//------------------------------// // Chapter 9 // Story: That Changeling's a Bad OC! // by Raugos //------------------------------// Max floated in a world of black and teal. Columns of dark, twisted flesh stretched from the abyss below to the endless void overhead, resembling the roots of a tree larger than any mountain she had ever known. So many of them intersected and intertwined around her that she couldn’t discern the pattern they made, though she had a niggling impression in the back of her mind that they were of vital importance. Then, she saw them. Milky-yellow globules clung to the twisting columns in random clusters, and wherever they touched, the black material fizzled and bubbled like dough on a frying pan. Shreds and motes of ash then broke away from those patches, drifting off like ink in a stream. The yellowish globules slid and squirmed along the columns, breaking off more and more matter as they went. Like slugs devouring a shrub. Stop. The globules slowed, but they did not cease. More of the columns disintegrated. One even snapped clean off and floated away, trailing a black cloud of dead matter. Dead. In a moment of inspiration, Max stopped relying on her eyes and instead reached out with her mind. She zoomed out, farther and farther, until the intricacies resolved into something that made sense to her frayed mind. Tissues – muscle, bone, skin, nerves. All hers. Except for the fluid that ate away at them, molecule by molecule. And then realised that she had millions of those globules inside of her. They’re killing me… Max screamed within the confines of her mind. Stop! Once again they slowed, but did not stop entirely. She could still feel herself falling apart on a microscopic level, gradually melting from the inside out until she was nothing more than a bag of chitin filled with nutritious goo to be slurped up by the first abomination that found her. No-no-no! She tried to swim away and out of the tangled labyrinth of columns, but she only succeeded in flailing around like a dazed insect. Meanwhile, the black carnage continued. [Cease your hysterics. You will not die.] [The heck are you talking about? I’m literally melting inside out!] A wave of pressure clamped down on her inner self, and she stopped flailing when it locked her in place. [Someday, something will kill you. But it will not be today, and it will not be this toxin. Still your mind and conserve your strength. You will have need of it when you reawaken.] The pressure eased up, but Max found the presence of mind to retain her composure, despite nearly every fibre of her being screaming at her to do something, anything, to prevent her gruesome demise by internal liquefaction. She pulled her focus away from the morbidly fascinating process of necrotic toxin molecules working hard at breaking down her insides. She last saw the sickly-yellow globes floating away from the black columns before completely refocusing her mind on her physical surroundings in the waking world – to limited success. She only sensed solid ground directly beneath her body, and maybe a couple of what felt like warm bodies in close proximity. They’re out there. Above. Get up and get out. After taking a moment to gather herself, Max willed herself to seek them out, and she felt herself rising up to meet them. She felt like drowning in honey, and her agonisingly slow ascent did nothing to help with the panic welling up in her chest. Inch by inch she floundered closer to the surface, until she could practically hear them through the membranous veil that separated her from the waking world. She then realised that she hadn’t taken a breath since regaining awareness, and she frantically clawed at the veil, opening her mouth wide to draw air that didn’t exist. Let me out! I want out! I need— The voices came again, more clearly and distinctly. “—going to be okay?” “Yes.” With a start, Max gasped and yanked her eyelids up, then hissed when blazing, yellow light harpooned her right in the eyeballs. Scrunching her eyes shut, she curled up tightly, only to yelp when doing so put pressure on her tenderly smarting foreleg. “Whoops. Sorry!” Upon seeing Daring’s apologetic grin framed by her helmet, Max gave her a reconciliatory grumble and uncurled herself. Blinking the gunk out of her eyes, she saw Daring – still garbed in her armour – and Ydrax’il sitting on their haunches before her, with the battered oil lamp placed on the floor between them. Through a crack in its casing, Max saw the tiny tongue of flame wavering on the short wick, barely illuminating the stony walls on either side of them and the arched ceiling above. A little farther off behind them, she spotted Speckle lying on his side, with thin trail of drool that ran from the corner of his mouth onto his helmet’s cheekguard and then into a small puddle on the floor. Sleeping with that on couldn’t have been very comfortable, but he’d somehow managed it. After taking a quick squint of their surroundings, she turned to her