Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Something is really there, Hornfels.” Granite grinned, watching the black disc, and ignored the telescope that brought them here as it continued its climb. 

“You’re well above the plane of the solar system. Are you wearing your glasses.”

“Yes, Hornfels, I’m wearing my glasses. It’s right there. I’m gonna go take a look.”

“If you’re not back by tomorrow I’m sending Feldspar after you.”

“They’re in Ember Twin! You’d have more luck dragging Gabbro off Giant’s Deep before you get Feldspar out of the Sunless City.” 

“Gneiss and Tektite both said you need to be careful on your leg still.” Hornfels was such a caretaker sometimes. Granite rolled their eyes, watching the unmoving disc.

“It’s fine, Hornfels, everything healed fine and I’m walking fine and the prosthetic’s not causing me any problems just like it hasn’t since before I found Feldspar. I’ll radio you in a few hours, don’t worry.” There was a hum of disapproval, but Granite was accelerating gently forward, and watched the black disc grow, and grow, until it eclipsed the sun, then gasped when space around them vanished. 

It was… huge. And dark. But it was, unmistakable, a spaceship. There were some dim green lights, and that was glowing brighter, and it looked like an opening. 

Granite landed carefully- a year of flying had really improved their landing, they hardly ever crashed nowadays, along with whatever had happened… before. 

‘Before’ was useful. They and Gabbro were the only ones who remembered, if that word could dignify a handful of sketchy memories and some strong instincts that had kept them mostly safe. Gabbro had kept up calling them ‘time buddy’ but Gabbro got to do the heavy thinking about why they’d gotten that nickname. 

Granite looked around the hanger, rubbing the embroidered edge of their poncho between their fingers, feeling the excitement bubble up. Aliens. And not Nomai, Solanum didn’t know about this, she’d never mentioned anything like this, in the time it had taken to get her off the Quantum Moon and learn the Hearthian’s language. 

These looked closer to Hearthian ships than the Nomai shuttles, but everything was locked shut; Granite made their way up the steps and paused to inspect the carvings here. These had to be words- they snapped a picture with the scout, and dragged out a notebook and some chalk to copy it for Hal. 

Wait. 

This was an alien spaceship. 

Where were the aliens? 

They’d been so used to Nomai ruins- to not finding anyone, except fellow travelers, and the single surprise that was Solanum- they hadn’t even thought about where the inhabitants of all this were. They hadn’t come to see who landed, at least. Maybe Solanum didn’t know because they were newer?

That didn’t bode well for everyone, since this had been sitting here hidden for a year at least, but… 

Did it matter? Granite stowed the notebook. They were friendly. They could talk around any upset aliens. 

Calling them that was weird, they needed a name, but they could think about it; they’d forgotten the radio in the ship, like normal, but… 

Granite walked back, and updated the log in the ship. ‘The Stranger’ would be a good enough name, for now. And… inhabitants of it, as a placeholder until they could ask for a real name. 

The radio didn’t have anything but static, when they checked. Hornfels must have been busy; they could be surprised later. 

Past the carving was an alcove, with bands on the walls and a statue in the middle. On the far side was an outline of, maybe a door? The single light wasn’t helping Granite; they dug out their flashlight and turned it on. 

Two wings on the statue lit up and began rotating and took the bands with them; Granite jumped and toppled over and the flashlight was illuminating the ceiling, but at least the bands stopped moving as they watched the room from their new spot on the floor. The door they came through was shut, so, the bands did that. There was a gap in each band, too, and the wings were not glowing like they had been; the light must have turned them on. They hauled themself back up, scowling, and checked their leg first; they weren’t used to the prosthetic enough to run or jump with it yet, despite lying to Gossan and then to Hornfels and Gneiss. Tektite had gone just short of flatly telling them they’d be stuck with the jetpack or walking from now on, but there were probably modifications they or Slate or Mica could make to change that later. Their glasses hadn’t fallen off, at least, with the band Gossan had insisted on; they couldn’t fix those without air around.

Granite steadied themself, pointed the flashlight back at the statue  and watched the outline, then shut it off and grinned when the far door opened. 

They were hit with a weird river smell- it was almost, stale? Compared to how rivers usually smelled. Their oxygen refilled as they looked around, and as they crept forward into the dark room, they heard the creak of wood. Turning the flashlight back on showed them standing in a wooden room, with a peaked ceiling rather than the simple slant roofs Hearthian houses had. 

There was something in front of them; chest height pillars with green glowing orbs when they pointed their flashlight over. Something was making a weird humming sound, but only when those were lit up, so, probably the orbs? They were built into a carved thing set in the floor that was more decorated than anything around. 

Granite stood on it, cautiously, and saw the gear set in a pillar to one side. They reached over and clicked it. 

Then yelled as the structure dropped, and landed in a river and on their knee. And they looked up, as it was carried away from the house, and saw the river arcing away over their head and looping back behind them. 

“They said it was actually there?” Hornfels sighed over the radio, but they probably knew Feldspar was staring at it, practically vibrating with excitement.

“Yes. A dark something above the plane of the solar system. Granite’s already exploring. I told them you’d be there if they didn’t radio me back in a day, but we all know you’re already planning on flying out there.”

“Well, yeah. I’m remembering why I left the Twins to Gossan and Chert.” It was so hot and sand was irritating and the Sunless City was incredible, but it really lacked something, like cyclones throwing it into the air or a black hole underneath giving it that extra bit of danger that really made exploring fun. The sand was there, of course, but they weren’t foolish enough to go explore when the sand was rising. 

“It’s Granite’s discovery.” …and there was the kicker, wasn’t it. If Feldspar showed up and then went home before Granite got a chance- they could be very methodical when they weren’t sprinting through somewhere dangerous- it would suddenly be Feldspar’s discovery, and they didn’t want that to happen. 

“If I show up and don’t head home before they say something it’s still their’s, Hornfels. But there’s another structure down here somewhere I want to find, they’ve got some time.”

“Gabbro? Gabbro, come in.” Gabbro paused with their flute playing, and leaned over to lazily hit the radio.

“I’m here, Hornfels, what’s up.” They’d just gotten nice and comfortable on this island they’d pretty much taken over, back from poking around statue island some more.

“Granite’s looking into the deep space telescope glitch, and it’s not a glitch!”

“We knew that, right? I didn’t find anything when I looked.” Right, Granite had mentioned when they’d been here last week, talking about their new discoveries, and one of the two of them had vaguely remembered that there was something associated with the telescope’s weird black spot and they were going to follow up, now that they had the major picture of the Nomai’s why where and what.

“Right, but, it’s a real place! There’s actually a black disc covering the sun.”

“Huh, wild. But, it’s not just somewhere we’d stumble on it?”

“No, it’s about forty degrees above the plane of the system. Granite’s exploring it now, Feldspar will be joining them tomorrow.”

“Meaning in about four or five hours.”

“Well, yes. Soon enough.”

“Alright. I might go check it out myself eventually. Later, Hornfels.” And they hit the radio again, and went back to flute playing.

They had work to do still, beyond more extensive documentation of what was on Giant’s Deep than Granite’s whirlwind hunting for specifics; they were thinking about whatever the ‘before’ both of them remembered was, and that was tiring enough on its own.

The slides were burned. Granite frowned, tapping on the gear in front of them. It had taken some time, walking around the rundown buildings, looking in vain for any current sign of life, fighting back the vague sense of deja vu, until they found the slide reels, and then the lantern in the mural room. And now, after all that, the reels were burned. They sighed, glanced around guiltily like there was someone in this broken down cluster of buildings, and pulled off their helmet to fix their glasses. The band was a fabric they hated the feel of, so they had to keep it on their beanie and that meant it moved around, and they should have told Rutile or Gossan but they’d been grounded long enough already after the Interloper that when Gossan finally remembered the sight test they’d forgotten to do Granite was willing to accept whatever they said to get back out exploring. 

Granite put the helmet back on and walked outside, and looked around the river with their signalscope. Buildings there, and… that looked like a bridge, over there, between narrow walls of a gorge. And whatever that thing was next to the dam. 

…Every time they looked at that dam, they got an awful feeling. Like it was going to break any second and the flood of water would throw them into a building and kill them. 

Best to move along and put some distance between them and it, so they’d get more of a warning, just in case, even though the scout said it was fine, but fragile.

They’d told Hornfels they’d only be a few hours, and this wouldn’t take longer than an hour or two to go around, assuming there wasn’t anything super dangerous. Most of their time exploring the solar system had been waiting for a dangerous condition to pass them by, anyway. But, part of their memories were flagging them, same as with the dam; they’d been here, before, and there was a lot more to explore than was easily seen. They wouldn’t take that long, and anyway, what was the worst that would happen? Feldspar would find them still here and Hornfels or Gossan might scold them for not keeping them updated? That was fine.

That building was the only one in this area they hadn’t been through, probably, it was tucked away on the far side of the river… and covered in ghost matter, great. Of course. It was everywhere else in the system, but… how had it gotten in?

That was a Gossan question, maybe, or Gabbro. Granite did not want to be more of an expert on ghost matter beyond what it’d done to their leg. It wasn’t like everyone ran to Tektite with their questions, anyway.

There was a stream underneath, and inside was relatively clear. Granite picked up the weird metal thing sitting here, and inspected it. It was big- the table had been easily at their chest height already, the aliens they hadn’t seen any living hints of were tall- and it would close around the center bit, folding down like the big telescope in the observatory folded out, or it would move the five pointed glass star in the front into a cone shape and didn’t appear to do anything else. 

They took it with them anyway, back out and around the few other buildings here, then dropped it onto the raft they found and shoved all of it into the water. Their flashlight had made these orb things glow, earlier, what would it do now that it was in the water?

Granite pulled out the flashlight again, and heard something under the raft hum as it shot forward. And grabbed the thing, the, call it an artifact, that almost flew off the raft; maybe this wasn’t a good idea. 

Past the rocks- this had to be constructed, but why put rapids in, but of course, then it wouldn’t be fun- and into the second group of buildings. There were more of them, and a taller tower, and Granite left the raft and the artifact on it as they began exploring. 

Chairs, too large for them, and dusty cups and screens and empty boxes and… what was that? Cracked, warped a little, all strings broken, but this had been a stringed instrument at some point. Granite frowned at it- had they seen something like this in the lowlands and ignored it?- and almost stopped here to pull out the fiddle they were slowly getting better at.

When they stopped for a longer period of time, or after they went back to check with Hornfels, they could find a safe spot for a camp and play for a while. For right now, Granite kept exploring.

There were portraits around, of the aliens, with antlers and green feathers and alone or in little groups. They might have raised children in… what were the words Solanum used. Related family units? It was probably a Riebeck question anyway. 

This one was destroyed. It looked deliberate, not random chance; scratched out. Just one in this portrait, with a broken antler. Granite kept an eye out for any more destroyed portraits, but, here at least it was just the one. 

Granite shook themself. More to do. 

There was a lantern sitting on a box, next to a painting of the tower outside. And a weird, thing? Like a projector, call it that. So much stuff Granite didn’t have names for, Gabbro was going to make fun of the names they were giving, but they’d have probably named the Stranger something like ‘Enstatite.’ 

They shined their flashlight into the projector, and there was something , but even with glasses on they couldn’t make it out.

Granite grabbed the lantern and put it on the projector, and grinned when something lit up, more clearly than the flashlight showed.

It showed a tunnel, cut into the rock under the tower and climbing up. Granite took the lantern outside with them and left it on the boardwalk in front of the tower as they walked in. More lanterns in here, but they frowned, looking around.

The murals were the same as the other mural room. In the same order, except… that ringed planet was in the background of a different painting. Why? And why this huge tower for the same thing in the first area? 

Granite walked out and found a spot to jump into the water and ‘swim’ into the little cave. They already used the jetpack for this normally on Giant’s Deep, it didn’t matter too much how much one fake leg had impacted their swimming abilities.

Here was a ramp cut into the rock, and they followed it to stairs set into the back of the tower, and followed those up, scowling a little as the stairs kept climbing; at least the Nomai’s gravity tunnels weren’t hard on their leg.

They opened into a room, finally, near the top, with lanterns that looked wired into the walls. There was a slide reel on a toppled cabinet that they grabbed, and a painting of, the tower? But at night, with that ringed planet behind it. 

Nothing much else, except a nice rug on the ground that really tied the room together, a thought that made them realize they might have been spending too much time with Gabbro. 

They took the slide up the rest of the stairs, and out onto the roof. There were little pictures of this tower and the mural room in the first area, and another one that looked more towards that bridge in the narrow gorge.

And a fourth. Not like the others, with their green light surrounded by antlers. This looked like, a metal thing, like an old fashioned diving bell. Suspended on chains. Granite frowned, looking around, and saw the chains reaching into what looked like a reservoir in front of the dam. They’d get there when they got there; skipping areas was how you missed things. 

They jumped, hitting the jetpack, and only landed a little hard on the porch in front of the tower, but it was enough to send a little shoot of pain through their bad leg and partially dislodge their glasses again. Pause to fix everything, then they grabbed the abandoned lantern on the way towards the burned building and the painted room, then put everything down again to check the burned building. 

Right outside was another painting that showed the area, and they paused to carefully copy the letters, and frowned as they were about to label it as the second area. That was honestly already irritating- this could be the isles, and the first area was the lowlands, and the bridge in the gorge could just be the gorge and they’d deal with anything else they happened to find. Granite walked inside the burned wreck.

The Eye of the universe symbol sat, ashy, but not melted, in the middle of it. 

Not the Nomai’s, this was more organic looking, but it sent a shiver down Granite’s spine. They came here looking for it, the not burned bits of the slide showed that, and then they had burned this. 

This was something bad, they got a little wave of remembrance. But they couldn’t remember what ; it might have just been because it was burned.

Granite walked back, grabbed the reel and the lantern, and walked into the painted house. 

Another slide room; this had slides downstairs.

Chapter Text

“Hornfels did you get a warp core thing from Granite?”

“Yes, Feldspar, I just haven’t gotten it ready for display.” Good, one less thing to do. Good thing no one else was exploring down here, Feldspar had apparently shut off power to the Sunless City trying the experiments the Nomai had done. The little translator they’d gotten was a big help, it wasn’t a wonder that Granite had figured out so much so fast with theirs, enough that Hornfels had talked them and Hal into making a few more when they were grounded for ‘medical reasons’ a bit before they found Feldspar, and they got the one Riebeck didn't take. It wasn’t like Chert or Gabbro were going to use one of these.

Feldspar walked out the door at the top of the high energy building, debating leaving it open, then carefully figuring out how to close it without getting trapped. Better to keep the sand out so it stayed mostly intact. 

Time to go see the black disc they hit the radio as they took off.

“Where'd the hatchling say it was? Above the plane of the system, but-“

“The deep space telescope’s orbit and forty degrees up. Remind them to take their radio next time, I know they don’t like carrying it, but I don’t like our newest astronaut in an undiscovered location without it.”

