Green Eggs and Spam

That there looks like someone seriously exceeded the recommended stupidity levels.

Wingnut
Day 7, 14:22

It was a damp morning. I’d woken up just as the sun had poked its way out from behind the dark western clouds and through a stray blanket of wispy fog that covered some of Caspur. I craned my neck; all the little rivulets of light poking through the cracks and chips of the building reflected off the dust in the air, creating a sepia-toned haze that permeated the room. The wind outside howled and whistled and stormed about like it owned the entire wasteland.

I glanced over my shoulder into the other room to see Sage and Dizzy carefully stuffing supplies into their saddlebags. Stalemate was sitting back, looking for something to entertain himself with and eventually settled with drawing little circles in the dust with his hooves. Page was being Page: standing outside the front door with large scorch marks everywhere and a focused look on his face. I didn't see Ash anywhere in the building; I figured she was outside.

Spotting my dingy pistol lying on the table next to my saddlebag, I stumbled over towards it. I almost skinned my front knees more than once as my front leg now had the added weight and girth of Radheart’s pipbuck. Each time I stepped, I had to be mindful about where my heavier leg was placed. One small misstep and I’d be flailing to stay upright. I finally managed to make it over towards the table, and slinging the saddlebag onto my back, I took note of how light it was. Everything I owned was in this bag, and so far that included the pistol, a healing potion or two, some useless scrap bits of oxidized metal, and a lot of air. I tripped as I took a step forward. Oh yeah, and the PipBuck, too.

I started towards the front door and Sage turned his eyes to meet mine as I entered the room. Almost immediately, he returned to his packing.

“We'll be heading out here in a few minutes, you all set?” His voice was just loud enough to compete with the roaring wind outside.

“Yeah, not like I have that much to carry,” I said with a smile. I shook my rump in an attempt to make the contents of my bag jingle. I had to imagine that I looked like lame horse shaking off water

“Good. Now remember, you have the maps, rad-meter, EFS, SATS, and all that good stuff, so you're going to be on point for this trek, so use it well and stay alert,” Sage said with a sure, serious calmness. I nodded to him and continued out the door towards Page.

The wind outside was like a riptide when not blocked by buildings, hurling trash and small flecks of concrete through the air. One thing that I could appreciate was the added protection of having a short layer of hair all over the body against wind and temperature. I approached Page from behind and saw a faint glow from his horn that quickly vanished, followed by a soft murmur from Page.

“Burning yourself out already, Page? We gotta hike across this shit today!” He turned to me and smiled widely.

“Hah! Good sir, I’ve not yet begun to fight!” Before I could object, he squinted hard and his face was bathed in a green glow once again as the ambient temperature began to rise.

Despite what Page said, I could see that whatever he was doing was taking some kind of toll on his head. He kept squinting hard whenever his light would reflect back in his eyes, and it seemed like any loud noise would cause the glow on his horn to flicker.

“You know,” Page stated, sounding surprisingly winded, “I thought being a lightbulb would be easier than this. I can’t even make some kind of clever pun about a brilliant idea or anything.” I tried to listen further, but whatever he was saying was muted by the whistling in my ears.

Planning a route was my next priority. I plopped down on my rump and raised my right leg to eye level. Using my left hoof, I carefully tapped and prodded the buttons. The bulbous appendages threatened to press all the buttons at once on every rap the device. Eventually, my face was bathed in glow of the PipBuck’s low resolution map. StableTec built some badass equipment if it has functional PipBucks and GPS satellites that work 200 plus years post construction. Well, either that or magic. Probably magic.

More random hoof taps later, I figured out how to scroll across the map. ‘CASPUR’ labeled the area just north of us, separated by a thicker line that cut cleanly through the city like a knife. That’s our target, just wish that it pointed to the crack in the wall.

I lowered my leg to see Ash walking towards me from around the side of the building.

“Hey, Ash!” I said cheerily. “Where have you been?”

“Oh you know...the bathroom,” she replied.

“Oh, uh, well, are ya ready to head out?”

“Soon as I grab my bag, yeah,” she said flatly.

A chorus of staccato hoof taps sounded from the building. Sage, Dizzy, and Stalemate strode from the building. A screech rang out as Stalemate kicked the rusted metal door shut.

“Lead on,” Sage stated confidently.

“Alright. The locals said that the hole lies east of here. I don’t want to miss it, so I think it would be best to just hug the wall the entire way.” I took another glance at the PipBuck to get my bearings. Zooming in on the Caspur side of the wall showed a large, jagged, circular area roughly tangent with the wall. Judging by the scale, that wouldn’t take more than a few hours to reach.

The wall was clearly visible despite the clouds slowing encroaching on the sun’s territory. The walls imposing visage seemed to dare us cross, welcoming challengers. I gulped hard.

“Ready guys?”

Those words were stolen by the wind and swept out to howl between the empty streets.

“Great, let's go.” I said with forced finality, about faced, and started trotting.

--------***--------

About an hour of relatively silent trotting later, we arrived at the face of the wall and could get a truly good look at it.

The wall was a behemoth of concrete worn down to show the rocks beneath the mortar. It towered menacingly above any of the neighboring buildings on our side and claimed territory clear to the ends of town without question. Lame turrets stood atop the wall; they watched us menacingly as we approached. The wall’s face was eroded with chips, cracks, and large chucks biting a few feet into it were completely missing. The parts that were still clean were marred with scorch marks and graffiti. Much of the graffiti was weather-washed to the point of illegibility, but the parts that were still visible were base, racist slurs or obscene portraits depicting zebras getting killed or zebras harassing a pony family. One I found morbidly humorous was a zebra clan getting crushed by a falling star that a pony made a wish upon. I had to try hard not to chuckle at that.

My eyes were assaulted by cold, dust filled wind as I looked eastward. Between the windy onslaught and the random debris littering the base of the wall, our normal pace was slowed to a crawl as we tried desperately to keep our balance.

Some idle chatter formed in the group as we traveled along the tortured divide between the cities. Sparse clicks emanated from the PipBuck, indicating a minor increase in the levels of background radiation. Wind is probably carrying contaminated debris.

