Devin_Clare

Verdant Soul: The Wild Forgotten - Book One

In the heart of an ancient forest untouched by war or civilization, a young half-elf Druid awakens in a burned-out campsite, surrounded by moss-covered ruins and whispering trees. Her name… she doesn’t know. Her past… a blank void. But the forest knows her. The wind bends toward her. And something old and powerful stirs beneath the roots.

Clutched in her hand is a carved wooden totem, inscribed with symbols of a forgotten circle of druids. Around her neck, a pendant pulses with faint green light. She has no idea who she is—or why she was left behind—but the wilds are calling. And something is hunting her.

As she travels, she begins to uncover traces of a lost adventuring party… and of a greater quest left unfinished. One by one, she’ll find the rest of the crew—each with secrets, powers, and reasons to run. Together, they’ll uncover what fractured them—and what they’re truly meant to stop.

Because beneath the forests, in ancient dungeons now stirring awake, something has begun to bloom. Something that should have stayed buried.

Book One: Bloom of the Lost

When Thalindra's hand met the arcane barrier, it didn't break—it folded, pulling her inside like a breath drawn too deep. One blink she was standing with her companions, and the next—

A world beneath the Scar made of echo and resonance. Runes floated like stars, spinning around fragments of shattered spellwork. She floated within a sphere of raw magic, with Veyren at its heart—his body suspended, his veins glowing silver-blue, eyes wide with pain and purpose.

"You're not meant to be here," he rasped. "If you break the loop… it comes out."

Thalindra drifted closer, vines coiling around her wrists, her heartbeat in sync with the strange rhythm of this place.

"What is it?" she asked. "What's beneath us?"

And in the silence that followed, she heard it too.

One, sustained, long and low… growing beneath everything. Like the bottom of the Song had finally exhaled.

"It is the Root of Echoes," Veyren said. "A seed that was never meant to grow. Born when the Song fractured. Buried beneath our spells. It feeds on forgotten magic. On unheard endings."

"I sealed myself in with it. To keep it dormant. But it's growing stronger."

"And now it's using you as a channel."

Outside the loop, the earth groaned.

Kaelen and Rowan stood tense as the ground around the basin shimmered and fractured. Eryndis played faster, her flute-song weaving protective patterns in the air.

"Something's coming," Kaelen muttered.

"No," Rowan corrected. "Something's waking up."

Inside the spell-loop, Thalindra hovered before Veyren.

"You can't carry this," he whispered.

"Not alone," she agreed. "But we're not alone anymore."

She reached into her cloak and pulled forth the seed—the one planted in the Verdant Soul tree. Now matured. Now whole.

It pulsed with green-gold light, wrapped in veins of starlight.

But instead of breaking the spell—it grew through it.

Roots extended through the arcane barrier like veins through crystal. They touched the spellwork, not to disrupt, but to rewrite.

And Veyren breathed—his first full breath in years.

"We did," Thalindra said.

But before they could speak again—

And from below rose a tower of stone and light—a spiral grown from the Root of Echoes.

And the Verdant Soul shivered.

Chapter Seventeen: Beneath the Scar