021

Beginning Again

The tallest tree in the forest surrounding Willow Hollow was a brilliant, silvery thing with black, sharply angled leaves. The vast majority of the tree was devoid of branches or handholds, only the highest part expanding into a black, bushy shape.

Which raised the question of how exactly Seskii had managed to get up there.

She chuckled. “The world may never know…” She let out a big yawn and stretched her limbs, but she did not get up from her reclining position among the dark, unusual foliage. From here she could see most of Willow Hollow, though a good chunk of it was blocked by trees of much more normal height and coloration. The sun had risen about an hour ago and was still casting long shadows over the morning scenery. Clumps of fog drifted through the trees, a somewhat rare but not unexpected sight at this high of an elevation. Mount Cascade was almost completely covered in the gray fluff, but Seskii could still see a Red spark from the Seekers’ camp.

One place that was not covered in fog was Vaughan’s cabin, the closest structure to Seskii’s tree. The Magenta loop on top of it flickered like it always had, but there were no explosions or trails of smoke going into the air. This by itself wasn’t that unusual, Vaughan didn’t blow something up every day.

However, it had been a week, and nothing had happened at that cabin.

Seskii produced a sprig of wheat and started chewing on it. She took in a deep breath, letting the cold air flow into her lungs and send tantalizing shivers through her body. Tilting her head back, she stared into the sky.

“The things that are out there…” she said, holding her hand into the air and watching how the shadows of her fingers danced across her palm. “I wonder how far we will go?” She curled her finger into a circle and pointed it at a seemingly empty part of the sky, using her other hand to create another hole, as though she had made a telescope out of her hands. This amused her significantly.

She liked it in moments like this. Where the world was slow, and everything in existence seemed to just stop to take it all in. The wonder of creation itself.

It was possible to stay here forever. Or, at least, a very long time. Going over every fine detail of the atmosphere’s beautiful color to the fantastical variety of cloud shapes, to…

“Oh, all right,” Seskii said, sitting up and shaking her head. “I guess it is about time for me to kick them out of their moping.” She quickly jumped up and gave a thumbs up gesture. “Seskii is on the case!”

~~~

Alexandrite stood at the edge of Willow Hollow, looking into the sleepy town that he had left just under a week ago.

Nothing had happened in that week. No further advances in the Space Program. No more mysterious purple beams. And yet, he still hadn’t filed his full report back to Gronge.

Why hadn’t he?

Even he wasn’t really sure. Maybe he didn’t want to think about what he would put in that letter.

What would the angler think about a girl that couldn’t die?

What did he think about the girl that couldn’t die?

He growled, pushing the annoying thoughts out of his mind. He’d worry about that when he no longer had a choice, no use letting it gnaw at him now. He checked his bags, looking for a very particular scroll that was likely going to be of interest.

There was a pink card sticking out of his pack that hadn’t been there before.

Big Celebration at Vaughan’s Cabin Noon TODAY! Free Food!

There was no question in Alexandrite’s mind who had done this.

He narrowed his eyes at the card.

~~~

“And then I said… and then I said…” Krays slumped forward, slamming her face into the bar. Then she started snoring.

The barkeep, a tall human woman, frowned. Nobody drank themselves this silly this early in the morning. Most mornings she had the entire place to herself; Willow Hollow wasn’t big on drinking to begin with.

But every now and then, Krays would walk in… though usually in the evening.

Suddenly, Krays shot bolt upright, gripping the edge of the countertop. “I was saying something. What was it?”

“You were telling me about the best insult you ever told.”

“…Frick. I don’t remember. Uh. It was amazing, though, you better bet!”

The barkeep was unphased. “There’s something stuck to your forehead.”

Krays tapped her forehead and pulled off a pink card.

Big Celebration at Vaughan’s Cabin Noon TODAY! Free Food!

“…Yes, freaking finally!” Krays shouted, putting a foot on the countertop. “I have been waiting for someone to do something because nobody listens to the glassblower! Hah!” She threw some coins on the bar and left.

The barkeep looked down at the coins. Somehow, she had managed to underpay, despite that being a statistical improbability. But there was no way she was sober enough to do that intentionally, right?

~~~

Big G pushed a minecart along the rails. He was one of the few people working today—most were currently at the Sanctuary for one of the meditation services. He usually found great worth in those.

He didn’t feel like going today, though.

Today, he felt like working.

Pushing minecarts into the mine. Loading up crystals. Taking them out to be sorted. Rinse. Repeat. Since there were so few people on duty, there wasn’t actually much managing for him to do. He could work just like the rest of his boys.

He finished pushing the cart, arriving at several others he had loaded today. He spent a moment looking them over. A flash of pink caught his eye.

Big Celebration at Vaughan’s Cabin Noon TODAY! Free Food!

“…What is she thinking…?”

~~~

Mary pulled a purple carrot out of her garden.

It wasn’t supposed to be purple, but that was fine. Such things happened to farmers as experimental as her. She was fairly certain it wasn’t poisonous.

Probably.

She’d probably feed it to a rabbit first. She had too many of those.

After completing pulling up the carrots—there had been precisely one purple one—she went to a grove of happy peaches, all of which were humming quietly. Very few of them were anywhere close to mature enough to even consider eating, but one particularly quick-to-grow specimen had a pink card on its head.

Big Celebration at Vaughan’s Cabin Noon TODAY! I told them there was free food. Help me. Please. This was followed by a drawing of Seskii looking sheepish.

Mary sighed and shook her head but smiled nonetheless. “You little rascal…”

~~~

Suro met his wife as she walked out of the Sanctuary. “So, did you get one too?” He said, holding up a pink card between his claws.

Lila smirked. “I somehow didn’t notice until the very end of the session, but it had been on the podium the entire time.”

“I was sitting on it.”

“And you didn’t notice?”

“No. I’m almost a hundred percent sure it wasn’t there when I sat down.”

“She’s a master of her craft. Remember, she’s a saleswoman. She has to have quick hands and a quick wit.”

“Do you think it’s a good time, though?”

“Something needed to be done.” Lila looked up to the sky. “I am somewhat ashamed that I wasn’t the one to move first. We all know we have to keep going. I should have been the one to say something.”

“…Maybe it would have felt like an order, coming from you.”

“Maybe.” She curled her tail around his. “So, let’s go, why don’t we?”

~~~

Blue sat at the base of the forest’s diamond oak, the very same tree where she had first met Jeh.

Most everyone was under the impression that she was just coming here to reminisce, think, and get away from it all. And, to be fair, the first two days had been like that.

But she just couldn’t let it all sit, unworked on. Even when everyone else was in a funk and she knew that she wasn’t doing too great either, it gnawed at her.

The puzzles.

The numbers.

This was how she ended up sitting at the base of the diamond oak every day with hundreds of papers strewn around on the grassy ground beneath, little rocks serving as paperweights to keep anything from flying away. She had crafted a bit of a maze of papers that she could walk around and see all at once. The entire hill had become her blackboard, and what a blackboard it was. Without the confines of walls, she had been able to spread out through the landscape with pages upon pages of scribbles, numbers, and calculations…

It was far from complete, but there it was. The Moonshot design. Such a clunky piece of junk but Blue found the sketch beautiful in its own way.

She wanted to share it with everyone.

But how could she? Everyone was wandering around, lost. It was presumptuous of her to continue work on her own to begin with. None of the last week had seen any input from anyone else… What would they think if she suddenly wanted to shove it in all their faces?

She kicked her hoof on the ground, grumbling. The small motion was enough to blow up a corner of a nearby page, revealing a pink card under it. Levitating it up into the air, a smile slowly crawled up her face.

