//------------------------------//
// Library Time 
// Story: The Immortal Dream 
// by Czar_Yoshi 
//------------------------------//

Flarefeather went on her way, leaving me at the entrance the the school library. Though, 'entrance' might not have been the right word - rather than a cavernous hallway like I had been imagining, it was just another wing of the complex, ordinary corridors splitting up the rooms where the books were actually kept. It felt like this had been constructed as general-purpose school space, and converted to a library after the fact.

I got fewer weird looks than I was expecting, being a batpony dressed in armor in a school library. Most of the ones I did get were probably due to my sword; I wasn't the only one with strange garb, and I fit in well with the local age distribution. Or maybe it was just my face. Batponies were rare, after all.

But no one tried to deny me passage, and so I wandered the halls, peering into each room and taking stock of how things were labeled, getting a feel for the library's collection. The most popular rooms were the ones dedicated to math, finance, logistics and leadership, by a huge margin. Not surprising, considered this was a business school. Leading a mercenary company probably took all those skills and more. It did make me wonder, however: were the creatures going to this school the children of elites, who were already destined for leadership roles? Or did Wilderwind's culture simply funnel anyone with ambition here, and churn out far more candidates with the skills for the job than there were companies to lead?

Either way, I got an uneasy feeling about the role a society like this could play in the world. In more peaceful times, their organizational skills could easily be put to use for mercantile purposes. In less peaceful times, those skills would apply to war instead, and could much more easily be used to start or prolong wars than stop them. It made a lot more sense, now, why Geirskogul was so worried about Wilderwind's unity and moral fiber.

I rounded a corner, passing a pair of rooms dedicated to biology, anatomy and medicine. That made sense; you needed medics to maintain your soldiers. There were noticeably fewer students here than in the previous rooms.

There was also a strange, nameless unease, a sensation that not all was quite right. Now that I thought about it, it had been slowly building in the back of my mind ever since I entered the library, steering my thoughts toward warier places. Was I just being paranoid now that I was on my own again? Odd, considering just yesterday I had been worrying that hanging out with Flarefeather would lead to a trap. I forcefully tapped the side of my head with a hoof. Why couldn't my feelings work in more reasonable ways?

Whatever. I turned back the way I had already come, deciding I shouldn't wander too far from our meetup point when I didn't have much time... and after a room or two, I trailed off and frowned.

That sensation was slowly getting lighter and less pressing in my mind.

Cautiously, I turned around again and retraced my steps. Ever so slowly, the feeling that something was wrong increased again.

It wasn't in my head. Something weird was going on.

I quickened my pace, holding my head high and paying as much attention to myself as I possibly could, trying to figure out what I was feeling and why. It registered the same way an altitude change did, or a low vibration that you felt first in your bones; some sensation that wasn't picked up by any of the normal sensory organs. And it got stronger quite quickly, tripling in intensity over the span of a single room.

After that point, it didn't change, feeling roughly like there was a cork lodged in my brain no matter which direction I went. Until I tried going backwards again, at which point it got weaker along the same trajectory it had strengthened. Something physical was causing this, at a definite location, and it wasn't moving. I narrowed my eyes and checked the nearby rooms.

None of these were in use by any students. One was an archival room dedicated to Varsidelian poetry, another was empty, another claimed to hold the rescued collection of a library in Goldfeather that hadn't been sorted yet after it was saved following the Empire's fall... Sure, that was a decently suspicious place to look. It was locked, and the lights were off, which I took as a courteous invitation to enter.

Inside the room, my bracelet provided enough light to see stacked boxes and not much else. I couldn't feel anything different though, not since I had crossed that final threshold. Did that mean that even if I did find what was causing this, I might not know it when I saw it?

You know, Faye pointed out, this is a school. It's possible someone is just running a regular experiment that does this as a side effect, and they don't know it because there are no batponies here to tell them?

I slowly nodded. "You want to take over?"

Nah. Faye backed off in my mind. Just thinking that we've been pleasantly surprised once today, with that Royal Spectrum turning out to be nothing nefarious. So, wouldn't we be less likely to get in trouble if we went to get lunch with Flarefeather and then left Wilderwind with Puddles than if we tried to figure out what this is?

