(( In case Gdocs is easier for anypony; https://docs.google.com/document/d/1g9mUHJR5qNV8NtQappI8arg2qjnpY-AU8hXE5ZpvLlM/edit?hl=en_US ))

~

The first thing that happened when the Overmare pressed the button was a siren, a lower pitch and much less obnoxious one than the emergency siren I’d accidently on purpose managed to shut off by hacking her computer, followed by a robotic voice calmly warning us away from the opening steel door and wishing us a lovely day. I would’ve laughed because it was so… just so out of place, after all that we’d already gone through that to be wished a lovely day by a computer voice was downright funny. I would’ve laughed, except you know, kind of busy crying.

After the kind robotic voiced finished its message, the siren cut out, and there was a large metal arm the size of a pony, (though admittedly smaller than me) that reached down from the ceiling, and attached itself to the door, then a very loud sound, which sounded to me a lot like the tumblers in a lock clicking, only amplified, followed by the most horrendous screeching noise I had ever heard in my life, along with a shower of sparks from the prongs of the gear shaped door.

The screeching and sparks only lasted a moment or two, and then the door was pulled out of its locking position completely, and rolled, rather quietly, to the side where it came to a stop softly; or well, as softly and quietly as a gargantuan steel door can stop.

The Overmare stepped down off of the control panel and lit up her horn with the same spell she’d required every unicorn pony in the stable to learn; prompting myself and a few of the security ponies who could to do the same, illuminating the door chamber and the small bit of the outside that was visible through the door. Our PipBuck’s didn’t have the ability to be lamps; We’d started running low on them years ago, and so had rationed them off to only earth ponies; and even then only ones who worked in maintenance. Most ponies in the stable, including all of those present, had a PipBuck 1000; a much earlier model.

She stepped forward slowly, moving up the small ramp and out into the outside chamber around the door into what looked like a cave. Everypony followed suite, moving as quietly as we could into our first encounter with the outside world.

The scene outside wasn’t gruesome, but it was definitely up there between outright horrifying and strikingly morbid somewhere. There must’ve been dozens; I’m going to go out on a limb and say two dozen, (no way in Pony hell was I going to take the time to look at them enough to count) skeletons all about the outside chamber. What made it even worse is that they seemed to be arranged in mounds of some sort, with the pony skulls resting on top. Fillies and colts and unicorns and earth ponies and I even think I saw a few wing bones of a pegasus in one pile, but I sure as hell wasn’t about to look close enough to be certain. Most of them still had bits of fur and several still had rotting hunks of flesh in the pile somewhere.

The horrid sight caused the hair on the nape of my neck to stand on end, the slight bit of adrenaline pumping through my veins unable to warm my body against the cold, damp air of the tunnel outside. It stank of water and of a putrid odor, much like rotten food; I filed the horribly pungent smell away in my memory as ‘Rotting Flesh’ smell. I got the feeling I would become very much accustomed to the smell in the near future.

The Overmare swallowed, clearly shaken by this grisly display of clearly intentional horror. She waved us on, pointing her head and horn down a passageway toward our right; and then she gasped; her weapon whipping up in front of her like it was an extension of her body rather than controlled by her mind magic.

Everypony else including myself jumped at the gasp, and leveled our weapons down the hallway, shining a bit more light that way as well.

The Overmare chuckled at herself, “It’s just another skeleton everypony…” She reassured us, and we took a closer look, pointing our weapons away; though carefully avoiding aiming at each other on accident. I flicked the safety switch telekinetically again; making sure my gun was actually ready to fire should I need to.

I looked on down the hallway, - standing almost a head taller than quite a few other mares had its advantages every now and again,- what I saw disturbed me quite a bit more than I would’ve thought possible, given the circumstances and how not-really-that-bad it was in reality.

The skeleton of an Earth Pony stood, lashed together haphazardly, looking like it was about to fall over at any time, in a corner where the tunnel itself turned, leading off in a different direction. The skeleton held, or rather, had tied to his hooves, a sign, inscribed with a message in a language I recognized as vaguely familiar; though I couldn’t place why.

The skeleton’s grim message read; “Pul’ali Koa Kanu’ana Hakahaka.” The message was simple; that much I could tell; written in Equestrian letters in a language foreign yet somehow still recognizable to me.

The Overmare stepped forward gingerly again as it clicked. I knew where I’d heard words like that before.

