Chapter 13: The Ticking of the Clocks
"I catch glimpses. Edges of the shape. I feel as though it wants to come through... onto my side. I have to turn off the glass before it sees me but I always wake before I can."
Smolder shifts, moving closer to the fireplace. "Ocellus, are you seeing this?"
Behind the orange flames, a circular plate of black metal hangs on the stonework. It could not be seen in the dark pit of the fireplace, but with Smolder's cozy fire, the plate's polished ebony reflects the dancing firelight.
Words have begun to appear on the plate, glowing as if etched with molten lava. Well, not words exactly, Ocellus realizes as she peers at them through the crackling fire. Rather, the plate is inscribed with figures, diagrams and lines of equations.
Smolder reaches through the fire, grabbing the hot metal plate and tugging at it. The circular plate comes free of the spike it is hanging on. The dragon pulls the plate out of the fireplace, looking at the incomprehensible glowing marks.
"Ocellus?" she admits, "This looks more like something you might understand."
Ocellus smiles beatifically. "It's a plan." At Smolder's raised eyebrow and smug I-knew-you-would expression, Ocellus explains. "The dark essence crafting pillars use those to make things."
"What does this one make?"
Ocellus studies the figures and equations. Everything is in Old Ponish, but she has seen a plan like this before.
Ocellus lifts the drawer in her forelegs until the lantern's light reveals the engravings on the underside. What a bizarre place to hide a plan. She might have realized the true nature of the oil painting in the Throne Room, but would never have found this one on her own.
"I'm not sure, but I don't think this one makes anything directly," Ocellus tells her curious friend. "I think it alters or enhances something else. It looks similar to the plan for the protective lining on my saddlebags and Gallus' pack."
Smolder flips the plate over. The underside is unmarked.
Ocellus wonders how many other hidden plans she has passed by. Without Smolder's act of kindness, she would never have found this one. She revisits her earlier questions: is there any sort of clue to help find these?
Ocellus looks up at the broken mirror over the mantle. Considering the three plans she knows about, the narrowest common thread she can think of is that they were all near a mirror. Two were hidden below one. The oil painting was not, but it was also the least hidden and in a room with a much bigger mirror.
Smolder interrupts her reverie. "We passed a set of creation pillars just down the hall. Want to head back and see what this makes? I haven't heard your hunter in a while. It's probably still outside."
Ocellus can't help but think that is both good and bad. It allows them a much needed respite. But once they save Pharynx and get Wrath, they need to get the anti-Elements to the Oculus Room. Luna is already guiding Yona and Gallus there.
Which means she and Smolder will have to go outside. And that will bring the Nightmare down on them again at the worst possible time.
She nods to Smolder. Remembering why she not only had to get the drawer of the hall stand but also its contents, Ocellus asks, "But what will we break down for dark essence?"
Smolder looks around. "We've got plenty of books."
Ocellus lets out a little whine of dismay, feeling like she's been stabbed in the heart with a very thin needle.
"You're being silly," Smolder grunts, her arms loaded with books and the black plate strapped to her tail. "You know that, right?"
Ocellus doesn't answer. She has her lantern in her mouth, saving her from explaining why she's not willing to carry the books on the long walk to their execution.
Her little friend has again gone from convenient to needed. Only three of the sconces in the long hallway are lit, and their fires are weak, barely illuminating the walls opposite them.
Ocellus pauses as she reaches a particularly nasty stain in the wall. She hovers, nearing it, letting the lantern's blue light illuminate the depths of its decay.
Spots of ashen mold speckle the deep discoloration that has soaked the wallpaper. In the heart of the stain, the paper has split, revealing the woodwork beneath. The wood itself has rotted, sinking in. Small beads of whitish liquid seep from the deepest part of the rot, running down and pooling on the floor. As if the wall is bleeding glue.
"That stain another of those healing ghosts?" Smolder asks, stopping and setting down the books long enough to stretch her arms. "Are you hurt?"
Ocellus puts down the lantern, looking at the small pool of white gunk. "I'm not," she lies, not wanting to mention the bruising beneath her chitin from Smolder's panic. "Which is good because I don't think this one works anymore." She looks up at it again. "On the other hoof, at least I can tell Gallus what the white stuff is now."
"What white st-"
The three lit sconces die simultaneously, plunging the hallway into darkness.
Ocellus scoops up her lantern. She hears the stack of books topple behind her, hit by a dragon's tail.
Smolder hisses under her breath, "I wish this was just Discord messing with us."
Ocellus lifts the lantern, turning slowly, trying to see anything. Or any creature.
Nothing down the hall to the left.
But there should be. Even if the sconces failed, there should still be orange light pouring out of the library. Right?
Ocellus turns to the right. The lantern illuminates the black form of a changeling sitting in the hallway, its back to them.
No. The hallway is empty.
"Uhhhh..." Smolder breathes. "Did you?"
Just see that?
Ocellus nods, shaking her lantern. The shifting light glints off something in the darkness ahead.
"Forget the plate," Smolder insists. "I'm done with this hallway. ...Wait, what is that?"
The thin gleam of moonsilver seems to stretch slowly. The light of the lantern catches the bulb. It's a needle. Floating in the air. Rotating.
Aiming right for her eye.
Ocellus throws herself to the floor, dropping her lantern. The needle whisks above her, shooting through the space her head had just been, stabbing itself into the stain.
Ocellus looks up to see the swirling blue smoke pour out into the wall.
