Chapter 62. Heaven
"So, why are you still calling yourselves the death squads?" I asked Sendo and Mors, "And what's with your names? They mean death, don't they?"
Mors shrugged. "Habit?"
"More than that," Sendo said. "To be part of a death squad was cool. We were the ultimate squads. We were allowed to kill, and no other ponies were allowed to do that. It was quite the status symbol, even if only coded ponies knew about it. And, yes, we are sorry for hunting and killing the Hellites now, but back then, we didn't know."
"But what about your personal names?" I asked again.
"Oh, Sendo, you mean?" Sendo asked. "It isn't my real name. Within the squads, instead of calling ourselves by our codes, we each picked a name associated with death, and used that."
"You are using them outside your squad now," I pointed out.
"We are, aren't we? We started doing that once we became HELaTS and moved down here. It seems that codes don't hold much sway down here. Even you, Cacha and Snow don't bother with them."
"True enough," I was about to add that those were our real names, when I remembered that Cacha's name had originally been a nickname, before I gave her a royal name that used it. Even I did not use my full real name, and the less said about it, the better.
Levitating ourselves and our equipment up the shaft we had created, to the level above, had been without incident. Emerging into the destroyed factory had elicited not so much as a single response. We had found ourselves in a bizarre landscape of mangled pipework, strewn equipment and a floor riddled with the large, hemispherical holes our spell ammunition had created when detonating. That made surface navigation rather difficult! Where two holes just touched, the resultant edge was occasionally like a razor blade. Usually the explosions were powerful enough to break them away, but some had survived. Fortunately we discovered them before anypony had stepped or driven onto them, so no HELaTS ponies needed reassembly.
There was so little of the builder soup that had been used to create and repair the clockwork spiders remaining that Briggs decided it was worth the risk of him coming up to investigate in person. We were going to offer to levitate him up when he appeared at the top of the shaft under his own power. His eight limbs made climbing quite easy. He simply pressed outwards against the walls of the shaft, then edged himself up, one leg at a time. It was scary how far a clockwork spider could reach.
After orienting himself with the somewhat changed interior of the factory, he set about taking samples, and gleaning whatever he could from the remaining machinery. Anything that could be detached, he stashed in the storage compartments of our pods.
Meanwhile, the rest of us found ourselves sitting along the enlarged opening to the facility, our attack from below having blown away the front wall. As minutes turned to hours, it became obvious we were waiting for an attack that was wasn't going to happen.
During the reprieve, I contacted Bittersweet every so often to report on our progress, or lack thereof. To ensure that we would not lose communications with those back in the control room, we had left a trail of repeaters along our route, much like a breadcrumbs from the breezie story. So far, nothing had 'eaten' them.
Eventually, when we were about to declare the mission a success, and move on, a single clockwork spider showed up. It dawdled into view, not showing the slightest interest in us. I ordered everypony to hold their fire, as I was interested to see what it would do. The most obvious thing about this clockwork spider, and what made me want to wait, was that it was different to all of the clockwork spiders we had encountered so far. It was a clockwork spider spider, as distinct from a spider-pony or spider-breezie. It wasn't particularly big either – perhaps two or three times the length of a pony if it extended its legs. It was bone colored.
"You know, that could make an interesting reference for the Storms to study," Briggs said from behind me.
"There is some old saying about not poking sticks into hornet nests," I said. "I think I've fought enough hornets for a while. He can compare breezie spiders with pony spiders if he needs a second point of reference."
"Point taken, spider left," Briggs said, indicating that even though he was just an artificial neural matrix, he still had a pony sense of humor.
The spider walked up closer to us, dodged around us, and continued into the destroyed facility. It climbed through the pits as if they were part of the normal landscape. Reaching the far wall, it reached for a small protrusion on the wall, attached itself via one of its legs. Once secured, it folded itself up as small as it could, becoming inert.
"Ha," I said. "It's come to recharge. I'm surprised we left somewhere for it to do so! I wonder what it will be like when it is done."
Briggs walked over to it and waved a leg around its head. There was no response.
"Either it trusts me – us, or it really has shut off and can't detect what's going on around it... in which case it is either very stupid, or... trusts us," Briggs said, "and please excuse me talking in circles."
"Stupid is a possibility," I agreed. "While the clockwork spiders we have fought have been capable, I don't think I would call them intelligent. They seem to be mostly reaction driven. Created as a direct response to us, they had but a single purpose – destroy us."
"And this one, by the lack of a pony-like head, appears to have been built for some other purpose which doesn't involve us."
"It isn't modeled after any kind of invader. Its appearance is similar to that of the alien Warners. Perhaps it is to the ringworld what HELaTS are to Habitat Eleven," Snow thought to us.
"In which case, we've just blown up their service center!"
"Hopefully they really can learn, assuming there is some inter-factory communications," I said. "Briggs, you discovered no more centers like this while you were searching?"
"I did not. I would expect a single center would be placed in such a way as to serve an area, monitor several elevator shafts, and so on. This was probably the only one for fifty to a hundred miles, and it just happened to be practically on top of us."
"I wonder if the Landing Craft 2H6 ponies encountered clockwork spiders from more than one factory," Snow thought.
"Unless we go hunting for more factories, we won't know," I said. "Personally, I think we should place monitors here, and watch if things change. Perhaps we could include one of Brainstorm's remotely activated turrets. Then we take what we have learned and the samples we have gathered and retreat to Habitat Eleven and watch."
"And if more clockwork spiders are made, or come from another factory?" Cacha asked.
"We've proven we are up to the task. I'm willing to bet they won't attack, going on the actions of those we found cowering one level down. Perhaps we have conquered them using logic, but in a very messy and violent way."
"Here's hoping," somepony behind us muttered.
I stared at the inert spider, wondering just how smart it was, and if what served as a brain could be communicated with via magic in a similar way I was able to program languages into other ponies or indeed breezies. No, of course not. If it worked that way, Briggs would be part of our telepathic network instead of relying on his communicator circuits. I'd have to devote some time to developing a spell that did work, some time when I had... time.
"Cacha, come with me," I said, then realized it was a redundant comment. "I'm going to have a close look at that clockwork-spider spider, and would like you guard me. That's a mouthful. Maybe we need Snow to give the new variant a name."
"Blunt spider," Snow said without further prompting. Well... it wasn't fitted with blades, so I could see her meaning. Future generations would wonder where these strange names came from.
"Blunt spider it is," I said.
