The Gardener, Reborn Again

The release

Carry the Rosemont Device toward the risen Great Bloom. Within 32 blocks, the Bloom goes still and turns every petal on the Device. Then it gags, heaves, and spits the Gardener back up in a gush of nectar, his body knitting itself together with vines. It folds its petals shut over its mouth, and a ring of thorned roots six blocks high comes up round the arena (48 blocks out from the Bloom since 1.38). Nothing gets through the ring, and it tears at whatever pushes against it. If you end up outside it alone, after ten seconds the roots part to let you back in.

Description

He's rebuilt on the first Gardener's own body: ten feet tall, the long canvas coat (rotted now, stained with the Bloom, torn where its petals came through), the wide hat, the cage of root ribs, the long thin arms and root feet. Everything the Bloom did to him is still there: grey bark split along every seam with the Bloom's petals breathing in the splits, the ribs pried open round a small copy of the Bloom's mouth in his chest, the Bloom's red petals round the hollow of his face with two green lights deep in it and a jaw of teeth under them. His left arm is a tentacle ending in a hook. In his right hand are the Bloomshears: two of the Bloom's teeth hinged by a tendril.

How he fights

Phase 1

• Shear Snap: the shears opened wide, then snapped shut in front of him.
• Hedge Sweep: he crouches and twists, sweeping 270 degrees round him.
• Root Lattice: shears into the ground, and three fanned lines of root spikes run out toward you.
• Pollen Breath: head back, then a golden cone: weakness, slowness, and the Bloom's infection.

At 65% he screams and tears the shears apart at the hinge, taking one blade in his hook. The ring cracks open in three places and the Flesh pours in. It goes for him as hard as for you.

Phase 2

• Twin Cut: blades crossed overhead, three cuts and a slam.
• Petal Storm: he spins up on his tentacle in a spiral of razor petals. Get in close or behind them.
• Graft Leap: he lands where you were, and the Bloom grafts itself onto the ground there. It heals him while he stands in it, burns, and withers in half a minute.
• Feed: he reaches through for one of the Flesh's infected and eats it (+30 health).
• Tendril Call: the ground cracks under you.

At 30% the Bloom pours itself into him. He grows to four blocks, petals burst out of his back, and his chest mouth opens. The music turns into The Choir.

Phase 3

• Whip-Shears: the blades on root chains, whirled overhead and swept across twelve blocks in front of him.
• Chest Choir: the chest mouth's shockwave, which also brings down whatever you built in front of him.
• The Bloom Eclipse (once, at 20%): the Bloom closes its dome, the dark comes down, and four spore pods fall into the arena. Each one you don't break within fifteen seconds heals him 50 and lets two tendrils up.
• The Wilting Embrace (once, below 10%): his tentacle takes you and he walks you toward the Bloom's mouth. Hit him six times to break free.

How to survive him

• Bring fire. He takes half again from it.
• Burst damage works: sixty damage inside three seconds puts him on one knee.
• When the ring cracks at 65%, the Flesh's infected come in. Let them fight him, but kill the ones he reaches for, because each one he eats heals him 30.
• Break all four spore pods during the eclipse.
• Keep the Device close. The Watcher: "keep the device close. i'll come for you when it's time."

Reborn Again

Since 1.40, killing him isn't the end. The Bloom grows him back once more: the Gardener, Reborn Again, faster and harder. The tracker reads "The Bloom is growing him back. Stay near it."

Kill him the second time, and the Watcher rips the portal into the Bloom open for the launch.

Reborn Again has half as much health again (900), hits harder (13 to the Reborn's 10), is quicker on his feet and a quarter quicker between moves, and never quite stops bleeding the Bloom's light out of every split in him. His bar turns red and reads "The Gardener, Reborn Again". He drops the same things.

His end

When he dies the shears wilt, he kneels, his petals fall, and he's left as a heap of leaves round a seed. The ring withers back into the ground and the Bloom shuts itself up tight.

• The Bloomshears (Graft): full swings snip twice, and the Bloom in them hates the Flesh, so they hit infected half again as hard. Use them to drive three lines of thorned roots toward what you face.
• Bloom Heartwood (three): close-grained, pale, still warm, green light running in it like sap.
• The Gardener's Seed: a hard black seed the size of a fist, split along one seam. Something in it breathes.

Bloom Heartwood goes into Chapter Three's gear: the Heartwood tools, the Thorn Whip, the Spore Mace and two pieces of the Bloomwoven (see Gear for every chapter).

Turned

Since 1.51.0 the parasite can take him. Turned, he's the Reborn, Consumed. The Hub's replay portal for The Bloom brings him back for another go.