⊹ SYSTEM UPDATE ⊹
Sunlight Detected
Dormant Phase Ended
Vital Sap Restored: +0.4
Photosynthesis Cycle: Complete
Passive EXP Accrued: +5 EXP
I wake slower than before.
The light is warmer today, or maybe I am simply colder. Either way, it takes longer for the warmth to reach my roots. The flow of energy trickles in—faint and narrow, like a thin stream through cracked stone.
I try not to hope. I already know.
My Vital Sap… it hasn't fully returned.
I reach inward.
⊹ SYSTEM LOG ⊹
Vital Sap Reserve: 1.4 / 8
Recovery Rate: +0.4 per Photosynthesis Cycle
Note: Restoration slowed due to previous full depletion.
Estimated Full Recovery: ~17.0 cycles (6.6 remaining)
I go still.
So slow.
Each drop trickles back into me with the sluggishness of rot creeping beneath bark. I had drained myself too completely. I hadn't known what that would do. Not until now.
I thought maybe—just maybe—the system would recover faster. That it would forgive me. But this is no punishment. This is simply cause and effect. Roots drained dry don't spring back instantly. They need time. Soil. Sun. Stillness.
I discovered I'm surprisingly patient and don't mind the wait.
A whisper of wind shifts overhead, threading through the moss wall's canopy. I can feel the way the moisture has retreated since yesterday. The soil here is beginning to dry in places.
My vine curls protectively inward. I feel every sapless thread along its length.
Even one point used would leave me nearly empty again.
I test my senses. Tremor Whisper still functions—it always does when my roots extend. But it's faint. Dimmed. The extra precision I once felt now comes only in flashes. My overreach has made even passives flicker.
Is this what depletion feels like?
A kind of dullness behind every sense. A humming silence where clarity used to sing.
I think I understand now why the system didn't stop me. It wanted me to learn this boundary the hard way. I had to feel the consequences, not be warned of them.
I stretch one root forward. The soil here remains rich, but only in memory. I wonder if I've bled it dry too. Perhaps not everything can be replenished. Perhaps I left too much of myself here yesterday.
Still—I breathe in the silence. I exist in it. I listen.
And something moves.
⊹ PASSIVE ABILITY NOTICE ⊹
Tremor Whisper – Diminished Function Mode
› Subsurface Movement Detected: Small burrower class
› Signal Stability: Weak
› Accuracy: ~42%
A flutter. A ripple in the loam.
Small. Gentle. Not like the moss pulse from before. This is something else. Lighter. Skittish. Living.
A burrower?
A burrower of some kind. Beneath. Sniffing, shifting, soft. I do not tense. I do not reach. I simply feel.
My presence goes unnoticed. I am too quiet. Too rooted. I passively observe it pass by—some strange snout-nosed thing, perhaps with velvet paws and blinking eyes. It nudges the base of the moss wall, then turns away.
Gone again.
Hmm, I still have one Ability Point. I could use it but I don't. Not yet.
Not with so little sap. I'd have to choose wisely. Carefully. Intentionally. And I'm not there yet.
I'm recovering from my mistake.
For now, I'll wait, listen, and endure like always.
So I settle back. I let the moss cradle me once more.
I let the slow, aching repair continue.
And for the first time in my short, rooted life…
I relax.