The cloud-blocked sun started creeping below the mountains and little ice particles began to form in the wind. Checking the skies to the east, the clouds were getting dark and the cold began to penetrate us. The only real cover was the wall itself, which would be gone by the time we crossed over into the northern part of the two cities.

The sound of screaming banshees accompanied erratic clicks from my PipBuck, worming their ghostly fingers between the cracks in the wall.

“There!” Sage yelled from behind. In the fading visibility, a dark area in the wall made itself known. “That’s the fissure in the wall,” he said, accompanied by a marked increase in pace.

Marcus raced ahead to greet the hole.

“Marcus! Wait up don’t go through just ye-”

“Shhhhhh! Keep it down,” Marcus said in a panic. Putting a hoof up to his mouth, he continued in a hushed tone. “It’s an alicorn. Big purple one.”

“What!?” everyone except Terrance exclaimed in almost perfect unison.

“So?” Terrance queried.

“Are you sure? Why the hell would there be any here?” Marcus’s stern look gave the answer.

“I have no idea, but I’m positive. It’s sitting on the other side of the crater. I don’t think that it saw me. I think it was too focused on the giant crater where it was staring.”

“So there is an alicorn and a crater on the other side of the wall?” Sage asked.

“Why don’t we just go ‘round and avoid the alicorn entirely?” Dizzy responded.

“There is a blizzard kicking up that will reach us in the next few hours. We go around and we’re trapped in Denspur with an incredibly dangerous monster wandering about. That, and we’re dangerously exposed. Not good for us.” I answered with a hint of condescent in my voice.

“Alright, so how are we getting through?” Dizzy asked snarkily.

Checking the PipBuck map I left on the screen, I noticed a group of buildings close to the hole on the Caspur side.

“We climb through, dart for cover, hope to not be spotted, and get the fuck away from the crater. The snow should give us some cover.” That plan sounded bad even to me, but it was that or trek back to Spur and hope they’d house us.

“That’s a terrible plan you lunatic!” Dizzy’s incredulous look stretched his face comically as he chided me. “We’re as good as glue if we get caught!”

“And as good as popsicles if we stand here ‘till it leaves.” Page completed Dizzy’s line with his own thoughts.

“If you two don’t hush up, we’ll be dead all the quicker.” Sage spoke with calm seriousness. Dizzy receded with a peeved look on his face. “The visibility is dropping fast. If we don’t fuck this up, we will all be just fine.” This elicited nods from the group.

Page turned to head towards the fissure in the wall once again, closely followed by the rest of the group. He stepped through the fissure to get a better look at the situation. I glanced through a crack in the decayed wall. There was still enough visibility to see clear to the other side of the crater, as well as the alicorn on the other side.

Without warning, Page made break down the slope towards Caspur. My heart jumped in my chest as I watched my best friend make a run right across the sightline of easily one of the most deadly creatures in the wastelands. The sound of gravel rubbing against itself followed Page’s every step, each one one making making my nerves jump a bit.

My attention darted to the alicorn across the crater. It seemed to be looking off towards the wastes. My heart slowed down as I realized that the alicorn hadn’t actually noticed us. My neck twitched for a moment as I glanced at the hoofprints Page had made. It’s not looking; this is my best chance. A small hop reoriented my rear hooves into a sprinting stance. With a deep inhale, I ran. The gap was only about a football field in size, but it seemed to get farther with every step. A few seconds later, I jumped behind the building right alongside Page.

I peeked around the side of the building to check if the alicorn had noticed my sprint. She was pacing curiously in a circle, lifting her head occasionally as if looking for something. Turning to Page I whispered softly, “Either she’s deaf, or she knows and doesn’t care.” Page responded with an affirming nod.

The sound of pebbles rolling down a hill erupted behind me. I turned around to be greeted the rest of the party only hoofsteps away.

“Let’s scram before we give that thing a chance to follow us, “ Sage said in a hushed tone. I started trotting in a quick manner; I didn’t need my PipBuck to figure out which direction was away from the alicorn.

***

We had ran far enough away from the crater to feel safe enough to take a breather. I had expected to cross over into a land of absolute ruin, blood and guts everywhere, essentially the land described by the mural on the other side.

It wasn’t.

Every aspect of the landscape seemed mirrored, or at least very similar. The buildings, streets, everything was the same architecturally. Roads made of chipped and scarred concrete still lay in a neat grid around large city blocks. Very likely the city had been built all at once. Perhaps by both sides, even. I’d yet to see any other city in this universe, so I really had no way to tell.

The Caspur side of the wall depicted role reversed images from the other side. But the writing was not. I wasn’t really sure what I was looking at, but my best guess was some type of zebra glyphic writings. In one, a large creature was throwing ponies one by one into its giant maw. Another depicted a line of zebras with shields standing in front of smaller zebras as ponies shot at them both. One last one showed a zebra raping a mare. I shivered and looked back toward the city.

Remains of apartments, stores, and shopping areas stood as hollow skeletons, glass long broken and walls collapsing. Decades undisturbed by nothing more than the elements had been unkind to the empty metropolis, cracking and wearing away but failing to entirely erase the society that had once been. Now and again a sign would stick up on a rusted pole, the zebric runes a reminder that ponies did not live here all those years ago.

Every hoof clack was stolen by the wind, muted in comparison to the howling demons tearing between the buildings. Small chips of concrete mixed with the dust to compose the dying breaths of the decaying city. Every little scrape and nick caused was bared to the gale, stinging and crying out against the wind.

That wind whipped around the bones of the buildings, through the empty windows, above and in the wide potholes and cracks, rushing to embrace us for a few moments before screaming off. Something stale was in that air. A little moisture, a little decay, a little emptiness, and a little something else that wasn’t quite there. But save for the wind, we were alone. Nothing had stirred in Caspur save for the alicorn.

As we plodded on through the concrete maze toward the mountains, the wind grew colder, dumping flecks and flakes of snow upon us. Within moments the snow was thick and blinding, stinging far worse than the wind had been alone.

“This is bad, we need to get inside and hunker down for now!” Sage called from behind me.

