Chapter 5
Kl’Kai Education Hut, Village Island
The school-house was a rough-looking one-room building, round in shape with two sets of long low tables and benches in six rows angled to face a small wire-frame globe set on a pedestal with a crank on the right side. Two irregularly-shaped blackboards hung on the wall behind the globe, and the one on the left was covered in strange glyphs written in chalk. Wooden slates each painted with a different glyph lined the walls on either side of the room near the ceiling, and Twilight counted twenty-five of them as she walked between the tables toward the globe. Rainbow Dash stayed near the back and looked around, seeing a small table tucked into each corner. Twilight stood in front of the globe and probed it with her magic a few times to try and find a clue to its operation. She couldn’t feel any latent spells on it or links to distant locations, so she grabbed the crank in a telekinetic grip and turned it several times. Mechanisms inside the pedestal began clicking and a hazy image started to form inside the wireframe globe. The image quickly resolved into the head and shoulders of a canine figure with stubby round ears, a short but pointed muzzle, and intelligent-looking golden-brown eyes filled with a condescending sort of fondness. It began speaking in a surprisingly smooth tone, but its message was obscured both by the language being spoken and the quality of the recording, which flickered and skipped occasionally. “This must be Aldro,” Twilight said.
“Huh?” Rainbow Dash trotted over to her friend’s side and regarded the image as it paused in its speech to nod at both sets of tables. “Hmph,” the pegasus snorted, “Well it’s about time we learned something actually useful, but what is he saying? Nothing around here speaks or writes in Equestrian; how does Star Swirl expect us to get the job done if we can’t understand half the stuff we find?”
“That’s a good question,” Twilight said, frowning, “With his family on the line, you’d think he’d make sure to cover all his bases…” Aldro’s recorded speech finally ended and the image faded as Twilight turned away with a sigh, saying, “Well, I guess we’ll just have to…” She trailed off as she felt something shift in her saddlebag. She opened the flap and peered inside, and then smiled slightly as she levitated out a small book. “This is the journal Star Swirl gave us before we left,” she said, “I forgot all about it. Maybe this will have what we need in it.” She set the book down on the nearest table, opened it to the first page, and took a stance that told Rainbow that they’d likely be there for a while.
“And what should I do?” the pegasus muttered to herself. She started to wander out of the schoolhouse when something on one of the tables in the back corners caught her eye.
12th entry
Time is nearly run out for Sohndar, and if I were to leave my writing to enact the rescue mission the world would collapse around us far too quickly. I must entrust the rescue of Clover and Nyx to others, and hope that means can be arranged to save as many of the Sohndaren ponies as possible. Hopefully those who rescued me from my treacherous apprentices will be up to the task.
I should find a way to extract Aldro as well. Not even my worst enemy deserves to die in a collapsing reality.
13th entry
After much pondering over the puzzle of how to get Aldro out of Sohndar without placing myself and innumerable realities at risk, I have found a simple and effective solution: a Prison Book. During the brief time that Aldro and I collaborated with each other I came upon the basic formula for altering a Linking Book to trap the user between realities while we were searching through a ruined Kl’Kai settlement in some other world. I kept this find to myself, and even now I assume Aldro is unaware of the concept. As such, combined with his noted lack of skill in Writing Links, he should not notice any discrepancies in the text of a trapped Aitran book.
14th entry
I am nearly ready to send for Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash, but there are things I should include here first, for their benefit.
To you, Twilight: The ponies of Sohndar do not speak the same tongue as we do, which will make obtaining information from them nearly impossible, assuming any remain with enough backbone to converse with strangers. When Clover and I trapped Aldro there, he was beginning to instruct the locals in the ancient written language of his own kind, the Kl’Kai, and I do not doubt that he has continued to do so.
Princess Celestia has told me of your exceptional skill and power with magic, and so I trust you will be able to make use of the spell on the following page. When cast in the presence of a Sohndaren pony, it will grant you, and Rainbow Dash if you include her, the ability to understand the Sohndar language and to be understood in turn. Unfortunately, I don’t have a similar spell for translating Kl’Kai runes, so hopefully you can manage without.
Twilight’s gleeful reading of the spell was interrupted by a repetitive pattern of rattling and clicking sounds coming from near the schoolhouse door. Twilight looked up crossly to see Rainbow playing with something on a corner table. “What are you doing?” she asked.
“Just playing a game,” Dash replied, “come check it out.” Twilight came over, looking skeptical about the value of simple game. At first glance it seemed to be made all of wood and string. There was a round base with a carved sharp-toothed fish head on the right side, its mouth open and waiting for a small and very simple carved pony that was dangling from a string above it. A matching pony dangled above the left side of the base.
