• Published 6th Mar 2012
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Sohndar - CTVulpin



The Sequel to Aitran. Myst/Riven cross-over

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Chapter 12

Tay

As Nyx bid Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash good-bye and made to leave the room, there was a knock at the door and Materi entered. “Am I interrupting?” she asked, looking at the young, dark filly.

“We’ve finished our discussion Materi,” Nyx answered with a stiff bow of her head.

“Ah, good,” the Moiety mare said, reaching out a leg to stop Nyx from leaving and turning her back around to face the Equestrians, “Would you mind taking part while I discuss our future plans?”

Nyx stared in wide-eyed surprise for a second, and then quickly adopted a casually aloof expression and said, “Well, I suppose I could.”

“Thank you,” Materi said sincerely, and then looked at Twilight and Rainbow, getting straight to the point, “Dawn will break soon on Sohndar and the Maintainers will realize that Twilight Sparkle is not in her cell. If you thought Aldro’s lackeys were riled up before, that is nothing compared to how things will be. They’ll be certain – and correct – that we Moiety are assisting you and will try to prevent you from reaching anything important. This may draw Aldro out, but I wouldn’t count on it. Ever since Kovar was captured he’s hidden himself away in his new world, likely working on something where we can’t harass him. With that in mind, what do you intend to do?”

Twilight shared a concerned glance with Rainbow Dash for a moment or two, and then cleared her throat and said hesitantly, “Well, our most important goal is to free Clover, or Kovar, or whatever, and get her and Nyx to a place where Star Swirl can come in and get them and us out quickly.”

“We’ll have to go through Aldro’s world to do that,” Rainbow said, “I don’t think I could carry her flying between the prison and the closest island.”

“So,” Twilight said, “to do that, we’ll have to power up the domes and get inside one of them without being spotted by the guards who will be expecting us to do exactly that.” She frowned at the dubious prospect and looked at Materi. “Any advice?” she asked.

“It won’t be easy, to be sure,” Materi said, thinking, “We can get you pretty close to the Great Dome through the caverns, but once you go topside you’ll be exposed. You’ll need a distraction.”

“It’ll have to be a big one,” Twilight said, “There’s one Maintainer in particular that has his sights on us: Arcem, if that means anything to you.”

“Why not launch a raid?” Nyx suggested, “A big one on the village a little before these two make their move. In fact, why not go all-out and drag everypony we can lay our hooves on here to Tay?”

“An attack of that scale would have to include most of the Moiety,” Materi said, disapproving, “Our entire group would be exposed and at risk, as would our linking book.”

“So what?” Nyx shot back, “It’s not like they don’t know we exist, and we’d be enacting Mom’s ultimate plan anyway. This world was meant for all the ponies of Sohndar, not just the Moiety. Besides, we’ll have to do something big and crazy anyway, so why not have it be forced evacuation?”

Materi looked like she was going to chide Nyx, but then thought better of it and sighed, closing her eyes. “I cannot decide this on my own,” she said at last, “I must discuss this with the rest of the Moiety. You may remain here and await our decision if you want. Nyx… perhaps you should come with me, if you want to make your case.”

“Of course,” Nyx said resolutely, “come on.” She left the room, and Materi followed after bowing slightly to Twilight and Rainbow. The two Equestrians traded a look and came to a silent agreement to stay put and get a little more rest.


A few hours later a small, bright yellow sun peeked over the top of the cliffs surrounding the lake and the Moiety’s village tree, and a pony brought a small meal of curious fruits to Twilight and Rainbow before escorting them down to the dock, where Materi, Nyx, Whark Bait, and a couple other important-looking Moiety stood waiting, watching somepony rowing feverously toward them from the other shore. It was an earth pony stallion dressed in the full costume of a Moiety scout, and even before the boat came to a stop at the island he hopped out, tore off his bug-eyed mask, and inclined his head toward the group. “Materi, Eina,” he said, “As we predicted, the Maintainers are on high alert searching for the escaped captive, but there is graver news. The tremors have returned, with greater intensity. Some of the outlying tunnels have collapsed, and there is panic and confusion all across the surface.”

“Resumed?” Twilight asked, looking at Nyx, “I thought you said the tremors were ubiquitous.” Nyx looked back at her blankly, apparently not understanding her choice of words. “I mean, they’re always happening, right?”

“Generally, yes,” Materi said, turning to look at the scholarly unicorn, “For the better part of my lifetime the land has shaken and the islands drifted almost daily, but for the last two months or so they’ve grown quiet.”

