Virelden spoke in whispers.
Aron learned that quickly.
By midday, the square where the execution had taken place looked no different from any other market.
Stalls reopened. Merchants shouted prices. Children ran between carts as if nothing had happened.
Only the stone remembered.
Dark stains lingered where the man had knelt, scrubbed thin but not erased. Aron stopped there briefly,
head bowed—not in prayer, but calculation.
Plant heretic.
The words followed him.
He spent the day listening.
In alleys, in taverns, near wells where people spoke softly while drawing water. He bought cheap bread he
didn't need, paid for watered ale he barely touched, and kept his head low.
Rumors threaded together into a pattern.
The Concord.
An alliance of temples, hunters, and city councils. They decided what powers were permitted and which
were corrected. Virelden was one of their strongholds.
Plant healers were rare.
Those discovered were never imprisoned.
They were made examples.
Aron felt the hunger stir—not at the thought of power, but at the injustice of it. He pressed two fingers to
the iron ring until the warmth steadied him.
By evening, someone noticed his questions.
A woman with scarred hands and a healer's posture slipped into the seat across from him in a tavern that
smelled of smoke and old wood.
"You ask like someone who already knows the answer," she said quietly.
Aron met her eyes.
"I want to understand the rules," he replied.
She snorted softly. "Then you're already breaking them."
Her name was Lysa.
She spoke without moving her lips much, eyes always tracking the room.
"There are places beneath the city," she said. "Old tunnels. Forgotten shrines. People hide there. Not
criminals—undesirables."
"Plant healers?" Aron asked.
"Anyone the Concord doesn't want to study or burn."
She slid something across the table.
A charcoal mark drawn on scrap cloth. A symbol of twisted roots encircling a broken circle.
"Don't show that openly," Lysa warned. "If someone recognizes it, they'll either help you… or kill you."
Aron folded the cloth carefully. "Why help me?"
Lysa's jaw tightened.
"Because I watched them execute my teacher," she said. "And because you flinched today when no one else
did."
The system pulsed faintly.
SYSTEM OBSERVATION
Social Contact: Potential Ally
Risk Assessment: Elevated
That night, Aron followed the mark.
He waited until curfew bells rang, then slipped through side streets and half-collapsed stairways until he
reached a sealed culvert behind an abandoned chapel. The symbol was carved faintly into the stone, almost
invisible.
He pressed his palm against it.
The stone shifted.
A narrow passage yawned open, air rushing out—cool, damp, alive.
Torches flared as he stepped inside.
Figures emerged from the shadows.
Some bore scars of purification burns. Others wore charms similar to his ring—crude, desperate attempts
at hiding what they were.
One man stared at Aron's chest.
"You carry the hunger," he said.
The room went still.
Aron did not deny it.
"I'm not here to feed," he said. "I'm here to learn how to survive."
Silence stretched.
Then an older woman stepped forward, staff tapping stone.
"Then listen carefully," she said. "Because if the Concord finds this place, we all die."
The system chimed once, unreadable.
SYSTEM UPDATE
Hidden Faction Discovered
Designation: Rootbound
Beneath the city that breathed fear…
Aron found something worse.
Hope.