Chapter 15: Plow Under
Members of Quill’s council filed out one after another, signaled by the departure of Nightmare Moon herself. Quill remained in his seat until the end, giving each one their instructions in turn. “Fabricating glass is our first priority,” he told Silver Needle. “Put the other sections on hold until we get that done.”
“They’ll complain,” Chain Mail said. Not argumentative, just matter-of-fact. “We’ve been telling them that we were focusing on survival first.”
“Keep telling them that,” Quill said. “Tell them that if we don’t plant crops soon, we won’t have anything to eat. No dates and times—nothing specific. Just say that we need glass if we want to eat.”
“They won’t understand something so vague,” he said, turning to leave. “But we’ll tell them. You’ll have to show them.”
“I believe we can do it,” Silver Needle said. “But Quill, you should… understand something. All this construction we do—our supply of wood and cloth and paint and… it’s all running out. We can build your workshop this time, but what about next time? We can’t carve everything out of lunar stone.”
Quill glanced once back towards Cozen. “I’ll work on it,” he said. He didn’t dare mention the place he’d been. Even those ponies he trusted, they probably wouldn’t believe. A city made of metal and glass? Nopony would believe that. If he didn’t remember the Polestar so clearly, he might not believe it himself. But under the circumstances, he couldn’t deny it.
“I’ll be helping with the workshop,” Sylvan promised. “There are other solutions to a seal than melting rock. Better ones, actually. Renewing our supply may be… tricky, however. There are some plant-based alternatives we might consider, but… for now, we’ll go with what works.”
“As little as possible,” Quill agreed. “Once the crops are going, we can discover more. Or maybe Nightmare Moon will discover the way to return us home and all this will be for nothing.” No one reacted, not even a smile. They don’t think it’s possible.
To be fair, he didn’t either. Nightmare Moon had seemed like she wanted to get them out, but it was very hard to be certain of anything she did in Moonrise. The armory’s contents seemed far better suited to invading Equestria than returning to it.
Finally, it was only Cozen and Penumbra left. Penumbra circled the back of the room like a ghost, and some part of Quill realized that the others couldn’t even see her. Or at least if Cozen could see her, she didn’t even glance back in that direction once.
“I know you’ve had more important things on your mind,” Quill asked. “But you’re the best artificer I have. Please tell me you learned something we can use.”
Cozen reached over to her cart again, removing a tightly rolled bundle. She spread it on the table, the contents of each section held almost where she’d left them. It was a fairly ingenious way of storing things.
There was the artifact Quill had salvaged, broken though it had been. Cozen had broken it far more. She’d removed the shattered glass with colors underneath, removed a little silvery envelope trailing thin metal. Apart from that, there were green sections covered with tiny components, smaller than the tiniest sprockets crafted by a master clocksmith.
“What can you tell me?” he asked again, leaning close to inspect the wreckage.
Even Penumbra emerged from the dark corners of the room and was now leaning close to stare, eyes wide. “You… stole from Vanaheimr? Defiled sacred ground?”
“No,” Quill argued. “Our Princess decided it wasn’t stealing when she took the heat-core from Vanaheimr herself. She demonstrated that survival is our highest priority, and I agreed.”
Penumbra didn’t argue, though she did retreat back into her corner to sulk.
“As you say, I haven’t had the time for a detailed study,” Cozen said. “But what I can say is—we’re completely out of our depth. It’s like… how can I put this? You’re old, yeah? Do you remember what it was like when the Solar Council raised the sun instead of the Princess?”
“I’m not that old.” He folded his wings, annoyed.
“So imagine they’re gone for a thousand years, and everything they did is lost. The princesses, like… ascend to a higher realm or whatever, leaving us behind. Now we have to move the sun again. But we only have one unicorn, and they’ve never even lifted a stick before. This is how our artifice compares to this. Like this…”
She reached down with her magic, lifting a single metal object from inside. It was so small he almost couldn’t see. “A tiny… pump?”
