The basin did not feel empty anymore.
It felt occupied.
Sam stayed kneeling beside the dead log, his fingers hovering above the pale cluster of caps. The mushroom looked harmless in the dim light, small enough to crush without thinking. But the voice that had spoken to him had not come from the caps.
It had come from beneath them.
From under the soil.
From a place the world did not want him to see.
The trees around the basin were still. No insects. No distant birds. Even the wind seemed reluctant to enter.
Sam forced air into his lungs and kept his voice low.
"Interpreter," he repeated. "You called me that."
Silence followed, but it was not the silence of absence. It was the silence of something considering whether he was worth answering.
Then the voice returned, layered and calm.
"You hear what others cannot," it said. "You speak to the cast and the hidden."
Sam's eyes narrowed. "That does not answer me."
A faint impression brushed the edge of his awareness. Not a threat, not comfort. Curiosity, measured and old.
"We name what is useful," the voice said. "Interpreter is useful."
Sam swallowed. "Who are you?"
The mushroom caps trembled slightly, as if reacting to a shift in pressure from below. The soil did not move. The log did not crack. But Sam felt something underneath the basin flex, like an unseen body adjusting its posture.
"We are the network," the voice said. "We are the thread between roots. We are the memory that remains when the leaf is gone."
Sam's pulse quickened. His shadow stretched across the ground, merging with the shadows of stones and roots.
"The fungal network," he whispered.
The voice did not correct him.
It only continued.
"This place is quiet because we made it quiet."
Sam's gaze swept the basin. "Why?"
"Because the awakened tide listens to other voices now," the network said. "And we do not sing their song."
Sam felt cold settle in his stomach.
"Then you are not part of the Awakening," he said.
A pause.
"We were here before your cities," the voice replied. "Before the machines. Before the old wars. We do not kneel to the new command."
Sam tried to keep his breathing steady. "You said the wild is learning to walk beyond Earth."
This time, the silence carried weight.
When the voice came again, it was quieter, closer, threaded through the shadows under the log.
"The command expands," it said. "It seeks new soil."
Sam's mind flickered to the colony domes, to the far moons. He pictured humans under artificial skies, believing they had outrun the planet's judgment.
They had not outrun anything.
"How?" Sam asked. "How does nature leave Earth?"
A faint ripple of amusement, like a distant echo of laughter.
"You ask the wrong question," the voice said. "It is not nature that leaves. It is the one who rides nature."
Sam's throat tightened. "A celestial."
The basin seemed to sharpen, as if the air itself had turned to a blade edge.
"Names are dangerous," the voice said. "But yes. Something older than your species, and crueler than storms."
Sam's mouth went dry.
Nyx had warned him. Other families. Other interest.
He had believed her, but belief was different from hearing confirmation from the wild.
Sam's hands clenched into fists. Dirt pressed into his knuckles.
"If you know this," he said, "why are you not stopping it?"
The answer came immediately.
"We are not built to strike," the network said. "We are built to connect. To persist. To endure. We cannot chase a hand that wears a thousand gloves."
Sam's mind raced. "So you want me to do it."
The voice did not deny it.
"We want you to survive long enough to matter," it said.
Sam stared down at the pale caps, trying to reconcile the size of what he was hearing with the smallness of what he could see.
"What do you get out of it?" he asked.
A slow, deliberate response.
"A future where the network remains free," the voice said. "A future where the command does not turn us into a leash."
Sam's gaze hardened. "You said this place is quiet because you made it quiet. Can you hide me?"
"Yes," the voice replied.
Sam's heart beat faster. A sanctuary. A base. A place to think without being watched by the extremists, without being hunted by the Rewilded.
But nothing came free anymore.
"What do you want?" he asked.
The ground beneath the log cooled. The shadows deepened.
"We want a hand," the network said. "We want a tool that can move where we cannot. A shadow that can carry our thread."
Sam felt his stomach twist. "You want to bind with me."
A pause.
"Not as master," the voice said. "As symbiote. As pact."
Sam remembered Nyx's last words in the void.
You are not alone.
Not anymore.
He hated how tempting it was.
He hated how desperate he was.
"What does it cost?" he asked.
The voice did not rush.
"Control," it said. "Discipline. You will carry our spores. You will resist the urge to let them spread without purpose. If you fail, you become a garden that walks."
