Lyun lead Xwyrh to a specific room of the archives which had been an area of high traffic of late. Fortunately, the area had calmed down in the time since, the halls once again still and quiet.

“Hells, please don’t tell me you have more work for me to do now.” “Relax, Ezhyrae, we’re just here to talk...” “Thank…” “... about ersatz.” “I hate you right now.” “Xwyhr here is a student, studies cosmology of all things, which might be pretty neat. Her studies involve the state of worlds, which is a pretty big deal.” “I can see why she went to you for help, miss world traveller.” “Well, here’s the thing, we landed the most interesting question. What criteria would an ersatz have in figuring out if a world was good?” “What? Ersatz don’t have their own criteria, they just do the stuff they are supposed to do.” “So why did an ersatz choose this world?” “Ah, so you’re not asking about just any ersatz, you’re talking about the first ersatz. That was.. a special case. That was the only ever known instance of an ersatz having an actual living essence. More than that, she was almost a well of essences, very attuned to the concept as a whole. Legends say that her own essence even came from the terran mythos, but I’m not sure how believable that is. However, the seed she brought would have come from the heart of a world, so she at least had an essence in tune with the essence of worlds. Quite rightly, there isn’t a single person in the ersatz field that hasn’t tried to appeal to such a profound greatness, but there simply is no way to compare.” Ezhyrae was even zoning out, reflecting upon the memory of divinity that had once walked among people for Lyun. Lyun was seeing that this was another magnified aspect of history that caused those interested to remain blind to simple reason and understanding.

“So, someone who was basically an essence expert gauged the quality of this world within reason towards that status. If such an essence was an expert in essences, then they could have gauged world essences, or some quality that vouches for capacity. But.. if there was something obvious that determined the potential for an essence in the husk of a world, that would have to mean there was something observable in what had come before. I.. I.. I mean, essences are things people are supposed to have too. If a person dies, they would lose their essence, and be nothing but a dead body. The person would then disappear forever once their essence moves on, and their body and mind begins to fade. To know how much value a person held, how they would work with a new essence.. it would be important to still see signs in how that person was in the life they had last held. That would mean that someone with a vision of essences had enough ability to witness traces of how this world was when it held life. If there were traces of essence left, there were traces of life left, enough to hold enough promise that some sort of essence infusion would work. The world.. was never completely dead, it was just on its last threads, with almost nothing left to give.” Lyun was doing her best in trying to figure out all of this weirdness. She wasn’t at all versed in essences or anything, she was honestly quite bad with measures like death, but her chaotic experiences had taught her a thing or two about bodies and potential. To totally believe that bringing back a world from death would save it, that would mean there were enough signs that a second chance might be enough opportunity to do the right thing.

This in turn reminded her about a discussion from before with the temporal lady. This world had faded, but the other world had endured.. so there really was something distinct here. Was it a matter of chaos, or had that been a result of the aftermath rather than the original cause? What exactly had brought death to this world, to have left it in a state that it could even be so restored? Axon was more worried about the sort of people that had been here before, but the lessons of such people might actually be the important thing here. Something had gone terribly wrong, and absolutely no one was worried about making sure that history would never repeat itself.

“Wow, so this is all really neat, and would probably make for a great essay for my teacher. It’s definitely a neat thing to consider, even if it would be asking far too much for one or two people to look into all on their own. That’s generally the whole point of civilization, teamwork. We work together, do our thing to better society, trusting others to pitch in so that the weight of responsibility doesn’t break us.” “Except this involves…” “Everyone, right? Heck, I can tell you believe your otherworldly knowledge grants you an edge in all of this stuff, but that’s just you being a stupid genius again. Just because you know a lot, just because you can go everywhere, even if you could do more than anyone else.. you shouldn’t be trying to do everything. If you can already tell something is up, then the first step is to bring everyone related up to speed, so that many people could help out. There is no chance you’re going to notice everything, and asking you to do everything is going to crush you, we already talked about how that was the wrong idea. Don’t start planning how you will fix everything, figure out how people will start fixing things together.” “But, if we don’t look into this, history could repeat itself.” “And.. that’s why everyone should know, right? We look into things, we learn about the truth, we all make things happen. This is everyone’s problem, so each of us have the right to help make things better. Trust that you’re never alone.” Xwyhr wasn’t even giving Lyun the chance to build a counter argument at all.. but maybe Xwyrh had a point too. Making people aware of their circumstances would only help, awareness had itself been her greatest resource though everything she had endured.

“So, how is this for a plan? I’ll make my essay on the subject, give it to my teacher, then build up a lot of hype in such a cosmic study. Making the thing spread will draw more attention from other people. Once there are a bunch of details back from the academy’s many minds, we can put things together and see if there are any new leads. Supposedly, the hardest part of this plan is the waiting. Quite rightfully, we’ve already figured out that you two have a bunch of other things on your plate though, you can’t just fuss about every single problem that ever comes up, or you’ll get nothing done. So go look into something else instead, hopefully your own happiness. I mean, you’ve probably been as bad as Axln, right? I don’t keep track of the elf boys much, but can you even name one you like?” “Actually, yes, there was one. We.. it just didn’t work out though.” “Then.. sounds like you have more work to do.” Xwyhr did manage to remind Lyun about some of her current gripes in this world, the failings she had already endured. To Lyun, such was just a great reason to not bother with such matters at all, it wasn’t worth the extra heartbreak. However, more accurate was that she was mostly just disillusioned with everything in society in general, her struggles against the foundry feeling like an overall futility. Even in that.. it just felt like such a detached concern, somehow.

