Yiyxa

by GMBlackjack

First published 27th of January, 2019

In the aftermath of a mysterious tragedy, a stallion sets off on an uncertain journey to new lands.

Endings are lies. What is the ending for one is but the beginning of something else. Or, perhaps more realistically, it is stuck in the middle of something much more expansive and far-reaching...

We are all but fleeting notes in a much larger song. But every note is needed to make the melody complete. It may seem like nothing, but to those with the ear, each moment can be an eternity.

This is one of those moments.

With a mysterious tragedy behind and an unknown landscape before, a stallion will open his eyes to things he never could have imagined...

((Story is canceled: has been reimagined in The Protagonist))

-GM, master of Yiyxa

0 - Grave

The lands across the border were supposed to signify freedom, but the overcast skies spoke of less tangible oppressors.

The rain was light and scattered, so faint that it was easy to forget it was raining until a drop hit somewhere uncomfortable. In most cases, the eye would qualify, but not here, and not today.

A gray earth pony wiped his eyes, oblivious to the natural addition to his tears. Although he was what most ponies would consider young by age, his features were old and worn, jagged around the edges like a sheet of paper that had been tossed aside and forgotten. He wore nothing aside from a large stuffed backpack the same black color of his mane and tail.

In front of him was a rectangular mound of freshly disturbed soil, a jarring brown gash along the grassy forest floor. At the head of the gash stood two wooden rods arranged in an ‘X’ shape, tied together by metallic twine. Affixed to this twine was a flat diamond-shaped gemstone. Under the gaze of the clouds it had lost its luster, having no sunlight to reflect in a brilliant spark of life.

It was a sick joke.

He turned around, leaving the grave behind. He had done far more than he’d needed to do; there was no reason to stay any longer. Even if there wasn’t any more danger out here in the wilds, he still needed to keep moving. This was no place for someone like him to spend more time.

He had already spent far more than was necessary.

The going was slow, at first. Not because the terrain was difficult, for the forest was surprisingly cooperative and sparse, but because he simply couldn’t bring himself to move quickly. Every step was another one he took alone.

However, with time, his instincts took over. What had scarcely been more than a crawl became a walk; a walk a trot; a trot a gallop. As he sped through the wilds, the already sparse forest thinned even further, matching the clouds above as they allowed evening sunlight through their wispy swirls. The vibrant greens of the vegetation became apparent to him for the first time, brimming with a life unlike any he had ever seen.

When the trees finally ended, he came to a skidding stop, upturning a few clods of dirt and grass with his hooves. He allowed his eyes to open wide in wonder.

The sun was at his back, casting long shadows with the trees that appeared to him as arrows, demanding he gaze forward upon the hills rolling hills that rippled with crisscrossing rushes of wind, forming what looked not like a sea but rather a verdant fabric of swirls and intricate lines so fine he couldn’t fully picture them.

Further in the distance, he saw a pristine lake that showed no signs of intricate winds like the grass, seeming to defy the elements with its calmness. A clear orb levitated above the lake without any visible supports, as if held by a ghost. Through this orb he could see the purple shape of Endesque rising into the sky. Not only was the sphere looking to be full tonight, but its great swirl was also easily visible. Perhaps this was a good omen.

It was a cruel trick of fate that he had to experience all this alone.

He took a deep breath, calming himself. He took off into the grassland at a brisk pace – nothing so wild and uncontrollable as a gallop, but still fast enough to make progress. The grass danced around him as the wind changed direction at a rapid pace, tickling at his knees. Not a hint of joy crossed his features – or any reaction at all.

The sun was completing the daily act of setting behind him, turning the greens partially yellow in the process. He did not worry – the purple glow of Endesque would be more than enough to light up the night – but it was still a sign that he needed to find shelter. With a twist of his head he examined the hills, looking for any outcropping he could use as suitable accommodations for the night.

Within ten seconds he had located a rocky outcropping not even a trile away, hardly a distance worth mentioning. He adjusted his heading by a slight amount and sped up his canter.

As the sun fell below the horizon the warm light of the day was slowly drained from the landscape, allowing the enchanting light of Endesque to take over, filling the night. The stars slowly faded into existence far above, twinkling as they always did, no matter where anyone chose to rest their head.

His arrival at the outcropping was met with surprise. He found an old wooden cabin nested into a cleft in the exposed granite, nested within the niche so well it would have been difficult to see from any significant distance. The cabin was so ancient most of its massive logs had moss growing on it, and a few of the supports had given way.

The stallion was amazed that there was a pony construction this far into the wilds. There were certainly enough trees in the nearby forest to make the cabin, certainly, but the windows? The chimney? There were metals there. Who would have had the time or the resources to come out this far and build a cabin?

These questions were quickly pushed aside as unimportant. He dutifully walked up to the door and placed his hoof in the doorring, pulling. The dulled metal implement snapped right off the door, leaving him with no acceptable means of gaining entry. Luckily for him, he didn’t care all that much about doing things the proper way, so he just bashed the door in.

The inside was a tremendous mess that clearly hadn’t seen an occupant for over a decade. Cobwebs lined every piece of furniture and dust covered every surface. Clouds of particles were kicked up by the wind coming in the bashed-in door, prompting the stallion to cough from the irritation.

The walls were covered in plants, all the furniture save for a plain rocking chair was moldy, and there was a curious lack of personal items in the room. No photos, no trophies, not even an ornate desk. It seemed… bare.

Whoever had lived here had probably cleaned out when they left.

He slung his pack off his back and made his way to the rocking chair – the only thing in this cabin that seemed to be held together well. It stood in the center of the room, before a stone fireplace. With a creak both in his bones and the chair itself, he sat within it. Despite its hard wood, it felt comfortable, supporting his tired body well.

There was ancient, unused firewood in the fireplace. With a shrug, he decided there was no reason not to give it a try. He slung a hoof through one of his backpack’s loops, bringing it forward. Hanging around the outside was a metallic band with a hook at the end, easily accessible so he could slide it around his front right hoof. The tool had many purposes, but for now he used it to rummage around his pack's contents. Eventually, the sought item was removed: a small tool made of two rocks held together by a metal bar and a screw. Leaning in as close to the fireplace as he dared, he shook the hook and clacked the stones together. Sparks flew, and after a few tries one of them landed true, igniting the wood.

With the first contented sigh he had made in a while, the stallion sat back in the chair. The warmth from the fire slowly reached into him, easing his muscles. He sat, allowing himself to unwind.

This was not what he had wanted. But it was something at least. He was alive.

He closed his eyes and put his head back, allowing the rocking motion of the chair to lull him into a relaxed state. As the brightness of the flames grew, the closer he felt to sleep. Strange how the less like night it was the more he was ready to drift into the realm of dreams…

Just as he was on the cusp of being completely overtaken, he heard a loud thunk at the front door. He woke up in an instant, standing up so quickly he threw the chair back. He stood, ready to fight for his life if need be.

A pony stood in the doorway – a mare with a bright pink coat, cotton-candy mane, and piercing blue eyes. She had innumerable scrapes and bruises across her body, including a serious gash across her forehead. One of her back legs was held close to her body, suggesting that it was strained or broken.

She looked at him with pleading eyes and a soft smile. She opened her mouth to say something – but her breath caught in her throat. Her eyes rolled into the back of her skull and she flopped onto the floor of the cabin, unmoving.

Cautiously, he walked up to her, glancing outside the cabin’s broken door to see if there were any other ponies in the night. He was met with nothing but the serene appearance of Endesque in the sky. He saw no sign of any animals, much less ponies.

Once he was satisfied there wasn’t a trap outside, he allowed himself to check on the mare. Her pulse told him that she was alive, but weak. She didn’t appear to have life-threatening injuries, but with her level of exhaustion they could easily turn into something more serious.

He stared at her unconscious face for a few potent seconds. He closed his eyes and nodded to himself ever so slightly. Gently, he placed his hooves around her and dragged her toward the fire – setting her up in the chair. It was hard to position an unconscious mare in a way that looked comfortable and didn’t put pressure on her injured leg, but he managed.

He moved to get some first aid supplies out of his pack – but he noticed something that gave him pause. The blood from her head wound had gotten on his hooves. This in and of itself wasn’t unusual, but the blood itself was.

It was a bright, almost neon red. Not a natural blood color for any creature the stallion had ever seen.

He turned to the mare, expression unreadable.

Who was this mare?

Author's Notes:

What is this story? If you want to know, you can find out at this blog post.

However, a big part of this story is the mystery element and the challenge of figuring out. Going to that blog post will not reveal any of the major mysteries, but it might remove some of the fun.

-GM, master of Songs.

1 - Mare

The gray stallion woke up long before the mare did, and he still berated himself for falling asleep. Had she gained awareness while he was prone, she could have taken advantage of him despite her injured state. He couldn't afford to take chances like that.

It was even more disheartening that he hadn't woken up with the sun. The possibility that the events of yesterday had drained him enough to warrant a deeper sleep didn't even cross his mind.

He dragged his pack across the cabin floor, pulled out a piece of dried fruit, and made it his breakfast. This was all he did aside from stare at her closely, trying to learn all he could. Absorbing every detail. Strangely, the more he looked, the less he saw. What had at first looked like simple blunt wounds were clearly not caused by rocks or the flat edge of a weapon, and he hadn't the foggiest idea what would cause such shallow star-shaped wounds. Her blood was unusual, yes, but it didn't seem to have stained her coat anywhere except directly around the wound. And her limbs... they seemed to perfect, to smooth, making the wounds both more unbelievable and more jarring. Even her broken leg didn't look right in its makeshift splint, and once again he had no idea why.

She was a source of mystery he couldn't uncover with his observations.

He kept looking at her anyway.

Slowly, but surely, she came to. The first noise she made was a cough - nothing too serious, likely just to clear away the dustiness of the cabin. She took a few slow, patient breaths, examining herself first. Upon finding that her wounds and been tended to sufficiently, she slowly turned her head to him. "...Hi," she said with a smile. Her voice was high-pitched and joyful, but also tired, telling of a smile that was struggling to push itself to the surface. "Thanks," she added.

The stallion nodded wordlessly.

"I'm Pinkie Pie. What's your name?"

"Lone Crypt," he said with a deep, scratchy voice that had been rarely used, even when around other ponies.

"Oh! That's a unique name!"

There wasn't a hint of sarcasm or fear in her voice, which confused Crypt.

"I mean it. I've never met a pony with that name before, and I've met a looot of ponies!"

Crypt took a moment to register that she was recovering far too quickly - not physically, of course, but mentally. The weakness and tiredness in her voice was dissipating quickly, replaced with what he had no doubt was her general cheerful demeanor. He could still hear the slight waver in her tone that indicated pain, but she was able to push it away easily. Not by ignoring it, he sensed, but by accepting it.

