Twelve hours after the Chord was born, they gathered in the Chamber viewing room. The unified Aqua Vitae roared in its column, a majestic, terrifying river of raw potential. The constrictor bands were dark, silent, and irrelevant.
Regina presented the transition proposal. It was a brutal, pragmatic document. It outlined the end of the W.E.R.M. separation paradigm. It detailed the construction of new, resilient conduits designed to carry the unified Vitae—conduits lined with resonance-harmonizing materials based on the Stillpoint Spin. It proposed "Listening Towers" to replace extraction plants, designed to gently tap specific harmonics for specific needs.
It was a blueprint for an entirely new civilization, built not on control, but on attunement.
"The interim governing council will consist of technical, logistical, and civic representatives," Regina stated. "Pending stabilization, public elections will follow. The Soladorn Syndicate is dissolved."
It was over. The entity that controlled the last of everything was gone, replaced by a desperate, hopeful, fragile committee and a song.
Sage walked to the viewport. The work was just beginning. They had to rebuild the world's plumbing, its economy, its very understanding of reality. The mystery of the Aqua Vitae was solved; the mystery of how to live with it was just unfolding.
Valentine joined him, her data-slate finally dark. "The directive is holding. For now."
Lysander entered, smelling of damp stone and ozone, a weary but unbroken light in his eyes. "The Font is forty percent clean. The pattern is spreading. The song is teaching the silence how to sing."
Sage looked at them—the imaginative one, the disciplined one, the decisive one. The new mechanics of the world wouldn't be written by a single mind, but by a chorus of them.
He placed his hand on the crystalflex. The Chord thrummed through him, a vibration of endless, tangled potential. It was not peaceful. It was alive.
"Alright," Sage Pendragon said, turning to face the room, the Spire, the waiting, thirsty world. "Let's get to work."