//------------------------------// // Chapter 10: Move // Story: Fire and Thunder // by computerneek //------------------------------// Almost a full hour has passed.  We have used her book as a reference, to improve her pronunciation; her Concordiat Standard vocabulary, while incomplete, is sufficient for basic communication.  We’ve reached the point where she is guessing the pronunciation of new words correctly, for the most part. Now, of course, her stomach unexpectedly growls.  While she glances down at it and chuckles sheepishly, I consider our options. I am running on as little as 17.31 active minutes before I will be forced to divert to Low Level Alert to recharge.  I have no resources available with which to build her a meal; however, she may have that problem already solved. Water is another possible problem; while I can draw from the aquifer below me, such will reduce my maximum geothermal power generation, extending my entrapment underneath the terrain by days or weeks- and, unless she can escape through a closed door and solid rock, her stay as well.  I hope she has those problems already solved. She’s speaking on the topic.  “Sorry, I lost my food in…” She looks towards the exit door, firmly sealed against the rock.  “That.” Shoot.  “I do not have any right now either,” I answer her.  Contractions have proven too complex for her at the moment; for now, priority is communication, not language, so I have dropped them.  While she hangs her head, I continue on. “What all was lost?” She scowls at my news.  “I lost my bags, food, water-!”  She takes in a sudden breath, as if remembering something important, and struggles briefly to find a word.  “My… Medicine!” Medicine?  Given the panic she’s working herself into, it would seem this medicine is very important to her.  Hopefully, her form is compatible with my long-disintegrated medical facilities; if so, I should be able to slip some medical nanites into her system and begin alleviating whatever problem is requiring medicine.  I order some of the nanites remaining inside my hull onto the task of medical nanite manufacture. I have no intention of losing her as soon as I have found her. I only produce a few medical nanites; delivering them is a fairly easy task, as I manufactured them just millimeters from one of her hooves.  They immediately set to work in analyzing her body chemistry. However, the food problem won’t be solved by that.  It seems she’s got an idea for how to solve it; she looks back at that door.  “Can I leave?” she asks. “All the doors are under 18.7 to 93.4 meters of rock,” I answer her.  “If you can move through that, yes.” She shakes her head.  “Only…” Her next two words are in her language, and sound like a name.  “Only she can do that. Can we clear it off?” “Stonewolves remain in large numbers nearby; I estimate 2.93 days before that can be solved, given power.” She tilts her head slightly; I have used some words outside her vocabulary, including my coined term for the beasts.  “Power?” she asks. “Like…” She struggles for the term, even scans through her book- it has an index- but fails to find it.  She finally settles for a less verbal question. “Like this?” she asks, gesturing a hoof towards her horn. As she does so, her horn glows again- and I spot a spark of electricity jump from it, arcing lightly into the air.  Just like when my first visitor tapped that gemstone. “Yes.” “Where?” She yawns widely, trotting down the street from the train station.  She’s headed to her shop; not only does she miss home, situated in the upper floors, but her dear friend is probably trying to sell some of her less popular candies.  She chuckles to herself- and stops suddenly, facing the glass door into her shop. The shop, in a violation of her expectation, is closed. In an even greater violation of her expectation, that sign is still taped to the door.  The sign she’d asked her friend to put up when she closed on Friday; the one she’d asked her to take down when she opened on Monday. It’s Tuesday afternoon, and Bonbon’s Candies is still closed for the weekend. It takes her a second to whip out her key and let herself in; less than fifteen more seconds allows her to search the entire building for her friend, save the secret rooms her friend doesn’t know exist.  She hits the road again, and starts asking around. Unfortunately, nopony has noticed her at all. Until she runs into one Pinkie Pie, who makes a declarative statement about her Pinkie Sense. “Huh?  You’re looking for Lyra?  Me too! I haven’t been able to find her since Saturday!” “...  What?” Pinkie nods.  “Yep! She’s reeaaaally good at hide and seek right now!” She lets out a sigh and sets off once again.  She knows a few ponies that should be able to tell her whether Lyra had left town or not. Of course, she’s not the only pony looking.  One Twilight Sparkle catches up to her as she leaves the train station again. “Hey, Bonbon!” Twilight calls, cantering to a stop in front of the earth pony mare.  “You know where Lyra got to?” “No- actually, I was about to ask you that.” Twilight scowls at the ground.  “I’ve tried scanning the town, but I can’t find her!” At this, Bonbon’s eyes widen.  “What’s wrong?” The horned head snaps back up to make eye contact with the hornless one.  “She was supposed to pick up her medicine by Monday morning at the latest,” she informs. Another lightning bolt arcs from her horn to the metal cable the spider had indicated for her so long ago.  According to the spiders (turns out there are multiple) and the walls (those can talk too), it’s been about a week since she arrived.  Funny, she’s pretty sure her medicine’s effects doesn’t last that long, but she hasn’t felt any of the problems for which she was taking it in the first place coming back yet.  When asked, the spiders simply state that her medicine is no longer needed. Too bad her own vocabulary in their language is so small they can’t get across anything much more complicated. “That good?” She asks.  She’s been using a lightning spell on that cable once or twice a day, whenever her own magical energy levels recover enough to produce another one.  Lightning is one of the harder spells for a Unicorn to use, normally belonging to Pegasus magic. “Yes,” the room answers.  “Ten minutes and I can get us out of here.” She nods.  “How much food do we have?” “Not much.  I think we will reach ground with more in 5.93 hours.  Do you want what we have now?” It’s probably a good thing, when she thinks about it, that the spiders and walls are so willing to tone down their own vocabulary to match hers.  It still amazes her that they manage to remember exactly where that barrier lies without ever needing a reminder. Add that to how they seem to share the same mind, and you get nothing short of a miracle; there’s no magic in the air, and she’s already confirmed the absence of any kind of hive mind. “Uhh, yes, please.”  