Only ponies who had been through a lot could do that.

"A lot of ponies? Out here?" he asked, prompting the conversation to continue.

"...Well, I don't exactly know where I am..." Pinkie admitted, pursing her lips.

Crypt nodded. "I can't take you back."

"Don't expect you to."

Again, he looked for fear or sarcasm in her tone and found none. He furrowed his brow, questions rising to his lips that he pushed down - they would be too telling.

"I think I'll probably just go wherever you go, since I have no idea what's going on," Pinkie said, a giggle rising from her.

The noise baffled Crypt in a way he didn't fully understand. "You are weak and injured."

Pinkie laughed at this. She rocked back into the chair and jumped, landing solidly on her three good legs. She tossed her head back to remove her mane from her brilliant blue eyes. "Like that's going to stop me."

Crypt blinked slowly. Nopony was ever this animated right after a debilitating set of injuries.

"...Actually, I think I might need to go back in the chair for a bit..." Pinkie said, her legs wobbling. "Eh... Yeah." Her legs fell out from under her and she fell flat on her stomach, nudging her injured leg just enough to make her wince in pain. She let out a sharp hiss. "Probably shouldn't have shown off there..."

Crypt's face remained flat and inexpressive.

"Gee. Tough crowd."

2 - Breakfast

Pinkie had managed to get herself into a comfortable sitting position on the floor. Currently, she was looking right at Crypt with a blank expression that matched his own.

She furrowed her brow and narrowed her eyes ever-so-slightly. There was no reaction from Crypt.

"...I don't see what you get out of this," she said, relenting. "I can't be that interesting, come on."

Crypt nodded slowly.

"Was that agreement or acknowledgment?" She paused and then rolled her eyes. "And you're not going to answer. It's okay, I don't need to know."

It was obvious to Crypt that she really wanted to know the reasoning behind his words. In this particular instance, he felt no need to answer her. She had no right to his mind. Nopony did.

Something made her eyes lock closely on him. "...You're just a bundle of mysterious mystery, ain'tcha?" A smirk crawled up her features. "Well, guess I'll just have to figure you out while we're traveling! I'll have pleeeenty of time!"

This was likely true. She was out here, alone, lost, confused, and Crypt was the only pony she knew. Of course she'd stick by him. It didn't matter what he thought, so he didn't let himself make a fuss about it.

"You'll need to eat to regain your strength," Crypt said, rooting through his pack with the claw.

"Oh, that's right! We can't forget breakfast! I can't wait to see what kind of amazing foods you have for your journey!"

Crypt had managed to skewer breakfast. He pulled a brick-shaped object wrapped in white paper. Carefully, he peeled the paper off with his claw device and revealed the brown-red lump of edible nutrients inside. There was no smell, and it was as brittle as a rock. Crypt used his claw to snap it in half with ease, sending up a small cloud of food particles. He skewered one half with his claw and started munching on it, gesturing that Pinkie could have the other.

Pinkie studied the half-brick curiously. She tapped it with her hoof, discovering its texture to be chalk-like, although it was much easier to crumble than the schoolhouse rock.

Pinkie giggled to herself for seemingly no reason, giving Crypt even more reason to doubt her sanity. Once or twice was unusual, but she was making a pattern out of laughing with no prompt. Only a crazy pony would be out here, so it wasn't all that surprising...

Pinkie touched the food-brick with her hoof and picked it up. She licked it, pondered the taste for a few moments, and then took a giant bite out of it. "Mmm... Not bad... it's like eating sand, except there's no flavor to it." She coughed up some of the brick's dust. "And it really needs water. Crypt, you better have water on you! Breathing dust is not a good way to go about your d- why are you looking at me like that?"

Crypt's normal, impassive stare had been replaced with one of utter shock. She was holding the food brick in one hoof, defying the laws of gravity, friction, and how hooves were supposed to work. He had thought that maybe, just maybe, she was an insane mage - but there wasn't a trace of metal in the standard rations! No magic could just grab onto that!

Pinkie looked down at her hoof. "Oh. Well, whoops, I guess traction hooves aren't a thing here." She smacked herself in the head. "I'm such a doof! It's usually not something you have to look out for!" She rubbed the back of her head. "So, uh, yeah, I'm not normal. My hooves can grab things."

"How?"

Pinkie shrugged. "Magic?"

"Magic can't do that."

Pinkie looked at him very closely. "...What else can't magic do?"

He thought for a moment. "I'm not a mage. I'm not qualified to answer."

"Hey, no fair! You knew what I was doing was impossible!" She crossed her front hooves. "You have to know the basic rules, at least."

Wordlessly, he turned away from her gaze and walked to a window. He looked out at the pristine lake and the orb floating above it, the rays of the sun creating a rainbow halo.

Pinkie sighed. "It's okay. You don't have to answer me. I wouldn't answer all your questions either."

He continued to study the terrain outside.

"...Crypt, come on, I'm trying to extend an olive branch here. I'm sorry I'm making you uncomfortable." She extended a hoof to him. "We can still be friends. Move past this."

"We need to get moving as soon as you are able," Crypt said, ignoring her apology and her hoof. "How long do you think that will be?"

Pinkie let out a dejected sigh, retracting her hoof. "Give me an hour and three of my legs should be strong enough to move. The broken one needs a lot longer."

"Then we leave in an hour. I recommend rest."

"Sure thing, doc." Pinkie saluted. "By the way, where are we going?"

Crypt had nothing to say to this.

Pinkie narrowed her eyes. "I see the game we're playing..."

3 - Lakeward

"Okay, that's an hour! Time to go!" Pinkie shot to her hooves. Crypt would have mistaken her for a healthy mare were it not for the splint around her damaged leg. He could only see the unusual wounds since he knew exactly where to look for them.

"It hasn't been an hour yet," Crypt pointed out.

"Guess I'm just ready earlier than I thought! C'mon, Crypty McCree, let's set out!" She took a step out of the cabin and allowed the wind to blow through her mane. Her already impressively large grin somehow widened even further. "Look at how beautiful this is!"

"It was better at sunset with Endesque rising," Crypt said.

"Way to be a party-pooper," Pinkie said with a roll of her eyes. "And psh, that purple thing - Endesque was the purple one right? - isn't the only thing in this sky. Look up there! I see red and gray moons!" She pointed up at the sky where two round objects were near - the gray one was larger and dotted with dark patches while the red one seemed significantly smoother, though the light from the sun

"...Moons?"

Pinkie facehooved. "Care to tell me what they are if they're not moons?"

"Lurse and Ravanah."

"And which is which?"

Crypt didn't give her a response.

"Crypt!"

Crypt walked away from the cabin and into the whirlwind of a grassland, impassive.

"Get back here I'm not finished with you!" Despite her leg, she was easily able to keep up with his trot and fix him with a steely gaze. "If we're going to be traveling together you have to at least tell me simple things. You can keep all your super-personal and edgy secrets inside, that's your choice, but if I don't know the difference between the two orbs in the sky, then what other things might I mess up? For all I know snakes hide in these grasses!"

"They do."

Pinkie smirked. "Nice one."

"I'm serious."

"Oh, I know, but the way you said it indicates you do have a sense of humor. I'm so proud." She booped him on the snout and retreated to a safe distance a few paces behind him, falling silent aside from a cheerful hum.

Crypt was beyond thankful for the silence. In his recent loneliness he had forgotten why he avoided ponies if he had a choice in the matter.

He glanced behind every now and then just to make sure she was keeping up - and every time she was. At first, he thought the way she moved was full of naivete and childish innocence, but he slowly began to notice her movements had a purpose. She bounced with life, but her hooves hit the ground heavy and deliberate, navigating the hilly terrain like an expert hiker. Her eyes were almost always on alert, and her ears instinctively swiveled around to hear everything she could.

She was experienced.

He got to see this first hoof when the first snake reared its ugly head. It rose up beside her and bared its fangs - only to get a powerful hoof to the skull for its trouble. It flew a good four strides, and no doubt it would run away if the impact hadn't killed it instantly.

Pinkie chuckled. "I wonder when we'll get to the more challenging monsters. Oh, whoops, I've just cursed us!"

"Saying things out loud doesn't bring about a curse."

"You haven't been at this very long, have you?"

Crypt didn't know what to make of this. So he didn't respond.

"I have identified a coping mechanism!"

They continued on, once more in silence. It was easy to tell where Crypt was going at this point - the lake with the large, clear ball floating above it. It was probably dangerous, running on some mechanism he could not understand, but it was also the only really impressive landmark around. It was as good of a place as any to start.

As they approached, the grass shortened, giving them a better view. The orb itself was easily larger than a warehouse and made entirely of water. Every second, a single drop would leave the bottom of the orb and hit the perfectly circular lake, creating a minuscule ripple that had no visible effect at the lake's edge. Here, there was no wind.

Crypt furrowed his brow. He removed his pack, preparing to test the water for drinkability.

Pinkie rammed her face into the water and took in a huge gulp.

"Pinkie!"

"Reeeelaaaax, it's clean," Pinkie said. "And refreshing!"

"It could be contaminated."

"I'm fine, aren't I?"

Crypt's first thought was she's an idiot, but given everything else he knew, this was likely incorrect. Once again, she had baffled him. That might as well have been her primary character trait.

And then her tail started twitching like it was possessed.

"Not that far off..." she muttered to herself. "Hey, Crypt? I hope you have a weapon."

"Why?"

"Because something really big and scary is about to come out of the grass."

He decided to trust her.

This was the best decision he had made in a long, long time. It was the only thing that allowed him to react quickly enough to avoid being eaten by an emerald flat-headed snake with a mouth large enough to swallow him whole.

"By the caverns..." he said, aghast. He thought he had left the monstrous creatures behind once he left the forest...

4 - Snake

Crypt jumped back from the snake's attack, landing squarely on one of his back hooves. As he skidded, he reached onto his pack and slid a metal ring over his hoof - not the hook, a weapon. He shook his hoof, attempting to activate it.

Unfortunately, he wasn't a magician and the mechanisms inside the ring weren't exactly reliable. He stood poised for an attack without a weapon.

The snake seemed to find this amusing, slithering up slowly and tasting him with its greasy, forked tongue, flattening most of his fur uncomfortably. Deciding he tasted good, it opened its mouth to consume him.

He bucked it in the snout, right between its fangs. It recoiled, hissing in anger, a noise that would have been intimidating were it not interrupted by a sneeze.

"Hey! It's allergic to you!" Pinkie cheered. "Keep rubbing yourself in its nose!"

Crypt knew if it was really allergic, it would have turned and slithered away. Instead, it was rearing for another attack, this time one fueled by rage.

Unfortunately for the snake's poor nose, Crypt finally managed to activate his weapon. Half of the ring folded out to a sharp point, revealing its purpose as a switchblade. He drove it right into the left nostril, repeating the pattern of recoil-hiss-sneeze that had happened just a few seconds before.

