"Red sky at night, shepherd's delight. Red sky in the morning, sailor's take warning. " That night, I remembered that that particular phrase was supposedly only true in the Northern Hemisphere of, I guessed, any planet.
Rain pounded on the roof of my little habitat, lightning flashed and thunder roared. The waves were slamming up against the shore, loud enough to be heard over the storm. I thought I could feel the island tilt with the waves, though I wasn't sure if I was only imagining it, or if the floating island really was moving about in the storm. I heard the groan of a tree falling over outside, the wind pummeling the exposed flora of the island without remorse.
Rain poured in through the many leaks in my roof, the floor quickly becoming flooded with icy cold water. My stone wall sprung a few leaks as the interior sap was washed away by the rain water, and the flooding stopped as the water drained to the outside through the exposed holes and gaps in my de-mortared wall.
I sat on top of the desk in the main room, shivering and damp. I hugged my purple tablet close, having realized that the glowing device let out a bit of comforting heat inside my drenched habitat.
The skitters of Crabbies invaded my habitat, and in the ambient light of my tablet I could see some of the four-legged scavengers running around just outside the entrance to the main room, fighting each other for space. The good thing was that, at least, I had blocked off the main entrance to my space securely. Both the remainder of the fallen beams and the rock I had placed in the access gap kept the scavengers out.
I sighed, this was going to be a long night.
For that morning... and for the rest of that day, for that matter, I was damp and cold. The clouds were still heavy in the sky, and it drizzled on and off for the rest of the morning. The shelter was flooded, and I wasn't exactly sure how I was going to bail out my habitat without magic.
I mean, when I arrived here the abandoned shelter was not flooded. Not even a trace of a puddle. There had to be some kind of drain inside of the habitat since, without full exposure to the sun, any water could not have evaporated away. It would have simply sat there, stagnant and fetid, and no doubt a great breeding ground for mosquitoes.
Although, I had to note, I had not encountered any mosquitoes since I had arrived here...
For breakfast, I munched on one of the fruits of the interdependent vine trees. A quick examination and an (admittedly eyeballed) biological comparison later and I could at least tell that the fruit was edible. Dry, fibrous, but overall not too bad. A little bit of sweet mixed into the thread-like skin of the fruit.
Not only that, but there were plenty of vine trees growing around on the island, meaning that food wasn't going to be of much concern, for now.
I had decided to swear off magic for the rest of that day. No point in repeatedly running myself into the ground when I could wait for one day of rest and then I could be back on my own four hooves. Maybe then I could make some real progress. Perhaps complete the patches of the rest of the holes in my shelter.
I sighed, sitting down a moment to wring out my mane and tail from the water that had soaked in from the night and from the morning's drizzles. Now that I had actually checked myself over, I realized that I was in quite a state.
My mane had drifted far, far out of its previous styling. It was a shriveled, lackluster mop head, frayed every which way. My tail wasn't any better, just sorta hanging there. A lot of the feathers on my wings had dislocated or completely fallen out, and many more were damaged. I sighed and preened them a little. If I didn't take care of them, I could actually permanently injure them. My coat had lost the battle against the ocean, the rain, and the various filth from my hard "survival-ing" around the island.
What I wouldn't give for one of the many makeover visits from Rarity that I had turned down. I could really never stop reading those books, could I?
Sweet Celestia... Rarity. Would I ever be able to see her again. Or any of the rest of my friends...
They were all gone. That was the answer, I guess. Literally wiped... wiped from existence. At least, the ones that I knew and loved, who knew what kind of lives they lived in this future. Or maybe I was wrong and this wasn't the future at all, maybe I was just in some random... alternate dimension.
And, for that matter, where was Spike? He was with me while we travelled through time! He was even right next to me when Starlight destroyed the scroll! Where had he ended up? Was it without the spell keeping us specifically tied together that he just drifted off somewhere else? Was he on this planet with me, just on a different part of it?
I imagined Spike being in the middle of this horrific ocean, no homely shelter or floating island in sight. Then the Ghosts would circle around him...
Nononononononononono, no reason to think about it now. Perhaps once I got off of this island I could figure out something that I could actually do about it. For now, just think about surviving to get off. Rescue had to come eventually. The... ponies that built this shelter or the archway in that big cave had to come back eventually. I still couldn't imagine how they could get past the monsters of the deep, buuuuuuut... that was another question for another day. I could get all the information I needed from the captain of the ship that'd come and rescue me!
I shook my head. Right, what to do?
Without magic, I couldn't do much about the leaks in my shelter. More metal was the only thing that could truly seal those holes, and I could do all of them at the same time tomorrow when I wasn't running low on energy. I did have a lot of things piled up inside that I had promised myself I would dissect later, and that... alien arch definitely required more research. I could at least run a low-level scan on it, I was confident I could do that without wearing myself out.