Twilight thought that through for a moment and a few passages she’d read from Star Swirl’s journal came to her mind. “Oh, that must be why,” she said quietly, and when Materi and Nyx gave her a curious look she spoke up and explained, “Star Swirl has been hard at work trying to stabilize Sohndar long enough to rescue Clover and Nyx. He had me and Rainbow come in his place because he can’t get any of his fixes to stick long enough. If the islands are starting to quake again now though…” She trailed off from a combination of not wanting to speak her fears and seeing the looks of reverence and awe crossing the faces of the gathered Moiety.

“Then we have to start moving the rest of the ponies out of Sohndar,” Nyx said insistently, “before we lose the rest of the extra time my Father has given us!”

“You’re right Nyx,” Materi said, coming back to the present, “An open raid on the village combined with the chaos of the earthquakes should be more than enough to keep the Maintainers and other Aldro loyalists distracted. Eina, gather everypony and take charge of getting them through the book and into position. Twilight, Rainbow, I will get you as close to the Great Dome as possible.”

“Thank you Materi,” Twilight said, “You’ve been a great help.”

“You still have the map I have you, right?” Whark Bait asked.

“Right here,” Twilight said, patting the satchel hanging from her neck, “You’re sure it’ll work?”

“Without a doubt,” the former Surveyor said confidently, “Best of luck to you, and you as well Ms. Rainbow.”

“Stay out of trouble Whark Bait,” Rainbow said teasingly, “Don’t go making that nickname into a reality.”

“All right, enough talking,” Nyx said, “Let’s go!” She galloped toward the rowboat and jumped to get into it, only to be caught in mid-air in a wavy bubble of magenta magic. “Hey!” the filly protested.

“Sorry Nyx,” Twilight said, levitating her back to shore, “but I think you better stay here for now. I don’t think either of your parents would forgive us if something bad happened to you.”

“All I do anymore is sit around and wait!” Nyx whined with a cute pout. Twilight shook her head and gave the filly a telekinetic nudge toward the village tree. “Fine then,” Nyx said petulantly, and stormed off muttering under her breath. Materi watched her and the rest of the Moiety group head back to the tree for a moment, and then gestured for Twilight and Rainbow to get into the rowboat as she climbed in herself. The pegasus opted to fly again, and soon the trio had reached the opposite shore and were approaching an open linking book on a pedestal inside a small cavern near the dock.


Moiety Tunnels, Sohndar

They emerged into a shuddering world, the grinding roar of shifting earth echoing and amplifying through the subterranean cavern where the Tay book sat hidden from the surface. Twilight and Materi instinctively drew together for support as the floor moved beneath their hooves, but Rainbow simply froze in place, every limb splayed out straight and stiff as a board, her eyes going pure white save for a pinprick of rose in the centers.

“Oh no oh no oh no we’re gonna die we’re gonna die!” she muttered in panic, unheard over the rumbling.

The tremor only lasted a few, endless seconds, and Twilight released a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding as the rumbling faded away and the floor settled down. She looked at Materi to see that she was also relaxed, possibly more so than Twilight felt, but then looked to Rainbow and saw her caught in the rictus of pure terror. “Rainbow,” she said calmingly, “it’s over now; we’re ok.”

Dash exploded, leaping suddenly to the left and pulling Twilight to the ground in a crushing hold on her neck and back. “We’re not ok!” Rainbow exclaimed shrilly, “We’re trapped underground, everything’s shaking, and we’re going to get buried by a cave-in or something and we’re all gonna die!”

“Rainbow…” Twilight gasped, struggling to free herself from the hysterical pegasus, “I can’t breathe.” That only served to push Rainbow to greater panic, and soon Twilight was forced to hit her friend with a powerful sleeping spell, and then extracted herself and hefted the pegasus up with her telekinesis. “Sorry about that,” she said to Materi, “She’ll be fine, but we should probably get to the surface before she wakes up.”

Materi nodded and led the way out of the book cavern, pushing open the door at the entrance and then closing it behind her and Twilight after they passed through so they could head deeper into the tunnel system. “I can’t help but wonder at the wisdom of having her come to this world,” she said after a moment, “I mean, I shouldn’t doubt He of the Stars, but even the surface of Sohndar has many caverns and underground passages. He would know that.”

“I’m not sure if we ever told him about Rainbow’s claustrophobia though,” Twilight said, “and even if we did, it’s never been this bad. Rainbow’s a tough pony, and it takes a lot to make her give in. I guess the earthquake was just too much.”

