The light cut off sharply as they passed beneath the arch; Twilight reached a hoof up to push off against a wooden buttress, stained pale with age. They drifted gently forwards, giving their eyes time to adjust to the gloom. “It’s not so bad,” she said, once she could see properly. The tunnel was squared and unadorned, bar clumps of tools and supplies poking above the water. “Can’t even get lost like this.”
“Yeah!” Rainbow chirped. “Totally straight! This’ll be easy as pie!”
They carried on, the sound of their breathing and splashing of oars echoing tinnily off the walls. As the sunlight dimmed behind them, Twilight spared a moment to conjure a brace of little floating lights that cast them all in a warm glow.
“Much better,” Squirrel muttered appreciatively from the stern. The light showed what they’d already expected – bare, chiseled walls, with little to break up the monotony.
“You know,” Twilight remarked after a few minutes, “this is really quite dull, isn’t it?” They butted up against a pile of rubble before flowing slowly around it. “I kind of expected... well, more, I suppose.”
Squirrel shrugged. “Don’t complain. Never heard of a perfectly straight, no-side-tunnels mine before, mind you, so it’ll probably change up soon.”
She was right about that – not a few minutes later the tunnel opened up abruptly into a wide, squat amphitheater of sorts. A hulking, rust-eaten mining machine lay sills-deep in the water, its zephyric tanks long since salvaged. “Sooo,” Rainbow began, her wings twitching. “Now what?”
“Follow the flow,” Squirrel answered, eyes darting around the space. “There’s only one way out for the river here – everything else is flooded and stagnant.”
Twilight concentrated, multiplying and scattering her lights throughout the cavern. Several side passages ran out at irregular intervals – some narrow, some wide. Frustratingly, the water didn’t seem to have any flow at all – at least not that she could see from here. “Let’s poke around a bit,” she said, squinting for any sign of movement on the surface.
They paddled to the nearest one, its mouth barely visible in the craggy walls. It was roughly-cut; sending a light down, they could see it rose sharply out of the water, the tunnel beyond going well out of her spell’s reach. “Clearly not right,” Twilight muttered as they moved to the next one, taking as much care as they could not to disturb the water any more than needed. “I suppose it would’ve been too much for the path to be marked, wouldn’t it?” While the walls were covered in scrawled markings – some carved, some painted – none of it looked at all like directions.
“Nah – that’d be too helpful,” Rainbow said as they peered down another one – this one wide and with a well-trodden look to it. “At least the water’s gotten way shallower here – we can see the bottom!”
Leaning over, Twilight could see she right – it was barely barrel-deep here, and the rough, cobble-strewn ground could be clearly made out below. “Should make any movement more visible, too.”
“Check for tracks,” Squirrel said, oar braced against the bottom as they waited for the surface to still. “Could you keep some of those lights near us, Twilight? There’s a good chance the way out for the river is the same way out the miners used to get to the far side – should hopefully be able to tell which way is which from the rails.”
Not the most flawless logic, but Twilight was quite willing to go along with it – the air was starting to feel cramped down here. She pulled several of the smaller faery lights back to ring them like little white embers. While there weren’t any obvious signs that this was the way out, she did think she might’ve been able to see the water moving a ways down the tunnel – assuming it wasn’t a trick of the light.
“Aww, there’s a bunch of little fish down there!” Rainbow cooed, leaning over the side. “Fishy, fishy!”
Ignoring Squirrel’s bemused look, Twilight glanced over to see a small school of minute, dark-scaled fish darting beneath the lights. “Makes sense there’d be some in here,” she said, watching them flit about as they chased one of her motes. “Wonder what else is down here?”
“Way to jinx it,” Squirrel snorted, still giving Rainbow an odd look. “At most it’s probably just crayfish and the like.”
Twilight looked back at the water, checking again for any sign of flow; behind her, Rainbow continued to stare happily at the fish, tail swishing across the thwart. “Let’s call this passage a ‘maybe,’” she decided. “We’ve still a couple more to check.”
By this point they didn’t even need to row, instead finding they could merely set their oars on the bottom and drag themselves around. Much like on the other side, one of these tunnels was half-blocked and tight, but the other one clearly saw heavy mining work at some point. “There’s even a rail down here!” Twilight said, eagerly pointing off the side. “You can’t it much under the silt, but it’s definitely there!”
Squirrel smiled. “We’ve a heading then.”
“Yep – let’s go!” They began dragging themselves slowly down the new passage, eyes well on the lookout for any other signs of use. Occasionally the tunnel would open up into low rooms, with still more passages branching off into the dark within and along the way; luckily, the further in they went, the clearer still the floor – and rails – became.
As they drifted ever further under the mountain, old signs of work and habitation became increasingly common.
