Zeter felt the disk of absolution crack as the last of the undead went down to the barrage of attacks. On the one hand, it was a relief to know it worked against attacking the undead. On the other hand, it was broken now and he didn’t have any more disks on him.

“Let’s hope that’s the only time we’ll need to fight them,” Emile panted and wiped some sweat from her brow.

“Let’s hope the city doesn’t realize we attacked and destroyed some of its defenders,” Zeter said, more to himself than to anyone else as he felt at the broken clay shards in his pouch, “otherwise, the moment we step out of this protected zone we’ll be attacked again. From below as well as from around us.”

Damarys proved herself to be an asset yet again when she tested out how safe they were by tapping her foot outside of the protected area. She even hopped out a couple of times and when nothing happened she just stood out there, waiting.

“I guess that answers that question,” she sighed in relief. “Now let’s check the house and see if anyone’s home.”

Zeter was already close to the front door so he pushed it open, revealing a normal looking interior. It was a modest farmhouse with basic furnishings. The only thing that stood out was the young girl in the far corner, a pitchfork that was too big for her to wield held in both hands as she stood protectively in front of a child’s bassinet.

“Hello,” Zeter said with a calm voice, waving to her. “Are you alright?”

The girl only tightened her grip on the pitchfork and made a weak jabbing motion with it as if to warn him off.

“Oh my,” Emilie whispered as she peered over Zeter’s shoulder. “Is your mom or dad here?”

The girl still didn’t speak though her eyes darted briefly in the direction of the barn.

“Is that your baby brother or sister behind you?” Emilie asked as she moved past Zeter and entered the room properly. “We’re here to help those who’ve gotten stuck out here. We have a camp outside the city. It’s safe there. We have food and water.”

“Momma went to get us food,” the girl broke her silence. “She went down to the root cellar this morning but hasn’t come back.” Now that she’d begun talking it looked as though she couldn’t stop herself. “Daddy tried to talk to the soldiers yesterday but they stabbed him and then he got back up like an undead and they fought and the soldiers died and daddy went into the barn. My brother Tomast is taking a nap but he’ll be hungry when he wakes up and mommy isn’t here to feed him and I don’t know what to do.”

She began to cry and Emilie stepped around the pitchfork and picked the girl up in her arms.

“How about you three go check on the root cellar,” she suggested.

“It’s around back,” the girl croaked out between sobs. She was clearly trying not to cry, or at least not loudly so she wouldn’t wake up her brother.

“Come on,” Zeter nodded back out the way he’d come and Damarys and Kasyn who’d just barely joined them inside all walked back out.

The doors to the cellar were shut but not locked and didn’t look like anything out of the ordinary had happened. It was well within the protected aura so there shouldn’t be any undead.

“You want to open it or should I?” Zeter asked.

“I’ll do it,” Kasyn replied and pulled on the heavy door. It swung open easily and revealed, well, a root cellar. There were sacks of potatoes and carrots, sealed barrels, and vine-like roots crawling all across the walls.

In the far corner, a woman sat on one of the barrels. At least, she looked as though she were sitting until Zeter noticed the roots on the wall around her wrapping around her arms and legs and neck and burrowing into her skin. Kasyn made to begin walking down into the cellar but both Zeter and Damarys held out a hand to stop him.

“Is she still alive?” Zeter asked Damarys.

“Who, the mom? Can you see her?” she replied.

Zeter realized the cellar was probably too dark for the others to see into.

“She’s pinned against the far wall,” he explained. “Looks like the roots are wrapped around her and…into her.”

Both Damarys and Kasyn paled somewhat at that and Damarys pulled a torch from her pouch, lit it, and held it to illuminate the cellar. Immediately, the roots nearest the flame withdrew by a few inches.

“Plants exposed to too much magic often become more intelligent and, in most cases, carnivorous,” Zeter told them as he recalled one of the few lectures on magic he’d been able to attend. “That’s why the produce market and the magical wares market are kept far apart to avoid any unintentional mishaps.”

“I’m not experienced with fighting plants,” Damarys admitted. “kind of hard to know where to hit since there’s no obvious organs.”

“Let’s at least check and see if she’s alive,” Kasyn said and held out his hand.

