The group of thirteen continued ascending to the third floor for several trips because the elevators were too small. While they were waiting, Sophia looked around the immediate area and aside from seeing more of the floating crystals, there appeared to be a structure which was their only way forward.
Peering through the open entryway, The only thing Sophia saw in the next room were more crystals and a pair of pedestals. One pedestal was red and had a crystal floating over it that was constantly changing colors between black, white, yellow, blue and red. The other pedestal was blue and had a crystal floating over it that was constantly changing colors between red, blue, yellow, white and black; basically reverse patterns of each other.
Sophia took note of the patterns and figured that the information would come in handy later.
The group finally finished reaching the floor and Twilight gazed upon the building before her. “I remember this part. Part of the Spiral Tower defense system are puzzles that you need to solve to move forward. It deters intruders who are strong, but lacking in intelligence.”
“I take it that the crystals in the first room are a hint about how the mechanism works?” Sophia asked, receiving a nod in return.
The group moved beyond the first room and into a hallway that had two doors in it, not including the door they entered from. They took the first door to their right and entered a room with more crystals and a door that was blocked off by a purple door.
“This door is locked by a powerful magical mechanism,” Twilight said.
“Can’t you just blast through it or something?” Cliff asked.
Twilight shook her head, “Brute force may damage the tower itself. With this place being the core of the Eternal Sphere, it would mean that I would risk damaging the space-time continuum of your universe, and that damage isn’t so easily fixed with maintenance.”
“So we just gotta find out what powers this thing and turn it off?” Roger offered.
Twilight nodded, “The mechanism should be nearby. It should look like the one we saw in the first room, but it will have a larger crystal between them as well.”
With that, the group returned to the hallway and headed to the end of it where the other doorway was. The other room was small and had the mechanism that Twilight described. On the red pedestal was a yellow crystal and the blue pedestal had a black crystal. The larger crystal in the middle was a dark yellow and had the number ‘two’ on it.
Fayt took a moment to think about what he was seeing, then remembering his colors, he had an idea about what he was looking at. “Is this some sort of color puzzle?”
“Correct,” Twilight affirmed. “The goal of the puzzle is to get the middle crystal to match the color of the door in the other room to open it. To do that, we need to change the colors of the two crystals on either side of it. In order to get purple, we need one crystal to be blue and the other to be red. However, the crystals on either pedestal will only change in accordance to a pre-assigned pattern.”
“And this is where the hint in the first room comes in?” Sophia asked, receiving another nod from Twilight.
“I take it from the number on the crystal that we are only given a limited number of attempts?” Maria asked, another nod.
“So how do we change the crystals?” Cliff asked.
“If we hit one with a bit of energy, it should react to it and shift over to the next color,” Twilight explained.
Twilight lit her horn and fired a tiny ball of magic at the left crystal. The crystal reacted to the impact and changed into a blue color. The middle crystal turned dark blue and the number on the middle crystal changed into a ‘one’. Twilight fired at the black crystal on the right and it changed into a red crystal. The middle crystal then turned purple and the number turned into a ‘zero’. The middle crystal then vanished.
“I take it that the door in the other room just opened?” Nel asked.
“Yes, I just heard the sound of the door opening from the other room,” Twilight affirmed. As they left the room to return to the previous room, Twilight added something to her explanation from before, “I didn’t mention this before, but the mechanism only opens the door if you complete the puzzle in the number of moves specified by the middle crystal.”
“So the crystal has to be the matching color and the counter has to reach ‘zero’ at the same time?” Lyra asked. “That certainly complicates things.”
Once they returned to the room with the purple door, they found that the obstacle had, indeed, vanished. Moving through the doorway, they found themselves in another hallway that had four more rooms where two rooms had mechanisms and the other two had colored doors: one green and one orange.
