The decision to leave wasn't a decision that could be made on a whim.
Leaving in this context meant that they had to leave everything that they had built over the course of a year.
In other words, this meant that they had to be prepared to abandon everything except for what they could carry.
And since most of it had been bolted down or built into the very walls of the cave, this meant that a good majority of their efforts to live a better life had been rendered useless.
But what could you do?
This was something that their mentor had left behind for them, it was something that he recommended them to go to.
'And it's not like we won't be returning will we?'
Packing the essentials, weapons, tools, food, aid kits, clothing, aether charges, anything that they could fit was packaged tightly into their bags.
Placing some of the more essential tools like his weapons, aether wrench, volt cutter, torch and such on his waistband, Ester swiftly finished up packing his essentials.
Eva? Well, before she lost her voice in the chaos of battle, she was essentially a scavenger like Ester.
If anything, thanks to knowledge on runes, she was able to channel runic magic with her voice, making her a versatile weapon.
To bad she lost her voice long ago.
"Are you ready?" Tightening his jacket, Ester adjusted the mask on his face and turned to look at Eva, the sound of his respirator now hissing loudly.
[Yeah] Attaching her custom made respirator fitted for her mechanical voice box, she carried with her a giant aether battery, the much larger cousin of the Aether Charge
Having procured it from the Generator running the entire base, all the lights and support systems have turned off, rendering the two of them to rely only on the dim light snaking out of the Aether crystals
And even that was disappearing swiftly as they bound them tightly in protective covers.
"Ok then, let's go shall we?"
[Hah, do you even need to ask]
Hearing the phantom chuckle that would've filled the space by now, Ester pushed up the doorway letting in the dim light of dawn to seep into the base from the outside world.
Following out, Eva carefully stepped out as Ester closed and hid the doorway to their base, shifting over the trash dirt and metal dust so that it looked like there was never anything there.
[Ester] Eva's mechanical voice echoed into the abandoned ship
"Yeah?" Finishing his adjustments so that no one would even think of checking this place, he broke the hydraulics meant to help open the door.
[You might want to come and see this.]
"Hm?" He tilted his head and turned around, snaking past the numerous gaping holes in the ground, noting that Eva had already broken the various alarms. "What's the problem?"
[Nothing much, just look]
"What?" Confused, Ester located the gap in the side of the abandoned spaceship and hopped out of the gaping wound in the steel dragon.
"What do you want me to see... oh."
A simple exclamation made up of one syllable and two letters.
But the sentiment carried in his exclamation was anything but simple in nature.
'The sky...'
The skies of the Trash Planet were a unique one.
It was something that the Exiled said every single day.
All the time, they talked about how the sky wasn't supposed to be covered in so many clouds, how they could see the stars on cloudless nights.
And get this, they always said that the clouds always disappeared after raining water.
Imagine that, a sky without clouds that could potentially rain trash juice, acid, radioactive waters or liquid metal? Just plain old water.
And they disappeared after raining.
In the sky above their heads, they didn't have to worry about sudden showers.
And because of the sparse cloud coverage, they also said that they were able to see something called a sun that allowed them to determine night from day.
Here on the trash planet though?
Since there was no way that they would be able to see the sun from beyond the thick coverage of clouds covering the sky like some sort of impenetrable shell, they had another way of determining the time of day.
And it was thanks to a little something called the star bug.
A peculiar little insect that fed on the rays of the sun while also having an incredibly short lifespan of just a day
Feeding on the suns rays, they usually stayed above the thick clouds and laid their eggs on their mates where they would hatch and break into a colony of brand new star bugs that would populate the skies.
And this is where things get interesting.
Even the most prolific of animal populations needed territory equivalent to it so that they could survive.
It was here where most of the old star bugs would die, letting the new star bugs live.
And when the star bugs died and fell through the clouds below?
Well...
They turned into the sight that the two siblings related to everything but blood were beholding.
The sky was crying.
And it was crying gold.
Flickers of gold light fell from the sky as the Star bugs let out the brightest lights before their inevitable death.
Lighting up the dark clouds with the light of their deaths, Ester thought.
'If the starry night sky that the exiles talked about are this pretty, then I guess they aren't delusional as I thought.'
Staring silently at the crying dawn, golden stars fell down to the earth.
Slowly approaching them like a wave, Ester raised his hand to catch the slowly falling bodies of the star bugs.
It seemed to resemble the snow that some of the more hairy exiled talk about.
Holding the starbug with his finger tips, the diamond shaped insect with a rigid and thin body slowly moved its two tails, its transparent flesh filled with a dim light flickering within.
When the light in the transparent body completely went out, it's tails went limp.
Turning to look at Eva's side image, her eyes visible from behind the visor were locked onto the crying sky.
'They are much prettier than the dying star bugs.'
Thinking that, the Star bugs continued to fall from the sky, lighting up the dark clouds with their final spark.
The sky was crying
---
Holding the map, it pointed at several locations
Eight of them to be exact.
One was... currently inaccessible.
The other seven though? If they took the time out of their lives to walk to those locations, then they would be able to reach them easily within the year, two of them at worst.
That is if nothing went wrong that is.
But knowing this world? It was a given that there would be problems, whether they liked it or not.
It worked to their favor that they were in well known places that weren't as likely as to change, it didn't work to their favor that people usually stayed in these places that weren't as likely to change.
And if anyone knew humanity better than humanity themselves, they would know that if there was anything humanity was bad at, it was keeping their curiosity to themselves.
"So where are we going first?"
[First off, we can place that place as last.]
"Already ahead of you."
Sitting around a metal outcropping, they pointed at several positions on the map.
"The Scrapyard, Ash town, The Junkyard, Scavengers haven, Rust valley, The Pit, Steel Ocean, all places that we were recommended to go to."
[Since Ash Town, the Scrapyard and the Junkyard are closest, which one should we go to first]
"Shouldn't we use this place as the final destination and where we are as references?"
[If we're moving with that in mind then the Steel Ocean has to be the last one correct]
"Yeah, and the next nearest one is Rust valley followed by the pit."
[The Pit is second last since there's nothing else near it but Rust Valley.]
"Since Rust valley is the third last, then the fourth has to be Scav's haven."
[The third is the Junkyard if we're going by the one place closest to it.]
"Then second has to be the Scrapyard right?"
["And finally..."]
They looked at each other and nodded their heads.
Packing the map into a waterproof pouch, they hoisted the bags onto their backs and made their way down the mountain of trash.
Their first destination?
Ash Town.
+++
Tree