Burn it All

                With the Oviraptors now out of the bag, along with the rest of the Atlantean species, Ghast no longer needed to hide. In fact, since the night of the feast, the Oviraptor had grown more bold in going out and wandering around the islands with either Hunter or her boys. She had taken to scouting the surrounding territories where she and the Pale One resided, wanting to keep an eye out for anything of Atlantean doing.

                One such thing was the growing number of dinosaurs that were trying to spread seeds of native Atlantean plants. It upset the balance of nature on the islands, introducing invasive species of plants that could, and would, kill the natural order of plants. If done carefully, she could see how the plantlife from the two biomes could live together, but there were no such precautions being done.

                To Ghast, it was akin to giving a child fire and expecting them to not hurt themselves or others with it. The Pale One viewed it in much the same way. So the pair had always been quick to assist in an area where Atlantean plants had started to crop up before it could get too out of hand. But the more extreme cases…

                Ghast trotted ahead of Relic and Blight. The two carnivores following along after her with the weapon of choice in their maws. The two males, and even Ghast herself, had crude wooden torches in their mouths. The long wooden pikes had cloth wrapped around the end to keep the fire from eating the wood of the torch itself, giving them plenty of time to get to their destination without needing to worry about making backup wooden torches.           

                The forest the three walked through looked normal, all plants where they should be, nothing out of place. But as the party came into what had been a clearing around a mountain river, the purpose of the torches became quickly apparent. The ground had been overtaken with vines, thorned and gnarled that had choked out the native plants that had once grown in the clearing. The vines had started to spread up the trees as well, flowering and sending out a haze of pollen that coated the trunks of the trees and seemed to be making them rot. Around the area were plenty of victims of the pollen already, whole trees had been toppled and over grown with the vines.

                The land was dead. There would be no saving it even if they had wanted to spend days ripping at the thorned vines to find the core of the plant that had caused the devastation. The roots were too deep, everything would just regrow and continue to spread across the surrounding area and continue to kill everything.

                Short of growing the native Atlantean plant that would keep the vine in check, there was no other way to purge the land other than the fire that the three had in their mouths. And even if they had access to the plant that would keep the vines in check, Ghast would’ve refused to plant it.

                “Spread out and gather up anything dead you can find. Pile it up, circle the area with the piles, and then we will set fire to the ring. I’ll handle the heart of this mess.” Ghast said, taking her torch into her hands so she could speak and looked up at Relic and Blight. The two bowed their heads before heading off, leaving Ghast to walk further into the infested area.

                Blight had an easy enough time with the task. Using his feet to claw and scoop up entire twigs and branches into a line was a simple task. At least the native island plants wouldn’t fight back. He was just happy he wasn’t being tasked with fighting a group of heretic dinos that had sworn themselves to Rhys. As he walked the surrounding area, Blight used his massive bulk to knock over some of the rotten trees as well. Trees that he should not have been able to break snapped away so easily and splintered into pieces when they hit the thorned vines that had started to grow into them.

                He’d never seen plants like it before. And even then, he didn’t understand the need for such a vine. What purpose did something like that serve? He would have to ask Ghast at a later time but for now, he moved on and continued to pile up anything that looked dry enough to burn.

                Relic didn’t have the ability to knock down fully grown trees, but he did gather dried twigs and branches around the infected trees to help in burning them down once they set the area on fire. Within a few hours he and Blight had met back up, their torches having dwindled down to barely anything to hold onto, the fire long gone. They weren’t sure what good just embers would do, but Ghast had been firm in telling them to keep a hold of their torches until she told them otherwise.

                “I ‘on’t ‘ee her” Relic tried to say as he kept his mouth on his torch.

                Blight narrowed his eyes and looked at his brother.

                “ ‘Aat?” The Acro replied. Relic could at least tell his brother had tried to say ‘what’, but there would be no use in trying to say anything else if the pair couldn’t understand each other fully. The Carnotaur just sighed and shook his head, embers shooting from the branch in his mouth as he exhaled.

                The pair watched, their heads following the embers as they slowly drifted down and landed on the pile of dried leaves and twigs in front of them. Relic lifted his brows in concern, eyes wide while Blight just stared, his brows furrowing as he watched the ember. As soon as it touched the ground, a leaf caught fire. The fire from the leaf spreading to others nearby and then to the twigs that were piled above them.

                “I didn’t say to start the fire yet, but that’s okay. Throw the torches in.” Ghast said, breaking through the wall of branches a few meters from the pair and shook herself off. She turned to look at the area she’d just exited from, watching as it caught fire just moments later before making her way to stand with her boys.

                Blight flicked his head, tossing the remains of this torch onto the top of the mound, Relic doing the same. The torch remains, though mostly embers by that point, quickly burst into flames with the oxygen of being thrown through the air and the added fuel of the dead plantlife that had been gathered. Before long the area was getting entirely too hot to stay in. Ghast tapped the pair on their legs as she started to run, the two carnivores turning and ran after her while the clearing behind them was engulfed in flames.

                “This fire could very well get out of control, mom. We might’ve just started a whole new catastrophe.” Relic said as they ran.

                “It would be no worse than the vines that were already growing. The fire will clear the area and completely get rid of that garbage. The island can recover from fire. But it would have a much harder time recovering from those vines.” Ghast replied, happy to hear the roar of flames staring to die down with the distance they were putting between themselves.

                “Why would a plant like that even be useful for the Atlanteans? It was killing everything there.” Blight asked, slowing his trot down to a walk once they were a safe distance away and tried to catch his breath.

                “For the same reason fire is useful to us. It is a terraforming plant. It goes through and clears whole areas. Once the area that is needed is cleared, there is another plant that gets brought in and kills the vines off. The vines provide good fertilizer for the dirt as they’re broken down. It’s a tactic used when masses of food are required, such as when the Queen is readying for massive movements of her people. So, by burning these vines, we’ve just cut off a massive source of future food for the Court and the army. This is a great setback for them. But if they were doing this here, then I would be willing to be there is a camp nearby. I’ll inform the Pale One. You both are free to go, just keep an eye out for anything on your way out.” Ghast said and smiled up at the pair before she turned and darted off.