Chapter 5
Derpy Hooves trotted into the Ashville town limits and looked at her surroundings in awe. She had seen Ashville from a distance while flying towards the Divide. It had been impressive then, and it was still impressive now.
Unlike Hopeton, which was little more than a collection of ruined buildings, Ashville was a properly built town; in fact, Derpy might have mistaken it for Ponyville if it weren’t for the shingled roofs and the canyon wall visible at the far end of the town. The streets were paved with asphalt in the Manehattan fashion, and the town was surrounded by a large concrete wall. (Graham explained that the wall was a more recent addition, one that had proved to be necessary after repeated encounters with Retslaf and his Hopeton ponies.)
But what Derpy noticed more than anything was the pony inhabitants themselves. All of them, every single one, were without a cutie mark. She had not yet asked Graham about this yet, deciding to hold off until Bishop Hoof and the rest of his party had parted, figuring that there was a chance that such talk would offend the nephites.
Most of the nephites were earth ponies. There were possibly two or three pegasi that she could see, as for unicorns, Derpy didn’t see...
Derpy’s line of thought dropped off as a unicorn mare stumbled around the corner, tripping and falling face first into the street. She was levitating a glass bottle above her, and somehow the shock of falling did not break her magical hold on it. This unicorn was clearly not a nephite, because she had a cutie mark, a magic wand sprinkling pixie dust. Her azure coat stood out among the mostly earth toned earth ponies, as did her silvery mane. She picked herself up and took a sip from the glass bottle.
“Trixie...! Is okay!” she announced, hiccupping slightly, and continuing to stumble onwards. She trotted close, noticing Derpy’s cutie mark and stopped to gawk at it. She smelled of alcohol, and it was not surprising, considering that the glass bottle that she was holding was a whiskey bottle. “Hey...! Trixie... doesn’t think... that Trixie...”
Trixie stopped mid sentence to take another swig from her whiskey bottle before continuing. “You... are not... a moron!”
Were this Ponyville, Derpy would have likely taken that as a complement, however, as this was Ashville. Derpy knew that Trixie was referring to the fact that she wasn’t a nephite. The nephites of Bishop Hoof’s party were all groaning loudly.
“Not this again,” one of them said.
“Didn’t we take the alcohol away from her?” another one asked.
“She must have more hidden all around town!” another one exclaimed.
Trixie either didn’t hear the other ponies, or didn’t care; instead she just took another swig from the bottle.
“Trixie...” Bishop Hoof began. “How much alcohol have you drunk?”
Trixie seemed to be thinking hard about the answer to that question, she stood silently for a moment before giving her answer. “Six... hold on,” she said, tilting her head back and emptying the bottle, tossing it over her shoulder haphazardly where it smashed on the side of a building. “Make that... SEVEN! Bottles...”
“Today?” Hoof asked.
“In the last...” Trixie said, being interrupted by a hiccup. “In the last... half hour!”
“Trixie...” Graham Cracker said as he approached.
Trixie let out a scream of terror. “It’s a mummy!” she said and turned to run, not making it a single step before collapsing on the ground, having tripped over an invisible turtle. (As Trixie would later claim as the cause.) Graham Cracker picked her up and placed her on his back. He grimaced slightly in pain as pressure was applied to a place where he had been burned at, and began to trot.
“You need to be put to bed, Trixie...” Graham said simply. “Come along Derpy, I will show you around town after I take her home.”
“Help! Trixie is being... ponynapped!” Trixie called out, but was far too drunk to put up anything that even mildly resembled resistance.
“Who is she...?” Derpy asked. “She looks familiar...”
“Then you might be able to tell more than I,” Graham Cracker said. “One of our trade caravans found her around Appleoosa, lying in the desert, alone, with only saddlebags filled with some sixty bottles of whiskey, and no water, they took pity on her and brought her back here. One of the tenants of our faith is abstinence from alcohol, but as she is not a nephite, we decided we would not force her to conform to our beliefs... we eventually discovered that that had been a mistake. Such manner of tomfoolery that you have just witnessed is a regular occurrence, and she has gotten into a lot of trouble because of it.”
