Act 3 Chapter 65 : Below The Murder Hole
"Evil yawns wide, a maw gaping to devour us. Let us choke it with the blood of those who oppose us." - Princess Luna, undated.
“So, there is a pony on fire—”
“Mister Limerence, that’s not what I said, now was it?”
“You said there’s a fire...and that it may be a pony.”
“Now you’re listening. It looks like it might be one of my brothers or sisters in arms. No skin.”
Swallowing a sharp breath, I scooted to the edge of the open door and pulled a mirror from one of my pockets, holding it at an angle to pan across the interior of the pylon’s core. It didn’t take much to get the direction right; I had only to aim at the most powerful light source.
Hard Boiled Senior’s description of the fire was technically correct; what stood there before the spell focus at the center of the room was a burning skeleton, nearly too bright to look at. The enchantment on my glasses dimmed the brilliance enough that I wasn’t blinded, but it still made my eyeballs ache.
The spell focus itself was just a metallic black box about the size of a commercial refrigerator lying on its side with a glittering blue crystal embedded in the top. The burning unicorn—for now that I noticed, it was a unicorn—stood with both front legs resting on the surface, head bent low as though carrying a heavy weight on its shoulders. Flame boiled out of its horn, wreathing around the focus before curling around its hooves. There was no telling whether it was male or female; whatever immense heat radiated from within had warped its bone structure beyond recognition.
Still, the creature held together in a way that suggested life or, at least, animation; its shoulders heaved, its legs trembled, and its skull slowly bobbed up and down. The immense amount of magical energies tossed off by the skeleton made it impossible to make out anything else in the room, even with my heavily enhanced vision.
After another moment, I withdrew the mirror and stepped back from the door. I realized I was suddenly sweating and my coat felt sticky and cold in the light breeze blowing past my sides.
“Is this another trap?” Zeta whispered.
I furrowed my eyebrows at the question. “You are asking if a flaming, animated corpse is a trap?”
“I knew a pony during the war who ended up in a similar condition,” Hard Boiled Senior commented, thoughtfully. “I lost track of her after the peace treaty. She was in the Cloudsdale battle and decided it would be a good idea to use her talent to swallow a dragon’s entire flame. She drained him till I bet he needed a match to light a cigar.”
“Perchance do you mean the Warden of Tartarus?” I asked. “And what does she have to do with our current circumstance?”
The skeleton shook his head. “I don’t remember her name. Lots of bad mojo happened to lots of good ponies back then. Someone with no skin barely rates any higher than one with a major pyrotechnic infection, but the combination is nasty and currently in our way. I’m just saying, one can never be too careful. If this isn’t a trap, I’d hate to make it into one by pissing that creature off.”
“I as well.” I shot him a quizzical look. “Did you have classes related to the Shield Pylons in your time?”
“We had them, but the pylons mostly focused on the edges of the city. They weren’t everywhere,” Ancestor Belle replied. “I’m afraid I don’t understand either. You say this could be a trap, but—”
“It may not be a trap in the conventional sense, insofar as it was not planted specifically to ward off invaders,” I interjected, tapping the wall. “That may be a happy benefit to whosoever wanted to keep us out of the pylon, however. I do believe that poor soul is or...was...possibly the operator.”
“The operator?” Zeta asked, taking her own quick look around the corner before yanking her face away from the fierce heat. “I fear I was not raised in Equestria and missed a part of my education.”
Ancestor Belle’s ears pinned to the sides of her head as she put a hoof to one of the sigils on her chest and whispered something too soft to be heard. “I...I knew Lifter shouldn’t have applied for that job.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Excuse me, Ma’am? Do you know this pony?”
She shrugged and sat down against the cold slate wall. “Nothing that will help us, I don’t think, but...it explains where one of my...god-children...disappeared to when everything started. He was a smart bugger and wanted out of the Skids.”
“Considering we are not under attack, I think any detail might be important,” I said.
“I doubt it,” Ancestor Belle replied, her expression sour. “Low Lifter was a stallion with ‘ambitions’ and too many brains for his own good. Kinda like you, now I think about it. He married a sweet mare from across the tracks, then moved across the tracks to be with her and left the Aroyos behind. It was a little more complicated than that and involved many falsified documents with City Hall, but he wanted out of the ganger life. He didn’t care about the Ancestors’ ‘lofty goals’. He just wanted to love who he loved and...I did my best to make sure he could leave. Probably cost more resources than it was worth, but I owed his mother a favor. About six months ago he snuck through the sewer to drop off a message telling me he’d landed new work.”
My eyes widened as the implications set in. “He found work with the Shield Corporation?”
“Pylon operator,” the old mare answered. “I didn’t think much of it, but even having left, he was sure to keep us at least a little informed about his comings and goings. The job was dull, but it paid the bills. I expected him and his wife to show up on our doorstep when the Darkening came, but...it never happened. After a couple days, I sent one of my ponies to chase her down. The girl was hiding with her parents, but they were easy enough to find. She said he’d just gone to work that day and never come home. I figured he died in the chaos immediately after the sky went dark, but seeing this here—”
“That poor sod in there is one of the unicorns who keeps the Shield up?” Hard Boiled Senior asked.
“The operators stabilize the magics of the Shield, but...yes, I believe that was the operator,” I explained.
Zeta tugged at one of the straps around her thighs, shivering for a moment when the elastic snapped against her leg. “I am loath to ask this, but does that mean that every single pylon has a pony who was trapped inside it and turned into an undead pyre when the sun went dark?”
For several seconds, there was only the sound of the heated air escaping from the oven-hot chamber and my own breathing. I wiped my forehead on the back of one leg, leaving a wet streak in my fur. The oppressive atmosphere was making it difficult to think much beyond the last sentence and that last sentence’s implications were squirming through my bowels like an especially cold and irritable eel.
I wanted nothing more than to sprint back to the warm, comfortable shower where Miss Taxi wrapped her hooves around me and held me while I wept. That’d been ever so long ago. Funny that I might take comfort in that murderous mare’s embrace.
‘So many dead,’ I thought.
The face of my father, lying peacefully in his chair sans one hoof flickered through my mind, followed by a dozen other bodies I’d seen in just the last few days. How Hard Boiled managed to remain sane was beyond me.
It was Ancestor Belle who managed to break the spell and shake me out of the fog of fear that was settling over my mind.
“We are here to do a job,” she said, resting a hoof across Zeta’s shoulders before turning back to me. “When the time comes to account for what our enemies have done, we shall, but that is not today. Right now, there’s a spell core and a living fire. Does anyone have any suggestions on how we deal with that?”
Hard Boiled Senior clicked his teeth, contemplatively. “Do we know it’s hostile?”
