Mortal Coil

by Reeve

LXIX - The Lion's Den

Needless to say, flying aboard Harbinger proved to be a much more efficient method of transport than walking. With his greater size came a massive increase in strength and speed, allowing him to travel miles in minutes without the need for rest. We flew straight through the night, crossing the entire length of Panchea, over the Wyvern Heights, across the Grand Pastures and the Neptune, above the Tranquil Forest and finally out through the Hallowed Woods, coming out over the Dusk Coast as the sun began to rise at our backs.

During the trip, we were able to see the city of Arclight fully lit up, which flying over turned out to be quite the sight. It was also something, gliding carelessly over the surface of the Neptune and seeing the night sky both above and reflected beneath us as we soared on. The start was very unpleasant for both Twilight and Applejack, not that I wasn’t feeling a bit sick looking over the edge at the massive drop below, but after a couple hours we all managed to loosen up and enjoy the ride and savour the sights.

When morning came however, and we were on the final leg… or wing, of our journey, all of us stopped relishing the flight and began focusing on what lay directly ahead of us. Harbinger flew low, keeping close to the ground and slowing his approach as we skimmed north, up along the coast, looking out for the Covenant hideout. The vision in the vault hadn’t shows us what to expect, only a location. I guessed since nopony living at the temple had seen it for themselves, they couldn’t record that information. As we flew through, we noticed a dramatic increase in the amount of fog surrounding the coast, and the glare of the rising sun off it was making navigation particularly difficult.

“This isn’t natural!” Rainbow shouted over to me. “Trust me, I know my clouds!”

“It must be a protective spell!” Twilight suggested. “Which means we’re getting close!”

“Um, Harbinger!” I called out in an unsure voice. “I’m not sure if you can understand me, but could you land?!”

Harbinger did seem to understand me, and obeyed immediately, decelerating rapidly as he dropped lower and lower, until his claws were skimming across the sand. Finally he slowed to a complete stop, and crouched low for us to hop safely off. Once we were all on the ground, my own legs feeling a little wobbly beneath me, similar to what I might have got after a period at sea, Fluttershy reached up and nuzzled his great beak. When she was done, Harbinger’s whole body radiated with darkness and sparked with black lightning as he shrunk back down to his original size.

“Thank you very much,” Fluttershy said to him as he perched on her outstretched leg.

“Indeed, thank you for all your help,” Twilight agreed.

We all gathered around and gave Harbinger a quick word of thanks, when we were done, he began cawing to Fluttershy.

“I’m not sure,” she admitted thoughtfully before turning to me. “He says he can follow us in, do you want him with us or…”

I thought about it for a moment, he could be a useful asset, the thought of him sized up and tearing through the enemy ranks brought a smile to my face. However that wasn’t the stealthiest approach, and without knowing what all we would be up against in there, it was the height of foolishness.

“Do you have some way of contacting him if we need help?” I asked.

Fluttershy asked Harbinger about this and he cawed in response.

“He says all we have to do is call his name and he’ll come straight to us,” she reported back.

“In that case, he should stay here or somewhere else safe for now,” I explained. “If things get sticky, we’ll call him in. But more than that, if we find Fauna and the others, he can help get them out safely.”

Fluttershy quickly asked if Harbinger understood all I had said, and he nodded in confirmation before flapping away, disappearing quickly into the suffocating mists. With him gone for the moment, we turned our attention ahead of us, using my compass and map to ensure we were pointing in the right direction, before heading off.

“This stuff is so thick,” Applejack muttered as we walked along the beach. “What if we miss the base?”

“Maybe it’s big enough that we won’t miss it,” Pinkie replied optimistically.

“How big can it be?” Rainbow questioned. “If it was really big, then surely somepony would have stumbled onto it before.”

“Who knows? If this fog really is some kind of magic protection,” Twilight began. “Perhaps there are other things in place to ward off wandering ponies.”

We kept on walking in silence, we had to be getting close now, I could see the others getting fidgety, their eyes darting about wildly so as not to miss anything out of the ordinary. Of course when we reached a certain point, and the fog rolled back like the curtain at a theatre, it was clear to all of us there was never any chance of missing this place. In a single instant the mist began pulling apart, it was still there, but much finer and looking more like you would expect it to, rather than an all obscuring screen. Revealed before us was our destination, and as we saw it, we all came to a halt and gawked in awe.

The Covenant’s base was… well, there’s no way to describe it other than incredible. It was the mother of all cathedrals, like somepony had taken dozens of churches and castles and smashed them together to create something monumental… and it was colossal. I felt like an ant looking up at it all, it could have been a small city, and may very well have dwarfed some, while looking to be on par with Canterlot itself. There was simply too much to describe, there were towers and spires, gables and tall arches, windows which looked like pinpricks compared to the rest of the structure. The whole place was only just perched on the edge of the coast, mainly built atop a crag that spilled out into the sea.

