The ways to leave a trash planet were many.
If you added that you had to be alive when you left the planet, the number of options dropped drastically.
Especially since most of said options included waiting for the planet to self implode from all the trash finally breaking against the numerous layers separating the core from the surface.
You couldn't exactly call it a planet when there was absolutely no planet to even talk about.
And to put it bluntly, if the planet implodes on its own weight, they were probably dead.
So lo and behold. The main requirements for it to be even considered a planetary escape plan was one thing and one thing only.
To Survive.
Something that was rather difficult to achieve when everything and their mother wanted to kill you.
Hells, even the Aether meant to keep their bodies clean of disease was so polluted that to keep it from stagnating into corrupted Aether they had to cycle it before it had the chance.
And even then it was a stop gap.
It was always fun trying to move something as thick as sludge from within their bodies when it had the ability to make you cough out a lung or something akin to it if you moved it funny.
It was especially fun when you didn't move the Contaminated Aether within your body and let it turn corrupt.
Guess who was dying a horrible and gruesome death as their biology was warped in impossible and mostly definitely fatal ways?
And guess again who was forced to feel every second of it as some sort of twisted second mind forced you to kill anything that moved?
The Aetheric Principles behind the formation of such a twisted and bloodthirsty second mind wasn't exactly explained to Ester.
But then again, it was a miracle that he even knew this much since no one was willing to teach the why to this question when most were still trying to survive the question itself. Nevertheless to a child.
All he had to learn from was one very cranky old man and some books that had miraculously survived the fall.
Anyways, back to why he was talking about how important moving the Inner Aether in your body was so as to not turn into some sort of demented creature?
Well, look no further than right behind him
Ester held up a fragment of glass to stare at the Corrupted right behind him.
Looking all the part of some sort of demented person high off their rocker on some sort of drugs, he knew that twitching visage was highly deceiving.
Especially since it turned to look in Ester's direction.
Through the shard of glass he held in his hands, he was able to take a glimpse of their face or lack thereof.
A Gaping hole where a face would normally be, the swirling hole of black seemed to suck him in the longer that he stared at it.
'It quite literally sucked something in now that I think about it.'
Recalling the horrified face of a Klatul as it tried to fly away from that blackhole of a mouth only to turn into stretched metal feathers when it did, Ester grimaced and continued to look at the glass for any way past the twitching Corrupted.
Now as to why he was still staying besides the Corrupted instead of getting the hell out of there as any normal person would've when given the chance?
Well it had something to do with the not so small piece of equipment he needed to complete the way off this literal dump called a Space Flight Module.
You couldn't exactly get off this rock without making a hundred dozen calculations to make sure you didn't crash and burn in a horrible manner after all.
But were there safer ways to get the thing the Space Flight module he needed? Yes
Would it take a stupidly long time and a lot more resources than he was comfortable with? Also Yes
So... Here he was trying to get a Space Flight Module guarded by a bloody Corrupted of all things.
'And why in the Thirteen Architects is there a bloody Corrupted of all the things to be underground?'
Cursing at the idiot who had let their Inner Aether stagnate for far to long, Ester continued to look in the barely visible reflection of the glass he held in his hand, the Respirator functioning at its lowest settings possible.
'So whoever got corrupted definitely lived here...'
Noting the numerous fragments of torn clothing pointing to some sort of tents being erected here, all of said tents having shown signs of people hurriedly escaping them. Abandoning even their Frames.
'Maybe... three to four people? Don't know how many survived seeing as there's no bodies...'
Ester glanced at the Corrupted and recalled the visage of the one Klatul trying and failing to escape the deadly sucker of its mouth.
'...Not that it would've left any bodies now I think of it, but if there's one Klatul, there's usually more.'
Ester frowned.
'Did she self induce corruption?'
Looking at the ground littered with the distinct marks of a Klatuls steel feathers dragging and cutting at the ground, it seemed as if they were attacked by a rather large murder of Klatuls and were caught off guard.
And as valuable as Klatul Feathers were, the beings that grew them were also incredibly dangerous with their strong jaws able to bite through Hyper Steel and their strong pack bonds.
Then after they were ambushed by the Murder of deceptively silent Kiwi descendants, with most of their party injured as evidenced by the blood stains on the ground, one of the people there said Fuck All and Corrupted themself in a last ditch effort to ward off the Klatuls.
They were probably betting on their mind being strong enough to fight against the murderous second mind as they utilized their newfound Corrupt strength to slaughter the invading Murder of Klatuls.
