Answer or More Questions?

The descent was steep, the staircase carved from blackened stone and slick with condensation. Each step carried them deeper into the oppressive heat rising from below. The air grew heavier with every breath, thick like the air before a summer storm. The walls around them pulsed faintly, and the faint scent of scorched earth mingled with the sharp tang of sap and decay.

Aldric's shield brushed against the narrow stone wall as they turned another corner. The faint rune etched onto its surface glimmered once, catching his attention.

"Feel that?" he asked, voice low.

"Yeah," Lysara said from just ahead, her staff raised and glowing softly. "The air's... changing."

The light from her staff cast strange shadows along the staircase. The polished stone gave way to uneven, gnarled ridges. As they descended further, the surface beneath their boots softened, shifting subtly with each step.

The stone had turned to wood.

Aldric knelt, running his fingertips across the surface. The grain was warm beneath his touch, the texture rough and knotted like the bark of a living tree.

"This isn't natural," he murmured.

"No," Lysara said, her voice tight. "It's alive."

The stairs ended abruptly at the threshold of a vast chamber. They stepped through the archway, their breaths catching at the sight before them.

The walls were no longer stone but living wood, stretching high above into a dome of intertwining branches. The surface shimmered as though coated in a thin layer of resin. The roots of the chamber spread across the floor like veins, twisting and coiling toward the centre.

At the heart of the room stood a massive seed.

It was nearly as tall as Aldric, its surface smooth and pale green, faintly translucent. Thick tendrils of root cradled it like skeletal hands. The seed pulsed gently, its glow rising and falling with the rhythm of a breath. Surrounding it were layers of shimmering barriers—five in total, each one crackling with faint golden energy.

Lysara circled the outermost barrier, holding her staff outstretched. The runes along its surface flickered as she passed through the ambient energy.

"This magic... it's ancient," she said. "Older than the Cradle. And it's not just divine energy." Her scales darkened slightly. "I feel void traces. The same kind we've been following."

Aldric approached the barrier. The warmth of the seed radiated outward, and with it came a faint pressure against his mind. It wasn't hostile, but neither was it passive. It pushed against his thoughts like a curious hand testing the strength of a door.

"Can you lower it?" he asked.

"Maybe. But... this doesn't feel like a trap. It's like it's waiting for something."

He raised his shield, letting the sigil of Tellik catch the dim glow of the seed's light. The pulsing grew stronger.

Without warning, the barrier flared.

The golden energy surged outward in a wave. The pressure slammed into their minds. Aldric staggered back, vision blurring.

The chamber dissolved around them.

Images flooded his thoughts—raw and overwhelming.

A colossal tree stood alone in a vast, endless garden. Its trunk stretched high, vanishing into a sky lit by a sunless glow. The bark shimmered with shifting patterns of silver and gold, and its branches spread in every direction, each limb heavy with seeds.

The tree shuddered, and a seed fell.

Where it touched the soil, a new world blossomed.

The tree trembled again. More seeds followed, each one descending into the earth like drops of rain. Each grew into a world of its own—distinct yet connected. Beneath the surface, the roots of these worlds stretched outward, tangling and merging into a vast, unseen network.

The roots shimmered with an otherworldly energy—threads of light and shadow intertwined. They spread like veins beneath the cosmos, forming endless pathways between the worlds.

Aldric's mind strained against the onslaught of information. Time itself seemed irrelevant here, as though the vision existed outside the normal flow.

The roots shifted.

The network of roots spread further, reaching into distant, untouched spaces. Some glowed with pale, silver energy. Others pulsed with darker hues. The threads wound together, creating invisible bridges between the worlds.

The Veil.

The name rose unbidden in Aldric's thoughts. This was the Veil as it once had been—pure, unbroken. The arteries that connected one world to the next.

The vision twisted.

Twelve figures stepped from the root network into existence, born fully formed yet incomplete. They wandered the garden of the mother tree in silence, gazing upon the vastness of what had been created. Aldric recognised them immediately: the Primes. Each Prime was distinct, their essence tied to the world from which they had sprung. They moved like wanderers on unfamiliar soil, tracing the threads of roots that stretched beyond their home. For a time, they simply existed—watching, listening, learning.

The garden remained quiet but never still. The roots beneath their feet thrummed with potential.

Then came the children.

The Primes, filled with wonder and curiosity, sought to create life of their own. One by one, they knelt beneath the great tree and whispered their desires into its bark. The tree answered.

From each Prime, a single child was born—twelve in total, mirroring the Primes who had stood with them in the garden. Inheriting their creators' gifts, these children became world-shapers.

Time passed, though the measure of it was unclear. The children spread across their worlds, shaping oceans and forests, mountains and skies. They built monuments in honour of the tree and the Primes, carving the roots into pathways that connected their realms to the garden itself.

