WSP 045

Ascending and Descending

It turned out that “flying together” in spaceships was nearly impossible without being literally strapped together. Even after Xanava had stopped trying to race Jeh around the planet, the two of them just weren’t able to stay close together. They would spend several minutes trying to get close and match speed, and then they would attempt to push toward Descent, except they would push different amounts and end up drifting away from each other, only to start the entire process over again. A constant dance of finagling and pushing off.

They had wordlessly seemed to agree that matching speed should be done as little as possible, so they would only do it when they were no more than specks in each other’s view.

Jeh squinted at Xanava’s Skyripper. She could still see its diamond shape, so it wasn’t time to meet up yet. Unfortunately, that didn’t mean Jeh could do anything, she had already gotten herself on a very nice orbital arc that she didn’t want to interrupt. But she knew she would have to; as close to Descent as they were at this point, it was still several minutes off.

All of her thoughts were interrupted when Enrique started screaming in panic, the sound reverberating through the connected walls of their ships.

“What is it!?” Jeh shouted, putting all navigation thoughts on hold. Unfortunately, the lid of her Skyseed wasn’t transparent, and she couldn’t see the interior of Enrique’s ship.

“Hole! Air rushing out!”

Jeh facepalmed. “Just use Green to seal the hole!”

“Why would I be carrying Green!?”

“Why wouldn’t you!?” Jeh pulled out her Green crystal and promptly realized she couldn’t see the hole. “Um. Enrique, I can fix it, but you have to tell me where it is.”

“My left!”

“Friggin… I don’t know which way you’re facing. Um… use your Purple, make a light on that side!”

Enrique did, and Jeh identified his left as behind her. She took in a sharp breath and closed her eyes, visualizing the shape of the cube ship. She covered the entire left side in a Green aura. “...Did that do it?”

“Y-yeah… Thanks.”

“Okay, so, why do you have Purple and not Green?”

“I only have Orange and Purple! Movement and signaling, that’s all I should need! What would even break anything up here!?”

“Tiny rocks.”

“What?”

“Tiny rocks. There’s some tiny rocks flying through space at extremely high speeds. They punch holes in things, you need to use Green to counter the effects. Or a layered shield, like we have on the Moonshot.”

“Oh… that’s terrifying!”

“Space wants to kill you, buddy. Get used to it.” She returned to looking at the Skyripper, finding it to be a tiny dot. Which meant it was time to re-match speed…

Fortunately, this was the last time they had to do it. The two ships met up, keeping a sizable distance of a few meters between them to avoid disaster, and entered the area directly above Descent. Or, at least, the mountain range that Descent was on.

“I’m cutting you loose Enrique, you ready?”

“Ready!”

Jeh snipped the ropes tying them together with her Orange, and then pushed Enrique’s cube away. It was only then that she noticed something odd about physics that had been present the entire time she had been in space, but it hadn’t clicked how unusual it was until just now.

If she had physically pushed on Enrique’s ship with her hand somehow, her ship would have felt a force pushing it back. However, when using Orange, even though Jeh was the one pushing, Enrique’s ship was the only one that moved—Jeh’s Skyseed remained where it was.

She decided to jot that down in her notebook. It felt important.

Enrique said something, but now that he was disconnected Jeh had no idea what it was. He gave her a thumbs up and started dropping to Descent.

Jeh glanced at Xanava. She wrote in the air with Purple. Now we wait.

Or we could just go down, Xanava wrote back.

Xanava, don’t you dare.

Or what, you will stop me?

Yes. I will. Try me.

Xanava did, attempting to descend. Jeh grabbed her in an Orange aura that didn’t stop her, but rather diverted her course into a wide circle that eventually rose above Jeh’s position.

Xanava stopped. How much will do you have?!

All of it, apparently.

Xanava didn’t reply. They sat in silence for some time.

Jeh started scribbling in her notebook. She was no mathematician or engineer, but having been on the Wizard Space Program this long had given her an innate curiosity for how things worked, and at the moment the difference between pushing something with her hands and with Orange was bugging her. She drew some diagrams, furrowing her brow.

What is actually doing the pushing when I use Orange? She tilted her head to the side. She remembered Gronge’s theories, about how magic was all around them in tiny dust particles. She drew dust particles around her diagram. If the dust particles were doing the pushing, then they would be pushed back, right?

She furrowed her brow. She’d bring this up with Blue, maybe there was a way to test it? She certainly wasn’t thinking of one.

Not that she didn’t keep trying for the next little while.

Anything interesting happen with you two? Xanava asked.

He panicked when a rock crashed through his window. Apparently, the blimps didn’t think he would need Green to fix it.

Idiots.

We didn’t know there would be rocks up here at first either.

Still idiots, that was an easy thing to prepare for.

Jeh shrugged and returned to her notebook. She became engrossed in her diagrams that quickly became doodles of shapes with silly faces arguing with one another about forces…

Suddenly her ship was being shaken up and down like a salt shaker.

Ikyu to Jeh! The signal!

Jeh quickly looked down at Ikyu and noted Xanava was telling the truth, there was in fact a light being shone right at them.

Jeh gave Xanava a sheepish look and began her descent… to Descent.

You know, they named it Descent because it was the blimps who descended from the sky to the land… now here we are coming in from even higher up. Fun!

~~~

The interior of the Tower of Knowledge was just as white as the exterior, composed of the strange not-quite-marble. There were no light sources within the tower, yet everything was comfortably visible as though it were a midsummer’s day. Which it wasn’t, the current season was early autumn, and it had been late afternoon outside.

Some part of Riikaz had expected the interior of the tower to be larger than should have been possible, but no, it fit within what she had seen on the outside. The only “impossibility” was that there didn’t appear to be a top to the tower; the floors all had a circular hole in their center with an ornate railing that allowed Riikaz to peer right through them until the details became so small she could no longer differentiate a floor from another one. The idea of a ceiling seemed laughable.

The ground floor was furnished like a reading room with gray couches, a few coffee tables, and the occasional book scattered here or there. Tapestries with symbols Riikaz had never seen before lined the walls, including a handful that showed round objects amongst a backdrop of stars.

Even the knowledge of the stars is in here.

In the very center of the room was a solid gold statue of a skeleton in a very ornate dress of a style Riikaz didn’t recognize. Despite being a static statue of a skeleton with no eyes, she felt as though she was being watched intently. Strangely, this did not unsettle her. In the skeleton’s hands was a black cube, glinting impossibly precisely as Keller had described the other black cube to her.

“Who is…?”

“Someone long gone,” the Custodian said, indicating that was all Riikaz was going to get on the matter.

“Ah. The cube?”

“It is what allows me to alter your memory upon leaving.” He turned to the staircase. “Come. This first floor has nothing for you, it is simply my personal reading and living area.”

Riikaz noted there was no bed. Did rigids of his race need sleep? Riikaz didn’t remember and decided it would be too rude to ask. Just like how she wasn’t asking why he never lit his face up to display anything.

The stairs wound around the edge of the circular room. As they ascended the smooth steps, it became clear that the entire Tower had only one staircase that went all the way up in a helix pattern, into the endless floors upon floors. After the first floor, every other one was laid out identically: a donut-shaped floor space with a staircase cutting through the middle, and bookshelves built into all of the walls. Every single wall was carved to hold books and as far as Riikaz could tell every bookshelf was full. There were labels on the shelves themselves, just beneath the books, but they were in a language Riikaz couldn’t read, so she had to keep her eyes out for symbols, of which there were plenty.

She noted that quite a few shelves down here were marked with a four-pointed star symbol, each point a different color. The top was pink, the bottom was green, and left and right were purple and orange.

“That symbol…”

“Is the beginning,” the Custodian said as they climbed the stairs. “You are not here for that.”

“Hmm…” She turned her gaze upward. “What I want is a long way up, isn’t it?”

“Surprisingly, no,” the Custodian shook his head. “The more fundamental and deep the knowledge is, the closer to the bottom you will find it. The top is reserved for useless minutiae, the bottom for origins. Your goals are far closer to the bottom than the top.”

“Guess I’m on the right track then, huh?” Riikaz grinned.

“Most who make it in these walls search information far closer to the bottom than the top.”

“Is there… really a top?”

“Theoretically.”

They passed by a floor with a section of the bookshelf walled off by slabs of marble. Riikaz stared at it.

“You know the story,” the Custodian said. “That’s where the unknown book resides.”

“Right. You have an apprentice yet?”

“I do not, and I never will. I already know far too well what it’s like to know too much, I have no desire to return to that state. There is no need to pass on the duties of Custodian to another.”

Riikaz tilted her head. “Really? Not even a little?”

“I have been the Custodian since before the Second Cataclysm.”

I’m pretty sure your race doesn’t live that long… then again, maybe by taking this office, you are granted immortality. Riikaz was suddenly struck by the bizarreness of her current situation. She was inside a legend from before recorded history, talking to a being who knew far more than anyone she’d ever met, climbing more stairs than she’d ever seen. She felt like she was in a fairy tale for a moment. That all her life had been normal, simple, compared to what she was now witnessing.

A small fear slowly began to rise within her. Mistakes could be costly here. Very costly.

“Your benefactor awaits you at your destination,” the Custodian said after a while.

“My benefactor?”

“You did not pass my test, you’ll recall.”

“Right. Who then…?” She paused, a pit forming in her stomach. “...Dia?”

For the first time, the Custodian let out a laugh, but it was a bitter, grainy one. “No. Perhaps one day you will know why I find that funny, but that day is not today.”

“You’re just going to wipe my memory anyway, why not tell me?”

“She would object, actually.” The Custodian stopped walking for a moment. “I am curious. It is theoretically possible for you to guess who it is, you have enough knowledge. You never will, but I wonder who you think could intervene for you.”

Riikaz frowned. “I… don’t know, who would have authority over you?”

“You think in terms of power or ownership. While not entirely inaccurate, that is a hasty assumption that does not fully describe the situation, and makes any potential guesses you could have completely incorrect.” He continued walking up the stairs. “Prepare yourself to be shocked.”

Riikaz’s mind whirled. It had to be someone she knew or heard about. …Eyda? That didn’t make any sense, unless the demons and mysterious organization particularly hated each other… and from what she knew, Eyda didn’t care at all about Ikyu. One of the other false goddesses? No, no, she was thinking too high, someone lower. A legendary Crystalline One? But that didn’t seem right, this place was too much for a mere Crystalline One to have authority over.

…What even was this place?

“Custodian?” Riikaz asked. “What… is the Tower?”

“You will not be able to leave with that information.”

“I’m trying to use it to help my guess here.”

“Mmm… fair enough. The Tower of Knowledge was built at the recreation of the world to attempt to record all that happens within it.”

“Recreation…?”

“The Time Before is irrelevant both to this Tower and the conversation.”

“Everything in the world…”

“The Tower is imperfect, it does not record everything, even if there were not intrusions from beyond interfering even further. It is not unassailable or perfect, do not place it higher than you ought. It also will not contain anything except the barest information of what lies beyond the moon.”

“Hmm…” Riikaz snapped her fingers. “Aha! The Guardian Spirit! She checks all the boxes, she’s not some kind of immensely higher being, but she’s beyond all of us and seems to know about things ‘beyond’ while not being a literal demon!”

“An actually very good guess. Shame that it’s wrong.”

“Eh?”

“Here is your benefactor.” The Custodian stepped aside as Riikaz ascended the steps to the next floor.

There was a woman sitting in a chair—which in and of itself was odd because Riikaz had not seen any seats since she’d left the first floor. She had her feet up on a tiny table. A pair of reading glasses were on her face, nested perfectly within her pink, plast hair. In one hand she had a book entitled How To Pose Dramatically, and in her other hand she juggled a potion that sparkled with neon pink lights.

Riikaz’s jaw dropped.

“Your look does not disappoint!” Seskii cheered, jumping up to her feet and throwing the book behind her where it somehow vanished. “I’ve been waiting for this so long, you have no idea.”

Riikaz simply stared at her.

Seskii giggled. “Come, have a seat, I’m sure you have questions. Questions I probably won’t answer and you won’t remember asking, but you know, it’ll be fun anyway right?” She reached behind her back and pulled out a folding chair, setting it up. She gestured at it expectantly.

Riikaz slowly sat down.

She had no idea what was going to happen next.