At the very lowest levels, there were docks and enough buildings to have made a reasonable base on their own, but the rest of the cathedral towered over them. I felt dizzy craning my neck to survey the whole thing, it truly was a beautiful place, the flocks of gulls and the flags fluttering atop the many spires only accentuated that fact. It managed to make other places like the Bask and Arclight look relatively plain in comparison, and I think the others thought so too.

“Wow…” Fluttershy breathed.

“Wow is right,” Pinkie agreed. “I’ve seen a lot of things in my time, but that… that’s something else.”

“It’s pretty and all,” Applejack began, a but imminent. “But how in the hay are we supposed to find anything in there?!”

“Applejack’s right,” Rainbow added. “It would take a week to search that place top to bottom.”

“Well if a week is what it will take,” I began in a loud clear voice. “Then a week is what we give. We did not come this far to get performance anxiety and leave to take a cold shower.”

“Excuse me?” Twilight queried with a raised eyebrow.

“Well where do we begin?” Fluttershy asked. “What if there are guards about?”

“Give me a second,” I replied, pulling out my spyglass.

After extending it and peering through the lens, I was able to make out a few indistinct shapes that could have been Covenant ponies walking about around the dock area. After surfing up the building, I also saw a couple shapes moving about in the three largest arches in the face of the cathedral, presumably there to keep watch.

“Well there are some ponies walking about,” I reported. “Hard to tell if they’re Covenant or not, probably are though.”

I scanned to the left, moving from the main part of the building to a tiny rock, separated and secluded in the sea, upon which was what appeared to be a lighthouse. I didn’t see any movement around it, as opposed to the obvious entrance at the docks. If we could get there, we would have a much closer view of the cathedral, and might be able to ascertain a different way in.

“Do you see that tower there girls?” I asked, indicating it with my hoof as I lowered my hoof. “It seems to be a lighthouse, more than that, it looks deserted. Is it too far to teleport for either of you?”

“I should be able to manage that,” Twilight reported. “And if I can, then Pinkie definitely can.”

“Alright then,” I continued. “If you two could get me and Applejack over there, then Rainbow and Fluttershy can fly out around. Use the fog as cover to get close, then move in quickly before anypony looks out a window and sees you.”

“Can do,” Pinkie replied, placing a hoof on my shoulder.

In the blink of an eye, we vanished from the beach and reappeared on the rocky path leading up to the lighthouse door. The sudden sound of waves crashing against rock filling my ears, while I was hit with a sudden blast of chilly sea air and the smell of salt hit my nostrils. A second later, Twilight and Applejack teleported next to us, while in the distance I could see two blurry shapes flying through the fog from the place where we had been standing.

“Alright, let’s check this place and make sure there’s no surprises waiting for us,” I instructed, making for the door.

“Ah don’t think it’ll be a problem Sugarcube,” Applejack replied, drawing her claymore just to be safe. “Ah don’t see any boats here, tied up around this rock.”

“We didn’t need a boat,” Pinkie pointed out as she drew her knives.

I gripped the door handle in my magic and swung it open, peering into the cold stone tower. I didn’t see anypony there, so I risked stepping inside, glancing around the fairly empty structure, up the wooden staircase that wound its way up to the very top. As my eyes were navigating upwards, taking in the cobwebs and the air heavy with dust, I failed to notice the door leading off to the side, nor did I hear it opening until the pony called out.

“Who are you?!” the mare exclaimed in a panicked voice. “How did you get here?!”

I spun around to see the pony dressed in her long black robes with the giveaway embroidering. She was staring at me in horror, paralysed for a moment before coming to her senses and moving to draw her short sword.

“Sound the alarm!” she cried out. “Light the signal fire!”

I looked up in time to see a face poking out over the stairs, looking inquisitively down at us before pulling back out of sight, no doubt hurrying to do as they had been commanded. I drew my own sword and blocked as the mare rushed at me, she clearly hadn’t been prepared for any sort of response and was easily knocked off balance, a quick uppercut to her jaw sent her packing to the floor. As I dealt with her, a stallion could be seen scurrying about in the room she had just come from, perhaps only just waking up as he scrabbled about for a weapon.

He came rushing out as I knocked the mare to the floor; he was carrying to two battle-axes in his magic, the first of which he hurled through the air at me. I never would have been able to dodge in time, but I felt myself get grabbed and hauled to the floor by Applejack, hearing the axe clang heavily of the stone wall behind us. Looking up, I saw the stallion drop his second axe to the floor, as Pinkie materialised right behind him and drove a dagger into his back. I was already getting to my hooves and rushing for the stairs as I heard his body hit the floor.

