WSP 042

The Secret of Magic

It was a somewhat windy day, and yet Blue and Vaughan were both working outside in the yard for once. Blue had no practical reason to—her work was all calculations, but it was the mindless sort that slowly drove her insane, so she wanted someone to talk to. Vaughan was currently messing with gunpowder. Every few minutes there would be an explosion and a cloud of smoke. Afterward, he’d try to take a reading. Most often the smoke got in the way.

“I’m not sure I like the odds of using explosives,” Vaughan said. “I can control where I put heat, but in order to move out there I have to use that heat to throw something comparable to Orange’s power and, well…” He lifted up a notebook he was working in. “There’s definitely enough energy here for that, and it can be released all at once. It’s controlling it that’s the problem.”

Blue didn’t look up from her calculations as she responded. “Just make a casing that resists the explosion.”

“I don’t know a material that can resist explosions for days or weeks, do you?”

“Krays could probably find one.”

“Well we don’t have one now, so…” Blue paused. “Maybe we could ask the Guardian Spirit what she made the clear lava window-wall things out of.”

“That might have been magic…”

“Maybe, maybe not; probably wouldn’t get an answer anyway, she seems to want us to find things out on our own.” Blue paused. “Not that I’m complaining. As great as Wanderlust is, it is more fun to figure things out through researching them.”

“I agree!” At this, another plume of smoke went up into Vaughan’s face. “...Reconsidering…”

Blue snorted, and the conversation died down. Not that they minded; they were working, after all, the conversation was just a bonus.

A few minutes later Blue spoke up. “So, what do you think of the letter from Axiom?”

“Tenrayce certainly has… ideas.”

“We’re in the employ of the Crown, we have to listen to them.”

“I’m just not sure what the point of a Lunar Library would be.”

Blue stopped writing things down for a moment. “...I think she’s worried Kroan will fall.”

“Sure doesn’t sound like it in the letter…”

“I know her a little better. She’s considering the possibility that they can’t hold it together.” Blue shook her head. “King Redmind was assassinated, Vaughan. A few more things like that and the royal family won’t be able to hold things together. So much information will be lost… and I think that’s the point of the Lunar Library project she’s proposed. Put everything up there so, like the ancient ‘rigids’, it can be preserved.”

“Still going to be a big pain to build anything up there,” Vaughan said. “...Actually, perhaps we could ask Wanderlust. I’m sure she can make construction materials out of the moon rocks.”

“The biggest problem is the air,” Blue said, scribbling down a few more notes. “We still aren’t sure if we can maintain air indefinitely. It probably leaks out in small ways we don’t expect. On the moon we can’t just go out and get more, it’d take hours to return to Ikyu if there was an emergency. The logistics…” Blue paused. “But, Lunar Library or not, we are going to have to build something up there eventually. Crystal mine, observatory, something.”

“Observatory…”

“Well, yeah, there’s no sky in the way of looking at the stars.”

Vaughan slowly stood to his full height and looked up at the sky. “Blue, I don’t think you realize how good of an idea that is.”

“Huh?”

“Think of how big you could make a telescope with that low gravity…”

“Vaughan, telescopes are limited by lens quality, the reason we don’t make them bigger is because it’s hard to make lenses perfect.”

Vaughan blinked. “Ah. Right. Forgot about that.” He frowned. “You know, I think I remember there being some lenses on the ancient exploration devices on the moon…”

“Okay, so maybe they have better lenses. How does that help us make better ones? There’s not a copy spell, Vaughan.”

“Hire a shapeshifter.”

“I’m not sure they can do glass.”

“We’ll never know unless we try!”

At this point Jeh landed in a Skyseed—Blue didn’t remember which number, there were a lot of them at this point and the Crown had settled on a somewhat standardized spherical design with little nubs coated in black plast that doubled as both control knobs and landing feet. A nice thing was that these standardized Skyseeds could be opened from the inside by undoing a few latches and screwing a crank, so there was no need for Blue to do anything while Jeh crawled out of the metal hatch.

“Another happy landing!” Jeh declared.

“You say that every time,” Blue said.

“I know! Isn’t it amazing? I can just take this up and do stuff!” Jeh hopped out and landed on the ground next to a pile of still-smoldering experiments. “It’s normal for me to go up! You two aren’t even batting an eye!”

“Well, it’s not like you went to space…” Vaughan said.

“I mean, I got high enough to see the stars,” Jeh said, sitting down at one of the nearby tables. “I’m getting really quick at it, and these new Skyseeds are easy to control.”

“So you’re saying the hoity-toity wizards at the Academy are better than us?” Blue asked.

“Um. Well.” Jeh glanced at Vaughan. “I smell a trap.”

Vaughan chuckled. “Good nose.”

Blue rolled her eyes.

Vaughan crossed his arms. “Though in seriousness, Blue, they are running more flights than us, have more pilots, and can get more feedback. We are pushing the boundary, they’re just refining our ideas.”

“I know,” Blue grumbled. “But I can already see the day coming that’ll make the Moonshot look obsolete.”

“It already is,” Vaughan pointed out. “We’re redesigning a ton of it.”

“You know what I mean.”

“It’ll also take a lot longer for them to refine the Moonshot design. The Skyseed wasn’t very complicated, but the Moonshot has a ton of components and is harder to use. Skyseeds… I think they’re already using them to deliver messages across the kingdom that are of extreme importance.”

“Oh yeah, they are!” Jeh said. “I saw one while I was up today! I think I really scared him when I pulled up alongside him and waved.” She giggled.

“A message was delivered here?” Blue asked, blinking. “Tenrayce didn’t even use a Skyseed to send her message, that came on a balloon whale…”

“Balloon whales are the way of the past!” Jeh declared. “Skyseeds are the future!”

