"Okaaaaaaaaaaaaaay... soooooooooooooo..." Pinkie Pie looked at the gawking expressions of her fellow marefriends. "Did anypony else see that?"
"This, uh..." Flynn backtrotted, pale and sweating. He pointed a shakey hoof at the curled-up arachnid. "...this shit is fresh."
"Don't be crazy," Rainbow Dash droned. Her ears twitched, and she looked aside at Kepler. "Keps? Is he crazy?"
"It is not uncommon forr the nerrvous systems of inverrtebrrates to rrespond autonomously to stimuli long afterr perrishing... howeverr..." Kepler slowly shook his head. "...this is farr... farr too lengthy of a time perriod to possibly fit the equation."
"Could... I have... I-I mean we have just..." Rainbow gulped. "...imagined it?"
Silence.
"Guess there's one way to find out..." Ariel drifted closer to the giant, curled-up specimen. She reached a hoof out... paused... looked back at the group... then reached down to grab a loose piece of metal. Holding her breath, she floated closer and closer to the arachnid's fossil.
Rainbow, Kepler, and a teeth-chattering Flynn watched in anxious unison.
Ariel bet her lip. Gripping the metal shard in crook of her hoof, she aimed its other end... and poked the giant spider's exoskeleton.
Nothing happened. The thing was too weighted to even budge from the contact.
So, holding her breath even tighter, Ariel reached further and poked its curled leg-joints.
A limb shifted ever so slightly from her touch, but leaned back into place once the contact was over.
Ariel exhaled. Casually, she stuck the end of the metal rod past the specimen's frozen pedipalps.
Twin fangs spontaneously closed shut around the metal plank. SNAP! It broke in half from the hairy bite.
"AACK!" Ariel flew back into Rainbow Dash.
Cl-Claaaaaaang! The two halves of the metal rod fell to the floor.
The Herald backed away from the scene. As the heart-pounding seconds rolled by, they realized that the echo of the falling debris hadn't stopped. Instead, it lingered... extended... and persisted with unnatural acoustical strength.
Raaaaaaaaaaaaaa-aaaaaaaaaaaaa-aaaaaaaaaang!
The group looked all around, eyes wide and uncertain.
"There it is!" Pinkie Pie gasped excitedly. "Just like what I was hearing earlier!" Frowning, she spun and slapped Rarity upside the scalp. "See?!"
"Ow—!"
"I told all of you girls I was hearing something earlier!" Pinkie Pie shouted. "Just like music!"
Rarity grasped her skull. "But why are you h-hitting me?!"
"Because your mane is the flounciest!" Pinkie slapped her scalp again. "It's like the interrobang that we all need in freaky situations like this!"
"Quit it, darling—!"
"Shhhhhh!" Rainbow Dash insisted. She cocked her head aside. "Listen!"
Hesitantly, the group did as they were told. The ringing echo shook, wobbled, and mutated. Soon, it reached a faint pitch, resembling a distant string section of a hidden orchestra. Like violins quivering in the darkness.
"Rainbow..." Twilight hovered closer. She pointed and whispered. "Look!"
Rainbow's eyes scanned the far end of the room past the disturbed debris. She rubbed her pendant, and a ruby spotlight illuminated row upon row of thick silk webbing.
Flynn bit his lip hard. Sweat dripped down his face and past his mechanical eye.
At long last—after two full minutes of haunting melody—the ringing sound dwindled into nothingness. At that very same moment, the carpet of spiderwebs stopped shaking.
All was still.
Ariel and Rainbow touched down, steadying their wings.
Kepler looked around, grasping his glasses and keeping them still.
Silence in a room full of ancient corpses.
And then...
...more violins. This time from an even greater distance.
A response.
"Uhhhhhm..." Applejack began.
"Crud...!" Rainbow Dash sped out of the chamber, making a bee-line for the nearest exit.
"Huh—?!" Ariel looked all around. She clenched her teeth and flew after the petite pegasus. "Rainbow, wait!"
Flynn and Kepler scrambled up the rear.
Swooooooooosh!
Rainbow Dash flew out of the building and zipped towards the nearest edge of the suspended courtyard bordering the structure. She looked straight down, ears twitching.
She heard the sound more clearly now.
"Rainbow...!" Ariel flew up to her, panting. "What are you—?!"
"Shhhh!" Rainbow held a hoof up. Her ruby eyes narrowed. "...the music's coming from below."
"It is?" Breathless, Ariel glanced down as well. All the mares saw was the glinting bodies of building spires stretching down and down into hazy blackness. "But... but how—?"
"You and Wildcard..." Rainbow muttered. "Did either of you actually fly low enough to find the bottom of the city?" She breathed. "Like... where the skyscrapers begin at ground-level or suchcrap?"
Ariel shook her head. "No, Rainbow. We came back to fetch you as soon as we found the first skeletal remains. None of us have seen the bottom floor of this place."
The sound of scampering hooves...
...Flynn and Kepler rushed up to join the two.
"Okay..." Flynn huffed and puffed. "Do I even want to know what you're thinking right now?"
"That melody..." Kepler remarked. "...it perrsists."
Flynn gnashed his teeth. "Does it look like we're here to enjoy some sort of friggin' concert?!"
Rainbow reached a hoof out to the stallion.
Flynn's good eye blinked. "What?"
"Gimme a crystal," she muttered.
Silently, Flynn reached into his saddlebag and produced a crystalline shard. He planted it neatly in her hoof.
"Light it up," she said.
Flynn aimed his horn at the shard. After a few seconds, it glowed with mana-powered brilliance.
