//------------------------------// // 22: Throw the ring into the volcano - part II // Story: Imbalanced: Legacy of Light // by Nameless Narrator //------------------------------// Harriet certainly wasn’t expecting things to go this smoothly. The morning came, and with the nervous excitement of waking up early and tossing and turning for hours, Harriet got up and decided on an early breakfast. To her surprise, Gem was already sitting at the table downstairs, and gave her a friendly wave as soon as the dragonpony’s hoofsteps thumped on the wooden steps. “Good morning,” Harriet sat down to Gem’s table. “Morning, Harriet,” the changeling smiled at her, “Ready for the big trip?” “I was so excited I couldn’t sleep,” Harriet replied, waving at Frosty to order breakfast, “I can’t wait to do this and, honestly, to head home. It’s been a long trip, I’ve seen so much, and I think I’m ready to spend some quiet time back home at Windy.” Gem nodded. “I know how you feel. I travel all over the world most of the time, but I always know when it’s time to go back home to recharge and relax with my family.” “Where do you live anyway?” Harriet couldn’t exactly come to terms with the idea of a group of changelings huddled around a warm hearth, listening to Gem’s stories about the world above. Unless, you know, they didn’t live in a dank hole in the ground, and were totally normal like everyone else. “My hive is up north, even beyond the Crystal Empire. We’re much more tightly knit than Chrysalis’ changelings, so most of us don’t travel too much,” she smiled, her eyes clearly looking down the memory lane, “They always enjoy listening to my stories,” she shook her head, and shrugged, “But I’ve been there quite recently, so now I have to go on some adventures again. Which reminds me, thanks for taking us with you. Desert Shade is a legend, so meeting her will be something to talk about.” “No problem,” Harriet chuckled, “I’m pretty sure that compared to you guys saving my life, I still have ways to go to repay that.” “Don’t worry about that,” Gem waved her hoof dismissively, and glanced Frosty Mug’s way as he arrived with Harriet’s breakfast and a mug of something for Gem that smelled like cleaning liquid made of plums. Gem caught Harriet staring at the heavily alcoholic beverage in quantity incompatible with the ability to walk straight and likely even with life, and said, “We changelings can’t metabolize alcohol unless we transform our organs to do so. Our venom glands react in rather interesting ways to liquor, though, and we can store it for later. It can help in case we meet something not exactly friendly on the way.” “You mean you can spit it out like… acid or something?” Harriet shuddered. The stories about everything horrible changelings could do hadn’t mentioned this. “Not just that, although yes, there are kinds of alcohol that can even make us breathe fire. Some are more funny, though,” Gem chuckled to herself, “My friend always starts uncontrollably hiccuping and burping colorful bubbles whenever she drinks cider.”  The strange image eased Harriet’s mind, and without further delay she dug into her breakfast. Gradually, Prominence, Pack Rat, and finally Magpie joined as well, although the griffon did keep yawning all the way through his meal.  Lyam arrived half an hour before the arranged time, looking as if he’d woken up only few minutes earlier. “Whoah, that’s a lot of creatures,” he faked surprise, and then quietly counted under his breath, “Five, that’s everyone, right?” “Mhm,” Gem nodded, “Is it time already?” “No rush,” Lyam waved his talons, “But if you want to go immediately, we can. Des and the others will be waiting by the eastern city gate.” “Just gimme five minutes,” mumbled Magpie with beak full of oatmeal. After the breakfast was over, Lyam led the group through Pine Hills waking up to another day of Buttfest, and eventually waved to a group of ponies and one griffon standing by the gate, one of them throwing a ball for a dreamling guard who always darted away and brought it back again. Harriet’s mane immediately stood on edge when she noticed that the one playing with the dreamling was a hippogriff. She had charcoal black coat, and light blond mane and tail, and from what little Harriet could recall, she was just the right size to pass for the hippogriff who had caused the scene in Manehattan which sent Harriet to all this fresh mess. Though that didn’t mean much, because “the right size” meant “slightly taller than a completely average mare” which could be absolutely normal due to being part-griffon. Unlike the escaped Manehattan culprit, this mare wasn’t wearing a stretchy, full-body suit, and Harriet couldn’t see a shotgun anywhere on her. Still, the possibility was there, and Harriet decided to keep an eye on her to spot any sign of the hippogriff recognizing her. As they approached under the watchful eyes