"Now, how do I go about handling this?" Rory muttered as he stared at the pillar. The longer he spent examining it, the more he could feel the certain concepts at play —the low thrum of life inside —and the distinct sense of space being manipulated within the pillar itself.

I know some of those old aliens had methods for expanding space, even back in the old universe — perhaps it's something like that?

Trying to tear it open could be a problem; whatever barely running technology that still existed probably wouldn't take kindly to being torn open through brute force, nor would whatever was inside appreciate being reduced to cosmic goop if he just ripped it open and the space was rendered volatile.

Alright, so we open it…. Carefully.

Snatching his mechanical gem, Rory gave it a quick twist as a set of lines suddenly lit up like a live wire. He hadn't had enough time to map out every possible facet of the mechanical gem fully, but he'd managed two at the very least: a barrier-mapped face and a room-mapped face. Swapping it over to the room-mapped face, Rory pulsed some pneuma through, as he felt nearby space claimed.

"Now, delicately peel the layers away."

Having used the room-faced facet of the mechanical gem, Rory was able to get a better handle on what was going on. Within the pillar, there were three layers of space, each buffered by the one below it. Exactly how the scientific mechanics worked was well beyond Rory's wheelhouse. Still, Rory didn't need to understand the hard science involved; he could instead directly touch on the concepts at play, picking apart the spatial warpage.

Yeah, similar in function to how my inventory works, space is expanded as a larger space is inserted into the expanded point. Except, it feels far less refined.

If Rory's inventory was the size of a large room jammed into a single point in space, then the pillar couldn't be more than two or three times its size in real space. It was insanely crude in comparison, but then it was a system that relied purely on hard-science mechanics derived from a universe lacking any form of magic or concept-fuckery.

But on the plus side, that should make this way easier.

It had been wise that Rory had opted to hold off on simply tearing his way inside; he could now clearly sense that disrupting the space-warpage so directly would have utterly eviscerated anything within.

Well, I could maybe survive three thin layers of space collapsing, but that's because I can actively protect myself. I have a feeling that isn't an option for whatever is inside.

Taking hold of the first spatial layer, Rory began to 'siphon' it, his void diamond bracer more than happy to drink in such paltry spatial energies. Keeping his rate excessively slow, Rory observed as the second layer slowly adjusted to the weight of reality shifting and pressing down more heavily upon it, each layer more fragile than the last.

"Wonder if the actual science-y stuff involved something like a 'depressurization' process before it could normally be opened." Rory quietly pondered out loud. Having been at the bottom of the dark chasm for a bit now, he was relatively confident that there wasn't anything scurrying about that would pose a danger to him. However, it wasn't strictly himself he was thinking of, as it was still wiser not to draw excessive attention by speaking overly loudly when he was doing delicate work.

Working on the second layer, minutes turned into hours, until it too was dispersed into wisps of energy that his void diamond gladly claimed. It wasn't strictly necessary, but Rory saw no reason to let rare spatial energies vanish into the ether.

Moving onto the last layer of spatially aligned dimensional energies, Rory paused.

That's somewhat of an issue.

The boundary of space was extremely fragile. To the point that Rory was once more curious how any aspect of the ship had survived, in an entirely exotic universe, the once robust materials and highly advanced technologies were left like the thinnest layer of ice one might find at the top of a pond after a cold night. A single breeze would be enough to erase such ice as if it never was there to begin with.

So how?

No matter how Rory sliced it, he couldn't explain how the ship had survived so long in their universe. If it were the other way around, Rory felt like he could understand. A high-tier material from their universe might have the raw conceptual 'weight' to anchor itself against 'corrosive' exotic energies, but for materials that were essentially lower tier than even mundane, surviving a decade would have been damn near astronomically impossible. If it weren't for the fact that the ship was explicitly meant to be sturdy against such forces, Rory doubted even a month would have been possible.

So, again, how?

The more he thought about it, the more Rory found himself with only one conclusion.

