The Gardener's Embrace

A vast shape descended — a being made entirely of woven branches and blossoms, thirty feet tall and yet weightless.

The First Gardener.

Its voice was neither male nor female. Not speech, but vibration.

“You carry the seed,” it said. “Of what we were. Of what we lost.”

“I don’t want to rule Verdara,” Zari said. “I want to restore it. I want to help others play again.”

The Gardener knelt.

A flower bloomed at Zari’s feet.

From it, a sphere emerged — glowing with green fire.

The Verdant Core.

“Take it,” the Gardener said. “But beware — this realm is not alone. There are other lost courses. Other hearts waiting. And not all will welcome balance.”

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Epilogue: The Verdant League

Back at the League Tower, the team gathered around the Core.

Mike looked at the others. “We started as players. We became protectors. Now…”

“We’re something more,” Riven finished.

Zari stepped forward, placing the Core in the League’s central chamber.

Vines sprouted instantly, curling up the walls, humming with possibility.

“The game,” she said, “has just begun to grow again.”

In the weeks following the return from Verdara, the League Tower transformed. Vines crept through its ancient halls, not in decay, but in revival. The structure hummed with a new energy — not raw power, but balance, harmony. The Verdant Core sat in a cradle of light beneath the League Tree, feeding it with something older than rulebooks, older than even the Guardians.

But the peace did not last.

Zari stood one morning before the Core, her hand brushing its surface. A jolt of energy pulsed through her — not pain, but urgency. She gasped as visions poured into her mind.

Flickering greens. Shattered cups. Phantom players locked in endless loops.

Laughter that curdled into screams.

A scream she recognized.

Mira.

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Mira had vanished three days ago.

At first, no one worried — her echoes often wandered into realms beyond the veil, scouting or reflecting. But now, she hadn’t returned. Not even a flicker.

The Core had shown Zari the truth — Mira was trapped.

Mike stood beside her, fists clenched. “Where?”

Zari turned slowly. “A broken course. One the League doesn’t remember. One that remembers us.”

Riven looked up sharply. “You’re talking about the Shard Courses.”

Zari nodded.

There were whispers, even in the oldest scrolls — of courses so warped by greed, betrayal, and forgotten play that they were cut from the official record. Worlds the Guardians had buried, hoping they’d rot away. But they hadn’t. They’d festered.

Nova stepped forward. “Then we go. All of us.”

Zari hesitated. “No. These courses don’t follow the Game. They punish it. If we all go in, we may never get back out.”

Mike’s voice was steady. “So who goes?”

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They entered the rift at twilight, where the wind howled through cracked marble columns — the remains of a once-glorious arena course. Mira’s echoes had traced here before her disappearance.

Mike, Zari, Riven, and Nova crossed the threshold.

They stepped onto a green that shimmered like shattered glass.

Immediately, the realm reacted.

The fairway convulsed, reshaping. Trees twisted backward. Flags bled light. The air was thick with ghost echoes — players lost to time, swinging endlessly in loops, trapped in their final putts.

A ghostly announcer's voice rang out from nowhere, broken and glitched:

“Welcome back to… Hollowwind. Where winning is survival. And losing is eternal.”

The green beneath them shifted again — and they were no longer standing together.

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Mike: Hole of Regret

He stood on a lonely green with no hole in sight.

Just one ball. One club.

A scoreboard hovered above — tallying nothing but his failures. Missed shots. Broken promises. Moments of doubt.

"Your weakness is hesitation," the voice said.

A shadow rose from the green — a twisted version of Mike, hesitating mid-swing.

Mike stepped forward. “I’m not afraid of failure.”

The shadow grinned. “Then prove it.”

He struck the ball. Not with perfection — but with purpose.

The swing echoed with heart, not fear. The scoreboard shattered.

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Zari: Hole of Control

Zari faced a spiraling green that bent in impossible directions. The course moved constantly, reshaping mid-swing.

“Control the course,” a voice whispered. “Tame it.”

Vines lashed out as she moved forward. Her instincts told her to fight them, to shape them.

But then she remembered Verdara.

She dropped her stance. Opened her palms. Let the course move.

Instead of resisting, she listened.

The vines parted.

A single green appeared, lit with a calm, natural glow.

She didn’t need to control it. Just understand it.

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Riven: Hole of Power

Riven stood in a coliseum of flame.

Thousands of shadowy figures watched as a molten green burned before him. In the center, a throne made of clubs. On it — himself, clad in black armor, wielding the Staff of Varro in its corrupted form.

“You could rule,” his darker self said. “Bend the game. Rewrite it. You’ve tasted it already.”

Riven lowered his head.

“I don’t want to rule the game.”

He raised his staff — not as a weapon, but as a symbol.

“I want to play it right.”

The fire died. The throne crumbled. His path cleared.

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Nova: Hole of Isolation

Nova hovered above a fractured green broken into a thousand floating pieces. No team. No backup. Just void.

This course didn’t attack. It reflected.

Visions of the past — of times she’d gone it alone, believing she had to. Believing connection made her weak.

Her younger self hovered across the gap.

“You don’t need them,” the echo said. “You never did.”

Nova gritted her teeth.

“No,” she said quietly. “But that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t choose them.”

With a single thought, her telekinetic field surged. The shattered course pulled together, forming a bridge.

She ran across.

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At the end of the course, the four reunited on a floating platform, high above a vortex of broken greens.

There, suspended in midair like a glitch in space — was Mira.

She flickered in and out of visibility, her echoes spinning in chaos around her.

“Help me!” she cried, voice disjointed.

Zari stepped forward, Core in hand.

The Verdant light shone out, stabilizing Mira’s echoes.

But something pushed back — a force deeper in the Shard. A presence ancient and malicious.

Not the Corruptor.

Something else.

“You pulled the weed…” the voice hissed. “But the roots run deeper.”

Zari’s eyes went wide.

Mike tightened his grip on his club. “What the hell was that?”

Riven’s voice was grim.

“That wasn’t just a broken course. That was something buried.”

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Epilogue: Fracture Below

Back at League Tower, Mira lay resting in the Echo Chamber, stabilized but shaken. Her whispers told of a deeper network — dozens of broken courses, forgotten by history, chained together in a web of decay.

And beneath them all — something the League never dared speak of.

The Rootbound Vault.

Where the first sin of the game had been buried.

Where not just rules were broken…