I nodded to myself. The secrets of the foreign alien technology would be mine! And perhaps I could also bisect some of the plant life to find out their seeds for a more permanent food source.
I was puzzled to find that, once I re-entered my shelter, most of the water that had gathered on the floor had disappeared.
I bit my lip, looking around the compartments of the building, looking for some kind of drain or opening that the water could've escaped from. It would either be a convenient way to get rid of water inside my habitat, or it would be another hole on the underside of my shelter that I would need to patch.
A good few minutes of searching later, and I found a small patch of wet floor leading in trickles to a certain panel where the floor joined in with the walls. A grate sat in the bottom of the panel, and a few letters in the alien babble were written just above it.
My knife's blade was too thick to fit into the panel, though a piece of scrap metal from outside pried the grate right off.
Behind it sat what I could only assume was a bilge pump. Frayed cables snaked out from behind it and led up further into the wall. A wide pipe connected to the grated part of the panel and let into the pump, and two pipes led out of the mechanism and led... somewhere. Presumably outside, if this was actually a bilge pump.
What fascinated me about the pump was that it was not manually operated. Nor was it magically operated (a general scan of it gave me the same answer as it did with the rest of the white-metal technology in this place, not a trace of magic in it). It seemed to, instead, be powered by mere electricity.
I pulled out my knife and made a slight incision into the insulation of the cable (I was holding it with telekinesis, and the cable probably wasn't charged, since the pump wasn't actually pumping, simply letting water flow right through it under the power of gravity). Sure enough, it was made out of copper... and was that gold I saw? Huh, I do actually think I remember reading about the conductive properties of gold now that I think about it...
I could understand somepony powering a... light bulb (was that what they were calling it?) with electricity. A telegraph? Yeah, sure. Electronic signals in intervals to transmit messages. However, transforming electricity into physical force? No, that was magic's field of operations.
I shook my head. I didn't want to risk poking around inside the pump. I had plenty of other examples of white-metal technology piled up next to my desk, and I didn't want to risk compromising one of the only draining systems I had. Sure, it was broken, but I could easily poke a leak in it or block off the water's escape route by messing with it, and, despite my unending curiosity about foreign technology, I did not feel like giving myself yet another machine to have to study.
Anyway, all I needed to know was that the water was gone now, and I could depend on a slow drainage system inside my habitat.
I turned back to my pile of technology. I put aside the General Access Key for now, I would take it down to the underground archway later today, after I checked out the rest of my discoveries.
I picked out one of the glowing blue tablets. They were all identical, so I just chose the one nearest to me and placed on the floor in front of me.
I again noted the relatively damaged state of many of the white-metal artifacts I had found when compared to the archway and the Key. The enchanted purple tablet was definitely older than the white-metal tablets, I could tell that just by comparing the growth of moss and algae on the exterior of the General Access Key when compared to the relative cleanliness of the white-metal tech.
My observations from my first (technically second, since I slept through most of my first day here) day when I arrived in my habitat still held true. Distorted pictures and alien text danced around the screen. This tablet, notably, had a thin crack running along the glass screen of the device. Upon closer inspection, I could figure out that this one had been taken from the first mountaintop observatory I had explored. The dents and damages of this one clicked in my mind.
I shrugged, looking around the casing of the tablet. Interesting enough on the outside, now all that was left was to crack it open.
I had plenty of spare tablets should I need an intact one later on (they seemed to be mass-produced, and were perhaps a normal piece of equipment for the ponies who built them, which was probably the reason there were so many of them lying around after they abandoned this place), so I had no qualms about potentially permanently disassembling the one before me.
A seam in the casing of the handle gave me a good clue as to where I could open up the tablet for study. I picked it up, using my telekinesis to pull at the seam. When it didn't give, I pulled a little bit harder. Then harder. And just a bit harder.
Eventually, there was a hissing sound, and the casing popped open. It splayed open on small, hidden hinges. Probably meant that this was actually how you were meant to open up the casing for servicing.
I whole plethora of unidentifiable... components stared back at me from the inside of the tablet. I could recognize a veritable rat's nest of miniature cables and wires tracing their way back and forth along the inside of the casing. They led into these... square and rectangular wedges. Each one was covered in a microcosm of little devices and machines. Tiny, tiny lights blinked on and off along the path of the board.
Despite the fact that I had plenty of spare tablets, I felt paralyzingly afraid to touch anything inside of this... fascinating piece of technology. Mundane technology this complicated... it blew the mind. How did somepony make this all work? Who had the finesse or the physics-breaking equipment to manufacture artifices so miniature?
