Sunset Shimmer had not expected this when she had gone through that portal all those months ago. She had been planning to perform a great deed, to understand the magic that linked this strange new world to Equestria and prove that she was the greatest of her generation. Instead, she had spent months living in a low magic environment, scrounging for anything to help her survive as she slowly but surely adapted to the new world. That on its own had been a large enough obstacle to change every plan she had, on top of serving as a nice big humbling moment to cut down on her ego, but then she had stopped being alone.
First Gertrude Bell, a daughter of an industrialist fleeing an arranged marriage, had crashed her ship out of the sky and introduced Sunset to humanity, this strange species that walked on two legs and somehow lived their entire lives without using magic, at least openly, and had explored multiple worlds in this solar system. The two had become fast friends, mainly due to Sunsets loneliness causing her to stay near the human at all times and Gertrudes fascination with the unicorns stories causing her to not only accept the constant companionship but enjoy it. Of course, then they decided to investigate the mysteries of Mercury, encountering the mercenaries Mr. Bell had sent after his daughter, and convincing them that attempting to complete their task was a bad idea and that they would be much better rewarded by aiding the two in their expedition.
Which brought them here, with Sunset standing in a deep pit dug out by both muscle and magic, sighing as she shoved a pile of dirt to the side, pounding it down with her hooves clear the access into the dig site as she waited for the next pulse of thaumaturgical energy to give her the power to, once again, move a whole bunch of dirt out of the way to uncover the doorway into the mysterious metal obelisk before them. To the side, the mercenaries reinforced the hole, stopping dirt from sliding in and undoing her hard work as they talked amongst themselves about things she could not understand with the need to preserve every scrap of power. Gertrude paced the outside of the dig site, recording the excavation process on a pad of paper as she looked up at the towering monolith before them.
The Needles, the mysterious ring of metal obelisks that ringed the planet Mercury perfectly along the midline between the tidally locked worlds day side and night side, were the great mystery of Mercury, and as far as Sunset was concerned, uncovering their secrets was the key to understanding how a world with one side blistering hot and the other freezing cold all the time could possibly be suitable for pony or human life. However, despite their progress, the digging was slow with how buried the base of the monolith was.
It feels like we’ve been just digging away here for months. Sure, in the 15 minutes I get power every four hours I can talk to Gertrude and move dirt out of the way, but the rest of the time is literally just sitting around and waiting. This is getting so… aahhhh, it’s time. Sunset felt the first pulses of thaumaturgical energy begin to flow over her, the power absorbing into her body as she rose to her feet. Activating the translation spell, she called out. “Alright! Fifteen minutes people, show me where to move the dirt!”
The mercenaries captain turned away from his work, followed shortly by the rest of his men. “Lady Shimmer, we have two options for digging: either fully uncover the door or try to pry open the part we have uncovered and hope the dirt does not spill inside and block the passage.” He told her as they stepped to the edge of the dig site. “But we don’t know how tall the door is, and if we did we would be able to tell which option is superior.”
“Find how tall the door is, got it.” Sunset says, charging a spell as she slid down into the hole in the ground, grimacing as she slipped into a puddle of mud. This will all be worth it once I get inside… as long as I don’t break whatever’s in there by doing it. She thought as she walked up right to the edge of the uncovered portion of the doors, looking down and focusing as she gathered the energy for a spell.
With a blast of power, a clean line of dirt was shoved to the side, creating a thin triangle of air along the front of the door, which Sunset followed up with a light spell as she scanned the space. “The door doesn’t go much farther down!” She cried back. “We’ve got it about a third of the way uncovered right now.”
She saw the humans nod and begin to talk, the mercenaries drawing on experience working as manual labor for other mens excavation projects across the solar system. “Can you find the opening mechanism?” The ‘Irishman’ named Patrick yelled down to her. Pushing aside her curiosity about what an “Irish” was, Sunset nodded affirmative, causing the mercenaries and Gertrude to get excited, the lot of them sliding down into the dig and clustering around her.
