Magistrate Mare stood in the shadow of the mast for what felt like hours, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the blinding tropical sunlight. She heard Rainbow Dash, Gilda, and Zero bickering and argue. Words like ‘Star’, ‘phantom’, and ‘death’ lept out at her. The argument died down, apologies were exchanges, and Gilda departed for the derelict Seapony’s Pride.

A few seconds later Dash passed Mare own the way to the prow. “Oh hey. Didn’t see you there.”

“Gilda is going alone?” Mare let her displeasure be known with a small frown.

“I’ll be going too, after I say a few words to Do.” Dash explained apologetically. “Don’t worry, we’ll have everything squared away so we can dash off to Chitin.”

“Who is worried. Do I need to be worried?” Mare tilted her head up incrementally, so she was staring down at Dash.

Dash’s worry melted to annoyance. “Mare, if you have a problem, I’m not the pony to bitch at.”

Mare’s ire grew. Bitch at? She only trying to preserve the safety and security of the ship and mission, and she was being accused of bitching? The nerve! The utter nerve! Didn’t anypony have the least bit of respect? Couldn’t they have postponed their outrageous supernaturalities until after the expedition was over?

“Mis Dash, you are overstepping a boundary of propriety that I hold very dear.” Mare scowled.

Unexpectedly, Rainbow Dash continued to be brazenly annoyed. “Well soooorrry, but I just have to run take care of this maybe kinda massacre on that boat. Let me stop for a minute and listen to you talk about boundaries.” With a flick of her tail she turned her back and made to trot away.

Mare made a grab Dash’s hip but only brushed her. She was confused, but mostly angry. “Rainbow, wait until I-”

“Buck off!” Dash snorted disdainfully. “This is why I was worried about you, Magistrate. You don’t know when to shut up like I do.” With that said, she galloped the remaining distance to the forecastle.
Daring Do greeted her friend, and they began chatting in hushed tones.

Magistrate Mare felt a deep weight in her heart. She was very, very angry. Nopony was listening to her anymore!
How had it happened? Gilda fell out of the crows nest, a sailor turns out to be a changeling, and then… The agreeable and loyal Rainbow Dash says ‘Buck off’? What?

Lightheaded, she traced her habitual path to the aftcastle. The changeling was there, disguised as her diligent knotspony. What was his name, she struggled to recall. Zero. Zero.

The changeling noticed her as she drew neer. “Magistrate.” He bowed formally.
Mockingly, Mare assumed.

“Zero. Zero. What an odd name. Zero is nothing, emptiness.” Mare declined to bow back. “Let’s get comfortable with each other. You know me. You’ve been here for a few days and seen how I act. But I don’t know you. Let’s fix that. What kind of creature are you, personality wise?”
She talked fast and hard. The anger was palpable.

“If I squeezed you, you could tell me all kinds of things about me. Shouldn’t I be able to return the favor?” Mare posed.

“By all means keep your disguise.” Mare hushed him. “But I deserve to have some insight to the changeling underneath.”

“Deserve is a strong word. However, I will share.” He cleared his throat. “I like to think of myself as an optimist. That’s what I was, long ago. Before I was a Star. Before I had to be more to be able to contain the Dark magic thrumming within me.” He shrugged. “Now I do what I have to do. Everything is in service to my goals. I keep my dignity by making those goals lofty and benevolent, but I must have that goal. WIthout purpose, I’ll be reduced to nothing.”

Mare didn’t care to understand his meaning. “So… You’re a pragmatist? Is that what I’m getting.” She arched a brow. “That’s good. We’re alike then!”

Zero smiled a thin smile. “You have goals, Mis Mare? Forgive me for calling you out, but I see no evidence. You are a moth to the light of power. You are a mercenary dreamer. You serve to other pony’s ends.”

“I what?” Mare spit, eyes growing very wide then very narrowed. “Listen here you black-plated spider bait, I’m no mercenary. I serve higher purposes-”

“You and the EOC are co-parasites. You use them to validate your ravenous nature in an environment that applauds that kind of immorality. They use you to summon their great and unwavering idol: Money.” Zero shook his head pityingly. “You wish you had the braver to be so blatantly monstrous as Lady Gilda. You wish you could stand up and shout out your hatred for this world and your fellow pony. You have neither. You cower in the shadow of a ‘duty’, and use it to justify your feelings.”
Zero turned his back to her. “I know evil, Mis Mare. It lies within us all. Either fight against your conniving and devious nature, or recognize that you have chosen sin over propriety.”

“You…” Mare was struggling to speak over how tight her throat felt. She was woozy, and so, so angry.
For the second time in as many minutes, somepony had turned their back on her. She felt a pang of a deadly forgotten friend: Hatred. “You don’t know me.”

“I know a million of you. I know all possible paths for you. I know you’ll turn to dust like all mortals like you do, your life having meant somewhere between something and nothing.” Zero shrugged.

Mare bit her tongue hard enough to draw blood. She was shaking and tearing up and her body screamed for reprieve from the stress.
“I think I want to kill you.” She whispered.

“You want to kill me.” Zero repeated. He chuckled. “You want to kill me.” He turned a bit to look at her. “Not for security reasons, or self-defense, or paranoia, or your ’duty’. Simply because you want to. Now that is… Very interesting.”

“To conclusively answer your first question, Mis Mare, I am a soul who get pleasure from guiding others to their potential. I have no other joy than seeing mortals strive to be more. I’m a gardener in a way, even if some of my old Star freinds fit bill that more literally. But don’t get me wrong…” Zero leaned in. “Seeing greatness wither on the vine is its own kind of pleasure. Like a burning house, the culmination of a beautiful soul is wasted in chaos and ruination.” His eyes rolled and his tongue lolled. “Oh… I cannot help it. It’s intoxicating. Darkness is still the unparalleled succor for me. A suffering so sweet, a thick liqueur. Ahhh.”
After a few moments and a deep breath he regained his composure. “So keep in mind that disappointing my expectations in you isn’t too terrible. It just makes my appreciation different. More perverse. But you won’t deprive me of that purer joy, I trust.”

“Count on it.” Mare shuddered. She took a few measured steps back, bowed, trotted off aftcastle and disappeared into the cabins.

“Hmm… Did I go too far?” Zero hummed. “Some ponies only begin to strive when there is the pain of resentment driving them. Now I am in her crosshairs, but hatred only caries ponies so far, and never to a good place. I hope, when we reach Chitin, she will agree to bear my dagger.” Zero returned to his observations of the infinite sea. “Bah, I have enough troubles as it is. Why must I create more for myself? I am less like a gardener and more like a fussy old mare like Phyte, looking for mortals to mother, in my own peculiar way.”

On the opposite end of the ship on the forecastle, Rainbow Dash and Daring Do were having their own argument.

“You’re the VIP. You can’t go until me and Gilda check it out.” Dash was already tense and strung out from Gilda’s miny-coma and her disagreement with Mare. She was finding Do unreasonable and was having a hard time keeping her cool. “What if the derelict explodes?”

Do shook her head. “You think the expedition can continue without you? Rainbow, if you or Gilda are incapacitated or, princess forbid, killed, this Chitin adventure is over before it has started.”

“And if you die, we can’t find the treasure anyway. Obviously it would be better for nopony to risk herself but we’ve gotta know what’s up with this derelict.” Dash said. “You better stay put or else.”

Do hesitated. The way Dash was looking at her, teeth bared in a sinister smile… It was undeniably intimidating. “Rainbow are you serious? You’re smiling, but your body language is sending a different message.”