But the thirst for more did not fade.

The Primes stood once more beneath the great tree. Their creations had flourished, yet their curiosity remained unquenched. They wished to fill their worlds with more—more life, more knowledge, more existence.

Together, the twelve knelt before the mother tree. The roots beneath them trembled, listening to their plea.

The Primes asked for more children.

The tree, which had always been silent save for the rustling of its leaves, answered.

The branches quaked. The ground split beneath the Primes' feet. From the tree's core, twelve seeds fell, each landing at the feet of its respective Prime.

These seeds cracked open and gave rise to the first races.

The Lightborn rose from the roots closest to the sky, their bodies imbued with the soft glow of starlight, their hearts attuned to the divine threads that connected all life. They became protectors—defenders of balance.

The Voidborn emerged from the shadowed depths, pale figures with shifting forms, their purpose to test and challenge the boundaries of creation. They were chaos given form—a necessary counterpart to the Lightborn's rigid order.

The Darkborn came next. Their skin was the colour of dried blood, their limbs hardened with bone-like spines. They were strength incarnate, their existence a response to the fragility of creation. Alrdic now had a name for the creature they had fought outside.

And so it continued.

Twelve races, each unique yet bound by the roots from which they had sprung. Each Prime led their chosen race, guiding them across the root network that threaded through the Veil, the Void, and the spaces between worlds.

The worlds thrived.

For a time.

But then something changed.

A new substance appeared along the network: thick, sluggish, and crimson. It seeped into the roots, moving against the natural current. The red sap congealed in pockets beneath certain worlds, oozing into the soil and turning it brittle.

The vision shifted.

The sap wasn't intentional. It was a byproduct of creation, the inevitable waste left behind when life was formed. Every time the tree gave birth to a new world or a new race, remnants of that power leaked into the network.

It was corruption. Not born from malice—but from the sheer act of creation itself.

The sap spread slowly, creeping along the root network like spilled ink sinking into parchment. Wherever it touched, the land soured. Plants withered, water turned stagnant. Creatures that drank from it sickened, their bodies warping unnaturally.

The world closest to the source suffered first.

The vision sharpened on one such world. The Voidborn world.

The sap pooled beneath their world tree, congealing into thick reservoirs. The Voidborn, shaped by their chaotic, ever-shifting nature, were the first to notice. They tried to contain the spread, weaving their own chaotic magic into the roots to redirect the flow. But it didn't work. The corruption grew stronger. Their world tree trembled as the red substance seeped into its core.

The Voidborn sent envoys along the root paths, pleading with the Lightborn to help.

The vision shifted to a hall of light, high above an unfamiliar city. Lightborn figures in radiant armour stood at attention while a Voidborn emissary knelt before them. Its form was unstable, shifting between solid shadow and translucent mist.

They heard its voice:

"The corruption spreads through our tree. We cannot stop it alone. If it reaches the core, the roots will splinter."

The Lightborn council remained silent. Their faces were inscrutable, but the air crackled with tension.

Finally, one stepped forward—a woman with scales along her jaw, much like Lysara's.

"If the corruption cannot be contained, we must sever the infected root."

The Voidborn froze.

"You cannot mean that," the emissary said.

The woman's eyes were cold.

"If the sap spreads, it will touch every world. Including ours. The root must be cut."

The vision shifted again.

The Voidborn world became a battlefield. Lightborn warriors descended in waves, their weapons blazing with divine energy. The Voidborn fought with desperation, not to conquer, but to protect their world tree. The battle raged across the surface, warping the land, burning forests to ash.

The Lightborn reached the base of the tree. They carved through the corrupted roots with blinding spears of light.

The tree shuddered.

The root that connected the Voidborn world to the mother tree snapped with an audible crack. The energy along the path fizzled and died.

The Voidborn screamed—not in pain, but in loss.

Their world tree wilted, its leaves turning black. The corruption didn't vanish—it simply stopped spreading outward. The rot remained within the Voidborn world, sinking into their soil, their sky, their very bones.

The vision shifted once more.

Time passed.

The sap, once contained, sought a new path. It traced the roots toward another world. The corruption slithered beneath mountains and oceans until it reached another world tree—one vibrant and proud, crowned with golden leaves.

The Lightborn world.

The corruption rose from the roots like a mist, tainting crops and darkening rivers. Creatures twisted into grotesque shapes. The Lightborn, recognising the pattern, didn't wait this time.

They attacked their own tree.

Blades of holy fire carved through the sacred wood, severing their own world's connection to the mother tree.

The link broke.

The Lightborn world fell into isolation. Their skies dimmed. The flow of divine energy weakened. Their magic became more rigid and less adaptable. The gods abandoned the worlds to their fates.