“They’re not a hatchling, Hornfels.” They heard Hornfels mutter something about double standards as they focused. This was the orbit, even if the telescope itself was on the far side of the system somewhere. Feldspar reoriented the ship and began ascending.

“I know they’re not, but between the glasses and being the only person to seriously injure themself and keep flying Gossan and I would rather stay cautious.” That got Feldspar to snort, still watching the sun. 

“Having their radio’s not gonna help- whoa.”

“Found it?”

“Yeah.” Feldspar breathed out, and grinned. “Yeah, I did, that’s a black disc way up here.” They started accelerating towards it. 

“Don’t crash up there, it’ll take Gabbro a while to find you if Granite’s not paying att-“ the radio cut out and Feldspar barely registered it, staring at the structure floating in front of them. A spaceship. A spaceship! More aliens, this thing was huge, and this had just been hiding here-

“Hornfels?” No response. “Hornfels! You’re not- wait.” They had been talking. Feldspar stared at the ship for a long moment and reangled their ship to fly away from it. 

“-need you to answer, please, Feldspar-“

“Back. Sorry about that, you cut out when I got close to it and then my radio stopped working.”

“But you got next to it?”

“It looks like a ship! It’s huge, Hornfels, it’s gotta be as big as one of the Twins. I think I saw Granite’s ship in there, I’m gonna go join them exploring.”

“Don’t get stuck, and bring back pictures at least!” Feldspar flew back to the structure. 

Burned here, too. That made all four of these areas, Granite scowled, looking across the water. Bits and pieces of knowledge, leaving just enough for a sketchy picture of what happened and none of the interesting pieces; the single reel here was almost entirely burned. 

There was another building on this side, they should check that out while they were here. 

Locked. With a cylinder covered in symbols next to it; experimental messing with the gears next to it showed it would change the symbols. 

They could spend hours right here clicking through every possible combination, or, they could wait til Gabbro showed up and hope they got fixated on getting inside enough that they didn’t mind doing it, even if leaving it unopened felt like nails being dragged down their soul. 

The neighboring building was broken enough they could get the scout into it, though; Granite took a minute to dig it out, and started looking around. A decent sized tree had broken through the floor and roof, and the scout fit even while they didn’t… that was a picture half covered by panels, but the codes they could make out looked like they matched up with the pillar. The inhabitants wouldn’t just, leave the code right there, would they? Even accounting for this probably not being broken when they vanished?

Granite tried it, double checking with the picture from the scout, and let out a startled burst of laughter when it worked. 

Directly inside, was a window, looking out. And a burned gear. Really burned, someone had wanted this destroyed, parts of the surrounding metal was melted. Granite checked the room next to it; there was a… something, with several arms reaching out. And a screen, showing what might have been the Stranger and a line to this reaching thing, and an error message- it wasn’t connected, it looked like.

It was easy enough to guess that burning the control gear had disconnected it, but why? 

Granite looked around warily, a nasty feeling of deja vu rising up. This wasn’t a good thing, to be here, this entire area of the Stranger made them more nervous than the rest of it had.

Well, that was easy to fix, they could finish poking around quickly and come back later with Feldspar. Granite hurried out and over to the dock, pausing only to copy down the words on the sign right here- they hadn’t when they’d arrived.

They dropped the raft again and sailed across the reservoir to the chained structure. That looked like the exciting part of this area, and really, it was the only place they didn’t get a really bad feeling from. They docked and decided to check the building first, but made sure to copy down the writing on the sign blocking access; it looked like a ‘do not enter’ sign, and they noted that, before disregarding it completely. The door was locked, though, and the sun and moon opener the other doors had was covered with a solid metal plate.

There were cracks in the wall; Granite peered in, and saw the huge hole in the floor. It only took a second to jump the railing and jetpack up. 

“Need to ask, I need a waterproof suit for this. Or just waterproof pants.” They probably should have brought a recorder, like they were supposed to, but it felt… too personal, almost, despite the comfort of hearing someone else’s voice when they stumbled upon one. They’d stick with the notebook for now.

There were diagrams sketched on the walls, and the chains were anchored in here, and there was another burned gear, and it was all directed at something shaped like the diving bell depicted on top of the tower in the isles. 

That had to be what was connected to the chains; Granite, about to drop down the hole in the floor, saw that the door could be opened from this side. It wasn’t as fun, but it did make life easier; they vaulted the railing and used the jetpack to sink quickly. 

This was the diving bell.

Something was shooting light down, and as they swam in, it was a room. There were stairs on one side, they swam up and walked the last few steps into the air. 

A casket, locked, just like a few of the slides had shown them; and a green fire sitting in front of it. 

And nothing else in this little room, that was a bit of a letdown. Why was this connected to the tower?

…this fire looked like the fire in the unburned slides, that the inhabitants had fallen asleep around, with the artifact things like Granite had left in the isles. They could check that next, just… the casket itself, was there, but the fire seemed to keep drawing their eyes. Something bad-? Something they did. The rest of this room didn’t give them a bad feeling, just that fire. They were gonna have to go talk to Gabbro later and update them.

Granite turned and swam out and surfaced, looking for the raft. Time to see what the artifact did.

Feldspar dropped out of their ship- Slate might not even notice that little ding, compared to the much larger crack they’d hastily patched on Ember Twin- and looked around. Granite’s ship, and alien ships all around in here. 

Granite must have been inside past the stairs; they could take a half hour and try to get into one of these.  

Granite picked up the artifact and approached the tower. The inhabitant in the slide had been pointing at the mural with the ringed planet in it. 

But it was stubbornly closed; no pushing- being careful not to break anything, they’d never hear the end of that- no prying, nothing worked. Granite eventually grabbed the lanterns off the sill and moved them to a safer place so they could climb up-

The picture ground back and away, leaving unamused Granite staring at it until they remembered seeing that in the slides, too. 

Whatever. They figured it out. Granite grabbed the artifact and carefully sat and twisted to get over the sill without hurting their leg. 

There was a green glow from down the stairs below them.

This was where the aliens went, right? Maybe they were alive down here, asleep? The slide from this area had shown Dark Bramble before it got destroyed, but, maybe they lived a long time or had a life support… thing. Granite looked around the doorway. 

Another green fire in the center-

Surrounded by long dead corpses. Granite froze, wishing the flickering fire didn’t make them look like they were moving. 

And then noticed that each body was holding the same artifact that they were holding, lit with green fire. 

They crept in a little more- they’d spent hours in the lakebed cave where the Nomai skeletons would move around when you looked away! They could handle this! It wasn’t that different, even though they looked, almost locked into each place… 

And saw the empty spot along the wall. It was almost like it was waiting for them. 

Hornfels was going to be so mad but… they had to see what was going on with this, creepiness be damned. They still had an hour or two to poke around.

Carefully, holding it at an angle, Granite shoved the artifact into the fire, pulling it back when their hand started to sweat under the glove. 

No luck; it was stubbornly unlit. 

Could they light it from the aliens? They didn’t want to try in case that was what separated a bony wrist from its desiccated arm.

Granite sat down next to the empty spot, and thought about what they’d seen. Maybe-

They’d fallen asleep, right? That’s what it’d looked like. Maybe standing in the thing was important, too?

Feldspar would probably walk in and start making fun of them standing in here holding the artifact. But, no risk of embarrassment no gain, right?

Granite set the artifact where they could rest their hand on it, pulled off their helmet to sit at their feet- it was more comfortable to not have their ears all folded up and the glasses pushing gently into their skin- and stared at the fire like Gabbro showed them, breathing deeply. And let themself slip into sleep. 

And woke up, instantly, that wasn’t normal, Granite was a deep sleeper-

The alcoves along the walls were all dark; the little green lights were gone. Granite stepped down, holding the artifact, and jumped and fell over- no matter what they told Hornfels their balance wasn’t totally back to normal with the prosthetic and the feeling of wood under their foot was surprising. 

It was wood, and they were in their sock and prosthetic foot, boots gone. Suit gone, too, that was weird and they looked around from their spot on the floor in case it was somewhere nearby. The nearby alcoves were empty. And pristine.

This wasn’t a Feldspar prank, at least, they wouldn’t move the bodies around. Granite got back up, pushed their glasses back into place- at least they had those, and their poncho and beanie- and grabbed the artifact.

It was lit, which got them to freeze for a second. Why-? Oh well, the only way to find out was to explore. They climbed back up the stairs to the tower.

It was early evening outside, and a railingless bridge stretched across a river to a building. 

This was not where they had been when they fell asleep. 

Granite walked out, cautiously, and looked up, and saw the ringed planet from the mural, from the slides, floating in the sky.

Where was this? Their homeworld, home, moon? Did the fire, transport them here somehow? 

Granite took a deep breath, and frowned; it felt like they were… far away? It was a weird feeling. 

They could explore around this area, and then figure out how to get out and go tell Hornfels, and hope the new discoveries were enough to distract them from Granite not bringing their radio in here. There… probably was a way out, right? 

Granite looked at the side boardwalk, which actually had railings, and followed it a little, but it dropped off abruptly. 

Over to the left was another boardwalk, but there wasn’t a clear way down there; they’d have to keep looking. About to turn, Granite looked at the railings and frowned. Unlit candles, sitting on either side. They didn’t have anything to light them with; attempting to stick the flame of the artifact onto the candle did nothing. Granite sighed, and walked across the bridge and into the building. 

It was… mostly empty. There were some boxes, a clean, newer looking chair, something that looked like a fishing spear leaning on a railing. They looked out, at how the building wrapped around a cove fed by the water below them, and saw a statue surrounded by candles, with a staircase circling down around it. Granite looked around, and chose the left hand path to follow. 

More rooms, and- footsteps above them. Granite looked up curiously. The inhabitants?

Well, their lantern was lit, and all the aliens’ lanterns were still lit despite them being dead. Maybe, it didn’t matter here? Whatever this all was. How did aliens keep living here when Granite saw their bodies outside?

No inhabitants on this floor, or at least, in this area- Granite kept walking, watching for them. Feldspar was going to be mad this time, they’d only been exploring for nearly twice Granite’s lifespan and Granite was going to get both ‘first contact with an alien’ experiences. They should leave right now to let Feldspar have their turn… or they could keep exploring and what happened, happened. Maybe, if all of the inhabitants weren’t on this floor, they could avoid them and bring Feldspar in here later?

There was a door to the left, with two candles set up in front of it. One was burnt out, the other lit. And there was a grate to the side- something was outside, along the little path.

The door had no obvious opening mechanism, no handle or push spot or anything. Granite stood back, then looked at the candle. Everything around the river area- were they still in the Stranger? They had to be, somehow, Granite decided- everything there was controlled by light. 

Granite blew the candle out, and the door vanished. Was that stuck out, now? They tried to light these with the artifact again- maybe just this candle could, since it was already on? And focused the light on accident, a neat little searchlight forming. 

Granite looked at it, and hit the other button on the handle, which caused the fire to be concealed completely. Right, they’d messed with it earlier, it could do that, and it made sense how it reacted with the fire in it now.

They pointed the artifact at one of the candles, and focused it again, and it relit, and there was the door; concealing the artifact’s fire again did nothing but reduce their field of view that was already beginning to suffer as evening fell to night. Granite blew the candle back out and wandered down the path.

Not far, actually. It was a short wood and stone path to a wooden structure with a hollow center. Granite frowned into it, and leaned around it to look. It was pointed at the walkway next to the tower; they shrugged mentally and focused the light into the hollow center.

The rest of the walkway and another building appeared, and Granite grinned, triumphant. They could go over there in a bit; they had the rest of this side to explore.

Chapter Text

Feldspar looked around this little wooden room. Nothing out of the ordinary, except the four wooden pillars that glowed green when their flashlight hit them. The area they stood on was carved and had darker wood inlays, too, and metal inlays. And a small gap all along it. 

When they turned the gear thing here this was gonna do… something. Feldspar reached over and clicked it.

And dropped, laughing, into a river, that arced back over their head and around- there were buildings, and landmasses, and space outside. No wonder Granite was still in here.

There better not be any living aliens in here, the hatchling had already gotten first contact with Solanum and they needed to learn how to share. 

There was a platform shooting a light down into the water; it grabbed the raft automatically, and Feldspar looked around at this cluster of buildings at the base of a decent sized dam they hadn’t seen at first. 

The walkways had chunks missing, the buildings were decaying; no chance of a first contact here, the people must have been long dead. Feldspar nodded and picked the painted building first to poke around in.

There was a lantern projecting a slide reel; Granite wasn’t tidy, they knew that, they’d left everything here.

Well that wasn’t any fun. They’d just get the story from Granite later. Feldspar walked outside, looked around, and saw the building with a green light coming from it. Maybe that would look untouched.

Dead end. Granite looked around, focusing the lantern to help, but there was just the creepy hand thing here. Oh well. They turned around, made their way back to the bridge they came in on, and decided to check the new building, lighting candles as they went. 

There was a door into a different part of the tower, or to the right; they went right first, climbed down stairs until they were nearly at the water, and focused the artifact through another hollow centered statue. 

It formed a raft, sailing up to them gently; Granite focused the light on the green orb and watched it speed up, but let it sail by- the tower was next, and the rest of this place, and then they could go see where that went.

This tower led to a mirror of the room in the other tower, with a much more intact rug on the ground. Granite looked around, blew out a couple of the candles, and left when nothing happened to continue climbing.

The roof of this was also the same as the other tower, except it wasn’t flashing little blue lights around the pictures; it had a beautiful view of the planet, though. They looked down at the ground around the tower, thinking, but it was a bad idea to just, jump; even when they had the jetpack, their leg was still bugging them a little from doing that earlier. They climbed back down, across the bridge again, and to the right. 

This area gave way to a little wooded area, and then, to two staircases with another hand, and a third staircase going down, with a sign blocking access, just like they’d seen in the reservoir; Granite frowned at it, and hurried along the other side. They’d come back, but they were still hearing aliens above them and not sure if any were even on this floor.

Nope. This side ended in a spot where they could see the creepy hand thing; focusing the lantern to look around pulled them back to it; once they got over the scare, it was irritating. They had to run back around. Maybe one of the aliens would hear them and come down? Even with the prosthetic clacking they were a lot quieter, so, maybe not.

Feldspar abandoned the raft when they got close enough to the buildings to jetpack up to a walkway. Granite was either here or left a raft behind, the spot for it was filled. No sounds other than the river, though, as Feldspar listened.
They were around here somewhere, probably, unless they’d slid out as Feldspar headed in. That wouldn’t be awful, they could go tell everyone. 

This building looked interesting- one of the portraits that were everywhere had its face scratched out, that was more interesting. Why? 

There was a secret cave and entrance into that tower- a lantern and a painting showed it off. That looked promising; they jumped down the stairs, and hit the jetpack to get over to the tower. 

They paused, in the entrance, and decided to check the inside quickly. What if the paintings were different?

One was missing. Or, well, pushed back, lanterns cleared from its sill. Feldspar jumped it, and saw the green glow below them. 

There was a green campfire, weird, crackling away in the center of this room.

