• Published 28th Oct 2022
  • 247 Views, 59 Comments

The Forest of the Golden Abalone - Unwhole Hole



Fluttershy is dispatched to act as an interpreter in a forest filled with monstrous gastropods--only to discover other ponies already there, with far darker intentions.

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Chapter 10: Copper-Plated Twins in the Bog

Night had fallen, and the moon was new, its course guided not by divine power but by mechanical precision and powerful, amplified amulet-magic. The only light came from the darkness and the hideous glow of the luminescent slugs that dotted the ancient ruins, crawling across the rune-inscribed stone and strange, impossible columns that rose at odd angles from the mud and rot that covered unspeakable things buried far below.

Flim cried out as a disturbingly long, slithering slug dropped from a tree, its teeth pressing against his mask and threatening to chew through the glass of the helmet—only for it to scream and sizzle, repelled by the copper plate armor he wore.

“Stop screaming!” hissed his brother. “We’re supposed to be silent!”

Flim attempted to catch his breath, and did, eventually. “These copper suits really work, don’t they?”

“They ought to for how much they cost. Do you know how much a copper pot costs? Let alone a whole suit of armor…”

“It’s better than getting eaten by slugs, though.”

“That’s for sure. But only if we can pay off the loan we owe to that griffon. Do you know what happens if you don’t pay back a griffon?”

“N...no?”

“SCONES. Scones are what happens.”

“They...make us eat their gross scones?”

Flam frowned at his brother through his helmet. He just groaned and turned back to his work. From a small bag, he drew a warn disk-like artifact. He only had a few; they had barely been able to carry the suits when the were ejected from their plane—it too bought on credit, although from an entirely different griffon. He hoped there were enough.

He placed the device on nearest of the columns, affixing it firmly to the juncture where the deep gouges through the pale obsidian met in a specific place. He checked a chart to be sure, then flipped it over and read the spell listed there. The disk hissed and sunk into the column, glowing, and was quickly capped with a wax-affixed sealing scroll.

“Why are we doing this?” asked Flim.

“Insurance.”

“Ah. The greatest scam of all.”

“Exactly. If we had gone into insurance, we would be rolling in bits right now instead of walking through chest-deep mud in copper suits.”

“We did try insurance, though. It’s not our fault everypony got sick after eating our health-cookies and cashed out all at once.”

“No, it’s YOUR fault. I told you to use the snake oil, not the snake ROOT!”

“How am I supposed to know the difference?! They both come from snakes, don’t they?!”

Something massive slithered in the darkness. Flim let out a squeak of fear.

“This one’s done. We have to circle back. I’m not going through the pit again. Those ones don’t care about the copper. Almost ate through my shoulder in one bite…”

Flim shivered. He looked over his own shoulder, but saw nothing in the darkness. “And the plane?”

“Total loss. Waste of money. But we didn’t own it, so it’s not really our problem.”

“But the others...Fluttershy…”

“She’s fine. She’s a Pegasus, they have wings. She probably just flew out the door and drifted gently to the ground. Or just went home.”

“But the others…”

“Some overly wordy government suit and a...I don’t even know what that guy was. You felt it, right?”

Flim nodded. “Like the inside of my brain was itchy. Like looking at him made the back of my eyes hurt.”

The shivered simultaneously.

“That thing that took us down, though...that’s the problem.”

Flim nodded. “I think we stepped in something we didn’t bargain for.”

“We knew that getting into it. But it’s like the stock market. No point in it unless you have insider information.”

Flim smiled. “And we have inside info on what the Agency’s planning.”

Flam grinned. “Exactly, dear brother! And as long as we don’t get in their way, we stand to make a hefty profit.”

They both chuckled to themselves. In the darkness, neither of them saw the hulking figure standing unbreathing beside them, listening and waiting, meditating on the extreme thinness of the concepts that permitted their survival.

Veils of abstraction that, soon enough, would be broken.