Sunset Expedition

by MysteryMan97

Chapter 9

Expedition Log: Day 366

I feel like a million bits right now. The energy the Needle is giving off, it’s a massive wave of thaumaturgical and magnetic power, and after so long with the scraps I could pull from the air around me even 20% Equestria normal is making me feel like I could go toe-to-toe with Celestia and win. With all this power in the air, I feel like I could handle anything this world throws at me! No matter what, now that I have magic, I can handle it!

Gertrude spotted the Needle. This is it, after weeks of just reading about things other people found, now it’s finally my turn to make some discoveries!

I know it seems kind of arrogant to write that when all the human expeditions found nothing and I’m not exactly a seasoned investigator myself, but I’m Sunset Shimmer, personal student of Princess Celestia herself! None of the human expeditions had a magical expert of any sort, and I was better at it than most fully grown unicorns! I’ll be able to see things that they never would have even known to look for just because of that, and sure I might not be able to decipher everything about it, but once I get some time to give it a once over I’m sure I’ll at least be able to figure out the basic of it.

-----

Alright, I might have been a little too sure of myself when I wrote that… Sunset thought to herself as she stood in front of the Needle, the massive metal spire towering hundreds of feet into the air above her. This is going to be a problem…

The obelisk in front of her was visually impressive, standing nearly two hundred feet tall and 7.5 feet across, made of a polished metal that looked like silver or chrome of some sort. Pressing a hoof against it, and using some diagnostic spells, revealed that whatever the metal was it was definitely neither of those substances. With no sign of wear and tear on it, Sunset could have believed that it had just been built yesterday, but the dirt piling onto the base put paid to that thought, it was simply far to buried for that to matter in any way

However, none of that helped her find out what it was for. The Needle stood silent and alone, no runes marking its face, no directions for maintenance teams, no enchantments that would respond to any of her probes, not even an automatic expulsion of her as a foreign entity in the system. This told her one thing: the exterior existed to focus enchantments somewhere within the structure, and whoever had built it had believed that no one on the outside could access the core enchantments, otherwise they would have put something in it as security.

Looking over it again, she sighed and looked over at Gertrude, who was sketching the Needle and filling her journal with notes.

The surface of the Needle is smooth all the way to the base. There is no pedestal, no inscription, nothing to give any sign or direction for anyone who wishes to investigate it, and the pulse of energy that had empowered Sunset and boosted her confidence had disappeared shortly after we began our final approach, vanishing in only a few moments it was as if it had never been there, leaving her thoughts much more grounded. Gertrude wrote as Sunset returned to her studies of the Needle.

One more time, desperate for any sort of clue, she circled the obelisk, using what power she had to scan the base and look for anything she could use to figure out what this thing was for, before giving up and returning to Gertrude. “There’s a lot of enchantments here, but it’s all surface-level stuff. Durability on the metal and some channels that guide the effects of enchantments on the inside into the world, but I can’t tell what those enchantments are.” She told the Englishwoman, frustration in her voice.

Gertrude nodded, staring at the structure contemplatively. “Then it is likely that we need to dig deeper.”

Sunset gave her an inquisitive look. “You know, I said the enchantments were ‘deeper’ but I didn’t mean physically deeper, they’re likely more towards the core of the Needle. I mean, it’s wider across than you are tall, there’s plenty of space for some sort of magic…” she trailed off as she studied the metallic obelisk.

“Yes, but can you carve through metal that thick?” Gertrude asked pointedly.

“... no…” Sunset admitted.

Gertrude nodded in response. “So we can either try to climb to the top, hoping we can access the inner workings from higher up, or we can dig down and see if perhaps whatever base this structure has has been buried by the passage of time. After all, unless this obelisk extends through bedrock to the core of the planet, it must have a base, and this base would be the most likely location for any entryway, control panel, or other means by which its builders could access and maintain the thaumaturgical enchantments that it utilizes for… whatever task it was built for.”