“Alright… give me a moment…” Sunset gritted her teeth, maintaining a grasp on the handle as she held the dirt back from covering the door again. Oh this is difficult… and it’s locked… “No.” She gritted out through her teeth. “I’m not waiting hours to do this again, this door is opening!”
“Sunset, what are you-” Gertrude was cut off as the door shuddered, and from inside the sound of metal snapping could be heard by the gathered crowd, most of whom slowly stepped back at the reminder of Sunset’s power, something they were still uneasy about. However, that concern collapsed when the massive double doors, nearly three times the height of the tallest man, slowly slid inwards, splitting apart to reveal…
“Huh, I expected more.” Captain Williamson noted, looking into the undecorated, spartan chamber inside with a twinge of disappointment in his voice. Turning to Sunset, he said “I believe we could form a ramp out of the dirt down into the entrance, there are no artifacts I can see that would be covered.”
Sunset simply turned to him and gave him a tired look as she replied. “Yes, I already thought of that, and I realized that right now we are standing on the dirt that would be best used to make a ramp.”
“Ah… an astute observation.” Williamson notes as he steps back with Gertrude and his crew, watching as the unicorn slowly stepped back, releasing her grip on the dirt and watching as it slid down into the chamber, using a bit of intervention to smooth it out, make the slope shallower, and pack it down a bit to make it more stable, all tricks she had learned from experience digging this far down. Without waiting, she leapt down the ramp and into the base, grinning as she finally entered the structure. And now we finally get to see what makes this thing tick.
She heard the others scrambling down after her, and soon enough the five mercenaries, one woman, and a unicorn were all gathered in the center of the chamber, their path lit by the dim light coming in from outside. The chamber was vast and austere, forming a large square with the main area taken up by a large, flat space that was cleared of any sign of activity, while the back quarter consisted of a rectangular raised platform, completely vertical on the side facing the main door with three sets of stairs, one on each end and a third larger one directly in the middle. Just behind that set of stairs was a large doorway, their entrance into the rest of the structure.
“We’re inside, and that door…” she tested it magically, feeling the handle turn without resistance. “...is unlocked, so no pressure.” She turned to look at the gathered humans. The mercenaries were exhausted and dirty from the digging, and she knew from experience that when this pulse ended she would be just as exhausted as them with how much magic she slung around, so with a wistful look back at the door she shook her head. “We’re in no condition to go deep inside, especially if there are traps in there. Let’s take some time to eat and get some rest and I’ll store up as much thaumaturgical energy as I can for when we get inside.”
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Expedition Log: Cycle 369
We have finally made it into the antechamber of The Needle, and it was much less impressive than everyone was anticipating, just a large, undecorated chamber with a raised platform at the back. Despite their wariness towards me whenever I use magic, the mercenaries (who are all male for some reason, something to do with humans' strange attitudes towards gender roles? Not important right now) are very talkative once they get a little bit of beer in them. Gertrude doesn’t approve, but Captain Williamson said it was a way to boost morale, and I think it worked.
Then their chef, who isn’t a dedicated chef, he also does other stuff because they don’t have the numbers to let one person do only one thing. Anyway, he’s named Daniel, he’s from somewhere called Scotland, and he cooked up a nice dinner for us all out of canned food and local plants. He didn’t enjoy the flowers I brought, even though I thought they were delicious, but some of the roots and berries I had identified as safe made their way into the meal, so I helped out a bit.
Look at me, rambling like this. I’ve been without company for so long that just having somepony… no, someone to talk to has made me all excited like a filly on her first day of class. “Dear Diary, today I made a new friend! We made soup together, and I showed him some tasty flowers!” Seriously, I think being without people to talk to for a while has had effects on me.
To get back on track, David Williamson has a very experienced crew, and listening to their stories has been informative about this strange place I traveled to. I’ve learned a lot about humans just from listening to them talk, and the stories they tell about their adventures are something else. Apparently before this they had just come back from an expedition deep into the deserts of Mars, journeying through “an ancient temple of some long dead religion”, which was interesting. It all sounds very adventurous, and at first I was slightly confused how a group of adventurers like them ended up being sent after Gertrude in the first place when he explained it to me.
