— (3) Common Rolls Used —
158. 1 Shield Zombie (Plants vs. Zombies 2)
24. 'Anyone Can Cook' Cookbook of Gusteau (Ratatouille)
178. 1 Centurion Zombie (Plants vs. Zombies 2)
— Unknown Time —
All is calm and serene within the Lush Caves. Bats flutter gently through the air, azalean flowers bloom with vibrant grace, and axolotls swim cheerfully in their scattered underground ponds, their movements creating small ripples in the still waters. The entire cavern is alive with subtle beauty and quiet harmony.
Yet, in the deeper, more secluded corner of the cave, a lone figure moves with quiet purpose. The soft ambient glow from the hanging glow berries barely reaches her. She is pale-skinned, her long green hair cascading down her back. She wears a brown skirt and sturdy boots, both entwined with what appear to be living vines, those same vines curl along her hands as if they have become part of her very being. Her eyes are striking: crimson red with dark black scleras, and a small, delicate pink azalea flower is tied into her hair.
At this moment, she is visibly irritated, painstakingly reattaching a skeleton head to its skeletal body. The clatter of bone against bone echoes faintly in the cave's vast emptiness. Beside her, laid carefully upon the stone floor, rests a scythe. Its iron blade gleams dully in the low light, framed by purple azalea blossoms and two glow berries. The handle, worn yet firm, appears to be carved from azalea wood.
After a few moments of struggle, she finally secured the skeleton's head onto its bony frame. A soft click echoed through the cave as it settled into place. Rising to her full height with a slow, deliberate motion, she extended her right hand toward the lifeless skeleton sprawled across the stone ground. In response, the bones began to stir, the upper torso creaking as it lifted itself upright, animated by her unseen will.
Lowering herself briefly, she reached for her scythe. Her fingers curled around the azalean wood handle, and with a practiced flick, she twirled it effortlessly through the air before halting its motion. Then, raising the weapon high above her head, the glow berries embedded within the blade pulsed to life illuminating the dim chamber with a soft, eerie glow.
With a commanding voice, she uttered a single word: "Arise."
At her command, the skeleton obeyed. It rose fully, bones clicking into place as it stood upright. Where its eyes once held only emptiness, a faint yellow light now flickered, cold, alert, and alive.
After a few moments, the moss- and vine-covered skeleton dropped to its knees, the weight of shame heavy in its posture. Bowing its head low, it spoke in a gravelly voice, "Forgive me for my failure, Lady Azalea."
Azalea let out a soft sigh, her red eyes flicking around the chamber. Her gaze settled first on two other skeletal figures she had hauled to here, still lifeless, their bones scattered, with several parts yet to be reassembled. Nearby, by the edge of an underground pond, there lies an headless skeleton sat slumped in silence, while another lay nearby with its skull extremely cracked which she had hauled delicately as well.
Turning her attention back to the kneeling skeleton, Azalea stepped forward with calm, deliberate grace. Her voice was firm, yet devoid of malice.
"Your failure is never the end of your service, and it shall not warrant your worry so long as you have learned from it," she said. "But for now, I must recoup my losses."
She gestured toward the disassembled remains.
"Go. Attach those two incomplete bodies. Let that action be your reparation for your failure."
Upon hearing her words, the skeleton rose from its kneeling position without hesitation. Without another sound, it sprinted toward the incomplete skeletal bodies, eager to carry out the task entrusted to it.
Meanwhile, Azalea placed a hand over her face, sighing once more, this time with a deeper weight behind it. Her footsteps echoed softly as she began to approach the edge of a nearby underground pond. Slow, deliberate, and silent, her movements carried her to the water's edge, where the reflection of faint glow berries shimmered across the surface.
Her crimson gaze settled on the headless skeleton slumped near the pond. After a moment's silent study, she mentally crossed it off her list of recoverable undead. The head was completely gone, no trace of it remained. Try as she might, her memory of the failed first ambush of those recent outsiders that led to this state was hazy. The details blurred by the little chaos of the Ambush. Her attention back then had been locked already to a target, the traveler wielding a greatsword, whom she deemed as the greater threat and thus demanding her full attention and interest in choking to death with vines conjured from her magic.
But still, if she recalled correctly, one of the intruders had used arcane magic. That would explain the utter obliteration of the head, leaving behind no remains to bind or restore. To her, this particular skeleton was already an irretrievable loss.
Her eyes shifted slightly to the skeletal remains nearby. Another body, another failure. Its skull had been shattered beyond repair, fragments scattered too far, too fine to salvage. She exhaled softly.
Two more losses.
Of the small number of undead still under her command, she was now down to just three. Each loss set her further back from her goal, a quiet frustration growing beneath her calm surface. Still, time was on her side as she is an undead, and she could afford to wait. All she needed was patience and the certainty that more would come. Foolish explorers, overeager adventurers, gullible humans, and wandering villagers... sooner or later, someone would stray too close to her domain. And when they did, she would be ready.
