Darkreach Chronicles, Part Seven
"Journalistic update: She who would be Commander Gwen arranged a meeting between herself and they who would be the executive officials of that which would be called the Verdestonian Expedition. During said conference, she who would be Commander Gwen addressed the unexplained decline in supplies from the Light Side.
"Current imperative: Until we know more information concerning the cutoff of the supply line from the Edge, we who would be the Verdestonian Expedition must focus on the mission that has been given to us. To that end, she who would be Commander Gwen has taken it upon herself to accompany he who would be Commander Warhol on the latest trip Curveside. This will be the longest and furthest-reaching journey to date, and the intended result is to finally reveal a navigable path to the Harmonic Prism.
"Somber reflection: If some unforeseen circumstances have cut off our connection with they who would be the Council of Two Cities, then we who would be the Verdestonian Expedition must come to grips with our function here on the Dark Side. There is a goal to accomplish, and it may very well entail abandoning that which would be called the Colony of Darkreach."
"Now..." Flynn clasped a metal tray in his hooves. The bottom was bejeweled with tiny glowing pebbles that he further enchanted with a brief zap of telekinesis. "...observe."
That said, the stallion placed the tray flatly atop a long table in the common room and lightly shoved it towards the edge.
Rainbow Dash and Ariel's heads turned as they observed the metal panel gently drifting across the table. As it reached the far end, it coasted out into thin air. Its fall to the floor was lengthy and sluggish, like a feather with some divine purpose. Rainbow Dash mentally clocked the duration of five seconds before the enchanted metal tray finally made contact with the common room floor. It did so gracefully, and still it didn't lose its momentum... eventually coasting to a limp drift against the limbs of a disinterested Seraphimus shackled to the pipework.
"Fillies and gentlecolts..." Flynn stood up with a proud smile. "It would seem that the Darkreach Expedition achieved levitation."
"Uhhhhhh..." Ariel squinted. "Didn't the Cylindrimanians already achieve that with their weird floating sphere thingies?"
Flynn rolled his eye. "This is different, Ariel."
"Yeah, girl." Rainbow nodded. "I instructed Flynn to start working on this days ago." She nodded in the stallion's direction. "Give us the lecture, dude."
"So..." He paced over towards where the tray landed. "...I followed some notes that I found in one of the research chambers down below. Turns out the Emeraldinians... Cylindrimanians... whoever had a specific way for 'triply entwining leylines.' It took some practice, but I was able to copy their work... albeit on a small scale." He hesitantly approached Seraphimus and ultimately lifted the tray back up with his telekinesis. "Ahem..." Approaching the two mares, he randomly juggled the tray in one hoof—which floated and twirled a few extra seconds longer than it was naturally supposed to. "As you can see, I've managed to get this tray to defy gravity a bit... so to speak. It's not quite so reality-breaking as it looks. The leyline entanglement simply magnifies the levitation properties of the rock samples we've salvaged... which—in and of itself—is probably some crazy ass side effect of chaos energy. Anyways... back in their ancient hayday, the ponies of Darkreach applied the same mechanic to large-scale objects."
"Like big metal wagons," Rainbow droned."
"However." Flynn gestured. "I'm far from being able to mimic that." He tossed the tray across the room like a slowly whirling discus. "That will take me Goddess-knows how long to master. Weeks, maybe. I'm not sure we can even afford that time."
Seconds later, Rainbow smoothely caught the spinning tray in her wing. "It'll be worth it if it'll help us."
"Help us do what, Rainbow Dash?" Flynn shrugged. "No offense, but you haven't exactly been up front with me."
Ariel looked at Rainbow.
"Tell me, Flynn, dude..." Rainbow juggled the tray in her wing. "What are the chances that a wagon fitted with these rocks—just like this tray—will land upright?"
Flynn pointed. "Look for yourself."
Holding her breath, Rainbow tossed the tray wildly towards the ceiling. It pinballed off the walls twice... ... ... but landed miraculously with the bejeweled part facing down.
"Huh..." Rainbow blinked.
"I've tossed it around over two dozen times like you did and recorded my results," Flynn said. "There's about a ninety-percent chance of it landing upright. I could explain the math about how the leyline entanglement works in messing with the enchanted object's center of gravity... but... I know you'd just burp through it."
Rainbow lurched, holding a hoof over her bulging cheeks. She swallowed before wheezing: "Point taken."
"Something tells me..." A cool voice exhaled, accompanied by a cool set of manacled talons that picked up the tray once again bumping into her. Seraphimus gazed lethargically at the tray and its glowing pebbles. "...that your illustrious leader is planning to blow something grossly out of proportion."