Zeta frowned, before stepping sideways into the doorway, right out in the open.
I went to grab her tail in my teeth, but before I could she raised her voice and shouted, “Are you hostile?”
Her reply was a gout of flame that scorched the bulkhead where she’d been standing. I didn’t see her move, but in the time it took me to blink she was standing behind me, shielding her eyes with one foreleg. The temperature jumped a solid twenty degrees as the chilly sweat on my face suddenly steamed away.
“I do believe that is an answer,” I said, a little lamely.
“The undead like me at the Family’s home never seemed entirely gone, though their minds didn’t survive suspension in the walls of the pylon,” Hard Boiled Senior said, “They were trapped in their bones, insane and unable to move. That fellow in there is probably in a similar condition, except...on fire. Most of them only seemed to have the last thought before they died.”
“I do not know you well, Mister Bones, but...you seem more sane than the creature in the next room,” Zeta commented, “What were you thinking that allowed you to retain so much of your being all these years?”
Hard Boiled Senior let his lower jaw drop a half inch in his lipless smile. “I was thinking about protecting Equestria, my family, and the future of Detrot. I had to live so I could make sure all the children of this city have a good world to grow up in. I figure, once things are rebuilt and the future is settled, I might find myself a nice little plot of dirt beside my wife and crawl on in.”
“That is...very romantic,” Zeta said, softly.
“Romantic or not, if you’re going to do that, then we need to get this pony out of our way,” Ancestor Belle said, with a certain finality, “The necromancy that locks a pony in their bones is a zebra magic, right? Any help there, Mister Tome?”
“Limerence, please...and no, necromancy would be my brother’s specialty,” I replied, tapping my sword with one hoof. “He’s less communicative than he was and I haven’t had time to study his journal. The fire, however, is interesting.”
“Interesting?” Hard Boiled Senior asked, raising his chin. “I learned a longtime ago when you smart ponies understate things, you’re usually not telling me something that’ll scare me. I don’t know if I have some magical equivalent of an adrenal gland, but I haven’t felt truly frightened since I died, so I’d like you to out with it and tell us what’s going on in there.”
I swallowed a sudden tightness in my throat.
“I...eh...A moment, please,” I said, putting a hoof to my chest as I fought down a cold spike of discomfort.
“All the time you need, colt. Our friends are just out there dying without us.”
I stiffened, but Ancestor Belle beat me to it. Her horn glowed and Hard Boiled Senior’s jacket yanked itself over his face.
“Be polite, Egghead,” she growled, “The colt is trying and he doesn’t have a decade of wartime experience.” Turning back to me as the skeleton struggled to straighten his clothing, she put a leg on my shoulder. “Now, what’s going on?”
“Ehm...well...if that sad creature is burning their own magic, no arcane flame could have lasted a month, correct?”
“Even an augmented unicorn can only use what they can draw from the environment or carry with them,” Ancestor Belle replied. “So that would mean they’re getting power from the pylon.”
“In...in a manner of speaking,” I replied, nervously, then looked up at the ceiling. “Your ‘detect life’ magic; it said we were surrounded, yes?”
“Celestia’s tail...how had I almost managed to forget about that in the last fifteen minutes?” she whispered, jerking her head left and right as though searching for hidden enemies.
“Don’t worry. I believe we are as safe...as safe can be in this circumstance.”
“What is safe about being surrounded?” Hard Boiled Senior demanded, irritably tapping a hoof.
“It is safe in that I believe that which powers our obstacle is unlikely to attack us, directly. I could be wrong, but if I think if I were, we would already be dead. Are you aware of one of the peculiar statistical anomalies in Detrot regarding ‘disappearances’ over the last sixty years?”
Ancestor Belle chimed in, “I know cities on the edges of the wilder parts of Equestria tend to lose ponies at a higher rate than those in the interior, but that’s not unusual. Why?”
I nodded my chin toward the open doorway. “Then you’re aware, for a city the size of ours, that we have experienced an almost thirteen percent higher rate of unsolved disappearances than any other city in all of Equestria?”
“We don’t need the preparation, colt,” Bones griped, “If you’re going to make us piss ourselves, then I’d like to make it snappy.”
“You and your grandson value ‘context’ about equally,” I grumbled before gently laying my leg on the wall and calling upon my limited magic. The terrible, semi-permanent ache in my horn shifted down into my forehead, making my eyes throb in their sockets though I forced myself to ignore it. “Now, then, I think I can demonstrate. This should be a relatively simple abuse of my talent. If I am correct, we should hear a bit of quiet—”
The howl that tore through the hallway was enough to knock me right off my hooves, sending me sideways into Ancestor Belle who caught me with one leg, using the other to brace herself against the wall. My horn felt like it’d been given a stiff yank by a vengeful bulldozer as a deafening roar seemed to shake the very air. A thousand upraised voices threatened to deafen us; wailing, begging, shouting, crying, and shrieking.
Zeta huddled against Hard Boiled Senior, her hooves clapped over her ears while I fought with my horn, trying desperately to cancel the spell. The sheer weight of power thumping into my leylines would have sent me straight into burnout had I been calling on my own reserves. As it was, all I could do was shut my eyes and struggle with the brilliantly burning arcane shape that felt sure to cook the insides of my eyelids.
The collective wails of anguish reverberated from all directions at once until, at last and after a period that felt like hours, I found a loose string in the pattern and gave it a metaphorical yank.
For a moment, I thought I’d failed when all that happened was the banshee screams became a painful tone ringing in my eardrums. After a minute of simply clutching my head, waiting for the pain to die down, the torturous sound started to fade. With all due caution, I opened one eye, then the other, to find my companions glaring at me.
“Quiet, he says,” Hard Boiled Senior grunted. “You mind telling us what that was? And then never doing it again?”
Still unconsciously digging at one ear with a hooftip, I shook my head. “I...miscalculated.”
Zeta was still moaning softly, digging at her ears with her hooftips as though trying to get an insect out. “You are so lucky you used all of my rope, else I would be tying you in the most uncomfortable pose I can think of, right now. What did we just hear?”
Quickly peeking around the corner to make sure the burning pony was still where they’d been when last I checked, I breathed a sigh of relief at finding the creature unmoved.
“It...it was the mortar,” I replied, slumping against the wall.
“The...mortar?” Ancestor Belle asked, looking down at the floor. “I’m pretty sure mortar doesn’t scream, Mister Tome.”
Rising, I trotted a short distance away, finding myself suddenly not wanting to look at anypony. It was an odd sensation, really. The feeling was one of guilt, though not a personal variety; rather it was guilt on behalf of ponykind.