“I’m doing what I have to. Daring, stay here.” Dash spread her wings and flew a few feet into the air. “It’s about time I stepped up. I have to pull my share. So stay put, okay?” That said, she flew off.

“Damnations. This is not helping my headache one bit.” Do watched her fly to the slowly drifting Seapony’s Pride. “Is Rainbow Dash hiding something? No… She wouldn’t betray me. She thinks she’s protecting me from something-” Do blinked. “Protecting me from someone, more like it.”

There was danger on the Seapony’s Pride. A certain feathery danger, waiting with covetous talons.

“Mis Gilda.” Do sucked her lip in. The brown griffin was plotting something deadly. “Why? What is forcing her claw? Magistrate Mare will need to hear about this.” Gilda’s motivations were difficult to parse. Was she really just a senseless killer? “Is murder on your mind, Mis Gilda?”

Murder was indeed on Gilda’s mind.
“Ghost ship. Spooky.”
There were dead ponies littered everywhere. The sailors of the Seapony’s Pride who she’d had as crewmates for years were crumpled at their post. There were no signs of violence, and no damage to the bodies except for those who had fallen out of the rigging. It was as though they had fallen asleep where they stood, and just not woken up.

“Zero made it sound like a slaughterhouse. This is more like a slumber party.” She laughed emptily. “Get up, you lazy mother buckers! Captain Pleiades is going to be angry.”

Speaking of the captain, Gilda did not see his body anywhere, which was somewhat surprising as there was almost never a moment he was not on deck. After a quick and futile check for heartbeats among the intact bodies, she unslung her arquebus and peered through the agape cargo hatch. She saw more dead bodies.

There was no answer. No sound at all, save for the creaking of the boards and Gilda’s own breaths.

“This is too weird.” GIlda sighed. Her withered magical sense, though recovering slowly since the dreams, were overwhelmed by the abusive malaise radiating from beneath her. The Dark aura was sickening to contemplate, and Gilda’s instincts were to flee.
There was no doubt about it: The second sarcophagus was in the Seapony’s Pride’s cargo hold.

She heard a couple of wingbeats and the scuffle of hooves on the deck. “Yo, G!”

Gilda looked back to Dash and waved her closer. “I’ve checked around. Nopony alive.”

“I-” Dash looked around the deck, seemingly seeing the corpses for the first time. “Yikes.” She said softly. She there still for a solid minute, take in the scene. “This is… This is terrifying. They look like they’re sleeping. I recognize these guys. That’s the navigator, over by the wheel.”

“My thoughts went to sleeping as well. Something happened to these ponies, and I don’t think it was Xaron.” Gilda clacked her beak . “Did Zero say he was absolutely sure that it was Xaron or Sharamin he felt?”

“G, about Zero…” Dash cleared her throat. She leaned away a bit, as though she was expecting some backlash. “We talked while you were passed out. He wanted to know about our history with the Seapony’s Pride.”

“Oh. So I came in on the tail end of that, huh.” Gilda clacked her beak and averted her eyes. She took a second to collect her thoughts. “Rainbow, did he say anything to you about phantom time?”

Dash felt her stomach sink. There was that phrase again, that had upset Gilda so much before. “G, you shut him down when he mentioned it.”

“It was a knee jerk-reaction. I should have heard him out because we could be in danger now.” Gilda confessed. “Remind me to apologize to him.”

“Maybe.” Gilda said, then paused. How could she explain something so uncertain without sounding evasive and untruthful? Would Dash believe her? “I think my dreams are returning me to sordid little moments of my memory I tried to forget. They took me to the exact moment I learned about phantom time from my mother.” Gilda said softly. “So I might have. Who knows if the dream was real.”

“Well, okay.” Dash was getting anxious. Though she wanted to drop the conversation and move on with the task, she could tell Gilda was hung up on it. Standing among so many unmoving bodies didn’t help. “I’m really not the pony to ask about any of this, you know.”

“Dash, not to worry you, but it could spell danger for us right now.” Gilda said. “So just tell me what Zero told you about phantom time.”

“Stopping time. Or he didn’t exactly say that, but it’s what it meant. Totally crazy.” Dash said, not totally convinced of what she was saying. “I told him he was stupid, and then when you shut him up I felt vindicated because you know better too. So, um, is it real?”

Gilda stared into space for a long time, then held out her right claw, palm up and talons open. She flexed it, watching the creases intently. There was nothing there.
“I’m not the griffin to ask.” She cleared her throat and changed topics. “So, this isn’t nearly as messy as Zero made it out to be.”

Dash was very unnerved by Gilda’s sudden uncommunicativeness. When Gilda had a secret, it was always bad. Case in point, the real story of what happened in Stirrup.
It took Dash a moment to swallow her reservations and give an answer. “I mean, they are dead, but yeah you’re right there’s no gore and guts.”

“He said it was Xaron. Obviously this isn’t how Xaron and Sheremin do business, based on our interactions with them.” Gilda said. “We can’t waste time. Let’s go strait to the cargo hold.”

Despite how she was feeling Dash replied without hesitation. “Right. I’ve got your back.”

Gilda smiled grimly. “If there are survivors, keep your distance. That goes double if they have stone eyes.”
She look the lead, entering the cabins hallway in the aftcastle.

It was moody and dark. The ship had been derelict for only a day at most, but the air seemed musty and stale like a thousand year old crypt. Gilda chalked it up to her imagination.

“If you don’t think it was Xaron, do you any guesses who did this?” Dash whispered, nudging the outstretched leg of the nearest corpse.

“I didn’t say it wasn’t. But it was sudden, and nopony had a way to fight back. They didn’t even know it was coming. That’s obvious.” Gilda eyed the body wearily. “You couldn't even prove there was a murderer at all.”

“So what, toxic gas? We hear about the swamp gasses choking yokels south of Baltimare sometimes.” Dash said, and with hesitation she continued. “I told Zero earlier how familiar this air feels. I could almost swear it was Baltimare air. Don’t you think so, G?”

“I can’t really tell.” Gilda knelt down. “But we can test your theory about gas.”
The body before her had been one of the the rigger colts. Gilda didn’t remember his name. “No blemishes, boils, or discoloration. His sweat smells normal.” She licked his cheek. “Tastes normal too.” She punched him in the chest. “His lungs are empty of fluid. It wasn’t gas.”

“So they all died for no reason.” Dash was a little creeped out. Thankfully she didn’t have to sit through the carnivorous feeding that sometimes followed Gilda’s appraisals. “There’s literally nothing wrong with them.”

“This must be the work of magic.” Gilda pried back one of the corpse’s eyelids. “Hmm, his eyes are very over-dilated, more than happens naturally when muscles relax.”

“I think he was asleep when death struck them.” Gilda stood up. “Everypony was asleep. A very deep sleep at that.”

“Xaron is utter trash at dreamer manipulation. His mind control with the stone eyes is different from dream magic.” Gilda led the way deeper into the ship. “Unless a stone eye proves me wrong, we can completely rule Xaron and Sharamin out. Zero was wrong about what he felt, which is honestly a bit strange since I felt it too.”

They peeked inside all the cabins they passed, on the watch for signs of life. There was none. Nor was there any sign of Captain Pleiades.