“I agree! Let’s see if we can get into one of these up ahead!” I shouted and pointed straight ahead towards a cluster of large matte brown buildings clustered into a large square pattern, claiming two or so city blocks.

Trotting up to the building, we saw that there was a slightly ajar loading bay door. I used some erratic hoof motions to indicate which way to go to the party; anything I said would have would have been masked by the wind. The space was just large enough for us to fit through if we crawled on our bellies.

Stalemate dove through first, followed by Ash, Page, Dizzy, and Sage. I crawled through last.

“Everyone okay?” asked Sage. I nodded along with everyone else, meeting a few tired mumbles of affirmation.

“Glad that I can finally hear.” My voice was raspy and raw from yelling over the wind all day.

“But seeing is another story,” commented Ash in her best humor. Aside from the little ray of cold gray light let in through the crack in the dock door, it was impossible to see.

“Well, let’s see, I think the PipBuck has a lant-”

“I’m on it!” Page said exuberantly.

Page grunted slightly as green light began to pour slowly from from his horn. His face slowly became visible; it was hilariously contorted. The radius of visibility grew to about 30 feet when he visibly relaxed.

“There we go!” Page chirped happily. The light made Page difficult to look at without being blinded, but the surrounding area revealed itself quite handsomely. As an afterthought, I clicked the Pipbuck lamp on. We’d need it if Page got tired like before.

The place seemed pretty standard for a loading bay. We all stood on the main loading platform. Tall concrete pillars were spread throughout the massive warehouse. Everything was covered in dust and dirt from the outside. There was absolutely no sign of life having been here, at least not since the bombs dropped some number of years ago.

There was a terminal off on the back wall. It was completely powered down, but looked undamaged. Hopefully it would have some sort of useful data on what was stored here and if we could use it or not. I nudged Sage and pointed at it. He was by far the most computer savvy of everyone in the group, and figured that we could probably get the darn thing working. Sage walked over and blew a long breath over the keys, coughing and fluttering his wings as the dust covered his face.

A small blanket of snow started to cover the outside world, and the reality was that we were gonna be stuck there for a while. Everyone else was starting to settle in. Stalemate started wandering around, looking for a place to sit down and sleep presumably. Dizzy sat down where we had dropped out gear off. He started for his gun, and began disassembling and repairing it as best as he could with our limited supplies.

I dropped to my rump and lifted my PipBuck leg. I clumsily scrolled over to activate the radio and turned the volume down to just low enough for myself to hear. Static. I was half expecting that, we were in effectively a huge Faraday Cage of a building after all.

The grating sound of metal on metal rang crisply through the bay. Jumping to my legs and whipping my head around towards the noise I caught Page and Ash across the room next to an enormous hatch in the floor, smiling widely.

“What are you guys doing!” yelled Sage from the terminal.

“Just exploring the place,” Page retorted.

“Fine, take a weapon and a buddy. And be careful!”

“We will!” Ash said idly as she followed Page down the hatch.

Well I wasn’t doing much productive at the moment. So, I ran over to Dizzy, grabbed my cruddy little pistol, and ran into the hatch after them.

By the time I had descended the metal stairs to the basement, Page and Ash had already rummaged through half the room, just throwing anything that they found in the center the room. By my best guess this was an office at one point, nothing special, just a place to throw the number-crunching grunts to keep tabs on the inventory.

“Here to join the fun?” Page asked. Looking down at their small stash, they had already gathered a bunch of scrap wires, some old containers, something reminiscent of a battery, a key, and another old dingy pistol like mine, probably broken though.

“Uh, yeah. What haven’t y’all gone through yet?”

Ash pointed a hoof in the direction of a humongous filing cabinet. As I walked over to the cabinet, I heard some idle swearing from upstairs, probably Sage or Dizzy. The cabinet seemed to be locked, but a bit of brute force showed that it was just rusted shut. Unsurprisingly, dense stacks of papers filled each drawer to the brim. There was no readable script on the entire page, it was all glyphic junk. I scanned through some of the pages quickly, but nothing useful.

Why would they write out everything instead of print it? Maybe I’ll have time to figure it out later.

“Looks like that’s everything useful down here.” Page commented. The pile of reclaimed goods hadn’t grown much save for a small box of ammunition. My best guess wager was that the ammunition belonged to the old pistol Page and Ash had found earlier, but Dizzy would probably figure that out.

Throwing the junk in a saddlebag, we all returned upstairs to see Sage still planted at the terminal, the side panel off and a thick cloud of dust hanging in the air.

“Any luck, Sage?”

“Sort of. Everything appears intact and fully functional, but the main issue is there is no power. I sent Stalemate to find a generator unit or some sort or power source. Find anything on your end?”

At that comment, we dumped the junk onto the cement to figure out what we collected. Dizzy eyed the pistol judgingly and grabbed it. Sage grabbed the dusty old cylinders for closer inspection. The junk wires were encased in a green aura and hovered away towards Page. I grabbed the rusty key.

“Found something!” called Stalemate’s voice. The echos shrouded his actual position.

“Where are you!?” Sage retorted, having retreated back underneath the terminal.

“By the door!”

“Which one!”

“The one marked ‘MAINTAINANCE’!”

“Directions, dammit!”

“Far left wall!”

“Be right there!”

Red struggled to his legs and started to trot over towards the wall. I jumped up and checked out the rectilinear solid he left behind. I fumbled with the object using my unskilled hooves until I noticed a yellow zigzag pattern on it.

“Okay, so this must be a spark battery,” I said to nobody in particular.

I placed the spark battery on the ground to attempt to pick it up in my mouth clumsily. Success followed multiple failed attempts. I turned in the direction Sage had gone and followed; the spark battery would probably be useful if Stalemate managed to find a generator of sorts. One door hung on rusted hinges, the remains of a few bobby pins on the ground next to it. I idly wondered when Stalemate had gotten them, and why he never told me that he could pick a lock.

Half of the cramped room housed a myriad of switches, intercoms and fuse boxes plastered on the walls, the other half was taken up by a small device labeled in large glyphic symbols. Underneath that read ‘EMERGENCY GENERATOR’ in English. A painted arrow pointed towards a small hole and a push button labeled ‘IGNITION’. Two aged contacts laid in the recess, clearly designed to give a spark to start the generator.