~~~

Jeh and Xanava had no difficulty finding Descent. The flashing light signaling to them made it easy, certainly, but even without that they would have had no issue. Descent was on top of the tallest mountain in the range, and the city extended far enough above the summit to cast easily visible shadows on the rest of the range, particularly at the present early-morning time of day.

The astronauts approached Descent as no one ever did—from above. They were graced with a sight that essentially no one but the blimps themselves ever saw: the top of Upper Descent. From a distance, it looked like a white lotus, but in reality, it was a structure. The material was rigid, but extremely light. Even so, to keep it this high in the air it needed to be constructed like a spiderweb, where none of the “walls” were actually solid. Numerous green, ovoid shapes were affixed to the bottom of the lotus structure, no doubt to keep it aloft.

To Jeh’s disappointment, they were not being instructed to land anywhere near the lotus. Instead, the flashing light was coming from a few layers below that, down into a complicated mess of green, mossy spheres connected with loose tethers.

Once she got close she forgot her disappointment. Each of the mossy spheres was an entire world with structures, alien plants, and thousands of flying creatures moving to and from individual areas. This was a city of the sky, where down was a suggestion and any surface could be a home.

She felt like she belonged here.

Their beacon was coming from a floating mossy ball that was almost detached from the others, connected by only three tethers to the rest of Descent Proper. Jeh supposed this made sense, it wouldn’t do to launch and land spaceships from a section of the city with things on top of it.

At this point, an Orange aura started to form around their spaceships. Jeh stopped applying her will to the drive and allowed herself to be guided in. Xanava, notably, kept trying to control her own ship and pushed to get to the “ground” faster. This prompted whoever was controlling the landing device to shake Xanava’s ship in annoyance to get her to stop.

Jeh chuckled. You’re making such a great impression.

The launchpad was significantly larger than the one in Willow Hollow. It would easily be able to hold several dozen Skyseeds. Six large pillars arched to points at the edges of the launchpad, currently glowing with Orange energy. No doubt these pillars were the actual landing device itself—and launching device, now that Jeh thought of it.

The Skyseed and Skyripper were gently placed on the launchpad next to Enrique’s cubic ship. He was already outside of his ship, grinning and waving at them. To his side was a shorter human woman with crossed arms and an annoyed expression.

Jeh started unscrewing the Skyseed’s lid, finding that it had a lot less resistance than usual. She was nonetheless able to force it open, and immediately the air inside her ship started rushing out. Jeh gasped. She definitely wasn’t getting enough air.

“Air’s thin up here!” Enrique tossed her some kind of slightly prickly, green fruit that Jeh assumed must have been an air cactus. “You’ll need this!”

Jeh bit into the air cactus and it thrust a rush of wind into her face, giving her decidedly more air than she needed, so much that her head started reeling. She managed to keep her faculties, however, and climbed out of the Skyseed. Enrique handed her an entire satchel full of the air cacti. “You’ll be needing a lot of these.”

“Why… don’t you?”

The woman huffed. “We are important enough to get breathing devices fitted to us.” She gestured at a small collar around her neck that was faintly glowing Green and Orange. Whatever it was doing, it was making the woman’s hair flap in a breeze that only she could feel.

At this point, Xanava unsealed her door. The air inside the Skyripper suddenly had somewhere to go, and the greater volume of the Skyripper gave the air enough force to throw Xanava out. She landed unceremoniously on the ground. “Ow.”

Enrique threw her an air cactus.

“Do I look like I need this?” Xanava asked in Karli, prompting Jeh to translate.

Enrique tilted his head. “You don’t need air?”

“No!”

Jeh tilted her head. “Can you survive in space…?”

“No, I would eventually overheat without anything to serve as a temperature regulator.”

The woman glared at Enrique. “You mean we didn’t need all these air cacti?”

“More for me!” Jeh called to her, taking another bite and getting a rush of air. One moment I’m so desperate for air I feel like I’ll pass out, the next I have so much I’m reeling. What a place to be in…

The woman scowled. “Well. Hello, visitors. I’m Claire. Welcome to the Descent Star Seekers launchpad.”

Jeh nodded at her and introduced herself and Xanava with a smile.

Claire shook her head. “I still can’t believe these people are being honored…”

“Honored?” Jeh asked.

Enrique nodded his head excitedly. “Yeah! You two are going to get to meet with the blimps directly! That almost never happens for surface dwellers!”

“Aren’t you a…?”

“Oh, no, I’ve lived my entire life up here, I only set foot on the ground to train for the space missions.”

Jeh turned to Xanava. Xanava shrugged and displayed a swirling symbol on her face.

“Anyway, when’s this meeting?” Jeh asked.

“As soon as we prepare you,” Claire said.

“This is why she’s being grumpy,” Enrique added. “She doesn’t want to brief you.”

“It’s a chore!”

“But the blimps have asked us to do it!”

“It’s not what we were trained for! We could get one of the talkers up here!”

“But the blimps have told us!”

Claire sagged. “You’re right, they do always know better than we do…” She stood upright and made an attempt to give Jeh a welcoming smile. She failed. “There’s a few things you need to know before your audience. First, always make sure you are physically below a blimp at all times, it is extremely rude to be above them.”

“...We were above all of them just a few seconds ago,” Xanava pointed out after Jeh translated.

Claire visibly twitched. “Yes. I know. They know. I don’t know what they’re doing about that but I’m pretty sure they don’t like it.”

