Death Valley

It took a long time for Bitterroot to choke out, “A… A vampire?”

Amanita nodded. “She- She said she’d- been out there for sixty years. And- And when she got caught into the sunlight, she…” She gestured at the pile of ash. “Yeah.”

Bitterroot blinked at Amanita. She blinked at the ash. She flicked her tail and rustled her wings. Then she threw up her hooves. “Sure,” she mumbled in a voice that couldn’t have been more clearly done with it all. “A vampire. Why not? We already had eldritch gods and mearhwolves and mad scientists. A vampire. A sunblasted vampire.”

“Mad scientists?” asked Charcoal. “Is this about-”

Whippletree coughed. “Ah, beggin’ yer pardon, but… what’s a… vampire?”

“Undead pony in literature,” Code said. She hadn’t looked away from the ash pile. “Drink the blood of sapients-”

“Drink blood?”

“Nearly immortal and can’t go into the sunlight,” Code continued. “They supposedly don’t exist, but-” She blinked and pulled her head back. “Can they exist?” she asked Amanita.

Amanita lowered her ears and pawed at the ground. “Hypothetically, maybe?” she said. She found herself already theorizing. “I don’t know of any ways to become immortal besides lichdom, and I’m not sure how sunlight would enter into that… It’d have to be a very finicky spell…”

“Hmm.” Code looked back to the ash pile and flicked her tail.

But Amanita’s mind was working. Vampires were undead, right? Technically making them corpses. So if they “died” before they became vampires… She inched forward towards the ashes, still a bit unnerved. Saying “vampire” out loud didn’t make it any less weird just yet. Slowly, almost delicately, she wiggled her hoof into the pile. Amanita swallowed, wove her magic, and muttered, “Meminerim mortem.”

Something wiggled in her spell, but that was it. Like she wasn’t touching a body.

“Meminerim mortem.”

Nothing.

“Tempus Mortis isn’t working,” Amanita said to nobody in particular. “The fire changed the body too much.”

Code mumbled something.

“Um. Hey,” said Bitterroot. “While we’re… on the subject, I… have something I need to say. And… you’re gonna want to sit down.”

She was right.

Amanita felt drained as she listened to Bitterroot talk. To have that happen to you… If she’d remembered it, Bitterroot probably would’ve broken down before turning into a timberwolf. Maybe even made like a pegasus and just winged away to get some help. Right then, Bitterroot seemed more rattled and disturbed than traumatized, but maybe she was hiding it. There was just so much going on…

“…and, and then I came here,” Bitterroot said, her voice flat. “And… And I just don’t know what to do.” She flexed her wings.

Amanita opened her mouth; nothing came out. She closed it again. When she looked around the room, no one else seemed to have much of an idea, either. Arrastra and Whippletree appeared to be taking it the worst; Whippletree was visibly shaking while Arrastra had taken to walking a short circuit with uneven paces while staring at the ground.

Then Code stood up. “I need to talk to the Deormont,” she said. “Through Tallbush. Alone.”

“Why?” asked Bitterroot. “I can-”

Code shook her head. “Not for this, you can’t. You had trouble decoding the Deormont telling us to follow the river. Tallbush has far more experience than you.”

“…Yeah…”

“What’re ye plannin’ on doin’?” asked Arrastra. “Jes’ askin’ it who Arc Fault is?”

“Exactly that, yes,” said Code, stepping towards the door. “Among other things.”

Arrastra blinked, then darted forward, stomping on Code’s tail. “If it kenned, it’d tell us,” she snapped. “The Deormont watches o’er us, an’-”

“Tutelaries work differently from us,” said Code. She yanked her tail out, but didn’t start moving again. “It might not be able to tell you anything unless you ask it properly. I know how to ask it properly. It’s- It promised health for you, but you need a grain mother to invoke its healing, yes?”

Arrastra squinted at Code. “Aye.”

“The grain mother’s how you let it know someone needs healing and ask for help,” Code said. “Otherwise, it can’t do anything. It can’t- create ideas like we can, it can’t do anything not related to the land unless you ask it-” She groaned and ran a hoof through her mane. “See, all these questions are why I’m going alone. I don’t need to clarify anything. Stay here and just- don’t do anything stupid. Not until we know more about what’s going on, at any rate.” And she was gone.

Silence. The scent of ash was fading from the room, but it lingered in Amanita’s memory. Arrastra spun around, wings wide, and asked everyone, “We’re jes’ waitin’ on her?”

“It’s… a good idea,” Amanita admitted. “If she wants to be alone, it’s best that she’s alone.”

“We’ve- some- madpony doin’ hateful things in our town,” growled Arrastra, “an’ ye wish tae wait?”

“I don’t want to wait,” said Amanita, standing up. “But that’s about all we can do right now: wait until Code comes back out of the mine with more information. And even if it’s not, she’s gone, and wouldn’t you rather face Arc with her than without?”

Arrastra grit her teeth, then slouched forward and let her wings slacken. “Aye,” she mumbled. “But…”

Whippletree reached over and laid a hoof on hers. “We’ll get him, Arrastra,” he said. “Dinnae fret.”

Easier said than done. Tension was high in the room and no one wanted to stay, much less sit still. Arrastra started doing circuits. As Amanita sat back down, she found herself wondering what Arc Fault looked like, since Bitterroot hadn’t really described him beyond “unicorn”. She went through a great many styles, from scrawny to buff, short to tall, silky-smooth-maned to unkempt, a multitude of different colorations.

