So the gardener leapt at me. Fast, yet not too fast for me to handle. Wouldn't have thought such speed possible with that bulky underbody the automaton dragged along.
The tentacles aided, I found, to save where failure should have greeted the gardener. Rolling out literally all over the place, they not only stabilised this bulky construct but reduced my space too.
There was range for movement to be sure, but with each second it occupied the place, this comodity lessened to a dangerous degree. I couldn't fight that thing for long...
After some bouts I saw my chance. I managed to meticulously gauge its centre of balance and caught the gardener with a well-timed kick.
The hundreds of tentacles clashed against me, pressing the very air out of my protesting lungs all the while trying to invade through my orifices. Disgusting!
But with the automaton stumbling and leaning backwards in what I could only suppose was gymnastics for mechanical fatsos, they weren't all that effective in the end.
Still, I had my hands full tearing them off me before the bloody utensils came swinging my way, ending up cutting nothing but air and some random tentacles caught in between.
The stumps secreted a weeping discharge, then a couple more, smaller tentacles grew out of the openings. The severed parts dissolved into a puddle emitting severe stench.
There I had my answer for how the gardener could turn out this way, calling this many tentacles his aides.
Though I never asked... Another clash originating from outside my field of vision I discovered much too late smashed me against a Disperser Pine.
Pain spread and blood rushed through my veins as a load of adrenaline allowed me to cope with the blunder and counter those wriggly things in hot pursuit.
"[Mana Drive I]," I judged that passively tanking them would do greater damage than a simple performance-boosting spell.
Gathering mana at the furthest ends of my claws, I cut through the onslaught. This hindered them from stumping early, providing me with an additional layer of security.
I soon discovered another insulting shortcoming of my defensive onslaught. Forks I could swat away, pikes and trowels brush off with timing, scissors and shears stop dead in their tracks.
These many tentacles looked horrifying, but they weren't all that dangerous apart from their restraining capacity. There was only this much space, after all.
Squeezing in some more didn't necessarily boost efficiency. On the contrary, I often used them as cheap blockers, going easy on my claws and mana reserves.
But drill heads? Acidic watering cans? A dozen synchronised pruning saws? Bad news! My injuries piled up in no time at all.
Superficial they may be, but healing required energy. And I simply didn't have much to spare! But then I got another lucky hit in.
Through sheer willpower, I'd forced myself past that disgusting wriggling shield of synthetic biomass, eventually landing a clean hit on one of the pipe-covered legs.
They looked like crocodile legs that had partially merged with a caterpillar. Like the latter, they weren't armoured or designed to take a beating.
But the acidic mix oozing out of the exploded left leg more than made up for it. "Uuuuurgh..." It stung like a bitch.
I hurriedly gained some distance, getting rid of the sticky stuff on a nearby trunk. I probably should have done so sooner... or never.
That mix of acid and liquifying scales burnt a sizable hole into the weathered bark, prompting the Disperser Pine to smash the ground on reflex.
Which landed me some odd metres in the air, sinking due to inertia. "Ohhh, no. Shite!! Where's the youth?!"
Shrieking at the top of my lungs, I made her out somewhere she surely wasn't supposed to be. Too damn near the battlefield!
Or rather, just *above* the battlefield. She was so small the impact sent her much to high up the sky. But there she dare giggle instead of radiating fear...
In any case, what should've put us in immense danger, saved our lives! Simply because she was within reach. I caught her. And no second too late. Bang!! Bang!! Banggggg!!!
A chain reaction set off, each pine in the family within reach followed the nasty example. I rolled and ducked, jumped and dropped to the ground while they nuked the place.
I even learned how to fly free-style. All the while the youth fund this hilarious. Dust rose, my feet ached and my breathing was uneven too.
I... had really somehow forgotten about that characteristic. The reason mages failed to eradicate these trees even with the incentives of very generous commissions. Not for the lack of trying, of course...
"You're getting old," my mutter was lost on the view in front which returned bit by bit. I was now standing on the vestiges of a pit, expertly smashed by very defensive Disperser Pines now all standing still as if nothing ever happened.
I'd mostly escaped their wrath, for the danger I posed to these pines wasn't worth a mention in the face of what calamity the gardener could unleash upon them.
Therefore, around the automaton, the view was especially tragic. Almost no tentacle had escaped the fate of being smashed into bloody sludge.
It's biochemical liquid couldn't save no longer. The leakage was just too great as was the damage done to practically everything constituting the gardener.
Its legs were broken in many places, each crack leaking a different solution. The gardener's core was... crack-riddled to say the least. Yet it still held.
The automaton didn't leave it at that. The rumbling and crumbling disaster came my way at a snail's pace. It didn't give up.
Not that much of its hard-coded logic survived, of which I was sure. "Might be commendable if I wasn't on the receiving end."
With the menace essentially overcome, biting cynicism returned. "See," I addressed the youth, "don't relax everywhere, not even in your bloody home.
Someone out there is always gunning for your life." Of course, her response came in the form of a perplexed mug donning two twitching ears.
"Ahhh... stupid, am I not? As if you understand me." "Stay. Put!" "And now I'm hearing voices. Great day."
"Don't force my hand, intruder!" Or... I might not exactly hear voices. There was one, and only one. Quite cold too.
Turning my head, I looked just at the pointy tip of a spear. "Move." The tip closed in and a sigh escaped me.
"Where to." This, obviously, was no longer *my* home. "Darnation!" "What was that?" "...nothing, dark fairy."
Me mentioning her race didn't really impress the glossy creature. If anything, her guard just went up a level... or two. "This. Way."
So I followed, youth in tow. As a prisoner in my very own garden.