“No way that we’re getting a spark from those! Way too much oxidation,” I contested, dropping the spark battery to the ground the second I opened my mouth.

“Getting a spark won’t be a problem we just have to yank the contacts out far enough to see fresh wire, then,” Sage gestured to the spark battery I toted along with me, “that will handle the rest...I hope. Can’t promise their generators work like ours.”

Sage gripped the contacts awkwardly in his jaw and braced for a strong pull. He jerked hard and fell back to his butt and ripped the contacts clean off. There were now two clean stubs of metal left where the useless bits had been.

“And now for the battery. Seth, go hold the ignition button.”

I leaned up onto the generator and rapped my hoof on the dusty button, but it didn’t move at all. Jerking back, I thrust down on the button with the whole weight of my body. It stuck, then slipped forward. I turned and noded to Sage affirming that the button was properly depressed Stalemate visibly backed up apprehensively as Sage brought the battery close to the terminal. A spark flashed dimly, and nothing else happened. He did it again, still nothing. A few more times and several more grunts later, we heard the generator engine finally turn over and stir to life in a dramatic roar.

“Fuck yeah!” I yelled cheerily over the monstrously loud generator. Sage’s minor smile melted into a frown, glancing out the door. He muttered something about monsters outside noticing before tucking the battery into his saddlebags.

The dim emergency lights groaned to life after a few seconds to affirm everything was going according to plan.

The low hum of fans whirring to life greeted the generator. A gust of warmth brushed my almost numb ankles. My eyes widened, searching for the source of warmth, quickly finding the vent responsible for the deed. Dropping to my rump, I scooted right up next to the vent, basking in it’s warmth like a cat by a fireplace.

“Hot damn! This is great!” I exclaimed happily.

Sage’s look of concern faded bit as Stalemate huddled closer to the vent.

“Well, this should last us for at least the night. Let’s head back to the others, ” Sage said as he motioned to the door.

---***---

Bits and pieces of scrap encased in a green aura orbited about Page rather gracefully. Ash was engulfed in the display and laughing loudly at Page’s face whose eyes were crossed from the effort. I chuckled a bit at that as well. Sage beelined straight for the terminal which now glowed a soft green and had unintelligible startup text scrolling down it. I don’t care how fast he typed before, he isn’t going anywhere fast with that thing.

“Hope there is a backspace key on that keyboard Sage, you’ll need it!”

Sage growled without turning to look over his shoulder, causing everyone else to laugh hard. When that subsided, I glanced over to Dizzy. The thought of going over to talk with him passed my mind, but I chose to leave him be. He dealt with things better himself, and I wouldn’t be much help anyway. Most people I consoled generally didn’t appreciate my comments.

I plopped down on the now warmer cement. I checked the date on the PipBuck; we had been here more than a week now. My next semester is starting right about now, probably anyway. My mind wandered back to all the school material I had learned over the past year. How embarrassing would it be if I forget all this by the time we get back home? My thoughts wandered through a maze of questions about home for what seemed like hours.

“Got it!” Sage’s voice reverberated throughout the building. “This must have been a whole different world. Whoever designed the system left the passwords unhashed in cleartext accessible without a login. Idiots.”

I was yanked out of my own head and put back in concrete structure in a frozen hell. I walked towards Sage while carefully avoiding the exhausted bodies of Page and Ash to get there. How Sage had managed to type on the tiny thing made no sense to me, but at least he’d gotten it unlocked. The terminal displayed the same green glow and a few options: Unlock Main Storage, and Inventory Logs.

“Looks promising,” I said enthusiastically

“Yeah, I already executed the Unlock Main Storage option successfully. But this isn’t as promising.” He executed the Inventory Logs option. “Half of this data is damaged.”

The screen began to generate bits and pieces of words mixed in with random ASCII keys one after another in a total mess. To the right, a second column displayed half in zebra glyphs and half in random strings of characters. Corrupted for sure.

“Looks like we are off to find the storage room then.” Page perked up at the concept of more exploration

“Alright, lets go!”

The storage room wasn’t hard to find, it was painted bright red with ‘STORAGE’ emblazoned across it, as well as a zebra glyphic translation below it. A large metal block where a doorknob would normally be had a green light shining on it. Page wasted no time plowing through the door which swung open at his touch. Stale, old air assaulted us immediately, accompanied by a spike in the PipBuck’s rad-meter. The radiation levels were elevated, but not bad; it would take a month of constant exposure to feel even minorly ill.

The radiation was probably coming from whatever was in the chipped concrete silos lining the edges of the room. Time had worn the supports holding the silos up, causing them to fall into the cheap, mass-produced shelves holding large shoddy crates. The entire area was large enough to be a football field, and the ceiling was just barely above our heads. Every step mushed through little chips of concrete.

“Keep clear of those,” I pointed to the crashed concrete containers, “that is probably where the radiation is coming from.” With a group of affirmative nods, everyone fanned out to search.

I followed Page over to a solitary corner desk. The desk creaked loudly with every touch.

“Who the fuck made their workplace in the same room that they store radioactive materials!?!?”

“Zebras apparently,” Page said flat eyeing a sheet of paper covered in glyphs.

“Obviously,” Sage replied, “but I figured them to be smarter than that. This is just flat out moronic,” he complained vigorously.

The group spread out around the room to investigate further, and Page’s light flickered as his head turned to look at the many objects strewn about. The constantly shifting shadows seemed to hide objects, and many times the shelves around the room would cast glints as though a set of eyes were looking back. Still, I couldn’t hear anything…I just really wouldn’t want to spend the night in a place like this back room.

Breaking up the relative silence, Page cooed, “Guys, check out what I just found!” He was pointing at something with his hooves, having pillaged a desk.

I glanced down at the drawer Page had rummaged through. A shiny black orb was nested in a small army of disorganized and crumbled papers, as though it had been hastily thrown inside the drawer before it was slammed shut.

