Urohringr

by Imploding Colon

It's Just a Myth, Right?

"I don't get it, Unky Prowsy!" Props remarked, tilting her goggles up over a scrunched face. "If this is the Legendary Lost City of Zadubadabu, then where are the streets of silver and abundant manacrystal trees?!"

"Ach, but thes is jist a piece ay it, lassie!" The red-bearded stallion smirked at her from where the two stood before the open hangar of the Jury. "Ye saw aw ay th' bloomin' buildings hoverin' it thaur! Fur aw we ken, thaur ur blocks upon blocks nae worn doon by th' elements! Aam tellin' ye, we're sittin' oan a bludy gauld mine!"

"We're sitting on a floating death trap, is what we're on!" Ebon exclaimed. "Just what the hay are these buildings flying by?!"

"There are many things older than written science," Pilate said from the shelter of the hangar above the rest. "Who's to know what some ancient civilization could have used to make this place possible."

"Yes, but floating buildings?!" Ebon sputtered.

"Gray Smoke's a bunch of floating buildings," Zaid said. "Were you this whiney about it when you lived there with Blondie?"

"I... it... n-no!" Ebon frowned. "But Gray Smoke was different! They utilized mana crystals and steam! What's this place got?!"

"Pure magic, aam tellin' ye!" Prowse hopped around with a victorious clatter of his metal limb. "An' beneath it aw, a glitterin' pot ay knowledge an' information! Ye eatin' yer words yit, tankette?! Coz th' fat quine has officially sung! Wooo!"

"Everypony just chillax!" Rainbow Dash grumbled. "This place is just a pegasus city. Nothing more."

"Rainbow..." Belle looked on from the hangar where she sat beside Pilate. "Are you seriously comparing this place to Cloudsdale and Las Pegasus?"

Rainbow Dash looked at her. She then turned and glanced the other way, eyeing where Josho's and Eagle Eye's hooves effortlessly trotted over the granite, rain-slick surface of the temple. Taking a breath, she said, "Okay, so it's different from any other pegasus city I've seen, or even heard about, but it's totally got my kind blood written all over it. I'd know it like the back of my hoof."

"Heh..." Zaid smirked. "You say that as if you were born in such a place."

Rainbow Dash sighed out her nostrils.

Zaid blinked. "Oh. No wonder you act like you're high all the time." Whap! "Ouch! Dangit!"

Josho lowered his hoof and glanced at the others. "As much as I'd love to sit, mingle, and do the whole tourist thing..." He turned and pointed at the body of the Noble Jury leaning at a forty-five degree angle against a series of columns. "The ship barely made it here in one piece, and we've got a friggin' typhoon making love to the atmosphere directly outside. Can we start a vote over how soon we can get the Hell out of Dodge? Because I'd like to officially shove my name so far down the hat that it'll poop out dead rabbits."

"I think it's no big secret that I'm not a fan of this place." Ebon gulped and raised his hoof. "Can we please... please find a way off it?"

"I share your sentiment," Elma Boreal said with a nervous nod. "But I don't see how we can."

"Why not?" Eagle Eye asked.

"The Flurries brought us here," the turtle explained. "Well, more like viciously dragged us here. If you were to ask me, I'd say that something about this place has... erm... m-mechanized the weather to bring us to where we are now."

"Mechanized it?!" Ebon stammered.

"She means that this place was built to draw us here in the way it did," Pilate remarked. "And it stands to reason that if we tried to leave, we'd only be drawn back just as harshly if not more so."

"It could destroy the Noble Jury," Eagle Eye said. "Even from here, I can see it." He gulped. "It's like a solid shell of dense winds is perpetually spinning around this place. Flying into that could rip us to shreds."

Props glanced nervously towards the ship. "Handsome isn't all that happy to be stuck here as is. I doubt he'd want to risk Nancy any more."

Josho shrugged wildly. "Then how in the Hell do we get out of here?"

"Ach, come off it!" Prowse pouted. "We jist got haur! We cannae pass aff thes opportunity tae explair!"

"You can explore your anus!" Josho spat. "I don't care how many explosions you can make with that boomstick crutch of yours! This place ain't for us! We need to hop off this cyclonic turd and make for the continent east of here like originally planned!"

"Bollocks to your plan! Ah sit it tae fin' Zadubadabu frae th' get-go!"

"Fine! Go ahead and merry it! I'm sure you'll have a bunch of handsome, red-furry, marble poop children together!"

"Guys! Please!" Eagle Eye raised his trembling hooves. "Let's not fight about this!" He turned towards Props' uncle. "Mister Prowse—"

"Professor!"

