The Verdant Stag's eyes were old wood and winter light. It stood under the root arch as if the forest had decided to grow a god where a cave should be.
Rat did not take his hand off the bell. The bronze was warm against his palm. It felt like a sleeping animal that had decided to wake up on his lap.
"Careful," he said quietly. "The garden is watching."
The Rooted keeper raised his hand. His juniors spread in a half circle that pretended to be polite. Chain boy rolled his shoulder and set the hook to spinning. The counting boy's smile had thinned to bone.
Ruo did not blink. Wei Yun angled his spear so the point lined with the keeper's wrist, not his chest. Song Min opened a resin stick with her teeth and hid the spark under her palm.
The bell breathed once. Herbs along the stone lip lifted like they had heard a name.
The stag stepped forward. Not a charge. A deliberate placing of weight where the ground would remember. Moss sighed under its hooves. It lowered its head and slid one green-tipped tine under the bell's edge. The motion lifted Rat's hand with the bronze.
"Owner," Wei Yun whispered.
"Ambitious," Rat muttered.
The Codex sang in his skull like a clerk with a headache.
[Green Bell of Canopy: Caretaker trial initiated.]
[Trial format: Three breaths. Ring correctly. Feed once. Withstand claim.]
[Warning: Guardian tolerance limited. Hostile intrusion increases difficulty.]
The keeper cleared his throat. "Back away. You do not ring that."
"Good tip," Rat said. "I was about to sing to it."
Chain hissed. The hook flashed for the rope.
Rat did not swing. He let the chain choose him. Rhythm Tap, two light knocks with his staff heel to wake the stone's hidden ruts. The chain skittered over a shallow groove that had not been there until he asked. The hook bit air and went wide.
Wei Yun stepped, spear a quick line. The chain rang, insulted, and sagged.
The stag turned its head. The green tips on its tines glowed with sap-light. Vines uncurled from the root arch behind it, curious as cats.
"First breath," Rat told himself.
He pinched the rope between two fingers and gave it a whisper of a tug. The bell did not make sound. It made permission. The tone rolled along his bones like a river fixing its posture.
Plants answered. Star thistle shivered and threw up fresh crowns. Mushrooms along the gully cracked themselves open to better stare.
The keeper did not like that. He flicked his sleeve. A small iron charm slid into his hand and sang a thin, high note. It was a cultivator's trick for baiting guardian beasts who had learned to sleep too well.
The stag's left ear turned. Its eyes cooled.
"Second breath," Rat said, throat dry.
He did not pull. He pressed his thumb to the bronze and pushed his Qi into the lip the way Instructor Zhen had told him never to push Qi into anything he did not want to own his lungs. The bell drank a sip. The tone that followed was lower, older, and went crawling into the roots like a story that had earned the right.
The herb wreath around the rim brightened. The crack he had glued wept a faint thread of sap that hardened into a seam of green lacquer.
He swallowed and reached into his robe with his free hand. A small clay vial knocked against his knuckle. Patch's glue had fixed the crack. Patch's other medicine tasted like the Basin left in the sun. He bit the cork, spat it, and poured a single dark drop over the lip. The bell took it and warmed.
Feed once.
The stag's nostrils flared. It tilted its head and shivered its new leaves with something that was almost content.
Chain boy came again, smarter this time. He threw for Rat's wrist. The counting boy ghosted left, soft-soled boots making nice with the stone, eyes on Wei Yun's spear like he wanted to unthread it from the world.
Ruo finally moved. One step. A palm raised to chest height that told the air to carry more than it wanted. The chain's path sagged like laundry in rain. Chain boy cursed and checked his teeth with his tongue like he could taste embarrassment.
Song Min flicked her spark. Resin smoke curled low, stinging eyes. It drifted toward the juniors and refused to bother the stag. The bell's breath made the smoke bend around bronze like it knew better.
The keeper's charm keened. He raised it higher. The stag's pupils narrowed. Bark along its shoulders creaked.
"Third breath," Rat whispered. "Last chance to be wise."
He lifted the rope a hair and let it fall and used his voice too, soft, under it. "Eat," he said to the bell. "But do not shout with your mouth full."
The bell agreed. The tone landed in the gut and sat there like a meal that did not plan to leave. The glade surged. Vines thickened by a finger's breadth. Angelroot pushed new leaves with a wet sound.
Everything awakened. Everything loved him back.
The keeper's charm note wobbled. The iron disk hairline cracked and died with a sad little cough. He blinked at it like it had broken on purpose to embarrass him.
The Codex ticked.
[Breath sequence correct. Offer accepted.]
[Caregiver mark: pending.]
[Withstand claim: commencing.]
Rat had time to think, That sounds expensive.
Vines snapped to life. Not wild. Intent. Thin green cords leapt from the root arch and wrapped his ankle, his wrist, his staff. They were not tight but they were certain. They smelled like fresh-cut cucumber and wet dirt.
The Rooted juniors all reacted like boys who had recently met a pit. Chain boy threw the hook at the vines. The hook cut two. Four more grew. The counting boy darted for Wei Yun's spear point to push it aside and help his friend. Wei Yun slid the point just enough to discourage him without drawing blood. The boy stopped like a polite guest deciding not to steal the teapot.
"Stop," the keeper said, voice sharp now. It was the tone of a man who had just realized he was not the oldest thing in the room.
