here’s the thing inspired by Salty’s college headcanons. This took longer than I wanted, but I’m still pretty happy with it.
(way too many months later), oh yeah, definitely took WAY longer than I ever expected, because depression sucks. So welcome back to...uh...me...and I hope you enjoy the read.
“A premise by next class!” Vin’s ears twitched at the voices behind him. “I knew Professor Knoalle wasn’t going to be an easy teacher, but it seems like a crunch.”
“We only have the class Monday and Thursday...and today’s Thursday. You have three days. Besides, Your Highness, I wouldn’t have thought this would be difficult for you.”
“You don’t need to know much Eco Theory to Channel, Caj.”
Vin stuffed the last of his books into his bag and headed out. Professor Knoalle had let them out early - with the suggestion they head over to the campus library to get started on devising a thesis. He wanted to go there...but at least half the class was likely to be there and he wasn’t sure he was up to the interaction which was bound to end up taking place.
He had a few hours before his next class...there’d be plenty of time to run over to the public archives. It’d probably be useless for forming his premise, but Vin...really didn’t want to deal with his classmates. He knew he’d make a fool of himself if he ended up in a social situation with any one of the young nobles in his class.
Vin brooded about his luck in classmates on the way to the public archives...all the while half-wishing his mother had never been convinced to allow him to take the high school exit exams two years early. A year earlier or sticking with his regular class to its graduation and he’d have missed being in the same year with people from such notable families such as the Praised House of Veger, the Glorious House of Praxis, and even a Prince of the Most Royal House of Mar. And there were others - it was like the noble families had timed births or something.
How was he supposed to cope if he had to interact so far above his own station?
Vin waved distractedly to the librarian manning the check-out desk and made a beeline for the sciences, ready to loose himself in the old familiar pages of books he’d read a dozen times if not more.
He wasn’t quite running, but the turn he made into the first isle was quick enough he ran right into one of the archivists, Ques Ur’Maier. Both of them rocked back from the collision, Vin falling onto his rear while Ques managed to catch his balance with the edge of a bookshelf and his cane.
“I-I-I’m s-sorry, Mister Ur’Maier,” Vin apologize, flushing. He’d managed to end up in an embarrassing situation after all....
Ques waved his apology off and leaned on his staff more heavily as Vin rose, left knee bent to keep the weight off the foot. The archivist pulled out a small handheld device, tapping the touch screen. An electronically generated masculine voice emitted from the speaker, “WHY THE RUSH, VIN?”
“Fir-first day of college, sir,” Vin said, clutching at his bag nervously. He had practically grown up in the public archives, but Ques Ur’Maier was not someone he interacted with often. The man was usually in the back room somewhere, where it was rumored he actually lived. “It was...ki-kinda stressful.”
Ques nodded absently, typing at the screen, “I SEE. CAN I HELP YOU FIND SOMETHING?”
“N-no, I’m just going to lo-look up some books to jog an idea for my Eco Theory paper, I know where to look,” Vin said, scooting to the side so Ques could leave the isle and continue on...to wherever he’d been going before Vin crashed into him.
Ques limped out, eyeing him curiously a moment. Vin slipped into the isle and headed straight towards the wall.
“ VIN,” the electronic voice called. Vin glanced back and Ques tapped another button, sending a pre-typed message to be played, “YOU MIGHT CHECK THE RELIGION SECTION. IF YOU CAN GET THROUGH ALL THE ‘HAIL PRECURSORS’, SOME OF THE WRITERS HAVE INTERESTING THINGS TO SAY ABOUT ECO.”
“O-oh,” Vin blinked. “Th-thank you, sir! For the recommendation.”
The future King of Haven and his companions find their journey brought to an abrupt end.
Per usual after arriving amongst on an unknown world with unknown people, communication was largely a bust until the translators A.I. picked up enough speech samples to start talking. There were attempts at communicating with the locals via pantomiming and picture drawing in the sands with them, but Mar bailed once exaggerated hand motions got involved to go fuss over the Rift Rider’s damaged engines, leaving his translator device with Hadrian. Jemanah similarly abandoned him with the villagers, having little patience for anything that wasn’t direct action, although she claimed to be helping Mar.
She might be, but just as likely, she was being a pest.
