Dreamwalker's Tale: The Descent

I tried hard not to think of it as: It almost feels like the first day. Because that would not just imply, no, it would emphasize that we had been down here for several days already. Two days minimum was my current estimation. Two days without a proper shower or bath. Two days without brushing my teeth. Two days of constant walking and stressing and tense nerves and no proper, comfortable sleep.

But despite my efforts, this did feel like the first day. When everything had still been fresh and unknown and exciting. When that adorable glint in Twilight’s eyes still spoke of wonder and awe. Because that glint was back. And I silently admired it. I dared not to breathe too loudly or walk too quickly in fear it might disrupt this moment. I wanted it to stretch for as long as I could manage to keep it going.

The fourth city layer turned out to be the financial district. Banks and vaults and treasuries. Large and imposing buildings that attempted to make us feel small as we entered the main halls and stared up at the high-vaulted ceilings. We entered a couple of these until we eventually grew bored and silently agreed to skip them. The city was partially lit with street lights now, but the insides of the buildings were not. The architecture failed in its attempts to intimidate us due to this unfortunate circumstance.

Most of the structures were built out of white marble. Another exorbitant demonstration of wealth. But I had to admit, it served two purposes very well: Firstly, it pulled the theme of the residential district further down into the city and made sure to tell visitors that this wealth they saw up there was not just a façade, not just a one-off. Oh no, this city really was rich. But at the same time, they used marble for these buildings, not diorite. They still needed to make a significant distinction between ‘people live here’ and ‘wealth lies here’. The white down here was splendid. It lacked the subtle sparkle the spotted diorite had provided and was therefore less flashy. It instead opted for a more sedate, regal splendor.

Secondly, it reinforced the main theme of the city as a whole. The residential area had established it quite well, but what followed immediately after was the rather industrious looking layer of the air conditioning complexes. And after that? Farms and pastures and orchards. A strange outlier down here. Greenery and food production. The city as a whole had less of a cohesive theme going. It seemed more like every layer stuck to its own theme. But the financial district at least made sure what was supposed to be front and center and that the industry and agriculture were the outliers, not the opulence.

White Tips claws subtly dug into my back and my attention shifted back to my surroundings. Twilight looked at me and now that I was actually present, she smiled and nodded towards another building ahead of us. We had cleared half the layer by now and she was busy sketching her city map again. I followed her gesture and saw yet another marble building, but its layout was admittedly a little bit different. Maybe not a vault, then. I nodded and we entered it through its massive door a minute later.

Said door gave a slightly annoyed creaking as the less than well-maintained metal hinges strained. We entered another massive entrance hall, which already frustrated me slightly, but Twilight was less disheartened than me and forged ahead through stale air, rubble and the piles of what probably had been chairs and tables at some point.

We entered a considerably smaller backroom through one of the many doorways without a door. The tables in here were still intact due to them being made out of metal. And a strange assortment of devices was strewn across the place. Some still rested on their workplaces, others cluttered the floor. One in particular drew my gaze. I had no idea what this tool was used for once upon a time. Only that it looked like somepony had used it as a projectile. It was lodged in the wall roughly one foot below the ceiling. If I were to levitate one of these tools and kick it with the perfect angle and perfect speed and all of my strength, it would clatter against the wall and fall to the ground. Twilight probably had enough force behind her telekinesis to do something like that. But I was decently sure that no diamond dog reached that level of strength.

I was sure it was supposed to be scary how quickly this feeling deadened. We had seen no piles of bones or bones scattered on the floor. Nowhere in this entire district. So they managed to flee, probably to die in other parts of the city. But even here were clear signs of struggle. Of battles. Some of the vaults we had visited had their massive, thick metal doors ripped open. And apparently, tools were lodged in walls. I was certain there was an interesting story behind that. A grisly one as well, probably.

I sighed and refocused. Twilight had already sketched some of the tools. Meanwhile I played around with one of them and had not even realized it. I held it aloft with my magic and just twirled it around like a cane. I smiled wryly and stopped making a fool of myself. This was a graveyard. It deserved respect. And that tool was probably old enough to count as a priceless relic of a bygone era or something.

What even was that thing?

I brought it closer to my muzzle in hopes my light would not only illuminate the item better, but somehow give me a better grasp on its nature. A pair of pliers. But the business end of it was strangely shaped. Was that a diamond dog’s head?

I looked around and found a couple more of these tools. No gloves, I wondered. But three cauldrons. Stone cauldrons. Beneath a pipe system on the ceiling. Two of the cauldrons were cracked and broken apart, but there was enough left to guess their design compared to the third one. Something was poured into them from the ceiling. And there were plenty of these tools. They had a little indent and—

“It’s a coining press, isn’t it?” I asked myself. But the fact that I spoke aloud drew Twilight’s attention.

“I think so too, yes,” she agreed. “Although I wonder. From what we have seen so far, the level of their technology should provide at least some means to automate this process. I could think of a couple just off the top of my head. But they used these pliers. There is a small mechanism to fix them shut. Probably so that the metal inside could cool down, because I do not see any sinks or basins. There must be a reason why they choose this procedure.”

The longer she speculated about it, the more excited she got. I just loved seeing her like this. “We’ve skipped a couple of buildings. Maybe this isn’t the only press. If so, others might actually have been more advanced. Maybe this one was not outfitted with new tech yet. Or maybe they wanted to keep old traditions alive. Ooor, maybe this building was just there to produce some sort of special coin. You know? To mark special occasions or something like that.”

