WIZARDS: A Tale Of Magic And Science - Chapter Three: The Gilded Planet

[Ultimate Steve]

WIZARDS

A Tale of Magic and Science

Prologue: The Light Heist

Spoiler

“But what if they find us!” asked Audrae Kerman as Keenan Kerman pulled her through the dark halls of the Kerlington Institute of Wielding.

“Don’t worry, they won’t!” Keenan reassured her.

“Well, yeah, but what if they do?”

“Nobody is using the lens anyway. What are they going to do, kick us out for stealing the light from the floor?”

“Yes, they will!” Audrae said nervously.

“Relax, I’ve done this a hundred times!” Keenan pushed open the doors to one of the main observatories. “Ah… Wrong room. Well, close to a hundred times…” He closed the door and quickly ran down the hallway, opening another, equally grand door.

“Woah,” Audrae gasped, in awe at the massive focusing lens in the ceiling of the ornately decorated lecture hall.

“They use this place to teach Stonewielding when the Mun is high,” Keenan said.

“The Mun isn’t there, though!” Audrae responded.

“Yeah, I was thinking we did something else,” Keenan responded as he stepped out into the middle of the room beneath the lens. Minmus glittered, so far away, but the lens allowed its light to illuminate the focal area as bright as the full Mun. Keenan raised his hands, absorbing the essence from Minmus above.

“You… You are a friction wielder?”

“I prefer the term Minmar,” Keenan admitted. “Friction wielder, you know, sounds like a supider version of friction stir welding, so uh… Come!” Audrae walked forward, and then promptly slipped around, nearly falling, before Keenan steadied her. “Watch!” Keenan took a step and glided smoothly across the floor with ease, coming to a stop near the middle of the illuminated area. “It’s easy!” Audrae stepped into the light, nervous, and took a step.

“Woah!” she said, as she slipped and fell, but Keenan caught her. “You said you were taking me ice skating!”

“Well, it sort of is, just without the ice!”

“Very different feel, though.”

“Take my hands, I want to show you something.” They took each others hands and began spinning around in a circle.

“Woah, too fast!”

“Sorry.” Keenan turned on friction again gradually and they stopped. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s not you, it’s just… I feel so overwhelmed… That was fun, I’m just… Keenan, we aren’t supposed to be here!”

“It’s not like we are stealing Bop essence, or anything! It’s everyone’s moonlight, we are just making use of an… underutilized facility!” There was a sudden sound of footsteps from the hall. Keenan’s face froze in panic. “Hide!” He took Audrae’s hand and pulled her behind one of the rows of seats. Two men entered the room.

“I told you they would find us!” said Audrae.

“Hold on, is that Larenco Kerman, the head of the Airwielding department?”

“Yes… And is that…”

“2,000 tons of Gilly rock,” spoke the other man, “Distilled into four grams of the finest Gilly essence available.” He held up a small vial of glowing brown liquid. 

“Gilly essence?” whispered Audrae. “How could he?”

“That hasn’t been legal here since before the Jool war!” said Keenan as he maneuvered to get a better look.

“Magnificent,” replied Larenco as he held up the vial in the dim light of Minmus. “The usual payment, I assume?”

“Yes, that will suffice, but next time, it will be more…”

“What do you mean?”

“I can’t keep doing this, Larry, they are tightening their security every day.”

“Those selfish pricks. It’s not like we’re going to bleed Gilly dry like they say we will.”

“The money, Larenco.”

“Yes, of course. Let me test it, first…” Larenco slotted the vial into position on his custom essence gauntlet, briefly focused, and leapt to the top of the high ceiling, nearly hitting the lens in the process, and landing gracefully. “Phenomenal… You will find seven million credits have been transferred to your account, as per our agreement.”

“Seven million credits!” Keenan gasped. “Audrae, we can’t stand for this!”

“Just let it go, Keenan,” pleaded Audrae.

“Gilly is losing millions of tons a year!”

“Keenan!”

“We’ve got to report this!”

“Like the authorities will do anything!”

“Well then, I’ll take matters into my own hands!” Larenco once again held out the vial of Gilly essence. Keenan felt the desks… Made of wood. Perfect. He wielded the wood, and used it to forcibly launch himself across the room. Both men turned to look, but before they could do much, Keenan shot into the light of Minmus and dropped the friction of Larenco’s hands to zero. The vial fell out of his hands, and into Keenan’s as he slid across the now frictionless floor. In a fraction of a second, he bent the wood of another desk into handcuffs, binding the arms of the two men, at the same time, reducing the friction of the ground beneath them to zero so they could not escape. One of them immediately fell over, but Larenco retained his balance.

“Excuse me?” asked Larenco.

“Something tells me this wasn’t obtained legitimately,” remarked Keenan as he held up the vial of Gilly essence. “You have ten seconds to tell me where you got this from.”

“Uh… Gilly?” replied the shadowy figure.

Larenco stood, almost as if he was amused. “You would dare challenge a quadruple master?” Larenco began to Lifewield, mangling his handcuffs into daggers, which he levitated in front of him, pointed at Keenan.

“You would dare steal Essence from Gilly?”

“Look… I was like you, once, all righteous and what not, but the real world doesn’t work that way.”

“Larenco, think about how many people look up to you… I looked up to you!”

“You’re a fine Lifewielder and an even finer Minmar, it would be a shame for you to meet your end, so young, as a bloodstain on the floor. Now give me the vial, and you can walk away, and we can forget this all happened. I’ll even throw in a scholarship, how about that?”

Keenan froze for a second, and hesitated, before stepping forwards, holding out the vial.

Suddenly, Keenan lunged forward, conjuring up fists of wood, propelled by perfect grip, before being struck backwards by a blast of air from Larenco, as his gauntlet glowed purple. Keenan fell onto the ground, now out of the light of Minmus, desperately trying to get to his feet, only to find out that Larenco had de-frictioned the surface, and now it was he that could not move. Larenco’s gauntlet flashed gray as the stone floor curled up around Keenan, fixing him in place.

Larenco stepped closer, towering over him. Keenan tried to form a wooden shield, but Larenco effortlessly shattered it. “You would throw away your life,” proclaimed Larenco as he seized the essence vial from Keenan, “For this?”

“That’s all you are doing, isn’t it??? The people of Gilly won’t stand for this!”

“Oh, please, a thousand square miles and they don’t even bother slowing the smugglers down.” Larenco popped the vial into his gauntlet before destroying the other man’s handcuffs without even turning around.

“Larenco, I looked up to you! How could you!”

“Now as much as I don’t want to do this… We can’t have any loose lips laying around, can we? Arthur?”

“Yes, sir, loose lips sink spaceships…” said the other man as he approached, unholstering a revolver. “Loose hips need replacing, and, uh, what was the other one?”

“Oh for Pol’s sake, just shoot him already!”

“Please! Help! Anyone! I don’t want to die!” shouted Keenan as he struggled, to no avail.

“It’s nothing personal,” Arthur said as he took aim at Keenan’s head.

“Dad, don’t!” shouted Audrae as she ran out from behind the front row of desks.

“Audrae?” he asked. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Don’t kill him, dad! Please! We were just here to skate, that’s all!”

“I swear to Pol, if the janitors forget to lock these doors ONE more time!” scoffed Larenco, annoyed.

“This is the guy you’re seeing?” asked Arthur. Audrae nodded in tears. “...Well I can’t say I see why. Larry, I can’t kill him. Not in front of my daughter.”

Larenco sighed. “Why can’t it ever be simple for once? Okay, look. You. Get out of here. I better not see you again. Ever. Don’t apply here. If you mention any of this to anyone - no matter who - I will not hesitate to wield you to the Mun and back eight different ways. If I catch a glimpse of your face ever again, you are dead. Do you understand?” Keenan nodded, in terror.

“And one more thing,” began Arthur, “I may not be a fancy-pants wielder like the rest of you, but you will eat lead if I catch you anywhere near my daughter again. Get out of here and don’t ever come back.”

“Well… I’m kinda stuck…” said Keenan.

Larenco rolled his eyes. “I was this close to making it a month between Mun essence refills.” Annoyed, Larenco released the stone from around Keenan’s body, rendering him free. He leapt up and bolted out the door, only looking back once, and only for a moment, at Audrae’s tear strewn face.

“Loose, uh, chips don’t taste good? Larenco, seriously, what was it?”

“Arthur, please do me a favor and shut the Bop up.”
 

There are five rules of wielding.

1. Anyone can wield.
2. All known worlds grant different powers.
3. Powers are not inherently good or evil.
4. Power harnessable from a world is inversely proportional to the square of the distance from the world.
5. Do not try to wield the sun.

There are four ways around (4).

1. Using a lens to focus a world’s power on oneself.
2. Bringing rocks from another world with you.
3. Distilling rocks from another world into pure magical essence and bringing the essence with you.
4. Being present along the line of a planetary conjunction.

There are three names you must know.

1. Mia Kerman, cynical but crafty, space transport engineer and non wielder.
2. Lawrence Kerman, sensitive but knowledgeable, space transport pilot and wielding enthusiast.
3. Keenan Kerman, self critical but determined, space transport attendant and wielding amateur.

There are two sides of a war past and brewing.

1. The Joolians, practitioners of six.
2. The Kerbans, practitioners of three.

There can be only one winner.

 

 

Chapter One: Fire and Ice

Spoiler

Seven Years Later

“How did you end up here?” asked Lawrence Kerman.

“Hard work, that’s how,” Keenan responded.

“No, I mean… Why a Mun shuttle?” Lawrence gestured to the dilapidated PT-919 series Mun Shuttle they were both standing at the controls of.

“Look, I know it isn’t glamorous, but if it gets me to the Mun, I don’t really care.”

“You’re college educated, Keenan. Surely you can land a job as a wielder somewhere.”

“I went for engineering,” responded Keenan, glaring, “not wielding… It didn’t work out that way.”

“Pfft, the Mohians will take your job lickety split, bad move. Come on, you could have probably gotten into Kerlington. I hear that Larenco dude is pretty cool. He’s up to, what, five masteries by now and he’s also a multidisciplinary professor?”

“Look, I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Righty, then… Oh goodness me, look at the time!” Lawrence floated over to the intercom. “Lllllladies and gentlemen, plants, animals, plantimals, pals, gals, and everyone in between, welcome on board the Munliner Cassandra! In just a few short minutes, we will depart for Jebediah Crater City, with an estimated travel time of 4 hours and 52 minutes. Please fasten your seatbelts and prepare for main engine ignition. Snacks will be served shortly after departure. Thank you!”

“You sound like such a dork when you do that,” said Mia, the ship’s maintenance technician, who had just walked into the cockpit.

“I don’t see you two volunteering,” He responded.

“Anyway, well - “

“Oi, don’t change the subject, I’m winning!”

“We have to delay the flight, the Poodle’s turbopumps aren’t giving good readings.”

“Mia, they never give good readings.” Lawrence pivoted back over to the intercom. “Lllladies and gentlemen, prepare for undocking.”

“No, I really mean it this time.”

“And if we tell our boss? We get written up for delaying service and he still won’t pay a cent to fix it until it explodes on us.”

“Wait, hold on,” Keenan said. “Isn’t that a violation of, like, eight maintenance codes?”

“Oh dear lord, not another one,” groaned Mia. 

“What?”

“It will wear off. Trust me.”

“...What?”

“Okay, newbie,” explained Lawrence, ”you came to work at the skeeziest of skeezy budget spacelines and you expect the boss to care about stuff like laws and regulations?”

“But like, our passengers are being exposed to unnecessary danger without their informed consent, and - “

“Or safety?”

“Look. Stand back, shut up, let Larry do the talking, let me do the walking, and you just watch, alright?”

“Mia, I’ve said it a thousand times, don’t call me Larry. Its Lawrence.”

“Ok, Larry.”

“Alrighty…”  Lawrence. “Engine startup checklist complete, optimal window opening about now. Three… Two… One… Ignition!” The ship began accelerating as the ancient Poodle engine lit. “See? I told you it would work.”

“For now, at least,” scoffed Mia. A few minutes later, the Cassandra had burned practically every last drop of fuel on board and was headed to the Mun. Keenan stood in awe looking out the windows as Kerbin shrunk in the distance. His whole life had been building up to this moment… He was finally getting to go to the Mun, and would finally be able to practice stonewielding up close!

“Hey, Teegan - “ Mia began.

“Keenan.”

“Keeney-Weeny, stop hogging the windows, get back there, start serving the drinks, and do try not to spill.”

“Look… We know it is your first time in zero-G,” began Lawrence, “But please, for the love of all things holy, don’t spill anything, it is really, really annoying to clean up.”

“Not as bad as vomit, at least,” interjected Mia.

“They are packaged squeeze bottles, how would anyone spill them?” Keenan asked.

“You would be surprised. It happened to the last flight attendant we had, they got fired. And you know how hard it is to get fired from here of all places. Just don’t spill, alright?”

“Got it.” Keenan regretfully tore himself away from the ship’s large main window and began serving drinks and snacks to the 29 passengers.

==========

The Cassandra, having made several RCS corrections over the course of its five hour journey, was now approaching the Mun.

“JCC control, this is TMM-2539 Cassandra, please confirm that our landing site is ready.”

“Roger Cassandra, site 19-B is ready for landing… Cassandra, please state your remaining fuel reserves.”

“About 23 units of liquid fuel, corresponding oxidizer, and 52 units of monopropellant.”

“Roger that, Cassandra.”

“Why do they need to know that?” asked Keenan.

“Ugh, he seriously didn’t hear about the Aquarius incident?” lamented Mia.

“They had an accident a while back in which one of the landing crew had a heart attack, and a ship crashed as a result. However it destroyed a lot of stuff, as it had a lot of fuel on board… They are more tightly controlling it now,” said Lawrence.

“Ah, ok. Makes sense.”

“Aaaand, contact!” shouted Lawrence as the ship began to decelerate, now only about 4 kilometers above the surface of the Mun.

“It’s just a landing, what are you excited for? You don’t even get to do anything.”

“Mia, with all due respect, shut up. We’re being wielded! Isn’t this cool?”

“You’re just jealous of my awesome Lifebending skills.”

“You bent a carrot once, Mia!”

The Cassandra, with exterior panels of thin stone, had been caught in the lines of focus of a team of rockwielders on the Munar surface. Jebediah Crater City came into view. About 2 minutes later, the ship had slowed to a crawl above one of the landing pads, which was surrounded by a team of about a dozen skilled rockwielders with projection lenses to aid in remote wielding. They, hand gestures and all, gently set the Cassandra down on its wheels on the designated landing pad.

“Butter smooth!” reported Lawrence.

“I’ve sat through better. How long until we have to go?” asked Mia as Lawrence drove the ship off of the landing pad and to a terminal, the rockwielders already focusing on the next ship in line to land.

“We’re scheduled to take off again in about 20 minutes,” replied Lawrence.

“20 minutes?!?” shouted Keenan. “I went all the way to the Mun and I don’t even have time to leave the ship?!? Is this typical?”

“Well, sometimes we get to stay overnight,” responded Mia. “But like, it is just the Mun, it’s no big deal.”

“That is the whole reason I took this job!”

“Well maybe you should work on the Mun.” Mia burst out laughing. “Ahh, who am I kidding… The sparkly places are oversaturated with dreamers hoping to become the next big Stonewielder, and the dreary places charge you for the oxygen you breathe.”

“And the slavery. Don’t forget the slavery.”

“Yeah, that too. Basically, good luck.”

“Lllllladies and gentlemen, thank you for flying with Grey Dwarf Spacelines, please exit out the right hand door, the walkway is connected.”

“Is it really that bad?” asked Keenan.

“No, it is usually worse,” Mia responded.

“Don’t let her get you down,” said Lawrence, “It is bad, but, like… It is still the Mun. Anyway, Mia, want to pay the landing fees?”

“Sure thing.”

“I’ll go manage the oncomers for now, it’s Keenan’s job but, well… Keenan, I’ll be back in like 5 minutes, ok?”

“Thank you so much, Lawrence!”

“Sure thing, kid.” They both exited the cockpit, leaving Keenan alone.

 5 minutes wasn’t a lot… But over a year of going to the Mun two or three times a week, it would add up, and it would usually be longer… Keenan took a few stones out of his pocket, placed them on the console, concentrated, focused as hard as he possibly could… And attempted to get the tiny pebbles to leap up into the air.

Nothing happened.

“My whole life has been leading up to this moment, and it turns out I can’t do this?” muttered Keenan. “No… It’s my first real try… I can improve. Maybe it’s the gravity?”

The next four and a half minutes were taken up by Keenan grunting, gesturing wildly at the pebbles, trying to make them do something, anything. Keenan’s Minmarism came so naturally to him… Lifewielding was more difficult, but he managed… And the rocks refused to budge.

“Hey Keenan, catch!” Lawrence tossed something at him. Keenan turned around to see it hurtling at him.

“Aah!” he reflexively screamed, holding his arms up to try blocking the projectile… But it never hit. Lawrence gasped.

“No. Way.” He said, pointing in disbelief. Suspended in midair above the deck of the Cassandra was a Mun rock. “You… You’re a - “

The rock came crashing down.

“ - Stonewielder. How did you do that??? Do it again, do it again! Mia, come look at this! The newbie is a stonewielder!” Mia popped her head into the cockpit.

“Well, you see, uh, ” began Keenan.

“Well get on with it!” Mia shouted, annoyed.

“Sheesh, alright, you don’t have to be that harsh!” Keenan gestured wildly at the rocks and grunted. Nothing happened.

“I told you you needed glasses,” Mia said as she prodded Lawrence.

“I do not!”

“It’s, uh, my first time trying this,” Keenan said. “I wasn’t able to do it, I can’t do it… And then he threw a rock at me and I… I did it! But I don’t know how.”

“That’s so cool!” said Lawrece.

“Big deal, you hallucinated him levitating a rock.”

“Oh, uh, by the way, I got you a Mun rock.”

“...Thank you, Lawrence, that is very much appreciated.”

“Where did you get the money for that, the ones at the visitor center are super expensive!” demanded Mia.

“Wait, you mean we can’t just pick them up off the ground? I thought only Gilly was strict about that!” said Lawrence.

“Lawrence, you have had this job for, what, two years now?” said Mia. “You should know that by now! This is like that time you tried to lick the Minmus flats!

“I mean, no big deal, I can put it back!” Keenan said. “If it’s illegal, I want no part in it. Wait, we get to go to Minmus?”

“Uh, we’ve got company,” said Lawrence. Mia looked out the window.

“It’s the Mun Brigade,” she said.

“Man, looks like they take rock theft seriously. Let’s get out of here!” said Lawrence as he pivoted to the intercom. “Lllllladies and gentlemen, plants, animals, plantimals, pals, gals, and - “

“For Pol, just skip it!” Mia demanded.

“Prepare for liftoff in three! Two! One!”

“Liftoff!” shouted Keenan enthusiastically as he gripped the back of Lawrence’s seat. Nothing happened for a few awkward seconds.

“We’re not even on the launch pad yet, you doofuses,” Mia said. There was a knock.

“I can’t go back to jail!” shouted Lawrence as he hid behind a chair.

“Listen, Keeny-Weeny, you’re taking the fall for this, I’m gonna go make the engines look like they are in spec. We’ve never met. Deal?”

“Uh - “

“Rhetorical question. Nice knowing you.” Mia left the cockpit. Keenan stood alone for a few seconds.

“Right. Here goes.” Keenan walked into the passenger compartment, took a deep breath, and re-opened the passenger door, coming face to face with two Mun Brigade officials. “Good evening, officers.”

“Afternoon, actually,” spoke the taller one.

“Right. Mun time, I forgot.”

“Well isn’t it evening somewhere?” asked the shorter one.

“Shut up. Anyway, sir, I’m afraid we must be short - “

“I’ll shut up if you shut up about my height!” shouted the shorter one.

“Oh for Bop, not again.”

“Yes again!”

“Anyway, we’ve been tracking a dangerous Tylan Pentaloger by the name of Sylvus Kerman.” he gave Keenan a photograph of a dark silhouette of a Kerbal holding a gravity scepter. “It’s a long shot, but we were wondering if you had any information.”

“No, sir.”

“Right then. If you do run into him, do not engage.”

“What is he doing?”

“He is going around killing allied masters, he’s up to five now.”

“Killing masters? But like… Only masters can kill masters!”

