Folly and Fishbait

Now, I like venus flytraps. Darling little plants, look fantastic on the sill. Its the venus mantraps you've got to look out for. Fortunately, they can only flourish naturally in one small region of the garden. Unlike the flytraps, the jaws don't grow on stalks. They lie more or less flush to the ground, the teeth-like spikes resembling saplings, green though they may be. This makes it easier for land based animals to mistake them for a simple clearing in the woods. They secrete the most amazing chemical that has drawn many an unprepred creature to its slow and painful death. Thankfully, the other thing they share in common with the simple flytrap is their slow digestive process.

I say thankfully as I myself was once caught up in one of damnable things, but unlike other wretched beasts, and indeed men, when adventuring in unknown regions of this wonderous garden I am anything but unprepared. Sticky though it was, with tireless determination I was able to reach my trusty jungle knife (for this purpose I prefer the kukhri, due its sturdy weighty blade) and after a little pruning I managed to free myself. Now, by this point I had been trapped in that hellish plant for 8 hours , and so was somewhat coated, some might say marinated, in its digestive juices and was beginning to feel one hell of a burn. Being miles from a medical facility or even a shower, I had to find the nearest body of water. As luck would have it, there was a good sized lake nearby, but as my own luck was having it that day, it turns out that this lake was not unpopulated.

It was on this day that I discovered the quadripedal giant pirahna was not as extinct as previously believed. Each one about the size of a man's torso, four spindly legs, and an ability to breath on land for short periods of time. Quick as they are, though, that was often enough for their hunts. Fortunately, the theory that the little buggers only travel in small packs turned out to be true, but as I wasn't sure if this may have been the last surviving pack, I wasn't relishing the thought of wiping the species from the garden. Being as they were too quick for me to outswim them, I had to rely on fending them off with my sheathed knife (which itself was a little worse for wear from the mantrap) until I could reach land. So there they were snapping and flapping, five of them, with me slowly working my way towards dry land. Where, if I couldn't directly outrun them, I was at least more mobile and had some chance of finding brief respite. Well, by the time I reached dry land, I'd suffered a nip or two and between that and my 8 hour battle with the plant exhaustion was beginning to set in. Fortunately, 3 of the 5 fish were too stunned to follow me on land, leaving just two, they themselves a little dazed. It was at this point my luck began to change. One quickly headed back into the water, maybe short of breath, the other collapsed soon after. Unfortunately it had expired, yet by returning to my estate with the body, I was able to achieve a grant for a full expedition in that region of the garden. We found several colonies of the creatures, and even managed to obtain enough subjects to begin a controlled breeding programme in captivation.