Chapter 8: Bottled Life
Daring flicked her wings, still trying to shake loose the last of the moisture trapped inside her feathers. At least when they were soaked it was obvious that she was grounded, but these were basically dry already. She jumped into the air and flapped, but her wings were heavy and sluggish and the airflow was all wrong. She managed only a meter or two before stalling.
“I hate water,” she grumbled, shaking her wings again.
“Uh huh,” Rose muttered.
“Next time I’m taking the long route.”
“Uh huh.”
Their bridge was more than wide enough for the two of them to walk side by side, and their lantern illuminated a well-worn surface of stone bricks, wet and stained with mold. The air was humid but warm, unlike at the bottom of the cave.
“What do you wanna do when we find Cairo?” Daring asked. “I’m thinking we’re gonna need to surprise him. Each time we’ve rushed him he’s caught us like flies in glue. Maybe one of us can be the bait, while the other one sneaks around and knocks him in the back of his head.” She reared up and punched her hoof into her other hoof. “What do you think? Rose?”
“Uh huh.”
“Are you even listening?” Daring asked, flicking her tail in irritation.
Rose sighed. “Yeah, Ah’m listening. You wanna bait Cairo and have me sneak up behind him, right?”
“Well . . . I thought since you did such a great job with Magnet the Mighty . . . ” she taunted, trying to get a rise out of Rose.
“Ah don’t think we’re gonna be able to beat Cairo in a fight. Even if you can get ’round him and catch him surprised, he’s a Unicorn, and he clearly ain’t fussed about usin’ his magic to hurt us.” She absently rubbed at her shoulder then said, “More like we’re gonna hafta get to the Tome before he does.”
Daring snorted. “Boring.”
“Yeah, Ah know,” Rose agreed. “Hay, we’re almost there,” she said, pointing. The rock wall was floating out of the darkness, and a large stone archway met the bridge surface to lead . . . wherever it went. They could hear water crashing nearby, likely falling down towards the bottom of the seam, however far away that was.
“If he’s in there, waiting for us, he’ll see the lantern light. Here,” Daring said, reaching for their light. She held it in her mouth and lifted a wing up in front, high enough to block most of the light but low enough to look over the top of the wing. She felt rather like a caped villain at the moment.
Their eyes adjusted quickly and they quietly approached the archway. Inside it was very dark, without any hint of purple illumination from Cairo’s light. Daring wondered just where Cairo was hiding or, if he wasn’t here, how far ahead he’d gotten. How far did they have left to go?
Daring carefully set the lantern on the ground, keeping it covered. “I don’t see anypony,” she breathed.
Rose shook her head. “No, something’s not right.”
Daring waited for Rose to explain, even if it was just a gut feeling, but Rose was silent. She’d closed her eyes and was smelling the air in slow, deep breaths. Her forehoof traced a circle on the stones beneath them. All at once Daring noticed her coat prickling, and she tensed. She couldn’t see any magic, but Cairo was clearly nearby. “Rose. Rose!” she hissed.
Rose opened her eyes and exhaled, and the prickling faded.
“Ah think . . . ” She sniffed then shook her head. “Ah know it’s crazy, but Ah think there’s soil down here.”
“Were you doing that?” Daring asked. There was no other explanation for it. “Were you using magic?”
“Yeah. Earth Pony Magic. Ah can feel the land.” She narrowed her eyes, like she was trying to peer past the shadows. After a few moments she explained, “Earth magic helps us sense the seasons and the weather, or the land and crops. We’ve been farmers for generations.” There was a hint of pride in her voice. “Not real useful in caves, of course. But if Ah . . . well, if Ah ‘listen’ real careful, Ah can hear soil. Nearby. Or maybe what used to be soil.”
“You mean dirt?”
“No. Soil, with Earth magic in it, but it’s real faint. We might be near the surface.” She started walking again, and quickly hurried into a trot.
Daring rushed to keep up, running awkwardly trying to keep the lantern covered. The archway passed over them and led into short tunnel. On the other side was another cave, this one so large that the ceiling and walls quickly receded into the darkness. Their footsteps echoed around them.
“Rose!” Daring called out, her voice piercing the silence. “We can’t just go barging in here like this.”
Rose slowed to a stop. “Ain’t you the one wantin’ yer notebook back?”
“Yeah, but we’re gonna get lost in here.” She waved around at the blackness around them. In the distance Daring thought she could make out large blocky shapes that were slightly less dark than the background, but beyond that it might as well have been a moonless, cloudy night sky. “And if we got separated, or one of us falls and get knocked out, we’ll never find each other.”
“Well, stop hidin’ the lantern. Cairo ain’t here, or else by now he would’ve knocked us over, or strung us up, or hit us with something.” She rubbed her shoulder, grimacing.
Daring held the lantern high and lowered her wing, illuminating the cave.
Rose whistled. “Whoa, nelly.”
“I guess we found our farmers,” Daring muttered, after staring for a moment.
They had emerged into what Daring could only assume was some sort of settlement filling the expansive cavern. Small stone buildings covered in mildew and dripping with moisture dotted a smoothed floor, while around the outside a wall curved off into the darkness in both directions. The settlement was large enough that she couldn’t see the other side, but farther away from the walls the buildings grew larger and more elaborate. The walkway they found under their hooves curved and meandered around stalagmites and followed the rough contours of the cavern floor, while towards the nearest walls buildings were dug into the stone itself.
“This isn’t a temple,” Daring said, her heart racing. “It’s a city! Ponies lived here! This is amazing!” She grabbed the lantern and ran towards the nearest dwelling. It was a crude box, mostly walls and a sloped ceiling, with none of the detail left in its smoothed, worn surface. “It’s just large enough inside for a pair of ponies to sleep, maybe, or work? What kind of jobs would ponies have had in here?” There was a small bench and a pile of dirt and rocks, and some small shards of clay lay buried underneath. Cooking? Storage?
Beside the hovel was a small raised platform, on top of which sat several boulders that might once have been statues or carvings, even though they were now worn smooth. No tools nearby that Daring could see, even as she crawled over and around the carving area, but certainly small chunks of rock that had been carved away.
