Meliora

by Starscribe

Chapter 18: Keenii

Things didn’t go nearly so smoothly with all the other dreamcrafters. They had far less experience—in some cases no more than a single night’s accelerated time. But Jackie didn’t have much of a choice, they needed everyone’s work to build before the whole city collapsed.

That left a great deal for her and Hat Trick to do, moving between identical sections of city and fixing similar problems. It was the same stuff she was used to with novice dreamcrafters—doors that were just walls, machines that only had fronts, wires that didn’t connect to anything. All of that was just fine for ordinary dreamcrafting, but less so when they were building things meant to transition into the physical world. They had to be fully rendered on the first day, so that the version ponies believed in was the one that eventually became real.

From the subjective viewpoint of the crafters, the process took months. Months of construction no different in many ways than other large building projects. Only, there were no huge trucks of raw materials coming in, no union strikes, no delays waiting for concrete to cure or for the plumbers to finish with a floor.

For the last two real days, Jackie had instructed that their new arrivals be told that they were working on a portal to the city. That portal would take a lot of time to charge, since there were so many of them. In the meantime they were to be given tours of the buildings that did exist, since they would eventually be living in a similar way.

But towards the end, she could see that they were getting restless. There was only so many times a pony could be promised they had a better home coming while they were sleeping on the floor, and still believe it. The energy of their escape was finite and it was running out fast.

Then they finished the first modern dream-city of Meliora.

The portal itself would take very little energy this time, since it already existed. It would just be a matter of organizing all of the ponies to walk into the building and use it.

For the second time, Jackie stood at the edge of the balcony, overlooking a crowd. This time the crowd was so numerous that she couldn’t see the ground in most places, and it stretched into the trees as far as she could easily see. Flower and vegetable gardens below had been eaten or trampled, the land was already becoming overwhelmed—overwhelmed by her compassion, her mistake.

There wasn’t enough room for so many, not so early in their development. She should’ve left them behind.

And if the dream they’re all living in falls apart, we’re dead. A dream supported by so many bats would be like a sheet left out in the wind. Each bat living inside would be like a physical weight pressing it down, making it firmer and more secure. Areas that didn’t see bats often would start to unravel over time, or morph into something else.

“I applaud your patience,” Jackie said, her voice magically amplified. The crowd below quieted, but not as much as her own citizens had done. These ponies were unhappy, and they weren’t going to be completely cooperative.

So she didn’t wait to lose control. It would be a nightmare to finish building the dream-city only to have the ones it was built for starve to death instead.

“I’m here to tell you that your wait is over. The portal inside this building is open, and your assignments are complete. I think once you see your new home, you’ll see the wait was worthwhile. It won’t have all the same amenities that you knew in Mundi, but what it will have is self-determination for you and your family. Over time, we can rebuild everything we left behind.

“You have already been separated into groups—each of these will be a smaller unit of our new civilization. A town, if you like. I’ve appointed a mayor to serve for the first three months—to answer your questions, to help distribute the work, all that. But that pony will serve only for a short time. By the time their term is up, it’s up to you to learn how your part of the world works, to vote for your own mayor.

“Just one word of warning first. Know that you must return through this portal if you wish to explore the land. I am not exaggerating when I say that the territory on the other side is safe only so far as the borders of Meliora. If you go even a kilometer past the wall, you will find certain death waiting. So return through the portal to somewhere safer if you want to go out. We will keep the portal open perpetually from now on, so you will not be prisoners on the other side. You’ve all been slaves long enough.”

That was all she could think of—Jackie wasn’t exactly one for speeches. So she stepped down, and let her handful of militia organize the lines up into City Hall. It was a good thing they’d finished while the newcomers were still civil, or the weight of bodies alone could’ve ruined everything they built. If we weren’t all bats, that kind of mistake would’ve destroyed this civilization. I need to be better.

Jackie herself retreated near the center of the building, where the portal itself was built. Ponies were being taken into City Hall in their groups, and it took about five minutes for each one to file through the gap. Jackie made herself prominently available for ponies who had questions, marking down the names and remembering the faces of those who seemed like they might be trouble.

That would be one of the weaknesses of building like this—she couldn’t use dream-travel to covertly watch any of these newcomers, or to quickly move to them. They were already in dreams all the time. But as Hat Trick and so many others had already said, there wasn’t exactly an abundance of other options. They would just have to make do with the Dreamlands in the short term while they bootstrapped their way to a bigger city.

It took almost a whole day to get everypony through the portal. By the time they had, Jackie could sense the constant unease radiating from the crowd, which seemed every moment on the edge of a riot. By the end of the line a rumor had somehow started that they were actually killing the ponies to harvest their magic, so the whole line ground to a halt while Jackie took a few representatives from each group on a tour of the city, to meet their friends who had gone before.

That distraction out of the way, and what had been a six-month process for poor Jackie was finally winding down. The last of the newcomers passed through the portal onto the Dreamlands side of Meliora, and they were left behind. Left behind with a ground stripped brown by the abundance of pony bodies eating and sleeping on it for the last few days.

“That was some incredible plate-spinning,” said a voice from behind her. Liz poked her head out of the central office, body dripping from the water that surrounded the heartwood. Her armor creaked a little as she walked, responding sluggishly to each movement. I have to find her some new gear if she’s going to stick around. “Mind sharing what fucking miracle you summoned to stop this place from eating itself alive?”

