The Crystal Caves of Confuzzlation (Iota Force Issue #6)

by The Iguana Man

Chapter One: New City, New Problems

“...and just through here is the balcony overlooking the palace gardens.”

Icy was near the back of the group touring the palace, though she could still just about see their guide through the massive throng of young bodies. Still, the door that apparently led to the balcony was only so big, so the group was filtering through it very slowly.

It was the second day of their trip, not counting the day they'd arrived. The first day had been taken up almost entirely by a quick trip around the city. Quick, that was, in terms of their movement, not in terms of how long the trip took. Surprisingly enough, a city that was referred to as an empire was kind of big, so the tour had been somewhat cursory, rarely lingering long in any one place. They had been assured that there would be plenty more chances to go to any of the places that interested them, but it seemed the purpose of the tour was more to familiarize the children with the city as a whole than anything else. This was helped by the class splitting into smaller groups with a chaperone each, allowing the adults leading them around to interact more personally with their charges and answer any questions as best they could.

Today, however, they were having a more focused tour around the Crystal Palace. This was the only other event on the tour that was mandatory for the entire class, not that anyone minded. As such, both they and the class from Manehattan were taking the tour and, as the palace hadn't expected such an influx of onlookers and had only one tour guide, they were all taking it together. This, naturally, lead to some very crowded hallways, but at least made it very hard for anyone to lose the group.

Eventually, Icy was able to get through the doors. Fortunately, the balcony was more than large enough to house the massive crowd, even as they lined up along the edge to look over the gardens.

“Now, unfortunately, we won't be able to go down to the gardens ourselves today, as they are... not exactly equipped to handle such a large and... vigorous group,” the tour guide explained, the volume of her voice doing reasonably well at disguising the worried tone in it. “However, in the coming week, smaller groups will be able to have a look around and, failing that, this balcony has an excellent view of the entire area. In fact, our Prince and Princess themselves often come here to enjoy the vista. I'll give you a few minutes to take pictures.”

Before she had even finished, the group erupted into noise, a combination of the shutters of those with cameras and the calls of those who didn't, asking to borrow them – that is, sometimes to borrow the cameras and sometimes to borrow the ponies as well.

Icy remembered when Featherweight had offered to take pictures for anyone who wanted him to. At the time, she had thought he'd signed his own death warrant, being willing to do that for the entire class, and that he should have been thankful the Manehattan class wasn't there at the time. However, looking at his flitting around from pony to pony, snapping pictures from all sorts of angles, he seemed to be having the time of his life.

Of course, it was helped by the fact that the gardens were indeed breathtaking. Icy strolled up to the balcony's railing and looked over them, her eyes tracing along the paths running through them, her mind mostly in awe at the beautiful arrangements of greenery and flowers. Only a small part of her was imagining the massive hoard of children trying and failing to contain themselves along the thin pathways without spilling out and trampling the carefully crafted display. Still, it was enough for her to giggle quietly.

Around her, it seemed everyone else was similarly impressed.

“Whoa, look at that spiralling... thing!”

“Are those moonflowers? They gotta be... how'd they get them to grow like that?”

“Hey, under that bush... wonder what that panel's for...”

“Wow, love that topiary. Like, I gotta get Randolph to cut me some stuff like that when we get back.”

So impressed was Icy that even Diamond Tiara's voice raising slightly to flaunt her wealth didn't impact her mood significantly. She hadn't brought a camera with her – she herself had a fairly good visual memory and her mother didn't care much for photos of other places, preferring to just go there herself. However, the sight of the gardens almost made her regret that decision. Although, it wasn't so much an urge to just take a picture that she was feeling, but...

She looked over to the tour guide, who was over by the doors, sitting in a chair and looking fairly exhausted. That's good, thought Icy before shaking her head of the thought, well, it's not good for her, so maybe it's not good exactly, but it's kind of good for me since it means I've got plenty of time for this.

She turned her head as she opened her saddlebags with a wing. She riffled through the various comics she had in there until she came to a small pad of paper. Pulling it out, she walked over to a nearby table and sat down, pulling a pencil out of the bag's flap. Looking out once again over the gardens, she began to draw.

She knew she wasn't exactly great at it and she would hardly call drawing her primary hobby – it certainly wasn't her special talent, that was for certain – but she did enjoy it and occasionally felt the itch to just get something down on paper. And the sight of the royal gardens was certainly enough to make her itch.

