//------------------------------//
// 70.5 Mailing Feathers in the Post 
// Story: Prey and a Lamb 
// by Lambs Prey 
//------------------------------//

Prey looked up and checked the position of the sun in the late evening sky, "Hey. There's something I'd like to ask for more details about."

Crimson didn't look away from the busy Canterlot street, watching for their target, "Is now really the best time?"

"We're not going to miss him, and there's only the one entrance. Besides, they're hardly going to try and sneak in. It's a public building, and open to everyone. And Gloom's already positioned inside, anyways." Prey said.

Both of them were standing in the shade of a the awning of a bespoke furniture shop. The shop was one of those which subscribed to the belief that putting up large, garishly coloured stands advertising their very own wares right outside their shop was a brilliant marketing ploy. And further, that by adding a few planter boxes of bushes, trimmed in the very rough shape of the rising sun, it would help counterbalance their lack of taste. 

Not that Prey and Crimson were complaining. Said planter boxes and display stands made for some great cover if you stood off to the side and in the shade. For some reason, ponies never seemed to look too cloesly at the shadows.

The two of them were here waiting for a certain pony to come by and go into the post office. A certain beige unicorn stallion, going by the name of Lika Soil. Gloom was already stationed inside the post office, but not in his new Guard armour, instead wearing a scarf and a dusk pony amulet to blend in as a pegasus civilian.

Crimson shifted on his cloud steel shod hooves, but still kept his eyes on the door of the post office down the street, "Alright. What do you want to ask about, Prey?"

Prey himself was sitting down on the pavement, not standing. They'd been waiting for nearly an hour, and he saw no reason to add sore hooves to boredom, "The new thestrals. We haven't had much to do with them yet, but that night they arrived three days ago, Luna-"

"-Princess Luna." Crimson corrected without looking over.

"-Mentioned that there were some clan prophecies. Prophecies which would come true since the one about Harmony's Comet did." Prey hid his scepticism there, "I want to ask about these other prophecies."

Crimson's tufted ears swivelled towards him, "Why do you want to know? I mean, you don't even believe in them."

"I never said that." Prey protested, but only because he really hadn't said that. But he didn't actually believe in prophecies, and he and Crimson both knew it, so he answered anyway:

"Alright, I want to know because those prophecies might still be important. What thestrals think is going to happen and expect to happen could be just as important as what really happens. So, do you know any of them?"

Again, the obvious went unsaid that Prey wasn't a thestral, and that it wasn't strictly any of his business. However, with how deeply they were all integrated into the Night Guard, Prey had a good claim on knowing anyway. Besides, he and Crimson also both knew he could find out at any time if he so chose. The ISND had 'intelligence' and 'secrecy' in it's job title afterall. Prey was merely being polite by asking.

Crimson grunted, "I don't know many of the prophecies. It wasn't ever important to me or my father. There's been a whole load made by the elders over the centuries. Some have happened, and some have maybe happened. I mean, it depends on how you interpret them."

"You don't believe they're real yourself." Prey observed blandly.

"I didn't. Or I don't." Crimson freely admitted, not at all bothered about bluntly sharing the truth with Prey whereas he might've been a bit more hesitant with another believing thestral, "Although, maybe? I mean, the one about Harmony's Comet came true, so there might be something to the other prophecies, but maybe not too. I don't know."

Prey waited, unhurried. Crimson would get onto sharing the clans various prophecies in a moment once he'd collected his thoughts. Often, Prey and Crimson's interactions would have pauses like this. 

One of them would say something, the other would respond, and then five minutes later the other would add a follow on observation out of the blue, and they'd pick up the conversation again as if there'd been no pause at all.

Sure enough, after a minute of silently watching the colourful various ponies passing by out on the street, Crimson spoke;
"Two then one, then two into the triumphant three, forming the fourth, and finally fosters a fifth."

Prey scratched behind one ear, "What?"

"That's supposed to be a prophecy. It's one that stuck in my head because of how simple it is." Crimson shrugged with his wings.

"That's a nursery rhyme."

"Yes. I think that's why everypony in all three clans remember it. I mean, everybody."

"Okaaaay. And, what's this 'prophecy' supposed to be about?"

"No one's really sure. It's an old one from way back. Some elders have suggested it's about the lands of Equestria, or different races, or the first bit could be about the Princesses. I don't know, it just the one that sticks in every foals head when they're young. You know, because it rhymes."

"So no one knows if what it's supposed to mean," Prey summed up, "Alright, how about some of the other prophecies? What else is floating around out there in clan lore?"

"Don't be flippant about this, Prey. This is clan history."

"Alright, I'm sorry." Prey reigned in his scepticism. "But what are these other prophecies about?"

"I only remember a few, and not the exact wording. There's a prophecy about a relic from the crystal empire being dug upon a, "day of green", whatever that means, which will bring about great change. Doesn't say what change, just change. What else...? There's one saying a brood hydra and a sire of dragons will fight it out in a bay of raging water. The bay is either supposed to be the Bay of Unity, or Far Coast. Either or. But it's been over four centuries, so that fight may have happened already and nobody noticed."

These all sounded very dubious to Prey, but he kept quiet as Crimson went on.

"I don't think this ones true, but elder Farhaven... actually, you wouldn't know of him Prey, but he was famous. Or infamous. But he prophesied that a queen bee will land on a drawn blade in the presence of four enemies, signalling the anointing of the one as murderer and new king. Is that how it went? Yes, that was it."

"What's that one supposed to mean?" Prey asked, puzzled.

"I don't know. Other elders have stated he was speaking in a parable, that Farhaven wasn't speaking about a literal queen bee." Crimson explained.

"Okay, and has that one possibly happened already? Or are the clans looking out for a murder king? And king of what, exactly?" Prey asked cautiously. This was exactly the type he would have to be watching out for. Like if some clan Myrrdon fanatic tried to replicate this scenario with a queen bee and think themselves a king who went around murdering people.

"What? No, it's not about that, it's only important because... Never mind. I guess you wouldn't know the history at the time, but it was a very serious prediction with what was going on, and thestrals were sent out to tear down every bee hive they could find to try and prevent it from happening. For decades, the clans stopped keeping bees or letting any nests start near them. Farhaven's prophecy has kind of faded, and no one really believes it, but everyone still watches out for it."

"That's... certainly something." Prey agreed.

Crimson thought for a moment, "There's only about one or two more prophecies I can recall."

"That's fine, I'm just looking for any more information. What are they?"

"I only remember this one because it's rather silly, and my father could never repeat it with a straight face." Crimson stopped. Prey shifted, but Crimson had already put away the sharp needle of grief he'd accidently pricked himself on:

"It went, 'Despair under a sweet tasting sky of pink, because up will be down and down will be up, and how shall the we fly away when we fly in reverse?' It goes on for a bit basically saying woe is me, give up, despair, and wait to die."

"That does sound a bit ridiculous and silly, but the bit about giving into despair doesn't." Prey decided.

Crimson lightly shrugged again, wings briefly rising and falling, "That's what makes it doubly silly. Only someone dumb enough to eat enough mushrooms to turn the sky pink and think they're flying back-to-front and upside down is also going to think it's the apocalypse."

"And the last one?" Prey asked.

"It's about the last..." Crimson straightened, yellow eyes focused, "Forget that for now, there's Lika Soil now."

Prey hurriedly rose to his hooves. He couldn't see the stallion Crimson had spotted for a moment, being too short to see over any of the trotting ponies heads. "Where?"

"There. On the left, just coming up to the lamp post by the red house." Crimson didn't point, pointing just might draw their target's attention. People had a sixth sense for feeling someone's focus, although most ponies weren't in touch with this instinct.

Prey followed Crimson's directions with his eyes. He saw their target, Lika Soil, a beige unicorn wearing a shirt and light saddle bags, trotting merrily down the street and heading for the post office. Right as expected.

How do you catch a spy?

There is only one step, and it is the exact same thing that makes it so damnably difficult. You first have to find them. But how? How do you find someone who's whole purpose is to blend in, to be normal, to not do anything attention grabbing, to fade into society, and above all, to never get caught?

