Brammelwurz in the Glimmer Bog of Backspores

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It was said that the Glimmer Bog was the place where thoughts take root when they are forgotten. Not a place for strolls, not a place for collectors. And yet, Brammelwurz stepped cautiously into the twilight swamp, where the light came not from the sun, but from the spores that drifted in the air like luminous dreams. A feathery mist lay over the ground, tinged with silvery threads that wrapped around ankles like whispering memories. Spiraling ferns and knotted root shapes sprouted from the earth everywhere, as if the bog itself had decided to allow its thoughts to grow. Brammelwurz stopped, pulled his red cloak tighter around his shoulders, and reached to his side. There hung a small jar of shimmering blue glass, carefully corked. Inside: a backspore. Tiny, barely visible, but full of weight. It wasn't his. It had once accidentally wandered into his collection in the Fennbirn spore library—a memory that clung to him like a strange scent on an old jacket. Now it had grown restless. It hummed in his sleep, turned in his thoughts, and whispered words that were not his. "I'll take you home," he murmured. The moor answered with a distant sound, somewhere between a bell toll and the deep buzz of insects. Then something moved in the mist: a creature made of burl and swathes, its eyes like shimmering drops of resin. It didn't approach, but Brammelwurz sensed it was testing him. Not a guardian in the usual sense—more a manifestation of the place itself. "I don't come to take," he said aloud, "only to give." That was enough. The mist parted, and a narrow path became visible—made up of floating islands of moss, connected by threadlike strands of spores that glowed with each step. Brammelwurz followed the path, while glowing bat-creatures circled above him—micabats, fluttering silently as if they themselves were made of spores. They appeared and disappeared with each breath. Hours or minutes—time lost its contours in the mica bog—later, he reached a clearing in the center of which sat a massive tree stump. No ordinary tree, but the Aeon Tree, whose roots converged like claws into a funnel: the Root Funnel. Here, it was said, forgotten spores rediscovered their origin. Or their beginning. Brammelwurz knelt down. He carefully removed the cork. An almost silent sigh echoed through the glass. The re-spore rose into the air, swirled briefly above the funnel, and then sank slowly, almost reverently, into the depths. A soft, deep tone filled the clearing, audible not with the ears, but with the soul. A sound like the awakening of an ancient name. Suddenly, all was silent. Even the mica bats paused. Brammelroot knew he had given back something that should never have been his—and received something that couldn't be expressed in words. No thanks, no gift. Just a delicate inner balance that was quietly restoring itself. And a thought taking shape: