Chapter 03: The Cradle of Civilization

"I have a very special treat for you today, Your Highness."

Endymion looked up from behind the small desk, folding his hands together in front of him atop it. Scholar Riobard, a middle-aged man with long gray hair and a short gray beard, set a small velvet bag down in front of his Endymion's little hands.

Endymion stared down at it, as if expecting it to move.

"Well, go on, young Prince," Riobard instructed, gesturing towards the bag. "Go on."

Endymion quickly reached out, opening the drawstring atop the bag and peering inside the dark little sack. A little gemstone, clear but faintly foggy, sat inside. Carefully, his little fingers reached inside and plucked it from the protective bag, pulling it out in his left hand.

"You know what that is?" Riobard asked. "I think you do."

"I-I think so," Endymion said, voice cracking slightly as he reached underneath his desk, his right hand fumbling around amid a collection of tools and trinkets, until his fingers clutched down on a thick black rod. He pulled it out, fingertips finding a small button along the side and pressing it, sending a powerful beam of light out from the end. He leveled the flashlight down at the gem between his left hand's fingers. Immediately, the semi-transparent stone became reflective, a rough mirror, although the images it reflected back were slightly hazy and unclear. There was no mistaking this unique reaction to a strong lightsource.

"And now you know so," Riobard said, bending down a bit towards the stone. "Although typically tough to distinguish from poor quality glass or any other clear crystal, raw Imperium Crystal becomes reflective when exposed to strong light sources."

Endymion blinked down at the small gem for a few seconds, then looked up to Riobard. "Raw Imperium Crystal?"

"Yes! Typically, you'll only find raw Imperium in one of three places. One, in an Imperium mine. Two, on a Galactic Imperium Agency freighter. Three, inside the vaults of the Galactic Imperium Agency station. So, cherish today, Your Majesty, for I managed to convince the Agency that the education of a young Prince of Earth was worth borrowing a little bit for a day."

Endymion clicked the flashlight off, watching the crystal resume it's dormant state, then clicked it back on, observing the reflective surfaces. Even at the tender age of seven, the precocious Prince knew enough to have an appreciation of this scientific wonder.

"And, if I don't have that returned to the Agency tonight, I'll be spending the rest of my life on board their station in a prison cell, so please don't lose that, Your Highness," he added. "But yes. You're holding a raw Imperium Crystal in your fingers, the most valuable, powerful, and important substance in all the galaxy."

Endymion set the gem down on the desk in front of him. "I-I know...I know it powers hyperspace jumps—"

"All space travel runs on Imperium, young Prince," Riobard added. "Without Imperium, every single spaceship in this galaxy would become completely subject to the whims of orbital forces, dead in their tracks. The communication beams that allow us to contact people on other planets with mere seconds of delay, poof, gone. Anti-gravity pads turn into doorstops, holographic projectors become frisbees, high-density storage systems get wiped and turned into anchors, computers get bricked...most modern heating and cooling systems cease to function, everything that makes civilization civilized, powered by Imperium. Without it, we're back to the stone age, digging around in the dirt and chiseling murals in the walls of caves."

Endymion hung on every word his tutor had to say, letting the magnitude of his words slowly digest in his brain, taking in and fully grasping the importance of this particular mineral.

"Most of the technological advances of the last three thousand years are powered by Imperium. The lifeblood of the galactic economy relies on it, as it makes trade between worlds possible." He nodded. "If we ever actually stopped for a moment, took a deep breath, and thought about things...we might actually be terrified of how much we've come to rely on the stuff."

"Well...surely there's plenty of it, right?" Endymion questioned.

Though it was somewhat inappropriate, Riobard could help but bark out a harsh little laugh. "Less and less everyday, Your Majesty. Every single civilization in this solar system depending on it for practically everything, trillions of individuals with their hands out for it...gone are the days of us always finding more than we use. Long gone. In fact...should you keep in good shape and eat healthy, young Prince, you may even live to see a time where it dries up, and one by one, the threads that tie our civilization together...snap."

