Chapter 3: Vigor

The people on the streets began to flee, but their fashions failed them. The rich were the first to stumble on the ruffles and flounces of their dress. Even men tripped by their heeled shoes. The poorer classes with less layers got away--for now.

Clover reached down and pinched up a man in a top hat and his fluffily-dressed wife. She brought them up from her light green toes all the way to her face. Her crimson tongue, slick with saliva poked out to lick at her dark-green lips. The duo were too shocked to scream, though the woman clutched her pearl necklace in horror.

“Forgive me~” boomed the green giant. “But I haven’t felt this hungry in ages.”

She opened wide. Her flesh was red; her tongue wet in anticipation. Yet, on the insides of her cheek lurked vines. Those mouth appendages shot out to pierce their chests. With gnarled thorned tips for grips, the limbs battered the morsels onto Clover’s tongue for a quick taste. Then, they tossed the pair right down her throat.

Already bleeding, Clover’s gullet took more with every contraction. Her body had transformed in more ways than just color after all, as those trapped souls could attest. She was to be the ultimate manifestation of Hudraloth’s blessing: a mixture of flesh and plant. The eldritch god got her started, but she saw fit to work in her own creativity as well.

Clover’s esophagus was alight with sourceless light. It was much like the cold dark flames the lord himself generated, only there were no embers to be seen. The couple, who just moments ago had been on an afternoon stroll, were now assailed at all ends by teeth. Sharp, canines--as all humans have in the top of their mouths. Here, they grew from the throat flesh. Each bony protrusion was coated in the natural slime of Clover’s throat. Each and every squeeze of that muscle pierced their skin and squeezed out another scream: another bout of suffering.

By the time they reached the plant-witch’s gut, they were already near death. Punctured more than pincushions, their blood pooled in a strange yellow fluid. Under the thick churning waters and dark light, tendrils slimy as algae wrapped on them and tugged them under to an acidic end.

Clover trailed her fingers along her stomach region. Her dress felt like taut cellulose now: that which makes up plant cells and exteriors. Its flowery nature merged with her, so she had some measure of feeling to it. It felt nice and smooth to the touch. It made her smile.

Clover always adored plants: she was named after one. Like many flowers, she was delicate--fragile. She was born sick and weak. Much of her life was spent this way, but then she discovered gardening and alchemy. A bit of herbs made her blood flow thicker, like a normal person’s. It gave her energy.

It wasn’t enough. From there, she pursued witchcraft, but it was mostly rumors, superstitions, and falsehoods. It was only in the deepest annals of forgotten libraries that she could find the knowledge she sought.

Few libraries would give her access. She simply purchased the institutions, fired those who hindered her, then plundered the volumes for her personal book collection. It was in there she learned to contact these higher, eldritch beings, and from Hudraloth in particular her sorceries.

The being of innumerable parts, Hudraloth was called. They taught her the first useful trick: how to transfuse another’s blood to her own. That alone earned them her admiration, and she devoted herself. She contacted her lord in rituals to learn ever more mysteries. It all accumulated to today, where she became something more than human.

Now she had a mission: to harvest souls on her lord’s behalf. She didn’t need to be ordered for that. That couple she ate had perished by now and her body eagerly ushered their spirits to a resting place in living cages. Each spirit filled her with energy and warmth: each one increased her power and helped unlock some new mystery of her body or the dark arts.

She’d put her capabilities to the test right now. There was a small mob of people running to the North just 500ft away. At her current size, this was just a few steps.

So, Clover stepped. Her light-green soles slammed down onto the cobblestone roads, utterly ruining them. She could go around, as the masses did. That would avoid a few buildings. But, the once towering structures now came up to her shins at best. They were easy enough to walk through, so why walk around? Why chore herself on behalf of those she would usher towards a new eternity anyways?

She took a step atop a steepled edifice. The point of its tower dulled harmlessly against her sole. All its focused pressure didn’t breach her soft green skin. A little more pressure on Clover’s end and the building collapsed. The souls within found no rest as they were lapped up into the skin of her ankle. Tugged through fleshy vessels, they joined the others.

Another step, then again. The density of the city was its downfall here. Her power, potential, and body increased with every life taken, yet the bigger she was the more she could take. She didn’t even unleash her full size. She wanted to experiment with her power some more, and she didn’t want to lose any precision by rushing to titanic scales. Only a few dozen more feet of height: that was the treat she allowed herself till she reached the mob.

“Relax, there’s no rush you little things.” said Clover. She loomed over one end of a city street. At the sides were buildings, every door was locked. At the other end was a two way junction in the cobble stone road, with a tall clocktower on the far side of that. The street, of course, was filled with humanity.

“And besides, there’s no where to go.”

Clover throw her arm forward and launched outwards those vines coiled around her wrist. The mob screeched as they flew overhead, far thicker than any rope they’ve seen. The appendages latched at the clocktower. Clover grabbed at her own vines and tugged, pulling the structure down and towards her to block the street’s exit.