A spy is not someone with a cloak and dagger, who wears false glasses and uses illusion magic. Those spies only exist in exaggerated pony stories. A real spy really is just an ordinary person. Who has a family, who's an older brother, who likes to sing, alive, and plays on the local amateur hoofball team. They'll also have a certifiable background, like a collage diploma, known neighbours and friends, maybe a high school sweetheart, and a job, such as a nice safe position in the city council.

Ordinary things. Ordinary people. In short, a spy could be anyone.

How do you catch someone who is everyone and no one?

Well, in practice, a spy can't actually be anyone. It's about statistics and ruling people out. 

For example, a foal isn't likely to be a spy for obvious reasons. Nor is a highly placed government official actually, despite all paranoid suspicions of the public to the contrary. Instead, you look at who could cause the most damage if they were indeed a spy. A public school janitor isn't likely to have any dangerous secrets they could report. A unicorn employed in one of the magi towers would be a better bet, but again, dubious, since mages vetted their own apprentices and who they hired. That was the thing, there were two extremes, but in all likelihood, it would still be neither. It would be the self employed carpenter down the street.

Because you had to keep going back to the first rule. A spy is an ordinary person. They don't stand out.

So statistics couldn't help you find the spy, or could only vaguely narrow it down on an individual to individual basis. But reviewing every single person is completely impossible. Equestria was a nation. It had hundreds of thousands of ponies living in it, spread across cities and towns and villages, thousands of square miles, from coast to coast.

A needle in a hay stack was too small of an analogy. A leaf in a forest would be more accurate. A leaf in a forest where every leaf is different, and therefore, all the same.

In the face of all this, how does one catch a spy?

Prey did not know the answer to this question. So he'd instead got to brainstorming with Gloom and Crimson, (it was still mostly him), and thought up some possible methods. 

How do you find a spy, and with only the three of them to hoof? With no previously built up information network of their own, or even a starting point to work from? 

The short answer, as Crimson had put it was; "That's impossible."

So in that case, how do you narrow it down to instead look within certain sectors of the population, with all those limiting factors still in effect?

Gloom had emphatically shaken his head in denial, "It can't be done."

The unpleasant truth was, with no information or clue where to start looking, they were at the mercy of random tip-offs and reports of suspicious activity from people maybe noticing something odd about their neighbour. Which, because these people were ponies, varied in two extremes.

Ponies were overly trusting and naïve, and would give any potential spy the benefit of the doubt.

On the opposite hoof, ponies were also skittish and leery of anything outside of their comfort zone, and could completely panic over the noise of a cat flap going in the middle of the night.

Therefore, relying on the general populace for anything helpful was a fool's choice. If the ISND wanted to find anything, they needed to do it themselves. So that's what they did. Or tried to do. There really was no guarantee that the approach they'd finally settled upon was anything more than grasping at straws. But Luna must be satisfied, and they had a job to do.

So after all the brainstorming, the chosen approach had resulted in them being here today, waiting for this Lika Soil to deliver his weekly letter, so Crimson could go in and commandeer it in the name of the Night Guard. It wasn't because Lika Soil was a spy, but rather because he was on a long list of people who might, possibly, maybe, feasibly, conceivably, perchance, be a spy. Although 'spy' was a strong word. Perhaps just 'informant' was better.

Three days ago, with next to no other ideas, the ISND had hit upon this plan. If there was a spy reporting in person to whomever had hired them, there wasn't much the ISND could do about it. But if this theoretical spy was sending written reports via the Equestrian mail service, then perhaps the ISND might have a chance of catching them.

So, three days ago, they'd gone around all fourteen post offices in Canterlot, and using their Guard authority, had demanded the records of outgoing letters, to which cities or towns, and on which days of the week.

And what do you know? The never ending paperwork and bureaucracy of Canterlot that Prey so hated actually came in useful for once.

The post offices recorded the address of where a letter was going to, the letter type, and on which date. But they didn't record who had posted it. It would've been so much easier if the post offices did, but no, Equestria unfortunately allowed you to send anonymous mail.

It had taken all of that night and most of yesterday looking through those ledger records to even find any sort of correlation. What they were looking for were outgoing letters addressed to the same place each time, going out on a regular basis. Because the employer would no doubt want regular, scheduled updates on whatever they'd hired someone to spy on. So that's what the ISND looked for, outbound letters going out on the same day to the same place each week, or two weeks, or monthly.

It had been soul crushing work. Hundreds of pages, with thousands of entries. Hour after hour of pouring over the pages, and then flicking backwards and forwards to cross reference. And even this was all conjecture not guaranteed to give them any leads. 

Because if it were so simple, someone would've probably thought to do it before during the many long years of Canterlot's existence.

It was just as possible any spy would be clever enough to send their reports from a different post office and to a slightly different address each time, in which case the ISND was plumb out of luck. However they couldn't do anything about that possibility, so they were being forced to hope any spy would've become slightly complacent and sloppy after so long without getting caught. Plus, this theoretical person or persons probably didn't even really think of themselves as a spy, more like secret reporter, so hopefully they wouldn't feel the need to be as paranoid as Prey would've been in their place.

At the start, after the ISND were done cross referencing all that, they were still left with a freshly scribed list with over six hundred possible matches on it from the last three months alone. 

They'd morosely looked over this 'narrowed down' list while Prey shook out his aching hoof, and tried to figure out how best to prune the six hundred entries down even further.

It was then that Prey'd had a stroke of inspiration. 

"If you were employing a spy, you'd want them to send an additional report immediately if anything big or unexpected happened, wouldn't you? So when did that rainboom thing happen again?"

With that additional filter added, they were able to narrow down the list of six hundred names to just under two hundred. They were well aware they could be cutting out real candidates by doing so, but there was nothing for it. They could always just revisit those names later if they needed to.

But still two hundred possibilities were still far too many. Investigating all of those with only the three of them wasn't going to achieve anything. They didn't have the time or the numbers for that.

Two-hundred addresses was an improvement over six-hundred, and a huge improvement over the thousands before that, but it still didn't get them any closer to catching any possible spies.

'This is soooooo stupid. This is the same ridiculously dumb thing all over again.' Prey had thought in frustration.

'And why are we suddenly expected to become expert spy catchers overnight in the first place? We've no sort of training, and it's not as if any of us have any actual experience in counter intelligence. None of the Night Guard knows how for that matter, but just because 'Luna commanded us', we're expected to do it. I hate Luna. I hate Nighthawk. I hate this.'

With nearly two hundred instances still left on the list, there was nothing for it but to think harder. How could they do this? What would work? What wouldn't work?

Which was all to say nothing of the fact that these two-hundred delivery addresses were in all likelihood just normal people or businesses, and not someone secretly employing spies. Because that's how real life worked.

Prey had stared at the list until the writing blurred and ran together as he considered and thought on how to proceed. "The most obviously suspicious ones are the addresses which aren't in the country. Let's check those first."

"How? The records department won't have any information on an address not even in Equestria."

Prey had tapped the column listing the different post office sites, "Simple. Go to the post office these letters are always getting sent from, and make the postal workers tell us who brings in the letter each week. Or each two weeks, or every month."

"How are they going to remember each and every pony who comes through the door?" Gloom had pointed out.

"And what if it's not always the same pony? I mean, the post office workers, what if there's a different one on the till each time this possible spy comes by?" Crimson had also put in.

"The postage needed to send a letter overseas is high, and they've got all these different kinds of special stamps. I'd bet they remember that sort of thing. And anyone sending a letter on a schedule like clockwork is obviously reporting something. It could be something perfectly legitimate, or illegal, but until we check, we won't know."

"And if it's a different postal worker working odd day shifts?"

"There's no way the postal workers don't gossip with each other non-stop. They're ponies. They'll have told each other about a customer who comes in to send an expensive special letter each week, I guarantee it."


---


So that's what they'd done yesterday, gone around to the post offices who were recording a regular letter dispatched out of the country to the same address over and over, and demanded to know who was posting these letters.