Endymion gulped down hard. "N-not much of an incentive to stay in shape or eat healthy," he muttered.

"That's why we have the Agency," Riobard continued. "An impartial body of governance that has absolute authority over all matters to do with Imperium. Every single scrap of Imperium, throughout the galaxy, belongs to them, to be refined and distributed by them, entirely at their discretion, with absolute authority to regulate it as they see fit." He straightened back up. "And the Agency was formed nearly three hundred years ago. Think about how desperate, how panicked the Kingdoms had to have been, to approve the creation of something like that. How they must have realized how dire the situation was going to become. For the planets to collectively decide that handing control of the substance over to a third-party, as well as lose the highly-lucrative Imperium free market, was preferable to letting its use go unchecked." He grimaced. "And then, consider that this was three hundred years ago, Your Highness. And I assure you, the problem is only getting worse."

Endymion nodded, trying to not let Riobard's rather serious proclamation of impending doom bother him. But then again, how could it not?

"Despite the best attempts of the Agency to regulate and control distribution...we're all still just kicking the can down the road, hoping that the next generation might figure out a long term fix." He shrugged. "Doesn't make much sense to me." He sighed, then turned back to his student. "But, I suppose I'm just a scholar with platinum-tier certifications in predictive models. What do I know?"

Endymion blinked up at the elder scholar, unsure if he was asking him a question that he was supposed to answer.

"Well, enough of that," Riobard said. "Now, the effectiveness, efficiency, and cleanliness of Imperium is correlated to its purity. The more pure the Imperium, the more power it will be able to output, and the cleaner it burns. What's more, this correlation is parabolic." He leaned forward towards Endymion. "Do you know what that means, young Prince?"

"It…" Endymion swallowed. "It means that...the effectiveness of the Imperium and its ability to supply power rises at a rate much faster than it's purity."

"Very good," Riobard said, nodding. "Imperium of...say, forty percent purity, a single libra of the stuff might power an average neighborhood's heating system for a winter, or power a small transport to take cargo from the Earth to the Moon. But if you just made it fifty percent pure, the difference is staggering. One libra can...power an entire small town for a day or two, or even have enough of a charge to fire off a hyperspace jump from Venus to Mars. Sixty-five percent, and now we're talking, you've got enough for...probably a dozen tunnel jumps through the asteroid belt, snapping from Mars to Jupiter and back again in a matter of days." He reached down towards the small Imperium Crystal on the desk. "This particular stone is especially interesting, Your Highness, in that it is from the stock of the purest Imperium mine known to date. Eighty-two percent pure, almost. Plucked from a tunnel deep within Venus. With just that single little gemstone, you'd be able to cruise an F-class transport frigate clear across the entire galaxy five or six times. You could power everything inside a small town for just short of a year with just that."

Endymion nodded, looking down at the gem, and then watching as Riobard picked it up and slipped it back into the little velvet sack.

"Of course, Imperium loses some of its purity when it's synthesized, but the loss is negligible when done using the proper techniques by an expert chemist," the scholar continued. "The Agency could take this particular little stone and...produce usable Imperium of over eighty percent purity. Still more than enough to...say, power everything in this entire palace for over a year, I'd say."

"That's incredible," Endymion squeaked, his pre-pubescent voice straining a bit. "How...how can we be running out of it, if so little can accomplish so much?"

Riobard sighed. "Because...I don't know, Your Highness. Perhaps the civilizations of the galaxy spent so much time thinking about whether or not they could advance...they never stopped to think about whether or not they should." He chewed on his cheek for a moment. "But, who am I to pass such judgement?" He shrugged. "And...maybe there's a big old load of this stuff, somewhere out there in this galaxy, just waiting to be discovered, that'll keep everyone happy forever." He rolled his eyes. "That seems to be what everyone's hoping for."

"

Kunzite delicately reached the small metal screwdriver into the opened panel on the side of the cube, poking little wires aside to gain access to a little chip behind them.