I paused. She was almost certainly right; I knew that on an intellectual level. There was no way Wilderwind was keeping something sinister in their school that would doom me for not knowing about it. That was comically implausible. Even if, with my luck, it would be true.

The bigger way walking away could go wrong was if learning about this taught me something that could help Coda.

And besides, I was curious. "You're not the least suspicious?" I whispered. "You can feel it, right?"

I can, Faye confirmed. Honestly, it feels a little like how the Night's Boon base felt, in Gyre. Just a little. Well, it's up to you.

I was loathe to leave, but checking a few of the boxes revealed only stacks of magazines and foals' books, many of which were well-used. And Faye was right. I had just asked myself, on the way here, what the odds were that something would go fantastically wrong while exploring the library. And if I stuck my nose in too deeply and regretted it, there would be no one I could possibly blame but myself. That wouldn't be luck, it would be a lack of self-preservation.

Common sense was just barely strong enough to squash my curiosity. I turned out my bracelet and left.





The weird sensation abated as I expected, and by the time I reached the entrance of the library, I couldn't feel it at all. But Flarefeather wasn't back yet, and so for minutes on end I got to kick myself and wrestle with my urge to go back and find out more.

Finally, that changed. Two pegasi in flamboyant elevator mare outfits pranced into sight toward me, one unmistakably Flarefeather and the other a teal mare in a blue costume whom I recognized quickly as her friend, Lissa. Lissa was grinning like she had just learned a secret, and Flarefeather was pouting. Clearly, they had gotten an eventful conversation in on the way here.

"Hey," I greeted, strolling out to meet them, pushing back one last pang of curiosity. "Lunch?"

"Lunch!" Lissa agreed, sidling up beside me with an aloof air. "Gotta see what all this Halcyon hype is about for myself. Real sarosian, huh?"

"Did the library live up to your standards?" Flarefeather asked, with the air of someone who was trying to change the subject.

"I could have spent longer," I answered truthfully, glancing back over my shoulder. "Really just got to see what the rooms all were, and not spend much time with the books themselves."

Lissa gave a knowing smile. "Yeah, I heard you were a nerd. So, since I'm on the hook for lunch, you're okay with somewhere cheap, right? School food court, maybe? Since it's your fault I lost the bet, and all?"

I hesitated. "Err..."

"Great!" Lissa slyly winked. "Because I'm basically broke anyway. And they've got fast food and stuff. You'll love it. Come on, now!"

Flarefeather gave me an I told you so shrug, even though she hadn't told me anything.

So Lissa lead, and I followed. The school food court turned out to be a nicer version of Icereach's cafeteria, except three of them stacked side by side to accommodate the full student population. The rooms were still organized in a utilitarian measure, but the benches and tables were real wood instead of metal, with larger tables towards the middle and smaller ones at the edges for loners or small parties like ourselves. And after Lissa haggled our way in past the bored griffon at the gate, I realized it was even an all-you-can-eat buffet.

I stacked my plate high and returned to our table, the last of us three to arrive. "Well?" I asked, sliding in, aware that I was getting ever so slightly more weird looks with my current company.

Jealous looks, mostly.

"Well, start talking!" Flarefeather shoved me, speaking with her mouth full.

"What do you want me to talk about?" I looked between her and my plate, and then to Lissa.

"The same things you talk about with me?" Flarefeather raised an eyebrow. "You know, your gritty, edgy paranoia? 'How do I know this isn't a trap?' That kind of stuff?"

I frowned. She wanted me to act like a basket case?

Lissa, for her part, was smugly eating, watching our exchange.

"Come on, she's real into experienced worldly types like that," Flarefeather pressed. "You're supposed to make me look cool for having cool taste in friends. Or are you really that at ease around me after only a day or two of hanging out?" She immediately switched from a pleading look to a saucy smile.

I sighed, turning my attention to Lissa. "If you've got questions, ask away. I'm not a chatterbox, but I'll answer what I can."

Lissa evaluated me, a hint of neutrality behind her taunting smile. "Stoic warrior type, eh? You get in fights often?"

"Only when I can't avoid it," I answered.