I drooled slightly as I examined the innards of the tablet. The harmony of all the wires and the (I supposed) conductive lines on the non-magical board reminded me particularly of advanced magic. Similar to a golem's brain, or maybe the processor enchantments inside the old, clunky computer I had stored in my laboratory basement back in Golden Oaks.
I had my nose stuck all the way inside the compartment now, my eyes crossing at every minute detail of the unbelievably complex piece of... art, I could only call it art.
With the purple tablet, at least I could understand vaguely how the (still unbelievably complex) enchantments layered inside of its diamond latices. This though? This was a whole branch of science that the ponies of Equestria hadn't even considered researching!
I was suddenly terribly disappointed that the tablet was seemingly nonfunctional (I could see why now, as my eyes passed over a hole, scorched into one of the boards, most likely disabling the entire system). What amazing things could this tablet have done? What could it tell me?
I sighed. I had to admit, the technology was far beyond me. Even if I could repair the tablet, I didn't have any reference point to translate their alien language from, nor did I have any applicable living entity to cast a translation spell on. I would not be able to even understand it.
I noted a particular symbol that I had noticed on many of the white-metal technologies I had found so far. A styled isosceles triangle, with the same seven alien symbols repeated underneath the triangle.
I could recognize a brand name when I saw one. Interesting. So most of the white-metal technology on this island was made by the same business? Perhaps this entire base was an enterprise by the same corporation. Unless the triangle was actually the symbol of a nation, like a flag or an imperial emblem of some kind. I did not really have any evidence aside from my own assumptions to think that the symbol was a brand icon of some kind.
I put down the tablet, delicately pushing the casing shut again. It clicked closed again with another mechanical click. No reason to leave the hyper-advanced alien technology open to rain and floor, after all.
The only things that weren't a white-metal tablet was the strange, long, cylindrical device I had found in the crate by the first observatory and the small grey cylinder I had found inside the vacuum box up in the same observatory.
I examined it in my telekinesis. Dented, scratched up. In notably much worse condition than the tablets. This thing wasn't close to looking operable, assuming that it wasn't meant to look like it had been tossed in a trash compactor and then pulled forcibly back out.
A strange handle covered in gripping rubber led up into a cylinder, before leading out horizontally into two other cylinders. It seems that at one point the end of those two cylinders were capped off by a rectangular piece, which had snapped off the lower cylinder and was hanging onto the top cylinder.
I hummed, taking a closer look at the handle. I experimentally grabbed at the handle, trying to sustain an actual grip on it. Not possible with bare hooves, nor did it fit well into the mouth. It was more something a griffin's claws could grapple with, or perhaps a minotaur's grabbers.
Right above it though, I noticed a particular element to the design of the cylinder. Namely, another smaller piece that was distinctly a different tone to its surroundings appeared to be inserted into the circular "dock" of the joint.
I toyed around with it, trying to find a way to open or remove it. A deliberate tug, though, was all that was needed to disconnect the smaller element from the circle.
I discovered that it was another grey cylinder, like the one that I found in the observatory.
They both bore that same triangular symbol, whether it be nation's emblem or business's brand. There were copper electrical contacts present on each one. I did note, though, that the damaged device seemed to have sister contacts for the cylinders, leading me to believe that these were some kind of power storage devices.
Kinda like magical batteries... but for electricity.
I hummed, grappling with the "battery" in my magic. Despite my best efforts, there seemed to be no removable cap or seal to open the battery, and perhaps that was for the best. I did not know how much power was contained inside the tiny cylinder, and now that I think of it, I was quite careless for attempting to open it in a contained space such as my habitat.
Perhaps some things were better left contained.
I picked up the long device from which I had obtained my second battery. I did not actually see any access panels or seams with which to study the inside of the gadget, nor did I think it was a great idea to try and tear this thing apart. I pursed my lips, perhaps I could tweak a few things in my magic scan...
After a few minutes of concentration, a ran a low-power ray over the device. Before I had even reached the end of the artifact, I felt the twinge of impending exhaustion coming, and I quickly shut off my scan. Again, no point in running myself to the ground repeatedly when I could. Just. Wait.
I grunted, shaking my head. I got next to nothing from the brief moment of scanning. Oh well, this thing wasn't going to sprout legs and walk away. I could always just get back to it tomorrow.
I put the thingie back down, my frustration increasing as even simple telekinesis had been made difficult by a simple surge in my scanning spell. Just give it proper rest and nutrition, and you'll be able to teleport left and right, Twilight. Just wait one day. How hard could that be???
For the rest of the day I slogged through some of the debris and litter around the compound of my shelter. I cleared away some brush and scrap lying around and put it all into a big stack not too far from my shelter, though far enough that I wouldn't be tripping over it in the near future. I also re-sealed my sap mortar in the stone wall in my main room, making it once again Crabby-proof.
