Approaching the palace of the dragon lord was in its own way as eerie as walking through the abandoned town. Upon crossing the invisible line that constituted the edge of the town, where the construct left them, they started to see dragons fairly frequently but even from a distance, it was clear that the dragons were little more than extensions of Penny’s will. Their movements were mechanical and utilitarian; even without wings, Spike would frequently scurry about with a certain bounce in his step but the few dragons they saw that were also wingless simply put one foot in front of another, staring straight ahead. The few sounds came from the movement of the dragons and themselves. Even the air around them smelled heavy and stagnant, and the humidity made it feel thick enough to make walking difficult.
And it was cold, bitingly cold.
“What t-t-the hay is goin’ on?” Applejack inhaled a warm breath into her hooves and rubbed them together. “It w-w-was pretty cozy… b-b-bout two meters back.”
“Little Bint likes it cold,” Ember said, noticeably not shivering. “Makes her minions feel uncomfortable and sluggish, deters visitors from everywhere else. She likes to switch it between hot and cold so it’s hard to come prepared unless ya got a baggage train.”
“W-w-well, I’ve got a s-s-spell for this.” Twilight cast a quick warming cantrip and felt the air become somewhat warmer around her as the sphere of sputtering magic radiated heat on them as if it was an actual flame. The girls all crowded closer to the source of warmth, their shivering and chattering teeth disappearing as the spell compensated for the fierce cold.
“Guess that’s one way ta defend yer castle,” Applejack said. “But how the hay is she controllin’ so much? Ah’ve seen Twilight do big spells and even brimmin’ over with power like she is, she can’t keep it running for that long.”
“Little Bint has her ways. Don’t know what those ways…”
“Does she have the Scepter of the Dragon Lord?”
Ember frowned at Dawn. “If she had it, I’d know how she can do her tricks, now wouldn’t I?”
“So where’d it go?”
“Someplace safe.” Ember held up a hand. “Not sayin’ anything more. She might not be keeping invisible spies around but we can’t be too careful.”
“Alright, so where’s Thalia?”
“If she’s smart--which she is--she’s holed up in her safe room--although she’s not because she’s also got more brave than smarts.” Ember actually smiled briefly at that. “It’s a good thing up here, not being afraid of anything. Even better when you can figure out which things to be afraid of, and fear them, and which things to not be afraid of and fight them. There was a time when Thalia would stick around playing dragon and if you didn’t know it, you’d totally buy the act.”
“Like her, do ya?”
“She’s got brains, will, and heart.” Ember shrugged. “Met the queen once and that dorky daughter of hers that wears pigtails; seems it runs in the family.”
“What was Tettidora doing here?”
“I think she was setting up that saferoom thing for her aunt.” Ember tapped her chin. “Couldn’t have been more than a couple months ago, after Mini-Demon was starting to get tired of being careful about her shenanigans. Weirdly cute little lovebug, for being only a few years younger than me.”
“Hey Twi?”
“Yes Pinkie?”
“Didn’t Mister Evilpants say we weren’t getting any escorts?”
Twilight directed her attention away from Ember and forward again, to see that one of the mindlessly lumbering thrall dragons were ahead of them and walking directly at them, expression as vacant as any other but on a definite course to intercept them. The dragon looked odd somehow, as if it wasn’t sure of exactly where to step before stepping, and was being very careful about doing so while appearing to be operating as automatically as any of the others enthralled to Penny.
“Should we… spare her feelings, or tell her she can drop the act?” Rarity said as they drew closer to the dragon.
“Not sure it’s insulting ta tell someone they’re bad at looking like they’re a mindless slave,” Ember said. “But yanno… invisible spies, can't be sure, yanno the drill.”
This drew nods of assent all around, and so when Thalia-pretending-to-be-a-dragon, also pretending to be enthralled, reached them and simply said ‘follow’, they kept up the polite illusion that they had no idea who she was and that she was faking the enthrallment. Even though, as Ember commented in an undertone, a sinuous twirl of the tail and a sharp beckoning motion was challenging for most dragons, much less one that was bound to the simplest movements by being under Penny’s control.
