Luc stood in front of the enormous light blue building that appeared to be snow and ice themed. Large letters giving off a frosty glow red ‘Frozen Star’ and Luc got cold just from looking at it.

  “That’s quite the realism…”

  Luc stretched out is hand and focused on the temperature, which was relatively normal for early spring. It wasn’t warm, but also not cold. The icy feeling he got was just his brain playing tricks on him.

  Luc was a bit early and decided to wait inside.

  “Ugh… too many people…” He said as he encountered a school of people.

  He did get put at ease as someone tried to convince them to break up as the largest groups they accepted for tours were with 30 and this group greatly exceeded that.

  There were sections that allowed people to roam freely, but that area didn’t have the more interesting exhibits. At least that was the gist of what he heard the person with an icy name tag said.

  Luc couldn't tell if one person or multiple decided, but the crowd just went ahead to the ‘free’ zone. To then clog up the area meant for processing payments.

  “Not sure if they’re lucky for having a boost to their income or unlucky as they have to deal with that group…” Luc said to himself as he observed.

  He observed a strange object in a large glass case.

  “Hmm? A burner that runs on electronium? What’s that?”

  Luc was familiar with gas burners but this one didn’t run on gas, it worked on this mystery substance called electronium.

  There weren't many items on display as he was just in the meeting hall but one of the few items on display had already piqued his interest.

  The largest item that drew the most attention was something he recognized. It was a car but it had some differences. They weren’t clear on first sight, but the tires weren’t made out of rubber. There was also no exhaust, and the information panel stated that the fuel it used was most likely mana.

  “Huh? So people in history could have cars run on mana and we can’t? I don’t understand…”

  “It’s because you’re thinking from an ability user perspective. Only 20% of the population has mana.”

  Luc turned around to face toward a voice he recognized.

  “Did you wait long?” Charlotte asked.

  “Not really. Curiosity got me. These objects aren't even 200 years old. How did we go back so much…”

  “I don’t know but our guide might clarify. I’ll ask him if he can start with this strange car.it doesn't look very aerodynamic to me…”

  “Now that you say so… did the people in the past use magic for everything?”

  Charlotte shrugged, and he followed her to a door that said ‘Staff Only’ and knocked.

  A man in his early 30s opened the door. Charlotte showed a keycard to which hte man nodded and went back inside.

  A man with a neat grey beard and short gray hear in a dark blue suit stepped out 3 minutes later.

  “Ahh Charlotte! It has been a while! This must be Luc I suppose?!”

  “Yes, My name is Luc, nice to meet you.” Luc said as he shook hands.

  “The name is Jeremy Resha, you can call me Jerry. Well then shall we go?”

  “Oh, Jerry, Luc and I got curious about that car over there. Mind if we start there?”

  Jerry’s eyes followed to where Charlotte was pointing and smiled. “Sure, just know that most objects from before the Silver Explosion have several question marks attached to it as we cen’t decipher the majority of their writings. It will be a theme for most of the exhibits we will visit today.”

  Luc pointed at the first item that awakened his interest. “I’m also interested in that burner that runs on electronium? Was that some sort of fuel like gasoline or electricity?”

  “Ooh, electronium, yes. Let’s start with the burner first then.”

  Charlotte and Luc followed Larry who put on gloves and carefully took the item out of the glass case, drawing the attention of bystanders.

  “This right here is what it looks like. A burner. However, it doesn’t use gas to burn. It burns mana.”

  A blue flame shot out of the burner after Jerry applied some mana to it.

  “Now this is one of the easier items to find out how they were made, what their function was and how they were used. Many if not all things used to run on electronium. Why today’s society can’t find this element or recreate it in labs is unknown but it’s what we would call a mana battery. The metal releases mana when triggered by mana. Just a bit is needed for a large output.”

  The flame grew larger and blazed. The bystanders took a step back due to the heat.

  “Now as how they got this substance to do this is unknown but where we would use gasoline, electricity, coal or other types of energy, they would use electronium. A sort of one size fits all.”

  “Why don’t we use it?” A man in the crowd asked.

