Chapter 9: Spessartite
Bit stepped into the royal bedroom, and found it occupied. But there was no pony reclining in bed, as she had so often seen her Wizard as the years wore on. Instead she found a pair of automatons near the door, their bodies making strange clicking and whirring sounds as they moved. They twitched in her direction, apparently regarding her, but she could see no visual signs.
No eyes blinked, and they lacked speech.
They were visibly damaged, and not just a consequence of a long time without maintenance. One had only three limbs, and leaked strange fluid whenever it moved. The other had numerous cracks along its length, with bullets embedded in the crystal.
"Oh buck," Pathfinder muttered, freezing in his tracks. "There really were death machines in here. We're dead."
She nudged him with one leg, blocking his retreat. "We are not dead, Pathfinder. We discussed the misuse of that word already. I cannot die, and you will not. Stay with me, do not act violently. They will not harm you."
She stepped into the room, directly into view of the two machines. Both tilted slightly, as though examining her. But without eyes or organs, she couldn't guess at how they felt. They were far harder to read than ponies.
But she felt an instant kinship for these machines, as she hadn't for any of the ponies she'd yet met. Where the palace was abandoned over so long that Pathfinder thought the prince was dead, the machines had remained at their post. Even through injury, they kept serving. A lot like her.
"I'm here to see the prince," she told them. They could respond to orders, after all, as they could hear just fine. But she'd never had any reason to give them. They worked exclusively as military machines, without any purpose in study or peace. But is that just because they only know how to fight? Or is it because ponies expect them to only perform their function?
The automatons pivoted as she walked into the room, facing her. They did not attack, even when Pathfinder hurried after her. They're watching me more than the pony. That's a first.
The Wizard had to be here. She’d searched the rest of the world, eliminated every other possible retreat. But she didn't see a pony—not in the bed that had been torn and shot with many holes. There weren't even broken bits of crystal armor here. Nothing at all.
"He's not... here." She slumped to the floor, crushed by boundless hopelessness. Her purpose unfulfilled. Despite all her dedication, Crimson himself was gone.
"I told you," Pathfinder said, patting her shoulder with one hoof. It was gentle enough that she could barely feel it, and didn't seem to serve any practical purpose. She found the contact reassuring all the same. She was alone in her charge, but at least she wasn't completely alone in the world. There were others to witness her despair.
"I worked for so long," Bit said. "I cleaned his tower. I kept it ready for his return. I turned the power back on, I organized his work. I did everything perfectly, but still I'm a disappointment to him."
Pathfinder touched her again, this time with a whole leg. There was a name for the gesture, though it escaped her. Only the wizard had ever done it to her, and only once. Her confused reaction to his only attempt had upset him, for some reason.
"It's a hug, Bit," he said.
"But what purpose does it serve?" She stared back at him, eyes ever inquisitive. It was the only sensation she knew back then. Her world was almost entirely holes, which only the one she trusted could fill. "I am not broken. I do not require adjustment at this time."
"Physical proximity creates emotional proximity," Crimson said. "It is my way of showing you that I am supportive of your efforts. It conveys my hopes for what you will eventually achieve."
"You have just conveyed that message with words," she said. "More effectively than physical gestures. I believe words are a preferable means of communication."
"As you wish," Crimson said, stiffening. He backed away a few steps, looking distant. "That's probably for the best, anyhow. I just hope you won't regret your decision one day."
"What is regret, Master?"
But Pathfinder wasn't saying any of those things. He stared into her face, fearful. "Can you see something I can't, Bit? I don't see anything moving in here except for the flashing lights on that glass. The death machines haven't moved, like you said. I guess you did understand them."
"Flashing lights?" She spun, and found what he was suggesting. Most of the room's screens were shattered, but one near the wardrobe remained. Maybe it had been off when ponies visited to break everything. It flashed with a steady orange light, indicating a desired interaction.
Bit stopped just before it. The button text indicated a file had been loaded to the library, and awaited playback. She pressed it.
It was the same room they were in, transformed. Clothing was scattered everywhere, most of it entirely unsuited to the prince. There were dresses and skirts and other things. Soon she saw their owner: an earth pony, who examined several options before selecting a jacket and coat similar to what the wizard often wore.
"You flatter me with so many gifts, sweetheart," she said, in Bit's voice. "You must know research is the only joy I need."
Crimson appeared behind her, near the far doorway. He levitated a pad of paper in the air behind him, a scroll covered in unreadable notes. Bit couldn't make them out, even from such a high-quality recording.
Pathfinder looked between the screen and Bit herself. "I've seen an image engine like this in Union Hall. There are recordings of the revolution there."
She nodded absently, raising a hoof to silence him. Of course she had no magic of her own. She had to hear what they said.
"The invasion is only months away, Flower," the young wizard said. "Our work can wait a little while, can't it? We deserve our own lives as much as Zircon deserves our service."
The earth pony with Bit's voice turned away from the camera, bounding across the room to stare up at her prince. Bit couldn't see her face, but found her lips moving along to the words anyway. "If we complete our work, we won't need to invade Equestria. All the north will be ours, and it won't matter whether or not the princess of the sun gives us summer or not."
