The Adventures of Shadow Chaser: The Shimmer in the Desert

by RangerBeef

Chapter 8

(Shadow)

I awoke to the smell of smoke. More literally I coughed myself awake. I could see a thin haze of smoke curling inside the panic room as I rose from my bed.

"Twilight, I've got a problem."

"What is it?"

"I think they set the house on fire."

"You think?"

"Well, there's smoke and the door," I touched it gently before recoiling my hoof. "The door is really hot. Is there an exit in here?"

"Hold on. Let me look."

I waited patiently for Twilight to get back to me as I stuffed a rolled up blanket into the crevice where the smoke was leaking in, but I noticed the room getting significantly hotter.

"Well, this would not be a good death," I said to myself, looking around the tiny room for any inclination of a hidden button or anything else I had ever read in cheap spy novels.

"Shadow, I can't find anything. I don't think there's another way out of there. Are you sure the house is on fire?"

I watched as the blanket I had stuffed into the door started smoking before catching fire itself. I stomped it out quickly.

"Pretty sure, Twilight. Don't suppose you know any quickie spells for not catching on fire, do you?" I didn't receive a response and I'm sure she did not appreciate a joke at a time like this.

I coughed a few times as I felt myself beginning to sweat. Lowering myself to the floor to remain under the invading smoke I took a few deep breaths of cleaner air.

"Find anything, Twilight?"

"I'm looking! I'm looking!" Her voice was getting panicked now.

"Alright, calm down. Deep breaths. Did Luna mention anything about a layout for this house?" I spoke evenly, trying my best to not sound nervous. Though the thought of impending death was making that a bit difficult.

"I've got a blueprint of the house right here but according to this, that room you're in doesn't even exist!" I could tell she was trying to stay calm but her voice was shaking. She was afraid of losing me.

"Okay. Let's think then. How do you get out of a room that doesn't exist?" I coughed before I removed my hoof from my throat, certain she had it.

"Oh sweet Celestia, I was always terrible at riddles."

"Well, that's not reassuring." I made sure to keep that comment to myself, rather than upset her further and kept thinking about the riddle I'd laid in front of myself.

I could see flames licking at the bottom of the door and I could feel a small panic begin to set in. I really was going to die in this place. Far from home. On my very first mission.

I closed my eyes and shut out the world around me. Partly from not wanting to face my impending death and partly because I couldn't concentrate while staring at the fire.

"How do you get out of a room that doesn't exist?" The voice belonged to my father. He had asked me this once before. He was always telling me riddles to keep my mind thinking outside the box. He always said it could save my life some day.

"I don't know, Dad. How do you get out of a room that doesn't exist?"

"You take the stairs."

My eyes shot open as I realized the answer to my riddle. I sprang to my hooves and turned to the bed I'd been sleeping on. I heaved it up against the door that was now beginning to pour smoke and stared at the trap door that had been revealed.

"Good thing dad loved bad riddles."

I flung open the trap door and moved down the stairwell closing the door behind me.

I pressed my neck gently as I moved though the dimly lit tunnel.

"Twilight, I'm okay. But I'm in some sort of tunnel."

My ear was silent.

"Twilight? Can you hear me? I say again, I'm alright."

My ear remained silent.

"Pfft.. Magic."

I moved through the tunnels, not quite sure if this would lead to another trap but unable to return the way I had come.

After wandering for what felt like an hour I spotted a light coming from above me. The grating reminded me of what you normally see on sewer pipes.

"Huh. Guess I'm in the sewer. Now how do I get out of..." My voice trailed off as I spotted a familiar colt up ahead of me in the tunnel. He had seen me as well.

I squinted in the dim light, trying to place where I'd seen him before. Finally, it clicked.

"I remember you!" My statement rang rather loud in the sewer and the colt took it as the indicator to run as he turned tail and scurried off into the darkness.

"Hey, wait!" I pursued him as best I could, only ever catching glances of him as he rounded corners. If this continued much longer I would lose him.

