//------------------------------//
// With New Urgency 
// Story: The Olden World 
// by Czar_Yoshi 
//------------------------------//

Gyre's capitol, Valey was quickly coming to realize, was built atop an older city much like the progressive evolution of Stormhoof. After a story or two of downward staircases, she found herself out in the open once more: a cavern formed by a natural depression in the ground and a thick metal roof stretched in a donut around the central castle, which extended all the way to the true ground below.

Everything in the city above was actually built on a platform spanning the entire width of the wall, teal manalights dangling from its mechanical underbelly and flooding the air with distant illumination. The bottom was littered with an unplanned mishmash of old stone dwellings, more recent metal additions turned it into a much bigger mishmash of dwellings, and Valey realized she had accidentally stumbled into the district where all the capitol's lower class lived. Blueleaf was an apt comparison, indeed.

"Really not a fan of whoever designed this place," she muttered under her breath, sliding down a hanging bundle of cables to reach the bottom quicker and poking around for a way further down. Starlight was yet lower and actively descending, though not in a straight line. Her journey wasn't even halfway complete.





Starlight remembered, in Ironridge's Flame District, how some architect had lined all four walls of most corridors with pipes, floor and ceiling together, then installed a mesh cage to be the actual walkway, creating an effect that was somehow claustrophobic and more open than just making the walls solid all at once. She didn't have many pleasant memories of the place, owing to the mercenaries chasing her and her friends as they attempted to escape, but in hindsight, whatever architect was responsible for those corridors really needed to teach this place a lesson.

Her hooves tested each step for purchase, walking on an exposed layer of conduits that wrapped completely around the tunnel, no cage to ease her path. Not only did the rounded pipes make for uncomfortable hoofing, they were still wound and knotted and occasionally overlapping like muscle tissue, offering ever-present bumps to trip her, and the ground didn't even try to keep to the pretense of being flat. The tunnel was round now, sloping downward without stairs, and it wound and twisted aimlessly, flatly refusing to be straight. It felt like being swallowed by a giant metal esophagus.

"Are you sure we're going the right way?" Starlight whispered, still carrying Puddles on her back. "I don't like this..."

"Lucky for you the guards don't like it either," Puddles breathed, sounding weak. "Yes. Get Puddles to the bottom. There's a teleporter..."

"Oookay..." Starlight dubiously muttered, plodding along.

She nearly tripped, shooting the pipes a vengeful look. At least none of these had the danger of burning her. She was reasonably sure each and every one of them was used for the same thing: connecting the batpony sculpture confessionals to... wherever they were going. Some sixth sense in her imagined it could even hear them, ponies and griffons with weights on their hearts having their words drawn downwards, like a force at the end was hungry for them.

Her mind swirled, trying to recall anything she could about bad spots in the Empire. Someone had to know about this, right? Or have at least rumored it? From the batpony statues and what she had overheard from guards and prisoners, this was where the breakers of Garsheeva's divine laws were kept until they were executed. Did that mean Garsheeva knew about this? Was she beneath Grandbell, the Empire's capitol? Would Garsheeva really build something like this?

Starlight decided she didn't really like Garsheeva. There weren't all that many explanations for who else would be involved, if this was a part of her process. Beneath her hooves, two pipes seamlessly merged into one, and whatever force earlier had been pressing on her and restricting the use of her horn was getting stronger.





In the colosseum ring in Stormhoof, fighting carried on unabated, a final wave of shakeups taking place as round two drew nearer to its close. Gerardo, Amber and everyone left in the private box watched with mixed interest, the bouts growing intensity yet more pressing things on their minds.

This fight in particular, though, held their attention because Senescey was in the ring. Nervous and trembling, she made lucky dodge after lucky dodge against a big earth pony, returning with mis-aimed strikes that made her opponent wince at best and frequently not even blink.

Amber frowned in worry. "You think she feels so badly over what happened to Starlight that it's throwing her off her game? She seemed nice enough. I bet having Valey out there missing her match and fighting to get Starlight back while she's just fighting as normal can't be easy."

"Ha! Oh, haha." Gerardo chuckled good-naturedly, patting her on the shoulder with a wing. "That, my good Amber, is what it looks like when someone is good enough at fighting to make themselves look like they're losing even when they're in the lead. I'd expect nothing less from Mistvale, after all. Just you watch. That earth pony will get a cramp at exactly the wrong time, she'll score a lucky hit, barely be able to capitalize on it, and it'll be over."

Just as he said that, Senescey struck the stallion in the face, and instead of dodging away in the face of an obvious counterattack, wound up a slow second punch that even Amber felt like she could react to in time. The earth pony obviously felt the same, forcing out a meaty limb to hit her first... but somehow, in defiance of how open Senescey had left herself, he was too slow. Her next smash connected, unbalancing her foe and causing him to reel as she pulled back and did the same move again. It was incredibly predictable, yet there seemed to be nothing he could do, a hair too slow every time as her speed increased with repetition.

She punched him one last time and stood over him, panting, as he fell. Howe cawed out something in congratulations as Senescey bolted for the exit, not staying to take in the crowd's roar. Behind her, her opponent blinked, sitting up and shaking his head in confusion.

"See?" Gerardo grinned. "There's Mistvale for you. That mare would not be easy to cross in combat."

Before Amber could reply, the door to the private box burst open and Maple and Shinespark skidded in, panting. Amber felt her eyes widen in alarm. "Girls? What's going on?"

"Is there an emergency we must be privy to?" Gerardo asked in concern.

Maple knelt, breathing hard, and Shinespark swallowed. "Not one we can do anything about," she answered. "Unless any of you have any good ideas. Valey's next fight is scheduled for an hour from now."

Everyone looked at each other.

"So, since she just missed one..." Amber tapped her forehooves together. "She's on one loss, right? And two in a row means you're out?"

Gerardo nodded blankly. "Indeed it does. And since she's presently halfway across the continent and not safe to magically contact in case it draws attention to herself and puts her in danger... well." He held a talon to his chest. "It was a good run while it lasted, I suppose."

Shinespark glanced at Maple and sighed. "Well? It sounds like they don't have any ideas after all."

Slipstream and Nyala glanced awkwardly at each other and shrugged.

"Hmmmmm...!" Maple sighed in frustration, leaning on a chair and squeezing her eyes shut. No one else wanted to speak.

"...Now what?" Amber eventually asked. "We just... pack it up and go home? Keep watching?"

A dainty throat was cleared from by the doorway, and everyone turned. "Good evening, darlings," Felicity greeted with a friendly wave. "I'm terribly sorry for eavesdropping, but it sounds like what you need is a lawyer."

"...Are you volunteering?" Shinespark blinked.

Felicity grinned a sharp-toothed grin. "Oh, you have no idea."