The order’s hard stance on never taking mushrooms alone was driven by practicality. Things could get dark in a hurry. Friendly faces and words of comfort were vital to keep a monk in the right frame of mind.
There were other reasons, too. Reasons which became abundantly clear to Hypha once the mushrooms wore off.
The stone outcropping was gone, replaced with an endless rolling hill of head-high grass that tickled his fur when he moved. A warm wind played with the loose edges of his robes. His whole mountainous world had been pressed flat and smoothed over.
The Stonewood mountains, the place that he’d called home for the past fifteen years, the only place he’d ever known, floated serenely on the eastern horizon.
Wordless terror gripped Hypha’s chest. He sucked in a lungful of rich air and choked. Pollen invaded his nose. The soft grass clung to his sweat-soaked fur like razors digging into skin.
The mountains were somehow all the way over there, and he was somehow all the way over here. The pain was too real for this to be an illusion. He was here. They were there.
This was the other reason monks weren’t allowed to do mushrooms alone: there was a chance they might accidentally float away.
After an hour or four, the panic attacks subsided from scorpion stingers striking his heart to dull needles. Things couldn’t be as bad as they seemed, right? He’d gotten down here somehow. That meant, in theory, there was a way back up.
An unencumbered earth pony monk, even a novice like Hypha, could fly fairly fast—almost as fast as an average pegasus. Hypha reasoned that if he found good thermals to assist in maintaining altitude, he could make the whole flight in under a day.
Then he actually tried flying.
With a herculean effort, straining every muscle in his body until he was certain he would pop, he got about five yards into the air. Then he pitched down, rolled over, and crashed right back down again. He curled up into a ball at the last second to spare his split hooves.
The mountains stared at him teasingly from the horizon, swaying faintly in the thick air, a mirage of moving stone.
Hypha felt failure in every ache and pain. His body was simply too beat up to fly. Creeping dread slithered noiselessly through the tall grass and bit at his hocks. He felt himself shudder. Suddenly he had to be out of this field. The grass was reaching over him, smothering him. It was alive, a single massive superorganism. And it wanted to kill him. He started off towards the mountains at a limp.
Hours passed. The mountains got no closer. He racked up an impressive number of cuts from the grass. At least his eyes weren’t swollen shut anymore. He had the profound healing effects of mother sky to thank for that. Unfortunately for him, there was no chance mere mushrooms could fix a degloved hoof. An injury of that severity meant a permanent limp if he was lucky, and a slow death from infection if he wasn’t. Recovery would be a risky and uncertain prospect in ideal conditions.
Idiot, he thought. That’s what you get. This was banishment. Punishment for his offense. He hadn’t been ready to partake in the mushroom ritual. While his friends and mentors fought and died, Hypha betrayed them and spat on his sacred vows. His limp turned to a shamble. That’s what you get.
Out of the blue, he stumbled onto a cobblestone road cutting through the grass. His still-split front hoof caught the corner of a protruding stone and sent him sprawling. Black spots fluttered on the edge of his vision. It took a full five minutes to summon the strength just to sit up again.
As he got to his hooves, he heard a rumble coming up the road. Images of soldiers in dark cloaks flashed through his mind. He ducked into the grass.
A single carriage rumbled down the road. The outside oozed opulence. Ornamental gold-leaf trim lined the box from top to bottom. Bells and tiny tubular chimes swayed from side to side, rattling and chattering. Metal-girded wheels groaned against the cobblestones. Four stallions clad in matching red uniforms strained to pull the whole thing over the uneven road.
Hypha hugged the ground as the carriage passed. He couldn’t tell who was inside, but he could tell from the smell there was food inside.
His stomach flipped. He hadn’t eaten since the evening before the attack. The cart was going deeper inland, away from the mountains. But if he didn’t find food, he’d have no energy to attempt a return trip.
It struck him as odd that he could contemplate robbery so easily. But the rules out here were different, he reminded himself. This was outsider territory. Generosity was not the norm. Even if one outsider was starving to death on the road, that starving pony wasn’t allowed to take another outsider’s food. The rule was a baldfaced insult to equinity, doubly so because Hypha was really hungry.
