//------------------------------// // 17: Almost a peaceful moment // Story: Halls of the Changeling King // by Nameless Narrator //------------------------------// “I am the boss, and I’m dicking a hole, dicky dicky hole-” “If you ever want to see your dick and any hole again, you’ll stop right now! Speaking of which, if you have the energy to sing, then your five-minute break is over. I’ve got years to squeeze out of you.” “But it’s so catchy...” “Come here, we’re only on number fifteen.” “I regret everythiiiiiing!” “No, you don’t.” “...no, I don’t...” I admit, pushing Eight off of me, and onto her back. “Oh, you want to be on top for once? You’ll have to fight me for that privilege, honey.” Pressing myself against her belly, I nuzzle her nose with mine. “No, I won’t.” With a scrunched nose and her chitin as red as her mane, she mumbles: “...no, you won’t...” “Heheh,” I pepper her neck with kisses, each melting her chitin a little, and leaving a mark. “...my name is Eight, boss is filling my holes, filly filly hole...” “Told you it was catchy.” “Less talking, more drilling.” There are some things time can’t change. *** It’s morni- It’s whatever time it is in this sunless hole, and finally I don’t have to spend half of my day sitting at a council meeting. However, that also means I have free time, and I can let my mind wander. As usual, it wanders into a dark alley where it’s scared someone will smack it over the head with a brick and steal its lunch money. ”Eight, I was wondering… can you teach me how to fight?” ”Sure, but why so suddenly, love?” ”I’ve been thinking-” ”See? That’s where bad ideas come from. You should have been punching instead.” Which has never gone wrong. Everrrrrrr. ”I’ve been thinking that before, when I was unable to shapeshift or anything, I couldn’t defend myself even when I was full of love. I was completely reliant on you, One, Nine, everyone, and it led to where we are now, among other things, of course. I got into some disagreements with the dark priests and dwarves, not to mention Five, before we met again, and I mostly prevailed due to sheer luck and a moment of surprise. I’m pretty sure that can’t last forever.” ”Well, I’m here now, Five’s on your side, Seven can use combat magic, and Two’s mental commands are reasonably strong as well. I mean, you’re the boss. You’re here to plan things and use specialists like us to enact your grand plan.” ”Just a quick rebuttal - Two can’t use mental commands on non-changelings and has no one to teach her how to. Five and Seven got smashed by her, details aside. And there’s a limit to what Six and Three can prepare ahead for my ‘grand plan’ despite how non-threatening they are to the dwarves, mostly because I myself have no idea what the grand plan is. Without you physically by my side, I don’t feel confident in my safety in case things go south.” ”I have ZERO problems making sure there’s literally no moment when I’m not by your side, love.” ”Come on, Eight, you know what I mean. I doubt there’s ever been a changeling ruler who lived only by ordering others around.” Is she afraid that if I learn to fight I won’t need her anymore? That’s silly. ”Oh on the contrary, there were quite a lot of them,” Eight chuckles, ”They got eaten by their subordinates pretty quickly.” ”See? Do you want me to get eaten?” I joke. ”I could go for a nibble, honey.” Gee, again, you monster? I’m just a changeling, not a machine. ”Then without exercise and training, I’ll be squishy and won’t taste good.” ”More for me to hug and bounce on!” I’m forced to use my ultimate weapon. No, not orders. ”If I’m in better shape, I’ll last longer, and I’ll be able to shapeshift into more interesting stuff.” Score! She’s finally thinking about it. ”I guess we can do some basic exercises, and I’ll try to squeeze some combat knowledge out of my head into the hive mind.” ”And practicing together will give us more time for each other, even though most of that time will likely be you helping me get up from the floor.” ”Maybe I like you better down under me.” ”After last night, I’m not so sure.” ”Talk after you stop passing out by hour five. It’s an improvement from before, sure, but until you rut ME unconscious, I’m taking what I want.” ”Which smoothly brings us back to my physical and combat training idea. All jokes aside, Eight, you know how I feel about using others as tools, even for my defense. Before, it was necessary. Now, I want to avoid just hiding and throwing others at whatever problem presents itself.” ”It’s not like I’m against getting sweaty together, but that also means we’ll need to drastically increase our love and lust gathering. As much as I want it to be true, we’re not generating love like we used to before.” ”We’ll get there, Eight, don’t worry. Don’t think I