Dreamwalker's Tale: The Descent

We ran.

White Tip silently glided ahead of us and led the way. Twilight’s horn lit the road better than mine even though she was half a pony’s length behind me. And I tried to let my training take over. It had to be good for something, right?

Hostile territory. Enemy engaged with a third party, most likely yet another enemy faction. Both forces were capable and dangerous and armed. We had managed to escape, but instead of choosing a route back to at least vaguely familiar territory, we had chosen to run ahead into new and unexplored areas. Less than ideal.

We barreled down the stairs that led to the next city district. And I did not slow down, even as I saw its current state.

The very air of the fifth district smelled foul and rotten. Extensive damage to the street light system caused the unwelcome prospect of several ‘light zones’ where single lamps still stood and fought back the darkness. A darkness that creeped into the rest of the district and swallowed buildings without hindrance, transforming them into vague shapes in the blackness.

And the infestation was just about everywhere.

We had seen these patches in the treasury. Barely half an inch thick and how they clung to every surface. Even more so, we had seen how it had coated just about any and every surface within the vault itself. And this was the same effect, but on a city district-wide scale. Entire buildings were overgrown with the black goo. It formed massive puddles on the road, dozens of feet long. And it only got worse the further into the district we would get.

My eyes were drawn to a specific point I could spot due to a single street light. This district had suffered massive damage. Whatever forces had been unleashed, it certainly did not look like they had held back here. There was a chasm roughly halfway into the district. A wedge-like, triangular-shaped piece of the layer was simply missing. Half-crumbled ruins of houses stood lopsided on their unstable grounds. Every splinter of stone that was missing was part of the almost ramp-like mound one layer further down.

An entire part of the city had collapsed. What was that? Twelve blocks, maybe?

I tried not to think about it. Not now. My hooves were killing me and I was out of breath. Again. It was frustrating to be in such bad shape, not least of all because I knew that I could do better. But those past days had worn us out. Us, as in Twilight and me. Because despite her best efforts, I could hear her hard, ragged breathing. I could see her strain. I could see that determined expression on her face. Even her earth pony endurance seemed to reach certain limits. Twilight always made an effort, always kept herself in good shape, but she rarely did what Applejack and Rainbow did as a hobby on most days. She rarely tested her limits. She rarely pushed past them.

We needed a hideout. A place to catch our breath and talk for a few minutes.

I tore my eyes off of the chasm. We would reach it soon enough. And by then I better had a plan on how to deal with that. But priorities were important and right now, a place to rest was higher up on that list.

We ran into the muck. Neither her nor I had the capacity to give the slurping sounds much attention. We only acknowledged with an almost inaudible groan because it made it even more difficult to keep the speed up. We skipped past the first few structures. I had no idea how long the golem and the hunter would be distracted with each other. Who would win and what the winner would do. But my instinct told me not to take the very first opportunity to crawl into supposed safety, because it was too obvious as a choice.

I swerved to the left. A quiet, but sharp whistle informed White Tip to turn around. And I led our little group into one of the buildings. The entrances were a little bit clustered, as were the houses themselves. It would give us a decent chance that any pursuer might choose the wrong house to search, the wrong entrance to take. And as far as I could tell, the infestation did not reach too far inside these buildings, so that was a plus. I did not like the thought of having to sit down in this black muck. Who knew what long-term exposure could do.

The building was small in size. The ground floor was empty. A simple rectangle with a staircase leading to an upper story. We took the stairs and only once we were up did I finally stop. The very moment I did, my hooves started to burn even more. I hissed a little and sat down on my haunches.

As usual, Twilight had better self-control. She followed my example, but refrained from making any noise whatsoever. White Tip landed and sat down as well. And for a few minutes following our entrance, we simply waited. We stayed silent and listened for any movement outside. Any scraping sound on the streets. Any squelching sounds from the muck outside.

The goo offered one thing that should work in our favor: There was no dust layer on top and it reformed into an undisturbed layer seconds after something left an imprint. So in theory, there should be no easily trackable series of hoofprints in the goo.

Our breathing evened out over time. The burning in my hooves eased up a little and changed more into a nasty thumping. They felt hot. It reminded me too much of the long, arduous walk with Luna in that damn ravine. I eventually remembered that we still had some of the ointment left. I had originally intended to care for Twilight’s sore rump again, but seeing our current state, maybe there was a better use for it.