Derpy blinked, processing the information, and then she remembered. Trixie had been the name of the unicorn magician that had visited Ponyville last year, made an arse of herself, and then run off leaving a giant mess that required Twilight Sparkle to clean it up.
“But...” Derpy began, pausing slightly to look at Trixie again; Trixie had long since passed out, and dangled limply over Graham’s flanks. “With the rate of consumption, shouldn’t she have run out by now?”
“One would think, one would hope,” Graham Cracker said. “However, despite the scene that you have just witnessed, Trixie is actually quite a bright young mare. She has learned how to make more... and has, there is no telling how many bottles of whiskey she has made and hidden all around Ashville... Though, best estimates place it at somewhere in the range of eighty decalitres.”
Derpy’s mouth fell wide open.
“Our thoughts exactly,” Graham Cracker said, smiling with his eyes at her. The two ponies entered Trixie’s home, which too, smelled strongly of alcohol, and placed her in bed.
“Is she going to be okay?” Derpy asked.
Graham looked at her and shrugged. “In the short term? Probably. Though, at the rate that she consumes, I’m somewhat surprised she hasn’t had her liver fail yet.”
...
Rainbow Dash and Twilight Sparkle had found another way into the canyon. A long dark, system of tunnels carried them along inside the cliffs of the Divide, with only the light of Twilight’s horn to guide them; they couldn’t help but feel as if they were on a snipe hunt of their own.
“Don’t suppose you’ve read much on the Divide, eh egghead?” Rainbow Dash asked hopefully.
“Not really?” Twilight said apologetically. “There aren’t that many books on it in my Library. Honestly Dash, you’re the expert on the Divide when it comes to us.”
“I don’t know anything either!” Rainbow Dash called out. “Just that weather is freaky here!”
“Exactly,” Twilight said.
The two mares found themselves nearly running into the stone wall, as the passageway of the cave that they were exploring turned sharply to the right with no warning. They stopped to get their bearings for a moment, and then continued on their way.
Twilight found herself glancing around, examining the stone walls closely, and at the same time, taking light away from Rainbow Dash, who would then start complaining loudly. After the fourth such instance, Rainbow Dash had had it.
“Twilight Sparkle!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed. “What is so interesting about the cave wall that you have to keep looking at it?!”
Twilight glanced at the wall and then back to Rainbow Dash, she didn’t answer right away, and instead she continued to study the cave wall again for about thirty seconds more, Rainbow Dash waiting impatiently to get an answer.
“Something isn’t right about this cave...” Twilight said. “Look at the walls!”
Rainbow Dash looked at the walls, nothing jumped out at her. “I’m looking at the walls... and you know what I see?”
“What?” Twilight asked. “What do you see?”
“Walls,” Rainbow Dash said flatly. “Clearly you’ve made some brilliant deduction, nerd, so how about you fill me in?!”
Twilight glanced at Rainbow Dash with annoyance. “I do hope you know, that’s costing you snuggle time!” she said. “Anyway... the walls are far too smooth to be a natural formation so that means...”
“So that means?” Rainbow Dash asked. “Don’t keep me in suspense here.”
Twilight gave up on getting Rainbow Dash to come up with it on her own. “That somepony dug this,” Twilight said simply.
“Awesome,” Rainbow Dash said, clearly not seeing the significance. “Good for them! What does it mean for us?”
“Well... I’m not sure, I mean the last time I saw something like this...” Twilight’s voice began to trail off, and a look of horror began to form on her face. Without another word, she took off running, galloping at full speed down the tunnel, hoping to Celestia that she was wrong.
“Twilight!” Rainbow Dash called out, going off after her.
Twilight rounded several more twists and turns before finally reaching the end and skidding to a stop. Rainbow Dash quickly found herself crashing into the back of her.
The two of them looked up at what they saw. It was a door. A big, metal door in the shape of a gear, painted on the front of the door in big white letters “HVMB.”
“Oh no,” Twilight said quietly. This discovery changed everything.