//------------------------------//
// Chapter 3 
// Story: Celestial Hulk 
// by Waxworks 
//------------------------------//

She entered the room, wide-eyed. The first thing she saw was a window looking out into the luminiferous aether. It covered an entire wall, and despite the occasional small scuff or scratch on it, it was clear as Celestia’s day. She looked around the rest of the room, and it did indeed look like it was important to the ship. There were buttons everywhere, and more of those smooth, flat panels she wasn’t sure about. A few of the buttons and panels were even glowing, which, if that first button was any indication, meant they should function. In the middle of the room, though, was a very large, very important-looking chair. If Minuette were to venture a guess, that was the captain’s chair. If the creatures who made this ship were anything like ponies, they would give the captain of their ship the biggest and most important-looking chair possible.

Minuette trotted into the room and went straight for the large seat. If there was going to be a button to open doors to the aether, she would have put it there. It was too tall for her to see the arms of the chair, so she hopped up into it and looked from there. On both sides were a series of buttons, some switches, dials, and some glass panel with a picture of something she didn’t recognize, but could possibly have been a map of the ship. There were words and lights on it, but none of them helped her understand.

Unable to make heads or tails of most of the words attached to them, Minuette looked first at the ones that were lit up or flickering. The lights were incredibly dim, but some looked rather promising. She started manipulating them one at a time, listening and looking for some indication that something had happened.

She went through almost all of them, and most seemed to serve no function in the state the ship was currently in, but she got to one with a weird picture of what looked like a circle with a line through the top of it, and flipped it. The whole ship shuddered, and Minuette looked around in a panic, it stopped after a couple seconds, but then all the lights came on in the room, accompanied by a cacophony of noises. Alarms, klaxons, screeches, whistles, beeps, and red flashing lights abounded, and Minuette dove from the chair and hid under a nearby desk, covering her ears.

“Oh Moonie, what did I do? I just wanted out!” Minuette cried. “I keep bucking up!”

She cowered as the sounds continued, but over the cacophonous alarms, she heard the doors hiss as they opened, then shut. She was worried it was the creature at first, but all she saw was a floating light. Her first thought was that a will o’ the wisp was on board, but that didn’t make sense, since they lived in swamps. Mind you, nothing about the ship made sense to her, so she supposed that wasn’t out of the realm of possibility. It floated about the room, for all intents and purposes seeming to look at the panels and buttons. It came to the captain’s chair, and settled into into it, glowing that sickly yellow glow.

“…what?” Minuette whispered to herself in confusion.

Minuette wasn’t as well-read as Princess Twilight or Moondancer, but she’d heard tales of will o’ the wisps. If she remembered, they led ponies to their dooms in forests and swamps. What was this one doing pretending to captain a ship?

The wisp sat in the chair for a while longer, and Minuette stayed hidden, not wanting to expose herself to it. Some time later, as she was starting to cramp up from remaining motionless, she heard that hissing and crackling noise over the constant alarms, and the doors hissed open once more.

The creature lurched into the room, arms limp at its sides and its back hunched over as it slowly and heavily plodded through the door and up to the chair. Once it arrived it collapsed into the seat on top of the wisp, and the two seemed to merge together, and unnatural light suffusing the creature’s single mirror-like eye. Some of the light even poured out of the wholes Minuette had put into it, which didn’t seem to actually be injuries at all. More like simple cosmetic inconveniences.

Once in the seat, it started pushing buttons on the arms of the chair, and the ship made strange noises and vibrated. The creature stood up and stumped over to another panel and looked at it, making those horrible hissing and screeching noises, then it moved to another next to it. It pressed some buttons there and began moving along the panels one at a time around the room, looking at them and fiddling with the display in one way or another.

Minuette couldn’t understand what it was trying to accomplish, but it was moving closer and closer to her hiding spot, and she didn’t want to be close to it at all. Not only was it unnerving to be around, it was huge, and seemed incredibly strong. It could take a blast from her magic, and its grip on Moondancer was like iron.

Moondancer! What had it done with her? It didn’t bring her with it, so it either had her locked up somewhere, or it had… had… killed her.

Minuette swallowed a lump in her throat at the thought. If it had, why would it try to capture her alive and not simply smash her while it had her in its grip? Minuette had to believe it wanted to do something specific with her. And if it was here instead of wherever it had kept Moondancer, then she might still be alive! It had been patrolling that room with the statue in the middle, so that was the best place to look. Minuette just had to find her way there.