The vision zoomed outward. The great network of roots remained, but now two worlds dangled like severed limbs: the Voidborn world, corrupted and decaying, and the Lightborn world, scarred and dimmed.

The vision collapsed with the suddenness of a snapped tether.

Aldric gasped as he hit the wooden floor of the chamber, the impact jarring through his knees and elbows. The scent of sap and scorched wood filled his nostrils. His chest heaved as if he'd run for hours, and his heart hammered against his ribs.

Across from him, Lysara crouched, one hand braced against the floor, the other gripping her staff. Her scales had dulled to storm-grey, and her eyes remained unfocused.

The seed in the centre of the room was dim now. Its glow had shrunk to a faint, irregular pulse. Fissures lined its surface like veins of brittle glass.

The silence weighed heavy on the chamber, broken only by their ragged breathing.

Aldric forced himself to sit back against the nearest root-covered wall. His limbs trembled from more than exhaustion. The images lingered behind his eyes—the colossal tree, the spreading corruption, the war that had severed worlds.

"Did... you see it too?" he asked hoarsely.

Lysara's jaw tightened as she sat up. "Yeah," she said, voice hollow. "I saw it."

Aldric wiped the sweat from his brow. "The gods abandoned us." He said it aloud, as if the words themselves might help make sense of it. "They just... gave up."

Lysara's shoulders slumped. "I always knew they were distant. But... I thought it was our failing. I thought we lost their favour because we stopped believing." Her hand clenched around her staff. "Turns out, they just... walked away."

The weight of that revelation settled between them like a stone.

Aldric leaned his head back against the wall. "And the Voidborn," he said after a moment. "They weren't the enemy. Not at first."

Lysara's lips pressed into a thin line. "They were victims too." Her eyes shifted to the cracked seed. "Everything we've been told... all the stories. The Voidborn invading. Corrupting the roots. Trying to devour our world. Lies. They were trying to stop the corruption. We were the ones who invaded them."

"And when they couldn't contain the sap," Aldric said softly, "the Lightborn cut them off."

"Cut them off, and destroyed their world tree in the process." Lysara's voice trembled. Her scales shifted from grey to pale blue, the colour of deep grief. "And then... when the corruption reached our world..."

"We did the same thing," Aldric finished. "We killed our tree."

Silence stretched.

Lysara gripped her staff so tightly her knuckles turned white. "My people... did that." Her eyes burned with unshed tears. "The Lightborn. We tore apart another world. We killed an entire tree, an entire way of life... and for what?"

Aldric opened his mouth to respond but hesitated. What could he say to that?

"It wasn't just a battle," she said, voice sharpening. "That was a slaughter. The Voidborn didn't fight to conquer; they fought to protect their tree. And we cut it down anyway." She exhaled shakily. "And now their world is poisoned because of us."

He hesitated, then reached out and placed his hand over hers. Her scales were cool beneath his touch, but the tension in her muscles slowly eased.

"You didn't do it," he said softly. "You weren't there. You didn't choose this war."

She looked away. "But I carry their power. Their magic. The same divine strength they used to burn those roots." Her breath shuddered. "And I never questioned it."

Aldric tightened his grip on her hand. "We've both been fighting battles we didn't understand. But now we know the truth."

She turned her gaze to him. "So what now? We know the Voidborn aren't the enemy. We know the sap isn't malicious—it's just the byproduct of creation or so the vision implied. And the gods... they just left us to deal with the mess."

He didn't answer immediately. His mind turned over the puzzle. The mother tree, the roots, the corruption, the barriers. The Lightborn and Voidborn severed from the network.

"But..." Aldric hesitated, frowning.

She caught the hesitation immediately. "What?"

He gestured toward the seed. "If these barriers were designed to block the sap and corruption, then why did we need to kill the trees in the first place?"

Lysara froze.

The question hung there, stark and undeniable.

The Lightborn had severed the root connecting the Voidborn world tree to the Mother tree. Later, they'd done the same to their own tree. But if the barriers had always been capable of rerouting the sap, why had they resorted to such drastic measures?

"You're right," Lysara said softly. "If the Mother's Barrier can redirect the sap... then destroying the tree should never have been necessary."

"But they did it anyway," Aldric said. His mind raced. "The Voidborn pleaded for help. And the Lightborn didn't even try to build a barrier. They went straight to war."

"Which means..." Lysara's eyes darkened. "Either they didn't know how to create one—or someone didn't want them to."

They stared at the cracked seed. Its faint pulse beat like a dying ember, red veins threading through its core.

"What are we missing?" Aldric whispered.

The seed did not answer.

But the dungeon stirred around them, roots shifting faintly as though aware that they were drawing closer to a truth no one had meant them to find.