Deciding to solve the orange door first, the group proceeded to the room with the mechanism which was a dark blue crystal with a number ‘ten’ on it and between a blue and black crystal. Twilight thought about her strategy for the mechanism and decided to hit the left crystal nine times and the right crystal once, which turned the crystal orange once it reached ‘zero’.
Unfortunately, the path beyond the orange door led to a dead end where they got into fights with dark magic users with blue flaming staves and really long white beards and ram warriors which resembled the ones Lyra’s team fought in the arena.
The group returned to the hall and to the room where they saw the other mechanism which was tied to the green door. This one had a red and white crystal on the red and blue pedestals respectively with a light red crystal in the middle with the number ‘six’ on it. Twilight hit both crystals three times each which turned the middle crystal green and caused the green door in the nearby room to unlock.
The path beyond the green door led to a small hallway that led out of the building and onto a platform that had two branched paths. They took the left path and fought more ram warriors and dark magic users on the path. They soon found themselves inside another building with a hallway that had a yellow door at the end and the mechanism in the room halfway down the hallway.
The mechanism in the room had a gray crystal with a black crystal on the red pedestal and a white crystal on the blue pedestal. The number ‘sixteen’ was on the gray crystal. Twilight struck the white crystal fourteen times and the black crystal twice until the middle crystal turned yellow.
Beyond the opened yellow door was the elevator to the next floor, so the group had to take turns using it to reach the fourth floor.
However, the fourth and fifth floors only contained elevators which led to the next floor, which Cliff didn’t mind because his head was already hurting from all the color puzzles on the third floor.
The entrance to another building awaited the group on the sixth floor, making Cliff groan in exasperation.
“Just how high does this thing go?” he demanded.
“The main control console is on the tenth floor, so we have another four floors to go through,” Twilight explained.
Twilight did her best to recall the layout of the tower. While the tower has its twists and turns, it wasn’t as bad as the Firewall. The paths would eventually lead them to where they needed to go.
Everyone entered the building before them and proceeded through a room and through a hallway, dealing with a dark magic user, or savant, as Twilight called them. They soon found themselves outside of the building…
…and into a four-way crossroad where each path was the entrance to a building. There was an elevator in the center, but that one was deactivated.
“Looks like Crystal deactivated this elevator. We need to find the manual override switches down each of these paths to reactivate the elevator,” Twilight explained.
“More puzzles?” Cliff complained.
Twilight rolled her eyes, “There’s only a few rooms in each building. And no, there are no puzzles this time.”
“Should we split up?” Fayt asked.
“That might be a good idea,” Twilight answered. “We’re running out of time so we need to get to the switches quickly.”
Twilight assigned the groups as they were last time, except that Lyra would go with Nel’s group and Twilight would go with Sophia’s group.
The three groups each tackled a building, exploring the rooms and dealing with any savants and ram warriors along the way and sometimes having to smash their way through floating crystals.
Eventually, all three groups explored all they could of the rooms but found no signs of the switches. Twilight furrowed her brow while she did her best to remember the layout of the floor. That was when she remembered that there was a room that they hadn’t explored yet but had no connecting doorways.
Maria’s group had better results as Roger’s eye for detail noticed a cracked section of wall which he broke through with his drill. That was when they discovered their switch. Mirage moved onto the switch, which looked like a giant gold-embroidered glass button at the top of some stairs. Once she stepped on it, the button sank slightly before lighting up. Maria led her group back to the elevator.
Sophia’s group and Lyra’s group had to look around carefully until they found cracked walls. Using their energy blades, both templars broke through their respective walls and found their switches. Once the switches were pressed, the two groups returned to the elevator.
It wasn’t long before all three groups were together again.
“Why were the rooms with the switches blocked off by walls?” Fayt asked.
“I suspect that it was another attempt by Crystal Silicon to keep us from getting to her by generating wall code to cover up the doorways,” Twilight guessed. “Though it looks like she was hasty when she built them because they were not structurally stable.”
“It doesn’t matter, fools. Let’s keep moving,” Albel said.