“I see,” Materi said, “Let us be quick then.” She led Twilight down ever-descending tunnels, heading so deep that Twilight figured they were well below sea level when the path finally leveled out. They trotted quickly and in relative silence, their pace only broken by aftershocks from the earlier earthquake. Twice they encountered a section of tunnel that had collapsed, forcing Materi to find an alternative path. Twilight quickly lost track of the time and distance they’d traveled, distracted by the effort of keeping up with the quick-moving Moiety while keeping Rainbow Dash asleep and balanced in her telekinetic bubble.

The interminable journey finally came to an end shortly after a fresh tremor collapsed both branches of a fork in the tunnels ahead of them. Materi swore an oath that Twilight’s translation spell seemed to leave unaltered, and then turned around and gestured for Twilight to do the same. “It seems we’ll have to emerge sooner than I would like. Move quickly and prepare to be sneaky.” Twilight nodded with obvious reservation and moved to let Materi slip past before turning around to follow again. The Moiety mare led Twilight to a previous intersection of tunnels and soon they were climbing upwards. They came to a stop at an apparent dead-end and Materi gestured for Twilight to wait before opening a hidden latch and pushing part of the roof open, letting in a sliver of daylight. Materi cautiously poked her head through the opening and looked around, and then pushed the door open wider and climbed out. Twilight followed, levitating Rainbow behind her, and saw that she was at the grav-car station of Dome Island, on the opposite side of the track’s anchoring stone from the entrance to the temple. “Come,” Materi said in an urgent whisper.

“Hold on a second please,” Twilight responded. She lowered Rainbow to the ground and released her magic with sigh of relief, and then nudged the pegasus into wakefulness. “Stay quiet Rainbow,” she warned as Dash’s eyes opened and focused, “We’re out of the caves now, on the first island. Are you ok?”

“Ugh,” Rainbow moaned, “I never want to see another cave as long as I live.” She climbed to her feet and looked around, unfurling her wings slightly. “The first island, huh?” she said, “Ah yeah, I recognize this spot now. It’s a bit of a walk from here to the big dome, isn’t it? Couldn’t get us any closer?” She gave Materi a judgmental glance with her last question.

“Unfortunately, no,” the Moiety replied in a level tone, “We’ll have to move carefully to avoid any Maintainer patrols.”

“Heh,” Dash said, “You might. I’ll fly ahead and spy things out.” She took off, flying over the peak of the ridge and out of sight before anypony could protest.

“Reckless,” Materi noted with disapproval, “Perhaps that is why normal ponies do not have wings.”

“That’s my friend you’re talking about,” Twilight said, “And she’s no stranger to risk. She’ll be fine.” She stepped out into the open and approached the entrance to the temple, but then hesitated when she saw the door was closed.

“There is a pressure plate under the first step to open the door,” Materi explained, walking past Twilight and walking up the stairs, “And even if Aldro is not seated on the control throne an illusion of his face may appear in the projection globe for a moment, so don’t be alarmed.” The temple door had opened enough to allow the two ponies to see inside, and they both froze when they saw a large, translucent image of a unicorn stallion wearing the armored helmet of a Maintainer guard staring out at them from within the giant wireframe globe with a growing smirk on his face. The face vanished as the door finished opening, and Twilight and Materi exchanged a glance.

“That,” Twilight said, “wasn’t Aldro.”

“No it wasn’t,” Materi agreed, whirling around, “Hurry, we must hide before they come.”

“I’ve got a better idea,” Twilight said, grabbing the Moiety mare and pulling her close, horn glowing with rapidly brightening magenta light, “Hold on tight.” With a quick, rising whine of gathered power followed by a faint crack, the pair vanished in a flash of light.

They reappeared just outside the main entrance to the rotating room, underneath a mildly surprised Rainbow Dash. “Decided not to risk being underground again after all?” she asked jokingly.

“Something like that,” Twilight replied dismissively, “the guards might think me and Materi are down at the grav-car.”

“Cool,” Rainbow said, “Now, let’s see if they closed the gates to the dome.”

As it turned out, the room had indeed been reset to the way Twilight and Rainbow had originally found it. While Twilight went through the process of rotating the room around to reach the gate levers, Rainbow flew around to scout out the Golden Dome and figure out how to distract the guards that would inevitably be crawling around it. To her surprise, there was only a single pony patrolling the walkways inside the dome, and he had not yet had the pleasure of encountering the cyan flying pony, judging by how slow he was to go for his weapon when Rainbow charged him with a gliding tackle. She flipped him over the railing and held him dangling over the pool of water at the bottom of the dome with his tail clasped in her hooves. “Two questions,” Rainbow said brusquely, “Is that water deep enough to drop you in from this height, and could you get out if I did let go?”

