Chapter 5 – The Verdant Veins
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Dawn came pale through the cracks of Duskveil's clouds, a thin ribbon of light stretching across the marsh. The Runic Gate on the plaza had been rebuilt overnight; new pylons shimmered with fresh inscriptions, their cores humming with restrained power. Every hunter in the square had come to watch.
Aric tightened the last strap on his gauntlet. The shard rested against his chest under the armor, its pulse faint but steady. Beside him, Brann checked his new shoulder plating, flexing the metal until it squeaked. Serae twirled an arrow between her fingers; Eira stood near the console, coaxing the gate's crystals to align.
Warden Malken approached, cloak snapping in the wind. "Verdant Expanse is a different breed," she said. "The beasts there don't sleep—they grow. Keep your heads, and don't listen to the songs in the trees."
Aric nodded. "Any message for the Accord there?"
"Only this," Malken said. "Whatever waits on the other side will not remember you kindly."
The pylons brightened until the square glowed white. Wind whipped upward; the sound became a deep note that resonated through their bones. Eira raised a hand. "Gate stable! Step through before it thinks twice!"
They entered the light.
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The world bent. Pressure crushed their lungs, then released. When Aric opened his eyes, the light had turned green.
They stood beneath a sky veiled by leaves the size of sails. Sunlight filtered through a thousand layers of foliage, each dripping color. The air smelled of sap, rain, and something sweeter—ozone tinged with magic. Vines as thick as cables wound around trunks that rose like towers, their bark etched with faintly glowing runes. The forest breathed.
"Welcome," Eira whispered, "to the Verdant Expanse."
A distant roar rolled through the canopy. Brann grinned. "Sounds friendly."
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Eryndra Hold lay less than a league from the gate, a city grown rather than built. Its walls were living trees coaxed into formation, branches interlocking to form watchtowers. Platforms of woven bark supported markets, forges, and crystal generators. The people here wore lighter armor dyed in greens and golds; even their weapons seemed grown from the world around them.
At the central hall, Keeper Solen Arvane awaited them. He was tall and hollow-eyed, robes trimmed with ivy filaments. His voice carried a scholar's calm that didn't reach his gaze. "So these are the resonance-marked hunters from Duskveil."
"We came for the breach," Aric said.
Solen's expression sharpened. "You mean to say you brought one." His eyes flicked to the faint light beneath Aric's chest plate. "You'll keep that contained. The forest is already restless."
Malken had warned them of the Verdant's arrogance, and she'd been right. Still, Solen led them to quarters carved from a living trunk, their walls pulsing with soft luminescence. "Rest," he said. "The jungle dreams, and it doesn't dream kindly."
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By evening the rain came—warm, heavy, endless. It drummed against the canopy until the whole world seemed to breathe with it. Aric sat near the edge of the camp, cleaning the edges of his blades. The shard hummed faintly in his chest, matching the rhythm of the falling water.
Eira joined him, soaked through, notebook pressed to her side. "Readings are worse than Duskveil. The resonance network under this forest is alive—growing."
"How deep?"
"Too deep. It converges under a ruin the locals call the Heartgrove. Hunters went there last week. None came back."
Aric slid the second blade home. "Then that's where we go."
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They left at first light. Brann led, lance balanced over one shoulder. Serae ranged ahead, silent among the vines. Eira followed close behind Aric, scanning with her instruments.
The deeper they traveled, the louder the forest became—whispers, rustling, the clicking of unseen jaws. Flowers opened as they passed, releasing blue mist that shimmered like starlight. When Aric brushed a vine aside, it recoiled as if alive. "Everything here's listening," he murmured.
"Feels like walking through a throat," Brann said.
Hours later, the trees grew wider and the air thickened until breathing felt like drinking. Eira stopped suddenly, eyes on her meter. "Resonance spike! Thirty meters—moving!"
The jungle exploded.
From the canopy dropped shapes of bark and crystal—Aetherfang Myrids, their limbs bladed, eyes like molten amber. They struck in unison, a living storm.
Aric's blades flashed free before thought. The first Myrid hit the ground where he'd stood; the second lunged low, mandibles snapping. He sidestepped, severed a leg, spun to block the next strike. Brann roared, spear igniting as he rammed it through two at once; their bodies shattered into shards that reformed, crawling toward him again.
Serae's arrows whistled through the fog, splitting mid-flight into tri-shot bursts that pierced glowing cores. Eira dropped to one knee, thrusting a resonance anchor into the soil—light pulsed outward, staggering the swarm.
But there were too many. They moved in rhythm, sharing one mind. Aric felt it—every beat, every breath the same. He drew the shard from his chest plate; its light flared, and the creatures hesitated.
"Stay clear!" he shouted.
He let the shard's pulse synchronize with his heartbeat, then released it. The world rang like struck glass. A wave of silver energy rippled through the clearing. The Myrids froze mid-lunge, their bodies vibrating with the same tone. Aric moved among them, each strike deliberate, blades singing through crystal and vine.
One by one they shattered, their light bleeding into the ground. Silence followed, broken only by the hiss of rain.
Brann dropped to a knee, panting. "Still friendly enough for you?"
Eira approached the nearest carcass. It hadn't dissolved. Instead, its chest had opened, exposing hollow runes carved deep inside. She brushed away shards and read the markings aloud. " 'The Core remembers.' "
The words made the forest shudder. Leaves rustled though no wind stirred them. Far away, something vast exhaled—a note that rolled through the trees, low and melodic, almost a song.
Aric looked toward the sound. "That's the Heartgrove."
The glow beneath his armor answered, brighter now, matching the rhythm. He felt the pulse travel through the ground, through the trees, through him.
"It's not corruption," he whispered. "It's awakening."
The forest sang again, louder, and the hunters stood beneath its voice, small against the living world that had started to remember itself.
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End of Chapter 5 – The Verdant Veins