It drizzled on and off for the rest of the day and into the night, and the wind still howled threateningly outside as I retreated into my habitat for the night, a bottle of pure Water Tree water to accompany me to bed.
I awoke to my fifth day on this island, thirsty and hungry, but blessedly less damp.
It must have rained overnight, since a few puddles of water were scattered across the floor. Fortunately for me, my shelter was nowhere near as flooded as it was yesterday. I could even hear some birdsong outside, making a small smile stretch across my face.
When I left my shelter, I saw that the sun had started to peek through the clouds, even though the clouds were still very prevalent in the sky. The wind had also calmed down, and I sincerely hoped it wasn't a calm before a bigger storm. Nevertheless, I was confident that I should at least be able to seal the rest of the holes in my shelter today.
I tried my magic. Much better. Though, I was still disappointed that I was not casting at full speed yet. Back in Equestria, I would've been just fine by now. I began to wonder if this place had a naturally lower magic content than home. Perhaps. Low ambient magic such as sour lands could hinder regeneration. Though, if that was truly the case, there was next to nothing I could do about.
I decided to try the stone-like melon. The rind was unusually hard, but my glass knife made quick work of it. It cut open to reveal a fleshy, pink interior. As was a characteristic of most melons, the flesh seemed to have a high water content. A sweet scent drifted off the melon, and a test with my knife revealed no acidic or troubling elements inside the plant. The fruit was making my mouth water, and I again reasoned that the inhabitants of this island would only have planted this melon was for food.
A few hearty bites later, and I had placed the Bouldermelon (as I had dubbed it) up in my top 10 favorite foods, the pink flowers being right above them and hayburgers being all the way at the top. I made sure to spit out all of the seeds after my meal, replanting them back into the planter. I also took the rinds and buried them around the seeds, for fertilization.
I did not want to waste any time, and I immediately began to shift around the metal scrap for my welds. A half-an-hour of measuring later, and I had three piles of scrap for melting. Two for the lower floor leaks, and one for the problematic ladder hatch on the second floor.
I defaulted again to using the solar heat spell. Low energy, sufficient results. Sure, my horn would overheat, but I had plenty of hours in the day to cool off in the intervals between melting sessions.
A few tweaks in the spell put more emphasis on high heat and less energy on light. Even though the spell wasn't as flashy or as bright, the metal still heated and melted as quickly as normal, covering the ladder's hatch with a slab of solid... whatever it was that comprised the shelter and its scrap
I wasn't exactly tired (winded, yes, but not tired), but the melting point of my horn was not that much higher than the melting point of... whatever this metal was (it wasn't steel like I had first thought, that was for sure).
After breaks lasting about a half-an-hour each, I systematically sealed the last two remaining holes in my roof, testing each one with bottles of seawater each time. Near perfection, a few holes bubbled through here and there, which I easily sealed with a few more spare pieces of scrap heated just enough for it to flow and seal over the gaps.
I blew a wisp of smoke off the tip of my horn as the last few leaks in the roof were finally sealed over. A headache had built up after the repeated spellwork, but I at least hadn't succeeded in running myself all the way into the ground like I did the day before yesterday, and in my... final battle... with Starlight Glimmer. My abnormally deficient magical recovery rate aside, it was only halfway through the morning and my habitat was finally sealed up. The only thing that was really left was the fractured entryway... which would have to wait just a bit longer.
The compartment holding the entryway bulkhead had completely broken off from the rest of the habitat, meaning that melting scrap wouldn't do. Perhaps a modified Come-To-Life spell could make the compartment mend together like a body healing a papercut, but would cost too much energy. Energy that would probably take me too long to recover. If I had the blueprints for the compartment when it was not broken and battered I could simply just cast Restoration to pull it back into its original, intended form.
I pursed my lip, I had another idea.
I searched through my dwindling stack of random scrap, and found a sheet of fairly flat metal. I used a rock to bash and bend the metal into a semi-circular shape to match the top of the broken entrance compartment.
I walked it over to the broken compartment, placing the bent sheet over the open space in between the fracture. I placed it carefully on top of the jutting metal and rebar sticking out of the broken walls. I then applied just enough heat to melt the top of the metal of the rebar. Like a charm, the bars stuck to the sheet, making a perfect awning over the entrance. A piece to shed the water off and prevent it from dripping off into the inside.
I smiled, wiping the sweat from my brow. Perhaps I could, finally, feel safe inside my habitat during a storm. Sure, there were probably plenty of other smaller, unnoticeable leaks in my shelter, but for now the shelter wouldn't completely flood overnight with me in it.
