*Tik tik tak tak tak tak
The sound of the Runeboard's keys being pushed rang out loudly in the relatively silent Driller, only the sound of quiet breathing and the hiss of air being its accompaniment.
*Ker chunk
The Engine clunked over noisily marking the one minute mark.
Since the they had to make do with whatever the Dumpers dropped from orbit, the Engine currently held in place with hopes and dreams had a quirk where every ten seconds it ran, the axle deviated from its course and hit the side of the engine.
The engine side had to be replaced every other day when it ran otherwise the engine would fall apart at the seams.
And despite how often Ester liked making things out of whatever scrap he could get his hands on, remaking the engine for the one hundredth and seventeenth time wasn't exactly fun.
Lost in thought about how that weird prophetic dream seemed to have been tainted by an engine replacing the stars for some time, Eva interrupted his lost thoughts.
[Idiot.]
Looking up at the screen, Eva's eyes reflected the monitor screen filled to the brim with lines of code, her fingers pausing in place for a brief moment before they returned to tapping the Rune board in front of her.
"..." Ester opened his mouth to retort only to find that no words brave enough to climb out of his mouth.
Unwillingly closing his mouth as he stared at what she was doing, Eva tapped out the last few lines of Rune code on the cracked and barely functioning screen, its green light flickering ominously as she leaned back and let the machine do its thing.
Reading the Cipher that Eva had just finished writing in Rune code, the computer buzzed to life as it began struggling to do what it had just been told.
It was like watching an old man try to lug a whole tree by their lonesome on a long dirt road, except in this case the Old man was a beat up computer dropped from orbit and the tree was a clump of Data stuffed into a small chip with the long dirt road being the wire connecting the two.
Besides the microchip currently plugged into a clunky card reader, everything else was old as balls and probably had a few hours of use left before they self destructed.
After a few moments wait as the Old man struggled along the old dirt road, the Data finally got to the screen and Eva raised an eyebrow, her thoughts being converted into words spoken out of her speaker.
[Well that's interesting.]
"What is? Is it a Virus?" Angling his head to look at the screen, despite how fluent he was in the world of Glyphs, the world of Runes was a whole different world that gave him a headache everytime he tried to pick it up.
Especially since Runes quite literally messed with his head.
Feeling his right arm twitch, Eva tapped at the Runeboard a few more times and caused the screen to flicker for a few moments as the Aged system brought up more information.
[Nope.] The screen flickered once more as portions of it suddenly turned off and on, a flat image with a set of points planted on its surface.
[It's a map.]
"Wait really?" Looking up at the screen, Ester tilted his head. "It's a bit hard to make out from down here."
Eva glanced down at her seat [Is that a plea to get up?]
"Yes." Nodding his head unabashedly, Eva snorted before grabbing his back and hoisting herself to her actual chair.
[Fine, you've been my chair long enough for me to forgive you.] Eva settled herself into the chair cushioned with several shirts and pants boiled to cleanliness before poking at the rising Ester.
[Besides, only an idiot would tell their Friend that they were going to die to a Corrupted before going off to kill said corrupted and making the Friend worry for an hour while the idiot in question is having the time of their life scavenging the Corrupted's stuff.]
"Thank the Architects that I'm not that idiot." Ester groaned sarcastically, rolling his arms and rubbing his sore knees. "You were very heavy by the way."
[Do you want to be my chair while I figure out where this map leads?] Eva shot back as she brought the rune board near her. [For all your faults, you make a very good chair.]
"I'm sorry."
Rolling her eyes at Ester's immediate surrender, Eva's fingers danced across the Rune board, lines upon lines of Runes connecting together to form a Cipher meant to decode the numerous points on the map of unknown origin.
You couldn't exactly use a map if you didn't know where it was from after all. For all they knew, the map might've been from a part of the universe that was Nowhere near their not so little trash planet.
Allowing the Cipher to execute its written commands, Eva's eyes narrowed slightly as the screen flickered a multitude of times, the poor old computer chuckling as its hardware buckled underneath the weight of time.
"I'm no Channeler, but pretty sure that's not s'posed to happen." Ester pointed out, his mind wondering what parts he needed to keep the old thing going.
That is, until Eva pinched his fleshy shoulder.
[Hey Ester.]
"Yeah?" Resisting the urge to pinch Eva back, he glanced curiously at her and frowned at her strangely serious look.
[Where did you say you got this chip?]
"...A corrupted's body." He glanced at the chuffing machine now choking with tufts of smoke. "Why do you ask?"
[Hmm...] Eva's fingers danced across the board as the computer screen flashed with what didn't seem like a simple hardware failure [Do you mind taking out the chip before it destroys the card reader as well?]
"I- What?" Blinking in confusion, Eva rolled her eyes as she continued to type in Rune after rune.
[Card reader]
"Oh yeah." Snapping out of his revery, Ester's arm shot out to the card reader and slapped the ejection button, frowning when the ever reliable card reader failed to do so.
Old as it was, Ester was more than skilled enough to keep the more mechanical portions of it functional.