Sam's skin prickled. He did not like that image. He did not like how possible it felt.
"And the ability?" Sam asked. "What do I gain?"
The shadows under the log seemed to swell, as if something beneath it leaned closer to whisper into his skull.
"We will show you how to give your shadow weight," the network said. "How to let it hold what should fall."
Sam's breath caught.
Nyx had given him Shadow Communication. A door.
This sounded like a weapon.
Sam forced the question out.
"Can you help me stop the people in my settlement?"
The network went still. Not hesitant. Focused.
"The ones who wish for human extinction," it said.
Sam's jaw tightened. "Yes."
A faint pressure, like approval.
"They will burn a nearby pocket," the network said. "A settlement close to one of our nodes. Their fire will scar the thread. They will draw the awakened tide. They will turn this region into a war zone."
Sam's eyes narrowed. "So you want them stopped for your own reasons."
"We want stability," the network replied. "You want justice. Both goals align."
Sam swallowed. "I am weak."
The voice did not soften.
"Then you will borrow strength," it said.
Sam looked at the mushroom again. "How?"
The answer came like a key sliding into a lock.
"Bring us the dead," the network said. "And we will teach you to make them stand."
Sam froze.
The idea should have repulsed him.
Instead, it made his chest tighten with grim relief.
A soldier that did not need food. A soldier that did not betray him. A soldier that could move through the night without being seen.
He could stop the extremists without fighting them head-on.
He could dismantle them.
Sam's voice came out hoarse.
"That is necromancy."
The network's response was cold and factual.
"It is recycling," it said. "Your kind wastes everything. We do not."
Sam stared at the ground. His mind flashed to his mother's body in that ruined stairwell, broken and still. To the fact that the world had not even allowed him to bury her properly.
His stomach twisted.
"No souls," he said, more to himself than to the voice. "No stealing what should rest."
The shadows under the log stirred, as if acknowledging the line he drew.
"We do not touch what leaves," it said. "We only move what remains."
Sam closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them again.
"Show me," he said.
The basin changed.
At first, it was subtle. A faint blue glow seeped through cracks in the soil, like moonlight trapped underground. Then it intensified, pulsing in slow waves that made Sam's shadow flicker.
The log beside him seemed to become translucent for a heartbeat. Not physically, but in his perception, as if Shadow Communication had been forced to widen until it could hear deeper layers of the world.
Sam saw it.
Not with his eyes.
With his shadow.
A web.
An impossible lattice of threads stretching outward in every direction, wrapping roots, hugging stones, stitching the basin together. The mycelium was vast, and the visible mushroom was nothing but a fingertip pressing up through the soil.
Sam's breath caught. "You are everywhere."
"We are patient," the network said. "Now listen."
A sensation pressed into Sam's mind like a structured thought, sharper than the network's usual voice.
A system prompt.
[ NEW SKILL ACQUISITION AVAILABLE ]
[ Skill: Shadowbound Thrall ]
[ Type: Bloodline Ability ]
[ Requirement: Corpse in shadow, shadow contact established ]
[ Effect: Bind mycelial thread to shadow imprint, animate for limited duration ]
[ Limit: 1 thrall at current Will ]
[ Warning: Overuse risks Blight symptoms ]
Sam's breath came out in a slow exhale.
He could feel Nyx in the back of his awareness, not speaking, but present like a steady anchor. The system's structure was hers. The network's technique was not.
Two gifts layered together.
"Accept," the network said.
Sam stared down at his shadow.
Then he nodded once.
"I accept."
The words felt like they were swallowed by the ground.
The glow beneath the soil surged, and Sam's shadow thickened as if it had been fed.
A new line appeared in his mind, crisp and pale.
[ SKILL UNLOCKED ]
[ Shadowbound Thrall (Novice) ]
Sam's throat tightened. "I need a corpse."
The network's response was immediate.
"You already have one," it said.
Sam's spine stiffened.
He turned slowly, scanning the basin's edge. The moonlight barely reached between the trees, but his eyes adjusted. His shadow stretched, and Shadow Communication sharpened his sense of presence.
At the base of a tree near the far ridge, something dark lay half-covered in leaf litter.
Sam stood and moved cautiously, each step measured. He kept his breathing quiet, his shoulders loose, like he had been trained to do on patrol.
When he reached the shape, his stomach turned.
A body.
Not old bones. Not a half-buried skeleton from the Collapse.
