A roll of thunder.
Twilight Sparkle hovered in place, her ghostly ears twitching.
All alongside the mare, the rest of her friends formed an ethereal line of gawking faces. All otherworldly eyes were locked on the corpse of Axan—or more appropriately the hazy patch of ruby light levitating just above the corpse of Axan.
"What is it, Twilight?" Applejack asked in a breathy tone. She floated closest to Rainbow Dash, looking over their anchor's shoulder. "Some sort of magic spell? Perhaps a message or a vision?"
"I..." Twilight grimaced. She slowly shook her head while her eyes remained locked on the phenomenon. "I don't have any clue."
"Well, don't ya sense anythang, sugarcube?"
"There is a release of magic," Twilight said. "Mortuana's transformation spell is still dissolving all around Axan's body. But... that started back in the Gondola. This...?" She gestured nervously at the glowing cloud of ruby mist. "I can't even begin to guess."
"Maybe it's something to do with Dashie!" Pinkie Pie suggested, smiling momentarily. "She's always seeing invisible glowy stuff with her awesome eyes! What if—on this side of the pancake world—we can see the same thing to?"
"Yes—but you forget, darling..." Rarity gestured back at the rest of the Herald who were also stupefied. "Our flesh-and-blood friends see it too."
"Oh yeah..." Pinkie rubbed her scrunched nose. "Well, then, poop. Just what is this nonsense? We're only sixty minutes in and already the Dark Side is making my brain go 'kersplaatikins!'"
"I sense something," Fluttershy said.
The rest of the mares flashed her a look.
Rainbow Dash leaned in. "What is it, Fluttershy?"
Ariel and Wildcard glanced over curiously.
"It's... hard to say," Fluttershy stammered. "It's... it's almost as if Remna..." She winced, then corrected herself. "As if Axan is still here."
"But she ain't," Applejack declared. "You felt the candle of her dragon life flicker to nothin' earlier—didn't ya? Just like all the brave bat ponies back up in the fight with the Frostknifers?"
Pinkie Pie raised a hoof. "Don't you mean back down in the fight with the Frostknifers?"
Applejack glared daggers at her. "T'ain't the time, sugarcube..."
"I know that she's dead," Fluttershy admitted with a nod. "I felt her life slipping away shortly after we all landed here on the Dark Side. Even still." She bit her bottom lip. "I... I feel now as though she's here. Or... perhaps a part of her."
"Where do you sense it, Fluttershy?" Rainbow Dash asked.
Fluttershy merely pointed.
Rainbow's eyes reflected the lingering ruby cloud. Her ears folded back in nervous contemplation.
"This sort of a thing never happened back on the Light Side," Rarity declared. "So why here?"
"Oooh!" Pinkie Pie did a ghostly hop in place. "Maybe it always happens with Divine Matriarchs!"
Applejack looked at Rainbow. "Did this sort of a thang happened with Nevrem... Neville... Newark—?"
"Nevlamas?" Rainbow shook her head. "No. But... like Rarity said... we are on the Dark Side."
"Soooooooooo..." Pinkie Pie rubbed her fuzzy ghost-nose. "...death has a pretty glittery shadow over here?"
Ariel floated closer. "Rainbow?" Her voice was calm and soothing as she rested a friendly hoof on Rainbow's shoulder. "Talk to us. What are your best-besties saying?"
"Fluttershy... senses something from that hazy light," Rainbow Dash said. "Sure, she felt it when Axan died. But she's saying that she's still sensing Axan now."
"She's sensing Axan???"
"Just... faintly." Rainbow sighed out her nostrils. "Honestly, Ariel, I don't understand it much myself. And from the sound of it—neither does she." She glanced over her shoulder, then looked directly at Ariel. "Tell me. Do you see any ruby lights floating around me?"
Ariel looked at Axan's corpse, then back to the air surrounding Rainbow Dash. "Not at all, Rainbow."
Rainbow sighed again. "Ah well..."
"Why?"
"I dunno." Rainbow folded her forelimbs and leaned back on her haunches. "For a second there—I was kinda sorta hoping you and the rest of the Herald could finally see my friends."
"Currious..." Kepler shuffled over, adjusting his spectacles. "Might you be implying that the starrk contrrast between harrmony and chaos may allow us a glance into the afterrlife herre on the Darrk Side?"