Smolder reacts, breathing fire in the direction the needle attacked from. As Ocellus stands again, Smolder sends another gout of flame across the wall, setting the wallpaper on fire, illuminating the hallway in flickering orange light.
There is a shape in the hallway. Like the black carapace of a drone, hunched and melted.
The melted carapace twists, turning its featureless head towards them. Staring back at them with a single eye. The right eye. The left is missing.
The screaming image of a lifeless drone flashes through Ocellus' mind -- its ethereal head flying at her face, its mouth open in an eternal shriek, its left eye burst open, the ichor from it frozen on its cheek!
As the apparition reaches her, it vanishes. The molten carapace dissolves into smoke, swirling into nothing.
Beside her, Smolder lets out a small shriek of her own.
It's the dead one!
The realization is like a vacuum, sucking the air out of her. The already freezing cold seems to plummet. Ocellus feels like she has been submerged in glacial waters, her blood turning to ice, her lungs burning for air, her nerves jangling as if she had kissed a twittermite.
"I-is it g-gone?" Smolder asks.
The tremble in her friend's voice makes Ocellus less self-conscious of her own fear. Smolder's fierce and brave. If she's scared even without knowing they are besieged by the dead, it's okay to be on the nervous edge of a freak-out.
Ocellus turns to look at her friend. She is unsure what to say, but it is reassuring to have her here. The curves and scales of her dragon friend are lit from the front by the fires Smolder's breath has started. And from behind by a growing ethereal light.
The smoke bubbling out of the wallpaper flickers, taking on a malformed visage of a batpony, like topiary cut by an amateur. It's voice is sickly sweet and childish, ringing from within, the words in complete disharmony with the movement of the smoke forming its jaw.
"You. Are. Not. Healthy. Please. Let. Me. Help."
"Uhhh, nothankyou," Smolder blurts out as she turns to see the corrupted, essence-infused wallpaper spectre.
"I. Cannot. Ascertain. The. Nature. Of. The Illness," the spectre replies in its overly cheerful, grub-like voice. "Am. Sorry. Mistress. I. Must. Probe. Deeper."
Ocellus begins backing away.
"Vivisection. May. Be. Required." The spectre takes a step towards them, its eyes erupting in palsied flickering.
"Hnaaaaaah!" wheezes Smolder, horrified.
The two friends turn and run, taking quickly to the air, not caring which direction they are going. Just that they are staying together and getting away from the wallpaper abortion.
The fires behind them tear from the walls and floor as if sucked into a funnel, going out and plunging the hallway again into darkness. Ahead, a weak azure flame gutters in a single wall sconce. In the small island of blue light, the black carapace corpse of a drone leans against the wall, surrounded with empty-bulbed moonsilver needles, ichor frozen to its left cheek beneath a torn eye.
Smolder breathes fire across it. The carpet and wallpaper ignites, illuminating the doorway to the library. There is no corpse.
Ocellus is struck against the backs of her hindlegs, spinning her. Then again in the head. As she drops to the carpet, dazed, she hears Smolder take several more hits. She doesn't need to see the objects scattering the carpet to recognize them.
It's throwing the books at us!
Ocellus calls out to her friend as she pushes herself back into the air. Smolder spins around just in time for a book to the face. The dragon's expression and snort tell Ocellus that Smolder will never feel sorry for setting a bunch of them on fire.
As Smolder waits for her to catch back up, joining beside her again in fleeing, a sick new fuel pours into the fires of her panic.
This hallway isn't this long! They were barely halfway down it. At their speed, they should have reached the end in seconds.
As they fly past the open doorway to the library, they hear an air-splitting CRACK, followed by a fractured crash.
"The Nightmare's back!?" Smolder cries out in outraged disbelief.
Ocellus looks back at the doorway, her ears lifted high. There is no sound save the flapping of their wings and the crackling of the fire. A ruddy glow emanates from the library.
"Doesn't sound like it," she calls to Smolder, slowing down as she glances a wall. "I think something just broke through those library doors." From the other side.
Just as she turns to look where she is flying, the molten carapace flickers into being in the hall behind them.
I can't save it! Ocellus's thoughts fill with despair. I can't help it. It will never be love-filled. It's dead.
She can't save dead. How can they even deal with dead? How can you overcome a ghost?
No, it's not a ghost, exactly, Ocellus thinks. Whatever this is of the deceased drone -- his thoughts? his will? His soul? -- it is saturated with raw dark essence. The power that is making the dead thing like this is something that exists in the world. Even when their attacker is invisible and intangible.
She has an idea. She cannot save the drone. But maybe she can free it from this purgatory.
"Hey!" Smolder calls out ahead of her. "Where's the door?"
The hallway dead ends in an alcove with a trio of onyx pillars.
"We came in this way," Smolder insists, staring at the blank wall to the right of the alcove. "Where's the door we came in through?"
They are cornered!
Three possibilities rapidly occur to Ocellus.
Did the entrance shift away? Unlikely. They are too far from the hive. And they haven't seen anything like that happening in this wing.
Maybe the door was a secret passage, with this side concealed? Much more likely. The Castle of the Two Sisters has a lot of secret passages. Apparently, Luna loved them. She hasn't seen one here, but that would just mean they are well concealed.
Or the door could be there and they just can't see it. Most likely. The dead drone -- for want of a name, their poltergeist -- has used multiple illusions against them already.
Smolder has turned to look at her. But now the dragon is staring past her with an exasperated expression of anxiety. Ocellus turns to look back down the hall.