“What’s the point?” Twilight asked.
“The point is to not let your pony get eaten,” Rainbow said, putting a hoof on a small knob on the edge of the base near the fish head. “It’s a game of chance really, because you move the fish-thing like this,” she slid the knob to the left, which rotated part of the base until the fish was underneath the pony on the left, and something inside the base started to rattle as a panel on the front side of the base began to spin. After a few seconds the spinner slowed to a stop, displaying a square with a left-pointing arrow inside. “Depending on what shows up,” Rainbow explained as the pony on the left dropped by increments, “your pony gets closer to death by a certain amount. I think it’s about twenty drops or so in all before the fish bites down.”
“So, this is a number?” Twilight asked, pointing at the symbol. Rainbow nodded and Twilight gave it a closer look. “It looks familiar,” she mused, and then moved the fish to the right, watching the spinner as it zipped by too quickly to pick out individual symbols. It came to a stop on a square bifurcated by a vertical line. “Ah, that’s the symbol on the beetle eye!” she exclaimed giddily, dancing in place, “What’s its value?” She looked up at her dangling pony and frowned when it didn’t seem to be moving.
“One, I think,” Rainbow said, scratching her head. Twilight nodded and started to reach for the knob again, but the pegasus pushed her aside, protesting, “Hey, it’s my turn now.” She moved the fish and the spinner brought up a square with a plus sign inside. Twilight counted the increments under her breath as the left-side pony descended to its doom and came up with six. Twilight got a square cut in half horizontally and with a smaller rectangle in the bottom-right corner, which turned out to equal nine. Rainbow’s next spin produced a square with the rectangle but no horizontal line, which gave only four drops but put her pony dangerously close to the fish. “Dang it,” the pegasus said, “I have to get a one or I’m toast.”
“This is kind of a morbid game,” Twilight said, busying herself with drawing and labeling the numbers they’d learned, “What’s the purpose, giving colts and fillies the notion that there’s a monster fish that might eat them?”
“Discipline?” Rainbow suggested with a shrug, “You gonna take your turn or not?” Twilight quirked an eyebrow at her friend, and gave the game a half-hearted spin. The symbol that came up was a square divided by a horizontal line, and the pony figurine dropped five increments. Twilight made note of that while Rainbow took her turn and sighed at the inevitable as the fish bit down on her figurine and the game started to reset itself automatically. Twilight ignored her goading for another round and looked over the notes.
“Ok,” she mused, “each wooden eye has had a number on it, and an associated animal. Thus far we’ve found the one, the five, the…” She trailed off and her eyes widened as she noticed a pattern in the number symbols. She grabbed the game with her magic, turned the fish toward the right-side pony, and watched the spinner with anticipation, muttering, “Come on, come on...” Rainbow looked at her curiously, and then jumped back when the spinner stopped on a square with a curved line on the left side and a horizontal one through the middle, which made Twilight laugh in triumph and fix her gaze on the figurine. “One, two, three, four, five,” she counted, “and then another one, two, I’ve got it!”
“Got what?” Dash asked with trepidation.
“The number system,” Twilight said, eyes shining with glee at solving an academic mystery. She quickly added something to her notes and then slapped the page down onto the table to show to Rainbow. “I think it’s a Base 5 system nested inside a… Base 25,” she said, “There’s a symbol for the numbers one through four, and when you get to five, you just turn-”
“Twilight,” Rainbow interrupted, throwing up a hoof and taking a step away from the unicorn, “That’s great and all, but you can just translate any other numbers we come across, ok? I don’t really need to know the details.”
“Oh, ok,” Twilight said, disappointed, “Well, anyway, of the three wooden eyes we’ve found, the biggest number on them is five, so there should be at least two more, and I’d bet they’re clues to some sort of code.”
“Well then let’s go find them,” Rainbow said, heading for the door. Twilight nodded and packed her notes up before following. They stepped outside and walked down to the water’s edge and looked around. Rainbow pointed to a large wooden platform on the left between the opposite end of the lake and the elevated village and asked, “Can you get us there?”