Well, okay, she doubted it would literally make her itch, since the kinds of plants that did that weren't the kind you usually found in a decorative garden and probably weren't safe to have around a lot of ponies anyway. That said, it might be interesting to have a small section with various dangerous and deadly plants behind glass for those who were interested in that kind of thing. Could be a whole different attraction for visitors. You would just have to be careful that you only included plants that were dangerous because a pony might touch or eat them. In Equestria, you didn't just have to worry about biting into the wrong plant, but also the plants that bit back.

“Oh, I didn't know you drew, Icy.”

Icy blinked as her state of focus was broken by the gentle voice of Dinky Doo. She looked up to see the tiny filly looking up at her, smiling in cheerful curiosity. After a moment, she climbed up onto a chair and looked at Icy's paper.

Icy blushed, but didn't move to cover the paper – she had an impulse to, but she knew that Dinky wouldn't judge her or laugh at her, so it wasn't especially strong. Still, she rubbed the back of her head sheepishly.

“I mean, it's not that great, I know, I just like doing it, even though I...”

“Oh, I don't think it's too bad,” Dinky said, turning the paper around with her magic to get a better look at it.

Icy raised an eyebrow at her, but Dinky just smiled back, not an ounce of insincerity or sarcasm on her face.

“I mean, no, it's not perfect, there's some things even I can see you need to work on, but there's a lot of good things about as well, and I think if you work at it, you could really make something of this. It looks like you've got a good idea what to get down from real life and what to make a bit more eye-catching.”

Icy blushed harder at the praise. From anyone else, she might be tempted to dismiss it as hollow flattery, but if there was one word to describe Dinky... well, admittedly, there were many words that described Dinky – kind, gentle, would-be-horrified-at-the-idea-of-her-even-considering-hurting-a-fly and, if you asked any adult, the word “cute” would entirely smother any others. However, one of the best words to describe Dinky was 'sincere'. Even though you knew she would never say anything to insult or demean you, you also knew that she wouldn't praise you unless she truly meant it. If she couldn't say anything nice, she'd say nothing at all. Well, that or something entirely irrelevant to distract you – she was by no means stupid.

Icy chuckled awkwardly. “Well, I mean... I know it's not my special talent or anything...”

“Doesn't mean it's not a talent,” Dinky chirped back. “And, as talents go, I'd say it's pretty special.”

Icy felt the corners of her mouth being irresistibly pulled up into a smile. “Thanks, Dinky. Still, like you said, I need to work on it.”

Dinky nodded. “Yeah, but probably not right now – we're all about to leave.”

Icy looked up, blinking in surprise as she saw that, indeed, the group was filing back into the palace proper. Shaking her head, she began hurriedly packing up her stuff before a golden glow encompassed her vision.

Looking up, she saw Dinky's horn glowing and the movement around them slowing down.

A brief laugh escaped Icy as she resumed packing, though a little more leisurely. “Wow, thanks, Dinky. You really don't have to...”

“No, but I want to,” Dinky replied, her voice only a little strained. “Speeding us up for a little while isn't too hard.”

Icy giggled gratefully at the little chonomancer's seemingly-endless kindness as she finished packing up her stuff. That done, she nodded and the bubble of sped-up time opened up and faded away.

“That must be really useful for when you're doing homework,” Icy said as she and Dinky followed after the rest of the group.

“A little, but it does take a bit of concentration if I'm speeding up anything except my mind and senses,” Dinky explained, her steps a little quicker than Icy's to make up for her shorter legs. “Still, if you ever need a bit more time for drawing...”

“No, I don't think that'd work.” Icy shook her head, smiling at the idea and the good will behind it. “It'd give me more time, but it'd make whatever I was drawing look all yellow which, um... probably wouldn't be that good for the drawing.” She didn't say exactly why for reasons of good taste, but she was sure that a drawing that was all in yellow would look as if someone had peed on it. Probably wouldn't give much in the way of artistic merit.

Dinky giggled, though Icy doubted it was because of the same place her mind went to. “Okay, got it!”

The two caught up to the group as it had stopped outside another set of double doors. “Now, in this next room, I am going to have to insist everyone stay inside the lines on the floor. This is very important and I will ask the adults present to make sure of it. This,” she opened the doors to a room filled with all manner of artworks – statues, sculptures, pottery, tapestries and a lot of paintings that made Icy suddenly very self-conscious about her own meagre drawings, “is the gallery.”

