The immediate interior of the ship was as ostentatious as it was spacious, which is to say, not very. Still, it had a sort of utilitarian charm all to its own, what with the planked wooden floor and bare, riveted hull struts that lined its walls.
The group was led along the thin corridor, having to walk almost single-file. Rarity counted about eight of them, Rainbow, Fancy, and herself included. It seemed Fancy had been right; no one had declined his invitation. In fact, it seemed there was one more than was expected.
“What the heck is an Anesidora, anyway?” Rainbow murmured to her.
“I’ve no idea, darling,” Rarity said. “It sounds foreign. You should ask Fancy.”
Rainbow grumbled.
Soon enough they emerged into a more open area, a walkway between the two sides of the ship, and from here they turned off through a door into—well, into something Rainbow certainly hadn’t been expecting, and by the looks on the other passengers’ faces, neither had most of them.
It was like stepping off the ship and into some wealthy aristocrat’s lounge. The floor was carpeted; that was the first thing Rarity noticed, as her hooves made the transition. It met seamlessly with the wooden paneling of the walls, which in turn bled into ornately patterned red wallpaper. The room contained a number of small seating arrangements, armchairs and sofas, each gathered around coffee tables of varying styles. A number of bookshelves dotted the walls, and brass lamps illuminated the room.
It was a pocket of non-airship that had defiantly snuck aboard the vessel, and the only thing missing from the illusion was a fireplace.
“Well, here we are,” Fancy announced. “The lounge. Make yourselves comfortable; if you’ll leave your bags with our porters, they’ll be safely taken to your cabins.”
As if at his command, a number of colts in uniform appeared. Rainbow felt a small pang of pity for the one who ended up with Rarity’s mountain of possessions.
One of the other guests seemed against this, however; a shorty, motley stallion, who clutched at his briefcase.
“I’d rather hold on to mine, thanks,” he said. This, however, seemed to earn him the ire of the mare next to him.
“Oh, go on, Nancy,” she said, prodding him in the side. “Don’t make a scene.”
“I’m not making a scene!” he said, but still he held on to his luggage.
That settled, Fancy uttered a polite cough to regain their attention.
“Now, well I’m sure the majority of you are acquainted, shall I do a round of introductions for those who are not?”
He didn’t wait for a reply to his own question before beginning, and he began with a rather slender fellow wearing a grey suit and a checkerboard tie.
“Mr. Banner Byline, owner of the Manehattan Times, and a major investor in this enterprise.”
“How do you d-do,” he said, with a little stutter at the end. He was quite an unassuming stallion; he wouldn’t have looked out of place among the reporters on the ground, several of whom he apparently managed. A newspaper was folded under his foreleg.
“Mr. Capital Idea.”
Capital idea was a very round sort of a fellow, though not in terms of being overweight. No, while he wasn’t exactly trim, he gave off the appearance of being both quite soft and also devoid of edges, and he had a slight touch of pink in each of his cheeks. “A pleasure to make your acquaintances, and again in some cases,” he said, his voice turning out to sound just as amicable as the rest of him looked.
“Miss Ruby Gleam, of Trottingham.”
Gleam was a lithe, elegant unicorn, though you might not have known had you just been looking at her face. Indeed, her lips seemed perennially to be drawn into a small but tight frown, and one got the impression that everything around her was being judged and systematically found lacking. She just had that kind of face.
Her dress, however, was exquisite.
“Charmed,” she said.
“Mister and Missus Morass.”
He was referring now to the elderly stallion and mare who had quarreled before. The stallion was still clutching to his briefcase. The mare, on the other hand, seemed quite a bit more at ease. “Lovely to meet all of you,” she said, smiling. “And though he won’t admit it, I know Nancy feels the same way.”
“Harrumph,” the Mr. Morass harrumphed.
And Fancy came to our heroines. “Miss Rarity, fashionista extraordinaire…”
“A pleasure,” Rarity said, giving a polite little nod.
“…and Miss Rainbow Dash, of Wonderbolt fame.”
