--- Kat ---
"Aha!" shouted Appoline. Calling Kat over from where she’d been staring at so cracks in the ground. They might have been a trapdoor... or maybe not. Kat was trying to work out how to test them without just breaking through the floor with her fingers. There had been so back and forth with Lily regarding ideas, but the best ones were to either have Lily co down and use shadows to try and open them, or just have Kat try to squeeze through as water.
Appoline was more important for the mont though, as Kat had been pretty sure they were just cracks. She was just hoping to kill so ti chatting with Lily while Appoline did her investigation. One that was looking to be successful if the pleased noises Appoline was making while Kat made her way over was anything to go by.
When Kat did make her way over, she could see a small section of tiny trees, limited mostly by the ceiling. It wasn’t them that Appoline seed to be grinning at though, instead there was a rafflesia looking flower. The colour sche was slightly different, instead of red with white dots, this one was purple with green dots and it seed to be growing into the floor instead of another plant like the parasitic rafflesia. "What have you found?"
"I’ve found a Trapdoor Bloom!" cheered Appoline.
"Wait... is that actually what it’s called? And does it do what it sounds like?" asked Kat.
"Yes!" cheered Appoline. "They’re exceptionally rare and annoying to grow but they’ll defend a room quite fiercely if you manage to grow one. I’m certain it’s guarding the hidden greenhouse, and it’s likely how it’s hiding its energy signature. Don’t let its basic appearance fool you, this plant here is entirely capable of killing ."
Kat stared down at the thing. The unmoving flower that didn’t sll like death. It didn’t sll much like anything actually, especially not compared to everything else in the area. Which was weird now that she thought about it. The flower here was rather large. "Ok so I have two questions. What’s stopping us from just breaking the floor around it, and how did you miss such an obvious flower? It’s not exactly subtle..." Kat had seen it earlier after all.
"Illusion magic," answered Appoline. Of course. "Or maybe not quite? No there’s so illusions involved I’m sure. It makes itself hard to notice if you’re not looking for it specifically and can even hide when it feels like. I must have either convinced it I an no harm... or it’s sleeping. They get bored you see."
"Wait it’s sentient?" asked Kat.
"Eh..." Appoline made a ’so-so’ gesture. "They’re more like a guard dog then a person. In so ways they’re amazing monsters, if they can be called that. In other ways, they’re dumber then rocks. They can’t understand speech, they don’t have any ears you see. They can however sll things and they can catalogued thousands of unique scents to identify what they an.
"Like, I could talk as much as I want about burning the forest here, Trapdoor Blossom included... but if I had so much as a whiff of ash on , indicating I might be a fire mage? Then it’ll get ready to retaliate. Now the issue of course is working out what it has as the password scent... and how exactly it was trained to use it."
"What do you an?" asked Kat.
"Well they can also sort of tell ti? Not perfectly, but they can tell ti has passed. One of the easiest ways to secure these things is to make sure that they don’t imdiately open for soone with the password, you have to wait a day or a week or whatever. It would make getting inside difficult..." grumbled Appoline.
"And, going back to my earlier idea... we can’t just dig around this because?" asked Kat.
"Their root systems are EXTENSIVE. They find an area they want to protect and then grow their roots to encapsulate it completely. If we break through we’d have to get through the roots and these guys have multiple types. ’Wall Roots’ and ’Feeler Roots’ though in so ways they’re the sa thing. Wall Roots grow from old Feeler Roots over ti but that’s not super important.
"The plant would know if we tried to get through, and the Wall Roots would make it take quite so ti... during which it would be free to attack us. Oh, and in case you’re thinking of simply destroying the bulb here? Don’t bother. It’s not a person it doesn’t have a brain. The bulb here actually regrows semi-regularly and can be used for a lot of neat potions. In fact... I’d say this one is only a few weeks from being replaced. I wonder if we could coax it to replace it early?" pondered Appoline.
Kat sighed, "Alright so how do we get in... and how does it fight back?"
"I’m still trying to think of a way past it... and it attacks by spitting out so rather potent poison, trying to strangle people with vines, and dropping other plants on top of you and hoping for the best. It’s a rather aggressive little thing when it’s defending territory..." explained Appoline.
"How did they even co about anyway?" asked Kat.
"Well, surprisingly, they have a lot of the hallmarks of a natural plant, and the way they ’eat’ is by absorbing the energies from whatever is inside their hidden base. The originals likely had a symbiotic relationship with so other creature that lived inside of the guarded space, and fed the plant in turn, while the Blossom provides protection. Though what they originally protected I have no idea. You don’t really see them much in the wild anymore, and they won’t grow around just anything," explained Appoline.
"And... why do they still allow things inside?" asked Kat.
"Could be a ritual of so kind? So magical effect that gets stronger because they have an opening? I could see a ward made with a deliberate weakness being stronger in all other ways. It’s just how wards work. You need so weakness in them otherwise the mana cost is impossible to maintain," explained Appoline.
"I see... and the weakness is this flower?" asked Kat as she gestured towards the rather large flower in question.
"I guess?" Appoline shrugged. "I’d assu the weakness is the flower itself can only grow back above the main entrance. You can theoretically destroy it to get inside after all... that just ans you’ll be attacked on your way in and on your way out and it’ll probably try to fill the area with poison."
"Wait you guess? How do you know about this thing then?" asked Kat.
"It’s famous!" Appoline insisted. "I may be an alchemist with just as much interest in weird rocks as flowers... but do rember that I’m a Fleur. I grew up in a family known for their greenhouses. This is like... like..." Appoline trailed off as she looked over at Kat. "I have no idea what sort of children’s stories demons tell..." Appoline turned back to the flower and sighed. "This sort of thing would be in like... ALL of our stories growing up. I didn’t think they were real for a while, but it turns out my childhood stories were mostly educational as long as the facts were related to plants."
"Ok... do those legends tell us what we can do to have it open the way?" asked Kat.
"Yes... but also no. The stories usually have people cutting their fingers a bit and using their blood to get in because so distant ancestor was also keyed into the flower and it could rember them after all this ti... but that part sadly isn’t how that works. These plants are perfectly capable of telling the difference between parent and child, and after multiple generations those small differences would’ve only grown," sighed Appoline.
"Alright... any other options?" asked Kat.
Appoline shrugged, "If not that blood there would usually be so other item in the room to feed the flower here instead... but this place is rather obviously overgrown so it’s hard to tell what if anything was intended to be used as the password. Plus, it would simply be bad operational security to keep that sort of thing nearby anyway. Assuming the key only needed to be used on occasion it would be better to grab it from elsewhere and then return it afterwards."
Kat sighed, "Alright, so... this has been interesting to discuss but it seems like you don’t actually have a good way to get inside this trapdoor. Are we going to make so sort of attempt at it or call things good? Actually what happens if you put in the wrong password?"
"Oh? Depends on the temperant of the Blossom. So of them will attack imdiately but others will except a few wrong answers and be rather chill. I suspect that random bugs and other flora will have fallen into it over ti... and the ground isn’t terribly disturbed around here. Though they can help return things to normal if they want... hmm..." Appoline pondered.
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