Like a small foal opening birthday presents, Daring jumped over to the next building, which had a small iron grating placed over what she guessed was a fire pit, though any charcoal or timber had long since eroded away.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Daring muttered, inspecting some markings on a stone pot. “There’s some sort of inscription here; I might be able to translate it.” She reached over her shoulder for her notebook, before remembering its tragic theft. She slumped. “Right.”
Rose called in from the walkway outside. “Hay, Daring, bring the lantern over here.”
On the large wall to the side was a faded black painting, with small flecks of paint in the dirt below, showing—
Daring paused and approached the painting, only half aware of Rose moving to stand beside her. The painting was of a pony, no doubt, or at least a rough outline of a pony. It had the right number of limbs and a head and a tail, but the limbs were all stretched out and it was solid black. It was painted large enough to reach almost to the top of the wall.
“Weird,” Rose commented, taking the lantern from Daring.
“Yeah. Really weird.” Daring tried to remember what her notebook said about the artwork of this culture, but came up blank. She reached up, hesitated for only a moment, then touched her hoof to the painting; when she pulled back her hoof it had flecks of black paint on the tip, which she quickly wiped off.
“Check out its eyes,” Rose said, pointing. Daring looked towards the head, higher up and stretched out like the rest of it. Small pieces of glass sat where the eyes would be, and they sparkled faintly in the lantern light.
“Creepy.”
“This whole place has been weirding me out,” Rose agreed. “Let’s keep going. Cairo’s gotta be in here somewhere. Keep an eye out.”
Daring reluctantly tore her gaze away from the painting and they continued walking.
---
Twilight hid around the corner and peered out as the adventurers resumed their trek into the city. Rose had grabbed the lantern and they were following a path down and away from the wall. Perfect. She waited until they were out of earshot then allowed herself a small groan, in the vain hope it would relieve some of the tension knotting her forehead into a mess. Not only was she pushing back the beasts from the area and keeping them hidden from the light, but it was taking a significant amount of magic to keep her presence shielded from Rose’s despicable Earth magic. Rose could only be allowed to sense another pony’s presence when Twilight was ready. Her only uplifting thought—and she was surprised to think so—was that at least she wouldn’t have to hold back the beasts for long.
An evil grin slid across her face, despite her discomfort. Everything’s finally coming up Twilight.
She turned around and inspected her final creation: a Unicorn mare, modeled mostly after herself in shape and silhouette in an attempt to make a believable character. Pale blue coat, and dirty red mane. A quill and low-burning candle for a cutie mark. Purple eyes—they all had purple eyes; Twilight wasn’t sure why they always had purple eyes. No matter; the mare looked just plain enough to be convincing.
Plain, and roughed up. A black eye, bruises on her barrel and back, scratches down her flank, and a small line of blood down her forehead. Strong limp, from an ugly bruise on her right hindleg, and her mane all messy and greasy. Twilight still didn’t trust her acting entirely, and the mare needed to gain the adventurers’ confidence quickly, so she had given the mare as nonthreatening of an appearance as she could.
Daring and Rose were going to need all the help they could get.
Twilight gently prodded the mare’s shoulder. She swayed to the side before correcting her balance. Her lungs were animated, breathing regularly. Every now and then her ear twitched. Small touches made her uncomfortably lifelike. So did not falling over at the slightest touch.
“Midnight Oil, can you hear me?” Twilight asked quietly, well aware how far her voice could travel without any competing sounds. She waved a hoof and peered close.
Nothing. Twilight would’ve been concerned if there had been anything in those eyes, looking back at her.
“I can’t always be there for you, like I was for Cairo,” Twilight explained, glad to be talking to a pony again, even if she wasn’t real. “And you need to interact, not just react. So you’re going to need a little more autonomy. But how?”
She cast about for inspiration. There was no single mixture of magic Twilight could just apply to make Midnight Oil come alive; even the most simple of manipulations required a very tailored spell that was more like training the subject to move and act and reinforcing or discouraging certain behaviors, than simply painting spells on a body and flipping some switch. The best course of action would be to take an existing design, modify it, and apply it to the mare.
She eyed the novel floating gently beside her. “You’re a genius!” Twilight exclaimed. The Metalsmith had created golems to maintain his Foundry and, ignoring the little detail that they’d turned out murderous and uncontrollable, their base was similar enough to Twilight’s needs that she could start from there.
She flicked through the pages, remembering as she read how Daring had discovered one of the Golems and how it had acted and behaved. She could imagine the manipulations that would’ve been needed in their creation. Clearly the author was no magic-user, but the principles were well-founded. Twilight nodded, even as puzzle pieces connected together in her head. She knew what to do. Preparing a base for her instructions, Twilight began.
Her horn glowed, illuminating the stonework around her. Purple whorls of magic bloomed over her head and pulled to Midnight Oil’s horn like iron filings to a magnet. As she cast she found herself humming. On the next page was a section that she liked—a story about souls, and Golems, and the Metalsmith—so she sang:
“Outside her head, a swirling thread of blinding silver heat:
A pony’s soul, her body whole but little more than meat.
Instead of dying while she’s lying broken on the street,
Collected, hoping to be resurrected far from hostile strife.”
Twilight smiled as her magic slotted into the space inside Midnight Oil’s empty head. Reaction, perception, appearance, demeanour; all of it inspired by Golems, borrowed from herself, and tweaked just a little. Twilight slowly built Midnight’s soul, watching lights sparkle behind her eyes.
“But fate has other plans to animate the Solifer.
Atop the carousel: a ruined Talos shell for her.”
She needed to share Midnight’s senses, and some reactions would need to be instinctive—no time for latency in some situations—so she lent a little of her own personality and demeanour and tapped into their feedback. She felt a brief bout of synesthesia as her hearing doubled for a moment before snapping into focus, and she could look through Midnight’s eyes if she tried hard enough. An added bonus: Twilight now had a way to keep a closer eye on the adventurers without risking being seen.
“A life debt to the Metalsmith the pony will incur
And death has little meaning in the seedy world of Bottled Life!”
With a final grunt, she finished, feeling the final spells settle into place. Lights danced behind Midnight’s eyes. Done.
She tried again. “Midnight Oil, can you hear me?”
For a second, Twilight thought she’d messed up, but then the mare blinked, focused on Twilight, and nodded.
