The Equine Scrolls: SkyFiM

by FireOfTheNorth

Chapter 64: Nuzel-zum

We were trapped.

All of Marekarth, as well as much of the mountain it was built into, was covered in a magical field that glowed a shimmering gold. A vast dome now covered the city, making it impossible for anypony to enter or leave. Mephalda flapped into the air, searching for the source.

“What is this?” Stormcloud demanded, “Umas, what is the meaning of this?”

“I don’t know,” the elderly stallion answered, “It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen.”

“That Minotauran tower out in the mountains,” Mephalda asked as she landed near us, “Is it connected to the city?”

“I don’t know,” the new Jarl of Marekarth answered, “Only a hooffull of ponies have ever been there. Why?”

“That’s where the shield is coming from,” she said.

“But why would it suddenly pop up now?” Stormcloud asked.

“Um, I think it was the Blackwing,” one of the Stormcloud soldiers spoke up.

“Impossible,” Stormcloud waved off her suggestion, “How could he do such a thing?”

“When we found him, he was messing with some of the Minotauran controls on the wall,” the soldier explained.

“Well, go there and shut it off!” Stormcloud ordered.

“We can’t,” she said, shaking her head, “He destroyed the controls.”

“By Ysgroomar,” Stormcloud said, “You mean to say we’re trapped here?”

“Maybe not,” I said, after thinking a bit, “The shield’s coming from that tower, so maybe we can shut it down from there.”

“But how?” Umas asked, “That Minotauran ruin is a maze. There’s no way you can find your way to the tower.”

“Maybe we don’t have to,” I said, “Mephalda, can you fly there?”

“No,” she shook her head, “There’s another shield around the tower.”

“Hmm,” I said, thinking of another way, “You said that ponies have made the trip before?”

“Yes,” Umas replied, “But they’re all either dead or missing.”

“Do you have any research notes from their trip still lying around?” Mystic asked.

“I’m not sure,” Umas answered, “You’ll have to ask our researcher.”

We followed Umas back through the keep to a large bronze door in the very back. We traveled through it, the Marekarth guards standing at alert letting us pass. Apparently they’d already received the news that Marekarth was in Stormcloud hooves now, and wanted to keep their heads on their shoulders.

We entered a room with a large canal, a bridge crossing it and leading to another large set of bronze doors. A makeshift study had been set up on the near side of the canal. Bookshelves packed with scrolls surrounded a table covered in books on the Minotaurs. A dull brown earth pony sat behind the table, copying something down.

“Hmm, what brings you here?” he asked inquisitively as he noticed us.

“Long story,” Umas said, “I’ll explain later. These ponies need to get to the tower the previous expedition went to. Do you have any research notes?”

“Even better,” the stallion said, trotting over to one of the chests near the canal’s edge.

He returned with a small cube covered in strange etchings and passed it to me. I flipped it around in my magic, but could see no way it would help us to navigate the Minotauran ruins.

“What is this?” I asked.

“A lexicon,” the researcher explained, “Used by the ancient Minotaurs to store vast amounts of data. The last expedition to the observatory used it to chart their way.”

“But how am I supposed to use it?” I asked.

“Well, it stores the entire expedition,” he said, “Press that button there and it will play back whatever occurred where you’re currently standing.”

I gave it a try, pressing in one of the raised portions on the side of the lexicon. Suddenly the dull red light that had been pulsing through the cracks in the lexicon grew brighter and a group of figures appeared around us. Five ponies composed entirely of red light surrounded us, standing around and preparing for the expedition. I recognized one of them, a unicorn stallion with a caramel coat. It was Topaz, the pony Jarl Glamus had sent to Doompit Mine for his research here.

“Everypony ready?” he asked, his voice oddly tinny.

“Alright,” he continued once they nodded affirmation, “Those records we found mentioned an observatory. Let’s see if we can’t reach it today.”

“Do you know how to get there?” an earth pony mare asked.

“Not exactly,” Topaz admitted, “But it should be marked fairly well. Most of the area markings in Nuzel-zum so far have been in Equine, but just in case, I memorized the Minotauran word for it.”