Okay, so maybe potion-seller’s good for something after all.

~~~

Vaughan woke up to the sound of… happy chatter and laughter?

He would have dismissed it as a dream but dreaming about waking up was a very unusual thought, to say the least, one that prompted him to sit up and lightly press his palms to his face. He was awake, all right. And there were happy sounds coming from downstairs.

What was going on?

He quickly put on his robe and hat and marched down the stairs, slamming his scepter into the ground much harder than he usually did. He made his way to the dining hall to quite a baffling sight.

A large banner was spread across the back wall. MISSION SUCCESS! It had a bunch of stars drawn on it and a stylized image of Ikyu. Around Ikyu was a single white ring with a dot on it.

The satellite.

Under it was the main table, absolutely covered in a wide variety of various home-grown foods of Mary’s and a large variety of brightly colored juices. Perhaps more shocking was just how… happy everyone looked.

“This is the best sobering-up drink ever!” Krays declared, staring at the glass she’d just downed in awe.

Seskii winced. “Uh… no it’s not.”

“You kidding? This… my head is so clear!” Krays laughed and slapped her knee. “Seskii, you’re my best friend!”

“I mean… yes, but you’re going to regret saying that later because of who you are…” She patted Krays on the head. “But you know what, you’re my best friend too.”

“Yaaaaaay!”

“Don’t fall asleep on me in this position, keeping you up will be difficult.”

“But fun!”

“…Also true.” Seskii pretended to fall asleep, prompting both of them to collapse onto the ground.

Elsewhere, Blue was shoving papers in Suro’s face.

“Wow, you really have been hard at work…”

“I know, right?” Blue said, tapping her hooves excitedly while she levitated a random vegetable into her mouth without even looking at it. “I’ve already got ideas on how to explain all the concepts and how it all ties together and the mission plan and eeeee I can’t wait! Oh, I was so scared for no good reason!”

“Well, if you had shown us this earlier, it might have seemed tactless. Your fears weren’t unfounded. But…” Something on the diagrams caught his eye. “…My, I am not looking forward to having to cut that.”

Even Alexandrite was in the room, though he was sitting in the corner given his size. Lila sat on his head, looking down on the room with a smug smile.

“Enjoying the view, your highness?” Alexandrite asked.

“Oh, quite. I never get to see the tops of anyone’s heads. Seskii looks so strange from above…”

“They are your subjects.”

“You really need to understand, Alex…”

“Everyone must acknowledge their authority to use it well.”

“I acknowledge it in my own way.”

“I know… I do find it quite interesting. This group is unlike most I have ever laid my eyes upon.” He looked back down at the rest of the Wizard Space Program. “So unusual… so lively.”

“I have pie!” Mary shouted, running into the room from the kitchen with a steaming hot pie. “First come first serve!”

Alexandrite swiped it up with one claw and threw it into his gullet, grinning. “Quite delicious.”

Everyone stared at him for a moment—and then burst out laughing. Even Big G, who had been utterly silent this entire time and stood away from the others, cracked a smile.

“What… is going on?” Vaughan asked. “What are we doing?”

“What’s it look like, beardy?” Krays asked. “Celebrating a successful mission! Yeeeaaaaaaaaah!”

“Is this really a time for celebration!?” Vaughan blurted. The tone in his voice prompted the cheerful talk and laughter to die down. “We just l—”

Seskii put a finger to his lips. “Ashushashush! Don’t ruin it!”

Lila nodded. “She is right, Vaughan. The time has come for us to m—”

“You too!” Seskii said, pointing a finger at Lila. “I have something I want to say.” Now, having fully grabbed everyone’s attention, she jumped onto the table, a big smile on her face. “Vaughan asked what we were doing. Well, I’ll tell you what we’re doing. We—” she gestured at the MISSION SUCCESS banner. “—are recognizing what we have accomplished! The satellite is up there! We could go out tonight and see it among the stars! The Wizard Space Program is a success! Until now, we were all moping, and for what?” She put her hands on her hips and huffed. “The Skyseed was getting old anyway! The drive needed replacing and we’re already designing a new ship. And Jeh? Are you feeling sorry for her? What do you think she wants?”

Vaughan was suddenly struck by that thought.

“She wants to go to space!” Seskii pointed her finger into the sky. “When she gets back—not if, when—don’t we want as much done as possible so we can send her back up there?”

Vaughan furrowed his brow. “But what about the beam?”

“Do you think that’ll stop her?” Seskii asked.

“…No. No, I suppose it wouldn’t…”

“So, are we going to let it stop us?”

“No!” Blue declared, stomping her hoof.

“I thought not!”

“But what can we do about it?” Vaughan shook his head. “There’s no way to protect against something like that…”

“You may not have to,” Alexandrite said, pulling a scroll out of his packs and setting it on the table. “We were not the only ones to see it. There are others who can take action.”

The scroll had the proud title of Axiom Messenger Happenings* and right at the top was the headline Purple Beam Shoots Across the Sky Twice.

*The idea of a “newspaper” hasn’t really gained much traction in Ikyu at the current time; however, there is need to keep certain individuals informed of current events, especially in large cities. The Messengers of Kroan are the primary distributors of what we would consider the “news,” and most of them need to be kept informed; thus the Axiom Messenger Happenings exists. It is a publication about major events that need circulating managed by the Messengers themselves. They view it as just another tool to make their jobs a little more efficient, not something that might be worth selling in and of itself. Yet.

The notes beneath the title were disjointed and sparse, and a few of them were written down in bullet point form, but it got the point across. Two purple beams had shot across the sky over the Kingdom of Kroan. It had originated from the Kingdom of Shimvale and went into the sky, upward and southward. King Redmind had immediately called together the advisors of Axiom to determine what had occurred. No concrete conclusions had been reached. Prince Wyett had been set out with a diplomatic entourage to the Shimvale border to figure out what was going on. The King wished to express that there was no reason to think this was an attack on Kroan, as the beam sailed through the sky. Investigations were ongoing and the Academy had been ordered to shift relevant research to uncovering the mysteries.

“They don’t know about the cube…” Vaughan realized.

“Of course they know,” both Blue and Alexandrite said at once, proceeding to glare at each other for a moment. Alex won the contest of wills, speaking up to continue the explanation. “There is no way a royal gathering had no clue about the most recent maps, they would have the cube on them. No doubt they just wish to keep such things a secret. What they don’t know about is us.”

“That’s right, we didn’t draw the maps, we just took the pictures and sold them,” Suro realized. “That… I am not sure if this is good or bad for us.”

“Should we tell them we were shot down?” Mary asked.

“I’d rather avoid getting the government involved as long as I can,” Vaughan said with a shake of his head. “Unless Alex…”

“I have said nothing,” Alex said. “Though I will eventually have to make a report to Gronge.”

“I’m surprised you haven’t yet,” Big G noted.

“So am I.”

Blue tapped her hoof on the ground. “So… the government is going to go figure out what the purple beam was, possibly dealing with our laser problem for us. Until then, we just… keep working.” She turned to Vaughan. “Right?”

Vaughan lifted up his hat slightly, still frowning. “I… I don’t know, myself. You are right, it’s what Jeh would want. But what if that cube doesn’t get dealt with?”

“We don’t have the power to do anything about that,” Big G said. “Either it will be dealt with or it won’t. We have no say in the matter.”

“Exactly!” Vaughan said, snapping his fingers. “So how can we work like there’s not a big deadly laser ready to shoot at us? The Moonshot is intended to hold more people than just Jeh, you know! And if she gets shot while in orbit…”

“So what, we stop working?” Blue said, lifting her head up. “Vaughan… I don’t think we’re capable of doing that.”

“Some of us are,” Lila said. “But I recognize in many the thirst to continue. Perhaps it shows a lack of restraint… but I myself truly believe we are doing good work. Even without a journey to the Moon, we’ve already created several useful innovations just by trying to go up. Who knows what else we will find?” She paused, closing her eyes. “And there’s something else, something I feel ashamed to say I have been neglecting. We have put ourselves up as a symbol for this town, as people doing something new. How do you think it seems to them to see us like this? Beaten down? We were giving the people something new, something hopeful and fascinating. To have it taken away… well…” she trailed off uncharacteristically.

Vaughan scratched his beard. “…I…” He noticed the gray strands in the wiry beard. He was finally starting to look like a proper wizard. But it also reminded him of something else. “…I am getting too old to wait. If I want to see the moon…” He clapped his hands together and grinned. “I have to go up! All of us do!”

Seskii grinned. “Glad you’re finally on board. Now…” she turned to Big G. “What about you, big guy?”

Big G closed his eyes, took in a deep breath—and nodded.

“Great!” Seskii cheered. “Now that everyone’s on board… who wants more celebration pie?”

“Me,” Alexandrite said.

Mary put her hands on her hips. “You’ve had plenty!”

“This stomach is barely full.”

“You can have something other than pie then.”

“Hey. Hey Seskii,” Krays said, nudging her. “Give him something… fun.”

Seskii rolled her eyes. “We do not need a drunk dragon in the cabin.”

“That sounds like exactly what we need.”

“What we need is a chalkboard!” Blue shouted. “I need to get ready for talking about the Moonshot! I’ve got soooo much done!” She scrambled off deeper into the cabin.

“I guess that’ll be the after-party show,” Seskii said with a chuckle. Mission accomplished, she thought, for now, anyway.