I was pacing while I was thinking. As Cacha would have instinctively followed me, I had taken to circling about her, so she could remain seated.
"My vote is for more exploration," Cacha said. "I've just talked to Bittersweet, and it doesn't sound like the habitat is having any issues at all. Even if more spiders were to show up, they can always shut the doors, then call us."
We had grown tired of sitting around waiting, and were planning on moving. Where we were going had not yet been decided. While heading home always held appeal, we had become emboldened, and were prepared to push our luck. It also made good sense to keep exploring while the clockwork spider count was extremely low.
"I'm for exploring. After all, we fought long and hard to get up to this level. I want to see what they thought needed so much protection. I also want to see what's one level up as well, although we will need to find a shaft for that. I don't really want to blow another hole through the multidimensional material if I can help it," I said.
"Why not?" Cacha asked.
"It's dangerous and exhausting, and if we really have won, I don't want to antagonize any more security measures," I said. "Briggs?"
"Yes, Aneki?"
"You didn't explore what was one level above this one, did you? You haven't mentioned it, if you did."
"I did climb up to the next level briefly, just to make sure there weren't more clockwork spiders in the immediate area, but no, I did not explore beyond that. I already had a huge area to cover, and it was luck as much as anything that this factory was in the search area. If it had been a hundred, no, twenty miles away, I would still be looking."
"And while we cannot be sure there are no other factories in the area, the lack of response suggests it was the only one," I said.
"And so did that spider," Briggs said, indicating the charging outlet the machine had used to recharge itself.
"I disagree on that point. I expect this was simply the most convenient charging outlet. Other exploration suggests that there are many other charging locations available. There are certainly other power outlets, and that charging station looks no different."
"Could be. I guess it will become clearer with time."
"Going up one level is the current plan, then. What shafts are available? There's one within the firing arc of Pink E's main gun, there's the one we blocked with dead Clockwork Spiders and debris, and, presumably the somewhat more distant one Cacha and I used to return after the aforementioned became blocked. Briggs, I assume that is the one you used?"
"It is. None the less, I recommend we go for the one Pink E blocked, as it may well be clear one level up. It is also so close that even if it is impassable, we will not have wasted much time."
"And if it is blocked, we can always blast the debris. That won't be the same as cutting a new shaft," Cacha said. "And if you are too tired, Aneki, I can blast it."
"Okay. Mount up, ponies. We are going exploring. Briggs, if you would be so kind as to lead the way."
It came as no surprise that this level, one above that onto which Habitat Eleven exited, was fundamentally the same as the level below. However, it was more organized – streamlined. There were less of the random tendrils intruding on our path. Occasionally the tunnel would break away from its apparent natural flow, to continue in a more prudent direction. Something had been at work here, remodeling the automatically built structure to follow more specific plans.
We were driving towards the closest elevator shaft. With the floor as clear of interruptions as it was, levitating the pods made no sense. They used less power when riding on their wheels. Riders and drivers were as before, but now that we were free of the nitrogen mists, we had disrobed. I don't think anypony was upset about having to shed the abominations of coats we had been wearing. Now that I was naked again, I took the time to form a pair of shoulder mounted turrets with my weapon.
"I may be stating the obvious, but I can see the work of intelligence here," Cacha said, waving a hoof around.
"You too?"
"Indeed. This goes beyond the automated manufacturing we have seen before. Now that they have grown the basic structure with builder-modifiers, are they fitting out the ringworld one level at a time? Have they got down to just one level above us, resulting in all of the extra security?"
"Maybe. I agree that they are remodeling, cleaning up the chaotic nature of their modifier-grown structure, but..."
"But what?" Cacha asked
"I don't think there are many levels above us. Think about it. Ten miles up, the bridge of our habitat is free of the structure and has a clear view of the stars, of space. That means that there have to be less than ten miles of levels above us."
"Ten miles is still a long way. Years of climbing, if the one year a mile rate the Lander ponies took to climb this far is considered," Briggs said. He was walking beside the pod on which Cacha and I were riding.
"We have levitating pods to speed things up, but even so, I don't think there are anywhere near ten miles of levels above us," I said.
"How so?" Briggs asked.
"Oh, I think I just scuttled my own argument," I said, thinking of the darkened windows around the bridge. Was it really just the top of the bridge sticking through? If that was the case, why were we messing around down here. It was time to check if Bittersweet had done as I asked. "Clouds," I said. "You can't see any clouds from the skylight windows on the bridge. The bridge is higher than most if not all clouds."
I activated my communicator, hoping that with all the repeaters between us and the habitat, the signal would not be too degraded. All it would take was for one to be slightly obstructed for a significant drop in signal quality.
"Aneki?" Bittersweet asked. Perfect. She sounded like she was standing right next to me.
"Indeed," I said. "Do you remember me asking for you to organize a team to build an airlock and break out of the bridge?"
"I do, and I did," she said.
"And?" Come on Bittersweet. I know you rarely show enthusiasm, or emotion for that matter, but what's with this dramatic pause?
"They reported back to me a few hours ago. It is unsuitable as an exit. It is too cold and the air is too thin to breathe. HELaTS would be able to survive for a while, but the general population would not."
"So, it's pretty high up?" I asked.
"Apparently so. The description of the team members that exited and explored the immediate area suggests to me that a mountain has been built over the habitat. I planned to go and look myself, but was waiting for your return."
"Thank you, Bittersweet. I shall continue pushing up from here, then. We are planning to go up to the next level while we can. That we may be under a mountain will impact which shafts we investigate. I expect the one we are approaching will be either under miles of soil, or extra levels due to its proximity to the habitat."
"Good luck. Stay in touch." There was the hint of emotion in that sign-off. It was for me, personally, not just a generic greeting.
"I'll leave the channel open," I said, "If you can stand our chit-chat and bad humor."
"Perhaps you might even get me to smile," Bittersweet said, dryly.
"Well, Briggs, I have an answer for you," I said. "There may be miles of material above us here, but perhaps twenty miles from here, this level may be very near the surface. They said the air was too thin up there. It is close to optimal here."
That was an interesting thought – air pressure. At this level it was comfortable to HELaTS, and quite suitable for regular ponies too. One hundred miles down, it would be crushingly high, unless they had some way of regulating it, which clearly was occurring. Perhaps levels were isolated by some sort of force field that kept the pressures even. We could do that with magic, so perhaps it was also possible with technology. The difference in pressure between one level and the next would be so slight as to be unnoticeable. Oh, perhaps the multidimensional material the thick floor of each level was made from was responsible for the regulation. After all, the stuff was dense enough to generate a gravity field. I filed the thought away as another mystery to be solved one day.