For now, she could only wait.
Her gaze drifted across the cavern and landed upon a particular body, a corpse far more massive than the rest. The fallen Warden. A grim reminder of her own second failed ambush when she tracked them through her magic. She had faced those three intruders alone in anger in that time deeper in the lush caves, confident and no longer underestimating them and that's... until the Lush Warden emerged from the ground up and was knocked aside by it and her Scythe being flung and being embedded on the nearby rocks. The moment it appeared, she had no choice but to flee, as discretion overtaking pride and anger. She'd returned only much later to retrieve her scythe and was expecting to find the remains of the three surface dwellers scattered among the ground torn apart by the Lush Warden.
Instead, she had found something far more unexpected: the Warden itself, dead. Its massive form lay crumpled on the cavern floor, a wide, gaping hole pierced clean through its chest. The faint scent of charred flesh still lingered in the air. Whatever force had felled it had been powerful far more than she'd anticipated from the intruders.
Nevertheless, she had not wasted the opportunity after she had retrieved her scythe Grovetender. With the help of her magic, she had dragged the Warden's corpse to its current place.
And now, it waited just as she did.
As of now, she lacked the knowledge or the power required to reanimate the corpse of the Lush Warden. Admittedly, doing so was beyond her current capabilities. Still, she chose to keep it. One day, perhaps, she would discover a way or gain the capability to use the body if it had yet to decay when that time came. But for now, in the present, it remained an unearned trophy. A potential asset nonetheless. And a reminder to herself.
Her thoughts drifted, unbidden, to the mystery of the three intruders. Why had they ventured so far so recklessly into the depths of the Lush Caves? The appearance of the Lush Warden gave her one possible clue. It had possibly emerged near what she referred to as the Deep Dark. That could only mean one thing: they had gone inside the Deep Dark itself, far deeper than most dared. They had crossed into the forbidden depths of the Lush Caves, dangerous, certain death, and unwelcoming to all.
She could picture it now: the Lush Warden, lurking in silence, waiting... then giving chase once they were running out of the Deep Dark. Nevertheless, she certainly hadn't expected them to be brave or foolish enough to venture into the Deep Dark, if her guess was correct. She had assumed they were merely approaching the Deep Dark when she had prepared to ambush them a second time, that time alone and in anger.
But why? What could possibly lie within the Deep Dark that would tempt them to take such a risk? What treasure, what secret, what power?
She thought to herself. Her brows furrowed, and then she gave a slight shake of her head, snapping free of the spiraling thoughts.
"I should not be delving into such questions," she murmured aloud to the silence. "I must focus on my goals first and foremost, the reason I am here within the Lush Caves."
Then, she placed her hands over the two areas of her body where she had been struck, pierced and impaled by arcane magic conjured in the shape of swords by the horned human female intruder. The pain had been real, sharp, and swift. Those magical blades had pierced her skin with ease, knocking her out of the ambush during the first attack, there was no doubt about that.
Nevertheless, both fortunately for her and unfortunately for the three intruders, her body could regenerate and heal with enough time. She had healed, returned to fight once more, and she awaited them again at the second ambush point. Yet, she had failed once more, much to her distaste.
Still, she accepted it: she had lost twice to those three intruders.
But that didn't mean she was going to go easy on them if she ever crossed paths with them again.
No—no, no. She would make sure to finish what she had started.
Then, she heard the sound of someone sprinting in her direction, it was the undead she had ordered to reattach the skeletal parts of the two other undead as reparation for its earlier failure. As unfortunate as her situation currently was, she couldn't bring herself to truly punish the few undead she had left for their shortcomings.
It wasn't because she was soft, no, no, definitely not. Rather, she couldn't risk her undead questioning their loyalty to her and her alone. Besides, she had vowed to be a better leader than him.
Before she could spiral further into those thoughts, she snapped herself out of it. The undead had already arrived, now kneeling silently before her, not daring to interrupt her thoughts.
She shook her head, then simply said, "Come," before turning to walk toward the now fully assembled, unmoving skeletons. Their moss- and vine-covered bodies lay still on the cold stone ground.
Unknown to Azalea and the undead, deep within the same section of the Lush Caves where they currently resided, something strange had quietly begun to unfold. In the far corner of the cavern neither in the walls, nor the vines, nor the ground, nor even the ceiling, it's a crack which had formed in the very air itself. A fracture in thin air.
At first, it was faint. But with each passing moment, the crack began to brighten, glowing more intensely than even the hanging glow berries nearby. It continued to glow, brighter and brighter, until the crack itself vanished entirely. In its place floated a silent, orb-like sphere of pure white light.
And yet, it was as if the orb wasn't truly there.
A bat fluttered through the space, passing straight through the glowing orb without pause or reaction, unaware, unbothered, unaffected. It was as if the orb was invisible, intangible, and unperceivable to all.