Jeh frowned. “They’re not going to like us then, are they?”

“I don’t know!” Claire threw her hands into the air. “I can’t figure out what they’re going to do on a normal day, this is not a normal day.”

Jeh tried to stand up as straight as she could and look proper. She didn’t know if it helped. “Okay, what else do we need to know?”

“The blimps may touch you. Do not freak out. Their tendrils can be slimy, still do not freak out.”

“And if we do…?”

“Last guy I saw literally got slapped off the city and fell to his death.”

“Well I’ll survive that…”

Xanava scratched the bottom of her face, where her chin would have been if she had one. “I wonder if I could replace all the parts damaged from that fall…”

Claire stared at them. “Insane. Both of you are insane.”

“Takes one to know one!” Jeh said, giving her a finger guns gesture.

“...What does that gesture mean?”

“It means…” Jeh’s smile suddenly dropped and her eyes went wide. “It means… uh… I… what does it mean? I’m arranging my fingers like a weapon but I’m not being threatening… what even?”

Claire rolled her eyes. “Whatever. Anyway, third, don’t lie. That’ll definitely get you killed.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem.”

“And fourth, this is the most important one, but it’s for some reason the hardest one for you surface dwellers to understand and follow. You are a lower being than the blimps. Do not act like you are equal to them. You are below them and they are above you. There is no need for formal declarations or special rituals or anything like that, in fact they generally find such things tedious, but you need to affirm your lesser stature. We are here to serve them, not the other way around, anything they give us is just a bonus. Understood?”

“U… understood.” Jeh said, taking a moment to absorb what she had just been told.

Enrique rolled his eyes. “You’re far too worried, Claire, they’re not the sort to do something that atrocious and crazy.”

“I have seen it many times, Enrique. Many times. It’s like it’s never occurred to many surface dwellers that there can be things above them. It’s boggling.”

Xanava turned to Jeh. “And so, before we even meet them, we know the kinds of horrid arrogant monstrosities the blimps are. Of course, those of us with brains expected this already.”

Jeh didn’t translate that. She simply gulped hard.

And then bit into another air cactus.

~~~

Seskii pulled out a cup of steaming tea from behind her back and set it in front of Riikaz.

Riikaz took the cup in her hands, eying it suspiciously.

“Don’t trust me?” Seskii asked.

“I doubt it is poisoned,” Riikaz said. “But something in me thinks it may not be tea…”

“Hmm, yeah, I might try to pull something like that.” Seskii chuckled. “Don’t worry, it’s tea, the only thing odd about it is the species of tea used to make it doesn’t exist anymore.” Somehow, there was another cup in her hand and she was drinking it. “Simply delightful!”

Riikaz took a drink herself. She had to admit, it was high quality, but she preferred the tea at the palace. Or, to be honest, a tankard of ale or beer, tea wasn’t exactly her sort of drink.

“Ah, but alcohol wouldn’t exactly serve your quest at the moment, would it?”

“So you can read my mind?”

“Only sometimes,” Seskii said. “And I can’t exactly control when.”

Riikaz stared at her blankly.

“For instance, right now, I don’t know what you’re thinking. But I can guess. Something about… how many of your secrets I know. It’s a lot, by the way, but fewer than this Tower we’re in.”

“Actually I was thinking of a giant pink buffalo.” Riikaz broke out into a grin.

Seskii chuckled. “It appears I have been bamboozled!”

The Custodian put his hand to his face and sighed.

Seskii put her hands on her hips. “And you need to stop being such a downer. It’s been millennia, you’re just wallowing by your own choice and you know it.”

“It is my choice to make.”

“Yes… yes it is.” A hint of a frown crossed Seskii’s face for a moment, but she shook it away. “And we don’t need to have that conversation again, we have plenty of time to do that later.”

“Or we could not.”

“Do you really think I’ll just let you keep doing this to yourself?”

“...No. Unfortunately.”

“Glad we’ve come to an understanding.” Seskii turned back to Riikaz. “I hope you can understand, we have a bit of a history.”

Riikaz stared at her. “How ancient of a being are you?”

“Oooh, asking a woman her age, risky. But, fortunately for you, I’m not the sort to mind! It’s kind of hard to count given how long it’s been and some of the time dilation and changes in my nature, but I’d say somewhere around ten thousand years.”

“What… are you?”

“Believe it or not, this body is one hundred percent verified garilend down to the genetic code.”

Riikaz raised an eyebrow. “You had to specify the body.”

Seskii grinned. “Well as for what my spirited nature is, that’s a secret.”

“I won’t remember any of this, what’s the harm?”

“You won’t, but it’s not you I’m keeping it a secret from.” She winked. Riikaz thought she was winking at the Custodian at first, but then realized he was in the wrong direction for that. She was winking at empty space. What even…?

“It’d be best if you don’t think too hard about it,” Seskii offered.

“O… kay. Alright.” Riikaz nodded. “I will just take your word for it. I do owe you my life, after all.” She smirked. “Though I now have my doubts you had to put on that weird glittery potion show to do so.”

“Ah, but that way people wouldn’t suspect anything.” Seskii giggled. “Only Keller has really figured anything out about me, and even then, he’s waaaaaay off in so many of his assumptions. To everyone else, I’m just the quirky little juice seller.” She suddenly sagged like she was made out of damp paper. “I’m still upset that I can’t be the potion seller. That’s, like, my whole thing. My last name is Potions!”

“You gave that last name to yourself,” the Custodian commented.

“Depends on how you look at it.”

The Custodian sighed. “There are two reasons for everything.”

“Oooh, spicy line,” Seskii giggled.

“I suppose I shouldn’t think too hard about that, too?” Riikaz asked.

“Definitely,” Seskii said, vigorously nodding.

“In that case, I’m starting to get a little mad that I can’t actually have a conversation here.” Riikaz folded her arms. “Everything’s a stonewall.”

“We don’t have to talk about grand scoping questions, you know.”

“But it seems like everything leads back to them.”

“Well… yeah.” Seskii shrugged. “You are kind of in the middle of my extremely complicated and long-term master plan. But not even the Custodian knows what that is, and I’m not saying it since the Tower would write it down.”

Riikaz wanted, more than anything else in that moment, to ask what exactly the plan was.

“Not even the Tower knows that one,” Seskii said with a grin. “For the next few hours you just get to wonder, and everyone else gets to wonder for a lot, lot longer. You have my word that it’s in everyone’s best interests though. Well. Most everyone’s.”

“You’re just part of another faction vying for control…”

“Control is not the end I seek. I’d be going about this very differently if it were.”

“No kidding,” the Custodian muttered.

“Hey! Peanut gallery! Do you know the plan? No? Thought not.”

The Custodian only shrugged in response.

“I have a question I think you can answer,” Riikaz said, suddenly.

“Oooh! I’m all ears!” She put a little cardboard tiara on her head that had tons of ears drawn on it.

“I did not pass the Custodian’s test. Why did I pass yours?”

Seskii’s mischievous smile became a warm and understanding one. She put the ear tiara away. “I will answer that. But first, Custodian, why don’t you tell her why she failed?”

“She already knows,” the Custodian said. “She is violent and on a mission of revenge. She is not pure of heart. Even now, considering that she has turned back, she is inherently a violent woman, the kind of person I have no desire to see use the knowledge in here.”

Seskii nodded. “The kind of person you used to be.”

“...Yes.”

Seskii gave him a sad smile and returned to Riikaz. “To be perfectly honest, you’re here because I need you to be, that nameless society you face is being problematic and I need you to get the information you seek.”

Riikaz nodded in understanding. “Ah.”

“However! You did still pass my test of character. I did not tell the Custodian to let you in until you had turned back. You needed to learn your lesson first—that you really shouldn’t have been out here. From your perspective, you had far higher callings to attend to.”

Riikaz looked down, ashamed.

“...I want to warn you, to tell you there will be consequences, but you won’t be allowed to remember that.”

“...You could overrule the rules of this place,” Riikaz said.

“I could,” Seskii admitted. “But I won’t. I never will. I got you in here simply by asking the Custodian a favor, nothing more. To try to alter the rules of the Tower would be asking too much of him. It would be asking him to deny his creed.”

Riikaz chuckled. “Ah… this is a strange feeling. Rising panic at being unable to heed a warning in the future. A beast I cannot fight.”

“Yes. When you leave this place you will know that you had turned back, and that afterward you had the information you sought. You will rightfully believe you passed a test, but you will not fully understand why, nor will you have a sense of dread.” Seskii frowned, shaking her head. “I am afraid some kind of tragedy is unavoidable at this point, in addition to all you have already experienced.”

“But my selfish quest for vengeance… it’s being used for something much higher, isn’t it?”

Seskii nodded. “You shouldn’t be out here, but that doesn’t mean good can’t come of it. There really isn’t a good way to get information on these people, their entire thing is being secretive.”

“Who… are they?”

“That is what you’re here to find out, isn’t it?” Seskii stood up and walked to a bookshelf, taking one of the books out. “The story of the nameless ones. They tried their absolute best to make it so nothing about them could be written down. But the Tower is far cleverer than that. Anything major that happens on Ikyu is written in pages somewhere in this library, a beacon of truth that can defy even the cleverest and most consumed of liars.” She tossed the book over her shoulder and it landed in front of Riikaz.

Riikaz studied the tome. It was leathery, but bright green. The title was unusual. The ______ Society. The blank had a jumble of symbols in it that were clearly from several different languages all stitched together.

“Not even the Tower could give them a name,” Seskii said.

“Is there something… magical about their namelessness?”

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“No, it’s just that they’ve never allowed themselves to be referred to by anything. Everyone has to refer to them descriptively, and prior to their recent mistakes with Benefactor virtually no one outside their organization knew they even existed. Now, of course, that number has exploded… and it is the reason why Kroan has become such a target.”

Riikaz placed her hand on the book. “How much of this will I be allowed to remember?”

“Only the parts you need,” the Custodian said. “It will not be much.”

Riikaz took a deep breath and opened the book to its first page.

To discuss the origin of this most secretive of societies, it is necessary to discuss Jenny Zero…

