122 - Twists and Turns
Cozy bit her lip as she followed Lex through the maze of crates, twisting her head every which way in the hope that she’d catch sight of Pillow.
For his part, Lex was also looking around, but more sedately. Every time they turned a corner or came to an intersection, he would pause and spend several long seconds examining the various paths in silence. Once he had, he would then retrieve a piece of chalk from his haversack and make a small mark on the floor, the white image giving off a ghostly glow under Severance’s dim light.
Finally, Cozy’s tension grew too great for her to bear, and she spoke up, needing a distraction. “What are you doing?”
Lex gave her a look that clearly communicated how idiotic he thought her query was. “I’m marking our path, to indicate which passages we’ve been down before.” He considered ordering her to be quiet, but decided against it. Although sound would travel much easier than light in this place, it would still be muffled if she kept her voice low, which she thankfully had. Anything that was close enough to overhear them speak would likely be able to hear the soft clopping of their hooves on the stone floor anyway. Besides, there’s only so much stealth can accomplish now, he knew. After all, Fencer had come in with them and so already knew they were here, and anything else in here would doubtlessly have been alerted by the door opening and Cozy’s subsequent yelling. If talking would keep her from doing something stupid again, then it was worth the risk. “That should be obvious.”
“No, I knew that!” protested Cozy. “I mean, what’s with the way you’re making those marks? Like, when we turned left at that four-way intersection, you made sure to put a mark from the way we came, and one in front of the left-hoof path before we took it. But when it just looped around to come back out from the middle path, you put a second mark in front of the left-hoof path, and then two marks in front of the middle one when we left it, but only one in front of the right-hoof path before we took it.”
Lex raised a brow, slightly surprised that she had noticed the details of what he’d been doing. That she had was encouraging, since it seemed like an indicator that she was calming down. “I’m using a variation on Trotmaux’s algorithm,” he explained. Taking it for granted that she had no idea what that was, he explained. “It’s a maze-solving technique wherein you make use of bidirectional double-tracing to denote clearly-defined passages that don’t lead to an exit.”
“…oh.”
Having heard that particular noncommittal response many times from Sonata, Lex felt reasonably sure that it was a statement of incomprehension. Normally he wouldn’t have particularly cared if Cozy understood him or not, but in this case giving her something to think about other than her missing husband was keeping her in line, which meant that he’d be best served to make it simpler for her. Fighting off the urge to sigh, he tried again. “To put it another way, I’m utilizing a three-symbol code at the entrance or exit from each path. A passage with no mark is one that we haven’t been down yet. A single mark means that we’ve been down that particular pathway once. Two marks means that we’ve been down that particular corridor a second time, and so can conclusively determine that it’s not part of the way out.”
Cozy’s brow furrowed as she considered what she’d been told. “But when we went through that loop at the four-way juncture, you marked the left and middle ones twice even though we only went through them once.”
“That’s because it put us out where we’d begun,” replied Lex, forcing himself to be patient with her. “That’s the functional equivalent of a dead end. Strictly speaking, we should have turned around and gone back down that passage the way we’d come, marking the floor again to represent a second trip down that particular stretch of hallway, but that would have been a waste of our time. Hence why I called it a variation.”
Pausing to digest what she’d been told, Cozy waited as they came to a T-intersection. Watching as Lex marked the end of the path they’d traveled, and then placed another mark at the left passage before starting down it, she managed a wan smile as a childhood memory came back to her. “My grandmare once told me that you should always keep your hoof on the left wall when you’re in a maze, and that as long as you do you’ll eventually find the way out. She learned it from always doing those maze puzzles in the newspaper. She really loved those.”
Not registering the warmer tone in Cozy’s voice, Lex snorted. “The ‘wall-follower’ technique might work for any simply-connected maze, which this warehouse fundamentally is, but it’s not very useful to us right now.”
Cozy’s ears folded back, her fragile calm strained by the scornful tone in Lex’s voice. “How come? My grandmare always swore by it.”
“Leaving aside that the interior of this place is not simply-connected, since it has disjointed obstacles in the form of crate-made walls that are not connected to the outer edge of the structure? That method overlooks that our goal isn’t to find the exit, but rather your husband, and he could be anywhere. As such, our primary goal is to gather the layout of this place rather than find the shortest route to the other end, which means that my method is far superior since it lets me create a more accurate mental map that I can then utilize to better coordinate our search.”
Cozy didn’t answer him immediately, instead following along silently for a few minutes, her head down. Lex wasn’t sure if her silence was a good thing or not, but had decided to put it out of his thoughts when Cozy spoke up again. “Thank you…”
“What?”