But it was always a pony with a face she wanted to buck. Her hooves were twitching.

Bitterroot was sitting, holding her head in her hooves. From the way her body was moving, her breathing was long and low. Amanita crept over to her side. “Are you… doing okay?”

“I think so.” Her voice was a bit shaky, but when Bitterroot raised her head, she wasn’t crying. “I’m just… working through my memories,” she mumbled, waving a hoof around. “Trying to see if there’s anything else I missed.”

‘Ah.”

“What’s the best way tae kill a vampire dead?” Arrastra said darkly. She gestured at the ashes. “The sun, even if it ain’t much good in Tratonmane. Ary else?”

By now, the situation had gotten strange enough for Amanita that she didn’t question it. “Well, if they’re anything like their fiction, uh, a wooden stake through the heart.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know, it’s fiction…” Amanita tilted her head. “Although… if it works like I think it would, then that much symbolic life could break apart whatever spell is keeping them from dying, since-”

Bitterroot suddenly sucked in a breath and pulled her wings tight, drawing everyone’s attention. “Arrastra,” she said quietly. “After your dad died, you said you cried in the bathroom, right?”

Arrastra flinched, as if embarrassed, but said, “Aye. I was young, a-”

“The bathroom. Not a privy or anything, a bathroom with a sink and a toilet and plumbing. Is that right?”

“…Aye, but… what does that matter?”

Bitterroot stood up, her wings shaking. “…Who built that bathroom?”

Arrastra was looking at Bitterroot with more and more concern. Amanita wasn’t sure what was going on, either. “Midwinter. She an’ her family built all of ’em in Tratonmane. Ain’t ye heard?”

“…How old is Midwinter?”

“Eh.” Arrastra shrugged. “I nair asked her.”

“Bitterroot, what’re ye gettin’ tae?” asked Whippletree.

“That was sixty years ago,” Bitterroot said quietly. “It’s-” She flapped her wings once and started pointing. “Amanita, Charcoal, don’t, don’t you see the issue here?”

Amanita and Charcoal looked at each other and shrugged. “Some people just age really well,” Charcoal said. “There’s one earth pony I work with, she’s in her later fifties, but looks like-”

“Sixty. Years.” Bitterroot looked at everyone in the room. “And none of you see it?”

“Could you slow down?” Amanita asked, sitting up straighter. “I really don’t know what you’re trying to say.”

Bitterroot gave a sort of forced laugh and collapsed back onto her haunches. “I’m not crazy,” she muttered. “I thought I might be crazy then, but I wasn’t, so I’m not now.” She scrunched her eyes shut and tapped her temples. “But why, but why, but-”

Her eyes shot open. She tapped her temple again.

“I’m gonna get more foal’s breath,” she said quickly, and she was out the door.

“What’s goin’ on with her?” Whippletree asked.

“I don’t know,” Charcoal said, “but she’s had a rough week. Maybe she just needs to get some energy out.”

Amanita nodded. For once, Bitterroot’s worry seemed to be overblown.

Restricted Code managed to not slam the door as she left. This whole operation was supposed to have been about a flipping ley line, and now she was about to talk to a god. Which, granted, was something she’d always wanted to do, but in a more controlled setting. Not about vampires. She took a bite of dirt. By now, it was somehow comfort food.

First: Tallbush. Thank goodness she knew how to track him, now. Code closed her eyes and let her sensation wander into the dirt. Power swirled around her; there was the ley line, which meant that was Tallbush, probably. It was too weak to properly place, but Code followed the hems of it anyway.

Onto the shelf, right near the coal breaker. Tallbush was working the locomotive and pushing the carriages back so another hopper could get filled up. He gave Code a wave as she approached. “Hidy. Heard ye got Whippletree back?”

“As High Ritualist of the Royal Guard, I need you to be a link to the Deormont for me,” Code said. “This is not a request.”

Tallbush blinked as if slapped and the power radiating out from him stirred. “…Pardon?” he asked.

“There is something going on in Midwich that I don’t think you’re aware of. Have you ever heard of an ‘Arc Fault’?”

“Nay, but-”

“I need you to be a link to the Deormont for me right now.” Code’s voice was growing steel.

“Wish tae make demands of a god?” snorted Tallbush. “Already a-pushin’ yer luck wi’ Bitterroot, an’-”

“If you want Tratonmane to stay safe, then yes, I will absolutely make demands of a god and they will be answered.”

Tallbush flinched and stiffly clambered down from the train without even turning it off. “Heard that tone afore, an’ if’n ye’re determined…” He reluctantly trotted up towards the mine, Code following in his wake. “What’s goin’ on?”

“When we came back from Midwich Forest…”

Bitterroot came rushing back to the house, a bag full of foal’s breath pills in her grasp. For all the nothing she was talking about, she looked pretty frazzled. She tossed the bag into the center of the room. “Each of you, take one,” she said, pawing at the ground. “There’s, there’s something wrong here, and- I think that snapped me out of it. Please.”

Amanita pulled out one of the pills and rolled it around on her frog. Bitterroot still wasn’t explaining herself… But the last time she hadn’t been thinking straight, she’d led them to the Deormont. Given the way the week was turning out, just taking some foal’s breath was downright sane.

