"Hiya, Jess!" Rebecca greeted them as they reached the ship. "Showing your midriff, interesting look. I'm not an expert on human stuff, but I hear that it is supposed to be sexy. Should we ask Terrance or Jonathan if you are pulling it off well? I'm sure they can give better feedback than I can."
Jessica blushed and started trying to cover her front with her arms, but then remembered she was holding the object wrapped in her shirt, and she didn't want that thing any closer to her body than it currently was, so she put her arms back down.
"Don't ask them that. I'd rather they not see me like this," Jessica replied. She then held out the bundle. "Here's the sample."
Rebecca tilted her head. "You may be confused; that's your shirt. Is the stress getting to you?"
"Bundled up in my shirt," Jessica hissed through gritted teeth. She then undid the bundle and held the dodecahedron cupped in her hands, keeping the shirt between her skin and it.
The pegasus gasped and started hopping. "Ooohh! Fancy! Why are you keeping it in your shirt? I told you it won't hurt you, and you can't break it."
"It glows when it comes in contact with my skin," Jessica answered.
"Yeah, it freaks her out," Charlotte confirmed. "She spent like five minutes poking the damned thing like something else was going to happen before she got the nerve to pick it up."
"It wasn't five minutes!" Jessica snapped.
Charlotte gave an aggravated flap of her wings. "Felt like it."
Luna was staring at the object with a deep frown. "Marshmallow, what secret have thou been holding back from me?"
Rebecca sighed. "I thought we were done with the formalities. Secrets I have been keeping back, let me see. When I was sixteen, I crashed into my mom's car when trying to land from a flight and put a dent in it. Then, I lied and told my mom someone slammed their bike into it. Last Halloween, I got hungry and ate all the candy that we were supposed to give out to trick-or-treaters; then I panicked and shut off the porch light, along with all the lights in the house, and hid in the closet because I was afraid the trick-or-treaters would teepee the house if they knew. I still keep my vibrator in my pillow, even though I'm married. I forgot to empty the feather bin at my house before going on this trip. My weight has increased by fifteen pounds since I was eighteen-"
"MARSHMALLOW! THOU KNOWS WHAT I MEAN!" Luna yelled.
Rebecca fluttered her lips. "Beat it out of me, why don't ya? Don't take that as a serious suggestion. It was a turn of phrase. You want to know about the Sunstone."
Luna flared her wings. "Yes, what do you know that we do not know about the Sunstone."
Charlotte raised a wing. "What are we even talking about?"
Jessica wanted to know that as well but believed that her asking would be redundant at this point. Better to listen.
Rebecca sat down. "I don't know anything more than you do for certain. We only speculate."
Luna's frown turned into a grimace. "And what do you speculate?"
Rebecca grinned. "You dropped the formality, hooray! We speculate that the Sunstone is one of these stones like Jess is holding. Sometime deep in the past, it made its way to Equestria and found its person, or it and its person went to Equestria together. It is tough to say."
"What do you mean, its person? What does it mean to be its person? Is this thing a pet??" Jessica demanded to know.
Rebecca giggled. "No, silly. It isn't a pet rock. It's an extension and enhancement of your magic! It learns your magic so that it can do it. You can use it to accomplish great feats, and eventually, very eventually, it can do your magic for anyone…provided they don't upset it or the stone doesn't vanish sometime after you're gone. It can also sometimes just keep doing whatever it is that it does, even without anyone actively using it if it is locked into a routine by its owner."
Luna's eyes bulged. "The Sunstone can just vanish!?"
"Remember, we haven't established the Sunstone is one of these, but if it is, we think the fact it is in another universe might be protecting it from that," Rebecca answered. "Maybe being in another universe makes it so Jeg'galla'gamp'pi can't find it and take it back as it did with all the other stones."
"What does this Sunstone thing do?" Charlotte asked. "I assume something with the sun."
Luna let out a long breath. "Before my sister and I came along, and before the pony tribes started fighting one another, it was what moved the sun and moon in Equestria until the unicorns broke it with their meddling. This forced them to do the job themselves, at great cost, and led to disharmony among the pony tribes."
