With a weary sigh, Haumea gingerly eased himself back and onto the cold floor of the Tower. From where he sat, he could see outside the door to the row of graves that he’d personally dug for each of the comrades who’d fallen to that damned toadtroll youma. So many lives wasted because one long ago old man had chosen to oppose Metallia and the Dark Kingdom. Oh, he knew the platitudes. Nothing worthwhile was ever easy to obtain and the like. But in this case, he would have given a great deal to have those graves empty and unneeded.

“Sleep safely in Metallia’s arms, my friends,” he murmured before turning his attention back to the Tower’s mechanics. Something akin to pride burned deep within the eternal’s tangerine eyes. With only the guidance of a few Mauvians, a set of ancient notes and very little in the way of sleep, he had managed to clear some of the rubble from what had clearly been a mechanism of great intricacy. It had taken days to clean the ancient gears and rods of stray crystal deposits. To compound, buy or outright steal the fluids that would help everything work.

And that wasn’t even counting the anxiety-ridden hours where he and the cats had re-installed the crystalline gears that they had all fought so hard to retrieve. Haumea had been in a state of near-tears while they had put those precious pieces of machinery back. If one had cracked or worse… The tall eternal knew from poring over the old Tower Keeper’s notes that the crystal used to craft the gears had been exceedingly rare… and that at the time of their creation, everyone involved had been convinced that they had used the last of the crystal known to the Earth Kingdom. Thankfully, the Mauvians, with their small , dexterous paws had been able to seat the gears with nary a scratch.

And now… and now. Haumea considered his options. Alkaid had vanished back into the Rift shortly after he had begun repairs to the Tower. He suspected that this was her way of allowing him to learn on his own. And given her grief over the loss of so many, he rather thought her retreat was to give her heart time to heal. So that meant that for now, he was the only one who knew the Tower and how it (supposedly) was meant to work. He would be the first to use it, that much was a given. He refused to allow another to try until he was certain it would work. And this time, he would risk no lives but his own. But that still left a disturbing lack of others to continue this work. He trusted Sapphirine completely, but he didn’t think her temperament would allow her to work on the Tower without guidance.

Rising to his feet, the eternal slowly made his way up the newly swept stairs to the control console where the first of the gears had been installed. The ceiling above sparkled faintly with ancient starmaps. He needed someone who loved knowledge just as much as he did. Someone who would see any mistakes and learn the correct lesson from them. Who was capable of seeing patterns…

Slowly, Haumea began to smile. He knew precisely whom to speak with. And if the General King was agreeable, then Haumea would have nothing left to fear should his efforts result in an untimely end.