I put my hoof up to my horn, wincing as I could feel the nail of my hoof sizzle on the red-hot bone. Now that I paid it heed, I could also feel the throbbing pulse of exhaustion incoming. Maybe I had pushed too many heat spells in one day, and I had no ice packs around to cool it off with.
I stepped into my shelter, picking up my General Access Key up with my hooves and placed it under a wing (I might've not been close to flying, but I could still very well carry things under them). I had put off a complete examination of the cavernous Archway too long. Perhaps a few scans were in order.
I frowned as I spied my glass knife, just sitting on my desk, unused.
I hadn't seen very many of the Crabbies ever since the storm. While on my first few days here, they had bothered me non-stop, now, they were just gone! Surely they hadn't just decided to leave me alone, so where had they gone off to?
I frowned, then picked up the knife in my mouth, keeping it close while my horn continued to cool off. Better safe than sorry.
I hoisted myself up from the shore of the central dropoff and into the entrance into the Archway cavern.
The green glow of the magical technology in the cavern had a calming effect on me. I followed the cables between the lights deeper into the caves, until the tunnels opened up into the much larger, airier Archway cavern.
My ear twitched when I heard a familiar skitter... and then another one. And another one. My eyes widened as I heard several right behind me.
I wheeled on the Crabby, gasping as I saw one of the little critters jump right at me. My wings flaring out behind me dropped the tablet with a clatter to the floor.
I flailed wildly with my knife, catching the Crabby on one of its legs. Yellow ichor spilled out, and the Crabby screeched, whipping my across my cheek with one of its sharp legs.
I grunted as I felt another one drop onto my back, and I screamed when I felt teeth dig into my back. Several more seemed to skitter out and around many of the rocks in the cavern and from under a few of the towering pillars surrounding the Arch.
I lit up my telekinesis... surprisingly painfully, and stabbed the one on my back, tossing it off from the end of my blade at another one of his friends. Another one lept at me and sent another thin gash across my chest, it too got a face full of my knife.
I was however, fighting a rapidly approaching tide. Every swing of my telekinesis just left me with another scratch. As I backed into a corner, I honestly began to fear for my survival. The Crabbies seemed to sense it too, and they began to charge me more boldly, in pairs and trios.
My defensive strikes became more frantic with wide sweeping arcs with my knife and hoof beatings for anything that came too close.
It wasn't an easy fight, not by far, but eventually I repulsed the Crabby incursion. Many dead or wounded Crabbies lay around the cavern, all bleeding yellow ichor.
I wasn't doing too great either. Many papercut-like gashes covered my body, some bleeding, some just stinging. On top of the four days without a shower, my coat also had a few bucketfuls of the creature's yellow blood to deal with as well.
Thank Celestia the wounds weren't exactly deep, so i wasn't worried about bleeding out any time soon, but it hurt! It all hurt! Horn to hoof. It all hurt!
Where was these little critter's nest? I wanted to burn it.
I picked myself up off the floor, wincing as the many bands of thin cuts stung around my body. I needed to use that white-metal first aid kit to bandage myself up, lest the wounds become infected.
I peered around the rocks the Crabbies had poured from, my knife being held in telekinesis that was becoming increasingly shaky. I almost had a heart attack as one final, notably smaller Crabby lept out at me from a crack in the rocks. A quick slash with my knife sent its corpse sprawling against the wall of the cave.
I narrowed my eyes, walking up towards the crack from which the Crabby had sprung from. Not wanting to waste (already) dwindling magic reserves, I pulled the Key up to the crack, letting its bright, purple light shine in.
Eggs, lots of little eggs. It was a nest of little (what I could only assume was) Crabby eggs.
I sighed, they must've retreated back here when the storm hit. No wonder they tried to dogpile me as soon as I walked into their nesting grounds...
I grabbed one of the eggs, holding it up to the light of one of the columns. Nothing inside that I could see, aside from a normal-looking yolk. Hmm, a Crabby Egg Omelet sounded nice.
I set the egg down, taking a quick look around me for any more of my Crabby friends. Finding none, I turned my attention over to the Archway.
"Um... hello?" I called out, hoping to stir the voice from the other day to answer me.
Nothing.
I pulled out my tablet as I walked closer, watching both it and the archway for any changes in magical presence or flux. I paused halfway to the Archway, biting my lip as I felt a slight twitch in the matrix of the tablet. It seemed to have tried to... connect to something, before failing.
I stood there for a little while, just in case my movement troubled any kind of spell the tablet was trying to conjure. Nothing. It didn't seem to want to try again.
I looked back up at the Archway, my lips drawing into a tight line. My scratches stinging up a storm, I trudged up to the Arch's platform, before sticking it with a higher-power magic scan.
A cloud of my purple magic advanced from the top of the Archway down to the bottom. I focused to keep it steady, soaking in every piece of information the extremely general scan gave me. I let out my breath as the scan finally reached the bottom of the Arch, panting as I took stock of the results.
