Nowhere To Go But Up

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A month went by in the blink of an eye. Magolor prepared what little he could for the invasion, Marx was seen in public at least ten times, and nothing else that related to Magolor's past seemed to surface. It troubled him, so he decided to quickly check one thing before the planet was mechanized. The security footage of the Lor from the night he ran away.

For some reason, the Lor only had eyes on the main room and Captain's Quarters. On the night Magolor ran away, he was on his laptop, talking to Taranza over a messaging app. At this point, he was in the Captain's Quarters. A strange scratching sound was heard from another room. Then, he got up and left the room. The next time he appeared on screen, he was in the main room with a worried look on his face. In addition to that, he was holding a crate. Was I the one who took the crate out of the Lor? Why? In the next moment, a light flashed from the monitor. The footage didn't show what was on it, but judging from Magolor's own memory of the event, it had to be the scan that revealed the fragment, date and all. After an argument ensued for the next few minutes, Magolor was rushing out the door with the crate. From this angle, it looked like there was something hanging out of it. "Lor, could you enhance this frame, please?" She obliged. Magolor was slightly taken aback by what it was. A metal wire, hanging out of the crate.

There's so much about this that I don't understand. Why did I take the crate? When did the wire get there? If I took the crate with me, why didn't I have it in the shop, or when Taranza found me? Where did I leave it? Magolor went back into the pantry to look at the crate. He looked at it from all sides, and saw a message written in black marker.

Not everything is as it seems. Take this crate outside and more will be revealed.

Of course! The same handwriting! Why didn't I remember this sooner? But then... He checked the rest of the feed. Nothing at all until the next day. Huh? What? The writer should have appeared on camera. When did they get on? When did they get off? Did they get off at all? They must have. They created that bookshelf puzzle, attacked Marx, wrote the extra page in the book... the author was in the crate! "Captain! They're here!" I'll worry more about the author later. This is important.

Magolor rushed out of the door and saw that his surroundings were still mostly normal. For now, anyway. He tried to get out of the forest as fast as possible, to get an accurate picture of what was happening outside of it. The earring was in, and turned on. He was about halfway out of the woods when he heard someone breathing heavily. It sounded like Taranza. As he came into view, he looked like he was unwell somehow. His movements were staggered, his eyes were half-closed, and he was coughing like he'd recently inhaled some of the emissions from Egg Engines straight from the source. "Hey! Taranza! What happened? Are you alright?" Magolor dashed to his side.

"Mag...or... hel...p..." Taranza squeezed out those words before his strength left him and he fell into the dirt.

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Taranza opened his eyes. He vaguely recognized this room, though he hadn't been here very often. It looked to be the study in the Lor Starcutter. That was a relief. It looked like Magolor did end up helping him. There was a throbbing pain in his head, he was short on breath, he felt cold all over, and his body felt much heavier than usual. The only silver linings were getting to spend time with Magolor, and whatever that pleasant smell in the air was. He shifted on the couch he lay on to be able to see out the door better, and didn't see anyone. He tried to call out for Magolor to get here, but his voice wouldn't work.

As he tried to settle back down to his sleeping position, the sound of the front door opening reached his ears. "Lor! What's the timer on the soup?" That was Magolor.

"You got back with two minutes to spare."

"Okay!" a few metallic sounds, and then a noise like something was being stirred rang out. A few seconds later, Magolor appeared in the doorway. "Oh, you're awake! Are you feeling any better?"

Taranza tried to reply, but all that escaped was a croak.

"Oh no. That's not good. I'll be right back, okay?" He smiled and nodded before leaving. He got back a few minutes later, carrying a plate with a bowl of soup on top of it. There were crackers on the plate next to the bowl. "Here. I made your favourite kind of soup. I heard that it's a good thing to have when you're sick." He set the plate on the table.

Taranza moved into a sitting position and picked up the spoon. He put a spoonful of soup into his mouth. It was delicious. He tried to speak again, but it still didn't work. He tried whispering instead. "Thank you. It's very good."

Hearing that seemed to make Magolor happier than Taranza thought it would. "I'm glad you can at least whisper. Do you mind if I ask you what's going on? Or do you want me to let you finish the soup first?"

"I'd like to eat first."

"That's fine. I'll be here if you need anything."

Fifteen minutes later, Taranza put the spoon back into the now-empty bowl. "It came very suddenly. I was outside in the garden when they showed up and started blasting the castle, and the ground was turning into metal, so I panicked and went to the woods. For whatever reason, this place was unaffected by the mechanization."

Magolor closed his eyes for a few seconds. "Oh good, it worked."

"You did something?"

"Yes. You know how sometimes you'll read stories about forest fires, and the way they contain it is by setting smaller, more controlled fires around it? They do that because fire can't burn something that's already burnt. If the fire has nowhere to go, eventually, it'll burn out. This is the same kind of thing. Using the technology that I stole from them a while back, I set up a sort of barrier around here to make sure it stays safe." It was easy to tell when Magolor was really getting into something, and it usually happened whenever he got into an explanation like this. Taranza tried to think of what his thoughts on this behavior was, and the only word that came to mind was "endearing".

"Well, I'm glad it's safe here. That's a small comfort." Taranza wrapped the blanket he was formerly under back around himself.

"Anyway, how long have you been sick for? It seems really bad." Magolor moved closer to him, presumably to hear him better.

"It hit me after I got into the forest. If I had to guess, I'd say it has something to do with the core."

"What core?"

"It's this thing in Floralia, hidden somewhere among the islands, that protects the land from various threats. The Haltmanns will need to find and destroy it if they want to mechanize Floralia, but for now the attack seems to be having adverse effects on me."

"Why would it do that?"

"It absorbs the negative energy that comes from violence, for the same of keeping everyone safe, but has to divert it somewhere in order to not get corrupted itself. It's the duty of the sovereign to take the brunt of that."

"But you aren't a sovereign!"

"Technically, I was. And it seems that the People of the Sky neglected to make it clear to the core that I... resigned."

"Do you know where it is?"

"I believe so. It's in what I believe to be the most secure and hidden place in the entire nation. Although, I am still worried. If the core is destroyed, the islands will fall out of the sky and kill everyone on them."

Magolor looked like he was mulling something over. "How many people know where it is?"

"The People of the Sky, whoever the current sovereign is, their advisor if they have one, and probably me." Taranza couldn't help but notice how troubled Magolor seemed, like he usually did when he sensed an unpleasant predicament coming.

"Do you want some more soup?"

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LOG 624

The planet has been invaded by the Haltmann Works Company. More importantly, the laws of Floralia make absolutely no sense and are run by complete idiots.