“Still, what could be important enough to send a Skyseed…?” Vaughan scratched his beard. “They may be fast and simple to operate, but there’s only… how many of them do we have, Blue?”

Blue coughed. “We have four, the Crown has about ten more in Axiom. So… fourteen Skyseeds in existence right now? And only some of them fly easily, the early awkward ones are still around.”

“Something important enough to send one of the fourteen Skyseeds…” Vaughan tapped his fingers. “What could it be?”

“Notice of Via’s visit, maybe?” Blue suggested.

“That could come on balloon whale. Or dragon.”

“Hmm… maybe we’ve got a specific mission we need to do, or something.” Blue sighed. “I hope we don’t have to investigate something like Benefactor, that would be a pain…”

“The sunfire, maybe?” Jeh suggested.

“Hmm, yes if there was something up with the sunfire, that would warran—”

“ALL OF YOU STOP WHATEVER YOU’RE DOING!” Alexandrite shouted from the sky, dropping down in the midst of the three of them.

One of Vaughan’s experiments exploded. The desk lit on fire. Alexandrite didn’t seem to notice.

“I think he got the letter,” Jeh said.

“Should we get Keller?” Blue asked Alexandrite.

“What? Why?” Alexandrite tilted his head in confusion.

“Clearly it’s extremely important and probably sensitive…”

“What? No! It’s Gronge!”

Vaughan blinked. “Gronge got something sent to us on a Skyseed? Huh?”

“You don’t understand, he’s figured it out.”

“Figured what out?”

