Alright, situation report.
For the past two days, things have been going smoothly, albeit not without hiccups. The love gathering operation turned out a surprising success on all sides. Maybe I’ve finally done enough things right for events to start going my way? No, thinking that would be silly. Nevertheless, Two brought a good mix of love and lust, which makes me really believe either that Topaz really fell for her, or that she’s turning out to be an excellent manipulator under Scream’s questionable tutelage. Probably a little bit of both. Six surprised me the most, returning to me in order to transfer the gained energy repeatedly. It seems that he’s actually really good at flirting and one night stands. He was a bit freaked out when I told him not to leave the mares he targets immediately after he’s full, but it was important to both gain energy and friendly contacts. I left Five to follow and guard Three who occasionally kept doing his digging and helping in the emerald mining, while overall exploring the nearly inexhaustible mine network under Brauheim. This sorted out Five’s feeding problem. Now she’s stable, even gaining a little love from Three’s aura. The last order of business - Seven hasn’t returned, or if he did then we didn’t see him at least. A changeling using real magic could become a serious problem if left unchecked, but we don’t have a way to track him and lock him down.
As for Brauheim business, the original daily fiery debates of the supporting council have shrunk into real discussions about basic issues raised by the city’s inhabitants. As it turns out, dwarven culture is so set on miniscule rituals and irrelevant details that we had to talk about the allowed hardness of toothbrushes for the elderly to combat para- paradent- dont- sys- some disease or something. I was, of course, for my usual stance - if it helps, do it, but we did have strong opposition in the fact that “too much of a good thing makes dwarves soft” argument.
I wish I could have Two punch ponies a lot more often, but discussion has to take place to show that ponies want change, not just me.
Anyway, it’s late afternoon, business is concluded for the day, and I can finally, for the first time, just walk around the city. No pressing matter, no love shortage, not too much fear of being discovered, nothing. Should I check the market? The residential district and the vaults are kinda boring, to be honest. Maybe I could visit the mines? Three seems to enjoy his time there. Hmm, maybe I could-
Suddenly, lights go out. Everywhere.
Confused calls follow soon after.
Aaaand here comes the screaming. I kinda forgot that ponies can’t see in complete darkness. Altering my eyes to work properly in a dwarven disguise, I sigh and start trotting back to the royal tavern. I guess my relaxing evening will have to wait.
”Is everyone okay?”
”Five and I are still practicing the magic shield spell Scream taught me. Do you need our help?” Two reports.
”Not sure. I’ll tell you if I do.”
”Why are you asking? Is something going on?” asks Three.
”Yeah, all lights went off out of nowhere.”
”I can see just fine, boss.”
”That’s because of your lamp body and changeling eyes.”
”Actually, no, your Majesty- boss,” Six corrects me, ”The lights down here in the mine are completely fine.”
”Oh, really? Good to know. I’ll go see what’s going on. Who knows? This might be a common thing. Keep doing what you’re doing.”
The occasional yelling says otherwise, but I’m not about to spread panic.
When I’m back, some small lanterns are already on inside, faintly illuminating faces of far more dwarves than usual.
“Granite, what’s going on?” I ask the loremaster already standing on the dais, listening to a voice coming from a small box in his hooves, “I was on my way to the market, then everything went black and dwarves started yelling.”
“A problem, queen.”
No, really? I thought it was the annual panic and chaos celebration.
“Obviously,” I roll my eyes, “But what’s going-” he raises his hoof, and starts speaking to the box.
“Set up guards at every exit from the maintenance floor. Hard Reset is here with me, and we’re waiting for his engineers. Not everyone knows how to deal with old tech, and the first priority of the repair team was to get the emergency generators running. Over.”
“Orders received. Sending patrols now. Everyone else is out there, informing the citizens. Whose stupid idea was it not to connect the emergency broadcast system to the reserve generators?” comes from the box, “Over.”
Granite frowns, puts the speaking box down, and looks at me.
“Well, there’s an excellent idea for the next council meeting. Well, queen, something’s wrong with electricity, and considering it’s global, I suspect something being wrong with the generators rather than on the way.”
“It’s not global, Granite. Six and Three told me the mines are fine.”
“How did they tell you in the time from the start of the blackout if they're in the mines?”
“They bugged me about it,” I frown at him. Thankfully, he understands that it would be a dumb idea to continue that line of questioning while surrounded by dwarves. Queen Brick being a changeling is still somewhat of a secret.
“Anyway, that’s good news, actually,” says Granite.
The general lighting turns back on, only dimmer and in a shade of red, and I realize something I haven’t all this time underground - there’s faint humming in the distance, and it has been there all the time until the blackout. Now, hearing it again, I feel like it’s weaker.
I lean in to Granite’s ear, and whisper:
“I really could use an explanation that doesn’t presume I know how this city works. What’s at risk?”
Granite leads me to a table for two which has been left empty by the dwarves departing after the red lights turned on.
“We haven’t had a blackout like this in my lifetime. Old devices simply work, albeit their maintenance is rather difficult. But, if what you said about mines being okay is true, then this looks more like a sabotage than a failure. One possibly aimed at the vaults and this part of the residential district.”
“Sabotage? By whom?”
“Well, if I didn’t know you, then you’d be the first one on my mind. Like this… well… the real queen, maybe? It is a distinct possibility she’s finally learned about the old king’s death, and is trying to reclaim Brauheim.”
“How does this help her? As far as I know, the dwarves here aren’t fans.”