Two figures of black, hole-pocked carapace have flown into the hallway from the library. They look like drones, but something deep in her psyche screams at Ocellus that they are not. Like staring into the uncanny valley, and having something glare hatefully back.
They glow faintly with a nimbus of deep, bloody crimson. And they move in perfect unison. They carry their left forehoof higher in exactly the same way. Their wings beat in synchronicity.
The malformed wallpaper spectre hasn't pursued, seeming leashed to its wall. The spectre focuses on the nearest of the red-aura figures. "You. Will. Feel. Much. Better. After. A. Brief. Autopsy."
Simultaneously, the two figures turn their heads, one looking left, the other right. They turn to face the strangers, one towards Smolder and Ocellus. The other turns towards the melted carapace apparition floating in the burning hallway and the malformed wallpaper spectre.
Terror and confusion mix in a whirlwind. Ocellus decides to cut through it. Now is a good time to be a bugbear.
Flash.
The two drone-things spread their forelegs wide. Ocellus sees an angry red glow burn brighter in the breast of the figure facing them.
No. She cannot be seeing this. They cannot be doing what it looks like they are doing!
A beam of crimson energy lances from the creature's chest, shooting past Bugbear-Ocellus.
Smolder has just enough time to sweep her tail around, bringing up the ebony plate like a shield. The beam strikes it, destroying the plate and hitting the orange-scaled dragon, knocking her back with tremendous violence. Smolder smashes back through the onyx pillars, reducing them to rubble, and impacts the wall hard enough to break through the wood.
The dragon slams into a gothic wooden table in the next room, cracking it and sending it skidding back into a vine-tangled vanity with a triptych of mirrors. Smolder collapses to the floor with a loud groan, bathed in a faint cerulean glow.
Ocellus feels flashes of panic, horror and relief. The blows would have shattered chitin and pulverized internal organs, causing gruesome death to any changeling. They have merely left Smolder beaten and bruised.
Ocellus spins, lashing out with paws and stinger, not wanting to kill with claws, but needing to subdue the thing that just hurt her friend. Heavy fists slam into wings and chitin. The red-aura around the drone-thing evaporates, the creature suddenly going limp and falling to the floor.
Ocellus raises her fists towards the second, its back to her as it engages the poltergeist with the same ferocity that its partner attacked Smolder. Beams of angry red light bursting from its chest. Ocellus weakens as what she is seeing sinks in.
The crumpled drone-like thing beneath her bubbles and dissolves into blue smoke with a few dying embers of cerulean light. The smoke spreads out over the carpet, fading.
The molten carapace thing in the hall curls and dodges. One red beam hits it, the poltergeist turning to smoke, lingering just a moment before escaping through a wall.
Bugbear-Ocellus jabs her stinger through the drone-thing's back. Her stinger pierces through its backplate between its wings. She's done this before. Any drone should react by taking a form immune to the poison.
Instead, the drone-thing's red aura dies, the creature going limp. Then it too dissolves into blue smoke with cerulean sparkles.
Did I... did I just kill two creatures?
With a flash, Ocellus collapses to the floor, staring in absolute shock and numbness. She doesn't even feel when Smolder shakes her.
"Luna!" Smolder raps on the center vanity mirror hard enough to crack it. "Luna! We need you! Ocellus needs you!"
The dragon huffs as the mirror resolutely shows her reflection, bathed in azure light, the crack running between her large, blue eyes. A cerulean glow reflects in them.
Smolder sighs and turns from the vine-entangled mirrors, picking up the little lantern she braved the now empty, burning hallway to retrieve. She moves over to Ocellus, waving the lantern in front of her eyes, hoping to snap her friend out of her shutdown.
Ocellus begins to react, following the happily flickering blue flame with her gaze. After a minute, she focuses past the lantern and sees Smolder's worried face. She tastes smoked peppers and rubies. Not that Ocellus has ever tasted rubies before. But then, she's never tasted wet dirt or crude oil or many of the other love notes she can recognize. Like wine notes, she thinks hazily. You just know what you're tasting.
Love notes. Smolder's love. Ocellus feels the world fall reluctantly into focus. "I'm sorry for having worried you," she says.
Smolder lowers the lantern. "Don't you dare be sorry," the dragon tells her. "Just..." Smolder looks lost. She clearly has no idea what to say next. They stare at each other, concern and anxiety and shame mixing in the air. The taste of that love grows more dominant, and Ocellus is rocked back by a sudden, fierce hug.
Neither care about the pain of their bruises as Ocellus wraps her forelegs around Smolder, hugging her back.
Ocellus feels the shudders in the dragon's breast. She hears the soft hitching in Smolder's breathing as the girl fights not to cry.
"I'm okay," Ocellus says, fighting through the numbness to assure her.
"Liar," Smolder sniffs.
Slowly, they break the hug, Smolder sitting back. Ocellus looks about, finally taking in the room. Her eyes are drawn by the cerulean glow, immediately thinking of the sparks of light in the smoke of the dissolving drone-things. That I killed! she cannot keep from thinking.
"Huuh," she breathes as her gaze locks on the far wall.
More than half the room is covered in vines that have spread through a crack in the ceiling and a broken door like ivy. Black vines with dark-hued leaves bearing tiny bioluminescent fruits that glow with cerulean light. In the center of the far wall, wrapped in vines, is a grandmare clock. Both its moonsilver forks point upwards.
The clock is silent.