"Would you look at that!" somepony exclaimed, pulling me from my introspection. "Pink Electricia seems to have broken the ringworld with her gun."
They were right. I looked over the side of the pod and could see what the pony was referring to. There were cracks in the multidimensional material of the floor, some quite noticeable. And being a structural engineer, cracks like those really bothered me. They were not clean, but took constant direction changes. The edges looked ragged. The material had been subject to a lot of stress. The output from the ship's main guns was scary. It was little wonder Brainstorm had insisted I destroy the gun in the lower levels before it could be fired. He was right – the moment that death squad had committed to firing the thing, they were dead. All me shooting them and causing the gun to explode had done was change the manner of their deaths, and prevent a lot of others.
"Time to levitate our pods again," I broadcast to the other ponies.
One by one, each of the pods lifted from the floor. None went particularly high as there was no need. I didn't think our weight would cause a cracked area to fall, but if one did fall, for whatever reason, it would be better if we were not driving on it!
"Welds!" somepony exclaimed. "They have been welding the cracks over here."
"Stop. I want to look," I said, releasing the spell that kept me attached to the pod. I slid to the floor, and scampered over towards where the supposed welds were. The floor felt solid, despite the cracks, probably because of the difference in mass between me and the material the floor was made of.
I soon found the weld. The material used to weld was slightly different in color and was not level with the surface of the floor, so the route of the crack was still visible. Why this crack had been welded when others around it had been left wasn't clear. I suspected it posed a greater risk to the structure and had been addressed first. What worried me was how properly the weld had been made. A mere surface weld would be inadequate.
Well, I could easily check that, couldn't I? I had experience with the multidimensional material from when I had needed to cut through it. Using the scanning spell as a base, I modified it so I could scan to a great depth, and added the ability to check atomic bonds. That part was actually part of my ammunition spell! Casting the spell, I lowered my glowing horn to the crack, and let the magic work its way into the weld itself.
Patterns. Concepts. It was almost dreamlike. If I had to describe what I experienced, I think I would fail. It was eerie, and beautiful. Fractaline – like one of those fractal patterns I had seen in old school books, but a million times more immersive.
I followed the patterns to the very bottom of the crack, along all of the myriads of tiny branches, right down to where the last atoms had been pushed apart. The welds fell short of these impossible to reach crevices, but burrowed into other, more stable areas, creating firm bonds that while not as good as the unbroken material, would offer at least ninety percent of the strength. Even though the length of weld I had scanned was small, I had learned what I sought. I did not need to worry – these welds were excellent. I dropped my spell.
"Nice of you to join us," Cacha said.
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"You've been standing there with your head to the floor for over ten minutes."
"Oh, is that all? I think I could have enjoyed doing that for a lot longer. It was so beautiful. Anyway, the weld is good."
"I think you were the only pony that really cared," Cacha said.
"You would all care if the area collapsed. Who knows what it could bring down on our habitat if the failure was catastrophic enough. And in my defense, I am a structural engineer. I see things you could not imagine. I'm going to follow this weld, both to see how far it goes, and to find out what is making it."
"At least following it will take us in the right direction."
"Move out!" I said, taking off at a gallop. It was good to stretch my legs after being perched on top of the pod, or sitting about, as most of the day had been spent. I was soon well ahead of the pods, not that they couldn't go faster if they wished. Moments later, I heard somepony else galloping behind me. Cacha. Did I really think I was going to go anywhere without her?
It only took a couple of minutes for me to catch up to the welder, and during that time I was so busy enjoying my run that I barely had time to notice the scenery, not that it was particularly noticeable. Still going at a brisk gallop, I rounded a curve to find a number of spiders ahead of me. Most were blunt spiders, the machines we had concluded were maintenance robots. One was a clockwork spider. Oops. I slid to a stop, activating my targeting spell. I didn't fire, as this presented a unique opportunity to observe if the behavior of the clockwork spiders really had changed.
We both tensed, but other than that, neither of us made any attempt to approach the other. We stared at each other for a few moments, then the clockwork spider did something totally unexpected. It settled to the floor, folding its legs up beneath itself.
That was the clearest it could be about its intentions. It was showing that it was not going to attack. Even though we did not share a language, the clockwork spider was trying to communicate with us.
In response, I reabsorbed one of my turrets. The clockwork spider did not react. After a few moments, in which we continued to stare at each other, I reabsorbed the other turret. The clockwork spider lowered its head slightly. Okay, that was good – I hoped that was good.
I activated my communicator, selecting all members of the party. "Everypony," I said, "Stop where you are. Do not engage the clockwork spiders, unless they attack. I repeat, do not initiate hostility."
"Okay, but why not?" Cacha asked.
"Because I appear to be holding peace talks with one of them. It is non-aggressive."
"We are not far from you. We will hold position here, but if we hear anything we are coming in," Mors said.
"Actually, I'm just a few paces behind you, on hoof," Cacha said. "You didn't think you were going to leave me behind, did you?"
"What? You mean you aren't actually beside me right now?" I asked, sarcastically. "If you want to come the rest of the way, reabsorb your weapons."
Cacha slid in beside me, her hoofsteps barely audible. The clockwork spider looked at her, then at me. I nodded, but remained where I was.
As no hostilities seemed imminent, I decided to examine what I had come to see – the welding – and what a setup it was! There must have been a dozen of the blunt spiders attending to the welding machines. There were several of them, each hooked to long, winding cables that ran down an adjoining tunnel, and were presumably hooked into the power and resource feeds of the ringworld in an area that wasn't damaged.
Each machine glowed and hissed, shimmering fields surrounding them, a more concentrated version of the fields reaching down into the crack they were repairing. If I didn't know better I would have called those fields magic. Perhaps their technology really did arrive at the same place as our magic. I found a couple of things particularly interesting. The fields varied in color, probably in direct relationship to their job. The crack had actually already been welded, and could be seen in the gaps between the machines. The welds were different colors. So, that was how they were doing it! They were repairing one atomic matrix at a time. Each successive machine was making a repair to another of the matrices. By the time all machines had passed, the weld would be complete.
And it was a comparatively slow process. Then again, building the ringworld had also been a slow process. How many millennia had it taken so far? Ten millennia?
"Those blunt spiders don't mind us at all, do they?" Cacha asked.