"It has to be...some kind of mistake, right?" Endymion muttered, staring down at the Imperium Crystal, having been removed from the cube after the reader had finished. "That's impossible."

"Highly improbable, not impossible," Kunzite replied, jabbing the tip of the tool into the chip, a couple of sparks crackling up before the display screen went blank. "There's a difference."

"What are you doing?" Endymion asked, finally thinking of something else besides the absolutely staggering discovery the two had just made.

"Shorting it out," Kunzite answered, closing the side panel back up. "It'll look like there was some sort of power surge that shorted the memory chip out next time they try to use it. Easy enough to replace, they won't think much of it. And, most importantly, there will be...absolutely no record that such a reading ever happened."

As Kunzite closed the device back up. "You don't think the machine could be buggy, do you?"

"Once we're back on Earth, I can run a few more tests," Kunzite said, going back to the shelf and replacing the device where he had found it. "But I have to say, these particular models are nothing if not dependable and accurate. That's why I didn't want to use one of the handheld readers."

"I mean, if the parabolic correlation holds...what are we talking about here?" Endymion wondered out loud. "It's almost unthinkable, isn't it?"

"Well, no one has ever found anything even close to this level of purity before, so...I'll have to actually conduct some tests to be sure, but...yes, most likely."

"How can they be sitting on something like this and not know?" Endymion muttered. "And how can they know and just let it...sit there?"

"You said the tunnel you found it in is off-limits?" Kunzite asked.

"Yeah, they...at least, that's what Sergio said," Endymion recalled. "Said a few of the miners had gone down that way and never come back, and then...uh...they found some fire traps?" He wrinkled his forehead. "I don't know, it all sounded odd and confusing, but...as far as I could tell, they have no clue what's in there." He tapped his foot against the floor for a moment.

Kunzite pocketed the crystal. "This could...complicate things."

Endymion nodded. "So. What do we do now?"

Kunzite glanced around the empty classroom for a moment, then stepped in closer to Endymion. "Well, legally, there's only one thing we can do. We report our finding to the Galactic Imperium Agency, or if you prefer, Queen Serenity, who then reports the finding to the Galactic Imperium Agency. And then, what happens happens."

"Right," Endymion said, nodding. "But, perhaps...that's not what we should do, is it?"

Kunzite grimaced, but nodded. "Perhaps not. But it's important that you're aware that doing anything else at this point is a violation of galactic law, and one that even your status won't protect you from."

Endymion nodded. "Well...we'll just have to be careful, then."

"Do you remember where you found it?" Kunzite asked. "While we're here, perhaps it might be smart to get a better grasp of exactly what we're dealing with."

"Yes, I know exactly where I found it, and I was rather thinking the same thing," Endymion agreed.

"Depending on how much more there is...this is either a discovery of reasonable significance, or, it's the most significant discovery in the history of our galaxy." Kunzite reached his hand up and felt the little crystal in his pocket. "Before we make any major decisions, I should go see which one it is."

"We," Endymion corrected as Kunzite took one step towards the door to the classroom. "We should go see."

Kunzite gave a small grunt. "Absolutely not. Particularly after what happened earlier today, out of the question. You're not going back down there, especially after what you were told about that tunnel zone."

"Well...you can say that all you want to...but I don't seem to recall telling you where I found it," Endymion said casually, causing Kunzite to freeze mid-step and look back at his charge.

"You can't be serious," Kunzite said darkly. "Your Highness, please—"

"And, either way, Kunzite...I'm ordering you," Endymion followed up with a small smile.

Kunzite's mouth closed, knowing that he had no counter to such a statement.

"Choosing to not hand this over to the agency is my decision, not yours," Endymion added. "It wouldn't be fair for me to send you down there alone."

"Well...I suppose that's one way to put it," Kunzite acknowledged. "Alright. What, exactly, is it that you're...ordering me to do?"