Eventually, as the day waned, Hadrian was led by a large heavyset man with blue hair and beard over to a large house with a windmill in the rough center of the seaside settlement to show him that a meal was being prepared. Then the man led him to where Mar and Jemanah were by the Rift Rider - now hauled further up on the beach and supported on boulders.
Mar was holding some part of the Rift Rider in his hands with an indifferent expression, ignoring Jemanah who was signing three gestures in repetition: her hands at chest level, palms up, thumbs against her straightened fingers and tapping her index finger twice against her thumb, followed by her right hand, fingers loosely curled but for the extended pinky which she held near her lips and then pushed out, followed by her right fist with index finger being moved from her right to the left; then with her right fist with thumb and pinky extended to tap twice at her chin.
Mar was giving no response.
Hadrian didn’t like that. When Mar was neutral, things were usually bad. He was the only one of them who understood how the Rift Rider worked in full. Jemanah looked agitated. How long had she’d been signing and getting no response?
To get their attention, he dangled their translators in front of them. Jemanah hooked the ear pieces around her ears and situated the mask-like mouth piece on while Mar only bothered with the ears pieces on his.
“I think we’re invited to dinner,” Hadrian said. “This gentleman here showed me there was a rather large meal being prepared in a central hut.”
Mar ducked under the Rift Rider to replace whatever part he had in his hands. When he came out he held up his flattened left hand at a diagonal to his chest with palm towards the chest, thumb up and pulled it away from himself with his right hand between thumb and index finger, the other three fingers extended at a curl.
Hadrian pointed back at the windmill hut to the blue-haired man, who made a wave of the hand which was presumably a ‘follow’ gesture and took them back into the village.
The late meal, however, was a good chance to get more speech samples for the translators. The people spoke quietly amongst themselves. The audio receptors were sharp enough to hear the quiet whispers clearly so long as they themselves remained silent.
The three time travelers made expressive shows of gratitude to the villagers before digging in to what was handed them. Jemanah was still new enough to pick through everything, but both Mar and Hadrian simply ate. It wasn’t as if they could recognize anything on the plates. If they had allergic reactions Mar would sift his Amethyst Bioquid for Green.
Mar was usually a quick, light eater, but purposely slowed himself down. When he didn’t pace himself, people assumed he was starving and tended to foist more food on him and it never failed to be rude to not eat everything presented. Having to focus on his eating habits was a semi-helpful distraction from the predicament with the Rift Rider he’d yet to inform his companions about.
He really didn’t want to think about it.
He focused on the sounds of the language the villagers were speaking instead. He heard common words: say-ughe, juhac, key-ruh, say-moes, meh-tall, boogs, tell-ah-pohr-tur, zhoe-mer, and a few others. There seemed to be concern, fear, and worry in their tones.
Understandable. They’d nearly been slaughtered by half-flesh, half-metal monsters. Mar was still mildly concerned about the low numbers of Hora-Quan though. He couldn’t have seen more than a few dozen in the village....
After dinner’s end (fortunately, no one had a negative reaction to any of the food beyond taste bud disagreements) they were shown to areas to bed down for the night. Jemanah was taken by a little old lady in some avian-inspired clothes (at least, they looked avian) to somewhere else. Hadrian and Mar were given space in the central windmill house.
They did their best to express thanks to the nervous-seeming, squat man whose eyebrows seemed to never stay still and then they were alone. Hadrian grabbed Mar’s shoulder before the other man could flop down and fall asleep.
“What was that part you were brooding over?” Hadrian asked.
Mar sighed, but sat cross-legged, bringing his left hand up to cover the lower part of his face with the palm facing himself, fingers splayed loosely, the right hand - a little lower, fingers in a relaxed splay, palm outwards - rotated in a loose circle, then flattened his hands, left out further to the side of his chest than the right, with the left palm-down and the right palm-up and slashed them together, the left with a wider range of motion over the right, and fisted his hands once they were over each other, and drew them back out sharply.
“...How bad is it?” Hadrian asked.
Mar’s hands were still for a moment, but his expression was so empty that he didn’t need to sign anything.
He did anyways, right hand at chest level with palm down and fingers bent forwards but straight, left hand lower and palm up with fingers in the same position and then clamped his finger together as he brought the fingertips of his hands to meet in the center of the motion.
“You’ve replaced parts before and it’s not the first time the engine’s gotten busted,” Hadrian said. “You can just replace the part that make the shield, can’t you?”
