When Twilight rematerialized on Aitran, she found herself on the library floor, gazing up at the ceiling. Not wanting to continue the trend of ending up in a pony-pile after linking, she rolled to her feet and moved away from the center of the room. A few seconds later, Rainbow Dash faded into sight on the floor and stood up. “Ok,” Rainbow said, “I’ll talk to Archeon, you talk to Cirrus, same as before, right?”
“Well…” Twilight said, pawing at the floor and rolling her eyes uncertainly, “I’ve got questions I want to ask both of them…”
“I can ask for you, you know,” the pegasus said.
“I suppose,” Twilight said. She sighed and nodded. “Ok,” she said, “my main goal is to get more history from them. Try to get more details about what happened to Star Swirl and the other worlds, and if he says anything that doesn’t match up with what we’ve seen for ourselves, don’t call him out on it. Not yet anyway.”
“What about getting home?” Rainbow wondered, “Shouldn’t we start asking about that?”
“If the view clears up enough for longer conversations,” Twilight answered with a shrug, “I’ll leave that up to your judgment.” Rainbow nodded and walked over to the blue book. As she fished the blue page out of her bag and opened Archeon’s prison, Twilight went over to Cirrus’s and put up the sound shield spell. She matched up the red page to its place in the book and, after its magic healed the rip, turned to the back page. “That’s three pages,” she said as the red static cleared away from Cirrus’s visage.
“Wonderful,” the stallion said with a grin, “There should be two… or Zzzzzt –bother. Two or three more.” The buzzing static was little more than background noise now, but brief flares still crossed the panel now and then. “You aren’t helping Archeon, are you?” Cirrus asked suddenly, “I warn you, don’t waste your time listening to his lies. He’s a cruel, sadistic stallion ZzzZrrzt no thought for the consequences of his actions upon the worlds our Master created.”
“I think,” Twilight began in a murmur before catching herself. “What happened with Star Swirl and you?” she asked instead, “Why are you trapped in this book?”
“Treachery,” Cirrus said coolly, “I’ll gladly tell you the details, after you’ve brought more red pages. This… ZzzzzRrzt Still not the best for long stories.”
“I suppose not,” Twilight said wryly, “How about Equestria? Do you know a way-”
“Release me from this prison,” Cirrus said firmly, and then his gaze softened and his voice turned sultry, “and I’ll give you whatever you may desire.”
“Cirrus let his greed get the better of him,” Archeon said to Rainbow Dash, “He was nothing more than a bloody pirate, plundering worthless wealth from places that were nothing but illusions. I tried to tell him, tried to warn Master that Cirrus was losing his mind, but Cirrus… Oh that Zzzrzzzz pegasus and his silver tongue! He tried to fix the blame on me, heh heh…” The dun stallion’s eyes unfocused for a second as his voice drifted into silence.
“Hey,” Rainbow said, frowning, “are you…”
“Blue pages!” Archeon shrieked, “Please please please hurry and find the rest! I must be… this unjust punishment, this wrongful imprisonment must end!” He seemed on the verge of hysterics as he panted for breathe, wild eyes fixed on Rainbow’s own.
“Two more,” the pegasus said shakily, “Just… don’t go crazy.” Crazier she amended silently as she closed the book and turned away. She gave a yelp when she saw Twilight standing not two feet away with a concerned frown on her face.
“I caught the end of that,” the lavender pony said before Rainbow could ask, “Being isolated in that book really hasn’t been good for his mind.” She looked over her shoulder at the red book and continued, “I think Cirrus said something about time being weird inside those books the last time we spoke, but I’m still amazed that he’s so… calm.” She shrugged. “Maybe he’s just starting to cope because we’re finding the pages.”
“Perhaps,” Rainbow said, “did you get anything useful out of him?”
“Not really,” Twilight said, “He knows something, but he’ll only talk if I keep retrieving the pages.”
“Heh,” the cyan pegasus snorted, “He’s taking advantage of us. That fits pretty well with the greedy pony Archeon, and that throne room, make him out to be. He might even be lying; Arcy claims that Cirrus tried pinning the blame for ruining the illusions on him.”
“Arcy?” Twilight asked, raising an eyebrow. Rainbow returned it with a challenging glint in her eye and Twilight simply shook her head and dropped the subject. “Cirrus would have us believe that Archeon was a tyrant, treating the worlds like they only existed for his amusement, as if it didn’t matter what happened to the ponies living there.”