“No.” She settled it back down. “This is a screw, but it’s been crafted so perfectly that it can be used as a fastener. See these threads? Almost as tight as the hairs in a pony’s mane. And there are eight of them, all crafted exactly the same, perfect.” She gestured from one section to the next. “Each one of these parts—what do they do? Nothing mechanically. So far as I can tell, every single one used to be attached to this green piece in back, melted into place with precision.”
She hefted the backplate, spinning it through the air. “Every part of this eludes me, even the simple ones. This here—I gave a piece of it to Sylvan. It isn’t any metal known to ponies. Almost as strong as steel, but incredibly light.”
He took it in his hoof, and would’ve bent it in two if he wasn’t careful. But for how thin the sheet was hammered, it was still a remarkable accomplishment. “You don’t think this will help us with our food problem.”
“No.” Cozen yanked the plate away, sliding it back onto the sheet and rolling it back up abruptly. “The ponies who built this were so far beyond what we understand—they called it ‘science’ instead of natural philosophy.”
She passed the roll to him, but Quill just shoved it back. “I have no use for this. And maybe you don’t either, yet. But maybe you will, or… maybe one day, somepony will. Record your impressions, then focus on more important work.”
She nodded, sliding the roll back into her cart so quickly that Quill suspected it had been her desire all along. She was soon gone, leaving Quill alone with Penumbra.
She slid the bolt across in the lock, before settling down beside him without invitation. A few seconds later and she’d removed her mask, tossing the wrappings weakly down onto the table. “Every one of these plans is more insane than the last,” she said. “A glass ceiling. You really think you can grow potatoes here?”
He shrugged. “We won’t know until we plant them. But I think the better answer is: we hope they will. Otherwise…” He trailed off. “Well, how many times should we have died already? Celestia couldn’t do it. I’m not letting the moon do it, that’s for bucking sure.”
Time passed. Ice melted, and the sun began to shine. As soon as it was warm enough to work, the cavern filled with the sound of pounding hammers and the strike of pickaxes. Quill did not personally oversee every aspect of the factory, but he did watch from a high window to make sure that ponies kept working. They needed to know that the Lord Commander cared about their plans.
Looking down on their work from above gave him some insight. It all comes down to needing more metal. Metal for the heat-absorber, silver for mirrors to gather light. Too bad we don’t have enough glowstone to just do everything with the heat-absorbers.
He was already hearing complaints from non-bats that the glowstone confiscation was rendering the cavern too dark.
“Travel with a bat companion,” was his only answer. “We will solve this, but we must plant first.”
Of course he conserved what he could for anywhere work would take place, or else had a unicorn in attendance with the job of lighting the space by magic and nothing else.
Glowstone could be recharged, unlike their depleting supply of lightning. But at the present rate, that would outlive their first harvest, so he brushed off that nightmare for another time.
While his skilled laborers constructed the workshop and supplied it with raw materials, he sent every inexperienced pony up the tunnel to excavate the farm. They dug out the tunnel around chalked outlines on the ceiling for the window, predicting where light would fall so that no crops would be too dark. They didn’t move the soil in yet, though other earth ponies were hard at work mixing the best local dirt they could find into the dung heap to produce something that could grow. Naturally those were the ponies who complained the most.
In the end, Sylvan showed them a system of decreasing tiers, where water could be poured only on the top layer and trickle down once soils were saturated to service the other crops. With the right additives, he claimed that the soil would only need watering every three days. He didn’t have them here, though.
All ingenious, though it was nowhere near enough to settle his doubts.
Halfway through the day, Quill finally got the call that the first window was finished. He hurried over from his planning office, flying out the balcony and cruising down through the empty cavern. He squeaked a few times to orient himself in the near-total darkness. There were no windows after all, though the workshop far below did radiate light around it.
They hadn’t bothered building a ceiling, and even the walls were only one layer so far. This won’t stay warm when night comes. But Silver Needle was a clever pony. If her scheduling skills were as sharp as usual, the last brick would be placed the hour the sun finally set.
He landed on the upper catwalk, looking down on the balcony beside Silver Needle. She jumped, nearly dropping her clipboard, but quickly collected herself. “Lord Commander!”
“Just here to see your work,” he said. “I’m sure I couldn’t have done a better job.”