“Snrk… ‘Morass’.”
“So, Fancy,” Ruby Gleam said, turning to the stallion named the very same. “When is this contraption of yours meant to be taking off, anyway?”
Fancy burst into laughter. Ruby frowned.
“And what is so funny, exactly?”
“Nothing, my dear,” Fancy said with a smile. “But you see, Miss Gleam… we’re already in the air!”
“What? But surely we would have felt something, if the ship had taken off—”
“If you’ll follow me to the observation balcony,” Fancy said, spinning about on the heels of his hooves, “Then you may see for yourselves.”
And with that, he was off again, back through the door into the rest of the ship. Rarity and Rainbow Dash glanced at each other, but a moment later they, along with the rest of the passengers, followed.
A quick trip through the rat-maze of corridors later, they emerged onto the deck of the gondola. A metal railing surrounded the edge of the wooden platform, and beyond that…
“Celestia’s mane!” Banner Byline exclaimed. “Y-you weren’t lying!”
By Rarity’s estimate, they were already a good fifty meters off the ground, and that number was swiftly increasing.
Below, far below, she could see the incessant flashes of cameras. The very photographers they’d been among not ten minutes ago were now nothing but fireflies against the green backdrop of the field.
“Incredible,” she said. “Why, I didn’t feel a thing!”
“The power of modern aeronautics, my dear!”
With a sudden roar, the twin propellers on either side of the deck spun to life: slowly, at first, but quickly becoming a pair of blurring disks. The ship began to move forward, towing its balloon along with it. The wind whipped through their manes as the landscape around them picked up speed.
“Now,” Fancy said, having to shout a bit over the sound of the engines. “Shall I take you all on a tour of the ship before lunch?”
“I’m starting to regret this,” Rainbow grumbled, eying the enclosing metal walls, her wings twitching.
“Feeling a bit claustrophobic, darling?”
“No!” Rainbow hissed. “I just… don’t like not having enough space to fly, that’s all. It makes me nervous.”
“That’s called claustrophobia, darling.”
“You’re called claustrophobia, darling.”
"The Anesidora contains all the amenities you would expect,” Fancy was saying. “A fully-stocked kitchen and dining room; ten cabins, each with beds for two and room enough to be comfortable for four; two very meticulously designed bathrooms; and the lounge for recreation, which you have already seen.”
“At this point, he could say there was a swimming pool on board and I’d believe it,” Rainbow whispered to Rarity, who stifled a giggle.
“You are all, of course, free to explore the ship as you please,” Fancy continued, as they made their way through the intestines of the ship. “You can even visit the bridge if you’d like; the captain is a swell fellow. Should you get lost, directions are printed on the wall at each junction, but I think you’ll find it’s easy enough to find your way around once you’ve got the hang of it.”
“You certainly seem to have,” Capital Idea remarked. Fancy laughed.
“I’ve had my hooves on the blueprints,” he said. “I could navigate it by memory before construction had even begun.”
Fancy came to a stop. “And here are your quarters,” he said, gesturing. The path ahead of them split into two, connected by a short corridor so that the whole setup vaguely resembled a blocky letter Y.
“You’ll see that they are divided into two corridors,” Fancy said. “Miss Gleam, Mister Idea and Mister and Missus Morass, you are on the left; Mister Byline, Miss Rarity, Miss Dash and I are on the right. You’ll find your names on your cabins. Restrooms are down the hall behind us.”
“Does the tour include them, too?”
“I think you should be able to find your way around a bathroom just fine on your own, Nancy.”
Mister Morass harrumphed.
“They’re quite the pair, aren’t they?” Rarity murmured to Rainbow. Not quietly enough, it seemed; Banner Byline, standing beside them, stifled a laugh.
“T-they always have been,” he said, quietly. “That’s what forty years of marriage will do to you, I s-sup-suppose.”
Rarity raised her eyebrows. “Forty years? That’s quite the achievement.”
“Isn’t it?” He smiled, and offered his hoof. “I know Fancy i-introduced us earlier, but I’m Banner B-Byline. It’s very nice to meet you, Miss Rarity.”
