The Ash Plains stretched endlessly beneath a starless sky, a graveyard of cracked earth and skeletal shrubs. Moonlight, pale and indifferent, washed over the desolation, casting long shadows that writhed like specters across the barren landscape. At the heart of this wasteland lay the canyon—a jagged scar in the earth, its depths glowing faintly with the amber pulse of the Eldertree sapling. Prince Cedric's Blackthorn Legion swarmed the chasm like carrion beetles, their torches flickering in the dark as they siphoned the tree's dying aura into glass vials. The air hummed with the dissonant chant of black-robed mages, their voices weaving a dirge for the ancient magic they plundered.
Ethan crouched behind a crumbling outcrop, his scar burning in time with the sapling's faltering heartbeat. Beside him, Lira's fingers tightened around her bow, the polished wood creaking under her grip. Her eyes, sharp as flint, tracked the movements of Cedric's soldiers. "They're bleeding it dry," she hissed, her voice a blade in the silence. "Another hour, and there'll be nothing left but ash."
Varyn knelt in the dirt, his calloused palm pressed to the parched soil. His aura—a deep, earthy gold—rippled across the ground, probing for weaknesses in the canyon's defenses. "Tunnels," he muttered. "Old mining shafts, collapsed but salvageable. We carve a path through the earth, strike from below."
Ethan's gaze flicked to the legionnaires patrolling the rim. "They'll sense the disruption. Collapse the tunnels on our heads before we're halfway."
Varyn's lips curled into a wolfish grin. "Then we move faster than their spells." His hands slammed into the ground, and the earth shuddered. A jagged crevice split the rock at their feet, exhaling a breath of sulfur and decay. "Stay close. And try not to die."
Lira melted into the shadows without a word, her absence as deliberate as a sniper's retreat. Ethan hesitated, the weight of the branch strapped to his back pressing like a promise. Then he followed Varyn into the fissure, the walls sealing behind them with a groan of shifting stone.
The tunnels were a labyrinth of suffocating darkness, the air thick with the stench of burnt iron and rot. Varyn's aura lit the way, casting a sickly gold glow over walls slick with residual magic. The remnants of ancient Eldertree roots snaked through the stone, their once-vibrant veins now brittle and gray. Ethan's boots slipped on loose gravel, the *clack* of shifting rocks echoing like gunshots in the silence.
*Left here*, Varyn's voice growled in his mind, the swordmaster veering into a narrow passage. *The sapling's due east. Cedric's mages will sense us soon. Move.*
Ethan's lungs burned. The sapling's pulse thrummed louder now, a desperate rhythm that synced with the ache in his ribs. He reached for the elements—**earth** to steady his footing, **wind** to clear the debris—but the air here was lifeless, starved by Cedric's greed.
A deafening *crack* split the silence. The tunnel convulsed, dust raining down as the ceiling splintered.
"They're collapsing the shafts!" Lira's voice echoed from somewhere ahead, followed by the lethal *twang* of her bowstring.
Varyn cursed, slamming his fists into the trembling walls. Stone surged upward, reforging the buckling ceiling. "Run, damn you!"
They sprinted, Ethan's breath sawing in his throat. Lira's arrows whipped past, their steel heads glinting as they pierced gaps in the rock, finding throats and hearts with lethal precision. Above, the muffled shouts of Blackthorn scouts dissolved into wet gurgles.
The sapling's aura flared suddenly—a searing amber light that bled through the tunnel walls. Ethan skidded into a cavern, his vision swimming.
The chamber was a cathedral of decay. The Eldertree sapling stood at its center, its trunk gnarled and weeping sap like blackened blood. Cedric's mages circled it, their hands clawing at the air as they siphoned its aura into glowing vials. The tree's roots trembled, burrowing deeper into the earth as if fleeing their touch.
Varyn lunged first, stone gauntlets materializing around his fists. "Ethan—the tree!"
Ethan dodged a whip of molten rock, the heat blistering his cheek. His branch ignited with **sunlight**, its ragged edges blazing white-gold as he charged the sapling. The mages turned, their chants rising to a fevered pitch.
"Stop him!" their leader screamed, hurling a sphere of liquid shadow.
Lira's arrow intercepted it midair, the projectile splintering into a dozen shards that peppered the mages like shrapnel. "Eyes on the prize, Mudborn!"
Ethan reached the sapling, his palms slamming into the soil. **Earth** and **water** surged through him, the mud rising in a wave to engulf the siphon vials. The glass shattered, amber aura spilling into the air like smoke.
The cavern trembled. Prince Cedric descended from a hidden ledge, his obsidian armor drinking in the sapling's dying light. A crown of black thorns sat atop his brow, the stolen aura swirling in his palm like caged lightning.
"You're too late, gutter rat," he sneered, his voice echoing with the weight of a kingdom's ruin. "This relic's power is mine. With it, I'll burn Vostra's armies to ash and grind Elara's rebellion into dust."
Ethan rose, his branch crackling with **sunlight**, **wind**, **water**, and **earth**—a tempest of raw power that lit the chamber in jagged strokes of gold and blue. "You're killing Roudnam to save it."
"Sacrifices must be made," Cedric said, flicking his wrist. The sapling's roots blackened, crumbling to ash. "But you?" His laugh was a blade dragged over stone. "You're no sacrifice. You're a stain."
Ethan roared. The elements merged—a maelstrom of golden fire, howling wind, and liquid earth—that tore through Cedric's defenses. The prince staggered, his crown fracturing as Ethan's branch pierced his aura shield.
"You think *this* is power?" Cedric spat blood, his eyes wild. "You're a child playing with fire."
The sapling's last root snapped.
A deafening wail shook the canyon. Not from the tree, but from the earth itself. The ground split, amber light erupting in a geyser as vines of pure aura coiled around Cedric, yanking him into the abyss.
"What is this?!" he screamed, clawing at the stone.
"The soil remembers," Ethan said, his voice echoing with a thousand whispers. "And it's *hungry*."
The cavern collapsed.
Ethan woke to the acrid sting of smoke and blood. Lira dragged him from the rubble, her face streaked with grime. Varyn knelt at the edge of the fissure, staring into the void where Cedric had fallen.
"Gone," the swordmaster muttered. "But the sapling…"
Where the tree had stood, a single seed glowed in the ashes. Ethan scooped it up, its warmth searing his palm.
Lira nodded to the horizon. Blackthorn banners crested the ridge, their ranks led by a scarred figure with twin serrated blades.
Varsak.
Ethan clenched the seed, its light bleeding through his fingers. "Then we plant a new storm."