“An empty void,” I offered. “Perhaps with ponies living on the inside as well. A star of their own at the center, providing light during the day.”

Crankshaft laughed. “You’ve got a big imagination, Mr. Stout. But you’re not wholly wrong.”

“Really?”

“There’s certainly some kind of space down there. But I think it’s full-- full of some giant magical entity. Ambient magical readings sharply increase the further down you go-- quadratically, not linearly. Anything able to produce that level of power is functionally infinite; even if we were to power the entire world, I doubt we would consume more than a fraction of its reserves.”

“I see,” I said, though I still felt firmly in the dark.

The Hippocampus tilted downwards, and we began to descend...