“Uh, just so you all know,” Charcoal said, “foal’s breath doesn’t have any negative effects, so we’re really risking nothing by taking these.” She levitated pills out for herself, Arrastra, and Whippletree. “And I’d just like to be sure that there’s nothing else wrong with this day, so…” She popped the pill into her mouth and swallowed.

Amanita looked at her own pill again. Ah, what the hay. Down the hatch. Arrastra and Whippletree exchanged looks, then took their own. Amanita sat there and waited for-

Then she realized.

And she knew everyone else was also realizing it because silence fell, and it fell hard.

“Told you,” Bitterroot whispered.

Midwinter.

That young.

Sixty years.

And her family-

“They was old when they came here,” Arrastra said quietly. “Varnish an’ Carnelian. None o’ you’uns saw it, but they’ve allays been old. Frae the very firs’ day. They’re all vampires, the lot of ’em.”

The words bored into Amanita’s head and left it aching. A dozen little inconsistencies and casual comments, just forcibly mentally shoved aside by some spell, now brought to the forefront. They’d always been asking her about necromancy. They must’ve-

“Let’s kill ’em,” Whippletree said.

Everyone looked at him. His voice was so matter-of-fact that Amanita found it startling. “Uh… kill them?” she asked. “A-already?”

“Aye. Let’s kill ’em.” Whippletree’s level tone of voice reminded Amanita of Code. “They’ve violatin' our minds doin’ land-kens-what fer o’er half a century. They’ve bein’ lyin’ to us all that time. They’re o’ the same ageless sort as Lixivia, who made me kill my wife dead. They’re o’ the same memory-wipin’ sort as Arc Fault, who used yer friend’s body fer some mad experiment. They prolly dinnae see us as people.”

“Well-” Amanita knew she was fighting a losing battle, but some reflex made her try anyway. “Don’t you think-” Her voice was getting smaller. “-maybe we should- wait for Code and-”

Whippletree looked Amanita dead in the eyes with an intensity she hadn’t seen before, one that brought her speech to a halt and made her back up a step. “Home ain’t safe wi’ them around,” he said. “I’ll nair feel safe long as they’re about. I want tae kill ’em. Now.”

“Or leastways, Arc Fault,” growled Arrastra. She flexed her wings. “Whipple, if ye’re goin’, I’m goin’. Those- shiftless- polecats.”

To Amanita’s not-quite surprise, Bitterroot stood up as well. “I’m going with you,” she said. “If Arc did to Tratonmanians what he did to me, then yeah, he needs to go down.”

Amanita opened her mouth, closed it again. She couldn’t fault Bitterroot, not after what Arc had done to her. That didn’t mean she thought it was a good idea. But if they were so set on doing this, then- “A-alright,” she said. “If, if you’re all going, then, then I’m in, too. You could- use the help.” And maybe she could keep them from going too overboard. Maybe.

Arrastra grinned. “Alright, then,” she said. “Let’s go vampire huntin’.”

“That lily-livered ashcake,” Tallbush growled. “ ’Neath our town, all this time…”

“And there’s possibly more,” said Code. “He was just the one Bitterroot saw. So-”

“Aye. A-helpin’ ye. Arythin’ tae be rid o’ that woodfoal. Even questionin’ God.”

Tallbush had been ambivalent at first, but the more Code told him, the faster he walked until they were galloping through the mine, lit only by his horn. The miners they passed didn’t look twice. Stone walls and wooden supports rushed past and Code felt the Deormont’s power more with every foot; soon it’d drown out even Tallbush.

Almost before she knew it, they were trotting down into the pit. Darkness seemed to be pushed back around Tallbush, like there was more light on him than just his horn. Power roiled in the ground beneath Code, a mere millimeter of reality providing enough solidity for them to walk on. It was the kind of place she’d dreamed of.

Tallbush faltered right at the channel, froze. He eyed the water, still anxious at making demands of divinity. But it was only a second; he took a drink from the channel and shuddered. Unlike Bitterroot, he didn’t collapse or undergo anything like a seizure. He turned around to face Code and sat down. His pupils were dilating and contracting oddly, like each eye was being focused manually and separately. “Speak,” he said. He wasn’t talking very loudly, but his voice echoed where Code’s didn’t.

The Deormont had seemed fine with plain-ish Ponish, so Code started with that. “Is the pony Arc Fault known to the Deormont?” You sometimes needed strange phrasings for spirits of this nature, to make sure they got all the information or to clarify things. They sometimes had a hard time distinguishing one pony from another without prompting.

A brief pause, then Tallbush nodded. “He is.”

“For how long has Arc Fault been here up until now?”

Tallbush flicked an ear, then twitched in surprise. “Sixty-four year,” he said, his voice somewhere between recitation and shock. “Arc’s been here fer sixty-four year.”

Hmm. The same type of immortality as Lixivia? “Is the pony Lixivia known to the Deormont?”

“…She was. Geld it all, how did we-”

“Was the nature of Arc and Lixivia’s relationship collaborative?”

“Aye.”

“What was the nature of that collaboration?”

Tallbush waited. One of his ears drooped and he frowned. “Ah…” He shook his head. “Beggin’ yer pardon, but… I ain’t nair heard it speak like this afore… It ain’t makin’ a lick o’ sense…”

“I’ve worked with this sort of thing,” Code said. When working with otherworldly beings, making sure both sides could communicate at all was more than half the battle. “Tell it to me, as verbatim as possible.”

