//------------------------------//
// Valey's Culvert Crawl 
// Story: The Olden World 
// by Czar_Yoshi 
//------------------------------//

The ladder shaft emerged into a chamber with a ceiling so low, Valey had to bend her neck and fold her ears to fit inside. It was pitch-black, and after several moment's consideration, she gave up and partially opened the connection to her pendant, giving herself a faint glow. Food was an important resource, but she needed to search this.

Long and rectangular, the room was bordered on both sides by thick steel pipes big enough to act as its walls. Power or perhaps fresh water running all the way through the bridge to the island, she realized: the core of the bridge was filled with conduits. In one direction, she smelled Starlight, in the other, the maintenance chamber ended in an industrial-looking access panel with several wheels and... was that a dormant screen? Yes!

Valey slipped over, probing the wall and quickly finding a metal plate covering a section of bricks. Off it was pried, and the cavity beyond was filled with wires. Grinning toothily, she identified the main power terminal, whipped out her sound stone, and thrust it in to be charged.

In no time, it was glowing, and Valey turned off her pendant, already hungry but also able to see by the enchanted stone's dim light. "Amber?" she breathlessly asked, hunched over the stone like it was a newborn foal. "Amber! You there?"

No response. Valey waited for several seconds, heart slowly dropping, until she finally accepted that it was night and after more than a day, Amber's side likely wouldn't be charged at all times either. Waiting to make contact with someone, anyone familiar was already more torturous now that it wasn't herself she was waiting on, and she clenched her teeth before sighing and exhaling a long, long breath.

...Starlight's scent was still in the distance, and she couldn't actually see the other end of the room that ran between the two pipes. Getting to her hooves, Valey plodded forward, ignoring the ladder back down and deciding to see just how far the tunnel would take her.





The room ended shortly, but in the far wall was the entrance to another pipe. Grated and barred, it wasn't actually blocked, and Valey sniffed it, wondering why anyone would put an unused pipe inside a bridge. She couldn't tell if it opened into anything, but from the chalk markings on the wall and an abandoned, empty clipboard laying on the ground next to it, she figured it might be for a future construction project... or a cancelled one. Any chance it went all the way through?

Valey put the sound stone in her mouth, cheeks bulging to fit it but successfully managing to close her lips and completely blot out its light. Through the bars she slipped, emerging in a pitch-black culvert less than twice the size of her barrel. With her chin on the ground and the stone forcing her jaw wide, her ears brushed the ceiling, and she spat the rock out, suddenly extremely glad she wasn't claustrophobic.

The tunnel didn't tingle strongly with danger, so she kicked forward, legs dipping into her own shadow and propelling her by swimming. Shadow sneaking through tight spaces was weird; she could pass through fine grates or lattices so long as she was moving quickly and they were fairly thin, even though the individual holes were pinpricks, but once a tunnel got more than an inch or so long, dipping into the dark began to put up resistance and the shadows would push her in whatever direction was needed to get her out. This culvert was big enough for her to fit in, barely, entirely unsubmerged, but also small enough to trigger that reaction and push her out when she tried to completely go under, so her progress was made by bobbing along, legs in the shadow as much as she could and the rest of her wherever it would fit. The sound stone was held forward in her bared teeth, and link after endless link of pipe opened up around her, making her wonder if she was even making progress at all. She hoped she was, because turning around would be quite hard.

Scrrrrkkkk... "Valey!"

The sound stone's burst of static made her jump, hitting her head on the impossibly low ceiling. "Mmrh?" she managed, the stone blocking her tongue.

"Valey, is that you? Who has this stone!? Valey, answer me!"

It was decidedly weird to hear Amber's voice coming from her own mouth, so Valey set the stone down, rolling it along with her nose instead as she moved. "Yo, it's me."

"Valey...!" Amber choked, sounding on the verge of tears... or maybe she had already been crying. "You said something about being slightly safer, but then there was a loud crack like rock breaking, and the connection went dead, and...! Valey..." She sniffed, and it sounded like she was wiping her nose.

"Uhhh..." Valey blinked, completely unprepared for how emotional Amber sounded. "Wait, are you okay?"

"That's what I wanted to know about you!" Amber shouted back into her stone. "When you disconnected, I thought... I thought..."

A cold chill ran through Valey's heart. "Oh, bananas. I didn't even know you cut out before I was safe. I, uhh... It had been all day, and my stone ran out of power right when I found a safe spot. I didn't have anything to charge it back up with, and..." Her ears folded, for the first time not brushing the pipe's roof. "You were that worried about me, huh?"

"...Oh." Amber took a moment for that to sink in, accepting the reality of why Valey had lost contact. "Of course I was worried! Why wouldn't I be worried? I had no idea what happened to you and all my friends, and thought you might all be dead! I thought they fell into the sea, and you got hit by a falling rock or something, or..." She hesitated. "I was worried about you. I guess that's... not something you're used to hearing, after Ironridge."

Now it was Valey's turn to let something sink in.

"But you're okay?" Amber pressed. "You found power again? Are you back on board the Dream? Everyone's all right, right?"

Valey swallowed. "Well, I, uh... stowed away on a pirate ship, then on a merchant ship, made it to land, found out Birdo wasn't kidding about how much the Empire hates bats, spent the entire day bailing from guards and heading for Starlight's scent, just now finally found an exposed power line in this technologically-backwards place, and am now crawling through a pipe about the size of my head to try and slip past some really, really mean griffons. I've had the rest of my lunch and one stolen sandwich to eat since we spoke, and have found exactly two friendly faces and none of our friends. So... yeah. Technically I'm okay. I dunno about the others."