Mar held his right index and middle finger up to his eyes, the other two fingers and thumb folded down to the palm and shook his head twice as he pushed his hand forwards and to the right slightly, the index and middle fingers curling partially.
“Why not?” Hadrian asked. Mar’s response however, was one of hesitance rather than the special disconcerted grimace which usually came with being asked to explain complicated technology from the Creators.
Hadrian frowned as his comrade’s expression began to shift from hesitance to something darker, “...Mar?”
Mar’s expression was rapidly turning into a depressed frown, his violet eyes creasing with grief. He’d never seen an expression like that on Mar’s face before. What about the shield generator was wrenching such sorrow from him?
When Mar finally started to sign, his hands were trembling. He brought his left hand up to cover the lower part of his face with the palm facing himself, fingers splayed loosely, the right hand - a little lower, fingers in a relaxed splay, palm outwards - rotated in a loose circle; then his right fist came up to his mouth, thumb extended back to his lips and then moved it forwards; he extended his left arm and pulled his right index finger from knuckle to shoulder, the thumb cocked out at an angle to the index while the other fingers were folded down; then he drew a circle around his mouth with his right index finger while opening his eyes comically wide.
“Was it an add-on or a replacement?” Hadrian asked.
Now Hadrian got that disconcerted grimace which was usually reserved when Mar was trying to figure out how best to explain a technological situation.
Mar lifted his hand, drawing a large horizontal circle midair with right index finger, drew away his right fist from his mouth with the thumb extended back, and then fitted his curled fingers together at chest level.
“The Rift Rider was always hodge-podge the way it is?” Hadrian asked to clarify.
Mar drew another horizontal circle in the air with his right index finger.
“Someone built it like it is?”
Mar poked at his chest with right index finger.
“You built it like that?”
Mar cupped his right fist with thumb up in his left hand out away from his chest and drew them in to his chest.
“You had help. Who?”
Mar’s depressed look only became darker. Obviously, it wasn’t just the matter of the shield generator, but the entire subject of the Rift Rider’s creation which struck the man so heavily. He’d never seen Mar in this sort of mood before.
“Okay, never mind,” he said, reaching out to halt Mar’s hands when the man looked ready to start signing again. “You don’t have to explain.”
Mar’s hands dropped to his lap and something like shame crossed his face mixed with gratitude. Before he curled up on the sleeping mat he’d been provided, Mar brought the closed fingers of his right hand up to his mouth and pulled them away, twisting his hand at the wrist and bending his fingers down over his left wrist.
Hadrian lay down as well, giving his companion’s hunched shoulders a glance.
If Mar had been one of those to build the Rift Rider, than he must have been on this mission to lock the Rift Gates since very early on...if not from the beginning.
The following day when there is a communal breakfast, Hadrian explained to Jemanah what Mar told him about the shield via the translators before they remove the devices and set them nearer the villagers to not interfere with audio recording sample while they sat in a semi-circle and signed to each other to communicate as they ate.
Jemanah held her left hand up and tapped her right pinky against the palm with the rest of her fingers curled and thumb extended only to curl them and drag the right fist out to her right with two ‘taps’ in the air, index and thumb uncurling to make an angle. Her right fist went against the left side of her chest and made to small circles with index and middle fingers straightened which then flipped over into her raised left hand which she cut to the right sharply, all with a questioning expression.
Mar held both palms up, the left at chest height with the right at abdomen height and lowered the left while raising the right and then returned his hands to their original position. His mouth was quirked in an uncertain slant. He looked uncomfortable with the possibility of the journey being over.
Without the shield, they couldn’t traverse the Rifts. At least not safely. They would get shoved out of the Rift into real time. Though they might end up in the same general location, they could be separated years apart from each other with little chance of reuniting.
Jemanah got high off big risks and Mar (if he really had been on this since the beginning) would probably think nothing of the risk to move onwards. Hadrian wasn’t sure if he could take that risk. If he was just going to get separated from the others, he might as well just stop.
After breakfast, there’s little to do but to wander the area and let the translators listen to the local people speak. The noon meal - also communal (and perhaps that is the custom here) is when their translators beep (making the natives jump) in unison and finally start to work.
“What was that person?” the young purple-haired man asked to the others in the room.
Jemanah and Hadrian fit their mask-like mouth pieces on.