"We are clearly not part of their functional description. They are probably programmed to merely work around us."
"Us, or any other creature that they encounter. That's good to know."
Cacha took a step towards one of the blunt spiders, to judge its reaction. There was none, but the clockwork spider was another matter. Again it tensed, partially raising itself from the floor.
"Cacha, step back now!" I said.
Fortunately, she did. The clockwork spider settled again.
"We have a guard," I said. "Instead of trying to eliminate us, this clockwork spider is prepared to leave us alone if we don't interfere with the work going on in the ringworld."
"That suggests a learned behavior, or some kind of reasoning, doesn't it," Cacha said.
"For sure. If it's a new type, I can't tell, because it looks exactly the same as the ones we've fought. In fact, it looks a little grubby, which means it probably survived our attacks."
"The last survivor? It's trying a new plan because the old one failed and now it has no backup?"
"Perhaps, but do not forget that they usually worked alone," I said, "so a lack of backup may not be of concern to it".
I took a couple of steps, my path running parallel to the works. Stopping, I looked at the clockwork spider again. It remained settled. Okay, it seemed to be happy with that. I started walking again, making sure that I did not get closer to the blunt spiders or their machinery, glancing at the clockwork spider every few paces. It seemed we understood each other – we were looking each other in the eyes. I nodded, then continued on my way.
Soon we were past the site, moving away from all of the spiders. The clockwork spider's eyes had followed our progress, but not once did it move. It seemed we had an understanding, a non-aggression pact. I could live with that. It was too bad they hadn't adopted that attitude in the first place. No ponies would have died. None of the ringworld would have been damaged. Oh, well. Fuming about it would solve nothing.
I toggled my communicator. "Okay folks, don't follow the path I took. We'll meet up ahead."
"What happened?" Briggs asked.
"The clockwork spider was prepared to let us pass if we didn't interfere with the repairs. All the same, it would be better if we don't bring the whole team and the pods through."
"I will guide the team through an alternative path," Briggs said. "We will meet you soon. Please let us know if you become lost."
"Will do. Actually I was planning on waiting at the next intersection that gives me a good view of alternate routes. See you soon."
The closer we got to elevator shaft, the deeper we went into what was clearly a construction zone. Again, Cacha and I were traveling with our team, riding on top of Snow's pod. I certainly would not have minded running the entire route, but sitting on the pod gave me a distinct advantage – I could see over a lot of the machinery and construction supplies that the spiders had spread about. Certainly, repairs were going on, but they were secondary to the construction effort. The blunt spiders were still tidying up the mess caused by the ship's main gun, and, by the looks of it, some damage from the nitrogen blast too.
There was a noticeable lack of clockwork spiders, although the occasional movement glimpsed out of the corner of my eye suggested that there was a breezie based clockwork spider dodging about, trying to stay well out of our way. Again I came to the conclusion that these things either had, or were developing, a sense of self. If we could stop killing each other it would be great.
The closer we got to the elevator shaft, the more ordered it became. Despite the damage, the equipment they were building and installing was obvious. The ceiling gradually became higher, making the level feel less cramped. The illumination also increased, the perceived environment slowly morphing from the cold grey-blues and grey-greens into ambers and hints of red. It made the area feel positively inviting.
Even though my experience with the alien technology was limited to that which I had seen in the habitat, physics remains a constant, and the equipment I was looking at bore some resemblance to the power regulation and emergency storage systems of the habitat. Some parts were very similar to the rotary converter and flywheel based energy storage system of the ship's main guns.
What were they building? Could we have been wrong about the elevator shafts? Were they really provision for gun barrels? The shafts were a hundred miles long. That would be a bit excessive! What were they trying to do – spit out slugs at the speed of light? Aiming would be impossible. Maybe I was just letting my imagination get the better of me.
What else could need that much power? Could it be the elevator system? A hundred miles was a long trip, and if it was to take a tolerable time, the elevator car would need to accelerate to quite some speed, the rate limited of course by the physiology of the occupants. What if they could locally counter the forces of the acceleration with small gravity generators? It would be possible. The size of the elevators was limited by the diameter of the shaft. Ferrying a ship-load of creatures would take forever if only a small number could fit into the elevator car at a time. Perhaps they would run several cars up the shaft together.
"Look," Cacha said, pointing upwards. "It's the shaft."
And so it was. The ceiling had become quite high by this point. It had to be at least five storeys above the ground. From our position, the hole in the floor was obscured by masses of machinery and cabling, so I hadn't noticed it. The hole in the ceiling was less obstructed. Dangling from it were guides or rails. They were twisted, probably as result of our bombardment of the area. Other than that, the hole was clear of debris or obstruction. It seemed larger than the shaft down which I had fallen.
"That's been bored out, enlarged," I said, unintentionally practicing a little tautology in my attempt to be understood.
"It will be easier to go up through it, then, won't it?"
"Should we take the whole team up with us?" I asked.
"Briggs would have trouble getting up there. It looks too smooth to climb, and he won't be able to reach all sides of the hole like he did when he climbed up the hole we made," Cacha said.
"Triad," Snow said, from below us. "Float."
"Take our team of three and levitate up there with the pods? Yes, that would work. The others might not be too keen, though," I said.
"Princess, princess."
"True. I forget that I'm the queen sometimes. Okay, everypony. We are stopping here and dismounting. Snow, Cacha and myself are going to take one pod each, and head up the shaft."
I heard a couple of groans. Apparently there were others in the party that were looking forward to exploring.
"The rest of you will remain here, on guard in case there is an attack. Seriously, though, I doubt it. Please, don't start anything. Defense only!"
"We hear you," Sendo said. "And I, for one, don't mind sitting this one out. Going where no pony has gone before can be painful."
"Do tell," I muttered, "but it hasn't stopped me yet."
With each of us enclosed in separate pods, Cacha, Snow and myself prepared to take on our next surprise. There was bound to be a surprise – there always was one. After mentally synchronizing ourselves, we began our ascent. Being inside our pods, none of use had extended our weapons, and those on the floor, while ready, had been told not to fire unless I commanded them to do so, or was killed.
I was glad I had made that order too, or a lot of needless shooting could have been the result. Our pods were only about a pony height clear of the floor when one of the blunt spiders ran at us and jumped, landing atop Cacha's pod, where it steadied itself, and held on. Cacha squeaked, but stayed in formation with us. No other clockwork spiders reacted. It must have been particularly disturbing for Cacha, because, while fully enclosed in the pods, our vision came from the pods themselves, and not our eyes. No doubt she had an excellent view of being embraced by the multiple legs.