“Just… just listen.” Alexandrite reached into his bags and pulled out a thick scroll with lots of smaller scrolls rolled up in it. He started reading…

~~~

To Wizard Gideon Vaughan, Wizard Blue, and the other wizards of the Wizard Space Program

From Wizard Gronge and the other wizards of the Attribute Investigation Laboratory

Urgent. Get this to Vaughan and the others as quickly as possible to keep them from wasting time on unnecessary complications. I will spare no expense from my surface funds. I mean it, no expense, I am going to solve all their problems and every minute we wait is a minute we’re doing work that won’t accomplish anything! As fast as you can! This is already going to be extremely slow in getting to the surface, not a minute longer!

I repeat, urgent!

Now that that’s out of the way, to the letter proper. Forgive me if the quality of the writing changes drastically over the letter, this has not been edited at all and has, in fact, been haphazardly stitched together from multiple accounts, some written not by me but by my assistants instead. Ever since word came from the surface about your trip to the moon we have not stopped experimenting and what we have discovered is beyond words.

I believe I have a complete and working theory of magic. Or the start of one. At the very least, I know how to save you all a ton of trouble.

[Scribe’s note: the document we were given was highly unconventional. We have noted its unusual traits when relevant. The next section is sewn to the above with some kind of green rope.]

New information: magic decays the further you get from Ikyu. It drops off completely once you get past the moon. Attributes will not work. Crystalline One Wanderlust would have limited capacities. Inconsistency. What’s the difference? How?

New information: there is a magical field. What does this mean? Is Wanderlust’s understanding accurate, or that of a layman? Investigate.

New information: Colored Crystals grow on the moon, but much slower. Because there is less magic.

Hypothesis: Colored Crystals are magic in solid form. It is normally in gaseous form. (Potential for liquid form? Unknown, liquid Colored Crystal unheard of).

Different materials freeze into different materials with different properties. Magic is, perhaps, seven different materials. Seven different gasses would mix easily; unlike many liquids, which continually cohere together.

Oddity: much more magic “gas” than actual air in atmosphere. Curious. Not relevant to current hypothesis.

If Colored Crystals have two state changes, there must be something that can convert them between the states. We observe solidification occurring naturally. Is there a way to revert the solid form into the gaseous form?

Colored Crystals get smaller when used.

Mass is not simply destroyed in most materials. Perhaps it is not actually destroyed but forced back into a gaseous state.

Aha! We can experiment on this!

[Another section is tacked on, this one with some kind of brown tape]

Experiment: using the old setup for the attribute, I had one of my assistants, Minge, enter the chamber and use her attribute until she couldn’t anymore, but asked her to keep trying. I then had my other assistants use other Colored Crystals in sequence, casting small spells. The goal was to see if we could create “more” gaseous Colored Crystals. Magic. Whatever.

Point is, it worked! It worked!

It only worked when all seven Colors were being used at once, but it worked! After having drained an area of its magic, it can be restored simply by burning all seven Colors at once!

Naturally, we will not cease work until we work out everything we can about this effect. EVERYTHING.

[The next section is scribbled on a different kind of parchment, one that’s purple. Made it really hard to read.]

Grimff fell asleep first so we used him for the experiment. Rather than an uncontrolled environment, I created a box out of Yellow. Completely sealed off, nothing could flow in or out. When Grimff woke up I had him use his attribute until it failed. It failed four times quicker than without the box! So magic can’t flow through solid crystals! There was much evidence that suggested this before but this is even more reason to think so.

… Follow-up complication. We did an extended experiment, this time with Finkils. Her attribute ran out as well, but then she stayed in the box for an hour, and after that hour was up, she could use her attribute again; though this time it ran out even quicker.

Clearly, there is some nuance at play here…

[The next section is tied to the above with a paper clip of some kind]

So I missed something obvious in the previous experiment.

If Colored Crystals really do have a gaseous form, and that gaseous form is what drives the powers of an attribute, where does all the gaseous crystal mass go? Solid crystals evidentially convert into gaseous ones, but if it is used in the gaseous form there is no clear creation of solid crystals. Such a thing would not make sense, either, because that would mean energy was released at every point in the process and that is simply nonsense.

Theory: the gas wasn’t “used up” when the attribute ran out, it was still present in the box. It “recharged” over time.

How to test this…

[The penmanship suddenly changes here.]

Wizard Gronge fell asleep in the box, so it’s his turn.

As this is likely to be sent to people of the surface I feel the need to express that this is entirely normal for anglers. I have received many comments about how uncomfortable it makes surface-dwellers feel that we do things to people who are sleeping. I do not understand why; perhaps it is because you have specific places to sleep and aren’t used to waking up having drifted considerably? I assure you, this is all completely normal.

Regardless, I am Kromulent.

My theory is as such: we know that gaseous magic cannot pass through solid magic. Even though I highly doubt that “gaseous” is a good way to describe this form of magic as its properties are clearly different, it is what we have been using so I shall continue to use the word. Annoying as it is.

Regardless, if gaseous magic cannot pass through solid magic, it should be possible to literally make a “scoop” out of the crystals and create a true magic dead zone. As I write this down the other wizards are doing just this. It appears to be working, as we were relying on Orange to remotely move the scoops, and we keep being unable to grab onto objects within the box with reliability.

We were eventually able to, I believe, scoop out the entire box.

Gronge awoke and was unable to use his attribute at all. Resounding success. We will leave him in the box a few hours just to be sure nothing leaks in.

[The next section is written in green print in the original penmanship.].

What an amazing experiment! I was the subject of such a discovery! I couldn’t be more excited!

It is possible to create a magic dead zone.

It is possible to create a magic dead zone!

Which means we can simulate what it will be like in deep space!

We’ll all be spending a lot more time in the box that’s for sure!

[The next section is surprisingly a lot like the previous one and the connecting tissue is almost invisible. Why wasn’t the rest of the document like this? Unknown. Why am I writing in the margins sarcastically? I have to vent about this nightmare of a document somehow.]

On Using Colored Crystals in a Magic Dead Zone.

In a magic dead zone, Colored Crystals can still be activated, and they glow their characteristic Color as usual. However, when used in isolation they have no effects. Red cannot increase the heat of the water, Orange moves nothing, Yellow cannot connect with minds even when both are inside the box, Green reverts nothing, Blue accelerates nothing, and Purple creates no light beyond the normal glow. Magenta did have an effect if physically placed in contact with the walls of the container, causing pulses to move through the walls, but this may be because the walls themselves were made of crystal. Inconclusive. Regardless, Magenta does nothing if not in contact with another Crystal.

Addendum: Magenta can react with other crystals in a magic dead zone, but physical contact is required, the effect cannot work at a distance. Other Colors had no effect even with physical contact.

Once all seven Colors of magic are used, immediately spells work once more and attributes are activated. It appears that even solid Crystals need the gaseous form of all Colors around them to cast spells.

Once the gaseous form of the Colored Crystals is present in the box, it does not go away. Attributes can still stop working, but no matter how much it is used, the magic restores itself with time. A magic dead zone has to be recreated once more.

[And that delightful break of very well-organized text and paper is thrown out the window in this next section which was written on pressed shell. The worst kind of “parchment” I swear.]

We are learning so much! So many experiments so little time I can’t even.

It’s simply incredible to witness how much we can learn about magic just by figuring out how to remove it.

Even more incredible, the seven Colors of magic are clearly all required for any magic to be done! There is no such thing as pure Red, or pure Orange magic, every spell requires all seven Colors to be present around it to actually do anything!

Come to think of it, this matches with the notes on Wanderlust not being able to do much if she left the moon. Probably could have thought of that earlier.

Nonetheless, this is excellent! However, one thing is bothering me; once magic is introduced into a system, it never goes away; even when “used up” it is restored with enough time. We need more research on this.

[The next section was written on some kind of kelp, stapled to the rest with metal. What a horrible waste of resources].

I am unsure what all this means.

Many experiments have been performed on the restorative nature of “gaseous magic,” even though it clearly doesn’t act like a gas at this point.

We measure how “much” is in the box by how long it takes an attribute to stop working, but this is only a rough estimate. We have determined even with this that the more magic is in an area, the faster it restores itself after being used up.

There does not appear to be an absolute saturation. We can keep pumping more and more in until it is even denser than “background” magic.

How is this working…?

[This next section is literally glued on.]

The interior of the box has grown noticeably. Grown.

[The next section was written so hastily it was nearly impossible to work out. Also, it was on purple again. Gronge, stop writing on purple stuff. I and the rest of the scribes beg of you].

The density of magic affects the growth rate of Colored Crystals. Normally, crystals grow at a geologic pace, but if we increase the density of magic inside the box to extremely high levels, we can watch the interior start to grow.

Then it hit me.

The density of magic controls the rate of crystal growth.

We knew this already, in a sense, because the Colored Crystals on the moon are small, they only started growing once magic got out that far. But the evidence we’ve uncovered indicates that they are growing slower up there than down here.

But crystals grow from the “gaseous” state.

Which is the realization I needed.

I do not think we are witnessing a change from “solid” to “gas” anymore. I think it stays solid. Instead, we are converting from “crystal” into “dust.” When a crystal is used and loses mass, it’s giving up that mass to the air in the form of “dust.” I do not think the dust is a different state anymore, I think it is still solid, just unimaginably small and unnoticeable.

I think that these small chunks can still be broken up further while in the air, and that this is where all the energy in magic comes from.

When the “dust” becomes too fine, magic can no longer be cast because there is not enough available energy.

But Colored Crystals of the same color always seek to combine with each other. With enough time, Red, say, “dust” particles will combine with other Red “dust” particles, forming a larger particle. This particle now has energy that can be extracted for a spell.

This is a highly unusual property, but it is not unheard of in materials. There exist those materials that can be stretched to release heat, but will slowly curl back into their natural state, where they can be stretched once more to release heat again. The energy buildup occurs because of time. Naturally, the recombination rate of “dust” appears to be glacial, but we have discovered a method to accelerate it.

I can see the applications already. Manually grown Colored Crystals. Magic generators.

I need to get this all compiled, the WSP could use this. They could have used this ages ago, I’ve been refining data here and they needed some of the first things we figured out!

[This next part is sewn on delicately.]

Gronge is scrambling, but I think I need to write this down. We’ll see if he decides to include it.

Something is bothering me about magic. See, we have basically shown that the amount of magic in a closed system remains the same. Its energy is consumed, and over time it is restored. This makes sense in some ways. One could also correlate this to the legends of the Great Crystalline Ones; all the talk of unity may have been literal, they may not have been able to do anything without the rest of the others.

However, all our research implies that the amount of magic should be constant. Crystals break, but then reform from the same stuff that was broken off of them. In fact, as the “dust” forms more Colored Crystals and Crystalline Ones, the amount of ambient “dust” should go down.

It is not. The “dust” is increasing, and it is increasing so much that it has extended beyond the orbit of the Moon.

This prompts a question.

Where is all the magic coming from?

[And we’re done. Finally.]

[Or not, Gronge why do you do this? Last-minute edits aren’t allowed this is only getting through because of your position. I hope you like your sloppy record on display for everyone to read.]

P.S.: Obviously the information contained here can be used to generate magic in the “dead zones” outside the moon’s orbit. It occurs to me I didn’t spell it out: just have a device that has all seven Colored Crystals and burn them on worthless spells that do nothing. The area around the device will fill with ambient magic, powering attributes and Colored Crystals. However, I also foresee engineering difficulties: the only material that seems to stop magic from flowing is Colored Crystals, and I cannot say what the effects of generating magic while moving in a spacecraft will be, but I can foresee that the entire craft would need to be walled in by Colored Crystals to make this effective. I do not envy the engineering challenge of actually building a magic-tight vessel; perhaps there are other ways around it, but I have thought of none.

Regardless, I now put the ball in your court. Expect a far more detailed write-up in the coming months, something more worthy of actually being published. I just know this had to get to you so we don’t squander this opportunity while we have it.

-Wizard Gronge

