“You’re serious?” Oda asked breathlessly, “Your dad is one of the archdemons?! The one who fought against the original Paladin back when the Demon Lord first declared war on the light?”

I nodded my head as confirmation.

Aldric seemed to be lost in thought and mused, “Interesting”.

“How did he know about the portal?” Oda asked with excitement clear in his voice.

I shrugged my shoulders, “Sorry, but my babysitter didn’t really explain that in detail.”

With that, I didn’t feel like sharing anymore and I started up another fire to cook some of the meat we had. Oda kept blabbering about how cool that was and imagining what my father was like. Aldric stayed silent as he was processing all of this new information. 

The aroma of the meat being cooked made my mouth salivate as my stomach finally felt hungry. When the food was done cooking, we scarfed down the meal and I brought out some more fruit for us to eat. 

Oda finished his meal first and urged Aldric and me to finish. He felt it in his bones that we were close to the exit. I pulled my cloak closer to my body and I secretly hoped that he was right for once.

We worked together to gather everything and clean the area. We continued down the path and oddly enough, there were no separating paths. The plant life around us was growing more viciously in this area. The bioluminescent fungi shone brightly and their caps were almost touching the top of the tunnel. 

Aldric stopped us and pushed us to hug the wall. Then we heard it, the sound of many small beasts fleeing down the tunnel towards us. Many of the moles were injured and they were lagging behind the healthy group. 

Suddenly, a leafy tentacle crushed one of the injured moles. With a terrified squeak, the mole let out its last breath as the tentacle wrapped around its body and dragged it around the curving tunnel. 

Oda was terrified and looked between Aldric and me, “Um guys, I didn’t think a giant leafy tentacle monster was on our itinerary”.

Aldric readied his warhammer and said, “After we defeat it, we should be able to find our way out of here”.

“I’m glad you’re excited but-” Oda said fearfully.

“Don’t you want to get out of here? We just need to do some weeding,” I said as I cracked my knuckles preparing for the fight.

I took the lead and cautiously walked down the curving tunnel. As we were walking, I could smell a disgusting scent. It was extremely sweet to the point it was unbearable. Coughing, I saw that some blood was splattered on my hand. The scent only got worse as we walked closer to the source. I paused at the threshold and we could observe the large plant monster that had killed the mole. 

It had a large open hole that was filled with sharp teeth and the tentacle we saw earlier was dropping the poor mole into it. Other tentacles were laying on the ground but at the faintest sound, they would twitch and it looked like they were searching for the source. Giant sickly looking flowers were blooming near the base of the huge plant and it seemed that the terrible smell was from the flowers. The ground was covered in both old and fresh blood. Some bones were scattered about as well. 

We all covered our noses as the scent was overwhelming. I was starting to get dizzy from the concentrated smell of death and decay in the air so I braced myself against the wall. Aldric quickly looked through his bag and found one of the thinner blankets and he started to cut small pieces from it. He then gave us the cut-up pieces and we wrapped the lower half of our faces. 

The scent wasn’t as strong now but it was still slowly entering our systems. 

“We need to kill this thing quickly and then find fresh air,” I said as I tried to investigate the room from where I was standing. On the opposite side of the clearing, it looked like there was a path continuing through. I pointed towards it and the others agreed, that was probably the way out.

“We should cut its tentacles off since the plant seems to use them as its feeders,” Aldric suggested. 

“Too bad we can’t use magic, I’m sure some fire magic would work wonders here!” Oda complained as he looked at this behemoth of a plant. 

“We’ll just have to use what we have if we want to live,” I replied, “I for one, do not want to die at the hand - well um tentacle - of this stupid plant”.

The others grunted their approval and we immediately charged it. The viney tentacles sprung into action as well. The vines tried to restrain our limbs but we were able to dodge them. The leaves on the tentacles were sharp so even if we dodged, small burning cuts were left on our bodies. 

A faint sting lingered in my body and I called out to the others, “Guys, this thing is venomous! Don’t let it cut you!”

With renewed speed, we tried to dodge all the attacks while cutting the vines. With heavy thuds, the vines we cut through landed on the ground. The plant roared in pain and anger and the flowers at the base were vibrating like crazy. A visible pale red mist was beginning to pool around the plant. 

“Guys, it’s releasing more of that toxin! We can’t go near it!” I yelled as I saw that Oda was about to go headlong towards the plant.

Oda stumbled over his feet as he came to a grinding halt. He cursed under his breath and hopped backward. Aldric ignored my warning and sprinted towards the monster with his warhammer ready to hew the plant down. 

With one fell swoop, the plant fell as it tried desperately to grab at its last victim. The tentacles were easily deflected by our weapons and the poison that was in the air started to stagnate. 

Oda pointed to the path and yelled, “Come on, let’s go!”

We all sprinted down that path away from the corpse of the plant and as we got farther away, the sugary sweet smell disappeared. 

Once we were safely away from the area of the rancid scent, we took a break and checked our wounds. The cuts that were on our bodies were healing and only a burning sensation was left. I could feel my body slowly expelling the toxins in my blood. 

Surprisingly, Oda was the first one to suggest moving on. He felt that the exit was nearby. With hope, we carefully walked down the path and saw that there was indeed a hole in the wall. A bright light shone from it and we excitedly shimmied our way through to greet the sunlight. 

With a sigh of relief, I breathed in the fresh air and looked upon the setting sun.

Oda knelt on the ground and happily petted the lightly snow-covered grass, “I am so happy to see grass again!” He then laid on the ground while waving his arms around on the ground shaking some snow onto himself. 

Aldric laughed at him.

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