The locals had told us about a cave overlooking the canyon that pulsed with mystic energy. Yeah, we'd heard that one before, but after weeks of trying to track down the source of the anomalous energy readings this planet had been giving off, we were willing to take any lead, however tenuous.
A long, miserable hike later we found ourselves standing at the entrance of a deep cavern, glowing bright blue. Not a good sign. We checked our geiger counters and took some initial readings. It wasn't radiation, luckily, or we'd be dead already. In fact, we were getting no readings at all inside, not even background radiation. Other forces were at play here. It was still sketchy, but night was falling fast and we wouldn't have time to make it back to the settlement below. We took the risk and entered.
Inside, we were met with a vast, sprawling and twisting cavern. Glowing crystals lined the walls, humming like electric transformers. The air itself felt charged somehow, so soft and warm compared to the harsh cutting winds in this desert. The perfect refuge.
The next morning, we awoke to find another bad sign... our equipment was completely useless. Whatever this energy was, it overwhelmed all our sensors. Not even our auto-cartographer was functioning, it just kept generating impossible layouts. Without that, there's no way we'd risk going deeper.
Then, my companion had an idea. He told me to get out my traveler guitar. I told him the amp setup I created from our instruments probably wouldn't work. But he told me to just play something acoustic. Looking around the cavern, surrounded by the light and heat, something inspired me. I started strumming the chords to an old torch song that my guitar's original owner wrote many centuries before. And, without even realizing it, I started singing along.
"I’ve never been the dramatic type
But if I don’t see your face tonight
I… well I guess I’ll be fine
High, highlighting hard between the lines
But they’re getting closer every time I try
To decipher the signs..."
I felt a pulse of energy race through the guitar. My companion had used his lightning tail, placing the edge against the cable port. That changed everything. All of a sudden, the guitar started ringing out as if amplified. The crystals glowed brighter, as they echoed the sound. It was as if my guitar had been run through an entire pedalboard, with deep, layered reverbs and echoes coming back to me.
"Like we’re slowly coming together
Yeah it’s slowly coming out about us..."
My companion had taken out his own guitar and strummed along. As the sounds got back to my ears, I started seeing it. The whole layout of the cavern was being drawn in my mind...
"Oh I...I think I love you
And I think that I loved you the whole time
How could this happen
We were jump rope gazers in the middle of the night..."
Then I saw it, somewhere hidden many kilometers deep. A bright azure ball of pure quantum vibrations, held together by some form of force-field. Time and space itself seemed to bend around it. It was like I was staring into the heart of the universe itself.
Whatever it was, we had found it. And we were going to get it.
--
Art by BassyBefuddle. Blytz is BlytzDragon. Thanks for letting me guest-star in your world! The song referenced is Jump Rope Gazers by The Beths, a band that keeps managing to inspire my commissions.
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