of the already waiting group, Lyam let out a loud whistle, the hippogriff patted the dreamling’s head, pocketed the ball into his saddlebag, and the dreamling ran off to an amazon standing by the gate, observing the situation quietly. She approached Lyam, looked at the arrivals, walked over to Harriet, and offered her foreleg for the significantly larger dragonpony to shake. “Desert Shade,” she nodded, “You must be Harriet, unless there’s another dragonpony Lyam failed to mention.” “That’s me,” Harriet shook the offered limb, “Nice to meet you. Lyam didn’t say much about you or your friends,” she nodded to others patiently waiting nearby. “Don’t mind them,” Desert Shade waved her foreleg, “Someone has to carry all the scanning gear and chase off the occasional Corrupted. I’ll tell you all you need to know for the trip when it’s relevant. For now, just keep your eyes peeled in case we miss a Corrupted trying to sneak up on us. You look big and strong, have you ever fought a Corrupted?” “I’ve ran away from few,” Harriet chuckled nervously, and patted the frying pan on her belt, “and smacked some away until help arrived,” she nodded to Gem observing the whole group, “I’d prefer not having to fight any again, I’m just a strong girl, not some kind of a warrior.” Desert Shade patted her foreleg amiably. “Don’t worry, you’re paying us to keep you safe, and we’ll do that. I just like to know what level of experience I’m working with,” she turned towards Gem, and offered her talons again. “I’m Gem, pleased to meet you. We’re the second group I hope Lyam mentioned,” said the changeling, “We don’t have the same goal as Harriet, but we’ll pay for the full trip anyway, since it allows us to see the best Badlands guide at work. Packy, give Desert Shade the bits, will you?” “Give the money to Lyam. No reason to lug gold all the way there and back,” Des nodded to the older griffon, “We won’t need it. As far as I know, there aren’t any souvenir shops in the old hive.” “What is there anyway?” asked Gem, “I must admit, I haven’t been there since the corruption spread, and there weren’t any anomalies back then.” “Oh?” Des tilted her head, “Old girl, aren’t we?” she said in an amused tone with exactly zero amazement at meeting a changeling from the ancient times. Harriet, on the other claw, beamed openly when she realized there was a whole heap of questions she could ask the changeling… even though in her case very old had to also mean very scary. Gem didn’t feel old at all, other than a wrinkle or two under her eyes giving her the look of experience rather than age. “You could say that,” Gem smiled at the hippogriff, “But you’re no average hippogriff yourself, miss Shade, are you? Some rumors I’ve heard about you were rather… interesting.” The hippogriff laughed out loud. “Trust me, some of the stuff I heard surprises even myself. I’m just a mare with the right contacts who was crazy enough to dig through underground ruins and find some interesting tech, that’s all.” “Technology, you say?” Gem blinked, “Such as?” “If I told you now, what would we be doing at night when we camp?” Des raised an eyebrow, turned around, and said in a commanding tone, “Alright guys, daylight’s burning, everyone’s paid up, so let’s get moving.” *** The trip was fascinating, Harriet couldn’t deny that, but with scenery passing by and changing, she realized she was more busy pondering what was at the end of the journey rather than what was happening around her. Granted, it wasn’t exactly difficult to keep pretending she was just an interested tourist, especially when Des showed them an anomaly which turned water into hot cocoa. Even that one wasn’t safe, as they had to use metal prongs to put the cups and water inside with the warning that if they used hooves, the water in their tissue and blood would turn to chocolate as well.  Sadly, they couldn’t camp by that one, but they resolved to stop by if the ever-changing landscape allowed it. There was far too much ground to cover… No, that wasn’t correct. As night fell on the first night of their trip, they camped within sight of what looked like an oversized anthill, which definitely didn’t make chills run down Harriet’s spine. If they could walk straight ahead, they were at most two or three hours away, but as Des had shown them before on the much less friendly anomalies than the hot cocoa one, it would be suicide. There were even times when they had to walk in a single file, inching slowly as boiling air safely behind invisible walls nearby threatened to instantly sear flesh off of their bones if they as much as swayed to the side. One time, they had to crawl under ball lightning hovering above them and making their manes wibble with static electricity. And quite often, which explained the length of the trip despite the actually fairly short distance, they snaked past or even crossed their own hoofsteps from few