"How'd it go?" Corsica asked as I slouched back into the seat she had been saving me. "Looked like you got mugged on your way back."
"It wasn't a mugging," I grumbled, checking my bag just in case. "She wouldn't do-" I cut myself off, realizing what I was saying, and where. "I mean, she better not have? Doesn't look like anything's missing..."
Jones the walrus chuckled jovially. "Oh, Yunie loves spicing things up in my courtroom! Of course she would! But probably not to anyone she's just met. Unless she doesn't like them." He rubbed his chin with a flipper. "Not anything valuable, at least. Or anything that couldn't ultimately be returned. Actually, now that I think on it..."
His voice devolved into muttering, and I made up my mind that everything I'd actually miss was still in its proper place. The rest of the table were shuffling their seats, unwinding what had clearly been a pileup next to the window to watch my dealings with Duma, and I got the feeling they were much more interested in the centaur than Yunie. I could still see him, lurking in that alley in the shadows...
"So?" One of the polar bears who had been talking with Duma at the next table over leaned over. "What'd you think of him, little miss? Always good to get an outside opinion on new business clients, you know?"
"Didn't look good," said the frog who had drawn Duma over to our table in the first place. "You skedaddled fast on him, you know?"
"Let her speak," the goat head on the three-headed beast sighed.
"He creeped me out," I reported with a shrug. "Kept making weird insinuations. Felt like out of everyone here, he was focused only on me. I wouldn't trust him to sell me something completely mundane and ordinary."
The polar bear strummed his chin.
"Not up to anything illegal, you think?" Jones seemed to have forgotten all about Yunie, and his eyes glittered with excitement. "We could open a tribunal-"
"What did he want you to buy?" the polar bear asked.
"A random set of robes, and a bottle of centaur sweat. Same thing he showed off at the table." I folded my booted forelegs on the table. "Any of those mean anything to you?"
The frog chuckled. "Centaur sweat? Who'd pay for that? Wait, if there's a market for it, I wonder if I could sell my own saliva..."
"Robes?" The lion head perked up. "Pony robes?"
I tilted my head. "Well, I didn't see them, but presumably. You know something?"
"Robes aren't fashionable," the lion head muttered. "Not around here, at least. A smart merchant wouldn't come here to sell them."
"Since when do you know about pony fashion?" the snake head hissed.
"It's always been a hobby of mine," the lion head bluntly stated. "Don't tell me you didn't know that."
The snake head sighed. "You learn new things about your roommates every day..."
"Roommates?" I asked. "Is that how you think of yourselves?"
"It's one way to think about it," the goat head lamented. "When you've got three people stuck in one body, you make do however you can."
Three people in one body, huh? Faye said in my head. Sounds like us.
Yeah...
As I thought about that, something warm and heavy fell on me from the side. It was Corsica, and it looked like she had fallen asleep in her chair.
"Err..." I shifted, not wanting to drop her down the awkward crack between my chair and hers, but instinctively shying away from the touch.
"Oh my!" Jones's brows went all the way up. "The lady has been drugged with a sleeping agent!"
"No," I grunted, pushing back my unease and trying to stabilize her so she didn't fall anyway. "Probably just had a big day... Hey, wake up!"
Corsica grunted, pushing herself back up onto her seat. "You're no fun..."
"You did that on purpose?" I furrowed my brow at her.
Corsica yawned.
"Uh-oh," Fauntleroy said, sauntering over. "You know, we do have rooms here on the cheap..."
"Will not be necessary," Braen interrupted, balanced like a gargoyle on her own chair. "Can only spend so long carousing before need to get back to friends. Besides, Braen could carry ten passed-out Corsicas at once!"
Corsica blinked, seeming to just remember that Braen was there. "Killjoy," she sighed, sitting upright. "Fine. I'm awake..."
Half the table chuckled. I didn't see what was so funny.
"So!" Jones clapped his fins. "Back to the matter of the tribunal! How many crimes do you think we can bring this Duma in on, eh?"
"Is being creepy a crime?" I asked. "Because technically, he hasn't done anything but that..." Mostly, I just didn't want to be involved with him any more than necessary. "You could just, like, forget about him."