First she had to get out of this room, though, and that thing was liable to see her if she bolted. She didn’t want to try to outrun it again, either. She only won because she had run faster than Moondancer. She needed to outsmart it, and be sneakier than it was observant.

It seemed to consist of two entities, that wisp that moved faster but couldn’t actually interact with anything that wasn’t the creature, and the creature itself, which was slow but brutal without the wisp. She didn’t quite understand how they worked, but if the wisp was inside the creature, then it likely couldn’t see beyond the creature’s single eye. With it focused on the panels, she could sneak behind it.

Minuette waited until the creature moved and focused on a panel, then crept out from under the desk and scuttled toward the captain’s seat, crawling up into it. She peeked carefully around the side, watching it as it worked, then quickly pulled back around to hide when she saw it begin to straighten up. Her heart pounded in her ears as she listened to the heavy hoofsteps of the creature as it clumped from one panel to the next. It had just passed by the door, onto the next set of panels. The next time it moved, that was her chance to bolt.

The creature worked, and Minuette waited, but even though she was listening for it to finish and move on, it never did. It hissed, and crackled, and it had successfully turned off a lot of the alarms, thankfully, but this time it seemed to be stuck on something.

“SHOOOMSTAZYX!”

There was a resounding crash, and some fizzing sounds and Minuette flinched. She risked a peek and saw that it had struck the panels. Its fist had dented the metal it was made of and sparks were flying out. It was mad, and that was frightening. It had a temper it could not control at all.

It turned toward the captain’s chair and Minuette pulled herself back around. She was starting to hyperventilate. It was going to see her! She had not planned for this! Minuette looked around for anything to use, or anywhere she could go. There was nothing, except for the chair itself. She heard the stomping about on top of her, and she tried the only idea she could think of; Minuette dove off the chair and slipped underneath it just as the hoofsteps got close, praying to Celestia it wouldn’t spot her.

She cowered underneath the chair, shivering as she watched the creature’s misshapen hooves stomp up to it. It walked to the chair and sat down, the seat sinking slightly as the creature’s weight settled into it. She heard it pressing buttons and flipping switches, then a tapping sound. She wasn’t sure what that meant, but it seemed like the creature was busy. She decided to chance it and slipped out from under the chair and headed for the door.

Minuette flinched again as she heard it pound on the chair, but hurried toward the door. She arrived at it without the creature getting up, but when she approached, it opened automatically with a hiss. The tapping behind her at the chair stopped.

“KNSHNYTZL?”

Minuette didn’t look back, but she heard the volume of the static hissing noise increase behind her as she bolted out the door. It hissed shut behind her, but she heard a hissing come from behind and she knew it was in pursuit. She had completely forgotten she’d fixed the door! Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!

She ran, but she wasn’t sure where she was going. She needed to find that room they’d found the creature in until they had interrupted it. It seemed focused on that room, so that was likely where Moondancer was if she was still alive. Minuette’s thoughts raced as she galloped down the halls, trying to find some way to lose the creature that was hot on her fetlocks.

Minuette found herself once again galloping through the halls of the ship. They were no longer as dark as they had been, but many of the lights were non-functional, leaving patches of darkness that did nothing to help her run. She passed through rooms, all of which were empty, and some torn apart. She went down stairs that led her to more hallways, and always the creature followed her. In one brief glance behind, she had seen it was once again floating. Likely because it was faster that way.

Eventually, Minuette passed through a set of doors at the bottom of a staircase that opened into a room filled with noise and smoke. The entire room vibrated and shook, and something at one end of the room was flashing red. She didn’t want to get any closer to it, but the creature behind her was a far more obvious threat to her than this thing, so she ran in. The klaxon was incredibly loud, and the room was very warm. Minuette could feel herself starting to lather. She was really starting to worry this room was as unsafe as she had first surmised, and now she was stuck in between a rock and a hard place.

She felt more than heard the thud of the creature’s hooves landing behind her, and she didn’t stop to look, she dashed inside, into the burning heat, and around the massive construction in the center. She looked for anything or anywhere she could hide, and found a small set of pipes going into the walls, with just enough space for a pony on top of them. The creature certainly wouldn’t fit. There wasn’t anywhere else she could immediately find to go, just a wall of dials, switches, and pipes.

