//------------------------------//
// Chapter 27 
// Story: Archives of the Friendquisition 
// by Inquisipony Stallius 
//------------------------------//


Chapter 27
	

So cold.
 
It clung to Mystic like her own skin. If anything, it went even deeper. No matter how tightly she clutched her cloak, it just wouldn’t hold any warmth. The wind—that howling, bone-chilling wind—cut right through it.
 
She peeked out from beneath her hood, as slightly as she could to keep the wind out of her eyes. She was in a tunnel, a long, narrow one, with walls covered in solid ice. Ahead of her, the tunnel extended into the distance, disappearing quickly into darkness. Behind her stood a stone wall, leaving only one direction to go. Forward, into the wind.
 
Every step she took was belabored. The farther she got, the more determined the air current was to resist her. Even her horn-light was being thrown back at her, reflecting back and forth off the ice, but going no further than a few meters.
 
As she trudged, Mystic would glance into the ice covering the walls. Sometimes it was clear enough that she could see what was underneath. Most often it was stone covered in scratches. Other times, she could see the steel paneling of a skyship corridor. Once or twice, she caught fleeting glimpses of bright, blue eyes and pale, gaunt faces staring back at her from the blackness on the other side. She decided to stop looking into the ice after that.
 
Unfortunately, it left her with the wind. Winters in the Palomyna sector were usually rather mild, thanks to the Mequestricus weather crews. Mystic had never experienced anything like this, though. Even with her ears pinned to her head, it drowned out everything else, even her own thoughts.
 
It wasn’t just wind, either, she realized. Or maybe it was, but it was unlike any she had ever heard before. There were voices in it.
 
They began so faintly that she didn’t notice them at first, not until she recognized the witch’s sobs. She froze in her tracks, eyes darting back and forth, looking for the rogue unicorn. She even tried to boost her light, fearing he was right behind her. But the tunnel was as deserted as ever.
 
She tried to ignore it, putting it down to her imagination running away with some other noise, but it refused to go away. As the minutes passed, it grew louder, more and more mournful, more and more pathetic. Mystic redoubled her pace in a futile attempt to distract herself.
 
Rather than relent, the voice was joined by others. First she heard the hushed chuckling of Meister’s noble guests, and a minute later the distant, bestial whoops of the Deep-Grabbers. Then the racking, gurgling chortles of Sniffles, and the laughter of the red Pony Marine, callous and contemptuous. At first they sounded very far away, but they gradually grew into a chorus of vindictive laughter.
 
It was a trick; she was sure of it. There was no way they could all be here together. That would be impossible. Perhaps it was a recording, or some kind of illusion to scare her. Well, Mystic was determined to disappoint them.
 
“And yea, though I stand as but a candle before the darkness,” she intoned loudly, “I have no fear, for thou art with me.”
 
The voices seemed to recede for a few second, like shadows before a torch, filling her with hope. By faith alone, she was defeating these phantoms.
 
But then they came rushing back even louder, all the more spiteful, all the more oppressive. They stirred up memories of pain, terror and shame. Her conviction faltered. “As… as surely as the day scatters the night,” she said, losing confidence with every passing moment, “with faith in my heart, I… I shall vanquish any foe.”
 
The laughter mocked her defiance, and mocked her faith. It was as if they were closing in, surrounding her, burying her. Mystic started to run. She didn’t know where she was going, but anywhere was better than this place. The rest of her prayer came out in ragged squeaks, before finally dying in her throat.
 
She saw them through the ice, leering at her as she passed by. In a panic, she attacked them, striking the walls she passed with fire and lightning and hoof. The mirror-smooth sheets shattered or melted, but nothing could silence the malice behind them.
 
With her eyes watering from the biting winds and stinging laughter, Mystic didn’t see the wall ahead of her until she ran right into it. Dazed, the unicorn looked up, and though her vision was blurry, what she saw stopped her heart.
 
The runes. Those warped, baleful symbols she had seen on the walls of Applemattox. The Malign Text. Though she couldn’t read them, she could still sense the foulness of their meaning. And the eye.
 
The carving fixed its gaze on her as she fixed hers on it. The single slit-eye of her nightmares. Wait, nightmares?
 
This was a dream, she finally realized. None of it was real. Not the tunnel, not the voices, not even the biting cold. Still, that didn’t make any of the experience any less horrifying. After all, her last nightmare had come true.
 
As before, she found herself unable to look away from it. So rapt was she upon the pictogram, that she didn’t realize at first that the harrowing laughter had fallen still. But when she did, Mystic heard something strike the stone from the other side. Dust and chips of ice fluttered down from above. Again, a blow landed with bone-rattling force. Something was trying to break through to her. A crack appeared, running right through the eye, though it did nothing to curb the intensity of its stare. Each thud shook the tunnel like a pile driver, stealing Mystic’s footing and widening the fissure.
 