As I rounded the last corner I had seen him pass I stopped short, he was standing with his back to a rusted gate. Clearly, he had made a wrong turn.

"I don't have your money!" His voice echoed through the tunnels.

"That's fine. I don't want it."

He swallowed hard. "Then what do you want?"

"Directions." I smiled simply as his head cocked to the side in clear confusion. "Look, I get that you have to do what you have to do to get by on the street but do you want to make that other 5 bits I owe you?"

He eyed me suspiciously, like he'd heard this before but he nodded slowly.

"Great. I need to get to the old prison. Can I do that from down here?"

"Yea, but it's not worth risking my neck for five bits. Make it fifty."

"Ten."

"Forty."

"Fifteen."

"Twenty."

"Fine but I'm keeping it all until we get there. Now where are we headed?"

"This way." He pushed past me and head down the tunnels at a brisk pace. I stayed on his heels and tried calling Twilight a few more time but to no avail.

"Do you have to talk so loud? They'll hear us from a mile out. Who're you talking to anyway?"

"Just a friend. Who's going to hear us?"

"The guards at the old prison, duh."

"If they don't use it anymore, why do they still guard it?"

"They still use it. Just not for prisoners. Couple years ago they started fixing it up out of the blue. I figured they were gonna try to reopen it but they never fixed anything inside. They just started clearing it out. All the bars and stuff. I mean, how're you gonna have a jail with no bars?

"I made it inside one day. They had a big crane set up right in the middle of the place and this green goop bubbling in these big drums. It smelled really nasty. They caught me pretty quick and kicked me out. That silver lady sure was mean about it too."

"Silver lady?"

"Yea, this silver mare caught me and roughed me up pretty good. She asked me a bunch of questions about how I got in before she had some guards escort me out and now anytime I get close they yell at me. Not like I'm going there anyway but they get super nervous. I don't have the heart to tell 'em I know the back way that prisoners used to escape." He laughed as he led on.

"So we're going in the way prisoners used to escape?"

"Yep! Pretty genius, huh?"

I rolled my eyes. This had bad idea written all over it. "Tell me about the silver mare. Did you see her cutie mark?"

"Yea, it was some kind of bug. Looking like a dragonfly mixed with a butterfly. But I think she was faking it."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, some of the super rich ponies can afford this spell that changes their cutie mark for a while. It's crazy expensive and doesn't last forever but ponies still do it."

"How did you know she was faking it?"

"Because halfway through her little interrogation of me I could see it start to fade a little. I think that's why she told the guards to throw me out. She didn't want anyone to know."

I mulled all this over in my head. "Interesting."

"Interesting? I think it's just plain weird. I'd rather spend that kind of money on food."
I chuckled and we continued the rest of our journey in silence at my guide's request. The tunnels criss-crossed a few times and I'm sure I would've been quite lost without this colt. When finally we stopped I could see two guards from our position but it seemed they couldn't see us.

The colt turned to me and whispered, "Stay right on my heels and stay low. We're moving to a pipe right next to that light."

He pointed a little farther ahead of us and I nodded my understanding.

I ducked as low as I could and crept slowly behind my counterpart. As he reached the pipe I watched him lean away from the light and slip inside. I followed his lead, and my dark coat and mane helped in my avoiding detection.

He was a little father up the pipe and had stopped to wait for me.

"This is as far as I go. I'm not risking my neck by going back in there," he whispered.

I nodded and threw my coin pouch at him. "Go buy yourself a big dinner."

He smiled wide and pointed up the pipe ahead of me. "There's a room farther up with a bed in it. Sometimes the guards use it for naps. In that room is a ladder that leads into the ventilation system for the prison. Be careful in there. It's old and could break easy, but it wraps all the way around the prison. You can get to any room from there."

I nodded. "Thanks. Now get outta here before I get you in trouble."

He smiled and left from the direction we had come, not worried about the light this time.

"What're you doing down there!?" I heard a guard shout.