Fresh.
A man in patched cloth armour, boots still intact, a crude blade strapped to his thigh. His throat was torn open. The wound was clean, too clean for an animal.
Sam recognised the style of the armour.
Pure Reclaimer scout.
Someone had come out here. Someone had died.
Sam crouched beside the corpse, his jaw clenched. He did not know the man's name. It did not matter. The extremists had likely sent him to track, to scout, to prepare the raid.
The network spoke softly.
"He was seen," it said. "He stepped into the sanctum without permission."
Sam swallowed. "You killed him."
"We denied him passage," the network replied. "The command does not own this node."
Sam's hands curled into fists. He did not like agreeing with death, even when the dead man had likely deserved it.
But he did not have the luxury of purity.
Not anymore.
Sam drew the corpse's arm into the moonlight so its shadow stretched across the ground.
His own shadow reached out, touching it.
The world seemed to still.
Sam felt a tug in his chest, like his Will was being hooked and pulled.
He focused.
"Shadowbound Thrall," he whispered.
The system responded.
[ ACTIVATION CONFIRMED ]
[ Shadow contact established ]
[ Threading mycelium to imprint ]
The glow beneath the soil brightened, and thin bioluminescent filaments slid through the earth like veins of light. They wrapped around the corpse's limbs, not visibly, but in Sam's shadow-sense.
Then the corpse moved.
It was not sudden. It was not a jump scare.
It was a slow, unnatural rising, like a puppet being lifted by strings.
Leaves slid off its shoulders. Dirt crumbled from its hair. The head lolled, then steadied.
Sam's stomach churned, but he did not look away.
The corpse opened its eyes.
They were not eyes anymore.
They were pits filled with faint blue glow.
It stood fully upright, balanced and silent, shadow clinging to it like a cloak.
A new system line appeared.
[ THRALL CREATED ]
[ Designation: Unnamed ]
[ Duration: Limited ]
[ Loyalty: Absolute ]
Sam stared at it.
It looked like a man, but it did not feel like one. There was no mind behind the face. No person.
Just a tool held upright by shadow and thread.
Sam's voice was tight.
"Kneel."
The thrall knelt instantly, smooth and obedient.
Sam exhaled once, hard.
He could stop them.
He could stop the raid.
He could do it without stepping into open conflict until he was ready.
The network's voice returned, faintly approving.
"Now you understand," it said. "A shadow can carry more than whispers."
Sam's palms were damp. His legs trembled, not from fear, but from strain. His Will felt scraped raw, like he had lifted something far heavier than his body should allow.
He looked back toward the settlement, where the fence lights were distant pinpricks through the trees.
Dawn would come soon.
He had hours, not days.
Sam turned to the thrall.
"Follow," he said.
It rose without sound.
Sam glanced once more at the mushroom under the log, the small pale caps that hid a giant beneath.
"You said this place can hide me," Sam said.
"It can," the network replied.
Sam's jaw tightened.
"Then it is my base," he said. "My sanctuary."
A pause.
Then, something like acceptance.
"Then guard it," the network said. "And we will guard you."
Sam did not thank it.
He did not trust it enough for gratitude.
But he felt the basin's quiet shift around him, as if the sanctum had recognised his claim.
Sam and his thrall slipped back through the trees toward the fence, moving through shadow like a secret.
Behind him, the basin returned to silence.
Only the faint blue glow beneath the soil remained, pulsing slowly, patiently.
Waiting.
And in the distance, beyond the fence, the Pure Reclaimers were already gathering fuel.
Preparing to burn a settlement that still believed in mercy.
Sam's eyes hardened.
He would not let them.
Not tonight.
Not ever.
[ NEW OBJECTIVE ]
[ Prevent the raid ]
[ Condition: Maintain cover ]
[ Reward: Unknown ]
[ STATUS ][ Name: Sam ][ Level: 1 ][ Primary Bloodline: Abyssal Shadow ][ Additional Bloodline Signatures: Detected ][ Bloodline Status: Access Restricted ][ Class: Unassigned ][ Soul Element: Unawakened ][ Strength: 1 ][ Agility: 1 ][ Endurance: 1 ][ Perception: 1 ][ Will: 1 ][ Abilities: Shadow Communication (Novice), Shadowbound Thrall (Novice) ]
[ Ability unlocked: Shadowbound Thrall ]