The ways to leave a trash planet were many.
If you added that you had to be alive when you left the planet, the number of options dropped drastically.
Especially since most of said options included waiting for the planet to self implode from all the trash finally breaking against the numerous layers separating the core from the surface.
You couldn't exactly call it a planet when there was absolutely no planet to even talk about.
And to put it bluntly, if the planet implodes on its own weight, they were probably already dead.
So lo and behold. The main requirements for it to be even considered a planetary escape plan was one thing and one thing only.
To Survive.
Something that was rather difficult to achieve when everything and their mother wanted to kill you.
Hells, even the Aether meant to keep their bodies clean of disease was so polluted that to keep it from stagnating into corrupted Aether they had to cycle it before it had the chance.
And even then it was a stop gap.
It was always fun trying to move something as thick as sludge from within their bodies when it had the ability to make you cough out a lung or something akin to it if you moved it funny.
It was especially fun when you didn't move the Contaminated Aether within your body for a long time and let it turn corrupt.
Guess who was dying a horrible and gruesome death as their biology was warped in impossible and mostly definitely fatal ways?
And guess again who was forced to feel every second of it as some sort of twisted second mind forced you to kill anything that moved?
The Aetheric Principles behind the formation of such a twisted and bloodthirsty second mind wasn't exactly explained to Ester.
But then again, it was a miracle that he even knew this much since no one was willing to teach the why to this question when most were still trying to survive the question itself. Nevertheless to a child.
All he had to learn from was one very cranky old man and some books that had miraculously survived the fall.
Anyways, back to why he was talking about how important moving the Inner Aether in your body was so as to not turn into some sort of demented creature?
Well, look no further than right behind him.
Ester held up a fragment of glass to stare at the Corrupted right behind him.
Looking all the part of some sort of demented person high off their rocker on some sort of drugs, he knew that twitching visage was highly deceiving.
Especially when it lacked something that any self respecting non mutant had.
Shaking its head slowly, through the reflection on the glass, Ester saw its face, or its complete lack of thereof.
A Gaping hole where a face would normally be, the swirling hole of black seemed to suck him in the longer that he stared at it.
'It quite literally sucked something in now that I think about it.'
Recalling the horrified face of an Ergul as it tried to roll away from that blackhole of a mouth only to turn into stretched Ergul and surn transformed into spaghettified Ergul, Ester grimaced and continued to look at the glass for any way past the twitching Corrupted.
Now as to why he was still staying besides the Corrupted instead of getting the hell out of there as any normal person would've when given the chance?
Well it had something to do with the not so small fact that this C-Point in particular, short for Communication Point, had a Space Flight key.
For a brief explanation on to what the Space flight key is we need to go over some things.
As much as the Dumpers made it seem like this planet was just a garbage bin for several planets, it was also a planet wide jail to dump all of their criminals they couldn't be bothered to rehabilitate, it was also a place to get rid of people you didn't like but that's besides the point.
The point is that a planet wide jail also needed jailers to keep people here.
If they just continue to dump criminals on this planet without regard of what they might do, eventually they might have enough heads to create a functioning spaceship to escape this dump.
And since the government just couldn't have that happening, they had jailers with automatic guns for this jail.
Of course, since Dumpers still needed to get in and out of planet side, to make sure that the automatic defense system didn't mistakenly shoot down their own people, they had to use space flight keys that identified them as friendlies.
Now as to how Ester knew this?
Well some guy who came across it was betrayed by his comrades for the key and in turn betrayed the knowledge of the key to everyone currently on radio, which was basically everyone.
And as to why he knew there was a space flight key here?
It would be because of how absurdly paranoid the old man was with things like this.
He of course left this knowledge for Ester and Eva to use as they saw fit when he bit the not so metaphorical bullet, and currently they were using it to escape this place.
So... Here he was trying to get a Space Flight key guarded by a bloody Corrupted of all things.
'And why in the Thirteen Architects is there a bloody Corrupted of all the things at C-Point?'
Cursing at the idiot who had let their Inner Aether stagnate for far to long, Ester continued to look in the barely visible reflection of the glass he held in his hand, the Respirator functioning at its lowest settings possible.
'Going by how dilapidated my surroundings are... It's been quite some time since they turned corrupt.'
With the walls of C-Point just plain gone, it seemed that in the time that the Corrupted was here, she weren't exactly quiet a about it.
Ester looked at the Corrupted and at the place where the Ergul was just being stretched and spaghettified, spotting the numerous holes in the ground where that blackhole of a mouth pulled even the surrounding ground.
'Now that I see it, I think these holes are where people used to be.'
Since C-Point was a place where radio signals were at their strongest, people came here in droves for the latest news, dumper schedules, bounties and the like.
And since the unique second mind of the Corrupted would definitely be bloodthirsty...
It most likely began to suck everything and everyone around her indiscriminately, the everyone being the people and the everything being the walls Ester currently hid himself behind it.
It was just a theory, but the more that he thought about it, the more Ester realized that this was most probably the case.
'So that means that outside of the Corrupted, there's nothing stopping me from taking the Space Flight Key.'
He paused and glanced through the reflection, seeing the numerous potholes in the ground.
'Well I might be stopped if it ate the Space Flight Key.'