'Something definitely wrong is going on.'
Slapping his right hand and pulling out the blade, without a moment to waste, Ester began to carve out the side of the Card reader, exposing the chip which was flickering with the blue light
'And that's definitely something going wrong as we speak.'
Reaching into the Card reader and prying it out with his pair of fleshy fingers, Ester probably should've expected it seeing as the Microchip was flickering with blue light, but he was all the more surprised when it shocked his hands.
"Ouch!" Yelping and letting go of the chip, it was only with some quick thinking that he caught the chip with his other hand. The one that was unaffected by the qualms his fleshy one seemed to suffer daily from.
What he didn't expect again was the fact that he felt his metallic hand instantly lose function around his fingers.
'What in the Void?!' Widening his eyes in surprise as his entire arm locked up and the chip flashed with a brighter light, he flinched when a gust of flame suddenly sprouted from the Aged computer, something that sounded akin to a laugh leaving as it crackled with fire.
[Ester!] Eva shouted with surprise, her hands instinctively bringing the Runeboard close to her chest as the Computer screen crackled from the heat. [The Watchamacallit!]
"What the hell's the Watchamacallit!?"
[That thing we use to-!] Eva moved the rest of the delicate wiring away from the blazing computer as it laughed a bit louder. [-That thing we use to seal up the breaches temporarily!]
"Ah that watchamacallit!" Ester realized.
Going as high as her speaker would go, she shouted at Ester, her patience as thin as it could be [Just get it already!]
"Got it!"
[Quickly!] Acting as if she had Rotlings biting into her skin that very second, Eva all but grabbed the Seal foam from Ester as he briefly sprayed the crackling computer laughing as it reached the end of its lifetime.
Coating the computer in a yellowish foam the same color as the flickering ceiling lights, Ester glanced at Eva before glancing at his arm still frozen around the microchip.
Coughing into his hand, he placed the Seal Foam canister besides the trapped computer still letting out quiet laughter from within the foam and stared at Eva who stared back.
"...Do you know what just happened?"
[Maybe?]
Eva stared at his right hand, her hands gesturing for a touch. [Do you mind giving it to me?]
"Kinda?" Ester shrugged his shoulders. "As much as I want to do that, my entire arm seems to have locked up when I picked this thing up"
He shook his arm for further emphasis.
Eva somehow frowned with her eyes before shrugging her shoulders as if it was a matter of course. [Well that makes sense.]
She poked his shoulder [That thing's trying to use your Aether to self destruct after all.]
Ester froze.
[Yeah, that flashing thing its doing while your arm locks up? That's it siphoning the Aether in your arm to try and destroy itself.]
She poked his arm, the one not holding a literal bomb in its hands. [It failed though, and I don't think its going to blow up anytime soon]
"...And you only thought to tell me when I already held it in my hands?" Ester frowned as he stared at the ticking time bomb in his right hand.
Eva gestured at the computer slowly dying within its little coffin. [It's very hard to warn you about possible explosions when there's one right about to happen in front of my face.]
"It's not like you'll be losing much if it explodes in your face." Ester poked her metallic cheek. "Unlike your set of speakers, it's really hard to get replacement hands with enough range of motion to still be used during Warding."
She slapped his hand away from her face with a scowl. [I would bite you if I had a mouth]
"But you don't, so case closed."
[I can hide your battery collection.]
"I am very sorry Miss Eva."
Snorting at how easily Ester seemed to surrender when it came to these stupid little threats, Ester looked up with a face full of seriousness.
"Pivoting back to the topic at my hand though, why is it trying to self destruct? And how is it doing that for that matter?"
Eva shrugged her shoulders. [I can't help you on the How part of your question, but I can answer your why.]
"Hit me."
[Gladly]
"...You know I didn't mean it like that." Ester said while trying to figure out how to rub his shoulder when his other hand was currently locked in place.
He settled for rolling it.
[Anyways. The reason as to why its trying to self destruct is because its a military chip.]
Ester blinked
[Before you ask, yes, you did hear that correctly, and no, I did not make that up.]
Eva pointed at the little coffin. [Before the computer died from what I think is to much Aether frying the wiring, I was able to read some stuff that the Cipher decoded for us]
[It's something military. And one of the points it had on the map it showed is surprisingly near us.]
She gestured to the wheel and lever controlling the Driller.
[So. Ready to find out what the mystery place is?]
+++
So I've finally puzzled out what I want my schedule to be and it'll have the chapters always posted on 22:00 (GMT+7) on the dot
If I somehow forget to schedule a draft for the day, then you my readers shall be receiving 2 chapters instead of the usual one... Maybe 3 if I miss it again.
The amount of chapters per week will usually be somewhere around 4-5 each with roughly 2000 words (Might go on for more if I suddenly decide to torture myself)
Don't expect many chapters during the weekends though, this tree right here has a horrible habit of putting off things until its to late.
Also Happy Halloween??? Somehow the entirety of Oct 31st passed without my dumb root remembering Halloween was a thing
Tree