The sun had disappeared over the horizon not a few minutes ago. There was still more than enough light to see by - it was a clear night with a waxing half moon, and the dome over Canterlot gave enough of a soft glow to light up the places the moon couldn't. Most of the Crusaders had succumbed to the exertion of the day and found somewhere to curl up and sleep - Rainbow Dash had pulled a cloud down for Scootaloo and Kalza, and Applebloom and Sweetie Belle made do with the grass. Dinky wasn't altogether pleased with these arrangements, regardless of how many times the farm pony told her to quit whining. Unable to sleep, she pottered up the hill to check out the refugee camp. She guessed that if she was lucky she'd be able to borrow a couple of blankets, but in any case it would be an interesting diversion.
The camp wasn't a particularly happy place. She'd asked her mother why it was here, and she'd dodged straight answers, but the little unicorn was bright enough to put the pieces together herself. None of these ponies wanted to be out here. A few looked pretty badly injured, sprawling out with bloodied bandages on stretchers and rolled up towels; others were weeping quietly to themselves. From time to time a guard or two would carry some supplies out of the city - they weren't allowed let them in, but they weren't going to leave them totally helpless. Conditions inside Canterlot didn't look much better from what she could see - the cobbled road outside was in better nick than the muddy trails inside.
She sighed, and sat herself on a rock at the top of the hill. This was just depressing - a refugee camp outside Canterlot. What was the world coming to?
"H-hey!" A timid voice called. Dinky looked up and spotted a nearby tent with a familiar colt sitting inside.
"Oh! Hey Pip!" She smiled and bounced over. "You... don't mind me calling you Pip, right?"
"Naw, it's fine," he chuckled. "Gotta outgrow 'Pipsqueak' sometime, eh?" His high spirits despite everything were a little disarming; still, it was welcome. She sat herself down next to him at the edge of the tent, rolling her eyes.
"I know that feeling..." He looked at least a year her junior, but she guessed he might be a bit short for his age too. "Couldn't sleep either?"
"Nah. Got a gammy ankle, but they, uhm. Other ponies need the bandages more."
"Right, right..." She laid back a bit, shimmying down to lie on her back, looking up at the stars, with just her head in the tent. After a bit of a pause, Pipsqueak spoke up again.
"So what d'you think'll happen?"
"Huh?"
"Y'know. With the gryphons'n'stuff."
"I don't... I kinda don't want to think about it."
"That bad, eh?"
"I'd like to be hopeful. Seeing mom and her friends do the things they do is pretty amazing. But at the same time..."
"... here we are in a muddy camp, miles away from home?"
"Yeah."
"'Assa shame. I really wanted to see Ponyville..."
"Oh, don't be like that!" Dinky rolled over to sit opposite Pip. "Hey. If it makes you feel any better, how about this." After a quick scan of the tent, she picked out a red blanket, and reached forward to tie it around the colt's neck.
"Hey, what are you doing?" Despite his protests, she continued; grabbing a blue tissue, she drew something messy on it, practically invisible in the black ink against blue, and pinned it to the end of the blanket.
"We make you... a Cutie Mark Crusader!"
"Cutie mark... crusader?" With a raised brow, he tugged at his makeshift cape to inspect it.
"It's our secret club!"
"You want me, in a club... with girls?" He screwed up his face in exaggerated disgust.
"What's the matter? Afraid you'll catch cooties?" Dinky smirked. Pip's guise broke, and with a chuckle, he gave his cousin a playful dig in the shoulder.
"Pff, I'm just havin' you on."
"Blaarhgrhg, I am the cootie monster!" Dinky lunged lightly at him, and ended up pushed to the side, to land on her back with a giggle.
The lower levels of the Celestia-era palace blended almost seamlessly into the ancient one, and telling which was which was further complicated by the blast damage. A number of corridors had collapsed in entirely, and the fresh masonry covering some of the ceilings indicated that they seemed to be just building over the whole thing. A few valuables had been looted - marble tiles stripped away to leave bare stone, statues taken in whole or in part from their pedestals, and textiles removed wholesale. Not that they were doing anything down here, but the haphazard job indicated that they may not have been recovered with the intent of becoming part of the new palace.
Applejack, Pinkie Pie and Zecora stuck close together. The corridors were deathly silent - not even activity from above could be heard. There probably wasn't going to be much, given the time of night. None of them had checked a clock since Trottingham, but Applejack reckoned it had just gone 10PM based on the time of year, and where the sun was last. They weren't sure how long they were wandering around the abandoned palace, but before long, she was getting frustrated. They were going in circles, and all the staircases going up were blocked in some fashion. They stopped in an atrium, strewn with rubble. The mezzanine had been assimilated into the level above, with a few wooden support pillars and much cleaner stones on the ceiling.
"Agh! This is hopeless!" Applejack hurled her at the ground again, kicking up a small cloud of dust. "Every exit we find is just another dead end!"
Pinkie pouted, and examined the floor above. The workmanship was pretty shoddy - probably a rushed job. Cogs started whirring in her head. "Maybe if we can't find an exit... we can make one!"
"Ohhh no. We ain't blowin' anythin' up, Pinkie."
"Aw..." The party pony checked her pockets, and slouched. "I got nothing anyway..."
"Of a subtler approach we may be able..." Zecora took a look at one of the pillars, poking her staff at the joint with the ceiling. "The stones above look less than stable."
