Chapter 9
I'strukun
“Here we go,” Twilight said, levitating her sketch of Adene’s symbol onto the light table, “one last lock to undo, and one last taunt from Margent before we meet face to face.” She pressed the paper onto the light table and stood back while the machine did its thing. Once the symbol had been scanned, mechanisms triggered deep in the tower’s guts and the cage containing the book to Naborale opened. The lights dimmed and the projectors turned on. To Twilight and Nyx’s surprise, Margent’s face didn’t appear on the ceiling. Instead, it was the face of Star Swirl the Bearded, looking quite pleased.
“You’ve done well, my students,” Star Swirl said, “but there is one more task ahead of you. The Linking Book before you leads to a world called Naborale. It is a very delicate world, and a civilization has emerged in response to the world’s imbalances. It’s also the first inhabited world I’m sending you to alone, but don’t be afraid. The knowledge you’ve acquired so far will give you the keys to open the world to you. Now go, and experience all that Naborale has to offer.”
“Margent left the original message in place,” Nyx said, scratching her head. “Why?”
“I’d guess it’s to provide an ironic counterpoint to what we’re actually going to find,” Twilight said. She walked out onto the bridge leading to the cage and levitated the Naborale book out of its place. “She is not going to be happy to see us,” Twilight said as she brought the book back to solid footing.
“I don’t think she’d be happy to see anypony,” Nyx replied, giving Twilight a sideways look.
“You’re probably right,” Twilight said, “but she’s expecting to see your father, or Cirrus and Archeon.”
“She should be used to disappointment by now,” Nyx said. “Let’s quit wasting time; we’ve got your dragon and our way home to save.” She plucked at the book in Twilight’s magic until the older unicorn set it down and opened it to the linking panel.
“You’re right,” Twilight said. “I’ll go first, in case there’s trouble.” She set her hoof on the linking panel and vanished through it.
Naborale
It is good that I am the one who discovered Naborale, and not Aldro or anypony who lacks the appreciation I have for this world’s delicate state. Ponies are masters of their environments, and the Naborale natives prove that better than anything, but if foreign elements are allowed into the world without careful regulation, the natives’ delicate traditions and rituals would swiftly come undone, and then everything would be doomed.
For this reason, I will not only lock the linking book away behind the lessons of I’strukun, but place a lock within the world itself around the arrival point. Only those who truly understand what Wahteg, Motivaria, and Adene mean to teach are worthy to interact with Naborale.
Nothing leaped out to ambush Twilight as her senses came back to her, so she took a quick look around. She’d materialized in a room made almost completely of braided white wood and woven reeds. The floor was made from reed mats fastened tightly in the gaps between thin wood branches that seemed to have grown into their positions, and the walls were columns of braided wood connected by translucent panels of some membranous material. Large red banners embroidered with symbols similar to those collected from the lesson worlds hung on most of the walls. The only exceptions to the theme of natural materials were a tall, round-sided metal wall to the left of the banners, a contraption on a raised section of floor consisting of two metal globes connected by a pipe with a lever midway between them, and the pipe that ran through the floor connecting the contraption to the metal wall.
There was nopony in sight, so Twilight stepped away from the arrival point and waved a hoof, hoping Nyx could see her through the linking panel back in I’strukun. A moment later, the filly materialized and started taking in the room for herself. “This doesn’t look bad at all,” Nyx said. “Everything’s clean, in good repair, and kind of pretty-looking.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought too,” a boyish voice said, startling the two ponies. They went toward the source with caution, climbing a short set of stairs to the raised area with the globes, and came upon a wall made only of the white wood forming a random web of holes. On the other side of the wall, on a balcony with a gondola, Spike was rocking on his feet, eyes starting to brim with hopeful tears. “Twilight!” he exclaimed, “you finally came!”
“Sorry it took so long, Spike,” Twilight said, reaching a hoof through one of the holes to stroke the dragon’s head. “You’re not hurt, are you?”
“Nah,” Spike said, wiping his eyes and putting on a brave face. “That crazy Pinkie look-alike didn’t rough me up too much; she just threw me in here and put up that shield over there so I can’t wander around.” He pointed to his right, indicating a tall, whitish ovoid that blocked a doorway right next to the web-wall.
