//------------------------------// // Chapter 3 // Story: Aitran // by CTVulpin //------------------------------// Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash sat in silence for several minutes digesting the content of Star Swirl the Bearded’s message in the underground Projective Illusion Viewer chamber. “He was living here,” Twilight said at last, “That… that actually makes a kind of sense. He just sort of… vanished from history a decade or so after Equestria adopted the modern calendar system, after Nightmare Moon was banished by Princess Celestia.” She looked up at the ceiling, as if indicating the island surface above them. “Either he found or… crazy as it may sound, made this place and started a new life. Only for it to come crashing down as somepony he held close betrayed him.” “Cirrus,” Rainbow Dash mused, “Didn’t the pony in the red book say his name was Cirrus? Blue book pony, did we get his name?” “I don’t think so,” Twilight said. Rainbow’s irises shrank and she bolted out of the chamber, almost colliding with the door which had apparently closed of its own will after the pair had passed through. “Rainbow Dash!” Twilight called out, running after her, “What’s going…” she trailed off as Dash opened the door and flew out past the dock before pulling a tight vertical turn back toward the island and zipping to the library. Unable to make the tight right turn through the doorway at her speed, she looped around to her left as she slowed down and landed in a trot on the library’s doorstep. She entered the building and made a bee-line for the blue book, pausing only for a moment to catch her breath before opening it to the back page and bracing her ears against the noisy static. “Hey,” she said when the noise died down and the imprisoned stallion’s face appeared, “can you hear me?” “Zzrrrzz –es I can,” the pony answered as best he could, “Did ZzzzzrtZZZrr –id you find more blue pages?” “Not… not yet,” the pegasus said haltingly, trying in vain to find a pattern to the rise and fall of the static, “Just wanted to, ugh… wanted to know who you are. What’s your name?” “I’m –Zzzrt¬ I’m Archeon,” the pony said, “Please, I bzzzzZZZrtZZ I BEG of you, find the blue- Zzzzrt let me out!” “I’ll get on it,” Dash said, her voice growing weak. As she closed the book she heard Twilight’s hoofsteps on the floor behind her and turned around. Without waiting for the unicorn to ask, Rainbow pointed at the red book and said, “That’s Cirrus,” and then at the blue book, “and Archeon. Twilight, those are the ponies from the message. They’ve been in those books for centuries! How is that possible?!” Her wings began to flap in agitation, lifting her off the floor, so Twilight almost needed to jump in order to grab the hysterical pegasus and pull her down into a hug. “Calm down,” Twilight said, trying to tame her own wild imagination, “It… it might just be a coincidence. A-a couple of ponies found the Aitran book before I did and got themselves trapped in those two books.” Rainbow pulled away and looked Twilight in the eye. “And they just happen to be named Cirrus and Archeon?” she said in disbelief. “I don’t know!” Twilight said, exasperated, “It’s just…” She released Rainbow and dropped to her belly, front hooves over her eyes. “The more I learn about this place, the less sense anything makes!” She lay on the floor for a few moments, simply trying to calm her mind, before standing up with a look of determination. “These mysteries aren’t going to solve themselves,” she said firmly, “so let’s start by focusing on something we can solve.” “Yeah,” Rainbow said, putting on a confident attitude, “Like… Um… Tower rotation! The old pony mentioned the tower, so there has to be a way inside.” “Right” Twilight said, nodding, “And he said it’s a way to find the places where he hid his surviving books, which I’m assuming are not those journals.” She gestured to the books on the floor in front of the bookcase, and then walked over to the map. It switched on at her approach, now displaying neon sketches of structures across the whole island. Her gaze went to a zigzagging path on the north-east corner that led to a pointed ovoid shape with fins on one end. “Is that your ‘giant golden firework thingy’ Rainbow?” she asked, pointing to it. “Uh, yeah, that’s it all right,” the pegasus said as she came over to join Twilight. She point to a gear in the water off the western end of the island and said, “That’s the clock tower I mentioned, and this,” her hoof moved to a green square and matching circle inside a hexagon situated inland and toward the south, “is a log cabin next to this humongous tree inside a brick fence, and this building,” her hoof went to a square in the middle of the northern coast, “has a staircase leading pretty deep underground to what I think is a power plant. There are power cables linking the building to the firework thingy. And then there’re the columns and fountain pool just outside, the building next door, the dock, and those giant gears. This building and the tower are the only spots without marker switches.” “The symbol for the tower is blinking,” Twilight noted as Rainbow put her hoof back down, “I bet that means something.” She touched the blinking circle and was rewarded by the appearance of a white line reaching from the circle to the edge of the map, which began to rotate around until she pulled her hoof away. The sounds of operating machinery echoed into the room from behind the back wall of the library for several seconds