"Oh yeah?" she pressed. "What do you fight for? There's gotta be a line you draw somewhere, right?"

I flicked my ears, sensing that her eagerness was more projected than Flarefeather's. Their demeanors were very similar, but Lissa's felt more like a front. "Isn't that a pretty personal thing to ask someone you've just met?"

"What if I asked it, then?" Flarefeather asked. "For that matter, where are you even from? Couldn't tell if you dodged the kids' question back there because they just didn't need to know, or because... you know... it's a secret."

"Ever heard of Icereach?" I asked her back.

"Nnnope!" Flarefeather perked up. Lissa leaned in too, her head a little lower than Flarefeather's.

"Well, that's why." I shrugged. "Would have taken more explaining than their attention spans could handle."

Flarefeather smiled gamely. "I've got a great attention span."

Lissa leaned over and kissed her.

"Hey!" Flarefeather protested, reddening and pulling away. "Stop trying to distract me and make me eat my words! That's cheating! And not fair!"

"You can get revenge whenever you want it." Lissa winked, then turned her attention back to me. "More practical question: what's the traveling climate like these days? You geared up just for self-defense?"

I shrugged. "Depends how good you are at not sticking your nose where it doesn't belong, and how lucky you are. But the world's pretty dangerous right now, so I'm not sure there's anywhere you could go if you really wanted to be safe. Are you planning a trip, or something?"

"No such thing as having too many options open," Lissa answered. "Especially when you're in our shoes."

"You're not happy with things here?" I tilted my head. "Might be a silly question. Flarefeather is always going on about how gross your jobs can get sometimes."

Lissa blew a raspberry. "Gross? Messing with clients is great. It's more about the limited outlook for the future. There are too many things us escorts aren't allowed to do, and at the top of the list is expect a promotion. We could be here until we're old and ugly. But don't you think asking a filly her motives is a little personal when you've only just met?" She gave me a pointed wink.

I blinked, then frowned. "Look... Fine. The reason I'm out here is-"

Lissa beamed, and also blushed, fluttering her eyelashes pointedly. "Really? So you don't mind getting a little personal with me after all?"

I lost my train of thought, and had nothing to do but sigh.

"Sorry," she snickered, looking not at all remorseful. "Force of habit. And we are still on the clock. Just doing what the job entails. No hard feelings, right?"

"You're the one who wants to hear what I have to say," I pointed out, a little annoyed. "And no matter how hard you flirt with me, it's not going to work. I'm just not attracted to other ponies. It's nothing personal."

"Wow," Lissa said, nodding along. "You really are ace. Or maybe just dead inside. Tip from a pro: even if you feel nothing, pretend to enjoy it and we can give your social status a big boost. It's one of the few things we actually have the power to do around here."

I flicked my tail and folded my ears. "I'm not going to be around here long enough for that to matter. So if you want your affections to be repaid, save them for each other." I sighed again, my thoughts threatening to wander to the time Procyon told me the reason I only liked machines instead of ponies was because she took my horny side - and a crush on Corsica - with her when she left. "I don't mean to be mean. It's just the way I am."

"Alright. Water under the bridge." Lissa slapped Flarefeather on the back, causing her to spill part of her drink and shoot Lissa a rude look. "You were saying?"

"You asked what I fight for," I said. "Well, I've got a friend... Almost more of an adopted little sister at this point. And her lot in life is insanely bad. She's cursed to be stuck in a magical block of ice, and on top of that, she got foalnapped. The reason I came to the Griffon Empire is because I was chasing her, and I just recently managed to rescue her. But I still need to break the curse, and that's what I'll be working on the moment I leave Wilderwind."

Lissa's facade melted a little, and I got a look of genuine sympathy. "That's wild. What kind of stuff will breaking it take?"

"Dunno yet." I shook my head. All my leads were tentative, and mostly revolved around better understanding my own powers so that I could help share the load without also sharing Coda's fate. "Right now, it'll take a lot of guessing in the dark until I stumble onto something promising. But I've got an idea to try in Izvaldi, and I at least want to do that before I bail on the Empire."

"You said you were cursed too, right?" Flarefeather cut in. "Your bracelet? And probably your luck as well? Did you just bond with this kid over being cursed, or something?"