“Some sort of check-in point, maybe?” Squirrel guessed as they floated past a wooden booth, table and chair too caught up in rope to drift away. “For equipment and stuff?”
Twilight shook her head doubtfully. “Wouldn’t really make sense for it to be this far in, would it? Perhaps some sort of singer booth – for orders from wherever the HQ would be for this place.” Running burst-signals through singers would’ve been horribly expensive, but the mountains would’ve interfered too much with the normal pulses – needs must, after all.
“What were they mining here, anyways?” Rainbow said distractedly, as her eyes continued scanning the water for another school.
Squirrel shrugged. “Don’t know – not gems or anything precious, at any rate. Iron, maybe.”
“Water’s not brown,” Twilight muttered as they entered yet another cavern. Unlike the others, this one was wide and tall, its roof well out of sight of her lights. Wood and metal shacks, in various states of disrepair, lined the room as far as they could see. Carts and tools similarly littered the place. “Well, now – this is something.”
Rainbow let out an appreciative whistle. “Some sorta whatchamacallit – barracks thingy, right?”
“I doubt anybody would be sleeping down here,” Twilight said as she dug her oar into the shallow bed, bringing them to a halt. “Not counting naps, of course. I can’t see the other side – we need to be careful.”
“Mmhmm.” They pulled their way forwards, the canoe bumping and grinding over rubble. The room seemed to stretch on forever, as workshacks shifted to stacks upon stacks of girders and iron meshes. Squarish hallways led out at odd intervals, but a sense of oppression had fallen over the group, leaving them with little enthusiasm for exploring.
“Wonder where they go?” Twilight muttered. “Seems like an awful lot of work for something the equipment could never have gotten through.”
“Oh, that’s easy,” Rainbow said, unexpectedly waving away her question. “They’re to check for new seams!”
“Really?” Twilight’s ears perked up in surprise, not in part because that actually sounded rather obvious now that she heard it. “I suppose that makes sense; where’d you read that?”
“Daring Do,” Rainbow grinned.
Twilight snorted. “Naturally.” Any follow-up was cut off as the canoe juddered beneath them, coming to a jerky halt. “What the – ?”
Squirrel pushed hard on her oar from the stern, looking to dislodge them, but all that did was grind them further in. Twilight pulled some of her lights back close, shining them low over the surface. “Well, shoot,” she said after barely a glance over the side.
“That’s like, what, knee-deep?” Rainbow said, the boat rocking back and forth as she twisted from side to side, looking down at the shallows. “I don’t think we’re boating any farther.”
“Mmhmm.” Twilight frowned as she peered out around them, hoping there was a deeper path somewhere. “Let’s back up and check around,” she said as she braced against her oar, heaving them off the ground. They paddled to either side of the hall, but to no avail – it was just as shallow near the stacks as in the centre.
They fell to silence, the canoe bobbing around errantly as they tried to work out their next step.
“There wasn’t any big passage we missed, right?” Squirrel eventually asked. “There was that one tunnel in the first room, but otherwise...?”
“Reaaally don’t want to have to paddle all the way back there,” Rainbow mumbled, wings shrugging uncomfortably. “Doubt we’re getting out of here by nightfall if we do.”
“The rails only ran through the route we took,” Twilight reasoned, casting her gaze around until she spotted the dull glint some metres to her left. “Still running through here, too.”
“... so we’re walking this, then, aren’t we.”
Twilight looked up, nibbling her lip as she caught Rainbow’s gaze. “Unless anyone has a better suggestion... yeah – we walk it and hope things get deeper, quick.”
Rainbow wilted, clearly not looking forward to this. “Oof.”
“‘Oof’ indeed.”
After a few moment’s pause Squirrel let out a gusty sigh as she clumsily stood up. “Well, no point in waiting,” she said, stepping out of the boat with a small splash. She shivered, shuffling in place. “Cold,” she spat out, turning to brace her chest against the stern. “Out you two get – I’m not pushing with you in here.”
Twilight didn’t hesitate, taking a deep breath and hopping out with an ungainly splash of her own, the water nipping at her neck and barrel.
“Might not be the right time for a swim, Twi,” Rainbow chuckled, having taken a bit more care stepping off.
“Oh, shush,” Twilight said, quickly bracing herself against her side of the canoe. Once Rainbow’d done the same, they started forward, the canoe shoving along between them, light enough now to clear the shallows.
Buoyed on by their joint desire to get out of the frigid waters, they made swift progress; it was after only a short bit of trudging on that the hall abruptly ended, leading into another cavernous space. Pausing at the threshold Twilight again sent out her lights, revealing what may well have been a garage of sorts – multiple large mining vehicles sat scattered around haphazardously or in neat little rows; the room was, in fact, so large that the miners had left numerous pillars intact, as wide around as their canoe was long, throughout the room to keep the low roof from collapsing.