“They will be once temperatures start dropping. Hopefully, the secondary ventilation system will save us from problems with air supply. Oh, I completely forgot the last thing - all vault security doors have been unlocked. I’ll have to organize patrols.”
“Is it possible that somepony did this to get to the vaults? I don’t know, to steal something important?”
To my surprise, Granite shrugs. I was expecting dwarves to be more about treasures and gold.
“It is, but somepony stealing a bag or two of gold ingots doesn’t really mean much. The life support is the dangerous part. We’ll see what the engineer squad says about it.”
“Mind if I send someone with them?” I ask, “I have no clue how your maintenance floor works, and seeing that something might be wrong with it, I’d like to have a look. Your guards never let Three or anyone inside, and all the tunnels are locked tight. Changelings have good noses.”
Granite thinks about it for a moment.
“I guess that since trouble is already here, we may as well use all help we can. BUT, only one of yours, and they’ll be escorted at all times.”
“No problem with that. I’ll send Three. Most dwarves have heard about a friendly, glowing changeling, and you can go keep an eye on him yourself. Plus, he can be a lamp if something else goes wrong.”
”Three, get back here as fast as you can. I’ll tell you to what maintenance floor entrance to go in a minute.”
“Hm, that’s not a bad idea. I will do that. Sitting here and chatting all day gets boring after a while.”
“You don’t have to tell me. The first free evening when I get to go out, and this happens,” I pout, ”Alright, get the team ready. Three and I will join you on the way. I’m tired of sitting on the sidelines.”
***
The maintenance tunnels look very similar to the narrower streets of the city with one big difference - ropes of thick cables lining the walls and the ceiling absolutely everywhere. Three’s watching everything with wide eyes while the dwarves are leading us away from the entrance, and deeper into the complex.
“Hey, what’s that?” Three pokes Granite, pointing his hoof at yet another clump of wires, this one ending in a box set in the wall. The runes on his foreleg glow stronger and white, forming a directional ray of light.
“That’s basically an amplifier. You see, electricity going through cables as long as these loses… what do you know about electricity?”
“Is that a city like Brauheim? Maybe the top floor is Brauheim, and this floor is the electri city?” Three gives it a fair shot. To be honest, I’m not much smarter about the whole thing than he is. Who am I kidding? At least he tried to take a guess. I'd just shake my head and drool.
Hidden under his helmet, Granite chuckles.
“No, it’s like an energy that powers the lights, heating, and all the machinery up in Brauheim. Well, it goes through the cables, and it weakens. These nodes, the amplifiers, make the flow of energy stronger so that it reaches the upper floor power stations. You two at the front, stop snickering! I’d like to hear you eggheads explain laws of conductivity to someone who thinks you can heal ponies with the power of hugs.”
“Wait, you can’t?” Three turns his head to me, “Did the nurse lie to me when I went to visit Two in the hospital? She said I made the old pony feel a lot better.”
“Ponies heal a lot differently than changelings, Three,” I say, “But I don’t doubt for a second you really did make them feel better.”
“Oh...” he says, and I sense the disappointment from him, before he smiles brightly again, “Then, if nuzzlin doesn’t work, I just gotta add a dose of snuggle-up!”
“...may ancestors have mercy on the diabetes patients...” mutters Granite.
“Speaking of hugs,” I recall something absolutely crucial completely forgotten in the moment, “Granite, can you refresh me about this ‘crown prince Rocksworth’ you mentioned in the vault?”
“Is this a good time?” asks Granite quietly, nodding to our companions.
“I… Three would like to know, and you can tell the story better than me,” I pretend to avoid suspicion, “And definitely in more detail. I’m not much of a history buff.”
“Of course I’ll enlighten Three here, my queen,” Granite nods.
“Yayyy, story time!” Three’s ears perk up.
“I’ll make it short, as we are almost at the vault district power distribution center. You see, many centuries ago the solitary peace of our ancestors in Brauheim was disturbed by creatures like you - changelings who came from the surface. At first, we led war for territory and resources, but our conflict was mainly because of misconceptions and lack of knowledge. Changelings weren’t after our mines, they wanted something completely different - us. However, the few careful attempts at communication turned out more successful than we could have hoped. We discovered that their small hive was a civilization like ours, and one which relied purely on things we didn’t need as such. All they wanted was peace, space, and… as hard as it was for us to believe - love. Of course, the few stragglers and sympathizers who joined our ranks were carefully monitored while the war between our forefathers and the frozen hive, as we called them. Eventually, their queen Cryo and our king Groundbreaker made peace in face of some greater threat. What preceded the peace was Cryo’s failed attempt to usurp our throne using a changeling who drank his way to royal succession - crown prince under the fake name Rocksworth. Unfortunately for him, the law doesn’t actually allow you to simply BECOME our king or queen, only the crown prince or princess,” Granite interjects in a whisper, “You succeeded simply due to old king’s attempt to defend his honor, let’s say, blew up in his face,” he returns to his normal tone, “Anyway, this prince Rocksworth was revealed as a changeling, and became our link to queen Cryo, resulting in an alliance to face ‘the darkness’.”
“Am I going to regret asking what the darkness was?”
“Either something horrible beyond imagination or, considering how obscure dark priest history records are, an allegory for a mushroom cake overdose. All I know is that after the war for our survival, the changelings were gone, never to be seen again until your- Three’s arrival. Dwarves can think of new changelings two ways - either as an old friend returning home, or as predators once again among our ranks.”
“And how do YOU see it, Granite?”
He pats Three’s head.
