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The drowning mind

Author: R. Mobley
last update Last Updated: 2025-05-29 02:35:01

The pressure was immense.

Not from the sea alone, though it crushed him with every step. No—this pressure came from within. Drift stood waist-deep in the flooded chamber beneath Salt-Wake, the black water lapping at his ribs like an eager breath. The walls around him pulsed, carved with symbols that flared in sickly green when he moved too close. The air was heavy with brine and decay, and somewhere above, the storm raged against the cliffside, indifferent.

But Drift heard none of it.

Inside his mind, voices churned like a whirlpool—his own, yes, but others, too. Whispering in a language he shouldn’t understand and yet did. Images flickered behind his eyes: a towering figure cloaked in kelp and bone, a hand like a claw brushing a crying child’s face, a spiral carved in flesh and stone.

It’s not real, he told himself.

But it was. It was.

He didn’t know how long he’d been walking. Time bent here. He remembered the shoreline—remembered running, the salt wind burning his lungs, the
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  • Wildwood: The veins of the earth    The story that must be told

    The forest held its breath. In the clearing around the Seed, the light from the golden threads pulsing around it flickered, as if unsure whether to flare into brilliance or fade into shadow. The forms of Clara, Emily, and Ashani stood at the center, hands clasped not in ritual, but in raw defiance of what Varethkaal had become. He writhed in the dark corner of the circle, a silhouette that bent space around it, shrinking and expanding, echoing every failed truth and buried secret with whispers no one wanted to remember. But they had remembered. And that was what made him dangerous. Because now, he could take form. ⸻ The Boy from the Coast Far to the south, near the salt-bitten bluffs known only to fishermen and old wives’ tales, the boy wandered into a place no map marked. His name was Ezra, and he was barely seventeen, but the Drift had found him. The coastal cult—The Order of the Returning Seed—had whispered in his dreams since childhood. He had followed stories

  • Wildwood: The veins of the earth    The blooming seed

    The ground beneath WildWood trembled—not with fury, but with awakening. From the remains of the Flesh Garden, once a place of writhing madness and twisted bodies, now rose something new. Petals of wet, bark-like flesh unfurled toward the ceiling of the cavern. At its center, the Seed pulsed—no longer dormant, but alive in a way it had not been for centuries. It wasn’t just growing—it was becoming. Cracks spread across the cavern walls, revealing glowing veins of light beneath the stone, as though the very marrow of the world had turned to fire. Whispered voices echoed through the tunnels, not malevolent, but yearning. They sought to be known. The Seed, at its core, was not evil. It was history forgotten. Memory denied. It had tried for generations to express itself in dreams, in hauntings, in the twisted forms of those lost in the forest. But now, something had shifted. Clara, Emily, and Ashani had returned not to destroy—but to listen. Still, Varethkaal remained. ⸻ Clara: Gat

  • Wildwood: The veins of the earth    Descent into the self

    The Root chamber echoed long after Emily’s words faded. The idea of feeding the Seed truth, of healing it rather than destroying it, had sunk into the bones of the place like rain into soil. The pulsing walls slowed, almost contemplative, as if the Echo Root itself was considering their resolve. Clara was the first to break the silence. “We’ll need to go deeper.” Ashani glanced toward the tunnel that extended from the far side of the chamber. It sloped down in a gentle curve, blacker than night and humming faintly—like breath from the belly of the world. “That tunnel wasn’t there before,” she murmured. “It wasn’t meant to be,” Emily said. “The Root only opens the path when it’s ready to receive what we’ve hidden. It wants what we fear most.” Clara’s hand instinctively went to her coat pocket. Inside was a worn leather pouch. Within that—her father’s old pendant. The one he had left behind when he vanished into WildWood. She’d never opened it, never been able to bring herself to

  • Wildwood: The veins of the earth    The echo root

    The air hung unnaturally still after the man’s final breath, as though the forest itself paused in reverence or fear. Clara knelt beside his body, her fingers curling into the dirt. There was no blood, no final gasp—just a sudden, cold silence, as if something had reached out and stolen the last spark of life from him. Emily stood a few feet back, arms wrapped around herself. Her eyes were distant, haunted—not just by what they had witnessed, but by the presence inside her that continued to churn restlessly beneath her skin. The Seed pulsed in tune with the forest, and Emily could feel it reacting to the man’s death. Something had shifted. A door had opened. Clara’s mind raced. Another bloodline. Another piece of the puzzle. The man hadn’t known everything, but he had known enough to be afraid—and to recognize that the curse of the Seed wasn’t just isolated to WildWood anymore. It was older, deeper, like roots spreading beneath the world. Emily stepped forward, her voice soft. “Cla

  • Wildwood: The veins of the earth    Beneath the surface

    The air was thick with the scent of pine and decay, as if the forest itself was holding its breath. The journey ahead was uncertain, yet Clara couldn’t shake the feeling that something had changed—not just in Emily, but in the world around them. The battle had been fought, the Seed temporarily suppressed, but the land itself still carried the echoes of something ancient, something darker. The moonlight filtered through the canopy of twisted branches, casting long shadows that seemed to stretch unnaturally, as though they were reaching for something. Clara walked beside Emily, the weight of their shared burden heavier than ever. They were more than friends now; they were tied to each other in ways neither fully understood. The forces they had faced—and those they had yet to face—would test them both in ways they couldn’t even begin to imagine. Emily’s hand hovered near her chest, where the lingering presence of the Seed pulsed like a second heartbeat. Clara noticed the occasional tre

  • Wildwood: The veins of the earth    The gathering storm

    Clara knelt beside Emily, her heart hammering in her chest, her hands still trembling from the sheer force of the battle they had just endured. The light had faded from Emily’s eyes, but there was a softness to her expression now—like she was finally waking from a nightmare, only to realize the world had changed around her. The wind had settled, and the ground beneath them, once so full of treacherous energy, now lay still. But Clara could feel it in her bones—the unease, the pull of something dark, something deep beneath the earth, calling to them. “We did it,” Clara whispered, half to herself, half to Emily. But the words felt hollow, empty against the weight of the silence surrounding them. Emily’s voice was weak, fragile. “But… what now? What happens to me?” Clara hesitated, her fingers brushing Emily’s damp forehead. She didn’t have an answer—not a complete one. The Seed had been driven back, for now, but the remnants of its power lingered, like ash in the air, waiting for a c

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