Twilight has discovered a strange old book purportedly written by Star Swirl the Bearded, and Rainbow Dash discovers a latent spell in it that transports the two ponies to a strange island in the middle of nowhere. With no viable options available to them, Twilight and Rainbow begin to search the island for clues to a way home and the reason behind the odd puzzles and contraptions presented to them.
The Royal Archives of Canterlot was perhaps the biggest depository of rare and ancient manuscripts in all of Equestria. Shelf upon shelf of books filled half of the vast, vault-like chamber carved into the mountain that formed the foundation of the Royal Palace, while scrolls made of everything from parchment to papyrus to shed dragonhide occupied individual cubbies in the other half. Besides the Princesses and the select staff of unicorns charged with maintaining the preservation spells, few ponies were allowed admittance to the archives, and of them even fewer were allowed to remove any of its contents for any length of time. It was a treasure trove of old, nearly forgotten scholarship. It was also the darkest, driest, most boring place in the entire world to be sent on guard patrol.
It figures they’d send the rookie down here, Storm Tail thought to himself grumpily as he fought off the urge to fall asleep from pure boredom. He’d been at his post – alone, because who’d bother sneaking all the way down here for some old books? – for only an hour or so and he was already falling asleep on his hooves. As he began to weigh the pros and cons of drifting off, he heard the sound of hooves clopping on the stone floor down the hallway. Snapping to attention, Storm Tail blinked furiously to try and drive the sleepy look from his face. Either one of his superiors was coming for a surprise inspection, or Princess Celestia was arriving for an impromptu browsing. In either case, the pegasus guard needed to look like he was at the top of his game, as if he liked nothing better than to stand next to a rarely-used door in a dimly lit hallway and separated from the sky by several feet of solid granite. As the hoofsteps drew closer, Storm tried to guess who they might belong too. They were sounding too close together to belong to Celestia, and they also lacked the chiming ring of the royal shoes. For that matter, they didn’t sound like they were wearing guard-issue shoes either. Confused, Storm narrowed his eyes and tensed up; perhaps an intruder had made his way down here after all.
His confusion rose slightly higher as the hoofstep’s owner rounded a corner and came into view. She was a lavender unicorn with a slate-blue mane with a pink and purple highlight, a set of light purple saddlebags on her back, and violet eyes shining as she trotted excitedly toward him. “Good day sir,” she said, giving him a nod as her horn lit up with a magenta aura. The heavy latch on the archive door took on the same glow, and Storm Tail quickly imposed himself in front of the door. The unicorn came to a stop and looked up at the taller pegasus with a grim frown. “You’re new aren’t you?” she asked at last. Storm matched her gaze, challenging her to try her luck. “My name is Twilight Sparkle,” the unicorn said, “personal student of Princess Celestia. I’m sure you’ve heard of me.”
Storm Tail blinked in surprise, but quickly recovered into stoicism again. “I’ve heard of Twilight Sparkle,” he said, “but that doesn’t change the fact that this chamber is restric…ted.” He trailed off as Twilight levitated a piece of paper bearing the royal seal in front of his eyes. It was a message written and signed by Celestia herself granting Twilight access to the archives to look for research material. “I… I see,” the pegasus said nervously, “My apologies ma’am. This is highly unusual.”
“I know,” Twilight said, stowing the note away and smiling warmly, “but I’m planning to write a proposal for reviving some ancient spell research, and the Archives are the best place to find long-lost experiments.”
“I suppose,” Storm said uncertainly, moving aside to let Twilight pull the door open, “Uh, do you need any help?”
“No thank you,” Twilight said, patting the pegasus on the shoulder, “you just keep doing a good job out here.” She walked inside and closed the door. Storm blew out a disappointed sigh and started counting lines in the wall to keep himself occupied. He fell asleep after thirty-eight.
Twilight could only dimly recall the last time she’d been inside the Royal Archives. It had been a year or so after she had begun studying under Princess Celestia, and the Princess had brought the young filly down to the Archives as a reward for exceeding expectations on a test. From what the unicorn recalled, the only thing that had changed since then was that she could now look at the fourth shelf level without needing to tilt her head. The air was still, dry, and filled with a faint tingling sensation from the preservation spells layered over each and every book and scroll individually by the presently absent caretakers. The vast chamber was illuminated by a sparse network of magic-powered lamps to just above the level needed to comfortably read the titles of the tomes, although there were greater concentrations of the lamps around the desks that occasionally broke up the perfect grid of aisles and bookshelves in order avoid straining the eyes of the rare pony who came in to study the Archive’s seemingly endless collection.
“Let’s see here,” Twilight muttered to herself as she walked down the aisle separating the books from the scrolls, “On the Ascendant Nature of Unicorns. Probably supremacist nonsense. Regarding Our Lady and Mistress?” She gently pulled the book from its place and skimmed through a few pages before slamming it shut and returning it to the shelf. “Nothing but slander,” she said crossly as she continued, “Zebras: Harbingers of Night- what is with these books?” She galloped down the aisle for a ways and then went two rows into the book area. A quick glance around showed her that she’d found a collection of published journals written in a number of ancient dialects. With a satisfied and relieved smile, the studious unicorn began browsing the shelves, muttering under her breath as she attempted to decipher the titles through their stylized horn calligraphy and outdated grammatical constructions. Every once in a while, she would remove a book from the shelf and stow it carefully in her saddlebags. When she reached the limit of what she could carry, she turned to trot away and find a desk to study at. As she reached the end of the shelf, however, something caught her eye. On the bottom shelf, sandwiched between Neighton’s Theories of the Cosmos and The Ponies of Planet Gallopfrey and their Culture, was a curious-looking volume bound in a material Twilight didn’t recognize. Intrigued, Twilight pulled it out and looked it over. The cover was brown and surprisingly unmarked save for the title, which looked like it had been hammered in and then colored with a black ink that had mostly flaked away. There were no other words or symbols to give hints to the book’s origin or author. The title simply read Aitran. “Hm,” Twilight said, her eyes drifting between the book and her full bags, “Well, why not?” She floated the book behind her as she resumed walking.
After finding a table and organizing her book into nice piles, she sat down and opened the first journal. It was entitled On the Hidden Magic of Terrenes, so Twilight began reading it with the expectation of finding notes on Earth ponies and the varied ways their connection to the land could manifest. Perhaps I’ll find something to help make logical sense of Pinkie Pie, she thought, only to frown when she got past the opening paragraphs and into the journal’s introduction proper.
‘It is clear that the pegasus pony is a breed unto itself,’ it read, ‘but I am convinced there is a connection between the unicorn and terren breeds. Terrenes, or earth ponies in the common tongue, are separated from unicorns only by the latter’s ability to channel magic. It is obvious that something must occur at the moment of birth to infuse a Terren pony with magical power and turn it into a unicorn.’
“What is this?” Twilight said incredulously, skimming quickly through the next few pages, “I don’t even… ah, never mind.” She closed the journal, set it aside, and pulled the next book off the pile. She quickly realized she had misunderstood its title when it turned out to be little more than a list of rules for magic with frankly ridiculous reasoning behind each. “‘Magic must not be used to cut, cook, prepare, or even touch anything intended for pony consumption due to the random and potentially dangerous changes Magic may have on organic substances.’ Gah!” she grunted in frustration, shutting the book and pushing it away. She dropped her head to the desk and moaned. “How did ponies get anything done with such ridiculous ideas?” she said, looking up and around at the cavernous Archives, the far walls almost invisible in the sparsely-lit gloom. “Ugh, it’ll take me forever to find a valid topic in all this,” she mumbled, putting her chin on the table and rolling her eyes. She heaved a sigh, and then her eyes settled on the Aitran book, still resting on the bottom of the to-read pile. Something about the book piqued her interest. She wasn’t sure if it was the curious cover material that had aged so well, the modest presentation of the simple title “Aitran,” or the fact that whoever had written it had not felt the need to put his or her name on it, but Twilight felt that there was something extra special about the book. Lifting the rest of the pile up in her magic, she slid the book over and opened it to the first page.
Old Equestrian words written in an exceptionally tidy, almost geometric manner covered the first page from top to bottom with barely any margins on either side. Twilight’s eyes scanned the page quickly without comprehending the words, simply admiring the care that had been taken in writing them. She flipped quickly through the book, revealing each page to be written in the same tight, careful manner and occasionally broken by a detailed sketch that would fill precisely half a page. Returning to the front, Twilight finally noticed a somewhat less tidy note written at the top of the inside front cover. Peering close and squinting as she worked out the Old Equestrian, she read, “Copy the seventh, written personally by Star Swirl, called The Bearded. Eeeee!” Twilight jumped to her feet as she squealed, “Oh my gosh! Have I…?” She thought back over her studies. Star Swirl the Bearded was regarded as the father of the amniomorphic spell and creator of over 200 spells. He had an entire shelf in the public library of magic just for his works, and Twilight had read them all. Her memory wasn’t perfect, but she was pretty sure she had never seen a book entitled Aitran attributed to the great unicorn mage. “Oh my,” the lavender unicorn said, looking reverently at the book, “you must be the last copy or something. Just what are you though? A journal? A collection of spells he developed but never revealed? Oh, and if I’m the one who can restore some of the knowledge hidden here…” She squealed happily and clapped her hooves. “You’re coming home with me,” she said as she stowed the book in her saddlebag and galloping toward the exit, “Ponyville’s a much nicer place to read in than this old place.”
Spike was perched at the top of a ladder taking a feather duster to the highest bookshelves near the front door of the Books and Branches Library. Twilight’s normally voracious appetite for reading had been unusually calm lately, leaving the books in peace to gather more dust than usual. Spike didn’t mind having to work a little harder, although he had to remember to keep his nose pointed away from the books so that there wouldn’t be a repeat of the Astronomical Astronomer's Almanac to All Things Astronomy incident. The sudden sound of the library door slamming open gave the young dragon a start, the duster flying out of his claw as he fought to keep his balance on the ladder. Catching the top rung before he tipped over, Spike gingerly climbed down to the ground before relaxing and turning around to see who had interrupted him. He gulped nervously when he saw Twilight Sparkle standing in the doorway with the feather duster sitting on her head. “Uh, welcome back,” Spike said with a sheepish smile, “How was Canterlot?” Twilight gave him a mild scathing look. “Sorry,” the dragon said.
“You’re forgiven,” Twilight said, floating the duster off her head and flinging it aside, “And Canterlot was nice. I had lunch with Mom and Dad, and then found the perfect book in the Royal Archives.”
“Only one book?” Spike asked incredulously as Twilight levitated Aitran out of her bag and set it on a reading stand, “It’s not like you not to be overloaded with them when you go anywhere.”
“Ha ha, very funny,” Twilight deadpanned, “The contents of the Royal Archives are extremely rare and valuable, and not just any pony is given permission to remove them. It was hard enough for me to get Princess Celestia’s permission to do so, so I didn’t want to risk more than two or three.”
“But you only took one?” Spike asked, raising an eyebrow.
“This book,” Twilight said, patting the cover, “was written by Star Swirl the Bearded himself and is not included in the public record of his works. It’s bound to contain more than enough lost knowledge for my report.”
“Guess I should leave you to it then,” Spike said with a shrug, “Want me to make you a snack or something?”
“Daisy and cucumber sandwich please,” Twilight said, opening Aitran and levitating over a ream of paper and a quill to take notes with.
“One daisy and cucumber sandwich coming up,” the baby dragon said, marching to the kitchen. He emerged a moment later and marched toward the front door, declaring, “We’re out of cucumbers. I’ll go see if anypony’s got some at the market.”
“Have fun,” Twilight said distractedly. Once the door closed behind Spike, the lavender unicorn settled into a comfortable stance and began reading the first page. After a few lines, she frowned in confusion and went to find a reference guide to Old Equestrian. Finding one upstairs near her bed, she skimmed through it as she returned to the first floor and approached Aitran again. “Interesting,” she mused as she re-read the opening lines of the old book. According to the reference guide, Aitran was written in perfect, proper Old Equestrian, but instead of an introduction or preface like Twilight had expected, the text launched right in to a very detailed description of the composition of rocks. Reading on, Twilight soon found herself being instructed in the topography of a small island located in the middle of an endless ocean in such detail that she felt she would be able to construct a scale model if she had the right materials. The book then went on to detail the weather conditions – comfortably warm with the occasional breeze – followed by the plant life, with each and every pine tree’s location marked in relation to the central point of the island. Twilight shook her head at that point and pulled her attention back to the real world for a moment. She glanced at her notes and chuckled when she saw that she’d unconsciously started to sketch the island on a sheet of paper.
“This is certainly fascinating,” Twilight said to herself, “but what is the point?” She flipped several pages ahead and saw more of the same detailed description, of a building in this case, and then returned to her original place, trying to deduce the purpose behind the tome. What she had read of Star Swirl’s other works had not given her the impression that he was normally this obsessed with details, except perhaps when it came to the structure of a complex spell. There wasn’t anything obviously magical about Aitran so far, and yet-
Twilight was pulled out of her pondering by the sadly familiar sound of rapidly approaching wing-beats accompanied by a cry of “Incoming!” Twilight had just enough time to cast a spell to open every window in sight and throw herself into a protective huddle over the ancient book before Rainbow Dash came careening into the library and crashed into the wall, shaking the tree but only dislodging a few book from their places, most of which landed on the prismatic-maned pegasus. “Wow Rainbow,” Twilight said flatly, “Do that a few more times and maybe you’ll be able to keep all the books in place.”
“You think so?” Rainbow asked, hopping to her feet. She caught Twilight’s narrow-eyed glare and dropped her gaze. “Sorry about that Twi,” she said.
“I’ve been hearing that a lot today,” Twilight said off-handedly as she got up, put Aitran back on the reading stand, and started to clean up the dropped books. “So what happened this time?” she asked, “Miscalculate a vector on another new trick?”
“Huh? No,” Rainbow said, “I was looking for a place to hide and… ok, I lost some control in a turn, happy?”
“Who are you hiding from?” Twilight asked.
“Rarity,” Rainbow said, “I just played a little prank on her and she took it little too seriously.”
“You didn’t mess with any of her projects did you?” Twilight asked disapprovingly, “She’s been working on that new line of hers for weeks now.”
“No,” Dash said defensively, “I just snuck some grape juice into her bubble bath.”
“The lilac-scented one?”
“Yep,” Rainbow proclaimed proudly.
“So,” Twilight said, “now she’s-”
“Purple all over,” Rainbow laughed, and the sobered a little to add, “actually, more of a reddish-purple, but whatever.” She shrugged and started laughing again.
“All right, I guess that’s harmless enough,” Twilight said with an amused smile of her own, “She’s probably more mad that you ruined her bubble solution than about the coat-dye job. You can hide out here until she cools down if you want.”
“Thanks Twi,” the pegasus said, fluttering up to find a niche to recline in. Twilight went back to reading the book, but after a few minutes she noticed a downward draft and looked up to see Rainbow Dash hovering over her and looking down at the book. “So, what are you reading there anyway?” Rainbow asked.
Always eager to share her knowledge, Twilight smiled and patted the book. “This,” she said, “was personally written by none other than Star Swirl the Bearded.”
“Who?” Dash asked, scratching her head.
“Star Swirl the Bearded,” Twilight repeated, “One of the greatest unicorn scholars in the history of Equestria.” Seeing Rainbow’s blank stare, she sighed and said, “The pony I dressed as for Nightmare Night?”
“Oh, is that what that was?” the pegasus said, “Huh, figures you’d go as some old egghead like yourself.” Twilight bit back a retort, knowing that she wasn’t likely to convince Dash of anything. “So, you learning any awesome spells from it?” Rainbow asked.
“It’s actually not a spell book Rainbow,” Twilight said, “I’m starting to think it’s something he wrote as a mental exercise, although I haven’t found any hints as to what, if anything, he was hoping to gain from it.”
“Why don’t you just skip to the end and see?” Rainbow suggested.
“Because there might be something between where I left off and –hey!” While Twilight had been explaining, Rainbow reached down and picked the book off the stand. She flew up out of Twilight’s reach and started flipping through the book. “Be careful with that!” the unicorn exclaimed, “It’s old!”
“Yeah yeah,” Dash said flippantly, “Geez, you can read this?”
“It’s just Old Equestrian, Rainbow,” Twilight said huffily, “Now give it back before you rip something.” Dash ignored her and continued flipping haphazardly through the book, pausing to look at the sketches whenever they appeared before continuing. She reached the back page and prepared to slam the book shut and drop it before catching a second look and blinking in surprise.
“Whoa,” she said, “That’s cool.”
“What?” Twilight said in exasperation, not sure if Rainbow was seriously intrigued by something or just having fun.
“Moving picture,” Dash said simply, “It looks almost real-” she touched the page with a hoof and then froze. Twilight’s jaw dropped as a humming noise filled the air and the cyan pegasus vanished from sight, seemingly sucked into the book. Now unsupported, the book gave in to the demands of gravity and began to plummet. Despite the shock, Twilight caught it in her magic and gently brought it down to the floor. A few pages had flipped over the one Dash had touched, so Twilight moved them carefully out of the way with her magic before kneeling down to take a closer look. On the page was a picture that looked more like a window in its detail and color. It showed a wooden dock on the side of a short rocky cliff, with the mast of a submerged ship poking out of the water to the right. In the background was a hill, but that was quickly obscured when Rainbow Dash’s head suddenly popped into view, her rose-red eyes wide in shock. Twilight bit her lip to keep from shrieking in fright as the image of her friend looked around in wild confusion and then called out, “Hello?”
“Rainbow Dash, are you ok?” Twilight asked.
“Twilight?” Rainbow said, and Twilight was about to sigh in relief when the pegasus continued, “Anypony? What’s going on here? Where am I? Hel-looo?”
“Oh no,” Twilight said, worrying, “This is not good. What do I do, what do I do?” Seemingly in answer, the front door opened and Spike came in with a bag full of large cucumbers in his arms. “Spike!” Twilight exclaimed happily, “Thank goodness you’re here. Listen, Rainbow Dash is trapped in this book. I’m going to go in after her. If we’re not back in an hour, I want you to write to Princess Celestia to tell her what happened and then take this book to Canterlot – do not use dragon-fire; I don’t know what that might do to us while we’re inside. Got that?”
Spike stared blankly at the lavender unicorn. “Wha?”
“One hour,” Twilight said, her mane frizzing as her anxiety reached a peak, “Write to the Princess, hoof-deliver the book to her, ask her for help.”
“Uh, ok…” Spike said, utterly confused.
Twilight gave him a huge toothy grin. “Thanks Spike, you’re the best,” she said, “wish me luck.” Without another word, she placed her hoof on the picture and vanished from sight. Cucumbers spilled out and rolled across the floor as Spike dropped the bag and his jaw in shock and surprise. One eye twitched as he tried and failed to comprehend what he had just witnessed: his closest friend and caretaker had just been absorbed by a book.
A/N- On the off-chance that you have never played Myst and don’t want anything about it spoiled, go get it and play it before reading further. It’ll be worth it.
“Twilight Sparkle, I don’t know whether I should hug you or kick you.”
“Why would there be kicking?”
“Besides the fact that you landed on top of me?” Rainbow Dash wiggled out from underneath the lavender unicorn, and then stood up and offered Twilight a hoof up. Once her friend was upright and steady, the cyan pegasus gave her a decidedly unfriendly slap upside the back of her head.
“Ow,” Twilight grimaced, “What was that for?”
“You came in after me!” Rainbow exclaimed, jumping into a hover.
“Well, I couldn’t just leave you in… well, here, alone,” Twilight said, looking around. If she didn’t know better, she would have sworn she and Rainbow weren’t inside the Aitran book. The more she thought about it though, she realized she probably didn’t know better. The book might have teleported the pair to some far-off, real-life location in the wide, uncharted areas far beyond the borders of Equestria’s neighboring lands.
“Do you have a plan for getting us back home?” Rainbow asked sarcastically. When Twilight blushed and averted her gaze in embarrassment, the pegasus sighed and shook her head slowly. “You’re supposed to be the smart one Twilight,” she said, “but on the other hoof, I appreciate not being alone.” She flew up a little higher and looked around. “I’ll go take a look around,” she said, “see if I can find somepony or clues about where we are.” She zoomed away in a blur of rainbows even as Twilight nodded. The lavender unicorn smiled at her friend’s enthusiasm and then ran some quick calculations in her head. Assuming that their current location was the same island as described in Aitran, Dash would likely complete a cursory overview of the entire place in less than a minute, since the island’s dimensions would have made it able to fit within the boundaries of Ponyville at least twice, possibly three times, with room to spare.
Deciding to begin a more leisurely and complete survey, Twilight began walking along the dock she had appeared on. To her right was the sunken sailing ship, its mast and forecastle spar the only parts visible above the waterline. To her left, she saw a stone door set into the cliffside, which rose to just a little ways above her head. Up ahead was a staircase that would take her up onto the island proper, and then a longer one that curved up to a high platform of stone that had what looked to be a pair of giant gears stuck in it. Twilight stopped at the foot of the dock stairs, having noticed a curious metal podium there. At least, it resembled a podium that stood at about shoulder-height, with a sloped top, a wood panel on the front, and a mouth-operated switch on the top. After looking it over and giving it a light probe with her telekinesis, Twilight grasped the switch and lifted it into an upright position, where it clicked into place but produced no obvious effect. Twilight played with it a few times before shrugging, leaving it up, and moving on. Up on the terra firma of the island, she found herself at the side of a round building and opted to head left, leaving the elevated platform and gears for later. The path lead along the edge of the island to a path made of railroad ties embedded in the ground leading farther up the hilly island. She noticed another of the switch podiums was set up next to the door of the round building, and right next to that building was a larger, square building with an open doorway and a pre-classical pillar-supported facade. To her left was a small forest of pine trees with a path cutting through it from the door of the large building toward the far end of the island. The path seemed to be lined by marble columns on either side.
As Twilight continued up the path, her hoof landed on something that crinkled. Looking down, she saw that she had stepped on a piece of paper. Curious, she lifted her hoof and levitated the paper up, seeing that it was note written with ink with vaguely familiar horn-writing. Clover¸ it read, I have left you a message of vital importance on the viewer behind the dock. The access code is the number of marker switches on the island. -Star Swirl. “Marker switch?” Twilight mused, “I wonder…” Her thoughts were interrupted by Rainbow Dash’s return, the gust of wind from her sudden stop nearly blowing the note out of Twilight’s magical grip.
“There’s nopony here,” Rainbow said, “but there are quite a few buildings.”
“There definitely were ponies here once,” Twilight said, nodding and showing Rainbow the note, “at the very least it was Star Swirl and somepony named Clover.” The pegasus landed as she read the note, and then shrugged her wings in disinterest. “Have you checked inside any buildings?” Twilight asked.
“Nope,” Dash said, “but I am a bit curious about that tower up there.” She pointed and Twilight turned to follow her hoof. Behind the square building was a steep cone of a mountain topped with a cylindrical green structure that seemed to reach down inside the rock. “Everywhere else has a door,” Dash said, “but I couldn’t see any way to get in there.”
“Maybe we can get in through there,” Twilight said, nodding at the square building. Rainbow nodded her approval and the ponies walked over and peered through the door. The interior was comprised of a single octagonal room paneled in dark-stained wood. Directly across from the door was a three-level bookshelf built into the wall. A pair of oil paintings hung the walls to either side of the bookcase, one depicting the view outside through the front door and the other showing a doorway leading into a hallway. “I think this is a library,” Twilight said as she and Dash walked inside.
“Check out this fireplace,” Dash said, sticking her head into the green-brick fireplace that took up the entirety of the wall just to the right of the door, “It’s huge inside; I bet we could both fit in here. No chimney though.” She pulled her head out and gave her friend a confused look. Twilight shrugged and moved closer to the bookcase. As she neared it, her eyes went wide in horror, and she reached out a tentative hoof to touch a book, which wilted in a puff of black ash.
“They’re all burned!” the bookish unicorn exclaimed, sitting back on her haunches, “Who… who would do such a horrible thing?”
Rainbow started to roll her eyes, but when she saw tears start to form in Twilight’s eyes, she bit back her sarcasm and put a comforting hoof around her friend’s shoulder. “Maybe it was just an accident?” she suggested.
Twilight shook her head. “No,” she said, “only the books are burnt. If it was an accidental fire, this entire room would be at least blackened. Even the shelves are untouched. This was deliberate destruction of what could have been one-of-kind books!” Seething in anger and sadness, she dropped her head and screwed her eyes shut against the tears. Rainbow simply sat with a leg around Twilight, not knowing what to do or say to comfort the distraught librarian. Her eyes scanned the shelves, feeling a little anger herself at whoever would do something to upset one of her friends, when she noticed a book that didn’t look burned. Carefully removing her leg from Twilight, she leaned forward to take a closer look. She tapped the light-brown book with a hoof and, when it didn’t break, pulled it off the shelf.
“Twilight,” she said, placing the book on the ground where the unicorn could see it, “look.”
Twilight’s eyes cracked open, and the snapped to their full, surprised size. She glanced up at Rainbow, and then lifted the book up and opened it. The pages within were untouched by the effects of flame and filled with what the unicorn was coming to recognize as Star Swirl’s horn-writing. “‘When I first established the link to this illusion, I was determined it would provide me with an adventure unlike any I had experienced in the worlds I have visited before,’” she read, “This looks like a journal. I wonder what he means by this though, link to an illusion?” She looked up from the book and gave the shelves a closer look, discovering three more books that had survived the fire. One was bound in a blue cover with no title or distinguishing marks, while another was blue with a red square on the spine containing text written in a language Twilight didn’t know. The last book was green and bore the title “The Forestsea.” Each one turned out to be a journal as well, and Twilight quickly settled onto the floor to start reading them.
“You’re going to be at this awhile, aren’t you?” Dash asked. When the unicorn didn’t respond, the pegasus sighed and looked around for something to keep her attention. It didn’t take long. “Hey Twi, you missed a couple,” she said.
“Huh?” Twilight said, looking up. Rainbow pointed to two alcoves set into opposite sides of the room. In each sat a book, one blue and the other red, with a sheet of paper of matching color sitting next to each. Twilight’s horn lit up as she tried to bring the books over to her, but although the aura of magic surrounded the tomes, they refused to budge from their places. “That’s odd,” Twilight said, standing up. She walked over to the red book and scrutinized it. “Looks like it’s held in place with a spell,” she said, opening it to the first page. The red pages were written on with a slightly different red ink, making the text very difficult to see, but after a moment Twilight managed to make out the meticulous, geometric writing style that Aitran had been written in. “Dash, this might be the same kind of book that brought us here,” she said.
“Ok,” the pegasus said cautiously, “Where does it go?”
“One way to find out,” Twilight answered, flipping toward the back. A few leaves short of the final page, she found a section that looked like several pages had been torn out. Frowning at that, she continued to the final page to discover a moving image of red noise. The ponies’s ears flatted against their heads as they were assaulted by a whining, buzzing, aimless hiss that persisted until Twilight covered the image with the previous page. “If it went anywhere, it doesn’t now,” the lavender pony concluded.
Dash frowned and then galloped across the room to the blue book. She opened it to the last page and then slammed it shut when she found a noisy panel of blue on it. “Same deal here,” she said, “Fat lot of good that does us.”
Twilight glanced at the sheet of red paper sitting next to her book. A light push of magic revealed that it was not stuck to the alcove like the book was, so she picked it up for a closer look. It was covered with the same kind of writing as was in the book, and she noticed that one edge was jagged and uneven, as if it had been torn. Opening the book to the section of missing pages, she quickly found that the paper lined up with one of the torn spots in the binding. As soon as the page touched that spot, a line of light ran along the tear and repaired it, attaching the page back to the book. Grinning, Twilight ran over to the blue book, pushing Dash out of the way and putting the accompanying page into its place. “If we find the missing pages and put them back, maybe the book’s magic will work again.”
“Well, it’s something to do,’ Rainbow said, hopping into the air, “I’ll start looking.”
“Hold up,” Twilight said before the pegasus could fly off, “Let me see if I can figure out where these book go to. I’d rather not waste time on something that won’t get us home.”
“You can do that while I look,” Rainbow said as Twilight opened the blue book, “I’m not going to just sit around while-” she stopped and put her hooves to her ears as the book opened to the final page, unleashing the noise again. There was something different about it this time though; it was less consistent, fading out for brief seconds before rising back to its usual volume. In the quiet moments, Twilight and Dash thought they heard a voice.
“Cirrus? Is –zzzzt –there? Hello? zzZZzzt.” It was male pony’s voice, full of desperate hope that it would be heard through the static roar. Rainbow and Twilight crowded together to look at the book. The fuzzy, roiling blue cut away in time with the quieting of the noise, just barely revealing glimpses of the face of a dun pony with a thick brown beard and a wild look in his eyes. Those eyes blinked, and then the pony spoke, pleading between the interrupting chaos, “Help, I’m- zZZZzzrrt – blue pages. Bring them and Zzzt –le-release me! I-” any further words were cut off by a fresh wave of noise and static that seemed determined to stay. After a moment, Twilight gently closed the book and glanced at Rainbow, who was wearing an expression of surprise and fear to match her own.
“You don’t suppose…” the unicorn said slowly as both ponies looked over their shoulders at the red book across the room.
“L-like you said,” Rainbow said, gulping audibly, “Only one way to find out.” Together, they crossed the floor and peered down at the red book, which now seemed far more sinister than it once had. Rainbow gave Twilight an encouraging nudge with her shoulder when the unicorn hesitated, and after a quick thankful smile Twilight’s horn lit up and opened the book to the back page. When the red noise faded, a dusky blue stallion’s face became visible, his mouth framed by a neat blonde goatee, and his dark eyes gazing out at the mares in suspicion.
“Who are you?” he asked before the static flared across his image.
“Keep whatever you say short,” Twilight said, and Rainbow rolled her eyes at the obvious advice. “I’m Twilight,” the unicorn said when the stallion re-appeared.
“Rainbow Dash,” the pegasus said quickly.
There was another flare of noise before the pony responded, “zzt Cirrus. I’m tr-zZZZTzzr –must bring me red pages from Zzzrrrrzzt Red pages, not blue, und- zzzzzt.”
“We understand,” Twilight said when the view cleared up, “sit tight.”
“Funny,” Cirrus said, “I don’t have m-zzzZZZZt. Please hurry.” Twilight closed the book carefully and stepped away to the center of the room.
“Two ponies trapped inside books,” she said quietly, “And not exactly the way we are either…”
“Can I go look for the pages now?” Rainbow asked, starting to dance in place impatiently. Twilight nodded and Dash vanished in a cloud of dust and a rainbow contrail. Once the air was clear, Twilight went to the journals she’d stacked up in front of the bookcase and spread them out on the floor in front of her. After some deliberation, she picked them all up in her magic, set them to spinning in a circle in front of her, and the closed her eyes and stuck a hoof out. The books came to a stop when her hoof hit one and she opened her eyes to see that it was the blue volume with the illegible title. Setting the others aside, she lay down with her legs curled up under her body and began reading. It began with the tale of a pony named Basalt who lived alone on a tiny archipelago of rocks in a vast freshwater sea, subsisting happily on a diet of water plants he gathered with the help of a few trained aquatic animals. One day, another pony appeared on the Rocks seemingly from nowhere and accepted Basalt’s friendship and the name Branch. Later, a third pony, a unicorn named Trill, was discovered swimming near the Rocks, and thus was the state of things when the journal’s author, who Twilight assumed was Star Swirl the Bearded, arrived. Star Swirl had been intrigued by the constellations in the night sky and the strange lights that appeared on the horizon. He had attempted to write a ship into the world, only for it to appear broken in half and wedged on the largest rock in the group. Twilight paused over that entry for a while, puzzling over how the act of writing words could generate such profound effects. With her own magic she could change objects into other objects, and she recalled seeing the boastful unicorn Trixie seemingly create a bouquet of flowers out of thin air, although she suspected that was more of an illusion or summoning the flowers from a different location. In any case, being able to create an entire sailing ship out of nothing was well beyond her remarkable talents, and yet here Star Swirl had claimed to have done so, and in fact implied having created the entire world the journal was speaking about, with pen, ink, and paper. Under normal circumstances, Twilight would’ve rejected such a claim out-of-hoof as equivalent to curses, hexes, zombie ponies, and… well, probably not Pinkie Sense… The present circumstances, however, were far from normal. Twilight shook her head and went back to reading.