I quietly rummaged through our saddlebags and managed to wordlessly convey to her that she was supposed to lie down on her side. She discarded her saddlebags and complied and with the opened can in my levitation, I got to work. Her hooves got treatment first. Even though I was really looking forward to getting some of that stuff applied to myself.

She quietly sighed in relief as the medical mixture drew heat out of her hooves and eased whatever pains she had. She nodded in my direction, I confirmed and mimicked her posture. And with a few seconds and her magic working deftly, I felt the rest of the ointment ease my own discomforts as well.

It really was worth a relieved sigh.

Even the hard, unyielding stone floor we currently lay on felt heavenly. It was hard, yes. Which was better than the molten rubber-like texture of the goo. And more importantly, it was cold. I put my head down and cautiously closed my eyes for a few seconds. Cautiously, because I knew all too well how easy it would be to drift off into sleep right now. And I could not allow for that. A few minutes of recuperation were all well and good, but we had pursuers. Enemies. We could not stay here for long. We should not.

“What happened?” Twilight finally broke the silence.

I sighed deeply and opened my eyes again. I felt incredibly tired. Despite that, looking at her made me smile. She was covered in dust and sweat and grime, her feathers were ruffled, her coat was messy, she looked as uncomfortable and sleep-deprived as I felt and yet despite all this, she was beautiful. She was my little peanut, and I loved her.

I took a moment to bask in her presence and another one to sort my thoughts. “It’s the magic,” I started. “Your experiments led you to believe that this thing feeds on magic. After that right now, I think so too. The goo in the vault sustained itself by feeding on the magic of the Dreamweaver. That’s why it was still alive.” I looked over at the blade and despite my initial enthusiasm, I could not help but worry. Had the blade been damaged? Was it drained? Was all I could return to Luna an empty, sucked dry husk of its former glory? Then again, why would that matter to begin with? It was a memento. It was meant as a memento.

I shook my head and refocused. “There are a few details I can contribute to your research,” I announced. A smile spread on my muzzle as I saw her quickly retrieve her journal and writing supplies. “The goo seems to be a thin layer that crawls over everything, but with the Dreamweaver being a food source, it formed some kind of mound around it. I had to stick my leg into it up to the joint to actually make contact with the sword. And I could see that mound pulsating. Something was transported in a specific direction. The blade itself looks undamaged, which makes me think that whatever it was was probably not physical material. Maybe charged goo or something. But the fact that it was transported within the same patch at all indicates that there are different areas of concern even within a single patch. Some are more important than others. There was another growth on the ceiling where all the resources were led to. It was orange in color, glassy, round, with…”

I grimaced slightly and a shudder ran down my spine as the mental image formed. Twilight looked at her notes and back up to me and quickly added one and one together. “It had an eye?” I confirmed my suspicion and she furrowed her brow. “That is unexpected. It is the first instance we witnessed of this organism forming dedicated organs. And a sensory organ at that. When I examined the sample in the barn, I was puzzled by its ability to perceive its surroundings. Its perception was clearly present, but less precise than a predator would require. Maybe it can form and dissolve organs as required?”

I had a very scary image in my head for a few seconds. That of the hunter with too many eyes and too many mouths. But as far as we knew, this thing did not need any mouth whatsoever. It simply enveloped its prey in its own body and dissolved it from all sides. There was no digestive tract to speak of. The entire thing was capable of digestion. Even the very tendrils this thing used to propel itself.

“Maybe,” I gave my lame reply with a shrug. My head felt foggy. Too foggy to properly engage her in theorizing. “The eye had no eyelids. But I felt like it stared at me. Which would indicate some form of processing of perceived sensory input. It’s not just a simple pattern of ‘movement leads to attack’. When I told you we’d run on three, it still stared at me. But the eye changed its focus when you retreated. As if it had heard you. It can’t have seen you. The angle would not have allowed for that. It looked straight at the marble wall when you made that noise.”

Twilight nodded and scribbled a few more lines down. “Fascinating. Well, the organism does have other means of perception. It is very much possible that those other means noticed my retreat and the eye reacted to that information. Which would indicate that different parts of the organism interact with each other in a cooperative manner.”

“I don’t think we should stay here for too long,” I switched topics. “It survived so long because of the sword.” I looked to my side. That sword right there. “It will be hungry now. It can move and it is quick. And you probably saw the state this entire district is in.”

