Connecting the Dots
"Blue Shelf?" Phoenix stammered while pacing about the room. "Isn't that the place where you were before you met up with Miss Dash?"
"It's a very long story, and I know I've only told you some of it," Bellesmith said, rummaging through the notes and files spread across the tables. "Basically, the Council of Ledo was running a secret operation deep underground..."
"Where... one of those doors to the 'machine world' was, right...?"
"Good memory."
"Machine world?" Kera made a face. She was sitting atop a stool, looking at transparent sheets hung up before a lit board, depicting multiple quadrupeds in various states of augmentation. "You mean like a factory or something?"
"Er, no, Kera," Belle said, fidgeting. "More like a gigantic foundation comprised of ancient machinery that comprises the bowels of the unknown world."
"Cooooool..." Kera grinned wide. "What I wouldn't give to dig my horn into that!"
"But what connection could Nightshade Industries have had with Blue Shelf?" Phoenix asked. "The Council of Ledo was after something secret, right?"
"They wanted to open the door into the machine levels," Belle said. "Enforcer Shell was spearheading the operation for him. But they couldn't get the door to open. But they found the body of Rainbow Dash—a pegasus—and somehow presumed she may have been capable of opening the door. But she was terribly injured, not to mention mutated by her curse. So they sealed her up in a coffin of chaos metal and attached her to sphere sequencing technology, of which I was a reluctant participant."
"Sphere... sequencing... technology...?"
Belle sighed and said, "It's the means by which living unicorns can junction their synaptic pathways with those of other ponies—living or dead—so that we might re-experience their memories."
"Pffft!" Kera stuck her tongue out, rocking back and forth on her stool. "That's not real!"
"It was real enough," Belle said. "I became one with Rainbow Dash's consciousness on several occasions. They thought that I might be a means of opening the door for the Council. Instead, I went about waking up Rainbow Dash, and she single-hoofedly brought us this far east."
"What became of Blue Shelf?" Phoenix asked.
Belle gulped. "Razed to the ground. The activation of the machine world beneath it—courtesy of Rainbow Dash—destroyed most if not all the complex. Thankfully, though, we were able to get many of the enslaved ponies out of there..."
"Enslaved ponies...?" Kera remarked, blinking.
"Yes," Belle said with a nod. "When the ponies, rams, gazelles, and other creatures who worked there outlived their usefulness, they were forced to work the tunnels that were carved in excavating the door to the machine realm."
"What became of them?" Phoenix asked.
"They fled west on riverboats... presumably to safety..." Belle sighed. "Rainbow Dash had agreed to safely escort myself and..." She grimaced, then relaxed. "Anyways, Rainbow Dash had agreed to protect us. But then... y'know... Foxtaur h-happened..."
Phoenix hung his head guiltily.
"So... you ran into this kind of junk before?" Kera asked.
"A lot of it is familiar," Belle said. "Experimentations on citizens... secretive bureaucracy...."
"But why the connection to Blue Shelf?" Phoenix nervously asked.
"The name is highly confidential, and yet it's written right here!" Belle exclaimed, shaking the papers around. "I mean, it makes sense that Nightshade would have potentially built the materials that the Ledomaritan Military installed underground in Blue Shelf, but I can't imagine the Council having unveiled the truth behind what they were using the technology for, much less to any of the big corporations located in Blue Nova."
"What if..." Phoenix murmured, hoofing through a pile of files atop a desk. "...there was a spy seeded within Blue Shelf, working for Nightshade the whole time?"
Belle flashed him a look. "Huh?"
Phoenix hoofed her a stack of missives. "Does a name on this look familiar?"
Belle shifted through the sheets in her grasp. Suddenly, her eyes widened. "Blessed Spark, no..."
"What?" Kera leaned forward on her stool. "What is it?"
Belle ran a hoof over her mouth as she shuddered. "It's... it's a series of letters... all received here, at Nightshade's headquarters."
"Who's the sender?" Phoenix asked.
Belle gulped and stated, "Professor Glaze Garnet." She gazed up, her mouth hanging open in thought. "Professor Garnet... all the while, he was in duplicity with Nightshade Industries." She bit her lip. "No wonder he didn't struggle when Enforcer Shell had him thrown into the mines with the other slaves. He accepted his fate, because to confess his connections to Nightshade, he would have suffered a far greater punishment at the hooves of the enforcers..."
"What ever happened to him?"
"He went west with the other laborers on board those river boats..."
"You mean Rainbow Dash set him free?"
"We did..." Bellesmith muttered. "Colletively..."