"Pffft... get off it," Flynn said, frowning. "Rainbow knows better than to throw the entire party into jeopardy over some stupid stunt!"
Ariel coughed and fidgeted.
"... ... ...?" Flynn looked at Ariel, then at Rainbow Dash. His muzzle hung agape in abject confusion.
"Flynn... buddy..." Rainbow winced through a cheesy smile. "If we were to... oh, I dunno... magnify the scale of your little table tray experiment by a factor of ten and... let's say... push it violently down a mountainside so that it launches off a ramp down below made of pure crystal..." Her eyes narrowed. "...for how many miles do you think it and its entire supply of equipment could glide before touching the ground again?"
Dead silence.
Flynn's metal lenses retracted. "Are you high?"
"It's just a hypothetical question, Flynn—" Ariel began.
"Don't you start!" Flynn pointed at her with a frown. "I know you're always defending her but... buck me sideways!" He stomped a hoof. "Can't we just find a normal path over the wasteland like normal equine beings?!" He gawked. "... ... ...normal equine beings who want to live?!"
"Flynn, Ariel and I have been all over Alpha and Omega!" Rainbow groaned. "There's no way past this friggin' forest of death-weed! Now, Ariel and Wildcard and I and maybe Kepler could try gliding over that mess, but then we'd be leaving three others behind and we can't carry all of the equipment we'll sorely need on our own!"
"Well, can't we just burn the stupid stalks or slice through them with Logan's axe?!" Flynn scowled. "Or are you subscribing to the Equestrian School of 'defend all sentient weed-monsters' thought?"
"Dude—there's like... too much of them!" Rainbow shrugged wildly. "Ariel and I found something that—I believe—could actually work out!"
"Work out?! How?! Where?!" Flynn gestured wildly. "In a cartoon?!" The stallion flailed his forelimbs at the lengths of Darkreach around them. "Rainbow Dash—tell me—does this all look like a cartoon to you?!"
"At last, a lick of sense..." Seraphimus droned, turning the tray over her in her bound claws. "Somewhat belated, but still..."
"You shut up!" Rainbow frowned at her, then turned to Flynn once more. "Flynn... I had you work on this project for a reason. If there is a way... any way... that we can afford even an ounce of flight with all of the ponies and equipment and sound effects at our disposal, shouldn't we leap upon that?" She smiled genuinely. "You've got the resources! You've got the data! Just keep working on this idea and I know you'll come up with a solution! I have faith in you!"
"Rainbow Dash, this has nothing to do with 'faith,'" Flynn growled. "It's about ascertaining the gravity of the world around us and treating it with an ounce of realism! This is the Dark Side! It's nothing like you've ever stupidly brute-forced your way through before! You have to think progressively!"
"I'm just trying to provide us a solution here—"
"Dammit, Rainbow, you gotta stop trying to recreate the Noble Jury!"
"Flynn!" Ariel hissed.
Silence.
Seraphimus' charcoal eyes darted between the mare and the stallion.
Rainbow took a deep breath. "I know what I've left behind, Flynn. And as for my 'stupid brute force'... it's worked more times for me than anything has ever worked out for you and your amazing Job Squad. And—who knows—maybe the reason the Emeraldinians vanished is because they never thought to think outside the box themselves?"
"There's thinking outside the box..." Flynn gnashed his teeth. "And then there's bucking crazy—" He winced at the end of saying those words. As his ears drooped, his one good eye glanced in Seraphimus direction.
The former Talon Commander was quiet. Calm.
Before anypony else could say anything...
...Logan galloped into the room. "Hey. Guys." He motioned with his head. "Up to HQ. On the double. Keps has something important to show us."
Flynn and Rainbow hesitated for a moment, neither of them looking too proud of themselves. Awkwardly, they threw themselves into a trot, scaling the stairwell beyond as Ariel followed limply behind.
Logan blinked curiously at them. He then looked at Seraphimus, his eyes narrowing. "The Hell are you lookin' so smug about?"
Seraphimus shrugged without saying a word.
Sighing, Logan followed the others.
Alone, Seraphimus threw the tray into the air. She watched for several seconds, her eyes following the slowly-descending arc of the metal object. At last, it landed... and it did so gracefully with the top-up.
She didn't say a word... merely sat and stared in contemplation.
Chief Engineer Ranort's voice was already echoing across the table when Rainbow, Flynn, and Ariel arrived.
