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// You've Lost Something 
// Story: The Olden World 
// by Czar_Yoshi 
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Starlight wandered the lonely corridors of... wherever she was, trusting her instincts to keep her silent and out of trouble. The place seemed labyrinthine for the sake of being labyrinthine, with dead ends everywhere and corridors that doubled back on themselves for no reason. It was like it existed solely to sap someone's confidence, waste their time or make them spend more time in the strange, unpleasant anti-magic atmosphere. The joke was on them, though. Ever since she had activated her Nightmare Module, the feeling of being breathed on seemed to slide right off of her, like it was caused by a thing and that thing could no longer see her. She still couldn't use her horn, though.

She had lost track of how long it had been since Glimmer disappeared. Just as well. Maybe the hallucination thought she was being comforting or keeping her company, but she would have rather had someone help her, and all the other filly had done was hemmed and hawed and talked about... whatever. She couldn't actually remember, aside from that it hadn't been important.

Still, though, there had been a certain quality to her... Before using the moon glass, she hadn't seen it, but then there was something bright about the filly, warm and welcoming, a feeling she was certain she hadn't perceived before. No, maybe she had? The only thing like it she could recall was the harmonic flame in Ironridge. Blinking, she recalled the flame there trying to talk to her and imparting her a bit of its magic to help patch up her horn. Maybe her duplicate had something to do with that? But why would she need to be moon glassed to notice the filly felt that way?

Starlight shook her head and pressed on, the vague feeling that she had lost something and she didn't know what fighting with the present realization that being glassed wasn't so bad, once the period of switching was done. She could actually live like this.

Voices suddenly met her ears, sounding weary, and she instantly perked up. More prisoners, maybe? She could possibly learn something... and also test just how stealthy this spell made her. She stepped closer, aware of how her shadow absorbed every vibration of her hoofsteps and prevented even the sound of her breathing from escaping unless she willed it.

"...Hate this job. Don't know whether it's worse when the place has just been emptied out, or when it's full of scum clamoring for their heathen lives."

"Pfeh. Why? You so much of a sadist you enjoy listening to them already? This place really is getting to you, haha!"

"Ugh, no! Just don't like it here when it's quiet. It's always too quiet. You know those horror stories where that means everything else is hiding from the monster and it's about to jump you and you get killed?"

"Bah, that's softcore. But it's a step in the right direction!"

"Well, this is like one of those, except it's quiet 'cuz the monster's already dead. This place feels like a tomb when it's empty. One that already hates us."

"Isn't that what it is? You come here for two reasons: to die or to keep others in line while they die. Which mostly means marching them to the teleporter. Only when it's filled up, it's a waiting line for Garsheeva's teeth instead!"

Starlight frowned, standing in the middle of the corridor as two guards wandered out from around a corner. They were both stallions, the aggressive one an earth pony and the complaining one a batpony. She instantly decided she liked the batpony better, though neither of them were nearly as bright as Glimmer had been earlier.

Folding her ears in thought, she tuned out the rest of their conversation as they passed unaware on either side of her. They were bright too? It wasn't a quality she had a better name for, and she knew she had never applied it to ponies before, but brightness was as good a word as any. And it wasn't like the earth pony was negatively bright. Just... dull. But that metaphor didn't work either, because they weren't actually glowing. It was a feeling she felt, not a sight she saw, and it would have to be dozens or even hundreds of times stronger for her to break her self-control and run to his side and bury her face in his chest. The batpony, that was. The earth pony, she wanted no more than she would pick up a pretty pebble in a field, though she probably would anyway if she had truly no reasons not to.

...Something felt very strange, thinking about other ponies like this, and she wasn't sure what it was. Lives were supposed to be valuable, weren't they?

Being moon glassed was weird. She wished she understood it better.

System about/help activated, the voice she associated with turning this way projected into her mind, leaving the words almost floating there, like she could hear them just by thinking about them and experienced them outside her normal perception of time. About/help database missing or corrupted. Limited functionality available.

"Rrrgh..." Starlight growled under her breath. She knew her horn was somehow wrong, but why did this thing have to keep telling her she was broken as well!?

Notice: system functions are limited or unavailable.

Yes, she knew! Starlight kept stalking through the low brick corridors, claustrophobic and grand all at the same time. But this thing clearly was a tool, right? It reacted to her thoughts and intentions. There had to be some way to figure it out or make it useful.

System configuration menu accessed.

Starlight blinked. She wasn't sure exactly what that meant, but since it seemed occasionally able to accurately read her intuition... maybe it could tell her something useful. What could she do from a menu like this? Could it tell her anything about how she interacted with moon glass, or other batponies?

Emulation mode launch settings menu accessed. Default setting is post-permission system engagement.

Post-permission? What did that mean?

Setting: user permission required to change core system modes as requested by external events is required. Warning: disabling this setting is a security risk and allows for forced, unwilling changes.

Starlight frowned. But wasn't that exactly what moon glass did? Changed her without permission? Or was touching it supposedly permission? What was it supposed to do, ask nicely if she wanted to get glassed?

Error: database entry for obsidian corrupted or not found.

Of course it wasn't. Starlight threw back her head and growled, but it didn't matter. She had no idea what she was doing, anyway. Playing with a voice in her head that treated her body like some kind of machine? It felt... like it should feel worse. Shouldn't she be bothered by objectifying herself like that?

This was weird. Nightmare Modules were weird. Maybe they were only not so bad if she didn't think about it, because she was starting to see why this kept Valey up at night. Unnerved and suddenly very lonely, Starlight quickened her pace, wanting to see someone bright. She nearly skipped past an entrance in the wall before snapping back, blinking, and staring at a staircase before her. It went down, unfortunately, but that was still more progress than running around in circles and none of the other cells she ran into seemed occupied. She stepped in, wondering what else this place had in store.