Sohndar

by CTVulpin

Chapter 10

Prison Island

As Rainbow Dash approached the small island, she realized she’d been had. It turned out to be little more than a giant rock poking out of the sea with a few small trees holding fast to cracks near the top. “What the hay?” she asked as she landed on the very peak of the rock and glared around, “That Whark Bait played me! I oughta…” She trailed off as she caught sight of something far out to sea, barely visible through the haze of distance. Rainbow squinted her eyes in an attempt to peer farther and made it out as a flat-topped island-like shape. She glanced back in the direction she’d come from and after tracing a mental line between her take-off point and the distant shape she realized the rock she was standing on stood more or less in between the two. “Oh,” she said, “maybe he wasn’t talking about this one after all.” Taking off again, she headed for the distant island. After several minutes of flying, she was able to make out details about the island. It was a small landmass, perhaps only a quarter the size of the Book Maker’s or Temple Island, and sat unusually low in the water compared to the veritable mesas the other four main islands appeared to be from a distance. Dirt and rock only accounted for about a third of the island’s overall height though; the remainder came from the gargantuan white tree trunk that covered the entire island, and on top of that was a round metal tower with what looked like a large anemometer on the roof. Just off the north side of the island, built on a barely submerged shelf of rock, sat the spinning dome, and a metal walkway led from it to a doorway at the base of the tree. Rainbow peered down it and saw an elevator a short ways in. She hovered in front of the doorway, glancing between it and the tower up above as she pondered. She was willing to bet anything that Clover was in the tower, but she wasn’t quite as sure she’d find a convenient window to talk through if she flew up from the outside. Of course, if she was going to encounter any trouble it would be by taking the route any normal, non-flying Sohndaren pony would take. “Piece of cake,” she said as she made her choice, flapping harder to gain altitude.

The prison tower sat in the center of the flat plane of the tree trunk’s top and was rather plain in appearance; just a simple cylindrical tube with a dome roof and a smaller shaft stuck onto the side for the elevator. Rainbow flew in an ascending spiral around the tower and found a recessed balcony near the top, closed in with iron bars. A unicorn mare with a light mahogany coat, a long blue-black mane tied into five thick braids laced with ribbons, and wearing a crimson dress that covered most of her body and obscured her cutie mark from sight was sitting in the alcove staring wistfully out at the horizon. At least, that’s what she had been doing before Rainbow Dash flew by and startled her. She bit back a yelp of shock and watched wide-eyed and the pegasus looped back around and came to a hovering stop on the other side of the bars.

“Hey,” Rainbow said, waving, “are you Clover?”

“Who are…” the mare stammered, eyes widening further as she took in the sight of the cyan, rainbow-maned pony, “Flying. And you are speaking Equestrian.” She came up to the bars and beckoned Rainbow closer, dropping her voice to a near whisper as she asked, “You are the one he sent, aren’t you? I knew Star Swirl had sent somepony, but I never expected he’d send a pegasus pony! How have you not been caught already?”

“I’m just too good for those lame-o guards Aldro’s got,” Rainbow said dismissively, “I didn’t come alone either, but my friend is a unicorn, so she’s working on finding another way to get here.”

“She’ll have to get past Aldro,” Clover said, “and that’s not something he’ll allow. Unless…” Her gaze dropped for a moment as she thought in silence.

“How tough is Aldro anyway?” Rainbow asked.

“He’s strong,” Clover whispered, “and crafty. He may even know you’re here already and is hoping to use you to escape Sohndar. He’s arrogant though, and not very open to ideas outside his own perception. You and your friend must make sure he’s out of the way before you make any attempts to free me. Find the Moiety; they can help.”

One of them took the stinking trap book, so they better be able to help, Rainbow thought to herself. To Clover, she asked, “How do I do that? Aren’t they all like sneaky and secretive and stuff?”

“Look for their signs,” Clover said, “They’ll know to let you contact them soon enough. I can’t say too much; Aldro has the room under constant watch. It may be best that you go now.”