She grinned gleefully and her feather furiously scribbled down several new notes in her journal. Like a filly in a candy store. I smiled privately and sighed as my gaze fell upon the pliers once more. They sparked my own imagination, in a way. We had not exactly been thorough with the buildings we had entered, aside from the first one or two maybe. But I had a decent understanding of their general layout. And for some reason, my head wanted to make that into a combat encounter map for my next Ogres & Oubliettes-game. I grinned lopsided and shook my head as I put the tool down.

“You might want to see this,” Twilight announced. I looked over to her and she drew her muzzle out of one of the lower cabinets. She levitated something almost as large as the cabinet itself and set it down on top. I walked over and furrowed my brow. It was a diorama. Of the very building we were in. It looked like it was crafted from painted cardboard. But at the same time, the craftsmanship at display was impressive. Rarity would have loved to see this.

“Why do they keep a diorama of their own building in that building?” I wondered aloud and shook my head before I addressed the more obvious question. The one Twilight had on her mind as well. “And why is it still intact?” She agreed and I knew she had something planned as she glanced at me out of the corner of her eyes. “What?”

She smiled. “Luna told me that you can be very sensitive to magic.”

That old blabbermouth! I grinned and shook my head. I would have my terrible, terrible revenge some other day. Not because this was actually worth any revenge. Just because I liked the idea of teasing her. Any flimsy excuse to do that was good enough for me. “Well, true. But I can’t really control that. Or… I haven’t quite learned how yet. It just happens.”

She acknowledged that and studied the diorama again before she apparently made some kind of decision worth a nod. “I would like you to try anyway? I think they might have enchanted this. If I am right, that would be interesting, because from a superficial study, I could not find any gemstones or gemstone slots, no hidden compartments or such.”

“Which would mean that they had ways to access magic without gemstones,” I concluded. She nodded again, yet again with an excited grin plastered on her lovely muzzle. I smirked. “Alright, I’ll give it a shot. What am I supposed to do?” She released the diorama from her magical grasp. She was about to say something but I held a hoof up to stop her. I could already feel it.

I was so used to Twilight’s magic, its color, its scent, its taste. It was alluring, intoxicating, but most importantly, it was powerful. Even her light spell, as simple as that was, exuded an aura that easily overpowered lesser magic fields in our surroundings. After years and years of living with her, I had simply grown accustomed to it. But this diorama really was enchanted in some way. With magic strong enough that once Twilight withdrew her telekinetic grasp, it overpowered the remaining aura of her light.

It was subtle. A tingling right beneath my coat. Like an itch I could not scratch away. I had not even noticed it in the first couple of weeks or months after my arrival. And a year later or so, I became aware of it and it was an unpleasant experience. I had to learn to deal with that. It was nice to feel Celestia’s magic caress my cheek when I tried to sleep through the morning hours. Because it very much felt like her. Warm and soothing and comforting and patient. I could tell. The same way Luna had never managed to surprise me when she snuck up on me, put her hooves over my eyes and sent a single tendril of her magic up my spine. To be fair, she lost that game of ‘guess who’ every time because she was the only one playing it with me. But again, I could tell it was her magic. It was electrifying, thrilling, exciting.

Everypony had their own aura. Every source of magic felt different. Despite their insistence that my sensibility to magic was out of the norm, I still could not feel the background magic as such. Magic was everywhere, after all. Air contained magic. Rocks did. Every tree and flower did. But I could not feel it there. I just felt magic that was actively shaped. Active spells.

And that diorama was active.

It felt bland, to be honest. Stale. But I supposed that was only fitting for magic that was probably intended to keep something intact throughout the ages. “You’re right,” I told Twilight. “It’s enchanted, I think.” I grabbed the diorama in my own magic and cautiously turned it around. I inspected its backside, its sides and its underside. I brought it a lot closer and inspected all the little details. I noticed that the building could be opened and after doing so, we had a nice little look into the floorplan of it. We even saw the little room we stood in. Without miniatures of us in it, to my relief. That could have been scary.

I carefully put it back down and Twilight studied the insides as well. And again, the diorama sparked my imagination in much the same way the pliers had earlier. I chuckled faintly. “Stop it,” I mumbled to myself.

I underestimated the silence that permeated the room. The building. The city as a whole. “Stop what?” Twilight asked.

“Oh, nothing, I was just—“ I cut myself off and looked at the diorama once more with a grin. “I was just thinking if I should take some of this stuff as props.”

“Props?” she asked as she furrowed her brow. But soon enough I saw comprehension dawn and she grinned shrewdly. “Are you thinking about a new campaign?”

I smirked. “I will admit, I had a couple of ideas swirling around in my head and an itching in my hooves. And this entire field trip, despite all the hurdles and such, is a treasure trove of inspiration.”

It was supposed to be strange, was it not?

Here I was, having an epic adventure. No, pardon. An epic danger assessment mission. An epic reconnaissance mission. An epic scientific field study. Whatever she wanted to call it to spare me.

And I just could not stop groaning and whining and lamenting my terrible, terrible fate. Most of it I successfully kept bottled up and inside. But none of this was fun. Not for me. I saw that glint in her eyes and it warmed my heart. But I did this for her. I was down here for her. I hated it here. I hated how uncontrollable these flashes were. And what they did to me. I hated losing control like that. Not being myself anymore. Crossing over with some other iteration of myself from some other life I barely remembered pieces of. I hated the headaches that followed and the weak knees and the churning stomach. I hated being hungry without the option to quickly grab a snack, even though that was less of an issue for now. And gosh-darn it, I hated not being able to properly rest. I wanted to lie down on a bed, snuggle up to Twilight and sleep for a week and I wanted that so badly. I felt tired and exhausted and my concentration was lacking and I hated that as well.

Admittedly, ‘hate’ was a bit of a strong term for this. All of it. It was more like an annoyance. One that continuously grinded away at my nerves and patience.

