Chapter 8
Survey Island
As Rainbow Dash approached the island, she flew high to see as much has she could of it in a few quick glances. Like the other islands, it was a massive blocky mesa rising from the water, shaped like a capital L that Rainbow and the grav-car track from the previous island approached from the “top”. The shorter horizontal part of the L stood at a much higher elevation than the vertical part and seemed to be hollow and open to the sky. The lower part of the island was covered by two shallow pools of water divided by a jagged sloped path that stretched from the end of the island to the cliff. In the pools were five sculpted islands of various sizes and shapes, although all of them were flat-topped and perforated with holes in a regular grid. The grav-car tracks led into a docking station carved into the end of the island, with a set of stairs leading out and up to the surface. Rainbow couldn’t see any ponies moving around, and so she landed in the station and waited for Twilight to arrive. There was another door in the back of the station on the opposite side of the depression where the grav-car would come to rest from the stairs leading up. Twilight’s transportation came in shortly, and as the lavender unicorn stepped out Dash noted that she’d removed her cloak, clearly accepting that remaining low-profile was impossible since Arcem had gotten away.
“I didn’t see anything suspicious on my way in,” Rainbow said, “but I want to give the surface a closer look.”
“Well, there’s a good chance Arcem’s goal is toward the heart to the island,” Twilight said, nodding at the closed door. She held up a hoof to forestall Rainbow’s complaint about going underground and said, “I’m willing to risk splitting up for a short while, to save time. You look over the surface and I’ll go a short way into the caves and then we’ll meet back here to plan out next move.”
“Sounds good to me,” Rainbow said, relief and gratitude clear on her face.
“Just be careful, ok?” Twilight said, “Try not to fight Arcem directly if you spot him, and if you see anyone else try to be friendly.” Rainbow saluted smartly and flew out of the cavern, looping up and around to zip quickly across the surface toward the higher portion of the island. The jagged rift between the two pools continued as a cleft reaching three-quarters of the way to the top of the cliff, in which an elevator had been installed. At the top was a small balcony overlooking the pools, and there was a panel on the railing covered in five gold buttons of various sizes and shapes that fit together in a perfect square. Rainbow looked at it with curiosity, and then out at the islands in the pools. They were spaced out and none of them were smooth-sided, but Rainbow could easily imagine them all squeezing together into a single, roughly square landmass. “Is this a map?” she wondered, glancing back down at the panel, “and what dos this do?” She pressed the largest button, and water began to rise out of the top of the largest island model, defying physics to form a lumpy mound on top of the sculpture. Rainbow pressed another button and the water receded from the first island while rising out of the one matching the second button. “Weird,” Rainbow said with conclusive dismissal and turned around. Across the elevator shaft was a metal walkway leading through the cliff and into the crater lake contained inside. The walkway split in front of a large structure that reminded Dash a squat mushroom floating in a giant inner tube, heading mostly straight to the left to a spinning metal dome and curving around to the right to some point behind the metal mushroom, and a set of stairs led up into the mushroom itself.
Rainbow started up the stairs, but as she set her hoof on the first step, she heard a faint noise echoing from the back side of the basin. She took a quick glance inside the structure and declared the machine she saw inside something more worth Twilight’s attention, and then took flight to investigate the repetitive sound, heading up and over the metal mushroom. The walkway ended suddenly, far from both the surrounding cliffs and the metal structure. The sound Rainbow heard was from a grey-green earth pony with a sand-colored mane and a white robe kicking at the post of a surveying telescope so that it was bent out of alignment. “Hey,” Rainbow said in as innocent a tone as she could as she flew closer to the pony, “what are you doing?” The pony jumped in fright, looked up at the flying cyan pegasus, and let out a shriek as he jumped back and flipped over the railing into the water. “Oops, sorry about that,” Rainbow said embarrassedly, perching on the rail and extending a hoof, “Need a hoof up?” The earth pony paddled away in a loud panic. Rainbow sighed and face-hoofed. “I’m not what you think I am, promise,” she said with some irritation, and then noticed a shadow rising from the depths of the lake, quickly growing larger as it moved beneath the pony. “Watch out!” Rainbow cried as she dived and grabbed the swimming pony, hauling him up into the air seconds before a monstrous humpbacked fish with sharp gnashing teeth and large tusks jutting out from either side of its head broke the surface, mouth gaping as it tried to grab the ponies out of the air but falling short. It crashed back into the lake and stared up at Rainbow and her passenger for a moment, before vanishing back into the depths. Rainbow continued to hover for a moment more and then finally came down for a landing at the junction of walkways, quivering with adrenaline.