"Yep," Yunie's voice said from under the table. "This much creepiness is definitely a crime."
"Yunie?" Jones craned his head, trying valiantly to fit it under the table to see. "Whatever are you doing down there?"
"Shush! I mean, what?" the voice carried. "Nobody here but us dust bunnies."
I glanced beneath the table myself. Two pairs of eyes were lurking side by side in the shadows.
"But if Yunie was here," the voice whispered, "she'd totally tell you that guy's about to get busted by the inquisition."
Muttering reverberated around the table.
"I told you centaurs were bad news," said the frog. "Never said otherwise, right?"
Jones sighed. "You had to go and say the I-word... Case closed, I suppose."
"The I-word?" Corsica yawned. "Inquisition? You got a truce to stay out of Seigetsu's way, or something?"
"More or less," Jones explained. "The dragons give us a decent amount of freedom for self-government here in Freedom Town. But one of their conditions is that when both of us want to take action against a wrongdoer, they always get the first say."
"And it's specifically their laws this dude is probably breaking," Yunie said from under the table. "Don't quote me on that, though. I just know he was acting suspicious."
"How many laws do the dragons even have?" I pressed. "They didn't tell me about any extensive codes of conduct when I was entering. Just..."
Keeping silent about religious stuff. Right.
What were the odds that 'centaur sweat' was actually important to their religion?
Halcyon? Faye prodded in my mind. Maybe this is the kind of thing we should stay away from.
Maybe it was.
"Well..." I stretched. "Been nice meeting all of you, even though I only learned like two of your names. But I'm starting to think like it might be time to head home for the night."
"I suppose we never did finish introductions, did we?" said the goat head. "I'm-"
"Leeroy," said the frog who had been most talkative. "Pleased to meet you!"
The snake head gave him a look.
"...Sam," the goat head finished after an awkward pause. "And my roommates are Karen and Clarke." It nodded at the snake and lion heads, respectively.
"Abyssinians have interesting naming conventions," Braen remarked. "Never have heard anything like!"
Several others around the table who had only spoken once or twice started introducing themselves as well, and my brain rapidly reached its limit for new name memorization. "Well, it's been real," I said, adjusting my coat and preparing to leave. "See you again sometime, maybe?"
"Of course!" Jones chortled. "And if anyone wrongs you, remember to stop by my courtroom to get a free sample of justice!"
We avoided Duma's alley on our way back to the city proper, thankfully encountering no trouble on the darkened streets. "So," Corsica said, looking as if she could tip over from a light breeze. "Anything you wanted to say back there, but couldn't around strangers?"
"I dunno," I muttered thoughtfully. "I... actually really enjoyed that, though."
"Well, duh." Corsica didn't sound in the least surprised. "Everyone's gotta come out of their shell sometime or other."
"Duma does kind of worry me, though," I went on, debating whether to tell Corsica about that illusory third eye. "The way he talked, the things he said to me... Maybe he's some harmless buffoon, but I got the impression he knows things he shouldn't. About... me."
"Things you're willing to talk about?" Corsica raised a tired eyebrow. "Or am I still lugging your bracelet around while being kept in the dark about what it's good for?"
I gritted my teeth.
Halcyon... Faye said in my mind. I know this might sound backwards, coming from me. But... maybe we should tell her.
I glanced at Braen, and then back at Corsica.
"Tomorrow," I whispered. "It's too late tonight. But, tomorrow, I'll do my best to tell you everything."
Corsica looked at me. "What do you mean, do your best?"
"I'm a coward," I whispered. "About a lot of things. Including myself, and how you'll take it. And I've never told anyone else before, so I don't know if I'll be able to make myself... follow through." Even saying this, right now, I felt an uncontrollable shiver shake my body.
"Alright," Corsica said, looking back at the road ahead. "I'll hold you to that. Please."
I bowed my head.
"Anyway, you'd be the one to know about Duma, since you met him," Corsica went on. "But if he really has crossed the dragons in some way we're not supposed to know about, I wouldn't worry. Seigetsu is incredibly strong, and has all sorts of powers I've never even heard of. And there's a whole fort of dragons here. It would be nice to know more, but... that's not what I'm really thinking about."