One after the other the two heroines crept down the stairs to the crew deck.
The bunks were filled with the crew who had been off their watch, napping, gambling, drinking, and carousing. Cards and shattered bottles lay where they’d fallen when sudden death struck their owners.
There was two rows of hammocks, all the way from one end of the deck to the other. So many dead ponies. Dash hadn’t considered her crewmates on the Seapony’s Pride as friends, but trying to comprehend the utter stillness in their familiar faces was making her mind spin.

“I really don’t like this G. Not at all.” Dash shivered. She didn’t hear a response. “Gilda?”

Gilda was doubled over, clutching her head in her claws. Her muscles twitched and every feather stood on end. “I feel it. Like a bad vibration I feel it.” She raised a trembling claw and smoothed back her frazzled crest. “It’s right beneath us. The pony in the second sarcophagus is starting to awake.”

Dash put a hoof to her cutlass, signaling the willingness to fight. “That Bard king Xaron told us about! Vlelveran. What’s he doing to you?!”

“Vlelveran’s a nightmare. The first nightmare actually, if Xaron is to be believed. He’s just doing what nightmares do: Bothering normal mortals.” Gilda shivered, took a deep breath, and got up. “You don’t feel anything?”

“Now that you mention it, I feel weird.” Dash scrunched her nose. “I feel woozy, but only in the back of my head, like a part of me is drunk. I thought it was fear.”

“I wouldn’t mind a nap, but…” Dash eyed the corpses all around them. “Why? Should I?”

“If you were under Vlelveran’s influence, you would. Forever.” Gilda said gravely. “I get it now. He’s the one who’s done this. Gods, I was stupid not to make the connection.” She shook her head sadly. “This boat was a nightmare snackbar.”

“Did your mother tuck you into bed with stories of hideous monsters that nip at bad fillies? Did she tell you about the unholy nightmares that eat dreams? There used to be a lot of nightmares in Equestria, before Celestia I purged them.” Gilda said. “But Celestia couldn't or wouldn’t kill Vlelveran.”

“That was a thousands of years ago!” Dash did not have a good perspective on the outrageous age of entities like Zero of Vlelveran. “He’s still, like, functional? I Imagined he was a mummy or something!”

Gilda nodded. “He could be rags and dust, but nightmares aren't normal. As long as his dream has a place to reside, he can wake up. And when he did, he must have been ravenously hungry after being asleep so long.” She bumped the nearest hammock. The head of the pony inside lolled limply. “Every pony on this ship was yanked into his dream, where they were picked to the bone.”

“There are worse deaths.” Gilda nudged Dash’s hoof away from her cutlass. It wouldn’t help them.
“And if he could kill this many ponies… I feel a bit dumb for not making the connection before, but it was obviously Vlelveran’s influence that’s been tormenting me with the dreams.”

“But what if… What about the sarcophagus we had, G? It’s was right under you, way closer.”

“I don’t know. If Vleleveran really did kill everypony through the dreamscape… Well… Bothering me is within his reach, to understate it. Velvetine’s an unknown.” Gilda yanked open the hatch down to the cargo hold. She felt a gust of cold air, carrying a nauseating stench.
“Grab a candle out of that box and bring it over please.”

“Sure.” Dash fetched the candle and joined GIlda at the hatch. “Here. Have a match?”

Gilda silently took one of the candles.
Among her hazy memories recently returned to her, she saw herself on Gottrakt, trying to light a candle with magic. All the other students did so with minimal effort, sparks jumping off their talons and igniting the wick.
She put two talons of her left claw on either side of the wick. Nothing happened.
She shifted it to her right claw. As she brought the talons together she felt a moment of apprehension. What if that sinister eye from the dream, the thing that called itself a Hamsa, returned?
Nothing happened.

“What are you trying to do?” Dash pursed her lips. “Try your wings. Sometimes I can get a good static charge between my feathers and make a spark arc.” She grunted. “Heh. Spark arc.”

“Nevermind. I’m just being crazy.” Gilda felt disappointed and relieved, but her paranoia and fear lingered. There was no way to prove a negative. “I have a matchbox right here anyway.”

With the candle lit, Gilda descended the ladder into the cargo hold. It was dark, dank, and musty, for seawater had infiltrated through a loose board or crack and it was now ankle deep.

“This is… Very uncomfortable.” Gilda felt her body pang and throb at every joint and muscle. She felt lightheaded, but very heavy at the same time. “Geeze. I’m almost going to pass out.”

Gilda squeezed her eyes shut. Color swirled in her vision, turning red with her heartbeat. “Give me a second. Maybe you won’t have to come down here.”
She took a few steps forward, sweeping the candle back and forth. The cargo hold was usually packed to the brim with cargo of every variety. It was completely empty, even the afthold, where rations usually sat. “This is really strange.” She returned to the ladder. “Dash! How was the ship listing when you came over?”

“I think Captain Pleiades stowed the sarcophagus in the secret smuggler hatch.” Gilda sloshed through the water to the front of the hold. The pain in her body strengthened. “Dash, is there a prybar up there?”

“No. Do you need help? Hold up, I’ll come down.” She heard Dash splash down. “Yuck. It’s wet!”

“Hardy har.” Dash entered the range of the candlelight. “So, where is it?”

“Behind this false wall.” Gilda rapped on the planks at the front of the cargo hold. It replied with a different pitch from the sides, which were part of the shell. “There’s a small compartment behind this bulkhead. One of these planks should be loose.”
She started tugging on various parts of the bulkhead, but none of them budged. “Okay, this isn’t how it usually is. Somepony nailed the trick board down. There must have been an inspection.”

“It’s a smuggling compartment. Even a straight-edge captain like Pleiades sometimes wants to move goods without tariffs. He’s a free-trade kind of stallion.” Gilda explained. “Only, it’s the oldest trick in the book. They had to make it look convincing for a port official or coastal patrol. Hence, nailing it solid.”

“So either Pleiades or somepony else didn’t want the officials to know he was transporting the sarcophagus.” Dash tapped her hoof against wall to test it for herself. “G, we’ve been going at this wrong. Somepony charted this ship, and I’ll bet you they’re involved to what happened to all these ponies! They’d know how the Seapony’s Pride is here, thousands of kilometers from where it’s supposed to be.”

“You’re totally right. Whoever hired the Seapony is a part of this. I hope it’s somepony we can identify, maybe Butcher Rose and the EOC, maybe a faction in Chitin, and not somepony we don’t even know about. How can we even deal with a complete unknown?” Gilda backed away from the false wall, alleviating some of the pressure on her mind.

Just on the other side was an ancient creature, an elder sibling of mortalkind, full of hatred and dark power. It’s dreams swirled and churned, exuding a presence of inconceivable darkness. The more Gilda dared to contemplate the aura, the more she was convinced that it would try to kill again. Had it been negligence or malice that had put it here, to pray on the dreams of relatively innocent sailor ponies?
Gilda knew she couldn’t beat Vlelveran. What she could do is find out who was arrogant enough to try. “Captain Pleiades would have a manifest and receipts in his cabin. They’ll tell us who hired him to move the sarcophagus.”

Gilda was halfway up the ladder to the crew deck when she was struck by a revelation. Pleiades might not have been the only crew unaccounted for.
“Dash, of the ponies you got to know, were there any you haven’t see dead? Besides Pleiades.”

“Me neither.” Gilda nodded. “I guess we got lucky we got off in Clawstaninople.”

“Yeah. I had a feeling the Captain was planning on booting us off in favor of that hippogryph anyway.” Dash said. “Wait a sec…” Her face contorted in realization. “His name was Eversnake! Where’s Eversnake?!”

