PonyScape: Where the Heart is

by GuthixianBrony

Chapter 1 - First Impressions

PonyScape: Where the Heart is

Chapter 1 - First Impressions

A plume of dust rained down from the store cavern’s ceiling, settling over Stardust and the sack of candles she was carrying. The unicorn looked up with a mixture of indignation and anxiety; half daring it to try it again, half praying that the rest of the roof wasn’t about to follow. Satisfied that there would be no more immediate downpours she exited the cavern, cringing at the clamour her hooves made; she was deathly afraid that the noise would cause a cave-in. While a slow death by starvation wasn’t a pleasant notion, it didn’t seem all too bad when compared to the thought of being crushed or suffocating to death under a ton of fallen masonry.

Reaching the corridor, she let out sigh of relief before carrying on her way, a fresh candle burning merrily and bobbing by her head. If she’d the energy to spare, the rest of the candles would be floating after her too, packed away in a box or basket. Instead she’d opted to store them in the sack that was now slung over her back. Despite her intentions of making life easier the sack’s straps bit cruelly into her shoulders, it contents weighing her down; magic or muscle made no difference, she’d be dangerously fatigued either way. Adjusting her load with a resigned sigh, Stardust plodded on, her echoing hooves setting a monotonous beat to her march.

The unicorn chewed at her lower lip, as she mulled over the morning’s events. After her chat with Mother, Stardust’s daily errands had gone by without incident. Mother’s Legacy was still alive and well, content to slumber peacefully until they were called upon. With that done, the day was hers to do as she pleased, and had her friends still been around who knew what mischief or adventures they would concoct. A smile flickered on the mare’s lips, but it was short lived. There was no point in her dredging up those memories; they belonged to a different pony, a carefree filly whose chief worry in life had been attending her classes on time.

No, the past was better left alone.

With the rest of the day needing to be filled, she’d resolved to restock her candle supply before doing anything else. She’d reached the Cavern without issue and had hastily set about transferring the waxy behemoths from the large wooden crates into a sack that she had thought empty, but was found to be the home of a solitary dry and wrinkly apple, which she’d pocketed as a treat for later.

Then the tremor hit.

Despite only lasting a few seconds, the results were far from brief. Icicles had rained down from the cavern’s roof, shattering into deadly fragments wherever they landed. Shrieking in panic, Stardust had bolted for the safety of the arched entry; her candle stub lost in her mad dash to safety, plunging the room into darkness. Bracing herself against the doorframe, her heart pounding and hardly daring to breathe, the mare had waited in the pitch dark for the sound of splintering ice and groaning stone to stop. Even when it had subsided, it was another minute or so before she was calm enough to focus on conjuring a tiny light to see by. Quickly returning to where she had dropped her sack, she had slung it over her shoulders and quickly made her way out of the cavern.

While cave-ins were a natural hazard of underground complexes forgotten and left to rot, earth tremors were a new feature. Stardust had done her fair share of research in the last five years; she’d had a lot of spare time after all, and the Grand Library didn’t see much business these days. Her point was that she was in the wrong part of the world for earth tremors, so unless something had gone wrong with the world’s geography, what had happened earlier wasn’t a natural occurrence.

Her first thoughts during the initial panic was that the soldiers had returned to finish what they’d started five years ago; not content with the slaughter, they were now trying to collapse the Sanctum to make sure nopony ever knew they were ever here. Dread had gripped her at the thought of, not her death, but Mother’s Legacy being buried beneath the earth; the last five years of her life squandered in an ultimately fruitless endeavour. When there had been no further tremors though, she had quickly dismissed the notion; when the soldiers returned she would know, and no mistake.

Now that she was calmer, she found her thoughts drifting back to her conversation that morning; Mother had told her that she was expecting somepony. The Green Stallion… Was it even possible? The unicorn chided herself for being so foalish. Myths did not show up on one’s metaphorical doorstep to answer the prayers of frightened and lonely fillies; she’d learned that a long time ago. And yet, Mother had seemed so certain, and trusting in Her wisdom hadn’t led Stardust wrong in the last five years.