love you any less. And to sweeten the deal and spice things up, how about after each time you defeat me we go for a quick love generation attempt wherever we are, just out of sight of any nearby dwarves.” I can practically feel her drool over the hive link. ”We need to start training NOOOOOOWWWWW! There are practice rooms inside the castle just for this, and the guards use them quite often. Go go go go! Assassins can be anywhere. Minotaurs, paladins, dwarves, things from the dark, mushrooms, you name it!” That worked a lot better than I expected. Next, remind me to ask Granite about the strongest dwarven painkillers. Wait, I’m a changeling… We’re immune to those. *** Scream’s mind touches every changeling now connected to the boss, and in the next instant she appears by Three’s side who is wandering through the barely lit hallways of the main Brauheim hospital. Doctors wearing white robes and some bulging silk underwear are making sure the patients are safe even in these rough circumstances. ”Huh, I thought boss bug would move the patients into the depths like he did before,” she comments on the situation. Considering no one other than Three can hear her, the drone looks up, and smiles at the alicorn. ”Miss Eight’s dwarves don’t like the dark priests too much, so they don’t care about some strict regulations. Everyone here is wearing clothes made from big spiders that are super warm. Plus, now that there’s no war, the soldier dwarves lent some emergency generators to the hospital to keep the basic machines working.” Scream frowns. ”Meh. Everyone’s so responsible all of a sudden,” she summons a short stick with which she pokes Three, the wood harmlessly passing through the drone, ”Be fun, chatterbug! I need something to take my mind off of the prospect of planet-wide doom.” ”Is it really that bad outside?” asks Three, stopping in front of a double door with an iron plaque nailed next to it reading ‘Cancer ward’. He knocks on it when it doesn’t move under his push. Scream sighs, for once looking completely exhausted. ”It’s worse than you can imagine, which I mean literally.” A doctor opens the door from the other side, looking at Three. Then he shrugs. General orders are to let the changelings do what they want as long as they don’t break anything, so he ushers Three inside this wing of the hospital. ”You mean… is everyone mad at each other or something?” ”No. There’s just one bastard who is mad at everyone, basically. Unfortunately, he seems unstoppable right now, even to me.” ”I can hug him.” ”I’m afraid there are things even hugs from you can’t fix. But I know how it’s going to end, I just have to figure out how to make it happen.” Three looks horrified. ”There’s NOTHING a warm mug of hug can’t fix, miss Scream! Look,” he enters the nearest room. A skinny dwarf lying on the bed cracks open his eyes, and turns his head towards Three. A strange, black creature in his room would be a cause for concern in any other situation, but at this point, the patient has bigger problems. ”Chatterbug, that pony has cancer. Nothing short of long exposure to focused divine power can consistently cure it, and healer alicorns usually don’t walk around these days. The newest pony treatments can help in early stages, but can often make things even worse. This guy can only hope for peace and something to ease his pain as he dies.” Three nuzzles the dwarf’s hoof hanging from the bed. The dwarf shuffles away, which only allows Three to jump on the bed, and hug him. ”I just need to hug him harder!” ”Yeah, don’t do that, or he’ll snap in half,” Scream shakes her head, watching the completely confused dwarf wrap his stick-thin forelegs around this weird creature suddenly appearing in his room, ”Cancer is so hard to cure because… how to explain it to someone as simple as you? The body just starts attacking itself, and these big balls grow inside it which sap nutrition or eventually block something important, causing death.” ”Really?” “Come on, body,” Three nuzzles the dwarf’s neck gently, “Like yourself more and start being nice to yourself.” ”So, explanation failed, apparently,” Scream rolls her eyes, ”Look, I know your company is making him feel better, certainly, but-” The white runes on Three’s body start glowing brighter, and warmth seeps into the dwarf who closes his eyes, and slowly, with a deep breath, lies back down as Three’s suddenly weak legs can’t hold him. ”-you’re seriously shitting me...” Scream whispers. Three, exhausted, rolls down from the bed, and wobbles out of the room. The dwarf is sleeping now, his chest going steadily up and down in much more regular intervals than before. ”I need to lie down, miss Scream,” he closes the door behind him, then blinks and shakes his head, ”Ooof, nevermind, I’m fine.” ”...how?” Scream