The postal workers had taken one look at Gloom and Crimson in their new Night Guard armour, and hadn't even considered making a fuss. They'd practically tripped over themselves to tell the ISND what they wanted to know before Gloom had even finished saying; "By the authority of Princess Luna invested in the Night Guard, I order you to answer my questions."

Thus, they'd found out the names and descriptions of everyone who came by, and also that one such postee, Lika Soil, came by every Wednesday in the afternoon to post his letter abroad. Which had been tomorrow yesterday, and was today today.

Gloom had sternly warned the postal worker not to give the game away when Lika Soil arrived. "You will hold onto the letter. We will come and collect it. Do not say a word to Lika Soil. This is a Night Guard investigation, and impeding us is a criminal offense. Am I clear?"

The nervous pony had nodded rapidly, miming drawing a zipper across their lips.

But the day Prey trusted a pony to keep their word without a contingency would be a cold day in the Bad Lands. (The nights in the Bad Lands were actually freezing cold, but the days were lethally hot), So he'd suggested that one of them wait inside the post office in disguise for when Lika Soil arrived, just to make sure the post worker didn't tip him off about what was happening.

After all, the new Night Guard were not liked or trusted by the citizens of Canterlot, so of course they'd trust a normal looking pony over a thestral.

Crimson could've been the one to go in, but between the red pegasus and Gloom, it was unanimously decided that even with the limitations of the Dusk Pony Amulet's glamour, Gloom could pull off 'normal' far better than Crimson could. 

And Prey was a runt lamb, the only one in Canterlot. And while he might be very good at being sneaky and staying out of sight, that was beside the point.


---The Present---


And that left them here on the street, Gloom waiting out of sight inside, as the oblivious Lika Soil trotted through the post office's door.

Crimson and Prey waited, watching the door for Lika Soil to re-emerge and leave. Chatting ponies trotted past on the street, the occasional foal being pushed in a pram or guided by hoof, most dressed in some form of orange, green, red, or brown, the early colours of fall. An energetic fiddler played from a booth to a small delighted crowd. Prey listened to and watched it all warily. 

There was a newspaper hawker waving the Canterlot Express on the street corner, shouting something about Archduke Triton Fell having a brand new merchant fleet, and an upmarket cart rolled down the white cobbles past a chiselled statue of Celestia.

"What's the chance of Lika Soil really being a spy do you think?" Crimson asked, not looking away from the post office door down the street.

"Less than five percent. We're probably going to have to redo this little stakeout thing another fifty plus times." Prey answered unhappily.

"...Wonderful."

Lika Soil walked back out the post office door without a care in the world, and trotted off casually towards the newspaper seller. They watched as he bought one of the papers, smiling and chatting with the seller for a minute, then left in the crowd. 

Only once he was gone did they move, stepping out of the awning's shadow and going straight for the post office, ponies quickly getting out of their way. Or rather, out of the armoured Crimson's way.

The post door 'dinged', the smell of paper and glue immediately filling the air. The five or so ponies waiting in line to either buy stamps or post their own letters stopped talking one by one as they noticed the sudden arrival of a Night Guard. It was almost comical how they all shuffled a little closer together without even meaning to.

Prey glanced sideways at the corner of the post office. Gloom was sitting on one of the provided stools in his disguise, pretending to be labouring over writing a difficult letter. Gloom made a quick double tap motion with his hoof.

That meant it had all gone as hoped, and the postal worker hadn't tipped Lika Soil off. 

"Night Guard business." Crimson announced loudly into the stiff silence of staring ponies. They didn't move.

Crimson's wing gave a little flick of annoyance. After a moment he just started walking forwards, and the other ponies quickly vacated his path, meaning he reached the counter without having to wait. Prey remained standing to the side of the front door, watching the exit out of habit, and plus, Crimson hardly needed him for just getting one letter.

Crimson stopped in front of the olive green worker from yesterday on the other side of the counter, and waited expectantly. They should know what he was here for.

"The letter please." Crimson had to prompt when the other stallion kept just standing there.

"O-oh, right away."

The green furred worker hurriedly turned and retrieved a letter from the myriad of other letters occupying the cubical shelves behind the desk. The stacked letters were in nearly every size and colour, but the one the postal worker nervously clutched in their telekinesis was a thick, well sealed blue envelope.

"The letter. Now please." Crimson repeated calmly when the worker kept levitating it.

Shocked out of their reluctance, he dropped the letter onto the counter. Crimson swept it up and away under one wing, "Thank you for you assistance in this matter."

'He's gotten so much better at social interactions, but still, that was just... wow.' Prey thought, pushing and holding the front door open for them both as Crimson strode over, without so much as a backwards look at all the still slightly stunned ponies. 

Gloom didn't re-join them straight away, obviously. He'd wait a few minutes until everyone inside moved from whispering like naughty school children back to gossiping, and then slip out unnoticed. The pre-determined meeting point was a narrow side street a block over, one which Prey'd picked out because it didn't go anywhere and so was therefore unlikely to be attended.

The fiddler was still playing one last jaunty tune to a happy crowd before he packed up for the day, as Prey and Crimson passed. 


---


"Let's have a look then." Gloom said, back with his normal thestral eyes and wings, dusk pony amulet put away. The long black scarf he'd worn to disguise the very noticeable jagged scar marring his chest was still present, though. 

The side street was thankfully empty, just like Prey had estimated it would be. He'd memorised maps of Canterlot, and so had known there weren't any stores or shops on the narrow street which might've had ponies visiting, just houses. Although now was about the time people would start returning home from work in the afternoon, but nowhere was perfect.

Gloom grunted in annoyance over the letter. It was sealed quite thoroughly, and he didn't want to rip or damage the envelope.

'-chances are it's a perfectly innocent letter to a much loved aunt or uncle. Don't want to damage it if that's the case-'

"Prey, can you get into this without ripping it?" Gloom asked, offering Prey the thick blue envelope. 

"Let me sir." Crimson said, snapping one wing out. With a *snick*, the wingblade gleamed.

"Oh, good idea." Gloom held the letter steady between his two wing claws as Crimson smoothly glided the blade under the letter's flap. He didn't even do it slowly, just with a single confident stroke. Prey closed his mouth. He'd been going to say something about a potential magical trap or poison on the letter, but it seemed a bit late now.

Gloom slid the folded letter out. It was several pages long, which explained the envelope's thickness. He unfolded the letter with a crinkle of paper and looked it over.

Prey cleared his throat, "Down here, maybe?" He asked wryly.

"Ah, sorry." Gloom held the pages down lower so Prey could also read them upside-down from at his runt height, and Crimson just leaned over Gloom's shoulder.

They all read it.

Gloom let out a groan of frustrated disappointment at his fellow pony. 

"There's no way." Prey said flatly.

"This is written in code? I mean, he is a spy then, right?" Crimson asked.

The letter wasn't written in Equestrian even if it used the same alphabet, nor was it simply a foreign language. Instead, it was purposeful gobbledygook. 

"No way," Prey repeated, "There's no way this is so simple."

"It looks very simple to me. Lika Soil is sending coded messages to somepony he doesn't want anypony else to read." Gloom said, face set. 

'-I was giving him the benefit of the doubt, but this is proof-', Gloom thought in disappointment. 

"Hang on, no. I'm not buying this." Prey shook his head.

Crimson tilted one tufted ear in silent query where it poked through his helmet slit.

"It's way too simple," Prey elaborated, "There's just no way. I mean come on, the very first person's mail we intercept? With no previous leads or clues, and it just so happens our first suspect out of over fifty is the spy?"

Gloom raised a brow, giving the letter a shake in his wing claw, "Do you think this is a set up? A framing? Nopony even knew we were investigating Lika Soil. And he came and posted the letter himself, I saw it. Nopony switched it in the post office or anything."

"Nuh-uh. I'm not saying he's being framed, because obviously he is sending coded messages, but I don't buy it being this smooth." Prey shook his head, ears and ribbon swinging

"But...I mean, that looks like what it is though." Crimson pointed out, indicating the damning letter.

"In real life, usually the simplest explanation is the correct explanation. We just got lucky that it was the very first pony on the list we checked." Gloom said.