“By this point I imagine we’re at least a few-hundred metres underground,” she stated matter-of-factly, rolling her neck as she looked up at the ceiling not half-a-metre above her. “I wish I could remember what the average temperature increase with depth was – a degree every hundred metres, I think?”
“That’s what’s going through your mind right now?” Squirrel asked incredulously. “And here I was simply hoping it wouldn’t all fall down on us.”
“It hasn’t yet,” Twilight said quickly, noting Rainbow’s worried gaze above. “So it’s highly unlikely it will anytime soon; needless to say, we should probably carry on.”
Squirrel grunted, giving Rainbow a little poke out of her reverie as they continued on, taking great care to follow the tracks as closely as they could.
The sloshing of water about their ankles echoed eerily as the rails veered hard to the left and down another tunnel. Taking a last look around, they plowed on, leaving the garage behind.
“This is kinda boring again, isn’t it?” Rainbow said, having apparently gotten over her earlier anxiety. “I was kinda hoping for more treasure.”
“‘Treasure’?” Squirrel huffed. “I thought we already agreed this wasn’t a goldmine.”
“Could still be booty! Stashed by pirates centuries back!” Rainbow insisted, shooting a disgusted look at the plain, unadorned walls. “Instead we get this. Laaame.”
“‘Pirates’! You look at this mine and think pirates!?” Squirrel spluttered, the canoe drifting on as she missed a step. She splashed forwards, catching back up. “Do you have any idea how far we are from the coast?”
Rainbow looked back at her and grinned. “No.”
Squirrel sighed, her mouth opening and closing as she failed to come up with anything to say.
“Water’s getting deeper again, girls,” Twilight said, bailing her out. “We can probably get back into the canoe again.”
“Finally,” Rainbow said, rearing up to try and climb back in again; unfortunately, the boat just bobbed and tilted as she tried. “Hey, hold it steady back there!”
“Yes, boss,” Squirrel rolled her eyes, rearing up to do just that. Once the other two had gotten on, she simply backed up a few paces before taking a wet, bounding leap into the canoe; the boat sagged, bumping off the bottom before settling down.
“Smooth.”
Squirrel gave the gunwale a hearty slap. “It’s sturdy enough.”
Twilight frowned and took a quick look along the bottom for any leaks. “I suppose so...” she murmured, finding none.
“Right, then,” Squirrel said, oar in hoof. “Let’s keep going.”
While earth ponies could hardly be considered creatures of the underground, in Squirrel’s reckoning they might as well have been gnolls compared to pegasi. From the stern, she’d been able to keep a weather eye on Rainbow – the mare had taken to some worrisome twitching and glancing about. It’d been some hours since they’d entered the place, and although everything Squirrel had been able to find out about the tunnels back in Beech – which, admittedly, wasn’t nearly as much as she’d’ve liked – told her they should be just about out, without even a glimpse of sunlight ahead she was beginning to doubt herself.
Over the last couple of hours they’d passed through multiple rooms and tunnels, some even with junctions splitting the tracks this way and that. In those they’d come across their first signs of helpful graffiti, rather than the scrawls and doodles there’d been closer to the entrance – white-painted streaks daubed on walls pointing them down unobstructed routes.
They’d occasionally see encouraging signs of movement in the water – minute eddies here and there, or the slow and steady drift of flotsam.
They were passing by to one such thing – an aged, stained parchment that had spent who-knows how long safe on some forgotten shelf before an errant breeze or falling stone knocked it into the water – when they ground to a sudden halt.
“Again?” Rainbow grumbled, rocking the canoe side-to-side in a futile attempt to dislodge them. “Lights!”
Twilight huffed, her horn glowing brilliantly as her lights grew from fitful embers just barely enough to navigate by to little blazing suns.
“Well, shoot,” Squirrel muttered, squinting in the sudden glare. Rubble blocked the way, water churning through its many cracks and gaps. While not too high to walk over – at least, in as far as she could tell from here – there was no way that getting the canoe over that would be anything other than a nightmare.
Rainbow snorted, frustrated, before suddenly leaping out of the canoe and splashing over the pebbles and cobbles to stamp forwards over the rocks. “Lights!” she shouted out again without even a glance back.
The glow immediately dimmed to near-nothing, leaving them in almost total darkness. “There were two ways to say that, Dash,” Twilight growled out from the gloomy bow. “And that was the wrong one. Again, if you please?”
There was a ruffling of feathers and shuffling of stones ahead. Long moments passed before Rainbow let out a low, noisy sigh. “Umm... could you shine your lights further out in front of us, please?”
“Why yes, I can,” Twilight said as the tunnel was once again warmly lit. Ahead, Rainbow stared back at them owlishly from atop a boulder, awkwardly scuffing at the stone.