"That's it..." Crypt said. "I'm too much trouble for lunch... Just move along..."

The snake narrowed its eyes as if it were considering Crypt's words.

It decided it had to take Crypt down for the sake of some primitive version of pride. It let out a hiss and charged again. Crypt narrowed his eyes, preparing his blade to strike right in the snake's other nostril. His aim was true, he knew it.

"CRYPT LOOK OUT!"

"QUIET!" He shouted instead of listening to her. This allowed the snake to wrap the end of its tail around his back leg. He clenched his teeth - he knew what was coming next.

The snake threw him into the air, turning what was once formidable prey into a simple tossed snack. He flailed wildly, trying to angle himself away from the snake's mouth. Realizing he couldn't hope to miss a target that large, he pointed his switchblade down. At least he would give the creature some major life-threatening indigestion...

Pinkie jumped into the air, her front hooves suddenly holding a weapon larger than she was. Crypt's first thought was hammer, but it was far too colorful and soft-looking to be a real hammer. It made no sense - but it was also his only hope of survival at this point.

The blunt end of the hammer-thing hit the snake's head from the side, compressing with a deafening SQUEAK! noise. The snake's head went flying like it had been hit with an industrial strength spring, its head landing in the waters of the lake while the tail remained on land, flailing around wildly.

Pinkie carefully landed on her good back leg, still holding the 'squeaky hammer' fast in her front hooves. She laughed. "What's it mean if the golf ball is half in the water?"

Crypt had nothing to say. All he could do was stare at her and her impossible weapon.

"Well, now that you've seen it, I might as well blow your mind even further!" She hefted the hammer up with one of her hooves and stuffed it into her mane. Despite it being larger than her entire body. It was as if it vanished.

This is beyond magic. "What are you!?"

"Pinkie Pie. I'm very, very magical. And not whatever magic you're thinking of."

Crypt put a hoof to his forehead, letting out a tense breath.

The snake decided now was the time to rear its ugly head again, rising out of the lake near the middle with a predatory hiss. It glared at them, ready to devour every little inch of their flesh if it was the last thing it did.

A drop fell from the watery orb above onto the Snake's head.

A tremendous purple lightning bolt shot from the surface of the lake to the floating orb, passing right through the snake monster's body, charring its scales to a crisp. It fell back into the water and sunk to the bottom.

Pinkie blinked. "Huh. I guess we don't go swimming, then."

"...Lurse is the gray one. Ravanah is red."

Pinkie looked to him in confusion. "What? How - oh! Oh! Thanks!" She broke out into a grin. "I knew you had it in you!"

Crypt shrugged, turning away. Whatever she was, she had just saved his life. That was worth something.

"Anyway..." Pinkie rubbed the back of her head. "Anything for us to do here at this lake?"

"Too dangerous."

"Figures. So, where to, amigo?"

He didn't know what her last word meant, but that didn't matter as far as he was concerned. "Get out of this grass. Where there's one monster, there are others. Clever predators will look for prey that's been tired out." He scanned the horizon, looking for a place.

"Pretty sure that forest is the closest."

"Not the forest."

"And why not?"

"Just passed through there. Not backtracking."

Pinkie pondered this. "Eh, at least it's an answer." She trotted up to him and pointed toward a spire of rock in the distance. "That looks closer than all the mountains."

Crypt nodded - and walked directly for it.

"Decisive as always..."

5 - Spire

The journey to the rocky spire took most of the day. The area between them and the spire was just as grassy and windy as the rest of the hills they had been in, and they were lucky enough not to attract the attention of any gigantic snakes. Any lesser reptiles they came across quickly got their heads crushed, and after a time the snakes stopped appearing. There was no way for them to know if they had left the snake's hunting grounds or if the snakes were avoiding them on principle now.

As time went on, the grass around them shortened, the winds dying out to lesser gusts that tended toward a single direction instead of all over the place. The emerald sea eventually ended, giving way to a browner landscape with rocks and shrubs dotting the landscape, and the occasional tree. The spire itself was before them now, and while from a distance it had looked like it might be natural the staircase going up its exterior clearly told them otherwise. It was all made out of a single granite-like rock and it was very rough and worn on the edges.

The staircase looked in-tact, though.

"I'm going to climb it," Pinkie said.

"That's a lot of stairs for a mare with a bad leg."

"So?" She pointed at the sun nearing the horizon. "Not like we have time to get anywhere else, really. Might as well see what's up there and then set up camp. I assume you have a tent in that pack of yours?"

"Yes."

"Good! We're close enough to the grass if we need to use it as bedding, and close enough to figure out what this spire thing is! It's perfect!" She trotted over to the spire and set her front hoof carefully on the steps. "Come on! I'll be slow!"

Crypt got the distinct impression she could climb the spire faster than he could even with the broken leg, but even he had to admit, it was probably best to get to the top of the tower. After all, what else were they going to do? It's not like they really had a goal.

Twenty minutes later Pinkie was whining.

"Why... are there so... many STAIRS!?"

"There had to be a way to get up."

"Thank you captain obvious," Pinkie said with a roll of her eyes. "I just have to ask, how much longer until we get there?"

"It could be a while."

"We're here!" Pinkie declared, stepping up the last step.

Crypt blinked. How had they gotten so high without him noticing? Had he really been watching her so closely he didn't notice their progress?

He shook his head - focusing on the top of the spire. It was relatively flat, even though it looked pointed from the ground. There was a single stone pedestal in the center, about the height of a pony. The two explorers walked up to it... and saw a hole where something round had used to be.

"Huh," Pinkie said, furrowing her brow. "Welp, looks like the treasure's gone. Bummer."

"The journey was not worthless," Crypt said, standing up on the pedestal and looking around. "We can plan our journey from up here."

"Oh yeah, high vantage poi- BY CELESTIA!" Pinkie's jaw dropped. She couldn't just see a few extra miles, she could see hundreds. To the west, she could see not only the entire field they had journeyed across, but also the forest, and beyond the forest to a much denser section of vegetation with a greenish smoke around it. The smoke was massive, but she could see that it took a vaguely circular shape. To the north, a seemingly endless desert, but she could see dozens of little rivers of green cutting through it, including so many oases that her sense of scale itself was confounded. To the east, there were massive snow-capped mountains that blocked the view beyond, but she had no doubt the lands beyond would be varied and almost beyond her. At the southern edge of the mountains, she could see oceans that didn't come to a sharp point at the horizon but vanished into the blue of the sky itself.

And then south... south she could see settlements and roads intermingled with dense jungle-like forest. She thought that maybe, just maybe, in the furthest distance she could see ANOTHER ocean.

"How...?" She asked nopony in particular.

To his credit, Crypt was not completely unimpressed. There were settlements to the south. Numerous ones. How could enough ponies have gotten out here?

Pinkie turned back to the mountains - and saw a dark, thundering cloud just behind one of the taller peaks. She looked at it with an expression Crypt had not seen on her before - anger. Perhaps even hatred.

Pinkie shook her head, returning to her cheerful self. She glanced once more at the pedestal, noticing something etched into its side. "What's this?"

It was a crude drawing of a face with two swirling circular eyes and wild, disorganized spikes that were probably supposed to be hair. It was smirking at her.

"...The mark of the Technician..." Crypt said, surprised to see something he recognized out here.

"What?" Pinkie asked.

"A strange being that... vanished."

Pinkie rolled her eyes, deciding not to ask. She looked at the swirling eyes of the face, and then looked in the same direction it was. "There. That settlement right there, that's where it's pointing."

"...And we're going that direction?"

"Not like we have a goal, right?" Pinkie said for a shrug.

"No. I just need to move."

"And I need to find my friends," Pinkie said, trotting back down the stairs. "Might as well start there."

She has friends... Crypt narrowed his eyes - he hadn't known that. He wondered who they were, and why she needed to find them.

Or, perhaps a better question, why she was separated from them and lost in the first place?

Even better, why did he suddenly feel like he wanted to know? She had her secrets, he had his. That was the way it should be.

He followed her down the stairs, contemplating how to set up camp once they got to the bottom.

6 - Morning

The tent had been easy to set up. Crypt had only had one thin sleeping bag, but Pinkie had claimed she'd be fine without one. Crypt decided she could spend a night freezing and learn the need for some kind of covering.

When morning came, her side of the tent was completely covered in brightly colored feather pillows.

What couldn't she pull out of that mane of hers?

"Not much," Pinkie said, sitting up suddenly. "But, unfortunately, I can't get us better breakfast, at least for now." She seemed depressed at this fact.

She really should learn to live with the nutritional value of food bricks. As long as he never ran out he'd never have to worry about getting a balanced diet. Though he knew as much as anypony that he had enough for a couple weeks, less with two mouths to feed.

They stepped outside. The sun had just barely risen, while the purple form of Endesque was setting on the opposite horizon.

They ate breakfast and packed up the tent, leaving all the pillows in a pile.

"Can't you just stick them back in your mane?"

Pinkie shrugged. "I like them here. It's our own little landmark on the world."

"They'll decay in a few months."

"That's good enough for me!" She pointed in the direction the Technician's symbol had indicated the night earlier. "ONWARD!"

It took a few minutes for Crypt to realize that he was following her. Put simply, this didn't sit right with him, so he trotted slightly faster, intending to pass her.

She picked up speed as well, managing to bounce forward like a spring on only three of her legs.

Crypt narrowed his eyes - and started trotting faster. Not quite a run, but it couldn't really be considered a walk. Pinkie responded with a giggle and started jumping faster.

She was challenging him. He ground his teeth and started galloping. With a delighted laugh, she turned around and started bouncing backward, a silly, dorky grin on her face. She managed to land flat on her three good legs without a single misstep, all the while having no visual idea of where she was going.

But she was still insisting on bouncing. He could pass her with a good gallop. All he had to do was focus on his hooves and keep his breathing steady, he could make it past her.

He could also fall right into a shallow river that Pinkie was able to jump right over. "Oh! Crypt! I'm sorry!" She stopped bouncing and helped pull him out of the water. "You okay?"

He grunted, checking his pack. None of it got seriously wet - though his stomach was seriously uncomfortable from the mud and sludge now on it.

"Lemme get that for you." She produced one of the pillows and tore off the casing, sending feathers everywhere. She dipped the casing into one of the clearer parts of the river, making a wet cloth. She picked up Crypt, forced him onto his back before he knew what was happening, and cleaned off all the mud with a magical swish of the pillowcase. "All done!"

He blinked. "...You win."

"Win what?"

Crypt shrugged, righting himself back on his hooves. "Maybe you'll find out one day."

Pinkie shook her head. "I really do have to take what I can get with you, huh? Tsk, tsk, tsk." She took the lead once again, and this time Crypt didn't try to get ahead of her.