Basalt and his friends treated the sudden addition to their home like a playground, not minding that its state was the result of an error in calculations. Once the novelty wore off, the three ponies eagerly joined Star Swirl in a new project: constructing a light-house to try and contact the lights on the horizon, assuming they came from other pony settlements. Between entries noting the progress on construction were sketches of the building and the generator-powered lamps Star Swirl intended to install in it. A few days after the lighthouse was completed and turned on, two new ponies were discovered swimming toward the Rocks, and they proved to the forerunners of a wave of newcomers investigating the new light source. The final entry in the journal gave Twilight another mystery to puzzle over: 'It has been ten years by Aitran time since I visited this illusion, which I have named Baseli in honor of my first friend there, Basalt. I had changed the text to allow time to pass in order to see how the colts and their friends would develop. To my pleasure, all three of the Rock’s original inhabitants are now full-grown stallions with foals of their own and the Rocks are home to many new faces. They trade regularly with the distant islands and seem to have found gold in abundance, for it is used in decorations everywhere I turn. On a more somber note, I noticed that the rocks seem to have sunk somewhat into the water and my lighthouse, while still in good repair, is now partially submerged.’
Allow time to pass? Twilight thought, and there’s that term “illusion” again. I don’t get it. Is all of this just a reflection of Star Swirl’s imagination? She flipped through the next few pages of the journal, each of which contained a drawing of a constellation accompanied by a picture of what the stars were probably supposed to represent. Twilight didn’t recognize a single one of them. She set the book aside and started to reach for the next one when Rainbow Dash returned with a gust of wind that stirred some ashes from the bookcase and into Twilight’s face. “C-c-careful,” Twilight said before sneezing.
“Bless you,” Rainbow said.
“Thanks,” Twilight said, “how’d the search go?”
The cyan pegasus blew short raspberry. “All I found were a bunch of empty buildings, a sunken ship, giant gears, some odd-looking giant gold firework thingy, and still no way into that tower.”
“You seem rather fascinated by the tower,” Twilight said, raising an eyebrow.
“I feel like it’s taunting me,” Rainbow said, “It’s the highest point on this island, I’m fairly certain there’s something inside it, and I can’t find the door!” She huffed and crossed her front legs across her chest. “I didn’t see any pages or other bits of paper anywhere, so we’re at a dead-end again.”
“There’s that note I found earlier,” Twilight said, looking around, “where did I drop- oh, there it is.” She called the note over from its resting place near the fireplace. “There was a door in the hillside on the dock,” she said, reading the note, “did you check in there by chance?”
“Nope,” Dash said, “I… didn’t realize it was a door.”
“No worries,” Twilight said, “I was going to head in there after I figured out what Star Swirls meant by ‘marker switches.’ Any ideas?” Dash just shook her head. Twilight frowned slightly in thought and looked around. On the wall between the red book and the door she spotted what looked like a map of the island’s natural features. “Marker switch means they’re meant to mark something,” she mused, approaching the map. When she came within touching distance of it, it gave off a light buzz and lines of light appeared in a few spots – a white square to the left of the grey splotch that was probably the mountain behind the library, a blinking circle on the mountain’s peak, and lines describing the dock and the sunken ship. “Hm,” Twilight said in thought, “Rainbow, did you notice those pedestals with the levers on top of them?”
“Yeah,” Rainbow said, “They’re all over the place.”
“There’s one by that building next door,” the unicorn said, keeping her eyes on the map, “could you go flip it up for me?”
“Sure thing. I’ll be back in a jiffy.” Rainbow galloped out of the library, and a few seconds later a new circle of light appeared on the map, right where the round building would be. “Well?” Rainbow asked, coming back inside.
“Those are the marker switches,” Twilight said with a smile, “How many did you see while flying around?”
“Didn’t count ‘em,” Rainbow said wearily, turning toward the door again. “I’m getting a tiny bit tired of flying,” she added in an undertone.
“I’ll meet you at the dock when you’re done,” Twilight said, “And you might as well turn them all on while you’re at it. I get the feeling there’s a little more to this map than just displaying locations.”
“Gotcha,” Rainbow said, taking flight once again. She zoomed off and Twilight trotted toward out after her before turning back toward the dock.
“I counted eight,” Rainbow Dash reported as she came in for a landing next to Twilight on the dock, “including one by the off-shore clock tower.” Twilight gave her a quizzical look, so she added, “At the other end of the island from the library there’s a clock tower sitting a gear-shaped platform just off the shore. I’m pretty sure it’s broken because it’s been pointing at twelve o’clock sharp every time I buzzed past it.”
“Eight it is then,” Twilight said, facing the slab-like door in the hillside. To her surprise, when she touched it with her magic, it slid aside under its own power. “There are some really sophisticated spells around here,” she said as she led Rainbow through the door and into a short corridor, “A touch-activated door, the spells binding the marker switches to the map, not to mention the books those two ponies are trapped in.” A flight of stairs at the end of the corridor brought the ponies into a vault-like room that was bare except for an ornate raised circular pool in the center.
“Are you sure this is the right place?” Dash asked, looking around as she approached the pool, “Although I gotta admit, this water looks a little weird.” She stuck a hoof into it, and then blinked in surprise and pulled it out, perfectly dry. “It’s fake,” she said, swirling her hoof through the “water” without leaving so much as a ripple in the image.
“A viewing device that operates on illusion spells,” Twilight said, fascinated. She walked around the viewer a few times, locating a button on the front side and another on the back. Pressing them produced no effect, confusing the unicorn. “How is this supposed to work?” she asked.
“Maybe this is a clue?” Twilight looked up to see Rainbow looking at a sheet of paper attached to the wall near the entrance. She went over to take a look. The paper was mounted on a steel plate and contained a short list of three three phrases: topography model, marker switch diagram, and turbulent water pool, each with an accompanying two-digit number.
“Ok,” Twilight said, casting a sidelong glance at her friend, “that second one might have been useful a little while ago, but how does this help me figure out how to operate the machine?”
“You could try the button,” Rainbow said, reaching up to hit a small button cleverly hidden in the top left corner of the plate behind a glowing blue dot. The panel slid down into the wall to reveal a panel with a display showing the number 67, each digit sitting between a pair of triangular buttons and a fifth lighted button near the bottom. Rainbow gave Twilight a smug smile and gave her a light push to tell the unicorn to move aside while she switched the numbers to read 08 and then pushed the lit button. The button flashed and beeped a few times, and then the steel plate slid back to the closed position.
“Good eye,” Twilight said approvingly. Turning back to the viewer, she saw that the water illusion had vanished, exposing the inside of the device to view. A grid of nine round yellow crystals were installed in the bottom of the viewer, likely the medium through which the illusion spells were focused. She pressed the button on the front side and stood back as the crystals began to glow and an image began to form in the air just below the lip of the tub-like device. The illusion resolved into the form of the head of a grey-coated unicorn with a long flowing beard, blue eyes, and a tall pointed wizard’s hat with bells attached around the brim and on the point. “Star Swirl the Bearded,” Twilight said in quiet awe.
“What’s with the bells?” Rainbow asked. Twilights shushed her as the image began to speak in a voice that while surprisingly strong and clear for a pony of Star Swirl’s apparent age, was tinged with sadness and urgency.
“My dearest Clover," it said, “something terrible has happened. My library…. Most of the books have been destroyed! Clover, it was one of the boys! I suspect it was Archeon, but I should not jump to conclusions. I’ll find him and Cirrus and find a resolution.” Star Swirl sighed sadly and fell silent for a second before continuing, “I’ve taken the remaining books and hid them in the places of protection. You shouldn’t have to use them before I return, but if you’ve forgotten the access keys then use the tower rotation. Don’t worry Clover, everything will be fine. Keep yourself and little Nyx safe. Oh, and erase this message after you’ve listened to it.” The image of Star Swirl faded from sight and the viewer turned off.
Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash sat in silence for several minutes digesting the content of Star Swirl the Bearded’s message in the underground Projective Illusion Viewer chamber. “He was living here,” Twilight said at last, “That… that actually makes a kind of sense. He just sort of… vanished from history a decade or so after Equestria adopted the modern calendar system, after Nightmare Moon was banished by Princess Celestia.” She looked up at the ceiling, as if indicating the island surface above them. “Either he found or… crazy as it may sound, made this place and started a new life. Only for it to come crashing down as somepony he held close betrayed him.”
“Cirrus,” Rainbow Dash mused, “Didn’t the pony in the red book say his name was Cirrus? Blue book pony, did we get his name?”
“I don’t think so,” Twilight said. Rainbow’s irises shrank and she bolted out of the chamber, almost colliding with the door which had apparently closed of its own will after the pair had passed through. “Rainbow Dash!” Twilight called out, running after her, “What’s going…” she trailed off as Dash opened the door and flew out past the dock before pulling a tight vertical turn back toward the island and zipping to the library. Unable to make the tight right turn through the doorway at her speed, she looped around to her left as she slowed down and landed in a trot on the library’s doorstep. She entered the building and made a bee-line for the blue book, pausing only for a moment to catch her breath before opening it to the back page and bracing her ears against the noisy static. “Hey,” she said when the noise died down and the imprisoned stallion’s face appeared, “can you hear me?”
“Zzrrrzz –es I can,” the pony answered as best he could, “Did ZzzzzrtZZZrr –id you find more blue pages?”
“Not… not yet,” the pegasus said haltingly, trying in vain to find a pattern to the rise and fall of the static, “Just wanted to, ugh… wanted to know who you are. What’s your name?”
“I’m –Zzzrt¬ I’m Archeon,” the pony said, “Please, I bzzzzZZZrtZZ I BEG of you, find the blue- Zzzzrt let me out!”
“I’ll get on it,” Dash said, her voice growing weak. As she closed the book she heard Twilight’s hoofsteps on the floor behind her and turned around. Without waiting for the unicorn to ask, Rainbow pointed at the red book and said, “That’s Cirrus,” and then at the blue book, “and Archeon. Twilight, those are the ponies from the message. They’ve been in those books for centuries! How is that possible?!” Her wings began to flap in agitation, lifting her off the floor, so Twilight almost needed to jump in order to grab the hysterical pegasus and pull her down into a hug.
“Calm down,” Twilight said, trying to tame her own wild imagination, “It… it might just be a coincidence. A-a couple of ponies found the Aitran book before I did and got themselves trapped in those two books.”
Rainbow pulled away and looked Twilight in the eye. “And they just happen to be named Cirrus and Archeon?” she said in disbelief.
“I don’t know!” Twilight said, exasperated, “It’s just…” She released Rainbow and dropped to her belly, front hooves over her eyes. “The more I learn about this place, the less sense anything makes!” She lay on the floor for a few moments, simply trying to calm her mind, before standing up with a look of determination. “These mysteries aren’t going to solve themselves,” she said firmly, “so let’s start by focusing on something we can solve.”
“Yeah,” Rainbow said, putting on a confident attitude, “Like… Um… Tower rotation! The old pony mentioned the tower, so there has to be a way inside.”
“Right” Twilight said, nodding, “And he said it’s a way to find the places where he hid his surviving books, which I’m assuming are not those journals.” She gestured to the books on the floor in front of the bookcase, and then walked over to the map. It switched on at her approach, now displaying neon sketches of structures across the whole island. Her gaze went to a zigzagging path on the north-east corner that led to a pointed ovoid shape with fins on one end. “Is that your ‘giant golden firework thingy’ Rainbow?” she asked, pointing to it.
“Uh, yeah, that’s it all right,” the pegasus said as she came over to join Twilight. She point to a gear in the water off the western end of the island and said, “That’s the clock tower I mentioned, and this,” her hoof moved to a green square and matching circle inside a hexagon situated inland and toward the south, “is a log cabin next to this humongous tree inside a brick fence, and this building,” her hoof went to a square in the middle of the northern coast, “has a staircase leading pretty deep underground to what I think is a power plant. There are power cables linking the building to the firework thingy. And then there’re the columns and fountain pool just outside, the building next door, the dock, and those giant gears. This building and the tower are the only spots without marker switches.”
“The symbol for the tower is blinking,” Twilight noted as Rainbow put her hoof back down, “I bet that means something.” She touched the blinking circle and was rewarded by the appearance of a white line reaching from the circle to the edge of the map, which began to rotate around until she pulled her hoof away. The sounds of operating machinery echoed into the room from behind the back wall of the library for several seconds as the words “Tower rotating” appeared on the bottom of the map. “Well, that answers one question,” Twilight said when the sounds stopped and the map returned to its idling appearance, “A magical control panel for the tower disguised as a map.”
“Great,” Dash said, “But that still doesn’t get us inside.”
“The key to that has to be somewhere,” Twilight said, turning away from the map, “We just need to find it. What haven’t we taken a close look at yet?”
Rainbow turned as well and slowly looked around the octagonal room. “The pictures,” she said at last, walking to the back of the room. To the right of the bookcase was a picture of the library door as viewed from inside, while on the left was a picture of a passageway where the bookshelf currently sat. “I bet there’s a switch hidden here,” she said, poking around the frame of the left picture with both front hooves. Failing to find any disguised buttons, she proceeded to try to move the picture aside. When it proved to be as resistant to moving as the red and blue books in their alcoves, Rainbow gave a frustrated growl and jabbed a hoof into the picture itself, intending to give it a piece of her mind only to be struck speechless as the oil paint swirled around her hoof. Something clicked and the bookshelves began to slide back and sink into the floor to form a set of steps and revealing a wood paneled passageway matching the picture, which had returned to its un-swirled state when Rainbow and Twilight glanced back at it. At the same time, there was a slamming thud behind them and they spun around to see a stone slab had dropped into the library doorway. “Heh heh,” Rainbow said with a weak smile, “See? I told you there was a hidden switch.”
Twilight went over to the closed door and tried to open it with her magic. “And now we can’t get out,” she said when the stone refused to budge. Rainbow opened her mouth to apologize, but then closed it with a pondering look. She went over to the picture of the open library door and pressed a hoof to it. The paint swirled, the door opened, and the bookshelves went back to filling the back wall. Twilight blinked a few times and then face-hoofed as Rainbow chuckled.
“I’d say that’s a good bit of security,” the pegasus said as she opened the secret passageway again, “whatever is back there is never open to the outside, and it looks like even your magic isn’t enough to get around it.”
“There’s always teleporting,” Twilight muttered as she followed Rainbow into the hallway. It curved slightly to the right for several feet before branching in two. At the end of the left hallway they could see a cavern with a single-rider elevator sitting in the middle and illuminated by a pair of flood lamps. The hall to the right sloped downward and turned sharply to the left after a short distance. “What’s down there?” Twilight wondered, drifting toward the right-side path.
“Later,” Dash said, trotting toward the elevator, “We’ve already got way more questions to answer than I like.”
“We could split up,” Twilight suggested, “I mean, that elevator can only fit one…” she trailed off as Rainbow spread her wings and flew up the elevator shaft. “Right,” the unicorn said, rolling her eyes. She reached out with her magic to open the elevator door, only to be interrupted by Rainbow’s return.
The pegasus paused only long enough to say, “Something’s not right,” before flying down the hall and into the library. By the time Twilight caught up, Rainbow was already hovering in front of the map, holding her hoof on the tower symbol and watching the line rotate around. “Ok, I think I get it,” she said as Twilight came over to her, “when I went up there all I saw was a rock wall framed by a gap in the tower’s wall. When I spin the tower here, the line turns red as it passes over some of the images, so I think if I stop on one of those…” she removed her hoof when the line was passing through the giant firework, “If I’m right, that should orient the tower in a way to give us a clue or something.” She flew off again, but slower than before to let Twilight keep up with her. “Meet you at the top,” the pegasus said as the unicorn opened the elevator and stepped inside.
“Right,” Twilight said, closing the door behind her and pressing the only button she could find. The elevator stopped halfway up and rotated around before bringing Twilight up into a rather small round room. Directly in front of her was a tall, narrow window that Rainbow Dash was gazing out of. “Hey,” Twilight said as she came up next to her friend and looked out, seeing the golden finned ovoid Dash had described as a giant metal firework. “Find any clues?” she asked.
“Not a one,” Rainbow groused, “This is just a pegasus-eye view of the thing.”
“Maybe there’s something around back,” the unicorn suggested, walking around the elevator. On the wall behind the elevator she found a bronze plaque with a large old-style key engraved on it. With consideration for the precedent of touch-activated devices on the island, Twilight pressed her hoof lightly against the edge of the plaque and smiled when it flipped around to display another engraving: 62 Volts. Rainbow showed up and looked at the engraving, frowning in confusion. “You said there were cables connecting the rocket to the power plant building, right?” Twilight asked, and then continued without waiting for an answer, “Volts are a measure of power, so we probably need to give the rocket 62 volts and then go from there.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Rainbow said, wings spreading, “Let’s do it.”
“Slow down Rainbow,” Twilight said with a smirk, “Unless you can squeeze out that window, I’ll need to take the elevator down before you can get out. Besides, we’ve been going non-stop since we got here and I really want to see what’s down that other hall before we get too much farther.”
Rainbow sighed and tucked her wings back to her side. “Fine,” she said dejectedly, “That firework thingy’s not going anywhere anyway…”
“Call it a rocket Rainbow,” Twilight said as she walked around to the elevator door, “That’s what it is. Plus, it’s less of a mouthful to say.” She stepped into the elevator and pressed the button as the pegasus’s gaze went toward the window.
“I always thought ‘rocket’ was just a cool word for fast,” she said quietly as the elevator began to descend. Just before its top dropped below the floor, Rainbow decided to hop on top and ride it down, saving herself some effort. The car shuddered and the cables groaned audibly at the added weight, but everything held together and came to a gentle stop at the bottom. That fact didn’t spare Rainbow Dash from Twilight Sparkle’s glare as the unicorn stepped out of the elevator, but the pegasus shrugged it off with a nonchalant, “Hey, it didn’t break,” before hopping down to the ground. Rolling her eyes, Twilight led the way down the hallway to the fork and took the downward-sloping path. Rainbow’s wings began to twitch uncomfortably as the hallway doubled back on itself and led the pair deeper into the heart of the rocky island and farther from the open sky. After a distance that Twilight estimated put them just outside the library, the tunnel leveled out and terminated in a metal door with a comfortingly familiar latch handle on the left side. The unicorn grasped the handle in her magic and opened the inward-swinging door.
“Whoa,” she said, slowly walking through the door. Has she not known any better, she would have sworn she had just entered a miniature version of her tree-house home in Ponyville. The room was spacious and fairly amorphous in shape with the walls and ceiling covered in a material that looked like a single seamless piece of natural wood and a well-used but still soft green carpet on the floor. Light came into the room through false windows and a skylight that all showed a convincing illusion of a clear blue sky with the occasional cloud. Three long couches and a pair of reclining cushions were arranged along the wall in a semi-circle, with a large low hexagonal coffee table in the middle. Two doorways stood open on the left and right walls.
“I hate caves,” Rainbow said, walking over to a couch and flopping down on it, “but this doesn’t feel like a cave. I could take a nap here.” She curled up and began to do exactly that. Twilight shook her head in amusement and considered laying down as well, but curiosity drove hero to investigate the other doors first. The door to the left of the entrance led to a darkened room, but Twilight quickly located a lamp on a table by the door and lit it up with a spark of magic. The room turned out to be sleeping quarters, broken up into four sections by low wooden walls. The largest section contained a two-pony bed with a pair of nightstands each with their own lamp as well as a wardrobe that contained a night-blue robe with bells stitched along the hem. The smallest section held only a small bed fit for a young, growing pony and a lamp decorated with stars and moons in a rainbow of colors. The other two sections were of a matching size, occupying half of the room in total but displaying very different tastes. One was decorated in reds and golds with small trinkets sharing space on the nightstand with the two-branched magically-powered lamp and had a wardrobe filled with capes and collars that would either leave Rarity breathless in wonder or scoffing in dismissal, depending on what was in this season. The final sleeping area gave off a vibe of organized chaos, with clockwork toys strewn on the floor, nightstand, and hanging from the walls and ceiling. The lamp’s base looked like it had been turned into a music box of some sort, but Twilight didn’t bother winding the attached key to see.
Stepping back into the main room, she saw that Rainbow was still asleep, so she just walked across the room to the other door, finding what looked like a cross between a kitchen and a pantry inside. The sight was enough to remind Twilight that she had never got the daisy and cucumber sandwich Spike had been trying to make for her, and her stomach gurgled. “Great,” the unicorn muttered, “Thousand-year old food. If I’m lucky it’ll all just be dust.” She took hold of a cupboard door in her magic, braced herself for the worst, and then flung it open and gasped. The shelves were lined with boxes of fresh dry goods: oats, wheat, alfalfa, beans, and hay. Another cupboard turned out to contain some spices, salt, and sugar and a third, which had a chilling spell on it judging by the rush of cold air that hit Twilight when she opened it, held fresh vegetables, apples, and some strange-looking fruits. Twilight’s eye started to twitch as she tried to make sense of her discovery, but after a moment she shook her head and told herself, “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth Sparkle. So long as it’s real…” she levitated an apple out and took a bite from it. The flavor seemed a little off, but it was definitely a real apple, so Twilight finished it off while gathering together the materials for a couple of small salads. She brought them, along with two more apples, into the main room and set them on the table before trotting out into the hallway and into the library.
The scent of fresh lettuce lured Rainbow Dash out of sleep. For a moment she thought she was in Ponyville and had fallen asleep in one of her friend’s houses. Fluttershy, she thought, Fluttershy’s couch is nice and soft, and it would be just like her to set food out for me without waking me up. She rubbed her eyes as they cracked open and then peered over her hooves. She looked around the wood-lined room in confusion until she spotted Twilight curled up on a couch across the table from her with a book propped up against the armrest, and then her brain kicked into high gear and she remembered where she was. She could still smell lettuce, and her eyes slid down to the table until they found the source: a bowl of salad on the table. “Uh, where’d this come from?” she asked.
“Hm?” Twilight said, looking up from her reading, “Oh, there’s a fully stocked pantry in the room behind you. Don’t ask me how all that food is still edible, because I have no idea.”
Dash sniffed the salad suspiciously, but after seeing Twilight casually levitate some leaves to her mouth as she returned to her book, the pegasus took a chance on a small bite of her own. It wasn’t the best she’d ever eaten, but it tasted ok. “So, what’cha reading there?” she asked Twilight.
“I brought down those journals we found,” Twilight answered, “They’re quite fascinating, even though they don’t even address most of the big questions I have. The thing I find the strangest is that Star Swirl calls each of the places he describes in these journals illusions, but he seems to have treated them like real places with flesh-and-blood inhabitants. He seems particularly fond of this one he calls Everdunes; he’s mentioned it a couple times in two of the journals so far.”
“So, what about this place?” Rainbow asked, gesturing at the cavern around them, “Is this an ‘illusion’ as well?”
“I don’t know,” Twilight said, “I saw you literally vanish into Aitran when you touched the picture, and I’m sure the same thing happened to me. We’re definitely here, but I don’t know what here is. Cirrus and Archeon might know though. From what I’ve gathered, they were Star Swirl’s assistants or apprentices for a large part of their lives. In the Forestsea illusion, he had them live among and study the local population of talking frogs.”
“Say what?”
“I’m not joking,” Twilight said, floating the blue-covered Forestsea journal over to the pegasus and opening it to an early page, “There’s a civilization of large talking frog-like creatures that lived in the trees above a tribe of earth ponies, at least until the ponies apparently sacrificed themselves to stop their land from sinking into the sea.” From the look on Twilight’s face, Rainbow could tell she wasn’t convinced about that story. “At any rate,” the unicorn continued, “The frogs treated the surviving ponies like they were something like Princess Celestia and Princess Luna. Star Swirl and his assistants got the same treatment whenever they visited, so they actually used it as a second home for a while.” She dropped the book on the table and held up the one she was in the middle of reading. “This one’s from later in their lives,” she said, “It’s mostly about how Star Swirl, Cirrus, and Archeon built a rotating fortress to protect a dying village from pirates who wielded weather magic. The colts wanted to take the pirates down, but Star Swirl convinced them that focusing on defense was less likely to get them all killed.”
“They must have been tough pirates to scare Star,” Rainbow said with a teasing tone, “Wasn’t he supposed to be some great magic user?”
“There’s discovering new forms of magic,” Twilight said, “and then there’s knowing how to fight. Star Swirl the Bearded was a scholar, not a soldier. Besides, it’s not like they had something like the Elements of Harmony with them.” She frowned suddenly and put a hoof to her chin in thought. “Now that I think about it,” she said, “it’s strange that he created these illusion worlds, and yet he’s often surprised by what he finds inside them, and except for that time he tried writing a ship into a world he always builds things by hoof and horn if he wants to add anything to the illusion.”
“Hey, I wouldn’t worry so much about it,” Dash said, “If we can find more of the missing pages, you can just ask Cirrus and Archeon about everything. Although, one of them is probably responsible for burning those books. Which one do we trust?”
“I don’t know,” Twilight said, setting her book aside and picking up another one, “Nothing I’ve read so far has given any hints about either of them going bad, but I have found enough to guess which part of the bedroom over their belongs to whom. Cirrus seems like he’d get along well with Rarity; his room’s full of expensive-looking and fashionable items. Archeon strikes me as an inventor fascinated with clockwork, but perhaps not the most focused individual.”
“Let’s help them both then,” Rainbow suggested, “At least until we find enough pages to let us actually talk to both of them.”
“That sounds good,” Twilight said, “I’ll give this last journal a quick read while you finish eating, and then we’ll tackle the puzzle of getting inside the rocket. Those pages have to be somewhere we haven’t gotten into yet.”
“Twilight, I’ve been thinking,” Rainbow Dash said as she and Twilight Sparkle stepped out of the hidden passageway and into the Aitran Library. They were each wearing a pair of small saddlebags Twilight had found in Cirrus’s wardrobe and insisted that they wear in case they found something they needed to carry. Twilight was carrying a few sheets of paper and a pencil she’d scrounged from the nightstands in the bedroom in her bags.
“What about?” Twilight asked as she went over and pressed a hoof against the painting-switch that closed the passageway and opened the library door.
“We’re fixing the books Cirrus and Archeon are trapped in because the spell on them doesn’t work due to missing pages, right?” Rainbow said, “How did the pages get torn out?”
“That,” Twilight said, stopping in the doorway, “is a very good question. Add to that the fact that only one page was near the books and… There must have been another pony involved, ripping out and scattering the pages after Cirrus and Archeon went into the books.”
“So maybe neither of them is responsible for destroying Star Swirl’s books,” Rainbow suggested, “This other pony could have tricked the two into the books and then torn out enough pages so Star Swirl wouldn’t be able to see them through the noise before burning the books.”
“Possibly,” Twilight said, nodding slowly, “but they would also have needed to do something to make Star Swirl suspect his apprentices. It would have to be somepony who had a grudge against Star Swirl and his friends, knowledge that Aitran existed, and the means to get here and leave.” She glanced over at her friend and added, “Of course, this is all hundreds of years in the past and the only clues that would have survived are trapped in the red and blue books.”
“Right, not worrying about it then,” Rainbow said, brushing past Twilight, “On to the rocket thingy.”
“Power station first,” Twilight said when the pegasus started to turn to the right, “we need to supply 62 volts to the rocket before we do anything else with it.”
“I knew that,” Rainbow said, swerving back onto the path leading between the columns. She trotted along quickly, focused on her destination but Twilight, who had not yet seen much of the island beyond the dock and the library, slowed down to take in her surroundings. Eight marble columns stood in two rows on either side of the path, which split to go around a small fountain pool and a marker switch. Each of the columns had a box with a bronze plaque attached it at about eye level, and on each plaque was a different symbol that Twilight found vaguely familiar. Inside the fountain was a model ship sitting under the water with only it mast and forecastle spar breaking the surface. The similarity to the sunken ship by the dock was not lost on the unicorn, but she had to file that information away for later when she caught sight of Dash waiting impatiently next to the last column on the right side of the path. “Done yet?” the pegasus asked.
“For the moment,” Twilight replied dryly, “I’d like to know how things stand when we try getting into the other places of protection.”
“They’re not going anywhere,” Rainbow said, turning around and trotting through the trees behind her. Twilight followed her and they quickly came to a rather tiny stone building, which was really more of a glorified doorway and roof for the stairs leading down into the depths of the island. To the immediate right of the building was a tall brick tower supporting the power cable reaching up from the building, and as Twilight followed the cable with her eyes she could see another tower farther down the coast before the cable reached the gilded rocket. Twilight gave the marker switch sitting next to the door only the briefest of glances before heading inside and starting down the stairs, which curved immediately to the right to stay inside the boundary between rocky land and endless sea. Shortly before reaching the first landing, where the stairs took another gentle turn to the right, Twilight noticed the lack of clopping hooves behind her and looked over her shoulder to see Rainbow Dash looking down at her from the top.
“Aren’t you coming?” the unicorn asked.
“Remember how I said I don’t like caves?” the cyan-coated pony said, “I really don’t like this one. It’s way too narrow and enclosed and deep. I’m pretty sure the bottom’s like the lowest point in this entire place.”
“You came down here before,” Twilight said, raising an eyebrow.
“I was looking for pages then,” Dash said, “It was a quick in-and-out job. There’s no way I’m hanging around down there waiting for you to figure out how to work things. Just let me know when you’re done.”
“Fine,” Twilight said, turning her face back to the stairs. There was one more landing that aimed the stairs back to the left a little before coming to a stop in front of a metal door with a glowing blue button in the wall next to it. “This island was definitely designed with non-unicorns in mind,” Twilight said as she pressed the button and saw the door slide open, “Come to think of it, what type are Cirrus and Archeon anyway? I don’t think I saw a horn on either of them…” With a quick shake of her head, she focused back on the task at hand and stepped through the door. Reacting to her presence, a series of lights turned on to reveal a long bank of generators stretching out into a cavern behind a glass window. In front of the window was a control panel with two metering dials currently pointing at zero and ten small buttons arranged in two columns on the right side. “Ok then,” Twilight mused, reaching out a hoof to press one of the buttons. The needles on both dials jumped and settled on the number 5 as the sound of the generators warming up echoed in through the window. Twilight pressed a few more buttons and watched the dials climb in perfect sync. So, what’s the difference between the two? the unicorn thought, scratching her chin in perplexity. Looking around for clues, she found a drawing of the control panel attached to the wall next to the doorway. The dial on the left was labeled “power at station” and the one on the right was “power to ship.” The ten buttons were also displayed, but were simply numbered one through ten. Ok, Twilight thought as she turned back to the controls, That probably means I’ll trip a breaker or something if I give the ship too many volts. I need to find the combination of buttons that will supply 62 volts without going over. “Good thing I brought note paper,” she said aloud, floating a sheet and her pencil out of her bag while turning off all the buttons. She drew ten squares on the paper in the same arrangement as the buttons and then turned each one on and off in turn, noting the voltage each one supplied. She ended up with values ranging from one to twenty-two and distributed in a seemingly random manner between the buttons. Shrugging that off, Twilight put her pencil to work on adding the values together in search of the proper combination.