~~~

The stranger rode into town on what was perhaps the ugliest looking horse anyone in Willow Hollow had ever seen. It was not mangled, nor injured, but its snout was so uneven that it was incapable of fully closing its lips and one side of its face was clearly larger than the other. As were the ears, but the larger of the ears was on the smaller side of the face. The tail was so short as to almost not exist, and its coat was a dark, ugly brown reminiscent of swamp murk.

The rider was of a different sort altogether. She was a woman, though even that wasn’t exactly evident given the heavy Green wizard robes she wore. With a veil covering her face, not even her race was easy to discern—there were any number of humanoids that came in her particular size.

She drew quite a few glances from the people of Willow Hollow, but no one was overly concerned or surprised. Journeymen wizards were somewhat common within Kroan, and as a frontier town, it was only expected that one would come by every few years. That was how Vaughan himself had arrived, after all, though he had done the unusual and stayed.

The Green wizard soon rode up to the most interesting thing in town—the Launchpad. She got off her horse and kneeled down, carefully studying its construction. After a few minutes of doing this in absolute silence, she stood up and turned her gaze to a nearby tree that currently housed Ripashi, taking a drink of some foul-smelling liquid in a flask.

“Hello there,” the Green wizard said, waving at Ripashi.

“ ‘ello,” Ripashi said, wiping his eyes. “Egh… should not have taken Krays’ advice and gone out drinking…”

“Sounds like advice from someone like her leaves much to be desired.”

“You have no idea…”

“I might.” She put her arms behind her back, prompting her robes to billow around her. “Since you’re here, can you tell me what exactly this is?”

“That’s the Launchpad. The Wizard Space Program launches their things from there. Or, well, they did, until they were shot down by that purple beam a week ago.”

“My… I’m not quite sure how to respond to that sentence, but I am quite fascinated. Where can I find this… Wizard Space Program?”

“Vaughan’s cabin, that way. If they’re in the mood. They might not be.” He sighed. “It’s been a rough couple of days.”

“Then I shall leave you to your recovery, though as I go, I will offer a bit of advice of my own.” She lifted up her hat so he could look into her eyes. “Perhaps make yourself scarce, you have just told a complete stranger things she probably didn’t need to know, things that your friends may not appreciate if they learned they came from you.”

Ripashi stood bolt upright, which prompted him to fall out of the tree. He still had enough awareness to spread his wings to keep from breaking any bones, but he still ended up in a heap on the ground.

“You really have been quite helpful, though, don’t feel too bad.” She turned her back to him and walked off toward Vaughan’s cabin.

“W-wait! Who are you?”