“Correction. Master pentaloger.”

“A Master pentaloger? Aren’t there only a few of those?”

“Correct.”

“Why would he do anything like that?”

“Beats me,” said the taller one.

“Well it is obviously the Joolian radiation!” said the short one. “Those Joolians are off their rocker, they have been since long before the war.”

“Stop spreading that nonsense, please… Anyways, we should go. Thank you for your time, call us if you have any information.”

“Roger, thank you officers. Have a great day.” The two officers turned their backs and Keenan closed the door, then walked back to the cockpit. The Cassandra was now rolling out to the takeoff pad.

“Well, we are going to need a new flight attendant,” said Mia. “Again.”

“Is that a new record for the shortest lived one?” asked Lawrence.

“No, there was Frank,” replied Mia. “He only lasted under a half of one trip.”

“Guys, I’m right here,” Keenan announced. They both jumped and turned around.

“Keenan! I thought you got arrested?” Mia exclaimed.

“Nah, they just wanted to know if we had seen a wanted criminal.”

“A known rock thief?” snickered Mia.

“No, actually.” Keenan presented the wanted flyer. “This Sylvus dude, a master Pentaloger.”

“You mean the Sylvus Kerman?” Lawrence said in fear and awe.

“You’ve heard of him?” Keenan asked.

“Oh, please, he won’t shut up about wielding this, wielding that, day in and day out, every single trip to the Mun and back,” Mia stated as she rolled her eyes. “It gets really, really old, really, really, fast.”

“The only things that don't get old are the Gillians!”

“You’re not funny, Lawrence.”

“You probably don’t even know what a Pentaloger is, Mia! Anyway, Sylvus is one of the top fifty or so most powerful wielders ever, master of five bodies and practitioner of several more, at least four, possibly as many as seven, but nobody knows because he is so mysterious, and - “

“Lawrence. The takeoff.”

“Right.” Lawrence pivoted to the intercom and began his long spiel as Mia talked to ground control. The Cassandra was effortlessly lifted off of the ground by the team of Munar stonewielders and propelled faster and faster.

“Keenan, check the back, see if they have those chicken sandwich things, I’m hungry” asked Mia.

“And honey mustard,” said Lawrence, “Lots of it.”

“He really likes his honey mustard,” added Mia. “Like, take the maximum sane amount, and triple it.”

“Roger.” Keenan left the cockpit, climbing down the floor mounted ladder due to the odd acceleration, towards the rear cargo hold. On the way he surveyed the passengers. Only about ⅕ of the seats were full. As he climbed, he noticed a man in a flannel jacket, sleeping, a young Kerbal reading comic books, and a nervous looking man carrying a briefcase chained to his arm, among others. They made eye contact and he clutched the suitcase harder. Before Keenan could ponder this further, he was suddenly forcibly grabbed by the shoulder.

“Excuse me!” shouted a well dressed woman.

“Easy there, you almost knocked me off the ladder!” retorted Keenan.

“Back talk! I’ll have you fired! Don’t you know who I am?”

“If I knew who you were, you probably wouldn’t be flying Grey Dwarf, would you?”

“How dare you! I’ll say, this place is disgusting, the service is awful, and there is no atmosphere!”

Suddenly, the Cassandra rapidly decompressed with a loud bang as the port side wall was ripped to shreds. Keenan gripped the wall in terror, screaming. Had the maintenance gotten that bad? This couldn’t be the end already!

No, it wasn’t the maintenance! A dark, shadowy figure levitated through the hole in the hull, beams of light radiating from his fingertips, brandishing an ornate, jagged scepter - with a miniature black hole at its tip.

Abruptly, the hull breach sealed and the atmosphere returned. “SYLVUS!” shouted the suitcase man, who had brandished a gauntlet, glowing purple and gray.

“Nothing personal, old friend, but you have some information I need.” Sylvus brandished his scepter, and a roar of energy reverberated around the ship. One Kerbal tried to jump him, but was instantly devoured into the singularity.

Mia had turned the evacuation lights on, but nobody moved for the emergency helmets - they were all screaming, frozen in fear.

The suitcase man’s gauntlet lit up in a rainbow as he attempted to defend the Pentaloger’s onslaught, but it was not enough. “You will never take me alive, Sylvus!” he shouted.

“That was never the idea, Master.” Sylvus unleashed a massive blast of light from his right hand, blowing a hole in the Master, tearing his suitcase away, and causing a massive hull breach on the other side of the ship, sucking everyone out.

Keenan floated through the void, spinning, helpless, suffocating, but after a few seconds, strangely calm. “So this is the end, I guess…” he thought. “I always wanted to go to the Mun, I guess it will just be a little bit faster than expected.” The edges of his vision faded to black.

 

===

 

“Hey, Keenan! Wake up!” shouted Lawrence.

“Ugh… I had such a bad dream… AHAHHAHAHHAH WHERE IS MY HELMET?!?!?!?” panicked Keenan as he sat up, covered in dust, on the Munar surface… Indeed without a helmet.

“Ok, calm down.”

“LIKE THAT EVER HELPED ANYONE CALM DOWN!”

“He’s right,” said Mia, “We’re, like, totally screwed.”

“Ok, so, uh, this is Samantha Rae, Evian Poet, practitioner of Gaseous Wielding.” Lawrence gestured to a Kerbal a few meters away, both arms extended, eyes shut, deep in concentration.

“Hi, Sam-”

“DON’T! She needs to concentrate. She’s gathering all of the oxygen that spilled out from the ship and putting it into spheres around our heads so we can breathe.”

“Oh is that how we can talk too? Is she making air tunnels between us too?”

“Yes.”

“Man, that’s got to require some serious concentration.”

“Which is why you should not wave at her, touch her, or talk to her, she’ll lose concentration and we’ll all depressurize, and it has happened five times already and it's just not fun, alright?” Lawrence pleaded.

“It's busted!” shouted Mia.

“What’s busted?” asked Keenan.

“This distress beacon. The oxygen equipment, the whole lot. I’m going to kill my boss if I don’t die first… Unlikely, as Sammy here only has about twenty minutes of Eve essence left.”

“So uh… How did we, you know, live?” asked Keenan. Lawrence’s eyes lit up.

“So like that master guy, master Mkar, after he was hit by the Joolian radiation beam, he used his last bit of energy to completely blast us with life energy, rendering us temporarily invulnerable! Unfortunately, only about half of us made it. But you should have seen it, it was so cool!”

“Master Mkar? That looked nothing like him… How do you know it was him?”

“This.” Lawrence held up a half destroyed suitcase. “Looks like Sylvus found what he wanted and left the rest. Had his name on it. Most of its contents are gone, but we were able to recover some letters and a lot, and I mean a LOT, of essence vials, hence why Sam here can keep us alive.”

“Oh yay, we have enough Eeloo juice to freeze a star, the only problem is that NOBODY HERE KNOWS HOW TO FROSTWIELD!” shouted Mia.

“Mia, shouting won’t get us anywhere. So. We have no distress beacon. Twenty - Well, nineteen minutes of air. Where’s the nearest safety?”

“Nearest outpost is probably Neeson’s Safekeep, about fifteen kilometers East-Northeast,” reported another Kerbal.

“Can anyone here do Magic besides me and her?”

“It is exactly you, the life support system, the dead master, and Dave.”

“Hi!” smiled Dave nervously.

“WHAT DID YOU CALL ME?” Snapped Samantha, opening her eyes in rage, but her face soon gave way to surprise as all of the oxygen drained away and everyone began suffocating. “SORRY!” she shouted but nobody could hear her, because there was no air. She quickly attempted to regain her composure, and her ring glowed purple once more.

“Six,” gasped Lawrence.

“So, Dave!” asked Keenan. “What forms of wielding do you practice?”

“Laythe and Vall, mostly, although I, um… Well, that’s not important, but - “

“For the sake of the Polish, spit it out, we’re dying here!”

“...I may or may not have dabbled in the Gilly form.”

“Hey man, I won’t snitch!” replied Lawrence.

“That makes two criminals,” said Mia. “Laythe, Vall, Eve, Minmus, Kerbin. Five forms and none of the useful ones!”

“Wait, hold on,” said Lawrence. “Eve is visible right now!” He spotted Eve in the sky and pointed towards it. “Anyone have any mirrors? Anything big and reflective?”

“The safety blankets!” said Keenan as he ran to the pile of the salvaged safety equipment. He picked up one and tore its package open only for it to immediately disintegrate.

“What, you expected it to be in good condition like the rest of the ship was?”

“Mia, shut up, you’re not helping!” shouted Lawrence.

“It was wishful thinking to think we could have reflected enough Ley to make a difference,” said Keenan.

“Good thinking, though. We would need a proper lens to survive long term," said Lawrence. "Then Samantha can keep us breathing until something else breaks."

“You know, they for sure saw our ship explode,” Keenan began. “So, they are going to be on their way to rescue us. We just need to survive a little longer, figure out how to prolong the air.”

“You idiot!” shouted Mia. “We’re all going to die on the stupid Mun with our ears talked off by a guy who still has some shard of childhood innocence in him! I’d rather listen to Lawrence!”

“Mia, will you shut it!”

“Poor Keenan thinks they actually care about rescuing people!” said Mia. "Half this forsaken moon is covered in slaves, yet they only want to make sure they can charge you money for rocks!" Keenan sat back down and buried his face in his hands.

"Accurate,” said Lawrence, “But they might care about this,” he said as he held up the briefcase. “They were looking for Sylvus already... Unlike us, though, this briefcase doesn’t need oxygen.”

“Wait… Of course!” shouted Keenan.

“What?” shouted Lawrence and a few others at the same time.

“We just need to make a lens, right? And that crater over there. That’s one of the permanently shadowed ones, right? There’s got to be ice!”

“Oh!” shouted Lawrence. “Enough Eeloo essence to freeze a star is surely enough essence to make a lens!”

“But nobody here knows how to frostwield!” shouted Mia.

“Well, we have seventeen - “

“Sixteen.”

“Sixteen minutes to learn.” The group began bounding across the surface of the Mun towards the crater.

“It - OW! Was - OW! Not a good id - OWWWWW! Idea to cheap out on shoes, this liquid - ow - sandpaper dust is no joke!” said Lawrence. The group arrived at the edge of the crater.

“Yes! Ice!” shouted Keenan. “Alright, everyone take a vial, see if you can get the ice to do anything!” Lawrence began distributing the vials as everyone slid down into the crater.

“This… This is worth more than anything else I’ve held my entire life,” said one Kerbal. “This has got to be worth thousands of credits!”

“Probably closer to a hundred thousand,” said Lawrence.

Keenan launched himself down in the crater and landed on top of the giant ice deposit. Strapping the essence vial to his arm, he attempted to loosen a chunk of ice. The vial glowed a frosty blue as he placed his hand on the surface. Nothing.

He tried harder, pumped his entire being into the ice as the vial glowed ever brighter. He curled his fingers into the optimal pattern from an instructional course he had sat in on. He began to shake from the cold and retracted his hand back as the ice did nothing.

“Try bending your thumb more like this,” said Lawrence.

“You snuck up on me!” said a surprised Keenan as Lawrence guided his hand.

“The modified Malfic stance is kinda more for advanced users and is usually taught to those who already know one of the Joolian forms, the original Submal is generally better for beginners.”

“Thank you - AAAHHHH!” Keenan shouted as tiny icicle stalagmites began forming from the ground. “I’m DOING IT!”

“Keep going! Now raise your hands and, uh…”

“I… I can’t!” the ice had creeped up around Keenan’s arm and it was now stuck to the surface.

“Stop!” said Lawrence.

“I can’t!” panicked Keenan. Lawrence picked up a rock and began desperately smashing it against the ice in order to free Keenan. The ice crept up his arm further and further, to his shoulder, and approaching his head.

“Help, anyone, Keenan’s turning into an iceberg!” shouted Lawrence. Dave bounded over at an instant. “Cover your eyes!” he shouted, and one of his rings began to glow. A bright light erupted from it and into the pile of ice, melting it instantly. Keenan popped his hand out.

“You… You didn’t even burn my arm!” said a shocked Keenan.

“I’m pretty good at Vallian lightwielding, not to brag or anything.”

“What are we going to do!” panicked Lawrence. “Nobody here can properly frostwield!”

“Wait, Dave. You said you can do Vall AND Laythe, right?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Lawrence, how much of that essence do we have?”

“Not a lot, but some.”

“New plan. Dave. Melt as much of this as possible, lift it up into the sky, spin it into a lens, and then I’ll freeze it.”

“I think you are are overestimating me, but - “

“Here. We are counting on you,” said Lawrence, shoving a few vials of Laythe and Vall essence into Dave’s hands.

“Alright. Here goes nothing. Everyone stand back and close your eyes!” Dave placed goggles over his eyes, stood up tall, struck a pose, and shouted as the vials began to glow.

“AAAAAAAHHHH!” half shouted, half grunted Dave.

A massive beam of light erupted from his hands and into the Mun, and water started to collect in a pool on the surface, then a sphere in the sky.

“Holy Bop Below, it is actually working!” shouted Mia.

“Mia, you haven’t touched your Eeloo vial!” shouted Lawrence.

“I told you, I’m not a wielder, I don’t wield!”

“Anyone can be a wielder, silly!” Keenan said.

“Anyone can also be president, that doesn’t mean everyone is good at it!”

“Alright, freeze it!” shouted Dave. Keenan looked up to see a massive watery lens in the sky.

“We need supports for it to keep it in the sky!” Keenan shouted.

“What, you want me to do complex geometry?” shouted Dave. “This is about at the edge of what I can do!”

“Alright, then we’ll make them of ice anyway… Frostwielding is contact only, anyway, so ice has to get up to the lens somehow!" Keenan began to draw up ice from the ground once more… And once more got stuck. Bashing his arm free with a rock, he tried again, with a similar result.

“I can’t hold this much longer!” shouted Dave. “What’s the hold up?”

“I… I can’t do it! I can’t frostwield up to the lens!”

“Nonsense, of course you can!” said Lawrence. “Mia, help me get him out so he can try again!”

“Three minutes, oh, Keenan, I take back every time I insulted you, I believe in you!” Mia shouted as she ran over to Keenan.

“What about me?” asked Lawrence.

“No, you can keep your insults.” As Mia touched the ice surrounding Keenan’s arm, the essence vial in her pocket began to glow and the ice, in a fraction of a second, sharded up around her own hand and shattered.

“AAAHHH!” Mia shouted, thrown back by the explosion.

“Mia, you’re a - “

“I’m a… I’m a frostwielder,” she whispered in surprise. She kneeled down, pressing one hand against the surface, and another towards the sky as she rose a jagged, angular icicle up from the surface towards the lens.

“Keep going Mia, you’ve got this!” shouted Keenan.

“Lawrence, how do I steer it?” she shouted.

“Oh, now you want my help!” Lawrence excitedly shouted.

“Oh, shut it, Larry!”

“Try modulating the vibrations of your digits in a roughly sine wave pattern and rotating in the direction you want to turn.”

“What?”

“Dave, move the lens over Mia’s tower, she’ll build up to you!”

“Roger!” he shouted, strained.

“Almost there… Three… Two… One…” The ice tower made contact with the lens.

“Yes!”

The lens began freezing in jagged, angular patterns.

“No!”

“Mia, you have to freeze it slowly to minimize grain boundaries in the crystal!”

“I’m trying!”

“No, slower!”

“I AM trying, you piece of - “

“Try smoothly palming the ice instead of clawing your hands.”

“I’m so cold I couldn’t if my life depended on it!” snapped Mia, who had begun to shiver.

“Channel your inner child, smooth, optimistic, flowing - “

“I AM NOT A DAINTY LITTLE ICE PRINCESS!” erupted Mia as the entire lens froze abruptly with thousands of facets and splintered apart, sending shards in every direction, as the main part broke free from its support and shot away upwards. Dave collapsed backwards, nothing left to wield.

“Well, we tried,” he said.

“Can we try again?” said Lawrence.

“Not enough Laythe essence, you took long enough getting the ice up there!” Dave said. “A shame we can’t make more use of any of this Vall stuff… Worth millions to others, nothing to us,” he cried, dejected.

“Two minutes, any ideas?” asked Keenan.

“Lawrence hasn’t had an original idea in his life,” Mia said, teeth chattering.

“You have two minutes left, maybe fifty breaths, and you use half of them insulting me as usual? Why did I ever put up with you as long as I did!” said Lawrence. “I had enough saved up for a whole half semester at the academy!” he said. “I could be broke, stonewielding beneath a lens right now, and I’m still broke, dying on the Mun!”

“They couldn’t teach you a thing,” Mia said. “No amount of knowledge can make up for your lack of talent!”

“And no amount of talent can make up for your lack of technique,” Lawrence coldly responded.

Keenan laid back onto the Munar surface and closed his eyes. He had spent his whole life trying to get here, to learn how to stonewield, and now he was here, powerless to do anything to stop his suffocation, powerless to save the air, and powerless to wield the stone.

A glint of light flashed over his eyes. He opened them and saw the misshapen lens up there, catching the light from the sun.

“Of course,” he whispered. “We were overthinking it.” He shot up and bounded over to Dave. “Dave! Shoot as much light as you can at the lens!”

“What? Why?”

“Just do it!”

“aaaAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!” Dave shouted, raising his hands to the sky, the Vall essence vials glowing nearly as bright as day, and shot a giant beam of light into the lens.

The beautifully imperfect gem scattered light in every direction, visible for miles and miles for the better part of a minute. "The perfect distress beacon," Lawrence whispered in awe. And then it melted, failing catastrophically, sending shards in every which direction, reflecting even more light in one final flash before dispersing.

“That was beautiful,” Mia tried to say, but couldn’t. She tried to take a breath to replace the air, but nothing came in. She grabbed for her throat and looked around, seeing Samantha’s Eve essence vial flicker and then shut off. Samantha opened her eyes and looked around, shocked.

A spacesuited figure riding a stone tablet crested the crater and rode down to them amidst the airless rain of icicles, pulling out oxygen masks, and Mia ran towards the figure, collapsing mere meters away.

The figure stretching out his arms with the oxygen mask was the last sight Mia saw before losing consciousness.

 

==========

 

“She’s awake!” shouted Lawrence.

“Ugh… Lawrence, I had the worst dream…”

“Dream? What was it?”

“There was this evil guy and he blew up the Cassandra and there was a giant lens thing… And worst of all, the new recruit was one of those guys who hadn’t had his optimistic worldview shattered yet.”

“Hey!” shouted Keenan.

“That wasn’t a dream, was it?” She sat up. “What was in the letters?”

“The what?”

“The letters? In the briefcase? I was wondering that the whole time! The dream always ends before we figure out the cool stuff! Although it wasn’t a dream!”

“Well, here’s the thing… We don’t have the briefcase any more,” said Lawrence.

“No!”

“I was hoping to read them too,” said Keenan. “They were taken by whoever kidnapped us.”

“KIDNAPPED? I thought we were rescued!  How long was I out for?”

“Well, a few weeks - “

“Brain damage! I need to get to a hospital!”

“We were all in suspension.”

“Oh, phew… SUSPENSION? WHY???”

“Well, uh… We’ve been kidnapped, like I said.”

“I’m too young to be sold into slavery! I need to get out of here! Well… Where is here, exactly?”

"See for yourself," Lawrence said. Mia floated over to a window.

"That's a long way from home," Mia said nervously.

"Well, if you average it over time, Moho is actually the closest planet to - "

"SHUT UP, LARRY!"

"As you wish, oh dainty ice princess."

 

 

Hello everyone welcome to Wizards: A Tale of Magic and Science! This story has been in the works for a long time, just over a year and a half if I remember correctly, things just kept getting in the way. This was originally inspired by two things. One, I had recently seen some of Avatar: The Last Airbender, and two, I was wondering how the Kerbals would handle magic, in particular how they would balance using Magic or technology, as in most stories, one tends to dominate, you rarely see both being used.

With those inspirations in mind, I set out to create my own twist on the traditional elemental magic system, set in the Kerbal universe. I came up with this, a slightly dystopian arrangement, where technology and magic are balanced twofold. First, Kerbalkind didn't discover anything was amiss until they reached the Mun, at which point they already had some technology. Second, due to the inverse square nature of said magic, you cannot make general purpose or deep space vehicles using magic and have it still be cost effective, necessitating magic-tech hybrids for specialized purposes, and technology only ships for general purpose use. I hope that I can deliver installments in a timely manner (which, given my track record, is, well...), and I hope that you enjoy the story!