The stag stepped closer. Five paces. Three. It lowered its head. The green tips brushed Rat's shoulder and did not cut. The world smelled like rain in a jar.
It put its antler tine under the bell again and lifted, as if to say, Do you understand.
Rat did. The bell wanted a home. The stag wanted a caretaker who fed rather than took. The forest wanted a story that did not end with a hook.
"Trial says withstand claim," he said, too soft for Rooted ears. "Whose claim."
The Codex answered like a scribe bored of repeating himself.
[All.]
Song Min's eyes met his. She mouthed, Idiot. Ruo's jaw had set into a line that usually preceded funerals. Wei Yun had the steady look of a boy already choosing the hard road because he preferred it.
Rat exhaled and gave the bell what it wanted.
"Mine," he said.
The vines tightened. Not cruel. Firm. They were testing joints and promises. They twined up his staff and around his ribs. He could feel the bell listening to the rhythm of his heart like it was checking a clock against the moon.
The keeper read the room late. He flicked his sleeve again. Two jade slips leapt into his palm with the joy of expensive tools that wanted to be used. He cracked one. Soundless pressure flared and shoved at the glade. Herbs flattened. Smoke ripped apart. The stag's ears flicked back.
Rat did not think. He moved. He took the pressure, turned his wrist, and let Reversal Instinct chew it up and spit half of it back into the ground. Rhythm Tap. Two quick knocks. The pulse went down into the bedrock and came up five paces behind the keeper as a little wave. It did not throw him. It made his next step land wrong. Wrong was enough.
The stag was done with patience.
It walked past Rat like a king choosing which son to scold. It put the flat of its antlers into the keeper's chest and moved him three paces without unkindness. The message was clear. You do not shout in a shrine.
The older Rooted disciple moved for the first time. He put a hand on the keeper's arm and murmured something that tasted like retreat. The juniors' courage leaked out of their knees and pooled somewhere their sashes could not reach.
"We will discuss border law later," the older disciple said, voice dry. "Preferably out of the garden."
"Bring diagrams," Rat said. "I like pictures."
They pulled back. Not far. Just enough to let the forest stop staring at them. The counting boy's gaze lingered on the bell. On Rat's hand. On the vines testing his pulse. He did not smile now. He looked like a boy learning subtraction.
The trial did not end because Rooted Stone had decided it should. The vines climbed his legs and circled his waist. His coin went from hot to scalding and then settled into a steady heat that felt a lot like a hearth he had no business owning.
The stag nosed his shoulder. It was not affection. It was inspection. It breathed in his hair and snorted out a leaf.
"Do I pass," Rat asked.
The Codex hesitated in a way it never did.
[Provisional caretaker mark applied.]
[Requirement: Relocation to aligned temple within three nights.]
[Penalty for failure: field backlash. Nutrient siphon. Local famine.]
"Neat," Rat said. "So if I fail, I starve a valley."
The bell answered by warming further against his palm. It made the bones in his hand feel like they had found their own names.
Vines tugged. Down, toward the root arch. A slow pull that asked, Will you come.
Song Min stepped forward and caught Rat's elbow with sticky resin fingers. "Do not be brave alone," she said.
Wei Yun set the spear butt close enough to give him a third leg if the ground stopped being loyal. Ruo moved to the bell's other side, palm hovering an inch from bronze, not touching, waiting to shoulder weight the moment the vines asked.
The keeper watched all this with a face like a locked box. He slowly lowered his broken charm. The older Rooted disciple tilted his head as if he had just seen a problem sprout teeth.
The stag took one pace into the root arch and looked back. It made the smallest motion with its head that a man could mistake for wind. It was not wind. It was invitation.
Rat sighed. "If I drown in dirt, tell Patch he still owes me a bowl."
He took a breath the mountain would accept, set his staff in his other hand, and let the vines pull.
The earth opened like a slow mouth. Cool root smell rushed up. The bronze slid with him, vine-tied, a bell and a boy going where light did not go.
Stone whispered along his boots. Soil pressed his ribs without malice. The bell did not ring. It thrummed against his chest like a heart that had memorized his.
Above, the keeper took a step and stopped, very sensible for once. Ruo's silhouette framed the arch. Wei Yun's spear tip glinted. Song Min's face was a pale coin.
The last thing Rat saw before the roots closed was the stag lowering its head to follow.
The ground swallowed the light.
Silence took his ears, then gave them back the sound of sap moving through wood. In the dark, the bell spoke in his bones.
[Codex Notice: Ownership accepted. Relocation in progress.]
The floor slid. The world tilted. The roots tightened.
And then something else moved in the black with them, soft as breath and colder than winter water.
It caught his ankle.
He did not have time to swear. The root tunnel yawned wider, sudden, like a throat opening.
The bell shivered, and the dark exhaled something that was not the stag.
[Codex of Strands of Fate - Status Update]
Vitality: 5
Qi Sense: 6
Comprehension: 3
Fate Entanglement: 20
Realm: Foundation Establishment
New State: Provisional Caretaker, Green Bell of Canopy
Effect: Low ring calms plant-life and minor beasts. Bell answers only to bearer's cadence. Duration limited by relocation timer.
New Technique: Three-Breath Oath
Use: Consecutive micro-rings that feed without alarm. Stabilizes growth fields.
System Warning: Unidentified entity within rootway.
Rat tightened his grip on the bronze.
"If you are a welcome committee," he said, voice small in the big dark, "send cake."