//------------------------------// // Chapter 21: Being Levelheaded // Story: The Forest of the Golden Abalone // by Unwhole Hole //------------------------------// The effect of magical frost on pony biology was somewhat profound. The freeze was in a sense far deeper than simple ordinary frost. Not only did it physically encase the pony in question, but rendered them metabolically inert—not unalived in the slightest, but in stasis. To the extent that, according to some whispered legends, a bath of liquid ice had once been used to seal one of the most powerful Chaos wizards in existence for one thousand whole years. Snails was not a powerful wizard, though—nor much of a wizard at all. He therefore had little chance of escaping his icy prison. The only benefit to his situation was that, in her haste, Flurry Heart had not bothered to attach the necessary magical parameters that would have made the ice melt-resistant. So in the humidity and mild heat of a swampy but largely temperature forest, he was slowly melting. This process might have taken days, weeks, or even months—had not Snails made numerous friends in the forest. Numerous snails had heard what had happened to him, and they converged on the ice. Their bodies, being cold-blooded, quickly slowed, but the little warmth they brought let them melt the ice little-by-little. Some came with magic, or special corrosive slime, slowly eating away at the ball of ice. They became perturbed as the others came, but were too cold to run. This area was only in the barest borders of snail territory—and, in their place, there came the slugs. Some of them were large and brown-green, their bodies mottled with warts and patterns oddly reminiscent of ancient runes. They stared with blind but intelligent eyes—and at their sides walked the others. Those that carried with them the ancient skeletons, the black necroslugs. Creatures that maintained forms that parodied the ponies that once dwelt here so long ago. The snails became afeared—but did not flee. Either because they were too cold, or because they wished to protect their protector. The slugs, though, did not advance, nor did they make any move to. One of the revenants turned its skeletal head toward the sound of an explosion and the shreik of a devastating magical wave—something in the great distance, in the shadow of the now-still mega-slug that was in the process of turning back into a sleeping mountain after having eaten hundreds of acres of swamp. Through the eyes of its skull, a pair of slugs stared out—and turned their attention back to Snails. The skeleton nodded. Immature fire slugs dropped from above, landing on the ice. On contact with water from the molten frost, they immediately ignited—and began to dissolve their way through it through the internal heat they produced. The ice dropped from where it had been suspended, striking the moist ground and fracturing—then, with a cracking sound and some time, it began to break open. It eventually did open, freeing Snails—but the last push was not from the combined action of the gastropods that surrounded it. Rather, Tuo was punched with such force that he shattered the ice as his body was thrown through two large trees and utterly broken on its surfaces. The act of being struck by a unicorn blown back by his own feeback wave shattered the ice—and Snails, after several hours of being solid, sat up with a gasp. He blinked. “Well, that’s just great,” he said, looking down at himself. “Now I’m cold.” He looked over his shoulder, finding Tuo laying in the dirt, dressed in the remnants of a secondary set of armor that was now tattered and sparking while his body was in the later stages of regeneration. Although he healed rapidly, he had still grown tired and thin—and his chest was heaving from being so badly winded. “You need more cardio, eh?” “Snails...you may want to run.” Snails shrugged. “Snails don’t run, so why should I?” Tuo pointed with a shaking hoof. Snails squinted and saw that a pony was approaching them. A gray earth-pony, his eyes oddly empty, his body soaked in black fluid. “Now I’ve got you, now I’m going to eat you…” Snails stood up, and the pony stopped, eyeing them both. He frowned, then pointed at Snails. “Are you him, or somepony else?” “I’m me.” “Am I you?” Snails shrugged. “I sure hope not?” “Why? What’s wrong with being me? Don’t answer that, I already know.” “I have been fighting him for the past three hours,” gasped Tuo. “He is utterly resistant to all forms of magic, and he seems largely indestructable.” “Well, yeah. He’s one of those sun-janitors.” Tuo’s eyes widened. “You—” Snails shrugged. “I’ve met one before.” “There are MORE?!” “There are?” asked the pony, suddenly confused. “Did you tell her you met me?” “I don’t think time works that way.” “What do I know about herbs?” He leaned over, looking at Snails’s cutie mark. “What do you know about herbs? You’re a snail. I guess that makes sense. You keep eating my garden. Or would, if I knew where I put it. But potatoes are a terribly secretive fruit.” He shook his head. “Can’t trust a potato. Those nitro-express rounds sure are a pain in the butt. So expensive.” Tuo tried to stand, charging his magic. “How about we don’t do that?” asked Snails. “He is a Solarian Custodian, I—” “They don’t attack unless you attack them first. Didn’t you ever try to be nice?” Tuo’s eyes widened, and he blushed slightly, clearly feeling deeply humiliated. He lowered his magic and, seeing this, the gray pony sat down, produced a slug, and began to calmly lick it. Snails was thoroughly disgusted by this, but maintained his composure if only for the sake of figuring out what had just happened to him. “Do you live here?” “I sure hope not. This place sure is damp.” “Do you know how you got here?” The pony shrugged. “Gravity. That’s how I