The sweet, gentle voice was a lighthouse in a storm of terror. The scent of roses cut through the musty, fear-soaked air of the labyrinth. A soft, warm, green light began to glow from the corridor ahead, pushing back the oppressive darkness.
Kaelen Red-Blade and the remaining members of his coalition stared into the light, their hearts caught between hope and a deep, instinctual dread.
"Who's there?" Kaelen called out, his voice tight, his holy sword held ready.
"Just a humble gardener," the voice replied, full of musical warmth. "You poor things look so lost and frightened. Come, come into the light. You can rest here. My garden is a very peaceful place."
The adventurers exchanged hesitant looks. After the psychological torment of the labyrinth, the offer of a safe, well-lit space was almost too tempting to resist.
"It's another trick," Lyra whispered, her bowstring taut. "Don't trust it."
"What choice do we have?" Borin the dwarf grunted, his knuckles white on the hilts of his axes. "Go back into that cursed darkness? Or face what's ahead? I'll take a fight I can see over a ghost I can't!"
Making the decision for them, Kaelen strode forward, his greatsword held high. "We're coming through. Stand aside, or face the consequences!"
He led his battered party into the glowing corridor, which opened up into a vast, breathtaking cavern.
It was a paradise.
The ceiling was a canopy of immense, glowing mushrooms that cast a soft, ethereal light over the entire cavern. A gentle, sparkling stream trickled through a field of impossibly vibrant green grass. The air was filled with the intoxicating scent of a thousand different kinds of flowers. There were roses the size of cabbages, lilies that dripped a dew of pure silver, and vines that grew glowing, star-shaped fruit.
In the center of this impossible, subterranean garden stood a single figure: Flora. She was even more beautiful and innocent-looking than a dream, with her vibrant green hair and her sweet, welcoming smile. She was tending to a patch of blood-red roses, humming a gentle tune to herself.
The adventurers stared, utterly bewildered. They had expected a monster, a demon, a grotesque guardian. They found a girl in a garden.
"See?" Flora said, looking up at them, her eyes sparkling. "Isn't it lovely? A little piece of life in all this dreary stone and death. Please, rest. You've earned it."
The sheer dissonance of the scene was disarming. Kaelen lowered his sword slightly. The rogue wizard, Jax, let out a shaky breath of relief. Perhaps this was a neutral zone, a safe haven within the tomb.
"Who... what are you?" Kaelen asked, still cautious.
"I am Flora. The Caretaker of the Garden of Tranquil Repose," she said with a little curtsy. "My Lord Kaelus believes that even in a place of great power, there must be a place for beauty and life to grow."
Her words were so reasonable, so gentle. The remaining adventurers began to relax. A few of them even let their weapons droop.
It was Jax the wizard who noticed something was wrong. His eyes were drawn to the sparkling stream. It was beautiful, but as he looked closer, he saw that the 'sparkles' were not reflections. They were tiny, jagged shards of what looked like... ground-up bone. And the 'silver dew' dripping from the lilies had the faint, metallic scent of blood.
His eyes widened in horror. He looked around the garden again, his gaze now analytical, not awestruck. The soil around the base of the giant roses was unusually dark and lumpy. He saw what looked like a half-buried gauntlet from an Elysian knight's armor. The 'star-shaped fruit' on the vines... they were shaped exactly like human hands, clenched in a final agony.
This was not a garden. It was a graveyard. A beautifully disguised, carnivorous graveyard.
"It's a trap!" Jax shrieked, his voice cracking with terror. "The plants! They're feeding on bodies! We have to get out!"
Flora's sweet smile didn't falter. It just... widened. And her eyes, once sparkling with warmth, became two cold, empty emerald pools of predatory amusement.
"Oh, you silly wizard," she sighed, a mother chiding a slow child. "Of course they are. How else would my babies get their nutrients? You can't grow strong, beautiful flowers without good, rich fertilizer."
The moment she said the word "fertilizer," the garden turned on them.
