In the Universe created by the Architects, everything had an influence on something else. Something that the Architects of Cause and Effect made sure of.
With the present leaving an indelible mark on the past, every step that Ester took was one that would probably be buried by hundreds of tons of trash.
Hopefully he wouldn't be among the trash when his footsteps were buried.
It was a couple hours since he had returned from his Scav'ing, and since then he was engrossed with his pet project of finding a way off this Architect forsaken garbage bin.
Hunched over the desk, both hands slowly and delicately merged metal together with the Aether Welder flickering with a weak blue light.
The Driller had stopped boring through plastic, soil and rock a while ago so there weren't any sudden jolts he had to account for while tinkering with this beautiful piece of magitech.
The only thing that he had to account for besides this Magitech piece blowing up in his face is the rare hissing bouts of steam escaping from the Engines as water cooled down the wildly overheated Machine.
Last time it was left wildly overheated, it blew up, and Ester was barely able to salvage the engine with Eva's help with what little glyphical knowledge they had.
Eva's legs however nearest to the legs didn't survive.
Moving on.
Soldering a few more parts together then pulling out the glyph scribe, disconnecting the welder and connecting the scribe, Ester frowned when the blue light failed to appear at its tip.
'Already? Damn, we'll have to do a Rift Run soon.'
Opening the battery and removing a grey crystal held within a glass tube, he removed the crystal from the tube with deft fingers and tossed it into a drawer where it joined several other grey crystals.
Pushing the drawer in and twisting the nob, when he pulled the drawer back it revealed a set of keys hidden away in the Drawer's personal little hidden compartment.
He took the copper colored one marked with a blue crystal.
Moving to a wall, Ester's eyes crawled along the wall with familiarity before spotting a small carved out section of wall which hid in between two fridge magnets.
Then he placed the key flat on a section of wall marked by four fridge magnets.
*Beep Chunk
Hearing the sounds of a scanned key and opening door, Ester glanced at the small hole in the wall where a trap had been laid for anyone unwise enough to put the key there.
"Hey Eva?" He called
[Yeah-eah?] Eva's muffled voice echoed from within the engine room which doubled as a water leeching room which tripled as the medical bay which quadrupled as the kitchen which pentupled as the Power plex.
You got creative with limited options at your disposal.
"What happens if someone puts the key in the slot?" Ester paused before elaborating. "The one besides the place where the Aether crystals are kept?"
[Fa-Faulty Bat-attery expl-plosion at-at cro-otch l-level]
"Thanks!"
[Sh-shut it-t a-and hel-elp me-me?]
"Nah, you got that"
Muffled and crackled curses echoed from within the engine room as steam hissed loudly within.
The battery lit up with life as he shut its shell around the new Aether Crystal, the tip of the Scribe now gleaming with a blue light.
Ester flexed his fingers as he brought over the device
'Now what the Void was that Ward like again?'
He had practiced the ward scheme several hundreds of times using scrap metal and an oil pencil to the point of seeing it in his dreams, but it was still good practice to be careful.
Especially when the Piece he was going to be putting the Ward Scheme wasn't exactly as replaceable as a bunch of scrap sheets and machine oil
And unless he was willing to continue being near the Dumping zone where the danger of being smushed was ever present like the last bit of sewage he barely escaped, the chances of looting another final piece was...
Slim to put it bluntly
And deep down in some corner of his mind, Ester knew for a fact that if he fucked this up... He wasn't going to get another chance.
'Get away from me you bloody insecurities!'
Hurriedly shaking his head, his right arm hissed with pneumatics as he instinctively flexed both of his fingers, a harsh breath leaving his lungs followed by another, much longer one.
'Hooo...' Ester let out a long calm and controlled breath, his rapidly beating heart slowing down to a more manageable pace.
Ester tapped at the table and pulled out the final piece he had looted from the Escape pod drone.
A gravitator.
A device that attracts itself to the strongest nearby non blackhole celestial body and pulls the space capable vehicle along with it.
A device that if not kept in a Grav well would have its core break out of the shell that kept it stable.
