The Forest of the Golden Abalone

by Unwhole Hole

Chapter 24: Awakening the Machine

The room expanded outward, into darkness—and yet, as they approached, there came light. Dim, at first, but then greater, from no apparent source. A form of light projected from a lightless place, arising from the rising spires of warped black obsidian, bent by some unknown force and imbedded with unnatural circuitry made from strange metals. These teeth or claws rose high in the nearly circular room, their tips reaching upward like great fingers—before splitting to threads of nervous sinew that descended down to the systems below, carrying a pattern across a room that seemed to defy them at every turn.

It was geometric. Far too geometric to match the forms cast by the ancient residents of this place. An area of a different design, arranged by linear and logical mathematics and refusing to defy some perverse sense of Euclidean perfection.

Caballeron shuddered at the sight of it, holding back yet another coughing fit. He needed to focus and remain steadfast—because one more fit, and he would surely collapse. And that was simply intolerable. Not when he was so close.

What lay before him might have been beautiful. A rising stepped dome, a flat and perfectly aligned floor—or the ancient and preposterous designs that seemed to fill it, stretching open in a parody of organic life. Or, rather, a mimicry of an organic life that simply did not exist in this world—armored with the technological innovations of a distant and arcane time.

Perhaps one portion of the two would have been beautiful. But to see them merged was horrific. Coldly, stilly ominous. This was not a place of moving parts, although even Caballeron understood it to be a machine. The center of their civilization. Or what had remains of their civilization when it had been constructed.

A nearly cylindrical plateau stood in the center, a staircase rising around it. From each side came a slow waterfall, filling a shallow pool below. Caballeron approached it and looked in, brushing water from a different source off his body. The only way to enter the room was to descend from above, jumping into a pool below. It was a gap too large for the mechs to pass, but he and Tuo in Argiopé’s body had been able to squeeze through and drop in.

Approaching the inner pool, though, he found it to be perfectly clear. Beautiful, even—but empty. Devoid of any apparent life.

“I would avoid drinking it,” suggested Tuo.

“I am not an idiot,” snapped Caballeron back

Tuo sighed. His motions were beginning to slow, and he seemed distant. Distracted—or perhaps increasingly sickly.

“You promised you would not hurt her,” hissed Caballeron.

Tuo nodded. “And I am not. Her body remains viable. Mine, though, is badly injured. I am currently unconscious, bordering on comatose. It is not easy to astroproject in that state.” He sighed. “But we must complete this. The situation is decaying, and rapidly.”

“Meaning what? What have you done?”

Tuo gestured toward a small piece of technology he had brought from the support ship. “I have lost contact with my rear force. They encountered the Solarian. I can only assume they have been defeated. The other mechs are already moving to reinforce, but they can at best slow him down.” He paused. “I cannot stop him in this body. My own could barely fight to a stalemate. And this one is far more fragile.”

Slowly, Caballeron acknowledged this grim time limit with a nod. He had, in his distant youth, once met a Solarian--and although the procedure used to produce them rendered their sanity fragile, their unbreakable bodies made them an almost unmeasurable threat. “Then time is indeed short.”

Tuo gestured toward the cylinder in the center of the vast room. “Do you not agree, Doctor, that our goal would be up there?”

Caballeron had already started to climb the stairs. “Of course, my boy. That is so obvious a child could see it. Which I suppose you did.”

“Then that is where our mission concludes. We are almost there.”

Caballeron chuckled. It was clear that the boy was indeed a novice—and despite his magical prowess, it was apparent that he was and would always be a collector and never the one doing the collecting. Where it not for the princess, he likely never would have left his mother's gardens.

They ascended. The stairs were slick, made of some unknown stone—or perhaps an unknown metal. Pony hooves gained little purchase, but it was apparent they had been climbed before. Deep gouges had been corroded into the surface. Ones that looked almost as though they might have been the tracks of a pony—although they were distended, reshaped and strange.

The top indicated that the cylinder was a vast plinth, and in its center stood what could only possibly be described as a device. One that linked to the almost flesh-like cables that descended from the points of the spires, linking to it and carrying it outward to the remainder of the ruins.

Caballeron did not dwell on its description. He did not need to understand the machine or how it might operate to know that it was a device of evil—but that evil was utterly relative. His eyes focused toward the very center. It was so much smaller than he had imagined, barely the size of a pony’s hoof—but it gleamed with a light as beautiful as Celestia’s own sun, a color so rich, vibrant and complex that it put actual gold to shame. A shell, held aloft at the very center of a system of geometric stone and etched silicon that seemed to be constructed around it. A crowning jewel to what Caballeron so desperately wished was a throne or altar—although he knew that it was in fact both, and more. What it had been meant for he did not wish to consider.

“That’s it,” he said, taking a step forward—before suddenly stopping.

