A week passed after Sera agreed to stay.
Chris didn't push her for conversation beyond what was necessary or really try to find out how she could hear the medical grass that day. She continued to try and help where she could, be it checking the walls or joining him on his rounds to inspect the plants and soil when she felt like it. But she still seemed to mostly keep to herself, sitting on that rock by the gate or standing by the ancient ent in the evenings, having further conversations with him in hushed tones.
The plants adjusted to her presence faster than Chris expected. The shadow berry vines reached for her now when she passed, their stems brushing against her legs like greeting a friend. The mobile vines had stopped giving her those long, hungry stares. Even the strangle vines seemed to have accepted her, though they still watched everything with their needle-tipped flowers.
The little world tree was the most enthusiastic and happy about her staying. More than once he had caught sight of its roots following her around the village the same way they followed him, curling around her ankle whenever she stood still too long, causing her to be confused before reaching down and giving it a small pat, making it release and let her continue on her way. She hadn't commented on it to him, and it didn't seem to bother her much, but he made a mental note to explain the world tree's existence to her and its rather childlike nature.
A few days later he found her sitting outside her hut with a pack she had left that morning to retrieve, claiming she had hidden it before attacking the bandits and wanted to retrieve it. Having returned moments earlier and emptied it onto the ground in front of her. She seemed to be so distracted with sorting through the few belongings she'd carried that she hadn't noticed him walking over. The world tree having urged him to go over, and even some of the other plants had seemed rather agitated, making him curious. There were a few pieces of dried meat wrapped in cloth. A worn waterskin similar to the one she had when he found her. Some spare leather straps for her armor, something she seemed adamant about keeping and wanting to try and repair. A small knife with a chipped blade, and a stone that caused him to freeze up upon seeing it.
The stone was dark, almost black with faint veins of something that looked like lightning crackling beneath its surface and across it. Seemingly pulsing slowly in rhythm with something Chris couldn't name but could clearly feel in the back of his mind that made his hair stand on end, like a second heartbeat that didn't belong to him but still ran through him. The world tree warning him that it felt like the cold and hungry place, the way it often described the dungeon.
Sera finally noticed him staring now, following his gaze to the stone before casually picking it up, watching how his gaze remained firmly locked onto it. "This was something I took off some bandit I killed back at that camp during my raid of it." She said with a shrug. "It looked valuable, so I figured it was probably just a gem or something I could end up selling when I eventually went to a city, or rather if I made it to one."
Chris's mouth went dry, not trusting himself to say anything just yet as he forced himself to move closer, to kneel beside her pack and look at the stone properly. Up close, the pulsing was unmistakable, the beat feeling stronger. The veins of black light seemingly shifting under his gaze, almost like they were alive and now not just reacting to his presence but looking back towards him.
"Where exactly did you find this?" His voice came out quieter than he intended, hoping she could give him a far clearer answer.
Instead, Sera just shrugged. "Like I said, I got it from the bandit camp. It fell from one of the guys trying to flee when he seemed to realize I wouldn't be stopped. It looked valuable, and I almost overlooked it, but when my gaze passed it, something felt... I don't know. Warm? It was this odd feeling of it calling to me or wanting to be taken. Like I said, I thought it was a gem or if I was lucky some kind of magic stone, so I kept it and, like I already told you, I was going to try and sell it."
Chris reached out slowly, hesitating for a few brief moments as his fingers brushed the stone's surface. The moment he touched it, the pulse changed, quickly changing to match his own heartbeat perfectly. As if it had been waiting for him, which only caused his unease about it to spike to a level he hadn't had before, along with a cold shiver of dread down his spine. He truly hoped the howl that had happened a few moments after touching it was just a coincidence.
"This is a dungeon core," he said, turning his gaze up to meet hers with absolute seriousness, causing Sera's eyes to widen. "The thing that's at the absolute center of a dungeon and is supposed to be destroyed to make a dungeon go dormant to recover? The freaking thing that, when taken and not destroyed, can spawn the dungeon in a new location! That kind of core!" Her voice steadily began to get more frantic as she realized what she had in her hand.
"Yes, that thing is all that and something else. The second I touched that damn thing, I felt it react." Chris turned it over in his hands, watching the black lightning pulse. "An idiotic noble adventurer who passed through was bragging about having stolen it from the dungeon while having left his party for dead. I have no clue how dungeons work, but I found it hard to believe he had actually gotten the damn place's core, with how dangerous everyone says the place is and especially when it's been sending a constant stream of beasts at my little home each night, especially after I had gotten its attention."
Sera's expression shifted a bit; notes of unease mixed with hints of curiosity. "You're talking as if it's something alive. But this core isn't like the ones I've seen. It's nearly black, and there's markings across it. How did you even know it was from that dungeon?"