“This pylon is based heavily on the one in which Bones was discovered,” I said, when I could bring myself to speak. “Thousands of Detrotians have gone missing through the years and...in a city as broken as ours, not enough questions were asked. The homeless and indigent. The outsiders. The ostensible victims of war. They vanished slowly, but a trickle over enough decades can fill an ocean.”
It took a moment for them to get it, but there was an indrawing of breath when the truth settled in.
“The...the mortar...is ground up bodies?” Hard Boiled Senior whispered.
I dropped my chin onto my chest. “Phylacteries, to be more precise, but...yes.”
“Celestia preserve us,” Sweetie Belle muttered. “I mean, if they hit the outlying villages and took ponies during the war...they’d only need one every other night. If they could pick off ponies from all over Equestria then give it a few decades and you’d have thousands.”
“It’s like the walls of that hole my grandson found me in,” the skeleton said, raising the shaking hoof holding his lighter in front of his face. The magical flame wavered back and forth as he trembled. “Huh...would you l-look at that? You managed to scare me. I didn’t think I’d be rightly afraid again.”
Zeta hugged herself, rocking back against the wall. “Then that sound was all of those souls...the trapped souls of thousands— ”
“—screaming,” I finished, forcing my hooves to be still.
My legs wanted to take me charging right out of that building, but considering the entire city was peppered with pylons, there was no such thing as ‘far enough away’.
“If we get these bastards alive, I don’t think Celestia will want to know what I end up doing to them when I get a few minutes alone,” Hard Boiled Senior growled.
“Nor I,” Ancestor Belle added. “So the trapped souls are powering the creature in the other room?”
“They are powering it or connected to it in some way,” I replied. “It is simply fulfilling its final directive as a Shield operator: stabilize and protect your pylon.”
Zeta raised a hoof and gave it a little wave. “You’ve not had a job before, have you, Mister Limerence?”
I hesitated for a moment, then slowly shook my head. “Er...My job was to be heir to my father’s will and to preserve equinekind.”
“Right. You’ve never had a job.”
I felt my cheeks heat up as a strange and out of place shame welled up in me. I didn’t much care for being reminded how deeply my father’s wealth and influence insulated me from certain normal aspects of equine life. “What does that have to do with anything, if you please?”
“This pony was working, right?” she asked.
“Ahem...yes?”
The zebress waved a foreleg at the open portal and the fiery skeleton beyond. “This is a job. A boring job. You make it sound as though this ‘final directive’ was something noble or important to them.”
I leaned around the corner for another instant to make sure the creature hadn’t moved, getting a face full of hot air for my trouble, before pulling my head back. “Would it not be? They were keeping the city safe.”
Ancestor Belle rubbed a hoof down her own jawline. “Wait a second...I...I think I see what she’s getting at. This is just basic spellcasting for eight solid hours a day. The spell never changes, right?”
“The spell they cast is a simple energy circuit,” I replied, puzzled at where they might be going with this. “So long as the circuit remains functional, I suppose it wouldn’t require much maintenance. A bit of occasional concentration, perhaps, but nothing complex or difficult. One might conceivably read a book at the same time. I did make certain to memorize as much of the protocol for the operation of a pylon as I could before this mission.”
Zeta brushed her mohawk out of her eyes with one hoof as she glanced over at Ancestor Belle. “Do...do you think that might work?”
Hard Boiled Senior shook his skull, teeth clicking against each other “I’ll buy the first round if it does.”
“No-one would leave a blind spot in a spell like that,” the ancient Aroyo said.
“Why not?” Zeta asked, “To stand where we stand would require a key to the pylon and a familiarity with strange magical traps that borders on the obsessive. Our resident knowledgeable soul is giving all three of us a look like he wants to wring our throats for being obscure. I see no reason the sort of brilliant mind that would come up with this mechanism might not leave a particularly dumb solution unexplored.”
Stomping my front hoof—maybe a little petulantly—I jerked my head back and forth at my companions. “What is this notion that has caught in all of your heads?”
Hard Boiled Senior’s glowing eyes flickered in a circle. I realized he’d just rolled them at me. “When the city recovers, I recommend you go get a job in food service for a couple weeks. It’ll teach you some things about ponies that are as valuable as most of what I learned in the military. Meanwhile,” He turned to Ancestor Belle, “—do you still have that spell to deflect dragonfire?”
“Nopony ever survived a straight blast,” she replied, tossing her lilac mane from one shoulder to the other.
“But you remember how to cast it?”
“It’s been thirty years since I used that party trick, but I remember it well enough.”
“Then you’ll have to cast it on him if this trick—”
“What trick?!” I barked, as exasperation finally got the better of me.
Zeta leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. Her breath on my ear sent a shiver from my nose to my tailtip and it was such a ridiculous action to take, given the circumstances, that all four of my legs locked up entirely. I stiffened in place, staring straight ahead as I tried to make sense of it. For an instant, I wondered if she’d used one of Miss Sweet Shine’s pressure point techniques to paralyze me.
“Oh, Limerence Tome...you really must visit me in the Vivarium one day. I will work this stick loose from your backside,” she purred, making me stand a bit taller as heat flooded my face, which I was certain had nothing to do with the pony in the next room. “Now, the ‘trick’. We are here to relieve this pony. You now work for the Shield Corporation. Congratulations, operator.”.
“I...wait...what?” I asked, dumbly.
“Go ahead and hit him with the fire-break spell, Sweetie,” Hard Boiled Senior said.
The Aroyo ancestor’s horn sparked and an icy chill zipped down my back, spreading out through my hooves and running right down to the tip of my tail. Frost gathered in my fetlocks and my eyes felt suddenly extremely dry. I coughed and a little puff of snowflakes shot out of my throat.
I covered my muzzle with both forelegs and gave them an incredulous look. “Y-your idea is that I pretend to be the next shift?” I asked, my teeth chattering, “I am not any kind of an actor! Why can Bones not do this?”
Hard Boiled Senior jabbed his hoof at his forehead. “I’m not a unicorn, smart guy.”
“B-but w-what about Miss Belle!?”
“I’m casting the spell that will keep you from incinerating. Unless you wish to try learning a forty year old experimental magic that took me a week to even begin memorizing in the next five minutes.”
I turned to Zeta and she shrugged, snapping one of her garter belts against her thigh with the tip of a hoof.
My joints ached at the cold and the sweat on my shoulders had frozen solid. I could understand why this spell never made it to prominence; I felt like I’d gone out into a particularly vicious blizzard without my hat, coat, and scarf. Even my eyes felt like they were quickly frosting over.
“T-this is mad,” I stammered, still spitting snow which turned to steam the second it hit the air, “N-nopony in their right m-mind would leave s-such a gaping hole in th-their defenses.”