She had proven herself. He hated to admit it, but it was possible she was better at this than he was.

As they continued on, they rarely exchanged words - but Pinkie was so full of life it was hard to look at her and not feel like there was a conversation. She'd jump in puddles, rush to smell the unusual wildflowers, examine strange holes in the ground, and laugh at the simplest things. She was a happy mare, plain and simple.

She could speak through the way she moved that she found everything around her beautiful, in some way or other. This was mixed with the seemingly paradoxical feeling of having seen most of it before.

The only times he saw anything other than curiosity, joy, or amusement on her face was when she glanced at the storm clouds hovering behind the mountains they had left behind. The dramatic shift from cheerful to dark was jarring, even for Crypt, who had seen a lot of crazy ponies in his time.

She was so much different than h-

"OH! Look at that!" Pinkie was standing on top of a rocky outcropping, eagerly pointing ahead. Crypt walked up to her side and easily found what she was pointing at. Less than a mile away, there was a carriage of sorts, about the size of a small house. It had four wheels studded with flattened but large earth-covered spikes affixed to a rectangular exterior comprised of dozens of different metals, almost all of which looked like patch jobs. He wondered if the original carriage still existed under all that, or if it had been completely replaced.

There was thick, black smoke coming out of the back of the carriage, indicative of an inner fire. It must have been controlled somehow, which made Crypt curious. He also wondered why anyone would need a fire at this time of day - it was a little hot already, and it was still only morning.

He did not get his answer right away. What he did get was a glance at the creature pulling the carriage. It was a reptilian creature that stood on two of its legs, keeping the other two above the ground. It was maroon in color, a shade that covered it all the way from the tips of its leathery wings to the front of its angular, predatory snout. There was something metallic in its front claws Crypt couldn't identify.

"Sweet! A dragon!" Pinkie was jittering with excitement. "Let's go say hi to her!"

"That monster?"

"Psh, dragons aren't monsters, they're people! Come on!" She jumped off the outcropping and began trotting toward the dragon and 'her' carriage.

Crypt didn't budge from his position.

7 - Dragaina

Pinkie liked Crypt well enough, and she wasn't about to leave him behind for real, but she did appreciate the feeling of freedom she got when she left his proximity. It was her turn to do something, and that something was to make a friend. She saw two ways this could go: she made a friend, or she didn't. Most likely the final result would take one of those two extremes, but she wasn't about to call one or the other - that was just a good way to be proven wrong.

With a giggle and a bounce, she called out. "Hey! Hey you! Wait up!"

The maroon dragon clearly heard her, twisting out of the carriage's harness to look behind the metallic vehicle. It kept moving despite the lack of dragon pulling it, telling Pinkie the smoke was probably an engine of some sort powering the wheels. Now that she was closer, she could also tell that the dragon was a female. Young for a dragon, but that meant she was about Pinkie's age.

In her hands was a metallic cylinder studded with red gems. "Woah, that's pretty..."

The dragon smirked and spoke with a calm, serenading voice. "You look like you'd know a thing or two about beauty. The spitting image of a cloud at sunset sparkling with an aquamarine mineral sea."

"You know, usually people call me a bundle of cotton candy."

Her voice lost its calm backdrop and became nervously high-pitched. "I-I I mean, of course, cotton candy, how silly of me!"

"Smooth."

"...Thank you."

"You don't even know what cotton candy is, do you?"

"A dragaina of my caliber does not need to invest in such knowledge."

"It's literally the best-tasting food in existence. Pure sugar laced into the texture of clouds. If you got me some sugarcane I could totally make you some."

"...I never said I wasn't willing to learn, of course..."

Pinkie laughed, extending a hoof. "Hi, I'm Pinkie Pie!"

"Myrrh," she said, awkwardly grabbing Pinkie's hoof in her claws and shaking side to side.

"...You are going to be so fun to be around."

"Really!?"

Pinkie giggled. "Ooooh yeah. HEY! CRYPT! SHE'S FRIENDLY!"

She got no response from the stallion.

Pinkie facehooved. "Her name is Myrrh and she's really nice! I'm going to be making cotton candy! ...Ponyfeathers, I don't think he knows what cotton candy is either."

"Sounds like he's missing out on the spice in life..."

"Well, you're a dragon, you'd know about that."

Myrrh laughed - nervously at first, but eventually she devolved into a guffaw that spewed bright orange flames into the air.

"Ka-ching!" Pinkie laughed. "Well, while we're waiting for him to get over his internal deliberation over your status as a monster, why don't you tell me about this carriage of yours?"

"Monster?"

"Carriage, Myrrh, we're talking about the carriage, focus."

"Oh. Uh..." She cleared her throat and put on a 'cool' expression. "This bad girl operates on heat and plant matter alone, is able to cross any terrain except water, and provides all the necessities a young traveling dragon needs. Wait, scaleblight, you're not a dragon."

"I'm sure it provides all the necessities a pony needs too."

"Po...ny. Is that what you are?"

Pinkie blinked very slowly. "That's a new one."

"Oh, geez, sorry, I-"

"Hey, it's fine, I just kind of expect people to know what ponies are! Maybe it's unrealistic of me!"

"Is it?"

"I don't know, I'm new here!"

"Did you cross the desert too?"

"Uh, no, we just came from the large pillar over there."

Myrrh gasped. "What a coincidence! I was just there, saw this strange face, and decided to follow where it was looking!"

"It's destiny then!"

"Traveling buddies?"

"You bet!"

"I'm convinced," Crypt said, stepping out from behind a bush. "She's harmless."

"Told you," Pinkie said, sticking her tongue out.

Myrrh gasped. "Why hello there handsome!"

"How can you possibly find a pony handsome if you've never seen one before?"

"Uh..." Myrrh's eyes drifted to opposite sides of her face as her mind failed to process the question.

"Mostly harmless," Crypt corrected his earlier judgment. "People like her are trouble magnets."

"Well, so are we!" Pinkie said with a grin. "We can become a trio of misfits exploring the world because... We can!"

"Right!" Myrrh said, nodding vigorously. "One question though."

"Hmm?" Pinkie asked.

"He spoken for...?"

Pinkie glanced at Crypt and raised an eyebrow. "I dunno, are you, mister cryptic mc-cryptic-pants?" She paused. "Uuuuugh, that's why you're called Crypt!"

"That's not why."

"There are at least two reasons for everything."

"...I feel like that's wisdom. is that wisdom?" Myrrh asked.

Crypt grunted.

"...I don't think he likes me," Myrrh whispered to Pinkie.

"He doesn't really do 'liking things'," Pinkie whispered back. "Anyway, we're all going to the same place, so let's get this party into gear!"

"It's already in gear," Myrrh said, pointing at the carriage. "The Prowler's still going without us."

Pinkie stared at the Prowler. "Huh. ...Is it getting faster?"

"...Frillbite," Myrrh swore. She spread her wings and took off into the sky, the motion sending warm air blasting past Pinkie and Crypt. "Get back here, you!" she called as if her vehicle were some runaway pet.

Crypt stared at the dragon with an unreadable expression.

"Hey, at least she's not doing impossible things!" Pinkie said with a chuckle. "Two impossible women in one day would be a bit much for you, huh?"

Crypt sighed.

8 - Prowler

Myrrh eventually got the Prowler under control after several minutes of yelling, shouting at it, and apologizing profusely to Pinkie and Crypt.

Crypt already wished she would shut up already. At least Pinkie had the decency to be relatively quiet, Myrrh never seemed to stop talking and narrating what she did. When she wasn't apologizing she was trying to make herself look 'cool' and subsequently stuttering like a nervous wreck.

He didn't know what sort of contradictory life-experiences would produce a person like this and, frankly, he didn't care. He wanted nothing to do with her, and the only reason he was sticking around was Pinkie.

Not that he didn't try to convince himself to turn a random direction and walk away from the two of them. He did. He really, really did. But he couldn't bring himself to do it.

So he was stuck with them.

A few minutes after they had set off again, Pinkie blinked. "You know, Crypt, you could ride on top of the Prowler."

"The roof's all yours, my man!" Myrrh said with a smirk. "I don't use it because the feel of the ground between my toes is just mm-mm great! But you don't have toes, so I bet you could just go up there. N-not that being toe-less is a bad thing, it's pretty sweet, actually. Not like sugar or anything."

With a grunt, Crypt leaped on top of the Prowler. It didn't slow down at all because of his weight. He wondered why there was even a harness for Myrrh in the first place if it could move itself like this.

"Hey, speaking of sweet..." Pinkie put a hoof to her chin. "You have sugar in here, Myrrh?"

"Yep, just pop open the doors and jump in," Myrrh said. "Watch for the broiler, and avoid the back."

"Why?"

"Reasons."

Pinkie rolled her eyes. "And here I thought I was escaping the secrecy. Tsk. Don't worry, it's fine, I can just tell there's going to be a running theme already." She jumped up to the Prowler's side and popped open the door, finding the interior to be almost completely filled with collectible trinkets, the only open space being Myrrh's bed. Pinkie entered and closed the door, cutting off Crypt's view.

He heard a lot of things crashing inside.

"Myrrh...?"

"She's fine," Myrrh said, laughing nervously. "Probably, anyway..."

"I diiiiiid it!" Pinkie said, jumping out of the Prowler with a bowl in her hooves. The bowl itself was filled with a fluffy, pink substance that looked a bit like her mane, but more like a cloud. "This, my friends, is cotton candy. You will eat it, and you will love it." She split it in three, giving a piece to each of them.

"...This is the best thing I've ever eaten," Myrrh said, clamping her jaws over the sugary cloud. "So... succulent."

"Too sweet, no substance," Crypt deadpanned.

Pinkie sighed. "It's not meant to have substance, it's meant to be enjoyable. I mean, food, duh!"

Crypt felt the instinct rise within him to correct her.

No. You left that way. Don't spread it out here.

"You're a fun one, Crypt..."

Crypt turned away from her, looking toward their goal. He could see the town in the distance. "Four miles until we reach our destination."

"I wonder what kind of people we'll find there!" Pinkie said with a grin. "Ponies? Dragons?"

"Eh, probably not dragons," Myrrh said, shrugging. "I haven't seen any of my kind in quite some time."

"Oh. But it could be something else! Dogs! Humans!"

"...Sure! Those are certainly... things!"

Pinkie shrugged. "Eh, who knows really. Who knows..."

Crypt looked at Pinkie - once again she was speaking strange, alien words. She may complain about how mysterious he was, but she was just as much, if not more so, confusing to him as he was to her. Once again he had to tell himself this was fine, and that was the way things should be. He could not ask her what she was without talking about himself.

And he would never do that. Ever again.