Endymion glanced around the classroom. "Tonight, after Serenity's asleep. I'll come up with some excuse to get out, we'll meet up at the docks, we'll take your shuttle over to the mines, get in...and go have a look. It's possible we're all getting worked up over very little, could just be that little vein. Still a significant find, but...hardly worth subterfuge over."

"Very well," Kunzite relented. "But speak of this to nobody, no exceptions."

"

"Oh, I could just sing!" Kasios said, tapping his finger along the small screen he held in his hands. "We've been after this prick for six cycles, he's responsible for probably twenty percent of the unregulated product in Antilles, and finally! Finally, we got the son of a bitch!"

Endymion leaned over from his seat to the right of his father, looking down at assorted images of men in black uniforms subduing and apprehending a short, fat, balding man. He didn't take in too many of the details, listening to his father far more than he was observing the images.

"Running an Imperium laboratory out of a Florist shop basement?" Queen Serenity said incredulously, leaning over from Kasios's left. The elder Serenity still greatly resembled her daughter, with the same ethereal beauty and almost angelic quality. "Interesting choice."

"Well, I suppose it helps explains the smell from the synthesization process," Kasios mused, still scrolling through images. "Still though, any Imperium lab that isn't mobile is doomed. We should be embarrassed that it took us this long to find this asshole."

"Mobile?" Endymion said, looking up from his steak that he was cautiously cutting up with a steel fork and knife. "W-what do you mean?"

"Oh, well...you get a transport of some kind, you make a lab out of it. Stay on the move, go some place deserted when you start processing it," Kasios explained. "The ones who do that, they're the ones who are hard to catch." He grimaced. "Some of those ones stayed active for years."

Endymion went back to methodically cutting his steak up, finally taking one of the symmetrical squares he had carved and putting it into his mouth.

"Uh, I'm...sorry, son, sorry, I know this is supposed to be about you and her, I...I'm just excited, we finally tracked this prick down, and I've got a good feeling he'll give up his sources, so...look, you go ahead! I don't wanna hog your spotlight anymore, you go on, say something." Kasios set the screen down on the table and scooped some vegetables off the plate in front of him onto his fork.

"Oh, it's perfectly fine." Endymion glanced over to his right, finding his fiancee sitting there right next to him, taking a sip of water from a glass. "I...I don't really have too much to say at this point, you...take your victory lap all you want, father." He took a drag of water from his own glass. "Me and Serenity are...we're getting married, I think we all know that pretty well by now."

Kasios nodded. "This asshole had a big old crate full of raw Imperium, fifty-eight percent. The shit he was selling? Thirty-two." His nose wrinkled. "What a piece of shit, huh? Think of how much potential utility he was wasting." He scrolled through a couple more images. "Whatever recipe this guy was using...it looked like it involved hot sauce and baby powder. Can you imagine that?" He grabbed the screen again, Endymion peeking over to look at a crate half-full of raw Imperium crystals, each one clearly milky and opaque.

"And you said he'd been active for six cycles?" Queen Serenity said. "Oh, I hope he rots in an agency prison cell for life. How many starships could you have powered with all of the potential energy he wasted?" She scooped some chunks of potatoes together with her fork.

"These amateur Imperium chemists have no idea what they're doing," Kasios agreed. "Not just the bullshit recipes they use, but...the harm they're doing to our galaxy." He looked over at Queen Serenity. "Unfortunately, we'll probably go a little easy on the guy in exchange for his source of the raw Imperium...but that's the person we'd really want anyway."

Endymion did his best best to suppress his rapt interest with everything his father was saying.

"Hey, check this out," Kasios said, holding the screen over towards Endymion. Another crate, this one full of rolled-up paper notes, a sea of bundles of rectangular paper bills. "Found this in his little lab too. All that money he made, never going to get to spend it."

Queen Serenity leaned in from the other side to peek at the screen. "Well, I suppose that's why these people think it's worth it to do all this."

"Nothing's worth a life in an agency prison cell," Kasios insisted.

Endymion swallowed a bite of cabbage, then turned to his father. "How was he...making that much money with such poor quality product?"