“You… you saved my life?” the robed pony asked, incredulous.
“Duh,” Rainbow said, “It was kinda my fault you fell in in the first place, so what else should I have done? What was that thing anyway?”
“Whark,” the pony answered, “Aldro keeps one of the wharks in this lake. I never dared ask why…” He shook his head and looked at Rainbow Dash with new eyes, full of admiration. “Whatever you are, flying one, my life is yours to do with as you please,” he said, bowing deeply, “Use me gently, if it’s not too much to ask.”
“Wha?” Rainbow said, “Hey, no need to be so dramatic about it! I just did what I had to; you don’t owe me anything.”
“I do!” the pony insisted, “You’ve shown me mercy I never expected. When one of the Maintainers came through here, stripped of weapons and half his armor, he was yelling about demons and servants of Aldro’s Enemy who would destroy any pony they came upon. He ordered the island evacuated, but only after somepony – me – was volunteered to try and sabotage their ability to reach Aldro’s new world.” Rainbow cast a glance in the direction of the bent telescope and then gave the pony a questioning look. “You proved him wrong though,” he continued, “You saved me from becoming whark food. I have to repay you somehow. Just name it.”
“Hm,” Rainbow said, thinking, “Well, you definitely have a better attitude than Arcem. Heh heh heh. Ok then Whark Bait, tell me what you do on this island.”
“W-whark Bait?”
Dash laughed and gave the pony a few pats on the head. “Yep, that’s what I’m gonna call you. Got a problem with that?”
“No,” Whark Bait said, eyes going wide with fear of displeasing the pegasus, “Uh, ok, what I do. This is the island of the Surveyors Guild, tasked by Aldro with studying and documenting the shifts that the world undergoes and keeping the Builders Guild aware of changes that need to be made to the routes between the islands.” He nodded at the path leading back out to the lower plateau and said, “Out there is the main map of the five islands of Sohndar, and they’re connected to the grid viewer there,” he pointed to the metal mushroom, “for more detailed views of the topography.”
“Ok,” Rainbow said, “I guess Twilight could find that useful, somehow. What about those spinning domes? What does messing up that telescope thing have to do with them?”
“So, you are trying to get to Aldro’s new world?” Whark Bait asked.
“I think so,” Rainbow mused, “Our mission is to find and rescue Star Swirl’s wife and daughter, and apparently they’re being held on the one island that isn’t accessible by normal means.”
“The prison island, yes,” the Surveyor said, smiling, “The only other island it’s close to is Temple Island, and there are no bridges or grav-car tracks to it. You’d have to pass through the new world and come out into the right power-dome to get there. A-actually, you could just fly there, I’m sure…”
“That won’t do Twilight any good,” Rainbow said, “she can’t fly like me. We have some business with Aldro as well anyway.”
“Oh, I see,” Whark Bait said, “The domes are locked though, and the Maintainers are likely to turn off the central power now, in order to stop you.”
Rainbow snorted with a confident smirk on her face. “If it can be turned off, we can just turn it back on again,” she said, “Where is the central power switch?”
“On Temple Island,” Whark Bait answered, “the Golden Dome there essentially is the power generator for the other domes. Turning the power on once it’s turned off isn’t that simple though. It’s a complex procedure that only Aldro and those who trusted with the secret know. Figuring it out without prior knowledge of the elements involved is probably close to impossible.”
Rainbow deflated slightly. “That’s not what I wanted to hear,” she said, “I mean, Twilight’s real smart, but we’re still figuring things out as we go.”
“Do not despair flying one,” Whark Bait said, “The trick to restoring power to the domes lies in the geography of the world, and nopony knows that better than the Surveyors Guild.”