So lost in thought, Stardust hadn’t noticed that she’d missed the turning for the dorm wing. She was jerked awake from her reverie to find herself in front of the large double doors to the Grand Library. The unicorn cursed her daydreaming; she was pretty much on the far side of the Sanctum. This is what you got when you let your mind wander. Painfully aware of the weight on her back, Stardust didn’t relish the thought of backtracking without a decent rest first. Remembering the wizened apple in her pocket, she decided that the Library was as good a place for a break as any other; in all likelihood she’d have come here after storing the candles anyway. Gratefully shrugging off the sack, she left it propped against the wall before opening the doors and slipping in.

The Grand Library, her sanctum within the Sanctum. Here Stardust was able to forget herself, her situation, even the Duty for just a few hours a day. For a few hours, she could be anypony; an explorer of strange unknown lands, a great warrior and defender of the weak, she was limited only by her imagination and the books before her. It was here that she truly felt alive again, if only for a few hours a day. But it was worth it. The candle bobbed by her head as she wandered down the aisles of bookshelves that stretched as high as the ceiling would allow, their mysterious and foreboding peaks lost in the haze of unsettled dust. While she was an avid reader, Stardust very much doubted that she could ever read the entire Library in one lifetime, let alone the lifetime she had left. Besides, there were only about thirty or so that she really enjoyed, any others had simply been a passing fancy and returned to the shelves with either satisfaction or disappointment.

It was one of these treasured thirty that she was seeking now. Truth be told, she’d not thought about it for a while, and it was only her conversation with Mother that had brought it to mind. Now, where had she – Aha! Stardust smiled as she retrieved her prize from the shelf; it was a very battered and dog-eared tome, whose spine appeared to have been repaired several times to no avail. Holding it with her magic, Stardust quickly made her way back through the aisles to the reading area near the front of the Grand Library. In the day, there would have been and dozen or more ponies sitting at the desks, or reclining in armchairs provided, reading in the comforting warmth of the log fires that had blazed merrily in the large fireplaces. While it didn’t have the same air of invitation now, it was still a comfortable enough place to read.

Setting both the book and candle down gently on a desk, Stardust fished the apple out of her pocket and made herself comfortable. Taking a bite of the wrinkly fruit, she scrutinised the cover of the book; age had faded the colours, but the words and design, embossed in faded silver ink, were still discernable: “The Green Stallion and other Foalhood tales” and beneath them, what looked like a stylised dewdrop.

Flicking through to the story she was after, Stardust began to read. She was vaguely aware of a distant crashing somewhere in the Sanctum, but ignored it; cave-ins were part and parcel of her life after all. What did grab her attention was the moaning wail that echoed along the empty corridors. Stardust went rigid, an icy tingle of fear running up her spine. What was that? A tense few minutes passed before it sounded again; a bewildered and confused howling. Stardust leapt to her feet, sending her chair clattering over backwards. She cursed at the racket it made. Again, the noise sounded, a lost and lonely cry. Stardust forced herself to calm down.

Be rational, she told herself; clearly the roof had caved in somewhere and it was just the wind blowing through. She’d just have to find the source and block it off. The noise didn’t sound again. The wind must have changed direction, she reasoned, and went to right her chair. But then her ears pricked at the sound of something else, something far more insidious; fnip-fnap-fnip-fnap-fnip-fnap. Panic resurfaced and dread gripped her once more; this was no wind. Something was inside the Sanctum with her!

fnip-fnap-fnip-fnap-fnip-fnap

And it was coming this way!

It was dark, it was cramped, and it stank of something the mage couldn’t quite place. However, Aliks was out of the wind, and for that much he was grateful. The blizzard had descended without any warning; one moment he’d been trudging through the snow, intent on sating his curiosity, the next he was fighting his way blindly forward, one hand clamped on top of his head to keep his hat in place, the other fruitlessly stretched out in front. The wind had been so loud in his ears that he’d missed Cres’ warning about an “immediate-inclination-ahead” and he had half skidded, half tobogganed down the wall of his spell’s crater on his rump. While fully aware that the higher-powers didn’t do much in the way of miracle working, by this point he had been fully prepared to thank all of them for what he had found at the crater’s base; a trapdoor. Not bothering to question the chances, he had blown it open with a smaller fireball and quickly ducked inside.