Chris found his gaze returning to the core, softly taking it from her hand while wondering what the hell was happening. Not just due to the way it tried to match his pulse, but also how he felt it connect back to the dungeon, how the plants seemed to have become far more agitated, with the world tree sounding scared, telling him how the stone wanted to go home but also wanted to destroy everything. That its anger wasn't restrained, and how it seemed to have grown even angrier that he had touched the core, like doing so had wronged it.
Chris looked at the root, noting how it was visibly shaking, before looking around the village, noticing how the other plants had also seemingly become on edge.
"The damn thing's signaling the dungeon, and something or someone is responding to it. It's got the plants on edge, and even I feel upset and I'm starting to feel sick holding this thing."
Sera watched the exchange with a raised eyebrow. "You got all that just from holding the core? Or was it the plants talking to you and telling you all of that? What, do you have some kind of dryad blood in you and it's rejecting the core? It would explain the faint barky look I saw you have the other day when the light caught you."
"A bit of both. And no, I am one hundred percent human. It could be from…" His gaze drifted to the root before shaking his head. "Never mind. We can focus on that later. First, we need to focus on this. Look around, and you will see the plants are reacting to this thing in a bad way, same as me." The feeling of wrongness seemed to steadily grow as he held it in his hand. Like it was both rejecting him and pulling something from him at the same time, all while reaching out to the dungeon. "The old man told me the dungeon's been acting wrong for a long time now, that there's been beasts coming out that shouldn't, and before his end, he mentioned their numbers not making sense."
Sera considered this. "Which means just putting the core back won't fix anything. And if it's as wrong as you seem to believe, it might just make things worse instead."
They sat in silence for a long moment. The core pulsed steadily in Chris's hand before he took a strip of leather and wrapped the core with it, letting out a breath of relief as he no longer had to touch it.
It was then that the greedy voice, the faint whisper that had fed his fear and then his greed, the little voice that had remained silent for so long, began to scratch at the back of his mind, urging him to keep the core for himself, that he could use it somehow, make it a source of power.
Chris's jaw tightened as he shook his head, shoving and blocking out those thoughts and drowning the voice back out in the same way he'd learned to shove down fear and guilt and all the other things that threatened to overwhelm him in the past.
"No," he said aloud, causing Sera, who had already noticed something out of place, to blink before narrowing her eyes ever so slightly. "No what? Did the plants try to tell you to do something?"
"Huh? Oh, uh, no. It's nothing." He said slowly, his gaze falling onto the leather-wrapped core as another shiver ran through him. "I think it's best if you keep that thing. You should manage to keep it safer than I can, since you don't have any reaction to it or it towards you."
Sera looked at the small bundle before carefully picking it up and looking at him. "Are you sure? If this thing is as dangerous as you say—"
"I'm sure!" He cut her off, perhaps a bit harsher than he intended. "Yes, I'm sure. I don't want to risk my plants having a reaction to that thing. We will figure out what to do with it. We will be taking this step by step and plan things out properly. We're not rushing into anything." He said firmly before whispering almost too low to hear. "Not this time."
He walked toward the lilies and daisies, taking a handful of berries from each before moving to the cloud tree, not even waiting for Sera's response. Right now he needed some space to think about what came next, along with something to help deal with the niggling voice in his mind. The little world tree's root stayed behind and followed her as she walked a separate direction, curious and cautious at the same time. Clearly interested in the core itself, yet also clearly scared, choosing to keep an eye on it and Sera in case she did start having a reaction from it.
The cloud tree's mist settled over him as he approached, cooling him in a familiar way. Its voice drifting through his mind with clear concern. Telling him that the core felt like the bad man who hurt him but far worse, as if the bad man had gotten badness from it.
Chris leaned against its trunk, closing his eyes while letting out a tired sigh before eating a few of the berries. "I figured that. It's literally a trope I remember reading a while back. If I return the core, it would cause untold issues, maybe even cause whatever wrongness in the area to spread. But if I keep it here, then it will just cause more problems."
He could practically feel the rest of his plants listening in now. The cacti, who he felt bad for neglecting, asked him what he planned to do about it, while the strangle vines asked if they could eat it or try destroying it.
With another tired sigh, he looked towards the dungeon while eating the rest he had in hand. "I honestly don't know yet. I'm actually tempted to just have Sera head out to one of the empires or whatever town is closest and drop it there. But whatever we decide, it will be something we all agree to. I don't trust myself right now, not so soon after having touched it." He added, flexing the hand that held it, a faint echoing feeling still lingering but purely on the hand that had held the stone now.
The cloud tree hummed softly as the ancient ent warned him about waiting too long. Around the village, the other plants seemed to settle after listening to his words, as if his words had eased their tension ever so slightly. Even the flowers had begun to sing far earlier than normal, while the gympie vines across the walls let out their faint aroma to try and help him.