She didn’t respond. She took a book out of her robes and started reading it as she walked, tuning him out.

~~~

“Okay, so!” Blue slapped a stick on the blackboard where she had hung her sketches of the Moonshot and the plans for Operation Lunacy. “I think I’ve got something close to the final design for the mission and the ship here. At least the theoretical parts, anyway, the actual machining and fine-tuning of the parts is out of my purview and you all know it.” She twirled the stick around in her telekinesis and grinned. “First of all the mission plan.”

Rather than point at the blackboard, Blue levitated up several dozen pages of paper all at once, all of them sewn together in some kind of quilt that showed Ikyu and the moon and all the space in between them with lots of little lines. “This is for scale. We often draw Ikyu and the moon really close together but hah is that wrong. I’ve been drawing them as dots on my quick diagrams since it’s easier that way, but here you can see their size. The moon is about a fourth the diameter of Ikyu, but the distance between them you could fit twenty-five Ikyus into it! That’s looooong. Fortunately, there’s nothing to slow us down in space so we can go absurdly unimaginably fast. If we were confident in our piloting skills we could probably get to the moon in a day. If we didn’t mind having the moon flatten us like a pancake because it’s whizzing around through space at ridiculous speeds.

“So this is where the plan comes in! Step 1!” She pointed at Ikyu. “Get far away from Ikyu. Here, I have us going straight up until there’s a full Ikyu diameter between us and Ikyu. This is because I want breathing room in case we mess up. You’d be surprised how quickly you can smash into Ikyu without any chance of slowing down enough to keep anything intact.” She held up numerous papers that she’d drawn orbital paths on, so many of which crashed right back into Ikyu. “We want long times to correct our mistakes, so we’re making sure to get them.

“Once we reach the ‘safety’ height, we begin the transfer maneuver.” She pointed at a large, curved path that extended most of the way to the moon. “Rather than what we did with the satellite, we are going to ease our way into the orbit we want. We’ll gradually go from a straight shot away from Ikyu to an orbit somewhat smaller than the moon’s.” She gestured at the big circle that went off the page. “Now, if we time this right, we’ll arrive in that orbit about the same time the moon is nearby. And by ‘nearby’ I mean ‘an entire Ikyu diameter away.’ After we’re in our orbit and the moon is on approach comes the hard part.”

“This hasn’t been hard yet?” Mary asked, eyes wide.

“Haha, I wish.” Blue sighed. “See, in the realm of math, I’ve been able to make perfection in these orbits. We go out, line up with the moon, go to it, scrape a rock off, and get away. But I know we’re not going to be that precise and are going to have to make numerous adjustments on the fly. It’s not quite so easy to crash into the moon as Ikyu since it’s not actively pulling on us, but it’s still moving really fast and if we don’t get our speed just right there’s a huge chance of going splat. So the hardest step is to inch closer and closer to the moon, trying to keep pace with it, but only tangentially—we want to just barely nudge up against it so we can get our sample. We’ll also have to deviate from the circular orbit quite a bit, since the moon’s not going the speed we’ll be going out there. At least, so far as we know. Freaky stuff might happen out there, nobody’s ever tried to go there. Another reason to give us large windows to correct our mistakes.”

“How large are we talking?” Vaughan asked.

“I can give you multiple days for every maneuver if you want, but this mission as I’ve outlined it here is running on a six-day timescale—three there, three back. Most of that is purposefully giving us room to make corrections. As I said before, we could get there in under a day if we were confident in shooting ourselves like a bullet.” She flicked her ears. “Anyway, we have no idea at all what we’re going to find on the moon so there’s a big ‘question mark’ on what we do while we’re there, but we’re expecting to use Orange to get some rocks into the ship via Vaughan’s airlock which I’ll get to in a minute, Vaughan, don’t jump ahead.”

Vaughan lowered his hand sheepishly.

“Post moon-encounter we’ve got to go back. What I’ve determined the best thing to do is basically the reverse of what we did to get to the moon. We separate from the moon and start gradually going inward. However, we’re not going to crash into the surface of Ikyu, we’re going to enter orbit around it.” She pointed at a circle she had drawn around Ikyu. “And once we’re in orbit, we wait until Willow Hollow is close by and then we hit the brakes, turning our orbit into a drop, and then we descend like we normally would.” She grinned widely. “And that’s how insanity gets accomplished, folks!”

There were a series of claps from the Program—some more sarcastic than others.

“Get to the ship!” Krays called.

“Fine, fine, Moonshot.” Blue dropped her tapestry of orbits and returned to the blackboard, pointing at the main design for Moonshot. It was a spherical craft with six large, reinforced circular windows set equidistant from each other. These windows formed the vertices of eight sections, and in the middle of each section was a large round sphere attached to the craft by a thick rod.

“These spheres are the newest part of the design,” Blue said. “The Skyseed had the two brass discs to hold onto. The Moonshot is going to be a hunk of metal without much to grab onto. These spheres are handles for Orange to push and adjust our orientation. They’re made out of plast to keep things lightweight and so if something hits them their function doesn’t really diminish—you just need to grab onto it, if it gets a hole it’s not gonna be a problem. However, everything else on the ship needs to be protected from debris. But we also need windows. So…”

“Ooooh, is this my part?” Krays asked. “The part that makes all the rest of yours seem silly?”

Blue rolled her eyes. “Yes. This is Krays’ shielding.” Blue stuck another piece of paper onto the blackboard, showing the shell of the Moonshot and how it was composed of three consecutive layers. “Everything on the outside, be it the metal shell or the glass windows, has three layers held together by rod support structures, even the windows. This will make them a little annoying to see out of because of all the light refraction, but we can run experiments to figure out how to compensate for that in order to navigate. Vaughan, your airlock is going to have to have a triple-reinforced door as well. Also, that door is going to be the only opening in the ship. Everything else needs to be absolutely sealed. If there are any air leaks, we’re going to have a problem, considering how long we plan to be up there.”

“There are a lot of problems for long-term habitation of anywhere inhospitable,” Big G pointed out.

“And that’s what the first interior level is for!” Blue said. “Just behind the shell is the first layer, which is nothing but storage. It holds food, water, supplies, tools, extra crystals, and a few interesting things. First of all, I remembered from my experiments on air that it’s possible to stuff more air into an area than would naturally exist there, so I have up here canisters we’ll fill with pressurized air. In case something goes wrong with the air restorer we will have an emergency supply. It won’t hold as much as the Moonshot itself, I don’t think, but it’s better than nothing. Also…” She grimaced. “This tank is to hold… uh… bathroom stuff.”

Krays snickered. “I don’t notice an actual bathroom in this design.”

“Look, this thing’s small, there’s not really going to be much in the way of privacy, it’ll just have to be dealt with,” Blue huffed. “All ‘business’ will have to be done into bags since at any given moment the Moonshot may or may not have a floor. The bags will be thrown into the waste tank and kept there until the return trip. I considered working out how to jettison it into space but, well, I can’t think of how to do it without losing more air and we’re already going to lose some just opening the airlock to get a sample in.”

“Make a trade, leave it in space next to the moon,” Big G said.

Blue blinked. “That… I’m writing that down, not a bad idea.” She quickly scribbled in a notebook. “Anyway, yes, past the shielding and storage is the actual main area, where there’s room for about four people. I think we’ll only be flying with three just to keep us from suffocating due to a lack of space to be. It’s going to be bad enough with the bathroom situation.” She shook her head, trying to push it out of her mind. “Regardless, every surface on the interior is covered in straps. Things need to be tied down since the Moonshot can move in any direction or just let itself drift, in which case we’ll be in freefall and ‘down’ will be all but a suggestion. The seats and chairs will be welded to the interior, as will all the tables. Every table will be equipped with clamps to keep paper down. Lots of the interior here is still open for suggestion, but one thing we do need is the navigation table, set up directly over… under…” Blue twisted her face into a knot. “Directly in line with one of the windows. To navigate, we will point that window at Ikyu and the moon to measure their relative sizes and determine our current position. I’m hoping someone can construct a model of the Ikyu-moon system that can go here and accurately model the moon’s motion around Ikyu as well, and Ikyu’s rotation. There are a lot of variables.”

“You’re probably the only one qualified to do that,” Krays said.

Blue grinned smugly. “Yes. I am a necessary part of the crew to the moon. I will be there plotting trajectories and analyzing position all the time to make sure we don’t blow up.”

“Which brings us, I suppose, to the center?” Suro asked.

Blue nodded. “The center is where the drive sits. It’ll require a lot of will to run at full power, but we only need full power to get away from Ikyu, once we’re in deep space basically anyone could drive the thing.”

“Except the magicless unicorn,” Krays pointed out.

“Gee, thank you for reminding me that I suck at this,” Blue deadpanned. “I can at least take shifts on the air restorer, though, that requires basically nothing. And I need to plot the path! If you just try to pull away from Ikyu directly with low will, you aren’t going anyhere. Curves are the answer.” She shook her head. “But that’s beside the point. The drive will be made out of multiple smaller drives like the one in the Skyseed, each one inside a complex casing. In this design I have a seat mounted near the center so whoever’s on pilot duty can grab hold of the drive’s controls directly and have quick response time. The Moonshot may not be able to turn its exterior very quickly for orientation purposes, but we can control what direction we accelerate nearly immediately, just rotate the drive and lock it in position.”

She took a deep breath. “And so… that is the Moonshot and Operation Lunacy. And, look, I know I had a lot of my math and work up here, but a lot of those are just ideas. Lots of the things in here were made by all of you, and still need to be refined by all of you. This is a team effort, and it’s going to have all of our blood, sweat, and tears in it by the time it’s done.”

“…What’s the bad news?” Big G asked.

“We need more information about how temperature works up in space, we might but up against the cooling problem, depending.”

Vaughan hissed.

“But that’s not the worst of it… that would be the price tag,” Blue said with a nervous laugh. “It’s, uh… pretty steep. I think it’ll be more worthwhile to build a second Skyseed first and sell more images of the stars in order to raise funds to make the thing.”

“I think you’re underestimating the cost,” Big G said. “It’ll be more than that.”

“W-well…” Blue stammered, turning to Alexandrite. “Maybe Gronge?”

“He is a fish of great means,” Alexandrite admitted. “But you should draw up a complete, well-specified diagram before asking him to directly fund something of this magnitude. He may ask for something in return, as well.”

“It just goes to show that the project’s not out of the woods yet, we’ve still got work to do,” Vaughan said. “There are a lot of devices on the Moonshot that have not been fully tested or designed. All of us should get to work on that. I’ll work on the drive with Suro, Krays and Big G I think you can handle the various physical mechanisms, Mary you need to get us food that can last forever and not drive us insane, and…”

“We’ll be here to offer moral support!” Seskii said, pulling Lila into a hug.

Lile smiled warmly. “Yes. And also, I can manage much of this. We should divvy out the various responsibilities between all of us… Blue, I need a leg-tool, a pen, and a notebook, it’s time to make a checklist.”