~~~

Descent Proper was extremely difficult to wrap one’s mind around. Jeh and Xanava didn’t even have to as they were being led along a simple path to a precise destination, but they couldn’t help but try to figure out how anyone could navigate the mess of ropes and wires tying together the various floating balls of moss. Every single mossy ball had structures on it, but they were sparse and spread out, allowing most of the spherical surface area to be adorned with extremely high-altitude “plants.” Most of them were not true plants, but large mushrooms or plasts, many of which gave off heat. The heat was notably only for the benefit of those races living on the mossy balls; the blimps themselves were perfectly fine in the frigid air, though it was curious how few of them were moving around the actual city itself. Whenever Jeh saw the massive creatures, they were almost always above the city or near the lotus, rarely moving among the wires and tangled mossballs. Jeh only saw one down this low, showcasing that these blimps were easily the size of Vaughan’s Cabin. They were brown largely ovoid creatures with four tentacles at their front, but no visible face. They had several larger tentacles hanging from their undersides that swayed in the breeze while their front tentacles were used more akin to hands. Numerous mushroom-cap-like protrusions extended from their sides, visibly breathing and pulsating, revealing them to be fungal entities.

The mossballs were decidedly loose and were all shifting regularly. How they managed not to crash into each other was a marvel of blimp engineering that Jeh couldn’t figure out. Most of the beings that lived among the mossballs could fly, including a large number of qorvids and dragons of all things. Very few individuals used the carts that ran along the various tethers, but the astronauts had to. These carts were simple, rectangular boxes affixed to the thick cables. The carts had no arcane device to move themselves, but rather relied on tame flocks of birds to move them from place to place. This meant that travel was cheap and easy, though it was annoying because the birds were constantly squawking.

The heat from the various “forests” on the mossballs did not even come close to significantly raising the ambient temperature between them, so any and all voyages had to deal with biting, extreme cold.

Fortunately, Xanava and Jeh didn’t particularly care that it was below freezing while both Enrique and Claire put on hooded jackets. Despite being used to the cold of this trip they were shivering and chattering while Xanava and Jeh were taking in the sights.

“It is hard to believe this is a city,” Xanava said. “Almost no buildings, mostly wilderness, and yet so many people live here.”

“And in Lower Descent,” Jeh said. “Envila told me a lot more about it, it’s a very fancy place.” She bit into an air cactus. “Woooah… anyway yeah, most people like us would live down there.”

“The city of the sky…” Xanava put her hands on her hips. “What even are the mossballs?”

Jeh turned back to Enrique and asked him for Xanava.

“They’re some kind of creature,” Enrique explained. “They’re like… sheep? In the higher atmosphere where the blimps come from, they’re just a creature. But they’re usually small, the big ones are only found here.”

“Why?”

“I… don’t know.”

Claire sighed. “They bred them for size, the things are domesticated.”

“What do they eat?” Jeh asked.

Claire shrugged. “I dunno. The blimps only tell that to the people who need to care for them.”

“...Am I allowed to ask them?’

“If it comes up, but I wouldn’t expect an answer.”

“Ookay…”

Xanava fell silent and stared out at the mossballs passing by. A flock of qorvids streamed past, accompanied by a middle-sized blue dragon.

“What’re you thinking about?” Jeh asked.

“They do not have curiosity,” Xanava said. “These two ‘intrepid astronaut explorers’ behind us. They do not ask questions. That is not good for our job.”

“They just do things differently.”

“I am starting to be concerned they may not actually be much help in doing things in space…”

“We’re almost there!” Enrique cheered, pointing forward. “Our home!”

Jeh tilted her head. “I thought we were going to meet the blimps?”

“Well yeah, that’s the best place to meet them!”

“Okaaay…”

They were approaching a mossball underneath the lotus, near the highest parts of Descent. Their particular cord went right into the largest building situated at the central top part of the mossball, a circular, flat building with perhaps hundreds of windows around its sizable circumference, but only two floors. It was made mostly out of wood painted with a reddish-orange color, but was admittedly rather plain in appearance.

“Welcome to the sleeping disc!” Enrique said, removing his jacket as the temperature started to climb. “And the living disc! And the…”

Claire elbowed him in the gut. “It’s just the Disc. Don’t oversell it.”

“But… but the blimps…”

“Find it cute to name it a million different things.”

“But it is!”

“Yes. Cuteness does not help us here.”

“Claire, I swear you’re becoming more and more like a surface dweller by the day!”

“Much to my annoyance,” Claire grumbled. “Come on everyone, let’s move.”

Jeh relayed the conversation to Xanava and she just shrugged, displaying an image of a stick figure falling off a cliff. They stepped out of the cart onto a smooth dirt pathway that was slightly slanted down behind them, as it was on the surface of a sphere. Jeh briefly wondered how people walked on the other spheres with buildings built on their sides and bottom, but then she remembered most of the city was designed for people who could fly.

Here, however, was a place that could be walked. The path soon leveled out as they approached the Disc. Enrique pulled the double doors open to reveal an interior lit by warm oil lamps. Jeh could feel the density of air increase dramatically—she could breathe without a problem in here and would have no need for the air cacti. The floor was surprisingly soft and comfortable, easily enough to lie down and take a nap on. The walls were absolutely covered in pieces of art, most of which were clearly amateur and arranged on the walls with hardly a care as to their position, but even so it was still impressive. There were a few people in the hall, two humans and a neko, who waved happily, greeting Enrique and Claire as they came in, but not engaging in conversation.

Jeh found herself looking up. The ceiling was made out of some shiny material that glinted unusually in the lamplight. The glinting only became more pronounced the further they got from the edge of the Disc and its windows, leaving only the light from the lamps, which gave the area a homey feel.

“Who displays all this botched art…?” Xanava wondered.

“What’s the art for?” Jeh asked Enrique.

Enrique smiled. “Many of us draw, the blimps hang up the works they like.”

“And they like this crap, great,” Xanava grumbled.

Jeh frowned. She was getting the impression that something else was going on here. She couldn’t put her finger on it but the more she looked at all the simple, colorful drawings the deeper the pit in her stomach got.

They entered the door at the end of the hallway and found themselves in a very large central room. Couches and lounges of all sorts lined the edge of the room, alongside large mushrooms and plast plantlike beings that were growing out of the ground directly, providing color to the space. Several people were moving around the edge areas, many of which were spending time painting, talking and laughing, or just chasing each other around in some kind of game. They were mostly humans, but there were a sizeable number of nekos and gari. All humanoids, though. No cats, no slimes, no qorvids, no young dragons…

The strangest part about the central room was the large glass wall that circled an area in the middle. There was a door in the wall, so people could move into and out of the walled-off area at will, but there was no discernable difference between the exterior and interior aside from the lack of solid walls on the inside.

“What’s that for…?” Jeh asked.

“You’re about to find out,” Claire said. “It’s just about midday meal time.”

“Oh, really?” Enrique asked. “Amazing!”

“That was when we were scheduled to be here, nimrod.”

“I just lost track of time!”

“You always do…”

“This’ll make up for the morning meals I didn’t get! I missed those while I was out, waking up to food was so nice…”

Almost without warning, a lot more people started filing into the central room from all sides. Well over a hundred, a handful of whom were children. There was more than enough space in the room, but curiously all of them that had been inside the walled-off area left and closed the door behind them, creating a situation where a donut-shaped crowd of people were standing around and chattering next to a completely empty section.

They were all watching the section as well. Expectantly… looking toward it and slightly upward if they weren’t talking to someone.

Up…? Jeh looked up at the ceiling, finding the same mysteriously reflective material. What are they…

Suddenly, the ceiling became completely transparent, and they could all see the undersides of four blimps. One of the blimps was holding some kind of metal cart, while another was pressing her tentacles against the ceiling, moving various parts around.

