The Engineer’s Wings

by Keeper of time RD

Chapter 11: The Spirit Barrier

By midday most of the strike team had returned to the Cloudsdale with the news that the site was secure. And it didn’t take long before the three fillies aboard the cloud ship were called to the briefing room.

Sitting at a long table built for twenty were three fillies and two Wonderbolt pilots. Standing at the head of the table was Spitfire, and standing in the corner to the left of her was the unicorn named Shining Armor.

“Listen up!” Spitfire said in a commanding voice. “The time has come to take Sweetie Belle to the spirit barrier.”

“Then I’m coming too,” Scootaloo said.

“I know,” the captain of the Wonderbolts sighed. “You’ve made the terms of your contract clear. And once the barrier is dispelled, there’s no reason that you can’t just take Sweetie Belle straight home, so I can’t even hold the threat of kicking you off the Cloudsdale over your head anymore.”

The trio of fillies (and Rainbow Dash) exchanged mischievous glances at each other.

“Don’t encourage them, Dash!” Spitfire snarled. “Anyway that’s why you’re here. On his expedition, Shinning Armor found a temple in a large cavern,” she added, pointing to the drawing on the chalkboard behind her.

The drawing showed a large area with a bunch of smaller shapes in it, and several paths leading away from the temple chamber. Although only one of the paths seemed to be fully drawn, while several branches in the cave network just faded away.

“We’ll be entering the cavern here,” Spitfire said, pointing to the pathway that started in the lower right part of the chalkboard. “We’ll need to fly single file for safety reasons, but according to the scouting reports, its more than large enough to accommodate our fighters. I’ll be flying lead so all you need to do is follow.

“If for some reason you lose line of sight of the plane in front of you, the paths to take the forks in the cave are left, right, left,” she added, tracing her hoof down the path shown on the board.

Moving her hoof to the large chamber with a bunch of other shapes drawn in it, she continued, “At the back of the temple cavern there’s a large platform area not far from where the spirit barrier is. Fleetfoot has already confirmed that it’s big enough to land on. In fact I already sent her back out and she should be installing landing lights there as we speak. Anyway, landing there will allow us to bypass most of the temple. Once we all meet up there we’ll head to the barrier. Any questions?”

Apple Bloom held a hoof up.

Spitfire groaned and motioned to the room around them. “Does this look like a schoolhouse to you? Just ask.”

“Oh, sorry. Ah was just wondering, where do those other paths go?”

Spitfire only looked to the lone unicorn stallion in the room.

Stepping forward Shining Armor said, “Most of them led to other entrances to the cave network. A few led to dead ends with smaller structures carved into the rock. But nothing as interesting or as important as the main temple cavern. We merely set up the camp near this entrance because that one was the closest to the temple.”

After a moment of silence that followed Shining’s answer, Spitfire said, “Given the lack of further questions, we’re moving out at fourteen hundred hours. I expect everypony to be in the launch bays and ready to go then.”

“Isn’t fourteen hundred hours an awful long time?” Sweetie Belle asked.

After a quick giggle Dash clarified, “It means two o’ clock. So that means you have ten minutes to get you things and get down to Scoots’ plane.”

“Oh… never mind.”

* * * * * * *

At first Spitfire wanted Sweetie Belle to ride in her Mark 2. But when the filly insisted on riding in Scootaloo’s Mark 1, the captain begrudgingly relented. Despite the fact that that would mean Scoots would have two fillies sharing the back seat of her plane.

Regardless, with seating arrangements for the fillies set and Shining Armor riding in Soarin’s plane, three Lightning Bolt Mark 2’s and a Mark 1 took off from the C.S. Cloudsdale.

Scootaloo whistled when she first saw the giant cave and lake come into view.

“Wow! I didn’t know caves came that big. It’s almost scary to think we’ll be flying underground and still have that kinda space.”

Not having goggles to see through the walls of the plane, the two fillies in the back seat strained to stand in their seat and look out the canopy glass.

“Oh, wow. That is big!” Apple Bloom said once she caught sight of the cave in question. “Walking around a cave that big would feel more like being outside than a cave!”

“Gold one to base camp, come in base camp!” Spitfire’s voice suddenly came over the radio.

A moment later the radio crackled back to life and a stallion’s voice answered, “This is base camp. Go ahead, captain.”

“Is everything ready?”

“Affirmative. We finished setting up the lamps ten minutes ago. The path is lit.”

“Listen up, team! Everypony shift to a slow flight configuration. The cave may be big, but the slower we fly the easier it’ll be to not hit the walls. I got point, so everypony follow me and fly between the lanterns. They’re marking the widest flight path we’ll have down there.”

With Spitfire’s command, Scootaloo reduced the throttle and started adding flaps as she slowed down, until she had the flaps to maximum deflection. Then she played with the throttle again until she’d found a slow speed that sill felt stable and wasn’t falling behind the Mark 2’s she was following.

