//------------------------------// // Land of Dust // Story: The Olden World // by Czar_Yoshi //------------------------------// Valey had been flying over Gyre for hours, and so far had only been shot at once. She had her cutie mark to thank for that, and the one time it had failed, whoever was below must have been such a horrible markspony that her mark didn't consider them worth activating for. Or they weren't aiming for her in the first place. It was dark, and all she had gathered was that this was a land where the residents didn't appreciate strangers flying overhead at night. The terrain change when she crossed the border had been like a solid line cleaved through the ground, so abrupt from grass to no grass that she felt there had to be land mismanagement at play. What was the Gyre government doing, stripping their soil of everything green for effect? Or had some accident or atrocity in the past changed the ground so that plants couldn't grow? The land faded to rocky dirt, like it had been purposefully ruined once upon a time. She was far to the east and farther to the north, but Starlight was getting closer. Dodging the towns and settlements that cropped up wherever ponies decided to congregate, Valey pushed her tired wings onward, the moon overhead in a cloudless sky to light her path. "Shh!" Starlight pressed against a wall before an intersection, though she needn't have bothered shushing Puddles: the mare on her back wasn't feeling up to making any noise in the first place. Starlight's ears detected voices and hoofsteps, and she glanced frantically around, thinking how to best hide her windigo. She wasn't given time to think, and had to settle for hoping fervently the guards wouldn't look or turn her way. Leaning on the wall, she held her breath as two hooded ponies passed by, the place's atmosphere hanging over them like a cloud. They didn't look. They looked like they couldn't care to look. Puddles drooped limply across her back, and once the guards had passed, she slumped onward, trusting wandering and luck to bring them to the next staircase. That staircase came, the river of pipes on the ceiling thick enough now to cover the walls as well. Instead of a short, straight descent, this one spiraled downward in two tight loops, and Starlight had to press to the outer edge to avoid losing her hoofing. The pipes were low enough that she could touch them, and once, when she stumbled and her ear brushed against one, she heard music. It was a toneless tone, a melody without rhythm, like a bone rolled across the keys of an instrument, and suddenly, even through her shadow cloak, Starlight felt watched. She shivered and kept more strictly to the center of the stairs after that, wishing Puddles was someone warm. Valey could smell Starlight moving. That meant she was getting close. On the horizon, a dim conglomeration of lights was rising, the fancier and more-presumptuous version of a walled-off stockade. Gone was the barren, rocky dirt, replaced by an endless sea of concrete, asphalt and crushed gravel, complexes with smokestacks and wires that were linked by rails sitting in an organized grid, all looking of uniform design and age. Whatever these factories did, they didn't stop for night, a boxcar rattling along beneath her and four ponies in a procession pulling a heavy wagon. Beyond the factories, though, was her goal: a ring-shaped barrier formed the center of the sprawl, and the smoke in the air was illuminated by numerous lights shining up from within. Valey was high enough to see the houses and rooftops inside, jammed so close together it might as well have been Blueleaf and its multiple levels, a governmental ziggurat stationed in the middle, high enough to look out over the wall at the sea of factories. She wiggled her nose, ever cautious that someone could spot her and decide no one had any business flying around as easily as she was. Starlight was... down, and under the central city. Beneath the ground, fairly far. Valey frowned. Time to find her way down, apparently. The circular wall separating the factories from the city proper radiated danger, and even at night the place was washed in enough light Valey could see sniper squads and encampments stationed on the top. What was this place, a prison? She settled down onto the roof of a factory, staring at the wall and trying to think, but all her brain turned up was images she had seen of what Sosa used to be like. That looked like this, only Gyre had twice the industry and none of the spirit. Sosa had been... greener, but this place felt sucked dry. Her tail twitched, and she sighed, Starlight moving around in the distance below. Tunnels beneath the city. This was probably the capitol, not that she remembered what it was called. She needed a way down there... Shrugging, Valey looked at her forehooves. If all else failed, she could try shadow sneaking through pipes, provided she found something big enough. Maybe there would be a sewer grate that could get her started moving down. This city didn't look like it got a lot of rain, but there had to be storm drains just in case somewhere, right? First she just had to get through that wall, because she somehow doubted anyone would build a mess like this and then leave tunnels going in under the wall. "Hey." Valey strolled out of the shadows, unarmed and unaggressive, toward an entry point set into the base of the wall. She had scouted for nearly an hour, determined not to blow it now that she was so close to Starlight, and her cutie mark had determined this one to be the safest. "Any chance I can get in, here?" She held her wings out, showing the checkpoint there was nothing beneath them. "Just trying to get by. Not looking for trouble." The wall gate's lone attendant, a griffon of nearly spherical proportions, regarded her for a moment, puffed out his fat cheeks, and burst into a fit of mare-like giggles, pointing a talon at her and rolling slightly. "Y-You... You wanna go in there... Hoo hoo hoo..." "Uhh, yeah?" Valey raised an eyebrow, slightly nonplussed but relieved he wasn't doing anything worse. "If that's a problem..." The fat griffon flicked a tear from his eyes with a talon. "Hoo... Hey, come get a load'a this! There's a bat who wants... A bat who wants to go through..." He punched the checkpoint counter in borderline hysteria. "You got a problem?" Valey tilted her head. This was hardly what she was expecting. "Howard, knock it off!" a cranky female voice came from inside a glowing guardhouse doorway, and a roll of tape flew out and thwacked the chortling, roly-poly griffon in the head. Another griffon appeared, looking like she had woken up ten seconds ago, and gave Valey a bleary scowl. "No wagon? You're fine. You new around here or something?" Valey shrugged, happy to accept her signs of civility. "Yeah, pretty much. You said I'm good to go?" Howard opened his beak and was promptly punched. "Probably got something counterfeit under that hat, but it's too small for me to get paid to worry about," the other griffon drawled, yanking a switch on the wall and causing the light illuminating the tunnel passage to go out, making way for Valey to shadow sneak through the grate. "Consider that your unnerving, unfriendly, un-welcome to the middle of nowhere. Don't enjoy your stay." Scowling, she stomped back into the guardhouse, leaving Valey blinking. Well, free invitations were free invitations. She ducked through the grate that blocked the tunnel before the fat griffon could start laughing again, filing away that Gyre was filled with guards who were either incompetent or disloyal.