Dash grinned broadly and drew the pony to her side with a foreleg. “Whark Bait, “she said, “you and I are going to be great friends. The name’s Rainbow Dash.”
When Rainbow flew out to investigate the island’s surface, Twilight leaped across the depression in the middle of the grav-car station and headed for the door to the interior. The door was a simple slab of the same gray rock that made up the walls with a latch on the right side, but it opened into a short, wood-paneled hallway that ended in an ornate five-sided shaft illuminated with golden light and that seemed to be filled with water up to a foot below the hallway floor. Thick chains hung down into the water in four corners of the room, and a lever sat conspicuously near the edge. Twilight pulled it back and the chains began to lower with winching sound. After a moment, a fancy-looking booth with a peaked roof and covered with gold leaf on every inch rose out of the water, rotating around until it came to rest with a small glass window facing Twilight, and then the entire side lowered down into bridge to allow entrance. Twilight stared in astounded silence at the opulence of it for several seconds, and then shrugged and walked inside. “This better be worth it,” she said as she hit the only button inside the booth and waited. The wall rose back into place and then the elevator descended, rotating slowly as it sank beneath the surface of the water and then quickly broke back into open air. Twilight’s eyebrow went up, glad that she wasn’t going to get wet but confused because the shaft didn’t feel particularly warm. The booth rotated a full hundred-eighty degrees by the time it came to rest in front of a short passageway made of glass and metal leading into another tunnel through the rock. It took a few seconds for the elevator to open up again, and as it did so Twilight heard voices coming from farther ahead. She trotted forward into what looked to be a naturally occurring and winding crack in the rock with a smooth concrete path built into it and saw a pony in a hooded white robe running through a doorway on the left, followed closely by Arcem.
The guard pony staggered slightly in surprise upon seeing Twilight and gave the robed pony a rough push, barking, “Hurry! The sorceress is here!”
“Arcem, hold it!” Twilight shouted, firing a stun spell as she galloped forward. Arcem dodged the spell by ducking into the doorway and threw up a force field across it before Twilight could reach him. The lavender unicorn stopped just before colliding with the barrier and met Arcem’s glare through it. Behind him, a grav-car was settling into place as the robed pony glanced fearfully in Twilight’s direction. “Look, Arcem,” Twilight said, “I know we got off on the wrong hoof, but-”
“Stow it,” Arcem spat, “There is nothing you can say that will make me betray the great Aldro. If you wish to continue your quest, you’ll do so knowing I have personally seen to the removal of any pony on this island who could let slip the knowledge you need, and wherever you go the Maintainer’s Guild will be standing in your way. The only way you’ll see the Deceiver’s mare now is when Aldro locks you away with her. Assuming he deigns to do that rather than feed you to the wharks. Good-bye.” He turned around smartly and joined the other pony in the grav-car, which turned around and flew off before the barrier faded.
“Great,” Twilight muttered, turning away and heading back to the elevator, “Nothing to do now but warn Rainbow Dash about this…” She rode the elevator back up and returned to the first grav-car station. She sat down to wait for Rainbow to return from her scouting, but several minutes went by with no sign of the pegasus. “Darn it,” Twilight said, leaping across the depression and heading for the stairs to the surface, “She better not have gotten herself into trouble.” As she walked along the path between the model islands, she paid them only passing glances as she focused on locating Rainbow.
She took the elevator up and trotted through to the crater lake, taking in the metal mushroom-like structure with slightly bemused curiosity until she heard the sound of hooves striking metal, followed a moment later by a stallion’s voice saying, “That’s a little better, but still too left-ish.” Following the walkway around to the right, she came upon the scene of Rainbow Dash delivering a flying buck to the pole of a surveying telescope while a white-robed earth pony stallion gave directions. Twilight cleared her throat, making the robed pony flinch and whip his head around to look at her. Rainbow smiled and waved Twilight over.
“Hey Twi,” she said, “Nice of you to show up. Whark Bait, this is Twilight Sparkle. Twilight, meet Whark Bait. He’s going to help us get into the domes.”
“Whark Bait?” Twilight asked, raising an eyebrow, “Is that really your name?”
“No,” the Surveyor said, “but Ms. Rainbow is amused by calling me that, and since she did save my life I won’t hold it against her. If you are a friend of hers, I am glad to be of service.”
