//------------------------------//
// Chapter 21 
// Story: Forbidden Deeper 
// by SaltyJustice 
//------------------------------//

	We followed Luna's meanderings for some time, though she assured us they were not meanderings.  I could not see any landmarks that reminded me of our last visit, everything here looked the same as what came before it.  Endless caverns in every direction, made of obsidian or something else, casting a sheen when light was brought over it.  The only thing truly different from last we were here was the sound.
The caverns were quiet, our hoofsteps bouncing back to us.  No ghostly echoes, no cries, no screams of assault.  Nothing bore down on us.  Nothing whispered to us.  Nothing moaned.  Nothing charged us from the shadows, nothing grabbed at us and carried us away forever.
We just kept walking, until we found what seemed like an edge.  It was the same wall, but it had been smoothed by something, and Luna decided we ought to follow it.  So we did, for nearly half an hour of walking, before we found an opening.
This was not part of the Abyss, it was new.  The smoothed wall gave way to a corridor built from stone brickwork, glowing golden of its own accord.  No light sources, just the rock itself letting out an ambiance of reassuring calm though the straight hallway.
"Do we follow it?" I asked.
"What choice do we have?" Luna replied.
Marching down the hallway we soon saw the far end of it, the whole thing was scarcely a hundred meters long.  At the end, it turned, and a flight of stairs led us down some distance before the hall turned again, then again it came to more stairs.  We descended, turned, followed, walked, then descended again, deeper into this artificial construction in the Abyss.  I could estimate our travel time at two hours total among these endless glowing halls before we happened across a grand stone door, likewise crafted from the same golden brick, at the end of a long stairwell.  The doors were twice as tall as I was, and double-wide as well.  Carved onto the doors, in a symmetrical pattern, was a six-pointed star, surrounded by five smaller six-pointed stars arranged in a rough pentagon around it.
"The mark of the champion," Luna said.
"Twilight's mark," I said.
The door opened with little resistance despite being made of stone.  It was nigh-weightless, and beyond it was what I would describe as a chapel.  The floors were smoothed and polished rock, the room itself was rectangular with a low ceiling that domed in the middle, over a fountain that had real, flowing water in it.  Arranged atop the fountain were six familiar artifacts, in the shapes of a star, an apple, balloons, diamonds, butterflies, and a lightning bolt.  We had found them, the Elements of Harmony, the true Elements, in their resting place here.  This shrine had been built atop the focal point of the containment shield, and beneath it lay the Unmaker, waiting for us.
While everypony else wasted no time in dashing forward to take a drink of the water, which I had assured them was real and not a trick, I had spied something in the corner away from the fountain which dominated the room.  Two rusted mechanical hulks, stacked on top of one another, tucked away in the corner in the otherwise spotless and empty room.  Luna noticed them too, and we walked over to examine them.
"Amazing that they are still here after all this time.  Did they build all this?" Luna asked.
"Who else would?  Who else could?" I asked.
It had been ten-thousand years since anypony had seen a Redeemer, but here they were, the last two in existence.  Preserved down here, far from the prying eyes of the world.  I could hear a faint humming coming from within them as I got closer.
"They're still alive," I said.
Luna hovered near but the hulks did not respond.  The humming was audible, yet no sound other than that came, no reaction or stimulation.  Not dead, but close to it.
"What are those things?" I heard Inkie ask from behind us, trotting closer to see.
"The ones who built this place," I said.
"I've never seen anything like them.  Are they, like, robots?" she asked.
"Something grander than that, I think," Luna replied.
We had other things to attend to, so we left them where they were, for the moment.  I took a drink from the fountain myself, the water was cold and sweet, the best I had ever tasted.  It was pure, composed of magic itself, I reasoned, to be flowing here in this fountain.  It poured out from springs beneath the Elements and drained somewhere in the base of the fountain beyond sight.
"What now?" Wedge asked.  Despite himself, he hadn't refrained from drinking of the fountain, either.
"I suppose we must wait for the bearers to arrive, then go with them," I said.
"Bearers?  Of these little trinkets?" Gabby asked dismissively, "they don't look like much to me."
"Those trinkets have saved the world more times than you know," I said.
"That's because I wasn't around to do it for you," she said.  She winked at me.
"Fine, whatever.  Now might be a good time to get some rest," I said.