However, now that he was safe, relatively speaking, his paranoia had begun to act up again. The fact that the storm had vanished with as much warning as its arrival once he was inside didn’t help, either. Had his mysterious foe conjured the storm to drive him into these tunnels? To make him so desperate for shelter that he wouldn’t question where it came from? Could they perform an encore if he dared to venture outside again? He shook his head in an attempt to dispel such thoughts; the answers were here, somewhere.

Wand outstretched, he conjured a small pilot flame to see by. The tunnel stretched out before him, like the throat of some great beast. Well, he didn’t have any other plans. Keeping his wand held high and his free hand on the tunnel wall, he set off into the welcoming dark. The wall was oddly smooth; as his fingers brushed over it they encountered no signs of mortar or other blocks, almost as if it were a natural formation, or one seamless slab expertly hollowed out into a tunnel. Either way, it spoke of amazing Skill in Construction.

“WARNING: Obstruction-ahead.” Cres’ voice announced.

The mage moved his free hand in front of him and, sure enough, encountered resistance. Again, he couldn’t help but notice it shared the same seamless quality as the rest of the tunnel; beautiful workmanship to be sure, but unnerving too. So, he was at a dead-end; now what? Would the walls suddenly start closing in, and crush him to paste? Or would the exit seal off and leave him to suffocate? Or would the perpetrator swing by for a quick gloat before dispatching him personally? Either way, he had clearly reached wherever his mysterious foe had intended him to be and was now completely at their mercy; so, where on ‘Scape were they? If they’d gone through all the trouble of engineering his arrival to this particular place, they could at least have the decency to show up when dramatically appropriate.

Sighing loudly, he crossed his arms and leaned on the wall. At least the cold wasn’t so bad down here; benefits of an underground lair, he supposed.

“WARNING: Fault-in-structural-integrity-detected!” piped the little robot.

Cresbot wasn’t wrong; Aliks could feel the wall shifting under his weight. Not such a dead-end after all, it seemed. Placing both his hands on the wall, he pushed with all his Strength until black spots danced in front of his eyes and his elbows and shoulders creaked from the strain.

If walls could look smug, this one definitely would. Pausing only to catch his breath and wait for the spots to vanish, Aliks backed up a few metres and levelled his wand at the wall; if that was the way it wanted to play, fine. A ball of pressurised air exploded from the end of the wand and struck the wall, punching a head-sized hole in the masonry, and blasting debris out the other side in a series of crashes and thumps.

Aliks tutted; credit where it was due, the masons had certainly built to last. Still, he reasoned as he sheathed his wand, now that he had a hole, maybe he could loosen some more stones by hand; he had a finite number of runes, after all.
After ineffectively trying to disperse the brick dust by fanning it with his hat, the mage grabbed hold of the exposed stones and pulled, expecting it to resist to the end. He was rather surprised when the whole wall swung inwards with very little effort; it was a door. Who in their right mind designs a door to look like part of a wall? Shelving it with the other unsolved mysteries of the day, Aliks walked through.

What was on the other side of the door-wall took his breath away; it was a grand hall of stone easily worthy of any Dwarf King, with great columns that reared up towards a vaulted ceiling that was lost to view in the dark gloom high, high above his head; the flickering light from his wand stood no chance. Questions buzzed around his mind, bullying all paranoid ramblings into silence through sheer enthusiasm; how long had it taken to build this place? Had been intended as an underground complex, or had it simply sunk as time marched on? If so, what had it been built from for it to last so long?

He let out a long whistle of appreciation, which echoed around the cavernous hall. A childish grin then spread across his face as he took a deep breath.

“ECHO!” he bellowed and listened appreciatively as his voice bounced off the stone walls until it dwindled to a mere whisper.

“Cresbot-assumes-Aliksandar-has-found-the-chamber’s-acoustics-satisfactory?”

The mage chuckled.

“Lighten up, Cres,” he grinned, “After all that we’ve been through today, I think we’ve earned a little levity!”

“Request: Acknowledged. Executing.”