“What are we waiting for?” an armored mare with a greatsword across her back asked, “Let’s get in there.”

“Bellwether is right,” Topaz said, “We should get moving. We can discuss any other questions on the way.”

The group trotted across the bridge over the canal and passed through the bronze doors. I noticed now that they were a mixed group of three scholars and two guards. Even then Topaz must’ve suspected that the defenses of Nuzel-zum were active. I pressed the button on the side again as they vanished from sight, and the lexicon returned to normal.

“Pretty nifty, huh?” the researcher said, “Whenever you’re not sure about a path, just activate the cube and you’ll see the path their party took. And, if you’re curious, just leave it on and you can watch the entire expedition.”

“Please don’t,” Stormcloud said, “Time is of the essence. The majority of my armed forces are trapped within this city. Everywhere else in Horizon is now vulnerable to attack from the Empire.”

“We’ll get that shield down as fast as we can,” I promised him.

Steadfast and Mystic at my sides, and Mephalda flying overhead, we entered the great Minotauran city of Nuzel-zum.

For the first bit, it was fairly obvious what route the research expedition had taken. Everything was swept clean, and catalogues lay here and there. Apparently the current researcher had no fear that the automated defenders of the city would disturb his research.

Eventually we found ourselves passing into lesser used halls, where the Minotauran automatons lay motionless around us. Curious, I pressed the lexicon a few times to view the progress of our predecessors.

I activated the lexicon when we reached a large room filled with hissing steam pipes. Several doorways led out, but they were all labeled in Minotauran, as Topaz had feared. As the lexicon activated, the ghosts of the researchers suddenly appeared.

“Admit it, you don’t really have any idea where we’re going, do you?” an armored bat-pony stallion asked.

“Of course I do, From-Highest-Ledge,” Topaz replied, “We’re on the right track; it’s just that the observatory is just too far away for any of the signs to point the way. But if we pass through the Debate Hall, here, we should near the city center. There’s sure to be some kind of marking there to help find the observatory.”

“But you don’t know for sure, do you?” From-Highest-Ledge retorted, “You could just be leading us into another empty room. I say we go back now. Every step we take gets us deeper into this labyrinth. We’ll be lost before long, and never find our way out.”

“That’s not true,” Topaz said, pulling out a map and holding it before the bat-pony’s face, “I’ve been keeping careful track of our path. We’ll find our way out. But there’s no point turning back when we haven’t discovered anything yet.”

“That’s not exactly true,” an earth pony mare pointed out, “We’ve already passed through the steamworks and three of the outer workshops. I’d say we’ve got quite enough data to last us for some time.”

“Where’s your sense of adventure, Torius?” Topaz responded, “Our goal is the observatory. Without finding what we set out to find, our accomplishments are hollow. Isn’t that right, Blossom?”

He turned to look at the final member of the party, a unicorn mare dressed in scholar’s robes like his own.

“Well, I think-” she started to say before suddenly being cut off.

A blast of lightning hit her in the side, causing her to flip over before falling to the ground, motionless.

“Where in the Beyond did that come from?” Bellwether demanded, drawing her greatsword.

“They’re on the ceiling!” Torius cried.

The expedition party panicked, running around madly, Bellwether and From-Highest-Ledge swiping at invisible enemies.

“Quickly, through here!” Topaz called, pushing open one of the doors.

The party galloped away quickly, their glowing forms vanishing as I released the button on the lexicon. A quiet skittering came from the darkness. Something told me we weren’t alone. Slowly I trotted over toward where the wires that connected all the lights intersected, and turned the knob. The artificial lights glowed brighter, allowing us to see the horde of spider-like automatons that clung to the ceiling.

Glass domes jutted up from the bodies of some of them, lightning skittering around inside. One of them suddenly glowed before sending a bolt down at Mystic. She threw up a ward, deflecting the bolt. More of the lightning began to rain down at us, and some of the spiders began to crawl down the walls.

“We’ve got to get out of here!” I said, jumping into the ward Mystic conjured over all four of us.

