Author's Note: Sorry readers I made a mistake, Uploaded chapter 79 as 78.
Four days after the Velra Accord, the tremors began.
Draven stood beside the new relay tower at Ashen Hollow, watching engineers calibrate the photonic lattice. The tower hummed softly, light pulsing in steady rhythm—until it wasn't.
The ground trembled. Faint, but unmistakable.
Thea looked up from her monitoring station, frowning. "That's the third one today."
"Seismic pattern?" Draven asked.
She pulled up the readings. "Every twelve hours. Perfectly timed. And they're synchronized with the Lightfield pulses."
Joran approached, soot still on his hands from the forge. "The memory ore veins beneath us... they're singing back. I can feel it through the stone."
Lysara stood apart, arms crossed, expression thoughtful. "Or it's a dormant Dominion machine network. They built on these ruins for a reason."
Draven looked toward the sealed mine entrance. "Then we go down and find out."
The descent team was small: six people, minimal equipment.
Joran led the way with a resonance lamp. Thea carried her scanning devices. Dorn moved silently at the rear, eyes scanning every shadow. Mira documented everything in her journal. Lysara observed with the practiced calm of someone who'd seen too many unknowns to panic easily.
Draven walked in the middle, one hand resting on the wall as they descended.
The first level was familiar—old Dominion mining shafts, chisel marks still visible. But as they went deeper, the architecture changed.
The walls became seamless, carved with patterns that predated any empire. Looped rings and organic geometric designs that resembled Bloomscript motifs, but older, more primal.
"These aren't Dominion," Mira whispered, sketching rapidly.
"No," Thea said, running her scanner across the stone. "These predate them by centuries. Maybe millennia."
The hum grew louder as they descended. Not mechanical—something living, breathing through stone.
Feyra's voice reached Draven through the Lightfield, faint but clear: It's awake.
The chamber opened before them like a cathedral.
At its center rose a massive vein of black crystal shot through with veins of gold. It pulsed—not with light, but with presence. The air itself seemed to breathe around it.
Thea deployed her scanners, readings flickering across the display. "Energy frequency unknown. Not arcane. Not mechanical. It's..." She paused. "Biological?"
Draven approached slowly. His lotus mark warmed beneath his shirt, responding to the crystal's rhythm.
"Don't touch it," Joran warned.
Draven reached out anyway.
The moment his fingers brushed the surface, the lotus mark blazed green. The Lightfield across the entire Covenant network flickered for a single heartbeat.
Everyone with a Bloomscript book gasped simultaneously, sharing a dreamlike impression—a vast breathing entity, roots deeper than mountains, awareness older than memory.
Then it was gone.
Draven staggered back. Joran caught him as a minor quake rattled the chamber, dust raining from above.
Lysara stared at the crystal, voice quiet. "This is no machine. It's biology turned to stone."
Above ground, Dorn's scouts intercepted something.
A Dominion signal probe, tracking the same resonance frequency. Faint, coded, searching.
Dorn's expression didn't change, but his hand moved to his Bloomscript book. He sent a single message through secure channels:
We're not the only ones listening.
Draven's book flickered in the chamber below. He read the message and swore softly.
"We leave. Now."
They sealed the shaft again, but Thea installed monitoring crystals before they climbed out. The readings would transmit directly to her station.
By evening, minor power fluctuations rippled across the Lightfield network. Every relay showed the same pattern—a faint heartbeat, slow and steady.
Mira wrote in her journal that night:
We thought we lit the world. Perhaps we lit a memory that never died.
The council met in Ashen Hollow's central forge after dark.
Draven listed directives: containment protocols, monitoring schedules, absolute silence to the public until they understood what they were dealing with.
Lysara leaned forward. "If the Dominion finds this first, they'll call it a weapon."
Dorn added quietly, "If we do nothing, they'll be right."
Joran stared at the forge fire. "Whatever's down there... it's been waiting. And now it knows we're here."
The ground thrummed once more—faint but measured, like something counting the seconds until it woke.
Draven felt it through the soles of his boots, through the lotus mark, through every relay tower across the Covenant.
Something ancient was stirring.
And they had just announced their presence.
Notes:
The Heart Stone: Semi-organic crystalline entity predating the Dominion; possible source of memory ore resonance.
Bloomscript Feedback: Lightfield now linked to subterranean pulse; sets up awakening conflict.
Mallrik Dorn: Establishes Veil observation cells around the mine—spies and engineers working together.
Lysara's Role: Liaison between research and politics; balancing transparency and secrecy.