hours ago. However, the guidance of Des and her group, all of them watching hoof-held devices with every step or sometimes taking few minutes to set up a larger scanning station, was immaculate, and everyone remained unhurt. Gem’s company weren’t doing much other than Prominence scribbling something into a hovering book all the time, and giving Pack Rat instructions to throw some piece of paper or trash into an anomaly they passed by from time to time. They had said they had some measurements to do in the Badlands. In the end, which was around noon of day two, they stood in front of the towering… black blob, no way around it, of the changeling hive. Oh Emperor, the holes… Harriet really, really didn’t want to go inside, into the darkness of the many holes scattered around the blob leading into the depths of the complex, but… it’s not as if she had a choice really. If this was her goal, this was her goal. The problem was that she had absolutely no idea if this was it. “Well, here it is, the old hive,” Des theatrically waved her foreleg towards the larger hole possibly serving as the main entrance, “What you want there is none of my business, but we’re not going inside.” “Wait, what?” Harriet looked at the hippogriff in desperation, “I mean I paid you-” “You wanted to get to the center of the Badlands, and this is it,” Des shrugged, “I don’t know anything about any ‘biggest and baddest’ anomaly that you mentioned in there. You’re free to wander around the place, as far as I know it’s empty.” “I can pay you more-” Harriet reached for her backpack, and stopped when Desert Shade shook her head. “You can’t afford what it would cost to have my equipment replaced. You see, there’s a magic nullifying field which starts right behind this,” she tapped against the black wall of the hive, “and quite of lot of our gear is fusion of magic and technology. We’ll wait here for you and take you safely back to Pine Hills, but we’re not going inside. That’s non-negotiable.” Harriet sighed. So this was how it was going to be. Just her against the world. “Wait, did you say there wasn’t any anomaly inside?” she furrowed her brows. “Not as far as I know. The null-magic field kinda blocks everything magical or divine, and from what I’ve heard the anomalies are of divine origin.” Was the message wrong about sending me here? Or maybe there’s just something inside which Desert Shade doesn’t know about. After all, maybe she avoided exploring the place in fear for her technology. “So you haven’t gone inside? You said the place was empty before,” Harriet asked. “No no no,” Des waved her forelegs, “We’ve explored the place quite thoroughly before, and there’s nothing there. It’s just a pain the ass to walk around without properly calibrated gear, but if you want to I’m not going to stop you. There’s pretty much just the throne room and a lot of caves leading deep down. Whatever lived inside the protective bubble must have starved since the anomalies appeared.” Gem cleared her throat right behind Harriet, making her jump.  Stupid sneaky changelings! Even the nice ones. “We’ll keep you company, Harriet. Promi did all the measuring she needed on the way here, and comparing notes on the way back will be useful. Plus,” Gem smiled, raised her chitinous foreleg, and tapped her nose, “I’m a changeling. I won’t get lost in there. Packy and Magpie will stay here and keep an eye on our stuff.”   Oh right! Harriet brightened up immediately. She also noticed that Gem had taken off one of her belts filled with vials for some reason. Maybe the anti-magic thingy would ruin the magical potions and leave normal chemistry untouched?  “Alright then. If you don’t mind waiting, I’m off to do some touristing!” she beamed at Des whose companions have already set up tents, and a brown earthpony mare was already chomping on some energy bar. “Have fun,” Des shrugged, took her own backpack off, and started to pull out steel bars of a tent.   Taking a deep breath, Harriet took her first steps into the dank darkness, and soon felt the temperature drop several degrees. “Okay, now where would one look for a proper anomaly in here?” she muttered, mostly to herself. “Can’t say, really,” answered Gem, “The only place of any important I can recall was queen Chrysalis’ throne room, and the magic nullifying field emanates from there.” Prominence’s horn suddenly turned into pure fire, lighting up the tunnel. “Doesn’t negate natural transformation, does it?” she raised an eyebrow. “As far as I know, no changeling abilities have been affected by it, so aside from losing the most powerful of my potions, I’m pretty much ready for anything.” “Umm, do you know the way to the throne room?” asked Harriet.  “That’s not how the hive works,” Gem grinned, and put her hoof against the wall of the tunnel. The black material wobbled, and a corridor appeared, leading upwards, “We make our way there.”