Tallbush nodded, then half-closed his eyes. “They consume the lines of others tae extend their own an’ they breed mongrel worms o’ many lines,” he intoned. Then he fully opened his eyes again and shrugged. “It calls our lives ‘lines’ an’ calls us ‘worms’, but I cannae guess what the rest means.”

It was enough for Code to start thinking, at least. She started pacing and muttering. “Consume lines of others to extend their own… Consume lives of others… Drink their blood? They really are vampires…” Aware of Tallbush staring at her oddly, she pushed her monologue to inner. “I’m making a stab at it. Is this relationship shared with anyone else?”

It took a moment for Tallbush to gasp in shock. “Aye,” he said quietly. “His family.”

“You get some,” muttered Charcoal, “and you get some, and you get some…”

A little bit of foal’s breath for everyone. Preemptive protection against memory wipes. Bitterroot approved.

“Oh! And if you think you’re going to get a whammy put on you, bite your tongue. Hard,” said Charcoal. “The pain will stick around through the wipe and you’ll know something’s up.”

“How long were you thinking of that?” asked Bitterroot.

“Honestly? It came to me just now,” said Charcoal. “But it’s a clever idea, don’t you think?”

“It is, yeah.”

“Keep a-movin’,” growled Arrastra. “I wish tae get these glanders-ridden jayhawkers out o’ my town.” She had her chainsaw slung over her back like a sword and was almost walking in place to get her energy out.

Bitterroot glanced at Whippletree, waiting for him to tell her to exercise caution or something along those lines. He did no such thing, but stood at her side, spear at the ready, wings fidgeting restlessly.

“I think we’re good, actually,” said Charcoal, “so if you want to leave-”

And Arrastra was out the door, Whippletree on her heels. Bitterroot and the others had to break into a gallop to follow them.

As they approached the Watering Cave, Charcoal nudged her in the ribs. “I’m not going with you I need to check something else just so you know,” she said, and she ducked into the Cave. Bitterroot gave her a quick wave that she didn’t see.

Bitterroot and Amanita stumbled down the stairs into the bunker, already illuminated by Arrastra and Whippletree. They were doing circuits in opposite directions, tapping the walls carefully and keeping their ears to the stones. “Where’d it happen?” Arrastra asked. “I’ve been in here times aplenty an’ I ain’t nair seen arythin’ like a door.”

“It was in the back,” Bitterroot said. She led them to the far wall of the room, its darkest and most distant corners. A perfect place to hide a secret door. But the wall was smooth and unblemished. Bitterroot ran a hoof across a section of the wall, wondering if there was a lever to-

She flinched as knowledge entered into her mind unbidden. She reared, bracing herself against the wall with a front hoof, and held the other against a patch of stone just below the ceiling that looked the same as any other. She pressed it there for one second, two, three, four-

At five seconds, something made her wings buzz and a section of wall simply peeled inward like burning bark, utterly silent. Behind it, a tunnel bored into the earth, orbs of cold, dim light stuck in the ceiling leading them on. There was nothing but rock and stone, as far as Bitterroot could see.

Amanita pointed at the tunnel. “How did you…?”

“Deormont,” Bitterroot said quietly.

“All this time,” said Arrastra, her eye narrowed. “That anticor had it here all this time…” She dove onward, chirruping in echolocation. Whippletree was close behind.

Bitterroot and Amanita looked at each other, then galloped after them. “Some ponies,” Bitterroot muttered. She might as well have been getting yanked along by a ring in her nose.

“Hey, you threw away the element of surprise when facing down a necromancer based on a hunch,” said Amanita.

“A hypothermic necromancer who was in no condition to fight me! I didn’t run into a tunnel that’d be a perfect place for a trap!”

“…No. You didn’t.”

They ran. Sounds echoed up and down the tunnel. Bitterroot was wondering just how quickly Arc could transport her up and down the tunnel when it ended, opening up into-

-the lab. Bitterroot’s stomach heaved.

The phrase “his family” told Code two things. One: the Deormont almost certainly understood plain Ponish better than she’d anticipated. Two: son of a dog, Arc had a family. “Who’s in his family?” she asked.

“…No,” muttered Tallbush. “Nay, cannae be right… Midwinter, Carnelian, an’ Varnish? They…” He shook his head. “They… ain’t that… but…” He turned around and prostrated himself before the stalactite. “Oh, land o’ my foredams an’ foresires, my salvation an’ my sustenance, our eyes are right clouded an’ our minds turned ’round. Look o’er our impertinence, an’ I beg o’ ye, plead o’ ye, clear our sight, that we may ken.”

He immediately spasmed once, all his joints contracting to yank him into a fetal position. But he was getting back to his feet in moments and Code felt something stir in her mind. He stared out at nothing, nearly dumbstruck. “They… They were all of ’em here since afore I’s born,” he said dully. “Why didnae I notice?”

Code wasn’t sure what he was talking about, but she was sure it was time to leave. “That’s good for now,” she said. “Let’s get out of here before-”

“Too late.”

Varnish’s voice bounded through the pit; Code immediately spun around and placed herself between Tallbush and… anything. She didn’t say a word and only self-control kept her from pawing at the ground.

Above them, a cold light shone from the passage through which they’d entered. Varnish walked up to the ledge, looking down on them. Grinning, he said, “Howdy doo.” Then he leaped. And although he dropped four or five stories, he landed lightly.