Lots of the people in the room let out cheers and waved at the blimps. The two blimps that weren’t busy waved back.

The blimp that was moving the ceiling parts finally undid some kind of latch, prompting the central ceiling to slide away, evacuating the air from the interior section. She floated back, allowing the other blimp to place the cart down in the central area. The cart had five different layers on it, containing plates, silverware, and a truly gargantuan amount of food. Some of it was pre-cooked, like a roast duck and some kind of blue veggie, but others were simply ingredients laid out in organized little rows.

Almost all the people were cheering now, Claire being one of the few exceptions.

The blimps kept waving at everyone while they sealed the ceiling up again. Once it was sealed, a tall male gari ran into the central room and grabbed hold of the cart, wheeling it out. “We’re feasting today, everyone!”

“What’s the occasion?” a woman asked him.

“We have some very special guests and they need to eat well!”

“Surprise holiday!” one of the children shouted, prompting several people around her to echo the call.

The male gari turned to Jeh and Xanava and winked. “Welcome visitors! I’m told you don’t have meals the same way we do. Would you like some of the prepared dishes, would you like us chefs to cook something for you, or would you like to cook it yourself?”

“I can cook myself, actually!” Jeh said, trying to look like she was excited and not a little nervous at the whole display. “Xanava doesn’t eat, though, she’s a rigid.”

“Such a shame!”

Claire coughed. “Jeh, you can’t cook your own meal, you’re supposed to meet with the blimps right now.”

“Oh, that’s now? Right.” Jeh turned to the gari. “Sorry, guess I’ll just take what’s available then.”

“Ah, well, what the blimps want the blimps get.” He shrugged, giving her a plate with a whole roast duck on it. “Here you go!”

“Thanks!” Jeh held the plate in one of her hands and used Orange to cut the meat while she kept her other hand free. “So. Meeting?”

Enrique nodded, opening the door to the central area. “Right this way…”

Jeh, Xanava, Enrique, and Claire entered, sealing the door behind them. The moment they did this, the blimps opened the ceiling again and sucked the air out. Jeh kept her roast duck in place with Orange. Claire had opted just to have a handful of blue vegetables and had no problem keeping hold of it. Enrique dropped his duck. “Oh no…”

“Don’t worry, you’ll get another one later,” one of the blimps said. She spoke with what sounded like two voices at once, a deep droning one and a high-pitched trilling one. Her vocal cords—or whatever she used to talk—clearly were not able to make human sounds easily, so the syllables often came out overtop of each other or with awkward spaces between them, but it was still clearly Desc and Jeh could easily understand it. “Maybe ask your friend for some of hers?”

Jeh cut off a piece of her duck and levitated it over to Enrique without him even needing to ask. He placed it on his plate with eagerness. “Thanks!”

“Don’t mention it.” Jeh took a bite of air cactus—she really needed that right now.

“So, you two are Enrique’s mysterious friends we’ve heard so much about!” The blimp said, lowering one of her tentacles into the room and sliding it across Jeh’s face. Claire had been right, it was slimy, but not really that bad. The weirdest sensation was from the sections that looked like suckers but were actually grainy like sandstone… “Hmm… human, but there’s something not quite normal about you. Interesting…” She notably did not even attempt to touch Xanava.

Jeh gave a little bow, though this was hard considering how the blimps were directly above them—Jeh idly wondered why Claire was so worried about her going above the blimps, what was she going to do, climb out?

“What are we doing?” Xanava asked Jeh.

Jeh shrugged. “Waiting, I guess.”

The blimp reacted to the words. “Ah, such a strange tongue I hear! Is that native to this Kroan I hear about?”

“Yes,” Jeh said, switching to Karli. “Xanava here was just asking what was going on.”

“Well, what is going on?”

“Um…” I’m waiting for you to tell me. “We’re here, meeting with you, to talk about space?”

“Ah, yes, space…” One of the blimp’s tentacles lashed out at another blimp without making physical contact. “A thing you really shouldn’t have to worry about, but here you are…”

“Now is not the time for this argument,” the blimp she lashed at stated, his voice somehow both lower and higher than hers.

“Hmph. It’s always time for the argument.” She let out a sigh. “I do feel sorry for all of you, up there, in danger… you should all be down here, safe.”

Something in Jeh told her that maybe she shouldn’t talk about how she was basically always safe. “We like exploring.”

“Yes… you do. You would have to, to get all the way up there on your own…”

“That is one of the things we need to discuss,” the male blimp pointed out.

“Yes, yes…” The female lifted her tentacles out, and the male took over as the primary one over them.

“What led you to go to space?” the male asked, simply.

So Jeh told him the story of Vaughan, Blue, and herself on that first day.

“A mere flight of fancy? And you were able to turn it into this production?”

Jeh nodded, grinning. “We’re funded by the Crown of the Kingdom of Kroan! We’ve even made it to the moon!”

“Impossible,” a blimp who had never spoken before said. “To think that…”

“Quiet,” the lead blimp said, shutting him up. “As you can see, there are many who doubt your claim.”

“We can bring you moon rocks if you want, we have quite a lot,” Jeh offered.

“Rocks could be faked, unfortunately.”

“Could imaging device records of the dark side be faked…?”

“...Yes, but with far more difficulty,” he said. “And what of Xanava’s people?”

Jeh turned to Xanava. “Why are you guys in space?”

“Because you are and the Emperor smelled a fun little friendly competition, in addition to transportation and messaging applications.”

Jeh relayed this.

“And are there any others with spacecraft capacity?”

“The three of us are all we know about,” Jeh said.

The blimp paused a moment, presumably to consider this. It was nearly impossible for Jeh to read any emotion on him, as he had no discernable face and his speech was too bizarre to be sure the inflections were real. All she really had was the content of his words, the volume, and maybe some body language? That was hard to be sure of, though.

Eventually, he spoke again. “Enrique mentioned some plans you wished to show us.”

Jeh took out the scroll. “Yes. This is a writeup of our current intention to build a space station. We realized that it would be best if everyone who could go into space was involved. It’s in Karli, sorry, I’ll have to read it to you.”

“We have time.”

“But—” the female started.

“We have time,” the male continued. “Give it all to us, translate in detail.”

So Jeh did, the entire time feeling as though she were an inch away from being squashed just for saying something wrong. But no strike ever came. Questions didn’t come either, though. The blimps were entirely silent as she translated the plans for them meticulously, even pointing out a few areas where things might be confusing, as well as adding context to some diagrams.

She was not Blue, she couldn’t give them any mathematical details besides the bare minimum. But she gave what she could, as exhaustively as she could.

Eventually, though, she reached the end.

“...Princess Via wishes to express that she is taking a risk reaching out like this to a complete unknown, but she hopes the blimps of Descent will understand her desire to further knowledge and cooperation. She is giving this to you as a gesture of peaceful intentions and goodwill, in Dia’s name and the Kroan bloodline.” Jeh rolled up the scroll and looked up to the blimps. “...That’s all I have.”

“Hmm… we will discuss.” Suddenly, the blimps stopped talking to each other in Descent and started talking in whatever their native language was like a switch had been flipped somewhere in them. It was a complicated language that made full use of their two different vocal pitches, varying both of them at the same time. The two layers were no doubt extremely important in parsing out the meaning, but Jeh was not able to grasp more than that.

“Okay, that is efficient,” Xanava said. “That is a good language.”

Jeh sighed. “I am so glad you can’t talk to them.”

“I do not want to talk to them. I hope they turn the offer down. I do not want to work anywhere near these people.”

“...Why?”

“I know you see it too. You are unnerved by this place.”

“Yes, but I’m not entirely sure why…”

“Seriously? Have you ne—”

“We have decided,” the primary male blimp said. “We will take you up on your offer.”

Jeh beamed. “Thank you! …Great blimps!”

“You will return to your people and tell them that we will assist in the design and construction of the space station. We will train an envoy specifically for this task to communicate our will and intent with you, for meetings such as this are quite uncommon, a hassle, and demeaning. The envoy should be ready in about a month, at which point you will send people of your own here to figure out the details. You may object to us choosing our city as the meeting location, but understand that our ships are not designed to land themselves at this moment in time.”

“I’m sure they’ll understand that.” Jeh turned to Xanava. “The Emperor will understand that, right?”

Xanava nodded. “He is not stupid, but he might complain without actually doing anything about it.”

“Yeah, we’re good,” Jeh told the blimps.

“Very well. We look forward to the future of space exploration.” With that, he floated up and away, taking two of the blimps with him. Only the female remained.

“He’s such a downer! All serious,” the female shook her body. “Didn’t even say goodbye, so heartless. Ahem. Jeh? Xanava? You two are welcome to stay here in the Disc of Exploration Generation as long as you wish! You can even stay forever! …But if you really are busy you can go back to your ships now.”