Taking the cue, everypony was more than amenable to resting a while.  Inkie took off all her burdens and leaned them up against the fountain, while Wedge put aside his armor and leaned in a corner, his eyes closed.
This place was safe enough, I supposed, though I did not know how long until Twilight and her friends would arrive.  They could have been mere moments behind us, or a full day's walk, I could not imagine what sorts of things they had dealt with on their way here.  I only regretted not being there to guide her.
Luna, I noticed, had taken up a position next to Wedge as he lay against the wall.  I cocked an eyebrow at her, and she returned my look with a hint of a smile.  I laid down next to the fountain, fairly close to where Gabby had decided to rest, but there was no speaking here.  She was already asleep.
Inkie had gone back to examining the Redeemers in the corner, when a gentle knock came at the door.  Had they arrived already?  Not even a minute after I sat down?
I shot a look at Luna.  She was asleep, as were Wedge and Gabby.  Inkie, despite the softness of the knock, had heard it and come over to me.  I hadn't even had time to take off my stuff and yet it was time to go back to the fray.
The two of us pushed the door open to find Pinkie Pie standing in front of it, alone.  My senses shot into full-scale alarm, and I had drawn my sword before anypony had a chance to speak.  I held it inches from the pink beast's face.  It did not flinch, it scarcely regarded me at all, focusing on Inkie instead.
"Pinkie?" Inkie asked.
"That it not your sister!" I hissed.  The creature masquerading as Pinkie nodded at me, but didn't attack.  She calmly looked at Inkie and cleared her throat.
"She's right, I'm not," it said.
"I know," Inkie said.  To my astonishment, she stepped out of the door and hugged the pink pony anyway.
"What are you doing?" I asked.  They embraced and then disengaged, as Inkie stepped back into the shrine, Pinkie recoiled at the sight, lowering her head before bringing it back up.  A tear was dashed away in a blink.
"Who are you?  Do you have a name?" Inkie asked.
"No, I'm Pinkie Pie, right?  There were no names before that," it said.
"Why did you help me?" Inkie asked.
"Do you two know each other?" I asked.
"Yeah, this thing saved me from a - another thing.  I'd be dead if not for her," Inkie said.
"Why?" I asked.
"I was supposed to help kill you, sister.  Oh, sorry.  I'm not your sister either," Pinkie said.  She shook her head.
"Sorry.  I was created to destroy you, but I had to act the part of Pinkamina.  And when I got on that trampoline, I felt joy, pure joy, and I wanted to keep feeling it.  I didn't care what the master wanted, and I just did what I thought was right instead.  And now I'm an orphan, the others won't take me back," she said.
"I see.  Would you like to come with us?" Inkie asked.
Pinkie shuddered.
"No, I'm sorry.  I can't even go through that door, the light from it stings even to think about.  But I'm not going back," she said.
"We're going to put an end to your master," I said.  She nodded.
"I know, and I'd help you if I could.  I just can't.  But I wanted to say thanks," she said.
"Thanks?" Inkie asked.
"Yeah.  I don't know what it was, maybe it was a thought your sister had, or something weird in her head, but it gave me the strength to resist.  I'd just be a blob on the floor if it wasn't for you.  So thanks, Inkie.  Thanks for that," she said.
They hugged again, longer, a real hug.
"Here, hold on a second," Inkie said.  She trotted back into the shrine and came back a moment later, with one of her own hoof-made flares in her mouth.
"A flare?" I asked.
"It means something.  If you run into my sister out there, just show her this, she'll know," Inkie said.
While Pinkie didn't want to touch it at first, she took it anyway, looking at it with curiosity.  It was like a poison to her, yet it also represented what made her different, in a way.  Perhaps these Faceless creatures weren't as mindless as I had thought before, even this one had strength within.  Strength to resist, even to love.
"Guess this is goodbye," Pinkie said.
"Goodbye, whoever you are," Inkie said.
"Goodbye," Pinkie said.  She shut the door and left us in the silence of the shrine.
"Do you think she'll be okay?" Inkie asked.
"I don't know.  I don't know what'll happen to her once her master is dead," I said.
We just left it at that.  I was tired, we were all tired, and I needed to get some sleep.  I took up the same pose I had been trying to sleep in before the interruption, leaning up against the fountain, and I was out like a light.

