Charlotte Wick sat in a lotus position, waves of life energy radiating off of her body. The patterns in the air were derived from the secrets she saw within the lifeseal, organic and purifying. From the outside, her cell had been transformed into a sauna, with energy so dense that she produced heat enough to steam up the entire corner of the prison.

Plus, she found the relentless heat to be relaxing.

Energies vibrating at different frequencies concentrated at points along Charlotte’s spine. She could imagine her grandfather scoffing at the emphasis on chakras, but it simply became the easiest way to organize the flow of her image. The energy had different purposes and therefore housed itself in different locations. The diversification of the energy was the first step, leading to a broadening rainbow of combinations throughout Charlotte’s entire image.

Life thrived from diversity. Her Primal Ground was filled with minute bacteria, munching on each other’s spent corpses and thriving in the complex and damp environment. Several broad areas happened simultaneously, straddling the physical realm and her image. Columns of bacteria settled into a sort of stasis, the same sort of bacteria gaining traction or restricted by others. Eventually, an equilibrium was reached in various sections.

But for Charlotte, this amount of differentiation wasn’t enough. She didn’t quite feel like her power had taken the last step she needed to become a worthy Knight to the Ghosthound. So she began to churn the flow of mist around her body. Chunks of different bacterial ecosystems moved and slammed against each other. While in some new combinations one type was able to achieve dominance, in another area less had arrived. Or a third bacteria interfered and upset the balance of power. A dozen new types evolved to fill the gap, leading to whole new explosions of diversity.

Charlotte pressed her fingers into the dirt. Her Primal Ground deepened in complexity and the force behind its presence swelled. She then clenched her fists until her knuckles cracked; with this extra power, she hoped she would have a chance to face off against Elhume again.

The sting of that loss hadn’t faded.

She refocused and continued to allow her image to simmer, the complex stew of evolution bubbling up from her depths. The first tremors coming through the lifeseal were small and Charlotte ignored them. Her image continued to improve and she tried not to less outside forces distract her. But very quickly, those explosions forced her to acknowledge them. The Lifeseal’s peaceful flow shifted into a more defensive posture.

When Charlotte raised her head and followed the amorphous substance of the Lifeseal, she found the looming presence of Nether already leaning against the edges of the dome, already disfiguring its shape. Although the churning Nether attack didn’t possess the sort of staining thickness Randidly himself wielded, what it did possess was heft.

Like a boulder about to punch through the surface of a pond.

Once her attention turned outward, she felt her Ghosthound intuition ping with his focus. She straightened and immediately understood his query: did she need his help getting out of the city before the Nether attack arrived?

She responded in the negative, before belatedly scanning the surroundings to check to see if she spoke too soon. But no, if anything her escape would be easier at the moment; the nearby guards rushed away to assist in the city’s defense. She sat entirely alone in the dungeon, her image allowed to freely spread and manifest.

Charlotte twitched her jaw back and forth, loosening up her neck. It would be disappointing to pause here while she continued to improve her image at such an obvious speed, but definitely the Nether invasion would have distracted her soon anyway.

In a single motion, she popped to her feet. But then the bearwoman hesitated, feeling the desperation starting to seep into the fabric of the lifeseal as the Nether mass pressed forward and forced it backward, lest the fabric of the barrier tear. Charlotte sent a message back to Randidly, asking whether they could help Homewell.

What came back was a complicated Russian nesting doll situation composed of frustration, helplessness, confusion, and wistfulness. He wavered on the edge of a decision, unsure.

A massive ripple came through the lifeseal. Then energy began to flood through the capillaries of the lifeseal and concentrate on the far side of the battlefield. Charlotte blinked in confusion. If you don’t want to help… where did your image come from?

Randidly Ghosthound seemed just as confused as she as a massive tree flowered over the Western portion of Homewell.

*****

The small seed had been planted when an older Homid had begrudgingly handed over his breakfast to a Nether King arriving at Homewell. An action born of manners, without much enthusiasm at the prospect. In response, without thinking too much about the action, the Nether King wearing a black robe who was so much more than just a Nether King patted the Homid on the muscular shoulder and planted an orb of energy into his body.

He had intended this energy to be small well of Aether for the target. The sort of depository that can boost growth in an important moment, allow for a Skill to evolve or an image to become concrete. For the price of a good, fresh breakfast, it felt like the least the Nether King could do. Compared to the amount of energy he churned through on a daily basis, it was a pittance.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

But instead, the black-robed Nether King planted a seed.

The seed was a seed and not just a small packet of power for several reasons. First, because the Aether the man in the black cloak used energy that had been indelibly marked by advancement, growth, and impossibility. Images had been breathing onto its substance for years. And those touches became instinctual reactions, eventually resembling choice. The energy didn’t just want to be energy, it wanted to be a seed. And so it could be.

Perhaps more importantly, the energy had existed within a body adapting to the presence of a Nether organ. So not only had the Aether been rubbing up against Nether for a long time, but this Nether had a direct line to his Nether Core through an increasingly complex Nether-based physiology. And from the depths of the Nether Core, the influences of the Authorities steadily accumulated in the man in the black cloak’s body.

