Luna gazed at the wondrous, looming structure in awe. Her mind devoured the image she saw in the crevice. The beam of dull light that seemed to lazily fall through the crack in the ground. The monolithic structure that dominated the otherwise empty room. The veritable forest of crossing wires, ports, and metal that spilled down the internal pyramid. The sparking cubes spitting out blue and red flashes. All of it stuck in her mind. It reminded her of why she wanted to become more ‘human’: she wanted to be a part of this. She wanted to be more than just a smart rabbit. More than just an animal that became sentient. She wanted to become better than she already was; it was why she was driven by curiosity, not just because she enjoyed learning new things, though that certainly was a part of it. It was a part of her, something she had trouble explaining.

Her thoughts had dragged her away from the reality in front of her, and the mysteries it held. She looked over to Kain, who himself was soaking in the sight of the monolithic structures, and chuckled. “I think I get it now,” she said, causing him to turn to her. “They made all of this, but it didn’t matter in the end, right?” she asked. He had become a bit melancholic during their exploration of the Duvalid ruins, and she wondered why that was at the time. She thought she had understood the reasoning, and felt a bit sad herself because of it.

Kain looked closely, almost glared, into her eyes before sighing. “Mhm. You’re right. It’s a shame,” he agreed. “But if we only think about that, then there’s no reason to do anything. What mattered was that they lived, not that they died. One’s much harder to do than the other,” he said, almost laughing at the statement. She nodded, only half understanding what he meant. She didn’t ask for clarification, though. She wanted to figure it out herself.

“So… how are we getting down... this?” she asked, waving at the tall height that lay before them. The room was 50 feet in height, but there was also over 10 feet of concrete that the gash cut through. “Are we going to float down on the skull, or are you going to find something else to get down there with?”

He examined the height for a moment, his eyes methodically moving from the ground, to shadowy walls of the room, to the concrete showing from the gash, to the ground on which they stood. “We could float, but that would take a bit of Ether to do. There’s also the option of finding another way in, but…” he trailed off, looking around at the rubble-covered plaza. “There’s a slim chance of that working. Honestly, the best idea in my opinion is making a ladder or throwing a rope down there. That’s for me, anyway, you can just fly up and down without much concern. I saw a hardware store on our way here, so I might be able to find some rope. Failing that, though, I could just use some of that cloth we have to make a makeshift rope,” he explained.

“Nope, I’m coming with you,” she rejected. “I lost to a pack of monkeys when they snuck up on me, so whatever calls that place home is not something I want to deal with alone.”

He gave an almost imperceptible sigh of relief. “Good, I didn’t want to send you down there without help. Literally anything could be down there, and I’d prefer it if our chances of winning against it were as high as possible.” She nodded in agreement, briefly shivering as the thought of ‘something’ inspired an image of a singular black eye. She noticed that Kain noticed her shiver. With that, they began to backtrack through the ruined parts of the city. They both noticed that there was slightly more life around than previously, as they saw more of the blue metal-covered cows than previously, as well as a new type of creature. It was not very unique, as it was just a medium sized wolf with an extra eye on its forehead.

Before long, they reached the ‘hardware store’ and looked through the front windows. The windows displayed everything from hammers to blue metal disks that were labeled as ‘omni-tools,’ tools designed to be able to do anything. She found the concept fascinating, and wanted to see if they would pick one up along the way. Kain shrugged and agreed, finding value in such a tool himself. They walked through the front doors, or at least Kain did as she was floating, and were both immediately disappointed. The store was lit up by flickering lights, but was torn apart on the inside. Boxes with colorful labels and markings were thrown around the floor. Wrappers were torn and clawed through, lying on the ground and empty. Shelves were all knocked over, their contents nowhere to be seen. It looked like it had been torn apart by animals, which was entirely feasible. “Do you think that we’ll find rope here? This place looks… empty,” she asked.

“Maybe. We’ll have to look at the storage room to make sure, but we first need to figure out how they actually got to it first,” he noted.

“Wait, why? There’s probably already an entrance on the roof, so why are we even looking for another entrance that may or may not even exist?” she demanded.

“Convenience,” he began. “These stores needed ways to get their products from the storage rooms to the shelves quickly and safely. A ladder that leads to the roof sounds less like a convenient and effective storage entrance and more like a fire safety afterthought. If you’re asking why we’re even looking for it, it’s because we need to know where we can run and where some chitin-covered monkey can come from. You probably didn’t find the monkeys in the storage room because they somehow got from the ground level to the second floor. We need to figure out how they did that,” he concluded.