"Just taking a nap. Chill out." The colt moved back down the tunnels and off into the darkness.

I turned up the pipe and walked as quickly and quietly as I could. After a short distance, I found the room with the bed and looked around for the ladder.

The room was actually quite a bit bigger than the colt had let on. There was plenty of space to get lost and a lot of piping to get in the way.

I looked down several rows of pipes trying to decide which to search first when I heard a noise from behind me and I jumped into the shadows.

"Punk kid, coming in here like he owns the freakin' place. Gonna set him straight on of these days." The guard stopped just short of the bed and I saw him remove a small earbud from his ear before flopping down with his back to me.

Please tell me he's really that dumb.

I waited about ten minute to give the guard time to drift off before I slinked my way over to the bed and, quiet as a mouse, levitated the earbud off the table and toward myself.

Unfortunately, the guard was not quite asleep yet and he rolled over to face me in the middle of my magic trick to deprive him of communication with his friends.

"Hey, what the..?"

I pounced up and landed a solid blow to his nose. This time he fell unconsciousness immediately.

"Gotta move fast," I muttered to myself as I placed the earbud in my ear and moved down the first set of pipes, finding the ladder at the far end.

I climbed slowly. The ladder was old and rusty and I didn't place much confidence in its ability to hold me, but I made it to the top without incident.

I wondered for a moment how long the guard would be out as I ducked into the vent and began crawling my way through.

I stopped at the first big vertical crossroad and cast my wall walking spell, knowing full well how valuable it was to me in here as I began to climb.

Without Twilight in my ear to tell me where to go, I had to guess. I took a few blind turns but when I spotted the large central room the colt had talked about I started making educated guesses. I wound my way down to a low point just off the main room just above a hallway and began to plan how I would drop down when a familiar voice rose from below me.

"Listen, we've got to pick up the pace. The princesses are onto us and if we don't put a rush on this then we'll never have a chance at power." I squinted through the grating of the vent to recognize Shimmer standing with a large, and rather fat, stallion.

"I understand but this process is delicate and cannot be rushed. Each wheel must be soaked for an exact amount of time. Any more and the gas releases on its own. Any less and it never releases at all."

"But if the princesses figure us out.."

"They will not. The first agent they sent disappeared rather quickly, didn't she? And you were successful in intercepting the second. My men assure me that he's been dealt with. The princesses will not mobilize troops unless there is overwhelming evidence to support the decision. You must concern yourself with making sure no one has a chance to spy on our operation. Understood?"

"Understood."

The stallion strode off confidently, leaving Shimmer looking angry. She muttered something to herself and turned to look at her cutie mark.

"At least that's finally changing back." She put a hoof to her ear, "All teams report in. Anyone having any trouble?"
She spoke from below me but I heard her clearly in my ear. The earbud was working and I was staring at the head of security for this entire operation. I heard a couple reports answer back and waited, hoping the guards in the sewer just checked in with an all clear.

"Clear in the sewer. Pete's checking out the steam room." I breathed a sigh of relief.

"How many times have I told you colts? I cracked that stupid code. Go wake him up and tell him to get back to his post." Shimmer's voice sounded equally angry from below and in my ear. She grumbled again as she moved off below me.

I knew I didn't have long before the guard called back in with unfortunate news. I shifted uncomfortably in the vent and pulled the grating free with a little effort, dropping down to the floor below. I was aware I had made a little noise and moved in a direction opposite of Shimmer just in case she decided to come back. I stepped into the shadows and watched for anyone that happened along.

After a few moments I relaxed and turned to move down the hall when I was caught under the chin by a hard punch that knocked me to the ground. Shimmer stood over me.

"Ya know, you make an awful lot of noise for a super spy. Don't worry. When I get through with you, you won't be making any noise at all." With that, she swiftly kicked me in the face and all I saw was stars and blackness.

Comments

[debio]

There seems to be a cliff. I seem to be hanging from it.
This is unfortunate.

[RangerBeef]

1422476 i.imgur.com/SIBnx.jpg