"Oh, well...doesn't matter how bad it is, it'll still move," Kasios answered. "Probably getting like...four thousand creds a libra." He sipped from his glass of water. "If he wasn't an idiot, he'd manage a product of at least forty-five percent purity, that he could push for twenty thousand."

Endymion nodded. "Y-yeah, that...makes sense," he said quietly.

"There was one guy five years ago, was pumping out stuff at fifty-nine percent. He knew what he was doing." Kasios's forehead wrinkled. "Now that stuff was going for ninety grand a libra. Of course, he wasn't so good at the part where you had to hide all the money you had that you weren't supposed to have. Should have seen the size of his house."

Endymion nodded. "Oh, to be desperate for money."

Princess Serenity leaned over towards Endymion, resting her head against his shoulder. "What's it like to never have to worry about money, sweetie?"

Endymion chuckled. "Oh, you don't know?" He pointed his fork all around the dining room, spinning it about. "You grew up in this palace, and you're trying to play that game with me?"

"You'll have to excuse my daughter," Queen Serenity said. "She seems to be under the impression that having to use the same silk sheets in her bed for more than four cycles equates to poverty."

"Well, after we're married, I'll see to it that she's never exposed to such horrors again," Endymion said dryly, looking down at his love. "Oh, actually, Serenity, I'll be meeting with Kunzite tonight after you go to bed. Might not be back until very late."

"What's up?" Serenity asked.

"Oh, he wants to go look at a few things on the Moon before we leave," Endymion explained. "Just wants a look at some of the landmarks, judge a few things for himself, I...I don't understand all of it myself. But it sounded interesting, so I wanted to check it out too."

"Alright, you boys have fun," the younger Serenity said, coming back to her plate of dinner.

"Oh yeah, Endymion, when are you heading back to Earth?" Kasios asked, turning to his son. "I'm leaving in two days, I'm due back for a council meeting on The Savery."

"I'll probably head back about the same time as you leave for your meeting," Endymion said quietly. "Just, uh...wanna take a little time to appreciate what's up here."

"

Kunzite's personal shuttle, The Falconeri, had just mere days before been upgraded with cutting-edge lateral boosters, permitting the A-class transport to accelerate in any direction to maximum velocity in less than two beats. Endymion was marvelling at the incredible control this granted his most trusted general, as he effortlessly guided the small ship across the moon's landscape, closing the gap between them and the mine entrance far faster than the trolley had.

"What'll they think of next?" Endymion wondered aloud as Kunzite already began to slow the speed of the transport down a touch.

"Teleporters," Kunzite suggested. "Probably not while any of us are still alive, though."

"Fifty years ago, they were saying the same thing about a universal galactic currency," Endymion pointed out. "We're living in an age of miracles, buddy."

The small transport landed about two-dozen paces from the mine entrance, quietly settling down into the grey rock of the moon's surface. Endymion peered out the front window, clearly seeing that the lone sentry posted at the front of the mine had noticed the unexpected ship, and was watching them warily.

"Let me do all the talking," Kunzite instructed, reaching down and flipping a switch near the right side of his pilot console. A hatch behind them opened up, a small set of stairs descending down to the ground. Endymion stood up. Kunzite got to his feet, following his charge down to the moon surface.

Endymion noticed the sentry give a little flinch as he came to realize that the Earth Prince was approaching him, turning to glance at Kunzite. "All yours, then." A few paces short of the little box the sentry was inside, he stopped, letting Kunzite close the rest of the distance.

"Open the gates," Kunzite said simply.

"U-uh…" the guard stammered, eyes dancing back and forth between Kunzite and Endymion. "I...I don't…understand."

"You don't need to understand, you just need to open the gate," Kunzite said evenly.

"Uh, to...opening the gate after hours, I need...I need a reason for the log—"

"You don't need a reason for the log," Kunzite interrupted. "Because you're not opening the gate after hours. Because we are not here." He nodded slowly. "Alright?"

