Chapter 4.4: Surface
The tiers of Kumari stretched further than Twilight had thought possible. Rainbow’s modest apartment seemed like it would be at the bottom of the stone, where light faded into distant blue—but she was wrong. What she had initially taken to be the bottom of the city, covered with dead coral and a layer of marine snow was actually more like a crust.
“Here we are,” Rainbow said, floating gently beside a heavy metal hatch. It wasn’t steel, though it was covered with a greenish patina of something along its surface. “This is the way down. Up here is safe, down there is… not.”
And the other residents of Kumari obviously knew it. No fish got within a hundred feet of the bottom, and any who looked to see them quickly turned away and sped up. Only little scavengers crawled along stone walls—crabs with transparent coats and tiny eyes on little stalks. The crabs watched Rainbow Dash as she fumbled with her trident against the hatch, shoving it open a little.
“I’ve had better chances to give up than this,” Twilight said, exasperated. “Why would I turn around now?”
“You wouldn’t,” Rainbow answered. “But I’ll feel better if something goes wrong if I asked you to leave. That’s what you’re supposed to do, right? Make it… as easy as possible to give up. I dunno. I’ve never been the mysterious guide to the unknown in a Daring Do book before…”
Rainbow looked away, bracing against the hatch and pushing with all her might. The metal squealed in protest, sending lots of little crabs scattering on either side. A thin powder of white roiled in the water around them, filling it with a stink of… garbage, for lack of a better word. Organic garbage.
Twilight waited for the dust to clear, then dared a few quick strokes forward towards the immense hole.
Below Kumari was… another city. A thin shaft of crystal light cut through the opening, spreading into the gloom and quickly diffusing. As she got close, runes carved into the edge of the hatch began to glow bright red. Whatever they were, they didn’t affect Twilight, passing over her quickly. But Rainbow looked visibly uncomfortable.
“Ugh. Forgot about that. This is… gonna suck. Hope you’re ready to feel like a freakshow.”
Twilight spun around in front of her, rolling her eyes. “More than… I do now?”
“By ancient decree—” Rainbow recited, sounding incredibly bored. She spoke faster and faster as she explained. “Nothing from the sunlit world above will trespass upon the ancient depths, and the creatures of the Underworld must likewise shed their spines when—” She groaned. “Yeah yeah, you’ll see it when we go through. I guess it’s probably good—adapting or whatever. But it sucks and it’s gross and don’t you dare tell the girls about it.”
“I didn’t think I would get to tell them about… any of this,” Twilight said.
“Yeah, well. Especially this part.” Rainbow yanked on her foreleg, pulling her down. “Come on, before the city watch tell us to stop being suicidal. Nothing but to get it over with…”
They swam. As before, Twilight felt nothing at all. There was a brief connection with magic more ancient and powerful than most she’d ever known, like using the Elements of Harmony. But just like those artifacts ignored creatures that were in harmony with Equestria, this spell passed right over her, water sliding down her back.
Rainbow, however… changed. She only felt it at first—the scales down her foreleg suddenly felt rough and uncomfortable, making Twilight pull away. Then she saw what she was swimming beside, and almost screamed.
Rainbow was… different. Her tail had lengthened to twice its previous size, and her scales had lost all their color. In places, they were actually transparent, allowing the glow of her organs to emerge from within. That was definitely a heart in there, and the salad moving through her guts—
Twilight looked away, but she couldn’t avoid the other changes. Her friend’s teeth had lengthened, and sharp spines lined her back. Her eyes had grown so large they dominated her face, both completely black.
“Sweet Celestia,” Twilight breathed, unable to keep the horror from her voice. “You’re, uh…”
“Jealous,” Rainbow said. Instead of quick motions, she moved in a slow, constant circle. Like a shark, never stopping for fear of suffocation. “You’re still normal. How’d you do that?” She sounded like Rainbow was talking through something in her mouth. Not surprising, with those razor-sharp teeth.