"Hold your fire," I reaffirmed my command.
"What's it doing?" Cacha asked.
"Just sitting there," I said.
"Could it be hitching a lift?" Snow thought to us.
"Could be. Cacha's pod is on the side closest to those damaged rails."
"Should I move closer to the debris?" Cacha asked.
"Sure," I said.
Cacha adjusted her route so that as her pod rose, it would pass quite close to the twisted rails that hung from the shaft. I stole a glance downwards, and discovered two things at once – that the debris had been cleared from the shaft, so I could see as far down it as the light would allow me, and that I didn't particularly like hovering over bottomless shafts!
"Careful not to knock it off. It's a scary long way down!"
"Nearly there. Oh, it's moving," Cacha said.
"We'll stop here," I said, watching the spider as it reached for the dangling rail.
As soon as we were stationary, the blunt spider reached back to its abdomen with two legs, extruding a gleaming thread from it. As the thread lengthened, the spider carefully fused the end of it with the most sturdy section of the damaged rails. After tugging at the thread to make sure it was firmly attached, the spider took two steps forward, and off Cacha's pod, and slowly descended towards the floor below, legs spread, as the thread trailed out behind it.
We watched silently until it had reached the floor, anchored the thread, and started climbing up again.
"Well, it is a spider after all, even if it is a big one," I said.
"We are no longer needed," Cacha said.
"Opportunist," Snow said. And this time her choice of word was perfect.
We resumed our journey upwards. I directed my vision to that which was above, and watched as the dark hole in the ceiling swallowed us. I increased the light output from my pod, and soon the three of us were again alone in our bubble of light.
"Something is going on here," Cacha said. "We've already gone far enough to have passed through the solid part of this level, yet there doesn't seem to be an opening above us."
"Tube up twist," Snow said. Evidently she thought her scrambled words were adequate, so she hadn't used telepathy.
I gazed above me, and although our pods were the only, limited, source of light, I could see what she meant. The shaft was bent. We were being steered away from the habitat. That meant that whatever traveled up and down this shaft was meant to veer from the vertical. The guide rails were on what was becoming the lower surface.
What had started as a barely noticeable change in angle soon became quite distinct, and before we had traveled much further we found the shaft had become a tunnel.
"I was hoping this shaft would take us above all of these levels," Cacha muttered.
"We are still under the mountain, I think," I said. "Maybe this would be the surface if the habitat wasn't here."
"Hard," Snow said, then followed her comment up with a telepathic explanation. "We are still within the portion of the level that is made from solid multidimensional structure. It is much thicker than any of the layers we have been through before, which makes me think that we are within the final layer of the structure. I expect this tunnel will present us with a way to get to the surface sooner or later."
"We are traveling horizontally," I said.
"But the ground above isn't. It's a downward slope."
"Never mind that," Cacha said. "Things are getting interesting up ahead. The tunnel is getting wider and I can see the rails split into two sets ahead."
"You can see that?" I asked, surprised.
"I have light amplification and zoom active. I'm relying on you two to watch what's going on close by! And... there is something sitting on the right set of rails."
"I didn't know the pods had zoom or light amplification!" I said.
"They don't, but my new targeting spell does," Cacha said with a chuckle. "You aren't the only pony who can write new spells, Aneki."
"Ha. Your spells have not been approved by the administration. Cease using them immediately!" I said.
"You have to be joking," Cacha said.
"It would be a sad day if I was serious. Nonetheless, such a day may come if we have too many unicorns. Perhaps that is something you can look after in the future."
"Let's hope it never comes to that."
As we continued along the tunnel it became obvious that this was more than just part of an elevator system. Our nearest analog in Habitat Eleven would be the Mane Way. These shafts and tunnels were part of a ringworld-wide transportation system.
Where the tracks divided, we had found a long, tubular craft, a train, gripping the rails. Its design, and the incorporation of gravity generators suggested it was meant to run both horizontally and vertically. While travel along the tunnels would allow rapid semi-local transportation, taking a ride right around the ringworld would take years. If one needed to get to the other side quickly, it would be faster to take a trip to the outer hull of the ring world, a hundred miles below us, then catch a space ship to the other side of the ring. Well, it made for a nice theory, and a solid argument, even without confirmation.
And as per all transportation systems, there had to be a place where passengers could board or disembark, and there hadn't been one near Habitat Eleven.
"Do you think we can convince the blunt spiders to make us a new boarding point?" Cacha asked.
"Ramps from our hangars would be more use," I said. "We want to move a lot more than ponies and changelings. We want to move a civilization."
"I can imagine the crush at the doors."
"We can do it over decades. If the plan to hook up the habitat to the systems of the ringworld succeeds, technically we wouldn't even need to leave. Both the resource and energy shortages would be dealt with."
"So after all this, you are thinking of having ponies stay in the habitat?" Snow thought to me.
"Some may prefer to live out their lives that way," I said. "It also depends on whether the living surface of the ringworld is suitable for us."
"Oh, yes. I keep imagining it as if it were the old Equestria. We can only hope it is that lovely."
"You can still remember it after a couple thousand years?" I asked, quite sure my memory would not have the ability.
"Only vaguely. Mostly my memory has been preserved through some photographs. I have some picture books among my personal belongings, although even these present a very distorted view, with the paper and inks having degraded over the centuries. It was so vivid, so colorful. The colors inside the habitat simply do not compare. We have been living in a muted world for so long – a world where the ponies themselves are the most colorful elements, with the exception of me," Snow thought to me.
"At least you are not cream colored, like almost everything else in the habitat," I said.
"And my father is black," Cacha said. "No color at all."
"Cross whine," Snow said. So, she wasn't complaining.
"Yeah, I guess you could have ended up lime green and bright purple or something," Cacha said.
"My mane is bright purple," Snow thought to us, "although in this case I mean so bright it is almost white!"
"Snow? Did you perchance just make a pun?" I asked. The structure wasn't quite right, and it had been expressed by sending concepts to our language centers via telepathy, but there was definitely humor there.
"Up!" Snow confirmed.
Fancy that! That was quite the feat for someone with expressive aphasia.
"Sorry to interrupt, but I can see light up ahead," Cacha said.
"Tell me it's not an oncoming train," I said, glancing about. At this point of the tunnel there wasn't a lot of space to dodge. Seriously, I didn't expect it would be a train – the system was both damaged and incomplete. Nonetheless, the train we had already seen must have traveled along these rails to get to where it was.
