Twisting and turning his body as he navigated the various poorly planned Alleyways of the city, he turned his head to the side towards the site of his destination.
And deserving of one of the many meant to shuttle in people from all walks of life towards Aetheric mines located in void zones or in this case Celestial Nodes, even in the wee light of the morning, people continued to shuttle in and out of the tower connected to two others.
Not that it mattered to Ester as he may not even see the next morning if he didn't hurry up with this stupid delivery. 'What even is this thing that I have to retrieve it and not one of the runners?'
Grumbling to himself, in favor of not dying he hurriedly weaved through the crowd towards the quaint little tower nestled between the commercial tower and the industrial tower.
'Well there's nothing quain- Shut up and do your job that isn't actually your job.' Slapping himself and hurriedly entering the tower's doors, the hands on the watch's face continued to tick down.
And within seconds to spare as the dawning sun's rays slowly entered the small windows on the store front, he shouted to the filled lobby attracting more than a few gazes "I'm here!"
But in favor of not dying early, Ester immediately locked onto the person whom he was supposed to meet, weaving through the bustling crowd hurriedly trying to put food on their plates.
Slamming the package on the front desk, a feminine face adjusted their glasses with tired eyes and glared at Ester just as a series of bells rang out in the city.
Six times to mark the sixth hour of the morning day, just in time to not die and allow him to tend to his pet project before doing the sacred duty of putting food on the plate.
"Ack!"
"You were nearly late." Bland voice admonishing him, Ester rubbed his forehead where a small rubber ball had struck it with unnerving accuracy, a blue glow suffusing the rubber.
"I made it though didn't I Emelia?"
Emilia only gave Ester an unamused look as he awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck with his left arm, the cool metal touching the back of his neck as he watched her retrieve the rubber ball that had rolled onto the ground with a basic telekinetic weave.
"Yes you did" Emelia drawled "But if you know the old man, unless you're five minutes early, you're late."
"Kid! Where are you!? Come out here you Blithering child!"
"Like that."
An angry and gruff voice exited from the darkness within the miners tower as a burly figure covered in layers upon layers of thick leather skins of voided swiftly appeared, large skull sized hammer in hand.
White hair drawn into a thick braid that hung loosely behind the man, a large face plate of carved metal with only a small slit covered in black glass to see through stared at Ester as he hurriedly bowed to the aging man past his sixties.
"I'm here!"
Showcasing the package with both arms, a small pair of silver metal arms attached to the mans back lifting up the metal face plate revealing a proper beard and irritated eyes beneath.
"And not a moment sooner, get over here now."
"Yes sir!"
Leaping over the desk much to Emelia's distaste but reluctant acceptance, he hurriedly made his way to the old man.
Until he suddenly threw the hammer at Ester's feet that is, causing him to yelp and hop up in place as the heavy headed piece of metal narrowly missed the fragile foot that had already been subject to several attempts of violence albeit none as damaging as the heavy hammer now heading towards it.
Thankfully, aim that held true aside, Ester had made it a daily occurrence to always put on steel capped shoes after hurting it during his first meeting with the senile old man.
"Boy, if you don't hurry the hell up, Void Architect below you will wish you were in the void."
Audibly gulping as the old man began lifting up one of the heftier items set to the side behind Emelia, the large package glinted dangerously underneath the lamp light, somehow.
Ignoring the fact that a package wrapped in wrapping paper was somehow glowing dangerously, Ester made quick work of the distance, immediately setting himself besides the old man who just as quickly threw the box down.
Only to be caught by a distraught Emelia who hurriedly wove a weave. "Hey! Don't damage our clients items!"
But ignoring it all like the senile old man he was, his footsteps hurriedly dragged his burly old body into the depths of the more official parts of the building unavailable to the general public.
And following him like a distraught little duckling was Ester carrying a package that may be much more important than he had initially thought.
"Old man! What did I tell you! Don't harass Ester!"
A storm of brown hair immediately entered his vision holding a large Warhammer over their shoulder as the figure revealed themselves before Ester and the Old Senile man with an anger management problem.
Frowning with a mixture of mirth and annoyance, the old man forcefully suppressed his agitation and spoke softly to the silver eyed woman.
"Eva, my lovely granddaughter, I need you to move out of the way, grandpa has important work that he needs to get to."
"And what does Ester have to do with this important work of yours?"
Frowning the old man opened his mouth only to instantly close it, falling into thought.
"Give the thingie to gramps Ester and follow me."
Black goggles shining underneath the lamp light, a bright grin was pasted onto her face as they donned a vest filled with several pockets filled to the brim with various trinkets, large cargo pants filled similarly to the brim.
That was Eva, oh Chaotic angel Eva.
"Oh thank God you're here Ev-AA!!!"Being hit on the head with a wooden stick pulled out from somewhere, Ester glared at Eva who mimicked her grandfather.
"You're late"
"Oh" Ester rubbed his forehead "It's been…" He sent a glance towards the clock embedded into his left arm.
"1 Minute! It was just 1 minute Eva!"
Raising his finger, Eva ignored his rant as she grabbed Ester by the scruff of his shirt. "Yeah, one minute where we could've begun by now!"
And now Ester wasn't exactly the tallest person out there, Eva lost the competition in height as she forced Ester to slightly bend when she grabbed his shirt as she dragged him off to a different part of the building.
"Give me the box!"
Trying and failing to escape Eva's grip, Ester tossed the box to the old man who in turn caught them with the aid of the two metal arms built into his back as Ester was dragged towards the steps heading upwards
"Pay attention you fool" Pulling him away from the set of stairs heading downwards to the mines, Eva griped angrily. "Today, we aren't going to the deep mines for Aetherium Crystals."
"What?" Tilting his head in confusion, Esters eyes abruptly widened in realization "Wait, don't tell me."
