Chapter 4
Village Island
Twilight’s view of the island as the grav-car approached it didn’t provide her very much in the way of useful information. It was clearly larger than the island they had just left and looked like a mesa sitting in the ocean, all sheer cliffs for sides and its top seemingly flat and higher than anything Twilight had seen in Sohndar thus far. The grav-car pulled into a wide and deep cleft in the side of the island and as it settled into a resting position near the mouth of the cleft and opened the hatch the control levers rotated around so that the steering arm was pointed left and the drive lever was pointed forward. “Whew, glad that’s over,” Rainbow Dash said as she hopped down the steps, “The speed was decent, but overall it’s got nothing on actual flight.”
“Maybe you should look out the window next time,” Twilight said as she climbed out of the driver’s seat and exited the vehicle, “you might change your tune a little.” Rainbow scoffed and started trotting away toward the far end of the cleft. Twilight followed her and as they neared the base of the cliff she spotted a wooden ball stuck into the cliff-side behind the grav-car dock. She called Rainbow’s attention to it and then trotted over for a closer look. It was a smooth wood ball half again as wide as her hoof, decorated with a golden metallic paint to resemble an eye and attached to the socket it was seated in by only two hinged points on the left and right. “I wonder what this is,” she said as she scrutinized it and then tried to spin it with her hoof. It rolled downward until the back side was exposed, on which was carved a square with an arcing line that formed a “D” with the left side, and then rolled back on its own, the hinges making a strange chirping squeak as it settled with the eye facing out again.
“Well that was informative,” Rainbow said sarcastically.
“It’s probably part of something bigger,” Twilight said, spinning the ball and holding it with the square exposed while she floated a fresh sheet of note paper and her pencil out of her bags. “It is a bit out of the way after all,” she continued as she sketched the symbol,” and there’s something vaguely familiar about this shape. We should keep an eye out for more of these, just in case.”
“Sounds good to me,” Rainbow said, perking up at the prospect of a challenge. “Now, where do we go from here?” she asked a moment later, looking around.
“I see stairs,” Twilight said, pointing to the far corner of the cleft, where an opening in the rock showed the bottom of a staircase.
“Another cave?” the cyan pegasus whined, “This is getting ridiculous.” She resigned herself to the reality and started toward the stairs as Twilight took the lead. Rainbow cast a glance over her shoulder as she walked, hoping to find some alternate way up, no matter how unlikely, and then stopped and turned around with a curious “Huh…”
“What is it?” Twilight asked, stopping as well.
“Nothing,” Rainbow said, squinting her eyes as she looked toward the wooden eye, “I just noticed there’s a shape in the rock. Looks kind of like a frog…”
“Show me,” Twilight said, staring intensely at the cliff.
“Uh,” Rainbow said, pointing a wavering hoof, “that patch of slightly darker rock to the left of the ball. Actually, the ball seems to be the frog’s eye.”
“Yeah…” Twilight said slowly, squinting and leaning forward, “I… don’t see it. You’re sure it’s there?”
“It’s real tricky to make out, but it’s there alright,” Rainbow said with certainty, “Trust me. Maybe you should write that down: ‘frogaloid shape in cliff’ or something.”
“Frogaloid,” Twilight said dryly, giving her friend a flat sidelong glance. She pulled her notes out, scribbled “frog” next to the square, and then put everything away and turned back to the stairs. Despite its cave-like appearance, the staircase turned out to simply be a short tunnel through the rock, illuminated by small glowing blue crystals set on poles at either end of every third step, and let out into a narrow crevasse with more stairs that climbed to the right and descended to the left. Both routes followed a curved path that provided no clues regarding their destinations as Twilight considered the options. “Do you have an opinion Rainbow?” she asked at last.
“I have lots of opinions Twilight,” Dash deadpanned.
“Up or down?” Twilight asked in exasperation.