  “Well… as I indicated before. Miners can’t find the metal and scientists can’t seem to produce it in the lab so it’s safe to say that our accessibility to it is 0. Experts have tried to extract the electronium source out of devices like these but…”

  Jerry showed the device to the crowd. “Despite looking quite normal it's made out of mechanical, electrical and magical systems. The first 2 are common in our society too but we would need something akin to magical engineers to mimic the latter and… we have no such thing.”

  “Is it safe to say that the magical system in that burner is needed to use the electronium?” Charlotte asked.

  “That’s correct! And that car suffers from the same problem!” Jerry said as he carefully returned the burner into its class case, locked it and walked over to the car.

  The car didn’t aper to be protected from touching or theft so Jerry just opened the door of the car.

  “Anyone wants to volunteer? It’s not much different from a regular car.”

  Luc volunteered, got into the car and inspected the interior.

  “Nothing looks off. It’s just as unfamiliar as a new or different car.”

  “Go on then, start the engine. You don’t need a key.” Jerry said.

  Luc pressedthe only suspicious button which must be the ignition button but nothing happened.

  “Uhm, does it even work?”

  “Oh, it’s fully functional. It also works on electronium” Jerry said with a smile.

  “So I need mana to start it? Ehhm…”

  Luc looked around and found something he never saw in a car before. He placed his hand on it, which was a comfortable fit and poured mana through it.

  Sound came from the car, but it wasn’t starting.

  The car sputtered, and it appeared close to starting when Luc huffed and rolled out of the car.

  “What… it took all my mana, and it still didn't start?!”

  Jerry helped Luc get up and asked for his colleague to bring water.

  Other people also got encouraged to start the car but all volunteers underwent the same fate as Luc; all their mana got taken but the car still didn’t start.

  The exhausted volunteers got water to drink and a snack to energize them.

  “Even magic users had difficulties starting this car. The longest someone could make it move was 12 seconds, after which he ran out of mana and as you might suspect, this car can’t function without mana.”

  Not much more explanation was needed as it became clear that cars like these would be useless in modern society.

  “Any chance it could e made more efficient?” A woman asked.

  Jerry shook his head as he had colleagues clean the car.

  “We just don’t understand electronium and the requirements to get it to work. There is also reason to believe that this is as efficient as it gets.”

  Jerry answered several more questions before they entered the tour section of the museum. The other people weren’t allowed to follow them, so it was just Jerry, Luc and Charlotte.

  Jerry started with small items but Luc wasn’t really paying attention as his mind was at the first 2 items of this tour.

  The words of Henry floated up and specifically about extinction events.

  As how Luc understood electronium it could have solved many energy problems that were plaguing society, but it had become unusable due to mana slowly disappearing from the population and the loss of information.

  A question of a person in the crowd had been if that car was used by every day people or by the elite, and the answer had been that it appeared to be used by everyday people in the past.

  Luc briefly paid attention but Jerry was talking about mechanical tools that weren’t very different from modern ones, except that some outperformed the modern ones. It wasn’t overly interesting to Luc so he just looked around while lost in thought.

  The halls were dimly lit as the floor had a light blue glow, giving the impression they were in an icy cave.

  There weren’t many people present and those who were also getting tours, so it was mainly the tour guides talking or questions being asked.

  The tour was relatively boring as there were many objects that didn’t need an explanation as the difference often was when it was created. It gave the impression that society as Luc knew it only went backwards in the use of magic, but instead got more out of technology.

  He was unsure if this was fair to conclude, as the absence of mana would spur the advancement of technology.

  Then an interesting object got shown.

  “This is a teleport gate.”

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  “Huh? Let me guess, it also works on electronium…”

  “It doesn’t. It works on mana but… that’s all we know. This likely predates anything we’ve found, as few legible texts mentioned ‘ancient’. So we assume that even to those of a few hundred years ago, this teleport gate was an enigma.”

  “But they could use it, right?” Charlotte asked.

  “That’s inconclusive. We’ve found many of them, but none work. Not due to a lack of mana on our side, but because they’re all broken. The scientists are stumped.”