He made up his mind. The outsiders were cruel. Their laws were cruel. If they wanted to project their cruelty on him, then he would project a little cruelty in return.
He channeled his magic and found that, while he still couldn’t fly, he could suspend his front hooves an inch or two above the ground without much effort. His new walk was lopsided and taxed his rear legs, but it beat being completely immobile.
Hypha took off in pursuit.
The cart rolled on for several more miles before taking a southward fork in the road. After another mile, a tall butte emerged from the grass, sloping gently upward with the rest of the geography, then cutting off suddenly in a sheer cliff face a hundred yards high.
Clinging to the edge of the butte were a hodgepodge of mud mortar buildings encircled by a steep wall of earth. An opening in the wall just wide enough to let a wagon through served as the main gate.
Hypha snuck in behind the wagon, expecting resistance. He quickly realized, however, that there were no guards of any kind in sight. A few outsider locals milled around, draped in garb reminiscent of the Derechan soldiers but without any of the menace. A few carried swords, though no one tried to kill him. They seemed perfectly content to ignore him, even with his conspicuous orange robes.
The road widened into a central avenue lined with featureless buildings and sparsely populated stalls. The carriage came to a stop in front of a conspicuous white stone courthouse with tall columns lining the entrance.
Two stallions in black robes got out and walked inside. The smell of bread and rendered fat filled the air. Hypha’s mouth started to water again.
The pulling team didn’t follow their passengers inside, choosing instead to sit down next to the cart and start up a game of cards. Hypha retreated into a nearby alley with a clear view of the cart. The pulling team wouldn’t just camp out in the street, right? They would go inside to rest at some point. He just had to outlast them.
No problem. He’d outlasted blizzards and boarbears and every brutal act of nature in between. He could be patient.
In the meantime, he half flew, half dragged himself onto a nearby rooftop. From that vantage point, he could see the entire town laid out before him. There were about fifty buildings in total, mostly blocky residential abodes no more than two stories tall. Big wisps of smoke puffed cheerfully from the chimneys. Out here, with no mountains to cut through the view, Hypha could see everything from one horizon to another, every giant indigo-tinted cloud, every formless gust of wind moving across the tall grass, every lonely pony working their way through the alleyways.
He felt another panic attack coming on. It was all too strange, too alien. Too vast. The longer he stared, the more the clouds moved, until they were folding into themselves at impossible speeds. Shadows dripped down the creases like black ichor. They coalesced into the shapes of ponies perched on the edges, but as he watched their hoofholds evaporated and they went tumbling down. The wind twisted into a scream. Wildfire sunset danced on the clouds. The edge opened up. Panic rushed in.
Hypha seized up and fell off the roof.
He pushed back against gravity at the last second and managed to slow his fall. The landing was painful, but nothing broke. As he came to rest, he tried to tame his out-of-control breathing, but all he could think about were the pony shapes falling from the clouds. Why was mother sky showing him these horrible things? More punishment? Mental torment?
A soft whooshing sound sprung up from several directions at once. A system of magical torches lit up, one after the other, illuminating the main road and some of the more prominent alleyways.
The pulling team let out a cheer and hustled into the building. The door swung shut behind them. Hypha was all alone with the carriage now.
His patience died a swift death. He rushed to the carriage without bothering to look around for witnesses. The handle didn’t budge when he jiggled it. Thinking fast, he picked up a loose chunk of cobblestone from the ground and prepared to slam it against the handle.
“Psst. Hey. Street trash.”
Hypha whirled around, rock raised over his head.
Two mares stood in the center of the street. The one closest to him wore a red shawl over her head, concealing a tangle of curly auburn mane. The other wore a blue shawl and wore her mane almost shaved. Faint firelight flashed in their sunken eyes. Their heads were tilted up and to the side, half disappointed nobility, half curious apex predator.
“This is really bad for you,” the mare in the red shawl said. Her voice glittered like shards of broken glass.
Hypha dropped his hoof, though he didn’t let go of the rock. “Go away,” he said. His voice was so thin it barely came out at all.
“What are you even wearing?”
“I said—”
“What were you doing with that rock?”
“Nothing.”
“Are you breaking in?”
“No.”
“Good. Cuz that’s ours.”