In short order, Twilight found a solution and confidently pressed the five buttons she had picked out. The whine of running generators rose to a dull rumble as the twin dials climbed and came to a stop precisely on 62 volts. “Cakewalk,” Twilight said proudly as she turned and left the station. After climbing the stairs and stepping out into open air, she found Rainbow Dash standing by one of the pillars, pressing the embedded plaque with a hoof, the engraving glowing green every other time the pegasus touched it. “Bored Rainbow?” Twilight asked, giving Rainbow a start.
“Yeah, kinda,” Rainbow said, glowering a little.
“Well, I’m done,” Twilight reported, “The rocket should have power now.”
“Awesome, “Rainbow Dash said, taking flight, “race you there!” She was off like a shot, leaving Twilight in a rainbow-tinted cloud of dust.
“Wait! Rainbow!” Twilight called, galloping after the pegasus. By the time she reached the start of the raised walkway just past the north-west corner of the library, Rainbow had already reached the rocket and was sitting in front of the recessed panel in its side that most likely the door. Twilight slowed down to navigate the narrow walkway that was taking her relatively higher above the descending coastline with every step. “That wasn’t exactly a fair race you know,” she said when she reached the first bend in the path.
“Don’t worry, I won’t count it,” Dash said flippantly, and then turned around to regard the rocket. “Now how does this op-” she said, tapping the door with her hoof and then flinching back when it slid aside. “That was a little freaky,” she said, glancing over her shoulder at Twilight. Twilight smirked as Rainbow stepped into the rocket and started looking around, but her amusement turned to horror as a loud, sharp pop sounded from behind her and the power cable broke off the nearby breaker tower in a shower of sparks. The rocket’s door slammed shut just as Rainbow Dash turned around, her eyes wide and irises shrunk in fear.
“Rainbow!” Twilight yelled, throwing caution to the wind and running up to the rocket. She spun around and kicked at the door, producing an impressive gong-like sound but not leaving so much as a dent in the metal.
Inside the pitch-black rocket, Rainbow covered her ears as the sound reverberated through the structure. “Geez Twilight, you trying to deafen me?” she shouted once the din died down. A response from outside was muffled by the thickness of the walls. “Louder!” Rainbow shouted, “I can’t hear you!”
“Sit tight!” Twilight yelled after a second.
“Seriously?” Rainbow muttered, laying down on the floor, “not like I’ve got much of a choice. Oooh… I hate enclosed spaces…”
After what felt like an eternity to the rainbow-haired pegasus, a low-pitched buzzing filled the air and the lights flickered on, allowing her to at least see the interior of her prison. She stood up and placed a hoof against the door, hoping that it would respond. The door began to move aside, but made it only a few inches before it stalled and the lights dimmed dangerously. Rainbow pressed an eye up to the gap, straining to see out and locate Twilight. With a flash of light, the unicorn teleported onto the platform in front of the door, looking like she’d just finished competing in the Running of the Leaves. “What happened Twilight?” Rainbow asked.
“Cable… broke,” Twilight said, trying to catch her breath, “I had to… cut the power… Try and repair the… the break and then power everything up… again. Also… teleporting is suddenly a lot harder to do than I remember.”
“Well, I appreciate you wiping yourself out trying to help, but,” Rainbow said, rapping a hoof against the door, “the door’s stuck.”
“Great,” Twilight said dejectedly. She walked up to the door and Rainbow moved back to let her look through the crack.
“Why don’t you just teleport in here and then get the both of us out?” the pegasus asked.
“Sorry Rainbow, no can do,” Twilight said, backing away from the door, “Even if I wasn’t worn down, I can’t see enough of what’s in there to be able to cast the spell safely."
“I can’t be stuck in here!” Rainbow exclaimed, finally giving in to the panic that had been simmering under the surface, “You have to get me out Twilight!”
“Calm down,” Twilight snapped, “Give me a second to think.” Rainbow bit her lip and watched as the lavender unicorn started to pace and think aloud, “This is one of the places of protection where Star Swirl hid some of his surviving books. Odds are good that these books link to illusion worlds like those described in the journals and thus warrant this kind of protection. If you can find one of those books, you can at least get out of the rocket, although it’ll be anypony’s guess where you’ll end up.”
“And I’ll be stuck wherever that is instead of on this island,” Rainbow said.
“I doubt that Rainbow,” Twilight said, trying to reassure the pegasus, “Star Swirl obviously intended the illusions to be places you could visit and then come back from. Besides, would you rather be stuck forever inside this thing, or in a strange yet wide-open world?”
Rainbow turned away from the door and closed her eyes tight as she weighed the options. She couldn’t deny that she was going stir-crazy even with the door slightly open, but the thought of separating from Twilight did not sit well with her. Element of Loyalty aside, Rainbow Dash was a pony who needed to have other ponies around her. An athlete and stunt-flyer was nothing without an audience to perform for and get feedback from. On the other hoof, showing weakness wasn’t her style, and Twilight sounded confident in her guessing. Coming to a conclusion, Rainbow Dash turned back to the door and peered out at her friend. “Promise me one thing Twilight,” she said, “If I go into a book, you find a way to fix this dumb oversized firework so you can come in after me if I can’t find a way out.”
“Pinkie Pie Promise,” Twilight said, “Now, what’s in there with you?”
Rainbow pulled her gaze away from the door and finally took her first real look around the rocket. “I don’t see any books,” she said, “There’s a panel with sliders and a lever at the front end and a… a small pipe organ at the other.” She walked over and hit a key, eliciting a musical tone. “It’s got a funky kind of sound,” she said, dragging her hoof up and down the scale a few times.
“What?” Rainbow asked, heading back over to the door.
“I’ll be right back,” the unicorn said as she trotted away from the rocket. Rainbow watched her until she vanished from her very limited field of vision and then her gaze slid back to the organ. After staring at it for a few seconds, she gave a shrug and went to play around on it, inventing random tunes to pass the time. By the time Twilight returned, the pegasus had started setting words to her improvised melody. Twilight raised a hoof to knock and get Rainbow’s attention, but then paused and listened for a little bit.
“What was that going by oh so fast? It was the great Rainbow Dash, going by in flash and… uh…” Rainbow tapped down on the keys she’d faltered at several times as she tried to think of the next line. “Eh, whatever,” she said, turning away with an up-scale swipe across the board.
“That was pretty good,” Twilight said.
Dash froze up and blushed slightly and blushed in surprise. “Ah, well of course,” she said, recovering, “Among my many other awesome talents, I just so happen to have perfect pitch. My dad would always joke about how if I hadn’t got my cutie mark for being such a fast flyer, I’d have been a singer. Anyway, what’cha run off for?”
“This,” Twilight said as a blue book wiggled through the space in the doorway, wrapped in the aura of unicorn magic. Twilight set it on the floor as Dash came over to look at it. “It’s one of the journals,” Twilight said, a bit unnecessarily, “It’s a bit disconcerting because the world it describes is prone to earthquakes, and lots of entries in the middle seem to have faded away, but near the end there’s a drawing of a piano, er, I guess it’s actually an organ keyboard, with five keys highlighted and numbered.”
“Gotcha,” Rainbow said, cutting off any further instructions the unicorn wanted to give. She picked the book up and fluttered over to the organ while flipping through the pages to find the drawing. It turned out to be drawn at a ninety-degree angle to the bottom of the page, requiring Rainbow to find a way to prop the book up against the pipes without letting the previous pages fall over the picture. “Ok, let’s see here,” she said, taking a close look, “a high note…” Using her wings for balance, she put her front hooves on the keys and played the marked keys. “Not much of a tune,” she noted dryly, looking around expectantly. When nothing happened, she frowned and played the phrase again, trying to keep a regular rhythm. “Nothing’s happening,” she said loudly so Twilight could hear her through the door.
“Maybe we missed a step?” Twilight suggested.
“Maybe,” Rainbow said, looking toward the other end of the ship at the panel with the sliders, “or maybe there’s another step to take.” She walked over to the panel to give it a closer look. There were five sliders, shaped to be easily gripped in a pony’s mouth, with a lever to their right and an opaque glass dome above the panel. Rainbow gingerly bit down on a slider, which began to emit a steady tone. Quirking an eyebrow, the pegasus slid it up and noticed that the tone rose in pitch. Returning the slider to the bottom position, Rainbow pulled down on the lever. Each slider lit up in turn from left to right and played the exact same tone for about half a second. “That’s it,” Rainbow said, grinning, “I set these so they play the five notes from the journal and I’ll unlock the real hiding place.”
“Sounds tricky,” Twilight noted as Dash returned to the organ.
“It could be,” Rainbow agreed, “but so long as this thing’s still in tune, I’ll have it done as soon as I’ve memorized the sequence.” She played the musical phrase over and over, humming along with the organ. Outside, Twilight had to bite her lip to keep herself from complaining about being driven crazy by the repetition of the very disjointed tune. Just when the unicorn thought she couldn’t take any more, the organ fell silent and the sound of Rainbow’s hooves on the floor of the rocket briefly covered the pegasus’s humming until she reached the panel. Then a new wave of noise hit as Rainbow worked at the sliders, pulling them rapidly up to the neighborhood of the correct tones before gradually homing in on them. After getting the first three in place, she went back to the organ to refresh her memory before taking on the last two.
“Have you got it?” Twilight asked when tones stopped flowing out of the rocket.
“We’ll see,” Rainbow said before grasping the lever and pulling it. She hummed along as the sliders sounded off, nodding in satisfaction at the end and looking expectantly at the panel. There was a faint buzz and the glass dome slid up to reveal a metal plate that rolled out to present Rainbow with a book. “Just the one eh?” she asked, opening it and flipping through to the final page. The linking panel on the page displayed a fly-by of an island that was more steep ridges than anything else with bridges, stairs, and similar structures here and there. “I think you were right Twilight,” she said, “This is definitely the same kind of book as the one that got us here. I’m going in; wish me luck.”
“Wait a second,” Twilight said, “Do you think the book can fit through the door? I should probably go with you if it’s possible.”
“What if the exit drops me back in here?” Rainbow countered, “We can’t both get stuck inside here with nopony around to rescue us. I’m counting on you to get this door open Twilight.”
“Well, if you’re sure,” Twilight said uncertainly.
“Don’t worry, I can handle myself,” the pegasus said.
“Ok,” the unicorn said, “but take these,” she floated her pencil and two pieces of paper out of her bag and through the gap in the door, “I don’t know what you’ll find, but it may be smart to take notes on anything interesting.” Rainbow nodded, grabbed the supplies from Twilight’s magic, and put them in her saddlebag. “Good luck,” Twilight said. A few seconds later there was a low humming noise and she peered in to see that the rocket was empty, save for a book that lay open to its last page. “Well Sparkle,” the unicorn said to herself, turning toward the breaker tower and her attempted repair on the power cable, “time to see where you went wrong.”
There was a short moment of blackout after Rainbow Dash touched the linking panel of the book hidden in the gilded rocket. When sight and hearing returned to the pegasus, she thought that something had gone wrong. She was sitting on the floor of the rocket with the musical lock panel in front of her, but with the sliders all reset to the bottom and behind her was the pipe organ, although the journal she’d propped up on it was absent, as was the book she’d just used. The one bit of good news was that the rocket’s door was wide open, giving her a view of the zig-zagging stone walkway that connected the rocket to the island. Curiously though, there was now a thick fog that obscured her vision beyond the second bend in the walkway. “Twilight?” Rainbow called out as she stepped out of the rocket. She jumped as the door slid shut behind her and she whirled around to give it a hard look. “Yeah, I’m glad to be rid of you too,” she said with a sneer, and then turned around and marched away from her former prison, calling out for Twilight again. “Maybe she’s down in the house cave,” she said, trying to drive off the growing concern at the lack of response from the unicorn, “Kind of mean of her to just leave me in there…” she trailed off as she reached the end of the walkway and, due to the basic nature of fog, finally saw evidence that she was not on Aitran Island anymore. The Aitran rocket had been set up at the northeastern corner of the island, with nothing but sea off to the right as one walked away from the ship and the library to the left. This rocket’s walkway terminated in a gap between two steep ridges, a short one to the left that terminated in a sharp-looking peak before plunging down into the foggy depths and a larger one that was almost a proper hill on the right. Built into the larger rock was a brick building with an arched roof. In the middle of the building’s façade was a stone door carved to look like two matching square tiles with a flower-like pattern. To the right of the door was a panel with five sliders, a speaker, and a button.
“Another music lock?” Rainbow wondered, nosing one of the sliders, all of which sat at the top. A low whistling sound came from the speaker, and as Rainbow moved the slider down its track, it gave off a seemingly random collection of sounds. “Whistling, ticking, a train whistle, trickling water… What they hay?” She put the slider back in its initial spot and shook her head. “No way I’m getting past that without any clues,” she said, looking around, “so the first order of business will be getting rid of this fog so I can see!” She spread her wings and shot up into the sky, climbing higher and higher in a tight spiral until she could no longer see the ground. Flipping around, she went into a dive with her wings angled to stir up the air as much as possible without killing her speed, a standard maneuver for solo fog management. As she neared the ground, she pulled out of her dive and began flying in a tight circle to form her patented Rainblow Cyclone, good for rapid drying, trapping parasprite swarms, and especially for pulling fog banks into compact, easy-to-manage clouds. In theory at least. After a solid minute and a half of flying in circles, Rainbow had to come in for a landing before she grew too dizzy. After steadying her eyes and catching her breathe, she looked around in disbelief at the fog, which was no more or less thick than when she had begun. “Perfect,” she said sourly, “Who’s bright idea was it to make a world with weather that doesn’t respond to pegasus ponies?” She took another look around and dejectedly tucked her wings up against her sides. Fog this thick was not a safe environment for flying; it would be far too easy for her to lose sight of landmarks and get lost. Grounded, her only options were to head back toward the rocket or to follow the small valley she was in. Rainbow made the obvious choice. When Rainbow reached the point where the natural wall on her left ended, she could see a large grandfather-style clock tower ahead of her, while off to the left there was a paved path leading over a small bump and then climbing to the top of a cement enclosure and beyond and to the left of that Dash could just make out the shapes of trees through the fog.
“Trees mean life,” Rainbow said, trotting in that direction, “I hope they’re alive at least…” The land dipped as she neared her goal, but there was a set of stairs built into the side of the hill to make climbing up easier. To the pegasus’s pleasure the hilltop held not only a stand of trees, but a carpet of grass and as she walked through she spotted a small spring of water. Somepony had built a stone pool around the spring, with a small dip in the rim to allow the water to slowly trickle out and down the hill with a soothing sound. Next to the pool was a short brick tower topped with a dish pointing out toward something Rainbow couldn’t quite see in the distance and a boom pole dangling a microphone over the water. A booth stood at the foot of the tower, bearing a bronze plaque showing a water droplet and ripples with a button on a shelf below it. Next to the booth was a bench, on which sat a familiar-looking blue piece of paper, covered in meticulously written archaic letters in a blue ink that barely stood against the blue paper. Rainbow’s eyes widened in surprise; it was one of the pages missing from Archeon’s book prison. “How’d you get here?” Rainbow wondered, glaring at the paper like she expected it to answer. After a moment, she picked the paper up and put it in her saddlebag before contemplating the device in front of her. Microphone goes to the tower, she thought, so that dish is probably for sending the sound to someplace else, like a radio or something. She pressed the button and the symbol on the plaque lit up. “I’ll assume that means ‘on,’” she said as she turned to leave, pausing to get a drink from the pool before heading down the stairs.
She made her way to the stairs leading up to the cement enclosure and started climbing the stairs to the top. She found herself on a balcony next to a transmitter tower, and the air felt much warmer and drier. A low rumbling came from below, so she peered over the edge to see a deep rift in the earth that revealed a lava flow. “Yikes,” the pegasus said, pulling away from the edge. She looked at the button for the transmitter and saw that its plaque was engraved with a jagged crack with wavy lines rising from it. “Somepony must have been fascinated by sounds to go through the effort of building this just to safely listen to a dull roar,” Rainbow said, hitting the button and leaving. When she reached the bottom the stairs, she paused and looked around for new landmarks. She could see the clock and the locked building ahead of her while to her left was a large body of water and, just barely poking out of the fog bank, a set of stairs leading up to a tower that looked like it had several radio dishes on it. Glancing back, Rainbow noted that the dish on the transmitter tower she’d just left pointed toward the distant tower. “That’s the goal then,” the pegasus said, starting to spread her wings to fly to the tower, “At least to get a better idea of what to do.” She leaped into the air and flew low over the water to stay sure of her altitude, even though it took her no more than a couple seconds to cross the distance to the tower. She flew around it once to give it a close look from all angles. It was situated on a small rock of an island, with the stairs built onto the side leading to what looked to be the access shaft of an underground tunnel, complete with a hoof-operated winch-lift.
The tower itself was circular in shape, a brick and stone base topped by a round metal scaffold supporting five small receiver dishes in a vertical arrangement. Rainbow also noticed two urn-shaped sculptures that stood about half her height on either side of the walkway that terminated at the tower. The curve of the base was broken for a space between knee-height and a little above Dash’s head by a pair of stone panels bearing the same carved pattern as the door of the locked building and with handles on the inside edges. Dash grabbed one handle in her mouth and pulled, finding that the panel swung open easily, like a cabinet door. She swung the other panel out of the way as she looked inside at what was clearly a control panel. The top half was dominated a by a black glass screen, with speakers on either side. The bottom half contained two triangular button pointed left and right, then yellow five buttons bearing symbols, and finally at the bottom a maroon button with what looked like a weird capital E. Rainbow recognized the symbols on two of the buttons: the water droplet and the steaming crack. The other three were a set of clock hands, a pointed crystal stuck in the ground, and a circle with lines indicating wind blowing up from it. “Five symbols, five dishes,” the pegasus mused, her gaze drifting up the tower before heading out to gaze at the fog-shrouded land in the distance, “So there are five spots out there with microphones and I’ve found two already. And there are five sliders on that building…” She smiled at the control panel. “You give me the combination, don’t you?” she asked it, and then turned away and spread her wings. “Better go turn the other three on first.” Looking around for a landmark, she saw the silhouette of the clock tower, with the silhouette of a transmitter tower right next to it. Nodding with determination, Rainbow made the short flight over the water and landed in front of the clock.
The first thing she could tell about the clock was that it was broken. A pendulum lay on the ground in front of the structure and although she could see another one deeper inside the open tower, it was swinging far too slowly to be keeping proper time. Looking up at the face, she saw the minute hand move whenever the pendulum completed it slow arc and forced a melancholy Tick out of the mechanism. When the hand reached the 8 position, it suddenly dropped and swung free until it settled on the six and the clockwork grabbed it again. The hour hand was currently pointing at 1 and seemed inclined to stay where it was told to be. “That’s a little sad,” Rainbow said as she went over to the transmitter and turned it on, glancing only briefly to confirm that the symbol was clock hands, “especially since this thing seems to be working just fine. Ah well, moving on!”
Past the clock, the land was little more than a wide ridge between the lake and sea, curving gradually but consistently to the left. When Rainbow had gone far enough that the clock began to disappear into the fog, she came upon another urn sculpture situated at the top of a staircase leading down the seaward side of the ridge to a metal walkway that weaved through a number of large purple crystals poking up out of the water. “I bet Rarity would love these,” the pegasus said as she walked down to them, “but she’d probably have to break them down to get any use out of them.” She chuckled at the mental image of the fashionable unicorn agonizing over the dilemma of destroying perfectly formed crystals versus not being able to own and use them, but then fell silent when she heard the music. A stiff breeze, which did strangely little to the local fog, blew through the crystal field, creating eerie yet mesmerizing tones that rose and fell in random harmonies as it caused the spires to vibrate. The metal walkway Rainbow as on ended near the middle of the field where the music was the strongest, and as expected she found a transmitter tower with the spire symbol there. To her surprise, she also found a red paper sitting on top of the button pedestal. “A page for Cirrus too?” the pegasus said in surprise before rearing up to grab it in her teeth and set it down on the button to take a better look. Sure enough, it contained barely-visible text written in red ink and it had a jagged tear along one side. A missing page for each of the books, she thought as she stowed the page in her saddlebag next to the blue page, If this is a coincidence, then I’m an earth pony! Setting this new mystery aside until she could talk to Twilight about it, Rainbow turned the transmitter on and returned to the shore.
The land continued to curve around the lake until it terminated at a transmitter tower sitting behind a tunnel access shaft, which Rainbow figured was the companion for the one on the lake island. The shaft was open, and the pegasus could hear the sound of air whistling up from inside the tunnel even before she looked down the hole to see the winch platform sitting at the bottom. “So glad I don’t actually have to go down there,” she said with a shudder, pulling her head out of the shaft and walking around it to turn on the transmitter. As soon as the symbol lit up, Rainbow took to the air and flew to the tower. She landed in front of the control panel and looked it over before pressing the button for the water transmitter. The glass screen flashed and then displayed an image of the stone enclosure around the lava vent, with some of the trees from the grove visible behind it while hissing static came from the speakers. Frowning slightly, she pressed each of the other yellow buttons in turn, granting her four other views of spots around the lakeshore. “Well, that’s helpful,” Rainbow said snarkily. She switched back to the water symbol and then pressed the right-pointing green button. The image began to scroll to the right, and Rainbow glanced up to see one of the dishes rotating around the tower. Looking back down at the screen, she saw the transmitter tower in the trees come into view and released the button. The triangle began to flash slowly as the sound of trickling water became audible through the static. Dash adjusted the image until the transmitter dish was in the center and gave a triumphant smile when the static vanished, leaving only the clear sound of flowing water coming from the speakers. She then worked her way across the board, setting the dishes for the rumbling lava, the broken clock, the musical crystals, and finally the wind from the tunnel into place so she could clearly hear each sound. Satisfied, Rainbow looked at the maroon button and asked, “Now, what do you do?” as she pressed it. The image cycled through the five channels, starting with the lava, followed by the wind, the clock, the crystals, and finally the water. I take it this is supposed to be the key, she thought, pressing the button again. The images and sounds cycled in the same sequence, so Rainbow ran it a few more times to commit it to her memory. Once she was sure of the pattern, she turned to leave, but then paused and took a moment to close the doors on the control panel. Using the clock as her landmark again, she flew back to the mainland and then walked around to the building in the hillside.
“Ok, let’s see here,” the pegasus said, stopping in front of the panel with the sliders, “Rumbling sound first…” For whatever, reason, the sliders were less appropriate for non-magical manipulation than the ones inside the rocket on Aitran, so Dash had to alternate between moving them and pressing on them to listen to the sound they made at each point. Luckily, there weren’t nearly as many possibilities as there had been in the rocket, and each slider had the same collection of sounds, so it only took a few minutes to position all five properly. Dash pressed the button underneath the panel’s speaker and sat back while the sliders sounded off in sequence. She cheered as the button lit up green and the door slid out of the way. Her excitement dwindled as she looked inside and saw a staircase leading deep underground. The walls and ceiling were made of metal and illumination was provided by lights embedded in the walls ever few feet, giving the place an industrial atmosphere. Rainbow took a breath and looked around, trying to decide if she had other options. “I need to find a way out of this place,” she said, “and… dang it, I’ve been everywhere except whatever lets grounded ponies get to the big tower.” She looked back into the building and told herself, “You can do this Rainbow. It’s obvious that ponies are meant to go in here, and it looks sound. So far anyway…” Forcing back her claustrophobia, the pegasus stepped through the doorway and started down the stairs. The décor remained consistent the entire way, maintaining the image that the place had been built for a definite purpose and that the designer did not wish to remind occupants that they were underground. At the foot of the stairs the passageway turned to the right and led to a door with a glowing button in the center. The sight actually made Rainbow relax a little, reminding her of the living quarters on Aitran, which had been surprisingly comfortable thanks to the illusion windows. Latching on to the distant hope of finding something similar, she galloped down the hall and pressed the button. Her hopes were dashed as the door slid open to reveal a wide circular cavern. A metal walkway went around the circumference of the cavern, which was dominated by a large metal object hanging over a deep pit from a piston on the ceiling. A set of stairs led up to a hatch on the side, and as she walked around it Rainbow saw a window on one end, clear evidence that it was a vehicle. Finding nothing else in the room, Rainbow stuck her head over the railing and peered down into the deep, dark pit below. Floodlights at the bottom showed a kind of rail track and Rainbow realized with horror that she was expected to head down there to continue her search for an exit. “No,” she said, backing away from the edge, “No. Way. That’s too deep. It’s… it’s in that other tunnel! It has to be!” She bolted out the door, up the stairs to the surface, and then flew as fast as she could for the radio tower. She landed on the winch lift in the tunnel access shaft and started to operate the winch, only to stop after a couple seconds. “Wait a second,” she said, miffed at herself, “I’m sending myself into an underground cave to avoid going into a bigger underground cave. What is wrong with me?” She dropped to her stomach and rubbed her temples, trying to calm her mind and think straight. “Even if Twilight can get into the rocket and get to me, I’ll have to go through that cave to get out of this place,” she reasoned, and then stood up with determination. “I have done the impossible,” she said, “I have pulled off a Sonic Rainboom. Twice. No stupid, deep, far-from-the-sky cave is going to beat me.” She gulped and spread her wings. “I’ll just have to do it as quickly as possible.”
“Note to self,” Twilight Sparkle muttered as she glared at the severed end of the electrical cable floating in front of her, “When I get home, I’m taking an in-depth tour of Ponyville’s hydro-electric dam and then tracking down every book on electricity between Canterlot and Manehatten.” It felt like she had been working on the mystery of the rocket’s power issues for hours, although that was probably just the fatigue from using her magic to remove and reattach the cable to the ship combined with running back and forth to the power station to cut or restore the electricity, which was necessary since the breakers on the two towers between the station and the rocket didn’t seem to have been designed to allow for manual cut-off. Twilight had looked at the braided mass of copper wires in their insulating sheath at least four separate times and had not yet been able to find a reason why the rocket’s door refused to open beyond a few inches when it had power, or even why the cable had broken off and caused the problem in the first place. With a disgruntled sigh, she floated the end of the cable back to its connection on the rocket and prepared a spell to repair the break she had created. Once the copper and insulation had melded back into place, the unicorn turn and began walking to the power station. Again.
When she reached the end of the walkway, she was startled out of her funk by a loud, triumphant shout followed by something streaking out from the library and arcing up into the sky, leaving a rainbow in its wake. By the time Twilight’s eyes caught up with the source, the contrail had looped around several times before turning toward the dock. Twilight galloped over and stopped on the pathway above the dock to watch Rainbow Dash flying low over the water, kicking at it to splash droplets into the wake of her wing-beats, which was stirring the air into the beginnings of a cloud. Once she had built up enough mist, Rainbow flew around it in tighter and tighter circles until it turned into a thick, fluffy cloud. The pegasus then flopped down on top of it and rolled around before burrowing into it.
Twilight stood nonplussed at the display for a few seconds before calling out, “Rainbow Dash!” When Rainbow didn’t respond, Twilight used her magic to pull her and cloud over to the dock. “Rainbow Dash, are you ok in there?” she asked.
Rainbow’s head poked out of the cloud, upside down, and she gave Twilight a smile that clashed with the wild look in her eyes. “I’m getting to ‘ok’ Twilight,” she said, “You would not believe what I just had to go through.” She pulled her head back in and then emerged right-side-up from the top of the cloud. “I have never been so happy to see the sky in my life!”
“Did the book send you into an underground cave?” Twilight asked, concerned.
“Not directly,” Rainbow said, hugging some cloud matter to her chest, “Although, with the unresponsive fog on the surface I couldn’t see the sky anyway… No, the problem was that the way out was a book hidden at the far end of a huge labyrinth of a mine, and the only way to avoid getting lost was to operate this slow… mine runner vehicle. Well, it moved slower than I could’ve gone on my own, but it did seem to know which way to go at each juncture. All I needed to do was figure out what sound effect corresponded to north, south, east, and west…” Her voice had risen in pitch as she spoke, and once she finished she shook her head and buried it in the cloud.
“Wow,” Twilight said quietly, “I’m sorry I couldn’t be there with you. Still, I’m impressed you managed to conquer your fear on your own.”
“Heh,” Dash said, her voice muffled slightly by the cloud, “Of course I did. Just… don’t make me go into any caves for a while. Even the tower or Star Swirl’s house might be too much right now. Almost wasn’t worth the… Oh yeah!” Her head popped back up and she smiled excitedly at Twilight. “Guess what I found?” she asked and then, without waiting for an answer, reached her head into her saddlebags and pulled out the red and blue pages she had found. “Ta-da!” she said around the paper.
“Are those?” Twilight asked in surprise, taking the pages in her magic to get a closer look. “I’d almost forgotten about Cirrus and Archeon,” she said, looking the papers over, “You found these in the illusion world?”
“Yep,” Rainbow said, hopping down to the ground, “They were just laying around.”
“They couldn’t have gotten there by accident,” the unicorn said, “There had to have been some other pony involved in those two becoming trapped. Come on, let’s go put these in the books and see how much information we can get for them.” Rainbow nodded and the two walked up the hill and into the library. “Now, how should we do this?” Twilight wondered, looking at the red and blue books in turn, “There’s still the possibility that one of them is guilty of burning the books, so it might be best not to let them know we’re helping both of them.”
“Why don’t we each talk to one and compare notes after?” Rainbow suggested, “I’ll take Archeon, you talk to Cirrus.”
Twilight thought for a moment and then nodded, passing the blue page to the pegasus. “I think I can cast a spell to block the sounds on my side of the library from leaking over to yours.”
“Nice,” Rainbow said before taking the page and walking over to the blue book’s alcove. Twilight went over to the red book, focusing her magic to create a bubble around her and the book. Once the bubble formed, she called out to Rainbow a few times and, when the pegasus didn’t respond or even react, nodded and turned her attention to placing the red page into its spot in the book.
The red static was still very prevalent when Twilight turned to the panel on the last page, but Cirrus’s face was easier to make out when it appeared and remained visible for slightly longer. “You’ve returned,” the dusky blue stallion said with a pleased smile. After a wave of static passed, he spoke again, “Thank you for bringing another page, the view is Zzzzzt. You still have a ways to go though…”
“I know,” Twilight said just as the static roared up. “Cirrus,” she said when the image cleared again, “Do you… how long have you been in there?”
“zzZZz –don’t know,” the stallion answered, “Days? Weeks? Time is- RrzzzzbzzzZZt in the other worlds and zZZzzrrr here.”
On the other side of the library, Rainbow Dash was having a similar conversation with Archeon. “Did you know Star Swirl the Bearded?” the pegasus asked.
“Oh yes,” the bearded dun stallion answered, nodding, “He was ou-ZzzZZt- Poor master.” His face screwed up in fury. “Cirrus ZzzzrrtZZzz –stroyed the illusions, our Mast- ZzzzttZZzztrrrzz his vanity and unending greed! To think, ha, I once called him brother Zzzzt. Now I’m unjustly impris-zzzz for Cirrus’s Rrrrzt.”
