//------------------------------// // Chapter 07 – Luna’s Labyrinth // Story: Dreamscape // by Palomino Pone //------------------------------// Shaking off her strong sense of vertigo, Lucidity glanced forwards, only to find a monstrous fortress looming over her. The stone behemoth was a marvel in its own right, stretching higher than she could see and ornamented with seemingly infinitely intricate designs which only appeared to multiply and grow more complex the longer she gazed at the masterful masonry. Its façade was adorned with an enormous, breathtaking crescent moon gleaming with a brilliant, pearly white glow that shined as both a beacon and a challenge to all who laid their eyes upon it. Towers spiraled off the main body of the castle like branches shooting off a tree—beautiful, complex, and so natural that one would be tempted to think the stronghold had always had a place there amidst the otherwise-all-encompassing emptiness of Dream Limbo. Turning her head to the side, Lucidity noticed that her subconscious was also gawking at the majestic tower that had held her entranced for so long. Lucidity turned to face her conscious counterpart, the look on the former’s face saying what they were both feeling. “Wow,” Lucidity breathed appreciatively, looking back towards the castle before them. “Just, wow.” “Hey, how are you feeling?” her subconscious asked tentatively, wondering what had happened to all of the grey unicorn’s extra energy. “Well, the high’s definitely gone. Now I guess I just feel normal,” Lucidity replied softly, not wanting to disturb the tranquil sight they were both witnessing. “But…” the other mare pressed, trying to weasel more information out of her consciousness. “That’s about it, actually—just normal. My horn feels fully recovered though, so that’s good.” “Well, I guess we’ve found our ticket out of here, then,” her subconscious said, looking back towards Luna’s fortress. Glancing sidelong at her companion, Lucidity prompted, “Time to storm the castle, huh?” “I’m afraid so,” her double agreed. “Well, there’s no time like the present,” the blond-maned mare added, stalling as her nerves started to eat at her. “Then let’s go.” Lucidity trotted forward confidently, her consciousness trailing along considerably less so behind her. All of a sudden, the leader of the pair was stopped by an invisible barrier, smacking straight into it face-first. “Ow,” Lucidity muttered, rubbing her sore snout with a free hoof. “What is it?” “I’m not sure. I guess Luna must have put up a force field around this place to stop us from getting in. Do you think you can teleport us inside?” “I’ll try.” Shutting her eyes to better concentrate, Lucidity focused on the task set before her, feeling out the ley lines she would need to move both her and her subconscious through the barrier and into the fortress awaiting them. Opening her eyes again, the surprised unicorn remarked, “Well that’s odd.” “What is it?” “I can’t teleport us into the castle.” “Do you think this force field is magic proof?” “That’s the strange part: I can sense a way for us to move past this barrier, but it’s as if the castle itself is what’s blocking my magic.” “So just teleport us inside the barrier, then.” “No, that would be too easy; I think Luna expects us to try that. For all we know, she set up some magic sinkholes that will drag us Luna-knows-where the second I complete the spell. Besides, the other strange thing I noticed is that this force field doesn’t seem to have a top—my magic can’t penetrate the base but goes above the wall just fine. Based on the available destinations, it’s as if there’s an elaborate series of walls heading all the way back to the castle.” “So it’s some sort of maze?” “I think so, and I definitely don’t want to run the risk of teleporting us into the middle of one of the walls by mistake.” “Fair point. So where’s the entrance, then?” Lucidity shrugged noncommittally by way of reply. “I dunno; I couldn’t get a clear reading on where the walls were exactly, just that there were a lot of them going all over the place. I guess we’ll just have to follow this wall to find the starting point.” The two unicorns trotted alongside the invisible barrier, keeping one hoof on its surface as they went along. They walked and walked, the slowly shifting sight of Luna’s fortress serving as the only sign that they were making any progress whatsoever. Eventually, they came to a break in the seemingly impenetrable outer wall of the maze. Sighing in relief, Lucidity started to trot inside but was stopped by a grey hoof. “Wait. Before we go in there, we should probably go over what our strategy is going to be.” “What do you mean?” “Remember when we were five and you got lost in that corn maze at the county fair?” “Your point being?” “That now we’re a bit older, smarter, and not so easily moved to tears. We need to make sure that we can make it through this thing without getting hopelessly lost because there’s not going to be a security pegasus just waiting around that will be able to swoop in and rescue us this time.” “Fine. So what’s the plan, then?” “We need some way to track where we’ve been so that we don’t end up going around in circles for hours on end like last time.” “Well we don’t exactly have a bunch of breadcrumbs to scatter around,” Lucidity said pointedly. “No, we don’t. So I guess we’ll just have to think of some other way to get through this thing.” “What if this is some sort of labyrinth and the walls start moving around once we get inside?” “Hmm.” Lucidity thought about that for a moment before dismissing the notion with a shake of her head. “Nah. If that were the case, then I think we’d be screwed no matter what we did.” “Well, do you have any other concerns?” Lucidity stared at the invisible maze wall in front of her, putting a hoof to her chin as she studied its makeup, lost in thought. “I wonder if they’re reflective,” she said at length. “What do you mean? Wouldn’t we see ourselves in the walls if they were?” “No, I mean, I wonder if they’ll reflect magic. We could try bouncing some small spheres of magical energy against them to find our way through. Or maybe the walls will reflect magical light, allowing us to see where they are.” “I’m not sure I want to risk being found by Luna for a theory on what might help us.” “We’re two grey blips on a white radar, Lucidity. She probably spotted us a while ago—especially since we’re this close to her headquarters.” “Still,” Lucidity argued. “Better to be safe than sorry.” “Yeah, I guess… Hey, wait a second! I just thought of something.” “What?” “Have you ever heard of something called the right-hoof rule?” “Well I obviously must have