In the Universe created by the Architects, everything had an influence on something else.
Whether they be the smallest of small or the largest of the large, an unseen link connected them all to each other.
A collection of termites may gnaw at the wood of a house, unknowingly weakening its supports before its eventual collapse, burying the renter.
The Owner who may have had a job as a janitor in some prestigious academy, causing a puddle which should've been cleaned up last night to stay where it was.
A puddle which a student slipped on whilst entering the school, injuring their spine.
A student that had parents connected to a famous Enterprise who gave the school a debt that they could barely recover from.
A debt that forced the school to relinquish most of its facilities and supplies, some of said supplies being incredibly dangerous ones that needed careful handling.
A bunch of dangerous supplies that didn't receive careful handling and created a complex chain of events
A complex chain of events that rendered the planet a husk of its former self, disconnected from the Weave of Aether and with no other use than being a garbage can for the neighboring galaxies.
And to think all of these events happened just because a landlord got stingy on the pesticide program and allowed some Termites to gnaw at the wood.
But anyways, the moral of the story here is that the Architects have declared that everything has a cause and an effect that, no matter how small, could affect a whole world if nudged the right way.
Ester had a cause, now he was going to see if he nudged his effect the right way.
It was a couple hours since he had returned from his Scav'ing, and since then he was engrossed with his pet project.
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 a hand pulled out an Aether Node.
And right now, his only other distraction was preoccupied with leeching the pocket of water that they happened upon so that they both stayed hydrated and didn't have their engine spontaneously combust.
Last time that had happened, Ester was barely able to salvage the engine with Eva's help with what little glyphical knowledge they had.
Eva's legs however...
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.
Pulling at his arm, a small iron key appeared which he held up
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
Scanning of the key and reveal of the two Aether crystals kept there, 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 this"
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, and despite having made the thing, Ester wasn't a 100% sure he could make it without mistake.
Some of it might be replaceable, but the final piece he had looted from the Escape Drone?
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.
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.
'How in the Void is she so calm?'
Glancing at the engine room which continued to hiss with steam as the nearby body of water was being leeched for something, he heard Eva's crackled curse followed by something breaking.
'...Architects above she's special.'
*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.
Barely giving the blocky box like glyph another glance before he began to form another one, tiny lines as thin as his hairs began to form on its surface within the Ward zone.
'Sub zone one through four... complete.'
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
'A gravitator is a crucial spacefaring tool made from Graviton's, a material harvested from black holes' Ester recalled the knowledge he had gleaned from that old man.
*Click Click
'Because of the material that it's made of, it's incredibly sensitive to celestial bodies other than the black holes that they have originated from.'
*Click Click
'A ward zone of Restraint made up several sub zones of enhancement will be able to restrain the charge of an Ergul.' Ester briefly allowed his mind to wander towards the Boulder like beings covered in sharp shards of scrap and plastic.
*Thump Thump.
He hurriedly returned to what he was doing
*Click Click
Now that the protective measures were in place, it was now time for the Glyph Scribe to be disconnected from the battery and for the Aether Welder to begin using its other function.
*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
*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.
*VWOOMP
Ester was barely able to catch the connecting wire in time before the Aether Welder was shredded beyond recognition.
'Now it's crunch time.' Ester instinctively ripped apart what remained of the Welder in his hands and reconnected the Scribe as the Restraint Scheme flashed with bright 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
The light from the Glyph Scribe died out at that moment.
*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.
He felt something strain against his chest, but right now, he was to engrossed to care.
*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.
*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.
But Ester was far to engrossed to care.
*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.
He wouldn't hesitate just because of that however.
*Click click
The entire surface of the Glyph scheme appeared to have merged into one solid shell as sub zone after subzone was being Scribed onto whatever empty space Ester could get his eyes on.
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.
*Click Click Click Thump
The blue light winked out of existence right before a grey light moved in to supplement it.
The already grey shell mixed with this new grey, the blue intersped in between as if preparing for the inevitable fight to begin.
But instead of competing for dominance like the blue light had expected, the grey light embraced each other as if long time friends and began to work together.
Flowing into each and every corner of the grey shell, the first ward zone formed which was nearly breaking apart was reinforced and enhanced.
Reinforce. Enhancement
*Thump Thump
Ester felt his heartbeat thunder in his ears as the coolness pressing down on his head slowly faltered against his growing excitement
Eyes wide as they took in every permutation of the glyphs layered on top of each other, red briefly dyed his vision as something began to dribble out of his mouth.
Metallic hand holding the glyph scribe as his other hand began to shake, Ester drew out the last of his Inner Aether and pressed it against the Gravitator's open shell.
Flower of death and steel closing up by command, Ester felt an unprecedented relief, weakness and disbelief pass through his mind all at once.
'Wow.'
Ester stared at the closer flower.
'We finally did it.'
Finally.
After many long years grueling away in this Hell hole, Finally.
They had taken their first steps in escaping this damned place.
The path to get out has been charted.
'Thank the architects.'
Grinning foolishly, Ester's eyes rolled up to the back of his head as he slumped against his chair, exhausted, entirely unaware of the woman who had done the same.
+++
Tree that wants to prune their leaves without the threat of decapitation