Chapter 116: Tethered
Number Two stared at them for a while longer before letting out a disinterested grunt and vanishing. Metal screeched and groaned as it forced its way out and downwards. It didn’t help matters that the motion tracker remained clear the entire time.
The Thestrals continued to stare. They had to cross in front of the grates regardless.
Astral casually reached up to pull the grenade off his shoulder, looking at Sassi.
“I vote we make sure that thing is gone, even though…” his words trailed off, the mare doing the same.
“Ditto. That thing has proven to be sneaky. If we heard it leaving, it wants us to hear it.”
They chucked the grenades into the vents after counting a second or two. With a burst of movement, the pair dashed past the open grates after the explosives detonated. There weren’t any other sounds other than the pitter-patter of metal from the fragmentation of the vents.
“Ok. So. That was terrifying,” Astral said, now wobbling on his hooves as they walked. “So that’s Number Two.”
“The AI couldn’t even get a scan of it. But that head and shoulders, it looked like some kind of giant sloth.”
“That doesn’t make it any better.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
The fleshy tendrils continued to cover the walls and ceiling as they pushed onwards. There weren’t any more signs of a natural-like forest, only the sickly, pulsating mass of something.
“Finally, some good news,” Sassi said, gesturing at the sign next to the staircase ahead. “Looks like they moved the backup reactor controls.”
“It’s right below us?”
She nodded happily, the two of them creeping into the stairwell. They could even see the entrance to the next floor!
“Bingo. Even if it’s not intact, there’s another backup on the same floor.
They trotted down the stairs, Sassi being the first to take a look.
“Well, let’s see where these controls…oh,”
“That doesn’t sound good,” Astral muttered, stumbling down to stand next to her. “Oh.”
The floor looked perfectly normal for about ten paces. Then, a multi-room-sized hole was eaten away by acid dripping down from above. Bits of tile rained down from above, a dark abyss looming over where only spotty metal could be seen. Holes from the acid pockmarked the surface.
Partially dissolved office equipment dotted the edges of the gaping hole, sparking wires flashing this way and that amid the surprisingly-bright emergency lighting. With the tile either dissolved or having fallen, a spiderweb of partially-intact steel girders spread out in front of the pair. A few of the supports groaned, others visibly sagging and cracked.
Far below them, after at least a drop of six floors, was the top of a massive reactor.
Astral sat down, blowing out a tired breath. The reactor below them hummed, three rods surrounding a central, larger vertical cylinder that glowed a cheerful yellow in the darkness.
“Well. Good news and bad news time,” Sassi said, having taken a few minutes to survey the few areas to the left and right.
At least the ones they could walk to.
“I could use some good news.”
“Well, the backup controls are in perfect condition and right over here across the room. They appear to be tuned specifically for reactor shutdown and energy flow. We lucked out on the console they used.” The mare pointed across the chasm, where a large, intact console was visible. There were multiple large levers, knobs, and thankfully non-digital instruments diligently humming away. “They perfectly match the instructions the Princess sent.”
“And the bad news?”
She raised an eyebrow, pointing to the massive hole.
“Acid from those stupid flowers is still trickling down. I don’t know if the suit shields can handle it. And we’ll both need to get to the console and operate it.”
“What?!”
Sitting down next to him, Sassi shook her head. Astral took the opportunity to lean against her, unease starting to gnaw away at him.
“The reactor controls are going to have both a magical and physical failsafe. One pony can’t shut it all down, or make it overload. You have to press the buttons or levers at the same time, and stand in specific spots,” the mare said with a frustrated sigh. “I just looked over the instructions again. I read through it once when the Princess first sent it; there are even three types of control consoles that might have been installed. All of them require two ponies. It’s a simple analog procedure, but it needs two creatures.”
“I really don’t like the number two, right now.”
Letting out a humorless chuckle, Sassi could only nod in agreement.