get most places. I’m a pilot, you know. I don’t know why.” “I didn’t know that.” “Neither did I.” He paused. “I sort of...woke up. And there were other ponies there. That weird demon-thing, the big guy, and two weirdos.” “Weirdos?” “Yeah. Real pointy-looking guys. Like you. Except they had apple cutie marks. One was a whole apple, the other was a slice. I mean, what is that? It’s oddly suggestive. And if they’re related, I’d have an inferiority complex if I was the slice-guy.” He took a lick from a slug. “I mean, the only way it’d be worse is if it was an apple core and a cored apple…” Snails searched his memory. The only apple-based cutie marks he knew were the Apple family, and the only one that had a horn was still too young even to have a cutie mark. “Ring a bell?” asked Snails, mostly to Tuo. “No,” replied the unnamed pony, “but I know for whom it tolls.” Tuo sighed. “I doubt I could ring any manner of instrument.” He was laying on his side, slowly being coated in snail slime that would eventually leave him quite well preserved. “I don’t even think I can stand up.” “I had that problem, once,” said the gray pony. “Then they did the nose-thing and took my wings, and now I don’t even sleep. Just...awake. Nightmare Moon can’t get you if you don’t sleep.” “Even I sleep,” said Tuo, sounding either afraid or interested. “I know. You have that fancy crystal. Or you used to. They weren't asleep though. Not after what happened to them.” “What crystal?” The pony slowly blinked, his eyes closing at slightly different rates. “I don’t know where I am. You’re two ponies. That doesn’t make any sense.” He turned to Snails. “But if he’s not him, who am I? How am I supposed to even know the context here?” Snails shrugged. “I just don’t ask.” The pony squinted at him, then nodded. Snails nudged Tuo, who was starting to slip into unconsciousness. “What do you want?” “I’ve got to save Fluttershy, don’t I?” “Out of the question. I require her as a sacrifice to gain entry to the central artifice-tomb.” “Well, sure. That sounds about right. But you’re evil. So I have to stop you, eh?” The gray pony nodded. “Pretty sure that’s the law.” “Evil? I’m lawful good.” Snails and the gray pony looked at each other. “Then what are we?” “I’m a janitor who flies planes and you’re...a really talkative snail?” “Are we...the bad guys?” “Obviously,” snapped Tuo. “My work is perfectly legal and moral by definition.” Snails shrugged. “I don’t care. Still have to save Fluttershy. And you already gave away she’s gonna be sacrificed. So now I just need to know where, eh?” “I am not going to give you that information.” The gray pony stepped forward. He bent down, grasping a small plant in his mouth, and pulling it out, revealing a bulbous, swollen red root. “Then we’re just going to have to beet it out of you…” “You can try. It may cause permanent neuroligical damage to the changeling, but she is old anyway.” “Or,” said Snails. The gray pony seemed surprise. “You want me to beat him with a rock? Ore seems pretty extreme, but okay. I’ve already snuffed him like eight times, I think he can candle it.” “Why bother? He’s Tuo Perr-Synt-Milk.” Snails smiled. “So we just need to negotiate.” “For what?” asked Tuo, rolling his eyes—but unable to hide his sudden interest. “You have nothing I want. As attractive as you are, you cannot win me over with any favor you can hope to offer.” Snails pointed at the gray pony. Tuo sighed. “Or him. He is arguably even less pleasant than you. And that is indeed saying something.” “You can’t lie to me, Tuo. I know you want him.” “That’s—” “What did you call him? Other than a janitor?” “A Celestial Custodian, they were living weapons created by Starswirl the Bearded to serve alongside Daybreaker in the Nightmare War—” “And how many Celestial Custodians do you own?” Tuo’s eyes widened with the sudden realization, and, although he suppressed it, he lacked his mother or father’s negotiation skills. Snails smiled, knowing that hook had already been set. “There’s not that many of them. I’d bet they’re pretty valuable.” “I’m worth my weight in meat,” whispered the pony. “Historical. Powerful. Magical. One of a kind.” The pony sighed. “Because all my friends got got, and now I’m all alone…” Tuo stayed silent, glaring at them, then let out a long sigh. “Once again, I find myself defeated by you, Snails. You know me far too well.” His horn flickered, peeling a small component out of his damaged armor and holding it out to Snails. The color of the magic changed as Snails took it, and the object immediately turned, pointing into the foggy woods. “The navigator crystal assembly will lead you to where you need to go. I will not be able to go with you. I will rest here. BUT. I will also not permit you to interfere with my work. I have fulfilled my role by answering your question—but I do not intend to allow you to succeed.” Snails pointed at the gray pony. “I’m taking this guy.” “I make a great meat-shield,” said the pony, nodding. “You never know when you need to be shielded from the meat.” Tuo shrugged weakly. “So long as he is delivered in the end. I have already selected a space for him in my garden. Or perhaps I shall have him glazed.” With this thought in mind, he put his head down into the moss, and as he sunk deeper into it, he closed his eyes, shutting down. The degree of metabolic stasis was far greater than that of any normal pony, with his heart ceasing to beat—but he was simply inactive. Resting and regenerating his magical power. “We don’t have a lot of time,” said Snails. “He’ll wake up, eventually.” “Lucky him.” The gray pony sighed, and the two proceeded, following the crystal—not realizing that they were already too late, and that, by the time they would reach the vast hole that they needed to descend, the sacrifice would already be made.