~~~

Alexandrite stopped reading.

He looked up.

Both Blue and Vaughan’s mouths were hanging open and neither of them was moving.

Jeh waved her hand in front of their faces. They didn’t move. They didn’t even blink.

“I think you broke them,” Jeh said.

“I was kind of expecting that,” Alexandrite admitted.

“One of the problems of being so smart,” Seskii said from her position on a nearby bench. “Sometimes you see so much you lock up.”

Alexandrite glanced at her. “When did you get here?”

“Earlier.”

“That’s…”

“Specific.” Seskii grinned mischievously.

“So… what do we do about them?” Jeh asked, gesturing at the two wizards.

“Wait,” Seskii said.

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“How long?”

“Yes.”

“Th—”

Blue lifted one of the nearby tables in her telekinesis and unceremoniously dumped all of Vaugahn’s experiments onto the ground below. Some exploded. She started chuckling under her breath.

Vaughan started stroking his beard, humming deeply. Blue’s chuckles became louder and louder as she levitated large Colored Crystals out of a nearby box and splayed them out on the table in a flower-like pattern. Vaughan picked up some molding clay from another desk and slapped it in the middle of the crystals, fusing them all together.

Blue lifted up the crystalline “flower” into the air. “BEHOLD! THE ANSWER TO ALL OUR PROBLEMS! I present to you, ladies and gentlemen of the Wizard Space Program, the magic generator!” She gave them all a dumb grin and lit up the crystals with her willpower. “Look, it’s so easy even I can use it! And I suck!”

Vaughan gestured at the flower. “As we speak the ambient magic levels around us are increasing. If Gronge is to be believed. But he’s not one to fabricate data, and he did do a rather thorough investigation…”

“Out of magic in space? Touch the flower!” Blue shook the flower excitedly. “Ran through your attribute’s energy? Touch the flower! Want to feel beautiful? Touch the flower!”

“Solve all life’s problems for only nine payments of nine ninety-nine!” Seskii added, throwing confetti overtop the flower device. It quickly got stuck in the modeling clay segment, not that anyone cared.

“All of our ideas were completely useless,” Vaughan said, locking his hands behind his back. “We can just manually generate magic ourselves with this.”

“It’s like air!” Blue declared. “Except instead of compressing it in a tank we compress it in crystals and use them to release it! But we also need crystals and there has to be a balanced mixture and oh my gosh this is going to be so difficult to figure out…”

“But we have a solution! That has nothing to do with explosions!”

“I don’t have to fear for my life every time I go somewhere!”

“Weeks of work down the drain!”

“Isn’t it great!?”

“Yes!”

Jeh rubbed the back of her head. “Ooookay this is even more than the usual ‘eureka’ nonsense they have, and it wasn’t even their idea.”

“Everything suddenly makes so much more sense to them,” Seskii said, sitting on a table she definitely hadn’t been sitting on just a second ago. “They might care later that they’ve been wasting time, right now… right now they’re coming up with ideas.” Seskii held out her hand, gesturing at them. Already Blue and Vaughan were poring over a piece of paper and drawing little diagrams on it that they were quickly scribbling out. Their method of communication was notably difficult to decipher. “That wouldn’t.” “Would it?” “You tell me!” “Ah, the paper…” “Irrelevant, but consider… wait no.” “Yes?” “Yes, actually, that’s right.” “That’s five experiments already.” “Got plenty of time.” “The extended stay problem?” “Maybe.”