The sentry started to look a little scared now. "Uh...sir, I…"

Kunzite wordlessly reached into his outside front chest pocket. The guard flinched back, but seemingly relaxed when Kunzite pulled out a roll of paper bills.

"Is that going to be a problem?" Kunzite asked, holding the roll of creds up in front of the man's face.

"It...no, sir, certainly not, it's...it's just…"

"Alright," Kunzite said, leaning in a bit towards the man. "The Prince, he...rather enjoyed riding around in the carts today, he wanted to do it again. And it's embarrassing, so I insisted that he wait until after hours, when other people wouldn't be here. And, because it's embarrassing, nobody needs to know. Understand?"

"O-oh…" the guard said, glancing around in confusion. "He...he liked riding in the c-carts?"

Kunzite just stared at him flatly for a few seconds, knocking the smile that had been creeping onto the sentry's face.

"We were not here, you didn't open the gate. Simple as that." He gave the roll of currency notes a shake. "Come now, this is more than what you make in a cycle."

"Y-yeah, no problem!" the man said, reaching forward to grab the roll of money. "Secret's safe with me! And...y'know, in a few cycles, this place'll...basically be his anyway, so—"

"We may be back in the future," Kunzite cut him off. "And, if you remain amenable, it could be lucrative for you." The sentry hit a couple buttons on a panel behind him, and the gates to the mines slowly slid open. "However, if you were to tell...anyone...and I do mean anyone...about our presence here tonight, I promise you, you'll lose far more than just your job."

"Yes sir!" the sentry said quickly.

"

"You stay right behind me at all times, no matter what," Kunzite instructed firmly, holding his hand up in the air and looking over his shoulder. "If your father found out that I'm putting you in this sort of situation, he'd have me drawn and quartered."

"Yeah, maybe right after he had me drawn and quartered for not reporting this to the agency already," Endymion countered. "Okay, there!"

Both young men held powerful flashlights in their hands, and Endymion had his pointed down the thin mining tunnel, focused in on a small little red tube laying on the stone floor.

"I dropped that on my way out," Endymion explained, pointing over to the unlit flare. "That side tunnel to the right, that's the one."

The pair came up to the fork in the road, Kunzite bending down to grab the flare. "Alright. It's of special importance that you stay behind me now. I have no idea what this supposed fire trap might be, but I doubt they conjured it up out of their imaginations."

"I don't believe in dragons," Endymion said. "But, yes. Now, keep your eyes on the wall to the right, the vein was there."

A few steps into the offshooting tunnel, sure enough, Kunzite found the crystal vein. Trailing down the tunnel wall, the thin deposit was easy to miss unless you were looking for it. Kunzite shined the light close to the crystal, watching it turn reflective. He looked down the tunnel.

"Well...this is already quite significant," Kunzite murmured. "Even if this deposit is all there is, you could accomplish quite a decent amount with just this. And, of course, the mere existence of Imperium Crystal this pure…"

"I only got a few more steps down the tunnel before I had to turn back," Endymion said, pointing down the way that he had yet to trek. "I have no idea how far this goes or what's down there."

Kunzite began to purposefully walk down the path, Endymion right on his tail. Every few paces, they'd glance up at the right wall, eyes finding the Imperium vein, each step revealing yet another precious collection of the priceless substance.

A couple dozen paces down, a flood of bright sparks suddenly spat from the left wall. The very instant these sparks went off, Kunzite spun around and pushed Endymion back a few steps and into one of the tunnel walls, covering him with his body.

Endymion peered over Kunzite's shoulders, looking at the flood of red and yellow sparks spitting from the wall. As his eyes focused, he realized that all of them were being fired out of one particular spot on the wall. "Wait a minute…"

Kunzite twisted his head around, looking at the display, waiting for it to actually do something resembling posing a threat. But beats ticked by, with nothing changing. It may as well have been a firework display for as benign it seemed to be.

And then, the sparks dissipated, leaving nothing but a little bit of smoke as evidence. Kunzite and Endymion stood there, observing the tunnel, waiting.