as the words “Tower rotating” appeared on the bottom of the map. “Well, that answers one question,” Twilight said when the sounds stopped and the map returned to its idling appearance, “A magical control panel for the tower disguised as a map.” “Great,” Dash said, “But that still doesn’t get us inside.” “The key to that has to be somewhere,” Twilight said, turning away from the map, “We just need to find it. What haven’t we taken a close look at yet?” Rainbow turned as well and slowly looked around the octagonal room. “The pictures,” she said at last, walking to the back of the room. To the right of the bookcase was a picture of the library door as viewed from inside, while on the left was a picture of a passageway where the bookshelf currently sat. “I bet there’s a switch hidden here,” she said, poking around the frame of the left picture with both front hooves. Failing to find any disguised buttons, she proceeded to try to move the picture aside. When it proved to be as resistant to moving as the red and blue books in their alcoves, Rainbow gave a frustrated growl and jabbed a hoof into the picture itself, intending to give it a piece of her mind only to be struck speechless as the oil paint swirled around her hoof. Something clicked and the bookshelves began to slide back and sink into the floor to form a set of steps and revealing a wood paneled passageway matching the picture, which had returned to its un-swirled state when Rainbow and Twilight glanced back at it. At the same time, there was a slamming thud behind them and they spun around to see a stone slab had dropped into the library doorway. “Heh heh,” Rainbow said with a weak smile, “See? I told you there was a hidden switch.” Twilight went over to the closed door and tried to open it with her magic. “And now we can’t get out,” she said when the stone refused to budge. Rainbow opened her mouth to apologize, but then closed it with a pondering look. She went over to the picture of the open library door and pressed a hoof to it. The paint swirled, the door opened, and the bookshelves went back to filling the back wall. Twilight blinked a few times and then face-hoofed as Rainbow chuckled. “I’d say that’s a good bit of security,” the pegasus said as she opened the secret passageway again, “whatever is back there is never open to the outside, and it looks like even your magic isn’t enough to get around it.” “There’s always teleporting,” Twilight muttered as she followed Rainbow into the hallway. It curved slightly to the right for several feet before branching in two. At the end of the left hallway they could see a cavern with a single-rider elevator sitting in the middle and illuminated by a pair of flood lamps. The hall to the right sloped downward and turned sharply to the left after a short distance. “What’s down there?” Twilight wondered, drifting toward the right-side path. “Later,” Dash said, trotting toward the elevator, “We’ve already got way more questions to answer than I like.” “We could split up,” Twilight suggested, “I mean, that elevator can only fit one…” she trailed off as Rainbow spread her wings and flew up the elevator shaft. “Right,” the unicorn said, rolling her eyes. She reached out with her magic to open the elevator door, only to be interrupted by Rainbow’s return. The pegasus paused only long enough to say, “Something’s not right,” before flying down the hall and into the library. By the time Twilight caught up, Rainbow was already hovering in front of the map, holding her hoof on the tower symbol and watching the line rotate around. “Ok, I think I get it,” she said as Twilight came over to her, “when I went up there all I saw was a rock wall framed by a gap in the tower’s wall. When I spin the tower here, the line turns red as it passes over some of the images, so I think if I stop on one of those…” she removed her hoof when the line was passing through the giant firework, “If I’m right, that should orient the tower in a way to give us a clue or something.” She flew off again, but slower than before to let Twilight keep up with her. “Meet you at the top,” the pegasus said as the unicorn opened the elevator and stepped inside. “Right,” Twilight said, closing the door behind her and pressing the only button she could find. The elevator stopped halfway up and rotated around before bringing Twilight up into a rather small round room. Directly in front of her was a tall, narrow window that Rainbow Dash was gazing out of. “Hey,” Twilight said as she came up next to her friend and looked out, seeing the golden finned ovoid Dash had described as a giant metal firework. “Find any clues?” she asked. “Not a one,” Rainbow groused, “This is just a pegasus-eye view of the thing.” “Maybe there’s something around back,” the unicorn suggested, walking around the elevator. On the wall behind the elevator she found a bronze plaque with a large old-style key engraved on it. With consideration for the precedent of touch-activated devices on the island, Twilight pressed her hoof lightly against the edge of the plaque and smiled when it flipped around to display another engraving: 62 Volts. Rainbow showed up and looked at the engraving, frowning in confusion. “You said there were cables connecting the rocket to the power plant building, right?” Twilight asked, and then continued without waiting for an answer, “Volts are a measure of power, so we probably need to give the rocket 62 volts and then go from there.” “Sounds like a plan,” Rainbow said, wings spreading, “Let’s