Jeh beamed. “Well, I’m happy for them. But I know enough at this point that they’re going to get stuck in the details.” She turned to Alexandrite and Seskii. “What ideas do we have?”

“I’ve had longer to think about it than the rest of you,” Alexandrite said. “There is a big problem mentioned in this haphazard scroll that is glossed over. We keep air in the spaceships by sealing us in. How are we going to keep the magic in?”

“Crystal box,” Jeh said.

“How would you make a ship out of that?”

“Would you need to?” Jeh asked.

“Of course you would, the magic devices need the aura to run…”

“I don’t think the drive would. All it has to do is push itself. It can push itself while being inside a box.”

Alexandrite stared at her. Seskii clapped her hands and giggled gleefully. “That’s an absolutely brilliant idea, Jeh!”

Jeh blinked. “Me? Brilliant?”

“Yes!”

“I just know how the drive works since I use it so much, is all. Wasn’t that hard…”

“While I’m all about humility, credit should be given where credit is due. I’m sure Blue will say something similar once she hears your idea.”

“Would it work for the air restorer?” Alexandrite asked.

“Hmm…” Seskii frowned. “I actually don’t know. I’m imagining restoring air inside a box and opening the box on either side when necessary… but… I actually don’t know how that would work. Green also does very strange things when it doesn’t have access to the right materials to restore things. Using Green inside a sealed box will probably end up dealing with that.”

“...Remarkably thorough, Seskii,” Alexandrite said.

“I know how to think, dragon buddy,” Seskii giggled. “Not always helpful or very interesting, but I do it nonetheless.”

“I think I can do some experiments in space to figure it out,” Jeh said. “Just need a crystal box and a way to create a magic dead zone. Which…” Jeh glanced over at the two wizards who were now arguing over something involving a lot of numbers. “Maybe they’re working on it?”

“They are,” Seskii said, taking a short sip of a drink she pulled out from under the table. “It’ll take a bit, though. Want to continue this conversation over lunch while we wait?”

“Sure.”

~~~

The Moonshot II’s shell arrived at the Wizard Space Program with much less fanfare than the first one. It looked almost the same as the previous metal shell, as that was the one part of the Moonshot that had worked without a problem. Naturally, the moment it arrived, the program started overhauling it. The interior quickly became quite different; storage was moved into more convenient locations, better furniture was installed, and they added more handholds to the rods that extended from the central drive. Most of the major changes were in rearrangements, but one of Jeh’s suggestions had been added to the pilot’s seat: mirrors. Sometimes she just wanted to see through the window behind her while accelerating away from something.

The other major change was the door. It was being converted into a proper airlock. However, since they had decided that the exterior shape of the ship was more important than interior space, the airlock took up a large cylindrical section of the interior, removing a person-sized chunk of space. The Moonshot II would therefore have a lesser carrying capacity, but it would allow people to go outside.

However, going outside would be pointless if they couldn’t survive out there. Sure, Jeh might be able to get by with just a diving helmet on her head, but even that experiment could go wrong in so many ways. So there was a new invention they needed to make.

The space suit.

Which, at the moment, was just a diving suit to go with the diving helmet.

It was too big for Jeh, to put it mildly. She was currently in it, trying to walk around the Moonshot II in all its partially constructed glory. The boots went up above her knees, her fingers didn’t reach the ends of the gloves, the sleeves and legs were scrunched up about as much as they could be, and the helmet was heavy. Jeh tried to take a step, teetered forward due to the heavy head, tried to correct, but only managed to fall backward onto her rear.

“...I don’t think that’s gonna work,” Margaret said, crossing her arms.

“Not gonna work! Not gonna work!” Scurfpea added.

Jeh pulled the helmet off and glared at her fellow pilots. “Gravity will be weaker on the moon, I’ll be fine.”

“We want a suit that can be used in any situation,” Margaret pointed out. “That definitely doesn’t fit you. Can you imagine all the folds flopping around in weightlessness? There’s a reason my outfit is as tight as it is when I go up there.”

Jeh crossed her arms—which, since she wasn’t trying to force her hands into the gloves, resulted in two loose dangling hands that appeared to go limp right at the elbow. “You think you can do better than me in this?”

“Yes, actually,” Margaret said. “It’s my size.”

“...Let’s see you try to walk around in this mess.” Jeh crawled right out of the hole that attached the rest of the suit to the diving helmet. Margaret was also able to use this hole to get in, but were she not a gari that would have been nigh impossible. As it was, her thin and pointed figure allowed her to fit in holes that a human of her height would not have been able to accomplish. Granted, humans of her height weren’t exactly common, but they did exist.

Once she got herself into the suit she stood up. The suit was still slightly baggy, even on her, but that was intentional so the fabric could expand and contract as needed to offset the pressure of water surrounding it. She latched everything and put the extremely heavy helmet on her head, locking it into place with a slight twist.

Then she took a step without issue.

“Oh come on…” Jeh muttered.

“Yay for Marg!” Scurfpea shouted, growing a flower out of the ground in celebration.

Margaret tried to strike a pose, but that was too much for her—she stumbled forward. However, she was able to spread out her arms and keep from falling to the ground, though holding the helmet up while doing such a motion was a big strain on her neck. “Ow…”

“See? Not as easy as it looks, is it?” Jeh asked.

“I expected it to be hard…” Margaret was now taking slow, regular steps around. “This definitely isn’t designed for walking in. The helmet needs some support other than my neck and shoulders…”

“That’s not the only problem,” Krays said, walking up to them.

“Oh?”

“The material works for underwater, it’s not going to work for space. Look at it.” She tugged at the fabric on Margaret’s arm. “So floppy. Oh, sure, it’ll keep air in… until you get high enough to pop like a balloon. Pop goes the astronaut!”

“This can handle the pressure of the ocean, though.”

“Friend, buddy, pal, girl…” Krays hung an arm around Margaret’s neck, which was very awkward considering the suit. “Material resistance to higher and lower pressures are different. The ocean can’t crush you, but the air inside the suit will tear you apart and drown you. The irony, drowned by air.” She snorted.

Margaret carefully removed Krays’ arm from her. “Do you have a material for us?”

“Nope! I’ve been dealing with glass and metals and other solid things for armor! Can’t really make a suit out of that. I need to…” she took a step back and spread her hands wide. “...expand my horizons! This way all you lost ants can stop going in circles and explore stuff! No need to thank me, yet. The time will come.” She rubbed her hands together malevolently.

“Uh-huh…” Jeh rolled her eyes. “So, airtight fabric that can handle pressure? …I don’t even know where to start…”

“Which is why you will be thanking me later. Remember? Lost ants? Going in circles, can’t find a way out of it?”

Jeh decided to ignore the comment. “So, how do we test the suit? If it’s going to explode, probably bad for me to be in it…”

“Skeleton,” Scurfpea said.

“...Huh?”

Scurfpea pointed at the suit. “Skeleton.”

“Scurfpea, Margaret is not a skeleton…”

“No, no, no. Skeleton. Suit. Skeleton in suit.”

“...You want to put a skeleton in the suit?”

Scurfpea nodded eagerly.

“It’ll allow us to test what it does if we release it into space,” Margaret pointed out. “We’d need a proper airlock up there but we could just… throw the suit out with a skeleton in it.”

“Huh. Good idea, Scurfpea.”

Scurfpea grinned.

Krays snorted. “Ah, people can be so smart and yet so silly… Wwhy would you need to put anything in it but air? It’ll explode with or without the skeleton in it!”

Everyone was silent for a moment.

“Hate to say it, but she’s got a point,” Jeh said.

Margaret tried to nod in response, but the heftiness of the helmet kept her from following through with that commitment. “All we need then… is the Moonshot II to be ready for a test flight.” She glanced at the metallic casing that was still missing a window and numerous interior pieces. “That’ll be a while.”

“Guess we have to test other things while we wait.”

“Or we could try going up with two Skyseeds at once and have you test the effects on one…”

Jeh grinned. “Ooooh, there’s an idea…”

Krays facepalmed. “My goodness the intelligent idiocy is on full display… if you explode in space you will go flying, Jeh. How on Ikyu is Margaret going to reliably catch you?”

“Oh. Right.”

“Just wait for the Moonshot II like a normal person.”

“But… normal… ugh.”

“Their ways must be our ways, alas… we must follow the monkey or be shunned… woe is us…”

“Cut the melodrama,” Margaret deadpanned.

“I don’t think I will!” And then she left, thus cutting the melodrama.

Margaret twitched.