“Where’d she go?” Nyx asked.
“Upstairs,” Spike answered, pointing to his left. “She hasn’t come back down since.”
“Ok,” Twilight said, looking in the direction Spike indicated and seeing a set of metal stairs partially hidden behind the metal wall. “Sit tight, Spike. We’ll get you out of there soon.”
“Hey,” Nyx cut in, “you breathe fire, don’t you? Why don’t you burn your way out of there?”
Spike quirked an eyebrow at Nyx and then coughed some fire onto the wall; the flames washed over the wood without leaving so much as a scorch mark. “Tried that,” Spike said. “The wood won’t burn no matter how long I hold my flame on it.”
Nyx shrugged. “It was worth a try.”
“Come on,” Twilight said, heading to the stairs, “let’s get this done.”
Nyx followed Twilight up the metal stairs, which led to the roof of the little structure they were in. From this position, they could see that the structure was actually mostly metal and that the room they’d come from had apparently grown around it. Most of the floor was a ventilation grating that would have revealed the structure’s interior, if it weren’t for an obscuring mist backlit by a warm orange glow. The view of the rest of the world beyond the structure was likewise obscured by a spherical shield like the one that kept Spike trapped; all that Twilight and Nyx could make out through the translucent whiteness were tiny floating objects of some kind. At the far side of the roof was a little metal maintenance access door, which opened when Twilight and Nyx were halfway across the roof.
Margent stepped out onto the roof, clutching the Materan book with one bat wing. She had a gleeful smile on her face that faded quickly to confusion when she laid eyes on Twilight and Nyx. “You’re not him,” she said, approaching slowly. “Where is he?!” She came to a stop several paces away, and her mouth twisted in a snarl. “He didn’t come, did he?”
“You mean Star Swirl, right, Margent?” Twilight asked. “No, he’s not with us.”
“Of course he isn’t,” Margent muttered, turning away. “Foolish little pony. Did you honestly think it would work? That he would actually bother to return himself, to actually lay eyes on what he’s done, the death he brought to Naborale, to take responsibility?”
“It wasn’t his fault!” Nyx shouted. “Don’t try to pin Cirrus and Archeon’s action on my Father!” Margent whirled around and ran up to Nyx, her eyes wide and wild.
“Father?” she said. “I knew it, I knew it! Just more proxies, more star-swirly brats so he doesn’t have to dirty his hooves himself. Perhaps I should have taken you instead of that lizard.” She reached for Nyx, but Twilight quickly summoned a barrier around the filly and pushed Margent back with telekinesis.
“Stop it,” Twilight said. “Margent, I know how much you’re hurting right now-”
“What would you know of my pain, star-swirly?” Margent sneered, getting right up in Twilight’s face.
Twilight opened her bag and brought out Margent’s journal. “I read the pages you scattered around,” she began, but Margent lashed out before she could continue, knocking the journal out of Twilight’s telekinetic bubble and scattering the contents everywhere; many of the pages slipped through the grating, lost forever.
“Words on a page!” Margent exclaimed, “Is that all you think we are, star-swirlies?! You just write something and it’s instantly true? Then why not change my truth? Why not fix Naborale, and give me back everything that was taken away!” She turned away again. “You can’t. He won’t. Won’t even look on his old work.” She started to stalk away, but then the wing holding Materan twitched and she turned back to Twilight and Nyx with a calculating look. “You know,” she said, “you’re stuck here now, with me. I’ve got the linking book to I’strukun locked away where you can’t get it. Even if you could, there’re no books back to Aitran; Cirrus and Archeon destroyed the ones they brought with them, and the one Star Swirl hid away in the central tusk. Maybe this,” she held out the Materan book for a moment, and then clamped it back against her side before Twilight could get a magical grip on it, “maybe it’s your way out. I’m holding onto it anyway. I don’t need to hurt you; I just need to keep you here until Star Swirl has no choice but to come himself.” She smirked and backed away a few steps. “Then again,” she mused, looking around, “you see this shield Star Swirl erected? It keeps us locked away from the rest of Naborale, and I have never managed to get past it, not once in all these years. If you clever little ponies can get it open then, maybe, I’ll let you have this book back.”