She led the group into the huge space. “Now, this area is not technically owned by the palace. During the Siege of the Sodalite Swarm seventy-five... er, my apologies, over one thousand years ago,” the guide's voice dimmed at that, staying silent for a moment before raising again, “it was determined that this was the safest place to store such treasures of our people. As such, the ruling body at the time allowed the owners of the gallery to use this space... provided they paid them a considerable rent for it. However, our wonderful Princess Cadance has since donated the space entirely to their control. As you can imagine, this was... keep inside the line please! Don't...”

The guide then took a short break from her lectures to join the other adults in keeping the children from getting too close to any of the exhibits. None were more diligent or effective at it than Cheerilee, though – once again, her experience dealing with the Crusaders had taught her much.

However, this gave Icy plenty of time to wander around the gallery and take in the incredible artworks around it, getting lost in their intricacies. So lost, in fact, that she almost missed the group leaving, only realizing it when Truffle clapped her on the back, nearly sending her sprawling over the line.

“Come along, Icy, my girl! We're moving.”

Icy shook her head. “Oh, sorry, I'll try and be more careful.” She gave a smile that Truffle returned, albeit a little less exuberantly than usual. Still, Icy didn't have time to ponder that as he hurried to catch up to the group, his considerable bulk not slowing him down as he rejoined Twist.

Icy followed behind, a good deal more leisurely. It seemed that it would indeed be hard to lose the group, but that didn't mean she wasn't going to unintentionally try.

The group was led down a long staircase and through several corridors, past pillars and paintings that the guide occasionally pointed out as notable, but not so much as to stop moving. Occasionally, Icy and a few others would linger for a second to look at them before they hurried to catch up. They were all very pretty, of course, but there was a reason they were put into hallways where most would pass them without a second glance. Really, it was more notable for how much the guide knew about the palace than for their own prominence.

Which is what made it so odd when she passed by something extremely prominent without a single word.

The group passed a T-junction, going straight on without the guide even looking down the perpendicular corridor. However, a short way down the corridor was a massive, imposing set of iron doors. At least, they were probably iron, but they were so black it took a moment to even identify them as metal. They were covered in vicious looking spikes and had a set of chains, locks and bars sealing them shut that probably weighed as much as a pony. Two guards were stationed in front of them, neither one a crystal pony but instead looking like royal Canterlot guards, their stances firm and their faces fearsome. Despite this, there were also several strips of yellow-and-black caution tape stretched across the doors, just in case someone were to miss the guards and the barricades and not realize that they were not supposed to pass.

Naturally, given this, it didn't take long for someone to point it out.

“Excuse! Please explain what is large door!” Said a voice Icy didn't recognize, presumably from one of the Manehattanites. Although, while the other class was a very cosmopolitan lot, with a couple of griffons, a zebra and even a minotaur, she had not seen any yaks amongst them despite the distinct Yakyakistani accent of the question.

However, she didn't have time to ponder this as the guide turned around, looking hesitant and uncomfortable but not surprised. After a sigh, she answered, “That, children, is the entrance to the Caves of Sombra. Now, if we could please...” She wasn't able to continue as a deluge of questions erupted from the assembled children, heedless of the increasing look of panic on her face.

Fortunately, Cheerilee stepped in. “That is enough!” she said in a rare instance of her needing to raise her voice. She gave a sympathetic nod to the guide and gestured with her head for her to go on a short distance.

As the guide backed away, returning the nod gratefully, Cheerilee turned to the group. “Allow me to explain. As you are no doubt aware, King Sombra was one of the most evil ponies... the most evil beings in history. However, you may not be aware that that evil did not stop at merely conquering, enslaving, torturing and mentally breaking his victims. He was also known to perform horrible experiments on his victims, using them both as test subjects for his own research into dark and terrible magic, but also twisting their minds and bodies into... things too awful to mention. The Caves of Sombra were, in effect, his laboratory – a vast and tangled complex of caves as twisted as the pony himself. It was there that he performed these experiments and there that he stored the results, along with many of his most terrible secrets.”

There was a long pause as this all sunk in for the assembled children.

Then, inevitably, someone piped up with, “Sounds cool, whaddaya say we take a look?”

A small wave of commotion ran through the children, with some agreeing with the sentiment while others spoke up against it, with several points where the two points of view met and began rubbing against each other worryingly.

