Chapter 11
It was a calm, warm, beautifully humid day, and the Forestsea was buzzing with the sounds of life. Galunk son of Gero paid this no mind as he hopped hurriedly along the walkways spanning the gaps between the joint-huts built around the trunks of the forest’s trees, high above the water. He came to a stop at the entrance of the central gathering hut and took a second to steady his tongue as his fellow survivors turned their eyes upon him curiously. “Down below,” he croaked, pointing with one webbed hand at the rarely-used walkways that wove between the bases of the trees, “god-beings have appeared.”
“The false ones?” Rero son of Riberk asked as he and the others tensed in fear.
“No,” Galunk said, “They are strangers, but they appeared from the air as the false ones and the bell-wearer do. One has a horn and the other has wings.”
“Newcomers,” Riberk, the eldest and acting leader of the tribe’s remnant, mused in a throaty rumble, “Would that we could trust that their intentions are good, but we will not forget the trickery of the false ones.” He stood and pointed at Galunk. “Galunk son of Gero, you understand the speech of god-beings,” he said, “observe these without showing yourself, decide if they are safe. We shall hide beyond the village until you have made your judgement.” Croaking with approval, the froggish tribe cleared out of the hut and vanished into the upper foliage of the trees before Galunk could respond.
“Criiiiiii,” the freshly minted spy trilled in annoyance, “we all understand their language…” The gravity of the situation and his own curiosity didn’t leave him any time or space to gripe more, so he simply turned around and returned to where he had first seen the visitors. Unsurprisingly, they had moved on, and Galunk caught a glimpse of the flyer’s curiously rainbow-striped tail off in the distance before it disappeared behind the windmill-powered pump-house built onto the last piece of dry land in the entire Forestsea.
“So I take it everything here is powered by water,” Rainbow Dash said, hovering to look inside the large metal tank that filled almost the entire right half of the building. A pipe ran along the ceiling overhead, leading from the rotating, windmill-driven pump Twilight Sparkle was checking out on the left side of the wood structure, and terminated above the tank to deposit a constant stream of water. A spill-over pipe was attached near the tank’s rim and led out the back door down to the murky water at the base of the rock, quite close to the pump’s intake pipe. Another pipe was connected with a spigot to the bottom of the tank and followed the curving pathway down to the pier-like walkways, where it turned into a many-forked network that used most of the walkways for support.
“With a set-up like this, I’d be surprised if that weren’t the case,” Twilight said, “Now, considering that the inhabitants of this world were never as advanced as, say, the Fortress or even Baseli, I suspect that this windmill and everything related to it were installed by Star Swirl. Since the locals were built like frogs rather than ponies, they probably had methods of moving up, down, and between trees that most ponies would find too difficult.”
“I doubt I’d have any issues,” Rainbow said smugly as Twilight turned toward the tank and opened the spigot, “and once you’ve got a good look at a place you could just teleport to it, right?”
“Yes, but I have to get there first,” Twilight said with a smile as she left the pump-house and followed the pipe down to the walkways. The pipe was fairly small, but it ran along the middle of the wooden paths, which were just wide enough for Twilight to comfortably walk on in the first place. The unicorn was dead-set on not losing her footing or accidently catching a hoof on the pipe and tripping herself into the water. Considering how the tree trunks flared slightly near the waterline and the comforting stability of the walkways, she didn’t think it was all that deep, but she had no desire to find out, and she’d had more than enough of being wet as it was. She came to a stop at the first fork in the path and glanced up at Rainbow Dash, who was avoiding the entire issue by flying behind her. “Thanks for sticking with me by the way,” Twilight said, “I’m sure you’re curious about the tree-frog village.”
“Hey, somepony has to keep an eye on you in case you fall in,” the pegasus said, “besides, I know you’ll get both of us up in there in no time.”