The moment Jeh relayed this to Xanava, she turned to open the sealed door.

“Xanava, no!” Jeh jumped in front of her. “We don’t want to decompress the other section!”

“I want to get out of here.”

“Um… well just wait for the ceiling to close up!” Jeh looked up at the female blimp. “Looks like Xanava really wants to go, so, can you seal us up!”

“Of course, of course!” She patted Jeh on the head with her tentacle. “I hope to see you again sometime soon, Jeh!”

“Ehe… sure, we’ll see.”

With that, the blimp sealed up the ceiling. The moment it was sealed Xanava all but threw the door open and stormed out of the Disc.

“What’s got her in a twist?” Claire asked.

“I’ll find out,” Jeh said, running after her. I’m in a twist too, none of that was right. Even the friendly one was… off. As she passed by the rest of the people eating and cooking and laughing, the pit in her stomach kept growing. Is there… some kind of trap here I’m not seeing?

Did we really want them to say yes?

~~~

The sun was setting, so Krays had moved her work back from Vaughan’s backyard to the combination bakery, glassblower’s, and blacksmith’s. It was late enough in the day that technically everything was closed, but only the Twins had officially shut their doors. The two of them were currently playing cards on a little table in the corner with Darmosil. He was losing.

Krays was not playing because she was very annoyed about some experimental results. Particularly the ones in Jeh’s notebook that circled two particular materials as being the only acceptable ones.

She glanced at the spherical plast-woven balls in front of her. One was slightly pink, one was slightly blue. They had gone to space. Jeh had exposed them to the vacuum. They were completely fine while everything else hadn’t been.

Krays had expected the vast majority of materials tests to fail.

“Still… why does it have to be these two?”

“Because you’re looking for a very unusual set of material properties and shouldn’t expect it to be simple?” Seskii suggested.

Krays didn’t bother asking when Seskii had shown up. Not that she wasn’t thinking it, but she knew Seskii wouldn’t really answer the question and just mess with her. Which Krays had to respect, it was what she would do if she was that good at sneaking. Though she’d probably engage in a lot more of scaring the living daylights out of people for a quick laugh…

“Still, the universe has conspired to make the most difficult and expensive materials the ones that work?” Krays gestured at them. “Here we have two different varieties of plast fiber. Plast fibers aren’t that unusual, our hair is made out of a plast fiber, one of the varieties that can be heat treated because evidentially things aren’t steamy enough normally.” Krays crossed her arms. “These things are not standard plast fibers, they’re harvested from lahsers in the desert. So if we want lots of this stuff we need to get more expeditions to the desert where stupid people with delusions of grandeur attempt to wrestle an extremely toxic predator to the ground, win, harvest the fibers, and then realize an hour later they got scraped and die from poison only for scavengers and passing bandits to pick up the fibers.”

“I’m sure the Crown’s Agents will be able to handle themselves.”

“Oh, yes, with enough money and experience you can get quite a bit of the fiber. But I haven’t mentioned the worst part! See, untreated fiber doesn’t work! Jeh took it up and it didn’t even hold air! No no no, you need to treat the fiber. Not with heat, not with cold, ooooh no with some kind of special chemical imported from the Tempest. The Tempest. I don’t even know what it’s made out of! Probably monkey butt juice or something, I don’t know.” She let out a large groan. “If these are the only options, then simply making one suit is going to cost more than an entire Skyseed!”

Seskii took out a notebook and checked off some boxes.

“Oh no, what’s the sarcastic remark you’ll make this time, candy floss head?”

“Nothing actually, I’m the almighty secretary, remember? I’m literally adding it to the budget and timetable.”

Krays stared at her.

Seskii grinned. “Did you forget I actually serve a purpose here?”

“No. I’m just amazed you can keep up with it all.”

“If only you knew how many things I was doing at once…” Seskii said with a chuckle.

“Well there’s being a secretary, and then there’s screwing with all of our minds on a daily basis.”

“Don’t forget making the world a better place with random acts of kindness and juice!” She produced a bottle of lemon-orange juice. “Want some?”

Krays took it with a grunt and took a swig like it was alcoholic. It wasn’t. She didn’t particularly care.

“Also, just because the spacesuit is going to be expensive, that doesn’t mean you’re going to look bad.”

“I’m the materials girl, Seskii, it’s my job.” Krays glared at the perfectly preserved plast balls in front of her. “This isn’t good enough.”

“How do you know that this isn’t literally the best option the universe has on offer? It might be a great improvement from the next best option!”

“These are literally the most expensive materials I tested, Seskii. Think, that means there are no worse options.”

“Oh I don’t know about that, there might be some kind of plast material you can get by extracting a rare chemical out of the ground and processing it through several steps to extract another chemical out of that and then processing the new chemical to get it to stick together in an airtight chain and then you’d have to make some kind of fancy tool or machine to cut it properly without introducing tiny holes…”

“Pfft. As if even the most demented of lunatics would ever figure that out even if it was possible.”

“You never know~!” Seskii sang out.

Krays tapped her finger on the countertop in annoyance. “That’s right, I don’t, but there’s gotta be something better…”

“Look, Krays, I’m just trying to help you see that this may not be a failure. You found a material that works. You might not have even done that!”

“Hmph.”

“You should listen to Seskii,” Darmosil said from the table.

“You would know, huh?” Krays called back.

“Absolutely, but your insinuation is bunk.” Darmosil played down a card in front of the Twins. “For the reason I know is because I know you need it, not because I need it.”

The Twins snickered.

“What?”

“We know you were trying to play a dramatic game-winning card to punctuate your point…”

“...But you have fallen right into my sister’s trap!”

The other twin flipped over a card. “And the numbers on the field add to nineteen, giving me all the points for this round and securing my victory.”

Darmosil stared at the card. “Well. It’s hard to argue with that.”

“Hah! Loser!” Krays called over. “Point invalidated, I win!”

“You hadn’t said what your point was.”

“Obviously it’s in opposition to yours.”

“Which was?”

“Boring.”

“You are attempting to goad me.”

“Obviously.”

“Not working.”

“I disagree.”

One of the twins stood up. “We should probably leave before they start another makeout session.”

The second twin nodded, glancing at Seskii.

Seskii shrugged. “Hey, if they wanna put on a show…”

Krays threw the juice bottle at Seskii. She caught it in her hand lazily. “Thanks for returning the bottle.”

“One day, Seskii…” Krays pointed an accusatory finger at her. “One day I’ll find something you’re bad at.”

“Evidentially reaction time is not one of them,” Darmosil added. “Curious how you chose to test that one today, Krays, I think we all knew she could catch anything thrown at her even if it came from behind.”

“Unless, of course, she was just angry,” Seskii said. “And yes, I am fully aware that I’ve ruined the setup for your next insult, Darmosil, you’re welcome. Toodeloo!” Seskii waved extravagantly and skipped out of the shop.

Darmosil shrugged. “I like that one.”

Krays rolled her eyes. “Spare me.”

“She can keep up with me like you can.”

Krays sat bolt upright. “D-darmosil!”

“Ah, I haven’t been able to push the ‘make Krays jealous’ button in a good long while. The memories…”

“Stop being nostalgic about pushing my buttons!”

“Good idea. I can revel in it now! Perhaps I should start inviting Seskii for dinner…”

“Darmosil, neither you nor I know how to cook very well.”

“I’m sure she’s great at it. Another point for her.”

“Darmosil!”

~~~

Seskii chuckled.

Riikaz looked up from the book she was reading. The Tower had been entirely silent prior to that moment. “What are you…?”

“Has nothing to do with you, don’t worry. Just thinking about a couple of gari with a very strange relationship.” Seskii clicked her tongue. “Of course, you are done reading, aren’t you?”

The Custodian looked up from his book, one entitled Riikaz, Wild Queen. “Already? There’s no way she’s done with…”

“She’s right, though, I know what I want to take back with me,” Riikaz said, flipping back a few pages. “This.”

The Custodian glanced over her shoulder. It was a page filled with an image with a short description on it. The image was of a dark room somewhere deep beneath the ground, devoid of any decoration. Cables of Green weaved from the back wall and ceiling to a singular point—a metal chair in which a humanoid figure sat. The figure was almost impossible to see, for she was covered almost head to toe in what appeared at first to be armor, but upon closer inspection was not at all designed for battle. Rather, it was designed to have the Green cables threaded through every nook and cranny of the suit, making it all but impossible to move while inside. Only the woman’s lower face was visible, her eyes completely shrouded, but there was enough information to go off of to identify the race. The leaves poking out from under the helmet were a dead giveaway: this was a dryad, a free-leaf dryad to be specific.

The reclusive leader of those who have no name sits on her eternal throne deep beneath the wastes of Vraskal, enduring great suffering so the mission may never be lost.

“Hmm, I was expecting you to ask for more…”

“But I can’t take more, isn’t that right?”

