Errant beams of yellow and red plasma erupted from the jagged peaks of the skystone fields.
Booster Spice gnashed his teeth, yanking the controls left and right in a desperate bid to keep Whizzball straight and centered. With each adjustment he made, a gust of wind blew at the glossy sphere from a random angle, upsetting his already tenuous balance. The stallion sweated nervously, so much so that he had to lift his goggles several times to wipe his brow.
“What in God's name is taking them so long...?” He shuddered, leaning tensely forward in the pilot's seat. “That cave can't go on forever.”
As his eyes once again fell upon the fluctuating landscape below, he heard a buzzing from his communications panel. He slapped a hoof over it.
“Yes!” Booster barked. “Josho? EE?! What have you found?”
“Scrkkk! Sorry to disappoint you, Booster. It's Bellesmith.”
“Belle!” Booster smiled despite his strain. “Boy, it's good to hear a friendly voice!”
“I'm sorry to interrupt your operation. I'm calling to let you know—”
“—that we've made it through the perimeter!” Belle said, squatting at the Noble Jury's communications array while Props tweaked the steam valves situated around the engine room's tome. “Rainbow Dash's team successfully distracted the soul sentries long enough for us to pass on through! We're making our way towards Val Roa proper as we speak!”
“Well that's—scrkkkk—hear, Belle! Then I—scrkkkk!—joining Rainbow with—scrkkk—time for the Coronation?
Belle blinked awkwardly.
“Ooooh...” Props glanced over, blue eyes narrow. “That doesn't sound too good.”
“Booster, you're breaking up!” Belle stood before the array. “What's your situation? Is everything okay?”
“Scrkkkk—hear you, Belle, there's—Scrkkkk—with the manaconduits of Whizzball. I'm—scrkkkk—elevation, but I want to stay low—scrkkk—when Josho and Eagle Eye try to—scrkkkk!”
“Booster, just... just look out for yourself and the others, okay?!” Belle spoke loudly into the rippling static. “Get the three of you—”
“—scrkkkk—safely! We'll rendezvous in—scrkkkk-scrkkkk!”
Booster winced, shaking his head. “Belle... Belle!” He leaned his muzzle close to the communications system. “I don't know if you can hear me, but you're impossible to make out! I will be flying here until I get a clear sign of Josho and Eagle Eye! And then I'll be flying us waaaaaay far away from here. Something's making the skystone fields fluctuate with extra energy, and I don't know how much longer Whizzball can take!”
Silence.
“Hello?!”
The communications console had gone dead.
With a sigh, Booster leaned back, hanging onto the controls. “I don't know how much longer I can take...”
The communications array inside the Noble Jury had gone silent. Belle leaned back with a heavy sigh. “We just lost him.”
“Lost him or...” Props gulped, her ears deflating. “Lost lost him?”
Belle shook her head. “Who's to know?” She glanced up. “Booster is resilient enough to fly Whizzball through anything, but from the sound of things, he's all alone up in there.”
“You mean Josho and Adoraface...?”
“Are still investigating the site.” Bell nodded. “Yes.”
“Ohhhhh...” Props pouted, nibbling on the end of a wrench. “Nnnngh...” She opened her mouth again and pointed with the instrument. “I engineered the leylines of our communications system myself. The only thing I can imagine that would disrupt it that badly is a fluctuation of skystone energy!”
“Well, that would make sense, wouldn't it?”
“Yes, but if I only knew what was causing it.”
“Causing what, exactly?”
“Natural skystone deposits tend to fluctuate when they're being harvested.” Props thought out loud. “That, or being drained of energy.”
“You mean, while still situated within their natural reserves?”
“Yup yup yup!”
“But...” Belle blinked. “Who or what could be draining the skystone fields from within?”
“Good question. But what matters is that all three of our guy-friends could soon become die-friends.” Props pouted. “Exposure to that much constant fluctuation can roast the flesh inside out!”
“Spark...” Belle grimaced. “Well, we can't be having that!”
“If the Noble Jury was where Whizzball was, it could withstand the fluctuations better.”
“Yes, but we can't very well go back there now, can we?” Belle stood up and began pacing. “Rainbow Dash needs us in Val Roa. We're all that stands between this nation and the Cartel's battleships. And besides!” Belle spun about. “The perimeter reactivated! The soul sentries would simply blast us out of the sky if we were to fly back the way which we came!”
“Hmmmmm...”
“Nnnngh...” Belle ran a hoof through her dark brown mane. “Just when I thought I was starting to enjoy this whole captain nonsense...” She gulped. “What I wouldn't do for an ace in the hole.”