Code shrugged as her gaze darted around the room and she attempted to strategize. “I’ve been worse.”

“Really.” Carnelian swooped down from the ledge and landed next to Varnish, a touch too gracefully for the speed at which she was moving. “You must have a plethora of tales to tell.”

“Nah,” said Varnish. “She’s making them up. I know she is.”

Code heard Tallbush gulp behind her. “W-what dae ye want?” he asked. “We’ve d-done ye nae hurt.”

“No, but you will if you leave here.” Varnish pawed at the ground and lowered his head. “Some come with us and you won’t get hurt.” He glanced at Code. “Can’t say the same for you, though.”

Code’s mind was racing. She had no idea of what she was up against. Varnish’s jump already told her he was different from a normal unicorn — in endurance, if absolutely nothing else. Her gut was saying that this was a fight she’d be on the back foot on the whole way through. But they were associated with Arc and Lixivia, so. Well. She felt her ears lower as she shifted to a combat posture-

“Hold!” Fuligin came galloping down the slope, looking almost awkward in comparison to Varnish and Carnelian. “Hold, hold!” he yelled as he darted between them. “This doesnae have tae be violent!”

“If you run, I think I can hold them off,” Code muttered to Tallbush. “Get ready to move.”

“You say that like it’s a good thing,” said Varnish.

“An’ what about you’un?” Tallbush whispered.

“If’n she’s more’n you’uns can handle-”

“Doesn’t matter. Just go.” Code would’ve said that even if she didn’t have a necromancer on the team.

“There’s three of us and two of them,” said Carnelian. “Be thankful, I’m counting you! We can handle them.”

“Lissen,” said Fuligin, “we dinnae need tae-”

“Fuligin,” Code said loudly. If Fuligin was already ambivalent towards this, maybe that could be leveraged.

Fuligin twitched at the sound of his name. He made “settle down” movements to Varnish and Carnelian, then turned to Code. “Ye dinnae need tae get hurt,” he said in a tired voice. “Jes’- Jes’ come quietly, an’-”

Code looked him in the eye. There was a lot going on in his head, but right then, she only cared about one thing. “Are you all hurting Tratonmane?” she said.

Fuligin winced back a step. “We- Aye, but-”

Code charged.

Charcoal had suspicions.

So maybe Midwinter was a vampire, casting some sort of spell to keep ponies from noticing she wasn’t aging. That raised the question of how that spell was being applied to everyone, including the newcomers. Well, how about the thing she was known for working on? And very very much didn’t want other creatures looking at?

Technically speaking, Charcoal hadn’t examined all of the purification spells for the plumbing. But if you wanted to manipulate an entire community, that would be the perfect place for it. Dump the right potions into the water supply or apply the right spell, and you could be dosing people with most any magical effect anytime they drank a sip of water. They’d let you into their house so you could tinker with it! Utilities were weird.

So as the group headed into the bunker, Charcoal slipped away into the Watering Cave. She’d seen its setup. She’d had all of its parts pointed out to her. She had an idea of how it worked. She could analyze it. She didn’t want to go back underground, anyway.

“There’s something I need to check,” she said to Cabin, and went into the back without waiting for a response. Confidence could work wonders. Down the staircase, through the labyrinth of supplies — there they were. The heater and the purifier. The runic blocks were still there, just like she remembered them. She wiped down one of them to get a closer look at the rune-

Then her tongue was screaming with pain.

It didn’t look much better rightside-up. Everything was as Bitterroot remembered it: vats, cauldrons, gems, manacled table, dissected changelings, cold walls and floor. The air was as cold as Midwich outside, which felt wrong when the place was inside. The aisles were wide enough to get through easily, almost like the place was meant for multiple ponies. It was nearly silent except for the bubbling of cauldrons, the whirring and clicking of machines. The place stank; Bitterroot felt like her brain was getting vacuumed out her nose.

She was breathing heavily, but Amanita sniffed, her nostrils flaring. “Formaldehyde,” she said. Bitterroot wondered how she could stand that smell.

“Hey!” hissed Arrastra. She and Whippletree were standing next to the other exit from the room, clearly waiting for them. “Ain’t you’uns comin’?”

“Can you slow down for a second?” Amanita snapped back. “You’re just- rushing from one place to another without any thought and I don’t have wings! Can I have a second to rest?”

“That’s prolly a good idea, Arrastra,” Whippletree muttered. He was jumping from hoof to hoof, ready to go, but held his ground. “We dinnae want tae leave her ahind.”

Arrastra huffed and pawed at the ground. “I ain’t waitin’ long,” she grumbled. “But if’n y’insist.”

“Thank you.” Amanita leaned against one of the desks, gulping deep breaths. She idly glanced over at one of the books on the table and started rifling through it.

Of course, Amanita staying still meant Bitterroot had to stand around in the lab in which she’d had an arcane device forced into her throat. She shuddered and, needing a distraction, looked down. She didn’t like the stains she saw on the floor. She looked to the side. She didn’t like the equine shape she saw drifting in the vat. She looked to the other side. A cauldron, sitting at a potions station. She peeked inside-

-and pulled back, sucking in a breath. The same dark purple liquid Arc had said would wipe her memory. There was plenty of it, enough for dozens of single-pony doses. Or worse. She couldn’t help but back away from it.

