The path through the trees seemed narrower in this part of the forest. Light filtered through thick leaves, painting the world in shades of green and blue, as if Sylvelin breathed differently here. Maple kept the lute strapped to his back with crossed leather strips over his chest. The runes he had crafted vibrated intermittently, as if reacting to the presence of something... denser.
After hours of walking, he found traces of human activity. Wheel marks in the damp earth. The remnants of a recently extinguished fire. He was near a village, and the air's scent shifted—the clean aroma of the forest now tinged with woodsmoke and the damp iron tang of rust and sweat.
Reaching the top of a rise, he finally saw, among low trees and leaning trunks, a cluster of rustic buildings surrounded by moss-covered wooden palisades: Dunlin, as revealed by a crooked sign carved into aged oak.
Dunlin was a small village, built around a central well and hemmed in by a forest so dense the sky barely touched the ground. The wooden houses seemed bowed by time. A persistent smell of burnt oil and resin filled the air, and muffled hammering echoed from somewhere in the distance.
As Maple entered, he drew looks. Wary, weary looks, like those of people who had seen too many outsiders to trust any. His appearance didn't help: clothes crusted with dried mud, unruly hair, and a lute strapped to his back like a strange weapon.
An elderly woman, her hair covered by a soiled headscarf and her eyes a cloudy gray, approached cautiously.
"Stranger… you shouldn't be alone in this forest. Not at night."
"I'm not," he replied, forcing a smile. "I carry my own echoes."
She raised an eyebrow, then let out a short, humorless laugh.
"Hmph. You'll need more than that. Come in, if you want. But speak to the overseer before setting foot in the square."
Maple nodded, thanked her, and followed her directions to one of the larger houses, where the wood still carried the faint scent of old varnish and dried blood.
Inside, he met Ebron, the local overseer. A middle-aged man with shaved sides, weathered skin, and a voice that seemed to scrape the words out.
"A bard? Here?" Ebron snorted. "What strange luck. You might be of use. We… have a problem."
Maple sat before him, hands clasped over his knees.
"What kind of problem?"
Ebron stood and pulled back a linen cloth covering something on the table. It was a carved wooden plank… its grain darkened, with cracks that seemed to… shift slowly. The fibers pulsed.
"This was part of a branch from one of our pines on the south side. They've started to wither. Then the creatures came. Small at first… then… others."
Maple frowned.
"This feels like… a reverberation? But… alive?"
"We've had three woodcutters go missing," Ebron continued. "Others came back with marks… as if the branches themselves had bitten them."
Maple leaned closer to the wood. He felt a faint hum. The vibration was erratic, wrong, as if the sound were being twisted from within.
This… isn't just a runic distortion. It's an infection.
He asked to see the affected areas. Ebron agreed, though reluctantly. Maple was escorted by a local guard, Kira, a young woman with a stern expression and sharp eyes. She spoke little but never took her eyes off him.
At the southern grove, he saw the trees. Some were split in half, marked with what looked like teeth. Others pulsed with black moss that crackled every minute. A stench of raw meat hung in the air.
Then they heard it.
Crackling. Not just from the trees. From the ground. The branches.
Maple turned. Something moved among the twisted roots. Elongated shadows. Pale.
"Kira… what are those?"
"Chlamen. That's what we call them. Predators of silence. They attack when no sound is heard. They hunt… pauses."
She raised her dagger. Maple froze.
The reverberation rune… maybe…
Quickly, he pulled one of his carved runes and whispered its activation note. A deep sound rippled through the ground, making the surrounding branches shudder. The creatures hesitated, then recoiled as if a connection had been broken.
"You… you drove them off," Kira murmured, surprised.
"Not for long."
Kira looked at him, this time with silent respect.
"You were lucky. Walking through Sylvelin at night without meeting a Chlamen… few can say that after. They sense those who carry too much silence."
Maple took a deep breath. His heart still pounded.
Too lucky…
Back in the village, he decided to stay. For now. He needed to understand what was affecting the trees… and perhaps, who else it was affecting.
And maybe, at last, write a new song. One that didn't just sing… but healed.
Night in Dunlin fell like a heavy veil. The village fires burned high, casting dancing shadows across the palisades and among the lower branches of the forest. The hum of insects was constant, but at times… it stopped entirely. As if the world paused to listen for something approaching.
Maple prepared himself before an infected tree. Its once-sturdy trunk now trembled with internal spasms. The bark was marred by black fissures, leaking sap that steamed faintly upon hitting the ground. It was as if the tree's heart pulsed with a deep, dissonant, corrupted sound.
Beside him, Kira stood guard. Her eyes scanned the darkness, hands resting near the hilt of her short blade.
"You're really doing this now?" she asked.
"No choice. The longer this thing vibrates, the more it calls whatever lives in the dark."
Maple knelt and pulled out a new piece of resonant wood—collected the previous morning while testing the black stone's echoes. He placed it on the ground, took a deep breath, and began carving.
This time, copying something old wouldn't suffice. He needed to create.
The sound in this tree is distorted… but there's still a pattern.
He started tracing dispersion runes, combined with containment curves and an attempt to neutralize aggressive vibrations. Tilden had warned him that creating under pressure was risky. But he felt it. The wood called for it. The tree… wanted to be heard.
When the rune was complete, Maple held it in both hands, stood, and carefully pressed it against the pulsing trunk. For a moment, nothing happened.
Then, a sound.
A scream. The tree's scream.
The rune flared violently, and the tree buckled, its bark splitting in all directions. Branches snapped. Sap sprayed in steaming tendrils. Maple was thrown back, landing hard on his shoulder.
From within the trunk, a dark creature emerged, as if made of dense smoke mixed with living roots. Kira sprang into action, her blade slicing through the air with precision. The creature split into two masses that recoiled like shadows repelled by light.
But they weren't alone.
Crackling echoed around them. Three… four… five pale shadows, like the Chlamen, appeared among the branches. Their lanky forms emitted intermittent hisses that disoriented the ears.
Maple's head spun. The runes in his pocket vibrated wildly. He pulled two—one for echo, one for pulse—and activated both, driving them into the ground.
A sonic field spread around them. A deep wave that repelled the creatures, causing spasms and hesitation.
"NOW!" he shouted.
Kira moved like an arrow. With calculated strikes, she cut down two of the creatures, pushing the others back with the help of the vibrational field.
The sounds intensified. The runes began to burn in Maple's hands, but he held fast. He was testing his limits.
This is more than magic. It's instinct. It's art.
With effort, he murmured the closing melody he'd learned from the dead trees that afternoon. A sad, descending note, a lament. The runes flared once more and then erupted in a wave of absolute silence.
The creatures froze. Looked around. And fled.
Kira dropped to her knees. So did Maple.
"That…" she panted, "was that bard magic?"
"It was… an attempt."
The tree, though wounded, now stood still. The pulsing had stopped. The wood… rested.
In the days that followed, Maple used the same technique on two other trees. He learned not all could be saved. Some collapsed when touched by the rune. Others resisted but rotted again over time.
It was a living plague. And older than he'd imagined.
Before leaving, Kira handed him something: a wooden brooch bearing Dunlin's insignia.
"We don't give these to outsiders. But you saved more than trees. You saved the sounds that keep this place alive."
Maple smiled, touched.
"I'm not a master yet. But I'm glad to help."
And then, he left.
Not for home. But for the next broken sound the world still hid.