“I guess… because I’m not really a seapony?” Twilight said, avoiding her eyes. Those black spots… she’d see those in her nightmares now. “I’m… is it okay if I don’t write a spell to copy that?”
“Probably,” Rainbow answered. “Seaponies go this deep all the time, just not here. Also I think there’s some rules about how long you can stay… something about pressure or oxygen in the water or… I don’t really pay attention to boring stuff. But it doesn’t matter, since you’ve only got until sunrise anyway.”
From up above, the metal grate slammed shut abruptly. The sound reverberated through something metallic with an air of finality, cutting off the already feeble light. Except, of course, for Rainbow’s glowing internal organs.
“Come on, we shouldn’t stay in one place. There are predators here… and they’ll smell you. Let’s find our way inside.”
“Inside…?” Twilight asked, still struggling to look in Rainbow’s direction for too long without feeling sick. Seaponies were what she expected them to be. Shiny, and floaty, and basically like ponies. But this… maybe this was what Equestria was really afraid of.
Don’t even start, Twilight. You just went hunting with a vampire, and you’re going to be afraid of Rainbow because she has teeth? Get it together. Rainbow hadn’t remained floating in the empty black water to wonder to herself, but had kept on swimming down. Twilight could faintly see the glow of her path retreating towards distant, massive shapes.
Twilight swam for her life, and the reedy light of the opening quickly fell behind her. She lit her own horn as a replacement, using the same red-light spell she used while stargazing. Red light wouldn’t travel very far in this abyss—hopefully that meant whoever lived here wouldn’t be able to see.
Rainbow waited for her beside something wide and flat. It sloped upward, with corrosion-covered metal broken with cracked panes of glass. Buildings. The structure continued down as far as her red light lasted. “Stars and stones… there’s so much.”
“No fish knows how far, or how old,” Rainbow recited. She gestured at a cracked window, and they swam inside. The glass was covered with a film of organic debris, making the inside opaque. The chamber beyond was large, about twice as tall as ponies made their structures, with a few dark crabs and other scavengers scuttling over ancient debris.
“This place… wasn’t built by seaponies,” Twilight guessed. “These things are too big. And… most of the metal looks like it corroded. Not as much rust as I expected.”
Rainbow swam past her, a comparatively massive shape in the gloom. Maybe now that she was so big, she was the right size for this alien city. With its too-high ceilings and strange objects.
“If you come back, go to the temple,” she said. “There are songs about this place. Ask them to recite the, uh… the Lament of… the Survivors. Think that’s it.”
“Makes sense,” Twilight said, wanting to swim closer to her for comfort, but hesitating every time she started. Those teeth… looked like they could get through her scales in a single bite. “Without writing, you’d have to carve, or keep an oral history. Songs would preserve the…” She trailed off. Her heart just wasn’t in the academics.
The entire ocean seemed to shake. She heard the rumble of metal, and a distant crash. A roar cut through the water, echoing off the sunken city. Almost a seapony’s voice, but so much deeper. How big is that?
Rainbow heard it too, and she yanked on Twilight’s hoof, dragging her through the water to a set of stairs. Huge ones, that would’ve been too large to climb comfortably. But swimming meant they were no problem. “Looks like they smelled you already. We should try and get down. There’s an underground… that’s where we’d find Orichalcum, not in these old ruins. Only thing we could get up here is caught in a scavenger’s net.”
They swam. Twilight dimmed her glow to something so faint she hoped it wouldn’t be visible from outside the windows. The ancient ruins had a stairwell that cut through the core of the building, letting them weave between the gaps between flights with relative ease.
This was good, since the longer they remained, the more sounds she heard from outside. Metal screamed on metal outside, and somewhere further into the building she heard glass shattering. Rainbow sped up, though her new body didn’t seem capable of the same speed as her old one. Twilight could keep up with her easily, drifting along in the wake behind her tail.
I might have to use this. Nothing moves fast down here.