Fortunately, by this time, the guide had returned, presumably having heard the brief period of silence. “I'm afraid that will not be possible, children,” she said firmly. “Aside from the fact that the things that went on down there were not suitable for young min-”

“Or anyone.” Cheerilee cut in, no doubt aware that there was nothing that roused a child's interest more than being told something was only for older eyes. “I have it on good authority that Princess Celestia herself felt sick when she saw some of the things he did. Besides that, however, because of Sombra's history with the crystal ponies, few of them have been able to bring themselves to go near those doors, let alone into the caves themselves. Aside from meaning that much of it is unexplored and could be very dangerous, it also means that I would not want anypony from the empire to have to go into that den of nightmares simply to show us around. Would you?”

No one answered – whether or not some or many of the children would be willing to do that to a pony, none of them were both amoral and stupid enough to say that they would.

Their guide nodded. “And besides that, many of... Sombra's,” she shuddered as she said the name, “most well-kept secrets are down there – records, plans, spells... we cannot allow anyone unauthorized to go down there for security reasons. If anyone were to get their hooves on some of the things down there...” another shudder ran through her. “Well, anyway, we cannot allow anyone but those specifically authorized by the crown down there until they have been fully explored, mapped out, made safe and emptied of dangerous materials. Which, as you can no doubt imagine, will take a very, very long time. Now, if we're quite finished,” she turned around, making it clear that they were finished, whether they liked it or not, “we can continue. Just down here is the castle library. Come along.”

The group followed, some looking back for a moment but none thinking it was worth it to stick around. The group went down a short way until they came to another set of double doors leading, indeed, into a huge library.

Well, it was certainly huge from an objective standpoint – two floors, both filled with thick bookshelves and yet still large enough to take the entire two classes without any of them having to filter into the many shelf-corridors around the room. If nothing else, it certainly seemed to impress the Manehattan kids and drew a fair few gasps from the Ponyvillians as well.

Icy, on the other hand, was friends with Spike, who lived with Princess Twilight. And for Princess Twilight, living in a huge crystal castle was a downgrade from living in a library until she realized she now had even more space for books. So Icy had a bit of a skewed perspective.

“Now, of course, unlike many libraries, we can't really take any books out and we haven't the time now to start reading any of them,” the guide explained, lowering her voice as they came to the centre of the room. “However, feel free to take a look around and see what books they have. I'm sure a longer visit can be arranged later in the week.”

And, indeed, most of the children did break off to look around the many bookshelves with only a few sitting down to talk with their friends and wait until the period of encouraged learning was over, quite contrary to many ponies' stereotypes of schoolchildren. That said, Icy really wasn't sure how much the ones looking around were actually interested in the books and how much of it was because the semi-labyrinthine complex of corridors seemed like fun to explore. If nothing else, for her it was a combination of both.

Regardless, she started wandering around, looking at the many imposing-looking tomes on offer. There was little that jumped out at her – most of the titles she could see were either in a language she was unfamiliar with, written in fonts she couldn't even begin to decipher or simply used words she had never encountered before. In fact, in many cases, she wasn't sure which one of those three possibilities applied to a given book. Still, they were interesting to look at, if not to read.

However, having almost missed the group's leaving twice already, she did make sure to keep an ear open for anything said loud enough for the group to hear. Well, she tried to keep an ear open – she had a somewhat spotty track record with maintaining concentration on such things.

However, on this occasion, she was able to keep listening long enough to hear something.

“Hey, Miss Guide Lady? What's this hatch thingy?”

Icy blinked as she looked up from the spine she was squinting at. She wasn't sure what could prompt someone to say that in the middle of a library, but now someone had, she was immensely curious about it.

The call had come from a couple of rows away, so she trotted over just as their guide arrived.

“Young lady, my name is Guiding Star and I'll thank you not to refer to me like that.”

“Oh, sorry, Miss Guiding Lady,” replied a young unicorn, not looking over her shoulder. She was facing along the row of shelves to the crystal wall at the end of it. However, Icy wasn't sure how well she could see it, as the filly was wearing a pair of dark glasses that wrapped around her head. Admittedly, that didn't strike Icy as the worst idea – crystal walls did sometimes have a tendency to reflect light into your eyes at the worst times – but she couldn’t imagine they did much for your observational skills. Still, her horn was glowing slightly, so maybe that helped.

“Anyway,” the unicorn continued, “so what's with that hatch right there?” She pointed at the wall.