“Ditto. But let me go first to test things,” she said, then let out a frustrated sigh. “If not for the acid and the armor, I could just fly over. But trading the latter leaves you open to the former.”
“I vote we don’t fly through the acid,” her stallion grumbled. “And to be honest, Sas. I don’t know if I can even glide, let alone hover. Walking is possible due to gravity. Even if I didn’t have the armor, I don’t think I…”
“I know. Just hang in there.”
Giving her stallion a final nudge with her shoulder, the mare trotted over to the nearest intact section of the floor. She made a point of testing every step with a portion of her weight before committing, edging forwards slowly.
“Alright, Astral. Step where I step.”
Astral’s heightened heart rate pinged away in Sassi’s HUD. The stallion carefully followed, the two of them navigating across a mostly-intact section of the office.
Sassi then angled her path onto one of the massive support beams that spanned the floor. Some of them were already collapsed, so it was clear they hadn’t been spared the acid’s touch.
Astral let out a yelp, stopping himself from jumping away as a splash of acid glanced off of the RASP’s shielding systems. The magic sparked with an angry, white flash before settling down.
“Sas, that killed half of the shields. It’s regenerating but way too slowly,” the stallion said, his voice quivering. If not for the shields (and armor underneath), it would have likely turned his entire left side into sludge.
“Even if the shields fail, the suit and armor are resistant to acid. We can’t wait for it to recharge completely.”
“I k-know.”
Astral’s fearful reply pulled at Sassi’s heart, but she could only move forwards. They had to get across before the floor collapsed even further.
The first girder groaned underneath the mare’s weight. Thankfully, she crossed onto the second without issue, just after a connecting junction. It was at least wide enough to give one’s hooves some margin for error, but barely.
“Alright, Astral. You next.”
Sassi stayed near the connecting junction of the girder, watching the stallion wobble his way across. His heart rate was in the red.
Thankfully, he crossed without incident. Astral let out a sigh of relief as he took a final step-
The metal gave way.
The girder abruptly shattered, Astral following it down for a split second. With a lunge Sassi snagged his hoof, the metal groaning in protest. The stallion’s eyes were wide in horror as she yanked him up, the second girder starting to bend under their combined weight.
She took a few steps away to spread out the load, Astral barely managing to put one hoof in front of the other. A few more steps…
Sassi yanked him off the girder and onto an intact, secure section of flooring with a heave. The improvised catwalk let out another groan before it continued to bend and warp. With a rather pitiful squeak, it snapped off and plummeted to the reactor floor below.
The shaking of Astral’s limbs was visible, the stallion only being able to sit up with the assistance of the armor.
“Sas. I…” words failed him, any prior confidence having evaporated. Astral simply hung his head. “Thank you,” he whispered.
Reaching over to squeeze his hoof, Sassi nodded firmly.
“Anytime. Let’s go, Astral. We overload this and get back to solid ground. Can’t stop yet.”
She hated having to push him. The mare could feel terror threatening to overwhelm Astral over their link, and yet this was not the place to stop.
The next section was thankfully stable, with multiple girders intact as they carefully walked over to the controls.
“Ok. Astral, just do what I do, ok?” Sassi said. “Remember, these consoles have a magical lock as well, so we can’t move from these spots while we’re adjusting the settings, or it’ll reset.”
“That’s obnoxious,” he managed to say, the mare snorting in agreement.
“Very. So, we’ll set the settings the same, and then we press the final button at the same time. Each of these settings has either a knob or a switch with the settings. We need to not have too many pauses when doing this,” Sassi indicated, taking her position at the leftmost control panel and turning a knob. “Power to internal cycling.”
“Switched.”
“Energy pattern to recursive.”
“Recursive.”
“Auto-destruct, disable.”
“Disabled.”
“Safeties, disabled.”
“Done.”
The control panel began to beep steadily as Astral turned the switch.
“Alright. Last few steps. External lines disabled.”
“Done.”
“Buffers set to decreasing.”
“…Sas?”
Sassi’s mind was abruptly blasted by fear, Astral standing stock still.