[Flashback]
“Adventuring doesn’t pay, at least not consistently. Sure, every so often you hit paydirt, find an ancient artifact that’s worth a lot to a collector or the like, but day to day it’s a constant question of if you’re gonna make enough with each excursion to pay for the supplies and equipment you use. This job seemed perfect for us: a rich man wanted his daughter and the ship she took found, in exchange we got enough pounds to cover our expenses for the next five years.” He seemed a bit regretful as he shook his head. “We had no idea that the simple task would possibly turn out like this. If we receive the reward you promised though, then I will say it is completely worth it.”
Once he finished dispensing that sage wisdom, he retired for the “night”, because with the sun never moving nothing can ever be considered night on this planet, and I went back into Gertrude’s ship, watching as she locked the doors behind her and muttered about the mercenaries couldn’t be trusted. I tried to reassure her that they want the gems I promised them, and we’d need to go back to Equestria to get them, and at that point they won’t have the ability to make her do anything… but she still doesn’t trust them.
I know she knows other humans better than I do… but I still can’t help but think she’s overreacting. After all, the captain seems like a reasonable man, and he wants to be paid. Plus, we’re about to enter an ancient magical construct. If we can’t trust them to at least be greedy predictably, then this expedition is in trouble before it starts.
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Hours passed by as the group slept, a constant watch up in case the Mercurian wildlife decided to interfere. After two more pulses, leaving her internal reserves feeling full and all her crystals nice and charged, Sunset was ready to go, joining the six humans who had gotten cleaned and fed during the break. They loaded up with supplies and equipment down in the antechamber, eyes adjusting to the dim light as lamps were lit and Sunset approached the smaller door to the inside.
I feel like I should make a speech… she thought but I have no idea what… ah heck with it, let’s go. “So, we’re here, we have no idea what’s inside that door other than it’s shooting off a magnetic and thaumaturgical pulse. If we figure it out, we have a decent chance of figuring out how Mercury is liveable at all. If there’s nothing else…” Her horn glowed and the door swung open. “... let’s get to work!”
As she stepped inside, the first thing that she noticed was how clean everything was. The walls had held up and the doors had kept out the dirt, leaving the inside barren. The glow of the lamps bounced off the walls, the flickering flame driving home just how smooth the walls were even after however long they had been abandoned. The passageway itself was wide enough for a human to stand on either side of her without issue as magical light was replaced by a lamp, allowing her to husband her reserves.
Captain Williamson took position to her right as Gertrude walked to her left, the humans both focusing on the walls around them. “This architecture seems strange, almost like many martian ruins, but more refined, cleaner.”
“That could just be the state of things.” Gertrude pointed out. “A corridor that is filthy and crumbling is hard to tell apart from one that is in good condition, which this appears to be…” She trailed off as she looked up, eyeing a pattern engraved along the top of the wall. “However, that raises a question: If the ancient martians had the ability to cross the ether to Mercury, why did they not also go to Earth, or Venus? Why stay on a dying world when they could leave?”
Sunset nodded along to those questions, her eyes darting back and forth as she listened for anything beyond the footsteps and voices of the group. “That is a good question. There are four worlds that your explorers have found that can support life, and if they could leave Mars, why not go to Earth? I’m not exactly an expert on human history, but I feel like things would be very different if they had.”
“You are both absolutely correct.” Williamson responded, raising an eyebrow at them as if surprised that a unicorn who had been taught magic since she could walk and a woman who had some of the best tutors a girl could receive could be so intelligent. “Which only adds to the mystery of this place, if the martians were here, why are they gone? If they could build something that lasts this long, why have the structures on their own homeworld not resisted the passage of time as well?”
As the captain asked his question, the party reached a split in the path, nearly like a T junction with themselves on the long end, but with the two arms curving, as if to form a massive circle. Directly in front of them was a large but nondescript door, and when it did not budge despite Sunset pressing it with her magic, the unicorn turned to the others and asked “alright, who knows how to pick a lock?”