Sunset looked up, her eyes roaming the full length of the obelisk, desperately searching for any blemish or discoloration that could be a sign of an entryway or even just a spell matrix close to the surface. The perfect metal stared down at her, free from any errors despite the centuries it had sat in the middle of the wilderness, untouched by anything with the intelligence to maintain it, and she sighed, hanging her head in disappointment. “... You’re right. I wish you weren’t, but you’re right.” Turning back to the Needle, she pawed at the ground. “This is going to suck…”

And it did. For the next hour they dug away at the ground, excavating the area around the base of the obelisk, Sunset pulling up huge chunks at a time before her magic was exhausted, then working with her hooves until she felt up to go again. Despite the massive progress that would have been impossible without magic, the work was slow, and the lack of visible progress wore Sunset down, especially as every time her magic ran dry reminded her of how she had felt during those brief, wonderful minutes where power had flowed through her.

Of course, Mercury’s gravity is a mere 40% that of either Earth or Equestria [1], and even with a limited supply of magic, the loose soil around the base was surprisingly easy for the two to clear away, inch by inch, until Gertrudes shovel struck something metallic…

What? She thought, testing the shovel again. Is this… “Sunset! I believe I have discovered the base of the obelisk!”

Sunset was by her side in an instant, her coat covered in dirt and mud from the digging as she had forgone cleaning magic to focus on the task at hand. “Where?!” She demanded, looking down as Gertrude demonstrated by clanging her shovel against the buried metal again. With a frenzy, she attacked the dirt, pulling clumps of loose soil up with her hooves, each strike uncovering more and more of the metal beneath.

Looking over the unearthed metal, she felt her gut begin to sink. The metal seemed to be the roof of the pedestal the obelisk was sitting on, and as she dug at the edge of the hole, she realized they were going to be stuck digging a lot more if they wanted to get inside, and if they did not go in, they would return as… well not complete failures, but close enough that after how excited she had been it sure felt like failure.

With that revelation, the two adventuresses broke for lunch, throwing together a meal of random Mercurian plants and some tinned salmon in a pot hanging over a fire with the eternally setting sun in th ebackground. Sunset muddled through her meal, eating slowly as she ran over the problem in her mind. Fifteen minutes of 20% or so of what I could do in Equestria, followed by 267 minutes of base Mercurian energy levels. In those fifteen minutes I could either move a bunch of dirt out of the way and hope that I find an entrance, or I can try to teleport us in, where we can search from the inside for a way out, but we’ll be trapped for the next couple hours…

She sighed, shaking her head as Gertrude came over to her, holding out her watch. Without the translation spell she didn’t know what the human woman was saying, but she didn’t need to in order to understand her meaning: the next cycle was almost here, get ready. Swallowing the last of her food, Sunset stood up and returned to the hole, activating the translation spell to ask for Gertrude's opinion on how to move forward.

After hearing her explanation, the Englishwoman frowned thoughtfully for a moment before replying. “If you teleport us into the structure, what guarantee do you have that we will arrive in a room full of poisonous gasses or some similar sign of decay? If this structure has been abandoned for a long time, perhaps jumping in blindly will not be the safest approach…” She trailed off as Sunset reared back, the first waves of the pulse filling her with energy as she listened to her companions words.

After a moment to adapt, Sunset turned back to Gertrude. “Well, there are safeguards for objects in the teleport spell that should prevent us from impaling ourselves on anything, but if it is poisonous… but really what are the odds that it’s poisonous?”

“High enough that I see no reason to rush. We are not exactly short on time Sunset, we have months to do this properly.”

Sunset sighed, nodding her head as she began to cast magic, scooping away the dirt from atop the base. “Fine, we’ll do it slow and safe.” She said, shoveling dirt away with each word, the strain evident in her eyes and voice as she pushed herself to move as much as she could while she still had power. While she did that, Gertrude found herself feeling exceptionally useless as she made sketches and notes in her journal. She claims that all creatures can use magic in some ways once their bodies have been exposed to enough of it, but what are the odds of that happening here on Mercury?

As Sunset cleared away the dirt, she found herself growing increasingly frustrated. The loose soil simply slipped through her grasp, leaving up to a third of what she’d grabbed stuck in the hole in the ground, and it seemed no matter how much power she threw into the spell her progress was increasingly small as dirt from around the hole slid in, refilling it as she dug.