Enough Animation Nova energy had rubbed up against the Aether that when it was placed within the Homid, that the energy remembered how to possess an extra edge compared to normal energy. It was an energy that dripped life; the essence quivered with the urge to be more.

Beyond even those two reasons, another factor contributed: the man in the black cloak was no stranger to creating life, or imitations of it. He could do so with complicated Engravings, like which covered his tree image, or through careful Nether Rituals, as he witnessed in the memory through which he now moved. Aether and Nether and man coexisted in a single body, the fruit of the effort of three Moiraes. Being in such close proximity, man and energy shaped each other.

So he gathered up a handful of energy and patted a shoulder and planted a seed without meaning to.

Now, the seed might have all these advantages, but it was still just energy. So although it wanted to become more than energy, it could only wait and observe, following the flows of its host’s thoughts and feelings.

The seed observed as the host put in long hours, patrolling the area around Homewell with very little thanks. It saw the moments when the host’s Turtleline superiors sneered at him and dismissed his advice. It saw the exhaustion in the host’s movement every day when he woke, strapping on his armor and practicing his insubstantial image in the predawn light. Compared to some of the host’s peers, his image was weak, wracked with conflictory fears and an unfocused source of power.

The seed almost felt bad for the host. Its power might very well rival Moish’s.

Yet despite those setbacks, and the frustrations aimed at the host by others, the host didn’t feel negative or bitter. He accepted the reprimands from his superiors and the snide looks from fellow soldiers, knowing that those with power could say and do what they wanted to no matter what he felt. He left every interaction with a clean heart, possessing a set of inward beliefs that ignored the assumptions of those around him.

Then, every day after work, Moish the Homid would carefully stack his compact furniture in a makeshift stepstool and leverage his body up onto the roof of his dwelling. From there, he could see the Lizakh, Homid, and other assorted beastkin children laughing and playing around the side of the embankment, with the grand brushstrokes of the duststorms artfully drawn against the sky behind them. They kicked a cheap rubber ball off the stone embankment, whooping or wailing with the whimsical bounces. He would close his eyes and just listen.

His heart spoke to the seed, perhaps thinking it was speaking just to itself.

This happiness is worth anything. This is what I need to protect.

On the day of the Nether attack, the seed had been listening to the heart rhapsodize about the idyllic space for the children for several weeks. And at the same time, the environment suddenly gave the seed the keys it needed to begin to grow.

The Nether Warriors roared during their charge. The clamor of bells from Homewell could barely be heard over the racket, right before the battle was joined.

The anxiety in Moish’s heart became the fertilizer. Only under great pressure can powerful desires coalesce. The shape of the plant held in the host’s legs became the goal. Every wild heartbeat of the host pushed the seed further and further toward its evolution. Some of its magic seeped into the plant, the hint of animation nova altering its structure so it could serve as a better conduit for the seed’s power.

The seed continued its steady growth until it caught the small sigh out of the host’s heart as he stood at the edge of the battlefield and saw the onrushing Nether horde.

I’m going to die here today. But that’s okay.

The seed froze. Because like all newly born children, it had never considered the possibility that the way things had been wasn’t how they would always be. The prospect of change loomed before the seed, vast and dangerous. The vicious Nether Warriors became the face of change, violent and demanding.

The seed's first genuine feeling was blunt: It didn’t want Moish to die.

The plant trembled. Then its roots swelled, following the familiar shape of the image from the man in a black cloak. They shot out into the ground where they gathered more energy, invisible roots reaching down and scooping up the abundant vitality of the land.

When the root erupted from the ground, it had become a spear, taking the Nether Warrior in the chest. The seed, which was no longer just a seed but a sapling, felt its host's surprise. Gleeful at the sudden freedom and power, it flicked its root and tossed the body of the speared Nether Warrior to the side, knocking another out of the air. But there were a few dozen more Nether Warriors in the surrounding space, and thousands more beyond that first wave, all suddenly focusing on the area where the first blow had been struck.

The sapling wavered, taken by a sudden impulse to sway like it was dancing and following it. As it spun, it stabbed more roots into the ground. They thickened and erupted out, becoming a second, more dangerous sort of embankment in the area. The roots scythed quickly through the first wave of Nether Warriors, slaughtering eleven.

Just as it began to flag, energy poured into the sapling from the city the host protected. The sapling rallied, growing slightly taller, doubling the number of its thorny roots shooting out of the ground and puncturing the bodies of the opponents. Almost thirty Nether Warriors died this time, with double that number losing limbs.

The glittering specter of a different tree manifested in the air above the sapling, an echo of the tree carefully cultivated by the man in the black cloak. Underneath its auspices, all the Aether warriors felt their breath come a bit easier.

However, even with all that energy, there was a limit to the amount a single sapling could do. It stood at just one point in a long line of the shore as the wave of the Nether offensive crashed against Homewell. Further away from the host, other warriors began to die.