In the throne room of the Great Tomb of Nexus, the scrying mirror showed the final, silent images from the Garden of Tranquil Repose. Flora was happily tending to her new "additions," while a few bound and gagged adventurers—the ones who had surrendered the fastest—were being carried away by large, animated plant-golems.
Rose stood watching, her expression one of cool satisfaction. "The threat has been neutralized, my Lord," she reported to the empty throne, knowing Kaelus was observing from his forge. "The coalition has been... composted. As you predicted, they were a minor nuisance."
"And the survivors?" Kaelus's voice rumbled, echoing from the room's ambient magic.
"Flora's 'interrogation' methods are... uniquely persuasive," Rose replied with a delicate shudder. "It did not take them long to tell us everything. The rumor of the 'Heart of the Void', the encouragement from disguised agents, the promise of glory and riches. They confirmed it all points to one source: the Merchant Prince of Emon and his Golden Hand guild."
"A merchant," Kaelus's voice was flat, but held an undercurrent of something new. It wasn't anger. It was a cold, profound contempt. He had dealt with kings, gods, and monsters. To be challenged by a mere purveyor of goods was an insult to the very scale on which he operated.
"His plan was not without a certain low cunning," Rose admitted. "He did not attack us directly. He used the greed and ambition of others as his weapon. He sought to tarnish your reputation and gather intelligence from their deaths."
"He sought to use my power against me," Kaelus corrected. "He believes public perception is a weapon that can harm me. A foolish assumption. However, his actions have disrupted the order I am trying to create. He has demonstrated that he is a source of chaos, an 'error' that requires correction."
"What are your orders, my Lord?" Rose asked, her mind already anticipating a complex plot of political or economic retaliation.
The reply was far simpler, and far more terrifying.
"The Golden Hand is a weed," Kaelus declared. "And I have a very skilled gardener. Send Flora to Emon."
Rose's eyes widened slightly. "The entire organization, my Lord? They have thousands of agents, guild houses in every major city..."
"I did not say send an army," Kaelus's voice cut through her caution. "I said send Flora. She is to be given a single directive: excise the weed, root and stem. How she chooses to do so is her own affair. Let her be... creative."
A slow, deeply appreciative smile spread across Rose's face. It was a brilliant, brutally elegant solution. It was a punishment that perfectly fit the crime. The Merchant Prince had used whispers and subterfuge. Kaelus would reply with a quiet, creeping, biological horror.
"An excellent choice, my Lord," Rose said with a bow. "I will relay your orders. The Merchant Prince will soon learn that some gardens are best left untended."
In the Port City of Emon…
The Merchant Prince sat in his penthouse, enjoying a lavish meal. His agent, the unassuming librarian, knelt before him.
"The Red Blades and their coalition entered the tomb two days ago," the agent reported. "We have had no word since. As you predicted, they have been... silenced."
"Excellent!" the Prince wheezed, clapping his soft hands together. "A tragic loss, of course. Heroes falling to a terrible monster. We will sponsor ballads in their name. Their tragic failure will do more damage to Kaelus's reputation than a thousand victorious knights ever could."
He felt smug. Secure. He was thousands of miles away, in a neutral city, protected by his immense wealth and influence. He had poked a god and had seemingly gotten away with it. He believed himself to be an untouchable player, moving pieces on a board the god didn't even understand.
He did not notice the single, unusually vibrant green spore that had drifted in through his open balcony window and settled, unseen, on the lavish floral arrangement in the center of his dining table.
That night, the Merchant Prince went to bed, his dreams filled with tumbling gold coins and the downfall of his new rival.
The spore, nourished by the moisture in the air and the ambient magic of the city, began to grow. It was one of Flora's masterpieces, a hybrid of a parasitic fungus and an Arch-Druid's will. It did not grow outwards. It grew inwards, its mycelial network spreading not through the soil, but through the very structure of the building.
It was silent. It was invisible. It moved through the mortar between the stones, through the wooden beams, through the plumbing and the ventilation shafts. By dawn, the entire Golden Hand headquarters, from the deepest vault to the penthouse suite, was infested with a single, massive, dormant organism.
The Merchant Prince awoke the next morning feeling refreshed. He called for his breakfast. There was no reply. He called again, annoyed. Still silence.
He lumbered out of his bedroom into his grand living area and stopped, his blood running cold.
The room had changed. A thin, delicate, beautiful green moss now covered every surface—the silk tapestries, the polished wood floors, the golden statues. From the moss, strange and beautiful flowers were blooming. A single, perfect black rose sat on his breakfast plate.
The doors to his penthouse were sealed shut by thick, woody vines. The windows were covered by a web of thorny creepers.
He was trapped.
A soft, feminine giggle echoed through the room, seeming to come from the flowers themselves. "Good morning, Your Highness," Flora's sweet voice whispered from every corner of the room. "Did you sleep well?"
The Merchant Prince screamed, a high-pitched, terrified shriek. He stumbled back, his bulk crashing into a table. "Who's there?! What is this?! Guards!"
"Oh, your guards can't hear you," Flora's voice cooed. "They're all having a little nap. A deep one. It seems the night air in the barracks was filled with a very potent sleeping pollen."
He looked at the floral arrangement on his table. One of the lilies slowly turned its head to look at him, its petals peeling back to reveal a single, unblinking green eye.
"You tried to harm my master's reputation," the voice of Flora said through the flower. "You sent foolish, greedy men to die in his home. My Lord does not like weeds in his garden. And you, dear Prince, are the biggest, fattest weed of all."
Panic gave way to a desperate attempt at negotiation. "Wait! I can pay you! I have gold, artifacts! Anything you want! Name your price!" the Prince begged, his chins wobbling.
"Silly man," the flower giggled. "We don't want your gold. We just want your... cooperation."
The thick, woody vines on the door began to writhe and contort, reshaping themselves. They formed a face—a beautiful, smiling, feminine face made of living wood and leaves.
"You built your empire on information," the vine-face of Flora said. "So, you will now give us all of it. The names of your agents. The locations of your guild houses. Your secret ledgers. Your blackmail material. Everything. You will dismantle the Golden Hand, piece by piece, and transfer all of its assets and networks to the Dominion of Nexus."
"Never!" the Prince shrieked, a final act of defiance.
"Oh, I think you will," the vine-face said, its smile widening. It opened its mouth, and a single, long, thorny tendril snaked out. "Because if you don't... my children are very, very hungry. And you look so very, very nutritious."
The tendril gently stroked his fleshy cheek. The Merchant Prince stared into the face of a smiling, botanical horror and finally understood the true meaning of power. His game of whispers was over. And he had lost in the most terrifying way imaginable. He was not just going to be killed. He was going to be absorbed. His entire life's work, his empire of gold and secrets, was about to be composted.