“Eh,” the pegasus said with a dismissive shrug, but then she got an idea and opened Twilight’s saddlebag, sticking her muzzle in and fishing around until she found and pulled out the knife she’d picked up on the previous island. She set it down on the wide stone step in front of her and set it to spinning with a light kick. “Whichever way the point… points is the way we’ll go,” she announced. Twilight gave an approving nod and watched as the double-edged knife with its odd grip spun with a faint grinding sound on the rough stone before coming to rest pointing directly at Rainbow Dash, who was standing on the downhill side of the landing. The two ponies shared a glance and a nervous chuckle, and then Twilight gave the knife a slight nudge with her magic so that it pointed more toward the downhill before picking it up and stashing it away.
Although much more narrow than the cleft housing the grav-car station, the stair-crevasse was wide enough for the pair to walk side by side as they descended. The rift curved to the right briefly before straightening out again. The stairs terminated at the end of the crevasse and the path turned immediately to the right and out of sight. Just past this turn was a tiny lagoon with a clump of large black rocks sitting in the middle of the water. Two strange-looking animals, looking like dark-skinned seals with long necks and bill-like mouths, were sunning themselves on the largest rock and looked up as the cloak-wearing ponies came around the bend in the stairs. Twilight and Rainbow both stopped in their tracks and stared at the seal-creatures in surprise, and after a moment the creatures laid their heads back down. “Fascinating,” Twilight said, “A whole new species of animal, to us at least. I bet Fluttershy would love to learn about them.”
“Too bad she isn’t here,” Rainbow noted dryly. Twilight ignored her and pulled out a clean piece of paper and the pencil and then started trotting down the stairs toward the creatures. Their heads snapped up and looked at her, and then one of them slid off the rock into the water, swimming out of the lagoon and into the ocean beyond.
“Wait, I don’t mean you any harm,” Twilight called out. The remaining seal-thing shuffled toward the edge of the rock, glared at Twilight with a dismissive honking snort and a toss of its head, and then slid down into the water and swam off after its companion. “Hmph, fine then,” Twilight grumbled as she put her writing supplies away, “I was just curious.” Rainbow chuckled as she walked down the stairs, brushed past Twilight, and then hopped off the pathway and started trotting around the edge of the lagoon. “What are you doing?” Twilight asked.
“Looking for clues off the beaten path,” the pegasus said. She came around to the far side of the lagoon near the inlet and spotted a wooden ball attached to the smallest rock sticking out of the water. As she waved Twilight over, she hopped back slightly to look at the rocks as a whole. “Ok Twi,” she said as the unicorn approached, “looking at it from this direction, with the ball as an eye, do you see an animal in these rocks?” Twilight stood right up next to her and cocked her head to one side for a moment as she contemplated the rocks.
“Probably?” she said at last, uncertain, “We’d have to go back to the temple and double-check, but this looks a bit like those statues, in profile. And without the tusks.”
“My thoughts exactly,” Rainbow said with a nod, and then nudged Twilight and said, “I bet the ball spins. Go check it out.” Twilight looked at the knee-deep water separating her from the, and then at the cloak she was wearing, and then cast the pegasus an askance glance. “Or I could fly over and do it myself,” Rainbow suggested with a large grin.
“Fine,” Twilight grunted, rolling her eyes, “but put the cloak back on when you’re done, alright?” Rainbow’s only response was to wiggle out of the brown hooded cloak, unfurl her wings with a flourish that narrowly missed hitting Twilight in the side, and then flutter casually over the water and up to the ball. She rolled it in its socket until the backside was revealed, carved with a square bifurcated with a horizontal line. After she released it, the ball rolled back to show the gilded eye, the hinges making an odd, quiet moaning sound. She flew back to Twilight, who already had her notes out and ready, and described the shape as she put the cloak back on. “Curious,” the unicorn said as she drew the bifurcated square, “That’s the same shape as in the crests on the first island. I wonder what the connection is…” She looked up from her notes and regarded the rock formation with a slight frown. The “head” containing the eyeball was situated to the left of the largest rock, giving the body a hunchbacked appearance, and two smaller narrow rocks sat in the positions of a fin and a fish tail. “What should we call this thing?” she wondered aloud.
“It’s probably some kind of sea monster,” Rainbow Dash said, “Something the locals would give up food for in hopes of not encountering one.”
“Fish Monster then,” Twilight said, making the note next to the square before putting everything away. She and Rainbow walked back to the path and followed it around the base of the cliff and up a set of stairs leading into a tunnel.