“It shouldn’t be too difficult,” Twilight answered. She took a few seconds to study the platform and fix the image of it in her mind and then activated her horn and teleported herself and the pegasus, rematerializing in the center of the platform. Two bridges led off the platform, one heading toward a series of ladders leading up the cliff-side to the village and the other following the cliff in the opposite direction for a while before leading into a tunnel. With grumbling resignation, Rainbow nodded toward the tunnel and started walking. The wooden bridge continued for a short distance into the tunnel, as the lake extended inside as well and Twilight noticed a gap in the rock that seemed to lead out to the sea, but the ponies quickly came to a flight of steps leading up and then out onto yet another bridge near the top of a tiny box canyon. Halfway along the main path was a fork leading to a gate in the ridge on the left, and to the right of the bridge a conical watchtower sat well above head height. Rainbow cast a wary look up at the tower, but if it was occupied the pony within didn’t show himself. The pegasus stopped at the fork and considered both routes for a few moments.
“Any preferences?” she asked Twilight. Twilight shook her head. “Gimme the dagger then,” Rainbow said, holding a hoof out expectantly, “We’ll leave it to chance.”
“Ok,” Twilight said, floating the odd weapon out of her pack. Rather than give it to Rainbow, she set it down on the bridge at her friend’s feet and gave it a spin. The dagger wobbled a bit on the rounded slats that made up the bridge, but it completed several clean rotations before coming to a stop pointing to the gate. Twilight put the dagger away and approached the gate, which swung open easily when she pushed it. She started to walk through the gateway, but then stopped to take in the view with a slightly nonplussed expression. A set of metal stairs led over a narrow ravine, which glowed with an orange light of unknown origin, and down into an area that was lush with plant life compared to the desert-like areas the ponies had been traveling through. The ground looked dark and moist, supporting a number of trees, giant ferns, and some sort of bioluminescent blue fungus. What caught Twilight’s attention, however, was a stone tower of sorts almost directly ahead and which the path, now paved, passed through at the base, and on top was a metal dome that was rotating at a moderately fast pace. “I wonder what that is,” the unicorn wondered aloud.
“I could fly up for a closer look,” Rainbow suggested, managing to keep her tone mostly neutral.
“Not with that guard tower so close by,” Twilight, jerking her head back towards it, “Let’s see if we can find a way to walk up.”
“Fine,” Rainbow said grudgingly. She followed Twilight down the stairs and into the tunnel through the tower, which forked to the left and right. Hardly missing a step, Twilight chose the left tunnel. She rounded a curve in the path and stopped short with a startled squeak. The path ended at a cleared and flattened dirt area in front of a large tree with a spooky-looking and brightly painted wooden idol of the sharp-toothed fish-monster. “That must be one important monster,” Rainbow said, walking past Twilight to get a closer look, “Since we keep seeing it. Do you think it’s even real?”
“It probably is,” Twilight said, moving closer to inspect the area herself, “My question is what its connection is to Aldro in the minds of the locals?”
“If it were me in charge, and assuming I was that kind of pony, I’d probably try to make them think I could control the monster,” Rainbow said, walking to the side of the idol and looking closely at the jaw. “I think I see a gap between the rows of teeth,” she said, “It might be designed to open, but why?”
“Puppeteering perhaps?” Twilight guessed, “Aldro or somepony sits somewhere out of sight and makes the thing move.” She shrugged and looked around once more, seeing a metal catwalk partially hidden in the foliage overhead but no way to get up to it. “Let’s try the other way,” she said, heading back to the path. After emerging from the tunnel along the other fork, the path continued more or less straight to another short tunnel through a tree. Off right side of the path near the tree was a giant metal knife with a triangular blade and the strange circular handle matching the dagger Twilight carried. With unspoken agreement the two ponies stepped off the path to get a closer look. The giant blade’s impact seemed to have carved a divot into the earth, and at the end near the blade was another gilded wood ball, and a smaller dagger with a glowing crystal set into the hilt was stuck in the dirt nearby to illuminate the orb. Twilight spun the ball around to see the symbol: a square with a smaller rectangle in the bottom right corner. “This is number four then,” she said as she released the ball and started to bring out her notes, only to pause as the ball made an noise like a breathy honk as it spun back around and settled. Feeling a bit of déjà vu, she rolled the ball again and listened closer to the sound it made. “I swear I’ve heard this sound somewhere before,” she said, and looked at Rainbow and asked, “Do you see any animal figures around here?”
“Move back,” Dash said, and then looked the ditch over from several angles once Twilight was out of the way. “I’ve got nothing,” she concluded apologetically.
“Then I guess that sound’s supposed to be our clue” Twilight said, “and come to think of it, each one of these that we’ve found have made a different sound when they rolled back to show the eye. So, where have I heard this one before?”
“Don’t strain too hard Twilight,” Rainbow advised with a bit of cheekiness, “sometimes the answer doesn’t come until you relax and forget about it for a while.”
“Relax, yeah,” Twilight said, letting the tension out of her face, “You’re right. After all, we still don’t know what… Wait… That’s it!”