Icy and Guiding Star tilted their heads in unison.

“Er, what hatch?” Icy asked after a moment.

The unicorn raised an eyebrow over her glasses, still not turning her head. “Y’know, the hatch that's right there.”

Guiding Star sighed. “Listen, young filly, much as I appreciate a good joke, this really isn't the time, nor is it a particularly good joke. I can see that wall perfectly well and I can see that there is nothing but a wall.”

The filly shrugged. “Then you're seeing it wrong, dude. The hatch is there.”

The guide scowled. “Now listen here, young lady, I...”

“No, she's right.” A steady voice said from behind them. Looking to the side, Icy saw Alula trotting up to join them. “There's something there – part of that wall's an illusion.”

“An illusion? Really?” Guiding Star asked, her voice skeptical but a hint of genuine interest edging its way onto her face.

“That's right.” Alula pointed at the lower section of the wall. “See the way the light reflects along the lower section compared to the upper section? It's slightly different despite the material seeming consistent.”

Icy trotted up a little closer, looking intently to see that, indeed, there was a subtle difference in the reflections and a distinct point where the reflection changed. It was hard to see even now it had been pointed out, but it was definitely there.

“Okay, I do see what you mean, but I hardly see how that equates to an illusion.” Star said, though her voice was beginning to lose its edge. “It could simply be a variance in materials.”

Alula shook her head. “Without a seam? There's clearly a seam where the reflection changes, but no visible one in the materials.” She approached the wall carefully, her own horn starting to glow. “However, since that's where the illusion starts, I should be able to...” She trailed off as her magic's aura swept slowly over the area, subtly shifting and changing until... “There!”

As she said that, the lower section of the wall faded until it was almost totally invisible – still there, but no longer blocking the view of what was behind it. And, sure enough, behind it was a hatch, made of dull grey metal and just big enough for an adult pony to squeeze through with considerable difficulty. A handle and a lock were on the left of it, but other than that, there were no distinguishing marks on it at all. If not for that and the seam between door and frame, it would seem like just a sheet of metal. It was firmly attached to the wall behind it, despite no visible screws or nails. However, looking closer at the edge, one could see it merged into the crystal below it, presumably through magic. Such self-sealing fixtures were not unknown in Equestria, though they tended to be prohibitively expensive.

Icy blinked as she trotted up next to Alula. “Wow, I didn't know you could do that.”

Alula shrugged. “Well, I'm no alicorn,” she said, semi-accurately, “but I do know a little bit about how magic works.” She turned towards the hatch, blocking her mouth movements from the sight of the others. “Particularly in regards to illusion and deception.” She muttered quiet enough that only Icy would hear.

Icy gave a silent “Ah!” and turned back to see Guiding Star approaching the hatch.

“Well, it seems you were right about the illusion, but it's clear there's nothing to worry about. Look here.” She placed a hoof on the wall just above the hatch, where there was the edge of a crack just visible. “Clearly, this wall got damaged and this is just a temporary measure while it's repaired – the hatch to block it and the illusion so it doesn't bother anypony.” She nodded to herself, opening her mouth to speak before she was cut off.

“Yeah, that's all totally wrong.” The filly said cheerfully as she too came up to the hatch.

Miss Star whirled around. “I beg your pardon?!”

The filly stopped, keeping her eyes forward. “Well, see, this whole hole dealy's had someone going through it loads of times over, like, the last couple of weeks. They were pretty small, too, waaay smaller than any worker I've ever seen. The hatch sure isn't just a patch, you know?”

Miss Star raised an eyebrow. “Oh really? And may I ask exactly how you came to that conclusion, young lady?” Her patience with both this filly and this whole matter was clearly runnning out.

The filly shrugged. “Well, like, I mean... you can ask, sure. Just can't really get an answer – I just know it. Kind of a feeling I got, you know?”

Alula turned away from the filly to hide the roll of her eyes. “Riiiiight. Well, as much credence as I'm sure we can give to your... gut feelings, I prefer something a little more empirical. If you look at-”

“If you look at this whole thing,” the guide interrupted, “you'll see it's nothing to worry about.”

Alula shrugged. “As you say, Miss Star.”

Guiding Star stood a little taller at being addressed as such. “Indeed. Now, if everyone can assemble!” She said, raising her voice a little, though not so much as to destroy the library's atmosphere. “We can move on. Come along, children!”