“What’s that noise?” she asked, her voice as quiet as Rainbow could still hear. “It doesn’t sound as big as that other… whatever that was.”
Rainbow didn’t answer, not until they made it to the bottom of the stairs. A door covered in indecipherable block letters had fallen off its hinges, opening into a tunnel directly into the rock. Flooded, with pipes along the ceiling covered in a thick blanket of pale worms. Warmth hit her as they approached, a sharp contrast to the chilling cold in the building.
Heat means energy. Magical, geothermal, or… something else. Maybe her academic mind wasn’t completely smothered. She was still wondering what all these creatures ate.
Rainbow swerved back around so suddenly that Twilight winced at the quick bend in her neck. But it didn’t seem to bother Rainbow. But then… she couldn’t see bones in her transparent gut, not even a spine.
“They say this is where all the old fish go, in time. Young fish hear the sea and they come to Kumari. Ancient fish hear the Deeps and they flee the light, never to be seen again.” Then she relaxed, her too-many-teeth breaking in a terrifying smile. “That’s what they tell me, anyway. I’m just a baby, so I don’t actually know. I just know it’s either come here or spend a few days swimming circles in my cloud bathtub. Take a guess which is more fun.”
She didn’t guess. “So the noises are…”
“Old seaponies. Like Old. Capital O. Ponies who still remember all those fancy ponies you obsess about. Star… craft?”
“Star Swirl the Bearded?”
“Right,” Rainbow said, waving a dismissive fin. “They still remember him. Or I assume they do. They don’t really talk much. But… they do fight. And eat. So… let’s keep moving.” She pointed at the door. “Think you could seal that behind us? I don’t wanna scare you, but I’m pretty sure there’s a whole school of scavengers swimming down the building after us.”
Twilight didn’t need telling twice. She zipped past her friend, lifting the door in her magic and severing who knew how much ancient growth. A little heat from her horn, and it melted onto the doorway, hissing and bubbling where molten metal met the frame.
“I don’t like it here,” Twilight said, her voice feeble. “Let’s just… how do we find Orichalcum? Do you know where you’re going?”
“Not a bubbling clue,” Rainbow said. “But everypony says down is the most dangerous, so it’s probably got the best stuff. Let’s just… see how low we can go.”
“Great plan,” Twilight whispered, defeated. She had no choice but to follow.
If Twilight closed her eyes, she could almost imagine she was back in the Underworld.
Some part of her wondered if there might be some physical connection after all—maybe swimming down deep enough through this ancient ruin would eventually bring her to the boundary between the living and dead, where everything she knew dissolved into fiction.
I’m immortal now, she reminded herself. I might as well get to know it all sooner rather than later. If Celestia isn’t going to tell me about it all, this is the only way.
She wanted to come back to Kumari, that she knew without thinking. The Dinori had seemed friendly, and the music she heard coming from distant parlors above had been even more enticing.
But when she did, she wouldn’t swim down.
The tunnels were arranged like the ancient city above, structured with mad rules that she couldn’t wrap her mind around. Even the shapes of the curves were hard to look at, and the strange junctions between one tunnel and the next. She felt slightly sick just seeing the geometry, and so she tried to just watch her friend’s retreating tail.
Rainbow Dash might be scary, but at least her brain could understand scary. This place… was something else.
“Seaponies don’t come down here very often,” she said, as they emerged from one tunnel into a large open atrium. It was filled with broken glass, and metal machines long since gone to decay. But hot water kept flowing through the pipes overhead, and that was the source of all life. Tiny shellfish, and even smaller shrimp that surrounded them.
At least they didn’t look terrifying to Twilight. “Didn’t you say there were… only expeditions every now and then?”
This time Rainbow didn’t turn around, she just swam over the corroded metal balcony and down the drop into the atrium. Past the metal, she picked the widest doorway and swam that way. “Maybe going in a little group isn’t as stupid as I thought,” she said. “When there’s an expedition, it’s like a hundred fish, all armed. They always get attacked, and fish always die. The number of scavengers is…” She shivered. “I’ve never been part of it. Fish are never gonna believe I went down here. I mean… past the top. There are a few safe entrances, and every fish tries one of those sooner or later. Just enough to see how awful it is to be here, then go right back into the light.”