Minuette reached out and tried to crawl in, but found the pipes were exceedingly hot! She assumed they must be boiler pipes or something, transporting hot water somewhere. Probably away from the steaming hot room she was in. She looked at the pipes and the tiny hole, and looked over at the creature, stomping its way closer to her with every heavy step. Its single eye was focused directly on her, and the wisp was floating around it wildly, illuminating switches, dials, and everything else in the room one after the other.

In a panic, Minuette lit up her horn and yanked one of the machines off the wall, dropping it in the creature’s way. The creature barely slowed, just lifted it effortlessly up and crammed it back into the place she’d pulled it from, then continued its inexorable advance. Minuette’s horn glowed again, and she ripped some of the pipes above down onto its head. She probably should have been concerned about what was in them, but it was either the surety of the creature getting her, or the mere possibility of the pipes holding dangerous substances. She decided to take her chances.

The pipes were apparently holding some strange liquid, which poured down onto the thing, covering it in some vile-looking greenish fluid. The creature didn’t seem to be hurt by it, despite the steam rising from the substance, and it just kept coming. The wisp darted every which way around it, and flew closer to Minuette’s face, causing her to shrink back. It didn’t seem to be able to hurt her though.

The creature was almost on her, and she was quickly running out of space and ideas, so her eyes once more went back to the tiny hole in the wall. Minuette swallowed, cast a ward against heat as strong as she could manage, and dove in.

“GNCHOMNWTLK! *BZZZZZZZT*”

Her hips got stuck at first, and she tugged at the pipes, their heat burning her slowly but surely as she struggled to fit. She could feel the hoofsteps of the creature approaching, faster than it usually moved, and she knew she had to get in, or she’d never get out of the thing’s grip. She let go of her ward for a brief second, gritting her teeth against the pain, and gave her own flank a hefty boost from behind. One of the corners ripped a small gash in her thigh, but she scooted forward, the rest of her legs fitting inside the tiny hole. She exhulted silently in her escape, but then she felt something tug on her tail! It had her by the tail! Without thinking, Minuette slashed her tail off right at the dock, nicking it, but separating  her tail from the rest of her.

“BNBNBNBNBNNNNNN!”

She couldn’t tell what the creature was saying, but she hoped it was angry. Minuette grimaced as she smelt sizzling flesh, her flesh. She put up her ward again, and scooted forward, leaving the hopefully pissed off creature behind her. She didn’t have far to go, and when she finally reached a more open area with a small drop-off, she rolled off the pipes, into open area, and hissed in pain. She had more space, so she sat up and looked down at her chest.

It was very red, and the fur was singed off in places. Despite her ward, it had gotten through. She just hoped it wouldn’t leave too bad a scar. She poked at it gingerly and grimaced in pain. Nothing to be done about it now. She had to keep moving. She turned her horn light to the tunnels nearby. That was when she noticed she still had light around her that wasn’t focused in her horn-beam.

Minuette shut off her horn temporarily and glanced around. She found the source easily as it angrily floated about her in the small space. The wisp had followed her into the tunnel and was orbiting her head, glowing that sickly yellow-green. There was a loud clang and an angry crackling sound coming from the outside of the small tunnel she’d escaped into. The creature was pounding hard at the walls trying to get in. Minuette doubted it could manage it without pulling the entire ship apart, but then she remembered the walls from earlier that had been missing panels, and she decided she should probably get moving.

Minuette stood up and glanced at her tail. She’d cut it off as high up as possible to make sure the thing had nothing to grip, but she’d nicked her dock. It stung, but it wasn’t serious like the burns. She sighed and looked away down the two tunnels. One had the pipes from before going down it, and the other didn’t. It wasn’t much of a choice, so she crouched low and continued down the empty path with the wisp following her.

It was a tight fit, but less so than when she was crawling on top of the pipes. Unfortunately it was very slow going. She scooted along, crawling with the annoying light on top of her, until she finally came to a more open section. She was able to stand up fully, and when she looked up, there was a grate on top. She reached up a hoof and pushed on it, and it didn’t move, but it looked like the grating on the floor from earlier. She was under the floor of the hallway! She still didn’t know where she was, but this was positive! She could probably break it with her magic, but she decided against it for now.

She trotted along, gingerly stepping to avoid aggravating her burns, but she was making better time now that she could stand up, and this path underneath seemed to be for maintenance purposes, like a sewer in space. It was full of all sorts of weirdly coloured strings in the walls, and paths criss-crossed all over it leading underneath rooms that branched off from the main halls.

Minuette stayed under the main hallway and followed it throughout the ship, the wisp doggedly remaining at her fetlocks. She didn’t know why it was following her, but it wasn’t making her very comfortable. At least she didn’t have to keep her horn light on with it nearby. Small things.