Mystic’s ward moved with her as we made our way toward the door Topaz had passed through. A few of the mechanical spiders made it down the walls before we reached the door, and I drew Dawnbreaker to fight them off. The blade easily cut through the metal, tearing apart the mechanics inside, and rendering the spiders harmless before they reached me.

Likewise, Steadfast was crushing the machines with his warhammer, and Mephalda was cutting them apart with her Blackwing swords. We made it to the door with only minor injuries from the strikes the spiders made at us with their metal legs. Once through, we slammed the door shut and locked it.

We could hear the mechanical spiders pounding on the door as we caught our breaths. I activated the lexicon again to see what had befallen the expedition party after they passed through these same doors. The ghostly red figures locked the door immediately, much as we had, before galloping off through the halls to put some distance between themselves and the spiders. We followed their wavering figures as they passed through the long-abandoned halls.

Things were still for quite some time after that, most of the ruin’s mechanical defenders destroyed during the previous expedition. A few times we met automatons that wandered out of the side passages, but for the most part we simply followed the lexicon through Nuzel-zum, taking the same path as our predecessors. We passed through the Debate Hall and city center, then through some living quarters before we reached an area more densely packed with hissing machinery. When we entered a large room filled with half-built automatons, I activated the lexicon, searching for the correct exit from the workshop.

“What is this place?” Bellwether asked, looking around at what I assumed were the same half-finished automatons we could see.

“The Animonculory,” Topaz answered, “Where the Minotaurs built their automatons. You can see that even to the moment they disappeared they were busy building new ones.”

“Fascinating,” Torius said, “A functioning Animonculory. Maybe we can figure out how the automatons are powered if we study this room.”

“Mark it down for later,” From-Highest-Ledge said, “We can’t tarry here if we want to reach the observatory.”

“Right,” Topaz said, turning away from a death-clanker he and Bellwether were looking at, “It shouldn’t be much farther now.”

Bellwether suddenly drew her sword and looked up at what I assumed was the death-clanker rising from the table it was lying on. It must have been so, because she began to swing her sword at it, and its image began to phase in and out of existence as she came into contact with it.

Topaz tried to cast a spell at it, but he jumped to the side, avoiding the giant crossbow bolts that were still stuck in the floor. From-Highest-Ledge attacked at its head, but he was soon knocked away by a swipe of its hand, and was sent tumbling against the wall.

“We can’t best this thing!” From-Highest-Ledges said as he picked himself up, favoring his left hindleg, “We have to get out of here!”

Topaz nodded his agreement.

“Bellwether, Torius, we have to go!” he called, already heading for one of the doors.

“You’ll never outrun it!” Bellwether said as she dodged a swipe from the death-clanker, “You go, I’ll hold it off!”

“You’ll never survive!” Topaz protested.

“I was hired to protect you!” she replied, “It’s an occupational hazard! Now stop arguing and go!”

Topaz hesitated a moment before obeying and leaving the Animonculory. From-Highest-Ledge and Torius followed him out. I kept the lexicon running as Bellwether fought the massive automaton, until it finally got the upper hoof. Bringing its arm up, it impaled her with its crossbow before firing her across the room. As she slumped over in the corner, I deactivated the lexicon.

As I’d feared, the sound of turning gears and gyros suddenly came from the workshop table. The death-clanker that had killed Bellwether was still alive. Steam began to hiss from it as it stood up and leveled its crossbow at us. It fired at Mephalda first, but she took off into the air, flapping around behind it and drawing her bow.

As Mephalda fired arrows into the death-clanker’s vulnerable parts, Mystic and I began to shoot it with lightning. The machine jerked around, the raw energy we were pouring into it wreaking havoc on the internal machinery. It still managed to get a few shots off with its crossbow, however, nicking my back and slicing through the armor.

I ceased shooting lightning at it and drew Dawnbreaker, charging forward. I ducked down as it swung an arm over me. I stabbed my sword up into it armpit, locking it in place. Steadfast came by a moment later and slammed his warhammer down onto the arm, snapping it off. The death-clanker kicked at me with one of its legs, sending me flying back.

