Season 1. Chapter 69:Dark vibe
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CHAPTER: "It's Just a Game… Right?"
The body might recover. The soul, not always.
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They paused beneath a crooked tree where the light bled through in shards—soft, golden, illusory. The air felt like a held breath.
They had heard movement—distant shouting, a possible scuffle—but Oliver didn't move forward.
He stood quietly in the amber light, his masked gaze lowered.
> "Burning someone alive still hurts," he said suddenly. "Even if they come back."
Nico rolled his eyes but didn't smile.
> "It's not real-real," he argued. "You know that. They get sent to the Center of the Universe. Float around a bit. Maybe even find their way back if they hit the right star path."
Oliver looked at him, clearly unconvinced.
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🌌 The Return Path: Stars and Silence
> "There's a route," Nico went on, flicking Vita sparks in his palm. "If someone's soul slips into the center void, they can drift near Actucutus, that massive red giant. It tugs spiritual fragments like gravity."
> "And if they fall through the right star line, they orbit near Zeo-5667—that supercold exoplanet near a white dwarf. That planet's rumored to hold a soul-gate."
> "So technically," he added, "they're not gone. They're just... reloading."
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😐 Oliver Isn't Convinced
> "And how long do you think that takes?" Oliver asked. "What if someone forgets how to return? What if their soul fractures on re-entry? What if they don't come back whole?"
> "We're not slashing pixels," he said. "We're hurting people."
Zack spoke up, finally.
> "He's right. Pain still registers. Trauma, too."
> "But—" Zack turned to Oliver — "I can eliminate them without pain."
Oliver flinched slightly at the wording.
> "You mean kill them."
Zack's voice was even.
> "I mean send them out of the game. Cleanly. No burn. No rupture. Just... disconnected."
> "That's worse," Oliver muttered. "They don't even get to know what happened."
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😓 Nico's Guilt Surfaces
For a rare second, Nico didn't speak.
Then he ran a hand through his orange hair and huffed.
> "Yeah. Okay. Maybe I don't like it either."
> "But what's the alternative?" he said, voice rising slightly. "Wait around while someone else finds the amber and wipes us out? Lose our chance to move up just because we didn't swing first?"
He kicked the ground. Leaves curled from the flame in his boot.
> "I didn't choose to play this game. None of us did. But we're in it. And in this forest, you're either a finder, a follower, or a name on someone else's threadboard."
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🌀 Zack's Final Truth: The Game is Divine
But Zack shook his head.
> "It's more than just a game, Nico."
They both looked at him.
Zack's tone was quieter than usual. Firmer.
> "This trial—the Forest of Amber—it's one of the Seven Stratified Games."
> "Each one is watched by mythical deities. Not just system admins or class masters. Entities older than written law."
> "The golden apple? It's not just a buff. It's a marker. A sign that you're being observed. That you're a potential player in something far greater."
> "Only those who move with conviction get noticed."
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🧠 Oliver's Conflict
Oliver stared forward, his hands still, his masked expression unreadable.
> "Conviction," he repeated. "And what if mine says don't become like them?"
Zack didn't argue.
> "Then stay behind me."
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💨 Decision Made
They moved again.
No agreement. No consensus.
Just motion.
But the tension now shimmered between them like a thin wire—tight, invisible, always one bad step from snapping.
The forest watched in silence.
And somewhere, far above the Astral layers, something did notice.
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CHAPTER: "Do Not Break the Roots"
"You are not players. You are guests on divine soil."
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The wind died.
The forest, for all its shifting tricks and warping paths, suddenly felt silent. Not the quiet of peace. The quiet of something listening.
They'd come close—too close—to another camp. A player group, likely wounded, possibly holding amber.
Nico's flames danced at his fingertips, ready to strike. Oliver's hand hovered near his short saber. But before either could move—
> "Stop," Zack said.
The word cut cleanly through the air.
Not shouted. But absolute.
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⚠️ The Warning They Didn't Expect
Zack didn't move forward.
Instead, he turned to them both.
> "You need to understand something—now."
Nico blinked, surprised by the tone. "What's your deal? I thought we agreed to—"
> "Listen to me."
Zack's voice had the weight of something he rarely showed: urgency.
> "If we eliminate too many players—if too many souls are thrown into the Center of the Universe at once..."