“Didn’t expect to find a memory orb here. Just promise not to check it out till we are back in the loading area.” Page acts crazy, but he probably wouldn’t do something so stupid as check a memory orb in an unsafe place.

“Well,” I said matter-of-factly, “Page, just throw it over to me and I’ll pop it into my saddlebags for when we’re in a safer place.”

“Sure thing, Wingnut, let me just bring it on over…” As soon as he muttered the words, his horn lit with a faint green glow separate from the harsh green glimmer of his light spell, and before I could warn him in protest, all of us were plunged into sudden and absolute darkness.

<-=======ooO Ooo=======->

Page
Day 7, 18:45?

Magic. Who’d have thought it could really exist? Things that I would have considered impossible less than a week ago now were a part of my regular routine. Telekinesis, fire, light, and who knows what else, these were all suddenly within reach, and each was an adventure within itself. Now, despite never knowing that I was missing something, I couldn’t imagine a world without casting. Each kind of magic has a weird feeling; it’s kind of like standing next to a speaker at a concert. There’s a weird vibration that you need to feel in order to foresee the spell and make it real. You have to let that feeling wash over you, and become one with it.

Whatever spell this black orb did to me was nothing like that. Out of all the spells I’d found, each was pure and clean, almost like listening to a crisp and high note of the flute. Each reverberation pierces with intensity, and it is undeniably moving and powerful in an almost ethereal way. I thought magic was like each note being a separate experience from the others, but also somehow connected like a vast network that I’d just begun to tap. From the moment I’d placed a little of myself into the pearlescent obsidian-like orb, I knew that I’d made a mistake.

If magic as I’d known it felt like music, this felt like my body being pulled underwater by a riptide. All of a sudden, no matter what I did, I was being violently dragged towards the depths by a force greater than my own. I could hear my friends distantly shouting in alarm, and their voices were growing diminished by the second. The moment my head fell beneath the waves, I could no longer hear anything, no longer feel anything, except whatever waited for me below.

I wanted to scream -- to warn all of my friends of a danger that I couldn’t yet see nor comprehend, but I was stuck. I tried to look down, but that only made my insides lurch and my descent towards the abyss quicken. I was powerless: utterly and completely stuck with the horrid and stalking sensation that I and I alone had the information that could make things better, but was unable to act.

All at once, my sensation of magic disappeared. Each note that I had known and grown to love, however pristine or muddied, faded away as fast as the world and my friends as I fell deeper and deeper. The impulses of my old body’s sensations faded out like lights in a deep evening, they were gradually replaced with those of something, or someone, completely foreign.

And somehow in all of this, I was… walking?

I opened my mind’s eye to the motion, focusing on anything that seemed real, and all at once a new reality surged into focus. Sights, sounds, feelings, smells, all from another place came into my awareness. The first thing I noticed was that I was very cold, but I hadn’t been outside long, because it hadn’t seeped into my bones yet. (I?) was walking between tall and imposing glass buildings and I was staring at the cold, dark, snow-covered asphalt below. My breath drew clouds in my vision against the black specked walkway, and my hurried pace was causing me to breathe heavily in the thin air.

I looked up, not under my own volition, and suddenly another surge of dizziness overcame me. Apparently, whoever I was inside had control, not me. I mentally shook myself clear of the feeling, trying to at least enjoy the ‘ride’ as best as I could. My host looked up, and the distant ridges of the same mountains that our group had passed not a few days earlier became clear. However, their peaks were not haunted by those demon-spawn of the ice worlds, these peaks were snow-covered, and shone in the afternoon sunlight like brilliant gleaming teeth poised against the light blue skies of the heavens. If my host wasn’t so intent on getting somewhere, I’d have loved to stare more, however, he found no such beauty in them at the moment, and promptly shifted his stare back towards the pavement.

I could barely make out the conversations of the passerby on the street. It seemed like at the edges of my host’s focus, the world seemed to blur away into a gray oblivion. Only those things that he was noticing were transmitted to me. From what things I could gather, the denizens of this city were speaking any language unlike one I’d ever heard. It sounded exotic, almost as though each sentence was measured with a carefully weighted balance of prose and poetry. Before I could get used to the street life, however, my host stepped into a revolving door and a great rush of air muted out all of the conversations from outside.

I could see my own reflection in the mirrored surface of the door’s glass, but the face that greeted me was not my own. I shook off another wave of dizziness, and instead tried to memorize every feature I could on my new body. I had no horn, but I still had stripes, so at least I was still a zebra. My eyes were a deep brown, and I was wearing some kind of labcoat and glasses that looked tailor-made for my figure. There were pockets on my flanks that I could easily access with my teeth, and I could see that there was a badge with a picture and a name I couldn’t read pinned to the front lapel of the coat. As quickly as the image came, it was reflected away as I continued to push the door and entered into a large space of the main atrium in a building that looked, and felt, surprisingly familiar.

Almost instantly, the chill that had built up against my meagre coat was dissipated refreshingly, and my hooves were wiped clear of any slush by the carpets in the entryway. The building’s air had a sterile taste to it, as if whatever business was conducted here was actively seeking out and removing any sense of personality that the building may have otherwise had. The clean-and-polished stone on the walls and floor reflected my image, and I could hear my own foot… er... hoofsteps reverberate loudly as I walked towards the turnstiles and security guards by the rear of the atrium.

As I neared the guards, they heralded my arrival with terse nods, and I was able to pass around the regular security measures without being searched. I passed through the turnstiles, and I could feel some kind of shard in my pocket that felt uncomfortably sharp against my rump as it brushed against the cold steel barricades.

I returned the guard’s formalities wordlessly and paced stiffly towards some elevators in a connected hallway. I could still hear the clicking of my hooves; it reminded me of how empty this place felt even when it was populated. One hoof raised to prod the elevator button, and as I waited, I could feel an immense displeasure growing inside. I impatiently raised my right foreleg and shifted my weight to reveal a tiny and delicately crafted watch. Its face had three dials other than those for the main time, and each moved seemingly independently from each other. To my host, this was normal, but to me, the watch was truly a masterwork of jewelry. Whoever I was ‘riding’ must have an immense appreciation for precision, and a deep pocketbook.

