—forth with the blessings of Harmony, foals of Emeraldine. Our weary eyes rest upon the—scrkkkkkkkk—forth with the blessings of Harmony, foals of Emeraldine. Our weary eyes rest upon the—scrkkkkkkkk—"
"So..." Pinkie Pie's eyes narrowed. "That's Onyxxus, huh?"
Twilight Sparkle hovered next to her and Rainbow Dash. "That would seem to be the case."
"Seems to have a goldfish memory, doesn't he?"
Twilight glared aside. "It's the recording, Pinkie. The message is obviously stuck."
"Oh. I knew that. Heehee."
"Isn't it incredible?" Fluttershy cooed. "An actual honest-to-goddess alicorn..."
Applejack squinted aside. "Didn't y'all get a chance to see Mortuana while she was still alive?"
"I know. But it doesn't make this any less amazing," Fluttershy said. She cocked her head aside, staring at the hologram from a different angle. "Once upon a time, we only knew about two alicorns: Celestia and Luna. But bearing witness to others? I don't know about you, but I find it to be an amazing experience."
"Look at his mane!" Rarity stammered. "I know it's just a holographic projection, but observe how it shimmers in the light despite being such a dark color!" She sighed dreamily. "Must have been so silky and smoothe... quite remarkable for a stallion!"
"That's right!" Fluttershy breathed. "He is a stallion! This is the first alicorn stallion we've ever seen!"
Applejack spoke, "Y'all do realize that this feller-a-corn you've been fawnin' over has been dead for untold centuries...?"
"Applejack, darling, don't be so quick to rebuke." Rarity upturned her nose. "We are allowed to acknowledge beauty in all its forms. No doubt the regal gentlecolt was the paragon of virtue and inspiration while he was still alive."
"If you ask me, he's kinda edgy-looking," Pinkie Pie droned.
Rarity sighed. "Goddess help me... I wonder if I will be regarded so bluntly long after I've perished."
"Who knows... with somepony like Pinkie Pie still around..." Applejack smirked.
Clearing her throat, Ariel floated closer to Rainbow Dash. "Do you... uh... do you have an assessment yet or are you waiting on your friends to finish deliberating?"
"You know me too well," Rainbow muttered. "They're busy being ponies."
"Hey!" Pinkie pouted. "I resemble that remark!" A blink. "Wait..."
"Yo! Herald!" Rainbow spoke across the Emeraldinian Command Room. "Any thoughts?"
Logan, Kepler, Wildcard, and Flynn pondered while the translucent alicorn portrait continued to repeat itself: "—scrkkkkkk—forth with the blessings of Harmony, foals of Emeraldine. Our weary eyes rest upon the—scrkkkkkkkk—forth with the blessings of Harmony, foals of Emeraldine. Our weary eyes rest upon the—scrkkkkkkkk—"
"Well, he... uh..." Logan shifted where he stood. "...he sounds like a monarch, alright."
Flynn face-hoofed. "You could at least comment on his intent, lardo."
"Well let's hear you come up with something smart, baldy!"
"If you ask me..." Flynn rubbed his chin in thought. "He's addressing the colonists of the Darkreach Expedition."
"Obviously," Logan said.
Flynn rolled his eyes and continued: "But it sounds like he's saying something commemorative. It's... not something I would expect to be stored within Darkreach's crystalline memory banks."
"How do you mean?" Ariel asked.
"Think about it." Flynn looked at the others while the portrait kept speaking, distorting, and re-speaking. "Onyxxus still had duties to attend to back in Emeraldine. It's likely that he produced this message from the heights of Verdestone."
"Not prrecisely," Kepler said.
Flynn looked over. "Hmmm?"
The wyvern slapped his claws against the nearest wall. "It's rratherr obvious that alicorrn magic carrved Darrkrreach frrom the hearrt of this mesa. I suspect Onyxxus paid at least one visit to this domain. He could verry well have given this speech as a farrewell addrress..."
"Beforrrrrrrrrrrre making his way back to the Light Side," Ariel droned.
"Exactly."
"So he's wishing the poor bastards here 'good luck,'" Logan remarked. "Cool. Got it. What now?"
"Not so fast..." Flynn waved a hoof. "I still don't get why this is the first thing we uncover as soon as we boot this system up."
"Well, this message was stored in the 'crystalline database' thingy housed here in Darkreach, right?" Rainbow remarked.
"Yeah..."
"Well, it's been offline for Celestia-knows how long." Rainbow blinked. "Maybe—in throwing the switch—we've inadvertently brought the system back to square one?" She looked at the others. "There could be more messages. There could be more to this message. We just don't know because we're only scraping the surface."
Ariel's eyes squinted. "Is there a way to find out more?" She waved at the hologram. "First off—to figure out everything that Onyxxus said?"