And everyone knew that an unstable core of any type was horrible.
Especially the gravity ones which in this case would tear everyone nearby into strips of spaghetti.
Even Eva who was in the Engine room wouldn't be spared by this.
'I really wish I just had to use a normal bloody compass instead of this thing.'
Ester felt the sound of his heartbeat sharpen in his ears as he grimaced and forcefully pushed down all the horrible thoughts that would happen if he failed in this endeavor.
*Slap!
He slapped the sides of his neck, a sharpness that wasn't present before appearing in his eyes as he glared at the Gravitator.
'Fuck it, the best we can hope for is not dying right now and the worst we can pray against is the loss of our mortal lives. No pressure'
No pressure.
An unprecedented calmness pressed against his head as he took in a deep breath.
Then he began.
His unmodded and unspliced hand slowly but confidently drew in broad sharp strokes against the surface of the Gravitator.
Too fast and the flow of Aether was prone to waste, too slow and the entire thing would unravel.
The speed he was going was just right for the cyclical glyph to form a large enough ward zone.
Ward zones as a whole were just a way to constrain the effects to a specific area, you couldn't be having the Glyph for a flame to spread everywhere while consuming an Ungodly amount of Aether after all.
Ester clicked the Glyph scribe to conserve what little Aether they had only to unlock it a moment later as he formed more and more glyphs within the much larger one he had initially drawn.
*Click Click
The Gravitator currently welcoming the addition of new Glyphs on its already glyphed surface could be likened to a compass.
But unlike a normal compass that relied on the magnetic poles on two ends of a Planetoid, this Space faring compass pointed its needle towards the nearest non black hole Planetoid.
The science behind the Gravitator pointing towards the nearest Non black hole planetoid was a tad lost on him, but he knew that it worked.
*Click Click
It's core materials comes from a Black holes Accretion disk, more specifically, the parts of the Accretion disk twisted by opposing gravitational forces. Gravity Cores
Which meant, if he somehow screwed up while Glyphing, the best case scenario was the Gravity core imploding in on itself without taking anything with it.
The worst case was turning into spaghetti, and even if he miraculously survived, he honestly doubted the odds of finding another Gravitator before the other Scav's got to it.
*Click Click
Glyphs as a whole were cyclical in nature, make it a spanning tree without any cycles in it and you have an Astra, not a Ward scheme.
Those were two vastly different trees of science.
'And because that Old man knew to much, I know how to make sub zones.'
Sub zones that were always placed in ward zones with a different set of Glyphs within sending their aid to the main
*Thump Thump.
Meaning, if Ester put a Restraint Glyph and an Enhance Glyph in the same ward zone pointed inwards, it would restrain whatever it was placed on while enhancing that very same thing.
If the Restraint glyph was placed on the Ward zone and the Enhance glyph on the Sub zone, you would get a restraint that was enhanced.
Vice versa would have the Enhancement restrained somewhat
It seemed that he lost track of what he was doing so he hurriedly clicked the butt of the Scribe
*Click Click
When a Ward zone sets, it can't be manipulated by other Aetheric sources requiring either a Reverse ward to neutralize the Ward zones effects or a strong enough force to disable the Ward zone.
There were specific Glyphs to turn on and off a Ward scheme, but a Gravitator certainly didn't have that on its shell.
If it did, a sizeable chunk of the planet would be declared missing when someone turned off its protections.
*Fwoosh!
Flames kindled at the end of the Welder right before it bypassed the Restraint Scheme and began to carve select holes in the Gravitator's defensive shell.
Thankfully, the restraint scheme enhanced a good bit by the sub zone seemed to have worked perfectly in removing the anti cutting programs from melting his face right off.
He should probably put some more enhancement sub zones before the Gravity core got to his face though.
*Bzzzt
A distinctive buzzing sound reached Ester's ears as the Welder peeled the Shell back like a flower made of metal and death.
The death portion of the flower in particular was extremely eager to make itself known when it slammed straight into the extra layer of protection he had made by leeching off the already established one.
