“Absolutely not. There is no reason we should be trying to fight bramblekin who outnumber us nearly two to one over a half grown bush with a half a handful of berries that we can’t even identify from a distance.” James stomped his foot down and aggressively whispered to the other three.

  “I told you that I’m pretty sure they’re goodberries, they’re just a little underripe.” Mary frowned. She was absolutely sure they were goodberries, a type of fruit that was considered a few steps short of being a natural treasure. Everything she could see matched the description but she wasn’t willing to vocalize her absolute confidence for a few reasons.

  Namely, there shouldn’t be any of the berries located this high up in the dungeon. The bushes took several years to grow to a fruit bearing size, which this one wasn’t, so there should have been a reported spotting of a new source of the berries so readily accessible.

  “Even if they are goodberries, you said it yourself. They’re not ripened. Not to mention the things aren’t even good for anything outside of confectionaries and wines. There is no way I’m willing to fight these things for something so worthless,” James argued. This entire venture had been an exercise on his nerves, and he worried that the longer they stayed there, the more likely his woman would be snatched away by Merrick. “It looks like the bramblekin are guarding the bush, lets just ignore them and harvest what we can from the rest of this chamber and leave.”

  “It would be nice to confirm the goodberry spawn so we could report it up, but I guess it doesn’t really matter since there isn’t any consistent way to navigate the Mullberry Grove shallows anyways.” Rod sighed.

  “I should have brought fertilizer, but I thought we were just picking up sticks with James.” Mary sighed to herself. Like most druids, one of the first spells she’d learned was [Accelerate Growth]. Theoretically, she should have been able to finish ripening the berries with her spell but it still required there to be amble nutrients in the soil to nourish the plant. In fact, the soil needed to be exceptionally fertile since magic caused some of the efficacy to be lost in transition between the soil and the plant.

  “I might be able to help there. I’m not sure how my plant growth tonic interacts with your spells but I’ve got three of them on me.” Merrick had brewed extras during his last batch to take with him while traveling. One could never be sure when they’d stumble upon a situation exactly like this one and he had a deep fear of missing out on fortuitous opportunity due to lack of preparation. He’d already made a mental note to add ‘extra strong fishing line’ to his daily harvesting kit.

  Mary’s eyes lit up.

  “Perfectly! I’ve used them together in the past, the only downside is that there isn’t as much of a quality increase when I use [Accelerate Growth] instead of just letting your plant growth tonic do its work. That’s why I usually use the tonics on their own, I never even considered saving a couple and bringing them into the dungeon with me! Even more reason for you to give me your secret ingredients so that I can help you grow more.” Merrick almost melted from the coquettish smile Mary threw his way.

  “Are you all deaf? I said I’m not going to fight these bramblekin and you’ve got no other frontliner. How will you all kill 7 bramblekin with two half-effective fighting styles and an unclassed?” James growled. He was tired of being ignored.

  “Here’s my plan,” Mary rolled her eyes and laid out a strategy for Merrick and Rod.

  - - - - -

  The bramblekin stood alertly exactly where the droning buzz in its mind told it to. It’d been standing there for some time, though it didn’t exactly have a concept of time. Its instincts told it to put its roots down, sink its toes into the fertile loam beneath its soles, but every time it considered acting on the instinct the buzzing in its mind got louder.

  ‘Guard, guard, guard, guard,’ were its only thoughts. Were it capable of the emotion, it likely would have been envious of those bramblekin who would occasionally enter the grove before exiting again on patrol. Had it a concept of time, it’d have realized they should have passed through the grove again by now. Had it the ability to bury its roots, it need not think at all.

  Suddenly, there was a loud crack and the bramblekin found itself looking at the far side of the grove. The only problem was that the entire grove also seemed to have tilted sideways and it was confident that it did not turn its own head. It was sure of that, actually. It found itself unable to move its head at all as the groves lights began fading away. The creature locked eyes with a tall humanoid and the buzzing noise in its mind began screaming for violence, but was drowned out by a singular and final thought

  ‘How nice would it be to put down my roots’.

  - - - - -

  It may not sound like much of a strategy, but Mary’s suggestion to start the battle by having Rod aim for the neck area of a bramblekin rather than center mass or the head meant that the three of them would only have to deal with two each.

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  He’d had to scale one of the taller mulberry trees to get the right angle, but he managed to take out the fox-totem headed bramblekin that was meandering between two different clusters of two, breaking them up into neat groups of 2. Rod then swung down on a prepared rope to draw the aggression of the two closest to him.

  Merrick had no time to continue watching after that and started charging in from the opposite side of the grove where he’d circled to. Handling one of the bramblekin on his own would have been very doable and even two wouldn’t be a massive problem had he any armor. Alas, he did not. Instead he reached for his bandolier and took out one of his limited travel utility potions.