Ocellus stares at its moonlike face, blank of numbers, falling into a thoughtless reverie.
"Hey! Ocellus!" Smolder waves her claws in front of the nymph's face, looking panicked. She relaxes when Ocellus responds almost immediately. "Want to tell me what that was?" Her tone says you don't have to. Also but I really want you to.
"It was too much, too quickly," Ocellus tells her. And that feels honest. "Remember the dead drone I found? That thing which attacked us... our poltergeist... that was him. Or something left of him."
Smolder's eyes somehow manage to widen farther, her pupils narrowing to small slits. "Uhh... what? Are-are you s-sure?"
Ocellus nods.
"And what's with the changelings with that weird red aura?" Smolder ventures. "And the chest beams of doom?"
Ocellus stares downwards, feeling a mixture of offense and painful remorse. "Those weren't changelings." She looks up to Smolder again. "I don't know what they were, but they weren't changelings. What they did was a perversion of what a real changeling can do."
Not that they deserved to die for it! I didn't intend to kill them!
"What do you mean?" Smolder asks cautiously. Then, clearly trying to burn away some of the heaviness that has fallen, she jokes, "Are you telling me you can shoot lasers too? Somebug has been holding out on us."
Smolder's smirk tightens when Ocellus doesn't smile.
"Kinda," Ocellus admits. Smolder stares at her, shocked.
"Sharing love is what made you different to begin with! You should share yours with Chrysalis!" the Starlight calls to Thorax. Ocellus sees the pony's eyes narrow almost diabolically.
"Give her all of it!"
Thorax stops resisting. His love flows out, no longer restrained, becoming a flood. It fills the room with the taste of strawberries and oranges, with hints of fennel. Then the flood becomes a tsunami.
"When we have enough love stored... or pent up... and we release it all at once," Ocellus says sheepishly, "Well, let's just say we changelings don't need powerful unicorns or Elements to put on our own light show."
A shudder passes through her as personal horror mixes with clawing guilt. She feels her eyes burning, wanting to cry. "What those thing did? They were not changelings. That was not love."
The soft voice from the mirror tells them, "It was wrath."
Smolder jumps to her feet as Ocellus looks towards the vanity entangled by black vines. Luna's image flickers in the left mirror of the triptych. All three are black, yet they still reflect the cerulean light of the vines' berries.
"I have seen the creatures you describe through other mirrors. They seem to be spreading from the Conservatory. They engage Queen Elytra's drones whenever they encounter them."
Luna watches as Ocellus crawls closer, only standing when the nymph reaches the vanity. She looks as pained as Smolder at seeing her like this. The night alicorn's voice cracks as she asks. "Ocellus. Please tell me there is some way I can help."
"What are they?" Ocellus asks urgently, her voice rising as the tears begin to fall. "I-I killed them! Luna, I killed those creatures!"
Luna raises a hoof to the mirror. "No... don't cry, Ocellus. This sorrow, this guilt, is not yours to bear."
Of course it is! Ocellus leans forward, screaming into the mirror. "I'm the one who killed them!"
"No, no!" Luna says, trying to calm the distraught nymph. "You... yes, you did kill, but not creatures."
"Wh-what?" Ocellus pulls back. Confusion batters her. She feels a spark of hope, but dares not grasp for it.
"I believe those are essence constructs," Luna tells Ocellus with an insistent calmness. "They are alive, but they are not sentient beings. What you did is no more cruel than... chopping down a tree."
Ocellus shakes her head. No, that's not true. They were intelligent. They recognized us and attacked. Trees don't do that!
Well, most trees. There are plants in the Everfree...
Behind her, Smolder clears her throat. "I know Ocellus. Right now, she needs honest truth."
Luna pauses, looking askance. "Maybe not trees." The night alicorn looks back into Ocellus' eyes, her tone kind. "They are living creatures, but not intelligent ones. It was... more akin to killing fish." Luna thinks. "That is not a bad thing. Your friend Gallus kills and eats fish, does he not?"
Ocellus is trembling. Killing fish? Her mind tries to force spinning thoughts into a new structure. Okay, fish react to things. They attack food. Run from predators. Swim in schools. Ocellus remembers how oddly synchronized their movements were.
The taste of honeydew, jicama and tar alights Ocellus' receptors, subtle yet strong, so vibrant and pure that everything else seems to fade. Luna's love envelops her, feeding her, soothing her, giving her strength.
Her breath is shaky. Yes, Gallus kills fish. He's a hunter. Nothing wrong with that. Even Professor Fluttershy feeds fish to creatures. She wipes tears from her eyes. I can kill fish. That's... I can be okay with that.
Ocellus stares into the kind face of the night alicorn. "Th-th-thank y-you." The nymph feels Smolder gently take her shoulders in the dragon's claws.
"Essence c-c-constructs?" Ocellus says, trying to stop from quivering. The relief flooding her soul is almost as debilitating as the guilt. "Like th-the thestrals?"
"Thestrals?" Smolder asks in the tone of someone who is tired of not being told things.
"The... servants of N-Nightmare Moon," Ocellus says, getting her breathing under control. She feels wetness on her cheeks and wipes more tears from her eyes. "Kind of... prototypes of batponies."
Smolder lets out a breath. "Ah, I get it. That's why the wallpaper-things look like that."
She looks towards the grandmare clock and the intruding mass of vines. They must be very close to the Conservatory. The sealed library doors probably opened into it. "The only ones that remain are the ones Nightmare Moon left to tend the Conservatory."
