The forest earned its name.
Blackroot rose from the earth like a scar, its trees twisted and dark, roots clawing above the soil as if trying to escape the ground itself. Even from the edge, the air felt heavier—thick with old mana that had nowhere left to go.
[Environmental anomaly detected.]
[Classification: Suppressed / Dormant.]
Dormant never meant harmless.
I stepped beneath the canopy, and the light dimmed immediately. Sounds changed too—the birdsong cut off as if someone had closed a door. My boots sank into soft soil that hadn't seen sunlight in years.
"Hunters don't vanish in places like this by accident," I murmured.
I moved slowly, senses extended but controlled. Wild mana eddied around me in uneven currents, occasionally snagging on my thoughts like burrs. I brushed them aside, careful not to impose order where none was needed.
After an hour, I found the first sign.
A bow, snapped cleanly in half.
No scorch marks. No blood.
Just… emptiness.
[Residual erasure trace: Faint.]
I knelt, studying the break. The wood fibers weren't torn—they were finished, smoothed to nothing at the point of contact.
"This wasn't a spell cast in anger," I said quietly. "This was maintenance."
Maintenance implied design.
The trail continued deeper into the forest, subtle and intermittent. A boot print that ended mid-step. A knife left behind, its blade dulled as if it had forgotten how to cut.
Each sign pulled at the Authority Fragment, not sharply—but insistently.
Something here recognized me.
Eventually, the trees thinned into a small clearing choked by black vines. At its center stood a stone monolith half-sunken into the ground, its surface etched with symbols so old they'd been overwritten dozens of times.
Not erased.
Buried.
[Seal detected.]
[Type: Legacy containment.]
I exhaled slowly. "So this is where you hid."
The monolith hummed faintly, responding to my presence. The vines recoiled just a little, as if wary.
I circled the stone, reading what I could. The symbols weren't a spell so much as a promise—a declaration that something beneath the forest would remain untouched as long as the seal stood.
And it was failing.
Hairline cracks ran along the base, leaking thin strands of colorless distortion into the soil.
"This is why people are disappearing," I said. "You're bleeding through."
The forest answered with a whisper of pressure, not hostile, not pleading.
Hungry.
I closed my eyes and reached inward—not for erasure, not for force—but for understanding.
[Archive Echo Reading: Active.]
Images surfaced.
A village centuries ago, desperate and afraid. A Guardian standing where I now stood, sealing something away—not because it was evil, but because the world wasn't ready for it.
And then… abandonment.
No maintenance. No renewal.
Just time.
I opened my eyes.
"You weren't meant to be a prison," I said softly. "You were meant to be a pause."
The seal pulsed weakly, as if agreeing.
I considered my options.
Reinforce the seal? Temporary at best.
Erase what lay beneath? Unthinkable—and unnecessary.
Partition?
The unnamed spell stirred.
Yes.
I placed my hands on the monolith and whispered the word.
[Partition — Environmental application.]
Reality folded gently.
The pressure beneath the forest shifted, separating into layered strata—enough to relieve the bleed without fully awakening what slept below. The cracks sealed. The distortion withdrew.
The forest exhaled.
Birdsong returned, tentative but real.
[Stability increased.]
[Containment extended.]
I stepped back, swaying slightly.
[Memory erosion: Low.]
Acceptable.
As I turned to leave, I noticed something at the edge of the clearing.
Three figures lay there, unconscious but breathing—hunters, wrapped in a thin sheen of stabilized mana.
Alive.
I let out a breath I hadn't realized I was holding.
"Go home," I said quietly. "And don't come back here."
The forest seemed to agree.
I left Blackroot as dusk settled, the trees no longer watching me with suspicion—but with wary respect.
One seal stabilized.
One problem delayed.
Many more waiting.
As the road carried me away from the forest, I understood something with sudden clarity:
The world wasn't breaking because forgotten magic existed.
It was breaking because no one remembered how to care for it.
And until that changed—
I would keep walking.
Warden.
Guardian.
Whatever name survived the cost.