“Don’t forget, just like Axln, you have twice the options some of us have.” “You kidding? But there are no elves there? You know how bad half-elf stuff is.” “Girl, you’re not an elf there either. None includes you, you’re still a part of that society too. Just go find some guy who is.. whatever species you are there…” “Human.” “So yeah, go find a human.. like the elf/human hybrid you are. Hells, and there you were worried about half-elves. Finding a human guy there won’t kill you like it might here, you won’t get sick like that. I would almost be willing to bet you some real Qeld that there is already at least one human there who might actually be interested in you too. The only reason I won’t is because you could deny it and I would have no way to prove you wrong.” With that, Xwyhr left Lyun to such thoughts, earnestly hoping that Lyun would actually consider such advice. Lyun was actually feeling stung at the realization that she’d been living like some kind of strange half-elf, but.. even that wasn’t the same. Four bodies, two people, she had two bodies for her one person, the species were distinct there. That logic however did nothing to prove Xwyhr actually wrong. Lyun however wasn’t completely convinced, she knew Xwyhr simply didn’t understand the sort of situation Axln and herself were in.

“Hey Lyun. I figured that if I waited in your workshop, you would show up eventually.” “Oh, Axln, hey! What are you doing here?” “Oh, I was just reading. Elemental stuff, that’s all. Sorry, I was left with a lot on my mind.” “Ah, so you found out something new about the world and want to go investigate it?” “What? No, we actually found absolutely nothing. Funny, huh? But it doesn’t even feel like a waste of time, even though we didn’t ever do anything.” “Ah, maybe next time you should see some of the work your sister is doing. I hear she’s working on an essay right now, something about the origins of the world and how it was chosen by a worldly essence who could feel its remaining potential. Lots of interesting options in that direction.” “What?! Did you two…” “Only a start, something the girl is going to need time with, which gives us time to work on other stuff.” “Shoot.. and here I was being useless, wasting time.” “No, sounds like you kept to the plan better than I did. Your sister might honestly know you better than we could imagine.” Axln was still visibly worried, and Lyun could tell that was part of the problem. Exactly how much did that Xwyhr actually understand? Then again, this was just Axln, it still wasn’t enough to compel Lyun to just go to the other world and…

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“Okay then, let’s go see how things are doing in HyperTech then. We sort of stepped out of helping out there when we did all of the hilltop presentations, so maybe we should go and actually be useful for once. Drew at least seems to really like your workplace ambitions, so we wouldn’t want to let him down. I mean, if we didn’t work there, we really wouldn’t have many other places to go.” “Drew… Hells, your sister is annoying and scary.” “What did..?” “Nothing! There is nothing, and I’m going to go prove it! Let’s go find a good place to switch over.” “Okay.. then…” Axln followed Lyun as they went to a neutral enough location to switch worlds. Axln was still mildly concerned, but it seemed like Lyun and Xwyhr might have had.. an argument? It probably had to do with the essay being written, which is why now wasn’t the best time to reflect upon it. Something about such an essay still being worked on, it was something Axln would then have to reflect upon later. At the very least, Lyun seemed willing enough to follow along with the plan.. of getting work done for HT.

However, Kori quickly found herself alone as Rosa stormed off. The plan.. was to get work done, right? Kori eventually found Drew’s office, Tristine sitting outside after having been kicked out. Tristine might have missed the meeting when Rosa was announced as some kind of corporate executive.. but it was pretty obvious it had happened. Rosa storming around in that no-patience-for-anything mood was outright intimidating anyway. However, seeing Kori was also there at a loss for what was going on, it did show that Tristine wasn’t exactly alone here. Tristine considered inquiring upon it, but then realized that Kori and Rosa had probably just planet-shifted again. There were stories about the planet those two kept going off to, but it wasn’t like the stories made sense. A magic world, or something like that, like straight up from some kind of earth fairy tale. Complicated stuff like that.. this was probably not something Tristine wanted to inquire upon. She had enough to worry about as things stood, she didn’t need anything more.

“I guess I might as well just ask you then. Is there anything around here that I can help with?” “Are you for real? Thank you so much for asking! A few of our assembly bays broke and we sort of need repairs, because stuff is just slowing down.” “That would be something I can’t help you with.” “Aww…” “Wait, what’s making stuff so hard to repair anyway, isn’t making and fixing this sort of stuff just.. sort of what you guys do?” “Yes, but it gets hard when we’re pretty much being starved for resources.” “What?! Why?!” “Because we’re not getting much? I don’t know why, maybe it’s just a matter of budget, but things are getting really hard with these tight restrictions.” “Well, if you don’t have the stuff to do repairs with, I have no idea what you expected me to achieve even if I could do such repairs. However, I have an idea who to talk with about the matter at least.” “Drew? He’s.. a bit occupied right now though. If you could…” “No, not him. I have another idea.” Kori dragged Tristine behind her in search of a more familiar option. Fortunately, the crazy woman wasn’t hard to find while there was work to be done.