Steadfast swung it at its chest cavity, but scrambled back as a cloud of scalding steam shot out at him. Mystic threw up a ward as the death-clanker began to fire bolts at her. The solid metal rods slammed into the magical shield, deforming before bouncing off. With each shot it took, the shield flashed and grew weaker, draining Mystic’s power. I charged forward before she was completely overwhelmed.

<<<FO~KRAH~DIIN!!!>>> I Shouted.

Ice began to cover the death-clanker’s body before seeping in through the cracks. Within, the gears and gyros grew brittle, snapping as they came in contact with each other. Finally the automaton’s power source seized up and it fell over, the artificial light in its eyes dying. As it hit the ground it split apart, the brittle metal cracking and breaking easily.

The automaton destroyed, we continued on through the door Topaz had passed through, getting ever closer to our goal. Topaz had been right about the observatory being nearby. Only a short passage separated the Animonculory from the stairs that led up the tower.

We climbed higher and higher, until the tower jutted out of the Karth mountains. At last we reached the top, where an array of mirrors and lenses filled a large dome. At the moment, a field of energy was pulsing through the array, projecting the shield around us and Marekarth.

We searched for the controls to the shield with little success. The controls were all labeled in Minotauran, making it impossible to tell which levers would do what. In addition, many seemed locked in place, a safety keeping us from doing anything until the energy flow was cut off.

“If the previous expedition came through here, maybe they mentioned something,” Mystic suggested.

“It’s worth a shot,” I said, activating the lexicon.

The glowing red figures of Topaz, From-Highest-Ledge, and Torius appeared trotting up the steps.

“We made it at last,” Topaz said, breathing a sigh of relief before marveling at the sights around him, “A working Minotauran observatory.”

“What’s this?” Torius asked, inspecting a set of controls, “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Hmm,” Topaz said, inspecting the panel, where he found a small parchment tucked behind the controls, “Interesting. This appears to be some sort of last resort defense against attackers.”

“How so?” From-Highest-Ledge asked.

“It realigns all the lenses to project a shield around the entire city,” Topaz explained as he read, “It’s really quite ingenious, using the observatory to protect Nuzel-zum.”

“Would it cover Marekarth too?” Ledge asked.

“I would assume so,” Topaz answered, “Marekarth is just the outworks of Nuzel-zum, so I suppose the shield would protect it too.”

Ledge looked thoughtful for a moment before asking Topaz another question.

“Could you activate it?”

“Easily,” he answered, holding up the parchment he’d found, “The instructions are all right here. There’s even instruction on how to hook up the controls in several other places, Marekarth Keep among them.”

Very suddenly, From-Highest-Ledge grabbed Torius and held a sword to her neck.

“What are you doing?” Topaz asked.

“It’s simple. I need to know how to activate this shield, if it comes to it. Give me the instructions, and she won’t get hurt.”

“All right,” Topaz said, moving slowly toward the bat-pony.

“That’s close enough,” Ledge said when Topaz was standing in front of him, “Set it down now.”

As Ledge reached down to pick up the parchment, Torius suddenly jabbed him in the chest with her foreleg. Pushing his sword away, she broke free of his grasp, picking up the shield instructions as she ran away from him. Topaz began to fire ice at the bat-pony, but he flew away, hiding up in the array of mirrors and lenses overhead.

Topaz kept his magic ready as he searched to room, waiting for Ledge to emerge. Suddenly the bat-pony shot down from the rafters, knocking Topaz to the ground. He tried to fire ice at him, but the mercenary used his hoof to push his head away.

Torius came at him from behind, holding a knife. He quickly jumped at her, knocking the blade from her mouth. Before she could react, he drew his sword and stabbed it up into her body, throwing her to the side.

“Torius!” Topaz yelled as he watched her body roll across the floor.

From-Highest-Ledge retrieved the instructions to activate the shield from her body before turning toward Topaz. The unicorn scholar ran away as the bat-pony swooped toward him, heading back down the tower. I deactivated the lexicon as Topaz disappeared down the stairs. Up in the rafters, the glow faded around From-Highest-Ledge, but he didn’t disappear.