Props blinked. Props smiled. “I think I might have one for you!”
“Hmmm?” Belle looked up.
“Scooch over, girlfriend!” Props chirped as she slid up to the communications array, spinning several knobs and charging the soundstones. “I've got a call to make!”
Josho's heavy hoofsteps clopped over dank stone. Water splashed, running down into unseen crevices on either side of the rocky platform beneath him. He swung his head left and right in a gentle sweep, illuminating the smooth sloping ceiling above. After several moments of fruitless illumination, his nostrils flared.
Behind him, Eagle Eye's voice echoed. “See anything yet?”
“You're the one with the good vision,” Josho grumbled. “Assuming you're not busy adding pink drapes to this place with your mind.”
Eagle sighed, stepping up beside the larger stallion. His own horn glowed in a thinner, brighter beam. “I can't get over how smooth the rocks are.”
“I know,” Josho droned. “Isn't it a tragedy?”
“I'm serious, old stallion!” Eagle frowned. “It doesn't look natural!”
“I'm certain Rainbow didn't send us here to survey just any hole in the ground.” Josho hopped a thin ravine and landed on a plateau of flat rock across the way. “Something's gotta be here, alright. The entire floor has been level for us the whole way to this point, and it's been gradually ascending.” He sniffed a few times. “Not to mention it's perfectly breathable down here.”
“Speak for yourself.” Eagle hopped over to join him, his muzzle twisted in a wretching expression. “Just what is that stench?”
“Unpleasant, that's for sure,” Josho said. “I could do without it.” A beat. His muzzle curved slightly, “And considering whom that's coming from—”
“Heh...” Eagle managed a tiny smirk. “I was about to say the same thing.”
“Beat you to it, sunshine.” Josho tilted his head curiously as the two trotted down a narrowing corridor of dull blue stone. “Although, if you ask me, things are getting a bit...”
“Fouler?”
“Well, yes. But warmer too.” Josho flashed his horn's light straight up. “Could we be getting so high up we're reaching the... err... roots of the skystone?”
“I don't know how that works, to be perfectly honest,” Eagle Eye said, trotting alongside Josho. “But my guess is, if we got too close, we wouldn't be in the mood to chat about it.”
“Hmmm... perhaps not—”
There was a sickeningly loud crunch between them.
The two unicorns froze in place.
Eagle glanced aside at the older pony. “What... the Spark was that?”
“I... uh...” Josho took a deep breath. “I think I just stepped in something.”
“What exactly?”
“Shine the light, genius.”
Eagle gulped. He tilted his horn down while Josho lifted his hoof.
They caught the fragments of a glossy black shell. Part of it clung to Josho's fetlock with sticky residue. The rest shattered, flaking off into brittle obsidian bits.
“Well, if that's not a turn off, I don't know what is,” Josho muttered.
“What is that?” Eagle grimaced. “A skull?”
“I'm pretty sure are bones are white on the inside.”
“Some kind of... egg, then?”
“No, not quite...” Josho blinked. “Come to think of it, there's something familiar about the texture.”
“Really?”
“Yes, and this stench...” Josho sniffed the air again. “I've smelled it before.”
“Oh y-yeah? Where?”
Josho looked aside. “Stratopolis.”
Eagle Eye shuddered. “Well...” He trotted forward, shining his light around. “...I sure don't like the sound of that.” A gaping changeling's face flashed before his eyes. “GAAH!” He hopped back.
Josho instantly stomped a hoof forward, standing protectively in front of Eagle as he aimed his shotgun level with the changeling.
But the metamorph's skull didn't move. The creature hung there, its eyesockets dim and porous. Dozens of deep fissures ran through its exoskeleton. The webbed spines along its neck and back had whittled away to fibrous silks, dangling in the windless air.
“Why... why...” Eagle Eye shuddered, peaking out from behind the obese stallion, his shield raised. “Why isn't it m-moving?”
“I think because it's dead, princess,” Josho said.
“Dead?”
“Yup.”
“Are you sure?”
Josho gave the skull the lightest of taps with his shotgun barrel. With a grotesque ripping sound, the head rolled right off and fell to the floor, exploding in viscous green pus.
Josho glanced aside. “Pretty sure.”
Eagle Eye was already heaving over, vomiting onto a patch of stone. “Grkkkksllghhtt!”
Josho clenched his teeth. He pivoted about, shining his horn's light across a rock wall covered with hardened black matter. Petrified mucus formed hexagonal structures, within which the empty shells of battered and crushed changelings lingered, their mandables gaping wide in frozen death screams.