Rainbow stifled a bittersweet chuckle. "You're a crazy wyvern, Kep. You know that?" She gestured at Axan's corpse yet again. "For all we know, her dragon blood could just be releasing magical hemoglobin burps—"
Ariel suddenly gasped and clasped Rainbow's forelimb. "Rainbow Dash!"
"Huh?" Rainbow blinked. "What?" She looked at her fetlock in Ariel's grasp—and it was glowing in multiple places. "Uhm..."
"Whoah nelly!" Applejack gasped, clutching the brim of her hat.
"Oh wow!" Twilight Sparkle floated closer. "Rainbow, don't move!"
The pegasus was already locked in place. She and Ariel gawked at an array of glowing bands clinging to Rainbow's person.
"Okay..." Pinkie Pie squinted. "Why is Dashie becoming a night light?"
"Do... do you feel okay, Rainbow?" Fluttershy asked.
"I... feel just fine..." Rainbow looked at her limbs and tail. "Just... trying to understand—"
"Yourr injurries, Rrainbow One," Kepler said.
"Huh?"
Kepler pointed with a claw. "Look again."
Rainbow and Ariel took a calm moment to reexamine what they were looking at. It became evident that Rainbow was only glowing in the various spots of her body where she had been wounded. More specifically—
"It's the blood," Flynn said from a few paces away. He waved a fetlock—where a shallow cut sustained in the Gondola's arrival was now glowing with faint luminescence. "Behold..."
Shivering, Ariel looked at herself. A dim light emanated from her shallow bruises.
Logan glanced at himself... then at Seraphimus' figure lying a few meters away. "How come we weren't all glowy early?"
"Who knows?" Flynn remarked. "Maybe it... took us a while to acclimate to the Dark Side."
Wildcard was glowing the most out of the group; his feathers and flesh were grazed and nicked in over two dozen places. The Desperado peaked under a fresh bandage, and it was like slipping kerosene into a lamp. With his one good arm, he raised Bard's staff into view. Stained splotches of blood pulsated dimly under the starlight.
"Okay..." Rainbow Dash took a shuddering breath. "Take note: our blood glows in the dark on this side of the Plane."
"But..." Rarity grimaced. Hard. "Why?"
"I can think of several possible explanations," Twilight Sparkle remarked. "But I'd need more information before I could effectively draw—"
"Girls!" Fluttershy gasped. "Rainbow!" She pointed above Axan's corpse. "Look!"
Rainbow spun about to see that the ruby haze had thinned slightly. What's more... it was shifting... drawing away like a cloud. The motion wasn't jerky or sudden; nothing indicated intelligence or purpose. However, the gentle sway in its movement increased in speed—as if an invisible wind was pushing it away from the Edge. The speed picked up even more, and the ruby light ribboned out... almost becoming a beam of red energy. Before anything else could happen, the glowing luminescence sank into the stone earth... vanishing completely.
"Did... did you see that?!" Pinkie exclaimed.
"I most certainly did!" Rarity stammered breathily. "It... it was almost as though it was headed somewhere!"
"Into the earth?" Applejack suggested.
"No," Twilight shook her head. "I mean—yes—but not just that." She turned to look at Rainbow Dash. "It was headed away from the Edge... quite obviously."
"Where could it be going?" Fluttershy asked.
At this point, Rainbow Dash was staring out... and upwards at the curved landscape yawning before them. Her eyes traveled up... up... up.
"This... this is nuts," Ariel could be heard rambling in the background. "What's going on in this friggin' place?"
"I suspect we will eventually discoverr forr ourrselves," Kepler remarked.
"We should live that long," Logan muttered. The anger in his voice had dissolved almost entirely.
Twilight Sparkle leaned in towards Rainbow Dash. "Rainbow... I know this is all a lot to take in. But I have to ask..." Her lavender brow furrowed. "Do you have the vision?"
Rainbow murmured out the side of her muzzle as she stared into the bent horizon. "Vision?"
"Yaerfaerda? Utaan? Anything?" Rainbow gulped. "It was you who guided us to the Gondola at the edge of the world to begin with. Maybe... erm..." She fidgeted. "I-I guess I was hoping that maybe the powers given to Austraeoh could be of aid to us here too..."
Rainbow exhaled. "I do see something..."
The rest of the ghostly mares perked up.
"Well...?" Twilight pressed her hooves together. "What is it? A beacon? More entrances to the machine world?"
Rainbow slowly shook her head. She stretched her hoof upwards at an angle, pointing at a fixed spot in the very dead center of the dark plane. "I see it."