do it.” “Slow down Rainbow,” Twilight said with a smirk, “Unless you can squeeze out that window, I’ll need to take the elevator down before you can get out. Besides, we’ve been going non-stop since we got here and I really want to see what’s down that other hall before we get too much farther.” Rainbow sighed and tucked her wings back to her side. “Fine,” she said dejectedly, “That firework thingy’s not going anywhere anyway…” “Call it a rocket Rainbow,” Twilight said as she walked around to the elevator door, “That’s what it is. Plus, it’s less of a mouthful to say.” She stepped into the elevator and pressed the button as the pegasus’s gaze went toward the window. “I always thought ‘rocket’ was just a cool word for fast,” she said quietly as the elevator began to descend. Just before its top dropped below the floor, Rainbow decided to hop on top and ride it down, saving herself some effort. The car shuddered and the cables groaned audibly at the added weight, but everything held together and came to a gentle stop at the bottom. That fact didn’t spare Rainbow Dash from Twilight Sparkle’s glare as the unicorn stepped out of the elevator, but the pegasus shrugged it off with a nonchalant, “Hey, it didn’t break,” before hopping down to the ground. Rolling her eyes, Twilight led the way down the hallway to the fork and took the downward-sloping path. Rainbow’s wings began to twitch uncomfortably as the hallway doubled back on itself and led the pair deeper into the heart of the rocky island and farther from the open sky. After a distance that Twilight estimated put them just outside the library, the tunnel leveled out and terminated in a metal door with a comfortingly familiar latch handle on the left side. The unicorn grasped the handle in her magic and opened the inward-swinging door. “Whoa,” she said, slowly walking through the door. Has she not known any better, she would have sworn she had just entered a miniature version of her tree-house home in Ponyville. The room was spacious and fairly amorphous in shape with the walls and ceiling covered in a material that looked like a single seamless piece of natural wood and a well-used but still soft green carpet on the floor. Light came into the room through false windows and a skylight that all showed a convincing illusion of a clear blue sky with the occasional cloud. Three long couches and a pair of reclining cushions were arranged along the wall in a semi-circle, with a large low hexagonal coffee table in the middle. Two doorways stood open on the left and right walls. “Whoa,” Rainbow said, echoing Twilight, “This is… comfy. We’re still underground, right?” “I’m pretty sure, yes,” Twilight said flatly. “I hate caves,” Rainbow said, walking over to a couch and flopping down on it, “but this doesn’t feel like a cave. I could take a nap here.” She curled up and began to do exactly that. Twilight shook her head in amusement and considered laying down as well, but curiosity drove hero to investigate the other doors first. The door to the left of the entrance led to a darkened room, but Twilight quickly located a lamp on a table by the door and lit it up with a spark of magic. The room turned out to be sleeping quarters, broken up into four sections by low wooden walls. The largest section contained a two-pony bed with a pair of nightstands each with their own lamp as well as a wardrobe that contained a night-blue robe with bells stitched along the hem. The smallest section held only a small bed fit for a young, growing pony and a lamp decorated with stars and moons in a rainbow of colors. The other two sections were of a matching size, occupying half of the room in total but displaying very different tastes. One was decorated in reds and golds with small trinkets sharing space on the nightstand with the two-branched magically-powered lamp and had a wardrobe filled with capes and collars that would either leave Rarity breathless in wonder or scoffing in dismissal, depending on what was in this season. The final sleeping area gave off a vibe of organized chaos, with clockwork toys strewn on the floor, nightstand, and hanging from the walls and ceiling. The lamp’s base looked like it had been turned into a music box of some sort, but Twilight didn’t bother winding the attached key to see. Stepping back into the main room, she saw that Rainbow was still asleep, so she just walked across the room to the other door, finding what looked like a cross between a kitchen and a pantry inside. The sight was enough to remind Twilight that she had never got the daisy and cucumber sandwich Spike had been trying to make for her, and her stomach gurgled. “Great,” the unicorn muttered, “Thousand-year old food. If I’m lucky it’ll all just be dust.” She took hold of a cupboard door in her magic, braced herself for the worst, and then flung it open and gasped. The shelves were lined with boxes of fresh dry goods: oats, wheat, alfalfa, beans, and hay. Another cupboard turned out to contain some spices, salt, and sugar and a third, which had a chilling spell on it judging by the rush of cold air that hit Twilight when she opened it, held fresh vegetables, apples, and some strange-looking fruits. Twilight’s eye started to twitch as she tried to make sense of her discovery, but after a moment she shook her head and told herself, “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth Sparkle. So long as it’s real…” she levitated an apple out and took a bite from it. The flavor seemed a little off, but