“These aren’t defenses,” Hard Boiled Senior replied, tapping my shoulder. “Play it confident and if that thing throws another fireball at you, try to think cold thoughts.”
“T-that will not be a problem!”
Stepping sideways in the door, I racked my brain, trying to remember everything I knew about Shield protocol. Most of it was simple enough, but there were a few odd rituals taken from old guard systems; protocols that had to be respected if a pony were to turn over the watch.
‘How did the challenge phrase go, again?’ I thought.
My companions were staring at me, waiting.
‘Ah, well. Live in the moment. Let’s hope my memory wasn’t damaged by that dose of Beam a few weeks ago.’
Poking my head around the corner, I shouted, “Operator of the Shield! We stand or fall together! May I approach?”
The broiling heat rushing by my ears did little to warm my frozen body, but it did mean I could look at the creature directly. Its bones were white hot, somehow holding together though they should have been reduced to ashes. This wasn’t to say they were in good shape; holes and gaps seemed to have opened everywhere and several lay around its hooves like scattered sticks.
For a moment, I wondered if it’d heard me, then the skull began to slowly rotate in my direction. Its empty eyesockets held twin orbs of shining red light.
I wondered if I would feel my flesh boil off or if the operator’s fireball’s disintegrative effects would be quick enough to beat the nerve impulses to my brain. Miss Belle’s spell might slow it down slightly, though considering the amount of energy radiating from the focus, it seemed unlikely I’d have enough dermis left to worry about screaming or crying. More likely I’d fall to pieces as a sort of burnt sack of skinless, half-fried organs.
The creature’s horn pulsed and I braced myself for death.
A feminine voice echoed in my mind, rattling around the inside of my head like leaves in a stiff wind.
“Staaand....together. Never...fall. Aaaproach...Operator...of...the Shield...”
I gulped and stepped fully into the doorway. Despite the so-called ‘firebreak’ spell, I could feel the excess warmth start to penetrate my clothing. The edges of my shirt browned slightly as my glasses darkened to block out a bit of the light.
I took a step into the room and the temperature jumped what felt like twenty degrees, though it must have been significantly more than that; my hooves clicked and crackled in an unsettling fashion as different parts of them changed temperature.
Carefully, I approached the focus and its prisoner, my breath making clouds of fog that vanished into steam once they were beyond the end of my muzzle.
The air entering my lungs was so hot it hurt, but retreating was no longer an option.
“Erm...n-nice day, was it?” I asked, politely.
The skeleton stood there for another few seconds and just when I thought she might go ahead and strike me down, the reply came.
“Looong...day...”
I pulled my tail under myself as I felt the tip start to sizzle. Miss Belle’s spell must be wearing a little thin.
“Well, I’m here. Time to go home.”
Another long wait, before the skeletal mare replied in that same raspy whisper inside my head, “Nooot...going...hooome. Going...too...the...baaar. See...you...Toooomorrow...”
Stepping back from the focus, she yanked her horn away from the magical circuit.
I didn’t have time to consider what was about to happen until my hooves had already left the ground.
----
It was my fault, really.
A pony embedded in a high powered magical circuit for a month will have leylines absolutely chock full of radiant energies. Breaking such a loaded circuit, stable or not, must necessarily come with a certain amount of backlash.
Hard Boiled had certainly been through worse, with less preparation, but then he is an earth pony whose heart is a magical artifact controlling his entire metabolic system with much greater efficiency and control than any normal being could hope to have.
That being understood, I still felt like a fool for my oversight in the brief instant before my head hit the pylon wall.
After that I felt nothing for a bit.
----
“Wake up! Come on! I’ve had worse concussions after a night drinking with Apple Bloom. The city needs you!”
My teeth rattled against my tongue as I was jiggled in a most unkindly fashion. I tried to bat at the stars in front of my eyes, but my legs felt weak. The ringing in my ears was back and I wanted nothing more than to have another little nap.
“I don’t think he’s going to be much use to us like this,” another voice said from somewhere to my left.
“Ablahblah?” I asked, head lolling back on my shoulders.
“Here. Healing talisman. We only have two, so I hope nopony gets shot,” a third voice added.
“What do I do with it? I’ve never treated a head injury. I usually use alchemicals.”
“Find the knot on his skull. That’ll be closest to where his brain hit when he was thrown. Press the pink gemstone with the butterfly on it. If the ponies who made it did their jobs, that should reduce the swelling enough for him to be sensible. Oh, and step back.”
Something ice cold was pressed to the back of my head. A half second later, it heated until I felt like a burning ember was being jammed into my flesh. I tried to cry out, but my vocal cords didn’t feel like they were connected up properly.
All at once, my vision cleared and the ringing in my ears fell into the background.
I found myself lying on my side several meters from the focus. The ground felt cool under me, which was strange considering the air was still too hot for me to breathe it. Ancestor Belle and Zeta stood above me with worried expressions while Hard Boiled Senior, ever his implacable self, stood behind them. The pylon operator was nowhere to be found and the focus crystal seemed to be in standby mode, glowing a faint blue.
With a jolt, my stomach clenched. I flopped onto my belly, which only made it worse. Clutching my middle, I looked up at my companions.
“What—” I began, only to find the words cut off by a virtual geyser of vomit.
Most nausea comes with a warning of some kind. A tickle, a tremor, or a nervous jump. The nausea of having a concussion rapidly healed was nothing like that. I went from nothing to explosively tossing my not-at-all-metaphorical cookies between one breath and the next.
It went on and on for what felt like hours. I lay there kicking my hooves like a foal who hasn’t figured out how to walk, dry heaving bile in a puddle of my own sick. At last I simply lay, panting, my stomach tender and my heart pounding.
Zeta gave me a pitying look and reached out to lightly touch my uninjured ear, giving it a light stroke. It was the only part of me that wasn’t covered in something unpleasant.
“A...a warning...might have been nice,” I gasped through a throat raw and swollen.
Ancestor Belle’s horn flared and I had the disconcerting sensation of feathers brushing through every inch of my fur. The disgusting liquids and effluvia seeped away, drawing up into a tiny ball of glowing vileness in mid-air. With a soft fizzle, the ball burst into flame before blowing away in a cloud of odiferous steam and ash.
Feeling my face fur, I realized she’d somehow managed to clean me almost as well as a shower might have. I gave her a grateful nod, pulling myself into a sitting position. My throat ached, but it was nothing to the feeling of abject emptiness in my belly.
“I...I am going to eat...an entire banquet by myself when this is over,” I muttered, reaching up to peel the dead healing talisman off the back of my head.