The problem was that the process of transformation probably shocked their mind into a coma and allowed the Second mind to murder everything around it.
That everything around it including their previous party members.
It was just a theory, but the more that he thought about it, the more Ester realized that this was most probably the case.
'So that means that outside of the there's nothing stopping me from taking the Space Flight module.'
With the Klatuls no doubt scaring anything bigger than a head, leaving aside the insane bunch of Rotlings and Scraplings that even the Klatuls were afraid of, there were no more threats.
'No more threats aside from the Corrupted.'
Ester would be lying through his teeth if he said that he wasn't interested.
Biting his lip underneath his mask, he glanced at the Corrupted still twitching in his general direction.
'...I'm probably insane for doing this' Ester subtly massaged his legs 'But if I was sane, I wouldn't be trying to escape this Architect forsaken planet.'
Glancing at the Corrupted one last time through the piece of glass and confirming that it hadn't moved an inch from where it had started, Ester picked up a small pebble.
Said pebble was made of... something that felt like industrial grade plastic, so it should be effective in making some sound.
Rolling his left hand while his right hand kept the glass steady, when he threw the pebble and let it clatter against the ground, he saw through the glass as the Corrupted turned towards the sound.
He instantly leapt forwards as silently as he could.
Dodging behind one of the many set up tents, Ester was glad that despite how quickly they seemed to have run, the tents hadn't collapsed.
Carefully unfurling the glass to take a look past the corner, Ester's eyes stayed narrowed as he stared at the Corrupted walking back to where it first was.
'Well that would've been bad.'
Feeling thankful for his choice to stay patient knowing that it had just saved his life, Ester threw another pebble in that same instant and watched as the Corrupted turned to look that way.
'That weird second mind is still dumb as a rock though.'
Dodging behind the next set of tents and repeating the series of events twice more, eventually, Ester found himself hiding behind the tent where these people seemed to have kept all of their scav goods for trading.
Peeking past the tent to see if the Corrupted was still looking away, he grinned before lifting the tent flap and sneaking in.
'...This is the easiest heist I've ever been in. And by the looks of it, it seemed that these guys hit the motherload.'
Eyes wide as he took in everything around him, even putting aside the fact they somehow found an intact enough Space flight module that could be detected by the modified Gravitator, there were nearly a dozen different things that would've elicited Ester to instantly try and rob them.
'Is that a bloody Fabricator? Oh! And is that a growth pod? And that! Isn't that an untouched set of Rapair tools!?'
Fingers twitching as he stared at all of these devices, Ester oh so wanted to take them all but alas, for the sake of speed, he had opted out of bringing the Collector with him.
'Fucking damnit. You stupid rock.'
Nearly slapping his head before realizing that would create some noise, Ester instead settled for twisting his flesh and causing a small red welt to form.
'At the least the repair kit is somewhat small.'
Snatching the Repair kit from its place atop a box, Ester swiftly stuffed it into his pockets before looking around.
'Now then, where the Void is that Module? I know I saw it...'
A lightbulb flashed in his mind.
'Since I saw the Space Flight Module from outside the camp, then that means the module is at the entrance from where I could see'
An entrance with a direct line of sight with the Corrupted.
'Of course its never that easy.'
Briefly rubbing his forehead, Ester froze in place as he felt a presence from beyond the series of boxes in his way, the sound of waves echoing into his ears.
It should've been impossible to hear the sound of waves this deep underground, but he had an inkling of an idea as to why he was hearing it now.
'The Corrupted.'
He didn't know how he knew that the Corrupted was beyond the box, but if he had to put it in words, it was as if a was he was suddenly plunged in ice cold water.
Intuition screamed at him that if he moved even a tiny bit and made some noise. He was dead. No way round it.
Sweat beaded on his forehead as dozens of thoughts crashed against his skull chaotically.
'How did it find me? Did it hear something? Why is it here? What do I do? Can Eva survive without me? Will I survive?'
After what felt like several hours but was in actuality just a few moments, Ester nearly let out a sigh of relief when the sound of waves left the vicinity of the boxes.
And after waiting a few more moments before he eventually built up the courage, Ester peeked his head over the boxes to grab the Space Flight module he had seen.
If only he didn't come face to face with the Corrupted staring right at him.
'...'
"..."
Ester swore that it made something akin to a grin before the sound of glass shattering entered his ears. Then he swore for real.
"FUCK!"
+++
Tree that wonders how people deal with A levels