“Oh shit.” GIlda gasped. The annoying black and white hippogryph had completely slipped from her mind. “Dash! Be on alert! That feathered snake might still be around here!”

She ran up the stairs into the cabins area and burst into the captain's room. All the documents were neatly organized into a sorting cabinet by the bed. Gilda grabbed a wad for the most recent filings. “Mother bucker, mother bucker. I bet Eversnake’s got something to do with all of this!”

“He could use magic too.” Dash pranced in place nervously. “Remember? He was a fire magician!”

“Yeah, a heretic mage. He said they ran him out of Maredia for breaking a taboo around ‘shadow’ magic. I KNEW there had to be more to his story.” Gilda found the records she was looking for. “Let’s see… Ah ha! Here’s the last entry! Port of Origin: Trottingham. Destination: Baltimare, with stopover in Filly Delphia for passenger exchange. Volume: One crate. Contents: Sarcophagus, classified as luxury good, insured by Swallow&Crane of Antwepwren. Yadaa yadaa yadaa...” She read further in silence.

“Trottingham? The sarcophagus was in Maredia less than a week ago, according to Xaron. And if you don’t believe him, you said it left Stirrup right before we got there.” Dash scratched her head. “So how did it get from Maredia to Trottingham fast enough to then make it to Equestria? Then to here. It’s just impossible!”

Gilda glanced up. “That’s right. It doesn’t seem possible. Maybe… Maybe it’s not the same one.” She went back to reading. “We never saw the one Xaron claimed to have.”

“G, this is the Seapony’s Pride, one-hundred percent. If this ship can defy reality, then an old stone box can too. We can figure out Xaron’s crap later.” Dash countered. ”Just skip to who shipped it!”

“Calm the hell down Dash, I know.” Gilda snorted. She flipped to the next page. Every line further she read, her eyes grew wider with shock and confusion. “Buck me, I wasn’t expecting that.” She flipped to the next page. “Damn it, we might be screwed.”

Dash’s face contorted in frustration. “Comeon G don’t leave me in the dark here!”

“Co-signed by Salvador Flair of Trottingham and Cadmirzan of Maredia.” Dash read the names several more times. “There’s the two locations! These ponies must’ve orchestrated the sarcophagus leaving Mareia and arriving in Trottingham.”

“Actually Cadmirzan is a hippogryph but that’s besides the point. Those two guys, Flair and Cadmirzan, they’re Stars.” Gilda snatched the manifest back. “The Stars stole the sarcophagus and were trying to smuggle it as far from the Inquisitors as possible.”

“But how in hell’s name did it get shipped out of Trottingham weeks before it left Stirrup?”

Gilda narrowed her eyes, thinking back on all her conversations with the old Star. She wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt, but his lack of motive and strange helpfulness did not earn him trust in an environment of fear and paranoia.
“Zero knew. He had to have known! He keeps in touch with his fellow Stars.” She pulled back the wispy curtains on the window. She could see the disguised changeling standing solitary on the Kyte aftcastle. “When he said it was the phantom time, he wasn’t guessing. He was well aware that one of his fellow Stars involved with it.”

Dash’s eyes lit up. “From Maredia to Trottingham, from Baltimare to here! It’s the same both times! The sarcophagus left a location, and showed up far away and in the past!

“Phantom time can move a location into the past and across space. I don’t know how, but its the only explanation that fits the facts.” Gilda confirmed. “You know, the sarcophagus might be in multiple places at once. Right at this moment now, it could still be with Xaron in Maredia. Within the next few days, it’s going to get stolen, sent to the past, and travel forward to us here.” She laughed at the absurdity of it. “True to its core concept of phantom time, more time passed for the sarcophagus than everything else in the world. It’s been knocked out of the universe’s continuity.”

“It went three-quarters of the way around the world before it even left. Talk about quick shipping.” Dash laughed with her, then sobered to a worried frown. “G, how can we even fight that kind of power? What will the Stars do to us.”

“They’re involved with the conspiracy, but they weren’t the ones creating phantom time. Stars are slaves to the aspect of Dark. Phantom time is Light magic. Light, like the Ava and the fire priests.” Gilda clenched her jaw. “Ergo our friend Eversnake, their agent who could potentially use phantom time. How the hell he learned about it or learned to use it is a question I don’t even know how to approach. Honestly besides speculation, I’m bankrupt for real knowledge about phantom time.”

Yup, and I really don’t like it. We start in Maredia, a couple days from now.” Gilda grabbed a small globe off Pleiades’s desk and jabbed it at each location she mentioned. “The sarcophagus is in Inquisitor custody after they seized it in Stirrup. But the Stars and their lackies among the fire priests steals the sarcophagus and sends it back in time to Trottingham. Eversnake on Seapony’s Pride, ingratiate with Pleiades, convinces him to ship it to accept the Star’s cargo and ship it to Equestria. Eversnake could either be a hardcore Star follower or just an opportunist. Remember, he said Equestria was his ultimate goal anyway.”

“Distance limitations? But it is farther from Baltimare to here than Maredia to Equestria, with the Eastern Ocean being so huge an all. If there’s a limitation it could be based on sender skill.” Gilda rattled of hypotheses.
“Or maybe there has to be a someone on the receiving end. Well, then they could have sent someone ahead to receive… Ahah, maybe it has to be a Star receiving. If that’s true then Flair and Cadmirzan are the only ones working on this conspiracy.”

Dash tapped her chin contemplatively. “Nah, I’m not convinced about any of that. Why would the whole ship end up here, nowhere close to the conspiracy or Equestria?”

Gilda closed her eyes and contemplated.
She saw flicking tendrils crawl up the inside of her eyelids. Manifestations of dark malevolence were dancing all across her vision, and the painful numbness of the hateful evil ran up and down her nerves. Her heart raced at the thought that the nightmare could pounce on her dream at any moment
She opened her eyes, but the visions lingered for a few moments before yielding to reality. “Vlelveran started to wake up en route. Eversnake or somepony tried to send him away with phantom time, but ended up sending the entire ship.”

“And if your receiver idea’s true, then Zero was probably intended receiver.” Dash said.

“And he didn’t tell us the whole story.” Dash said. “G, I really hate to say it but we can’t trust him.”

“You took the words out of my mouth.” Gilda grunted. With dull resignation she knocked her number of friends back to one.

Gilda knew she should agree. The safest and most rational course of action was to scuttle the dead ship and its cargo, to make as certain as possible that no one would suffer the agonizing fate the unfortunate crew had. Ancient Bard secrets be damned. Mysteries of phantom time be damned. Gilda had other chances to work through her memories.
But even as she weighed the options, Gilda knew that was not an option for her. She had something to prove, and an ideal to strive for, and that ideal was one of uncompromising action. Was she advancing as a student and a Star if she turned her back on a challenge? No opportunity to march towards heaven’s infinite promises could be missed!

Explaining that to Dash would be difficult though, so Gilda bullshitted.
“Dash… We can’t leave. Though it involved convoluted time buckery, the two Bard sarcophagi are still supposed to go together. Without them, we might not be able to get to the treasure in Chitin.” Gilda tossed away the manifest. “The Stars went through so much trouble to keep them away from each other, but by sheer coincidence or incalculable foresight, Vleleveran has returned to Velvetine.”
She stepped around Dash and jogged to the Door. “You don’t have to come if you don’t want to. In fact, you shouldn’t. Make sure my escape route’s clear, if you know what I’m saying.” She ran for the stairs. “And make sure everypony stays the hell away from the Seapony!”