And bodies. Feldspar froze, looking from boney grin to boney grin. The Nomai at least had the decency- this was not something they could say to Solanum when they told this tale later, but they could say it to themself right now- had the decency to die where they were, they didn’t strap themselves to the walls and die holding weird lantern things. 

Feldspar looked around, and of course. There was Granite, helmet at their feet, hand resting on another lantern thing, leaning in an empty alcove, dead asleep. 

“This is why Hornfels told me to come check on you, you make bad decisions.” And they reached over and shook Granite by the shoulder. 

No response. They twitched a little in their sleep, but didn’t wake up. Feldspar looked around the room, already more unnerved than they would be willing to let on around a campfire later, and hauled the hatchling onto a shoulder and out. Up, outside of the tower, and Granite got placed as gently as someone a head shorter could place them on the ground, and Feldspar dug through a pocket for the nasty smelly salt stuff Gneiss had made sure they carried to wake someone up fast. They crushed it under Granite’s nose.

Nothing, not even a twitch now. Granite didn’t wake up. And now Feldspar started to panic. Something had happened before they got here and Granite wasn’t waking up.

Granite jumped the barrier. This was just a little setback, but it was enough to irritate them. They shuddered, a little, and frowned, as they looked around down here; nothing that looked like it should warrant the barrier, just some chairs, and fishing spears. Experimental tries with them proved they were for someone decently taller than a Hearthian, so Granite sighed and put one back. And looked at the hallway. 

As they looked down it, a statue at the far end began flashing red, and they heard a faint clanging sound, but it was easy enough to ignore. Something was down here. 

The noise was a little irritating though, but hiding the fire on the lantern was enough to stop it and the flashing. Granite walked past, and clicked the lonely gear sitting out here to see what would happen.

A raft sailed over smoothly, with only a backward and forward orb; Granite stepped on and focused the light, and watched as a burnt building came into view. 

Burnt? What? 

They stepped up, frowning, looking around. A telescope sat outside what was once a house, and on the other side, was a charred Eye of the universe. And something, charred but there were panels they could nudge open.

A skull, one of the alien’s skulls, covered in grass, with a flower growing up and out of it, and galaxies sprouting from the flower. Granite blinked, looking at it. Why was this all burned? It looked nice.

The base of this had been in one of the slides, right? From the isles area? If they touched the Eye they would die and turn to grass like this, but the slide had stopped before the flower grew fully. 

This was probably enough exploring. Granite went back onto the raft, back across to the ringing statue. They should figure out how to leave this area and go tell the village what they found before Feldspar showed up. 

The statue lit up red again, but didn’t ring as they made their way back up to the main level they were on. They’d have to find a way to get further upstairs, too, later-

Wait, there was that other elevator. They could check now, while they were here. Granite made their way back across, using the hand thing they’d been irritated at not that long ago, and to the elevator.
It would not take them up. 

It did take them down, though. They did want to explore down here anyway. Maybe they’d find something to let them leave. 

Feldspar barely remembered to pause right before the hanger to shove Granite’s glasses into one of their pockets and twist their helmet was on before they hauled the hatchling back over their shoulders and clicked the gear to open the airlock. However the glasses were supposed to fit under the helmet, Feldspar did not have time to figure out. They weren’t waking up, shaking them didn’t work, the smelling salts didn’t work, yelling didn’t work, and when they’d run down to get their helmet some alarm thing had gone off and startled the hell out of them. 

Out of the hanger, Granite was just, only breathing in the corner of the ship, the hatchling needed to be home and it was an almost foreign feeling but it needed to happen now.  

“Hornfels? Hornfels, come in, please.” 

“Feldspar? What happened, you’re not-”

“Granite’s unconscious, they’re breathing but not responding. I can’t wake them up, I’m bringing them back now.” Of course Timber Hearth was on the other side of the sun, they gunned the thrusters and pirouetted around it effortlessly, but had to swing the ship around and keep the same intensity to slow down enough they wouldn’t hit too hard.

“Calm down, Feldspar, they’re just a really heavy sleeper. They’ve slept through ship explosions and fires and who knows what else.”

“They’re not waking up, Hornfels.”

“I’ll have Gossan and Gneiss meet you at the launch pad. To talk to them about picking a campsite better if nothing else…” The muttering was ignored; this was not normal. 

Feldspar was more careful than they would have been, landing on top of the old tree, and managed to get Granite out of the ship before the elevator with just Gossan reached the top.

“They’re-”

“Hornfels told me. I know you haven’t seen them as much around the village, but- huh.” The same smelling salts had been deployed as Gossan pulled Granite’s helmet off; and no reaction, same as for Feldspar. “That, usually works, let me-” Something different, that made Feldspar’s eyes water from a foot away, and also no effect. Gossan had dropped their cheerful attitude. “This is bad, sorry for doubting you, help me get them- go get Gneiss!” Slate at the base of the tree took off, as the two senior astronauts got their unconscious colleague into the elevator and down.

Hal tugged their gloves again, making sure they were properly on, before dragging the thorny, twisted root fragment into the burn pile with everything else.
Clearing the seed had taken less than a month, the seed itself was thrown into the sun with some careful piloting- Granite had been enthusiastic up until someone decided Chert was less likely to also crash into the sun doing that- but clearing the rest of the roots looked like it was going to be an ongoing task, and Granite usually helped with that. There were always more poking out of the ground when they came back up here.

Marl huffed, leaning on their ax. “Pity we can’t get your astronaut to come get these and we just have to burn them.” Hal gave them a look, just in case they were going to start teasing again. “Tektite didn’t even let us bring marshmallows, and what’s the point of having a bonfire without marshmallows?”

“If you want to eat something coated in that ash you feel free, I’m not gonna risk whatever food poisoning that’ll give you.” 

“Where’s Granite today, anyway?”

“They found something new and they’re exploring, that’s what Hornfels said.”

“What, they don’t radio you specifically?” Hal picked up the ax, and looked from it to Marl, who held their hands up and backed off, laughing. 

“Okay, okay. I know you don’t carry around a radio.” 

“Hey you two, I’m not explaining to Gneiss why one of our tree keepers lost an arm.” 

“Sorry, Tektite.” 

“Let’s get this pile burning and head back.” Marl started fiddling on one side with matches and Hal found the can of rocket fuel they’d dragged up here. 

Tektite was fiddling with their radio, which was fine- they were just here to supervise, really, the radio was here in case there was a serious issue- but they yelled over before Hal could start pouring fuel.

“Not right now, leave it. Stamp that out, Marl, we’re heading back to the village.”

“Wh-why? We’re almost done, the fire’ll just take a bit to burn out-”

“Something happened. Rutile took over the radio, they said we need to come back.” Tektite looked like they were going to add something to that, and stopped. Marl spoke up before Hal could.

“Just that?”
“...They said Hal needs to go back, but we’re not burning this lot with just me and one tree keeper.”

“Why just Hal?” Something happened and Hal was needed back at the village. There was really only one reason they’d be called back right now.
Something happened to Granite.

“They didn’t say. Drop it, Marl, we’re leaving now.”

Chapter Text

Granite looked around, at the base of the elevator. There was a cave down here, kinda, and they wandered inside and then over to the right and ended up back at the elevator. 

Okay. They went back in and left, and saw the red flash from the statue. No ringing, this time, which was appreciated, it had been irritating. Granite walked to the bridge in front of the statue, hiding the fire experimentally, but it did nothing to stop the flashing; they shrugged and headed across and then down. 

Something bugled, loudly, as they started on the staircase, but after roaming this entire area and not seeing anyone, that excitement had worn off. They could meet the inhabitants later, they wanted to see what was down here.

Another bridge, and… paintings, behind shutters? Granite opened a few, looking at the aliens shown, and closed them again. There were flowers under some portraits, and little boxes; this must be a graveyard of some kind, like the little graveyard at home.

There were more bugles upstairs; it sounded like an argument, almost. That happened, usually at home between Slate and Gossan, or Rutile or Spinel or the hatchlings yelling for whatever reason. It was easier to just keep your head down and continue on if no one was about to hit each other.

There was another flashing statue down here, and an elevator; Granite just ignored it and rode the elevator down.

And gasped, as it dropped into the archive. Rows and rows of slide reels, what the Stranger proper only hinted at, all living here. Granite crept out, awed by the sheer amount of everything. 

There was another shutter covering a painting to one side; a circle, with two circles making rings like stones in a pond on either side of it, like some of the shorter slide reels. They opened it, curious, but the inside was burned, like the house had been. That was… they closed it and hurried on, trying to ignore it and the worried spike of deja vu. 

There was a place with the artifact’s symbol, and when they placed it, a screen lit up, and a door creaked open. 

Just three slides, sitting innocently on the shelf. Why were these three specially closed off?

…well, why were these three closed off but still accessible, they couldn’t get at any of the others. There were, walkways and such, but above their head with no clear way for them to get to them. Granite gathered the reels and chose one at random to slot into the holder, then jumped down into the pit to go through them.

The same reel that was burned in the isles, apparently, the second step of the story, the Eye. The alien scanned it, like they had, and saw everything dying, burned the temple, and… blocked the Eye’s signal that had called them here. Granite replayed the section, thinking. That was the thing in the reservoir! With the controls burned, that they’d had to find a code to get inside. What they had seen, their deaths, had scared them enough they’d hidden the Eye entirely? They stared at the screen for a minute, and shook their head. Time to hurry, Hornfels was probably expecting them to show up soon. It had been enough of the day they were starting to get tired, and they’d said they’d only be here for a few hours. Granite switched reels.
An inhabitant fell asleep near a green fire on the Stranger, and appeared near a green fire here. Then another inhabitant, helping an elderly one, moving with a cane and assistance, but the elderly one collapsed near the fire. The younger one looked like they were yelling, and the older one… died. And then appeared, next to the green fire, looking around. 

That made, sense, they were dead in the Stranger but alive wherever here was. Granite started the last slide reel. 

One inhabitant highlighted, and a bell above the fire began ringing. It showed how they could still hear it, and it woke them up and out of… Granite was less and less convinced this was a real place, they were treating it like it was, a program or something, a super advanced computer program, not a dream.

And then the reel showed the other inhabitant, who was dead, skeletal as the ones Granite had seen. And as they watched the reel show that the ringing couldn’t wake this one up, they realized it had been a while since they felt themself breathe. 

The, connection, feeling, whatever it had been, that they’d felt earlier, was gone; they weren’t sure when it had left… wait, near the burned building, right? That was the last time they remembered it. 

That was… weird, where did it go? Maybe, they decided this was a computer, something, and they only felt it at first? But they’d been here a while before they got to the burned building.

…The slide showed that they should have heard the ringing statues. 

They had heard, one… right before the burned building. And it had been faint.

They had passed it again, and the big one, and the little one before the elevator, and they hadn’t heard anything. 

Just like the skeleton in the slide they had been staring at.

That was why the statues had only flashing lights, they were ringing, and Granite was dead, just like the skeleton. Granite was dead, and in here with only aliens they didn’t know, and Granite was dead. And no one knew they were in here, if Feldspar had even shown up yet.

Somewhere in the part of them not consumed by this they heard the elevator start clicking away. 

No. They weren’t, they couldn’t be dead. They’d spent two hours, maybe, exploring around down here… breathing in whatever fumes that fire made. It was a fire! If it made bad air or something it would have snuffed itself out!

It had all that stuff under it feeding it. You couldn’t taste bad air, Tuff was very clear about that whenever they were starting mining a new vein. 

Granite looked back, and grabbed the artifact suddenly as the elevator reappeared. 

One of the inhabitants, in flesh and blood and feathers rather than the bones Granite had seen outside, who sent the elevator right back up and stayed there, looking around, focusing their artifact to scan the corners of the archive more easily, and just like the Sun Station, Granite was rooted in place from a memory; rather than reading ‘Time until station is destroyed: 7 seconds’ it was being picked up by an inhabitant just like this one, and their lantern going out. 

Granite leaned against the side of the pit, tightly keeping their artifact closed, watching the little searchlight. The aliens hadn’t been friendly and they’d forgotten but why had they come down here… they weren’t supposed to be down here, were they. The statue things were supposed to wake them up, and stop people from coming down here and seeing the full version of the slides.

If they found Granite right now. They weren’t going to be friendly. And Granite… was dead, wasn’t dead, they needed to not find out right now.

The elevator’s clicking sound was back, and Granite listened as the aliens- two of them now, probably- walked closer. One of them was making a lot of irritated noises, and they heard the sounds as the reels were gathered and an artifact placed to return them to their shelves. The other alien was walking down into the pit-

Granite sidled behind it, onto the stairs, when it turned and saw them. 

And yelled, and tried to grab them. 

Granite ran, dodged the second who was just walking away from the reels, and stumbled into the elevator, forcing it upwards as the two aliens yelled below them. 

They had to get out of this area, at least, they were stuck here but they had to find somewhere to hide- maybe the raft? Out of the elevator, they kept the light focused on the up indicator for the elevator for a few steps and then turned and ran. Something was still a little off, they couldn’t focus on it right now, there were no other inhabitants waiting in the graveyard. Granite ran back to the stairs and up, something was still off- they were running. Without issues. They hadn’t been able to do that since the Interloper- no time to focus, run faster, there was a bugle from down below them and a lot more elevator sounds quickly. They found the one that had brought them here and went back up as the aliens began heading down. 

Granite kept the light closed, glad they’d lit all the candles earlier, until they saw the bridge back to the tower and to the raft area.

And heard another bugle when they let go of the button- one of the inhabitants was over in the stone passageway and saw them. 

They sprinted across the bridge, nearly fell down both flights of stairs, called a raft, and the alien was almost down here. Granite focused the light on the raft until it was closer and jumped on, not letting go of the focus button. 

The alien called another raft and followed, way too close for comfort. Their arms were long enough they could grab the back of this raft easily. 

And they did, as Granite tried to move to the front of the raft, but they pinched out the candles on the back and Granite had a bad premonition of what would happen with all the candles out. Or with their artifact out, the alien was trying to grab them. 

They passed into a dark tunnel as the inhabitant made a second swipe, and Granite overbalanced trying to dodge it and fell to the side, off the raft.

“...and they were downstairs, out, surrounded by all the skeletons.” Hornfels sighed, momentarily irritated out of their worry.

“Without saying anything or coming back out to warn us or anything, right.”

“They probably didn’t realize this was going to happen.” Gossan was the third person in this meeting, fiddling distractedly with their scarf. 

“Obviously. But this still happened. Go ahead, Feldspar.”

“Nothing else left. I tried to wake them up down there, dragged them upstairs and tried the salts, realized I needed to get them home, and then some alarm thing started up when I ran back down for their helmet.”

“...They weren’t wearing it?”

“Nope.” Gossan put their head in their hands. 

Rutile finally spoke up, the only person here not part of Outer Wilds Ventures. “We need to know more about whatever happened before we let more people explore over there. I don’t like the idea of more people passing out somewhere we can’t see and can’t radio and not waking right up.”

“We agree on that, Rutile.” Hornfels had been pacing along the wall, but now faced Feldspar specifically. “Sorry, I know you were excited, but until they’re awake I’m making sure everyone knows to stay out.”

