<div class="floatleft">(https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/19e73929-d204-4a14-9dfb-76a593364f4e/ddto6qm-25d0e9aa-9685-44aa-a903-5cc99c7812e9.png/v1/fill/w_1024,h_1280,q_80,strp/legend_of_mana_fanart_by_piumike_ddto6qm-fullview.jpg?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOjdlMGQxODg5ODIyNjQzNzNhNWYwZDQxNWVhMGQyNmUwIiwiaXNzIjoidXJuOmFwcDo3ZTBkMTg4OTgyMjY0MzczYTVmMGQ0MTVlYTBkMjZlMCIsIm9iaiI6W1t7ImhlaWdodCI6Ijw9MTI4MCIsInBhdGgiOiJcL2ZcLzE5ZTczOTI5LWQyMDQtNGExNC05ZGZiLTc2YTU5MzM2NGY0ZVwvZGR0bzZxbS0yNWQwZTlhYS05Njg1LTQ0YWEtYTkwMy01Y2M5OWM3ODEyZTkucG5nIiwid2lkdGgiOiI8PTEwMjQifV1dLCJhdWQiOlsidXJuOnNlcnZpY2U6aW1hZ2Uub3BlcmF0aW9ucyJdfQ.n2PWLvrE6D6YwqrPlba3VsUx-g66ei_VfwpyG6GkNoU)</div><strong>Name</strong>: Lise (https://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=328010.msg15934342#msg15934342)<br/><strong>Location</strong>: Outside the Green Lion Pub, amidst the back gardens<br/><strong>Action</strong>: Riding in ox-drawn cart towards pub<br/><strong>Wearing</strong>: As pictured<br/><strong>Tagging</strong>: N/A<br/><br/>--<br/><br/>Hard work has its virtues...but there was a virtue Lise Imu liked even more, and that was the one called 'having an ox to pull the cart while you sit up top and suntan'. The beast of burden could follow a dusty road well enough without more than occasional micromanagement. Their little caravan of one approached the Green Lion Pub from the rear (nothing like a leisurely approach from the rear, after all) and soon they could see the orchards and other grounds behind the place...much of which Lise herself had cultivated, as resident groundskeeper/gardener. (Though to be fair, her work often involved musimagical beast-charming to get creatures to do a lot of the manual labor...)<br/><br/>Soon the cart passed under the shade of leafy, bountiful fruit trees....which felt nice, but it did interrupt her suntanning (funny thing about interdimensional taverns, but the weather around them sometimes depended on what direction you approached from, and 'direction' was not always strictly limited to the usual notions of 2D map geometry nor even 3D Euclidean space). Lise slid a small wooden flute from a pouch of her rucksack in the cart. With a firm grip on its shaft, she pursed her lips to the aperture at one end, and begin to rhymically blow. A lilting tune issued forth, and the leaves above her curled as the ox pulled her by underneath, allowing Lise to keep more sun on her tan bod.<br/><br/>A growling voice harshed her idyllically pastoral buzz. "What's that RACKET!?" the voice was alternately deep and tectonic, but cracked and squeaked, like its owner found speech unnatural or unpleasant or unfamiliar or un-something.<br/><br/>Lise looked up. She was confronted by the sight of a giant plant...and one she didn't remember planting here. The thing was a mass of thick green vines, with the central stalk the thickest, and topped by a bulbous red-and-white-spotted orb, almost like a mushroom. Then the orb broke open into a giant grin, with carnivorous teeth on it, like a gigantic Venus fly trap or even those of an apex-predator animal.<br/><br/>Lise hopped up, standing on the back of the cart. She pointed accusingly with her flute. "You! You uncouth overgrowth! You don't belong here! I feel the need...the need to weed!"<br/><br/>She reached into the cart sacks and drew an axe from a leather sheath. The edge gleamed in the dappled sunlight. She seemed just in time, as the giant weed had been reaching several tentacular vines towards her, but it drew them back now, afraid of the axe and the threatening swings she took at the nearest tendrils.<br/><br/>Lise roared, "Can you locomote, weed? If not, best you learn quick...you can either shamble off from my garden, or I can chop you up and toss the bits on the compost heap! I am Lise Imu, gardener extraordinaire--ahhhhhieee!"<br/><br/>The plant-monster had either slid vines under the cart, or under the ground; either way, they burst up right behind Lise, grabbing her wrists and ankles from behind. Suddenly she was lifted up into the air, off the cart. She tried to swing with the axe, of course, but it kept her wrist cuffed and she couldn't maneuver it much or build up momentum.<br/><br/>A few seconds later, she was inverted, dangling upside-down with the monster looping its vines over a thick branch of a nearby tree, almost like she'd been caught in a snare. Lise wriggled and writhed and issued a few colorful curses. Her ox, to its credit, lowered its horns and tried to charge the central mass of the plant-monster, but soon its hooves and the cart-wheels were all snagged up in a mess of vine coils bursting from the soil.<br/><br/>Still more vines began to sweep towards Lise, tapping and slapping her body and beginning to coil around her, squeezing limbs or torso, the vine tips and the leaves poking and prodding and probing at her outfit. She struggled, blonde hair dangling down and swaying side to side as she thrashed, and hurled out a defiant, "Fuuuuuuuuuuck yooooooooooou......"