~~~

The Green wizard rode her extremely ugly horse up to Vaughan’s cabin. The voices inside were loud and dominated by the unmistakable sound of a woman lecturing excitedly—though the exact words were not easy to discern, and the Green wizard did not particularly wish to strain her ears right now.

Rather than go up to the front door and knock, like most visitors probably would, the wizard rode her horse around the cabin, examining its architecture. Definitely a wizard’s abode, given the Magenta crystal on top, though it was better constructed than most she’d seen. This harshly contrasted with the warzone of the backyard, which was one of the least organized messes she’d ever had the displeasure of laying her eyes on.

However, the mess told volumes of the sorts of people who worked here.

She dismounted and began walking around the backyard of haphazard science. There was some kind of tall pole with a donut-like arcane device on top. Seeing as it was clearly an Orange-based construction, it wasn’t her area of expertise, but she suspected it produced fields to move objects in a particular pattern. Probably something cylindrically symmetric, if she had to guess from the shape. It was the only major device back here—there were plenty of other minor devices, but these clearly had not been built by the Space Program.

Satisfied with her examination of the rod, she continued her snooping. She found an inordinate number of Green crystals attached to large wooden frames. These must have been the air restorers—remarkably simple devices that were nonetheless invaluable. Next to them were numerous Yellow crystals carved into top-like shapes. She picked one up and twirled it around, sending it into a spin. It was remarkably well balanced. She wondered what spinning had to do with space travel.

Nearby there was clearly a station where they tested how to break different materials, given all the punctured sheets of metal, shattered glass, and splintered wood lying around. There were very few papers out here, likely because anything left would be taken away by the wind, but there were a handful of notebooks. She spied tables with numbers, hasty sketches of a jar-shaped craft, and numerous mathematical diagrams.

They were certainly serious about this and had the education to pull it off, it seemed.

“Why here?” she wondered aloud. “What about this little town fostered such potential for innovation?”

The voices inside the cabin were getting louder—it sounded like they were coming outside. She made no move whatsoever to stop or even hide her investigations.

“…Right, Krays, which metal do you think is going to be the best?” Blue asked as she threw the door open.

“Aluminum’s* the lightest, but very pricey. Iron’s cheap but absurdly heavy. There’s a lot to consi—oh look, uninvited guest, just snooping around.”

*Anyone familiar with metallurgy will be aware that it is rather difficult to actually mine and extract aluminum from the earth even if you’re aware that it’s one of the most common materials on Earth, crazy stuff likes to bind to everything. Ikyu does not have the technology required to extract it, nor the knowledge to cheat with magic. However, it is not an unknown material, and there are ways to get it, but that will have to wait for another time.

Vaughan quickly strode to the front of the group, raising a hand to keep the rest of the Program quiet. “I am Wizard Vaughan. And you are?”

“Wizard Tenii, Journeyman,” she said, not lifting her hat or removing her veil. “You’ve got quite the interesting setup back here.” She kept most of her focus on Vaughan, giving him the respect a wizard of his experience deserved, but also made sure to steal glances at the others to examine them. Most of them were not what she would consider worthwhile additions to a research endeavor, clearly only a handful had any real education. But there was undeniably a bond.

Naturally, she was drawn to the two gari. Blue and pink. The pink one looked like a ditz. The blue one…

Acting on a hunch, Tenii made a subtle gesture, curling two of her fingers into a ring and partially extending a third, keeping the sign held at her waist.

Krays’ eyes widened in clear recognition that she tried to hide, but Tenii was too observant.

That’s interesting…

“So, Wizard Tenii, care to explain what you’re doing here?”

“I heard about something called a Wizard Space Program and found myself curious about its implications. All your materials are out here in the open—how could I not peruse them myself?” She locked her hands behind her back. “I have taken nothing yet gained an appreciation, and an even deeper curiosity, for your work.”

“How’d you even hear about us?”

“You do not make much effort to stay hidden, there is a large Launchpad right in the middle of town.”

“Hmm, good point…” Vaughan said, scratching his beard. “We’re just not used to being noticed, except by those astronomer people. And even then, it’s always been distant…”

“Afraid of being taken over by someone with more sway?”

Vaughan was silent for a moment. “…You have us pegged rather well.”

“Don’t know what you’re so concerned about, I’m a journeyman wizard.”

Vaughan stroked his beard. “You wouldn’t be one of Nevri’s would you?”

Tenii chuckled. “Alas, my route into the Academy was rather… roundabout. My position was actually secured by Pepper. A surprise, to be sure, as I don’t even study Red magic in any major capacity.”

“That sounds like quite a story.”

“It is. I suspect your story is just as long. Perhaps we could swap them?”

Vaughan nodded slowly. “Yes… it has been a while since I’ve been around a proper wizard. No offense, Blue.”

“I’ll earn that big hat one day, just you watch me,” Blue muttered.

“Yes, the difficulty in your case would be picking a color…”

“Yellow, that way I won’t be expected to do anything flashy.”

“Do not underestimate the skills of a master Yellow wizard,” Tenii said. “They can provide you a dream so blissful you would never want to leave… or a nightmare so horrid it follows you the rest of your days.”

Blue paused. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Yellow master.”

“That’s because they hide themselves. To use Yellow, an uplink must be established willingly. Anyone who knows what a Yellow master is capable of would never willingly establish an uplink with them.”

Mary shivered. “Creepy…”

“Regardless…” Tenii tilted her head. “Who should start?”

“How about we do it over dinner, later?” Lila said—still somehow on top of Alexandrite’s head after all this time. “We’re all itching to get to work and I think we’re all a little fixated on that. Does that sound good, Vaughan?”

“Yes, yes, dinner,” Vaughan agreed quickly.

Tenii nodded. “I accept this. I shall return at dinnertime—no need to tell me the time, I’ll figure it out. Just like how I know you’re stalling for time so you can gather together what you can and cannot say to me.” For the first time, she lifted her hat up, letting them see her deep blue eyes and chalk white skin—enough to let them know she was quite amused. “You need more time than that to put together a story to get around me, I’m afraid, but I wish you luck nonetheless.” She waved at them and walked away from the cabin. They saw her pull out a book from her robes and start to read it before she got out of sight.

“…Creepy,” Blue muttered.

“I can’t tell if she’s friendly or dangerous,” Mary added.

“Both,” Big G said. “She’s one of those people who likes words. Likes ‘em too much.”

“So….” Alexandrite coughed. “Besides not telling her about Jeh, what else?”

“Is this you trying to figure out all our secrets?” Seskii teased.

“Look, I don’t trust her, but I don’t know what page we’re supposed to be on.”

“Don’t mention Jeh. Then there’s the… well, anyone who knows about that knows not to talk about it.”

Alexandrite blinked. “How many secrets do you guys have?”

“More than we would like,” Lila said, tiredness evident in her voice. “But she is right about one thing, we have a Launchpad in the middle of town, the Program is not exactly a secret. We should avoid discussing technical details, though, in case she is trying to steal them.”

Blue deflated. “We’re not getting much work done today, are we?”