“What do you-” Nyx started to protest, but Twilight overrode her, pushing the filly gently behind her.
“We’ll give it a try,” Twilight said. “But, I want more than just a ‘maybe.’ If Nyx and I get the outer shield down, then we get the book and you can go mourn your family properly.” She held out a hoof for Margent to shake. Margent frowned in hesitant thought, so Twilight pressed on. “If we can’t get it down, then we’re stuck here like you said. No matter what happens, you win.”
“Fine,” Margent said, “move that lever over there to turn on the power, and get started.” She turned around and walked back to the door, stepped over the threshold, gave Twilight and Nyx one last hard look, and then closed and locked the door.
“All right,” Twilight said, turning away from the door, “let’s gets to work, Nyx.”
“What the hay, Twilight!” Nyx exclaimed. “Why are you still playing along with her games? We could have grabbed the book right then and linked home!”
“Spike’s still trapped,” Twilight said. “And even if we could have gotten the book away from her, we have no way of stopping her from following us through. Do you want a psychotic pony rampaging around your home?”
“No,” Nyx admitted with reluctance.
“I didn’t think so,” Twilight said.
“But she could follow us anyway if we do get the shield down,” Nyx protested.
“True,” Twilight admitted, “but she’ll be less angry, and I expect she’ll rush off to see what’s left of her actual home. That will buy your parents time to prepare for her arrival.” Nyx grumbled but didn’t argue any further, so Twilight went over to the lever Margent had indicated and moved it from left to right.
Spike greeted the ponies as they came down the stairs with, “Do you still have the food you packed, Twi? I’m getting hungry.”
“You’re taking your situation well, Spike,” Twilight noted as she took off her saddlebags and started to rummage through them. She came up with a couple of wrapped sandwiches and passed one of them through the holes in the wall.
“Well, you’re here now,” Spike pointed out. “I know you’ll have things sorted out in no time.” Twilight blushed.
“That’s great,” Nyx said, “but where do we start?”
Spike unwrapped the sandwich and inspected it. “Before the crazy pony threw me in here,” he said, “she did something with the metal ball on the left.” Finding the sandwich’s contents to be to his satisfaction, he took a large bite.
Nyx went over to the globe and gave it a closer look. It had a hatch on its side, but it refused to open when Nyx tugged at it with her magic. Instead, it made a sound like a motor trying and failing to start up. Nyx rubbed her head and looked over the rest of the contraption. She noticed the lever between the globes was pointed at the other globe, so she grabbed it in her magic, turned it to face the left, and tried opening the hatch again. At the touch of her magic, the globe rose up a couple feet on a post and the hatch popped open. “Why must everything be too tall for me?” Nyx whined, rearing up to look inside. Twilight chuckled and came over, levitating the filly onto her back. “Thank you,” Nyx said.
Inside the globe, the ponies saw twelve wire patterns consisting of four overlapping circles inside a larger circle; the patterns were arranged in three diamond-shaped sets of four. An experimental touch to one of the circle segments made it start glowing orange, and a second touch turned the segment back off.
“We’ll have to draw certain patterns in this,” Nyx said, “but how do we-”
“Hold on!” Twilight exclaimed suddenly. She summoned her saddlebags over and extracted one of the sketches she’d made of the symbols from the lesson worlds. Consulting it, she tapped wires in one of the sets of four until she’d recreated the symbol exactly. She then set Nyx down on the floor and trotted over to one of the red banners. Nyx followed her, curious, and gave the banners a closer look herself. Each banner was embroidered with six symbols in two columns, and under each symbol was a word such as “Energy,” “Love,” or “Mutual.” A large smile spread across Twilight’s face, and she declared, “I’ve got it!”
“Got what?” Nyx asked.
“It’s all coming together,” Twilight said, summoning her bags over once more and pulling out all the symbol sketches. She floated one in front of Nyx’s face and said, “Look, this is made from two of the symbols on this wall.”
Nyx grabbed the paper and searched the banners for the matching symbols. “Change and Force,” she said once she’d found them. “So?”