“That sound was to let us know our translation devices can let us communicate with you now,” Hadrian said. When the mechanical speaker in the mouth piece translates his words, he doubted it was perfect - it can’t have gotten enough samples to be perfect yet - but the brief, amazed silence was followed by a lot of excited chatter that came too quickly and too much at once for the translators to work with and Mar took his ear piece out as he wouldn’t be able to talk with these people without either of his companions translating for him.
Hadrian sighed and waited for the inevitable awkward silence when the people realized they’re not being answered.
“We need you to talk one person at a time, one question at a time,” Hadrian requested. He pointed to the ear piece, “This part of the device hears what you say and then says what you said in my native language. When I speak in my language into this part,” he pointed to the ‘mask’, “than it speaks what I say in your language. It takes time and can’t handle so many voices all at once. So please, one person and one question at a time.”
The nervous, round man with the constantly moving eyebrows is ultimately designated to speak and there was a discussion to get a list of questions. Mar had fit his
He started by introducing everyone in the room and then asked, “Well, we introduce you? What names do you have?”
The translators definitely didn’t have the language down pat, but it was good enough to start with. He pointed first to Mar, “Given name: Mar. Family name: Indivar,” he pointed to Jemanah, “Given name: Jemanah. Family Name: from Clan Double Red Veins,” he pointed to himself, “Given name: Hadrian. Family Name: Pracksea.”
What came out of the translator was shorter than the extended manner Hadrian had input their names into the device, but fortunately, they understood who was who and what to call them by and that was enough.
The following questions given were very typical: “Where did you come from?” (“Through the Rift Gate from another world.” They don’t usually explain about the time aspect of the traveling.) “Why are you here?” (“The Rift Gates are dangerous and wrong and must be shut forever.” Mar can only lock the Rift Gates to prevent anything from coming through, not going through, but entrances without exits to Time is as good as they can do.) “Are your horns and claws real, Mar?” (“Yes.” Hadrian explained for Mar that such traits were typical for his people.)
There were other typical questions, but those were usually the important ones.
The unusual questions given to them were about the Hora-Quan and Hadrian and Jemanah did their best to explain them. Somewhat alarming was the news that there had been many more Hora-Quan which had gone past the village (named Sandover) and were probably causing trouble elsewhere. (It explained to Mar why there had been such a low number in the village.)
Alarming was the story Sandover’s official gave them about a young local hero who had stopped two Amethyst-maddened siblings from flooding the world with the rawest form of Bioquid. (The villagers words for Amethyst Bioquid sounded liked ‘daahkiiko’ and said often enough for the foreigners to memorize that sound.) The Rift Gate and a vehicle that looked exactly like their own (which Mar didn’t know how that could be possible without entertaining disturbing notions of someone in the future using their Rift Rider to travel to the past to a time when the Rift Gate wasn’t locked) had been brought back from a holy place of the Creators.
“The Rift Gate opened and clouds began to race and the sun turned purple,” the young man with purple hair explained, having been asked to give his rendition of events, “I hear a very-scare roar, high-loud than any of the people-beasts can make and sound like you-group mask-voice make. It say last of Rift Gates had been opened and that a boy couldn’t hide from the voice.”
Mar straightened, bringing his fists with the pinkies extended up, the right near his head and the left at chest height, then slashed the right fist down sharply while the left hand remained stationary. He repeated the motion several times, expression startled and alarmed.
“He wants to know if you’re certain about that,” Jemanah offered to the confused folk. “About the voice you heard saying the last of the Rift Gates had been opened.”
The young man gave a definitive nod, “I am certain-positive.”
Mar rocked back, looking struck. It wasn’t any less shocking for Hadrian and Jemanah, but...Mar had been doing this for a lot longer than they had (from the beginning, mostly like). If that had been the last Rift Gate...than the busted shield generator didn’t even matter. They wouldn’t be going anywhere.
The future King of Haven City arrives in Sandover Village just in time.
Mar was laid out on the backseat of the Rift Rider, the cowl brim of the under-suit pulled down over his face as far as it would go. He was still dressed in his armor, staff weapon loosely pinned on the floor by both left arm and leg draped over it. Lying like this was uncomfortable for both his horns and the spinal limbs, but every part of his body ached in a way which made any extra discomfort negligible.
“Hey, Mar,” Jemanah piped up, “We’re almost through.”
He pushed the cowl back, but didn’t rise, instead choosing to stare at the white-purple-blue lightning which popped and flashed over the Rider’s transparent shielding. Time did not take kindly to being traversed. It wasn’t natural.