I would never catch up to the other pony at this rate; he had already been so high up when I first spotted him. Trying to pick up speed only resulted in my tripping, and falling face first into the wooden steps. Thankfully my face didn’t actually hit the steps, as while I was falling, I saw a flash of purple light in my peripheral vision and felt Twilight’s hooves reach out and grab hold of me. A quick teleport later and we were standing at the top of the tower interior, on a wooden platform with only a ladder between us and the roof, where the pony had rushed off to.

I didn’t stop to thank Twilight for her quick intervention, rather leapt to my hooves and clambered up the ladder, drawing my knives with my magic and readying them. As soon as I pulled myself up over the edge, I was immediately greeted with the unconscious body of the pony I had seen, and Rainbow Dash leaning against a signal pyre looking pleased with herself.

“Were you looking for this guy?” she asked smugly, giving him a rough kick. “Not so deserted after all.”

“Well…” I began breathlessly, crouching down for a quick rest. “If my spyglass could see through walls, then it would take all the surprise out of life.”

“That’s what I like to hear!” Pinkie declared, popping her head up the ladder. “Is he dead?”

“Just knocked out,” Rainbow replied. “I don’t like killing ponies if they’re not a threat.”

“No, me neither,” I agreed, pulling out my spyglass and passing it to Rainbow Dash. “Why don’t you stay up here and scope out the cathedral? Pinkie and I will take him downstairs and tie him up or something with the others, and whatever you do, do not lose that!”

“Don’t worry,” she assured me as she accepted the gift. “I haven’t forgotten our first meeting.”

While she got on her belly and began peering through the spyglass at the cathedral ahead of us, Pinkie and I hauled the unconscious body of the pony back down the lighthouse, to where Applejack was tying the mare I had knocked out up, and Fluttershy was hastily bandaging up the stallion Pinkie stabbed. Once all three were secured, we set about searching the lighthouse for anything of value. Not that there was much to search, Twilight was already looking about in the room the two ponies had come from, which turned out to be living quarters.

“Anything of interest?” I asked, noticing she was reading over something.

“Pretty bare bones mostly,” Twilight reported. “Little bit of food, but not much else, there was this letter pinned on the back of the door. It gives instructions to apprehend and deliver any lost travellers, but if there are too many or they appear hostile, then to light the signal fire and keep them at bay until help arrives.”

“Perhaps more ponies find this place than we realise,” I murmured to myself. “Is there nothing else?”

“Actually…” Twilight began, flipping the letter over to reveal an untidy scrawl on the back side. “There is this, it reads ‘pull down, turn one hundred and twenty degrees anticlockwise until soft click, then release’.”

“Any idea what it’s referring to?” I asked curiously.

“Perhaps a lever of some kind,” Twilight proposed. “Maybe you should shine your lantern about, see if you notice anything out of the ordinary.”

I nodded and returned to the other room, levitating my lantern just as Twilight had suggested. As I walked about with it, Pinkie and Applejack were busy stripping the three ponies of their robes.

“What do you think Rarity?” Pinkie asked, donning one set and giving a little twirl on the spot. “Do I make the evil cultist look work?”

“The blood is a nice touch,” I told her, nodding at where her dagger had cut through the material, and the blood that had subsequently soaked in.

“Anypony gets close enough to notice, we’ll be sure they can’t raise the alarm,” Applejack stated flatly.

It didn’t take long for the lantern to find the secret passage; it was right in the centre of the room. A shimmering square marking it out, with a golden trail leading along the floor and up one of the wooden struts holding up the stairs. The trail ended with an unlit torch, held in place with an iron bracket. Reaching out, I grabbed hold of it, pulling it out before rotating it to the left. I turned it at a right angle before I started taking it slower and listening carefully for the click. When I heard it, I let go of the torch and it started winding back to its original position. As it snapped back into place, there was a grinding sound as the square section of stone coughed up dusted along its edges, before slowly sinking into the floor.

We looked down over the edge and watched as it descended deeper and deeper, until shadows took it and it was out of sight. It didn’t take long after that for the grinding to stop, the others were already discussing where it might lead, as well as how we were supposed to get it back up, before the noise started up a second time. This time it wasn’t long before the platform appeared in view and rose back up to its original place, finally settling and fitting seamlessly with the surrounding floor. While Pinkie and Twilight rode the platform back down on its second run, each wearing the stolen Covenant robes, I went back up the stairs to find Rainbow Dash.

Once I was up the ladder, I lay down on my stomach and shuffled up beside her, while she continued to survey the cathedral through the spyglass.

“Anything to report?” I asked calmly, hoping I wouldn’t be disturbing her.

“How many ponies do you think is supposed to be in this group?” she asked, not lowering the spyglass.

“Oh, um, I don’t actually know,” I admitted. “That never really came up whenever we were talking about them.”