“What’s it?”
“Relaxing!” Twilight exclaimed, hopping out of the ditch and then around in a tight circle on the path, paper and pencil floating behind her, “Those seal-things down in the lagoon made that noise when I interrupted their relaxation time! They must be the creature linked to that ball.” She ceased bouncing and wrote down the note, and then read over the whole page. “Ok, we’ve got a beetle as number one, a frog for two, seal-thingy for four, and monster-fish-god for five. Unless there are more than five, we only need to find ball number three and its associated animal.”
“And the puzzle that it all goes to,” Rainbow pointed out wryly.
“Well of course,” Twilight said, packing everything away, “Let’s continue on then.” She led the way through the tree-tunnel and along the path, which shortly led to another set of stairs leading up to another wooden gate. Beyond it lay an area that had once been filled with trees, but was now nothing more than a field of wide and very low-cut stumps with branching paths meandering through. The path Twilight and Rainbow were on took them near the edge of a cliff, and off in the distance they could see the giant gold dome of the first island, and to the left was another island that seemed to be linked to the dome by a long bridge. “Once we’re done here, we’ll find our way to that island,” Twilight said, pointing to it.
“We’ll have to deal with that guard pony again you know,” Rainbow said, “and I wouldn’t be surprised if there were more on that other island. We can’t stay hidden forever.”
“True,” Twilight said, “But we’ll just have to cross that bridge when we come to it.” She grinned goofily, but quickly deflated when Rainbow face-hoofed and groaned loudly.
“Twilight… just don’t,” the pegasus said, shaking her head. She started to wander off toward a rope bridge at the end of one of the paths.
Somewhat downcast, Twilight wandered along the path closest to the cliff until it ended at an open, stone-lined rectangular hole in the ground. Just inside, sitting on tracks that seemed to lead into the island, was a mine cart large enough to seat two or three ponies. “Hey Rainbow,” she said, waving her friend over.
The pegasus trotted over, looked down at the cart, and then saw the smile forming on Twilight’s face and said, “No. Not a chance.”
“Come on,” Twilight said, “The last ball might be down there somewhere.”
“Then you can go look,” Rainbow retorted, “I’ll stand guard.”
“Two heads are better than one,” Twilight said, “I’d feel safer with company, and I’m pretty sure you would too. Please?” She put on her best “charming little filly” face and gave Dash the full force.
“Nnngh,” Rainbow said, wavering, “Ok, fine, but just a quick look around and then we come right back up.”
“Deal,” Twilight said, and then jumped down into the cart, pulled Rainbow in after her with magic, and then located and turned a handle on the wall near the front left corner of the cart, setting the ride in motion before the pegasus could have second thoughts. The cart started off gently enough and picked up speed gradually as the track sloped downward and curved to the right. After what Twilight figured was nearly a full one-eighty turn, the slope of the track grew steeper, the cart sped up, and they began passing through glowing orange rings spaced a foot or two apart which gave off an almost uncomfortable degree of heat. Rainbow opened her mouth to comment on the rings, but fell into dumbstruck silence as the cart suddenly left the rocky tunnel behind and began rolling through a tube of water, the orange rings still whipping by every other second. Tentatively, Twilight and Rainbow both reached out a hoof and poked at the side of the tube, pulling back before they passed the next ring and finding that their hooves were wet. After about half a minute, the track sloped up and then leveled off several feet above the sea and the cart rolled sedately toward a cave in the side of the third island.
“Twilight,” Rainbow said as they entered the cave and the cart turned left, “Did we just ride through the water without getting wet?”
“It would seem so,” Twilight said, astounded, “It’s like those rings were holding the sea back by heat alone.”
“How does that even work?” Rainbow asked as the cart came to a stop at the end of the track, next to a platform slightly above the cart.
“I don’t know,” Twilight said, “but if I get chance, I’ll-” Her sentence was cut off as the bottom suddenly fell out of the cart. The pair landed in a metal chute and slid down it, out through a hatch, and toward the mouth of a machine filled with deadly-looking blades.
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Evil. Just evil. You cliffed us at an amazing point.
This chapter was a bit short, but then, you have had writer's block. I forgive you, Vulpin.
Good thing the machine's not on... normally. Unless there's a guard waiting to start the wood-chipper...
Heehee. I felt exactly how Twi did when I realized the fish game could teach me the numeric system.