She eventually reached a point where the maintenance path ended, and dropped off to her left and right, and the hall went through a doorway into a room. She couldn’t see what was in it from here, as the door was closed and there was no window. She wouldn’t have been able to look through it from down where she was, but she had to make a choice, and she wasn’t comfortable with any of them. If she went back into the hallway, she’d leave a distinct path for the creature to follow, or make a noise when the door opened which might alert it, or she could drop down the holes nearby. It looked like they had ladders, but it was still straight down, and she had no idea where it might lead.

Minuette sighed and cast her horn light down the left ladder, then the right. The bottom was some distance away on both sides, and she didn’t know if she wanted to go that deep. She thought she had already come down some, and she hadn’t yet gone back upward, which is where she imagined Moondancer was, if her mental picture was correct. She wished Moondancer were here to tell her where to go.

Minuette decided to stay up, and try to get back to where she thought that large room was, so she lit up her horn and as carefully as she could, ripped the grate directly above her out of the floor. The sound of squealing metal filled the air as she tore it out, and she winced. With one final tug, it came free, and she stopped, listening for any stomping or hissing noises. Not hearing any, Minuette hopped up out of the tunnel and replaced the grate. She moved closer to the door and it hissed open, revealing a wide-open room.

The wisp didn’t illuminate enough for this area, so she turned on her horn light and cast it about. The room was large, with a catwalk up above… and that weird tube-like thing in the middle! She had found it!  The room was multiple levels, so she had just come down to the bottom of it! She did a happy little dance and trotted into the room. There was still no hissing noise, so she figured she was safe for the moment. If the creature ever stopped making that noise, then she’d be in trouble.

Minuette moved up to the thing in the center which had apparently been a source of fascination for the creature. She wanted to get a closer look and understand why it had been so intent on it that it would stay in this room. When she got to one of the fins, she noticed that it wasn’t a flat and uniform piece of metal. It was constructed of scrap metal which was welded, bolted, or simply folded together to make the fin. As she followed her horn light over it and up to the higher portions, the whole thing was made of scrap. This was probably where everything in the ship had disappeared to. Everything metal, anyway.

Minuette cast her horn light up the side of the object, looking at it carefully, seeing the myriad seams, colours, and insignia covering it. It was made of utensils, seats, pieces of the walls, doors, and everything else. It hadn’t been melted down and recast either, it had literally all been hammered and forced into place. It must have taken a long time to build, and a monumental amount of strength to cobble it all together. There were no tools scattered about, so she assumed the creature, if it was the one that built it, had put the tools into the construct, and merely hammered it together with its fists. Yet another reason to be terrified of its unnatural strength.

Minuette started walking around the construct, casting her light away from it, checking the corners of the room for anything that might lead her to Moondancer… or what was left of her if it came to that. Minuette was hoping to find a sign of fur or even blood, but there wasn’t much on the floor around the structure.

She looked up at the catwalk above where the creature had first been spotted patrolling around. If she could get up there, since that was the floor they had been on when Moondancer had been caught, she could maybe find something more useful. Maybe signs of a struggle. Unfortunately, it looked like there were no ladders or stairs nearby. They had probably been ripped down to add to the structure. The creature could fly, so it really didn’t need any stairs, did it?

With a grunt of frustration, Minuette prowled about for something else she could use to get up to the catwalk. If there were any of those little tunnels with ladders in them she could use those. She kept her horn-light focused on the walls and traveled in a circle around the room, looking for holes.

She found one hidden in one of the corners, but it didn’t have a ladder, and it had a small grate in front of it. She had to rip it off the wall with her magic to get inside. The walls were smooth metal, which lead Minuette to believe this one wasn’t meant for the same function as the other tunnels she had found. A tunnel that you couldn’t climb up or into wasn’t much use to her. But, she figured she could probably climb it with magic, which would be a lot easier and safer than potentially getting lost trying to find a way up.

Minuette turned off her horn-light and prepared to make some steps in the sides, but when her horn-light went out, it went pitch-black. That was when she realized the wisp had abandoned her. She wasn’t sure why it might have decided to do that, or why it had been following her in the first place, but she was fairly certain it and the creature were working together somehow, and that didn’t make her feel any better about its absence.