“I can show you,” Jackie muttered, though she could feel the exhaustion threatening to strangle her. She hasn’t seen me for a few days. I have to be sympathetic. “Just through here.” She gestured towards a large doorway that hadn’t been there before, one that led into a solid wall in the real world. In reality it led to the exact mirror version of City Hall, surrounded by identical city sections with their empty hexagons.

“Oh shit.” Liz scampered over to the hole, staring around it. Her horn flashed for a second. “That’s some serious juice. How did songless primitives’ power all…” She poked one hoof through the opening, then jumped her way through to the other side. She landed normally, and Jackie followed her. Despite her insistence that she was fully mature, Liz acted so much like a child sometimes that it was hard to see her any other way.

She wasn’t far from the balcony on the other side, and Liz seemed to be thinking the same thing. She skipped through the halls, shoved the door open, and stared out in open shock.

Just now, the city was actually set to run to slower time than the real world. Jackie would flip that around the other way once her dream-team got the rest they needed to start fixing the holes that so many real minds would make in a dream. “Holy shit.”

Jackie stood beside her on the balcony. In many ways, the city Jackie had promised for them a century in the future had arrived in the present. Skyscrapers of brown and green linked with crystalline bridges, leaves glowing with the magical energy they harvested. And in every building, moving through the air, resting in open-air parks or moving about on the ground were ponies. Ponies set free.

The distant walls that protected their dream were less visible here, and would be painted to make it look like the jungle just kept going. Those who lived close to them wouldn’t be fooled by the illusion, but from here they were basically invisible. City Hall was larger than any of the other trees, and more haphazardly developed. But in a way, those chunks of identical city looked like the improved version of what they had built. Designed after they had six months of tree-construction experience, so that almost everything could be built from wood instead of structures grafted into the bark.

“Which god did you sell your soul to make this?” Liz stepped back from the rail, glancing up into a sky full of stars. “Wait, let me guess. This looks like Mystic Rune. After he trapped me in this fucking body, you found something that would challenge him. And while he was here he didn’t stop by to let me stop being Peter Pan.”

“Nope.” Jackie rested a wing on her shoulder. “We didn’t bribe anyone. No Alicorn helped with this, actually. Though I guess we had the knowledge of a few to work with. But… we did all the hard work ourselves. My construction crews and I.”

“Not possible,” Liz argued, retreating a step away from her. “I know this tree magic stuff is new, and maybe we don’t understand all the rules. But there’s no way on Earth you can build a whole city using mostly untrained ponies. No way you can make all the little pieces work. What’s the joke?”

Jackie lowered her voice to a whisper. “Think about who did the building. What are we good at?”

Liz looked to be deep in concentration for a few seconds, before her eyes widened and she suddenly beamed at her. “Ohhhhhhhh.”

Jackie raised a hoof briefly across her lips. “I’m telling you in confidence. The technique relies on the mindset of the ponies living here. You can’t introduce a variable like that this early. The longer the… city… remains stable, the stronger its foundation gets. The ones most likely to figure it out already know, and they’re helping us build and maintain it. We’re going to keep looking for bats who look like they’re catching on and recruit them.”

“Damn.” Liz sat back on her mechanical haunches, holding up one hoof. “I thought… I thought coming here physically would be more obvious. But I don’t feel any different. Didn’t you say it was a really bad idea to do things here casually? Like, if we die here…”

“Yeah,” Jackie interrupted. She didn’t see anypony listening, but that didn’t mean they should take chances. This was the first day—if ponies were likely to be places they shouldn’t by accident on any day, it would be today. “We’re transitioning into physical space, or we will be. There are lots of advantages to living here, so long as we’re careful. We’ll just… have to be careful.”

Liz rose to her hooves again, shaking herself out and heading back down the hall. “Well, nothing personal, but I want to get back. I don’t trust this place. And… you should get some rest. This isn’t the only fire you had to put out.”

“It isn’t?”

“Well, yeah. Mundi is still going to invade.”

Comments

[Yami Vizzini]

Then they finished the first modern dream-city of Meliora.

Title drop, ho-ooo!

[Bast]

9151905
roll credits Lol

[FanOfMostEverything]

Oh. Well. And with Jackie's luck, Meliora will start unraveling mid-invasion. When it rains for her, a freaking ocean falls on her head.

No, Liz, that's a bad thing for airbreathers.

[AyanamiRei]

Damn. Just as she finished the first problem, she has an ENTIRELY DIFFERENT problem on her hand. Well...shit. This isn't good, I had actually forgotten about that little tidbit. I wonder how Jackie will save the day THIS time, and if she will need to make another Deal/Pledge to a Higher Power again to win this....

[Amos Anon]

That would be one of the weaknesses of building like this—she couldn’t use dream-travel to covertly watch any of these newcomers, or to quickly move to them. They were already in dreams all the time. But as Hat Trick and so many others had already said, there wasn’t exactly an abundance of other options. They would just have to make do with the Dreamlands in the short term while they bootstrapped their way to a bigger city.

She couldn't just drop into a dream within a dream? Like inception?