“I don’t know what Zzzzrrrtrrzz –cheon to change,” Cirrus was telling Twilight, “but he treated our master’s worlds like ZzzzrrRRrrzz used up and discarded. Perhaps, in the worlds that sur-Zzzrzztrrrzz –evidence of his madness. Now please, find the remaining Rrrzzzzt ugh, the remaining pages and let me BzzzT. I promise, I will make it worth your while.”
“I’m on it,” Twilight said, giving Cirrus a smile as she closed the book. The smile faded as she turned around and looked across the room at Rainbow Dash. She waited until the cyan pegasus closed the blue book and turned around before taking down the sound barrier and walking to the middle of the room. “How’d it go?” she asked.
“I think he’s a little bit crazy,” Rainbow said conspiratorially, “but I’d be like that too after who-knows how long being stuck in a book. He’s definitely Star Swirl’s Archeon, but he accused Cirrus of being the one to destroy the illusion link books. He said something about unending greed. What did Cirrus say?” she asked, looking over Twilight’s shoulder to give the red book a distrusting stare.
“He accused Archeon,” Twilight answered, “and he seemed sane enough. He recommended we look through the surviving book worlds for evidence of Archeon treating the places badly. Did you see any signs of destruction or neglect in the world you were just in?”
“Not unless the big broken clock I saw there counts,” Rainbow said, “And I think that was deliberate on Star Swirls’ part, since the sounds it made were part of a lock I had to get past. Nah, that place was in pretty good shape for being a mostly desolate hunk of rock. All the machines and radio stuff worked perfectly.”
“Ok then,” Twilight said, rolling her eyes to the ceiling as she thought, “Somepony’s lying to us. Let’s open up another place of protection and see what it holds.”
“Fair enough,” Rainbow said, nodding. She walked past Twilight and went to the map. “If I remember right,” she said, “the other three points where the tower’s line turns red are the gears, the dock, and the giant tree. Do you have a preference?”
“Not really,” Twilight said with a shrug, “Whichever one the rotation reaches after the rocket I guess.” Rainbow nodded and held her hoof on the tower symbol until the line hit the lighted picture of the giant gears.
“I’ll be outside,” she said as the sound of the tower’s rotation rumbled into the library, “come get me when you’ve got the key.” Twilight nodded and waited until her friend had gone out the door before activating the painting-switch to open the passageway behind the bookcase. As she trotted down the hallway, her mind went briefly to the three journals still sitting on the table down in the living area and she resolved to fetch them on her way back from the tower, just in case she and Rainbow needed to pull some clues from them like they had from the fourth journal.
The journal that’s now stuck inside a rocket that refuses to be repaired, Twilight thought sourly as she reached the tower cave and stepped into the elevator, I hope it didn’t have anything else we’ll need in it… As before, the elevator stopped halfway up and rotated, but went to the left this time rather than to the right as it had when the tower was pointed toward the rocket. Makes sense I guess, Twilight thought as the elevator resumed its ascent and deposited her in front of the narrow window. She glanced out the window to see the artificial plateau that made up the southeast corner of Aitran Island. Two giant gears made from a black stone of some sort took up most of the space on the flat hilltop. One gear lay horizontally while the other was sitting vertically in a groove that pointed its edge more or less toward the tower. Twilight walked around the elevator and found the plaque with the key engraving on the back wall. She spun it around and found the clues to the access key to be a time and a trio of numbers: 3:35 and 3 2 3. “A time sensitive lock?” the unicorn wondered as she walked back around to the elevator door, “That’s quite secure, but inconvenient for emergencies. Or maybe I’m reading into it too much?”
The library door slid open and Twilight stepped out into the bright, comfortably warm light that bathed the island. She’d retrieved the three journals from the living area and placed them under the map in the library so they’d be more easily accessible later on, so all her bags contained were a few sheets of note paper. “Rainbow!” she called, looking around for her flying friend, “I’ve got the clues. Where are you?” She looked up and saw a cloud floating a little ways above the roof level of the library, with the end of a rainbow-striped tail hanging over the edge. “Hey!” she yelled up, “You aren’t taking a nap up there are you? I could probably solve the next puzzle by myself, but I figured you’d want to weigh in on it.” She shrugged and started walking down the path between the columns, figuring it would be best to start at the only timepiece she knew of on the island. She only made it a few steps before Rainbow Dash landed next to her, her face a picture of unease.
“Sorry Twi,” she said, falling into step beside the unicorn, “I was trying to get my mind off of caves, but then I started thinking about home…”
“Hey now,” Twilight said, leaning her head over to give Rainbow a comforting nuzzle, “We’ll find a way home. Cirrus or Archeon, whichever one turns out to be innocent, I’m sure they’ll know how we can get off this island and back to Equestria.”
“What if they don’t though?” Rainbow said, “Or what if we make a mistake and let the bad one out?”
“We’ll… just have to be very careful and keep our eyes and ears open for anything that’ll make the choice clear,” Twilight said as the ponies left the columns behind and began passing through the tiny forest beyond, “And I told Spike to take the Aitran book to Princess Celestia if we didn’t get back within an hour. He’s probably on his way to Canterlot right now, and the Princesses know enough about Star Swirl’s work and magic in general to find a way to get us home.” She gave Rainbow Dash a confident smile. “We’re going to get home,” she said, “One way or another, as sure as the sun shines in the sky.”
“Yeah,” Dash said, her head drooping, “I… I don’t think there’s a sun here Twilight…”
Twilight stopped and looked askance at the pegasus. “What do you mean you don’t think there’s a sun? There has to be a sun. Where else is all the light coming from?”
“I don’t know,” Rainbow answered, “but I looked across most of the sky while I was up on that cloud and I didn’t see the sun anywhere. I haven’t seen any clouds besides the one I made either, although that makes sense since I’m the only pegasus around right now…”
“No sun?” Twilight squeaked, her eyes drifting toward the sky involuntarily. The trees blocked out most of the sky, so she ran until she reached the western shore of the island, almost stumbling into the sea as her gaze remained glued to the wide, blue, empty expanse above her. Most of the island, especially the mountain containing the tower, still blocked her view of the eastern horizon while a clock tower with a door in its base sitting on a gear-shaped platform out in the water hid a portion of the western horizon, but the skies that Twilight could see were void of celestial bodies of any kind; there wasn’t even a corona or glare to reveal a sun hiding behind some solid object. “Dear Celestia,” the lavender unicorn said, staring off into space in disbelief, “what is this place?”
“Twilight?” Rainbow asked, coming over to her and nudging her with a hoof.
“It can’t work,” the unicorn said, one eye starting to twitch, “No sun, no light.”
“Uh oh,” Rainbow said, recognizing the warning signs of a “Twilight Spazzle” mental shutdown as they started to appear. The slate-blue mane was quickly breaking free of its normal straight and smooth arrangement as the violet irises of her eyes shrank to creepy purple points in the middle of a wide circle of white and the corners of her mouth quivered upward as she started to ramble about light and heat and other such topics. Well aware of what the mare who embodied the very Element of Magic itself was capable of and completely unwilling to see what her fraying psyche would eventually rationalize doing to correct an oversight like a missing sun, Rainbow Dash took flight, lifted Twilight off the ground, and flew a short distance from the shore before dropping the unicorn unceremoniously into the water. Considering the gradual slope of the land on the western end of the island, the water was surprisingly deep and Twilight ended up completely submerged before her instincts kicked in, drove out the madness for a moment, and got her head above the surface. Gasping and sputtering, she pony-paddled the short distance to a depth where she could stand up and walk out of the water, after which she shook the excess water out of her coat and mane vigorously in the hopes of spraying Rainbow with some of it. Dash shielded her head with a wing until Twilight had finished, and then got up in her face before the unicorn could open her mouth. “Twilight,” the pegasus said, “I’m still on edge and we cannot afford to both lose our heads at the same time.”
“But, you don’t understand,” Twilight said, her annoyance at getting wet quickly replaced by pleading, “There’s light with no source. That’s impossible.”
Rainbow sighed and stepped back a pace. “I know it is,” she said, “and I’m sorry I pointed it out, but you need to stop thinking about it, all right? It’s not like it’s the only impossible thing we’ve seen today, or ever. Just treat it like Pinkie Sense, or how Discord could make cotton candy clouds.”
“But… but…” Twilight stammered, looking up at the sky.
“Twilight!” Rainbow snapped as she jumped and hovered in Twilight’s field of vision, “Fine then, you can panic about this, but do it later, after we get home. I need you to be the smart, focused Twilight Sparkle who I respect, and who happens to be the only pony who knows what the key to opening the next hiding place is.”
“The next…” Twilight murmured, and then her irises snapped back to normal size as she returned to sanity. “Right, the books” she declared, turning to face the clock, “We find the books, find the missing pages, go home, and then read Aitran until I’ve found the missing sun.” Rainbow gave her a bemused look, but decided not to press her luck any further. “There were two parts to the clue,” the unicorn continued, “the first part was a time: three thirty-five. I assume that has to do with that clock.”
“I hope you aren’t planning on waiting,” Rainbow said, pointing to the clock face, “it hasn’t moved past twelve o’clock since we got here.”
“That would be a problem,” Twilight said, finally taking a clear-headed look around the area. On the edge of the land directly across from the clock, she saw a metal box with two wheel-shaped handles – one larger than the other – and a red button on top. “I’ll bet this is for setting the time,” she said, grabbing the large wheel in her magic and turning it clockwise. The minute hand on the clock began spinning in sync with the wheel, coming to a stop on the three when Twilight let go and gave Dash a satisfied smile.
“Just get on with it,” Dash said, rolling her eyes. Twilight wrapped both wheels in her magic and turned them until the clock showed the correct time and then stepped down on the button with her hoof. The clock did nothing, but a chain of gears rose out of the water to create a bridge from the shore to the tower. “Is that it?” Rainbow asked, unimpressed, “I could’ve just flown over there. Heck, you could probably just swim out there.”
“Perhaps,” Twilight said, “but that would leave you soaking wet.” She leveled a glare as the pegasus started to chuckle. “Yes, I know, I’m still damp,” she deadpanned, “thanks a lot for that.”
“You’re welcome!” Rainbow said sincerely, and then flew over to the clock, calling back, “what’s the next clue?” She opened the door at the foot of the clock and poked her head inside while Twilight made her way along the bridge. The unicorn was about to answer the question when Rainbow looked over her shoulder and said, “It’s a three-number combination lock, isn’t it? There’s a machine in here with a couple of levers, three gears with the number 3 on them, and a model of the big gears out in front of it all.”
“Three two three,” Twilight said, trying to look past her friend without knocking either of them off the too-small gear island, “Mind moving aside?” Rainbow considered the request for a moment, and then jumped into a hover above the doorway, almost clipping Twilight with a wing on the way up, and then motioned for Twilight to go ahead. Twilight stepped through the door and looked around. It was evident to her that the tower might not have been intended to serve as an actual clock, for although she could see a system of gears in the upper reaches behind the clock face, there was a lack of the mechanisms needed for the clock to actually operate. In front of her stood the machine that Rainbow had described: a metal box that obviously contained the majority of the moving parts with a long lever on either side, three gear-like dials each with the number 3 engraved on the visible portion of their edge stacked up on a pole reaching up from the back of the box, and a scale model of the giant gear embedded in the plateau on the far end of the island. Twilight could sense a simple spell resting on the gear, which on closer examination turned out to be a “Like Follows Like” spell. If she could unlock and open the small gear, its counterpart would react in the same manner. In the back left corner of the room there was a weight hanging on a chain, and a third lever sat on the back wall to the right of the machine. “Seems simple enough,” Twilight said, grasping the left-side lever with her magic and giving it a pull. With a rhythmic clanking, the bottom two gear-dials rotated to display 1s and the weighted chain dropped a few inches. Twilight repeated the action with the right lever, which rotated the top and middle dials, making the full display 1, 2, 1, and the weight dropped again. “Interesting,” Twilight mused, grasping the wall-mounted lever and pulling it. The dials spun back until they all displayed 3s again and the weight returned to its original height. “Oh, I see,” the unicorn said with a nod.
“You figured it out yet Twi?” Rainbow asked from outside.
“I know how it works,” Twilight said, glancing over her shoulder, “I have a limited number of moves in which to get the combination right.” She returned her gaze to the machine and pursed her lips in thought. “The question is, what is the pattern of lever pulls that will get me to 323?” She opened her saddlebag and levitated out a sheet of paper to take notes on, only to find it still soaked from her impromptu dip in the sea. “Dang it,” she muttered, dropping the paper, “Hey Rainbow, do you still have the paper and pencil I lent you?”
“I think so?” the pegasus said, landing on the platform, “I never used them.”
“Great,” Twilight said, turning around and digging into Rainbow’s bag with her magic. She found the pencil and piece of paper and started writing down notes on number combinations and the lever motions needed to get to them.
Rainbow watched her friend scribble for a minute or so and then asked, “If you’re going to be doing that, can I take a crack at the machine?”
“Knock yourself out,” Twilight said distractedly. She ducked her head as she stepped out of the clock to give Rainbow room to fly in over her, and then drafted the marker switch podium sitting next to the door into the role of a desk as she continued her mapping of the possible combinations. She flattened her ears against her head when the sounds of Rainbow’s hooves-on approach to finding the solution started up inside the building. After a couple minutes, she stopped writing and looked over the notes in confusion. “That can’t be right,” she said, “I must have missed a… no, I did try both options at that juncture. With only two possible actions, getting a two in the middle of a pair of threes is impos-”
“I got it!” Rainbow whooped, the sounds of gears clanking and springs winding providing backdrop to her celebration. Twilight turned away from her paper, looked inside the clock tower, and felt her jaw drop as she saw the dials displaying the key combination. The weighted chain had dropped down nearly to the floor and the gear model was rotating clockwise to reveal a missing quadrant. Rainbow Dash was grinning and broke out into a laugh at Twilight’s dumbfounded expression.
“What?” the unicorn exclaimed, calling her notes over to her and glancing between them and the machine in disbelief, “What did I…? How?”
“I’m just that awesome I guess,” Rainbow said smugly.
“Come on, tell me,” Twilight pleaded, starting to prance in place agitatedly, “I’ve got to know how you solved it!”
“Well, ok,” Rainbow said, nudging Twilight back so she could exit the clock, “I’ll tell you. If you can beat me to the book! Ha!” She spread her wings and leaped into flight.
“Rainb-” Twilight started to whine, but then stamped a hoof and snorted. “Fine, you want to play? Let’s play.” With a flare of her horn, she teleported to just inside the door of the library, materializing there just in time to shake off the disorientation before Dash arrived, cackling. The pegasus seemed to want to put on a show of fair play and was flying along the pathways rather than making a beeline for the plateau, a fact that Twilight used to her advantage. Before Rainbow could start turning, Twilight grabbed her in a sheath of telekinetic magic and forced her to maintain her present trajectory, but slowing her down significantly so Twilight would have time to reach and activate the passageway painting after the predictably perturbed pegasus had crossed the threshold. The library door slammed shut and the bookshelf dropped out of the way as Twilight gave Rainbow a little push to send her down the hallway while Twilight teleported back outside and ran for the plateau. She arrived to see that the upright gear had indeed rotated to a position that gave access to a swinging metal shelf bearing a grey-bound book. She sat down, leaning a shoulder against the marker switch, to catch her breath. Ordinarily, such an exertion of both physical and magical ability wouldn’t have left her so winded, but something about Aitran’s environment made casting spells beyond simple telekinesis noticeably more difficult. Why Star Swirl the Bearded, a unicorn mage of legendary ability, would design a reality where magic didn’t work as well was yet another mystery Twilight had to file away in the hopes that, eventually, she and Rainbow Dash would find the time and means to resolve it.
Twilight was feeling like her usual self again by the time Rainbow came flying toward her with a very sour frown on her face. “Twilight Sparkle,” she said, getting up in the unicorn’s face, “I’m surprised at you. I never took you for a cheater.”
“Rainbow Dash,” Twilight said in a level tone, “The answer to a pressing question was on the line, and you know how seriously I take finding answers to pressing questions.” She managed to keep her expression neutral as Rainbow continued to glare at her before opening her mouth to retort. After a second of silence, however, the pegasus’s anger evaporated into amusement.
“Ok, fine,” she said, landing in front of Twilight, “you got me there. And I have to admit, that was a pretty impressive move. I wound up halfway to the tower elevator before I was able to turn around. Thanks for not shutting the bookcase on me.”
“I was just trying to slow you down,” Twilight responded, “You owe me an explanation, so start talking.”
The first thing that came to Twilight Sparkle’s head after she had arrived at the other end of the link was a desire to look for the sun. She tried to fight it back, but the more she tried to tell herself that it didn’t matter and that she shouldn’t be putting her sanity on the line, the more her curiosity grew. Rainbow Dash’s materializing directly on top of her a couple seconds later only resulted in forcing the lavender unicorn to the ground, where she threw a leg over her eyes. “Rainbow,” she said, cutting off the pegasus’s scathing chastisement for not getting out of the way, “Tell me, is there a sun up there?”
Rainbow climbed off her friend and looked down at her, considering the request. Twilight didn’t look like she was in any shape to move, so against her better judgment, Rainbow looked up at the sky. A patchy curtain of grey clouds rolled sedately across the welkin, blocking most of it from view, but off to what the pegasus assumed was either the east or west there was a spot where the clouds shone with a blinding reflected light. “Yes Twilight, there’s a sun,” she said, “or at least something just as bright.”
“Oh good,” Twilight said in relief, getting to her feet, “Now, where are we exactly?” The ponies had appeared in front of a match for Aitran’s gear-shaped book vault on a rock just barely big enough to be called an island that rose rather steeply out of the water. Large rusted metal gears lay strewn about the fairly level peak, and there was a round podium with a gear-shaped top to the right of the vault and just past that was a long metal balcony. Off in the distance was a metal building sitting on a giant gear rising out of the water. A gangplank of a walkway reached from the building to a little dock on a lower part of the island, supported at its halfway point by wheeled struts that rode on a rail encircling the building. “That’s definitely designed to rotate,” Twilight said, “This is the illusion world where Star Swirl and his apprentices built a fortress to protect the inhabitants from pirates.”
“You sure?” Rainbow asked skeptically, “That place seems pretty small, and I can’t see ponies being able to live on tiny little islands like this.”
“Well, there were only six or seven ponies still living here when Star Swirl first arrived,” Twilight said.
“All that work for seven ponies?” Rainbow said, still confused, “Why didn’t they just move somewhere else?”
“Maybe they couldn’t,” Twilight said with a shrug, “As Star Swirl described it in his journal, this place was a single island with three tall peaks. The ponies could have lived in their own homes and simply used the fortress as a shelter during attacks. It… the island must have sunk into the ocean since that time.”
“Three peaks, huh?” Rainbow mused, looking around, “Well, I can see one other little island out there to the right. Number 3’s probably behind the building, assuming it’s still above water.” Twilight nodded in agreement and Rainbow turned her attention to the podium. The top was slightly domed and had four panels arranged in a row on it, each having a button below it, a fifth red button on the bottom edge. Rainbow pressed the button for the leftmost panel a few times, and the cross was swapped out for various other geometric shapes.
“Combination lock?” Twilight guessed, watching over the pegasus’s shoulder.
“Could it be anything else?” Rainbow responded, glancing back at Twilight, “The combination has to be written down somewhere. I’ll fly to the other islands and look there while you start searching the fortress.”
“Hold on,” Twilight said as Rainbow spread her wings, “I’d prefer not to split up if we can help it. The fortress is meant to rotate, so we can get to each of the islands once we figure out-”
“Too slow,” Rainbow said, taking off. Twilight sighed as the pegasus flew away and then walked down to the bridge and made her carefully across it, frowning at the lack of safety rails.
Of course, that would make it easier to knock invaders off, she thought as she reached the open doorway of the fortress. She was immediately presented with a choice of two narrow hallways branching to the left and right. The enemy would be forced to travel single-file, she noted, crossing the threshold and looking around. She couldn’t see any actual door or mechanisms for blocking the entrance, which was a little odd for a defensive structure, and both hallways turned around blind corners after several feet. “All in all, seems like a good set-up,” she concluded, “and it’s in great shape for being so old…”
After a few minutes, she saw Rainbow Dash fly into view from the right as she looked out the door. The pegasus landed on the island, fiddled with the podium for a bit, and then looked over at the balcony-like structure with mild surprise. She walked away from the podium and disappeared down inside the structure. Intrigued, Twilight trotted back across the bridge and climbed up to the top of the island, just in time to see Rainbow walking up the stairs that the balcony floor had turned into. “Hey Twilight,” she said, surprised to see the unicorn, “I found the way out already.” She lifted her right wing slightly and grabbed the book she’d been holding there in her mouth and held it out for Twilight to see. It was a match for the Aitran book Twilight had found in the Royal Archives, except for being in better shape with its title fully inked and visible. Twilight took the book in her magic and flipped through it quickly while Rainbow explained, “There was a pedestal on each of the other islands that showed part of the combination. Compared to the other illusion…” She shuddered at the memory of the cave system she’d had to go through.
“Good job Rainbow,” Twilight said, closing the book, “Now that we can leave whenever we want, let’s explore.” She placed the book in her bag and headed down to the bridge.
“Did you do anything besides wait for me?” Rainbow asked, flying behind Twilight. When Twilight shook her head, the pegasus sighed.
“Well,” Twilight amended after a moment, “I took a look just inside the door. We’ll have a choice of going left or right, so if you have a preference…”
“Eh… left,” Rainbow said as the pair arrived at the door. She was forced to land and walk behind the unicorn as they entered the fortress and headed down the hall. “I repeat,” Rainbow said, noting she didn’t have enough room to spread her wings even halfway, “This is definitely not a place where…” She trailed off as they rounded the corner and entered a more spacious and lavishly decorated room. Where the hallway floor had been simple tile, this room had a plush carpet with an intricate knotted pattern of many rich hues, predominantly crimson and black but with yellows and blues mixed in as well. Along the wall to their left were stone plinths on which rested models of the rocket, the clock tower, and what Twilight assumed was the sunken ship from Aitran Island. The clock tower model sat under a narrow window, which a telescope was aimed at. To the right of the entrance sat a perch on which sat a wind-up bird toy. A throne-like chair sat against the wall opposite the window, giving the room the atmosphere of a place where a ruler would receive supplicants. Another doorway opened up directly across from where the ponies had entered, and paintings and a tapestry took up whatever space there was on the walls. One in particular, hanging between the chair and the back door, caught Twilight’s attention. It was a portrait of a dusky blue pegasus stallion with a blonde mane and matching goatee seated in the throne and wearing a full lordly outfit: a white coat jacket with golden fasteners, a full cape with red and gold trim, silver shoes that reached halfway to his knees, and a short crown on his head. “Is that Cirrus?” she wondered.
“Huh,” Rainbow said, looking at the portrait, “you weren’t kidding about him having an interest in fashion. Not to mention expensive tastes in general,” she added in a low tone as her gaze swept the room.
“There’s nothing wrong with owning nice things,” Twilight said, “Besides, how can you be sure this stuff is Cirrus’s and not… uh a friend of his?”
“Twilight,” Rainbow said flatly, “you told me this place was home to six or seven ponies living in terror of pirate attacks. Do you honestly think they’d have the time, resources, or even the desire to splurge what they had on stuff like this? And that portrait’s the biggest thing in this whole room except for the chair!”
“Ok, ok, you’ve made your point,” Twilight said, “It’s a little excessive.” Rainbow rolled her eyes but didn’t say anything further. “Anyway,” Twilight said, moving toward the other doorway, “we should probably keep exploring, and keep an eye out for red or blue papers. Whoever put the set you found in the other illusion world might have hid some around here.” Rainbow Dash nodded and then stuck her tongue out when the unicorn’s back was turned before following her out of the room. The luxury of the room, standing in contrast to the stark and utilitarian hallways and exterior of the building, easily brought Archeon’s words to the pegasus’s mind: vain and unending greed.
The hall turned sharply to the right just outside the room and continued straight on to the other side of the fortress before turning right again, and there was another opening halfway along on the right side. They stopped at the first turn, with Rainbow flying above Twilight so they could both look down the passageway at the same time. The passage was even narrower than the main hallway and only stretched about ten feet before opening up into a square room with a cylindrical single-passenger elevator in the middle. Twilight walked down to the elevator and looked it over. She couldn’t locate any buttons and the door didn’t react to her touch or magic, leaving the unicorn scratching her head in confusion. “I don’t get it,” she said, starting to walk back.
“There’s a button here,” Rainbow said, noticing a red button on the wall at her end of the passage. She pressed it just as Twilight stepped completely into the passage and the two froze as a loud warning horn sounded and the floor began to sink under Twilight’s hooves, leaving her standing on a staircase that led up to the main hallway. “Cool,” Rainbow said, grinning.
“If you’d been half a second faster…” Twilight muttered, backing off the stairs so she could turn around and see where she’d been lowered into. It was a small room mostly occupied by a machine containing a system of gears, with a shaft rising from the largest, central gear up to the ceiling. At the front of the machine was a lever capped with a red sphere next to a panel displaying two concentric broken circles; the outer circle had a gap in the bottom while the inner circle’s gap was on the top. Twilight grasped the lever in her magic and slid it up and the machine responded by spinning its gears rapidly, and the inner circle of the panel spun clockwise as well, flashing red whenever the gaps lined up. “What did I just do?” Twilight asked as she released the lever, which dropped back to its resting position, and watched the gears gradually slow to a stop.
“You’re spinning the elevator around,” Rainbow said, looking into the room above Twilight.
“I am?” Twilight said, looking up at the ceiling where the gear-shaft went through, “That makes sense; I should have guessed.” She looked back down at the lever and panel and said, “So I need to get the openings to line up. No problem.” She grabbed the lever and again and nudged it gently up until the gears began turning slowly. When the inner circle’s opening neared the bottom, Twilight released the lever and let the machine’s momentum finish the job. The openings lined up and the circles turned red. “Is it open now?” she asked Rainbow.
“Yep,” the pegasus reported. Twilight smiled and nodded as she turned around and started up the stairs. When she got about halfway up, Rainbow hit the button to raise the stairs back up into a flat floor, almost tripping Twilight into a faceplant in the process.
“Can’t you ever wait?” the unicorn asked crossly.
“Not if I can help it,” Rainbow replied with a chuckle. She flew over Twilight’s head as the unicorn tried to decide whether to go forward into the main hallway or back toward the elevator before trying to turn around. By the time she made her choice, Rainbow Dash had gone into the elevator and pressed the upward button. A door with two small windows slid over the opening and then the elevator practically shot up the short distance to the top floor of the fortress. The single metal room Rainbow found herself in was unremarkable, with the elevator in the center, no windows, a high ceiling that domed even higher above the elevator, and a bunch of large cogs and gear shafts visible in an alcove behind the elevator. “Boring,” Dash declared after making a circuit of the room and stepping back into the elevator. As she reached out her hoof to press the down button, she realized there was third rectangular button between the two pointed ones. Curious, she pressed it. It began to flash and beep for several seconds, and then the elevator door slid closed and the car began to drop, only to stop partway down. “Agh! No!” Dash cried, jamming her hoof against the down button. The elevator obliging completed its descent and opened the door to allow he relieved pegasus to exit. “Oh thank goodness,” Rainbow said, stepping out and putting a hoof to her head, “That could’ve been really bad.”
“What happened?” Twilight asked, concerned.
“Middle button in there,” Rainbow said, waving a hoof at the elevator behind her, “I thought it… Oh, it was giving me time to get out before it closed and went partway down!” She facehoofed. “I thought it had broken down for a second.”
“I thought so too,” Twilight said, putting a comforting leg around Rainbow, “but if it’s supposed to do that, there must be something on top of the elevator a pony might need to reach.” Her eyes lit up suddenly and she hugged the pegasus tighter. “Oh, I’d bet anything that’s where the rotation controls are!” she exclaimed.
“Really?” Dash said, looking askance at the unicorn, “There aren’t any windows up there; how would you know which way the fortress would end up pointing?”
“No idea,” Twilight said brightly, “but rotation is this place’s primary means of defense, so they’d want the controls in a secure location. Considering what needs to be done with the elevator to get at them, once a pony’s up there at the controls, they’re well protected against somepony else getting to them. Plus, we’re practically at the center point of the building; where better to put the rotation controls?”
“Ah, well, ok then,” Rainbow said, feeling a bit left behind, “Well, I didn’t see any pages up there and we’ve already got the book out of here, so I don’t see any need to go back up there.”
“I wanted to try out the rotation though,” Twilight said glumly.
“Ugh,” Rainbow said, rolling her eyes, “Tell you what, let’s finish exploring this place, then I’ll go wait outside while you mess around.”
“Deal,” Twilight said, turning toward the hallway and taking the lead again. They went to the right after leaving the elevator hall, turned right again at the end, and came to a shocked stop at the sight before them.
They’d found the match to the large room on the other side of the fortress. Since Rainbow and Twilight had established that the first room had belonged to Cirrus, the unicorn couldn’t help but attribute this one to Archeon, and that was a worrisome thing since the two rooms were polar opposites. Where Cirrus’s room had been bright and colorful, the lamps in this room were dim, a curtain covered the window, and the tiled floor was stained dark by something Twilight didn’t want to contemplate. The décor was sparse and consisted mostly of simple wood shelves, trunks, a rather odd-looking blue-cushioned chair with posts on all four corners supporting a wood canopy, and half-built clockwork devices whose purpose could only be guessed at.
“I do not like this,” Twilight announced as she and Rainbow slunk into the room, heads held low in the uncomfortable atmosphere, “This is like a warlord’s throne room or something.”
“Well, this place was being attacked at one point, right?” Rainbow said, “Maybe Archeon decorated this place to intimidate invaders.”
“I suppose,” Twilight said, walking around to take a closer look at things. On a shelf by the front end of the room, closest to the fortress entrance, she saw a small black box with a crank on the side. “Is this some sort of clown-in-the-box?” she wondered aloud as she started to turn the crank. The box didn’t make any music or sounds as the crank turned, but after a few rotations the lid popped open and a surprisingly realistic cobra head rose out of the box and lashed in Twilight’s direction before dropping back into the box. “Snaaake!” the unicorn shrieked, backing away quickly until she tripped over her own feet and tumbled onto her back. As she lay on the floor trying to calm her heart, her fear turned to anger as she heard Rainbow Dash’s laughter. “It’s not funny,” she snapped, sitting up and glaring at the pegasus standing by the chair.
“That was great!” Rainbow exclaimed through her laughs, “I need to remember that for when we get home; it’d be an awesome prank gift.”
“It’s not funny Rainbow,” Twilight repeated, “You know how much I hate snakes.”
“Oh come on Twi, it wasn’t even real.”
“It was real enough,” the unicorn said crossly.
“Heh…” Rainbow said, her mirth dying quickly under the unicorn’s glare, “Let’s… get back to searching then shall we? Oh, I wonder what this is?” She went over to a round pedestal standing to the right of the entrance-side door. There was a bowl-shaped indent on the top and a control panel with two sphere-capped levers on it. As if reacting to her proximity, words made of light appeared in the air above the pedestal: Fortress Rotation simulator. Calibrating.
