“Not every flower chooses to bloom toward the light”

Those who tried to find out inevitably fled the scene, accompanied by a laughter that made their skin crawl. Mandra is a carnivorous plant mage who has been quietly conducting alchemical experiments inside this pot for hundreds of years. The blue potion bottle contains a homemade “memory eraser”—it wipes the minds of anyone who gets too close, leaving behind nothing but a deep, instinctive fear of Mandra in its place. The vine bearing red fruit is a predatory trap, and the floating blue gem is a crystallized collection of stolen knowledge. Mandra and Bloom are destined opposites—light plant and dark plant—yet Mandra never moves to attack directly. “Nothing irritates me more than that relentlessly happy face,” Mandra mutters, while somehow never quite looking away. As for Satchi, the two get along over a shared fondness for “taking things from others,” occasionally exchanging schemes with quiet enthusiasm.