Crystalforged

by SilverNotes

Crucible

To say that the starship landed on the ice planet would be a charitable way of describing it.

The more accurate description would be that cobbled-together set of parts assembled around a FTL engine staggered its way through the atmosphere, its landing gear engaging a moment too late to avoid bashing and skidding its way along the ice sheets like a stone skipping across a pond. Once it'd finally stopped, it slowly tilted to one side, the name Crystal Heart barely visible on its hull, and the door on the side now pointed skyward gave a tell-tale hiss and started to open.

Rutile Quartz leaped out the door and lit her horn, the unicorn going into self-levitation on instinct to lower herself to the ice. She almost blended into her surroundings with her coat of blue-tinted white, but it also made her glossy black, cropped-short mane and tail stand out all the more, along with the stripe along her back and stripes on her lower legs of the same colour. Her soft blue magic faded as she found her hoofing, then looked over her shoulder at her companion.

Tundra lit her antlers and gave a tentative hop, plunging downward at first before her magic surged with a faint sound of jingling bells and she summoned the strength to defy gravity. The rust-red doe wobbled in the air in her barely-controlled descent, and scrambled to keep her hooves under her body when they met ice.

Rutile watched as Tundra eventually steadied, musing on the fact that she'd somehow ended up traveling with what may be the only reindeer in the entire galaxy who struggled to fly, then looked at the ship, taking in every dent in the metal with a hiss of, "Well, buck me..."

Tundra looked back, taking in what Rutile had, and immediately cringed. She then offered a tentative smile. "Hey, I mean... any landing you can walk away from..."

Rutile let out a deep sigh of frustration. "Easy for you to say. That's my ship. We're just lucky nothing in that debris field hit anything essential or breached the hull." She eyed Tundra as the doe pulled a metal disc from her pack. "You're sure this is the right planet?"

"It's the one the star map pointed to," Tundra said as the disc activated, holographic stars and planets springing into the air in front of the pair. She lifted a leg to jab a hoof toward one of the planets, prompting the map to zoom in. "If it's not, there's one other inhabitable planet in this sector, but it'd be a longshot."

Calling this planet inhabitable felt overly generous to Rutile. Neither of them were affected by the cold, but unless some serious terraforming and weather control was done, she couldn't see enough agriculture going on here to support a settlement.

Still, the Empire had supposedly been founded near the northern pole of the homeworld, so clearly they'd had the magic and technology once to make an environment like this barely an obstacle. The original refugees may have even found a place like this inviting, reminding them of home.

"Then we'd better pray to Cadenza the map was right." Magic coiled around her pistol, pulling the old thing out of its holster; there'd been two at first, a matched set, but like the integrity of her ship, its twin had been a casualty of their quest. "Which way does it say to go from here?"

Tundra zoomed in further, until she was looking at a near-flat plane with two blinking dots. She then glanced up at the yellow dwarf star hanging in the sky above them, and nodded. "This way."

With the gun still hovering next to her, Rutile followed Tundra over a snow-covered hill, scanning the the sea of white for movement. Sapient life may have left this world long ago, but that didn't mean it would be devoid of life entirely, and Rutile was ready to riddle anything that thought a pony and a deer looked like a bite-sized snack with bullet holes.

The cold iron of her medallion pressed against her chest, heavy around her neck. Just like it had been the first day.

---

"How old Imperial are we talking, here?"

Too many of Rutile's jobs had started in a place like this, watering holes built from the bones of old ships and smelling like apple cider and salt. She looked at home in here, but her conversation partner didn't, the doe twitching her ears at every little sound and looking like she was one harsh look away from bolting.

"Old." A datapad slid out of Tundra's pack, symbols in a language that Rutile couldn't read scrolling across its surface as it was laid upon the table. "It may be the first settlement the Empire founded after the Exodus."

Rutile snorted, and what followed was the voice of experience. "Which is old enough that it's almost certainly infested."

