Sunset Expedition

by MysteryMan97

Chapter 13

Sunset Shimmer took a brief moment to reflect on the choices that had brought her here. First, I was arrogant enough to think I could ascend to being an alicorn by just exploring another world, then reality hit, then I met some humans… and promptly went and led them into a trap because I was convinced that I could handle this, no big deal. She looked around, watching as the magic flowed through the uncovered patterns on the ground, the humans she was stuck here with doing their best to map out the flow alongside her. At least I didn’t tell them to sit back and let me handle the magic myself like I wanted, then we’d all be doomed. As it is though…

“Has anyone found something new?” She called out, eyes sweeping the flow of magic as she telekinetically jotted down notes on a small piece of paper. A chorus of no’s and not yets came back, and she sighed with frustration, working harder as she tried to determine what exactly was the cause of the massive alarm that continued to blare out. In many cases, she would have been fine leaving this place behind, letting the alarm blare, and returning later with more notes, maybe even a full team of experts from Equestria once the portal was opened… but the fact that this massive magical construct, a spire of metal filled with enchantments that pulsed magic out into the environment, was likely part of the reason the planet they stood on had air that could be breathed, water that could be drunk, and plants that could be eaten…

Leaving to try another day doesn’t seem like a very good idea for this situation. She mused, returning to her work for another few moments before a voice rang out. “Miss? I think I found something.” And with that, it seemed like everyone paused. Rushing over, she found the humans chef Daniel standing over a large crystal, far from the center of the intricate pattern of enchantments. This crystal was, like many others, sending out constant streams of magic from within itself, but unlike the others there was no sign of where the magic came from, only a bright glow coming from deep within. “Pretty sure this is where it’s coming from, at least in this part.”

Sunset nodded in agreement. “Yes, it looks like it… I have no idea how it does that though, so let’s not mess with it, but now that we have a full map of the path the energy takes between the source and The Needle itself…” she trailed off as Daniel shook his head.

“Didn’t map the path, figured you all were working out from the middle, so I came out here to find the end and work in towards you.” He admits, deflating Sunset’s excitement just a bit.

“Well… that’s still good, now we all know about how far away we need to be looking to find the end.” She says, scanning over the cluster of humans. “We’re making progress, and the alarms haven’t got worse, so we’re doing fine, we just need to get back to work!” Sunset tells them.

The mercenaries accepted that readily and got to work, with Captain Williamson seeing her surprise and chuckling. “Miss, we’re used to being trapped in dangerous situations. The scale is a bit beyond our experience, but in this case we have an actual unicorn helping us survive, so I would say that, in the balance, this isn’t all that worse than some of our previous scraps.” He told her with confidence. As the others went back to work, leaving him and her as the only ones in earshot, his voice got a bit lower. “Although I am concerned about the men, morale is not exactly high, and many of them still feel sick from their condition, despite your healing.” He confided.

“I know, and I’m starting to worry. We might have to start sending small groups back to the camp for water and so they can rest away from the constant alarms, but we don’t exactly have many people to start with… this would be a lot easier if there were more people here.” Sunset admitted, casually trying to trace the flow of the magic from origin to end, noting the sheer number of branches would make properly mapping out the flow take far, far too long.

Williamson nodded, but before he could reply, Gertrude came over from where she was working. “Sunset, we’re not going to get much done if we keep working at this rate, there’s just too much and… well, we’re getting off track.” She said bluntly. “Right now we’re trying to figure out the patterns in the enchantments that remain, but why?”

“Because we can’t just go around and try to fix something without knowing what it does.” Sunset replied, tilting her head curiously. “Otherwise we could make this even worse.”

“Yes, but think about it, the damage isn’t in the parts we’re working over, they’re in the parts that are busted. Is what we’re doing helping us repair those parts?” Gertrudes question cut through Sunset’s thoughts, and she did not like the implications.

“Well, it must.” Williamson said. “If we understand the basics of how these enchantments work, then we could be able to replace the missing ones, and then… well, perhaps then we might be able to fix this mess, and stop worrying about the planet dying underneath us.” He insisted. “Otherwise… well, otherwise we are in for a lot of trouble.”

“Yes, I don’t deny that, but stating that something must be useful because if it is not we are in trouble is not logically consistent. We need to figure out something that actually helps, not just hope that our first instinct was correct.”

“I understand your point Gertrude, but there actually is a reason we’re doing this.” Sunset spoke up. “The fact is, Captain WIlliamson is right, we do need to understand the basics before I can try to fix this damage. The main problem is that… well I don’t know enough to know what is wrong here, so I can’t try to start fixing it yet. I mean, yes there’s a massive ring of damage around the base where magic flows into The Needle directly, but what caused it? If we reconnect it, will whatever caused the first break happen again? Or will it work? Can we take the chance and try to jury-rig a connection, and if we do, what do we use?” The unicorn shook her head, sighing as she looked over the enchantments leading into the center. “We just don’t know what to do…”

With that, the trio stood around uncomfortably for a moment before dispersing, returning to their tasks as they searched for answers in the intricate and well-crafted runes below their feet (and hooves). After a few hours, the humans and one unicorn gathered around, the constant ringing of alarms having shifted into basically being background noise for them at this point.

