[Lyra]
The Guild's decree arrived on ash paper, the kind that burned to nothing if folded wrong.
All caravans passing through Rivermere Shard North were to submit cargo for purity inspection. Any cart bearing fungus, ashsoil, or "unregistered minerals" would be seized. The reason, as written in the decree's blue script: Containment of rot contagion.
Lyra crumpled the paper. "Containment," she muttered. "They mean control."
Marek leaned against the relay wall, rubbing ash from his gloves. "They're scared. Infection drift slowed, and they don't know why. That's worse than plague for bureaucrats — losing cause and effect."
"Then they burn the symptoms."
Outside, the caravan horns echoed thinly through the valley. The Guild's purifiers would already be at the crossings, masks on, rods glowing faint white from purgelight.
Lyra tightened her cloak. "We can't let them cut the road."
Marek gave her a long look. "You mean to break a Guild cull?"
"I mean to save the Choir."
[Caravan 41 – Rivermere Crossing]
Kasha stood on the wagon tongue, arms spread. The river below ran thick and low, colored by soot and sulfur. Guild purifiers lined the far bank in their lacquered masks, rods humming.
"Declare your load!" the lead one shouted. His voice was the kind that liked to be obeyed.
"Glassware, tools, and ashes for the fields," Kasha said. "No spores."
The purifier gestured. One of his underlings drove a rod into the first cart. The rod glowed orange. "Contaminated."
"It's sand," Kasha snapped.
"Contaminated," the purifier repeated. "By tone."
Kasha blinked. "By what?"
"Tone," the man said again, eyes shining behind his mask. "The shards sing."
The Guild had caught it. The hum. The resonance of the Choir still clinging to the glass.
When the guards began pulling crates, Kasha moved first — grabbed the nearest rod, snapped it across her knee, and slammed the jagged end into the man's chest. Armor cracked. Someone screamed.
The camp erupted.
[Forum – World Noise]
[RivermereWatch]: "Trade skirmish at the crossings. Guild purifiers burned a caravan. Reports of resistance."
[IronFist88]: "Good. Let them burn each other while we farm."
[Nocti]: "Choir band spike detected east of Rivermere. Someone's singing through fire."
[Skeptik]: "Fake. Noise from ash flows."
[WatcherCircle]: "It's real. Tone matches Rootwater baseline."
[Lyra]
By the time Lyra reached the ridge, the river glowed orange from the fires below. Carts burned like lanterns on the black water. Kasha's people were scattered, some fleeing, some fighting. Purifiers moved in perfect lines, rods sweeping arcs of flame.
Lyra crouched behind the relay's lower perch, crystal in hand. The dish thrummed faintly from the vibrations — the Choir itself reacting to the noise. The frequency was fracturing.
"They're breaking the signal," Marek said.
"Not if we change the key."
Lyra tuned the strings higher, almost to the pitch that hurt teeth. The crystal bled light.
"You'll call them here," Marek warned.
"I'm not calling them," she said, voice steady. "I'm calling him."
She sang — low, then rising. A note that had no words, only memory: the hum from the mountain's heart, the pulse she'd felt through the dish weeks before.
The ground under her boots answered.
Not just vibration. Pressure. Deep, rolling. As if something beneath the valley stirred to listen.
[Cass]
He was in the forge cavern when the Ward shuddered.
Not broke — answered.
The light flared green, then silver, the kind that seeped into bone. The air trembled. Rilka dropped her chalk. Eshna looked up from her bandages.
"What was that?"
Cass pressed a hand to the Ward's resin. The pulse came again — a call from beyond the sealed tunnels, faint but insistent.
"They're singing," he murmured.
Eshna frowned. "Who?"
"The world."
He closed his eyes, feeling the rhythm through the bond. Something on the surface had reached the same frequency — raw, loud, uncontrolled. The Choir. The people who had listened. But the Guild was breaking them.
He could not climb out. The tunnels were still sealed by firestone and ash. But sound traveled where stone broke.
He moved to the forge and struck the anvil hard — once, twice, thrice. The tone rang through the cavern like a heartbeat. Then again. Three beats, pause, two, pause, three.
Rilka joined, tapping her chalk on a bronze plate.
The sound rose like breath through a lung.
[Lyra]
The first shockwave made the Guild's rods flicker. The second cracked one clean. Purifiers stumbled, hands to their ears. The tone came from everywhere and nowhere — the stone, the carts, the river.
Marek shouted something, but Lyra couldn't hear it. The sound wasn't loud, just absolute.
She saw Kasha dragging wounded from the water, soot across her face. The hum wrapped around the camp, and for one impossible moment the fires dimmed to blue.
Then silence.
When the wind came back, the Guild was retreating. The river hissed and cooled. The glass shards in the mud glowed faintly before fading.
Lyra fell to her knees, trembling.
"You called him," Marek whispered.
"No," she said softly, voice shaking. "He called back."
[System]
World Event: Resonance Sync Achieved
Effect: Choir frequency aligned with Subterranean Ward core. Infection drift slowed across entire shard
Side effect: Guild surveillance disrupted (12h). Power relays destabilized
Visibility: Low (unconfirmed source)
[Cass]
The Ward dimmed slowly. Cass knelt, sweat slick on his brow.
Eshna steadied him. "You burned yourself through sound."
He smiled faintly. "Worth it."
"Was that your doing?"
"No. That was theirs. I just reminded the mountain to listen."
He stood, joints aching, and looked toward the sealed tunnels. Beyond them, somewhere above, he could feel hundreds of faint echoes returning. Not all human — wind, water, glass, song.
It was enough.
"We hold," he said. "And they remember."
[Forum – World Noise]
[GuildClerk]: "Network interference. Relay towers offline. Reboot pending."
[Nocti]: "The hum saved a bridge crew from infection bloom. Coincidence? I don't think so."
[IronFist88]: "Next you'll say the Ghost Lord sings lullabies."
[WatcherCircle]: "He doesn't sing for us. He sings for the stone."
[Lyra]
The next dawn was pale gray, the ash wind calm.
Kasha's caravan was half-gone, but the rest alive. She stood with Lyra by the cracked road.
"They'll come again," Kasha said.
"They always do," Lyra replied.
"What will you do?"
Lyra looked toward the mountains. "Keep the Choir quiet. But not silent."
"Think he heard?"
Lyra smiled, small and tired. "He didn't just hear. He answered."