20200815 Animal versus Vegetable

Dagnabbit hauled the beer-wagon as fast as he could with 27 people loaded into it. The legions of hell-bovines behind us developed their charge into a full stampede, with only animal fury, with only one goal - to stomp us flat.
 
It began to appear that they would overtake us before we led them into the plant army. That definitely put saltwater on our soil if you catch my drift.
 
So the SNAFU Posse did what we do best: change the plan.
 
Sephia, already in the air, headed to the army of killer plants where we expected to find them. If she could find the lovely and disturbed Scaevola Aemula, she would bring them here.
 
Bruthasmus and Lee Chung (and Chef) jumped off the wagon to slow or stop the stampede.
 
Miro enchanted the wagon with a portable obscuring mist that hid us and covered our tracks, but we could see out of it. I've got to learn that one.
 
Miro tended the injured hostages while I tended Dagnabbit, who was of a mind to confront a stampede head on rather than tail first, but I (armed with a few apples from Miro's lunch sack) convinced Dagnabbit that we might yet outrun them, or at least delay the inevitable.
 
In our cart was Ruggerio Bisheri, captain of the Bisheri Caravan and father of Dachio, who sent us on this mercy mission.
 
Also, we had a feisty auburn-haired lady who, bless her heart, looked like she had visited Miss Clairol's Enchanted Hair Salon in Aquitaine one time too many.
 
We rode on the roads to the blacksmith shop a bit south of town and saw a signpost cactus painted with markings. I tried to run us past it close enough to read directions, and loud ringing of magical bells sounded in the air. Oh boy. They were on us again.
 
Fortunately the most direct path was off-road because Dagnabbit by birth and by the special shoes Frederico and I had built for him had a distinct advantage in rough terrain over any other hoofed animal.
 
When we got to town, we found it beset by a small portion of the killer plant army. We saw Sephia flying away with one of the living Jack-O-Lanterns called Lord Jack (not the one she had killed the other day, obviously). He did not see us. Her plan was obvious. She had led away the leadership of the plant army and most of its minions and convinced Scaevola Aemula that a small policing force was all that was needed in the town, and that the majority was needed to fight the evil stampede of hell-bovines. Of course Sephia knew that Miro and I could clean up the town in a few minutes.
 
Relying on my extremely recently forged credentials with Scaevola Aemula to support me, I took charge of the killer plant minions, as much as I could. Thank the Heavens Above and the Hells Below that these weren't the sharpest thorns in the brier-patch, because a number of them mustered to my commands. After a great deal of shouting about how they had or had not followed their orders correctly, I had them roughly lined up down main street.
 
That was all the Stormborn, Miro Teague, needed to summon a rare horizontal lightning bolt to fry the buggers. Lightning bolts are suppose to go up and down, not left and right, but I was not complaining.
 
Only several killer cabbages of the living dead remained.
 
Miro took to the advantage of the rooftops to apply more electric mayhem.
 
I led the disappointedly unfed Dagnabbit and the freed hostages to the joyful safety and food and water in the livery stables. Sadly Frederico's well-appointed caravan with many of the townspeople had already left. It appeared we were too late to save the town, at least in the short-term. On the bright side, the hostages seemed quite capable of battening down the hatches for their safety. I left behind all but my kilt and returned to freeing the town.
 
Padre's holy ground held back the undead nature of the killer cabbages. Miro's ball lightning rolled across Main Street cooking the cabbages as they shambled. Again, I knew for certain that (as a sailor) Miro knew what lightning was supposed to look like, and this was not that, but again, I couldn't complain.
 
Before Padre and Miro's faces I called on Great Grandfather Dire Bear to give me the strength (and the claws and the fangs) to take care of my fair share of the remainder of deadly vegetables by applying manual pressure to them one or two at a time.
 
As Sephia obviously had planned, Miro and I cleaned up the town in a few minutes.
 
In the scuffle, the Alchemy shop burned to the ground.
 
The SNAFU Posse assembled again and we shared our learnings of the day. The plant army was to take the townspeople to the northwest. The Hell-Bovines are created by a complicated ritual that requires a large fire pit, rosemary, garlic, a big cage, and a bit of time. There are several weaknesses in their process we could exploit to stop further creation of their hordes. Even stopping the import of garlic would hinder them. If only the undead plant army had a similar weakness. Apparently in both cases the humans (Farmers and Ranchers) who started this war are no longer in control of their own forces.
 
We decided that Miro and I should rest up for more catastrophes later in the afternoon while the Posse fed and questioned the rescued hostages. After my nap, I hope they will have more actionable intelligence for us.