All the excitement was just more reason to be wary. All the twists and turns were just invitations for new disasters and sudden shifts in what we thought was safe. I cared little about diamond dogs, if I was honest. They were not part of my life in any capacity. But these flashes made me care. They made me fear for Red’s and Silver’s fate, even though I had a perfectly well-founded suspicion how this story would end.

But at the same time, I would be thrilled to have this adventure at home in the castle, at a table with my friends playing Ogres & Oubliettes. It was a perfectly safe environment, I could have all the snacks I wanted, I could call it quits for the evening if I got tired and we would have fun and danger and excitement in just the right amount. And I was in control.

Exploring a long-lost, abandoned diamond dog city. Puzzling over how they powered their devices. Narrowly escaping the old guardians and new, predatory inhabitants. Forging a path down to the center, where huge revelations and loot galore would be waiting. It sounded like so much fun. At a game table. And only there. Because out here in the real world, it was just such a hassle, such a drag.

It was supposed to be strange, was it not?

I shook my head to disperse the musings. I already felt darkening clouds gathering at the horizon. There was no need to drag my own mood down further. So I looked at Twilight and let her smile warm me. And it instantly became easier to smile. “Well this has already been quite the danger assessment mission and you know me, I’m not much for writing protocols and reports. But I suspect my mind will bug me about this until I process it somehow. The obvious two choices being either to write about it. And I don’t intend to write a book. I don’t have that kind of time. Or I could craft it into a new campaign. Which would be great, because then I can share it with my friends. Writing is a bit of a lonely affair, you see. But I’m sure you know all about that.”

She replied to my grin with one of her own and sauntered over to me. Her tail flicked across my muzzle as she leaned down and placed a kiss on my back. And I sighed in content. “Actually, I do not. So many times when I try to write in peace and quiet, somepony comes bugging me.”

My grin grew wider and I leaned over and nuzzled her mane. “Is that so? How rude. I should have a word with that somepony. Can’t have them bother you like that. Don’t they know you’re an important princess pony? With important princess duties and stuff?”

Her giggle was a delight. “Do not be too harsh on him. I think he wants to keep me company as much for my sake as for his own. And he is very considerate when he comes by.”

I huffed a little. “Hm. I don’t know. I’ll be the judge of that.” I smiled and sidled up to her as we made our way out of the building. Twilight let the diorama float behind us and placed it next to the entrance. I presumed she intended to fetch it later. “So you’d be up for that?” I asked her as we once again walked along the andesite road.

“You mean a new campaign?” She asked for clarification. As soon as I confirmed as much, she smiled happily. “Of course! Especially after how the last one ended. I feel like there is still so much I could and want to explore with Vortex.”

Ah. And there’s the catch. I grimaced ever so slightly as I tried to be nice about how I phrased this. “I’m not entirely sure if playing Vortex again would be such a good idea…?”

She stopped. Right in the middle of the road, she just stopped. I stopped as well as soon as I noticed her missing by my side. Just to be sure, I checked our surroundings. My gaze drifted over the buildings, windows, entrances and roofs. The darker byroads, the direction ahead of us, behind us. There was a lot to keep track of. A lot of potential attack vectors. White Tip did his part to survey the area as well, even though I did not notice. But that was the point, exactly. He was attentive. Maybe even more so than I was. And his claws did not dig into my back, which should already have told me that there was nothing to be found.

So I watched Twilight. She regarded me with that inquisitive, piercing gaze of hers. “Why?”

“What do you mean, why?” I asked.

“You don’t want me to play Vortex anymore. And I want to know why.”

I was relieved at the same time that my stomach twisted into a tiny knot. This was not a big deal. Supposedly. “You have played her for roughly six years now, Twi. Two campaigns, a couple of one shots. You are very deep in your comfort zone. Don’t you think it might be time to try something new?”

She furrowed her brow and her gaze drifted down to the street as her gears turned with ever-increasing speed. She eventually looked back up at me and even though there was still no judgment in her eyes whatsoever, I saw little to no agreement either. “But I do try new things. With her. Through her. In our last campaign, she had to come to terms with betrayal and loss and the concept of forging your own family, not by blood but by trust, friendship and love. That last one shot we played a couple of months ago made her realize that maybe there really are some spells that should better be lost to time.”

I grimaced a little and smiled fondly at the same time as I remembered that instance. Twilight had cackled madly as Vortex went full coocoo with power. I had honestly not expected Twilight to be capable of such laughter. It was startling and impressive. Even Rainbow had given her seal of approval by stating a very Rainbow-like compliment in: “Whoa, that was awesome!” To which Twilight reacted with a blush, which in turn made Fluttershy giggle. And Derpy just enjoyed the show.

But Twilight was not done just yet. “You were the one who taught me the game. Spike tried to get me into it several times, but you succeeded where he failed. I don’t think I would ever have developed an interest in this hobby without you. And you always emphasized, no, stressed how there are a lot of rules and a lot of guidelines but at the end of the day, it is about having fun. If the rules state I cannot do what I want to do, but you approve of it, I can do it. As long as everypony at the table is okay with that and is having fun. And I am. I like Vortex. She is my stand-in. The lens through which I enter and experience your world.” I did not like how she grew quieter in those last sentences. How she became more vulnerable until she uttered a question that apparently was close to home right now. “Do you not like her anymore?”

I would have loved to cringe hard, but I luckily had better self-control than that. It could easily have conveyed the entirely wrong message.

She was right, of course. All she knew about roleplaying was stuff I had taught her. Well okay, maybe I should not claim all the credit, seeing as Shining Armor had basically roleplayed with his little sister for most of her youth. Which foal did not love to play pretend? Ogres & Oubliettes was just the grown-up version of that. And Vortex the Gray was less of a stand-in for Twilight and more of a self-insert with a few key changes. Which was fine with me, really. Despite her notoriously metagaming, it was fine. It was easy to love Twilight. Unavoidable, I corrected myself. And therefore, it was easy to love Vortex.

