The air was dry, and the land desolate. No ponies dwelt this far into the Badlands, as it was widely known to be uninhabitable. The only life that could survive were clumps of reddish, stinking grass and strange, hunched creatures that likely had little semblance of sentience. A few hundred miles away, there were settlements. Obscure, rural districts centered around dusty windmills that lazily powered exceedingly deep well pumps. Farther still was an ocean that few ponies had ever witnessed.
This land had not been chosen at random. It had been chosen for its expediency. No pony could reach it through the desert, whether they be earth-ponies who tried to brave the sands or even Pegasi who chose to attempt to ride the thermal currents for days or weeks on end. Only those with powerful spells or powerful machines could dare to reach this region.
Further, the Questlords had taken precautions. The citadel of the Order of the Red Bloom stood directly beneath Celestia’s golden sun, rising from the empty desert in bold defiance. Yet Celestia’s sun was blind, and neither her nor her sister’s magic could reach this place. Beneath the desert lay the remains of a long-buried spell. It was not so crude as the one the Exmoori rune-drawers had built to protect their Necroforge. It did not destroy those who encountered it. Instead, it was subtle. Intelligent. It was easy to get turned around in a desert, to wander endlessly in circles until one’s supplies were depleted and they expired. That was exactly what the spell did. It shrouded the keep, forming an unbreakable dome of influence that blocked out all unwelcome guests.
Or it was meant to. The spell was old. Older than Dulcimer, in fact; older by far. In all the time it had stood, it had never encountered a powerful wizard. None had seen any point in coming here, or had been willing to depart from their towers and research interests.
Flock might have been able to break it. Given his dial and time, he could have deciphered it, understood how to breach it- -or how to turn it against the ponies within the keep. To make them wander out in confusion to disperse through the desert, wandering until the sweltering days and frigid nights took effect. It would only have taken time- -but time was something that had become precious. Absence had already taken control, and the creature inside her was preparing to germinate within a matter of hours.
Scarlet Mist, however, was a vastly more powerful wizard.
The dome sat silent, invisible from either side, looking not unlike the lines of heat rising from the desert. It only became visible when it began to crack. The cracks grew larger and widened. Light shown through for a moment as the spell resisted, but then with the dullest snap that made many of the hunched, empty creatures wandering the desert look up in mild interest, it broke.
Red mist poured through the shell. It formed a drifting, wandering cloud, a lightly swirling vortex that pulled up sand and rocks as it passed. Then, all at once, it dissipated, and Scarlet Mist stepped out. She was not alone.
Every pony that was able to fight had come. Sweetie Drops, now almost fully healed, stood beside White, wearing the latter’s former armor and carrying the black sword on her back. White and her sister arrived wearing no armor and carrying no weapons, although it was apparent that the two of them hardly needed either. Each had only one artificial eye.
Beside but apart from them stood the mercenary Zel. He was clearly pleased to be away from the lethal cold of Hyperborea, but a grim expression had crossed his face, demonstrating that he understood what was to come better than most of the others.
The two wizards stood in the front. Flock, with his dial removed, would be useless when it came to the fight- -but critical when it came to knowledge of the Hand. Scarlet Mist stood as his opposite, and within her stood Argiopé, although whether she had any consciousness left capable of understanding was up for debate.
Behind them were the rest of the ponies. Caballeron stood beside Rogue, his lieutenant, both of them dressed for the heat. Withers was not with them; his injuries had been too severe to make him anything other than a burden. Scarlet Mist had deposited him somewhere in the world at Flock’s request.
Rainbow Dash had also dressed for the occasion, although in her opinion far more epically. She had found some armor. It was probably cursed in some way but she did not really care. It looked cool. And it had a set of heavy brass loops across the back that allowed her to hold the Spear of Extinction without impeding her wings. She supposed that the armor must have been made for a Pegasus. For all she knew, it could have belonged to Commander Hurricane herself. That thought did not comfort her.