"If I didn't know any better…" Endymion muttered.

Kunzite walked over to the spot on the wall where the sparks had come from, pulling out a short dagger from his belt. He immediately found a small hole in the wall from which the sparks had come from, and stuck the small blade into the hole.

When he pulled it back out, it had the charred remains of a flare on it. Kunzite held it up, examining it in the light of his flashlight.

"A flare?" Endymion questioned, walking up behind his general, looking at it.

"Identical to the ones that the miners here are always carrying," Kunzite added. "Possibly modified slightly to increase the cone size." He looked down along the floor of the tunnel, quickly finding a black thread beneath their feet. "Tripwire…"

"Someone did this," Endymion reasoned. "Probably a miner." He looked down the tunnel. "Someone who doesn't want anyone else to see what's at the end of this tunnel."

"You said there were...four miners who disappeared down this way, I believe?" Kunzite recalled.

Endymion nodded.

The two took a few more steps forward, but halted when Kunzite threw his hand out behind him. He shined his light down towards the floor, keen eyes looking for something. And then, after a couple seconds, he removed the burnt flare from the tip of his dagger and tossed it a few paces down the tunnel.

The flare struck against a taut thread, and sure enough, another show of sparks rained from a hidden flare in the wall. The two stood there, watching it.

"I don't know what's more sad," Kunzite muttered. "The fact that someone actually thought this would be an effective deterrent...or the fact that it actually worked."

"

The pair had run into a further nine of the half-assed attempts to keep people from travelling down the tunnel, every couple dozen paces stopping so Kunzite could disarm it with a toss from the previous spent flare. It was becoming tedious. It was almost comical that someone had put so much work into such a toothless security system.

"Well...I suppose you don't have to be very smart to get a job down in the mines," Endymion muttered. "Still, though...how do you fall for that?"

The pair was approaching a sharp bend to the right in the tunnel. The vein of Imperium had continued to run along the wall during their entire trek, already promising a non-trivial amount of value just from that single deposit. But, given all the time someone had taken to deter people from coming here, both of the young men couldn't help but suspect that there was something much more.

"Just because all of the other traps were harmless doesn't mean that the next one won't be," Kunzite reminded him. "Please, let's continue to be very careful."

The two cautiously made their way around the corner, coming out into a very welcome sight. The tunnel ended, opening up into a very large chamber. Glancing about, shining his light in every direction, Kunzite took a single step out into the giant room of moon rock.

Immediately, he turned to his right, shooting his flashlight beam directly at the nearest wall.

Only his years of training kept him from dropping the flashlight at what he saw.

The entire wall became reflective, turning into a large mirror, perfectly taking in all images in front of it and sending them back. Every spot of the wall that was being hit by powerful enough light waves had done it. Slowly, Kunzite began to run the flashlight up the wall, towards the high-above ceiling, every movement of the flashlight causing yet another area of the wall to turn into a crystal clear mirror.

Endymion, in absolute shock over this, forgot his instructions to stay close behind Kunzite, and stepped forward towards the wall. Kunzite was so shocked, he forgot to reprimand him. Endymion slowly reached out towards the wall, eyes just now barely able to see that there was a thick pane of what looked to be clear glass covering the walls.

He pressed his palm up to the wall, fingers finding what he could only assume was Imperium Crystal. His hand was a good three palm-lengths away from the stone wall when it encountered the crystal. Although he would need mining equipment to know for sure, it seemed as if the entire gap was made of pure Imperium.

Slowly, he twisted his head around, in absolute shock. He found Kunzite, having condensed and focused the flashlight into a single narrow beam, slowly dancing the beam all along the walls and ceiling, finding that it was successfully turning the walls into mirrors wherever it went.

"Ho...ly…" Endymion said under his breath, watching Kunzite's initial evaluation of the walls around them reveal the obscene value of the chamber.

"...shit." Kunzite finished, for the first time years distracted enough to not adequately protect his charge.