Chapter 209: The Growers’ Record

Sella was fastening the lid of a long wooden box when Luke and Lauren reached the nursery. A folded cloth protected the contents, but one copper-colored strand protruded beneath it. Luke stopped beside the workbench while the grower tucked the strand away with a pair of tongs.

"From the conservatory?"

"The last of what we found along the main passages. The guardian’s clear too." Sella secured the lid. "The broken roof is another matter, so stay beneath the stonework until I show you where we’ve cleared the glass."

Lauren rested her hand on the bench. "We came to look at the carvings. Have you found any records down there?"

"A few planting labels. Most of the shelves fell apart when we tried moving them." Sella took her apron from a peg and pulled it on. "I’m going back to check the drainage. You can walk with me."

Luke glanced toward the sheltered pot beside the trough. The graft’s first leaf had darkened along its center, and the second was beginning to open. He told Lauren before they left, but she kept the support undisturbed.

They reached the conservatory without taking the river road. Sella carried a satchel of tools, while Luke kept the spear across his back and gave Lauren his arm along the rougher sections. Lauren had left Heartwood out of their plan for the inspection. Ancient Root Recognition would let her examine the carvings without growing a tree through the vault’s foundations.

Freshly cleared tracks crossed the ruin between piles of broken glass. Someone had tied strips of yellow cloth beneath the worst sections of the metal frame. Luke kept Lauren on the stone path while Sella pointed out which planting beds were safe to approach.

The stairway stood open. Its four roots remained tucked into the channels beside the stone rings, and a rope handrail had been fixed along the first flight. Lauren found it with her left hand and let Luke move one step ahead of her.

Halfway down, she stopped at the carving they had passed on their first visit. Someone had brushed away the dirt, revealing tiny marks around the leaves and circles. A shallow channel continued from one panel to the next.

Lauren touched the living root threaded through that channel. Ancient Root Recognition answered, and her fingers followed the connection until it divided beneath the carving.

"Preservation again," she said. "But I can’t read the marks around it."

Sella leaned past Luke to look. "Those are planting signs. This one tells you to keep a cutting shaded after you move it."

"How can you tell which side comes first?" Luke asked.

"The small notch. You start there." Sella pointed to the edge nearest his hand. "The pictures aren’t in the order you’re looking at them."

He followed the notch instead of reading from left to right. What had looked like a dead tree becoming whole now showed a branch being taken from a larger plant and placed beneath a cover. The next panel showed roots growing below it.

"There should be more than this," Sella said. "These are instructions you put outside a workroom."

Luke examined the unbroken wall, then followed the root channel farther down the stairs. At the bottom, it curved around the circular chamber and disappeared into the passage marked three.

They followed the familiar route to the Warden’s vault. Most of the copper strands had been removed from the walls, leaving shallow wounds in the older roots. New growth had begun covering some of them. Lauren checked one exposed section with her fingertips, then released the ability before they entered the wider room.

The Verdant Warden pulled a dead branch from a shrub and dropped it into a pile beside the planting bed. It looked up as Luke entered, and he kept the spear on his back while Sella set down her satchel.

The creature approached with none of its former lurching. Its rear leg took its weight evenly, and fresh bark covered the cracks around its neck. Lauren kept her hand on Luke’s arm as the hooves sounded closer. He remained beside her while the antlers passed over his shoulder.

The Warden lowered its nose to Luke’s leather guard, sniffed once, and moved past him toward Sella’s tools. He let his shoulders relax as its attention left his arm.

Sella caught the strap of her satchel before the creature could nose it aside. "I’ll put them away when I’m finished."

The Warden stood over the bag until she hung it from a peg. Then it returned to the planting beds, leaving Luke trying not to laugh. Lauren leaned closer to ask what had happened, and he described the inspection of the tools while Sella found the root channel they had followed downstairs.

It ended beside a broad wooden panel set into the wall. The panel had looked like the back of a collapsed shelf during their first visit. Now the debris was gone, revealing a row of shallow finger holds along its lower edge.

"A sliding cover," Sella said. "Help me with this end."

Luke took the weight while she cleared grit from the track. Together they lifted the cover until it settled securely into a notch above them. Beyond it lay a narrow workroom with a stone counter, several empty pots, and a cabinet raised well clear of the floor.

The air smelled of dry wood rather than the damp soil outside. Luke checked the floor before guiding Lauren through, and Sella retrieved her satchel from the peg. A bowl on the counter held what looked like a twisted tool handle. When Luke moved closer, he saw a small branch joined to a larger stem, with fine roots curling from the branch itself.