"Lucky. Us?" Prey challenged, "No way, no how. When has anything ever gone right for us? There's got to be more to it than this."

'-I can't disagree with that. Everything always goes wrong for the ISND-', Without meaning to, Gloom's free wing claw rose to rub at the scarred flesh under his eyes. He remembered rats in a cellar, a dark night, and bloody jaw bones lined up in the dirt.

Crimson obviously caught the glazed look coming over Gloom's eyes and recognised the signs. He knew them himself. Crimson quickly extended a wing and firmly nudged the Sargent's shoulder. 

Gloom startled, almost going into a defensive crouch before he caught himself. "Oh."

That was all Gloom said. Prey and Crimson said nothing about it either.

"The evidence is showing it is Lika Soil, yes, but it' suspiciously simple." Prey said, continuing on as if nothing had happened. 

Crimson nodded at the top page of the letter, "It could be that it's nothing bad written. I mean, we don't know what it says yet. He could just be paranoid."

Yeah, right. None of them believed that for a second. 

"Well, we got something on our very first try. We should head back to the office and work out how to crack this code." Gloom said, but he was looking sideways at Prey.

"Give it here. Let me have a look at it first." Prey said impatiently. He really did think this was too easy. He couldn't think of how someone might've tried to intervene or sow false evidence, so it should be real, but even so, how could he not be suspicious? 

Since they'd already inadvertently tested the letter and envelope for poison or magic before Prey could stop them, he may as well see if the code was a simple one.

Prey took the edge of the letter in his hoof cleft and stepped back to give himself some safe space out of reach. He read over the letter. It was all written in upper case, with no punctuation or line breaks, but even so.

Prey scoffed, "This is supposed to be a code? A Royal Guard greenie could crack this in less than a day by simply by substituting letters until they worked out a full sentence."

"Is that just an exaggeration?" Gloom asked.

"No, I'm serious. This is pathetic." Prey shook the pages.

"See this? It's like a child trying to be clever by inventing a secret code to write in their diary with, that's the level of bad this is. These are all letters of the same alphabet, the words are based off Equestrian too, and they've merely substituted letters with symbols on a one-to-one basis. They've still even used vowels in each word."

This didn't even count as a code. This was one of those logic word puzzles ponies were so fond of putting on the backs of their newspapers it was so simple.

'Too simple.' Prey couldn't help but think suspiciously again.

"Well, can you 'translate' what it says right now then? Or do you need something to write it down with?" Gloom asked, but not expecting to hear a negative after Prey's scathing review.

"No, I can do it now. Just give me five minutes of silence to read through it all and get the key worked out." Prey assured him.

Gloom and Crimson did just that, going quiet and moving over to the street curb to patiently let him work his way through Lika Soil's letter. No residents came by during that brief time, nor flew overhead in the balmy evening sky, although Canterlot was far from quiet. The capital city never was, there was always something going on. 

The sound of hooves clopping on bricks and pavement always echoed all around Canterlot at all hours of the day. Ponies voices raised for whatever varied reasons. Carts, wagons, carriages, and cabs rolling down the streets. Gates opening, doors closing, crates being dropped, chain link clinking, the banging of hammers repairing walls, and gravel pathways crunching just to name a few. There was really no end to the myriad list of noises always occuring in the background.

'-you just can't get the solemn, empty silence of a full moon here like you can out there-', Gloom noted.

Finished, Prey rubbed his cheek, "Alright, I'm done."

"And what does it say? Give us a summarised run down."


---


Complied down into a basic summary, the letter was a weekly report about the mining of raw gems, for enchanting purposes, coming out from under Mount Halter, the smaller mountain next to Mount Canter itself. 

The letter also included a small dose of the 'important' goings on of Canterlot on the side. The latter was mostly just things which anyone could read in the newspaper if they wanted to. But the bulk of Lika Soil's letter was distinctly about the former topic, the mining reports of the quantity and quality of raw gems coming from the mining operations happening under Mount Halter.

Some of what Lika Soil had was quite in depth and detailed stuff, and there was no possibility of the recorded information having come from publicly available sources. It had actual tables of presented data, which could only have come off copied reports from the mining offices themselves.

Because where else would Lika Soil have ever come across exact extraction figures for lapis, onyx, carnelian, amazonite, jasper, tourmaline, selenite, garnet, moonstone, and more? It listed quantity, the grade of the stones, net weight, and the two week closure of shaft 5B because of concerns over increasing readings of water buildup.

Corporate espionage. While not containing national secrets or treasonous plans of revolt, the letter was still very much concrete proof of illegal activities.


---


Captain Nighthawk put down his transcribed and translated copy of the letter on his desk, "These reports have been going out of Canterlot every week?"

"Yes sir." Gloom nodded, standing at ease. Prey and Crimson were both lined up behind him in the dim office.

"Where has this Lika Soil been sending them to again?"

"We don't know exactly. There is no recipient name listed, just a post box within Griffonia, sir."

Nighthawk dispassionately flicked the translated copy with a hoof tip, "And how did he manage to get this information from the mining companies? Or is it just one company?"

"We don't know that yet either. We can either arrest him and interrogate him, or continue to investigate him to see what else we can find first." Gloom answered, not wasting time and skipping straight to the reason for seeking out the Captain. Not that the ISND weren't capable of making the call themselves, but Gloom just wanted to check first.

Nighthawk's hoof began to tap on the desk as he considered the two options Gloom had just put forward, face set in its usual hard scowl. 

'-put a halt to this criminal immediately, or see if we can drag any more worms out of the woodwork first. That's the question-'

Nighthawk was not the only officer of the Night Guard leadership in the dimly lit office. Vivid Edge, the one who'd led the new thestral recruits here four nights ago, was the newest 2nd Lieutenant, and was present along with Starry Wing. Nighthawk had purposefully called them both in for this meeting, Prey picked up from their thoughts. He wished in annoyance Nighthawk hadn't. 

Although Prey supposed it was an inevitability he would've met the new thestral Vivid Edge at some point regardless. As an officer, she and the ISND were bound to run across each other during the course of their duties.

It didn't stop Prey from still wishing they hadn't met at all.

Starry Wing had been tutoring the one eyed mare in her new role before they'd both been called in by Nighthawk. The Night Guard was too understaffed for anything but throwing all the new recruits in at the deep end. Sink or swim, there was no time for slow easing in. 

Now, Vivid Edge was standing up straight next to the other Lieutenant, although she was still shorter than Starry Wing. Prey had of course already seen the mare on the parade ground during their dramatic arrival, but now he got another look close up. 

Vivid Edge wasn't small despite being nearly a head shorter than Starry Wing, just compact, with the sort of hard wiry muscles which came from a life of hard work, tail cropped short, but mane kept long in the warriors braid of thestrals. She was of course kitted out in the familiar grey repurposed Royal Guard armour, and she was eyeing the ISND with her one good eye, the other covered under a faded eyepatch. It looked made from actual animal hide, too.

She wasn't doing something childish like trying to hide her scrutiny either, just openly inspecting the ISND, Crimson and Prey in particular.

It seemed she'd heard something about Crimson's situation, '-the only loyal pony of clan Myrrdon, but he wasn't exiled for that. A gauntlet, wasn't it?-'

But whereas she had an idea about Crimson's presence, Prey was a complete surprise, '-heard something about a sheep, but she's a lamb, not an adult. There must be a good reason a foal is in Her Majesty's Guard, but still, why?-'

Prey didn't look at Vivid Edge and pretended not to notice her one eyed scrutiny.

Nighthawk paused in his tapping on the desk, as if just remembering Vivid Edge was new here as well, and looked sharply over.

"Lieutenant Vivid Edge. You know of Gloom already. This is Crimson, and Prey. Their unit is a specially designated and selected one by Princess Luna herself. You have not yet been informed about them, I take it?"

"No sir, I have not."

Nighthawk grunted, pausing for a long moment in consideration. "You will need to be brought up to speed later about their role and... previous cases. It is important that you understand some of the restricted... But that's not important right now, the details can wait until later. For now, I want your assessment of how best to proceed with this confirmed report of spying."