companions and grimaced. “We’re still underground?” “Yeah, well, we weren’t exactly in the best position to make it all the way out while you were snoozing.” Daring snorted and gestured at the two puncture holes in Max’s foreleg. “You weren’t looking too good back there, so we carried you a ways before Axil here decided it was safe to stop and clean out your wounds. Once he’d worked his magic, we carried you a little farther before we all had to crash and take a break.” Max winced when she poked at her injured foreleg, then fought to keep a stoic face as she stretched her limbs, feeling each and every bruise, cut and sprain with tortuous acuity. She slumped onto the floor with a sigh and rasped, “Nngh… How long was I out for?” Despite her raw injuries, she felt as if she’d been sleeping for several months; her eyes felt heavy and gummy, and her brain swam in thick sludge. “Two hours.” Daring reached into a somewhat tattered saddlebag and fished out a canteen, which she hoofed over to her. “Drink up. There’s not much left, but you sound like you need it.” “Where did—” Daring waved the canteen impatiently. “Galleon and gang dropped some stuff on their way out. Stop talking and drink.” Max licked her fangs and realised that her tongue felt like sandpaper, and when she tried to swallow, something caught in her throat. Wincing, she grabbed the canteen and savoured the cool trickle of water as it diluted her gummy saliva and soothed her parched insides. It ran out all too soon, though, and she passed it back to Daring with a grateful nod. “Thanks.” “You are welcome,” Ydrax’il piped up. Despite the gold colour of his irises, his eyes had an icy quality that made Max a little uncomfortable as he scrutinised her from horn to hoof. When they locked gazes, he gestured at her bitten leg and continued, “Does it burn or itch?” “Both.” “You will live. I have extracted most of the venom, so you should be able to metabolise the rest without significant harm.” Her eyes widened as she recalled the dream she’d had. “What I saw when I was under… that wasn’t a dream, was it? You did all that with your mind?” He nodded. “With enough time, skill and concentration, telekinesis can be fine-tuned to catalyse, stall or reverse chemical reactions, even those within your body. Combined with torpor, that technique allowed me to stave off death from envenomed lacerations for centuries.” “Can you teach me how?” “If we had access to a library and a decade of uninterrupted study and practice, perhaps.” Max rolled her eyes. “Okay, scratch that. I’m not sticking my muzzle into books for that long.” She then yawned widely and groaned as she tried to rise. Blood rushed away from her head, and her vision swam as she teetered on her hooves before collapsing back onto her haunches with a grunt. Daring then rushed up and steadied her with a hoof to her shoulder before she could topple and kiss the floor. “Looks like you’re due for a couple more hours of bedrest, Max,” she said with a frown. She yawned, too, and shook her head. “Speckle’s got the right idea.” Max perked her ears, straining for the slightest chitter or scraping in the distance. Aside from their breaths, total silence filled the darkness. “Are we safe here?” she whispered, shuddering at the memory of misshapen limbs, twisted muscle and gaping maws filled with teeth. “Reasonably so.” Ydrax’il lifted his foreleg and showed her the glowing rune stone embedded in his chitin. “Aside from us, the security sensors show that there are no organics of appreciable size in this sector. Rest. I will keep watch and alert you if we are threatened.” [Yeah, you do that…] Max had already curled up on the floor. Drowsiness tugged on her eyelids and weighed her down like bricks wrapped in a thick blanket, calling her back to the abyss. With one final yawn, she surrendered to the lethargy and sank beneath the waves. * * * * * Max wandered. She wandered at a sluggish pace for what felt like hours, aimlessly meandering through a labyrinth of tunnels, chambers, columns and chasms. Every step brought her closer to nowhere. Every turn, every dip and climb represented change without discernible meaning or purpose. The city was eternal. She was not. Max was utterly lost. Wait… That wasn’t exactly true. She still had those implanted memories of the city’s layout, and something about those memories gave them an almost tangible solidity in her mind’s eye, to the point where she could visualise herself trotting through specific passages or atriums. Unicorn wizards had written about magical leylines running through certain places rich in magic, like rivers from a hot spring. If AK Yearling had done proper research and not made anything up about the concept in her books, then it was technically possible for those with a strong affinity for magic to interact with said leylines, either to draw power from them or even to access the astral plane. Max’s interaction with the memories and the city itself didn’t feel like tracing a