Minuette pricked her ears up, trying to pick up the telltale static of the creature, but she heard nothing. She still figured it would be best to speed up her search, though, so she lit her horn, gave herself a small bubble of light, and began making hoof-sized holes in the side of the tunnel. She made sure the edges weren’t too sharp, and began to climb.

At the top, a little bit tired, but otherwise fine, Minuette once again pricked her ears, swiveling them back and forth listening for static or stomping. Hearing nothing, she walked around the catwalk, looking at the walkway itself for signs of Moondancer, and casting her light down nearby halls.

The first few halls had nothing. They didn’t look like they had been disturbed, but she eventually came to one that must have been where they had hidden the first time, as it had hoofprints of all sizes disturbing the dust. It also had a long line in it, which Minuette figured must be Moondancer being dragged. She felt a little bit giddy that she’d found something, and since there were no fluids on the floor, Moondancer might still be alive!

Minuette looked back at the room with the structure in the middle. The creature had brought Moondancer here for some reason, and if none of the other halls were disturbed, that meant it must have something to do with this ugly thing in the middle.

“Does it open?” Minuette said to herself.

She cast her light over the top of the structure. It was made of similar scraps as the bottom, though the top appeared to be mostly made of the metal ripped off the walls. She saw bits of the grating she was currently standing on in there, and she was fairly certain those must be the stairs that were missing. She did, however, notice that there was a deliberate seam, larger than the rest of the lines criss-crossing the structure.

Minuette leaned on the railing and focused her light, making it a bit brighter. She looked closely at the line, and saw what must be a makeshift hinge. It really must open right there. She grabbed it in her magic and pulled. It didn’t give at first, but eventually it started to creak.

That was when she heard the static begin. Minuette’s ears went straight up and focused on the source. It was getting louder! The creature was coming, and he was going to be here very soon!

Minuette looked around, and started to move toward the tiny tunnel she had used to climb up, but decided against it. She didn’t want to get lost again. Running down one of the hallways wasn’t going to be useful for the same reason. The creature had spent so much time guarding this cigar-shaped thing, and it hadn’t destroyed it yet, so what better place to hide? Minuette finally yanked open the top, revealing the dark insides of it. She had no idea what might be in there, but she was tired of running around the ship in confusion and fear, so she took a running leap off the catwalk, and slammed into the side of the structure with a loose grip on the lip of the hole. Her hind hooves scrabbled at the lumpy side until she managed to pull herself up and slip inside, tumbling into the dark interior.

She only fell a short distance before coming to a stop, and she lit up her horn as soon as she halted. She quickly looked back up and shut the small hatch she had entered by, muting the hiss of the creature. She sat still, waiting to hear if the creature had heard her. She could hear it muttering and hissing, but it didn’t seem interested in the structure itself, and the hatch didn’t open, so she hoped she was safe for now. Once she was certain, she turned her attention to the interior of the structure, lighting up the inside.

It was bigger than she had assumed. Minuette had expected it to be mostly solid metal cobbled together, with a small space inside to work on shaping it and making sure it held its shape, but it was rather spacious. As she climbed through the interior, it appeared to have a seat, likely for the creature to sit in, and what looked like a poorly assembled, and completely nonfunctional, series of shaped panels and buttons.

As she looked, she realized this was a much smaller recreation of the helm she had located earlier. Was the creature trying to make a smaller ship? For what purpose? It wouldn’t even function! These buttons and switches weren’t attached to anything, and she had her doubts the ship itself would even hold together if it were moving.

Minuette continued climbing down the interior of the small-scale ship to see what else was in here. She very quickly came to a small cylinder with a tiny door attached to it. There was a suspicious sickly glow coming from behind it, like the wisp that had been following her. She was wary of it at first, but after a quick circle around it, this was the end of the interior of the model ship. It was about as big as she’d expected from the outside. The wisp couldn’t do anything to her, or if it could, it hadn’t tried to, so she figured she was fairly safe. The door was solidly latched shut, but there was nothing else down here but this, so Minuette yanked on it with her magic, bending the latch until it popped open.

Inside was a cream-coloured figure curled up amidst a pile of blackened bones and ash. She had a pair of bent glasses on and a red-and-purple mane. She was shivering, pulled up against one wall of the tiny hole.

“Moondancer!?” Minuette said in disbelief.

Moondancer looked up, soot smudges covering her face and hooves, and streaks going down her cheeks where she must have been crying. “Minuette?”

Once Moondancer realized who it was that had opened the door, she dove out, tackling Minuette in a tight hug. “Oh Minuette! I thought I was done for!” She cried.

