Survey Captain Carol Mayer followed the tall muscular humanoid down a long tunnel. Her crew had been told to stay behind and for once they seemed to be in no mood to argue. Mayer wondered at the architecture. The buildings she had seen were very functional but not what could be described as ascetically pleasing. She asked the alien about this." Why was the energy device built to be so beautiful but these structures look so..." She hesitated afraid to insult the alien walking next to her. She discovered that she needed not worry about it as he answered. "Ugly? is that the word you were thinking of?" Mayer blushed. "No not ugly per se but very functional. The difference is striking." The humanoid nodded. "Yes my people did not build the energy container. Nor did my ancestors or their ancestors. In fact no one built the energy collector. It has always been here in one form or another since the beginning of time." Mayer gasped. "Since the beginning of time?" she said softly. " How could you know that? Someone HAD to have built it at some point." The alien shook his head and Mayer was struck at how human the gesture looked. "You do not understand. You have such a small grasp of the universe of how it actually functions. Your ignorance is dangerous." Mayer couldn't argue with that. The alien continued. "Everything that is comes from this place. Every star, every planet, every race. Everything from this one source of energy. MY people call it "The Center" it is quite literally the center of the universe. The one source of the entity you call space's life force. To put it simply the universe is a living being, infinitely old and wholly dependent on the center for it's survival. Without this energy everything would simply..end."Mayer could not belive what she had heard. "How is this possible? The universe is ALIVE? Something awoke in the back of her mind as if she had somehow grasped one tiny piece of the puzzle. "Nexium" she blurted. "The Nexium is the fuel for the center." The alien shook his head. "Not exactly. Come I will show you." While they had been talking they had walked through an expansive tunnel system and entered a giant cavern deep under the planet's surface. The alien and Mayer stood in front of a massive set of doors which opened silently at the aliens hand gesture. What Mayer saw inside she could not belive. A huge structure bored deep into the core of the planet. Star-shaped, it contained a glowing ball of blue energy of massive proportions. Above the glowing blue ball hung a single bright star. How the star had come to be in this chamber deep underground and how it's radiation and heat hadn't killed her and the alien instantly she could not even begin to guess. The alien looked at her. "This is the center. It is the source of all energy in the universe. It feeds the universe. The mineral that your people call Nexium is..." He appeared to be looking for a word. "A catalyst although that word is hardly adequate it will have to do. The Nexium allows the universe to feed on the center's energy. Without it the universe cannot feed and it will die. Carol Mayer could not hope to understand all of this. "But surely there is enough Nexium to last forever?" She realized she sounded like a small child pleading for more candy. The alien lowered his head. "There is not. The universe only requires a very small amount to feed. Because of this Nexium is incredibly rare. The containment device was put here to take advantage of the large amount of Nexium in the planets in this area. Your people have already depleted the supply to a dangerous level. It will take millions of years to replenish it." Carol Mayer felt as if she needed to sit down. The tiny arrogant, insignificant, violent race known as humans were on the verge of destroying the universe. Somehow she felt like laughing at the irony......
I think I might be done with this. I realize this was probably more story and less map than it should have been but it was a fun way to get back into a challenge and a good excuse to tell another story.
I added the "Center" views to the map. I was going for a glowing effect and I think I achieved what I was looking for. All in all I'm pleased with this and I'm glad I decided to enter this challenge (no matter how it turns out)
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