“They're all dead,” Josho muttered. “Abandoned here to rot, it seems.” He peered down a corridor as he saw row after row of necrotic hives, all populated with decrepit shells. “The cave must be full of them.”
“Gnnnrkklt... mmmuuuuuu...” Eagle clutched his stomach, shuddering.
Josho sighed, glaring down at the unicorn. “Oh gimme a break. They're just friggin' bug ponies.”
“Oh y-yeah?!” Eagle spat, wiping the bile off his muzzle as he frowned back at him. “Well I happen to be deeply in love with one of those 'friggin' bug ponies!', thank you very much!”
“Oh. Right.” Josho nodded. “That noise.” He stepped forward. “Seriously, how do you both do it? Do you just hang some fly paper on the ceiling and hope that he buzzes by?”
“Old stallionnnnn...” Eagle growled, hobbling after him in a teetering fashion. “What do I have to say to convince you that there are more than one way to love a soul other than pure unbridled—?”
“Shhhh...” Josho pointed at a swath of organic matter. “Bring your horn over, Your Horniness.”
“I swear,” Eagle grumbled. “If we get out of this alive, I'm going to—” He stopped in mid-threat, his eyes set on a patch of razor sharp claw marks set in the petrified muck. “Well, that's unsettling.”
“It might be something unsettling that brought an end to this hive,” Josho said. “And if we're not careful, it might bring an end to us.”
Eagle gulped, looking all around as he shone his light past the dangling insectoid bodies. “So... then what's left for us to see here? We found a hive. That most definitely links Sharp Quill and Fishberry to Chrysalis.”
“I don't think we're quite done here.” Josho motioned ahead. “Check it out?”
Eagle leaned in, squinting. “...is that a light source?”
“Yuppers.” Josho nodded. “And it's getting even warmer as we move towards it.”
With a deep breath, Eagle said, “Well, I don't think anything else could possibly gross me out further.”
“I swear, I live just to see you eat all your words.”
“And throw them back out.”
“Exactly.”
“After you, old stallion.”
“You're the one with the shield.”
“You're the one with the fat ass.”
“Well put.” Josho cocked his shotgun and moved ahead across the necrotic mess. “I'll take point.”
Eagle followed close behind. “Check your corners.”
“Go to hell.”
Well, I can see this ending one of two ways: badly, or very badly.
Nah, it's just a flash wound.
So, either they all died when Dashie severed the connection... or Chrysalis somehow cannibalized them to regain her strength, I'd bet.
Bitch...
Thirty pushups, ):(. Knock 'em out!
I'm not sure what to think about this. Maybe it was a changeling rebellion from when Dashie freed them that Chryssie put a quick end to. Or it could've been something else entirely. Only IC knows. Hopefully EE and Josho get to see the light of day again. Preferably from a relatively safe position aboard the Noble Jury.
I wonder what happened there. I guess we'll find out eventually.
This should be a break from the main action, but the whole cave feels insidious.
Hmm, dead changelings everywhere, claw marks in the ground, and mysteriously the temperature is still being regulated.
Lounge outpost, perhaps? That's my guess. Now to vomit uncontrolably for no good reason.
img3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20140421201417/avp/images/6/62/Aliens-Egg-Chamber_13.jpg
5371422 I thought the exact same thing.
Changeling face-huggers, anyone?
Uhoh.
Props says the reason teh Skystone field is going nuts, is because its being Mined, or Mana Drained, from Within.
Josho and EE have discovered a dead hive of mind linked, mana conduit, changelings, immediately underneath said Skystone field.
In Val Roa, there are giant hive mind changeling coccoons, funneling massive amounts of mana from somewhere, through some sort of link, into the Soul Sentries.
Props, has just called Unky Prowse, to come for the party.
I suspect, that when Josho and EE get to teh end of that tunnel, and see the source of light, his best bet would be for EE to throw a rock through the mana shielded stalagtite on the north side, disrupting teh shield spell thats protecting the mana link reactor core, which Josho can then give a bad case of upset guts with his shotgun. The rest, is up to George Lucas.
I'm glad I'm not the only one getting a really, really bad vibe off this place. For all our speculation that Chrysalis has been disguised as someone in Val Roa, there's a very, very real possibility that she's just hanging out here. I'd always had that possibility sitting on the back-burner, but this chapter really drove home the likelihood of it. And my spidey-senses tell me that if they do run into Chrysalis, one of the three Jurists there will die. I'm assuming Props was putting in a call for Prowse. Assuming he's anywhere in the area, hopefully he'll be able to help.
