The Olden World

by Czar_Yoshi

Meeting, One

Gerardo's tale concluded as Gigavolt was enthusiastically busing the dishes, leaving Maple enthralled, Shinespark amused and Starlight tilting her head. "Why is that scary?" the filly protested. "She was perfectly fine! They didn't even try to hurt her!"

"Ahhh..." Gerardo raised a talon. "The horror, young Starlight, is not in what happened but what might have been. Immediate danger is the realm of terror. In this story, the fear comes from the realization that what she thought were paintings were real, and the imagination of what they could have done while she foolishly allowed herself to sleep. That they did nothing only makes it all the more bone-chilling."

"I'd debate that," Shinespark said, lazily leaning back with her hind hooves on the table. "If they'd actually tried to do something, she could have blown them up. You said she was a unicorn, didn't you? You need more adrenaline for a horror story!" She winked. "Still, good try. I should let you borrow from the ship's library some time. That'll show you how it's done."

Gerardo drooped. "I think you may be missing the point..."

"I enjoyed it," Maple offered, shuddering. "For a given definition of enjoyed..."

"I couldn't help but notice," Gunga interrupted, wiping sauce from his trim mustache, "that the story's morals were... interesting. How does it come to judge the monsters as vile even at the very end, after it was clear they did nothing? It sounds as though they are horrendous, merely because they are different from the protagonist."

At that, Gerardo winced harder. "Well... my version of the tale was slightly modified from the original griffish version, which happened to be based around a certain rarer race of pony I believe I am somewhat indebted to for assisting my friends, yet are viewed culturally there in a... different light..."

Maple's eyes widened, and she stopped smiling. "...Oh." She looked away. "I don't think I like the story any more, then..."

"You know what?" Shinespark announced, banging the now-cleared table. "I think we have some different stuff we need to talk about. And, uh, sorry about your story, Gerardo." She shrugged apologetically. "I guess we're kinda beating up on it, but it was still pretty good."

"No need to apologize!" Gerardo shook his head, grinning. "If I loved everything about my homeland, I'd be there instead of here. That a cultural tale should fall on unappreciative ears is no slight to me, I assure you. I merely regret perchance making myself a waste of time."

"Right. Time." Shinespark nodded, folding her hooves and sitting up straight as Gigavolt took a seat. "Also, I think I'm about to make myself look silly for making fun of explosions earlier, but eh. We have some important things to talk about, and some important decisions to make."

Maple looked worriedly around, and Starlight scooted imperceptibly closer to her.

"The first and biggest issue," Shinespark said, narrowing her eyes, "I'd very much like to have be the arrival of Starlight and Maple. It means, starting today, we're this close to flying this thing, establishing a Sosa-only trade route with the Plains of Harmony, and restoring our place as the gateway to the world. But that isn't the case. Gerardo?" She motioned with a hoof. "You turned up late enough that I haven't had a chance to tell any of these ponies what you had to say. Care to do the honors?"

Suddenly, Maple was even more worried.

"Very well..." Gerardo stood up to speak. Then, bluntly, he said, "Someone who has access to the Water District has planted a large quantity of bombs against the eastern dam wall, and could flood all of Sosa and the lowest-lying parts of the Earth District at a moment's notice."

"...Say that agaiiin?" Gigavolt dug in one ear with a hoof, blinking rapidly.

"Flood Sosa..." Grenada paled, ears going limp, and looked desperately to Shinespark. "They can't do that! That's not going to happen, right?"

Shinespark shook her head, clearly not believing fully in what she was about to say. "Of course not," she reassured. "But... it is true. They're real bombs, and Braen inspected them last night. Remember, though, Sosa is too valuable to destroy. Even as the furthest and supposedly least civilized district in Ironridge, we still are responsible for a significant portion of the city's economic output, including processing all the ore that's mined in the Flame District. No one would do that... but they're still there."

"If I may clarify on the explosives' circumstances," Gerardo interrupted. "They are rigged to all detonate at once whenever any one of them is removed from the wall. One bomb contains a trigger that can be used to detach it from the wall remotely and in turn cause a detonation, with a range of most parts of the Water District. Captain Selma claims to be on our side, and has cast a sealant spell that should forcibly glue the bombs to the wall, preventing remote detonation, through some time tonight."

"You recognize the type of explosive, eh, Shinespark?" Gunga raised a sharp eyebrow. "How are bombs such as these normally defused?"