at some point if you know what it is.” That comment got a smile out of Lucidity. “Yeah, I guess so. Well anyway, basically, as long as you keep your hoof touching the right-most wall of the maze and follow it along, you’ll eventually either wind up back at the start or at the finish. If we take different starting paths each time, we’re guaranteed to come across the exit eventually.” “So it’s kind of similar to what we did to find the entrance just now?” “Yep, pretty much. It’s a foalproof plan.” “Unless the maze isn’t solvable.” “Okay, barring that completely irrational option, the plan is totally foalproof.” “Or if there isn’t actually an exit.” “Again that makes absolutely no sense. Why would we even bother trying to solve the maze in the first place if that were the case? And besides, we’d still be brought back to the entrance, so it’s not like we’d end up lost inside of the maze or anything.” Not so easily deterred by the logic of her subconscious, Lucidity tried to find a different angle from which to poke a hole in their supposedly flawless plan. “Well, what if the walls do start moving around on us?” Lucidity sighed in defeat. “Then we abandon all pretense of an organized strategy and just run like Tartaurus through the maze at random until we find our way to the exit. Well, actually, if we don’t move at all, the maze might just bring us to the exit on its own, so that can be our backup plan. There, ready to go in now, Smarty Pants?” First taking a moment to muse over all of her other options, the blond-maned unicorn eventually responded, “Yes, but my name is Lucidity. I didn’t think that I’d have to tell you that, with you being my subconscious and everything.” She stuck her tongue out playfully at the other mare, whose only response was to roll her eyes and enter the invisible maze, her right hoof resting against the wall as she walked along. Lucidity watched her double go in with some apprehension, her newfound joking attitude quickly lost to the nervousness and fear constantly gnawing at her with every step she took. Several scenarios of just how horribly wrong this whole ordeal could go went running through her mind, and before long she found her muscles locking up, some irrational, fear-saturated part of her brain refusing to let her move any farther. When she still hadn’t followed her subconscious inside, Lucidity returned to where the petrified mare was still standing. “It’ll be okay, Lucy,” she crooned soothingly. “We can make it through this, you’ll see. Everything will be alright.” She held out her fetlock helpfully, encouraging the trepidatious unicorn to follow her deep into the heart of what was bound to be a dangerous and trying mission. Lucidity took the outstretched hoof hesitantly, staring deep into her subconscious’ confident, soulful eyes. Heeding her uplifting words, the grey unicorn took a deep breath and strode forward hoof in hoof with her subconscious. And on that note, Lucidity took her first steps into Luna’s labyrinth, worried for what was to come, but comforted by the presence of the one mare that she knew she could always and completely trust walking right beside her. “Thanks for helping me out back there,” Lucidity said gratefully, doing her best to adjust to the anxiety following her everywhere as they traversed Luna’s invisible maze. “I don’t know what came over me.” “Oh, it’s no problem,” her subconscious replied nonchalantly, keeping her focus split between following the wall her outstretched hoof was constantly feeling for and paying attention to what her consciousness was saying. “I totally understand. You were feeling a bit nervous at the prospect of entering this place, which Luna intentionally designed to prevent us from pursuing her. So that’s perfectly understandable. You’ve also been extremely confused and terrified throughout this entire experience, feeling like you’re completely out of your element even though this sort of thing is exactly what your special talent represents. You know that Luna is probably one of the only ponies out there that is more gifted at this than you are, and you’re scared to find out how she’ll react if you can’t meet her expectations. In addition, everything about this whole situation has left you unsure of where it’s safe to turn next, and that feeling of not knowing is what you fear most of all. The end result being that you’re almost too afraid to do anything but stand still anymore, in case you accidentally do something that will somehow make everything else that much worse.” Lucidity came to a stop, a dumbfounded expression on her face, as she realized just how eerily right her companion was. “How did you know all that?” “Hellooo!” Lucidity said, knocking on the surprised unicorn’s head for emphasis. “I’m your subconscious, remember? I know the reasoning behind all of your actions, even if you’re not aware of them.” They pair continued their trek through the series of transparent, winding corridors, one of them feeling much more relaxed and at ease now that her subconscious fears had been laid bare for her to view openly. “You know what’s strange,” Lucidity remarked a couple minutes later as her subconscious continued to lead her through the maze’s many invisible twists and turns. “What?” “Our shadows.” “What shadows?” Lucidity asked confusedly, glancing down at the all-white Dreamscape floor beneath them. “Exactly,” came the other mare’s quick rebuttal. “For some reason, nothing seems to have a shadow in here. There’s not even one directly underneath us. I mean, I guess a shadow would be weird in the sense that we’d have to wonder where the hay the light source was, but not having one is just as strange. Like, for example, if there’s no light in here, then how can we see anything?” Lucidity pondered that for a moment before inquiring, “What made you think about shadows in the first place?” “Well, I was thinking about how it might be easier to navigate this maze if we could see a little bit of the walls’ shadows. But then I noticed that, no matter which way we were facing, I couldn’t see any. So I was wondering if maybe they just didn’t cast a shadow for some reason, but then I noticed that I didn’t have one either, and then I mentioned it to you.” “Yeah, that would make it easier, all right. Then maybe we wouldn’t have to ram our heads into a wall every couple minutes. Oh, hold on a second,” Lucidity said suddenly, stopping abruptly as her hoof searched the area in front of her. “There’s a wall here. Looks like another T-intersection.” She made a right turn and continued following the path, a guiding hoof glued to the invisible structure beside her while Lucidity followed from close behind.