Dreamwalker's Tale: The Descent

“White Tip? Make a quick sweep of the area. See if you can find anything suspicious.”

A few quiet flaps of his wings later and he silently glided through the air. Twilight and I walked off the last steps of the staircase and the andesite road ended. That one main feature that literally connected every district of this sprawling, massive city. Down here was where they had drawn the line. Our hooves stood on solid stone. It was dressed stone, with miniscule, intricate patterns of what seemed to be some sort of floral design or something. I honestly spared it little attention. Somepony else might have appreciated the décor a lot more than I did at that moment. I wanted this to be over. I wanted to leave. And I wanted Twilight and my pet to be safe again.

“Let us stay cautious,” Twilight warned. I affirmed and we walked towards the city center, slowly, side by side. Close enough that our saddlebags bumped against each other every so often. I would have loved to close that gap even further, to feel her coat brush against mine. But we had gear, and gear wanted to be carried.

White Tip glided back to us a while later. He landed on my back, quickly took his usual spot again and informed me with a head shake that no, apparently there were no obvious traps, hazards or enemies around. Which made everything even more suspicious in my eyes, but as somepony had said: I harbored a certain paranoia, so maybe I was just expecting the worst, as usual.

We had seen the general layout of this bottom floor from high up above, right when we had entered the city. Three massive, concentric circles around the center, almost like trenches. They had seemed to be filled with ice or water. But we reached the outermost one and quickly realized that it was neither. Whatever sky-blue substance filled these trenches was too viscous to be water. That was probably the reason why ‘ice’ had been such an obvious contender. It was resting. It looked solid.

“Don’t touch that,” I warned Twilight as she once again whipped out her journal, her writing supplies and a test tube to collect a sample.

“Do you know what it is?” she asked.

I grimaced. No, I did not. And I shook my head accordingly. But it was hard to ignore that uncomfortable tingling sensation right beneath my skin. And it was all over my body. I tried to remain calm, tried not to shudder, but the impulse was there and it was rather insistent. “No idea, but it’s magic. Vast amounts of magic.” I had never encountered such a thing, but just standing close by felt like dipping my hooves into liquid spells. It felt pure, enticing and powerful. And therefore, scary.

She dipped her test tube in and the glass did not sizzle and dissolve. There was no visible reaction whatsoever. She closed it with a stopper and securely stored it away with all her other samples. She wrote a few notes while she cast a couple of spells to study this stuff as best as she could in the brief timespan she was willing to spare and we finally moved on.

It was impossible to tell how deep these trenches were, but they were not all that wide. It was possible to simply step over them, even for a normal-sized pony like me. Which only invited further questions. If this was not a safety feature or a defensive measure, what was it? Why was it here? Why were there three of these circles? Twilight would maybe find answers to these questions eventually, once she was back in her lab.

“Ready?” I asked, just to make sure. She nodded. Her horn glowed with stored energy, held back by her sheer force of will. A shield spell, I suspected. Or maybe even teleportation? After all: There was not a single patch of the infestation down here. Which was suspicious in its own right. My memories had told me time and time again: It came from below. It wanted to herd us down there. The deeper we went, the more dangerous it would become. And yet here we were, right at the bottom, and not a single splotch of that goo was visible anywhere.

I shook my head and stepped over the ring.

No eldritch flames shot up from the trench. No magic tendrils tried to grab me. No sudden shield rose up for me to bash my muzzle against. I just stepped to the other side. I looked back to Twilight and shrugged. She seemed relieved and followed me. We tried to stay vigilant. Tried to remain attentive. We were cautious at the second ring. We coordinated ourselves. We waited. We tried, slowly and carefully. And nothing happened. Again. It made it admittedly a lot harder to repeat the process a third time with the same caution. But then again, maybe that was the trick? Maybe that was exactly why there were three of these rings? Maybe that third one was the trap?

No. No it was not.

I sighed in relief anyway. Now everything that stood between us and our way home was a single workshop. And it was such a strange sight. We had seen the pomp and circumstance of several districts. How they flaunted their incredible wealth and their vastly superior technology. We had encountered their industrious side, impressive in its own right. Even their common houses looked like works of art. Only the finest stones and other materials, only the best craftsmanship throughout the entire city.

