//------------------------------//
// Lesson 5: Think On Your Hooves 
// Story: Chessmaster's Apprentice 
// by Magic Step 
//------------------------------//

	The power plant was a long, low building, built of stone and mostly windowless. It was half on a cliff near sea level, and half jutting out into the ocean. The difference between the old, crumbling, salt-stained brick walls of the hydroelectric section and the newer off-white crystal matrix section was jarring.
About twenty ponies surrounded the building, most armed. Zugzwang didn’t plan on taking chances in case Phillip did somehow have something to do with this.
Zugzwang examined the plant from between the leaves of the bushes he was using for concealment. He drew a long puff of smoke from his cigar thoughtfully; Honey had not chosen a terribly romantic location.
Two unicorns, an older mare and young stallion, approached his hiding place, the stallion nearly tripping over his own hooves in his haste.
“Well?” Zugzwang asked them.
“Th-the walls have so much lead and crystal and stuff in them-” the stallion stammered.
“I asked for information, not excuses.”
The mare stepped forward, her graying bangs falling in her eyes. “I detect some unusual magic that doesn’t belong there. The place is supposed to be broken down, after all. I can’t tell what the exact spells are, but they probably aren’t volatile.”
“Danke,” Zugzwang said, nodding. “And you, little pup?”
The stallion coughed. “Ah… I could only find three lifeforms. All ponies. But one of them is asleep, and one is so faint I think he or she is dying. No unicorns.”
Zugzwang nodded to him. “And why did you feel the need to complain about the difficulty of the job when you were successful?  The first thing you should learn about me, Vital Sign, is that I don’t appreciate ponies who waste my time.”
He waved to two gunponies, who nodded and dashed up to the power plant entrance. Others scouted the perimeter of the building, looking for traps.
While waiting, Zugzwang telekinetically drew a small purse from his suit pocket and unfolded it to reveal a miniature chess set in gold and silver, enchanted to stay fixed to the squares. He offered the set to Vital Sign. “You remember where we left off, of course?”
Vital Sign squirmed, no doubt reminded of the nasty pin Zugzwang had had him in. “R-right, let’s continue…”
Zugzwang appreciated games with amateurs. Naturally he enjoyed the challenge of playing with other grandmasters and using his brain’s utmost power, but he also liked to unwind by playing games like these, where he had the leisure to hunt down and destroy his opponent’s pieces one by one.
Before long, Vital Sign’s pawn, one of the few pieces he had remaining, was making a mad dash to the end of the board, its progress slowed by the fact that Zugzwang had two rooks chasing his king around in a series of narrowly escapable checks.
“All clear, sir,” a member of the search team said. “Do you want us to search inside too?”
“Nein; Honey wants romance, and there is nothing romantic in sending in an investigative team first. I trust your judgment.” Zugzwang snapped the travel chessboard shut. “We will resume later.”
Vital Sign grimaced.
“Mein companions,” Zugzwang said to the assembled henchponies, “Be alert; if there is any trouble, I will use my magic to summon you, and I hope you will adapt quickly.”
The ponies nodded, and Zugzwang wove through them and headed for the door of the power plant. It was not the main entrance, but it had been left unlocked, and so seemed an obvious sign for where to go in. It was part of the old hydroelectric plant; the hallway was carved from the cold white natural rock, while the walls were made of glass, tinted green by the side effect of an outdated reinforcement spell. The rooms behind the glass used to be full of machinery, but it had been stripped out during the transition, so now the rooms were just empty.
Halfway there was a metal-rimmed portal door with a big red button labeled “Emergency access” next to it and a piece of paper with an arrow drawn on it saying “This way, Zugzwang!” taped on it. Zugzwang smirked and pressed the button; the silly girl hadn’t even disguised her mouthwriting.
The door dilated open to reveal a short metal tunnel not much taller than Zugzwang; a few feet away it opened up into a large white ceramic-coated room with a small wooden structure at the far side, too far away for Zugzwang to see clearly.