  The mystic and icy interior distracted Luc greatly as he wondered what the construction procedures were.

  Not every part resembled an icy cave, but references toward snow, ice, cold and water were everywhere, including an area that resembled a wooden hut one might find in snowy areas.

  “Excuse me. I know that this place has a theme but was it really necessarily to go all out on the cold look?” Luc asked.

  “Well you will see when we come closer to the crown jewel of the museum; the Frozen Star.”

  The tour went into an area that fully looked like a cozy wooden hut. Tables with glass cases on them showed off countless documents with unfamiliar writing on them.

  “These are some of the many documents we’ve found. It doesn't represent all the information of that time however, just like books and written records don’t represent the information our society holds. They also used electronics but we can’t access the information in those devices nor even start them…”

  Jerry put his hand on a glass casing. “And thus children’s picture books had the highest value but scientists are aware that these might depict fairytales or fiction but at least it creates a window into the past and shows us what children got taught.”

  Jerry pointed at a small screens that were imbedded into the wall close to each document.

  “Each document has a screen like that where you can read the contents of each document.

  Charlotte and Luc took a look and scrolled through what looked like a digital comic book.

  The story they encountered was about children playing outside too late and thus encountering angry ghosts.

  The children ran back home and the parents met up with them, shot magic bolts at the ghosts, driving them away.

  The last image was with the children hugging their parents and being happy.

  “How cute. This looks like a basic ghost story though.” Charlotte remarked.

  “I suppose those never get old. Let's try that one over there.”

  The next one was about a man with a wolf tail and ears walking through a forest. The next images were about it pulling something out of a river. Something that appeared to be some black armor.

  The armor appeared to be evil and swallowed the man. Several images were used to show how the evil armor did heinous deeds before something akin to heroes appeared and defeated the evil armor.

  The end was unclear as it just showed the victory of the so-called heroes but not what happened after that.

  “Is this a hero story? Why did it focus so much on the villain?”

  “Come on Luc it’s a children’s picture book. Children love heroes Let’s try that one.”

  “Oh this one is interesting” Jerry said as he pointed at the label.

  “Snowspiders of fortune? Like the name of our holiday?” Luc said as he read the description and looked up at Jerry.

  “Yes, scientists were surprised when they found this one. We never knew why we had a holiday like that but it appears it originated from before the fall of the Frozen Star.”

  The 3 looked at the screen, which showed pictures relating to the snowspiders of fortune.

  It started with a city covered in snow and a strange large snowspider appeared with countless eyes on its legs.

  This made Luc and Charlotte shiver from disgust, as the image looked horrifying.

  The spider went through the city and spread smaller spiders everywhere. All the citizens were locked up at home. It did look like they were safe, but some images of men and women putting their hands to their ears indicated that they might have heard something.

  Some went outside and got met with a strange fate. Some died, but others got met by beautiful women. Some with animal ears and multiple tails and some that looked like humans.

  The story continued by both the spiders and women disappearing but several families finding gold within their homes.

  Not every family found gold in their home, but many pictures were used to show how happy the families were that found the gold.

  The final image was about a family showing thanks to an image of a snowspider.

  “What a strange story…” Luc remarked. “And these were made for children?”

  “Well, our fairytales also have some strange stories or horrific undertones and they also get taught to our children…” Charlotte said.

  “That’s correct. This story is about how a snowspider rewarded those families that didn’t send a family member into danger.”

  “And what about those strange women?” Charlotte said as she pointed at the picture displaying those.

  “The hypothesis is that the snowspider uses both fear and desire to entice people.”

  “That sounds like garbage…” Luc said with a sigh.

  “So Jerry, mind if I try this?” Charlotte asked as she pulled out a device.

  “Ahh, the translator you were talking about. Sure.”

  Charlotte started scanning several documents, but a lot of gibberish appeared on the screen.

  Charlotte smacked it but only a few words popped up.

  “Children… snowspider…Alledra? That doesn't sound useful. What is an Alledra actually?”

  “Not much is known about it. All we know that it was a floating city.”