And now we walked towards a simple log cabin.

There was no second story. A simple, flat, thatched roof. A couple of windows, one of which was alight with a soft, orange glow that occasionally flickered and thereby indicated a flame. It was too strong for a candle. A fireplace was my best guess. The wooden door was still intact. The size of the building indicated that we were dealing with four, maybe five rooms. Two simple brick chimneys rose above the roof. One was larger, one smaller and shorter.

It looked so out of place in this city. This lone, wooden hut. Smack dab in the middle. The center of everything. Every road led here. Every citizen was able to see this house with a few steps towards the railing.

We stopped in front of the door.

I could see it in Twilight’s eyes. How her brow furrowed slightly as her gaze drifted to either side. Yes, we could walk around the building. We could sneak a few glances in through the windows. Her horn was lit anyway, as was mine. We might be able to spot a few interesting tidbits. But what was the point? And more importantly: Whoever or whatever was waiting inside made sure to make that fact obvious. It was waiting. It would be awfully rude to sneak around a house while its resident was present, would it not?

She seemed to come to the same conclusion and we exchanged a last nod before she politely knocked. Barreling in through the door to face down our foe sounded epic, but that usually just resulted in a lot of misunderstandings and unnecessary violence. And I was tired of both. I had my share of ‘epicness’ earlier and I was certainly not keen on a repeat.

The door sprung open and slowly swung inwards. Accompanied by a dramatic creaking. How every wooden piece had fallen apart throughout the entire city but this cabin remained untouched was a decent question. But apparently whatever kept this house in shape did not care for creaky hinges. We had seen the runes and arcane symbols carved into walls and stone. The markings that were probably responsible for preserving the residential district of the rich and wealthy. It was highly likely that a similar technique was employed to preserve this house, but we could not spot such runes and glyphs anywhere.

When the gap was large enough, we snuck in. Twilight went first, her horn still sizzling with readied energy, and I was close behind her with the Dreamweaver floating beside me. Once inside, I closed the door with a rear leg. We stood in a workshop, just as expected. All kinds of strange and less strange tools hung from the walls. Walls lined with tables filled with raw materials and half-finished doodads that stood beneath those. An impressively large fireplace lit the entire room and my past life as a smith quickly recognized the setup. This was a fireplace to heat up the room as much as it served as a simpler, cooler forge to keep metals warm. A more complex mechanism surrounded the fireplace. Maybe it was designed to shut the thing off, to increase the possible heat inside — I could not tell with certainty.

Two doors led to other rooms. Both were currently closed.

The ceiling was covered with a bunch of intersecting pipes. Some of them seemed to lead to the fireplace, others just crossed the workshop like they had no business being here. There was no carpet. No decoration. No paintings or busts of diamond dog heroes, nothing that indicated that it was just for show.

No, everything in this room had purpose.

Including that large desk in front of the fireplace. And of course, our diamond dog golem ‘friend’ sat right in front of it. At the wrong side, as I absentmindedly noticed. With his back to us. He sat there, hunched over and seemed to be busy with something we could not spot.

“Finally,” a raspy voice greeted us. It was deep, rumbling. Like stone grinding on stone. A voice that sounded strange because it was the product of magic, coming from a golem, sure. But I suspected another contributing factor: When had been the last time this voice had any need to be heard?

I took a deep breath to reign my quickly flaring frustration in. “So you can talk after all.” It still sounded very much like an accusation and less like a simple observation, despite my efforts.

“There was no point in talking,” he replied. He still barely moved and did not turn around to face us. Rude. “I needed to know that you are capable. I needed you to see.”

“Capable of what? To see what?” Twilight wanted to know.

It was strange to hear a golem sigh. Because he did not require breath to speak. “Capable of making your way down here. Capable of surviving. You needed to see what we once were. The glory and beauty of the old times.”

“You’re Ishmael, aren’t you?” I asked. Maybe the information that monster had given me was worth something.