"You've got something else on your mind?" I guessed.
Corsica nodded. "Back in Icereach, I was a delinquent. Deny it all you want, but I burned bridges with Graygarden and I enjoyed doing so. You wanna know why?"
My heart sped up just a little. "How come?"
"Because I didn't see a place for myself in the future," Corsica said. "After I got my special talent, I couldn't figure out what I wanted to do in the world, or whether there was anything I could even apply myself to over a long term without... you know. And because I didn't have any plans, that meant I had nothing that could be derailed by getting into trouble. There were no stakes. I didn't care because there was no reason for me to care. You see where I'm going with this?"
I felt a little fuzzy. "I... You're telling me stuff about your own secrets so now I owe you one?"
"What?" Corsica blanched. "No! That's... Dummy. Look, my point is that Freedom Town and that bar and that clientele had disreputable written all over them. They're living behind enemy lines, by the grace of their enemies' leaders. Probably face a lot of resistance from regular civilians, integrating themselves into society or moving up in it. Case in point, they're stuck in their own corner of town. But, talking to them, they didn't feel hopeless. It felt like they were amused by that being a stereotype of them. Genuine amusement, not bitter. Who do you know who laughs that way at others' pity for them?"
"I..." This was a lot to suddenly wrap my mind around. How come I hadn't noticed any of this?
"Someone who legitimately doesn't need it," Corsica went on, keeping her voice quiet. "Someone who secretly pities you in return, because even though the established societal order says you're higher on the pecking order than they are, they're happier than you and they know it. They wouldn't treat their legal system like that if crime was something they were actually afraid of. So what I want to know is, why are they so happy? What do they know that gives them hope for the future, even though by all outward appearances they're stuck here with nowhere to go?"
I swallowed. "You think it could be anything illegal?"
"Dunno." Corsica shrugged. "Does it matter?"
"Well, if we're trying to avoid getting caught up in another conspiracy-"
"Who cares about conspiracies?" Corsica interrupted with a huff. "I just want... Never mind. Maybe you wouldn't get it."
I stared after her. "Corsica?"
Corsica didn't look back, but she could hear Halcyon's hoofsteps had stopped.
That kid... Ugh. She talked like her own problems were so bad, so why couldn't she put two and two together? Everything with her was always about a conspiracy, or a magic flame she found somewhere, or... Always about things other than herself. If Halcyon could just focus on herself for a change, maybe they'd finally be able to relate to each other.
Paradoxically, it was Halcyon's ability to always look at things beyond her own problems that drew Corsica to her. Corsica didn't want her to change. And then there was Halcyon's other self... Maybe she actually couldn't think about her own problems deeply enough to empathize. At least, not without switching over.
Corsica sighed. She just wanted to know how the Abyssinians were happy with what they had so she could do it too.
Corsica realized too late that the room she had been put up in had windows facing east.
The sun seared in, reflecting off the water and hitting her bed like a laser, prying her eyes awake. Blearily, she took in the mechanical clock on the wall: about four hours had passed since she climbed in bed and passed out. Bluuurgh... Not enough. Especially not after using her special talent again last night...
She rolled over, buried her face in a pillow, and tried to go back to sleep.
Someone knocked on her door.
"Have you ever heard of a late night out on the town?" Corsica loudly moaned.
"Apologies," came the voice of Special Inquisitor Seigetsu. "I shall leave you to your sleep."
Someone that important, coming to wake her at the crack of dawn? Didn't they have butlers and maids for that, or something? Maybe... maybe...
Nah. Whatever it was couldn't be more important than sleep. Corsica covered her eyes even harder and went back to sleep.
The next time she awoke, the light had completely moved on, and the clock told her it was the middle of the afternoon. Grumbling and disheveled, Corsica dragged herself out of bed, resolving to spend at least an hour in the shower.
There was a piece of paper on the floor, shoved under the door.
We got our boat ride. Sorry you missed the meeting. Hope you aren't too mad about any of the concessions we made!
