Deep within a gorge in the San Palomino Desert there is a forgotten world.
Shimmering Steam's parents were not born at home. Neither were their parents. Centuries and countless generations ago her village's true homeland was deserted, and she is determined to find out why.
My first real attempt at the steampunk genre, please rate fairly! Edited by the generous Glocky! Go follow him!
Once the lever had been pulled, it took only a matter of seconds for the entranceway to jump into life.
The great bronze doors opened ever so slowly with an almighty rumble and three small geysers of steam rocketed from a pipe above as if awakened by air that had not been within the crypt for centuries. A mare with the purest white fur entered, her long black coat trailing along the ground slightly as she walked, fiddling a little with her well-kept darker blue mane that came down her head on one side and curling off before reaching her ear on the other. The floor echoed her cautious hoofsteps and the bronze plating it consisted of had the occasional pipe running along or down into it, and the further she got from the door the darker her surroundings seemed to get.
At the intersection between the ground and the walls were a number of large pipes that had glass slits, allowing her to see inside. At a glance they appeared to be filled with water, but it was stagnant, musty and dark brown in colour with flecks of paint and countless dead insects floating around inside. Each of these pipes looked like they had once transported clean water and each ran out of the wall and then back into it after no more than a few yards, the huge half-glass pipes disappearing once again back behind the dusty bronze plating walls.
The walls were also bronze plating but with pillars running from the floor to the ceiling on either side. Each of the pillars had a curved grate embedded into it, showing that each was in fact hollow. The ceiling was not a flat surface at all, with several differently-sized pipes lacing the space high above the mare's head, with valves dotted at entirely random intervals. A long way from the great doors now, she sucked in a nervous breath of air and walked on forward into the complete darkness that now lay ahead.
It seemed like a lot more time walking than it actually was but she at last came to a stop. The white mare felt the wall in front of her with her front hooves. This wall seemed to have another door on it and, though not as large as the looming entrance, was still more than tall enough for her to get through. The only problem, however, was that it was locked tight with no visible keyhole. She fumbled around on the wall for a bit more before eventually one of her hooves rested onto a brass lever, jutting out from the wall close by. With a slight straining sound she forced it down and it clacked into position.
A few of the valves on the ceiling ahead gushed out concentrated geysers of steam which caused her to start. She felt the floor beneath her hooves rumble once more, only more violently this time, as if pulling that lever had awoken a sleeping dragon in the halls below. In sequence, from her location all the way down to the great doors she entered through, the pillars on either side shone with a strong light from the grating. The dark hall illuminated and she could quickly see just how far she had walked from the entrance to this new door and all the strange things that she had missed on the way; a bronze table and chair built into the floor on the right.
The white mare approached the book that lay open on the table and flicked through it, even though she only spoke a few simple parts of the language it was written in. Each new letter was a complicated arrangement of dots and straight lines and she had very little knowledge on any of them, save for two or three she had learnt whilst searching the library for history books. There was one thing the mare knew, however, and that was that the book on the table was filled with lists and lists of names, leading her to expect that the room she was in had been used as some kind of entrance hallway to something.
The thought passed through her mind as she picked the book up off the table, dusted it off and gently slid it into one of her numerous coat pockets. That was quickly interrupted, however, as a number of geysers behind her spewed out steam and the newer door she had found began to creak open. The mare tapped one of the six golden buttons on the front of her coat as she got her breathing back to normal from the sudden jump, then slowly trotted through.
What lay beyond was simply too incredible to conceive.
The doorway she had entered through led down a short flight of steps to a huge bronze plated bridge that stretched out from its starting point at the bottom of the steps to an enormous island built up in the centre of the huge, seemingly bottomless pit that this incredible place led down into without the bridge. Atop the mechanical island was an incredible number of houses in rings, some as small as cottages and others more like mansions, all surrounding and facing the centremost structure.
The building they stood around was an intricate and peculiar shape— like if somepony took a cone, turned it upside-down and jammed shards of metal into it from multiple angles— and led from the floor of the artificial island to the very ceiling of this massive room. The ceiling, the mare noted as she looked up, was miles and miles above, curving into the walls and surrounding the island's pit from at least an acre away in all directions. The walls and ceiling were entirely bronze and brass, but if she strained her eyes well enough she could see tiny hatches on their surface.