With one final impact, the tunnel wall burst inward, spraying her with rubble. A crude, mechanical pincer reached out toward Mystic through the hole where the eye had been. She jumped back, narrowly avoiding its snapping grasp. The red Pony Marine snarled and roared like a ravenous animal, somehow even more terrifying than she remembered. He reached out blindly, trying to slash or smash her, but struck the sides and floor of the tunnel instead. The crack snaked along the walls every time he missed, spreading like veins all around her. The tunnel began to crumble.
 
“No!” she cried, but the whole floor gave way, and Mystic tumbled into darkness.
 
When she next opened her eyes, Mystic was on a stage.
 
Every direction she looked, she saw ponies below her. Only not like ponies, but rather their shadows, like the insubstantial presence of a pony. Whenever she tried to look at them individually, they dissolved back into the mass of the crowd, which stretched into the distance. The sky flickered with red light all along the horizon where it mingled with the teeming throng. It might have reminded her of sunset, but it was much closer to the way the sky had looked the morning Applemattox had burned.
 
Even if she couldn’t see their faces, Mystic knew they were all staring at her; she could feel them doing it, like she always could. That skin-crawling tingle. It was bad enough when it was just a few eyes, but these shadows spread as far as she could see. They saw every inch of her, scrutinizing, judging. It was unbearable.
 
It’s all a dream, she told herself again, but it was little comfort. A nightmare was a nightmare, whether you knew it or-
 
Before Mystic finished that thought, something slithered around her hooves. She jumped into the air with a shriek. Liquid shadows were flowing over the ground, streaming up from the ponies below and coalescing in the center of the stage behind her. It pooled there, growing, rippling. And whispering.
 
The black shape drew itself together and rose from the stage.  Mystic tried to back away, but with every step more of the substance clung to her hooves like tar.
 
You are weak, Mystic.
 
She backpedaled more, but the stuff wouldn’t let go, sticking tighter the more she struggled. Tendrils of it slithered up her legs until she could barely move at all.
 
You are a slave.
 
The pool of shadow before her grew slowly, like a living blot of ink, until it towered over her. The amorphous mass then bent down to her face.
 
The darkness ensnaring her now covered all of Mystic's legs, and was creeping around her flanks and up her back.
 
Your friends hate you.
 
She gazed into the black thing, and deep in the darkness she could see their faces appear. She saw Hairtrigger, with tears running down his cheek. She saw Fyzzix, his face blank and uncaring. Roughshod was there as well. There was a profound disappointment in his eyes that hurt her to see even more than the others.
 
But last to appear was Caballus. What was on his face was the worst of all. She could see it there, burning, stabbing like a dagger into her heart.
 
Scorn. Contempt. Hatred. He despised her.
 
“No…” said Mystic quietly, her own eyes wide in disbelief. Then the shadows began coiling around her neck. She snapped out of her horrified stupor and started thrashing all over again. “No! Stop it!”
 
Pulled down by shadows and grief, Mystic sank to her knees. The faces faded into nothing, and the thing drew even closer to her face.
 
It opened its eyes.
 
The eyes. From the wall. Only now Mystic was staring not at a lifeless drawing, but at an evil, twisted monster. They were teal, with blue irises and the slit pupil in the center filled with dreadful fascination. They transfixed her, freezing her struggles with animalistic terror.
 
The shadows were now covering her face, inching over the last few places it didn’t already cover. Mystic was drowning. Slowly. Agonizingly. Her lungs burned. She tried to scream, but she couldn’t even breathe.
 
It finally covered her eyes, and the world went black. The last things Mystic heard were the frantic pounding of her own heart and more laughter, both fading away. But it wasn’t one of the voices from before that was laughing now. No, this was a rich, clear baritone that echoed in her ears. It reverberated in the pit of her soul.
 
It stirred in her deepest, darkest memory.







Mystic shot upright, coughing and wheezing. After a few moments, when it became clear that her lungs truly weren’t filled with evil goo, she tried to bring her hyperventilation under control.
 
She looked around, and found herself back in her hotel room, in her plush, comfy bed. Beside it, Roughshod was lying on the floor. He looked like he had just woken up, probably from her coughing fit.
 
“Thank the Throne, Sweet Pea, you’re awake,” he said. Relief was plain on his haggard face.
 
Mystic was relieved to see him too. “What… what happened, Shod?”
 
“Well… what’s the last thing you remember?” he asked.
 
She thought for a moment. Mystic remembered the Glücksritter, and the witch. She winced and lifted the blanket off her leg. It was wrapped in thick bandages, and it throbbed with a numb, dull ache.
 
“I remember Caballus got me off the ship… and then…”
 
“Then the ship blew up,” Roughshod said, matter-of-factly. “That was yesterday. You were the worst for wear, so everypony else has been out while you rested.”
 