Hearing the name really did surprise him. A jolt ran up its spine and it straightened a little. His stony ears stood at attention. Now he finally turned around and sat with his back leaned against the desk. We rarely had such a prime opportunity to get a good look at him. All the various floating rocks that formed his body were sporting runes. Dozens of them on each single piece. A mess of indecipherable glyphs. “Yes. That was my name, once upon a time. How do you know my name? I had forgotten it myself.”

I shrugged. “You’re welcome.” I could feel Twilight’s gaze bore into me. She wanted to know just as much as he did, and that was the point. I was willing to answer her. In time. But I would not give him any answers for free. Not after everything he had put us through. “So you’re a sentient golem?”

He remained silent for a moment before he raised his claw and pointed towards one of the doors. I felt a faint but distinct tingle as magic was weaved and we witnessed the door’s handle being pushed down. The door opened and we saw into an almost entirely empty room. Empty except for one feature. A sphere of floating rocks buzzed and lazily swirled in the middle of the room. The inside was large enough for a pony. Or a diamond dog.

And a minor flash made me grimace. I had seen that contraption before. Somehow, somewhere, sometime.

“You recognize it,” he merely observed.

I hated how easily he could read me. I was decently sure that it was mostly due to the flash giving me little choice in the matter. I had no control over how my face contorted or how my legs locked up in an effort to keep me standing. After a minute or two, the seizure was over and I tried to relax a little. “I do.” Sorting through the new information was difficult. Most of it was vague. But I managed to get the general gist of it and once I realized what I was thinking, what exactly I remembered, I grimaced again. “You were a diamond dog once.” My gaze was once again drawn to the contraption. A machine clearly arcane in nature. He stepped into it. And his body was destroyed. Torn apart by magic, dissolved. A quick process. A few seconds of pain. But those few seconds were laden with such incredible torment that few made it through without becoming utterly insane. It took tremendous willpower to remain. Once the body was gone, the spirit was bound in a new body. One made of magic and stone.

Crafting a soul into a golem was a vile procedure and considered torture. It was forbidden under the threat of… of what? It would have been interesting to know that piece. Because he had apparently done just that. He had given up on his mortal shell.

“I was Ishmael,” he recounted. “A name that means ‘god will listen’.” He gave a derogatory snort. “I cannot tell you how many times I have prayed. More than there were citizens in this city, I’m sure. And did he listen?” The question lingered in the air, unanswered by anyone currently present. “No. No, he did not.” His shoulders sagged a little as he closed the door again.

I could see how utterly fascinated Twilight had been with the sight of that thing. She probably understood a lot more about its workings than I did, merely by looking at it. “You managed to transfer your soul and consciousness into an artificial body? That is incredible!”

“It was never meant to happen,” he insisted with a gruff tone. “When things escalated, I had to make choices. This was an emergency solution to a couple of issues. I was already dying, bleeding out from a wound. And everything would have died with me.”

“Not to bust the mood or anything, but everyone down here did die,” I cut in. “Not sure if you’ve noticed.”

“Don’t take me for a fool, pony! I am aware of the state of my home!” he suddenly burst out. In the process of his outrage, he almost stood up.

That was my justification why I readied the Dreamweaver. Ready to plunge it into his chest. I aimed straight at the gemstone swirling around in it. I knew for a fact that it was some kind of power source. A critical component without which none of these golems could work, sentient or otherwise. And the Dreamweaver was one heck of a sharp blade. It would be able to pierce diamond.

But as quickly as he got enraged, his temper settled again and he slumped back down. Twilight shot me a warning look and I sighed and nodded. I would behave. Or at least try to.

“Who are you?” she asked him. “What happened down here?”

All of us noticed that barely audible crackling as a tiny splinter of his central, hoof-sized diamond fell out and dissolved into nothingness before it even reached the ground. And now, this close to him and with proper lighting from our horns and the fireplace, I could see cracks run all over the diamond. It looked like it would fall apart any moment now. And I finally thought I understood a thing or two.