“Right,” Rainbow said turning to leave, “Oh one last thing. Is your daughter, Nyx, with you?”

“Nyx is out of Aldro’s reach,” Clover answered, “You may get the chance to meet her, but don’t go looking.”

“Ok…” Rainbow said, “See you later, I hope.” She flew off a short distance, stopped to get her bearings, and then zoomed off back toward Temple Island. About halfway between the two islands, she came to a sudden stop and smacked herself on the forehead before turning back, having realized she’d forgotten to get the color symbol from the prison island’s dome. “Fat lot of good getting Clover out of her cage will be if we can’t get her off the island,” she muttered to herself, “Sorry to make you wait longer Twilight. Hope you and Whark Bait are ok without me.”

---

Elsewhere, Later

Twilight awoke in near darkness, and with an irritating pressure at the base of her horn. Moaning as she shifted into a more comfortable position and opened her eyes, she saw that she was in a small room carved out of the ubiquitous dull-colored rock that composed Sohndar’s crust, which was lit only by the faint moon- and starlight coming in through a small, barred window. “What?” she muttered, confused, “It’s night? When did… How did I get here?” She reached up a hoof to rub her horn and felt a tight metal band wrapped around its base, and suddenly she remembered.

After her shocked exclamation that Arcem was coming their way with reinforcements, Twilight had felt her bags being lifted off her back and whirled to see Whark Bait holding them in his mouth by the straps and turning to run off. She had cried out and demanded an explanation, but the robe-wearing earth pony had ignored her and disappeared around the curve in the path leading toward the rotating dome. Twilight had tried to make chase, but a blow from behind caused her to trip and fall to the ground, whereupon she was pinned down by an armored earth pony stallion. She had teleported herself free and galloped away, hoping to catch up to Whark Bait and possibly find a way to escape, only to find that direction suddenly blocked by a pair of guards who had used a section of the walkway overhead as an elevator down to her level. Whark Bait was nowhere in sight, and despite her best efforts it hadn’t taken long for Twilight to be subdued, forcibly fitted with a magic suppressor on her horn, and hauled off as she lost consciousness.

What happened to Whark Bait? Twilight wondered, standing up on her hooves and looking around. The cell she was in was tiny, just big enough for two ponies to fit and still have room to stretch, and she was the only thing in it. The back wall seemed to be constructed of irregularly shaped bricks, the door was thick, solid metal, and rest of the room was excavated rock as her first impression had told her. The view out the barred window wasn’t very good, but Twilight was able to make out the top of a conical, cage-like structure she vaguely recalled seeing from a distance in the village, and a metal catwalk leading to its crown directly from the cell door. She frowned up at the night sky and its unfamiliar stars and wondered, How long have I been out? And what happened to Rainbow Dash? She has to have been looking for me, but… She tapped her horn against the door a couple of times, looked wistfully up at the now useless appendage, and turned away with a sigh to lay down in the corner. There was nothing she could do now but wait.

Some time later, she was shaken out of a doze by the sound of her name being whispered from the other side of the door. It took her a moment after she approached the window to recognize Whark Bait standing outside. The gray-green stallion had lost his Surveyor robe somewhere and was sporting some mostly-healed wounds, including a triangular nick in his right ear, and had a cloth pouch slung across his back. “What are you doing here?” Twilight asked, feeling a bit suspicious now that she was facing the pony who had left her to the guards.

“I’m sorry it’s taken so long,” Whark Bait answered, “Getting up here without being noticed by the Maintainers is impossible during the day, and I had to move carefully so as not to arouse suspicion while I visited this island’s dome and made this.” He took the pouch off and dug into it for a second before pulling out a large folded piece of parchment and slipping it through the bars. Twilight took it and, with some difficulty, managed to unfold it in a bright patch of moonlight. A large grid of squares, numbering twenty-five in both dimensions, had been drawn on it and five of the squares had one of the Sohndaren color symbols drawn in them. “That’s the key to powering the Domes,” Whark Bait explained, “The machine is located on the top of the Golden Dome; there’s a way to make stairs leading up to it.”