Zugzwang made it to the end of the tunnel, and then blue lightning filled his vision. It felt like his horn was being shoved into his head. He collapsed to one side, putting all his strength into summoning the guards. At first this only made his head hurt worse, but he pressed on, until the pain slowly faded to nothing…
…Nothing. It shouldn’t feel like nothing. He was casting a high level spell; why did it feel like nothing was happening?
His vision returned shortly after this observation. He craned his neck to see that the door, naturally, had closed. Standing up made his head swim, but he managed to stagger out of the tunnel into the white room. Then he turned around.
Sure enough, over the exit of the tunnel, where it couldn’t be seen walking in, was some kind of strange device. It was arch shaped, with several yellow blinking gemstones studding it. He tried to probe it with his magic to learn more, but continued to feel nothing.
He’d heard the rumors, but had had no idea the project was anything more than a possibility: a gate that had the ability to neutralize the magic of any unicorn passing through it, a security measure for jail cells and sporting events. And this, it seemed, was the prototype.
Acquiring such a device was more in line with Honey’s talents than with Phillip’s, but if Honey thought this was the way to Zugzwang’s heart, she was about to painfully learn otherwise.

***

Tell me, tell me, Honey child,
Why do ponies fear the dark?
It’s only when your eyes are closed
That you can start to dream.
Tell me, tell me, Honey child,
Why do ponies fear the void?
It’s the place where Nothing stands in your way
For you to become a queen…
The soft song was the only thing running through Phillip’s brain; sight, motion, and tactile sensation was still fuzzy.
Then his hind legs were jerked up and his head started swimming. His eyes sprang open before they remembered he was supposed to be unconscious, and he saw an upside down gargoyle leering at him. He tilted his chin to his chest and took in the situation; he was hanging upside down, his hind legs lashed together with a thick rope that was attached to a kind of pulley several yards up. He looked around and down; he was in a concrete column, several stories tall, with turbulent waters at the bottom. Some kind of storage tank? Or something related to sewage? The only other clue was the occasional gargoyles lining the walls.
Two grey hooves reach down from the pulley's beam and jiggled the rope. “Hi there, Finder.”
Phillip Finder scowled up at the unseen mare. “Honey Quill.”
“It’s Honey Words right now, if you don’t mind.”
“Why do you think you can work for Zugzwang and come away in one piece? You’re a resource to him, nothing more.”
Honey Words bounced on top of the support beam, shaking the rope. “You know nothing about us! About him! About me! My love for him is pure and unending, and you’re messing everything up!”
“What the hay…?” Phillip muttered to himself, then winced as the bounces jolted him.
“You’re distracting Zugzwang! We can never be together as long as he’s obsessed with you, and it’s not fair!”
Phillip Finder let the bounces sway him, then started turning it into a steady swinging motion. He wasn’t really listening, because Honey was clearly missing a few marbles.
“Well, I’ll tell you what I think of you, Phillip Finder. Better, I’ll show you. Did you ever hear of crystaldiles?”
Phillip swung like a pendulum, rocking his body to maintain momentum.
“They were cute little reptiles with bodies made of solid crystal. Ponies found them in the Frozen North and exported them down south as pets, unaware of the effect heat would have on their magical bodies…”
Phillip reached out for a gargoyle on the wall. His hoof landed on top of its head, but the downward momentum from his swing was apparently too much strain for the worn-down stone support, and the demonic creature tipped over and plummeted into the churning water below.
As soon as it hit the water, a pair of giant, pink, sparkly jaws rose up and crushed the gargoyle like it was made of glass.
“…And here comes the poor darling now,” Honey Words said, peering over the edge. “Thrown into the sewers when she was too large to keep. Now she lives on what few stupid fish wander into this tank. Like you. Goodbye, Finder.”
Phillip Finder kicked off the wall and angled his sway slightly, grabbing a different gargoyle just as Honey released a winch. The rope rattled freely down into the water.
But the gargoyle held to the wall, and Phillip held to the gargoyle.
He looked up and saw Honey Words glaring down at him.