Vivid Edge of course didn't protest that she was completely new not only to the Night Guard but the whole of Canterlot, and thus hadn't a clue about procedure. Nighthawk was asking to give her a chance to learn for herself.

Thestrals believed the best way to learn is through experience, or through following the example of your elders. Vivid Edge wasn't some young, fresh faced warrior. She would never have been granted the rank of 2nd Lieutenant otherwise. Prey placed her age at at least fifty, her scars and stance showing her to be the recipient of a lot of hard learning.

'-I don't know enough about these gem mines. Since I don't know, then the only remedy is to learn-'

"Why are these gems important? How valuable are they, and how does this spy's report impact Canterlot?"  Vivid Edge asked brusquely.

Nighthawk first looked over at Starry Wing to check if he knew any of those answers, but the thestral shrugged and looked to Gloom instead. Vivid Edge and Nighthawk copied him.

"I don't know beyond the basics myself yet ma'am," Gloom answered, "We haven't had time to do any in-depth research, but I'm sure Prey can better answer your question."

There was a silence.

"Prey?" Gloom prompted.

Prey stopped himself from scowling in displeasure as he was put in the spotlight, Vivid Edge seemingly nonplussed by the question being turned over to the child for answers.

'-why should that be? Why would the filly know where her Sargent doesn't?-'

'Oh look, another pony who doesn't know an ewe from a ram. Who would've guessed?'

Prey was momentarily tempted to favour her with one of his sweetest and most saccharine smiles, but by now even Nighthawk and Starry Wing would know it was utterly fake and actually mockery. Because what did he have to smile about? So he just resignedly answered the question.

"Raw gems by themselves are of indeterminate value. To my understanding, the mines merely extract them en-masse, and are then only valued once they've been processed and refined. So while Lika Soil's illicit report doesn't have information about the exact value in bits, it can be used to make an estimate."

"You know the value of the different types of gemstones when in raw bulk?" Starry Wing asked in some surprise, "Oh, pardon me for interrupting."

"Nope. But these gemstones are specifically for enchanting, remember? That means their value wildly varies, unlike with crystals." Prey answered.

'-is she making this up? No, a pony like Nighthawk would not listen to a filly spinning tall tales-', Vivid Edge reasoned, mentally shifting her evaluation of the lamb. Also, wrong on the ewe and ram front yet again.

"I don't follow. What's the difference between crystals and gems? And what do you mean about the value?" Vivid questioned.

Prey resigned himself to explaining. The Night Guard were not unicorns, (thank goodness), and so they wouldn't know much about magical theory. That was a mark against Nighthawk in Prey's book. He was in the city of New Unicornia, surrounded by the dangers of magic every single day. He should know better.

"Okay, the first important thing to understand is that gems and crystals are different when it comes to holding magical enchantments. Both have properties which can store or transmute magical energy. The big difference is in the scale. Some gemstones can hold incredible amounts of magic, while others nearly nothing. Whereas crystals all work at basically the same consistent and reliable level. But it's a low level."

"But gemstones can take more magic is what you're saying." Nighthawk bluntly stated.

"Yes, but mostly no. Alright, to put it in perspective, nearly every single crystal the size of say, a pencil, could hold ten units of magic."

"How much is one unit of magic? And what is a unit of magic?" Vivid Edge felt she needed to ask.

"I don't know, that's not how magic is measured, I'm just making up a number to show you the difference." Prey answered.

"I see. Continue on."

"So every crystal could hold ten units. But an average gemstone will most likely hold less than that, say only one or two units."

Nighthawk frowned, "Why are gemstones so much more valuable than crystals then?"

"I wasn't finished. Crystals are reliable. That's why they're used to hold light enchantments, heating, cooling, and basically all magically mundane appliances use crystals. Most gemstones are worse. They're shiny and pretty, but magically worthless. But then there's the rare gemstone which can hold so much more. An ignius gemstone. It's to do with a difference with structure and age. The older and slower forming a gemstone, the better."

"How much more magic is more?" Vivid asked, everyone else interested to hear as well, having become engaged.

"If a crystal holds ten units, and the average grade gemstone holds perhaps two, then depending on the individual gemstone, an ignius stone could hold anywhere from ten, up to or beyond a thousand."

Everyone blinked. "That's a big difference." Gloom observed.

"Very. Although there's also the difference in gemstones to consider. Rubies, lapiz, emeralds, carbuncles, as far as I understand, each is suited to hold certain types of magical affinities better as well. So even the same grade of gemstone can vary wildly between stone types." Prey added.

"And what could the value of these higher ignius gemstones be?" Nighthawk asked, getting back to the heart of the matter.

"Well a refined but unenchanted crystal would go for, say, twenty bits. A refined ignius gemstone, even without the enchantments which is another whole expense entirely, could range between roughly a hundred bits, to fifty-thousand bits plus."

"That's a lot of gold." Gloom observed again.

And it was. A hundred bits was hardly a piffling amount to casually spend, but fifty-thousand really made you stop. From a month's rent, to buying the house and both your neighbours' houses too for good measure. Those kinds of prices for gemstones were something only wealthy magi towers could afford. The towers spent big and earned big, but even then, each stone would be evaluated on an individual basis by a skilled magus before any bid was placed. And while nearly all thestrals and Prey placed little stock in money or avarice, even Vivid Edge could still appreciate what such a large number meant.

Everyone looked again at Lika Soil's translated letter on Nighthawk's desk.

"With that kind of gold on the line, you'd think there'd be rules to stop somepony getting their hooves on such information and sending it out wherever they pleased." Starry Wing mused, but without actually being thoughtful in the slightest. It was as plain as day Lika Soil had broken laws to get this information.

"Whomever is employing Lika Soil, why not instead hire a spy to steal the information about the gemstones once they've been refined and sorted?" Crimson spoke up for the first time in the conversation.

They looked at him. The pegasus shuffled his wings against his sides, only a few of the deepest cuts remaining on his body by this point as a result of his training 'accident', as Crimson slowly worked through his thought process verbally:

"I mean, these high quality ignius gemstones sound rare. Surely they don't dig lots out everyday. Most of the gemstones sound like they're just dross. So surely it would be better to hire a spy to get the information once the gems have all been sorted out and you know if any of them are actually worth something."

"That's right. Getting this information before the gems have been refined and sorted won't help you know which ones to steal." Gloom agreed, "Providing of course, that your aim actually is to steal the ignius ones."

Nighthawk's already hard eyes narrowed fractionally in thought, '-something is missing from this picture-'

'-Dusky Gloom used to be friends with my Edge when they were foals. I barely recognise him now, he's grown into a leader of his own squad, being expected to deal with spies-', Vivid Edge thought to herself, apparently momentarily distracted from the query Crimson had raised.

'You'll change your opinion once Nighthawk's told you all about Mayflower and Lilly Blossom.' Prey thought.

He didn't really have an opinion on what should be done with Lika Soil. For a start, he hadn't expected to actually find a spy despite all their researching, and moreover, Prey didn't care about money or the mines getting ripped off by someone in Griffonia. Actually, that sounded like a plus to him, even if this person was just as greedy as the ponies he or she was defrauding.

Nighthawk gave a dissatisfied grunt as he failed to think up a possible reason why. "There is some key piece of information missing from what we have. Leave Lika Soil untouched for now."

Vivid Edge's short tail flicked in obvious surprise, not understanding, but she didn't even think to question Nighthawk's decision, merely trying to figure out what she'd missed.

Starry Wing saw and offered her an explanation anyways; "It's to our advantage to let him stay free for now. Arresting him will alert the pony receiving his letters on the other end that something has gone wrong. We can also now watch Lika Soil and find out if he's in contact with anypony else. Rest assured, Lika Soil will be charged for his crimes, and it is not as if he can flee without us being aware."

Nighthawk grunted and bluntly summarized Starry Wing's words, "Before we knew of no spy. Now we know of one. He's more useful to the Night Guard free than in a cell."