All of the excessive accuracy of the watch, however, just served to bolster my impatience as I could hear the elevator squeak down the shaft slowly from above. I pushed the button again impatiently, shuffling my sleeve back over my fetlock, and I could feel a tiny bead of sweat roll down my temple. For whatever reason, my host was incredibly nervous for what lay beyond this atrium.

After what seemed like a small eternity, a small ding echoed throughout the corridor, signalling the elevator’s arrival. The doors opened with a click, and I hurriedly stepped inside, taking a deep breath when no one followed me before the doors closed. I reached down and scanned my ID against a blank spot on the back wall in the elevator, which registered the action with only a brief blink of light emanating from a nearby faux-stone panel. A wave of apprehension washed out of me as I heard a locking mechanism click in the elevator doors. Whoever I was, I was really, really glad to be alone.

My hooves felt lighter as I descended the shaft; apparently there was an underground network to this building that was inaccessible to the public. The doors slid open after a long descent, and as they did, a small cloud of condensation was left in their wake. The air in this new chamber was cold; it caused my lungs to hesitate at their first breath. But as I breathed in deeply, wherever I was looked a bit like the area where my friends and I were, minus hundreds of years of neglect. The room smelled damp, like wet concrete, but was filled with dry recycled air that’d been purged of anything alive.

Sharp fluorescent lights assaulted my vision as I focused on the room ahead. It was filled with all sorts of machinery from from old tape-based servers that were ticking as they recorded obscure data to devices that looked like crosses between dentist drills and death lasers. I briefly thought to myself how unusual a machine that used magic and technology would look; apparently this was the answer. Another glance around the room confirmed my belief. What I’d originally mistaken for computers were actually input devices modified for the… equestrian anatomy. There were also odd combinations of what looked like voodoo masks wired to blinking screens with curling yellow wires, and printers spitting out long rolls of paper with lines on them that made me think that those masks had heartbeats of their own.

Apparently this was science, but it was nothing like I’d ever seen before in my life. “This” was completely foreign. A wave of unease washed over me, but my host seemed to take in the alien environment like it was his own personal study. He glanced at one of the workers who was reading over a long folded pile of papers intently, and the zebra immediately stood at attention and referred to us with words I could not discern. From his stature, I could easily assume that I was some kind of leader, maybe even the head researcher?

I stepped out of the elevator and was forced duck under some cables that looked like thick electrical conduits of some sort. I could hear them buzz with occult energy, and as my ears brushed their undersides, I could hear a pulse that sounded disturbingly like the heartbeat I’d hoped I was only imagining.

Workers milled to and fro while I made my way towards a blank steel door past the server-looking boxes. Each of them paused momentarily to stand and welcome me as I passed. Maybe I was a military advisor of some sort? Somehow that didn’t feel quite right; maybe zebras were just more formal in their mannerisms.

I opened the back door with a heavy push; it seemed needlessly heavy to separate basic laboratory areas. Before I could venture another guess at who my host was, he looked up into the new room and my mind went blank. There were rows upon rows of phoenixes behind a thick plexiglass wall. Each were laying eggs like a giant farming process, but as their eggs rolled down a slide to my left, they were racked in giant shelves and ferried to an adjacent chamber on my right. While seeing arrays of mythical creatures was stunning in itself, what happened next left me speechless.

I was wrong about the death ray. In fact, a death ray would have been easier to swallow than this monstrosity of arcane technology. The eggs were rolling, one-by-one, through a chamber that would irradiate them with an unimaginable amount of magic and energy. Even through the eyes of another zebra, I could feel my chest sink as each of the unborn phoenixes were being irradiated beyond comprehension. Each zap filled the room with a dark green glow, and I could hear that same awful pulsing that I’d mistaken as a heartbeat reverberating again and again against the thickly shielded glass. The air tasted bitter on my tongue; now I knew why they distilled it.

Whatever was created from this process I didn’t want to see, but I had the sinking suspicion that I’d soon find out. My host looked down at his watch again, seemingly impatient at the progress of the experiment. As appalled as I was about my host’s disregard for life, I was drawn to the glinting clockwork at his fetlock. At each heartbeat, two of the tiny dials would spike in tandem, as if they were recording the arcane pulses that were contained beyond the glass.

My host nodded in apparent satisfaction at the readings, but still shifted uncomfortably in his labcoat. He quickly glanced back and forth to two other zebras manning the phoenix room, but they were both too intent upon their work to return a gesture like the others. My host paced quickly past the desecration chambers, and I tried my best to close my inner eye. Unfortunately, it was all I could to to watch as my host turned to the right and examined a few specimens being processed by the evil ray.

I’d been so appalled by the process that I’d failed to notice the eggs exiting the right chamber by rolling down a set of parallel bars below the death ray. My host followed the eggs as they rolled down the track; they were dripping a bright green liquid that left tiny wisps of smoke as they landed on the glossy white tile of the chamber’s floor.

Each egg made its way onto the next station and was dried by a powerful gust of air that sounded muted from behind the glass. Even after cooling off from the beam, there was an ambient green glow emanating from this station that possessed a pulse separate from the beam in the previous chamber. Could… those eggs still somehow be alive? I shivered mentally at the thought.

The finished eggs were picked up by a mechanical arm and placed cautiously into a padded and reinforced crate. The crate was closed by a heavy lid with no less than eight latches, and as each one was locked into place by a separate arm, the baleful green glow pouring from the gap between the crate and lid faded away to nothing. I mentally breathed a sigh of relief, somehow losing sight of the cursed objects put my mind at ease. I still knew that they were being produced by the dozen no more than a few feet away, but at least my host had stopped forcing me to watch.

I could still feel him shifting uneasily in his coat; whatever was in his back pocket seemed to be causing him great discomfort. After viewing what he saw, I really didn’t want see what made him uneasy. He glanced down at his watch again, and while the main dial still recorded time, the two dials that had been pulsing together before were now staggered, and one of them was significantly more excited than the other. Apparently there was some other form of energy nearby, and it was big enough to set off his dial from behind thick concrete walls in a bunker-like lab.

