Chapter 203: A Place For the Seed

Luke set the third seed case beside the other two at the foot of the stairs. His thigh had stiffened during the walk back from the vault, and crouching reminded him exactly where the Warden’s hoof had caught him. He straightened, shifted his weight, and checked the session timer. With just over half an hour remaining, they could return to the city and deliver everything, provided he stopped trying to carry three awkward boxes while keeping a spear in his hand.

Lauren took the narrowest case before he finished arranging them. "Put the spear on your back. I’ll carry this one."

He secured the weapon and stacked the remaining cases against his chest. Lauren waited at the first step until he had his balance, then started upward. Nothing followed them from the third corridor, although a faint wooden call reached them before the bend swallowed the sound.

The roots across the entrance stayed withdrawn as they climbed out. Luke left the loose masonry clear of the stairs and checked that their path through the broken glass was still usable before they crossed the conservatory. By the time they reached the maintained terraces, carrying the cases had become more annoying than difficult.

Their destination stood just inside the southern gate. The quest marker led them through a courtyard crowded with planting trays and stopped above a low building whose open shutters released the smell of damp soil. A woman in a faded green apron was arguing with a delivery driver beside the entrance.

"If you stack wet sacks against that wall again, you can come back and scrape the mold off yourself."

The driver gathered the offending sacks without another word. The woman turned toward Luke and Lauren, saw the numbers stamped into the metal, and waved them inside. She cleared a space on her workbench while Luke maneuvered his load through the doorway.

"You found the lower vault."

Luke lowered his load carefully. "All three cases. There’s something else you need to know before anyone goes down there."

"Put those here first. I’m Sella. The request was mine."

Lauren set her case beside the others and introduced them. While Sella checked the seals, she described the copper growth. Luke added the Warden, the tethers, and where they had cut them, keeping the account brief. Sella stopped examining the cases when he reached the part about the creature moving freely afterward.

"The guardian survived?"

"It was standing when we left," Lauren said. "The flow beneath its bark was recovering."

Sella rested both palms on the bench. For a moment, Luke thought she was about to tell them they had left a dangerous monster beside the vault. Instead, she looked toward a dusty shelf holding several old tools.

"My mother used to complain that it followed her through the planting beds. Wouldn’t leave her alone until she put every tool back."

Luke pictured the enormous antlers hovering over someone trying to finish a shift. "It probably wouldn’t have approved of me climbing the railing."

Sella glanced at the dirt on his clothes. "I’ll ask about that after I’ve seen the damage."

She opened the first case with a key from her apron. Inside, rows of waxed packets sat beneath a padded lid, each marked with a plant and a planting date. The second held larger seeds in shallow wooden dividers. Nothing inside smelled rotten, despite the water that had covered the storage room.

The third case contained glass tubes wrapped in pale fiber. Sella lifted one toward the light, revealing a cluster of tiny silver seeds resting at the bottom. Her thumb moved over the handwritten label before she set it down again.

"Bankleaf. We haven’t had a sound batch in years."

Lauren rested her hands on the edge of the bench. "What do you use it for?"

"Holds the terrace soil together without choking the crops. The ordinary grasses we’ve been using drink too much water." Sella indicated the hills beyond the courtyard. "These should let us reopen some of the upper beds."

Luke had passed those empty terraces on the way back. He looked at the tube again, surprised that so much hillside could depend on something that would fit beneath his fingernail. Sella closed the case and counted their payment from a locked drawer. Luke checked the total against the quest notice before putting the coins away. Sella was already calling a worker over to help store the recovered packets.

[Quest complete: Conservatory Recovery.]

[Reward received.]

"I’ll have the entrance marked until we’ve inspected the remaining growth," Sella said. "You freed the guardian, but I don’t want someone bringing that copper stuff home on a shovel."

Once the workers had carried the cases into storage, Lauren checked the timer. She retrieved the Ancestral Graft Seed and held it above the cleared end of the bench.

"We received this after freeing the Warden. Do you recognize it?"

Sella pulled a clean cloth closer before leaning over her hand. She did not touch the seed. The green veins along its surface brightened faintly, and the tiny root curled against Lauren’s finger.

"Where did you plant it?"

"I haven’t. It did that when I held it."

Sella fetched a shallow bowl and lined it with the cloth. "Then set your hand here while I look. Don’t pull that root loose."

Lauren lowered her palm. The root relaxed as she stopped moving, allowing her to ease the seed onto the fabric. Luke leaned against the bench beside her, careful to keep his dusty sleeve away from the bowl.

Sella studied the groove running along the seed’s side. "The old growers prepared grafts with a seam like that. It gives the new growth somewhere to open without splitting the host."