I sighed. “You don’t have to worry. I do still like her. A lot. She’s a little unhinged at times, but that somehow only contributes to her charm.” My reassurance at least seemed to ease her initial concerns somewhat. Her slightly shaky smile gained strength, she nodded and allowed me to kiss her tenderly for a brief moment. “It’s not that I don’t want you to play her anymore or that I don’t like her any longer. I just… roleplay has a lot to offer. You can be whoever and whatever you wish to be. I’m just worried you might be missing out on a lot of fun you could have otherwise.”

Her smile grew a little lopsided. “So you are worried about me again. We have talked about that, have we not?”

I grimaced slightly. “Guilty as charged,” I admitted. I did not wish to dwell on that too long and therefore quickly changed the topic. “Come to think of it: Vortex and you share a lot of similarities. And those differences are, let’s say ‘noticeable’. Do you ever feel frustrated and want to lash out?”

“She is not frustrated,” Twilight insisted.

I smirked and sidled up to her and we slowly moved on. “Sure she is. She burned down that inn in our last one shot.”

“That innkeeper demanded two silver pieces for each bedroom, but four from me!”

I chuckled as she riled herself up within mere seconds. I leaned over and bumped my shoulder against hers. “Yeah he did. Because he knew the name ‘Vortex the Gray’. Did you know she’s an unhinged wizard who practices dark magic? I told you that it would come back to bite you eventually.”

I laughed a little more as she pouted. Most times she did, it was just downright adorable. But her mind eventually got stuck on something. Probably how I had addressed her and not Vortex earlier. “Well of course I feel frustrated at times. Eventually being fed up with the stubbornness of other ponies is only natural, I hope. And when patience starts to run thin, it really helps to have a vent for that. That is one reason why I like Vortex so much. She is me, but less restrained. If that stupid innkeeper wants to overcharge her because of some stupid rumors, she can burn down his inn. It feels liberating, in a sense. When I go on a friendship mission and see that the conflict could have been resolved by simply talking it out and having an open conversation about the issue, it is frustrating. More so because it will most likely be the umpteenth time and I will once again have to contrive a scenario in which the involved parties actually do talk. I often feel like proper communication could solve ninety-three percent of most interpersonal problems.”

Ninety-three percent, eh? That number was too specific for her not to have some impressive looking math to back it up. But I focused on something else instead. I could understand that desire to explore ‘what if’s. My flashes were a unique variable in that regard. I had memories of a happy marriage with Pinkie, for example. Whenever I dared to dwell on those bits and pieces, I got the impression of lots and lots of laughter. Cheery smiles and sweet, tender moments. And when Pinkie and I met for somepony’s birthday party and we greeted each other and she hugged me like she hugged everypony else, like she had hugged me for thousands of times already, it was sometimes harder not to think about possibilities. A hug was a hug was a hug. But intention was important. And a hug could feel different just because of the intentions of those involved. It would be easy. A quick and simple change to make. And it would be wrong. Very, very wrong.

But the thought was there nonetheless.

And the other direction was just as present of course. Just two months ago, I had tried to talk with Doctor Whooves about… honestly, I didn't even remember. I quickly grew frustrated with him because he just did not give me a straight answer. And the idea was there. The image in my head of how I would grab him and drag him down to my level and snarl in his face that either he would give me the answer I required right now, or I would make him wish he would have given it.

That was just a sudden spike, of course. I would never. And neither would Twilight. But she had a point — roleplay was a good way to vent these feelings, to process them in a stable environment, supported by friends, while being safe and comfortable. And it had been fun to hear Vortex the Gray berate the self-proclaimed Guardian of the Timestream for his failings. Said guardian had no parallels to a certain Doctor I knew. None at all.

Twilight was right, as usual. I worried too much.

I shot her a wry smile. “So about those unexplored areas,” I offered. “Any particular wishes?”

Twilight quickly picked up on my attempt and smiled. “Well I thought that… maybe addressing her family situation would be interesting?”

Upon hearing this, I could not help but grin from ear to ear. When I started to introduce her to my imaginary little world, I tried to ease her into roleplay slowly and carefully. She created Vortex and called her a stand-in, while I only saw the self-insert many first-timers built. But it got a little muddled when Vortex’ background was concerned. Where she had come from. Where she grew up. How old she was. If she had siblings. If her parents were still alive and well. I tried to convey to her that this information was essential to anchor her character in that world despite no place left for it on her character sheet. But she had already become aware of how similar Vortex was to her and was worried about straight up copying Shining Armor, Night Light and Twilight Velvet.

Thus, Vortex was a tight-lipped creature, wary and sometimes a little gruff. She rarely talked about her past and never even so much as mentioned having a family, past or present. It was nice that she apparently had made her peace with that in some form. “I take it you made up your mind then? Come on, don’t be shy, tell me!”

She smiled bashfully. It was cute. “Well I thought… Vortex is a very driven pony. There must be a reason why she is so reckless when it comes to acquiring new knowledge and spells, right? She is very meticulous and methodical, very insistent on efficiency and naturally risk-averse, but that all goes straight out of the window if there is a secret to be uncovered.”

“Or a dangerous tome to be read,” I chimed in.

“I think her mother was not around all that much. She had to keep up appearances. Or maybe she traveled a lot. I am not entirely set on her yet. But I think her father was a central figure for Vortex’ early development. I imagine him as this strong, demanding presence looming over her. Whatever is her best is merely good enough. She earned acknowledgement and contentment, but never praise or pride. She searches for that one adventure, that one spell, that one secret, that one whatever to finally show her father that she is worthy of such.”