Once upon a time, when I was a filly, growing up in Stable 33 and hanging around with Olive and his buddies, we used to spend a lot of time with Olive’s grandpa because he was cool. (No really, that was our reason) and he used to spout random babble, and Olive would nod, and spout babble back. It was a long time ago, though I vaguely recall at least something in their conversations consisting of gibberish to at least somewhat resemble what I was reading on that sign. I also recalled something about it being a language, from a long, long time before the war that Olive’s grandpa had learned from his grandpa, and on like that.

As we stepped carefully around the corner in the dark tunnel, I felt a wrenching in my gut as I realized that I’d never see any of my old friends again; the memory aforementioned stirring up emotions inside myself. I didn’t want to cry anymore, but I did anyway. I’d just be quiet, I resolved as we moved on through the cold, dark, and smelly hallways.

I remembered where all of them had been working; Olive in maintenance. “One dead.” Sparks in maintenance with him. “Two dead.” Crinkles worked in agriculture. “Three.” Maple had been a tech pony working upstairs; but she lived in Quarters C. “Four.” All of my old friends where dead; what a cheery thought.

We advanced slowly down the hallway for probably several minutes before we came to an odd barrier of sorts that managed to distract me from my grieving.

“What do you think it is?” Jackhammer asked nopony in particular, stepping up next to The Overmare to inspect the odd thing blocking the hallway.

Almost instantly at his words, a flurry of hoofsteps from out of nowhere echoed dully through the hallway, as if we’d startled someone and they’d run off; but we were the only ones in this dead end tunnel.

“The fuck…?” One of the security ponies breathed, voicing everyone’s reaction fairly accurately.

“It must be some kind of door!” Another offered.

“That’s stupid; it’s clearly a solid object.” Yet another interjected.

“You’re stupid.” The first one retaliated.

The Overmare, Jackhammer, and I sighed as the three of them went on like that. We’d left the other two ponies to hang back with the Doc, nurses, and the kids while we went out and explored; this too had been decided prior to my arrival, and I only knew because they hadn’t come with us to begin with.

“For the love of all that Celestia ever stood for I will fucking pull your tongues out if you do not stop talking; this. Instant.” I’d meant to think that, but I’d muttered it aloud, actually, pretty loudly, and they shut up pretty quick. The comment earned me worried looks from The Overmare and Jackhammer.

With the sudden silence I continued; bullshitting my way through an otherwise awkward silence, “Clearly this is a door of a sort we aren’t familiar with. Therefore, we merely need to figure out how to open it. I don’t see an open or close button embedded in the damned rock wall, so it stands to reason that it is also not automated in any way for the same reason there isn’t an open and close button conveniently available. Thusly, this is clearly a manual door; like the Overmare’s office kind of… except there’s no handle to open it with.” I frowned sullenly at the ‘door’ thingy, internally grinning at how I’d completely pulled that out of my ass and it’d made sense; and been a fairly observant annotation of sorts, too.

“Well, smarty-hooves,” The Overmare said sarcastically, “Why don’t you explain the hoofsteps we heard?” She asked, an eyebrow raised at me in question.

Just as I opened my mouth to answer, the ‘door’ thingy parted, flooding the dimly magically lit hallway with a, (comparatively) very bright light. A unicorn filly who looked barely old enough to have her cutie mark was standing, or bouncing rather, next to a very… large, stallion who looked very stern and serious in contrast with the young mare’s clearly ecstatic demeanor.

“Nana Lani Ikaiki’anu’u! Nana!” The filly chirped in what I assumed to be the same gibberish language that I’d seen on the skeleton’s sign. “A’u ho’ike’oe! A’u ho’ike’oe!” She went on, skipping about the little chamber that our tunnel had opened into. A dark colored cloth was draped around her like a cloak, though in the uncertain light of the torches lining the walls I couldn’t have been able to tell what color it actually was other than dark. Because of it, I was unable to see what her cutie mark might’ve been; or if she even had one.

Of course, her excitement was short lived, as opening that ‘door’ thingamajig had scared the living fuck out of all of us Stable ponies and everyone whipped out their guns and leveled them at the pair of ponies; though thankfully nopony pulled the trigger.

“Ikaiki’anu’u!” the little filly screamed more babble, jumping and hiding behind the behemoth of a stallion. He was almost exactly the same height as I was, (IE; he towered over everyone but me) and wore ate-something-bad-and-had-awful-diarrhea green clothing, with stitches all over the thing, like he’d repeatedly stabbed holes in it and then sewed them up. He stood staring down the barrels of six different firearms and smiled like he was greeting old friends.

“Peace bruttahs. I am Chief Strong Step. Welcome to Hema Lae; South Point.” He spoke with a thick accent I had, (unsurprisingly) never come across before. His voice was deep and at his words the little filly seemed to be not quite as frightened. It had the same effect on us Stable ponies; we all lowered our guns and the three annoying security ponies flipped on their safeties.

