The sentient rocks scuttering about were barely given so much as a glance by Ralivil. He ran down the left wing right past them, giving no thought to how they blocked his path. He just stepped over them. The piles of sludge that squelched about were payed no mind, either. While Ralivil made sure not to step on them, it was made clear that he wanted nothing to do with them. The sludges understood, and left him to run about the roof of the Hagbard, but the rocks’ legs worked much faster than their brains. Or what they had of one.

The Jewel Joggers chased after Ralivil as he turned the corner at the head of the Hagbard. A couple more of the sentient rocks joined the mob chasing Ralivil as he dashed down the right wing. As he reached the end of the wing, he spotted a small hole right at the end. He assumed that it would lead to the inside of the Hagbard, took the risk, and jumped straight down into it.

His assumptions were proven correct. Ralivil only rested for a second, looking over his shoulder to see the Jewel Joggers chasing him fall down and shatter upon hitting the floor. The interior was filled with sentient piles of sludge, minding their own business. Ralivil ran right past them and up the ladder that sat at the center of the back wall. The ladder was tall, and it took longer than Ralivil would have liked to climb up it, but eventually, he made it up to the top room.

The room was empty, save for the silver pyramid that sat in the back, near the right corner. At the top of the metal pyramid was another, smaller pyramid. It was yellow and had a single eye with a red iris. It shone gold.

Ralivil could only take in the sight before the Prophet’s Mark flashed and flared up with pain. Ralivil clutched the Prophet’s Mark with his left tentacle, as per what was becoming routine, and gritted his teeth. The corners of his vision turned white. Without his teammates’ chatter to fill the void, the wait for the white to fill his vision was a painful slog.

The pain from the Prophet’s Mark finally faded, and the white in his vision soon did as well. He was back in the cave he had been transported to while visiting the Misplaced Treetrunk. The female green Mook he had seen in the cave last he had been there was nowhere around. It was just the blue Mook. He sat near the old hyberpod, which was looking a bit worse for wear, and quietly doodled on a piece of paper with a crayon. The hyberpod had a small pile of paper on it. He still looked to be a child, but had grown a fair bit since their last meeting. The blue Mook looked up with his upper eyes, then gasped. He lifted his head to look up at Ralivil, who gave a lopsided smile and a small wave.

“Ralivil!” the blue Mook exclaimed. He got to his feet and ran up to him, excitement twinkling in his eyes.

“Hi again,” Ralivil said.

“I thought I wouldn’t see you again! It’s been ages!”

Ralivil’s eyes shrunk. “Oh stars, how long?” he asked.

The blue Mook thought for a moment. “Uhh… Three years.”

Ralivil let a sigh of relief escape him, slouching over for a moment. He straightened his back as he asked, “What have you been doing since I last saw you?”

The blue Mook’s face lit up upon hearing the question. “I’ve started drawing! It was just to remember what you looked like at first, but, uh…”

The blue Mook pursed his lips as he glanced down at the rocky floor. He then looked over his shoulder at the small pile of paper sitting on the old hyberpod, and slithered up to it. He grabbed the papers off the hyberpod and brought them over to Ralivil. He clumsily fanned them out, revealing various crayon drawings on each, all of them partially covering one another. Most of them appeared to be landscapes or the starry sky, but with some unusual colours thrown in, while the rest were simply drawings of something found around the cave.

“Mom always wants me to draw boring things, like gemblooms or rocks. Sometimes I do it so she’ll stop annoying me, but that doesn’t last for long,” the blue Mook explained with a frown. He dropped the drawings of subjects he called boring to the floor, then stared at it as he contemplated his next course of action. Ralivil stood patiently and waited for the blue Mook to make up his mind.

The blue Mook looked back to the papers he held in his tentacles, then looked them over. He mumbled to himself as the frown disappeared from his face. He flipped a piece of paper around and showed it Ralivil.

“I, uh… I sometimes draw us doing stuff together,” the blue Mook said, eyes down on the floor again. “It kinda… became a thing. They’re not that good…”

Ralivil was beaming. “That’s awesome!” he told the blue Mook.

The blue Mook looked up at him, eyes wide. He was silent for a few seconds before quietly asking, “…You really think so…?”

“Of course! I can tell you enjoyed drawing it,” Ralivil replied.

The blue Mook’s voice lowered to a mumble as he said, “Well… yeah… I guess so…”

Ralivil crouched down to the blue Mook’s eye level and told him, “Don’t stop drawing things that make you happy, okay?”

A small smile crept onto the blue Mook’s face, and he gave a small nod.

Ralivil closed his eyes, and expected to be taken back to the Point of Power. But when he opened them, he found himself standing in a pitch black void. He looked around, feeling beads of sweat already forming on his head. A bright white glow caught his eyes, and he looked forward to see a perfectly circular eye open up to look at him. Said eye had a red iris, like the eye on the yellow pyramid at the Point of Power.

“01000100 01010011 01011010 01000111 00100000 01011010 01001001 01010110 00100000 01000010 01001100 01000110 00100000 01010111 01001100 01010010 01001101 01010100 00100000 01010011 01010110 01001001 01010110 00111111” a voice echoed into Ralivil’s mind. Presumably, it was from the eye itself, but Ralivil didn’t imagine a one-eyed pyramid to sound like an annoyed old man with static laced in his voice.

