Peren's Tin-Clock
The sound of Peren's Tin Clock, a parting gift from a friend, rips him from his dream. It has already been a month since he left home, and yet he still dreams of the pines outside his bedroom window. The sun hasn't risen yet, but he is wide awake. Peren lays still for a few minutes more, staring at the ceiling.
I have three days before studies begin. Better have a look around.
Peren swings his legs off the side of his bed. He's small for an elf, but this bed is even smaller. He slips into baggy clothes, tidies up his hair, and heads down to the street. For a city surrounded by ice, it's quite warm. Peren steps out of the inn, to the cool (but not cold!) morning, and begins making his way to a nearby tavern.
The inn, situated on the outer edge of the Fourth Ring, faces the center of the Rheasilvia. A garden surrounds the inn and extends out in front, wrapping around a fountain, topped with a regal dragon etched of obsidian. Peren recalls seeing similar statues dotted throughout the city. Beyond the fountain runs the main road, a cobbled and clean path. A breeze comes to pass, cool on his skin, but warm for the flowers around him. Even in the middle of summer, the wind and the early dawn conjure an image of late autumn at home.
Peren looks to the sky. The magenta shimmer of the dome is just barely visible in the predawn light. Suddenly, water fills the sky, far above the bounds of the magic. It must have been dozens of feet higher than the peak, as it takes much longer than Peren would have expected for it to come back down. To his surprise, as soon as the water hits the dome, it freezes. Instantly, the whole of Rheasilvia is shrouded in ice. The mystical shimmer that had been there just moments ago is gone and replaced by the subtle glow of the ice. People gather near Peren, all eyes towards the ice filled sky. A mist converges underneath, the intense cold of the ice interacting with the warm air at the top of the dome.
I've never seen anything like this…
The sun pierces the dawn. For a moment, rays of light slice the eastern sky, casting across the city, caressing the roofs of homes and stores. Then, the sky explodes in color. Blues, greens, purples, shades of yellow Peren has never seen. They dance, waving back and forth, as if sauntering into the morning. In an instant, his thoughts of the pines are gone, replaced by ice and stone, castles and dragons, beautiful lights in the morning sky. The last of the dome is covered in ice, blocking the light from the east, but filling the sky with more color. The lights dance on the obsidian statue, seemingly bringing it to life. Peren is stunned, unable to move or speak, and hardly able to breathe. Laughter can be heard somewhere off in the garden. The feelings of somberness brought by the chilled wind are dashed by the awe of the aurora borealis.
Peren, finally having regained control of himself, looks down at the fountain, and then to his necklace. He opens the clasp, revealing an image of his mother, who passed shortly before he left home.
She would have loved this garden.
A Swing
He missed. Or rather, something got in the way. This had happened before, but even those misses were so long ago that the measures taken to avoid them are considered tradition. C42 was important, not just for Tolith, but for the Numitaeran Seat as a whole.
Numerous measures are taken before the launch of a comet, and for good reason. Comets are specially designed for their destination biome. Some leeway is provided curtesy of the Terramancers, but the margin is slim. The host planet is observed for a millennia before it is put in the final candidate pool. It is vital that its orbit, and its system's orbit, are conducive to the long term survival of the Comet. A great deal of effort is put into picking the exact location for landing, because while Terramancers are good, they aren't gods.
So, it was quite concerning when C42 missed. Tolith was certain of the launch parameters. Absolutely nothing could go wrong. This was his ticket to Weaver. Not anymore. Not only had he missed, he hit something else. A whole planet, in fact. Of course, it was a little too late to fix it now, and the limitations of Progenitor tech still impose a significant delay compared to lightspeed. It would take another millennia before any conclusive results come back on C42's success, but current data suggested it landed in the ice. That's not good; C42 was aiming for 33 degrees north of the equator... of another planet.
...
"What happened?" said Syndra.
"I don't know, ma'am" Tolith averts his eyes.
"What do you mean you 'don't know'? This was supposed to be a routine launch. What is there to 'not know'?". Syndra's eyes flicker with anger.
Tolith looks back at Syndra, "ma'am, all models suggested the system was inconsequential. C42 should have only just brushed passed its outer asteroid field."
"What does 'brushed' mean?"
"It should have missed by 8 lightyears."
Syndra's eyes twitch and she says with a growl, "then why didn't it? If every indicator pointed to a smooth launch and arrival, HOW DID YOU MISS?"
Tolith inches backwards but Syndra makes up the distance.
"ANSWER ME!"
Tolith looks away for a second before returning eye contact, tears forming in his eyes. "I do not know, ma'am."
"Tolith, this launch was your last change to prove you're capable of Weaver. If you dare come to me again without an explanation or with tears on your face, you're done." Syndra breathes deeply before continuing, "either get me some answers, or find someone who can. You're dismissed."
"Yes ma'am." Tolith quickly clicks his heel, turns, and exits the chamber.
...
"So, what do we know?"
"Well, we know that the impact planet is not new. Our models showed its existence and orbit well in advanced. What we don't know is how it, or rather its whole system, moved 8 lightyears sideways."
Ava shuffles her drawings and hands a few off to an assistant, "put these in my archive."
"Do the models detail the planet that C42 hit? My scope wasn't calibrated before the planet's rotation obscured the impact zone."
"They do, but only the surface level details. It is habitable, but the ice shelf that C42 likely landed in doesn't behave like we would expect."
Ava moves around to the trance-bronze wall and tins a diagram of the planet before continuing, "at first glance, CL42 appears to be your typical dipole sphere. What doesn't make sense is the amount of ice. We typically see about 20 to 25 degrees worth of ice caps. CL42 has 40."
She puts her palm on the board and re-tins it. The image is now zoomed in on the ice shelf of CL42.
"Two things don't make sense. First, the ice isn't uniform around the planet. It only covers about 10 percent of the applicable surface area, but its rotation and tilt would suggest a more uniform distribution, as we see with other candidates. Second, the ice doesn't appear to melt."
Ava re-tins to zoom in on the southern border of the ice.
"It borders directly on a desert. There are no mountains between the shelf and the desert. Whatever is keeping this ice together is not natural. I've spoken with our best Terramancers, and every one of them say it has to be some sort of incredibly powerful sorcerer, or even god."
Tolith takes a deep breath and says, "And what did the Terrans say about C42's chances? It was engineered for a forest, not a blizzard."
Ava sits down and leans back, "it's fifty-fifty. There's no consensus with the Terrans I spoke with. Some suggest that the new sanctuary spells will be enough, others say that even with the dome, if the ice regenerates or moves at all, the walls will be crushed one-by-one."
Ava clasps her hands behind her head and leans back further. "We have no choice but to wait and see. We should be hearing from C42 in a century or two. Until then, we can only hope."