 

 

 

Edited December 19, 2023 by Ultimate Steve

[KSK]

It's been ages since I read any Kerbal stories - looks like this is a good time to remedy that!

I like the magic system, and I really liked the Cassandra landing scene. Couldn't figure out how they were going to land with so little fuel.  

Followed and looking forward to more.

 

[jimmymcgoochie]

Never thought I’d see a story combining Kerbals and magic. Interesting concept, I look forward to MOAR!

[Ultimate Steve]

Hey, about three weeks! That's not actually a bad cadence so far compared to some of my past projects if I can keep it up!

Unlike the my past projects, this is kinda inspired by television stuff, and I want each chapter to be its own mostly self contained story from start to finish with links to the overall plot. When I get going, however, I really get going, so these semi-self contained chapters tend to get pretty long.

In addition, this series is intended to cover somewhat heavier subject matter than my other works, and while I'm sure it is imperfect, I have spent some effort trying to give these things the respect and thought they deserve.

Anyway here's chapter two, where things heat up, both figuratively and literally!

 

Chapter Two: To The Core

Spoiler

Body: Kerbin

Wielding style: Control Of Life

Alternate names: Lifewielding/Lifewielder

Primary abilities: Enhanced healing, remarkable resilience, including surviving falls from great heights (contact) (innate)

Secondary abilities: Manipulation of non sentient life forms, e.g. twisting wood into various forms, twisting and rippling grass, etc. (contact and short range)

Higher level abilities: Manipulation of sentient life forms (contact and occasionally short range), advanced healing (generally contact only), and creating rapidly growing tumors in enemies (contact and occasionally short range)

Side effects: Kerbin born Kerbals are very susceptible to injury upon leaving Kerbin if they are not careful

 

==========

 

“Bop! Pol! Holey Moho! My wound, it isn’t healing!” announced a panicked Bob Kerman.

“Ground control to Moho-Bop II, Bob, just focus!”

“Bobak, you aren’t helping!”

“Bob. Calm down.”

“I smashed my hand on the hatch lever, big gash, no biggie, it’ll seal up in seconds… And now IT WON’T HEAL! I’m going to lose all my blood out here! I’m going to die most of the way to the Mun!"

“Try to use the cap of the suit as a bandage,” suggested Bobak.

“A bandage? Like they use for the severely injured?”

“The medical officer says it should work, although it does seem a bit extreme.”

“How’s this for a headline, first Kerbal launched around the Mun straight up dies of minor cut?”

“Second Kerbal launched,” corrected Bobak.

“Bill… Bill doesn’t count, he didn’t even clear the tower… Okay, Bobak, the makeshift bandage appears to be working somewhat… Now, what could be causing the Mun to have this strange aura of death…”

“Bob, are you sure it isn’t stress?”

“I’m almost positive. There’s something weird about the Mun… Sucking the life out of any traveler who passes by!”

“Are you seriously suggesting that the Mun is magical?”

 

==========

 

"Is anyone here a thermon?" barked a voice from down the cramped, narrow hallway. Mia turned to face the voice which was emanating from a short Kerbal who wore a patch over his left eye, flanked by two guards. Not a soul dared to move.

"Well, come on! We are two minutes from burn start and one of my engines decides to pass out. On the Mun, that cunning Laythian Bilatoger got away from me… I had a buyer all lined up, but no, mister lightwielder has to be difficult… It is a tough business, and alas, I could not afford to fill the tanks. Unless anyone wants to volunteer to push the chamber temperature higher, I will have to start throwing people overboard to reclaim Delta-V, you hear!" The eyepatch man brandished a pistol, and one Kerbal, who very much did not resemble an experienced thermon, timidly raised his hand. 

"I dabbled a bit in college, but -"

"Guards!" The two guards marched towards the man.

"I could probably help in the first stage -"

"How cute, you think we have stages?" The eyepatch man laughed. The two guards cranked open a heavy door at the back of the ship. A blast of hot air shot forth, making Mia's eyes water. The timid Kerbal, protesting, was thrown into the room. A scream had begun developing when the door was slammed and then cranked shut.

“Strap in, everyone!” shouted the eyepatch man. “Don’t want to bruise the merchandise!” He laughed and exited out the front of the corridor.

“Liar,” Mia whispered. “The propellant is water. Not even the brokest of the broke can’t afford to take on water at the Mun. Grey Dwarf was broke and we almost always managed a full load of methane.”

“So why did he lie?” asked Lawrence.

“It takes a sick, loveless, soulless man to be a slaver. I’d bet he’s mad that Dave escaped and wants to take it out on someone.”

“So why didn’t you say something?” asked Keenan. “That poor Kerbal!”

“If I said something, I’d probably be the one in there, or worse, out, well, there.” Mia gestured to the dark, cold void of space.

“You know, there are like thirty of us. Why haven’t we taken them on? Lawrence can fly us out of here.”

“Me? No I can’t! I just pushed a couple buttons a day on the Cassandra. I don’t actually know how to fly, let alone interplanetary!”

“And it is a moot point anyway, the door to the crew quarters is a choke point,” said Mia. “They have guns, and only one of us can get through in time.”

“Worse than that,” said Lawrence. “This appears to be a SM-97 transport, specifically designed for slave transport… That’s not a door to the crew quarters, that’s an airlock. The crew quarters is separated by a ladder climb on the outside of the propellant tank, and we have no space suits.”

“Leave that to me!” said Samantha Rae Kerman.

“Sam! You’re alive!”

“Barely. Keenan, that was some clever thinking back on the Mun. I didn’t get the chance to say how amazing that was. I was kinda busy. I hid my essence ring in my hair, I can give everyone in here a few minutes of breathing time!”

“Right, so we rush the airlock, jump across the void, Guardians of the Galaxy style, break into the other airlock, and, well… Then what?” asked Lawrence.

“Kung fu time?” suggested Keenan.

“You guys do know we only have like ten more seconds right?” asked one of the other Kerbals.

“Right. Strapping in.” The trio quickly strapped themselves in.

“You know, the SM-97 series biggest design flaw?” rambled Lawrence. “Lack of a staged propulsion system. Currently you are either locked into one main temperature band, or locked into forcing your engines to occupy bands they aren’t comfortable with and - ”

"Lawrence, don't call them engines, they are people!" said Keenan.

Mia peered through the glass at the rear of the cargo compartment, into the engine section. The nefarious spaceship was now mere kilometers from the Mohian surface, close enough to effectively wield. She watched as the slaves placed their hands against the expansion tubes. The central chambers began to glow a dull red, and water was pumped through them, boiling to steam, heating, and being expelled out of the nozzle at the rear of the ship. The wielders, lacking any proper staging setup, had arranged themselves so that the weakest ones were closest to the front of the engine, providing some small amount of mercy to those unable to handle the temperatures the engine demanded.

Everyone on board felt the acceleration as the abhorrent ship surged into Moho orbit on the wings of magical steam. A few minutes later, the ship began its final descent to the Mohian surface, steering slightly to one side or the other to account for inconsistent temperatures across the chamber's width, before deploying its landing gear and gently touching down.

No sooner had the ship touched down than a tunnel was connected to the airlock, and everyone on board was prodded up the ladder, through the airlock, through the tunnel, and into the connected building. One by one they were given a quick, fairly dehumanizing once over as armed guards watched, were given a form and a pen, and were crammed shoulder width apart into a rickety elevator.

“Mia?” asked Lawrence.

“Yes?”

“We’re going to get out of this, right?”

“Of course we are!” said Keenan.

“I wasn’t asking you, Keenan, you have no idea how this world works.”

“Oh, we’re screwed,” said Mia.

“Don’t be so negative!” snapped Sam. “I for one am going to see Eve, my home again, if it is the last thing I do!”

“The forms,” said Lawrence.

“They want to know our skills,” said Mia. “Lie your socks off. Make yourself sound good. Statistically, most of us are going to end up in the mines. I may not know much about Moho, but I know that you do NOT want to end up in the mines.”

“How am I supposed to make myself sound good?” wondered Keenan out loud. “I… I don’t have much, come to think about it.”

“Good, take one for the team, less likely I’ll be taking up the pickaxe,” Lawrence said.

The elevator descended for several more minutes, eventually emerging into a massive underground cavern, several hundred feet tall, and so wide you could not see the edges.

“Woah,” said Keenan.

“Thermis Colania, the eighth largest pressurized Moho cave,” Lawrence responded. “Lots of mining operations here.”

“Under the table?”

“No… On Moho, well, it is legal… Kerbin is against it, but conveniently, all of their weapons are forged here, and they look the other way. No rescue is coming for us.”

Another minute or two later, the elevator touched down just beyond a stage. The Kerbal closest to the doors was whisked away, handcuffed, and shoved onto the stage. An announcer barked to the crowd below.

“A fine male specimen, age 38, born of Kerbin, practitioner of stonewielding, master mechanic!”

“Four thousand!” shouted a voice from the crowd.

“Forty one hundred!” shouted another. There was a pause.

“Forty two hundred!” shouted the first voice.

“You would pay forty two hundred for a mining laborer? Crazy,” shouted the second voice.

“And sold, to the man in the black and red hat!” The Kerbal was booted off of the stage, tears falling down his face.

“Bop, I can’t go down into the mines!” panicked Lawrence as he began scribbling down qualifications, real and made up, onto his sheet of paper.

“Do you have any ideas?” Keenan asked Mia, his eyes scanning for a way out.

“Father and son!” proclaimed the cruel auctioneer. “Both Dunian electricians, package deal!”

“I’ll take the son!”

“I said package deal!” snapped the auctioneer. “We’re not monsters, here!”

“You know, I’ve always wanted a sister,” Keenan whispered.

“Alright,” responded Mia. “As much as I hate to admit it, if there is a way to escape, you and your stupid optimism will probably be the one to find it… Bro? That feels weird.”

“Lawrence! You’re my brother now!”

“No way, you two are easy mine fodder, I’m not getting sucked down with you two! Just… Come get me, alright, Keenan? When you try to escape.”

“If,” scoffed Mia.

“When,” reassured Lawrence. “I didn’t say he’d get out, I said he’d try, he’s too stupid not too, but we need that right now.”

“Ladies and gentlemen! Samantha Rae, esteemed Evian poet, socialite, journeyman airwielder, notable universal rights activist, absolutely ripe for ransom!” barked the announcer.

“When I get back to Eve,” she began, “You guys are the first on the chopping block!”

“Two hundred thousand!” barked the red and black hat man.

“Two twenty!”

“Two forty!”

“Four hundred thousand funds!”

“Really? Four hundred thousand? Alright, your loss…”

“Sold to the man with the muscles!”

“Wow, I didn’t know she was, like, famous!” Keenan said.

“She’s exaggerating,” Mia said. “Nobody that famous would fly Grey Dwarf.”

“It worked, though, she’s out of the mines,” Lawrence said.

“You’re up!” shouted a guard as he roughly dragged Keenan by the shoulders.

“Wait, my sister!”

“She doesn’t look a thing like you.”

“Adopted sister.” The guard stared Keenan down for a tense few seconds before also dragging Mia forth onto the stage.

“Brother and sister! This one is an expert Minmar, engineer, lifewielder, and starship public relations officer! And the other is a noted starship mechanic, expert frostwielder, and heir to the throne of the south of Rendwa… Wait a second. Rendwa is spelled wrong!” The entire audience laughed. Mia buried her face in her hands. “Well, safe to say none of that is true… Who wants two miners?”

“Two thousand for the boy and one thousand for the girl!” shouted one.

“I’ll do you one better! Twenty three hundred for the boy and eight hundred for the girl!” The audience laughed even louder.

“And sold to the man in the blue hat!”

“I’m worth more than eight hundred funds,” muttered Mia under her breath.

The two were shoved off of the stage and towards a thick walled transport vehicle.

“...Expert in classical and neoclassical wielding techniques, starship pilot, very cool announcer voice, former high librarian of the Kerlington Archive…”

“Sixteen thousand! I’ve been looking for an archivist!”

“Sold to the man with the muscles! For your archive, I’ll throw in all of the various captured records as well!”

And that was all they heard before the doors slammed shut.

==========

In the vehicle with nine other recently sold Kerbals, Mia and Keenan were comforted only by the fact that both Lawrence and Samantha had escaped their fate. The windowless vehicle drove ever deeper into the crust of Moho, through several elevators, further and further away from the sunlight. The drive felt like hours, and very well may have been. Keenan attempted to memorize the route inertially, but gave up after the fifth - or was it the sixth elevator?

“You’re mad at me for the spelling error,” whispered Mia.

“I’m not mad at you at all.”

“You wanted to use me to get out of the mines and I dragged you down deeper. Why aren’t you mad?”

“Everyone makes mistakes, Mia, and why would I ever be mad at you when I could spend that energy being mad at every single [rule 2.2g] who is part of the system that brought us here.”

“I suppose.”

Another elevator came and went.

“If Lawrence was here, he’d probably say that their greatest mistake was messing with you, Keenan.”

“If only I believed in me as much as he did.”

There was a clunk and a clank, and the doors opened, and hot air rushed in. A gruff voice in a guard uniform met them.

“You will all be grunt miners. Our blast miner positions are filled… They tend not to be filled for long, so maybe you can get a promotion!” The guard chuckled to himself. “Barracks are over there, mess is over there, and step out of line, you get to spend a few days in that very unpleasant building over there. Line up to receive your stuff.”

They exited the vehicle one by one into a dark cavern, dimly lit by only industrial electric lamps, and were each handed a few sets of clothes, a canteen, and a dust mask.

“This has someone’s name engraved on it,” pointed out one Kerbal.

“Objects don’t protest!” snapped the guard.

“Sir, this mask has no filter,” said Keenan.

“I said, objects don’t protest! Try your luck at the refill next week. Just kidding, you obviously don’t have any, ending up here!” The guard shoved Keenan back, laughed, and led them all towards the rock face.

 

==========

 

“Alright!” shouted the foreman of the mine. “The rockheads up topside own me too. I’ve been down here ten years. If you want a shot at living that long, listen up!” The new miners looked up attentively. “Our rockhead, for some inexplicable reason, has been obsessed with digging as deep as possible and won’t tell us why. We’re getting close though, we’re a hundred kilometers down. Most of us think it’s about the money. Moho’s core is expected to be one of the greatest deposits of iron known to Kerbalkind. Whoever reaches that molten layer first will be the richest man in the Kerbolar system. Well, not us. Whoever reaches that molten layer first will probably burn alive.”

“If we are a hundred kilometers down, and the core is within spitting distance, why are we not, well, burning alive already?” asked Keenan.

“Speak for yourself,” said one Kerbal, who was obviously going crazy from the heat.

“The main vertical elevator shaft also serves as a massive geothermal power plant. That single artery is responsible for removing heat from the air of the mine, powering all of the mine’s equipment, and extracting rock from the mine, which we think is refined into pure essence topside, but nobody here has ever seen it.”

“Nobody?”

“Nobody. Only other thing we know about the top of that hundred kilometer long shaft is that it’s incredibly prone to breaking. Whenever we break into a new cavern, which is inevitably a vacuum, of course, the pressure differential breaks something in the airlock, which causes all of the air to rush out into space, until, of course, the emergency shutoff is closed after an hour or so.”

“So everyone here suffocates every few weeks?” panicked one Kerbal.

“No, we are hooked, very loosely, into the main reservoir of Thermis Colania. It would take weeks to completely deplete it. The worst we get is a lot of wind and some ear popping. Besides, the rocks here are really close to liquid, so we don’t tend to get voids this low.”

“Phew… Wait - “

“Cause of death number one. Heat exhaustion and dehydration. Those of you doing the high temperature work will get suits, which, well, sometimes work. Everyone else, drink as much water as you can before leaving for the day. The canteens they give you are not enough. Scavenge any other containers you can find, and on your break, be sure to stock up.”

“Cause of death number two. Rocks. When working on the elevator face, keep your hard hat on and keep yourself under the roof. There’s a hundred kilometers of largely unclad rock above us, and although the rocks will be at terminal velocity by then, that is still fast. With how badly we are messing with Moho’s thermal gradient, all that expansion and contraction, rocks fall often. Don’t be the next one to get hit by one.”

“Cause of death number three. Rocklung. Always wear your mask. Rock dust in your lungs is a horrible, slow way to go. Some places have the heart to ship you off on a Kerbin flyby every few years to patch you up… Not this place. Those of you who came from Kerbin. You’re a lot more mortal than you were before. Act like it.”

“Has anyone ever escaped from here?” Mia asked.

“Haha, that’s a good one! I’ve seen dozens try, not a single one has. When I’m mining, I think about it. Haven’t thought of a single thing that would work yet. I’m convinced it is impossible.”

“Nothing is impossible,” said Keenan.

“Tell that to the rock! Think about it. We’re a hundred kilometers underground. First of all you have to ride the elevator back to camp, get past all of the check ins, gates, guards, and guns. If you manage that, you have to get into the guard’s elevator and go up through the dozens of abandoned camps before this. That elevator is controlled from up top, there’s checkpoints, and it’s small, there’s no way you are getting up there unnoticed. If you do manage to get out of this rockhead’s compound and into Moho proper, a few hundred kilometers of passage, cavern, and elevator separate us from any large spaces we could blend in with the freefolk in. Dozens of choke points, checkpoints, and gunpoints. Moho’s economy is built on one thing, metal, and that’s what you will be full of if you get in its way.”

“What about the main rock elevator?” Keenan asked.

“They control it, not us. You can sneak onto it, I guess. Several have tried, but then what? You’re tossed straight into the essence machine, in the topside vacuum, with no spacesuit. Dead. Anyway, enough rambling. You start now, pulling down loose rocks as the main drill descends. The roof doesn’t extend that far, so keep your head up. You are the ones who stand between us and a rockfall, don’t mess it up.”

And so, they toiled away in the mines as the days blended away.

 

==========

 

“No,” Samantha scoffed.

“No?” asked the man with the muscles.

“Well of course! Why would I prove my Evian connections now? I haven’t even gotten to see the horrors yet!”

“...What do you mean?”

“How am I supposed to write my works about the horrors of Mohian slavery and sway public opinion when I have barely seen what it’s like in action?” Samantha had a very “duh” look on her face.

“You are going to sit in your cell until you break and I can reclaim the one million fund ransom from Eve.” Samantha burst into laughter.

“One million funds? ONE MILLION FUNDS? Come on, you dum-dum! Get me a proper bed, free reign of this place, not a single mark on me, I want to see everything. And in return, in a month or two, depending on how I feel, I’ll reveal who I really am, and you will receive… Say, ten million funds.”

“Liar.”

“Suit yourself… Just… Do yourself a favor and look up which Evian pen-named writer abruptly stopped publishing suspiciously at exactly the time I was captured on the Mun.”

“You expect me to give you the time of day?”

“Humor me.”

“You expect me to believe that a missing poet is noteworthy enough to be cached on the undernet? Interplanetary bandwidth already isn’t great, and we are miles underground.”

“I said, humor me.”

The muscled man took a few moments to look it up on his phone. His eyes widened.

“How much access did you say you wanted?”

 

==========

 

“And this is the library,” said the high archivist of the muscled man, gesturing to the grand room filled with books of all sorts.

“All of this information… Wow!” said Lawrence, in awe.

“Sadly we don’t get much time to read… Maybe we will now that your position has been filled.”

“Did the last slave… Did he get killed?”

“No, of course not, he was bought to be a librarian at the Mohurst library.”

“Really? Like… I thought this whole slave thing would be a lot more… Slavey.”

“Listen, you’ve made it, Lawrence. You’re not an underling, only underlings are expendable. You’re not an underling.”

“We’re both slaves.”

“We are to underlings what planets are to pebbles, Lawrence.”

“Have you no sympathy? People are dying down there!”

“And we are comfortable up here. That’s just the way the world is. Horrible things happen, and we ignore them. If you do not wish to also be down there, I’d suggest you ignore them as well.”

“Easy for you to say, you aren’t one of them!”

“Now, you will be processing the financial transactions for several client mining businesses. That involves a great deal of…”

Lawrence became deaf to the archivist’s words as a number of thoughts raced through his head. He nodded along yes but did not comprehend, not only the words, but also the worlds, the states of being, the societies around him.

