Hector gasped and stood up from the moss bedding. He was in a hollow, one of the many caverns of wood with its sylvan characteristics of moss coverings and glowing mushroomed sources of light. He gingerly moved to wave past the green curtains guarding the entrance to reveal the Odigwe arboreal.

Sylven ambled to and fro the gnarled stepped branchworks, moving with a swift grace despite their relaxed manner. Hector flinched at Conrad’s appearance beside him.

“I thought you weren’t real,” Hector said.

Conrad walked towards him and he backed away too late as the man seemingly walked through him, disappearing into the hollow.

Behind you, Conrad Voiced. Hector spun around to see him standing, hands clasped behind him, the line of his mouth in a closed smile. His mouth moved, but his words only echoed in Hector’s mind. Conrad’s Voice resounded all around, clear and piercing.

You should stop talking to me out loud before you make it a habit. People will look at you as mad. Only you and Celdan are able to see me, being the only ones to have undergone what you call enchantment.

Hector thought, And is there a way to reverse this enchantment?

Conrad shrugged. You can deactivate me for a time, if you wish. Though I deem it necessary to stay active as of right now. You need me, Hector, whether you accept it or not. You’re just a boy. A boy who has not even yet ascended into magehood. You’ll need me in the coming war, if you want to succeed the Empire.

And why would you help me? Hector thought. So I can be your puppet, and abide by your rules?

Conrad, or the image of him, sighed. You are the most probable candidate for succeeding the Empire, thereby controlling a greater part of humanity. I am currently the only one of my kind, made with the intent to guide humanity and be a literal reminder of their history. Your influence, should you secure it, will help bring mankind back to the path of the Ancient Laws. Laws forged from generations in Earth as what was deemed just from a collective world. Are you willing to regress even further to what humanity has become, or are you willing for progress?

Hector shook his head. If what you say is true, why should I blindly follow a dead man’s guidance from a world killed by his own people?

Conrad frowned. That… is unfair for you to judge, Hector. But there is truth to what you say, if callously about countless lives. It is why we created the Neo Virus. We were not meant to live with such power. The Virus cannot destroy that which is within us, merely suppress the modified DNA of the current generation. What you call ‘mortals’ are merely people who have been born without the modified gene. But the children of the mages, those from Earth that reproduced with the Farmborn, still hold their ancestors’ power.

“Speaking with Conrad?” Hector turned to face Celdan, the lines of his face creased with his smile. “I’ve been with him for centuries, and I still do not know all there is to know from that bastard of a ghost.”

“What did you do to me?!” Hector shouted, cutting through the quiet of the forest. “I didn’t ask for this! Any of this.”

“I was like you as well, Hector. I learned that my Awakening, as it was called in the Old World, had taken its full limit for me to accept my new companion.”

Hector gripped the mantle of Celdan’s white robe and pointed to Conrad.

“Get him out of my head.”

Celdan gave a sad smile. “Conrad is now linked to you inseparably, Hector. He is all the answers you seek and more.”

“He told me that the Mythic are not just superstition, but a myth created by the aristocracy. That the Holy Lands had long been destroyed. That we are alone in this world. Why? Why have you kept this to yourself all this time?” Hector asked, pleading for an answer.

Celdan shrugged. “Look around you. Do you think I have not found peace in all this? Do you think I would further aid in the genocides I have led, and for all the death I have caused, would betray the ones who had forgiven me and even taken me in as one of their own? The native races’ memory run deep into the ages of their world. They remember when we arrived on this planet, and even before. Another key difference between our races is that they do not forget. They do not seek to dominate, to control as we do. Their way of life is so intertwined with this world.”

They are what humanity can only hope to strive for, Conrad intoned, standing between them.

“For what? To live without any purpose, no sense of advance? Where is the nobleness in that? In just... being?” Hector stammered. “To live and die-”

“In contentment?” Celdan interrupted. “Would you rather mankind be defined by its achievements? What would you define as achievement? A stepping stone set by others of our kind, do you seek meaning by their acceptance? You know what happened to the Old World. Mankind is a collective parasite that will suck out every resource in this world if allowed. The races of Serendrial’s Arbor are all that stand from its destruction that humanity will undoubtedly reap should it fall. What do you understand of the Arbor so far?”

Celdan held up his hand before Conrad bade to utter a word. “I think it better that you hold off on the science for now, old friend.”

Conrad nodded with reluctance and his image faded, leaving naught a trace.

“I remember your vision, of trying to destroy it,” Hector paused, recounting the tumult of sensations that overwhelmed his psyche. “What you sensed was consciousness, all around.”

