Lord Arion sat before the Grand Scrying Pool, his ancient eyes closed in deep concentration. The pool, filled with the purest water from the Sanctum's Wellspring, was a flawless mirror reflecting the vaulted, crystal-adorned ceiling of his chamber. At his soft command, the surface clouded, then cleared, revealing a new image: the interior of the Sanctum of Renewal.
Elara and Valerius stood vigil, as still as the trees around them. Nothing had happened for a day, but in the life of an elf, a day was but a single breath. Patience was a virtue they had cultivated for millennia.
Then, the air in the center of the Sanctum shimmered. As if tearing a hole in reality itself, a glowing rectangle appeared. Arion leaned forward, his green eyes intent.
The human appeared.
He was laden with strange implements—metal claws on wooden handles, a large green vessel, and a small bag slung over his shoulder. The energy signature was the same. The bizarre clothing was the same. But his demeanor had changed. The fear was gone, replaced by a quiet, focused determination.
The human did not approach the Living Gate. He did not seem interested in the Guardians. Instead, he turned and walked with purpose toward the far side of the dome, disappearing behind a copse of silver-barked trees.
Arion adjusted the scrying pool's perspective, the image shifting smoothly to follow Leo. He found him in a small, unremarkable clearing. What he witnessed next was both baffling and fascinating.
The human began to... tend the earth.
He knelt, using his metal claw to break the sacred soil. He did it with a strange reverence, a care that seemed at odds with his chaotic method of arrival. He carved a neat patch out of the pristine forest floor, a small wound of ordered geometry in a world of wild, flowing beauty.
"He scars the Sanctum," Lyra's voice whispered from the scrying pool's audio ripple. Arion could see her in the reflection, having moved closer to watch, her expression troubled.
"No," Arion breathed, his gaze unwavering. "Not scarring. Cultivating."
They watched as the human produced small, colorful paper-like squares from his bag. From these, he carefully shook out tiny, dormant specks. Seeds. But they were foreign. They held no recognizable life-force, no connection to the flora of their world. They felt... inert. Mundane.
Arion's hand instinctively tightened on the arm of his root-throne. This was the critical moment. The Sanctum's soil was pure. It would reject any seed tainted by blight, corruption, or dark alchemy. It would turn any such profane offering to dust. If these seeds were contaminated, the Sanctum itself would react, and the human's fate would be sealed. They would have their answer.
But the soil did not reject them. The tiny seeds settled into the dark earth, which accepted them without protest. They were clean. Dormant, but pure.
The human then took his green vessel to a small stream, filled it with the sacred water, and began to gently irrify his plot of land.
The most curious part came at the end. The colorful paper packets that had held the seeds... he collected them. He carefully placed the empty husks back into his bag. He did not toss them aside. He left no trace of his strange, foreign world, save for the neatly arranged rows of planted earth.
Then, just as before, he created a door out of thin air and vanished. The scrying pool's image rippled as the portal closed, returning to the now-empty, but slightly altered, clearing.
"He takes the husks with him," Valerius observed from the pool, his voice laced with surprise. "He does not litter his domain within ours."
"He respects the Sanctum," Arion murmured, a flicker of understanding dawning in his ancient eyes. "In his own, strange way." He leaned back in his throne. The creature was not a despoiler. It was a planter.
Over the next few days, the Grand Druid and the Guardians maintained their silent watch. It became a new, bizarre ritual. The human would appear once a day, materializing within the dome. He would spend some time at one of the larger streams, filling an array of even stranger containers—gleaming glass vessels this time, with symbols on them—and then vanish with them. This was his "water-taking," a task he performed with an almost industrial efficiency.
Then, he would reappear, sometimes hours later, to tend his garden. He watered the plot faithfully, pulled the few native weeds that dared to sprout, and simply… watched. He would sit on a nearby log, consuming his strange, scentless food from crackling wrappers (which he always took with him when he left) and stare at the soil as if willing the plants to grow.
The Guardians' initial alarm faded into a state of profound curiosity. They felt like naturalists observing a new and baffling species. What was its purpose? What strange economy was he servicing with the endless jars of water, was he planting in his domain? What did he hope to grow in this sacred soil?
They were elves. They had lived for thousands of years. They understood the slow, patient rhythms of the world. Waiting for a seed to sprout was a familiar pleasure.
But they had a feeling that with this strange human, and the magic of the Sanctum's soil, they wouldn't have to wait very long at all.