“Umm... thanks,” she mumbled, refusing to make eye contact. “Sorry Twi.”
Twilight wilted. She looked like she was going to say something, but instead hopped clumsily out of the canoe. Clambering over the rough ground to Rainbow’s side, she gave her a little nuzzle before quietly murmuring something.
Not wanting to intrude, Squirrel took care to be extra noisy as she stepped out of the canoe. Twilight’s departure had been enough to dislodge them from the bank and send her bobbing a couple lengths back, so she took her time guiding the canoe forwards and pulling its bow securely out of the water, making a show of slapping a few cobbles out of the way as she did. Looking up, she noticed they had switched to staring quietly off into the gloom.
“Uhh,” she began cautiously. “So are we heading back, or pressing on? Because I’m all for at least trying to see if the blockage is short enough to portage.”
“Hmm?” Twilight shook herself, half-turning to look back at Squirrel. “Yes. Umm...” She shook her head again, her mane tousling about wildly. “Yes! Of course. If we’re lucky this is an old cave-in and the path still goes through.”
Squirrel nodded, jerking her head towards one of the many burbling streams running beneath their hooves. “Stones don’t look freshly broken – no powder anywhere either, so this’ll have happened at least before the last time it flooded.”
“Wait – flooded!?” Rainbow’s head whipped around.
“Relatively speaking!” Squirrel hastily added. “Probably only a few hooves – when it rains hard enough.”
“Which means there’s nothing we have to worry about,” Twilight said, gently bumping her friend.
“Right... nothing.”
Squirrel hesitantly stepped forwards, heading to the left where the rubble seemed lowest. “Best leave the canoe here for now.”
“Mmhmm,” Twilight said, as she and Rainbow brought up the rear.
From the fore, Squirrel was keeping a sharp eye out at the walls and ceiling above, hoping – perhaps futilely – that she’d see if something were to collapse in time to dodge it. Most of the right side’s roof had come down, calving off great chunks of the wall with it. The cave-in seemed oddly specific – they’d gone some metres in and it still only affected the one side of the tunnel – but she couldn’t hope to guess why.
Progress was slow, as all three of them were taking as much care as possible to not turn an ankle in any of the gaps and crevices underhoof. “The water’s still flowing fast,” Squirrel noted aloud. “Good sign the way’s clear.” It wasn’t, of course, but she was finding herself increasingly worried about everyone’s morale ever since the novelty of being underground had worn off.
She was trying to come up with something more convincing to add when the tunnel abruptly opened up. “Well hold on,” she called back, pausing at the threshold for the other two to catch up. “What’s this?”
A wave of lights flew past her, pouring into the new room. It wasn’t nearly as cavernous as the others, instead being barely a dozen metres wide and maybe twice that long; what was notable, however, were the assortment of bunks and desks tucked neatly between numerous cabinets and drawers. Stacks of aged papers and ledgers lay about everywhere.
Some of the lights glided along the water’s surface – smooth once again – and to a smaller, buttressed passage on the far side. There were no rails in sight.
“So they do sleep here!” Rainbow exclaimed. “Knew it!”
“It seems so,” Twilight said, stepping down into the room. Squirrel followed close, looking over at the collapsed right-side as she did; it looked like there’d been another room there – probably on the far side of the tunnel wall – before it’d been buried.
“Check for markings,” Twilight said as she made her way straight for the far passage. Squirrel made to follow Rainbow’s lead instead and aimed herself right at the nearest table to start poking around at all the junk.
“Finally something interesting,” Rainbow grumbled to herself, tail lashing irritably behind her. She hated feeling like this – all snippy and tense – but it wasn’t her fault the dang roof here had to be so low, and the air had to taste so flat and stale.
Her tail lashed again as she got to the nearest desk, its top laden with dust-covered notebooks and sheets. Rolling her shoulders, she opened the top one. “Schedules,” she muttered, tossing it unceremoniously aside before grabbing another. “Check-in times, shift-times, cart numbers,” she sighed, tossing away a triplet more. She began pulling open the drawers, their wood stiff and swollen with moisture, but there were just more books inside.
She scoffed, abandoning her search to stalk after Twilight, her hooves splishing through the puddle-deep water. Way too shallow for the boat, she thought, hoping it got deeper ahead. Really don’t want to have to walk this.
“Hey,” she said, coming up behind Twilight.
“Hmm?” Twilight glanced back at her, a smile on her face. “Oh – hey Dash. Look!” She nodded her head down the passage, a few metres wide and echoing with a dull, airy roar. “The way out, I think! It’s deep enough for the canoe, and I can’t imagine what else but the outdoors would be making a sound like that.”
Rainbow felt a knot untangle inside her as an errant breeze blew up at them. “Awesome! Let’s go exploring then!” She turned back around and made for one of the nearer little hallways that ran off the room.