Rebecca raised a hoof. "They didn't break it. They upset it. You can't break these things."
"Well, if that's the case, my sister and I only recently were able to calm it down so it could be used again, should something happen to us. It had been upset for more than a thousand years!" Luna exclaimed.
"That's a long temper tantrum. Those unicorns must have been real assholes to the thing," Charlotte muttered.
Jessica stared in horror at the thing in her hands. "Are you saying this thing can move the Sun??!!! Why would we ever want something like this? It could end all life as we know it!"
Rebecca tilted her head. "Why would you think your stone can move the Sun?"
"You were just talking about what that other stone does!" Jessica yelled.
"Oh! I see the misunderstanding," Rebecca said with a nod. "That was someone else's stone…presumably. It was replicating and enhancing their magic and their nature. Unless you have been holding out on us, your magic doesn't move the Sun and Moon."
"What do you mean by their nature?" Charlotte asked in confusion.
Rebecca shrugged. "That one's a bit more hard to describe. I can't adequately describe it since it can mean many things, depending on who owns a stone. It's learning about you, just like your magic. It depends on what it learns. The stone is your friend, your helper."
"You just said it isn't a pet!" Jessica said, debating whether to drop this thing and forget it existed.
"It isn't! It is an extension of you!" Rebecca insisted.
Luna stepped closer to Jessica, still examining the dodecahedron. "And this stone will eventually allow anyone to replicate Jessica Middleton's magic?"
"That takes a long time to get to, maybe too long for a mortal human, but, yeah, enhanced even if it gets that far," Rebecca confirmed. "And her nature, whatever that may entail. Jeg'galla'gamp'pi will probably take it back whenever she dies. That's what normally happens. The person dies, and the stone just ceases to be; absorbed back into Jeg'gala'gamp'pi. The Junk Peddlers' entire economy revolved around finding these stones and trading them to people back on their homeworld. Everyone wanted to find their special stone, but they didn't want to come here to do it. You might not have noticed, but Jeg'galla'gamp'pi likes to hang out pretty close to stars. It makes journeying to it a weeee bit difficult. Triss's race's solution was just to gather up a lot of poor people and dump them here to gather stones, and those people depended on trading stones to get the supplies they needed to keep on living here. There's not a lot of food and drink around here, and if you don't remember me warning you, you don't want to try eating these stones. Eating unbreakable things is bad for your tummy!"
"That sounds like a lot of exploitation for what was supposed to be a highly advanced civilization," Charlotte observed.
"Every civilization has issues that need fixing. There's no such thing as a perfect system because civilizations are made up of people, and people aren't perfect. In fact, people are downright self-destructive. Regardless of the government or economy, they all fall prey to the three G's–greed, gullibility, and grumpiness. Sooner or later, those three things get so bad that nations will collapse under the weight if they don't get wiped out by something else first. No nation can stand forever," Rebecca replied knowingly.
"And what if the stone doesn't ever reach its special person?" Jessica asked, ignoring Rebecca's commentary on the downfall of civilization.
"They still give off lots of thaumic energy. Nothing that will hurt anyone, but it can be used to power some things," Rebecca explained.
"Like holding all the power of a black hole," Jessica said in amazement. Everyone looked at her. "These things are super-dense thaumic matter. It's like all the combined thaumic energy that would normally be in the world condensed down into an object that fits in your hand–even more energy than that, more like all the energy in the solar system. If thaumic energy could be used as a power source for machines, this one stone could power everything on Earth. It could power spacecraft that would make ours look like a wooden sled."
"Now I'm getting why you were so interested in this place," Charlotte said thoughtfully. "If you told us how to utilize these stones for power, we could power an entire fleet of craft to confront the Devourers in space. They'd have enough power to outmaneuver the Devourers–assuming Devourers can't move faster than light on a dime."
Rebecca nodded. "They can't do that. Faster-than-light travel requires a pretty big clearance of space in front of you. Trying to do that within a solar system is a good way of ramming into something, and even small somethings can mess you up at that speed." The Dreamwarden's ears perked. "Oh, Jess! I forgot to mention that you are safe from vanishing now! Once you've found your personal stone, you're pretty much free to wander wherever you like unaccompanied."
