Eris's Riddle

by hahatimeforponies

Archaeology

"There's something I still don't get..." The sound of Derpy Hooves talking after a few minutes of quiet stirred Rainbow Dash out of her light snooze. She was slumped over a branch overlooking their camp at the bottom of the hill, with the cloud bed just underneath, and the chariot-turned-tent just a few yards away.

"Hm?"

"Why did she come find you? Kalza I mean." Derpy nodded at the cloud, where the gryphlet was fast asleep next to Scootaloo, still wearing the hoodie from earlier. Fluttershy was perched on another cloud, adoring them remotely.

"I... I was able to get a few details earlier, but I'm still doing some guessing, so bear with me." She cleared her throat, and rolled to swing down to a lower branch, so she could keep her voice a bit lower. "Gryphons... think a bit differently to ponies. We teach our kids about friendship and harmony, and trying to get everypony to get along. Gryphon kids are raised to be competitive and ruthless, they're taught that the world is mean and out to get them, and if they want something they have to take it."

"That's horrible!" Fluttershy squeaked.

"You met Gilda, right? And you saw how much trouble she caused being in Ponyville for just one day? Well, she's like... a lightweight in gryphon terms."

"But... Kalza's just so cute, there's no way she could grow up to be so mean," Fluttershy whimpered, hovering just next to her, watching the gryphlet give a little yawn.

"You've worked with manticore cubs, right?" Dash received a hesitant nod. "It's kinda like that. Anyway, Kal's logic in finding me is... kinda twisted to a pony, but it makes sense in gryphon terms. Because I beat Gilda in that duel, it's like I took her place as her big sister. She doesn't want revenge or anything like that, she just... thinks I'd be better at it." The other two pegasi winced in visible disgust.

"And you're going to keep her?" Derpy struggled to keep her voice down, so as not wake up the foals.

"Well... I'm just wondering something. This... way of life. Is it hard-wired, or just taught? I mean, no offence to her, but Kal isn't the sharpest tool in the shed. There's a few nuances of gryphon culture that she's been a bit slow on the uptake on. I'm thinking, maybe it's not too late. Maybe she can grow up different."

Derpy frowned. "Even I think that's pretty optimistic..."

"Now I see what had Twilight so worried..." Fluttershy reclaimed her cloud from earlier. Dash sighed.

"When it comes down to it, I don't think pegasi and gryphons are that different. It's not something most ponies would like to admit, but... just look at Cloudsdale. It's a really hard place to live if you're not competitive and motivated."

"Or a weak flier..." Fluttershy mumbled.

"Or have a unicorn for a daughter..." Derpy added. Dash sighed, gave one last worried look at the sleeping youngsters, and settled again on her branch.

---

A party of two can navigate the cramped, dark confines of ruined storm drains a lot better than a crowd of six can, especially when the two in question have torches mounted on their foreheads. Twilight and Rarity took it in turns to light the way; Twilight brought the ladder as far as it would fit, which wasn't very far at all. They were able to use it to access the upper level of the main side drain, but it was too big to comfortably move through any drains smaller than that. Most of these pipes were dry, much to their benefit - they had no idea whether these drains were still functional at all, but in any case, Twilight knew that rain would have made their job much more difficult. There was the occasional pool around the network that was still ankle deep in stagnant water, but nothing uncrossable (regardless of Rarity's protests). At one point, they encountered another crevice extending from the sewer layer above; this one was much narrower at the bottom, making it easy to cross, but it was still too wide to climb up. At least it was a useful barometer of how deep in the system they were.

Before long, Twilight couldn't keep track of her dead reckoning estimates of direction, and a lot of their exploration became guesswork. As a rule of thumb, they went up wherever possible. To pass the time, she tried dating the structures she passed. She guessed about four or five hundred years before the original loss of Canterlot, but there wasn't much to go on - any inscriptions left by the masons had long since eroded to smooth bumps. Some of the channels looked like they were designed with an upright form in mind, as maintenance access for the ancient ponies. It amazed her how well the system had held up against the ravages of time; maybe stray magic from the population above had warded off its decay somehow, or it could just be that the city's comfortable position, well away from earthquake and hurricane risk zones, meant that it never saw much punishment.

Reckoning the time they'd spent travelling was entirely guesswork. Twilight gave a measured estimate of half an hour; Rarity was more convinced that they'd been walking around these mucky pipes for two hours, at least. Either way, when they spotted a space of tiled ceiling, sticking out sharply from the unfinished limestone of the drains, they were eager to crack it open. A quick concussive blast was all it took to dislodge it, dropping a large, ceramic bowl in front of them, shattering upon impact. It was stained heavily on the inside, and seemed to be connected to the remains of some lead pipes. Twilight wasn't yet confident enough in her own state of rest to try teleporting, but had no problem launching herself up the hole by lifting herself mid-jump.

"Aha! Now we're getting somewhere!"

"And where's 'somewhere'?"

Twilight turned to give her friend a helping hand up into the room. "This is, or was at some point, a bathroom!" Rarity wasn't impressed. "It means we're on the level of the city!"

