//------------------------------//
// 7: Lair 
// Story: Frequencies: To End The Signal 
// by Lord Destrustor 
//------------------------------//

The wind had died once they had reached the peak. As soon as they had crested the summit and begun descending the hill, the roar of the sandstorm had grown faint, a rumbling whisper and no more. A few dozen feet further down and it had died down completely. They followed the ridge of the hill in the sudden silence.

The sun, as bright as it had seemed not long ago, remained hazy, occluded by a fine mist of dust thrown into the upper atmosphere by the storm. Its heat still beat down on them relentlessly however, slowly cooking the ponies’ skin in the now still air. The reprieve from the winds quickly turned to longing, as although a raging storm was too much for comfort, a gentle breeze would have been welcome.

Still, complaining about the sun after hours spent wishing for it would have been naught but a capricious nuisance.
And so they remained quiet.









Two more days passed in the arid hills.

The badlands cutting off Equestria from the southern dragon lands were rumored to be particularly inhospitable, a desolate wasteland of impractical geography and poor weather patterns. Indeed, while some traces of civilization could sometimes be found among the broken hills, no proper settlement had ever been successful in establishing itself for any sort of long-term stay. Some mines could be seen here and there, all either abandoned or outright lost to the rigors of the climate. Rain in these lands was both scarce and dangerously abundant; while it usually only rained once a year or so, the downpours were always catastrophically torrential. Any buildings or pony-made structure would be washed away almost immediately along with the mounds of shifting gravel and rubble of the eroded hills. Even with pegasi on their side, every attempted settlement had failed to last more than a few hoof-fulls of months. There was only so much to be done with the weather when one of its most versatile components only came once a year and only in monstrous quantities. 

There were still a few points of contentment, however. The blasted landscape was often so scarred that it evened out, in a way. The ridges of the hills and the edges of the craters worked seamlessly into a network of walkways and smooth paths, a sort of lopsided spider’s web covering the land. The effect opened an easy, flat path ahead, provided one didn’t mind constant winding detours. 

Scootaloo had soon guessed that the dips in the land might contain water, judging by the presence of thin shrubs found exclusively at the bottoms of the pits. With a quick work of his claws, Spike had indeed confirmed the existence of scant moisture trapped in the depths of the stony bowls. It was meager amounts of dirty, muddy water at best, but they at least felt comforted that they would not die of thirst as soon as their rations ran dry. 

The second night since the sandstorm was spent in an old mine they had just found. It had collapsed a mere dozen feet from the entrance, gathering a limpid pool of cool water next to the obstruction. To Spike’s surprised delight, a cart of gemstones had been left half-buried under the rubble. He had retrieved as much of the gems as he could without disturbing the stones, and the three had enjoyed a rare full meal; Spike had given his daily rations to the others in favor of the delicious gems, and all three had eagerly drank all the water they could want. They had even used some of the loose timbers of the mine’s broken supports to make a comforting fire, certain that this far out in the desolate, unlivable wastes they were safe from any wandering unicorns who might spot the light.

They even managed to laugh that night. 









The tall, pointed mesa stood in the center of an immense crater, easily more than a mile wide. The large spear of stone jutted out of the dust at a sharp angle, looking for all the world as if it was about to fall over. It looked as if a giant had thrown a stake into the earth from beyond the horizon, shattering the landscape in a cataclysmic explosion where it landed. Dunes gathered upon the single slope of the stony claw, left there by the wind whom would occasionally blow past the tip to give the whole massive shard a flowing mane of sand. 

The detector was pointing straight to it.

The travelers had already gone halfway around the crater when they had assumed their goal to be inconveniently located somewhere beyond it; idly noting that for a random obstacle in their way, the colossal dustbowl was eerily picturesque in its own bleak way. By the time they had decided to take their mid-day break, Spike had found that the detector’s needle was suddenly pointing somewhere to the west, apparently fixated on the giant stone spire within the crater.

The three had merely looked at each other, then back at the sharp rock standing in the middle of its own little dust prairie. 

Where the Signal was coming from. 

They had dropped, as one, to a crouching position, hiding behind the stones lying on the edge of the crater. Scootaloo had wasted no time in drawing out a pair of binoculars and pointing them at the stone fang.

“I don’t see anything moving down there,” she had said after a moment, passing the binoculars to Spike. “I think there is something on that side there, but it’s too dark in the shadow of the hill and there’s too much dust in the air to be sure. I think we’ll have to get closer to get a better look.”

Spike observed for a time as well, trying to spot any sort of obvious danger or trap. The shifting of the sand, rolling on and over the dunes, was the only movement to be seen. A dark hollow, sinking deeper into the side of the cliff, was the only notable feature of the bare stone walls.

Dust and sand whipped around them, the gust of wind carrying it roaring down into the crater. The sky above was tinted brown from the haze of arid dust lazily floating about.