“So,” Twilight said, “remember how Margent mentioned altering the symbols? And her reference to poems in her journal?”
“Yes,” Nyx said, “can you get to the point, please?”
Twilight sighed. “I think the original symbols were made of four parts,” she said, “each one being a four-word poem on one Lesson World’s lesson. Margent just took out half of each symbol to make the ones we found.”
“So we have to finish the poems, and then put them into the globe?” Nyx hazarded. Twilight nodded. “Ok,” Nyx said, “give me the other sketches; might as well finish the class properly.” Twilight passed her the papers and a pencil, and as the filly went to study the banners, Twilight went back up to the wall separating her from Spike.
“Spike,” Twilight said, “I’m sorry you missed out on the other worlds.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” Spike replied. “How could any of us have known there was pony waiting around to dragon-nap me? What’s her deal, anyway? She didn’t say much to me, other than muttering about Star Swirl and payback.”
Twilight sat down and unwrapped her other sandwich. “That’s a bit of a story,” she said. “It started with Star Swirl and his treacherous apprentices, Cirrus and Archeon.” She laid out the key points of Margent’s history as best she could remember, while Nyx worked studiously on completing the three symbols.
When Twilight finished the story, Nyx came trotting up with a satisfied look on her face. “I think I’ve got them,” she said. “Come give me a boost so I can check my work.” Twilight nodded and went over to the globe, lifting Nyx onto her back. “I just hope I don’t have to put everything in before finding out if I messed up something,” the filly grumbled as she sorted through her papers. “Let’s start with… Whateg,” she decided. “Energy powers future motion.” Twilight watched out of the corner of her eye as Nyx recreated the symbols on the top set of four wire patterns, moving clockwise from the top of the diamond. As soon as Nyx completed the last symbol, the glowing wires changed from an orange glow to a bright white light.
“Looks like you’ve got it,” Twilight said. Nyx laughed in triumph and moved to the next set of wires.
“Now from Motivaria,” Nyx said, “Dynamic forces spur change. Took me a while to find a verb on those banners that worked.” She copied the symbols onto the bottom-left set and beamed when they turned white as well. “Adene, then,” she said, shuffling her papers to the right page, “nature encourages mutual dependence.” She copied the symbols in the last set of wires. When those wires turned white, the hatch on the globe swung shut and the barrier in the doorway faded away into nothingness.
Nyx, Twilight, and Spike whooped and cheered as Spike ran in and leaped at Twilight, arms outstretched. Nyx barely managed to jump off Twilight’s back to avoid being thrown as the lavender unicorn and baby dragon hugged each other tightly. Nyx turned her attention to the globes, wanting to give Twilight and Spike their space, but then Spike let go of Twilight and grabbed Nyx in a tight hug as well. “Great job there, Nyx,” Spike said. “I owe you one.”
“Thanks,” Nyx said, “but we’re not done here yet.” She grabbed the handle on the globe contraption and turned it toward the other globe. With a hiss of power, the inner barrier reformed in the doorway. “Huh,” Nyx said with a frown, “how’s a pony actually supposed to get out of here, then?”
“Let’s solve this last puzzle first,” Twilight said, “and see what happens.” She lifted Nyx onto her back again and activated the second globe. When the globe rose up and the hatch opened, it revealed a single set of four wire patterns like in the first globe. “We need one more symbol,” Twilight said.
“From where?” Nyx asked.
“I saw another set of stairs leading down when you took the first barrier down,” Spike said.
“Good eye, Spike,” Nyx said, hopping to the floor and turning the lever back to the first globe. Once the barrier disappeared again, Nyx led the way through the door and down the stairs. The group came into a room much like the first, complete with banners bearing two dozen new poem symbols. Spike, Nyx, and Twilight searched the room, but the only other point of interest they found was an empty bookstand by the entrance. “Well,” Nyx said, sitting down in a huff, “I see why Margent hasn’t gotten through the outer shield on her own! Not so much as a clue to the final symbol!”
“The parts have to be here,” Twilight said, examining the banners, “but, you’re right: I don’t see anything to get us started on figuring it out.”
“Well, where’d you get the other symbols from?” Spike asked.
