A thrill ripples through Nemetona as the leviathan like [Rotifer] joins it in song, Nemetona doesn't remember much of its existence before, but it's soul seems to remember having a lot of those new neurons.
It's new plasmodial arteries are more than ready to transport building blocks anywhere across Nemetona. The [Slime Mold] had only joined them shortly before the [Rotifer], but it's enthusiasm had quickly made it a well loved partner as it distributed nutrients and organelles across Nemetona.
It wasn't the only new inhabitant of Nemetona, the [Duckweed] had introduced sturdy stems and leaves and while there wasn't enough light to try out photosynthesizing, they also made a great support structure for mana collection. Switching out the chlorophyll for mana organelles was easy enough.
The few fungi who joined were able to collect and digest a wide variety of foods, one of them even able to gather iron from small rust particles, needed to make the modified mana leaves.
Mosses and algea, alongside the fungi had introduced a wide variety of alternative cellular reproduction, large parts of Nemetona now dedicated to continuously mutating and combining new gene patterns.
Nemetona's song had grown from one melody to a grand symphony of shifting harmonies.
The initial design for its first brain is simple enough. Just a large number of the neurons suspended in nutrient rich slime, contained in domes of the same cylindrical lignin cell walls as the stems of mana leaves, capable of not just holding the mass of suspended neurons, but also able to help push up the slime carrying supplies for the neural clusters.
All of Nemetona's inhabitants work in an easy harmony, serenading each others strengths and kindness. Finding the impossible easy with cooperation.
Fueling them is the harder part of the equation, needing iron and sulfur to help carry oxygen, sodium, potassium, chloride and calcium to allow the neurons to signal each other and enormous amounts of glucose and mana to power them.
The cells require enormous investment, the only reason why it was even considered was the insistent pressure from Nemetona's soul, remembering the shape of the vessel it once occupied. Nemetona inhabitants lacked the ability to understand most of it individually or as a collective, but following the rhythms of it's song has already given them safety, satiety and friends.
Most of Nemetona thrums with a combination of anticipation and hunger.
"What is a [Fairy Grove]?", Titania repeats slowly, her mind seemingly miles away.
Virabell hovers over to Titania, offering her a warm mug to hold, "I called Obie, he'll be here soon, so you go get what you need, while I explain things to Scarlet before she has another panic attack".
Titania distractedly shuffles out the room, followed by Morgan and Whispers, while the pixie turns to the trembling half [Kitsune], "Right, so [Fairy Groves] are basically ecosystems where every single inhabitant is a [First Fey], outside of that they're all pretty different, because y'know. They're [Fey]" she shrugs.
"The first one is a secret only Titania and Oberon know, it was where she was born and where she wed Obie, but that is all anyone outside of them knows about it", Virabell expands with a grin, always a fan of a good mystery.
"The second one you've already seen without realizing, the [Crossroads] is a giant collection of fungal colonies that do a lot of things, among them the [Ring Network]", Virabell continued, talking about the teleportation network that connected all the various [Fey Lands]. The ones on Ursal, Glory and it's moons were only capable of teleporting information, but more grown versions that could teleport entire parades feature in a lot of [Fey] storie set in other more established solar systems.
"Numbers three through six produce a variety of esoteric goods and specialists, stuff like [Fluid Diamond Silk], [Crystalized Whimsy] or [Pink Gravity] and classes like [Butterfly Elementalist] or [Dancing Riddle Smith], nothing too interesting".
Counting along on her fingers, the [Grand Sage] continues, "The seventh one is Euphoria Falls, which holds several important criminal rehabilitation centers and produces most interstellar war material. It's the only place I've been, real nice, good food, good people and just the nicest beaches!", she recounts with a smile.
"The eight's name is a complicated formula describing the decay of mana radiation into light, but most people call it the Nerd Star, since it's a [Violet Giant Star] hosting an ecosystem of living math. You'd need a few new additions to your brain to properly understand what they're up to, but you probably know them for producing the malware that fractured the [Dominion Divine] information networks after the razing of [Sanctum] and spawning all those quantum EDM genres"
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"And I guess we'll find out about number nine today, it's starting to get interesting now", she says pointing back to the empty spot towards the back of the room. Except now, instead of empty space, there is a network of slightly pulsing yellow and orange strands of some kind of fleshy goo, sprouting thousands of tiny blue, violet and octarine leaves.
