With a plan in place, and various levels of apprehension in your minds and hearts, you leave the coffee shop without ordering anything--which may be for the best, since where exactly a nameless hole-in-the-wall is still finding coffee beans after nearly three months of total supply cutoff is perhaps a question that no one would like the answer to.
Watcher's birds can guide you to within a mile of Manchineel's location, but by the time you're maybe two miles away from her, you no longer really need his guidance. The ground beneath you, uneven and sometimes treacherous as any forest floor, has slowly leveled and flattened, carpeted with eerily similar leaves in repeating patterns of yellow, orange, and red. The trees have steadily grown straighter, taller, their branches beginning higher on their trunks; soon, it is nearly impossible to tell one tree from another of its kind, and the trees repeat in a pattern, forming columned paths, their roots tracing another, harmonious pattern beneath the fallen leaves. The canopy above, only lightly shifting from the autumn wind, is spaced far too evenly, the branches obliging one another and leaving careful, symmetrical gaps between the similarly-sized leaves. When the sun makes its brief forays behind the clouds, it reveals a third pattern on the forest floor, drawn in the dappled light that glimmers through the leaves and outlined by the spaces between.
In a painting, or a picture, or even a movie or show, the effect would be beautiful. Standing in its midst, disturbing the even leaf-fall as you walk or causing it to tremble in your flight, it feels alien, nature filtered through a strange mind rather than allowed to grow as it wishes. The sense of alienation builds as you move farther towards its source, and it is clear that you are intruders to this space--or perhaps it is life that intrudes upon this space, life that is messy and unchecked and random, trampling the patterns and tossing the leaves. Whatever it is, Manchineel has stamped her pattern heavily into this place, showing her picture of Nature clearly, repeatedly, again and again.
The unnatural woodland before you opens, the colonnade of straight, still trees bowing outwards, then inwards in eerie unison, leaving an open space in the heart of the symmetrical world. At the far end of this perfect clearing stands an enormous boulder, covered in a thick bed of clover. All of the stalks of clover seem to have four leaves. As the four of you arrive, the boulder shifts, turning towards you and revealing the wrinkled, clover-clad head of a tortoise, which observes you with flat calm, chewing a mouthful of dried leaves. An odd skittering sound reveals a second occupant, scrambling down the side of one of the unnatural trees to the forest floor. The shape of the creature is oddly difficult to discern, for a moment, too many limbs and abdomens and trailing feelers, but it at last resolves itself into a creature that could not, naturally, exist. The bottom section of the creature is the circular body and eight long limbs of a spider, grown somehow to rival a human inside, made of plates of chitin and cords of dark, root-like wood. Where the spider's head should be, there is another bug-like abdomen, this one long, thin, and upright, surmounted by a triangular head with two bulging, milky yellow eyes. Another set of limbs branch out from this abdomen; oddly flat and wide, the sun gleams off of these limbs like metal, flashing as the creature fixes its gaze on the four of you. The entire put-together beast is covered in thick, damp-looking moss, which floats lightly in the air and follows its limbs as they twitch; the rich, wet scent of rainfall reaches you as the creature makes itself known, shivering and shuddering with odd convulsions.
"She'll die by sunset, I'm afraid."
Manchineel is here.
The smell of rainfall is soon overpowered by her, a sweet scent containing just too much sour to be pleasant. She steps out of the same tree the spider-mantis crawled down from, and the air shivers with her presence, a shimmer that is strangely unhealthy even as it bespeaks nature and power. Manchineel lays one reddish-brown hand atop the creature's head, the touch of the rough bark stilling the creature's twitches for just a moment. "I didn't have the time to perfect her, and even nature needs perfection." Her green-white eyes, pupilless, without iris, are sad as they gaze upon her creation, noting it beginning to twitch and shudder once more. "I would rather she live, and find her place--spiders are so useful, and the praying mantis is endangered, so why shouldn't they find a place to be, together? But I do not have the time. Or, perhaps the skill."
Her hand still upon her newest creature, Manchineel turns her head, the pale green arrow-shaped leaves that make her long-long hair whispering about her. The soft, greyish mold that forms a sort of dress around her pulses and shifts as she looks upon the four of you--or, especially, on Lily. "I was foolish, with you, I think." Her voice is barely above a whisper, but the woods are silent to hear her speak. "Foolish, and short-sighted, and arrogant. I only saw the hurt, the pain, the anguish of the plants as they came to me--they speak, but you know that. I thought that the Woods spoke through me, that their voice was clear, powerful--foolish, arrogant. Even nature needs perfection. If I claim to speak for nature, how can I exempt myself? Join me, my Raphael. Teach me, show me where I have gone wrong. Let me perfect you, so that you may perfect me, on and on, until the world is right once more."
Manchineel drops her hand from the spider-mantis, walking towards the center of the clearing, her bare, bark-like feet making no sound and disturbing no leaves on the forest floor. Those green-white eyes move, looking upon each of you in turn. She smiles at Nope. "My Uriel. So fearful, so strange, unknown to even yourself. Let me give you a body that you may know, and people who will always know you. All I ask is that you go unknown to those who would deny perfection. I can... I can give Ntombi her rest, this way, which is better." She shakes her head, leaf-like hair rustling, then looks at Ariadne. "My Michael--or Michaela? You are a stalwart defender, a spear and a shield, a weaver of nature, though what you weave is stripped of much of its true power and form. Let me strengthen your shield and sharpen your spears, perfect them to Nature's true form. Let me shelter behind your shield, my protector." Helios is next. "Gabriel. Trumpeter of light, caller of the new world. This Dome is... unknown to me, but you delve in mysteries many do not understand. Let me grant you the means to dive deep, deeper, to break this Dome, so that we all may breathe the clean air outside of it and grow, grow, grow."
In the center of the clearing, Manchineel spreads her hands, her tiny, slim five-foot frame at once astonishingly frail and looming with leashed power. The sun appears behind the clouds, outlining her form in light. The picture is as perfect as it could manage to be. "My first Menagerie will be given glory and rest. They will choose their forms and live in them, at peace, honored by Nature and protected for all of their natural lives. But you... with you, we will perfect it. Everything, even nature, needs perfection. With you, it can be done." Manchineel stands still, a small smile on her face, the picture of serenity, sincerity, and natural conviction. The spider-mantis creature shudders behind her. The clover-leafed turtle chews its leaves.
Spoiler: Perception DC 29 (Scent counts as well... if it's available)And in the trees behind the clearing, one--and only one--familiar figure lurks, and hums, and smells faintly of honey...
Spoiler: OOCMap is here. Place yourselves wherever you like.
Manchineel has not made any move to attack--not even with pheromones, as far as you can tell! That being said, she knew you were coming, and she hasn't let down her defenses. You can attempt to bluff her to get a surprise attack, you can try seeing how she reacts to what you know about her... or you can do something I haven't considered. The ball's in your court!