“I am Ishmael,” he started his story, “the founder of this city. They called me the Father of a New Age. They called me the Tamer of Lightning and Steel. They had many titles for me back then. Reverent, respectful titles. I discovered a simple truth. Mathematics is magic.”

The moment he said that, Twilight squealed quietly while I rolled my eyes. I gave her a little bump against her shoulder and she quickly reigned herself in.

“I have studied mathematics for years. Decades. And in the end, I figured out how to generate magic from geometry. Circles. Cubes. Spheres. Lines. Perfect curves and flat surfaces. A few more years of study and I found the perfect material for my new discovery. Gemstones. They could be cut to perfection. And if one were to use a gemstone with perfect clarity, it would be possible to generate such vast amounts of magic, such a consistent output that incredible machinery could be powered by it. I was a scholar first in my life, but I became a renowned jeweler second. And finally, a golem smith. I alone held the secret to magic. Many tried and failed to copy my work. They did not understand the underlying principles. But my peers pressured me. My own pack ostracized me. The alpha of our town demanded I give up my life’s work.”

Twilight grimaced. She was a scholar as well. She could probably understand his plight in a way I could not.

“I refused. And I took a beating for it. I left these ungrateful imbeciles to their own devices and gathered all those willing to follow my lead. And I founded this city. We built it in a few years. Fewer years than any city had ever taken to be finished. Because my machines helped. It was a prosperous time. We lived in wealth for many years and attracted more and more packs to our cause. I even started to sell my machines. I sold them excavators and tunnel bores. I sold them guards and miners. I constructed new golems and machines for whatever need we had, or any paying customer had. And I gave them gemstones. Good ones, if they paid for it. But never the perfect ones. Those would not need replacement. Ever. But a good one would run for years, maybe decades. Before they would crawl back to me for more.”

I had my suspicion why Twilight grimaced this time. Ishmael did not try to hide his greed. His hubris. And right now, he sounded a lot like a pair of twin brothers I once knew. A pair of con artists and scammers, always on the lookout for a quick buck and rarely did they concern themselves with the consequences they inflicted upon others.

“The city’s hunger for gemstones grew and grew. We expanded our mines and tunnel networks. We traded for raw gemstones and sold the cut ones. It worked. But many clever minds came to call this city their home and they had ideas of their own. I eventually resigned from my position as alpha. Without me even realizing, I had become a slave to my own work. The city demanded more gemstones. Demanded more golems. More machines. Customers needed to be satisfied. And I was still the only one who properly understood how everything worked. I withdrew from my own city, from my followers. And I worked. I tirelessly toiled away in these walls. Any type of gemstone could work. It did not matter if it was a diamond, an amethyst or a ruby. It was about clarity and cut. The only two variables that truly mattered.” He sighed again.

“If you had everything figured out,” Twilight spoke up as he seemed to reminisce about something, “what went wrong?”

“You have seen the infestation. We had discovered the use of electricity. Every reservoir contains a hydroelectric power plant. But it wasn’t enough. Never enough. The city’s hunger grew quicker than we could satisfy it. Some smart dog figured that out. And a few of them panicked. My gemstones could power machines, electricity could help alleviate the burden, but it would not be enough for much longer. We needed something else. Something better.” His head turned a little to the side. I noticed something he pulled to the side of the desk. A thick, leatherbound book. It looked positively ancient. And a small, closed jewelry casket on top. “Deep down, deeper than most diamond dogs had ever dared to dig, we found some sort of fungus. It was more of a nuisance to our digging operations than anything else at first, but they retrieved a sample and the labcoats quickly figured out that it stored vast amounts of energy. We had no idea what it was. Or how it worked. We fed it, it reproduced, and it somehow generated more energy than we put in. It was the perfect solution. We began harvesting immediately and tried to farm it.”

This time, we all grimaced in some fashion. It was easy to figure out the rest. We had seen the state of this city for ourselves. They had brought their own doom into their home. Willingly. Eagerly.