The Prowler moved on, across the land, toward the destination given to them by the mark of the Technician...

9 - Ser'ta'ta

The Prowler, at long last, crested over the final bump in the dirt between them and the town that had been their goal all this time. Now that they were close to it... well, it was decidedly underwhelming.

It was a collection of small, pony-sized houses largely constructed out of wood. There weren't any bright colors or even well-kept lawns, although the buildings themselves were well-constructed and clean. The structures jutted out of the earthy ground like chocolate chips on a cookie. A river ran through the town, feeding a handful of smaller fields growing plants Crypt couldn't identify. Not that he could identify much out here.

Clearly, the people of the town had seen them coming from a long ways off since roughly sixteen ponies had lined up at the edge of town they were approaching. At the moment, Crypt couldn't read their faces, so it was easy for him to assume they probably weren't welcome here. He prepared himself for a confrontation. Not likely a fight, but perhaps a stand would need to be made, a show of dominance.

"I think they're judging us. Are they judging us?" Myrrh asked.

Pinkie rolled her eyes. "We can't even see their eyes, what are we supposed to know about what they're doing?"

"They're standing in a line," Crypt added.

Pinkie facehooved. "I mean why they're doing that. We can't see any emotion yet!"

"My eyes are better than yours, then," Myrrh said. "I... well I see their ears twitching, that means they're angry, right?"

"My ears twitch all the time," Pinkie said.

"Oh. Then I don't know."

"I'm not normal."

Myrrh's nearly endless stream of words was stopped once again as her mind was unable to reconcile what she wanted to say with what had just happened. Crypt had seen this happen several times over the course of the last few hours. She clearly hadn't been around people in a while. Understandable, given the desert she had apparently come out of.

"We still need to say hi," Pinkie continued. "Myrrh, the Prowler does have a stop setting, right?"

"Oh, uh, yeah, it's just... inside." She jumped out of the harness and swung the door open. "Wow, you really made a mess in here."

"Sorry!"

"Oh, uh, it's... It's not a problem! It was already a mess! Really, in fact, I think I like your mess better than mine. Ahem. Got it! Initiating 'slow down' with this lever... here."

The Prowler started speeding up with a dramatic lurch that knocked Crypt off the top.

"SORRY! SORRY! WRONG WAY!" She pulled it back the other direction, bringing the Prowler to a slow crawl as it crawled to the town. They stopped a fair distance out, allowing the smoke to die out with a pathetic sputter. Pinkie bounced forward, the dragaina and the stallion following close behind - though Myrrh locked the door of the Prowler before leaving it behind.

As they approached, the buildings didn't suddenly gain new details. They were just as simple and basic as they had always been. However, the ponies did. There was a roughly even mixture of mares and stallions, with coat and mane colors generally sticking to a green-blue-brown pattern, indicating either that most of them were closely related or that there wasn't much variety in pony colors around here.

There were two ponies in the center of the line who clearly had more authority than the others simply by their position and forward-seeking stares. One was an older, frail mare in a silvery hat and a short blue mane. She was the only pony in the line that was completely blue, no sign of green or brown anywhere on her. To her side was a young bearded stallion - younger than Crypt - with a cheesy smile plastered on his face. His coat was white while his facial hair was a pale, shimmering blue with a green stripe through it. On his head sat an extremely tattered and dirty hat that kept the sun out of his eyes.

Pinkie waved to them. "HIIII!" she called.

"GREETINGS!" The stallion shouted, still smiling. "I WOULD LIKE TO WELCOME YOU T-"

"YOU SHOULD WAIT FOR US TO GET CLOSER SO YOU DON'T HAVE TO SHOUT AT US!"

"OH! OKAY! THAT'S VERY CONSIDERATE OF YOU, MY PINK DAMSEL! I AM FILLED WITH FAITH IN YOUR GOOD INTENTIONS!"

"YEAH! WE'RE PRETTY NICE! CAN'T WAIT TO GET THERE AND ACTUALLY MEET YOU!"

"LIKEWISE! I A-"

The blue mare nudged him at the same time Crypt nudged Pinkie.

"Heheh... guess I was still yelling..." Pinkie rubbed the back of her head.

A few moments later, they were close enough to shake hooves. Pinkie met not the bearded stallion's hoof, but the elder mare's. "Greetings, travelers," she said with a slow but authoritative voice. "I am Shimmer Brook. Welcome to Ser'ta'ta."

"Oh wow that's such a unique name!" Myrrh said, hands on her face in wonder.

"You really aren't from around here," Brook observed. "...I do have to ask you, are you from within the mountains?"

"Nope," Pinkie said with a smirk. "I'm not from anywhere you'd have ever heard of, Myrrh here came from the desert, and Crypt... Uh... Where are you from?"

"N," Crypt said.

Brook raised an eyebrow. "Come again?"

Crypt pointed west. "That way."

"Egad!" the bearded stallion laughed. "You say you come from beyond the Devil's Trees? That's absurd!"

"Your existence is much the same."

The bearded stallion scratched his beard. "Hmm... Is it possible that there are two groups of ponies on opposing sides of the Devil's Trees, unaware of each other's existence? Ma, I think I know where I'm pitchin' the next tent."

"You are not going to the Devil's Trees, " Brook said. "Nopony would be foolish enough to accompany you."

Pinkie raised a hoof before Crypt made her lower it. "Awww..."

"I am honored by your devotion to discovery," the stallion said, removing his hat in respect. "May I know your name, driven madam?"

Pinkie chuckled. "Hi, I'm Pinkie Pie, what's your name?"

"Antimony Blaze," he said, putting his hat back on. "And like my grandmare here, I welcome you to Ser'ta'ta! Come, make yourselves at home - I'm sure you all have a bunch of stories."

"Oh, I do!" Pinkie said with a giggle. "I bet Myrrh does as well!"

"Yes!" Myrrh said, raising her hand into the air. "There are many wonders in that desert to the north. It is known by many names - Servill, Ahastra, the Biting Grain - but I've come to know it as my eternal tormentor. ...I will probably have to change my mind, considering how I'm finally through the endless dust, bu-"

"Maybe wait until we actually get to the tavern?" Pinkie asked.

"O-oh, yes, by all means, tavern. Right."

Brook nodded curtly, a smile forming on her features. "I think everyone would very much like to know a lot more about you - and you more about us, from what I've seen. A trip to the tavern seems perfect."

One of the mares gasped. "You haven't stepped foot in the tavern since... Since the Prince from Ser'pi visited four years ago!"

"That was six years," Brook corrected.

"...I was estimating..."

"Regardless, it's almost eight, we should move there before we end up talking out here and get caught in the cold of night." She encased her metallic hat in a telekinetic aura, adjusting it - revealing herself to be a unicorn. The only one, as far as Crypt could tell from the bare heads on the rest of the townspeople.

At least her magic makes sense, unlike everything else out here.

"Come. A fresh meal awaits..."

"Oh, thank Celestia!" Pinkie said, starting to drool. "I was so done with those food bricks!"

A - Stories

The interior of the tavern was dim, but in a homely way. Prior to the arrival of Pinkie and the rest, there wasn't all that much going on inside - there was the aging bartender who had an eternally bored expression plastered on his face, the eternal drunkard passed out with her own leg as a pillow, and some stallion who just wanted to eat a meal in peace.

Unfortunately, he was not going to get what he wanted, for in a few seconds almost the entire town was packed into the space, ready for a party!

And if there was one thing Pinkie knew how to do, it was party. She avoided pulling food and party supplies out of her mane since she didn't feel like startling everypony just yet, but that didn't stop her. She was more than able to re-arrange the tables, sing a little ditty to get everypony pumped, and get the crowd to forget their burdens if only for a day.

"So there I was!" she said, walking atop the bartop with an exaggerated sneaking motion. "Not yet detected by the Grimelch, for I had been smart enough to smear myself in mud so they wouldn't be able to smell me. I could see the exit - a simple door. There wasn't even a lock on it - all I had to do was push through it and I was free. My friends would be waiting. Or so I thought! Because, suddenly, out of nowhere, BASHAM!" She clapped her front hooves together and stood on her hind legs. "Nova comes barreling down the hallway, shooting lasers left and right at the Grimelch she had alerted! So I go. 'What in Celestia's name are you doing!?' and she goes 'Saving you!' and then I do this." She let out a dramatic sigh and facehooved with both of her hooves.

There were some chuckles from the crowd.

"Naturally, we were able to take the few Grimelch that she had alerted with a combination of magic lasers and my patented ponkadonk technique. It goes something like this - hi-ya! Hooooo-yaaaa!" In truth, she had just used her hammer, but talking about that detail would just take away from the telling of the story. "We got out, met up with the others, and ran away laughing while everything exploded around us!" She giggled, plopping down in a chair. "Good times..."

A young colt looked at her with wide eyes. "Wow... You and your friends are amazing..."

"Yep! It's basically our job to explore and adventure! Been doing it for... eh, I've lost count." She shrugged, glancing to Crypt - no doubt this story was confirming much of what he already suspected about her. She wondered how much he noticed about what she was leaving out, or what he thought about her friends.

"Where are your friends now?" Brook asked.

Pinkie smiled sadly. "I don't know. I'm trying to find them. I don't suppose any of the names I mentioned were familiar?"

Brook shook her head. "I am afraid not."

"Then my quest continues!" Pinkie declared, lifting a mug of some unidentified beverage high into the air. She chugged it in one gulp - tasted like pumpkin. "Speaking of quests, Myrrh, do you happen to have a story?"

"I, uh..." Myrrh tapped her claws together. "Actually, yes, I do! If you go far enough north, you eventually reach the end of the great desert. That is the land of Krillisk, a country founded by lobster-like creatures twice the size of me - can you believe that?! They're slow, lumbering, but also really really scalin' smart. They speak in a strange language of klicks that took me FOREVER to learn, I mean really, have you tried to click with this many teeth in your mouth?"

Antimony shook his head. "...Hold up. You mean to tell me you had to learn how they talked? Then why don't you have to learn how we talk? We're the furthest jamboree north in the land!"

"There's a very simple explanation for that," Myrrh said. A second later she realized what she'd just said. "Uh... I have no idea."

Pinkie did her absolute best not to draw any attention to herself. Let them be confused.

"R-REGARDLESS!" Myrrh said, suddenly. "There was this one time I was invited to dine at one of the local ruler's tables. It was difficult since I hate water and needed to have air delivered to me in his 'under-river' palace, but they did it. Somehow. Still have no idea how, but hey, It was sweet. At least until he revealed that I was supposed to stay there forever and be part of his stupid zoo. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely looooved the attention he was giving me, but I'm not a girl who stays in one place for very long, y'know? Gotta keep going south." She stood up tall, tapping her chest with a claw. "So I busted out of there. Turns out fire breath doesn't work underwater, like, at all, bu-"

"Fire breath!?" several of the townsponies said in awe.