The rock tumbled from his hooves and rolled across the street with a clatter. He hoped that in the red-tinted firelight, these mares couldn’t see the shameful blush on his cheeks. “Oh... I didn’t know.”
“Yeah. It’s so easy to take food out of another pony’s mouth until that pony’s looking you in the eye.”
“I—I’m sorry. Really—”
“Whatever, street trash. Just get lost before I call the pulling team out here.”
Hypha scampered away, eyes downcast. He felt sick. Stealing from strangers—what would Cumulus think?
Then he remembered Cumulus was probably dead, his spirit soaring around the mycilian layer connecting all things to each other. But how quickly could a spirit travel through the mycelium? For all he knew, Cumulus hadn’t even reached this part of the world yet.
The utter desolate loneliness of his situation settled like heavy snow. He heard a harsh metal scraping sound behind him. He didn’t turn around. What did it even matter, anyway?
He heard the sound again. Then he heard the mare in the red shawl cursing under her breath.
He risked a glance backwards. The red mare stood on her rear two hooves. She dug at the lock with a bobby pin clenched carefully between her teeth.
The gears inside Hypha’s head tick... tick.... tick.... click’d together.
“Hey,” he hissed. “That’s not your cart.”
“Of course it is.”
“No it’s not. You’re picking the lock.”
“I lost the keys.”
“No you didn’t.” He took a step forward. “Stop it.”
“Get out of here, street trash.”
As the mare in red spoke, the mare in blue circled around the cart and out of sight. A moment later she stepped out of the shadows halfway across the square.
Hypha let out an involuntary gasp. She was an earth pony, same as him. She couldn’t teleport. So how did she get all the way over here?
The red mare leveraged her whole weight against the pins in the lock. It gave with a creak of metal. She laughed and tossed it aside. The blue mare reappeared at her side. Together, the two dove into the cart. They emerged a moment later with their shawls stuffed with pastries and cheeses. The sight of so much food made Hypha’s legs go weak.
“There’s enough for all of us,” he said, his voice hoarse with exhaustion.
“No,” said the mare in red, “there’s not.”
She picked a shiny red apple from her shawl, gauged the weight in her hoof, then whipped it with all her might at the courthouse window. The glass, and all semblance of silence, shattered.
The pulling team burst out the front door a moment later, truncheons clasped tightly between bared teeth. But they were too late. The carriage door was shut tight. The street was empty.
Fear provided just enough adrenaline for Hypha to fly up to a nearby rooftop unassisted. He passed out for a split second on landing, but snapped awake before he could slide down to the street. His head throbbed, an ache of magical overload so intense it reached all the down into his stomach. He’d pushed past his magical limits. Now he was paying the price.
He tracked the mares to an alley three streets over. They hunkered down behind a half-wall, their shawls spread out like picnic blankets. They alternated watching the mouth of the alley for any unwelcome guests and stuffing their gaunt faces. Neither of them thought to watch the rooftops.
Hypha inched his way to the edge of the roof directly above them. “Psst. Hey.”
The two mares leapt in surprise at the sound of his voice. The red one assumed a fighting stance while the blue one swept up the food. Their faces went from ravenous to confused when they realized who had hailed them.
“How’d you get up there?” The mare in red asked. The other mare continued packing up their haul, though at a more leisurely pace.
“Someone could have gotten hurt back there,” Hypha said.
“Well, we’re fine, so don’t worry about it.”
“I’d like some of that food.”
“I’d like for you to leave us alone.”
Hypha casually hopped off the edge of the roof.
The mares let out a hiss of surprise and leapt back, assuming they were about to watch a stranger splatter at their hooves. Hypha channeled his dwindling magic and slowed his descent, landing without a sound on the cobblestones.
The mare in blue rubbed her eyes. The mare in red took a step back. The hardness in her face returned.
“I’d appreciate it if you shared,” Hypha said.
“You’re not a pegasus,” the mare in red said. “How’d you do that?”
“I don’t need much. Just some bread, or a rind of cheese—”
“If you come any closer, I’ll buck your eyeballs through the back of your head.”
Hypha held up a forehoof in what he hoped was a universal sign of surrender. “I really don’t want to fight. I just want... uh...” He noticed both mares’ eyes lock onto his hooves. “Just, um. Some food, maybe. Hello?”
