Several hundred yards worth of mirror-covered hallway later, the group walked into another one of Merlantis’s many underwater buildings. Without any windows to the outside they couldn’t really tell what this one looked like or if perhaps it was just another dome, but the long path still opened up into a much larger room that led to many other rooms and passages. There were stairs going up to four additional levels, all with their own walkways and balconies, and at least one hallway going each cardinal direction. Not to mention what grabbed their attention most of all—a large golden fountain in the middle of the room where water still poured freely from. The tiles of the floor radiated out from the fountain in perfect concentric circles. Not a single one showing even a crack.
“It looks like a sort of hub, a place to meetup at and travel wherever you needed to go in the rest of the building,” Daylight said. “Which makes sense considering what hallway it’s directly attached to.”
“I’m just surprised the fountain still works,” Gilbert said.
“Yeah... Merlantis appears to be perfectly functioning. There just aren’t any merponies here,” Daylight frowned at the fountain.
“It has to do with the Trident. I’m almost certain of it,” Senax said.
“Hey, there are more paintings and stuff here on the other levels!” Rainbow Dash said, she had flown up to look around and found that the walls of every floor were covered in a variety of great murals. Instead of the mere ocean waves of the last painting they had seen, these showed islands, storms, proud merponies standing tall on sea rocks or swimming in the ocean, coral reefs, fish and whales, in every possible color one could use to paint. Rainbow didn’t really know many art terms or what different styles there were, but she could tell these were all pretty realistic and true to life paintings. Not heavily stylized or exaggerated.
“Gilbert? Can you take me up to look at them for just a moment?” Senax asked the griffon.
“But of course!” Gilbert said and let her climb onto his back before flying up to join Rainbow Dash.
“I suppose another minute or two here isn’t a problem...” Daylight sighed from the ground floor.
“Better just let it happen,” Breakwater patted her back. “It’s no big deal. Besides, faster than her walking up the stairs herself.”
Senax, Gilbert, and Rainbow Dash flew from floor to floor and around the room to check out all of the paintings. While Gilbert and Rainbow could certainly appreciate the art, to Senax it was becoming close to an emotional and spiritual experience. A part of her people’s long lost history and their very culture was being bared right in front of her. This was what her people did. This is what they created. Those thoughts were going through her head and heart as she silently viewed the paintings. She had to close her eyes for a moment and catch her breath, suddenly aware of how much her heart had been beating and how much it was truly affecting her.
“Uh, Senax?” Rainbow Dash said from beside her.
“Huh? What?” Senax jolted up, not expecting the sudden words from her friend. A slightly awkward look was on the pegasus’s face.
Rainbow Dash pointed at her face. “You’re crying a little bit.”
Senax lifted her hooves to her face and found that Rainbow Dash was right. Small tears had gathered at her eyes and were beginning to trail down her cheeks. “I-I’m sorry, I didn’t even realize, it’s just... I don’t know what just came over me!”
“You don’t need to apologize, you know?” Rainbow said, grinning and reaching out a comforting hoof to her friend. “We get how this is for you.”
“What she said,” Gilbert nodded.
“Thanks... um, I think we should go back down now though. We should get back to walking,” Senax said.
“Whatever this building is it looks like there’s going to be a lot more to get through before we hit another one of those long hallways. Bet there’s going to be even more art and stuff the further we go,” Rainbow Dash said. “Geez, Twilight would be so super jealous right now.”
The three of them dropped back to the floor to join up with Daylight and Breakwater, they had seen everything they needed in this room, Senax had seen everything she needed to, and now they could move on. A small smile was all Senax needed to show Daylight and Breakwater that she was feeling okay. The two were not entirely sure about how their merpony friend was actually doing on the inside, but they trusted her. From there they resumed their walk straight on into the next room, going down the central hallway that led east. It was their best bet for being the right way to go.
“Do you think we’ll find where merponies used to live at some point? I mean like actual homes or places for sleeping,” Rainbow Dash wondered as they walked down the white hallway.
“I actually doubt that,” Daylight said. “The reason being that on a straight path like this to the Trident it would be strange if we actually passed through a residential area. It just seems like housing would get in the way, or merponies wouldn’t want to live right next to what’s clearly a main thoroughfare for the entire city. I imagine houses or whatever Senax’s people used to use is in an entirely different area, probably down one of the many branching paths in these buildings.”
"Cities back in Equestria kind of had their housing all over... but yeah, this place is a little different,” Rainbow Dash said.
“It’s more... planned,” Gilbert said.
“Yeah,” Rainbow nodded.
Breakwater then pointed ahead of them. “Looks like this hallway is a lot shorter than the last one.”
They followed his hoof to see that they were already close to emerging into a new room, just as brightly lit as the rest of Merlantis had been so far. With the Trident still in that direction the group walked on until they passed the threshold and emerged into the new room. For a moment they all just stood there and looked up—they suddenly had a lot more to take in.
It was a bigger room than the previous one by an order of magnitude, higher and wider, with the middle of the ceiling being a circular glass dome that allowed you to see the ocean above it. The great chamber was almost entirely taken up by one thing, leaving only a ring of walkable floor on the outside of it. Rocks were piled up, whether natural or artificial Rainbow Dash couldn’t tell, inside of a large pool of water. Streams of water also cascaded down from the top of the rocks and into the pool like it was another sort of fountain. But it was what stood on the rocks that really drew their eyes. A gargantuan statue of a merpony, with just as gargantuan of a golden trident held over his head, and a golden necklace worn around his neck while a golden horn rested on his back. Three treasures very familiar to them all.