While her passengers oohed and awed at the marvels of flying into a giant cavern, Scootaloo tensed up as they flew into the cave. Especially since it didn’t take more then a few seconds before they were deep enough in that the only places they she could see the walls, floor or roof were where the lanterns were.

Of course with only the Mark 2’s having had a forward facing flood light added to their wing attachment points, Scootaloo was the only one who couldn’t see the walls of the cave without help. Or worse yet, she gave herself a heart attack every time she flew close enough to see the walls from the glow of her own aircraft’s engine.

As for the lanterns, they were arranged in sets of four, basically marking the path with a bunch of diamond formations for them to fly through.

Despite the stress and silently gasping a few times when she’d been surprised to catch a stalactite uncomfortably close in her peripheral vision, the flight through the cave was uneventful and they soon emerged into the massive temple chamber.

The chamber floor was actually fairly well lit. Most of the temple buildings had glowing crystals of various colors built into them, making the whole temple facility easily visible throughout the chamber. And that was to say nothing of the twin lines of bright white lanterns that marked the makeshift runway Fleetfoot had set up.

Soon they had all landed and parked their planes near Fleetfoot’s Mark 2 on the massive platform.

Once they’d all gathered on hoof, Shining Armor led the way toward a large building carved into the side of the cavern’s walls.

As they walked, Spitfire made a stray comment. “With a cave like this, I’m surprised a dragon hasn’t moved in.”

Shining chuckled, then said, “I’d be surprised if one didn’t move in after we’re done here. But dragons tend to avoid places with powerful pony magic still active. So I suspect that any dragon that’s wondered in here in the past also found the spirit barrier and thought better than to set up shop here.”

As soon as they entered the building the unicorn was leading them to, the stonework changed from the same gray stone as the cave walls to polished white marble. Unlike the multicolored lights of the rest of the temple, in here the lighting crystals only came in light blue. Every now and then there might be holes or patterns carved into the walls or floors, marking were old traps were. Although on more than one occasion they passed an ancient pony skeleton that had clearly fallen prey to the traps that Shining Armor’s team had disabled on their first expedition.

Then they arrived at their destination.

And there they were faced with a room that had a double overhead, which made it roughly two stories tall. A large, sealed, ornate door was at one end. And to the side of that was a small hallway-like room with an open doorway at one end and windows along the side that could see into this room, not too unlike a security room. Lastly the ornate door was just behind a wall of transparent purple light, the spirit barrier.

Shining Armor pointed to the smaller side room and said, “The spell anchor is in there.” After a short pause he added, “Oh, this would probably be a good time to mention that there’s a defensive enchantment on the anchor point. So as soon as the key dispels the spirit barrier, that doorway will close. And once that’s locked the only way out of the side room will be that path on the other end that’s also blocked by the barrier. Oh, and it might be worth pointing out that we couldn’t clear the traps in the sealed parts of the temple, so you might want to keep that in mind while you’re finding out where that path leads.”

Looking into the side room, sure enough, it did have another exit at the other end that was currently blocked by the same purple wall of light as the ornate door.

“Then which way is the right way?” Sweetie asked.

“I think that depends on what you want. And according to the inscriptions on the ornate door, what I want is through this path out here. I have no idea what’s down the path that awaits you.”

Scootaloo gave a determined nod to Apple Bloom and a wordless agreement was made. They both walked over to Sweetie Belle. “Well, our job is to stick with you, so we’ll find out together,” Scoots said.

Then, at the same time Rainbow Dash and Spitfire said, “I’ll go with them.”

On hearing the other, they both looked at each other.

On seeing a sudden hesitation in Spitfire’s eyes, Rainbow Dash shrugged and added, “No reason we can’t both keep them out of trouble. I’m sure Soarin and Fleetfoot can take care of themselves.”

However, Spitfire came up to Dash and whispered in the mare’s ear. After a moment of whispering between the Wonderbolt and her captain a nod was shared.

Then Spitfire said aloud, “Fine you stay with them. But remember, I’m counting on you to keep them safe, Dash.”

With that, Rainbow Dash and the threesome of youngsters entered the anchor room, while the other three Wonderbolts joined the royal guard captain by the ornate door.

Inside the anchor room by one of the windows was a small pedestal topped with glowing purple runes. As they neared the pedestal, Sweetie Belle’s eyes grew wide with awe. She could feel the magic in the room. And more than that, she could feel the magic connecting to her. This was without doubt the spirit barrier that her spirit key was linked to.

Given that the pedestal was sized for an adult, Apple Bloom and Scootaloo gathered in front of it, offering their backs as a makeshift platform for Sweetie to climb up on.

From atop her living perch Sweetie Belle looked down at the glowing runic pattern. For the most part the glowing lines were circles and triangles. But in the middle was a four pointed star with three rays below it as if to signify a light shining down on something.

The young unicorn smiled nervously as she tossed one last glance to those with her.

“Well, here goes everything!”

And with that, she lit her horn with the light-green glow of her magic.