Was the archivist right, though? Was ignoring the problem not what he had been doing his whole life, piloting the Munliner? Was he wrong to ignore it then, and would he be wrong to ignore it now, equally powerless to change things?

Could he live with all of the knowledge of the horrors, and none of the power?

“Hey!” shouted Samantha. The archivist jumped.

“Yes, hello, what can I do for you? Aren’t you the ransom?”

“Yeah, and when they come get me, they’re going to eat all this up… I mean, this was a public library wasn’t it? Now it is the private eye candy paradise of a slave owner.”

“I’m unconcerned with that,” the archivist said.

“Information locked from the masses, the masses chained mining through molasses, no, that’s a stupid rhyme… What can I rhyme that with… The man unconcerned of the plight of the masses, second to the bottom on the order of the classes, Through all of the pages of stolen words passes, so blind to the pain just beyond his gold glasses.”

“You think I can do anything about it?”

“Not with that attitude.”

“Easy for you to say, you were born an Evian. I was born a slave,” the archivist said coldly.

“Reginald!” said the muscled man. “Prepare the reading room for a meeting with  Frannor.”

“Yes sir,” said Reginald, the archivist.

“And sort these,” said the muscled man, setting down a large stack of papers. “These came in with the newbies, maybe there’s something good in there.”

“Lawrence! You should be familiar with our archival system as your old library used it as well. Please take care of these.”

“Will do!” Lawrence tried to mask his excitement as he scooped up the papers and carried them into a private room to sort them. Just as he was closing the door, he noticed another man enter the room… He blinked and looked again.

“Frannor!” proclaimed the muscled man. “Right this way!”

Lawrence averted his eyes to ensure Frannor wouldn’t notice, but not before confirming that Frannor was the one who had bought Mia and Keenan.

 

==========

 

Lawrence pored through the papers one more frantic time. The letters that were in the dead master’s briefcase were nowhere to be found. Perhaps they had been sold off before that, he thought, or perhaps the sadistic captain of the slave ship had taken them for himself. But nobody knew of the significance of the letters… That would be an extreme coincidence, given that several different safety pamphlets from the Cassandra had been in the stack of papers as well (filled with almost as many lies as the Joolian constitution).

Lawrence heard a door faintly open and then close, and a muffled conversation begin. He thought nothing of it until someone shouted “SYLVUS!” loud enough to hear. Lawrence sat up and slowly tiptoed to the wall between him and the conversation, and pressed his ear up to it.

“ - in the suitcase of the late master Tyronus, a weapon more powerful than any other!”

“Big deal, Perrei, a gauntlet. Everyone and their mother has a gauntlet these days, they were only the next big thing during the great war. Now they’re just a thing like any other.”

“No, Frannor… Read closer.” There was a pause. Lawrence knew they were talking about Sylvus’ letters.

“...No.”

“Yes, Frannor.”

“But that means… That means…”

“They know we something we don’t.”

“Or they are anticipating someone figuring it out… Perrei, Sylvus, and presumably the rest of the Joolian government, have been going around killing masters. These letters hint at, well… Tyronus knew this and he killed him. This was supposed to be a secret. This is a secret worth killing people over. The gauntlet is, well, just a gauntlet… Imagine what he’d do if he found us.”

“Frannor, you’re not considering backing out now, are you? Not this close to the core? Unimaginable power lies at our fingertips, unimaginable knowledge… Unimaginable money.”

“Sylvus Kerman. Pentaloger! MASTER Pentaloger! If he comes knocking, what are we going to do? You know what… That Gillain master. He got killed recently. That Evian. The other Mohian shaft had that awful cave in, and Pol, well… It might all be connected.”

“Then we’ll keep it secret.”

“Perrei, this is my life we're talking about. I don’t think I can do this. We are messing with powers we cannot control.”

“And you owe me several million funds you cannot recoup unless your project succeeds… You seem to forget that for all your riches, I can send you down to the mines at the slightest indication you will be unable to pay me back.”

“Now, Perrei, let’s not be rash here, that’s a fate worse than death!”

“Then you’re still in?”

“Yes.”

“Good. I’ll lock these up in the safe. Increase the security around the project. If anyone asks, these don’t exist.”

“Why keep them?”

“That might be the smartest thing you’ve ever said, Frannor. I’ll burn them.” There was a pause.

There was an extremely loud blaring as the fire alarm went off. Lawrence shot back from the wall and covered his ears. He ran out of the room just as Frannor and Perrei came out of theirs.

“Don’t burn stuff indoors!” coughed Frannor.

“Sorry, it looked really cool, though.”

“You thermons and your insistence on theatrics!”

 

==========

 

Keenan pulled another rock free from the wall and watched it fall down the chute into the hopper, before turning back to the wall and prodding another loose looking rock with his pickaxe. By now, he knew that the elevator was about two minutes away and would soon scoop up all of the rock up to the surface.

The hours repeated like this. The days repeated like this. The weeks repeated like this as the rocks ground all of them down.

Until.

Keenan pulled another rock free from the wall and watched it fall down the chute into the hopper, before turning back to the wall and prodding another loose looking rock with his pickaxe. By now he recognized all of the noises of the mine, and that one was… Not right.

The drill strained. Keenan began to shout out, but he could barely hold onto something when all of a sudden the drill broke into a cavern. Keenan braced himself for the oncoming rush of air sure to descend from the shaft above, but alas, none came. The only thing that greeted them was the uncanny sensation of the drill being suspended by just the cables, unbraced by the shaft’s walls, and a blast of superheated air from below.

A cavern? Pressurized to ambient? And oxygenated too, otherwise they would all be dead by now.

The one in charge began barking orders, and everyone ran towards the air conditioned room in the center of the rig. Keenan however peered over the edge for a moment and saw a faint red glow emanating from somewhere deep inside the cavern.

 

==========

 

Lawrence had been busy. While he was risking his relative safety… He was a person that when there was something to know, he had to know it. He had discovered every single maintenance passage in the entire facility there was to discover, every secret nook and cranny, and had been spying on Perrei every moment he could… To absolutely no avail.

Nevertheless, he kept on looking for ways to break Keenan and Mia out. That looked almost as helpless.

There was a knock on his door. “Come in,” he said.

“Lawrence,” said Samantha. “Bubble tea?”

“Sure,” he said. “They really are treating you like royalty, aren’t they?”

“I could ask for a mansion at this point and they’d give it to me… Look. It isn’t ideal but, well, out of my control, but the time for the ransom is soon approaching.... The next gas freighter will be here today. If you’re planning on coming with me, we have hours at best. If you are still planning on saving your friends… I fear you may be on your own.”

“That’s… Not a lot of time. How did your trip to the shaft go?”

“I tried to get Keenan and Mia the update you sent me… But for whatever reason, they all of a sudden wouldn’t let me go lower than the lowest base camp, despite insisting before… Threatening to reduce the ransom did nothing. I’m thinking something big is going on. I think it also got really hot on the way back up.”

“That means… That means they might have reached the core,” whispered Lawrence. “What else would be a big enough deal to forbid you?”

“I don’t know. I just know that it was annoying because I also wanted to stop at the most recent abandoned base camp for some reflection, but they told me it’s closed for heat and sealed off.”

“Closed for heat and sealed off? That’s not right. I’ve reviewed the HVAC diagrams for that mine almost daily, and not only is that camp not sealed off, it is receiving a lot of cool air from the system.”

“Oh, he misspoke, then.”

“Or… Well yeah, he probably misspoke… But the discrepancy is a good excuse to get down there and correct the records. I’ll see if I can get to them while I’m at it. You know, I might even be able to sneak them onto the staff elevator… That is a long shot, though.”

“Are you sure? This is by far the most dangerous thing you’ve ever done. It is very honorable that you love your friends that much.”

“Friends? Mia? Keenan? I’m going to be honest, I can’t get a read on Mia… The line between playful teasing and malicious teasing is a little, well… Ill defined… I barely know Keenan, but I suppose I owe him one. I suppose I owe all of you one. I really just want to figure out, well… That.”

“Understandable. Good luck.”

“Thanks, I’ll need it.”

“Remember those moves I taught you. There’s only going to be one guard going down on this trip, I am confident you can take him out, one way or another.”

“Roger that, seventeen ways to disable guards, fourteen ways to bribe them, and six ways to distract them. I’m fully prepared.”

 

==========

 

“Anyway, that’s how I became a guard here.”

“Ain’t that tragic,” Lawrence replied.

“I just wanted to get out, you know? See the worlds. Maybe wield a thing or two. Nah, I get stuck underground here guarding slaves.”

“Why can’t you just leave then?”

“How much do you think they pay me? Starship tickets ain’t cheap, you know. The drinking problem doesn’t help, does it?”

“Growing stuff on Moho to ferment tends to be difficult, yes.”

“And it tastes like Bop rocks. Nah, I like the good stuff.”

“Evian imports?”

“Yes, I assume you have similar tastes?”

“Only occasionally… I thought Eve had embargoed this place?”

“There are… ways around that. Expensive ways.”

“What about the wielding?”

“Oh, I dabbled in the Duniks, but nothing really caught on, you know? I can do a little bit of Thermonics, watch this!” The guard pulled out a paper clip and held it between his fingertips and focused very hard for a few seconds. Nothing visually appeared to happen. “Take this!” he said. Lawrence grabbed it.

“Ow!” he instantly dropped it. “That’s pretty hot!”

“Indeed. Not enough to be useful, but it is pretty warm. I was never the greatest in wielding, so I'm not exactly great at it... But hey, it's something! What about you? How did you get here?”

“Like you, I wanted to see the worlds… I was a starship pilot… Well, calling it a starship is a bit of a stretch… And saying I piloted it is also a bit of a stretch... I got stuck going to and from the Mun, occasionally Minmus, in this deathtrap called the Cassandra… Mia, the engineer, and I, pulled so many shenanigans trying to keep that hunk of metal operational.”

“Mia? Were you two…?”

“No, not at all… I think she bounces between hating my guts and secretly being glad I was there. As much as I hate to admit it sometimes, She’s a good teammate.”

“How did you go from starship pilot to here?”

“The ship blew up, like eight people saved my life, and next thing I know, I’m here.”

“So why don’t you go back?”

“...I’m sorry?”

“The pay here sucks, you have the qualifications. Why don’t you just go, like I’ve always wanted to?”

“...You don’t… What… Gee, I’ll just hop up to the surface and get in my ship and just leave, shall I?”

“Why not?”

“Why don’t the miners?”

“Because they’re slaves, duh.”

“Because you’re keeping them down here.”

“A job is a job, it’s not like I can do anything about the way an entire planet runs. From one guard to another, I don't actually like this job at all, but, well... What am I supposed to do?”

“So you get paid pennies to keep slaves in an underground trauma sauna, and you spend those pennies on illegally imported wine from a planet that banned most trade specifically because of their stances on slavery?”

“Same as you, down to the wine. I’m not proud of it, but if I think about it too much I get too sad to do anything at all.” Lawrence stood there doing his best to contain his rage… He had a choice between maintaining his accidental perfect cover, and possibly helping a lot of people.

“Hey… What’s your name?”

“Ritani, of Laythe. You?”

“Lawrence, of Kerbin… Ritani… What would your perfect world look like?”

“Oh, Eve’s pretty close. No war, much wine. No slaves, much serenity. No poverty, much peace… It’s a shame it can’t happen everywhere.”

“Why not?”

“You know why. You’ve been talking my ears off about everything this entire elevator ride down… You can’t not know why.”

“Some have it easier, yeah. That’s not a reason not to try. Some of the people who try the hardest aren’t the ones at the top. Their efforts may not get them as far… But nobody’s going anywhere without trying.”

“...I suppose you’re right about that… And I suppose it is about time I cut down a little bit on the wine.”

“Alright well, this is my stop.”

“You’re mistaken, this is the old base camp, not base camp, I’m pretty sure this is off limits.”

“The archivists asked me to clear up some discrepancies in the records. Not sure why it matters, frankly, it’s not like anyone uses this place anyways, I’m just as confused as you are.”

“They’re crazy, that’s what they are… Anyway, see you Lawrence.”

“See you, Ritani.” The door to the elevator opened and a blast of hot air rushed in. “Wow, that’s hot.”

“And the sky is black.”

“Right. Goodbye.” Lawrence stepped out of the guard elevator into the massive chasm that formerly housed the second base camp. The elevator door closed behind him and Ritani descended further into the lower crust of Moho. Lawrence, sweating profusely, began walking through the abandoned camp, searching for one specific building - the guard complex, the one so much air was being pumped into.

He picked the lock (To someone with a fraction of Lawrence’s downtime, all locks are but an inconvenience), and let himself in… Strange. Fortunately, the air conditioning was still functional… He was about to leave it at that, disappointed, just someone leaving the air conditioning on, but then he realized there was no rock dust on the ground. He cautiously crept through the rest of the building, armed only with a flashlight, checking every nook and cranny specified on the diagrams he had memorized.

There! That wasn’t on the diagrams! A strong, reinforced door, cutting off the recreation cavern from the rest of the building… Normally that would be a normal door… But why?

Not wanting to alert anyone on the other side, Lawrence instead brought over a chair and entered one of the ventilation ducts, this particular set having been carved out of solid rock, and would not make extreme amounts of noise.

After crawling for far longer than indicated by the diagrams, Lawrence neared a half opened vent, and cautiously peered over the edge.

He gasped at the sight of a thermon unlike any other he had seen before… It was not unheard of for thermons to become altered after years of their craft, to grow impervious to the heat and have their skin turn half to stone… But this, was something more. Easily four times the size of a normal Kerbal, with muscles of rock, hunched up inside a cage.

And just beyond the thermon was a gigantic lens, a narrow walkway leading to its focus.

There was a clang as a door opened and five Kerbals walked out. Two scientists, two guards, and one man in chains.

“Let me go!” shouted the man in chains. “You’re this close to the core, why bother? You already know what will happen!”

“Well it’s not proper science if you can’t replicate the results!” chirped one of the scientist. “Besides, you know too much. Sorry about this.” The two guards forced the prisoner onto a platform and began strapping his arms and legs in with multi layered heavy metal cuffs.

“You’re going to make me into one of THOSE THINGS and all you can do is offer a “Sorry?!?!?!?””

“It’s not like I can change the boss’s mission, only complete it, and you have been standing in the way for far too long.” She fiddled with a control panel and the platform the man was strapped to began moving slowly towards the focal point of the lens.

“You are standing with one hand on Pandora’s box, you know,” he said. “You can still stop it.”

“A new age of magic awaits us, we can’t let Jool get there first.”

“Oh, we’ve got to get nukes before they do! Where have I heard that before? What good have nukes done for us? Such secrets are better left undiscovered. If what we’ve theorized is correct…”

“Then we will win the coming war.”

“The loser dies on the street, the winner dies in the ambulance.”

“Why do you even bother talking to the test subjects?” said the other scientist.

“Monologuing is fun, you know,” she responded. Lawrence stared wide eyed in fright as the moving platform stopped in the middle of the lens… And nothing happened.

“How long did you put the last guy in for?” the prisoner asked.

“Oh, three weeks, give or take.”

There was a tremendous crash as the western wall of the compound erupted and collapsed. The room filled with dust, and the scientists and guards all screamed and ran. Lawrence gasped, and very nearly screamed, when several of what appeared to be - Lava monsters??? - burst through the opening in the wall, and marched towards the caged thermon. One of the guards emptied their machine gun into the lead monster, but it just uttered a battlecry marched forward, undeterred. The frightened guard ran away, through the blast doors.

The monsters grabbed hold of the bars of the cage, nearly instantly heated them until they glowed orange, and shoved them out of the way, freeing the caged thermon, and as soon as they had arrived, they had disappeared back through the wall.

Lawrence, seeing his chance to learn the answers he sought, kicked open the vent, and due to the low gravity, was able to jump down onto the lens, and up to the shackled man. Lawrence began undoing the buckles that held him in place.

“Oh, thank you, I thought I was toast!” he said, breathing a massive sigh of relief.

“Who are you and what to you know about these things?” Lawrence asked.

“I am Doctor Tiberius Kerman, and we are here researching the singularity.” Lawrence stopped, shocked.

“The singularity? That’s what this is about?”

“Don’t stop, the guards may come back!” Lawrence quickly continued undoing the man’s restraints. “Many have long wondered about the inverse square law of nature of magic, and whether the magic is an inherent property of the rocks, or if it exists as a point source at the center of the planet. Based on our research, it seems to be the latter.”

“So what happens if you reach the center?”

“That’s what we are trying to find out… But those… rock things… happen the closer we get. I decided what lies below is too much for Kerbalkind to handle.” Dr. Tiberius stood up and jumped upwards towards the vent, but fell several feet short.

“I may not have thought the escape plan through,” Lawrence said.

“Then we follow them,” he said.

“Wait, so that thing in the cage was a Kerbal?” Lawrence said as he began leaping towards the hole in the wall.

“Yes,” he said. “At first they experimented with volunteers, then prisoners, and now, dissidents. Rapid permanent adoption of - “ There was a loud bang. Tiberius stumbled and fell just around the corner after the rock tunnel began. “Oh no,” whispered Tiberius.

“One bullet isn’t going to stop us,” Lawrence said as he carried the Doctor deeper into the freshly blasted series of tunnels.

“They went this way!” shouted a guard as he gave chase down the tunnel. Lawrence, who had long since dropped his flashlight in panic, ran as fast as he could down the tunnel. It got darker and darker, and soon he was feeling his way by his hand on the walls alone.

“Here,” weakly said Tiberius as he held up a strip of metal between his two fingers, heating it up, it began to dimly glow orange, providing not much light, but enough.

Onwards they ran for several minutes until they emerged into a large cavern they could not see the other end of. They scrambled down a slope and hid behind a rock. They heard the guards emerge into the cavern.

“Where did they go?”

“I don’t know, but wherever they are, no way they’d be able to find their way back in these mazes. If anyone asks, they’re dead, got it?”

“Deal.”

“As I was saying, those sandwiches you were talking about, in my opinion, are significantly overrated! Mayonnaise quality? Bop level. Those tomatoes are as bland as…” About thirty seconds passed as the guards' voices faded away into the darkness.

“I think they’re gone,” Lawrence whispered.

“Good,” said Tiberius. “I, however, am unfortunately on my way,” he said, gesturing to his gunshot wound. “You are from Kerbin, no?”

“Yes,” Lawrence said.

“Ah, it’s the face, isn’t it?” Tiberius smiled. “Here,” he said, “Help me out a little bit,” and he held out a Kerbin essence ring. “I can’t lifewield myself, but you never know when such things come in handy.”

“Tiberius, I…”

“Go on, do it!” Tiberius weakly placed the ring directly onto Lawrence’s right ring finger.

“Tiberius, I’m so sorry, I can’t lifewield.”

“You’re from Kerbin and you can’t lifewield?” Tiberius said, puzzled.

“Well, only like a fifth of us do, and much fewer professionally! We're not a planet of doctors and nurses!”

“Anyone can wield, what, did you not want to enough?”

“Listen here, old man, I’ve wanted to wield my whole life, you hear?” Lawrence rose his voice in anger.

“I’m not that old, you oaf!”

“Look, I have a friend down here, a slave, he knows how to lifewield! If we can just find the mineshaft again, I can get you all fixed up!”

“No, I’m afraid I don’t have much time left. You must try.”

“But I - “

“Lawrence, you must try.” Lawrence gasped.

“How - How do you know my name?”

“You have a nametag, you nincompoop!” Lawrence assumed the stance of the most popular lifewielding form and touched Tiberius’ chest. The essence ring began to glow green.

Nothing happened. Lawrence tried another stance, also nothing. He desperately cycled through every single stance and form he knew with increasing frustration until the green light from the ring winked out and died.

“Tiberius, I’m sorry,” Lawrence said. “It’s all gone.”

“At least I’m dying as me and not an accelerated thermon,” Tiberius responded.

“I tried so hard, but - “

“You did want it that badly,” Tiberius whispered. “Badly enough to learn every single lifewielding stance in the books, and even some that aren’t.”

“And nothing comes out.”

“Why do you want to?”

“Why?”

“Why do you want to be a wielder?”

“I grew up hearing stories of all of the things people do with their powers. I thought with powers like that I could make a difference in the world. I could make people happy, or at least less sad.”

“We all think we’d be the good guy,” Tiberius coughed. “I certainly did... And in desperation you learned everything you could.”

