CHAPTER 634: THE MYSTERIOUS ENCOUNTER (1)

Ant telemetry crackled softly in Mikhailis’s ear, the tone sharper than usual and loaded with static urgency. Cold sweat prickled behind his neck the moment he recognized that pitch—the scouts only raised it when they found something brand-new or something hungry.

Alert: Scout-Unit Theta-12 has flagged anomalous activity—junction tunnel, quadrant seven. Classification: Blight Variants. Status: Non-catalogued lifeforms detected.

The words unfolded like a frost across his skull. His boot halted mid-step, heel hovering a finger-width above the spongy root floor. All at once the corridor’s hush pressed in, thick as sap. Blight variants? In this deep? Tightness coiled in his chest.

Below him the living passage throbbed—a gentle dop-dop heart-pulse muffled by layers of moss and time. Luminescent veins inside the roots brightened at the beat, scattering pale gold against his coat. Every pulse made the air quiver, the way low bass notes make glass quiver on a table.

He nudged the micro-toggle behind his ear. Rodion’s HUD overlaid the world in shimmering wireframes: curved walls, heat traces, drifting spore-particles rendered as emerald pinpricks. Down the passage, faint flecks curled in a slow helix, floating where no creature stood. Mikhailis’s pupils narrowed.

He swallowed. Same spore signature as the shard-insect at Elowen’s balcony, he remembered, but back then it was just one specimen. Here it’s an echo—the ghost of a ghost—like something molted its skin and kept crawling. A prickling thrill of discovery tangled with the caution in his gut.

Rodion sounded more intrigued than afraid, voice pitched a notch lower than usual. Particle cluster shows inconsistent Brownian drift. Gravitational anomalies minimal. Conclusion: Spores possess rudimentary directive patterning—possibly pathfinding.

Mikhailis’s right hand twitched toward his belt, fingers brushing the cool glass of an empty sample jar. Instinct barked Collect! Document! but another instinct—the one that enjoyed breathing—told him to wait.

Because the sentinels had noticed first.

Ten root-woven statues lined the corridor at polite intervals. Earlier he’d thought them mere decoration—tall elf-shaped figures carved from fused bark, gemstone eyes set into faces that never moved. Now an audible click-click cascaded down the line like dominos: wooden necks swiveling in perfect unison toward the drifting spores. The embedded gemstones bloomed amber; wards thrummed awake. An invisible tide of magic rolled out, raising gooseflesh along his forearms.

Heart thumping, Mikhailis froze mid-breath. A single cough, a careless sideways glance, and those things might decide his body mass would make excellent mulch.

Rodion’s tone flattened to clinical calm.

Micro-movement protocol advised. Full bodily motion may trigger pre-coded attack sequences. Unless you desire disintegration via bark-fused combustion, I recommend breathing through your teeth and blinking less.

He did exactly that—slow inhalation through clenched teeth, eyelids half-lidded. The corridor seemed to shrink until only spores and statues existed. He could even hear the faint, crystalline chitter of mana inside the gemstone eyes—like ice fracturing under pressure.

A single footfall backward, the gentlest pressure shift, cracked a sliver of root bark. The statues didn’t turn, but their amber glow flared. His pulse hammered a rhythm in his ears. Easy, Mik. You survived an alchemical explosion in Queen Elowen’s sitting room; a hallway of angry scarecrows can’t top that.

He forced himself to study the spore cloud rather than the guardians. The flecks drifted calmly, lazily, twirling in miniature whirlpools. Then as if obeying a silent whistle, they slid sideways into a fissure in the wall and disappeared. Not a single glow persisted. Gone, like mist swallowed by sun.

One statue’s hum throttled down, followed by the others. Amber eyes cooled to topaz and finally to dull resin. Wooden torsos clicked back to default posture. Once again, they were innocent décor.

Mikhailis exhaled in a hiss, testing whether air still existed. A tiny laugh escaped, half relief, half exhilaration. "...Close call," he muttered.

Your heart rate suggests you found it stimulating, Rodion noted, edging sarcasm with digital dryness.

Oh, shove it, he told the AI inside his skull, but a grin tugged anyway. He rolled his shoulders, shrugged tension from his arms, and stepped forward—slow steps, measured as a dancer rehearsing a dangerous waltz.

The corridor curved gently now, and curiosity—stronger than fear—prodded him ahead. Bark walls rose on either side, patterned with shallow etchings. He leaned in, tracing one finger over a spiraling glyph. Warmth tingled beneath the skin. This wasn’t just surface art; each rune acted like a memory crystal, storing slivers of sound and light.

"These aren’t decorations," he whispered, voice tiny in the hush. "They’re records."

Rodion agreed instantly. Confirmed. Energy signatures consistent with archive markers. Suggest initiating glyph-capture.