Something clinked on the ground. A small drain cover, to catch liquid waste. Bitterroot quickly decided that that potion qualified and started dumping it in. No amnestics for Arc. She tried not to breathe in the fumes as they went down, but she bit her tongue, just in case. Fortunately, she still knew where she was when the last drop was gone.

So… “Hey.” She waved at Arrastra and Whippletree. “Arc’s making potions. Want to destroy them?”

And so, they started dumping potions out, ensuring every single cauldron, beaker, and flask got emptied out and disposed of. It wasn’t much, but it was something to eat up the time. And as more and more of Arc’s work literally went down the drain, Bitterroot felt Arrastra and Whippletree getting more and more satisfied.

“Heh.” Arrastra was grinning with sadistic satisfaction. “How long dae ye think it taked him tae brew those?”

“Long enough tae make a difference,” said Whippletree. He picked up a jar of ingredients and bounced it on his hoof. “He ain’t goin’ tae be happy.” He hurled the jar against the far wall, shattering it and sending its contents flying. “But, heh, that’s the idea.”

“Hey!” Bitterroot nudged Arrastra’s hoof aside as she reached for another jar. “Keep quiet. We don’t want to make too much noise. Amanita, are you ready to go?”

Amanita was hunched over the desk, piles of papers scattered before her and a book lying open. Her eyes were closed, her ears were folded back, and she wasn’t moving much.

“Amanita?” Bitterroot asked, cautiously walking closer.

Amanita’s breathing was labored and far too even, the intake of a locomotive barely held in check. She opened her eyes and growled, “Arc needs to die. Arc needs to die.”

The space between them wasn’t large and Code crossed it before Fuligin was able to react. She managed to snatch his mane in her teeth and, keeping on the move, swung him around and tossed him bodily at Carnelian. Code didn’t see the impact before she turned to Varnish, and although it would’ve taken down most any other two ponies, right then, she wasn’t sure.

But she didn’t have time to think about it before Varnish’s horn was glowing. The spell he slung was quick, throwing some dirt in her face to keep her away. Code twisted her head aside and kept her eyes shut, ignoring the worst of the debris. She wasn’t even looking at Varnish as she kept moving, closing the distance any way she could. By the time she turned back around, they were muzzle-to-muzzle.

They reared and caught each other in a grappling stance. And although Code was an earth pony, Varnish was taller. He lifted her clean off the ground, then twisted her away from her hooves and fell on top of her.

Varnish was strong. But he wasn’t used to fighting earth ponies and hadn’t braced himself. As she slammed into the ground, Code gave a yank. Varnish stumbled slightly, just off-balance enough for Code to pull harder and turn it into a roll. His momentum pulled her back up, and she threw out a hoof to brace herself. When Varnish tried to copy her rollover move, he had no leverage. Code raised a hoof over Varnish’s ribs and swung it down as hard as she could.

Varnish dissolved, rippling into smoke before Code’s hoof made contact. The smoke reformed behind her and she was smashed into the ground by his hoof. “High Ritualist, huh?” he breathed in her ear. His breath was cold and dry. “Fat lot of good that did you, earth pony.” He placed a hoof on her neck and pressed. Code wriggled; she couldn’t get the slightest breath. Still she wriggled.

Then he grabbed her in his magic and smashed her one, two, three times against the rock. Her entire body jolted with pain and her vision swam. She tried to take a breath. No luck. She wriggled.

“Stars above, ye’ve already got her,” growled Fuligin, “ye dinnae need tae-”

“Ho, you don’t know her,” Varnish snapped. “Yeah, I need to.”

Code heard some grunting; Tallbush and Carnelian grappling tumbled into view. But when they stood up, Carnelian had him under control in some sort of hold. Tallbush stopped struggling and hung his head.

“She’s an interesting one,” Carnelian said. “What’re you planning? Draining her?” She sniffed. “She smells rather good.”

“Are you kidding?” Varnish snorted. “With her blood, I might turn into a self-unaware egotist!”

Carnelian’s eyes narrowed. “And that would be quite the shame,” she said.

Varnish didn’t notice. “No. I’m not going to drain you. Much too quick.” He gave Code a hard buck, harder than any unicorn could have managed. Code went tumbling head over hooves, bouncing across the floor, moving too fast to get any real purchase with her hooves. Her body picked up scrapes and gashes and aches.

The instant she was able to stop herself. Code scrambled to her hooves. She was in one of the tunnels in the walls of the pit, and pretty far in, too. She was so desperate for breath that the coal dust in the air somehow didn’t irritate her. She looked in one direction: darkness. She looked in the other: Varnish at the entrance to the tunnel, some distance away. He held something up, something orange and glowing.

A lamp.

A burning lamp.

“Run, rabbit, run!” Varnish yelled. And he tossed the lamp.

Code turned and ran. She drew all the magic she could from the land, pumped her legs as hard as she could, ignored her pain, didn’t even care that she was running blindly into a cave, just ran-

She heard the lamp shatter behind her.

The coal dust ignited and an explosion rocked the mine.

Charcoal blinked. She remembered looking into the piping and the purification routine. She remembered finding nothing out of the ordinary. What she didn’t remember was biting her tongue.

Uh-oh.

Immediately, she dug into her furs, looking for- Foal’s breath. She downed it and waited.

Down the staircase, through the labyrinth of supplies — there they were. The heater and the purifier. The runic blocks were still there, just like she remembered them. She wiped down one of them to get a closer look at the rune.