Ignoring Albel’s usual mannerisms, the group soon started boarding the elevator for the seventh floor.
The seventh, eighth and ninth floors were short, linear paths to the next elevator with groups of savants and ram warriors guarding them.
At last, the group had arrived at the tenth floor. Everyone was feeling the anticipation of a tough fight ahead of them as they expected that Crystal Silicon wouldn’t be going down without a fight.
“Looks like this is it,” Cliff said.
“Finally, I’ve long grown tired of chasing down that worthless maggot,” Albel said.
Fayt looked at the area around him and discovered three sets of stairs but he had no idea where they led. “Hey Twilight, any idea which stairs we’re supposed to take?”
“It actually doesn’t matter. The top floor of Spiral Tower was built mostly for presentation, but all three stairs eventually lead us to our destination.”
“Heh, if this were the realm of the gods, I would expect no less,” Adray commented.
The group decided to go up the middle flight of stairs. It was at the top of that flight that they came across a strange variation of chimera.
Unlike the previous variant that had a tiger head, goat head, and snake head with the flaming tail, this one made Discord look like a properly-built creature by comparison. This one had heads for forelegs and those heads were a griffon head on the right side and a goat head on the left. Its body and main head resembled a manticore’s and it had a dragon’s head on its back. The creature also had two pairs of wings, lizardlike legs and tail and a second tail that was a snake’s head.
Clearly, whoever designed this creature was extremely sick in the head.
Sophia could only look upon the creature with pity and sympathy. “That has to be the biggest waste of biomass that I have ever seen. This thing needs to be put out of its misery.”
“Yeah,” Lyra agreed. “I can sense the agony that this creature feels just by existing.”
Even Thanatas could not hide her disdain toward the tragic creature. “If it weren’t for the mechanics of this universe, I’d chop up this thing and put the parts to better use than this waste of material. It’s so inefficient and prone to self-destructive behavior with so many brains working the body at once. This is amateur work at best.”
None of the others had time to question the undead on her obsession toward body parts as the beast roared at the group through its manticore, dragon and griffon heads. It lifted itself with its four wings and slowly flew closer to the group who proceeded to spread out and surround the creature.
The symbologists hit the chimera from different directions with Lightning Blast spells. This led to the creature trying to petrify one of the group with its breath through its manticore head, but was unable to use it as the energy in its body got redirected toward the goat head who couldn’t get the attack off because the griffon head took the energy from the attack. This led to the heads fighting each other over which of the group was the biggest threat which led to the heads biting each other, or trying to.
Lacking an intelligent head among the five minds, the chimera completely ignored the group, which led to Thanatas rolling her eyes and walking up to the beast before stabbing it with her sword which she had laced with a powerful necrotic disease that was designed to cause the creature’s flesh to rapidly rot from the inside out. Once injected, the undead moved back a few steps and watched the show.
The chimera roared, bleated and screeched in agony for ten seconds before Sophia ran in and delivered a powerful kick to the creature’s chest which sent it flying over the platform.
“What was that for?” Thanatas asked. “It was getting to the best part.”
“Because we don’t have time to admire your work,” Sophia reasoned. “Crystal Silicon is at the top of the stairs and we shouldn’t be wasting time watching a horror show which would have ended up with one or more of our friends puking their guts out.”
“Ulp, yeah, that’s probably a good idea,” Roger said shakily. His face already looked green.
Thanatas sighed, “Yeah, you have a point.”
As they advanced up the stairs, the group saw that Twilight was correct. While the paths seemed to split, they also seemed to come together until they ultimately led to a single platform at the top of the stairs.
Along the way, they encountered more of the tragic chimeras. Thanatas was forced to promise to not repeat what she did to the first chimera for various reasons, though she couldn’t care less for most of them. Instead, the group dealt with the chimeras their own way.