I smirked and tried not to show it on my face too much. Daddy issues. A storyteller tool as old as time. But how does the saying go? If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. “Alright, yeah. I think I can work with that. Eeeaaasily. I was eager to scale our next adventure back a little anyway. We had ‘the world is doomed, run for your lives’ with our last campaign. I think a little something as a breather would be nice. Perfect setup for her father to suddenly show up and demand stuff. I’ve heard he does that a lot.” I grinned and winked at her. And snorted a little as I saw Twilight sigh in relief. What exactly had she been expecting? That I would tear her idea to shreds? Why would I? Silly peanut.

“And another thing,” Twilight started and immediately got all my attention. “She had a half-sister.”

I waited for a couple of seconds for her to continue and she looked like she really wanted to, but she waited. Because I had missed my cue to ask, to follow up on that teaser. “Had?” I echoed as I realized that.

She nodded contentedly. “Yes. They were very much alike. But when they entered their teenage years, Vortex grew more and more reckless. To a degree that surpasses how she is today. She roped her into an experiment. They tried their hoof at ritualistic magic. But it went wrong. Vortex’ confidence was not enough, her preparations were lacking. She was not as patient and meticulous back then as she is today. She supposedly lost her sister that day, but she cannot remember what exactly happened. The magic went wild and she woke up a week later in the local healer’s bed.”

I felt just as thrilled as I suspected Twilight had been earlier when she studied the buildings and tools in peace. This was my jam. I had the prospect of working with and developing two new NPCs with intricate ties to one of my player characters. Ohhh, the possibilities! And how she had emphasized that her sister was supposedly lost. Neat.

Daddy issues, guilt, lost sister. Perfect ingredients for our next little drama. And I suspected that she was working through some stuff with this, as usual. In the end, game masters were basically just unqualified hobby-therapists. That simply came with the territory.

“Alright. And do you have a name for her already? Or anything about how she looks? Special talent, cutie mark, other details? Or am I free to—“

I collapsed.

Whatever else was on the tip of my tongue got lost as my knees simply gave out and I hit the road. Literally. I curled up into a ball as the cramps got worse and the vision fully set in. Another flash. Straight out of nowhere. I could smell… smell smoke. Burned hair. Burned wood. I heard screams from above and below and some from the very district we were in.

My body still shook as I tried to uncurl myself. My legs were less than trustworthy as I tried to stand up. I saw the damages. Saw burning buildings. How, I wondered. How could stone burn? But some of the farmhouses were wooden. Or at least had wooden roofs. Why was there so much mayhem? Why was everyone running? Should we be running too? Where to? From what?

I turned to Silver. “What’s happening?”

“I don’t know, but this doesn’t look good. We need to get down. He will know what to do.” I could hear the fear in her voice. How it trembled. How it made her tremble as well, her entire body.

I walked over and hugged her. Just for a brief moment in hopes that I might be able to spend some comfort. “Whatever is going on, we’ll be fine. Don’t worry.” And then I saw him. It was so unexpected. He should not be here. He should be two layers up. And worse yet, he trudged along. He was wounded. I could not tell how badly due to the distance, but his shoulder was bloody and blood ran down his arm. With the other one, he carried a sword. One I recognized as the ones they only gave out to guard captains. “Silver, it’s Red,” I whispered. I pointed towards him.

“Red!” Silver immediately screeched.

My ears splayed flat against my head. The sudden increase in volume was one thing. My worries about the current situation were the other. Silver ran straight at him before I had any chance to stop her. I followed in a quick canter. She had a head start, but I quickly managed to close the gap. We reached him in seconds.

“Oh my god, what happened to you?!” Silver whispered as she inspected her brother from all sides.

A good question. What did happen to him? He looked like his shoulder was pierced by a Celestia-forsaken spear or something. “Give me that sword,” I demanded from him. He eyed me warily, but I merely rolled my eyes in reaction. “Red, you can barely stand. You can’t swing it, I can. Give it to me.” He hoofed it over and I grabbed it in my levitation. “Now… care to explain what the heck is going on? Why is everyone screaming and running?”

He shook his head. “No time, we need to move, now!” He pointed down the road. “Vault thirteen.”

That was five blocks away. And he was bleeding like crazy. It actually made me sick to look at it and I tried to avoid that. “Do you think you’ll be able to make that?”

He shrugged. He did not know. “Doesn’t matter. I need to. We need to.”

Not exactly the confidence boost I had hoped for. But I nodded, fixed my face in a mask of determination and we moved on. The screams grew quieter the further we moved away from the main road. We were two blocks away when some strange thing suddenly rolled around the corner.

A black ball of goo or something. It was the size of a golem and constantly shot strange, black tendrils ahead. It moved by rolling along the ground, but the tendrils stuck to the stone and pulled it forward, giving it additional momentum. And as soon as it fully rounded the corner, it seemed to notice us. Because it made a beeline for us.

“In there!” Red hastily yelled and pointed towards the next building. I did not fail to notice the sheer panic in his voice. Whatever that thing over there was, Red was deathly afraid of it.

We raced into the building. I made the mistake to look over my shoulder and saw just how fast the goo-glob could move. It was intimidating. We ran straight through the main hall and that thing just ripped the entrance doors clean of their hinges. I heard the metal scream in defiance and the glass shatter. It was close, oh so close.

Red ran past the bank counter, past an open metal door. A security door. That should have been closed at all times. Why was that door open?

