The first sound the chamber allowed Starlight to hear was water. Large, concrete culverts set open-mouthed into the walls, high up and spaced uniformly around, drained steadily into a pool that covered the room's entire base, setting a backdrop for a concert that washed away imperfections and disturbances from the environment but let the true notes rise unhindered into the air.
All around the cylindrical walls, metal pipes rose from the pool, standing for no reason or else branching and waving up the dark bricks like vines. At the center of the pool was a pillar, rising to higher than Starlight stood, and the exit in which Starlight stood - once a water pipe like all the others, she guessed - looked out at a perfect angle to tell there was something atop it, but not see what. The wall and floor pipes she had been walking on for so long straightened out, forming into an unbroken bridge to the central core, still waving from side to side but suddenly neater and more uniform, as if the pipes themselves had decided to become more stable so no one would stumble or trip. They wanted to be crossed.
A low, mournful organ note rose from the core, and Starlight's ears twitched. It was... curious? It beckoned her closer.
"Uhhh..." Valey's voice sounded muted at her side, the rush of waterfalls trying to consciously block her. This wasn't a place where she was meant to speak.
Narrowing her eyes, Starlight went the only way she could and crossed to the core.
The bridge pipes weren't flush with the central tower's edge, slithering atop it in a perfectly flat, uniform line and finally becoming the source of the notes. A once-majestic pipe organ sat on its back, the instrument connected to and the source of the dungeon's steel, the tops of its keys facing Starlight and playing themselves one by one. A stone throne melded with the organ's front, and the creature that lounged atop it was stone and metal too.
It had once been a dusk statue, Starlight realized, recognizing the distinctive black stone and regal bearing even though she didn't think she had ever seen one before. But this one had a different pose, laying on its side and leering at her with a wing outstretched downward, as if its feathers were playing the organ keys, and through the most brute-force method possible: its stone limbs and joints had been mercilessly shattered, then reaffixed with studded metal braces, the wounds in the rock left plain for all to see. Its surface was duller, glossiness faded and missing, and she got the impression the statue wanted her to know what it had once been; was telling her how far it had fallen so she knew and could compare. Its gemstone eyes sparkled dimly with pain and vengeance and loathing, and the crystal half-moon crescent on its chest was shattered, like it had been pierced through and left in place as another cruel disfigurement. The neckpiece was replaced with a choker that braced and augmented its new, forced posture, a black crown shoved point-first into the metal like it was a spike used to pierce the abomination's neck.
All across its remaining surface, tiny needles pierced the rock as well, thin hoses connected to them and snaking into the workings of the organ. Another note played, and almost as if time was flowing backwards, Starlight heard it first, then saw a metal brace holding the thing's feathers together creak, and it actually moved, pressing a key of its own accord with a single stone pinion and letting the noise fill the air.
{{DIEEEEEEE...}}
Starlight's eyes widened, but a look at the disgusted horror on Valey's face and the passive indifference on Puddles' told her neither of them had heard it. Warning, the voice she had come to associate with Nightmare Modules said in her mind. Corrupted authentication token presented for daydream communication protocol. Transmissions are quarantined and presented for auditory access only. Administrator permission required to override.
No! Starlight internally gasped, shaking her head. Don't override anything! Whatever this was, she didn't need a special cutie mark to make her spine crawl with danger. Puddles could talk all she wanted, but this thing was deadly. She knew it.
{{PLEASE... HELP... DIEEEEE...}}
"What?" Starlight whispered under her breath, eyes widening. One of the needles shoved into the statue's cracks pulsed slightly, and it seemed to regard her with its dead eyes, the crown stabbing its chest shining dully.
{{PAAAAIN... I AM... DESPAIR... YOU ARE... HOOOOOPE...}}
Starlight watched, unable to tear her gaze away in morbid fascination. Each word the thing said was a sound in her mind, all corresponding to notes played on its fell keyboard. "I'm what?"
{{SOOO DAAAAARK... LIKE MEEEEE... YOU HEARRRR MEEEEE...}}
"Puddles, what is this?" Starlight hissed backwards.
"Stanza." Puddles shrugged weakly.
{{SOOO EMPTYYYYY... I AM FULLLLL... CANCEL MEEEEE...}}
"What are you talking about?" Starlight whispered, though the waterfalls that drowned out everything but Stanza let her speak normally. "Valey, are you... Valey?"
Valey was watching the statue with pinprick eyes, her chin slightly upturned, almost like she was in a trance. As Starlight watched, a thin spark of energy arced across her cutie mark for a millisecond and was gone, and the muscles around it twitched.