The rest of the mares—and the Herald even—peered after Rainbow's gesture. But they were at a loss to see what Rainbow was referring to.
"What?" Rarity asked. "What do you see, darling?"
Rainbow Dash shuddered. Her eyes locked on a tiny, infinitesimal speck of gold. And even though it was too impossibly far away for her natural vision to ever conceivably take into account... she was certain—on the inside—that the speck was shaped like a pyramid.
"What else?" she murmured.
My guess is those Crystal Pony things are absorbing the soul of Axan... which can’t be good.
Forty crunches, ):(. Knock ‘em out!
holy~ lunapoop! adventure onwards!
whale.to/b/pyrami3.jpg
Glowing blood. That’s...bizzare.
I’d nearly forgotten about this little theory and it’s already out the window. Oh well.
Althought it was already sort of out the window in the previous chapter.
Does make me wonder a little bit, though. The rules of souls seem to be a little different on the Dark Side. I wonder if it’s going to have any effect on the souls of the mane 6, or if they’ll just maintain the same harmonic stability they already have.
Leading theory says the Night Shard is stealing souls to power their weaponry and gain intelligence, but in that case, shouldn’t it be going up toward the center of the world in a more direct path?
I suspect that this has something to do with the machine world...
You know, it would have been really cool if Rainbow’s beacon power allowed her to anchor more souls at will to her pendant. Counter-soulsnipe the Night Shard and all. Ghost Axan friend.
But that would be reeeally OP, so...
I’m calling that the Night Shard corrupted a section of the machine world to collect souls for them, that explains why it’s sinking into the ground.
And as for the glowing blood, they all are secretly changelings and Tchern turns out to be Celestia,
Hmmmm...
I guess Axan is going to be joining the soul party in Alamais’ head soon enough. If that happens, then the Shard might know exactly what they’re up against, and that won’t be good for Rainbow and the Herald.
Or this could just be something because of the machine world. I suppose only time will tell where our divine’s soul is going.
Just counting down the chapters until the explosions start, now.
So ponies are glow sticks. Good to know.
Wasn't there some reports of souls being waylaid on the light side? I think this has been teased for awhile, not sure of the blood glowing though.
Oohhh, more chapters! And weird Dark Side-y stuff!
Also:
Calling it now, this will happen further on sometime in this book
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LOMINERTEH CUMFERMED!!11111!1
Inb4 Alamais Queen Soul Huffer herself becomes a part of Rainbow's team (or sympathetic to their cause)from reliving Axan's memories. At the very least, i'm expectin flashbacks to the earlier books.
Also, if she doesn't end up on their side, well Axan has known and watched Rainbow for a looong time. She'll be gettin a ton of info
8215340
Illuminati live in the Midnight Armory confirmed
Confusion abounds, but I guess that is to be expected in a land ruled by chaos.
Well, something likely has Axan’s soul, if that is the dark side ponies or something else remains to be seen. However, I guess it is the ponies given what we know about them.
Chills...
Another great chapter that's all dialogue...
Only ):( can pull this off so many times!
One problem: In fighting in darkness, having glow-in-the dark wounds would make arranging ambushes considerably more difficult.
At the moment I’m going to theorize its the head honcho of the Night Shard who’s got a soul siphoning set-up somewhere secret.
I’m wondering just where these crystal pony soul sappers even came from? We know where the Changelings and sarosians originated from, but were these crystal dudes brought here by someone? Oddly, from the vague context of the dialogue during their introductory scene it almost sounds like the whole race of Night Shard ponies were created by something.
Anyway, wonder how many chapters until we get to meet the present bat ponies and see if the inter-spanning time between now and flashback land has changed them from what we saw?
Well, this just took a surprising turn...
Looking forward to the next chapter!
It’s not just a soul siphon... it’s a life siphon.
If it’s reacting to their blood.
Well that just means that each injury is more of their soul siphoned out of their body.
-Through the path long forgotten, into the darkness long begotten. Ofolrodi.
If you dont want to ride the hype train,
You can always get on the Tanta Bus?
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Riding the hype train isn’t a choice. After all, there’s no getting off this train we’re on.
R.I.P
Ohhh, what’s that smell?
The sweet blood, oh, it sings to me.
It’s enough to make a man sick...
I think things are about to get a whole lot more interesting for those Shard ponies now that they’ve absorbed Axan’s soul. Time for them to learn about who just joined them on the dark side of the world. Evil beware.
