//------------------------------// // Chapter 19 // Story: Forbidden Deeper // by SaltyJustice //------------------------------// And now the game began in earnest, it seemed. The changelings, working as a team of two dozen, dragged me off to what I suppose we could consider to be a dungeon. It wasn't really a dungeon, it was actually a repurposed kennel where some visiting dignitaries had put their dogs and cats if they couldn't supervise them. A big, sandstone-brick room behind the kitchen with bars on some of the openings, with slots to put plates of food for the animals on. They picked one of the bigger cells and threw me in. I heard my sword clang on the floor somewhere out of my sight, but within the same room, and all the changelings left. I heard them shut the door but not lock it, though I could guess at least one or two was still inside, standing guard. All I could see from my vantage point was the other wall, along which was a similar row of cages to this one, but smaller, and all empty. We hadn't entertained any pets in some time, it seemed, because the place didn't smell like animals at all. If anything it smelled like soup. The cell I was in had only a pile of old hay to lay on. Other than that, it was a small, arched opening about two body lengths in depth, and one in width. I could turn around, but not much else. Wasting no time, I checked the strength of the bars. These were designed to hold pets, not ponies, but they were sturdy enough. I could peer around a bit to see the rest of the room if I got up close to the bars, and I tried to see the door. Next to it was my sword, propped up against the wall. A changeling was looking over it, possibly admiring its impressive craftsponyship, but more importantly, not looking at me. I took the opportunity to examine the lock on my cage. Key lock, steel, certainly not something I could break, and I was definitely not going to unlock it magically. Nuts. I checked over the walls of the cell but I couldn't find anything I could use there either. No loose bricks, no hidden levers. It was as if this thing was really just the cage for a dog to sleep in. I heard a commotion over by the door, and I sidled up to listen. "Feeding the prisoner," I heard a changeling say. A male voice, though I'll be damned if I could tell a female from a male changeling at a distance. "Already?" another asked. Male as well, but his voice was higher. "Ponies need to eat regularly. You'd know that if you spent any time studying them. What's your rank?" the first one asked. "Class Q harvester," the second said. I don't know why, but class Q must be universal for a rookie, somehow. "Really? And you're on guard duty? No way, I am relieving you," the first one said. "My orders are from the queen," the second said. "My orders are from common sense. You didn't even know ponies eat, and you're watching the prisoner? Did you not notice she was trying to pick the lock a second ago?" the first said. I backed up a bit instinctively, but it wasn't like I wasn't obvious before. "Sorry sir," the second said. I heard the door open and then shut a moment later. A changeling walked in front of my cell, and I glared at him with as much hatred as I could generate. If I could just get my hooves on him, if I could reach through the cell bars I could try to snap his neck. Then he wouldn't - Unlock my cell door. "What?" I asked. "Time to go," he said. He vanished for a second and returned with my sword, waiting patiently at the cell door as I edged out, uncertain. "You're going to need this," he said. I took the sword, still bewildered, and slid it back into the scabbard on my back. I looked around the room to make sure this wasn't a trick, but there were no other changelings around, just the two of us. "What the hay? Who are you? Why are you helping me?" I asked. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you. I'm under strict orders to make sure you succeed, so listen closely to me. Most of our troops are out in the city, we've only got a skeleton crew running things here. We've set up a hatchery in the throne room, probably for symbolic reasons, and that's where the queen is right now," he said. "Why should I trust you?" I asked. "Well I could have left you in your cell, but I figure you have a better chance of pulling this off than I do," he said. I had no choice but to go along with this. I had figured out General's game, though it would be impossible to confirm until the last moment, but this changeling mess meant I couldn't trust anypony I met. Thus I would have to guess if my friends were changelings in disguise, or the real thing. If I killed one of them, then I'd lose, and thus General would get to watch me squirm. "Okay, but what will busting up a hatchery do for us?" I asked. "It's not the hatchery, it's the queen. I need you to take care of her, I'm afraid I don't have the heart for it," he said. "You've not the heart? Changelings have morals?" I asked. "I'm under orders, okay? I can't do it, you can, what's there to talk about? Get going," he said. I stepped out of the cage as the changeling stepped in. He shut the door behind him and it locked automatically with a click, the key sitting just outside of his reach. "What are you doing?" I asked. His form shifted and swirled, wrapping and folding in on itself until I stood in the cage. He had disguised himself as me, a mirror copy, including the mangled mane. "This way the guards