Thinking that he was asking what for, instead of expressing that he had no idea what she was talking about, she gave him a strained smile. “For this. For trying so hard to find Pillow. For taking me with you even though you didn’t want to. I just…I wanted you to know that I appreciate it.” She was going to say more, to admit that she didn’t think he was a bad person, but then she remembered how one-sided his relationship with Sonata was and the words stuck in her throat. Lex appeared to be surprised, however, as he came to a dead stop as soon as the words left her mouth. Cozy only barely managed to stop from colliding with him, and her anxiety suddenly returned as she thought he might be angry with her. She couldn’t imagine what she’d done to set him off, but given how…unique his personality was that didn’t mean very much. “Um, I-”
“Be quiet!” hissed Lex suddenly, the tension in his voice making her instantly obey, even as her heart began to beat wildly. Had he found some sign of Pillow?!
From beyond the range of Severance’s meager light, a single pencil came skittering out of the darkness ahead of them. Tumbling across the stone floor, it finally rolled to a stop a few feet in front of Lex’s hooves. He didn’t acknowledge it, simply staring straight ahead into the darkness, and Cozy felt her anxiety spike, knowing that had been deliberate. A moment later, an unfamiliar female voice tittered from somewhere ahead. “Some little ponies have been very ba-ad,” it called, deliberately stretching the last word into two syllables. “They made a mess in someone else’s house and didn’t even try to clean it up.” The words were spoken in an over-exaggerated manner, as though by an adult pretending to be a child.
Cozy shivered, her breathing starting to come heavier. Although this wasn’t a voice she’d ever heard before, its faux-playful tenor was very familiar to her, having had the misfortune of listening to another just like it several nights ago when they’d investigated the dummy lights at the abandoned store. Even if she didn’t know precisely who the poor individual speaking to them had been before, she knew what they were now.
Somewhere ahead of them, cloaked in the darkness, was an undead pony. Which meant that there were probably more circling them even now. Please, Lashtada, she prayed silently. Please don’t let Pillow be among them. She raised a hoof to touch her necklace, but a moment later remembered that Fencer had stolen it, biting her lip as she wondered if her prayers were able to reach her goddess without it.
Oblivious to Cozy’s worries, Lex continued to stare straight ahead. While Severance’s light was too dim to reach very far, he had enhanced his vision with his dark magic, which let him see with perfect acuity in the darkness out to a range of roughly sixty feet. Because of that, he could see the creature standing several dozen yards in front of them. It was – or rather, had been, an earth pony mare. Now, however, patches of her ribs were showing, her mane and tail were tatters that barely clung to her emaciated body, and the right half of her face was mostly gone, stripped down to a blood-encrusted skull that made her look as though she were making a hideous grin…which she was, the remaining left corner of her lip turning up. “How’s about you make it up to us? We’re really hungry, and we could use some food.”
Lex let out a slow breath, not allowing himself to become agitated. The stupid thing could quite clearly see them, but hadn’t realize that he could see it as well; doubtlessly it thought that if it stood outside the radius of Severance’s light then it was hidden. To Lex, that underscored what he already knew: that these monsters weren’t serious threats. But that didn’t change the visceral revulsion he felt, nor the fear that lay beneath it. After all, each of these creatures had once been a pony until their death and reanimation had warped their minds. Just like with mind-affecting magic, something had been done to them against their will which had changed who they were, and the very concept of such a thing terrified Lex. Especially after what he’d seen on Everglow…
“If’n you don’t have any food, don’t be worried about it,” continued the undead mare. “After all, you brought two warm, juicy ponies here to feed us.” The sound of hooves came from every direction, slowly approaching them as more ghouls began to close in.
Letting out a slow breath, Lex felt his loathing for the twisted creatures bubble up inside him, reaching a point where it blossomed into anger, then into a tightly-controlled rage. Ever since he had been a colt, that had been how he’d confronted the things that frightened him, and it had always served him well. Glancing back, Lex gave Cozy the slightest of glances. “I’ll handle this.”
Then he began to cast.
Opening her mouth, Fencer quickly swept the light around before closing it again.
Holding Cozy’s necklace inside her mouth was uncomfortable, but since she still couldn’t figure out how to turn the accursed thing on and off it was the only way to keep the light source muffled while quickly and easily letting her shine it in particular directions before closing it off again. She was sure she looked ridiculous, but that mattered less than making sure she kept herself hidden from Lex and the undead ponies as much as possible. So far she had been successful at avoiding the former, but not the latter.
So far she’d run into the unliving monsters twice. The first time had been a lone undead pony that “hadn’t wanted to share” its attempt to make a meal out of her. Fortunately, even a pencil could be used as a weapon if you gnawed the end into a point and shoved it through an enemy’s head. Then, with confirmation that ghouls were in there with them, Cozy had dragged the carcass of the one she killed around with her. While carrying the corpse on her back had been disgusting, the effort had paid off when she’d run into another group of undead ponies – three, this time – and had dumped it as she’d run off, risking a glance back to see them descending on the body and devouring it with ecstatic moans, as she’d expected. Now, she was walking down another stretch of empty passage, but something was telling her that this was different from the ones she’d wandered through so far. But what…?