leyline, though. It felt more like an echo, if echoes could be both heard and seen with the mind. The Arthraki probably had special words for a lot of things related to telepathy that she needed to learn. At any rate, much like that time she’d touched the ancient map in the village, she saw a teal, translucent network of city infrastructure superimposed over a darker field of topographical elements. She wasn’t lost. Not anymore. Simultaneously, she could feel the presence of other minds, fainter than Ydrax’il’s, touching hers from all over the region. Hundreds. Thousands. The instant she focused on those presences, she found herself surrounded by an innumerable council of shadowy figures, in a void of indeterminate space and darkness. They whispered in Yogetor, of things just at the edge of her comprehension. Unlike last time, she felt no fear or shame as a changeling in their presence, and neither did they radiate disdain for her. This time, she recognised them as Arthraki in all their varied host bodies, garbed in dark robes. She tasted fascination, and maybe a little anticipation, as if they were waiting for her to do something… Like what? Time slipped by without a solution presenting itself. She simply hovered in place, wings buzzing idly, until she felt her mind drawn up and out of the void, away from the Arthraki. Soon. That was the parting impression she got before she drifted away entirely. She lingered in the ghostly projection of the city for some time, exploring anything that struck her fancy. Floating around as a disembodied consciousness didn’t tire her. In fact, it felt almost like lazing on a couch whilst watching a play; she could vaguely feel her body curled up on the floor somewhere, asleep. It was just too bad that she couldn’t just turn her mind off as well. Is ‘sleep’ going to be like this for the rest of my life? It was probably great for eggheads who wanted to continue thinking about stuff even on their downtime, but Max liked not having to deal with anything when she hit the hay. That was the whole point of sleep! At any rate, something drove her to continue exploring. She didn’t know what exactly to look for, but something at the back of her mind reassured her that she’d know when the time came. She recognised a few sections like the grand vestibule and the long passage to the river gate, but she spent most of her time seeking out new places. Time wore on, and her speed increased as a vague urgency filled her and spurred her onward. After a while, it turned into a pang in her heart that she recognised all too well… I want a snack. Artefacts, machinery, columns and offshoot passages whooshed past her as she tore through the city in search of prey. Her insides felt acidic and hollow, eroding with each passing second. She needed sustenance, and she wanted it now. Then, she found it. A lone creature of flesh and blood in a labyrinth of stone. Its warm breath quickened her pulse. It thought. It dreamt. It loved. Good enough for her. It had a vaguely familiar scent that niggled at the back of her mind, but the void in her practically howled and dug its claws into her belly; it would abide no distractions. Feast. She’d descended upon it like a plague and opened her maw to suck it dry, when it suddenly rolled onto its back and slapped her in the cheek. Reeling from the blow, she shook her head and refocused on the vulnerable fleshling, baring her fangs to— “Max!” it shouted. Max fell and landed on all fours with a thump that made her heart skip a beat. She blinked and found herself almost muzzle to muzzle with Daring Do, who scowled at her with furrowed eyebrows as she lay on the ground, trapped in a rather compromising position between Max’s legs. “The hay is going on?” “I’d ask you the same thing,” Daring retorted, raising an eyebrow. “Wanna explain? Fair warning – there’s no chance in Tartarus I’d believe that you were just trying to give me a kiss.” “I, uh…” Max glanced around and saw the dim confines of the passage, illuminated solely by the feeble lamp. Speckle was curled up with his back to the wall, still snoring softly, whilst Ydrax’il sat on his haunches with his head bowed and eyes shut in a meditative pose. Neither paid them any attention. Turning back to Daring, Max gave her a sheepish grin and gingerly lifted herself off her. “Eh heh… I guess I was sleepwalking?” “Sleep-eating too, from the looks of it,” Daring murmured as she righted herself and shook her head. She then cast a sideways glance at Ydrax’il and whispered, “You sure he didn’t crank up your love-sucking habits or something back in the lab?” “I… I can’t say for sure that he didn’t.” Daring’s eyes narrowed. “This isn’t going to become a problem, is it?” Max gulped and held her forelegs up. “Whoa, whoa, I’m not going to go on a feeding rampage, okay? I just had a bad dream, like I was starving and all alone in the world. Trust me, I swear I’ve got this completely under control!” “I really want to. I do. But after all that’s been