Twilight lifted her own foreleg, held it to the side, then set it down again. Midnight mirrored her motions, then frowned. “I think my leg hurts. Is it supposed to hurt?” she asked.
Twilight took an extra moment to separate her hearing from Midnight’s—it sounded like those words had come from herself—and rubbed Midnight’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, they’re not real injuries. I just had to paint you a little more convincingly, and I gave you a more fleshed out personality than I gave the others.”
Midnight Oil looked confused. Twilight was about to launch into a more thorough explanation of the subtleties involved in manipulation versus parroting, but one of the monsters chose that moment to bash into one of her barriers, letting out a horrible screech and sending a flush of heat and discomfort down her horn. Quickly, then.
“Are you ready?” Twilight asked, more to be polite than anything else.
After a deep breath and a moment to steady herself, Midnight Oil nodded. “What do you need me to do?”
Twilight smiled and produced a checklist.
---
Daring and Rose walked deeper into the cavern, until even the light from the lantern couldn’t reach the sides, and the ceiling had receded into a sparkling darkness. That the cavern was large only contrasted further against the tight, winding corridors they’d trudged through so far, to the point that the feeling of isolation seemed to pull at Daring, like she was at a higher altitude and the air wasn’t as thick. A low hum had replaced the natural cave sounds—dripping, the occasional breezes, and small rocks tumbling as they walked by—as Daring’s mind struggled to fill the void.
While the walls and the ceiling receded, the buildings grew larger and more densely packed, until they were as narrow as the side streets in Canterlot. The farther they walked, the more they felt like this had been a real community of ponies.
“Ponies livin’ underground,” Rose breathed, breaking the silence. “Why would somepony live underground?”
“Pegasi live in the sky,” Daring reminded her. “Not that strange to think somepony would be comfortable down here. They would’ve lit the city, too—not just with a single lantern.”
“But ya need sunlight for farming—and what about fresh air?”
“There are currents down here. Maybe there’s some small pipes up to the surface?” Daring shrugged.
Rose nodded. “Ah guess if there was a good enough reason, you’d find ponies able to live down here. Maybe a little hard work, but if there was somethin’ down here worth being near. . . ” She trailed off.
“Like treasure?” Daring asked a little too casually.
“Maybe.”
The ruins grew taller and more elaborate as they continued deeper, and on more and more walls they found carvings and statues worn smooth. Stalagmites had grown on top of some of the buildings where water and sediment dripped down from above, while many other buildings had caved in or fallen apart.
And the farther they walked, the more of the strange paintings they found. Though Daring couldn’t quite understand why, the stretched, distorted paintings unsettled her. The carvings and statues and buildings were varied and complex, and looked like they’d taken a beating over the years, eroding and returning to nature. In contrast, the paintings all looked the same, and fresh, as if a single artist had in a fit of madness covered the whole settlement in some fevered dream which hadn’t stopped growing crazy. Always stretched and just off-angle, with long limbs and tilted heads, in the middle of some action: leaping, dancing, or feasting. Occasionally they were even painted over other carvings. Already, Daring was getting a feel for the sort of culture that grew down there, and wondered just how desperate they had to be to stay. Her eyes followed a painted limb that slid all the way down onto the path before finally ending in a hoof.
She looked up. Rose had stopped up ahead and was looking around, ears out. Before Daring could ask she held up a hoof, and kept listening. Daring waited, but other than the breeze and a distant rumble of flowing water, she could only hear silence.
“You can’t hear that?” Rose guessed.
“No. What?”
Rose stepped into a trot and led Daring off down a smaller path. “Ah can hear somepony, Ah think.”
Daring smirked. “Just like you could hear farming?”
Rose ignored her. “It’s close . . . ya see that?” She asked, peering into the darkness. “There’s light ahead. Like, a lit torch or somethin’.”
Daring squinted.
“Just up here,” Rose announced, turning a corner. Sure enough, the area was already lit by a flickering yellow and white light, and Daring thought she could hear somepony whimpering.
They slowed and approached a corner, peering around to see a Unicorn mare huddled into a ball in a corner between two buildings, her horn glowing weakly.
The pony hadn’t noticed them yet. Daring stopped, immediately suspecting a trap, and looked around for some sign of ponies sneaking up behind them. Rose, on the other hoof, ignored all reason and hurried forward.
“Hello? Are you okay?”
“Rose!” Daring hissed. “Fucking obvious trap!”
“Daring, get yer ass over here and help. She’s hurt!” Rose turned to the pony and lifted the muddy hair from her face, revealing scratches and a nasty bruise. “Land sakes. Can you hear me?”
The pony’s eyes swirled for a moment before settling on Rose’s face. After a moment the mare gasped and threw herself backwards, falling on her backside. She shuffled back, wide-eyed, whimpering and hiccupping. She looked like she’d been crying.
“It’s okay. We’re not gonna hurt you,” Rose insisted, crawling forward.
“Get back!” the mare cried, scrambling over herself to reach her saddlebags and grab something.
“Rose!” Daring yelped, throwing herself at Rose.
The mare reached back and clumsily threw a small, round object at the adventurers. Daring barreled into Rose and knocked her out of the way just as a brilliant flash and metallic snap stunned her.
The alleyway went silent, and the Unicorn didn’t attack again. Once Daring felt they were safe she said, in quite simple terms, “When I say trap, I mean it.”
“Thanks,” Rose wheezed from under Daring. “Please move.”
Daring rolled off and looked at the Unicorn, who had apparently knocked herself out.
“What the hay was that?” Rose asked.
Daring gave the mare’s shoulder a weak shake, then shook a little harder. Nothing. Still alive, still breathing, but thoroughly not there. She looked behind the mare. Her saddlebags had spilled over the ground, and a small pile of those same small stones had scattered into the corner behind her. Daring grabbed one and held it up to the lantern. It was about the size of a wine grape, but hard like metal. Small patches glowed amber in the lantern light, while the rest looked like rust.
“She threw one of these.” She held it up for Rose to inspect.
Rose leaned back. “Careful, those things are dangerous.”
“Yeah. You just throw them . . . hey, I’m gonna try one. Watch out!”