There was hurried splashing behind her. “Wait! Seriously?” Twilight said, catching up. “But we’re almost out!”
“Exactly!” Rainbow said, feeling better than she had all day. “Open skies are just, like, what – five minutes away, right? But we haven’t found a single bit of treasure yet!”
Twilight gave an exasperated sigh. “I really don’t think we’ll find anything but old paperwork here, Dash.”
“Well, what about monsters, then?” Rainbow said, determined to find something cool before they left. Off to her left, Squirrel gave up her own poking around and trotted over to them. “We’ve been in here for daaays now and we haven’t even seen a single one!”
“It’s only been a few hours, Dash; besides, a monster’s just an animal you don’t know yet.”
“Geez – take all the fun out of it, why don’t you,” Rainbow huffed. They stopped and peered down a short hall; burnt-out shards hung from frayed rope along the walls, while their own faery lights could just make out stacks of barrels in the far room. “I’ll bet there’s hundred-year-old triple-distilled apple brandy in those!” Rainbow said, taking an eager step down the hall. “That’ll be worth a fortune to someone!”
“Woah there,” Twilight said as Rainbow was jerked to a halt, her tail wreathed in lavender magelight. “How about we at least get the canoe over here before we start poking our noses down random passages?”
“For a quick getaway,” Squirrel added when Rainbow didn’t look convinced. “In case of sudden monster attack.”
Rainbow rolled her eyes, but gave in – they’d have to drag the thing over here eventually, anyways. Walking the several minutes back over the treacherously-uneven rubble, they found the canoe right where they’d left it.
“This might be a bit tricky,” Twilight said, stepping down into the water. “The roof’s too low to stand upright with this above us.”
“Can’t you just magic it across?” Squirrel asked, looking unhappily down at the frigid water. “It’s only a short distance...”
Twilight nibbled her lip and gave the canoe a few tentative shoves around. After a few moments her horn lit up and the boat glowed dully before dimming again. “There’s the volume, of course,” she quietly muttered, only partly to herself. “Wood’s always tricky, too. I can do it – definitely – I’m just worried about it tiring me out before we’ve reached daylight again, especially seeing as how I don’t know what we might encounter next.”
Squirrel poked the canoe skeptically. “Really? Because I bet I could lift this thing on my own if I could just balance it on my back. What’s wood got to do with it, anyways?”
“Something about it still being kinda alive,” Rainbow interrupted her, impatient to get moving again. She pulled the bow around to her and started unloading their gear, already having an idea of where this was going.
“Essentially yes.” Twilight began pulling out her gear as Squirrel, one hoof in the canoe and the other on land, followed suit. “Trying to cast on something living is... difficult. A little like trying to mash two like-charged magnets together, or grab a slippery bar of soap – you can manage it for a few seconds, sure, but after that it just slips away.”
“Huh. I always did wonder why noone just fished with magic.”
“Mmhmm.” Their gear lay slumped on the rubble, alongside the oars. Twilight nimbly hopped back out of the water and dragging the canoe a little further on land. “I’ll carry it along in bursts – it’ll be a touch slow, but it’ll be easier this way.”
“Expecting trouble?”
Twilight shrugged, striding a few paces forwards. “Cave-ins we might need to clear, mostly.” Her horn lit up again as the canoe slowly rose out of the water and hovered towards her. “Right – let’s get this thing through.”
Having crossed the rubble, they portaged the remainder of way and set the canoe down next to the far entrance. Once they’d filled it again with their gear it sat soundly on the bottom, but they shoved a few large stones around it to hem it in – just in case. That done, they made their way curiously back to the side hall.
“Finally!” Rainbow smiled, taking a tentative step towards the stores. “Booze time!” Though she couldn’t see her, Rainbow could just feel the weight of Twilight rolling her eyes behind her.
“It’s probably not alcohol, Dash.”
“Well... black powder then!”
“How in the world would that in any way be good!?”
“I didn’t say it would be!” Rainbow insisted as she stepped cautiously up to the nearest one, its staves stained and warped. “Only that it’d be cool.” She gave the barrel a tentative sniff for all the good that would do.
“Well?” Squirrel, still way back in the main room, called out to her.
“Smells dusty!” Rainbow shouted back before giving the barrel a smack; little clouds of whitish-grey dust flew off it. “Definitely dusty!”
“But it’s not going to explode, right?”
“They wouldn’t’ve stored black powder in the open like this,” Twilight called back to her, giving the barrel – one of several stacked against the corner – a once-over of her own. “It’s safe!”
Squirrel’s hoofsteps echoed off the walls as she rejoined them, Rainbow giving her a flick of her tail once she had. “Ya know if this did explode you’d hardly be any safer being what, thirty feet away from it, right?”