"The system says it’s compatible with Oracle’s Heartwood," Lauren said. "But a growth condition hasn’t been met."

"What sort of tree is your Heartwood?"

Lauren explained that she summoned it, entered its trunk, and used its protection while guiding Luke. She included the mana drain and the fact that she could not move while Rootbound. Sella listened, then shook her head when Lauren asked whether she should attach the seed directly to it.

"I grow trees in soil. I don’t summon them around people. I’m not advising you to put an unknown graft into one while you’re inside."

"We’re not permitted to test Heartwood yet," Lauren said. "I want to find out what the seed needs before we can."

Sella brought over a small potted sapling. Beneath its lowest branch, a wooden support held a slender cutting against the trunk, with damp strips of cloth protecting the join. She loosened one strip far enough to reveal a fine pale seam.

"This cutting has no roots of its own. The host has to support it while the join forms. Put too much new growth on weak roots, and you can lose both."

Lauren touched the pot’s rim. Ancient Root Recognition stirred, and her attention settled beneath the soil rather than on the leaves. Luke waited while she followed whatever the ability showed her.

"The roots below the join are active," she said. "But very little is reaching the cutting."

"It only went on this morning." Sella watched her more closely. "Can you tell where the flow reaches it?"

Lauren moved one finger toward the wrapped branch, then stopped short of touching it. "Here. There’s a narrow connection along this side."

Sella lifted the opposite edge of the cloth. The living seam was exactly where Lauren had indicated, while the rest of the join remained dark and separate. A smile pulled at the grower’s mouth.

"That would save me a great deal of unwrapping."

Lauren released the ability before examining the seed again. "Could it grow on a separate rootstock first? Something outside my skill?"

"Possibly. I’d start there rather than with a tree you’re sitting in."

Sella rewrapped the join and led them to the nursery beds behind the building. Lauren carried the bowl while Luke checked the timer. They had a little over ten minutes left, enough to look, but not enough to start work.

Most of the beds held ordinary seedlings. At the far end, several young trees grew around an old stone trough, their pale roots following channels carved along its rim. Lauren slowed beside them, and Sella tapped the branching emblem on the stone.

"These came from the conservatory stock. We’ve kept them alive by taking cuttings whenever one gets too large for the bed."

Lauren rested her fingertips against the nearest exposed root. "They feel related to the network underneath the vault."

"They should. The oldest planting records we have came out of that place."

Luke watched Lauren’s fingertips follow a pale root along the rim. Whenever it branched into the stone, she paused before finding the next exposed section. Sella waited beside her instead of moving on. He had seen Lauren concentrate like that during battles, but here she had time to follow the whole connection. Luke wished they could stay longer than the timer allowed.

Sella crouched near a narrow opening beneath the trough. "Our problem is down here. Reedcutters got into the channel while it was drained last week. They’ve started chewing the feeder roots."

Luke bent beside her. Pale shavings littered the stone just inside the opening, with a few fresh pieces still damp at the edges.

"How many?"

"The worker who opened the side cover saw four. He shut it before they reached the nursery."

"Can the channel be isolated?"

Sella nodded toward a wooden wheel beside the wall. "Water and access. We can close both ends, lift the covers, and work from above. I need someone who can clear the pests without hacking through everything they’re attached to."

Lauren withdrew her hand from the root. "And if we help, you can prepare stock for the graft?"

"I can give you a rooted cutting and a bench to work at. Whether that seed accepts it is something we’ll have to find out carefully."

Luke checked the timer again. He disliked walking away from a job they had already found, but the nursery would still be there after they disconnected. Lauren asked Sella to explain how the covers fitted around the roots, then stepped away from the trough.

"We’ll return after we’ve reported the seed," she said. "No planting it today."

Sella nodded and wrapped the bowl’s cloth loosely around the seed. "Bring it back like this. Don’t feed it mana to make it grow faster."

Lauren returned the wrapped seed to her inventory and left the empty bowl on a nearby bench. She asked Sella to reserve the space closest to the trough, smiling when the grower fetched a wooden tag.

Luke moved beside her. "I’d better learn where I’m allowed to put my feet."

Lauren caught his sleeve before he could step into the bed. He looked down at a pale root crossing the gap between two stones, then moved his boot to the other side. Her quiet laugh followed him back onto the path.

They left with time to reach the courtyard and disconnect without hurrying. Before the nursery gate closed behind them, Luke glanced back at their reserved bench. Sella had tied a tag bearing Lauren’s name to an empty pot and was already moving the neighboring tools to make room. He told Lauren about the label as they headed toward the courtyard, and her fingers tightened warmly around his.