I almost chuckled. "Not quite. I knew her before she got iced. Would be nice if she could meet you, though. She grew up real isolated, and the last promise I got to make to her was to show her the world."

"Show her the world, huh?" Flarefeather turned distant, looking away.

Beside her, Lissa hefted her empty plate - both of these mares were far better at holding a conversation while eating than I was, not that I considered myself a slouch at that. "More food. Be right back. Anyone want anything?"

Flarefeather shook her head. "Nah, I'll go get my own in a bit."

I nodded down at my half-full plate to signal a pass as well.

"Alright!" Lissa trotted off.

"You know," Flarefeather said the moment Lissa was out of earshot, "you two kind of remind me of each other."

"We do?" I blinked, looking out after Lissa.

Flarefeather leaned all the way across the table to get close to my ear. "Don't tell a single soul this filly spilled so much of her heart out for you like this, especially Lissa. But... I'm pretty sure the reason she wants to leave Wilderwind is more for my sake than her own."

I raised an eyebrow.

"I'm a simple mare of simple means!" Flarefeather innocently shrugged. "Right now, I've got job security, political immunity, a great flirting buddy, and I do nothing in return except act cute all the time. Who could want for more, pfft, not me! But for some reason, she gets mad whenever I tell her that. And the times it comes up are whenever she's talking about going out to show me the world, just like you said now."

My eyes widened just a little.

"I think she knows I'm settling for too little," Flarefeather said. "And, I mean, I know it too. I told you I love kids, right? But do you think I could start a family with this job? In Wilderwind, the day-care system is your mercenary company, and if you don't have one, you're screwed with a capital S. My point is, your friend's lucky to have you, and I hope she knows it! And also, you had better give Lissa the best travel advice of your life." She threw in a wink for good measure.

I sat back and took a deep breath. "Well, if you're about to ask to come with me, my first advice is, don't. Seriously cursed, remember?"

Flarefeather blinked. "Wait, is that even an option?"

I realized too late that she hadn't actually been considering it. "A really bad one? There's a reason why this was the first thing I said..."

"Oh well." Flarefeather looked downcast for only the briefest of moments. "Oh, hey, Lissa!"

"Hey." Lissa scooted back in, already back with a second heaping plate of food. "So, I've cooked up some ideas," she said, fixing me with a serious look. "About your friend and her curse. Do you know Mistvale Arts?"

"No," I admitted. "You know about them?"

"Just hear me out," Lissa pressed. "Mistvale was home to the sarosian society. And it's pretty big, and so mountainous that you can't explore it, period, without an airship. So how well do you think it's been explored since they all died off?"

I slowly blinked. "Where are you going with this?"

"You're a sarosian," Lissa continued. "Mistvale sarosians had all sorts of mysterious and closely-guarded powers. What if, by exploring the ruins of Mistvale, you could learn some secret technique that would help you in your quest?"

I exhaled hard. My thoughts had all been pointing towards Izvaldi, towards finding the remains of Stanza, but at best that would give me new insight into how changeling queens, and possibly just Chrysalis herself, worked. But Mistvale was a much bigger, much richer target. And Lissa was right. There were things many old batponies could do that I couldn't, Mistvale Arts foremost among them. That was a really good idea.

"Interested?" Lissa raised a knowing eyebrow. "See, I knew you'd think this idea has promise. Now, hypothetically, and without being too specific, I might know a way to make that search a whole lot quicker and easier for you. If you're willing to trade for it."

Flarefeather suddenly looked wary. "Lissa, are you thinking of-"

Lissa silenced her with another kiss. "Hush, you. I know what I'm doing." She turned back to me with a big grin. "And what I want are sarosian facts! What's it like to be a bat? Can you feel your own fangs when your mouth is closed? Does the world look different through slitted eyes? Is it true that you're obsessed with fruit? Can you really eee?"

I cleared my throat, taken aback. "How about one question at a time? Also, why?"

Lissa shrugged. "I'm half-sarosian. Heretical, I know. Can't blame me for wanting to get in touch with my heritage, right?"

