Page 668

--donation bonus week (day 4/5, post 5/5)--
‘And that’s not even factoring in how a surface-dweller is supposed to deal with the other dangers in the Undercrust,’ said Garovel. ‘The heat alone is problematic enough, but there’s plenty of other shit to worry about, too.’

‘It’s just not feasible,’ said Voreese. ‘It’d be like trying to cross the ocean before boats were invented. Normal people--in either civilization--simply don’t have the technology to use these holes yet. Maybe one day, they will, but until then, it’s essentially a reaper and servant privilege.’

‘And EVEN THEN, not every servant can make the trip, either.’

‘Right, yeah.’

‘Just because the servant can get down the hole doesn’t mean they can get back up. You’d probably be okay, though, since you can just make an infinite platform for yourself.’

He scratched his cheek. “How would I survive the temperatures?”

‘Oh, no, you’d be toast as you are now,’ said Garovel. ‘You’d have to grow a lot more powerful first.’

“Ah...”

‘Believe us now?’ said Voreese.

Hector tilted his head and scrunched his face up a little. “Eh... I just... I don’t know. Don’t they have, like, uh... seismological, er... radar? Or something?”

‘They do,’ said Garovel. ‘But that doesn’t provide the most precise of measurements. Besides, a city-sized hole in the planet would only look like a tiny speck against the gigantic mass surrounding it, and specks can be explained away as any number of other things. I don’t think a seismologist’s first guess would be, “Hey, I bet that’s a city full of people!”’

Hector opened his mouth to give further voice to his doubts but found that he’d run out of counterarguments. He still didn’t want to believe them, though. It just seemed too ridiculous.

Garovel laughed. ‘Do you remember when you asked me how the Vanguard managed to prevent Abolish from drilling into the planet’s core?’

He did remember, and it made him blink a few times as he recalled Garovel’s answer, or rather the lack thereof. “You said you didn’t feel like telling me... You said it’d make a nice surprise one day...”

‘Welp. Surprise!’