The Ashvine

The Ashvine has a few unique abilities.

• Fire immunity: As a plant of the Dark Forest, the Ashvine benefits from all of the usual fire resistances granted by the Salamander. Being made of that same magic smoke, both Salamander Flame and normal fire have little effect on it.
• Resistance to cutting: The Ashvine is elastic, and difficult to cut or wound.
• Puppeteer: Even before becoming a Cinder, the Ashvine was capable of controlling the corpses of animals. Now that it has become one, this ability also extends to the living.
• The Smoldering Bramble: The Ashvine's hatred takes the form of a near religious zeal in its victims. The victims, even if cut free, are infected by this hatred to such a degree that they will still capture others for the Ashvine. Hatred and pleasure become the same thing while under the Ashvine's control, and the effect is irreversible. The most disturbing part of this is that the victims are very clearly being both fed upon by the Ashvine and kept alive, with older victims gaining plant-like appearances, but still being perfectly capable of acting like their old selves (aside from the seething hatred). Nothing dies in the Smoldering Bramble.
• Static Forest: The Ashvine can prevent the Forest from moving by spreading its plant mass over a huge area.

The Ashvine used to be a simple animated vine. It would spend its days being eaten and stepped on and killed by the other creatures of the Forest. Then, it didn't care. It was a plant. How could it care if it didn't even have a brain? And so it spent almost all of its time growing and covering the trees of The Bramble. It was harmless. It was the least of the monsters of the Forest, not even worth mentioning. It was the background. And eventually, the other creatures of the Forest stopped paying it any mind, and the vine grew.   Then Zephnos died, and it just happened to snap up the Salamander Flame faster than anything else. How could it not? It was everywhere after all. The Salamander's divine spark spread across the plant like a virus. It burned with the intensity of a California wildfire, and while it was burning, it discovered something. It discovered ambition.   The Ashvine spread the newly discovered flame along the entirety of its mass. The Forest smoked and broiled under the flaming plant, and in that moment, the vine's hatred encompassed the entirety of what would become "The Smoldering Bramble". Unlike Zephnos, the Ashvine's fire never truly went out though. Even now, it's impossible to mistake its territory, as the Ashvine continues to sputter and smoke.   Conscious for the first time, the Ashvine thrashed. It hated everything in the Dark Forest. It hated Zephnos for stealing the fire. It hated the Salamander for dooming it to its existence at the bottom of the food chain. It hated the Dark Forest itself for forcing it to follow its stupid laws. But most of all, it wanted to share this hatred. It wanted to spread this vile, smoldering emotion to everyone, just so they could comprehend how much pain it had to suffer in its previous life.   The Ashvine became its own Dark Forest that day. It forced its will upon the other creatures that got too close, and it eventually learned how to lure in more. Those it captured became "Vinebound", a near perfect replica of their living selves. But their minds were twisted with the Ashvine's hate. They could hide it, but the moment another victim let their guard down, they would be wrapped in a cocoon of Ashvine leaves, and emerge as another acolyte of the vine.

The Ashvine lacks any form of morals, as might be expected of something that only just discovered sentience. It attacks and controls anything it can convince to come close enough, without restriction. It decided shortly after incineration that it doesn't need a reason to hate something, as it believes that given enough time, they will provide it one anyway.

The Ashvine started life with one intention: Share its overwhelming hate with the rest of the Dark Forest. It's still bound by the laws of the Forest, but it's also one of the few beings that can force the Forest to remain static, and may be spreading its mass to accomplish this very goal. After all, if it effectively encompasses the entire Dark Forest, it can make the rules.