Rose pulled her hat down over her eyes. Daring threw the stone into the darkness and closed her eyes tight. It exploded some distance away, bright enough to see a glow through her clenched eyelids and loud enough to echo through the chamber. The force with which Daring’s brain yelled that a snapped cable was rushing at her was surprising.
“Wow,” Rose said. “Uh . . . ya think she’s got anything else dangerous hidden in those bags?”
“I don’t think she’ll mind us taking a quick peek,” Daring suggested, indicating the mare’s zoned-out appearance.
Rose carefully shoved the stones into a pile then started rifling through her bags. “Junk, empty canteen, apple cores, writing stuff—nothin’ dangerous, Ah don’t think. Hold on . . . ” Her face fell. “Well, would ya lookit that.”
Rose pulled out a pair of photographs and held them up in front of the lantern. They were blurry and out of focus, but Daring didn’t need long to recognize their own faces.
“She’s one of Cairo’s goons,” Rose muttered.
“Great. Let’s take her stuff and leave . . . her . . . ” Daring trailed off, as soon as she caught Rose’s expression. “We’re not gonna leave her, are we?”
“She’s injured,” Rose explained, pointing to her left hindleg, “and it looks like she’s not quite all there. If she’s got a concussion she’s in trouble. So, no, we’re not gonna leave her.”
The mare groaned and rolled onto her side. Her eyes were wide open, blinking now and then, and still unfocused.
“Sure,” Daring agreed, “but what else can we do? We can’t just stop and wait for her to wake up on her own. And don’t forget, the moment she wakes up she might decide to, I dunno, use her magic? And trap us?”
“Ah guess,” Rose grumbled.
“I don’t like it either, but she’s safer here. She got on just fine without us, and we can always come back for her after.”
Rose looked like she wanted to argue some more, but just as Rose was about to speak Daring felt a shiver pass over her. Given Rose’s aborted speech and bug eyes, she clearly felt it too. A distant wail echoed through the city, bouncing off the high ceiling and between the buildings. It sounded like a cry for help layered with a mix of screeches and bellows that Daring would expect out of a chorus of different angry animals.
“Uh, ya heard that too, right?” Rose asked, backing up and looking around, trying to find the source of the cry.
“You mean the terrible howl of something evil coming to eat us?” Daring gulped. “Yeah. I heard it too.”
So had the mare. She started groaning and pressing against her skull.
They paused, straining to hear more, but the city was silent.
“Forget this,” Rose said, undoing her saddlebags and tossing them to Daring. “Ah’m carryin’ her. Grab her stuff.”
---
Rose stopped to shift her weight and balance the mare slung sideways over her back. She was significantly slower with her Unicorn cargo than when she was laden with saddlebags, but the mare’s constant groaning provided a welcome distraction from the noises floating over the settlement. They hadn’t heard any more of the echoey howls, but every few minutes they’d hear some small shifting of rubble, or splashing noises, or a flutter of something papery. Unsettling.
Daring stopped beside her and set the lantern on the ground, stretching her jaw. “Where are we supposed to go?” Daring asked.
Rose shrugged as best she could with a mare draped over her back. They’d walked only about half a mile since finding the mare, and Rose couldn’t shake the feeling at the back of her neck of being watched.
“Does yer notebook have anything about this place?” Rose asked. When Daring growled she added, quickly, “Ah know Cairo has it. Ah wanna know if it’ll help him.”
Daring sighed and looked at the buildings around them. “Maybe. Mesoequestrian architecture wasn’t all that complicated; they usually just built buildings around a priest’s temple. If it were me, I’d be heading there.”
“Building around a temple . . . so Cairo’s probably heading towards the center.” Not that she knew which way was the center. A thought occurred: “Did they build on hills?”
“Huh?”
“Like, their towns. The Mesoequestrians. Did they normally build on hills, or in the plains?”
“Uh, hills, I think. They’d want to overlook their farmlands.”
“These ponies came from normal towns at one point, so maybe this place is built like one on the surface. If Ah had to put a temple somewhere in here, and if Ah came from the surface where we put our towns on hills, then Ah’d put that temple at the highest point.” She grinned. “So, we go uphill. Do ya see?”
Daring shook her head. “Except that there’s no guarantee the cavern has a high point. It might be a giant bowl. Or the ground might be totally random.”
Rose scowled. “Yeah, yer right.”
Daring kicked a rock and sighed. “I just wish I remembered where we came in. Her snapstone got me all turned around, and this place is like a maze—”
“Labyrinth,” Rose said without thinking.
Daring paused, eyes clenched shut. “What did you just say?”
“Oh, like yer the only one capable of using correct terminology. Ya said it yerself: when it’s large enough fer a pony to get lost in, it’s called a—”
“Labyrinth,” Daring finished, quietly. Her eyes shot open and a grin spread over her face. “Rose! You’re a genius!”
Rose nodded. “Ah should think so.”
“No! Don’t you see? It’s an actual labyrinth!” Daring shrugged off her bulging saddlebags and started inspecting the nearby rubble, before stopping in front of a large pile. “That’s why the walls are so high. That’s why the streets are so narrow. It’s trying to get us turned around! And when you’re lost in a labyrinth—oof,” she grunted, pushing a large boulder up against the wall, “ . . . the best way out is over the top.”
With the lantern grasped firmly in her jaw she clambered over the boulder, squeezed her way up between two walls, and crawled over a beam that was once part of a ceiling. Soon she’d hopped up around another wall and out of sight, leaving Rose in the dim light bouncing off of nearby buildings.
Without Daring’s constant chattering, the street fell silent, mostly. The mare slung over Rose’s back groaned and shifted. Something dripped nearby. And she could hear the shifting of pebbles and rocks, hopefully from Daring’s climb. But otherwise the darkness was so quiet she could almost hear a hum in the background.
In the distance, another of the . . . things howled, its voice echoed and distorted as it bounced around inside the city. She refused to believe they were being followed; it was just her imagination. Still, Daring was certainly taking her time.
“Well? Whaddya see?” Rose hollered, looking around, peering into the shadows, watching for any sign of life in the dead city.
Finally Daring’s voice yelled down. “This place is huge!”
“Can ya see the center?” Rose yelled.
“I don’t know. There’s a few tall buildings around here—but I don’t see anything that looks like a church or whatever.” Daring was silent for a few moments more before yelling, “Hold on, I’m coming down.”