'-very different to the clans. Seems even I have much to learn about Canterlot-', Vivid thought, nodding once in understanding.

"If we're not going to immediately arrest Lika Soil, then we, the ISND I mean, will be observing and digging a bit deeper into his recent history and see what we can find first." Gloom decided. The ISND were clearly expected to operate independently by now, and only when or if Nighthawk thought otherwise would he issue different orders.

"Very good." Nighthawk rasped. It was a dismissal, but before they could leave Starry Wing jumped in.

"Just checking, you have another copy of this letter, I take it?" The Lieutenant asked.

"Yes sir."

"Then I'll send somepony around to your office in a few minutes to collect the original one. They can go post it again so our 'friend' in Griffonia doesn't get suspicious."

"Will do sir."

Standing there, in the dimly lit Captain's office, Prey was struck by the tedium of all of... this. The repetitive cycle of being given a case, finding a suspect, reporting it to Nighthawk, and having some new Night Guard listen in while he held back to not overly draw their attention. It was the same thing over and over again, but at least there was little active danger. Not zero danger, because the moment you let your guard down is the moment you've given up your right to live. Still, it was so utterly tedious. 

Except, it wasn't quite the same as it had been anymore.

Prey was different. All of the ISND were different for that matter, although they were ignorant of Prey's own secret war with the now deceased thieves. But they were all still changed. And Nighthawk and Starry Wing both knew it. The warlock had left his mark, both the marks everyone else knew of, but also that one night huddled in the dark had left it's own, hidden, marks.

Both Night Guard officers had privately thought about it multiple times during this meeting, Prey had heard them doing so. They saw it as part of their duty as leaders to consider their subordinates, but neither had said anything, no, not so much as even hinted to it. Of course, they would not broach the topic again unless the ISND moved things in that direction first. The case was closed. The painful details did not need to be brought up over and over again. The damage it'd caused to any and all of the ISND members was not relevant to this case, and would be brought up until such time as it became relevant.

Prey thought he preferred it that way. Most probably. Or maybe he could've milked more sympathy and gotten to stay safely on leave for longer.

But it was too late to try that approach now, things had moved on. He was back and working in the ISND again, and so he needed to also return to fulfilling his role. That being the role of pleasing Luna and proving his continual usefulness. Uncovering a spy in only three days, even if it was mostly blind luck, had to count for at least something towards filling his 'quota'.

So yes, the same old tedious routine over and over again.


---


The ISND had returned to their office after being dismissed by Nighthawk. With the arrival of night, it was the beginning for most of the Night Guards' shifts, whereas the ISND were halfway through theirs already. 

Somewhere outside, the magnificent Palace Gardens were being shrouded in the silent arrival of darkness. Birds were tucking their heads under their wings, and flowers were closing their petals until the bright light of morning came again.

Inside of the Palace walls, down in the Night Guard section and inside of their office, the ISND were taking a short break. Just three or four minutes to stretch, uncrink their necks from hunching over paperwork, and wake their legs back up.

Gloom had his helmet removed, head leant back, and was massaging his eyes. Crimson was standing in the middle of the floor, stretching his wings out to their limits, and properly re-tying his mane back. Prey had simply just sprawled himself over his stool, legs dangling, and looking something like a flopped cat. He groaned. He was already fed up wtih reading all the publicly available material about the mining operation which they could get at such short notice. He reached a hoof up to rub his back. He knew he was doing his spine no favours flopped like this, but he couldn't be bothered to move until their break was over.

And then he had a thought.

He thought it through first, just to check he had it right, before getting the other two's attention.

"It just clicked. I know why Lika Soil's only been hired to get the raw information from the mines about the unprocessed gemstones."

Gloom's head jerked upright, "What? Where? What do you mean?" Crimson also stopped sliding his helmet back on over his now properly tied mane, and blinked yellowly at Prey.

"It's simple. Information about the processed gemstones, not the still raw ones, is by far the more valuable, specifically on the highest tier ignius gems. So because Lika Soil is only reporting information from the mine, when they haven't worked out which few of the vast majority are ignius, it means one of two things. Option one, this person in Griffonia isn't interested in the gems themselves, but something else. Possible, but it doesn't really fit. Option two, this Griffonian is instead getting additional information on the magical refiners from elsewhere."

"I think I'm following, but what precisely do you mean?" Gloom asked.

"For instance, say, this person had another spy besides Lika Soil. Two spies are better than one, and this way, they get all the information on the gemstone supply from the start of the process to the finish, not just one half of it. One spy for the raw gemstones in the mines, one spy for the refined ignius gems."

Both Crimson and Gloom did see what he was talking about, finding that it fitted.

"Wonderful. So there's at least one more traitorous pony out there we have to catch." Gloom groused, caught up in a moment of aggravation.

'-by the moon, does greed also rot pony's brains along with their conscience?-'

Crimson walked back over to the desk, "Then we had best get a move on. I mean, how will we catch them? We've no leads, unlike we had with Lika Soil."

"And let's not forget about him, either. We shouldn't split our focus too much. We still have a job to do investigating Lika Soil," Prey cut in, "We're letting him run free for now only so we can learn how he's getting his information, and who he's sending it too. If we can't pull either off, it's better just to arrest him and be done with it. Don't want any loose ends."

"So we've got Lika Soil, and at least one other unknown spy in on the gemstone mining operation." Gloom stated.

"Only most likely," Prey felt he needed to add, "I said it makes the most sense, and I'd estimate a ninety percent chance, but it's of course still possible we're completely off the mark. We should never assume we know everything."

"No, you're right Prey. But still, we've got to make a judgement call. And got to split our attention now unfortunately." Gloom sighed.

"So what's our plan?" Crimson bluntly asked, breaking down the issue to its core.

What were they going to do? The most obvious course of action was simply to arrest and interrogate Lika Soil for all he knew, but it'd already been decided to let Lika Soil remain free to see what else they could discover about him first. If there'd been lives at risk, Lika Soil would be in an interrogation cell right now, but there weren't, it was only money on the line. Not to mention, Lika Soil had been sending these reports in for at least three months already now, and no big gem heist or break in at the mines had happened. 

Lika's employer was playing the long game, whatever game that was, so the ISND had some time to act on a plan of their own choosing.

"Anything from your special talent, sir?" Prey asked, personally very sceptical but you never knew unless you asked, and having more information never hurt.

"You know that's not how it works. I need a path I can follow before I get any hints about whether it's the wrong path or not.“

"Well in that case choose a plan. What are we going to do?"

"Break it down first. What do we want to get out of any plan we choose?" Gloom asked.

"How Lika Soil got his information, and who he's sending it to." Crimson said.

"Locate this second spy in the gem refinery, and then the same again as what Crimson said." Prey added on.

"We shouldn't forget all those other ponies on the list who are regularly posting suspect letters abroad." Gloom warned.

"But we don't have the numbers or time to work on more than one thing at a time." Prey said.

"I suppose you're right," Gloom admitted, scratching at his chest, "We'll have to come back to those ponies. Or hoof them over to another Night Guard squad."

"We have our goals to achieve. So how? I mean, how are we going to make them into a reality?" 

Prey thought for a minute, rubbing the end of one ear, "If we can get Captain Nighthawk to place a watch on Lika Soil to secretly follow him next Tuesday to see where he goes and how he gets his information from the mining company. That'll answer one half of our goal with Lika Soil."

"Why next Tuesday? What about the rest of the week before that?" Gloom frowned.

"Come on, it's simple. Lika Soil posts his letter every Wednesday. In his report, Lika Soil only had mining information up to that Monday, therefore, he must've gotten that information sometime during the Tuesday, in time to post it for Wednesday." Prey explained.

"Ah, right. And the second half? Finding out who the traitor is working for?"

Crimson beat Prey to answering, "He can tell us himself. I mean, we just arrest him after that point, and interrogate him. We have enough evidence to do so. He'll cave and tell us."

"I wouldn't bet on him actually knowing his employer's real name." Prey warned, "But if we can catch this second spy, and interrogate him or her too, perhaps we'll be able to cross reference between the two of them."