It was something he was rather proud about, leeching off of already established Ward schemes for easier neutralizations and stronger seals.
*VWOOMP
Watching the lights of the glyphs flicker as the Aether powering them were sapped clean every time the Gravity core undulated, Ester cracked his fingers.
'Now it's crunch time.'
With little time to waste, Ester grabbed the scribe and clicked its end, lighting up the crystal bit with blue light.
*Click Click
Donning his goggles which had appeared besides him at some point in time, Ester didn't give less of a damn on where the goggles had come from, just that they were there, and they were useful.
Instantly blocking out most of the bright light hindering his vision when he put them on, Ester clicked on the Glyph Scribe and recalled what it was that he wanted
*Click Click
Since he still wanted to keep the locator function without dying, Restraint and Focus were the ideal ward zones.
One to keep him from dying, the other to keep the locator function. Enhancement sub zones for good measure.
The tip of the scribe flickered as it scraped against the shell lifelessly.
'Well that's not ideal.'
*Click Click Click click click
Testing the Glyph scribe with a series of quick clicks, Ester unhesitatingly pulled at his Inner Aether after the fifth click, the Glyph Scribe relighting with a distinct grey.
'And this hurts a lot.'
Ester felt his flesh strain against his skeleton as the Inner Aether was torn away from his blood and muscle.
*Click Thump
Swiftly correcting the glyph which was about to unravel with the loss of Aether Flowing into it, Ester watched as the blue color was dyed a distinctive grey.
Like sewage waste in a pond of water, it spread across the entire surface of the shell without a second to waste.
'I guess I now know what happens when you mix Inner Aether and Condensed Aether'
Ripping out the Inner Aether rather crucial in making sure a person stayed free of sickness to test out something wasn't the best of ideas when you were surrounded by things that could give you sickness just by breathing wrong.
Respirators have been a thing since the conception of a planetary trash bin after all.
*Thump click.
At some point in time, the sound of the Glyph Scribe's clicks had merged with the sound of his own heartbeat as he drew out more and more of his Inner Aether, his heart beating rapidly as he pulled out more and more.
It was painful as the capillaries unable to withstand the rough tearing of Inner Aether from his system caused blood to bloat in his mouth.
He was far to engrossed to back out now.
*Click click(?)
Blue light filled the Glyph scribe once more, the grey light of inner Aether being forcefully stopped by the power of an Aether crystal
Someone replaced the Aether crystal and he had a clue as to who.
But if he stopped now to say thanks to a certain legless woman, the Ward scheme already flickering dangerously would break through and kill them all.
So as to show his thanks, Ester reinforced the seal and continued to modify the Gravity core which was reacting incredibly unstable now that the Stability glyph was gone.
Which reminded him, he should probably make another Ward scheme with that as the base.
*Click click
The sub zones on the Ward scheme grew more and more densely packed to the point of all the colors seemingly merged together to give the illusion of a colorful petal unfurling to reveal a gravity core.
He should probably speed up the Glyphing.
Restraint. Enhancement. Unbreaking. Swiftness. Lightness. Heaviness. Reversal. Timing. Focus. Search. Transfer. Hardness.
Glyph after glyph was stuffed into sub zone after sub zone, the Forces directing them to not interfere with each other as the Ward zone took three shapes around the core.
It wasn't easy to do that all the while trying to keep the Gravity core from killing them.
*Click Click Click Thump
The blue light winked out of existence right before a grey light moved in to supplement it.
The flower made from three petals instantly gained another color to its petals, the color storm grey being added to the already existing colors of Ash grey and ocean blue.
Flowing like the currents in a sea as the colors melded together into one seemingly solid block, Ester felt his vision blur red over his already yellow tinted goggles.
*Thump Thump
He felt his heartbeat thunder against his eardrums, the last fragment of ash, storm and Aether mixing together to close up the flower.
Time reversed as the petals closed around its stable core.
'Wow.'
Ester let out a disbelieving laugh.
'That was insane.'
It was the last though he had before falling into unconsciousness
+++
Tree that wants to prune their leaves without the threat of decapitation