happening…” Daring sighed and rubbed her eyes. “Sorry. You just got me at a bad time. Believe it or not, pointy fangs right in my face are not something I want to wake up to.” “Sorry.” “It’s okay. Sleep loss is getting to me.” An enormous yawn parted Daring’s jaws as she waved aside her apology with a wing. “Can’t wait to crawl into bed and hibernate once this is all over.” Max peered through the shade of her helmet and gaped when she noticed her bloodshot eyes. “Wait, you haven’t slept at all since we came down here?” “Somepony’s gotta keep watch.” Daring then cast a sideways glance at Ydrax’il and whispered, “I don’t trust him to keep his hooves to himself if all three of us are napping.” “A wise policy.” Max gasped and whipped her head around in search of the voice, then sighed when she realised that it had come from Ydrax’il, still in his meditative pose. His eyes remained closed, and he hadn’t moved an inch. Frowning, she shot him a glare and said, “Were you awake the whole time?” “Yes.” “Eavesdropping too, I’d bet,” Daring growled. “And you didn’t think to do anything when Max was sleep-eating? Not even a simple heads up?” He slowly opened his eyes and gazed at them coolly. “My intervention would have stolen the opportunity for useful insight.” “Insight?” Max blinked, then sighed and shook her head. “Is there any reason you can’t even wait until we’ve properly escaped this pit of doom before getting back to treating everything like an experiment?” “Inefficiency,” he said with the slightest tilt of his head. “In the absence of more productive tasks at hand, observing your behaviour would at least yield potentially useful information for adapting to your world. And had you come close to irreparably harming one another, I would have intervened.” Daring’s frown deepened. “And what exactly have you learned from this?” “That I, too, will soon have to manage my newly acquired drive to feed on the emotions of sapient species. And unlike Maxilla, I do not have the benefit of a pre-existing friend for reliable sustenance.” “Does everything have to be so clinical with you?” Daring scowled at him for a couple of seconds, then facehoofed when he showed no sign of remorse. “Okay, fine. Friendship lesson one: friends don’t let friends do nasty things to each other, got it? Also, maybe save the social experiments for after we get out of danger? They say that trust is a commodity, and you’re spending your very limited supply a little quickly, if you get my drift.” He gave them the barest of nods. “Acknowledged, Daring Do.” Daring waited expectantly, but after a couple of seconds with him impassively gazing back at her, she groused under her breath and turned her attention to Speckle’s sleeping form instead. “Good a time as any to get moving. Think we should wake him?” “No need.” Speckle stirred and mumbled softly as a yellow-green aura lifted him bodily into the air, but his breaths remained calm and steady even when Ydrax’il draped him over his back so that he looked like an oversized foal riding his parent, with legs dangling freely on both sides. Then, after taking several balance-testing steps in a small circle, Ydrax’il turned his back to them and began walking up the gentle incline of the passage. Daring’s wrinkled muzzle suggested that she had more to say to Ydrax’il, but in the end, she simply shared a look with Max and sighed as she scooped up the lamp and latched it onto her saddlebag. Their shadows danced in the light of the swaying lamp as they trotted after him. With a few minutes’ worth of exercise, Max realised that her condition had vastly improved after her second nap. Rather than feeling like she had been thoroughly massaged with knives and sledgehammers, she merely felt like she’d run a marathon the day before. A few throbbing aches here, some pulled muscle there, and some smarting lacerations, but nothing really debilitating overall. The clip-clop of their hooves filled the silence as they ascended the passage. Daring looked like she was having second thoughts about letting Ydrax’il carry Speckle, and from the way her eyes furtively lingered on him and Ydrax’il every now and then, Max guessed that she was torn between feeling too tired to carry him herself, not wanting to ask Max to do it, and loathing the idea of sticking around any longer than absolutely necessary. Her posture looked rather stiff, too, and if not for the enchanted helmet, Max was sure that she would’ve tasted very strongly of guilt. Max bit her lip when she recalled a particular scene in one of her books, the one in which Daring had been forced to give in to Cabelleron’s demands when he threatened to have her captured guide thrown into a spiked pit. Speckle’s the hostage, and I’m the sidekick who’s made a pact with the draconequus… A bit on the dramatic side, maybe, but with all that had happened recently, she couldn’t imagine Daring Do having a whole lot of leeway for taking risks. Especially not if she was feeling responsible for one or two of