The Herald watched as Rainbow held the crystal out, lingered, then dropped the luminescent thing straight down through the space between the ancient spires. It cast a glinting glow across the metallic surfaces surrounding it—even as it plunged for dozens of stories... becoming a tiny bright speck against the great enormous blackness below...
...but then the blackness turned blindingly white. The glowing crystal struck something—an enormous sheet comprised of countless silken strands webbed densely together. A flouncing carpet of porous ivory biomatter shook and wobbled, fluctuating in tune with the melody wafting upwards, growing in intensity. The more the group stared, they could make out layer upon layer of webs persisting even further towards the nebulous depths lingering below.
Flynn's muzzle hung agape as his ears drooped.
Flynn and Ariel grimaced.
Rainbow stared blankly. Meanwhile—Rarity floated closer.
"Ahem... this may seem like an inopportune time to announce this, darling, but... I sense a vibration..."
Rainbow's head pivoted to face her.
"Through the buildings and platforms, I mean," Rarity clarified, trying to maintain her composure. "I didn't feel it before. Honest. But something is shaking the metal surfaces of this city and it's rising closer."
"... ... ...from where?" Rainbow wheezed.
"Multiple sources."
"How many is 'multiple?'"
Rarity could only whimper.
Rainbow turned to gawk at Fluttershy.
Fluttershy gulped... then smiled nervously. "Now miiiiiiiight be a good time to start ascending, Rainbow Dash."
"... ... ... ..." FWOOOOOSH! Rainbow Dash soared upwards. "Party's over, folks!"
"Pickemeup!Pickmeup!Pickmeup!" Flynn whimpered, flailing.
Ariel grasped him while Kepler also took wing. Very soon, the quartet soared towards the fragmented twilight above while the sound of vibrating strings intensified...
...louder and louder.
....Giant spiders with fangs that can snap metal rods in twain who communicate long-distances using vibrations though webs resulting in violin-like noises...
...Yeah, I think we've reached a new level here of "NOPE".
I am now officially scared.
This is a seriously bad situation! I'm surprised they lasted this long in that place.
I sticking with the story these are your friendly neighborhood spider oracles.
..... I'm reading this at midnight. In a dark room. With a no-longer-mild case of arachnophobia. Welp. As a great elk once said "NOPE. NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE!"
...the party never started.
...shit shit shit shit shit.
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Me too!
A city of zombie spiders?!
I don't know but I wouldn't want to find out.
Now might be a bad time to remind everyone that the herald double sealed the only exit they know of out here.
This is why we hate caves.
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All aboard the NOPE train to FUCKTHATSHITville!
Okay, they are clearly unsuitable as shipping material.
Spiders. Why did it have to be spiders?
I'm not scared of spiders and even I'm thinking run.
In the words of the great Ian Malcom.
"Faster, must go faster."
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And also referencing the Jurassic Park Franchise:
"Something has survived."
the spindlers!!!!!
I can see this, perfectly, in my head.
I think we found the reason why the three armies have not used this city for anything Now are these the spindlers, and thus can be reasoned with, or have they gone completely feral?
“Goddammit Dr. Smith!”
All abroad the nope train!
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I can't believe you're doubting some people's ability to ship.
shitfuckingdammit for once I'm glad I'm just reading this and not watching the movie.
NOPE
Drums. Drums in the deep.
Or possibly violins.
I ran out of nope
Oh boy! 8 legged freaks!
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They left the caves though, didn't they? This city is above ground; at least that's what it sounded like because Rainbow directed Sera toward an exit just before Sera saw the city...
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Several things speak against it though. I know, twin fangs capable of breaking metal would not scare the veteran shippers away, but disregarding the problem of potential flash decapitation (amongst other possible accidents with unpleasant amputations), they are most likely not sentient anymore (provided they once were in the past).
Now that's pretty fuckin spooky, spiderwebs that make a string melody.
Also about a gazillion spiders rising to eat the Herald. That too.
Timetogotimetogoetimetogo!
Sing our song and become spooder bait
I am right about one prediction for once and it has to be this one! There are horrible things in this city! The most horrible of them all!
(And at the same time, there is some tiny part of me that hears 'musical spiders' and can't stop thinking of this:)
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Lyraaaaaa!!!
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...
nope.
Time to get the fuck outta here
This is an entirely appropriate reaction...and probably what I would also be doing at that time.
Oh hey, it's like in The Hobbit when Bilbo casually plucked that single web in Mirkwood and alerted an entire forest of carnivorous spiders to their presence. NOPENOPENOPE
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He's probably doing the same dance as when somepony has to pee.
Aaaand now it's time to nope the fuck outta here!
Getting major Mines of Moria vibes here....
Creepy.
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Your current profile picture is fucking perfect.
Nope, big nope.
I can emphasise with Flynn here on the most basic level of primal animalistic fear.
Seems like lying in as dormant a state as possible for greatly extended periods of time to conserve energy in the hope that something at least moderately edible happens within range so you can snatch it up and eat it before it figures out what's going on is the reigning survival meta on the Dark Side.
Spiders...of course it's spiders.
And we totally ignored our first clue.
Anyone think of Coruscant when their place is described with countless layers of city you can’t even see the bottom?
And of course there’s something here to kill them. It’s like that in every creepy abandoned city we find.
I like this new Flynn dynamic
That’s a lot of spiders.
To quote somebody, “welcome to the lovely city of NOPEVILLE on NOT TODAY mountain. You can only get there by FUCK THAT train.”
Obviously everybody that's at the most recently updated chapter knows what happened already, but my guess— we're meeting the Spindlers, and they aren't actually totally 'evil'.
FUCK. THIS.
SHIT ASS.
WE NEED TO LEAVE. THIS PLACE IS EVIL.