"That's–" Jessica started to reply but stopped when Luna suddenly spread her wings and looked around as if startled. Rebecca shivered at the same time.
"Wow, that was big enough for even my puny weather senses to pick up, and they barely ever pick up on anything," Rebecca said in wonder.
"What happened?"Jessica asked.
"Clearly, something with the weather," Charlotte replied.
Luna took a few deliberate flaps of her wings and then folded them to her sides. "There's been a major shift in the environment an hour's flight southeast of here. It encompasses a small area, perhaps a few city blocks, but it is dramatic. I don't think we can survive in the conditions that now exist in that area. There was no warning, no buildup. It simply changed. It also seems to be contained and does not affect conditions outside its radius. It is like it is contained in an invisible fence."
Rebecca nodded. "It should stay put, and we should avoid it. If I had to make a guess, Triss just arrived in the flesh. Jeg'galla'gamp'pi is accommodating her without hurting us, which is very nice of it. We shall continue to look for rocks and give her space. I like air I can breathe and the right amount of air pressure and gravity. I think we all do."
Jessica blinked. "She's here? She's here in the flesh? Not a projection or something like that? She has a physical body?"
"Why is she here?" Charlotte asked. "Seems a big coincidence that she'd show up here right after we do."
Rebecca shook her head and took on a severe expression. "She's likely here to guard her stone. If a bunch of scavengers showed up near where you kept your most precious possession, wouldn't you be mildly concerned? We'll leave her and her stone alone. We don't need or want hers. We don't need that kind of power. It would be opening Pandora's box, and we'd most likely upset it if we tried to use it. Anyway, she'd not give it up without a fight, and even with Luna, we're nowhere near qualified to take her on. Triss could crush us all like bugs, and she would in order to defend that stone. Plus, the Dreamwardens and Triss have a truce, and we honor our agreements."
Luna frowned. "We most certainly don't want to fight her nor take something that belongs to her. We aren't villains. However, it seems odd that we do not attempt to speak with her."
Rebecca shook her head again. "If she wants to talk to us, she knows we're here, and the Dreamwardens have also given her permission to communicate with others through the dream realm–which is easier since we need very different environments to live. She is not our mission. Our mission is to get as many stones as we can. So far, we have collected zero for the mission."
Jessica lifted the one in her hands. "Hello?! I'm holding one right here!"
The pegasus giggled. "Silly girl, that's your personal stone. That's for you, not the mission. Taking someone's personal stone from them is just not right–it's like taking an extension of their soul. That's wrong! So very very wrong! Technically, every stone is someone in the universe's stone, but they are fair game to use until when and if they connect with their owner. We need to find more stones, ones that don't light up when anyone here touches them."
"You said the Sunstone was someone's personal stone," Luna said, sounding uncomfortable. "Is it an extension of someone's soul as well?"
"Well, yeah," Rebecca admitted. "But I'm ninety-nine point nine-nine-nine-bunch of nines percent certain that person is dead, so that's okay for you Equestrians to have."
All their radios collectively beeped in chorus.
"Rebecca, it's Jonathan. Ashley and I found two oddly shaped stones. We are heading back to the ship."
The pegasus touched her radio button. "Good job! Nothing's glowing, right?"
"No, neither glows when touched," Jonathan answered.
"Great to hear!" Rebecca said happily. "Oh, avoid the area southeast of the ship. It would be very very bad if you wandered too far that way. Triss is down that way, and the environment shifted there to be comfortable to her but deadly to us."
"You couldn't tell us that earlier?!" Ashley yelled over the line.
Rebecca blushed. "I just found out a few seconds ago. I was going to get to it. I promise!"
"Maybe try to have a little more urgency about telling us about such hazards in the future," Jonathan calmly replied. Jessica didn't feel like being calm. Rebecca's insouciant approach to everything could get someone killed!
"I'll definitely try!" Rebecca exclaimed. "See you soon!" She then looked at Jessica and Charlotte. "Jess, you can put your stone away and find another shirt before you two go back out. Charlotte, you can either wait with us while she does or follow her around, but even though Jess can be alone now, you still need to stay in sight of someone."