"That's a good idea, I'll ask Captain Nighthawk for a support squad. So that just leaves the question, how do we find the second spy at the refiners? Do we need to trawl through the whole postal list again?" Gloom asked, warily eyeing said list on the desk, filled with cramped lines of text.

'-actually, can we just see if there are two recipients in Griffonia with the same address? Can it really be that simple?-'

Prey paused at hearing Gloom's thoughts, 'No way. Could they really be that careless? Surely they'd be smart enough to use two different addresses. It can't be that simple, it just can't.'


---


But it was. It really was.

All three of them stared down at the list with its circled entry, the postal address matching the same one Lika Soil used. It was from a different post office, but still, how obvious could you get?

Gloom pushed his angular helmet back on his head to rub at his brow, "Well. Would you look at that."

"Huh." Crimson grunted, almost thoughtfully shuffling his wings into closer alignment.

"They post every Friday. That's the day after tomorrow. Actually, just tomorrow, it's past midnight right now. So, same plan again? Just walk in after they've dropped the letter off, and demand it from the post office?" Prey asked, shifting on his stool.

"Yep. Same plan again. Why fix what's not broken?" Gloom said, still having trouble believing it could really be this simple.

'-now I'm starting to sound as paranoid as Prey-'

Gloom picked up the list, "Well, let's go see if we can't get another meeting with the Captain at such short notice."


------


The plan was all set, but that didn't mean Prey was all for it.

Their shift was finished, and the three ISND members had returned to their flats to rest so they could arise and do the exact same thing later tonight, over and over again until something gave. Gloom had wanted to try visiting Lilly again after the disaster of their last visit, but they just hadn't had time since then.

The ISND needed sleep, same as everyone else. And while technically the Night Guard left its soldiers enough time to rest for their next shift, but only if you went to sleep straight away. Which was one of the benefits of bunking in the Guard quarters, but those were currently now filled with the new Night Guard recruits anyway. But there just wasn't time to do anything personal. It was work work work seven days a week. But perhaps, with the fresh influx of thestrals, that might blessedly change to six days a week. One could only hope, however the relief wasn't here yet.

So Gloom had decided that instead of trying to visit Lilly after their shift, they should instead get up early this afternoon and meet outside her flat to try later in the day instead.

A waste of his valuable time, as far as Prey was concerned. He had his own overloaded work schedule outside of the Night Guard, stealing nearly all the waking hours of his day. 

Sacrifices had to be made if he wanted to complete his runic work. Lemon Pink unfortunately couldn't do it all in his place. Some things you just gotta do yourself.

Prey kicked a small shard of rock off to the side of the rough tunnel, "How are things going with your colt friend?"

The both of them knew the real meaning behind Prey's question. Lemon Pink, of course being the only other person here, floated the silver ball of light a bit higher to illuminate their way down the tunnel: 

"Randy Pickaxe does not know or suspect anything further. I performed the latest memory scan only two days ago."

"Hm. Continue checking his memories each week, or if he gives you a reason to be suspicious for any reason." Prey ordered, stepping over a dip in the uneven rock of the tunnel's floor.

"Yes, Prey."

Nothing was said about Prey's test of Lemon's continued loyalty. It didn't need to be mentioned, because Prey and Lemon never forgot.

They were down here underneath Canter Mountain, going to check the remains of Prey's one lair. The thieves had destroyed it by detonating whatever that sun cataract artifact had been down here. Prey still didn't like the artifact's name, and it was destroyed. This was the first time Prey and Lemon had gone down to look at the lair's remains, their goal being to see if anything could be salvaged.

Prey had invested hundreds of exhausting hours into building the runic defences of his crystal lair, but he hadn't finished them. If he'd just had another forty, no, even thirty more hours of work, then the disaster with the crusading thieves would never have happened. The thieves wouldn't have been an issue, because the runes would have taken care of them. Their memories of the lair's existence would have been completely erased. Or probably erased. The thieves had been wearing mindlock enchantments, so perhaps the runes wouldn't have worked?

'I need to get a hold of one of those mindlocks to see how it works and how to break it.' 

Prey made a mental note to do so. He was not happy about what had happened, and about how a few extra hours would've solved the whole problem.

If so, there wouldn't have been a need to kill all the diamond dogs, or to lose his veropede, or for the Sewer's Heart, the wickerwatch and the hex down there. The battle to the grisly end would never have taken place, nor the killing, the blood, and the horrible horrible fear. The thieves wouldn't have used Selenia's pincushion, and he wouldn't have almost died. Did die, technically.

However, the loss of his crystal lair was still a bitter one to bear. It was supposed to have been his secret place of safety.

The silver globe of light cast a dark shadow as they approached a bend in the tunnel, the stone roof low enough that Lemon had to duck and shuffle until they were around the corner. The echo of their hoof steps was quiet, both knowing how to walk quietly.

And then they were there. That was another reason it hadn't echoed, because the sound hadn't had far to travel. 

The entrance into the crystal cave he'd repurposed as his lair was blocked. Chunks of jagged rock jammed the way, clean stone showing through where it'd been broken violently. The largest oblong chunk was half the width of the tunnel, the rest varying between every other size. 

Prey looked at the chunks of rock. From memory, he knew there was at least another five yards of tunnel beyond this point before you arrived at the cave, or there had been at any rate. There was no way to tell if this blockage was just a screen, or if the whole tunnel was likewise filled in behind it, to say nothing of the cave itself. Prey had used runes to strengthen and support the cavern roof, but it didn't look like it'd been enough.

"Huh."

Lemon strengthened the light spell, better showing even the minor details of the cave in and pushing away the dark shadows between the rock chunks. Prey looked closer at the gaps. Through some of them, there was only the same black of the tunnel down which he and Lemon Pink had just been trotting. Open space.

Lemon drew the same conclusion he did, "It seems to just be a screen blockage. It might just be a tiny pocket, but perhaps the cavern itself still stands. If we removed these rocks, we could possibly progress on."

"It doesn't seem to have become a structural part of the tunnel either." Prey observed, looking up at the ceiling. Which still left the problem of a tunnel blocked with rocks to get past before they could continue on. Lemon could levitate out a few of the medium and smaller sized chunks with the assistance of her electrite choker, but she was still no powerhouse. She was actually below average in anything but illusions and mind magic.

"I think it you might fit through over here, Prey." Lemon spoke.

Prey followed Lemon's gesture, and saw a gap near the top of the rock pile that he could crawl through with only a bit of effort. Prey supposed there was no harm in trying. If there was a second blockage behind this first one, he'd just turn around and crawl back through, but at least then they'd know.

"Alright, bring the light closer." He ordered as he began climbing his way cautiously up the sprawl of fallen rocks, testing his hoof hold at each step and avoiding the sharp edges. 

Some of the broken grey chunks shifted under his hooves, but mostly it was stable. A pebble rattled down somewhere in the pile as he crouched in front of the opening. The grainy rock gave off a chill as he put his face up to the hole. It was dark beyond, the light globe floating at his back mostly blocked by his own head as he tried to look through, but it seemed to be open enough beyond to at least turn around if he had to. Prey could feel the presence of his runes just a bit further down the tunnel.

'Here goes.'

He crouched, and crawled in. The stone pressed down on his head, but it wasn't so narrow as to make him crawl claustrophobically on his belly. He was more worried about cutting his legs on a broken edge of stone in the darkness as he shuffled his way through.

Prey poked his front half out into empty space and darkness, "Float the light spell through." He called back, laying down flat to provide space above him for the globe to come through.

The play of silver light shifted, and for a brief second he was blind as the spell passed right over his face. It was just a basic light spell, so it gave off no heat to worry about. Prey blinked, getting his vision back, and squinted to see what Lemon's light revealed.

The state of the tunnel beyond was not great. More jagged and freshly broken chunks of stone buried the previous tunnel floor, creating a treacherous new one and a lower ceiling. A very uneven ceiling too, since that's since that was where most of the rubble had come from, but looking around, Prey could see how the rubble had been blasted off of the walls too. But despite that, it could've been a lot worse.

