The Chorus was not a place one could find on any map, or in any mortal dimension. It existed in the interstice between concept and reality, a resonant chamber shaped by the collective will of the Twelve Progenitors—or, in their long absence, their chosen heirs: the Mythic Beasts. To mortal senses, it would have been a symphony of impossible sensations: the smell of thunder, the taste of deep earth, the sight of perfect harmony, the touch of a forgotten dream.
The space manifested as a vast, circular platform floating in a starless void of pure potential. Twelve seats, or rather, twelve manifestations of presence, were arranged around its edge. Each was unique, a projection of the being who occupied it.
The Verdant King stood—not as a physical stag, but as a towering, shifting pillar of emerald and umber light, shaped like a mighty, antlered tree, roots delving into the platform, branches brushing the unseen ceiling. His presence was the smell of loam after rain, the sound of rustling leaves, the feeling of patient, immense growth.
But tonight, the others noticed it immediately.
The pillar of light was… paler. The vibrant, sun-dappled green had faded towards a wan, mossy hue. The deep umber of the roots was ashen. The rustling sound was softer, carrying a faint, dry rattle. The aura of boundless vitality he normally radiated was now a dimmed, struggling pulse.
"Brother of Root and Branch," a voice boomed, not with sound, but with the crushing pressure of the abyssal trench. The speaker was the Leviathan of the Silent Depths, its presence a swirling vortex of indigo and abyssal black, suggesting impossible mass and cold, timeless pressure. Its "voice" brought the taste of salt and the crushing silence of the ocean floor. "Your song is weak. Your light falters. The corruption in your domain bites deeper than you admit."
A crackling, tempestuous presence to the King's right shimmered—the Storm-Roc of the Shattered Peaks. It appeared as a perpetual, miniature hurricane of silver cloud and blue lightning, with flashes of immense wings and a fierce, glowing eye. Its communication was the shriek of wind-shear and the boom of thunder. THE BLIGHT IS NOT A WOUND. IT IS A SIPHON. IT DRINKS YOUR ESSENCE AND POISONS THE WELL. YOU DIMINISH BEFORE US.
"We have felt the drain," murmured a presence of serene, molten gold and shifting, copper-colored sands—the Forge-Wyrm of the Sunscar Expanse. Its words carried the heat of the kiln and the ring of the hammer. "The harmony of the eastern leylines is… strained. A note of decay is introduced into the composition of growth. It offends the symmetry."
One by one, the others acknowledged the change. The Mountain-That-Walks, a presence of grinding stone and deep, patient tremor. The River-Mother, a flowing, crystalline form of liquid silver and sapphire. The Sun-Hawk, a blinding, condensed point of radiant light and heat. All twelve were present in essence, and all perceived the Verdant King's attenuation.
The King's light pulsed once, a slow, weary beat. When his "voice" came, it was indeed softer, the rustle of autumn leaves rather than spring's crescendo. I do not deny it. The corruption—this 'Glutton-From-Below'—is a targeted poison. It does not just kill my children, the trees and the grasses. It un-weaves the song of life in the soil. It attacks the concept I am sworn to uphold. To fight it, to contain its spread, I must… concentrate. I must draw my essence back from the furthest reaches, pool it around the heart of the Weald, and use it as a barrier, a filter.
A ripple of consternation passed through the Chorus. To withdraw one's essence was to leave parts of one's domain undefended, vulnerable to other, lesser corruptions or imbalances.
The Leviathan's pressure deepened. "Then you must accept aid. Let the River-Mother divert a tributary of her pure flow to cleanse your roots. Let the Forge-Wyrm's fire burn the sickness from the edges. We are the Chorus. One note failing weakens the whole song."
AGREED, crackled the Storm-Roc. A BOLT FROM THE PEAKS CAN SCORCH THE CANCER. MY LIGHTNING PURIFIES.
The Verdant King's form shivered, branches drooping. Your offers are the breath of brothers, and I thank you. But you know the Law as well as I. The Covenant of Non-Intervention, set by the Progenitors themselves. We are stewards, not surgeons. We may defend our own domains, nurture the natural order within them, but we may not directly impose our will upon the domain of another, nor directly intervene in the struggles of the mortal clay that lies between us. To have you channel your power into my Weald… it would be an unnatural mingling. It would violate the composition. It would set a precedent that could unravel the very harmony we uphold.
The argument was ancient, fundamental. The Mythic Beasts were not gods to answer prayers; they were pillars of reality. Cross-contamination of their essences could have catastrophic, unpredictable effects—a forest that burned with eternal, wyrm-fire; a river that flowed with sentient, predatory life-force; a mountain that echoed with the silent screams of the deep.
"The corruption itself is an intervention!" boomed the Mountain-That-Walks, its tremor angry. "An external force, from the Plane of Unmaking, is violating the composition! This is not a natural drought or a blight born of imbalance! The rules are already broken!"
By an outsider, the King countered, his light flickering with stubborn resolve. Our response must not compound the violation by breaking our own most sacred law. We would become no better than the invader, trampling the garden to kill a weed.
A tense silence filled the resonant chamber. The Verdant King's logic was impeccable, and utterly frustrating. They were bound by a covenant older than empires, designed to prevent them from warring with each other and accidentally unmade the world.
The River-Mother's crystalline form flowed in a gentle, thoughtful eddy. Her voice was the murmur of a deep spring. "Then what is your path, Root-Brother? You withdraw to defend the heart. But the fringe will die. The land will sicken for leagues. Mortals will starve. The blight may yet find a way through your concentrated guard. You gamble the periphery to save the core, but the core cannot live if the periphery becomes a deadland that feeds the corruption."
