[Cass]
The echo of the Choir faded, but the stone did not still. For three nights after the hum, the mountain pulsed like a heart too slow to die. The Spore Ward flickered in rhythm, silver veins throbbing brighter, then dim. Cass barely slept. Every time he closed his eyes, he felt the pulse not in his chest but in the earth beneath his ribs.
Rootwater had always been alive. Now it was awake.
Rilka traced her chalk along the walls again. The marks shimmered faintly where the pulses struck. "It's drawing lines, Cass," she said. "Like veins."
He leaned closer. The chalk wasn't glowing by light. It was resonating. The entire cavern wall hummed at a frequency too low for the Warbles to hear, but he felt it in the marrow.
"Where does it lead?"
"Down," she whispered.
Eshna appeared behind them, her face shadowed by exhaustion. "The soil's gone hot again. Crops wilted overnight. I've never seen roots burn from below."
Cass straightened. "We've been breathing the same air for months. If the mountain's waking..."
"Then it'll cook us from the inside," she finished.
Cass pressed a hand to the Ward. Its light was steady, but under it something darker pulsed. Like blood behind a mirror.
He whispered, "It's not just waking. It's remembering."
[System]
Warning – Seismic Resonance Unstable
Source: Unknown (Subterranean Level -4).
Recommendation: Investigate before Rootwater structural collapse.
[Karrek's Forge]
The air shimmered with heat. Sparks hissed like insects. Karrek swung his hammer down on molten chitin until it screamed.
Cass entered, voice hoarse. "I need something that can cut rock alive."
Karrek grunted. "That's not forging. That's madness."
"Then forge madness."
Karrek stared, saw the resolve, and spat into the fire. "You'll get your edge."
[Rilka]
She followed Cass down the lower shafts. The air grew wet, then sharp - metallic. The chalk lines she'd drawn glowed brighter the deeper they went.
Cass paused at a fissure where the pulse was strongest. The wall was smooth, melted into glass-like curves.
Rilka touched it, then drew her hand back fast. "It's warm."
Cass lifted his lantern. The light refracted inside the glass wall. Shapes swirled within it - faint outlines like hands pressed from the other side.
"Not rock," he muttered. "Not magma. Memory."
The hum thickened.
Rilka's pupils dilated. "It's singing back."
Cass gripped the spear Karrek had finished only hours before - the blade forged from eelbone and fungus steel, white and green. He pressed the point against the glass. "Then we listen properly."
[System]
Quest Unlocked – The Heart Below
Objective: Locate the Resonance Source in Level -4.
Warning: Interference with subterranean structures may trigger dormant entities.
[Cass]
The blade pierced cleanly. The glass cracked in a perfect circle. Light spilled out - not bright, not color, just vibration made visible. The hum became a voice, layered and slow.
You woke the mountain. Do you understand what you kept alive?
Cass didn't speak. The light coiled around his hands like mist.
Rilka clung to his sleeve. "Cass, it's speaking."
He nodded. "I know."
You fed it. You bound it to your breath. You made it remember hunger.
The cavern shook.
Eshna's voice echoed from above, distant. "Cass! The Ward... it's flaring!"
The light coalesced into form - a shape between stone and fungus, body outlined in veins of green fire. Its face was smooth, its eyes hollow.
You call yourself lord. So take lordship of what you bound.
It reached toward him. The bond flared white-hot in his chest. Pain like a spear drove through his ribs.
He dropped to one knee. "I didn't call you," he gasped.
You built the gate. I walked through.
Rilka screamed as cracks spread through the wall, light flooding out. The entity stepped free, towering and thin, more idea than flesh.
[System Alert]
Entity Emerged: Subterranean Echo (Class Unknown).
Designation: Heart of Propervy.
Behavior: Bound. Curious. Starving.
[Cass]
He staggered to his feet. "You feed on the Ward," he said through clenched teeth.
On what it guards, the voice answered. You shielded this shard from infection. You also sealed me in. Balance breaks both ways.
The ground beneath them split. Molten sap rose in glowing rivers, not lava but something organic, pulsing in rhythm with the Ward above.
Cass's mind burned. Through the bond, he saw flashes: roots, cities, carcasses of machines buried in rock, all feeding the same slow pulse.
He realized what the Ward truly connected to - not just Rootwater, not just the infection, but the planet's living core.
"I tied my life to this," he whispered.
Then you are part of me, it said.
Rilka grabbed his hand, eyes wide. "Cass, it's inside the stones. The whole mountain's breathing with it."
He tightened his grip on the spear. "Then I'll teach it how to breathe slower."
He drove the blade deep into the fissure. The light screamed. The hum dropped in pitch - from a roar to a heartbeat.
[System]
Event: Resonance Suppression Successful.
Risk: Structural Damage – Minimal.
Bond Integrity: 72%.
The entity faded, dissolving into dust that glowed once before vanishing. The fissure sealed behind it, hardening into smooth stone.
Rilka trembled. "Was that a god?"
Cass shook his head, chest bleeding from the strain. "No. Just something older that didn't like being forgotten."
[Forum – World Noise]
[WatcherCircle]: "Seismic burst detected again, but opposite polarity. Infection readings dropped everywhere."
[IronFist88]: "Cool, so earthquakes cure plagues now."
[Nocti]: "If it's him, he's not dead. And the world just blinked."
[Skeptik]: "Stop myth-chasing. No one controls the ground."
[Cass]
When they climbed back to the hollow, the Spore Ward was dimmer but stable. Eshna waited, eyes searching his face. "What did you find down there?"
Cass exhaled slowly. "The mountain's heart. And it was hungry."
She looked at the Ward, then back at him. "And now?"
He smiled, weak but sure. "Now it's full."
The Ward pulsed once, faint but steady.
Below them, unseen, the mountain slept again - for now.