“What is with these ponies and caves?” Dash screamed in frustration as she plodded in after Twilight.
“It’s a better idea than trying to scale all the cliffs around here,” Twilight reasoned, “and keep in mind who wrote the book that linked here: Aldro’s a Diamond Dog, remember?”
“Good point,” Rainbow conceded, “There’s another reason not to like the guy.” Twilight chuckled. The tunnel sloped gently and continuously upward as it wound through the rock, lit by glowing crystals set on posts every few feet. Rainbow was grinding her teeth with the effort of keeping her claustrophobia in check by the time the exit came into view, and she pushed past Twilight to gallop out into the open air, whooping with relief. She emerged onto a walkway built of thick reeds and sticks that extended only a few feet ahead before terminating in a guard rail just after the cliff to the left ended. Just to the right of the end of the walkway was a small watchtower shaped like an elongated egg balanced on its small end on a post driven into the rock and with a small propeller on the top. Inside, a rust-colored pony, his close-cropped mane hidden beneath an ill-fitting helmet, gazed out at the cloaked pegasus pony with a mixture of curiosity and nervousness.
“Bh-bhfeidhm ann. Ce a theann ann?”
“Huh?” Rainbow said, confused, “Sorry, I don’t speak ‘Sohndar-ese.’”
“Rainbow!” Twilight hissed, coming up behind the pegasus.
“What? It’s the truth,” Dash replied defensively.
“Whark dom!” the watch-pony exclaimed in fright, “Strainseiri. Dha cheann acu!” He reached up into the roof space above him, grabbed a rope in his mouth, and yanked it down repeatedly as the propeller began to spin, creating a low whistle that echoed through the open space beyond the walkway.
“What was that for?” Rainbow asked as the watch-pony ducked down out of sight inside the tower, “Hey, I’m talking to you! Don’t pretend you don’t understand me!” She started to slip out of her cloak, but Twilight yanked it back onto her with her magic and dragged the pegasus back a couple feet.
“First of all,” the lavender unicorn said firmly, “he probably doesn’t understand us anymore than we do him; he just knows we’re strangers and that’s cause for alarm. Second of all, would it kill you to not antagonize every pony we come across? We’re probably going to have guards all over us in a few moments now.”
“Oh, like whatever you’d have done would have had a different result,” Dash snapped, “You don’t speak their language either, so he’d have sounded the alarm anyway. Well, if they’re coming for us, let ‘em!” She stalked to the end of the walkway, took note of the ladder leading down from the left side onto a wide ledge, and then took a firm, challenging stance, eyes darting around.
“Rainbow…” Twilight groaned, and then gave a defeated sigh and turned to watch for ponies coming from the tunnel. Several minutes went by, and the only movement was that of the pony in the watch tower, who peeked out every once in a while only to duck back out of sight when Dash gave him a glare. Finally, Twilight sighed and relaxed, saying, “No one’s coming. Well, let’s get back to…” She trailed off as she turned around and took a long look beyond the end of the walkway. A vast crater lake was spread out far below, although a fair amount of it was hidden from sight by the cliffs on the left. It was a breathtaking sight, but with one curious detail that made Twilight rub her eyes and look again. “Rainbow,” she said, “is it just me, or are there holes in the water?”
Rainbow looked down and stared in bewilderment. From their vantage point she could clearly see four places in the lake where the water just didn’t exist and the surrounding liquid seemed content to stay put. “I see it,” she said, “but that should be impossible, shouldn’t it?”
“It should,” Twilight said with a nod, and then nudged Rainbow toward the ladder, saying, “Let’s head down and get a closer look.” Rainbow nodded in agreement and climbed down to the ledge below with Twilight right behind her. A large oblong basin with an irregular bottom was set into middle of the ledge, with a wooden spigot on the rim, a covered drain at the lowest point of the bottom, a small metal pipe opposite the spigot, and another gilded wood eye-ball mounted near the left end. “This makes three,” Twilight said, pulling out her notes while rolling the ball to see the hidden symbol: a square divided in half by a vertical line. Meanwhile, Rainbow turned the spigot and water started to rise up from the drain, filling the upper third of the basin and filling some of the low valleys in the lower part. When Twilight let the eye roll back, it made a sound like droning insect wings.