“I’ll do my best,” Twilight said with some modesty, “It’s just a matter of leading the water in the right direction.” She looked down at the flow valve, a simple lever she’d seen on every fork in the piping she and Rainbow had passed between their arrival point and the pump-house. She noted that the flow was presently aimed toward the right-hoof fork and looked in that direction to see where it might lead. There was another fork about fifteen feet away, but the trees blocked off her view of where those paths led. The left-hoof path was a similar story, although she could see a bit farther down the left-side option of the next junction. “Let’s see where the water’s going now,” she concluded, heading to the right, “and we’ll go from there.”
“Right behind you,” Rainbow said.
Curious, Galunk thought as he slowly swam through the water beneath the god-beings’s feet, the sounds of his slow strokes blending perfectly with the lap of natural waves against the walkway pylons. These newcomers were presenting quite a paradox at the moment. On the one hand, they obviously knew of the bell-wearing god-being, the horned one having mentioned his true name, but she had spoken of him in a distant manner as if they had never met. Galunk had been barely old enough to climb on his own when Star Swirl had come to replace the last of the original god-beings, but he did recall some of what the bell-wearer and the sly and charming false ones had said about their ability to enter and leave the Forestsea by using magic books which they guarded closely. These new god-beings had appeared in the same manner, shimmering into existence from the very air itself. How could they have done so, Galunk wondered, without meeting the others?
They certainly didn’t know much about where the water in the pipes was meant to go. Galunk lowered himself in the water until little more than his eyes and an ear broke the surface and smiled in amusement as they reached one of the rare dead-ends in the network and the purple god-being’s face appeared over the edge of the walkway glaring curiously at the pipe turning off the planks and down into the water. “I don’t think this is going to do us any good,” she said, “What’s the point?”
“Don’t look at me,” the flyer’s voice said, moving back toward the last fork in the path, “I didn’t design this place.”
“Wait. Hold on,” the purple one said over the sound of her hooves shuffling awkwardly on the planks, “This place was definitely not designed for ponies – whoop!” One hoof slid off the edge of the walkway and Galunk began to fear he would need to reveal his presence if she fell, but she managed to catch herself and the hoof slid back out of his sight. “I envy your wings so much right now Rainbow,” she groused, trotting away.
“You should try to levitate yourself Twilight,” Rainbow called from the junction as Galunk swam toward it, “It can’t be too hard for a pony like you, can it?”
“The only times I’ve been able to pick myself off the ground is when we were using the Elements of Harmony,” Twilight answered as she reached her friend, “I certainly have the magical strength to lift my own weight, but self-levitation takes a whole lot more than that.” There was a brief shifting sound as the water was redirected to another path, and the clopping of hooves resumed as Twilight followed the gurgling pipe. After another gentle turn, the walkway terminated at the base of a tree and Galunk risked a glance to confirm the location: the only permanent climbing spot linking the water level to the main village halfway up the trees. A wooden gate, locked from the inside, blocked access to a staircase made of carved wood which spiraled around the trunk a good three times before reaching the village.
“Well, it’s a way up,” Rainbow said dubiously.
“In theory at least,” Twilight said, eyeing the spiral with what seemed to be distaste, “It looks like there’s an elevator or something up there with it…” Her gaze came down and Galunk ducked his head back under the pier. “Ok,” the lavender being said after a brief pause, “the pipe stops at this contraption, which has a cable reaching up to the elevator. That probably means this is the elevator’s motor and it needs flowing water to operate. Rainbow, fly up and see if you can bring it down for me. There’s a better chance of finding Cirrus and Archeon’s places up there than on this level.” Galunk tensed, fighting back the urge to sputter as he inhaled some water the wrong way. Flying god-beings, and the elevators, moved faster than he could free-climb the trees, and trying to use the stairs would only expose him.
Fortunately, Rainbow’s response made him relax and realize how foolish he was. “I dunno Twi,” the flyer said, “it doesn’t look like the elevator’s facing the right way, and it wouldn’t end up next to the walkway if it did come down here.”
