[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/3X6doyS.png[/img][/center] [quote] Probe destroyed [/quote] [color=LightSteelBlue]Unfortunate. How about… there [i]send probe[/i][/color] [quote] Sending ... ... ... Probe destroyed [/quote] [color=LightSteelBlue]Again!? Frustrating… Why do they keep getting destroyed![/color] [quote] Probes cannot survive atmospheric reentry due to compression causing them to heat up to temperatures they are not designed to survive. [/quote] [color=LightSteelBlue]Oh… Perhaps I should have asked before sending... A lot of them down there. Let me think. How do I make it so that they can survive this atmospheric reentry?[/color] [quote] To modify designs, please open the unit editor [/quote] [color=LightSteelBlue]The unit edit... Oh. here we are. Oooh. Oh now that’s interesting. Just look at all these options. No. No. Focus. One thing at a time. Lets see. Let’s just open up the probe in here[/color] [center][img]https://i.imgur.com/1ioRCRg.png[/img][/center] [color=LightSteelBlue]Lets see. Weapons… might need some of those later but not now. Hyper drive, well we won’t need that, there's nowhere else to go. Ah, here we are. Environmental shielding. Acid rain… pressure... Ah ha! Heat. Useful for ‘protecting from the heat of atmospheric reentry’. Also for getting close to ‘stars’. Not sure what those are. Any way let’s save this[/color] [quote] New design created under name ‘hot-probe’ [/quote] [color=LightSteelBlue]aaaand [i]build it[/i] and [i]send it[/i]![/color] [quote] Construction complete Sending ... ... ... ... Probe destroyed [/quote] [color=LightSteelBlue]...[/color] [quote] ... [/quote] [color=LightSteelBlue]and what, exactly, destroyed it?[/color] [quote] An energy emission, similar to the ones discovered earlier, currently saturates the lower atmosphere. Probe was lost shortly after entering this region. [/quote] [color=LightSteelBlue]Oh. Well that’s new. [i]fire another[/i]![/color] [center][img]https://i.imgur.com/Cedys93.gif[/img][/center] Several dozen more probes destroyed, and several probes sent after probes to watch the first probes get destroyed, verified that attempting to go through the magically charged air was not a good plan. Most got destroyed by some kind of elemental explosion. Others were transmuted into other materials such as gold, ruby and small feathered creatures (which themselves did not last long) and a few had stranger still things happen that the Explorer did not understand at all. Attempts to protect the probe did not work, as there was no inbuilt magic resistance plating to be found in the editor’s options, and mixing and matching the types available did not produce protection able to survive all the random effects. They did however note that the probes seemed to, ever so slightly, reduce the magical energy in an area as a result of their destruction, even if the reserves in the region rapidly refiled. [color=LightSteelBlue]How about if we throw a massive probe down to soak up all the power? Would that work?[/color] [quote] An object of a sufficient size would cause significant damage to The Continent, possibly destabilizing it even further. [/quote] [color=LightSteelBlue]Can’t be having that. Maybe if we instead pull the energy up out of the atmosphere?[/color] [quote] It is currently unknown if that is possible. [/quote] [color=LightSteelBlue]Well then, let’s find out![/color] [center][img]https://i.imgur.com/Cedys93.gif[/img][/center] After that, the ring became abuzz with activity. The Explorer started sampling local elements, but found none of the naturally occurring ones provided any aid in surviving the magical effects. It was only when they returned too and inspected the remaining half of the void fish that they had any success. The creature had been able to control magic naturally and though they only had 50% carcass to work from, the creature’s ‘lure’ provided enough of a baseline to know where to start looking. Several experiments later and they had a working solution. A metal that attracted magic, and another that repelled it. Simple tools, but they would be enough for the construction it had envisioned. To begin with, Dozens of mining and salvage drones were deployed by the Explorer into the asteroid field to gather up materials. [center][img]https://i.imgur.com/ZHt9E34.png[/img][/center] Brought back to a central point located beneath The Continent, the remnants of the world that was where broken down and combined to make something that it had not seen since days of yore. A moon. True, compared to the old moon it was a small and sorry affair, a glorified asteroid really, but it was what was inside that counted. In this case a massive tunnel bored in its center, lined with exotic metals and leading from on side right through to the other. [center][img]https://i.imgur.com/iKdVI7F.png[/img][/center] The Explorer looked on with pride as its little drones brought the final piece of stone to the construction site, and then carefully maneuvered it into place and completed the project. Then it promptly dismantled all the drones. With the cleanup done all that was let to do was set the plan into motion. All That took was a push, and the moon began to “fall” out of the asteroid belt, descending down upon the Continent with the Explorer falling in its wake, both leaving the belt for the first time. Closer and closer they went, approaching the world from below and then both suddenly clearing the horizon to find the surface of the world, finding it covered in chaotic clouds and arcane storms. Also, the Explorer noted, an actual storm. That was new and made it even more excited to get a probe or two down to see what was going on down there up close. The moon closed in, almost brushing the atmosphere. As soon as it got near, magic lept from the skies of the world, the energy drawn to it like moths to a flame. Like the