With everyone at the top of the long climb to the top of the tower, dealing with one last chimera, they looked ahead to find a long clockwork platform that was lined with helical pedestals with diamonds slowly spinning atop them. At the end of the platform was a massive golden door with a clockwork pattern in the middle and a large hole above the pattern that had a six-pointed star on it, resembling Twilight’s cutie mark.
“Looks like we’re finally here,” Sophia said.
“Finally, that was a ludicrously unnecessary number of stairs,” Thanatas said. “Makes me think you were inflating your ego when you made this place, Twilight.”
Twilight puffed her cheeks in offense. “The design wasn’t my idea, mostly. The clockwork theme was my design, but the layout was left to my team. Admittedly though, Celestia did have a hand in the design as well. A lot of the design team was also composed of Protoss.”
“So basically, Celestia wanted the branching stairs that lead to one place while everything else was designed mostly by the Protoss designers?” Lyra deduced. “Celestia always did have a thing for looking down on her ponies, literally.”
“Can we save this discussion for another time? We need to stop Crystal Silicon, now,” Nel said.
Everyone took a moment to mentally prepare themselves before they walked down the long platform toward the door. Twilight entered her access code for the door and it opened, allowing everyone entry into the heart of the Eternal Sphere.
The inner sanctum of Spiral Tower consisted of a single platform with a towering structure in the center with a clock face at the top, making the structure somewhat resemble a grandfather clock. The platform was surrounded by a large number of windows that appeared to show different worlds throughout the universe. The windows floated around the platform. Above the platform was a massive, ornate, black pendulum that moved back and forth without disturbing anything. Each time the pendulum passed over the platform, a ticking sound was heard.
Standing before the towering structure was a familiar mare with a pure white coat and sparkling silver mane, wearing a sterling silver dress that sparkled in the light. The dress extended to her knees to reveal a shining pair of armored midnight blue shoes on her hooves. Her horn was sharpened to a fine point.
“It seems that this monster generator really is no match for you all,” Crystal said before she bitterly grumbled, “Worthless piece of junk!”
“It’s over, Crystal Silicon, you can’t stop all of us,” Twilight declared.
“Oh, I know that I’m no match for you imperialists, but I still have cards to play. You see, I have had ample time to learn the controls of the Eternal Sphere. Not just the monster generator, but also the dungeon designer, the world builder, the character designer, the character modifier, and other such features. But the most important one, the one that will ensure that I will get what I want, one way or another, is the universe editor.”
Twilight’s eyes shrank to pinpricks as she heard the unicorn mention the universe editor. “You mean…?” she said shakily.
Crystal’s smirk widened, “That’s right, Xel’naga, with just one simple command, I can now erase the entire universe and take your research back to square one. I also have access to the databases containing your symbology research and my allies are preparing to infiltrate your labs to destroy the written portions of your work. Centuries of research are about to amount to nothing…
“...Unless you give me what I want.”
Twilight was now in quite a dilemma. To give Crystal access to Project Valkyrie would put Equestria in danger once she gained access to the prototype deities. She wasn’t sure how she and the other princesses would fare against the god and two goddesses since she had not examined their parameters recently.
On the other hand, if she refused Crystal’s demands now, it would mean the end of the Eternal Sphere and send all progress made in the science of symbology back to the beginning. But it would also mean the deletion of Fayt and his friends.
This reminded her of the time when she had the powers of all of the other princesses at the time but was forced to give it all up when the centaur, Tirek, used her friends as hostages.
“So what will it be, princess?” Crystal demanded, spitting out the last word like venom.
Twilight’s decision ultimately worked out in the end against Tirek, she could only hope that it would work out here too.
Twilight sighed in resignation, “You win…”
With a victorious smirk, Crystal brought up the entry screen for Project Valkyrie. With her head lowered, Twilight advanced toward the screen.
“Twilight, don’t do it!” Fayt pleaded.
“I have to, I can’t sacrifice an entire universe for the safety of Equestria.”