"Yeah." Gritting her teeth, Eva continued to drag Ester towards the small elevator and punched in a complicated code into the wall, making sure to place her key at the end. "We've got cleaning duty."
"Damnit"
"You're telling me."
Doors closing with a screech of unoiled metal, Eva griped "Just why did our predecessors have to retire and die so soon?"Small elevator immediately thrumming with life, the myriad gears visible from within the elevators confines instantly begun turning, several pulley mechanisms and counterweights instantly acting to pull up the elevator as they were powered by the many Aetheric generators.
"Cause they were complacent." Shaking his head, Ester tried to remove the hand still held tight on his shirt. "And because they were complacent, they made a rookie mistake."
"Why oh why are we the only ones stupid enough to try their hand in the field of Magineering" Letting go of her grip on his shirt which had crumpled the collar, Ester slowly smoothed it out as silence fell in the elevator, only interrupted by the periodic grinding of the gears. Placing her hand on the crosswire mesh which was the only thing separating the duo from being turned into a meat mush like a few others unlucky enough to experience a world without safety regulations, Eva pondered on her words before speaking.
"So… about that day."
"What day?" Ester turned to Eva causing her to fidget. "You know… that day? It really isn't forgettable."
Noticing the red tint on her ears, Ester wasn't stupid enough to not get the hint as the memory of… that day instantly manifested within his skull in stupidly high clarity.
"Oh yeah… um…"
It really was difficult to forget that day since it had just been yesterday and was the source of his forced retrieval of the package when any old runner with tight enough hands was good.
An awkward tension rose in the air as Eva began admiring how the floor was made of floor and Ester admired how the walls were walls, slowly growing as the silence prolonged between them.
But before the strange tension in the air could progress even more, the doors opened to reveal the large metal contraption set in the tower as the source of the thing they needed to clean revealed itself with a loud screech of metal on metal.
Immediately walking away, Eva began barking out orders as she made her way to the glass wall separating her and the things outside, pressing several things on a console and making the machines around them hum with renewed life.
"Unclothe yourself."
"You're the boss."
Immediately understanding what Eva meant by that and thankful for the change in topic, Ester swiftly moved to the table where several things were placed.
Ordinarily this job was supposed to be done with three people, one at the station making sure that all the complicated machinery would perform as expected and wouldn't suddenly implode on itself like many other untested prototypes trying to take in raw Aether.
Another was to go into the vacuum sealed space wearing a specially made suit meant for such environmental situations albeit it needed some much needed repairs so that they could fulfil the sacred duty of manually replacing and adjusting the parts.
And finally, the final person was to manipulate the gigantic piece of machinery around so that they could manufacture the missing pieces and adjust the Celestial Engine when they were finished.
And since these duties required rigourous knowledge in Magineering, Aethernomics, Astrology and Glyph tech, all things that couldn't be learnt in a small time frame, they were so short on manpower as to hire precocious teenagers with less than ideal self control.
'I still wonder to this day of the legality of my situation'
Not that Ester would go out of his way to antagonize the Celestial Tower as they were the only ones to provide knowledge relatively freely without trying to bind him to a slave contract.
Ester still found it insane that the store he initially tried to find a job in was a face group for a murder happy cult dedicated to the Void.
Recalling that strange coincidence with the murder happy cult, Ester put on the final touches of various clamps on his vacuum proof suit, meant to withstand literally nothing but the raw unfiltered Aether around him.
Flexing his joints and adjusting the suit so that it wasn't snug around a few areas, he gave a pair of thumbs up to Eva who in turn replied with an opening of the decompression chamber.
A voice crackled to life as the prototype communication device attempted to transmit a voice through the natural Aether waves
[Get -n, the fa—er we do --is, the fast-- we can -eave an- -e done --th this -lace]
But as the natural Aether waves were changing constantly in line with the Celestial bodies, the voice came choppy at best.
This however was much better than their initial prototype that could only transmit short beeping sounds forcing them to adopt a brand new form of communication specifically made with dots and sashes.
And sadly, for lack of space to stuff a gigantic piece of equipment onto the suit for no lack of trying, the communication would remain one way.
It was inefficient but it did the job as no sound could travel through the vacuum for reasons unknown.
Adjusting his helmet and listening to the hiss of the decompression chamber as it sucked out all of the life gas out of his surroundings, Ester had a calm look on his face as he pressed a few buttons and adjusted a few dials so that the atmosphere in the chamber matched that of the Astro station.
Wouldn't want to introduce contaminants to the Natural Aether and cause the predictions of the Celestial engine to be drastically different
Doors of the chamber opening up, Ester stepped into the bowels of the Astro Chamber and took in a deep breath of the life gas stuffed into the gas tank and admired the Celestial engine in all of its bastardly glory, because for better or for worse, the thing was breathtakingly beautiful.Literally
Crafted out of several pieces of gold, mithril, silver, pale ore and basically any type of Aetherically conductive metal that money could buy, to top it all off, the large metal engine constantly moved, powered by none other than Aetherium crystals.
"1, Ae--er –vels –w -epeat- 1, ------…"
'And the joy of listening to Eva repeat herself three times begins'
Listening to the much choppier words spoken by Eva patiently, Ester made his way to the Aetherium batteries exposing themselves underneath the still moving Celestial engine.
'Its going to be a looooong day'
Taking a chamber of Aetherium crystals from a sealed locker in the ground and dodging a gold ring before slotting it into the machine, it thrummed to life glowing with a supernatural silver blue light.
And as the recipient of this blue glow, Eva's voice crackled to life in his ears once again.
'Just like clockwork Ester' he glanced at the behemoth of a machine 'Very large and space bound clockwork'
---
"-And now we shall begin the 911th Leap years meeting"
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