An entire minute passed in silence.

“So, that’s it?” Scootaloo asked, “We just go down there like tourists and take a look around? No one has a plan?”

“Well, the plan’s always been pretty much ‘go out and see where the Signal is coming from’, I guess,” Spike answered. “I just figured we’d improvise the next step from there.” 

“The next step,” said Rarity, “Is to actually go and see exactly what is producing the Signal, obviously.”

The white mare rose to her hooves, decisively marching straight towards one of the many small gullies lining the edge of the crater and forming a path down the sheer drop. She calmly made her way to the floor of the nearly-filled, titanic bowl of sand. The others shrugged and followed her.

They all kept their eyes riveted to the massive stone needle as they approached it, looking for any sign of activity or life in its vicinity. They instinctively swerved between the dunes so as to never fully expose themselves by climbing to the tops. This hid the base of the formation from them as they got closer, although the massive shape overtook more and more of the beige sky above them.

The sight of the colossal stone above them soon reached dizzying levels of presence as the sky was eaten away; filling occasional, fleeting moments of observation with the disorienting feeling that the whole slab was about to topple over and crush them. They would then blink away and shake their heads to rid themselves of the terrifying illusion of perspective and resume their approach. 

They did not speak. The seconds passed in tense silence, all three travelers wary of any sound they could make to unwillingly alert enemy forces of their advance. In truth, none of them would have been able to explain what they imagined to be waiting for them under the spire, or even whether they thought it to be a creature, an object, or an abstract force of mysterious nature. In any case, they all felt a silent approach was preferable.

They simply marched forward, dreading what they would find while in part rejoicing that they would at last get answers concerning the thing that had tortured them for so long.

Until they stood fully in the shadow of the single-stone mountain, the sky almost entirely hidden from view. In front of them, in the dark recess they had spotted from the distance, was a door.

An enormous door, easily tall and wide enough that almost any Ponyville building could have been built within its frame, with room to spare. A rough, angular arch carved straight out of the bare stone wall, visible thanks to the obvious gap in the rock face and the fact that the surface of the door itself was covered in intricate carvings. These ranged from obvious decorations, patterns and angular shapes curving around the edges of the frame, twisting and weaving all over the door, to what were apparently words carved neatly and deeply into the stone.

“No visitors, no tre… trespassers. uh… Send to enter.” Spike slowly read aloud, deciphering the non-equine script with some difficulty.

“You can read that?” Scootaloo asked, squinting at the strange runes.

“Yeah, it’s written in draconic. Twilight made me learn it a few years ago, ‘as part of my heritage’ she said.”

“Wait a minute,” Rarity chimed in, “What is a giant door with dragon language carved into it doing in the middle of nowhere?”

It only took a few seconds for Scootaloo to suggest “Maybe it’s a lair? I mean, with what Spike just said was written here, the owner obviously wants to be left alone; ‘around here’ looks like a pretty good place for that, doesn’t it?”

“Wait, we’re standing at the front door to a dragon’s lair?” Rarity’s worried tone immediately increased the tension of the two others, prompting the whole group to cast fearful looks around. As usual, nothing but sand and billowing winds were to be seen in the sections of their field of view that were not already entirely dominated by the imposing monolith.

“So,” Scootaloo began after a minute of their frantic search for an entire adult dragon they might have missed on their way, “how do we get in?”

Spike opened his mouth to reply, but quickly found that he couldn’t think of a single answer. The gigantic door had no handle, knob or latch, no visible way to open, no obvious mechanism to do it, and was certainly simply too massive for them to move manually in any meaningful way. What very few gaps could be found between the door and its frame were barely wide enough for Spike to slide his claws halfway in.

He tried scratching at the door, only producing shallow marks on the surprisingly hard stone, and realized it would take hours, days even, to break through. Looking down, he noticed the soft, loose sand under his feet and began digging. No more than ten minutes later, he had found the bottom of the door; inset as deeply as the rest in the solid stone of the wall. The frame encircled the entire door.

“I’m going to go look for another opening, okay?”

With no one objecting, Scootaloo set on her way, intent on circling the monolithic spire for any alternate way to enter. 

Spike sat down, sighing. They had traveled weeks in the wilderness, endured the weather, the terrain, hunger, fatigue and danger, only to be blocked by a door? A single door in the middle of nowhere? The most mundane object in the world, in the most impractical place it could be, would stop them from fixing this? Really? That was how it was going to be? Did the door really expect him to just give up now? Did the door really think he wouldn’t dig his way through if he had to?

“Spike,” Rarity pensively interrupted his thoughts, almost hesitant to do so, her eyes darting back and forth between the door and the young dragon. “I think I have a silly, crazy idea.”

Spike merely grunted inquisitively, waiting for her to elaborate.