just glares, ”Even I can’t do that. Screw it, Sunbutt can’t do that to normies, and she’s the closest to a healer alicorn in this age.” Three grins. ”A hug from the heart can make everyone feel better, I told you!” he clops the hooves of his forelegs together, ”Oh, I almost forgot - look what I learned! That body you made for me is super cool.” The runes on his body turn green, then yellow, then red, and then they start flashing various colors. Scream can hear a beat come from nowhere, followed by Three going ‘unts unts unts!’, and nodding his head to the rhythm. Her eye twitches. “T-That’s not the- the body. It can’t do- UURRGH! HOW?! JUST HOW?! HOW DO YOU WORK, YOU RAINBOW-PUKING, CANCER-CURING MIRACLE BUG?!” Scream finds herself in the darkness of the hive mind alone with Three. And a bed, as she notes with a newly raised eyebrow. ”You look stressed from fighting all the baddies outside, miss Scream. Lie down, and let me try something I came up with yesterday,” Three nods to the bed. ”Screw it, today can’t get weirder than it already is,” she shrugs, and relaxes on the bed, ”And this is just my image, not the real me, chatterbug. I doubt anything you can do to me here will transfer to my body,” she stops when Three pokes her side, his hoof clearly sinking a little into her golden coat. ”Whuh? I don’t understand, miss Scream. I can touch hive mind pictures like everyone else.” The alicorn feels another onset of headache. How to explain that she’s just a projected image, not a hive link entity like communicating changelings to someone who clearly doesn’t understand and seemingly care about laws of magic, physics…  or anything, really? How to tell him something doesn’t work when it’s actually working when he does it? Better to just shut up, really. ”Nevermind, proceed,” she closes her eyes, then hears a whoosh of transformation, and feels Three’s legs dig into her back as the much smaller drone starts walking over her back. No, he’s not just walking. His hooves are a different shape, perfect for digging into her muscles and- she shivers, ”Screw it, I’m not even corporeal, and you can still… make me forget… about dragon dicks… and whatever. If you die again, I’ll just tell Void to give your soul to me. Fuck yeeeessss, that’s the spot. Maybe I should kill you myself right now and take you home with me immediately.” ”I think boss would be really mad if you did that, miss Scream.” ”Yeah… boss bug is annoying like that. So dig your hooves riiight under that wing like before- oooooaaaaahhhhh...” *** Six is standing in front of a tunnel three times the size of the entrance to the emerald mine. Unfortunately for him, the entire thing is blocked by a thick chain link fence, and the big gate in its center is locked tight. “That’s over before it even started...” he frowns, then slaps his cheek, “No! If I want to prove to Five how much I value her, a minor thing like this can’t stop me. Okay, this is going to be a bit of a stretch, but if I can’t do at least this, then I don’t deserve to even look at her.” In a flash of green, Six shapeshifts into a snake which crawls through the fence. Said snake is about ten ponies long and as thick as a filly’s hoof, because while changing shape isn’t overly difficult, temporarily losing or gaining mass drains love faster than… faster than… Six can’t think of a proper comparison before his entire length is behind the fence, so he gives up and turns back into himself. “Alright, step one done - enter the deep core mines. Step two - update the hive mind map for the boss? We’ll do that as we go,” he whispers, transforming his hooves into soft pads for silent walking. Only certified and equipped dwarves are allowed into the real depths, but he’s an adaptable drone with many changeling senses and driving force that would allow him to cleave through solid rock if needed, he hopes. Anyway, Six is now in the normally inaccessible tunnels, so what next? “Diamonds… where could they mine the really big diamonds?” he creeps forward through the mine network, avoiding tunnels from which he hears dwarven voices or any roaring of mining machinery being used. Without a clear direction, he simply opts for any way that leads down, and follows the tracks for the transport of mine carts and heavy devices. Eventually, the surrounding heat begins to rise as he descends deeper, telling him he’s going in the right direction at least. Thankfully, the mines aren’t guarded, which means the various gates and fences along the way are more guidance than security posts, and that hopefully even if he gets caught, Six won’t get into any real trouble. Disappointing the boss after the chance he gave Six is something the drone wants to avoid. Not giving Five her huge and beautiful diamond, though, is a different and