“We didn’t know it was sentient. It fought back, but in a manner that was hard to take seriously. Then things escalated. Digging groups vanished. Even within the city perimeter, famers just disappeared. We immediately suspected this stuff to be responsible. What followed was basically war. We had already invested too much into this new power source to give up on it. No one wanted to back out now.”

“It killed everyone and destroyed everything,” Twilight quietly mumbled aghast.

Ishmael nodded. “It did. We fought it down in the tunnels for the longest time. The stuff within the city seemed less volatile. Until one day, everything just… exploded. It was a massacre. I managed to scramble back here, badly wounded, and did the unspeakable. I tried to help as many as I could, but the exits were blocked. There was no way out. The other golems were mindlessly following their orders, which killed them over time, even if the citizens were long gone before they vanished.” He pointed at the diamond in his chest with a stony claw. “A memento of one too many encounters with the enemy. After all these years, I came to realize what my path must be. I am undying, and yet I am dying. In its cracked state, this gemstone will not last me much longer. There is no gemstone of equal size around. It cannot be replaced. And I cannot leave this city.” He turned halfway around with a deep sigh and retrieved both the book and the casket from the desk, offering both to us. “This book contains my research notes. A smart head should be able to make sense of it.” He opened the casket for us and showed us twelve gemstones. Three rubies, two sapphires, two emeralds, four diamonds, one amethyst. “These were the city’s treasures. Perfect clarity, perfect cut. They can activate any of my old machines for eternity, as long as the gemstone remains undamaged.”

Both Twilight and I were struck speechless. We simply stared at the selection of gems, then at the casket as he closed it and still offered it to us. This was his legacy. His life’s work. The thing his greedy mind had struggled to keep secret for decades. Even when his people demanded more than a single diamond dog could deliver, he refused to share his knowledge. And now he offered it up on a silver platter, all of it.

“My time is running out,” he growled in frustration. “I had hoped for many years that others of my kind would find this city, but none ever came. I know you ponies. You are kind. Friendly. Helpful. I ask you, as humbly as I can, to take this and bring it to my people. I can only fathom what their cities and towns might look like these days. Maybe they do not need my research anymore. Maybe some other smart diamond dog figured it out by now. But I fear they might have fallen back to the old ways of squabbling. Alphas leading packs through strength. Packs fighting among themselves for dominance. We had managed to move past those primitive times. And if the other cities have fallen into disrepair as I fear, then this should help fix it.”

Twilight finally accepted the offered items. She almost reverently stored them in one of her saddlebags. “It is hard to find proper words for this. I am deeply sorry for your loss. I cannot imagine how it must have been to live through that, and to endure the loneliness that came after. Are you sure that there is no possibility to save your life? We could try to find another way! A friend of mine is really good at finding gemstones. Maybe she could—“

“No,” Ishmael cut in and shook his head. “While I am grateful for the offer, this entire last week has been a miracle in itself. Your arrival almost feels fated to me. Maybe God did listen to my pleas after all. I have no idea why he would send ponies, of all things, but who am I to question his will? I have only a few days left. Gemstones of the clarity required are only found deep down. These twelve are half of what we found. In decades. And I was a perfectionist my entire life. These golems cannot be powered by gemstones of a worse quality or smaller size than they already have. I am certain. That said…” He pointed his claw again. This time at the tools on the walls. Several of them levitated from their suspensions and quickly filled up a toolbox. “These would be the proper tools for a diamond dog jeweler to follow the instructions contained in my journal.”

A few days remaining.

No wonder he was willing to give his life's work up to us and hope for the best. He had few options left. It likely also explained why he had chosen to follow us around and push us forward, only springing into action when absolutely necessary. He was almost out of juice. He was not even as dangerous as I initially had thought. Just an old, greedy dog, trapped in a frail and failing body. And he had played us like a damn fiddle for the longest time. “What does the collar do?” I asked out of sheer idle curiosity.

“The gemstone can only supply so much energy in any given time interval. The collar overrides that and allows to draw more energy out of the diamond.” Which, as far as I understood his superficial explanations, only served to kill him faster. He must have noticed my furrowed brow, as he continued his explanation shortly after. “I knew that it was likely for you to encounter the enemy sooner or later. I could not risk losing this chance.”