“Y-you… Right.” She straightened. “Well, you remember my sketch. We didn’t change very much from that initial design. That vessel in the center is how we melt the glass. Sand and flux go in, and…”
It was made of fired bricks, with the dark red of Equestrian clay rather than the local substitute. The salvaged kiln glowed bright red from inside, and even with the tiny openings at the top and bottom the warmth quickly made him sweat. But there were no black marks on the sides, or anywhere to load the fuel.
“I don’t see a… fire,” he said. “This uses lightning too?”
She nodded. “Cozen built the apparatus. It seems to be running out faster than the one we use for the air, but… we only have to use it to make enough glass for the farm, right?”
“Another nightmare for the future Lord Commander to dismiss,” he said, grumbling. “More metal, more ingredients, and more lightning. I’m beginning to think the moon doesn’t want us living here.”
“I can’t imagine what gave you that impression, sir.”
A set of hooves banged their way up the steps, and a few moments later Sylvan poked his head over, grinning weakly at him. “Commander! You’re… later than we expected. The ponies below are working on their second window now.”
The rest of the workshop looked nothing like any glassblowers that Quill had ever seen, but he’d already known to expect that. Instead of the metal tube a pony might use to inflate a ball of glass into a useful vessel, there were a set of perfectly smooth stone cylinders, attached by a strange mechanism of gears and a huge crank. On the other side was a metal sheet, hammered thin as a mirror. A metal shield stretched across the sheet, braced with thick crossbars and bolts.
“I would rather watch. It will be easier than having you explain it.”
Silver Needle nodded, and Sylvan grinned. “Cozen is absolutely wonderful, isn’t she? All I had to do was explain that no window we had ever built would survive, and… she’s devised this method that is unlike any we’ve ever built.”
Quill settled back onto his haunches to watch. “When we’re done, I want to see the finished product. I will not call the princess to waste her time to test something that I don’t think can succeed. I enjoy being alive.”
“The real work was in finding the right mix of flux and sand to get the glass so clear,” she said. “This moon sand is cleaner than anything I’ve ever seen. I believe we would be the envy of Equestria if we could bring it back with us.”
He shrugged. “We have to live long enough first.”
It was simpler than he thought. A unicorn reached into the furnace with a metal ladle, scooping a huge ball of molten orange glass. While two more ponies cracked the wheels together, the unicorn dumped the molten glass through. It spread along the tubes, flattening onto the metal sheet before being pushed under the scraper. Another unicorn on the far side took a blade and sliced it into shape, then finally left it to cool.
“This is how you get them so thick and so flat at the same time,” Quill said, as soon as he was done. “I was wondering how you were going to work that out.”
“It’s easier to press small bits of glass and slice them that way,” Silver Needle said. “But Sylvan insisted—”
“That it wouldn’t be enough,” Sylvan finished for her. “I’ve never seen a chunk of pressed glass that was thick enough to survive. And… I admit, we don’t know these will be either.”
They went down the stairs, passing through the ranks of the glassworkers. There were far fewer ponies here now that the workshop was finished, just those who had some job or another. A good half of the workshop was dedicated to preparing the sand, sifting out impurities, mixing flux. But he had no knowledge of that, so he barely even saw the ponies working that task. Instead Quill crossed to the far wall, where the cooling rack waited.
The glass he’d seen had already faded from bright orange, and as it cooled he could see some of the clarity it would finally have. Not so clear as a spyglass perhaps, but nearly.
“You want to be seeing this, Lord Commander?” asked a nearby pony—the unicorn who had worked the glass, only seconds before. He was easily the largest unicorn Quill had ever seen, with the muscles of an earth pony and many, many scars.
Quill nodded, and the unicorn levitated the triangular window down towards him, holding it between them. It was enormously thick, and from the brightness of the magical glow, heavy too. He touched one edge carefully, feeling how remarkably flat it was. There were no bubbles to be seen, not a single crack or other structural imperfection.
“Excellent work, soldier. You can put that back, I can see you’ve done well.”
