Ofolrodi

by Imploding Colon

Float Down the Liffey

The ravine ran endlessly—or so Rainbow Dash felt. The trench was far longer than any structure she and the Herald had encountered since crossing the world's edge. To their mental relief, it wasn't exactly uniform all throughout. The dried-up riverbed twisted and turned with gradual serpentine grace, and the rising earthen walls danced along with it. This—of course—only carried weight over a prolonged period of passing. It took half a day of full travel for the canyon to expose a turn, and yet another half a day for it to swing right back. All the while, rising hills and steep cliffs flanked the sunken bed at every twist.

Thankfully, the canyon—with all of its erratic features—still more or less followed the path that Rainbow and her friends were desiring. Rainbow periodically checked the dragonstone with faithful vigilance, and while it pushed them a bit closer to Omega than she had hoped, there was little threat that they'd be funneled directly into the draconian flicker of tell-tale Bloodwing territory. This was a good thing—because if they did need to steer themselves outside the flow of the canyon, then they'd have to face the horrible challenge of somehow pushing Flynn's chaos-imbued wagon past the high Curveside walls of the ravine. It was either that or turn around and double-back the way they came. Such was a prospect that nopony looked forward to... especially so many unscaleable days into the trip.

Kepler was the only member of the Herald who actually attempted to keep track of "time." He did this through use of an artifact that he had pilfered from Darkreach. It was an ancient Emeraldinian apparatus of sorts—it original purpose obscured through age and neglect. Nevertheless—whatever it was—it ran on manacrystals without terribly draining their power. What's more, it would let loose a chime noise every sixty minutes on the dot and without fail. The wyvern had fallen into the habit of notching a bead of his personal abacus whenever the chime struck, and after twenty-four chimes—at least the ones he was consciously awake for—he would mark a line on a page in his journal. Somehow, between the flight from Darkreach and the encounter with the giant wyrm and the attack of the trolls and the entire meeting with the Spindlers, Kepler had faithfully managed to keep to this system. It wasn't perfect, and he was the first to admit such. Sleep and dramatic circumstances had prevented him from being perfectly regular with his time-keeping. Nevertheless, it gave a realistic (albeit low) estimate for how much time had passed since their arrival at Darkreach.

At that point in their journey—meandering through the winding canyon with the full universe of stars glittering high above—Kepler's page had accumulated a total of eighty-eight notches. Added to the assumed length of time it had taken to reach Darkreach from the world's edge, the Herald had come to the conclusion that Rainbow's journey had occupied the Dark Side for no less than three and a half months. They figured—at the pace they were going with the hovering wagon—that they would take several more weeks to reach the shores of the Great Ocean that Merula had told them about, and the representative of Abaddon didn't exactly telegraph hopes of the trip being a short one.

But it was all for the best. Once upon a time, Rainbow Dash invited excitement and—yes--even danger. Here, on the Dark Side, things were far different. Intense. Unpredictable. She felt anxious all the time for her fellow companions—for the safety of the Herald in general. There was so much at stake and so much to lose with any wrong move. The sterile emptiness and lack of sunlight only made the environment that much more tense and imposing.

So, for what it was worth, Rainbow Dash easily embraced the silence and nothingness that encompassed the Herald's journey. She excited herself with things that would otherwise have felt mundane to the daredevilish pegasus. She monitored Axan's dragonstone with as much attention as Kepler paid to his time-keeping. When Flynn or Wildcard sighted possible "mushrooms" along the sloped horizon, she and Ariel zoomed off to collect all the edible goods that they could. Conversations were had. Laughter was shared. Untold stories lit the air.

Turned out hiking across an apocalyptic hellscape wasn't nearly as bad as it sounded. At least for the time being.