"Oh Gods, what is happening now?" Scarlet screeches as she pushes up against the window.
"It is growing", Belldrop responds while continuing to hum her four part harmony.
The pulsing yellow tendrils continue to spread along the floor as they watch, sprouting a canopy of leaves tilted towards Ember's star still burning in the middle of the room. The mass of leaves takes up nearly a fifth of the floor before it finally stops spreading.
"What now?", Scarlet asks Belldrop.
"It is still growing"
It's hard to see at first, but spread across the mass, knots of tendrils begin to bulge up, quickly at first, swelling until they're just bigger than Scarlet's head, before shrinking a bit back.
As they do, Belldrop begins to vary her song, at first just a few fluctuations in tone, but as more of the knots finish growing, she begins to add more voices, competing melodies and rhythms.
"And now?" Scarlet screams over the song.
"It is still growing", the purple leafed [Dryad] responds again, somehow still managing to sound disinterested while shouting over her own singing.
The song continues to grow in complexity and Scarlets head begins to ring with the discordant sounds, a headache builds, causing her to grab a pair of noise cancelling headphones from one of the equipment cabinets, offering a second to Virabell.
She sighs in relief when she activates the active dampening, a moment later the headphones beep to notify her of Virabell joining the voice chat channel.
"Fuck me, little Belldrop is really working her pipes today, but it's nothing to worry about hun", Virabell starts while giving Scarlet a comforting pat on the shoulder, "Just means your lovers soulmate has a lot to say".
"Yeah well, not to me, I've known them for almost four years and not one word of their existence to me!" Scarlet sneers out, surprising herself with the bitter tone. "I mean, I know they probably had their reasons, I'm being selfish, this isn't about me", she quickly adds on.
Scarlet drops down on the floor, the words draining her of the last few bits of energy, "I'm so useless, they're rebuilding themselves and all I can do is be afraid and complain".
"I don't think that's a weird feeling to have, I would be pretty hurt too if someone I was dating kept those kinda things from me", Virabell starts while hovering down to Scarlet level, "Even if they had good reasons, it would still hurt".
"Look I'm not great with all this emotional crap, that's usually Whispers, or Titania or Morgans or pretty much anyone but me's job", Virabell scratches the back of her head, "But a lot of people are way more whiny and useless than you, you even have this impressive workshop to do the metamorphosis in!"
Virabell awkwardly pats Scarlet head, "You're doing great, promise".
Scarlet takes a deep breath and tries to believe the [Grand Sage], but she mostly just feels angry at herself for never learning to listen to [The Green].
Nemetona is engulfed by chaos, the moment the first neurons started connecting in networks, they were overwhelmed with memories and knowledge to encode and integrate. Its initial design several orders of magnitude too small compared to a human brain.
The [Brains] had only started to sift through that knowledge to figure out a better way to organize neural matter, before the outside world began demanding parts of their attention.
While most of the inhabitants of Nemetona are busy with the construction of thinking organs, the growing population of [Rotifers] are being preyed upon by a herd of [Moss Piglets]that seem deaf to Nemetona's song.
The genetic variety in the breeding patches has grown larger than what can be stored in a single genome, entire genus's at risk of starvation because there is no way to track the nutrients they need.
With the amount of mana leaves grown, the resonance of another song is heard, just as the [Brains] become conscious of three other songs from within Nemetona's soul quietly humming.
And as the outer filaments of Nemetona reach closer to the light and mana emanating from the star in the center of them room, there is a hole that instantly leeches away all the warmth and mana of anything that crosses its threshold.
As the individual inhabitants of Nemetona focus on their own separate emergencies and the [Brains] each begin their own line of thought, dissonance grows in their greater song, some melodies peter out before they reach the whole of Nemetona's inhabitants and the unified theme of the song begins to waver.
Because of their nature, the neural networks are the first to notice the growing disharmony and realize the growing disaster. They start to parse the memories they have transcribed and despite their fragmentary nature, they come across a concept steeped with emotions of calm and stability.
[Tree]
The memory is filled with holes, but their [System], still brimming with the resources intended for ecosystems spanning celestial bodies, reacts to the ability to support Nemetona the same way water reacts to a hole in a dam.
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