“Well just from looking through windows, I’ve seen quite a few walking back and forth,” she went on. “And that’s just in the areas I can see, on top of that, there’s at least two squads of pegasi patrolling the air. I’ve seen them in the distance, one of them came quite close here, but they didn’t spot me. I think it’s too risky flying in, far too many chances of being spotted.”

“Well teleporting isn’t an option if Twilight can’t visualise where she’ll end up,” I added. “We found a secret passage downstairs, we’re not sure where it leads, Twilight and Pinkie are checking it now.”

Rainbow nodded, and after returning my spyglass, we shuffled back to the ladder and made our way down the lighthouse. We still had to wait about for a little while for the other two to return, during which time we argued over who should be forced to wear the last Covenant robe. We decided it wouldn’t suit for either Rainbow or Applejack since they both wore helmets which the robes couldn’t cover, plus the robes would only make it difficult for them and myself to draw our weapons. That hadn’t been a problem for either Twilight or Pinkie since both were capable of fighting without their sceptre and daggers respectively, but since Fluttershy would be the least likely among us to be in the thick of the fight, it was settled that she would wear the last robes.

The sound of rumbling signalled the return of our friends, I guessed they had found a way of summoning the platform from the other end, as I had been under instruction to lower it myself if they didn’t find a way after a few more minutes. They returned and looked no worse for wear, although Pinkie immediately gravitated to Fluttershy, her eyes lighting up upon seeing her in the matching robes.

“Love the look Fluttershy!” she exclaimed, zooming up into her face. “It really brings out the maniacal megalomaniac in you.”

“Um… thank you?” Fluttershy replied uncertainly as she backed up from Pinkie’s overbearing grin.

“That looks like a fairly good route into the cathedral,” Twilight explained to the rest of us. “It looks like a mine shaft for a bit, but then it joins into the catacombs. There were a few guards wandering about, but we managed to avoid them.”

“Sounds like that’s our way in,” Rainbow replied, glancing at me. “If we can’t go over, under seems like our best choice.”

“Agreed, shall we go now?” I asked the others, receiving five nods in response. “And remember, you three are transporting prisoners.”

“Just be sure to sound like a tool,” Pinkie added to Fluttershy and Twilight. “If they ask too many questions, bop them on the head… hard.”

My friends all congregated on the platform while I fiddled about with the lever, hurrying to join them as it was winding back. We all descended from the dim light of the lighthouse, into the even dimmer light of the cavernous tunnel below. Twilight took the lead with her horn alight; naturally I couldn’t help if we were to keep up the prisoner façade. The tunnel looked like a mine, obviously dug out, with wooden struts and beams to reinforce it and prevent cave-ins. We tried to walk as quietly as possible, not easy with the gravel crunching under our hooves and boots, but we managed to come out the other end of the tunnel with no guards coming to look into the sounds we had made.

The catacombs were much better lit than the tunnel had been, with flickering torches every several metres. They were comprised of two brick pathways running parallel to one another down every corridor with a deep trench between them. Within these trenches were alcoves, each with an ancient statue or coffin, or an iron bar door leading off to some shadowy passage dotted randomly along. There was also the occasional bridge that joined the two pathways on our level together. As we walked, we noticed groups of patrolling guards and intentionally steered clear of them. At a distance, they didn’t seem to consider us suspicious due to our robed escort.

“The air current is coming from just ahead,” Rainbow whispered to Twilight, pointing straight on when we came to a junction.

Twilight nodded and continued forward, making for the point where the wall split away, presumably to accommodate the staircase that would take us up. Just as we began to near it however, we heard the sound of clopping as multiple ponies began descending the stairs. We quickly glanced about, but the only place to hide would have been in the trench, and that would have taken too long for us all to lower safely down. Rather than turn back, Twilight carried on confidently, clearly hoping to play it off, and that the approaching ponies wouldn’t pay us any heed.

“Halt sisters!” the lead pony called out upon seeing us, I mentally cursed. “Who are these ponies?”

“Invaders… uh, brother,” Twilight replied in a forced cam voice. “They attacked us at the lighthouse.”

“Attacked?” a second stallion repeated in disbelief. “However did they find us?”

“They refuse to say,” Twilight answered. “I was taking them upstairs for questioning.”

“No sister,” the first stallion cut in. “We’ll take them from here, you three shouldn’t have left your post.”

“It’s okay!” Pinkie leapt in quickly. “We ran into some others and they agreed to watch the lighthouse while we were away.”

“Ah, very well then,” the stallion replied in an apologetic tone. “Carry on then sisters, but do not linger, ponies attacking is a serious problem, Father Crane will want to hear of it personally.”

“We’ll be sure to inform him brother,” Twilight assured him, giving him a small bow of the head.