Mystic nodded, and the two sat in silence for a moment. Out in the hotel’s hallway, hoofsteps and a pair of voices drew near. They were in a rather heated argument from the sound of it, and though she couldn’t tell what it was about, she discerned that it was between Caballus and Meister Ver Kaufer.
 
It went on for a few more minutes, the intensity ebbing and flowing until the discussion finally ran its course and she heard one set of hooves leave at a brisk pace. Then the door opened, and Caballus stepped inside. Hairtigger and Fyzzix were right behind.
 
“How are you doing?” the Inquisipony asked when he saw her. He looked even more exhausted than Roughshod. From the way he limped, she was sure bandages were hidden beneath his Rogue Trader disguise.
 
“Good…” she said. “Thanks.”
 
Hairtrigger came to the side of her bed. “Glad to hear it, missy. When you fell outta that ship, you looked… well…”
 
“Like you’d been run over by a Maneblade,” Roughshod finished, helpfully.
 
The Arbitrotter shrugged. “Yeah, you’d taken a lickin’ alright. But ole Featherbolts here will have you back to your pretty little self in no time.”
 
“I have treated your wounds with salves and unguents,” said Fyzzix, “but this hotel isn’t exactly a Hippothecarium. You will require at least 57 hours of bed rest before resuming normal activities.”
 
That sounded like a lot, Mystic thought, but Fyzzix was always right when it came to the medicae. And nearly anything else, for that matter. Also, time off to rest was rare and precious to a Throne Agent. But she didn’t like the idea of lying in bed all day while the rest of them were out risking their lives. She would be useless. And helpless.
 
“So what did our buddy Meister have to say?” Roughshod asked Caballus.
 
Caballus sighed. “We’re on thin ice with…” He glanced at Mystic, who gave him a look that said if she never heard that saying again, it would be too soon. “The situation is tenuous. Damage to the aerodrome was extensive, and trade has slowed to a crawl. It’s caused a lot of unrest amongst the nobles and cartels. Some of them are even claiming that we deliberately sabotaged the ship as part of some kind of cover-up for the Plutarch.”
 
Roughshod’s jaw dropped. “What?”
 
“We’ve been hoofin’ it all over town today,” said Hairtrigger, “tryin’ to help Meister patch things up with everypony. But they ain’t havin’ it.”
 
Caballus shook his head. “I think it did more harm than good. The nobles don’t trust one another, but they trust the Plutarch and his mysterious new allies even less. It’s going to make our investigation that much more difficult. And Meister believes we’re still on his side, but now he’s having doubts about our usefulness.”
 
“But that’s not fair,” Mystic said impotently from her bed. “The ship was a trap.”
 
“Yes, the Children were trying to hurt someone,” said the Inquisipony. “Definitely Meister, probably Pferdian as a whole, and maybe even us specifically. But we can’t exactly explain to the Plutarch why a cult he’s probably never heard of is trying to kill a Rogue Trader he’s just met. We can still use whatever he’ll give us, but I don’t trust him enough to let him know any more than he already does. We don’t know who’s really on our side in this town, and who’s working with the Children.”
 
“I don’t like it.” Hairtrigger paced over to where Roughshod was seated. “These bastards are always one step ahead of us! And we don’t have the slightest damn idea where they’re holed up.”
 
“Actually, we might,” Caballus said with a smirk. “Fyz?”
 
“Ah yes. The analysis results of your sample are right here.” The Meq-priest’s mechadendrite handed Caballus a data-scroll. In his hoof he procured a tiny, sliver of red, and held it out to show the others.
 
Roughshod rose to his hooves. “Sample? What sample?”
 
“That speck you found on the floor?” Mystic asked.
 
“Yes, from Meister’s office right after the Killer struck.” Caballus scanned the results. “It’s a ruby. One with a micro-structural pattern unique only to certain regions in this sector, from the look of it. Fyzzix, I need you to look into the local Admanestratum archives and find any natural resource surveys that-”
 
The Tech-pegasus handed him another data-scroll.
 
 “Thank you,” said Caballus. “And… it would seem that all of the mines that produce these particular rubies are operated by organizations under contract with the Ver Kaufer Trade House. Now all we need to do is-”
 
Fyzzix passed a third scroll to Caballus from beneath his red robes. “Meister was kind enough to give me access to most of his shipping records,” he said.
 
Hairtrigger lifted himself into the air and hovered over to Caballus, reading over his shoulder. “And for those of us who don’t speak a lick of ‘Scrivener?’”
 
The Inquisipony smirked. “Every ruby of this kind passes directly from the mines through Juwel Ver Kaufer’s Diamantaire. A piece like this was probably cut from a larger rough stone and ignored. The Stone Cold Killer must have paid Juwel’s gem-cutting floors a visit just before the Macsnacht murder.”
 
Roughshod punched one hoof into the other, grinning. “Then maybe we should pay her a little visit of our own.”