We entered and as soon as we three were in, Red threw all his weight against the door. Silver reacted quicker than I did, as usual, and helped him. Something smashed into the door from the other side and easily pushed them back a good few inches. And I saw the black good crawl inside along the walls. I was too late. Even if I threw myself against the door now, that stuff was already inside. It looked like an experiment horribly gone wrong.

“The vault! I’ll try to hold it with my magic, get to the vault!”

Silver grabbed her brother and ushered him to the backside of the room. “Don’t you dare leave me alone!” she barked in my direction as they passed me.

I tried to smile. I felt like I failed utterly, but what did it matter? She was gone, so was Red, and I stood in a surprisingly chaotic room. As if somepony had activated the ventilation system, but the system was totally overclocked.

I poured as much energy into my grip as I could. I slowly retreated to the back of the room myself, step by step, while that black ball tried to prize the door open. As soon as my rump made contact with a solid marble wall, I knew it was time. I turned. The very moment my target left my sight, my magic faded. A black tendril connected with the wall next to the entrance. Inches away from my face. And it was retracted immediately and ripped a piece of marble straight out of the wall. My eyes grew wide. That could have been my face!

Maybe that thing was a lousy shot. Or maybe it had tried to pull itself towards me faster and in its impatience had ripped the wall apart instead of actually gaining speed.

Either way, I was not about to stay and find out. I slipped into the next room and frantically followed the signs through two more before I could see the vault door. Through the tiny gap they had left open, I could see Red lean against a shelf full of containers. I saw Silver pace up and down inside the vault chamber. She ran to the door as soon as she saw me. Ready to close it.

“Move, move, move!” she yelled almost hysterically.

It was right behind me then, was it not?

I did not stop. I did not dare to slow down. I barreled straight into the room and ran head-first into the shelves. It hurt. I collapsed to the ground, my shoulder was in pain and it got worse as one of the containers actually fell on top of me. It smashed onto the ground and a bunch of perfectly cut gemstones were sprawled all over the floor. But the important part was: I heard Silver close the door. It clicked a couple of times as the mechanism locked us in.

Why had the vault been open to begin with?

What the heck was that thing outside?

“Red, why did you carry one of these?” I demanded to know and levitated the guard sword in front of his face. “Only guard captains get these!” Obviously the most important question right now. But I was confused. I was shaken. I was a lot of things.

“There is no guard anymore!” he barked in reply.

The implications set in slowly. I recoiled just as slowly. Step by step, away from him and his truth. I shook my head. “No… no, we… we need to get out of here…”

Red growled. “Impossible. The residential district was overrun.”

“The entire…? All the houses up there…? But what about all the—…” I remembered the screams. And how they grew quieter. Maybe not only because we left the main road. “Maybe we can flee down?” I suggested.

Red shook his head again. “That’s where it lurks. Where it wants to herd us. It attacked from above and below, but it tries to get us down there.”

I tried and failed to swallow that lump in my throat. People were dying out there. I almost did not dare to ask. But what else was there to do? “Why are you here, Red?” Why are you not up there in your lab, where a black goo-glob could rip your face off?

He smiled. Like someone who knew that he was defeated a while ago. “I’ve heard this rumor that there’s a fabled weapon stored in vault thirteen. It’s the vault where they keep the really important stuff.”

I grimaced. Red was a scientist. A researcher. A scholar. Not a fighter! “A weapon? Have you seen that thing? How is a weapon supposed to help us?”

He just shrugged. “It’s the Dreamweaver. Legend has it that it can whisk its wearer away to the land of dreams.” He must have noticed immediately how skeptical I looked. “Desperate times call for desperate measures, right?”

“Be quiet!” Silver suddenly hissed in our direction. We complied immediately. And as the room fell silent, aside from the electric buzzing of the tube light overhead, we started to hear it. A bash, a dull thud, a screeching like metal on stone. A fight was happening right outside the vault.

And after merely a minute, it fell deathly silent. Whoever was fighting outside, someone had clearly won.

There was a single bang at the vault door. And then the wheel started to spin. Silver tried to hold it, but whatever force was turning it on the other side was too strong. Could that goo-monster turn the wheel? Did it understand how vault doors worked?

“Silver, get back,” I hissed. Red grabbed her and pulled her even further back. I readied my sword and levitated the container that had fallen on me as an improvised shield in front of me. I looked over my shoulder and exchanged a grim nod with Red. Whatever was on the other side… it would only get to Silver over our dead bodies.

I blinked. And a second later I gasped for air. “Oh for f—…Philomena’s sake!” I croaked. My temples were merrily thumping away. Familiar raspberry magic levitated a waterskin in front of my muzzle. I knew my flashes well enough at this point to not trust in my own magic. I sat down with a soft thud and took it in my hooves. “Thank you.” And I greedily gulped a few mouthfuls. Once I was done, I closed it and gave it back. My eyes burned. My legs ached. Why did my legs ache so much?

We’ve been walking for two days straight, more or less. Oh. Right. That.

I turned to Twilight. She looked worried. “Sorry. How long was I gone?”

She shook her head. “Just a few minutes. Are you feeling alright?”

I snorted and bit down on my tongue. Whatever answer was on the tip of it would have been a snarky, potentially hurtful barb. And there really was no need for those. I decided to wait for a few moments. My pulsating headache dimmed down a little bit. The ache was very much real and stayed consistent though.

I reoriented myself. I sat in the middle of a vault. Shelves filled with metal containers. Some of them were on the ground, broken apart or opened. A few pieces of gemstones lay around. Nothing of any real interest though.

As the flash slowly settled in my mind, so did the memories. I recounted as much of it to Twilight as I could, as she had once again only caught my side of a three-sided conversation.