“Good point,” Twilight said in agreement, “well, there’s still plenty of pipeline to follow. Once I get turned –whoa!” There was a short grunt of effort from Rainbow followed shortly by the light thud of hooves on the wood. “Thanks Rainbow,” Twilight said, and then she trotted away. Galunk let her go, waiting until the clopping was fading into the distance before peeking out. Both of the god-beings were out of sight, so he clambered up onto the walkway and then hopped over the gate and ran in a four-legged gallop up the stairs. He needed every second he could get to prepare before the brightly colored creatures found their way up to the middle level.
Two rights after taking a left at the first split in the pipeline, the ponies located and delivered power to an elevator hanging patiently at the end of a pier. It was built entirely of wood and sized perfectly for pony use, allowing Twilight to comfortably turn around and face the door after entering. “See you at the top,” she said to Rainbow before closing the door and pulling on the only lever in the structure. With the click of a releasing catch, the water-powered winch started up and the elevator rose at a quick but comfortable pace. When it came to a stop, Twilight stepped out and found herself on a wide wooden platform built between a trio of trees. Above her was another triangular frame supporting the upper pulley of the elevator, which Rainbow Dash was currently perched on as she scanned the area. In front of the elevator was a rope and plank bridge leading to the next closest tree, around which had been built an open-sided hut of sorts. Similar huts were visible in the distance, along with a few enclosed square structures held up by closely-grouped trees. Bridges spanned the gaps between the huts and at least one of their neighbors.
“I don’t see any movement,” Rainbow reported, fluttering down from her perch, “Doesn’t look like those frogaloids of yours are around.”
“‘My’ frogaloids?” Twilight asked, quirking an eyebrow, “are you doubting their existence?”
“No,” Rainbow said, “I’m just saying that they’re gone now. You said it yourself, this place isn’t built for ponies. Earth ponies wouldn’t live so high off the ground, Pegasi would just use clouds, and unicorns… at least they’d make it easy to turn around whenever you wanted.” Twilight gave her an odd look and she rolled her eyes. “You have to admit unicorns have a thing for living in odd places Twilight,” she said, “Canterlot’s built into the side of a mountain for pete’s sake. Star Swirl created an entire alternate reality to live in. And you live in a tree,” she added as a cheeky afterthought. Twilight failed to fight back an amused snort.
“Ok, fair enough I suppose,” the unicorn said, “Let’s go get a closer look at these huts.” Her smile faded as she walked onto the bridge. “See what Cirrus and Archeon did to the poor frogs,” she finished her thought dully.
The huts were unremarkably uniform and empty at first glance. On occasion Twilight and Rainbow would find a table with a couple small clay jars in the round huts, and the first square building had some wooden bowls on a table, but that seemed to be the extent of the furnishings and decorations. “Do you think they just took everything?” Dash wondered.
“They who?” Twilight asked, heading toward the exit.
The pegasus shrugged. “Cirrus and Archeon stealing stuff, the frogaloids taking it with them when they ran, if they ran away. It’s all the same in the end, isn’t it?” Twilight considered that and nodded slowly after a moment. “I kinda wish there was some sort of sign of what those two jerks did to this place,” Rainbow said, “This is all… too clean.”
“Good point” Twilight said slowly, coming to a stop in the middle of the bridge. She looked over the railing down at the water below. “How high would you say we are?” she asked, “Sixty feet? Seventy?”
“I’d guess sixty-eight,” Rainbow said.
“I’m not really scared of heights,” Twilight said, shifting her attention to the ropes forming the guard rails and holding the bridge together, “but everything up here is so secure I’m not even thinking twice about how high up I am. This village, no, everything we’ve seen here is in incredibly good shape for being abandoned.”
“Maybe time doesn’t flow here?” Rainbow suggested, “Like Aitran, maybe?”