The last was Daring Do. Her first action on reemerging into the world was to drop to her knees and add some rare moisture to the dessert.
“Daring Do!” cried Rainbow Dash, kneeling beside her friend. “Are you okay?”
Daring Do wiped her mouth on the back her gloved hoof. “I’m fine,” she lied.
“Your body contains traces indicative of exposure to magical fallout,” noted Scarlet Mist. “How unpleasant magical transport must be for you.”
“You don’t say,” muttered Daring Do as she waited for the vertigo to fade.
“It may also explain your unusual youth,” suggested Flock. “I wonder if your lifespan is extended?”
“No doubt another anatomical inquiry,” sighed Scarlet Mist. “Later. There is little time now.”
“I’m fine. I’m fine.” Daring Do stood up. She felt Rainbow Dash helping her- -and White, on her other side. “Thanks.” She looked around. “White. Do you know this place?”
White nodded.
“I do too,” said the other. “There’s better security when you get close. Look.” She pointed, and through the heat-haze Daring Do could see a looming fortress in the distance.
“Oh that’s a long walk,” groaned Rogue. “And it’s hot.”
“Stop complaining,” snapped Caballeron. “And get walking.”
“You two,” said Daring Do. “Can you take Rainbow Dash and scout ahead?”
White nodded and gestured toward Rainbow Dash.
“Sure thing,” said Rainbow Dash. She floated into the air. “What about you?”
“I’ll walk for now.”
Rainbow Dash looked somewhat disappointed, but agreed, not pressing further. “Sure thing. We’ll be back.”
“Hopefully,” added the unnamed white Pegasus. White elbowed her. They both took off.
As they were disappearing over the desert, Flock spoke. “Are you sure that was wise? We need her to wield the Spear.”
“And she needs to be doing something other than walking and thinking. She’ll be fine. I guarantee it.”
“You could always go with her,” noted Scarlet Mist.
Flock grumbled but did not take flight. He did not seem to want to stray far from the other wizard.
“As pleasant as being baked to a thin pony crisp sounds, I do have things to do,” muttered Caballeron as he started walking. “So if we could please get going?”
“Don’t be pushy,” growled Sweetie Drops, nearly pushing him over as she passed. “You’re not in a position to give orders.”
Yet she did as he had suggested. They all did, moving quickly across the desert. Toward what, none of them were sure. Some of them were afraid of what they would find, although they chose not to show it. Others among them did not care in the slightest. One somehow knew exactly what they would find, but refused to allow herself to dread it.
And of all of them, there would be some that would not be coming back.
As they drew closer, the Questlord keep became visible through the heat, growing clearer until finally they stood in its long shadow. Daring Do, and to a lesser extent Caballeron, stared up in amazement.
Standing before them was a solitary butte, a column of striped, weather-worn sandstone surrounded by nothing but barren rock and dirty sand. It was the only one of its kind in this desert, either because it was the only one to form or because all of its brothers had long since been ground away by endless eons of grit-bearing wind.
The butte itself was ominous, but what was built into it was what drew Daring Do’s eye. There were uniform, regular cuts into the sides of the cliff. Caves had been hollowed out, and inside them buildings had been carved directly from the stone. There were doors, windows, and regularly spaced circular holes that had once held logs meant to support further structures.
This was a ruin, the remnants of some unnamed and possibly unnamable ancient civilization. Somehow, ponies had existed out here. Perhaps in their time the desert had been greener and less dry. Or perhaps they had known things that ponies had since forgotten on how to live in a place like this.
What was apparent, though, was that the ruins that ran through the sides of the butte were abandoned and largely undisturbed. They were not the Questlord keep. That had instead been constructed on the top of the butte, its stone assembled and lifted into place by some incomprehensible means long ago.