The stallion surveyed us for a brief moment, for a second I believed he had grown suspicious, perhaps something Twilight had said… but his face returned to its blank state quickly enough. He returned the gesture, and both he and his friend walked around us and carried on down the corridor. Without waiting to be caught again, we hurried up the stone steps; they obviously didn’t travel up far enough to take us to the surface, so we weren’t surprised when we found ourselves in another dungeon room.

This one had a little more charm about it, it was a small chapel with sleek, wooden pews and a marble altar at one end, draped in a sheet of cloth that was strikingly reminiscent of the robes the Covenant members wore. Clearly they liked their style and they were sticking to it, interior decorating sense be damned. Behind the altar was a stained glass window, it depicted an alicorn with its wings spread wide, and despite the room being underground, there was still light shining through it.

There were several more Covenant members here, all sitting in the pews with their heads bowed, paying no heed to us as they prayed on. An old stallion stood behind the altar, a large golden goblet resting before him, into which he was pouring a deep red liquid from a bottle. He glanced up and saw us standing at the opposite end of the room staring at him; he apparently made the connection in his head who we were supposed to be.

“Do you need the Father’s blessing?” the old pony asked in a croaky voice. “Finish your task first, then return here so that you might be seen to.”

Twilight nodded briefly, before ushering us onwards to where the next staircase was. This one wound its way around a square tower room, the light streaming through the door at the top was clearly that of daylight.

“What the heck was that stuff?” Applejack whispered as we climbed.

“And what did he mean by ‘the Father’s blessing’?” Fluttershy added in a nervous tone.

“I… I’m not sure,” Twilight replied with a concerned expression. “I tried to scan it before he noticed us; it didn’t feel like anything I recognised.”

We reached the top and emerged through the open archway into a huge hallway; the floors were made from travertine tiles, which shone with the light pouring through the tall floor to ceiling windows lining the left wall. The chamber was also lined with great, marble support columns, and high up above we could see bridge like balconies stretching between them. In the hall there were just over a dozen robed ponies walking about, looking over sheets of paper or pulling carts filled with random assortments of bottles and boxes. There were also a number of ponies standing guard around the chamber, some walking up and down along the left hand wall, looking out the open windows, while the others stood in place at either side of the doors leading out of the cathedral, including the one we had just walked out of.

“Hold it sisters,” one of the guards said, holding out her pike against Rainbow Dash’s throat. “Who are these ponies?”

“Invaders,” Twilight replied simply. “They attacked the lighthouse, we were told to take them to Father Crane.”

“Excuse me?” the mare questioned, narrowing her eyes at Twilight. “Who exactly told you to do that?”

“Uh…” Twilight began, either not expecting to be put on the spot or just panicking that she had been. “It was… oh, let me think now…”

“Brother Mildew,” Fluttershy jumped in. “He was in charge of the team at the lighthouse.”

“Oh, that makes sense,” the mare said, calming down immediately as understanding dawned on her. “Well don’t listen to that fool, no prisoner goes before Father Crane unless he requests it personally. Take these three to the west wing, then inform Father Crane yourself.”

“We shall,” Fluttershy responded, giving the same bow of the head Twilight had given earlier. “Thank you for the assistance sister.”

She returned the nod and lowered her pike, allowing us all to continue down the hall towards the large open doors at the end. It was only once we were out of earshot of the guards and was sure no other ponies were close enough to overhear us, that we confronted Fluttershy.

“What was that?!” I hissed, my voice a mixture of disbelief and amazement. “How did you know that name?”

“That was the name of the pony Pinkie… uh, took down,” Fluttershy replied with a barely noticeable shudder. “I asked him when I was treating him.”

“Well good thinking,” Applejack replied, reaching out to give her a pat on the back only to have her hoof slapped down by Pinkie.

“Keep walking criminal scum!” she snapped at her, giving an apologetic grin when Applejack glared at her.

At the great double doors, Twilight strode confidently through without stopping to look at the guards. Just like my first infiltration of Fort Mule, simply by looking like she had a right to be there, was enough to convince the guards that she really did. Once beyond the doors, we found ourselves in a towering chamber, filled with dozens of stone staircases leading off to different sections of the cathedral. After a little hushed discussion, we chose a staircase and starting ascending, we decided it would be best to look like we were heading towards the west wing, at least until we figured where to go in order to find Crane.

The cathedral was just as beautiful on the inside as it had appeared when first looking at it from the beach, more so in some regards, when we were able to take in the intricately carved stonework up close, and the many statues and paintings decorating the halls. I was torn out of my thoughts as a bloodcurdling shriek pierced my ears, and caused the entire corridor we were walking through to tremble slightly. I glanced around at the others who had all reacted similarly to myself, clamping their ears down and clenching their eyes shut. Unfortunately the sudden noise hadn’t come as a surprise to the guards up ahead, who were now walking towards us with suspicious looks on their faces.