“I’d’ve ducked,” Squirrel absently waved her off, busy now taking in the rest of the storeroom. While crates, barrels, and shelves lined the walls, the main body of the room was filled with workbenchs and tools. Reams of diagrams and sketches littered the place, with half-assembled gear lying forgotten, heaped neatly in piles or still hanging in the grips of long-abandoned vices.
“Right,” Rainbow snorted. “‘Ducked.’”
“Honestly, you two,” Twilight sighed as the other two walked past her to begin nosing around the workroom. “I don’t think we’re going to find anything here – everything of value’s almost certainly been long looted by now.”
“You don’t know that,” Rainbow insisted, scattering papers about as she rifled through thick stacks. “Might be a treasure map in here,” she added in answer to Twilight’s questioning look. She couldn’t help but doubt that there actually would be anything of value here, but it felt like such a waste not to find something for a souvenir.
“Might have something here!” Squirrel shouted back from up ahead, having pushed open another door just enough to poke her head through.
Rainbow trotted up to her, Twilight close at her heels. Squirrel still had her head in the other room, having reared up to extend an arm through the crack, faery shard lit and in hoof. Too impatient to wait, Rainbow shoved her head in beside her, cheek brushing against her belly. Ignoring Squirrel’s grumbling, she found the next room was lit not just by the shard, but by a brace of glassy chunks, glowing with a faded, inner ocean-blue light.
“Ooo,” she cooed, trying to force her way further inside. The door grated along the floor as the gap widened all of an inch before grinding to a halt. Huffing, she pulled back and braced herself alongside Squirrel, together giving it a solid shove. “Dangit!”
“The wood’s too swollen,” Twilight said, nodding her head towards the rot-blackened base of the door. “It’s just wedging itself against the floor.”
Rainbow harumphed, settling herself into a lower stance and leaning again against the wood, prodding Squirrel to do the same. “Nothing another good shove won’t fix!”
The door strained behind their combined strength, but stubbornly held firm. Rainbow pushed off it with a huff and shot Twilight a pleading look. “You can magic this open, right? Right?”
Twilight gave the door another glance before shrugging. “Sure, but from the looks of it it’s just a bunch of half-spent celestine.”
“Ohhh don’t make this lame, Twi!” Rainbow whined, stamping her hooves like a foal. “Can’t you just pretend it’s something awesome for once?”
“Like soulgems,” Squirrel nodded sagely. “Could be the souls of ancient liches in there.”
“Yeah! Exactly!”
Twilight snorted, her horn aglow as she concentrated. “Right, firstly, liches use phylacteries, not soulgems.” Impressions formed upon the aged wood, the door creaking and buckling. “And secondly, liches don’t exist!” With a grunt she took a half-step forward as the door gave one final groan and snapped, the upper hinges tearing off, canting the door back to violently slam it against the wall.
“Alriiight!” Rainbow cheerfully trotted into the room, ignoring the arcane glyphs pressed into the buckled wood as she beelined straight for the hopefully-not-just-celestine laying on the shelving opposite.
She reared up to stand with her muzzle almost touching the first of the crystals; bigger than her hoof, it was cloudy and glowed with a soft, azure light, so dim now that she doubted it would’ve been at all noticeable in the daylight. Examining it closely, she gave it a little poke and watching as it bounced lightly off the stone backwall to rest against her nose. It was cold and smelt faintly of ozone.
She sighed glumly.
“Sooo is it anything good?” Squirrel asked, coming up alongside her to peer at the line of stones herself. “Any wailing faces drifting through the fog?”
“Nah,” Rainbow sighed again – she’d spent more than enough time on airships to know what this was. “Just some stupid floatstone.”
“Dang.”
They explored the room a little further, but it was mostly devoid of anything of interest, or really anything at all. “Everything’s been looted already,” Rainbow shook her head, dejected. “Was really hoping to get something cool outta this.”
“There’s always the experience!” Twilight tried to cheer her up as they started back to the main room. “And the stories! And let’s not forget the friends we’ve made along the way!”
Rainbow shook her head fondly. “You are such a dork.”
They found the canoe right where they’d left it. They’d taken a brief look at the other halls branching off the main room, but all bar one were blocked up, and the one that was clear just led to another looted storeroom. Shuffling aside the stones, they guided the boat back to the passage onwards.
Twilight led the way into the mouth, lights shining brightly as she looked for somewhere deep enough to launch. The water had gotten cannon-deep when her hooves slipped on the slick rock, sliding her down to the barrel. “It drops off here, girls,” she shivered as she fought for purchase.
“No kidding,” Rainbow said as she splashed up to her. “You good?”