“The other worlds,” Nyx answered. “One from each lesson.” Her ears perked up slightly. “Then wouldn’t the fourth symbol be the lesson of Naborale itself?”
“That makes sense,” Twilight said, “but then there really ought to be a clue in here, since we can’t leave without it.” She turned away from the banners and approached Nyx. “I don’t want to suggest cheating,” she said, “but your father did write down the four-word lessons for Wahteg, Motivaria, and Adene in the journal he gave me, so he must have noted down Naborale’s as well…”
Nyx moaned and rubbed her eyes. “That is so tempting,” she said, “but Cirrus and Archeon managed to get out into Naborale without Father’s notes, and we’re each smarter than both of them put together. We can figure this out. I know we can.”
“I like your confidence,” Spike said, “but where would we even start from?”
“We start with what we know,” Nyx said. She stood up and started pacing. “What do we know about Naborale? I mean, as a Lesson World?”
“It’s the only world in the group where we’re meant to encounter a civilization,” Twilight said.
“Yes,” Nyx said. “And both Father’s recorded introduction to this world and Margent’s journal emphasized the delicate balance that the civilization exists in. Bat-winged ponies and a ‘lattice tree’ depending on each other for survival; if the ponies don’t cooperate, the tree doesn’t grow right and everything suffers. Oh!” She stopped and started scanning the banners. “I think I might have… Was there a symbol for ‘civilization’ or something similar upstairs?”
“Uh,” Twilight and Spike said.
“Never mind,” Nyx said impatiently. “Fresh paper, please.” Twilight pulled some paper from her bag and hoofed it over, and Nyx quickly sketched several symbols before dashing upstairs. Twilight and Spike shared a bemused look and then followed the filly. When they reentered the first room, Nyx herded Twilight toward the second globe, turned the lever, and then recruited Twilight as a step-stool again. “I’ve got three parts of this for sure,” Nyx said, tapping wires at a manic pace, “I just need to find the right word for the bottom symbol. Balanced system… something… civilization.”
“Create?” Spike suggested.
“Not an option,” Nyx said quickly. “Perhaps nurture?” She tapped for a few seconds. “No. Sustain? Nope. Stimulate?” As soon as she created that symbol, the wires crackled and turned white, and the translucent outer shield dissolved away. Nyx hopped down from Twilight’s back, and the trio went to the cage-like wall to look out on Naborale proper.
The view was partially blocked by the gondola parked by the balcony, but beyond that the ponies and dragon saw an endless void of pink mist in which floated greenish organic sacs anchored by woody vines and linked together by the rope the gondola hung from. In the distance was a massive, withered and burnt-black tree. “That must be the remains of the Lattice Tree,” Twilight said. “Margent’s old home, ruined by Cirrus and Archeon.”
“Speaking of Margent,” Nyx said, “she owes us a book.” She turned to head to the stairs to the roof, only to see Margent barreling toward the group in wide-eyed surprise.
“You actually did it?!” the pink bat-pony exclaimed. “How?” She pushed past Nyx and Twilight to reach the second globe and opened it. “Balanced systems stimulate civilization,” Margent said in awe as she backed away, “that’s the fourth symbol. I should have known it would be something like that!”
“Don’t beat yourself up,” Nyx said, “I mostly figured it out by luck.” She held out an expectant hoof, “Now, I think you owe us something.”
Margent didn’t respond, as her gaze had drifted to the view beyond the gondola and something caught her eye. “No,” she whispered, “can it be?” She whirled around and ran up the stairs.
“Oi!” Nyx shouted, making chase. “Give us Materan, you… loony!”
“Nyx!” Twilight yelled, running after the filly. Spike was hot on her heels. The short chase almost came to an undignified end when Nyx stopped at the edge of the vent on the roof, forcing Twilight to leap over her to avoid tripping, and Spike did bump into Nyx’s rear end.
Margent was perched on the lever that gave power to the whole structure, her bat wings spread for balance, as she stared and pointed at something in the far distance. “Do you see?” she asked, “beyond the ruins.” Twilight, Nyx, and Spike crowded to the edge of the roof, and looking out they could just see another large tree growing out of the mist, its branches wrapped around one giant gas sac and several relatively smaller ones, with a space clearly prepared to hold another sack the size of the largest one.