"It seems Pharynx has control of the essence pool and the artifacts Nightmare Moon used to create her servants," Luna says. "The red aura suggests they are being controlled through Wrath."
"Like puppets?" Smolder asks.
The way those things moved, like schools of fish like... like a hive mind. Ocellus sees her own personal battle made horribly manifest. Drones eschew individuality. The changelings of her hive embrace it. But a true hive mind is the absolute absence of personhood!
Ocellus feels a bleak dawn break over her. "On no. Pharynx is making his own hive!"
That is so wrong.
And now Pharynx is controlling who knows how many... mimics of drones. Each connected to an infinite wellspring of rage. And the Protector of the Hive has taken no time at all finding a way to weaponize Wrath.
Smolder blinks. "Didn't he come through to save us?" Her confusion shifts to exasperation. "Those things don't have a good grasp of friend and foe."
Luna frowns. "His intentions may have been to protect a member of his hive and her friends, but under Wrath's influence, his anger towards those who threatened you has likely consumed his thoughts."
Ocellus swallows. It just keeps getting worse. It is like they are climbing the steepest pits of Tartarus, only to slide down further with every step forward.
"So he no longer cares about us getting caught in the crossfire?" Smolder gives a grumpy sigh. "I'm ready to leave the moon now."
Ocellus opens her mouth, but no sound comes out. Her mind feels jammed up. None of the things she needs to be asking come to her readily.
The flickering image of Luna gives the nymph the most comforting smile she can, still holding her hoof to the mirror. The nymph reaches up and touches her own hoof to the glass. As they did before in the Throne Room.
Smolder does not allow the silence to linger long. "What's up with the clocks?"
Ocellus draws back her hoof and turns to stare at the silent grandmare clock. "I wondered that too. I think they start ticking every time I recover an anti-Element."
Luna's eyebrows rise. She recovers, listening. "The clocks," she repeats, ignoring Smolder's stare. "Yes, I hear three of the four."
Ocellus cocks her head. "There are only four? And this would be the fourth one." Always a few rooms away from where an anti-Element is being stored. The Conservatory is surely right on the other side of that vine-invaded wall.
"I... Nightmare Moon..." Luna stops, drawing up resolve. "I. Did not trust the entities who gave me the anti-Elements. I did not believe they aided me out of friendship. Whatever their motives were, I did not wish to fall prey to their machinations."
Luna looks at the two young friends. "I created the clocks to warn me if they turned their gaze on me. No will or magic other than my own could quiet the clocks or keep me from hearing the alarm they sounded. Even if I was asleep, I would hear their warning in my dreams."
For a moment, Luna's image vanishes. The black in the mirror fades to deep shadow. But her voice continues, becoming more ghostly.
"I placed one clock near where I stored each of the stars' gifts, keeping the stones in separate arms of the palace, away from each other. Should anything attract the attention of outside, otherworldly entities, the clocks would begin to tick."
Ocellus falls back onto her tail. Luna had just confirmed her suspicions. But added a whole new level of possible horror to this insane nightmare she was living. There was a chance the stars were paying attention? Could they intervene?
"All we know for certain," Luna's ghostly voice seems to whisper, "Is that something beyond just Queen Elytra is watching." Luna's voice takes on an unmistakably remorseful tone. "But I suspect the stars are again helping evil escape the moon."
Suddenly, her metaphorical Tartarus sinks a whole lot deeper.
Luna's voice takes a bitter edge. "They've done it before."
The mirrors darken again, Luna reappearing, this time in the right mirror of the triptych. Smolder steps around Ocellus to confront the night alicorn in the mirrors.
"So that's why you've only been talking to Ocellus," Smolder says, her voice accusatory. "Don't think we didn't notice. You've gone out of your way. When we were all together, you waited until Gallus was talking to me privately before telling Ocellus about Pride."
Ocellus isn't sure what Gallus had pulled Smolder aside for -- her brief temptation with Envy and that first needle, she suspected. Or his hellish crawl through the ducts. But Luna's appearance had coincided with it. And considering what she had to do to get through the hive, Ocellus had not been surprised that Luna wanted to speak to her alone.
Luna's reaction to the accusation is a calculated non-reaction.
Ocellus looks between Smolder and the flickering image of Luna, a feeling of sadness welling up. She has to ask. "Luna, don't you trust me?"
"Of course I do," Luna says sincerely. "And if you say the clocks began ticking because you took custody of the anti-Elements, then I believe that is what drew the outside attention the clocks have sensed."
"She means," Smolder huffs, "that she isn't assuming rescuing us is what made the clocks tick anymore."
Ocellus looks between them again. "Luna, is that true?"
Luna closes her eyes. "It was not merely the timing of the clocks. I searched through every mirror I could connect to, but I only found you, Ocellus. I never saw any of them until you had found them first."
Well, considering where each of them were, Ocellus thinks, that's not a surprise.
"I admit, that made me suspicious."
"Okay, Gallus is right," Smolder relents. "This place is paranoia-inducing on an epic scale."
DOOM!
Smolder and Ocellus spin to face the wall violated by vines. The sound came from somewhere on the other side.
DOOM!
A shrieking tsunami of shattering glass mingles with the apocalyptic drumbeat.
The vines shake. Dust pours from the ceiling. The grandmare clock shudders, scooting slightly on the floor. The two friends feel the tremors beneath them.
DOOM!
The room quakes as a great rumbling thunders through the vine-desecrated wall. Great metallic screams and rending sounds, followed by a cavalcade of smaller impacts.