That sent Amber silent for a moment. "Oh, Valey..." she sniffed, sounding like she badly wanted to give the batpony a hug.

"Like, seriously, though," Valey pressed. "I'm kinda in survival mode right now. Haven't really stopped to or wanted to think about certain other things like why I'm in this situation, but you really missed me that much? The others, yeah, but specifically me?"

"Of course I did!" Amber insisted. "Just because we only knew each other for a few days in Riverfall doesn't mean you're not my friend or that I shouldn't care if something bad happens to you! Like I said, I understand if that's new to you after Ironridge, but things are different for you now."

"...Heh. Thanks." Valey closed her eyes, still pressing along. "That actually means a lot. Really."

Amber sniffled. "You sound like you needed to hear it."

"I did," Valey sighed. "Like I said, I've been trying not to think about it because this is something I really don't wanna think about and I'd rather not look at my friends this way, but... Look, you can probably guess where I'm going with this. They're in this fancy-pants island fortress called Stormhoof. Whatever they did back with the clouds, it totally ditched me but didn't stop them from getting there. They all knew having a batpony like me in the party would make things hard for them in the Empire, and from the very small amounts of news I've heard in between starting bar fights and hiding from angry griffons, it sounds like they're living it up being Ironridge heroes there. So..."

"Maple wouldn't do that," Amber flatly insisted. "Never. If she thinks you're dead, for any reason, she might tell herself it doesn't hurt and that she isn't sad, but she would never 'live it up', and she would never, ever let anyone deliberately abandon you. I can't imagine Gerardo doing that either, and Starlight would probably destroy the ship if anyone tried anything that unfair. Believe me, they're worried about you, too. I know this."

"Sounds about like what I needed to hear," Valey sighed, smiling. "Still, though."

"What exactly have you heard about anyone living it up?" Amber gently demanded. "Word for word. Tell me."

Valey sucked her cheek for a moment. "Okay, so all this is paraphrased from one single griffon who was probably also paraphrasing it, and I have no idea what's actually legit, but... apparently everyone knows Yakyakistan made some move against Ironridge, and there's some airship that flew in to the city with a griffon and some ponies that told everyone about it. That's about the extent of what I know."

"Names," Amber requested. "Did you hear for sure Maple, Gerardo or Starlight's names?"

Valey thought, tried to shake her head, and was rewarded with a bump against the pipe's walls. "Don't think so? Pretty sure not. But, like, they knew about Ironridge, or at least something about it. They can't have made that up, and as far as we know, nobody else left the city. And a griffon and ponies... Like, one griffon... Isn't that super suspicious?"

"Kero," Amber immediately said. "He was in Ironridge and disappeared without a trace. And an airship... What about those two brothers, Howe and what's-his-name? You know who I'm talking about. They were in your story when you got back?"

"Oh bananas, you're right." Valey's eyes widened, and she sniffed again, making sure that Starlight was still ahead. "That dude totally would have had like a week's head start on us. Maybe more, I don't remember. And... but... Amber, I can totally smell Starlight on this fortress. One hundred percent sure of it. You're not thinking what I'm thinking, are you?"

Amber swallowed. "Wait, how bad would... Oh."

"Yeah. 'Oh'." Valey grimaced. "When they went down, we were basically a day out from the Empire. I dunno why, but that Kero dude was hunting me, and Herman didn't own up to requesting it, which would be a weird thing to lie about because you'd think he'd want to brag. If he's still after me, or something..." She felt herself shiver. "What if he, like, tried to grapple down Shinespark's boat from the water, or something and figured I'd be on board? What if now he's got everyone else in that fortress because he's trying to bait me? For all I know he could even be playing the good guy and giving them five-star accommodations and stuff! Nah, they'd be suspicious of him too, but... Bananas. They could even really be the airship I heard about that came from Ironridge, and they just didn't mention Birdo. This explains everything."

Now Amber sounded almost scared. "You can do something, right? You're strong enough to stay safe, find out what's going on, and get them out?"

"Well, I'm pretty sure I know what's going on," Valey sighed in resignation. "And am I strong enough? I sure better be. But hopefully I'll be a lot stronger knowing my friends are counting on me than I will wondering if I've been ditched. Thanks, Amber. I... really needed this talk."

"It's past sundown, but I'll stay on as long as you need me," Amber promised resolutely. "I can't be there in flesh, but I'll be here as long as you need me!"

"Probably a good thing," Valey told her. "This pipe is pretty cramped as it is."

"You probably won't be able to talk as freely soon, will you?" Amber asked. "Needing to sneak around and things? I, um... You have a plan, right? Or are making one? Do you have anything useful at all?"

"Let's go with making one," Valey decided. "Sieging a hostile fortress, though... Maybe I should have prepared more and gotten a supply of food first, because I'm hungry. Oh, and my wings are super cramped from trying to fly to land and sleeping in a cave and are basically unusable. Yeah, I definitely should have prepared. But seriously, the amount of work I had to do just to get one measly sandwich..."

"Maybe it's worth it to go back, then?" Amber suggested. "It doesn't sound like Starlight or the others would be in immediate danger, I think..."

Once again, Valey regretted not being able to sense the danger her friends were in as well as her own, and the thought crossed her mind that they regretted not having her there to sense for them. "No go on that," she muttered. "This pipe's tiny. I'm already half-shadow sneaking to get through, and I'm pretty sure turning around is out of the question. If this leads to a dead end, I'll have to find a way, but until then, I've gotta see it to the end."