White Sun

by The Psychopath

Tunneling

The soldiers ended up traveling through the caves for three days before they even managed to find a vague trace of non-cave dwelling life. The cave tunnels twisted and turned every few feet, making it extremely hard and extremely dangerous to get through. While the group was worried about ambushed, they hadn't taken into account the intricacies and randomness that a cave's layout could give. On many occasions the soldiers had almost fallen to their deaths, only to be saved by their quick-thinking comrades at the last second. It was starting to take its toll on them, making them doubt if the necromancer actually took up refuge in this location at all seeing how dangerous it was.

Exhausted, the soldiers wanted to return home. Even Shining Armor was feeling his determination fading and was about ready to do the same and resume his duty as emperor, but another scout group returned from one of the many tunnels with news: They had found a safe passage past a bunch of collapsed walls held in place by millennia of tectonic shifts, and something was at the end. Eager, Shining Armor followed them and came upon an old building fused into the stone.

"What is this?" Shining asked aloud. He pressed his hoof against the bricks lining the walls as they approached the construct at the end of the tunnel. "Did Twilight build all this?"

"Unlikely, sir," a guard said. "This stuff has been here for a long, long time."

Another leaned in and grunted. "Doesn't look like it was built into the cave. Looks more like the cave grew around it," she commented. "How would that even work?"

"Stop talking," Shining snapped. "I smell something rotten coming from the building. Keep your wits about you."

The ponies did as told and slowly approached the building at the end of the tunnel, but when they finally reached it, they all ended up covering their muzzles. No doors blocked them entry, and after placing a small filtering spell over their faces, the group entered the necromancer's home.

"It's...more quaint than I thought it would be," one of the soldiers said.

Shining nodded in agreement. "Spread out and look for anything. I don't think anything is in here."

Shuffling and movement filled the dead air of the building as intruders went through the necromancer's belongings, curious as to what they would find.

"A lot of old books on this dilapidated shelf," a guard announced. She took one out and started flipping through its pages. "Lots of theories on magic and some medical books," the mare continued. "Why would a necromancer have medical documents?"

"And over here there's a bunch of map scrolls," another said in excitement. He unfurled one and gasped.

"What's wrong?!' Shining asked as he rushed over. "Is it trapped?"

"No!" the guard squeed. "It's a map from before the princesses! I think it's a thousand and seven hundred years old! Where did she even get this?"

The emperor was about to get angry when the question hit him. Where did Twilight get something like that?

"There's more! They're all so old!" the guard said giddily. "Why would she even have these? They would help her navigate anywhere."

He was approached by another guard who pushed him away and started looking closer at the maps. "Because she's not using them to navigate," she explained. She tapped several parts of each map with a hoof. "See these spots?" she asked. "They look like burial mounds or the spots where battles and wars have been fought."

Shining lifted up three of the maps with his magic and furrowed his brows. "She was looking for places to dig up bodies," he realized. "If she only ever really focused on places like this, then it would partially explain how she never garnered the attention other necromancers got when they started going on murder sprees."

"Aside from a few tables, a shoddy bed, and some writing stuff, not much else here," a soldier in the back declared. "Doesn't seem like there's anything here to hold corpses and the like," he added.

"Keep looking," Shining ordered. "There's more to this place. I know it."

More searching revealed a staircase hidden in the shadows that brought the group downstairs to a bunch of chemistry equipment and surgical tables. Next to the door was a box full of surgical tools sitting in a strange, brown, acidic fluid that stung their nostrils even through their masks. As they explored it, they came upon mountains of research papers by Twilight and started sharing them between each other.

"Lots of stuff on how to sow back cut lips, reattach the nerves, replaces for rotted blood vessels," one soldier said.

A soldier read through every sheet as fast as she could and started to worry. "Hmmm. Also, she's been trying to resurrect them fully. I don't get it. A necromancer trying to bring ponies back from the dead? I mean, I know some tried to bring back their loved ones, but they always ended up going too far."

"Yes, it's tragic," Shining said absent-mindedly. "There's more to her laboratory here than just sheets of paper."

"Well, there's all these papers theorizing on how to bring Celestia back to life and what to do depending on the state of her body." The soldier handed around twenty pieces of paper to Shining and let him go through the scribbles. "She's also got a bunch of stuff on dried out corpses," she added. "I think she went and visited the deserts down south." The guard smirked. "She's been traveling. Might have traveled again."

"Even so, we can't just leave this place alone," Shining said. He walked up to a large door and forced it open, buffeting him and his team with freezing air. "What is this?" the stallion wondered. "A freezing room?" When he saw the orb floating in it he blocked his soldiers from entering. "Don't touch that. It'll freeze you dead," he instructed.

"Yes, sir," the ponies said in unison.

As they explored the contents of the frozen chamber, the guards were shocked and disgusted. Body parts, organs, blood. All frozen and organized on shelves built into the walls. It was a disgusting and horrific sight for Shining Armor, to know that his sister had all of this sitting here.

"So, she did butcher ponies," one guard said. "I know she couldn't be trusted."

"We can't be too sure about that," another opposed. "All her maps only showed her going to burial grounds and cemeteries, and if she had gone mad like many others then she would have been worse when brought to the Crystal Empire. Don't forget that she didn't use her magic to attack our comrades."

"She killed two of our own!"

"After that weird thrall of hers was blocked and attacked by them." He looked to the ground and grimaced. "After that incident at the barracks and how it behaved when in the spire, we know it only reacts to threats to her. She never told it to hurt anypony despite having the power to do so."