it was definitely a real apple, so Twilight finished it off while gathering together the materials for a couple of small salads. She brought them, along with two more apples, into the main room and set them on the table before trotting out into the hallway and into the library. The scent of fresh lettuce lured Rainbow Dash out of sleep. For a moment she thought she was in Ponyville and had fallen asleep in one of her friend’s houses. Fluttershy, she thought, Fluttershy’s couch is nice and soft, and it would be just like her to set food out for me without waking me up. She rubbed her eyes as they cracked open and then peered over her hooves. She looked around the wood-lined room in confusion until she spotted Twilight curled up on a couch across the table from her with a book propped up against the armrest, and then her brain kicked into high gear and she remembered where she was. She could still smell lettuce, and her eyes slid down to the table until they found the source: a bowl of salad on the table. “Uh, where’d this come from?” she asked. “Hm?” Twilight said, looking up from her reading, “Oh, there’s a fully stocked pantry in the room behind you. Don’t ask me how all that food is still edible, because I have no idea.” Dash sniffed the salad suspiciously, but after seeing Twilight casually levitate some leaves to her mouth as she returned to her book, the pegasus took a chance on a small bite of her own. It wasn’t the best she’d ever eaten, but it tasted ok. “So, what’cha reading there?” she asked Twilight. “I brought down those journals we found,” Twilight answered, “They’re quite fascinating, even though they don’t even address most of the big questions I have. The thing I find the strangest is that Star Swirl calls each of the places he describes in these journals illusions, but he seems to have treated them like real places with flesh-and-blood inhabitants. He seems particularly fond of this one he calls Everdunes; he’s mentioned it a couple times in two of the journals so far.” “So, what about this place?” Rainbow asked, gesturing at the cavern around them, “Is this an ‘illusion’ as well?” “I don’t know,” Twilight said, “I saw you literally vanish into Aitran when you touched the picture, and I’m sure the same thing happened to me. We’re definitely here, but I don’t know what here is. Cirrus and Archeon might know though. From what I’ve gathered, they were Star Swirl’s assistants or apprentices for a large part of their lives. In the Forestsea illusion, he had them live among and study the local population of talking frogs.” “Say what?” “I’m not joking,” Twilight said, floating the blue-covered Forestsea journal over to the pegasus and opening it to an early page, “There’s a civilization of large talking frog-like creatures that lived in the trees above a tribe of earth ponies, at least until the ponies apparently sacrificed themselves to stop their land from sinking into the sea.” From the look on Twilight’s face, Rainbow could tell she wasn’t convinced about that story. “At any rate,” the unicorn continued, “The frogs treated the surviving ponies like they were something like Princess Celestia and Princess Luna. Star Swirl and his assistants got the same treatment whenever they visited, so they actually used it as a second home for a while.” She dropped the book on the table and held up the one she was in the middle of reading. “This one’s from later in their lives,” she said, “It’s mostly about how Star Swirl, Cirrus, and Archeon built a rotating fortress to protect a dying village from pirates who wielded weather magic. The colts wanted to take the pirates down, but Star Swirl convinced them that focusing on defense was less likely to get them all killed.” “They must have been tough pirates to scare Star,” Rainbow said with a teasing tone, “Wasn’t he supposed to be some great magic user?” “There’s discovering new forms of magic,” Twilight said, “and then there’s knowing how to fight. Star Swirl the Bearded was a scholar, not a soldier. Besides, it’s not like they had something like the Elements of Harmony with them.” She frowned suddenly and put a hoof to her chin in thought. “Now that I think about it,” she said, “it’s strange that he created these illusion worlds, and yet he’s often surprised by what he finds inside them, and except for that time he tried writing a ship into a world he always builds things by hoof and horn if he wants to add anything to the illusion.” “Hey, I wouldn’t worry so much about it,” Dash said, “If we can find more of the missing pages, you can just ask Cirrus and Archeon about everything. Although, one of them is probably responsible for burning those books. Which one do we trust?” “I don’t know,” Twilight said, setting her book aside and picking up another one, “Nothing I’ve read so far has given any hints about either of them going bad, but I have found enough to guess which part of the bedroom over their belongs to whom. Cirrus seems like he’d get along well with Rarity; his room’s full of expensive-looking and fashionable items. Archeon strikes me as an inventor fascinated with clockwork, but perhaps not the most focused individual.” “Let’s help them both then,” Rainbow suggested, “At least until we find enough pages to let us actually talk to both of them.” “That sounds good,” Twilight said, “I’ll give this last journal a quick read while you finish eating, and then we’ll tackle the puzzle of getting inside the rocket. Those pages have to be somewhere we haven’t gotten into yet.”