“What’s going on here sisters?” the stallion questioned Pinkie Pie, narrowing his eyes while tightening his grip on his pike. “Who are these ponies, and where are you taking them?”

“Prisoners… brother,” Pinkie replied, quickly adding the last part. “We were told to bring them to the west wing.”

“And what was all that about?” the other mare asked. “You act like you haven’t heard the cries before.”

“Oh we haven’t,” Pinkie said without thinking. “It sounded awful.”

Both guards glanced at each other before stepping back slightly, lowering their pikes so the heads were directed at Pinkie Pie. I could hear another pair of guards approaching from behind, and readied myself for a possible fight.

“Why don’t you all come with us,” the stallion suggested in a tense voice. “We’ll make sure you reach the west wing.”

“That’s okay, we can find our own way,” Pinkie replied with a sly grin, before snapping into action.

The two guards didn’t know what hit them, as Pinkie ducked under their pikes and weaved her way around their legs as fast as I could blink. As she went, I saw a flash of silver, and when she stood back up directly behind them, she gave a hard tug on the wire she had just tangled around them, and caused it to tighten in, bringing them both to the ground. I spun around as the other two guards burst into a gallop, they were shouting for backup and I prayed there was nopony within earshot.

Twilight’s horn flashed, and in an instant the cloaking spell around our weapons vanished and we were free to draw them. I threw two knives out, both slicing past one of the guards forelegs and causing him to stumble. Rainbow Dash sped in and clocked him in the jaw, before grabbing hold of him and spinning him full circle, releasing him so he went crashing into the second guard. With both knocked flat on their faces, Applejack strode calmly up and bucked them each once, hard enough that they didn’t move after. I looked back to see Pinkie basically garrotting the stallion, while the mare lay motionless next to him.

“Okay, that’s enough Pinkie,” Twilight said, placing a hoof on Pinkie’s shoulder.

It was only then that I had noticed the look in Pinkie’s eyes, the smile remained, but there was no joy in those eyes, only white hot anger. I thought back to my first encounter with Pinkie, how the Covenant had tricked her and tried to kill her afterwards, had she really been carrying this anger around all this time and I hadn’t noticed? Before I could think about how to pursue that avenue of thought however, Pinkie obeyed Twilight, and the flash of rage was gone. The same old happy go lucky Pinkie Pie returned to us in time to help drag the bodies away into a side chamber.

We stored them inside a study, another robed pony was inside. They must have heard the commotion out in the hall, but when we entered, we found them cowering in the corner, making no attempt to call for help as they stared at us with terrified eyes.

“It’s okay,” Fluttershy told her. “We aren’t going to hurt you, just relax and everything will be okay.”

“W… who are you ponies?!” she stammered, her shaking reducing slightly at Fluttershy’s calming voice.

“We’re… the good guys,” Fluttershy replied after a moment’s thought. “Are you new here? You don’t seem like the rest.”

“Uh, yeah,” she replied with a shaky nod of the head. “I only joined a couple months ago.”

“Why don’t you take a seat?” Fluttershy offered, pulling the chair out from behind a desk and offering it to her. “We can talk for a bit.”

I saw the mare’s eyes flicker to the door behind us.

“Please,” Fluttershy insisted, this time there was an edge to her voice and the mare found herself unable to object.

She sat down in the seat Fluttershy offered her, while the others busied themselves with restraining the four guards. I leant against the desk and looked down at the mare, while Fluttershy crouched down next to her.

“How exactly did you come to join this group?” Fluttershy asked.

“T… they approached me in church,” the mare replied. “They said that’s how they found all their members.”

“Was this at Brine?” I asked suddenly, remembering the secret base Pinkie had found in the church there.

“Brine? No, I lived in Port Mule,” the mare replied in a confused tone. “I don’t understand what’s happening, what are you going to do to me?”

“Nothing,” Fluttershy assured her. “We just want to know some things, then we’ll leave you in peace.”

“Are you aware of what the Covenant is trying to do?” I asked.

“I… I am,” the mare replied uncertainly. “Well… I’ve been told bits and pieces, there are some things they only tell you after you’ve been a member for a certain length of time.”

“What about the abominations?” I questioned, earning a small glare from Fluttershy for breaching the subject so tactlessly. “Do you know about them?”

The mare refused to meet my eye as she answered.

“I know… that sacrifices need to be made for the greater good,” she muttered before raising her voice suddenly. “And what Father Crane is doing is good, and I’m helping him do it! I review these texts that my brothers and sisters retrieved, for information that might aid our studies; I’m doing a good job! I’ve done nothing wrong!”