"It's not a point light source," Cacha said. "It's more general, as if something above is lighting the area. I am at the limit of my zoom resolution though, so don't quote me on that when we get hit."
"If we get hit, I doubt any of us will be in any condition to quote you, being dead and all. I doubt even HELaTS can recover from being splattered."
"Wow," Cacha said.
The cavernous void the tunnel had opened out into was well lit, and was the source of the light Cacha had seen from a few miles further away. The lower portion of the tunnel had not changed, continuing into the giant room, the rails still at the bottom of the dished floor. At a height that matched that of the doors on the train we had seen, the floor leveled out, becoming the platform. Visually, the area was utilitarian, much like everything else we had seen down below.
Looking straight up, I saw an array of windows or skylights reminiscent of those at the top of the bridge of Habitat Eleven. They were many storeys up. Through them was streaming glorious sunlight. Sunlight. The real stuff. I partially ejected myself from the pod just to enjoy the hints of radiant warmth, something I had never felt from the sky of the habitat. With the sun fixed in the center of the ringworld, having the sun directly above would take some getting used to.
And all of the blue – a beautiful sky-blue – the habitat had got that part right. When viewed from the proper distance, namely, not from the bridge of the habitat, the semi-transparent ceiling of the ring world, now far above us, was... perfect... an infinite blue. The ceiling itself was indiscernible.
Much as she had when explaining motorcycles and trains, Snow had subjected us to a game of charades, and this time the word we got was station. Certainly, it was a word we knew, but perhaps not in this context. Snow explained that stations were the interchanges between the train and the places it stopped, and this place was most definitely one of those: a boarding point, as Cacha had recently suggested. So, a pony or other creature was meant to board a train on the outer edge of the ringworld, after disembarking from a spaceship, then travel up one of the shafts, then along the tunnels until they came to a place like this. They then disembarked, presumably with their possessions, and proceeded on hoof, foot or wing.
Stairs and ramps led from this platform to whatever was above. And that was exactly what we were interested in. While the sky above was beautiful, we could still not see the ground outside, and that was what would make or break our migration from Habitat Eleven.
"We seem to be just below the top level," Snow thought to me.
"So our destination is clear?" I joked.
"Up!" Snow said, giggling.
So up we went.
Clear of the rails, we had lowered the pods back onto the floor, and were now rolling slowly up the largest ramp. There was room enough for all three of us to travel side by side. The roof of the ramp was solid, as were the walls, so we had lost our view of the sky. Ahead was a solid looking door. That figured. Some sort of security would be wanted to stop... bugger... to stop unwanted guests like us.
"Aneki? Cacha? Snow? Are you there? Please respond," Bittersweet's desperate voice spoke into our minds. The signal was severely degraded.
"Bittersweet? What's the problem?" I asked.
"Aneki? Cacha? Snow? Are you there? Please respond," Bittersweet said again.
"Oh, shit. We're out of range," I said.
What was it with us and approaching unknown doors? It always seemed to happen – some event, some disaster, some drama. I backed the pod down the ramp while trying to reestablish contact with Bittersweet. It was not until I drove into the trench with the rails in it that I got a response. That made a lot of sense, actually, because I was now in line of sight with our last repeater, which was half a mile up the tunnel.
"Do you have some disaster there?" I asked.
"Apart from losing contact with the queen and her team, no," Bittersweet said, sounding relieved. Okay, she really had been worried. "What happened?"
"We went around a corner," I said, "and we were so enthralled with the view that we forgot to drop another repeater."
"Was that sarcasm?" Bittersweet asked.
"No. The view really is something. We can see the sky!"
"And?"
"And nothing else yet. There is a closed door between us and outside."
"I trust that won't be an issue," Bittersweet said.
"I guess not. If we can't go through it, we can go through it."
"Hi, Bittersweet. We are all fine," Cacha said, as she came up alongside me. "I've just dropped a repeater so you should be able to hear our gasps of wonderment, or curses of frustration when we get past the door. What is it with us and doors?"
"Get to it then, please!" Bittersweet said. "Even Kakoon has come down to listen in."
"Hi Aneki!" Kakoon said. "You have quite the audience in the control room. It's getting positively crowded!"
"Really? I guess I'd better take a break and have a nap then," I said, with a laugh. "Okay, I shall get back to that door."
Back to the task at hoof, we again drove up the ramp. It was a fairly shallow angle, and as such, quite long. This time we made it as far as the door before stopping. Apart from some raised sections, suggesting reinforcing, the door was featureless. The frame around it was also completely free of interruption, and that was a problem. There was no hoof scanner, button or any other visible way of opening the door.
Typical.
I ejected myself from the pod and walked towards it to examine it more closely, with the idea of cutting or blowing my way through it when I gained a response. Whatever controlled the door spoke into my mind, much the same way our hoof scanners did, bypassing language by transmitting concepts directly – pretty much the same way Snow now communicated too.
"Unexpected but recognized sapient species detected. Opening airlock door."
With the crack of separating seals, the door moved back a fraction, then retracted into the ceiling, leaving our way forward clear. The floor leveled, and at the far end of a reasonably sized chamber was another similar door. The air lock was big enough to take perhaps a hundred ponies and their belongings without getting cramped.
"Well, that was unexpectedly easy," I said. "Not that I mind."
I reached back to my pod, poking a hoof at it, and getting reabsorbed. Ugg! The angle I had activated it from hadn't been ideal, because I ended up going hoof over head as it repositioned me.
"That looked painful, Aneki," Cacha said.
"It wasn't the best method of mounting, I will admit, but I am fine."
"Did we perchance just find a loophole in their security system?" Cacha asked.
"Up!" Snow said, then adding via thought, she added "It's worked for me for the last two millennia!" She was referring to her own ability to pass through all of the security systems of Habitat Eleven as she had been registered as a test subject during the construction phase.
"Maybe they forgot to erase us from their database, or maybe it's just a catchall in the programming designed to allow future sapient species past. Let's get moving before it changes its mind," I suggested, gunning the pod forward.
As soon as we were all within the airlock, the door automatically closed behind us.
"I wonder how great the pressure differential will be," Cacha said.
"Probably no different at all," I said. "I expect this airlock is actually so they can prevent other, less intelligent or unauthorized creatures from gaining access to the sublevels, and going that it actually has seals, that probably extends to microscopic creatures such as bacteria, in the event that there is a plague or something."