Grabbing the edges and stabilizing them with a spell failed, the enchantments that would have worked wonderfully in Equestria buckling under the low and uneven tide of energy coming off the monolith, failing at random points before surging back to normal.

As time went on and Sunset felt in her gut the end of this brief window of power, her frustration grew. While scooping yet another blob of loose dirt off the uncovered base, she watched as the other side of the hole collapsed, a slide nearly burying the shining metal.

WIth a scream of rage and frustration, she tossed the clump of dirt to the side and focused everything on the hole. Magic flowed through her horn, drawn from her internal reserves and the environment in such a large amount that it actually caused her physical pain. With a cry, she let it all out with a wave of force, the exertion knocking her on her flank even as a massive orange glow smashed the dirt away from the dig site.

-----

For the men of the Ether Ship ES Good Fortune, their journey around Mercury had shown them many wonders that people on Earth could only imagine. Stones that absorbed the light of the sun and turned it into electricity, strange floating trees that seemed like something out of the liftwood forests of Mars [2], water flowing uphill, and dozens of other strange things that they had only heard of in rumors and tales brought back to Earth by the explorers who had found them first. As their ship descended towards Gertrude Bell and her stolen ship, they were treated to a sight that blew all of that out of the water.

Before them, a vast metal obelisk rose from the dim, shadowed forest, towering hundreds of feet in the air above the surrounding forest. However, that was not what drew their attention. At the base of the Needle, a small equine form, approximately the size of a small pony, stood on the ground next to a woman who could only be Gertrude Bell, recovering from generating a blast that had thrown massive amounts of dirt out of the ground..

There was silence on the bridge for a brief moment before captain Williamson shook himself out of his stupor. Looking around, he saw his men begin to worry, to wonder what powers would be unleashed on them if they interfered with this creature. Or perhaps he was projecting his own fears onto them. In any case, he needed to present a brave front, to convince the men that they were not doomed.

“The journal we found stated that the creature only has a limited amount of energy to use her abilities with, and the blast outright lifted her into the air and left her unconscious for moments. Right now she is likely dazed and exhausted, and as Ms. Bell has already seen our ship and they will suspect we have ill intent towards them if we back out now, so our best option is to approach as calmly as possible while prepared to defend ourselves should the creature turn hostile.” He told his men, taking charge of the situation before panic could sink in.

After the initial panic dissipated, he began to bark orders, keeping the men busy so they wouldn’t question his logic. And more importantly, keeping his own mind from questioning it. After all, it was too late to back out now without the creature growing suspicious and potentially hostile, best to bite the bullet and do this while she was still weak and recovering.

-----

Sunset came to a minute later as Gertrude shook her, the human woman saying… something that sounded concerned, she couldn’t tell for sure and did not dare try the translation spell with her horn sore to the touch, although even if she trusted her horn her head hurt so much she could barely focus to cast the spell. With a sense of clinical detachment she noted that these were symptoms of magic exhaustion, and as she slowly rose to her hooves she looked at what she had done to earn such a painful headache.

The ground around the hole had been cleared away, and the edge of the pedestal had been revealed, the upper half of a door that seemed to be made out of a similar, although slightly darker, metal than the rest of the structure visible from where she was resting. Turning to Gertrude, Sunset prepared the translation spell…

Only to pause as she noticed an unfamiliar airship descending on them from above, Gertrude frantically pointing at it and trying to communicate with her. Facing the unfamiliar craft, at that moment she felt a sinking feeling in her guy, as the energy pulse began to fade away.

Author's Note:

[1] In Space 1889, which also has Mars being equal in gravity to Earth, so obviously the ether isn't the only thing it changed.

[2] While Martian Liftwood is valuable for building flying ships, the flying groves of Mercury float due to strange buds on the bed of roots that they rest on, which lose their properties after only hours or days, making them useless for industrial use so far.

Alright, bit of a delay on this one, I ran into a bit of writers block and then got distracted on another (non MLP) fic for a while. I'm not going to claim I'll be able to get this on a regular update schedule in the future, but the next chapter won't take as long as this one did