The blue mare gagged.
Hypha frowned. “What? Do I smell or something?”
“Were you walking on those?” the red mare asked.
“Yeah? Sorta.”
“That’s—hey.” Hypha tried to put his hoof down. The red mare grabbed him. “Don’t put any weight on that. Sit down.”
“No.” Hypha took a step back. “I just need some food, then I’ll leave you alone.”
A look passed between the two mares, something significant in a language Hypha didn’t understand. The blue one stepped into a nearby shadow, disappeared, then returned a moment later with a hooffull of grey dust.
“How’d you do that?” Hypha asked.
“Shut up,” The red mare said. She rifled through her haul until she found a bottle of wine. She yanked the cork out with her teeth and poured half the bottle into the dust while the blue mare mashed the paste with her hooves. “Alright, now hold ‘em out.”
The undisguised worry in their eyes was enough to make Hypha obey. The mare in blue applied a liberal coating to Hypha’s hooves before rinsing her own hooves off on a tuft of weeds sprouting from between the cobblestones.
“That’s plaster,” the red mare said. “However you were walking before, keep doing that. Don’t knock the plaster off for at least another couple days. It’ll protect all the important stuff while the healing starts.” She paused, eyeing Hypha with those sharp eyes of hers. Her irises were red, too. “If the healing starts. How were you even walking?”
Hypha took a deep breath and levitated himself a few inches off the ground. The two mares leapt back. The half-empty wine bottle tumbled to the ground.
“It’s earth pony magic,” Hypha said.
“That is not earth pony magic.”
He shrugged and turned towards the mouth of the alley. “Whatever you say. Thanks for your help.”
“Wait up!” The mare in red grabbed him by the shoulder. “Are you from here?”
“No. I have no idea where I am right now.” He pointed to the Stonewood mountains, now little more than black blots on the horizon. “I have to get back there.”
“The mountains? They’re two hundred miles away.”
Hypha’s heart sank. Two hundred? “Still. I need to get back there. I’m an acolyte of the order of Heavenly Peace. Derechan soldiers attacked our monastery. I need to get to the other monasteries and warn them.”
“Heavenly Peace?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“Earth ponies only, weird mushroom diet, everypony wears the same...” she gestured to his soiled, shredded robes. “Whatever you’re wearing?”
“They’re robes. And how do you know about the order?”
“I think there’s a bunch of you not too far away from here.”
Hypha’s head snapped up. “What?” The levitation on his front hooves flickered, leaving a soft wine-colored plaster hoofprint on the cobblestones. Pain shot up his legs. He didn’t care. “Where?”
“West of here.”
That didn’t make sense. There weren’t any mountains out here. He’d never heard of a monastery this far west, either. Could mother sky mushrooms even grow in non-mountainous climates?
“Are you sure?” he asked.
“Yeah. They got a whole temple out there in the grasslands. They’re big into spiritual wellness or whatever. It’s kinda tough to explain, you just gotta go there and see it—hey!”
He had already started off down the alley. Monks were nearby. If they hadn’t already been attacked too, they needed to know what was coming. “Thank you for your help,” he called behind him. “Good luck—urk—”
He found his flight suddenly arrested by a strong pair of forelegs wrapped around his neck. The mare in blue had closed twenty yards of distance in a single second. Hypha would have been amazed if her choke hold weren’t so firm.
“We won’t need luck,” the mare in red said in a low, ominous voice. “Not if we have you.”
“Ack—I don’t have money,” he said. He tried to pull the blue mare’s forelegs off him, but only succeeded in smearing plaster on her fur in the process. Her hooves didn’t budge, no matter how much he strained against them. He felt the muscles rippling beneath her fur, strong and stubborn like stonewood. “Please don’t kill me.”
“Let’s make a deal,” the mare in red said. “Right now, you still don’t know where this monastery is. Help us out, and we’ll take you right to the front door.”
“I don’t even know you. And my hooves are still busted. You should—hrrk—find somepony else.”
The red mare’s eyes caught the moonlight, glinting like curved knives. “I’m Red. That’s Blue. And you’ll do.”