“Just ‘Rarity’ is fine,” Rarity replied, extending her own hoof and shaking his.
“I ap-p-pologize for the stutter,” he said. “H-had it since I was little. I know I can be a little hard to understand sometimes.”
“Nonsense,” Rarity said. “You’re speaking quite clearly.”
“Hey! Rares!” Rainbow called out; the rest of the group had moved on a ways without them. “Come on!”
“Coming, darling!”
The two of them caught up with the rest of the guests, just as Fancy was finishing his tour.
“—down this way,” he was saying, “you’ll find the bridge, and—” he spun about, pointing now down the opposing corridor “—this hallway leads to the dining room. Now, I don’t know about all of you, but I had to skip breakfast today, and I am positively famished. Shall we?”
There was a general expression of agreement, and off they went.
The dining room wasn’t anything particularly impressive; in fact, other than the framed prints on the walls, it was rather unassuming, except of course for the single long table that took up its center. A door at the back led to (Rarity presumed) the kitchen.
Each of their places was set with a card adorned with their name; one by one, they filed in and took their seats. Rarity and Rainbow were next to each other, of course, and Fancy himself sat at the head of the table.
“Now then,” Fancy said. “I believe our meal this afternoon will be a delicate soufflé, prepared in advance by our cook. Some may say that a little bold. I say—let us start this journey off right!”
“Hear hear!” Capital Idea echoed. Fancy clapped his hooves.
The chef emerged from the doors at the back of the room—Rarity congratulated herself on another successful deduction—carrying a platter in his magic, on top of which sat a number of plates. He made his way clockwise around the table, placing a dish in front of each passenger in turn.
Rainbow’s eyes lit up as her plate appeared. Rarity smirked.
“Hungry, darling?”
“Always.”
It wasn’t long before the stallion had completed his round, and every person had a lunch in front of them. However, there was one plate left on his serving platter, and this he placed in front of Fancy. On this plate was something far less appetizing than a soufflé: an envelope.
“What’s this?” Fancy asked, his expression one of confusion—not something one would want to see in the leader of an expedition such as this one. The chef shrugged.
“It’s nothing to do with me, sir.”
The chef left, a little too quickly, scampering back into the safety of his kitchen, leaving behind a very perplexed Fancy Pants. He tore the top off of the envelope and placed it back on his plate, simultaneously retrieving the thing’s contents with his magic.
Fancy Pants did not know what he was about to unleash upon his ship. For you see, a pandora’s box may take many shapes and sizes, and this one took the form of a simple piece of stationary.
Rainbow caught a glance of the letter as he held it. She couldn’t make out what it said, not quite, but she could make out that it was written using cut-and-pasted pieces of letters and words on newsprint—a curious thing indeed.
Frowning, Fancy adjusted his monocle. His eyes scanned the sheet, and his brow creased even further.
“Well, Fancy?” Capital Idea said. “What is it?”
Fancy began to read.
“To the passengers of this most magnificent airship. I hope you are enjoying your trip so far.
“My name is unimportant. What is important is what I’m about to say, so read carefully. Your fates may be decided by what happens in the next few days.
“Underneath your chairs, some of you will find a box.”
This prompted confused action on everyone’s part. Rainbow ducked down, craning her neck to see, and was slightly disappointed when no such object appeared. She was almost jealous, then, when she straightened back up and saw that Rarity apparently had received something.
It was a wooden thing, about the size and shape of a music box. The lid was hinged at the back and latched at the front, and the wood was simply yet delicately carved. A letter ‘R’ had been burnt into the top. She set the thing down in front of her on the table.
Looking around, Rainbow saw that everyone else at the table save for herself possessed similar items, each with appropriate initials emblazoned upon them. She checked under her seat a second time, but no box had appeared in the few seconds since last she’d looked.
Left with no other choice, she made the hard decision to live life vicariously. “What’s inside?” she asked Rarity.
Rarity, frowning, replied: “I think we should wait for Fancy’s explanation first.”