“Seeing you sigh just now reminded me that you can breathe fire, and I’m wondering if the idea that that is a trait shared by all dragons is true.”

“Well, I guess so? It’s not like I’m an expert on that, you know? What’s your point anyway?”

“What if that magical flame you use to send the friendship reports is something all dragons are capable of?”

“I don’t know!” Spike yelled, in no mood to deal with cryptic philosophy at the moment. “I don’t care! What does this have to do with anything? We’ve got better things to do than wonder who could send letters to the princess right now!”

Rarity eyed him for a moment, frowning at his outburst. “What I’m getting at is that, although I am currently about as magical as a rock, I’ve spent enough time around Twilight to deduce that a door without any physical opening mechanism is probably operated by magic, and that these strange runes are most certainly linked to it.”

“So?” Spike asked slowly, beginning to understand where the unicorn was going.

“I also know enough about greed to think that if I were to put a lock on my very home, a key that every other species in the world lacks would be a very good start to it. What I’m saying is that maybe this door only opens when a dragon breathes a very specific flame on it, the sort of flame specifically mentioned to be one that ‘sends’ things, as stated by the instructions on this very door. Wouldn’t that make sense?”

Spike stared at the door, the gears spinning in his head, considering the possibility that Rarity’s theory was correct. Could it really be that simple? 

What could he lose by trying? 

He stepped up to the giant slab of stone, breathed in, and spit out a lick of green fire on the surface of the door. At the flame’s mere touch, the runes lit up, as if Spike’s breath had been a paintbrush. Green light filled the deep furrows of the symbols where the fire had touched them, and slowly began to spread, filling more and more of the runes in the same way water flowing in a network of channels would.

Both Spike and Rarity stepped back, keeping their eyes glued to the door as they backed away, the green light spreading ever faster until every single line carved into the door stood out, glowing brightly in the shade of the mountain.

The glowing design shimmered silently for a moment.

A sudden clap made them flinch and cover their ears as the door split open, emitting the deafening roar of stone rubbing against stone. A slit had cut the door in two clean halves, both slowly drawing away from each other; the low, rumbling sound of their movement shaking the earth itself. The sandy ground below the travelers poured into the emptied space left in the thick door’s wake. They stepped further back to avoid the loose flow of sand, although it was wholly unnecessary as there seemed to be just as much sand on the other side to meet the flow in the middle and stop it immediately.

The two colossal slabs of stone parted wider and wider, opening the several-stories-tall passage before them. They ultimately retreated fully inside the walls, ending their movement with a resounding knock.

The pony and the dragon then stood before the gaping maw of a mountain, gazing into its dark depths.

“Hey! I heard something! What’s going on?”

Spike and Rarity turned to face Scootaloo as the filly ran up to them before having her question answered with a simple look. She slowed down, craning her neck to take in the doorway’s entire massive height. 

The three travelers exchanged glances, warily peeking inside the large, darkened tunnel while Scootaloo caught her breath.

“Do you think anyone’s home?” Scootaloo asked.

“I certainly hope not,” Rarity answered, “That was loud enough that if anyone is here they certainly know we are as well.”

“Well, are we going in or not?” Spike stepped forward, heading inside the tunnel. He’d had enough of waiting, of walking, of not knowing. The answers waited within arm’s reach and he wasn’t about to let them slip away, let alone sit there untouched.

The two ponies looked at each other, gulped, and followed.

The giant passage was blindingly dark at first, before their eyes adjusted. It was hewn from the very stone of the monolith they now walked within, the walls, ceiling and floor merged as a single cylinder of roughly-cut rock. The floor was uneven, rising and falling randomly, throwing dips, holes and bumps at their appendages that they couldn’t hope to avoid in the darkness. Even with care, they couldn’t help but stumble a few times as they marched forward in the penumbra. 

The travelers’ eyes eventually got used to the dark, although not enough to walk with any amount of confidence. A very faint glow seemed to emanate far ahead.

Their steps echoed around them, all three progressing in such silence that they could, in the short pauses they took on occasion, hear their own breathing reverberated from the walls. 

A low rumble could be heard, a windy hiss in the darkness, resembling the howl of a storm coming from miles away. Apparently there was another opening to the outside, pushing a steady current of air through the newly-opened doorway.

The light before them grew in intensity just in time for them to notice a chasm in the ground, a large circular hole eating a third of the width of the tunnel in front of them as it plunged straight down into depths unknown. It was as wide as the main passage, although off to the side so as not to pose an insurmountable obstacle. They stepped around it carefully, noticing a faint outline to the stones, a nearly-invisible shimmer coming from the depths. Whatever that light was, it was too distant to be seen or to affect their surroundings in any meaningful way. 

They decided to ignore it for the time being.

Soon, the glow ahead brightened, enough that they could avoid fumbling around so much. Enough to see an occasional red tint in the otherwise normal light.	