A number of bronze grates lined each side of the bridge and the city had streetlamps like any normal one built by ponies, but there was no railing at all on either side, leading the mare to shrink down and walk slowly to calm her own nerves as she walked it. A few times she forced herself to stand and look up for a moment, and the closer she got the more she realised that the 'shrapnel' in the great cone building's sides were in fact balconies. From the bottom of the island was a number of waterfalls that flowed out from the core and into the inky blackness of infinity below, and a river of the same dirty water ran through the city, calling the need for bridges at multiple points.
A mass of brass and steam machinery worked beneath the bridge, on the walls and the ceiling. Repeatedly a distant hissing sound would reach her ears from far below or above, and the island she now stood upon shook very lightly as the city's core sprung back into life beneath her hooves. Staring up at the huge centrepiece building, she suddenly spoke aloud to herself.
The mare jumped and coughed suddenly as age-old steam shot out of one of the pipes above her. The city that was perched on the mechanical island had felt more like a town or village looking at it from a distance, but now the mare had actually stepped through the bronze archway that was its only entrance. She realised just how large it actually was. All around her were houses that lined either side of the outer ring, which turned out to be a road that led in one big circle. Walking around it all the way would take her at least a few hours. A number of street lights lined the road on both sides, illuminating the darkened surroundings and revealing the fronts of the domestic buildings on either side.
The houses were similar to those in her village back above ground, but they had a few strange details that looked out of place for a home. The chimneys were more like steam pipes on trains than anything else, with thick bronze pipes running between them; filled with even more of the musky water. Countless inactive cogs and pistons were built into the outer walls and, on top of that, each house had a peculiar cone-shaped roof of plated bronze. She tried a number of the brass doorknobs, however each one was locked and had no keyhole. Literally hundreds of thin pipes ran above her, connecting the houses from above. They reminded her of the cables that ran above the roads from telephone poles in Manehatten.
Between the houses at seemingly random intervals were a number of additional archways that led into another circular road further into the centre of the island; surrounding this one were market stalls and shops, though they had no windows, much like the houses in the outer ring. Instead, each had a number of faded pictures written in the ancient language she had seen in the book. She tried a door and found it to be unlocked, but gagged a little as the smell of stagnant air mixed with musky water hit her nostrils from the shop she had opened and she hurried underneath another archway between the shops into the smallest ring.
The smallest ring was not actually small at all. It still would have taken her an hour or more to walk around, as it circled the huge structure in the middle of the metal island. She walked a short distance around it and observed a number of the posters put up on its walls; some showed pictures of what she assumed to be food, others seemed to be advertising cigars. A number were displaying pictures of a mare on a theatre stage singing to an audience, but one or two caught her eye. They seemed to be more faded than the others, but she could make out a pony-shaped object on them and a few paragraphs of the ancient text. Theories began to stir in her mind as to what they could be showing but those thoughts were immediately interrupted when she spotted a lever on the wall of the structure.
It was made of brass and reminded her of the ones she had pulled in the hallway, but what set it aside from them, was that the handle had an intricate design of small cogs and pipes that led into a sphere in the centre of it. On the sphere was an engraved cog with two of the ancient letters in the centre, which she recognised as 'S' and 'C'. She placed her hooves firmly onto it and pulled it down with some effort, inducing a slight rumble from far beneath.
A section of the cone's wall suddenly split open and separated. Seeing it earlier she hadn't even noticed that it had been two door panels, but it had been so cleverly built that she likely wouldn't have found them if she had been trying. Another hiss of steam escaped from the floor as they slid open slowly with a soft whirring noise and the inside was exposed to light for the first time in generations.
Taking a deep breath, the mare took a few cautious steps into the interior of the structure and looked around.
The ground room was a huge circle, literally like a gigantic hall, with pillars rising up from the floor and holding the ceiling up in perfect symmetry on either side. The room was full of chairs, all in neat rows from front to back with two aisles running up between them on the left and right. All were very carefully made of bronze and had the same design running up their legs as the one on the lever handle outside. Each row was facing the opposite end of the room to the door through which she had entered, towards a stand with space for one pony to talk to the entirety of the chair's occupants. As she wandered down one of the aisles and stepped up onto the stage the mare noticed a tool sitting on the stand that looked like a gavel, with a handle shaped in the familiar artistic fashion to the chair legs out of gold.
Behind the stand were three metal pipes that came down from the ceiling and faced into the room. Each ended with a hatch bolted down to the pipe's sides, and if she looked up the mare could see another much larger hatch in the ceiling. Looking around, confused, she turned to leave the room, only to see that the doors were closed. A sharp hissing sound came from the pipe on the right and she spun round again to face the thing that fell out of the hatch that had opened.