The class groups all made their way back towards their guide, who sighed when they were all assembled and led the group out of the library. However, as they were leaving, Icy noticed Alula tap Dinky on the shoulder and hang back slightly. Curious, she also slowed herself down a little, allowing the crowd to pass by and, after a few seconds, leave her behind.

Once this had happened, the other two were already on their way to the hatch, so she hurried a little to catch up.

Alula's eyes flicked up briefly, only to return once she saw it was Icy joining them. “Did you believe that story of hers?” she asked after a moment. “That it was just to patch over the hole while it's repaired?”

Icy thought for a moment. “Well, I mean... it made sense, I guess. Why, did you think she was lying?”

“No,” Alula replied instantly. “I've not got Dinky's ability to read ponies, but I'm pretty sure she wasn't actually lying. I think she was just complacent and ignorant.”

“Alula!” Dinky admonished gently. “That's not a nice thing to say!”

“I'm aware of that.” Alula replied as they turned into the shelf-corridor where the hatch was fixed. “Besides, she had good reason to be. But I know for a fact that what she said wasn't true. This isn't designed to block off the hole, but to allow someone to access it securely.”

Dinky tilted her head at the hatch. “How can you tell?”

“Well, there are a couple of things that make me suspicious,” Alula replied as they approached it. “For one thing, a self-sealing hatch would be immensely expensive for something that's just meant as a patch, compared to bolting or gluing it in place.”

“Well, maybe they just wanted to do the best job they could,” Dinky pointed out, though she didn't sound especially convinced.

Alula raised an eyebrow. “Have you ever met a government employee?”

Dinky, however, just raised one back. “My mommy's one.”

Alula's eyes widened briefly as she remembered exactly who she was talking about. “Fair point. But then there's the question of why put a hatch there rather than a plate? If the sole purpose was to block off the hole until it was repaired, why would you need to open such a hatch.”

Icy thought for a moment. “Maybe the idea was to repair it while the hatch was on there – open it to work on the hole, then close it if the job's not done. It'd be a bit tricky, but it'd make sense.”

Alula nodded. “Yes, I'd thought of that, but then I noticed that that couldn't be the case. In fact, that made it certain that it wasn't for repairing the hole.”

“How?” Icy asked, trying as hard as she could to see Alula's logic.

Alula pointed at the right side of the hatch. “Look there, where the doorway meets the aperture. What do you see?”

Icy lowered her head closer to the edge in question, squinting a little. After a few seconds, however, she shook her head. “Nothing.”

Alula nodded. “Exactly, nothing at all. Which means that the hinges are on the other side. Which in turn means that it opens outwards from this side. Now tell me, how are you supposed to fix a hole if there's a door sticking through it?”

Dinky and Icy inhaled in unison, seeing what she meant. “So, someone’s been going through it?” Icy asked.

“Quite a lot, I think.” Alula added. “Look at the lock. Do you see how many small scratches there are around the keyhole?

Icy put her eye right up against the keyhole, just about seeing what Alula meant. “Er, yeah?”

“Those are often a good indicator. That sort of scratch tends to be made by the front of a key as it finds the keyhole. The more scratches, the more used the keyhole and there are fair few scratches there. Furthermore, though I'll need Dinky's confirmation, they look fairly recent.”

A golden glow encompassed the keyhole, matching the one Icy saw when she stepped back from the keyhole, around Dinky's horn.

“They are.” Dinky replied as the glow faded, her short, vague reading of the lock's history complete after only a second.

Icy smiled. “That is a really useful trick, that... chrono-met-try,” she said, taking time to get the word right.

As Dinky smiled back, Alula piped up. “Indeed it is. Now, do you think you could extend it past the hatch to the wall behind – see if anything's interacted with it a lot recently?”

Dinky nodded. “I think so, it'll take a moment, but...” She trailed off as she concentrated, a second corona quickly flaring up around her horn. She strained for a moment before suddenly cutting off her magic. “That's weird, there's barely anything. A few touches, but not many.”

Alula nodded. “I thought as much.”

“You did?” Dinky asked after a moment of catching her breath. “Why?”

“Well, the wall is made of crystal,” Alula said, putting a hoof to the crack visible above the hatchway. “Making a hole in it's not too difficult, but making a safe one? That's trickier. Inside that hole, there are going to be jagged edges that could scratch or maybe even cut skin. So, while a full-sized pony could slip through such a hole, they likely couldn't do so unscathed. To get through without scratching yourself – without touching those points, you'd have to be a lot smaller. Say...” She paused, turning to the others, “our size?”