Myrrh let out a puff of smoke with a sly smirk. "Best not to do it inside, kids. But I can show any one of you later, if you'd like." She leaned toward one of the taller mares in the room, raising an eyebrow.

She slipped on a wet spot and fell flat on her face. With a sputter and a wave of her limbs, she stood back to her feet. "W-where was I? Oh, yes, breaking out. Ahem, well, uh..." She had to give herself a moment to recover her mojo. "Anyway, no fire breath. But you know what works really well under water?" She spread her wings with pride. "These bad babies flapped so fast steam was bubbling all around me, confusing my pursuers to no end. I shot up out of the water, rushed to my prowler, and ran off as fast as I could. You'd be surprised how fast that hunk of metal can go."

Antimony smirked. "...I think I would like to meet these lobster creatures."

Myrrh shrugged. "Be my guest - try to cross the desert. I barely survived, and I had my Prowler."

"What is that thing, anyway?" one of the stallions asked. "Where'd it come from?"

"S-story for another time!" Myrrh stuttered.

"That means it's CRYPT'S time for a story!" Pinkie said, sliding up next to him. "Come on, you know you want to!"

Crypt wordlessly took a bite out of his sunflower seed sandwich.

"Party pooper..."

"NO WORRY!" Antimony said, slamming his hoof on the bar. "I shall tell you a story instead! It is the story of our fair town's founding! I was but a colt when it happened, but I still remember it like it was yesterday. My father - rest his soul - had been given a deed from the prince of Ser'ome to establish a new colony wherever he saw fit. This came as no surprise at all, for my family has a long tradition of exploring and forging new paths into the wilderness. But what did come as a surprise is where he decided to plant the settlement that would become Ser'ta'ta. He went as far north as he could without entering the domain of the Sky King or the Devil Trees, creating a true frontier. Everypony said he was mad, so he couldn't form the standard sixty-four pony team, only mustering half that."

With a grin, Antimony raised his hoof into the air. "Everyone said he was doomed, that Ser'ta'ta's name would end up the name of another colony after ours was destroyed. But he was shrewd, he knew exactly where the Sky King's influence ran, and where the beasts of the Devil Trees would not come. For he had found a landmark - the great obelisk to the north!"

"Hey, we were just there!" Pinkie said. "There was a strange symbol at the top that pointed us here!"

Antimony looked at her with a quizzical expression - but decided to finish his story first. "No one knows where that obelisk came from, or what its purpose is, but good ol' Pa figured out that it divided the land in four. He created Ser'ta'ta as far north as it possibly could be, exactly. He was a genius, the old man. We haven't had any trouble from beasts or the Sky King since the foundation."

"He sounds like he was a great guy," Pinkie said.

"He was the best," Antimony admitted, fixing Pinkie with a more stern expression. "You said there was a symbol atop the obelisk?"

"Yeah! Pointed right to you."

"Someone has vandalized our landmark. There was no symbol up there last I knew," Antimony narrowed his eyes. "What did it look like?"

"Uh, a smirking face with two swirling eyes, pointed right at Ser'ta'ta."

"The Technician?" Antimony's jaw dropped. "That... thing vandalized our heritage!?"

"The Technician was here?" Crypt asked, suddenly paying rapt attention.

"Yes," Antimony admitted. "The Technician passed through a few weeks ago. I thought it was just a figure of legend until that day. It stayed in the tavern one night, and left. Never said a word."

"Where did it go?"

"Down the only road out of town." Antimony looked curiously at Crypt. "What do you know of the Technician, Lone Crypt?"

Crypt looked back down at his sunflower seed sandwich.

"He does that," Pinkie said with a sigh. "Can you tell me what you know about the Technician? He knows what it is, you know what it is, but I have no idea. Neither does Myrrh."

"I might know!" Myrrh countered.

"You don't."

"Y-yeah..."

Antimony shrugged. "The Technician... A name that has no meaning, so far as we can tell. Legends say it chose that name itself, or it was how it introduced itself. Everything about it is contradictory... Ma, you know more about recent legends than I do."

Brook nodded. "Six years ago, shortly after the day of Allignment, it supposedly wandered into our lands. I know little about the Technician, but I do know it showed immense knowledge beyond that of any pony. Then, one day, it just vanished, leaving many conflicting stories about its purpose or even its existence. I myself was unsure it was real until it appeared those four weeks ago. It was so... silent." She looked into the distnace. "What I wouldn't give to know what it was thinking..."

"Wow..." Pinkie said, blinking. "...Crypt, Myrrh, unless you have any other ideas, I think we should try to find this Technician."

"Sounds like a quest!" Myrrh said, indicating her agreement.

Crypt gave no indication one way or the other.

"Then it's settled! Our quest: find the Technician and learn what we can!"

"...Won't you at least stay the night?" Brook asked. "I can pay for your room, and I'm sure Antimony and the others would love to hear more stories."

"Oh, duh, of course we'll stay the night!" Pinkie giggled. "What kind of ponies do you take us for?"

B - Antimony

Eventually, the party neared its end. Ponies began filing out to their homes for a good night's rest. Crypt was among the first to do so, and despite her energy Myrrh did eventually drag herself to the Prowler and her bed, leaving only Pinkie and a handful of ponies at the bar.

In the end, there were no wild stories - it was just Antimony and Pinkie, talking.

"I envy you people," Antimony said, adjusting his hat. "You're out there doing such incredible things, seeing such incredible sights."

"It is pretty sweet," Pinkie admitted with a smirk. "You never know what you'll find next!"

Antimony nodded. "I've always wanted to be like you. Get a small group together and delve into the distant and dangerous unknown. It'd be right amazing, I'm telling you, just like what my father used to do. ...But Ser'ta'ta isn't large enough to need explorers, and father let us know the dangers of going further north..." He sighed from an old pain.

"...I'm sorry."

"He knew it was too much, even for him, but he still had to try. It was built into his bones..." He turned to Pinkie. "You're here, though. And that means it's not impossible for us to go further. It's just harder. Another hurdle..."

"We... aren't exactly normal, Antimony."

"And neither was father."

Pinkie smiled sadly, choosing not to correct him. "What do you do in town, anyway?"

"I'm a guard," Anitmony said. "I watch the sky, even though we've never been attacked by monsters or the Sky King. They've never even come close. I look and see the storm in the distance... Always in the distance, hanging over the mountains."

Pinkie's expression soured, not that Anitmony noticed it. "I think I understand. You feel trapped here, right?"

"...I never really thought about it that way."

"You could come with us, you know. Hunt the Technician down, solve a mystery."

Antimony looked at her in shock. "I... could!?"

Pinkie nodded. "You seem fit enough to handle a journey, and you've got enough spunk! I can see the heart of an adventurer. C'mon!"

"...I couldn't leave my family like that, Pinkie." He shook his head. "They may be a bore much of the time, but they are wonderful just the same. Plus, Ma would never let me leave. ...She's lost everypony else."

"Oh. I'm sorry - I understand." Pinkie pulled back. "I thought you were free."

"I am. I could go. She wouldn't stop me. But I'm not just going to leave her like that." Antimony looked to Pinkie. "...Not that the offer isn't downright tempting. My desire to see the world is quite large... but not yet. I know now isn't my time."

"Okay!" Pinkie said with a smile, pulling him into a hug. "Then I just want you to know it was good to get to know you! You're a good guy, Antimony!"

"Heh. Thanks." He stood up and adjusted his hat. "I should go home, and you should sleep so you're ready for your journey."

Pinkie nodded, bouncing up to the Tavern stairs. "Thanks for being so hospitable. I wish there was more we could do for you."

"You've given me more than enough stories to tell - that's payment enough, madam."

Pinkie giggled. "You're welcome!" She waved as she bounced up the stairs to her room. With a blissful smile, she opened the door and flopped flat onto her bed.

Within an instant she was snoring.

"Pinkie! What's happening?"

"I don't know! Everything's exploding for no reason!"

"Where do we go?"

"Just... This way!"

There was a sharp explosion, and Pinkie's subconscious realized she was dreaming. The memory dissipated, leaving her alone in a purple miasma.

"...Well, this isn't normal," Pinkie muttered. "Usually the dream keeps going..."

Nothing happened. There were only swirling purple clouds in every direction, and there were only scant amounts of light.

A bolt of lightning struck right behind Pinkie. She didn't flinch.

It was behind her. "What are you?"

Pinkie didn't even turn around to look at it. She wasn't about to give it a response either.

"Why are you?"

Nothing.

"Where are you?"

Pinkie swallowed hard.

It decided there weren't any more questions to ask. It left, allowing Pinkie to return to her dreams.

She awoke with the rising sun, deeply troubled.

C - Road

The next morning, the ponies of Ser'ta'ta were gathered to wish the three travelers goodbye.

"It's been nice having you!"

"Hope you find the Technician!"

"I'll be on the lookout for your friends!"

Brook smiled, walking up to Pinkie and clasping one of the pink hooves in her own. "I have a cousin in Ser'ta'al, the next town on the path. Ask for Windstream, he'll give you anything you need if you just say my name."

"We will!" Pinkie said with a grin on her face. "I hope I'll be able to come back someday!"

"I share the sentiment," Brook admitted. "But few of your type ever return, no matter how much they may want. The world is just too expansive to backtrack all the way for us. You need not feel obliged to return - just know that you gave our lives a spark for a day."

"Aww, don't mention it!" Pinkie said, jumping onto the roof of the Prowler, landing right next to Crypt. "GOODBYE EVERYPONY!"

Brook, Antimony, and all the others waved them on.

"HIT IT MYRRH!" Pinkie yelled.

"Aye-aye ma'am!" Myrrh said with a strange arm-waving gesture - likely her culture's equivalent to a salute. She jumped into the Prowler, pulled a lever to jumpstart the engine, and they were off, crawling once more over the rocky hills at a leisurely pace.

Eventually, the ponies of Ser'ta'ta grew tired of waving at the receding engine, soon leaving only Antimony, Brook, and a mare who had hung around Myrrh a lot the night before.

The mare sighed. "Well... It was good while it lasted." She smiled softly at Brook and Antimony. "Back to the farm, huh?"

Antimony nodded slowly, dropping his head as he did so. "Ser'ta'ta's legacy will continue on, as it always has. The meetings with travelers are fleeting, but we are not!"

"Yeah... keep telling yourself that." The mare trotted away, going back to her cherry bush farm.

Brook looked to Antimony with an unreadable expression. "She offered you a seat, didn't she?"

Antimony shook his head vigorously. "Bah, it was nothing, she offers it to just about everypony, I'm sure. Wasn't for me and you know it. My place is here."

Brook raised an eyebrow. "That doesn't mean you can't take a vacation."

"...Vacation?"

