So, it turns out the Vivarium was more than just a place where plants were grown—it evolved philosophers. Not Lucien, but the whole apparatus. This weird crystal-like stuff that looked like lichen just appeared on a piece of the divine tissue, and it does this amazing thing: it changes color and emits little pulses correlating to the emotional state of the entire miniature world inside. When the lithopedes are happily munching away, it is a relaxing blue and vibrates. If some mold starts messing with the moss, it goes amber and pulses like an alarm. And when Benny and Elara come by, all curious and caring, the lichen goes crazy with gold patterns and produces this complicated, inviting sound.
Lucien named it the Empathic Lichen. It is not just reflecting what is happening; it is understanding it and telling you. It is like the Vivarium is coming to life and it has a way of sensing how everyone's doing.
Instead of showing with dull graphs, he demonstrated all this to the Academy by his actual performance. He provoked the Vivarium, played some offensive noises. The moss got droopy. The lithopedes hid. The divine tissue curled up.
And the Empathic Lichen? To its utmost, it turned red and made this obnoxious, shrill sound. It seemed like a cry, a warning.
After that, Lucien played that old invitation sound. Everything in the system returned to normal. Lichen changed from red to a calm green, and the sound was a soft ripple.
The system can interact, Lucien said, with tears in his eyes. It can inform us when it is suffering and when it is alright. This is not about dominating it. It is about hearing.
This was a watershed moment. They had been trying to govern the world through essentials like food, water, and health. But what if the world could simply tell them what it required? Not in some insane dream like Convergence, but straightforwardly, with sounds and colors indicating help or all okay?
With this realization, they dispatched teams to such places as the Heartforge, the Reclamator, the fungal farms, the Aqua Vita springs, and even those miserable Nerve-Jungles. They brought with them spores of the Empathic Lichen (ensuring that it wouldn't dominate). They cultivated it at monitoring stations, on devices, and in the vicinity of those holy wounds.
And they did look.
The Reclamator's lichen was mostly a cheerful yellow, but there were times when it pulsed orange at a certain enzyme location that was under duress. The engineers adjusted things to resolve it.
The Heartforge lichen, next to the switch, was normally this intense, serene blue, but one time, when the rhythm was off, it brightened grey, as if it were anxious. Maxine looked around and spotted a tiny crack in a crystal, so she mended it.
In the Nerve-Jungle, the lichen grew not on the flowers but on the rocks surrounding them. It was always this sorrowful purple—the color of grief. Not soliciting help, just saying, Yeah, this hurts, and we know it.
People were amazed. They were now able to tell the world's condition, like, at that very moment. They installed panels covered in lichen in the town squares, reflecting the city's overall mood—a combination of all the lichen signals. Blue meant things were stable. Green meant things were developing. Amber meant someone needed to double-check something.
It simplified understanding of everything. The world was not a silent patient or a mysterious god that couldn't be fathomed. It was like a partner who could say, Ouch, or Yeah, this is good. People transformed from frightened caretakers into partners who listened.
Benny and Elara, naturally, were the most adept at deciphering the lichen's communication. They could distinguish between a pipe overworking and a new plant growing. They gave lectures on it. They mastered this new language.
The Great Weaning was about silencing a mad person (the dying god). What followed was about opening a dialogue. And now, with the Empathic Lichen singing its songs everywhere, the dialogue finally had a real voice.