As the passage suddenly opened into a massive cavern after a bend in the tunnel, the travelers slowed down considerably, hoping to silence the sound of their steps. Slowly, inch by inch, the colossal space was revealed to them. 

It was easily wider than even Ponyville’s central square, even more so without the imposing town hall to obstruct the view. The bare stone walls rose up and inward, forming a dizzying canopy so high above that they would have had difficulty seeing it had it not been pierced by a single hole, a skylight illuminating the area. The opening far above was obscured by a single massive tarp, as large as any ship’s sail, lowering the light filtering through to a dim, colorless twilight. The tarp was held in place by large spikes driven into the solid stone ceiling. 

The floor was occupied by numerous things, all of whom were eerily large, as if the travelers had suddenly found themselves shrunk to the size of mice. There were tables littered with various oversized tools, utensils, unidentifiable scraps of metal and other objects they could barely see from their low point of view. Along the walls stood what appeared to be large steel plates, thin and regular, held together by massive rings; looking for all the world like gigantic steel books. Several of those were propped up against the walls, bearing draconic inscriptions on their faces.

In one corner of the room stood the stereotypical dragon’s dual-purpose hoard of gemstones, serving as both larder and bedding. Beyond the pile opened another tunnel, sloped downwards, in which could be seen row upon row of the book-like stacks of steel sheets lining both walls up to the ceiling.

The very center of the room was occupied by a tall and strange tower, a spire of curved brass tubes and angular crystals, of steel beams and copper wires, of cogs and pistons. Three conical crystals near the base rotated and rubbed against one another, their points joined in the middle as they slowly spun in opposite directions. The three crystals crackled sporadically, occasional arcs of electricity jumping between them as they ground against each other; emitting a low rumble that intensified every once in a while, rising to a teeth-rattling squeak that made the intruders shiver. The spinning crystals glowed faintly, their touching faces covered in runes similar to the ones seen on the lair’s entrance door. Wires ran from these crystals up into the rest of the machine, on top of which towered the largest crystal of the contraption. Held in place by a supporting ring of brass, as well as numerous copper spikes linked to wires and tubes, this crystal pulsated with a bright red glow at rhythmic intervals; each pulse engulfing the incredibly intricate maze of runes and glyphs carved all over its surface. A final, intimidating brass spike held aloft by a large curved arch of steel touched the upper tip of the crystal, its other point extending up towards the opening in the ceiling. 

Besides the travelers, no other living thing could be seen in the cavern.

There was no one home.

“What… is all of this?” Scootaloo’s question echoed softly, almost lost in the constant mechanical whirring of the machine.

“I’ve never seen anything like this.” was Rarity’s idle reply as she kept looking around.

Spike had moved towards the steel stacks on the wall. His voice made the two ponies turn when he began translating the words written on their covers. “’Advanced Runecarving Techniques, by Ahrkalzahn the Gold’; ‘Principles of Electrical Flow and Behavior, a Primer, by Narcissa the Black’; ‘Subtleties of the Forge, by Hephaestus the Red’; ‘Tasty Tools: a Guide of the Many Uses and flavors of Gems, Jewels and Crystals, by Paracelse the White’  …guys? Those are books. Dragon books!”

“And they all sound so… technical, too. I wonder what-“

“Hey! What’s that?” Scootaloo interrupted Rarity’s musings, pointing to yet another strange device. This one was much smaller, no taller than the average pony house. It stood about a dozen feet from the library-tunnel, near the gem hoard. A glass dome containing a large green flame sat atop a box from which stuck out a few wires and even another, smaller cluster of spinning crystals. The underside opened up to several cylinders stretching a length of thick, sturdy canvas, all housed within a simple unadorned frame. The cylinders served to both keep the fabric from loosening while at the same time spooling it in a complex yet compact manner.

Spike walked up to the device, immediately noticing that one side of the canvas was covered in yet more draconic writing, printed on the fabric. With some difficulty, he unfurled a length of the giant scroll and read from it.

“Mhhhn nuh nuh nuh, ‘from now on, all correspondence between members of the project is to be sent via this very flux stream, so that it may be automatically archived for clarity’s sake. If any of you have any questions about-‘”

“Wait, did you just say ‘archived’?” Rarity asked.

“And what the heck is a flux stream?" Scootaloo inquired.

“I think flux streams are the kinda magical pathway thingies dragons send their letters through. Older dragons are supposed to be able to just… decide where they send stuff to but… I don’t really know, I’m not there yet. Twilight always hated how ponies know next to nothing about dragons.”

“Spike, dear, did you say archived? As in, ‘record and collect everything that happened here’?”

The white mare’s repeated question tore the youngsters’ eyes away from each other, both turning to look at her for a moment before all three sets of eyes jumped to the array of scrolls before them. 

Spike scrambled to return to the top of the continuous page, cleared his throat, and began to read…