Twilight grimaced and nodded. “I did. I also witnessed its ability to absorb the other, inactive patches in the treasury.” Large parts of the district were overgrown. If it would absorb even one of those, it could easily grow to ridiculous sizes. We had no indication if that was how it worked. We could only work with what we knew so far. And despite everything we had managed to scrape together, it was still not enough. “Do you think it is intelligent?”

I sighed. That was the big question, was it not?

It was a predator. A hunter. An ambusher. Those creatures usually tended to be smarter already. Because they needed to develop hunting tactics. Because they needed to predict their prey’s movement and escape patterns. It could form eyes. It could manipulate its own body mass into a ball. It understood the concept of rolling on a street as much as it understood that dragging itself along with its tendrils increased its speed. There was certainly some form of rudimentary intelligence present. But there was a huge difference between an earthworm, a cat, a hydra and a pony.

“I don’t know,” I honestly replied. But at least there was one thing I could say with certainty. “I don’t intend to stay to find out though.”

We would have to deal with this at some point, obviously. It was the whole reason we were down here to begin with. To assess danger for everypony that would come here after us. And ideally, to neutralize as many of these dangers as possible. Which meant either finding means to disable the golem or destroying it. And it also meant to find something to deal with the goo. My plan so far was to reach the bottom of the city. Not because I expected an abundance of answers there. I was not even sure a master of this golem existed, at this point. But being the farthest down would allow us to do some thorough house cleaning from bottom to top with nothing left in our back, ideally.

And then head home.

Oh how I missed home. Again.

“I will cuddle Spike for another day or two,” I mumbled.

“What was that?” Twilight asked, but I shook my head.

“Nevermind. Sentience or no, it is clearly hostile,” I stated with conviction, “Though to be honest, I’m not entirely sure about the hostility of the golem anymore. When we exited the treasury, it was there and jumped and for a fraction of a second, I was sure that it jumped towards me, but… I don’t know… maybe it missed the perfect timing or something. Or maybe it wasn’t after us this time. I… no, I don’t know. And we can’t take risks like that. We should move on. Are you ready?”

Twilight sighed and slowly stood back up. She took a couple of steps in the room and nodded with a wry smile. “As good as new.”

I chuckled and stood up as well. “If only.” My hooves still ached. But the short break and the treatment did do wonders. I walked over to what I presumed had been a window once and stood to one side of it. Twilight followed me and stood at the other side. We had a good view from here. A few buildings nearby were tall enough to block parts of it, but we could see most of the district.

The buildings were made out of concrete again. But it was not the kind of dull gray they had used in the second layer. They had dyed it white, at least. Which was not exactly comparable to diorite or marble, but it still looked more noble than it would have otherwise.

These structures looked dull though. No artistic value had been wasted on giving them interesting shapes. They were simple blocks. No pillars supporting little arches, no balconies, no fancy rooflines. Just concrete blocks without frills. And I could vaguely remember a reason for that. Just like the second layer, this one was not meant to be inhabited. No one was actually living here, but many worked here.

“What are those?” Twilight asked and pointed downwards.

It looked like pools and they were all over the district. Not the kind of swimming pool one had in his backyard, but massive basins. They were covered by goo, of course. “There’s water underneath,” I explained. “They used those pools to…” It was hard to glean something useful from my memories this time. But eventually the knot dissolved and I grimaced slightly. “Sewage.” It would explain the distinctly different smell this district had. “These are water-processing plants. And those pools are sewage disposal basins.” My gaze drifted upwards to the ceiling and I found what I searched for. Pipes. Lots and lots of pipes. “I think those are control centers. To supervise the disposal process. They led all the sewage of the city into these pools and… I’m not sure what happened then. Something to clean the water to make it reusable. There was obviously a problem with smell pollution. That’s why this district had so many pipes and vents. I believe they even incorporated some gemstones into these street lights to further reduce the smell. It was still awful to be around here.”

Twilight took a few notes and looked back out of the window again. “That could explain the heavy contamination with the organism. I do not believe it cares much about foul smells. This was food.”

I gagged a little. “Yuck.”

She smiled and shrugged. “One pony’s trash is another pony’s treasure.”

“That really doesn’t make it any better,” I replied and shook my head. “Anyway, since we seem to have a moment… you see that chasm over there?”