The paucity of other dragons around the palace became more acute as they drew closer, until they were close enough to walk into the main entrance, and the only dragons visible were Ember and Thalia in a dragon guise. Just barely had they gotten into the palace when the patently fake look of mindless vacancy vanished and Thalia turned around to look at them, her viridian irises remarkably similar to those of Chrysalis even in her dragon disguise.
“What are you doing here?” she hissed.
“Checkin’ up on ya, like yer sister asked,” Applejack said.
Thalia facepalmed. “Of course you are, because of course she did. Bucking big sisters…” She sighed and turned around again. “It’s not that I don’t appreciate her concern but Celestia’s solar mareheat, I did not need this.”
Twilight gaped at the disguised changeling, aghast, as she heard repressed snorts from her traveling companions. “Excuse me?”
“I said, I did not need this, Princess Sparkle,” Thalia said. “Playing chess with Empress Moon’s malevolent male counterpart and his sock puppet is hard enough without having to foalsit the majority of a magical superweapon.”
“Sock puppet?” Rarity said. “Do you mean Penny?”
“Penumbra,” Thalia said, forging ahead into the caverns of the palace. “Though she’ll occasionally call herself ‘Umbra’ as well. And she’s not really a sock puppet, but I’ll explain after we’re locked in.”
“Your safe room?”
Thalia stopped and narrowed her eyes at Ember. “Yes, I mean the damned safe room. Luna-eclipsing orgasms, Ember!”
There were more snorts at this and Ember sighed. “Yeah, yeah. And what’d I tell you about taking the names of the sisters in vain?”
“That they might take notice.” Thalia grinned before she started walking again. “Good. Wouldn’t mind meeting that pair myself, sometime. I envy the buck out of Chiti sometimes, because she runs across one or more of them every day.”
“Is Chiti one of your sisters?”
“Second-oldest. Works in the main library of Celestia’s School under the name Precise Index.”
Twilight blinked at this. “Head Librarian Index is your sister?”
“Yup.” Thalia beamed, which was as menacing as it was happy with a muzzle full of dragon teeth. “Loves books absolutely to death and probably the smartest of us four. Did she ever show off her translation trick to students while you were there?”
“That thing where she translates something into two different languages simultaneously?”
Thalia snorted a plume of smoke. “So the lame version. The cool version is where she translates a passage of ancient Equestrian into two other dead languages while narrating her efforts in a third.” Even from behind, Twilight could see her grin. “Don’t think Celestia knows she’s literate in every language the Restricted Section is written in.”
“...how long has she been there?”
“Since the year Chidinida was born. Another way that Chiti’s tons smarter than the rest of us: she agreed that Chryssy spit her bit when she came up with the clever plan to get Chidi adopted by Celestia, but instead of running off and sulking in embassies far away from Equestria like her dumb little sisters, she grabbed a job within spitting distance of the palace at Canterlot.” There was a touch of bitterness in Thalia’s tone. “Was part of the adorable little thing’s life and raising since she was told enough to walk and talk. I mean, what safer place is there for a little filly than a library surrounded on all sides by hypercompetant staff hoof-picked by Celestia herself?” She shook her head and sighed as she stopped by a large entrance to a side cavern and gestured them to go inside. “Met Chidi for the first time last year. She’s got Celestia’s presence and common touch, Chryssy’s beauty and power, and Chiti’s keen intellect and composure.”
“Index certainly has composure,” Twilight agreed, unable to think of what to say to the rest.
“Scary levels of composure,” Dawn added. “She can shut up a room in apocalyptic party mode just by standing in the middle of it.”
“Among the royal family, we call that having a lot of du Closs in you,” Thalia said, stepping inside after the last of them had entered. “Your mom used to call the exile-era queen of the du Closs line ‘the looming who walks’ cuz she had overwhelming force of personality, and could loom over ponies that were bigger and stronger than her. Anyway, give me a second here to shut the door.”