“Another Lattice Tree?” Nyx asked.
“Yes!” Margent exclaimed. “They’re alive! All this time, they survived to cultivate a new Tree and…” She trailed off and a sad look crossed her face. “I thought the voices were mere ghosts, figments of my guilty conscience. Were they real the whole time? Was my Staid trying to reach me? He would.” She let her head droop.
“You can go to them now, Margent,” Twilight said. Margent turned around and gave Twilight a thankful smile.
“Once you give us back the Linking Book you stole, that is,” Nyx cut in with a sideways look.
“Yes, of course,” Margent said with a chuckle. “One minute.” She half-flew over to the maintenance access door, went inside, and emerged a bit later with the Materan book under one wing. She held the book out to Twilight and Nyx and said, “You’ve restored what was taken from me, so I’ll return what I took from you with both my thanks and deepest apology.” Twilight nodded solemnly as she accepted the book. Margent took a couple steps back and spread her wings. “Farewell, st- er, friends,” she said, “and thank you again.” With a mighty flap, she launched herself into the air and flew off toward the distant Lattice Tree. Twilight, Spike, and Nyx watched her until her pink coat rendered her invisible against the mist.
“Well,” Spike said, clapping his hands together, “time for us to go home now.”
“Yes,” Twilight said, “but let’s put this book somewhere appropriate first.” She led the group down to the lower level of the structure and placed the book on the stand at the bottom of the stairs. She opened it to the linking panel and then lifted Nyx and Spike up so they could link through before touching the panel herself.
Materan, Equestria
After Twilight, Spike, and Nyx all materialized on the covered patio of the Materan homestead, Star Swirl stepped out of his study and did a surprised double-take. “Ah, you’re back,” he said, “wonderful. How did it go?”
“It’s a very long story, Father,” Nyx said wearily.
“Oh?” Star Swirl said, “Well, you must tell me everything.”
“We will, Star Swirl,” Twilight said. “I particularly want to talk about how you handled setting up the last puzzle in Naborale.”
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Interesting job. So are ya going to crossover with Myst IV next?
7472086
Eventually, yes, but I can't say or certain when until I'm able to play Myst IV for myself again.
"guts and the cage containing"
"guts, and"?
"sending you too alone"
"to"?
"head. “why?”"
"Why"?
"burn no longer how long"
"no matter how"?
"several paces away and her mouth"
"away, and"?
"on my Father"
"father"?
"central tusk.” “Maybe this"
"tusk. Maybe"?
"two dozen of new poem"
"dozen new"?
"the journal her gave me"
"he"?
"withered and burnt-black"
"withered, and"?
"just see large tree"
"see a large"?
"off and a sad look"
"off, and"?
"down the lower level"
"down to the"?
"Thank you to everyone for your infinite patience as I struggled through this."
You're welcome. Thank you for writing it. :)
7472100
If you need help, I can contribute. I still have m'y copy lying around (hope it still works).
Love your Myst crossovers.
Wonder If you're looking forward to Obduction.
7472100 Now to notify ShadowofCygnus that it's complete so he can begin his YouTube reading.
That may well be the shortest denouement I've ever seen.
Certainly the quickest resolution to any of the stories in this series.
7473358
Blimey, but you people move fast.
7473920
That's pretty much how fast the game wraps things up, minus Atrus's little epilogue, which I don't feel like adapting at the moment.
7474457 Admittedly, the same could be said of Myst or Riven.
But Aitran and Sohndar had relatively long closing sections that helped wind things down a bit less abruptly.
7477315
Maybe I'll add something in a few days, but I just feel so done with Pony!Myst at the moment.
7477381 Which is entirely fair; you've written something like 100,000 words of it, to date? Burnout is to be expected.
7477381
Recharge your batteries all you need.
...and on an unrelated note, do you have an actual explanation for why Margent and Staid both look like members of the Apple Family?
7482159
Early on, I toyed with the idea that a lot of the Naborale ponies resemble ponies from the show, and some of those doppelgangers would show up in Naborale itself to provide some world-building and hints to the final puzzle.