It’s the smell, she realized. There’s something really foul here. The realization made her pause. In the few times that she’d gotten close to the undead ponies, they hadn’t smelled particularly pleasant, but they hadn’t been offensive to her nose the way this scent was. Something nearby was really ripe! But as awful as it was, Fencer felt her excitement grow. If she was right, this was either the scent of someone who hadn’t been able to practice proper, or any, hygiene for days…or it was a corpse. Either way, she hoped that she was about to find out what happened to this Pillowcase individual. But where was it coming from…?
Sniffing the air, Fencer slowly wandered down a passageway, then paused as she realized the smell was getting fainter. Moving back up, she repeated the process several times until she was sure: the scent was strongest at the middle of the hallway. Except that there was nothing in the middle of the hallway; the crates formed walls on either side. So what was going on?
Narrowing her eyes as something occurred to her, Fencer opened her mouth to shine the light on the crate to her left. Cautiously, she started to poke at it with her hoof, and almost a solid minute of investigating later she bit back a laugh of triumph as she peeled off the side of the large wooden box, having determined that it wasn’t securely attached. Shining her light again, Fencer’s heart skipped a beat as she looked at what she’d found.
Inside was the unmoving form of a pony.
Stats
Page generated in 0.087 seconds
Total duration
604 users online
774,243 hits today, 1,822,946 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
I hope whatever it is eats her...
And here I was thinking that I had skill at Cliffhangers.
8283403 To have one of his enemies be dispatched without his having to do anything, I doubt Lex is that fortunate.
The gouls might be undead, but the zombie lich is something else?
8283438 First rule of doing something in front of an audience: always leave them wanting more!
8284006 No comment.
As a note for those interested, the maze-solving method that Lex cited - "Trotmaux's algorithm" - is a ponified version of Trémaux's algorithm.
I'm liking how you're using your characters to voice the readers thoughts without making it feel out of character here. The first thought I had that if ghouls were here, then there's a chance Pillow might have become one of them, if not their meal.
A piece of stationery for a weapon...not the most elegant of choices but beggars can't be choosers when it comes to survival. Fencer is rather resourceful with the way she procured her 'pencil shank'(never thought I'd ever type that down) as well as her use of the corpse as bait. Guess she must have used this tactic before though I think she might have used a non-ghoul corpse given her behavior.
As for the cliffhanger, I truly want to believe that it's Pillow who might have crawled into the crate to avoid the ghouls though it could just as easily be a trap the ghouls set up. Fingers crossed.
8284051 Thanks for the compliment!
I take it as a rule that if something is likely to occur to the readers, then it's likely to have occurred to the characters as well (barring any issues of them lacking certain knowledge that the readers have). I'll often, as I'm writing, stop and ask myself "okay, what would this character think/say/do in this situation?" So far it's been an approach that's worked rather well, if I do say so myself.
Fencer, it's becoming clear, has learned to be very good at survival. Insofar as Vanhoover's state is concerned, she's learned how to do what she needs to in order to make it through situations that would likely be the end of most ordinary ponies. Her problem is that she can't seem to turn that mindset off when things start to get better, hence the current state of affairs. Even so, her ingenuity is impressive unto itself, as you noted.
...that, and her use of a pencil as a weapon reminded me a lot of the original Evil Dead movie, which made me grin.
As for the identity of the pony in the crate...that remains to be seen.
8286061
Eh, I see that he didn't use a thesaurus, but most of those words could have been changed for smaller ones.
I have been on a site dedicated to laughing at people who do that recently, so I might be a bit biased.
Hopefully he grows as a character. Maybe he finally realizes why nobody gets him?
8286075
Well, I got a fireball or two. Hopefully they don't cause too much collateral.
8286861
Well...sure, but I don't quite get why that's particularly desirable.
I dislike the idea of having a site dedicated to laughing at people, let alone for the fact that they've expanded their vocabulary. That sounds steeped in anti-intellectualism - to say nothing of being shallow and petty - which I'm opposed to on principle.
That's one of the major premises of this entire fic.
8286962
Well, it isn't showcasing people that have expanded their vocabulary. It is showcasing people that are attempting to sound smarter than they actually are, and failing miserably, as it is very obvious that they don't actually know how to properly use the words they are using. Here is a link, if you want it.
https://www.reddit.com/r/iamverysmart/
8286967 What they're scorning is pretentiousness, though there's a subtle irony there in that having a forum dedicated to such an activity makes it very easy for its patrons to be overly conceited about how, unlike the people they're mocking, they're not full of themselves. Personally, I still find the whole thing rather distasteful; laughing at others is the mark of a small person - far better to do something that makes you feel proud of yourself, rather than saying how others don't deserve to feel proud of themselves.
8287092
I do agree with you, but still, it is Reddit. (And the Internet)
Those other posters are scornful themselves, but most of them are just looking for some time to kill.
I'm guessing Fencer has just made a Ghastly mistake.
8289157 I was wondering if someone would think that!
The army marches! Still nothing.
8386867 Fingers crossed that I can keep the streak alive!