~~~

“Hark! I have found the perfect loaf for me!” Ripashi tossed a loaf of bread onto the counter where Rina and Rona were standing.

One of them picked up the loaf, examining it. “Ripashi, question.”

“Hmm?”

“Are you purchasing this one because it looks like a flexed bicep?” The other twin asked.

“Um…” Ripashi started glancing side to side nervously.

“You don’t even have those kinds of biceps, you’re a qorvid.”

“Just… how much is it?”

“One-twenty,” the twins said in unison, overcharging him. He wasn’t in the mood to argue at the moment so he just paid it and went on his way.

The twins proceeded to have a completely silent conversation, congratulating each other on a good sale, a good shape for the bread, as well as getting away with it without Ripashi suspecting a thing. The two of them were in an excellent mood after this sale.

This excellent mood continued when a shady, hooded individual walked into the bakery. There were no other customers, and there was a decidedly ominous aura around him.

Perhaps the twins should have been nervous, but they were not. They had never seen this person before, but they knew exactly why he was here.

“I’m here to purchase a moon cake and two miniature crowns,” the customer said, his voice hissing dramatically.

“How would you like them?” they asked in unison.

“Inebriated.”

The twins nodded and leaned forward, pressing their hands together. “As the store is currently empty…”

“...we can do our business here,” the other finished.

“Gooood…” the cloaked individual said. “Do you have any information on a male, orange gari with one eye?”

“Hmm…” one of the twins reached down below the counter and started shuffling through cards. “Yes, it turns out.”

“Good.”

“We assume since you’ve gotten this far you know the deal: pay with coin or more information.”

“Information.” The cloaked figure leaned in, hissing. “A Shimmer agent is living amongst you, she i—”

“Already know about her, Keller will be wrapping her up by the end of the day,” the twins interrupted. “You’ll have to try harder than that.”

“Hmm…” The mysterious man stood to his full height and drummed his fingers on the counter, though his long-sleeved robes kept his fingers from being seen. “In that case, how about this? In the skies in the north—”

“While we are very interested in spacial phenomena, we already know about aurora,” one said.

The other nodded. “Some people down here have seen them in the past. Unless… you know what causes them?”

“...No.”

“Then try again.”

The visitor was clearly becoming agitated, potentially because he knew he didn’t have enough money to buy the information. But he still had other information up his sleeve.

“Perhaps, then, more of a rumor… there are whispers of a dark cabal controlling the whole world from the shadows.”

The twins leaned in. “Oh?”