-Papyrus and Leitmotif.
Corsica sighed.
A much quicker shower than planned later, annoyance forced her out the door, all dressed up in her usual shoes and ear ornaments. What concessions had those two made? And why hadn't Halcyon been the one to leave a note? Of course she had slept through something important, but for all she knew, they were just making up these concessions, just to annoy her... Or maybe even that there had been a meeting at all.
Actually, there shouldn't have been. Hadn't Terutomo said three days? Corsica was certain he had.
With the urge to go back to bed growing stronger by the minute, Corsica located a castle employee, got some directions, and soon found the bulk of her friends lounging on a windswept balcony, taking in the panoramic south. A quick sweep of her eyes told her everyone but Halcyon was here.
"Well?" she demanded, marching ominously up behind Papyrus. "What's with the letter? I'll have you know I cut my shower short for this."
Papyrus blinked at her in confusion, a moment passing before recognition dawned in his eyes. "Ohh, you're that homely chick who has eyes for Halcyon! I was-"
Corsica turned around and bucked him so hard, he flew over the edge of the balcony.
Nehaley whistled. Braen looked confused.
Papyrus hovered up over the edge, rubbing his rear. "Fine, fine, I probably deserved that. But you were the one who slept in..."
"This," Corsica spat, "is why you're still single."
"Guilty as charged." Papyrus shrugged. "Need a few more shots to soothe your ego?"
Corsica picked up the chair he had been sitting in with her aura. "I will throw this at you."
Leif sighed at him. "How you have enough self-control to do what you used to do is beyond me. Now do you want to tell her about your fancy arrangement, or do you want to make her less likely to say yes first?"
Corsica put down the chair and grew a dangerous grin. "You need my help for something?"
Papyrus flung his forehooves up in the air. "For crying out loud, lady, I'm a teenage colt with no role models! Have some realistic standards! I can get away with running my mouth a little when it doesn't matter."
"My standards aren't the problem," Leif warned. "The problem is your carelessness. I know what your game is and know you think there are no stakes in the end, and there's not a lot I can threaten you with other than ending it early. But even if you think you can do whatever because your future is set in stone, mine isn't, and neither is that of anyone else here. Including yourself, believe what you will. So... stop trashing everyone's opinions of you."
Papyrus gave her a frustrated, petulant look. But Corsica was barely looking.
Even if he thought his future was set in stone... It was the same thing she had been talking about with Halcyon, last night. Or trying to talk about, at least.
What was his goal, then? For all the time she had spent being his co-worker, Corsica knew precious little of Papyrus's actual motivations. But if he didn't like the place he saw for himself in the world, and didn't see any reason to walk an upright path...
Well. At least she wasn't being that odious when she let herself stop caring.
Corsica huffed, still mad at Papyrus but no longer to the point of kicking him off a cliff. "Fine. Moving on... You actually had a meeting and got Terutomo to give us passage?"
"We did," Papyrus groaned, looking away from Leitmotif. "And it turns out I was able to barter swift passage, in exchange for some expertise in an obscure field. I know plenty of things, you see, including some things that the dragons don't. They want me to... let's see... act as a 'consulting expert' and give a once-over of a project that may or may not be related to things I've seen before."
"How cute," Corsica said. "And I'm going to get dragged into this how?"
"Well, it's extremely confidential," Papyrus said, recovering his smug demeanor. "To such a degree that, after seeing the details and providing my expertise, I'll need to have my memory of the situation wiped. Want to come too?"
Corsica blinked. "What? Why?"
"Well, it wouldn't benefit you anything if you didn't remember the experience," Papyrus pointed out. "But it still might be fun. And I did mention that you and I worked together often in Ironridge. If you came along, you could hold me to the straight and narrow, at least in their eyes! Of course, dear Senescey would be better at that, but for some reason she refused."
"Use your brain," Leif deadpanned, "and think about why."
"Lemme get this straight," Corsica said, tapping the ground. "Terutomo will give us free passage if you help him on a confidential project and then have your memory wiped so you don't remember what it is you helped with. And you want to know if I want to come along as a tourist, do nothing but observe, and then get my memory wiped too."
