Claudia turned the corner to face the vines with her new toys. She walked up to within a few feet of the vines. "You gonna let him go-" she asked the plant, "or do you want a piece of me?" She gripped the ax handle with anticipation.
The vines seemed to amass themselves in response.
"Ok" she said. "Have it your way!" She charged in and swung the ax at the nearest vine and missed spectacularly. She swung at the next nearest one and buried the ax in a crate box. Although the vines were relatively slow, she swung the ax slower. She dodged a brush from a vine but a feeder tube slashed out at her, ripping her pants.
Claudia retreated out of range from the vines. "Not good!" She evaluated the scratch on her calf and dismissed it. She was just too slow with the ax. She wondered how much damage she could do to a swirling mass of vines with her knife when she wiped the sweat from her brow.
Suddenly she looked at her right hand. It was at the top of the ax hilt.
The evil grin returned.
Claudia ran back into battle with her hands spaced at each end of the ax hilt instead of both at the bottom. Moving much quicker now, Claudia pegged a vine between a steel shelf support and the ax. The bottom part of the vine dropped to the floor. Claudia held her breath a little as she waited a long second to see what the artifact would do. The vines seemed to stop in anticipation too.
A brown color started to rise up the vine from where the ax had chopped it. Claudia watched the color rise all the way up the shelves.
"Bonus."
She turned to face the other vines.
(Back up top)
The vines' rate of movement slowed. Artie figured that his travel was coming to an end. His relaxation had loosened the vines enough to allow him to slip the amulet over his neck. Now he had to figure out how to remove the plant from the artifact. He opened his eyes.
The agent was shocked at how quickly the artifact got the vines to grow. Ahead of him was a wiggling forest of green leaves, vines and sharp feeding tubes. He hadn't figured out what to do if he encountered the spikes before the artifact. Artie caught sight of the wooden jaguar, but it was well protected behind the spikes and vines. His heart rate spiked with adrenalin as Artie knew his options just evaporated. The vines reacted. Several feeder tubes rose up in preparation to strike. Artie's right arm was still entangled, so he raised his left arm to fend off the likely fatal strike.
But the strike never came. The feeder tubes hesitated in the strike position.
Just as Artie started to wonder what was going on, one of the vines attached to the artifact suddenly turned brown and died. The feeder tubes and several vines withdrew. Artie watched as they unraveled from him to descend off the side of the top shelf towards the floor of the warehouse.
He didn't waste his opportunity. Artie made a fist and punched the dead vine. It fell away from the artifact opening up some space. He grabbed another vine and pulled. It snapped once but stayed firmly attached to the Jaguar. He would need a large jerking force to get the vines off. Artie racked his brains for options. Then he took a deep breath and yelled.