The Heartroot Vision

The mirror goes dark, and the image flickers, eventually settling on starlight. You’re looking up at a starlit landscape that seems to undulate like a wave—but it looks like land. Then there’s a flash of light of some kind, but it registers in your eyes as almost the absence of darkness, rather than bright light itself. It’s something like you’ve never experienced before. The light begins to shoot upward from the center of the image you’re seeing, and the land pulls apart, then slowly begins to settle into form. As it does, you can tell that, while you’re looking from very far away, you can also somehow see clearly.

The land splits apart, and you see a line of light shooting upward. Even though you are far away, you’re also somehow close, and you see, growing out of the middle of this split in the land, the same bioluminescent, filamentous, white, multicolored strands crawling upward from within. Wellby—after you stare at this for a moment—you realize something. The line being pulled apart, the light shooting upward, the reshaping of the land itself—you recognize it. From maps you’ve studied, you realize it’s the exact pattern of the Istaros.

As you watch, riotous colors wash across the landscape, followed by a strange sense of separation—like layers of bubbles pulling apart, films of color peeling away from the world below, some expanding and growing while others burst and pop in flashes of indescribable color. Meanwhile, the only thing still illuminated is the light shining upward through the formation of the Istaros. You see those filamentous, glowing lines spreading outward along its length.

After this moment of creation, the image shifts, blurring rapidly through years upon years. The perspective never changes. The only constant—always at the center, where the greatest density of the filaments once were—is green and alive. Winters pass, droughts come and go, the land shifts, but that heart remains.

You keep watching in the mirror, and you see again this passing of years and seasons — long stretches of time, the land growing and shrinking, always changing. But always, there’s this fertile ribbon along the upper Istaros, where Isingue is, or was, still standing, though it is now in ruins.

The image begins to drift down, closer and closer to the river itself. As your perspective zooms in, you can see it everywhere — in the soil, in the dirt — this richness, this pulse of life. What was once tightly contained — maybe in a ten-foot cube — is now free, stretching out along dozens of miles of the river, spreading up from the banks. The mirror shows that vibrancy, that living pulse.

Then the image shifts again. You see hobgoblins. You see the city of Isingue — not a big city, more like a large town — settled in rich agricultural valleys: small villages, vineyards, orchards, golden fields of wheat — everything lush and abundant. And then: hobgoblin armies marching. Converging on the city. Fighting. The city under siege. The scene plays like a sped-up animation — and then red mist begins to spread along the river. People dying by the hundreds, the thousands, tens of thousands. Fleeing in all directions.

You catch one stuttering image — something being shaken, twisted, then grabbed. Carefully, with reverence, but still yanked from its home. The mirror’s image spins around a dozen times, disorienting you, until finally you’re looking up at the sky.

Now the world feels smaller — the vast, open visions from before are gone. Instead of looking down on a wide, living world, you’re in a confined space of earth, looking up at a narrow patch of sky. There’s no sense of expansion anymore, no growth or vitality. Time passes strangely — seasons flicker by, days and nights wheel past — but there’s no real sense of how long.

Then the image stops. You see a jade figure standing in the valley — a wizard — looking up at the sky, speaking softly to it. He’s talking about the monks he’s met, how they’ve also seen the dangers of the remnants of Cha’mutte’s Plague. He thinks they’ll help. He’s worried about reaching Isingue alone, but with their support, it can be done. “The prison is stable,” he says. “Dimitar is watching it. We have a moment.” A voice answers from above, though you can’t see lips or hear words. You can tell it’s worried: that the hobgoblins might learn too much too soon. That if they uncover the secrets of isingue, they might discover the last relic of the Heartroot. Then comes planning — talk of an expedition, of closing a portal to Limbo that was opened by Cha’mutte’s death. Maybe sealing that breach would help.

And then, the image fades. The vision ends.