“That may be prudent,” Fancy said, before continuing to read: “You may be tempted to open yours now, but I suggest that you wait until you are alone. For you see, inside each of these boxes is a secret.”
“A secret?” questioned Banner Byline.
“Each of you has something to hide. Something, I suspect, you’d like to stay hidden. For some of you, it may merely be a dark smudge upon your honor. For others, it may be something far more serious. And for some of you, it may be a matter of life and death.”
“What kind of game is it you’re playing, Fancy!?” Mr. Morass demanded, rising in his seat with his forehooves on the table. Several faces around the room had grown pale.
“Don’t look at me!” Fancy said, holding up his hooves. “I have nothing to do with this!”
“Like Tartarus you don’t—”
“Let him finish,” Mrs. Morass said, putting a hoof on her husband’s shoulder and slowly pulling him back down into his seat.
Fancy cleared his throat. “The contents of each of your boxes represent that which you so desperately want to keep hidden. You can take it as proof that I’m not lying about any of this.”
Suddenly, Rainbow Dash was okay with not receiving one.
“I suspect the mood in the room is a somber one,” Fancy continued. “Do not worry. I am very good at keeping secrets… but first, you’ll have to do something for me.
“If you do not want the secret inside your box to stop being a secret, then all you must do is leave a sum… total…”
Fancy trailed off, his shoulders slumping.
He swallowed.
“…then all you must do is leave a sum total of one-hundred thousand bits at one or several of the six locations listed below within a week from the reading of this note.”
The table erupted into chaos.
“This is preposterous!” Mr. Morass shouted. “I’ve got nothing to hide and nothing to say to such ridiculous accusations!”
“This is some kind of joke, isn’t it?” Capital Idea said, frantic. “It has to be!”
“Why?” Mr. Morass said, whipping around with speed surprising of a pony his age. “Have you got something you’re afraid to share?” He wrapped his hooves under the collar of Capital’s suit and pulled him up. “Maybe you’re the one behind this, huh?”
“T-that doesn’t even make sense!” Capital sputtered.
“None of this makes sense!” Ruby Gleam said, banging a hoof down on the table and making the plates rattle. “This is blackmail! Outright blackmail!”
Rainbow looked at Rarity. She was frowning, deep in thought.
“There’s more!” Fancy shouted, and that got everyone to quiet down. “If any one of you leaves the Anesidora before touching down in Vanhoover, then the contents of your boxes will be in the papers for everyone to read by the next morning. If any one of you contacts the police, then the very same will happen. I trust you all are smarter than that. Have a wonderful trip.”
Looking up, he said, “That’s the lot of it.”
“Let me see that,” Mr. Morass said, relinquishing his hold on Capital’s collar and using his horn to steal the paper out of Fancy’s grip. His eyes ran quickly over the paper’s contents, but whatever it is that he may have been looking for, he evidently didn’t find it as he slammed the paper down on the table. “This is preposterous,” he insisted again, but with a little less fervor this time.
The room fell into a silence, each pony at the table afraid to touch their boxes as if they were poison, as if merely observing them too closely would unleash some horrible fate.
Apparently unable to restrain his curiosity any longer, it was Capital Idea who was the first to pick up his box. He cracked the lid open just an inch with his magic and peered inside.
A choked cry emerged from his throat. The lid of the box slammed shut, and the box was all-but-tossed back onto the table, wood clattering against wood. The stallion himself swallowed, his eyes wide and his forehooves shaking.
This seemed to break the spell over the room. Fancy stood up, his chair screeching along the floor. “I suggest we all go to our separate cabins to calm down,” he said, a grave look upon his features. “We can discuss this issue at length at dinner with clear heads.”
No one seemed to have the heart to disagree.
Like zombies, they shuffled along the narrow corridors of the ship. Nervous glances were quickly shared and just as quickly averted, boxes carried under arms and held close by magics. The energy and camaraderie that had accompanied them when they boarded the ship seemed to have died with their appetites.
