Surviving Sand Island

by The 24th Pegasus

Throw it at the Metaphorical Wall

“You’re absolutely sure nothing happened? Like, one hundred and ten percent sure?”

Gyro blinked at Rainbow in disbelief. The pegasus and Rarity had promised so much to her when they first rescued her so long ago. They’d promised that the figurines would be the way to get home, and all they had to do was find them on their respective islands. And now they’d done exactly that, but nothing had changed. The skies hadn’t suddenly split open, airships hadn’t appeared on the horizon, and the princesses remained scarce. And unless something had quietly happened in the background, all their efforts had been for nothing.

“I didn’t feel anything, and Rares didn’t feel anything,” Rainbow said. “If something happened, we would have known.”

“Then what are we supposed to do?” Gyro asked her, searching the blue pegasus’ face for some hint or clue that might tell her the situation wasn’t as hopeless as it seemed. “I refuse to believe for a second that there’s nothing we can do. There has to be something. There just has to!”

“Whatever it is that we must do, we must figure it out first,” Champagne said. “That’s why we came back up here. Maybe between all of us, we can figure something out.”

“Unless Melody has some more information that might help us, we’ll be shooting blindly in the dark,” Rarity said. “There’s so many possibilities that we need to explore to figure out what to do that we could try for years and never get there.”

“Then we’ll just throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks,” Rainbow said. “But now’s a good time to start thinking.”

The pegasus fluttered over to the other group, and a few moments later, they began to move back down the beach toward Gyro. In the meantime, the engineer furrowed her brow and tried to think, but she hardly knew much about the history of this place or what had gone into raising the protective wards around the islands in the first place. But there had to be some missing component, something that they had to do to finish the ritual. Placing the figurines was likely only the first step. Something more had to actually activate their power, but what that was remained a mystery.

A few moments later, Gyro found Coals and herself making up the edge of a circle on the beach. The wonder and awe that had dominated the survivors’ faces while talking with Melody had given way to uneasiness and worry. No doubt the news that placing the figurines beneath the island only for them to not do anything had shocked them as much as it had Gyro. All of these ponies had believed in Rainbow and Rarity when they promised them that getting the figurines would be the way home. And she knew that all of them were wondering if they had been right to trust the former element bearers, if it had been a good idea to open the tomb in pursuit of one of those figurines instead of leaving it and the horrors it contained alone.

Rainbow Dash sighed and sat down on the sand. “So, yeah. It didn’t work. Not yet, at least.”

“Can you explain what you mean?” Ratchet asked.

“I mean exactly that,” Rainbow said, glaring at the ground. “Me and Champagne placed all the statuettes and stuff. Nothing happened.”

“It’s… maybe not as hopeless as Rainbow is making it seem,” Rarity said. “We think that maybe there’s something else we need to do to finish the ritual. To be honest, it doesn’t seem like something as powerful and old as this would be resolved by placing four figurines on pedestals, in hindsight.”

“Then what are we supposed to do?” Stargazer asked, anxiously twitching his wings, letting the feathers spread and close every few seconds. “These ponies that set this thing up in the first place didn’t leave instructions, did they?”

“If only,” Rarity said. “We’ve never found any writing or records left by these ponies other than the carvings and glyphs they’ve left in their temples and ruins. Presumably the answer to removing the ward would lie somewhere in one of those.”

“Do we really have the time or means to go and scour these temples for a hint that might tell us what to do?” Clever Ruse furrowed his brow and looked between the ponies gathered in the circle. “If we take too long, that tomb on the archipelago is going to open again, and then it will all be over for us.”

“We don’t,” Rainbow said. But her focus shifted to Melody, who blinked in surprise. “Thankfully, we know somebody who’s had plenty of time to study the ruins around here.”

“Me?” Melody asked. She shook her head. “I was just as surprised as the rest of you when this didn’t work. I only know about how and why the ponies who lived here erected the ward. They didn’t leave anything that would say how to take it down. Why would they? They obviously intended for it to be permanent.”

“But there have to be clues as to how to take it down.” Rarity tapped her beak in thought, and then she nodded at Melody. “If you know how they erected it, then maybe that will tell us how it should go down. Can you explain how it happened?”