“Maybe,” Twilight said, thinking as she started walking again, “but Star Swirl’s journal seemed to imply that Cirrus and Archeon did some growing up here, and how can you age if time doesn’t move for you? And even if this world is time-locked, I don’t think that protect these building materials from things like rot, mold or exposure to the elements.”
“Well,” Rainbow said with finality, “whatever the reason is, I’m glad for it. The less I have to worry about you being safe, the more I can focus on the important stuff.” After some consideration, Twilight decided not to call Rainbow out on the way she’d worded that declaration and focused instead on continuing the exploration of the empty tree village. Within a few minutes, the ponies found themselves on the platform at the top of the winding staircase. Rainbow looked at the elevator hanging next to the tree and then followed its cable up with her eyes. “I think I get it,” she said, “this one just goes up to the next level. Wait here; I’ll send the water this way.” Twilight nodded and sat down as the pegasus spread her wings and flew away.
Once Rainbow had disappeared from sight, something big landed on the platform behind Twilight. Startled, Twilight looked over her shoulder and then jumped about a foot in the air with a frightened shriek at the sight of a giant frog glaring daggers at her. It was a bit shorter than her as it stood upon all fours, its front limbs slender and shorter than the powerful-looking rear legs, all ending in five-toed webbed feet. Its smooth, slick-looking skin was light brown mottled with dark green splotches. One particularly large splotch covered most of its wide-mouthed head, and yellow-rimmed eyes bulged from the top of its skull. “Galunk,” it said as Twilight came back down onto the platform and turned to face it.
“Hello,” Twilight said with a nervous smile, “sorry about the screaming. You just surprised me. My name is Twilight Sparkle.”
“Galunk,” the frog repeated, its face inscrutable.
“Do… do you understand what I’m saying?” Twilight asked. The frog nodded, its gaze never leaving her face. “Oh, that’s good,” Twilight said, mildly surprised, “do you live here?” The frog nodded. “Are there others?” The frog blinked slowly a few times before nodding. Before Twilight could ask another question, the frog opened its mouth and asked one of its own.
“Waaai ooouu eeeaar?”
“Come again?” Twilight inquired, tilting her head slightly.
“Waai oouu,” the frog pointed at her, “c’uuuumm,” he made a beckoning gesture with both hands, “eeearrrr?” he pointed down at the platform in front of him.
“Huh? Oh, oh!” Twilight said, comprehension dawning on her face, “My friend and I are just trying to find a way to go home. There are a couple of… things we need to find here. They’re probably up there,” she pointed up to the structures in the trees above them, “Can we go look?”
“Hey Twilight,” Rainbow called out, returning from her task, “cool, you found one of the frogaloids!”
“Galunk,” the frog said, a tone of insistence in its voice.
“Galunk,” the pegasus said in imitation, “is that your name or something?” The frog nodded.
“I was just asking him if it was ok for us to head up,” Twilight explained, and then leaned close to her friend and muttered, “I don’t think he trusts us very much. Cirrus and Archeon must’ve left a very bad image of ponies.”
“G’g’oooh,” Galunk said, pointing past Twilight to the elevator and then upward, “lerrrrn.”
“Thank you,” Twilight said, turning around to open and step into the elevator booth. The booth shook slightly as Galunk hopped up on top of it just before Twilight pulled the lever to start the ride. There seemed to be some hesitation as the winch mechanism pulled against the combined weight of elevator car, unicorn, and frogaloid, but as soon as Twilight noticed it the elevator was rising toward the tops of the flooded forest’s tallest trees. They were pulled up into a gap in a receiving platform that lead to a long bridge leading off to both the left and right. Galunk jumped off the elevator before it came to a stop and took up a position on the bridge while Twilight stepped out and Rainbow alighted next to her on the platform.