Of course, there were times when Rainbow Dash simply couldn't contain herself. She'd alleviate the lethargy by taking flight high above the canyon and beyond. She'd always be accompanied by Ariel or Wildcard, of course. Seraphimus... stuck with the wagon. When the former Commander flew, it was always a low flight—sticking to the altitude beneath the earthen ridges flanking the dried-up river. She was silent most of the time, talking only to Logan—of all ponies—and even then it was always a muttering, uninteresting conversation necessitated by the task at hoof. She looked too loose and deadpan to be assumed as "plotting," and Rainbow felt more sad than worried whenever she gazed upon her.

So, naturally, Rainbow distracted herself with these occasional reconaissance flights—which turned out to be the high points of her "day." Flying high enough, she and Wildcard and Ariel would observe the great Curve of the plane—and the sparse patches of light that nebulously dotted the extreme lengths of the terrestrial structure. All was uniform in its dark gray dimness—save for the tiny patch of harmonic luminesence that manifested itself for Rainbow and Rainbow alone. Nevertheless, she assumed that even her winged friends could notice a slight halo of fiery glow that surrounded the site of the Armory. Somewhere far far away, the Trinary War was still being raised—fiery and bloody. Rainbow shuddered to think of the twilight skies floating above such a holocaustal scene... if it was permanently tainted with a ruby hue.

At some point, Rainbow would direct her attention to the terrain beneath her gliding wings. She discovered—one flight after another—that the landscape surrounding the ravine was mostly flat. It was like the river was carved deep into an endlessly-stretching plateau. This contrasted greatly with Merula's insistence that the landscape between Abaddon's lair and the Great Ocean was pockmarked with numerous ravines and winding fissures and little niches. Of course, it was possible that Merula had greatly understated the sheer scale of the distance between the Spindler city and regions beyond. Also, Rainbow surmised, there was no true way for a vertebrate to mentally grasp what the earth meant in spider-terms.

Nevertheless, she enjoyed those lofty surveys, even if the results proved less than remarkable. Rainbow Dash would often look in the opposite direction of their trip—towards Edgeside. She noticed that it was getting next to impossible to detect the faint glow of the solar world beyond: the Penumbral Line, as those who spent their entire lifespans here might be apt to call it. And yet, though she and the Herald had obviously traveled many-many miles to get to that spot, it was undeniably difficult to ascertain just what progress they had made on the curve. Looking back towards where they were headed, she still felt as though the location of the Midnight Armory was just as far away as she had first observed it immediately following Axan's death.

This piece of Urohringr was very very grand indeed. On the Light Side, the constant shift in landscapes—the oceans and forests and deserts and jungles—all contributed to the blatant illusion of a great distance being traversed. Here—in the naked twilight with nothing but broken rock to act as a guide—Rainbow became horrifically aware of how truly far she had come... and just how much more of it was left to cross again. She had initially hoped for the sensation to instill pride, but instead it intimidated her to the point of wanting to shrivel into a little fuzzy ball and hide forever.

With the Herald in her shadow and her close friends watching with ghostly eyes, Rainbow could only afford to move... even if it was far slower than she wanted. Nevertheless, with a stiff upper lip and even stronger wings, she carried through the motions of the day... despite the fact that the days no longer existed.

It was a unique form of exercise, and there wasn't anything that allured Rainbow more than a brand new challenge.

Comments

[geb]

Cross again.

[The 24th Pegasus]

More scenery porn... yes, yes, good...

[IceKitsune]

You always write the best Scenery chapters. BTW anyone know if there is like an actual term for this kind of thing? I feel there is but I just can't remember it right now.

[durandana]

Some days all you can do is just keep walking

[Labyrinthine]

Turned out hiking across an apocalyptic hellscape wasn't nearly as bad as it sounded. At least for the time being.

Sounds good enough to me!

Seriously, though, what a wonderful chapter. Maybe the best one in Ofolrodi so far, actually.

[Hawattie]

It was like the river was carved deep into an endlessly-stretching plateau.

... Why is this a simile? This is probably what happened.