For a start, it could've been blocked. And it wasn't. Prey had a clear view down the remaining three or so yards of broken and cracked tunnel and out into the cavern. 

Prey metaphorically felt his heart lift inside its Jaw of Hearts. The crystal cavern wasn't just a giant collapsed molehill of hundreds of tonnes of stone rubble.

Silver light cast the stone into a slightly off-white hue, and as it did thousands of glittering stars reflected it back. Countless shards of broken quartz of every size lay everywhere, but the cavern itself was still a cavern, even if the light was only strong enough to illuminate the closest half of it. 

All those reinforcement runes had actually done something in the end!

'Finally. A well deserved turn up for the books.'

However, even with his runes whatever that artifact the thief leader had detonated down here had still done damage. The cavern itself might still be standing, with the bottomless sinkhole pool sitting in the middle of it, but otherwise it didn't look like the same cave anymore.

Put simply, it looked like an enormous force had instantly scoured the cavern clean. 

Where there'd been stalactites and stalagmites, there was now not a single one. Not even the snapped off stumps of what'd been the thickest ones, the width of trees, remained. The power that artifact had released in its self-destruction had been immense, but at least half of it must've just been heat, now long dissipated, or else even Prey's supporting runes wouldn't have kept the cavern roof up, but even so... Quartz formations were shattered, or reduced to a tenth of their size. And every surface which didn't have the correct runic arrays inlaid into them was missing. Scoured away, at least a hoof's depth of stone everywhere just pulverized and swept away.

It looked like the whole cavern had become a vast, pebbly beach, the entirety covered with pulped stone and glittering quartz chips. Humps and small dunes of the fine rubble had formed around or over the patches of cavern where, from memory, Prey knew he'd placed his arrays. Prey slowly stared around at all of it.

'I wonder how many tonnes of it fell into the sink hole?' The new grey 'beach' sloped sharply down into the still pool of water, showing this mat of sharp pebbles was nearly two hooves deep.

'Well, the entire cavern has changed, but at least I still have a cavern at all.' Prey thought, pulling himself from the hole and carefully climbing down the jagged rocks. It was easier to do with cloven hooves, but it also meant he couldn't benefit from horseshoes. The chill air was stale, and more pebbles rattled to the bottom of the pile as he got down.

"Good news and bad news," Prey spoke loudly for Lemon Pink's benefit still behind the cave-in, "It isn't a complete cave-in. However, walking in there at present is going to be perilous. We need to get a lot of boards to make some walkways."

"Yes, Prey. I understand." Lemon's muffled voice came from beyond the cave-in.

This was going to take a lot of clearing up, in fact it would be easier to just leave the new 'beach' where it was, but this was doable. The cavern was still standing, which was the only thing of real concern. Prey's runes were still here, most of them anyways. Destroying runes isn't usually a matter as simple as destroying the surface they were placed upon. Sometimes it was, like if the array was on a simple piece of wood, but not these runes. They went deep into the bedrock.

In the case of single use arrays, the runes would survive until the stored energy was burnt up. Better made and more complicated arrays would simply fall dormant until they recharged, but would almost never truly fade. Such was one of the few advantages runes held over normal magic.

"Can you float the light in further?" Prey called out.

"Yes, Prey. One moment."

There was a pause, and then Lemon standing at the gap in the cave-in, used her magic to direct the light spell up towards the domed roof of the scoured cavern.

The silvery light revealed more of the same. More torn apart rock and finely broken up rubble. The magical explosion must have taken the form of a vortex to create such finely chewed rubble, like the whole cavern was a giant mixing bowl beaten with a whisk.

"Stop. Take the light closer to the far tunnels." Prey ordered, frowning at the pair of far openings in the cavern. The first was the one tunnel through which the diamond dogs had guided the thieves in their quest for vengeance. The other passage led down into a maze of crystals beneath the mountain which Prey hadn't ventured into, nor did he intend to. He'd gone crawling down the twists into the eternal darkness beneath the earth once before, and he'd learned his lesson.

Much like the tunnel behind him which joined up with the sewers, the two unknown tunnels had been broken down and filled with rock debris in the explosion. Except there was a gap in the rubble blocking off the second tunnel, much like the gap through which he'd just crawled.

Except... Prey squinted as best he could with his damaged eyesight, "Brighter. As bright as you can for five seconds."

The light globe flared, not white, but shining silver, too bright to look at. Prey wasn't looking at it though. He was looking at the hole in the cave-in.

It was just a hole, but it didn't look right. Rocks looked like they'd been pushed in from the outside. Like the hole had been forced open. It was big enough to allow an adult to crawl through, larger than Prey's own entrance behind him. It didn't look right, not like it had naturally formed like that in the explosion. It looked like someone had dug their way in. Prey sucked in his breath.

'The thieves. There were more of their pony supremacist order out there after all.' Prey's thoughts automatically jumped to that. But it was the wrong tunnel, not the one through which the diamond dogs had guided them, and all the diamond dogs were dead. Prey had seen the alpha's memories, there were no survivors left.

'Not the thieves then?'

In the few seconds before the light spell faded, Prey saw something he recognised, a blackened outline blasted across the stones around the whole. It was dispersed, not looking much like an outline what with how it was spread over multiple broken pieces of rock, but it was a type Prey recognised. He'd been the one to create the runic flare traps at those tunnel entrances after all, and those runes still worked just fine, rubble or no rubble. And that was definitely the scourched after effects of a flare trap having gone off.

"Lemon, start trying to dig your way through that pile. We have a problem."


---


Lemon and Prey stood over the scorch marks. It had been hard to tiptoe across the uneven skree and rubble to get to this side of the cavern, staying well clear of the sinkhole lest it start a small landslide in, but it'd been harder to tear down a hole big enough through the cave-in to get in without prompting a further collapse.

But they were here now, Lemon still casting the light spell, the globe floating in front of them so as to only cast their shadows away.

Prey bent, and poked gingerly at the hole. It was definitely made, not natural. He lifted his hoof and looked at the dark, dried residue. He knew this blood, he'd smelt the familiar acidic smell of burnt insect before too. The blood where something as large as a body had been dragged back into the hole, leaving thick smears of soot behind, had once been dark green. Not red.

Prey was remembering that time when he'd been setting up rune traps down in the tunnels, safe inside one of his runic array choke points, and he thought he'd seen something down the very end of the tunnel. Two blue pupilless orbs. Eyes, sickly pale and solid blue.

And now he saw the similarity between those of Shimmer's corpse, and the pair in the dark.

"The mimics then. More than one." Lemon said into the silence.

Prey nodded silently, still looking at his hoof. 

So there were Mimics down there in the dark.

Why?

Had they tracked him all the way back from Mayflower too?

What did they want? Did they want anything from him, or just his permanent silence?

There were at least some of their number in the Border Guard. Was this about to become another war against just him? 

'Please no.' Part of Prey begged. 

'Let them come.' The other part of him hissed. Snake was unfeeling. Garrow was eager.

Why had Shimmer died distracting the reaper king for them? Prey didn't know.

Why?

Why this? Why here? Why now?

Prey groaned, he felt so tired suddenly. He sat down on the cold, uneven stone. Why couldn't the hunt have come to an end? Why didn't it ever stop? Prey hated it. He was tired of it. It hurt. He didn't want to hunt anymore. But he couldn't stop. To stop was to die. You can't deny hunger, it was simply nature. And Prey was hungry for life. He wasn't going to roll over and die.

Prey emptied his lungs in a long, long exhale. Then he breathed in, and repeated the action. He got up, brushing back the cool silk of the dangling ribbon.

There was work to do. He wasn't going to give in. He would do things differently this time. Fall was here and times really were a'changing.

Things had to be different this time, Prey would make sure of it. Let these mimics come, or let them stay in the shadows, Prey would be ready this time.

'Tired, weighed down, scarred, and just a runt lamb to hoof. They all laughed, but I'm the only one left to laugh now. You haven't won yet life, and until the day you do, I'm going to be here. Fighting. Surviving.'

"Right. Time to get to work. First, check if all the runic arrays survived. Second, it's time to finish that damned memory array."


---I---