After I finished, I stumbled on one of the details I had mentioned earlier. I was slow on the uptake, as usual, so it was no surprise that Twilight, ever-vigilant and curious, mentioned it first. “I have never heard of a weapon called Dreamweaver.”

“I have,” I replied. Not in this cycle though. I furrowed my brow and rummaged around in that ever-growing archive of broken things. “It’s a sword… a… a longsword…” The more I focused on that seemingly trivial detail, the more information I successfully coaxed to the forefront, to the surface of my muddy puddle. And at some point, I recognized the image in my head.

When I fought in the dreamscape, I preferred to conjure swords. Longswords, to be precise. This longsword. I was so intimately familiar with its design that now that I remembered it, it was hard not to see the similarities. In the dreamscape, where matter did not matter, I conjured dozens upon dozens of versions of a weapon I had no prior knowledge of. Or at least no conscious knowledge of.

I sighed.

“It’s Luna’s,” I added. “There’s a reason she’s so freaking good at enchanting. Once upon a time, she was a master smith. She forged her own weaponry. Many she gave to her followers to defend themselves. But out of those hundreds or thousands of weapons, she forged a dozen or so that she enchanted. And because Luna is Luna, she poured her everything into all of them. Some got lost over time. Swallowed by portals, destroyed in battle, fallen into magical abysses or something.” And with the recollection of that information, my inevitable path was clear. “Retrieving it might actually help us. And even if it doesn’t, it belongs to Luna. It certainly doesn’t belong in a diamond dog vault. I have no idea how they even got hold of it in the first place and I don’t care. We’re going to get it.”

She had entrusted me with it. I remembered that clear as day. There had been a private little ceremony and a few ponies in attendance. Funnily enough, my past-me thought of it as an almost-wedding. Luna oversaw the ceremony. And she made Dreamweaver mine. My blade. Bound to my will, bestowed by her grace. And yet I did not intend to recover it for my sake. I had no desire to wield the actual blade again. But I felt strangely offended to find it under these circumstances. This blade belonged to Luna.

I was about to get up when Twilight’s magic grabbed my shoulder and pushed me back down with as little force as possible. And she did not require much, I was still very much weakened after that flash. “Where is it?” she asked.

“Vault thirteen, two blocks down that direction,” I answered and pointed in the direction in which I believed it should be.

She looked at the notes in her journal again, then back at me. With that critical eye. “How do we know it is there? Just because it was in one cycle does not mean it is now.”

She has a point, I begrudgingly admitted. But that did not change anything, as I slowly realized. I shrugged. “Does it matter? It’s not far. We should at least check. Because if it is there, it would be downright irresponsible to leave it here.” And that was the only reason. Obviously.

“What does it do?” she asked next.

And no matter how much I racked my brain, I had no clear answer to that. “I’m not sure. The diamond dogs were convinced it could transport its bearer to the dreamscape. Which I hope is just some stupid tale. Because that would make it incredibly powerful and incredibly dangerous.” But it would be very much something Luna would craft. “Again, does it matter? Point is, I don’t have a weapon right now. Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind depending on you to keep our hides safe. Sword or no, you will always be a quicker, more experienced and more capable combatant than I am. I’m more or less just counting on this sword being a confidence boost and maybe I can jump in clutch at the right moment once or something.” Be honest now, sugar cube. I sighed. “And I want to bring it back to Luna.” What exactly did I expect to happen once I did that? Why was I so keen on that? A head pat and a ‘good boy’? Maybe this drive was just an aftershock of the flash. Right now, I could not tell.

But Twilight agreed that it could not hurt to take a look, at least. And that was sufficient for now.

Finding vault thirteen was not actually that hard. The building was considerably smaller than the surrounding ones and due to aftershocks and vague images, I already knew a good deal about its internal structure before we even arrived at the entrance. “There’s a single, longer hall inside. It’s a reception of sorts. Two doors to the left lead into smaller side rooms meant to archive protocols and do paperwork and such. Two doors on the right lead to a broom closet and the toilets. A single door behind the reception counter at the end of the hall leads to a narrow, long hallway. Beyond that is the vault room. Simple structure, no cellar, no upper story, no frills. We go in, we grab it, we go out.” Twilight nodded. She was not as confident as I was. Which was really a weird twist, as our current roles were usually switched up. But that was just how my jumbled brain worked. If everypony around me was confident, I had no need to be as well but instead felt a need to be cautious. And if everypony around me was on edge, wary and doubtful, I was the one pushing them onwards. It was silly and stupid, but reliable.

I carefully grabbed White Tip in my magic and put him on Twilight’s back. “You two watch out and make a ruckus if anything goes wrong. But you will stay with Twi for now, alright? I don’t want you to get into any problems.”

I did not exactly know why I insisted on leaving my feathery buddy with her, now of all times. But the answer became apparent once we entered the building. Patches of black, sticky goo clung to the ceiling, the floor and the walls. They were comparatively small, the larger once being five feet in diameter. And even when I dared to pass one by really closely, they did not react to my presence at all.

Twilight had already speculated that this was some kind of organism and that it was starving. From all I could tell based on my flashed, this part of the city had been evacuated early on. The goo had managed to survive in the third layer by feeding on livestock, but down here there was nothing to catch in the first place. After confirming my intention with Twilight, I even dared to stick a hoof into the goo. The layer was barely half an inch thick. It was cool to the touch and indeed sticky. It felt like glue but as I retracted my hoof, it still preferred to stick to itself instead of me. There was no resistance to speak of. No tendrils shot out in a lame attempt to catch me. No reaction whatsoever. It just made a nasty slurping sound.

“I think it’s dead,” I let Twilight know and we continued through the hall and into the hallway beyond it. I still felt a little queasy as I saw what lay at the end. The vault door was ripped apart. Something had actually torn through metal. And not just a relatively thin sheet like a metal door, oh no. These vault doors were roughly five feet thick. I gulped.