Smolder and Ocellus exchange silent understanding: the Nightmare just tore Its way back inside!
Smolder puts on a brave smile. "We've got this."
She gives a thumbclaw up to both Ocellus and Luna before turning and striding back to the Smolder-sized hole in the wall. "At least those doors are open now." The young dragon begins climbing through.
"Uh, there's a lot of fire out here," she says, looking over her shoulder at Ocellus. "Better turn into a dragon."
Ocellus watches Smolder forge ahead, taking in her taste, her body language.
"You're happy about this," Ocellus realizes aloud.
Smolder pauses, half through the wall, and looks back at her. "Kinda, yeah. After you got solo time with Gallus and Yona, do you think I'd be happy if our only fight together during this big adventure was with each other?"
Ocellus cannot help but return Smolder's smile just a little at that.
"I'd rather avoid fighting if we can," she says, finding more of her strength. "Doesn't all of this scare you?" she asks as she approaches the broken wall. She can feel the heat. It warms her through her chitin, banishing the cold of the palace.
Backlit by flame, Smolder rolls her eyes. "An evil artifact infected me with Greed Induced Bigness and I tried to literally horde and eat my friends," she says flatly. "This terrifies me."
Smolder pushes herself through the opening, stumbling a little on the rubble of the onyx pillars. She turns to face Ocellus, reaching out a claw to help her through.
"But we're together, so I'm happy about that. And honestly, I was pretty much a full-grown Dragon and you still kicked my ass. Together, there's nothing we can't handle!"
Ocellus opens her mouth, wanting to point out the flaws in Smolder's logic. But she stops -- at first because she doesn't want to throw a damper on the positive emotions pouring from her dorm-mate. Then, after some thought, because she isn't sure Smolder is wrong.
They are faced with not only changeling drones -- some of which are augmented in terrifying ways -- but the changeling queen, that Nightmare, and possibly even Pharynx.
In theory, just the queen alone should nullify any advantage Ocellus' shapeshifting offers them. But Queen Elytra hasn't shown anything like Ocellus' repertoire, possibly only knowing an extremely limited number of forms.
She's an opportunist who is scrambling to adjust to a rapidly changing situation that seems almost as intent on throwing the queen off her game. Just as she seemed on the cusp of victory -- creating her Nightmare and destroying the Throne Room -- Pharynx appears right in the heart of Nightmare Moon's servant manufacturing center, changing everything.
They've got each other. They have three of the four anti-Elements. And they have a plan.
Ocellus replies, "Maybe you're right."
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Haha
How many chapters are left?
It's all going up in flames. Whatever the original scheme was, I'm *fairly* certain that it's been ruined by now. Barring of course that it's been Inception all along, in which case someone needs to have their teaching credentials revoked.
Finally binged read all the chapters and I have to admit I am suspicious of “Twilight”.
What is the chances that Luna got pinned down and put into a cocoon, without having changlings on the other side of the mirror to do it and also drain Luna’s memories. Meaning even if the two others was not taken out by the monster in the beginning, wouldn’t the changlings take them out? And you are also telling me it just happen that other two escaped from the changlings, yet stayed for an hour or more (depending on how long it took Ocellus to get to the Throne room) to overhear Luna’s plan to destroy the portal, and do not let Luna know they are free? “Twilight” interrupting Luna right before she could give answers and not telling or asking Luna anything about the plan, just sending someone over?
The events outside the moon are not adding up, and I don’t think “Twilight” story can be entirely true since wouldn’t she have found Luna to talk before interrupting? It could be that Twilight is being manipulated by the changlings on the other side, however.
Also Luna = January, and Twilight = December, in the game, January wanted to prevent the infection from spreading and ask you to sacrifice yourself, December gives a way out so no sacrifice, but does not stop the infection. I fear that listening to “Twilight” will spell doom.
This story is has been great and has been rekindling my love for the game Prey. It has been a joy reading this story.
"It's the dead one!"
...Oh dear. If swarms, and fire, why not the incorporeal undead?
"her nerves jangled as if"
"her nerves jangling as if"?
"as she glances a wall."
Missing word(s)?
"She hasn't seen one here"
Er. What about that one through the armoire? Or did I misinterpret that somehow?
"Ocellus raises her fists claws towards"
Meant to be "fists" or "claws" but not both?
"Luna's eyebrows raise. She recovers"
"Luna's eyebrows rise. She recovers"?
"Should anything attract the attention of outside, otherworldly entities, the clocks would begin to tick."
Oh, good, more good news for our heroes! :D
But some more nice friendship in amongst the rest. :)
(Not that I'm not enjoying the rest too!)
10171980
She said in her blog that there’s 18 chapters, plus an prologue and an epilogue. So quite a bit more
Seems like with every chapter and every answer we get, there's a new mystery stepping up to replace it.
It's going to take forever to sort out just what the heck happened throughout all of this, once it's all over, assuming they even can sort out all of it. For all I know, some aspects may just have to remain mysteries.
But I suppose we'll see.
10171985
*regards all of the burning hallways and other active fires there are now*
Quite literally, in fact.
Whole lotta analogues just popping up now. Dahl, military Operators, even a poltergeist!
Would you sacrifice a stranger for your friend?
10172816
Don't forget that Etheric phantom (the Double Ling)
And the Apex will be here soon.
Great, they’re the Vashta Nerada now…
And now even the wallpaper is turning against Ocellus…
I actually wonder how that works. It seems to just be something that the queen can impose on whatever she designated as her Hive, but how?