Thanatas scoffed and rolled her eyes, “Great, another cliche. It’s as if this mare gets all her ideas from what others did. Originality seems to be a skill she fails at.”
“No one cares about criticism from the peanut gallery,” Crystal snapped.
Sophia giggled, “Sounds like you care since you’re the one getting fussy by a few words, glitterbutt.”
Crystal Silicon had to use every mental calming technique that she knew to keep her temper in check while her enemy gave her access to her ultimate goal at long last. Once the alicorn used her magic to unlock the way to her prize, she quickly left a trojan program to ensure that she didn’t get locked out later. The screen then closed and Twilight backed away.
Crystal’s smirk grew maniacal, “Finally, my goal is now within reach! I can finally purge Equus of you foul immortals!” She then brought up a small screen and pressed it a few times, signaling her allies to take action. She dismissed her screen and turned to the group again. She held out her right hand before a shaft of light manifested in her hand. Crystal gripped the light which transformed into an ornate spear. The shaft was royal blue with a silver filigree along it while the blade of the spear was scarlet. “While those two bumbling fools get everything ready, I’ll buy them some time and entertain myself by showing you what I can do.”
Crystal finished her setup by making the entrance disappear to cut off any escape. She lit her horn and a number of summoning circles appeared on the platform before a number of twisted chimeras emerged.
Thanatas gave Crystal a deadpan expression before she summoned her wings and slammed the platform. All of the chimeras were impaled by giant bone spikes a second later. Twilight noticed just in time a summoning circle under them but knew what Crystal was attempting so she placed a shield over everyone just in time as their position was bombarded by Laser Beams. The shield held the onslaught while Adray casted a Lightning Strike symbol on Crystal which was blocked by her own shield.
“I won’t filthy data like you touch me!” Crystal snapped. Her horn glowed brightly and an even greater number of summoning circles filled the platform. “Enjoy wasting your energy on the cannon fodder!” The circles summoned a menagerie of monsters of numerous species onto the now crowded platform.
Lyra nodded to Twilight who raised another barrier. Lyra and Sophia unleashed storms of psionic lightning which completely covered the platform, frying all monsters within. Any monsters that survived were engulfed in flames when Fayt unleashed a massive Explosion symbol. Crystal’s barrier was unable to endure the assault and shattered. Her dress ended up slightly singed with a few scorch marks on her no longer immaculate coat.
Crystal Silicon was seeing red now. Discovering the damage to her clothes and her coat, she was unable to control her temper anymore. “Heads will roll for that!” She brought up a screen and aggressively pressed on it. Her form shifted into a version of herself with large white wings. Her horn extended and her body grew to an alicorn’s proportions. “If it takes an alicorn to destroy an alicorn, then so be it!”
A sweep from Crystal’s spear unleashed a powerful shockwave that everyone barely managed to avoid. She gave the group no time to regroup as she charged at Albel who blocked a thrust from her spear with his katana. She overpowered the warrior and sent him flying into one of the windows in the room. Nel attempted to leap at Crystal from behind but the mare saw the attack coming and hit her in the stomach with the pommel of her spear before she swiftly turned around to attack the Aquarian with the blade. Nel managed to block the strike by crossing her daggers but was sent flying into a window.
Maria altered one of her shots to overload it with a massive amount of energy. Using her tiny drones, she was set up to direct a massive burst of energy at Crystal. The false alicorn saw the attack coming and prepared to block the blast. However, Cliff was also preparing something as he focused his qi into a powerful blast. Crystal was not entirely sure that she could block both blasts, but she felt that she could mitigate them at least. She then noticed that a third buildup of energy was growing behind her. Fayt channeled the full power of his Destruction gene and manifested a pair of wings made of light. Using his temporary wings, Fayt took to the air and prepared to unleash his own blast of energy. Crystal used all of her magic to make the strongest shield she could. All three energy sources took aim.
“Energy Burst!” Maria cried out.