“But no amount of  knowledge can make up for a lack of talent.”

“Just as no knowledge can make up for a lack of wisdom. Unfortunately I learned that lesson much too late, and my colleagues did not appreciate that. So please, do me a favor, and be wise.”

“Tiberius, you can’t be… You are. Bop, you are. You can’t be! I get all the way here, I want to know, please, Tiberius, tell me everything you know!”

And all Tiberius did was hold up his necklace. Then his arm went limp, his thermonic lamp went dim, and his breathing ceased.

“I just want to know what’s going on,” Lawrence cried. For a few minutes, he sat there, utterly confused.

“Why should I waste tears over this guy… He’s the one that turned people into lava monsters after all… I just wanted some answers.” Lawrence reached out and felt the man’s necklace that he had held up in his last moments. It had a chain and a spherical trinket at the end. He took it, and the empty essence ring.

Lawrence stood up and realized how dark it was. He had lost his bearings and couldn’t figure out which way he had come from… Not that he would want to go back that way anyway… But he might have to given how if he did nothing, he would die of heat exhaustion in perhaps as little as a half hour.

Starting to panic, he looked around for any light source he could see. In the distance he saw a cluster of slowly moving dull red dots and began to run after them, stopping after only a few feet when he realized he could fall into a pit. He shuffled across the ground trying to catch up to the dots, carefully probing the ground for holes.

After some time he peered over one ledge, and there they were - the five lava monsters, and one artificially accelerated thermon.

“Hey!” he shouted. The beings all turned around, as if startled. The largest one clenched its fists, and marched menacingly towards him, uttering a battlecry.

“No, wait, please, I’m not here to hurt you, I’m just lost!” The large one halted for a second, fist high in the air.

“I just came down here to find the truth and rescue my friends.” The large one cocked his head to the side. “They are slaves in Frannor’s mine.” All six of them recoiled at the sound of Frannor’s name. “I assume you guys hate him too. We were captured on the Mun, and they were sold to Frannor, and I was sold to Perrei.” The second large one let out a guttural cry at the sound of Perrei’s name.

“I was going to sneak them up the staff elevator and then escort a ransom to a passing ship to escape, but that isn’t exactly going to plan… You guys wouldn’t happen to know a way to a cooler place, would you?” Two of the lava monsters looked at each other, then at the others. One of the smaller ones shrugged their shoulders. The largest one pondered for a moment and then made some gestures. The Thermon and the two dimmer lava monsters resumed their course, and the brightest two beckoned for Lawrence to join them and began walking another direction.

“Thank you so much,” Lawrence said. “Hey, can I ask you a bunch of yes or no questions? I've never met an accelerated thermon before, and I've definitely never met a lava monster before, but I’d be very interested in learning, and…”

 

==========

 

There was a loud explosion as a giant hole was blown in the wall of the lowest base camp. Slaves and guards alike turned to face the chaos. Most ran away, but the armed ones ran towards.

“Thanks, guys, but did you really have to do such a dramatic entrance, I just wanted cool air but - Oh. This is base camp. Well nice meeting you, are - Uh - “ The lava monsters began menacingly walking forwards into the base camp as the guards began firing on them. Their magmatic skin absorbed the blows almost effortlessly. They raised their arms and yelled as the guards began to grow fearful.

“Control! There’s a bunch of lava monsters here! Several times our heights! Yes, you heard me! LAVA MONSTERS! Everyone, fall back to the guard shack!”

“Lawrence, get down!” shouted Ritani as he pulled Lawrence back. “We need to get to the shack! What are these monsters?!?!”

“Oh, this is awkward… Ritani, I need you to trust me, alright? Just stay with me and you’ll be fine.”

“There are LAVA MONSTERS!” panicked Ritani as he raised his gun. Lawrence yanked it out of his shaking hands and ran forth alongside the creatures as the last few guards scurried into the fortress that was the guard shack. The doors sealed shut.

“Okay, we’re good, now let’s - “ There was a loud thud as the creatures smashed the fists into the blast doors.

“No! Stop! Bad lava dudes!” shouted Lawrence. The bigger of the two creatures turned to face him and raised his hands in frustration and confusion. “They’re a bunch of stonebrains, but at least some of them have been mislead! Not all of them are guilty enough to warrant death!”

The smaller of the two reached out his arm and heated up the door until it was red hot, melting the locking mechanism and sealing it in place. He gave a nod, as if to say “They won’t be a problem any more."

“Lawrence, what is the meaning of this?”

“I’m not a guard, I’m a slave. I’m here to break my friends out, and if you don’t want to die, I’d suggest that you - “

“I’m in, bro.” Ritani tore the guard insignia from his uniform and threw his cap on the ground.

“Oh, that was easy.”

“Just take me with you.”

“Lawrence!” shouted a familiar voice.

“Mia!” Lawrence shouted as the two ran towards each other.

“It took you long enough!” Mia cackled with craziness, exhaustion, and poorly hidden joy. “It’s hell down here.”

“Where’s Lawrence?”

“In the core cavern, he was assigned an exploration shift in a heat suit.”

“We’ve got to find him.”

“How do you plan on getting out?”

“The staff elev… Oh. Well, we lost that option exactly when we lost our stealth. Good question.”

“You came all this way down here without a plan?”

“I had a plan, but, well…” Lawrence broadly gestured to the lava monsters.

“Oh yeah, they seem metal as Bop, what’s their deal?” Mia asked nonchalantly.

“I thought you didn’t like my long stories about magic?” Lawrence smirked. Mia was about to respond when there was a loud whooshing sound. They all looked to the shaft, and all of the dust from the explosion was now being sucked towards it at a rapid rate.

“Oh no,” said Ritani.

“The shaft broke again,” said Mia. “They’ll have it back online in half an hour.”

“No,” Ritani’s face went pale. “This is the plan for a large scale uprising. Open the shaft, close the vents, seal off every other exit, and drain all of the oxygen out.”

“That won’t work,” scoffed Lawrence. “We’re a hundred kilometers underground, there would still be residual pressure from the gravity alone.”

“Not enough of a pressure drop to take us to near vacuum, but enough to knock most of us out, give us brain damage, and they can take the rest of us with spacesuits.”

“But you guys hit the core!” said Lawrence. “That massive reservoir I heard about!”

“They airlocked it,” said Mia. “And we didn’t hit the core, just a cavern that is probably near lava.”

“So the only air coming in is from the hole we made,” said Lawrence. “That’s not wide enough, we need to widen it.” The two lava monsters nodded and bounded off towards the hole in the wall in an attempt to widen it, but when they got close, the huge rush of air began sapping away their heat, and their lava began to dim. They both turned back. Their bodies twitched and their heads shook.

“There’s no getting close to that,” said Mia.

“Wait a second… Are they… Never mind. What are we going to do, Mia?”

“Well let’s get to air. You hear that, all of you?” she shouted to the miners surrounding them. “Everyone, to the cavern!”

“To the shaft!” said Ritani. Ritani, Mia, Lawrence, and the two lava monsters all ran towards the main shaft, followed rapidly by the rest of the miners. A minute later, as the air thinned, they were there.

“How do we get down?” shouted Mia over the roaring wind. “We can’t jump, it is a full kilometer!”

“Use whatever you can as gloves,” shouted Ritani, “And we can slide down one of the thinner cables!” The Kerbals did that, but the lava monsters instead just leapt straight over the edge, wall jumping off of the sides of the shaft, shaking loose cladding and rocks as they went.

“I guess that’s one way to do it, but there’s no way I’m going to try that,” Lawrence said as he stepped off the edge with his hands around a piece of cloth, around the cable. They slid down, and within a few minutes, they had reached a section of the shaft with all metal walls, where the cavern had been blocked off, with a door at the bottom. The drill was stopped shortly below this level. In small groups, all of the Kerbals cycled through the airlock, and emerged into the oxygenated, but extremely warm cavern.

“We’re safe,” said Lawrence. “Until we cook alive, at least.”

“We still have no plan,” Mia said.

“Keenan will, he always does.”

“Always is just one time so far!”

“Better than our track record. Does anyone here know where Keenan went?”

“They were exploring the east passage, they think the magma starts there!” shouted one Kerbal.

“Can you lead me there?”

“Without a heat suit? Suicide!” One of the lava - rock? Creatures roared and began bounding down the cave, gesturing for Lawrence to follow him.

“Do you know these caves?” Lawrence asked. The creature nodded. “Alright.” Lawrence began bounding after the monster, deeper and deeper into the lowest layers of Moho’s crust. Onwards they bounded for minutes as the heat grew ever warmer.

“You,” gasped Lawrence. “You’re not a lava monster.” The creature froze and turned around. “Sorry I thought that you were… You’re also an accelerated thermon like the other one.” The thermon nodded. “As you become more and more skilled with that, you become less and less sensitive to the heat, and this must be freezing for you… But that’s no matter, you can just make heat yourself, right? No! You can’t! You’re not actually a thermon! You were just aged as one!”

The creature bowed their head down in sadness.

“All the visual effects of it, none of the actual magic… You can't wield! You know I can relate to that... I've tried my whole life and I can't wield... That must be awful. A body forced upon you designed for ultimate magic, unable to be used."

The creature bowed their head even further.

"So you are using lava as a store of heat. That’s why you looked like a lava monster, and that’s how you are able to break into places! That's very noble of you, escaping and breaking all of the others out.”

Another nod.

“What’s your name?” The creature knelt down and traced some letters out on the ground. D-A-I-S-E-Y.

“Daisey Kerman. I’m Lawrence, thank you for your help and it has been a pleasure to meet you.” Daisy cried out in triumph, and beckoned Lawrence to follow her.

“You’re right, we don’t have much time left!”

A minute later, both of them rounded a corner and were met by a massive blast of heat. Lawrence shielded his eyes and breathed through his damp shirt as he saw it - a figure silhouetted against a dim orange river of lava.

Not lava - the uppermost layer of Moho's outer core.

“Keenan!” shouted Lawrence. The figure turned around and jumped back in surprise. “Careful, you’re on a cliff!”

“Lawrence!” shouted Keenan’s muffled voice from inside the suit. “And company?”

“This is Daisey, my friend. Long story.” Daisey jogged past both of them and waded into the Magma, yelling out a cry of relief, swimming across the river, eventually disappearing into another cave.

“Lawrence, what are you doing here?”

“Trying to rescue you. Samantha’s being ransomed in as little as half an hour, but things went badly and they have vented the main shaft, it is probably inhospitable by now. Everyone is trapped in this cavern, slowly overheating, but nobody is suffocating. We don’t know what to do. You’re clever, you can think of something!”

“I can try. Come on, let’s go.” Both Lawrence and Keenan turned back the way they came, but were stopped by a cry from Daisey. They turned around just in time to see her throw something across the lava river.

Lawrence went back to pick it up, but dropped it after a second as it was really hot. “Ow! Keenan, can you?”

“Sure." Keenan took the object in his gloved hand.

“Are you coming with us, Daisey?” Daisey shook her head no, waved goodbye, and ran back into the cave she had come out of.

“Lawrence, you’re not in good shape, we need to run.”

“Right,” coughed Lawrence. He began bounding along. Keenan led with his flashlight, and Lawrence followed.

“Keenan, what is that thing?”

“It looks like a ring… Very crudely forged. Probably made of iron or an iron alloy.”

“An essence ring?”

“No, those have linear holders usually, as per the standard… If this one has anything, they are internal. It’s just a ring.” A few minutes later, the two arrived back at the base, finding everyone there in rough shape, and the other accelerated thermon missing.

“Keenan!” shouted Mia. “What’s the plan?”

“Uh, let me see…”

“She’s been talking up your skills this whole time!” said another Kerbal. “You got this!”

“Yeah, Keenan, you’ve got this!”

“Hold on, I’m thinking…” Keenan thought long and hard for the next minute or two. “The only way out of here is the guard elevator. That’s melted shut, and all of the thermons are gone, and there’s not enough oxygen anyway… I’ve got nothing.”

“No!” shouted Ritani. “Don’t give up!”

“Great words from one of the guys who kept me enslaved down here.”

“Keenan, he’s cool, he’s on our side now.”

“They beat me, Lawrence, and while he wasn’t one of the ones to do it, he was perfectly fine standing there watching.”

“What could I have done?” snapped Ritani. “Taken down the entire class system by myself? I can’t even guard properly, I didn’t even question whether or not Lawrence was a guard and just let him waltz down here!”

“Look, everyone here hates your guts, Ritz Crackers,” said Mia, “But we can do apologies and revenge later, do you have any ideas?”

“Question your beliefs, question the axioms,” Ritani said.

“You decided to not question your role in this slavery because, quote, it made you too sad!” protested Lawrence.

“I did question it, and society wouldn't humor my answer," Ritani snapped. "So please, just humor me this once."

“Axiom: The door has melted shut. They specifically don’t let thermons down here, so no getting through that, and our friends are gone!” shouted Keenan.

“Keep going.”

“Axiom: There is not enough air out there to breathe for long durations. We have no oxygen equipment, and we can’t hold our breath for a kilometer of climbing. I’m not sure if anyone here is an airwielder, but either way we have no Eve essence.”

“I knew I should have asked Sam for her ring.”

“Keep on.”

“Axiom: We can’t survive here for very long in this heat. We have a frostwielder to help, but no essence.”

“True.”

“Axiom: The guard elevator is the only way out.”

“There’s also the hundred and one kilometer shaft,” said Mia.

“Climbing would be impossible,” said Keenan.

“But we could fly,” whispered the foreman.

“What?”

“Do we have any way to destroy this metal segment of the shaft so air can flow freely from this cavern?”

“The ring!” said Keenan and Lawrence simultaneously.

“The what?”

“Daisey, well, the lava not-monster, gave us a really weird essence ring,” said Lawrence. “It might not be an essence ring, but what else could it be but a Moho essence ring?”

“A normal ring,” said one of the Kerbals.

"An engagement ring?" teased Mia. "Did you get proposed to by a lava monster? Hey, I'm not gonna judge!"

“She isn't a lava monster, Mia, she is a victim of a twisted experiment! Is anyone here a thermon?” asked Lawrence.

“Larry the cucumber, they don’t let thermons down here precisely because they would escape!” shouted Mia.

“I am a thermon,” said Ritani timidly.

“You could barely heat up a paper clip!" attacked Lawrence.

“Yeah, but it’s worth a shot,” Keenan ventured. He paused for a few seconds, and extended his gloved hand with the ring in it. Ritani put it on and walked towards the door. “Foreman, you want this entire shaft gone?”

“Come to think of it, try to get it to match the area of the rock part of the shaft.”

“I hope you know what you are doing,” Ritani said.

“Stand back, everyone!” shouted the foreman. Everyone shrunk deeper into the cave as Ritani approached the airlock, and carefully set his hand on the door. He took a deep breath.

A blinding white light erupted from the ring. Ritani screamed as he jumped backwards. A small hole the size of a fist was now in the wall and air rushed through.

“What was that?” shouted Keenan in amazement and trepidation.

“This… I don’t know what this is,” said Ritani. “But this… This is no ordinary essence ring.” He stood back up, placed his hands on the wall, and took another deep breath.

There was an even brighter flash, and one section of the shaft gave away. Due to the now massive pressure differential, the entire shaft imploded and collapsed, falling away to reveal just the shaft’s opening in the ceiling, through which a wind stronger than any storm now roared.

“No!” shouted the Foreman over the now intense winds. “The high velocity flow is all the way up there! We need a way to get up there!”

“They will have cut power to the elevator,” said Ritani.

“We can climb the cables,” said Keenan. “The gravity is low enough, the wind will help us.”

“Spoken like someone whose bones have not atrophied from years of spaceflight!” said Lawrence. “My arms would sooner snap!”

“Snap… Wait… That’s it!” said Mia. “Everyone, jump down onto the drill! Get on the rock hopper!”

“What are you thinking?” said Keenan as everyone made their way onto the top of the drill, just below cavern level.

“Everyone onto the roof of the rock basket! You see, this thing is under a decent amount of tension, carrying hundreds of tons of rocks. The roof is connected to the base through four supports. Ritani, I need you to snap or melt those supports.”

“Are you crazy? The forces could kill us!” said Keenan.

“No, the tension isn’t actually that much, it isn’t supporting the whole drill, just the thing that brings the rocks to the surface,” said Lawrence. “Everyone lie down. Keep your head back, arms laid down. This is going to be quite the jolt.”

“Snapping support one,” said Ritani. There was a pulse of white light as the first of four connections to the rock hopper were severed. The platform shifted slightly and everyone panicked a bit. Ritani ran to the opposite corner and pulsed again. “Support two snapped!”

“Attention everyone!” barked Mia. “We are about to be yeeted at quite high velocity towards the high wind portion of the shaft! Once there, position yourself like a skydiver, and do NOT touch the sides! If you must, clip yourself into one of the main cables to stay on course, but don’t get grinded by it!”

“Support three!” there was another flash and the platform lurched and shifted, now at an appreciable diagonal angle.

“Lawrence?” whispered Keenan.

“Yeah, Keenan?”

“If this doesn’t work, and we’re turned to paste in a few seconds… Thank you for rescuing me.”

“It means we’re even.”

“Everyone ready?” Ritani asked. “Okay, good. Releasing in Five. Four.”

Keenan put his head back and looked at the shaft above. He then saw an explosion.

“Oh no,” he whispered. Doing some quick mental math, he was able to determine that, given the local speed of sound, the amount of time between the first wind and the explosion was likely because the entire roof of the shaft had been blown off by the air hammer effect.

“One!”

The last support was melted away and the entire platform shot into the air like a gigantic catapult. It found its mark, and everyone successfully reached the intact portion of the shaft, and were now riding the tornado force winds up and out of Moho, with nothing but open void on the other end.

“AAAAAHHH!” shouted everyone as they reverse skydived around the open shaft, which was fortunately wide enough that running into the walls was scarcely a concern. Keenan was completely and utterly terrified for the first few minutes, but then found himself beginning to enjoy the sensation of flight, risking a few backflips. He looked over with a crazy grin on his face to Lawrence, whose expression was a mix of complete terror and childlike wonder. He looked for Mia, but she wasn’t there, they were probably separated by hundreds of meters by this point.

Several minutes passed, and the thought of what to do when they reached the top occurred to him. They were getting close, he could see the distant black sky by now, but there was nothing really to do except try to float on the edge of the breathable atmosphere by initiating a nosedive. He attempted to do so, and many people shot by him, but he could not bring his velocity down to zero no matter how aerodynamic he tried to make himself. He desperately looked for any way out.

The cables were whipping about, no longer attached to anything, half falling, half flailing. There was nothing to grab onto on the walls, not that he was going slow enough to survive contact. He looked up as the square of darkness drew ever closer, and once more, he prepared for his death.

Keenan shot out of the mineshaft, and saw the stars once more as the air pressure around him faded, and faded, and… Rose?

He let out a yelp as he was yanked backwards by a new breeze away from the air column, into a vortex, spinning, and then being thrown against a wall.

“Nice seeing you again!” cheerfully chirped a familiar voice.

“Samantha Rae!” shouted Keenan as he stood up and dodged another incoming Kerbal. They were in a ship hovering above the surface, and he could see a team of several Evian airwielders twisting the exiting air into a cyclone, extracting each Kerbal, and placing them, mostly gently, on an exterior balcony.

“...aaaaAAAAAAOOF!” shouted Lawrence as he faceplanted onto the ship.

“Welcome aboard the EGT Albatross!” said Sam.

“I thought we were dead there!”

“I told you I’d have your back! I was beginning to worry you wouldn’t show up!” grinned Sam. “I didn’t think you’d be this flashy though!”

“That,” said Ritani, “Was exhilarating! I feel like I've finally done something!”

“You did do something,” said Lawrence, grinning.

“...78, 79, 80,” counted the foreman. “Eighty two… Eighty three! That’s everyone!” The foreman knelt down on the balcony and looked at the sky.

“Are you okay?” asked Keenan.

“Okay?” he whispered. “No. I’m much more than that… Years and years of slavery, seeing those close to me die… I haven’t seen the stars since I was a young boy.” He began to cry.

“Hey, sorry to interrupt, but we are outside and burning a lot of essence to maintain this gradient,” said Sam. “Everyone inside!” Everyone slowly shuffled through the narrow doors into the Evian ship as the engines fired up and carried the Albatross up and away from the little brown pebble called Moho, and far away into the great black void beyond.