Wildcard looked up from where he sat next to Kepler. His left prosthetic was a metal branch with digits partially constructed. He nevertheless waved with a mute smile at the arriving group.
"Alright, Keps." Rainbow stood front and center. "What's the scoop?"
"Shhhh!" Kepler insisted.
The group craned their necks, listening in as the ancient words crackled from the "briefcase" resting between them.
"Initial assessment: these strange equines are likely non-aligned. Their allegiance seemingly belongs to no members of the three-fold war. Instead, they dwell within the nooks and crannies of the battlefield, shying away from the dominating armies. Favoring darkness for the sake of survival..."
Logan marched into the room. "So, did you tell them, Keps?"
"Tell us what?" Ariel asked.
"This is from a late entrry," Kepler explained, adjusting his spectackles. "Long afterr the rreturrn of a lengthy expedition led by Commanderr Gwen and Lieutenant Warrhol." His eyes narrowed as he spoke over Ranort's voice. "It would appearr that the Emerraldinians discoverred ponies..."
Rainbow's lips pursed. "What kind of ponies?"
"Rregularr ponies," Kepler clarified. "Unicorrn... earrth... pegasi..." He took a breath. "Frragmented and living in a neutrral civilization... lost herre on the Darrk Side..."
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Anyone remember that old "Learn to Fly" Flash game on Newgrounds? The one in which you are a penguin and construct more and more ludicrous ramps and strap bigger glider wings and rockets to your tuxedo tail and soar for the horizon?
Anyone remember how many launches it takes to win?
Rainbow Squad is about to do it in one go.
Popcorn, anybody?
...well, I got nothing on these Light Siders hiding out on the Dark Side. Only thing I can think of is that maybe they were a lost expediti-
Wait a sec...
Aaaand there it is! Never change, Dashie!
I just had a totally crazy idea.
Flyn has all those energy crystals.
Rainbow Dash waants to try and glide as far as she can after Eddie The Eagle.
With the flyers pushing the sled, theyll go further.
However, what if Flynn drills a hole through the middle of an energy crystal, and maybe adds something so it gets nice and hot, then adds a sprung loaded flap to one end of the hole, then points that end forward.
Above a certain speed, you get a pulsejet, and lift.
Oh boy.
Dwellers in The Gaps.
...the descendants of the expedition?
Sera may have calmed down, but she's not about to side with Dash anytime soon.
-Through the path long forgotten, into the darkness long begotten. Ofolrodi.
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Rainbow is about to unleash all the hax to get unlimited money to get all the good stuff! :P
Umm...
Hopefully they are friendly.why do I keep saying such things?
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Well, if those lost ponies are hiding out from the war, chances are that they are friendly, or at the very least neutral.
Sometimes crazy is the best way to go, especially in a land ruled by chaos, though not entirely it would seem
Flynn should know by now that any plan Rainbow comes up with is going to basically be batshit insane to normal ponies.
Well, I sure didn't see that coming.
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I remember.
I didn't strike through the text as an indication to remove it. I did that to isolate the subject and appositive phrase and show how the verb must match the subject in number.
It's convenient that all these logs Kepler's listening to are more or less in chronological order.
"I hate these filthy Neutrals, Kif. With enemies you know where they stand but with Neutrals, who knows? It sickens me."
Well, I didn't see a lost tribe of ponies coming, though any potential allies or providers of provisions are welcome in my book. I only wonder what their story is.
I thought there must be others on this side of the world besides the three factions of the Trinity war. I wonder. The changelings and the Dark Vigil/Bloodwings came here from the light side. Did the Night shard do so as well, or are they natives of this side? The same can be asked of these "Normal Ponies" that side with no faction.
I'm still voting that the Shard are connected to Sombra somehow.
Now the big question is whether or not these Neutrals are still around, and if they could be considered potential friendlies, or another obstacle?
Hmm, as for Dash's crazy sledding plan, well... I don't know the "science" or "logic" of this setting very well, but here's a thought; What if they used the glass plate from the Night Shard as the main part of the Skywagon, since its so extra dense and seemingly designed for channeling lots of magical ju-ju. Using that as the force of a levitation spell could make it sufficiently light enough to glide for awhile, but more to the point it could glide longer and faster if it had some winged folks towing it, like Ariel, Dash, Wildcard... and Seraphimus? Could they potentially trust the possibly slightly less crazy cat-bird to be the fourth member of a flight team to carry the levitating Skywagon across the Dark Side's Death Lawn?
Thought so. RD is suggesting they jump the canyon like Robbie Kineval
Out of all things I expected, neutral, usual pony folk were not one of them.