He turned back to Silver Needle, nodding approvingly. “I believe these two should be sufficient for a test. Send these hardworking ponies back to their crews until the princess and I have finished the test. I wouldn’t want them wasting their strength if they won’t serve our purposes.”
“We… appreciate the sentiment, Lord Commander, but that glass isn’t finished yet.” Silver Needle sounded hesitant, as she ever was when she had to contradict him. But with so many eyes on him, Quill appreciated her tact. A contradiction could be seen as a challenge, one that might require his answer. But a delicate request saved him that need.
“Explain.”
Sylvan was the one who answered for her. “We, uh… these windows have to be enchanted before they’re ready. With the chill outside, and the warmth inside, they might shatter otherwise. I have prepared a potion of flexibility, which will coat both sides before they are finished. Then the potion must cure for a full day before its effects are fully realized.”
Quill sighed. Celestia help us to be ready in time. “Very well. Summon me as soon as this process is complete, and I will make arrangements with—”
He stopped dead, his eyes spinning to motion just beside him. A pony, one of the bats who had turned the flattening-crank, dropped a wicked metal dagger to the stone floor. Penumbra appeared beside him in a puff of smoke, her invisibility dissolved.
“You dare raise your weapon to the Lord Commander?” she asked, voice dangerously low. The pony struggled, and she twisted violently with two legs, snapping his delicate wing. He spasmed and dropped to the ground, mewling with pain. “Are you mad?”
“I am… for the night.”
At the commotion, Quill’s own guards rushed in from outside, shoving workers back. Something smashed against the floor, and white sand poured everywhere.
But Quill ignored it all, advancing on the fallen pony. He picked up the knife. It was wickedly curved, so far that it almost looked like a crescent moon. “Why?” he asked, tossing the knife to Penumbra. She caught it in her wing almost without effort, apparently guessing what he was planning. “Whose orders do you follow?”
“Nightmare,” the bat whispered, blood emerging from his lips. “Unlike you.”
He knew that face—it was the expression of a pony who was about to start grandstanding. Quill lifted into the air, raising his voice as loud as his old lungs would allow. “For the crime of attempted murder, I sentence you to death,” he said. “Penumbra, now.”
He opened his mouth to yell—but too slow. Penumbra slit his throat, staining the workshop with deep red blood. Whatever he was about to say was lost to the throaty gurgling.
Penumbra rose, tossing the corpse contemptuously aside. “You are too easy on one who threatened your person,” she whispered. “You should’ve tortured him, then made the whole camp watch his execution.”
Quill shuddered at the thought. He was willing to kill, but torture? Public executions? He hated the arena. It had already taken enough lives.
He landed beside her, gesturing for Chain Mail. He hurried over, lowering his head in shame. “Forgive me, Lord Commander. If I had known that—”
“Forget it,” he said, silencing him with a wing. “Chain, you couldn’t have taken everypony’s weapons away while I was inside. This is why I have you and Penumbra.” He gestured at the body. “This one will not be buried with honor in the catacombs. I want his head removed and burned. Cast the rest into the dung heap.” He took off, his eyes finally settling on Silver Needle. She cowered in one corner of the room, hiding beside clay jars of flux. “Please ensure that none of your workers tries to kill me on my next visit.”
Quill couldn’t say what happened in the workshop after that, because he didn’t stay behind to watch. The best he could do to slow the spread of rumors that “Nightmare” was trying to kill him would be to treat them with nothing more than contempt. He felt far safer with Penumbra following him through the air, just a little bit behind instead of comfortably beside him. They cut straight up towards the Lunar Company’s section, avoiding any other opportunities for accidents along the way.
“You must know what caused that,” she called, her voice carrying over the rushing wind.
“He told us,” Quill answered, flying right past the rooftop entrance, and up towards the distant black space where no others would be able to see or hear them. It was privacy, perhaps even more than he might be able to find in his office. Penumbra could probably hover there for hours, but Quill would eventually tire. “Nightmare sent him.”
“No.” Penumbra hovered so close to him that he might’ve felt her breath, if she had any. “Nightmare cannot speak to the minds of ponies who do not know it as I do. That pony was not a Voidseeker, so he got his instructions from one.”