“I-I-I…” the guard stammered, clearly confused by the questions, “spare me demon, I beg of you!”

“Sure,” Rainbow said congenially as she slowly lowered him down to the water, “Here’s the deal: you stay down in the water until somepony comes to get you, and you don’t tell anypony I was here. Got it?” The guard nodded vigorously and Rainbow let him go to drop the last couple of feet into the pool. She then flew up and met Twilight and Materi crossing the bridge into the dome. “Aldro really needs less cowardly ponies on his guard,” Rainbow said, rolling her eyes, “None of these stallions would last a day in the Royal Guard.”

Twilight glanced down to the miserable-looking Maintainer treading water, and then up at the ceiling. “Now how do we get up to the controls?” she wondered, “Whark Bait mentioned stairs…”

“The bridge is the stairs,” Materi replied, pointing to a lever just inside the doorway, “Assuming the steam vent powering it is properly set, this will do the trick.” She nudged Twilight out onto the bridge and turned the lever to the left. With the click and hiss of mechanisms starting up, the bridge started to angle up and shift into a set of stairs, raising Twilight up to a narrow corridor between the two halves of the dome. “I’ll stand guard here to keep anypony from reaching you,” Materi called up as Twilight walked down the corridor and Rainbow flew up to join her. The corridor stretched from one side of the dome to the other, but at the halfway point a large metal device blocked the path. It came up nearly to Twilight’s shoulder, narrowing slightly near the top to a large grid of small squares, twenty-five in both length and width, each with a round divot. To the right of the grid were six small marbles in individual holders, each a different color of the rainbow. Above the machine hung a large piston attached to a square lid obviously designed to cover and form a seal around the grid.

“Here we are,” Twilight said, pulling out the diagram Whark Bait had given her, “Finally taking a real step toward completing our mission.” She looked the diagram over, and then whistled appreciatively. “Rainbow, do you realize just how impossible this would be if we didn’t have any clues to this machine’s secrets?”

“No, but I think you’re going to tell me.”

“There are 625 spots on the grid,” Twilight explained, “and six marbles. Each marble can only be placed once, each hole can only hold one marble, and not all the marbles may be needed – in fact, we know it takes five – and so that…” She trailed off and her eyes bugged out as she tried to calculate the odds in her mind. “By Celestia, “she said at last, “that’s well over a trillion possibilities!”(1)

Rainbow was gob-smacked. “Wow. Thank Celestia for Whark Bait then,” she said. She fluttered over Twilight and reached down to touch the purple marble, giving it a curious look. “What’s so special about these things anyway? They’re awful small to be so important for Aldro’s books to work.”

“I don’t know,” Twilight said, levitating the orange marble out of its holder and scrutinizing it. She tried to get a feel for potential power stored inside of it, and in response felt a disorienting buzz of warmth inside that tried to feed back along her magic aura into her horn. She quickly withdrew all but her telekinetic sense and consulted the diagram before placing the marble into a slot in the topmost row of the grid, ten slots from the right side. She shooed Rainbow back and made quick work of placing the yellow, green, blue, and purple marbles according to the diagram, leaving the red one in its holder, and then stepped back to review her work. “That looks right,” she said, “now the next step will be figuring out how to turn it on.” She examined the machine for signs of a hidden control panel while Rainbow gave the corridor a closer look.

“There’s a switch on the wall,” Rainbow said, pointing. Several feet back from the machine, on the left wall as the ponies faced toward the stairs, was a box with a slider light switch. At Twilight’s nod, Rainbow slid the switch up, which caused the piston above the grid to slowly lower into place. Moving the switch also revealed a button hidden behind it, and Rainbow pressed it without a moment’s hesitation. The piston fired downward once, letting out a brief hiss of steam from a pressure release valve, and then everything went still. “Is it working?” Rainbow asked slowly. Twilight walked up to the machine and leaned an ear in close, but she couldn’t make any sounds of activity within. She regarded it with a dubious frown, checked Whark Bait’s diagram, and then shrugged and turned away.

“It seems like the only way to know might be to open one of the smaller domes and see if the linking book works,” she said. She trotted down the corridor to the bridge-stairs and called down, “Are you ok down there Materi?”