Same as before. Nothing out of place. She went to the next one-

Wait. She’d given this a quick look-over already and found nothing. She remembered finding nothing, even after taking foal’s breath. Had she missed something? Or was it really well hidden? Where could it have been hidden?

…Inside the pipes themselves. Use runes to make them last, tell Tratonmane that they needed replacement pipes whenever the runes wore down. She’d been so close, and she’d never even considered looking at magic in the pipes. Or was that part of the thought-suppression spell, too? Charcoal nudged her magic in to get a feel for the pipes. After a brief spark that made her twitch, she found-

…Oh, dear.

It was complicated. Stupid complicated. More complicated than she could hope to analyze. Definitely more complicated than was needed for water purification. Complicated enough for mental manipulation? Maybe.

She thought she heard something rustle behind her; she raised her head and looked. Nothing. She turned her ears and listened. Nothing.

Back to the pipes. Charcoal started picking at one of the simpler spells. What she found had nothing to do with water or even physical stuff. She knew enough about theory to make a stab that it was probably mental, but-

Another rustle, closer. Charcoal whipped around, only for Midwinter to blitz out of the darkness, moving faster than any pony had a right to, and slam her into the wall. She whipped out a needle filled with a dark purple liquid, injected it into Charcoal’s neck, and said, with only the slightest hint of a growl in her voice, “You found nothing out of the ordinary. Everything was as expected.”

She yanked the needle out and vanished back into the storage — literally vanished, melting out of visibility. Charcoal toppled forward and tried to yell, but a mist was rolling through her thoughts and smothering her actions. Simply moving her head became a sudden chore.

But in the last seconds before the fog overtook her, she bit into her tongue hard enough to draw blood.

Charcoal shuddered and licked the roof of her mouth. Something warm and slick and coppery was between it and her tongue.

Okay. So… they knew about her knowing. Midwinter did, at least. Maybe that spark was an alarm, triggered whenever someone looked at the spells. No more looking at that for her, then. What to do now?

Get into the bunker and stick with the others. Safety in numbers. She didn’t feel safe hiding in Tratonmane, and the bunker was right there.

With shaking legs, Charcoal climbed back up the stairs and waved as cheerfully as she could to Cabin. “Got everything I needed, thanks!” She left the inn before Cabin could reply, turned the corner, and headed around to the back. The bunker was right over there. The door was open. She took a step towards it.

“Ah, hello, Charcoal.”

Charcoal nearly bit her tongue off in shock at the sound of Midwinter’s voice. She was in the opposite direction as the bunker, leaning against the back wall of the inn and smiling just a bit too broadly.

“Hey,” Charcoal said, nodding.

“I heard you were checking on the purification system again. Did you find what you were looking for?”

Charcoal managed to not say anything, but her heart rate spiked. She could feel it, sending shakes through her body. Somehow, she shook her head. “No. I was wring. Wrong.” If she could just get away from here, maybe get into the bunker and find the others-

“Hmm. You say you found nothing at all?”

“Nope.” Charcoal popped the last P to hide her quavering voice. “I guess my hunch was wrong.”

“Really? That’s not what your heartbeat’s saying,” Midwinter said, not dropping her grin. “Fortunately, I always did want to know what you tasted like.”

And before Charcoal could even blink, Midwinter had crossed the distance between them and smashed her into the ground. Something cracked loudly. She didn’t feel any pain, though.

In fact, she didn’t feel anything below her neck.

Bitterroot flinched back. She’d never heard Amanita this angry before. She sounded like she was ready, willing, and able to cut someone’s heart out. Arrastra and Whippletree seemed to have noticed, too, watching her the same way they would a hungry bear.

Before anyone could say anything, Amanita was talking. “This is a journal of his notes. What he’s working on. And this is the sort of work my master was doing before I came to my senses. I know this magic. It’s another form of lichdom, with him consuming ponies’ lives to extend his own. I’d bet money it’s why they came here. Tratonmane is isolated, and this sort of magic, you can’t derive it from passive, unobtrusive observation. If, if you want to learn something like this, find how souls react to certain spells-” She pulled out a certain sheaf of paper and tapped it. “-you need to murder ponies. One for each data point. Look at how many data points there are.”

Bitterroot did. The room felt even colder.

“And, and, and this?” Amanita flipped forward several pages and pointed at a few paragraphs of notes filled with dense terminology. “This is- He’s basically vivisecting a pony without anesthetic just to see what a living heart does when he pokes it. And there’s more.” She ruffled the pages. “Sweet Celestia, is there more.”

She stepped away from the book. “That’s- That’s unforgivable, plain and simple. Princess Twilight says that we need to give ponies a chance. Right now, I don’t care. Evil exists and Arc is it. And anyone associated with him. They need to be six feet under. I’ll bury them alive myself if I have to.”

She turned to Arrastra. “I’m finished. Let’s go.”

“Heh.” Arrastra smirked. “Ain’t ne’er seen ye like that afore.” She clicked her tongue and turned towards the exit-

-as Arc walked in, whistling off-key.

They froze when they saw each other.

“Hey,” protested Arc.

And suddenly Arrastra was charging, her roar inaudible beneath the chainsaw’s.

She was fast, but Arc was faster. He actually blurred as he jinked to one side, dodging Arrastra’s swing more easily than he should’ve been able to manage. As she swung herself around to face him again, he yelled, “In!”