“I’m leaning towards the former, albeit that changeling assassin from few days ago makes me wonder if there’s more than meets the eye. Your decision to let this ‘Five’ roam free makes me think you know something you’re not sharing with us. Something such as that there may be more changelings around. I would like to know whether those are friends as well, or the latter, predatory kind.”
“If I knew the answer, I would tell you,” I sigh, “Knowing where we stand would definitely make things easier.”
“We’re here, loremaster, your Majesty,” says one of the engineers at the front.
“Boss, I think the electri-not-a-real-city is leaking on the floor. I wonder how it tastes,” Three leans down to a sparkling cable and a small pool of water on the floor, and licks it.
The air crackles. Three’s hive link becomes… incoherent.
“NO!” a guard jumps at him, his flight knocking Three away.
“Bzzbllbzt!” Three twitches, still in the dwarf’s embrace as I rush over. The guard, hissing, stands up and leaves Three on the floor. When the small drone blinks several times, shakes his head, points at the electrified puddle on the floor, and says, “Hey!” we all let out a long sigh of relief.
“Are you okay, Three?” I ask, mostly due to the smoke coming from him.
“Aeh- Ah- I- I’m fine, boss, umm, queen...” he glares at the sparkling cable as if accusing it of betrayal, “That’s not energy like love, that hurt! I thought when you said energy that I could eat it.”
“Excellent reaction, guard,” Granite nods, “He’s still alive.”
“Thank you, loremaster!” the guard salutes, looking at his partially melted gauntlets, “Although I have no idea how.”
“Miss Scream said us changelings are kinda okay with lightning,” explains Three, “It stings a lot, though.”
A quick feel of Three’s body proves that, indeed, it stings and itches all over, but he does feel absolutely alright, although the binding runes over his body are unnaturally bright and completely white.
Three shakes his leg.
“Awww… it broke my lamps...” he pokes himself, “And I wanted to show miss Scream how to change the colors.”
I look around as the engineers start examining the area. It looks like a room built into the wall with chain link fencing around. In the room, there are numerous metal boxes with buttons and sliders, all dark.
“Hard Reset, come look at this,” one engineer opens a metal box on the wall, revealing patches of small cables cut in half. Speaking of which, Hard Reset is our council representative for ‘hardware’ as they called it. One one hole, I wish I knew what it meant, on the other… I’m not so sure because I tend to doze off whenever he starts talking. He’s surprisingly young for a dwarf - only in his fifties, and he’s the first white-coated dwarf I’ve seen. His brown mane is completely common, though.
“Hmmm,” he clicks his lips, looking up from checking the backs of the devices and panels all over the room, “Yeah, this isn’t just shut down, it’s broken, and under no circumstances could this be a malfunction. Someone broke the power station on pretty much all levels. All the circuitry is screwed, main power cable has been cut, and even the minor couplings are severed. Whoever did this knew exactly what they were doing. Even I could barely cause more damage without blowing it up completely.”
“Hey, there’s something here on the floor,” Three sniffs a black flake of something, then follows the trail to another piece hidden behind a device, and few smaller ones in the corner under another dented metal box, “It’s chitin… and it smells like Five!”
Granite turns his head to me, and so do the others.
“Five’s been with Two all day, and none of the changelings are the technical kind,” I have a look at the chitin shards Three gathered, “And these are old, damaged,” I grin, completely mirthless, “I think someone’s trying to frame the changelings. After all, we didn’t clean up after I stopped Five from killing everyone. Granite?”
“Yes?”
“If I were you, I’d station guards down here as well as by the entrances.”
“After seeing this, I definitely will.”
“Are there many of these… power stations down here?”
“There’s one big for each district, and several smaller ones for certain areas. This one controls the whole vault district, so I presume we’ll find the one for the residential district in the same shape.”
“Maybe, maybe not,” Hard Reset finishes writing something into his notepad, “If the queen here is so adamant the changelings aren’t behind this, then I guess it could be the work of the old queen. The one way to be sure is if we check the residential power station and it’s okay while the secondary stations for our part of Brauheim have been destroyed. Anyway, we should go. We’ve assessed the damage here, and after we’re back up we’ll see how much we can replace outright, and what’s going to need more time.”
“Alright, lead the way,” I nod.
Several hours later, I’m back at the royal tavern, sorting things out in my head.
Hard Reset got it right - the residential district central power was intact while the smaller stations under our part of Brauheim were completely trashed, which means the suspect really is either the old queen, or whoever Seven, Six, and Five are associated with.
***
Day five of the cold age, which is something I wouldn’t dare say in front of any shivering dwarf.
According to Hard Reset’s estimates, the damage to the power network might take weeks to repair, and dwarves are taking it badly despite initial optimism. The residential district is getting really cold, as there’s no way to power the heating. With the emergency generators connected only to the lights and secondary air and water supply, I had to order evacuation to the edges of the mines, and the first dwarves to suffer from hypothermia due to the exposure to low temperatures were moved down to the magma streams. Well, not directly TO the magma streams, although some said they’d appreciate that too. What completely shocked me was the dwarves’ reaction when I said this was targeted only at our part of the city, and that they could give moving to the supplied part of Brauheim a shot if they wanted. They quickly came to the conclusion that this was the old queen’s doing, and shouted very loudly that she could do to herself some of the things One did to me which I still try to block out of memory, only with less love and more spikes.
In short, the situation is stable. With the residential district mostly empty, we’ve moved our headquarters from the royal tavern to the emerald mine where Two and Six promptly hollowed out a small cavern, their speed surprising even born miners like the dwarves.
