The Chalice of Rhinyorgrun

by Coyotek4

The Entrance to the Spectrum Catacombs

From the moment they leave the train, Daring Do scans the surrounding area for anything or anyone suspicious.

She looks left, looks right, checks behind her, scans the landscape in front of her, observes above and below her, as she and Rainbow Dash leisurely fly towards the outer edges of the Crystal Empire, with Quibble Pants trekking along the path, silently following the two pegasi.

Daring continues her continuous scanning of everything as the trio cross over the boundary into the empire proper, and still continues observing all around as the library comes into view.

“I don’t see any sign of Caballeron, Daring,” Rainbow assures the twitchy adventurer. “I think we’re safe.”

“You can never be too careful with Caballeron,” Daring quietly scolds Rainbow. He could be in hiding, or in disguise … or he could have any number of cronies observing us.”

“All I’ve seen so far is a grandmare pushing a stroller … and believe me, there was nothing about that pony that was calling out ‘crony’. Besides, he doesn’t know we’re on the case now.”

“He’s got connections all throughout Equestria. If he needs to know something, then believe me Rainbow Dash, he’ll learn about it. He could already be at the library, for all we know!”

“Well I guess we’re about to find out,” Rainbow notes as the threesome make it to the library’s main entrance. “Any idea how we’re going to explain our presence to the ponies inside?”

Dash opens the doors and floats in, with Daring and Quibble following. “I’m sure we’ll figure something out,” Quibble flatly assures the others.

The three scan the rows of bookshelves and sprawling, empty floor laid out before them. A librarian mans a reception area to their right, but no other ponies inhabit the sprawling area. Daring eyes the librarian casually reading a book, before flying over and questioning the pony. “Excuse me, but is the library open this evening?”

The librarian looks up from her book. “Open every day, twenty-four-seven ... as a special favor to the Princess of Friendship. There just isn’t much interest in reading ‘round these parts, especially at this hour.” She then turns her attention back to her book, leaving Daring to flutter back to the others and simply shrug in resignation.

OK, do NOT mention this to Twilight, Rainbow mentally notes as she flies around the cavernous two-story area. Bookshelves line the walls on each floor, with more shelves forming a maze-like figure when viewed from the air. With no discernible features to hint at a hidden entrance, Rainbow flies back to Daring and Quibble.

“See anything?” Daring hopefully asks.

“Yeah … lots and lots of books, and lots of shelves for those books, but that’s it.”

“Well this was a useful trip,” Quibble replies as he walks up to one of the walls and eyes the towering shelf unit. Rectangular spines of myriad colors and sizes jut from the many rows, as they do with the shelves on either side …. and every other shelf in the building. The numeral 27 is ornately carved into the wood of one of the higher shelves before him; the units on either side have the numbers 26 and 28 similarly carved into them. He stands in front of the shelf, lost in thought, as the others discuss their next move.

“Do we have anything to go on?” Rainbow asks Daring.

“The only hint Ember gave me was ‘a million in two’. There could easily be a million books in this library. Maybe one of these books causes the entrance to appear.”

“But which one? Where do we begin our search?”

“Well,” Daring says as she points to another shelf. “I can see the number 5 engraved on that shelf. We could start at unit 1 and count the books, and keep going ‘til we get to a million.”

Rainbow stares at Daring in disbelief. “Are you serious? Count from one to a million? That could take forever! And besides, how would we know where on the shelf to count? Start from the top? From the bottom?”

“It’s all I got, Rainbow Dash. You have a better idea?”

“Well … no,” she admits. “But there has to be a better answer than counting out a million books. Hey Quibble, you’re good with this sort of thing, what do you …”

Rainbow turns to where Quibble was standing a minute earlier, only to see bookshelves. “Quibble?” she calls out. No response. “Hey, where’d you go?”

She floats up to get an aerial view of the ground level, spotting Quibble as he turns into a narrow corridor towards the rear of the building. “Hey, where the hay are you walking off to!” she calls out before groaning and flying to his position, with Daring following in curiosity.

The two pegasi finally reach Quibble’s location; a short hallway lined on both sides with bookshelves identical to the ones they had seen throughout the library. Quibble stands in front of one of the many bookshelves, before proceeding to pull out books from the bottom shelf, tossing them haphazardly to the ground.

“Quibble, what in Celestia’s name are you doing?” Rainbow asks.

“Testing a theory,” he replies as he empties the entire shelf of books, revealing nothing more than bare wall. He feels the wall behind the shelf with his forehoof, then proceeds to remove the books from the next shelf up.

“You’re testing my patience … again,” Rainbow declares as Daring eyes the shelf from top to bottom.

“Quibble, what is it about this shelf that intrigues you?” Daring asks.