"I don't think having mixed species parentage makes you half and half..." I uncertainly pointed out. But she probably had her own definition, or just didn't care. "But sure. Fine. Ask questions more slowly."

"Where are you from?" Lissa asked. "Somewhere with other sarosians, presumably, to be your parents?"

I rubbed at the back of my neck with a wing spoke. "That's what I was trying to explain earlier when you two were making out... I'm from Icereach. It's a colony in the mountains, halfway between Ironridge and Yakyakistan. Lots of batponies. Very remote. And given how things are for us in the north, most of them prefer it to remain that way."

"In the north?" Flarefeather looked confused. "You mean Mistvale? Isn't that more to the east of where you're talking about?"

Oh, right. The existence of Equestria - and all the other lands south of the Aldenfold - weren't actually common knowledge in the north. I had learned that once, long before actually going there.

But Lissa knew. "You're talking about the Plains of Harmony?" she guessed, perking up. "You know much about them?"

"Well, a bit," I said, holding off on telling her I had not only been there, but cavorted with royalty. "Assuming that's what you call Equestria. You're interested?"

Lissa furrowed her brow. "From what I've heard, it's devilishly hard to get them to let you in. They say the only people in the east at all with the influence to get them to do that were the old goddesses, Garsheeva and the Night Mother. But I've also heard that if you can go there, it's much easier to get a brand."

I blinked. It was easier in Equestria to get your special talent? I almost never thought about those, seeing as I had been born with mine and also generally tried to hide or lie about its function. But I couldn't necessarily remember seeing a lot of ponies without one there, either...

"Surprised?" Lissa asked. "Guess you're lucky, never having to worry about that. It's true that all sarosians are born with their brands, then?"

I nodded. "Yeah. Never happens any other way. But for other ponies, they're supposed to be related to things you really strongly care about, and for us, there's not as strong of a connection."

Saying it that way almost made me do a double-take. Did that have anything to do with why it was easier for moon glass and changeling queens to kill batponies by taking their special talents? This would merit further thought later, for sure.

"Ahhh," Lissa said with a grin. "So around your own kind, you're pretty normal, but out here with the rest of us, you're guaranteed to be special. What's your brand do? Show me yours, and I'll show you mine."

She patted her flank, which I now noticed was covered cleanly by the skirt of her uniform. Same with Flarefeather. I had just seen Flarefeather naked an hour ago, yet realized I couldn't remember at all what her flank had looked like underneath.

"I'm kind of bundled up," I apologized, twisting to show off my armor. "And like you said, they're not really a big deal to me. Cultural differences, I guess."

"Lucky," Flarefeather muttered.

"Well, okay." Lissa shrugged. "Got anything else neat you can do? You said no Mistvale Arts, but what about the telepathy stuff? Like how sarosians used to pray at their altars and claimed they could hear the Night Mother. Is that real? Did you have that out west?"

I shook my head, wondering if all this was going somewhere or if Lissa really was just curious. I couldn't blame her if she was, I decided. And this would be a sensible reason for Flarefeather to introduce us. "I've heard it's real, but we didn't have any higher beings to make use of it."

"You're not much of a showoff," Lissa remarked, munching away. "Yeah, you're born with your brand, but it's boring. Yeah, you can communicate with your mind, but literally no one cares about figuring out how it works so you can use it without a god around? Is that the vibe I should be getting?" She raised an eyebrow. "Even if it's true, that's not a great face to put on for impressing people. Especially someone who just asked you to impress them."

"I guess I just value honesty?" I guessed, keenly aware of how much I habitually hid or lied about. The truth was, I just didn't feel a need to impress others, not that she needed to know.

Lissa kicked Flarefeather. "You sure managed to pick up a boring sarosian."

Flarefeather stuck out her tongue in return. "Well, maybe you're just bad at getting her to open up! I told you she doesn't like personal questions."

"I'm right here, you know," I cut in, feeling like this situation warranted scaring them just a little. "And you wouldn't be exuberant or outgoing either if stuff went wrong for you as often as it does for me. The telepathy thing isn't cool, it's a weakness. Literally while you were meeting up and I was in the library, I felt something trying to mess with my mind. I'm just not-"

Both mares snapped to attention. "Wait, seriously?" Flarefeather asked.