After some time, the orb of pure white began to move slowly, silently gliding forward through the still, underground air. It drifted with purpose, though its destination remained unknown. Wherever it was going, it had begun its journey.
Back to Azalea standing tall before the three reanimated undead. The two newly restored had joined the first, now fully brought back under her command. All three knelt before her, one knee to the ground, heads bowed in silence as she loomed over them with quiet authority. Her crimson eyes scanned them as she gave her next command.
"You are to return to the section of the Lush Caves where you previously faltered," she said, her voice calm but firm, echoing faintly against the damp stone. "Seek out the weapons you once wielded. They should still lie where you fell unless they've already been claimed."
She stepped forward slightly, her gaze narrowing. "If you fail to locate your weapons... then they have likely been taken by rogue undead that wanders these caves. Should that be the case, you are not to engage. You will not stray. You are to return here to me immediately, do you understand?"
The three skeletons remained kneeling, silent for a breath longer, before glancing at one another with shared purpose. Then, in unison, they responded, their hollow voices echoing as one:
"As you command, our Lady. Your will is ours."
With that, the trio rose. They exchanged a final look between them before beginning to make their way toward the area of the cave where they had once fallen. One among them moved with confidence, memory guiding its steps while the other two hesitated, uncertain of the path.
The more aware of the three paused and turned, letting out an exaggerated groan as it slapped the tops of the other two's skulls with audible clinks of bone. "Just follow behind me you two and also," it rasped, exasperated. "Try to remember something next time."
The other two merely shrugged, heads tilted in sheepish confusion. Regardless, they began to follow, their bony feet clacking against the stone as they disappeared deeper into the cave.
Azalea stood watching the exchange with a blank, unreadable expression. Only once they had fully vanished and out of view did she slowly shake her head. With a tired sigh, she turned and sat down on a nearby stone, her scythe resting against her shoulder as she allowed herself a moment of quiet.
And for a brief time, she truly had a moment of pure quiet.
Azalea sat still, basking in the soft illumination of the nearby glow berries as their faint light danced across the mossy stone walls. She slowly took hold of her scythe, resting it across her lap, her fingers running along the edge of its iron blade and tracing the vines coiled around its handle. She inspected it casually, more out of habit than concern. There was little else to do, and the silence gave her a fleeting sense of peace.
But, as with all moments of stillness, it did not last.
A subtle shift in her peripheral vision caught her attention, something strange and out of place. She turned her head slightly, and there, floating quietly in the corner of the cavern, was a small orb of pure white.
Oddly, it gave off no light of its own. Despite its color, it did not illuminate its surroundings as one might expect. It simply hovered there, pale and soundless, suspended in the air. Azalea narrowed her eyes. She had never seen anything quite like it.
She almost dismissed it, perhaps a trick of the eyes, a lingering side effect of the glowberry light. But then she noticed something that made her pause.
The orb... was moving. Slowly, steadily, it was drifting toward her.
Her brows furrowed in confusion as she rose to her feet, gripping her scythe out of caution. She took a step, not forward, but sideways, keeping her distance and trying to circle it instead. The orb adjusted its course. It followed her.
Now truly intrigued, Azalea raised an arm in a slow, wondering gesture, more a question than a threat.
"What... is this?" she murmured aloud, eyes locked onto it. "And what could have sent this?"
No answer came, of course. Only silence.
Before she could think further, the orb suddenly began to accelerate, drifting toward her with purpose. Her body reacted instinctively as she braced herself, scythe in hand, preparing for an impact.
But it never came.
A few moments passed. Then, hesitantly, she opened her eyes and found the orb of pure white floating mere inches from her face. Silent. Still. Watching, perhaps. Or waiting.
Azalea blinked in sheer confusion, her stance slowly easing as the tension remained thick in the air.
Then, after a brief pause of contemplation, Azalea shrugged slightly to herself.
"Well... what's the worst that could happen?" she muttered under her breath.
With that, she reached out and touched the orb.
The moment her fingers made contact, the orb reacted. In a sudden, fluid motion, it darted forward straight into her chest. It vanished completely the instant it made contact.
Startled, Azalea staggered back slightly, instinctively placing a hand over her chest where it had entered. She looked around quickly, confused, scanning for any sign of it. But there was nothing. No glow. No sensation. No mark.
Then, without warning, a sharp pain bloomed in her chest.
She gasped, clutching at the spot as her knees buckled. Dizziness swept over her like a crashing wave, and her vision began to darken around the edges. She tried to move, to steady herself, but her limbs felt heavy and unresponsive. Her scythe slipped from her grasp, falling with a soft metallic clatter against the stone.
And then, her body gave in.
She collapsed forward, her face landing softly against the mossy grass of the Lush Cave floor. Her crimson eyes fluttered one last time before closing entirely as she went unconscious.
(Rolls Banked)