“Curious, are we?” he asked, looking down on us from his perch.

“Why did you do it?” I asked, drawing Dawnbreaker to defend myself if he happened to swoop down on us.

“Because . . . he’s working with the Blackwings,” Mephalda said, putting the pieces together.

“Very clever,” Ledge replied, still not moving from his perch, “Yes, I work for the Blackwings. They paid me well to accompany those scholars and report what they found in this ruin. Of course, when we found this room I had something far greater to report. I gave Marekarth’s Justiciar the ability to activate the shield from his quarters, and I stayed here, making sure nopony would meddle with the device until the plan is complete.”

“Plan?” Steadfast asked.

“The Blackwings knew Jarl Stormcloud was sure to attack Marekarth eventually,” Ledge said, “And when he did, he would be very close to taking control of Horizon. That they cannot allow, so I am trapping him here until the time is right to release him back into the war.”

“I’m afraid we can’t let you do that,” I said.

Mephalda suddenly fired an arrow at From-Highest-Ledge from behind, where she’d silently moved to while he was talking. He flared his wings and made to dive from his perch, and the arrow shot through the membrane, tearing a gash in it. Tipping off balance, Ledge fell from his perch and crashed to the ground.

He drew his sword the moment he hit the ground, leaping toward Mystic. She threw up a ward to block his swing, and his sword crashed against her magical shield. He spun around a moment later at Steadfast, who was taking a swing at him from behind with his warhammer. The bat-pony blocked the strike, twisting out from under Steadfast.

He gave the earth pony a kick before swinging his sword around at him. Though thrown off balance, Steadfast blocked the swing with his warhammer. As Ledge pulled back to strike again I charged in, swinging Dawnbreaker around at the back of his head. He spun his sword around at me next, knocking Dawnbreaker to the side.

I drew the Blade of Hoofingar and blocked his next strike as he kicked out at Steadfast, keeping him at a distance. I used both my swords to block him, pushing him back toward my earth pony companion. Suddenly Ledge shot up into the air. My swords nicked him slightly as I passed under him, but I then ran into Steadfast.

We were both still lying on the ground when Ledge swooped back in. He headed for Steadfast first, but a swing from his warhammer convinced the bat-pony to pull back up. A blast of lightning charred his feathers as he did so, and he threw his sword at Mystic, forcing her to roll away.

Next he dive-bombed me while I was still lying on the ground. He drew a second sword from his back as he did so, preparing to strike me as he crashed down on me. A shot from Mephalda knocked the blade from his grasp while he was in the air, and he hit me without a weapon. As he landed on top of me, I kicked up with my legs, throwing him up and off of me. As he flew through the air from my kick, he slammed into the beam of golden energy jutting up from the floor, disappearing instantly as his body was absorbed into the flow passing through the lenses that channeled it outside into a shield.

“Great,” I said as I picked myself up, “He probably had the instructions on how to turn it off on him. Now how are we supposed to shut this thing down?”

Steadfast looked around for a bit before trotting over to where one of the giant arms that held a mirror jutted up from the floor. Swinging his warhammer as hard as he could, he smashed it into the support, causing it to wobble slightly.

“What are you doing?!” Mystic asked incredulously.

“Manual override?” he offered as he slammed it again, knocking the arm off its track.

The mirror it was holding fell out of its position, allowing a beam of energy to pass through another arm instead of being deflected. Soon it was chaos as the energy bounced all around the room, tearing it apart. Pieces of the lens and mirror array rained down at us as we struggled to dodge, and holes opened up in the observatory dome. Finally the machinery must have recognized something was wrong, because the hole spewing magical energy sealed itself up, cutting off the flow.

As the last broken pieces of the observatory fell to the floor, we made our way to a large observation window that had been broken out in the chaos. The shield faded away gradually without a power source to sustain it. Far in the distance, we could make out Marekarth, and beyond that the sunrise. Now Stormcloud could leave the city; our task was done.