“Well, let us search the rest of this floor before we go farther down, we don’t know what we could miss by going straight down.” Williamson suggested, causing Sunset to flush. Right, check everything before going forward, we are not in a time crunch here, it’s like a project back at school with a generous deadline, focus on every little detail. With that, they began to explore, confirming that the halls curving off from the intersection did form a circle as they searched the top level.
It wasn’t a very long search, as despite the floor being a circle with a radius of more than a hundred yards, every room, hallway, nook, and crevice was empty of any furnishings, artifacts, paintings, personal items, or any sign whatsoever that it had ever been inhabited by anyone. It was all very eerie, and the resident mechanic, a short man by the name of Thomas with a working class London accent, commented when they met back up at the door that “it’s cleaner up here than any bunkhouse or barracks I’ve ever seen, even when people leave there’s usually dents and scuff marks on walls, but here… there’s nothing.”
Sunset nodded at that, frowning a bit as she inspected the strange door and saw no sign of anything that looked like the locks back in Equestria. “That is strange… maybe we’ll find more answers through there. Not like we have anywhere else to go but outside.” She said, pacing back and forth in front of it as she pondered what to do. “Alright. I can use my reserves to help pry it open, it’s pretty solid though, so everyone should stand back…” She trailed off as she saw all the men scurry away in fear, reminded of the blast that had been their introduction to her less than a day before, frowning at that. I’m not scary, it’s just magic! If they think that was scary they should see Celestia raise the sun… oh wow I really need to convince them to come to Equestria for a day or two just to see the looks on their faces she thought with a grin as her horn lit up, power reaching for the door, pressing against it as she listened for signs of weakness…
“Ah ha!” She yelled, feeling the door give way and slide open, revealing a dark shaft inside that was soon lit by the lamps of the party. Looking through it, they saw a large shaft, the walls coated in symbols that were not merely painted on, but etched into the metal walls. Everyone present paused at the sight, the sheer amount of metal plating necessary to coat the entire shaft, which one of the men estimated as more than 30 yards across by chucking a rock he had carried in from outside to the other wall and seeing how long it took to strike. Peering down into the darkness, there was no sign of a bottom, only an empty space that looked like it was for a large elevator to carry large groups or heavy cargo down, although only dangling ropes that swayed in the breeze without any weight on them gave any clue as to where the lift had gone.
Staring down, Sunset put a hesitant hoof on the first step down the staircase, feeling the ancient metal underneath her. Gazing down at it, it was as she suspected, reinforced by magic. Turning back, she told the others “The stairs seem safe, let me check each step with my… abilities, but if the engravings keeping this thing running for so long have held on, then there’s no reason for these ones to not work.”
With that, the party began their trek down into the darkness, pausing at the next floor down and prying open that door, revealing an identical hallway that, as they explored, lead to a nearly identical floor. It was larger and had more rooms, with a radius perhaps 10% larger than the floor above it, but it was still empty, with nothing other than doors and walls, not even the dirt covered windows the outer levels of the first floor had had, implying that it was built underground to start. The only extra detail was a second, larger circular hallway that ran approximately where the wall of the first floor was, with the added space on the outside of that circle.
The next floor down was more of the same, another ten or so yards larger radius, with the inner circular hallway around the shaft, the outer one at the first floor edge, and more rooms around it. After that, looking down, the decision was made to work their way to the bottom and see if it was more of the same, and so they did, stopping only to check each door at each landing they encountered, finding identical hallways or rooms of some sort, some of which even had windows looking out into the shaft. All of them shared the same empty, unfurnished look, smooth bare concrete that was still in one piece due to the intervention of maintenance enchantments.
To distract from the near omnipresent darkness around them, some of the crew began discussing the topic of where the builders of this place had gone again. “At least if the martians made this thing, we would know where they are and what they’re doing now.” One of the crewmembers, a tall tanned man named Jacob whose hair had been bleached by the sun during his years on Mars. “If someone other than the martians built this, then we have no idea where they are, or what they’re doing now.”