“Does it?” Rainbow asked. Twilight gaped at her in shock and she took a step back, holding a leg up defensively. “I-I’m not saying I’d be ok with it if it were true,” she said quickly, “but these places we’ve been going are illusions, places Star Swirl made up and created with magic, right?”
“I’m not sure,” Twilight said, her gaze drifting to the journals sitting on the floor below the map, “Star Swirl referred to them as illusions a few times, but from those journals I got the impression that he didn’t have complete control over where the books would take him when he finished the spell. He certainly treated the inhabitants like real ponies anyway; he built the Fortress after all. Plus, we are physically transported from place to place by the books.”
Rainbow lowered her head in thought for several moments, and then heaved a sigh and looked up at her friend. “Well, either way, they were important to the old pony, and somepony betrayed him and destroyed almost all of it for some selfish reason.” She snorted and stomped a hoof emphatically. “Let’s get to the bottom of this Twilight,” she said with conviction.
“For Star Swirl the Bearded if for nothing else,” Twilight agreed with a nod. She started toward the map, only to pause after a couple steps as she remembered something. “Not just for Star Swirl,” she said, “There are two other ponies we haven’t accounted for yet.”
“Who?” Rainbow asked.
“Clover and…” the lavender unicorn trailed off, trying to remember. “There’s a bed for a younger pony in the living area,” she said, giving up on the name for the moment, “You find out where the next book vault is. I’ll see if I can talk one of the prisoners into… Did I really just say that?”
“It’s what they are,” Rainbow said pointedly as she walked over to the map.
“It just seems so callous to think of them like that,” Twilight said, “A-anyway, I’ll see what they have to say about Clover.” She went over to the red book and took a moment to plan her approach before opening it.
Cirrus looked slightly angry when he appeared in the panel. “You haven’t brought any more pages,” he said, “I thought ZzzzZt had an agreement?”
“Since when was not talking to you without bringing a new page part of the agreement?” Twilight asked, raising an eyebrow. Cirrus blinked in surprise and he shifted uncomfortably. “I thought as much,” Twilight said, “Now, I’ve got a few questions.”
“Pages for Zztz-planations. That was our agreement.”
“Cirrus, I’ve returned three pages already,” Twilight said with a glare, “I think I’ve earned some basic information at least. Besides Star Swirl, Archeon, and you, there were two other ponies living here. Who were they?”
“Ah,” Cirrus said slowly, “Clover and Nzzzzrt. Clover was our Master’s wife, and perhaps-zZZzt skilled in world-writing as Star Swirl, although she rarely did so. Nyx was their daughter, a… Zzzrrzzzt precocious little thing.” His face hardened for second, but then he coughed and composed himself, giving Twilight a patient look, waiting for her response.
“What happened to them?” the unicorn asked, taking the bait.
“Find the next page,” Cirrus said immediately, smiling, “Their story and mine are one and the same.”
“Fair enough,” Twilight said with a nod, “sit tight.” She closed the book before Cirrus could react. She looked over to the map, but Rainbow wasn’t there. Looking to her right, she saw the pegasus’s rainbow-striped tail disappear around the bend in the passage behind the book case. “So where are we headed now?” she asked as she ran to catch up.
“The dock,” Rainbow answered, “I’m betting it’s inside that ship, so we’ll need to un-sink it. How’d the questioning go?”
“Clover and Nyx were Star Swirl’s family,” Twilight said, “Wife and daughter respectively. There might have been some jealousy of Nyx, on Cirrus’s part at least. We’ll have to remember to ask Archeon about them.”
“Got it,” Rainbow said with a nod as the pair entered the elevator cavern, “Why don’t you wait here? I can fly up there, read the clue, and get back down faster than that elevator moves.” She flew up the shaft as Twilight sat back to wait, counting the seconds under her breath. Six seconds later, the pegasus came back down and landed on top of the elevator. “I’m going to need a paper and pencil,” she said.
“I’ll see if I can find some in the living area,” Twilight said, levitating her pencil out of her bag, “Is the clue really long or something?”
“I’ll say,” Rainbow said, rolling her eyes, “It’s three dates – day, month, year – each with a time. Any ideas of what we’re supposed to do with a clue like that?”