He paused, eyes narrowing behind dark lenses.
> "We're going to trigger a response from the natural domains."
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🌿 Flora, the Verdant Deity
> "Specifically," Zack continued, "Flora."
Oliver tensed. "…the Verdant?"
Zack nodded. "Goddess of Life. Flora of Roots and Bloom. The One Who Breathes for the Forest."
> "She's not just a concept. She's not metaphorical. She is real. And she is watching this trial."
> "You kill too many too fast? You tear out too many life-threads in her region?"
> "She'll notice."
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🍃 Divine Consequences
Nico gave a nervous laugh. "What, she gonna drop a tree on us?"
Zack didn't smile.
> "If she's merciful? She'll fire us from the game."
> "If she's not? She'll banish you for several days into the Darkness Realm, where your mind will unravel under silence."
> "Or worse—she'll throw you into her own dimensional garden. A place built of infinite vines, carnivorous petals, roots that speak and judge you. And no exit unless she wills it."
Nico paled and instinctively stepped away from the tree next to him.
Oliver looked up at the leaves around them, sweating slightly beneath his mask.
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🌱 Not Just a Game
Zack's voice was quieter now, but firm.
> "This game isn't just being watched by players."
> "It's being watched by Primordials. By Deities. By the very forces that shape weather, time, growth, memory, and death."
> "They don't mind if we play smart. Or hard. But if we disrupt the balance?"
He held up one finger.
> "They will remind us: we're not in control."
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🧠 Oliver Accepts, Nico Rethinks
Oliver gave a sharp nod.
> "We'll do this carefully," he said. "Not like scavengers. Like players with respect."
Nico, now visibly uneasy, muttered:
> "Yeah, yeah, no need to get plant-cursed... screw that."
He walked a few paces further from the nearest tree.
Zack finally turned forward again.
> "Remember: Don't endanger the system."
> "Even gods have rules. But we're not gods."
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CHAPTER: "The Verdant Realm"
Life never ends. It simply rearranges itself.
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🌿 The Eternal Domain
Beyond mortal reach, where sunlight doesn't rise or fall but simply glows, there exists a plane not bound by time, physics, or any conventional law.
The Verdant Realm.
Endless in distance, infinite in depth, it is a world composed entirely of living, breathing growth—roots, vines, canopies of glowing leaves, rivers of chlorophyll, trees that hum in harmony with the soil itself. Moss-covered mountains shift like sleeping beasts. Petals spiral in the wind for eons. And the air tastes of fresh beginnings.
In the center of it all, beneath a titanic sky-tree woven from braided seasons, Flora laid upon her reclining throne of vine-silk and eternal grass.
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👑 Flora, Primordial Deity of All Growth
She was barefoot, skin glowing with chlorophyllal light, and her long moss-colored hair spilled like waterfalls down her shoulders, wrapped with tiny flowerbuds that bloomed as she breathed. Her form shimmered—part woman, part concept, both beautiful and terrifying in her abstraction.
At the moment, she was doing nothing… but eating goldenberries.
The berries glowed faintly—fruits that only bloomed in eternal starlight. They pulsed in her fingers with slow, honeyed light.
She popped one into her mouth.
> "Mmm."
Her golden-green eyes flicked open lazily, watching the mortal forest game from across reality like one might observe fish in a dream-aquarium.
> "Such desperate little souls," she purred, stretching. "Always running. Burning. Scheming. Still, they amuse me."
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🧝♀️ Amarathus, the Enlightened Servant
Beside her, kneeling respectfully upon a patch of dream-clover, was Amarathus.
Once a mortal human who had braved the Labyrinth Rootways of the Verdant Realm, Amarathus had long since ascended—her body suffused with Yellow-tier spiritualism, her soul luminous enough to stay in Flora's presence without dissolving.
She had tied her dark green hair in intricate loops behind her back and wore a ceremonial robe of white and gold, marked with thin spirals of leaf-etched embroidery.
With both hands, she lifted a wide-leaf platter filled with more goldenberries, her gaze lowered respectfully.
> "My Lady Flora," Amarathus said softly. "You seem pleased."
> "Why wouldn't I be?" Flora chuckled, reclining back. "My forests regrow before they fall. My beasts are fed without hunting. My rivers weave where they please. And the humans… they try so hard."