Quill didn’t need to wonder which Voidseeker might’ve given them. “Openly defying the princess’s instructions?” he asked, bewildered. “Hasn’t she declared me the rightful Lord Commander? Why would he—”
“Aminon isn’t like the rest of us. You know that—he’s older than Nightmare Moon, even. His connection to Nightmare is deeper than hers.”
“You mean she has more free will,” Quill countered. “Nightmare Moon is becoming more like you—you’re choosing the good. I imagine every day is a new fury for him.”
Penumbra looked away from him in the near-darkness. “None of us make these choices, Iron Quill. Aminon obeys the Nightmare. I obey you… sometimes. Of course you think I make better choices—you make my choices.”
“Liar.” He reached out, touching her gently on the shoulder. “I remember when this cave was near to freezing. You could’ve obeyed the Nightmare and let us die—but you volunteered to go up to the surface. You were up there for hours. For that matter, I never ordered you to protect me.”
“The princess did,” she answered, defeated.
Quill touched her shoulder again. “I’m sorry if sometimes I give you orders. I only do it because I’d be helpless to keep Moonrise going without them.”
She didn’t pull away this time, instead wrapping one of her forelegs around his. Quill lost track of his wings, letting the darkness swallow them both. Some new bats might be afraid of dark like this, but Quill wasn’t new. The shadow embraced them both like an old friend. Far below were the sounds of Moonrise, as ponies and stone and lightning and hard work struggled to keep them alive in a place they didn’t belong.
“You feel… different,” Penumbra said. He couldn’t see what she might be doing, but he could still feel her there, hovering. The moon barely even pulled on them, compared to what they might’ve felt down in Equestria. “Now more than ever. Quill, it’s like… everything comes into focus when I’m with you.”
“I think that’s called love,” he said, as casually as he could.
She didn’t seem to notice. “Nightmare’s voice is like a whisper. Angry—it hates you! So much more than before. Quill, what changed?”
He didn’t press her. If she hadn’t noticed… “What I did with the princess,” he said. “Where we went. You know the place, and the thing we found there. It… burned. Burned so much I just wanted to die. But I haven’t yet.”
She fell silent again. They hovered in the dark for a little longer, just clinging to each other. Quill might’ve been disgusted to be so close to her, a few months before. The Voidseekers were dead, really. There was no warmth in her touch, and not just because she was completely covered by tight wraps. But maybe that didn’t matter. Iron Quill was already old. It wasn’t long before he would become a corpse himself. Sooner than that, if Aminon got his way.
“We need to get back down there,” Penumbra whispered. “You were going to… meet with the captains. About… something.”
“I suppose I was,” he said. “And I should acknowledge the assassination attempt. Better to spread it than make it look like I’m hiding from my own men. I might need you to kill a few more assassins.”
“Gladly,” she said. “Killing is best when the ponies deserve it.”
But she didn’t move, and neither did Quill. They hid there in the shadow, together, while Moonrise moved on without them. For a little while.
It was something.
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Did anyone else loose their tracking and thumbs up for this story?
If I hadn't seen the new chapter on the front page, I wouldn't have realized it came out.
The Monk
Her hands were still bound with rope, she debated an escape before all the stupidity gave her an aneurysm. -Scarheart
9774703
It happens sometimes. I don't know if it happened to me because I saw it on the front page before I even checked my tracking.
*Squeeing noises* :D
So what I’m guessing is the Nightmare, as in the demon, knows that Luna is hiding something from it like the city and all it’s advanced tech and is jealous that quill got to see it but it didn’t. It had to stay in Nightmare moon on the outskirts of the part of the city that interested it.
I ship it.
9774738
I think the reason for hate is simpler than that. Quill has not only scorned Nightmare's "gift" as a flat out personal rule, but has made it his public mission to make it so no one has to take that gift to live. Nightmare is all about control, and Quill's actions with Luna has loosened its control of its most powerful puppet. Not a lot, but enough that she went well out of her way to bring both heat, and needed ideas for the farm.
By the time they manage to return to Equestria, I'd imagine the Elements of Harmony won't even be needed, or if they are, it won't be against Luna this time around.