With his free hand he flicked a slender stylus from his sleeve—habits of a career scientist. A quick double-tap on the glyph triggered micro-cameras in the stylus tip. Tiny flickers of light darted along the carving, reading patterns too fine for human sight. He pictured the data streaming back to Rodion: overlapping mandala lines, imagery of past rituals burned into the trunk.

Spore tension eased from his shoulders. The world grew bigger, richer again.

From somewhere deeper, a bass note resonated—so low it was felt more than heard. Thoom... thoom... The sound rolled through the living corridor, stirring dust and memory alike. Mikhailis paused mid-scan, eyelids fluttering. The entire tree breathed that note, a planet-sized throat clearing itself.

"Fifty-eight point seven hertz," he murmured to himself. "An octave under Earth’s Schumann resonance." His mind leapt to possibilities—could elven architecture harness subsonic leyline vibrations for structural stability? Or emotional modulation?

He closed his eyes and matched the breathing rhythm. Inhale as the thoom crested, exhale as it receded. Each cycle lengthened his pulse, steadied trembling nerves. If I could build a harmonic map, maybe I could chart exactly where Blight energy tunnels through... The scientist inside chattered happily, filing new projects in mental folders.

The corridor dimmed where it curved again, the luminescent roots thinning to let shadows pool. There, jutting from the bend, grew a root thicker than his thigh. It twisted downward like a wooden serpent and pierced the walkway. Where it met the floor, bark folded around it, as though the tree itself embraced this gnarled limb.

No glow surrounded it—nothing fancy like the archive runes behind him—except one rune burned into its bark. The mark looked carved by lightning: blackened, jagged edges, faint coppery sheen around char. And yet, faintly, almost stubbornly, the scar breathed. Each pulse was subtle, a dull ember glow that surfaced, faded, then glowed again.

Mikhailis’s breath caught. Something primal recognized the rhythm. Not tree-song. Not ward-statue code. Something closer... to me.

He crouched, knees whispering against the living floor. A portable palm-sensor clicked onto his glove. He pressed it gently against the charred rune. Wood under his glove felt warm—warmer than the corridor’s ambient temperature—almost like touching skin flushed after fever.

Rodion initiated diagnostics by reflex.

Phase-Scan Ω initiated. Stand by for sixty-second sweep.

Thin golden grids fanned outward from the glove, sinking into the bark. Mikhailis watched data pour into his peripheral vision.

Mana Spectrum: root-entity echoes your bond-rune at 2.3 frequency multiple.

Biomolecular resonance: cellulose lattice fused with crystalline silica—hybrid organic/mineral.

Communication channels: None vocal. No resonance cavities. Communication likely sub-quantum, energetic.

Echoed intent patterns: Wave signatures match "pact-seeking" archetype from archaic treaty lexicons.

In simpler words, the root wanted to shake hands, but it had no mouth for negotiation.

Mikhailis’s stomach fluttered. It’s seeking a pact. He recalled the chimera ant queen’s mark under his palm—the stylized hexagon spiral that proved his connection to her psychic hive. That mark burned now, warming through cloth. A soft pulse beat in time with the root’s slow ember.

Rodion murmured, tone dipped with rare intrigue.

Mutual-pact resonance detected. Probability 82 % that root entity is compatible with your existing bond. Potential unlock of latent abilities.

Mikhailis laughed under his breath—a nervous, fascinated exhale. "A silent ally... or another test."

He pressed his palm flat, ignoring the rising warmth. The root didn’t shift or crack. Instead, light seeped out of the char rune, crawling up his glove, across skin, tracing the ant-bond tattoo. Lines brightened from dull blue to sunlit gold. A thin ring of green luminescence coiled around his wrist like a bracelet forging itself from light.

His pulse thudded louder. Steady. You trusted a murderous insect queen, you can trust a friendly root.

Rodion pinged caution.

Energy exchange increasing. Recommending threshold limit—

"Let it through. I need to know," he whispered.

Heat surged, but instead of pain it delivered a feeling like hot tea sliding down his throat on a winter dawn—comfort layered with power. Wordless impressions filled his mind:

—You: wanderer, out of place.

—Me: guardian, abandoned.

—Together: anchor, repair.

No language, only sense impressions. His breath hitched. Anchor—repair. Could it mean stabilizing the Blight rift? Or tethering planar drift so the elves’ world stopped fraying?

Sweat dampened his collar. He grit teeth. I accept, he thought, hoping intent echoed back.

Light flared. The charred rune on the root smoothed, black edges softening to silver. His tattoo blazed once—high noon in a single heartbeat—then sank to steady glow. Grooves deepened, lines sharper and cleaner than before; extra segments branched toward his elbow, like new circuitry etched beneath flesh.

A final pulse, and the root’s glow dimmed to calm green, as though satisfied. Rodion announced it with calm authority:

Energy integration complete. Tattoo resonance stratum plus one. Additional functions locked—analysis pending.