Twilight nodded as she continued peering down the tunnel. The water didn’t appear to be getting any shallower ahead, and she didn’t exactly fancy spending any more time in the cold scouting than she could help. “Right,” she said, carefully turning back around. “It’s clearly deep enough for us to get back to rowing.”
“Excellent,” Squirrel said as she bobbed the canoe down to the drop-off’s edge. After a spot of awkward clambering, they were all onboard.
Twilight dug her oar into the ground and pulled them slowly forwards. “Nice and slow now, girls,” she said, eyes as much on the water as on the darkness ahead. “Let’s not ground this thing again.”
“Leaks would be bad,” Squirrel agreed.
“At least we wouldn’t sink very far,” Rainbow muttered, squinting up at every errant crack in the ceiling. “That is, if we don’t get squished first. We’re almost out, right?”
“Just a couple more hours,” Squirrel assured her. “Just a couple more hours.”
The passage did deepen, eventually, if only a little. While it occasionally branched off into tunnels both large and small, more scrawls and graffiti kept them on track. “I guess this saves us needing to use our own paint, huh?” Rainbow said as they passed by a great, white arrow pointing them on. “‘Cause it’s kinda heavy.”
Twilight’s ears twitched, distracted from the dull thumping she’d been trying to make out in the distance. “We’ve still got two more sections to go after this,” she said, head tilted to keep an ear forward. “Best keep it just in case. Do you two hear that?”
The trio fell silent, leaning forwards as a group. The sound was rhythmic and growing sharply in a way the earlier sounds weren’t. “That’s not a draft...” Rainbow began excitedly.
“That’s a waterfall!” Squirrel finished, slapping her oar against the hull. “Or deadly rapids – but probably a waterfall!”
“I’ll bet it’s covering the exit! Like a secret tunnel hidden behind the falls!” Rainbow flexed out her wings happily, looking for all the world eager to get out and fly. “Maybe there’s a treasure chest next to it!”
“With gold and rum in it,” Squirrel agreed, her tail swishing beside her. “And maybe a fancy hat.”
Twilight snorted, but left them to their fancies – like them, she could barely wait to see daylight again.
It was scant minutes later when the first glint of light, shining off the damp walls, reached them; the breeze picked up too, blowing a cool mist into their faces as they dug in their oars, pulling and pushing themselves forwards with renewed vigour.
They rounded the next bend and immediately reeled back, eyes shuttered, as they were blinded by their first sight of sunlight in hours. Blinking rapidly, Twilight wiped her watering eyes on her coatsleeve as she tried to work out their surroundings. The tunnel had enlarged greatly, with alcoves full of half-submerged carts tucked on either side. Thin streams of water poured down the entranceway – much wider than the one they’d come in through – and pounded noisily into the river. “Probably runoff,” she mused as they drifted towards the light.
The canoe rocked beneath her as Rainbow crawled towards the bow. “Was kinda expecting something more,” she said, her breath tickling Twilight’s ear. “Maybe the treasure’s outside?”
They passed under the streams, the shocking cold not bothering them in the least. The sun’s warmth hurried to greet them as they entered a wide, sheltered valley, open to the west; to the left and right more streams poured out of the rocky cliffside, joining together into a wide river meandering southwards.
“Finally,” Twilight smiled, glancing up at the sun. “From the looks of it it’s not far off evening – we should see if there’s anywhere to set up camp.”
Rainbow chuffed, slinking back amidship. “No kidding. Let’s get to shore – I can take a fly around and see what’s here.”
The area about the entrance was littered with stony shoals and beaches, so it took them little time to beach themselves. “Gimme a bit!” Rainbow shouted, shrugging her gear off unceremoniously onto the ground before taking off in a hurry.
“Aaand she’s gone,” Squirrel said, stretching out as she watched Rainbow build up into a wide arc in the blue sky above.
“With a little luck she’ll see something near the next mine – we’ve still time to get there before evening.” Twilight gazed out over the tall grass towards the southern ridges – somewhere at its base was yet another tunnel network they’d need to brave, with another still after that. “If my maps are right, it should be shorter.”
“Well, that’s good – spelunking isn’t as fun as I thought it’d be.”
Twilight shot her a surprised look. “I’d’ve thought you’d’ve gotten used to them up in Wanderbelle,” she said, settling herself down on a mossy stone.
Squirrel shrugged. “Lots, sure, but I never worked in them, and there’s a heck of a difference between passing through one to get between homes and ledges, and going through that.” She jerked her head back the way they’d come.
“It did rather lose its charm after a while, didn’t it?” Twilight agreed with a grunt.
“Yeah. Hey – how long could you keep those lights on, anyways?” Squirrel asked, leaning forwards as she changed the subject. “I don’t think you had more than an hour’s rest that whole time.”