“You are correct, this is about as much information as I would permit to leave.” The Custodian backed up. “Very well. Let this page be engraved upon your mind. You will know your enemy’s face, you will know the nation in which she resides, and you see one of her deepest secrets.”

“Herself,” Riikaz said.

“I am curious,” the Custodian said. “Why did you not ask for more? Most try to bargain.”

“I…” Riikaz looked at the book. “I wish I did not know most of what I know right now.”

“There are many in her organization that would agree with you.”

Riikaz couldn't muster up a defiant response. She just looked down at the book, a deep frown on her face.

“I must ask. Do you think they are justified?”

“No. If what they think is true, if their ways are the only way to stop it, we deserve what’s coming.”

Seskii’s smile vanished for a moment. “That… may be true, but…”

“You don’t need to encourage me,” Riikaz interjected. “I won’t need it in a few minutes.”

“But…”

“I also don’t want to hear it right now.”

Seskii nodded. “As you wish…” She turned to the Custodian. “Will you respect her wishes?”

“...I will offer her something,” the Custodian said.

“An apology?” Riikaz huffed.

“In a sense. You do not pass my test, but I cannot help but be moved by your… restraint. So few show it. Most give in to desperation.”

Riikaz looked down at the book and shook her head. “... Desperation would only make it worse. It’s part of their problem…”

“I will permit you to take a part back to Jeh and—”

“No,” Riikaz said.

The Custodian was taken aback. “Wh… why not?”

“Those moments were private. I felt wrong reading them. If I bring anything of that back, I won’t be able to look at Jeh the same way again. …She doesn’t deserve that. It’ll be best if she never remembers what came before, and deep down she knows that too.”

Seskii sighed. “I’m not sure that’s the right decision.”

“Why not?”

“Running away from the past makes us doomed to repeat it.”

Riikaz paused. “Can you… can you give me a guarantee that it’ll work out for the better?”

“...I can only do that when talking of the fullness of time.”

“Then that will be that. …The world will be better off if Jenny Zero remains forgotten.”

Seskii folded her hands together. “I’ll respect your request. But it may come to light no matter what.”

“I won’t be the one to release it. You shouldn’t be either.”

“That’s not exactly in my control.”

“Clearly there is a line you draw in the sand or a line that is drawn for you…” Riikaz shook her head. “I… I grow tired of this burden on my mind. Let… let me go.”

Seskii nodded, pulling out a potion and sticking it in Riikaz’s cloak. “For the road.”

“What does it do?”

“You won’t remember so I’m not going to tell you. Consider it a surprise gift!” Seskii’s grin returned in full force. “It’ll be great fun, trust me.”

Riikaz put her hand over the potion. “...Thank you, Seskii Potions.”

“Don’t mention it.”

“Are you truly ready?” the Custodian asked.

“Yes,” Riikaz said, standing tall and proud.

“In that case, brace yourself.”

“Brace my—”

He kicked her in the chest. Warrior though she was, she had not been expecting this and was flung clean over the railing. She fell past floor after floor, cascading at lightning speed down to the ground floor.

The Custodian fell past her, his body narrow and angled, passing her by. He landed firmly on the ground with enough force to break even his metallic legs, but they held fast. He spread his arms wide, holding an Orange crystal in each of his hands. They shone brilliantly in his hands, and Riikaz felt her falling speed lessen considerably.

She still touched down at considerable velocity, but she was easily able to roll it off and jump to a standing position right in front of the Custodian. “I bet you never get tired of that.”

“It never gets old,” the Custodian admitted.

Seskii looked up from one of the chairs. “Took you guys long enough to get down here.”

Riikaz and the Custodian ignored her. She didn’t mind this, though she did start loudly eating some crackers.

The Custodian opened the main doors. They moved just as silently as when Riikaz had entered.

Riikaz stepped to the edge of the Tower’s floor. She turned around, glancing at the Custodian. “When I came in here, I thought you were a sad man. But knowing even a fraction of what you know, I…” She paused. “How do you do it? How do you handle it?”

“It’s amazing what you can do when you have no choice,” the Custodian said.

Seskii stopped eating her crackers. “You always have a choice.”

“It didn’t feel that way at first.”

Seskii nodded slowly. “I suppose not, no.”

“Queen Riikaz of Kroan!” the Custodian said, suddenly talking louder than he had been Riikaz’s entire visit. “Go forth into the world with your newfound knowledge! May you use it to bring these people to their knees! As much as I may bemoan, as much as I may gripe, their evil is a truly insidious one that must be brought to an end!”

Riikaz stood tall and firm, placing her hand over her chest in a gesture of respect from her tribe. “I place this quest upon my heart!”

“Then go, remember only what you need!” He lifted his hands into the air…

…and then Riikaz was sitting on a rock in the forest, wondering why she was so hungry.

~~~

“Hey Xanava!” Jeh called as she ran out of the Disc. “Xanava!”

Xanava was standing at the tether, realizing there was no car to take her back to the launchpad, so she was going to have to wait for Enrique or Claire to call someone over. She was stomping her foot angrily. She wasn’t giving Jeh a response.

Jeh folded her arms. “You know, stomping away angrily in a panicked huff is a very good way to let them know you suspect them.”

“Suspect them of what, Jeh?”

Jeh furrowed her brow. “I haven’t figured that part out yet. I thought maybe they wouldn’t let us go, but we can just go now. Maybe they want to control space missions?”

Xanava let out a string of swears in Mikarol.

“What?”

“You are so stupid! They were never going to trap us here, and whatever their plans for the space race are, that is not a big issue! How could you not see what kind of place we were in?”

“Um… a place for a bunch of people to live?”

“All people who are fed at a specific time by the blimps, people who cheer when the food is given, people who draw bad art that gets framed on walls, people who are trained to do specific tasks for the blimps… what about this is not connecting with your brain?”

“I mean…”

“They are pets, Jeh! Pets!”

“Pets…?” Jeh tilted her head to the side. “That… that does make sense, I guess…”

“Why are you not freaking straight out right now?”

“I mean I’m trying to think about what I know about pets. I haven’t seen very many, honestly, so uh… I mean that seems like a pretty cushy deal for them, they don’t have to worry about anything, the blimps get… um… what do they get?”

“Cute little surface-dwellers to ogle over or slaves to do chores they can not do.”

Jeh frowned, putting a hand to her chin. “I mean, that’s not great, but it’s nothing to be scared of. Shimvale enslaves people with a hypnotizing song, there’s the rigid plague taking over the minds of rigids…”

“She offered to let you stay, Jeh. She wanted you as another one of her pets!”

“I’d be the cutest one.”

Xanava’s face flashed several colors in quick succession and she pointed it at the sky, letting out an exasperated scream.

“Someone’s having a bad day,” Claire observed as she and Enrique walked up to them.

Xanava pointed a finger at her. “I have no idea what you said but I hate it already, dog.”

“Oooh, spicy,” Claire said before Jeh could even think about translation or the lack thereof.

“Um…” Jeh tilted her head.

“I don’t have a clue what she said but the body language said it all. Also the face. That face is very expressive.”

Xanava displayed an image of an arcane firearm shooting at Claire repeatedly. Followed by an anvil falling on a stick figure representation of her.

“Communication has occurred,” Claire droned.

Enrique nervously shuffled his feet. “Jeh can you… can you ask Xanava what we did wrong? Why she’s so mad? I know she’s kind of rude to begin with but I…”

“Uh, well…” Jeh rubbed the back of her head. “It’s nothing you did, it more has to do with how you’re all living. She just doesn’t like it.”

“Why?” Enrique asked. “...Was the food bad?”

Claire rolled her eyes. “She didn’t eat. You’d never be able to see the real reason in a million years.”

“What?”

Claire walked up until she was right in Xanava’s face. “Jeh, I’m going to need you to translate and not hide what she’s saying to me because she’s being rude.”

Jeh winced. “You really don’t want th—”

“I do. I won’t tell the blimps. But as you’ve figured out already they wouldn’t listen to me anyway.”

“All right…”

“Enrique, go back inside, I have it from here,” Claire called back.

“But…”

“I said I have it from here, you’ll get to see your special friends later on your space journeys, don’t worry your sorry little head.”

“O… kay…” A forlorn, dejected expression came over his face as he walked back into the Disc.

Claire focused her attention on Xanava and put her hands on her hips. “So, figured out we’re pets, right?”

Xanava’s face lit up with a symbol of exclamation. “You know!?”

“Of course I do. Most of them don’t, we aren’t exactly bred for self-awareness or critical thinking, I’m a bit of a fluke.”

“Then what are you doing here?”

“Where exactly would I go that’s better than this, huh?” Claire gestured at the Disc. “In there, I have food, family, friends, and everything I could ever want.”

“You have no freedom!”

“Theoretically, no. In practice, I’m going to be put on a spaceship, I could run wherever I wanted and they couldn’t stop me.” Her scowl deepened. “But I’m not going to. What exactly would I run to? One of your ground-dwelling nations? I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but most of us have basically no skills, only trained in whatever task the blimps happen to require of us, if anything. I can fly a spaceship and through my own guile and grit I have managed to become a good reader of people. I can’t cook. I can’t fight. I only barely know how to read. The amount of things I don’t know could fill a library. You may note that there weren’t many books in there!”

“You’re complacent in the system.” A big X appeared on Xanava’s face.

“And what would defiance get me, huh? A sense of self-accomplishment? Oooh, let’s see, I could get put down as a defect and tossed off the edge, or I get to fly into space because the blimps can’t. I think I’m sticking with flying in space, thank you.”

Xanava tilted her head back slightly, displaying nothing on it. “...I could not live like you.”

Claire’s face softened slightly. “Trust me. You could. Anybody can, in the right situation.”

Xanava shook her head, muttering something in Mikarol before turning to Jeh. “These ‘allies’ we have made will not treat us with an iota of respect.”

“It’s not like you treat anyone with respect,” Jeh pointed out.

Three dots appeared on Xanava’s face.

“Heh. Gotcha.”

“Regardless…” Claire shook her head. “No matter what, we are working on that space station together now, unless you want to recommend to your Emperor to pull out of the project.”

“I am not suicidal,” Xanava grunted.

“Good. Looking forward to more of this nonsense in the future.”

“...We need you to call the cable car thing,” Jeh said.

“Oh. Right. I guess I’ll see you back to the launchpad then.”

“So much for your dramatic ending.”

“Yeah. So much for that.”

Xanava was uncharacteristically quiet all the way back to the launchpad.

“So… going back to Mikarol then?” Jeh asked.

“That is the idea,” Xanava said.

“See you around, then?”

“...Probably.”

Jeh shook her head. “Xanava… I can tell you’re not okay. Do you—”

“I was born a slave, Jeh,” Xanava said. “A Vraskal war chief’s prized possession. I sold them out to Mikarol. Was rewarded handsomely for it.” She clenched her fists. “I hate this place. I hate it. If I could burn it to the ground, I would.”

“Xanava…”

“But I will not. Because I cannot.” She paused. “Goodbye, Jeh.” She jumped into the Skyripper and slammed the door. She launched into the air before Jeh could get a word in edgewise.

“...Anything I should know about in that conversation?” Claire asked.

“...She wants to burn this place to the ground but can’t?”

“Understandable.”

“Am I the only one here who doesn’t think this place needs to be blown up?”

“Oh no, Enrique would agree with you, inasmuch as he can actually think anything through.” Claire shook her head. “I think you just need to grow up a bit to see the real problem here. You’re not held back by where you live.” She turned and waved at Jeh as she left. “Have fun up there in the stars, crazy kid.”

“You too…” Jeh said, uncertain. She jumped into her Skyseed, sealed it, and slowly lifted herself into the sky.

She didn’t feel like going fast today.