“I am fine,” the Moiety mare called back, “everything is clear. Have you powered up the domes?”

“I think so?” Twilight replied, “Let me down; we’ll have to check one of the books.”

“I recommend the one on this island,” Materi said as she turned the lever to lower the stairs, “It is nearly adjacent to this great dome, so there will be less risk of encountering anypony.”

“Yeah, we know where it is,” Rainbow said as she flew down to join the flight-impaired pair, “Let’s go.” She flew ahead, leading the way through the dome to the lower pathway around the base, and then flew up to open the dome, which had been reset to its default rotating position, while Twilight and Materi figured out the controls for the elevator that would let them walk up to the dome.

After approaching the dome, Twilight’s confidence faded when she looked upon the slider-lock that stood between her and the book. “You guys never gave me back my notes,” she said, turning to look at Materi, “I had the combination for the lock written down in them.”

“It is Seven, Eleven, Twelve, Seventeen ,and Twenty-four,” Materi responded, “I was part of the group who helped Kovar gain first access to Tay; we all memorized the lock code. By the way, Rainbow Dash,” she added as the pegasus moved to join her friend in the open section of the dome, “Considering your condition, it may be best if you stay behind. When the code is entered the dome will close up again, and it is rather close and dark inside them.”

“I can handle it,” Dash said indignantly, “There’s no way I’m leaving Twilight to wander around a strange world looking for Aldro alone.” She hopped over Materi, but as she landed a powerful earthquake struck. The rock spire the spinning dome was sitting on remained intact, but all around the base of the giant dome rocks cracked and split. The elevated walkway leading out the side of the dome buckled and collapsed as the rock its supports were sunk into split and shattered.

The quake lasted for maybe twenty seconds, and it took several more for the ponies to get over their panicked immobility enough to share a glance. “They’re growing stronger,” Materi said, “We may be racing against very little time, and there’s no telling what the next quake may end up destroying.”

“Good point,” Twilight said, “The faster we can get everything done and signal Star Swirl, the better. Rainbow, perhaps you should fly on ahead to Clover’s island and work on getting her out. I’ll deal with Aldro and meet you there, ok?”

Rainbow frowned and shook her head. “I’m not leaving you Twi,” she said, “Bad things tend to happen when we split up. Remember the rocket on Aitran? And you got captured by guards the last time I flew off. We have no idea what we might run into in Aldro’s world. He could have guards with him, or worse.”

“Unless he wrote other beings into it, Aldro will be alone,” Materi said, “The Moiety have never seen his world, but we have kept an eye on the domes since learning their purpose, and we know he only allows ponies to enter it briefly to report on the most dire of emergencies.”

“Well then,” Twilight said, levitating the trap book out of her satchel, “All I’ll have to do to be safe is convince him that this will link him to Aitran. I’m pretty sure I can handle that on my own.” Rainbow looked unconvinced, so Twilight gave her the most confident and trusting look she could muster. “I’ll be counting on you to get Clover out of her cell,” the unicorn said, “can you count on me to handle Aldro? Please?”

Rainbow sighed and took flight, hovering just off the ground. “All right, you win,” she said, and then poked Twilight in the chest and added, “and you better meet us on the fifth island in a reasonable time or I’m coming in after you.” Twilight nodded and Dash flew off. After the rainbow contrail faded from the air, Twilight turned back to the dome lock and moved the sliders to the appropriate positions. She pressed the button and braced herself as the dome flipped over, sealing her inside with only two dim spotlights on the floor to prevent complete darkness. The lights were focused on the book, which was set on a stand that rose up slightly to bring the tome to eye-level. The cover was embossed with a pair of the square Sohndaren numerals, which Twilight deduced to equal two hundred and forty three. She opened the book to find a blank, black linking panel on the first page, but before she could worry an expanding ring of red fire spread over the panel to reveal the spinning image of a strange new world. It looked to be a world of orange skies and receding seas, with gigantic rock spires that had eroded in such a way as to resemble cone-capped mushrooms dominating what passed for the landscape. In the center of the image, perched on the peak of a lonely steep-sided mountain, was a squat building with a huge bowl sitting on top of it.

Friendly looking place, Twilight thought wryly as she lifted a hoof to touch the panel, I’d prefer Sohndar any day, death-throe earthquakes and all. She laid her hoof on the panel and everything went black.

When she came to, she was in a cage.

Author's Note:

(1) 58,752,420,690,993,751 possibilities to be precise.