"That's the prince," Pathfinder said, squinting at the screen. "I've seen his face. Not so young, but... that's him. How can you be there?" He glanced between the image and Bit several times. "She's so much like you. But not a unicorn, or made from crystal. What are you, Bit?"
"We'll make it work," Crimson said. "I know we're close. But obsessing over it every moment of our lives isn't going to achieve it. You know there are other things my father expects from us. Maybe he wouldn't be so disagreeable if we gave him what he wants."
"An heir, you mean," Moss Flower said. "You can't fool me, prince. I know you had other motivations. He will have his heir. But if we succeed, time itself is meaningless. We can take as long as the task requires."
The screen went dark, returning to the computer's general interface. Bit's own face was reflected in that screen, mirroring the display in increasingly distorted ways. "She sounds like you," Pathfinder continued. "Alive all those years ago, somehow."
"I already told you what I am," she said. "I'm the first of my kind. My creator planned for every pony in Zircon to be like me eventually. Never hungry, never cold, never tired."
"He did," Pathfinder repeated, touching up against the screen with a hoof, where pony faces had been moments before. "So did you, it looks like. But only one of you achieved it. You're still here, still young, and he's dead. Is that why you're so lost?"
"He's not dead!" Bit yelled. She wasn't sure where the energy came from—it was easily the loudest she had ever been. "The Wizard is the master of many magics! He was allcrafted, brilliant, and perfect. He's just waiting for me to overcome my failures!"
Pathfinder retreated from her, eyes widening with shock and fear. Curiously, the automatons reacted as well, moving towards her. That made him retreat still further, dodging past them and stopping in the exit. He looked back the way he came.
"I don't think you're the one who needs to overcome anything, Bit," he said. "You saved hundreds of ponies all on your own, because you thought it would bring your master back. Why do you insist on depending on him? We all lose ponies, eventually. You can't stop that, and you certainly shouldn't blame yourself for it."
But she did blame herself—for everything. The automatons stopped on either side of her, then spun around, metallic claws scraping against crystal as they faced Pathfinder again. She'd seen that stance before—it was the way the royal guard acted when they were protecting the prince.
"I'm not him!" she yelled, turning on them too. "You waited here, just like I waited in the tower. But he's not here! I don't know where he is!"
They twitched, cracked bodies rotating slightly towards her. But she could only guess what they meant. They didn't attack her, or Pathfinder. They only watched.
"I'll find out for you," Pathfinder said. "I told you, there are elders—the oldest ponies in Zircon had parents alive during the revolution. Somepony will be able to tell me what happened to the old prince. The one who lived in your tower, right?"
She nodded. It was the only desperate hope left in her whole world. Feeble indeed, given the state of his quarters here, destroyed. The ponies of the revolution didn't even know that she wasn't the Wizard. How could they possibly know where the real one had gone?
"Is it safe to leave the way I went in?" he asked. "Or do I need you to go with me?"
She wanted to send him away. This pony hadn't just brought strangers to live in the part of the city she warmed—he said things she didn't want to hear, brought pain with him in every step.
He came with me. He tried to watch after me the way the Wizard did. She couldn't abandon him to his fate.
"I don't know if there are other automatons in the palace. Just because none found us on the way up doesn't mean others won't on the return trip. I'll take you out."
She led him back the way they came, in a persistent, awkward silence broken only by the metal scraping of sharpened legs against crystal floors. The “death machines” followed Bit with mechanical determination, as though they'd been waiting for her as much as the Wizard.
Maybe they figured out they needed to adapt, otherwise they would have no purpose. Their old master is gone, so they found the closest thing they could. She could tell them to leave, force them to take up some other task—and by the time they finished, she would be gone.
But she couldn't do that to another machine, not after what Crimson had done to her. She let them come, even if they had to slow the trip down the stairs to adapt to their broken bodies.
Nor were they the only slow ones on the passage out. Pathfinder hesitated on a landing, the first moment of weakness Bit had ever seen from him. His expression changed from fear to pain, and he dropped to one leg, looking over at her. "I... don't feel so good."
Then he flopped sideways, and started to puke.
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Because of course Bit's radioactive.
An aerial pathogen still active? Or did Pathfinder fail a CON roll?
10650867
The it is probably the plaice that is radioactive not bit.
Oh, Bit. Letting go will be hard. The hardest thing she's ever done. I'm not sure if she'll ever be able to. But she'll have to in order to grow beyond Crimson. The irony is that that's what he'd want for her. To fulfill the Wizard's greatest wish for her, Bit needs to stop caring about his wishes.
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Well, if she wasn't radioactive before the hot zone...
And now Bit has to run against time to save Pathfinder from radiation poisoning. Let's hope she can do it, having the death of her first friend on her hooves this early is gonna wreck havoc on her development
This is a good story, and the bots will likely see her as a leader. Hopefully she will repair them.
As to the cause of his illness, I first thought of radiation. Most hard, ionizing radiation would have shorter half lives than the time that has passed. The sites of the detonations in Japan have cities on them now. Also, most people don't keep hard ionizing radiation sources in residential areas.
