[Cass]
The cavern no longer echoed with screams. Only work.
Stone dust drifted in the air like slow snow. Warbles rebuilt what they could, their songs low and rhythmic - not mourning songs now, but work chants. The Spore Ward pulsed with each verse, steady and alive, its heartbeat matching Rootwater's own.
Cass carried a slab to the new bridge crossing the inner river. His hands bled, but he didn't care. Pain meant blood still flowed. That was enough.
Eshna supervised the healers, voice hoarse from shouting. Karrek's hammer fell like thunder in the forge caverns, reshaping fallen metal into something usable. Rilka moved among them, chalking lines along the floor - paths for air, light, and heat. Her maps were growing strange lately. The marks glowed faintly when she drew, as if the chalk remembered where tunnels used to be.
"Don't stop," she murmured whenever Cass passed. "The stone listens when we move."
Maybe she was right.
[System]
Settlement: Propervy Bastion (Fortified)
Population: 189 (reduced)
Food: 20 days (farming stabilized)
Morale: Resilient
Environmental Status: Volcanic Shield (Stable)
External Connection: None
[Cass]
At night, when all others slept, he would sit by the Spore Ward and listen. The light inside it no longer pulsed just with his heart. It hummed in rhythm with something deeper - the world itself.
Sometimes, faint whispers brushed against the edges of his thoughts. Not words. More like echoes carried through stone. Once, he thought he heard laughter. Once, a cry.
He told no one.
A week later, Rilka ran to him, slate glowing faintly in her arms. "Cass! Listen!"
She pressed it to the ground. Through the stone came a sound - faint, like distant chimes under water.
"What is it?"
She smiled, eyes wide. "Voices. But not ours."
They followed the vibrations through half-collapsed corridors, down to where the mountain's veins glowed faint red from heat. The sound grew clearer - not speech, but harmonic tones.
Cass knelt, placing his palm against the wall.
Not metal. Not echo. Resonance.
"The Ward's bond," he whispered. "It's carrying sound."
[System Notification]
New Event Detected – Stone Resonance Network (Passive)
Rootwater's Spore Ward is synchronizing with distant frequencies. Origin unknown.
[Cass]
He looked at Rilka. "It's listening. Or calling."
"To who?" she asked.
"Maybe whoever's left."
That night, he tuned the shrine's glow by hand, adjusting its frequency like the old resonance rites Meriv once taught. Each adjustment sent faint ripples through the air. Some returned empty. Others came back warped - filled with strange vibrations that almost resembled human breath.
One returned with a faint sequence of tones, like a melody cut short.
[Forum – Global Noise]
[WatcherLyra]: "Shard monitors picking up low-frequency anomalies under the Propervy range. Sounds like harmonic data leakage. Could be geothermal."
[IronFist88]: "Yeah, or ghosts singing in magma."
[ArchivistVenn]: "Crosschecked with infection map. That area hasn't decayed further since last month. Stabilization field maybe?"
[Lyra]: "Field implies a source. And whoever built it is still active."
[Skeptik]: "He's dead. Stop digging myths. Focus on surface rebuild."
[Watcher Lyra]
Lyra wiped dust from the relay lens. The relay tower groaned under storm wind. Below her, the crater fields of Rivermere burned red at the horizon.
The signal logs on her crystal console blinked: harmonic wave pattern, repeating every eight hours. Always from the same depth. Always faint.
"Propervy's ghost," she muttered.
Her partner, Marek, adjusted the focus wheel. "If he's dead, he sings well for a corpse."
Lyra studied the pulse on the readout. "This isn't random. Look - three beats, pause, two beats, pause, three again."
Marek frowned. "A code?"
"Or a heartbeat."
She marked the frequency in her logbook, sealing it with wax. She knew the Guild would confiscate it if she sent it directly. The Guild feared the underground - said it stirred old wars.
But Lyra wasn't Guild anymore.
If something lived beneath Propervy, if the Ghost Lord was more than rumor, she would find it.
[Cass]
The days grew hotter. The upper caverns steamed with mineral fog. Crops wilted near the vents, but deeper chambers bloomed - fungi expanding as if nourished by new air.
Eshna noticed first. "The air's richer," she said. "Whatever you're doing with the Ward, it's changing the caverns."
Cass didn't answer. He wasn't sure himself. The Ward's light now pulsed in wider waves, syncing with the faint hum he and Rilka heard through stone.
Some nights, he caught glimpses in dreams - flashes of places above: red skies, broken towers, people coughing ash. Sometimes, the dreams felt like memories. Other times, like warnings.
Rilka brought him her newest map. The glow lines pulsed steadily, then split into three branching streams.
"They're singing back," she said softly.
Cass stared. "Who?"
"I don't know. But they know we're here."
He felt it too - the faint warmth through the bond, not just to the Ward, but outward, like a web threading through unseen caverns and forgotten shrines.
He placed his hand on the stone. "Then let them listen."
He began to hum - slow, low, steady. A song Meriv used to sing when sealing new stonework. The Warbles joined, one by one, until Rootwater vibrated with sound.
[System]
Passive Ability Unlocked – Resonant Signal.
Effect: Spore Wards linked through subterranean frequency field. Infection resistance network strengthened.
Visibility: Minimal. Signal detectable only by harmonic diviners.
[Watcher Lyra]
In her tower, Lyra stared at the console as her readings spiked.
"It's… singing back," she whispered.
Marek's hand froze on the dial. "The dead don't sing."
Lyra's lips curved into a faint smile. "Then maybe he's not dead."
She sent the log through encrypted relay. Not to the Guild, but to someone older. Someone who still believed in the underground gods.
If Propervy lived, it meant the infection could still be slowed. It meant the war wasn't over.
[Cass]
The Warbles sang until their voices broke. The cavern glowed brighter than it had since before the eruption.
Cass stood before the Spore Ward, chest aching, feeling the hum spread through him like fire and heartbeat combined.
He didn't know what waited above - only that the world had begun to listen again.
For now, that was enough.
[System Summary]
Settlement: Propervy Bastion (Harmonic Node Active)
Network Status: Reconnected (Low Range)
Global Effect: Infection Delay +5%
Questline Progression: Isolation Arc – Complete