~~~

“She’s gone,” the Custodian said, returning to the Tower of Knowledge’s first floor. “So why are you still here?”

Seskii took a sip of her exceedingly pink wine-like drink. “Maybe I just wanted to have a talk with an old friend?”

“I’m not sure I would have ever described our relationship as ‘friends,’ Seskii.”

“Not even now?”

The Custodian paused. “...You are right, that was hasty of me. I apologize.”

“Accepted.” Seskii put her drink down and was suddenly standing right next to him. “I really do wish I could help you.”

“I understand that. I also reject it.”

“Mmm…” Seskii shrugged extravagantly. “Oh well, I know I’m not changing your mind today. Perhaps one day.”

“When your plan comes to fruition?”

“I certainly hope we’ll talk again before that.”

“I do spend some of my time wondering about the secrets the Tower cannot see. Your plan… you have been playing a long game for a long time, that much I can tell. But your goal…”

“You know I cannot tell you that.”

“But I have my guesses, and one of them distresses me. For if it were true…” He turned to face her directly. “Are you trying to run away, Seskii?”

Seskii said nothing. She simply stared at him with a calm smile.

“Can’t risk giving anything away with even a slight response…” the Custodian shook his head. “At least I can share my burdens with those who pass through here should I wish it. Who can you share them with?”

“Dia alone,” Seskii said. “And, well… you know.”

“How can that be enough?”

“I know you may find it hard to believe, but it is more than enough.” Seskii turned to look at the statue of the skeleton in a dress. “Amazing work.”

“It had to be.”

“I know.” She locked her hands behind her back. “When all this is over perhaps I’ll have some statues made.”

“Assuming victory? Has the past taught you nothing?”

“Fate is on my side in the fullness of time.” She winked at him. “It just depends on how long it takes to get there.”

The Custodian shook his head. “Don’t repeat history, Seskii.”

“I don’t intend to.”

“But also beware of overcompensating.”

Seskii nodded. She turned away and, for once in her life, left a room normally, passing through the Tower’s silent doors like any normal person would, without any sort of shifting, jumping, or other impossible motion.

Once they closed, the Custodian was alone once more.

He glanced at the table Seskii had been using. On it was a potion. Extra Zappy Machine Lubricant! With a cartoonish picture of Seskii drawn on the label, winking at him.

He picked it up… and chuckled. How much and how little she has changed…

~~~

SCIENCE SEGMENT:

“Oh I don’t know about that, there might be some kind of plast material you can get by extracting a rare chemical out of the ground and processing it through several steps to extract another chemical out of that and then processing the new chemical to get it to stick together in an airtight chain and then you’d have to make some kind of fancy tool or machine to cut it properly without introducing tiny holes…”

Seskii is describing how we get the material we use in spacesuits. It is a pain, though while writing this chapter I didn’t know exactly how much of a pain it was.

So come with me as we try to answer the question “where do we get spacesuit material?”

The important part of spacesuit material is the part that is able to freely move but is also airtight. Rigid suits are actually possible and look like massive suits of armor, but are decidedly impractical and annoying and heavy. If you have nothing else, sure they’d work, but a soft suit or partially soft suit is so much better.

For our suits, we use neoprene-coated fibers. Neoprene is a rubbery material, so when we put it on the fibers it will seal, but still be able to bend. It’s rather convenient. The real question here is how do you get neoprene? Let’s follow the path I did on my research for this topic. (Well, one path of many).

Neoprene is one of many things that can be made by polymerizing chloroprene. Let’s not worry about chloroprene yet and just focus on polymerization: the act of taking single molecules and, through some kind of chemical process, sticking them together in a big long chain. A polymer, if you will. Because of this, neoprene is also known as polychloroprene, as it is made of a lot of chloroprene molecules polymerized into a big long chain. The mechanism by which this is accomplished is free radical polymerization, and when I tried to look up details as to how exactly this occurred I remembered I wasn’t a chemist and ran away in terror.

In essence, though, the chain is built up one piece at a time. For neoprene in particular, potassium persulfate is used to trigger polymerization. (Potassium persulfate is one of those simpler chemicals you can just make, the reaction I found was potassium chloride salt mixed with sulfuric acid, both things that can just be found). Then we have to connect each of the polymer strands together with other processes but let’s not worry about that, this is already complicated.

Now we trace it further back: where do we get the chloroprene? Why, we get it from another chemical no one’s ever heard of, 1,3-butadiene! And this process isn’t simple either, you have to throw chlorine at it, then you have to “isomerize” it. An isomer is simply a different way of arranging the atoms in a molecule: for instance, both diamonds and graphite are pure carbon, just arranged differently. (Though usually when we talk about isomers, we mean single molecules, not large endless arrays like what make up diamond and graphite, though strictly speaking the definition is still correct). Isomerization is changing the molecule from one shape to another. Then you remove a chlorine atom and a hydrogen atom from the new structure, and you end up with chloroprene. Yay!

Of course, now we need to know where butadiene comes from… and we finally have something that’s not neck deep in a chemical soup, butadiene is produced during steam cracking as a byproduct. Steam cracking has a very descriptive name: it is when you mix a hydrocarbon with water and then heat it to absurd temperatures to destroy the bonds within the hydrocarbon molecule, creating new compounds. Butadiene is one of the products of steam cracking propylene, which itself is a product of steam cracking propane!

At last, we arrive at a material we know where it comes from naturally! Well, not exactly—propane itself can come from multiple sources, either natural gas or petroleum refinement, but both of them have similar origins deep beneath the ground as the remnants of long-dead biomass.

So, in short, you’ve got to dig oil out of the ground, blow it up twice with water, throw chlorine at it, bend it, take a part away, and then stitch it all together in a line.

Naturally, this is not an option for the WSP.

That said, they do actually have a source of preexisting neoprene they could use to get by this limitation. Tires on wheeled rigids are most certainly made out of it. Too bad there aren’t many of those in Kroan. Of course, this would have to be reprocessed, and that is an entire other can of worms.