Soon enough, they were upon their quarters; The Morasses and Capital Idea split off towards the left, while Rainbow, Rarity, and Banner Byline took the rightmost passageway. Fancy had not accompanied them from the dining hall. Rainbow was slightly relieved to see that Banner Byline’s door was in between theirs and his. Her room was the closest, the first after the split, and Rarity’s the next. Stopping at the door with her name, Rainbow hesitated a moment when Rarity marched onwards to her own, then moved to accompany her. The fashionista made no objection.
The rooms were mostly utilitarian in nature; aside from a small table, the only furniture were the two bunks, one on each side, which had been set into the walls. Rarity’s bags lay stacked against the corner of the room.
“Huh,” Rainbow said, inspecting the bunks. “Y’know, I was kind of expecting hammocks.”
“Hammocks?”
“Yeah,” Rainbow said. “Like, made out of cloth or something.”
Rarity looked at her quizzically. “Yes, but why would you expect there to be hammocks on a passenger airship?”
Rainbow shrugged. “I dunno. It just felt right, I guess.”
The normalcy of the conversation cut through the tension in the air. Rarity flopped—in a very ladylike manner, mind you—down onto one of the aforementioned beds and put her hooves over her eyes. The wooden box fell onto the bed next to her. She groaned.
“I should have known something would happen. It’s the classic set-up! You get a bunch of strangers together in a confined space, and—”
She groaned again.
Rainbow stood in the middle of the room, not really sure what to do.
“Fancy’s invitation was a bad omen. You were right, darling.”
“Well, I appreciate you admitting that for once,” Rainbow said, “but here was no way anyone could have predicted any of this.”
“You’re right darling,” Rarity almost exactly repeated. Twice in one day—a new record. “Usually it would have been a murder.”
“You’ve lost me.”
“Never mind.”
“So,” Rainbow said, eying the box next to Rarity’s head. “Are you… going to look?”
“I very honestly do not want to.”
Rainbow had to marvel at Rarity’s self-restraint. If their roles had been reversed, she would have opened the box the second she’d found it.
Then again, she reflected, if their roles had been reversed, they wouldn’t even be on this ship to begin with.
“Well, I mean, it can’t be that bad, right?” she said, forcing a smile. Rarity revealed one eye and looked at her. “I mean, you’re you! The Rarity! What kind of skeletons could you possibly have in your closet?”
Rarity grimaced. “I might have… a few skeletons. Small ones! Rat skeletons. Skeleton rats, with grubby little skeleton paws, nibbling away at… skeleton… cheese… Oh dear, this metaphor’s quite gotten away from me, hasn’t it.”
“I think you need to buy some mousetraps.”
They both fell silent for a moment; there had been a noise outside their door: muffled hoofsteps.
“It seems the walls to the hallway are quite thin,” Rarity observed. “Oh well; at least we’re insulated from the engines.”
The hoofsteps stopped. There was a knock at their door, and Rainbow flinched.
“Who the heck would come to visit now?” she whispered.
“I suspect I already know,” Rarity murmured. Sliding off the bed, she trotted over to the door and pulled the latch. She was seemingly unsurprised to find it was Fancy Pants himself who had come by.
“Miss Rarity, may I… speak with you for a moment?” he said. His eyes flicked to Rainbow Dash, who was, knowingly or not, glaring at him. “Privately?”
“If we must,” Rarity sighed. “I’ll just be a minute, Rainbow.”
She followed him out into the hall, and the door slid closed with a click.
“I’ll get right to the point,” Fancy said. “I—”
“You want me to catch the blackmailer.”
He shut his mouth, smiled slightly. “Sharp as ever, I see.”
“It’s not a hard prediction to make,” Rarity said. “You’re familiar with the conditions of my employment, I assume? I’m not going to make an exception just because I’m involved.”
“You assume correctly,” Fancy said. “I admit, I’ve been following your career quite closely since you, ahem, put me away. A favor, to be named after the completion of the job, if I remember correctly?”
“You do.”