“It brought me here, and I couldn’t do anything. It didn’t care what spells I threw at it! It shoved me in that tiny furnace, and was trying to start a fire when that little light that follows it disappeared and it lost interest. The whole ship shook and it locked me in and went away! What about you? Oh sweet Celestia, your chest! Are you okay?” Moondancer said, speaking a mile a minute.

Minuette felt tears welling up behind her eyes, and she cried a little as she held Moondancer, the pain from the hug not enough to make her let go of her friend. “I’m okay, Moondancer. I think I might have started the ship, but I’m not sure. I don’t know what any of this stuff is, so I was just pushing buttons, trying to open the exit doors.” Minuette said. “My chest is… burned, but I’ll live.”

“The ship is running?” Moondancer said, her face deadly serious.

“I think so? I found the engines, which is where I got the burns. They’re firing a lot of coal down there.” Minuette said.

“I don’t think it’s coal, Minuette. This ship is big, and dangerous, and it’s running on something much worse than coal.” Moondancer said. “See these bones?”

Minuette nodded.

“I think the creature was trying to make a smaller version of the ship we’re in, albeit poorly. If this is the fuel it was trying to use, that’s where all the creatures in the ship went. This is meant to be the engine. You’ll notice we’re at the bottom?” Moondancer said.

“That’s… quite the leap of logic, Moonie.” Minuette said.

“It runs on ponies, or whatever the creatures were.” Moondancer said.

Minuette made a face. “I’m not sure I believe that.”

“No, really! Look at the bones in there!” Moondancer said, pointing at the little furnace. “Whether it was successful or not, it was trying to power its ship with bodies!”

Minuette stepped closer and leaned her head inside, looking at the pile of ash. Sure, there were bones, which did suggest that the creature had at least burned them, and this felt like the bottom of the model ship, which would make it the ideal place to put an engine, but burning ponies for fuel? Is that why she hadn’t encountered any other creatures at all? Was this creature the last of the crew, and had turned on its mates? It seemed absolutely insane, but then, the creature didn’t exactly come across as a bastion of mental stability. That was just her view, though. This might be completely normal for where the creature came from.

“I think maybe the creature is just unstable, Moonie. I mean, it floats, hisses constantly, and even hitting it with magic blasts doesn’t faze it at all. It’s unnatural, so it does unnatural things. I think we should just focus on getting out of here and report to the Princess, okay?” Minuette said.

Moondancer adjusted her bent glasses and sighed, but nodded. “You’re right. You got the doors working, so let’s get out of here. We can worry about it later.”

“Now, the creature is just outside, or it was the last time I checked, so we’re going to have to figure out some way to get past it. It doesn’t have the best sense of sight. I was able to hide underneath a chair and it walked right past, so the creature isn’t too big a problem.” Minuette explained as they slowly climbed back up to the top of the little ship.

“That’s good to know. It’s seemingly unstoppable, but has poor eyesight, even with an eye that huge.” Moondancer acknowledged.

“The real problem is the thing following it around. The light it gives off is actually a will o’ the wisp that’s separate from it. I think it’s what helps it fly, actually, but I haven’t seen it do much other than annoy me. It definitely directs the creature, though. Tells it where to go, so we need to avoid that thing more than the creature.” Minuette said.

“Okay, got it.” Moondancer said.

Minuette looked back at her friend, and noticed she was still giving off that faint sickly-green glow.

“Uh… by the way Moonie. Why are you glowing?” Minuette asked.

Moondancer looked down at herself, lifting a hoof to inspect it and turning to examine her flank.

“Oh? Oh, I am. I don’t know why I’m glowing. Must be some sort of residue from the furnace or this little ship itself.” Moondancer said. “I seem to be okay. We’ll get Twinkleshine to have a look at me when we get back, so that I’m not diagnosing myself.”

“Okay. Now, the creature patrols along the catwalk up above this little ship. On the floor below, which we’ll have to fall to, there are tiny tunnels going throughout the ship. We can fit, but the creature can’t, so we need to head for those, okay? There’s one close by, but you’ll have to climb up it before we’re really to safety. Just follow my lead, okay?” Minuette said.

“Wait! What will we do if it sees us?” Moondancer asked, her voice trembling. “I don’t want to get caught again.”

Minuette turned toward Moondancer and hugged her tightly. “I won’t let it get you. I’ve got some ideas for if we need to fight it, okay?”

“O-okay. I’m ready.” Moondancer said, squaring her shoulders.