//------------------------------//
// The Golden Thingamajig 
// Story: The Olden World 
// by Czar_Yoshi 
//------------------------------//

Valey sat on the edge of a lightly-sloped rooftop, flexing her stiff wings and keeping the sun out of her eyes as she tore into her semi-stolen sandwich. It wasn't good food, but it was food, and every bite sent a wave of stale, bland revitalization washing through her. She polished it off far more quickly than she would have liked, but at least felt capable of thinking and moving around again.

"All right, let's see what we've got here..." A flash of gold glinted as she pulled out the thing the suspicious stallion had given her and examined it. It was a rectangular slip of paper, embossed with a strange texture that gave it its sheen. Based on the perfect lack of crinkles or tears, she supposed it made it more resilient, too.

The front held what looked like a cutie mark surrounded by eleven smaller others, inlaid with geometric patterns and the text 'Golden Regent #1708: Gianna Greatwing'. Bits of gemstone so small she could barely make them out seemed to be sewn into the corners beneath the embossing, and the back was a portrait of a noble-looking female sphinx so detailed it almost seemed to have real depth.

Valey scratched her head. Was that an identification number, or something? If there were seventeen hundred of these, what made them so worth jumping on in such a frenzy? She looked it over again, the sigil on the front gleaming like a forgotten memory. There was more text along the border, she realized: 'Some call me beautiful, but they have no place in my heart.'

Frowning, Valey shrugged, nibbled on it and sighed. Her brain kept trying to turn up some detail... Regents, weren't those something the pirates were talking about? Was this card a form of currency? That would make sense. Just how valuable was it, then, and why would that stallion give it away freely?

...Probably because he didn't want to get mobbed, she realized. Or worse, because he wanted her to get mobbed... or better, he sympathized with her and wanted the bar to get mobbed and figured she'd be fine. That still raised the question of where he would get something like that.

Away the regent went, slipped safely into her saddlebag. It was something she could figure out later. For now, she had a much more important goal to see to: find Starlight and her friends before sundown, because she did not like the prospect of spending a night alone in a city that was this passively hostile.

Her view from the rooftop still showed the castle, an island of white floating in the bay. There was a bridge in the distance to the south, perhaps a mile or two away. Her wings still complained when she stretched them, so flying was out unless she wanted to cramp up and fall in the sea halfway across. She glanced at her hat, her saddlebags, the lunchbox... It looked nice enough that she might set it down close by the tavern's entrance for the bartender to find. Even though the bartender had tried to poison her.

Holding her head and groaning, Valey dropped from the roof, wondering when she had become such a wuss.





One of the primary things Valey kept her eyes out for as she strolled the streets, aside from danger and more food, was a place to recharge the sound stone in her bags. She wasn't sure why, since it wasn't like she was going to stop and have a nice, emotional conversation in the middle of the street and by the time she was safe she could get Shinespark or Starlight to do it for her, but the same annoying part of her that had made her return the lunchbox was now on repeat telling her to let Amber know she was okay. Unfortunately, passing unicorns seemed like a sketchy option and exposed mana technology was nowhere to be found.

In fact, the power systems that defined parts of Ironridge seemed to be entirely missing from coastal Stormhoof. Some corners held dead braziers that would provide warmth and light at night, but she couldn't see a proper light fixture. In Ironridge, even in the Earth District, she could find a hunk of machinery spinning somewhere, pry off the cover and be rewarded with bared energy conduits, but here it was as if the citizens had learned to subsist without magical energy altogether. And if they did use it, their usage was well-hidden.

She thought back to the merchant ship; its mast had been empty, so it had to run on mana. There would have been a charging station at the dock, then... and there were docks just to her right.

Valey swerved three times in turning back toward the waterfront, her cutie mark making itself useful avoiding crashing into anyone on the busy road. Unlike before, this time the street closest to the waterfront was busier, merchant booths and a decorated park plaza forming a gap between the houses and loading bays for citizens to enjoy the view. Pouting, she glanced around one more time for power, but the best thing she found was a cute, panicked unicorn who looked in far too much of a hurry to stop even if she asked.

Countless hoofsteps dragged on before her, and Valey gave up searching and settled for focusing on walking instead. The sky advanced into its sunset hues, the bridge grew marginally closer every time the buildings broke to allow her a view, and by the third time she stopped to pick bits of dust and detritus from her hooves, she was nearly there.