Eagle's lavender ears folded. "Pr-Professor." He cleared his throat. "I know how much this place means to you. But you gotta understand, the rest of us have been through a lot of straits as bad as this if not worse. And what we've learned is that it's not conducive to a healthy, long life to stick around one of these kinds of messes for very long!"

"Ach, yoo're jist a namby pampy sodder!"

"Well, maybe I am." Eagle Eye frowned. "But I care for these ponies, and if they all want to leave this place, then I am with them. There's more to life than pilfering from lost cities in the sky. You have any doubt of that, then ask our niece!"

"Dornt brin' 'er intae thes ye bapit coward!"

"Unky Prowsy..." Props rested a gentle hoof on the stallion's shoulder. "He's right. I-I'm glad that you found this place, but this isn't exactly the snazziest situation, ya know?" She smiled crookedly. "I barely got the Jury working in time for us to make it here. Our resources are limited. What's more, we've got those nasty-wasties on our tail!"

Elma's beak rattled. "Good heavens, you think the Lounge are still out there?"

"Goddess willing, we've scared them into adopting a better name!" Zaid said with a smirk.

"Unnnghhhh..." Prowse groaned into a metallic palm. "Ye aye ken th' way tae make yer auld uncle crumble, Propsicle." He reached out and patted her shoulder. "Eh'd gie everythin' tae hae thes city under mah hooves—everythin' but ye. If stayin' haur means tearin' ye apart, 'en i'll flin' aw th' dreams in th' naf bin."

She smiled at him with rosy cheeks. "No need to give up all hope, Unky Prowsy. At least you know the place exists, right? There's always a way to make an excursion back!"

"Perhaps, lassie. Perhaps..."

"One thing at a friggin' time..." Josho paced through the group. "How in the blazes are we going to fly away from this thing?"

"We could always try flying straight up or down!" Ebon courageously uttered. He twitched. "R-right?"

"Look, it's a masquerade ball!" Zaid reached over and squeezed Ebon's shoulders. "And chef here wants Floydien's Nancy Jane to dress up as a burning comet!"

"Well, I wanna see you come up with a better plan!"

"I could come up with a dozen that are sexier!" Zaid nodded, then blinked. "Too bad none of them would work." He turned about. "Rainbow?"

The pegasus looked over. "Hmmm?"

"You've gotta have a brilliant plan to all this."

"Pffft. You're looking at the wrong pony."

"You sure?" Zaid smirked. "Cuz you're the only mare around these parts with wings!"

Rainbow Dash bit her lip, looking away from the group.

"Rainbow..."

She glanced up.

Belle looked over Kera's shoulder as she cradled the filly. "You... you know what this place is, don't you?" Her chestnut eyes glinted.

Rainbow sighed. She rubbed a hoof through her mane and muttered, "Everypony in Cloudsdale grew up believing in... in..." She mumbled the word out.

Elma leaned forward, blinking her reptilian eyes. "Whazzat?"

"Stratopolis," Rainbow grunted. "It was just a silly myth, an old mare's tale." She sighed and tilted her face up towards the rainswept heights of the temple above. "Until now..."

"I'm guessing where you come from, myths were made to be proven," Zaid said.

"Or broken." Rainbow kicked at the marble floor and paced slowly towards the nearest marble columns, squinting out at the gray and wet world beyond. "Every pegasus household in Equestria has this age-old story about the fate of Commander Hurricane."

"Commander who?" Ebon remarked.

"He sounds super brave to have a name like that!" Props bounced.

"Yes. She was," Rainbow muttered.

Props winced, blushing. "Oh."

"She was one of the six founding leaders of Pre-Classical Equestria," Rainbow Dash said. "If it weren't for the important decisions she and her fellow cohorts made, our civilization would never have gotten over their differences and come together. Before the founding of Equestria, unicorns, pegasi, and earth ponies lived in separate tribes, untrusting and wary of each other."

"What changed?" Elma asked.

"Heh. The weather did." Rainbow pointed at the drizzly nastiness beyond. "Imagine this, but colder than the Frozen Wastes, with never-ending snow." She turned and trotted back towards the group. "Turns out a bunch of nasty windigos were responsible for the blight."

"Windigos?" Eagle remarked.

Rainbow nodded. "And they continued to plague the founding ponies of Equestria until they got over their differences and joined under a courageous bond of love and commitment."

"I've read of such creatures before," Pilate said with a nod. "They're elementals in the form of equines who feed off the despondence and dissent of large populations."

"Could... could windigos be responsible for this place?" Ebon asked with a nervous shiver.