Applejack took a closer look at where she was pointing while she replaced her hat. Details were difficult to spot, but all that seemed to be holding the beam in place was gravity. Seeing little else in the way of plans, she reared up, and pulled down on the brim of her hat.
"Stand back..." Her companions hastily did so, and with a couple of lengths' run up, she leaped into the air and fired a two-hoofed kick at the pillar. It gave a satisfying crack from the blow, and scraped against the ceiling a little. She was hasty to pick herself up and get out of the way - the impact had knocked loose a wave of dust from the ceiling, and it had started to bow already. She gave the beam another light kick, and scampered away to safety.
The creaks of the metastable ceiling rang out for several minutes, always starting up again as soon as they thought it was safe. Eventually, a single brick fell to the floor, initiating a cascade of clatters, kicking up a massive cloud of dust. Even before it had cleared, they knew they had hit on something - orange light bathed the room from the hole above, not more than two lengths across. The dust cleared slowly - it took a good minute of coughing and waving to get some visibility back.
"I say..." A fourth voice added, in between splutters.
"What th- who's that?" Applejack recognised the voice as male.
"Is somepony there? I didn't fall on anyone, did I?"
"Wh- Fancy Pants? Lemme help ya..." As soon as she saw the blue moustache and classy (if ruffled) suit through the dust, she knew whose cell they'd just caved the floor from under. He was sitting on a simple bed that lay bent on the rubble - when she looked up through the hole, she could see the rest of his cell. "We're friends of Rarity's, y'mighta seen us yesterday in Ponyville. We'd heard y'were thrown in the dungeon..."
"Pardon me for looking a gift horse in the mouth, but... how?"
"It's... a long story, an' the guards pro'lly heard that..."
"Ah. Fair dinkum. Is this the part where I make myself scarce?"
"Eeyup. Yer in the lower levels of the palace, make yer way to the bottom an' it'll lead out into the ol' city. There's some mighty big drops down there, so watch yerself!"
"I... see. I'm going to hazard a guess that liberating me wasn't part of your initial plan?"
Zecora stepped in. "It's best described as a happy mistake, we did have plans besides your jailbreak. Prince Blueblood is our common foe - we were looking to find out what he knows."
"Ah! The spoiled brat, yes... he has a reading room on the level just above the dungeon, I saw it on my way down. But if you want to avoid a fight, you may want to look for another way up. If my memory of the old castle serves me right, it's where the servants' quarters used to be, so there may be some back corridors leading to it, if you haven't tried that yet. Now, without further ado..." He cast another look up at the vacant cell. One or two of the bricks were still falling every now and then, and frantic hoofsteps could be heard on the floor above. "... shall we?"
"Say no more." Without exchanging another look, they split again, hurrying in opposite directions.
Twilight was sore all over. Her head was thumping, her leg and side were bruised, her muscles ached and her horn gave a dull ache. It took her a minute or two to pull herself up from the ground and get a look around. The dried silt felt disgusting, and left dirty marks all over her front. She ignored the light sting she felt from lighting up her horn, and sat up to get a look around. The first thing she noticed was Rarity, curled up a few lengths away on some stones, with her eyes shut.
"Rarity!" Her call startled the other unicorn, and she jumped in her seat.
"Oh! Twilight, you're awake!"
"How long was I out?"
"I... I don't know. You fainted after you jumped down to see if I was okay, and rather than push on, I thought it best to let you get a bit of rest. I must have, uhm... dozed off myself in the meantime..." She chuckled nervously, averting her gaze.
"Ugh! Who knows how much time we've lost? We'd better get moving, for all we know it could be sunrise already..." She staggered a little upon standing up, but quickly stabilised. "Are you alright?"
"My mane will take some time to properly coiffure again, but I'll live. Just a few bumps and scrapes besides." Twilight gave a snort, and smirked. Typical Rarity. Turning her attention to their surroundings, she amplified her light to get a better look. They were at the bottom of a spacious, roughly square room. Finished wall gave way to gorge about seventy lengths up, and on two sides of the room, there were large side drains with arched ceilings. They were too distant to properly pick out detail, but black gaps at regular intervals told her that there were smaller drains still branching off of those. The central drain that they sat in had arrays of stone platforms built into the sides. Many of them had collapsed in the blast, but a few were intact. In the middle of the room there was a circular platform about eight feet tall, caked in silt all the way up to the top.
"Hmm... I wonder." She levitated a decent-sized rock over to her, and used it to give herself a boost. It was a struggle, but she was soon perched on top. The platform was hollow, leading to a curved pipe, and a bent, buckled grate sat on the rubble blocking it.
"What's the matter, darling? Can you see someth-ah!" At Rarity's squeak, Twilight immediately turned her attention back to her. She'd just tripped over a rusty metal ladder laid on the floor, half-buried in rubble.
"I think... I think we've been here before." She looked up at the gash in the ceiling again, working out some distances and angles in her head. "This is the part of the storm drains we passed through six months ago."
"That's nice, but from the looks of it, our route from before is now that empty space above our heads."
"Right... but it's a start." She hopped down from the pedestal, and effortlessly pulled the ladder free. It was a little bent, but it would do. "We at least know which way we're going." She set it against the wall by one of the side drains, and started climbing.
"I do hope you're right, because if you aren't, we'll be prized artifacts ourselves by the time they find us."