I Am A Carnivorous Plant

Alright, so here’s the plan! First I’m gonna scope out the place like a thief! It’s important to know if there’s any other exits that my prey might try and run out of. So long as I don’t find any then I’ll move onto the next step, and if I do find any, then… I’ll worry about that once I know what to worry about! Next is finding a good place near wherever they sleep to plant myself. Pretty sure the floor of that cave is still dirt, unless they’re super deep in and it’s all rocks, but I think that’d only be true if they’ve been digging, and like… Oh man do I highly doubt that. I could be wrong though I guess, but I’ll just have to cross that bridge if it appears.

 

Anyways, my kill spot should be a little bit closer to the exit instead of in the middle of the room. My gas reaches a pretty good distance now, so I’m not worried that I won’t reach most of the goblins, and if some do manage to wake up, then their only choices are either to run deeper into the cave, try and run past me, or to attack me. No matter which one they choose, I’m sure it’ll lead to me killing them. If they’re dumb enough to get close to me, my tendrils will easily take care of them. Running away will be a little annoying, but so long as they aren’t great at hiding, then my roots will help me find their vibrations pretty easily. It’ll be slower, but they’ll still die. Hopefully they don’t decide to waste too much of my time; I’m pretty hungry over here!

 

Welp, that’s the plan, now it’s just time to implement it!

Ah, look at me coming up with such a well thought out plan~!

I haven’t done something like this since the rabbits, so I guess it’s been a little while, huh?

…Maybe that’s a bad thing?

…

Oh well, whatever!

Wish me luck, I’m going in!

 

~~~

 

Crawl crawl crawl~

Crawl crawl crawl crawl!

Crawl, aaaand-

 

Yup. I’m a master sneaker, not a single goblin woke up. Hell, maybe if I didn’t think they might cry out when I killed them or make some kind of gross noise, I could just kill them all like some kind of assassin. Too bad I don’t really have anything sharp on me; Even if I use my tentacles as spears they’re much too blunt. They'd work for sure, don't you worry about that, but they’d probably make at least a small thwacking noise when I used them. Better to be safe than sorry for a smart little plant like me!

 

So yeah, like I thought, this cave doesn’t have any kind of secondary exit.

Lucky me~!

And you know what that means!

Heh heh heh heh…

 

Roots go in. Gas goes out. Poison poisons. I am a deadly menace to goblin society!

 

Now that’s not to say they were all such easy pickings! There were of course a few that seemed to take a small bit longer than the closer ones to finally kick the bucket. Maybe my gas is a bit weaker on the edges? Hmph… I don’t think I like that! But it’s okay, I didn’t think I was going to get every single one of them with just the gas anyways. My tentacles smash and stab anyone that I see getting up. Even if the gas is weaker on the fringes, it’s still poisonous enough to slow their little movements down a good bit, so I don’t have to be worried about the goblins getting very far before I can stop them. Sure, maybe three or four at the fringes of the room managed to be just out of reach of my tendrils but, well… It’s quite a shame for them that I know how to walk, too!

 

Is everyone else that’s still here dead?

Poke. Prod. Nudge.

Yup, I’m an efficient killer alright!

Well then, let’s go play some hide and seek with the rest~!

 

~~~

 

The little monsters actually would have hidden pretty well among their pillaged things if I wasn’t such an amazing plant. Too bad they were still touching the ground, or maybe my roots wouldn’t have felt their vibrations and they could have lived. They all hid together in one spot, so I didn’t have to waste too much of my time. The first goblin I reached for had the nerve to try and claw and bite at my approaching tentacle! Can you imagine that? Of course I had to retaliate against such violence, and when the other three goblins saw how easily I ripped the first one’s little head off, they lost all their stupid little thoughts of trying anything else.

 

So yeah, now all the goblins are dead!

 

I saw a few things that look like they might be worthwhile to check out, but oh man am I too hungry right now to think about them! My poor digestive sac is going all gurgle gurgle, and I should probably take care of that first. Good thing I have all these (hopefully) tasty goblins to eat! Let’s grab a hold of the best looking one and…

 

Bottoms up!