them. Gingerly, she trotted up alongside Daring and whispered, “Quit feeling bad about keeping your guard up. It’s fine; you’d be stupid not to be a little suspicious of me right now.” Daring faltered for the briefest of moments in her trot before she blinked and gave Max an appraising look. “Just a little?” Max winced. “Okay, very.” Daring trotted on with her eyes averted. But after a moment, she chuckled as her shoulders slumped a bit. “That bad, huh? Didn’t think I’d be this easy to read.” Max patted herself on the chest. “Biggest fan, remember? I’m all about reading you since book one.” “You know, this sounds exactly like something you’d say to reverse-psych me into letting my guard down.” Daring arched an eyebrow and leaned away from her just a tad, with the ghost of a grin on her muzzle. “And the worst part is that it’s actually working, you devious bug.” “Oh.” Her ears flattened. “I guess I should just shut up, then?” Daring snorted and waved a wing dismissively. “Nah, I’m not turning down small talk. Dead silence is business as usual for me, but something about this place has a way of getting into my head. If I didn’t know better, I’d take a stab at saying that it’s actually haunted.” A chill caressed Max’s spine as she remembered the echoes of the dead in her mind. “Yeah, right…” “Max, is there something you want to say?” She bit her lip. Daring’s eyes widened just a bit. “Don’t tell me; all that psychic mumbo jumbo about communicating with the dead is actually real?” Max shook her head. “Uh, not exactly. They’re more like… imprints of dead people that I can detect, like writing on the walls. I’m pretty sure they’re not actually souls.” “Ookay… that’s definitely going into the book. Are they dangerous?” “I don’t think so. They’re just… distracting.” Daring sucked in her lips and hummed. “I see. Holler if they become a problem, okay?” “Yeah.” They lapsed into silence as they traversed the subterranean road. Though she no longer heard their whispers, Max could still feel a tenuous thread linking her consciousness to the innumerable echoes of long-dead Arthraki in the city. Thankfully, her psionic upgrades allowed her to shunt them aside in a way, so that they felt more like somepony locked in her basement that she could visit whenever she pleased as opposed to being stuck in a crowded room with no escape. The same applied to the memories that had been etched into her mind. On a whim, Max found that she could recall information pertaining to her specific location, like the exact length, depth and load-bearing capacity of the passage they were in. ‘Auxiliary supply shaft’ was their current location, which led to ‘Gate Ɣ’ and some term she was best able to interpret as ‘harvest grounds’. She could even visualise the ghostly projection of the city’s layout over her normal vision, and without giving herself a migraine, too. Whether these were entirely contained within her brain or some weird interaction with her surroundings, she couldn’t say for sure. But I know someone who does… Turning her gaze to Ydrax’il, she pinged him with the mental equivalent of a poke on the shoulder. [Hey.] [Your initial assumption about psionic imprints is correct. Provided you have the appropriate combination of genes, psionic affinity and decryption tools, you will be able to access information directly from the artificial neural network that extends throughout this region. And these apparitions you sense are the result of personalised patterns being etched into the network through extensive use, without regular maintenance to purge the system of imprint accumulation.] [Wait, how did—] Max felt her eyes glazing over as she parsed his mini-lecture, then narrowed her eyes and glared at his back. [Hayseed, you were still eavesdropping on us the whole time, weren’t you?] [Yes.] She sent a more forceful ping that would hopefully sting his brain a little. [Privacy means absolute squat all to you, huh?] If it hurt at all, he gave no indication of it as he smoothly replied, [On the contrary, psionic adepts have a greater appreciation for privacy than most individuals. In your case, more pressing matters simply compel me to eschew such privileges.] Max would’ve loved to chuck a rock at his head, but that seemed like the sort of thing that would only encourage him to go deeper into armchair shrink territory, and she had no intention of giving him justification of any sort. Still, against her better judgment, she couldn’t help prying. [You’ve seen my memories. You clearly don’t need observations to know our feeding habits and the problems that come with it. So why did you lie?] [It is not your behaviour that I wish to observe. It is your idol’s.] [Idol? What are you—] Max frowned. [She’s not my idol.] The next ping came laced with amusement. [Indeed. She is merely a pony that you worship and emulate at every opportunity.] [I… shut up.] She stared at his back and shook her head. [Whatever… And anyway, didn’t we already have this discussion? I told