Ester silently pondered before pinching the side of his neck.
'...I won't be finding out if it ate the Space Flight Key anytime soon if I keep on waiting here, I should start moving.'
Biting his lip underneath his mask, he glanced at the Corrupted still twitching in his general direction.
'...I'm probably insane for doing this' Ester subtly massaged his legs 'But if I was sane, I wouldn't be trying to escape this Architect forsaken planet.'
Glancing at the Corrupted one last time through the piece of glass and confirming that it hadn't moved an inch from where it had started, Ester picked up a small pebble.
Said pebble was made of... something that felt like industrial grade plastic, so it should be effective in making some sound.
Rolling his left hand while his right hand kept the glass steady, when he threw the pebble and let it clatter against the ground, he saw through the glass as the Corrupted turned towards the sound.
He instantly leapt forwards as silently as he could.
Dodging behind another broken wall, when he used the shard of glass to peek over the wall he confirmed that the Corrupted was... still twitching in his general direction.
'Well that's not fucking ominous in the slightest.'
Pursing his lips, Ester rolled a pebble in his fingers as he looked round.
Having just repositioned, he was now able to see the rest of the place and was able to appreciate how destructive a Corrupted could be.
With several hundreds of meters of broken concrete and twisted metal, the various buildings that once littered the underground had been destroyed by the Corrupteds rampage.
In addition, from what he could see most of the weight bearing pillars had sizeable chunks of concrete missing, exposing the metal skeletons underneath.
Since it wouldn't do good for anyone here if they suddenly broke from the stress, Ester made a mental note to avoid them all.
'Now where are you...'
Looking round with the help of the glass while periodically checking in on the eerily still Corrupted, eventually he found what he was looking for.
'It took a while but I found you.'
Having drawn a map of all the load bearing pillars onto the dust covered ground in front of him, utilizing his memory, he found the general location where the paranoid old man hid his things.
'And from the looks of it, you look pretty intact.'
It might be because the place where the package was hidden was a relatively well hidden area, but unlike the surrounding ground which was upturned and destroyed, the ground was relatively undisturbed.
'The problem is the Corrupted has a direct line of sight to it.'
Only needing to just turn its head 90 degrees, it would be a wonder if he could get the Space Flight Key without getting sucked up into strips of flesh and bone.
'Hmm...'
Slowly setting down his bag, Ester carefully sifted through his items, recalling where he put this thing.
'Where were you... Aha.'
Finding a bundle of glass rods comfortably nestled in a bunch of clothes, Ester smirked.
'Even the dead would go to check out what's making that racket nevertheless a bloodthirsty Corrupted.'
Throwing a pebble so that it would turn its attention to somewhere else for a brief moment, in that brief window of time when she was looking away from him and thus was unable to see where the glass rod came from, he hurled the glass rod over into the distance.
'Now to wait.'
Hurriedly bringing back his arm before she could spot it, Ester heard the sound of glass cracking followed by the near defeaning crackle of the chemicals living up to the Sound Maker name.
He held up a glass shard and watched as the Corrupted turned around, startled, before it instantly began to shamble towards the source of the noise.
It was eerily silent in its unnatural twitchy state.
'I should probably get going before she realizes that there's nothing.'
Hurriedly but quietly making a break for the Space Flight Key, Ester glanced backwards and confirmed the still shambling form of the Corrupted looking at where he through the Noise maker.
'Thank the Architects that the Noise maker is super noisy.'
Confirming that this was a relatively safe distance, Ester swiftly reached the untouched plot of land and hurriedly scoured the ground for the spot that the old man mentioned in the USB.
'Where are you, where are you, where are- Bingo.'
Making his palms align with his forearm, Ester's fingers nimbly pulled underneath the metal plating and grasped onto a hidden lever.
*Ker-Chunk!
Instantly detaching his hand, before it could fall, Ester hurriedly grabbed it and shoved it into his back pocket.
Taking out a flat spade like attachment, he glanced backwards and confirmed that the Corrupted was still dealing with the noise maker, nearly shoving the spade onto his arm.
Pulling the lever again and locking his hand in place, Ester hurriedly began to dig up the ground, in mere moments, he felt his hand strike something hard and metallic if the dinging noise was anything to go off of.
Scraping around for the edges of whatever it was, using his free hand Ester pried the metallic box out of the ground.
Time wasn't exactly kind to it if the large build up of rust on its surface was anything to go by, it was to the point that he would need to break it open to access its contents.
And unless he was fine with possibly breaking it where he stood, he would need to return to the Driller to even have a chance of getting the Space flight key intact.
'Well that's step one done and dusted, now time to go-'
Ester froze as heard the sound of the wind whistling behind him.
It should've been impossible to hear the sound of the wind this deep underground, but he had an inkling of an idea as to why he was hearing it now.
'And now that I think about it, I haven't heard any noise for some time now.'
Feeling a chill crawl down towards the base of his spine, Ester stiffly turned his head backwards.
'The Corrupted.'
Staring at him a rough hundred meters away, its black swirling mouth had dust particles slowly swirling into it and Ester swore that it made something akin to a grin before the sound of glass shattering entered his ears. Then he swore for real.
"FUCK!"
+++
Tree that wonders how people deal with A levels
[Rewrite]