“Probably not much longer,” Twilight admitted, unconsciously rubbing at the base of her horn. She leaned over to tug at her pannier, rummaging through it for a snack. “We’ll need to use our shards more tomorrow – I’ll need the break.”
“Simple enough.” They both fell to munching on some oatbars and refilling their’s and Rainbow’s flasks in the glassy stream. Rainbow had been gone longer than they’d expected, but given how she was feeling in the underground they weren’t surprised she was taking advantage of the moment like this; plus, they could still occasionally catch glimpses of her up above, so they knew she was safe.
They were just starting to get impatient, however, when Rainbow landed, sliding on the loose pebbles.
“There you are!” Twilight sat up, clucking her tongue. “The sun’s practically set!”
“Plenty of light left,” Rainbow waved off her concerns. “And I got some good scouting in, too! We’re gonna want to set up camp about halfway – there’s a rise there with a flattish top that looks perfect.”
Rearing up to get a better look, Twilight could just make out what she guessed was the rise in question, laying not much further downriver. “Can’t we get any closer? I’d rather we enter the next bit as soon as we can come morning.”
“We could, yeah,” Rainbow replied slyly. “But that’s why it’s so good I scouted more! The river oxbows out like mad over there, and the bugs are thick enough I’m surprised I’m not painted in them for how many I hit on my pass through.”
“... eww.”
“That’s why the rise will work!” Rainbow insisted, fluffing out her wings. “Should be high enough and far enough away from them to sleep easy.”
As none of them could argue with a bug-free sleep, they quickly agreed to only going so far for the night. Realistically, they’d only be a few kilometres from the entrance anyways, and with the next part being shorter than the last they should still get through it all before nightfall next – such was their hope, at any rate.
Getting back in the canoe, they followed Rainbow’s guidance to bring them through the erratic network of crisscrossing streams to join the main river channel. The sun was just beginning to fall behind the mountains when they reached the rise, sitting some dozens of metres off the shore across a short paddock of rock and reedy grass. Just as Rainbow had said, they were perhaps halfway to the next mine some kilometres off.
“So are there seven of these things, or what?” Rainbow asked as they dragged the canoe well ashore. “‘Cause I’m really not looking forward to six more of them.”
It took Twilight a moment to work out what she meant. “Oh! No – it’s just the mountains that’re called the Seven Mines; we’ve only got the two more to do.”
“Well that’s dumb,” Rainbow said with a scoff. “Should’ve called it Three Mines then, or the Triple Tunnels, or something.”
“That’s not quite how geographical features are named, Dash.”
“Actually, it kind of is,” Squirrel interjected thoughtfully. “I mean, Nestle’s nestled in the hills, right? And Calendar has a big calendar in it.”
“Lame.”
Squirrel waved her off. “It’s more impressive than it sounds.”
“Well what about Hurricanum, then? There’re no hurricanes just idling in the city centre,” Twilight countered, unable to resist. “And Thistle didn’t have any... oh, wait.”
Rainbow chuffed, setting the last of her gear over back as they set off across the field. “See? Should totally be called Three Mines.”
“There’re probably more mines scattered throughout the range,” Twilight insisted, thinking back as best she could to her little-labeled maps. “Although given its size, seven would probably be underselling it.”
“The Hundred-Mine Mountains?” Squirrel suggested.
Twilight shook her head, quietly enjoying herself. “And what if there were one-hundred-and-one? Or ninety-nine? It would be misleading.”
“The same problem we currently have, yes – I see your point.”
They continued chattering even as they climbed the rise – a massive boulder, easily a hundred paces across, and ascending nearly half that in height. Setting up their tents was awkward considering the rounded, knurled ground, but while there didn’t seem to be any mosquitos up here, none of them were much inclined to take the chance and camp without.
As they set about getting a small fire going with the errant bits of tinder they’d picked up along the way – just long enough to get some tea going – Twilight found herself staring off into the south. From here she could make out the yawning mouth of the tunnel, like an inky stain on the darkening cliff face. In Rainbow’s own words the entrance had crumbled, with great slabs of granite flaked off to lie in heaps all about the place. The river still flowed through, however, and the fallen segments looked old – that a clear route through remained still seemed likely.
Certainly Twilight wasn’t looking forward to finding out there wasn’t – she had no intention of adding ‘mountaineering’ to her growing list of skills. Tearing her gaze away, she turned back to the sputtering flames and the little collapsible pot perched on a pair of stones above.
“I still can’t believe you thought to buy some back in Beech,” Squirrel muttered, sifting through her own packs while Rainbow busied herself blowing on the budding embers.
“Why not?” Rainbow answered indignantly between breaths. “Tea’s like water, but better!”
They stayed up a little later, but with the fire out and night falling they found their conversations stifled. Not wanting to discharge any of their shards, they muttered their goodnights and retired to their tents, full of cautious optimism for the morrow.