Her smile dimmed down and she sighed. “I do.”

That sigh already told me that she might suspect the same thing I did. “Normally I would say: No problem. You’ll just levitate us straight across. Or heck, maybe just straight down. Though I suppose skipping part of the city like that isn’t the best idea. But while your light and most other spells work just fine, your heavy hitters seem to have some difficulties. Your teleportation, namely.”

“We do not know with certainty what the limitations of this organism's abilities are,” she added. “It might, for example, not even need physical contact to feed on magic. Which could explain the interference with my teleportation attempts and why it only became a problem the further down we went. Because we got closer to the main host of the growth.”

I nodded. “Exactly. Which could also mean that the further down we go, the less we should rely on your magic. Adding to that, we face the issue of that hunter. It’s a mass of goo. I don’t know what that golem can do to actually stop that thing. I don’t think it can actually stop it. And if we have to fight it, I’m pretty sure that you can do just that. But you would feed it at the same time. And a sword, for as much as I cherish having it, is not any different from a pair of claws when it comes to this enemy. I’m not sure how to face it. That’s why I think our best bet is to just not face it at all. And once we get out again, we tell whoever enters after us to bring some flamethrowers or something.”

She grimaced. And I knew why, of course. We still did not understand this creature’s nature. It could be sentient. It could be intelligent and self-aware. It might be reasoned with, given the right circumstances. But I was more concerned with our safety and the safety of the ponies that would come here after us. And the memories of those flashes admittedly only contributed to my inner attitude of: Buck that goo. It had given us such a hard time that somehow, torching it sounded like a really neat idea.

Careful with that direction, a voice in the back of my head reminded me. You’ve slipped down that slope before.

I shook my head and sighed again. And I booped Twilight on the nose with my hoof. “Don’t worry. We’ll try everything we can to resolve this in a different way. As for the chasm, it doesn’t seem to reach all the way in. It doesn’t reach the outer city wall. So maybe we can walk around it.”

She watched me for a moment. “How are you holding up?”

While I appreciated her concern, the question still inevitably made me grimace a little. “I’m fine.” It was a stupid deflection. It came out too quickly and too dismissively. I shook my head and sighed. “Sorry, reflex. It’s… I’m okay, I think. I’m incredibly tired. Fatigued. My back aches. My shoulders hurt. My hip still hurts somewhat. It’s getting harder to concentrate. And my hooves are killing me. The latter is significantly better now, but will most likely return to its previous state in a few hours. And I feel dirty and smelly. But despite the length of that list of complaints, it’s more or less complaining on a high level. I’m not actually injured. I should be good to go for a few more hours before I actually need sleep and even with the prospect of what kind of ‘sleep’ we get down here, I should be good for another few days. I’m just not used to… well, all of this.” I looked at her and was glad to see that smile on her muzzle. She appreciated the honesty. “How about you?” I asked and let a tinge of that worry that constantly nagged me in the back of my head creep into my voice.

She smiled wryly as she replied with the obligatory “I’m fine.”

I snorted and nodded. “Right. And how are you?”

She leaned over and we crossed our horns for a moment. A deep sigh escaped my throat. It was hard not to feel content like this. “I am tired,” she admitted. “More than I expected to be. Maybe more than I should be. This is not my first mission, I feel like I should hold up better than this. It is nice to have you with me. I wish the girls could be here as well. I would feel better knowing I have their backup as well. We seem a little ill-equipped for some of these tasks. But I am confident that we will manage anyway. And it is exciting to see what is down here. I have not had such a vast flood of new information in a long, long time. My usual research projects feel like scraps compared to this. And it is exhilarating. This feels like a scientific breakthrough. And maybe I should do more field research. I try not to get swept up by my own enthusiasm. And yes, my rump and my back ache as well. Sleeping on stone is awful.”

I smiled. I was grateful for her honesty as well. “I love you.”

“I love you too.” We tilted our heads upwards and shared a kiss.

I did not mind her missing the gals. I would give my right leg to have them here as well. Applejack would make short work of that pesky golem if he tried any funny business. Rainbow would gladly help her. Rarity would fix the lights. Fluttershy might actually be able to converse with that goo-thing. And Pinkie could relieve me of my duties. No flashes required when her uncanny ability to just know things worked just as well and with less issues involved. Also, she would be awesome to have to keep up morale. Because it was difficult to remain in decent spirits at times.