So he used up his energy, which directly related to his remaining lifetime, to defend us. It could have been a noble sacrifice, were it not for his ulterior motives. And there was another thing that irked me. “Why not just tell us everything from the start? Why not just bring this stuff up and give it to us as soon as we fell into the hole?”

He shook his head. “Impossible. The enemy would not have let me escape. It knew. It monitors this house. I am the last one remaining. It cannot cross the barriers, but neither can I bring this out of the city safely. I needed you to come down here.”

“Even so. When Applejack fell in, you could have simply asked for her help. You could have told her to meet you at the bottom. That you’re a hostage, sort of, and that you need help,” I insisted.

“And that would have worked?” he asked doubtfully.

“Yes,” Twilight cut in. “The friend I mentioned before had an encounter with diamond dogs a few years ago. Rover, Spot and Fido. We rarely encounter diamond dogs at all and they were one of few other opportunities to learn about their society, behavior and psychology. It may be hard to understand for your kind, but yes — simply asking for help would have worked just fine.”

“Interesting,” he grumbled and sighed. “That could have saved us time and effort. But it is too late for that. I will now accompany you back to the exit. We will have to make haste, I don’t know how much time is left and any encounter with the enemy will severely deplete my reserves. But I must ensure your safe departure.”

Twilight sighed as well and grabbed the toolbox with her levitation. Maybe we would get a chance to talk on the way out. Ishmael undoubtedly had a lot more to tell, a lot of knowledge to share. For all the pretenses and excuses we made, this was still an adventure. And this was probably our loot? Knowledge about a civilization we barely knew anything about, even though they lived right under our hooves. Rainbow would probably have preferred something more substantial, like a golden idol or something. But for Twilight and me, this was actually perfect.

“Remember to keep a low magical profile,” Ishmael warned us. “The enemy can sense it.” He walked over to the door and we followed him close behind. I was decently sure that the rest of the building was his living room, his bedroom, a storage, a kitchen, a pantry, something along those lines. And even if the irrefutable evidence of war crimes would be just a stone’s throw away, some actual archeologists might have fun discovering those. I had no reason not to believe Ishmael in regards to his health, so he would be long dead by the time anypony came down here to investigate.

“Twilight? Do you need help with the toolbox?” I asked.

She smiled and shook her head. “I am fine, but thank you.”

White Tip shifted a little on my back. I was about to ask him if he was fine as well when all hell broke loose.

Ishmael opened the door.

For a fraction of a second, I wondered. Why was everything so pitch-black outside? Fractions of a second any good soldier would have already used. But my mind was so transfixed by that utter blackness that I failed in that regard. Twilight on the other hoof was more experienced. Even in combat, by now. But even she failed to expect that.

The hunter was right outside.

The moment the golem opened the door, a single, spear-like tendril shot out of the black, gooey body mass and pierced straight through the diamond spinning in Ishmaels chest. White Tip cawed loudly to alarm us and his claws painfully dug into my coat again. Twilight's eyes went wide as dinner plates before she focused energy into her horn and put up a hemispherical shield. The tendril was cut off and splashed to the ground lifelessly. And Ishmael fell backwards. I felt the last remnants of magic fizzle out.

Everything he had been was gone.

Twilight had positioned herself in front of the door, to bar entry. Even though her shield did that just fine. Her wings were unfurled, extended to their full, impressive glory. I doubted this organism was intimidated by that. I instead carefully walked around the remains and poked a single piece with a hoof. I saw the bone-shaped stones, still covered with runes, scattered on the floor. But the glyphs did not glow anymore. Touching the stones did not send even the slightest tingle up my leg. There were splinters of the diamond all over the place. Apparently the material only dissolved into nothingness if it was used up as fuel. This one was broken. Shattered. Quite a mundane thing.

“He’s gone,” I informed Twilight and walked over to her side. “I’m sorry.” She gritted her teeth. I could not gauge if she saw it as her mistake, mine, his, all of us or none. But I could easily see all the potential that was lost. The knowledge we would not get. The conversations we would not have.