The shadows bounced and Daring and the lantern came into view, gliding down the alleyway. Her flight path was all wobbly like a newborn, and her landing was more skid than not, but seeing Daring in the air gave Rose new hope that they’d have a pair of wings in no time, even if she wasn’t about to admit as much to Daring.
Daring was breathing hard from her waterlogged flight but there was a look of excitement in her eyes, and she was grinning from ear to ear. “It’s incredible!”
“What is?”
“This whole city! It just goes on and on! I can’t even see the entrance, and the light went pretty far.” She was vibrating with excitement. “It’s an actual, honest-to-Princess labyrinth!”
“So . . . ya couldn’t see the center.” Rose had the sudden urge to wipe the grin from Daring’s face.
“No, I don’t think so. But, I did see something that way.” She pointed ahead. “Something cut a line through the walls and roofs. Maybe a road? I think we should try to reach it.”
Rose sighed. “Might as well. Can ya find yer way there?”
“No problem,” Daring said, squeezing back into her saddlebags. “I’ve got a great sense of direction.”
Rose’s eye twitched, but she kept her mouth shut and followed Daring as she led the way down a path between two buildings. As they met intersections and chose different paths she could hear Daring muttering their directions like she was following a recipe. Soon Rose was completely turned around, but every now and then when she looked back she could still see Daring’s earlier viewpoint looming out of the darkness.
Another head-splitting howl startled Rose, this time from much closer than before. Rose didn’t bother asking if Daring had heard it too. The mare on her back groaned and wiggled around. Rose fought to keep her balanced, grateful for the distraction.
The low humming grew into a dull roar, and she could feel dampness in the air. Surfaces shined from mist in the lantern light, highlighting both elaborate carvings, which Daring would often pause to inspect, and crude paintings, which they kept at a distance whenever possible.
“Uh, Daring, did you lead us back to the entrance? Cause it’s like we’re in that chasm again.”
“I don’t think so . . . Ah, here we go.”
They turned a corner and emerged onto a paved circle, where several smaller paths and roads intersected. The buildings around the circle had openings facing inwards, though as ruined as they were Rose couldn’t guess their purpose. Cutting a line straight through the circle was a dark, fast river. Looking around, Rose could see a pile of rubble that might once have been a bridge, but there was nowhere to cross now.
Rose slid her cargo into a sitting position, and she and Daring approached the river, holding the lantern high. The water was clear and shallow, so she could see right to the rocky bottom. Large, smoothed slabs littered the riverbed, and the surface of the river was rough and chaotic, sending sprays and mist into the air. Rose shivered, and stood closer to the lantern.
“Flowing water, arable land, buildings, roads . . . ” Daring looked around in awe. “They really did live down here. Fascinating.”
“That’s great and all, Daring, but Ah’m more concerned with figuring out where ‘down here’ is. Any more ideas?”
Daring looked at the buildings around the circle. “None of these places are really tall enough to get a viewpoint. But . . . it looks like we’ve got a couple obvious choices.” She pointed upriver. “We can head towards the source of the river, or we can see where it goes,” she said, pointing downriver.
“Or we go across,” Rose suggested, though the river looked rough enough that she didn’t fancy trying to get over it.
Daring groaned. “No, there’s gotta be a clue here. C’mon, think!” She eyed the mare behind them. “Anything from her?”
“Ah don’t think so. She just tries to curl into a ball and hide whenever she hears one of them creatures.” Rose didn’t feel the need to tell Daring that she also wanted to curl into a ball and hide when she heard them.
She walked to the edge and in a fit of frustration kicked a rock into the river, and watched it flow away and out of sight. “Hey, Daring, where do ya s’pose all this water’s going?”
“Huh?”
“It’s flowing pretty fast, right? That’s a lot of water that’s all gotta go somewhere.”
“I guess it drains out somewhere. Maybe some cave opens up somewhere downriver.”
Of course. “Not just some cave, Daring. This river feeds all those waterfalls we had to climb through in the chasm.” She pointed downriver. “That means the entrance is back there, which means the priests’ temple’s gotta be that way,” she pointed upriver.
Daring nodded slowly. “Yeah . . . if the temple is in the center, and if it does pour out into the chasm, and if the water is coming from the center. It could be pouring in from the side somewhere else. Hay, there could even be more rivers. That’s a lot of ifs.”
“You got a better idea?”
“Not really. We could set another fire and try to dry my wings faster. . . ”
A not-so-distant howl dashed that option.
Rose hurried back to the injured mare trying to crawl her way up the wall. “Ah say we give it a shot. Keep the river to one side of us and head upriver. It’s gotta go somewhere, right?”
---
Despite the complexity of the city she had to memorize, despite the constant barrage against her barriers surrounding the adventurers, despite the incredibly weak ceiling threatening to cave in at any moment, and especially despite the revolt her body seemed to be staging, Twilight found herself enjoying this section of her adventure. The tall buildings and relatively low light afforded her a front-row seat to the spectacle, and the roar of rushing water, the loud panting, and the spine-chilling wails meant she didn’t have to be particularly quiet. She’d finally managed to dull the glow of her horn to the same color and brilliance as their lantern. And the headaches were constant enough now that she barely noticed them.
The adventurers turned a corner, found another dead-end, and cursed. Twilight smiled and tilted an ear towards them.
“This is ridiculous! How’d these ponies not get lost just goin’ about their daily lives?”
“C’mon, I think we can take an earlier right turn. That oughta bring us back towards the river.”
Rose turned to follow, muttering the whole way. Through Midnight Oil’s senses Twilight could feel Rose’s back muscles working to keep herself stable despite her cargo; could see just how dark it was for the two adventurers, frequently travelling through deep shadows; and could clearly hear the empty threats Rose was making concerning the Unicorn she deeply resented finding.
It was incredibly satisfying.
Twilight looked towards the Sanctum. Slowly but surely Daring and Rose were closing in on the building, and within it the clues they’d need to find the Tome. Though she was glad the adventurers hadn’t yet grown fatally despondent in the labyrinth, and though she was impressed with their progress, she felt it was time for one or two little motivations.