With that she bolted from the chair, making for the door, but I held it firm with my magic even as she struggled with it. Fluttershy came up behind her and tried to rest a comforting hoof on her shoulder, but when it was batted away by the panicking mare, Fluttershy looked to Twilight for assistance. One sleep spell later and the mare was hidden beneath her desk, while we searched about the study for anything of use. The texts she had been reading over, underlining and jotting down notes in the margins of, were all relating to obscure alchemy and more advanced chemistry, mainly regarding the development and procedures involved.

One random page I picked up was detailing a rare type of root, next to it, the mare had written down ‘may act as a suitable substitute for Ent Bark, not as rare and less volatile when incinerated’. It seemed from what this mare was doing, and all the ponies we had seen walking about with similar papers, or carts of specimens and reagents, that everything the Covenant was doing here was related to their magical and scientific experiments that were intended to achieve ascension.

“Rarity,” Pinkie said in a muffled voice, bouncing over with a letter held between her teeth. “Check this out!”

I took it from her and began reading, but once her mouth was free she wasted no time in giving me the run down herself.

“It’s talking about the repairs to the east wing,” Pinkie explained. “Apparently something big happened there; it might have something to do with all the escaped monsters.”

“And how Spike got out,” Twilight added. “Does it say anything else?”

“It says that until repairs are completed,” I began, reading off the letter. “Most work will be carried out in the west wing.”

“That’s where we’re headed,” Applejack reminded us. “And if that’s where these experiments are goin’ down, then surely that’s where we’ll find that Crane.”

“Does that not also prove that they use prisoners as test subjects?” Fluttershy asked in a weak voice.

I shuddered at the thought; remembering Crane’s statement about their methods compared to the Children of the Earth.

“The coast is clear,” Rainbow reported from the door. “Although it won’t be long before somepony notices the guards are missing, we need to keep moving.”

We slipped out the study and hurried on our way, knowing it wouldn’t be much longer before the alarm was raised. There was an instant shift in tone as we passed from the main part of the cathedral, into what we guessed was the west wing. Where everything had been mostly bare and simple before, chambers suddenly became much more cramped, with fewer windows and a lot more ponies going about their business. There were mostly narrow hallways with many doors leading off to rooms, big and small, where ponies were working at tables with various heaters and flasks and other things I didn’t know the names of.

I heard snippets of conversation as we passed down the corridor, all of it went right over my head, but I could see Twilight listening in carefully, purposely slowing her pace as she tried to take as much in. There were other noises too, coming from the floors above and below, banging and crashing, moaning and screaming. None of the ponies working there seemed to notice the sounds however, and we made sure not to visibly react ourselves and give the game away a second time. As we walked straight on, we saw a mare step out of a side room; she appeared deep in discussion with a younger stallion.

“And when you’re finished with that,” she was saying, jotting down a quick note with her magic to hand to him. “I need you to run this brother Sirloin, subject six A is going through her current food supplies far too quickly.”

“Of course sister…” the stallion replied hesitantly. “I’m just… not sure why we bother to feed them at all. Why do we even keep them alive if all the real work has been moved to…”

“Enough!” the mare cut through. “We keep them alive because Father Crane has instructed them to be kept alive, and the work we do here is still important, or he would not divert resources to maintaining it.”

It was then that the mare noticed us approaching and turned to face us, looking Applejack, Rainbow Dash and myself up and down briefly before nodding to herself.

“More test subjects?” she asked without much interest. “Have them checked in upstairs and wait to escort them to their physicals.”

Twilight nodded at the instruction and pushed me roughly to keep up the act. We reached the end of the corridor and began ascending the stairs, one floor at a time. With each new floor, the ghastly sounds became louder and louder. We stopped at each floor, looking through the doors to see if we were in the right place, or at least somewhere deserted enough to talk among ourselves. The first floor we arrived on set the theme for most of them, it looked like a prison corridor, with barred walls marking out the cells. While we didn’t stop to take a closer look, I could see dark shapes moving about within, and the guards patrolling looked constantly on high alert.

Most floors had the same layout; however the fourth floor we arrived at, had only a single cell in the centre of it, circular and made of metal wire crisscrossing from the floor to the ceiling. Inside the cell were large silky sacks, and something bulbous was shifting about among them, just out of sight, a constant clicking noise emanating from within. The next floor up we saw a pair of robed ponies carrying a large hock of meat between them, I nearly gagged at how fresh it looked, and turned away when I saw them throw it into one of the cells and immediately heard something going to town on it.

It was the sixth floor where we finally stopped, while there was bound to be dozens more floors above, we wouldn’t be able to access any of them from this area. The stair case up to this floor had been much longer for reasons we didn’t yet know, and for some reason there were no guards posted outside the archway into the room, an unusually dark room. Wary, we decided to stop and gather our thoughts.