He hoped whoever had built the infernal machines had paid or would pay dearly for making them. Mar shut his eyes as the light of the Rift became blinding. There was a surge of energy which sounded like the rush of Blue Eco and then the lighting tinged yellow from a sun.
It was daylight wherever - whenever - they were.
The vehicle jerked.
“Jemanah!” Hadrian shouted.
“It wasn’t me!” she snapped back.
Mar smelled Bioquid. Amethyst Bioquid. Sharp and acidic - the electric form, but....
Bam!
Mar shoved himself upright at the sound of the engines going out, nearly pitching over the edge as Jemanah banked the Rider hard; spiraling to crash into beach shallows. He was knocked down onto his back again, vision sparking as his horns collided with the side panels. The horns might not have feeling, but where they grew out of the lower back of his skull certainly did. His spinal limbs weren’t jostled as much with the back plating of his armor.
The next sight he was aware of was a gleaming yellow crystal set in a half-metal, half-flesh face.
Hora-Quan.
Mar lashed out with one hand on automatic, the claw-like nails easily slicing into the gem. Electricity pulsed over his hand with a pop! and the little insect-like flyer collapsed on top of him; dissolving into Amethyst Bioquid. A flick of his fingers separated it into the four Colors and a clenching of his fist rejoined them into Pearl, then absorbed it even as his body began to perform the same process on the Amethyst which his body generated naturally.
Amethyst was slow poison. Pearl Bioquid was a bullet through the skull. Fortunately, neither could kill him. Still, even though his body and bloodline held the coincidence of being able to generate, manipulate, and contain the forces, using them still made him nauseated.
The Pearl sharpened his senses to a painful degree by killing his ability to perceive reality as anything but what it was. He was old and tired and heartsick and lonely and this journey across space-and-time was going to be the death of his soul. Hadrian was reaching the point where he would want to stop - as many other companions had done and growing distant from him with every encounter with the Hora-Quan. He had lasted longer than others, but he was a man - a sane one. Jemanah was still high on the excitement of what she perceived as a grand journey to save the world at the behest of the ‘Ancient Ones’ (as she knew that old race). They had come through the Rift Gate to a seaside village which was being swarmed. There were screams.
Everything dragged to a near-standstill as the Pearl sped up his reaction time.
His spinal limbs uncurled and pushed out from underneath the protective plates, Pearl Bioquid ‘lengthening’ them and stringing between the limbs to create a pair of translucent wings. He flapped them as he jumped to reach the shallows more easily, the Pearl strengthening his body against the physics of the world which wanted to drag him back down to normal human speeds while also healing the stress his body underwent.
Pearl leaped from his fingertips as he located and tracked every Hora-Quan in the village area, destroying them and washing away the Dark Eco. A tall, thin young man who stood nearly frozen with a stone chair positioned to come down on the creature he’d just destroyed, a small creature lying bloodied beneath his feet. He was injured too, but his body language suggested the animal was important to him.
Mar went near enough that the aura of Pearl rubbed off to heal them. ‘Near enough’ meant about no contact at about arm’s length. Touching someone while charged as he was could sear them as thoroughly as fire. It had led to mistaken impressions of godhood in the past.
He moved on after only five seconds.
The Hora-Quan didn’t seem to be many, so it didn’t take long to roam the village and destroy the creatures in it. It was odd. They usually swarmed and converged; overwhelmed and smothered.
Mar reigned in the Pearl Bioquid, bringing himself back to normal speed, wrapping the spinal limbs around his chest like an outside rib cage. The membrane of the ‘wings’ hung down, dimmer and fading as he made his body stop producing the Pearl. He crossed his arms, striding over to where Jemanah and Hadrian were jury-rigging a mooring to keep the rift rider from floating off. He clapped his hands to gain their attention, Pearl sparking out from between palms.
They both focused on him and he brought his hands up, flattened and palms facing each other with thumbs curled inwards and fingers pointing upwards. He tapped his fingertips together on the left side of his face and then pulled them over to the right to tap his fingers. Then he brought his finger curled loosely in a circle, index and thumbs touching beneath his chin and then flared his hands and fingers upwards and away from each other to be fully spread on either side of his face. To sign ‘Hora-Quan’, he curled his dominant right hand into fist and rapped his knuckles twice against the center of his forehead while bearing his teeth and running his tongue from top right incisor to top left incisor.