I awoke to the sound of my own skull cracking against the floor.  I was horizontal, somehow.  I stood up quickly and felt my head, trying to find a dent or maybe a bit of exposed fluid or whatever it is that they put inside the skull, but it was just pain that I found.  Lots of it.
"Oooooh," I groaned.  Nopony else stirred.
I looked around, still within the bounds of the shrine, except the fountain had lifted off the floor, suspending itself along four narrow metal pillars with ribbing on them.  I must have been leaning on it when it activated to expose a metal platform beneath the fountain, but it had done so without waking me up.  The floor had done that job.
Inkie was slumped nearby, without any cranial damage, and still asleep too.  The bottom of the fountain, now above me, was flat and smooth, but what caught my interest was the device just below the fountain, now on the floor's height.  It was a smooth gold and grey platform, distinct from the floor around it, and by the looks of it, capable of detaching.  I felt it with my hoof gingerly, in case it broke away, but it was sturdy.  There was something beneath it, I could see emptiness beyond the cracks where the metal met the stone.  All dark down there.
Looking around, nothing much else had changed.  Everypony else was still sleeping, exhausted, though I could not say for how long I had been out.  I hopped into the air to check the top of the fountain, and the elemental treasures were still in the same places as before.  The bearers had not come yet, but what had caused this fountain to raise up?
"Mmmmm, five more minutes," Inkie mumbled.  Her hard hat, the only thing she had not taken off, slumped off her head and onto her nose, blocking her airway.  She snorted and bolted awake.
"Gah!" she said, coughing and sputtering.
The noise was enough to wake up everypony else.  Luna woke easily, gracefully, simply opening her eyes as though sleeping was just keeping them closed.  Gabby was the opposite of that.
"You shaddup or I'll whup you," she grumbled, rolling over.
She suddenly sat up.
"Hoofball practice!" she shouted.  She looked at me, bewildered.
"Oh, it's just you.  What time is it?" she asked.
"Nearly five thirty," Luna said.
"Morning or evening," Gabby asked.
"Evening, of course," Luna said.  She looked at the fountain.
"Did I miss something here?" she asked.
"It was like that when I woke up.  Think it means something?" I asked.
"No doubt.  Nothing in this place is a coincidence, I fear," she said.
I examined the metal plating while gingerly standing on top of it.  It didn't move, just clanged as I stomped around on it.
"You know it's an elevator, right?" Gabby said, frowning at me.
"Really?  How can you tell?" I asked.
"I dunno, that's what I'd put right here.  We're supposed to go down, and I don't see any other stairs or nothin' around here," she said.
I admit she could have been right.
"So how do we turn it on?" I asked.
I stood on the elevator as everypony must have come to the same conclusion, and stood on it with me.  When all five of us were standing on it, only then did something beneath it disengage and we started to descend.
The narrow square of light streaming in from above us showed the walls around us, and Luna wisely decided not to cast her light spell here.  My friends would be seeing it soon enough, so we waited in darkness until the elevator reached the bottom.
Luna cast her light spell, and the walls were no longer composed of a thick shell.  We had passed that, and now the walls themselves were alive.  There was fluid running all over beneath a thin, transparent sheen of some kind of skin.  The walls were as hard as rock, yet their form was, for all appearances, like the skin of any pony, save the blood beneath was black.  We stepped off the elevator and trudged down the only pathway in front of us, the floor squishing as we trod upon it.
After a short distance I could no longer see the elevator behind us, as the path was just curved enough to keep me from seeing more than a few meters in either direction.  I hadn't noticed it before, but this place was warm, and very moist.  Balmy, even.  I had started to sweat again in the moisture.
After only a few minutes of walking through these passages we entered into a wide open cavity.  This was it.  The memories were so vivid, this was the Unmaker's shell, its true shell, and beyond it was its body.  The open cavity had a bridge made of flesh, true flesh, meat torn from some impossible organism, that led to a little temple, made of stone on an island hanging in eternity.  The temple hadn't been here before, it consisted of four pillars in a square and an altar in the middle, likewise made of stone.  A black figure adorned it, it did not react as we approached.
As we got close enough for Luna's light spell to illuminate the figure, I realized who it was.  It was her, Celestia, standing here on the cap of the Unmaker's form.