How close to sunrise are we, anyway? Twilight would feel the spell start to unravel, and she was fairly sure it wasn’t. Only her sanity was faltering so far. But if she kept going… maybe it would be worse.
Twilight hadn’t noticed at first, but as they entered the next tunnel, there was a distinct transition. Stone was entirely replaced with something else, neither metal nor wood. It was smooth, but when she touched it, there was a slight give to it as well. It had stayed so white, despite who knew how long it had been down here.
Maybe we’re getting close. All these alchemical secrets down here, might be together in one place. They would change the world if she could bring them back. But just like every other secret Twilight had learned in the last week, she probably never would.
It wasn’t her secret to reveal.
“This water smells… weird,” Rainbow said, slowing from just up ahead and baring her teeth down the hall. The water was getting warmer by the moment, which Twilight took to be the evidence of getting near the planet’s crust. More heat meant more life. Nothing grew on the white walls, but where they met the stone floor, there was the usual crustaceans. Instead of a single pipe on the ceiling, more and more seemed to be joining in, traveling together towards… something. “Maybe we should go somewhere else.”
“No,” Twilight argued, gesturing up with a fin. “See that up there? The heat all these little creatures are living on, it’s coming from down here. Magic… still working, despite all this time. Are there any songs about the magic down here?”
“Yes,” Rainbow answered. “So dangerous that every fish with sense stays away. Just like coming down here in general.” Twilight didn’t have to guess if her heart was racing—she could watch the rapid contractions in Rainbow’s chest. She, the toothy, spiny, deep-sea nightmare creature, was afraid.
Twilight forced back her own fear, wrapping one foreleg around her friend’s shoulder, careful to avoid the spines there. “Rainbow, it’ll be fine. I might not know the ocean, but I know magic. If there’s anything, I’ll protect us. Just stay with me. I’m going to need your help to find my way out of this place.”
“Out,” Rainbow Dash repeated, though she clutched against Twilight with uncharacteristic openness. “If we live… that’ll be great. Swimming back out. Then maybe… I can take you to an acrobatics show. Or the temple, or… somewhere safe?”
“Sure, Rainbow. When we’re done here, we’ll go somewhere safe.” Probably back to the surface. But she didn’t want to discourage her. If Rainbow swam away now, she’d have to follow, and probably give up any chance of finding the Orichalcum. If she gave up and turned around, she’d probably never have the courage to come back here.
Twilight led the way into the gloom.
She didn’t have much further to go into the darkness before the space started to open up again. A steady current of warm water began to drift past her, lifting her fins and scattering the little creatures trying to move closer. Twilight tucked her body in, gritting her teeth and concentrating on forward motion.
She let go of Rainbow’s foreleg, slipping behind her instead. That gigantic body served another use—each stroke of her tail brought them closer to a doorway. And beyond it… light.
Brilliant white light, so bright that she was almost blinded. They passed through several slits and openings in the wall, with curved blades that seemed to be directing the water outward. Then they were through, and Twilight’s furious pace nearly made her smack into the far wall.
After a few painful seconds, her eyes adjusted, though from the way Rainbow withdrew she didn’t think her body was very well suited to traveling down so deep.
What kind of terrible place would be at the bottom of all this? Magic so old that even the seaponies are afraid of it…
The space they occupied was certainly unusual, more of those high ceilings with the strange irregularity in support columns. But where so much of what she’d seen had fallen to complete disrepair, this was different. The alien writing on the walls was almost freshly painted. There were no crustaceans growing on the walls, no algae turning the water green. What was more, the objects here were mechanical, and clearly functional. Far below, a metal shape much larger than a cart was twisted in strange, bent-over curves, curling around like a doughnut.