Starlight's eyes widened, and she turned back to Stanza. "Let her go," she demanded, raising her voice. "There's supposed to be a teleporter here. We want to go home."
{{SOOO MUCH PURRRPOSSSE... YOU ARE VAST... UNLIKE MEEEEE...}}
"I know you can understand me!" Starlight locked eyes with the statue.
{{I WANT HOOOOOPE...}}
Starlight glared.
{{PAAAAIN... BETRAYALLL... DISCOOORD... THESE ARE... MY SOOONG...}}
"And you want me to destroy you, or something?" Starlight whispered, voice low again. "How?"
{{MY ONLY SOOONG... EMPTY MEEEEE... TEACH MEEEEE... FILL MEEEEE...}}
Starlight gritted her teeth, looking back to Valey. Her friend didn't seem to have changed.
{{I WANT... LOOOVE... I WANT... MORE THAN PAAAAIN... BUT I CANNOT... YOUUU ARE DARK... YOU ARE SAAAME... I SEEEEE YOUUU...}}
"Valey!" Starlight stepped between the batpony and the statue, turning her back on Stanza. "Nightmare Module thing, make that be quiet and help me with Valey, somehow!"
Affirmative. Lowering transmission volume...
{{NOOOOO... I AM DESPAIR... I AM RUUUIN... YOU HEAR MEEE... PLEASE... HELP... DIEEEEE...}}
Stanza's voice faded in her head until it was barely a whisper, but the notes continued to sound in her ears and the statue continued to play. Pained, wretched and lonely, they swirled about her, but she brushed them aside, glaring at Valey's almost-drooling face. "Snap out of it!"
Putting every inch of her strength and training into a single hoof, she slugged Valey as hard as she could.
"Valey, wakey wakey..." Puddles tapped her too, hoof radiating a hint of frost.
"Gaaah!" Valey jumped, blinking, voice hollow. "Bananas, I... Starlight... I-I..."
{{please... retuuurn... please... remember meeeee...}}
Suddenly, Stanza rumbled... and a line of pipes erupted from the tower, shooting like spikes at the far wall. They soared inside one of the water pipes, forming a bridge to it and further inside across the moving liquid, and Stanza's song seemed to beckon to it, growing even more mournful and resigned.
"I'll..." Starlight glanced at the second bridge and swallowed. She wasn't forgetting this any time soon, and if this monstrosity wanted to be destroyed... "I will. I promise."
The song brightened in something approaching gratitude, though it was an impossible emotion for the instrument and felt more like a slight dimming in negativity.
"There's the way out," Puddles groaned atop her. "Come on, Starlight, cute Valey..."
Valey blinked, shaking herself before she could slip away again. "Y-Yeah," she mumbled, voice quivering. "Let's get out of here, Starlight."
Starlight wasted no time in complying, pushing herself as hard as she could go with a limp, grown mare on her back. The bridge led inside the pipe and continued up it a short ways, until there was a cracked hole in the ceiling and the metal organ pipes split up, winding over each other to provide a staircase up and out of the tunnel.
They hauled themselves into a brick room, Stanza's dirge still audible in the distance. It was mostly empty, except... Starlight blinked. "Is that Arambai's teleporter from Riverfall?"
"Looks kinda like it," Valey murmured, still shaking.
Starlight studied the machine quickly. Most of it was the same, though instead of the harmony extractor hanging from the ceiling she remembered being used to power it, this one just had Stanza's organ pipes feeding into holes in the side of some casing.
Puddles sagged further in relief atop her. "That's it!" she squeaked, mustering her energy. "Stand in the middle of the dais and Puddles will turn it on."
Nobody needed further prodding to comply. If they were going to not trust Puddles, the time for that was before going to the bottom and braving Stanza, not after. Valey pressed up alongside Starlight, and Puddles reached for the ground, tapping it and sending a thin tendril of ice toward the control panel...
FLAAAAASH!
Starlight blinked, clearing her eyes as blackness faded from her vision and the world came back into view. They were on another dais, next to another teleportation machine, this one pressed up against a wall to prevent anyone from seeing what powered it. A lone door left the chamber, its bricks far neater and cleaner than the ones in Stanza's room, and the door was well-lit and heavily barred from their side.
"Oh bananas," Valey gasped at her side, falling down and rolling off the teleporter dais. "Oh bananas we're not there anymore. It's over. It's like I can breathe again... Ugh... Bananas, I think I'm gonna cry..."
Starlight moved to her side, closed her eyes and hugged her for all she was worth.