Aitran

by CTVulpin

Chapter 7

The first thing that came to Twilight Sparkle’s head after she had arrived at the other end of the link was a desire to look for the sun. She tried to fight it back, but the more she tried to tell herself that it didn’t matter and that she shouldn’t be putting her sanity on the line, the more her curiosity grew. Rainbow Dash’s materializing directly on top of her a couple seconds later only resulted in forcing the lavender unicorn to the ground, where she threw a leg over her eyes. “Rainbow,” she said, cutting off the pegasus’s scathing chastisement for not getting out of the way, “Tell me, is there a sun up there?”

Rainbow climbed off her friend and looked down at her, considering the request. Twilight didn’t look like she was in any shape to move, so against her better judgment, Rainbow looked up at the sky. A patchy curtain of grey clouds rolled sedately across the welkin, blocking most of it from view, but off to what the pegasus assumed was either the east or west there was a spot where the clouds shone with a blinding reflected light. “Yes Twilight, there’s a sun,” she said, “or at least something just as bright.”

“Oh good,” Twilight said in relief, getting to her feet, “Now, where are we exactly?” The ponies had appeared in front of a match for Aitran’s gear-shaped book vault on a rock just barely big enough to be called an island that rose rather steeply out of the water. Large rusted metal gears lay strewn about the fairly level peak, and there was a round podium with a gear-shaped top to the right of the vault and just past that was a long metal balcony. Off in the distance was a metal building sitting on a giant gear rising out of the water. A gangplank of a walkway reached from the building to a little dock on a lower part of the island, supported at its halfway point by wheeled struts that rode on a rail encircling the building. “That’s definitely designed to rotate,” Twilight said, “This is the illusion world where Star Swirl and his apprentices built a fortress to protect the inhabitants from pirates.”

“You sure?” Rainbow asked skeptically, “That place seems pretty small, and I can’t see ponies being able to live on tiny little islands like this.”

“Well, there were only six or seven ponies still living here when Star Swirl first arrived,” Twilight said.

“All that work for seven ponies?” Rainbow said, still confused, “Why didn’t they just move somewhere else?”

“Maybe they couldn’t,” Twilight said with a shrug, “As Star Swirl described it in his journal, this place was a single island with three tall peaks. The ponies could have lived in their own homes and simply used the fortress as a shelter during attacks. It… the island must have sunk into the ocean since that time.”

“Three peaks, huh?” Rainbow mused, looking around, “Well, I can see one other little island out there to the right. Number 3’s probably behind the building, assuming it’s still above water.” Twilight nodded in agreement and Rainbow turned her attention to the podium. The top was slightly domed and had four panels arranged in a row on it, each having a button below it, a fifth red button on the bottom edge. Rainbow pressed the button for the leftmost panel a few times, and the cross was swapped out for various other geometric shapes.

“Combination lock?” Twilight guessed, watching over the pegasus’s shoulder.

“Could it be anything else?” Rainbow responded, glancing back at Twilight, “The combination has to be written down somewhere. I’ll fly to the other islands and look there while you start searching the fortress.”

“Hold on,” Twilight said as Rainbow spread her wings, “I’d prefer not to split up if we can help it. The fortress is meant to rotate, so we can get to each of the islands once we figure out-”

“Too slow,” Rainbow said, taking off. Twilight sighed as the pegasus flew away and then walked down to the bridge and made her carefully across it, frowning at the lack of safety rails.

Of course, that would make it easier to knock invaders off, she thought as she reached the open doorway of the fortress. She was immediately presented with a choice of two narrow hallways branching to the left and right. The enemy would be forced to travel single-file, she noted, crossing the threshold and looking around. She couldn’t see any actual door or mechanisms for blocking the entrance, which was a little odd for a defensive structure, and both hallways turned around blind corners after several feet. “All in all, seems like a good set-up,” she concluded, “and it’s in great shape for being so old…”

After a few minutes, she saw Rainbow Dash fly into view from the right as she looked out the door. The pegasus landed on the island, fiddled with the podium for a bit, and then looked over at the balcony-like structure with mild surprise. She walked away from the podium and disappeared down inside the structure. Intrigued, Twilight trotted back across the bridge and climbed up to the top of the island, just in time to see Rainbow walking up the stairs that the balcony floor had turned into. “Hey Twilight,” she said, surprised to see the unicorn, “I found the way out already.” She lifted her right wing slightly and grabbed the book she’d been holding there in her mouth and held it out for Twilight to see. It was a match for the Aitran book Twilight had found in the Royal Archives, except for being in better shape with its title fully inked and visible. Twilight took the book in her magic and flipped through it quickly while Rainbow explained, “There was a pedestal on each of the other islands that showed part of the combination. Compared to the other illusion…” She shuddered at the memory of the cave system she’d had to go through.