 

==========

 

“It was an honor to assist in your liberation,” spoke the captain of the Evian Gas Tanker Albatross. “I know many of you are feeling a lot right now, and you may wish to speak to the ship’s counselor. This was sprung on us kind of last minute, so we do not have full details, but rest assured that once we reach Eve, we will provide free transportation to any planet you wish to travel to. If you are not sure where to go, Eve will welcome you for as long as you wish to stay for.”

“I can go home now,” said one Kerbal. “All the way to Duna. I wonder if my uncle is still alive.”

“It’s a long way to Jool, but golly, to smell the Laythian air again!”

“I’ll tell you what, when I get back to the Mun, I am never flying Grey Dwarf ever again!”

“Do you think we’d be able to get our jobs back?” Keenan asked.

“I’m never working for those scoundrels again,” said Mia. "In fact, I want to give them a knuckle sandwich."

"That bad, huh?"

"At least it isn't a lead sandwich!"

“What will you do, then?”

“You know? I don’t know,” she said. “I’m sure there’s got to be a bunch of spacecraft that need fixing over at Eve. Lawrence?”

“I… I have too many questions I need to answer.”

“Can you give us a summary?” Keenan asked. “You kinda brushed over lava monsters in like five seconds.”

Lawrence lowered his voice to a whisper and leaned in to the others. “I overheard our former owners talking about the core, and about that suitcase on the man Sylvus killed - Master Tyronus.. I think there was a gauntlet inside, but not just any gauntlet… Some sort of superweapon, one that is worth killing over.”

“That would explain all the dead masters you mentioned,” said Mia.

“And then I snuck around and found a secret laboratory with a lens. They were trying to solve singularity problems. Is magic a gradient or a singularity? They seem to think it is a singularity, and they were trying to figure ut what happens as you got close. They found that a hundred kilometers down, prolonged exposure to a focal point appears to rapidly thermonize you… Well, rapidly being weeks instead of years. A bunch of the lava monsters, which are actually just accelerated thermons, broke in to rescue one of their own, and I saved a doctor who the team had turned against, who was one of the masterminds of the whole thing, but… He died before he could tell me all of his secrets. He gave me this,” he said, holding the strange necklace. "The, well, accelerated thermons, that’s a stupid name, how about Gigathermons, heard about my situation, and broke into the base camp to help rescue everyone.”

“So they’re just Kerbals?”

“Yes. One of them was named Daisey… She gave me the ring before disappearing into the caves.”

“You can take this back,” said Ritani. “That is too much power for one man. I can barely soften a paper clip, imagine what someone who knew what they were doing got their hands on this. I trust you with it, Lawrence, you can’t wield at all.”

“Ouch.”

“Sorry.”

Lawrence took the ring back. “Dead masters, thermons with power far beyond known science, a super gauntlet, and now this,” he said holding the ring. “Could it be a new type of essence? Could it be micro receivers?  Ley line absorption? I don’t know. And you know me. If it is related to wielding, I want to know.”

“This could be an entirely new level of Magic,” said Keenan, “And we could have stumbled right into it by accident.”

“I’m not worried about the magic,” said Mia. “I’m worried about the people that also know about this, and are willing to kill to prevent the secret from escaping.”

“Hey, Sam!” said Lawrence.

“Yeah?”

“You wouldn’t happen to know anyone who can non destructively evaluate a small object?”

“That might be up Professor Neeson’s alley. I’ll let him know we’ll be up in a few weeks and I’ll see if he’s available.”

“Thanks. He lives on Eve?”

“Indeed!”

“I guess that means I’ll be staying around Eve for a while, then,” Lawrence said.

“Fantastic, I’ve got a few spare rooms if you all want to stay with me for a bit!” Sam said. “I’ll be awfully busy writing about all that’s happened these past few months, but I’ll surely have time to show you guys around the planet!”

“What do you say, Mia?”

“I’m in, I’m going to need some time to process all of this.”

“Ditto on both accounts,” said Keenan. "I might have to go see the ship's therapist."

“Hey, Keenan…" began Ritani. "I know I haven’t exactly been the greatest person, - "

“Stop right there,” Keenan said. “You helped save us back there. While personally I’m going to be subconsciously angry at you for a while, no matter how hard I try, you saved us back there, and you changed your ways. I can respect that. I just need some time for the gut reactions to fade away.”

“Thanks,” said Ritani. “I always wanted to see the worlds.”

“You’re just in it for the Evian wine!” said Lawrence. Most everyone laughed.

“Now if only I could get my hands on those at the top,” muttered Mia.

“Leave that to me,” said Samantha Rae. “I’ve been known to be… Fairly influential. Nothing of this scale, of course, but if my words can end this wretched system one day sooner, it will be more than worth it.”

“Did we really do a good thing here, though?” asked Lawrence.

“What do you mean?” asked Sam.

“You got ransomed for ten million funds,” Lawrence said. “You could replace everyone we saved today ten times over with that kind of money.”

“And if I can change enough minds, ten million will be pennies next to what the rockheads will lose, and grams compared to the weight of the chains that will fall.”

“With words like that, I’d almost believe you!” said Ritani. “Actually the way you talk kind of reminds me of Grey Lilac’s stuff. Funny, she hasn’t actually released anything in several months, and… Oh. OH.”

“Don’t tell anyone!” said Samantha with a smile. “Not knowing who lies behind the pen name is adds to the mystique, and the impact.”

“My lips are sealed… But… YOU are Grey Lilac! What’s that like?”

“Oh, boring most of the time!” She laughed.

“Alrighy then, it’s settled,” Keenan said. “Next stop, Eve!”

 

==========

 

“You know, I’m just, like… This is going to sound stupid,” said Keenan.

“I can guarantee you it isn’t,” said the therapist. “The mind is complex. Understanding the causes of thoughts that may appear random can often help a great deal.”

“It’s just that… I was always the clever kid growing up. If there was injustice, I was taught to stand up to it, and I’d often pull a solution out of nowhere.”

“That is very honorable.”

“Thanks, but - “

“No buts. Nothing inside you can take that away.”

“It’s just given me this unhealthy mentality, you know… That I feel like I have to be the person to do it. That I have to be the person to take center stage and save the day… Mia and Lawrence were hyping me up. They were looking to me to find a way to save everyone, and break out of that horrible place. I spent weeks and weeks trying to figure out a way out of that mine, and in the end, I contributed practically nothing.”

“Anyone could have thought up the solution, not everyone does all of the time.”

”It was the Foreman who came up with the escape plan, Mia who came up with the slingshot idea, Ritani, a guard, who was able to do the wielding, and Samantha’s status that actually got us off of the planet. In the meantime, Lawrence stumbles upon, well… Let’s just say some stuff that’s a pretty big deal, and I just sat there digging at some rocks. And I know that it shouldn’t bother me, I shouldn’t feel guilty for trying and not accomplishing anything… But I do. I am quite frankly starting to hate myself for it. I should be the one standing up to all of this, and I didn’t. Instead of celebrating that we freed like 80 people, instead of relaxing because I don’t have to spend endless hours swinging a pickaxe, and instead of, well, anything… I just direct it all inward.”

“Does the rook lose all its value because the bishop performed the checkmate?”

“No, of course not, it is good to have just in case, but what if the rook didn’t move all game?”

“The opponent still has to account for the rook. Its mere presence deters attacks, intimidates the enemy, and renders many strategies foolish.”

“Even though it stands around and does nothing?”

“Yes. Is the extra card in your hand worthless because you won with other cards? No. Is the safety margin worthless because the stress can be taken by less metal? Of course not! Are missiles worthless because they are not fired? No. You are a part of a team, Keenan. When you face a problem, you want as many assets as possible. A carpenter will not use all of his tools on one project, but that does not mean he should rid himself of the other tools.”

“I guess that makes sense.”

“You look tired.”

“It has been a long month!” chuckled Keenan.

“Well, get some sleep tonight, alright?” asked the therapist.

“I will do my best.”
 

==========

 

Weeks later, back on Moho, ten figures stood at the control panel of the heavily modified drill hovering just over the dully glowing core of Moho.

"Main drill?"

"Go."

"Secondary drill?"

"Go."

"Drill heaters?"

"Go."

"Drill coolers?"

"Go."

"Main lens?"

"Go."

"Secondary lens?"

"Go."

"Reversers?"

"Go."

"Reactor?"

"Go."

"Robotics?"

"Go."

"Air conditioning?"

"Go."

"Backup air conditioning?"

"Go."

"Backup backup air conditioning?"

"Also go."

"Backup backup backup - "

"Perrei, all seventeen of the air conditioners are go, and even all the Eeloo essence we have just in case."

"Alright then, by Kerbol, I just wanted to sound cool. Do you know how often I get to do a go/no go poll? That's the first time! The only time! And you, you ruined it!"

"Apologies, uh, the backup backup backup air conditioning is - "

"Don't you see, the moment has passed! It's probably quicker to ask if anything is no go, anyway," sulked Perrei.

"Carbon dioxide production is about ten percent high, but that's probably just because we're all excited. It is well within the safety margins."

"Anyone else? No? Great. Frannor, would you like to do the honors?"

"With pleasure. Initiating launch sequence." The dual drill-propeller hybrids began to spin up and the infernal contraption came alive.

"Here goes nothing."

"Launch in T minus ten. Nine. Eight. Seven. Latches armed. Five. Four. Three. Two. One. Release, release, release!" Frannor pulled the large red lever and the drill lurched downwards, piercing the boundary layer of the core, tearing viciously at the barely molten rock, before finding purchase, and burrowing its way in, slipping loudly below the dull red ocean of fire.

 

Little did they know, a stowaway lurked deep inside of the ship, unseen, wearing a dark hood, wielding a gravity staff in one hand, and a gauntlet in the other.

 

 

 

[KSK]

That last chapter had definite Broken Earth trilogy vibes for me. Which is a good thing.

[Ultimate Steve]

Okay, that three week cadence lasted about as long as summer did, it is winter break now, so maybe I'll get another one or two out before it ends, but then, what a scary thought, I'll have no more breaks until I retire unless I can't get a job post graduation... That doesn't make me sad or anxious or scared at all!

Anyway, finally:

 

Chapter Three: The Gilded Planet

Spoiler

Body: The Mun

Wielding style: Control Of Rock (More formally, control of silicates)

Alternate names: Rockwielding/Rockwielder, Stonewielding/Stonewielder

Primary abilities: Manipulation of the velocity of silicon based minerals, including pulverization and dust manipulation (ranged) (learned) (Note: follows Newton Kerman’s third law, a reaction force is required)

Secondary abilities: None

Higher level abilities: Manipulation of molten silicon based minerals (short range), and manipulation of some non silicon based minerals (generally but not exclusively contact only)

Side effects: Gradual decline in lung capacity due to long term silicate dust inhalation if proper PPE is not used (not a direct side effect of the magic, but something that often happens)

 

==========

 

“Kerlington, this is Valentina Kerman. The Moho-Bop VII has landed at the eastern ridge of Jebediah Crater.”

“Bobak to Moho-Bop VII, Congratulations! That makes this the third ever successful Munar landing!” cheered Bobak.

“Hopefully we can make this the first successful return, too!” said Bill, muffled by his full body cast. “If this works, we can maybe rescue Leeland.”

“Moho-Bop VI to Moho-Bop VII, congratulations on the safe landing!” said Leeland.

“Especially, congratulations on not tipping over! Man, it’s uncomfortable sleeping with my face against the control panel…”

“Off the record,” began Bobak, “The administration has advised us to continue using the official name of “Northwest Crater,” as Jebediah Crater is a tad morbid for something we can all see from here.”

“Look, Bobak,” said Bob, “Someday a little kid’s going to learn the name of that crater, misunderstand how it was formed, and wonder just how fast Jeb must have been going to make a crater that big. Jeb would laugh his head off at that, and for that reason only, it should be called Jebediah Crater. Man, I miss him…” said Bob.

“I’ve opened the hatch, Bobak,” said Valentina as she stepped down the ladder. “I see the Moho-Bop V about fifty meters away, surrounded by a bunch of strange rock column formations… Punctuated by a giant rock arch, dozens of meters tall!”

“Impossible!” said Bob. “The Mun didn’t have an atmosphere or oceans for erosion… Unless…”

“The Mun is alive!” shouted Bill, again muffled.

“That’s a stupid idea!” said Bob.

“Not as stupid as that time you thought the Mun was evil!”

“Okay, look, how was I supposed to know that I was being injured due to the lack of Kerbin anomalous phenomena instead of the presence of Munar anomalous phenomena?”

“Just call it magic, you cuboid!” said Bill.

“AAAAAH!” shouted Valentina.

“Val!” shouted everyone else.

“Wow… Oh. Oh! Okay.. Uh… Whooo! Pow! Bang! Haha!”

“Goodness, she’s going mad like Jeb!” shouted Gene. “Kerlington to Val, get back in the rocket this instant!”

“No, wait.. Gene, Bobak, I think I know what happened,” said Valentina. “I just need to visualize it to be sure. Bobak?”

“Yes, Val?”

“Play Jeb’s recording.”

“Sure thing!” There was a shuffling noise and then a click as Bobak pulled out the tape recorder and pressed play.

“And on this brave, bold day, Kerbalkind has conquered the - OH MY STARS - What! Woah! I can just go like *rumbling noise* Ahahahah! And I can go Pow! *rumble* Pow! *Louder rumble* Pow! *Even louder rumble* How high can I go? *Very long rumble* Haha! I have become the master of the Earth! KNEEL BEFORE ME, PESKY SILI - *Extremely loud rumbling growing before program termination*”

“Did that tell you anything?” Gene asked.

“Jebediah died happy, I can tell you that… So. You’re not going to believe me until the pictures get developed back home, but have you ever seen Evatar: The Final Windblower?”

“Yeah, who hasn’t?”

“I haven’t.”

“Well that’s because you’re Bob.”

“I kid you not, it’s exactly like Earthwielding. I can raise up stones from the ground at will! I can levitate them! I can throw them really far! It’s really cool!”

“Wait!” Said Leland. “You’re saying I might be able to right my ship using magic?”

“Don’t,” said Valentina. “It is incredibly dangerous, I’m going to have to stop. Bobak, play that recording once more.”

“And on this brave, bold day, Kerbalkind has conquered the - OH MY STARS - What! Woah!”

“That was Jeb finding out he could move the rocks, there are a few small rock trails right near the lander.”

“I can just go like *rumbling noise* Ahahahah!”

“And that’s him moving this massive boulder to the side! There’s a very definitive trail.”

“You’re documenting this, right?” asked Bobak.

“I’m in danger of running out of film and we’re only ten minutes into the landing!” said Val.

“And I can go Pow! *rumble* Pow! *Louder rumble* Pow! *Even louder rumble*”

“There are three rock columns of increasing size here! He just yanked the rock out of the ground! The largest is the size of a bus!”

“How high can I go? *Very long rumble*”

“This column is knocked over for reasons I’ll get into in a minute, but he appears to have created a column underneath himself and shot up several dozen meters into the air, right below the rock arch.”

“Haha! I have become the master of the Earth! KNEEL BEFORE ME, PESKY SILI - *Extremely loud rumbling growing before program termination*”

“And in celebration, he ripped two large rock columns out of the ground, probably intending to look really cool, but accidentally bent them inwards, crushing himself between them, and creating this gigantic rock arch.”

“Oof!”

“That’s got to have left a mark.”

“And there’s a - “

“Yes Bob, there’s a discontinuity at the peak. You taught me something during those Geology lectures.”

“Wait, hold on,” said Bill. “Kerbin is a world with the magic of healing… The Mun is a world with the magic of rocks.”

“Yes, and?” Bobak asked.

“I… I don’t know if I want to be a Kerbonaut any more.”

“Why?”

“If I stay, I can discover it for myself, but if I leave, I might just live to see the day where we figure out what all of the other worlds do.”
Gene’s eyes widened. “Leeland! I have good news! This is a mystery too big to ignore, and we’re going to have the funding to get you home!”

 

==========

 

There was a click as the door of Lawrence’s cryogenic suspension chamber opened up. He emerged, coughing, into the zero gravity environment of the suspender hall.

It was dark. He reached for his flashlight, but it was long since out of power.

Fumbling his way over to the control panel, he reached for the emergency power switch. After some effort, it clanked into place, and still nothing happened.

He made his way over to the other cryogenic suspension chambers, each powered by their own backup radioisotope thermoelectric generator, powered by Americium 241, which had a half life of nearly 1500 Kerbin years.

Wiping the ice from the windows on the chambers, he could see clearly: A skeleton. Lawrence’s panic skyrocketed, and he went around to all of the other chambers. Each one contained a skeleton and nothing else.

In a panic he ripped open the circuitry and accessed the heart of one of the chambers: The RTG, searching for the Americium, only finding Lead, cold as stone.

His heart pounded, and he raced towards the window, seeing only stars, only one very slightly brighter than the rest.

Lawrence opened his mouth to scream.

“AAAAAAHHH!”

“Woah, bad dream?” chuckled one of the technicians as he opened up Lawrence’s cryogenic suspension pod.

“For my sake we’d better invent FTL travel soon. Suspension is the worst.”

“Oh I’m with you there. If it helps, I like to think about all of the inconsistencies in those nightmares, it helps me calm down.”

“Right,” began Lawrence, still hyperventilating. “It can’t be both too dark for me to see and light enough for me to see the bodies, and at the distance we were from Kerbol, there’s no way the Americium was Lead by then. Most of it would have been Curium 245. And this ship probably doesn’t even have the Delta-V to get out that far without gravity assists, and this is Eve we’re talking about, they’ll send a rescue mission for anyone.”

“Ah, a dream about waking up lost in space. They are unfortunately pretty common. As you pointed out, very unlikely to happen.”

“But it might, someday,” said Lawrence, standing up. “That one ship that launched people to the next star over? Won’t get there for a while, but they could certainly miss and have that happen to them.”

“The Terbia Rangon? A bunch of lunatics if you ask me. Anyway, we’re here!”

Lawrence floated over to the window, and there it was, in all of its majestic purple glory, the planet Eve. He felt in his heart a grand sense of relief, seeing with his own eyes that they were adjacent to any solar system object at all.

After a long moment of staring at the half terraformed amethyst world, he turned his head and saw, down the hallway, Mia, staring at the splendorous view with a smile that rivaled Kerbol itself in brightness.

“Mia!” Lawrence shouted. “What has possessed you? You aren’t full of angst!”

“Oh the angst is still there. You know why I’m so angsty?”

“Gee, it’s not like you hide it but secretly want to tell people and have caved and told me over a dozen times by now.”

“Our ancestors had a chance, you know. To set aside their pain and strife, and colonize the system with curiosity, imagination, wonder, and peace. They didn’t. They killed the dreams of all future generations so far. Kerbin’s full of nepotism. The Mun is full of crushed dreams. They filled Moho full of unrestrained capitalism and Kerbal rights violations. Duna’s practically a technocracy with no hint of anything resembling OSHA. Jool has so much but they want much more. Eeloo is just, well…”

“Yeah.”

“But Eve… They made paradise. A land beyond all sorrows. A land that cares for itself and those on it.”

“You know why that is possible, though.”

“Yeah.” Her smile faltered for a moment. “But there’s still time. Maybe they can use the window to help.”

“I… I don’t believe that will happen, but I hope and pray more than anything that you are right and I am wrong.”

“Oh hey, you’re up!” said Keenan.

“Keenan!” said Lawrence. “I hope you had a better rest than I did! I always tend to have nightmares!”

“You… You’ve gone into suspension before?”

“Uh… Well, that’s a story for another time.”

“Alright. Great… Now I have to deal with keeping track of both my chronological age and my biological age.”

“You get used to it,” said Lawrence.

“...How old are you, exactly?”

“Again, story for another time!”

“If it isn’t the Cassandra gang!” cheerfully said Samantha as she floated by.

“Sam!” said Lawrence.

“You best be strapping yourselves in soon, we’re about to go into the vortex!”

“The… Vortex?” Keenan asked puzzled.

“You don’t know about the vortex?” Mia’s eyes lit up. “Oh, you’re in for a treat!”

“We’re about five minutes from entry,” said Sam.

“Why did you wake me up so late?” Lawrence said.

“You were so anxious to figure out the mystery that you specifically requested it so you wouldn’t have to wait as long.”