“It’ll probably take less than an hour to sort out what we can and can’t show her. We can even do it while we’re working. Krays, you sai—” Lila paused. “…Where’s Krays?”

~~~

“You nearly gave me a heart attack,” Krays said, leaning against the bark of a tree with her head down.

Tenii looked up from her book. “Seeing as you did not respond correctly, I take it your situation is somewhat complicated?”

“My aunt taught it to me. She was insane.”

“As is to be expected.”

“What I want to know is why you would ever make that gesture. The Ordo Orsissus was disbanded for a reason.”

“It was a guess, and an experiment.” Tenii reached to her head and pulled off her hat, and veil, revealing a young garilend face surrounded by dark blue plast hair shaped a bit like a helmet. “Perhaps a foolish one, for if anyone recognized it my identity was sure to be exposed. I appreciate you not shouting it out right then.”

Krays snorted. “Then I’d have needed to explain how I knew it in the first place. Was not in the mood for that.” She narrowed her eyes. “So, you really Tenrayce Kroan, or is your name so similar just to throw people off?”

“I am Tenrayce, yes,” Tenrayce said. “However, I have been known by Tenii in the past. I have not spoken a single lie about who I am or what my purpose is, you see.”

“Oh get a load of this, she fancies herself clever.”

“And you fancy yourself a smart mouth and show no fear, even knowing who I am. Quite risky, but expected from one of the bloodline of Orsissus Kroan.”

“I’m waiting for the thinly veiled threat.”

“You won’t receive one. I am not the sort to lock citizens up for insulting me to my face. Already I know several things about you. Raised at least partially by the Orsissus remnant. Deep hatred of everything they stand for. You want to leave that part of your past completely behind, but you also didn’t want to risk the potential of retaliation if I really was making the call and you refused it. This is also why you’re in a bad mood and are currently thinking about punching me even though the risk of being thrown in the royal dungeon by my father are quite high. Rest assured, the chances of that are quite low, seeing as I wouldn’t let you punch me in the first place.”

Krays crossed her arms. “Most people aren’t going to get you if you’re subtle all the time.”

“I prefer my quarry never to know I have insulted them, though this case is an exception.”

“I can hear you inflating your own ego from yesterday.”

“Impressively nonsensical.”

“Hmph.” Krays kicked the ground. “Can we just get on with this? I’m pretty sure I have a hangover.”

“Naturally. First, I wish to express admiration, not many get away from the Orsissus remnant and live to tell about it.”

“Look, it’s not as cool as you think it is. My aunt was acting more or less alone and was going mad thinking she’d be the last one. Until today I wasn’t sure there was any remnant left beside her.”

“Still, she alone would have sought your life.”

“Eh…” Krays tiled her hand side to side. “She had about as much brains as half a chipmunk.”

“Hmm… you must have quite an interesting life, but I will not press as it is not relevant to my interests. What is relevant to my interests is the Wizard Space Program, and every little detail about it that might be relevant to why a mysterious Purple cube the size of a mountain would try to shoot down your only ship at the risk of exposing itself.”

“And the pretense drops,” Krays said with a grumble. “I’m not one of your agents.”

“Yes, but you are a citizen of Kroan. You do have to do what I say.” She smiled warmly. “And while the days of the royal family beheading everyone who so much as looked at them wrong is long behind us, disobedience is not something to let slide. And as I’m sure you’re aware at this point, you’ll have to be a very good liar to keep anything from me.”

“…Can we cut a deal?”

“I should not have to, but I will hear your request.”

“No matter what, you allow everyone in the Wizard Space Program to keep working on it.”

Tenrayce grinned. “That is an easy deal to make, since I had every intention of not only letting you keep working but also assisting you in your endeavors.”

“Good. You’ve just lost.” Krays grinned.

“What, pray tell, have I lost?”

“Oh, well, just an immortal child who can’t die no matter what you do to her.” Krays leaned in and tapped the princess where her nose would have been had she had one. “Now you can’t conscript her into the army or whatever other heinous experiment you might dream up now that you know she exists.”

Tenrayce’s eyes widened. “Ah… there was a layer I did not see. Congratulations.”

“Woohoo! Go Krayz!”

Krays and Tenrayce started, looking up a tree to see Seskii sitting there with a very pink drink in her hands.

“Where did you come from!?” Tenrayce blurted, legitimately caught off-guard.

“It’s just how she is,” Krays said, waving a dismissive hand. “Hey, Seskii, how long have you been listening?”

“All of it!” Seskii said, grinning. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone aaaanything, Krays. Well. About you.” She pointed at Tenrayce. “The princess is another matter entirely.”

Tenrayce tensed. “I would not be traveling alone if I could not defend myself.”

“Oh my great galloping gravy-gourds, you think I’m threatening you?” Seskii laughed. “No, no! It’s not every day we get a princess around here! I should tell Mary to cook an even better dinner than usual! …Hmm, though that might cause her a lot of stress. Let’s see, will the stress of serving a princess be more or less than the stress of learning she served normal food to a princess after the fact? That’s a toughy…”

Tenrayce stared at the pink gari blankly.

Krays grinned. “That’s Seskii for you. If you’re really interested in our Program you better learn to stop trying to figure her out, it’s more of a headache than Blue’s math.”

Seskii jumped down from the tree, landing between Krays and Tenrayce. “So, I’ve decided not to tell them all before dinner, it’ll be better as a surprise. Which means the three of us have an entire afternoon to kill!” She put her arms around Krays and Tenrayce like the two of them were her close friends. “How about we go have some fun?”

“…What is your idea of fun?” Tenrayce asked.

“Fishing, selling potions, climbing trees, surprising people by jumping out of inexplicable places, feasts, dancing, singing, little acts of kindness nobody will ever know about, saying vague and cryptic one-liners, you know. The usual.”

To this she received silence.

“Or we could rummage around town for interesting books. I have a feeeeeeling our princess here is a book person. We don’t have a proper library but Suro’s got a pretty nice collection at his house!”

“A personal collection out on the outskirts of the kingdom…” Tenrayce’s eyes sparkled.

“I knew you’d like the idea! Let’s go!”

“Seskii wa—” Krays was not heeded as both she and Tenryace were dragged along to Suro’s house. Tenryace was too boggled by this pink woman to put up much of a fuss—she wasn’t even sure she wanted to, either.

~~~

“Well… all the food’s done,” Mary said, glancing at the fully set dinner table. “Didn’t she say she’d know when it was?”

“She seemed like the sort to know what she was talking about, too…” Vaughan said.

“Krays and Seskii aren’t here either,” Lila pointed out. “They’re all gari, maybe they’re doing something.”

“She didn’t strike me as the sort to do things, especially not with someone like Seskii,” Blue said.

“That’s where you’re wrong!” Seskii shouted as she kicked down the door, a half-dozen books in her hand. “We just had the best day!”

“…Are those my books?” Suro asked.

“Yes! But we’re just borrowing them!”

“Huh?” Tenrayce looked up from the Atlas of the Tempest she currently had her nose buried in. “Oh, yes, we’re just borrowing these… absolutely fascinating tomes… let me just…” She turned the page. “The Magnet Island… The historical value of these notes alone…”

“Kill me now,” Krays groaned. “Please. I’ll give my left leg.”

“if you’re dead you won’t need your left leg,” Seskii said.

“I know. That’s why I’m bartering with it. ‘S called a hustle.”

“A hustle of questionable quality if you ask me.”

It was at this point Alexandrite dropped to his knees and bowed his head until his snout touched the ground.

“…Alexandrite?” Blue asked, nudging him. “What are you doing?”

“Th… th… th…” he stammered.

“Ooooh, yeah, that’s right, he would recognize you.” Seskii shrugged and let out a laugh. “Probably should have put the veil back on to make this a little easier, huh Tenrayce?”

“TENRAYCE!?” Lila shouted in a mixture of shock, panic, and horror. She immediately bowed her head as well—followed quickly by a shocked Blue and Suro.

“Um…” Mary put her hand to her face. “What’s going on?”

“They all just realized she’s Princess Tenrayce Kroan,” Big G said. With a sigh, he dropped to a knee as well.

