Infinite Farmer

Tulland kicked back from the wolf, hoping to get enough distance between him and the bite coming his way. At the same time, he stabbed out with his sharpened branch, something that had always turned out to be a good tactic with the first floor Lungers. He might not have hit with every single weapon strike he ever threw with his pitchfork or his now-lost club, but he had found that most enemies shied away from obvious pain. That distraction would give the vines more room to work.

Here, the vines weren't there to provide that synergy in the first place. Things had happened so fast that Tulland didn't have the moment it took to realize he should get them into action with Enhance Plant. And now, mid-lunge, avoiding the wolf's teeth was the only thing on his mind.

The wolf saw the strike from the spear coming and twisted out of the way in midair, which also forced it into a near-miss with its attack. It hit the ground to Tulland's side, pivoted faster than Tulland could keep up with, and attacked again, this time managing to come in high and fast enough to hit one of the points Tulland's armor didn't cover.

Tulland screamed as the wolf's teeth sunk into his tricep, and continued shrieking in agony as the monster hung in the air from his upraised arm.

As much as it hurt, Tulland didn't want to find out what would happen if he dropped his arm, let it plant its feet, and add extra leverage to the formula. Finally gathering his wits, he looked at the two vines closest to the wolf and sent a simple command.

Go.

Tulland had gotten so much into the habit of restraining the vines with mental commands as a type of training that he had almost forgotten how fast the briars could get into action if they needed to. The closer of the two briars loosened itself from his arm in no time at all, catching the wolf with the end of the briar that normally sat near his elbow while it unraveled the rest of its length from the other direction.

The vine on his other forearm made first contact about the time the bulk of the first vine finally reached the wolf and wrapped all the way from its cheek, around its neck and down to make a wrap on a foreleg for stability.

These higher level vines are smarter. Or something.

Tulland saw the wolf react to the Lunger Briars hitting, and almost prayed it wouldn't let go of his arm for another second or so. The wolf was good enough to oblige.

Without a strong knowledge of what the vines could do, it seemed to consider Tulland to be the more worthwhile target for the moment. It continued to press the attack, ripping wherever its teeth could find a gap in the thorns, apparently willing to tolerate the pain of the spikes in the roof of its mouth if that meant a chance at taking down his prey.

Before it could do more than that, Tulland managed to connect with the side of its head just once with his stick, sending it stumbling away with a yelp as it tried to find its footing for a final, fatal attack. It never quite got there. The last few moments had given the briars another moment to fully set themselves into a thorns-inward position, and to put the wolf on high alert as it started to move from discomfort to full-blown pain.

Only then did Tulland tighten the screws.

"Enhance Plant. Enhance Plant. Enhance Plant."

He wasn't aware he was saying it out loud before he heard his own voice loudly ringing out through the swamp and forced himself to stop.

The wolf more than made up for the loss of noise as Tulland got his own voice under control, yelping in surprise as the vines tightened all at once to drive their thorns deep into its neck, legs, and sides. It was only then that whatever vague wolf-math it was running finally prompted it to abandon all of its hopes for Tulland and turn its attention to freeing itself from the vines.

Tulland couldn't let the wolf do that. He really couldn't. The damage the wolf had done to his arm was seeping through his entire body, and he was still losing blood from the wound. He wasn't okay at all, and he was pretty sure another dose of damage like he just took would be enough to take him down for good if untreated.

Worse, the wolf was strong. Like the Forest Duke, the briars were slowing it down but not entirely stopping it. The vines were strong enough that the wolf's efforts weren't instantly breaking them, but Tulland could hear the briars straining and groaning against the pressure of the wolf's muscles. It could and would break them eventually if left to its own devices.

Instead of waiting for the wolf to tackle the vines on its own terms, Tulland went to work with his Ironbranch Sapling. The wolf had the wisdom to jerk back away from Tulland as he came in hard with the sharpened point of the makeshift spear, but even with its advantage in mud, it wasn't quite fast enough. Within a few steps, Tulland had closed the gap and stabbed the wolf in the chest just above its left front leg, then again in its right hind leg.

The wolf howled and tried to rear around to bite at the vines enveloping its movements, only to get two shallow stabs in the side of its neck for its trouble. Perhaps sensing that running away was a losing strategy, the wolf lunged weakly forward, mostly restrained by the briars as it did. Tulland got a very good attack in then, ripping the hide of the wolf with a long gash as the point of the branch and the wolf's weight in motion worked together to damage the animal.

This minor victory didn't come without a cost. The lunge strained the rearmost briar enough that even minor contact with the spear was enough to snap it. The wolf suddenly sped up as half of its shackles fell away, biting wildly at Tulland's legs as it became his turn to back away, stabbing again and again at the wolf in a somewhat vain attempt to keep it away.

Tulland considered unleashing another briar at the animal, but reconsidered. The wolf was smart enough not to bite directly at the vines on Tulland's lower legs, which limited its targets enough that it only periodically made contact with his flesh. If he didn't have the shin-guard briars, Tulland suspected it might have already torn his shinbone out by now.

Instead of letting any more of his defense go towards attack, Tulland got more aggressive. Backing up the wolf had worked just fine before, and the direction the battle was moving seemed to be almost entirely a function of bravery at this point. If the fight required Tulland to be more ferocious to be winnable, then that's what he'd do.

He doubled down on attacks with his spear, letting the wolf cut up his legs a bit in return for more and better strikes with the weapon, until a lucky shot went deep into the top of the wolf's shoulder and demolished what mobility it had left. It ineffectually tried to get away then, not just backing up but trying to escape entirely.

Tulland might have let it, too, if one of his vines hadn't been attached to the wolf. He couldn't afford to lose those just now, especially if this animal was a good indication of just how much harder the second floor was going to be.

He went crazy with his stabbings, forcing the wolf to attack him again. Those forced bites mostly missed, as Tulland put hole after hole in the wolf. At this point, the damage he had done went well beyond what it made sense for the wolf to have survived. He thought he knew why.

A normal warrior would have magical force in every hit. He would be shaking the wolf's life force out of it, blow by blow. And on top of that, he'd be doing more physical damage to the wolf's body. These things weren't meant to fight with someone like me. The Infinite can't get the visual right when I'm basically stabbing things to death with a sewing kit.

But even a thousand strikes from a needle could add up to enough damage over time. As Tulland's head began to swim and he seriously worried he might fall unconscious before he could finish the job, the wolf finally took one more hit than it could weather, whined piteously, and collapsed.