Twilight was generally aware of the room around her--she’d looked around briefly on entering--but her attention was entirely on what sort of enchantments had been used to make it a ‘safe room’, and she’d reached for her mage-sight immediately. To her surprise, the sight showed her nothing, and no indications of magic being held in reserve. At least, not until Thalia said she was closing the door, and tapped several small stones embedded in the wall next to the entrance in a particular order that suggested it was some kind of combination.
Lines of flowing magical energy spiderwebbed out across the walls, the ceiling, and the floor and resolved themselves into complex patterns of runes and containment circles, all of them built around a theme of reinforcement, strengthening, and flow. Then another series of lines arced across her altered vision and resolved into protection and silence. An entire other series emphasized blindness; the fourth was a reiteration of reinforcement. The last was a grab bag of light, comfort, reinforcement, sustenance, and protection.
“Well, it’s more or less what I expected when she called it a safe room.” With the activation of her mage-sight, the helpful hallucination had appeared again, more or less confirming that it was somehow tied to the spell. “Reinforcing the stone against breaching, reinforcing the enchantments against being unraveled, and then the slew of spells to prevent listening in or scrying.”
“You said that Tettidora did all this?” Twilight said, looking around at the runescript that her mage-sight was showing her.
“If you’re seein’ all the spells that make it a safe-room, yeah, pretty sure it’s all her,” Ember said.
“It is all Tettidora’s work,” Thalia said proudly. “She’s definitely got the smarts to be the Chiti of her sisters. Toyed with getting an engineering degree from Celestia’s School when she was the right age, but ultimately just raided the library for the theory work done by a Viridian Rain ‘bout ten years ago. Pioneered her first difference engine construct working with her aunt, not that she submitted it for formal examination.”
“Why not show off?” Dawn said.
Thalia shrugged. “She never said why but she’s always stood on the bleeding edge of experimentation with runic constructs--and I use ‘bleeding edge’ for a reason. There can be a plotload of serious issues when you’re making magic that’s autonomous, pretty sure your imagination can fill in the scary pictures.”
“Ah think we’d rather not,” Applejack said. “So, we’re all holed up, snug as bugs in rugs an’ all. Time ta spill sugarcube, both of ya.”
“Fair ‘nuff.” Thalia looked at Ember. “Got a bit we can flip for it.”
“How ‘bout ya start with whichever one of you can tell me about the get of a tail-lifter who decorated me,” Dawn said, gesturing at the marks on her face.
Thalia winced. “Yeah, he’s one of the worse ones. Still on track with the rest of them but a nasty piece of work.”
“The rest of Penumbra’s constructs?” Twilight said.
“The rest of the suits,” Thalia said. “My name for them, not sure what they call themselves. You saw one hand off control to another, right?”
“The creepy mouthless one turned into the sadistic one.” Dawn frowned. “Hang on… you mean there’s, like, multiple versions of the same construct all smooshed together?”
“Complex and long to explain but that’ll do for the moment,” the transformed changeling said. “Based on references and the ones I’ve met personally, plus the ones others met, there’s twelve suits total. Fear Suit you met and I guess he didn’t feel like pulling out the fear. Sadist Suit you also met and probably won’t forget.”
“That Green Leaf guy’s miracle potion fixed me right as rain, but I’m wearing Sadist’s artwork for the rest of my life,” Dawn said. “I think I’d be madder if he wasn’t floating the ‘little kid will eat your brain’ alternative at me.”
“An’ he was being completely honest ‘bout it,” Applejack added.
“I guess you’re lucky that the Suits seem to have a grudge against Penny, even though they’re completely willing to work with her and obey.” Thalia looked at Ember. “Speaking of…”
“Yeah, yeah, my turn. Mind raiding the larder while I tell ‘em a bedtime story?”
“Sure. If I find any peridots, should I bother?”
“Naw, too big of a giveaway.”
“Pretty sure she’s figured out that I can do this, but suit yourself.” Thalia’s draconic horns glowed with the familiar viridian green of changeling magic and she was gone in a flash of heatless green flame.
“Before you even ask, Sparkles, I ain’t got a clue.” Ember smirked at her and Dawn. “OK, so, how we got ourselves royally fucked by a zebra filly with a horn.”