“Which really just means me. I’m sticking around until they wake up, don’t worry.” 

“Gabbro said they might check it out, but yeah. Esker and Gossan are staying put, Chert’s not going to be interested, now that Riebeck’s working in the Hanging City with Solanum I already can’t get them to answer their radio half the time.” Hornfels started fiddling with the radio’s controls. “I’ll let everyone know what’s going on, but unless anyone has any other thoughts, this is our course of action.”

“Hal.” Hal jumped a foot and looked at Gneiss; they hadn’t realized they were standing in the kitchen quietly when they’d entered the house.

“Hi, Gneiss, I can-”

“You are not helping with Granite right now.”
“But-”

“You’re gonna be too worried, Hal, you know that. There’s enough of us already that are going to be taking care of them. I have a different job for you.”

“Anything.” Granite was asleep, and not waking up, and that wasn’t un common but nothing was waking them up and that wasn’t normal and something happened out in space-

“Me and Tektite are both busy with Granite and I don’t trust Spinel not to agitate them so I need you watching Silica and Nickel.” Helping Granite- on hatchling duty?

“I-I can, but-”

“You’re responsible, you can deal with both of them, and maybe caring for hatchlings will distract you enough you’re not worried sick about Granite ‘til they’re awake.” Hal fought back the initial feeling of irritation; they were still helping Granite by freeing up the people with more medical knowledge. 

“Al-alright. Who-”

“Tuff has them right now.”

“I’ll go get them.”

Gabbro stared at the clouds, not playing. Not even a full day exploring and something happened, just like the Interloper. Granite had just been here two days ago, excitedly explaining about a little switch they’d found in the warp pad near home’s Nomai ruins, that switched the warp pad to temporarily send someone to Ash Twin. They thought it was what had sent Tektite, years ago, but wasn’t going to tell anyone else just yet due to Tephra and Arkose’s troublemaking tendencies, though they’d set up some makeshift ‘suits’ just in case someone got stranded.

Well, forget no traveling to check it out, everything about this felt wrong. Granite had been there and been in and out a lot, before, and this hadn’t happened; they were probably still running around, and who knew what Feldspar found and dragged back to Timber Hearth? A giant spaceship could have made or held practically anything.

They probably weren’t getting called to do anything else, if Feldspar was staying in the village, and that also meant they were the only one who would probably be able to go find Granite before whatever Feldspar brought back woke up. 

The radio crackled back to life, interrupting their thoughts. “I’ll head home, i-if that’s alright, Hornfels. Solanum will come back too.” They blinked in surprise; this is what got Riebeck out of the Hanging City? No surprise Solanum was sticking with them, though, she wouldn’t want to wander the graveyards her homes had become alone. 

“I will too. Esker, I can bring you back as well if you wish. With multiple people busy the village is going to need more hands.” Chert, too. And Esker, as they agreed. Silence for a minute, and Chert asked before Hornfels could. 

“Gabbro?” They made a face and lied.

“I’ll stay out here for now, someone needs to keep an eye on everything else. I’m sure I’ll switch with someone eventually if Granite’s not on their feet again in the next day or two.” Well, foot, but no one really liked being reminded that the newest astronaut lost part of their leg within a year of launching. 

“Fair enough.” And the radio quieted back down.

They could give it an hour or so, let the traffic in the solar system calm down, and go check this place out. Granite had been, wherever this place was before, but Gabbro knew that only Granite had gone to explore it; they’d pretty much camped here, before. But with no one else needing anything out here, they’d have a lot of time to go looking.

Chapter Text

Granite hit a weirdly hard surface- it felt like ice, almost, but not cold, with a thin layer of water covering it. They sat up, still clutching the artifact, and looked around. 

They were sitting on water. Around them were a handful of buildings, different collections of them, dimly lit. And a green glow, over to one side, closer than the others. They pulled themself up to their feet and frowned at their leg, but just in case the water realized it wasn’t acting right, they walked to the closer area until they were on dirt. 

It would drop down, and there was another hollow statue, pointing at something dimly lit, but with three green locks on it. They’d seen this, in the slides, right? There were three slides of locking this, and it looked like the thing in the diving bell in the reservoir that was also locked. 

It could be ignored, right now. Granite sat down and checked the prosthetic leg.
It… still looked like the prosthetic? When they took it off and tried to stand, it was like they just had an invisible leg they couldn’t feel, except the normal occasional twinge of sourceless pain. They tugged at their pants to check the stump, and… it was there, but the scar was still rough, and this scar, wasn’t. It was like it was painted on, not even the texture of their freckles. They knew there wasn’t anyone here, but Granite checked, anyway, before checking other scars. The scar on their remaining hip and leg from falling out of a tree was the same weird smoothness, and the smaller ghost matter burns on one elbow. But why did they not have their boots or suit, then?

They took their glasses off and looked around and frowned when their vision didn’t go back to very blurry. Wherever this was, it was almost like their mind was put into something that only looked like their body, but didn’t act like it- like it was a, a computer thing like they thought, that didn’t have ‘bad vision’ or ‘missing leg’ coded in beyond looks. 

They put the prosthetic back on- it felt weird to stand, and look down and only see one leg- and then their glasses; it was a little weird to not feel them present, despite the itchy band. And they dropped down, and looked at the hollow statue. Nothing happened when they focused the artifact into it. Granite sighed, looking through the center of it, trying to ignore that they couldn’t really feel themself still.

The middle lock disappeared. Just like the candles.

A few minutes of experimentation showed that blowing through the statue would extinguish the lock, and focusing the artifact would bring it back.

Granite watched it, frowning, before relighting the lock. They didn’t know what was in there or why it was locked away; maybe it was better to leave it be for right now, but it was a distraction. They’d… been down here, before, and it wasn’t a bad feeling, except, it was; their brain was thinking about being burned to be down here and they didn’t like that.

There was a raft here, that looked like it would go back and forth; Granite used it to cross to the beach everything was on.

There didn’t seem to be any inhabitants here, at least. They found a mostly hidden spot, where their back was to the rocks and they could see the locked casket thing. Now that they had a minute to stop, they were tired right down to their bones.

It was all dark, down here, with just the lanterns and the lit up statues. Granite settled, and took another breath they couldn’t feel.

They were- no. They weren’t, they couldn’t be dead. They were just… stuck, maybe? There was probably an easy way out of here, they could probably extinguish the artifact by dropping it in the water…

Were they willing to risk it? If they were dead and they dropped it and that was it?

If they didn’t, they’d die anyway, eventually. 

Feldspar would find them before that point… if they hadn’t found Granite dead somewhere. 

Despite the chase and the worry and the knowledge they were avoiding thinking about, Granite’s mind won, and they fell asleep. 

Hal didn’t look over as someone sat next to them. They’d had their hands full for the last few hours. The twins were barely four months old and barely brand new hatchling size; identicals usually had some health issues when they were freshly hatched, though thanks to, surprisingly, Slate, these two hadn’t been struggling to breathe for the first month. 

“Hal?” It was Feldspar, who they did and didn’t want to talk to. They weren’t excited enough for Granite to be awake. 

“Yeah?” A quiet sigh. “They’re not awake yet.”

“No. Gneiss said if you want to visit have Riebeck take the twins.” Feldspar fidgeted a little; then reached over to take Silica, reaching for them. They weren’t in their flight suit, which was rare; more so than the rest of the village, their clothing wasn’t just heavily patched, it was hard to tell the original colors under the patches. “You didn’t hear what happened, except that they’re asleep, right?”

“Yeah. Rutile told Tektite over the radio and then told me they weren’t waking up when we got back. What did happen, Gossan said you brought them home?”

“I’d followed them to a black disc in front of the sun, that’s pretty far inclined above the system.”

Gabbro sighed, looking at the black disc they were quickly approaching. They were already tired just looking at this, but no one else was going to go look so it was up to them. What even was in here?

Oh. Gabbro quickly forced the ship to stop; they had to take this in for a minute. It was easy to hear the description ‘a spaceship that was easily the size of one of the Twins’ but another thing entirely to see it. No wonder Granite hadn’t come out immediately to say something. 

Anything could be hiding in there, including whatever Feldspar brought back, and Granite.

There was a hanger, a brighter green glow than everything else. Granite’s ship was still sitting in it. Why hadn’t- right, Feldspar couldn’t tow other ships with theirs. Gabbro and Chert could, and maybe Granite could, but Feldspar was usually being towed back to the Attlerock and no one wanted to ask Riebeck if Slate had put something in their ship.

Gabbro walked past it, past the alien ships, up the stairs. They would have to come back, some day, to poke around. Maybe nap up here where the radios apparently didn’t work and Hornfels couldn’t wake them up for non urgent issues. 

Gabbro inspected the statue, with little wings that looked like they’d rotate, and bands along the wall with gaps in them. Maybe more light-

The wings began rotating, the bands rotated, when their flashlight hit everything; they watched, and turned it back off in time to watch a door on the far side open. 

Into a little wooden room stinking of stale water. Like when they’d let that little meditation wheel thing keep running in the travelers’ cabin and left for two months, water that was moving but had been moving in the exact same groove long enough it might as well have been stagnant. 

There was something in here, as they turned the flashlight back on. Four glowing green orbs, on a square of decorated wood, and a gear thing next to it. 

Between the smell and the churning sound when each orb lit up, there was water under here and this was a raft. 

They were already pretty happy on Giant’s Deep, and now they got to see a new water ‘planet.’ 

Gabbro clicked the gear. 

And dropped, a lot further than they’d thought they would, and fell off the raft. 

The river was deep , too, and they scrambled back up, glad this suit was waterproof. And looked back, at a dam behind the building they’d dropped from; another raft was sailing up to it behind them as they rounded a corner and sailed under a platform shooting light down into the water, which dropped hooks and pulled their raft up. 

Alright, now where could Granite be? 

The walkway had broken pieces, the railing was missing chunks, the trees were holding on by a thread; this was old. Older than the Nomai, definitely, their stuff was breaking down from the elements- this was breaking down from age. 

Two buildings here looked important, a building with a green light surrounded by antlers and a painted building. Gabbro chose the painted building; it was closer. 

There was a lantern in a holder, projecting onto a screen, and a pile of slide reels next to it. Feldspar had probably seen it and left; they’d never been that interested in this type of thing. Granite must have left them. 

Gabbro began going through them, since they were here. Maybe there was a clue Granite had gone chasing, and looking at these could show which way they’d gone.

The aliens had seen the Eye symbol thing, and there were a lot of burnt bits, and they had flown out here, to the Eye. 

The other reel wasn’t anything really useful- burned bits, a thing closing, an alien, a lock forming. Gabbro walked outside and looked at the other building, but they were on a roll with the painted building that Granite had left slide reels in and wandered back to the raft. Granite might still be in one of these areas looking around for slide reels. 

The gear dropped it, and they flopped down, content to let it sail.

They almost started playing again- their flute was as much their constant companion as Feldspar’s harmonica was theirs- and then they saw the rapids. 

No pole to fend the rocks off, they frowned for a second, then dug the flashlight back out and turned it on, pointing it at an orb away from the rapids.

Perfect, they went right between both and saw the next spot, over to the right. Easy enough to head over there.

This painted building was set into the rock, and there were slides sitting around it again. They’d scanned the Eye, and it showed them dying, and Gabbro nodded. That… was about what they and Granite had pieced back together? And it was anyone’s guess why it hadn’t stuck. 

The second was, again, a lock forming on some closed thing. Two locks, now. Gabbro walked back outside, looking around. Straight ahead was a reservoir?

No, there was a bridge, way over to the right. They could take a raft and try to force it that way.

Or. That seemed like too much work and too much room for error. Gabbro climbed the cliff above this building with the jetpack, and set off around the edges of the ship. 

It was a gorgeous view, when they stopped to look out, and they started to doze off a little, watching the planets dance around the sun, before remembering they were here looking for wherever Granite was holed up. 

They dropped down in front of a building with the same green light and frowned. Why three of these?

There were just murals inside, and lanterns everywhere. Murals of the aliens, doing things, and one of them had a blue-green ringed planet in the background. 

“We could have had rings? Giant’s Deep shoulda had rings.” They’d have to tell Chert, sometime… focus, Granite was in here somewhere.

They hadn’t seen them rafting around, or in the slide reel houses or heard them anywhere, and if nothing else they walked a little heavier on the prosthetic leg and Gabbro should have heard that echoing around.

Gabbro started going through the last set of reels here, across a bridge from the mural house. Crying at their homeworld- why couldn’t they go back, if they missed it that much? And then a lot of burned slides, and-

Filing into alcoves on the wall, around a green fire, holding lantern thingies, and falling asleep. And the lanterns lit up green.

…Granite would absolutely try that if they found a lantern and a green fire. It wasn’t a maybe, it was an if or a when. 

…If you were asleep, with the lantern lit up like that, could you wake up? And what would happen, if say, someone named Feldspar dragged your body away from the green fire?

Maybe that was Granite asleep on Timber Hearth, and they were here at the same time.

Gabbro saw the lantern thing out of the corner of their eyes and picked it up. Time to go test the theory.
If they could figure out where Granite found a green fire, if that was what happened. 

Time to check the areas more thoroughly. Gabbro groaned a little and walked across the bridge to look inside the other buildings. 

Everyone was home on Timber Hearth, for the first time in years-

Well, since Feldspar got home six months ago, but someone had always been out since before they’d gotten stranded. 

If only it was for a better reason. 

Granite was going to be fine. Whatever had happened, they’d wake up in a few hours- a day or so, a few days maybe- and they’d be fine. Just like Feldspar had been stranded from a crash but not dead. Despite the pushback when Outer Wilds Ventures started, despite every scar Feldspar picked up with reckless abandon, despite every fire and destroyed building, no one had died. 

Granite wasn’t going to die either. Hornfels just had to stay up here, where they wouldn’t see the looks Gneiss and Rutile were exchanging, or see Chert or Slate. 

Or Gabbro, Gabbro and Chert had both thought Feldspar was dead, but they had been wrong and Feldspar was still alive too and Gabbro wasn’t actually home, the only person not home. 

Hornfels paused near the radio, again, but they didn’t need to try and call Gabbro back in yet. They’d be okay, out on Giant’s Deep, for a bit longer. 

Granite had weirdly attached themself to the older astronaut- they’d made the traditional first flight to the Attlerock and then they’d gone bouncing off to Giant’s Deep in a hurry despite planning to go to Ember Twin and try to put that translator to good use. Focusing on Feldspar, sure, most of the hatchlings did that, but Gabbro had never been the exciting explorer Feldspar was, even before they’d launched. They liked the weird quantum grove and argued lazily with Hornfels about that rock that had to be an optical illusion, and had gotten Granite agreeing with them, somehow. 

Never mind that Granite had attributed Gabbro’s theories to helping them make the first landing on the Quantum Moon, much less that they had met Solanum there; Gabbro was. Not the influence the newer travelers should have. Neither was Feldspar, really; if they could they needed to start directing Tephra towards Chert now.