She groaned. “You’ve gotta be kidding me… Let me find something to throw at you real quick…”
He looked down at the water; the crystaldile had swum to the splashing sound and was now trying to chew up the rope. He studied the smooth wall of the tank and judged the distance upward; the rope was his only way back up and out of this place; he didn’t want to take the chance that there was a pony-sized pipe leading out of the tank, especially if he had to search for it with the crystaldile hunting him.
A brick smashed against the side of the tank next to his head and the pieces crumbled into the water below.
“Missed…” Honey snarled.
The crystaldile swam towards the sound, the low light glittering off her scaly back and jeweled blue eyes.
This was his chance.
Phil let himself fall from the gargoyle ten feet to the crystaldile’s back. Then he wrapped all of his legs around the beast’s mouth and held on tightly.
The crystaldile thrashed its head in the air, straining to open its jaws. Then it plunged under the water so fast Phillip barely had time to draw breath. When it surfaced, it was near the rope leading up to the winch, which Phillip quickly grabbed with his teeth. The crystaldile tried to dive again, and Phillip let go. Before the stone beast could realize it was free, Phillip wrapped his forehooves around the rope and started to climb up.
Another brick came tumbling down, and Phillip only just swung aside in time.
“Stop escaping!” Honey screamed.
“If you wanted me dead, why the hay didn’t you slit my throat while I was unconscious?” Phillip shouted back.
Honey apparently hadn’t thought of that, since she was silent for a moment.
“Y-y-you just weren’t supposed to be doing it this fast! The game isn’t fun if you start winning before Zugzwang even—” She gasped. “Oh-h-h gosh, he’s here! I’ll be right back!” She soared off over Phillip Finder’s head to a place he couldn’t see.
Phillip rolled his eyes and kept climbing up the rope. How did she become so feared when she was really so stupid?
But what had she meant about a game? And had she been saying that Zugzwang was… here?
This was going to be an interesting day…

***

Zugzwang spent a full two minutes prodding the arch to try and figure out how to make it work in reverse. Unfortunately, the best he could figure was that the process couldn’t be reversed, which was probably the reason why such an effective machine was still a prototype. He’d have to wait for the curse to wear off, which could be hours or even days.
“Lovely,” he muttered to himself as he pocketed the gemstones and precious metals from the arch. At least they might be useful.
There was clearly nothing to gain on this end of the room, so he crossed the cold ceramic column to examine the wooden structure at the far end. It was a poorly-hammered together staircase resting on top of a huge metal drain. The staircase apparently led nowhere, except to a small panel on the wall.
“Ja, I get it,” Zugzwang said to nobody as he pushed the rickety staircase and watched it wobble. “This was all a plan to get me to step on an unsafe staircase and die of a broken neck. Your cruelty knows no bounds.”
But although the staircase swayed easily, it didn’t look like the boards themselves were going to break, so step by step, setting his hooves down carefully, he made his way to the platform on the top, all the while wondering if Phillip Finder would ever believe a pony like him could die from a broken neck.
…Actually, that gave him an idea. He filed it away for later use.
The panel on the wall turned out to be a box bolted to the wall containing slider puzzle. A very familiar slider puzzle. A flimsy paper sign above the slider puzzle read, “Tired of leading a sheltered life, the princess has decided to run away for freedom. Armed guards are blocking her path to escape. Her freedom depends on you. Can you make it?”
The giant red square that was meant to be navigated outside the puzzle to win now had a crudely drawn alicorn on it, but otherwise the puzzle was the very one Zugzwang had gifted to Honey on her birthday. Well, there was one more change: Honey had pulled the nails out of the frame of the puzzle and nailed in new ones. Presumably to reset the puzzle, since Celestia knew she couldn’t solve it the way it was meant to be solved.
Zugzwang sighed and knocked on the wall. “Honey? Where are you? Come out, little one.” Silence. “You know I know how to solve this puzzle. Why do you wish to toy with me? Come out and we can talk.”
There was a bang and a muffled clatter behind the wall. “Solve the puzzle,” said a growly voice.