"Welll..." Papyrus shrugged ambivalently. "When you put it that way, I suppose it does sound a little pointless, but it could also be fun! Even if you don't remember having fun, does that mean you never had it?"
"Sounds messed up," Corsica remarked. "Although it somehow feels like you're legitimately offering this to be nice to me."
Papyrus winked. "Would you prefer a rude denial or a too-eager agreement?"
Corsica gave him a look.
"Anyway, the dragons were technically the ones who asked, not me," Papyrus went on. "Like I said, they don't know me, and figured it would be easier to tell if anything sneaky-sneaky was going on if I was in a group. But I was the one who thought of you, so technically yes and no at the same time!"
Corsica raised an eyebrow.
"This isn't something I'm forcing you into," Papyrus pointed out. "If you're really that ambivalent, just say no."
"...Where's Halcyon?" Corsica asked, looking for a way to change the subject without committing.
"Busy," Nehaley said.
"Seigetsu come for her," Braen explained. "Say there special ponies who she wanted to meet."
"Special, huh...?" Corsica narrowed her eyes. Something about last night, maybe? With Duma?
Papyrus flexed a wing. "For what it's worth, she's probably going to be all day."
Corsica gritted her teeth. "...Alright. So if I don't come with you, I'm not doing anything else interesting today, then. You got any leads whatsoever on what this is about? That I'm allowed to know now?"
Papyrus leaned in conspiratorially, lowering his voice so no one else could hear. "Autonomous. Mechanical. Weapons. Same boat as the Whitewings, or even our mascot over there." His eyes flicked briefly to Braen. "Well?"
Corsica hesitated... and then a thought crossed her mind.
Seigetsu could countermand the power of her talent. But if that was a dragon thing, then Yelvey - or, whatever the name of the batpony who supposedly erased memories was - might not be able to do it.
Maybe Seigetsu could do it remotely, or maybe she would remember what Corsica could do and would stand guard as Corsica got wiped. But there was always the chance that she would forget, and Corsica could cheat the system and get away with her memories intact.
That was an interesting possibility. Interesting enough that, when weighed against how little else she had to do with her day, it won out.
"Sure. Whatever." She tossed her mane, stepping away from Papyrus. "Count me in. Wish they mess up and let me keep my memory, though. When do we see this spooky thing?"
"Unlikely," Papyrus chuckled, "but one can hope." He glanced at the sun. "We leave in an hour, or maybe less. Come on, let's go tell them we've assembled a party!"
Not enough time passed for Corsica to question the suddenness of her decision before Seigetsu and two draconic guards were walking her and Papyrus through the castle's dungeons. She could feel the pending use of her talent hanging in her mind like an anvil ready to fall. She had said the words, and there was nothing she could do to take them back, short of Seigetsu intervening like before. Yet so far, the inquisitor had done nothing.
Was that because she detected nothing, or was waiting to act until after Papyrus had accomplished his business? Corsica couldn't know. She almost hoped this one did get countermanded: a wish this big wouldn't be one she could just walk off, or pretend her way through. If they were on a boat for a month, that would provide ample recovery time, to be sure. But up until then, she would be useless.
The balance was ironic, or maybe even poetic when she thought about it. In order to trigger her talent, all Corsica had to do was impulsively want something to happen... or just say the magic phrase, which often went hoof in hoof. And she paid for it with her desire to have things happen. Couldn't truly overuse it when using it too much stopped you from being able to use it more.
"Some fancy dungeons you've got here," Papyrus pointed out. "But not a lot of prisoners to fill them. Relics of a bygone era?"
"No," Seigetsu said, leading the way. "This castle was originally conceived as a storage facility. As it was built along a popular trade route, our people had need of a holding space for confiscated illicit goods. The dungeons are merely a maze to aid in the protection of the most secret chambers. So though they are old, they do still fulfill their original purpose."
They descended to another level, the masonry wet and the floor protected by a grate that prevented it from being swamped. This was below sea level, so water must leak in down here... There were probably pumps somewhere, keeping the place dry. The passages were alternately wide and claustrophobic, and though there were frequent features that looked like landmarks, they were all identical to Corsica's untrained eye. Everything was made of the same large, green-gray bricks, with sconces on the walls that lit automatically at Seigetsu's presence.