“Oh,” Rainbow said in realization, “That’s it. The water looks a bit like a beetle.”
“If you say so,” Twilight said, making the relevant notes, “I wish we could communicate with the locals and ask what the purpose of these eyes is.” She walked around the basin and found another ladder leading over the edge of the ledge and down in two stages to a walkway just above the water leading into yet another hole in the rocks. Consigned to the inevitable, Rainbow kept her grumbling to a minimum as they walked through the thankfully very short tunnel and emerged on a short metal pier over a hole in the lake water. The sandy lakebed was surprisingly close, not much more than eight feet below the pier, and the mares could see a set of tracks running along the ground leading into the water on both the left and right. “Underwater transportation,” Twilight mused, “That’s a unique solution for getting around. I’d have just built a bridge network. Now, where would we find the vehicle?”
“Up there,” Rainbow responded flatly, looking pointing directly overhead. Twilight looked and saw a large, mostly spherical contraption sitting on a short segment of track attached to the lip of the cliff above them.
“Oh, that’s great,” Twilight said sarcastically, “Where better to park your submersible trolley than twenty feet above the water?” She looked around and face-hoofed with a moan when she saw no levers or control mechanisms nearby or a pathway other than going back the way they had come. “Looks like we’ll have to go the long way around to get that thing down here,” she said.
“I do have wings,” Rainbow said hopefully.
“And there’s a guard pony back there that’s wary enough of us without seeing you flying around,” Twilight responded.
“Pah, that guy’s a pansy,” Rainbow scoffed, “What’s the worst he could do? Sound another alarm that nopony’s paying attention to?”
“We shouldn’t take unnecessary risks Rainbow,” Twilight chided, “All it takes is one wrong move to get half a dozen or more armed ponies on our tails. Look, if I can get a clear view of the top of this cliff I can teleport us over, ok?” Rainbow glowered at her and then turned around smartly and began walking back toward the ladder with deliberately heavy steps. “I’m sorry this has turned out so difficult for you,” Twilight said as she followed her friend, “If there were any way I could make things easier-”
“Let’s just get on with it,” Dash said crossly as she mounted the ladder, “The sooner we find Clover and Nyx and deal with Aldro the sooner we can go home. I won’t touch ground for a week after this.” She climbed quickly to the walkway at the base of the watchtower and blew a raspberry at the guard within when he looked out at her before turning to watch Twilight catch up with her. Once the unicorn reached the top, she turned around and quickly sighted the vehicle. After taking a second to memorize the flat area of land and the layout of the items on it - a large conical cement oven and what looked like a shrine built around a gold altar – she wrapped herself and Rainbow in magic and then released it into a teleport spell that deposited them next to the submersible.
The sound of breaking pottery drew their attention behind them, where they saw a unicorn mare galloping away from a shattered jar of fruit and disappearing into a jumble of scaffolds, ladders, and strange spherical cement huts built onto the tops of rock spires. A panicked cry of “Moiety! Moiety spiorad olc!” began to echo through the elevated village as ponies scrambled into the huts for shelter.
“Geez,” Twilight said, ears pulled back in consternation, “They’re acting like Cerberus just wandered into town. Have they never seen a teleport spell before or something?” She shook her head and turned her attention back to the submersible. It was a perfect sphere that rested on a pair of axles; the front wheels were the size of serving platters and the rear ones were three times as big across. A hatch on the top would provide access to the interior and a porthole window on the front would let the rider see where they were going. It looked to be well-used and in good repair, but there was one problem easily evident to both Twilight and Rainbow. “This is a single-rider vehicle,” the unicorn surmised, “And please don’t bring up your wings again Rainbow. I know.”
“I wasn’t going to say anything,” the pegasus said, feigning innocence, “So now what should we do?”