"Hard to say," Rainbow said with a shrug. "When Equestria was founded, all of the windigos were driven away." She squinted. "All except for in one place."

"Oh?" Eagle blinked.

"Yeah. Turns out there was a patch of snowy clouds far to the north that refused to dissipate. So Commander Hurricane led a batallion there to investigate. She claimed that she found a city roughly size the Pegasopolis, but with... with..." She gulped, glancing nervously about the temple. "With darker buildings and strange obelisks connecting the bigger structures."

Zaid took one glance out the temple, and then back at the pegasus. "You don't say...?"

"What happened then?" Ebon asked.

"Hurricane was almost certain that the windigos would return if the city was not dealt with. It was too big to destroy and yet too dangerous to invade. So, instead, Commander Hurricane and a choice group of elite pegasi flew towards the city with the intent of... taking it over."

"They were going to hijack a city?" Elma remarked.

"A floating city," Rainbow Dash said. "Commander Hurricane left General Pansy behind to take care of pegasus affairs in the new kingdom of Equestria. Soon after, all traces of the windigos disappeared, as did the mysterious cluster of clouds to the north."

"Whew..." Zaid whistled. "Sounds like she got the mission done."

"We can only guess..." Rainbow rubbed one forelimb with another. "The Commander... uhh... n-never returned."

Props' blue eyes sparkled. "She d-didn't?"

Rainbow shook her head. "It's one of the biggest losses in pegasus history. For decades after that, Equestrian pegasi broke off in small companies, flying east and west. They attempted searching for the fate of the Commander's expedition. As they did so, they did their best to describe the fabled city to every culture they met, using one name to describe the mysterious place."

Pilate nodded. "Stratopolis."

"Yeah..." Rainbow sighed. "And just now, after we landed, I saw a sculpture that looks like Commander's Hurricane's image."

"No way..." Ebon exhaled.

"For real." Rainbow nodded. "I'm guessing that she was successful with her mission. Maybe a little too successful." She looked up at the temple ceiling. "This place... this lousy place... it must have become her home."

"Well, there's no way in Hell it's becoming our little hole in the sky!" Josho frowned. "There's gotta be a way to shut down the typhoon... the windigos... the leprechauns—or whatever's keeping us landlocked on this floating turdipelago!"

"Gonnae-no pissin' aw ower thes place's braw nam, mucker!" Prowse frowned at the obese stallion. "It's got character! Antiquity! Grace!"

"It's got you by the balls! But not me!" Josho looked towards Props. "Yo, grease monkette, could there be something here—like some sort of crazy mana machine—that's controlling the weather all around us?"

"I suppose... some sort of machine could be responsible," Props said with a shrug. "Though it'd be some really fancy shmancy machine!"

"And what if that machine were to be turned off?"

Props blinked. "The wind could conceivably go 'bye-bye!'"

"That's a gross oversimplification if you ask me," Elma said.

"The way I see it—it's a start!" Josho grinded his hooves. "And I don't intend to stand around here and watch ourselves turn to prunes from all this damned rain!"

"First thing's first..." Rainbow Dash flapped her wings and lifted up. "Let me go out there."

"Go out there?!" Belle stammered.

"Huh?!" Eagle Eye blanched. "Rainbow, no!"

"Somepony's gotta do reconaissance. Might as well be the only pony with wings."

"The wind will blast you to bits!"

"I've given the place a good long look. The air's pretty darn manageable for someone as fast as me—so long as I don't try to fly beyond the outer border. I'll be fine."

"But... b-but..."

"Look..." Rainbow sighed and gave the rest of the group a weary smile. "If I'm right about this lousy place, then this is something I gotta do." She gulped and gazed out past the columns. "I'm the only Equestrian out this far." She bit her lip. "This place was practically made for me..."

Comments

[Zaid ValRoa]

So, they'll have to make their way to the depths of Stratopolis to find a way to deactivate the mysterious weather shield?
And probably find the remnants of the denizens of the city?
I approve.

[AppleTank]

Wonder if the Machine world has anything to do with this. Dem Ancient Pegasi seemed ta' know something they died to keep secret.
4159465
Edit: Arr, Missed ya by 6 seconds.

[Cynderfall]

I love this new location. I hope we get alot more descriptions of it. Descriptions like from the first chapters of the first story in this epic saga.

[Ms_Fruit_Bat]

Guys, I know this sentiment will be repeated many more times, but I have to say it.
I've got a bad feeling about this.
Specifically, the fact that an ancient Equestrian structure is all the way over there.
This whole thing screams of Silent Hill to me.

[Khao]

As they did so, they did their best to describe the fabled city to every culture they met, using one name to describe the mysterious place."