"I... suspect that providing more power to the main core could help out," Flynn said. "I had been hoping to do that gradually—for fear of overloading the system."
"Make it your main priority," Rainbow Dash said. "Because if these dudes actually left messages for us to uncover then I sure as heck want to access the full bulk of them." She waved a hoof at the map of the mesa made out of magnetically-raised pins. "Gathering as much information about the Dark Side would be super... super awesome."
Flynn took a deep breath. "I'll need to hop back down to the generator room... slide more crystals into the core. However, I'm going to have to do it slowly... one at a time... or else I might inadvertently cause a blackout—which would lead to permanent data loss."
"I shall happily assist you, brrotherr," Kepler said. "Jourrney orr no jourrney, I would love to hearr morre frrom the wise muzzle of Morrtuana's patrriarrch."
"You guys do that," Rainbow said. "I'm assuming that—in powering up the rest of the core—you'll be restoring lighting to the rest of the settlement?"
"Presumably."
"Good. Ariel, Big Show and I can continue searching the compound." Rainbow Dash turned tail and marched out of the room. "Let's get every square inch of this place covered, dudes! I wanna know all that there is to know!"
"Wowie, Dashie!" Pinkie grinned wide as she and the other ghostly mares accompanied her. "You really take disembodied holographic heads in stride!"
"Wouldn't be my first time," Rainbow droned, navigating a concrete hallway. "I encountered something similar with Commander Hurricane back in Stratopolis."
"Stratopolis?" Rarity pronounced.
"Yeah. One of the two Sentinels said to accompany this piece of Urohringr," Rainbow Dash said. "Funny how a single message from the past can shed so much light on a crazy-flank situation in the present."
Pinkie Pie droned: "Only a precise hit will set off a chain reaction."
"... ... ... ... ...huh?"
"Heehee! Let's go spelunking!"
Rainbow sighed, shaking her head in mid-trot. "Never a dull moment."
Indeed
Spelunking more rooms. Nice.
Question: Who is keeping an eye on Seraphimus...
Fifty jumping-jacks, ):(. Knock 'em out!
Oh hey there, General Dodonna
acqadfbvdwvfldldlgoddamnitPinkie
...maybe we should keep an eye on the main core...
8300042 I think it's high time I started joining the workout squad! I wonder if IC actually does your reps
I love this exploration thing plus set up that is Dark reach. My guess is that Darkreach will either serve as a way to set up the goal and/or landscape, culture and lore of the Darkside, or as a way to speed the journey along, since we have relatively little time left until the end of the series
but when Sera gets free, just how many Natural 20s does she keep rolling in order to have that Spork ricoccet through all those pipes and hallways to hit the only active Mana Crystal in teh core array that has a big enough flaw in it to cause a chain reaction cascade that would clear the plae for miles around and announce to Every force quite possibly on the Light side as well that Dash was in the house?
8299213
*cough*
Utaan
*cough cough*
919k words
*cough*
Now we got the next part of the plan up and going. Let's go Exploring!
8299213
Any yhing less than a million is easy
Definitely would want to find out all that they can, even if the information is hundreds of years out of date, it still allows one to plot potential trends that could be relevant to the current situation. Best way to do that is to listen and watch.
Honestly not so sure the hit would even need to be that precise, given how touchy Darkreach's core seems to be.
So, when do the battledroids show up?
Heh, I get the Star Wars references!
8300107
Shortskirtsandexplosions? Exercise? Have you seen his diet? His fridge contains only Dr. Pepper. He subsists on sugar and water.
...
Does this mean SS&E is a plant?
Fellow Jurists and Ninthers, what kind of plant would our good lemur friend be?
8300229
Go read Appledashery, that will change your mind. It had to be split in two because Skirts hit the chapter limit on the site.
Or go to fanfic.net and read Ri2's pokemin epics, Latias' Journey and Brave New World, those chapters alone can break 300k words.
Compared to those, the components that make up this saga are bite sized.
Huh... thought Dash told at least Twilight and Rarity the full tale of her travels.
-Through the path long forgotten, into the darkness long begotten. Ofolrodi.
A spelunking we go! Also Seraphimus is what by herself?..that's probably not a good thing.
8298915
I always thought of Logan with a Krogan voice and Flynn as Dr. Kleiner voice
8299197
Don't think of it as a mountain your have to clime to see the view from the top. Think of it as a journey, one where each step of the way opens new vistas of wonders to see. The Austraeoh series is about the path taken, the battles fought, and the companions that walk along the way with you.
If these things sound like a good time to you, then give it a shot. Don't look at all the books that are out as one big beast to be slain, just start with Austraeoh, and see where you go from there.
I don't get the reference, assuming this is one.
8301062
New Hope, Dodonna explaining the weakness of the Death Star.