“Good job Rainbow,” Twilight said, closing the book, “Now that we can leave whenever we want, let’s explore.” She placed the book in her bag and headed down to the bridge.

“Did you do anything besides wait for me?” Rainbow asked, flying behind Twilight. When Twilight shook her head, the pegasus sighed.

“Well,” Twilight amended after a moment, “I took a look just inside the door. We’ll have a choice of going left or right, so if you have a preference…”

“Eh… left,” Rainbow said as the pair arrived at the door. She was forced to land and walk behind the unicorn as they entered the fortress and headed down the hall. “I repeat,” Rainbow said, noting she didn’t have enough room to spread her wings even halfway, “This is definitely not a place where…” She trailed off as they rounded the corner and entered a more spacious and lavishly decorated room. Where the hallway floor had been simple tile, this room had a plush carpet with an intricate knotted pattern of many rich hues, predominantly crimson and black but with yellows and blues mixed in as well. Along the wall to their left were stone plinths on which rested models of the rocket, the clock tower, and what Twilight assumed was the sunken ship from Aitran Island. The clock tower model sat under a narrow window, which a telescope was aimed at. To the right of the entrance sat a perch on which sat a wind-up bird toy. A throne-like chair sat against the wall opposite the window, giving the room the atmosphere of a place where a ruler would receive supplicants. Another doorway opened up directly across from where the ponies had entered, and paintings and a tapestry took up whatever space there was on the walls. One in particular, hanging between the chair and the back door, caught Twilight’s attention. It was a portrait of a dusky blue pegasus stallion with a blonde mane and matching goatee seated in the throne and wearing a full lordly outfit: a white coat jacket with golden fasteners, a full cape with red and gold trim, silver shoes that reached halfway to his knees, and a short crown on his head. “Is that Cirrus?” she wondered.

“Huh,” Rainbow said, looking at the portrait, “you weren’t kidding about him having an interest in fashion. Not to mention expensive tastes in general,” she added in a low tone as her gaze swept the room.

“There’s nothing wrong with owning nice things,” Twilight said, “Besides, how can you be sure this stuff is Cirrus’s and not… uh a friend of his?”

“Twilight,” Rainbow said flatly, “you told me this place was home to six or seven ponies living in terror of pirate attacks. Do you honestly think they’d have the time, resources, or even the desire to splurge what they had on stuff like this? And that portrait’s the biggest thing in this whole room except for the chair!”

“Ok, ok, you’ve made your point,” Twilight said, “It’s a little excessive.” Rainbow rolled her eyes but didn’t say anything further. “Anyway,” Twilight said, moving toward the other doorway, “we should probably keep exploring, and keep an eye out for red or blue papers. Whoever put the set you found in the other illusion world might have hid some around here.” Rainbow Dash nodded and then stuck her tongue out when the unicorn’s back was turned before following her out of the room. The luxury of the room, standing in contrast to the stark and utilitarian hallways and exterior of the building, easily brought Archeon’s words to the pegasus’s mind: vain and unending greed.

The hall turned sharply to the right just outside the room and continued straight on to the other side of the fortress before turning right again, and there was another opening halfway along on the right side. They stopped at the first turn, with Rainbow flying above Twilight so they could both look down the passageway at the same time. The passage was even narrower than the main hallway and only stretched about ten feet before opening up into a square room with a cylindrical single-passenger elevator in the middle. Twilight walked down to the elevator and looked it over. She couldn’t locate any buttons and the door didn’t react to her touch or magic, leaving the unicorn scratching her head in confusion. “I don’t get it,” she said, starting to walk back.

“There’s a button here,” Rainbow said, noticing a red button on the wall at her end of the passage. She pressed it just as Twilight stepped completely into the passage and the two froze as a loud warning horn sounded and the floor began to sink under Twilight’s hooves, leaving her standing on a staircase that led up to the main hallway. “Cool,” Rainbow said, grinning.

“If you’d been half a second faster…” Twilight muttered, backing off the stairs so she could turn around and see where she’d been lowered into. It was a small room mostly occupied by a machine containing a system of gears, with a shaft rising from the largest, central gear up to the ceiling. At the front of the machine was a lever capped with a red sphere next to a panel displaying two concentric broken circles; the outer circle had a gap in the bottom while the inner circle’s gap was on the top. Twilight grasped the lever in her magic and slid it up and the machine responded by spinning its gears rapidly, and the inner circle of the panel spun clockwise as well, flashing red whenever the gaps lined up. “What did I just do?” Twilight asked as she released the lever, which dropped back to its resting position, and watched the gears gradually slow to a stop.