"Vacation. Yes. A break. All those times you go camping, you're not at your 'post'." She smiled warmly. "We can survive without you for a few weeks."

"Are you saying I can... leave?"

"So long as you're back before next harvest."

"Ma, thank you!" He pulled her into a tight hug. "I never thought... Bless you!" He let out a laugh.

Brook smiled. "Now, if you happen to find a mare while you're out there, be sure to bring her back, y'hear?"

Antimony's smile dropped. "Ma..."

"What? You clearly aren't going to hook up with any of the mares around here, and you're getting a little old to wait for one to just pass through. I've got to get heirs to the family legacy somehow."

Antimony facehooved. "Egads, Ma, you have an angle for everything don't you?"

Brook smirked coyly. "You'd think you'd know me by now. Of course I do. Now go out and have fun. Just, please don't bring the dragon back."

"Yes, Ma," Antimony said with a roll of his eyes. "I won't fall for the dragon that flirts with everything."

"Good! Now git - they're going to outpace you on that thingamajig of theirs if you don't hurry."

"Right! Farewell, Ma! Love you!"

"Make your father proud!"

"I will, I will!" He finally turned his head forward and ran at a gallop toward the form of the Prowler. It took him a few minutes to catch up - it was moving pretty speedily. "Hey! Wait up!"

Pinkie was the only one who heard him. "Oh my gosh! Myrrh, slow us down, we've got another pony in the party!"

Myrrh jumped out of her harness and into the Prowler once again, pulling the lever to slow the craft. Antimony was able to catch up to them in less than a minute. "I'll be joining you - only for a short while, I need to be back by next harvest - but until then we can go hunt this Technician!"

"Welcome to the team!" Pinkie said, pulling him up and placing him next to Crypt. Crypt did his best to pretend Antimony didn't exist.

"Well, I say, a bit rude..." Antimony observed. "I'm sure he'll open up in time."

"How much time though?" Pinkie asked with a chuckle. Spontaneously, she looked up at the sky - and noticed the Sun wasn't round. It was hard to see over the intense lighting but... it was crescent shaped?

"We're gonna get an eclipse!" She shouted, giddy. "Oh this is going to be awesome!"

"It's just a Lurse transition," Crypt muttered. "Nothing to get excited about."

"Nothing to get excited about!?" Pinkie gasped. "That's it, I'm showing you all how to have a proper eclipse party. Myrrh, I'm turning the top of your Prowler into a temporary observatory."

"S-sure thing! I can stop i-"

"No no, keep moving, it'll add to the challenge!"

"...What's an observatory?" Antimony asked.

"...I am going to blow. Your. Mind," Pinkie said, grabbing him by the cheeks. "Probably agian, considering how much stuff I crammed into your head last night."

"Sounds boggligly fascinating!"

D - Sky

Myrrh pulled out her nurv - a gray object with numerous red crystals on the outside. As she tapped them, they let out a clear musical tone. She smiled to herself as she continued to walk ahead of the Prowler - this instrument was the only thing she still had of her home. It made a sound nothing like the instruments she had seen in her travels. All the strings, drums, whistles, magic bells, and that one organic flesh-belcher could not ring a clear, nor produce such interesting tones. Sounds that gave her life, even if it did have a few negative connotations.

"Wow!" Pinkie said, looking down from the top of the Prowler. "That sounds really cool! Like a synthpad! Oh, oh, or a theremin, except more complicated!"

Myrrh looked up at her. "You've... heard something like this before?"

"Yeah!" Pinkie said, smile unfaltering. "There are all sorts of weird digital music that has sounds like that! Though, I don't think any of them were played on crystals. Keep playing, it'll make for good construction music."

"Construction?"

"Play and watch to see."

Myrrh did - she played, and was amazed. With a handful of metal chunks Pinkie had found inside the Prowler, she had crafted a tripod. She had found a metal tube and affixed it to the tripod, giggling. She got lenses from somewhere (Myrrh certainly had no idea, she didn't remember having any inside the Prowler) and stuck them in the tube. "Tah-dah, we've got ourselves a telescope! Come, take a look!"

"The carriage is too bumpy," Crypt said. "We must stop if we are to look through the telescope."

"You might be surpriiiiiised!" Pinkie said with a wink.

"Doubtful."

"Just try it!"

Crypt refused - so Myrrh jumped in for him. She put the lens to her eye and was very surprised - she got a clear look at the red texture Ravanah, half lit, half dark, as nearly always. He could actually see the texture of the cosmic body's features, right down to the central point.

"Wow... I'd seen models of Ravanah, but I didn't think... always thought they were a little crazy!" She turned to Pinkie. "Can I see Lurse?"

Antimony laughed. "Ain't no spyglass that can look at it right now! It's too close to the sun!"

"You're only half right," Pinkie said, pulling a pair of sunglasses out of her mane. Myrrh wondered where she'd gotten them - but since no one else was asking questions, she decided not to say anything. Pinkie strapped the special sunglasses to the front of the telescope and pointed it at the sun - which looked a bit like a cookie with a round bite taken out of it. "We can't see Lurse, but we can see it eat the sun!"

"Please, that's ridiculous," Antimony chuckled. "Nothing can be eaten every month and come out unharmed."

Pinkie rolled her eyes. "Fine, Lurse is just moving in front of the sun and they are the perfect distance apart to appear the same size in the sky. Happy?"

"You know much of astronomy," Crypt said.

"Astrowhatnow?" Antimony asked.

"Uh, I think it's the people who study the sky," Myrrh offered. "I ran into a... few of them in my travels. They were usually crazy. N-not that you're crazy!"

"But I am crazy," Pinkie deadpanned.

"Oh. Good thing I like crazy."

"Myrrh, if we keep traveling together, one of these days I'm going to have a talk with you about relationships."

Inwardly, Myrrh started screaming. Outwardly, she just laughed nervously. "Ah... o-of course."

Pinkie nodded, handing the telescope's eyepiece to Crypt. He clearly had no idea how she was keeping the sights stable, but he didn't comment on it.

Antimony pulled the eyepiece to him next. "This really is somethin'! I bet the rustlers could make a fortune off of this thing... Everypony would want one."

"It's just a fancy 'spyglass'," Pinkie said.

"But who'd use it to look at the sky?"

"Lots of ponies."

"Huh..." Pinkie moved the telescope so Antimony could see Ravanah. "Wow... This really is somethin'."

"Usually easier at night," Pinkie explained.

"Is there anything else you can show me with this amazing device?"

"I dunno, is there anything else in the sky right now?"

"Salacia," Crypt offered. He walked up to the telescope and twisted it sharply to the left, pointing it at the horizon. "There."

Through the telescope, there was a small blue dot. It seemed rather featureless to everyone.

"...How many moons does this planet HAVE!?" Pinkie asked.

"...Planet? Moons?" Myrrh asked.

"We are standing on a planet," Pinkie explained. "The things going 'around' us are the moons."

"Then we have five moons," Antimony said with a smirk. "Lurse, Ravanah, the Sun, Endesque, and Salacia. ...And the stars."

"Stars don't count," Pinkie said. "Sun doesn't either."

"What strange world did you come from?" Crypt asked.

Myrrh was pretty sure he was joking - but the smile Pinkie gave him in response filled her with unease. That was the smile of someone who had found what was just said very amusing.

Myrrh shivered - Pinkie was so friendly and likable and beautiful and... and creepy. She almost didn't seem like a person, at times. Myrrh would have thought she was just odd because she was a non-dragon, but the other ponies were nothing like her...

Forget Crypt and his bizarre past, what was Pinkie?

"I... U-uh..."

"You can just ask, Myrrh," Pinkie said without looking at her. "I don't really have too many secrets, y'know."

"What are you?" She covered her mouth. "I'm s-sorry, that's not something I should ask, I sh-"

"Shhhh..." Pinkie said, smirking. "It's okay." She jumped on top of the telescope and smiled. "I am Captain Pinkie Pie. I lead an exploration team with my four closest friends in all of existence to find new friends in the vastness that is reality. I have been to an innumerable number of alien places, thrown a truly unfathomable number of parties, and have encountered evils greater than you could imagine. I have seen the face of chaos itself and I have also seen a pony so pure she could not be challenged. I have been tested by the Watchmaker of Zhui, fought in the battle of Farpoint, and... well, I can see so much more than the rest of you." She smiled innocently. "And yet here I am, still smiling, still looking forward. Basically, I'm not a normal earth pony. I come from another w-"

There was a loud thunderclap that stopped her short. All four of them turned to look back the way they'd come from - back at the silhouette of Ser'ta'ta. Behind the town were the mountains - and the storm clouds that had been brewing overtop the mountains had spilled over the edge, crawling toward the pony settlement.

"...Why...?" Pinkie asked, haunted.

"The Sky King!" Antimony shouted in panic. "Ser'ta'ta is in danger!" He leaped off the Prowler. "We must go back! Now!"

"Myrrh, how fast can the Prowler go?"

"...A lot faster than this," Myrrh said, a knot forming in her stomach.

Pinkie nodded. "Turn us around, get us to Ser'ta'ta as fast as you can."

"O-okay..." Myrrh really didn't want to go back to a place being targeted by evil looking clouds...

But something about Pinkie's tone was impossible to ignore.

E - Pegasi

The storm cloud arrived before the Prowler. It wasn't a large cloud by any means - unusually small, only the size of Ser'ta'ta itself. It was unable to blot out the light of the sun effectively across the entire town, allowing for there to be a moment of contradicting darkness and light.

The cloud itself clearly wasn't natural - this close, and this low to the ground, it was far too cohesive. The lightning was too deep a purple and the roughly spherical shape was too uniform. Occasionally, what appeared to be a curved piece of metal would peek out of the clouds, indicative of something hiding within the tumultuous black mist, but it was never out for long enough to make any real discernment.

At the start, the ponies of Ser'ta'ta held fast. Even without Antimony, they were not without defenses. Most of them had taken up farming implements, ancient swords, or even switchblades similar to Crypt's. Each weapon was strapped to a hoof tightly, so as not to slip - with the exception of Brook. She was the only unicorn in the village, and as such had a much more important role.

She stood in the center of town, surrounded by several dozen farmers. To her side was a mare standing over a tremendous cauldron that contained a delicious smelling soup - piping hot and ready to eat. Brook took a bowl from the mare and downed the entire thing in one gulp. "I hope you have a lot..."

"Just try your best, Brook," the mare said, continuing to stir.

"I haven't done this since before I came here..." Brook let out a sigh. "You all need to stand strong."

"Don't worry, we will!"

And then Lurse moved in front of the sun, plunging the world into darkness. The confidence the ponies had vanished.

And the cloud of the Sky King knew it. A bolt of lightning came flying from the cloud, impacting the ground several strides away from the central group - spooking roughly half of the ponies into fleeing. Those who were not used to using their tools or weapons tripped over them, falling to the ground.