“I don’t remember that… Oh. Right. The last few memories aren’t saved, are they?”

“Nope. Unfortunately, Professor Neeson is busy and will not be contactable for a week or so, so you’re going to have to keep yourself busy until then… Not that there is any shortage of stuff to do on Eve!”

“We won’t have the money, though,” Lawrence pointed out.

“Actually we largely transitioned away from money while you were sleeping,” Samantha said.

“Really? It’s about time!” cheerfully said Mia.

“Well, we still use it for interplanetary commerce, of course, and it is still used by the general population, but generally only for things that are very extra. Food is free, some level of housing is free, public transportation is free, and most recreation is subsidized by the government and is free or essentially free.”

“And you keep that from getting out of control how, exactly?” Lawrence asked.

“By cultivating a culture that discourages power for power’s sake, by enabling you to do the majority of what power can accomplish for free!” cheerfully chimed Mia.

“Well… truth be told, it might not work,” Samantha said. “Especially if I succeed… I’ve stayed up this entire trip, working on my finest works yet… If it works, there’s going to be a lot of economic hardship in the coming years.”

“What are you planning?” Lawrence asked.

“Oh, you’ll see. Two minutes until vortex, I’m gonna go strap in. See you!” Samantha floated away down the hall, and the others followed.

The EGT Albatross plunged through the Evian atmosphere, somewhat gentler than one would expect, gradually slowing down without a hint of plasma, just very intense mach effects. The journey was bumpy, shaking the ship back and forth, much to the discomfort of its occupants, but the discomfort turned into wonder as ship broke through the thin Evian clouds at subsonic speeds, bringing the shining plateau city of Avalon into full view. The Albatross half glided, half plummeted out of the sky and opened its engine bay doors, firing up its Vector-derivative landing thrusters, and coming to a shaky stop on one of Avalon’s many landing pads.

“That was so cool!” shouted Lawrence. “How does that work?”

“The gas separation plants leave a lot of high velocity gas in the system, so they shoot it upwards and sideways to launch ships most of the way into orbit!” Mia beamed. “And returning ships use that massive plume of fast but not orbital gas to slow down without as much re entry heating!”

“Only on Eve,” said Keenan. “Wait… We’re on - “

“Wait until we’re outside, please!” said Sam. “Unfortunately we’ve lost enough ships that way.”

“Sorry.” Everyone got up and out of their seats, and were distributed breathing masks.

“Alright, for everyone who has never been on Eve before, listen up!” shouted one of the ship’s officers. “Eve orientation time! As you hopefully know, Eve is in the middle of a terraforming procedure. We aim to convert our mostly carbon dioxide atmosphere into oxygen, reduce the pressure to a bit more than Kerbin’s at sea level, purify the oceans, and remove most contaminant gasses.”

“So Eve doesn’t smell any more?”

“Correct! We got rid of almost all of the sulfur dioxide ages ago. As of a few years ago, there is now a habitable band at medium elevations where the oxygen concentration is high enough to breathe, and the pressure is low enough to survive long term, disregarding the effects of carbon dioxide... Avalon is not in this range. You cannot survive in this atmosphere for very long. If you see people walking around without a mask, though, do not be alarmed, as many airwielders increase the pressure close to their mouths and disperse the carbon dioxide to facilitate breathing. If your mask stops working, activate the distress beacon on its side and head for the nearest building. Three people can safely alternate the same mask and survive at these altitudes.”

“Dave, if you want me to share my mask with you if you are dying, you really need to start brushing your teeth.”

“Unfortunately, the atmosphere here is roughly 9 percent oxygen, 27% nitrogen, 1% other, and 63% carbon dioxide. In addition to providing oxygen, the masks also have a button that will disperse chemicals that neutralize the effects of that much carbon dioxide on the lungs. You can, for example, press the button, remove the mask, breathe for a minute or two, and replace the mask, and survive without permanent damage to the lungs.”

“That sounds like a bad idea,” someone whispered.

“While you can do this, be aware that inhaling more than a few percent carbon dioxide is a deeply unpleasant experience as it triggers our “I’m suffocating!” reaction. This reflex can be suppressed given enough time, but it has been known to be traumatic. The mask should filter the carbon dioxide out, though.”

“Should?” said Lawrence, a little troubled.

“Now how on Kerbin did they make a molecular sieve that could be mass produced?” Keenan wondered out loud.

“Mask refill stations are denoted by a blue circle inside a slightly larger red circle. And lastly, as you probably all know by now, Eve has a notoriously strict immigration system. You will all be classified as class 2 refugees, and have a shot at Evian citizenship if you wish. For now you are generally entitled to most of the rights of an Evian citizen, mainly excluding voting and such, for however long you wish to stay. Hotels are subsidized and obligated to house you, you get a decent chunk of free food, etcetera, please consult any public official if you have any questions.”

Everyone put on their masks and stepped through the airlock of the Albatross, emerging onto the slightly deadly purple plateau.

“Look at it!” excitedly shouted Mia, slightly muffled through the mask. “Guys, we’re on Eve!”

“You know, it is really wonderful seeing her happy for a change,” remarked Lawrence.

“Yo, Lawrence, want to find a bar?” asked Ritani, jogging past.

“I wouldn’t recommend it,” said Sam. “Alcohol here is generally culturally viewed as a means to an end to be used in moderation. Bars do exist, but please, try the alternatives first.”

“Cool.”

“I can’t right now, Ritani, I’ve got some stuff to try. Have fun though!”

“Right. See you! I can’t believe I actually got off of Moho!”

“Sam, how close is too close?” Lawrence asked.

“Here is about right.”

“Alright then!” Lawrence struck a pose, concentrated, and shouted while waving his arms in sophisticated ways. “Man… Still nothing. I mean, I had tried an essence sample a long time ago, so this wasn’t a complete surprise…”

“AaaaAAAAAH!” shouted Keenan as he also attempted airwielding. Twin blasts of air erupted from his hands, striking Lawrence and knocking him over, knocking his mask off.

Lawrence sat up and excitedly proclaimed “Yes! You can airw - Ach! AACH!” He reached frantically for his mask and shoved it back in, pressing the anti-CO2 button several times for good measure.

“Lawrence! Are you alright?” Keenan asked.

“Yeah, I’m fine, but wow. That guy was not joking, that is indeed a deeply unpleasant experience… Mia? What are you doing?”

“Shut up, I'm concentrating!” she snapped. She was sitting down with her palms parallel to one another several inches apart. 

“I don’t know what’s wrong with her,” said Lawrence. “So happy, and so interested in wielding for once!”

“What’s wielding used for? War? No thanks. Transport? Niche, for actually going places, science is superior. Healing? Never one for blood. But this? This I care about.” She once again assumed the pose and began concentrating.

“Try curving your palms slightly, like very shallow bowls, and try to make sure there are no holes between your fingers,” suggested Lawrence. “Actually hold on, do we have any bowls or plates?”

“There’s a restaurant over there,” said Keenan.

Two minutes later, Keenan had returned with two small ceramic plates.

“Surprisingly they didn’t ask why I wanted them” said Keenan.

Mia took the two small plates and held them with her hands stretched wide and assumed the same pose as before. The trio held their breath in anticipation.

“Do you hear that?” Keenan said. A tone seemed to emanate from somewhere, distant but present. Mia adjusted, and in volume to that of a proclamation rose that shaky but determined tone.

“Do!” shouted Mia. She moved her hands a little closer, the tone still shaking around, uncertain but with clear intent. “Re!” Closer still. “Mi! Fa! So!” The tone rose and rose, but then suddenly, one of the plates shattered into many shards. “I DID IT!”
“Congratulations, Mia!” said Lawrence.

“I’m an airwielder! The power of all music lies at my fingertips, stand in awe of the mighty musician Mia Kerman!”

“How do I explain this to the restaurant,” said Keenan.

“No. Way!” Said the restaurant manager who had come out in curiosity.

“Uh, I’m sorry, I can explain - “

“Our plates were used for her first ever notes!” squealed the restaurant manager in delight. “Miss, do you mind if we take your picture and frame these? You can keep one, we will keep the other?”

“Of course!”

“Have you been to a concert here yet?”

“I have not, just got off of the rocket not fifteen minutes ago.”

“Oh, well the great Alexandra Elaine is joining the Evanside Orchestra for a show soon, you should totally go see them!”

“Really? The actual Alexandra Elaine?”

“The one and only!”

==========

(https://soundcloud.com/alvaroalorite/kerbal-space-program-theme)

The lights dimmed, and the string section began playing those notorious ethereal tones. The spotlight gradually lit up several Kerbals on the stage, a few holding traditional string instruments, a few with attachments to their hands, and a few with nothing at all.

Another lit up over two Kerbals, one playing a harp, another airwielder amplifying it, together plucking out the notes known all over the solar system.

The woodwinds joined in, a mixture of traditional and airwielded, gradually joined by the brass in an epic crescendo, building and building into a cymbal crash, as the theme of the original Kerbal Space Program triumphantly came into full color, the full orchestra illuminated, a montage of the KSP’s early missions projected onto the screens behind the stage.

Mia, a bright face amidst a few thousand bright faces, sat in awe as the music enveloped her, transporting her to another world.

The seconds passed all too quick, and the song finished. The conductor turned around and addressed the audience, Mia absorbing every single word, and the concert progressed into its next song.

A number of famous, infamous, and obscure works were played, largely in augmented orchestral style, combining traditional orchestral instrumentation with the large variety of additional sounds that could be generated via airwielding. But, as this was a variety show, a number of works from other genres were included as well.

The minutes passed like moments, and before long, the penultimate piece of music played - It was tradition for Evian orchestral concerts to always precede the finale with this revered, almost mythical piece of music, where the audience was encouraged to join in. The conductor began:

“And now, before our guest star completes the show, I invite you all, from young to old, from singer to wielder, from novice to master, to partake in the most mysterious and awe inspiring of sounds. Centuries ago, we pointed the first chordonic telescope towards the sky, and in the chordonic field, we found a never ending song emanating from across the universe that has perplexed scientists ever since. Some think it is the sound of stellar fusion. Some think it is miniature black holes banging against the chordonic field. Others still attribute it to angels painting the skies with music. But, whatever it is, its hauntingly beautiful harmonies have inspired us for generations. It is, The Song of The Stars.”

The conductor turned back towards the orchestra and gave the signal to start before walking off of the stage.

One musician started, with a single note.

Another followed with the third.

Another a few seconds later with the fifth.

More and more musicians from the orchestra joined in as the chord grew from the earth to the skies, and when there was no higher to conceivably go, they began arpeggiating up and down, very very slowly at first, before gradually speeding up, faster and faster.

The percussion section joined in, building and building, and as the arpeggios dissolved into chaos, the whole band, as if directed, nearly all at once switched to the V7 chord, building and building as far as it would go, shaking the entire building, and resolving with the crash of ten thousand cymbals once more to the I, once more filled with all manner of arpeggios.

As if on cue, the audience began joining in, as the chord grew richer and the arpeggios grew ever more chaotic. For several more minutes, various sections of the crowd experimented and improvised over this base, with entire sections alternating between the V7 and the I at a time, as mini climaxes could be heard every few seconds.
Mia was having a blast with her brand new all metal musical plates, her smile as wide as a galaxy.

And then the pitch of the arrangement grew slowly, up and up, as the volume grew ever quieter. The drums dropped out, as the chord worked its way to the sky. Each of the hundreds of parts fell out one by one, until the last few lingering tones faded out one by one, as the lights, too, dimmed, the sound and light replaced by the roaring noise of applause and cheering.

The stage had been cleared of all objects, only one figure remaining on stage, standing in the spotlight. No plates, no instruments, no attachments… Just Alexandra Elaine Kerman and her two hands, back turned to the audience.

She raised her arms.

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbxgYlcNxE8)

Several emulations of string instruments, indistinguishable from the real thing, emanated from the stage, the tune instantly recognizable as Tchaikerbsy’s 1812 Overture.

Flawless woodwinds joined in, somehow from the left side of the stage.

Just past the two minute mark, the strings swelled, and Alexandra rapidly turned around to face the audience, abruptly transitioning into the oboe feature. She moved around, almost dancing as if she herself were the oboe. The low strings and the high strings battled each other, and the brass instruments one by one roared to life, all panned to one side or the other.

The snare drum, a notoriously hard instrument to wield, popped in, as the familiar battle theme of the overture began, staying around for a mere seconds, before giving away to slow strings and then fast strings, growing angrier and angrier.

The french horns began their triumphant calls, the trumpets echoing them, the violins arpeggiating, the timpanis, also difficult, as are most percussion instruments, calling in between the strings, and then the strings rose and fell as the main melody slowly faded out, echoed by different instruments.

The next section, mostly slow strings, punctuated by strikes of the triangle, was a short rest for Alexandra - multi instrument emulation was a very taxing affair.

The strings gave way to another soft woodwind and percussion feature. Alexandra rook a deep breath as it drew to a close. The strings sped up, and she conjured the brass back into existence, several parts playing louder.

The strings and horns grew in desperation, punctuated by blasts of percussion, growing angrier and angrier.

The music climbed a mountain, and at the top, the strings slowly fell in pitch and the brass slowly fell in volume, transitioning back to another triangle and woodwind rest period, though this would not last.

Everyone could tell Alexandra was getting tired, now eleven minutes into emulating an entire orchestra, with the hardest part still to come. Her face grew pale, the glint of sweat visible. She took one more deep breath.

The French horns returned, fighting with the shy strings, The trumpets and trombones joined, and the song crescendoed. She took a deep breath.

The entire orchestra grew louder than it had ever before as five cannon shots, each localized to a different side of the building, rang out, causing many to cover their ears.

Alexandra reeled back in shock, breathing heavily while granted just one more final rest period as the strings spiraled downwards once more, growing ever and ever slower and louder.

And she rose her hands to the sky, and the brass screamed out, and the church bells rang brightly throughout the hall. The brass grew louder and louder, the woodwinds and strings, trading the spotlight every now and then, a wall of sound assaulting the ears of the audience with a vigor never heard since.

And then the battle theme returned, the brass and cymbals trading off. The low brass and high brass split into their separate melodies as the cannons once again rang out, even louder than before.

The church bells returned for the finale, the tempo picking up once more, as the infamous battle theme returned in its full form, Alexandra going all out, emulating the sounds of fireworks, as the brass grew for the final moments of the piece.

The timpani grew ever louder, and the final chord sounded. Alexandra dropped to the floor, completely exhausted, after over fifteen minutes straight of expert level musical performance.

“Ladies and gentlemen, Master Alexandra Elaine Kerman!” said the conductor as he moved to help Alexandra back to her feet. She smiled and waved to the audience, infinitely proud of a job well done, even more glad the audience enjoyed it just as much, if not more, than she did.

==========

“And I heard she’s working up to performing the entirety of Holst’s The Planets! Excitedly raved Mia as the trio exited the theater. “That’s, like, three times as long! I don’t think anyone has ever performed it by themselves before! Master Relan Tan did it in two sittings, but that was with plates and walls for assistance.”

“She is on another level!” proclaimed Lawrence. “It’s hard enough to wield two instruments at once, here she is with dozens. I tried to learn physical piano a while back, left hand and right hand independence is hard enough, even just thinking several parts at once is crazy. Playing even a quartet is almost enough to be called a master. She’s over here pulling off one of the most over the top bombastic pieces ever, without any assistance of any kind!”

“How does she even do that?” said Keenan. “Like, she only has ten fingers, there were way more than ten instruments playing for large parts of that!”

“Beyond a certain skill level, you tend to start thinking in combined waveforms rather than discrete parts,” replied Lawrence.

“So, like, the opposite of a fourier transform, combining each instrument’s harmonics into a new overall pattern, which changes every time even one instrument changes pitch?” Keenan asked.

“Sort of, not exactly.”

“The Planets by Holst,” said Keenan. “That might just warrant a level beyond Master.”

“Most people try to master something else once they’ve mastered one thing,” said Lawrence. “Not her… Although to be honest, putting my music hat on, I’m not sure why she chose The Planets. Assuming that rumor is correct, of course. It’s got that weird tonal shift in the middle. Kinda ruins the whole thing.”

“I think it’s brilliant,” said Mia. “Almost like Holst was emphasizing the rift between the Joolian alliance and the Kerbian alliance, but that can’t be, the war was centuries after his time. Either way, it fits.”

“I disagree, but how much of a banger Duna is almost makes up for it in my opinion.”

“So, hold on,” said Keenan. “In the one astronomy class I took back in college, they briefly touched on the Chordonic field and that the signals kinda sounded like music. Otherwise, I’m kind of out of the loop on the whole Song of The Stars thing. Care to explain?”

“Of course!” said Mia. “All the physics stuff, I can’t explain, but, in the sky, some of the stars are making weird sounds. Well, not in the audible domain, exactly. The performance version takes a lot of creative liberties, speeds it up, translates the frequencies so we can hear them, adds some flavor here and there, adds contemporary percussion, you know… But every so often, a star will start playing a chord with various overtones that seem to chaotically bounce around, speeding up, then there’s a tension chord, and then a loud kaboom as it transitions back to the main chord, and either slowly raises in pitch or slowly lowers in pitch and slowly fades out. The chords aren’t exactly I and V7, they vary a lot, sometimes there’s multiple steps, sometimes they can barely be called chords, but we settled on the coolest version that could reasonably claim to be a derivative of the original. Basically, strange space signals that Eve decided to dress up.”

“And we don’t know what’s causing it?” Lawrence asked.

“If I remember right,” began Keenan, “The best theory we currently have is this is kind of like what pulsars do, but instead of neutron stars and radio waves, it works with ordinary stars and chordons due to the internal convection patterns within the star. Based on what we know about the Chordonic field, it is possible for these patterns to emerge, but it is weird that they would all be so similar yet so different.”

“Similar yet different? You are sounding like those shop signs that say “Up to and including or more!””

“We would have to study our own sun more to figure out why this happens,” says Keenan.

“Which is why we should wield the sun!” proclaimed Lawrence.

“You can’t just wield the sun!” said Keenan. “That’s like the fifth rule of wielding! It’s a bad idea!”

“I want to know what happens,” said Lawrence. “I believe it is worth the risk. And besides, you aren’t going to get funding to study the sun otherwise.”

“You know what happened the last time someone tried to wield the sun.”

“Imagine what we could learn!” said Lawrence.

“I am… And it is tempting, but… I wish there was a safer way to learn. Anyway, this is a conversation for another day. We’ve still got a few days until that professor gets back. What are your plans?”

“I’m quite frankly having trouble waiting,” said Lawrence. “I am going to, well… I’m going to see if I can contact someone else.”

“I’m going to tour the gas facilities,” said Mia. “What about you? You seem excited.”

“I got a date!” beamed Keenan.

“But that’s impossible!” said Mia. “Haha, just kidding!”

“Congrats, man!” said Lawrence. “Where will you be going?”

==========

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!” shouted Keenan.

“Relax, I’ve got you!” giggled Ripley.

“WELL IT DOESN’T FEEL LIKE IT!”

“I will circa 500 meters or so. Besides, I thought you wanted to learn how to fly?”

“YES BUT NOT LIKE THIS!” Keenan shouted as he plummeted at over 100 meters per second through the Evian atmosphere, desperately trying to stabilize himself with jets of air, but sending himself only further into the tumble he was in.

“Trial by fire, learn by doing, live like you can always see Gilly in the sky!”

“You’re taking those figures of speech WAAAAAAYYYY too literally!” panicked Keenan, who had somehow managed to stabilize two axes of his spin and was working on the third.

“You know, you’re doing pretty good!” she shouted, grinning, head supported by arms, as if laying down on a couch and not plummeting towards the surface of Eve at a not insignificant fraction of the speed of sound. “You’re kinda cute when you are spinning around like that!”

“Aaannnddd… There. Spin: Stabilized! I appreciate the gesture but I would very much appreciate if you could take me down, and home now. Preferably at low speed, low altitude.”

“What, you don’t have a hover in you?”

“I barely even have my lunch in me right now, Ripley!”

“Lunch… You know… oh… That reminds me… I forgot to take my… my….” Her eyelids fluttered and her body went limp. Instantly the partial atmosphere of oxygen she had kept around the two vanished, and the thinner, carbon dioxide rich atmosphere rushed in, causing Keenan to panic and lose stability as his lungs began to burn. He quickly reached for his mask, returning oxygen to his lungs, and slowly purging the carbon dioxide.