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📝 A Divine Contract Signed
Suddenly, a glow appeared beside her chair. A request.
A divine contract, materializing as a spiraling glyph of golden Vita mixed with emerald-tinted symbols.
> "Ah," Flora said lazily. "Another desperate soul seeking immense Vita output. How dramatic."
She didn't even rise.
She waved a finger.
And the contract signed itself.
> Pact approved.
The energy flared for a moment, then vanished—delivered instantly to some unknown player far below, likely in the middle of battle or desperation.
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⚖️ Gods and Their Tempers
Amarathus observed it all with calm awe.
> "You're... generous," she said carefully. "Unlike the others."
Flora raised an eyebrow. "Which others?"
> "Magnus, god of volcanic flame," Amarathus said. "His wrath is legendary. And Icyle, mistress of still frost—cold even to her own worshippers."
> "Yet you grant contracts without question."
Flora smiled—a soft, gentle expression tinged with eternity.
> "Because I do not fear death, Amarathus. I am its sister."
> "Let them burn. Let them freeze. Life will return. It always does."
> "A scorched field feeds stronger roots."
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🌱 Verdant Majesty
She plucked another goldenberry and offered it casually to Amarathus.
The spiritual servant blinked, momentarily stunned, but accepted with reverence.
> "I don't protect life because it is fragile," Flora said, reclining once more.
> "I protect it because it is the only thing that chooses to grow, even in the shadows."
As her words echoed across the trees of a billion forests, far away, in a mortal world—
—a branch swayed ever so slightly toward a certain masked boy walking carefully through the woods.
Watching. Listening.
And choosing whether or not to burn what might still bloom.
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CHAPTER: "Dubz in Bloom"
"He was just a map guy. Now he's nature's weapon."
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🍊 Name: Orangedubz
Real Name: Wilbur
Age: 17
Appearance: Stripe-orange sweater, wooly orange hat like Riven's, square glasses, blue pants
Rank: Blue — Upgraded (pending evaluation)
Title: Child of the Grove (Unofficial)
Contract Holder: Flora, Verdant Primordial
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Wilbur sat alone at the river's edge, cross-legged, his glasses slightly fogged.
His map—tattered but carefully detailed—was spread across a flat stone. He had been tracking terrain patterns, noting elevation points, shallow lakebeds, even root bulges beneath the surface paths.
> "Okay… if the wind keeps bending the branches east…" he mumbled, "then the amber should be—"
Then it happened.
A sudden pulse.
Vita.
Golden-green. Radiant. Thick like syrup in his veins.
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🌱 Flora's Blessing Arrives
He staggered.
Hands to his chest. Eyes wide. The trees around him bent toward him, slightly. Not from wind.
But from recognition.
The contract glyph glowed at his back like a tattoo—non-visible to others, but heavy with signature. Wilbur felt it in his heart, his breath, his bones.
> "What the—what the hell just happened!?"
He clutched his hands. Golden Vita erupted, bursting out of his palms like chlorophyll fire.
> He could feel the water in the ground.
The trees whispering.
The wind pausing to listen.
And just like that, the trees around the riverbed multiplied.
Sixteen new saplings. Then sixty. Then a solid grove.
A whole lake's worth of moisture in his control. Condensed. Shaped. Made.
> "This is insane…" he breathed.
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📊 Wilbur's Upgrade
A system prompt shimmered briefly before fading:
> [Vita Output Increased]
[Natural Affinity: 97% Synchronization]
[Temporary Blessing – Flora: Sustained Ecosystem Control]
He blinked at the lake now forming near his feet.
> "I'm not just a map guy anymore, huh?"
His orange hat glowed faintly under the growing light of his own presence.
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🧭 New Goals
Orangedubz wasn't a fighter.
But now… he didn't need to be.
He could reshape the terrain. Drown out traps. Smother flames. Choke out clearings. Even create misleading groves of false amber trees.
> "All I need now is the actual amber," he muttered, smiling faintly.
> "And a lot of people are going to get lost in my forest before they find it."
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👀 Far Away, Flora Smiled
In the Verdant Realm, Flora chuckled as she watched from her vine-throne.
> "Let's see what the clever one does with the gift."
And somewhere, the trees whispered his new name.
> "Dubz."
"Child of the Grove."
"The Cartographer Who Grows."
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