It hummed quietly, the same way Celestia did when she raised the sun in the morning. Twilight’s magical reserves were instantly filled, and whatever fear she felt about her transformation ending unexpectedly vanished.
A voice spoke, echoing through the water around them. Twilight could make no sense of what it said, any more than the writing. But it seemed friendly.
“What was that?” Twilight asked. “Do you speak… deep-seapony?”
“No.” Rainbow shook her head. “It’s… too sacred. I haven’t been through the temple yet.”
Whatever, it didn’t matter. Twilight wasn’t here to solve every mystery in the world. She only needed a cure. A reddish metal… there.
Near the strange magical artifact, there was something like an assembly line. Machines whirred and clanked, and from them, bit-sized squares of metal emerged. No sooner did they appear than little mechanical arms grabbed them, and stole them down into greater darkness.
Twilight swam over, aiming her horn at the cube. She watched patiently, as the voice from around them continued to speak into the water. It wasn’t very good at being understood, either. More like a pony shouting into the water than a seapony’s song.
The next metal bar dropped out of a chute, bubbling as it touched the water. Twilight’s horn flashed, and the cube never hit the sensors.
Then an alarm started blaring. Twilight winced, as the even white light was replaced with flashing red.
“I think you made it mad,” Rainbow said, circling around her. “Maybe we should…”
“Yeah,” Twilight agreed, gesturing above them. A wide shaft, with red arrows pointing to it. If that’s not an emergency exit, I don’t know what is. “Come on! This way!” They swam.
Twilight broke the surface of the water at Princessport docks just a little before sunrise. The water all around her was black and brackish. She shook herself out, then levitated out of the water and onto the docks. She kept her tiny bar of metal tucked away in her mane, where none of the passing ponies would see her.
“Honestly…” whispered a fisherman, hauling his empty nets towards the dock. “There were visitors from Equestria here yesterday. A pony might see you.” He flicked his tail angrily towards the dock buildings. “Any of those. Not out in the open like that. Foals today…” And he was off, apparently not even noticing her combination of horn and wings.
A few moments later, Rainbow Dash emerged from what looked like a shipping warehouse, a towel wrapped around her mane and a little damp, but otherwise fully pony again. Twilight half-expected to see that awful toothy face again, but no. Once they’d left the Tehuti Ruins, she had returned to the decidedly un-frightening seapony.
“Can’t believe we actually did it,” she declared, walking beside Twilight towards the inn. “No pony or fish is going to believe it.”
“Maybe not,” Twilight agreed. “But they don’t have to.”
“Let me know how that cure thing goes,” Rainbow said, shrugging one wing. “I’m uh… probably not going to ride the train back with you. Way too slow. And probably don’t mention this to anypony else? Except… other fish. And if you want to come back with me next year…” Rainbow nudged her shoulder, then winced when she realized how wet Twilight still was.
“Sure, Rainbow. So long as we don’t have to go down there again.”
“Deal.”
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Storms only know what's going to come looking for that thing, whatever that was down there ought to be left alone.
I do have to wonder why Dash doesn't have any fishy features on the surface. Of course, she is barely a toddler by Deep One standards. Appearing equine is probably their version of baby-face.
In any case, fantastic suspense in this chapter. And the factory raises some fascinating questions. Looking forward to Pinkie's installment. To say nothing of the diplomatic coup when Twilight unveils that fins to hooves spell. Heck, she might even crack the infertility issue. Goodness knows she's got time.
Well, that was pleasantly eldritch-abomination free. Almost too pleasantly. I’m just gonna wait for the other shoe to drop.
Are we going to learn that pinkie is some sort of chaos god? Maybe she’s discord’s sister or something.
Well well welll...
angered an ancient artifactof the deep?
Yeah, it's probably safe.
Also, Rainbow knew Fluttershy when they were young, but it's still a baby by seapony standards?
Puh-lease, as if you'd be able to keep quiet about ALL of your friends having secret lives in the dark side of equestria.