“Is this him? Ponyseidon?” Rainbow Dash asked. The statue itself had almost no distinguishing features other than the body shape being distinctly male compared to Senax’s much more lithe form. But the face, the eyes, the mouth, there were no details carved in whatsoever.
“I think it must be...” Senax said as she looked up at it.
“No descriptions of him or anything passed down by your people?” Rainbow raised an eyebrow.
“None,” Senax shook her head.
“Well—I’m just going to assume he wasn’t actually this big,” Rainbow joked.
“Pff,” Senax couldn’t help the brief giggle. Rainbow Dash always knew how to lighten the mood.
“I wonder if there are a lot of statues like this down here?” Daylight wondered as she walked closer. “This is the largest room, and largest statue, we’ve seen in Merlantis so far. I wonder if it’s special or just… normal.”
“I say, what’s that?” Gilbert said and pointed to something in front of the statue and the rocks it stood on, in an indent between the walkway and the watery base.
In that small space there was some sort of raised stone altar. Plain, but it stood out all the same because of where it was positioned. The top of the altar stood just a few feet off the floor, and it was rectangular in shape except for having the edges ground down to technically make it an octagon. Just a very elongated one. It was probably seven or eight feet in length, around it the floor was also curved ever so slightly downward in the direction of the water and statue of Ponyseidon.
As the others walked up and inspected it, Breakwater scratched his head. “I uh, think that’s just a table, Gilbert.”
“But why here? Why the only one? It’s so out of place,” the griffon said as he looked the altar up and down.
“Who knows?” Daylight shrugged. “Far be it for us to know why the ancient merponies did things.”
“I haven’t got a clue either,” Senax said as she shook her head.
Rainbow Dash though—the more she looked at it, the more a cold pit formed in her stomach and an unsettling feeling crept through her body. She didn’t know what it was either but her instincts were telling her it was something bad. Something wrong. Her hooves shivered as she dropped to the floor and tried to hide her discomfort from her friends. “Let’s uh—let’s go to the next room. I don’t think there’s anything else to see here.”
Daylight nodded, still looking at the altar and not noticing Rainbow Dash’s pale face. “Yeah, you’re right, we should go.”
“Gotten enough of the statue?” Breakwater asked Senax.
“Yes, we can move on,” she said.
Together the group walked around the statue to the opposite side of the large chamber, Rainbow Dash occasionally glancing up at the statue as she ground her teeth. As expected there was a set of doors probably leading to a new hallway, or at least a new room, for them to go through. Senax of course went to open them again while everyone stood with her. But Rainbow still couldn’t shake her uneasy feeling. She bit her lip to keep anyone from seeing.
When Senax opened the doors there was no extra breeze this time as it seemed the air currents had settled in Merlantis. Instead, they were greeted with a hallway much darker than what they had been through before. It wasn’t because of the lighting, there were still the same glowing orbs ensconced everywhere in the ceiling, and the floor was the same impeccable white as well. The reason things before them suddenly looked much darker was because the walls of the hallway were covered in paintings of a much darker color than any seen before in Merlantis. It was puzzling at first. The paintings of the ocean and all the various sea creatures had been so vibrant and lively. What was different about these now?
Rainbow Dash frowned as she stepped forward into the hallway and looked upon them directly. Black was the color of choice for these paintings, giving them a disconcerting feeling after so much color and white everywhere else. The others walked in and came to look at the paintings as well, scowling and curious. Their faces all quickly grew even more displeased.
“What is this?” Daylight asked, unable to fully keep the worry and distaste out of her voice.
What they were looking at, what each and every painting put together showed, was a series of ponies, griffons, and other creatures being led along the dark ground and under black skies. While being watched over by merponies standing above them with black tridents in their hooves. The paraded creatures had their heads hung low, collars around their necks and chains around their limbs. At the bottom of the paintings was a sea of red so dark that Rainbow and the others had thought it was black first as well.
The further they walked, the more the collective paintings evolved. Some creatures were taken off into other lines or to other places, but most kept being led forward and the red sea at the bottom grew bigger. Rainbow Dash felt an innate revulsion in her soul as they reached the end of the hallway and saw the final sequence of the paintings. She didn’t want to look, feeling as if she knew what she would see already.
The chained creatures were being led by their merpony captors to a great statue just like the one they had seen in the previous chamber. But not directly too it. Instead one by one they were led to the altar right under it. Placed on it.
Rainbow Dash blinked. She shut her eyes and turned away from the paintings, sadly looking over at Senax.
“Senax… I’m sorry but… I think something horrible happened here. I think a lot of horrible things happened here.”
The merpony herself was staring at the paintings until she finally managed to tear herself away from them as well, unable to look any longer. She blankly stared ahead down the hallway. “Yes. I think you’re right, Rainbow Dash. I wish it wasn’t true but…”
“I…” Daylight gulped and tried to push the others along. “I think we should keep moving.”
“At the very least I don’t want to be in this hallway anymore,” Gilbert said.
“Me neither,” Breakwater grimaced as he walked past the last paintings.
Rainbow put a hoof on Senax’s back and tried to guide her out too. “Come on, let’s just go.”
“Yeah…” Senax glanced one last time at the paintings before letting Rainbow Dash usher her out. It was just one more thing she had to think about in the future.