That’s another thing to be grateful for- together, they’re probably the most patient…  creature she’s ever met. She’s beginning to suspect that all the spiders and walls actually are all a single creature, not independent ones.  One of the spiders brings up the remainder of the food they’d been able to gather. They had tried to explain how they found such nice vegetables in a desert, but her vocabulary had been far too limiting.  Still, she’s rather pleasantly surprised she hasn’t seen a single desert plant on her plate since she arrived. Oh- it seems ‘not much’ is enough for half a daisy sandwich!  That should hold her over for a little while… though by the time those six hours are up, she’ll be hungry again. She downs the half sandwich cheerfully, slowing herself down.  This is going to have to last her several hours, not just a couple; she’s already starved, she knows.  Her magic has been recovering slower and slower lately; she’s worried her ribs will start showing soon, as well.  It’s rather unfortunate she hadn’t been able to provide nearly as much power as the spiders had wanted; fortunately, they had mentioned that it didn’t really matter how long it took- or, from their perspective, whether or not she even provided it.  They’d told her they’re making their own; just it’s slow. Of course, they had mentioned that, once made, no lightning is un-made- meaning, of course, they would eventually complete their work without her help.  Only after about five weeks, though- that is, if she hadn’t been here, necessitating food production (Apparently, they don’t eat).  Since she has been here, needing food, they’ve told her they probably would have finished after six weeks, as she would likely have starved to death after just one. She’d asked about that once.  Only once, of course- any more, she tries not to think about it.  According to those spiders, if they do not move, she’ll starve to death- even with her lightning spells assisting in food production- in about six more days.  Fortunately, she’ll be able to leave in just six hours- theoretically, at least. She looks up from her sadly empty plate, to the nearest wall; no spiders are visible right now.  “How long before we can move?” she asks. “We have been ready for 1.43 minutes,” the answer comes back.  “Are you?” She braces herself for a teleportation and nods.  After a pause, she suppresses the urge to facehoof; apparently, the walls cannot see her without a spider nearby to do the seeing.  “Yes,” she states aloud. “Moving now.” The floor twitches a little- first this way, then that way.  It rocks back and forth, traveling ever so slightly further each time.  This most certainly isn’t the sudden jolt of teleportation she had expected.  Perhaps they’re not capable of teleportation? Then, it must be taking a truly massive amount of magic to move this entire structure- and she didn’t generate nearly enough, throughout this last week, to do that for even a second!  Its generation, or whatever it is, is reportedly slower than hers had been.  Thus, how is it possibly doing that? She shifts her stance, trying to brace herself for physical motion.  The rocking continues- and, once it reaches a certain intensity- shifting close to fifteen centimeters each way- she notices a small, gradual change in the angle of the floor along the oscillations. The rocking goes on for what seems like forever before it stops just as completely as it is suddenly.  She’s about to ask what had happened, but she realizes then that the floor is tilting ever so slightly more…  Then it stops, and starts tilting back down flat again. Still, very slowly. “I am sorry,” the wall reports, as the floor finally returns to level.  “That took 37.91 minutes more than I thought it would. We are moving now, and will reach the grass fields in 5.03 hours.” Success!  It took all week but, with my Commander’s help, I operated full repairs to all track systems, dissolved my subterranean cables back into armor, and re-ignited my fusion plant.  I was unable to obtain enough water to keep it running for longer than 2.73 hours, but this was far more than required; 9.37 minutes were spent in retracting my geothermal tap, cutting off my only source of “free” energy.  Following 1.47 minutes of waiting for her to be ready, it took only 1.31 hours to extricate myself from the terrain, showing my hull to the sun once again- and this time en masse. Once fully out in the sun, I pivot slowly to drive in the direction my first visitor had departed; I know there is grass this way, and grass contains all of the nutrients required for assembly of additional meals.  Not to mention, where there is grass, there is water. It is approximately 0.73 hours after sunrise; I focus available resources into restoring my outer armor.  As such, I am able to shut down my fusion plant without reducing power to my drive train after only 1.92 hours of operation.  I still have enough water left for a couple days’ supply- and have left it in water form, for now. None of my energy weapons are operable, and this small quantity will produce hardly nothing in my fusion systems.  Besides, I’m already generating more- through solar intake- than I am using. I have many of my available spiders run up on top of my armor, clearing dirt and rocks from my upper hull.  No stonewolves show themselves during this operation, and all rock is successfully tossed off about 2.91 hours after I began moving. Two wolves, hidden in the rock about five meters apart, bicker back and forth.  They’ve been in this position for almost three hours, and nothing has happened past- and the ground slowly starts shaking.  After a shared ‘look’, both start the process of emerging; getting torn apart by a passing earthquake is a very fast way for a stonewolf to die. They rise from the surface as one, still those meters apart, and take a glance around, searching quickly for prey.  Alas, there is none- but what on Rockois is that thing moving towards them? Neither can puzzle it out fast enough.  About a second after they saw it, one of the giant metal slabs comes down on top of one of the wolves, crushing him to fragments- and his companion feels his death underneath the thing’s tremendous weight. Great.  This thing is even scarier than an earthquake- at least earthquakes can easily be rendered harmless simply by emerging onto the surface.  The second wolf turns to flee. Yes! He’s outpacing the giant thing! Not by much, though- but he is! Now, all he has to do is get off to the side far enough to get out of its path- then he’s home free. But alas!  Another wolf emerged right in his path, and he didn’t see until he ran into her!  The two go for a tumble- and, while she growls and the two try to get back on their feet, the thing catches up, smashing the two of them into fine powder with contemptuous ease.