you, we’ve got each other’s back. It better than—] [It is an admirably effective concept. The meteoric rise of equines to their place as one of the dominant species on the planet is evidence of that. However, your relationship has yet to be tested. In all likelihood, she does not fathom what you and I are fully capable of. That time may come soon, however.] [But—] Ydrax’il turned his head and gazed at her from the corner of an eye. [And this is before factoring in your former queen and hive. As a changeling with superior and heritable traits, you represent an existential threat to their survival as a species – or Chrysalis’ power, if nothing else. When they learn of you and your children, expect attempts to be made on your life, and civil war as well, should any decide that you represent a future with greater prospects than their own. The present schism in your hive is evidence that such an event is possible.] Max trotted in silence for a minute or two, staring at the floor. She saw herself duelling Chrysalis in the middle of a barren wasteland, surrounded by ponies and changelings who watched with trembling awe. They scorched and shattered the ground beneath them, locked in an epic struggle of fiery magic and thrashing limbs. Bring it on, Mommy. This grub’s outgrown the hatchery, and there’s nothing you can do about it. And I will win. One on one, at any rate. But against her entire species? Even if she could take them all on, the thought of going against each and every last one of her siblings somehow stung deep in her chest. She didn’t despise them, not really. Even if half of them were stupid jerks. And as for the ones that had gotten close with the ponies, she couldn’t see them reacting very well to her acquisition of very ‘traditional’ abilities that were more or less perfect for anypony with a penchant for enslaving others. Stupid grubs will probably try sweet-talking me out of it, too, if they didn’t jump straight to blasting me with Friendship magic right away… Max grimaced and shook her head. Problems for another day. Raising her eyes back to head level, she saw that he’d turned his attention back to the passage before him. Frowning, she said, [What about you? It’s not like I’m the only one with super shapeshifting and psychic powers. Are you going to ask me to join you in conquering Equestria or something?] [Given a few decades and a more favourable socio-political climate, that might become a feasible goal. For now, I will be content with survival and opportunities for covert research.] [Decades? You think—] She paused for a moment, blinking. [Wait… did you modify my lifespan as well? How long is it going to be?] [Suboptimal lab conditions preclude me from giving a precise estimate, but you can expect a range similar to that of your queen. Centuries, at the least. You will have no shortage of opportunities for scheming, should you care to raise your aspirations that high.] Max felt her jaw drop. It made sense for the lifespan to come with the modifications he gave her, but between all the crazy things happening in the past few hours, the thought of outliving the vast majority of things in the world simply hadn’t crossed her mind. Hayseed, I’m immortal… Or as close to it as any changeling had a right to be. Simply thinking of all those years ahead of her made her head swim so much that she almost tripped over her own hooves. [This is crazy.] [Daring Do has a lifespan amounting to a mayfly’s in comparison to yours.] Max rolled her eyes. She’d read enough fiction to know where this was going. [I’m like, barely twelve.] [You are an adult of breeding age.] She snorted, then shook her head sheepishly when Daring turned to give her a puzzled look. [I think I’ll wait till I’ve got at least another zero there before getting all doom-and-gloom about how everyone’s dying around me, thanks.] [Bear in mind that you are now one of the few beings with the lifespan for influencing civilisations on a planetary scale. Some things should naturally fall beneath your notice.] A brief pause followed before he added, [Or affection.] [Horse apples, are you my dad now, too? I get it; I’m playing with the big mares now. I’ll get right on that responsibility for my entire species thing when I feel like it. Sheesh.] [Very well. A suboptimal aspiration, but not unexpected from one of your experience.] [The hay is that supposed to mean? I ca—actually, you know what?] Max bit back a growl and forced herself to maintain a steady pace. [I don’t have to take this from you. You Arthraki thought certain things were beneath your respect, and those certain things kicked your flanks into extinction. Would be pretty dumb of me to make the same mistake, don’t you think?] [Hence my interest in observing your relationships.] She raised an eyebrow. [Then why did you—] [You were not accounting for important variables and potential outcomes. This has been rectified, to a reasonable extent.] Max growled softly and tuned him out. She had to tune out thoughts