After countless attempts, Emery found that catching the little creature was apparently much harder than he thought. Emery already gave up trying to catch the thing only using one root. It was simply impossible with his current proficiency of the spell.
Hence, he attempted the task with two roots instead of one. The roots came from both sides of the creature, trying to trap it. Alas, the little thing even managed to slip by with that setup, proving the job was extremely difficult.
Emery needed a lot of focus to just channel the spell and order one root into moving, and it was even harder for Emery to control both at the same time. The lightning fast speed the little creature exhibited also did not help in his endeavor.
While Emery was tortured by the little creature, he couldn't help but think that fighting against Lodos or Micah was preferable to this.