I sighed heavily once more and pulled away from Twilight. “We don’t have any of the ointment left. But next time we rest, I’m going to give you a massage. It will probably just be a drop in the bucket, but you never know. It might help.”

We both looked out of the window one final time. We had to cross an entire district overgrown with goo, then walk around the chasm to reach the next lower layer, which from the looks of it was just as overgrown, if not more.

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. Red’s voice echoes in my head like a warning. And I tried to heed it as best as I could. But there was no way for us to not go down there. We needed to be thorough. And we needed answers.

We walked for quite some time without interference. No sudden reemergence of the golem or the hunter. White Tip sat on my back and tried to melt into it. He felt utterly uncomfortable in these surroundings. The growth clung to the ceiling overhead. To the houses around us. To the septic tanks and the streets. We had already passed a stretch of city where everything, literally everything had been covered by this stuff. For several minutes of walking distance. And now we found ourselves in yet another stretch like that.

But there was no reaction to our presence. No tendrils tried to pull us in, no hunters formed from it. As much as it disgusted me, I had even grown accustomed to the squelching sounds our hooves made. We stayed silent, just to be on the safe side. I could not help but wonder: What if this stuff was not dead at all? What if it was merely inactive in some way? Maybe it slept and whatever means of perception it had did not notice our presence? If so, this entire area could turn into a giant stomach ready to digest us at a moment’s notice. Not exactly a thought that filled me with confidence.

And there was another thing bothering me.

Spiderwebs.

It had been quite some time since our encounter with the giant spider and admittedly, I had all but forgotten about it. But these webs we came across were enormous. They stretched from one building to another, crossing a byroad. They covered parts of the ceiling that were not covered by goo. They made a street lantern look like cotton candy on a stick. It was quite apparent that we were getting closer to the spider’s original lair. Maybe hunger and starvation had forced it to search for food higher up. Or the threat of being devoured itself. After all, what was that spider supposed to do to defend itself if the goo decided to go after a spider-shaped snack?

So we most likely had another hostile force to account for. A third one.

Just peachy.

We reached the chasm a few minutes later. The occasional spider web could still be seen here and there, but they were in tatters. Abandoned, not maintained and cared for. We stepped up to the edge and looked down. There was little in terms of details we could make out from our current location. The visible parts of the lower layer were buried beneath the rubble. While said rubble formed an almost ramp-like shape, there was still a significant height difference between the highest part of the slope and the layer we stood on. Maybe thirty, thirty-three feet? Not the kind of distance one wanted to jump.

“Do you want to give it a try?” I quietly asked Twilight as she inspected the slope below.

She inhaled deeply and sighed. “I should at least try, yes.” Her light was fine after all. She had led us through the darker patches of the district with her horn brightly aglow and at no point did it so much as flicker. But a light spell was a different matter from a telekinesis spell. “Ready?”

I put White Tip on her back and nodded. It made sense that she tried to levitate me across the gap first. It was always more complicated to levitate oneself. I did not struggle as I felt her magic wrap around me. A lovely raspberry glow that sent a familiar and therefore pleasant tingle down my spine. It spoke of caution and tenderness and restrained power. I was lifted up by a couple of inches to test the waters. And I could already see Twilight struggle.

“Don’t overexert yourself,” I softly urged her. “We can just walk around it if necessary.”

After a few more seconds, her magic fizzled out. I was unceremoniously dropped back down onto my hooves. A brief jolt of pain shot up my legs, but I ignored it as best as I could. I instead walked over to her. “Are you alright?”

She grumbled something I failed to make out and sighed. “The interference is getting stronger.”

“Which only provides further indication for your theory to be true,” I remarked. It was supposed to help her. Maybe even make her smile. Yay, one step further for science. But she grimaced slightly instead. Because while she did not define herself over her magic, it was still a fundamental and intrinsic part of her. And she never felt comfortable when something meddled with her magic. I could understand that part especially. A typical unicorn fear.

“Let’s go that way,” I offered and gave her a little peck on her cheek as an apology. White Tip meanwhile hopped over onto my back again.