Twilight increased the light her horn gave off and just as I had feared, the entire vault beyond was covered in goo. There was basically no patch of any surface left to see. I could make out the outlines of shelves and containers, the outlines of floor tiles and a light switch beside the entrance. Which I obviously did not try, because why would I. Light inside houses was apparently not part of the emergency power grid, we had already learned that.

“Wait near the entrance, I’m going in,” I asked them. Twilight nodded and White Tip shifted uncomfortably on her back.

I stepped past the ripped vault door and into the black goo. It made a nauseating squelching sound, but once again did not react otherwise. It became a lot harder to search for anything with the goo covering literally all surfaces.

“Is it there?” Twilight whispered. It was strange to hear her be impatient. But I could understand why. This place made my fur stand on edge as well.

“I can’t see it,” I replied and increased the light on my horn a little bit more. I had to go by rough shapes and outlines.

“Maybe it is not there after all?” she offered. It was clear that she wanted to go, despite the treasure we might be able to reclaim here. But I still felt this nagging insistence to get that sword back. And I managed to find something.

There was a small mound of goo in the corner of the room. While I could not see the sword or even its outline, I could feel magic emanate from within. Familiar magic. Luna’s magic.

Problem was: That goo looked very much alive. It pulsated.

And I started to realize that it pulsated in a specific direction. Oh no. Oh… I’m not going to like this, am I? My eyes slowly, hesitantly trailed up the wall and followed those pulses. “Twilight?” I asked in the meantime.

“Yes?”

“What was it again that this organism feeds on…?” My eyes spotted a thick black blob right on the ceiling over the entrance. There was a hoof-sized orange orb in its middle, with a black patch inside. I gulped again.

Is that an eye?

“While it can digest meat, my current theory is that it feeds on ma…gic…”

I could hear the realization hit her the moment I came to that conclusion as well. The Dreamweaver really was here. One of the more powerful weapons in Equestria. Most assuredly full of magic. “Twilight…” I whispered her name. But I did not dare to take my eyes off of that thing on the ceiling. And I could not shake the feeling that it stared right back at me.

“Mhm?” she hesitantly replied barely audibly.

“We run on three.” I could hear her take half a step back. And the moment she did that, it apparently heard her as well. The eye yanked around in her direction, almost as if it could stare straight through the marble wall between them. “Three!” I yelled in a panic. I thrust my hoof deep into that pulsating mound and sparked my magic. A tendril followed my hoof as it connected with something sharp and metallic and I yanked it out.

I had no idea if it was a sword or the sword but I did not have the time to confirm that either.

I ran.

I could feel the sticky tendrils connect to my rear and these ones, oh boy, they had strength. But I had a sword. Or something else. I flailed said something around wildly to disrupt and disconnect these spaghetti lines that tried to pull me back in. “Run, run, run!” I yelled ahead as Twilight dared to slow down. She immediately sped up again and White Tip took to the air. He circled above us below the ceiling and I was so freaking scared he would be caught by one of those tendrils. He was flying meat, after all.

“White Tip, get your feathered ass out of here!” I barked. And he did. I was so grateful that he did. He flew ahead and swooped out of the open entrance. And just as I saw him get to relative safety did I dare to take a look over my shoulder. And my blood ran cold.

Oh, it was there. It was very much there.

That black hunter-glob I remembered from my flash that rolled along the street and pulled itself along with tendrils for extra momentum. Yupp, that thing. It was very hot on our heels. And it seemed to absorb any and all other goo-patches it came by. It shot tendrils into them and just… ate them, or something like that. And it grew because of it.

I stepped it up a notch and managed to close that gap between Twilight and myself. “Once we’re out, maybe we could use a shield to keep it in,” I blurted as we closed in on the exit. She shot out of the building half a second before me. And just as I tried to gauge our chances with sealing that thing inside, I saw it.

The golem was there. Like, right there.

I had a running start and came barreling straight towards us. I saw it the very moment it used its powerful hindlegs to push itself into a massive leap. With its stony jaws wide open and its dagger-like claws ready for a deadly swipe. And it shot straight towards me.

The timing was off though.

Fractions of a second passed by.

The golem tilted its head ever so slightly to the left, towards the exit.

And as Twilight and I barreled onto the street, the golems' jaws snapped shut around, or rather inside, the ball of goo. Its claws slashed the creature and got partially stuck in it and in an acrobatic display that my mind failed to process entirely, the diamond dog golem landed on its hindlegs and smashed the black ball into the wall of the building. Black tendrils shot out like lances, but the golem managed to dodge them with surprising agility and speed.

Look where you’re running, idiot! That’s exactly how ponies break their necks!

My head snapped back around. And I saw Twilight slow down again as she too had noticed the golem getting distracted by the goo. Or was it the other way around? “Don’t! Keep running!” I ordered her. I had no intention of finding out who would win. Or what the winner deemed appropriate to do with us. By the time they managed to get their little clinch sorted, I wanted to be miles away. Literally if possible.

“White Tip?” I called and my trusty pet swooped down and flew a few feet ahead of us. I was once again relieved that he was fine. And while we thundered along the main road as quickly as we could, I gave a little extra and brought my reclaimed treasure up in front of me. I allowed myself a second or two to inspect my loot and I immediately recognized it. I had successfully recaptured the Dreamweaver. I even allowed myself a satisfied smile before I focused my attention at the stretch of road ahead. The last thing we needed now was a tumble and a sprained ankle or better yet, a broken leg.

Treasuries, banks, vaults, more coinage presses. Untold treasures stored and ignored.

They quickly whipped by as we bailed.