[Hoof of Approval]

That's right, chew that tasty scenery.

[Sylicath]

Wow. It's been longer than it felt like for me.

[arancaytar]

Curveside, ever curveside, into the unknown.

(I wonder what part of the surface world they're under right now. Did they pass the Choke?)

[Boopers]

Why do they have to rely on such weird ways to measure time? Are the stars not moving in the dark-side sky?

[mastermenthe]

8790921

Why do they have to rely on such weird ways to measure time? Are the stars not moving in the dark-side sky?

yes and no and yes and no.

Yes, the stars are "moving" to the naked eye over time.

No, they are not moving uniformly as you would expect from a planetary rotation, as this segment of Urohringr is trapped in a nebula of Chaotic space, ala WH40K's warp-storms, if much, much milder, and much, much larger.

Yes, the Urohringer segment is rotating.

No, the Urohringer segment's rotation is not symmetrical or notable on mortal timescales.

FYI, the stars the Herald were used to seeing on the Light Side were not real stars, but illusory pinholes in the Harmonic Foundation, the protective firmament crafted by pure-blood alicorn living sacrifices and is now manipulated by Luna and Celestia to provide a useful mimicry of planetary rotation via illusory star constellations and realtime projections of distant star fields

[Merula]

Mmm, dat scenery

[TranquilClaws]

Since this is the dark side... can we really assume a river made that ravine?

It makes too much sense for a land exposed to chaos.

[Tim the Planes-pony]

Some questions answered, others asked, and the travelers continue their long journey.

[Boersencrash]

Rainbow became horrifically aware of how truly far she had come... and just how much more of it was left to cross again.

Which is considerably more, as she has only crossed one half of the Light Side.

[Fana Farouche]

8790920
If they've only been travelling eighty some days then they're probably still underneath Rohbredden, at most they might be under Osmanthus prefecture.
8791542
The scary bit is, if we assume she makes the round trip and eventually gets back to Ponyville, then she's currently only a quarter of the way through her journey.

[Boersencrash]

8791618
True. The only good thing is that the last quarter *should* be an easy one because of the Equestrian expedition waiting for her there.

[AppleTank]

8790641
inb4 the canyons were caused by giant lasers.

Or the curve flexing causing the crust to crack

[Revan]

Dialog-less chapters... the Grand Choke, with companions.

[Cynderfall]

So much scenery... Beautiful but deadly.

[Hazard]

the path they travel is a lonely road indeed. Not that there's a problem with that.

[Nevlamas]

The scope of the astral - something mortal minds were never meant to comprehend.

[General Lemarc]

Only IC could manage to make barren lifelessness beautiful

[Prism Break]

Ok so it’s been three and a half months. That’s not as bad as I thought it was.

I find it odd that they can still see the Midnight Armory. After traveling a good distance they shouldn’t be able to see it anymore. They CAN still see the other edge though for sure. That must be odd knowing you can see the destination but it might take years to get there. It’s been almost two and a half years since she’s left Ponyville now. Hopefully when she gets back she’ll still have some youth left, not at the end of her years but who knows how long it will be. I still predict that they will come back the way they came. There’s no way IC has built all these characters and places to never go back. It might be cool to see the other half of the world, but it seems boring with the peaceful kingdom of Ward and stuff. We shall see.

[M M]

All was uniform in its dark gray dimness—save for the tiny patch of harmonic luminesence that manifested itself for Rainbow and Rainbow alone. Nevertheless, she assumed that even her winged friends could notice a slight halo of fiery glow that surrounded the site of the Armory.

Hmm.

[meanderingNekomata]

9094683
They broke the Gondola, the only way Rainbow can go is thru Ward. Tho I could still see her revisiting Val Roa post-journey when she has her friends back and Urohringr is whole again.

[hypervelocity]

Turned out hiking across an apocalyptic hellscape wasn't nearly as bad as it sounded. At least for the time being.

With friends, anything is possible!