MATH BLAST
🍄 THE ARRAY FOREST

Blaze had been following the trail of clues. Footprints in Branchwick. Wrong divisions in Fernmoss. Tangle learning grouping patterns at the Cascade Festival. Each one pointing deeper into the jungle — and now she was here.

The Array Forest was the most sacred site in the Verdant Canopy: trees planted in perfect rectangular rows and columns by ancient Sprocket mathematicians. But someone had moved through it. Rows were broken. Trees were missing from their positions.

A small Sprocket named Keeper Moss met her at the entrance, clutching a scroll of records. "If we cannot verify the arrays, our entire history is lost. Three hundred and twenty-four trees — four equal rows. Can you tell me how many per row?"

Blaze worked through the forest with Keeper Moss, checking each array against the ancient records. Every tree in its place — or it wasn't.

"The second array: four hundred and fifty-five trees in five equal rows. Let me calculate."

As she worked, Blaze kept noticing something. Vine bundles, left behind. Always in groups of ten.

"Ten again," she murmured. "Whatever has been through here — it's left its signature."

At the heart of the forest stood the prestige arrays — the oldest and most precise plantings of all. These were the ones Keeper Moss feared most for.

"This array is complex. Three hundred and seventy-eight trees in nine equal rows. The pattern must be perfect."

And then Blaze saw it. Not a tree array — a vine array. Two hundred and forty-six vines, arranged in three neat bundles.

"This is not damage," Blaze said slowly. "This is creation. Whatever has been moving through the Array Forest isn't disturbing it — it's adding to it."

At the far edge of the clearing, something enormous shifted in the shadows. Blaze stayed very still.

Keeper Moss was ready to declare the records restored. But Blaze hadn't moved. She was still watching the edge of the clearing.

Then she did something that surprised even herself. She reached out her hand.

The enormous shape didn't run. Slowly — very slowly — it moved forward. And then it set something down at her feet. A bundle of ten vines, perfectly tied.

"It's been trying to help," Blaze said softly. "This whole time. It just didn't know how."