“You’d think they’d have improved those things thirty years on, wouldn’t you?” Hard Boiled Senior murmured, “You don’t want to know what happens when you’ve got to slap one on an intestine full of bird shot.”
“Thank you, but I don’t need to hear that particular horror story. Where is the operator?”
Zeta shook her head and pointed to the floor near the focus. I followed her hoof to a blackened spot with a couple of scattered bones and a streak of grey ash. “Fallen. We didn’t see what happened, but you were alone after the blast.”
“I barely kept the shield around you,” Ancestor Belle added, rubbing at the base of her horn with one hoof. It still glowed, slightly, providing just enough light to see by. “There was enough energy flying around in here to parboil a dragon egg.”
“Then we must move quickly,” I said, holding out a hoof. Zeta tucked herself under my leg, lifting me to my legs. I stood there for a moment, woozily trying to clear the remaining cobwebs from my brain. Reaching back, I pulled my swordstaff off my back and leaned heavily on it. “They will be coming very soon.”
“Blackcoats and their monsters?” Zeta asked, rubbing at a particular stripe on her chest that looked a little thinner than the others; a nervous habit, perhaps.
“Yes. Get me to the focus.”
Ancestor Belle stepped in against my other side. “Can you cast like this?”
“I will be fine. Defend the door. There’s one entrance and one exit. If we aren’t able to leave that way, then we aren’t able to leave.”
“I’ve got the street,” Hard Boiled Senior replied, trotting off toward the entrance. “Belle, you and Miss Zeta hold the interior. If I’m getting overwhelmed, this is my fall back.”
“You are going against the monsters with only your hooves?” Zeta asked.
Flicking a foreleg, Hard Boiled produced what looked like a short, golden-inlaid pen knife from one sleeve and twirled it across his hooftip. It was about the length of a butter knife, but something about the blade’s tip seemed altogether more dangerous, as though it were somehow cutting the air ahead of its passage.
“Apple Bloom had a friend of mine tucked away for safekeeping.”
“Ah! Nice. You be safe, okay, Egghead?” Ancestor Belle said, reaching out and gathering the skeleton into a quick hug.
“I’ve never been safe, Sweet Embrace. Let’s just get my grandson a window into Uptown.”
Flipping the knife into his teeth, the skeleton snapped his boney tail and galloped out into the hall, vanishing around the corner with a rattling cackle that still echoed in my head after he was gone.
Ancestor Bloom let out a weary sigh and stumped over to the door to watch him go.
“Was...was he serious about fighting them with that letter opener?” Zeta asked, curiously.
The Aroyo elder chuckled, as much to herself as to the zebra. “The knife? We had that in our private safe when Hard Boiled vanished a few decades ago. He calls it ‘Blondie’, after his wife. At one point, Luna tried to make a Crusader melee weapon and that little beast was the result. The blade is vorpalized steel and adamantine. I once saw Egghead use it to peel a dragon like a potato.”
“I hope it’s enough,” I said, limping toward the focus on three hooves. “I will need to concentrate. Distractions lead to explosions, as my father once said.”
My shoulder hurt and there was a bit of residual pain in my skull along with the persistent phantasmal discomfort my missing ear seemed to be constantly radiating; nothing individually serious, but collectively asking for an explosion.
Forcing aside my pain, I studied the crystal focus.
The altar only came up to my chest and was of some black stone with a metallic sheen that revealed itself at certain angles. It was little more than a box with a giant, carefully cut gemstone buried in the top. The gem resembled nothing so much as an oddly shaped cactus, covered in tiny spines made of green crystal that very nearly vibrated with energy, throwing off soft sparks of light from time to time.
“Well. This shan’t be pleasant,” I said, unsheathing my staff’s serrated blade and setting the scabbard to one side. I stared at my brother’s face in the surface. He was giving me an accusatory glare. “Zefu? Your assistance, please.”
“You’re...talking to your...brother?” Ancestor Belle inquired.
I looked up, then nodded. “There is too much magic left in the system for me to interface without bursting into flames and becoming trapped like the poor mare we just ‘relieved’. My brother...well, I need his abilities. Most specifically, I need his knowledge of death magic. He cast the spell that trapped ponies in their bodies and he learned it from some former master who learned it, most likely, from the original prisoner of these pylons.”
Glancing back at the sword, I frowned. Zefu’s expression was flat and altogether stubbornly uncooperative.
“Oh do stop,” I snapped, tapping the blade with a toe. “If you’d given me other options, I’d have taken them. You’re the one who chose necromancy and, just now, I need a necromancer.”
Zefu jerked his head to one side twice, then raised an eyebrow at me.
I snorted derisively. “You want out?”
My brother’s visage within the blade gave a slight nod.
“You have no body to return to. If you don’t help me, you’ll be buried with me. You want madness and boredom, imagine a few billion years on this planet’s dead husk under a heap of rubble. Is that a potentiality that pleases you?”
My brother’s ethereal lip twisted into a sneer for a moment, then he seemed to slide back a few inches from the sword. His hooves appeared, two disconnected limbs dangling in the air. He mimed opening a book, then pointed at me, then himself.
I stared at him for a minute, trying to work out his meaning before it slid into place. “Ah! Your journal?”
He nodded, again, then gestured as though holding a writing utensil before tapping his toes together very deliberately six times. Reaching back, I pulled my brother’s leatherbound journal from the pouch across my back and opened it, flipping to the sixth page. The header across the top read:
‘In the event of my semi-permanent death or discorporation, a temporary body may be procured in the following manners’.
Below was a fairly extensive list of reagents and arcane matrixes for various rituals. In one corner there was a note with an arrow pointing to a particular passage.
I read the note aloud. “Should a necromancer become trapped within a phylactery, any gifted unicorn may call upon their temporary manifest presence to make deals, provide information, and commune. The summoner controls the manifestation, which requires only the below spell form.”
“You’re...not really considering letting him run loose, are you?” Ancestor Belle asked. “I don’t know the whole story, but anypony who’d get themselves locked in a sword is probably bad news.”
I waved a hoof at the pylon around us. “Where, pray tell, will he run loose to? Here. If you wouldn’t mind weaving this for me.”
Lifting the journal out of my hooves, she examined the looping shapes, angles, and scripts along the bottom of the page. “I can cast this, but I can’t guarantee what it’ll do just by looking at it.”
“If my brother thought he could actually escape, he’d pick a time when death was not literally at the door.” I picked up my unsheathed sword and held it out to her. “Now, if you please.”
“I don’t entirely understand what is going on, but I am nervous. As you have been elected the de facto leader of this little squad, I would appreciate some orders,” Zeta said.