I would believe the power plant as a radiation source. It's possible our champion was in a radioactive environment for what was likely a long time and is poisioning ponies by proximity while she is immune to the effects.
Also, as a possible alternate concern it's likely chemical exposure to riot suppression agents that have likely at least partially broken down but were disturbed into the air by the intruders. Hopefully not chemical or biological warfare agents like anthrax that would be deadly for centuries.
Radiation, the silent killer.
Aa different reason could be the leaking bots what ever fuels them could be deadly to pones
awesome chapter. i really enjoying reading it. i also think i have a slight idea what happen. i am courios to find out ^^
well if she was not THE WIZARD before she is now she turns the lights on, the heat saved so many she lives in the wizard tower and now even the killing machine obey her commands
It’s a really good story, but very sad. A robot waiting decades, possibly even centuries for her master to return, only to find that he’s dead, and she can’t come to terms with it. If the ponies hadn’t found her, she likely would have kept going, trying endlessly to bring the Wizard back.
I can’t wait for the next chapter.
Bit reminds me of a game series called The Fall where you play as this AI suit that is trying to get her operator to safety, but she has to keep breaking her core operating rulers to do so.
Spoilers for the end of the first game: She suffers a mental break and realises she has no more rules to follow when at the end of the game she finds out that she doesn't actually have an operator inside her and that everything she did to get there and all of the rules she broke, was for nothing.
One of the major themes is about breaking out of your programming.
In particular, the second game in the series The Fall 2: Unbound has a section with a butler robot that is continuously going through it's daily routine of serving a family even through that family has been dead and rotting for an unknown length of time, but the butler's programming is incapable of recognising that fact so it just keeps working it's routine.
Ouch! Well time to be a hero Bit and save Pathfinder.
please save Pathfinder. He's a good pony...
Grief will certainly be much harder on Bit than the usual pony. Though the emotions certainly prove how she is much more than a simple automaton. And now we'll have to see how she'll respond to Pathfinder's apparent radiation sickness. We might be seeing the birth of the second crystal pony.
Did you hear that? S tiny crack, barely audible...
Hate to say it, but Pathfinder dying might be the jolt she needs. She doesn't seem to understand death. She understands the concept, but she has never seen it. It is almost as if she has heard of it but doesn't believe in it. Seeing a death might better allow her to understand the Wizard is dead.
Well of course, the robots think Bit is Flower (or whoever Crimson’s “special somepony” was). They likely identify by visual description, and Bit would be about a 90% match.
Bit needs Pathfinder. Whether she wants him or not. She’s alone. She seeks someone who is likely dead, and she is so deep in denial it’ll take a miracle for her to surface and not drown. Pathfinder is the only one that is currently able to show her care. No one else approached. He did. If he dies, I don’t think Bit will survive.
So this conundrum, his sudden weakness, nausea... I doubt it’s radiation. There’s no indication that radiation is in - or has ever been in - Zircon. It’s likely a reaction to something else. Perhaps the fuel one of the robots is leaking? Fuel is never healthy to inhale for long periods of time. It could also be unrelated to the tower, perhaps something he ate? Living conditions aren’t great out there, it could simply be that he has become ill, and it’s just a bug.
In either case, Bit needs to care for him, lest she fall.
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Pathfinder is currently Bit’s only aid. While it would help Bit to see death, she’s in denial, she would deny it and move on, and she would remain, and eventually break. Or, she would accept it, and break then and there.
She needs Pathfinder.
Two more robots will probably be helpful, but I hope we aren't about to lose Pathfinder in exchange.
10650935
Either that or the Walt Disney special, a gas leak.
10655313
There was a quick mention that the palace had a nuclear power backup, and after two centuries without maintenance...yeah a leak seems likely. Probably the only thing saving Pathfinder this long was any such generator is probably in a deep sub-basement, with a lot of crystal between them and it.
10655470
Imagine if the Palace of Versailles had a nuclear meltdown.
10650867
I think the automation leaking a strange fluid is a more likely culprit than Bit.
Oh? Her original is an earth pony? And, I'm assuming, Prince Crimson's lover.
Strange that he remade her as a unicorn then. Unless that's part of the system to draw power from the big crystal.
Ahh. So that's what the whole conflict was about.
Oh, shut up. She already told you exactly what she was, when the other pony asked if she was a spirit. You just didn't listen
Heh. You have no idea
Welp. If they're going to follow her outside the palace, that's gonna make an impression
The nerve gas, or plain old radioactivity? She did mention a nuclear generator, and the revolutionaries did tend to smash up everything
Perhaps Crimson didn't want to get too attached to the pony he once loved. I have been catching onto some hints that that could be the case...
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His greatest wish remains the same as hers, to grant immortality to the people.
"we won't need to invade Equestria. "
Did they know they were the invaders?
Seems the automatons themselves have nearly gone mad being deprived of their purpose. She's likely the first 'authority figure' they've seen all this time.
Then he flopped sideways, and started to puke.
Radiation poisoning?
Looks like you better figure out the kinks in your master's process fast unless you want to wave him 'bye-bye' to the great beyond.
If souls do in fact exist, then therefore, she's bound herself to this plane of existence, rather than the next one.