8300592
Bluebell(e)s
So here's to the Lightbringer
The mare of Stable Two...
Jokes aside, the situation feels similar to the Stable exploration scenes in Fallout Equestria. We have basically an old inert underground base, maybe some useful loot for the party to grab and still no idea what caused the downfall of the installation. Heck, they even try to recover/hack the database for more information. Now let's see what they find in the recordings.
And then all day get is ten hours of Onyxxus' hyperactive, awkwardly-cut Vlogs.
It's not nice to make fun of your friends, Ariel. Kepler's roll isn't that bad.
Maybe they just need to give the holoprojector a good kick? That might resume the message.
8300107
I do some of his exercises, does that count?
8301181
Welcome to Vault 34. Don't mind the loud clunking sound coming from the basement. It's just the ol' reactor.
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This tried and true maintenance technique will not fail Dashie; it's just stupid enough to work!
8301500
Had to look this one up in the wiki. My knowledge is pretty much limited to Fallout 1,2, Fallout Equestria plus a few sidestories.
And now I imagine that they have chaos ghouls in the basement. And perhaps an entity like the Smooze in Stratopolis.
8301784
Not as bad as Vault 22. That one was filled with fungal spores that infected the inhabitants, killed them, and reanimated the corpses, only without the disadvantages of aerobic respiration and a centralized nervous system.
They were sacks of muscle and bone, mean, and realistically, the only way to kill them would be to dismember, disintigrate, or incinerate them.
So, not wholly unlike the Smooze, in a sense.
Also, if you've read Fallout: Equestria, then you have a general idea of some areas in Fallout 3 and New Vegas.
Fillydelphia, industrial slave pit? The Pitt DLC, Fallout 3. Canterlot and its necromantic Pink Cloud? The Sierra Madre Casino and Villa with its caustic, red pollution from mystery chemicals, Dead Money DLC, New Vegas.
There are many others that I can't think of right now, but thematically, they're all there.
8301818
Or the Master. He was one of the first to create super mutants with the FEV by throwing humans in vats with the virus and turned them into his army. He also created other abominations like centaurs (human/dog hybrids) and floater (flying tentacle monsters).
And of course, he "improved" himself, if you can call that an improvement.
(Fair warning: Picture contains body horror)
vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/fallout/images/d/d1/FO01_NPC_Master_B.png/revision/latest?cb=20110103095213
Edit: The Goddess (Trixie) is basically the FOE version of him.
I had a wonderful "story extension" comment written up last night - and then the Internet stopped working. GAAHH.
I appreciate the Star Wars reference!
This is getting deep.
Rarity, Angel will get a loving fandom before you are ever considered edgy.
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This is a star wars reference.
8302374
I'm sorry for your loss :(
8307591
He's just misunderstood, look at life from his perspective. If he doesn't fight to be on top, he would be crushed under-hoof!
How interesting. I hope we can uncover what else lies in the database because we don't know enough from this message.
Isn't Cadance cruising west with Shining Armor right this second?
Was fully expecting her to say "But Stratopolis is a myth."
8331264
This journey started before they met Cadance, remember, though she might be a bit of a surprise waiting for them on the far side.
10/12/2017
20:44 UTC
My first thought would've been the opposite: they're seeing the last message the system was used to play.
Because an old ceremonial dedication as the base's last words sure would imply it went a creepy way to go.
Okay I get the reference but isn't that a bit out of place?
This chapter really gave me a Fallout Equestria feel.
8865090
what's the reference?
No, odds are you'll be worshipped as The Drama Queen. Queen of Drama!...oh and also you were kinda generous n stuff...
8987237
Star wars: a new hope, during the attack briefing
I never know if Pinkie is just being weird or dangerously prophetic.
Mana punk laptop?! SIGN ME UP!
Oof, that hurt me.
This is strangely uncanny for me actually. I had a dream where I went into someone's garage, and inside there was a car ontop of a bunch of gears and junk. This scene is uncomfortably similar... Well, actually I went through my dream journal and it turns out there was no car. Regardless, here's the excerpt:
Pretty spoopy right? Okay maybe not, but as I was reading, a little before that scene, there's this:
I think you can see where I'm drawing parallels: Old house->Darkreach, dry->no clouds, shady->no sunlight, slightly moist->moist, etc. Hopefully my outfit is not indicative of Rainbow's pendant being taken off anytime soon.
SQUEEEEEEE! I WAS JUST THINKING ABOUT THE ONE OF THESE IN ROARKE'S SHIIIP!
It's so hard to express how happy this makes me for some reason! I've been playing with one of those pin boards myself recently, and not only are they fun, they also seem extremely useful for this kind of application.
Seriously, I don't know why, but this just makes me happy.
Did you know that if you put soft stuff under the pins, you can press on the pins and they feel soft? It's so weird; it's so fun!