The Overmare stepped forward, “Pleasure to meet your acquaintance sir. I am Twinkle Spree; Overmare of Stable number thirty-three.” It vaguely occurred to me that this was the first time I’d actually heard her real name before now, but before I could make anything of it she continued, “These,” she said, gesturing with a hoof towards us, “are the brave souls who have chosen to accompany me in the first expedition out of Stable 33 since its closing; though clearly the guns were a tad unnecessary.” She added the last bit with a slight grin, attempting to add humor to a business conversation; softening this stern individual to make him relax. She was a clever pony.

Chief Strong Step nodded as if he’d heard it a hundred times before; which struck me as almost as odd as his next comment. “I know who ya’ are ponies. ‘Da Oracle foretold of your arrival years ago.” He explained. (Though I use explain as a loose term here)

“Yes, well, “- The Overmare paused mid-sentence and frowned, that hadn’t been the answer she was expecting. “Beg pardon?” she asked instead, tilting her head to the side, a look of confusion on her face.

Chief Strong Step chuckled, a low, almost thudding sound, and shook his head. “All will be explained in due time. Come; we’ve been expecting you.” He turned then toward the little filly who’d stood up to stand obediently to his left side, but then back to The Overmare as if he’d forgotten something. “Are ‘d’ere any o’ders?” he asked, looking at the six of us rather warily.

The Overmare nodded, replying in as monotone of a tone as she could manage after being abruptly reminded about the hundreds of soaked through corpses through the rock nearby, “Yes, though unfortunately there’s been a horrid accident; the only ponies left alive are those here, our doctor, two of the nurses, two more security ponies, and eleven foals.” She moved her neck like she was going to bow her head, but thought better of it. Clever pony; knowing that subconsciously any stranger would interpret that automatically as a sign of weakness. Or maybe I was crazy, and had read up too much on psychology. I dunno.

Now Chief Strong Step turned toward the filly, “Return with one of the ponies to them, bring them back.” He ordered.

The little filly stood straight up, not even reaching half of the Chief’s height, and placed her right hoof over her heart in salute, and turned toward The Overmare, addressing her in a rather grown up manner for a filly that looked to be as young as she did.

“Ma’am, I require the assistance of one of your valiant ponies. I request you assign one or more of them to aid in my task.” She spoke with the same accent as her superior (or what I assumed to be her superior) though not quite as thick, and seemed to struggle with pronouncing all of the words correctly; she was clearly used to butchering the language, or not using it at all.

The Overmare was unhindered by the filly’s polite and adult mannerisms; I knew for a fact that it was her opinion all children should at least attempt to act grown up. I’d argued with her nearly once a week about it for the past ten years.

“Absolutely,” she replied, and of-fucking-course, she turned to me. “Tumble, assist this young mare with whatever she might need while the two of you are fetching the others.” It was her turn to order somepony.

“Yes ma’am.” I replied externally, “Fuck yourself.” I replied internally. I turned and followed the filly into the tunnel again, while the others followed Chief Strong Step off to wherever else in the cave. I silently pondered why it was that I had such random onsets of hatred for that mare at the drop of a hat.

~

“Stop.” The filly, whose name I still didn’t know, ordered.

Of course, my reply was a muddled “Wha-?” before I fell over something trying to come to a sudden stop. We hadn’t even been moving quickly, this was pathetic!

“Whee~” Faceplant.

I could feel the filly frowning at me in the dark as my magic imploded and the light went out. I stood back up, rubbing my face, and lit my horn up again to find I was right; she was frowning at me; like a disappointed teacher looks at a foal that hasn’t done their homework. (Trust me, I know that look well.)

I just looked at her, waiting for her to say something, and then she turned her head back down the hallway, but didn’t walk forward anymore. I followed her gaze to find we’d stopped in front of the skeleton with the sign that everypony had almost shot earlier.

“’Olelo kanaka Hawai’i?” the filly said in that gibberish language from earlier. I frowned at the sign; that wasn’t what it said at all.

I shook my head, “Wha-Whatever that lan-language is; I d-don’t speak it.” I replied sullenly; slightly embarrassed at my stutter being revealed to a stranger.

She chuckled, turning back to look at me, “You must speak it a little, because that’s what I asked you; whether you spoke it or not.” I was thankful she didn’t comment on my speech impediment.

“Oh…” I replied simply, and she looked back at the sign.