“You’re spinning the elevator around,” Rainbow said, looking into the room above Twilight.

“I am?” Twilight said, looking up at the ceiling where the gear-shaft went through, “That makes sense; I should have guessed.” She looked back down at the lever and panel and said, “So I need to get the openings to line up. No problem.” She grabbed the lever and again and nudged it gently up until the gears began turning slowly. When the inner circle’s opening neared the bottom, Twilight released the lever and let the machine’s momentum finish the job. The openings lined up and the circles turned red. “Is it open now?” she asked Rainbow.

“Yep,” the pegasus reported. Twilight smiled and nodded as she turned around and started up the stairs. When she got about halfway up, Rainbow hit the button to raise the stairs back up into a flat floor, almost tripping Twilight into a faceplant in the process.

“Can’t you ever wait?” the unicorn asked crossly.

“Not if I can help it,” Rainbow replied with a chuckle. She flew over Twilight’s head as the unicorn tried to decide whether to go forward into the main hallway or back toward the elevator before trying to turn around. By the time she made her choice, Rainbow Dash had gone into the elevator and pressed the upward button. A door with two small windows slid over the opening and then the elevator practically shot up the short distance to the top floor of the fortress. The single metal room Rainbow found herself in was unremarkable, with the elevator in the center, no windows, a high ceiling that domed even higher above the elevator, and a bunch of large cogs and gear shafts visible in an alcove behind the elevator. “Boring,” Dash declared after making a circuit of the room and stepping back into the elevator. As she reached out her hoof to press the down button, she realized there was third rectangular button between the two pointed ones. Curious, she pressed it. It began to flash and beep for several seconds, and then the elevator door slid closed and the car began to drop, only to stop partway down. “Agh! No!” Dash cried, jamming her hoof against the down button. The elevator obliging completed its descent and opened the door to allow he relieved pegasus to exit. “Oh thank goodness,” Rainbow said, stepping out and putting a hoof to her head, “That could’ve been really bad.”

“What happened?” Twilight asked, concerned.

“Middle button in there,” Rainbow said, waving a hoof at the elevator behind her, “I thought it… Oh, it was giving me time to get out before it closed and went partway down!” She facehoofed. “I thought it had broken down for a second.”

“I thought so too,” Twilight said, putting a comforting leg around Rainbow, “but if it’s supposed to do that, there must be something on top of the elevator a pony might need to reach.” Her eyes lit up suddenly and she hugged the pegasus tighter. “Oh, I’d bet anything that’s where the rotation controls are!” she exclaimed.

“Really?” Dash said, looking askance at the unicorn, “There aren’t any windows up there; how would you know which way the fortress would end up pointing?”

“No idea,” Twilight said brightly, “but rotation is this place’s primary means of defense, so they’d want the controls in a secure location. Considering what needs to be done with the elevator to get at them, once a pony’s up there at the controls, they’re well protected against somepony else getting to them. Plus, we’re practically at the center point of the building; where better to put the rotation controls?”

“Ah, well, ok then,” Rainbow said, feeling a bit left behind, “Well, I didn’t see any pages up there and we’ve already got the book out of here, so I don’t see any need to go back up there.”

“I wanted to try out the rotation though,” Twilight said glumly.

“Ugh,” Rainbow said, rolling her eyes, “Tell you what, let’s finish exploring this place, then I’ll go wait outside while you mess around.”

“Deal,” Twilight said, turning toward the hallway and taking the lead again. They went to the right after leaving the elevator hall, turned right again at the end, and came to a shocked stop at the sight before them.

They’d found the match to the large room on the other side of the fortress. Since Rainbow and Twilight had established that the first room had belonged to Cirrus, the unicorn couldn’t help but attribute this one to Archeon, and that was a worrisome thing since the two rooms were polar opposites. Where Cirrus’s room had been bright and colorful, the lamps in this room were dim, a curtain covered the window, and the tiled floor was stained dark by something Twilight didn’t want to contemplate. The décor was sparse and consisted mostly of simple wood shelves, trunks, a rather odd-looking blue-cushioned chair with posts on all four corners supporting a wood canopy, and half-built clockwork devices whose purpose could only be guessed at.