---
Daring stopped and backed up several paces. To their right, roughly in the direction of the sounds of rushing water, she saw a reflection between two buildings which she had assumed was only a short alleyway. It was just wide enough for a pony draped sideways over another pony’s back to fit.
“Through here,” she said, holding the lantern high and folding her wings in tight. The buildings quickly pressed together, and for a moment the cold rock and sounds of rushing water brought her back to the cave, but then she popped through and tumbled out into an open, paved square surrounded by tall buildings on all sides.
She turned to help pull the Unicorn through the passage, but froze when she finally looked at the walls themselves.
“Daring! A little help?” Rose asked, trying to balance herself and the Unicorn through the narrow alleyway.
“Uh, yeah. Here,” she muttered, tearing her eyes away from the paintings and reaching for one of the Unicorn’s limbs. Together they lifted her from Rose’s back and slid her through the alleyway, trying to avoid injuring her any more than she already was. Daring carefully set her into a sitting position against the wall, squeezed out of her saddlebags, then walked into the center of the square. Behind her Rose tended to the mare.
“Land sakes,” Rose panted. “How is she still uncon . . . unconscious . . . whoa.”
The walls facing into the square were covered in the strange black paintings. Dozens and dozens of bizarre, disfigured pony paintings crammed together, fighting for canvas space and surrounding Daring and Rose. Some were faded and had sections washed away, including one pony whose neck simply ended in a series of drip lines. Others were several meters above the ground, stretched to the top of the walls in monstrous proportions and shapes that looked to be reaching down towards them. The low hum had replaced the sounds of rushing water and there was a faint note of static echoing down from the ceiling somewhere.
Daring gulped. “This is . . . odd.”
Rose walked up beside her. “Ah’m not entirely sure Ah care whether Cairo finds the Tome or not, Daring.”
“They’re just paintings,” Daring said, trying to keep her composure. She reached out to the nearest painting and rubbed her forehoof across one of the legs, smearing and crumbling the dried paint to the floor. “See? Somepony painted this.”
“Doesn’t mean they’re any less freaky,” Rose argued. “Why would ponies paint these . . . these things everywhere?”
“I dunno. Maybe they didn’t—maybe another group discovered this place and vandalized it long after the original inhabitants abandoned it.”
Rose looked at the highest paintings that nearly stretched overhead. “Vandals,” she repeated, with a raised eyebrow. “Graffiti.”
“Maybe. All I’m saying is that the ponies that lived here didn’t necessarily paint these. Something else put them here. Maybe.”
Rose pursed her lips and shook her head. “That something else decided to go a little more violent this time,” she said, pointing at the nearest pony paintings. “All the others are dancing, or eating, or racing. These are all—”
“Fighting.” One was bucking, its hindlegs stretching around a corner and onto the next building. Another was reaching high, and Daring couldn’t tell what it was reaching for until she pictured an unpainted pony hanging from its forehoof. Another still was lying on the ground, its leg bent at a very deliberate angle. Daring wondered just what the ponies of this city had had to endure to survive down here.
Behind them, the Unicorn let out a groan. Rose turned to check up on her.
One of the paintings reached down to the floor, its legs stretching nearly to the center. Something about the way the pony’s legs angled together once they were on the floor . . . Daring tilted her head, now more curious than unsettled. Though the painting was large and skewed, the legs themselves looked more reasonably spaced.
Daring knelt and brushed at the hoof of one its forelegs, smearing away the dried pigment. She just couldn’t get over how somepony had sat down and spent the time to paint this and the other paintings. It might not have been one pony that covered the whole city—in fact, Daring was sure it couldn’t’ve been one pony—so why had the citizens gone and done this?
Rose spoke up from behind her. “Daring, could you move? Yer blockin’ the light.”
Daring turned around and saw her shadow stretching out from her hooves to the wall, partially covering Rose as she tended to the mare.
Stretching out . . .
“Holy shit!” Watching her silhouette, she jumped into the air, pumping her wings hard but focusing on the wall. Her shadow climbed, too, stretching up and over the building far quicker than Daring herself. She glided over the lantern and watched her shadow jump from building to building, limbs weirdly foreshortened but in an obvious way. “They’re shadows! Just regular pony shadows!” She landed, grinning like an idiot and performing a celebratory dance.
Rose watched Daring’s shadow as she leapt over and posed in front of the lantern, then looked over the encircling murals. “So those earlier paintings . . . they were shadows from ponies who were actually runnin’, and dancin’, and feastin’?”
“Yeah! And these . . . ” Daring paused. “These are shadows from ponies who were actually fighting.” The pony with a broken leg. The pony missing a head. The two ponies intertwined. The towering monsters. “Oh, Princess.”
“No. No!” Rose looked upset, ears flat against her head, and backed away from the wall. “Why would somepony paint these? What kind of sick pony paints other ponies gettin’ torn apart?”
“Maybe they had some sort of battle here, and the survivors needed to record it?”
“No!” Rose looked physically sickened. “They had carvings! And statues! Just like normal ponies! Oh, stars above . . . ”
“Calm down,” Daring said quietly, carefully approaching Rose. “They’re horrible, but they’re still just paintings. They’re not going to get up and start walking around. They can’t hurt us.” She placed a forehoof on Rose’s withers, trying to reassure her.
“Ah know that!” Rose shouted, whirling around out of Daring’s reach. “But they didn’t just paint these to scare other ponies. They’re too perfect for some pony to just imagine it all. This happened, Daring. This happened and some poor pony watched it. Some poor pony watched another pony get torn in two!” She pointed at the sliced shadow. Her hoof was shaking. “No pony should have to see that.”
Daring shrugged. “These tribes . . . they came from an earlier time. Before Celestia, before Equestria, their lives were brutal and harsh. But that was so long ago. Whatever . . . event inspired the ponies here to paint these is long over. The societies that practiced art and literature, that had laws and rights, they’re the ones that are still around.”
Rose took a steadying breath. “Yeah. Long time ago. Makes me real thankful for bein’ born when Ah was.”
“And above ground?”
Rose nodded, not looking particularly calmer. “Let’s go. Ah can’t hardly hear the river any more. We should backtrack a little.”
