Lira keeps the lanterns that warm the branches of Heartwood, a city grown inside a gentle, sleeping tree.
Brom tends the stone-forges under Heartwood, hammering gears that help the tree-city hum and settle each night.
One dawn the lanterns began to wink out, and the city’s steady heartbeat—the soft creaks and hum—grew thin and unsure.
Lira and Brom meet at the Great Knot and argue for a moment—elves think in songs, dwarves in metal—but then they agree to search the roots together.
They follow a whispering map that curls on its own, leading them past root-arches and pools of glowing moss.
A gate of braided vines blocks their way and murmurs a riddle; the path shifts like a slow tide, testing their patience and wit.
Heartwood itself creaks and nudges a root-bridge to help them, as if the city knows they are searching for something needed, not just taken.
At one narrow tunnel Brom has to wriggle through a low stone gap—upside down—and Lira bursts into laughter as moss sprinkles him like confetti.
Deep below, they find a hollow where a faint pulse waits—locked by a puzzle of iron leaves that needs both dwarf hands and elf song.
When the lock opens, the light they expected is not a stone at all but a tiny Glowbeetle—coin-sized, timid, and blinking awake with a shy, living glow.
The beetle trembles; it will only brighten when it knows it belongs somewhere and when voices and hands are shared, not kept apart.
A sudden tremor shakes the hollow—the root-bridge quivers—and they must choose to rush back to safety or carry the tiny light across a trembling span.
Together they return the Glowbeetle to Heartwood’s heart; its light spreads through the sap-lines and the city awakens with new music and warmth.
The surprising secret heart of the problem was not theft but loneliness—the city all at once needed voices and shared hands, and the beetle chose to shine for that.
Lira and Brom open a workshop where song and metal meet—maps pinned to the wall, tiny bells and lanterns on a shared bench—and the city hums better than before.
From then on, Heartwood learned to listen and to share—small lights and shared hands kept the city warm, and the Glowbeetle hummed each night like a tiny, contenting bell.
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