A bright beam of light suddenly radiated from the little robot’s display-light, piercing the dark to a much greater effect than Aliks’ pilot flame.

“I didn’t mean that literally,” he mumbled, “Have you always been able to do that?” he queried, extinguishing and sheathing his wand.

“Request-for-information-acknowledged. Answer: Yes.”

“Then why, in Guthix’s name, didn’t you say so before?” he fumed, thinking back to all the times past when a light source would have been handy.

“Aliksandar-has-never-enquired-about-the-full-extent-of-Cresbot’s-functions.” The robot replied, sounding a little indignant.

“Fair point,” he conceded, “Let’s take a look around, shall we?”

With his Trusty Companion cutting a swathe through the gloom, Aliks ambled over to the nearest of the columns. Again, at first glance it seemed to be one massive chunk of stone carved into the appropriate shape; with closer inspection and Cres’ light-beam, he could see the neat, almost invisible, hairline cracks where one stone ended and another began. The stones had been fused together; whoever had built this place had some serious magic to call on.

Masonry aside, his attention was drawn to the fresco of carvings around the pillar’s base; his inner archaeologist knew that time could eat away at almost anything given enough… well, time, but something else had beaten time to the punch. The carvings were chipped, gouged, and even looked to have melted in some places to the point of being unrecognisable, though the subjects looked vaguely humanoid.

Just what had happened here?

As he turned from the pillar, his foot sent something skittering away into some far corner of the chamber.

“Wonder what that was?” he murmured.

“Request-for-information-acknowledged. Answer: Cresbot-believes-it-was-a-femur.”

“As in the bone?”

“Yes. Cresbot-advises-Aliksandar-look-to-the-right.”

He did so. The light-beam illuminated something Aliks could have done without seeing. It was a massive pile of bones, haphazardly stacked in the centre of the chamber; every one of them was charred as black as night. Now he could place the smell from earlier; death, decay, desecration, lots of “D” words.

Aliks was no stranger to bones; he’d excavated many, buried plenty, fought more than his fair share of the animated variety. Bones held no fear for him. But the blank-eyed stares and soot-stained smiles of the blackened skulls were decidedly unnerving.

He cocked an eyebrow at the pile; there was something… off about them, but he couldn’t tell what. He made his way over to the pile and gingerly picked up one of the skulls. He felt a shiver run up his spine as his fingers touched the charred object; something truly terrible had happened here. Not wanting to keep hold of it for longer than necessary, he quickly examined the grisly object. The proportions were unlike any race he’d encountered before, whatever the creature had been it would have been a sight to behold; two impressively large eye-sockets stared blankly at him, and in the middle of the forehead was an odd indention the likes of which he’d never seen before. The rest of the skull seemed more reasonably proportioned, if slightly larger and more elongated than that of the average human.

Not wanting to earn the ire of some vengeful ghost, Aliks reverently replaced the skull and backed up a respectable distance. He gazed around the chamber again. Just what was this place, a temple or a charnel pit? He looked back to the pile of bones.

“I wonder who they were?” he whispered sadly.

“No-data-available.” came the muted reply.

The mage turned away from the pile and walked further into the chamber; he could see several passageways leading off in various directions. Clearly this had been quite the busy place in its heyday, judging by the pathways that had been worn into the stonework. Still, there had to be at least one soul still living here; his mysterious foe, the one who had brought him here.

Cupping his hands, he issued a challenge.

“COO-EE! I’m right where you want me!”

He waited for the echoes to die away, and was surprised to hear a muffled cracking sound come from the easternmost passage.

“Did you hear that?” he asked his Trusty Companion.

“Request-for-information-acknowledged. Answer: Yes. Unfortunately-Cresbot-was-unable-to-determine-the-source.”

Aliks shrugged. It was better than nothing, he supposed. Keeping his wand at the ready, he started down the passage way, his sandaled feet echoing around the enclosed space.

fnip-fnap-fnip-fnap

“Is anyone there?” he called, not expecting a reply, “I’m not here to hurt you… unless of course you were planning to hurt me first, in which case I suppose I am here to hurt you. But be fair, it’s just pre-emptive self-defence and you did start all of this!”