But Gabbro was the traveler Granite talked with the most and they were the only person who didn’t come right home. They should have been home. 

To pace around the village like Feldspar had been and be worried, even though it was hard to tell when Gabbro was worried…

Hornfels walked away from the radio again. Gabbro could stay in Giant’s Deep for now, if that was what they wanted.

Chapter Text

Granite tapped on the controls in their ship. It wasn’t flying, they were just floating, somewhere above the white hole. They could just see it, below them, and for some reason they were content to just hang out in the ship, which was definitely their ship despite having the artifact sitting in it and Riebeck’s radio. 

Someone came through on the radio, stuttering, which didn’t sound like Hornfels?

Galena. “I-is someone there I was at the ruins a-and now I’m in a tower-” Granite lunged forward, hit the controls to fly forward, but despite the lights on and the fuel indicator claiming it was full, nothing happened.

“There’s a big thing of sand that was coming through, a-and it looks like it’s starting to rise-” They had to get flying they had to get over there someone found the switch and was stuck-

Granite startled awake. No one here, still, that was a relief. No daylight though, their body insisted it should have been about now, they could sleep through practically anything except sunrise on Timber Hearth. 

Just another nightmare. They weren’t common, but that one was broadly the most recurring; sometimes it was Hal radioing, or Tephra, or Galena or the other hatchlings, someone finding the warp pad switch they’d cleaned out and stranding themself. They’d set up some ‘space suits’- really just helmets and oxygen tanks- and a radio up in the Timber Hearth tower, after the first nightmare, but maybe they should get some more stuff, next time… right. They- no, they weren’t dead, they were just, stuck? Granite shook themself and looked around for a distraction.

There was a ramp of some kind behind them, that they’d fallen asleep leaning on. And candles all around, that they started lighting. 

The casket, the locked thing, was the focal point, but there was a gear sitting in front of it. It could wait.

Granite put the artifact down- it was heavy, they didn’t need it right now, everything was lit and this was as bright as this area was getting- and started walking up the ramp. 

Almost at the top, everything turned aqua and Granite froze, looking around. There was still a bubble of reality, around the artifact, but… everything was, blue and, and not detailed, with blue lines like the top of the tower, and.

There were pieces of a bridge, at the lock thing over to the left, and a line where the raft could only travel back and forth, and they could see the ringing statues more clearly. There was a line going up from here, too. And stalactites, hanging from the ceiling, no wonder it didn’t get light here, this was a cave.

Granite looked down and startled a little- they didn’t have legs, it was just, a much longer poncho than their embroidered one, and totally undetailed. Larger hands, too… it was like they were a ghostly version of one of the inhabitants.

Granite walked down and grabbed the artifact, and returned to the top of the slope, and clicked the gear here. The clicking heralded an elevator they stepped onto, only remembering that the inhabitants were not friendly halfway up. Maybe, they’d been like that because it was night, and Granite was in that archive, and if they saw others, they’d be more friendly? Their little remembrances of before told them that was a vain hope.

…Maybe, if they ran into one, before it could grab them, they could ask how to tell if they were dead, in here, if the inhabitants knew or knew how to tell. Granite was aware that they desperately wanted the answer to that, wanted to hear that they could tell, and they were still alive, but they still couldn’t feel themself breathing.

This was a copy of the bottom of the diving bell. And the top was the same, with a fire, but the locked casket was gone- moved below them. 

Crucially, there was no way out. 

Granite took the elevator back down and sent it back up. 

They looked around aimlessly, and saw the statues again, and started walking down the bridge. The statues began flashing red, but there still was no sound coming from them.

They walked back after a few seconds. Maybe the slides were wrong, or the alarm thing had broken?

No. They’d heard it, the last thing they had heard.

They were stuck here. 

And they were dead. 

Tephra looked up as someone climbed up onto the roof next to them- Galena. And Mica, after a second. 

“We’re gonna go up into the clearing above the village and practice, do you want to come?” 

“Not really.”

“It’s not a question.” Mica hadn’t knelt next to them like Galena and grabbed an arm. “You’re coming up to the clearing with us and practicing, Slate already got their drums set up.” 

“I don’t feel like it, Mica.”

“They’ll wake up eventually.” Galena was tugging at their other arm. “You can’t just be sad forever until they do.”

“Everyone else is busy doing things while they’re asleep, we can be too. And Slate said focusing on playing for a while will help keep us busy.” Tephra sighed. They didn’t want to go practice the trumpet. But, if nothing else it would get Galena and Mica to leave them alone for a bit. They nodded, and helped Galena move their cello and Mica move whatever metal percussion thing Gneiss had made them.

Slate helped haul both instruments up the slope out of the village when they got close; Tephra could carry the trumpet’s case more easily. 

They’d set up their drum- not a hand drum like Chert’s, they used sticks- and once the hatchlings were settled started a beat for them to follow. Galena, then Mica, then Tephra joined in, playing along with varying degrees of harmonizing. Arkose struggled up the slope after a few minutes, kazoo in hand, to follow the song.

“Well done, everyone.” Slate was not usually that nice and hearing that from them was a little off putting to everyone except Mica. “If it rains tonight we shouldn’t leave this here, I can help take those back down.” 

There was no real change in the village as they moved the instruments down with exactly as much care required to stop Gneiss getting upset. “Huh, I figured the noise’d wake them up.” Slate probably didn’t notice the look from Tephra. 

Everyone else was heading back towards the hatchling’s cabin. Tephra climbed back up onto their chosen roof, looking up as Giant’s Deep orbited away. 

This must have been how everyone reacted when Feldspar got lost, and, they came back. 

Tephra had a few hazy memories of them from before Feldspar got stranded, and listening to everyone in the months after Granite found them and then Gossan brought them home there was so much they’d missed; was that going to be what happened to Granite?

But they wouldn’t be asleep for as long as Feldspar was missing. They were here, not in Dark Bramble, in a campsite Tephra would go see one day. 

…Tektite had said, they probably had a week, and any longer than that was iffy, because it was hard, keeping someone unresponsive alive. And Gneiss had told them off for saying that and neither had noticed Tephra up here but they had heard them, all the same. 

Galena climbed back up onto the roof and sat next to them quietly, watching the night sky. 

“We’re worried too.”

“I know, just...”

“We’re not the next astronaut.” Tephra nodded. 

“I think I need to talk to Riebeck, since they’re home, tomorrow. They’re-“

“They’re the closest to know.” Silence; Tephra kept watching as Brittle Hollow appeared. 

Spinel was walking on the path below this house and Galena jumped to see them. 

“We’re supposed to be in bed, I bet they’re looking for us-“

“Okay.” Tephra grabbed their hand as they hurried off the roof and to the hatchling house before Spinel saw them or Galena got too worried. 

Gabbro looked longingly outside as they sailed back to this area of houses on stilts. They wanted to nap, but they hadn’t seen Granite in the reservoir, just a nearly totally destroyed slide reel. And whatever that chained thing was, but, they were ignoring it- it looked like a bad idea. And nothing in the first area, no sign of Granite or the green fire.

Best to start on one end, and they’d already been in the slide reel house- Gabbro walked up to the mural tower thing.

One of the murals was pushed back.
And there was green light down below. They walked down, cautiously.

The aliens, long dead, still clinging to lit lanterns around this creepy little fire.

And, abandoned in an empty alcove, a lone artifact, burning away.

Could they, take that? What if it went out when they tried?
Gabbro paused, and looked at the bodies. Wherever these all were, wherever they’d gone… they were still in there. Probably, but the lanterns were all lit, despite the aliens being definitely dead. Granite must be in there too, because that one lonely lantern was lit. 

Gabbro rolled that sentence around in their head- they liked that last bit, something to file away for future art- but they could do that later. They had their own lantern, and sleeping must have been how you turned it on or whatever, between the reels and Granite being found asleep. Gabbro stared at the fire, calming down, and shut their eyes.

And woke up in a dark room. Where were all the little fires? They got up, and walked closer to the wall. The alcoves were empty, the room was clean rather than dusty. No Granite, no aliens. 

And no suit, if Granite saw the unpatched flannel they were still wearing, it was being stolen to be fixed. They hadn’t realized the hole in the shoulder had gotten that big, or that the breast pocket was about to fall off. They got up and checked the lantern- lit, with green fire, crackling along merrily. 

There were stairs, directly behind them, but the lantern thing was heavy- they put it down a few steps up and kept climbing. There were lanterns underneath them, and a faint glow up above. If there was a reason they needed it they’d find out soon enough. 

Gabbro climbed up, vaulted the sill- no mural pushed out of the way, but there were murals around in this dark room- and walked outside. 

It was, not bright, but daylight, and there was that blue-green ringed planet, floating gently in the sky. And something caught their eyes, to the left; like a building just, vanished. But more importantly something was yelling. 

Aliens, not skeletal but flesh and blood, and hurrying towards them. Gabbro waved, and walked forward, and froze a little distance from the tower when everything went aqua and low resolution. Was this why they needed the lantern? Two steps back and the world returned to normal. 

The aliens had stopped when they’d walked into the aqua area, they’d just been antlered ghosts in ponchos- oh that was a good idea to hold onto, too- but surged back when Gabbro stepped back. The front one grabbed them by the shoulder, prompting the thought maybe they’re not friendly , then grabbed their head and twisted.

Gabbro jolted awake, in front of the fire, surrounded by corpses, and rubbed their neck and the fleeting soreness. So the aliens weren’t friendly, good to know…

They looked at their lantern, fire gone, then at Granite’s still lit lantern. They must have been somewhere, hiding, but even if they were still in that area Gabbro couldn’t look with the aliens all upset like that. 

Well, there were two other places like this, and they were probably all attached. And even getting their bones rearranged had just woken them up… but Granite didn’t have anything to wake up to, here, did they? Would they wake up in their body, if an alien did that to them?

Time to hurry.  Gabbro left for the gorge.

Chapter Text

Somehow Esker had ended up out here, checking on Porphy’s tapped trees, with Chert following to help. “Porphy’s doing what, again, that we’re out here?”

“Fishing with Gossan.”

“Yeah, right.” Chert chose not to respond. “Where’s Spinel?”

“Hatchling duty. Except for the twins, Hal has them.”

“Gabbro should’ve come back when everyone else did, they’re good enough at fishing we wouldn’t need two people out.”

“They’re fine where they are, Esker.” 

“No, they’re not. Everyone else is running around and they’re out napping.” Chert started to respond, and stopped. “Granite’s gonna wake up and guess who’s the only person not here? Gabbro.”

“They’re not going to wake up.” If they hadn’t been listening, Esker would have missed them. 

“This is the same pessimism you had for Feldspar-“

“It is. And for years I might as well have been right. But Feldspar was still around, and I hope Granite will wake up, but there’s no sign it will happen, just like there was no sign Feldspar was in Dark Bramble until that seed hit Timber Hearth.” They replaced the full sap bucket Esker had pulled off the tree. “Granite seemed to imprint themself on Gabbro after they launched; I do not blame Gabbro for not wanting to be here, watching them fade away.” 

“Both of you are too pessimistic for your own good.” Esker checked the last tree and hauled the wheelbarrow full of sap buckets back to the trail. “Don’t go saying any of that to Hornfels, now. You’ll be grounded permanently, you know how they were for Feldspar.”

“Yes, I remember.” Chert was looking up, as Brittle Hollow orbited into distant view. “No one could bring the subject up to any of you, for months. No one did to Hornfels, ever.” 

“And it wouldn’t have done anyone any good to try, either.” Esker glanced back at them.

“I will go get Gabbro, wh-if we get to that point.” Esker snorted. 

“Just because I disagree doesn’t mean you have to sugarcoat your words for me. But good, they’d need someone to drag them back here. Sooner rather than later, mind you, even if they just free up another pair of hands.” 

Granite stared up at the ceiling. No needle and thread for embroidery, no notebook to even sketch in, no fiddle to be bad at, they’d wandered all around this spot and up the elevator and there really was no way out. There were other buildings, across the water they could walk on if they went back to the middle island and climbed, but they couldn’t actually reach them. Not without really risking falling into normal water and dying.

They were already dead, why not try? 

…something was stopping them. It was… a big thing, they didn’t want to just, do, when there was a chance someone might find them. 

They listened, hearing a far off elevator click. It had done that, a little, but the elevator must have been down in the locked thing. 

…that was something they could do, just. Why was it there? What had scared the inhabitants so much they’d locked it up, here and in the reservoir? What sketchy before memories they had weren’t helpful, here, they just had a feeling they’d done something awful to get into this area before.

Granite watched the ceiling. And got up and walked over to the gear set into the ground in front of this thing. They weren’t expecting it to open when they clicked it, and were not surprised when it strained against the locks, barely opening a hands width. 

And green light came out of it; they could see, something, a little. Granite shut their eyes, and saw it clearly. 

An alien pointing at the tower in the isles, then climbing up stairs inside it, to the room with a nice rug. They pointed at lights, picked up an artifact, and left. And two lights on either side of that painting went out, and the mysterious point of view walked forward into a new room. 

Granite blinked, and shook their head. 

Closer inspection showed a little projector in the inside bit of the metal, but they were wary about shoving a hand inside. 

So, just one more mystery they couldn’t solve. 

Granite frowned, watching the locked casket. 

Well. They could solve one.

They turned, and walked down the bridge with ringing statues. If they thought about this, they wouldn’t do it. They blew the lock out. 

Gabbro froze, hearing a ringing that got louder and louder, then suddenly stopped. It was somewhere under their feet, looking around this mural room. One of these paintings was hiding a staircase, and they’d tried everything they could think of to find it and it hadn’t worked. The ringing came back, and… it was loudest behind this painting, with the ringed planet. That was the one that sounded hollow when they knocked on it. The painting with the ringed planet was the one pushed back in the second area, too, but it had been that painting over there.

Gabbro moved the lanterns to climb on the sill more easily, then looked back at the grinding noise. 

“Oh.” The mural had moved back. “You coulda told me that’s how these worked.”

Granite rode across on the raft, blew out the second lock, then back again. They’d aligned the bridge earlier as something to do, but it was a little nerve wracking to walk along nothing until they reached the island and blew out the last lock. 

Time to just, go see, like with the Sun Station. Or the Interloper, but that had lost them a limb and dead or not they’d rather not lose more bits. Granite clicked the gear in front of the casket, and watched it open. Inside were steps, going down. Granite took a breath and descended. 

And kept going down. Good thing they didn’t feel the prosthetic, what was left of that leg didn’t like lots of steps like this. 

The stairs ended in a little circular room. They lit the candles around, frowning. All that was here was a telescope, and… the planet? It was visible from down here? No, it shouldn’t have been.

Something creaked open and Granite turned, and saw the doors. There was a spot for their artifact at the far end. 

Right, they’d heard this earlier. Granite placed the artifact and heard the doors close as it began to drop. 

Only now did they realize some one was probably down here. But, it wasn’t a bad feeling.