…

…

…

Hrmm.

Actually-!

 

You know, now that I look at these guys, they look a bit, um, grimy. I mean, I’m sure everything I’ve been eating so far looks veritably unwashed, but… Why is it that somehow these goblins look far dirtier than anything else? I kind of really don’t want to put such a dirty thing in my mouth… I know it doesn’t really matter if it’s washed or unwashed, since I won’t taste it and it’ll all be dissolved by my digestive enzymes anyways, but like, wow does it feel just too icky for me to do it.

 

Hmmm.

I guess there’s a barrel of water over there, so I could totally wash my food first…

Never mind wondering how these little savages managed to get a barrel!

If the water looks clean enough to wash it off in, then…

 

The first morsel got washed and promptly popped into my mouth. If I really try, I can stretch my mouth open a little and eat a goblin whole, which I find pretty darn impressive, thank you very much! I’ve grown so large now~! So proud~! Hmm, but it does kind of seem to be scraping up the sides of my mouth… And maybe I do prefer having a bunch of little plops instead of one big plop… My favorite is still live prey that struggles, though, of course! Ah, why was I so stupid?! If I had just captured them all alive then I could have eaten each of them whole! Sure, they would have given my mouth and my insides a bit of a scraping, but it would have been worth it, dammit! It’s not like I couldn’t heal it all afterwards, and the feeling would be so good, so why-

 

…Ahem. Yes. Dropping in several small pieces would certainly be a close feeling, right?

Let’s do what we must for the sake of happiness.

 

The barrel water was getting dirty pretty quickly after around the fifth goblin, but I was only a third of the way full. Ah, what an insatiable little plant I am. How fun. I’d seen a stream nearby here earlier anyways, right? Let’s be thankful I have ten tentacles that can each carry a goblin, otherwise this would have turned into quite a lot of trips!

 

Come along little meals, let’s get you all washed up~!

 

~~~

 

I took a lot of time going back and forth, washing and dismembering. Individually none of the tasks were all that hard for the super amazing plant that is me, but all together it actually took a rather shocking amount of time! By the time it took to wash, break them all apart, and then eat half, the sun was already almost at its peak in the sky. Good thing I wasn’t trying as hard as I used to to grow right now, or maybe I might have been sad that I missed out on almost half a day of photosynthesizing. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I don’t want to grow bigger, but… Maybe I don’t want to grow bigger quite so fast. I’d rather do it once I feel like I’m more confident, you know? I mean, it already took me about fifteen goblins to fill me up for the day. That’s like three of four whole people I think! Imagine me getting bigger and needing to eat all thirty of these little monsters in one day just to get by!

 

I really hope this mega-hunger of mine is just because I’m still growing…

Ugh.

 

Anyways, the second half of my goblins are getting saved for tomorrow, so maybe it’s time I take a quick peek at those interesting things I saw before I go off and photosynthesize?

 

The little monsters had been hiding in what I can only assume was some kind of treasure room. There were small chests and cages in it that I can only assume the goblins looted from somewhere else; There’s no way the brainless things could have possibly made them themselves. But does that mean that humans come by here pretty regularly? Then why did they let such a big colony of goblins just live here and pillage them? Do they not care, or maybe they don’t see them as a threat? But they clearly must’ve been a good enough threat to get all this stuff! No wonder a few of them were fighting with some human tools.

 

Let’s see, there were a few chests of jewelry, some rusted armor and weapons, a few bundles of cloth, some saddles… Oooh, maybe I could use this waterskin? Hmm, but I already take such a long time before I need re-watering, so I don’t think I particularly need to keep one around… And I might suck at digging, but I certainly don’t think I need to lug around a shovel, right? Hmm, what else, what else… At the very back there seem to be some cages. What could they have trapped in there~? And how did the little buggers even manage to haul such a large thing in there anyways? Did this used to be a bandit’s hide-out or something? There was gold amongst some of the chests, but I don’t think goblins have any use for such a thing, and-

 

Oh.

Oh so that’s what was in the cage!

Seems the little monsters managed to bag themselves a scantily clad woman, huh?