simply unthinkable matter entirely. The deep core mines drag on and on, until Six reaches a large cavern with a metal and concrete housing construction which occupies most of it. At this point, every breath stings, and Six has to blink quite often to stop his eyes from burning. “Can I fly around or something?” he freezes when he hears voices upon voices of dwarves from the inside. This must be some sort of warehouse or a command center, or temporary housing. A quick examination shows that Six could likely transform into something small and crawl or fly around, but resisting the heat is already taking a heavy toll on his love reserves. Realizing that going through the building is the only way forward, Six shuffles inside. The structure looks like half of an egg from the inside with steel tracks leading through and splitting into various smaller tunnels. On the distant end, there’s a raised dais where a group of around ten dwarves are sitting, wearing orange suits with their strange, leathery helmets off, each sipping beer. Unfortunately, no matter how quiet Six is, walking past them would be impossible. The only good part of the situation is that only a pony length into the building, the air is already vastly colder. There must be some sort of cooling machinery hidden in the ‘egg’ shell. Six hides behind one of many heavy drills on wheels or tracks until he cools down, and rests for a while. Suddenly, the chairs the dwarves were sitting on move as one, making Six sit upright, and the dwarven voices start closing in. He peeks out from behind his cover, and sees the dwarves walking straight towards the exit - his exit. “Okay, okay, a fly? Just for a moment until they pass by?” he mutters quietly to himself, “No, damn it, too small. Can’t waste energy like that. Something bigger… something...” The first dwarf passes by, followed by several more, until one looks to the side. “Umm, hey, guys? What’s a cardboard box doing here?” “A cardboard box?” the leading dwarf grins, “In a mine where anything unprotected bursts into flames within minutes?” he rubs his chin, staring straight at the ‘intruder’ container, “And perfectly dwarf-sized one, eh? Do you think we’re- HAH!” he suddenly flips the box around, “Stu… pid…?” “Huh, really just a box, chief,” one of the surrounding dwarves shrugs, “A nice dramatic moment, though, with the hah and everything. Still, does anypony really use cardboard boxes anywhere in the mines?” The ‘chief’ walks around the box one more time before shrugging as well. “Whatever. The real question is, do we want to waste our break arguing about a paper container?” As one, the dwarves turn and leave. The box sighs, grows tiny legs from its new bottom, and begins skittering away. The last dwarf in the procession looks back at the empty place. The box skitters away faster in response. The dwarf’s jaw drops. “Umm, foreman...” the dwarf raises his now shaky voice, “th- the box… got up and… walked away.” “Have you been breathing magma fumes too long? Next thing you’ll tell me it grew a thousand little legs,” says the foreman without even turning his head. The dwarf just stops, pointing back into the station. “BUT CHIEF!” “Maybe,” the foreman raises his voice, “Maybe you need some paid vacation. Let’s say, some relaxing digging in the EMERALD mine, hmmm?” The dwarf must be seriously distraught to completely forget the threat of losing all status related to the dangerous deep mining, to just yell: “But the box isn’t THERE anymore!” Everyone looks back now, shuffling when they spot the empty space. No one wants to point out anything, though, in fear of being relegated to mining useless green decorations. Then one dwarf gets an excellent survival idea, and says: “What box?” Amidst shaking of heads, the foreman pats the last dwarf’s head. “Come on, we’ve been here far too long already.” When they disappear into the mine, the box flashes green, and heavily breathing Six stumbles from exhaustion. “Hnnnngh...” He allows himself a minute inside the cool interior before picking one exit at random, and returns once again to the ever growing heat of mine tunnels. At least until the point when he knows he can’t take it anymore. “Too low?” Six ponders after returning to the nearest tunnel not leading directly down, “Damn, is that tunnel under a magma stream?” he presses his nose against a nearby wall, then knocks against it with his hoof, “Metals, and some crystals, but I don’t think I can feel diamonds. I can’t give her anything less, though. The dwarves said diamonds are mare’s best friend. Okay, Six, you can still go on, so show Five how much you care about her!” Pep talk over, Six follows the different tunnel to yet another chain link fence, which this time serves less as a barrier and more as just a warning, so