“Alright, what exactly are we doing here?” Rainbow asked. “Is any of this stuff making sense to you girls?”

“We’re just trying to get a feel for the place right now,” I replied. “We can’t go on a rampage without knowing what all we’re up against.”

“And do we know what we’re up against yet?” Fluttershy asked uncertainly, glancing into the dark room behind us.

“It’s clear that whatever the Covenant is doing,” Twilight began. “The majority of it happens here, in the west wing. While the rest of the cathedral is used for things like research, storage and… worship, so far this whole area has been labs and… specimen chambers. And by the sounds of it, there was another area like this on the east side, before the whatever led to the breakout.”

“And perhaps somewhere else as well,” Pinkie added. “That guy down stairs mentioned all the ‘real work’ had been moved, he was probably referring to the where Clover’s body and Fauna are, where they’re working on ascension.”

“That sounds reasonable,” Applejack voiced. “So we need to find out where that place is then, how do we go about it? Ah’m game for roughin’ some ponies up until they talk.”

“Hold on girls,” I said, raising my hooves in a slowdown motion. “If this area is where they’re keeping their monsters and abominations, and if they really are made from ponies… unwilling ponies I might remind you, then it’s up to us to find where they’re keeping them first, we might still be able to save some.”

“I hadn’t thought about that,” Applejack admitted. “Course you’re right Rare.”

“Should we look in here?” Twilight asked, nodding towards the dark room. “I don’t hear anything inside… maybe this one is empty.”

“We should still look,” I replied. “Just to be sure. Besides, we might find something that will tell us where they’re keeping prisoners.”

I led the way through the threshold into the spacious chamber, dropping any notion of pretending to be prisoners. The room was so dimly lit, that both Twilight and I had to light our horns, and Fluttershy produced her mace which she lit up after whispering something to it, just like she had in the barrow. The light of her mace was far greater than anything I could produce, although Twilight’s magical aptitude meant she could hold a candle to her. With the room revealed, we were able to see why the staircase to this floor needed to be so long, it was because the whole room was one big cell.

We were walking along a metallic walkway that went directly to the opposite end of the room where a single door waited, light bleeding out around the edges, to suggest that there was somepony on the other side. A second path crossed through the centre of the one we were on, the metal walkways essentially dividing the room into quarters. With each corner being nothing more than sturdy mesh, covering the deep dark pits beneath. No matter how bright Fluttershy and Twilight’s lights were, they still couldn’t reveal what lay within them, but we knew they were there, growling softly up at us.

There was one confined to each of the four corners, so while we couldn’t see, we guessed there was some kind of barrier or wall beneath the crossed walkways, to keep the pens separate. We were steadily creeping towards the opposite door, but we froze when a voice echoed out around us. It was a female voice, crackling as if being projected by some kind of machine.

“’I will be with you in a moment,” the voice said, every syllable over enunciated in typical upper class fashion. “Just stay put and I’ll be out in one minute, I just need to finish making some arrangements.”

I glanced around at the others, they all looked equally confused. Had the voice been addressing us? If not, then who? And if so, then what did she mean?

“Forget her,” Rainbow whispered, as if afraid she would overhear. “Let’s just go on through.”

I nodded, nothing good would arise from staying here and waiting for the source of that voice to come find us. I started walking confidently forward, my hooves clanging loudly on the metal walkway as I approached the door.

“Are you really so eager?” the voice asked, making me stop suddenly. “You’re wasting your time, the door is locked. Besides, I’m almost done, and then I will be coming out to meet you.”

“Rarity,” Fluttershy whispered, creeping softly up behind me. “I don’t like this; I think we should get out of here.”

I nodded warily, but just as I began to back up, we heard a loud grinding noise. We spun around to see a metal portcullis dropping down in the previously open archway, blocking our exit.

“Don’t leave now,” the voice said in a mock sad tone. “Just a few more seconds and I’ll be out to see you.”

“You know we can just teleport out, right?” Pinkie called out to the ceiling. “For that matter, we can just teleport in there and drag you out ourselves.”

“Very well,” the voice replied with a long drawn out sigh. “It is fine though, the arrangements are pretty much made, and that just leaves… what to do with you six.”

There was a loud clack as the door was unlocked, we all turned in time to see it open up and for a figure to step out, momentarily silhouetted. As she stepped forward however, and the door closed behind her, she was bathed in the light of Fluttershy’s mace, revealing her to be an earth pony mare with an orchid coat and curly violet mane, held back in a head band. She wore the usual Covenant robes with that distinctive rainbow silk embroidery, and for some reason that fact really struck me, because I was sure I recognised this mare.

“Hello Rarity,” Suri Polomare greeted with a sly grin. “Welcome to our humble abode, we’ve been expecting you for some time now.”

Comments

[Sir Budginton]

Well that was... unexpected.