I nodded.

"In the library?" she pressed. "Your bad luck really did come to haunt you the moment I stepped away? What did it turn out to be?"

"I didn't stay to investigate," I hesitantly said, suddenly feeling I had steered this conversation in the wrong direction. "Why?"

They looked at each other.

"Schools are supposed to be safe," Lissa pointed out. "They wouldn't keep something dangerous here deliberately, right?"

"Unless they didn't know it was dangerous," Flarefeather replied, continuing her line of thought. "Which they might not, because sarosians are rare enough that no one might have wandered through here to tell them about it."

"We could get someone to owe us a big favor, here," Lissa added. "If we brought this to the attention of the administrators."

"Hold up," I interrupted, waving both wings in a dramatic no. "Slow down. You're assuming whatever it is isn't there on purpose and we wouldn't get in major trouble for finding out about it."

"Trouble with whom?" Lissa frowned, tilting her head. "The school has safety officers for a reason. If it's something dangerous, it's not supposed to be here."

I tapped my wing spokes together. "With whoever put it there? Who would have done so illegally if that's really against the rules, and thus might also break the rules to get back at us?"

Flarefeather whistled. "Yup. There's that paranoia I was talking about, see? You wanted to see it; now it's on full display. Though she sort of has a point..."

"Nope." Lissa adamantly shook her head. "Passing off problems as someone else's problem is how everything goes wrong. Besides, I want to see this sort of thing in action. Finish your lunches and we're going to go see the safety office."

I groaned, turning back to my meal. It seemed I'd get to sate my curiosity after all... Hopefully, if someone official was on my side, that would lessen the chances of this turning into another cascading problem.





"Really?" a bespectacled unicorn mare asked, sitting behind a desk in the school's security office a short while later. "I can't say I've heard any reports of this before, though we also don't play host to many sarosians."

"That's what I felt," I confirmed with a nod, having gone over the bare minimum necessary for her to know that a point source somewhere in the library was giving me a weird feeling that others likely were immune to. "I don't know if it's a problem, but they wanted me to report it." I nodded back to Lissa and Flarefeather, who were waiting right behind me.

"I suppose it merits investigation," the security mare agreed, getting out of her chair. "We don't want anyone feeling unsafe here just because they're an uncommon species, though it sounds less like something deliberate and more like a side effect of something no one's had the chance to consider. Why don't we see if we can track this mystery effect down?"

I nodded thankfully, less because she was helping me and more because nothing bad had happened. The four of us traced a quick route back to the library, at which point I sharpened my senses and went on high alert.

"You could try to triangulate it," Lissa said as we passed the zone where the effect reached its strongest, resting strangely in the back of my mind as if the atmosphere's composition had suddenly changed.

"If there's a definite threshold, we'll do that," the guard agreed, pulling some chalk from her saddlebag and offering it to me. "Don't worry about the floor, it'll come out. Can you mark down where it reaches a level you'd be able to precisely recognize anywhere else?"

I took the chalk, walking back and forth and eventually deciding I had the right spot. Then, we continued through the hallways, combing back and forth around the intersecting corridors and finding more places where the feeling reached its strongest, the guard leaving and returning shortly with a map to transcribe my markings to.

They made up a very clear circle that even centered neatly on a room. But the room in question was locked, and had boxes stacked against the interiors of its windows.

"Hmm," the security mare said, tapping her chin with a hoof. "Would you mind if I left for a second to look up who's responsible for this room? A lot of the ones in this section belong to individual archival projects dating to the aftermath of the war, and many of them, we haven't had the resources to do more than store for safekeeping. It's quite likely your culprit is something no one knows about, and your insight on it might be of value to our scholars."

I nodded. Odds of malicious intent down, odds of accidental land mine up. And if it was neither, the possibility of getting answers from a scholar was very tempting.

It took long enough for her to return that Lissa and Flarefeather, mercifully bored of teasing me, started flirting with each other instead, leaving me free to think. Going to Mistvale, Lissa had suggested. Trying to learn something from the ruins of my ancestors' home... It was basically what I was already planning with Izvaldi.