“Queen, loremaster!” says the gasping bartender who refused to stop waiting on us as the two most important dwarves. His words, not mine, “More trouble.”
“Oh great… what now?”
“We’ve run out of water.”
“Alright, dwarf,” frowns Granite, “That’s not possible.”
“There’s no water coming out of the pipes, loremaster. That’s all I know.”
“A temporary obstruction, low pressure, or something? We’ve got electricity here. The pumps must be working.”
“Unless somepony broke those?” I take a not-so-wild guess.
“Another sabotage, you think?” Granite raises an eyebrow, “You’re quite the pessimist, queen. This indeed COULD be just some burst pipes caused by the change in temperature.”
“You know, I know you dwarves enjoy talking endlessly about absolutely insignificant stuff, but I’m getting bruises on my ass from sitting. Grab some engineers and guards, and let’s move.”
“That will not be necessary,” announces a loud voice from the mouth of the tunnel. Two dark priests in their billowing robes are pushing a bleeding and battered dwarf mare in front of them. As she approaches, she looks at us with contempt and hatred, “We have apprehended the culprit. She blew up the pipelines leading here, and the area is flooded now.”
Conveniently so that we can’t go have a look.
“That’s rather quick. we learned about the water situation only a moment ago, and you already have a scapego- I mean, culprit.”
“We’ve known about it earlier because of the intermittent storage stations for the residential district going dry first, ‘queen’,” the dark priest spits on the floor.
“Uhh, does that make sense, Hard Reset?” I look at the head engineer.
“Very much so, queen. If the main station was destroyed, the mines are the last big intermittent storage on the way,” he confirms the priest’s story.
“Alright, why?” I look at the captive mare.
“You traditionalists and supporters must suffer for how you treated mares for ages!” she growls. Come to think of it, she’s still wearing a plate mail, and she clearly hasn’t noticed Crumble sitting nearby, wearing one too, and one with decorative coating of amethyst dust on her back. I’m sure the heavy face-covering helmet has something to do with that oversight, “Resisting the true queen is halting the necessary progress!”
“Damn revolutionaries...” Granite facehoofs.
One dark priest kicks the mare who falls on the floor, and looks at me.
“Do you see how problematic the old queen is? Even your… insanity is causing less instability than her empty promises.”
“So, now we don’t have heat or water...” I mumble.
“What shall we do with the prisoner?” asks a guard.
“We’ll-” Granite opens his mouth.
“You shall do nothing,” the leading dark priest interrupts him, “For her crimes against dwarfdom, we are taking her to the enclave.”
All heads snap to him, but I quiet ‘yeah’ from somewhere, and general nodding makes it clear that if I resist, I’ll be alone this time. Losing water and heat is life-threatening to dwarves down here, and the public has rendered the mare’s judgement, which apparently won’t be pretty.
“You can silence me, but you’ll get what you deser-” the dark priest’s punch to her temple knocks her out, one of them slings her over his back, and they leave.
“What to do? What to do?” I ask the silent cave.
How can I use this to my advantage?
”Six, I’ve got a job for you,” I mentally poke the drone sitting in a dark spot at the back of the cavern.
”Yes, umm, your Maj- boss?”
”Follow the dark priests. Be careful, don’t get caught. Something’s fishy about this. If the waterworks were half as guarded as the maintenance tunnels, there’s no way some random mare got in with a bag of explosives. Either someone on the queen’s side let her in, or the dark priests are involved somehow. Dwarves don’t seem too keen on openly defying them. I doubt some of Granite’s guards let her through on our side. Those guys are freezing their balls off on guard already.”
”Will do,” he stands up, noiselessly leaving the mine.
”Hard Reset, how do you usually solve this?”
The engineer looks at me with grim expression.
“By shutting off the water before the broken point, grabbing the electric pumps, and pumping the water into reservoirs. As things stand, we’re kinda screwed.”
“How about the good old bucket technology?” I ask.
“I believe you’re vastly underestimating how much water is down there, and we can’t exactly swim so far in those conditions. We need to negotiate with the old queen to shut down the main pipeline.”
”Three, how’s your fish transformation?”
”I.. can try…?” he answers.
“Then how about we send our changeling friends to shut off the nearest pipes? That way we won’t have to deal with the queen and show her in how much trouble we are already. They might be able to swim far enough.”
”Two, stop messing around with Five. I need her here immediately.”
”Of course.”
“Okay, orders - Three and Five will accompany a team of engineers who will navigate them to the proper shutdown thingies, valves or something. After the water stops flowing, Granite will organize a bucket line to one of the emergency reservoir and we’ll see what we can do about this water problem.”
”Anything for me, boss?” asks Two.
”Not yet. I don’t want you to waste energy on manual busywork. Just keep practicing magic. How’s it going anyway?”
”Ummm… not great, really. Scream isn’t around, and I’m kinda… either sparking or conjuring up warm lights. No bolts of lightning or fire on the horizon, boss. Sorry. I’m getting better at mental commands, though, I think. Three’s not laughing at me anymore, at least.”
”Knowing him, he’s trying to make you laugh more than laugh at you.”
”I know, I know...” Two sighs, ”I just can’t help feeling like a failure.”
”As long as you keep trying, I don’t think anyone can call you a failure, just… umm… delayed success, maybe?”
She chuckles.
”Thank you, I needed that.”
”That’s what I’m here for, Two, not for spooky albeit cool green love sabers that go whoosh.”
”But those are the best part!”
”Let’s agree to disagree,” grumbles Five.