Seemingly satisfied, my host paused to take a deep breath and roll his front shoulders once before approaching the next door of this complex. He reached into his labcoat and scanned it against a keypad set securely to the left of the door, and I could distinctly hear no less than four sets of bars sliding from various corners of the doorframe. Without turning around, my host pushed the door open with a stiff right leg. The door made a hollow sound as air rushed by. It sounded like the next room was large. As we passed the threshold, I could feel a small tingling sensation like static electricity building up on the tips of his ears.

Crates. Hundreds of them. Dim industrial lighting revealed the room to be a cavernous space extending for hundreds of yards into the distance. My host’s breath left icy clouds in his wake as we walked down a central corridor surrounded by identical crates. The walls were bare and the chamber made a hollow echo with each of his hoofsteps. A low mechanized hum resonated distantly from the air purifiers in ducts on the ceiling, and the smell of concrete and insulation competed for dominance against the distilled air. Despite the sterile feel, I couldn’t help but feel like we were being watched by more than the cameras installed on the ceiling. The way was painted carefully with markings and letters I couldn’t read, and it seemed like the runes laid out specific locations for each of the crates, as well as outlining where was ‘safe’ to pass.

Very quickly I was realizing that the building that my host had entered was only a single station in a large underground network underneath the city. I could only imagine what other supernatural and maybe malicious artefacts resided underneath the unsuspecting world above. With each doorway we passed, I was more and more glad that I was not the guide.

After a minute or so of walking, my host stopped in front of a metal wall that looked like the biggest, meanest Swiss bank vault in the Alps. My mind glossed over for a second, my attention lapsing... Wow… and I thought the Alps were far away before... However similar it may have looked, there were definitely added measures designed for this world that offered more… diverse forms of protection. Runes, painted in bright yellow and red, were drawn in neat, straight lines radiating outward from the vault’s hatch. Every few seconds, each of the characters would glow bright for a moment in a wave-like pattern away from the door. The runes’ patterns were almost hypnotic, but it was obvious they were meant for more than show.

My host licked his lips nervously as he stepped onto the blinking floor and up to the glossy metal door’s surface. In it, I could see my host’s face, but also faint outlines of the many crates behind us. Despite this, my host made sure to glance quickly behind him before pulling out a separate ID from a secure inner pocket of his coat and pressing it to a runed panel on the vault’s frame. For a brief moment, all of the runes stopped, and with them, my heart.

The runes pulsed once in place, then reversed direction towards the door. The vault clicked open with a hiss of warm air, just wide enough to fit him, and my host jumped through quickly as it immediately began to close.

My host looked down; we seemed to be in a silo. Below, I could barely make out a steel floor covered with an extremely intricate alchemist’s circle. The lines were beautifully symmetrical from above, and although I couldn’t discern the details, the lines almost seemed to pulse and shift as if they were alive. My host quickly glanced up, a faint whistling sound like a mineshaft emanated from below. A wave of vertigo overcame me -- there were rings of lights beaming down from floors above, and all sense of perspective was lost into the seemingly infinite shaft above. Just how far down are we…?

My host didn’t seem to mind. His hooves clinked rapidly down an iron-grated spiral staircase descending further into the abyss. With each floor, I could make out more of the space below. Fantastic geometric ring-like carvings were etched into the ironwork and inlayed with fiery white opal. The floor’s inset was so perfect that each rune looked as if it were filled by liquid opal. Ring by ring, line by line, each layer of etches were bounded meticulously with the most ornate calligraphy of runes I’d ever seen. Adjacent recesses between runes were so thinly spaced that from a standing distance, the writing could easily be mistaken as another purely white line. With each ring inward came additional circles and triangles bounding the ring and constraining the geometry with beautifully crafted tangents. One could not trace a single line easily around the whole base without losing track and becoming lost in the weave of math, art, and undeniable magic.

In the middle of the centermost ring stood a simple stand made from a twisted and braided branch of ebony-dark wood. At its top grew three branches that formed a natural claw, waiting to grasp some long-coveted artefact. At its base was another braided hollow, this time surrounding one of the exposed eggs from before. The egg glowed faintly green from a distance still, and together the two items gave the whole area far more of an occult voodoo feeling than I was comfortable with. I’d half a mind to believe that the branch would move if I’d stop staring at it, but soon enough my host’s vision changed as we neared the bottom.

As my host clicked down the last set of stairs, I could see that the bottom floor of the silo was completely surrounded by a control room. Thin, slat-like windows were recessed into the smooth gray chamber’s concrete outer wall. More runed carvings extended onto the upper wall, although the opal inlay did not travel past the floor. I squinted to try to make out more of the carvings, but without the contrast given by the white of the opals, it was like trying to read a newspaper written in scratches from five meters away.

I hadn’t noticed, but by now my host’s brow was covered in a cold sweat. Whatever occurred here I’d guess would be at the core of this whole facility. He jerked his head quickly upward to check for any others above, but there was no reply save the faint whistle of air. He jerked back to view the security windows; I could barely make out some blinking lights in the control room beyond and some movement which I guessed was a signal from one of this room’s ‘operators.”

Given what I’d seen in the past rooms, I really really didn’t like where this was going, and I was quickly realizing that we were positioned at ‘ground zero’ for anything that would occur. Nope. Nope. Don’t like this one bit. My mind fancied other zebras in labcoats behind the reinforced glass waiting for us to put some cursed gem into the claw’s grasp… wait for the evil spirit to appear, push a big red button, and instantly incinerate us both.

I must be the test subject. Great. That’s why I’m stuck in this zebra’s head. Maybe this whole pony thing was all in my head and this is the real world trying to reach me through the veil to break me out of a coma after a car accident. At least I have a colorful imagination… Having thoroughly satisfied my own delusions and walked further down the path of insanity, I decided to take a deep breath and enjoy the ride.

My host licked his lips with anticipation and reached into the pocket that he’d been shifty about since I’d gotten trapped in his head. Ooh! This is it. This must be the super secret power source! The kryptonite! The… the… oblong silver paperweight.

Really?