"What if it tries to stop us going back down?" Cacha asked. "Oh, forget I said anything. We make a new door if we have to, don't we?"
"Of course."
The outer airlock door opened moments later, gently stirring the air at most. More noticable was the light spilling into the airlock. Beyond the open door, the ramp continued up some way before opening out, a mottled pattern of light and shadow visible on the exposed surfaces. I accelerated through the door and up to the roofless part of the ramp so I could get a better view. Above me was a canopy of gently swaying leaves from a pair of trees that were growing by the ramp.
Excited by the view, I raced the remaining distance to the top of the ramp, parking the pod as soon as I was on level ground. As soon as I ejected myself from the pod I was cocooned in a blanket of new, fresh aromas, so different to the pony smells of the habitat and lack of smells of the lower levels of the ring world. Snow and Cacha joined me on the ground.
"That smells... awesome!" Cacha enthused.
"It does, doesn't it."
Snow sent me a picture of flowers. Yes, that was apt.
I walked around the pods so I could get a good view of what was around me. Several ramps came to the surface in the general area, their exit positions suggesting different gradients had been used. Back, some way beyond the ramp we had exited, a low building stood. It was featureless, and a dark, cool grey in color. I soon realized it was the skylight above the station platform. Behind that, some miles away and off to the right, we could see the mountain that was covering Habitat Eleven. It was huge, dominating the horizon in that direction. Its top was covered in white.
"Snow!" Snow said. So, that's what the stuff looked like.
Between the station and us were various trees, shrubs and other plants, all laid out in what could only be called an organized garden. There were sunny areas, shady areas, and some that were a mixture of both. Golds and bright greens of sunlit plants, browns, greys and deep greens of shaded areas. The temperature would be comfortable for regular ponies, and the humidity was perfect.
"So far, so good. I wonder how many of the plants are edible," I said. "I'm going up for a look around."
"Good idea," Cacha said.
We each returned to our pods, choosing the partially exposed driving positions, so we could see what was around us with our own eyes, smell the wonderful scents and feel the warmth of the sun on our black hides. We levitated until we were well above the trees – until we were high enough to get an uninterrupted view of the land.
Directly below us, the area around the station had been planned and laid out in a very organized fashion. It was like a display, an example of what could be done. It was something to marvel new arrivals. Roads spread out from it in all directions, into the untamed lands beyond. There was no sign of any buildings, suggesting that apart from insects, the vegetation, and whatever equipment was responsible for planting it, and making the roads, that the place was devoid of life.
We were the first species here.
While these lands were untamed, they were not completely without thought. Some areas were devoid of trees, suggesting they would be good for crops or for villages. There were bodies of water, presumably for fishing or providing water for crops. No wonder the ramp up from the station had been so long. We hadn't been passing though just the multidimensional material, but through a depth sufficient to hold soil and bodies of water.
None of the growth looked to be particularly old either, perhaps a hundred years, give or take, I guessed.
"This place isn't open for business yet, is it?" Cacha mused. "We get first dibs."
"I wonder what the spiders will think when they try to move in and find there is a keep out sign on the door."
"They will probably be annoyed. All the same, they stole our planet, so why shouldn't we steal back the same surface area?"
"That would be fair. Unfortunately, we have lost most of our different species due to them being in the habitats that successfully left. We are also limited in what crops we can plant, unless there is an archive of seeds hidden away that I don't know about. The habitat was meant to be a colony ship, after all, so I'll get some ponies to start researching. You copy on that Bittersweet?"
"I copy," she said.
"Aneki, you still haven't told us what you are seeing. All we are getting is your wows, awesomes and gasps," Kakuun said "What's it like up there?"
I looked around again. Above me was the blue sky stretching out in all directions as far as I could see. In the distance, I could see waterways weaving their way through the landscape. Trees, plants and grasses carpeted hillocks and shallow valleys out to where they merged with the sky at the horizon. There was the faint trace of an arc running through the sky – the ring of the ringworld – and of course, directly above, the sun shone. I wasn't sure how night time would be implemented, if it was implemented at all, but like so many other things, that we would learn with time.
"Aneki?" Kakuun prompted.
"Kakuun, everybody," I said, "this time, I think we really have found Heaven!"
-End-
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Ew, "reassembly"
...or it's preparing to rebuild the place
Yes, quite
Hehe. Snow excels at naming things
Well, either document Snow very well, or let 'em wonder
Peculiar...
Huh.
Hmm. Very interesting. But is it just biding its time and playing things safe because it is alone, or does it actually have any intention of communicating?
Not if they were in some millennia-long intergalactic war, I guess...
Heh, yup. Saw something moving in the direction it needed to go. And as they had already reasoned, the shaft is hard to climb for spiders...
Let's hope they don't meet it... It's bound to be huge, and might not care much about their presence.
Might take them to some kind of central hub... which is probably way more useful than just breaking through to the surface.
Ooooh. True.
Uh-oh?
That was entirely expected at this point, yes.
Surface?
Not surface, though
No way. They made it?
But, if it has been there for so many millennia... who was it even built for? It doesn't really seem like they moved in.
Why, yes, she did grasp the usage of puns
How can they be out of range if they can hear them? Unless the 'breadcrumbs' they left behind have more powerful transmitters than our ponies have...
Recognized, and allowed? Why, that's awfully nice of them.
I hope.
Okay, I guess that's also a possibility. Odd that the same loophole did not work on the clockwork spiders, though.
Oh... nice!
Hee. She found her namesake.
That means something's still around organizing them, though...
Very strange...
Yeeeah... was wondering about that, too.
They can't send pictures through the link? Snow can do that...
Until the Angels come and kick you out... but that's a story for another time, I guess
By the way, you didn't mark this as Finished... are we getting epilogues?
The Life and Times of Snow (Not in Her Own Words).
Better receivers in the pods than in the breadcrumbs, phase cancellation, faulty breadcrumb, breadcrumb sitting in exactly the wrong place. Take your pick.
More of a "page 1946, paragraph 7, section C of the Galactic construction guide states that if any species who originated in the system is able to survive the construction period and gains access to the life band of the ringworld shall be automattically allowed to remain." (or whatever)
I decided against including the above, and considered simply having the doors just open, but went for something inbetween.
Blunt spiders.
Nope. Snow transmits directly to their brains, even when in a pod (mentioned a number of chapters ago). All telepathy/image transmission in the teams is brain to brain. Briggs can't do that though, so he's stuck using communicators.