“I’ll do my best…” Melody’s fangs tugged on the edges of her scaly lips as she collected her thoughts. “I already told you all about the moon spirit’s avatar a few minutes ago and all that history, so you know why the Ponynesians put the barrier around the island in the first place. How they did it exactly is a little more vague, but I’ve been able to piece it together over eighty years. After the avatar was slain, the Ponynesians took their remaining population and sacrificed some of their essence into the figurines that we collected. Somehow, those four figurines were imbued with the power of their respective races, and together, that energy maintains the barrier, with the shrine beneath this island serving as a focus.” Melody frowned. “How exactly this island focuses that magic, I do not know. I’ve never seen the shrine; it’s too small for me to get into.”

“There weren’t exactly many clues down there either,” Rainbow said. “There’s just a large table that has a map of the four major islands here, and a bunch of pedestals around it that we put the figurines on.”

“There are a lot of runes and carvings along the walls,” Champagne said. “They presumably focus the magic in some way, but I can’t read them.”

“I doubt anypony can,” Ruse said. “It’d take a scholar some time to even figure them out.”

Gyro’s ears perked. “Didn’t you have a journal from an explorer that you found, Rainbow?” she asked.

Rainbow shook her head. “Yeah, but he died the day he found out about the shrine under this island. He never had time to translate the glyphs and stuff like he was going to. The very last entry in the journal says he was going to come back and figure things out, but he never got the chance.”

“Well, fuck that, then.” Gyro frowned. “Are you sure that he died the day he wrote that journal entry? He didn’t leave any other papers or something anywhere else?”

“Not that we ever found,” Rainbow said. “And I doubt they would have lasted very long out here. He’d been dead for a long time by the time we found this place.”

“So, it sounds like we’re back to square one,” Ratchet said. Sighing, he stood up and paced a few steps away from the group. “Well, we have until the next full moon to sort things out. Perhaps it’s best if we give it some time to think it over. Today, for the first time, we’re all finally back on one island, back together again, and we can afford to take a night to relax. This puzzle isn’t going to go anywhere, and we still have plenty of time to work it out.”

“We could just try smashing the things,” Ruse said, his lips mischievously quirking. “That might get us somewhere.”

“We should probably wait until we’ve tried everything else,” Rarity said. “Once you smash something, it is very hard to un-smash.”

“Eh, I’ll keep it on the backburner.” Yawning, Ruse also stood up and turned his attention toward the interior of the island. “In the meanwhile, it’s about dinnertime, and I think we could all do with a hearty, family meal.”

“That sounds good to me,” Rainbow said, the prospect of food already seeming to chase away the worst of her doldrums. “Thinking burns a lot of calories.”

“I’m sure it does for a pony like you,” Rarity said, winking at Rainbow. “Melody and I will be here at the beach. It’s not like we can go into the camp anyhow.”

Gyro watched them all go, including Coals, who promised to bring her back some food so they could eat dinner on the beach. Apart from a tiny acknowledgement, Gyro didn’t let that disturb her from her thoughts. Maybe it was her feelings of incompetence with her legs still on the mend, but she was determined to figure out the answer to the mystery of the figurines. Maybe in that way, she’d be able to contribute and help the others out. She had always enjoyed puzzles anyway, and this one had the greatest reward for solving it: the chance to finally go home.

With stakes like that, how could she possibly spare thought for anything else?

Comments

[Venerable Ro]

Have you tried removingall of the statues? Have you tried all possible configurations? Have you tried blood? Are you certain the device is properly plugged in?

[Merula]

8903291
''Hello, this is IT, have you tried turning it off and on again?''

[alamais]

... Scrape the paint off, dummies.

[zaponator]

Inb4 the final part of the ritual involves the corpse of Notmare Moon's avatar somehow.

[Snowdrifter]

Batteries not included.

[PonyDragon]

Gyro blinked at Rainbow in disbelief. The pegasus and Rarity had promised so much to her when they first rescued her so long ago. They’d promised that the figurines would be the way to get home, and all they had to do was find them on their respective islands. And now they’d done exactly that, but nothing had changed.

All she got was her year-long lost-and-missed friend Hot Coals.

Placing the figurines was likely only the first step. Something more had to actually activate their power, but what that was remained a mystery.

Maybe the same thing that Rarity (accidentally) did to the horn? (Drop a bit blood on it.)

[AstraPony]

8905281
I was thinking the same. A drop of blood from each race, maybe dropped on to the respective statues. But if that's the case, how would they get the blood of a crystal pony?