“Uh huh,” Twilight said without conviction, “Rainbow, can I speak with you for a moment, alone?” Rainbow nodded and followed Twilight to the front side of the metal structure. “Are you sure we can trust him?” the unicorn asked in a low tone.
“Pretty sure, yeah,” Rainbow answered, “He’s answered every question I’ve given him so far without even hesitating.”
“Doesn’t that strike you as odd?” Twilight asked, “I mean, no offense, but you’re a freak of nature in this world. Arcem was nearly scared out of his wits after seeing you fly, so why is this ‘Whark Bait’ guy cool with it?”
“Oh, he was plenty spooked at first,” Rainbow said lightly, “but after I saved him from becoming monster fish food at the last second he warmed up real quick. Why do you have a problem with him? I thought you’d be jumping for joy at finding a pony willing to help us out.”
“I ran into Arcem down below,” Twilight explained, “He got away, but before he left he told me he’d evacuated everypony he thought we could trick or fool into helping us. I figured that meant the island was abandoned, but then I come up here looking for you and find that there’s another pony with you…”
“Huh,” Rainbow said, hanging her head slightly as she thought, “Whark Bait was in the middle of messing up that telescope so we couldn’t use it, but that was before I saved him from certain death. I’m confident he’s had a change of priorities now.” She flew up next to Twilight and threw a leg around her shoulders in a coaxing manner. “Give him a chance Twi,” she said, “What’s the worst that could happen?”
“Fine,” Twilight sighed, “I’ll trust your judgment Dash.” They went back to the end of the walkway and Twilight wrapped the telescope in her magic as she looked at Whark Bait. “What, exactly, are you trying to do with this?” she asked.
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Eeee, it updated! Fun read as always.
yay update -huggles- ooh i wonder what he was doing with it... and arcrem seem like a real pain in the flank i can so see him being there when Aldro reveals to twi and dash his plans, like mostg evil villians do.
Whark Bait. Wow.
So they're about to hit the key parts of the fire press. Would you believe I actually figured that one out on my own, despite botching considerably easier things?
Furthermore, now that Arcem's escaped, raised the alarm, and knows that Twilight's got the dome code, the Golden Dome is going to be a damned fortress. Unless Whark Bait spills the beans, she'll have to figure out the most infamously obscure puzzle in the series while under attack.
First thing I thought when I saw the title was:
"SONTAR-HA! SONTAR-HA!"
Now the Jungle island is dangerous, that's sad.
Also, the Fissure. Even if Arcem doesn't know what can happen, he has a serious reason to hinder them.
Oh crap, you finished Aitran and I had no idea! :O I gotta catch up on that!
Whark Bait WHO HA HA!!
Ah. Really good, as always. I assume this story follows the game fairly well, correct? I can't tell... I can't seem to get Riven to work on my computer...
1337101
Yes, thank you for making the fairly obvious joke.
1338746 no problem buddy
Heh, "Whark Bait". Amusingly dickish Dash is best dickish Dash.
So, with infinite worlds available, it just so happens that Aldro and Starswirl end up writing a link to the same Age? I...don't think that makes sense. I guess it's like Sliders isn't it? But it didn't make sense then either!!!
Celestia does know the rest of the elements won't work without Rainbow and Twilight anyway, right?
How do they know where North is on Sohndar?
I'd like to point out that the natives of Sohndar probably haven't seen a teleportation spell before.
I'm not sure I like that they cheated using teleportation. I thought teleportation would put too much of a strain on Twilight, like on Aitran.
"'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 yeah Rainbow? What happens if you get separated!?
I think you missed an opportunity here between Twilight and Arcem.
Twilight: Can I ask you a personal question?
Arcem: I'm not gonna stop you.
Twilight: Do you really think that Aldro created this world?
Arcem: Of course, and your lies won't convince me otherwise.
Twilight: Fine, I'm not gonna argue because I don't know...but...do you really think he's worth worshiping?
Arcem: He created our world, without him we wouldn't exist!
Twilight: Fine, but if you had his power, if you could create worlds as easily as he can, by just writing in a book, would you use that power to rule over ponies and demand their worship?