Possibly. There is a comment about such in the Author section at the bottom.
i really want an epilogue, but what would it cover?
I note that they do now have the sky access and energy resources to try to signal the other habitats.
The ringworld system being able to greet ponies telepathically is an "in" to crafting spells for communication with ringworld subsystems.
I am surprised at the lack of alien invasive pathogens causing coughing fits, but their Helats modifiers may have already handled it before they realized the biological danger posed to unmodified ponies.
I realize that the lack of greenery in the Habitat would mean the spider's alien plant life would not look alien at all to habitat ponies for lack of a baseline, excepting Princess Moon Glow.
The entire ringworld biosphere might be suffused with semi active modifiers.
I could make an argument for this being a prequel to the Austraeoh series, but that would be as silly as it would be epic!
This story, the story of Aneki's discovery of the world and the conflict of Aneki's escape from Habitat 11, is done. What other stories could follow? I would enjoy a slice of life with the characters created here, or a timeskip to an interstellar adventure as Aneki abuses her immortality to indulge in a mission if exploration and reconnection with the distant colonies.
So much more to love from this amazing story and its amazing writer! You have a passion for magic and technology working together in the same setting, which made the story and the world shine so bright!
There is a million and one things i want to know, but you've left no loose ends to fit them in the narrative!
You should make post epilogue chapters that are glorified world building notes, so you can share all the history and culture and technology you had in mind when writing the story that couldnt fit into the narrative, so you can share the rest of your really cool vision in an unrestricted format while keeping it here with the rest of the story.
I'm asking you to write your own "Silmarillion" for "H'ven Sent"
Absolutely lovely
The spider collective has finally reached consensus that although the Habitat is an irritant, its a passive, and that trying to deal with it meant the spiders are classed as initiating attackers, so when Aneki etc dont slaughter spiders on sight, and with the main gun, been shown to have Terminal abilities, its the spiders that are in the wrong, at least in information and primary response, and so have now entered a retreat, repair, reorganise stage.
But if they are truely alien mechanical spiders, why would they make a planetary surface garden world, when for them, a fractal foam Criswell Snowflake would have been the most efficient?
Anybody got a YouTube video of Southampton from Titanic?
While not the greatest story ever told, this was nevertheless a unique and enjoyable sci-fi adventure for the ages. Well done!
8188154
Hey, the version you gave me didn't include that
It's not ogre yet!
8188738
Because the mechanical spiders are not the intended inhabitants - merely part of the system. The real, organic creatures are yet to arrive. Their variety has not really been explored/explained.
This has been one of my favorite reads on this site since it was first posted, the world-building is amazing! Thanks, otherunicorn.
8188173
This being the beginning of the Austraeoh series would be insanely epic, the eons devolving the inner workings to be more clock-like as the programming degrades or something
Will we eventually learn more about the species that created the ring world?
8188173
^^This all of this.
I would love an epilog where the intended inhabitents arive evin if it clif hangs from there.
I still feel like there is enough for an Epilogue.
#1 We still don't know how well the Ponies will be able to settle into their new Habitat, so that would be goo for the epilogue
#2 What about more World Building
#3 We still don't know if there can be an alliance made with the Clockwork Spiders
#4 What happens when other aliens come to claim their new home, only to find the Ponies there already??
As soon as the epilogue drops and this is finished I'll be dloading the full thing for an epic read from start to finish. There is so much left that a full sequel looks doable.
Btw, recently there was released a "Blame!" anime (90 min, by 20-years old manga series) - bad start, bad end but in the middle it was quite good on my taste ). Moar megastructures to everypony!
8192461 I can't say I was impressed with the Blame! anime. In fact, I forgot I even had it. The manga was far superior. Biomega and Knights of Sidonia were both better than it though.
Well, that was great. I’d love you to give a follow up on what’s going to happen to them in an epilogue. Maybe set up a sequel?
This really is one of my most favorite stories on this site. Thanks for writing this.
Well, Imma reread it now.
Bye!
Anekimena Hildegarde Gertrude Stump! That is no way to act towards your rich heritage! Great Grandma Stump would be so disappointed in you!
You're really thinking about not describing all the wonder and beauty of a revived pony civilization being rebuilt in harmony with this new paradise where you can gallop for weeks and not find the end of it? The warm grasslands, the sheltered forests, the lakes and oceans of sweet water? You're even considering not letting Aneki finally have her run?
8227865
"Now, now Ferret. We both know my name is Aneki Sent, and that mostly the Sent family names are bad puns."
Okay, it's probable. It was always planned to be. It's even partially written.
I put this story off for a long time but damn it is good. It really pulls one in, would really recommend it everyone, very smooth reading with great characters.
Holy shit, after reading this for over a year, that end was so sudden... I'm not ashamed to admit I feel somewhat emotional. It seems like all my absolute favorite stories are coming to an end.
I will miss you, Aneki. You have been with me through some tough times! Your struggles will be remembered.
8191713
A spinoff about the successful habitats could be cool as well, I think it would be interesting to see how the societies aboard the ships turned out...
This is without a doubt the best story I have yet encountered on this site, and indeed is far better than many published sci-fi novels I have read. The characters were interesting and likeable, the settings memorable. I'm still wondering if there is a General Products hull laying around somewhere!
Please keep up the truly fantastic work!
And I want to read more about Aneki dammit...
I admit I cried a little bit, especially when Aneki finally described the ringworld to the command centre. I guess thats when it all came together didnt it?
Gosh I wish I hadnt waited this long to catch up on the last five chapters. This has... genuenly there are not enough words to describe how much ive loved this story from start to finish. So strange, so smart, so unique.
Such worldbuilding such scheming gah its absoloutley perfect in my eyes.
Part of me wants an epilogue, just so i dont have to say goodbye quite yet, just to know a little bit more, especially the Space spiders but as it stands, it can just... stay here. Forever in the heaven they've finally found.
Geez, im getting misty again..
Well damn. This has been a trip! I have really enjoyed it all the way through. I'll leave some further comment after I've read the epilogue.
Read through four complete!
This might just beat Fallout: Equestria as the story i would most wish to turn into a series. There is so much here and the scope just keeps growing.
I wonder if I'd be allowed to write a spin off, but I'd need to finish my other stories first.
Again, an amazing story! Thank you so much for writing it!
10569922
I have no problems with people writing spin-offs. There are plenty of hooks left unused, and a whole world to explore from other ponies views.