“Honey Words, please; of course I remember the voice synthesizer Ray Gun was developing. I would rather you not insult my intelligence if you wish to stay on my good side, mein freund.”
“Freund!?” Honey Words screamed.
A hatch popped open in the wall near the ceiling, and Honey Words leaned out to glare at Zugzwang.
“St-stop calling me that!” Honey Words wailed. “I never want you to call me that again!”
Zugzwang hissed to himself, “Keep behaving like this, and trust me, I won’t.”
“I don’t want to just be your freund,” Honey sobbed, getting the pronunciation all wrong. “Why can’t you see that?”
Salt tears fell on Zugzwang’s nose, and he sighed. All this effort just to deal with a temper tantrum. “Mein kleiner, you have made yourself very special to me. Why so upset? How have I mistreated you?”
Honey slid back inside the wall, out of sight, still sobbing. She eventually reemerged, her eyes still wet but her voice steadier. “You don’t really love me. You love Phillip.”
Zugzwang was not left speechless very often, but he suddenly became busy trying to figure out which sentence was stupider. “Love… Phillip. What… how did you…?”
“Figure it out?” Honey flared her wings out. “You call him your liebling and caress a picture of him!”
“How did you draw such an insane conclusion…?” Zugzwang asked.
“Well! I’ll tell you how insane I am!” Honey gestured to the puzzle below her. “I kidnapped your precious liebling and hid him somewhere in this power plant. To find him you have to solve all the puzzles I set in here, starting with this one. It was supposed to be the best present I’d ever given to you.”
What a dorky idea. And yet not without its charm... “Mein kleiner, what a lovely surprise. I am only sorry you didn’t explain the idea sooner, so I could tell you how much I—”
“Y-y-you did it again!”
“Did what, mein kleiner—”
“Stop! Stop it right now!” Honey pounded against the wall. “Kleiner? I’m just your little one now? After all I’ve done for you, how devoted I’ve been to you, and going to all this trouble to make you the best present ever, I’m still not your liebling?”
“Mein Honey—” That was probably safe enough— “Mein Honey, you are not any less precious to me just because I have other ponies I cherish. You are still­—”
“N-no!” Honey flew out of the hole and hovered over Zugzwang, staying out of reach. “I don’t want to settle! I want you all to myself! And why should I settle for anything less than what I want?” She glared down at Zugzwang. “I didn’t tell you this at first because I didn’t want you to get mad at me, but… Phillip is dead. He died trying to escape. Now who is your liebling?”
Zugzwang just stared at her.
She was probably lying. Phillip was harder to kill than that.
But if she wasn’t… for his game with Finder to end so suddenly, so abruptly, so unsatisfyingly…
“Honey.” His voice was low, menacing, and no longer trying to soothe her. “What do you mean? How did he die?”
Honey tossed her golden curls impertinently. “He fell into a pool with a crystaldile… okay, I may have dropped him in, but that’s beside the point.”
“Und you stayed to watch him die, I take it?”
“Do I look like a hopeless rookie to you?”
Zugzwang looked over his shoulder at the slider puzzle nailed to the wall and decided not to comment.
“Of course I watched him die!” Honey continued. “I saw the crystaldile swallow him alive and heard his dying screams. It was pretty satisfying.”
Zugzwang stared at her a little longer.
Then he laughed.
“…What?” Honey asked.
Zugzwang sat down and leaned against the wall, unable to stand up from laughing so hard. “Oh, kleiner… What a funny story…”
“Fun—I just said Phillip died!”
Zugzwang pushed himself upright, controlling himself. “Oh, that was rich. But next time you lie to me, Honey Words, try to put a little more thought into it.” He grinned at her. “Or was that another one of your ‘clever’ puzzles?”
Honey was bristling. She dashed back to her hole in the wall. “Well, if you like puzzles so much, solve the slider puzzle already!”
“Honey,” Zugzwang said, keeping his tone patient, “You know that I know the solution, and it’s so very long and boring. Can’t we just—”
“Then you’d better go fast!” Honey shouted, closing the hatch again.