"They're not designed to be," Shinespark sighed, hanging her head. "I did some research on them. They actually send a magical current through the surface on which they're anchored, so we'd literally have to cut off part of the dam around them to get them off without exploding, and the trigger mechanism is set off by lack of energy so some sort of power drain is out. But there is one thing we can do, and it's so contrived it has to be deliberate."

"Oh?" Everyone leaned in.

Shinespark nodded. "Water. There's a modification that's been made to these bombs... and it must have been on purpose... that makes them not watertight. Rain won't cut it, it needs to be practically submersion. But the chemicals inside used to spark the explosions aren't properly sealed... and could be converted to inert forms with enough soaking." She sighed again. "About forty hours of it."

Gerardo frowned. "The bombs would become inert for forty hours, or...?"

"They'd have to soak for that long not to explode," Shinespark corrected. "Sosa doesn't have many pegasi, let alone ones who can hold water against a wall for that long. But the bombs are located on the area covered by the emergency spillway... and opening that for two days would probably do the trick."

Shinespark's three henchponies all grimaced. Gerardo did too.

"Sorry, but..." Maple swallowed, the conversation going in one ear and out the other. "I think we might be missing something important? There are bombs?"

Starlight nodded. Shinespark sighed. "The simple way to put it," she explained, "is that yesterday, while he was looking for you in the Defense Force fortress, Gerardo found something that could be used to wash away all of Sosa. We don't know anything more, including who did it, why they did it, whether we were intended to know or how long it's been there, and we need to figure out as much as possible so we can come up with a plan. No matter how unlikely it is that this would be used, it's dangerous and we can't take it lightly."

"So what do you want us to do?" Starlight frowned. "Will we be safe if we wait here in this boat? A boat's not going to be hurt by a flood, is it? You said this thing can float!"

"Hold on," Maple interrupted, standing up with enough force that her chair went skidding backwards. "How bad of a flood would this be?"

"It's a whole mountain worth of water. It'll... wait." Shinespark stood as well, walking to the back wall and opening a panel in the wood, a metal console tucked behind. She lowered her horn to it, occasional sparks flying... and with a hum, the room's lights dimmed until it was nearly black.

Suddenly, the starboard wall came awash with color, some sort of magical image projected inside the huge glass pane that insulated the wood behind. Maple blinked, gaping and focusing, trying to separate the colors into a coherent image... and eventually realized it was Ironridge, seen from the northeastern sky.

"We can move the map around however you want," Shinespark offered, pacing back to her chair with thin wisps of magic trailing from her horn. "These walls are pretty spiffy. Gigantic screens for looking at maps, having teleconferences, watching recordings or camera feeds... you name it. The wall paneling behind them is even retractable, so if we were airborne, this could be a real window. Anyway, this is a projection I made of what it might look like."

Her horn flickered, and the map moved to a perfect top-down view, the Yule visible as a lake basin north and east of the Earth District, stretching out above the mountain chain where the dams were constructed and flowing east to Riverfall. Then, the projection changed, showing the eastern dam removed... and the entire reservoir draining into the lake, backing up and expanding it to the west, through dried-out areas where the river had been rerouted years ago and covering everything around them. All three factories were underwater, and two were in the path of the initial wall of devastation. Grand Acorn stood as a speck of dryness on its raised hill, though the road to its east and west were gone. An eastern town called Copsewood was partially covered... and so too was Gnarlbough.

Maple's ears folded.

"...Not pretty," Shinespark said. "The damage would range from really soggy ground at the edges to submersion in the middle to..." She grimaced. "I don't want to say 'flat-out annihilation,' but do you want to try surviving a mountain falling on your face? The factories would be gone."

"That's where White Chocolate lives..." Maple whispered. "And I don't recognize Copsewood, but it looks large. That would be so many ponies..."

Shinespark fidgeted, scrolling the map back and forth to occupy herself. "It... wouldn't be quite as many as you'd think. Sosa isn't a residential district, and very few ponies live there full time. There are two towns that would get hit, and one that would need to be on watch, but they're far enough away that I don't think there would be too much long-term structural damage. Still, it's... bad."

"All thiiis iiis makiiing me depressed," Gigavolt complained. "What are our optiiions, here?"

"I concur," Gunga announced, rapping the table. "It sounds like we have at least enough to form hypotheses on, does it not?"

Grenada was still frozen, too pale to speak.

