//------------------------------// // Brute Force // Story: Surviving Sand Island // by The 24th Pegasus //------------------------------// “Well? What do you see?” Rarity pushed herself off of the chamber’s floor, letting the nearly neutral buoyancy of her siren body slowly drift higher into the room. While the chamber itself was large, it was sparsely decorated, roughly hewn, and seemed to be slapped together in a hurry. The stone ceiling had sharp cracks in it and looked ready to collapse under its weight at any moment, and what might have been quickly carved wooden statues were now little more than soggy sticks leaning against the walls. They were the first statues on the island Rarity had seen that had been made out of wood instead of stone, and she wondered if that was because the Ponynesians had deemed themselves to not have enough time to set up proper stone idols and religious carvings like in the other tombs. Even the tomb that had sealed away the dark spirit, arguably much more dangerous and powerful than a headless corpse, had been given statues, though Rarity had to wonder if the statues were placed before or after the spirits internment and the binding of its horn. “A whole lot of nothing,” Rarity said, swiveling her scaly head about. “It’s very drab and bare. I think it was constructed as fast as possible, and then sealed off.” “They probably put more effort on the door and the seal than the chamber,” Melody said. She craned her neck around to see past Rarity, wincing while she held the door halves open with strong but trembling legs. “The island might already have been sinking by then.” “I’d still like to know why and how,” Rarity said, slowly paddling through the chamber. “Were there any carvings that explained why the islands started collapsing?” “They seem to be tied to the avatar and the cult,” Melody said. “Maybe they were sacrificing the islands with their dark magic or something.” Rarity shuddered. “Sinking islands filled with thousands of ponies as an offering to a dark god…” “Not exactly pleasant thoughts, yeah.” Melody shook her head. “Do you see what you’re looking for in here, though?” Rarity furrowed her brow and looked around. There wasn’t anything in the center of the room other than some rubble from the collapsing ceiling, nor were there any trinkets scattered about the room. The plain walls didn’t even lead to anywhere else; as far as Rarity could tell, they were in a dead end. An empty dead end. She blinked and scratched her chin. “There’s… there’s nothing in here,” she said. “No coffin, no figurine, nothing. It’s just an empty room.” One of Melody’s eyebrows rose. “An empty room? That’s… no, that can’t be right. They went through all this trouble to seal the door. Why would it be empty?” “I don’t know,” Rarity said. “But it… it shouldn’t be empty. Why would they make an empty chamber, and seal off the door?” “Now you’re just repeating me,” Melody said, injecting a tiny bit of mirth that all too quickly fizzled away. “They had to have done this on purpose. This has to be some kind of… puzzle or something.” “It wouldn’t be the first time,” Rarity said, her eyes already searching the chamber for clues. “Oh?” “When Rainbow and I went to the sun god’s temple on the minotaurs’ home island, there was a large chamber in the middle of it that had a door we couldn’t open.” Rarity ran her hoof along the walls as she swam the perimeter, looking for something that stood out. “But in the middle of the room, there was a large statue with a golden sun between its wings. It didn’t take me too long to realize it was a mirror, and when we positioned it right, all we had to do was wait for the noon sun to strike it and reflect onto the door. That opened it up and we were able to get the figurine hiding inside.” Melody frowned at the ceiling. “I don’t think you’re likely to find something like that in here,” she said. “There isn’t even a mirror, a skylight, or a door to reflect light onto.” “True. But I have to wonder…” Pushing off of the wall, Rarity drifted up to the ceiling and noted the edges of the collapsing stone. “Do you think something like this would really hang this long without collapsing when it has the weight of the ocean pressing down on it? Or do you think it’s hiding something?” “Hiding something?” Melody repeated. Her eyes narrowed on the half-collapsed portion of the ceiling. “You think they faked the ceiling collapse to hide something in there?” “I know my gems,” Rarity said, “and to a lesser extent, rocks. They’re all minerals, after all.” Her tail swished a few times, and she brought her face closer to a rough edge. “There are obvious chisel marks on this stone. Straight, parallel lines running up and down—perpendicular to the ceiling. Now, the direction of the lines could just have easily been shaped through wear and tear, but on the other side of this block, the lines run parallel to the ceiling.” She pulled herself to the other side and pointed to it, even though Melody couldn’t see the lines. “These blocks were chiseled and shaped to be this way. If this was a normal chamber with a flat ceiling, the markings wouldn’t be on here. Plus, I find it strange that I can’t find a single crack in the ceiling that will let me see beyond.” “So the Ponynesians faked the damage done to this room… to what end?” “For one thing, to make po—people like us think that there’s nothing in here, and it’s too dangerous to enter,” Rarity said. “When in reality, the secret is around here somewhere. And if I had to guess, it’s probably beyond this half-collapsed fake ceiling.” “So we just need to break it down.” Melody grunted and winced as she pushed the door halves back open again. “Think you can take it down by yourself?” Rarity eyed the ceiling. “Maybe? I don’t have any magic to sing it down.” “It probably wouldn’t work anyway; I bet the interior is just as protected as the exterior is to magic. But it’s a good thing you’re a siren now, right?” Rarity looked at her hooves. “So I should just tear the entire thing down with my bare hooves?” “I’d probably throw my shoulder into it,” Melody said. “Your armor is a lot thicker than you probably think. We have to wrestle with a lot of nasty sea monsters, so we’re built to take a few nasty hits.” “So… just shoulder check the ceiling repeatedly like a hoofballer?” “I… don’t know what that is.” “Oh. Right.” Rarity drifted back a bit and cracked her neck. “It’s a very violent sport built around physical contact, strength, and machismo. Just… pretend that you get the analogy.” Melody rolled her eyes. “Right…” “Now…” Rarity braced herself against the wall and aimed herself at the lowest hanging stone. “I’m going to need a chiropractor when this is all over, I can already tell.”