“It’s the number carved in the shelf. All the shelves in this library have numbers carved in them.”

“Well duh,” Rainbow scoffs. “They’re probably there to help categorize the books. I’m no egghead, and even I know that. I mean, these shelves probably go all the way back to the earliest days of the library.”

“My point exactly,” Quibble asserts as he empties the shelf of its books and moves on to the next shelf up. Over fifty books now lay in a scattered pile all around them.

“Uggghh,” Daring groans. “I better talk with the librarian before she hears anything and comes over. Last thing we need is to attract unwanted attention. I’ll be right back.” She flies off back down the solitary corridor, leaving the sight of the others as she turns a corner.

“Can you at least tell me why you’re so intent on trashing the place?” Rainbow asks more softly. “This isn’t like you at all.”

Quibble pauses his work, staring at the bottom three empty shelves before looking around the pile of books lying helter-skelter all around them. He sighs in resignation. “I really did think there was something here,” he admits.

“But why? This shelf looks like all the other shelves around here.”

“Not the shelf, Rainbow Dash, the number.” Quibble points to the carved ‘64’ near the top of the shelf.

“64? What’s so special about the number 64? I mean, besides the number of squares on a checkerboard, I guess.”

“64 is the answer to the clue, Rainbow!”

“The clue?” Rainbow pauses for a moment. “You mean Ember’s clue to Daring?”

“ ‘A million in two’. That’s 64.”

“WHAT??? Quibble, you’re not making any sense!”

“Rainbow, have you ever heard of binary arithmetic?”

“Binary arithmetic?” Rainbow asks incredulously. “Sorry, I must’ve missed that part of training while in flight school. Math is math, isn’t it? You add, you subtract, you … do other things with numbers. What’s the point?”

“Normal arithmetic uses zero, one, two, and so on up to nine. Binary arithmetic uses only zero and one. You can do all the same adding and subtracting and ‘other things’ with just zero and one; they just require longer strings of numbers, which is why having more digits is more convenient.”

“String? Quibble, where did string come from? You gonna start referring to numbers as ribbons and bows next?”

“The point I’m trying to make,” Quibble continues, “is that the number one-zero-zero-zero-zero-zero-zero written in binary is the same as the number 64 written in how we normally see numbers. 64 is ‘a million in two’; it’s 1000000 in binary. And that’s why I’m sure there’s something about this shelf.”

Quibble’s passion quickly dissipates. “… at least, I was sure there was something about this shelf.”

Rainbow ponders Quibble’s words for a minute. “Hey,” she finally says with a tone of consolation, “your idea’s as good as anything Daring and I could come up with. And you haven’t been wrong yet, so maybe …”

She walks over to the shelf and raps the bare wall with her hoof … and a rush of excitement quickly fills her. “Quibble! Help me move this shelf unit away from the wall!” Though confused, the earth pony obliges, grabbing one edge with his mouth while Rainbow does likewise with the other edge. The shelf moans as it is dragged across the floor and moved to the side, leaving the bare wall in its wake.

“I don’t understand,” Quibble admits. “There’s nothing here.”

“Wanna bet?” Rainbow replies with a grin.

Backing up from the wall as far as possible, pressed up against the shelf unit opposite the hallway, she suddenly accelerates straight towards the gap between the adjoining shelves. She lowers her head and rams the wall, smashing through a thin patch of painted-over drywall. She quickly tucks into a ball, expecting to roll along the ground to stop … but ends up tumbling down from the top of a spiral staircase, flailing head-over-hooves as all parts of her hit stone steps all the way down.

“RAINBOW!!!” Quibble cries out as he instinctively sprints through the hole and gives chase down the stairs.

---

No big deal, Daring. If she heard anything and asks, just say we accidentally knocked some books over. No need for her to come over.

Daring ponders her explanation as she quickly reaches the front counter and floats back to the ground. “Excuse me, miss …” she starts, before recoiling slightly.

The librarian’s head lay on top of her book, her forelegs spread out across the table. She appears at peace in Daring’s eyes. Asleep? I suppose I’d fall asleep too if I were stuck watching over—

*FWIP* … “OW!”

An acute pain grips Daring as she instinctively reaches behind the back of her head, feeling and pulling out a dart. She quickly inspects the point, before a feeling of dizziness sets in. The area around her begins to spin, rapidly increasing speed as she looks around the area … noticing a silhouetted figure standing beside her moments before she passes out.

---

On one side of the wall lay the grandeur of the Crystal Empire library. Rows of bookshelves line the walls and envelop the spacious, brightly-lit area, each stacked neatly with tomes of bygone days.

On the other side, a stone spiral staircase winds around a marble cylinder. A torch emits a pale yellow glow, giving scant illumination apart from whatever brightness comes from the hole Rainbow created.

