Chapter 27: The First Seed
The Council of Stone and Root held its first meeting at the halfway clearing, the same ground where Alistair and Grok had first parleyed. The setting was symbolic, a neutral space between their worlds. Alistair came with Thora and Kael. Grok arrived with Borak, whose arm was still in a sling, and a hulking, silent female Graxian named Draga, who oversaw their forges.
The air was thick with unspoken history and cultural divide. The Graxians stood like boulders, solid and unmoving. The Blue-Skins were poised like ready spears. Alistair stood between them, the bridge.
"We begin," Alistair said, his voice cutting through the tension. "We share a threat we cannot fight alone. So, we share knowledge. Thora."
Thora stepped forward. "The blight's edge is moving south. Not fast. The length of my foot since the last moon. The animals feel it. The prey beasts are gone from the area. Only the predators remain, and they are... twisted. More aggressive. Their eyes glow with a faint blue light."
Grok grunted. "My hunters have seen this. A Scythe-Maw with a hide of crystal. It shattered three spears before we brought it down." He gestured to Draga. "Show them."
Draga unwrapped a bundle. Inside was a shard of chitin, but it was fused with the same glowing blue crystal from the crags. It was a horrifying fusion of biology and corruption.
Alistair felt a chill. The blight wasn't just creating its own creatures; it was corrupting existing ones. "This is worse than I thought," he admitted. "It adapts. It infects."
He turned to Kael. "And the land?"
Kael's face was pale. "The trees at the border... they are silent. I cannot hear them. It is like touching a corpse. The life is just... gone."
The reports painted a grim picture: a creeping, intelligent corruption that poisoned land, twisted beasts, and created invulnerable phantoms.
"We cannot fight this with spears," Borak said, giving voice to the despair in the circle.
"Not with spears alone," Alistair agreed. "But we have other tools." He looked at Draga. "Your forges. Your skill with stone and metal. We need to find a material that can harm these things. A weapon that can cut energy and crystal."
Draga picked up the corrupted chitin shard. She struck it with a small hammer from her belt. It rang with a clear, sharp tone, but didn't crack. "The crystal is hard. Harder than our best blackstone. But it is brittle. It resonates." She looked at Alistair, a spark of grim curiosity in her eyes. "A weapon that shatters, not cuts. A hammer, not a blade. But it must be strong enough to land the blow."
An idea, fragile and new, began to form in Alistair's mind. A collaboration. "Your forges have the heat and strength to shape such a weapon. But you lack the right material." He turned to Kael. "And we have the right material, but not the means to shape it."
He knelt and placed his hand on the ground. He focused, not on the deep ley-lines, but on the very surface, on the specific, unique resources of his territory. He pushed his power down, searching, filtering, until he found what he needed. With a grunt of effort, he pulled.
The earth in front of him bulged, and then a single, dark grey stone, shot through with faint silver veins, pushed to the surface. It was cool to the touch and hummed with a low, steady energy.
[SCAN: SKY-FALL ORE. (TIER-2). PROPERTIES: ENERGY-DAMPENING. HIGH DENSITY. RESONANT STABILITY.]
"This is Sky-Fall ore," Alistair said. "It resists chaotic energy. It is incredibly dense and holds its form under stress." He looked at Draga. "If you can forge this with your strongest blackstone, temper it with the heat of your best fires..."
Draga picked up the ore. She hefted it, tapped it with her hammer, and brought it close to her ear, listening to its hum. A slow, fierce smile spread across her face, the first expression Alistair had seen from her. "A hammer of this... it would ring with the voice of the true earth. It could break the false song of the crystal."
Grok looked from the ore to Alistair, his expression unreadable. "You would give us this stone?"
"It is not a gift," Alistair said. "It is an investment. Forge the first hammer. Test it. If it works, your forges will make more. For both our peoples. The Council's first weapon."
The simplicity of the exchange—ore for craftsmanship, knowledge for strength—bypassed years of suspicion. They were no longer trading goods; they were building a shared arsenal.
Draga nodded, clutching the ore to her chest like a newborn. "We will begin at next sun-high."
As the meeting broke up, Alistair felt a shift. The Council was no longer just an idea. It had its first, tangible project. A seed of cooperation had been planted in the blighted soil of their world. It was a small thing, a single hammer. But it was a start. It was hope, forged in stone and root.