“There is not much information, but the rumor has it that the latest Tempest Incident was not caused by a rogue Mikarol soldier, but rather some great conspiracy to steal the Guardian Spirit’s power…”

“Fascinating,” one said.

“That is certainly great information,” the other added. “It’s enough.” She pulled a card out from under the table. “You’ll find all the information you need about Driilos Vekair here. We were watching him while he was in town; suspected we might have been the next target for his large heists. Turned out not to be the case, unless he’s coming back later. Hope you catch him, Agent.”

The mysterious figure hesitated, but then he quickly took the card without showing his fingers. “Thank you for your assistance, and I will.” He slipped the card into his robe and quickly left the establishment.

“I was hoping we could get real information out of that…” one of the twins sighed.

“Can’t make it look like we already know about the secret society if we can help it.”

“I know… anyway…” one of the twins picked up a card and started scribbling on it. “He’s clearly not an Agent.”

“Probably wants to team up with Driilos.”

“Yep.” She slipped the card she had been writing on into an envelope that said Keller on it. It was not a file about Keller, but one for him. Any particularly suspicious individuals were reported directly to him.

It was part of the understanding they’d managed to work out.

The Sourdough twins continued their conversation nonverbally as a new customer came in and ordered a completely normal number of rolls. They kept this up until it was time for closing, which was only about an hour later. They locked everything up and went to their personal rooms in the basement. Instead of getting ready for bed, they made their way to a back wall and pressed a few unusually-shaped stones in a precise sequence that required two of them to be present at once. This undid the lock, allowing them to slide a giant stone block into the wall, revealing a secret room. It was a small room with two chairs, desk space built into two of the walls, and a million drawings and pins on giant corkboards that covered almost every available square inch of everything that wasn’t table space or the floor. There was even stuff hanging from the ceiling.

They had heard of Keeper Dimmrivoi’s conspiracy room and decided it was perfect for what they wanted to do.

They had maps of the world, maps of the solar system, and a timeline set up with all the events they knew about and many they didn’t, marked with colorful question marks of varied patterns and designs. Various sketched drawings of people were strewn about everywhere, and there were special red borders around those who were very important.

Then there was the little corner that was a sketched jink game board* but instead of pieces, there were drawings of the major players. The Kroan royal family, the Shimmers and Kaykayzee, the Rigid Plague, the Mikarol Empire… and the mysterious nameless organization set just outside the borders of the board. It was impossible to tell what exactly the state of this board meant from looking at it, but the Twins had a system.

*The game closest to chess in Kroan culture is jink, a game that takes place on a hexagonal grid and can have as many players as you have pieces. Turns are taken simultaneously: players reveal what they are going to do all at once and all the pieces move. Captures happen similarly to chess, except that pieces that are moved at the same time as a capturing piece don’t capture the piece that moved, and pieces that move onto the same square on the same turn capture each other. The original form of the game made players fight until only one remained, but most people will play a revised version where a round ends once one person is eliminated, and play continues until one person has won more rounds than the others.

They were trying to figure out who would win.

The major problem was the complete lack of knowledge of the secret organization’s capabilities. How much could they pull off if they wanted to? How little would they bother with?

It was an answer they didn’t know for sure, and thus predictions ranged from them being defeated easily to being able to win no matter what anyone else did.

The twins stared at the board for several minutes. Then, wordlessly, they nodded to each other and left the secret room, sealing it back up.

Then they played a game of actual jink themselves, one on one. They didn’t play to win, they just played for the fun of it. Mocking each other with half-spoken sentences, giggles, and clever ploys upon clever ploys that had almost no chance of working but would have been really cool if they did work, right?

One of them won, throwing her pieces in the air in celebration.

The other one threw a pillow at her sister, only for it to be caught and sent right back. The impact smacked the other twin onto the bed where she gave an overdramatic wail and played dead.

The other twin proceeded to sit on her and make her regret trying to play dead.

The two became a bundle of blankets, pillows, and laughter that stayed up far, far too late.