The soft green grass at their feet instantly transformed into a writhing mass of ankle-high, razor-sharp blades that tried to sever their tendons. The beautiful, fragrant roses opened their petals to reveal not a pleasant center, but a circular maw filled with needle-like thorns, snapping at them like rabid dogs. The vines with the hand-shaped fruit shot out, trying to ensnare them.
The adventurers, caught completely off guard, cried out in shock and pain.
"FIGHT!" Kaelen roared, his holy sword erupting in golden light as he hacked at the razor-grass.
Borin let out a berserker's cry and charged at the nearest snapping rose-bush, his axes a blur. He managed to cleave the flower in two, but a cloud of fine, red pollen puffed out. Borin inhaled it and immediately began to cough, a deep, wracking cough that brought up specks of blood. The pollen contained flesh-eating spores.
Lyra, the archer, leaped back, firing arrows into the garden. But her arrows were swallowed by immense, pitcher-like plants that snapped shut on them, their digestive juices dissolving the enchanted wood in seconds.
The coalition, which had survived the undead hordes and the psychological terror, was now being dismantled by killer horticulture.
Flora watched, clapping her hands with delight, as if she were watching a particularly entertaining play. "Dance, little adventurers, dance! My children are so happy to have new playmates!"
Kaelen knew they were doomed. They couldn't fight an entire ecosystem. Their only hope was to take out the gardener.
"The girl!" he shouted to his remaining comrades. "Focus on the girl! She's controlling it all!"
He broke free from the razor-grass and charged directly at Flora, his holy greatsword raised for a killing blow. "Your madness ends now, demon!"
Flora just smiled at him. She didn't move to defend herself. She simply raised a hand.
From the ground before her, a single, colossal flower bud erupted. It was a Venus Flytrap, but one the size of a house, its 'mouth' easily large enough to swallow a horse whole. It snapped open, a wall of green flesh and sharp, tooth-like bristles, blocking Kaelen's charge completely.
He slammed into the fleshy interior of the plant's mouth. It was like hitting a wall of muscle. The 'mouth' began to snap shut, threatening to crush him. He roared, using all his paladin strength to hold the jaws apart.
"Is that all?" he bellowed, his muscles straining.
"Oh no," Flora said sweetly from behind the monstrous plant. "That's just the welcoming hug. This is the kiss."
From the center of the giant flytrap, a long, thick tendril shot out. At its tip was not a flower, but a single, glistening, beautiful red rose. It moved with lightning speed, bypassing Kaelen's defenses as he struggled with the plant's jaws.
The rose gently touched the center of his chest plate.
A thorn, as sharp as a diamond and as hard as adamantine, shot from the center of the rose. It punched through his masterwork plate armor, through his chainmail, through his flesh and bone, and pierced his heart.
Kaelen Red-Blade's eyes went wide with shock. He looked down at the single, beautiful red rose that was now blooming from the center of his chest, its stem a fatal, piercing thorn. There was no pain. Just a sudden, paralyzing cold as a potent, fast-acting neurotoxin flooded his system.
His holy sword, [Sun-Cleaver], sputtered and died, its golden light extinguishing forever. His strength failed him. The jaws of the giant Venus Flytrap snapped shut, and the last thing the legendary adventurer ever saw was darkness.
The rest of his party watched their leader's demise in abject horror. Their will to fight shattered.
Lyra the elf turned to flee, but a vine, as fast as a striking snake, wrapped around her ankle, yanking her to the ground. She was dragged, screaming, into a patch of the beautiful, silver-dewed lilies, which closed around her like a shroud.
Borin the dwarf, his lungs being eaten from the inside out by Flora's spores, finally collapsed, his berserker rage fading into a final, gurgling cough. His body was immediately covered by the glowing green moss, which began to rapidly decompose him.
The heroic coalition was no more.
Flora walked through her garden, humming happily to herself. She patted the side of the giant Venus Flytrap. "Good boy," she cooed. "He was a strong one. He'll make for excellent mulch."
She looked at the few remaining survivors, paralyzed and ensnared by her creations. "Now then," she said, her smile returning to its full, innocent brilliance. "As my Lord commanded. Who wants to tell me who sent you?"