She thought for a moment, then shrugged. “Eh, whatever. Seems like a waste of time to me, but if you think it’s important, then I’ll follow along,” she said. Kain nodded as he walked into the back room. She was about to follow when she remembered the omni-tool. It was still displayed in the front window, so she went to get it.

The design was simple for the display: there was a separate area that led next to the window where the items were displayed, but there was nothing stopping anyone from taking the things in the display. She flew up next to the stand where the omni-tool was displayed and simply grabbed it with her paws. It was light, not even enough to give her trouble to lift despite its metal-like nature. She knocked the side of the disk with her paw, feeling the vibrations move into the device, when she paused. She realized that the tool was hollow. There was nothing inside, which confused her. Before messing with it any more, she went to get Kain’s help.

When she reached the back room, she found Kain messing with a boxy device on the wall with a screen on it. The screen had the words [Unique Blood Signature Detected: Access Denied] emblazoned across the front of it in red. She tapped his shoulder to get his attention. “Hey, what’re you doing?” she asked, receiving no reply apart from some odd mumbles she couldn’t hear. As soon as she decided to wait for him to finish, the box surged with Ether and a blast of it surged forth in the form of a shower of sparks. She quickly flew over to make sure that her brother was okay and found him ducked under the area where the sparks passed.

“I’m fine,” he said as he noticed her. “I was trying to mess with the wiring in this thing. My first attempt, but it went better than it could have been. Well, it went better than I expected, especially considering the fact that this is the first time I’ve seen this sort of thing. Maybe we should look for some sort of stockpile of this stuff, it seems useful. Sorry, I’m rambling. Anyway, what’d you need?” he asked.

She looked warily at the box on the wall, but soon looked back to Kain. “I found the omni-tool in the window display, but it seems light for what it’s made of. Also, it’s hollow,” she explained.

He took the device from her and examined it with a few Ether limbs. She had been getting better at seeing and observing Ether. She knew that in-depth looks at Ether imbuements would need small, fine Ether limbs to accomplish, while looking more broadly required less and less precise and thin Ether limbs. Eventually, one wouldn’t need them to observe on a ‘macro-scale,’ as Kain called it. Before long, Kain spoke up and ripped her away from her musings, “Yeah, this is a fake. It’s hollow, unimbued, and nothing more than plastic.” She looked at him for a moment before making a noise of acknowledgement. “Anyway, I think I broke this thing, so let’s go through the roof.”

They climbed up to the roof and entered through the hatch that was present in all roofs. Inside, they met with nearly similar luck as the shop area. All they found was a box sitting on the top of a shelf in the corner of the large-wrecked warehouse. Even the computer was smashed. Once the box was pulled down, they opened it to find what they were looking for: rope. There was also a number of boxes of nails, some boxes of screws, hinges, and other metal items. Kain stored them into his amulet and they made their way back to the plaza without further incident.

They anchored a length or rope into the ground and Kain slid down the rope into the large room, illuminated by floating flames courtesy of Luna. Once Kain reached the bottom, he stretched and looked towards her as she floated down. “Alright, do you mind if I look at these cubes? They have the same sort of red energy as the crystal we found, and I want to figure something out,” he explained.

“Sure! I want to look around this room for a bit too! Couldn’t see some things because of the shadows,” she said, flying off to the walls of the room and leaving a floating flame for Kain to use. She began to scour the walls, looking for whatever may be there. The center areas of the walls were all bare save for bulky doors jutting out from each of the walls. The real interesting things to Luna were the tall, boxy machines in the corner. They were machines made of the same blue metal-like material that the computer was made out of. There were windows made of the same glassy substance as the cone behind them, and in the windows there were numerous boxy shapes that plugged into the machine. She was getting a bit bored of the constant boxes, so she kept looking. She soon found a line of words saying ‘Property of the Dubai Corporation: any and all attempts to steal, use, or modify this device without clearance will result in deadly force.’ She had no idea why it was written there. The device was in an underground room protected by 10 feet of concrete from above. There was no reason for the machine to be tampered with, so it seemed a bit pointless.

Before the train of thought could take her further, she heard Kain’s voice ring out. “They’re the same thing!” he yelled out, holding the broken cube in one hand and the green crystal they had found in the other.

*=====*

Rewrite for chapter 2 is getting pushed back for tomorrow. Sorry. Anyway, thanks for your support and I hope you enjoyed.