The mare groaned loudly and snorted. "You're right. Fine. Could've broken the lock on her horn too and she never did."

"I'm not saying she couldn't have," the stallion added. "But her behavioral pattern is too abstract to be as simple as killing ponies to harvest their bodies, especially with all those notes of hers trying to bring ponies back from the dead. Killing them, stealing their parts, then bringing others back to life seems counter-intuitive."

Shining walked past them and explored further, noticing the chute Twilight always used that was caked in dried, rotting matter. "Necromancers like that haven't always been of sound mind, and when things take too long they tend to want to do anything to speed things up." He leaned over to see a dark abyss at the end of the chute and hummed. "Could be that she went to that extent...or whoever has been supplying her has also given her these parts...Considering how timid she is that seems very likely."

"Timidity wouldn't dull the greed of a necromancer," the guard mumbled angrily.

The group continued to explore the lab, discovering diagrams of pony anatomy rolled up and hidden between two tables and the storage area Twilight would place bodies before experimenting on them. She had forgotten one body that had rotted into a skeleton with the time that she took to get back, leaving a nasty, blackened outline of what once was and a significant disgust and anger from the observers.

"You think she's down there?" one of the soldiers asked as he leaned over the chute.

"I dunno. I'd rather not touch it, though." The stallion waved a hoof in front of his face. "Even with this face protector is smells rank."

"I don't think we'll need to." Shining struck a giant metal door with his hooves. "I think we can go down through here."

"There's more?!" a guard realized in horror. "What are we supposed to find? A hole full of undead ready to eat us?!"

"We don't know, which is why we're going down there. So far everything has been going smoothly, hasn't it?" Shining reasoned. "We're still fresh and ready for any combat encounter, so let's get to work."

Reluctant, several of the guards helped open the gate and went down the dank, dusty steps. Reaching the end opened them up to a collapsed tunnel and much darkness. However, reaching the other side left them speechless.

"An...an entire city?!" one of the guards gasped. "And in such a good state."

"There's parts that have collapsed though. See over there?"

"I...Twilight could not have done all of this," Shining said.

"It's an architectural marvel," another soldier realized. "Imagine what we could learn from this place."

"Hey, down there," a guard whispered. She pointed far below them. "Is this what you wanted to see, your highness?"

Shining leaned over and grew furious. A veritable ocean of the dead were going somewhere beyond their sight, seemingly disappearing into the rest of the stone by themselves, but as they moved forward and started to shrink, more came from the city to join the group with every loud 'bang' coming from beyond the soldiers' view. Several dead would come out and walk alongside the outer edges of the column and drop dirt away from their fellows, beginning the foundation of a new road.

"What are they doing?"

"Is there a tunnel down there?"

As the guards tried to figure out what was happening, Shining was lost deep in thought. Twilight had this entire city all to herself, but the passage to reach it was so dusty and unused. What exactly had she been doing the whole time? Was she even fully aware of it? He looked out to the massive buildings still standing and felt himself crease at the sight. There was something nefarious about it and what it represented. He was afraid that there was a reason a city like this had been forgotten and he didn't want to linger too long to find out. If his sister didn't want to explore it then it was clear that there was no reason for him to stay there longer than needed.

"What do we do, sir?" a guard asked.

"What? Oh!" Suddenly taken out of his thoughts, the unicorn cleared his throat and stood tall. "There's no way we can take all of those undead head on. We don't know what they're doing nor why they're there. I think it prudent that we watch from afar and try to stay out of trouble. This might be far worse than I initially thought," he worried.

"Should we explore the city?" a guard asked. "The necromancer might have hidden something in there."

Shining and the other soldiers peered out into the dark abyss and shivered.

"No," Shining Armor responded. "We don't need to. We're not archaeologists and I don't want to discover whatever is exuding this...off sensation."

One guard looked at him with wide eyes. "You can feel it too?" she asked.

Shining nodded. "Yes, and it's best we stay on the trail of the dead." He looked around the damaged bridge and kicked some debris away. "Let's wait here while I write some reports. I need to keep Ca--Empress Cadance appraised of everything going on here."

"She won't like what you're about to tell her."

Shining grimaced. "I know, and neither will I."

Comments

[DarkSnowGaming]

So I'm guessing Twilight might be in the city somewhere? And the undead is currently heading there way to Canterlot?

Also did Twilight never think of placing traps in her base? I'm surprised they even made it past the entrance to the caves!

[adamsafran]

11857978
Time spent making and installing traps is time not spent working on her theories and experiments. Plus she doesn't want to hurt anypony!

[DarkSnowGaming]

11858002
Ehhh, I think the correct word is "kill," not "hurt".

She doesn't want to kill anyone, but she will hurt those if deemed necessary (probably), however I don't think Twilight would give any permanent injuries, only temporary injuries like cuts or bruises. Maybe traps to capture Pegasus and earth ponies, or ways to knock out trespassers.

[Wolfwaffe]

11857721
Well, how about beasts of burden? In a world in a medieval stasis, a horse that can pull a plow or a cart non-stop and not require any food or rest definitely will be in demand. Ghosts in border patrols or internal investigation teams. Calling back murder victims for questioning. Speed message delivery. Road patrols. Doubt any highwaymen would want to deal with a pack of undead predators.

[Zeprto678]

Twilight is going to need a plan to get in and out successfully, and also find a new base of operations as well.