Quickly he took stock of the situation. About ten kilometers up, barely capable of controlled maneuvering, separated from his tumbling, medicationless, unconscious date, who had up until now been providing communication, oxygen, and course corrections to them both.

He quickly stabilized himself again as the air rushed past, lungs still burning and began trying to propel himself towards Ripley, but found it exceedingly difficult. Realizing he had zeroed in on a solution, Keenan reconsidered, and began using traditional skydiving maneuvers to approach Ripley, finding this much more successful. After several misses, he succeeded in catching her, although they were now both tumbling. He grabbed her mask and strapped it back around her math, pushing the anti-CO2 button so many times he was sure it had broken.

Turning his attention back to the situation, he had lost track of time. He wasn’t sure exactly how high up they were, but it couldn’t have been more than three kilometers above the shallows of Eve. He tried to hold out his arms and do an air blast, but he couldn’t, as he was holding Ripley. He tried doing it with one hand but just knocked them hopelessly into a spin. He shook her harder, slapped her across the face, screaming “RIPLEY! WAKE UP!” as loud as he could. The surface drew ever closer, they were running out of time!

Suddenly, he had an idea. He ripped off of his shoes and socks, and made a last minute effort to use his legs as wielding surfaces instead. They sputered about, barely doing anything. The surface of the ocean drew near, and seconds remained, and he looked out at the horizon, content to just admire the sky in his final moments.

But then he saw Gilly standing there, almost taunting him. It made him angry to be proved differently like that, but something arose inside of him, and he gave it one last shot. Twin bursts of air erupted from Keenan’s legs, and the pair of Kerbals, in a barely controlled fall - no, flight - gradually slowed down to a standstill just above the surface.

“Well done, Keenan!” cheered Ripley.

“Ripley? You’re awake?”

“Duh, was the whole time! You really do learn quickly under pressure just like Lawrence said you do!”

“You would just… You would just do that to a person?” Keenan asked, flabbergasted.

“Surely as the sun in the sky right I would,” she said, leaning in for a kiss.

Keenan dropped her.

“AH - “ she only got the first H out before she splashed into the ocean below.

“Sorry, I’m not going to date anyone who won’t respect my boundaries!” Keenan half stated, half passive aggressively yelled, before attempting to fly off towards the shore looking cooler than he ever had before. Instead, whatever had possessed him to learn to fly in that moment of crisis left him quicker than a flare leaves the sun, and he too splashed into the water, exhausted over that ordeal, but fortunately still enough energy to swim.

“Ha!” Ripley shouted.

“Oh shoot, you can swim, right?”

“Yeah, but why would I when I could just - “ Ripley rose up out of the water, blew him a sarcastic kiss, and flew off towards the nearby shore. Keenan rolled his eyes and began swimming in that direction as well.

==========

The old master coughed as she awoke deep underground from her cryogenic suspension chamber. After a few seconds she regained her composure and spoke.

“What year is it?”

“The year of the Ikean Rabbit.”

“Is the cure here yet?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“Then what brings you here?”

“My name is Lawrence, and great master, there have been some… new and interesting developments in the world of magic. I fear another war is along the way.”

“How did you get in here?” she asked. “Only a few people have the code and location!”

“I know my way around a forbidden library,” Lawrence replied. “Master Tonga, legendary warrior of the coalition, I have come to seek your input.”

“Bring up the war one more time and I’m going back to sleep.”

“Three things have happened. There have been whispers of a new superweapon. Great and terrible progress has been made towards solving the singularity problem. And I have happened upon an essence ring that can turn a novice into a master. All the while, many, many masters have been assassinated… Something is going on here, and I don’t - What are you doing - “

“That sounds exciting!” chirped Master Tonga. “I can’t wait to know the answer! So I’m not going to!” Tonga pushed a button and the cryogenic suspension chamber activated once more.

“...I suppose that was indeed slightly rude of me,” Lawrene pondered. “Now, how do I get back out of this immortality vault…”

==========

“What? No! Absolutely not!” said the guide into her phone. “What are we supposed to do then? We can’t exactly just store it! We can’t just stop our terraforming, or slow it down like that! No! Look, we… Okay, yeah, that’s evil, but this is our way of life! Look, I’ll call you back, alright!” The guide hung up her phone.

Mia looked up at the tour guide, and wondered what was up, as she wiped the concerned look off her face, replacing it with a typical customer service smile.

“Hello, everyone! Welcome to Eve Terraforming Facility 12! As you all should know, Eve is in the middle of a three stage terraforming plan! Stage 1: Remove the atmospheric impurities, regulate the planet’s temperature using anti-greenhouse gasses, and convert enough carbon dioxide to oxygen to allow for limited surface operations, complete! Stage 2: Rid the atmosphere of almost all carbon dioxide, and remove enough oxygen to bring the pressures down to something more reasonable, and allow for a Kerbin-like environment at most altitudes. Stage 3: Purify the ocean and introduce a large scale ecosystem!”

The tour guide began walking the small group down a hallway through the facility.

“Again, as you know, we are currently in the middle of stage 2. Stage 2 requires us to sequester a lot of carbon dioxide underground and break the rest into carbon and oxygen. While other facilities are responsible for the sequestration, and others still are responsible for the separation, and the great vortex, this facility is unique in that it is more focused on the byproducts: Carbon and oxygen. Here is the separation machine:” said the guide, gesturing to a window through which the massive circular whirlwind could be seen.

“Wow! How does it work?” asked one tourist.

“Glad you asked! Teams of dozens of airwielders spin the air up to incredibly fast velocities, and the pressures at the edge in combination with a number of catalysts allow relatively energy-cheap conversion of the carbon dioxide into carbon and diatomic oxygen. The carbon is collected before it has the chance to react or clump up and is funneled to one of the many printers on the ring, where it is assembled, molecule by molecule using advanced robotics and computers, into incredibly strong pure carbon parts, no composites needed!”

“And that’s how the Beacon of Prosperity was made?” someone asked.

“Precisely! The second tallest building anywhere in the solar system, despite being on the world with the highest gravity - “

“*cough* Jool!” shouted one tourist.

“ - of the bodies with a surface, was made possible only through Eve’s advanced materials science technology, created by free minds. Other worlds struggle to make a sheet of graphene, we’re over here building roller coasters out of the stuff! Advanced carbon parts are our second  biggest export, dwarfed only by oxygen!”

Mia braced herself for the words she knew would follow in short order.

“Given the colonization boom, a number of worlds are in need of lots of oxygen, and it just so happens that we are trying to get rid of a lot of oxygen! The Vortex provides an easy way to get this oxygen offworld, and our fleet of gas tankers, rather poorly named as they store the oxygen in liquid form, is responsible for transporting it to our customers! The profits from this excess oxygen are distributed around the world, it is what enables our lifestyle! However, one day the oxygen will run dry, and our life of luxury will come to an end, unless we can, in the meantime, figure out a form of society that can sustain this way of living forever. The window is closing, and other terraforming facilities are hard at work figuring out phase four, which is just as, if not more important than the other three: Maintain this standard of living in a post oxygen age.”

Mia was a bit relieved that the tour guide had danced around the truth, she wouldn’t have to hear those words destroy her.

“And who are you selling the oxygen to?” asked one non-local.

Mia bowed her head in frustration.

“A small amount sold to interplanetary vessels to supply them. Some of it goes to Duna, but they are trying to produce as much of it domestically as they can. There was that brief time they tried to give Ike an atmosphere, but that has mostly stalled. It is possible but they couldn’t figure out a place to get all the nitrogen from… Apparently there’s a proposal going around to lift helium from the sun and use it instead, and the technical problems can be solved, but the problem of everyone speaking high pitched cannot!” she chuckled.

“Another decent amount gets sent to Gilly. The Mun atmosphere project is supposed to start in the next year or two, and that will be a decent source of income, but a large portion of the oxygen is bought for Tylo’s terraforming project, but nearly half of the oxygen is sold to Moho to pressurize their never ending, always leaky series of caverns.”

Mia wanted to say something, scream something, but she wasn’t sure what.

“But aren’t you just enabling - “ said one tourist.

“What’s the alternative? Let them all suffocate? Grey Lilac is an absolute fool, let me tell you that, if she thinks that the bill inspired by her stupid poem is going to fix anything, while it’s gonna make life here a lot harder for us. The rich are just going to sit with their cash in their oxygenated bunkers and let the slaves choke, pack up, move to the Mun or another forsaken world, and do the same thing all over again. Don’t let her fiery idealistic abolitionist words fool you, Grey Lilac’s proposal is just going to make life worse for those poor poor slaves.”

“Aren’t they voting on it right now in parliament?”

“Yeah, been watching it on my phone this whole time!” said another tourist. Everyone, now curious given the guide’s outburst, either opened up the news on their phone or crowded around another.

==========

EVIAN PARLIAMENT BILL IR-523

TITLE: LILAC’S BILL

As inspired by the recent words of Grey Lilac, perhaps the greatest poet of all time, who has witnessed the horrors of Mohian slavery firsthand, this bill seeks to pressure the Mohian governments into abolition.

Eve is in a unique position, controlling the majority of Moho’s oxygen supply, being as of now and for the foreseeable future the only exporter of oxygen anywhere in the solar system. Eve’s economy is also large enough to weather such a drop in exports, although at great cost to quality of life and  While the risk of losing access to Mohian metallurgical technology and the tenuous alliance is great, this bill proposes a planetwide referendum with one question:

Are you in favor of a complete embargo of all trade with Moho until all Mohian governments have abolished - and enforced the abolishment of the institution of slavery?

==========

Everyone around the planet watched closely, as the parliament debated back and forth the merits of the plan. Not a single member of parliament was opposed to ending Mohian slavery, of course, but Eve as a planet was tied to its oxygen money. The quality of life, testing of types of ideal society, ambitious terraforming project, and progression of the arts were only possible due to the incredible amount of wealth generated by the sale of its most precious nonrenewable resource. By comparison, its carbon industry was tiny. This would reduce the Evian economy by a third overnight for the foreseeable future. The question was not “Is this the right thing to do?” The question was “Are our ideals worth killing this planet?”

This economic struggle was only a fraction of what would come if Eve did not have a period of wealthiness long enough to figure out phase four, if it was possible at all. If Eve ran out of oxygen, or other worlds stopped buying it, no more planetwide prosperity, all Eve would have left would be some carbon trinkets and a lot of dubiously viable purple farmland. Eve could turn into what Moho is today.

Is it worth risking one planet’s future for another’s present?

The parliament decided - yes. A vote of 532 to 491. The referendum would happen, and the people would decide - although with how idealistic the Evian populus was, and with how much poetry they had been consuming, the referendum was but a formality.

==========

And at last, Professor Neeson and his two grad student assistants emerged from their submarine, the Clara II, onto the surface of the Evian ocean. After some short checks, the hatch was opened, and he began triumphantly waving his hands.

“I’ve done it!” he proclaimed. One of the grad students tapped him on the shoulder. “I mean we’ve done it!”

The awaiting retrieval boat approached and began attaching itself to the submarine, and took the crew of three aboard.

“Samantha Rae, what goodness it is to see you again!” proclaimed the Professor as he gave her a gigantic hug. “I have big news!”

“I do too! You go first!”

“We made it down to just above crush depth, and the caves, they open up down there! So much! It wouldn’t surprise me if the weird seismometer readings were correct, and Eve really is semi aquatic all the way down! Well, I suppose it would become a supercritical fluid at some point, golly, that would be fun, designing a submarine to work in a supercritical environment! But the news! While everyone knows you can’t precisely measure magic as it relies on operator consistency, which is not a thing one could ever hope to have, we cannot rule out the existence of the singularity!”

“That’s wonderful news, and very on topic!” she said. “I have two pieces of news.”

“Oh really?”

“Yeah. So, Grey Lilac published her new poem, it became a tremendously huge deal, and, well, long story short, in a few days, we are blockading Moho until they stop slavery.”

The professor’s eyes widened.

“That is, ideologically speaking, wonderful news, but the ramifications if this goes wrong… A dilemma for the ages, this is… I suppose I won’t be getting any funding for this supercritical submarine idea of mine for many years!” he chuckled sadly.

“Well, I do have something to keep you occupied… While I was out adventuring on the Mun and Moho, I met these three… This is Keenan, Mia, and Lawrence. They have discovered some rather interesting things that should keep you occupied.

“Well hello there! I am Neeson Kerman, professor of theoretical magic and mechanical engineering at Ervion Technical University!” He shook their hands.

“I’m Keenan, mechanical engineering graduate from Kerlan Kerman College of Science and Technology, journeyman Minmar, journeyman Lifewielder, amateur airwielder.”

“And flight attendant,” Mia added.

“Look, I only took that job so I could go to the Mun!” Keenan protested.

“I’m Mia, conventional spacecraft technician, veteran of numerous shuttle missions, and amateur airwielding musician.”

“And frostwielding ice princess,” said Lawrence.

“I AM NOT A DAINTY ICE PRINCESS!” Mia shouted.

“I’m Lawrence, conventional spacecraft pilot, and regrettably, I have been thus far unable to wield.”

“Well you certainly seem like an energetic and well traveled bunch!” said Neeson. “What can I help you with?”

“In our travels,” Lawrence began, “we have come across a magical artifact that is behaving strangely. Since you have significant non destructive evaluation and theoretical magic experience, Sam directed us to you.”

“A strange magical artifact? If what you posit is true, I’d be thrilled to take a look at it!” Professor Neeson said in a way that made it obvious he did not believe that there was anything truly anomalous about the object.

Keenan got closer and whispered in the professor’s ear. “We also believe that there may be a related or unrelated conspiracy. A number of masters and closely connected parties have been assassinated in close proximity to our findings. Do NOT tell anyone about anything we show you.” Keenan backed away.

“Sam? Are they talking from Pol to Bop?”

“No, I’m afraid they are speaking to the best of their - our knowledge.”

“Then let’s go to the laboratory. Right now.”

“But we need to finish hooking up the Clara II!” said one of the students.

“Okay, then let’s go to the laboratory. In an hour or two.”

==========

Professor Neeson emerged from the door to his laboratory with a frown on his face.

“Well?” Lawrence and Keenan simultaneously asked in anticipation.

“Come with me,” Professor Neeson said in a hushed voice. The three followed him into a small meeting room. The professor checked around just in case any listening devices happened to be present.

“Well?” Lawrence and Keenan again simultaneously asked.

“Well this one is easy.” The professor placed the sphere on a necklace on the table. “It contains a propagule, likely of the person who gave this to you, and should be returned to the host company, Zymbine Immortality, on Pol, for processing. You might find more answers after that, given that he seemed to know a great deal about this whole thing.”

“How did you figure that out?”

“You really never thought to lift the flap on the side? It’s engraved right there!” said the Professor. “Propagules aren’t exactly uncommon, but the casing appears to be a fairly low production volume run, and quite unusually designed, which is probably why someone as into wielding as you didn’t recognize it for what it was. The other object, the ring… It is much more interesting.”

The professor placed it on the table.

“Lawrence,” he said.

“Yes, professor?”

“This is to remain in your possession at all times. Your complete and utter lack of wielding proficiency makes you its only safe holder.”

“Ouch, but okay.”

“Object appears to be an incredibly crudely forged pig iron ring. No internal structure besides the air pockets created during forging. Craftsmanship, I would give it a one out of ten, maybe a two. But as you have seen, it imbues the user with tremendous thermionic power despite having no essence source. I tested it in the thermal quench chamber, and I went as high power as I dared with it, eventually the power seemed to plateau, but at a point significantly higher than literally any other thermonic essence ring.”

“But it isn’t an essence ring,” Keenan said.

“Exactly! And I have no idea what’s going on here… The only evidence we have linking this to the singularity, if it exists, which we can only speculate on, is that it happened in the same temporal and geographic areas as the singularity conspiracy. But nobody has reached the singularity, at least not at the time you found it… The drill expedition is, well, we haven’t heard from them. As the planet’s leading expert in submarine technology, the drill is similar enough to a submarine that it is safe to assume they perished at this point. A shame, I would have loved to tour that magnificent craft…”

“So you have nothing?”

“Nothing but a bag of questions and a desire to keep my head, and in this case, my desire to not meet a premature end currently trumps my desire to answer my questions. On one hand, I’m going to be absolutely destroyed by those questions until they are answered by someone else. On the other hand, theoretical magic is not a dead end! There are now many more problems to solve! A flood of magic from nowhere, a planet away! I can scarcely believe my own eyes! I can scarcely believe my own instruments!”

Keenan slumped back, somewhat defeated. “So… What do we do now?”

“Well, it’s simple, you find someone who knows more about theoretical magic than probably anyone else alive, and someone who’s desire for knowledge exceeds, or is tied with, their desire to live. Fortunately, I know a guy, and he owes me a favor.”

“Really?”

“Yup. And since I know you guys aren’t going to say no…” The professor slipped them a bunch of important looking paperwork. “You guys didn’t get this from me,” he said. “Never contact me again, probably too dangerous. Good luck.” And with that he exited the small room. The trio eagerly dug through the paperwork, finding the paperwork for four temporary visitors to Gilly, space transport tickets, and a date, time, and location for a meeting - but no indication as to who the meeting was with.

“I never thought I’d ever get to go to Gilly,” said Lawrence with a mixed expression on his face. “Sam, have you?”

“Oh, I could if I wanted to, not permanently of course, but I have enough connections that I could certainly stay up there for a short stay every now and then. But why would I want to? Gilly is pretty much the opposite of everything Eve strives to be about!”

Take risks, live fast, die young, don’t cling to the past, build a brighter future for the next generation, and try new things,” said Mia. “Just off the top of my head.”

“I mean, come on, we literally have the saying “Live like you can always see Gilly in the sky!”” said Sam.

“I can see why they do it,” said Keenan. “I don’t know if I can blame them.”

“I envy them but also pity them… Weird,” said Lawrence.

“Either way, if that’s the only place we’re going to get answers, well, it isn’t exactly a question, is it?”

“Nope.”

“Nuh uh.”

“No question at all.”

“Alright, then. It looks like we have a meeting on Gilly.”

==========

The old master coughed as she awoke deep underground from her cryogenic suspension chamber. After a few seconds she regained her composure and spoke.

“What year is it?”

“The year of the Ikean Rabbit.”

“Twice in one year? Weird. Is the cure here yet?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“Then what brings you here?”

“An offer,” spoke the cloaked man. “We have discovered… New magic that will disrupt the balance of power all across the Kerbol system and win the coming war.”

“Going back to bed, don’t bother me about the war again! Twice in one year, same old new magic war thing!”

“Who told you about the new magic?” snapped the cloaked man.

Master Tonga’s eyes narrowed. “I said I’m going back to bed.”

“The offer was going to be, come work for us or die.”

“If death scared me, I’d be floating around Gilly, Kerbin, and Pol trying to get this frail body to do something, instead of deep underground on Eve sleeping until science can save me.”

“That was the offer. The offer is now tell me who told you about the new magic, or you’ll wish you were dead.”

“I already do, sometimes, when people keep waking me up to talk about the so called “epic” battles and the wars and the politics.”

“ANSWER ME!” shouted the cloaked figure, getting in the old Master’s face as he brandished a gauntlet with five essence vials that began to glow aggressively, red, blue, gray, and another gray.

“Hmm… No.” There was a tremendous blast of air and and an equally massive kaboom as Master Tonga blasted the cloaked figure across the room and into the wall at high speed.

“AGH!” he cried, collapsing to the floor. “My back! It’s broken!”

“Oh don’t worry, they’ll fix it one day,” she said. “Who knows you are here?” she said threateningly.

“No-one!” he cried. “The coordinates were so hard to find I didn’t have the opportunity to tell anyone else!”

“Good,” she said, walked over to him, and effortlessly lifted him, protesting and screaming in pain, into the nearest cryogenic suspension chamber. “You’ll be cured before you know it!” she said with a smirk. “Sweet dreams!” She closed the chamber and pushed a button, and the screams subsided.

“Well, time for night again, I suppose… I do hope that cure will happen some day… But if they are coming after me of all people… Maybe I should check in if this as big of a deal as they claim…”

Master Tonga paused and set an automatic wake up timer before she closed the lid to her chamber, just to be safe, and herself went back to sleep once more in her decades long sleep, awaiting a cure thay may or may not ever come.