“I do not like this,” Twilight announced as she and Rainbow slunk into the room, heads held low in the uncomfortable atmosphere, “This is like a warlord’s throne room or something.”

“Well, this place was being attacked at one point, right?” Rainbow said, “Maybe Archeon decorated this place to intimidate invaders.”

“I suppose,” Twilight said, walking around to take a closer look at things. On a shelf by the front end of the room, closest to the fortress entrance, she saw a small black box with a crank on the side. “Is this some sort of clown-in-the-box?” she wondered aloud as she started to turn the crank. The box didn’t make any music or sounds as the crank turned, but after a few rotations the lid popped open and a surprisingly realistic cobra head rose out of the box and lashed in Twilight’s direction before dropping back into the box. “Snaaake!” the unicorn shrieked, backing away quickly until she tripped over her own feet and tumbled onto her back. As she lay on the floor trying to calm her heart, her fear turned to anger as she heard Rainbow Dash’s laughter. “It’s not funny,” she snapped, sitting up and glaring at the pegasus standing by the chair.

“That was great!” Rainbow exclaimed through her laughs, “I need to remember that for when we get home; it’d be an awesome prank gift.”

“It’s not funny Rainbow,” Twilight repeated, “You know how much I hate snakes.”

“Oh come on Twi, it wasn’t even real.”

“It was real enough,” the unicorn said crossly.

“Heh…” Rainbow said, her mirth dying quickly under the unicorn’s glare, “Let’s… get back to searching then shall we? Oh, I wonder what this is?” She went over to a round pedestal standing to the right of the entrance-side door. There was a bowl-shaped indent on the top and a control panel with two sphere-capped levers on it. As if reacting to her proximity, words made of light appeared in the air above the pedestal: Fortress Rotation simulator. Calibrating.

“Let me see,” Twilight said, perking up and walking over. Rainbow moved aside and let the unicorn get a closer look as the words faded away to be replaced by a illusionary image of the fortress that shifted to a bird’s-eye view and morphed into to a simpler diagram of circles and lines, with the gangplank pointed downward. Twilight grinned as she grabbed the left lever in her magic and slid it up. The image rotated slightly in a counter-clockwise direction and then came to rest again. Twilight then pushed up on the right lever and the image began to rotate, slowly at first and then rapidly until it was pointing right, at which point it slowed down again. Twilight watched it spin for a few seconds, noticing that it took precisely one second to complete a quarter turn, and then released the right lever and watched the image come to a stop pointing nearly but not perfectly upward. She then dropped the left lever back down and the illusion fortress locked into its alignment and the machine gave out a ding.

“North!” Rainbow said reflexively. Twilight gave her an odd look and she blushed. “The… in the book inside the rocket, that sound meant I had to point the mine vehicle North before continuing,” she explained.

“What was west?” Twilight asked, rotating the image a quarter turn and locking it. The machine gave a trilling sort of noise.

“That one,” Rainbow said. Raising an eyebrow, Twilight spun the illusionary fortress to the south and got a donk when she reset the locking lever. “That’s the South sound,” the pegasus said with a nod, and then frowned slightly and added, “It took me forever to figure those out by trial and error! If we’d have come here first… Feh.” She huffed and started to turn away when she noticed a section of the bottom of the wall between the simulator and the chair that was slightly recessed and marked with a yellow stripe. “What have we here?” Twilight glanced over as the pegasus knelt down and pressed a hoof against the recessed panel. It slid aside to reveal a hidden room. “Cool,” Rainbow said, crawling through the hole, “I’ve got this Twilight.” After Rainbow passed through the hole and stood up, Twilight leaned down and peered in for a look as well. The hidden room was just big enough to move around in and contained a wooden box, some low shelves, and a cage in the far right corner. The shelves contained a number of small bottles with labels written in a language Rainbow didn’t recognize along with more clockwork doohickeys and a sheet of blue paper, torn along one side. “Blue page!” Rainbow called out in triumph before picking it up and stashing it in her bag.

“Great,” Twilight said with some hesitation, as she backed away from the hole to give Rainbow space to crawl out, “So, where would the red one… I’m going to go check Cirrus’s room again. This building’s symmetrical, so maybe there’s a hidden room on that side as well.”