Alright, everyone knows what to do next, so it’s time to let, well, time pass.
***
Walking side by side with Two through the deserted and dark streets of Brauheim is relaxing despite the whole situation that caused the emptiness. Another day has gone by without nothing much happening. My idea of a bucket chain to empty the flooded under-underground proved a joke, so now Three’s helping bring fresh water from underground streams. Due to the amount of dwarves on the rationing system, it’s a full-time job. Scream’s still gone, Five is patrolling the demilitarized zone, and Six lost the dark priests on the way to their enclave due to them using locked hatches and shafts we can’t get into, but is trying to find some clues as to where they could really be hiding,
My ears pick up on a distant voice, and judging by the twitching of Two’s, she’s in on it too.
“Do you see where your disobedience led to? We should be united as one, grasping our history and proud future with both hooves! Now, the insane queen has driven you into the corner, and what are you doing? Listening to the new queen who is only marginally better than the old one. We should be fighting for our ways with steel and fire! Forges are our homes, steel is in our bones!” that pompous voice with zero doubt in it can’t belong to anyone but one of the dark priests, so both I and Two shapeshift into throwaway disguises, both mares so it’s less obvious there’s a problem with no armor. Unfortunately, we don’t find any suits of platemail to grab around, so we just quietly follow the voice.
As it turns out, the dark priest is speaking to a crowd filling a small plaza through which we slowly push to the front.
“The crazy new ways are making you soft, and the old queen is using it against you. You’re freezing, hungry and thirsty, and yet you cower like foals faced with devourer worms. You need to fight!”
“What would actually help,” says a voice I recognize as Crumble who walks into the empty circle around the speaking priest, “would be if you allowed the use of spider silk underclothes. I know YOU are using those, even while hiding down in your bastion with infinite energy, heat, water filters, and-”
“SILENCE!” roars the dark priest, pointing his hoof at her, “YOU are the problem of this city! Don’t you see? Your weakness is speaking, weakness brought forth by relaxing of old norms-”
“Oh SHUT UP!” Crumble turns to face the crowd, “Everyone! The new queen is trying to help, to improve our way of life, to allow you to realize your dreams. She’s not a fake populist like the old one. Your opinions and ideas are now represented by the council where you can both offer new things AND react to the change you think is wrong! Don’t let this… this OLD FART fool you! He and his kind are living in luxury while spouting this sanctimonious nonsense about YOU being weak! I would like to see one of them survive a week up here in OUR situation-”
“BE QUIET, MARE!” the dark priest walks over to her and slaps her, “We are the true blood of our ancestors, the purest of the pure. We uphold traditions. You are barely a dwarf. In fact!” the dark priest raises his hoof, “By the power vested in me by true darkness, I declare this platemail-wearing abomination a non-dwarf here and now in front of all of you!”
A gasp runs through the whole crowd, and I see Crumble start to tremble. However, she bites her lip, and scowls. When she speaks, her voice is higher and a little shaky:
“I’M TEN TIMES THE DWARF YOU ARE, YOU SPOILED GASBAG!” cocking her hoof, she punches the dark priest.
His jaw drops when he realizes what just happened, and he spits out blood.
“HERETIC!” he points his foreleg at Crumble who expects him to order others to do his job for him like always.
A loud bang resonates through the plaza, and Crumble drops on the ground, bleeding from a hole in her armor and groaning.
“The ideas of the dwarven race must be purified!” adds the dark priest.
“I’ll purify your ass so hard you’ll be begging for a lava enema!” screams Two, lunging at the dark priest as she shapeshifts back into herself, growing razor sharp claws on her forelegs.
A device on the dark priest’s foreleg clicks, and with a simple motion of his foreleg and hoof which he points at Two in the air, another blast deafens all of us, and in a shower of chitin shards, Two changes direction and drops on the floor as well.
”I’ll fuc-” growls Two mentally, showing she’s in pain but not critically hurt.
”Nope, this is a whoosh job,” for a second I’m surrounded by a veil of green fire, and then I’m towering over the dwarves while walking towards the dark priest aiming the blast weapon at me, ”Grab Crumble, and get her to the mines. Feel free to punch dwarves until someone helps if you need to.”
“The monster itself,” growls the dark priest, and flicks his hoof. I feel an impact against my chest as if Eight playfully punched me, which barely slows me down. The dwarf’s eyes go wide as he does some motions with his hoof which I think are preparing the weapon to shoot again, “S-Stay back!” With a flick of MY fetlock, a love saber very finally separates the dwarf from his weapon along with his hoof, “TRUE DWARVES, PROTECT ME!” he screams.
No one moves.
Growing claws on my foreleg, I grab him by his neck, and pull him up until he’s gasping for breath with his hind legs barely tap dancing on the floor. When I stand up on mine, carefully balancing the now openly choking dwarf, I cock my hoof burning with green fire to spear his head.
”Come on, where’s the fun in that?” Scream appears, ”This will suit way better.”
As she mentally shows me what the new shape does, my cold rage momentarily gives way to a bout of nausea.
”You’re a monster,” I whisper in disbelief.
”I didn’t invent this one, griffons did. They just use it to cut trees,” she shrugs, beaming like a lighthouse.
The clean burning blade on my hoof twists into a more circular shape with sharp teeth all around, which then start spinning around the circumference.
”Eh, it’s not as good without the motor roaring,” Scream comments, clearly disappointed.
“Wait, no- no no noAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!” the dark priest’s begging turns to high-pitched screeching as the blade of my burning chainsaw grinds through his skull until all that remains is gurgling of a dead body, and then I toss him on the ground.