It hadn't survived all this time. The truth was that it was more likely to have 'emerged' recently. A little-known fact, and by little Rory meant probably less than a group of ten as far as he was aware, was that much of the early energies seeding their universe were like infinitesimally small life crafts, containing the sparks of sentient life scooped up from their old universe. For most, that was as far as they'd ever make it, something they'd experience as nothing more than a brief rest stop before passing on to whatever lay past death, if anything did.

But a lucky few were freed, pulled out, and remade into the shape of their new universe, sans their memories of their old universe. Rory and the other Founders were the only ones who had been drawn out with their memories entirely intact.

As for his current theory regarding the ship itself?

That was both simple and complex. While most people, as far as Rory was aware, would have been 'picked up' in the immediate collapse of their old universe, because there was someone within the confines of the life pod, they'd been 'grabbed' after, exposing the ship to the immediate environment following the collapse of the universe. Not just that, being within the life pod, it was the entire ship that had gone along for the ride. It was that part which was the key to the mystery. Had whoever was within the life pod been nabbed like everyone else, they'd have been subject to the same chances of ever breaking free.

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Which was essentially zero, the sheer population of the old universe meant that most of those who had been 'saved' would still end up suffering the fate of all information decaying from their old universe. There wasn't getting around the fact that, each year, Ehkorrus was only able to pick up a few handfuls at a time as a reward for clearing a wave.

But because they had been within the life pod, and the ship had gone along for the ride, some mechanic of the ship had allowed it to 'escape' on its own, without ever needing external assistance.

Why here, and why now, was something Rory genuinely had no idea.

"Alright, that's great and all, but when am I going to stop procrastinating?" Rory sighed, shaking his head as he well understood he'd been purposely delaying trying to strip the final spatial layer.

So damn delicate.

If he tried to slowly peel away at it like he had the last two layers, it would be days spent down here, and he had obligations to fulfill, such as a demonstration that he'd promised to Gil.

Alright, new plan.

Having gotten a good feel of the energies of the wavering spatial layers, Rory switched the mechanical gem from room to barrier, no longer needing the extra assistance and grabbing hold of the energies involved.

Gotta be quick with this.

His plan was relatively simple: yank apart the final layer and instantly project a barrier around the interior so that the sudden swing in dimensional 'pressure' wouldn't squish anyone inside into fine red paste.

Assuming it was a human.

"Three…. two…. go!"

Without any physical signs of what he was doing, Rory ripped the delicate spatial layer, yanking it into his void diamond. At the exact same time, Rory threw up a hastily formed barrier the moment the spatial layer was no longer in the way.

And it was a good thing too, as with a sensation akin to water rushing down a drain, space itself violently contracted around the pod, only to be rebuffed by his barrier.

"Whew," Rory said, wiping his forehead. "Good thing this was such a small spatial expansion, no way in hell could I have managed that sort of barrier around something the size of my inventory with such an impromptu barrier."

With the layers removed, all that remained was to open the pod itself.

Door… Door…. Ah fuck it.

Thrusting his hand out, he tore through the metal, barely more resistant than a drought-dried twig.

Easy enough.

Tearing the metal apart completely, Rory soon opened up an 'entrance' large enough that he could step through if he ducked. Looking inside, curious about what he would find, Rory found himself rather perplexed instead.

The hell?

He'd been expecting a human, or any of the alien races they'd allied themselves with, perhaps the badger people who were only a step below humans as far as sturdiness went.

Instead, what he found was the literal enemy of the entirety of the old universe.

"A fucking sensen?"

There was no mistaking them. A set of ram horns framing their head, three antelope horns like a crown, and a big old set of oversized furry ears in between, akin to the pointy ears of a serval. Webbed hands tipped with aquamarine-colored nails, a colorful, patterned tail like a koi fish, and bronzed skin with the tiniest fish scale marks, like they were shaped in the image of Greek statues.

If someone didn't know better, they would have assumed they were some noble, mythological guardians of the sea, rather than the bloodthirsty maniacs who'd collapsed their entire universe.

A sensen being within the life pod was already strange, but it was a child at that, their horns barely grown in.

"Well fuck me sideways," Rory muttered. The girl looked no older than a ten-year-old human, and she was clearly in some induced sleep-like state.