“Everything is dark. I can’t see.”
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Sassi: "What did you do?"
11612810
This poor guy is running on fumes and can’t get time to heal, plus the augments. The cocktail of drugs in his bloodstream would probably make a chemist scream.
11612833
No kidding.
A potential minor prevention against the acid is to test how fast it eats through stuff. If it melts stuff fast, but not instant, these two could salvage some scraps laying around and use it to deflect the worst of the falling acids, like a clipboard, then dashing through. Assuming one of them is resourceful enough to consider this point.
This acid might not be entirely physical since the RASP shield took a huge hit. Theoretically normal, physical acid can only melt certain materials or stopped by some organic shielding, otherwise nothing could store them. So who made or produces such magic acid? It wouldn't be Two, would it?
If it turns out that this acid doesn't burn against the RASP suit because the material is truly made with anti-corrosive materials, magical or otherwise, these two would look silly.
Now that Astral eyes go bye-bye, imagine being told to run back through the acid while blind and maybe chased, if any. I wonder how contagious hive mind panic attack can be...
11612860
If they had time, they could test it. But the fact the shields got drained indicate it's highly corrosive. Most acid is material specific. But when there's an entire office eaten away...they're not about to test things. In this case, it's corrosive to pretty much everything. As to what extent? I certainly wouldn't want to test it; I should have put a half-dissolved rat or something in the office to confirm that.
Also, there were some lovely acid flowers a few floors above them...
11612866
Apologies. I had this vague idea that the acid was related to something said previously but didn't link it. I guess a criticism I would make is that, the stuff you mentioned in an earlier chapter? Some of it is mentioned or used once, but they are pretty minor or doesn't drive any emotions other than, "oh, it's a thing."
The blue, glowy butterflies? They are practically nothing, but they set the mood, which is memorable.
But the flowers? I know they exist, probably. And they have some properties. The thestrals didn't really do much or make the flower out as something huge to worry about. Especially since the acid wasn't really highlighted too dangerously in the previous chapters.
A good way is to bring them into focus one more time, like here, to get the readers to actually pay attention to this thing.
An issue highlighted here tells me that maybe you have so many one-off entities that all newer oddities becomes background objects. In sight, but out of mind. If you do plan to use so many entities, you could, like previously said, reuse them one more time. Or, make their implementation memorable. Otherwise, less oddities doesn't equal less quality.
There is: a murder-cement-gas AI, a skitter guard that can made the gash and dig holes and is tough, headcrab skitters, concious skitter prisoner, Skitter Queens, Limbo, Black Hole room, forget-to-fly jump section, puking tar, hallucinigenic gas, Backrooms, Love RASP generator, vent tentacle creature, creature only Astral can see, cold room stop-go creature, creature that hide in the dark, Two, antrax particles and electrified gate to prison block, chaos foxes, timberwolves, limbo butterfly, limbo creature jumper, and acid flower.
That's a lot I have to remember, but I feel like I know I have missed a few more entities and oddities. You've done well to write this far and still have a good portion of it memoriable.
11612911
I completely agree; I could have structured it better to pull back "oh, remember XYZ" in more than one moment! I also could have utilized a lot of prior threats as reoccurring one more often.
*Wearing a helmet* ---- ✅
*Suddenly mentions it is dark* ---- ✅
*My mind*
i.pinimg.com/originals/fd/20/56/fd2056eede14fd77b1da973e51bb157c.jpg
That brought back some latent trauma, let me tell you. That thing scared me.
11613289
Oh. Oh dear
Huh... Perhaps I'm remembering wrong, but isn't blindness a temporary (and possibly recurring) side effect of the augmentation or some of the medications Astral has taken?
I can't recall exactly where this was mentioned, but I feel like it was.
11615865
Perhaps
11613289
What is that from?
11647503
Dr. Who Specifically, the Library episode. (I've seen a lot of snippits of episodes so I immediately got that reference.)