“Cresbot-is-certain-that-any-sane-opponent-would-be-quivering-at-such-bravado-Aliksandar.”

The mage grinned sheepishly.

“It did get away from me a bit, didn’t it?”

The silence said it all. Resolving to keep his mouth shut, he turned his attention to the passageway. Again, it was built of the same magic-fused stone as before. He found himself put in mind of his brother’s tales of the fortress of Daemonheim, whose sprawling dungeons seemed almost limitless in the number of horrors they could produce. He couldn’t help but wonder what horrors could be waiting for him beyond the next bend.

A literal light at the end of the tunnel hadn’t been top of his list it was, nevertheless, a welcomed alternative. At the far end of the passageway, there was a flickering light coming from a pair of double doors that had been left ajar.

“Cres, can you dim that head-light of yours?” he hissed to his companion.

The bot made no reply, but the light-beam dimmed significantly, returning the passageway to its natural gloom. Pressing himself up against the wall, Aliks sidled towards the double doors. Reaching them, he carefully and ever so slowly pushed them open wider with his foot, and stole a glance inside; it looked to be a massive library, with some sort of reading or study area near the front, the light had been coming from a candle on one of the desks. Someone had been here recently and, in all likelihood, was nearby.

“Watch my back.” he whispered.

“Acknowledged.”

Keeping his wand ready, and eyes peeled for the slightest hint of treachery, Aliks stole into the library. He carefully picked his way towards to the candled desk; its chair was overturned, which explained the noise he’d followed. What was more interesting was the half-eaten apple left abandoned next to an open book.

“Looks like we interrupted lunch,” the mage mused, picking up the wrinkled fruit and examining the tooth marks; he may not have been an accomplished Hunter like Ayla, but he knew enough basic biology to recognise that whatever had been eating wasn’t human, “I guess we weren’t expected after all…”

“ALARM: Threat-detected!”

Cres’ panicked scream drew Aliks back to reality, and he spun around just in time to receive a heavy blow to the front of his head. He crumpled with a grunt, the apple dropping to the floor. Dazed, he was vaguely aware of a slender figure sprinting away, caught in the full glare of the little robot’s light-beam. He was dazzled further when Cres turned its attention to him.

“Aliksandar-are-you-hurt?”

“I’ll be fine,” he muttered, blinking repeatedly to try and shift the black shapes that swirled across his vision. He could hear his attacker’s footsteps retreating down the aisles of bookshelves; they could run fast for someone in heels, “Don’t let them get away!”

“Acknowledged!”

As the little robot tore away after the assailant, Aliks groggily got to his feet, leaning on the desk for support. They may not have brought him here, but at the very least they might know something about this place. Pausing to pocket the fallen apple and massage his bruising forehead, he gave chase.

Terror and adrenaline spurred Stardust to run faster than ever before; she was running as if all the monsters of Tartarus were at her hooves, which probably wasn’t too far from the truth in all honesty. What was that thing? Oh, Mother save her, what on Equus was that thing? It had looked like some tailless, furless earth-pony, whose face had been crushed and legs broken to bend the other way.

Was it chasing her?

Had she killed it?

She turned sharply and raced down Ca-Co. She’d had to leave her candle behind and couldn’t spare the energy for illumination; running in the dark was dangerous, she knew this, but she had also spent the last five years of her life walking these halls. Light or dark, this was her home and she knew every inch of it. Confident that she now had enough distance behind her, she leaned against the bookshelves and fought to catch her breath. Black stars danced in front of her eyes as she forced herself to calm down, replaying the events of the last few minutes over again in her head.

On hearing the thing’s approach, Stardust had manically run through her options; barricading the library was out of the question, the desks were far too heavy for her to move, even with magic, and the chair would offer no resistance. She could try losing it in the library, but without a head start, the thing could probably outstrip her easily. The only option, so far as she could see, was to catch it by surprise, if she killed it all the better, and then try to lose it in the stacks. So, grabbing the heaviest thing that she could manage, (the Grand Library Index), she had taken position behind the double doors, and waited as the strange fnip-fnapping beast drew ever closer.

