Love Song

Love Song is the 3rd set created by ThatDamnPipsqueak. It was released May 30th, 2020, and is the first set in the Animus Vox block.

Set details
Love Song contains 254 cards (5 basic lands, 101 commons, 80 uncommons, 48 rares, and 20 mythics). Work on it began April 29th, 2020, and it was first drafted May 15th, 2020 as part of a "prerelease" style event. Love Song also had a spoiler season on the MSE forums.

Storyline
The world government of the planet of Terra has begun to explore other worlds in order to potentially create colonies or discover other technological advancements. Despite initially settling a planet called Rethia, a probe discovers a crystal with strange (and incredibly useful) properties on another planet called Olten, which immediately receives more funding and research, leaving the settlers of Rethia to somehow survive on their own.

Slyten Crystals posed thousands of fascinating scientific questions, but their most obvious practical application was their ability to cause inorganic matter to grow, effectively replicating it at the cost of the Crystal itself. Sufficient amounts of it could thus be used to drastically expand humanity's access to rare and inaccessible Terran minerals. However, proximity to Slyten Crystals also has some strange side effects, causing violent hallucinations and the development of uncontrollable psionic powers in many of the explorers that retrieved them. But while there is some Slyten available near the surface of Olten, there isn't nearly as much as the AOSE promised their funders. To get more crystals, fracking efforts began, which had limited success. In the process of drilling into the planet, however, a gateway is discovered, powered by ancient and cryptic alient technologies, and leading to the core of the planet where a veritable motherlode of Slyten Crystals could be uncovered. However, said gateway is also protected by aliens who are unwilling to let humans in, despite being otherwise friendly, as they warn of horrific monsters that lurk below the planet's surface.

Lieutenant Daisy Saxon is one of the first few waves of explorers to explore Olten and attempt to claim its resources for Terra, although the exact nature of her mission is not disclosed to her. After meeting up with her commanding officer, Captain Thomas, Daisy begins to explore the planet, primarily focusing on the surface and locking down a safe entry point for future researchers. The initial wave of explorers that came to the planet included a pair of scientists, Dr. Yulius and Dr. Donel, the first of which was killed by local wildlife. Given that Daisy's fiance, Sadie Dal, is slated to be on the next arriving shuttle, Daisy has a vested interest in making sure things are as safe as possible.

However, the shuttle malfunctions, the communications shortcircuit, and it ends up crashing in an unexplored area. Although Daisy rushes to the crash site, there is no body to be found. She returns back to base, and immediately signs up to explore Mephisto's Gate along with Captain Thomas now that she has nothing left to lose. The team descends through the gate, and are quickly attacked by abominations which quickly pick off several members of the team. Captain Thomas reveals that he suspected that the abominations existed, that he'd seen things that couldn't otherwise have been explained, but didn't have hard enough evidence to make a report back to base about it. And even if he could, it was likely they still would've been forced to explore the core regardless. He makes the decision to sacrifice himself to distract the enemy forces, leaving Daisy his journal, and giving both Daisy and the one other survivor a window to escape.

The two venture deeper into the core, concluding that their only way out is to find unguarded Precursor technology and use it to traverse backwards through the caverns in a quicker and more heavily armed fashion. However, the two get trapped in a portion of the cave with no visible way out, and Oscar jumps to his death rather than starve to death. Daisy nearly breaks down, but holds herself together just long enough to finish exploring the area of the cave, eventually finding a part of the wall that feels different than the rest. She breaks it down, and discovers a massive cavern full of Slyten Crystals, as well as a Precursor vehicle. She boards the vehicle, and finishes reading Captain Thomas' journal.

The Captain's Log makes it clear that he knew that their ultimate end goal was nothing more than acquiring more Slyten Crystals, although his personal goal quickly stopped being that and started being about keeping his crew safe. Unfortunately, he was told that if he returned to earth without the motherlode, he would face criminal charges. It also confirms that the next departing ship would likely be the last for the next several months, due to funding changes within the AOSE. Daisy realizes just how critical it is for her to get out of Mephisto's Gate immediately, and drives the Precursor vessel recklessly up through the caverns, leaving the motherlode behind.

Although she safely gets to the surface before the ship leaves, she pauses, and debates whether she even wants to go home. The death of Captain Thomas, and the rest of her team, and Sadie, all hits her at once, and she falls to her knees. Suddenly, a strange figure appears before her, and introduces herself as Glitch. Glitch tells Daisy that it isn't her destiny to stop here, and that she needs to continue.

''' “It saddens her that you can't hear it.” “Who? What?” “The Universe. She's singing you a love song, and begging you to carry on.” —Glitch, Galactic Muse, to Lt. Saxon '''

Although Daisy wants to ask more questions, she realizes that Sadie would want her to stay alive, and boards the otherwise empty ship back to Terra. Meanwhile, back on Olten, Sadie survived her crash but got lost while trying to explore the planet, unaware of what Daisy was going through. Realizing that she's about to get left behind, Sadie's spark ignites, and she travels through space back to Terra to reunite with her fiance. Upon their return, Sadie is able to use her newfound leverage as a planeswalker to influence the beuracracy within the AOSE to let Daisy walk free, despite the fact that her expedition failed to bring back any more Slyten Crystals. But the reprecussions of that failure won't become fully obvious until later...