[Player Log Start!]

[Log Holder: Benedict Carrey]

[Level: 1, Sub-Level: 7]

Lucky’s Cathedral became a booming center.

This was a problem, because they had no plants, or solid fuel, or even a medic. Just a large room the size of three football fields.

But when prolonged time outside would invariably lead to your death, that was enough.

“Also, we have a lot of those chlorophyll jars.” Lucky added, fiddling with one of said glowing green jars, “So quit acting like we have nothing going for us.”

“Things are very dire.” She couldn’t help but point out.

“And you need to not dwell on such things.” Was her sage advice, “We have made much progress. And that’s a good thing. Appreciate it while you have it.”

“I am done appreciating.” Ben sighed, “Once the worlds have been saved for good, then I will appreciate what we have.”

“That’ll take. A while. You realize that, right?”

“Yes.” The dread was heavy in her stomach. But she was prepared for it, “We need to finish this, now. As soon as fast as we can manage it.”

“Understandable.” Lucky agreed, “And you have any idea how to do that?”

Ben thought it over, “I think the idea is to reverse the major parts of what is making the world bad, right?” She checked, “What do you think we can do to prise apart the gang wars going on?”

“The gang wars? They are the least of our troubles. No, it was the smog.” She decided, “The smog has been there from the beginning. Exacerbating everything. And we ignored it. If we want to finish this, then that is what we must fix.”

“How?” Ben asked, thinking it over. The smog was a thick blanket, unmovable and constant. How was she planning to fix this? It was impossible.

Lucky did not seem to think so, grinning at her and beckoning her to follow into the side of the mock cathedral, where her forge had been left untouched on a slightly raised platform where the submarine floor used to be.

She led Ben to a small tube machine hooked up to a battery, and held it up proudly as she began the trek back to the door, which was sealed shut, lest smoke flow inside. Which she opened proudly right now to allow just that to happen.

One press of the button, and the whirring of a fan started up, sucking the smoke into its mouth. Except it did not flow out from the other end. Instead, there was only clear gas that smelled fresh and clean.

“Oxygen.” She breathed, “This is how we’re making oxygen for this place.”

“And I am planning on supersizing it.” Lucky explained, “Get it to a better location for mass cleaning, until we have…”

“Vacuumed it all up!” She cried, finishing her words, “That’s genius, Lucky!”

“It is a dangerous idea.” Lucky continued, “The Harbingers will definitely catch on. And you may have taken Ciera by surprise the last time, but it is unlikely to happen again.”

She knew that, but it was a better shot they had than ever before to fixing this.

“What happened to hope?” She asked, teasing for the most part, but also serious.

Lucky didn’t take it well, rolling her eyes, “We must be aware of what we’re getting into.” She warned her, “Don’t just go in blinded by happy thoughts. Take the win where you can, and prepare to fight where you can’t.”

Now that was an even better philosophy.

Ben’s respect for this woman was rising with every passing second. Also her fear. Because she was oddly terrifying.

“Then we’re just going to have to take them.” Ben decided, “How good are your Attack stats?”

“Attack?” Lucky asked, “What kind of Stat is that?”

Ben faltered, “Huh? A… regular Stat?”

Lucky clicked her tongue, pulling out her Console and turning it on to display her Player page. Sure enough, no attack Stats. Just Physical Strength.

“Huh. That’s new.” She muttered, looking over the Console from different angles, as if that would help anything. It did not.

“Tench suggested that it was because of the lower Immersion.” Lucky added. Yeah, that would do it. If they could figure out what Immersion even meant. Thanks for nothing, System. Or… Game. She needed to figure out whether she should blame the System or the Game. They seemed to be different things.

“Let us begin working.” Lucky announced, “We have got oxygen markers to supersize. And I’m going to need all the hands I have available. Inexperienced as they might be.” Ben knew that was a slight against her, but she grinned through it.

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“I’ll give it my best shot. Inexperienced, as I am.” She replied sarcastically. But Lucky nodded approvingly, bringing her back to the forge, to shove a pile of misshapen large metal bits at Ben.

“Instructions have been prepared beforehand for the device. All the pieces have been molded perfectly. You just need to assemble them.” She explained.

“I can do that.” Ben agreed, “That doesn’t sound too hard.”

She was a fool. It was certainly hard work to tighten the machinery, getting the gears and air filters and thermal reactors into the exact position needed to get it to work. Compared to all that, installing the fans was easy work. At least those Ben had done before.

“How’re we looking?” Lucky asked, maybe an hour or so into the work.

“Making good progress.” Ben grunted, tightening a bolt the size of her hand, “Almost done with my second, actually!”

“Oh.” Lucky nodded along, her voice unnaturally small. Ben looked up to ask what was wrong, and immediately noticed the problem in the ten properly constructed carbon dioxide cleaners already lined up on the ground beside Lucky. They needed a better name for these machines.

“How many do we need?” She asked, resigned, “Because it seems like you’ve done it all yourself.”