I wonder if this is a new development, or if Pharynx’s arrival somehow warped the wrath-drones. Like, we’re they previously loyal, or…?
Well that answers my previous questions to some extent. Now I guess we just have to hope that none of them start talking…
Also to be blunt it’s a lot nicer to have something you can see and fight, even if it’s a horrible Nightmare creature, rather than constant existential dread.
The stars are impartial, just that nopony before Nightmare thought to beseech their assistance...
So, everything is going to hell, they still need to deal with a Wrathed up Pharynx while avoiding that monstrosity of a Nightmare, get the stones to the Dread Gazeebo, work out a plan on how to quickly have the fight of who is staying behind, how to destroy the portal, and somewhere along the way find out what is really going on because the story is being way to obvious at avoiding answering a few important questions for there to not be something else going on.
And the title, time to find out just what that ticking means?
More creepy, definitely feels connected to the story but lacking full context quote. Though, if things are going how I think they are, one that applies far more then we know right now.
What did you hide in the fireplace Luna?
"Hey Ocellus, what does 'ash nazg grimbatul' mean?"
So, what goodie did you just learn how to make?
This is why you search EVERYTHING! For all you know you walked right by a pattern for 'moonling be gone' spray. Or the pattern for those socks Luna wanted to come up here and grab in the first place.
Hey, for all you know, this thing is something that will help you accomplish the remaining goals.
Or it might be that hidden upgrade that takes The One True Broom and buffs it into the OHK game breaker we all know it secretly was if you hadn't lost it.
Poor Ocellus, buuuuuut given that NMM had to create everything in here, how many books could she recreate from memory? Is this just like, several hundred copies of her 'Why Celestia is a big fat doo-doo head" manifesto?
She has truly been swayed to the Path of the Book Horse.
Where would mold come from if everything in this place had to be created? Why/when did NMM created mold spores that would just hang around waiting to start growing?
OH! That stuff, huh.... well neat.
You know things are bad when it reaches that point.
Oh great, who just cast 'Darkness' on the hallway?
1. Damn that's creepy. 2. Oh fuck. 3.Damn this is freaking creepy.
I'm guessing that can't be good.....
That thing...... wow, okay was not expecting this and yet, I feel like I should have. So, how utterly fucked up is this thing?
Wait... was I right? Did it freaking become the darkness? Quick, someone cast magic missile!
Yeah, this isn't going to end well.
Very not well.
Extremely not well. Now is time for running, or for more burning.
Hey now, you aren't 'running away' you are 'Initiating Red Dwarf Plan Alpha.'
Okay.... nice wording there story.........
Smart move, but methinks a bit too late.
That would be way funnier if things weren't so bad at the moment.
And now things are twisting and distorting around you in ways that make things as bad as possible.... yeah, I wonder what could ever be causing that....
Oh hey, the Fireling's back.
And quick thinking, okay what's the plan?
All completely viable reasons. Though at this point, much of your reasoning is hinging on a single overriding assumption that I am finding to be more and more unlikely to be true.
Okay, I love that phrase and it just, gives this perfect image of being at once worried, but also sick and tired of this crap.
Ohhh more good imagery.
And when not threatening the character we care about, this loops back to being kind of funny.
Pffffft, can't blame her on that one.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I really wanted to find out what that thing made.
Okay story, now you are just showing off your word a day calendar skills.
Dragons are tough.
Of course Yaks tougher, Yak would not even go flying from such puny hit!
That is not a usual response so no, I'm not even sure what those things were, but I'm pretty sure you didn't 'kill' them, they winked out way too fast. See above, there is a lot going on here that you do not know, and things are just getting more and more bizarre.
But given this isn't Ocellus calling, how likely is this to work?
Emotional support lantern is best lantern.
Eh, it does work. Helps more when it's something you've smelt but not tasted, as smell and taste are linked closely enough to let the two kind of overlap in your head. So Rubies are still kind of odd.
Wait, it's already at midnight? Also, very odd that we get slightly more info on the clocks each time she sees one, all info that she should have seen the first time.
Huh? Did they like, hit Smolder with a Love Laser or something?
Ocellus, sweetie, I get that, I get why, but that's not really an option at this point, as as noted, those things were beyond weird enough that even saying they could die, or are dead, or anything about what they are or might be is making major assumptions.
So a hate laser?
Ohhhh... okay, well then.... Guess we know what happens to Changeling near that one, which means Pharynx..... ohhh boy. But still, interesting idea, those things were just so full of shear anger and rage they could use it as a weapon, nice take on what we saw in that ep and extrapolating it out to other possibilities.
Hmmmm, only when Ocellus is able to focus on it again.......
And you never mentioned this before..... why?
So yeah, they went down way to easily for them to be living beings in any regular sense of the term.
Okay, if the story starts going full Marville and have Ocellus whine about how horrible it is that bacteria and even, *gasp* molecules get absorbed by other beings, I'm out.
But I get it, she's very, very stressed, feeling terrible about herself, been trying to avoid this as hard as she could, and seems hell bent on trying to be as hard on herself as possible. But, the 'tree' thing isn't even a good way to describe it, more like killing an NPC in a game, they weren't their own entity, just a puppet construct given some rudimentary reaction ability and logic paths, but with no ability to reason beyond what the programming tells it to do. Or for a more magical comparison, they are just magical constructs, solid illusions with a few simple commands but no self awareness.