“Yeah.” Daring grabbed the lantern and held it at head level, walking around to grab her heavy saddlebags. Rose’s shadow jumped over the wall, finally stopping beside one of the more boring paintings. Daring said, “Hey, it kinda lines up with that one.”
Rose shook her head. “No, see? The hooves aren’t in the same place.”
She was right. Though the painting’s body more or less lined up with Rose’s shadow, the legs went to the right, while her shadow came from the left. Rose walked over to the hooves on the painting, stretched out onto the floor, and stood atop them. Daring walked the lantern over to line up Rose’s shadow with the painted silhouette.
“It’s a little too tall,” Daring said. The shadow wasn’t coming from a light source held at head height, but a little higher. She bent her knees and flared her wings.
“No!” the mare behind them yelled.
Daring jerked back in surprise. She staggered, losing her balance and flicking the lantern upwards. Rose’s shadow fell overtop the painted shadow and lined up perfectly.
---
Rose felt it before she heard it: a severe frost deep in her bones, a feeling of raw hunger, almost immediately followed by a guttural, animal wail. She caught motion out of the corner of her eye and turned to watch the painting on the wall gain depth and lunge right at her, hooves outstretched, still howling.
Something knocked her forward: Daring Do, still stumbling from the Unicorn’s cry. The two of them tumbled to the floor just as the pony soared overhead. Rose rolled away from Daring and scrambled to her hooves, as the shadow skidded to a stop, snarling and turning to face her.
Rose tried to get a good look at the thing, but it was like trying to focus on a blurry picture. The pony was black on black: its coat, its mane, and its tail were all darker than the city around them, dark enough that she couldn’t see any detail, even in the warm lantern light. Rose could just make out that the pony was panting heavily, its tail flicking back and forth. Only its eyes were sharp, in focus, and lit: they glowed a sinister purple that seemed to bleed into a murky haze around its head. It leaned into a yell that she felt more than heard, thick with anger and pain, before leaping at her again.
Rose ducked to the side, just barely dodging the shadow’s lunge, and kicked out her hindlegs, expecting to impact on the pony’s thigh but only hitting air. It was fast. The shadow turned and shifted sideways, even as Rose struggled to keep her balance. It rushed her, headbutting her in the chest and shoving her onto her backside. She barely felt her rough landing. The shadow advanced, rearing up, its forehooves looming over her.
She slid herself backwards, wincing as the hooves fell between her legs, slamming onto the stonework with a terrible clang. She rolled onto her gut and leapt to her hooves, quickly turning to the side to move out of its path.
“Heads up!”
Rose whipped around, just catching a blue blur zoom past her, head first. Daring slammed into the shadow’s shoulder, sending it sprawling across the ground. The shadow howled in anger. Daring leapt into the air, flapping hard to gain altitude to dive-bomb it, but there wasn’t much room in the little square.
Movement behind her. Heart pounding, she whipped around, expecting to see the remaining shadows peel away from the wall and pounce, but it was only the Unicorn, pulling herself over the ground, dragging her injured leg.
“Where are my bags?” she yelled.
Rose ignored her and turned back just in time to watch Daring fall to the ground and the shadow land atop her, slashing and kicking and snarling like a beast. Daring yelped in pain when its hoof connected with her chest. Rose yelled and ran for the pair, twisting at the last second and diving right at the shadow. With a snarl she knocked it off its hooves.
The shadow howled and stood to face them. Rose climbed to her hooves, wincing as her joints complained. Beside her, Daring kept her body low and her legs bent. The shadow paused, panting heavily and snorting.
“C’mon! That the best ya got?!” Rose yelled, feeling something hot and angry surge through her.
The shadow backed away a step, looking back and forth between them, the motion only obvious from its glowing eyes. Then it looked away, towards the other wall. Rose risked a glance—the lantern had landed on the other side of the room, still rolling in a lazy circle.
“Oh, no you don’t!” Rose shoved her way past Daring just as the shadow tensed and leapt into the air. She was closer but it was faster, and Rose knew it was going to reach the lantern before she could, that it was going to destroy their one source of light and leave them blind and helpless.
The shadow landed without a sound and grabbed the burning wick in the center of the lantern, and all at once its shape began to blur and mist. Rose dove at the shadow, only to fly clear through it. The wall behind it was so close Rose didn’t have time to correct before slamming into the wall and crumpling to the ground. The light from the lantern flared before dimming.
“No!” she cried, trying to swat away the shadow monster’s vapor, but her hoof slid clear through, chilling right to the bone.
“Close your eyes!” the Unicorn yelled. She had something small in her hoof and was awkwardly reaching back to throw it.
Rose rolled away and buried her head in her hooves. Something burst right beside her, loud enough to leave a ringing in her ears and bright enough that she could see the flash of the reflection from behind her hooves.
A few seconds passed, and her hearing slowly returned. She blinked the shock from her eyes and took stock. Daring Do was standing over her, locked in a defensive stance and blocking anything from getting to Rose. The monster was gone and the lantern was still intact, burning brightly. None of the other shadows were moving . . . at least none that she could see.
For a moment, the only sounds were panting, gasping, and ringing. Then Daring broke the silence.
“What the fuck? Ahh!” she cried, immediately wincing and pressing her hoof to her chest where the monster had hit her. She was trembling. “What in Tartarus was that?!”
Rose climbed to her hooves, watching the Unicorn. She’d shoved herself into a sitting position against the wall and was rifling through their bags, muttering to herself. She kept glancing around the square, eyeing the darkened corners or the tops of the buildings for . . . motion? More shadows?
“Hay!” Rose said. “Answer her!”
The pony ignored her and continued searching through their bags, pulling out various items and tossing them to the side. Anger, fear, exhaustion, and ache welled up inside Rose. Forget this. She marched up to the Unicorn, grabbed her mane, and yanked her out of their saddlebags.
The Unicorn yelped, dropping whatever was in her hooves and scrambling forward to keep her mane attached to her head. “Ow! Please, don’t hurt me!”
“Answer her!” Rose barked.
The Unicorn tried to pull herself free from Rose’s grip, but she was weak and had no leverage with an injured leg dragging behind her. Rose pulled her in, face to face, so close their noses nearly touched.
“What was that thing?” she asked.