The horrified dwarves around are mostly silent. Some are throwing up. Thankfully, Two is gone along with Crumble.
In front of the crowd, I shapeshift into queen Brick.
“Now you know the truth,” I say out loud, “and my offer still stands. If you want to join the old queen, return to a place of heat and water, you are free to go. I will not hold it against you. But if you stay, then let it be known that this is what’s going to happen to anyone who touches my subjects, and right now that includes both changelings and you. Stay safe, my little dwarves.”
The crowd hurriedly gets out of the way when I take a first step out after taking the priest’s weapon with me. Something that can break through dwarven platemail with ease could prove useful.
***
“You know this means war, don’t you?” says Granite when I tell him what happened, “Not even the old queen was crazy to do something like this. We can’t afford more enemies.”
“Then we need to start doing something about the ones we already have,” I rub my chin, “If we can’t win a war, sabotage like they did could help us make a deal.”
“No!” says Granite firmly.
“What?”
“Thousands of dwarves are out of their homes already, and we’re barely a quarter of Brauheim. Until now, we’ve held our own due to the faint promise to the old king that the dark priests would intervene if a full scale conflict began, but I doubt that’s the case anymore. I will not authorize an operation that would harm more civilians.”
“Oh, so it wasn’t you,” says a curious and friendly voice booming through the command center cavern. With a smile, arriving Steelback waves his hand at us. Few days ago, he left on business back to Rift and presumably to deal with the old queen as well as is his job.
“What do you mean it wasn’t us? What wasn’t us?” I ask.
“The queen is locked in the castle. Someone destroyed the main drawbridge controls, co the only way out are side hallways. The general consensus out there is that you ordered an operation and are getting ready to attack. Rumors are circulating about you being a changeling, and they’re being used to rally dwarves under the queen’s banner. Granted, stuff I heard about you here is much less a rumor and more complete, gruesome truth. What did I miss?”
“A dark priest tried to kill Crumble and Two. I sent a clear message about how bad of an idea that was,” I growl.
“Impressive, that’s the minotaur way,” Steelback nods, smiling, “Anyway, as I said, queen’s dwarves think you’re trying to eat them if you are a changeling, or oppress them again, if you are a traditionalist dwarf. I think they even caught the culprits of the drawbridge sabotage.”
“To me, it looks like somepony is attacking both sides,” says Granite.
“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Steelback shakes his head, “Crazy elements can be on both sides, although your conclusion is definitely a real possibility.”
“Anyway, the sabotage explain things, quee- well, I suppose there’s no reason to keep up the charade, king. It seems like the queen is making a move as well.”
“What do you mean?” spurred by Granite’s words, I transform into myself. None of the nearby dwarves bat an eyelid. Has he been slowly spreading the word about who I really was and judging the dwarves’ reactions, or did the rumors simply reach everyone already?
“Yesterday, a group of queen’s dwarves broke through one of our watch posts in the vault district.”
“Aaaand you didn’t see it fit to tell me?” I raise an eyebrow.
“Skirmishes are common, but usually no one gets too hurt and support arrives before anything happens. It was the same yesterday, although we tracked the intruding party deeper into the vault district. Nothing was stolen, and no one was really hurt, although we’re treating few cases of minor alcohol poisoning.”
I blink.
“Waaaaait, by skirmish you mean… a drinking fight?!”
“Exactly.”
“So your sentries are getting wasted daily, and anyone can go where they please afterwards?”
“They are giving their livers for the glory of Brauheim!” Granite salutes.
“You know, can’t we just declare war and solve it via one giant drinking contest?”
“That’s impossible, king,” Granite shakes his head, “We simply don’t have enough liquor. Everypony would want to get involved, and the logistics of bringing barrel after barrel while more and more dwarves fall are problematic. War is solved by steel!”
You little bastards are completely nuts. I guess that’s what no contact with the outside EVER leads to.
“Fine,” I sigh, “What did the raiding party steal?”
“Nothing, king.”
“Okay, what did they DO then?”
“Nothing really, they simply walked into one of our unlocked vaults, and then went back.”
“Nothing was stolen then?”
“No.”
“And what’s inside the vault?”
“Gold, jewels, and some sparkly dust and tiny fragments. However, according to the list of contents everything that was supposed to be in the vault is there. I think I’ve got the biggest fragment here,” he pulls out a white shard about the size coin which is full of love and emits a faint rainbow hue.
In short, it’s a piece of the cocoon I woke up in.
Hmmm…
”Two? I’ve got a job for you. Are you up for it?”
”Yessss! I mean - I’m absolutely fine, boss. The weapon barely scratched me.”
Now that’s an obvious lie, but it’s great to finally feel Two being genuinely happy. A quick remote check of her body does show she isn’t too wounded or anything.
Oh right, I completely forgot she’s been practicing magic shields all this time.
”Excellent. Go grab Five, and I want you to sneak into queen’s part of the city, and see for yourself what’s going on, especially in the dwarven castle. I could use more than Steelback’s report.”
”I’m your eyes and ears, boss!”
And Five can be the helmet on your head that you so desperately need.
***
Several hours later, a dwarf arrives, escorted by Granite’s guards. His jaw drops when he sees me in all my chitinous black and blueness in a room of chatting dwarves.
“One of queen’s loyalists, king,” the guards salute, “He says he’s bearing a message.”
“Let’s hear it,” I shrug. Chances of this being a peace offer are pretty slim, but there’s always hope. See? I’m still optimistic.