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durandal.dnsalias.net/Cloudsdale/Pictures/Video Games/science.jpg
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Well, if it was recorded in that order, why not?
Mental Note: Seraphimus does not belong to the good guys (yet). Don't allow her to mess with you.
Buddy, you went over the edge of the world to enter a literal realm of eternal darkness and chaos. Just being there kicks the argument of self-preservation out of the window.
Should someone tell him the truth? He could enter the amazing world of:
derpicdn.net/img/view/2016/9/28/1260543__semi-dash-grimdark_edit_edited+screencap_screencap_starlight+glimmer_every+little+thing+she+does_caption_existential+crisis_meme_solo.png
Olympic Killer Kelp Jump
Its the most exciting part of the games!
...I wonder what Sera is up to with that tray? Maybe freeing herself?
I want to hear Flynn coming up with a better plan.
Well no, it's a fanfic.
Sometimes I hate catching up, since then I have to wait before there's a new sizeable backlog to binge through.
...
But if they're regular ponies, why call them "strange equines"? Could they happen to have multiple eyes as well...?
I'm hoping she comes up with a better plan, thus adding her first POSITIVE CONTRIBUTION! yay!!
Here's a thought. Scale up that tray tenfold so that it's just weightless, put the grounded team members on top, and then instead of launching off a ramp just friggin' carry it, you can fly!
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Surprising us by picking the least surprising option.
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Just that it seems like IC chose to make it triply-entwined on purpose, considering the comment last chapter I was replying to saying everything is getting wrapped around precisely three times.
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"First shalt thou take out the Holy Pin. Then, shalt thou count to three. No more. No less. Three shalt be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, nor either count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out. Once the number three, being the third number, be reached, then, lobbest thou thy Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch towards thy foe, who, being naughty in My sight, shall snuff it."
"Dammit, Jim. I'm a magical unicorn, not a magician."
If the theory that the blood of all dark side unhabitants doesn't glow like that of the
JuryHerald, then there is no way to difference these neutral ponies from changelings until it's too late.I wonder if he who would be Chief Engineer Ranort knows of pegasi. Modern Verdestone doesn't have them, but they crossed what is now Robhedren, where they are common. Did they have pegasi in their expedition? Did they recruit them along the way in Robhedren or now from among these dark ponies? If this is the first time seeing pegasi, do they treat them like modern Verdestonians treated Dash, like royalty? Or maybe like the hostile batponies, the only other winged ponies they know of? Will winged ponies be the thing that makes Ranort finally lose his mind?
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All ponies are strange equines, to be fair.
If skystone does exist on this side, they could use that instead and save so much trouble. The danger of harvesting it notwithstanding.
After much searching on this desolate side of the world, the ancient treasure we found...
More ponies!
...
What? Ponies are better than an eldritch horror.
Well, I'm sure there won't be any problems with contacting them. Rainbow Dash is the Sixth Dragon Matriarch, remember? She has Diplomacy as her schtick. Enhanced diplomacy, with martial arts skills. They'll be fine...
...right?
Here lies the Darkstine Expedition. They thought they could supply chain across the edge of the world.
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Enhanced diplomacy? Sounds like aggressive negotiations.
I kind of have to agree with him there, Dash.
Wouldn't that be one hell of an Awful Rodeo.
Um...
Dude, you were literally defying the gravity of the world around you a minute ago.
I don't know what Seraph is pondering, but I'm worried.
Wrong spelling, but that actually works considering the setting.
I lost it here. My family is awake, but it's worth it.
Where's Pinkie when you need her?
Okay. Did not see that coming. At all. Welp, I wonder how Pony Switzerland is gonna work out.
Hmm . . . are these ponies natural inhabitants of this side, or are they refugees? AWOL soldiers that have decided to go and make a living however they can without having their lives put towards an unending war as canon fodder. I have a feeling that the latter is true, but this proves to be very intriguing indeed.
I fell behind! Time to play catch-up.
Seraph has good experience with RD approved Brute Force
Laughed at this whole part harder than I think I should have.
Damn, that’s gotta cut deep.
Oh dang, there's civilians here? Or, were, at least. They may very well all be dead or gone by now.
Fillies and gentlecolts, the question that accompanies all of Rainbow's ideas.
...Who wants to tell him?
Hm... looks like someone's using her noggin.
...Flynn, the fact that Sera figured this out faster than you is a little sad, my dude.
...uuuuhhhh...I just won't answer. You're clearly having a moment.
Well ain't that ominous.