And something else came running in.

It was technically a pony, but the sight of it made Bitterroot nauseous. It looked more like a poorly-kitbashed model of a pony than anything natural, limbs out of proportion with the body, body out of proportion with the neck. The colors didn’t match between the legs, the wings, the body, and the head, with bulging, corded scars standing out at the lines like poor stitching. And it had wings; it had a horn, too. It might as well have been cobbled together from-

…oh dear Celestia.

The- thing charged right at Arrastra; she swept her wings and managed to get out of its way, but it still sideswiped her enough to spin her around. It tried to change direction and Whippletree bolted forward. He thrust his spear forward with impeccable aim and impaled it right in the chest.

It didn’t stop moving or even slow down. It ran at Arrastra with the spear embedded in its body.

“Hey!” yelled Amanita. She snatched up the discarded cauldron and pitched it at the ogre’s head, hitting it dead-on. The thing didn’t react as the metal mass bounced off, it just swung a hoof at Arrastra, but the impact unbalanced it enough that she was able to duck under it.

Bitterroot found herself running forward. The brute was big, but if they all jumped in-

And suddenly Arc was in front of her. She flared her wings to stop, only for her bad wing to twinge; she instinctively pulled it back inward. Without the air resistance, she slid beyond what she’d planned, within range of Arc. He grabbed her head in his hooves and the force of the impacts and his grip made her see stars.

“Hello, muffin!” chirped Arc. He swung her around. Bitterroot took a table in the flank and awkwardly tumbled over it, knocking aside papers and flasks. Arc jumped up after her and gave her a shove to push her over the far edge. The ground rushed up to meet her and she saw stars when she smashed her head.

Suddenly, Arc was straddling her, holding an empty beaker over her head. “Did you dump all these? Rude, booger bear,” he tutted. “I was working.” He smashed the beaker into Bitterroot’s face, shattering it, embedding glass shards in her flesh. She screamed, doubling over. Blood dribbled down her face, into her nose.

“Sleep tight,” Arc said. “Ha!” He raised his hoof over her head and brought it down.

Code’s head was still spinning when everything settled. She tried to take a breath; the dust in the air gave her a mild coughing fit. When she opened her eyes, nothing changed. She tried to stand up and bumped her head. She moved forward and quickly hit a jagged sloping wall. She moved backward and quickly hit a jagged sloping wall. Side to side, walls. Her tunnel had caved in from the explosion and this pocket was all she had left.

She had nothing but herself, the clothes on her back, the glasses on her face, the magic in her soul, less than fifty square feet of floor space, barely five feet of height, some sharp rocks, air, and time. Literally nothing more, not even light or orientation.

Better get to work on that.

She tested some of the loose rocks for sharpness, laying the best ones aside and throwing the others into the corners as best she could. Then Code closed her eyes and, after a few mental chords to get in the right thoughtspace, began singing her mnemonics as she traced a circle around her. “I see a vision rising dreary… Fading in as children play twilight games…”

She crouched down and ate a chunk of dirt.

Midwinter leaned down to look Charcoal in the eye, her paralyzed prey. “I thought kirins and unicorns were close enough for the potion to work,” she mused, “but I guess not. Shame; we’ll need to come up with a good story for you.” She casually pulled a rag out from a pocket, wadded it into a ball, and stuffed it into Charcoal’s mouth to gag her. Then she took Charcoal’s tail in her mouth and, with the nonchalant ease of an earth pony, started dragging her towards the bunker.

Charcoal tried screaming. It would’ve been weak without the gag in her mouth. She tried thrashing. The body she couldn’t feel refused to move. She tried banging her head against the ground. She barely made a sound. She tried breathing through her mouth. The gag was too thick to let air through.

Midwinter strode down the bunker’s steps, letting Charcoal bang her head on the steps one at a time; Charcoal’s screams could barely be heard. Once they were in the bunker proper, Midwinter released Charcoal’s tail and, lowering her head so they were eye-to-eye, she said, “When there isn’t a wolf attack, no one comes down here. Can you imagine that?”

Charcoal made a pitiful sound around her gag.

“There’s so much space and it all goes unused,” Midwinter continued. “But it’s cold and lightless, even for Midwich, and properly ventilating the underground is a nuisance. It can be quite difficult to use this space.” She grinned. “But that means we shall remain, ah, unmolested.”

Midwinter bit at Charcoal’s exposed neck. Her teeth sliced through the flesh far too easily. And she started sucking.

Charcoal tried to move her head away, but Midwinter just pinned it to the floor with a hoof. The pressure was like a vise and Charcoal saw stars. It was all she could do to keep breathing around her gag. Midwinter sucked greedily, even as blood dribbled around her lips and pooled on the floor and filled Charcoal’s nose with its coppery scent.

Charcoal tried to struggle. Tried to do anything. She couldn’t, not even scream. But it wouldn’t have mattered. Amanita and Bitterroot and the others weren’t around. Even if they were, she couldn’t do anything to make them know. She was alone, trapped inside what was supposed to be a place of shelter. She was alone and she was paralyzed and she was being eaten alive.

Her breathing grew weaker and tears dripped down her face.

Midwinter grinned at her, eyeshine flashing. “Mmmm.” She ran her tongue across her bloodstained fangs and smacked her lips. “Spicy.”

Lap lap lap.