Tuo raised an eyebrow. “You can see it?”

“I don’t need to. I can feel it. In my bones. It’s subtle, but oh so obvious when you have the experience.”

Tuo nodded and leaned forward, pressing Argiopé’s horn against little more than air—and he summoned what little he could of her changeling magic. It proved to be enough, though.

The resonance made it visible. A shield bubble extending around the entirety of the device. A spell of profound power, rendered and sustained by four runes ingrained deep into the metaphysical substance of the clear stone floor.

“A barrier,” said Caballeron.

Tuo shook his head. “No. This is a sealing spell.” He contemplated one of the four rune circles that powered the main spell. “A very old and very powerful one.” He paused, then looked at Caballeron. “I doubt this was constructed by the ponies that once inhabited this place. They were earth-ponies. And this…” He stared at it. “Feels oddly familiar…”

“Can you break it?”

“Not in this body. Probably not even in my own. And we don’t have time to wait for me to wake up.”

“Ah.” Caballeron sighed. “Perhaps we should not have sacrificed the Princess?”

“Her power is great but untamed. Using her to try to crack this would likely destroy our objective, and probably ourselves. She is really more of a blunt instrument.”

“And the sharpness you claim to posess seems to be doing a great deal of help, clearly.”

“I never claimed to be ‘sharp’. But I do understand magic. A seal this powerful requires a cost. Not in terms of energy, but in terms of structure. They do not operate like that. Not for this long. It is not a wall, but a lock.”

“I see. Then there must be a key.”

“Yes. And it is us.”

Caballeron frowned. “More sacrifice, then?”

Tuo shook his stolen head. “No. The actual structure of the spell is simple. Oddly simple. There are four runes. It can be opened by four ponies.”

Caballeron’s frown deepened. “That does sounds too simple.”

“I know. It requires no magic, no spells. It produces no residual effects. Four living creatures standing on these four locations—and it will open.” He nodded. “Even this body, as a changeling, would likely suffice. The spell is not complex enough to differentiate.”

“Any four living beings.” Caballeron coughed, slightly. “No matter what race or species." He paused. "Then what is it meant to keep out?”

“The answer to that question is irrelevant.”

Caballeron raised an eyebrow. “But you know.”

Tuo did not answer the question. “It matters little regardless. Four are required, and we are two.”

“That is not entirely true!” called a voice from the far side of the plinth.

Tuo took a defensive stance, only to realize that he was in the body of a changeling and therefore basically useless. Caballeron, though, simply stepped forward. Where power was inadequate, charm would need to suffice, and for him the transition always came seamlessly.

“Who goes there?” he demanded.

A pony pulled himself up over the edge of the plinth, struggling to do so. Then the same pony pulled himself up over again—except that this time he had a moustache.

With some difficulty, a pair of pale unicorns dragged themselves up, their manes matted with dirt and sweat, one wearing a light tied to his head under his horn. Both wore copper suits that were stained and corroded, already beginning to green in parts and heavily scratched and dented in others. Despite this, the two brushed themselves off in perfect symmetry and, with winning smiles, extended their hooves.

“Flim and Flam at your service!”

Caballeron stared at them warily.

“You followed us.”

“We would never even think of such a thing!” gasped the mustachioed one.

“Although I wish we had," admitted the other, "it would be easier than those tunnels. I think I'm scarred now. On the inside.”

The mustachioed one chuckled, although from the fear in his eyes it was clear that the tunnels had indeed held more horrors than they had bargained for. “Indeed, indeed. The Agency had charted...some access channels. We only made it through by Celestia’s wide and generous grace…”

“I also prayed to Luna, just in case.”

“To what end?” asked Tuo.

“So she would help? I don’t know, it helps to pray to the lesser gods sometimes, right? I mean, it can’t hurt?”

“That is not to what I was referring. Why are you here?”

“Well,” said the mustachioed one, “to be honest, we thought we were attempting to take the same goal as you.”

“Which is why we hid when you came in," added the other twin.

“But it looks like we are after two very different things.”

Caballeron sneered. “You mean to tell me you are not after the Golden Abalone?”

The twins smiled. One gestured toward the one in the center of the machine. “Not that one, no.”

They produced a plastic bag filled with water and tied with a rubber band. Inside, struggling against its captivity, was a small creature. Seeing it alive, with its delicate tendrils and translucent but glimmering skin, made the dead shell pale in comparison.

“A living Golden Abalone,” gasped Tuo.

“The very last of its kind!” said the clean-shaven twin, nearly giggling. “And now property of Flim and Flam Guaranteed Cure-All Incorporated!”

“You do realize you need to kill the snail to use its power,” noted Caballeron. This seemed to make the twins blanch somewhat. It was clear that, although sneaky, they were not as dastardly as Caballeron had eventually become.