“Oh! O-oh my!” Mary turned beet red and dropped to her knees. “The… the food is not worthy of you, Your Highness! How shameful of us to even present you with such food, I, I, um…”

Tenrayce looked up from her book, frowning. She turned to Seskii. “You did this on purpose.”

“Maaaaaybe!” Seskii admitted.

“You have manged to take the situation entirely out of my control and turn it into pandemonium.” She smiled wryly. “My mother would be proud.”

“Awww, shucks! You’re just saying that!”

“I never ‘just say’ things,” Tenrayce said. With a look of forlorn longing, she managed to close the Atlas and take in a deep breath. “So. Today has been… unusual to say the least. You all may rise. And please, let us actually have dinner—I am sure it will be fine, Miss Mary.”

“The princess called me by my name,” Mary whispered.

Tenrayce sat down in a chair and folded her hands. “Now. Normally this is the moment where I systematically disassemble each of you in order to gain the most information about the situation and put myself on top of it. That is no longer necessary seeing as your two gari have managed to take the control of the situation completely out of my hands through clever deals and what I can best describe as ‘excessive friendliness.’ Naturally, each offered only one of those two things.” She smiled wryly. “And I am forced to admit, being dragged around without any footing or clue is a rare and interesting experience.”

“I feel like I’m missing context,” Blue said. “A lot of it. Also, uh, how am I supposed to act around a princess?”

“Not like that,” Suro hissed.

“Oh, Seskii has already broken every social rule of the Crown in the last few hours multiple times,” Tenrayce said. “Quite a breath a fresh air, if I do say so myself.”

“You’re welcome!” Seskii cheered.

“So you have no need to worry about how you address me,” Tenrayce continued. “That said, perhaps I should get the uncomfortable bit out of the way so we can get to actually enjoying ourselves, though something tells me it will not be as quick as I like.”

“You really like that book. Too much,” Krays muttered.

Tenrayce ignored her, turning to Vaughan. “Yes, I came here specifically to investigate the Wizard Space Program. Richard Xerxes tried to protect you, but he had no choice but to say what he knew relating to the events that lashed across the heavens last night. I had a personal interest in your project and wanted to see if it was really being seriously worked on—it is. I know about Jeh. Krays here, however, has managed to best me at my own game. I have already promised that none of you will be taken from your work. Furthermore, I wish to add Crown resources to your endeavors. Something up in Shimvale clearly doesn’t want us going to space and that’s good enough reason for the Crown to be interested in doing so. I will be returning to Axiom with my report after I am done here, and I will need someone to come back with me to explain the details of the theory you are developing. I think that’s it.”

There was complete silence around the table. Nobody had a clue what to say.

Tenrayce opened up the Atlas again and took a sip of tea. “My, this is excellent tea. Compliments, Miss Mary.”

Mary passed out. Tenrayce kept reading.

~~~

“Hmm.” Prince Wyett lowered his telescope. “They’re expecting us.”

He was currently riding atop a bronze dragon by the name of Grimmer—a rather quiet member of the Crown Dragons. They were not flying at the moment since there was a rather large entourage of diplomats and royal aides following behind them on horseback. Dragons, while the best way to travel, weren’t exactly the most common of races, and unlike horses, they had rights and couldn’t be bred and forced into the work.

Wyett was not riding alone—a short gari woman with orange hair treated into a smooth egg shape with jagged, seemingly random edges. She was currently bundled up in a huge coat, shivering. “D-didn’t expect it to be this cold…”

“I told you it would be cold, Hyrii,” Wyett said.

“Hey, you’re the one who said you had to call off our date because of a national emergency, and then you were the one who had to go up here for Dia knows how long.” She glared at him. “How could I not come along? The other option was to stay, alone, and waste away…”

Wyett chuckled. “You could be a little less melodramatic… actually, you should be, they’re coming to meet us.”

“Right. Just like we rehearsed—you talk, I shut up.” She proceeded to tie a mask around her face and wink at him, mumbling something.

The greeting party from Shimvale was significantly larger than Wyett’s, and had more than a few soldiers in it. Not enough to be thought of as an invasion force, but enough to let Wyett know they were entertaining the possibility that Kroan might have sent an invasion force.

I bet they’re really relieved right now…

The two groups of people were admittedly hard to tell apart, for not everyone was in uniform, and both Shimvale and Kroan had a large diversity of races within their borders—no dramatic majority of anything but humans, as was the norm. Everyone was in heavy coats so fashion was hardly anything to go off of, though Wyett did notice that the Shimmers had fewer layers.

If a fight broke out it would be problematic, to say the least.

Fortunately, neither side was in the mood for a fight. Wyett was more than a little surprised to see that the commander of the Shimmers was a j’loon—that drifting race rarely managed to be tough enough to garner respect.

“Greetings, citizens of the Kingdom of Kroan,” the j’loon said, drifting forward.

Wyett jumped off of Grimmer and landed on the ground next to the j’loon. “Greetings, citizens of the Kingdom of Shimvale. You have been expecting us.”

“Quite. If I had to hazard a guess, you are Prince Wyett?”

“The very same. I am afraid I am not aware of any j’loons on the Shimvale Council.”

“I would not expect you to be. I am Fr’ll. I was voted in last month. Let us cut to the chase, shall we?”

“Yes, let's.”

“You are here about the giant purple beam.”

“Yes. We demand an explanation.”

“I am afraid we don’t have one. The laser emanated from the middle of an uninhabited area of the Frengler Sheer Mountains. We have been unable to determine what caused it.”

Wyett frowned. The problem was that he had no way to know if Fr’ll was lying or not. There was evidence for both sides—Shimvale had bought a lot of Purple crystals over the years, but if that Purple Crystalline One had been under their control surely they would have used it before now. Not enough evidence to conclusively say anything except that both options were open.

Definitely, anyway. Wyett was certain there was something fishy going on. If this j’loon didn’t know, then someone important in Shimvale did, and they would be plotting. That was the problem with the Council system, there was no one at the top so they could all plot against each other. It made it rather difficult to know what they were really likely to do.

“If you’d like to see for yourself, we can arrange a trip,” Fr’ll said. “I will warn you, it is quite a treacherous journey. Our scouts are still scouring the land even now. We hope they will turn up something soon. You are welcome to oversee.”

They want us to think they’re innocent by giving us free access. The question is, are they really innocent, or just confident they can keep things hidden? Wyett nodded. “That is most reasonable. You will have to bear with us, few in Kroan are used to traveling in the middle of deep snow. Usually, we wait for it to pass.”

“Naturally. Welcome to Shimvale.”

Wyett didn’t feel particularly welcomed.

~~~

C-R’s balloon-whale drifted over the frozen mountains below.

Itlea stared out the window in shock. “How… What…?”

“I am quite surprised the Shimmer scouts haven’t found it yet.” C-R said.

“How could you miss that!?”

“You’re looking for a needle when you need to be looking for a house.”

Below them was a truly massive hole cut right out of a snowy mountain.

A square-shaped hole.

“Clearly, she knew the laser revealed her position, so she moved.”

“How on Ikyu could she move!?” Itlea shouted, unable to take her eyes off the hole.

“Crystalline Ones gain more control over their forms as they grow larger, as they have more resources that they can spare. I am not surprised that she moved. I am surprised that she managed not to leave a trail. Purple may be the color of deception and trickery, but even it can only hide, not remove. There are no crystal shards left behind, no tracks, nothing.” C-R’s body clacked violently a few times. “A Crystalline One that tremendous must have an extreme number of tricks up her sleeve…”

“What are we going to do?”