“No, no, you have been helpful!” Lucky rushed to assure, “We need twenty anyways, so it’s fine. You can do the rest if you want.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Jem, the woman with the blood poisoning that Ben had helped come here, plopped down onto one of the workstation modules, “I’ll give you a helping hand. Three pairs of hands work better than two. And, mine are more dexterous, too, so we’ll have it done in no time, Lucky.”

She was eager to apply herself. Everyone in that group was. Even the little ones, once they had calmed down enough to realize that they would be staying forever. So, Ben let her take the workload, and speed through the rest of the designs, while she herself got started on her third.

By the time the clock was striking five – and wasn’t that a weird feeling? A clock. Striking. How come there weren’t any clocks she had noted before this? – it became blatantly obvious that Ben was hopeless at assembling machines.

“Okay, let’s shift it to something different, alright?” Lucky announced, “We need to make adjustments to my chair.”

“Your… chair?” Ben blinked, taking a closer look at the contraption, “What are you planning to do with it? Add a drill?”

“What is a drill?” The engineer asked, intrigued.

“Nothing that will help us right now.” Ben sighed, trying to keep them on track.

“Well, if you must be like that, I plan to make adjustments to the flying mechanics and the storage.”

Jem looked stricken, “This thing flies?”

“Yes. And it took a lot of time to manage it.” Lucky verified, “Can barely hold a person, and I must increase that limit if I am to fly Ben and all these machines to places that are impossible for the regular human to reach.”

“Ohhhh, that’s clever.” Jem nodded, highly impressed, but still with unanswered questions, “How does it fly, exactly?”

Lucky gave no answer, simply shoving down a switch, which made two magnificent leather wings unfold.

“Wow, Lucky.” Jem swooned, and even Ben had to admit to being shaken. This device could fly? She could have never believed it.

Lucky nodded self-satisfied, and then, carefully avoiding the controls on the armrests, she heaved herself up and to her feet, carefully pulling herself instead to the nearest chair already set out for her. This one was a normal one, with no wheels or movable legs.

“I will be taking out all the extra weight I can manage.” She explained, “You can help fetch things for me, Ben. I fear that my reach without my legs is severely limited.”

“Oh, yeah, for sure.” Ben agreed, “What do you want?”

“For now? Conversation is fine.” Lucky replied, unscrewing the hatching on the underside of the chair and peering in. There was silence for a second, and then: “Also, could you bring me a smaller set of tools? The ones I have right now are too big for this job.”

Ben hid a laugh and hurried to comply. Lucky took the tools, and then let her work absorb her. There was just something about the way she worked, single-mindedly hacking away at a project until it begged for mercy and yielded itself to her, letting her warp it into whatever she desired, and-

“Are you going to ask the first question, or am I?” Lucky asked, jarring Ben out of her thoughts so badly that she blurted out the first thing she could think of, casting about wildly for a normal thing to ask.

“Why don’t you have a wheelchair?” Shit, why did she say that? That was an awful thing to say.

But Lucky was quiet. Contemplative. Looking at her with a faraway look in her eyes. Jem whistled and backed away, murmuring about private conversations.

It was only then did Lucky answer: “There were stairs in front of the Sanctuary elevator.”

“Huh?” Ben blinked. Not the answer she was expecting, but okay.

Lucky nodded, pulling out a long coil of wire from deep inside the guts of her chair, even as she continued to talk, “We are going to have to rewind here. You are aware of how I was a tumblethorn kid? Tried to disregard old power structures and break free and all that shite?”

“Yeah. The others have told me bits and pieces.”

“Of course, the snitches.” Lucky shook her head, “Well, here was the thing. Unlike everyone who could use rebreathers, I needed oxygen tanks constantly. And we did not know how to make our own oxygen at the time, so we could only steal it. They put their lives on the line, over and over again, for someone who could do nothing to repay them, because all my strengths were in a field they did not have the means to dabble in. No point having a mechanic if you do not have materials.”

“So, you joined the Gunnersons for a job instead?” Ben guessed.

“Mhm.” Lucky agreed, giving the insides a little tap, and dislodging a giant chunk of metal from somewhere inside that she promptly threw into the scrap pile, “They had an employment poster set up on the train tracks, directing me towards the Sanctuary and to apply once I entered the middle floor through the elevator.”

Ben had an impending dread that she knew where this was going.

“I had to take the job, you understand?” Lucky waved her hand, “There was no world in which I could refuse it. For the good of everyone around me. So I went. And right in front of the elevator, leading up into that glowing building, where my future was, there was… a fucking staircase.”

Oof, the imagery was just… depressing.

“So, I built this baby. Then when I got the job I threatened to strangle the person who built the staircase, and then had it and the pedestal demolished. It was on a flat surface! There was no reason to put a staircase there!” Lucky took a deep breath, “Sorry. I get worked up over little things.”

“It’s not little.” Ben replied in consolation.

Lucky nodded approvingly, smirk sliding into place, “Good. Because if you agreed with me there, my opinion of you would have lowered significantly.”

“Which means you hold me in high regards?” Ben grinned, letting the joke carry them along.

Lucky coughed, avoiding her gaze, “Let us move faster. There is still a flight we must make.”

Little did they know, that on the other end of that flight, was the battle that would decide the fate of an entire Realm.

[Player Log End!]