Gilda paused halfway down the stairs. “If we’re going to take Vlelveran with us, he’s going to have to go back in his box.”

Dash was not about to let her friend kill herself for no reason. “G, we have no idea how to contain a nightmare! Sure, the Stars could, at least until this happened, but can you? The way you described him, fighting Vlelveran would be suicide! Please, don’t. At the very least ask Zero. He might know something if you push.”

“There’s no time. Every second Vlelveran wakes up more. We might be able to resist for a few seconds, and that will be enough for me to maim him.” Gilda ruffled her wings, jostling the arquebus strapped to her back. “Dream power can’t stop lead bullets.”

“Gilda…” Dash wanted to offer, nay demand, to come along, but an icy lance of fear shot through her. “G, hold down the fort for as long as you can. There’s got to be some documentation about how to subdue that nightmare. I’ll be there, when it matters.”

“I know you will, ya dweeb.” Gilda smiled.
She jumped down the stairs and to the cargo hold ladder. Dash heard the creak of the ladder down into the cargo hold, and a few moments later, the hatch clatter shut.

Dash took a deep breath. She wasn’t usually so afraid, even facing big threats like in Clawstantinope and Coltcutta.
“Every day I get a little braver and bolder.” She knew she could be rational, daring, and courageous without resorting to haughty emotion. “I’ve got this. I’ll find what I need to find.”

Not wasting any more time on worry she galloped out of the captain’s room. During her service on the Seapony’s Pride, she’d stayed in the lower decks with the rest of the crew, and so had much less familiarity with the cabins than she did on the Flyer Kyte. The Seapony had been a line ship once, and had just as much space in the aftcastle as a complement of officers would need. That equaled a mere two compartments, one for the doctor and one reserved for the occasional paying passenger.

Dash began with the doctor’s cubby. Death had found the doctor and a patient in a scandalous embrace.

“Oh my.” Dash reddened. She hadn’t gotten to know the ship doctor, Ostio, very well. The other pony in the frozen relationship was a swabbie. Avoiding looking at the two as much as she could, she pulled open the doctor’s desk and riffled through its contents.
The doctor didn’t keep the most meticulous records, but that just meant Dash could flip through them quickly.

“Ahah, here’s the last ones… From three weeks from now.” According to the records, a more than half the crew were complaining of debilitating headaches or insufferable nausea. With her notes scribbled in the margins, the Doctor Ostio speculated an unknown flu or bad food was to blame.

The real find was a torn scrap of paper with several bullet points, for named right at the top was Eversnake.

Had meeting with Cptn. Pleiades, F.M. Deiter, and D.C. 1st Eversnake (temp), 11,999SS 8:15

Eversnake refuses to take responsibility for strange illnesses. Cptn and FM considering refusing to stop at Filly Delphia for him. Eversnake made vague threats to ‘move’ us to anyway Filly Delphia. Cptn decided not to call his bluff. He’s never this flippant about open threats. All officers agreed Eversnake and his friends present a business opportunity, if reluctantly. Eversnake was content to have his way.

No address of strange sounds from the cargo. FM thinks the crew suspects something, I concurred. Eversnake proposed to bankroll extra rum ration for crew to get their minds off it, and the illness that had been going around. I protested, no sedatives; Caffeine is most reliable cure to the mystery illnesses. Cptn and FM overruled. Pleiades can’t turn down free stuff. We will be picking up more Rum in Filly Delphia.

Talked to Eversnake personally. He seems very distracted. I told him we need to treat crew with stimulants, not depressants. He laughed in my face claiming it would make no difference if things got worse. Meeting was adjourned.

9:45 Note to self: Eversnake dropped by. He defended depressants as the best cure against the illness. He said that stunting mental function and lucidity through inebriation was necessary to live through the worst symptoms. I told him how outrageous that was, but he left without further explanation. He did, however, promise to come back and explain more tomorrow. I now consider his claim. Perhaps body and brain temperature was a factor with the mysterious illness. I will test.

Dash speedily read glanced through the other pages and saw that some patients had indeed been dosed with different liquors and opiates. She found a last note under all the rest. It was actually a letter, folded but not addressed.

Dear Eversnake:
Since your disembarkation in Filly Delphia, our situation onboard the Seapony’s Pride has deteriorated. Like you predicted, symptoms have become less severe, but spread to the entire crew. Every moment I have a sailor in my room complaining of headache and light sensitivity. Most frighteningly, the steward, cook, and everypony else who spends their time in the lower decks are complaining about the ‘whispers’, exactly as you described them.

We are in peril, truly, as Cptn Pleiades refuses to believe me. Confiding in me alone may have been a poor choice, though I lack an answer as to who else aboard would have possessed the faculties to comprehend that macabre thing down in our cargo hold. Even now, days away of safe harbor, my mind is haunted by ghastly afterimages of that horrendous thing.

Thus fate closes in on us. We were simply too slow. In Baltimare lies our salvation, but the winds have been poor and the illness has hampered the crew too much. Thus we die at home, on the sea. With how symptoms are escalating I give us a day at most. We might even be in sight of Baltimare.
I for one will use my time to confess my vagary to the most handsome among the crew. I hope you blush, though I will not care if such lewdness flusters you, for I will be dead.

So to bring to a close this rambling and fevered confession, I absolve you of the guild. I know our suffering weighed heavily on you, and so too shall our deaths, but it was for the greater good. Eventually, all ponies will live and die for the Crown, as we unwittingly have, and as you will. Thank you so very much, Eversnake, for bringing euphoric closure to my doubts and cynicisms.

Sincerely, D. Ostio

“This seems weird, but important. But I dunno if I can use it right now.” Dash pushed the scraps of paper and the letter into the pocket of her trousers. “Even if it works, this isn’t the time to get drunk or high.” Even if it was very tempting.

She took a last look at the dead doctor and her company before she left the room, to duck into the one immediately adjacent.

This one was clearly the one Eversnake had stayed in. The half-avian had made something of a nest from his bed, but all the bookshelves and storage had been removed.

“Dang, what a mess.” Dash punched a chunk from the haphazard nest. “How am I supposed to find anything in this?”

“Huh?” Dash crouched down. “It’s a lens or something. What are the chances of that?” She tore away more of the nest, scattering straw and downy feathers everywhere. The embeded thing came free of the tangled mess and clattered to the floor.

It was a pair of glasses, like Dash would imagine a clerk would wear. It was thin, delicate, made from iron. Based on the bridge it fit over the nose of an average pony.

“Holy heck. Glasses. These things aren’t cheap.” Dash picked it up, bringing the crafted frame level with her eye. “No use throwing these away. There’s not many places that make them this good.”
Pegasi were very diligent about their eyes and eyesight, and losing good vision was one of the most debilitating handicaps. In Baltimare, Dash had frequently overheard the factor of the Weather Factory complaining about having to send his expensive spectacles to Manehattan to repair.

Just as she tried to stand up the whole ship lurched, throwing her into the wall. Dash spent several dizzy second waiting out the residual vibrations of whatever ha jolted the Seapony.

“That’s not good.” She groaned. “Gilda…”
Depressing awareness of herself swooped in. There she was, punching nests and theaving glasses, while Gilda was down in the darkness facing of a nightmare. Why did she let herself do that? Did she have so little care for her friend in her heart, to let her attention be so easily stolen away?
“I’m such a miserable cur.” Dash berated herself. “But I get a little braver. It won’t just be a little attack of conscience this time! I’ll be there for you, Gilda!”