Paying no mind to his surroundings, Quibble races down the stairs. As he descends, he observes the change in tint from the torches on the wall from yellow to pale green to cyan to purple to red. In his haste, Quibble stumbles and somersaults down several steps; mercifully, he reaches the stone floor after only a couple rolls. He comes to a halt lying on his back, grabbing for the back of his head in an effort to massage the throbbing pain.

“Watch that last step,” Rainbow casually suggests with a smile as she flutters over Quibble, who perceives a number of bruises on her face and scratches along her body.

“Rainbow Dash!” he groggily stammers. “You’re … I mean, how are you able to ... because, that fall …”

“Eh, that was nothing.”

“Nothing???” Quibble stumbles to get upright, still shocked at his companion’s calm demeanor. “Rainbow Dash, I saw you tumble all the way down from the top step!”

“Quibble, I’ve crashed through walls, crashed through ceilings, crashed into mountain sides … you know,” she admits more to herself, “I’m starting to see where that nickname comes from. But the point is, I’m made of stronger stuff than your typical pony.”

“Yeah, that makes one of us,” Quibble grumbles as he shakes off the last of the cobwebs in his head. His attention is drawn to a narrow corridor, obscured by actual cobwebs that envelop the passageway opposite the base of the staircase. A dozen torches line the passageway, illuminating the sinewy webs in red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple. Squinting, he perceives an archway leading out of the corridor. His jaw drops as he takes in the sight, leaving his companion to speak his thoughts.

“This must be it … the entrance to the Spectrum Catacombs. Well come on, let’s go!”

Rainbow begins to fly towards the mass of webs; Quibble instinctively bites down on her tail, stopping her flight. “Hey, what gives?”

“What,” Quibble says apprehensively, “we’re just going to plow through all those … spider webs?”

“Relax, they’ll just rebuild the webs. It’s what they do.”

“No, I mean … shouldn’t we wait for Daring Do to meet us down here? Or maybe one of us should run back up to get her?”

“It’s a long way back up,” Rainbow replies as she briefly turns back towards the staircase. “Besides, it won’t be hard for her to find us. And if the cobwebs are any indication, it may be just as well she’s not with us.”

“… What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well, Daring has a … let’s just say, she’s not particularly fond of spiders.”

Quibble gives Rainbow a puzzled look. “Wait, Daring Do’s arachnophobic?”

“What, NO! She just has a small fear of spiders, is all.”

“Rainbow Dash, arachnophobia is a fear of spiders.”

“Oh … well in that case, yeah, she’s a ‘racky phobe’, I guess. So come on, you gonna just stand there or what?”

Wasting no more time, Rainbow Dash closes her eyes and flies down the corridor, through the mass of cobwebs. Countless strands stick to her face, mane and body, but do not impede her progress towards the archway; she quickly flies through the opening, turns, and touches down on the ground; she then proceeds to use her wings to wipe off as much of the sticky webbing from herself that she is able to get to. Staring back down the corridor, she notices dozens of spiders, all sporting various colors of the spectrum, begin to rebuild the webs she had flown through.

“You might want to hurry it up, Quibble!” she calls out before turning around to inspect her new surroundings. She finds herself in a small chamber roughly the size of her den, the walls stone and barren apart from a pair of torches on either side of the wall containing the archway she had just passed through. She notes three passageways that lead from the chamber, each thick with megawebs similar to the one she had passed through. Through the haze of the passageway to her left, she can make out colored torches on either side of the corridor; however, the web obstructs her view of the end of the passageway. Two piles of stacked rocks create a makeshift gateway to the corridor; a lintel topping the two ‘columns’ is adorned with an upward-pointing red arrow. Flying across the chamber, she inspects the passageway to the right of the entrance; the only discernible difference is that the lintel above this corridor is adorned with an upward-pointing green arrow. She then flutters to the passageway across from the entrance; it, too, resembles the others, but its lintel displays an upward-pointing yellow arrow.

Great, which way do we go from here? “Yo, Puzzle Pony, get over here!” she calls out while staring down the central passageway. The sound of clip-clopping of hooves on stone increases in volume, and Rainbow sets herself back on the ground and turns around. “So what kept …”

Upon turning, Rainbow eyes Quibble bend his legs and assume a fetal position, his head under his forehooves. Behind him, an earth pony holds his left forehoof to the back of Quibble’s neck; attached to the hoof is a mechanical claw grasping a dart.

“No sudden moves, please,” Caballeron requests to Rainbow Dash, “if you value the well-being of your friend.”

Comments

[Grey Goat Gal]

Well, you got my attention. Can't wait to see more!

[Inspector Brown]

Tracking.