Why do they need silver for the mirrors? Or have the glass so clear? They're farming not decorating so strength and availability is much more important than a few slight power losses, infact misty glass might be better because of how light on the moon is so much stronger, UV particularly. Also how will they deal with the heat from the greenhouse? Have they plans for a water loop?
9775795
Listening to Isaac Arthur is part of why I wanted to write this story in the first place. If you can get past the way he speaks, his videos are so awesome.
9775795
I actually watched a number of his videos. And I actually kind a like the way he talks because of Elmer Fudd.
Your comment could definitely believably explain why there is no colony on the planet itself. But it does lend itself the question as to why and there are regular ponies on the planet instead of alicorns. The complete lack of them in the flashback is rather interesting.
...gdamm
...you sure can write.
If they can store the light would it not be safew and more efficient to have a room where they gather all the lights and then rotate them in and out as needed. This would allow the crops be grown in the core of the heating unit which makes them more resistant to the cold. It might require more initial investment of lighting crystals but also could be meshed into a mass of the crystals like that which can be also be used to light key features of the city. Those said lights would also easily serve as strategic reserve for the crop lights while serving a function.
Having the crops exposed to natural light through the window might be a bit more efficient but it required much security and care. Would be MUCH easier and safer to have jsut the crystal solar farm up there.
The Nightmare rages against obsolescence. Really, the Nightmare rages against a lot of things. But the work continues regardless.
And yeah, table the smartphone for a few generations. You can all worry about that little box of wonders after the supply issues have been dealt with. All the supply issues.
9776170
I don't know if he's gotten better about it, but I had to stop watching his videos because of how much he repeated himself. To the point where you could skip the second half of the video and not miss much.
9777806
Until they can produce a large number of those full-spectrum glowstone, they're better off growing plants under direct light when they can and saving the glowstone to use through the night. For now, they just don't have enough to use as a source for growing.
9778267
It would not require many more of the things to set up away from the dangerous section. Do remember you need to hold the crystals and the crops in different sections as they are recharging if you want to set up day/night cycle. This means that even if you went with the "Crops have access to true sunlight" there would need to be way to mount/dismount them and have ability to shroud the plants from to recharging crystals.
Also you would definitely need to build some kind of "Mirror boxes" where the said crystals can be placed for artificial night time, you want them to not bleed energy as much as possible.
At most it would need twice the crystals, you would keep the main ones up there all the time recharging while you would take the day ones up there to charge for 12 hours and then haul them back to crops and then loop it over again and again. But i am quite certain you could make a schedule where you can use less crystals to do so depending how many crystals you need to light the crops. If the amount of needed lights is enough then you would only be missing 12 hours of juice from the last set of batteries to make it a full night cycle.
Details of how much time is needed for recharge, how many crystals are needed, how many are a available is not known, but to my eye having the crops near the heat core would be BY ITSELF worth the hassle even before the construction problems it is likely to entail. It simply would have way too many things that can go wrong if with small resources sacrifice and fiddling it can be maintained elsewhere.
9778113
So basically, the Nightmare is a jealous older sibling. Actually, that sounds like a comedic gold mine.
A heat-core? Do tell.
Ehh, maybe someday.
They'd be dead so many times over without Cozen.
That's a bit of a problem.
Yes, yes, let's keep going with this.
This too.
Heh, I like this reoccurring joke
Hum. Well that was almost being killed; wonder how much more blatant Aminon will become before potentially strait up challenging Quill to a deathmatch for some reason or another.
9783646
The heat core is the metal tube that heats Moonrise by absorbing the sunlight -- it was aliased that at the top of chapter 14 or so
Looks like
Kor PhaetonAminon isn’t very happyI believe the ponies don't really want to live on the moon, either.
Not that they would ever say bad things about the moon while Nightmare Moon is nearby.
Nice little ending for Quill and Penumbra. I like watching there relationship develope
I really, Really, REALLY, want Luna to be able to control Nightmare or simply grow enough to bump her aside. Luna is probably my favorite pony, and seeing her as nightmare moon always makes me twitchy.
Things are going very nicely.