“Then stand watch and keep me from getting killed. Once I begin working with the focus, I doubt I will be able to stop,” I answered, stepping back as Ancestor Belle hefted my blade in one foreleg and levitated the journal with the other. Lifting her chin, she fell into a downright archaic, but very practiced casting stance.
A thin light grew at the very tip of the ancient unicorn’s horn, then ran its way down to her eyes which began to shimmer. The elderly unicorn gasped as a dozen thin beams of energy shot out and stopped in midair, before slowly starting to trace something, using sharp lines of magic to sketch a gleaming form. At the same time, my staff rose up to hang within the spell as the shape gradually resolved into the loose outline of a familiar zony.
For a long moment, there was only his general outline, but as the spell continued the details started to fill themselves in. After about thirty seconds, a dazzling hologram of my dead brother stood before me, a subtle smirk on his handsome face. The image looked down at itself, then took a deep breath.
“Brother,” he said, though the word came from Ancestor Belle’s mouth. Her lips moved, but there was no mistaking my sibling’s voice. The Aroyo looked vaguely disturbed to find her muzzle used in such a fashion, but quickly let it pass.
“Zefu,” I replied, “I need your assistance with the magics of this pylon. We need to bleed the mechanism—”
“You need to bleed the mechanism, Limerence,” Zefu interrupted, stretching his striped flanks one at a time. “That being the case, we must first discuss what I need.”
“You are helping me,” I said, sharply, “That is already established. If you refuse, you can go back in the sword and I will leave it here for the wrecking crews to bury when this is done.”
Zefu’s glowing smile never faltered. “Agreed. However, you are an honorable pony and I can draw this out a while longer. Every moment you waste is more pointless deaths in the streets, if you’ll remember. Or, we can have a brief discussion of terms.”
I drew in a breath that still tasted of ashes. “Alright. Terms for your assistance. I am not releasing you.”
“Then a tethered host body will be sufficient. I care not which of the races you choose, but I do not wish to spend my remaining days as your butterknife.”
I pulled his journal from where it levitated beside Ancestor Belle and flicked to the section on necromantic resurrections, quickly finding the correct annotation.
“A tethered host is bound to the will of the creator and may store a soul until the natural death of the host in any form the caster chooses,” I read, then glanced at the below spell. Looking up, I held out a hoof. “Done.”
Zefu’s lips bent downward slightly. “You...do not wish to set boundaries on this? Specifics?”
“I haven’t the time,” I replied, jiggling my hoof at him, “I will find you a host body and you will be bound to my will. The dead will be all but innumerable and I’m certain I can find a well preserved corpse for you to inhabit. If we fail, you have nothing in the most profound sense of the word. If we succeed, you may get a chance at redemption. I doubt you want to find out what the zebra afterlife has in store for a patricide, thus, I see nothing in those terms that needs deeper negotiation. Are we agreed?”
“If I did not know you as well as I do, I would be worried about your honesty, Limerence,” Zefu murmured. Cautiously, my brother’s projection put out a hoof and lightly touched mine. There was no actual physical contact made, but the gesture was the important thing. “Honest ponies should not be as effective as you somehow manage to be. I don’t doubt you still have some clever trick up your sleeve...but if it means I am not a sword, nor facing a near eternity with the shamed dead ripping the flesh from my bones until my penance is paid, I accept.”
“It would be sad to let the shamed dead have so handsome a specimen,” Zeta commented, then clapped a hoof over her mouth as she realized what her mouth had just done.
Zefu stretched his neck and shook his tail in what I’m sure was a fashion that he thought would have reduced most mares to titters and giggles. Irritatingly, I’d seen him be successful on too many occasions to dismiss the effect entirely.
“I am glad that even in death I can still find an appreciative audience,” he said, tossing her a wink.
Zeta tucked her tail in between her back legs and took a quick step back. “I think I should appreciate from over here.”
“Wise,” I commented. “He is not picky about his sexual conquests having a pulse.”
My brother blew a raspberry out of one corner of his mouth as the zebress looked at me with a shocked expression before backing up several more steps.
“Simply because you refuse to appreciate a mare in any of her conditions is no fault of mine, Limerence,” Zefu said, running his vaporous tongue over his upper lip.
I rubbed at my aching forehead with one hoof, trying to banish the persistent pain before I did anything rash. Seeing Zefu’s face again was reminding me, somewhat, of why I’d killed him. By the same token, a familial connection remained and it was oddly comforting, despite the cognitive dissonance.
“Before this conversation devolves any further, can we please begin?” I asked.
“Ah, well. Father would be proud of your mindfulness of the moment over what is, no doubt, an urge to strangle me. The withdrawal symptoms of your latest magical indiscretions are bad enough.”
“Father is dead. You are dead. Unless you wish to endure one of his lectures for however long he sees fit—which may very well be eternity—I recommend you stop baiting me. We must bleed this system. Is there a grounding spell?”
The projection shook his head and trotted over to the crystal focus, seeming to paddle through the air on silent hooves. “These spellcores are as much a mystery to me as they are to you, though I do know the spell that binds soul to bone. However, I don’t imagine you want to lose your skin and become a slow-burning psychic battery for however many months or years you happen to survive. I was paid in knowledge, but also paid not to ask certain questions. That being said, I do know that Catterwaller’s Theory of Sentient Thaumic Cohesion applies.”
Ancestor Belle momentarily retook control of her muzzle, though her eyes never stopped glowing as she said, “I don’t think I like where this is going.”
“Listen.” Zeta interjected, cocking an ear toward the door. There was a soft pop of something that might have been gunfire, but it sounded a long way off.
I pulled a knife from my bandolier and twirled it around my hoof, using the motion to soothe my mind as best I could.
‘Catterwauler’s theory,’ I thought, ‘To be cast, magic must be continuously channeled, whether actively or passively, else it is only chaotic and unformed energies. To that end, an intelligence must assert the initial conditions of a spell. Therefore, all spellcasting begins with sentience.’
“The operator is the ground?” I asked, worriedly.
“Very good, Limerence!” Zefu chuckled, clapping his hooves together. They made no sound, but he didn’t notice. “Nopony who stood over that focus was meant to absorb more than a tiny fraction of its energies. The circuit flowed outward into the city, protecting it. Now, it flows inward...a tiny portion maintaining the shield around Uptown and the rest—”
“—waiting,” I finished, feeling a heavy weight settling on my shoulders, “Waiting for the wish. The operators are conduits...being kept alive, trapped inside their bones so they can all cast the wish together. Celestia above.”