“I guess there weren’t a lot in the area if you cleaned them out so fast - Bioquid-powered or not. Any survivors?” Hadrian asked.
Mar brought his right hand up to his face, ring, pinky and thumb curled into the palm, middle finger touching below his right eye with the index finger extended outwards, than pushed the hand forwards. Then he loosely curled fingers in a circle at chest height, and - keeping them curled - and sharply pushed his hands out and away from himself at a slight diagonal. Bringing his hands back to chest height, he laid his hands horizontal and flat, left palm up and right palm down, then rotated their positions so his left palm faced down and the right palm faced up.
“We must have got here right after them then,” Jemanah commented.
“Need us to talk to the villagers then?” Hadrian asked.
Mar brought his right fist up to the side of his chest, knuckles facing forwards, and shook it up and down three times.
“Hope it doesn’t take too long for the translators to pick up the language,” Hadrian muttered, turning back to the Rift Rider. The AI of the translator devices were getting smart enough to figure out new languages in merely twenty-six hours of recording speakers talking.
Once upon a time, the AI had needed to take full weeks.
Mar snapped his fingers to draw attention again and poked himself in the chest with his right index finger. Both hands came up to his chest, index fingers and thumbs straightened and pointing upwards, the others folded down, with his left hand further out than the right and then pushed the hands forwards, rotating his fingers from a vertical position to a horizontal position. He held his left arm diagonally across his chest, left hand in a loose fist, and tapped the wrist with his right index; then he held his hands up to the left of his face, thumbs and sides of his index fingers touching and brought his right hand down and rotating it backwards. Finally, he pulled his hands to chest-level, palms facing himself and his thumbs down, fingers loosely spread, the tips of his middle fingers together, and rotated his right hand at the wrist outwards and back to the initial position.
Hadrian glanced towards the Rift Gate and nodded, “We’ll find you there then.”
Jemanah tossed a pack of supplies, a cape, and his forgotten staff weapon at him as he went. He pulled the cape around his shoulders to hide the spinal limbs and the cowl of his suit up to hide his horns. The straps of the pack were then tossed over his shoulder and he went to find the way to the hut the Rift Gate floated near. He was intercepted by the tall thin man he’d seen earlier.
“Wazda yuoo sahft uhs?” the man said, cradling the creature he’d been protecting earlier in his arms, eyes wide and wild. Mar stared at the man uncomprehendingly and gestured over his shoulder at his companions emphatically until the man wobbled off in that direction.
Mar managed to get to the hut without further distraction, though he spotted a few other people looking around in blearily confusion at their sudden safety. The hut possessed no doors and he could see right into the home, which provided an immediate distraction from the Rift Gate in the form of a machine sitting atop some sort of pad ringed in familiar orange-bronze metal.
He went in, assuming that with the lack of doors, that would probably be alright, and looked it over without touching it. There were schematics of the machine hanging nearby. He couldn’t read the language scrawled on its surface, but the visuals gave instruction of how the vehicle was to be sat upon. Harder to determine was how it was controlled or how it ran.
Maybe the mechanic would let him have a whirl?
His eyes scanned over the room and he paced around it. There were a plethora of metal bits and tools lying around, and a number of dead orange-bronze Energy Cores. That was unusual because Energy Cores could last for millennia. Mar picked one up and noted a set of schematics underneath it. There was a drawing of a machine near the vehicle and the visuals suggested it had something to do with the Energy Cores. There were a set of images which looked like instructions, but it seemed to suggest a transference of energy.
Mar frowned slightly and stared at the dead object in his hand. His knowledge of the science behind Energy Cores told him trying to take the energy out and put it into something else would cause an explosion.... His frown deepened, more in puzzlement. Perhaps he would be here long enough on this world to pick up reading and writing. It’d be interesting to be able to communicate with the mechanic who lived here.
He set down the dead Energy Core and went around the back to the Rift Gate, slightly disturbed by how it was arranged at the end of a ramp that had clearly been built in more recent days. Someone had been studying the Rift Gate, perhaps?
Mar pursed his lips together worriedly and reached out with his staff weapon, tapping one end against certain free-floating pieces, pushing a bit of Pearl Bioquid into the pieces to trigger certain ‘buttons’. The bright glow in the center faded to indicate the new ‘locked’ status.