A dull glow gathered around his palm and as it did so, the woman took in a shuddering breath of air. Some of the roots were forced back out of her skin and the holes healed.

“She’s alive,” Kasyn panted from the exertion, “but she’s weak and unconscious.”

“It seems the roots don’t like fire,” Damarys noted as she moved the torch back and forth, pushing the roots back a bit.

“Can you make any fire?” Zeter asked Kasyn as he produced a small orb of fire in either hand.

In answer, Kasyn shook his head but pulled out a torch of his own and lit it off of Damarys torch. Together, the three of them began to enter the root cellar. They moved slowly, ensuring they didn’t miss any roots. They weren’t just letting the roots move away from them, either. They were burning them where they could.

“Zeter, don’t move,” Damarys gasped and he froze in place, one foot about to touch the floor of the root cellar. “The entire floor is covered in roots.”

He hadn’t noticed it before but now that he looked, the floor was indeed a solid mass of interwoven roots. Zeter angled one of his fire orbs towards the floor and it began to writhe like a snake pit.

“It’s all coming from the barrels,” Kasyn pointed out.

“My guess is that blast of magic yesterday mutated these plants.”

Zeter dropped one of the fire orbs onto the floor and watched as it burned a hole in the roots.

“Clever.”

“Thanks,” Zeter replied.

“I didn’t say anything,” Damarys said.

“Me neither,” Kasyn whispered and then pointed to the woman. “I think it was her.”

A vague grin was spreading across the woman’s face.

“Maybe we should back up,” Damarys suggested but as Zeter looked behind he noticed a web of roots covering the stairway.

Damarys cursed and then leapt into motion before anyone else could react. She dove past Zeter and Kasyn, landing on the root floor beside the woman. Her torch fell to the ground, burning the roots nearest them, and then drew her dagger and began hacking away at the roots binding the woman.

Zeter reacted next, throwing his second orb of fire at the nearest barrel, engulfing it in flames, and then summoning another pair of orbs and using them to swipe at the roots coming through the walls at him.

Kasyn already had a root wrapping around his leg and he struck it with his torch in an effort to break free.

All the while, an uneasy noise of shifting soil and rustling roots permeated the root cellar. No one screamed or shouted though there was plenty of other exclamations from Zeter, Damarys, and Kasyn.

“It’s in my foot,” Kasyn grunted.

“I’ve got her left side free,” Damarys announced as roots tried to smother the torch at her feet.

Zeter only grunted as he punched and jabbed at the roots, occasionally throwing another orb at one of the barrels. This didn’t seem like a fight they could win in the traditional sense but if Damarys could get the woman free then they could escape back out, assuming Zeter could clear the web of roots currently blocking them in.

“Please stop,” the strange voice spoke again, pleading, “I’m so hungry. I need your fluids. I need –

“I got her free,” Damarys heaved the woman up onto her shoulder as Zeter threw down a line of fire to clear her a path.

She charged right through it, ignoring the small burns she would get as well. Kasyn wrenched his foot free of the roots, blood dripping through the holes in his boot, and shot a blast of dark fire at the web of roots, withering them as they burned. Zeter followed suit with a flare of his own flames and the exit cleared just long enough for them to get out.

Damarys collapsed the moment they were clear, as did Kasyn, but Zeter just kept throwing more and more fire down there until the heat of it forced him to back away.

“I think that should do it,” he sighed, taking a drink from his waterskin.

Kasyn was slowly healing the woman, as well as his and Damarys’ injuries.

“You need any holes patched up?” Kasyn asked once he finished with Damarys’ burns.

“No, I’m good,” Zeter breathed slowly to get his heart rate back down and let his magical reserves begin to replenish. “I just stomped on all the roots that tried to get at my feet, and everything else I just punched with fire.”

“Impressive,” Damarys eyed him critically, “especially for a humble locksmith.”

“I never said I was humble,” Zeter grinned despite himself, “and locksmithing was the main skill Jelvaic wanted me for. How’s the mother?” he asked to change the subject.

“She’s coming around,” Kasyn replied.

“Let’s get back to Emilie and the kids,” Damarys said and they helped carry the woman back inside.