Suddenly unsure what to do, Rory plunked his ass on the floor, seated cross-legged as he frowned. Holding his chin up in the palm of his hand, Rory muttered to himself.

"A child. A god damn child. Well shit. Now what?"

He'd been truthfully expecting a person. Instead, not just had it turned out to be one of the monstrous sensen, but one of their spawns. Hell, had it been just a regular ass adult, Rory was genuinely considering whether he would have just offed them and moved on with his day, no point in risking one of their depraved, fanatical adults out in their new world.

But a child?

"Fuck. Fuck." Rory grumbled.

Let's be real. This isn't even an actual debate. I already know what I'm going to do.

While Rory had an easy time not thinking much of people outside his immediate circle, seeing a child with his own eyes was different.

Damn it. Well, it's just a child, at least.

Sighing to himself, Rory stood back up before entering the pod, crouching down, and gently picking the child up. Stepping back out, he carefully held the young girl in his arms.

Now, how the hell am I going to explain this?

"Lord Rory! We were beginning to grow worried you've been gone for- what's that?" Isaac asked as Rory finally made his reappearance back in the surface world.

"A long story," Rory sighed.

"Is it a monster?"

"Depends, do you believe in collective punishment?"

"Huh?"

"Punishment by association?"

"Excuse me?"

"Nature versus nurture?"

"Lord Rory, I have no idea what you're talking about," Isaac finally said, reeling at the random commentary from the legendary man.

"That makes two of us," Rory muttered. "It's a kid. I think they were supposed to arrive with the last wave, but something happened, and they were instead trapped in some naturally occurring magical prison. As a result, they were changed."

It was a total lie, but Rory had no intention of telling the actual truth; besides, only those with direct memories of their old universe would be able to call him out on it.

"Oh, how horrible." Isaac's tone immediately changed. As a father, the plight of a child, even a completely alien-looking one, was enough to stir the paternal feelings in him. It also probably helped that his father, Apostolos, literally wasn't a human.

"Indeed," Rory muttered in agreement.

"So, what are you intending to do?"

"Now that is a good question," Rory said. "I think for a while, I'm going to keep an eye on her."

"You?" Isaac asked before bowing his head politely. "Sorry, I didn't mean anything by that, other than that seems like an unnecessary undertaking for someone of your stature."

"I have my reasons," Rory said mysteriously, before shaking his head. "And it may not be a permanent situation either."

"Oh, well, I suppose you do know what you're doing, you're the Lord Founder after all."

"Uh-huh," Rory nodded along, paying it no mind. He still wasn't fond of the title they'd given him, but he was beginning to drown it out entirely, like little more than white noise.

"Well, is there anything else you need from the mines?"

"What? Huh? Oh, no, I think I'm settled for now," Rory answered. In truth, he hadn't even really explored what there was to find within the mines; his entire objective for coming here had been waylaid by the gently snoring child in his arms.

Actually, not all that gentle. Has her snoring been getting louder?

Putting two and two together, Rory's eyes widened as a single word escaped his mouth.

"Oh."

Looking back at Isaac, he gave the man a quick nod.

"I'll be on my way, tell your parents I said hello or whatever."

"In a rush, suddenly?" Isaac asked.

"Yeah, something like that."

Leaving it at that and with a weak wave, Rory rushed off as quickly as he could without fully rousing the child, ignoring the looks of people he received upon returning to Ehkorrus only a few minutes later.

Got to get home before the potentially evil child wakes up and starts blabbering.

Rushing through the city, the snores began to become broken up by muffled gulps of air and other rather inelegant sleep sounds, but Rory paid them no heed. Finally arriving back at his home, Rory rushed up the stairs before finally placing the child gently on his bed. While the dungeon-

Lab, damn it!

While the lab was closer, taking a child there felt wrong.

Crossing his arms, Rory watched for several minutes as the child finally roused herself, yawning loudly as her eyes fluttered open, revealing one golden iris and one carmine iris.

Heterochromia. Did the Sensen usually have that?

Her eyes finally open, the little girl looked around, confused, before looking back at Rory.

"Dad?"

Oh, God damn it, not again.

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