“I’ll have to think about it,” Twilight said, “I’ll be back in a moment.” She turned away and trotted down the hall, taking the turn that led down to the subterranean house. Some rummaging in the sleeping quarters turned up two usable pieces of parchment in Archeon’s nightstand and a tiny, disappointedly blank diary under the filly-sized bed Twilight guessed had belonged to Nyx. As she walked back up to the elevator cavern, she began pondering. My first guess for applying the clue would’ve been the clock tower, if we hadn’t used it already, she thought, and that wouldn’t have accounted for the month, day, and year parts anyway. What haven’t we investigated yet? The model ship in that little fountain just outside might have a “like follows like” spell linking it to the big ship, but how would three dates connect to that? And then there’s-
“Twilight.” Rainbow’s firm voice broke Twilight out of her reverie and she realized she’d almost walked right into her friend without noticing. Smiling sheepishly, she placed a piece of paper into Rainbow’s bag and took a step back. Rainbow smirked and shook her head, and then flew back up the elevator shaft. She returned a few minutes later, dropped the paper at Twilight’s feet and asked, “So, where to?”
“I’m not completely sure,” Twilight said, levitating the paper up and looking at it. She read the dates Dash had written and raised an eyebrow at the last one. “November 4 9914?” she asked incredulously.
“That’s what it said,” Rainbow replied with a shrug.
“I believe you, but…” Twilight said as she put the note away in her bag and started down the hallway toward the library, “but anyway, on your page search earlier, did you go inside the round building next door?”
“Yeah,” the pegasus said as she followed after Twilight, “the only thing in there was this strange chair in the middle of the room.”
“Strange how?” Twilight asked.
“You might as well see for yourself,” Rainbow answered as they exited the passage. Rainbow activated the front door switch and then led Twilight outside and over to the circular building. She pulled the door open and gestured for Twilight to take a gander at the interior. The room was indeed barren of decoration or even paint; the floor, wall, and domed ceiling were all the same nondescript natural grey of the stone the building was constructed of. Four lights attached to the wall provided illumination that all but canceled out any shadows, and in the center of the room stood the chair, although to Twilight it looked more like a padded bench tilted up and bent so as to comfortably hold a pony lying on their back and gazing up at a point on the western side of the ceiling. A metal stand next to the chair held a panel above and slightly behind where a seated pony’s head would rest. The underside of the panel had four sliders with a button below them and a square lens of glass on the left side providing a magnified look at the peak of the ceiling.
“Well, let’s see what this does,” Twilight said, setting her bags aside and climbing into the chair. As soon as she was settled with her head on the head-rest, the panel lowered into a position directly in front of her face and the buttons and slider lit up as a date appeared above the slider in shining letters: January 1 0001 12:00 AM. Twilight levitated the paper with the clue out of her bag and then applied her magic to the sliders until the display showed the first date on the paper. The button had begun to blink the moment Twilight moved the first slider, and after she’d set the sliders properly she pressed it with a hoof. There was a high-speed whirring sound for several seconds and Twilight thought she saw movement through the lens, but when everything stopped she still saw nothing but blank light grey stone. “We’re missing something here,” she said, closing her eyes and tapping her head with a hoof, “The building has a rounded roof that I’m supposed to be looking up at while setting a very specific… Oh!” She facehoofed and shook her head. “It’s a planetarium!” The panel turned off and returned to its upward position as the unicorn rolled off the chair and looked around, spotting a glowing blue button by the door.
“What’s a planet-” Rainbow Dash asked as Twilight hit the button with her magic, only to stop in awe as the lights turned off and myriad stars appeared on the ceiling.
“Planetarium,” Twilight said as she got back into the chair and waited for the panel to activate, “it’s a building where a map of the night sky is projected on the ceiling. They have one at the School for Gifted Unicorns so they can hold some astronomy classes during the day, or when it gets too cloudy at night. Now, let’s see…” She double-checked the date settings and then looked through the viewing lens. She studied the magnified section of the ceiling for several minutes, trying to figure out if she recognized the constellation, and then lifted her head so that he panel would move away and give her a wider view of the “sky.” “These aren’t the stars you can see from home,” she said, laying her head back down and looking through the lens again, “but I feel like I’ve seen this constellation somewhere else recently. Rainbow, would you please go to the library and get me the blue journal with the red square on the spine? They’re on the floor under the map.”
“Be back in a flash,” the cyan pegasus said. She dashed out the door and returned with the journal in her mouth in record time. “‘Ere oo go,” she said around the tome before tossing it toward Twilight. The unicorn caught it in her magic and floated it over to hover to the left of her head. She flipped through it quickly until she came upon a page showing a pattern of stars with an accompanying picture.