She spoke again, translating I assumed, “Warrior Hero’s Burial Chambers. This is where the heroes of our people lay to rest.”

“Oh.” The gruesome display made a hell of a lot more sense now. Well, kinda.

“I see.” Was all I said aloud in reply, along with a nod; I didn’t want to seem rude but I didn’t know what else to say.

I could’ve sworn that I’d heard a tremendous bang almost akin to the bang from yesterday from somewhere really far off, echoing down the cave. But I brushed it off as imagination and nothing important.

We continued onward, as she passed closer to the sign she muttered something in that gibberish language that I assumed to be a prayer of some sort; this was more than likely an extremely holy place to whatever group of people this filly and Chief Strong Step belonged to. I assume odd things.

We stepped carefully over the graves. I even managed to not knock anything over for a second time in there; which was a miracle in itself. Though the fact that everything in the room was horribly disgusting, not to mention that I had enough respect to try my damnedest not to disturb this place now that I knew what it was probably helped me in not touching anything.

~

We’d gotten in, gathered everypony up, explained things as best we could, though miss Filly-Still-Without-A-Name insisted upon answering every question with ‘In due time.’ Go figure. We’d gotten saddlebags packed and everyone ready in about an hour; pretty good time if you ask me considering we had quite a bit of supplies to pack up. Miss Filly-Without-A-Name also insisted upon helping us pack up the supplies we’d managed to save from everything, taking great interest in what was working and what medicines we’d saved and how much food we had and things like that. She did have the brilliant idea to blindfold the foals and levitate them across the graveyard-slash-chamber thingy. Doctor Silver and one of the security ponies did it; I still couldn’t pick them up that far, and I doubted I probably ever would be able to.

Currently, we were walking down the hallway I’d walked down an hour ago with The Overmare and the rest of the security ponies. Just as we rounded the corner to the large torch lit hallway, I and the mysterious unicorn filly leading the way, I gave up and finally asked the filly her name.

She replied with a sigh at first, and then answered, “I do not have a name.” She went on, seeing as I was just about to ask another question, “I am known as Ho’ola Kahu to my people; or simply Kahu.” She said, answering the question I’d been about to ask.

“P-Pleasure to mee-eet you, uh, K-Kahoo.” I said, smiling pleasantly at her monotone expression.

“It is Kahu; not Kahoo. Kah-oo. Not Ka-hoo. I am not a sneeze.” She corrected me, not even bothering to smile at her own joke as we ventured on down the hallway.

I giggled, “I’ll remememember that.” I said, over-pronouncing the word, much to my halfhearted disdain at my speech impediment. It really did get old.

She turned forward again, remaining silent as we walked.

“She’s just a little bundle of fun, isn’t she?” I thought to myself sourly; I hoped everyone in this little group that she apparently belonged to wasn’t quite this uptight.

I mulled over what she’d said people call her as we walked; Was it a nickname, was it a label, or a job title? Maybe a brand of some sort by judgmental peers? I wracked my brain attempting to remember anything about that old language I’d only heard a handful of times for anything vaguely resembling what she’d said; ‘Ho’ola Kahu’ The first part sounded vaguely familiar, but whether it was because I’d heard another word or two resembling it, (or possibly the same one, I couldn’t remember) in the last hour or because I actually remembered was beyond me.

Just as I thought maybe I’d snagged a sliver of memory from my brain, we came to another corner, this one leading right up to another door; I could see more light on the other side, as well as movement through the cracks in the wooden slats, but any kind of detail was indiscernible from here. Kahu called for everypony to stop, and then let them all gather around the pair of us; I could feel eyes on me like I was supposed to say something, which made me nervous. Kahu started talking though, which thankfully took the eyes off of me.

“Inside here is the main chamber and home of my people. I politely request that all of you remain on your best behavior, leave any weapons holstered, and do not stare if you can resist.” She announced, looking at the group of ponies who were mostly only a year or so younger than she was.

“What’s in there that we would be so tempted to stare at?” The other security pony, the earth pony, asked.

Kahu sighed before answering (it seemed to be a running them with this girl; possibly some psychological condition causing her to have some sense of superiority? Again; I’ve probably read too many books.) As if it where the dumbest question she’d ever been asked, “There are Zebras living amongst us.” She stated flatly; awaiting the inevitable response.

~

Level Up.
Speech has increased to 10 (from 5)
New Perk – Analytical (1 of 2): You’ve got quite the eye, and you notice all the tiny details. From a hoofprint in the mud to a single shell casing at the scene of the crime; nothing slips by you. You’ve gained a bonus to your critical chance. (Level/10)