When the creature had finally entered, a strange mixture of absurdity and pity had kept her from immediately attacking. Its anatomy was so, well… wrong; sure it had the right number of arms and legs, but its head had been so small that she’d had to repress the urge to laugh at how comical the thing looked, fully aware that she shouldn’t underestimate this beast. Reasoning that any creature with such tiny ears must be a deaf as a post, she’d stolen up behind it while it played with her apple. She could have got a better blow in if something on its back hadn’t started wailing in alarm.

Still, she’d managed to knock the thing down and got away into the maze of bookshelves.

Now all she needed to do was loop round and out again, and get to the Vault. Mother would protect her. Her ears pricked at the approach of a sound, a bizarre metallic tint-tant-tint-tant. Whatever it was, it was coming towards her. Terror giving her second wind, she raced down the aisles again, turning at random intervals in a desperate attempt to lose her relentless pursuer. The metallic tint-tant didn’t waver though. Stardust rounded another aisle and bolted left, only for her heart to sink.

It was a dead-end.

The mare scrabbled at the wall in a frenzied panic, pummelling it with her fists as frustration, panic and terror all jostled for control. The tint-tant, now joined by the more insidious fnip-fnap, drew ever closer. This was it. Her only available choices were either try and climb up the shelves and hope the thing wasn’t intelligent enough to try climbing after her, or throw herself on its mercy. Well, put it that way and there really was only one choice.

Standing her ground, Stardust waited for Fnip and Tant to find her. A series of metallic chirrups and harsh grunts came from the mouth of the aisle. Here they come. As soon as its flat face came into view, the mare intended to charge at the beast, fists flailing, ready to punch, kick and bite her way out. Suddenly, a harsh beam of light washed over her. Stunned by the intensity, and finally succumbing to the inevitable, her legs gave out and she slumped against the wall.

Right when she had needed it, her body had betrayed her.

Stardust curled into a ball and waited for death; she only prayed that these monsters made it quick.

“I’m so sorry, Mother,” she whispered, tears welling up in her eyes, “I tried my best.”

Fnip and Tant came nearer, and stopped just a few metres away. She could hear what she assumed was a conversation, a series of guttural and harsh noises from Fnip, intermingled with Tant’s metallic chirping. She wanted to yell at them, to demand that they hurry up and do whatever it was they were discussing (probably how best to cook her), but she didn’t have the energy, and very much doubted they would understand her anyway. Finally the pair seemed to reach an agreement. Stardust could hear Fnip’s whistling breathing as it lumbered nearer and her nostrils were assaulted by the odd aroma of burning air. She braced herself for the worst and was understandably surprised to hear Fnip back up again.

Risking a look, the mare looked up to see the tall brute and the small creature that had ridden on its back at the mouth of the aisle, watching her curiously. Fnip made a series of pointing gestures at her hooves. Looking down, Stardust saw what the creature had left; it was her apple.

Was this some sort of trick?

Tentatively, she reached out and took hold of the half eaten fruit. Fnip nodded its tiny head and gnashed its teeth together. Deciding that she was better staying in this creature’s good graces, Stardust did as she was bid, finishing the fruit off in a couple of bites. The brute seemed satisfied by this. She eyed it thoughtfully as she chewed; perhaps it was intelligent, after all it was dressed in some form of clothing, though it had certainly seen better days. It was then that she saw something so shocking that she almost choked on her mouthful of apple; she’d missed it before due to the dark and her preoccupation with running for her life, but now she saw it as plain as day.

This had to be a coincidence. There was no other rational explanation. How else could she explain the fact that this creature was wearing the stylised dewdrop of The Green Stallion on its belt?

Comments

[YNCM]

*Looks at title, then screams in joy over runescape*

[GuthixianBrony]

4397038
Well, I'm glad someone's enjoying themselves!

[Constellation]

Cool, I never even dreamed of Runscape MLP crossover, brilliant. Cant wait to see where this goes.

[GuthixianBrony]

4405175
Its been knocking 'round my head for over a year now. Started off as a rather flimsy self-insert and... well, grew from there with a little bit of TLC from me and my girlfriend. Seriously, its a little scary when I think about the number of iterations certain concepts have gone through.