"Get off your grounded backsides and help me!" our superior called out as the measuring tools of our station went haywire. There had been fluctuations before, sure, but none like this. What made this one odd was how the data was so focused. Normally it was spread about but this one clearly highlighted something.
"Any bets as to what it is?" one of my colleagues asked while I focused on making sure nothing broke. Eternally long sheets of paper just flying out of the machine as I did so. Unfortunately, it was also an unavoidable circumstance that we would damage some of it. There was just so much coming out at once!
If I was on my own then I might have been laughing maniacally at it all. Pure joy and intellectual ecstasy keeping me going as everything fell apart. But, I was not on my own, much to my disappointment. I was stuck in a team that operated on a somewhat strict shift system.
"HEY! Ea'enk!" someone shouted at me. And with this sudden understanding that I was being spoken to. My body sharply turned around and my neck snapped towards the speaker. Paper piling up around me as I stood idly about.
"Get the Spire-Lords on the line, they're going to want to know about this!" someone instructed me as they covered the bottom end of a landline. Then, with a frustrated huff, I kicked the paper out of my way, tearing some of it. But, I was out the room before I could be complained at and I was soon dashing to the communications room. Why I was going there, though, was a mystery.
I wasn't some new inductee or apprentice on his first day! I was a veteran of this facility! Two years I had worked here and I was being asked to use the telephone... What a load of rubbish, a complete waste of my talents!
Yet, despite my complaints and annoyance, here I now was, in a busy room. One filled to the brim of panicking people going back and forth. Thankfully, however, the landlines to the Spire-Lords were in a sound-proofed room as to not disturb them. So I slipped the keys into my hand, and I opened it up.
"One day, oh one day." I sighed with relief as it became quiet the moment I closed the door. The glass panel shows off all the chaos of the next room... But letting in none of the noise! It was wonderful!
"Goldhand Comms Room Security Detail, state your purpose?" I received as an answer the moment I picked up the telephone.
"Magic Observation Station, Lord's Foresight, we have a worrying anomaly. Something is coming straight for us." I basically guessed as the glass gave me a good view of the presented data. It was very clearly outlining something like I saw earlier.
"This will be passed on, hold." I was then told before I heard a thud come through my telephone's speaker. Their phone had been put down, but it wasn't off as it were. As such, I got to listen in on all the talk on their side. Which was briefly entertaining before it got picked up again.
And the voice that came through certainly made me tighten up my posture, "Spire-Lord Iishar Ho, explain what you see."
It was her, the one who had her fingers in every single bit of our magic research and industry. One might have thought she founded all of this, but no, she just took it all over. With surprising zeal, one might add. But, my thoughts had no room for these thoughts, they needed data!
"A flying object operating at a height well beyond what our aircraft are capable of, measuring several dozen meters in either width or length is fastly approaching us. There was also a very brief period of it having a much greater signature on its right side." I explained to her only to be met with silence and a thudding phone.
"Drop a few floors down." I then cursed her with as I put the beeping telephone down. Mumbling to myself as I left the room and went back to my department. Groaning some more when I got back as all the data had been neatly piled up and tidied. Not one single roll of it left for me to peruse before we presented it...
"Well?" my superior asked me as he charged down the stairs. His body nearly flying off of them and into me in the process. And as I leaned away from his face, I sneered slightly.
"I informed the goldhands, Spire-Lord Iishar Ho was then informed as well." I told him to which he started nodding over and over again.
"Right, so that means she is now likely on her way. Possibly with the others who are more military minded." he said as he tapped his knuckles into one of his palms. A clear nervousness was displayed before he then sped back up the stairs. And, with a roll of my eyes, I went up and followed him. Because despite my recent task of absurd unimportance, I was one of the higher-ranked people here.
And it still made me excited to think about that! From grounder to a high-ranked scientist in a top-secret facility at the edge of the Civil Mountains in just a few decades! Truly a worthwhile position to have reached! So long as I avoid my higher-floor superiors who love to rub it in how lesser I was...
"So what is the theory you lot have?" I then asked just to see what they came up with. I did after all offer only my own assumptions to the Spire-Lord. I wasn't handed an official consensus and likely because of the urgency. But I wish I did get one, now if this proves to be a flook it is my head on the patio!
"An aircraft from beyond the Anvil-Peak." he informed me before he threw a paper plane at a bin.
"What kind?"
"As in purpose such as military or civilian or type as in helicopter or plane?"
"Either or, really." I clarified before sitting down in front of his balls. Picking one up so I could roll it about my palms while he leaned back in his chair.
"If prior handlings by the Spire-Lord Iishar Ho are anything to go by. Civilian and possibly a freighter of some kind? It's hard to tell as we only get rumours of the stuff these people have beyond the mountain."
I scoffed, "Beyond the mountain."
"What?"
"That mountain happens to be one of the greatest discoveries we have ever made and you refer to it as just some mountain? It's the Anvil-Peak! As in; the mountain Thurnmourer used to build the world!" I exclaim while flicking my jagged fingers about.
"Still a mountain..." he mumbled before he stared at the red landline on his desk.
"I doubt she will give you a heads up, she never does." I tell him as he was likely worrying about her arrival. Every visit from her was always so petty yet stressful. She might not come for anything at all but she still gave us a strict rundown on workplace ethics. Which, was a bit rich coming from someone whose average dinner was a grand feast on gold furniture.
Served on gold cutlery made from the gold around the Anvil-Peak...
"I'm more worried about the little pet project she has linked us to."
"Project Gladiator?" I said without missing a beat. I mean, it was pretty obvious it was that. She comes back one day, not with a new test subject to put in the outer farmlands. But rather, she comes back with a menagerie of different species to test the combat capabilities of. And despite being an observation facility for measuring the Anvil-Peak...
We were now being used as a backup facility for the main Project Gladiator facility...
"Believe it or not, no, not Project Gladiator. Project Fire Trail."
"Ah, that little sub-division of Gladiator." I said while nodding my head as I remembered that time she came in pissed. I remember it more so because of that admittedly. Rather than the more concerning fact that our power supply was converted into a potential natural disaster! She had us hook up a draconic being so it can be used as an electricity source!
Sure, the edge of the Civil Mountains was the best place to test it! But nearly all of our budget now went towards that damn thing! It burned through our power cables absurdly quickly. So quick that research and development can't even give us decent prototypes in time!
"And now that we have this being picked up, we're likely to be dumped with even more work." my superior moaned as he collapsed down into a sighing wreck.
"If you just put your foot down and admitted that we would need new facilities, this wouldn't be a problem."
"Do you perhaps want my job then? You can look her straight in the eye and tell her no! You can look that magic addict in the face and tell her she needs to be patient!"
"Oh, if you're offering. I would love to delegate all the menial tasks away from myself." I said with a smirk as I imagined the change in work. So much time for research and observation, no little tasks like coffee fetching.
"Of course you would." he said to me with a groan before he looked at a clipboard. One that he soon slid over to me once I put his ball down. And going by how he then picked it up himself, he might as well just taken it from my hand...
"Why'd you hand me something from Project Gladiator?"
"So I can get at least some sympathy."
"Why would you need sympathy? All it is, is that we're running out of test subjects." I said with a shrug.
"Yes, but with so few deals taking place now. She doesn't like to be reminded that her little weapons project is not doing so well."
"You say that but she keeps bringing it up as if it will suddenly get better."
"That's the point!" he exclaimed in frustration.