“T-that’s why we never managed to make Project Sixty-Six work!” Belle exclaimed, “We assumed one caster with only access to their inner reserves or whatever we could drag in from contributing ponies! The largest collective casting in Equestria’s history was a barely controlled disaster, but...if you didn’t need to keep the spellform in minds and could simply scribe it into a building—”
“—or many buildings,” I added, resting a hoof on the altar and marveling at the sheer grandiosity, “Parallel processing with a central controller, using the Armor of Nightmare Moon to make it all work together. You could have a borderline limitless supply of reality twisting magic at your disposal, particularly if you somehow tapped into the psychic fields of thousands of ponies at once who needn’t be part of the casting. Of course, for maximum efficiency those thousands would need to be tuned...tuned to a particular emotional frequency.”
Zeta clutched a hoof to her throat as she whispered, “Fear. One must make all of those ponies feel the same thing for a long period of time. They must all be afraid. My stripes, they stole the sun to make the world afraid...”
“Do you see why I felt the need to join this particular endeavor, now?” Zefu asked, settling on his ephemeral haunches. “It is beyond us.”
“But to throw yourself at the hooves of such monsters like a pet dog...I cannot fathom—” Zeta hissed.
“You cannot fathom, mare?” my brother snapped, sneering at the zebress. “I have been a cripple and outcast since I was a child. You do not get to judge me.”
Zeta rose up onto the tips of her hooves and stomped toward Zefu’s projection.
“What do you know about cripples, fool?” she barked, raising a hoof to his face. I hadn’t noticed it before, but she wore a zebra medical bracelet around one forelock that bore a dangling jeweled trinket in the shape of a lily. “Do you know what this is?!”
My brother actually looked a bit taken aback. “T-that is a death—”
“Yes! A death charm, from the Zemba Shamans signifying a terminal case of the twisting sickness! I have worn it since I was a child! We all bear burdens! We all find ourselves outcast some days! It is part of being alive! We do not all turn to dark magics when our courage runs out!”
Swallowing, Zefu quickly regained his composure. “I would never claim to be the bravest of my kin! Brave people must have others to prop them up! I had no one! I had only myself! I made do with what was available!”
“Do not play victim! You made your choices! We all have someone—”
I braced my hooves on the altar, trying to tune them out. The gunfire was getting closer and the shots more distinct; knowing Hard Boiled Senior was out there giving our foes a fight didn’t make it any easier to think. The thousands of other souls doing the same thing were relying on me, too.
Jerking my head up, I reared up as a realization hit me hard enough to leave a dent.
“Souls,” I muttered.
Zefu and Zeta were inches from one another, teeth bared, looking like they both wished they could strike each other. Strange as it may sound, my brother seemed to be getting the worst of it, his ears pinned back as he leaned slightly away from the zebress.
Taking the respite my interruption offered, Zefu quirked a perfectly styled eyebrow at me. “You have an idea, Limerence? You are making your ‘My brain is finally working’ face.”
I started to speak, then hesitated a moment. “I have...I have what may be—as Hard Boiled would put it—a long shot. Brother, do you know a spell to commune with the dead?”
Backing away from Zeta, he trotted in a careful circle around the fuming zebress and returned to my side, trying to put his affable smile back in place. It didn’t seem to want to stick. “I would not be much of a necromancer if I didn’t, now would I?”
“Right. Can you speak to those trapped in the walls of this place?”
Zefu looked up at the ceiling. “The spell is in my journal. Page eighteen. That being said, I doubt you’ll like what they have to say.”
“The screaming?” Ancestor Belle asked, momentarily reclaiming her mouth again. “We heard that.”
“That was most disturbing, but also presents a problem,” I said, picking up Zefu’s journal and flicking through the yellowed pages. “I need to be able to talk to them.”
“That is a very ‘two way street’,” my brother replied. “They hear you, you hear them.”
Finding the correct page, I quickly scanned it, peering at the door as an especially close ricochet sounded in the street, followed by a shout of fear from somewhere too close for comfort. I glanced at Zeta, who silently nodded before galloping at absurd speed out of the room to go help Hard Boiled Senior. Turning back to the journal, I ran a toe down it.
“The section you’re looking for is called ‘Para-Exposition Of Necro-Psyche’,” Zefu directed.
“Ah. I see. Speak to the minds of those who have expired and not passed from this world. This...oh.” I narrowed my eyes at the page. “This...opens my mind to them?”
“As I said. Two way street,” he explained, “These ponies have been trapped in their bones and ground to dust, then slapped together with dozens of other minds for what may well be years now. Shall I book you a straitjacket ahead of time?”
“I have had one on layaway for some weeks now,” I replied, then trotted to the focus, laying the journal out beside the crystal. “These ponies deserve to be heard. Then, we will see if they like what I have to offer.”
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(gulps)
The Habby Arse worked?
I wonder just what code, spell density was used when building which buildings unless its been worked on since the begining, so first came the street layout and the sewers, then the services, then buildings replaced as bricks and stone and steel companies were bought up and recast and rebuilt over the decades?
The only good thing I can think of, is that these guys didnt know about sub thaumic liquid crystal geodes with full sentient AIs, or they coulve quickly manufactured a system magnitudes more units, each with better requirements, where currently at worst they could have semi intelligent bricks formed instead?
The populance making up 1% of available requirements, as interfacing buffers?
Pity Limerace couldnt inject a Strike call or General Acttion, or even work to rule, end of shift announcemnt or General Order System Reboot or Diagnostics? Or would that lock out the system until Operators could enter the correct control codes to reenable system access?
The incoming forces must be using something new, as any attempt to enter with melee would let Bones use their bodies as shields with their wepons to get the replacement shiled and weapons?
9802252 Honestly, I rarely think about the actual logistics of the world building. The advantage of being a writer is that you only have to explain enough for someone else to fill in the mental details. People will hand-wave an absurd amount of silly shit if the characters seem to accept it as possible.
-Chessie
9802259
Thats why Im no good at writing stories. I have to work out how to do it first.
Have you Seen how nonsensical reality is?
I mean it about the geodes as well. Looked into it about 6 years ago. All the Elements, Tree, Castle, House, all based on the same stuff.
Means Equestria doesnt need digital electronics.
They jumped that by at least 20 years.
This is the most complex world I've seen in a fanfic. And god damn it is awesome! Never in my years of being fan of MLP I thought I'd find such an amazingly captivating story. Even though it's longer than War and Peace.
9802316
And much more readable. :D
Then we shall...what?
9802505
Then we shall account for what our enemies have done?
9802421 I do try to keep it readable. War and Peace was a bit scattered.
9802260 A significant amount of writing is just sitting down and doing it. There are some good tools (narrative structure, dialogue structure, empathy) that really help, but they're not strictly necessary. William Faulkner showed us that.
9802528
It reads like a word is missing.