Six simply flies over, and continues through the rapidly cooling air of the new tunnel. “Hmm, must have really been an offshoot of a bigger stream there. I can get waaay more down like this. Maybe I was much less deep than I thought?” Unfortunately, the tunnels ends abruptly, a cave-in of big boulders explaining the dwarven warning. “Damn it!” Six kicks the floor, and stops. The tremors from his hoof reveal that he’s standing above another solid tunnel, “Huuuh.” A moment later, snake Six crawls short way between the looser rocks before suddenly dropping into the air, shapeshifting back into himself, and barely stopping his fall above a perfectly smooth floor. Six needs to make few more adjustments to himself in order to get his bearings in complete pitch blackness, Soon his glowing eyes would look to any outside observer like two bright, blue pools in the middle of dark nothing, but to him they are casting enough light to allow him to see fairly clearly. The tunnel is over twice as large as Brauheim city streets, made of purplish black rock, and other than the floor, everything is perfectly smooth to the touch. “It’s as if dwarves didn’t make this...” ponders Six. Updating the hive mind map and picking a direction at random, he proceeds through the deafening silence of empty underground, his instinctive drone curiosity taking over. After minutes and minutes of nothing happening, the perfectly angular tunnel begins widening even further before opening into a… into something that should be called a cavern because of its location, but that is too clean and angular so it has to be called a large room - a humongous room ending in a thick, ornate, silvery metal gate towering over Six who suddenly feels even smaller than before. As he touches it, he immediately knows that there is no way in hole he’ll ever be able to open it. Both wings of the gate are filled with immaculate carvings which unfortunately don’t tell Six anything. “Weird, angular ponies. Something that looks like seaweed. Black hole where the sun should be,” a shiver runs down his spine. There is something in that hole. He can’t see it. There is no detail to understand, he just know there’s something in that black hole, something big… ...and it can see him. “...” “Hello?” Six backs off, trembling. “...” “Umm...” he starts shuffling away faster, not daring to let the gargantuan door out of sight. There IS something behind it. Voices at the edge of hearing, impossible to understand. He’s not crazy, he knows he heard something. “...” He turns around and legs it, because… ...because he didn’t hear the last whisper with his ears, but with his hive link. He looked into a place that felt like a hive mind, but was infinitely older than anything he knows, and it wanted to pull him in. Fight or flight instinct- Well no, this is flight, run, flee, or GTFO even faster instinct which leads him away from the creeping chill taking over more and more of him. Six has no clue for how long he’s been galloping in panic when he finds a staircase leading straight up, he only knows his legs and wings are shaking. Thankfully, the air feels warmer here, and there’s a plaque reading ‘Crumbling Vein’ something. Now calming down, Six looks back at the instinctively mapped route from ‘the door’ to here, and blinking in surprise at how long he must have been fleeing from… nothing he could put his hoof on, really. Anyway, with the required diamond for Five returning to his mind, Six follows the perfectly hewn staircase until it intersects a circular tunnel bearing the good old marks of dwarven digging. What’s even better is that this feels like a diamond territory. Soon, he arrives at a chain link barrier like the one at the upper mine entrance, so nothing a quick snake-that-could-now-fill-a-spool transformation can’t fix, although Six knows he’s dangerously low on love at this point. A short trip through a tunnel away lies a blissfully empty mining station in which Six grabs one of the mining suits, and follows his drone senses into a searing shaft which soon reveals the desired diamond seam. Unfortunately, Six has no clue how to operate any of the heavy machinery scattered around, so he shapeshifts his hooves for digging, and tries to do it through the fireproof suit which tears immediately around his fetlocks. Touching the walls burns his hooves almost instantly, but despite the stream of tears and moans muffled by the heavy helmet, Six perseveres and pretty soon he limps away with a diamond the size of his head. Part one successful. Now all he needs is to get outside with his cargo. Then, after some careful planning, there will be time for part two - cutting the precious rock into a beautiful jewel inside the dark priest enclave. “Five will be so surprised!” he squeaks happily.