“Let me see,” Twilight said, perking up and walking over. Rainbow moved aside and let the unicorn get a closer look as the words faded away to be replaced by a illusionary image of the fortress that shifted to a bird’s-eye view and morphed into to a simpler diagram of circles and lines, with the gangplank pointed downward. Twilight grinned as she grabbed the left lever in her magic and slid it up. The image rotated slightly in a counter-clockwise direction and then came to rest again. Twilight then pushed up on the right lever and the image began to rotate, slowly at first and then rapidly until it was pointing right, at which point it slowed down again. Twilight watched it spin for a few seconds, noticing that it took precisely one second to complete a quarter turn, and then released the right lever and watched the image come to a stop pointing nearly but not perfectly upward. She then dropped the left lever back down and the illusion fortress locked into its alignment and the machine gave out a ding.
“North!” Rainbow said reflexively. Twilight gave her an odd look and she blushed. “The… in the book inside the rocket, that sound meant I had to point the mine vehicle North before continuing,” she explained.
“What was west?” Twilight asked, rotating the image a quarter turn and locking it. The machine gave a trilling sort of noise.
“That one,” Rainbow said. Raising an eyebrow, Twilight spun the illusionary fortress to the south and got a donk when she reset the locking lever. “That’s the South sound,” the pegasus said with a nod, and then frowned slightly and added, “It took me forever to figure those out by trial and error! If we’d have come here first… Feh.” She huffed and started to turn away when she noticed a section of the bottom of the wall between the simulator and the chair that was slightly recessed and marked with a yellow stripe. “What have we here?” Twilight glanced over as the pegasus knelt down and pressed a hoof against the recessed panel. It slid aside to reveal a hidden room. “Cool,” Rainbow said, crawling through the hole, “I’ve got this Twilight.” After Rainbow passed through the hole and stood up, Twilight leaned down and peered in for a look as well. The hidden room was just big enough to move around in and contained a wooden box, some low shelves, and a cage in the far right corner. The shelves contained a number of small bottles with labels written in a language Rainbow didn’t recognize along with more clockwork doohickeys and a sheet of blue paper, torn along one side. “Blue page!” Rainbow called out in triumph before picking it up and stashing it in her bag.
“Great,” Twilight said with some hesitation, as she backed away from the hole to give Rainbow space to crawl out, “So, where would the red one… I’m going to go check Cirrus’s room again. This building’s symmetrical, so maybe there’s a hidden room on that side as well.”
“You do that,” Rainbow said, crawling out and then flapping her wings a few times to stretch, “I’ll be waiting by the front door.” Twilight nodded and trotted out of the dark room, down the hallway past the entrance, and into the bright and fancy room on the other side. It took some effort to find the recessed panel behind the tapestry next to the throne, and it was quite a bit narrower than the one in Archeon’s room had been, but eventually Twilight managed to squeeze into the hidden room and take a look around. Several locked boxes were stacked up on one side of the room and a pair of wine racks holding some sealed bottles stood on the other side. Loose gold coins littered the ground around the boxes. In the back corner of the room one of the boxes sat open, revealing a few bars of gold and the red page. Twilight stowed the paper away and turned to leave, but then noticed a piece of normal-colored paper rolled up and stuck into one of the wine racks. Curious, she pulled it out and unfurled it. It was a note addressed to Cirrus from Archeon, wherein the latter warned the former in a rather unfriendly manner against enforcing new taxes.
This is certainly disconcerting, Twilight thought, but what am I to make of it? Was Archeon standing up against extortion on Cirrus’s part, or was he trying to bully Cirrus or the ponies that lived here? I need some solid answers soon. She debated keeping the note for a moment, but decided just to put it back where she’d found it since it was easy enough for her to summarize to Rainbow and the trapped stallions later. She squeezed back through the hole and trotted out to the entrance of the fortress, where she saw Rainbow lying down on the gangplank a short ways out. “I found the page,” she said, trotting over to the pegasus and pulling the Aitran book out of her bag, “Let’s head back.”
“I thought you wanted to spin the fortress around,” Rainbow said, standing up.
“We have more important things to do,” Twilight said, gesturing with a hoof for Rainbow to head to the island at the end of the walkway, “Cirrus and Archeon have some serious explaining to do and we’re still not any closer to finding a way home.” Rainbow Dash nodded and flew over to the island. When Twilight caught up with her, she set Aitran on the shelf inside the large gear and opened it to the linking panel. “See you on the other side,” the unicorn said, setting a hoof on the picture.
When Twilight rematerialized on Aitran, she found herself on the library floor, gazing up at the ceiling. Not wanting to continue the trend of ending up in a pony-pile after linking, she rolled to her feet and moved away from the center of the room. A few seconds later, Rainbow Dash faded into sight on the floor and stood up. “Ok,” Rainbow said, “I’ll talk to Archeon, you talk to Cirrus, same as before, right?”
“Well…” Twilight said, pawing at the floor and rolling her eyes uncertainly, “I’ve got questions I want to ask both of them…”
“I can ask for you, you know,” the pegasus said.
“I suppose,” Twilight said. She sighed and nodded. “Ok,” she said, “my main goal is to get more history from them. Try to get more details about what happened to Star Swirl and the other worlds, and if he says anything that doesn’t match up with what we’ve seen for ourselves, don’t call him out on it. Not yet anyway.”
“What about getting home?” Rainbow wondered, “Shouldn’t we start asking about that?”
“If the view clears up enough for longer conversations,” Twilight answered with a shrug, “I’ll leave that up to your judgment.” Rainbow nodded and walked over to the blue book. As she fished the blue page out of her bag and opened Archeon’s prison, Twilight went over to Cirrus’s and put up the sound shield spell. She matched up the red page to its place in the book and, after its magic healed the rip, turned to the back page. “That’s three pages,” she said as the red static cleared away from Cirrus’s visage.
“Wonderful,” the stallion said with a grin, “There should be two… or Zzzzzt –bother. Two or three more.” The buzzing static was little more than background noise now, but brief flares still crossed the panel now and then. “You aren’t helping Archeon, are you?” Cirrus asked suddenly, “I warn you, don’t waste your time listening to his lies. He’s a cruel, sadistic stallion ZzzZrrzt no thought for the consequences of his actions upon the worlds our Master created.”
“I think,” Twilight began in a murmur before catching herself. “What happened with Star Swirl and you?” she asked instead, “Why are you trapped in this book?”
“Treachery,” Cirrus said coolly, “I’ll gladly tell you the details, after you’ve brought more red pages. This… ZzzzzRrzt Still not the best for long stories.”
“I suppose not,” Twilight said wryly, “How about Equestria? Do you know a way-”
“Release me from this prison,” Cirrus said firmly, and then his gaze softened and his voice turned sultry, “and I’ll give you whatever you may desire.”
“Cirrus let his greed get the better of him,” Archeon said to Rainbow Dash, “He was nothing more than a bloody pirate, plundering worthless wealth from places that were nothing but illusions. I tried to tell him, tried to warn Master that Cirrus was losing his mind, but Cirrus… Oh that Zzzrzzzz pegasus and his silver tongue! He tried to fix the blame on me, heh heh…” The dun stallion’s eyes unfocused for a second as his voice drifted into silence.
“Hey,” Rainbow said, frowning, “are you…”
“Blue pages!” Archeon shrieked, “Please please please hurry and find the rest! I must be… this unjust punishment, this wrongful imprisonment must end!” He seemed on the verge of hysterics as he panted for breathe, wild eyes fixed on Rainbow’s own.
“Two more,” the pegasus said shakily, “Just… don’t go crazy.” Crazier she amended silently as she closed the book and turned away. She gave a yelp when she saw Twilight standing not two feet away with a concerned frown on her face.
“I caught the end of that,” the lavender pony said before Rainbow could ask, “Being isolated in that book really hasn’t been good for his mind.” She looked over her shoulder at the red book and continued, “I think Cirrus said something about time being weird inside those books the last time we spoke, but I’m still amazed that he’s so… calm.” She shrugged. “Maybe he’s just starting to cope because we’re finding the pages.”
“Perhaps,” Rainbow said, “did you get anything useful out of him?”
“Not really,” Twilight said, “He knows something, but he’ll only talk if I keep retrieving the pages.”
“Heh,” the cyan pegasus snorted, “He’s taking advantage of us. That fits pretty well with the greedy pony Archeon, and that throne room, make him out to be. He might even be lying; Arcy claims that Cirrus tried pinning the blame for ruining the illusions on him.”
“Arcy?” Twilight asked, raising an eyebrow. Rainbow returned it with a challenging glint in her eye and Twilight simply shook her head and dropped the subject. “Cirrus would have us believe that Archeon was a tyrant, treating the worlds like they only existed for his amusement, as if it didn’t matter what happened to the ponies living there.”
“Does it?” Rainbow asked. Twilight gaped at her in shock and she took a step back, holding a leg up defensively. “I-I’m not saying I’d be ok with it if it were true,” she said quickly, “but these places we’ve been going are illusions, places Star Swirl made up and created with magic, right?”
“I’m not sure,” Twilight said, her gaze drifting to the journals sitting on the floor below the map, “Star Swirl referred to them as illusions a few times, but from those journals I got the impression that he didn’t have complete control over where the books would take him when he finished the spell. He certainly treated the inhabitants like real ponies anyway; he built the Fortress after all. Plus, we are physically transported from place to place by the books.”
Rainbow lowered her head in thought for several moments, and then heaved a sigh and looked up at her friend. “Well, either way, they were important to the old pony, and somepony betrayed him and destroyed almost all of it for some selfish reason.” She snorted and stomped a hoof emphatically. “Let’s get to the bottom of this Twilight,” she said with conviction.
“For Star Swirl the Bearded if for nothing else,” Twilight agreed with a nod. She started toward the map, only to pause after a couple steps as she remembered something. “Not just for Star Swirl,” she said, “There are two other ponies we haven’t accounted for yet.”
“Who?” Rainbow asked.
“Clover and…” the lavender unicorn trailed off, trying to remember. “There’s a bed for a younger pony in the living area,” she said, giving up on the name for the moment, “You find out where the next book vault is. I’ll see if I can talk one of the prisoners into… Did I really just say that?”
“It’s what they are,” Rainbow said pointedly as she walked over to the map.
“It just seems so callous to think of them like that,” Twilight said, “A-anyway, I’ll see what they have to say about Clover.” She went over to the red book and took a moment to plan her approach before opening it.
Cirrus looked slightly angry when he appeared in the panel. “You haven’t brought any more pages,” he said, “I thought ZzzzZt had an agreement?”
“Since when was not talking to you without bringing a new page part of the agreement?” Twilight asked, raising an eyebrow. Cirrus blinked in surprise and he shifted uncomfortably. “I thought as much,” Twilight said, “Now, I’ve got a few questions.”
“Pages for Zztz-planations. That was our agreement.”
“Cirrus, I’ve returned three pages already,” Twilight said with a glare, “I think I’ve earned some basic information at least. Besides Star Swirl, Archeon, and you, there were two other ponies living here. Who were they?”
“Ah,” Cirrus said slowly, “Clover and Nzzzzrt. Clover was our Master’s wife, and perhaps-zZZzt skilled in world-writing as Star Swirl, although she rarely did so. Nyx was their daughter, a… Zzzrrzzzt precocious little thing.” His face hardened for second, but then he coughed and composed himself, giving Twilight a patient look, waiting for her response.
“What happened to them?” the unicorn asked, taking the bait.
“Find the next page,” Cirrus said immediately, smiling, “Their story and mine are one and the same.”
“Fair enough,” Twilight said with a nod, “sit tight.” She closed the book before Cirrus could react. She looked over to the map, but Rainbow wasn’t there. Looking to her right, she saw the pegasus’s rainbow-striped tail disappear around the bend in the passage behind the book case. “So where are we headed now?” she asked as she ran to catch up.
“The dock,” Rainbow answered, “I’m betting it’s inside that ship, so we’ll need to un-sink it. How’d the questioning go?”
“Clover and Nyx were Star Swirl’s family,” Twilight said, “Wife and daughter respectively. There might have been some jealousy of Nyx, on Cirrus’s part at least. We’ll have to remember to ask Archeon about them.”
“Got it,” Rainbow said with a nod as the pair entered the elevator cavern, “Why don’t you wait here? I can fly up there, read the clue, and get back down faster than that elevator moves.” She flew up the shaft as Twilight sat back to wait, counting the seconds under her breath. Six seconds later, the pegasus came back down and landed on top of the elevator. “I’m going to need a paper and pencil,” she said.
“I’ll see if I can find some in the living area,” Twilight said, levitating her pencil out of her bag, “Is the clue really long or something?”
“I’ll say,” Rainbow said, rolling her eyes, “It’s three dates – day, month, year – each with a time. Any ideas of what we’re supposed to do with a clue like that?”
“I’ll have to think about it,” Twilight said, “I’ll be back in a moment.” She turned away and trotted down the hall, taking the turn that led down to the subterranean house. Some rummaging in the sleeping quarters turned up two usable pieces of parchment in Archeon’s nightstand and a tiny, disappointedly blank diary under the filly-sized bed Twilight guessed had belonged to Nyx. As she walked back up to the elevator cavern, she began pondering. My first guess for applying the clue would’ve been the clock tower, if we hadn’t used it already, she thought, and that wouldn’t have accounted for the month, day, and year parts anyway. What haven’t we investigated yet? The model ship in that little fountain just outside might have a “like follows like” spell linking it to the big ship, but how would three dates connect to that? And then there’s-
“Twilight.” Rainbow’s firm voice broke Twilight out of her reverie and she realized she’d almost walked right into her friend without noticing. Smiling sheepishly, she placed a piece of paper into Rainbow’s bag and took a step back. Rainbow smirked and shook her head, and then flew back up the elevator shaft. She returned a few minutes later, dropped the paper at Twilight’s feet and asked, “So, where to?”
“I’m not completely sure,” Twilight said, levitating the paper up and looking at it. She read the dates Dash had written and raised an eyebrow at the last one. “November 4 9914?” she asked incredulously.
“That’s what it said,” Rainbow replied with a shrug.
“I believe you, but…” Twilight said as she put the note away in her bag and started down the hallway toward the library, “but anyway, on your page search earlier, did you go inside the round building next door?”
“Yeah,” the pegasus said as she followed after Twilight, “the only thing in there was this strange chair in the middle of the room.”
“Strange how?” Twilight asked.
“You might as well see for yourself,” Rainbow answered as they exited the passage. Rainbow activated the front door switch and then led Twilight outside and over to the circular building. She pulled the door open and gestured for Twilight to take a gander at the interior. The room was indeed barren of decoration or even paint; the floor, wall, and domed ceiling were all the same nondescript natural grey of the stone the building was constructed of. Four lights attached to the wall provided illumination that all but canceled out any shadows, and in the center of the room stood the chair, although to Twilight it looked more like a padded bench tilted up and bent so as to comfortably hold a pony lying on their back and gazing up at a point on the western side of the ceiling. A metal stand next to the chair held a panel above and slightly behind where a seated pony’s head would rest. The underside of the panel had four sliders with a button below them and a square lens of glass on the left side providing a magnified look at the peak of the ceiling.
“Well, let’s see what this does,” Twilight said, setting her bags aside and climbing into the chair. As soon as she was settled with her head on the head-rest, the panel lowered into a position directly in front of her face and the buttons and slider lit up as a date appeared above the slider in shining letters: January 1 0001 12:00 AM. Twilight levitated the paper with the clue out of her bag and then applied her magic to the sliders until the display showed the first date on the paper. The button had begun to blink the moment Twilight moved the first slider, and after she’d set the sliders properly she pressed it with a hoof. There was a high-speed whirring sound for several seconds and Twilight thought she saw movement through the lens, but when everything stopped she still saw nothing but blank light grey stone. “We’re missing something here,” she said, closing her eyes and tapping her head with a hoof, “The building has a rounded roof that I’m supposed to be looking up at while setting a very specific… Oh!” She facehoofed and shook her head. “It’s a planetarium!” The panel turned off and returned to its upward position as the unicorn rolled off the chair and looked around, spotting a glowing blue button by the door.
“What’s a planet-” Rainbow Dash asked as Twilight hit the button with her magic, only to stop in awe as the lights turned off and myriad stars appeared on the ceiling.
“Planetarium,” Twilight said as she got back into the chair and waited for the panel to activate, “it’s a building where a map of the night sky is projected on the ceiling. They have one at the School for Gifted Unicorns so they can hold some astronomy classes during the day, or when it gets too cloudy at night. Now, let’s see…” She double-checked the date settings and then looked through the viewing lens. She studied the magnified section of the ceiling for several minutes, trying to figure out if she recognized the constellation, and then lifted her head so that he panel would move away and give her a wider view of the “sky.” “These aren’t the stars you can see from home,” she said, laying her head back down and looking through the lens again, “but I feel like I’ve seen this constellation somewhere else recently. Rainbow, would you please go to the library and get me the blue journal with the red square on the spine? They’re on the floor under the map.”
“Be back in a flash,” the cyan pegasus said. She dashed out the door and returned with the journal in her mouth in record time. “‘Ere oo go,” she said around the tome before tossing it toward Twilight. The unicorn caught it in her magic and floated it over to hover to the left of her head. She flipped through it quickly until she came upon a page showing a pattern of stars with an accompanying picture.
“Looks like I was right,” she said with a smile, glancing between the viewing lens and the book as she turned the pages. Three pages in, she found the sketch of the stars in the lens and looked down at the image below it. “An anchor?” she said in confusion, looking up at the constellation, “I… I don’t see it. Oh well.” She set the book on the ground and brought up the note paper and a pencil, writing “anchor” next to the first date.
“Does this place even have a night?” Rainbow wondered as Twilight entered the second date, “I mean, if the daylight’s not provided by a sun…”
“Please don’t bring that up,” Twilight said with a strained voice. She pressed the button and picked up the journal while she waited for the star projections to align to the new time. “If you’re wondering where Star Swirl got this star map from, I’m not sure,” she said, “but since the constellations are in this journal, my guess is he copied it from Baseli, the world the journal talks about. He mentioned making astronomy one of his areas of focus while visiting there. And this one is… how did he see a bird in that?” She shook her head as she made the note and started entering the final date.
“Are we going to Baseli this time?” Rainbow asked, “If we are, I’m going to be a bit weirded out.”
“Why?” Twilight asked.
“Because that would make it three books out of three that have had a relation to where they’re hidden,” the pegasus said, “in that first world, I started out in a perfect replica of the rocket. The second world had gears all over the place, and the book was hidden inside a gear. Now we’re using stars from another illusion-world to raise a sunken ship that’s holding a third book.”
“Star Swirl did create all these places Rainbow,” Twilight pointed out, “Maybe he designed the four hiding places to reflect worlds he wrote about before making Aitran, and it’s just coincidence that the surviving books match the hiding spots.” She noted the final constellation symbol and climbed off the chair, stowing the journal in her bags as she put them back on. “Don’t worry so much about what we don’t know or understand, “she said, heading toward the door, “We just need to focus on the fact that every world we explore brings us that much closer to finding a way home.” Rainbow chuckled as she moved out of the doorway and fell into step behind Twilight. “What’s so funny?” Twilight asked.
“I’m just surprised to be hearing that kind of advice coming from you Twilight,” Rainbow said, “You normally go nuts if you run into something you can’t completely explain.” Twilight rolled her eyes and didn’t respond beyond picking up her pace a little as he headed for the fountain and columns. “So,” Rainbow said after an awkward moment, “what are doing now?”
“Checking something,” Twilight said, probing the model ship with her magic. After a few seconds, she nodded and went over to one of the columns and pulled out the Baseli journal. “I knew it,” she said after looking through the constellation drawings, “The model ship in the fountain there is linked to the big ship by a ‘like follows like’ spell, and also to each of the plaques on these columns. If we activate the three that bear the symbols for the constellations tied to each of the dates – and only those three – the ships should rise. You look at the east columns and I’ll take the west.” She held the notes out to Rainbow, who looked them over and then gave a salute and went to work looking for the symbols. In less than a minute, Twilight was activating the third and final plaque and the pair rushed up the path as they heard the sound of a large amount of water flowing. As they turned to face the dock, they saw the sailing ship rising up out of the sea, water draining rapidly off its deck as it came up level with the dock.
“Wow,” Rainbow said in amazement.
“I agree,” Twilight said, “come on.” They made their way down to the dock and Twilight stepped carefully onto the ship, which was surprisingly steady even after considering the relative calm of the water it rested in. Rainbow flew along behind her as she looked around for the book. Looking toward the aft end, she noticed an expertly carved door leading into the space under the poop deck and made her way to it. She began to wonder how a book could survive being submerged under water as she lifted the latch and pushed the door open, and then got her answer when she saw the book sitting inside a sealed glass box on a chair. The box popped open at her touch and then slowly closed after she lifted the book out. It was bound in a sea-blue cover and bore a gilded title that read Baseli.
“I called it,” Rainbow Dash said wearily, shaking her head. Twilight chuckled and opened the book to the last page. Her amusement drained as she looked at the link panel. “What’s wrong?” Rainbow asked.
“I think it’s raining in there.”
“That all?” Rainbow said dismissively, “I’ll just…” She trailed off as she remembered how the fog in the book inside the rocket hadn’t responded to her commands. “Let’s just get it over with,” she said, reaching past Twilight to put her hoof on the panel.
It wasn’t just raining when Rainbow Dash appeared in Baseli; it was pouring. The cyan pegasus was soaked to the skin within moments of materializing on the tilted wooden deck of a ship not too unlike the book vault she had just come from. A quick glance behind her revealed that the ship was missing its front half and was firmly wedged into a giant grey rock of an island, and then she glared up at the rainclouds that filled the sky from horizon to horizon. With a snarl that dared the weather to defy her, she spread her wings and launched herself into the air. When she neared the clouds she thrust her front legs straight out and went into a roll to drill through to the top. She burst through the clouds and looped around to look at her work, grinning in triumph as she saw a hole easily ten feet across marring the dark, fluffy surface. “That’s right,” she said, landing at the edge of the hole, “I’m in charge here now clouds.” She preened for a little bit, basking in her own awesomeness while she shed the excess water from her wings, until she noticed the hole was starting to fill in. “Huh,” she said nonchalantly, “looks like you’re going to need a few more lessons in who’s boss.” She took flight and starting kicking at the edge of the shrinking hole, intending to spiral out and at least clear the air above the rock she and Twilight were obviously going to be staying on for the duration of their visit. After several circuits, however, she realized she wasn’t making any progress; the clouds were moving in to fill the hole as quickly as she beat them back. “Dang it,” she finally said in defeat, stopping at the center of the hole and glaring around. She turned her face to the clear blue sky above the cloud layer and shouted, “Was it too much to ask for you to write tame weather into your illusions Star Swirl?! What a load of pony feathers…” Grumbling, she aimed her nose toward the surface and folded her wings in for a dive. As she dropped, she took note of the lay of the land. The front half of the ship she’d started out on was wedged to the rock a short way around from the rear half, and a carved set of stone steps connected the two. A set of wood steps spiraled up from the port side of the ship’s bow to the peak of the rock, where a telescope was set up on a platform. A lighthouse rose out of the sea a short way from the bow, and some planks had been set up as a bridge between the ship and the lighthouse, and a similar plank bridge linked the rear ship half to something under a large umbrella. Twilight wasn’t anywhere in sight.
“Twilight?” Rainbow called out as she flared her wings and prepared to land on the rear ship fragment.
“Over here Rainbow,” the unicorn called out. Looking around, Rainbow saw her standing in what looked like a crow’s nest rising out of the sea and shielded from the rain by the large umbrella. Rainbow sighed in relief and fluttered over to join her friend. There were three big piston-like buttons in the crow’s nest, but there was still enough space for the two ponies to take shelter in it. “No luck with the rain I take it,” Twilight said dryly.
“There’s a reason we have an entire weather team for the big stuff back home,” Rainbow said, “I can break up and move these clouds, but there’s too much for even a pegasus pony as cool as me to handle by herself.” She sat down and looked out to sea, seeing several smaller rocks jutting out of the water around them for a short distance. “So, what’s the deal with this place?” she asked.
“Well, it’s obvious that a lot has changed between when Star Swirl’s journal ends and now,” Twilight answered, “There used to be a community of ponies living here, taking their food from the sea and using the lighthouse Star Swirl built for them to stay in contact with settlements far from here. I’m pretty sure the sea level was a lot lower back then,” she added when Dash gave her and incredulous look, “Star Swirl did note that the water had risen or the rocks had sank a little after a ten year period.”
“So what’s with the ship?” Rainbow asked.
“Star Swirl tried to put it into the world through writing,” Twilight said, “He wanted to use it to explore beyond the Rocks, but he… missed and it ended up on the big rock.” She shrugged, looking apologetic for some reason.
“I don’t think anypony lives here now,” Rainbow said, “I wouldn’t blame them if they all just up and left.”
“Nor would I,” Twilight agreed, “and not just because it’s such a small space now. Did you notice the cave?” Rainbow shuddered as she shook her head slowly. “It’s hard to miss,” Twilight continued, raising an eyebrow, “where the ship meets the rock, there’s a worked entrance that leads down. There’s probably living space or something down there, but it’s all flooded now, as is the doorway leading inside the aft cabin of the ship.”
“So, what does that leave for us to search?” Rainbow asked, “The lighthouse? It’s standing, just mostly underwater,” she added when Twilight gave her a curious look, “head around the rock a little and you’ll see it.”
“That’s definitely a place to look,” Twilight said, “but before I head back out and get wet again, I want to see if these do anything.” She nodded at the piston buttons and then pressed down the one on the left. The sound a of pumping mechanism started up from beneath the ponies’s feet and quickly rose to a rapid pace. “Curious,” Twilight mused, pressing the middle button. As the button depressed, the one on the left popped back up and the pumping noises started building up again. “A pumping station,” Twilight said, “I wonder…” She stepped out of the crow’s nest and walked carefully along the planks back to the ship, Rainbow flying behind her in curiosity. When she reached the ship, she went over to the rock, which did indeed have an open, obvious, expertly hewn doorway in it, and looked inside. “The water’s gone,” Twilight said in surprise and glee, “Rainbow, go back and turn on the left pump; let’s see what, if anything, that one clears.”
“Ok,” the pegasus said, glad for an excuse to get out of the rain for a moment. She flew away, and a few seconds later Twilight watched as the staircase beyond the doorway flooded again with surprising speed. Turning away from the cave, she saw that the staircase leading down into the interior of the ship was no longer flooded as it had been a moment ago.
“A cavern and the ship’s hold,” she noted to herself, “One of them probably holds the Aitran book and the other... probably the red and blue pages.” She turned toward the crow’s nest and beckoned to Rainbow Dash. “Let’s look around a bit more,” she called out.
“Coming,” Rainbow called back before flying over. The pegasus took the lead as they crossed to the bow-end of the broken ship. Another cavern entrance opened up where the deck met the rock, and from the prow Twilight could see the plank bridge spanning the gap from the ship to a small rock and finally through a window in the lighthouse, which was either far shorter than any lighthouse Twilight had ever seen pictured or was sitting on a rock way below the water line. Power lines stretched from the lighthouse to the top of the cavern entrance. “There’s a telescope at the top of those stairs,” Rainbow said, pointing out the wooden steps that had been driven into the rock.
“I doubt I could see much in this weather,” Twilight said, taking a few tentative steps onto the plank bridge. After assuring herself of the bridge’s stability and her own balance, she made her way to the lighthouse and poked her head through the window. Like everything else in this world, the interior of the building was flooded, with only a platform made of a few wide planks allowing one to stand inside and keep their hooves dry. Across the room from the window was a ladder leading up to a hatch in the ceiling, which was padlocked closed.
“Are you going in or not Twilight?” Rainbow said impatiently from behind her, “It’s wet out here.” Twilight rolled her eyes and stepped through the window, walking over to the base of the ladder to give Rainbow room to come in as well. “This is sure helpful,” the pegasus said sarcastically, “now what?”
“The third pump might remove the water,” Twilight said, glancing down, “and what’s this?” She noticed a black key on the floor, attached to a chain that had been screwed into the wood. “Why would somepony chain a key to the floor?” she said, tugging at it with her magic. After a moment of futilely trying to pull it free, she let the key drop and went into thought. “Try the third pump button,” she said at last.
“What, me?” Rainbow asked.
“You can get out of here easier than I can,” Twilight pointed out, “and you’re faster.”
“I’m never going to get dry,” the pegasus muttered as she backed out through the window and took flight.
Niether am I, Twilight thought sardonically, not unless this rain shows signs of letting up soon. After a couple moments, the water began to drain away as if the entire bottom of the lighthouse had fallen away into emptiness. That pumping machine means business, she thought approvingly. A staircase winding around the lighthouse wall was revealed by the retreating liquid and Twilight began making her way down it just as Rainbow Dash returned. The pegasus debated following her for a moment and then gave in and slowly hovered down after Twilight.
The bottom floor of the lighthouse was mostly unremarkable. Water leaked in through tiny cracks in an otherwise surprisingly solid barricade of wood and tar covering what was probably the door and flowed into a drain set in the middle of the floor. A square wooden chest held closed with a padlock sat on the floor near the drain, with a spigot set in the bottom of one end. “I wonder if that key up there will unlock this,” Twilight said after probing the padlock with her magic.
“I’ll take it up there,” Rainbow said, getting a solid grip on the chest and spreading her wings. She heaved with her wings and legs, but the chest didn’t budge. “Wow, that’s heavier than it looks,” Rainbow said, “what is it made of? Rock-wood?” She gave the chest a firm kick and winced slightly at the impact, while Twilight noticed the sound of sloshing water. Twilight opened the spigot with her magic and smirked as water came pouring out of it and down the drain. “Oh,” Rainbow said, “Now I feel dumb. All right, trying this again.” She cracked her neck and gripped the chest again. With a cry of effort, she hefted the chest off the ground and began to slowly ascend. After getting a few feet up, she all cut crashed back to the floor, panting heavily. “Dumb… box…” she grunted, pounding it weakly as she lay sprawled out over it, “why are… you still… so heavy?”
“It might because it’s waterlogged,” Twilight said, closing the spigot with her magic, “but even waterlogged wood can float, especially with an air pocket inside. Why don’t we let this place flood again and have the water do the heavy lifting?”
“You know what Twilight?” Rainbow said as she got off the box and stood up, “I am so glad you’re such a smart pony. You go run the pump this time though; I need to catch my breath before I go out into that storm again.”
“Fair enough,” Twilight said with a nod. She trotted up the long spiraling stairs to the exit and waited until Rainbow had nearly caught up before heading out into the rain and making her way all the way back to the crow’s nest. “Let’s see,” she mused when she arrived, “might as well search the caverns next.” She turned on the middle pump and went back to the lighthouse. When she got there, she saw that the chest was already opened, with the chained key sitting in its padlock, and the hatch in the ceiling had also been unlocked and opened. She climbed up the ladder and found herself in the lantern room of the lighthouse. Rainbow Dash was on the opposite side of the room, looking up from investigating a hoof-cranked generator.
“Hey Twi,” the pegasus said cheerfully, “you were right; the chained key opened the chest, and it had the key to let me get in here.”
“I figured as much,” Twilight said, “I was planning to check out the caves next.”
“Have fun,” Dash said quickly, “I’ll just stay here and figure out what this thing does.”
“I think it’s a generator Rainbow,” Twilight said, “with those power lines leading from here to the rock, it probably powers something in the caverns.”
“Ok then,” the pegasus said, “I’ll stay here and keep it powered while you go look around.”
“You sure?” Twilight asked.
“Me and caves don’t mix Twilight, remember?” Dash said testily.