"Just help me up." Once the two of them were safely up, Twilight immediately started examining the room. This room seemed to be fairly sheltered from the blast - the mosaic tiles on the floor were in dissarray, but still resembled their original shape; an eight pointed star. All along the walls were the remains of toilets; similar bowls to the one that broke in their entry, many of them lying loose. If her histories were anything to go by, they would have had a wooden bracket holding them in place, which had long since rotted away. Communal toilets hadn't been the norm for several hundred years - this was definitely part of the old city.

Rarity was only too happy to hurry on. Instead of drains, they found themselves in corridors. Again, these rooms showed more wear from time than fire; collapses where wooden bracing structures had failed centuries ago, rotted mortar, loose stones... The way was cramped, but not impassable. If she had to guess, Twilight would say that these were servants' quarters and workplaces, maybe from the pre-Celestial palace.

"Good heavens, Twilight, how much tunnel is there under Canterlot? It's like the mountain is just made of cheese!"

"There is quite a lot, yeah," the librarian chuckled. "The caves must have made it easy to build underground structures. I wouldn't be surprised if the storm drains are just paved caves, or if part of the system just drains staight into the water table."

"At this rate, we'll be finding entire lost civilisations down here..." Twilight's eyes glazed over. Rarity sank her face into a hand. "Oh, now I'm giving her ideas..."

---

Applejack, Pinkie and Zecora were quick to make themselves scarce. They were long away from the scene when the bumbling guards finally forced the cell doors open and stumbled into the hole made by the cave-in. Seeing little evidence of anyone that might have passed, and deeply unwilling to venture into the dark, they quickly gave up their search and returned to their posts, hoping that their superiors wouldn't notice.

Further along the darkened corridor, Applejack had taken to flinging herself at anything she could find that looked like a door. Many of them led to dead ends; abandoned bedrooms and boiler rooms, galleries overlooking vistas no longer there; a few weren't even doors, just square recesses in the wall. Fairly soon, though, she tore down a thin barrier to a long, thin-looking corridor that ran alongside the more grandiose one. It looked like it wasn't fantastically decorated to begin with - bare stone blocks paved the way, held up by rough wooden beams - but it still looked a dishevelled mess. She was getting pretty tired of this - everywhere seemed to look the same, Pinkie Pie was starting to whine about how boring these tunnels were, and Zecora didn't seem to have anything to offer except cryptic rhymes along the theme of 'just get on with it'. Still, in the name of higher purpose, she soldiered on.

Keeping a vague sense of direction and distance in her head, she led the group around the servants' network, on a circuitous route that at some point incorporated two flights of stairs. As they passed, they were able to see the occasional shaft of light through a gap in the mortar, or hear activity going on behind the walls; this corrdor went right around the back of the new dungeon. Eventually, the passageway terminated in an old archway, blocked up with recent-looking wood panel. She pressed her ear up to it, held her breath, and held a finger back to the others. Moments passed, with just silence.

"Ah think it's clear... should we bust it down?"

"We may need, later, to cover our tracks; it may be difficult if the door has cracks."

"Hmm... bust it down gently then?" The farmer started examining the joint between the wood and the arch. Zecora just smacked her forehead.

Not wasting what might be a narrow window of opportunity, Applejack knelt by the panel and started leaning into it to test the fittings. She had no idea what was keeping this board in place - nails? Screws? Just something heavy on the other side? Her question was soon answered when the whole thing budged back an inch and wobbled in place, after some fairly intense effort. Rather than risk knocking something over, she stopped and let it settle. A light knock on it revealed that it was hollow. She snorted. These Canterlot ponies could be so lazy sometimes - empty doorway to nowhere in the reading room? Just put that bookshelf in front of it, it'll be fine. It's not like anypony's going to come from the other side and use it to sneak in. She motioned for Zecora to hold the top of the shelf while she pushed on the bottom. It slid again another foot, barely wide enough for Applejack to squeeze through on her side. The zebra was able to carefully sidestep out, and Pinkie... well, it's a miracle she didn't send the contents of the shelf flying.

The room itself was calm; it looked like Blueblood was using the place as a retreat from the stress of Canterlot above. A fire crackled gently in the fireplace, and a couple of lanterns ensured the room was well-lit. The walls were a patchwork of crumbling old stone and the newer, cleaner but shoddier work, with a couple of procured marble pillars from the Celestia-era palace. The intent seemed to have been a sort of 'rugged charm' deal - everything else about the room was of the finest craftsmanship, red carpet, intricately carved desks and cupboards, and a plush scarlet armchair by the fireplace. But, they didn't have time to get comfortable - they immediately set to work rifling through the contents of the desk.

It was mostly a mess of official papers, half-filled out. Some filing system this was! A small stack of books sat to the side; a couple of diaries and organisers, a copy of Romeo and Muliet that seemed to have a magazine sticking out of the middle, and a much older... hold on. She picked the musty old book out of the stack - she thought it looked familiar.

Comments

[hahatimeforponies]

Editing will be the death of me.

[Ariel Schnee]

810687 All they need is an altar, a scroll of resurrection, and a Dark God to call on... and she'll be up and at 'em in no time.^_^