“I– I don’t know what you’re saying!” Ralivil replied.

“01001100 01010011 00100000 01000100 01010110 01001111 01001111 00101110”

“I-I’m only hearing garbled noises!” Ralivil told the voice.

“01000111 01010011 01011010 01000111 00100111 01001000 00100000 01000100 01010011 01011010 01000111 00100000 01010011 01011010 01001011 01001011 01010110 01001101 01001000 00100000 01000100 01010011 01010110 01001101 00100000 01000010 01001100 01000110 00100000 01001111 01001100 01001000 01010110 00100000 01000010 01001100 01000110 01001001 01001000 01010110 01001111 01010101 00100000 01010010 01001101 01001000 01010010 01010111 01010110 00100000 01011010 00100000 01001110 01011010 01011000 01010011 01010010 01001101 01010110 00101100 00100000 01010000 01010010 01010111 00101110”

“Are you trying to tell me something…?” Ralivil guessed, his voice lowering to a squeak.

“01010100 01010110 01010110 01000001 00100001 00100000 01000111 01001100 01001100 01010000 00100000 01000010 01001100 01000110 00100000 01001111 01001100 01001101 01010100 00100000 01010110 01001101 01001100 01000110 01010100 01010011 00100000 01000111 01001100 00100000 01010101 01010010 01010100 01000110 01001001 01010110 00100000 01010010 01000111 00100000 01001100 01000110 01000111 00101110”

“I don’t know what you’re saying! Is that a yes or a no? I— Was it a yes or a no at all?” Ralivil asked. “You’re really scaring me here!”

“01000010 01001100 01000110 00100111 01001001 01010110 00100000 01001000 01011000 01011010 01001001 01010110 01010111 00100000 01001101 01001100 01000100 00111111 00100000 01000100 01011010 01010010 01000111 00100000 00100111 01000111 01010010 01001111 00100000 01000010 01001100 01000110 00100000 01001000 01010110 01010110 00100000 01001110 01011010 01001001 01001000 00101110 00100000 01001100 01001001 00100000 01000111 01010011 01010110 00100000 01001001 01010110 01001000 01000111 00100000 01001100 01010101 00100000 01000111 01010011 01010110 00100000 01001000 01001100 01001111 01011010 01001001 00100000 01001000 01000010 01001000 01000111 01010110 01001110 00101110 00100000 01001110 01011010 01000010 01011001 01010110 00100000 01000010 01001100 01000110 00100111 01001111 01001111 00100000 01010100 01010110 01000111 00100000 01000111 01001100 00100000 01001000 01010110 01010110 00100000 01000111 01010011 01010110 00100000 01000101 01010010 01010110 01000100 00101101 01001110 01001100 01001101 01001000 01000111 01010110 01001001 00100000 01000111 01001100 01001100 00101110 00101110 00101110 00100001 00100000 01000111 01010011 01010110 01001101 00100000 01000010 01001100 01000110 00100111 01001111 01001111 00100000 01010000 01001101 01001100 01000100 00100000 01000111 01001001 01000110 01010110 00100000 01010101 01010110 01011010 01001001 00101110”

Ralivil had no reply this time around. He simply curled up as much as he could of himself as the loud, staticky, garbled voice echoed in his mind. It did nothing to block out the noise.

The voice seemed to sigh. “01000010 01001100 01000110 00100111 01001001 01010110 00100000 01001101 01001100 00100000 01010101 01000110 01001101 00100000 01000111 01001100 00100000 01001110 01010110 01001000 01001000 00100000 01011010 01001001 01001100 01000110 01001101 01010111 00100000 01000100 01010010 01000111 01010011 00101110 00100000 01010100 01010110 01000111 00100000 01001100 01010101 01010101 00100000 01001110 01000010 00100000 01001011 01000110 01001011 01001011 01010110 01000111 00100111 01001000 00100000 01001011 01001001 01001100 01001011 01010110 01001001 01000111 01000010 00101110”

Ralivil’s surroundings blinked back into view. He was back next to the Point of Power, like nothing had ever happened. He could feel his heart pounding. It felt as though it wanted to leap out of his chest. His breaths were ragged. The time it took for Ralivil to stop his head from spinning seemed like forever. Once his breaths were controlled, and his heart had calmed some, he immediately ran back to the Timechasers’ ship.

As he climbed up the walls to jump up to the hole in the right wing he’d jumped down, he noticed that the piles of sludge were starting to suddenly stop and start. The observation almost made Ralivil forget what he was doing for a moment. He ignored it until he returned to the ship.

Anue stared at him silently for much longer than comfortable.

“…You took longer than I thought you would,” they finally said in their monotonous voice.

From the back of the ship, Boson argued, “Yeah, well, not everyone can just magically teleport where they’d like in a split second.”

“He does have a point,” Buzzy Bol added.

Anue grimaced slightly as they quietly huffed.

“Anyway, time to head for Mars!” Buzzy Bol announced.