//------------------------------// // 4: The Eye of Canis // Story: Daring Do and the Throne of Ouroboros // by Tolerance //------------------------------// Daring found herself speechless, but not because she was wowed by what she saw, as impressive as the machine occupying most of chamber's space was. The three canines who worked the machine had rushed to her and started asking so many questions, simultaneously, that the mare couldn't get a word in to answer them. Seemingly unperturbed by Daring's presence in their realm, the larger of the three started the rapid-fire questioning. "Oh! Please, little pony, tell me, what is your position on the rising number of ponies with a magic level of 7 Clauncy's and above. Surely the rapid increase in powerful archtypes is going to prove troublesome when negotiating with rival species, yes? Is it true that these archtype ponies possess the capabilities of all three pony classes, and if so, do they act as mediator between your different factions or are they merely tools of a ruling party as some form of strong-arm bargaining chip?" Next up was the only male of the group. "Speaking of rival species, what do you think your leaders intend to do about build ups on, what I assume is, the griffon borderlands. Is it due to the failed hostile invasion of one of your major cities a few years ago, or is due to some shift to their socio-economic paradigm?" Not to be outdone by her larger peers, the last dog fired off her questions even faster than the other two. "How about your own transit systems, what is the carrying capacity of your ground-based locomotive? Does it use the same energy source as your aerial transports? If the machines are powered by unicorn magic, is the energy filtered in any way?" The tirade was silenced a wave of Sahni's claw. "How do you expect the pegasus to answer such questions in such short order?" "Oh, of course, you are correct, Our apologies, little pony. It is rare that we get guests. We apologize for our outburst." "These three operate the system here." Sahni motioned towards the dogs in the order they spoke earlier. "This is Blissa. She's specializes in magical theory for the project. Ro here is in charge of analysis, and Pana deals with the mechanical operations of The Eye." "I'm Daring Do, I guess. I was just a bit surprised, is all. As for your questions," Daring pointed to Ro first, "The griffons empire is barely getting back on it's feet, and the only thing I know about the economics of that, would be that if anyone claims to know exactly what to do about the situation, economically, they're wrong." Then to Pana, "I'm not an engineer or a unicorn, sorry. I specialize more in ancient history." And finally to Blissa, "And I'm afraid I don't quite understand what it is you were asking." Obviously not getting any additional input to their queries, Ro and Pana turned to resume their work, ears lowered and spirits fallen. Daring felt a little bad about that. It wasn't like they were being jerks to her, after all. She'd have to make it up to them somehow. In the meantime, Blissa was attempting to rephrase her question. "Right, so. Do you know what a Clauncy level is?" "That is exactly where you lost me..." "Oh, my, yes. How thoughtless of me. Your terms must be different. How do you ponies measure the magical energy levels of everything?" The blank look on Daring's face prompted Aaron to move the conversation along. "I think it might be best if you start by showing Ms. Do what it is you three do down here. Their terminology might not be the only barrier to understanding." "As you wish, Lord Aaron. Right this way, Miss Do, was it?" "Just Daring is fine." "I think it will be best if I show you." Blissa said as she motioned for Daring to approach a platform that was suspended over an open area of the machine. "Pana, if you would, bring up the raw stream?" The machine stirred to life on all sides of the platform. Slender, almost invisible, geometric pillars began to rise from the floor and descend from the ceiling directly in front of the platform. Unlike the transparent sides of the crystalline structures, the ends were dulled, and when the rods met in the middle, a sphere was created from their collective ends. The pitch from the various components changed into an angry-sounding whir as dim lights began to dance upon the inverted spheres 'surface'. "What am I supposed to be looking at?" Daring asked as she watched the display. "Give it a minute to warm up. The Magical Targeting and Tracking Ecumenical Record, or what is sometimes called The Eye, takes a while before it is ready to display the entire spectrum." The tiny lights continued to dance upon the surface, each little light becoming more and more focused until individual pinpricks of light were visible in such a way that Daring might have mistaken them for stars in the night sky. Upon closer inspection, however, she could see that some of the brighter ones were moving, ever so slightly, across the surface. Taking in the larger picture, however, and a smile of both recognition and confusion spread over her face as her mind worked through the image she was looking at. "That- That's a map of the entire world! I mean, I'm not sure what the lights represent, but these