Icy's eyes widened as the implications sunk in. “You mean, it's someone we'd need to... So that filly was right.”

Alula sighed. “In a sense, but not really. We figured out what was happening through careful observation, experimentation and logic, while she just “felt” it. I don't see that I should give her credence simply because she made a guess and happened to be right.”

Icy raised an eyebrow, a little doubtful of Alula's reasoning and very doubtful of her objectivity, but chose not to bring it up, instead asking, “Well, we don't know it's anything sinister, do we?”

“Hmm...” Alula closed her eyes for a second. “Well, not for absolute certain, but I'd be astonished if it wasn't – think about where that hole leads. The place we passed just before we came to the library.”

Icy too closed her eyes for a moment, understanding Alula's implication instantly but still taking a moment to orient herself and the room in relation to their route. After a moment, however, she saw that she was right. “The Caves of...”

“Exactly,” Alula said, tapping a hoof lightly on the ground in slight agitation. “And I can't really think of any good reason someone of our age could be going in there, can you?”

There was a moment of silence before Dinky spoke up. “So, what are we going to do?”

Another pause, and then Alula touched her horn to the illusion, making it fade back into seeming solidity. “Well, first, we're going to catch up with the group. I believe the dining hall was next and I don't know about you, but I'm getting a bit hungry.” She said, turning and walking off without waiting for them to catch up.

“And then?” Icy asked, speeding up a little faster than she was comfortable with to keep up.

“Then we are going to do our duty.” Alula said firmly. “We are going to do that which we are obliged to do... and alert the proper authorities.”

Icy slowed down a little, falling back due to being underwhelmed at her words. “Really?”

“Of course. Even if we knew everything about what's going on, which we don't, we're out of our jurisdiction,” Alula explained. “Should the authorities of the empire choose to ask for our help, we will of course give it, but otherwise we'll let them handle it.”

Icy's mouth shifted to the side and she considered Alula's words, a heavy undercurrent of doubt in her thoughts. “You're sure they'll be able to?”

Alula nodded. “Positive. This could be a matter of the utmost seriousness, after all. I'll have a word with them after this tour is over.”

---

Icy started as the door to the palace guards’ barracks slammed shut, Alula walking through it looking as if she'd just swallowed an entire lemon tree whole. “Well,” Icy asked, “what did they say?”

Alula huffed. “That those were “some big words for a little filly”, that I had “an incredibly vivid imagination” and that they would give this matter “all the attention it deserved.” As if I wouldn't be able to tell what he meant by that.” She snorted, seemingly more offended by that than the guards' inaction.

“Don't we have some kind of official identification?” Icy asked, eliciting a snort from Alula.

“We do and I showed it. Unfortunately, it seems these guards are not familiar with the seal of the night guard, at least not enough to tell the real one from a fictitious one, and assumed it was some kind of toy badge.”

Icy shook her head, opening her mouth before Alula cut her off. “If the next words out of your mouth are “I told you so”, Icy...”

“Well, I didn't, really.” Icy pointed out. “But I don't think we should be surprised. Remember Princess Luna's little speech about how much trouble adults have taking colts and fillies seriously.”

“I suppose,” Alula sighed, the irritation bleeding out of her expression. “Still, I knew it applied to our enemies, but I never considered it could apply to us.”

Icy shrugged. “Well, it doesn't most of the time because we're talking to ponies who know about us. Or at least, about groups like us. But these ponies are from a thousand years ago – they're probably not up on this whole thing yet. So, does this mean we're going to have to investigate ourselves?”

Alula tapped her chin. “Well, we can gather the team to talk about it, but even if we do, we'll just look into it until we can get some incontrovertible evidence.”

“In... contra...?” Icy began.

“Evidence the guards can't dismiss or deny.” Alula explained. “Once we get that, we can leave things to them until and unless they ask for our help. I don't know about you,” she gave Icy a serious look, “but I'm not giving up my vacation that easily.”

Comments

[Herald of Opera]

hands

CTRL+F is your friend. Lyra might be one of the notional adults who needed to be sent away with the children, but she hasn't been confirmed as such yet.

[The Iguana Man]

10616942

Ah, sorry! Thought we'd gotten all of them, must have missed that one. Fixed now.