We walked parallel to the chasm deeper into the district. Twilight still occasionally whipped her journal out to continue her sketches of both the surrounding architecture and the general city layout. And while we walked, I tried to scrape together some more information I could offer her. The goo-covered septic tanks were one thing. But a city of this size did not just have to deal with a lot of sewage. They had a massive need for water in general. I vaguely remembered that I had a conversation with Silver about this at some point, but the details I sought kept eluding me. Something about massive water reservoirs outside the city. Probably connected to it via more pipes?

We were at the outer edge of the city and in the process of passing by the deepest ridge of the chasm when I suddenly heard something somewhere behind us.

“Sch!” I quickly hissed. Twilight immediately stopped. Both White Tip and I stared into the black while Twilight dimmed the light of her horn further down to make our position less conspicuous. I half-expected a repeat of the previous encounter, with the spider’s eyes suddenly reflecting parts of the dim light. But nothing like that happened. I could hear movement, but it was quick and quiet. Something stalked along over there between the buildings, somewhere in the darkness.

I remembered that moment when we exited the treasury. The golem lunged. And it wore that collar again. That glowing collar. So whatever was back there was either the golem without the collar — which I deemed unlikely. Or the spider. Or the hunter. I certainly did not like either of these options, but the latter was especially worrisome. Because we had the means to deal with a giant spider, but the hunter was a real problem.

“More light,” I quietly whispered without taking my eyes off the direction of the sounds.

Twilight complied and as soon as the radius of her light increased, I could see a single tendril retreat further back into the dark.

Crap.

“Run!”

I turned as quickly as I could and followed my own advice.

Twilight was a few steps ahead of me and I could hear the hunter quickly closing in again. It was behind us, right behind us. Why? Why had it even bothered lurking in the shadows to begin with? Why had it bothered sneaking up on us?

I noticed a building roughly a hundred feet ahead of us. Thick and heavy walls, an equally thick metal door. It almost looked like a fortress. Which was exactly what we needed right now. Because we had no chance of outrunning that thing in the open.

“Twilight, left,” I half-yelled ahead. She veered in the direction I had announced and we managed to get inside before the hunter actually caught up to us. As soon as we were in, we both grabbed the door, flung it shut and quickly scanned the mechanism to properly close it. There were two thick metal latches we put in place and a rotating wheel in the middle to operate the door’s internal closing mechanism as well.

Only after we had properly closed the entrance did we allow ourselves to catch our breaths.

“I hate that thing,” I cursed and shook my head. My heartbeat thumped away in my ears, my blood rushed as loud as a river. It took a few seconds to ask another important question. A few seconds for said question to even come to mind.

If this was the sewage disposal and water-processing district, why was there a building secured in much the same manner the strongest vaults one layer above were?

I turned around to inspect the rest of the room we heedlessly ran into. What I was confronted with was a labyrinth of pipes. Walls of pipes. Leading out of walls and into walls and crisscrossing all around the room. And many of these pipes were labeled with all kinds of warning signs. The most common one I could spot was easy enough to understand even without my spotty understanding of diamond dog language: High pressure.

We can use that.

The thought was intriguing and became a lot more urgent the moment the hunter slammed into the door with force. The impact alone made such a loud noise that I could already tell how all these vault doors we had seen up above got into their current, abysmal state. I heard metal creak and groan as the door was assaulted. Twilight backed away from it and cast a spell on the door, probably to get us some more time. She knew as well as I did that it would only prolong the inevitable. And it would feed the damn thing, too.

You have a sword. Yes. Yes I did. High pressure pipes. I walked over to them and put a hoof against one. To my surprise, I could still feel movement inside. After all the different districts of the city fell apart in one way or another, I had expected this part to be out of commission. But no, whatever this building was used for, it was still intact and working.

Aim at the door, pierce the pipe.

I furrowed my brow. Was that even possible? Would that do us any good? We needed a pipe with enough pressure and enough water flow to actually push our enemy back. And that thing was strong. I walked further back into the room and looked around for anything useful. One of the pipes on the back wall was considerably larger. And it was labeled as well, so that might actually work. But these pipes were made out of metal. One did not simply pierce metal. I brought the Dreamweaver to my muzzle and lit my horn a little bit more to inspect the blade. It was sharp. Despite all this time, it was sharp. And it was a weapon crafted by Luna. But that did not necessarily mean that it was capable of such a feat. I looked around and found a pipe that was not labeled as dangerous. Maybe a part of some kind of overflow protection system? Ah, who cares. I stabbed the pipe. Which was already difficult because stabbing something round with something sharp required precision and a violent enough thrust. But on the third attempt, it worked. The blade actually sank into the pipe. The Dreamweaver was capable of piercing metal.