“Sophie, counting stock again? It’s like you still work at your old job, doing your favourite task.” “It would be better if our stock was as simple. Maybe it’s the role, having to actually plan stock, not just count that we have as much as we expect to have.” “So is the plan to have almost no stock, so your job is easier?” “What?! No. The plan is to figure out stock when it’s almost impossible to get more. Every time I try to order Drew more stock, the order gets cancelled on me. Something about being unable to transport the product to the destination. It’s like aerospace control has us on a blacklist or something.” “Right, because Mheridz isn’t the only one who can pull jerk moves, Velvet has to be just as difficult. Wait, maybe we can get things in order if we handle transportation ourselves.” “I tried that.. and got sent home from the border.” “Could you show me how big we’re talking about for such packages?” Kori followed Sophie on a tour of their existing stock that needed replenishing. Some of the stuff was actually awkwardly big, but a lot of the core pieces they desperately needed could fit in a few one cubic meter boxes. The weight would be potentially rough, but her arm proved enough to carry one. By her calculations, she could make this work, but she might need to refuel for each trip.

Sophie of course had no idea what was going on, but she had gotten quite used to that feeling in her new workplace filled with tech people. Tristine meanwhile had figured out the whole lightspeed solution too, she just didn’t bother talking about it in front of the already confused logistics specialist. There was already even a pending order trying to be processed, suffering due to shipping disputes. The whole package, three boxes, were currently waiting at a warehouse owned by the supplier. Walking in and getting them picked up wouldn’t be a problem if Kori could prove her legitimacy. As a standing employee of HT, that wouldn’t even be hard. Even if there were questions raised, Sophie could just provide authorization on demand over a holo. The location was halfway towards the center of the colony, and not even from their side of the outskirts. It would be quite the trip, but that was only a concern from the perspective of energy consumption. It was at least notable that no one else could do this sort of thing either. Rosa might have been the second best option, the ability to carry around everything in one trip using holos could not be undervalued, but that would still be much slower. Even with Rosa’s dance this was simply incomparable to lightspeed movement, with maybe some suspending time just to make things even faster. Once she had things authorized, she could possibly get every box back in under five seconds if everything was ideal enough. At the very least, Rosa would have to know about the fact that Kori was helping with stocking inventory, with such becoming a message Kori had left with Holi so that Rosa would be aware of things here.

After ensuring that everything was ready for her arrival, Kori set off. Charging her ionic veil, she blurred away from the outside yard and out across the field, making use of her DNTI for precision calculations. Even doing so, she discovered how hard this could be. Getting to the border was easy, but from there she was left with precision movements, something that became very awkward when your speed was a beam of light and errors had you bouncing off walls. She even learned that stopping too close to a wall.. generally broke it. That poor fence. Even so, walking just wasn’t settling well with her, so she opted to progress in small bursts. First, she went to the top of a nearby tall building, surveying her surroundings. Then, she picked the top of another tall building that she would want to get another perspective of that she had line of sight to. She was there in a blur, repeating the same process to rapidly cross deeper into civilization. In this way, she quickly arrived at the warehouse, though in much more than the five seconds estimate.. more like five minutes at least.

At least authorization went about as smoothly as predicted, her access being granted easily enough. The warehouse staff brought everything out to the field for her, leaving her to coordinate everything from there as they all went back to work, no questions asked. Kori picked up the first box, blurred up to a high elevation, and then dashed straight out of the barrier. From there, it was a rapid blur around the field at light speed back to HT’s yard, where she set that box down, took a recharge from Tristine’s waiting supply, and was off once again. Her second arrival was much easier than the first, making plenty of shortcuts in her calculated descent after becoming aware of a few handy landmarks. That box was then brought back rapidly too, almost as fast as her estimates even, putting her back in the field for the one last box. As she went for it, a spark wave pulsed through the air, her ionic charge going dim as a result.

“Halt, you’re under arrest.” Aerospace security had her surrounded.. or so they thought. Fervently hoping that she wasn’t catching Rosa at a bad time, Kori halted the progression of time itself. Picking up the box again proved to be a bit more difficult when she didn’t have the support of the built in systems, but this wouldn’t be a problem either. She could just slowly drag the box a distance enough away, find a place to hide, recharge her ionics, and be gone with the last box before anyone knew what happened. See, fast.. because she could cheat by stopping time. However, as she tried to lift the box up and carry it along, someone proceeded to grab her mechanical arm from behind. That.. might be a problem, as there was only one other actual person in this world who could move while time was stopped, besides Rosa.

Kori set the box down and turned around to face Velvet as Kori took account of her circumstances. This wasn’t working at all like she had predicted, this was considerably more complicated than she had originally hoped.