"Well, good for that guy, then! He gets to live long and make spy babies! Heeheehee—" Kera leaned back too far on her stool. "Whoah!" She fell through an exploding stack of papers atop a desk.
The adults winced. Phoenix learned in and said, "What would have motivated a pony like Garnet to work for Nightshade while surrounded by soldiers and those loyal to the Council?"
"I... I'm not sure." Belle shrugged. "It could have been anything. Money? Family insurance? Exploitation?"
"Maybe his role was simply to relay information?"
"He was very meticulous. He could have supplied Nightshade with anything they wanted to know about their technology," she said. "About where it was being situated... about how it was being used..."
"Maybe enough information to duplicate Blue Shelf elsewhere?" Phoenix asked.
Belle flashed him a numb look. She blinked and said, "Deep Ridge. Could it be..."
"A copy of what the Council did?"
"But to what end?" Belle remarked. "What would Nightshade want that the Council already had?"
Phoenix's brow furrowed. He gazed left and right across the metal grated platform, the pointed straight through the porous material. "Or what if it's something that Nightshade already had...?"
"Hmmm?" Belle turned around and glanced straight through the floor. Her eyes blinked, then squinted. Slowly, she shuffled out of the office and what turned out to be a two-story, cylindrical chamber surrounded by metal catwalks and platforms.
"What is it now?" Kera stammered, burrowing her petite way out of a hill of sheets. Phoenix helped her down as the two of them followed Belle's sluggish gait. "Unngh! This better get unboring pretty soon!"
"Shhh..." Phoenix muttered. "Not now, kid..."
Belle was walking down a curved set of metal stairs. She eventually landed on the dimly-lit bottom floor of the round chamber. Several coils of wires ran from the walls and into a central dome located in the center. A deep hum came out of the sphere that was encased in black metal. But her interest was piqued by something else. Trotting forward, she approached six containers of silver metal.
"Is... is that...?" Phoenix mumbled.
Belle nodded. "Chaos metal." She shivered. "The first day I stumbled upon the substance is engrained in my memory. I still see the blood in my sleep..."
"Blood?" Kera gasped. "Coooooooooool—Mmmf!" The stallion's hoof was planted over her mouth.
"Then..." Phoenix craned his neck. "What's inside...?"
Belle looked right... then left. She saw a level resting on a metal instrument panel. Without hesitating, she pulled on it. A loud grinding noise filled the room as the front halves to each of the six silver containers rolled up. Amber light filled the room from the objects' interiors. A collective gasp escaped everypony's lips.
Inside all six containers housed a skeleton. A pony skeleton. A pony skeleton with wings.
"By the spark..." Phoenix stammered. "They're all... like Rainbow Dash..."
Belle winced as she said, "They were..." She gulped. "A long time ago."
"How long?"
Belle had no answer.
"Then..." Phoenix spun about and looked at the great black dome. "This...?"
Belle turned as well. She followed the cables that were fused to the containers that housed the winged skeletons. Half of them ran into the floor, but the other half were coiled into the central dome. Pausing, she reached into her saddlebag and pulled out the ancient tome. The symbol on the cover lit up, but only when it pointed straight at the black metal sphere. She waved it around a few times just to be sure.
"This is it..." Belle murmured.
"This is what?" Phoenix asked.
Belle circled the dome until she found another instrument panel. With two tugging hooves, she pulled a lever. The air filled up with ruby light as the dome opened like a black metal flower. A flickering sound lit the room, for in the center of the chamber—housed in a gyroscopic cage of curved silver beams—was a dancing plume of unearthly red flame.
Belle gulped. "The fuel of the machine," she said.
Silence.
The two adults stood in petrified awe.
"Borrrrrrrrrrrrrriiiiiiiiiing," Kera sing-songed.
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It takes a special kind of child to be immediately bored upon seeing a strange flame...
or fire of any kind, now that I think about it.
So... They captured the flame? Or recreated it using Pegasus remains?
Ugh, forty-five four-count side-straddle hops for making my brain hurt, ):(. Knock 'em out!
So rather than find The Heart Of Lorkhan, the recreated it as The Mantella.
Lab Monkey - Alice In Chains
101 chapters remaining, I am starting to slowly figure out what is going on.
2690885
Good for you!
I still don't get it, but hey, I kinda like it this way~
Woah, some hardcore exposition here. Also, am I the only one worried about where Nightshade even got these remains? I mean, we know there was that one traveller, but multiple skeletons? This implies that somewhere nearby, there had to be an at worst moderately sized pegasus population. You know, maybe one that seems to certainly be mentioned a lot, for only being a myth. HINT HINT
Oh maaaaaan....
