Chapter 156: Green dawn [2]
’Rootlash Dominion’.
It answered at once, eager to express its might as power ran down his xylem like lightning in veins. He could shape wood and vine within reach. ’Good’.
’Sovereign Bloom’. He called and felt the ground answer.
Reacting to his Aspect power, growth came faster when he asked. The plain did not resist him. Rather, it watched, it judged, and then it allowed.
’Aphid Network’.
He reached for insects out of habit.
The net came back empty, there were no aphids here.
And from that he confirmed one thing. ’No common Earth-natives at all’.
He didn’t find Behemorphs either, at least not those that he was used to.
Instead, what he found were tiny crystal mites that clicked under leaves. Their winged seed-motes drifted and spun. A lace of pale motes clung to stems and pulsed faintly.
This was a new ecosystem, new keys. The old trick would need a new lock.
He accepted that and set the issue aside.
Then next, he tested movement.
His trunk flexed as he pulled his roots from the soil and set them ahead like toes. He rolled his crown forward and reseated his base. He became a low, walking tree, each step slow but sure.
It was not fast, it did not need to be. Patience was speed here.
And then, he walked.
He mapped as he moved; nutrients here, dry patch there. He noted a shallow pan of clay that would hold water after a rain, he also noticed a line of stone hidden under the grass. The ground told him everything if he asked politely.
Compared to during Trial I, Clayton was far more equipped for survival now.
Then, what pushed him to survive was sheer spite and will. But now? Clayton was actually equipped with the tools and skills to survive a world as unforgiving as Echoterra like he remembered it.
And with that, time passed as hours passed like a handful of breaths.
The sun did not slide like back on Earth, rather, it drifted. Time was not the same here, and noting that, he did not chase it.
Back in Trial I, he was so focused on getting used to life as a plant and surviving the daily horrors that the world threw at him that he didn’t even get to fully observe the geography of the world around him.
Now though, having set the foundation basics for survival already, he was able to focus on the world and map everything into a coherent vision in his head.
Eventually, he paused at a rise and lifted his crown.
Far away in the distance, the plain changed. The grass stopped being wild and started being arranged, forming lines and curves, creating a design that was written in green.
It was a garden the size of a city.
Clayton didn’t hesitate. Since this was the biggest attraction close to where he woke up in, naturally, he went toward it.
Not recklessly though, but cautiously, expecting death and every angle.
The border felt like a threshold. There, his roots touched the edge and tingled. The soil had been tuned, not poisoned, not trapped either, rather it was tuned to carry certain kinds of growth faster and starve others.
He realized it for what it was immediately. This was domain work, sleek and refined.
And then, he stepped across.
The plants here were not random. Tall stalks with bell leaves stood at fixed intervals, catching wind like sails. Under them, carpets of small nodding heads drank the shade and sang a low, restful note into the ground.
Pathways of living moss wound between beds like rivers made of glassy green. He tested one with a toe root. It bore weight and hummed content, and he felt the faintest suggestion of direction in its fibers.
’This way’, it said, without words.
Knowing how important nature was in Echoterra, though it could also be perilous, he trusted his instincts and followed.
The path took him to an arch grown from two elder trees whose trunks had braided mid-air. There, glyphs were carved into their bark, not cut, but grown lines of shape and countershape that made the eyes want to blink.
He reached out with a tendril and touched a glyph.
And then, a picture spilled into his head.
In the picture, a woman of bark and blossom sat a long time ago, hands on the ground, eyes closed as if she was listening to the world. Maybe she was, because the world did respond as vines came to her like pets.
Roots wrapped her ankles and pulsed like hearts like that was where they always belonged. Behind her, a horizon of orchards leaned toward her, as if listening or maybe begging her to sing them a lullaby.
["Verdant Lord"] the image whispered, not with sound but with weight.
["Old Order"]
And then, the arch let him through.
Beyond it, the garden narrowed into terraces that rose in gentle steps up a low hill. Each step forward was a lesson. On one, thorn-bushes had been taught to weave without stabbing.
On another, fungi formed letters as they grew, then erased themselves when the sentence was done. On the next, a pool held water that refused to leave the circle, even when the wind pushed hard.
Someone had once trained everything here to obey.
He did not feel envy. Rather, in this place, all he felt was recognition. This had been a throne. Not like Korrath’s, not a throne of iron, not screaming.
But a throne of quiet, an absolute quiet.
He climbed to the top.
At the top, the terrace ended in a flat of soft turf and an empty chair.
The chair was grown of living wood. Not carved, grown.
It curved like a question mark and smelled faintly of rain. At its head, a crown of leaf-sockets circled its headrest. Roots from its base dove into the hill and vanished toward the horizon.
’Verdant Throne’, Clayton thought. He could tell what it was immediately
He did not sit though. Rather, he put his hand on the arm and waited.
Then, something old touched him back.
Not a mind, but a law. The rule set that had trained this place still lived, even with no one to carry it. It slid along his skin and looked for a match.
It found something close and paused.
His Heartseed beat once, hard. A reply formed without his choosing. ’Not yours, but kin’.
The law withdrew, and then the chair warmed.
The ground below the hill shivered. Not an attack, but an announcement.
A ring of stems broke the turf and grew as he watched. He watched them spread and split and leafed until they formed a low circle of hedges. And then flowers opened all at once, white and simple.
’A memory,’ he thought.
Not his memory, but a memory of the land.
Clayton closed his eyes and let it in.
The terrace filled with people of green. Not illusions, but echoes, men and women grown partly from plants and partly from something older. Their skin was bark in places, their hair vines. They spoke without sound and moved like wind.
A figure took the chair. Not the woman from the arch though; she was taller, shoulders wide, her fingers long and thorned.
He raised a hand, and the garden bowed.
Clayton watched without blinking.
There, a map opened over the terrace, drawn in light and root, forming lines of a domain. Patches of rival growth appeared, including symbols for things Clayton did not know yet... towers of seed, wells of song, and forests that walked.
It was slightly disorienting, but he tried to focus.
The figure tapped three points and the map darkened in those places.
Clayton realized what it meant immediately. ’War’.
Clayton leaned in.
The map showed more, not just violence. It showed treaties written in flower, oaths planted like boundary stones, and gifts of shade for gifts of pollinators. It was an economy of green.
He noticed a different point in the map suddenly darkened, far from the others. Not enemy, not ally either, Other.
The map’s edges shook there, like the ground did not know what it was.
The figure in the chair stood up. He put both hands into the dirt and sang with his whole chest, and roots miles long answered.
The dark point dimmed a little. Not solved, just contained.
And then, the memory thinned like smoke.
Clayton opened his eyes, and the chair stood empty. The flowers were closed, and the map was gone.
He stood alone again at the top of a hill in a garden built by law.
He breathed light and let the lesson sink in.
’What... a story’.
The Old Order had ruled by making the land itself carry decisions. Not just force, but agreements, contracts you grew.
He did not have time to enjoy the craft. Instead, he focused on the thing that took priority in his scale of preference; he had a team to find.
He reached for the Sporelink again and felt the same coal-warmth. He pushed a little more.
’Follow me’, he sent, not as words, but as a tug.
There was no answer though; the Trial would not make it that easy.
The solution? He needed height.