It was a looming and imposing structure, crafted not from carved sandstone but some unknown dark rock that did not match any of the stone in the desert. It stood in dark defiance of the world around it, or perhaps indifference to a world that would otherwise like to leave it behind. Its design was unlike any castle that Daring Do had seen: it was not light and airy like those in Canterlot, nor a tall system of spires like the now abandoned Castle of the Two Sisters, nor the stocky Romanesque structures that some ancient unicorn nobles still inhabited. It was a fortress with high, slanting walls made from single, perfect pieces of stone, with openings and parapets of strange, blockish shapes.
Yet somehow it still gave Daring Do the same sensation as the ruins it had been built atop. It, like them, was old. A relic of a different age. While the ones below had been built while modern pony civilization was in its infancy, though- -as the ruins that she understood and had come to expect all were- -the ones higher up were much older, from a day when a different and wildly more advanced era when a different civilization had reigned.
Daring Do stared up at both. The rest of the group slowed and stopped, and the zebra came to be standing beside her.
“I know this is a challenge we must face,” he said, solemnly, “but this is a dark and evil place.” He sighed. “First the cold, now heated skies/ I fell as though we’re walking to our demise.”
“You can still turn back. You’re a mercenary, aren’t you? I’ll pay you what I can to keep going. But I’m not going to force you.”
Zel stared up at the tower for a long time. Perhaps it had been his ancestors and not Caballeron’s who had carved the sandstone butte to form their ancient city. No one would ever know.
“No,” he said at last. “There was a time/ long back, before this rhyme /when I learned of duty to protect, in night or day/ and not simply to worry about the pay.”
Daring Do nodded, and so did Zel.
“Ugh that gives me a headache,” complained Sweetie Drops.
“So somepony finally agrees with me,” mused Scarlet Mist. Her hearing was apparently excellent.
They continued to wait, but not for long. Soon, three shapes emerged from around the butte. Though they were flying high, they were barely to the height of the lowest aspects of the carved city.
Rainbow Dash, who had taken the position in the front of their V as the leader, landed first. White and her sister followed.
“How’s it look?” asked Sweetie Drops.
“Really, really epic,” said Rainbow Dash. “I wish I could live here.”
“Trust me it’s not that fun,” said the white Pegasus. “There’s a problem.”
“What kind of problem?” asked Caballeron.
“The defenses. There are supposed to be countermeasures…but none of them are working.”
“That doesn’t sound like a bad thing to me,” said Rogue. “Easier to break in.”
“No. You don’t understand. Something is wrong. There should be an army on top of us right now, but there isn’t.”
Flock’s eyes narrowed, and he let out a low, somber gasp. “Then it has already started.”
“We need to get inside,” said Daring Do. “Is there a way in?”
“There’s a landing bay on the north side, but we didn’t check that high. If the AA’s still running…”
“We have to take that chance.”
White nodded, but her sister blanched slightly.
“Those of us with wings can fly up there,” said Daring Do. “Me, Rainbow Dash, White, Flock, and…” She gestured toward the unnamed Pegasus.
“Softwings,” suggested Sweetie Drops.
The Pegasus glared. “Heck no!” she cried. “That’s a stupid name!”
“Too late. You’re ‘Softwings’ now.”
“Celestia darn it to heck!” she swore, kicking a small piece of sandstone scree with undo violence. “Of all the names to get!”
“You can change it later,” suggested Daring Do. “But for now we need to get up there. Fast.”
“I shall take the remainder,” said Scarlet Mist.
“I think I’ll go with her,” added Flock.
“You will fly under your own power,” snapped Scarlet Mist. “I’m already expending far too much energy as it is. You finally have a set of wings that can work, so use them.”
Flock looked terrified at the thought of being in the vanguard, but seemed to be even more afraid of Scarlet Mist. So he nodded quickly and changed his shape. His horn vanished, and he produced a pair of black wings. He had become a Pegasus.
“Slightly more appropriate,” said Scarlet mist. Her eyes, though they were only horizontal slits, suddenly looked at Daring Do. “Go. And be quick. I will need a new body soon.”
Daring Do nodded, and saw the pain on Caballeron’s face as Scarlet Mist approached. She understood and felt the same nagging shame. Once again, she found herself wishing that she could be working alone, so that all the sacrifices she made could be hers. But this was the way it had to be. This was not something she could do on her own.