Or maybe these pipes were just old and corroded.

“Twi, come here, I need your help!” I yelled.

She came over as quickly as she could and I showed her the pipe I had in mind. “I tested it out, the blade should be able to pierce this. We keep our distance, of course. The pipe will burst and the water should shoot out like from a hose. Maybe you can direct it a little with your magic as well. We stab it as soon as the door breaks down and flush that damn thing down. If I’m not mistaken, that direction should lead to the chasm. It can probably climb back up with its tendrils, but by that point, we would be gone again. Sounds good?”

Her face was fixed in grim determination as she nodded. “It sounds more promising than my plan. It literally eats my shield.”

I wanted to poke a little fun by saying that we at least had confirmation of that now, but she looked rather annoyed and I therefore decided to swallow the comment down. “Can you determine the best angle?” I asked instead and nodded towards the pipe.

Twilight grinned and took over my grip on the sword. “I can do you one better.”

I grinned and blew her a kiss. She wanted her revenge on that thing? She could have it. I would gleefully watch as she gave that thing a good rinsing. And with the main water pipe connected to the reservoir, there would be a lot of water before—

The reservoir?

I furrowed my brow and slowly turned around. All these buildings were made out of dyed concrete. White dyed concrete. But the back wall behind these pipes was stone. Not just stone gray, but actual, natural stone. Was that odd?

The hunter slammed into the door again and it creaked and groaned. Twilight readied the Dreamweaver. She had the power to thrust it into the pipe. She had the power to aim with the high pressure water that would shoot out.

The reservoir is right behind that wall.

“Twilight, wait!” I yelled.

Too late.

The door gave way and the furious ball of goo ripped it out of its frame and threw it to the side. At the same moment, the light around Twilight’s horn flared as she hardened her grip on the blade and thrust it forward into the pipe between us. With all her strength. She buried the weapon to the hilt and water immediately shot out around the intruding item like a lawn sprinkler.

The blade itself was thrust out of the whole. Twilight’s magic funneled the water stream and she aimed at the goo-blob. And just as planned, it was flushed out of the building, down the street and vanished into the chasm. Probably. We could only see it being pushed outside and little else, due to the lack of lighting out there.

The less-than-great part was the cracking I heard. Followed by a gurgling. The sound of large air bubbles rising up in a massive body of water.

Fissures opened along the stone. And water immediately leaked out of them. And with the immense pressure behind it, those leaks quickly turned into more little lawn sprinklers. I had no idea how thin or thick that stone wall was. The Dreamweaver should not have been able to pierce that wall. I was decently sure of that. But it had somehow happened anyway.

These reservoirs were outside the city, yes. Immediately outside. Like, right beside them.

“How much are we speaking?” I asked Silver.

She smiled proudly. “Our ancestors have been digging these reservoirs over generations and generations. There’s five of these babies. They hold a combined volume of around fifty trillion liters.”

“Twilight?” I quietly asked as I felt all color leave my face.

“Yes?” she replied and carefully took a few steps away from the stone wall.

“There’s… like… ten trillion liters of water behind that wall…” What even was that number? I had no comprehension of it. It was a lot. Maybe lake-sized ‘a lot’.

“I figured,” she quietly answered as the gurgling was heard again.

The very next moment, a single piece of rock was flung from the wall and across half the room. It shattered on impact with the ground.

“Can you stop that?” I asked.

“I am trying,” she replied.

And she did. For the first time in what felt like ages, I dared to look over to her and saw her horn brightly glowing. She tried to stabilize the wall, I suspected. But there was an entire lake pushing against her. And with our current state, we simply lost that battle.

More rocks shot out of the wall and I realized the lethal danger we were in. One hit from such a piece could mean broken bones. A concussion. Or downright instant death. I frantically looked around the facility if there was anything to help us out.

“Aren’t you afraid? Like… how do you rest easy at night knowing that five lakes could drown everything at every moment?” I asked and shuddered a little.

“Come on, we’re not idiots, Dream. These walls are constantly monitored and maintained. That’s why we have these floodgates.” She raised her arms and twirled around. And I had to admit, her smile was infectious. And it eased my worries somewhat. “The secondary security systems are fully automated and don’t rely on electricity either, just in case. Most of us usually worry more about the ceiling coming down than the reservoirs flooding in. You have no idea how many headaches the architects had when they were asked to construct something like this. That’s one of the reasons we had to build so close to the surface. So that the ceiling was not too thick and the structure could support it.”