“Your recent attacks give the queen no choice. You will either abdicate and release your hold on Brauheim, or she will crush you. She tolerated the existence of you and your ancient ways, but your aggression was the last straw.”
Optimism down, send a medic!
“Your queen is insane, and you’re blind if you can’t see she’s using you!” Granite raises his voice, “King’s reasonable and discussed progress is the way to go. What your queen is advocating is- is anarchy! We will stand with a ruler who wants to rule by reason, not by force as your fake populist! Plus, she’s the one to talk after destroying our pipes and power network.”
How about someone who doesn’t want to rule at all, at least not your metal, crazy, tiny heads? I prefer my chitinous, crazy, tiny heads.
“Is that your final answer?” asks the messenger.
“We could send you back to her in a bucket,” Granite frowns. He seems to be against war at large, but eager to dish out some rough personal responsibility.
“No, lead him back and let him go. It’s not like one more dwarf on queen’s side is going to make a difference.”
”Boss, we’ve reached the castle square. It’s HUUUUUUUUGE!” I hear Two’s impressed voice. I take a peek from her eyes.
Oh… wow. It’s like outside… but on the inside…
Overall, the square is shaped like a teardrop with a gargantuan, circular abyss on the wide end. It’s not flat like all of Brauheim I’ve seen until now with small dome-like plazas. This is an enormous cavern like the one with the strange bridge and vents. Carved into the far wall is a majestic castle which looks like Canterlot from far away. Here’s where the obvious raised drawbridge problem is, because if Steelback’s information was correct, the main way to and from the castle is cut off.
What’s positively horrifying, though, is a massive army of dwarves flowing from the side streets, and gathering on the city end of the bridge. That’s a loooot of dwarves.
All of a sudden, lights go out everywhere, plunging dwarves into screaming panic.
”Two, find the nearest maintenance exit. It looks like someone’s playing the same trick on them as they did on us. I don’t believe the idea that a dwarf from our side is causing this for revenge on what she did to us. IF she did anything at all,” I add. The somewhat successful vault raiding party is still on my mind.
As the dwarves mill around, Two easily finds what she needs, spits into the lock which pops, and with Five in tow, jumps down into the maintenance tunnels. While we haven’t been in this part before, we’re fully aware how excellent Brauheim’s grid structure is for finding your way around as long as you can read dwarven street numbers. I’m absolutely certain that Two is now galloping to the local power station.
Emergency red lights turn on soon, and within minutes the two hurrying changelings find a power station with three dead dwarves lying around. She catches some flapping noise quickly disappearing, but none of us can place it. I transmit to Two what I saw the engineers do while Three and I were accompanying them.
”Yep, the same kind of damage. No chitin shards, though.”
They must have run out of the shards they gathered after our fight with Five, or they’re not trying to blame us, whoever they are.
Five noiselessly hides behind one of the strange machines. Two gives her a questioning look, but all she receives is just Five putting a hoof on her lips.
In the next moment, Two hears a sharp intake of breath.
“I had a feeling it would be you,” says Seven, stopping in his tracks, his horn glowing green.
“Funny, I thought last time it was you,” Two lowers her head, growling. Internally, though, she’s gathering her strength for a mental command strong enough to properly bind another infiltrator.
”Five, stay hidden until you can take him out for sure.”
”Don’t be to hard on Seven, please. He’s not a bad guy, although he damn sure looks like one,” says Five with warmth unheard from her before, ”But be careful, he’s supposedly pretty good with real magic.”
”If you smell a trap, break legs. I’m not risking anything,” replies Two.
”I will obey,” sighs Five, clearly unhappy with the order.
“An interesting situation we find ourselves in, isn’t it then?” Seven approaches with utmost care, “So your power outage was because of this as well, was it?”
“The boss suspects someone is playing on both sides hating each other,” says Two carefully.
“Oh, dwarves,” Seven waves his hoof dismissively, “Who cares about them? I’m more interested in you. A changeling I don’t know about in Brauheim? What do you want, little one?”
“I want to find out who’s behind this,” Two shoots his question down, “Although now that you know I’m here, I can’t really let you go.”
To my surprise, Seven doesn’t seem too disturbed.
“I already reported your existence after the last time we met. Us fighting here won’t achieve anything, although I would like to hear more about your boss.”
Seven smiles, and Two feels faint pressure inside her head.
-CHAOS!-
Seven keels over, his horn hissing out as his concentration breaks instantly. Two faintly feels a mind barely able to control the body it’s in as Seven’s legs randomly keep twitching. She steps over him, Five following soon.
“That should fuc-”
”LANGUAGE! Great command, though.”
“That should teach you to mess with me, assclown,” growls Two as she leaves for the way out.
”I know you and Five don’t want me to hurt him, boss, but now that I’ve learned how much focus it takes to do real spells, I can disable him just like that.”
”You’re terrifying in a way, Two.”
”I’m learning from Scream. Without my WW3D bracelet, I might even start chainsawing dwarf heads in half,” she sticks her tongue out at my hive mind image.
I’m starting to think Scream might be a bad influence on her. Under Chrysalis, this kind of talking back would have her crunching in the grinder before she could scream aaarhg!
Back in front of my real body, Granite pacing back and forth stops, and lays his hooves on the table.
“What to do? What to do about all this? Can we win a war?”
“Would it help if I said that queen’s part of the city just lost power too?” I cross my forelegs on my chest.
“WWWWWWHAT?!”