Gertrude pondered those words and nodded, looking at Sunset and asking “Sunset, you are certain they could not have gone through to your world, correct? Your homeland certainly seems more enticing to a culture that uses thaumaturgical energy than this place is.” She asked as the party continued to walk down the stairs.
“The portal here was created by one of Equestria's finest wizards, and after he scouted it out he had it sealed away in the royal palace. It cannot have been used to move the people who built this, not without leaving some record, and I read his notes before I came here.” Sure, I skimmed to the most interesting sections because I had limited time, but I would have noticed an entire civilization of people with abilities like that, and someone would have made a note of them coming out through the royal archives Sunset thought to herself, deciding that those details were not important to share at the moment.
Gertrude and the others accepted her response as the party continued to walk down the stairs, pausing on a regular basis to inspect the various levels and small chambers accessible from the main shaft. They were all stripped bare, with nothing that could serve as a sign of what they were for left behind. As they finished inspecting yet another empty room, Sunset shook her head and turned to Captain Williamson. “Hey, is this… normal? No furniture, no storage rooms, just empty room after empty room as we get closer to the bottom?”
The captain pondered for a moment. “Well, if the place had been looted for valuables and scrap material, I could see the rooms being this clean… but these doors are solid, good quality metal just like the rest of the interior shaft, with the corridors and rooms lined with solid concrete that is in superb condition. If there were scavengers coming by, why have some of their more desperate members not squatted here and made a living? They would have had to have a way into the structure in order to scavenge the furnishings, and although the water is a bit brackish, it’s also full of fish with fertile soil and a good supply of timber along the banks. I have seen squatters make due with far less over my career.”
“Does that not provide evidence that whoever was here last left for a reason? Combined with the reports of the last explorer to enter these tunnels, we should be incredibly cautious.” Gertrude pointed out, drawing affirmative murmurs from the men and Sunset.
“Quite right Miss Bell, but we are professionals, so between our experience, Sunset’s abilities, and your… enthusiasm, we have a far better chance than a single individual delving into matters he did not understand.” Williamson replied, and although Gertrude felt a wave of indignation at the way he phrased that sentence, she could not deny that he had a point. She was mainly here because she wanted to go on an adventure and had been able to steal a ship to get here, but that didn’t mean she’d be very useful if they ended up in a fight.
With every step down into the darkness, the party became more on edge. Sunset could hear murmurs from the back, as some of the men wondered to each other if following her into “the depths of hell” was a smart idea, while the flickering lamps and the soft glow of her magic as she tested each and every step and landing cast a flickering light through the large, empty shaft, reflecting in strange colors off the dim and inactive runes surrounding them. At times, some men wanted to turn back, or take a while to explore each floor, but Sunset disagreed.
“There is something at the bottom, I don’t know how…” She gazed downwards, the low light meaning they could be as close as two stories or as far as two hundred and she would be unable to tell. “... but I just look at these runes, at this construction, and it seems almost familiar… like someone used some of the same rules of magic as Equestria, but in a completely different way, for something none of us ever thought about needing. Just looking at the runes tells me nothing, it could take weeks of watching them while active to just figure out the basis of the system they are using, but if my hunch is correct…” she took yet another step down, feeling more and more confident in her decision as she did. “Then this is where we need to go.”
As she finished her impromptu speech, she noticed a strange flicker below them, not along the edges like light reflecting off the wall or staircase, but in the vast darkness they were slowly circling. Biting her tongue in case it was just her eyes playing tricks on her, she took another few steps, but after another ten stairs down, the light of the lamps was beginning to fully illuminate the ground below, smooth and solid like the walls.
Gertrude looked ahead, staring at the massive double height doors before them. “What will we find now that we’ve reached the bottom?” She asked.