I laughed uneasily again. “You know, between being crushed by rocks, melted by lava, drowned by my tap water and electrocuted by sheer happenstance, I feel sooo much safer already.”

She giggled merrily. “You’re such a worrywart. Has anyone ever told you that?”

I smiled fondly. I had vague memories of a mulberry coat. The scent of ink and paper. And a tender smile. “I think so, yes,” I replied with a subtle grin.

Security measures!

I ran to one of the nearby walls in panic as more and more of the wall fell apart. Twilight yelled about how she would not be able to hold it much longer and I pulled down some kind of lever. Sirens started to blare and red lights bathed the entire facility in an intimidating glow. “The exit!” I yelled.

She ran as fast as she could. White Tips claws once again dug into my back as he tried to hold on for dear life. We tried to reach the entrance, but water… water is fast.

Faster than us.

With a deafening crack, the entire wall broke apart and a massive wave came crashing down. The entire room was flooded within a matter of seconds. Rocks were flung every way and destroyed even more of the high pressure pipes littering the room.

We were luckily close enough to the exit that the wave simply pushed us out. We would not drown inside. Because in a minute or two, that entire building would be hermetically sealed.

But we were still far from safe.

Twilight held onto a disabled street light. I tried to keep my grip on the edge of the chasm. And the water just kept coming. It battered us in an effort to flush us down the same direction the hunter had taken before. Problem was: That tumble was not the end of it. Not this time. Because there was an entire minute until the seals would be in place. And until then, a roaring river came out of that entrance.

We’re not going to make it, I realized in my panic.

Each and every second of this was painful. I could hardly breathe without breathing in water as well. It was cold enough to make my legs go numb in seconds. I would not be able to endure an entire minute.

And neither would she.

I saw Twilight slip.

I tried to yell her name, but got a mouthful of icy water instead. She tried to yell as well, but roaring water swallowed every noise.

The wave would carry us down the slope. Down and down and over the edge of the andesite street on the lower level. And from there, it was a freefall down all the remaining city layers. And even if we survived the impact on the ground, the water would pummel us further.

I should have known better.

She was an alicorn. They were basically indestructible.

But when I saw her slip, there was no doubt in my mind. I let go of my ridge and pushed myself off. And I tried to catch her mid-fall. I saw White Tip take off somehow. Maybe he would get away. My body impacted with hers, I managed to grab her and pulled her close to me.

The initial impact on the slope was painful. My outcry was once again drowned in water. I tried to cough it up, but only more water came in. I tried to hold Twilight close, but the water tried to rip us apart. She flailed with her limbs and a few hooves struck me and my legs instead.

I lost any and all sense of direction. I could not tell where up and down was anymore.

We were washed down the slope further and further towards the edge in a matter of seconds.

Then something heavy crashed into us.

A soft glow from the side that shot at us like a firework rocket.

We were ripped out of the waterstream. Another heavy, painful landing to the side of the slope of rubble. This time, I heard my own, pained outcry. Because we were out of the impromptu river. Not entirely, of course.

Twilight coughed beside me. I did as well. But I did not dare to let go of her. My legs were cramped. I could not have given her free even if I had tried.

My world spun. Everything was in motion and it felt sickening. I wanted to puke so much, but my body had forgotten where the content of my stomach was supposed to go in such a case.

I heard White Tip caw and crow. He flew somewhere close by. And sweet Celestia, did he make a ruckus.

My eyes only slowly adjusted. I stopped seeing everything in spinning doubles and triplicates. And I saw the diamond dog golem. It towered over us with its glowing runic collar. It watched us. It had saved us?

White Tip dared to swoop down and peck at its stony head. The golem did not seem to care. It simply regarded us for a few seconds longer before it turned around.

And left.

Just like that.

“T-Twilight? A-Are you a-alright?” I asked, immediately followed by another coughing fit. My voice sounded terrible. A hoarse croak at best.

She finally stopped struggling. We both lay in a puddle of cold water as seconds passed us by and turned into minutes. And I held her as tight as I could. “I… have been better,” she admitted.

Me too, peanut. Me too.