  “I see. Not very useful” Charlotte said as she tried to get her device to work on other documents with more text but nothing worked. It only worked whenever it scanned English text.

  “Ugh, this is useless… back to the drawing board…”

  The device got stored and the tour continued. The next area was different. Bones had been put together to create skeletons, and statues of was had been placed next to them to create an image of how those creatures might have looked.

  What Charlotte and Luc saw was as unbelievable as the fairytales they had just read.

  “is…is that a dragon?” Luc said as he pointed at a massive skeleton in the middle of the exhibition hall.

  The size of the creature made it impossible to also fit a waxen statue next to it so there was just a miniature.

  “Our museum tries to be complete in showing anything related to the Frozen star or anything that might have happened before its descent. Whether the Frozen Star created this event or got formed because it is still unknown but anything before it’s appearance had been wiped out from history. All that has remained from that time can be found here. This is the section where you re allowed to walk round, as there are too many exhibits to cover.” Jerry walked to the side and gave Luc and Charlotte some freedom.

  “I’m going to check out that dragon!”

  A child like excitement came over Luc as he tried to not run and walked toward the imposing skeleton of the dragon.

  Just the leg of the dragon was taller than Luc who just stared in awe and tried to ignore the waxen statue and let his imagination try to find out how this thing must have looked like.

  He finally took a look at the waxen statue to discover that the dragon looked cooler than i his imagination.

  He did also visit other exhibits but the dragon took up most of his time. The most common ones were those that looked human to Luc, but had tails.

  “What killed them?”

  It was what broke the silence, and Jerry walked toward Charlotte to answer her question.

  “Our dating techniques put the most recent death at about 361 years ago and the bone structure of most suggests advanced age, so… died of old age is the cause of death for most of these.”

  The follow-up questions and answers suggested that only a few died unnaturally, indicated by fractured or missing bones.

  “Well and now for the exciting part!”

  Jerry led them toward a room where they got handed a thick coat. Jerry didnt answer any questions, the only thing he said was that they would find out.

  A thick door opened and Luc’s and Charlotte’s eyes met something akin to a snowy cave.

  “Wow it's cold here…”

  “This is the reason why most of the museum is themed like it is. It’s to match this hall.” Jerry pointed down the balcony they were on at a frosty sphere encased in a double glss layer. The sphere sparkled in the light and gave anyone looking at it a strange feeling.

  “is..is that?”

  “That’s the Frozen Star, yes. It’s beautiful, right? Let’s get closer. Just a warning. The closer you get, the more mana it will drain from you.”

  The frosty hall was empty. Only Luc, Charlotte and Jerry were present.

  Dangerously sharp stalagmites hung from the ceiling. The icy walls either scattered light or reflected it, making the hall colorful but could also give visitors the occasional scare due to the reflections.

  Luc and Chorlotte could feel that something was slowly draining out of them as they got closer.

  They stopped right in front of the double glass casing.

  “This here isn’t to protect the Frozen Star from theft. It’s to protect anyone who tries to get nearer it. Not much is known about it, besides the effects you can feel and see here. Any attempt to research it fails as any form of energy gets absorbed by it. Radiation, mana, kinetic energy, everything. Our technology is useless in front of the Frozen Star.”

  “So it’s ice? Or magic ice?” Luc said as he put his hand on the glass casing and pulled it back, as that action had resulted in a lot of mana loss. “Whoa!”

  “Can we take pictures?” Charlotte asked.

  “Sure go ahead.”

  Charlotte pulled out her phone and started taking picture after picture, and Luc did the same. Any question they had got met with a ‘we don’t know’.

  The mystery shrouding the Frozen Star was accepted to be a large part of why it was so popular.

  Was it alive? Was it an alien? Maybe some ancient technology? Maybe a real frozen star? Nobody knew.

  The cold and constant drain became too much for them, so they left the Frozen Star hall. It wasn’t the end of the tour, but neither Luc and Charlotte could be impressed nor interested in anything after seeing the Frozen Star and the dragon skeleton.

  To think this museum had all that… That our world had all that…”

  Luc said to Charlotte as they sat on a bench in front of the now closed museum.