Williamson stepped forward, closely inspecting the door to admire the craftsmanship of its construction. “We discover what was so important that whoever built this place put it all the way down here. Beyond what Miss Shimmer said, from my personal experience I have found that the types of people to build vast underground structures tended to also place the most valuable, and most dangerous, of their artifacts and belongings at the bottom for some reason, let us hope that the similarities with the martians hold true.” [1]
As he pressed the door, it gently slid, surprising everyone both with how well balanced the massive metal entryway was, and with the fact that unlike the very top, the door was completely unlocked. “Now that’s peculiar, why would they lock the top but not the bottom…” He wondered as he pushed the door open cautiously, his men, along with Sunset and Gertrude, standing ready for action… only to find nothing.
At this point, the disappointment and other stresses were beginning to wear thin on everyone’s nerves. “Why did we even come here if there’s nothing?” A voice muttered from the men, who voiced similar thoughts about the pointlessness of this. No valuable items, no ancient manuscripts, nothing but empty rooms and a freaky set of runes that none of them knew the first thing about.
As they grumbled, Sunset looked around, a bad feeling in her gut. The runes are powered by something, something that has to be nearby, but… “this doesn’t make any sense,” she proclaimed out loud, cutting off the discontent as she walked through the hallway at the base, kicking in a door only to find nothing, yet again. “The Needles are the source of the magic that is making this planet livable, so where is that magic coming from?” At this point she was beyond caring about the humans issues with the word magic, she was far too focused. “If it was a high magic environment then those runes would be fine on their own, the system would passively absorb all the energy it needed, but nothing we’ve seen makes any sense in a low magic environment like this. There has to be a source, something feeding energy into the system to let it run, but there’s no connection… unless it’s buried under the floor?”
As she casted spells on the floor, searching for something that could serve as a connection between whatever power source existed and The Needle itself, she was even more confused. Gertrude stepped forward, resting a hand on her shoulder as she said “Sunset, it’s alright. We’ll figure it out, just… let us remain calm.” She said, pointedly looking at the men who were agitated by the overt and increasingly bright magic glowing off the Unicorns horn as she searched.
Captain Williamson coughed into his hand to draw attention. “Yes, well… I personally agree with the sentiment, we must remain calm and keep our wits about us.” He began to give a speech, the type of inspirational monologue that inspires men to remain loyal through hardships and trials of the worst sort.
Sunset did not care, she could not understand any of it as the translation spell was cut off, all her energy pouring into demanding answers. This makes no sense! It’s like there’s two systems, The Needle starting in the shaft, and this other one that feeds energy into it. But why build two instead of connecting them, and why do all the thaumaturgical pathways end with no reason… oh no.
She felt the hum in the air, the gentle thrum of power coursing through her signifying a return of magic to the air, even as the realization hit her. “It’s broken.”
Those words cut through the captains speech, silencing everyone as she turned to Gertrude. “How long until the next scheduled pulse?”
“Sunset what do you mean-”
“How. Long?” Sunset gritted out the words, not caring that Thomas had his gun out, terror in his eyes at the shift in her demeanor while he muttered to himself in fear.
Gertrude checked her watch quickly. “Approximately two minutes.” She answered, and the sinking feeling in Sunsets gut turned into a bottomless pit. The schedule had never been more than 10 seconds off their entire time observing it, and despite that, as power flooded into the air around her, she had final confirmation of what was happening. “Sunset, what are you talking about, how is it broken?” Gertrude’s question snapped her back to reality.
“The Needle is broken, and unless we’re really lucky, every single other one is to.” She forced the words from her mouth. “It should be one system, power goes into the runes, powers them up, it all works… but it’s not, it’s broken, and so the energy doesn’t flow, it stays, like there’s a dam in the way, but then it… overflows the dam.” She strained the metaphor, hoping her words made sense to the humans listening. “And that sends energy into the environment around it, deep underground where the base of The Needle picks it up, shunting it upwards in a pulse. But it drains the energy that has built up, once the gap between energy in the system and the environment is bridged… it’s like the dam crumbles, and it all just flows out, some going to The Needle, some to enchantments on this level, and most… into whatever else is nearby until it is drained, and the dam is rebuilt.”
