134. New Growth

Among the roots of the towering petrified trees of the Arboretum of Memory, you find what can only be saplings growing. They are slight, slender things, with only a few trunks and branches holding up shining greenish-purple leaves. But in them, you can see the reflection of the giants around you.

You study the trees further and see that each of the saplings has roots that stretch off across the ground, holding onto the surface of the soil with feathery growths. Intrigued, you follow one of these roots to the wall of the Arboretum of Memory. You expect to see the root shrink and end, or maybe be trying to burrow into a crack in the wall.

What you do not expect is the root growing up into the electronics on the wall, meshing and blending with them. Every so often, blips, symbols, and information ripple across flowsteel there, passing across the flowsteel and down toward the root. You look long and hard at the lone root as suspicions begin to grow in your mind.