing her right hand. Though she could not see well from her prone position on the ground, Gayle heard several of the velociraptors made plaintive, pained sounds and then felt the impact shake the ground where she lay as they all suddenly collapsed, all at once.

Turning over to see better, she could see a little ways off, separated from the group making a stand at the well, Espino, Natasha, Kazzandra, the ranger, and the paladin. The paladin was carrying Bart the Wizard, who was either unconscious or dead. In front, Kazzandra had her eyes closed and was rubbing her temples as if she had a migraine. She must have used a measure of her Mentyl psychic power to fry the minds of the bloodthirsty creatures, killing them instantly.

Though wizards, mages, sorcerers, witches, and warlocks could do some disturbing things, to be sure, Gayle had a greater fear of psychics than of magic-users. Magic had a certain naturalness to it. Fey and druid magic was part of nature. Clerics were channeling the gods themselves. Mages and sorcerers were harnessing the very elements: lightning, water, wind, and fire. Psychics, in Gayle’s opinion, wielded the truly otherworldly power, not accountable to the rule and laws of Nature nor of Nature’s Elements, nor of the gods’ Creation of Nature. Psychics wielded power of their own mind and will, as if they were little gods themselves. 

A few throaty velociraptor warbles retreated into the trees. There had been a few survivors, but they would not be back. The parties got to the business of recovery.

Bart the Wizard was indeed dead. Though Ravenwood was able to restore Deldric in spite of his massive blood loss, the gnome had not actually died. True death was beyond Ravenwood’s power. No one else had been seriously hurt. Gayle’s pride didn’t even suffer the indignity of losing her precious beard. Espino, who knew all about predatory plants, was able to brew a solvent in his Lab In A Bottle that dissolved the glue in her beard without damaging her wonderful whiskers.

Jorg, the Harmonizer paladin, wanted to give Bart a proper ceremony and the Associates helped. They gathered stones to build a cairn, hopefully with heavy enough stones that the young mage’s remains wouldn’t be easily disturbed by scavengers. While they were clearing some of the foliage away from some of the stone structures of Lunchmeat seeking to cannibalize stones of suitable mass from the now defunct buildings, Espino called out.

“Hey, guys! Come look at this!”

The Associates, Kazzandra, and the surviving Harmonizers all gathered before a stone wall the elf child had cleared of creeping vines. Exposed there, easily readable in the common language, was a proclamation:

THIS SETTLEMENT, HAVING BEEN FOUND WANTING IN BOTH THE QUANTITY AND QUALITY OF ITS TRIBUTE, IS HEREBY JUDGED AND SENTENCED TO DESTRUCTION.

—SIR RICTOR MORTISSE, LORD OF DREADCASTLE