“Uncertain. We no longer have her location, and we cannot track her. She is undoubtedly a danger, but with any luck she is not aware of us either, and will give us plenty of time to locate her again. Though that may be difficult. She is now aware she can be seen from high enough above Ikyu’s surface.”

“...She’ll start hiding herself in that direction too,” Itlea said, adjusting her hat. “If I had that much Purple power, I would create a full sphere illusion once I realized up was no longer safe.”

“Such a large field would be easily visible to an arcane lens, no matter how far away you were.” C-R paused. “This is all greatly troubling. I have performed the calculations again and again.”

“What?”

“Even being generous in the estimates of how much Purple Shimvale has managed to accumulate, and that it organized all of it to grow the cube, there still has not been enough for a Crystalline One to reach the size of this hole.”

“…What does that mean?”

“It means this cube is older than the Second Cataclysm.”

The hairs on Itlea’s back stood on end. I thought no crystals survived that…? What… what things has this cube seen?

~~~

Jeh climbed atop a rock and looked far out into the West.

The light, grassy area she had been traveling over rather quickly gave way to bare, dead dirt, and after that—metal. Bright, highly reflective metal that twisted and bent in hill-like shapes, only much more angular and prone to sudden shifts in elevation. However, the metallic land was not without life—shimmering spheres rolled along the surface as if by wind. Creatures with many harsh, reflective legs clawed at the metal below. Trees of chrome sprouted at seemingly random locations far from any of their brethren, shooting into the sky like arrows.

“This looks fun!” Jeh said, rubbing her hands together. Already in her journey, she had managed to get a new set of furs—not bear, sadly, but the star-shaped speckles on that strange predatory cat were surely the next best thing. She still had no crystals, to her chagrin, but she had managed to use some of the leftover furs to secure a satchel for herself where she had put various little things she’d found interesting.

She jumped down from her rock and started walking toward the metallic land before her.

A voice reached her ears, speaking words she did not understand, but she could tell they were words—words with a slight buzzing and grating effect to them.

“I’m sorry, I don’t speak whatever that is,” she said, trying to find the source of the sound.

“Oh my, a speaker of Karli, all the way out here!”

Jeh stared blankly at the source of the voice—it was a hexagon-shaped creature made almost entirely of metal, save for a glassy eye-like surface in the center. The creature had no limbs, but nonetheless managed to float a full meter off the ground. Overall, the hexagon was about twice as wide as Jeh’s head, and had clearly seen better days—numerous sections were scraped, dinged, or had symbols violently etched into them.

Jeh gasped. “Finally! Someone who can speak Karli! Oh, you have no idea how long I’ve been walking and… and you’re a rigid! I’ve only read about rigids, I’ve never seen them before today!”

“I am a watchlight,” the watchlight said, twisting to herself like a wheel in midair. She had no way to express anything aside from motions like this, so she made liberal use of them. “And any non-rigid like you should really stay out of the Shinelands. There’s no food for you in there.”

“Food is optional,” Jeh said, grinning.

“…Um…”

“I have a very funky attribute-thing.”

“Aren’t you a human?”

Jeh shrugged.

“Oh, dear… um… will my mentioning of the savages within that like to torment passersby keep you from going in?”

“Nope!” Jeh grinned. “I’ve gotta get back to Kroan and if they’re in my way… they’re gonna get it.” Jeh paused. “It’d be a lot easier to do that if I had some crystals, though, you know where I can get some?”

“You’re an arcanist?”

“Wizard.”

“…Oh, right, I’d heard Kroan called them that…”

Jeh tilted her head. “You know about Kroan?”

“I’m from the eastern side of the Shinelands, originally. I heard about Kroan every now and then. But I was young, and I decided it would be more fun to cross the Shinelands… even though I’m a rigid and such a biome is supposedly made for me, I barely made it through intact…”

“Sounds fun!”

“You really are a reckless little girl, aren’t you?” the watchlight sighed. “Fine. I’m Jill.”

“…What a normal-sounding name.”

“Yes. Well. It’s what I was born with, so there.” She twirled around rapidly but suddenly stopped, staring Jeh right in the face. “There’s a town nearby. You can get crystals there. All you have to do is know the language to ask for them.”

“And money?”

“Yes. And money.”

“Don’t have any.”

“Well then, you’re between a rock and a hard place, aren’t you?”

“I’m sure I can find some work to pay for the crystals… you can translate for me and get me a job!”

“…I did not say I would do that.”

“But you’re going to, right?” Jeh raised her eyebrows over and over.

“Well…”

“Otherwise I’m charging into the cool metal land right now with reckless abandon.”

Jill sighed. “…Fine, fine… right this way…”

~~~

SCIENCE SEGMENT

Everyone’s familiar with animals, plants, and fungi.

But Ikyu has two other major classifications. Plasts, which are based in plastics that we would normally consider synthetic and often have five-fold body symmetry; and rigids, creatures whose “biology” runs off of chemical processes, tend to have bodies made of metal, and who have no blood but instead course with lightning itself.

Naturally we would be tempted to call rigids robots, but such a concept is completely foreign on Ikyu. Rigids are just another part of the tree of life to them. They meet all the characteristics of life, which is what we’re going to talk about today.

Reproduction: to be alive, things must reproduce. Sexually, asexually, it doesn’t matter—more of the same kind must be made. Viruses meet this criteria, easily, as to rigids, as every rigid makes more of its own kind. However, one could argue that Crystalline Ones don’t reproduce, they simply assemble from what’s already there. Already, fantasy worlds make the definition of life rather suspect.

Response to Stimuli: can the organism react. We might think of things like mushrooms and plants as nonreactive, but they actively respond to their environment. Plants direct their flowers and leaves to the sun regularly and release chemicals. Mushrooms release spores at just the right time. An organism need not be mobile to be responsive. Viruses may or may not be responsive, depending on your definition—do they make any actual choices, or do their chemical reactions just happen automatically without any input? Rigids respond as well, even the most sedentary plant-like ones still stop growing if there’s no material around for them to consume.

Adaptation: The ability to change over time to an environment, usually over generations. Viruses do this, and a lot better than everything else given their high mutation rate. Rigids do this as well, though not in the usual way—though, naturally, as far as the residents of Ikyu are concerned evolution isn’t even a theory yet. If it was, there are things other than rigids that would throw wrenches into those plans…

Growth: Living beings start small and get bigger, to a point. Bacteria, curiously, start at a “normal full grown” size and then keep getting bigger until they split. Viruses do not grow at all, they are like rigid blueprints—a fact they share with a few rigids.

Metabolism: this basically just means the organism eats things in some way and uses it to produce energy. Viruses don’t really eat. Crystalline Ones don’t either—however, every single rigid needs power, and they consume things to get this power. Usually, they can’t eat the same things as other lifeforms, though, which causes a rather harsh divide between the life classifications.

Organization: In biology, this just means you are composed of one or more cells. Viruses don’t fit this definition, but there are a few that are larger than cells, pointing out how arbitrary this all is. Crystalline Ones and Rigids do not have cells at all, but they arguably exhibit organization and structure—either in crystal structure or the repeating shapes within the metal.

Homeostasis: All living things try to regulate their internal environment to keep themselves alive. We sweat, trees lose their leaves, Crystalline Ones shoot beams of energy to keep attackers from splitting them in half, and Rigids have fans (or some other mechanism) to keep themselves from overheating.

Thus, while our definition of life makes rigids seem a bit dubious at times, as far as the inhabitants of Ikyu are concerned they most certainly are alive.

The definition of life is rather arbitrary. Most people exclude viruses, but if you met a Crystalline One, would you consider it alive?

Sometimes science gets lost in the arguments over definitions…