For all their accomplishments and experiences, they were still just kids.

~~~

Deep in the forests of the Wild Kingdoms, a ritual was taking place. For the “civilized” people of Ikyu, if such a ritual were to be observed, it would be called a dark ritual. But in truth, there was no darkness, neither in the concept of evil nor the concept of demons; there wasn’t even any magic in it.

The ritual took place far from any settlement. There were only around a dozen witnesses, all of them direct family of the woman in the center of the clearing: none other than Queen Riikaz. She wore neither her royal robes nor her fancy furs, but only simple white-furred wrappings around her chest and hips. As it was night, it was slightly too cold to stand comfortably.

Riikaz did not particularly care about the cold.

In front of her was a very large stump that was being used as a makeshift altar. On top of the altar was a large plast knife and the carcass of a fuzzy six-legged creature known as the ningwark.* This particular one was notably small for its species, as it was able to fit on the giant stump.

*The ningwark is usually a herd animal for people in the northern parts of the Wild Kingdoms as it produces milk and is rather docile, surviving mostly due to being impossible for predators to take down easily. They are not particularly smart and their milk isn’t particularly nutritious, but their meat is of a high quality and always tastes vaguely minty.

Riikaz reached out her hand to the blade and hesitated for a moment.

She knew exactly what she was doing and what the consequences would be. She knew she was purposefully setting on the path of revenge. She knew her husband would not have wanted this, she suspected most Keepers would call what she was doing against the will of Dia, and her children wanted her.

She knew all these things.

She could fall back on them, she could refuse the call to violence.

But every time she considered that she felt like exacting judgment upon herself. For being a coward. For leaving justice undone. For not doing what she needed to do.

With a determined expression, she wrapped her hands tightly around the grip of the blade. For a moment, she was struck by the distance a gari always had from almost any weapon—the armor of the gauntlet prevented any skin contact.

She lifted the knife high into the air and held it up, allowing it to glint off the light of the stars.

The various gari around her started chanting in an ancient tongue none of them understood.

Riikaz plunged the knife into the ningwark corpse. Blood sprayed all over the stump, adding yet another layer of color to it.

This ritual may not have been a common one, but over the centuries this stump had seen it performed several times. The entire top of the stump was now a sickly brown from the bloodshed, and soon the new streaks of red would become one with the muck.

Riikaz made sure the knife was nice and red before running it along her upper arm. She did not cut herself, nor did she touch any part of her that was plast. All she did was leave a streak of red along her perfectly white skin.

First, it was just lines along the upper arms and upper legs. Then one on her neck, stomach, and overtop the white furs, which soaked the blood up. At this stage, it seemed like Riikaz was painting a picture on herself, but after the initial skeleton, it became clear that there was no real rhyme or reason to the position of the blood on her skin. A thin line here, a thick one there, crossing a seemingly random number of other lines.

This continued until every single part of her skin was red. Even the unexposed skin was bloodied, due to the white furs she was wearing. She glistened crimson in the night, the only part of her that remained pure being the whites of her eyes—all else was either plast or blood.

She flicked the blade clean, splattering more blood on the stump.

“I am prepared!” she shouted to the sky.

One of the older gari men tapped a staff on the ground. “Who do you seek?”

“The mastermind behind the veil,” Riikaz said. “The being, whoever it is, that ordered the death of my husband.”

“Then go, take what is rightfully yours. The forest shall see justice done.”

The two of them bowed to each other. Mid-bow, they extended their right hands and clasped them together, flexing as they did so.

With that, the ritual was over and all the other gari rushed in to comfort Riikaz.

A tear rolled down her cheek, mixing with the red covering her, but it was insufficient to wash it away.

“...Shall I also ask the blessing of Dia on you?” the older gari asked.

Riikaz nodded. “Please. …I hope She will give it to me.”

“She will bless you, one way or another. But that blessing may take the form of your failure.”

“I suppose if it was best for everyone, I would want that…” Riikaz shook her head. “I will leave at first light.”

“What is your plan?” a woman asked. “The enemy is far greater than anything we’ve heard of before…”

“Not sure, but I do have a place to investigate.” Riikaz folded her hands together. “Benefactor confirmed the existence of that legendary library. She sought it to exploit its memory abilities. I will not seek it for that, I will seek it for information. We’ll see if I’m considered pure enough of heart to make it in.”

The woman’s face contorted in concern. “Riikaz, you are a woman on a path of revenge. We may see that as pure, but since Kroan has gotten us more connected… most do not agree.”

Riikaz nodded. “I know. I lived out there, and I intend to go back there. But I’m going to try this first.”

“Do you need any assistance?”

“Not at the moment, unless you know someone who knows about the library.”

Seeing that no one did, the elder man stepped forward once more. “Let us take the rest of the night to celebrate Riikaz’ return and departure, as well as her glorious success in Axiom.”

“...And mourn the loss of one of our own,” Riikaz added.

A few gari shuffled nervously at this, but the elder nodded. “He may not have taken the rites, but he was true to you and truly cared for us. I will not object.”

“Thank you, Dad.”

Her father chuckled. “I only wish I could do more…”

“If I ever think of anything, I’ll let you know.” She winked at him. “Maybe you could incorporate those explosives of yours into my weapons!”

“Crazy girl…”

~~~

SCIENCE SEGMENT

Now, we saw a lot of science DONE this chapter; Gronge has done a lot of experiments with magic that answer some questions and leave more questions unanswered. However, we don’t have magic in our world, so most of the things learned don’t exactly apply to our reality.

But I can talk a bit about how science itself is done here. (It’s not time to really discuss spacesuits yet).

First of all, Gronge is playing fast and loose with experimentation; he’s just doing things to see what happens and writing it down. He’s not getting exact readings, he’s not running enough controls, and he’s jumping around all over the place.

In both our world and his, this is still a valid strategy for learning things. Just throwing things at the wall and seeing what sticks, investigating every cranny and monkeying around. However, after this things will need to become far more precise. Gronge is not some special case—he knows he needs to be more precise when he writes up his final publications. He may not have an exact way to measure magic level, but he is going to need to make graphs with numbers and examine them. Even in Kroan, where often measurements cannot be precise, they have to give some sort of estimation.

In Gronge’s case, he is going to use a single member of the angler species and use “time until attribute depleted” to measure the magic level in the box. He has not done this yet, just seen things that happened and shipped it off to the Wizard Space Program so they could use it. This is also common practice in science—once you have information, even if it’s not validated, if another scientist could make use of it you tend to give it to them so they can continue their research. Now in my particular field this generally takes the form of ideas or computer code, but it can be done with experiment results as well.

Gronge will write an official paper eventually, and he is the sort to actually get it done. However, science often doesn’t run so smoothly. Often, both in reality and here, scientists will sit on their data and not publish for years. Sometimes this is done out of malice or a desire to present the data perfectly, yes, but just as often it’s a symptom of simple annoyance. Scientists generally do not enjoy writing papers, they enjoy doing science. Communicating the science is often the dullest part of the job. (And also the part they’re worst at, science work does not tend to draw in literary masterminds.)

Anyway, this is just a view of the often annoying logistics of scientific communication. And we’ve ignored the part where the publication makes a mistake or is worded badly enough that people get the wrong idea, and then misinformation spreads! Yaaaaay!