“Someone destroyed their secondary power station just like they did with ours, but they killed dwarven guards as well - slashing wounds as far as Two could tell. Seven arrived soon after, and he didn’t seem to know what happened.”
“Who is Seven? One of yours I don’t know about?” Granite tilts his head.
“No, one from the same group as Five and Six.”
“Do the consecutive numbers mean anything?”
“Yes.”
“Care to enlighten me?”
“No.”
“Alright, friend or foe?”
“Neutral.”
“Muradin damn it, king! I need information.”
“The information is that the area around the castle is without electricity, and I doubt Seven is behind it. Queen’s army is massing in the castle square and-”
“Wait, that’s perfect!” Granite’s annoyance disappears immediately.
“Is it?”
“We’re already equipped for the darkness. All my patrols have necessary emergency equipment while they’ll either need time to suit up or will be marching blind. We can take them by surprise and break their morale!”
“You’re the soldier here, but isn’t there a way to settle this peacefully?”
“We went over this. No, there isn’t. If the queen gathered her army and put us into this position, it’s clear she doesn’t care about dwarven lives. Your politics are a happy medium between her insanity and dark priests’ rigid traditions. Dwarves will understand, but we need to take out the army sent to kill us.”
I hang my head low. This isn’t what I wanted at all. Did we cause this outcome, or would it have happened even if Two didn’t take over Brauheim in the first place?
”Wrong question, boss bug!” Scream appears again, ”The right one is what you’re going to do now. Trust me when I say that wishing for things to have happened differently only makes you stew over stuff you can’t change and overlook opportunities.”
”You know a lot for being away so often recently.”
”I heard army, war, and sabotage, so I decided to take a break and see how it turns out. I’ve got my hooves full with the world outside. To be precise, to ensure there is still a world outside in the future. Your little underground problems are irrelevant in the grand scheme of things, but I understand you don’t see it that way.”
”What do you mean that the world outside is in danger?”
”Don’t worry your pretty little head about it. Mommy Scream is doing her best to outsmart a god trying to destroy all life, which is something you can’t really assist with other than help me relax,” she smiles, ”So ONWARDS to bloodshed!”
Too much information while also too little information.
“Alright, Granite. Try to keep casualties to minimum. You’re the general, loremaster, head military guy or whatever so it’s your job,” I give the orders with a sigh, “But I’m coming with you. If I’m not going to do something EVER AGAIN, it is to have others fight my battles for me while I hide behind a rock somewhere.”
“King, that is-”
“Not negotiable, Granite,” I narrow my eyes, transforming into queen Brick, “Where’s my platemail?” I grab the nearest liquor bottle, and down it in one go. It never hurts to have some more firepower at hoof.
”Orders, everyone! Six, Three, stay around the hospital in case we need to evacuate. Five, protect Two. Two-”
”I’m coming with you!”
”No,” I feel her freeze on the spot as she’s walking back to the mines, ”That is an order. I will take over your body, and have you order Five to tie your legs into a pretzel if I have to. You will stay with others in the hospital. We can’t have the wounded from accidents and everything else be a target. If someone tries to come and hurt then, you’re free to try out any technique you want to any extent.”
”Yes, boss,” she nods, not daring to disobey my firm voice. This isn’t time for bullshit.
Not even an hour later, we’re split into squads communicating over the talkie boxes while sneaking through the queen’s part of the residential district towards the castle. It turns out the queen sent scouting parties our way, but something Granite said a long time ago turned out shockingly useful - WE had the equipment. Storage and vault district is completely ours, so queen’s forces, while numerous, are armed with classic melee weapons and the occasional flamethrower. Night vision goggles, smoke grenades, one-shot weapons the dwarves call rifles for long range, we’ve got everything despite the size of our army being less than fifth of the queen’s.
So, few knocked out scouting parties later, Granite taps my shoulder, whispering.
“We’ve just lost three squads, king. They encountered the queen herself, but those who got away said they don’t even know what got them. That crazy bitch is heading the army on her own with a scouting squad.”
“What do you mean by ‘they have no idea what got them’?” I raise an eyebrow.
“Apparently, they wanted to get the queen alive, so they surrounded her squad, popped smoke bombs, and suddenly they realized most of them were knocked out or dead. They saw dwarves flying in the air and heard sounds of hammer beating against steel.”
I grin, but Granite can’t have a clue why.
“Well, I guess that’s our job then. Do we know where the queen’s unit is?”
“Not too far, I’ll set up an ambush.”
Ten minutes later, we’re on a crossroad and hear synchronized sets of hoofsteps approaching from a hallway to our left. The one across from us is full of dwarves, and there’s another unit trailing the queen’s group from the back. Granite’s forward scouts have just reported that the main army still back at the castle is starting to move.
Normally, this would be an insane move from a ruler to go first.
However, I do feel Seven’s mind nearby. As silently as I can, I take all my armor off.
“What are you doing?” asks Granite.
“Trust me on this. Don’t do anything.”
The thing is... the most important thing is that Seven isn’t alone.
I step from behind a corner to face the approaching group of twenty dwarves. I don’t even need to have seen the queen to know which one she is.
Of course, the only dwarf in a warzone without a helmet. After all, why would she need one?
Well, the only TWO dwarves in a warzone without protective armor layered all over them.
In a burst of fire, I shapeshift into myself. Dwarves raise their weapons, while the queen takes a step forward, stumbling over her forelegs. Her jaw drops, and I can’t help corners of my mouth crawling up.
“So,” I force my voice under control, “How have you been, Eight?”