As the little circle discussed what they had found, notes were shared, and as the picture of the situation formed in Sunset’s mind, she couldn’t help but feel that she was looking at something familiar. The sources are in a circle, with major channels flowing from them inwards through a series of enchantments that change the color of the magic, split it from one channel to multiple, recombine it… all sorts of effects. There are also these side channels, letting magic from one source flow to the ones on either side of it, and those are clearly redundancies of some sort…

But that makes me wonder… what exactly caused the damage? The whole setup looks well designed, with no way of causing damage to The Needle itself… “I might have a bit of an idea about the cause of the damage though.” She announced, all eyes turning to her as she began to explain. “The setup we’re seeing, unless I’m missing something, looks well designed to handle any surge of power, with numerous dead ends that could take more power and potentially even release it in the event of a power surge. So, with that, we have two options for what caused the damage: someone sabotaged the enchantments directly, or there was a backlash of power through The Needle that caused the damage.”

“Makes sense, in a way.” Came the reply. “How does that help us here and now though?”

“It…” Sunset pauses, looking over the damage as the pieces slid into place. “If it was sabotage, then all we need to do is reconnect the two parts of the system. If it was some sort of build up, then well… the backlash could hurt us if we’re nearby, but on the other hand we don’t really have much to go off of for how to start repairs, so the question is hypothetical. There’s some debris we could fashion to make a connection, but we’d need to make it removable so we can cut it out at will, and it’ll also need to hold up when we leave…” She pondered, her brow furrowing as she talked

“Well… what do we do now?” Came the question she had been dreading. Being the “expert” is not exactly a fun time… I can’t wait until we’re in a situation where one of them is the one that has to answer that question, because this is getting old. She thought to herself. Looking up and down at the humans and enchantments around her, she shrugged.

“Give me a minute, I need to think. Captain, if you want to this would be a good time to send a couple of your people up to the surface to get some rest, I think we all could use some time aboveground and away from the alarms right now.” She said, those same alarms both feeling like background noise and feeling like they were blaring directly into her ears. As Captain Williamson nodded, she sighed and plopped down, pulling up her journal.

Sunset Expedition Log: Day 367

I am going to be completely honest, this last day feels like it has gone on for literally months. So far we’ve ended up deep in the ground, with a broken magical device that I broke even more to save everyone’s life. We’re barely scratching the surface of what there is to find down here, and to be honest I am getting worried. I might have just messed up an entire planet, an ancient enchantment made by someone so much more skilled than me that it’s like a filly messing up one of Celestia’s spells. It would be funny if it weren’t so serious.

Right now I’m racking my brain trying to think, but I just… the only thing I can come up with it “Connect where the magic is to where it is supposed to go and hope the massive damaged scar in the enchantments didn’t have anything important in it. Which… well, not the greatest option, but as it is the planet could literally be dying.

Or it could not, and there’s enough redundancy in the system that even with one Needle damaged and out of commission, the others can keep the planet alive. But… am I willing to take that chance? Am I going to just walk away, say “I’ll come back later” and leave it to potentially get worse and worse until it’s too late to fix anything? That feels incredibly irresponsible to me, and I just can’t accept that as the path forward.

With that said, I am going to write out a note, in both Equish and English, describing what happened here, what I did, and what I think is happening. I will do my best to convince the humans with me to leave with the letters, taking the English one to the human outpost in the north of the planet and the Equish one to Celestia when the portal opens if I don’t survive. Gertrude will be worried that without me the mercenaries might try to take her back to her father, so I also have a note to write that will get Celestia to pay them what I promised if they show it to her, but only if they bring Gertrude to her alive and well. I don’t think it’s necessary, but it’ll keep her from worrying.

After that, there’ll only be one thing left to do: connect a massive source of magic to a massive magic using machine and not get blown up.

And if I do that right, I’m going right back to the camp, waiting there until the portal opens, and not doing any more of this adventuring crap. This one day of adventure has caused me more stress than months of living on this planet, and I am for one ready for a break.

As Sunset put down the journal, she sighed at those words. I really am looking forward to going home. Indoor plumbing, soap, hot cakes… I miss them all so much. She thought as she began to write out the promised notes. However, as she did, she felt her eyes drawn to the damaged enchantments. But first… I have some magic to do.

Author's Note:

Alright, second-to-last chapter in The Needle, with the big event coming on fast!

I have to say, this isn't as good at being a build up chapter as I would like, but I kept going over it and tweaking, and I just couldn't see how to improve it without a re-write or just cutting it out and going straight to the planned end of this arc, and that chapter isn't written yet.

Also, I will now be updating on Saturdays, same schedule of every other week.

Comments

[Tetrakern]

I don't know, seems like an adequate build-up to me. I understand your concerns about the quality and yes, there could have been more to the chapter in regards to the Needles' mystery. However, the methodical analysis and consideration of potential dangers adds to Sunset's scholar background and steep learning curve. For each misstep, she makes two leaps forward. The pace is fast, yet you manage to make it feel natural. This is also because you wrote a good foundation, despite earlier flaws. The underlying thrill of the exploration narrative still keeps me hooked; shows that you don't need a BBEG to tell a captivating story.

One thing makes me wonder, though. "Magic keeping the planet alive?" I mean, I suspected as much and more. But I can't remember Sunset making this particular conclusion in the previous chapters. Just that the Needles draw out the remaining magic but not for what purpose. Or the planet depending on that. I might have missed that, though.

[MysteryMan97]

10454380

Glad you don't think it's rushed!

And as for the magic keeping the planet alive thing... that's an assumption she's making based on three known facts:

1) The Needles are magic and drawing magic in for some purpose
2) The Needles are all exactly on the midline between the eternal day and eternal night sides of Mercury
3) Mercury is, quite simply, an impossible planet. It should not have an atmosphere, or life, and yet it does. Even beyond that, it's central feature The World River clearly uses magic to function, making it clear that there is something magical about the very environment.