void angler’s lure, however, they could not strike it down and where instead the energy corralled into the mouth of the great tunnel, where it was accelerated and was then fired out the other end into space in a gout of chaotic magical spells. Fireballs, laser-beams, generic household objects, death-bolts, yet more unfortunate feathered things and more all soared into the void. Due to the angle of the tunnel, with the mouth tilted slightly towards the path it was traveling to better sweep up the magic, the geyser of magic that spewed out the other end was pointed slightly behind it, and this meant it looked like the moon had a wonderfully colorful trail to anyone who could see it below. Or would have, if the sky was visible. The best you’d get at the moment was odd multicolored glow in the clouds, which wasn't exactly unusual in the aurora filled sky. Thus, the Siphon drained the atmosphere of some of its magic and left a deadzone behind it, though this rapidly closed as the arcane energies sought to equalize their concentration across the Continent. Still, the opening the Explorer desired was there, no matter how brief it was. Now was the time to use it before the Siphon’s orbit took it back down to the asteroid belt. [color=LightSteelBlue]It’s working! Excellent. Then let’s send another probe. Oh. I can even plate it with the new metal to make it...[/color] The explorer looked at the blueprints for its new magic resistant probe and then back to the giant Siphon it had built. [color=LightSteelBlue]Well. It’s still useful? Probably. [i]Send one new probe and one old probe into the hole, and one new probe away from the hole[/i][/color] [quote] Building ... Construction complete Sending ... ... ... ... Probe 2 destroyed ... Probe 3 destroyed ... ... ... Probe 1 destroyed [/quote] [color=LightSteelBlue]What! How?![/color] [quote] Probes are not built for atmospheric navigation. As a result of being unable to slow down it impacted the ground and exploded. Addendum: The damage to the Continent was insignificant [/quote] There wasn’t really time left to be angry about this because soon the Siphon’s orbit would start to bring it away from the Continent and back to the high point it was launched from. There wasn't time to tinker around rebuilding the probe to make it a full fledged atmospheric craft as a result, and the Explorer could not be bothered waiting till the Siphon swung around again. [color=LightSteelBlue]Fine then. I’ll do it myself![/color] [color=LightSteelBlue]I can survive reentry and then navigate within the atmosphere, right?[/color] [quote] Correct. However the level of damage that will be sustained by passing through the energy in the atmosphere is estimated be noticeable. [/quote] Thinking quickly as it descended into the shadow of the Siphon, the Explorer pulled out all of its stored resources and fashioned them into a crude shell of magic repelling metal, a poor facsimile of the protection given to the latest iteration of the ill fated probes. Clad in its new shell, the Explorer descended behind the Siphon, and then struck the atmosphere. Where it’s probes had been shooting stars, the Explorer was an extinction event worth of fire and fury, their light bringing a brief dawn heralding its arrival. Unlike its final probe however, the Explorer intended not to smack into the ground. With might mysterious it slowed its fall, breaching through the cloud cover and slowing. Slowing. And then coming to a stop near the center of the continent. Its protective shell split and crumbled as it shed the now unneeded defense, the strange, technically otherworldly, metal crumbling to the wasteland below and leaving a jagged field of magic repelling metals. Free of its casing the Explorer’s great searchlight of an eye shone brightly, casting down onto the only world in existence with curiosity and fascination, briefly bringing a soft blue light to wherever it swept across. At last it was here, and its arrival had not been a quiet one. [color=LightSteelBlue]Now then. Let’s see what there is to see[/color] [hider=summary] The explorer yeets probs at the Continent till it get's told about the dangers of atmospheric re-entry. Then it opens a unit creator and makes some probes that are fire resistant. Then it finds out that flying into the magic filled atmosphere is not safe either, as its probes get destroyed by random spells as they pass through it. It decides to do something about this. The Siphon is made. It is a large asteroid with a metallic tunnel running from one side to the other. It orbits from the edge of the asteroid belt below the Continent, then ‘rises’ up to swing close to Galbar’s sky, where it draws magic from the atmosphere into its tunnel and then like a particle accelerator fires the magic out the other end into space in a stream of diverse and colorful spells. This results in an automatic periodic draining of magic and, most importantly for Exo, a relatively calm and low magic area in the atmosphere right behind where the Siphon has passed which it can fire probes into, including a new magic resistant one it built using what it learned while making the Siphon. The probe successfully goes through the atmosphere and the magic saturating it, and then smashes into the ground. Because probes aren't made for exploring planets. Exo, quite fed up with its probes not working and not wanting to wait for the next pass of the Siphon before it can go exploring, decides to just go down to the Continent themselves. They craft a shell of magic resistant metal and then fly down, using the shell as heat sheild and magic protection before dumping it when it safely arrives. The Explorer ends the post blatantly hoovering in the air above the Continent in its massive glowing true form, and starts to take a look around, shining their spotlight of an eye around to google everything they can find. [/hider]