“Ok, ok,” Twilight conceded, “I’ll come get you when I’m done.” She climbed back down the ladder, left the lighthouse, and made straight for the cave as soon as her hooves were on the steady deck of the broken ship’s bow. She stopped just inside the doorway to shake the rainwater out of her coat and look down the stone stairs in front of her, which were still damp from the recently removed floodwaters. “If there’s a single dry spot on or inside this rock, I’ll be amazed,” she muttered as she began to walk down, and down, and down. The stairs went so far down and turned so often that Twilight soon gave up all hope of guessing which way she was facing and where she was in relation to the entrance, and she was starting to feel a bit claustrophobic. The stairs finally came to an end, leaving Twilight in a straight hallway that ended in a study-looking metal door with a glowing blue button in the middle. When she pressed the button, the door slid back slightly with a hiss of released pressure before sliding up out of the way. Beyond the doorway lay a dimly lit room hewn out of the rock and sparsely decorated. To the left of the entrance stood a large but simple bed made up with dark blue bedclothes, the right side of the room had only a dresser, and at the back of the room was a table holding a lamp and a big half-scrolled sheet of parchment.
“This place has a definite-” Twilight started to say as she walked further into the room and looked around, cutting off with a surprised “eep” as she saw a large wooden mask hanging on the wall next to the door. It reminded her of the creepy-looking masks Zecora had in her home, except that it resembled a frog’s face more than whatever the zebra’s masks were supposed to be. Chiding herself gently for being startled by a simple, if big and creepy, mask, Twilight walked over to the table and unrolled the sheet on it. It looked to be a sea chart showing sailing routes between several small islands and archipelagos, with what looked to be the edge of a mainland filling the northeast corner. In the exact center of the chart was a cluster of small islands labeled “Basalt’s Rocks,” and every landmass directly connected to it by the course lines had been crossed out with a thick red X. “Did the inhabitants turn pirate?” Twilight wondered, frowning, “or was it somepony else?” She rolled the chart back up and went to investigate the dresser. Clockwork devices of dubious purpose sat on the top, a good sign to Twilight’s mind that Archeon had inhabited the room at one point. Sitting front and center on the dresser top was a flat circular device with a divot in the top holding a white crystal and a button and slider on the front. I’ll probably regret this, Twilight thought as she pressed the button with her horn. The crystal lit up and an illusory rose appeared in the air above the device. Pleasantly surprised, Twilight smiled slightly as she moved the slider to the right, only for that smile to vanish as the rose morphed into a bleached pony skull. I was right, she thought in disgust as she nearly skewered the device in her haste to switch it off, I regret that. Archeon was one twisted pony. I could easily picture him burning the books, but having Cirrus as our only option for finding a way home doesn’t feel right… With a sigh, Twilight began searching through the dresser drawers. Those that weren’t empty contained more maps and charts, none of them for places Twilight recognized. In the second drawer from the bottom, she found a piece of paper that had been written on and then torn down the middle. “The Hidden Vaul…” she read, “Finding and using the… first turn on all the… island of Aitran…? Well, if this has something to do with Aitran, I’m keeping it.” She started to put the paper in her bags, and then realized how wet they were and emptied them out to check the contents. The loose note paper was wet to the point of uselessness, but the Baseli journal and the small diary she’d found under Nyx’s bed looked ok, being only slightly damp along the top edges of their pages. Relieved, Twilight took the torn note, folded it in half, and placed it inside the Baseli journal for safe keeping before putting everything back in her bags. Turning her attention back to the dresser, she opened the bottom drawer and found a blue page waiting to be claimed. With some hesitation, Twilight picked the page up in her magic and stuck it into the Baseli journal. “That’s Archeon down,” she said, leaving the room, “Now for Cirrus.” The door slid closed behind her with a hiss as she started up the stairs, and she realized a second later that the room had been completely dry. Water-tight doors, she thought with a smile, not a bad idea.
About halfway up the stairs, Twilight paused in her climb as she noticed a recessed panel in the wall marked with a blue square outline. Suspecting a hidden room, Twilight wasn’t surprised when the panel slid aside at her touch, revealing a metal tunnel. “Might as well,” she said, crawling in. After a couple feet, she was able to stand up again and walk normally. The tunnel opened up into a dark room with a black metal floor and walls that turned out to be made of glass when Twilight lit up her horn to get a better look. The only illumination provided by the room came from a giant compass sitting in the center of the room. A comfortable glow came from behind the face of the compass, which was marked with a compass rose showing up to the tertiary directions. Round brass buttons rimmed the compass, numbering thirty-five in all. “Ok, you’re obviously an important piece of equipment,” Twilight mused, walking slowly around it, “but what do you do? All these buttons…” She held up a hoof, hovered it over the rim for a second, and then picked a button at random and pressed it. Instantly, the lights went out and an alarm started honking at her. “Ah! What did I do?” Twilight exclaimed, lighting her horn up as she looked around in panic. She spotted a blinking blue light in the distance and made her way over to it, finding it to be above a short tunnel ending in a panel that slid aside as she approached, depositing her in a dark stairwell. After getting her footing and bearings, she trotted up the stairs as fast as she safely could and emerged from the cave onto the aft end of the broken ship. Too relieved at her escape to mind having come out in a different place than she’d gone in, or even the pouring rain, she made her way toward the lighthouse.
She met Rainbow Dash where the plank bridge met the bow end and the two ponies caught each other in a hug before firing off questions at the same time. “What happened?” they both said.
“The generator suddenly lost all its stored power,” Rainbow said.
“I pressed the wrong button,” Twilight said.
“What button?” the pegasus asked
“I found a giant compass with all these buttons around it in a hidden room,” Twilight explained, “No idea what it’s meant for, but I think I blew out a fuse or something with the button I pressed. I still need to explore the other cave too…”
“You and electricity shouldn’t mix I guess,” Rainbow said with a wry smile, “I didn’t see anything break or explode out here, so maybe you didn’t do anything permanent. Just a second.” She jumped into flight, turned around, and went back into the lighthouse. A couple moments later she stuck her head out the window and called out, “The generator’s still working. Go see if the lights are working again, and don’t mess with that compass anymore!”
“All right,” Twilight said, turning away. It has to do something important though, she protested silently, there’s got to be a clue to the right button somewhere… She went back to the aft ship half and down into the well-lit cave. The stairs wound around and left her directionally confused once more as she approached and opened the water-tight door to Cirrus’s room. As in the Fortress world, the room was bright, opulent, and as different from Archeon’s room as day from night. A bed big enough for two large ponies, or one Princess Celestia, was set up with its head against the back wall, and between the wood paneling, decorative columns, plush carpet, gold-framed paintings of the sea, and potted ferns, it would be easy for one to forget that the room was carved out of a rock. A mahogany desk stood against the right wall and a tall dresser stood on the left. After a quick survey of the room and desk revealed nothing, Twilight went to work on the dresser. The top two drawers were surprisingly empty, especially given Cirrus’s evident love for material goods, but the next drawer down contained several small rolls of expensive-looking cloth in a rather eclectic range of colors and patterns, none of which seemed like something Rarity would deign to use. The next drawer held a bundle of candles and enough plates and tea-cups to set up a small banquet table, the likes of which Twilight had seen no sign. Finally, in the bottom drawer, she found the red page. The placement of these pages has to be deliberate, she thought as she placed the page alongside its blue rival in the Baseli journal, whoever tore them out and distributed them wanted whoever came looking for them to see how Cirrus and Archeon lived in these worlds. It’s not a good picture for either of them at this point… Concerned over the options presented to her, Twilight left the room and began climbing back to the surface.
She paused when she reached the panel leading into the compass room and bit her lip. Rainbow would be pretty mad if I knock out the power again, but this is one puzzle I can’t just leave unsolved. She rocked back and forth as she debated going into the room again, and then gave into temptation and opened the passage. She crawled inside and walked over to sit at the south side of the compass, staring at the face and willing it to reveal its secrets. “Hit the wrong button and the power goes out,” she said after a moment, “So what would the right button do? Why did you put this here Star Swirl? It had to have been him; I can’t imagine Basalt’s group coming up with something like this, whatever it is. Oh, wait,” she facehoofed, “Star Swirl would’ve mentioned this in the journal if he built it. Duh.” She pulled the journal out of her bag and flipped through until she found the section where Star Swirl began speaking about his construction projects. After two read-throughs, she failed to find any mention of the room she was in, but a drawing of an underwater lamp caught her attention. “Ok, going out on a limb here,” she mused, “but I haven’t seen anything that looks like that thing yet. Since this compass is connected to the power grid, maybe it’s supposed to direct power to the underwater lamps? Still, that doesn’t help me figure out which button to press… Gah!” Frustrated, she slammed a hoof onto the compass, accidently hitting a button. At the same instant that she realized what she’d just done, the room became far brighter as a pair of submersible lamps switched on outside the room, shining through the glass walls and revealing the sea-life just outside. “Huh,” Twilight said, stunned by her stroke of luck, “How do you like that… I guess there’s something to be said for brute-force and dumb luck.” She packed the journal back up, double checking that the pages and torn note were still inside it, and then made her way out of the room and up to the surface.
Rainbow Dash was waiting for her on the bow end of the broken ship, front legs crossed suspiciously. “What did you do this time?” she asked.
“I got lucky,” Twilight said without shame, “Some more lights turned on. What happened on your end?”
“The generator crank locked up,” the pegasus said, “So, you got more lights on down there. Are you happy with yourself?”
“Quite,” Twilight said, “I’ve also got the red and blue pages and a new list of questions and concerns. Let’s find the Aitran book and get out of this rain.”
“Sounds good to me,” Rainbow said, “but where’s the book?”
“We haven’t looked inside the ship yet,” Twilight said, heading toward the pump station.
Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash were still dripping slightly when they reappeared in the Aitran library and by silent agreement decided to go outside and find a patch of warm… light to rest up in until their manes dried out. After some discussion, they ended up on the little beach on the western end of the island, near the clocktower. Rainbow flopped down onto her belly with her wings spread out to either side while Twilight emptied her bag and laid it and its contents out to dry before laying down as well. “How long have we been here?” she asked no one in particular, “It feels like hours, but there’s no way to tell. I wonder if time even works the same way here as it does at home.”
“Why wouldn’t it?” Rainbow asked, looking askance at the unicorn.
“I don’t know,” Twilight said with some exasperation. She picked the Baseli journal up in her magic and opened it to the final entry before the constellation drawings. “Star Swirl made some off-hoof comment about altering the text of the Baseli book to make it so time would ‘flow’ normally so he could watch the inhabitants grow and develop on their own. He mentions it so casually, it’s like stopping or changing the way time affects the worlds inside these books is something he did all the time.” She lifted her head off the ground, ears flat against her head and eyes wide. “That would explain why the food in the pantry’s still fresh, and how Cirrus and Archeon can still be alive despite being apprentices to Star Swirl the Bearded, who was last seen in Equestria nearly a thousand years ago!”
“Uh, Twilight,” Rainbow said, sounding worried, “Maybe you should stop thinking about this. I think I can see a couple of ways you can break your brain if you keep going.”
“Like wha… oh.” Twilight fell silent for several moments, thinking. “Spike is supposed to take the book that brought us here to Princess Celestia,” she said at last, making it sound like a mantra, “She’ll find a way to get us back home, or at least contact us to let us know she’s working on a solution. We haven’t heard from her or seen anything appear yet, so… We probably haven’t been here long enough for Spike to have made it to Canterlot yet.”
“If you say so,” Rainbow said, lifting her wings and giving them a few flaps before folding them in, “Speaking of Cirrus and Archeon…”
Twilight sighed as she removed the red and blue pages, and the torn note, from the journal. “I’m starting to have serious doubts about both of them,” she said, “the Baseli natives had a lot of decorative gold during Star Swirl’s last recorded visit, but the only evidence of wealth I saw was in Cirrus’s room, and that had a greater focus on expensive wood and cloth than gold. Archeon’s room looked like it belonged to a merciless pirate with plans to strike other islands in that world. I don’t like how they seem to be the only chances we have of finding a way home ourselves.”
“What’s this?” Rainbow asked, pointing to the torn note.
“I found that in Archeon’s room,” Twilight explained as the pegasus read what she could, “Unless we’re lucky enough to find the missing half, it’s not going to be much use, and if Archeon had this half, I’m not sure I want to find out what’s in this hidden vault.”
“Well I do,” Rainbow said, “for all we know, it could be the key to the whole mystery of which stallion to take our chances with or where the exit’s located.” She stood up and stretched, and then nodded toward the library. “Come on,” she said, “didn’t you have some questions for Cirrus about Star Swirl’s family?”
“Yeah,” Twilight said, standing up and gathering the books, papers, and bag, “I want you to listen in when I talk to him, and I’ll listen to you talking to Archeon. That’s probably what we should have done from the start.” Rainbow nodded and followed Twilight as she trotted up to the library.
“Ah, Twilight,” Cirrus said with a charming smile, “I am grateful beyond expression at how quickly you are recovering the missing pages. I am curious though, where is that other pony, Rainbow Dash I believe? I haven’t seen her since rrzzt first conversation.” Before Twilight or Rainbow could answer, he grew grim and said, “She has been finding the pages for Archeon’s prison, hasn’t sh-Zzzr?”
“So what if I am?” Rainbow asked, pushing her head into the trapped stallion’s field of vision.
“He is dangerous,” Cirrus said coldly, “His mind was unhinged long before Bzzt Star Swirl condemned him to that book, and I have no reason to think he’s improved since then.”
“We just want to go home Cirrus,” Twilight said, pushing Rainbow’s head out of her way, “and since you haven’t given me a straight answer about helping…”
“I’ve already promised I’d give you whatever you desire when I’m Fzz-ee,” Cirrus said, insulted, “If I may ask, where are you finding the pages anyway? Trapped as I am, I can feel Rzzzr there are two still missing from the book, but only one of them is on this island.”
“Really?” Twilight said, surprised, “we’ve searched just about everywhere on Aitran already…” She paused and looked at Rainbow, silently asking if they should answer Cirrus’s question. The pegasus shrugged in response, leaving it up to the unicorn’s judgement. “The other pages have been the worlds inside the books that weren’t burned,” Twilight said at last.
Cirrus blinked and frowned in surprise. “Of course,” he muttered, looking away for a moment, “Then…” he smirked, “you’ve probably seen the rooms Archeon claimed for his use. You’ve seen that my accusations against him are not groundless fabrications.”
“We’ve also seen evidence that you’re as greedy as Archeon claims you are,” Rainbow snapped, butting in again.
“It is no crime to surround oneself with fine things” Cirrus said flatly, “although from the looks of you, I can see how my Zzzrt former associate could cloud your perception.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Rainbow snarled, unfurling her wings threateningly, “Are you calling me stupid?”
“That’s enough,” Twilight said firmly, pushing Rainbow aside again, “go cool off somewhere Rainbow. Cirrus, don’t make me regret giving you what help I already have. I don’t want to blackmail you, but keep in mind that you need us –both of us - if you’re going to escape that book.”
“I haven’t forgotten,” Cirrus grumbled, “but you need me just as much, don’t you?”
“Tell me about Clover and Nyx,” Twilight said, deliberately changing the subject, “I believe you owe me that for the latest page.”
“Yes, I suppose I can tell you a little more,” Cirrus said grudgingly, “My master met Clover as he was exploring another world, shortly before he created Aitran Island and moved us here. She was his equal in many regards, including in formulating Books. It was several… well, I’m not sure how long exactly. You may have noticed, Aitran has no cycle of day and night, and time passes unmarked if it truly passes at all. Archeon and I were nearing our majority age when Nyx was born and as she grew it became clear that she had inherited her parents’s intelligence and would earn the right to learn the art of writing worlds at the same time Archeon and I – her seniors.” As he spoke, Cirrus’s voice grew slightly but noticeably harder and he was gritting his teeth by the end. He paused and composed himself, regaining his usual charming demeanor. “That should be enough, for now,” he said, “go into the final world, retrieve the last lost page, and I’ll tell you everything else you need to know.”
“I look forward to it,” Twilight said levelly as she closed the book on him. She turned away from the alcove with a frustrated noise and Rainbow chuckled.
“He’d fit in with some of those Canterlot ponies, wouldn’t he?” the pegasus said with a wry smile.
“And the Princess wondered why I wasn’t interested in friendship,” Twilight said in a deadpan mutter. “Alright,” she said with some dejection, “I’ve already got a bad taste in my mouth about this, so let’s just get Archeon over with.” She gave the blue page to Rainbow, who took it in her mouth and walked over to the blue book. Twilight sat down next to the fireplace and tried to drive the negative attitudes out of her head while Dash inserted the page and turned to the viewing panel.
“Oh, my dear, dear wonderful friend,” the bearded stallion said, grinning widely as he appeared from the faintly buzzing backdrop of the panel, “You are doing me such a favor. I can almost feel it, the Rzzz-derful freedom from this… this accursed prison.”
“Yeah, yeah, unjustly imprisoned, you’ve told me,” Rainbow said dismissively, “to be honest, I’m starting to wonder about that, given what my friend I have seen in the books.”
“You found the surviving illusions?” Archeon asked, surprised, “I see, I see… You went into my old rooms then? Saw Cirrus’s too I’d imagine. Heh. Hahaha…” His voice grew quiet, almost dreamy as he continued, “Foalish dreams of being a warrior. That’s all. Had to defend myself… I’m not crazy, as Cirrus might lead you to believe. You haven’t been talking to him, have you?” He stared at Rainbow with one eye, the iris unnervingly small. The cyan pegasus flinched back reflexively, not sure how to respond. “Been here too looong,” Archeon moaned, “Let me out.”
“Can I ask a quick question before we go?” Twilight asked, leaning in, “What did you think of Nyx, Star Swi-”
“Master’s daughter?” Archeon asked, cutting her off, “too smart for her own good sometimes, would’ve gotten in far more trouble earlier if we didn’t keep an eye on her. Master didn’t want us going into the illusions without him, but Nyx… Heh heh Zzbz Almost got away with it a few times. Cirrus was jealous of her, he thought Master would pass him over and give Nyx all the secrets alone. I…” He shuddered, and what sanity had been returning to his face as he spoke started to drain away again.
“I think we’ve heard enough for now,” Rainbow said, reaching over and closing the book before Archeon could launch into another round of pleading. “He’s nuttier than a squirrel and Cirrus doesn’t seem trustworthy,” she said, “Who the hay is the better choice?”
“I wish I knew,” Twilight said, “I would’ve gone with Cirrus after we put in the second set of pages, but each world we go to makes it seem more and more like we’re caught between having to choose between Nightmare Moon and Discord with no Elements of Harmony to keep them in check. Actually…” She brought the torn note out of her bag. “If we’re lucky we might have a third option, and there’s always sitting around and hoping for a rescue party…”
“I’m not going to sit,” Dash said with determination as she walked over to the map and started up the tower rotation, “There’s still one more hiding spot to open up, one more world to investigate, and if the pattern holds then it’ll be the one in the last journal.” She glanced down at the books sitting under the map as the tower rotated and then looked over at Twilight. “You’ve explained that one to me already, haven’t you?” she asked, “the one with the frog-people?”
“Yeah, the Forestsea is what they called it,” Twilight said with a nod, “Used to be a vast land, then it sank under the water and is now mostly a bunch of walkways under a village built into the treetops. The natives were extremely hospitable, and Cirrus and Archeon spent a lot of time there… Oh dear…”
“They betrayed Star Swirl,” Dash said pragmatically, opening the passageway behind the bookcase, “If they messed with the frogaloids, it’s be par for the course.”
“Frogaloids?” Twilight echoed bemusedly as the pegasus galloped down the passageway to the elevator. She shook her head at the random naming and started to summon the Forestsea journal over to refresh her memory about Star Swirl’s impressions, only to pause as a new question occurred to her. “The histories are admittedly unreliable about how many students and apprentices Star Swirl had throughout his career,” she mused, “but where’d he find Cirrus and Archeon and why’d he bring the two of them here?” She filed that away for later, figuring she could work the question into the stories she’d be getting from the prisoners in exchange for the next page set, and then opened the Forestsea journal. She’d read only two words before Rainbow Dash came galloping out of the passageway, hit the painting switch to re-open the front door, and pranced impatiently in place waiting for the stone slab to get out of her way. “You ok?” Twilight asked.
“I know what the clue is for!” Rainbow declared happily before dashing out of the library and down the column-lined path.
“Wait up!” Twilight called out, running after the speedy pegasus. Rainbow ran past where the path split to lead to the power station and then turned and ran into the trees on the left. When Twilight caught up, she found Rainbow standing by the marker switch set up by the door of a small log cabin.
“You’re getting faster egghead,” Rainbow said with approval as she pushed the door open and stepped inside.
“Thanks,” Twilight deadpanned as she entered the cabin. Like most every building on the island, the cabin was a one-room affair without windows. The back wall was dominated by a large boiler with a prominent pressure gauge affixed to it. To the left of the boiler was a painting of the base of a tall redwood tree growing out of the cement floor of a brick-walled enclosure and on the right wall was a large red valve wheel. Rainbow Dash was standing to the left of the door, using her wings for balance as she reared up and carefully spun the tumbler dial of a green safe built into the wall. “You know the combination I take it?” Twilight asked.
“Yep,” Rainbow said, spinning the dial to the left, “It’s a simple three-number lock: 33 right, 12 left, and… 20 right. There we go.” She grabbed the handle in her teeth, twisted it to the right with a satisfying “clank,” and pulled the door open while saying “ta-da!” around her grip. Twilight looked inside the safe, raised an eyebrow, and then grabbed the contents in her magic and brought it out for the pegasus to see. It was a box of matches. “Oh,” Rainbow said, looking a little disappointed as she released the handle and settled onto all fours.
“Were you expecting the book or something?” Twilight asked.
“With the way the puzzles work around here? Nah,” Rainbow said, “But, matches? Seriously? If you’re going to put in a safe, at least put something kinda cool in it!”
Twilight chuckled and turned toward the boiler. “It might not be cool,” she said, “but I’m pretty sure I know what we’re supposed to do with them.” She carried the matchbox behind her as she knelt down in front of the boiler and looked into the small square hole in the base. “Ah-ha, pilot light,” she said in triumph. She levitated a match out of the box, struck it, and then held it inside the hole until she saw the pilot light catch. “Now we just turn up the heat,” she said, straightening up and grasping the valve with her magic and turning it. She was a rewarded with brief hiss of gas followed by the faint roar of fire as the pilot light ignited a flame jet underneath the boiler. “And watch the science happen,” Twilight finished her statement as she cranked the gas up to the maximum and sat back.
“And… what is this supposed to do?” Rainbow asked as the needle of the pressure gauge started to quiver and then slowly rotate across the meter.
“We’ll see,” Twilight answered, having absolutely no idea but full confidence in Star Swirl’s design. Her smile grew incrementally in time with the needle’s slow march toward the right side of the gauge, and just as it reached the end it suddenly swung back to zero and began sweeping across the gauge again at a faster pace. In time with the needle’s fall, a sound like a large mechanism releasing, shifting, and then catching again echoed in from outside the cabin. Without even needing to ask or look at each other, the two ponies ran outside and followed the sounds, which repeated every few seconds, to their source: a raised brick enclosure containing a giant redwood, which proceeded to rise several feet out of the ground with a hiss and the clank of ratcheting machinery.
“Twilight,” Rainbow said, staring up at the top of the tree in stunned befuddlement as it rose again, “We’re making the giant tree even taller.”
“That’s not all,” Twilight said, pointing at the base. Rainbow looked down as the tree shot upward again, revealing an alcove carved into the trunk big enough to contain a single pony. The tree continued to rise as the ponies watched, taking the alcove higher and higher until it finally came to a stop just above the normal trees. “I don’t think I saw the book in there,” Twilight said, craning her neck to look up, “did you?”
“I don’t think so,” the pegasus said, “let me double-check.” She flew up and poked her head into the alcove. Other than a magically-glowing crystal lamp in the ceiling and a little button on one side, the space was empty. Rainbow hovered and puzzled about it for a moment before realizing the purpose behind the tree. She dived back to the ground and landed next to Twilight. “The book’s underground,” she said, “you’ll have to ride the tree down, get the book, and bring it up here.”
“You should go down with me,” Twilight said, “We’ll only be in there long enough to use the book. How would I get back up anyway? The controls, if you can call that boiler a control, are in the cabin.”
“Teleport,” Dash said simply, “duh. You’re an expert at that.”
“But… Oh, fine,” Twilight said, rolling her eyes, “go turn off the gas, I’ll be back in a minute or so.” Rainbow nodded and trotted back to the cabin. She turned her gaze up to the alcove, hoping that once the pressure was gone that the piston-tree wouldn’t just drop straight down all at once. Fortunately, once the tree began dropping, it did so in increments, pausing for a few seconds before falling another few feet. This isn’t going to be a fun ride the unicorn thought grimly as the alcove approached. As soon as it reached ground level, Twilight jumped into it and braced herself for the jarring descent. “This is… such a… inconvenient… way to… reach a hiding place and… Oh, over already?” She stepped out of the tree into a room that had been excavated from the dirt and walled with wooden panels. Six tree trunks grew through the room along both walls, and in the center, under the bare lightbulb that provided light to the room, the linking book sat upon a stump. The cover was greenish-grey and the spine was reinforced with a thin layer of tin. It was untitled, but when Twilight opened it to the back page and saw a network of wooden walkways standing above a body of water and weaving between widely-spaced, thick-trunked trees she knew she was looking at the final surviving world from Star Swirl’s library: the Forestsea. Closing the book and putting it in her bag, Twilight heaved a sigh, screwed her eyes shut, and focused on moving herself from her present location to the doorstep of the log cabin. She winked out in a flash of light and reappeared on top of a surprised and briefly grumpy Rainbow Dash. “Heh heh… sorry.”
It was a calm, warm, beautifully humid day, and the Forestsea was buzzing with the sounds of life. Galunk son of Gero paid this no mind as he hopped hurriedly along the walkways spanning the gaps between the joint-huts built around the trunks of the forest’s trees, high above the water. He came to a stop at the entrance of the central gathering hut and took a second to steady his tongue as his fellow survivors turned their eyes upon him curiously. “Down below,” he croaked, pointing with one webbed hand at the rarely-used walkways that wove between the bases of the trees, “god-beings have appeared.”
“The false ones?” Rero son of Riberk asked as he and the others tensed in fear.
“No,” Galunk said, “They are strangers, but they appeared from the air as the false ones and the bell-wearer do. One has a horn and the other has wings.”
“Newcomers,” Riberk, the eldest and acting leader of the tribe’s remnant, mused in a throaty rumble, “Would that we could trust that their intentions are good, but we will not forget the trickery of the false ones.” He stood and pointed at Galunk. “Galunk son of Gero, you understand the speech of god-beings,” he said, “observe these without showing yourself, decide if they are safe. We shall hide beyond the village until you have made your judgement.” Croaking with approval, the froggish tribe cleared out of the hut and vanished into the upper foliage of the trees before Galunk could respond.
“Criiiiiii,” the freshly minted spy trilled in annoyance, “we all understand their language…” The gravity of the situation and his own curiosity didn’t leave him any time or space to gripe more, so he simply turned around and returned to where he had first seen the visitors. Unsurprisingly, they had moved on, and Galunk caught a glimpse of the flyer’s curiously rainbow-striped tail off in the distance before it disappeared behind the windmill-powered pump-house built onto the last piece of dry land in the entire Forestsea.
“So I take it everything here is powered by water,” Rainbow Dash said, hovering to look inside the large metal tank that filled almost the entire right half of the building. A pipe ran along the ceiling overhead, leading from the rotating, windmill-driven pump Twilight Sparkle was checking out on the left side of the wood structure, and terminated above the tank to deposit a constant stream of water. A spill-over pipe was attached near the tank’s rim and led out the back door down to the murky water at the base of the rock, quite close to the pump’s intake pipe. Another pipe was connected with a spigot to the bottom of the tank and followed the curving pathway down to the pier-like walkways, where it turned into a many-forked network that used most of the walkways for support.
“With a set-up like this, I’d be surprised if that weren’t the case,” Twilight said, “Now, considering that the inhabitants of this world were never as advanced as, say, the Fortress or even Baseli, I suspect that this windmill and everything related to it were installed by Star Swirl. Since the locals were built like frogs rather than ponies, they probably had methods of moving up, down, and between trees that most ponies would find too difficult.”
“I doubt I’d have any issues,” Rainbow said smugly as Twilight turned toward the tank and opened the spigot, “and once you’ve got a good look at a place you could just teleport to it, right?”
“Yes, but I have to get there first,” Twilight said with a smile as she left the pump-house and followed the pipe down to the walkways. The pipe was fairly small, but it ran along the middle of the wooden paths, which were just wide enough for Twilight to comfortably walk on in the first place. The unicorn was dead-set on not losing her footing or accidently catching a hoof on the pipe and tripping herself into the water. Considering how the tree trunks flared slightly near the waterline and the comforting stability of the walkways, she didn’t think it was all that deep, but she had no desire to find out, and she’d had more than enough of being wet as it was. She came to a stop at the first fork in the path and glanced up at Rainbow Dash, who was avoiding the entire issue by flying behind her. “Thanks for sticking with me by the way,” Twilight said, “I’m sure you’re curious about the tree-frog village.”
“Hey, somepony has to keep an eye on you in case you fall in,” the pegasus said, “besides, I know you’ll get both of us up in there in no time.”
“I’ll do my best,” Twilight said with some modesty, “It’s just a matter of leading the water in the right direction.” She looked down at the flow valve, a simple lever she’d seen on every fork in the piping she and Rainbow had passed between their arrival point and the pump-house. She noted that the flow was presently aimed toward the right-hoof fork and looked in that direction to see where it might lead. There was another fork about fifteen feet away, but the trees blocked off her view of where those paths led. The left-hoof path was a similar story, although she could see a bit farther down the left-side option of the next junction. “Let’s see where the water’s going now,” she concluded, heading to the right, “and we’ll go from there.”
“Right behind you,” Rainbow said.
Curious, Galunk thought as he slowly swam through the water beneath the god-beings’s feet, the sounds of his slow strokes blending perfectly with the lap of natural waves against the walkway pylons. These newcomers were presenting quite a paradox at the moment. On the one hand, they obviously knew of the bell-wearing god-being, the horned one having mentioned his true name, but she had spoken of him in a distant manner as if they had never met. Galunk had been barely old enough to climb on his own when Star Swirl had come to replace the last of the original god-beings, but he did recall some of what the bell-wearer and the sly and charming false ones had said about their ability to enter and leave the Forestsea by using magic books which they guarded closely. These new god-beings had appeared in the same manner, shimmering into existence from the very air itself. How could they have done so, Galunk wondered, without meeting the others?
They certainly didn’t know much about where the water in the pipes was meant to go. Galunk lowered himself in the water until little more than his eyes and an ear broke the surface and smiled in amusement as they reached one of the rare dead-ends in the network and the purple god-being’s face appeared over the edge of the walkway glaring curiously at the pipe turning off the planks and down into the water. “I don’t think this is going to do us any good,” she said, “What’s the point?”
“Don’t look at me,” the flyer’s voice said, moving back toward the last fork in the path, “I didn’t design this place.”
“Wait. Hold on,” the purple one said over the sound of her hooves shuffling awkwardly on the planks, “This place was definitely not designed for ponies – whoop!” One hoof slid off the edge of the walkway and Galunk began to fear he would need to reveal his presence if she fell, but she managed to catch herself and the hoof slid back out of his sight. “I envy your wings so much right now Rainbow,” she groused, trotting away.
