This chamber was large, but with a monstrous twisted walking tree-creature lurching out of a wall made of more writhing roots and vines, it felt claustrophobic, a trap. As indeed it was. Kryssta was fortunate that, between Duin's warning, Haleth's gesture, and her own keen senses, she had noticed before the thing's grasping tendrils were tearing her apart, but even with this morsel of warning, she could not hope to leap past it at the entryway -- all too inviting from outside, and now all but completely blocked by the great trunk.
Duin sensed her leap before she made it, and clung tight to her leathers as she began to dart around the chamber. There was no cover, but staying on the move was still useful; she could dodge faster than the beast could move, looking for a better moment to let an arrow loose. Wondering if an arrow would even matter to a creature such as this. "Fire might do well," she murmured to herself, "though I might set the whole room aflame".
The creature swung a club-like limb at her but she was able easily to weave away from it; but the confided space would not let her do this forever. She let loose an arrow and it passed between the tangled branches, perhaps splitting a few leaves but seeming to do the creature no harm. It was a mad sort of dance; as she ducked under another swinging limb she could have made her way out the archway once more, but only by abandoning Haleth to whatever doom the creature might wish for her now that she no longer served as bait. Instead, she kept on the move as she struggled to light a torch, but when she succeeded, she was rewarded with a deep croaking sound of displeasure. Still the grasping roots and branches reached for her, though with a strange hesitance, and still she weaved and dodged and tried to loose arrows at the creature, to little effect.
Until at last, when she felt sure the creature could not be harmed by arrows, one struck solidly in the spot where a twisting limb and the trunk met, and sunk in, a bit of sap seeping out. The tree-creature roared and then yanked the arrow free with one vine-like appendage while the other limbs flailed, easily avoided. A tiny bit of flame caught on one of its branches, and it turned and ran, if such a trundling motion can be called running, out of the overgrown chamber and into the moonlit night. As it left, the vines and roots of the walls began to still and loosen, not dying, but becoming no more animate than is the norm for such vegetation.