Hmm... lots of enchantments similar to the tablet. The aura was also similar, meaning that they both probably were cast by the same pony. There were a series of main sequence spells which were... listening for something, which lead down into a series of several matrices. An easily recognizable receiver spell array were present on the surface of the Arch, drawing magic from... somewhere. Down was the most probable answer.
The thing that most screamed the Arch's function at me, however, was the line of enchantments covering the crystal matrices along the inner groove of the device. Teleportation in the form of a portal. The inlaid runes were, obviously now that I looked at it properly, built to project a film for the spell's detection and transit catalyst. Once somepony activated it and stepped inside, the device would teleport them to... wherever the spell was programmed to take them to.
Now, don't get me wrong. It may sound as if, when I explain this marvel of engineering, the spells to make it are not that incredible. Long story short: they are not.
Starswirl barely understood the runes he laid when he built his Mirror Portal, going to and fro from other dimensions. I barely knew what I was doing when I stabilized his Mirror to stabilize travel through it. This? I knew what it was. I could assume it worked just like any normal Portal would. What I didn't know was how it was supposed to work, or how I was even supposed to use it!
I began walking around the structure and the columns before it, following a few leylines and taking a closer look at a few of the machinations.
I noticed several essence conduits going to and from the portal into the platform beneath it, all twisting and eventually converging into a small device inset into the floor. A set of locks made out of whatever alloy made up the Arch held the device in place with an iron grip, preventing it from coming to the surface while a high-pressure mechanism below would succeed in pushing the device up should the locks release.
I also noticed a long line of enchanted... nickel (which is, actually, surprisingly magic-worthy) leading up into the columns supporting the cave. A constant, encrypted message transmitted through the signal enchantments, playing over and over again.
I hummed as I noticed that the consistent message carried the same tune as the "twitch" in my purple tablet when I approached the platform earlier. Perhaps it was some kind of... signal? Something like the long-ranged connections used in scrying? I couldn't really know. I could, however, trace the message back over to the Portal's teleportation mechanisms.
I took a closer look at the device embedded into the platform.
I guessed that, when raised, it would be just about three inches taller than my horn. An opening existed on the front of... what looked kind of like an altar. From that opening, several cables led away from it and into ports that, I assumed, would line up with another cable when the altar was raised and carry the current into the Portal.
Hmm.
Oh, wait.
Aha!
So, if the device was unlocked, I could try and provide a source of power to the Portal to activate the teleportation spell. Probably in some material form, like some kind of artefact or key. I looked down at the General Access Key floating around in my telekinesis. Maybe it would suffice as a Portal-opening key!
I looked down at the inset device, then back up at the portal. Then again, was it such a great idea to try and open this portal?
If this place was a final, sunken future of Equestria (and all the flora had somehow... changed to look like what it was today, which might explain the Purple Taters and Bouldermelon), maybe this portal would only open to the ocean, and it would promptly flood the cave and the entire island, as well as carrying the monsters from down there to up here (though, I doubted they would be able to fit through the Arch, what with their hideous size). Or maybe it would just open up into another dimension worse than this place. Or maybe... just maybe, I could go back.
Maybe I could go back and try and change everything. Maybe try and talk Starlight down instead of charging her...
I shook my head. It was no use to be hopeful or fearful when I could just check where this portal went. I licked my lips, checking my reserves. Yep, still enough. Capacity was still pitiful (I was seriously starting to wonder if some Sour element of this world was clawing some excess magic off of me), but at least I could cast a tracer spell.
An intense focus came over me as I locked the teleportation runes under the scrutiny of my tracer. I interrogated the unbelievably complex enchantments for what they could tell me about their destination. West... west by southwest. Yes, great, what else? About... two kilometers from me. Located... a few dozen meters above sea level.
Perfect.
Well, it didn't lead into another dimension, and it didn't lead to the bottom of the ocean. That was good. And, if this portal followed the rules of most material portals, it would also have an anchor on the other side, allowing me to travel back. I would, of course, want some kind of rope to force the portal to stay open should it be some kind of a... trap. For all I knew, the portal might just be leading me to open air a couple dozen meters above sea level to just drop me down into the ocean.
That wouldn't be fun. I was really starting to fester a fear of the ocean.
I couldn't try anything without first attempting to activate the portal, and there was nothing stopping me from trying it out right now. If night fell or the Crabbies came back, I could just retreat back to my shelter, now knowing that my roof was secure and thoroughly rain-proofed.
I doubted leverage would work against the inset, as that would, at most, succeed in destroying the lock and damaging the no doubt fragile hardware. A spell would be too risky. It would either cost too much power and, without knowledge of the magical engineering, have the chance of ruining the delicate enchantments inside of the mana transfer. However, it seemed that the device's builders would have made a physical trigger or a switch of some kind.