Dash is *not* gonna be happy once she sees this.
Holy shit, this is getting wiggity whack, yet it ALL MAKES SENSE
2690837
Hahahaha, Agreed.
2690847
That... Is a disturbing idea.
2690952
I'm still sticking with my theory of Stratopolis having drifted over the edge of the world, and that it now connects the light and dark side...
Why do they want those remains? Did it say that they powered the world? Nevermind, ill just wait for a smart person to explain it in a future chapters comments.
The heck is going on? Pegasus skeletons? Spies? That flame again? Why must you always end these chapters so damn well Skirts?!
*Attempts to connect the dots*
Yeah, still looks like random lines to me.
Red flames? Haven't seen one of those in a looooong time. Also, nice summary of Eljunbyro right there.
2691445
Well, we know that the Xonan foals were doing research on Pegasi, since we know Kera was. I imagine that Nightshade is using the foals as a sort of placid research department, since some part of their culture or physiology might make them good at it, or easy to control. I figure if Grey Smoke is an *actual* cloud city then that's where they got the pegasus bodies. Having six of them feels important, harmony important. Shell wanted to use Dash as a weapon, and I think Nightshade might, too, but I think Nightshade is equally interested in the sequencing that's happening such that she might be able to use it to cure Novus (provided I didn't read it wrong and Novus is in his state for other reasons).
Stratopolis is a myth, and all that jazz.
I think it best they keep Kera OUT of the gigantic foundation comprised of ancient machinery that comprises the bowels of the unknown world.
If she figured out how to pilot the world, or found a lot of random buttons to push and switches to pull, she undoubtedly would.
Also... spy babies.
Hee heee.
ALSO...
I remind you all that there are (were) SIX Elements of Harmony.
There are also SIX chaos-metal sarcophagi.
One might wonder if Nightshade Industries are aware of the Elements and intend to attempt harnessing them, and whether they have aquired the Elements, wish to do so, or believe they can somehow summon them or manifest their own.
What are you UP to, IC?
...the implication being that there is some unique connection between pegasi and the machine world. But why? And I still wonder what Nightshade wants with the machine world in the first place. Curioser and curioser.
Also, it's nice to get some answers on the Blue Shelf thing. I always thought Garnet smelled fishy.
2691147
That's actually a really interesting theory, and it could go well with the story.
But I do have one problem that comes immediately to mind, which is that if the edge is supposed to be so hot it burns anything that dares to cross it, shouldn't Strat burn then? Or maybe they're just too awesome to burn, who knows 
I'm surprised nobody else has said this yet. I think all six Pegasi plus the one RD found were former Austraeohs. For whatever reason, they all died here, near Ledomare, possibly back in the far past. Maybe when the land was basically all Ancient Xonan. The Xonans then learned the 12 symbols from these Pegasi as they captured/killed/tortured them to learn of their connection to the spark. This is my theory, now all we need is RD to enter Xona and see if she is attacked, treated as a goddess, or just plain ignored.
humormedication.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/calvin_hobbes_dots1.gif
The flame's back! I wonder if its sudden exposure will cause a dizzy spell for Dash, or something related to one. She never seems to have a good reaction when those flames are involved.
2691810
So hot it burns, perhaps, but... Clouds are water. They can't burn... And if it's a legendary city, the pegasi may have made the clouds evaporation-heat-destruction-proof. I dunno. I just have this image of a hugely tall vertical city-tower-thing with massive spires made out of cloudstuff stretching from high above the world to far below it. Wish I was an artist, I'd draw it.
2691074
This is Australia...
Trust Kera to add some much needed levity to an otherwise intense chapter. Bloody adorable, goddamn!
Six is a magic number, Stratopolis is most certainly a myth and Nightshade is shoulder deep in the nasty. Brilliant. Not entirely sure why they'd need the chaos metal for Pegasi who weren't possessed by the spirit of chaos, but I'm sure we'll find out sooner or later. Knowing IC, probably later.
bite-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/surprised-patrick3.gif
THIS CHAPTER.
Six.
Six of them.
God damn it, Pilate.
Also: God damn it, Garnet. I suspected as much, but I did not expect as much.