It took me a moment to realize that technically, we were still in battle. Yet the goo had done nothing. “How is the shield holding up?” I asked.

It helped her refocus, it seemed. “No drain,” she replied curtly.

I wondered when that thing would turn up again, a voice in the back of my head chuckled.

“You killed him. Satisfied?” I asked the creature. “Mind letting us leave now?” It was worth a shot after all, right?

The goo wobbled and hummed and vibrated. After a few seconds, it retreated a couple of feet from the doorway and began to shrink in on itself. It twitched and spasmed until it formed something that vaguely resembled the shape of a pony. It did not get all the features right though. While it was hard to tell, the goo seemed to form even a mane and tail, but its muzzle was too short and above it sat a single, lidless, orange eye. I grimaced immediately, as I had seen that one before.

“No.”

Twilight and I exchanged a look.

We had speculated that this thing wanted to usher us down as much as Ishmael had. We now knew what his motives had been. I had assumed this thing simply wanted to kill him. Especially after all Ishmael had told us about the conflict of ages past. But maybe it was smart enough to realize that we might get away with, oh, say, research notes or something silly like that.

Maybe it knew.

“What do you want?” Twilight asked. I could hear the strain in her voice. How she tried to remain calm. Her tone was even, measured, careful. It reminded me of Sunny. Twilight was a natural born leader, just like her. All the chaos in her mind could wait for later. It was an impressive feat I failed to emulate.

“Tell. Story,” it replied. Every word seemed to be a chore. Some alien sound that was difficult to produce. I wondered how it spoke our language to begin with. Had it encountered ponies before? Or had it learned from following us, watching us and listening to our conversations? Maybe it had learned from the brief contact in the farming district, when its tendrils made contact with both Twilight and me?

The immediate issue was that we could not tell if it wanted to tell us a story, or if it wanted us to tell it a story. And what story. It seemed to realize that after everypony stayed quiet for a moment. “Not need mind before. Just lived. Grew. Explored. Unthinking. Then hurt. Carried away. Need to understand. Need mind. Made mind. Saw machines. Machines hurt. Saw people. People use machines. Machines hurt. Us energy. Machines eat. Use us. Mind made decision. Defeat machines. Defeat hurt. People not understand. Built new machines. Mind understood. No people, no machines, no hurt. People gone. Machines gone. One remains.”

This tale left a lot to be desired as far as storytelling went. But it was suitable to convey the meaning in broad strokes. And it painted quite a grim picture. One Ishmael had already alluded to. An organism that grew in the deepest, darkest corners of the earth. They poked it, it poked back. They tried to rip it to shreds to fuel their growing industry and it defended itself.

Went a little overboard there, didn’t it?

That was certainly one way to speak of genocide. But whose fault was that, really? Even now, decades later, this creature could barely talk. It probably still barely understood anything. There was no one around to teach it. It had become sentient out of necessity. In a hostile environment no less. All it knew was ‘attack’ and ‘defend’. Had it ever talked to diamond dogs? Had it tried? If not, which seemed most likely to me — would it have made any difference?

I fueled our fireplace with wood. How would I react if my firewood suddenly kicked me in the shin and ran for the hills? Or if it started to plead with me not to burn it? I would be horrified. I would feel incredibly guilty for all the other, numerous times I lit our fireplace.

But I was a pony.

Would a diamond dog react the same way? We knew so little about them.

“Well, he is dead,” Twilight shot back, “because you killed him. He can therefore no longer be the reason you refuse to let us go.”

“Twi, I know this is all kinds of messed up, but… try to stay calm, peanut,” I urged her.

She took a deep breath and gave me a curt nod. Even White Tip, although he was still very much on edge, held up better right now. He ducked low on my back and tried to crawl into me, it seemed. It was fine. We were fine. We were still safe and secure beneath Twilight’s shimmering shield.

It was not that Twilight did not have compassion for the cruel fate this organism had endured. I knew her. She felt for it. But it was considerably harder to show that empathy right after witnessing a cold-blooded murder. Her reluctance in that regard crumbled the moment the pony-shape did.