I looked around for some kind of control panel. A button, or perhaps even a place to insert a "General Access Key" (I had it, and it was slowly burning a hole in my figurative pockets, and it seemed something that a magical artificer would use to unlock their portal).
I noticed a remarkable quality in the metal. Local plant life had in fact overgrown the structure, telling me that the portal and the surrounding engineering was... fairly old. Derelict. It probably had not received the care of its builders in quite a while. Despite this, I saw no rust, no scratches, no dents in the paneling and reinforcements in the hull. Strange... it looked like it had been built just yesterday.
Maybe the original inhabitants of the island had intended to study the structure, building a habitat and other structures around the island in order to research the arch. They definitely didn't build it, since it seemed that the white-metal devices were... technologically inferior to the devices I had seen here. That, and the plant growth around their structures didn't seem to match the time period around when, I could estimate, this arch was built (unless, for some reason, they purposefully encouraged plant growth down here). Therefore, if they didn't build it, they must have been here to study it.
It would make sense... though I didn't see any research equipment down here (nor any debris that would suggest that there once was any equipment littered around). Nor did I really find any research equipment back around the habitat, unless the tablets and that... pronged thing was meant to be used to study things. Yet, they did have a General Access Key. Had they come down here? Again, if they did, then where was all their research equipment?
Why else would they have been here, if not to study it? Surely not castaways, since castaways didn't have the tools or the resources to build strong, sturdy houses for themselves. This island was interesting and breathtaking, sure, but it wasn't exactly substantial enough to warrant building an entire colony on. Nor was it a harbor or a local navy base, due to the complete lack of docks for ships to restock and repair.
Research was the only thing that made sense. Not here to mine or farm resources, but instead to study ancient ruins on the island. Their technology did not have magic in it... which would mean a race like theirs (despite how brilliant their mundane machines were) would probably be fascinated by a magical device such as this. Imagine, a world with technology so fascinating as theirs suddenly finding the techniques to push their ingenuity to new heights!
Still didn't explain why it didn't seem like they ever came down here.... Mysteries for other days. They had, at least, left their shelter behind for me to one day inhabit. After all, once I was rescued, I could ask them about it all I wanted! Of course, only if they spoke Equestrian... which wasn't likely given that all their written language was indecipherable to me.
I shook my head, completing my survey of the archway. No control panel. Not even a keyhole to put my key into! The most interesting thing I had found was a panel that had a tiny inscription on the side: "In case of fire, extinguisher will deploy". I doubted that the creators of the arch would build it without also having some way of turning it on and off, but the columns and panels were devoid of any buttons or switches.
I growled, kicking the arch in frustration. Ouch. I looked at the place that I had kicked. Not a scratch or a scuff mark, I couldn't even feel the metal reverberate. How dense was this stuff? What was it made out of? I couldn't sense any protection enchantments on it. Nor would I really recognize the metal from anywhere. It held the same, comforting green sheen as everything else, and it wasn't like any alloy I had ever seen!
I shook my head, I would need to get it under a microscope. I doubted I could even pry a piece off for study. Neither did I think any of my spells would be able to cut anything off. Well, nothing I could conjure right now.
I heard a few skitters outside. A gulped as I took a quick look at the exit of the cavern. dark orange light poured in through the gap. Sunset was coming, and the remnants of my crabby friends were starting to muster for a charge back into the cave to protect what they assumed was left of their nest. Ugh, why did they have to be the only other land creatures on this island with me?
The birds were starting to quiet down, and it was starting to get darker and darker. Night had always hit like a bag of bricks for me. Mostly because I was always doing... something. Reading, chatting, organizing, doing "Princessly" things... I guess I rarely noticed the sun go down. This situation wasn't any different, right? Right? Right! Riiiiiiiiight. Yep. Nope. Nothing different here. Definitely going to go home and fall into the embrace of...
I took a deep breath, wiping a some of the... sweat from my eyes. I picked up my Key, my glass knife, and the Crabby egg, heading out of the cave with them in tow. I kept my knife close, keeping my eye out for any lurking Crabbies. I saw a few, but they always skittered out of the way, never engaging.
My scratches ached, and a few of them had started bleeding. Nothing serious, but some were starting to itch. I needed to get some bandages on them and, hopefully, any antiseptic the medical kit back at home had. Of course, with all the labels being written in a foreign language, it would definitely be difficult to identify them all.
A Crabby skittered out in front of me, stopping in the middle of my path and... stared at me. It wasn't exactly the threat of a Crabby attack that scared me, it was... well...
It was sick.