Sella picked it up carefully. "A teaching sample. They kept the finished join."

Lauren held out her hand, and Sella laid the sample across her palms. With no living mana left to follow, Lauren traced the seam with her fingers until she found where the smaller roots emerged.

"These belong to the graft?"

"They grew above the join." Sella guided her fingertip to the old cut. "The host’s roots would have been farther down."

A drawing etched into the bowl’s rim showed the two plants still attached. Luke turned it to follow the next picture, where the upper plant had been lifted away with its own roots trailing beneath it.

"Does ours need roots like those before we take it off the cutting?"

"Let’s see whether they kept instructions for that seed." Sella opened the cabinet and carefully separated the thin wooden boards stored inside. Each held a drawing beneath a layer of clear resin.

She set several aside before finding one with a seed shaped much like Lauren’s. The board showed it against a stem, opening along a branching seam. A pale sleeve surrounded the join in the next drawing. In the last, the sleeve had been removed to expose new roots.

Lauren leaned toward Sella’s voice. "What does the writing say?"

"I can’t read the old script. These notes beside it are later." Sella brought the board closer to the doorway. "Someone copied the instructions for the terrace growers."

Luke could read parts of those notes himself. The letters were cramped and faded, but the last warning remained legible beneath a picture of a knife.

"Don’t separate while the graft is fed only through the host," he read aloud.

Sella tapped the illustrated sleeve. "A damp rooting wrap. It gives the new roots somewhere to grow before you remove the support."

Lauren traced the roots on the preserved sample again. Her own seed had attached itself to the cutting and begun growing leaves, but she had not yet found roots that could sustain it after separation.

"Would ordinary cloth work?" she asked.

"For holding moisture, perhaps. This looks like moss packed inside an open weave." Sella examined a small drawing beside the sleeve. "Cradlemoss. We used to keep it in the shaded beds."

The same moss symbol appeared beside several other plant diagrams. As Sella finished explaining the illustrated sequence, a system window opened before Lauren.

[Ancestral Graft Seed: Cultivation information acquired.]

[Independent root growth required before separation from host.]

[Integration remains unavailable.]

Lauren read the message to them. Luke smiled at finally having a condition they could work toward instead of waiting without knowing what to watch for. He reached toward the board, then stopped before his fingers touched the resin.

"Can we copy this?"

"Copy what you can read. I’ll sort out which originals we need at the nursery." Sella drew a sheet of paper and a short charcoal stick from her satchel. "Use the counter. The resin scratches easily."

Luke began with the diagram, his compensated right hand tracing the branching seam far more easily than his left had managed the tree at home. Lauren kept the sample beside him, asking him to describe where the wrap ended in relation to the new leaves. Sella checked each detail against the board before Luke added it to the copy.

A folded plan beneath the boards showed the planting rooms and a narrow strip of beds beyond the lower vault. Sella smoothed it against the counter, then looked toward a stone arch in the downhill wall, half hidden by vines.

"The shade beds. We haven’t been through that door yet."

With nearly an hour left in the session, they could inspect the outer path and still reach the city comfortably. Luke finished copying the warning while Sella cleared leaves from a drain beside the arch. Water trickled through the exposed grate instead of pooling against the threshold.

The door opened on ordinary iron hinges once she cleared the vines from its frame. Beyond it lay a roofed walkway along the exposed face of the hill. Waist-high cold frames lined the open side, their glass lids propped between stone posts. Gaps between the frames gave access to the planted strip beyond, where a low wall bordered the slope.

The Warden followed as far as the arch, its antlers brushing the stone. It remained there while Sella checked the nearest stretch of paving and found no loose glass. Beyond the last frame, the walkway turned toward an overgrown garden.

Sella pointed beneath the nearest intact lid. "There. The gray-green cushion along the back."

Lauren touched Luke’s arm. "Close enough to reach?"

"From this side. We don’t need to go into the garden."

A dry scrape sounded above the frames. Luke looked up and found a narrow head projecting from the branches outside the roof. A membrane stretched between two clawed limbs as the animal shifted toward them.

Sella stepped back beneath the arch. "Ridge glider. Keep away from the open side."

Luke unslung the spear while Lauren moved with him toward the doorway. The creature flattened against its branch, almost disappearing among the leaves. Farther along the garden wall, another set of claws scraped over stone.