And after so many years, being passed on from land to land, the name "Stratopolis" managed to slowly mutate and evolve into freaking Zabadudabu.

Equestrian communication is simply fascinating.

[Aatxe360]

I wonder if the 'machine' that turns off the weather also turns off the ability for the city to fly.

[The 24th Pegasus]

I refuse to believe this place is abandoned and empty, surely there have to be some pegasi surviving here. That'd be neat for Rainbow to meat more of her own kind, directly descended from Hurricane herself.
24

[Jex]

I'm telling you guys, it's freaking Laputa all over again! If this arc doesn't end with half the city falling into the sea and the rest flying into space, I will be very disappointed.

[RoboRed]

Oh my god...

Words cannot describe how excited I am right now.

I already have a huge boner for sky-cities. Now the crew of the Jury has stumbled upon this place. A lost Pegasus city. A legend in physical form. A place tied to Commander Hurricane, with places likely only reachable by Rainbow's kind. There's got to be hidden treasures, libraries of information, relics of old Pegasus culture...Soooo many possibilities to discover!

"Heh..." Zaid smirked. "You say that as if you were born in such a place."

Rainbow Dash sighed out her nostrils.

Zaid blinked. "Oh. No wonder you act like you're high all the time." Whap! "Ouch! Dangit!"

Anyways, I strongly suspect those clouds/wind currents were programmed (or enchanted, rather) to bring Rainbow in specifically. It had to be something designed for safe travel for Pegasi. It sort of makes sense that one of the earliest races of this world would find ways to keep things operating in the hooves of another of their kind after a long period of absence.
...Or maybe I've watched far too much Stargate and my excited brain is getting ahead of me. *shrug*

4159543
...I'd love to hold out hope for that last bit, but I don't think that she's going to be running into any living Pegasi anytime soon. Maybe shadows of the past, maybe an enchanted construct as a guide around the remnants, but no, I don't expect her to find another living winged pony.

Ack...if anything, this place is going to disappear before the end. Some bad shit is gonna go down and the place will explode, dissolve to nothing, sink...it's gonna go. Which is too bad.

[Levana]

4159533 Telephone: ULTIMATE EDITION!

our niece

Am I missing something here?

[That_one_guy]

4159505

Yes please!

[Tchernobog]

img1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120420134224/onepiece/images/a/a3/Skypiea_Poneglyph.png

Poneglyph.

[Starlit Skies]

4159543 Of all the misspellings you could have done, you use meat? This far away from Equestria? :P

I wonder who is going to forget that non-pegasi can't walk on clouds.

[Personifire]

I kinda wonder where Commander Hurricane got her food from if it's a city in the clouds where the weather is wild.

[dragonridergoku]

Why do I have a really bad feeling my floating city is gonna fall into the sea below when this is all said and done? Oh yea, because it's IC writing the story. Not many locations named after commentators (or in my case comments of commentators) have survived this series. Just look at Silvadel, Foxtaur, and Searo.

4159533 4159734
It was still Stratopolis back when Pilate first heard about it, so I think the Zadubadabu myth, assuming there was one was something separate. To be fair though, I don't think I started saying Zadubadabu until after that particular scene. I would say it's just Prowse's name for it, but Josho seemed to recognize the name when he first heard about it back in that one filler chapter in Gray Smoke. That could have been due to the seemingly random jibberish name though.

[CasualMarshmallow]

So whenever Rainbow visits a new place, it either is terribly destroyed or a bad situation is solved. Looks like it will be destruction this time, with whatever IC is cooking up for us. Some Machine world would be nice, but it's a city flying over an ocean.

[SugarPesticide]

Calling it now: if pegasi have survived here, they've become cannibals.

[IceKitsune]

I will be shocked if this place is completely abandoned. At minimum I would expect them to find some ghost or something along those lines.

[Booster Spice]

Bit of a chance to get rest and recovery, the Jury back on keel and somewhat repaired, until the Lounge come screaming in and rip out teh control heart of the city structure, making it go all Laputa self destruct with energy tentacles etc.

[Straker]

4159821 My guess is none of them considering that so far the buildings were all described as being made of marble and not clouds, lol.

[Super Trampoline]

What if they feed off of the crashed
Airships?

Man this reminds me of the beautiful children's book about a land isolated by whirlpools storms from the rest of the world called Dinotopia.

But seriously, the equestrian Pegasi originally FOUND this city? Crazy. Love this story as always!

[xXshaydXx]

I think something or someone intentionally pulled them in. Yay for lore!