I dropped that idea because Twilight, Nyx, Spike, and Margent were sufficient to carry the last chapter on their own and explaining the look-alike ponies would've just been an unnecessary distraction from the plot.
Even though I had hoped for a somewhat longer outro, I can't fault you for following Exile's original quick outro. What I did find pretty disappointing was how you twisted the Naborale ending sequence of events to fit the MLP crossover. "Twenty years alone" don't fall off of you just like that. It's mostly that, while I realize that it'd be hard to make it so in this crossover, in Exile, the ending is gentle, touching, delicate like Naborale, whatever you wanna call it. Margent threw that in the bin.
I'm still interested in an eventual Revelation follow-up, because I do believe you've written really cool things in your MLP/Myst crossover. The Exile part of it just didn't cut it for me unfortunately.
wonderful!
7474457
Yeah, I kind of have to agree with what AShadowOfCygnus said. I know burnout can stink when you really need the inspiration, but the way Margent just simply gave the book to Twilight and the others just seemed anti-climatic.
Granted, the gondola scenes would be pointless at this point, since Margent can fly, but it also removes one of the most memorable parts of this game because of how well handled it was. Saavedro continued to despise Atrus and his boys, and he certainly didn't trust 'The Stranger', which was why letting him go without some sort of 'intervention' would be bad news. The same is applied here, as Margent still believes Star Swirl created her world, and still recognizes him and his students as possible threats. In her mind, she would want to punish them for their actions and even stop them from destroying her world again.
I get you didn't want to spoil all the answers, but there are some things you cannot skip from as it would ruin the flow of the story. You have this story build up to have her eventually confront our heroes, anger and revenge filled in her eyes for her long dead people, (at least in her mind,) her family, and the twenty years she wasted on some Celestia-forsaken world that she could have used to be with her family, and once she finds that her home and people are still alive, she goes "Eh..." and suddenly drops the revenge bit, like all her work and torment meant nothing? Even in the world of MLP, something like this isn't resolved so cleanly.
The other issue I have with the story overall is Nyx. (No, not because she exists in this story.) The issue is how you portray her.
Throughout the story, she has moments of arrogance, impulsiveness, and closed-mindedness, the latter being towards Margent's plight. Granted, she's a child, who are known to be impulsive, she's the daughter of Star Swirl which would give her a reputation and ego, and considering Margent's accusations to Star Swirl, she'd be right to be angry and closed-minded. These aren't bad traits for a protagonist to have, but they certainly aren't likable ones. In fact, one could argue that these traits are similar ones that led Cirrus, Archeon, and Aldro down the path they chose, and could lead to a similar fate for Nyx herself. Her actions alone feel like she's only doing this just to learn about the Art of Writing for herself, rather than understanding that it's for the benefit of everyone, including the people she meets in the worlds. She wants to create a perfect world. Okay, is it for herself, or for everyone? What does she mean by 'perfect'? Perfection is such a broad term and is looked at differently between people, let alone nigh impossible to make everyone happy. These things are touched up on, but never resolved or brought up again.
This is an issue that, again, could've been resolved, or at least made Nyx a little more humble, if there was a similar 'intervention' for Margent's actions. Upon Margent's helplessness when she's, at last, trapped and loses everything again and is at their mercy, the moment she finally reveals her true colors and breaks down would actually show Nyx just how bad she truly had it; that she wasn't like Aldro, that she wasn't like Cirrus or Archeon. That SHE was the victim, and Nyx could become like Aldro or the two students. Such a moment of realization could've likely knocked Nyx off her high-horse, (pardon the pun,) and actually show empathy to the poor mare, or, at the very least, pity. It would be a sign to show that Nyx is changing and growing from this experience into a better pony than Cirrus and Archeon.
Well, that was an adventure.
I do hope you plan some sort of continuation of this. It wouldnt even have to be following the series of Myst from here on out- you could go your own way with it. Perhaps following Nyx as she starts exploring worlds, perhaps running into remnants of the kel'kai (apologies if misspelled)
Anyways, these were fantastic and have left me inspired!
You can has review!