I furrowed my brow as I saw its rubbery black legs buckle, and then they simply gave out and it collapsed to the ground. Despite her caution, despite the corpse behind us, the shield vanished instantly and she galloped over to its side. “What is happening?”

“Death,” it simply replied and raised its head to face us. “Us feed. Us store. One remains. Food empty.”

I thought back to all the goo we had seen across the entire city. It was everywhere. Certainly felt like it. But rarely did it do anything. And Twilight had already analyzed samples of it. She had already concluded that it was starving. Dying. And a single piece of it remained active, which… probably only accelerated its demise. Similar to what Ishmael had done.

I was sure neither of them would appreciate me pointing out the similarities.

“I could help you,” Twilight offered. Because of course she did. I grimaced and walked over to her side, just so that I would be able to at least attempt to stop her if she were to try anything stupid. This creature had slaughtered hundreds, if not thousands. Yes, I myself questioned if it could be held accountable for those deaths. But there was clearly danger present. We had seen that a couple of seconds ago. But she was already willing to share whatever magic she had left to keep this thing alive.

“Us too big,” the creature declined, much to my relief. “Mind done. Go back down. Grow. Explore. Unthinking. No hurt. Ensure no hurt. No knowledge. No machines.”

I flinched a little. It knew. Maybe not of the book. Or the tools. Or the gemstones. But it knew that Ishmael had shared something with us. That we were carrying his legacy away from this place. And there seemed to be little it could do about that.

I tried to imagine what it would lead to. We could offer the journal and gemstones and tools to the diamond dogs. It would be one heck of a boon in any diplomatic endeavor to establish proper contact with them. More importantly, it could really help them get back on their hooves. Paws. Whatever. Their crumbled ruins could light up once more, their entire society could reach a second period of prosperity.

… and their hunger for power would grow once more. Gemstones first, then electricity. Then whatever else they can get their grubby little paws on.

Was history doomed to repeat itself?

I looked down to the creature as it laid its gooey head on the ground. The eye dissolved. And so did the rest of the body. It lost its shape again and the goo covered the ground.

“They were bitter enemies right up to the end,” I remarked.

She sighed and stood back up again. “They were. It is a tragedy of unfathomable proportions what happened here. They unknowingly inflicted so much pain. And stubbornly refused to learn. In the end, they paid a terrible price, but…” Twilight softly shook her head and put in some effort to smile. “I refuse to let this be the end of this story.”

I chuckled. That’s my peanut. “You have a plan?”

She shook her head, but her smile remained undiminished. “Not quite yet.” She tapped her saddlebag with one hoof. “But I think we do have everything we need. Maybe all they need to get along is a little bit of help. Somepony to establish proper diplomatic relationships. It worked for the griffons, yaks and dragons, did it not?”

“Even the changelings,” I hesitantly chimed in with a slight grimace.

She smiled warmly. “Yes. Especially them. We did this before. We can do it again. We just need to figure this out properly. I need to do some research.”

I laughed softly. It was astonishing how unflappable she could be. She was already back to her usual self and planned to better the world. “I’ll gladly help you, if you’ll have me. I think seeing this through might help me feel like… I don’t know… like this finally ended, I guess. The flashes never told me what happened to Red, Silver and myself. It could feel like a proper conclusion.”

Her smile widened into a grin. “I would love to have your help.”

It was hard to see her so energetic, so optimistic, especially in a place like this, and not get infected at least a little bit. So I grinned like an idiot in reply and nodded maybe a little bit too enthusiastically. “Right. So, how’s your magic?”

And somehow, even her grin widened a little. “I cannot feel any strain whatsoever ever since it dissolved. No dispersion field.”

Now that was good news!

I chuckled as I saw that glint in her eyes. How eager she was. “Teleport?”

She sidled up to me and put her wing across my back. “Hold onto your breakfast!” she giggled.

The moment she reminded me of that nasty side effect, I wanted to retract my decision. But in a bright raspberry flash and a loud pop, we were already gone.