The chamber pulsed with life.
Not the kind that welcomed. The kind that waited. Slow, deep, patient, like the breath of the land itself. Vaelrik stood still as the moss-covered beast dragged itself from the roots. Stone plates shifted across its back, heavy and cracked, like old bark. Thick limbs pressed into the soil, each movement calm but immense. Roots trailed behind its body, curling along the ground, as if the land itself had grown limbs.
It did not growl. It did not threaten.
It simply watched him.
The Vaulting stirred.
Vaelrik felt it behind his eyes, within his chest, in the ground beneath his boots. The Brand burned softly on his palm, green light flickering along the etched marks. This was no beast of rage or torment. It was something older. Something the land itself had guarded.
Skarn waited nearby, claws flexing. Forge stood with chains ready, but unmoving. Karnyx remained at the rear, still and watchful. Nightspine drifted at the edge of the shadows, silent.
Vaelrik stepped forward.
The earth softened under his boots. Vines parted, not by command, but in recognition. The beast did not step away.
"I do not bind," Vaelrik said quietly. "I crown. I free. For balance."
The beast tilted its head.
It had heard this before.
Vaelrik reached out, placing his palm against its chest.
The Vaulting opened.
Light flooded his senses.
The chamber vanished.
The world became green, gold, and shadow, stretching out into stillness. Vaelrik stood within a vast forest that did not exist, beneath a sky of shifting roots and moss. Stone pillars rose in the distance, cracked and ancient. Beneath him, the ground pulsed with light, threads of energy weaving through the earth like veins.
He was in the Vaulting.
But it had changed.
No longer forges or decay, no longer thorns and fire. This was something slower. Deeper. A place meant to hold, to endure.
In the distance, he saw it.
A vast tree, rooted in the center of a stone plain. At its base, a crown waited—not metal, not forged, but formed of wood, stone, and moss.
Vaelrik stepped forward.
With each step, the land shifted. He was not moving toward the crown.
The crown was rising to meet him.
A breath of wind stirred the air, but it was not wind.
It was the beast.
The land pulsed.
Vaelrik reached out.
The crown met his hand.
The Vaulting sealed.
---
He gasped, the forest fading, the chamber returning around him.
The moss-covered beast stood taller now, free of the roots that once bound it. Its eyes, still calm, locked on him with full awareness.
The Brand on Vaelrik's hand blazed once.
Edict Gained: Rootheart Bastion
→ Anchor yourself. Draw strength from terrain. Fortify allies nearby.
The chamber trembled.
Above, Menagerie Hold shifted.
Vines pulled back. Thorns retracted from broken towers. The decay that had twisted the land steadied, balanced by something older. Moss grew across stone, softening sharp edges. The air cleared.
Vaelrik felt it in his chest.
The Hold was no longer dying.
It was alive.
The Vaulting had grown again.
And Earth had begun to remember itself.
Menagerie Hold was breathing again.
Vaelrik stepped through the courtyard archway and felt it immediately, the shift beneath his boots, the change in the air. The sickly scent of rot that had clung to the stone for days was gone, replaced by something older. Damp earth. Moss. The quiet scent of living roots stretching beneath the ground.
He turned in a slow circle, taking in the Hold as if seeing it for the first time.
The thorned decay that had spread from Mournroot's crown was retreating. Vines still crept along the walls, but they no longer twisted in wild coils. They grew in straight lines now, spiraling around stone as if rebuilding it. Patches of moss had taken root across the broken floor. Cracks that had once split the courtyard open were closing. Slowly. Steadily.
Behind him, Gairos emerged from the tunnels below, massive and silent.
The moss-covered beast moved with the patience of stone. Where its feet touched the earth, the ground responded. Vines curled outward, not in a rush, but in rhythm. Broken stones shifted into alignment. What had once been twisted by decay was now balanced.
Vaelrik watched in silence.
This was not the first time the land had changed.
When Skarn had been crowned, veins of iron crept through the soil around the Hold. After Valgrin, the air grew hot near the gates, and the stone blackened where his fire had burned. Zephyrion's crown brought crackling winds, and lightning never fully left the sky above.
Forge's chains left deep marks in the courtyard stone, heavy and unmoving. Some walls that once crumbled had held firm since he was crowned, anchored by something unseen.
Then came Mournroot, whose thorns choked everything. The ground turned soft and wild, dangerous to walk. Karnyx's forging left metallic traces, and some ruins reforged themselves where he stood. Nightspine darkened the corners of the Hold, and even in sunlight, the air seemed still where he passed.
Now Gairos walked, and moss followed. Decay pulled back. The land felt… steady.
The Vaulting had not only changed Vaelrik.
It had taken the Hold and made it something new.
Vaelrik clenched his fist, the Sovereign Brand pulsing faintly across his palm. He could feel it now, not just in his body, but in the ground. Every crown he claimed gave him strength, but it also gave something back to the land. It was not coincidence. It had never been coincidence.
Forge stepped forward from the courtyard's edge. His chains rattled softly, but he did not speak. He simply stared at the moss spreading beneath Gairos's feet, then looked to Vaelrik.
"You feel it too," Vaelrik said.
Forge nodded once. "The Vaulting is not only yours. It lives in this place."
Skarn paced along the broken walls, claws tapping stone that no longer crumbled beneath him. "The ground was dying. Now it waits."
Vaelrik looked around slowly.
"This Hold listens. Every time I crown, it changes."
Mournroot stepped into the courtyard, vines trailing behind him. He looked down at the moss creeping over the stone, then up at Gairos, who stood motionless at the far side.
"You replaced what I gave," Mournroot said, voice low.
"No," Vaelrik replied. "The Vaulting did. It chose balance."
Mournroot narrowed his eyes. He did not argue, but the vines at his feet pulled inward, slower than before.
Zephyrion circled overhead, the sky crackling in the distance. Light flickered along the edge of dark clouds that had not been there moments before. The storm was returning.
Vaelrik walked to the gate.
The cracked crown sigil was still there, burned deep into the stone. The mark left by those who had once ruled this place. It had not faded.
He stared at it for a long moment, then looked beyond, toward the ridge that marked the edge of his reclaimed land.
Figures moved there.
Small, quick. Human.
Skarn was at his side in an instant, eyes locked on the ridge. "Scouts."
Vaelrik nodded. "Brand Thieves."
Forge joined them, gaze sharp. "They came to see what we crowned."
"They will run," Skarn growled.
"I want them to," Vaelrik said quietly.
Karnyx stepped from the shadows, his forged limbs clicking softly. "They will bring more."
"They should," Vaelrik replied. "Let them come."
Mournroot watched him from behind. "You risk this Hold."
Vaelrik didn't look back.
"Others ruled this Hold. First with chains. Then with fear. But now it answers to me."
He looked again at the moss-covered stone, at the vines that no longer strangled the walls, at the air that no longer stank of rot.
The land was no longer fighting him.
It was growing with him.
Gairos lowered his head, and for a moment, the courtyard was still.
Vaelrik turned away from the ridge. The scouts were gone.
Let them run.
Let them tell others.
The sanctuary was no longer hidden.
Let the world come see what he had made.
And what he would defend.