"When do I get to sleep?" Charlotte asked. "I know we are outside anything resembling proper time zones, but I've been awake for a long while. How long is the day here anyway?"
Rebecca pursed her lips. "Not sure how long a day is–long, I know that. It takes a long time for a planet this size to complete a spin. I suppose you can go to sleep on the bridge. Smiley and Terrence would be in sight of you then."
Jessica swished her tail nervously. Charlotte would need to be accompanied to the bridge, but that left her having to return down here by herself. Even if she ran, that would be at least a minute alone.
Rebecca frowned. "How about Luna and I accompany you up to the bridge? We could stand to check on the guys up there. See if they are going a little stir-crazy. Maybe they'll want their chance to go out and explore."
Relief flooded her. Maybe Rebecca was paying attention. It was hard to tell with the chubby pegasus if her seeming carelessness, forgetfulness, and indelicate behavior was an act or legitimate. Rebecca had failed to think her actions through frequently before becoming a Dreamwarden. It stood to reason that she still did that. People changed when they became Dreamwardens, but they were still themselves at their core, and Rebecca, at her core, was impulsive and disorganized, at least from Jessica's experiences. Rebecca wasn't a bad person–she was kind, loving, and cheerful; the kind of person who was great to hang around when you wanted to have fun or needed a sympathetic ear to talk to. She was just not someone you wanted in charge of…well…anything, at least not anything dangerous.
Rebecca waited, patiently watching Jess put on a fresh shirt, and she considered the situation. The stone was still bundled up and now under Jess's cot. The young woman had seemed annoyed it wasn't being put in one of the storage containers in the hold, but Rebecca put her hoof down that the stone was to stay with her things. Jess was clearly uneasy with her stone, being alone, and even revealing skin. All of her confident assurances didn't seem to do much to ease Jess's fears, and keeping anxiety among the group to a minimum was crucial since too much fear could upset the planet. Trying to put a chipper mood on things didn't work on the girl. If anything, it seemed to be having a detrimental effect. Luna, Charlotte, Jonathan, and Ashley understood how Rebecca did things, and they didn't seem to be that troubled, but there needed to be some course correction with Jess. What to do? What to do?
"Hey, Jess, how do you feel about Luna and guys going together for a bit and you and I staying at the ship to do some scientific investigation?" Rebecca asked.
Jess's finished putting on her shirt, and her ears perked. "Scientific investigation?"
Rebecca nodded. "Your stone. I think you'd feel better about it if you got to approach it from a scientific angle. It is meant for you. You should try to understand it, but we need to do that in a way that you're most comfortable with. So…science!"
"No offense, but do you know the first thing about science?" Jess asked skeptically.
"You forget, I'm no dummy; I'm an architect! I'm the one who drew up the plans for the ship we're on, and it got us here safely, didn't it?" Rebecca answered cheerfully. "I might not be a scientist, but I do understand math, and although I'm no physicist, I likely understand physics concepts more than anyone here but you. I have also picked up more than a few little things as a Dreamwarden, things even you don't know. You can devise some tests for your stone, and I can assist. I can suggest a few things, and you can decide on how you want to go about doing them. We also have a fair amount of equipment built into this ship to identify all kinds of information for you."
Jess looked around. "You designed this ship?"
Rebecca nodded. "I design lots of things. I'm not just the Dreamwarden jester and PR face. I'm the Dreamwarden architect and engineer! The others, they don't have the head for these kinds of things. Math and science aren't part of who they are. Yinyu dropped out of school as a young teen. Many of the others know about psychology, but that doesn't build bridges over rivers. Others are great administrators, but they have others deal with science stuff. That includes the Warden of Order, who understands accounting but has no idea how to ensure something has structural integrity. They can't make sense of the knowledge we have, but I can. That's part of my job, and we each bring unique skills and perspectives to the table. Along with art, math, and science were my best subjects in school, and those three are what I need for my career."
Jess seemed skeptical still. "I know Dreamwardens don't lie, but do you have any verification of this? Did you do anything other than design this ship?"
