Yearling set the glowing yellow gemstone on the desk in her bunk before heading back above deck. “No one touch it,” she instructed. “It doesn’t seem to react well to anyone but me.”
“You reckon there are more of them?” Celaeno asked as the Pegasus readied to take flight.
“Most likely.” Yearling turned to Elytra. “Are you coming with me?”
Elytra shifted on her hooves before letting out a huff. It came out as a puff of steam. “Sure,” she said.
The two took flight for the northeastern island, an icy haze surrounding the interlaced stone that formed the snowflake-like island. Wind whipped and snapped at their face, and Yearling lowered a pair of goggles over her eyes.
“You doing alright back there?” she called to Elytra.
“I can manage,” Elytra called back. “I think the structure is right ahead of us.”
The temple loomed like an ominous shadow as they approached, the biting cold of the unending snow shrouding it in a fog. As they approached, they saw they had another shut door ahead of them.
Unlike the previous temple, there was nothing protecting this door from the elements. The entire temple was coated in frost, including most of the door. On the door was the marking of a snowflake, and as Yearling looked closer, she noted the symbol had a glint to it.
Reaching out to touch it, she realized the shape was an indent into the door, and covered with cracked, smudged glass. “See any way to open this?” Yearling called to Elytra.
Elytra buzzed around the entryway, wincing at the cold as she scanned the temple’s face, before returning to Yearling with a shake of her head.
“There’s frost all over this building, but no nodes or levers or anything else. Perhaps that symbol is the way in?” she offered, pointing to the snowflake.
Yearling tapped her chin, staring back into the snowstorm around them. “Everything on this place is covered in frost except this symbol, and what is snow but ice, so: what if we need ice to open this,” she said, flaying back into the clouds without another word.
Elytra soon lost sight of the golden mare, scanning around for any sign of her. She returned a moment later, her coat with a faint layer of frost on it, but carrying wisps of clouds in her forehooves.
“Cirrus clouds,” Yearling explained to the bewildered changeling. “We should get some good ice from them.”
Yearling held the cirrus wisps to the symbol and slowly dragged them across the surface, down each arm and to each point of the snowflake. A faint sheen of frost follow the cloud, clouding the glass.
After each inch was nearly completely covered in frost, the symbol flashed white and the door creaked open with the sound of stone grinding.
Elytra joined Yearling in the makeshift entryway as she tossed away the remaining cirrus wisps, dusting off her hooves. “Let’s hurry up and see what’s in here before the chill follows us in,” she remarked. Yearling nodded.
The pair floated inside, finding the layout identical to the first temple, right down to the glowing orbs on the walls. Yearling turned to the plaque that was in the same place the first one had been, while Elytra watched her scan it.
Yearling translated the Old Ponish: "Our magic was stronger than we could have possibly predicted. The earth ponies controlled the ground, and the unicorns the powers of the aether, but the skies are our domain. We found such a power here that it can bleed into the ground and make it light as a cloud. We have begun constructing large floating islands for what is to come next...”
“Bleed power into the ground?” Elytra asked.
“They made stone cloudwalk,” Yearling said with a laugh. “I can’t imagine how much magic it took to make these islands.”
“I’m more concerned about the ‘next’ part myself,” Elytra said, clearing her throat and turning to the altar towards the back. “Our gemstone awaits. I’ll let you get it this time.”
Yearling nodded, flapping over to the altar. This gemstone was a glowing gemstone, pale blue in color and also shaped like a teardrop like the first one. A frosty sheen seemed to cloud the crystal, or whatever it was made of.
As Yearling carefully lifted them gemstone up, she felt another tingle course through her wings. The gemstone was incredibly cold to the touch, as if it were made of glacial ice. She hurriedly stuffed it into her saddlebag and shook some feeling into her hooves.
“Let’s hurry up and get the last two,” Yearling said.
Elytra merely nodded, and the two flew back out into the snowstorm, hopefully aimed for their airship.
All the while, a pair of masked, furry figures watched their progress.