The doors opened, and Granite grabbed their artifact and walked forward. Down here, everything was dark… except for the green light, directly across from them. But there wasn’t anything attached to it?

And then a hand reached forward, and one of the aliens stood up, mouth open, reaching for them; Granite stumbled back and fell, holding their lantern back, and was picked up. 

And set gently on their feet, hand remaining until they were steady. As much as they could read the expression, the alien looked like they were apologizing. 

“Who are you?” Their head cocked to one side- Granite realized one of their antlers was gone, broken off near the base. This one had been in the slides for the isles area, and… they were the alien whose portrait was destroyed, the only alien with a broken antler like that, they must have been. They raised their artifact, and lit the main light in this room, and walked over to the wall. 

It looked like they’d been, not sleeping maybe, but just sitting in a chair in the alcove. 

They turned back holding a weird long handled… thing. It looked like the Nomai’s writing staves. 

Their eyes shut, and green light began scanning them, and shooting out towards Granite. They shut their eyes and stepped forward. 

This was the fourth part of the burned reels, that Granite had only seen one fully. This alien woke up, and turned off the Eye blocker the others made. And was imprisoned here for it, and the blocker was turned back on. 

They handed the staff to Granite, who had to put their artifact down to hold it. This alien, this Prisoner, had set the signal free, for a short time. They knew what happened next. 

Granite shut their eyes and focused, and showed the Prisoner. The Nomai, who’d found it, and come here, and traveled all over the system looking for the Eye, and then the Interloper; Feldspar finding the chunk of wall that had inspired them and Hal, to go exploring and decipher the language, and then them, exploring, finding what the Nomai left, and the coordinates to the Eye that they and Gabbro still weren’t sure why they had those. The one single lucky shot the cannon had made before breaking, maybe. 

They opened their eyes, and looked up at the Prisoner, who was breathing slowly. Then they reared up and bugled, loudly, and walked to the elevator, and reached for the staff. Granite handed it back, and they bowed, and walked inside. The elevator closed tightly behind them. 

Granite watched it climb, alone in this little room. To think, they’d been worried about coming down here. 

It came back, and they rode it back to the telescope room. 

The Prisoner wasn’t here. They climbed the stairs, listening, and left the casket into the eternal night.

The Prisoner was gone. The elevator wasn’t moving; where… the staff was stuck into the ground, projecting something. Granite walked into it. 

The Prisoner walked up to a raft, carrying a telescope; Granite waved goodbye to other Hearthians, and joined them as they placed the telescope on the raft, then both pushed it into the water and climbed on, and sailed into a sunset. 

Granite opened their eyes, and looked down to see the footprints leading into the water. 

They breathed out, and walked away from the shoreline. Eventually. But they needed to tell everyone goodbye, first, and for that, someone needed to come exploring. But… they were dead, and they knew what was next.

Riebeck jumped when someone touched their shoulder, but it was just Solanum, always a little anxious to be in one of the slightly too small Hearthian cabins. 

“Porphy says you’re not allowed to keep baking.” Her voice was quiet, and warm, and she’d finally gotten a hang of the ‘t’ sound the Nomai didn’t have.

“But- yeah, that’s. Two batches of bread, I should, s-stop-” Riebeck was switching between plucking at their suspenders or tugging at their ears, nervously. 

“They’ll wake up.” Solanum was helping Riebeck explore the Hanging City; for them, it was a treasure trove of Nomai information, for her… it was finding what had happened to a previous home, and they’d both needed each other’s help for the project. 

But Granite was who found her, and brought Riebeck to the moon to help bring her to Timber Hearth. 

“Y-yeah, they will, Gneiss and Rutile know what they’re doing, just…”

“We should take the twins from Hal.” That caused a frown.

“Gneiss wanted them watching the twins specifically, so they’re not worrying.”

“And now you are worrying, and Hal could be allowed to do something other than watch the little ones for a day.” Riebeck sagged, and nodded, and followed Solanum out of the traveler’s cabin. 

Hal was around the hatchling’s cabin, the only other group cabin in the village, and probably getting ready to feed Silica and Nickel. 

They only protested a little when the hatchlings were taken. 

“We can. Go sleep, Hal.” They nodded, and got up. 

“Hal?” Riebeck was holding Nickel. “Use the traveler’s cabin, for now? I-if, you don’t want to-”

“I will, thank you.” They turned and left, quietly. 

“Silica, you need to eat.” Solanum added some phrases in Nomai, but Silica was staring, wide-eyed, hands buried in her fur, same as every time the hatchlings had been close enough to touch her. 

“Here, I’ll feed Nickel and then switch you.” There were some bowls here with the fishy paste small or sick hatchlings got; Nickel cooperated. Silica did not, refusing to open their mouth or let go of Solanum for ten solid minutes. 

“I’m glad Hal did not have to try to feed you, little stubborn child.” Nickel fell asleep while Riebeck was still trying to feed their sibling. 

“At least we’ll be able to tell who’s who easily. Rutile said identicals usually keep looking like each other, so different personalities help.”

“They’re uncommon, right?” The request for information was a distraction tactic- Riebeck and Solanum both used it normally while on Brittle Hollow.

“Yeah. Twins in general are- we’ll see fraternal twins, so that’s two eggs laid at once, more commonly, but two hatchlings in one egg is rare.” Silica fell asleep as well, eventually, as they quietly talked to forget the circumstances.

The problem now, was they were bored. They were waiting for… whoever would come and find them. There was nothing to do. 

Granite gave in and started carving designs onto the prosthetic leg like they weren’t supposed to. It wasn’t like someone was going to get upset with them, since they were dead and that was a huge ‘get out of trouble free’ card, and this probably wasn’t really real, anyway.

Granite quickly finished carving the map of the system into their prosthetic, and paused to admire it. They’d have to double check where the Stranger sat in the system, but it was a good first try- maybe they could do this to their real prosthetic without getting someone too upset. Or, well. Not. It probably wasn’t a good idea to ask someone to do this to it for them. 

Now what?

They wandered down the stairs to begin drawing everything the Prisoner had shown them.

Chapter Text

Gabbro stepped off the raft, frowning at the huge structure here. There’d been no sign of Granite in the gorge’s dream area, and the aliens hadn’t been agitated and they’d managed to totally avoid them, and there’d been a raft they’d found eventually and this is where it went. 

They climbed the ramp, looking around. No aliens here, and they didn’t want to risk running into more anywhere, they were busy. They’d probably remember getting their spine rearranged every night for the next few months, but, such was life, it could share the space with the first time they’d broken bones on Giant’s Deep.

This bridge ended abruptly; they fiddled with the lantern to focus the light, to look, and got dragged across the gap by another creepy hand thing. 

“I wanted to be done with you in the last area but thanks.” And onward. 

There was a staff, torch, thing, projecting a green light; looking into it, it showed aliens materializing inside the thing behind them, picking up that locked thing and taking it downstairs. 

They blinked, and looked into a porthole to see inside. 

Just a green fire crackling away. 

Another green fire. 

Gabbro frowned, and drummed their fingers on it. That didn’t have the alcoves and bodies the mural rooms had. Where…

The reservoir they hadn’t looked at? If it was a bust they could just sail to the next mural room over the dam and go back to the main… this had to be a computer simulation thing. You left by dying, no thank you, or… the lantern was lit here but not in the real world, could you leave by extinguishing the lantern?

Gabbro leaned over the railing and dropped their lantern into the water. One, two, three-

And woke up in the creepy fire room. That worked, then.

They took the elevator down, and set off for the reservoir. 

Buildings to the far left, one with chains and signs to the right, and something suspended by three big chains under the water. 

“Now where would I put a creepy green fire.” Gabbro jumped into the water and swam down until they saw the light coming from the bottom of the diving bell, and swam inside. 

And swam up the staircase til they could walk up and into air. 

And here was a creepy green fire, with a casket in front of it. Open, locks fallen to the ground around it, with another skeleton resting inside.

This one’s lantern was unlit, and one of their antlers was broken. 

Gabbro breathed in, out, and sat down at the fire. They… should have left their scout to check on Granite’s lantern, to make sure it was still lit. If they had to keep searching. 

They let the fire lull them back to sleep. 

The casket was gone from this room, as they woke up and looked around. So was the water; the lower floor held an elevator, rather than just an opening. Gabbro stepped in and let it down.

There was a little beach, and some little islands lit by candles and lanterns.

And another Hearthian sitting on the beach in the dim light and Gabbro breathed a sigh of relief; they knew that silhouette, pretending not to have a prosthetic leg and the oversized poncho, even from here. 

Granite had walked back outside once they had everything written down enough, but heard the elevator clicking down right after they sat and took a deep breath. They didn’t know what they were gonna do if it was an inhabitant…

They knew who that was. They’d been threatening to steal that awful flannel for weeks to patch it.

“Gabbro!” They scrambled to their foot as Gabbro was let out of the elevator.

“Time buddy, I have been hunting for you everywhere.” And Granite crushed the air out of them in a hug. Out of everyone who could have come to find them… Gabbro was gonna have the hardest time explaining, but they were glad it was them.

“My body’s in the isles tower, underneath it.”

“Your body is in the village on Timber Hearth.” Oh.

“Oh, did, did Feldspar find me? Well, if they haven’t buried me yet, I think, Tektite could use my prosthetic? It’s better than theirs is, and I’m shorter but mine is for more of my leg, it shouldn’t need adjustments?”

“Granite.”

“And Galena should get my beanie, I know they’ve been eyeing it, a-and I want Tephra to get my poncho, but Hal’s probably getting everything else, but they need to know my notebook has the writing I found here in it-”

“Granite.”

“-not a lot, but I got a chalk rubbing of the entrance thing and copied the signs from each area and what I think are ‘do not enter’ signs in the reservoir-”

“Granite.”

“-Riebeck might want my ship if Tephra doesn’t get it- Gabbro, I think this is important. I’m dead.”

“No you are not.”

“Yes, I am. Those statues make a ringing sound if you’re near them that I can’t hear and I can’t feel myself breathe and-”

“Feldspar found you and took you home when you wouldn’t wake up. I’m guessing either they didn’t realize how heavy of a sleeper you are or they got you away from the green fire thing before they tried.” Granite blinked, tried several sentences, and looked away and back, frowning. 

“I’m not dead?” The one thing they had wanted to hear, after they’d accepted they wouldn’t hear it.

“No, just asleep in the village. For, two days now, I think? Which is its own issue. There’s a rotation keeping you alive and trying to wake you up.”

“Hearth. And I won’t wake up there, cause I’m… wait, but I’m here.”

“I think this is a simulation thing. The aliens are all dead outside of this, and alive in here.”

“Huh. I was kinda thinking the same thing, just… I dunno. Do you think, if I drop this in the water, I’ll wake up in the village?”

“Since you just said you can’t feel your body and I, yeah, I can kinda tell I’m breathing, no, I think that would kill whatever bit of you is here.”

“So, what, you go get my body?”

“Sounds like that’s our option, time buddy. Stay safe here, and it shouldn’t take that long.” Granite didn’t let go of their flannel. 

“Just in case.” Gabbro waited. “I got here by falling through a tunnel trying to leave the cove area, from the isles, there’s a raft there but I had to focus my artifact through a statue thing that’s across the bridge and to the left to see it.”

“That’s where the big tower is?”

“Yeah.”

“The aliens there were really worked up when I poked my head in.”

“That’s not great, it was probably my fault. Can you move my lantern here?”

“Here? No, I had to swim to get in. I’d rather not move it at all, really.”

“Okay. Well. Maybe you get my body back and come here. We’ll see, it’s up to you, I won’t do anything til you tell me. For, outside all this though, if you have problems, there’s a trick I found with the warp pads you might need.”

“I think you told me last week. What kind of problems do you think I’ll have?” 

“I think if you aren’t totally clear and careful with what you tell Hornfels, they’re not gonna believe you, same as with the quantum rocks, and you might not be allowed to launch.”

“Fair. I’ll figure it out, Granite. If I have to I’ll drag Feldspar and Gossan up here too.” Granite nodded, and then pulled them into a hug again. 

“Thank you.”

“Hey, I’m not leaving my time buddy alone in an alien spaceship! Well, not forever. I’ll be back, and we’ll get you back into your body and home.” Granite nodded, and let Gabbro walk over and into the water.

They weren’t dead. They weren’t dead. Every abandoned plan, every new mystery, Hal and the brand new hatchlings and Tephra launching in a few years and they weren’t going to miss it. 

…and now, they were back to square one, of being bored waiting for someone to come find them. 

They had already carved designs into this prosthetic, and illustrated- poorly- everything the Prisoner had shown them.

Now what?

…There was a stringed instrument downstairs, and no way for the inhabitants to get them.

Granite walked back down the stairs to find it.

Gabbro woke up, tired. Typical, but they couldn’t stop and sleep now. Granite… probably had another few days, knowing Gneiss, but keeping someone alive when they couldn’t wake up was difficult. 

Out, onto a raft, over the dam, and over to the far side was the building they’d dropped in from, hidden and up two sets of stairs; they jumped off when the raft was halfway down and used the jetpack to land next to the building, dodging the broken bridge.

There was a door they hadn’t seen leading in, and a new raft sitting in the center of the room as they hurried out into the hanger, leaving the lantern where it wouldn’t be possibly sent down river. Into the ship, restraints on, stop, restraints off. 

Gabbro climbed out and hooked Granite’s ship up to theirs, and then took off.

“Hornfels, I’m heading home.” They ignored the quiet ‘about time’ as they carefully launched their ship from the statue island on Giant’s Deep. 

“Alright. Ready to lend a hand back here while we’re waiting for Granite to wake up and tell us what happened?” Gabbro grimaced at the forced cheerfulness in their voice.

“Sure. I gotta talk to you.” 

“Gabbro’s finally coming back in.” Feldspar checked quickly for hatchlings and muttered a couple of words they shouldn't hear.

“Took them long enough. They’re only the person Granite talks to the most.”

“Hey.” Feldspar glared back at Gossan, putting down their harmonica. “They gotta process in their own way, you know. Granite’s not gonna wake up and ask who came back in first.”

“They may not have even been back.” They were looking away when Gossan glanced back over.

“But now they will be, and they’ll be here when Granite wakes up.” 

“They were just napping on Giant’s Deep.” Gossan finally reached over to grab Felspar’s shoulder.

“They are dealing with this in a different way than you are. It’s okay.” No response. “Granite will probably wake up in a day or two, and it’ll be fine.”

There was a small square of space left on top of the launch pad. Everyone was home, after all, except Granite’s ship. Gabbro landed, careful not to break anything, and dropped out and down the elevator. Usually they’d get out of the suit as soon as they had a chance- it was weird to wear it in the village, everyone felt like that- but they were launching again soon.

No one on the museum path at least, they didn’t want to stop and chat. 

“Hornfels?” Yeah, they were up here. The forced smile and the twitch in their eyes reminded Gabbro too much of right after Feldspar got stranded. 

“Gabbro. Finally decided to come home? We need more hands, with Granite still, sleeping.”

“I found them.”