“You do that,” Rainbow said, crawling out and then flapping her wings a few times to stretch, “I’ll be waiting by the front door.” Twilight nodded and trotted out of the dark room, down the hallway past the entrance, and into the bright and fancy room on the other side. It took some effort to find the recessed panel behind the tapestry next to the throne, and it was quite a bit narrower than the one in Archeon’s room had been, but eventually Twilight managed to squeeze into the hidden room and take a look around. Several locked boxes were stacked up on one side of the room and a pair of wine racks holding some sealed bottles stood on the other side. Loose gold coins littered the ground around the boxes. In the back corner of the room one of the boxes sat open, revealing a few bars of gold and the red page. Twilight stowed the paper away and turned to leave, but then noticed a piece of normal-colored paper rolled up and stuck into one of the wine racks. Curious, she pulled it out and unfurled it. It was a note addressed to Cirrus from Archeon, wherein the latter warned the former in a rather unfriendly manner against enforcing new taxes.

This is certainly disconcerting, Twilight thought, but what am I to make of it? Was Archeon standing up against extortion on Cirrus’s part, or was he trying to bully Cirrus or the ponies that lived here? I need some solid answers soon. She debated keeping the note for a moment, but decided just to put it back where she’d found it since it was easy enough for her to summarize to Rainbow and the trapped stallions later. She squeezed back through the hole and trotted out to the entrance of the fortress, where she saw Rainbow lying down on the gangplank a short ways out. “I found the page,” she said, trotting over to the pegasus and pulling the Aitran book out of her bag, “Let’s head back.”

“I thought you wanted to spin the fortress around,” Rainbow said, standing up.

“We have more important things to do,” Twilight said, gesturing with a hoof for Rainbow to head to the island at the end of the walkway, “Cirrus and Archeon have some serious explaining to do and we’re still not any closer to finding a way home.” Rainbow Dash nodded and flew over to the island. When Twilight caught up with her, she set Aitran on the shelf inside the large gear and opened it to the linking panel. “See you on the other side,” the unicorn said, setting a hoof on the picture.

Comments

[sharkun0]

Awwwww , I was looking forward to seeing Twilight and Rainbow's reactions to the morbid stuff in Archeon's hidden room like he has in Myst, like the caged skeleton, but still, an awesome chapter.

[The Magister]

So they didn't try the leaver on the cage then.

...Possibly for the best. Also Rainbow is cheating :(

[CTVulpin]

98664
Cheating? Maybe, but I just couldn't find a good reason for her NOT to be able to fly this time around.

[bradhadair12]

As someone who hasn't played Myst, I'm glad to see I can still understand what;s going on. You're obviously not getting too wrapped up in the small details. Just as well really, or I would probably give up on this one. I would like a bit more interaction between RD and Twilight, mind you. Other than that, I'm pretty glad I stumbled on this one!

[Drakin]

99066
If you haven't played it I'd suggest playing realMYST Same game, same puzzles, same story, but with more freedom of movement and better graphics. As the blurb stated, it's the game the MYST ream wanted to make at the time but the technology. wasn't quite there yet.

Loving this story, can't wait to see more. Not going to spoil it for those who haven't played the game, but I do hope the ending here is the 'best' ending you can get in the MYST game.

Also, a quick question to the author, do you think once this story is done we'll get to see variations of Riven, MYST III, and so on? Not that I'd expect it, but I'm hopeful at the very least.

[FinalGamer]

So I started looking up MYST stuff because I was just playing RealMYST today.

Ponibooru links me to this story.

Oh my god. I am squeeing so hard at how perfect everything is. The music and sound is just flooding back to my ears. Dash's comment on the Rotator Simulator is just perfectly what everyone else was thinking. I knew that would come up.
Really awesome stuff so far, this is my first comment on FIMfiction and you deserve it for how well you're doing all this.

[PresentPerfect]

I'm sorry, I can't finish this story.

Aitran is at its best when focused on character interaction and the history of the island, Star Swirl's involvement in it specifically. But those take up precious little wordcount, and the rest is just very gamey puzzle solving. It's not even interesting puzzle solving, since they're able to find the solutions within the same scene they encounter the obstacle. I'm not sure what I saw in this initially, but I don't feel like it's lived up to that expectation, and I definitely can't bring myself to wait and find out if it ever gets better.

[ManWithThePan]

1914387
You sir, are impatient. Fanfictions(and any other fiction) are meant to be read for the story(Excluding clopfics and death battle fics). And this sure of hell had a spot-on story. I wouldn't give a flying feather about it being puzzle solving most of the time. I prefer something interesting to read, not some crazy Fanfiction with action around every bloody second with no rest(Leave that to the death battle fics). This FiMFic got plenty of people into Myst, including me. And others, were Myst fans that found this randomly. Either way, I can't wait to finish reading this and see how it turns out.

[Steakthedog]

Welcome to the Mechanical Age.