“Well, that’s great,” Twilight said, “but it doesn’t do me a whole lot of good while I’m trapped in here!”

“Shhh,” Whark Bait warned, “I can’t let you out, but don’t worry. Rescue is on its way.” With that, he moved out of the window’s line of sight and Twilight heard his hooves moving away on a walkway of metal.

“Wait,” Twilight called after him desperately, “Don’t go yet! Where’s Rainbow Dash? Do you know what happened to her?” The Surveyor pony didn’t return, and Twilight sank to her rump in frustrated disappointment. She looked at the grid she’d been given again and examined it closer. “There’s a color and location marked for each island,” she mused, “Which means he knows the color for the fifth island, and that means Rainbow got back to him. He knew where I am, but he obviously didn’t inform Rainbow for some reason because she’d have rushed right over to break me out, and buck the risks.” She sighed and folded the parchment up, and then laid down on top of it in case a less friendly pony came by and looked in on her.

It was difficult to tell time in the dark, especially without knowing how long the nights lasted in this world, but Twilight guessed about half an hour went by before anything else happened. She heard stone sliding on stone behind her and turned to see a section of the back wall sliding away from her, revealing a space behind the jail cell. After the wall section came to rest, a very jittery-looking Rainbow Dash poked her head out of the hole and smiled with visible relief at the lavender unicorn. “C’mon Twi,” she whispered before Twilight could speak, “Let’s get you out of here quick.” She pulled her head back as Twilight got up, picked up the parchment in her mouth, and crawled through the hole and into a tunnel leading to the right. Rainbow wasn’t alone; a pony in a black cloak with a large red collar and a bug-eyed mask was standing next to the pegasus, and once Twilight was clear of the opening it pulled up a metal handle set in the floor that made the wall section slide back into place. It then reared up and undid the suppressor ring from Twilight’s horn and turned to walk down the tunnel.

“Uh, thank you,” Twilight said, transferring the parchment into the grip of her magic and following Rainbow’s example of following the masked pony, “Can I ask who you are?”

“They’re the Moiety,” Rainbow answered curtly, “They don’t like to talk much outside of certain places and they really like moving around these underground tunnels like… moles.” She shuddered, clearly fighting to control a bout of claustrophobia that was making nearly every hair stand on end and her wings to twitch ceaselessly. “Not like there’s much of a choice but to humor them,” she continued in a mutter, “Clover told me we have to work with them, and the guards are starting to figure out ways to force me out of the sky.” The Moiety pony cast a warning glance at Rainbow and she clammed up with reluctance. The trio walked down the gently sloping tunnel, which was illuminated by bright yellow crystals set on sticks in the wall every few feet, until they came to a stone door on the right side of a left-ways curve. The Moiety raised its mask enough to expose its mouth, grasped the metal ring set in the door, and started to slowly pull it open. After a moment, Twilight added her magical strength to the door and it quickly swung around to block the left path and reveal a new one leading right. The Moiety gave Twilight a thankful nod and then led out again. The tunnel shortly led into a wide, high dome of a cavern with a ring of stone slabs set upright in a ring around the center and decorative-looking channels carved into the wall. The Moiety pony gestured for Twilight and Rainbow to wait while it went back into the tunnel for a few moments to close the door. It then came back, went to sit at the far side of the cavern, and removed its mask, revealing its gender as a mare at last.

“Now we may speak more freely,” she said, “I am Materi, one of the Moiety, those who seek to depose the false god Aldro and save our people. We have been watching you with some interest since you first came to this world, but until just recently we were unsure of your motives.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Rainbow said impatiently, “Look, let’s cut to the chase so I can get out of these caves. Can we get that book you guys took from us back?”