“You should try to levitate yourself Twilight,” Rainbow called from the junction as Galunk swam toward it, “It can’t be too hard for a pony like you, can it?”
“The only times I’ve been able to pick myself off the ground is when we were using the Elements of Harmony,” Twilight answered as she reached her friend, “I certainly have the magical strength to lift my own weight, but self-levitation takes a whole lot more than that.” There was a brief shifting sound as the water was redirected to another path, and the clopping of hooves resumed as Twilight followed the gurgling pipe. After another gentle turn, the walkway terminated at the base of a tree and Galunk risked a glance to confirm the location: the only permanent climbing spot linking the water level to the main village halfway up the trees. A wooden gate, locked from the inside, blocked access to a staircase made of carved wood which spiraled around the trunk a good three times before reaching the village.
“Well, it’s a way up,” Rainbow said dubiously.
“In theory at least,” Twilight said, eyeing the spiral with what seemed to be distaste, “It looks like there’s an elevator or something up there with it…” Her gaze came down and Galunk ducked his head back under the pier. “Ok,” the lavender being said after a brief pause, “the pipe stops at this contraption, which has a cable reaching up to the elevator. That probably means this is the elevator’s motor and it needs flowing water to operate. Rainbow, fly up and see if you can bring it down for me. There’s a better chance of finding Cirrus and Archeon’s places up there than on this level.” Galunk tensed, fighting back the urge to sputter as he inhaled some water the wrong way. Flying god-beings, and the elevators, moved faster than he could free-climb the trees, and trying to use the stairs would only expose him.
Fortunately, Rainbow’s response made him relax and realize how foolish he was. “I dunno Twi,” the flyer said, “it doesn’t look like the elevator’s facing the right way, and it wouldn’t end up next to the walkway if it did come down here.”
“Good point,” Twilight said in agreement, “well, there’s still plenty of pipeline to follow. Once I get turned –whoa!” There was a short grunt of effort from Rainbow followed shortly by the light thud of hooves on the wood. “Thanks Rainbow,” Twilight said, and then she trotted away. Galunk let her go, waiting until the clopping was fading into the distance before peeking out. Both of the god-beings were out of sight, so he clambered up onto the walkway and then hopped over the gate and ran in a four-legged gallop up the stairs. He needed every second he could get to prepare before the brightly colored creatures found their way up to the middle level.
Two rights after taking a left at the first split in the pipeline, the ponies located and delivered power to an elevator hanging patiently at the end of a pier. It was built entirely of wood and sized perfectly for pony use, allowing Twilight to comfortably turn around and face the door after entering. “See you at the top,” she said to Rainbow before closing the door and pulling on the only lever in the structure. With the click of a releasing catch, the water-powered winch started up and the elevator rose at a quick but comfortable pace. When it came to a stop, Twilight stepped out and found herself on a wide wooden platform built between a trio of trees. Above her was another triangular frame supporting the upper pulley of the elevator, which Rainbow Dash was currently perched on as she scanned the area. In front of the elevator was a rope and plank bridge leading to the next closest tree, around which had been built an open-sided hut of sorts. Similar huts were visible in the distance, along with a few enclosed square structures held up by closely-grouped trees. Bridges spanned the gaps between the huts and at least one of their neighbors.
“I don’t see any movement,” Rainbow reported, fluttering down from her perch, “Doesn’t look like those frogaloids of yours are around.”
“‘My’ frogaloids?” Twilight asked, quirking an eyebrow, “are you doubting their existence?”
“No,” Rainbow said, “I’m just saying that they’re gone now. You said it yourself, this place isn’t built for ponies. Earth ponies wouldn’t live so high off the ground, Pegasi would just use clouds, and unicorns… at least they’d make it easy to turn around whenever you wanted.” Twilight gave her an odd look and she rolled her eyes. “You have to admit unicorns have a thing for living in odd places Twilight,” she said, “Canterlot’s built into the side of a mountain for pete’s sake. Star Swirl created an entire alternate reality to live in. And you live in a tree,” she added as a cheeky afterthought. Twilight failed to fight back an amused snort.
“Ok, fair enough I suppose,” the unicorn said, “Let’s go get a closer look at these huts.” Her smile faded as she walked onto the bridge. “See what Cirrus and Archeon did to the poor frogs,” she finished her thought dully.
The huts were unremarkably uniform and empty at first glance. On occasion Twilight and Rainbow would find a table with a couple small clay jars in the round huts, and the first square building had some wooden bowls on a table, but that seemed to be the extent of the furnishings and decorations. “Do you think they just took everything?” Dash wondered.
“They who?” Twilight asked, heading toward the exit.
The pegasus shrugged. “Cirrus and Archeon stealing stuff, the frogaloids taking it with them when they ran, if they ran away. It’s all the same in the end, isn’t it?” Twilight considered that and nodded slowly after a moment. “I kinda wish there was some sort of sign of what those two jerks did to this place,” Rainbow said, “This is all… too clean.”
“Good point” Twilight said slowly, coming to a stop in the middle of the bridge. She looked over the railing down at the water below. “How high would you say we are?” she asked, “Sixty feet? Seventy?”
“I’d guess sixty-eight,” Rainbow said.
“I’m not really scared of heights,” Twilight said, shifting her attention to the ropes forming the guard rails and holding the bridge together, “but everything up here is so secure I’m not even thinking twice about how high up I am. This village, no, everything we’ve seen here is in incredibly good shape for being abandoned.”
“Maybe time doesn’t flow here?” Rainbow suggested, “Like Aitran, maybe?”
“Maybe,” Twilight said, thinking as she started walking again, “but Star Swirl’s journal seemed to imply that Cirrus and Archeon did some growing up here, and how can you age if time doesn’t move for you? And even if this world is time-locked, I don’t think that protect these building materials from things like rot, mold or exposure to the elements.”
“Well,” Rainbow said with finality, “whatever the reason is, I’m glad for it. The less I have to worry about you being safe, the more I can focus on the important stuff.” After some consideration, Twilight decided not to call Rainbow out on the way she’d worded that declaration and focused instead on continuing the exploration of the empty tree village. Within a few minutes, the ponies found themselves on the platform at the top of the winding staircase. Rainbow looked at the elevator hanging next to the tree and then followed its cable up with her eyes. “I think I get it,” she said, “this one just goes up to the next level. Wait here; I’ll send the water this way.” Twilight nodded and sat down as the pegasus spread her wings and flew away.
Once Rainbow had disappeared from sight, something big landed on the platform behind Twilight. Startled, Twilight looked over her shoulder and then jumped about a foot in the air with a frightened shriek at the sight of a giant frog glaring daggers at her. It was a bit shorter than her as it stood upon all fours, its front limbs slender and shorter than the powerful-looking rear legs, all ending in five-toed webbed feet. Its smooth, slick-looking skin was light brown mottled with dark green splotches. One particularly large splotch covered most of its wide-mouthed head, and yellow-rimmed eyes bulged from the top of its skull. “Galunk,” it said as Twilight came back down onto the platform and turned to face it.
“Hello,” Twilight said with a nervous smile, “sorry about the screaming. You just surprised me. My name is Twilight Sparkle.”
“Galunk,” the frog repeated, its face inscrutable.
“Do… do you understand what I’m saying?” Twilight asked. The frog nodded, its gaze never leaving her face. “Oh, that’s good,” Twilight said, mildly surprised, “do you live here?” The frog nodded. “Are there others?” The frog blinked slowly a few times before nodding. Before Twilight could ask another question, the frog opened its mouth and asked one of its own.
“Waaai ooouu eeeaar?”
“Come again?” Twilight inquired, tilting her head slightly.
“Waai oouu,” the frog pointed at her, “c’uuuumm,” he made a beckoning gesture with both hands, “eeearrrr?” he pointed down at the platform in front of him.
“Huh? Oh, oh!” Twilight said, comprehension dawning on her face, “My friend and I are just trying to find a way to go home. There are a couple of… things we need to find here. They’re probably up there,” she pointed up to the structures in the trees above them, “Can we go look?”
“Hey Twilight,” Rainbow called out, returning from her task, “cool, you found one of the frogaloids!”
“Galunk,” the frog said, a tone of insistence in its voice.
“Galunk,” the pegasus said in imitation, “is that your name or something?” The frog nodded.
“I was just asking him if it was ok for us to head up,” Twilight explained, and then leaned close to her friend and muttered, “I don’t think he trusts us very much. Cirrus and Archeon must’ve left a very bad image of ponies.”
“G’g’oooh,” Galunk said, pointing past Twilight to the elevator and then upward, “lerrrrn.”
“Thank you,” Twilight said, turning around to open and step into the elevator booth. The booth shook slightly as Galunk hopped up on top of it just before Twilight pulled the lever to start the ride. There seemed to be some hesitation as the winch mechanism pulled against the combined weight of elevator car, unicorn, and frogaloid, but as soon as Twilight noticed it the elevator was rising toward the tops of the flooded forest’s tallest trees. They were pulled up into a gap in a receiving platform that lead to a long bridge leading off to both the left and right. Galunk jumped off the elevator before it came to a stop and took up a position on the bridge while Twilight stepped out and Rainbow alighted next to her on the platform.
Galunk stared impassively at Twilight and Rainbow for a few seconds as they approached him, and then pointed to his right and said, “Eeer’us.” The ponies looked and saw a large wooden hut with an artfully carved door. Galunk then pointed the other way and croaked out, “Rrrr’kun.” The bridge turned slightly around a tree in that direction before reaching to a small hut made of dark wood that gave the impression of a lurking beast.
Twilight shared a glance with Rainbow while she puzzled out Galunk’s words. “Cirrus and Archeon, is that what you’re trying to tell us?” she asked at last, “Those are their… places?” Galunk nodded.
“I say we do Cirrus’s first,” Rainbow said.
“Why not?” Twilight said, stepping out onto the bridge, “That’ll make us consistent at least.” Galunk moved out of the way and sat down, apparently content to let the ponies go on their own for the moment. Rainbow flew behind Twilight as they approached the hut and looked it over. The sturdy door carved with the detailed image of a rearing pegasus pony was certainly the highlight, but the entire building was a few cuts above the village below. The interior, while quite modestly furnished compared to Cirrus’s other rooms, still maintained the pattern of being overly elegant for the locale. Not that it would be hard to beat old tables and some pottery, Twilight thought sardonically. A bed filled the back left corner of the room, with two drawers built into the base, two small, single-drawer desks on opposite sides of the room, and some sitting cushions and empty green bottles were scattered about. On the closer of the desks sat a plate with a block of yellow cheese with some unappetizing-looking spots of mold on it.
“That’s gross,” Rainbow said, wrinkling her nose at the cheese as she opened the drawer and looked inside, “and this is empty.” She trotted over to the other desk while Twilight pulled open the drawers under the bed. In the right one she found more green glass bottles and a piece of white paper that had been torn along its left side.
“…T of Aitran,” she read, one eyebrow going up as she read down the page, “…’hidden vault is very easy…’ Can this really be the other half?”
“Found the red page,” Rainbow announced before grabbing the paper out of the second desk. Twilight glanced over just long enough to take the page in her magic and then stashed it away as she searched through her bag. “What are you looking for?” the pegasus asked.
“This,” Twilight said, pulling out the torn note she’d found in Baseli. She put it up next to the note half she’d just found and grinned when the tears matched up perfectly. She skimmed over the complete note quickly and then put it away saying, “We’ll deal with it after we get back to Aitran. Let’s go look over Archeon’s room, shall we?”
“Do you really think we should bother?” Rainbow asked, “To be honest, at this point I think I’d prefer releasing Cirrus instead of Archeon. He may be a slimy self-righteous jerk, but at least he’s predictable.”
“While that may be true,” Twilight said, “Archeon has given us some good information we would never have gotten from Cirrus. By returning these pages to both of them, we’ll hopefully earn the full account of their version of events.”
“All right,” Rainbow sighed, “Let’s get this over with.”
“My thoughts exactly,” Twilight assured as she followed the pegasus out of the hut and across the bridge toward where Galunk sat waiting for them.
“C’uuumm,” the giant brown frog said, gesturing for the ponies to follow as he hopped toward the small, dark building in the distance. A roofed porch led around the side of the building, but Galunk barred the way with his body and pointed at the door, which to Twilight’s surprise was made of metal. The unicorn grasped the latch in her magic and pushed the door open to allow Rainbow Dash, who was still in front of her, to step through first. Twilight followed her in, and then Galunk squeezed in behind the pair and slunk around to the back side of the room as the ponies gaped at the freaky-looking altar crowned with sharp metal teeth. In the air above the altar, a larger-than-life image of Archeon’s face appeared and made a short speech in a strange guttural language composed mostly of ribbits and croaking.
“That was… odd,” Twilight said as the illusion faded.
“Criiiiiii,” Galunk trilled, glaring at the altar. Rainbow Dash leaned her head forward to take a closer look at the metal top of the altar, only to meet Galunk’s hand as he quickly pushed her away, shaking his head. “Deeaafff,” he said ominously. Seeing the confused looks Twilight and Dash were giving him, he took one of the large wooden tribal masks down from the wall and dropped it onto the altar. The girls jumped back in fright as the metal teeth suddenly slammed together, revealing themselves to be part of a spring-powered trap that nearly bit the mask in half before retracting. Galunk tossed the ruined mask to the side and looked at the stunned ponies with his usual unreadable expression.
“Wh… why would…?” Twilight stammered after a moment, unable to complete the thought even in her mind.
“C’uumm,” the frog said, turning around and opening a door in the back wall, “Rrr’kun roooom.”
“This isn’t…” Twilight began, and then looked around. “No, I guess this wouldn’t be his actual room…” Giving the deadly altar a wide berth, the unicorn walked around to the back of the room. Her movement broke Rainbow out of her shock and the pair followed Galunk outside and onto a new bridge. This one led to another hut that looked like it had seen far better days. There were holes in the roof, wide gaps in the walls, and the double doors were ineffectually held closed by a rusted and broken padlock. Galunk opened the doors and then swung himself over the rope railing, hanging on the outside to wait for Twilight and Rainbow to head inside. Twilight took one look through the doors and then glanced back at Rainbow. “I don’t know if I trust this thing to hold up under my weight,” she said.
“I gotcha,” the pegasus said. She took flight and fluttered into the hut, looking around. The first thing she noticed was that several floorboards were missing or broken, providing a clear view of the support beams and the long drop through the trees below. To the right of the door was a long metal table with restraints connected to it and covered with tools that the pegasus didn’t want to think too much about. A bundle of thick sharped sticks leaned up against the back wall. At the left end of the room, the floor was in slightly better shape, judging by the fact that the empty bedframe looked fairly stable in its corner. The blue page was laying on the floor in front of a short round podium-like device. On the top was a circular glass lens over a blue crystal, and four buttons sat in a line below the lens. The leftmost button was depressed, but it popped up when Rainbow hit the one next to it. The crystal lit up and Archeon’s face appeared in the lens. After the image stabilized, it began to speak in the croaking frogaloid language, sounding slightly angry. After the short speech ended, the image faded away and Rainbow hit the third button, getting another, condescending-sounding speech from Archeon. “So, what, he was suddenly too good to speak to them directly?” Rainbow asked sarcastically, pressing the fourth button.
To her surprise, the face that appeared this time wasn’t Archeon’s – it was Cirrus. The goatee-wearing pony looked slightly amused as he started to speak. “Such an interesting device you have here. I hope I haven’t erased anything… important? Hahaha.” He suddenly became serious and his face grew larger in the image – probably due to leaning closer to whatever had recorded the message. “He is coming,” Cirrus said, “It is time, my would-be brother. Remember, take only a single page.” The face pulled back as the image faded away.
“That’s not at all suspicious,” Dash said flatly. She looked down at the blue page, pursed her lips in thought, and then sighed and picked it up. “‘Ere you go,” she said as she fluttered out of the hut and gave the page to Twilight to keep, “Now, where’s the exit?”
“G’oowwwn,” Galunk said, pointing downward before inching along the side of the bridge and flipping back onto it. He gestured for the ponies to follow him as he hopped back toward the elevator.
“I think I saw one of the square-ish buildings that wasn’t linked to the rest of the village,” Twilight said as they walked in Galunk’s wake, “There’s probably another elevator attached to it, but…”
“Just point me in the right direction,” Rainbow said, grinning.
“Archeon and I were orphans,” Cirrus said. After returning to Aitran, Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash had agreed to question the book-trapped stallions before discussing anything else. “My own parents perished during the Days of Chaos. I’m not wholly sure why Star Swirl chose me, a pegasus, and Archeon, an earth pony, as wards and apprentices, but I think it may have been partly political – a show of unity between the races or something. He treated us like sons, promised to try and teach us everything he knew about Writing new worlds once we were old enough. We came to live on Aitran so Master Star Swirl could devote himself to the work of creating and exploring the worlds, and shortly thereafter he brought Clover to join us as his wife.
“Archeon has us all fooled. Once he and I were old enough to be trusted with traveling on our own, he began to exploit and terrorize the inhabitants of many worlds, subtly at first so that he would not be caught, but growing more and more deranged as time went by. I tried to reason with him, but to no avail. Finally, Star Swirl left on an extended trip to another world and Archeon’s insanity reached its peak. Little Nyx, Star Swirl’s pride and joy… vanished without a trace. She probably discovered what he was doing…
“Now, I should tell you, even with the freedom Star Swirl gave to me and Archeon, there were certain books which he withheld. The red and blue books we are trapped in now are just two of them, and the most… deceptive of the lot.” He scowled for a second before recomposing his calm façade. “Archeon tricked Clover into entering another of the forbidden books,” he said, “After that, his derangement reached its zenith, burning book after book. Worst of all, when Master Star Swirl returned, Archeon attempted to pin the blame upon me, and he condemned us both to these prison books, but not before Archeon committed a final treachery, mortally wounding the old stallion. You must have seen for yourself, the evidence for my would-be brother’s violence and insanity. Do not release him from his book; he will only turn on you.
“Now,” the dusky blue stallion said, “to the business at hand. The final page separating me from my freedom lies within this very library.”
“Horse feathers,” Dash scoffed, “we’ve searched every nook and cranny of this place. There was only the one page we found sitting next to you when we first got here.”
“Did you look in the nook behind the fireplace?” Cirrus asked, quirking an eyebrow and smirking as Rainbow’s face fell, “I thought not. On the bookcase, on the far right of the middle shelf if I recall right, you’ll find a book that is only slightly singed. In it you will find many patterns. Put pattern number one hundred thirty three onto the panel inside the fireplace and you will be taken to the hidden nook. In there, you will find the final red page. You’ll probably also find a blue page, but do not take it. You will also find a green book. If you believe nothing else from me, believe this: that book is a trap like mine. Do not open it, do not even touch it, or you will be pulled into it and trapped like me. Remember: pattern one thirty-three. None of the others will work.”
“Got it,” Twilight said before closing the book. She shared a glance with Rainbow, and then pulled out the blue page and walked over to Archeon’s book.
“I was living on the streets when the Master found me and took me in,” Archeon said after being prompted for his story, “He brought in Cirrus at the same time, and I knew in my gut from the start that he was trouble. Born to a high-ranking pegasus family, I wouldn’t doubt. Such superior airs he began to put on as we grew up… He was a perfect little apprentice when Master had his eye on him of course, but once we were given free rein to visit the illusions he began to slither his way into positions of power among the figures that played out around us, moving like the slimy snake he is to squeeze as many riches and fine things as he could out of them. And he was jealous, oh so very jealous of Nyx and how smart she was becoming. He probably would have turned on me if he’d seen me as a threat to his advancement in Master’s eyes. His greed isn’t limited to the material you know. He wants power, fame, prestige.
“Nyx caught on to Cirrus while Master was away for some experiment in another illusion. Cirrus forced Nyx into a forbidden book, and then fooled Ms. Clover into going after her with no means of returning. Then, feeling free from any restraint, he ransacked the illusions until he grew bored, and then burned the books behind him. I tried, but I couldn’t get him to stop. When the Master returned, the snake tried to tell him that I was the culprit! Master almost saw through the ruse, but decided to punish both of us with imprisonment. It would’ve been temporary, but… Cirrus poisoned the Master, venomous-”
“Archeon,” Twilight said with concern, “You know Cirrus isn’t actually a snake, right?”
The bearded dun pony stopped and stared blankly for a second. “I need to get out of here,” he muttered at last, and then raised his voice back to normal, “You see what this is doing to me? Listen, one more page is left. It’s behind the fireplace. Go the bookshelf, on the far right in the middle there is a book with patterns in it. Use pattern one thirty-three on the panel inside the fireplace to reach the last page. Take the blue one, not the red. Cirrus does not deserve to be freed. There’s also a book a there, a green book. Do not open it. No, don’t even touch it! It is trapped like this book that holds me; it will do the same to you if you touch it. Please, please free me! I’m so close…” Twilight simply nodded as she closed the book on him.
“All right,” she said, heading over to the bookcase, “Right end of the middle shelf…” She tapped the book in question with her hoof a couple times, and when it didn’t crumple into ashes she pulled it out with her magic. The edges were blackened, but the volume was solidly intact. The brown cover was marked only by a square made of four smaller squares. Twilight opened it to a random page and found a pattern of small squares set into a grid six squares tall by eight wide. A quick flip through the book revealed more patterns of the same type. With a satisfied nod, Twilight closed the book and then reached up to press the painting-switch to open the secret passageway.
“Where are you going?” Rainbow asked.
“Down to the home,” Twilight answered, tapping a hoof patiently while the bookcase formed into stairs, “We’ve got a lot of information to sort through, and I don’t know about you, but I’m hungry.” The pegasus’s stomach rumbled and Twilight gave her a small smile before beckoning down the passageway with a tilt of her head.
While Rainbow Dash took charge of scavenging through the pantry, Twilight made full use of the table in the sitting room, setting out the three journals (discounting the one still stuck in the rocket), what notes had survived the adventure up to this point, the torn note regarding the hidden vault, and some odds and ends borrowed from the sleeping quarters to symbolize certain things. She held Nyx’s empty diary in her magic as she jotted down fresh notes in it, making connections wherever she could find them. The sudden introduction of a large bowl of salad into the middle of her system brought the unicorn back to reality and she looked up to see Rainbow Dash taking a seat across the table from her with a salad of her own.
“Start talking egghead,” the cyan pegasus said, “This affects me as much as you, so I want to get my two bits in.”
Twilight took a few bites of her food to buy time to decide on a starting point, and then said, “Right now, we have two versions of what happened, with the only fundamental differences between them being who is at fault. Cirrus claims that his collections of expensive-looking stuff are due to a healthy love of fine things and wanting to live in comfort, and that Archeon is a sadistic monster who ravaged and destroyed the book-worlds for giggles. Archeon says he was merely preparing for his own defense against attacks by others, and Cirrus is at fault for stripping the worlds of their wealth and destroying the remnant.”
“Archeon never called those places ‘worlds,’” Rainbow said, “He always used the word ‘illusion.’ He doesn’t think they really exist. Isn’t that a bit odd considering he lived here for so long?”
“It certainly is,” Twilight replied with a nod, “and when we bring all the evidence together- the things he kept in his rooms, those sea charts in Baseli, and that ‘altar’ in the Forestsea…” She shuddered. “He may believe his own story, but he was certainly not a sane pony before he wound up in that book.”
“Cirrus wasn’t a great guy either,” Rainbow said, “I’m pretty sure Arcy was telling the truth about Cirrus being jealous of Nyx. Did you notice how hard it was for him to even say her name without losing his cool?”
“But it was Archeon who gave us an actual explanation for Nyx’s disappearance,” Twilight said, “So either Cirrus doesn’t actually know what happened to her, or he was trying to cover his tracks by being vague.” They both fell silent for a few moments as they ate and thought.
“You know,” Rainbow said at last, “We might be on the wrong track, trying to pin the blame on just one of them. I mean, if only one of them was bad, why didn’t the good one do more to stop them? Also, there was a machine in Archeon’s Forestsea room, which I think was meant to control the illusion above the altar. It had a message on it from Cirrus though. He said ‘He is coming. It is time, my would-be brother. Remember, take only a single page.’ I bet they were in cahoots with one another.”
“I’ve been leaning toward that myself,” Twilight said, lifting up the torn note, “half of this was found in Archeon’s territory and the other half was in Cirrus’s. This vault it talks about was important enough for them to try and obscure its location and use, but they didn’t want to risk forgetting how to get at it. However,” she dropped the note with a sigh, “even if they’re both bad ponies, we’re going to have to take a risk on one of them soon unless Princess Celestia gets a rescue party to us.”
“Could we let them both out?” Rainbow pondered, “If they have each other to deal with…”
“They’ll be twice as likely to turn on us,” Twilight said, getting up from her seat, “Between the two of us, we can probably handle one shifty or insane pony, but not a pair who have a history of working together. So the question is, Cirrus or Archeon?”
“I wish it could be neither,” Rainbow said dully, getting up as well, “I can’t stand liars and back-stabbers. I’ll leave it up to you Twilight, I’m sure you’ll make the most logical choice.”
“Ok,” Twilight said hesitantly. Will the logical choice be the right though? she thought as she grabbed the pattern book and led the way back up to the library.
Neither Twilight nor Rainbow had paid the large green-brick fireplace much thought after their first look around the library, but now it was the most important wall in the building. It looked like it had been built behind the wall, with an arch carved into the wood paneling to expose it. The mantel itself was framed with white stone and was big enough for Twilight to walk through, although she had to duck her head pretty low to do so. The interior was more than adequately sized for her to turn around and for her to hold the pattern book open next to her, and there was no flue to prevent her from standing upright. In fact, there was no chimney, as Twilight remembered Rainbow mentioning previously. Above her head was only a ceiling and a dark light bulb. Looking back down at the entrance, she spotted a red switch on one side and hit it. A silvery-grey panel slid down to cover the exit and the light turned on, focused on the panel. I guess this is what they were talking about, Twilight thought, but how does it work? There were no buttons, sliders, or any markings on the panel; it was just a solid sheet of metal. Twilight gave it a tap with her hoof and a small square suddenly jutted out with a springing noise. “Well ok then,” Twilight said, pressing the square. It sprang back, leaving the panel surface flat and unmarred again. Satisfied that she’d figured out the mechanisms involved, Twilight opened the book to the hundred and thirty-third pattern and set to work copying it onto the panel.
Once the pattern was formed to her satisfaction, Twilight closed the book and waited. After a second of nothing happening, she frowned, opened the book back up, and double-checked her work. “Either I got this wrong somehow, they gave me the wrong pattern, or I have to do one more thing,” she mused, scratching her head, “What would Rainbow do?” Her eye fell on the red switch and, with a shrug, hit it again. The light went out, and the panel, the floor, and part of the wall behind her all rotated in a half-circle. The light switched back on and the panel slid up out of sight, presenting Twilight with a small alcove with two shelves. The bottom shelf held the red and blue pages, and on the top shelf sat a green book. “Ok,” Twilight said, licking her lips nervously, “here we are Twilight, decision time. Do we release the slimy, calculating Cirrus, or Archeon the sociopath? Do either of them even know how to get to Equestria from here?” The question gave her pause. She hadn’t even wanted to consider that option, but now she couldn’t help it. She had never explicitly asked Archeon if he knew of a way, and she wasn’t sure Rainbow had either. Cirrus had refused to give her a straight answer on the subject, but he’d put a lot of effort into sounding like a pony of his word. If Twilight had to be honest with herself, she could easily see the dusky blue pegasus sweet-talking his way into or out of anything he wanted to. And yet he got trapped in a book, she finished, driving that line of thought out of the spotlight. It was a gamble, and the odds didn’t seem to be in her favor.
Twilight’s eyes drifted up to the green book. While the two stallion’s stories had shared the same basic framework, there were only a few details that they had absolutely agreed upon, besides insisting that the other was wholly in the wrong. The first detail had been the pattern that had brought her to this point, which made sense considering they both stood to benefit from telling the truth about it. The second detail had been that Star Swirl’s wife Clover had been trapped in a forbidden book, although whether it was a trap-book or a link to a dangerous world they hadn’t said. Although Archeon mentioned that she hadn’t taken a way out with her, Twilight thought, probably meaning an Aitran book. Detail three was that Star Swirl was dead, although the means of his death weren’t consistent. The final detail, and the only other one that was totally consistent between the two, was that the green book was not to be opened or touched.
“That is curious,” Twilight reasoned aloud, “While it obviously wouldn’t do them any good for their potential liberator to end up trapped like them, no book I’ve run into warps you anywhere by touching the outside. And I’m pretty sure it has to be physical contact anyway.” She smirked as she wrapped the green book in her telekinesis magic and gave it a light upward push. The book slowly floated up from its spot, already marking itself as different from the red and blue books, which were magically bound to their alcoves. Still erring on the side of caution, Twilight floated the book closer and opened it with her magic to the first page. The pages were white and written upon with solid black ink, in Old Equestrian characters written in a painstakingly geometric style that filled the entire page with almost no margins. Twilight started to read the words out of reflex, but then caught herself with a wry smile and flipped to the back page. The linking panel sat in its usual place filling up half of the final page, and the image it showed left Twilight’s jaw hanging. It was not the roiling, hissing void that had alternately backed and covered Cirrus and Archeon, but stone-walled room containing a large desk covered in books, loose papers, writing implements, and equipment Twilight couldn’t identify. Twilight’s attention was held by the pony standing behind the desk: a grey unicorn with a long flowing beard wearing a distinctive blue robe with a matching pointed hat that had bells sewn around the rim and a single bell weighing down the tip. He had been focused on writing something, but after a second, he looked up and his blue eyes widened in surprise behind his half-moon spectacles.
Twilight Sparkle couldn’t believe her eyes. It was him. Against all logic and laws of pony mortality, it was “Star Swirl the Bearded?!”
The bearded unicorn frowned at the lavender mare’s exclamation, but his blue eyes twinkled as he said, “No, I highly doubt that you are Star Swirl the Bearded, seeing as I am Star Swirl the Bearded.”
Twilight blushed and chuckled nervously. “S-sorry,” she said, dropping her gaze, “My name is Twilight Sparkle. I wasn’t expecting to see you here.”
“I could easily say the same Twilight Sparkle,” Star Swirl said, smirking, “Where did you come from anyway? Oh, do I have questions for you, and I’m sure you have a lot of questions for me as well.”
“Yes sir,” Twilight said, reaching a hoof toward the linking panel, “Why don’t I-”
“No!” Star Swirl shouted, holding up a hoof, “Don’t. Touch. That linking panel. There’s no way back to Aitran from here. I presume you are on Aitran Island of course.”
“We are,” Twilight said, “and speaking of ‘we,’ I should show you to Rainbow Dash before we continue. Just a moment.” She closed the book, looked around, and then opened it again. “Um, how do I get out of the fireplace?” she asked.
“Simple,” Star Swirl said, “just activate the panel again and the whole mechanism will reset.” Twilight nodded and hit the red switch on her left. The metal panel - now clear of the pattern of squares that had given her access to the hidden alcove - dropped back down and the room rotated a hundred and eighty degrees. Another tap of the switch sent the panel back up and Twilight crawled out into the main room of the library, the green book and the book of patterns trailing behind in her magic.
“What did you decide?” Rainbow Dash asked from her spot in the middle of the floor.
“I went with the third option,” Twilight said, holding the green book up while sending the pattern book back to its place on the main bookcase. When Rainbow gave her a quizzical look, she went over and sat down next to her before opening the green book to the linking panel. “Rainbow Dash,” she said, “Meet Star Swirl the Bearded. Master Star Swirl, this is my friend Rainbow Dash.”
