Nonetheless I convinced her to stay, concerned about her safety. Something in Crankshaft’s words concerned me; rogue tinkerers of his sort were often removed from society for a reason, and I did not want to expose my mistress to whatever half-baked experiments he had been working on.
I waited until we had both clambered into the Hippocampus and set off to delicately broach the subject of his research.
“Power,” he said, “and lots of it. You’re familiar with the steam engine?”
“Of course. The revolution of the century, and in fact the very reason why Madame Fog recognized the potential to circumnavigate the globe in 80 days’ time.”
He snorted. “Burning coal for power is foal’s play. The future is in magikinetics.”
“Impossible,” I said. “Nopony has ever produced a working model. I’ve read of attempts, but translating magic energy into power is tremendously wasteful. The amount of magic needed would be immense.”
“That’s true. But what if we had access to a new, untapped source? Tell me: you’ve been all over the world. But what lies straight down? What’s at the center of the Earth?”
“Stone and rock, what else?” I said, shaking my head...
I hesitated. “Some say a great dragon sleeps below...”
“An empty void,” I offered. “Perhaps with ponies living on the inside as well…”