I do spot a continuity error, though. Wasn't rainbow using a Mithril scale mail? How the heck did Twilight see her thorax's insides, then? Or did the mail become transparent too?
By the way I'd LOVE to see more of this side of Rainbow, there seems to be a LOT of potential for adventures and secrets in the deep. Specially with Twilight by her side (I do love me some TwiDash, after all
).
That is some interesting technology. It makes one wonder what kind of civilization created such a wonderous piece of magitech.
Do you think Daring Do interested in hiring a guide to the underwater ancient city?
That seemed kind of anticlimactic. Unless it's not over yet...
Wow, I was sure that was going to need an extra chapter. Worked out pretty well (aside from whatever, if anything, is going to check on that alarm...).
Another sign of ancient humans or something similar? I was starting to think there was a nuclear reactor mutating the ancient seaponies, but it wouldn't have recharged Twilight.
I forgot to mention the approach to Kumari last chapter reminded me a little of Aquaman first seeing Atlantis in the movie. VIvid descriptions of all the sea layers here, with just enough unseen and unexplained to keep us curious.
It ain't over till its over, and it ain't over yet. shivers I'll reread this section later. Once the creeps stop.
Odd machines, still in pristine condition even after aeons... The cart-sized metal shape somewhat reminded me of a Tokamak reaktor. All of it supplying the depths above with warmth and magic.
It might very well be that the machine was not "mad" at the piece being stolen (why light up an emergency exit during a security breach?) but rather reacted to the piece not reaching the sensor - either because a dropped bit of Orichalcum means trouble (explosive, toxic?) or because the big coil below really needs those things to keep working.
Let's hope there won't be unforeseen consequences.
Well, she's got the Oricalchum, but no clue as to who's next.
9660035
I'mma go with fairy. There was mention of them, and her abilities align well with fairy lore.
9660353
Process of elimination says Pinkie, and law of conservation of detail says fey. Moly can probably be found only in Faerie.
9660487
Except wasn't there a similar plant down by the Well of Souls?
Since everyone is speculating at what Pinkie Pie is going to be, does anyone remember a story about the courtship of Pinkie's mom by Pinkie's dad where it turned out that she was an ancient primeval spirit, and the marriage proposal took the form of a fae style bargain? I think it was written before we knew about Maud or the rest of the Pie's official names and still used the Pac-Man Ghost nicknames.
There we go, this had gotten a bit too not creepy enough.
Now there's the answer about the old fish question. Eventually the Deep calls you and you go.
An ancient assembly line it is making this stuff, and it is still running? I feel like Equestria, or at least the inner circle at the top of the government, needs to know about what's going on down here and what it is actually doing with the orichalcum. Particularly given the bit earlier about the "lament of the survivors".
9660487
Yeah, in a story like this a character saying "there's no such thing as faeries" is a pretty good bet that faeries are going to turn up.
9661479
No. That is only what humanity tells itself in order to not get bad. There is NO reason to consider death "good". ALL the reasons brought on are contrivances, and are there because death is inescapable. I MAY concede the point that being immortal when everything else is not can be troublesome as you get to lose a lot of people, BUT here you can make EVERYONE immortal. What is that story? Usually the argument is a strawman.
9661506
i.imgur.com/X87ww3a.jpg
9661552
So you are of the opinion that you and your loved ones are better off dying?
I'm pretty sure the facility existed inside a giant techno-organic creature.
I am reasonably certain it predates seaponies. It speaking as if it was attempting to talk on the surface while deep underwater implies this facility was flooded.
I am also reasonably certain that seaponies were created to be a servitor race for it. It would explain why they are only cross-fertile.
Orichalcum does not match any isotopes I know off the top of my head, but I can check later.
Twilight, you can't treat this like a personal secret. That thing you just visited could very well be an existential threat to the planet as a whole, and if it is you NEED to know that and you NEED to tell someone.