2691710 If Grey Smoke was an actual cloud city, the Ledomartians would hardly consider pegasi a myth.
Whether the Spark and harmony are identical or not (there is still their incompatibility of age), these flames are a part of it, as their energy (as we saw) enkindles the Austraeoh and with her the machine. Now here we have a flame that is being enkindled (sustained? stoked?) in return by pegasi - encased in chaos metal. I currently have several ideas of what this could mean, but my favourite is this one: Nightshade doesn't really know about the Spark. She does, however, know about Rainbow's connection to the machine and the flames (I guess Belle saw it during sequencing, and Garnet then informed her). Unaware of Rainbow's unique nature, Nightshade then wrongfully assumed that she could reproduce the effect and thus gain access to the vast energy below by combining the bodies of long dead pegasi with chaos energies - meaning that those six poor sods are in fact doing nothing at all there. Speaking against this theory is the complicated machinery connected to the flame. Surely all those buttons mean something.
Pilate, you are always right. I need your opinion on this.
Ceterum censeo Searinem delendam esse.
Well, that is cool; very cool.
But why are the capsules made of chaos metal? I mean, it makes sense in regards to Dash, because she has some of the essence of Discord inside of her; she is half-chaos, but what about these new pegasi? I hardly expect that it's easy for a pegasus to infuse themselves with the chaos energy required to justify a chaos sarcophagus, and this is reinforced by the pegasi retaining their normal bone structure.
So why chaos metal? Is it especially conductive of the 'fuel'? If so, that poses some fairly disturbing ideas about the nature of the machine-world? It's conceivable that the pegasi (all six of them) were former element bearers, perhaps, or had the magic of friendship despite not having the elements, which could justify the chaos metal. Or perhaps they were all previous Austraeoh's.
Or maybe, Nightshade likes Feng Shui and thought it would help balance the energies of the room.
Meh.
Hmmmm. Is RD going to be used as fuel?
So Belle said that she could communicate with the living or the dead with the mind-meldy thing back at the experiment site. And there are six chaos metal coffin majiggs...and currently five dead Elements of Harmony. So maybe Dash will die, but then all of them could be activated and somehow they'll be brought back?
Can you tell I'm grasping at straws? Really small, nearly non-existent straws? Whatever, it wouldn't even be the weirdest thing to happen in this story.
But yeah, creepy bones and sinister energy sources rarely bode well. Onward!
Dammit Garnet, you are why we cant have nice things.
2701275
I imagine sequencing with the dead would require intact brains at least. But who knows, it's a magical world after all.
Guess Rainbow wasn't the only one to look for the Midnight armory
IIIIIt's Dashie's evaluation time!
HAH.
Um.
What?
Okay, so we already knew some of that stuff about Blue Shelf. But what about those other things? Garnet seemed like a nice pony. Perhaps Nightshade was exploiting his family in order to get his compliance. Or maybe the whole good guy thing was an act. And now this, too?! I'm not really sure what to make of it all. At first, I started wondering if the skeletons were all Austraeohs from ages past, stopped in their journey east and experimented upon by Nightshade. But then the flame got turned on. Now, we already know that the flames, whatever they are, (a physical form of Harmony or Chaos?) power the Machine. What I 'm pretty sure is going on here is that Nightshade ran experiments between these "Austraeohs," compared those with what she learned from Garnet about the door to the Machine, and figured out how to make the fuel that powered the Machine. An impressive feat, seeing as how the original flames were created by ancient alicorns for the intent of powering a planet sized spaceship. That's what I think anyways.
I liked this chapter, Imploding. You've still got a few tricks up your sleeve. These are my thoughts so far.
-MASH
2691397 Your profile picture's face goes with this perfectly.
WHAT A TWIST!
-Spirit
This is quite an interesting development. It seems like they're trying to maybe, somehow, bring these pegasi back to life. Though why there are SIX pegasi is indeed a big question. Now, how in the hell did they get that flame?
Ah, so less so "myth" as "failed weaponization" that killed the pegasi...
And with that ends Wish You Were Here!
Connecting the dots? Umm...uhhh...nope, i've got nothin'
So Garnet was a spy, Nightshade has a ruby flame
and Kera is Kera. Seems like the only thing Nightshade doesn't have is Rainbow Dash.
Instructions unclear, dots unconnected.
Kera certainly knows how to take the tension out of a really intense scene. So now, somehow, they gotta get Dash into that place so she can touch that flame. Hopefully that doesn't involve getting captured or anything really bad for her. Onward and upward!
~SolidFire
XD you always know how to break the serious mood with some smoothe IC brain freezes!
I think their technology needs more work.
Shiiiiiiit.
I wonder how things would of gone if Rainbow was not beaten to a pulp by that dragon and try to fly over this nation as so many others? Flying a long stopping at towns and meeting the locals.