of the future, too. Not that she didn’t think planning ahead was important or anything, but the notion of being the mother of a new race of changelings made her feel like a mouse being dragged out of its very comfortable burrow and into the open where a million things wanted to eat her. Or cut her open for science. Probably should’ve just stuck to being a nobody in a basement… A week ago, she only had to worry about eating, sleeping, hiding and writing. Trouble with the local authorities was always a possibility, but at least she didn’t have to worry too much about anyone going out of their way to annihilate her. And— Ugh. Enough. With a shake of her head, Max closed her eyes and occupied her brain with navigating her surroundings through the use of nothing but sound and telekinetic spatial sense. The practice could come in useful someday, if nothing else. Time wore on, and so did they. Max eventually figured out that she could tune down the ‘sharpness’ of her spatial sense to suit her needs, and eventually settled on using Ydrax’il’s mental signature as a homing beacon, like a moth drawn to a light. Doing so allowed her to reliably follow in his footsteps whilst avoiding debris and other obstacles that cropped up, all with the benefit of slipping into a dreamy state that allowed her to rest without blanking out entirely. She drifted on in that state for some time, at least until a meaty thump and Speckle’s yelp whipped her back to full wakefulness. Blinking, she saw him scrambling away from Ydrax’il whilst Daring darted forward and clapped a steadying hoof on his shoulder to keep him from bolting . “Where are we?” Speckle cried as he whipped his head around in bewilderment, backpedalling until he had his rump pressed to the passage wall. “What was he doing to me?” Ydrax’il languidly swept a hoof around and said, “We are still underground in the city. Your exhaustion necessitated involuntary transport; I was merely carrying you.” “But—” Daring patted him on the shoulder and offered a weary grin. “Don’t worry, he didn’t try any funny business while you were out. And hey, you got to nap whilst the rest of us had to put up with three whole hours of mindless trotting. Not a bad deal, yeah?” Speckle frowned as he twisted and contorted, patting and scrutinising every inch of his limbs, neck, chest and belly with a brilliant teal corona on his horn. After confirming that he hadn’t lost or grown anything above or under his yellow coat, he heaved a sigh and leaned against the wall whilst casting a wary look at Ydrax’il, who met his eyes with an impassive gaze. Max fidgeted in the awkward silence. She could almost hear Speckle’s heart pounding, and it didn’t help that the apprehension radiating from him constantly tickled her appetite. Not that she could blame him, though. Ydrax’il had dislocated his foreleg not too long ago… Daring’s eyes kept flicking between them. Eventually, Ydrax’il wordlessly turned away, but before he could finish turning his back, Speckle swallowed dryly and murmured, “Thanks… I guess.” Ydrax’il looked over his shoulder and inclined his head slightly. “You are welcome.” And with that, he turned and resumed trotting at a leisurely pace. Max fired off a sharp ping as she accelerated after him. [What was that for? Are you trying to creep them out on purpose?] [No.] [Then what?] [Fear has not fully compromised his mind. He may yet prove useful in a confrontation with his former companions.] “We will reach the surface within twenty minutes,” Ydrax’il then said aloud as he consulted the rune stone embedded in his foreleg. “The sensors detected significant seismic activity within the last four hours – likely attempts to sabotage the gate. Other measures may be taken to prevent our escape; combat is probable if any of them await our arrival.” Speckle skidded to a halt. “More fighting? I… I know Galleon. If he’s trying to stop us from getting out, I don’t think he’ll stop at burying the gate. And Short Fuse likes combining bombs with booby traps…” “It's lousy, but it’s probably our best way out,” Daring said. Speckle paled. “Isn’t there any other exit?” “Several, but they extend much further than this one.” Ydrax’il glanced at his rune stone, then added, “Extensive structural damage, malfunctioning life support and prolonged travel time exponentially increases risk of exhaustion, malnourishment and attacks from organic aberrations. This gate presents more predictable and manageable threats.” Max glanced at Daring, who then nodded curtly. “I’d take on Galleon’s lackeys over a cave-in or poisonous air any day. This place is a death trap, even for me.” “If… if you say so.” Speckle gulped. “So what’s the plan?” “Insufficient data,” said Ydrax’il as he resumed trotting up the passage. “Optimal strategies will become apparent once we see the gate and the opposition we face.” They found more signs of Galleon’s hasty departure as they went farther up; some collapsed sections of the wall and ceiling allowed water to trickle