Really Big Tree

Leia

"O-OK..." Natsumi says.  She starts to cautiously walk forward, and you follow right beside her.

The grass and flowers slowly part as you walk forward, leaving a path for you to cross easily.  Dryad turns its head to watch, but doesn't act.  When you get about halfway across the room, giving the figure a wide berth, a wall of thorny vines shoot out of the ground to form a wall in front of you.  Natsumi stops in her tracks.

The figure makes a soft grinding, clacking noise as it continues to stare without eyes.


Floyd, Nora

"Yes!" Mareena answers, unhelpfully.

"I wouldn't mind a minute to collect myself, yeah..." Freya says.  "Just... yeah."

"So, how'd you like your flight?" Mareena asks.

"Never... again," Freya says.  "You got through the bees just fine.  I'm sure I can, too."

"Oh, well aren't we confident?" Mareena says.

"You're a fine one to talk."

Mareena laughs and hops up before helping Freya up.  "Come on.  We're almost there."

"Yeah, yeah...  You were the one lying around."

You proceed up the next set of stairs and find the next room is covered in a carpet of grass and flowers, with Mareena bringing up the rear with Nora, while Floyd and .  A vaguely feminine, humanoid figure with green skin is standing in the center of the room.  Two of the others, Bunbun and Person, are standing in front of a wall of vines.


Floyd, Nora, Leia

The figure in the center of the room stops clicking softly and snaps to face the stairs where a new group of people have appeared.

Mareena smiles at the others and waves.  "Ah, I see.  four's a party but six is a crowd.  I should go."  She kicks Nora hard enough to send her stumbling up, then turns and starts running down the stairs.  She jumps off them and lets herself fall down to the next level, rolling and continuing to run.

The creature in the center of the room lets out a hideous shriek, lowers to the ground, and begins to chase after her, slithering like a snake.  She disappears over the edge of the staircase and seems to be climbing along the ceiling.

The thorn wall withers and quickly falls apart.

You remember the anthill in Banjo-Kazooie's first level
Big column with 'stairs' winding up between levels of netting
It's like that, but a tree

B1: Unexplored
0: Main entrance, mushrooms
1: Monster flowers
2: Empty? Also portal
3: BEES
4: Room of grass
5: Room of grass and flowers <-YOU ARE HERE
6: Unexplored

Leia looks at Natsumi, with a panicky expression.

"This is bad, this "Dryad" seems furious... You can go thank your friend if you want, I will go make sure nobody gets hurt..."

She smiles confidently at Natsumi.

"Nobody's getting hurt today!"

Leia will go run after the Dryad, using Alien Abduction on herself in case she's immediately attacked.

Leia, Floyd, Nora

Floyd runs across the room and past a very confused Natsumi, over to the next set of stairs.

Freya freezes in place.  "Uh, what?  Wait, what... are you doing here?"

Natsumi looks at Floyd then at the group on the stairs.  "Wha- what are you doing here?  Where did- LEIA, no!  Uh, Person!  Wait, don't!"

Leia proceeds to run after Dryad and Mareena.  She makes it past the others and down two stairs where she gets a better look at the next floor.  Dryad is nowhere to be seen, but a giant flower bud has appeared on the ceiling with dozens of long vines holding it in place, others reaching and flailing out wildly.  Another field of vines form over the next set of stairs as Mareena approaches it.  She slows to a jog as she approaches, then turns back to stare up at the flower.

"You can't fight Dryad!  She's a Beast!" Natsumi yells at Leia and Nora.  "We need to run!"

"OK, yeah, but what about the bird-brain?" Freya asks.

"Um..." Natsumi looks conflicted.

"Eh, whatever, she had a plan for those bees, I'm sure she's fine.  She seems to know what's going on here...  C'mon, let's go!"

A very conflicted Nora will turn to follow the others up the new stairs.

Leia, Nora, Floyd

Freya grabs Nora's arm and pulls her into run as they move to catch up to Floyd and Leia after they take off.

"But-" Natsumi says, cut off as Freya grabs her, too.  Once the group starts climbing the stairs and seem like they're not going to turn back, she lets go.

You all continue up stairs and stairs and stairs.  This staircase rises much, much longer than the previous sets.  When you finally come to a platform, it's covered in thick grass and large, exotic, colorful plants as tall as you are.  Large fruits, many that you don't recognize, hang from trees that stretch towards the ceiling.

"Whoa, wait.  Is that a tree... inside of a tree...?" Freya asks, dumbfounded.

"Yep!" Natsumi says.  She points to a hole in the wall that seems to lead outside.  "And we're really close n- wait, now that we're safe.  Why are you all here?"

"Why are we here?  Why are you here?" Freya retorts.

Floyd nods as he looks around "Right OK personal reasons makes sense. Well we're here because me and Turtledove were in the park, coincidentally, when some monsters Bears with Roses on them attacked, Asmodeus can confirm that much anyways when we'd beaten them Turtledove and the Robo-Trooper who came mentioned that monsters usually only get out when the guardian is incapacitated so we came to check on Fionn, Turtledove invited Maritime and I invited Athena" he explains