  He was relieved to see that only the two he was attempting to draw over turned to fight him, with two more charging off towards Rod and the last two seemingly rooted to the ground and being harried by vines that sprouted from nowhere. Merrick felt a slight wince at the thought of how much soil quality loss the druid combat spells would cost but knew it was worth the tradeoff.

  He uncorked the potion in his hand, careful not to let his nervousness to cause his hands to jitter. Thankfully, his [[Improved Reflexes]] skill also made it easier to suppress his negative reflexes so he was able to avoid spilling his potion before throwing the potion at the nearest of the two Bramblekin.

  As he prepared to throw it, he made clear his intent to have the potion soar through the air before turning in an arch that would have it dumping its contents on where the creature would be. Even though his [[Toss]] skill wasn’t very high, it subliminally sent him guidance that he used to adjust the angle he tossed the vial at as well as how much strength he put into the toss. His [[Quick Math]] skill helped his [[Toss]] skill calculate the angle and his [[Sleight of Hand]] and [[Improved Reflexes]] skill made sure his body was able to follow through.

  As such, his home brewed pesticide solution was able to soar true through the air before upending its contents across the boar-totem shaped face of the closer bramblekin. Instantly, the creature’s steps slowed as the wood on its face began peeling away like water damaged floorboards. It dropped to the ground and began writhing in pain, leaving Merrick with just a single bramblekin to engage with as he withdrew his blade. He was thankful to see the horn on the boar-totem didn’t seem to be affected by his pesticide solution and mentally reassured himself that an easier fight was worth dealing with ants while sleeping during his upcoming journey.

  With his iron short sword in hand, he was able to make quick work of the remaining raven-headed bramblekin. Thankfully, low leveled dungeon spawn didn’t usually have any visible skills. He took a few minutes, dodging the grasping thorn hands of the bramblekin by following instincts whispered to him from his [[Dodge]] ability. Even though all of his combat skills were passives, the information they fed him in the heat of battle made them worth their weight in gold to acquire.

  Unlike a noble scion, he’d not spent his entire childhood running combat drills with a trained instructor and therefore lacked the muscle memory of a seasoned warrior. Even though the skills’ guidance wasn’t as good as an actual combat style or experience, knowing where to [[Slash]] to inflict maximum damage and how to angle his body to [[Dodge]] a lunge made the fight very easy.

  With a flourish of his blade he finally finished hacking the head off his bramblekin before jogging over to the one still prone on the ground and putting it out of its misery. By that point, most of the boar-totems face was covered in pockmarks that made it look like a family of carpenter bees had gone to town on it and it seemed to have gone catatonic with pain. Merrick muttered an apology as he twisted off its unmarred horn and put it with the one he’d collected from his raven-headed foe and ran to assist Mary.

  Rod had already finished assisting Mary by the time Merrick caught up, having dispatched his own bramblekin much faster than Merrick due to his familiarity with the blade and his class allowing him to be more effective it as well.

  “Huh, I guess the guard was right that a few of the bramblekin can look cute to the right person,” Merrick remarked upon seeing one of the downed creatures with a cubby cat shaped totem head. With Mary’s permission he pulled off both horns while Rod went back to collect his horns as well as the coins from their kills.

  A condescending clap came from James as he slowly walked into the clearing.

  “Good job, you guys managed to kill the plants all on your own. It only cost you an acid potion, two arrows worth five coppers a piece, and risked your safety. Not yours, of course, Mary. I would have sprung into action to save you the moment it looked like you would be overwhelmed.” James said while looking down his nose at Merrick.

  “Would have cost less if you weren’t such a coward,” Rod remarked as he walked over and handed Merrick three more horns identical to the ones in his sack. “You keep treating your blade like it’s too delicate to wield or you’re incapable of maintaining it. Weird for a knight that looks like he definitely knows how to polish his sword.”

  Mary suppressed a giggle at the inappropriate joke and walked over to the bush with Merrick.

  The thing was only two and half feet tall and looked like it was missing half of its leaves. There were six ashen blue colored berries on its yellow mottled branches.

  “The leaf shapes are consistent with what my dad’s book has for goodberry bushes and the branches are supposedly colored like this as well. It should be a little taller though and have a harvest of nearly two dozen berries though.” Mary frowned down at the bush, reassured in her identification.

  “Maybe this is its first year of fruiting. Its diminutive size could be why nobody was able to identify it. Hells, they may not have even seen it over the tall grass. We only knew to look because it was being guarded by dungeon spawn, which probably wouldn’t happen if it wasn’t going to be harvestable soon.” Merrick posed as he pulled out the first of his plant growth tonics.

  As he prepared to uncork it he realized Rod and James were still going back and forth behind him. Rod’s father was so silent and stoic when training Merrick, he couldn’t help but wonder where Rod had learned to say things like ‘It’s a shame all this shit you talk can’t fertilize a plant.’

  Merrick chuckled to himself and then looked to Mary for guidance only to see her poorly hiding a giggle behind her palm as well.