"We are almost there," Seigetsu encouraged, descending another staircase. By now there wasn't just standing water; it was flowing, and no amount of care could prevent Corsica from getting her hooves splashed despite the grates. In her mind, she had always envisioned underground waterways as being majestic feats of architecture, with canals and gates and bridges, domed ceilings and water pouring in from grated pipes protruding from the walls. But this was like none of that: just a regular, brick cellar, partially flooded.
One final staircase, and they reached a dead end. Seigetsu walked up to a brick wall, put a hand against it... and the masonry softened, folding aside into the wall and revealing a way through.
It reminded Corsica of when the dragon fixed the crack she had made in the road in the previous town, molding the rock back together like it was putty. Except here, this was obviously a door designed to be opened by the same magic.
A round, dome-shaped room opened out before Corsica, with a moat collecting water around the edges, several pumps sputtering away. A raised island in the center held a durable contraption that could only be an elevator.
Seigetsu stepped onto the elevator, and beckoned for everyone to follow.
With a press of a button, it began to descend, passing through a solid metal bulkhead.
"So," Papyrus began as the road closed back up behind them. "Am I going to get the details on this job, or is everything still hush-hush even with the memory eraser?"
"I suppose I can tell you some of it," Seigetsu said, facing the cylindrical metal wall of the elevator shaft. "The short of it is that there is a great weapon which belongs to my people. However, due to the war in Cernial, it cannot stay in its rightful resting place for fear of it being plundered by our adversaries. As such, the Holy Cernial Convocation chose to inter it here, far away from the front lines."
Corsica caught her breath, remembering what the Abyssinians had said last night. "Does this have anything to do with Saint Tadashi?"
"Why, yes." Seigetsu glanced back at her with a gleam in her eyes. "I can see you've been busy around town. Been talking to our western cousins, have you?"
"What?" Papyrus blinked. "You learned interesting factoids and left me out?"
Corsica blew a raspberry at him. "That's why I had a reason for sleeping in." She turned back to Seigetsu. "If you mean the Abyssinians, then yes. I have."
Seigetsu nodded. "And just what did they tell you?"
Corsica hesitated. Seigetsu was an inquisitor. Odds were, she already knew everything the creatures in Freedom Town talked about, especially with how talkative those creatures were...
"They said the war is being fought over Tadashi's tomb," she ventured. "That long ago, Tadashi saved both of your peoples from a calamity. And they thought the power he used to do that was still in the tomb. They said they'd need it if they wanted to survive that calamity if it ever came again."
"I see." Seigetsu folded her hands behind her back as the elevator opened out into a massive room. "Then the only thing I need tell you is that the power sequestered here is no agent of salvation."
Corsica's breath caught in her throat as the room lit up before her. It was perfectly spherical and constructed entirely of metal, though the upper half seemed to be coated in some screenlike substance. Inside, a ring-shaped walkway surrounded the middle, connected to the wall where the elevator touched down, with another vertical ring in the middle, like a set of gimbals. Lining the inner ring were a series of conical devices that glowed and fluctuated with energy, and hovering in the middle was a dragon.
This dragon was quadrupedal, lean and long-legged, with a pair of proud wings folded at its sides, with proportions almost reminiscent of a pony. It was perhaps three or four times the height of a full-grown stallion, and had a long neck, with a blank, spherical head that had no face. Its tail was a conical spike surrounded by several hovering rings, looking exactly the same as the spikes lining the ring that held it. And it was entirely made of metal.
"What the...?" Corsica drew in a breath.
"Huh." Papyrus stared at it. "I was wondering where that thing would turn up next."
"So my suspicions were correct," Seigetsu said, walking out towards the rings that entombed it. "You do know of Aegis."
Papyrus looked it up and down. "It was a regular sight in the Griffon Empire, at least for a while. Provided you knew where to look, of course. Belonged to a kid who swore fealty to Garsheeva."