“Max Shockwave!” Cliff cried out.
“Ethereal Blast!” Fayt cried out.
As the three energy sources assaulted Crystal’s shield from three directions, the barrier began to crack and those cracks were quickly spreading. She panicked as she saw her last line of defense crumble and a splitting headache beginning to develop. “No! This will not be the end of me!” With no other options left, she quickly brought up a screen and pressed her palm on it. She vanished a moment later.
The three energies collided and created a powerful explosion that temporarily blinded everyone for a moment. As the energies subsided, the group observed the aftermath of the attack and saw no signs of Crystal Silicon.
Fayt, Cliff and Maria looked quite winded from their attacks. “Did we…did we get her?” Cliff asked.
Twilight lowered her head and shook it sadly, “No, I detected her logout just before her shield broke. She disconnected from the Eternal Sphere and will likely be headed to the floor where Project Valkyrie is being held.”
“Can we head her off?” Fayt asked.
“We won’t make it in time. With the head start she now has, she and her allies will reach the prototypes before we can.”
“We can’t give up! There has to be a way to stop Crystal Silicon!” Maria snapped.
Twilight nodded, “Project Valkyrie is now compromised. We can’t stop Crystal, Swift and Belzebub from reaching the prototypes, but we might be able to stop them before they can escape with two of the prototypes. It will require us getting to them from the Eternal Sphere.”
“Two of them?” Sophia asked.
“I placed one prototype, codenamed Gabriel Celesta, in a high-tech maze beneath Kirlsa. I placed the second in a temple in the depths of the Urssa Lava Caves. The entrance was being guarded by Crosell. The second’s name is Freya.
“There are powerful security systems in place to prevent even the strongest of intruders from sneaking in. A much more powerful version of the monster generator protects these prototypes and now that Crystal has access to the project, we will have to fight our way through some of the most powerful monsters in the Eternal Sphere.
“And the third?” Thanatas asked.
“I placed the third prototype, codenamed Ethereal Queen, on a site on a separate planet. We won’t be able to reach all three in time before they start manifesting in Equestria. If we pursue Ethereal Queen now, we would need to deal with Gabriel and Freya in Equestria. We can take out Gabriel and Freya before they reach Equestria, but we would have to deal with Ethereal Queen in Equestria.”
“Where will they manifest?” Fayt asked.
“At the top floor of the Sphere Institute.”
Once Twilight finished explaining, she approached the Eternal Sphere control system and used the various interfaces to run diagnostics on the universe as well as regain control of the Executioners to delete the convictors. Once all convictors were wiped out from the face of the universe, she uninstalled the Executioner program.
“There, that should prevent any further damage to the Eternal Sphere. Your universe is safe,” Twilight declared.
“I don’t think any of us will be safe as long as Crystal Silicon runs free,” Maria countered.
“Is it possible to restore all the damage done by the Executioners here?” Fayt asked.
Twilight sighed at that, “I think that is a matter that would be best left discussed after we deal with Crystal Silicon.” She then resumed pressing her fingers on the interface. “Once we leave here, I will be locking Spiral Tower with the same security that had prevented Crystal from accessing Project Valkyrie before. She won’t be able to repeat this stunt again.”
“No tellin’ what she’s gonna do once she gets her hands on those prototypes,” Cliff said. “Anyway, do we got a way outta here or do we need to walk back?”
“I can transport us directly to Kirlsa from here. We need to be prepared for the worst, because we will likely end up fighting the prototypes themselves. I’m also sending a message to Princess Celestia and Azure Lazer to inform her about the developing situation and to be prepared if the prototypes start attacking Equestria.”
It took a few minutes for Twilight to finish her preparations. Once she finished and went through a mental checklist for everything that needed done…five times, she set the coordinates for the town that housed the location of one of the sites where Project Valkyrie was being stored and readied everyone for transport.
In a matter of seconds, all was quiet once more in Spiral Tower.