It was kind of funny, because even though I inferred the decimal rotation for the domes, I didn't make the connection that the horizontal line for 5-9 was rotating a 1 the other way for higher digits until after I completed the game, because nothing higher than 9 was ever actually relevant.
is always a long wait for each chapter, but ... man, the wait is worth it
excellent chapter
ARRG EPIC CLIFF HANGER AT MY FAVORITE ISLAND
771261 Except when you're trying to get into the fire marble domes, and you need to decipher Gehn's passcode. I remember noticing that the lines in 1 and 6, 2 and 7, etc. were the same, and that the horizontal line added 5, but I because 1 and 5 were just lines, I never made the connection that one was the other rotated. I'm sure if that if 1 had been, say, the symbol for 2, then I would've realized that there was a rotation, but a single line is simple enough that I didn't realize. Silly D'ni.
Also, NEW CHAPTER! I'd like to think that my encouraging comment last night brought this about, as this is the first new chapter in a month and a half, but either way, this is very exciting! When I saw the update symbol, and I realized that all of my other favourited stories were complete, I was like "Soooohndar!!!" I'm glad that our Little Ponies have made it to Crater/Boiler Island. I was excited to read the ponies' reactions to the mine cart tunnel, as travelling it for the first time is one of the most breath-taking moments of the game. I'm surprised that Twilight's not "Lesson Zero"-ing right now, but I'm sure she'll be glad when she finds out there's a rational explanation.
Keep up the good work!
PS: I'm curious as to how long Twilight's going to be trapped on the balcony before Rainbow finds the hidden doors. :)
771665
You're never trapped on the balcony because the man(pony?)hole covering the ladder down opens from the top.
Still, it took me an entire week to realize there were hidden doors in there. In hindsight, it was one of the only two places in the game I was completely stuck for more than an hour or two. Not my proudest moment
771740 Yeah, I didn't really mean trapped, but rather unable to move forward. At least if you were trapped, you'd know that you had to be able to do something there. If you're free, you don't know if there's something to solve, or if there's something that needs to be done or unlocked somewhere else first.
771740
GOD DAMN THOSE DOORS!!!
I decided to marathon Aitran just so I could read this... I was not dissapointed
(Best piece of myst fiction I've ever read)
Well time to start on this bad boy :3
Are they solving everything on first encounter? Star Swirl should be proud.
Yes, the biggest puzzle in Riven is... installing it, but I believe the third island still requires about three passes to reach the vehicle... that if tube navigation is physically possible.
Holy crap, things are heating up.
772560
The Steam version has an even more obscure "puzzle". You have to ctrl-alt-del into Task Manager every time you open the game and click off all but one CPU or it locks up every few minutes trying to multiprocess.
If you look closely at the video as you are going down the chute. You can see that the wood chipper is on at the time, but then the scene ends with your character standing on the chipper while it is off.
776815
Oh, is that why the game freezes? It bugs me, but I've never been bothered enough to search out the reason... Of course, I'm only playing it in short spurts lately so it's less of a problem
777820
BAM.
The Cyan guy suggested putting an /affinity call into the Launch Options to do it automatically, but it didn't take when I tried it and I just wound up doing it manually every time. You might want to go ahead and do it as a precaution, because when it was freezing on me it got to the point where it'd do it while saving and corrupt my file.
Hmm...still not too bad, but a piece of advice to consider for future chapters: Twilight and Rainbow have more options available to them when it comes to puzzle solving than the Stranger did. Instead of coming up with reasons why they can't use those options, why not have them "cheat" a bit? After all, this is a fanfic, not a walkthrough.
797108 But they do cheat. They cheat incessantly. That's what's so infuriating, is that Twilight can teleport, and even in Aitran, Dash could fly everywhere, and they could work on multiple problems at a time. Can you imagine what you could do in Myst games being in two places at once? Look at how fast the pentagon room went!
854598 The room rotations aren't really that difficult a puzzle, and their "cheating" didn't even cause them to deviate from the expected path of the Stranger in Riven. I would call that a shortcut, or a timesaver, but not cheating. Cheating would be magicking in new doors so that they could access all five paths without needing to rotate the room, or gaining the ability to access one of the paths that is blocked that isn't supposed to be open until much later in the game. As I said before, the parts of these stories that I enjoy most are the ones that DON'T have a counterpart in the actual games.
856215 I do agree with you there. The deviations are what separate this from an LP, and that's what gives life and flavour to a story.
Also, (sorry for double posting) I realize that you are probably very busy with the Order-naries stor(y/ies) considering how much attention they seem to be getting as of late. Do you know, however, when me might see the next chapter of Sohndar?
870767
It'll come when it comes.
872129 Alright, I'll take that. Thanks!
Yeah, I definitely felt grateful that the woodchipper was off. I get the sense Twi and Dash will be too.