9661578
Sure, if there's a reason. The preservation of life at all costs just for the sake of life's sake is an outdated concept. I don't really feel like being around forever. When I come to a point that I'm not experiencing sufficient enjoyment out of life to justify continuing mine, then I don't plan on doing so. Why would I continue trudging on for no reason if I don't want to?
9661802
Because it is QUITE difficult that you get to that point if you are immortal... All drudgery CAN be removed from life relatively easily. And once you are immortal you can literally go anywhere... Exploration of the universe is just there to be taken... Again the problem with the current preservation of life at all cost is that you get OLD and feeble, but THAT is not an issue with the vampires here... you are eternally young(ish), fit and whole... so at that point there is not really any reason to STOP enjoying life... and if you want to end it, well it is YOUR personal prerogative... but I'm quite sure you would NOT.
9661937
You're making an awful lot of assumptions. Drudgery can be removed easily? What, you can just wave a wand and don't have to worry about annoying people or waiting in lines or painful shits? Being immortal doesn't give you infinite power. If I were immortal right now, I still wouldn't be able to explore the world, much less the universe. I don't have the ability or means to do so. And given that humanity is on the brink of global ecological disaster, in a few hundred years, there may not even be a world to explore. Then I'm stuck in a dead world with nothing to do. That sounds like actual hell. Not to mention these other reasons, like the fact that living forever means you're pretty much guaranteed to eventually become incapacitated and trapped.
You're also making assumptions about me. Insultingly so. You don't know me. Don't presume to be "quite sure" of what I want or how I feel. Even if I didn't get old and stayed eternally young, I still wouldn't want to live forever. That would suck so hard. I plan on checking myself out within the next 8 years or so just because I feel like that's plenty enough life for me. 40 is enough. 400 would be torture. 40,000,000 is unthinkable.
...was that a fusion reactor? What the hell is going on down there? Man, Twilight needs to have a good long talk with Celestia and Luna.
9662603
Ladies and gentlemen, here we have a Stoic.
9662870
I guess?
9660036
From the sounds of it, I'm not sure you can 'anger' it. It almost seems like an automated factory or smelter, and the voice could have been announcements or sensor readings. Heck, the alarms very well could have done nothing, because there's no more guards around to hear the alarms.
Neeeaaat.
Kind of has the feeling of Dwemer Ruins to it.
I agree with Arzoo that the ending of this section was a bit anticlimactic. The chapter set up these "scavengers" like they were going to attack Twilight and Dash . . . But they never saw them, and instead they triggered an alarm system and then Twilight found an escape hatch like Dory, solving that problem almost as quickly as it surfaced.
Still, I find the lore of this section more intriguing than any other in this story, except maybe the underworld. I like the theory that the seaponies were created by another race to serve in this facility, and then the seaponies outlasted their creators. I don't think they were human, however, since human architecture closely resembles that of ponies, while the deep-sea facility looks so alien that Twilight's brain has difficulty comprehending it.
I also wonder how the seaponies break the news to their foals that they can one day become giant angler fish or dragonfish. It's one thing to find out you can turn into a seapony that's still halfway shaped like an equine with colorful, pretty scales. It's another thing altogether to find out you can turn into a large fish with translucent flesh, glowing organs, razor-sharp teeth, spines, and creepy, solid black eyes.
9664669
I also agree. It almost felt like "Ok got it, let's take that exit and oh crap. We're out of time folks. Gonna have to give you the very abbreviated version of how they got out of there."
Overall it was almost jarring how quick it seemed to end. Not even any explanation. Just emergency exit looking hatch at untold depths below the surface in a giant possibly semi sentient ancient underwater facility aaaand back to the surface. Honestly I was hoping to see some of these creatures that Twilight and Rainbow heard. Also how they got out of that deeper area.
9660294
That's a good theory, actually.
As for unforeseen consequences...
Well, why would alarms blared and an emergency exit be lit up? Because it's an emergency, obviously. Question is, what kind of emergency?
Deus ex Machina
Oh! There's R'lyeh!