Except, I had a ride to Izvaldi in the form of Puddles, who had told me Geirskogul had given her plenty of leads to justify a trip there. Mistvale was much vaster than the Empire, by contrast, and I couldn't think of a way to convince Puddles to take me there instead. Though, the prospect of batpony temples filled with thousand-year-old writings, unspoiled since the day their inhabitants disappeared, was almost tantalizing beyond measure...

The security mare returned, and with her was Poplar. The Night's Boon stallion who had just played host to Flarefeather and I this morning.

"Ah!" he greeted with a smile. "They mentioned a sarosian, and I wondered if it might be you! I'm told something in this room has given you cause for alarm?"

I tilted my head. "You guys are responsible for this?"

"If by this, you mean the room," he agreed, the guard stepping back to let us talk. "It's been quite a while since anyone has been here, as far as I'm aware. Let me see..." He fumbled in his robe for a key.

"What's inside?" I asked, more curious now that I knew a group like this - not that I fully understood what the Night's Boon even did - was related to something that could give me a weird feeling at a distance. Especially since, as Faye had noted, their base in Gyre felt slightly similar, too.

"I've mostly forgotten, to tell you the truth," Poplar explained. "You see, the Night's Boon - the organization most of my friends an I are a part of - was the first, and to my knowledge only, group to attempt an expedition deep into Mistvale following the extinction event. Now, all of us here at the school were too young to come along, but we were able to persuade the school to provide financial backing to the venture, and that included giving us space to store what was brought back..."

With a click, the door swung open and the lights came on. It took no investigation at all to tell what was responsible for the way I was feeling.

Dusk statues. Half a dozen of them, one in the center and the others lined up along the back wall, in a pattern that suggested there had once been more of them and several had been removed. The ones against the wall were inert, just like the ones in the bunker at Icereach. But the one in the middle was not only active; it was modified.

First, it sat in the middle of a large, custom-built glass tank that was full of water. The core on the necklace glowed with a strange flux, a vortex that seemed to be constantly folding in on itself contained within a colorless white gem that wasn't cut like the originals. And runes had been inscribed on the statue, a line of sparkling, glistening characters that traced its way down from the core, along the statue's chest and pedestal, through the glass wall of the tank and onto the floor outside it.

From there, they zigzagged, turning at sharp angles and running in straight lines, crawling up a wall and disappearing into an air vent by the ceiling.

"Oh?" Poplar blinked in recognition. "Never mind, I do remember this! I didn't realize it was still set up... You could feel this from a distance? That's fascinating."

I was staring at the runes. I had seen runes just like these before, in the Night's Boon's base in Gyre. They were exactly the same.

Rather than listen to Poplar's explanation, I acted on instinct, getting close enough to lean down and smell the runes. The muted sensation I had been feeling disentangled itself into a flurry of emotions: stress, struggle and striving, spikes of understanding and victory, weariness and quiet camaraderie, and an intense desire to improve.

Did these emotions belong to the students studying in the library?

"In the depths of the Mistvale temples, the expedition found some very unconventional dusk statues," Poplar was explaining. "Ones that did things like react to the emotions of the creatures around them, even non-sarosians, all on their own. I think this was an attempt to make a regular one work like one of the special ones at the temple cores, using what we could understand of the temples' technology... Not that I was involved as a researcher, though I did get to watch them work sometimes! The ink for these runes was made from ground-up crystals taken from the cities that used to serve similar functions, except we couldn't figure out how to make more crystals, if I recall..."

"What was that function?" I asked, staring at the runes and mentally comparing them to the ones in the Gyre base. Hadn't those all traced back into a room I hadn't explored? What were the odds they connected to modified dusk statues in there, too? Were the runes some sort of range extender or guide, and the dusk statues were using them to produce the base's anti-revenant shield?

Maybe the reason the effect I felt here wasn't fully the same was just because this school wasn't built in a hole blasted in reality, and otherwise they were exactly the same thing. This could even be a prototype for the one in Gyre.