“There, now stay put. I need to explore my powers. It’ll be a burden to you all, but in exchange you’ll get eternal existence. Doesn’t that sound nice?”

The mob was stuck, with her at one end and rubble on the other. None dared move closer to the towering woman who stood hundreds of feet tall. If not for the comparative petiteness of the middling structures, Clover wouldn’t be able to get in without crushing them.

Thankfully, she took dancing, as many of noble blood did. As such, she put one foot in front of the other so that her legs barely brushed the building’s exteriors. That was enough to sheer them regardless, but as small as the structures were the resulting rubble didn’t kill her quarries. They’d live long enough for her purposes.

She bent her knee to bear down at them. The pack was diverse in dress and class. A rare sight in London these days. It must’ve been dozens strong. Every one of them was scantly an inch compared to her: hardly bigger than a toe. She felt their hearts thump with fear. She sensed the pleasant hum of their souls. It took every fiber of her restraint not to whip out some of her innumerable vines and drink them all dry of their rushing blood, but she managed.

The mob started to move backwards and away. One woman ran, so Clover lashed out at that one. A vine with its roots in her left wrist snagged the runner. An example would suffice: a drink to quench her thirst. A flex of the limb and the woman’s foot squeezed right off. The tip of that fine vine wiggled into the freshly gaping leg-hole.

Amid the woman’s screams, Clover spoke. “So often we think of only dirt when it comes to gardening, but many plants can grow in other places. The human body can be just as fertile as good soil.”

She giggled, then worked the vine to raise the woman up and wave her about like some macabre finger-puppet. The green giant drained her prey in a flash, and the freshly emaciated body burst open as many more vines grew and fractaled off the one’s tip.

“Everyone else stay put now.”

Emerald eyes scanned for the first subject: a nice, healthy young man aged 20 or so. He seemed poor, based on his rags, but in good spirits. Probably a beggar or shoe shinier. She reached towards him with a finger longer than he was tall.

“Hold still.”

He failed of course, shivering like a nudist in winter--but he didn’t run, and that’s what mattered. She brought her finger up to his face. Its surface was smooth and whorled. He reached out to touch it as though to shove it away, and Clover smirked at how pathetic his strength felt. She sent a command to her body and her fingerprint twitched. The ridges of the digit’s pattern shifted, shook, and then shot a puff of yellow dust into the man’s face: a pollen, of sorts.

It got in his eyes and nose. It touched at the skin of his face and sunk in. It went through his blood and every cell in his form. Most importantly, the dust reached his brain. The poor thing began to twitch and shutter. Clover giggled. So far so good. She leaned back a bit to watch the show.

The others surrounding the poor man crowded away. Clover slipped some vines behind them to keep them a little penned.

“Easy, don’t go too far. You’re part of this experiment too you know.”

The man clutched his head, screaming and yelping. Cracking sounds rung out from his skull. His form vibrated at speeds never thought possible for a human. Indeed, his body wasn’t equipped for that so his head popped like a cherry. Blood splattered the others, and he slumped to his knees.

Clover felt his soul flow into her, yet still he twitched.

Body still shaking, things sprouted. They eschewed the stain of his blood as they stretched out from his neck hole: tufty white filaments on brown, fleshy stalks.

“Oh joy, it looks just like a dandelion doesn’t it? It has pappi and everything.” said Clover, pointing at the white tufts. She shifted down onto her stomach and destroyed the buildings on either side of the street beneath her bulk. Stretched out, she curled her toes, kicked her legs, and penned the rest in with her arms now.

Twitching, always twitching, the dandelion man rose up. The crowd stumbled back, but Clover’s arm vines nudged one brunette next to this experiment of hers. He bumped into her and immediately yanked one of the pappi from his head. The base of the brown stalk wriggled with three gnarling, sharp ‘roots’. He jammed it into the woman’s skull.

All screamed, but Clover’s laughter dwarfed their voices.

“Oh my~”, she said. “Let’s see if things go according to expecta-Yes!”

The woman’s body twitched as well, her own head vibrating open to burst as a gourd. She was like him now, another dandelion zombie. She went after her husband first, plunging one of her head-stalks into his chest.

The original dandelion man stabbed another two people with his head tufts before Clover pinched him up. His ‘head’ held to pursed lips, she blew facing the crowd. His pappi flew off, as a normal dandelion’s did. These fluttering stalks weren’t aimless, they sought blood. The eager ‘roots’ of the things twisted and shifted to direct themselves towards the nearest bits of living meat. Like that, Clover had infected the rest of the crowd.

She pressed her hands against the street and rubble and rose back up. The crowd was twice more plant zombie than it was not, so it’d take care of itself.

“Wonderful, now with a strong breeze, I know the entire city could get infected. Saves work on my end.”

She watched this crowd of subjects filter out through the rubble to the adjacent streets every which way. She smiled again at her cleverness.

Clover’s ear twitched. There were rhythmic steps coming from her left: marching. A turn of her head and, sure enough, members of her majesty’s army were on the way.

“Oh joy.” she boomed. Clover clapped her hands together in glee.

“Toy soldiers~”