"This is precisely the sort of information we desire," Seigetsu said, staring at the dormant dragon. "Corsica. I don't suppose during your tenure with Egdelwonk, you encountered any depictions or knowledge of this figure?"
"Nope." Corsica was still staring at everything in the room. "Can't say that I have."
"Nothing at Egdelwonk's," Papyrus agreed. "Though I'm pretty sure I've seen this figure, name and all, on a comic book series that's peddled in Ironridge. If you want my take, someone who knew about Aegis wanted to dumb her down a little in popular culture, just so rumors about her being real would be less interesting and less likely to take hold."
Seigetsu nodded. "A sensible ploy. And you say Aegis belonged to a child?"
"The Imperial Seer," Papyrus said. "Or something like that. I forget her exact title. Never interacted with her much. If you want my help in tracking her down, I'm afraid the last place I heard of her being was on the other side of the world, southeast from here. Two decades ago, to boot."
Seigetsu frowned. "What was her name? Do you recall her features?"
"What's it to you?" Papyrus shrugged. "I volunteered to tell you anything I knew about your weapon, assuming it happened to be a thing I had seen before. If the topic's going to wander, I might need more payment..."
"What do you mean, 'seen it before'?" Corsica pressed. "And that you never interacted with someone in the old imperial government 'much'? You talk like you were there before you were even born."
Papyrus winked at her. "I have ways of getting around."
Seigetsu raised a hand to stop them. "Staying on topic, please. You won't tell us more about Aegis's owner without further negotiations over material reward?"
"Hey, I'm broke, alright?" Papyrus gave her a pleading look. "Can't blame a colt for trying."
Seigetsu sighed. "If you really have seen this much then you should have some idea of what Aegis is capable of. This machine bonds itself to an operator and attempts to follow their directives with as much power as it is given. Having it in custody is not good enough if the pony who was last known to possess its loyalty-"
"Alright, alright!" Papyrus waved his wings. "You don't want someone feckless and irresponsible potentially gaining access to the doomsday device. If it makes you feel better, she really did seem like an alright kid! But in the interest of cooperation, what if I told you that Starlight Glimmer - the selfsame exile my friends here are seeking out in the desert - would know a lot better than me about this thing's operator?" He gestured at Aegis.
Seigetsu gave him an inquisitive stare.
"I'm being serious!" Papyrus shrugged. "Also, I bet you Starlight could beat your Aegis in a fight, but that's neither here nor there. So, what do you say? Wipe our memories and call this a day, then you or your best goons join us on our mission, dedicate every available resource you have to helping us fulfill it faster, and then you'll have her all to yourself to help with your little missing-pilot issue. Sound like a deal?"
Seigetsu frowned... and turned to Corsica. "What about you? Does your search for this Starlight have anything at all to do with connections she may have to the powers that be? Is this at all a feasible assessment?"
Corsica blinked. "Whatever I say, you're just going to take me at my word?"
"Well, you have little to gain by lying to me, seeing as your reward has already been promised and you won't remember your own conduct here," Seigetsu said. "Dealing honorably is also our way. It is my hope that you will repay that. If you don't, I won't have lost anything I possessed a week ago. But if you do, goodwill has a tendency to endure."
Corsica hesitated. "Then... probably. I dunno much about her, other than that she's supposedly..." She touched her special talent with her tail. "Like me. But some folks up in Ironridge think she has a reputation for being able to deal with supernatural problems."
"And there you have it," Papyrus said. "Looks like you've got even more to gain by helping us find her speedily than you thought you did."
"Hmm." Seigetsu closed her eyes. "So it would seem. How convenient for both of us." She opened them again. "I suppose it is time to put our cards in order and have Terutomo see about authorizing your trip."
Corsica took a step. "Since we're all the way down here and I'm going to forget everything anyway, you wanna tell me a little more about what's going on here? Just out of pure curiosity. Nothing more."
"Isn't it obvious?" Papyrus swaggered. "They've got themselves a superweapon and are deathly scared of word getting out that it's not in Cernial where all the warmongers expect it to be. If that happened, Abyssinia would completely change up their tactics and cut through Equestria proper to invade this place instead."