won't be looking for you. Pass me that key will you?" he said. I said. Whatever. I pushed the key into the cell, and he picked it up and hid it under the pile of hay in the back. "Well? Move it!" he said. "Whoever you are, whatever you are, thanks," I said, to myself, sort of. He/She/I just waved and sat against one side of the cell wall. Stealth is actually one of my strong suits, so to speak. I don't usually have to be quiet and careful in my line of work, but it has come in handy, for privacy mostly. Being discreet means ponies don't investigate and interrupt me at crucial times, so I've learned the basics of being light on one's hooves, then practiced them over and over. I stuck my head into the kitchen in front of the kennels. Empty. The fires had conveniently been doused by the staff during the attack, and the place was brick anyway, so there'd be no risk of the place burning down. As I left, I almost stepped on the discarded plate of food my changeling benefactor was going to give me, now a forgotten afterthought. I picked that up and put it on a table, so it'd seem less out of place. The hallways outside the kitchens were very quiet, but I could hear the faint sounds of battle filtering through the skylights from the city down below. As I stepped out, I heard the sound of somepony walking, some distance behind me, and I flew up towards the ceiling to hide myself in the shadows under the skylight. The palace was largely illuminated by skylights, except at night when we lit torches and lamps, but that left blind spots on the ceiling which were completely darkened. Two changelings disguised as guardsponies, or they could have been real guardsponies, if not for the situation, walked by and didn't notice me as they did. I tried to hover as quietly as I could, bracing myself against the wall to reduce the amount of flapping I had to do. It worked. The guardsponies passed, I waited a while to make sure there were no others treading the same ground, before ducking through the archway they had passed under. I had to make my way towards the throne room, but it was slow going. Every single pony in the palace was likely a changeling, the guardsponies were probably a lure in case a worker had hidden during the chaos. They'd run up to the guards and ask to know what happened, then get captured. Devious. An explosion rocked the air above the skylights as I made my way further into the palace. I guessed it had come from the city, but it was no real concern of mine. It wasn't part of the 'game', at least I thought it wasn't, so I could safely ignore it. Another patrol, this time of two mare nightguards, forced me to duck into a side room as I did not have enough time to hide in the hallway. I watched through the crack in the door as the two passed, an air of superiority about them. So, just normal night guards, then. These actors knew their roles. They stopped just a bit past the door and started loudly talking to one another. Frustrated, I could do nothing but sit and listen, I couldn't risk trying to slip past them when they were this close. "Did you hear what the queen is doing in the hatchery?" one asked. "No. Did it have to do with those needles?" the other asked. "I heard it's supposed to be a part of fixing our breeding problems," the first one said. "How?" the second asked. "Beats me. That's the rumor, that this is gonna fix all our problems," the first said. "What is she gonna do with the bodies?" the second asked. "That I don't want to know," the first one said. They kept walking after that. I slipped out of the room as another explosion echoed in through the skylights. There was less din coming from the city this time, it had been quieting down. It had barely been half an hour, but the changelings had evidently managed to suppress a lot of the guard very quickly. I didn't like that this scenario was eerily realistic, that despite it being a hallucination brought about by the Abyss, I couldn't definitively say it could never happen. We had been taken by surprise before, and a miracle saved us. What if we didn't get a second miracle? At last I was within sight of the throne room, but there were two undisguised changelings out front, holding spears they had likely lifted from the guardsponies. Speaking of, where were they? The hallways had been full of bodies during the battle but they were all gone on my way here. No time for that, sneaking into the throne room was probably out of the question. Those two guards weren't going anywhere and would hear me if I tried to open the door. I took stock of the situation. I knew the layout of the antechamber like the back of my leg. The throne room's door stood at the top of a short flight of stairs, with the two guards on either side at the bottom of those. To both sides of them were rows of pillars that stretched up to the ceiling, but those pillars wouldn't hide me, and the whole place was lit by the noon day sun coming in through the skylight. There were open doors leading to hallways on either side, but a quick glance left or right by one of the guards and I'd be spotted. All one of them had to do was shout and every changeling in the building would come after me. I needed to take out both guards without either of them making a sound. Quite a challenge. Approach from the pillars, and get spotted. Take a side passage, and get spotted. There were likely a lot of guards outside the palace on the grounds who