into the passage, which in turn brought in sediments and limestone staining. Max recognised hoof prints at a gallop on those surfaces, and Daring frequently pointed out recent scratches and scuffs in the stonework that might’ve been caused by glancing impacts from sharp objects passing at speed. They might’ve picked up a few artefacts along the way, which could pose a threat to Max and Ydrax’il if Galleon had gleaned the purpose of their enchantments. Max shuddered at the thought. She’d already gotten a taste of aberrant venom not too long ago; she did not fancy going another round with magical poison from weapons specifically designed to take down Arthraki. They slowed down as they got closer to the surface, both to conserve their strength for a potential battle and to better keep an eye out for booby traps. And after half an hour of cautious walking, Speckle’s intuition paid off. “There, you see that?” he whispered as he shone a beam of teal light up the passage. Max squinted. Sections of the left wall and ceiling had collapsed there, but with the passage being wide enough to accommodate two carts side by side, there was still plenty of room for them to pass without needing to clamber over dirt and debris. Anyone would naturally veer to the right, and that was where she saw the tell-tale reflection of Speckle’s light on an almost invisible thread running six inches over the floor, horizontally. Had they been using only the lamp for illumination, they probably would’ve triggered it. “Crossbows,” said Daring as she peered over the thread and around the pile of debris. “Not a bad set-up. Couldn’t have done it better myself.” So saying, she pressed down on the tripwire, and a trio of bolts whizzed out of the shadows with explosive force. Their steel heads produced sparks when they struck the opposite wall before clattering to the floor. From then on, they ascended with extra caution. Speckle kept a steady beam of light going, whilst Max and Ydrax’il kept ‘watch’ with their mentally enhanced spatial awareness. Daring had to make do with her regular eyes, but her familiarity with trip mechanisms allowed her to predict the locations of a couple of them with uncanny accuracy. They found and disarmed two more bolt traps, evaded a couple that were rigged to collapse haphazard piles of rocks, and a particularly harrowing section where Short Fuse must’ve worked with the others to hide clusters of dynamite in every nook and cranny in the floor, walls and ceiling along a thirty-pace stretch of tunnel with crisscrossing tripwires every three steps or so. Daring had mumbled something about ridiculous overkill whilst Max and Ydrax’il ferried her and Speckle across the deadly stretch. They knew better than to try picking apart anything in there. Another hundred paces up, they found stacks of half-empty crates filled with assorted explosives lined up along the wall. Pickaxes, mallets, shattered lamps and coils of wire and rope lay strewn about the place, close to sections of fractured wall that bore evidence of their use. The air stank of sweat, and a haphazard mess of hoofprints and scuffles on the dirty floor gave the impression of dozens of industrious ponies crammed in the passage, their work suddenly interrupted by a mad scramble for the surface. The gate was sealed shut. A lone shovel head lay broken on their side, perhaps as somepony’s ditch attempt to jam the door before it snapped the shaft and crushed it. They gave the discarded explosives a wide berth as they crept up to the stone door. “Looks like they were setting up to bury us properly when the door started closing on them,” Daring mused as she swept her gaze from the discarded tools to the door. She then glanced at the rune stone on Ydrax’il’s foreleg and added, “I’m guessing Galleon’s key ran out of power. Would explain why they didn’t just reopen it.” Frowning, Max trotted up to the door, and froze when she got within ten paces of it. Tense minds echoed through the stone barrier. Watching. Working. Waiting. “Speaking of whom… they’re still out there, and they’ve been busy,” Max said as she turned back to the others. “Looks like we’re going to have a fight on our hooves, unless you guys want to wait and hope they get bored enough to leave.” Speckle’s ears flattened. “He won’t. You ruined his plans.” “Yeah, I know his type,” Daring said with a stiff nod. “Whatever happens, we’re finishing this today.” Ydrax’il regarded her coolly. “You have a plan.” “Yeah.” “Does it involve fighting?” Speckle cast a worried glance at the door and what awaited outside, curling his still slightly swollen fetlock close to his chest. “I’m not cut out for roughhousing of any sort. I—” “Relax. If we pull this off, everypony gets to walk away with their flanks in one piece.” Daring then turned to Ydrax’il and flicked her gaze down to the rune stone on his foreleg, her mouth twisting into a grin. “But first, I’m gonna need to borrow that, and… what’s the smallest thing you guys can turn into?”