More than anything, I like that zefu gets his butt handed to him twice here.
First in limerace being so brutally honest that he cant argue terms without looking to weasel and hurt his own case. And with zeta, who tosses back everything he sold himself for, and breaks the glamour he tried for in her again, honest nature.
I love that for all this, limerace looks to hard boing so, as the right beacon. To a standard so alien, but that holds fundamentally to a better place.
Cheers to a great story!
This...does not make sense. Perhaps "whenthe time comes we will account for what our enemies have done..." etc?
Also I'm a huge fan and I love this story very much!
9802940
Will fix.
-Chessie
Chessie... seriously, you never cease to make this disaster more horrifying! Hundreds of operators on fire and set to explode while still alive in buildings made up of hundreds of thousands of ponies who have ground up and used for mortar while still aware... flippin' heck, I am almost afraid to ask where it will end!
9802685
I also liked seeing Zefu taken to task for his weaselness. Zefu tries to explain his actions as being those of a reasonable pony who had no support due to his personal issues when facing an insurmountable opposing force. I t was good to see both Lim and Zeta verbally beat and mock him and highlight that he was just a gutless self serving traitor and murderer. Zefu was good looking, had a supportive father, a brother who cared for him in his own quirky way and was part of a powerful organisation, one which he had a fair chance of one day inheriting from his father... not the put upon and lonely abandoned individual he tries to portray himself as and as such his excuses are null and void.
Also did like how he has gone from seeing Hard Boiled Jr as a blight on his existence to seeing him as a beacon of fortitude and drive in the face of insurmountable odds. The fact that he has spent so much time now with two Hard Boileds has opened his eyes to the fact that as much as he has an amazing mind full of magic and history, seemingly 'blunt instrument ponies like them seem to never cease to educate him on the things that really matter when it comes to survival and true commitment to a cause regardless of the obstacles.
It will be interesting to see what might happen with Zeta and Lim if they survive... almost thinking that a better zony than Zefu could be a result... imagine his intelligence with her drive and capability.
Folks I want you to stop and think about something. This story is moving into a war zone, and in those places
Anyone can Die.
Any of the loved characters in this fiction can die.
Precious.
Wisteria.
Gumbo.
Sang Froid.
Jambalaya.
Slip Stitch.
Firebrand and her entire flight.
Telly.
Gypsy.
Apple Bloom.
Iris Jade.
Stella.
Quickie.
Lily.
Twilight.
Don't assume that anyone, no matter how lovable, funny, important, innocent, powerful, distant or removed from the concept of death is guaranteed to survive. We still don't know the limits of the enemy. And in a war zone anyone can die. Even the ones we don't think can ever be killed of.
After all, Fred Weasley is dead. And no one was prepared.
Food service or grocery retail. I still recall reading a reddit story where the navy guy describes the woman's face, while working at her post, as the "I'm-dead-inside retail smile" as she has to deal with an idiotic enquiry from someone above her in the command hierarchy. Even the navy understands that retail is like civil war.
Well here comes the insanity.
I must see this epilogue. I don't care if it ends up wrecking the post-story flow, this must happen.
And I'm finally caught up after 6 days of reading.
9803742
Welcome to the long wait. It's usually 3 weeks between chapters.
-Chessie
Just like stepping outside during a Vegas summer.
I wonder how much it would disrupt the shield network if you set him free?
You're probably going to regret saying that as soon as he finishes explaining.
It does when it's Soylent Green brand mortar.
Are you kidding? She'll set up a lottery system for everypony to take their turn.
No, Lim has never had to Hurry Up And Wait, nor Look Busy When You Have No Work, and assuredly never Stay Late For Work You Could Do Tomorrow.
Well, it's a wholly unfamiliar and uncomfortable feeling for him.
"I wish to try! I wish to try!"
Man, just think of the crime scene cleanup you could do with a spell like that.
You sure know how to motivate people, Lim.
Oh Zefu. Please tell me you're not stupid enough to take this deal. You have no idea how much sneakier Lim has gotten from hanging out with Hardy and Taxi.
I have that from time to time.
9803780
Worth it o/`
Zeta is an absolutely brilliant character, I love her so much
1 week of reading. Have to say, this has been a trip. Anything I say here would have already been said.
So...
Good job. I’m pumped for the end.
9815591
I'm really glad you enjoyed it. I've been following your comments closely and I do promise a satisfying ending.
-Chessie
9816493
I hope so. It’s been rather excellent. Don’t die before you finish it or I will lash your soul to a writing utensil.
This story has heart to it.
I’ve been trying to find out what it is, for the entire time I’ve been reading this. And what I’ve realized...it’s heart. It’s got that feeling to it, that makes you feel, no, know that this world is out there somewhere. Somewhere in the folds of the multiverse, Hard Boiled, Sweets, Swift, and Lin are trapsising across Detrot to save the world.
9817239
I feel for the characters. I do *horrible* things to them, but I do feel for them. They frequently feel like they're out of my control and that's both wonderful and a bit disconcerting.
-Chessie
thewallsarepeople
thewallsarepeople
thewallsarepeople
thewallsarepeople
thewallsarepeople
thewallsarepeople
THEWALLSAREPEOPLE
THEWALLSAREPEOPLE
THEWALLSAREPEOPLE
THEWALLSAREPEOPLE
giphygifs.s3.amazonaws.com/media/BbBYfhduY1u3m/giphy.gif
Well, you just never quit finding a way to make the city just a tad bit more horrifying, do you? I consider it a good thing, you still got me caring enough to feel outrage at the metaphorical fate of a million unnamed souls that didn't exist before this chapter.
I seriously hope whatever the Family wanted for their one last wish was worth it, because I am seriously doubting anything short of remaking the universe would justify such means. (and lets be honest it doesn't)
But hey, outside I bet Bones is having his own AAA action game level. I bet it's an awesome fight scene. With our cast of the undead growing (NMM and Zefu to maybe get new bodies) they could start a club. It'll be like the reformed unicorn villain club the show has, except with less racism.
Right, necrohpillia and necromancy going hand in hand once more confirmed. Lim implies he's known about it a while. This puts his behaviour at raising Limerence as a lich to be his personal servant for all eternity in a new light, I think. Well, new for some of us.
I didn't write my lewds in a vaccum you know9833057
It’s more likely to have happened then not. They’ve both gotten blackout drunk countless times, and Taxi is a happy drunk.
9850693
This story is crazy good bro, this is better written then most novels that I read.
If you ever publish this story, im buying
9850697 It'll be done here soon. I've got, by my calculation, about 8-9 chapters left. Probably less.
-Chessie
9803195
I notice swift didn't make your list
10399234
This, was a lie.