Galunk stared impassively at Twilight and Rainbow for a few seconds as they approached him, and then pointed to his right and said, “Eeer’us.” The ponies looked and saw a large wooden hut with an artfully carved door. Galunk then pointed the other way and croaked out, “Rrrr’kun.” The bridge turned slightly around a tree in that direction before reaching to a small hut made of dark wood that gave the impression of a lurking beast.
Twilight shared a glance with Rainbow while she puzzled out Galunk’s words. “Cirrus and Archeon, is that what you’re trying to tell us?” she asked at last, “Those are their… places?” Galunk nodded.
“I say we do Cirrus’s first,” Rainbow said.
“Why not?” Twilight said, stepping out onto the bridge, “That’ll make us consistent at least.” Galunk moved out of the way and sat down, apparently content to let the ponies go on their own for the moment. Rainbow flew behind Twilight as they approached the hut and looked it over. The sturdy door carved with the detailed image of a rearing pegasus pony was certainly the highlight, but the entire building was a few cuts above the village below. The interior, while quite modestly furnished compared to Cirrus’s other rooms, still maintained the pattern of being overly elegant for the locale. Not that it would be hard to beat old tables and some pottery, Twilight thought sardonically. A bed filled the back left corner of the room, with two drawers built into the base, two small, single-drawer desks on opposite sides of the room, and some sitting cushions and empty green bottles were scattered about. On the closer of the desks sat a plate with a block of yellow cheese with some unappetizing-looking spots of mold on it.
“That’s gross,” Rainbow said, wrinkling her nose at the cheese as she opened the drawer and looked inside, “and this is empty.” She trotted over to the other desk while Twilight pulled open the drawers under the bed. In the right one she found more green glass bottles and a piece of white paper that had been torn along its left side.
“…T of Aitran,” she read, one eyebrow going up as she read down the page, “…’hidden vault is very easy…’ Can this really be the other half?”
“Found the red page,” Rainbow announced before grabbing the paper out of the second desk. Twilight glanced over just long enough to take the page in her magic and then stashed it away as she searched through her bag. “What are you looking for?” the pegasus asked.
“This,” Twilight said, pulling out the torn note she’d found in Baseli. She put it up next to the note half she’d just found and grinned when the tears matched up perfectly. She skimmed over the complete note quickly and then put it away saying, “We’ll deal with it after we get back to Aitran. Let’s go look over Archeon’s room, shall we?”
“Do you really think we should bother?” Rainbow asked, “To be honest, at this point I think I’d prefer releasing Cirrus instead of Archeon. He may be a slimy self-righteous jerk, but at least he’s predictable.”
“While that may be true,” Twilight said, “Archeon has given us some good information we would never have gotten from Cirrus. By returning these pages to both of them, we’ll hopefully earn the full account of their version of events.”
“All right,” Rainbow sighed, “Let’s get this over with.”
“My thoughts exactly,” Twilight assured as she followed the pegasus out of the hut and across the bridge toward where Galunk sat waiting for them.
“C’uuumm,” the giant brown frog said, gesturing for the ponies to follow as he hopped toward the small, dark building in the distance. A roofed porch led around the side of the building, but Galunk barred the way with his body and pointed at the door, which to Twilight’s surprise was made of metal. The unicorn grasped the latch in her magic and pushed the door open to allow Rainbow Dash, who was still in front of her, to step through first. Twilight followed her in, and then Galunk squeezed in behind the pair and slunk around to the back side of the room as the ponies gaped at the freaky-looking altar crowned with sharp metal teeth. In the air above the altar, a larger-than-life image of Archeon’s face appeared and made a short speech in a strange guttural language composed mostly of ribbits and croaking.
“That was… odd,” Twilight said as the illusion faded.