She grabbed the glasses as she rose. “I can be better.” She bared her teeth and leapt out of the room. “I kept forgetting my lesson! I can kick flank when I need to!” She ran to the stair down to the cargo hold. “Even if I didn’t find what I needed to find, I can return to you, Gild-”
Thoughtlessly, Rainbow Dash slipped the glasses into place on her face. Unnoticed to her, the thin metal frame began to glow a soft white. In a snap instant she disappeared from the world, leaving only the echo of her gallop.

It felt much colder than it had before. It could have been her imagination; She didn’t have Dash to back her up. Or, the slowly awakening nightmare could have been sucking the heat out of the surroundings.

She reached up and grabbed the hatch, heaved, and slammed it closed. She descended the ladder in pitch black darkness. Only once she had all four limbs planted firmly on the floor, ankle deep in the stinging sea water, did her stomach settle again.

“Vlelveran’s probably fully awake and alert now.” She lit a candle. It’s light didn’t reach as far as the earlier one. “I what am I getting myself in to?”

She swallowed her apprehension and took a few steps closer. “Can you hear me?” She whispered, hardly doing more than mouthing the words. “Can you understand me?”
She closed her eyes. She saw Dark magic oozing from between the minute gaps in the planks of the smuggler's hatch, like hundreds of liquid snakes that thrashed against the limitations of space and reality. They wanted to break free. They wanted to tear everything apart. Gilda couldn't blame him.

“Hello?” Gilda took a steadying breath and moved closer to the effluent Darkness. All her hair and feathers stood on end. “Vlelveran, are you there.”

In the imperceptible ranges deeper than sound there was a pained, enraged groaning. Stone grinded against stone. A millennium old prison was at long last breached and ancient evil was released.

Gilda took small comfort in knowing that there still was a thin but sturdy barrier of wood between her and the nightmare. She spoke again, louder but still softly, for the quiet of the Darkness loomed ready to attack any who disturbed it. “Hello. My name is Gilda von Gottrakt.”

WHUMP.
The collision of flesh again wood resounded through the cargo hold, making Gilda jump. A shower of wood dust fell from the ceiling, making the air even more murky.

A panoply of unknown sounds, muted by the wood, echoed around her. Squeals, scrapes, and agonized infernal moans. Through it she heard what could have been the gurgling growls of a massive monsters, in a crude mimicry of language, deep within her mind. “g- g- gilda…” The sounds, physical and mental, died away.

“Yes.” She replied to the ghostly moan. “I wish to talk.” She passed the candle to her prehensile wing and unslung her arquebus again. She checked that it was loaded. It was. “Are you wondering about your sister? She safe. We’ve got her sarcophagus. We’re protecting her.”

Against every instinct and practical sense, Gilda took another step forward. “I don’t want any trouble. I have some questions, maybe a proposition, that’s it. We can be friends. Want to see your sister? That’s totally arrangeable. I’m not sure I can arrange her release, but maybe I can work something out. There doesn’t have to be any bloodshed.” She leveled the arquebus at the hatch. “Except for all the ponies you killed. And that doesn’t even count. You didn’t spill any blood. Like it was all a bad dream.”

WHUMP. Some of the boards cracked, some nails shot out, plinking off the walls and into the water. The ethereal foggy Dark streaming between the cracks began to solidify. Like bat’s fingers they pried and scratched at the barrier, trying to pull it apart. Here and there a flicker of red light shone out from inside.

“I just want to talk.” GIlda squawked unintentionally. She was choking up with nerves. “Please let me know you understand me.”

Under the assault of the manic magic, the crack in the boards widened, and the red light shone brighter. It swiveled left and right, bathing different areas of the hold, before settling over GIlda.

“Light: Intrusive, caustic, hated. Your light is bothering me.” A deep voice filled her head. “Do away with it.”
Without her consent, her wing released the candle. It doused in the water, and the cargo hold was returned to near total darkness. Only the glowing red eye illuminated now.

“What?!” GIlda tried to swivel her head, but could not. “G- G- Get out of my head!” She protested, but her mouth refused to move any more. Icy coldness filled her mind, as though a blizzard had descended and frozen her inside and out. The nightmare’s shadowy will was puppeting her, through her dreams.
She tried to squeeze her talon to the trigger of her arquebus but every millimeter was a huge mental strain.

“That weapon. A gunpowder projectile gun. It can produce light.”’ Vlelveran’s severe accent was like a dancing lion: Elegant, yet weighty and overtoned by grizzly death. It made some sense; He had been an aristocrat once. But it trembled and echoed, like a block of sound that had just happened to be a voice. It tumbled between pitches and chords, like a boulder careening down a steep mountain. Gilda did not like the strange metaphors the nightmare was putting in her head. “Gilda. Disarm yourself.”

“Oh-- no-” GIlda felt her claws open up. The arquebus fell from her grip, but right before it hit the water her right leg snatched it back. After a moment of disbelief, GIlda tested her movement. Her right leg up to the shoulder was free somehow, but that was all. “I- It’s fra- fragile. Gotta keep it- it dry.” She tried to smile.

The red eye started at her in silence. The Dark tentacles trembled in anger, nibbling away at the the edges of the hole in the boards like hundreds of starving rats.

It took some contortion, but Gilda holstered the arquebus into its harness with her right leg. Wherever her claw brushed, sensation returned for as long as there was contact. She cupped her beak like she was shouting, and was pleased to feel the nightmare’s paralysis retreat from her throat and mouth as well, letting her speak. “Vlelveran, or sir, or lord, or whatever, greetings. I just want to talk.”

The shadowy nightmare stood silent for a few moments. “Vlelveran will do.” He backed away from the hole and hunched down. WHUMP. He stuck the hatch again, widening the crack. Infuriated that it was still not enough, the myriad claws began spasming and attacking everything in range. Now they really were like snakes, biting off slivers of wood from every surface in their blind rage.

“Don’t like to talk? Me neither.” GIlda fought through the mental freeze to picture herself as a predator: Slashing through the throat of the sailor on the Baltimare docks, bringing down the butcher in the Clawstantinople alley, gunning down the thugs in the Coltcutta slum. She had no idea if her thoughts could be seen or if it was a one-sided link. “I’m like you.”

“Like me?” The deep voice made the rough approximation of a chortle. “No.”

“You’re- Hey!” GIlda felt her wing poke into her breast pocket and fish out her matches. “Come on, dude! I- I’m not an enemy!” She tried to grab it but couldn't reach across her chest. She watch helplessly as the wing flicked the matches into the water next to the candle. “I’m just here to help! I can reunite you with your sister, Velvetine.”

Gilda was beginning to feel very stupid for willingingly coming to face the ancient nightmare. “Bastard.”

“There it is. Revealing. You may pretend, but a trial always reveals true nature.” He backed away from the barrier again, never taking his bright red eye off Gilda. “Your mercenary nature.”

He charged forward. WHUMP. Most of the smuggler's hatch exploded into splinters, and the bulkheads around it twisted and cracked. The trickle of water into the cargo hold quickened.

“Most ponies who come before me are pilgrims. Empty. They come to satisfy the compulsions of faith, to lay their dreams on my altar. They seek my domination. Completion.” The vague shape of Vlelveran’s form lumbered forward. His red eye, hovering in the center of his head, seemed to be the only solid thing about him. The rest was shadow, roiling confined in the shape of his body. It was bulky, primitive in its inelegant shamble, but imposing in its crude way.
“Then again you are not a pony. Verified. Inform me when and where am I?”