[Lightning Bearer]

Well, this is intriguing. We've often heard about the ancient pegasi ("angels", as Khao called them), who apparently predated the alicorns, and who had knowledge of the machine world. I have to assume that this was (is?) their capital. And yet, it seems that Equestrian pegasi are a separate branch, and have lost that ancient knowledge. I'm really excited to see how this develops, as well as what they find in the city (after it being teased and mentioned since friggen book one, you know it's gotta be something big).

[Snublock]

Should be interesting to see a new group of Pegasus.
I doubt they will be friendly.

I remain hopeful though.

[dafiltafish]

The Lounge are the remaining founders' offspring, obviously.

The thing I'm wondering is if they are trying to keep ponies out or suck them in.

[alamais]

Is it gonna be zombies? It's zombies, isn't it? Pegazombi! Run for your liiiives!!!

[Jonathon Smythe]

Ancient pegasi, ancient buildings, ancient history?
Pilate's memories have also been shown throughout this story... What a strange sequence of events.

[Nevlamas]

Ah. Now is that a refutation or a continuation of my earlier musings? It will in any case separate theories concerning Hurricane from theories concerning the origins of the city.

[Lone Gazebo]

4159533 The Correct term I think you're looking for here is, Devolve.

[VNilla]

This whole section reminds me of SS&E's story Scale. Ancient ruins, beautiful vistas, having to turn off the weather...

My question is what they're going to repair the Jury with. Clouds and marble don't seem like the best tools for a patch job.

As much as it would be nice to meet some more living pegasi, I don't want to ruin RD's "I'm the only one out here" schtick.

And there's no way Cmd. Hurricane flew out as far as RD has to find this place. Rumors wouldn't spread that far, especially not past the desert and the gigantic mountain range RD crossed back in book 1. Either this isn't where Hurricane ended up, or the city has moved.

4160941 Don't you friggin' start.

[Nevlamas]

4161491 There might actually be a correlation there. Rumors have it that Imploding Colon and SS&E used to know each other at some point in the past.

[Super Trampoline]

4160941 NO. NO NO NO NO NO NO DON'T YOU FUCKING DARE!

[Zytharros]

4160110
And their commander is Hurricane Eternal.
Dash will have to fight Commander Hurricane herself to get out.

[not_a_rainbow]

4161491 It also says the city was in the north, so the city would have had to move to get east... or this is just some other random place

[RomanCandle]

dOH. I got the wrong 'Opolis.

Ten bucks says the mechanism keeping stuff afloat goes off when they try to turn off the storm.

If I'm wrong, I reaaaallly hope there are some pegasi living here. There's been so much "only pony with wings" I have to hope it's buildup for something.

[kihutaja]

Someone made a comparision to Harmony Theory before, but now there's even more parallels: ancient city hidden in the eye of a permanent storm, and an important statue in said city.

[Keebroo]

I like this. This is nice. I like nice. It'd be a shame if things stopped being nice.

[VNilla]

4161641 I'm aware. I actually started reading Austraeoh because it's linked to on SS&E's user page. (I'm personally convinced they're the same person; there are far too many similarities in their writing.)

4160844 Don't forget the somewhat more blatant Chapter 15: A Better Home Awaitin'

[Khao]

4161199

But devolve would imply that the new state of the name is somehow inferior to the older one.

Which is, of course, pure nonsense, it's impossible for a word to "devolve" into Zadubadabu.

[Nevlamas]

4164362 They are, that was the joke.

[Unwitting Brony]

Oh my god this is fantastic. It feels like some sort of Tomb Raider scenario, and there ought to be a movie or something about it. Really, just... I'd say amazing but that's the wrong a-word.

[Vendable Sheik]

4159720
Do I detect a Growing Pains reference? If so I highly approve

[SilentBird93]

This story just got 20% cooler.

[whizzball1]

Time to explore. This is going to be a very interesting arc.

-Spirit

[dashie76]

IIIIIt's Dashie's evaluation time!

I see, I see...now we've got some backstory. It looks like I was partially wrong. However, this now leaves us with uncertainty. We still can't be sure if the pegasus relics were from Stratopolis drifting along east, although that still seems likely. I'm now thinking that this storm doesn't have anything to do with the windigos - perhaps its regulators intend to keep Stratopolis in one place. Something like that, anyways. We'll see soon. These are my thoughts so far.

-MASH

[Zecoro]

aaaaaaaaalllllllllll i can think of is laputa....

[Truth_Seeker]

Prediction:

[JustAnotherTimeLord]

Love the history here. Now, I wonder what we'll find here.

[Seraphimus]

What happens When legend becomes reality.

[Ryuyu]

yep

definitely pony laputa