Rebecca nodded again and paced a little, keeping Jess in sight. "I assisted your Auntie Sunset in designing her vaults at Wabash Manor and the defenses for them. I drew up sketches of Devourers and details on how they operate–as best I could, anyway; a few things elude me. I've helped design several OMMR facilities–they aren't my favorite work, too strictly utilitarian for my taste, without much flare or art, but they're good, structurally sound buildings. I've also designed starcraft for the Pentagon, even if they think Jonathan is the one doing it. I won't pretend to be the most brilliant person ever because I'm not, but I'm not just a silly chubby pegasus. I'm the Silly Chubby Pegasus, and I'm at least moderately intelligent."
"Okay, you convinced me," Jess said with resignation, but there did seem to be some sliver of eagerness. The prospect of engaging in science experiments must have worked. This entire thing was mostly a charade on Rebecca's part. She already knew everything Jess would discover with her science experiments, and she could tell the girl all those details, but Jess would feel better discovering those things herself and trust those facts more. Once they finished that, they could start trying to get Jess to bond with the stone. It was manipulative, but that was part of the Dreamwarden job description, and it was manipulating for good.
Hmm…stray thought…she wondered how the break-in at Wabash Manor went. That was supposed to be today. She was confident in the defenses she helped old SB set up, so she wasn't worried, but she hoped it didn't freak Jordan out. Oops…another stray thought…she wondered how Russell was doing with her so far away. This would be the longest they'd been separated since they were wed, and one of the few times she wished dreamwalking to him was an option. Yet another stray thought: she needed to check on Blanche and Josie soon. Their mission worried her a little.
Her radio crackled. "Rebecca, we're here. Where are you?" Jonathan asked.
"Everyone's upstairs," Rebecca answered as she sat and touched the button. "Come on up so we can see your stones, and give everyone a chance to touch them, just to make sure neither of the stones belongs to anyone here. Jess and I need to do that for some experiments anyway, and we need controls for that."
"Understood, we'll be right up," Jonathan replied.
Rebecca touched her radio button again. "Everyone to the common room slash kitchen! We have stones to touch, and it's a good time for a snack and some water. Need to keep your energy up. No hungry or dehydrated people allowed on this mission!"
Jess frowned. "What do we do if those stones have owners here?" Jessica asked. "Could the planet be so starved for company that it just decides to give everyone here one of its gifts?"
"Hmmm," Rebecca considered. "Interesting idea. I guess we keep looking for more stones that don't belong to us. That's all we can do. I mean, if it wants more company, it has to let more stones out into the world to encourage people to want to come here."
Jess sat down and looked at the bundle under her bed. "Have you considered these stones are probes?"
Rebecca blinked. "Probes?"
The girl nodded. "You say they learn about their owners. Everything about their magic and their personality and nature, and, eventually, the planet takes them back when the person dies. That would be like it is absorbing that knowledge back into itself. These stones seem like the planet's way of learning about people. It incentivizes them to keep the stone near them by giving them power, and with the stone near them, it achieves the goal of learning."
"Another interesting hypothesis," Rebecca replied. She then shrugged. "I don't know, and I don't know any way of testing that. Still, that must make you feel better if it were true. That would mean you are dealing with another scientist, right? Jeg'galla'gamp'pi would be studying you, and it wants to keep its subject alive."
"I'm not sure if that makes me feel better," Jess confessed. "Knowing what kind of intelligence is studying me would make me feel more at ease. It could just as well want to know what occurs when I die."
"Oh, it will find that out eventually," Rebecca said. "Jeg'galla'gamp'pi has all the time in the universe, and none of us will live that long. It can be patient."
One thing Rebecca hadn't mentioned and decided to keep to herself, for now at least, was the stones tended to extend the lifespans of their owners significantly, provided nothing terrible happened to the owner. Not immortal, not by any stretch, but Triss's people had been known to have lifespans doubled, tripled, quadrupled, or, in rare cases, made tenfold what they'd have been otherwise. Dropping the bombshell that Jess's lifespan might have just jumped by anywhere from an additional eighty to a thousand years might not be the best thing to put her at ease, at least not yet. The Devourers were still coming, and longer lifespans were an issue to sort out after worrying about whether life would end much sooner and much more abruptly.