"I vote we consider the options," Gerardo announced, opting not to stand. "Because it seems we have been left with relatively few. We could opt to do nothing, and trust both the intelligence of our aggressors and that nothing will go wrong. This would allow us to focus on this admittedly-fascinating airship project, and has a small chance of failure... but were it to turn catastrophic, it would be on our heads for doing nothing."

"We're not doing nothing," Shinespark growled.

"As would I." Gerardo nodded sagely. "Then our next series of options are not mutually exclusive, and I believe we should consider each one individually. Primarily, they include attempting to defuse the threat through pre-emptive action, and presuming the worst will befall us and acting to protect property and ponies as best we can."

"Shinespark was carrying on about a release valve at the top of the dam," Gunga offered with a wave of a hoof. "What would that plan entail?"

Shinespark accepted, putting her forehooves on the table and standing up. "It would involve taking over the Water District by force, in order to keep anyone with an activator out of range, and holding it for nearly two days. Damage from opening the release valve would be minimal, though it might cause swelling downstream and reduce the supply of coolant for the Flame District. But there are a few big risks."

Coughing, she continued. "First off, this would mean military action. Ponies could and would get hurt, and it would inflame tensions between the districts that are honestly pretty bad already. Second, even if we succeeded and pulled back with the bombs disarmed, whoever the culprit is could just put them back. And third, this would involve working with Selma."

"Ah, yes." Gerardo grimaced. "Selma."

"From everything we know," Shinespark said, "Selma's hoofprints are all over this. He was one of the only two ponies with Gerardo when the bombs were discovered, and could be responsible for guiding him there. Selma also offered to freeze the bombs to temporarily disarm the ranged trigger, buying us time to act... but an amount at his mercy. The only way I've found to remove the bombs involves taking and holding the Defense Force fortress, which was also his idea... and anyone who knows Selma knows how proud he is. I can't understand why he wants us to invade, but he certainly seems to think it will go in his favor if we do, and thus it's possible he planted the bombs as bait."

Gerardo shrugged. "Unfortunately, as self-reinforcing as that explanation is, it does not rule out the possibility that Selma is in fact on our side and not the culprit. While he did give me a... strange vibe the time we met, it is technically possible he truly is altruistic."

"What would he stand to gain from inviting us in if he didn't plant the bombs, though?" Gunga's lip twitched. "Assuming he wanted to let us remove this problem for him, and it was indeed a problem, it wouldn't remain a secret and would reflect very poorly on the Defense Force. Selma runs his militia with an iron hoof. If this were unintended, he would want to cover it as quietly and discreetly as possible, not invite a walking public relations disaster into his house!"

Gerardo raised a talon in solidarity. "A very valid point."

"So it looks like Selma might really have to do with this," Shinespark declared, cutting off the present conversation. "Although... here's an idea. It's not a secret that the Defense Force has a lot of internal politics and could very well try to get us wrapped up in a struggle between two sides, particularly if someone in the Defense Force had a colleague they wanted to discredit. Maple? Starlight?" She glanced their way. "Do you two have a friend who might know anything about this?"

Maple fidgeted, smiling awkwardly. "Well, you see..."

Comments

[Hap]

If the bombs had been intended to be clandestine, they could have been camouflaged or otherwise disguised. We can therefore assume that they were intended to be discovered.

If the bombs had been intended to actually destroy Sosa, they would have been detonated immediately after planting, or planted immediately before they were scheduled to go off. We can therefore deduce that the actor has not yet decided to destroy Sosa. If it was a matter of timing, the bombs would simply have not been planted until the time was right. The actor is likely waiting for a critical moment (such as the launch of a new type of airship), or planning to use the bomb as leverage (since we have been told that knowledge and leverage are the currency of Ironridge in general).

If you combine both suppositions, the conclusion is that the bombs were intended to be discovered by someone with ties to Sosa, who would wish to defuse the bombs. Since the only way to defuse the bombs is to soak them in water - and the only reason to NOT make a bomb on a dam waterproof is that you want them to be defused in a particular way...

It is clear that whoever planted the bombs intended for the spillway to be opened for two days.

However, there is another way. It would be very simple to build a set of small wooden boxes to fit around the bombs, then epoxy those boxes to the dam and fill the boxes with water. If, for some reason, the ponies of Ironridge lack glue, Starlight can show them how to make waterproof pine tar that should work. Failing that, they can wrap the bombs with towels and have a couple of pegasi take shifts dousing the towels with a bucket of water. Effective immersion.

[Lab 39]

8693574
Great deductions Sherlock.