The thing stood up and focused on her. The mare took a step back and looked it over; it was in the exact shape of a pony, even the same height as her. The bronze plating it had instead of skin was thick and in a number of places small cogs and pistons breached its surface, spinning around slowly. As it stood it bounced slightly from the clockwork mechanics operating inside it and two small grates it had behind its fake ears hissed out tiny puffs of steam. On its flank was an engraved cog and the letters 'S' and 'C', identical to the lever's design back outside, and instead of eyes there were two glass orbs that had a lifeless feel to them. 'Animatron #671' was engraved on its forehead.
It took a step forward and she took another step back, feeling uneasy as the glass orbs stared her up and down. The animatronic pony's head tilted to the left slightly to look at her as clockwork mechanisms spurred in its head until finally its mouth hung open and a recorded voice played. "Welcome to Stalwart City," It hummed, taking her by surprise as it was in English and not the ancient language that had been used so commonly in this place, "where innovation meets the common pony. We detect you as an outsider who speaks the language of another race and have tailored our animatronics to address you alone in this manner." The mare took a deep breath and wondered for a moment if the thing 'speaking' to her knew what it was doing, but one brief glance at those empty glass eyes and she dismissed the thought immediately.
Animatron #671 stared at her in silence for a few more moments before a recording picked up again. "State your name so that we may address you that way in the near future." She looked at it, still finding it hard to believe that such complex machinery worked after so many generations left unused, before finding the nerve to talk. "... Shimmering Steam. That's my name." She spoke, smoothing out the front of her black coat. A faint whirring sound was heard from within the animatronic, followed by a brief ding and another recording. "Your name has been recorded. Enjoy your stay here at Stalwart City." On that final note the metal pony wandered off and started to examine the shut door she had entered through. Shimmering sighed, a little unnerved from seeing something that looked like the line between pony and machine, and started frantically searching the room for a way to open the locked door.
A long time passed before Shimmering Steam gave up and slumped against one of the walls to rest. Breathing heavily from the loss of breath she glanced up to look at the animatronic. It was still on the other side of the room but was now looking in her direction with its emotionless face. After a few long, silent moments it trotted up to her and played a recording. "Greetings, Shimmering Steam," it began, her name sounding distorted as it was made up from a number of other words. "May we be of assistance?" It wasn't so much of a question, more like a statement. She exhaled heavily and stood up. "Erm, yes. I need that door open," Shimmering said, motioning a hoof in the direction of the big doors to the room. She still couldn't be sure whether the animatronics really worked anymore, past playing mindless recordings. Its head whirred and clicked a little as it continued. "Door Xk-34." It chirped with absolutely no change of voice, "Commencing action 7bv." It spoke the last few words already on course with the door and waited for a couple of seconds before they slid open smoothly again, then turned back to face her. "Your request has been fulfilled. Please move along," She stood up and examined it in shock. Okay, so perhaps these things still worked after all. "Well, thank you," She said as if it were a regular pony, walking past it and through the great doors. Her eyes widened and she immediately backed away straight through the doors again.
The streets had dozens of them, moving around aimlessly and whirring, ticking, spinning. Most were on the roads but she could see more emerging from the hatches on the distant walls; animatronic ponies in a swarm, seething through the streets. One had been unnerving alright, but a swarm was straight-up petrifying.
Backing up into the room behind her she bumped back into the animatronic that she had met before. It turned to face her emotionlessly, staring down at her almost like it was judging her. She jumped a little and spun round, moving away from it immediately. She eventually hit the wall with her flank and sunk down as it approached, never taking those glass orbs away from her face. Silence passed disturbed only by her nervous shivering before it played that same recording again. "Greetings, Shimmering Steam. May we be of assistance."
She sucked up her willpower and managed to bring herself to talk. "G-Get me onto a higher floor! I don't want to stay down here!" "I'm sorry, but that is a restricted area." "Please, let me upstairs!" "I'm sorry, but that is a restricted area." She stood up a little, both fear and irritation filling her. "Let me upstairs right now!" "I'm sorry. But that is a restricted area." She started and almost shrunk back again. The recording's volume had risen significantly and the tone of voice had sounded equally as irritated as hers. Animatron #671 turned around and was about to walk away when she stood up fully and shouted at it. "Hey! Get me up there right now!"
It turned around to face her again and she came close to screaming in horror. Its glass orb replacements for eyes were now glowing with a strong red hue. Its recording was no longer the gentle voice from before; its pitch was slightly lower, it was distorted in places and had a faint static sound in the background. "I'm afraid we can't have that."