"That's about the right of it," Seigetsu said, stepping toward the elevator. "Of course, Aegis was not in Saint Tadashi's tomb when the war started, and in fact has never been there. Instead, it has been lost to history... but Abyssinia doesn't know that. What we've been 'deathly scared of' is precisely the scenario that happened about twenty-five years ago: Aegis turned up at an unrelated corner of the world in the hooves of someone who knew how to use it. Fortunately, due to the information barrier between north and south, word of that has been slow to spread. But the most important secret is that it was captured by Her Majesty Celestia and returned to our possession some two decades ago, and is now here, rather than Cernial."
She walked inside, waiting at the controls for everyone else to join her. "I trust you appreciate why we cannot take any chances with this knowledge being leaked. Although Abyssinian legend holds that this power saved our ancestors from destruction, Aegis was in fact party to the clash of divinities that caused that cataclysm in the first place. Our god... and a mechanical one, at that."
"A clash of divinities, huh?" Corsica raised an eyebrow as the elevator clanked into motion. "Who was it fighting?"
"The progenitor of the Abyssinians," Seigetsu said. "A figure who, thankfully, they recognize for his role in the devastation and fear rather than revere: the King of All Monsters."
"The King of All Monsters?" Corsica frowned. "He got a real name, or is just stuck with that?"
"No." Seigetsu waited patiently while the elevator rose. "Thousands of years ago, perhaps, but that name has been banished from the pages of history more thoroughly than the one who wielded it."
Corsica looked down. "...Right."
Seigetsu said nothing.
"Look," Corsica began, taking a breath. "I... don't particularly like the idea of getting my memory wiped. And I trust myself to keep secrets, especially when I understand how important they are. But..."
Seigetsu watched her.
"If you're serious about all that, then this is probably something it's better not to take chances on," Corsica said. "I don't know if you're serious. For all I know, you could be pulling my leg and all of this is made up. But just in case the stars align in exactly the wrong way... maybe you want to do that snappy thing from the last village."
Seigetsu nodded, then slowly raised her claws... and snapped them, a familiar pounding, tingling stab hitting Corsica's special talent. Her vision briefly cracked, and then her wish was gone, no longer lingering in the back of her mind, just like before.
"I was curious if you would volunteer that," Seigetsu said as Corsica recovered. "Know that if you hadn't, you wouldn't have gotten away with it. I could sense the power around you from the beginning. However, that you did is a testament to your nobility. I think we will get along just fine going forward."
Corsica felt cold. Unfinished wishes were usually ominous, a calm before the storm, a signal she was about to feel a lot worse than she did at present. But they were comforting, too; insurance against fate. Her only means of being in control in the world.
And now, she had lost that means, had no cards on the table. Her wishes couldn't actually change established continuity; they weren't that powerful. They only operated within the realm of chance, could only change things she didn't know about, had never verified that they were set in stone. Things she had never observed, or taken for granted. Or the future.
If she was going to keep or lose her memories here, that would be completely up to chance.
The elevator finished its ascent. Seigetsu remade and then reclosed the door to the dungeons, and led everyone on a winding, rising route... but not one that went outside. Instead, they stopped in a room in the upper dungeons, once the dampness had receded and the architecture began to acknowledge that someone might want to spend time here. One of the guards marched away.
"I have sent word that we are ready," Seigetsu explained. "Actually, I had instructed Yelvey to wait here in advance for us, but it seems we were faster than he was expecting. I hope you will forgive the inconvenience."
"Eh." Papyrus shrugged. "Not like I'll remember it anyway. You know you can't take away my memories from before, right? Not without erasing absolutely everything?"
"You mean of the information you just gave us regarding our charge's previous whereabouts?" Seigetsu nodded. "I was not intending to. Knowledge of what we have in our basement is the only thing that-"
"Sir Seigetsu!" A breathless dragon came charging up, doubled over and panting. "There's been an... an incident!"
"What!?" Seigetsu straightened up, inspecting the dragon. "Who sent you, and why?"
"An incident with Yelvey," the dragon gasped. "And... Halcyon..."