Gilda felt the oppressive presence in her head recede just enough that she could speak freely without holding her beak. “A boat off Chitin, a thousand years after you got in that sarcophagus.”

“A thousand years. Unexpected. That is much longer than I thought.” Vlelveran’s tone became even angrier, if it was possible. “She never came back for me. My ally...”

“You don’t know that. Whoever your talking about might’ve tried, or been delayed.” Gilda supplied. She wasn’t the best anger therapist she knew, but at the very least she could placate him a little. The only thing more dangerous than a nightmare was an angry nightmare. “You’re at the center of a lot of conspiracies. I really don’t know if somepony was trying to release you or just happened to wake up. I was going to asked but you seem a bit starved for answers yourself.”

“I do not need your footnotes, mercenary.” Vlelveran growled, a throaty crocodile-like sound that echoed off the bulkheads. “However…” He fell to a hush. “The word conspiracy rouses a lonely fear within me. Fear. Paralysis. My old enemies are here again, haunting me past the grave.” He snarled. “The Stars… At last I am free but their specter follows me.”

The nightmare was positively livid. Xaron had conveniently left out any mention of a rivalry between Vlelveran and the Stars. “They’re very involved.” Gilda confirmed.

“Concerning. Distressing even. Stars, Stars, confounded Stars. Was it through their interference I am freed? Perhaps. It will shoulder their attention not!” Vlelveran seethed. He swept his gaze up, identifying the exit in the form of the hatch on the ceiling. “Is it daytime? How far can I run?”

“That is bothersome. Why is everything so bothersome!” Vlelveran’s displeasure became known as his black tendrils began thrashing with renewed vigor. To Gilda’s terror, he was nearly close enough for the hungry tentacles to reach her, and she saw in detail how that caustic magic thrashed and splashed, carving layers of wood into splinters. “Ah… That prompts me; Mercenary, I felt your drea-”

“You got my name right once.” GIlda snarked. She was rewarded with the icy pain of the nighmare’s gaze intensifying to clamp her mouth shut. The crushing pressure became almost unbearable.

“So familiar already. Nay.” Vlelveran took another step closer. He leered above Gilda, the tip of his shadowy horn almost touching the ceiling. “In my late slumber did I see you as a dreamer. Of that I am sure. Details are fleeting. Still some facts I recall: You are bewitched by one of my nemeses, the Stars.”

“Well, Black Bell is-” Gilda cut herself off.
Vlelveran spoke of Stars with venom. There was no telling what he would do to Black Bell’s daughter. Or step-daughter, Gilda corrected herself mentally. “They tried.” Whatever insight Vlelveran couldn't get from his dream power, Gilda was absolutely not going to furnish him farther.

“Don’t be coy with me. Whep. Impotent! I know what abominations the Stars craft.” Vlelveran blustered. “I know well. Sight, vision! I know because I have seen the perverse fruit of that heretical labor they call experimentation and progress.”

“Reticent at last? Well enough! What shame you would give voice to, Hamsa-bearer!”

Gilda’s breaths quickened. Hamsa… It was a soft word, alluring almost. In the dream, it was the name the godhand had placed in her head to describe that awful eye, formed from cracks, that had come to life on her palm. That word, ‘Hamsa’, was made her quake with fear of the unknown.

Vleleveran continued. “The Stars have cast you into the role of a betrayer of your mortal kin. You now posses a power of the elder siblings of mortalkind. A power to execute the path Destiny, as they do.”
He stooped down. “A certain phantom power.”

They were eye to eyes. The murky red light of the nightmare’s solitary eye melted into the fog of his body just deep enough to reveal that there was structure underneath: A skeleton ran under his ‘skin’ of shadow, rotted by time but partially repaired with compacted dust and ash which had once been his tissue and clothes. A pony’s skull that stared out of the nightmare’s translucent head, a horrible revelation by his own light. The red eye sat not within its socket, but within the jaw of the blackened bones.

“I say with no pride that I am undefeatable. Except for Phantom Time. Its secrets are unapproachable for me or my sister. But those treacherous Stars...” Vlelveran had to stop to collect himself, such was his fury. “That cabal who dare to pry in the Dark Lady’s secrets, with their leader who DARES to wear her name, are my sworn enemies!”

Gilda grabbed her beak again. “I don’t know when you met them, but the band split up right after they achieved immortality.”

“Doubtless I was, that they succeeded their quest for immortality. It is their role to haunt the world eternal. Infuriating!” Vlelveran, surprisingly, took a few steps back to make some room between them. “Only through their living weapon, the Hamsa-bearer, were they able to sequester me and my sister.”

“No shit huh? Black Bell was invoking the godhands a thousand years ago.” Gilda grunted to herself.

Vlelveran twitched. “Black Bell? Nay, nay! It was their leader, that misshapen horror cloaked in rags. Has the knowledge of the Hamsa spread? How in all the damnable world am I to live in a world overrun with you abominations?!”

Gilda chose not to remark on the irony of a nightmare accusing anyone of being an abomination. “Not exactly. Black Bell’s the only one who knows the least bit about that crap, and I don’t think she even knows that well.” Gilda asuaged his concerns. “Astral Nacre, or you can call her Clover if you want, disappeared. Returned to her home planet, I guess.”

“SILENCE! The Dark Lady shuns that HERETIC!” Vlelveran bellowed, with a dark outpouring to create chop in the shallow sea underhoof. The skin of his shadowy body began to boil and loose definition. His tendrils dug into every surface, even Gilda’s tunic, and with their intensified writhing every board and bulkhead in the cargohold began to buckle inward. Gilda’s tunic was torn to shreds and her chest was cut shallowly by the magical coils. Dozens of new leaks hissed from between the cracks, filling the hold with salty spray.
“Speak of her NOT to imply her relation to MY Dark Lady!”

“Look I don’t disagree!” Gilda shouted to be heard over the cacophanus storm of dark magic. “Please calm down! I just want to some agreement, you know, of understanding. Regardless of what I might or might not be, I’m cool. Get it?”

Vlelveran hissed in displeasure, but the magic shedding off him abated. “No, I do not ‘get it’! You keep repeating the same thing about talking, yet say nothing of content. Do you want something from me?”

It was not going very well. Gilda’s bland amicableness was not getting very far with Vlelveran. “I mean, when you think about it, we have been talking. But I came down here to work something out. We’ve been keeping your sister, and we don’t want trouble, right… Let’s agree… I…” She stuttered, unable to think of anything to say. “Well crap. I won’t lie, I was stupidly hoping you’d come along. I have no idea what we need you for honestly. It might be a fight, or we might need your ancient knowledge. Just stuff, you know.”

Vlelveran said nothing, which was worrying, but by the same token neither was he exploding in anger.

“Cease your prattling. The details are meaningless for everything is within my ability, excluding a certain exception.” He muttered the last part. “So if you had any sense you would see the conclusion I am drawing to. You, Hamsa-bearer, will protect me against the Stars when I return to the waking world.”

“What I do between now and when my ally comes for me matters very little, so long as I am not imprisoned again. She and I can strive from there.” Vlelveran said. “Exchange of service. I ‘work’ with you and your employer, and you guard me against the the phantom time. Quid pro quo.”

There was the second mention of the ambiguous ‘she’ who was supposed to save Vlelveran.