The Unicorn whimpered, her eyes continuously flicking back and forth from the walls to the two adventurers. Rose reluctantly let go of the pony’s mane, and the pony slumped to the ground and hid her face between her forelegs. After a few short moments she said, quietly, “A shadow. It—it’s a Shadow Pony.”
“Shadow Pony?” Rose wondered. Her eyes went wide, and she gasped. “Cairo did this. Cairo found the Tome of Shadows and he’s—he’s unleashed this Shadow Pony!”
The Unicorn looked at her and shook her head. “No, he didn’t! They’ve been down here for hundreds of years.” She pouted. “And Cairo wouldn’t do that. He’s trying to get the Tome out of here, not use it.”
“Ya think it’s just a coincidence that—” Rose blinked. “Wait. They?”
The Unicorn gestured at the paintings on the walls surrounding the square. Each looked like a Shadow Pony waiting to strike. Rose turned around, suddenly afraid to keep her back to any of them. “All of these . . . ?”
“Hold on, why aren’t these attacking us?” Daring asked.
“Until now you haven’t stood around long enough to anger any of them.” She coughed. “They’re perfectly content to suck down any light that hits their silhouettes, but if you remove that source of light, they get hungry again.” She pointed at Rose’s shadow, stretched and distorted from her angle to the lantern. “And if you cast a shadow over one . . . they get angry.”
“So all the paintings we’ve lit, then left behind . . . ” Daring muttered.
“Anytime we’ve walked over a shadow’s hooves . . . ” Rose whispered.
The Unicorn nodded. “They feed on light. It makes them stronger. Down here they don’t get much light. The only way to kill one is to feed it so much light that it bursts.”
“That stone you threw at me,” Rose remembered. “Twice.”
“Snapstones.”
Daring said, “So we smash the lantern. They won’t follow us if we aren’t feeding them any light.”
“And break our only source of light down here? Ah don’t think even you can see in the dark, Daring.”
“It’s not completely dark down here. There’s some sort of bioluminescence—”
“Not happening,” Rose said flatly. She approached the Unicorn. “How’d you know all this? Who are you?” She yanked the two crumpled photographs from her bags and pushed them in the Unicorn’s face. “And where did you get these?”
The mare winced and looked away. “My name is Midnight Oil. I work for Cairo. All his employees will recognize you on sight, he made sure of that.” She groaned and shook her head. “I’ll tell you everything, but not here. It’s not safe here.” She pointed at the silhouettes, greedily slurping down lantern light. “At least, not anymore.”
Rose slumped back and looked at Daring. “As soon as we leave, these Shadows are gonna chase us, huh?”
“Unless we leave the lantern here,” Daring said, nodding. “Can you stand?” she asked Midnight.
“Maybe.” Midnight Oil propped herself up on her forelegs, but when she put weight on her left hindleg she collapsed with a grunt. “Maybe not.”
“We’re trying to get to the center of the city. Do you know how to get there?” Rose asked.
Midnight was silent for a few moments, then nodded. “Yes. I think so. It’s pretty far, and I don’t know how many Shadow Ponies are between us and it, but the layout is actually fairly repetitious.” She relaxed her neck and let her face rest on the floor. “The closer we get to the Sanctum in the center, the more likely the Shadows will have been awoken by somepony else.” She sounded exhausted. “But the Sanctum’s the only safe place in the city. We can’t stay here.”
“Horseapples,” Daring swore. “What do we do?”
Midnight looked up at them, a look of distaste on her lips. “Either we sneak past,” she said, lifting the lantern with her weak magic—if she dropped it or let go, it would shatter; “or we break through.” With a free hoof, she slid the pile of snapstones in front of them.
“Pick one.”
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So, what becomes of Midnight Oil when the adventure is over? Is she just a construct that can be turned off until she's needed again, or is she something more?
I just read all of these in one go. Liked and favorited.
7669615 Twilight is creating life just for a fake adventure, and once it's over, poof! Mirror pool all over again.
7669615
Something tells me Twilight might have accidentally made it a bit too real, if you catch my drift.
I say sneak past just to find out that they have too leave midnight oil behind or they will be overrun and they fight too break through
7673587 Agreed. It looks likely that creating Midnight Oil (and especially the shadow ponies) will bite Twilight in the flank hard down the line.
If only I could have a Gm like Twilight..
Especially is she was able to change the player into their character.
It would be really entertaining... as long as she doesn't accidentally kill us.
As for the options n, I say try to sneak past, realize it doesn't work, brute force through... Standard procedure when role-playing really.
I really wanna chat with y'all about your ideas and thoughts, but it's tough because I can see the future and know more or less what's going to happen. But...
7670014
Thanks for the like, fav, and comment. Exactly what I feed on!
7671283
Did you also find it odd that Twilight's "correct" version of PInkie Pie was a sad, depressed, regretful pony? Ouch.
7674041
7690140
That's two votes for sneaking followed by failure and brute force.
7674433
7673587
Do you guys think Midnight will turn on Twilight?
7691670 Midnight, maybe. The Shadowponies, definitely.
Midnight thinks she is a real pony with a past (and maybe a family?), if she finds out otherwise it could easily send her right into psycho-crazy land. And if Twilight decides to "dispel" her while Midnight still thinks she's real (and Midnight recognizes Twilight's actions as a threat to her existence), then she'd have every reason to try and defend herself violently.
Oh, and Twilight did use golem making as a base for creating Midnight, and Twi' did observe that golems are notorious for turning on their "masters" ....
The Shadowponies are already straining against Twilight's barriers and (per Twilight's thoughts) not under any real control of hers ... so they'll attack Twi' just as eagerly as anypony else. (And if some of them should get loose outside ... that's all whole other can of worms.)
7691670 Not really. Maybe just get really angry, but not turning-on-Twilight angry. Also, would Midnight, if actually a real pony, be Twilight's daughter? It'd be funny if Midnight calls her mom and Twilight just freaks out
Not even this story's Twilight could have created that big ghost town within a few hours, right? Surely she found it and built the adventure around it. AJ “hearing” the farming makes me think it's authentic (nice of you to remember Earth magic, BTW).
And like the other commenters, I'm wondering if Midnight Oil knows she's a golem or that Cairo isn't real. This could be very interesting. Sooner or later Twilight's house of cards is going to collapse.