Fancy nodded. “The truth is, Miss Rarity, that I quite need this demonstration to go off without a hitch. Though I may do everything I can not to show it, the stunts we both pulled at Blueblood manor have put Fancy Freight in a bit of a… difficult position.”
He sighed. “As a matter of fact, this endeavor is somewhat of a ‘last hurrah’, as they say. Several of those on board are major investors in this enterprise. If this blackmailing is allowed to proceed—if indeed, it ends up casting a shadow over this entire event, and we lose their support—then I may well be finished as the head of my own company. And, my dear, I am far too young to retire.”
“As unfortunate as that is,” Rarity said, “you must have known the risks when you were drawing up your little scheme.”
Fancy smiled a bitter smile. “Indeed,” he said. “So know now that I mean it when I say that I will provide you with whatever it is you may desire once the villain behind this stunt has been caught and quietly put behind bars.”
“No need for the explanation. I know you’re a stallion of your word.”
“You agree, then?”
“I agree to try, Fancy. I agree to try.”
Fancy raised a monocle’d eyebrow. “You seem to be lacking a bit in your usual bravado, Miss Rarity.”
Rarity sighed. “This whole business hasn’t exactly put me in the best of moods. I received a box as well, you know.”
“Well,” he said, grinning slightly. “That just gives you more incentive to solve this mess, doesn’t it.”
“As shrewd a businessman as ever, I see.”
“I’m putting my faith in your abilities, Rarity,” Fancy said. “I don’t do that lightly.”
Rarity saw him off, then turned around and let herself back into her room. She sighed as she slid the door closed again behind her.
“It appears,” she said, partly to herself, “that we have a client… and a case.”
She looked up, then, and was taken aback. “You’re looking positively pale, darling,” she observed of Rainbow, who was sitting stock upright on the bed opposite hers. “Is everything alright?”
“What? No!” Rainbow said. “It’s just—this whole situation’s got me a bit shaken up, y’know?”
“Why? You didn’t receive a box.”
“Yeah, but you did,” Rainbow said.
Rarity grimaced… but then her brow furrowed, and she hummed. “Yes, I did, didn’t I,” she said. “Likely to discourage me from investigating, I suppose. Anyone digging for dirt on me would have to know about the detective business, and I’m not exactly your typical blackmail fodder…”
She hummed again. “Curious order of events, there. Well, regardless I appreciate your concern, darling.”
She crossed the room, and retrieved the box from her bunk with her magic. “I suppose there’s no more putting it off; time to see what our mysterious blackmailer has on me.”
Holding the box close to her, she grit her teeth, cracked the lid, and peered inside. She said nothing for a good two seconds, and then let out a laugh.
“Oh, is that all?” she said, through her chortles. She shut the box again and set it back down on the bed; she was smiling. “Well, it seems I was worried over nothing.”
“O-oh?” Rainbow said. “How come?”
The secret they seem intent on blackmailing me on is really quite a trivial one,” Rarity replied. “Not something I’d admit to under normal circumstances, of course, but hardly world-shaking. If this is the best they could do, then we have nothing to worry about!”
Rainbow let out a breath. “Well, that’s a relief.”
“In fact, I plan on revealing it to everyone at dinner.”
“R-really?”
“Yes,” Rarity said. “I figure getting it out in the open will make it easier of everyone to trust me, and that will go a long way towards helping me figure out who among us is behind all this.”
She smiled. “And, of course, I’m sure you’re dreadfully curious about it as well.”
“I—well—I wasn’t going to ask…”
“Well, you’ll get your answer shortly,” she said. “I’m afraid I’d rather not have to explain it twice. In the meantime…”
She crossed the room and pulled out one of her suitcases. After a moment of rummaging, she pulled out a now-familiar article of clothing.
“You brought your trenchcoat?” Rainbow remarked.
“Of course, darling,” Rarity said, slipping her dress off. Rainbow looked away out of politeness. “In case I needed it. It helps me get into the right headspace.”
She donned her hat, and the transformation was complete.
“Now then,” she said. “Shall we go pay the culinary staff a visit?”