would see me if I tried to enter the throne room from the windows. Wait. The windows. Brilliant. I backed up a bit and went up through the skylight onto the roof, but I stayed low and kept on the roof itself. There were a few fliers patrolling the sky, but their attention was focused on the grounds below them, not the roof. Still, I didn't have much time. I ran over the roof to the skylight of the antechamber, and dove in from that angle. I unsheathed my sword and threw it straight at one of the changeling guards, then angled my wings and slammed into the other at full speed. The first guard looked up just in time to catch my sword with his throat, while the other had exactly enough time to see my face before I broke his neck with my bare hooves. I knew they were fakes, but it still felt good to murder changelings. Damn you General, this game is screwed up worse than any I could have dreamed up. There wasn't a lot of room to hide their bodies, so I stuffed them behind one of the pillars, in the corner, and hoped none of the patrols would look too closely. I didn't have a lot of time before someone noticed they were missing anyway, so I made for the throne room and ducked inside. The changelings had been busy. They had covered the skylights with black tarp and all the windows likewise. It was like stepping into another world, as the whole room was darkened except by the light from the doorway, and the slivers that snuck past the tarps from outside. I guessed changelings needed darkness for their eggs, and there were a lot of them. I didn't know too much about changelings except from what Celestia had told me after my encounter with Chrysalis, but from what I knew they had hives that hatched new changelings from eggs. They were supposed to be small, about the size of a wing fully flared, but these egg sacs were huge, and clustered around the middle of the room. I looked up to see the silhouettes of more sacs hanging off the ceiling. Some were moving. "You know, I'm not surprised you made it out," came a familiar voice from somewhere amongst the eggs. Chrysalis wasn't interested in hiding, though, and stepped into the middle of the room. My lips curled into a snarl of their own accord as her figure stood in the gloom before me. I cast a light spell to better see, and then I saw what had been inside the egg sacs. Ponies. Their blackened bodies were visible underneath the translucent sheen of the sacs. They weren't moving, just suspended in them. Hundreds of them, rows and rows all over the room and from the ceiling. "What the hell are you doing..." I muttered. "Do you like it? It's my solution to a long-standing problem. Did you know we changelings are an endangered species? It's true, we've simply been having fewer and fewer younglings, and nobody knows why," she said. She stroked one of the egg sacs and it quivered in response to her hoof. "What good is a food source? You can't make babies out of food," I said. "Food? Oh you poor dear, maybe it's best if I show you. This one is just about ready," she said. She prodded the egg sac nearest her and it started to quiver more than before. She pushed it, and the sac broke open. A black lump that had been a pony fell out and landed on the floor with a squish. But she wasn't done. She stood over the fallen creature and sung something gentle towards it as it began to writhe on the ground. Flashes of green began to emerge and the blob of material took shape and stood up. A changeling. A brand new changeling, where a pony had been before. "You monster," I shouted. I had already unsheathed my sword and was in mid-charge before my mind caught up. I was stopped when an enormous changeling landed right in front of me, having fallen off the ceiling moments before. It opened its disconcerting, pupil-less eyes and glared at me, baring its fangs. It spoke. "No harm shall come to the queen," it said. In Celestia's voice. "No... no... no..." was all I could mutter. "She was our test subject, I had to practice on somepony. Do you like how she turned out?" Chrysalis asked. I knew it was fake, but it was summoning up the memories of the real Celestia. It was the same, something came and took her away, turning her into a monster, and there was nothing I could do about it. The only thing I could do was kill her, but this time Luna wasn't here to comfort me, and this was no dream. I was awake, living this nightmare again, and being forced to bring it to its conclusion or face terrible consequences. "Ooh we have a bumper crop. Stand up and greet your princess!" Chrysalis gloated, and pushed over more sacs. Their contents spilled onto the floor as they writhed about, waiting for her to sing something over them and finish their transformation. All the worst elements of my life had been combined together into one. Watching my friends go mad, having to kill ponies I cared about, my loved ones being twisted into monsters before my eyes. This was too much, too much. I wanted to just give it all up, right there. Throw down my sword, ball up, and just cry. This pain wasn't worth it, it was all stacking up and there was no way I could ever deal with it. I dropped my sword. It clanged on the marble floors and I slumped over. Tears came out and I made no effort to stop them. This was it, I failed. The beast that had been Celestia loomed over me, glaring at me. It spoke again. "Giving up so soon?" it asked. But not in Celestia's voice. In Gabby's.