"Some type of conduit for magic, I believe," Poplar answered. "In hindsight, it makes a lot of sense you'd be able to feel something like this. Sarosians were always said to be closely attuned to dusk statues, and our modifications might have let you feel this one from farther away. I wonder if anything would happen were you to try praying to it? My higher-ups in the Night's Boon would undoubtedly be fascinated, although I don't think this research here has been touched for years..."

I didn't know much about how to use dusk statues, at least not the proper way. And if this was an autonomous setup, there wouldn't be anyone on the other side to hear me, anyway. But I was curious... I knelt down and touched my bracelet, carefully turned off, to the runes near the tank.

Instantly, I felt a whirling sensation somewhat akin to taking off my mask, like when you wake up too quickly and all the blood rushes out of your head. My senses took a second to recover, and when they did, I was seeing double.

Part of me was still in the storage room, kneeling on the floor. Another part of me was disembodied and massive... No, not disembodied. I just didn't have a body anything like I had ever had before. I couldn't see, not in a conventional sense, but I was aware of a huge number of rooms, some empty and others bustling with life, each one of those lives glowing like a little star.

Up or down didn't exist, gravity was missing and distance was relative, but sound was a thousand times richer than normal. I could feel a hundred voices passing me by, perhaps two hundred, as if each one was speaking directly into my ear and I had enough ears to accommodate every single one of them, and the mental capacity not to get overwhelmed by it all. The words weren't in any language I recognized, yet the feelings behind them were clear, exactly as I had felt while sniffing the runes except now so much closer.

It was like a river of emotion, rushing by through a sea of emptiness. I could take some for myself, if I wanted, dip my hoof into the stream and fish out as much or as little as I needed. And I could see where it was coming from, the lights of the creatures scattered all throughout my awareness. But where was it all going?

My consciousness tried to follow the river, and came to a vortex, just like the one I saw in the statue's core. The emotions were all going in there. And then they were going somewhere else, beyond the vortex, but when I tried to feel out where that was, I felt immediately strained, like I was trying to shout above the river's noise and had only my own voice with which to do so.

I could have turned on my bracelet, but that didn't feel wise. I pulled back in the real world, and the mental world disconnected with a snap that sent my vision reeling again.

"What were you doing?" Poplar asked, curious. "Did anything happen?"

I shook my head to clear it. This was not a static setup. All that emotion was going somewhere, and I was less concerned with whether anyone would miss it and more with what it was being used for. What was that vortex? It felt like less of a storage device and more of a portal...

"More importantly," the security mare said, "now that the cause has been identified, can I mark this as case closed? It sounds like the responsible party has been notified, and will take care of things on their end?"

And then it hit me: the runes here were collecting emotion, somehow, but I couldn't tell where they were sending it. The ones in Gyre were using emotion to stabilize the space around them and shut out the revenants, but I had never thought about where they were getting it.

This contraption was harvesting the students' ambition and desire to improve, and somehow sending it to Gyre to power their shield.

"Well, since nobody's been checking on the experiment here, we could always take it down," Poplar suggested. "We wouldn't want to cause anyone discomfort on behalf of something no one is using."

"You should... hold off on that," I tentatively suggested. "And maybe ask your higher-ups if that's okay first. I think this might be doing more than it looks like, and could actually be important."

I remembered multiple lines of runes heading into the door in Gyre, and the soup of emotions in that place had certainly felt more complex than the focused ones here. And anyone smart wouldn't design their life support system to fail if just a single piece went offline, especially if those pieces were hidden in innocuous locations like this, under the watch of those who didn't realize how important they were. Still, even if I didn't know what the Night's Boon's game was, it would feel pretty terrible to doom them to being chopped up by revenants by letting someone take out the power source on their shield.

Hold on, an emotion-powered life-support system... Neo Everlaste. The castle at the edge of the world. Was that connected to this too?

My head spun. Investigating this had been a good call after all. I suddenly had some big new pieces to the picture of how everything in the Empire fit together, pieces very few others could ever have access to.

The question was, what could I do with this information... Its best use might just be as a bartering chip with well-intentioned creatures like Puddles and Geirskogul who could put it to proper use, in exchange for things I wanted like safety and airship passage.

Either way, I was in good shape. Luck had majorly gone my way for once. And with how often it swung the other way, I would be a fool not to make the most of this.