~SolidFire
8215651
Oh shit!
Well...we've already gotten a taste of the horrors that await the Heralds, and it can only get worse from here on in...
Still should've killed Seraphimus.
...well at least you don’t need directions to find it.
So, would this be a bad time for Sera to wake up? Because it feels like that’s a thing that could happen any minute now.
8215658
Bat ponies were using some red crystals instead of runes, could they be using the same magic source as the Shard? And Changelings are underexlpored so far but I don't remember them being acidic - an evolution of sorts perhaps?
Blood for the bloodgod?
Souls for the cursed?
Geez Rainbow, you sure know how to find the loveliest neighborhoods..
8215404
Indeed it was. Mortuana described it, I believe. That's the revelation I had when this story began.
I'm confused by the blood glowing. It's . . . odd, to say the least. Maybe this has some connection to the Night Shard. I honestly can't imagine who else or what else it could be. My question is what does this do? If these are the souls or life essence of all the species there are, then my first question is would Axan's soul become . . . lost, I guess? Literally erased from existence? Because they used this energy to power their weapons, buuuuuuut energy cannot be created or destroyed, so maybe not.
Of course, we really don't know what is going on, so who knows how this all works.
8215397
I think you mean 'glue sticks'.
Oh man, I almost missed it again.
While I agree with the idea of Axan’s soul being somewhat trapped by something, I am not so sure about the guilt of the Night Shard in this case. With the cloud going into the ground and the resonance of the blood it’s safe to assume that all living creatures are affected, not just divines. And there are some possible references in the flashback scene. The red glowing (blood)fog and the flash during the death scene could point out how the process was already active in the past. That sounds a bit too overpowered for one of the three factions in the war.
Nothing wrong with a little glowing blood. Like huffing souls, it builds character
A visible soul at the point of death will make for great final scenes for some characters.
momoandcream.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/image6.jpg
I guess the glowing blood means they came from the light side. Like, they’re pure or something as opposed to the bad guys here on the dark side.
Hmm its yet hard to say what causes the “soul siphon”, we will probably have to wait until that “Lord’s” identity is revealed.
The Night Shard seems to be crystal ponies i guess, so maybe its something similar to Sombra ?
As for the glowing wounds, i don’t think its caused by the same thing that happened to axans soul, maybe its because they come from the harmonic side ? the armory also seems to glow and the injured bat ponies don’t seem to.
If it would be some kind of soul thing and the parts would glow because their inner form is exposed due to the wound, i guess Wildcard may would have had some kind of ghostly/spectral arm.
So maybe the glow of their wounds indicates that they absorbed harmonic energy on the light side, the sun and moon are basically harmonic alicorn beam emitters, so maybe harmonic people from the light side somehow glow on the inside ?
You know .. like reversed Twilight vampires ?
Maybe the Shard was made by Sombra way on back? It seems like something he'd do.
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Awwwww, shit son!
Unrelated, but maybe the soul is stored in the blood? Just another guess.
So many people get that one wrong all the time. But I do take offense in Neville.
8215345 It did say downwards and towards the center. Going in a straight line that would actually suggest a location either inside the machine or the light side - even near Axan’s own old hoard in Silvadel. But that can’t be it, right?
8216387themidnightalliance.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/closing-door.gif
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Hoard? What hoard?
But, remember Mortuana said there was supposed to be something pinning the souls to this world instead of allowing them to return to the Plains of Harmony. I guess we're about to find out what it is now.
It kinda looks like the soul of Axan was stolen. And as for the glowing blood I'm not sure...
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Three factions fighting a Holy War utilizing everything they have? Including souls?
Maybe they can be stored in Gems to power up enchantments, But they get destroyed in the process.
It seems that the Bloodshard are using Souls, but I'm not sure if they're the ones that are responsible for all the souls in the plane being trapped. Perhaps they're just utilizing it to their advantage? As for the glowing blood, I don't think it's related to the soul-stealing. I agree with the opinions of others saying that it has to do with them coming from the light side of the world, though who can tell if that's the answer or not.
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It will probably only be like two or three more chapters until the explosions start
But it is a definite in that there will be explosions. With some short skirts thrown in...maybe
The glowing blood is interesting, no idea what's going on there
Harmonic blood?
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I’m rooting for Shellamais to make an appearance.
The shiny! The shiny! Dashie want shiny!