Arcem: We were created to serve him!
Twilight: That may be what he intended, but you have freewill, you can disagree, if you were merely meant to serve him, why not create mindless automatons?
Arcem: I can't understand his wisdom.
Twilight: Oh, I think you can. You're a smart pony, and I have no doubt you're as smart as him.
Arcem: Flattery won't get me to agree with you.
Twilight: I'm not asking you to agree with me, I'm just asking you to think about it.
I could probably go on, but you get the idea.
Why does Whark Bait understand them? He wasn't hit by the language spell. I think he's part of the Moiety, and was taught by Starswirl or Clover. Or maybe he's Aldro's apprentice. OOOO..... This could get interesting.
1375380
The language spell goes both ways, letting Twi and Rainbow understand the Sohndar language and the natives understand them.
So why did they need to use the spell on Arcem?
1375732
The spell needed a Sohndar-speaking pony to get an "imprint" of the language from. It's not a spell for a specific language, but rather a spell for removing the language barrier between groups.
If you wonder why I didn't explain this in the narrative, it's because nopony has felt the need to ask about or explain the details.
1375795
I can't recall it and I just finished the game... I simply started a freaking guess work at the Main Dome and finally got it after a while. It's only 3 unnoted symbols you know... only 9 possible combos.
Good old reply to all questions like that. You never asked.
Wait, were you actually able of noting the symbol at this one dome?
Oh, and those doors back on the Crater Island? Got me stuck there for like 10 minutes until I was like: Hey, let's close them from the inside for lolz!
And after that... shame on me... I actually lost an hour to figure THE FREAKING SAME TRICK WITH THE DOOR DOWN THERE AT THE DOME!
The easiest trick possible. You won't think they used that twice...
And the dome numbers? Mine was 3 12 13 21 23 and I didn't even noticed that 10 is rotated 2 and 20 is rotated 4. I was just like: hey, that thing looks like 10 and 2 put together, it's 12! Oh, and that... well not 10 + 1... I know! It's obvious that's 20! I am so smart! S M R T!
and some help... 
DONT KILL ME!!! I WANTED TO KNOW HOW IT ENDS AND DIDN'T HAVE TIME FOR PLAYING!!!
And really? I was dumb... I never actually realised that symbols on domes were of any relevance... yeah, after looking this one bit of info, it was quite easy to piece out the rest. Even more so that I liked the map thingy and spent a lot of time playing with it. I was like: Why didn't I see this? Those domes are on the freaking map for goodness sake!!
Then came the Main Dome riddle... yeah, that took some time...
Anyhow, can't wait for the next chapter!
Keep up the good work!
1424547
Yeah, the biggest obstacle with the Fire Marble puzzle is figuring out where and what the clues are in the first place
I'd make a bigger rant about it, but I'm saving it for in-story use
Whark Bait! Ho-ha-haaaaaaahhh dang it, someone beat me to the joke!
Anyways, I'm really enjoying this story! Finished Riven yesterday (I still have my notepad sitting next to my computer) and now I finally have the chance to read this! On to the next chapter!
Wat.
Dangit, I know Riven's awfully aquatic, but now's not the time for new ships!
In all seriousness, I know you probably didn't mean it that way, but that's how I interpreted it. Anyway! Glad to get back to reading this! Because of these fics, I bought both Myst and Riven and played through them... Before reading these and spoiling some absolutely fantastic games.
Having said that, I do have one minor gripe... Well, maybe two. The first is that you're descriptions of the various scenes tend to drag on a bit, and as I already knew more-or-less where they were on the various islands, I generally just skimmed a fair bit. "Pentagon room, peepholes on the sides, backdoor, etc."
Of course, knowing full well what I just said.. Rainbow and Twi are skipping an awful lot of stuff! They just breezed right through the village island, basically, while I spent a good hour or two exploring and solving all the little puzzles. And those little puzzles probably wouldn't be that interesting from a story standpoint, but still...
Now I'm just imagining an entire story built around RD solving puzzles. ("Donk'? The heck does that mean? Desk of blinky lights and big flashy buttons, you gotta give me more to work with than, 'Donk".)