“Looks like I was right,” she said with a smile, glancing between the viewing lens and the book as she turned the pages. Three pages in, she found the sketch of the stars in the lens and looked down at the image below it. “An anchor?” she said in confusion, looking up at the constellation, “I… I don’t see it. Oh well.” She set the book on the ground and brought up the note paper and a pencil, writing “anchor” next to the first date.
“Does this place even have a night?” Rainbow wondered as Twilight entered the second date, “I mean, if the daylight’s not provided by a sun…”
“Please don’t bring that up,” Twilight said with a strained voice. She pressed the button and picked up the journal while she waited for the star projections to align to the new time. “If you’re wondering where Star Swirl got this star map from, I’m not sure,” she said, “but since the constellations are in this journal, my guess is he copied it from Baseli, the world the journal talks about. He mentioned making astronomy one of his areas of focus while visiting there. And this one is… how did he see a bird in that?” She shook her head as she made the note and started entering the final date.
“Are we going to Baseli this time?” Rainbow asked, “If we are, I’m going to be a bit weirded out.”
“Why?” Twilight asked.
“Because that would make it three books out of three that have had a relation to where they’re hidden,” the pegasus said, “in that first world, I started out in a perfect replica of the rocket. The second world had gears all over the place, and the book was hidden inside a gear. Now we’re using stars from another illusion-world to raise a sunken ship that’s holding a third book.”
“Star Swirl did create all these places Rainbow,” Twilight pointed out, “Maybe he designed the four hiding places to reflect worlds he wrote about before making Aitran, and it’s just coincidence that the surviving books match the hiding spots.” She noted the final constellation symbol and climbed off the chair, stowing the journal in her bags as she put them back on. “Don’t worry so much about what we don’t know or understand, “she said, heading toward the door, “We just need to focus on the fact that every world we explore brings us that much closer to finding a way home.” Rainbow chuckled as she moved out of the doorway and fell into step behind Twilight. “What’s so funny?” Twilight asked.
“I’m just surprised to be hearing that kind of advice coming from you Twilight,” Rainbow said, “You normally go nuts if you run into something you can’t completely explain.” Twilight rolled her eyes and didn’t respond beyond picking up her pace a little as he headed for the fountain and columns. “So,” Rainbow said after an awkward moment, “what are doing now?”
“Checking something,” Twilight said, probing the model ship with her magic. After a few seconds, she nodded and went over to one of the columns and pulled out the Baseli journal. “I knew it,” she said after looking through the constellation drawings, “The model ship in the fountain there is linked to the big ship by a ‘like follows like’ spell, and also to each of the plaques on these columns. If we activate the three that bear the symbols for the constellations tied to each of the dates – and only those three – the ships should rise. You look at the east columns and I’ll take the west.” She held the notes out to Rainbow, who looked them over and then gave a salute and went to work looking for the symbols. In less than a minute, Twilight was activating the third and final plaque and the pair rushed up the path as they heard the sound of a large amount of water flowing. As they turned to face the dock, they saw the sailing ship rising up out of the sea, water draining rapidly off its deck as it came up level with the dock.
“Wow,” Rainbow said in amazement.
“I agree,” Twilight said, “come on.” They made their way down to the dock and Twilight stepped carefully onto the ship, which was surprisingly steady even after considering the relative calm of the water it rested in. Rainbow flew along behind her as she looked around for the book. Looking toward the aft end, she noticed an expertly carved door leading into the space under the poop deck and made her way to it. She began to wonder how a book could survive being submerged under water as she lifted the latch and pushed the door open, and then got her answer when she saw the book sitting inside a sealed glass box on a chair. The box popped open at her touch and then slowly closed after she lifted the book out. It was bound in a sea-blue cover and bore a gilded title that read Baseli.
“I called it,” Rainbow Dash said wearily, shaking her head. Twilight chuckled and opened the book to the last page. Her amusement drained as she looked at the link panel. “What’s wrong?” Rainbow asked.
“I think it’s raining in there.”
“That all?” Rainbow said dismissively, “I’ll just…” She trailed off as she remembered how the fog in the book inside the rocket hadn’t responded to her commands. “Let’s just get it over with,” she said, reaching past Twilight to put her hoof on the panel.