“Criiiiiii,” Galunk trilled, glaring at the altar. Rainbow Dash leaned her head forward to take a closer look at the metal top of the altar, only to meet Galunk’s hand as he quickly pushed her away, shaking his head. “Deeaafff,” he said ominously. Seeing the confused looks Twilight and Dash were giving him, he took one of the large wooden tribal masks down from the wall and dropped it onto the altar. The girls jumped back in fright as the metal teeth suddenly slammed together, revealing themselves to be part of a spring-powered trap that nearly bit the mask in half before retracting. Galunk tossed the ruined mask to the side and looked at the stunned ponies with his usual unreadable expression.
“Wh… why would…?” Twilight stammered after a moment, unable to complete the thought even in her mind.
“C’uumm,” the frog said, turning around and opening a door in the back wall, “Rrr’kun roooom.”
“This isn’t…” Twilight began, and then looked around. “No, I guess this wouldn’t be his actual room…” Giving the deadly altar a wide berth, the unicorn walked around to the back of the room. Her movement broke Rainbow out of her shock and the pair followed Galunk outside and onto a new bridge. This one led to another hut that looked like it had seen far better days. There were holes in the roof, wide gaps in the walls, and the double doors were ineffectually held closed by a rusted and broken padlock. Galunk opened the doors and then swung himself over the rope railing, hanging on the outside to wait for Twilight and Rainbow to head inside. Twilight took one look through the doors and then glanced back at Rainbow. “I don’t know if I trust this thing to hold up under my weight,” she said.
“I gotcha,” the pegasus said. She took flight and fluttered into the hut, looking around. The first thing she noticed was that several floorboards were missing or broken, providing a clear view of the support beams and the long drop through the trees below. To the right of the door was a long metal table with restraints connected to it and covered with tools that the pegasus didn’t want to think too much about. A bundle of thick sharped sticks leaned up against the back wall. At the left end of the room, the floor was in slightly better shape, judging by the fact that the empty bedframe looked fairly stable in its corner. The blue page was laying on the floor in front of a short round podium-like device. On the top was a circular glass lens over a blue crystal, and four buttons sat in a line below the lens. The leftmost button was depressed, but it popped up when Rainbow hit the one next to it. The crystal lit up and Archeon’s face appeared in the lens. After the image stabilized, it began to speak in the croaking frogaloid language, sounding slightly angry. After the short speech ended, the image faded away and Rainbow hit the third button, getting another, condescending-sounding speech from Archeon. “So, what, he was suddenly too good to speak to them directly?” Rainbow asked sarcastically, pressing the fourth button.
To her surprise, the face that appeared this time wasn’t Archeon’s – it was Cirrus. The goatee-wearing pony looked slightly amused as he started to speak. “Such an interesting device you have here. I hope I haven’t erased anything… important? Hahaha.” He suddenly became serious and his face grew larger in the image – probably due to leaning closer to whatever had recorded the message. “He is coming,” Cirrus said, “It is time, my would-be brother. Remember, take only a single page.” The face pulled back as the image faded away.
“That’s not at all suspicious,” Dash said flatly. She looked down at the blue page, pursed her lips in thought, and then sighed and picked it up. “‘Ere you go,” she said as she fluttered out of the hut and gave the page to Twilight to keep, “Now, where’s the exit?”
“G’oowwwn,” Galunk said, pointing downward before inching along the side of the bridge and flipping back onto it. He gestured for the ponies to follow him as he hopped back toward the elevator.
“I think I saw one of the square-ish buildings that wasn’t linked to the rest of the village,” Twilight said as they walked in Galunk’s wake, “There’s probably another elevator attached to it, but…”
“Just point me in the right direction,” Rainbow said, grinning.
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Crud...I wish I had known what this was about sooner. I wouldn't have wasted my time trying to make my own rendition of it.
More Myst ponies
238339 Eeyup
and I liked that game
Frogaloids was a great replacement for the tribal locals of Channelwood. I approve vehemently. Also, son of Gero? Couldn't help but remember Majora's Mask XD
Really good stuff man, very glad you kept that recording device, was one of my fave moments.
Welcome to the Channelwood Age.