clusters? This one's Canterlot, That one's Manehatten, and over here, this one's Cloudsdale! But how? I thought you guys never left your caves here? How did you get this?" "Now who's bombarding who with questions?" Sahni observed. "Every one of those lights represents a flow of magical energy." Aaron explained. "Ever since certain events a few hundred years ago, the energies that once flowed out of this world became circular. Trapped in a loop. This device taps into that loop and displays the various signatures that interact with them." "Quite right, Lord Aaron. It was the Great Clauncy that discovered how to read the energies when she discovered the basics of canis geomancy." "I remember you mentioning the word 'Clauncy' before. But wasn't there a number attached to it or something?" "Yes. The Clauncy scale is a classification methodology that we use to differentiate between different energy levels. Ro, if you would be so kind, can we get the rank 1 Clauncy bracket?" "One moment." was all Ro said before rotating some dials. The brighter dots disappeared from view as the greater multitude of lights came into focus. "The Clauncy scale is logarithmic in nature. Rank 1, what you see before you, is a representation of a the simplest forms of life. We used this to generate the basic structure of the world's features. Rank 2? " Blissa continued as Pana increased the scale once again, replacing the lights with a smaller number of brighter ones. "Rank 2 coincides with the non-sentient flora of the world. Ranks 3 through 6 represents everything from lower fauna to sapient creatures. Rank 7 is reserved for creatures of exceptional power." "Rank 7 is the one you were asking about right?" Daring asked. "Yes, only a few decades ago, your species only had one Rank 7 in their midst. Since then the number has grown to at least 5, with a few surges here and there. A worrying trend perhaps?" Daring looked at the displayed lights. Sure enough there were two in the region of Canterlot, one near the town of Ponyville, and two in the crystal empire. It made sense that they lined up with the Alicorn in those areas. Well, except for their being an extra one in the Crystal empire, anyway. She still didn't know why she was being shown such a device, and she didn't want to dwell too long on how creepy it was that the Canis had their eyes on everypony. And everygriffon, and everydragon... 'how long had they been doing this, anyway?' she thought to herself before speaking up. "Okay, so what does any of this have to do with me." "Ah, asking the important questions." Aaron answered. "There exists a rank above 7. Rank 8, "Aaron gestured as Ro tended to his dials once more, " I believe, is of far greater significance than any of the others presented here. I have no other means to make this as apparent as this: As far as we have observed, there is no Rank 9. Unlike the other ranks, however, nothing you see here is alive. Every item with 9 Clauncy's of power is a powerful artifact, and as I'm sure you know, they are very dangerous if left in the possession of dangerous people." The pegasus was a little taken aback. Not only could the machine locate every person on the planet, it could also point out every single artifact she had ever sought out. "I'm sure you recognize the significance of what you are looking at here, don't you Daring Do? To someone in your position, this is the literal Holy Grail." Daring wasn't sure what a Holy Grail was supposed to be, but this machine was, well, beyond words. It was... It was downright cheating! She didn't become an adventurer to just skip to the end! Researching, travelling, searching, discovering. All of it was important to her. "I can see that this information troubles you in some way. That isn't entirely unexpected, I suppose. And suffice it to say, that nothing you've learned here can leave this room." "T-then why..." "Please set the filter to show only items H dash 01 through 04, if you would, please." Soon only four dots appeared on the sphere. "What do you know of a major event that occurred six years ago? Specifically one involving the moon?" "You mean the return of Nightmare Moon? She was stopped by the Elements of Harmony almost as soon as she arrived. She turned out to be Celestia's sister who had been banished to the moon for a thousand years after she let evil control her. She's doing alright now though, why?" "Well, these four items were the keys to her release." "'Four stars will aid in her escape...'" Daring quoted the verse that everypony had learned since the event. "Yes. Before the event, all four ‘stars’ had been located in that region you called Canterlot a few moments ago. We believe that it was the original Rank 7 equine who used them at the time. Since then, the four items have fallen back down to Earth, scattered in just about every direction." "And now that they're here, you want my help finding them. Why should I help you do that if these things are so dangerous?" "I think you misunderstand Daring, we don't want you to find them for us, we have the machine for that. We want you to determine why they've started moving." "You mean-?" "Yes, someone, or something, has also been looking for the stars, and worse still, they've had some success in finding them.“