So she took flight. Rainbow Dash immediately acquiesced her position at the front of the V, letting Daring Do take the front. Daring Do did, even though it meant that they would travel somewhat slower. The climb was high, and even with the thermal currents it would be difficult for her. It had been too long since she had been able to rest properly. Her wings burned, but she ignored them. Even if this was the last flight she ever got to take, it was one she had to make count.
Flock did join them, but it was immediately apparent that he was not a Pegasus. His position was off and his flying stilted and awkward. Despite this, he followed, if only begrudgingly.
The keep was far more massive than it had looked from the ground, and even more threatening up close- -yet Softwings’s fear had been unfounded. Although Daring Do could see the turrets, they were inactive- -and in fact had mostly been disassembled. For a moment, she was even sure that she saw something slink away from one, carrying wires and metal in its mouth.
The bay was open: a runway jutting outward from an opening in the monolithic walls, held up by airy supports that looked far too small to support its weight. The Pegasi and Flock landed, and Rainbow Dash drew her spear, as if expecting resistance. Strangely, the Spear did not activate- -as if Rainbow Dash had somehow learned to control it.
“If anypony’s there, come out and fight!” she yelled. Flock winced and hid behind White, who kicked him away with substantial force, a look of grave disgust on her face.
“There’s over four hundred of us in this place,” said Softwings. “Plus drones. Plus squires. And the Grandmaster and Grand Seneschal. And you just gave away the element of surprise.” Her voice then lowered. “…and Softwings is a REALLY stupid name. I don’t want to get ended with a name that stupid.”
“Well then don’t get ended,” said Rainbow Dash.
“Besides,” said Daring Do. “Look.” She pointed. “The whole place is empty.”
It was. The hanger was enormous, and it seemed that it had been used relatively recently. For what, Daring Do was not sure. There were things mounted on the walls, great bird-like machines that she did not understand but which she doubted functioned- -but there were also newer things. Helmets, supplies, staging areas. And equipment. Much of it looked as though it had simply been discarded or thrown away.
Her hoof crunched on something. She lifted it to see a number of small brass cylinders, hollow and opened on one end. She did not know what they were, but White and the pony who hated being called Softwings recognized them easily. They were shell casings. Thousands of them.
“Okay,” said Rainbow Dash. “I don’t like this. This place is super creepy.”
“There should be an entire air platoon here,” said Softwings, looking around. “But…they’re not.” She shivered.
White did not seem to mind much. She proceeded forward with conviction, seeming to be the only one among them that was not afraid or disturbed. She reached the end first, and gestured toward the large blast door that was meant to secure the hanger from the rest of the facility. It had been cut and forced in. Deep goughes ran through it has though it had been sliced.
“Road apples,” whispered Rainbow Dash. “Was this…you know…the thing?”
“The vandrare would not push open a door,” said Flock, who was slinking behind Daring Do. “If it had manifested, you would know.”
“How?”
“Because none of this would be here.”
“It’s not the vandrare,” said Daring Do. She put her hoof on the rent metal. “It was forced inward. Something big came through here.”
“Luna’s hips,” swore Softwings. “This just keeps getting worse, doesn’t it?”
“Did you really expect it to get better?”
Fog appeared beside them. It swirled for a moment and then materialized as Scarlet Mist stepped out of it. She had brought the others.
“A shame,” she said. “I was expecting you to encounter some resistance.”
“Why?”
“To see if the pony leading us is worth my time.”
“There isn’t time to argue!” cried Flock. “You can feel it, can’t you?”
Scarlet Mist stared at him. Then admitted that she did. “Yes. I can. Your fabled creature is here. And it sees us.”
“But it hasn’t been born yet. We still have time.”
“But not much. Please. We have to hurry.”
Scarlet Mist seemed ambivalent regardless of Flock’s urgency. Still, she stepped easily through the enormous hole in the door. The others followed her.