“Uh…” Gilda stuttered. “Would you be willing to stay in the sarcophagus most of the time? You’re supposed to be a secret.”

“I’ll take that as a maybe?” Gilda scratched her head. “And what about hunting. Can you control yourself around prey.”

“Then your suggestion is...” Entirely reasonable, Gilda almost said.
Only she was utterly unable to actually manifest the Hamsa. She didn’t even know what it was! She was hoping to get a clearer answer from Vlelveran. Now if she came off as too incompetent for his purposes he was likely to kill her. “Great. It’s great. I agree. Verbal contract established. We’re pals now.”

Vlelveran was silent for a moment. His shadowy body and its mess of tendrils thrashed and rolled agitatedly. “You make it difficult not to despise you, mercenary.”

Gilda felt Vlelveran’s icy grip disappear from her mind, but had no time for joy or relief before nausea overtook her. She collapsed onto to her stomach, her legs weak and her head throbbing. “Son of a bitch.” She half-moaned, half-gargled, for the water was half a hoof deep and rising. She pushed herself up and spit out the water. “I’m not going to be a happy pal if you do this to me dude. I already have three demanding assholes to answer to.”

“I care not for your split loyalties, as long as you are there to interdict the phantom power.” Vlelveran sniffed. He turned away, sloshed slowly back into the smuggler's hatch, dragging along the ethereal tentacles sprouting from his shadow. The tentacles were none too pleased, squealing like blinded crows at losing potential prey. “If you can do that, I see no reason we can not be friends.”

“Oh, not just pals, but friends. It’s what I asked for, after all.” Gilda rolled her eyes. “So glad to have you, Vlelveran.”

“You are only too welcome. I look forward to trivializing your petty problems.” Vlelveran strode to the sarcophagus, but twisted around to face her again. “Oh, but one more stipulation, mercenary Gilda. Is it true or do I feel wrong, that there is a dreamer who does not dream nearby?”

“An accursed mortal. One who has become more. Not quite a god or an alicorn, but an elder sibling of mortalkind.” His gaze became heavy and cold again. Gilda felt her joints become stiff and static numb her muscles. “One who has sacrificed their dreams to achieve power. A Star.”

“T- That’s not a stipulation. That’s a question.” Gilda said through her clenched beak.

“The stipulation is that you answer the question.” Vlelveran hummed. To that point, the nightmare had worn his erratic emotions on his sleeve. His first sign of anything resembling restraint was where he should be the most enraged, the most explosive. “Who is the Star? It is hard to tell from here. Is it Flair I feel? Although it is less pony-like. Cadmirzan or Zero or Master, I say.”

Gilda swallowed. It was time she did what she’d come to do, and it hadn’t been bending over backwards to a rotten old asshat. “Zero, actually.” It was time to be foolhardy. “Another detail I left out is that we’re after the Alicorn Amulet. So yeah, that’s also a thing.”

“You know what is also ‘a thing’ ? You ceasing to bother me.” Vlelveran said.

Gilda felt all the muscles in her upper body relax. She fell face first into the water. She panicked struggling fruitlessly to send a command to her muscles to pull her head up, but Vlelveran continued to exert his influence on her, intent on drowning her. Not so intent that she wasn’t able to prop her head up with her right leg. Her nostrils were barely above water, and said water was steadily rising.

“In the desert of the Sahella water is a priceless resource. I built the city of the Bard around a great oasis and gave my people its joy. Drowning was the second most honorable death, the first being swift suicide. My ponies exalted suffering deaths.” Vlelveran said. “When the gods destroyed my city, the water became toxic with their magic, and any who tried to drink it became monsters. In retrospect, I do not lament my tower or my ponies’ destruction, for it is the fate of all peoples. The loss of the oasis hurts most deeply.”

Vlelveran hissed, his stoicism breaking into anger again. “I should have done this sooner, phantom time or no. It is your time to be destroyed, mercenary. In the name of the Dark Lady I condemn you to death, you stunted abomination.”

Gilda felt her neck muscles tense, preparing to force the rowing issue. Gilda pushed all hesitation behind her. It was do or die now. “Can’t go long without mentioning your Lady, huh? I respect that, I guess. Maybe you’ll respect this.”

She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and plunged her right claw into her neck. She’d been aiming for the jugular vein but her shakiness meant different talons ended up in her artery, through her trachea, and around the cartilage of her esophagus. It hurt much less than was expecting, until she tried to breath and sucked in blood instead of air. She convulsed and yanked her claw back out.

But the frigid grip of Vlelveran’s will was completely expelled from her body. Her right leg’s immunity had spread to the rest of her. Losing vision and choking on blood, Gilda pushed herself to all fours. She locked eyes with Vlelveran.

“Impressive. Griffins are remarkable. However, friend, wouldn’t it have been much easier to use the phantom time to escape me? “ He laughed coarsely. “Were you not withholding from that power as a courtesy to me? Or are you… powerless?” His laughs devolved into a guttural yowl. “Treachery. Fool! Thinking you could deceive me, Vlelveran! You hamsa-bearers have decayed in quality over the millennium.”

Gilda steadied herself against the wall but her legs gave out again she she slid back into the water. She couldn’t breath, was getting only half her blood to her brain, and the searing pain in her lungs was close to making her pass out. Die seemed much closer than do.
She reached into the hole in her neck and, after a little fumbling, she found both ends of her vein. She brought the severed ends together.

Vlelveran watched her jerky movement. “I was numbed with disappointment for yours to have been the first face upon my liberation, but this glorious spectacle makes up for it. Ahh, the first death I witness in a millennium, to brighten an otherwise bothersome day. Or not quite the first death; There were the dreamers, but as you said, they do not count.”

“Ass… hole.” Gilda gargled through the holes in her neck. She knew she had the conviction to prove him wrong. She couldn’t put him back in his box if she died. She had to live.
A spark danced between her talons, arcing around the exposed veins and cauterizing them back together. Gilda repeated the process on the artery.

“What are you doing? Was that magic?” Vlelveran cocked his head. “But you- Hamsa bearers can’t...”

Gilda retorted by contorting in a violent coughing fit. She spat blood into the water for a whole minute, then slowly straightened up. Her smile could not have been bigger as she rolled her shoulders freely under the crimson gaze of the nightmare.
“Bitch.” She croaked, unworried by the hole still marring her neck. “I run on blood, and so does my eye!”

She turned her claw up. The viscous blood coating it was boiling and frothing away, revealing a symbol underneath. The Hamsa, the thin eye, delicate like calligraphy, opened from between the creases on her palm. It’s lashes unfurled and spread along her talons, and the iris expanded and spawned a furrowed pupil.
It locked eyes with Gilda. Just like in her dream, spilt blood revealed the hamsa.

Vlelveran recoiled in horror and his multitude of shadow tendrils screamed in fear. “Are you mad?! Put that away!”

Gilda shrugged weakly. “I can’t control it. It’s dissociated. All I can do is point it.” She clenched her claw tightly. “And punch the dweebs who need punching.”

“You want to fight? That won’t do, that won’t do! Futile!” Vlelveran tramped the floor, letting out an ear-piercing yowl. “You have denied me an execution and now a fight to the death will satisfy me alone, mercenary! You’ve wasted too much of my time already.”

“That’s not your time you should be worried about, pal. It’s my time.” Gilda squawked, narrowing her eyes. Vlelveran was going to go back into his box.
“Because the phantom time begins NOW.”

When the Everfree Burns

by SpiritDutch

Bridge Chapter 8: Phantom 2