“We will return it, yes,” Materi said, “But there are things you should be made aware of before you act. If you are uncomfortable here, we could go elsewhere.” She pointed to the ring of stones and elaborated, “If you can unlock the path to our true sanctum, we will speak there. Word is you’ve found the clues already.”

Twilight and Rainbow approached the ring of stones and looked them over. On the inward-facing side of each slab was the image of an animal in black paint, each one different, and Twilight noticed the stones were set into grooves with some space to wiggle. “The wooden eyes,” Twilight said, “each one had an associated animal.”

“Yeah,” Rainbow said, pointing, “There’s the frog you couldn’t see in the cliffside. There’s the beetle in the pool of water, the whark, aaaand… The duck-billed seal thing!”

“There were five though,” Twilight said, “We never got a chance to figure out where the ball we found in Aldro’s workshop originally came from. On top of that, I lost my notes; how am I supposed to remember the numbers for each animal?”

“Ah c’mon Twi, you’re smarter than that,” Rainbow said, “Just concentrate. And hurry please.” Twilight looked askance at the pegasus, and then sighed and tried to focus her thoughts. She thought back to each ball, trying to recall as many details about the location, the conversations she and Dash had had over them, and the balls themselves. “Invisible frog was… the D shape. Two. The Whark was in the little lagoon… Just a line. Five or one. The beetle… that was one. Number four we had to guess by just the sound… But I still can’t guess what number three would be!” She stomped in frustration and gave Rainbow an apologetic look.

Rainbow grumbled and flared her wings out, and then stalked toward the stone with the beetle picture on it. “I’m not giving up that easily,” she said, “We know four of the right choices, so we’ll just have to keep guessing until we get it right.” She pressed down on the slab, which slid easily into its groove and clicked into place, and then went and did the same to the frog image. She paused for a moment, looking around, and then selected the slab with a picture of a triangular-shaped fish on it, and then finished up with the long-neck seal thing and the whark. When the last stone clicked into place, the texture of light in the room changed and water began flowing along the channels carved into the wall, defying gravity to stay on the carved pathways and surround a section of wall behind Materi. That section slid up and a shelf bearing an open book moved out. Twilight and Rainbow shared a surprised look, and then Twilight rolled her eyes.

“Your crazy luck strikes again,” she said good-naturedly.

“It’s a gift I guess,” Rainbow said, trying to put an air of nonchalance through her claustrophobic twitches.

“Well done,” Materi said, turning around to face the book, “I will go on ahead and announce your arrival.” She replaced her mask, and then touched the book and vanished. Rainbow rushed over to the shelf and regarded the book. A square piece of transparent crystal sat on top of the page bearing the moving rotating image of a giant lumpy sphere made of what looked like cement held up by a similarly colored tree on a small island in the middle of a lake under a starry night sky.

“What’s this supposed to do?” the pegasus wondered, nudging the crystal with her hoof. Twilight came over and, after looking it over, levitated the crystal off the page. The linking image went dark. Twilight quickly replaced the crystal and, to her and Rainbow’s relief, the image returned in full detail and motion. “Ok, let’s go,” Rainbow said, all but slamming her hoof onto the crystal and activating the link panel. Twilight waited a few seconds to give Dash time to move away from the materialization point on the other end before touching the panel herself and vanishing into the temporary darkness between worlds.

Comments

[SciGuy]

Small typo at the end - you wrote "Dahs" instead of "Dash". Great chapter, though. Doesn't seem to be much longer to go...

[reader238]

i bet twilight is jealous that she coudnt meet clover the clever

[Leo Archon]

1608649 Vulpin has said in previous chapters that this isn't Clover the Clever, but rather another unicorn with the name Clover.

[Dr. Blackgaard]

Oh how I love the animation for the water pulling away from the Tay book. It's one of the best animations in the whole game, along with the Survey Island elevator. It wasn't until I watched an LP of Riven that I understood it was water moving away, however.

[reader238]

1609674 oh yea oops

[Borg]

1609674 Clover the Stupid, then? Not a very catchy name.