“All encompassing,” Celdan agreed. “Life that connected with each other in an inextricable web. That tree was one of the first to live on this world. It certainly is the oldest, long rising up the sky before we even settled Orr. Think of all life connecting, each impacting the next in a chain, of sorts. There exists a delicate balance between every animal, from the smallest ant to the largest hummingeagle. If one animal should be wiped out from this world so shall the next, and the next after it. The great tree is the beginning of this inseparable link with all things. Should it fall, it would mean the ultimate end of all life you see before you, including mankind.”

Celdan let out his hand for Hector.

“Close your eyes. What do you see?”

“Light… all around us. No.” Hector’s eyes flitted underneath his closed eyelids. “What is this?”

“I believe the closest thing that we can understand to these abstractions you witness are what the sylven call auras. The closest thing to a physical embodiment of a soul. Every living creature has one, no matter how tiny or vast. And the tree…”

Hector’s brow furrowed as the network of countless hearts of light pulsed and raced, his vision twisting and turning with such speed he was not sure which direction it went until it reached the heart of the tree. The great tree teemed with souls, throbbing with bright hot light that spread to the rest of the living network. It seemed as if it was the start and end of all the roots and branches that threaded between the auras of the animals that lived within the forest.

“The tree… is not part of the forest.” Hector opened his eyes. “It is the forest.”

“Yes. For every root, every branch of another tree, the sylven simply channel the Arbor’s energy. Every tree is one and the same, beginning from the first Arbor.”

“Why can they not just live separately, and be independent from the Arbor?”

“Humanity had made theories in the ancient times, but had never been able to closely study the tree’s nature due to its sacredness to the native races. I’m sure Conrad could explain more fully.”

“I would... rather he not. I have learned enough of mankind’s downfall.”

“It is your decision. But know this, to keep yourself ignorant of such knowledge would eventually repeat the past. Please, follow me.”

Celdan whisked past the moss covers, Hector in his stead. They turned up the spiral wooden steps until Celdan entered another hollow. It was furnished the same as Shael’s hollow, a bed that was noticeably larger (enough for two people) and a singular relic that stood upon a three legged round table. The relic’s shape was a horn atop a cubed platform. It was void black, sucking in all light around it. A material only known to the ancients.

“A relic of the ancients,” Hector stated, to which Celdan nodded. “How did you find such a thing?”

“Not all of the relics were destroyed in the First Uprising. This was known as a gramophone.”

“I know what this does. Father showed me one such held within the Faith. What is the point of showing me this?”

Celdan set the mechanism down upon the circled disc.

“Conrad,” Celdan cleared his throat. “Would you please play Mozart, Lacrimosa.”

A melody drifted throughout the hollow, filling the room with its pure sound. The music started as a dance, a light flourish that both calmed and stirred Hector. A chorus began chanting then, specters seeking release from their past.

“Despite knowing what we are capable of, I am no pessimist for mankind, Hector. There is still discovery of greatness which lies within all sentient life. This gramophone contains all the music made in the Old World. I myself still do not know how much it contains. And this is just one facet of our past works. Think how far the Empire has already progressed in less than a century of peace. What can we do if we are guided back to the Old Age, but in vigil of their mistakes? Instead of a cycle of perpetual war, we can strive to make new wonders instead of focusing on ending them.”

“Is this what you’re trying to teach me?” Hector raised his chin up. “Idealistic philosophy from a man who started the Forest Crusades and now seeks to shield himself from the calamities he caused by resting them upon another’s shoulders?”

Celdan stared at Hector, his face hardening and his eyes smoldering with bright green anger.

“What do you know of the things I’ve done?” The once King said softly. “Of the deeds I’ve seen other humans do to each other over such things you’ve never even thought to deem important, such as hunger. Or the simple fact of when a man holds more power than another man, and takes what he will of everything he holds dear. So you judge me a coward, that I turned my back on humanity? Perhaps I did. But I never surrendered my watch over this forest, so that the Balance would be kept between mankind and Orr. There are things, for all the power the mages wield, that cannot be changed. You must learn from history, and understand it. Understanding comes at a cost. A cost of knowing how monstrous the ability of our race truly is. Yet still, as with all life, we must trudge on, and bear acceptance of our nature. We must blunder in the dark into the light. The faint hope that we, we can be better. For all this struggle; all the death that will follow in securing your reign in the Empire, will be for nothing if you do not understand our greatest triumphs, and our ultimate defeat.”