“They’re at Hal’s-”

“In the spaceship thing. There’s a dream computer, thing, that the aliens are all in, and they were looking at it, and Feldspar took their body out so they can’t wake up out of it.” Hornfels wasn’t smiling, now. Maybe they should have planned this. “If we take them back, I- or Feldspar or Gossan or whoever if someone wants to come- can get their body to the right spot and tell them it’s safe and wake them up and they’ll be fine.” Hornfels reached over, watching Gabbro, and hit their radio.

“Slate, deactivate the launch pad elevator, please. No one goes up til I say, thank you.” That wasn’t promising. 

“You can have Feldspar check-”

“I told you all. No one back into that place until we know what happened, and you flew right there? What if you fell asleep too and we didn’t know you were there, Gabbro? What if you fell asleep and no one found you? You would be dead.”

“See, I didn’t think that whatever Feldspar brought back was Granite at first, so I was looking for them, but-”

“And you didn’t radio, and no one knew, Hearth you’re just as bad.” Hornfels turned away for a second and back. “You’re grounded until further notice, and when Granite wakes up-”

“They’re not going to, Hornfels. Not here. They’ll keep sleeping until Gneiss can’t keep them alive, unless-” The look cut them off, Hornfels had never looked that angry before. 

“Out!” Gabbro backed away and almost tripped down the ramp. And they looked up, in the museum proper, and heard Hornfels radio… probably Gossan, asking them to tell Gneiss that Gabbro wasn’t allowed to see Granite, and keep the doors locked.

That was incredibly unhelpful. Gabbro left, and looked around.

Everything was quieter than normal. They looked up, looking for the Twins. Ash Twin was full of sand, but it was near its tipping point; give it an hour and the sand would start flowing, uncovering the Nomai towers.

Not enough time for a nap, if they had to plan a kidnapping. Gabbro found a quiet spot on the far side of the ghost matter patch to think. 

And someone had followed them.

Hal had followed them.

“I heard Hornfels.” And that was why they looked angry.

“I probably should have planned that out better.”

“You don’t think they’re going to wake up?”

“No, they’re not. Because the part of them that would do the waking up is on an alien spaceship in a computer program.” 

“That’s ridiculous.”

“If we say that about every super advanced race we run into we’re not getting anything done.” Hal started to leave, but, Granite had something for them, right?

“Hal?” They didn’t turn back, but they stopped. “Did you check their notebook? They said they copied some of the writing for you. There’s a chalk rubbing of the entrance words, copied signs from the four main areas in the spaceship and what they think is a ‘do not enter’ sign. They wanted you to know.” Hal still didn’t turn, but waited for them to finish, and left.

Gabbro sighed, looking up. Ash Twin would stay clear for a day or two once it did clear, but that wasn’t a huge window of time if they had to go that route. What else…

Best to stay out here tonight, anyway, if more people heard them talking to Hornfels and felt the same. 

With everyone home, Feldspar and Riebeck competed for the worst snoring, and Riebeck wasn’t staying at Solanum’s little cabin, if that was ever going to happen, and Gabbro preferred to sleep in their hammock, but it was on the ship they couldn’t get into. It also meant no temptation to start talking to Chert, but despite Granite starting to tease them, they weren’t willing to follow that yet. And, of course, the whole ‘have to plan a kidnapping and execute it while Ash Twin is clear’ thing.

Staying out here was best then, yeah. Back in this corner where they wouldn’t deal with people, as they heard Gossan leave the museum and start walking around.

Chapter Text

Writing in their notebook. How would Gabbro even know that, no one had been there while Granite was exploring, just them and then Feldspar. 

Riebeck and Solanum still had the twins so Hal could have a break; they slid into their house. Gneiss had relented and moved Granite here after a few hours, hoping more familiar smells would help.

Still asleep, no fever, no response to a light touch, just dead to the world. Hal sighed and knelt next to the pile of their things. 

Notebook… here, the same battered one they’d been using since Ember Twin ate the first one. Hal flipped through quickly.

And here it was. A chalk rubbing of letters, angular with dots, arranged vertically. And more, after it, with Granite’s notes; from ‘first area’ crossed out and replaced with ‘lowlands’ then from ‘second’ replaced with ‘isles’ and then ‘gorge’ and ‘reservoir’ and ‘other side of reservoir- not on a big sign, a keep out? Do not enter?’

Just like Gabbro said. 

Gabbro had no way of knowing this was here. 

Unless. 

Hal squeezed a sleeping hand, and walked back outside. Two minutes of searching found Tephra and Mica. “I need your help.”

Gossan was searching for them. “Give me your suit.” 

“We both know it won’t fit you-”

“That’s not why. Hornfels told me, right before they broke down. I can’t believe I- I’m not talking about this with you right now, give me your suit.”

“The elevator’s already shut down-” 

“Stop arguing with me.” Gabbro gave up and handed them the helmet they’d been carrying. The oxygen tank and jetpack had been left in the ship anyway.

“You’re staying here til either Hornfels or I are happier with you, so the foreseeable future. Feldspar heard us, so the other travelers know, so don’t expect anyone else happy with you, either.” Great. They stopped responding, handed over the suit, and sat back down against a rock as Gossan left. No chance of recruiting help, then.

This was maybe too close to the ghost matter patch, actually. Gabbro watched the sky, watched Ash Twin for a hint of movement, and then got up, carefully following the village crater around to the graveyard. There was a helpful alcove back here that had been their nap spot for years before they launched and no one had ever found them, except for hatchlings. 

“...can’t believe they said that, Gossan said they were near the zero-g cave but I just looked.” Oh Hearth, Feldspar sounded upset. It was different when it wasn’t them, they were allowed to get into life-threatening situations but no one else was, and telling them that was an invitation to lose teeth.

“Just leave them be, Feldspar.” Ignore their heart skipping a beat, it was so rude they were finally catching feelings for people when they were practically middle aged, it was Chert-

“How can you be so calm? Gabbro-”

“Gabbro and I felt the same when you disappeared.” Gabbro shut their eyes against the little flutter from the one person apparently willing to defend them. “And you were gone, truly gone, for years.”

“Granite isn’t gone-”

“It’s been three days and they are no closer to waking up. I am not saying give up, Feldspar, I am saying be practical. This isn’t surviving in a corner of the system eating centipedes, it’s how long until they aspirate broth and can’t cough it out, or until we can’t devote this many people to them.” 

“We can until-”

“Until we can’t. And we can only hope they wake up before that point. Gabbro might have been tactless about it, but they’re right. This is not a ‘when’ situation. It is an ‘if.’”

They heard Feldspar storm off, and silence for a minute, then someone tapped their shoulder.

Gabbro almost hit their head on the top of this little hideyhole, and Chert was leaning on the rock next to them. 

“This was always your favorite hiding spot since you started trying to dodge Spinel making you check the fishing traps.” Chert had been one of the hatchlings who found them here, back when they’d both been hatchlings.

“Heh, yeah. I think it shrunk.”

“Most of the village refuses to see what’s going on. Same as with Feldspar.”

“We were wrong about Feldspar.” 

“Gossan told us-”

“I know how to wake Granite up. I just didn’t explain it well to Hornfels.” Chert was now focused on them. Gabbro did their best to explain, quietly, as Chert nodded and frowned and occasionally rubbed their chin. 

“So they are, trapped in what you think is a computer program of some kind, with aliens that will remove you from it if they see you. And you think if they wake up without their body nearby, either because they did something or the aliens find them, they will die, because there’s nothing for them to wake back up in.”

“Yeah.” 

Chert started to continue then stopped, looking at the entrance to the graveyard.

Granite scowled at the instrument, having taken long enough to drag it up to the beach, and was producing sounds reminiscent of their first go with the fiddle. It would take a while to be good at it, but right now they just wanted something that sounded like music.

…Gabbro should have been back. They should have been back a while ago. Figure, five minutes either way to get in or out, ten to fifteen to explain to Hornfels and get their body off planet. Their sense of time was sketchy down here but it had been over an hour, easily. 

What if Hornfels didn’t believe them? Locked the elevator, stuck them on Timber Hearth, until Granite’s body died and they were stuck here? 

No one except astronauts would ever come exploring, and no one else would risk this happening; the only people they’d see until they got tired of this were Gabbro and Feldspar and maybe, maybe, Gossan. Would they last until Tephra even launched?

Granite got up and started pacing, rubbing the embroidery on their poncho between their fingers. They couldn’t just let their thoughts be, apparently. 

Gabbro would make it. 

Probably. It was Gabbro. 

It was Gabbro and they’d never let Granite down before; they just looked at stuff different. They’d figure it out. 

Hal, with Tephra and Mica trailing them. They walked around past Chert trying to block them. Gabbro gave them a look, rather than say anything.

“I checked. The only way you knew what was in their notebook was by asking them, so.” Gabbro sat up more, eyes flickering between the three as Chert backed off. “We’re causing a distraction. Mica might be able to break the elevator code-”

“I don’t need it, I’ve got a different way off planet.” They met the confused looks. “Figured I might not be believed, since that’s typical. Didn’t think it’d be this bad, though. No, I’m not gonna tell you what it is, troublemaker. You’d never sleep on Timber Hearth again. Chert, I’ll tell you later.” Tephra giggled, and immediately sobered back up. Chert nodded.

“Alright. That means Mica can help more. And- Chert, you too? Alright. How much time do you need?”

“Long enough to grab them and get them into a suit and out of the village, I think. Ten minutes?”

“We figured twice that.”

“Chert, you helping them or me?”

“Both. You take Granite and run, I’ll make sure it’s a good distraction.”

“You can’t see anyone hiding next to the shed behind my house, and the back door won’t lock if you hit the frame on the burnt part.” Gabbro nodded, and pulled themself to their feet. “And Gabbro. If you don’t bring them back, don’t come back yourself.” That got Chert to wince, but Gabbro realized they’d already decided on this.

“Wasn’t planning on it. I told Granite I wouldn’t leave them alone forever in an alien ship.” Hal nodded and left in one direction with Chert as the hatchlings took off in another.

Gabbro wandered along the outskirts of the village and paused, and carefully walked into the traveler’s cabin, thankfully empty, and grabbed a loaf of berry bread off a sill- Riebeck had been stress baking, it was still a little warm- and a bag and a bottle of what was hopefully plain water, but knowing their fellow travelers it was juice of some kind. Back outside, hurry further along the crater, and into the shadow of Hal’s woodshed, listening. And watching. Ash Twin had just started to pour sand.

It took a few minutes until they heard the quiet ‘pop’ and then another minute before someone- Moraine, up in that tree?- started yelling. 

Hopefully the hatchlings didn’t light something big on fire, as they heard Gneiss run outside, locking the door. 

Gabbro hit the doorframe and watched the lock pop out, and hurried inside. 

Granite was on the bed, only moving to breathe. 

No time to waste. Gabbro pulled unnecessary stuff off their suit, shoved them into it, fastened the gloves and belt and the helmet, pulled them out of bed, paused when their brain registered that Gneiss had put them in a dress. Then grabbed one of the thicker blankets to wrap around them, they knew why people usually ended up in dresses when they were being cared for, but you pretty much had to have something actually protecting your legs in space, otherwise Gabbro would never wear pants.

Over their shoulder, then over the other shoulder because Granite didn’t have enough of a leg on that side to hold, back out the door, and run. 

Start to run and stop at pressure on their arm. 

Tuff had grabbed their sleeve. 

“No. Whatever you think you’re doing, I’m-“ this was gonna take too long. Gabbro pulled back, heard fabric rip, and Tuff was just holding the flannel sleeve that had been falling off already. 

Tuff lunged at them, but Gabbro barely dodged, slowed by Granite’s weight; they took a breath to yell, and-

Hit the ground under the combined weight of Chert and Hal. “Don’t stop run.”  

Gabbro turned and ran. 

Up out of the village crater, and along the path to the Nomai ruins. 

They couldn’t jump the wall carrying Granite, especially without their jetpack; they just followed the spiral. At least there weren’t any sounds of a pursuit, but knowing Tuff someone was ending up with a broken ear. 

There was the switch, Granite had told them about not even a week ago, discreetly set into the wall behind them. Gabbro focused, dragged it up, saw the little white ball in the center of this be replaced with a little black ball, though the rest of the pad stayed white-

Pulled inward-

And here was the Timber Hearth tower, with trees, thank Hearth. Granite was placed on the ground as they grabbed a… ‘suit’ that was just a helmet and some bits to hold it on airtight, and an oxygen tank. That got attached to Granite’s barebones kit on their back, and their jetpack was left here to make room.

Giant’s Deep tower was the second tower down. Gabbro hauled them back up and hurried out.

“-need to be more careful, you both know that model rocket can do this.” Rutile, irritated and covered in ash, was scolding Tephra and Mica; it was normal for hatchlings to act up when the village got stressed, but Gneiss had thought they’d be too old for that. They wiped their hands off on their apron and went back to Hal’s house.

“Need me to?”

“No, Tektite, I can.”

“You haven’t taken a break, Gneiss.”

“I know.” They followed quietly, as Gneiss unlocked the door. Something Gabbro had said when they came back had made Gossan ask them to keep it locked.

The back door was open. “I locked that, who opened it?” Something Gabbro had said when they came back, had made Gossan ask Gneiss to keep these doors locked, so Gabbro couldn’t get in here. And now a locked door, wasn’t.

“Why- they’re gone.” Gneiss followed Tektite, and Granite was gone. The bed was still warm, missing its occupant and one of the thicker quilted blankets.

“Did they wake up? They would’ve come looking for everyone, right?”

“Their leg’s still over here.” Tektite held it up, in the pile of Granite’s things. “And their glasses. But their helmet, gloves and most of their suit is gone.” 

“Why- Gabbro.” Whatever Gabbro had said, Hornfels had been upset and crying on and off and Gossan and Feldspar both had been mad. And Gabbro wasn’t supposed to get in here.

They both heard the muffled yelling outside; Tektite got outside first. 

Tuff had finally managed to throw Hal and Chert off of them, but no one looked unscathed. 

“Gabbro took Granite. Ran off up that path. I would have stopped them but I had interference.” Tektite scowled, but started limping up the path. 

“This was all a distraction, wasn’t it.” Gneiss hadn’t needed the glances to confirm that as Tuff grabbed the younger Hearthians so they couldn’t take off, but… Hal was Granite’s partner and Chert was always trying to help the younger astronauts… 

“Gneiss, go tell Gossan. I’ll get Marl to help me look. I know they didn’t take the elevator, so they have to be on this planet somewhere. Tuff, you watch those two, and we’ll deal with them when Granite’s back.”

Out onto Giant’s Deep, and Granite was still just breathing as Gabbro followed the turns of the warp pad. 

If they stretched at the edge of the cliff the warp pad was set on top of, they could just barely see Granite’s ship, sitting peacefully on the landing pad where Gabbro had left it, just in case.

Why was it so loud here- Gabbro spat a string of swear words that would further anger Gneiss as they saw the cyclone. Of course. 

Well, they had air, and otherwise it was a long, irritating climb down and a swim. Gabbro stood, holding Granite tightly, as the island spun up and out of the atmosphere. 