“Let me see,” Twilight said, walking up to the edge of the cliff and looking around. Directly across the large crater she could see a tall teepee shaped cage with a sizable hole in the floor standing in the lake. A metal catwalk extended from the peak of the cage to the nearby cliff face and ran along it for a time before ending high above the wooden walkway leading from the village to another part of the island. To the right, nestled on a low shelf of rock and nearly out of sight, was a plaster hut built in a somewhat more familiar, flat-on-the-ground style. “You know,” she said, casting a confused glance back at the precarious-looking ball-huts of the village, “I’m amazed that ponies are the dominant species in this world, considering that architecture.”
“I’m amazed they built that without pegasi,” Rainbow noted.
“That is odd,” Twilight agreed, “Anyway, what do you say we check out that hut down there? I should be able to teleport us that far.”
“Sure,” Rainbow said with a shrug, “why not?” One flash of magenta light later, the pair were standing on the path leading from a metal pier up to the wooden door of the hut.
Twilight took the lead as they walked up to it, and she pushed the door open gingerly, taking a cautious peek inside before gasping in surprise and throwing the door wide open as she charged inside. “It’s a school house!” she exclaimed happily.
4th entry
The newest patches seem to be working! The image in the linking panel is much clearer than it was only a few days ago, although it is still difficult to make out details. While I can never be completely certain, the islands seem to have settled down. Hopefully I will now have time to form plans for staging a rescue mission.
With all my work on stabilizing Sohndar, I have barely had time to think about how go about rescuing my wife and daughter. I have seen no sign of them in all this time. I fear that
No. I must not let myself think negatively, lest I undermine my own efforts to retrieve them.
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Yay more! hmmm... a useless guard eh? Sounds suspicious.
Hmm...well, if nothing else, your stories are the second-best fics I've ever seen that followed the Myst games, and certainly the best crossover. Well done sir. I like the bits of artistic license you're throwing in as well.
Also, the things that pony says when he sees Twilight teleport are a nice nod to all us Myst/Riven fans (we all know what I'm talking about, and we know why that villager panicked
)
reading this story is bringing back fond memories of the long hours i spent trying to figure this game out. another great chapter
Nicely done so far; I'm remembering how all these places looked to me the first time through.
I also like your solution to the submarine problem: Twilight's teleport spell. That submarine puzzle frustrated me to no end, mostly because I was asking the same question Rainbow Dash was: why in the hay didn't they use bridges?
543816
Plus I decided to give RD a little relief from the near-constant claustrophobia I've been putting her through. 
My issue for the story was more that the sub's a single-occupant vehicle, and yet it's the only way besides swimming to get to the school-house. And there may or may not be a Whark swimming in that water.
Riven's a more realistic "People could actually live here" world compared to Myst's Ages, but you still get a few head-scratchers like that sub...
I was wondering when the next chapter would be up. Nice work.
389365
Yeah, only there's a problem with that. The world is naturally unstable due to the writing itself being unstable. No matter what you do to fix it, it's either going to remain unstable, or it's going to link to a different world altogether. In other words, the world is doomed, nothing can save it, all who stay on it will die, unless an escape route is opened, which is not an option at this point.
Edit: Correction, the world is just naturally unstable. The Descriptive Book to it found the link to it based on the descriptions the book had and chose the closest match to them, which in this case would be Sohndar. Sadly, because the world is naturally unstable, that makes the link to it unstable as well because the original descriptions were tampered with, or the wording does not flow properly like a Descriptive Book should.
542110 Maybe it was more of an honorary position, and he's never actually had to deal with anything.
*Just so you know, Aitran and Sohndar and so good, that I've created an account just to comment on this story.*
At the moment, all I can say is that Twilight is a cheater. And the addition of the guards into the story was a great touch; it brings so much more interaction, and truly gives the feel that the Stranger/the 'Mane'ger needs to hurry up before the Age collapses, or Gehn/Aldro finds them. The fact that most people spend anywhere from a week to a couple years trying to get off the islands kind of loosing the sense of urgency. The constant Maintainer presence reinforces that.
Incidentally, although you have artistic license, I thought you may want to know that the creatures are named Wahrks, not Wharks. The latter is used in one of Gehn's journals, but was chalked up to a typo on Gehn's part by Cyan, I believe.
Keep up the good work, I CAN'T WAIT to read more!
Dear lord! I can't tell you how many times I went through that tunnel, and never saw that frog. I felt so stupid when I finally noticed it