The bridge was two stories higher than the shoreline, its arched pillars needing room to let boats pass beneath. Valey found respite on an iron bench in the shadow of one of those pillars where it connected to dry land, the bridge stretching inland for several blocks behind her before it finally met the ground. A small, switchback staircase bolted to the side of the next pillar down gave her an easy way to skip that detour and climb on top right from where she was, and she sighed in gratitude.

As she had proceeded south, and especially as she drew nearer to the bridge outlet, the land grew more developed, with broader buildings boasting more polish for watching nobles and wider roads designed to accommodate heavier traffic. Valey had no idea if it was merely an inlet to the coastal part of the city or if the bridge continued in a road to the east, but either way she was clearly at the edge of a major thoroughfare.

The area under the bridge was crossed by at least one large road, but Valey's bench was in the middle of a concrete plaza that didn't seem used for anything at all. Odd... space under a bridge that wasn't being used for commercial purposes seemed like it would be a great shelter for anyone who had no better way of getting a roof over their head, but where she was seemed an ordinary empty lot. It was almost peaceful, even. A light switched on overhead, protruding from the bridge wall and bathing the area in dim white illumination as the sun lowered further. That was mana power, she was sure, but there was no way to get it.

Valey's ears twitched, the sounds of the nearby street a mile away. She would have to get going before she fell asleep there. It had taken slipping through a very narrow alley to find, and the lot certainly felt safe, but it was still the kind of place darkness dwellers would lurk. She couldn't be sure if she had spooked herself into it, but it suddenly felt like someone was watching her.

"...Who's there?" she whispered, fur tingling even though her cutie mark remained completely dormant. The plaza was empty, but it compelled her to stand, spinning around and checking every direction.

If she were trying to spy on someone, the best place would be from under the bridge arches. The floodlight prevented her from shadow sneaking, but she crept forward low to the ground, tail straight back, aiming for the furthest arch from the road.

It was dark beneath the arch, but she still couldn't shake the feeling. There was someone there, and being watched without consent was only one of Valey's favorite habits when it was her doing it to others. She frowned, bared her teeth, and snapped, "Stop following me!"

Something caught her attention. It was a black metal door, recessed into the support column, with a tiny grated window too high up for her to see through without rearing up and a handle that looked like it would fit jaws better than talons. A metal plaque on the stone beside it read 'Stormhoof Bridge Maintenance Access', and under that was another adding 'Requisitioned for sarosian use by order of Garsheeva. Vandalism punishable by Judgement.'

"Sarosians, huh?" Valey muttered, sizing up her own wings and then the door. The more she waited, the surer she grew that there was something on the other side. "Sounds like an invitation. Open up!"

The door was locked, but the crack beneath perfectly inviting to a shadow sneaker. Valey emerged in a cramped, damp tunnel of stone and metal that seemed far closer to Ironridge's underground districts than anything she had seen so far in the Empire. A vertical shaft to her side held a ladder and a notice forbidding trespassing on behalf of the Power Distribution Agency, but the path ahead continued into what might have once been a large storage closet. Now, it was cleaned and reverently polished, and home to one thing alone: a larger-than-life statue of a pony, standing a head taller than Valey at her straightest.

Valey looked over the statue with interest. It was a mare, though her muzzle wasn't curved, and the rest of her proportions made her realize the statue was life size and the subject was just built like Matryona. The mare was much slimmer and tighter than her usual tastes, but something about how the posture carried itself absolutely infatuated her. Striking no more of a pose than standing still and looking down as if to make eye contact, it was proud, dark, reserved and held a confidence with the sharpness concealed, like she had something to prove yet had proved it over and over again. The mare wore regalia, dark slippers and a solid neck band that looked like real accessories attached to the statue, a glowing crescent of ruby embedded into the metal over her chest. Most strikingly, she not only had wings of a size that would make any pegasus envious, but a horn twice as long as a normal unicorn's and brought to a far sharper tip. And the statue was what was watching her.

Swallowing, Valey realized that when meeting a statue with enough latent magic she could sense it from behind a closed door and several corners away, there was a good chance it could do other things as well, and admiring its curves could land her in trouble if it happened to be telepathic. Ducking back into the shadows and swimming away, she swiftly abandoned the maintenance room, leaving the statue alone in the dark.