  “Yeah, it made me forget the disappointment of the translator malfunctioning…”

  Charlotte pulled it out of her pouch and smacked it several times and pointed it at the icy words reading ‘Frozen Star’.

  “Look Charlotte! It works! It translated it to ice star! Haha!”

  “Ugh… maybe it just needs to be tested on existing languages. Go for it! Write something in a different language!”

  “Huh? Me? I can’t… I can however….” Luc pulled an empty bottle out of his backpack and showed off the ingredient section on the label. “Try it on the non-English versions!”

  Charlotte’s device activated and showed off some gibberish and untranslated words. “That’s quite clear… the device doesn’t work…”

  “How did they even test it then?”

  “This is the test. Someone with their ability creates this device. It’s the ability to transfer an idea into an object. It’s the Lambert ability I don’t have…”

  “Oh…”

  “Anyway, that ability has a weakness. It always works for the person that implants the idea. The problem is that that might not be the case if someone else uses it. Either the idea needed polish or the idea got implanted in the wrong device.”

  “Ahh, I see, so your family doesn't actually make gadgets with its function baked in. you create gadgets that fit an idea which needs to be implanted in that device to work?”

  “Correct. Finding the correct gadget to make for a certain idea isn’t as easy as it sounds, however. This is a great example. Although I’m sure the idea itself also needs some polishing.”

  “I see.” Luc said as he refilled the bottle in his hand. “Ugh, that Frozen Star was brutal. Together with that car stunt it left me with hardly any mana…”

  Luc opened and closed his fist and made the assessment that he might be able to refill 3 or 4 more tiems before his mana bottomed out.

  “Same. let’s go home before we get in trouble. It’s late. Not late enough to risk running into the ability hunter but let’s not push it.”

  Charlotte and Luc got up when Charlotte turned toward Luc. "that question you asked Jerry a the end about protectors... his answer worries me a bit..."

  "I don't know if i believe that though. to think that all the creatures from stories and myths did in fact exist and were considered protectors but... that dragon skeleton was quite convincing..."

  "Maybe we should pay a bit more attention to stories and fairytales that involve them and something that might match the horned men. maybe stories that talk about the devil? Every old fictional story now feels suspicious as if it's a half truth but because of it's fantastical nature, nobody assumes that it might have been real."

  "We might..." Luc said as they started to walk away from the bench.

  They were about to leave the large open space in front of the Frozen Star museum when a group of men in rowdy clothing approached them.

  “Ooh what a nice face that chick has!” one of the men said.

  “Ugh, troublemakers. Let’s run Charlotte!”

  Luc inwardly cursed his terrible luck. First horned men, then the ability hunter and now some gang of losers.

  “Hey not cool dude! We just want to talk!”

  Luc heard as he heard a bottle smash and men laughing. Some were slurring a bit, indicating that they were drinking.

  “I will report this. The Frozen Star neighborhood doesn’t tolerate this.”Charlotte said as she dialed on her phone.

  “Ho there! Don’t go calling the cops on us now!” they heard as they suddenly found themselves back at their starting point.

  “Haha look you did it! They were right! The Lucent Hollow seems to be working! Give me some too!”

  A man with long black messy hair grew the bottle in his hand by just a bit. He then took a strange light purple substance, to which his mana ballooned, and the bottle grew to massive proportions. “Aaah! This feels like a pleasant dream!”

  “Hello?! There is troub…” Charlotte’s phone got smacked out of her hand by a troublemaker, and Luc pushed him aside.

  A giant glass bottle, half filled with an alcoholic beverage, came down on him and Luc narrowly evaded.

  Glass and strong smelling liquid splashed everywhere and Luc got a cut on his arm.

  The men were acting strange as they ingested more of a strange purple liquid, to which their mana increased to the point it became palpable. The men who showed signs of euphoria started using their abilities without any restraint.

  Even those who appeared to have no mana prior to ingesting showed similar symptoms.

  “Ugh, this is bad… I didn’t just run into a gang, We ran into drug addicts…”