Also, ominous vibes aside, I will never get tired of Josho/EE bickering.
5371443
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great movie, creeps me the fuck out no mat yet how many times it's been.
Well, that's some new, interesting, and particularly revealing information there. Still doesn't answer questions, unfortunately. Just rasies more. Same with the claw marks and the dead-freakin-hive of changelings.
Also, betting that Props is making a collect call to Unky Prowsy and the glorious Xonan fleet.
5371601 Glorious with a Capital 'ell
I both hate and love it so much when authors split up the main characters to each discover peaces of a puzzle. Hate it because it means right as I'm getting into one plotline it throws me back to another.
Love it because when those plotlines finally all intercept, explosions are always the direct result.
I don't think I will ever tire of Josho and EE's banter.
Filler chapter is filler.
5371502 I feel like Chrysalis wouldn't hang around a cave filled with the dead bodies of her children. (Unless they betrayed her and she killed them, and she's gloating or something. However, the "giant claw marks" kinda put a damper on that theory.)
Just another bug hunt!
It's moments like those that the father/son dynamic that Josho and Eagle have really shines through.
5371977
That's a good point. If there is some kind of monster down there, that might complicate things for a prospective resident (unless, of course, the monster is her pet). I guess I just figured that if she was weakened, it might make sense to lay low, and to do so in a place with plenty of energy available. But I dunno, that might be too easy.
That Wreck It Ralph Reference tho
5371996
5371977
Here's what I think: Chrysalis was trying to morph into that Chaos Dragon.
5372208
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5372208 Welp. O )---( O That's certainly a proven possibility.
If Chrysalis is still in this cave she is either gravely injured or, as some have pointed out, transformed herself into something else. (likely a chaos dragon) If that second one is the case I have a feeling she might have lost all control of herself and is likely insane or driven purely by instinct now.
Well this is bad. We know something is going to happen to EE and Josho but we don't know what or when. Then to top that there's a chance Booster will be sploded by Skystone lightning.
Ew. Did they starve to death? From the descriptions it doesn't sound like a battle took place.
Suddenly, horror vibes.
I didn't even realize how much I've missed the interaction between EE and Josho.
It may be because I recently finished reading Lost Canvas, but I feel we will have, in this story, some avoidable deaths and wasted sacrifices.
5373097 Starvation crushes your body, and leaves claw marks on the walls.
The real question is: how is whatever killed these Changelings then in turn linked to the Triumvirate? And is it that unknown faction that's sapping the skystone fields or Chrysalis? At the same time, I'm caught wondering whether those fields that mark the end of the world go around the edge and spread to the north of the dark side too - and if, in that case, any of the factions fighting over Endrax' remains may be involved. Or if it is yet another factor linked to the fact that the world is still, after all, dying. Ah, marvellous. I haven't felt this way since we've first heard about Nagu'n.
5372276 media.giphy.com/media/brsEO1JayBVja/giphy.gif
I'm willing to bet that Chrysalis is draining the power from the skystone and is using that power to control the big three back in Val roe. I would go more in to this but the last time I tried to prodict something, I was taribly wrong.
Chryssy is likely close to death in those caves
Claw marks?
dragon?
Hey, for all I know it could just be a skystone mine.
Creepy vibes are creepy. I like the theory that chryssi killed these changelings to regain some power. How did she even find or make this cave? Something is still in it. That's for sure.
What ever could be down there? Probably just changeling goop of some sort.
-Spirit
Ahh, Halo 2. I loved playing that mission way back in the day.
5911642 So, you believe that Eagle Eye is the Arbiter?
Before this story, I never thought that I would feel bad over the death of a bunch of souls without identities. But after seeing how those souls are so easy to manipulate and use, and just how vulnerable they are without guidance.
Seems something upset Chrysalis.
“Seriously, how do you both do it? Do you just hang some fly paper on the ceiling and hope that he buzzes by?"
It is nice to have friends in many places, friends who come through in the end, whatever the situation.
07/15/2017
22:54 UTC
Chrysalis, perhaps?
Tarkington to the rescue! This is gonna be one hell of a battle.
Oh yeah, she’s definitely here.
I thought he lives just to eat.
I'm gonna be sick. I think Chrysday has been molting.
Aaaaah, I think I found where the extra Sentry juice is coming from.
Protect your son Josho!
All the dead Changelings...my guess is this is a failed hive that was supposed to do what the Soul Sentries are currently doing.
And somehow, through everything, Eagle Eye and Josho still have the best banter.