“Oh, my, you misunderstand us, my rugged, ascot-wearing friend!”

“We wouldn’t dare to hurt such a wondrous creature! Not at all!”

“That would risk ruining everything!”

“Then how,” demanded Caballeron, “do you intend to access the cure?”

Their smiles grew, although they seemed somewhat bashful. “The simple fact that the majority of ponies have no idea how the potion is obtained, even if they do know the legend.”

“As we tell it, of course. For the purpose of their education, their intellectual benifit.”

“The cure-all, you see, doesn’t actually need to technically cure anything. At all. No pony wants to buy a cure. They want to by the hope of a cure.”

“We’ll display the Abalone in our traveling aquarium! It’s such a beautiful thing, isn’t it? So shiny!”

“And when ponies see that we have the ONLY Golden Abalone in existence, a creature that can cure any disease or curse—”

“They are guaranteed to by our guaranteed cure-all!”

Both laughed heartily, putting their hooves around each other.

“AND,” said the mustachioed one, “we are willing to offer you a very special deal!”

Caballeron raised an eyebrow. “On a product that sells well but fails to work?”

“We can negotiate you a friendly discount of perhaps _point-fifty percent at a later date. But no, this is a far more important one.” He held up the captive snail. “Allow us to keep this safe, and help us leave here the way you came in.”

“Not through the tunnels.” The clean-shaven one shivered. Then they both shivered.

“Most certainly not. But, in exchange, we will help you.”

Tuo appeared hesitant to believe them. It was clear he was out of his depth. “And how do you intend to do that?”

He smiled, gesturing toward the spell. “You need four. We’ll be the spare two. We have no interest in that old, gross shell. Not when we have something prettier to attract ponies to our shop.”

“We can’t risk an active ingredient messing up the delicious medicine flavor of our patent-pending cure-all anyway.”

“So we get the live snail, you get your special shell. Win win. What do you say, mister?”

Caballeron regarded him. “Doctor,” he corrected. Then a smile crossed his face. “You two are surely stallions of a certain level of vision. I accept your offer.” His expression hardened. “Knowing that if you betray my very limited trust, my associate here will perform acts upon your bodies that I am scarcely willing to consider, let alone describe.”

The clean-shaven pony nearly fainted when he saw Tuo who, even in a stolen body, was nearly a foot taller than him. The other twin, though, simply laughed.

“Neither of us would dream of it!”

Caballeron sighed, and turned to Tuo, who was once again using his crystal radio. He shook his head. There was no way to summon assistance. He had lost contact with his last mechs.

Caballeron released another spore-infused sighed and stepped forward. Tuo—or perhaps Argiopé—moved in unison, taking a position on one of the other required runes. The twins separated, one walking across the wide circle of the spell to its far end, the other carrying the Abalone and leisurely sauntering to the nearest.

“A sense of urgency would be appreciated,” snapped Caballeron.

“Of course, of course,” he laughed, stepping onto the rune-circle.

The circles sensed their presence, the key into the lock—and the images turned at once, shifting in and out as their runes re-assembled. Then, with a sound like a distant breaking teacup, the whole of the spell simply dissipated.

Caballeron smelled the sulfurous odor of the stagnant, long-trapped air within—but breathed it deep and smiled, knowing that he had reached his goal. That it was a simply a matter of grabbing the reward.

And as it all fell down around him, he realized how foolish he had been. How for that one brief moment, he had allowed himself to defy nearly half a century of experience. Because it was never that easy.

“Excellent,” said the towering earth-pony standing beside him. A slate-blue stallion with strangely empty, dead eyes. “It appears a solution has finally proven forthcoming.”

Comments

[FanOfMostEverything]

No pony wants to buy a cure. They want to buy the hope of a cure.

Well, that’s familiar…

Outstanding buildup to the big climax. Eagerly looking forward to it.

(Also, the Flimflams just refuse to die. At this point, I suspect they scammed the local psychopomp.)

[Thought Prism]

I imagine the people making the seal figured anybody trying to open it knew the history of the device, and that the odds of convincing 4 people it was a good idea would be low. Unfortunately, these 4 just don't care.

[alamais]

Wait...

spires of warped black obsidian, bent by some unknown force and imbedded with unnatural circuitry made from strange metals

...this is all reminding me of something.
cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/227111330761539605/1075621739335274506/GRIDImage-2_a95629aa-938b-4a09-a71f-77011a25c0ce_600x900.png
Make us whole again, Pontracio?

a pair of pale unicorns

Oh no.

A slate-blue stallion with strangely empty, dead eyes.

...Sampson is a frost warlock, right? Right??? Did we know that? Are we quite sure he's on our side, where by 'our' I mean 'ponies who don't steal refrigerator parts and mares'? Wishing we had a Toaster regardless...