Those words got a reaction from every human present as Sunset felt the magic levels rise far above anything she’d felt since leaving Equestria, the air full of power as her body thrummed with energy as if she’d just woken from the best nights sleep of her life. Gertrude did not look so good, her face pale as she asked “Sunset… what will that mean for us?”
“I don’t know, I never studied what happens when someone with no magic is just surrounded by it…” Sunsets mind brought up the story of the explorer who had entered the tunnels below another Needle, barely making it out before dying. “Oh no.”
Like a wave crashing over them, she felt the last restraint on the outflow of magic give way, swamping the room. She had no idea how much energy was in the air, only that it was far, far more than anything she’d ever felt in her time in Equestria. As the magic rolled over the humans, they all felt as their body absorbed the strange energy, interacting with their biology in wildly different ways that left them in varying states of distress. Gertrude’s pale face went white as she nearly collapsed, while Captain Williamson doubled over and began dry heaving as he fell to his knees.
Patrick, the short Irish human, simply began babbling in a language that neither Sunset or any of the others could understand, tears streaking down his face as he slid down the wall, clutching his knees. Jacob, the rough and tanned veteran of years on Mars, reacted the “best” of the humans, cursing loudly and watching as magic burst from his palm before crossing himself and muttering prayers for his soul.
To the side, The groups chef, a burly scotsman named Daniel, clutched at an old scar on his shoulder he’d acquired in a bar fight nearly twenty years ago, the old wound burning as magical energy flowed into it and “healed” him… the sheer force of the healing doing more damage to him, which it then healed in turn, causing him to feel that his whole body was aflame. Finally, Thomas the mechanic for some reason lasted a bit longer than his companions. Watching as they all succumbed to the wave of magical sickness, he panicked. His pistol had already come out and been trained on Sunset from earlier, but he had stopped pointing it at her when she had explained herself. Now though, the same fear, a deep instinctive fear of seeing his comrades fall ill around him, mixing with a cultural fear of magic and all involved with it, took over.
“You fairy witch! You’re doing this!” He screamed, fear and confusion in his voice as he reacted by instinct. A shot rang out, and Sunset flinched as she realized the impact had never come. Blinking once, twice, then a third time, she met Thomas’s eyes as his terror took over, joining Patrick in babbling nonsense, although where Patrick was at least speaking a real language, he simply spewed nonsense as he looked at her, fear filling his every movement. Looking at herself, Sunset realized why. The bullet was glowing as she held it in midair, having not even realized she was doing it as instinct had taken over, fueled the excess magic in the air flowing into her, and as she dropped the bullet to the ground she could feel the magic cleaning up her old leg wound and dozens of other bruises and scrapes.
That… he tried to hurt me, but I caught it! I wonder if that proves the theory that magic passively improves reflexes... but that’s not important right now… she looked over the gibbering human he’s barely capable of thinking right now, so I take away the gun and get to work, if he still wants to hurt me when he’s sane again that’s a different story, but for now I have bigger problems. Such as how much magic is in the air right now? It has to be at least ten times the Equestrian Baseline, more likely twenty or more… her mind ran through the possibilities as she casually snatched the gun away from Thomas, along with all the other guns everyone was holding or had dropped, and watched them fall ill and freak out, even the best of them clearly in pain from the interaction of a low magic body and an incredibly high magic environment. Gertrude, the woman who had broken her monotonous existence as a loner on this world, opening her eyes to the wonders she was missing out on in her fear of not being present the next time the portal opened or of dying to some random monster, was hyperventilating on the ground, with the mercenaries, men who she still didn’t like all that much, but still people, laying on the ground in various forms of distress, their reward for willingly (if with some convincing) following her on this mad expedition down into a place she knew was dangerous but was convinced they could handle…
Guilt and terror washed over her as she pried through her mind for every spell she could think of to figure out what was going on with them. Yet again, the memory of the human explorer who had died flashed through her mind, and she began wondering if it was the initial surge of magic that killed him… or the sudden lack of it right as his body was adapting.
Whichever it was, she had to figure out how to help them survive, and she had to do that sometime in the next 15 minutes before this pulse of energy ran dry.