Hmmmm, interesting phrasing....and yeah, this is another line I'm definitely seeing fitting into things in a much different way.
Even that seems like a bit too much. Maybe an ant or bee?
Okay, maybe the ant or bee thing wouldn't be as good given, you know.. bug-pones... But still feels like even Fish is over stating what they are, but given I can't think of anything better that doesn't rely on game sprite logic that she wouldn't really understand, and that this worked well enough to get her through this for now.... can't really say it was a bad idea.
You mean Best Ponies!
Okay, better way to get her over it, these aren't beings, just extensions of some greater being will.
With warriors and proper defenses to keep out spies and intruders!
Though, given past history, any of those questions that would actually help will find some convenient way to keep Luna from answering.
Huh, a good one that might actually be allowed. Going by the chapter title at any rate. Yay meta-knowledge!
And it only comes up when it's brought to your attention... hmmmmm.
Smart move, very smart. So, what sort of fail safe did you put in place?
Wait, that's all they are? An alarm system? But, why do they only activate when Ocellus grabs them, not when someone else takes them and starts using them?
Huh? So.... what? That doesn't really answer the above question Luna. So the clocks just start ticking if they sense.. something? Why clocks if they aren't tied to time? Why not something simpler? This seems both needlessly complicated, and way too simple at the same time.
Okay then, so some other big, final Big Bad......
Given you saw the Hive, and that Smolder was kind of hard to miss...... Huh, it's almost like nothing around here matters other then when directly tied to Ocellus. Also as noted, the clocks don't tick when she finds one of them, or when one of them is nearby, as she was in the same room as a clock and Yona, and it wasn't till Ocellus had the stone that it ticked. So another thing that sounds just reasonable enough that it could work, until you really start picking it apart.
And just as things were starting to lead to potential answers that might lead to certain conclusions, time to make them start running again. Yup, that's not suspicious at all.
Smolder may like tea parties and being 'girly' but she's also the biggest adrenaline junkie in your group.
Awesome.
I'm still all for go full Godzilla Threshold has been breached and give Smolder and Yona back those Totems to sic them on the Nightmare.
Do they have the assumption that the plan will crash and burn and they'll just have to improvise?
So yeah, more cryptic hints and just outright creepy shit going on, all of which continue to feel like there is something major we are not being told that would make this all make more sense.
Okay, this Nightmare is even freakier than the one in the game. Some serious body horror there. I wasn't sure how the Nightmare would make its appearance. I though Elytra might use Luna's knowledge of dream magic to literally make something from Ocellus' dreams, but this is somehow even worse than that. Really makes me wonder what Elytra did to create it.
First "Twilight" tries to "rescue" them, then the Nightmare appears, the dead drone turns into a poltergeist, and now Pharynx is building his own hive of wrathful changeling specters. I'd say things went from 0-100 if their situation wasn't already bad. And with the knowledge of what those clocks are doing, it's probably only a matter of time until something akin to the Apex appears. With how reluctant Luna has been to divulge details, it was a little odd that she barely disappeared from the mirror at all while Smolder and Ocellus were talking to her even though it wasn't a huge mirror like in the Throne Room. Maybe something changed with her?
I guess I was mostly right about what the equivalent of an etheric phantom would be, but these... beings are like one of those mixed with a military operator and several times deadlier for it. I can see why Pharynx is the protector of the hive if he's done this much so quickly.
Poor girl is going to need a lot of help of she gets out of here alright. Even though they weren't sapient beings, I can see how she's reacting this way. The act of inflicting lethal harm to something that resembled a sapient creature can't be easy at all for her, especially how reluctant she is do harm at all. With the exception of the drone she stung to get it to transform into an object, it's typically one of the others getting into serious fights with the changelings. Ocellus usually tries to incapacitate and disable rather than hurt.
Ok this is going to be an epic battle of those kids against the nightmare Queen Elytra and the Corruption Pharynx boy this is a pretty tough situation Find the ways the had more help
Re: Fireplace. At first encounter with the fireplace, I originally thought they'd come up with the idea of climbing up and out the chimney to reach a different area. But then I got to thinking, the blue flames in the palace don't really produce smoke do they, could the chimneys be decorative and non-functional? Once they started burning the books in the fireplace though, I guess that smoke has to go somewhere... But where?
Seems it will remain a mystery though.
---
Semi-random thought. Thinking about how the nightmare came out of the mirror, and the way the nightmare appears, and the way the dead changeling was manipulated. I kind of wonder if it makes sense for the changelings to be Nightmare Moon's nightmare in the first place. They're like the personification of Luna's early experience with other ponies, who scorn her and feel no love for her. From her perspective, seemingly devoid of warmth and affection.
---
Also, I wonder about the ventilation in Nightmare Moon's palace, because there's still four ponies worth of nightmare smoke floating around the wing they're currently trapped inside of. And I can't help but wonder if that's part of the problems they're facing.
---
Red aura = wrath maybe? These changelings seem like projections of changelings rather than real changelings, but I guess who can tell what is real and what is fake anymore in this crazy palace of nightmares?
---
Surprise twist: Ocellus's friends *are* creatures from beyond the stars. Hey, if Discord can get a redemption arc, anything is possible.
---
Congratulations Ocellus, you've officially been granted Real Action Hero status. Rainbow Dash would be cheering for you.
Also, regarding Elytra's lack of different forms. If someone's exemplifying the element of pride, maybe they think their own form is the best one? Why change to something lesser?