Tundra gulped. "Well...yes. That's why I was hoping for some firepower and not just transport. But it's not just the technology or data." She tapped a hoof on the screen, a particular set of symbols becoming highlighted in red. "There's signs that... it may be a tomb." She leaned closer to Rutile, lowering her voice. "An alicorn tomb."

Rutile froze. Her senses reached out in every direction, searching for a flare of emotion that would have come from an eavesdropper, and found none. "You have my attention."

"I can't guarantee it." She stared at the highlighted passage. "There's a few possible translations of this, but one of those translations can mean 'alicorn.'"

"So there's a chance." Light encased Rutile's medallion, lifting it over her head and placing it on the table. One of her hooves covered it, and she took a deep breath of air tinged with salt and spices. "I vow to bring you to this Imperial vault, and help you find whatever's inside."

There was no magic in the act, save for what had briefly levitated the iron. There didn't need to be.

Tundra's eyes had gone wide. "You... a vow? Just like that?" She sputtered as Rutile placed the chain back around her neck. "We haven't even discussed payment and you just--"

Magic surrounded metal again, and she turned the medallion around, showing the heart engraved on its surface. "If the empress is in there, that's worth a lot more to me than coin."

---

At a distance, the metal doors would have blended in shockingly well with the surrounding ice and rock. Standing right in front of them, however, and Rutile could only stare up and imagine the titans who would have used them. Alicorns were supposed to have been much larger than ordinary ponies, but she struggled to imagine anything short of a dragon needing such a door. Even most vehicles would have clearance to spare.

Tundra was poking around to the left of the doors, and she finally managed to uncover something that had been buried in the snow. It looked far more scaled for ponies, a metal structure that came up to roughly Rutile's eye level and had a slot in the top. "This looks like the opening mechanism. You said you had an idea of how to get in?"

Rutile nodded, and the chain around her neck lifted. Her medallion slid into the structure, and then the glow around her horn intensified. Tundra gave a surprised bleat and hopped back as the beam of magic struck metal, but Rutile was too focused to say anything.

The first component was iron.

The second was magic.

The third was love.

And so she kept the spell flowing, and she thought of home. She thought of parents, and of friends. She thought of support, care and hope, that eventually turned to tearful goodbyes and the fear that it would be the last goodbye. And when the last bittersweet memory of a too-short foalhood had fallen past her mind's eye, the doors hissed, and slid open.

Rutile walked in, leaving the medallion as her offering to the structure. Tundra hurried after her with an awed expression, and squeaked when the doors slammed shut again, nearly catching her short tail. "Root--!"

Rutile didn't look back. Light-crystals reacted to their proximity, slowly taking on a flickering light, but her eyes still hunted for movement in the shadows. "Look alive. A vault this old is bound to be hosting trouble."

"But--Th-the key..."

"I'm the key," she said simply. "The metal's just a conduit. If we don't find something that'll fit in the lock before it's time to get out, I'll improvise." She briefly looked back at the trembling doe. "Now move, and keep your eyes and ears open for an ambush."

Comments

[Starlight Nova]

What's TTRPG stand for?

[Cross Lament]

11532368
"Tabletop Role-Playing Game"

[Pseudosapien]

Not familiar with the crossover source. It’s an engaging first chapter though, I’m following.

[Bicyclette]

Once it'd finally stopped, it slowly tilted to one side, the name Crystal Heart barely visible on its hull, and the door on the side now pointed skyward gave a tell-tale hiss and started to open.

great ship name

Tundra lit her antlers and gave a tentative hop, plunging downward at first before her magic surged with a faint sound of jingling bells and she summoned the strength to defy gravity.

aww, a reindeer’s in this!

Tundra's eyes had gone wide. "You... a vow? Just like that?" She sputtered as Rutile placed the chain back around her neck. "We haven't even discussed payment and you just--"

Magic surrounded metal again, and she turned the medallion around, showing the heart engraved on its surface. "If the empress is in there, that's worth a lot more to me than coin."

ooh, some intriguing worldbuilding being hinted at through this