A horrible looking rash had spread across the shell of the Crabby. Green pustules grew from the creases in its shell, seeping puss. The Crabby itself was shaking slightly, unstable as it "eyed" me.
I held my knife in a defensive position in front of me. My breathing sped up as I backed away slowly, my magic ready to strike the glass shard into the... infected Crabby's brains. And so it did, because with a bloodthirsty screech, the Crabby charged me.
Knife and terrified reflexes won out over death-charge and yellow ichor spilled out from the Crabby's twitching corpse as my knife flattened it out on the path. I only dared to remove the knife once the Crabby had finished twitching.
After a moment I calmed down. The corpse still lay there, the green blisters still glowing as the sun slowly set. What was that thing? I pulled my knife out of the corpse, looking at the yellow blood stains on the tip of the blade.
I quickly threw it away. it was contaminated and I didn't want that thing chopping up my food, no sir! I could always make another one.
Whatever that thing was infected with, it didn't look fun. A disease of some kind... a closer inspection of the Crabby's shell (from a distance, of course) told me that the rash seemed to exist around a pattern of, what I assumed was, the Crabby's circulatory system. Blistered, painful looking flesh followed the streaks around the body (where the flesh was exposed outside of the shell), and I assumed the creature would have been in excruciating pain. I, at least, put it out of its misery. I guess.
I gave the corpse a wide berth. I didn't feel like studying the body. I didn't have the equipment to safely analyze the late Crabby, and it was probably just the best to ignore it and avoid other contaminated creatures. In fact...
I turned around, picking up the Crabby's corpse carefully in my magic, making sure to get none of its blood on me. and flung it off the nearby cliff and into the ocean.
I gathered my stuff in my telekinesis, ignoring the steadily building ache. Dinner and sleep was coming soon, I could rest my magic all I wanted then. For now, get my stuff back to the shelter.
I placed the rock back in the doorway with my hooves, blocking my entrance and keeping out any Crabbies.
I turned back to the interior of my main room. It was still half-covered in landslide debris, which was probably a health hazard that I would need to fix eventually, but it was secure, safe, and now rain-proof. A warm sense of accomplishment came over me. Relative safety was mine! Let the storms rage on my roof! My home was reinforced by steel! Let Crabbies pound on my door! They'll never get past my defenses! Well, minus one glass knife now, but I would replace that tomorrow morning.
My stomach growled, and I eyed the condensed energy-bar like thing lying in a container alongside the rest of my stuff. Well, may as well give it a try. It looked filling, at least.
I picked it up, turning it around and around in my magic. I took a cautious bite, chewing thoughtfully. It wasn't so bad for the first few chews, it almost tasted like the pink flowers (Mmm... pink flowers...), but then the other taste kicked in. It wasn't quite like cardboard. No, that would be a mercy. Instead, it was more like dirt. Disgusting dirt with a chewy texture. It was stuck together by some kind of paste that... did nothing for the bar. I felt like emptying my stomach, and I spat out the half-eaten bar.
As I gagged and coughed I seriously considered removing the boulder from my entrance prematurely and chucking the horrible bar far, far into the ocean. I hoped to sweet Celestia that this wasn't a staple food for these people. What a horrible life if all you could eat was... that! Yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck!
I sat in a corner, recuperating. Well... it didn't seem like it was rotten, at least. Probably preservable like canned food. No, this was just a problem with the taste of the cook who made the awful thing. I could only hope that it was only a last resort emergency or military rations for these people.
Well, it had at least killed my appetite. I didn't need food that badly anyway.
I popped open the petite first aid kit, dumping out the supplies onto the floor. I examined some of the bottles, trying to glean what I could from the label. After a few minutes, I could identify something that was actually mutual between both of our medical sciences: Hydrogen Peroxide. A dab into a cotton bud, and I went to work on the scratches. It stung, but I was thankful that I had something to clean wounds with. After emptying almost all of the bottle on my many, many wounds, I pulled out a good amount of the roll of bandages, applying them across my body. It still stung, but it would heal. Next time I would be more careful walking into a Crabby nest.
I sighed, lying down. The floor wasn't that comfortable, and as much as I wished for the comfort of my own bed, I could make do with the current sleeping arrangements.
While my search of the Arch hadn't revealed all that much... I had at least found the location of the exit portal. I wasn't sure how I would even be able to activate the portal, let alone open the device that, I assumed, powered the arch. I definitely didn't want to teleport there myself. Raft was a bad idea, end of story. I could wait until my feathers came back (which wouldn't actually be all that long, a couple of days at most) and just fly there. I assumed that there would be at least land near where the portal exited. I would need to conserve strength, but I could probably make two kilometers and back if I didn't find anything there.
Whatever was on the other side of the portal, I probably needed to see it...