“A pleasure,” the scholarly unicorn said, bowing his head.
“Aren’t you supposed to be dead?” Rainbow asked bluntly.
“Rainbow!” Twilight hissed.
“I take it you’ve encountered Cirrus and Archeon?” Star Swirl asked flatly, raising one thick eyebrow.
“We have,” Twilight said, “but… well, it’s been a long time since anypony’s heard from you. Nearly a thousand years in fact.”
“Is that so?” Star Swirl glanced down and levitated a large fob watch from somewhere behind the desk. He looked at it for a few seconds and then said, “Well, unless this is broken, it’s only been a week for me since I got stuck in here.”
“So, this book is a trap?” Rainbow asked, scooting back a little.
“Not by design,” Star Swirl said, setting the watch down, “not by my design anyway.” He sighed and his ears drooped. “If you’ve spoken with Cirrus and Archeon, then you’ve been given some false information about me and my family. It’s a hard tale to tell, but let me set the record straight, so far as I know it.”
“I won’t bore you with the details of how I discovered the secret of Writing gateways to other realities, but suffice it to say I made an enemy or two along the way. I designed Aitran as a place of retreat, where I could hide and protect crucial books, only for it to turn into a permanent home out of necessity. My dear Clover and I were engaged in trapping a particularly dangerous foe of ours in another world, and Aitran was the last escape route he could have used. Of course, I’d also lived through the Wendigo Winter and the resulting Great Migration, the Days of Chaos, and the banishment of Princess Celestia’s sister Luna. Retiring from life in Equestria sounded pretty good after all that.”
“I can imagine,” Twilight said, “My friends and I have faced and restored Luna to normal, and dealt with Discord breaking free.”
“Dear heavens…” Star Swirl said in amazement, “Time really has gotten away from me then. Never mind that though. Let’s continue.
“While Clover was handling the early phases of fighting our enemy, I adopted Cirrus and Archeon as apprentices. I chose them, a pegasus and an earth pony, to see if it were possible for non-unicorns to learn the art of Writing. I raised them on Aitran, and after we had fully trapped out enemy in his world-prison, Clover joined us. We seemed to be such a happy family, and the boys were always so excited to visit new worlds with me. Once they were old enough I gave them free access to my library. But… I don’t know how I missed the signs. I returned from a long journey gathering crystals I needed for a project to find that my wife and daughter, Nyx, were gone and my books had been destroyed. At first I feared that my enemy had found a book I had missed, but as I investigated and secured the surviving books I learned the truth. Cirrus and Archeon, both of them were tearing the worlds apart in any way they could and then burned the books, the only means I had of reaching them and trying to fix the damage. When I finally caught up to them, they tried to overpower me, telling me that Clover and Nyx were lost in another world but not saying which… I couldn’t bring myself to harm them, despite all that they had done, and so I tricked them. I had never told them the purpose for the Red and Blue books; I designed them to be temporary holding cells for my enemy or greedy explorers who might find their way to Aitran. I pretended to capitulate and the boys took the bait, trapping themselves. I removed six pages from each book and hid them in the places you’ve undoubtedly retrieved them from, rooms that would serve as a reminder of their actions once I felt ready to make a judgment. After hiding the final pages, I came here to my private study to ponder and attempt to discover where Clover and Nyx had gone. Then, I discovered that my ‘apprentices’ had left one last surprise for me.” He picked a book up from the desk and held it out so Twilight and Rainbow could see the cover. It was an Aitran linking book. He opened it to the back page to show that the linking panel was nothing but a solid black rectangle. “My Books are written with meticulous formulae,” the bearded unicorn explained, “if a single character is out of place, the link will not take you where it should. Damage or remove enough of the text, and the link breaks entirely.”
“So that’s what Cirrus’s message meant,” Rainbow said, “He had Archeon tear a page out of that book, didn’t he?”
“I am missing a page, yes,” Star Swirl said, “unless it is found and restored to its place, I’m trapped here.”
“How could he have left there himself after taking the page though?” Twilight asked.
“Everdunes,” Star Swirl said sadly, “one of my earliest successes and a world I cared deeply for. Archeon had rigged a means for the Everdunes book to be burnt after he used it, and from there he would’ve easily found the local copy of Aitran.”
“Couldn’t you just re-write the missing page?” the pegasus asked, “It looks like you’ve got enough paper.”
“I could, in theory,” Star Swirl said, “but I would have to it from memory, and that’s not my best attribute. At best I’d still have a broken linking book, and at worst I’d turn it into a trap-book. The only hope is that the missing page still exists and can be found.”
“I think I might know where to look,” Twilight said, a slow smile crossing her face.
“Where?” Rainbow and Star Swirl asked at the same time.
In answer, Twilight pulled out the torn note, held the halves together, and read, “Finding and using the vault is very easy. First, turn on all the marker switches found on the island of Aitran, then go to the switch located on the dock and turn it off and the hidden vault will open.”
“Ah yes,” Star Swirl said with a nod, “I recall making that vault system, although I never put it to use. But how can you be sure the page is there?”
“I can’t,” Twilight said, “but it’s the only thing on this island we haven’t opened up yet, and I don’t think Archeon would have had much time to hide the page in another world.”
“So, we just turn off the marker switch on the dock?” Rainbow asked. Twilight nodded and the pegasus saluted, saying, “be back in a jiffy,” before zooming out of the library.
“Oh, Master Star Swirl,” Twilight said, realizing something.
“Please, just call me Star Swirl,” the robed unicorn said.
“Star Swirl, if this is a regular linking book, how can you see me?” Twilight asked.
“Ah,” Star Swirl said with a twinkle in his eye, “That took me several weeks, by Aitran time, to implement properly. There’s a spell on that book that transmits a magnified image everything the panel is pointed at onto the wall of the study. It transmits sounds as well, obviously.”
Rainbow Dash returned with a light gust of wind and landed next to Twilight, a sheet of paper torn along one edge held in her mouth. “Dis it?” she asked. She let it go as Twilight gripped it in her magic and brought it over for a closer look. The text was clearly from a linking book, but that didn’t tell the unicorn very much.
“The only way we’ll know is if one of you brings it to me so I can try to put it in the book.”
“We can’t just, like, put it on the linking panel and send it to you?” Twilight asked with a hopeful grin.
“Books would tear themselves apart if the links reacted to paper,” Star Swirl said, “No, it will only work if it is touching you when you touch the link. I know it’s a risk, so-”
“I’ll do it,” Twilight said with determination. She grabbed the page in her mouth and dropped the book onto the floor before lightly stepping on the linking panel. The world vanished around her for a second before reforming as the interior of a door-less room carved into a single piece of stone and with a mosaic tiled floor. Star Swirl’s desk stood on a slightly raised portion of the floor in front of her and the old unicorn was looking at her with concern.
“Well,” he said with a sigh, “give it here.”
“Move your head Twilight, I can’t see,” a voice said from behind her. She looked back and saw a large image of Rainbow’s face on the wall. Comforted by the sight, Twilight trotted up to the desk and set the page down in front of Star Swirl. He picked it up in his magic and gave close scrutiny to both sides before sliding the Aitran book over and opening it to a point near the middle.
“The text seems to be intact,” he said, lowering the paper into place. There was a brief glow as the page reattached to the binding and then Star Swirl turned to the final page. “The book accepts it as a valid page and the linking panel seems to working, but there’s only one way to be sure.” He placed his hoof on the page and faded from sight as a faint buzz filled the air. Twilight turned around and looked anxiously at the projection on the far wall. Rainbow jumped to the side, out of view, and after a second the image shifted as the book was picked up and aimed at a bearded grey pony face. “It worked Twilight Sparkle,” Star Swirl said, “thank you so much.”
“What am I, chopped cabbage?” Rainbow groused, making Twilight chuckle as she reached up and touched the linking panel.
“…for your role in this as well,” Star Swirl was saying to Rainbow when Twilight rematerialized, “speaking of which, I’m quite curious about your adventure, and how you got here,” he added, casting a glance at Twilight. “I also need to settle with Cirrus and Archeon, and I’d like to hear of your experiences with them before I make my decision. Shall we talk over lunch?”
“We just ate a little bit ago,” Twilight said, “but sure.”
“My biggest concern regarding you two,” Star Swirl said from the kitchen as he prepared a tall sandwich, “is how you came to be here. When I took my final leave of Equestria, I left behind only the original copy of Aitran and a solemn oath from Princess Celestia herself that it would be sealed up in the memorial tomb they would be erecting for me. You seem to be a wholesome pair of mares, but appearances can be quite deceiving.” Rainbow bristled at the veiled accusation, but a firm hoof on her shoulder from Twilight kept her in place.
“So far as I know,” the lavender unicorn said, “your tomb is intact and sealed. I found the book in the Royal Archives, a very restricted-”
“Yes, I know about the Archives,” Star Swirl said as he came out of the kitchen, “I had a hoof in establishing them. What would Aitran be doing in there though? The Princess wouldn’t go against her promise; she understood how important it is that the original never sees daylight again.”
“I… don’t think what I found was the original,” Twilight said thoughtfully, “I only figured out that you had written it due to a note written on the inside cover. I think it said that that book was the… seventh copy?”
Star Swirl froze with the sandwich nearly to his mouth, his eyes sliding to the side as he thought. “Copy seven… Where did I plant that… Oh!” His eyes went wide and he lowered the sandwich, completely bewildered. “But I dropped it into the… Oh, that is interesting.” The sandwich hung forgotten in the air as Star Swirl started to pace, eyes casting about for something to write with. Rainbow cast an amused glance at Twilight and chuckled when she returned the look with confusion.
“You two must be related,” the pegasus said in a low tone.
“Not likely,” Twilight muttered back, “Princess Celestia would’ve mentioned if there was a connection while I was studying his work.”
“If you say so,” Rainbow demurred, rolling her eyes.
“But, that’s a mystery for another day,” Star Swirl suddenly declared, coming back to the present. He sat down, took a bite of his sandwich, and then swallowed it and leaned forward. “All right,” he said, “you found a linking book where it shouldn’t have been. What happened next?”
Star Swirl’s sandwich came to its end long before the mares’s tale did. After the story ended, Star Swirl began asking questions about their conversations with Cirrus and Archeon, their reactions to what they had learned and deduced, and why they continued to press on gathering the pages. Finally he lay down on his couch and closed his eyes, deep in thought. “I know what I must do,” he said after a minute, “but I am scared to act until I know what has happened to Clover and Nyx. Cirrus will try to withhold what he knows to spite me, and from what you’ve described, Archeon may not be in the right state of mind to recall the truth.”
“They both said Clover was tricked into using a book you’d forbidden them to use,” Twilight said, “Archeon’s version had Nyx going into the same book first, and he noted that Clover hadn’t taken a way to leave with her.”
“Hm,” Star Swirl said, thinking, “it’s obvious that neither the Red or Blue books are the culprits, since they are intended for a single occupant only.” He opened one eye and looked at Twilight and Rainbow. “If you had restored the final pages to those books, they may very well have tried to trick you into taking their places.” The mares’s faces were perfect pictures of horror as they exchanged a glance. “Besides those two,” Star Swirl said, continuing his previous thought, “there were only a couple of books I forbade the young ones access to because the worlds within are extremely dangerous, but they all had copies of Aitran in secure locations, except for…” His eyes flew open and he shot to his feet, exclaiming, “Sohndar!” He galloped out of the living area at full speed, his eyes glowing faintly with anger.
“The hay?” Rainbow said, confused.
“Come on,” Twilight urged, already running after Star Swirl. With the groan of someone who was dead tired of being dragged around, the cyan pegasus got up, spread her wings, and flew after the unicorns.
They caught up to Star Swirl in the library, where he was throwing the red book open to the back page. His eyes were glowing a faint baby blue as he glared down at the panel, and from Cirrus’s reaction, it was clear the dusky pegasus knew he was in for it. “St-st-Star Swirl! Master, wha…”
“Spare me your sniveling you wretch,” Star Swirl said with a snort, “answer me truthfully or I’ll tear out every last page and destroy them. My wife and daughter, where did you send them?”
“I-it wasn’t me Master,” Cirrus protested, “Archeon-”
“Where are Clover and Nyx?” Star Swirl bellowed. Twilight, who had been cautiously approaching, drew back in fright. The old grey unicorn was almost pulsing with magical energy, and Twilight could swear he was almost ready to burst into flames. “Is it Sohndar? Did you and Archeon send them to Sohndar?”
“Yes,” Cirrus blubbered, “Yes I did, I- Mercy…?” The anger drained out of Star Swirl’s being and his eyes returned to normal, but he still slammed the book shut with the force of a thunder clap.
“Mercy,” he muttered darkly as he turned away from the alcove, “I hope they’ll see their full punishment as a mercy.”
“Wh-what are you going to do to them?” Twilight asked hesitantly.
“I’m going to complete the links,” Star Swirl said. His horn flared with magic and a piece of parchment and a feather pen materialized before him. “A trap book is created by making certain changes to the descriptive formula of a linking book,” he explained as he started to write, “Cirrus and Archeon are currently caught in-between worlds, but once I make some changes to the texts, they’ll be sent to the places the books purportedly link to. They won’t find any other ponies or intelligent beings, or any linking books to allow them to leave, but at least they won’t be in total isolation anymore. We’ll see if having to fend for themselves in an unknown place changes them for the better. As for you two,” he finished, floating the parchment to Twilight, “I’m going to get you home. Go to the holographic viewer under the dock and follow those directions, then meet me back here.”
The cucumbers lay forgotten on the floor as Spike grasped the book in his shaking claws. He watched in dumbfounded silence as Twilight and Rainbow picked themselves up off the ground, filling the rectangular picture on the page. “Ow,” Twilight said as Dash whapped her upside the head, “what was that for?”
“You came in after me!” the pegasus exclaimed.
“Well I couldn’t just leave you in… well, here, alone” Twilight said as she looked around.
“Twilight,” Spike said weakly, finally find his voice, “Rainbow. Can you hear me?” The two ponies carried on their conversation, unaware of the purple baby dragon looking at them through a book. Spike’s mind was on the verge of collapse as he gripped the book tighter, willing the ponies in the picture to see and speak to him. He’d seen and even taken part in some strange things since moving to Ponyville with Twilight, but this was beyond even his admittedly wild imagination. Who would’ve thought there was a book out there you could literally lose yourself in?
“I’ll go take a look around,” Rainbow was saying when Spike’s attention went back to the book. She flew out of the frame and Twilight began trotting away down the dock.
“Don’t go,” Spike begged as Twilight climbed the steps in the distance and soon disappeared from sight. He gave the book a vigorous shake, demanding, “Change the picture! Follow Twilight! C’moooon…” The book paid no heed to his begging, the picture remaining resolutely immobile. Spike sat down and let the book slide out of his hands and onto the floor. He remained in that dejected position for a moment, and then gave the book a hard glare. He started to reach a hand to it, intending to follow Twilight, but then stopped as her last instructions to him came to mind. Wait an hour and then go give the book to Princess Celestia. No dragonfire.
“All right Twilight,” he said, closing the book and picking it up as he got back on his feet, “I’ll get this to the Princess, but I’m not waiting.” He started to turn around when a string of knocks sounded at the door. “Uh, come in,” he said. The door opened quickly but in a controlled manner under the influence of unicorn magic and Spike’s jaw dropped as he saw Rarity step into the library, her gait firm and determined, her eyes hard as flint, and her normally pristine white coat now a solid grape-purple color. Spike didn’t know whether to laugh or take pity on her.
“Hello Spike,” Rarity said with forced calm, “You haven’t seen Rainbow Dash lately, have you?”
“Uh,” the dragon said, his eyes tracking down to the book in his hands.
It was a good day for holding court in Princess Celestia’s opinion. The usual wave of sycophantic upper-class unicorns was at a low point thanks to Fancy Pants and Blueblood’s excellent show of repartee at the latest big social event, freeing up the open-court schedule for more “common” petitioners. There was always more variety in the requests and reports from outside of Canterlot, and for an immortal alicorn variety truly was the spice of life. She had just finished mediating a compromise between a pair of merchants from Hoofington regarding the definition of the word “sandwich” when one merchant had laid claim to exclusive sandwich-selling rights in the town. The other was offering a line of wraps and had maintained that they were different enough to get around the exclusivity rule. After hearing both sides, Celestia had suggested the pair form a partnership and benefit from one another’s skills. She made a mental note to find an excuse to sneak down to Hoofington and try the wraps someday.
She was about to call for the next supplicant when a sparkling wisp of smoke flew in through a nearby window and gathered in front of her before transforming into a scroll tied with a red ribbon. My, this is quite early for a friendship report, she thought as she grabbed and opened the scroll in her magic, Twilight must have quite the… morning. She blinked and re-read the letter twice to make sure she hadn’t misunderstood anything. She stood up from the throne, glanced out the window to the sun, and the bit her lip and slowly sat back down. “Only one more for today,” she said to her seneschal, “An urgent matter has just come up that I must attend to when the next train from Ponyville arrives.” She pointed at one of the guards standing by the doors and said, “Awaken my sister and tell her to meet me in the foyer in half an hour.”
“Yes your highness,” the pegasus said, snapping a salute with a wing before heading out of the room.
Celestia took a deep breath and flexed her wings in an attempt to calm her nerves. “Send in the next supplicant,” she announced, “and warn them not to mince words.” So many have traveled a long distance to speak with me, she rationalized to herself, I should strive to inconvenience as few of them as possible.
Precisely half an hour later, Princess Luna walked down the stairs onto the main landing of the grand staircase in the castle foyer. Her eyes were half-closed, her silver shoes were missing, and she was wearing a periwinkle night cap with little moons on it instead of her crown in defiance of being called from her bed. Her sister, standing tall, proud, and as bright and alert as the celestial object she governed, cast a sideways glance at her as she came to a stop a few feet away. “For what purpose have you interrupted my sleep dearest sister,” Luna said flatly, not even making it a question.
“You remember Star Swirl the Bearded, correct?” Celestia asked.
“Yes,” Luna said, raising her head slightly, “why?”
“Something of his has… emerged,” Celestia said, “It is something from after the Nightmare took you, but I thought you would be interested in it. Twilight Sparkle has become caught up in it, as has Rainbow Dash.”
“Caught up how?” Luna asked, quirking an eyebrow. The sound of hooves approaching from outside drew both princess’s attention.
“You’re about to find out,” Celestia said simply as the doors opened and four ponies galloped in: an orange earth pony wearing a stetson hat, a pink earth pony who was looking less bouncy than usual, a yellow pegasus with long pink mane, and unicorn whose white coat showed the faintest hints of purple. A purple and green baby dragon rode on Applejack’s back, an old book clutched protectively against his chest. “Rise,” Celestia said as the group came to a stop and started to bow, and then fixed her gaze on Spike. “Is that the book?” she asked.
“Y-yeah,” Spike said.
“Good,” Celestia said with a curt nod, “come with me, all of you.”
“I do not understand Celestia,” Luna said as she fell in behind the elder alicorn, “Thou said Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash were involved in this. I see here every one of the Elements of Harmony except those two. Where are Twilight and Rainbow Dash?”
“They’re in the book,” Celestia said, “We need to get them out. First, however, we need to figure out how.” The ponies following her started to ask questions, but when she refused to respond they quickly fell silent, exchanging nervous glances. Celestia led them into the throne room, which had been cleared of all but a pair of guards by the door. She came to a stop at the foot of the dais, turned around, and took the book from Spike. “How many of you know anything about an ancient pony named Star Swirl the Bearded?” she asked. Spike and Luna raised a hand and hoof, respectively, as the four little ponies exchanged a look.
“Ain’t he mentioned in the Hearth’s Warmin’ Pageant?” Applejack asked, “Told Clover the Clever ‘bout the Windigos?”
“Twilight’s Nightmare Night costume was Star Swirl,” Rarity said, “I remember all those bells on the hem…”
“He was a very influential scholar and mage during the tumultuous days surrounding Equestria’s founding,” Luna said, “his work laid the foundations for many schools of magic, and was… prominent up to when I became overwhelmed with jealousy.”
“Thank you Luna,” Celestia said, “that is a very good summation. He didn’t cease to be important after your banishment of course; in fact, he continued to explore and experiment with magic. Eventually he stumbled upon something beyond even the wildest of imaginations: the ability to travel to other places, entirely different realities, by writing about them in specially designed books. Had he been any other pony alive at that time, I would have forbidden him from pursuing that power, for there seemed to be almost no limits to what these other worlds could contain.”
“Sounds like fun to me,” Pinkie Pie declared, “Imagine, a world with giant cupcakes and chocolate rain! That would be the greatest place ever!” Celestia watched with bemusement until Applejack gave her fellow earth pony a firm poke in the side a disapproving look.
“Star Swirl was quite responsible with his explorations,” the Princess continued, “but early on he encountered another being who had also discovered the secret of traveling between realities, one who was far less considerate of others and extremely proud in his ability. For the sake of Equestria, and for the many other worlds he had discovered, Star Swirl decided to leave our world and cut all his ties to it. All who knew about his travels were sworn to secrecy or left with him, and he took all of his teleporting books and the notes regarding them with him. All that was left was the book he used to take his final leave, which I personally sealed inside the memorial erected to him. But it would seem that seal has been circumvented, for Twilight and Rainbow have been taken into the world Star Swirl chose as his sanctuary.”
“Uh, that maaay not be the same book you locked up Princess,” Pinkie said, holding up a hoof for attention.
“What do you mean Pinkie Pie?” Princess Luna asked, giving her a curious glance.
“Well,” Pinkie explained, “On the train ride here I talked Spike into letting me look at the book…”
“You kept talking until I gave in,” the dragon muttered darkly.
“And I noticed a little note inside the cover,” the energetic pony continued without missing a beat, “saying that that book is a copy of the original.”
Celestia opened the book and found the note. She read it and then peered at Pinkie over the top of the tome. “This is written in an archaic form of Equestrian,” she said, “I didn’t know you were a student of old languages.”
“Oh, I’m not,” Pinkie said, smiling. Everypony stared at her, dumbstruck for a moment.
“Ah,” AJ said at last with a nervous laugh, “That’s Pinkie Pie fer ya. Always full of surprises.”
“Indeed,” Celestia said slowly, closing the book while keeping her eyes on the seemingly oblivious Pinkie Pie.
“Pardon me sister,” Luna said, “but what, precisely, dost thou intend to do about this? And must I truly be here?”
“We,” Celestia said, fixing her dark-toned sister with a determined stare, “are going to go through this book letter by letter while I search my memory for any clues to a method of contacting or retrieving our two lost ponies. You,” he gaze shifted to the four mares and Spike, her eyes softening with compassion, “will do your best not to worry. Try to find something in the city to distract your minds from this. I will send word when Luna and I have finished, by sunset at the latest. Go on,” she added when the group shuffled their feet and exchanged unsure looks.
“Yes,” Rarity said at last, turning away, “Come on girls, Spike, let’s get out of the Princess’s manes. Maybe… if we’re lucky we can find Fancy Pants hosting… something…”
“We could go to the donut shop,” Spike suggested.
“Oh, I like that idea,” Pinkie said, barely able to put some enthusiasm into her voice. Applejack and Fluttershy nodded in silent agreement of nothing particular and the five made their way out of the throne room. Celestia and Luna watched them in silence until the doors closed, and then Celestia allowed the weight of the situation show, lowering her head and letting some slouch into her posture.
“Come along Luna,” she said, “We may as well go somewhere more comfortable to do this.”
“You do not hold much hope for our success,” her sister said as she fell into step alongside the elder alicorn. She leaned against Celestia’s side and spread a wing over her back.
“I fear it will take a miracle to get them back,” Celestia admitted sadly as the sisters exited the throne room. The impassive door guards, utterly forgotten in their perfectly professional poise and silence, shared a concerned look as soon as the doors closed.
Aitran
“I’m back,” Twilight called as she trotted into the library. She looked around the octagonal room and then addressed the sole other occupant, “Where’s Star Swirl?”
“I dunno,” Rainbow said with a shrug, “He stepped out just after you did and told me to wait right here until he got back.” She was currently sitting in the exact center of the library, where an octagon broke up the normally straight-running boards of the flooring.
“I wonder what he’s up to?” Twilight wondered.
“So long as it gets us back to Equestria,” the cyan pegasus said, “I don’t- whoa!” She gave a start as a muffled horn sound came from below her hooves and the octagon started to rise from the floor. Rainbow rocked from side to side for a second before hopping off what was being revealed as an octagonal pillar of wood with a shelf carved into the side facing the library exit. A thick, dusty tome sat in in the shelf, its pearly-white cover reinforced by bronze on the corners and spine. “He did that on purpose,” Rainbow said grumpily, giving the short pillar a flat look, “That was… actually a pretty good prank for an old guy.”
“Confuse old age and grey hairs for addled wits at your peril, young pegasus,” Star Swirl said from behind the pair. They glanced back and moved aside as he approached the pillar and blew the dust off the book before reverently opening it. “I never told anypony about this particular book, not even Clover,” he said, “Even with our great foe trapped on another world, she would have thought the risk too great, especially considering where it will deposit you. Here is your way home my new friends, and thank you…” He trailed off and leaned an ear closer to the book, eyes narrowing as he listened to something. “Oh,” he said, turning his full gaze upon the linking panel, “That won’t do. Come on you two; we need to make a dramatic entrance.”
Equestria
Princess Celestia was coaxing the sun below the horizon when the quintet from Ponyville returned to the throne room. Their hope-filled eyes going first to the solar princess and then to Princess Luna, who was sitting on the throne in her full regalia with her eyes closed. Celestia’s horn dimmed as the sun’s light faded from the sky and Luna’s brightened as the moon rose quickly into its place and the stars twinkled into view. With the ceremony completed, Celestia turned her head and walked toward the group, her downcast expression telling them everything without her having to say a word.
“Say it ain’t what I think it is Princess,” Applejack pleaded, speaking for the entire circle of friends.
“We have had no luck,” Celestia said glumly, “But. We musn’t lose hope yet. If this book,” she pulled Aitran out from beneath her wing, “is not the original, perhaps the original version will contain some hidden message or clue that was not transmitted to this one.”
“Celestia,” Luna said, shocked, “You gave thy solemn oath that that book would remain undisturbed in Star Swirl’s false tomb. Would you truly violate that oath for the sake of such a…” she searched for a good phrase, settling on, “long shot?”
“For the sake of my beloved and most faithful student and her friend, yes,” Celestia said with an unwavering determination in her eyes, “For keeping the Elements of Harmony united, and for the sake of Equestria!” She took one resolute step toward the doors, her wings flaring upward, and then froze as a low buzzing sound filled the air and a grey unicorn with a long beard and bell-hemmed blue robes and an equally bell-studded wizard hat materialized in the middle of the throne room. He was quickly joined by a lavender unicorn mare and a rainbow-maned cyan pegasus.
“That,” Star Swirl the Bearded said with a curt snap of his head to look up into Celestia’s wide, unbelieving eyes, “will not be necessary Your Highness.” He glanced behind himself briefly and nodded when he saw Twilight and Rainbow before returning his gaze to the Princess. “Your students are quite capable of taking care of themselves,” he finished with a knowing smile. The silence that followed was absolute; even Pinkie Pie’s knack for reacting quickly to surprises was dulled by the quiet but undoubtedly dramatic entrance of the two lost ponies and their companion.
“My eyes,” Luna said at last, “they must be playing tricks on me. Methinks I see…”
“Dear Princess Luna,” Star Swirl said, beaming at the Moon Princess, “I can’t tell you how much good it does me to see you again, hale, hearty, and of sound mind once more.”
“Hey girls,” Twilight said, smiling broadly as she waved to her stunned friends, “how are you doing?” That broke the spell, and the two returned adventurers quickly found themselves in the center of a group hug and being peppered with questions from every angle.
“Ok, ok,” Rainbow said, laughing as she tried to simultaneously hug everypony and push them back for some breathing room, “We’re awesome, I know, but you’ll have to back off if you want to know just how awesome.”
“Star Swirl the Bearded,” Celestia said, touching the grey unicorn on the shoulder as if seeing if he was really there, “You look like you’ve barely aged a month, if that. How is this possible?”
“The short answer is that I cheated,” Star Swirl said mischievously. He took the Princess’s hoof with his own and bowed over it. “The more detailed answer is that my ability to dictate the characteristics of the realties I’ve sought to connect to is truly beyond anything I have ever seen. Aitran Island, and many other worlds to varying degrees, is a place where time all but stands still for a pony. Growth and aging happen so slowly there compared to here that it was not until Twilight Sparkle came upon me that I realized that by all rights I should have been in a real tomb ages ago.”
“Oh dear,” Twilight said, catching his last statement as the group-hug broke up, “You’re not going to…”
“I highly doubt it,” Star Swirl said with a reassuring wave of his hoof, “I’d have keeled over by now if that were the case. My body might still be working on Aitran time right now. If so, it would take some time for, well, time to catch up with me.” Twilight sighed in relief as Star Swirl gave her a grin. The grin faded quickly as he looked back at Celestia and Luna, who had come over to join her sister. “As pleased as I am to have seen you both, your majesties,” he said, “I must take my leave and return to Aitran posthaste. Two… very important ponies to me are in great danger and I must see to their rescue.” Celestia nodded her understanding and floated the Aitran book over to him. The book opened to the final page and Star Swirl started to reach a hoof toward the linking panel. At the last second he stopped and looked over to Twilight and Rainbow. “Farewell my friends,” he said, “I’ll keep the Equestria book unlocked should you ever desire to visit Aitran. I doubt I’ll have time to spend with you for quite a while though. And… I might have need of your assistance at some point. Again, farewell.”
“Farewell Star Swirl,” Twilight called out as the bearded unicorn touched the panel and faded from sight.
“Bye,” Rainbow said quietly, a second too late. She perked right back up and looked around at her friends with her usual smug smile. “So,” she said, “who wants to hear about me and Twilight’s crazy world-hopping adventure?”
“Me! Me!” Pinkie exclaimed, hopping up and down eagerly.
“I would as well,” Rarity said, drawing up uncomfortably close to the pegasus’s side with a charming shimmer in her eyes. A trace of ice entered those eyes and her voice as she leaned more heavily against Rainbow and added, “How about you tell it over a full, special spa treatment? I’ve got the perfect bath additives in mind for you.”
Dear Princess Celestia, I know you are still waiting for the full report of my and Rainbow Dash’s adventure on Aitran. I might need to send it to you in parts, because we’re only about a third of the way through and Spike claw is getting cramped from writing all of it. While he’s resting, I’ve decided to report on what I’ve learned about friendship. Isolation can cause serious harm to a pony’s mind, and even being left alone for a short time in an unfamiliar place can lead to despair. There was a point early in our adventure when an equipment malfunction prevented me from joining Rainbow Dash in exploring one of the other realities linked to Aitran and until she returned, I~~--~ Rainbow Dash here. Yeah, Twilight was happy to see me when I escaped that place, but that’s nothing compared to what I felt! I not only had to contend with a thick fog that wouldn’t go away on the surface, I had to go deep underground, alone, and try to figure out how to drive a cramped, clunky machine through a dark mine using random sounds for direction. The point is, it felt like it took FOREVER to figure out what I was supposed to do and I was always on the edge of breaking down and giving up. Only the thought of getting back to Twilight, and from there to getting home, gave me the resolve to go the distance. Even when they’re not right there with us, friends can be a great source of strength. I don’t think I could say it better than that, so I’ll just close.