The King's light steadied. Here was the crux of his plea. There is… another way. Not intervention, but sustenance. Not a violation of domain, but an appeal to the source.
All attention focused on him.
The Womb of Creation, the Verdant King intoned, the words resonant with primordial reverence. The First Dream from which the Progenitors themselves emerged. Its echo still pulses at the heart of all living things. The covenant does not forbid a channel to that which birthed us all. If the Chorus consents… I wish to open a conduit, not to your power, brothers and sisters, but through me, to that primal font of life. To allow a pure, undifferentiated stream of creation-energy to flow into my domain, to sustain the forest's life-force while my own power is withdrawn to fight the corruption. It would be a transfusion from the universe's own heart, not a graft from another organ.
The proposal hung in the conceptual air, stunning in its simplicity and its profound implication.
The Forge-Wyrm' molten form roiled. "You speak of tapping the First Dream. That is not a 'channel.' That is a… a delving into mysteries even the Progenitors left shrouded. The potential for feedback, for a surge that could overwhelm not just you, but spill into adjacent domains… The risk is incalculable."
IT IS A PERVERSION OF THE RULES THAT GOVERN US! The Storm-Roc's lightning flared violently. WE ARE MEANT TO BE THE CHANNELS! WE ARE THE MANIFEST FILTERS! TO BYPASS US, TO GO DIRECTLY TO THE SOURCE… IT IMPLIES WE ARE INADEQUATE. IT SETS A PRECEDENT THAT OUR STEWARDSHIP IS OPTIONAL!
"It is a dangerous loophole," rumbled the Leviathan. "If you may open a conduit to the Womb to sustain your domain, what is to stop another, in a future conflict, from opening a conduit to… other echoes? To the Howling Void? To the Silent Maw? The covenant exists to prevent such direct, unmediated tapping of primordial forces!"
The Verdant King did not waver. I do not seek this lightly. I acknowledge the risk. I acknowledge the precedent. But I ask you: is the precedent of watching a sister-domain be slowly consumed by an extra-planar poison, while we stand idle bound by laws meant to protect us from each other, not from this… is that a better precedent? The Glutton is an aberration. It plays by no rules. To defeat it, we may have to… reinterpret our own.
He let the concept settle. The channel would be temporary. Only for as long as my essence is concentrated. It would flow into me, and I would filter it, as is my nature, into pure life-force for my domain. It would not run rampant. And it would be a act of the Chorus as a whole—a collective permission to bend, not break, the rule, for the survival of one of its own and the integrity of the composition it guards.
The debate that followed was not a shouting match, but a profound, tectonic shifting of aligned and opposed wills. Concepts of order, risk, duty, and survival clashed in the silent language of primordial beings.
The Sun-Hawk, a being of pure energy, voted with a pulse of radiant heat that signaled cautious assent, seeing the necessity of preserving a vital strand of the living tapestry.
The Mountain-That-Walks grumbled about foundational stability, but ultimately conceded that a supporting pillar must sometimes be shored up, lest the entire structure fall.
The River-Mother and the Leviathan, beings of flow and depth, were more sympathetic, understanding the need for a new current when the old one was poisoned. They assented.
The Forge-Wyrm and the Storm-Roc were the most vehemently opposed, seeing it as a fundamental corruption of their defined roles in the cosmic order. But they were outnumbered.
When the resonant will of the Chorus finally coalesced, it was not a unified song, but a strained, dissonant chord of agreement.
PERMISSION IS GRANTED, the collective decision vibrated through the chamber, heavy with reluctance. THE VERDANT KING MAY, FOR A LIMITED DURATION, OPEN A CONDUIT TO THE ECHO OF THE WOMB OF CREATION, TO SUSTAIN THE NATURAL LIFE-FORCE OF HIS DOMAIN. THE CONDUIT WILL BE MONITORED BY THE CHORUS. ANY DEVIATION, ANY SIGN OF CORRUPTION OR SURGE, AND IT WILL BE SEVERED, EVEN AT THE COST OF THE DOMAIN'S FURTHER LOSS. THIS ACTION IS RECOGNIZED AS AN EXTREME MEASURE AGAINST AN EXTRA-PLANAR THREAT AND SETS NO BINDING PRECEDENT FOR FUTURE CONFLICTS BETWEEN THE DOMAINS.
The resolution passed. But the grumbling was a palpable force in the Chorus. The Storm-Roc's lightning flickered with sullen, betrayed fury. The Forge-Wyrm's heat radiated sharp disapproval. The rules that had governed their existence since time immemorial had been bent, and the fracture, however small, was now there.
The Verdant King's pale light pulsed with a mixture of profound relief and solemn sorrow. Thank you, my brothers, my sisters. I will bear the weight of this precedent. I will guard the channel with all that I am.
As the gathering of the Mythic Beasts began to dissolve, their presences fading back to their respective corners of reality, the Verdant King remained for a moment longer. His form, still dim, now held a new, fragile thread within it—a permission slip signed in cosmic dissent. He had bought time and sustenance for his forest, but at the cost of harmony among the guardians of the world. The fight against the Glutton now had two fronts: the poisoned soil of the Weald, and the newly troubled harmony of the Chorus. The rules were bent. And in a universe built on harmony, even a single bent note could eventually unravel the entire song.