That’s what this whole thing revolves around? A silly meteorite? I mean, given, it could hold some alien monster or have some crazy zebra voodoo curse on it, but really? I was expecting something this important to look the part. I wanted green. Bright, glowing, powerful green, like gives-you-nightmares kind of stuff, but this was none of that. As soon as my host released the object into the claw, he backed away as quickly as he could without tripping. By now, the cold sweat was blocking his vision, and my host’s heart rate was through the roof. Faster than I’d thought possible, we turned tail and ran to a concrete panel on the sidewall which, after a moment, opened inward to reveal an entryway to the control space.

My host was gasping for air like he’d just ran a marathon as the panel reset behind us. Whatever he’d just held, there were few things more terrifying to a zebra than that. If holding it caused this much fear, then the mention of… meteorites? must cause superstition like the Salem witch trials. After a few deep, calming breaths, my host gathered himself and looked up to see two other zebras smiling at him from their control stations.

If I’d have to guess, this room looked mightily similar to a nuclear silo. I had a bad sinking feeling about this, and the presence of two control stations with two keys under lids wasn’t helping. My host was barely settled after his encounter, and before acknowledging the two operators, he glanced down at his watch. Nothing. The watch simply read the time. The other dials hung lifelessly at their stations, as if drained by the same unseen force as my host.

My host shook his head abruptly back and forth to clear his thoughts, then greeted the two operators in the same poetic tone as from above. They spoke back and forth for a few minutes; it seemed like being behind a huge wall was doing wonders for my host’s health. The operators’ body languages were muted, and their jaws were stiff as they spoke. Did I say I really didn’t like where this was going?

All three zebras seemed to reach some kind of conclusion, as my host glanced up at a digital display for time and referenced his watch actively. He nodded to himself in approval, then walked over to a table with darkened glasses on it. He gently placed them on his forehead and walked over to take his place by a slatted window. He checked the time again on his watch, placed the glasses over his eyes, and raised his leg as if to signal the finish of a countdown. As the seconds ticked by to the nearest minute, I could feel my own imaginary heart rate speeding up. I think I could hear him reciting the numbers aloud, but my mind was too busy to listen. What is even happening here? Is all of this in my own head? Where will I be when I wake up? Will I even wake up?

My thoughts were muted as a brilliant flash flooded the room. My host was blinded despite looking at the claw through the shielded goggles, and I began to feel an unconscious pressure in my head like I was being pulled out of a pool. As one world faded to white, another grew from darkness.

<-=======ooO Ooo=======->

I could almost make out the sounds of my friends yelling at me from the other side of the water. I tried to yell back, tried to reach out, but my voice was drowned and motions halted by the water between us. I gasped for air, and after an eternity it came in wonderful, choking gasps. My eyes flared open, more as a reflex than a command, and I was graced with the vision of Sage and Wingnut standing over my motionless pony form yelling into my face to wake up. Well, at least it wasn’t a coma...

Welcome back.

My eyes felt like they were going to explode. That orb had played with my head like a volleyball, and I could feel a dried trickle of blood coming out my nose. The three copies of Sage seemed really concerned about something, but I couldn’t tell which one started asking me difficult questions first. The pressure in my head was dropping, and the emptiness that the watery void had occupied was filled with shards of brilliant, gleaming glass. If burning out was a migraine, then this was something entirely different… and I had a nagging feeling like the glass wasn’t going away anytime soon.

Ash hurriedly ran over to my side with a canteen, and although I’m sure it would have done me good, my stomach turned at the sight of the water. She quickly pulled out a rag from her pack and wiped the blood off my muzzle and… ears? Wow, that orb did a number on me. Between her and Stalemate, and one really painful flashlight shining in my eyes, the two agreed that the orb had traumatized the... My eyes glazed over their explanation, and although I was staring intently, not a word was heard.

My brain was done. Full for the day. All I wanted was to go back to sleep. I closed my eyes briefly, but rather than black, I saw the world faded in gray in a moment of blissful silence -- long enough to escape the pain in my head and think back on what I’d seen. Dots, somewhere in the back of my mind were being connected, and with each point, a small and painful spark reminded me that this was reality. Despite my best efforts for rest, a thought was forming in my head, subtle yet unstoppable, drawing my attention inexorably towards it. I opened my eyes and gritted my teeth at the light; there were no longer three sages waiting to greet me. I interrupted Stalemate and Ash’s annoying long explanation.

“Guys? I’ve got a plan.”

***

Diary of Radiant Heart
Entry 42, 50th of Autumn, Morning

Rainfall ordered the guard at each gate entrance doubled today. Not that having twice the number of folks standing around doing nothing is going to help us, but the cries for him to do something weren’t going to quiet themselves either. It seems we need a mayor, not just a mechanic.

Some idiot thought it’d be a good idea to start a brawl, and got himself and two others scraped up. Ran me clean out of the last of the antiseptic and I had to use the old bottle of spirits gran’ left. At least we still have enough cloth for bandages.

Sky Sage: Level Five
It feels like even death gave up and wandered away from this empty place. One step closer to something useful, right?

Dizzy: Level Five
Just keep moving, don’t let them die, don’t let them see how bad I am.

Ashen Shield: Level Four (50% to next level)
Why does everyone have to hurt themselves so much?!

Stalemate: Level Five
Just like walking through Detroit after the apocalypse. Actually, forget the apocalypse part.

Page: Level Five
So many things to learn. Who was that scientist? Well, what doesn’t kill me... makes me never want to see another orb again.

Perk?: Magical Burnout
You have not enough minerals. Wait, wrong game. You have tried to use too much magic, and are no longer able use telekinesis to pick up even the lightest of objects, or any other magic at all.

Wingnut: Level Four
PipBucks are great. I wish there was a better way to use them other than slamming my hoof into it though...

Author's Note

Well, it finally exists. Months and months late. Sorry for the delay folks. Wingnut and Dizzy went back to college, Page bought a house, and I had a breakup. So here we are.

This is the first chapter written almost exclusively by Page and Wingnut. It also catches up to the song 'Rust and Dust' which has been waiting to be a part of the tale for a long time. Thanks for your patience, and we hope to see you again soon.

-Sage