This was always peaceful… no time to waste. Gabbro ran down the wall, and saw the atmosphere flood past them, and jumped hard, trying to get into the artificial gravity of the Nomai’s landing pad.

And gasped as the island hit the water and their ribs hit the ground. And the rest of them, but the Nomai thing had protected their head and neck and hopefully Granite and hopefully the rest of them was only bruised but they knew broken ribs when they got them. 

Granite was probably a little bruised and the blanket and dress were soaked now, but so was all of Gabbro. They got carefully picked back up and Gabbro opened the ship’s hatch. 

Granite had put a hammock in the corner here eventually; that was nice, that’d they’d finally listened about not always sleeping on the ground. They got rolled into the hammock. 

“Anything?” Gabbro ducked, rubbing their head, a new bruise to go with everything else; the makeshift suit wasn’t as much protection against a too small ship and they hadn’t realized this radio was on. 

“No sign yet. Marl found tracks that end near the ruins but no sign of either of them. Hal, Chert, and the hatchlings are in Spinel’s house til we find them.” Gabbro launched, and set the navigation for… the Stranger? Yeah, that was a Granite name, they would have gone with Enstatite. They ignored the radio chatter of people hunting for them.

Here it was, they slid into the cloaking thing it had and the radio died abruptly. This must have been the front, but there was a hanger here too. 

Granite went back over their shoulder and they wheezed a little from their ribs and dropped out of the ship and through the airlock. 

This was the far side of this first area, Gabbro paused and groaned, realizing their lantern was next to the back. Granite was placed on the beach, and they pulled off their helmet entirely after a second of thought. 

…they couldn’t just jetpack over. And they didn’t have- they hadn’t thrown Granite’s flashlight, there was some luck. But not necessary yet. 

The river was not shallow enough to walk across, but whatever. They loaded Granite into the raft sitting here and sailed across, careful to beach it firmly. There was another river here, separating them and the stairs. 

…It wasn’t like they could break their ribs more, right?

Gabbro swam across, hissing in pain, and scowled up the steps and into the building to grab the blasted lantern. And back down and across the river again, they were sleeping for a week once Granite was home. They weren’t sure what was worse, the pain or the wet clothing; one of the good parts about rain was being able to change into something warm afterwards and they were gonna be stuck in this for a while.

They put the lantern onto the raft with Granite and launched, concentrating on keeping it from hitting things until they were in the short clear patch between buildings and rapids, then to the docking thing.
Granite was still breathing, wrapped in the wet blanket and the suit. Gabbro took a deep breath and huffed, hauling them back up onto a shoulder. They should’ve asked Chert- no, Chert wouldn’t be as helpful here, they couldn’t carry Granite. They would’ve gotten hurt too, probably, no one had been killed by the cyclones on Giant’s Deep but part of Gabbro knew it could happen, and they had died to them, before. 

The mural was still open. 

Gabbro settled them into the alcove carefully, making sure nothing was near the fire. For good measure they tucked the lantern under Granite’s hand, still making sure it wouldn’t light something on fire. And sat down with theirs, and fell asleep.

Chapter Text

Granite took a breath, and felt themself take it. And breathed deeply, again, dropping the bow, and let themself start laughing with relief. They were… back? It felt like they were? Something had happened, they felt, bruised almost. 

They would wait for Gabbro to tell them it was safe; they were almost out.

Gabbro peeked around the doorway, but the activity from yesterday had died down. They crept into the buildings, hugging the wall and keeping their lantern hidden. At least the pain was further away here. 

Here it was, they focused the lantern through the hollow statue. 

The building they’d barely seen disappearing yesterday came back into view. 

Gabbro hurried back around to it, watching for aliens, but they seemed to have forgotten. They ran down to the water, called a raft, and jumped on. 

They watched and listened for any hint of a chase or discovery, but the aliens did truly appear to have forgotten about them, the first real stroke of luck since they’d landed on Timber Hearth. They jumped off the raft as soon as they entered the tunnel, and fell.

And landed on hard… water? Weird. There were a couple different buildings, but that one had Granite sitting outside with some kinda stringed instrument. 

“Granite! I got you here!” They waved. 

“I was getting worried! I didn’t think it’d take this long. What happened?”

“Yeah we are. Well, I am in a lot of trouble, I had to kidnap you. Hal helped, and Tephra and Mica and Chert, and they’re all in trouble to, and if I don’t bring you back I can’t come back.” Granite snorted, walking over to the water as Gabbro walked next to the shore on their island. 

“Time to go home, then?”

“Let’s go, time buddy.” They both dropped their lanterns into the water.

Granite gasped, leaning forward, and started laughing again but stopped when that hurt. It felt like they’d hit an island after a cyclone threw it. They patted themself to make sure they were really alive, and yeah, just bruised. And hungry . Gabbro shifted, and stood up, and something was off but Gabbro was just far enough away to be a little blurry. 

“I… like, I didn’t doubt you, just,-”

“It’s hard not to doubt when you thought you were dead.”

“Yeah.” Granite pulled themself up and almost toppled over into the fire; Gabbro had been ready for them and shoved them back, patting the blanket out. Something was off, had Gabbro bruised themself?

“No leg, time buddy.”

“And no glasses. And you don’t have a suit. And- ugh- whose dress is this, it’s not mine, this texture is bad.”

“I didn’t have time to get glasses, Gossan confiscated my suit, and I have no idea. Here.”

“What- bread?” The bag they had felt wet, but so did everything. At least the bread wasn’t.

“Don’t look at me like you aren’t hungry. Riebeck must have just pulled this out of an oven before I stole it. Got- this is juice- got juice, too.”

“Thank you,” Granite mumbled, mouth full. They really did feel like they hadn’t eaten for a few days. “Was this why it took a few hours?” They drank a decent amount of the juice, too, leaning back on the wall.

“Riebeck was stress baking and Hornfels and Gossan decided to lock me on planet.” And Gabbro decided they were done, looking up at the stairs.

“You can finish it in the ship, I just wanted you not starving on the way, c’mon.” Judging by the sound they made, maybe their bruise was a break. 

“I can hop don’t- I don’t need to be carried, Gabbro. What’d you do to yourself.”

“Yes you do, you’ve got both of our oxygen tanks. I’m fine, I’m bruised a little.”

“Yeah right.”

“Don’t you say a word to Gossan.”

“Since you did that trying to save my life they won’t hear anything from me. I can just lean on you and hop though.”

“Why my ship?”

“Couldn’t get to mine.”

“How much trouble did you have?”  

“More than I thought.” Granite settled on the floor, and pulled open a can of rations that were okay cold and the rest of the bread. “Heads up, the radio doesn’t work inside all this, but we’ll see what happens when we leave.” Granite nodded as they took off.

“-we’ll be there in a second, Hornf- you!” Gabbro sighed; letting the ship coast.
That was Feldspar’s ship.

“Gabbro, you better have Granite, and they better be okay.” Gossan was in there too apparently. “We’re bringing you both back home. Gneiss is gonna take Granite, and we’re gonna figure out where you are going.” 

Granite had dragged themself up, and over to the radio before Gabbro could.

“Can Gneiss please bring my leg, I hate being carried places.” Dead silence from the radio. “And my glasses, please, I’m not sure how I was fine for so long without those.”

“Granite?”  

“Gabbro woke me up.”

“So you won’t wake up when I’m yelling and crushing one of those salt packets under your nose but Gabbro takes you on a joyride-”

“I was still in the Stranger, like, mentally. Stuck there. Like they told Hornfels.”

“You were dead asleep and not waking up when I found you!” 

“Yeah, I’m like that apparently.” Gabbro was grinning, and they were sure they were hearing laughter from the radio beyond Feldspar being Feldspar- from actual humor or relief, hard to tell. 

“We’re heading back to Timber Hearth anyway before Granite eats all the rations out of this ship.”

“Listen I didn’t realize I’d be this hungry.”  

“That’s why I brought food.”

“I’m still hungry.”

Feldspar’s ship was staying a little closer than it should have been; Granite, holding the pilot’s chair to keep steady, waved and saw someone waving back. 

“I’m a little surprised that was just a wave.” Gabbro was focused on dodging a ball of lava from Hollow’s Lantern.

“I am too.”

They touched down carefully on what space was left on the landing pad, followed by a harder landing from Feldspar. Gossan was already out and next to the hatch before Gabbro had taken off the restraints.

“Careful, please, I got you.”

“I’m- okay where’s Gneiss I need that leg back- it’s good to actually see you too, Gossan.” Gabbro grinned tiredly as Granite started trying to wiggle out of a hug they’d judged to be too long. 

“We gotta get you down to the ground first, Gneiss won’t come up here.” Feldspar took Granite; Gossan walked over and caught Gabbro in a hug as well and they barely stopped the gasp of pain.

“Sorry. And thank you.”

“Maybe like, trust me next time I say I know how to do something?”

“Well- yeah, we will. Sorry. What’d you do to your ribs?”

“Nothing.” Gabbro stepped onto the elevator as it came back. 

Granite, leaning heavily on Feldspar, was already on the ground and talking with Gneiss.

“I told you. One more stupid stunt like the Interloper and that’s it. Whatever I have to tell Hornfels and Gossan to ground you, you’re staying on Timber Hearth.” Granite took a breath to argue, Feldspar was frowning, but then Granite sighed. 

“Yeah, it was stupid, I should have let Hornfels know what I found before I kept exploring or tried looking at the computer dream thing. Or just left a note for Feldspar. And instead I scared everyone and if Gabbro hadn’t come looking-“ Gneiss patting them on the shoulder stopped them. 

“Well you’ve grown a bit, at least. I’m not keeping you down here forever, though I was going to try if you were acting like a hatchling. Where- Hal, over here.” Gneiss stepped back as Hal, one eye swollen shut and bruised but otherwise fine, jumped down the last step on the village path, carrying Granite’s prosthetic, and tackled them in a hug before handing it over. 

“Hey, where’re you going? Hornfels is gonna want to apologize at least.” Gabbro turned back to see Gossan watching them. 

“I’m going back to my hammock in my ship and sleeping for a week. I’ll talk to everyone when I wake up.”

“No you’re not.” Their long sleeve shirt was patched enough they couldn’t rip part of it off to escape like with the flannel. “If you don’t have broken ribs I’ll eat Spinels’ jelled rations cold. Gneiss is gonna want to check on you. What happened?”

“Can we do that later?”

“No.” The group was heading into the main body of the village, Granite limping as they followed Hal into their cabin to change out of the disliked dress. 

Gabbro started towards the traveler’s cabin- Chert was over there, one of their ears was more bent than it had been- but Gossan tugged them down into a seat and started fussing with their ribs.

There was Hornfels, they had been crying, please be looking for Granite.

They were looking for Gabbro first. 

“Gabbro, I-”

“It’s fine.”

“No, it’s not. I dismissed you without even listening to what you had to say.”

“Because I flew right to the one place you told us not to go.”

“Which is also the place that had all the information we needed to not have an astronaut permanently asleep. I can’t say ‘always disobey orders’ but, you had a solid hunch and… we would have told you ‘no’ if you’d asked, so-”

“Only disobey orders when I really think it’s necessary, I hear you.” Hornfels kept waffling on that point as Gossan and then Gneiss fussed at them.

Most of the village was already in this area, lighting little campfires or just hovering nearby. Gabbro saw the look from Arkose.

“You get to wait for Granite to come back and tell you what happened, my bit’s not gonna make sense otherwise.” 

Granite and Hal reappeared after a couple minutes, Granite tweaking where their glasses were sitting, and immediately got swarmed by hatchlings.

“So? You’re awake and moving around, what happened.”

“Okay, okay, calm down.” They settled near where Feldspar was sitting, but stopped suddenly when they saw Solanum. 

“It’ll- I know, but, one minute, this is important, I’ll tell you the full story but I found something important.” She was still holding one of the hatchlings, somehow asleep, as she looked down at Granite scrambling over to her.

“I am glad to see you awake, despite the chaos that has caused.”

“I made a bad decision but. The Eye. That’s what the, the inhabitants where I was, that’s what they came here looking for. And they flew right up to it, and when they looked at it, it scared them and they blocked it from everyone, it’s in the slide reels they left.” 

“Alright. So, my clan-”

“There was one that didn’t attack me when I saw them, and they were locked away, and they told- showed, whatever- showed me that they turned the blocker off, and after, the others imprisoned them and turned it back on, and that’s what your clan found and why it vanished.” Granite had never figured out ‘time and place,’ Gabbro noticed- most of the village didn’t care, waiting for the full story, but Solanum was holding a very small hatchling- not that she would drop them but still- and had just gotten a lot of very difficult information.

And Feldspar had slowly turned towards Granite as they spoke, looking more and more incredulous.

“Hatchling.” 

“I’m not-”

“Did you just say you got first contact with a different alien race.” That got some laughter, actually, and Granite paused halfway through arguing to finally let their brain catch up.

“Does it count if most of them were trying to kill me?” Gossan looked up, frowning, from where they and Gneiss and Hornfels were bandaging Gabbro’s ribs in place.

“Yes, it counts, Granite, there were two non-Hearthian races in this system and you’re telling me you’re the first person to talk to both of them? Gabbro, did you-”

“I wouldn’t call my interaction with them ‘talking.’”

“What would you call it, then?”

“Nothing around these three, I don’t want to be grounded any longer than necessary.” Hornfels scowled and Gabbro pretended not to notice.

“Speaking of. Granite, in a few months when we let you fly again, you don’t get to explore new places without someone with you.”

“This was a one time thing, Gossan.”

“This debacle and the Interloper.”

“...I was fine for the Hanging City and the Sun Station and the White Hole Station and the Vessel-”

“None of those are new places, someone’d been around before. The stations count as Ash Twin and Brittle Hollow.”

“You’re making up rules.”

“Benefit of being your flight coach, so stop arguing with me.” Granite gave up, sitting near one of the campfires. It was only a second before the hatchlings swarmed them again.

“Okay, but what did you see? You’ve been out for three days, what did you find.”

“So, there’s this black disc, forty degrees above the rest of the solar system…”

Granite left the elevator, heading back into the village. Everything was ready, and they were finally going back to the Stranger with Feldspar in the morning. 

Someone tapped them on the shoulder before they got into the village proper.

“Gabbro? I didn’t realize you were home.”

“Officially I’m on Giant’s Deep again but, here. It’s a good luck present.” Granite looked at the shoddily wrapped piece of wood, and pulled the paper off it. 

“I am not dead or in a coma! Do not move me.” In Hearthian, and with the swirls of Nomai writing under it, and a large blank space. Granite scowled up into their grin. 

“Hal helped. And the extra space is for the aliens' language, when Hal figures that out.”

“I’m touched. Where’s your ship?”

“Statue island. I’m not touching down and announcing my presence for a quick errand after how Hornfels has been. And Gossan. And Feldspar. And Gneiss and Tektite and Rutile. Don’t go and get killed, time buddy. And come by and tell me what you find.”