Zugzwang stared at the wall for a while. She had been one of his more helpful and loyal servants, and had gone to all this ‘effort’ to create what, had it been executed correctly, would have been a lovely present. And yet, she felt within her rights to deprive him of his magic and make him do stupid exercises. What to do with her…?
A loud grinding of gears shook Zugzwang out of his thoughts, and he looked up where the sound was coming from.
The ceiling was, unlike the ceramic room around him, made of slightly rusting metal.
It was also descending.
“Honey!” Zugzwang shouted. “What do you think you are doing?”
A muffled, echoing voice came from behind the wall. “You won’t die. If you solve the puzzle. And you’re oh-so-confident you can…”
Zugzwang began plans for murderous vengeance. But first, the puzzle. The puzzle that was solved with a minimum of 84 moves.
Zugzwang sat down, the better to use both hooves, and started sliding. He’d had the solution memorized, but he’d never solved it without telekinesis before, so his muscle memory was all thrown off. Blue rectangles and green squares zipped around, the red square nudging ever closer to the exit.
The ceiling was past the hatch where Honey had come out now, so she wouldn’t be swooping in to save him. He had to admit, with begrudging admiration, that putting the puzzle on top of a staircase was fiendish; if the ceiling slid past the puzzle, he’d be able to jump down and save himself… for another helpless minute as he was slowly crushed to death, his way of escape cut off.
Slide, slide, slide… only a couple dozen moves to go…
The ceiling was now only a foot above his head…
Hooves racing, heart pounding, just a few more moves…
And with a sigh of relief, he pushed the red square with the princess on it out of the puzzle to freedom. “All done. Now stop the ceiling.”
The ceiling hit his horn and kept pushing down. Honey wasn’t answering.
Zugzwang slid off the wooden platform and stumbled down the shaking stairs. “Honey! You saw I solved the—”
His words were drowned out as the ceiling pushed against the shoddy wooden construction. All the boards creaked, then the whole thing fell to pieces, not stopping the metal ceiling’s progress at all.
On the wall, where it had previously been hidden by a staircase, was another sign. Zugzwang picked his way across the metal grate covered in splintery wood until he was close enough to read it. It was a piece of linen cloth with words written on it in marker. The cloth was coming out of two slits in the wall.
“What was the tie I gave you yesterday made out of?”
“Silk,” Zugzwang said, confused. What kind of puzzle was this?
The linen appeared to be on a continuous strip, since the part of cloth with the question on it slid into one of the holes in the wall and a part of cloth with another question emerged from the other side. “Say it two times.”
“Silk silk.” Wait, he knew this one.
A new question appeared. “Say it three times.”
“Silk silk silk.” This wasn’t a riddle; it was a mouth trick.
“Say it four times.”
“Silk silk silk silk.” Zugzwang felt silly.
The idea was to force the pony being asked the riddle to say ‘silk’ a lot of times, and then the final question was, “What do cows drink?” The idea was that, because they were so used to saying ‘silk’ they’d instinctively spit out ‘milk’ even though only calves drink milk, not full grown cows.
“Say it five times.”
The ceiling hit his horn again, and Zugzwang lay down to avoid it. “Silk silk silk silk silk.” He’d have to be sure to answer ‘water’ when a different question showed up…
“Say it six times!”
The ceiling hit Zugzwang’s horn again, and he lay his head on the ground. That infuriating girl! “Silk silk silk silk silk silk!”
The cloth slowly rolled. The cold metal ceiling touched his shoulders. The next question was something different!
“Water!” Zugzwang shouted, and the ceiling stopped. That was too close…
Wait.
The question on the cloth was “What do calves drink?”
Zugzwang’s rage was such that he couldn’t speak. She’d tricked him. That… bratty girl… somehow… tricked… him…
“Too bad,” a sing-song voice said from behind the wall. “You lose. Time for a penalty round!”
The grate beneath Zugzwang’s stomach slid open, dropping Zugzwang into complete blackness.