Brook lit her horn - a single light in the darkness. The building directly behind her - a square structure with iron purposefully laced into its walls - sprung to life. Four large, pointed rods of metal raised out of the structure, framing the eclipse perfectly within its square. With effort, Brook pulled all four of the rods out, allowing them to float freely in the air.

With her free hoof, she downed another bowl - she was already perspiring heavily, but she refused to lose focus. With a short roar, she finalized the spell. Electricity crackled between the four floating rods, coalescing into a ball between the four tips. The sparkling sphere of energy launched out of the spires, heading for the monstrous cloud.

The Sky King's storm launched a single bolt of lightning back, dissipating the incoming attack. This bolt was quickly followed up by four more that hit the tips of the metal. Brook knew what they were doing - trying to overload the system.

How unfortunate for them this was not the first time she had fought the forces of the Sky. She twisted the metallic rods back, capturing the electric energy back at the cloud. The bolts pierced the dark mist, revealing for a split second an interior of rapidly rotating metal and propellors.

She knew she had damaged them. Maybe they would go away...

it was not to be. It soon became evident that they had expected her to do that - and had sent one of their hoofsoldiers to take advantage of the new position of the rods.

A pegasus rammed into one of the four rods, knocking it out of formation. Brook would have been able to use the other three to form a defense, had the first rod not collided into two others, throwing them out of her telekinesis. The pegasus quickly went into a haphazard nosedive, crashing into the ground with a sickening crunch.

The injuries sustained were substantial. But that had been the mission.

"Everypony, stand your ground!" Brook said, knowing the order was useless. As pegasi dropped out of the sky to surround them, the ponies shook in their hooves. The storm launched a few more lightning bolts - destroying the largest buildings in Ser'ta'ta with ease.

A pegasus landed a few strides in front of Brook. He flared his immense wings for the purposes of intimidation - but the metallic helmet lined with purple glowing material was more than enough to achieve the effect.

Brook lit her horn, showing him that she wasn't going to back down.

He looked at her - helmet hiding his expression. He spoke with a deep, emotionless voice. "Where i-"

The Prowler charged into town at high speed, ran into the pegasus at high speed, and proceeded to crash into a tree. The Prowler itself was fine - though visibly shaking from the impact. The stallion, on the other hoof, was in a much worse position, being between a tree and a metallic automatic carriage.

The Prowler went into reverse for a moment. A slit opened up in its front - and fire started belching out from it, bringing light to the otherwise dark world. The pegasi weren't sure what to do with it - so they backed away, allowing the storm cloud itself unleash a lightning bolt.

For all Myrrh's faults, she did understand how electricity worked from the many times the Prowler had been stuck in thunderstorms. The carriage was electrically grounded and suffered no ill effects from the lightning strike aside from a heat increase.

Myrrh didn't mind. Crypt and Antimony decided they were done hanging around inside the metal toaster and jumped out - both with blades on their hooves, ready to fight.

"I should never have left!" Antimony shouted. "All just waiting for me to leave, is that it? Well, you should have waited a little longer - your worst nightmare is here!"

Crypt had already attacked one of the pegasi and brought them to the ground "Less boasting."

Antimony charged forth with his blade - only for the pegasus mare to dodge it, her immense wings pulling her into the air. She was not expecting Antimony to also have a lasso that could bring her light frame to the ground quickly. He charged - but her armor was able to protect her from the initial damage. As she fought, more pegasi came to her aid.

"Is that all you got!?" Antimony shouted, swinging his blade around. He was more than a match for one pegasus, but the mob had him... There were just too many...

Then an immense THUD made everypony stop fighting.

Pinkie Pie stood in the middle of the town, only her back hooves on the ground. In her front limbs, she held a tremendous hammer.

Not a squeaky hammer.

A warhammer.

There was no smile on her face - only contempt and distaste.

"Remember me?" she asked the pegasi of the Sky King.

F - Hammer

"...Should we recognize you?" one of the pegasus mares asked, clearly confused.

Pinkie blinked. "Wait. You aren't here for me?"

"...Should we be?"

"I mean, I kinda thought so." Pinkie hefted her hammer. "Why are you here?"

"None of your business. Leave. This does not concern y-"

Pinkie slapped the mare away with her hammer. She crashed into the canopy of a nearby tree, dazed and with a newly cracked wing. Pinkie slammed the hammer into the ground. "Anypony else want to answer?"

A stallion and two mares rushed her at once. Pinkie was suddenly behind the stallion, holding him by the neck while the two mares crashed headfirst into each other. She pressed her forehead into the stallion's. "So, different question, do you guys have Flutterfree?"

"What!?"

"Any mind control going on here!?"

"What!?"

Pinkie removed the helmet, revealing the eyes of a completely normal - if confused - pony underneath.

Pinkie shrugged. "There go those ideas." Her tail twitched, prompting her to jump out of the way as a squad of pegasi tried to take her down, all plowing into the stallion instead.

The cloud above surged, attempting to hit Pinkie with a lightning bolt, but somehow she was already dodging before it struck her. Her body moved with impossible angles, jumping in midair to sharply change her velocity. She twirled her hammer around, smashing aside row after row of pegasus, dodging every bolt that came her way.

"How in..." Crypt said, jaw hanging open.

Myrrh mirrored his sentiment, sticking her head out of the Prowler just to get a better look at Pinkie's grace. She bounced around left and right, moving without a care for the limitations of physics or other ponies. She'd appear behind Pegasi, smack them into the ground, or toss them aside with a swift series of kicks. When the squad charged her all at once, she weaved through them like they were nothing but annoying birds.

The lightning was never able to hit her. Not once.

Eventually, she grabbed one of the taller stallions, wrapping her leg around his neck. "Okay, so, here's how this is going to go. Me - and all my friends - have what you want." I mean, maybe, maybe not, I have no idea. "So we're going to leave Ser'ta'ta, and you're going to have no reason to attack it again, just as you've had no reason to attack it for its entire existence. Furthermore, you are going to go back to your Sky King and complain about an impossible pink pony that just handed all your butts back to you on a silver platter. If you wanna get what you want, you're going to have to chase us."

"You have the Gem of Oreand?"

"Yep!" Pinkie lied through her teeth. "And you're gonna need more backup to get it. So go on, shoo, go back to your mountains. Come get me when you're ready."

She released him. "Everypony, let him take his wounded back! Don't give them any reason to come back!"

The ponies of Ser'ta'ta watched with quaking hooves as the remaining pegasi set about flying their fallen comrades to the smoky cloud in the sky. Many of them had broken limbs or wings, far more than Pinkie had been expecting. They had been far, far too light...

Eventually, the small cloud rose into the air - and drifted back toward the mountains.

"...We are in your debt..." Brook said, clearly not believing what she'd just seen.

"You're not," Pinkie said. "He may not have known anything, and I may not have a clue what the Gem of Oreand is, but chances are high this was my fault in some way. Best I could do was fix it."

"...I know not what the Gem of Oreand is either, Pinkie," Brook said with a sigh. "You have placed a target on yourself, though."

"I should have already had one, so really, this is just making things the way they were supposed to be!" She winked. "Don't worry about me, I'll be fine. But we do need to leave. As soon as possible. Like, now. Myrrh, spool up the Prowler!"

"R-right away!" Myrrh stammered, scrambling into the Prowler and starting the engine.

Antimony turned to Pinkie. "I..."

"Aren't coming with us," Pinkie said. "Doesn't matter if you want to or not, you're staying here."

Antimony wasn't sure what to make of this.

"Come on Crypt, Myrrh," Pinkie said, hopping into the Prowler's roof. "We're on the run now."

Crypt sighed. "On the run from what?"

"The Sky King. A bunch of pegasi in a storm cloud. I don't really know." Pinkie shook her head. "But if we run far enough, they won't be able to catch us."

"Y-yeah," Myrrh said. "I ran from a lot of people like this. Go south far enough and they'll just stop."

"Thanks for the party," Pinkie said, waving at Brook. "And Antimony? ...Never stop dreaming."

The Prowler kicked into gear and puttered out of Ser'ta'ta. Myrrh scrambled to repair a dent in the armor with another sheet of metal, adding a new patch to the industrial strength machine.

This time, the ponies of Ser'ta'ta did not wave at them with smiles. The Sky King might not come back - but their town was still in shambles.

And Lurse moved away from the sun, bringing the day back...

10 - Along

Endesque was lower in the sky that night, heralding the coming of darker nights ahead. Soon, the massive purple globe would rise in the day, leaving the night to be lit by the lesser celestial objects.

The Prowler moved through the night, able to continue on without much difficulty on the simple road to Ser'ta'al. Myrrh usually didn't run it, since she needed to sleep, but Pinkie had promised she'd keep watch and start banging cymbals if they were about to run into anything. They would sleep in shifts.

That was the plan, anyway. Crypt should have been asleep right now, but he was watching the road ahead just as Pinkie was, squinting to see the shapes of pushes and trees under Endesque's pristine glow.

"If you're going to stay up I should just go to sleep," Pinkie commented.

"You'll be able to?"

Pinkie nodded.

"You are a better pony than I."

I have a feeling that isn't that difficult to do... Pinkie thought. "Yeah, not the first time I've had to give the big blaring boast. Won't be the last."

"Mhm..."

"I am sorry for getting them locked onto us though." Pinkie looked into the distance. "You can get off whenever you want, you know." Looking back at Crypt, she found his face to be just as inscrutable as ever. Not even an external reaction to her words beyond the slightest knitting of the brow.

He gave no response.

Pinkie sighed, deciding not to push it. He'd be who he'd be, and there wasn't anything she could do about that.

He'd probably get off at the next town unless he had some unknown personal reason to find the Technician. As much as she knew, she had no idea about his relationship to the being. Or what the being even was.

She shook her head and yawned. "Night, Crypt," she said, producing a sleeping bag from nowhere and tying herself to the back rim of the Prowler. "Don't let us crash into anything."

"I won't," he assured her.

At least when he spoke he meant what he said...

Pinkie woke up with the light of the sun - and Myrrh staring her in the face.

"...Hi," Pinkie said.

"AUGH! Y-you're awake!" Myrrh quickly scrambled backward, falling on her back. "I thought you were, uh..."

Pinkie rolled her eyes. "It's fine, Myrrh. I don't mind people watching me sleep."

Myrrh flushed. "I... That's not, well, um."

"I doubt Crypt will take to it as well as I will, so you might want to watch yourself around him."

Myrrh nodded vigorously. "Of course!"

Pinkie facehooved. "It's too early in the morning for this..."

"Whatever you say!"

"You don't even know what I'm talking about."

"Well, I, uh, don't know what you're talking about half the time!"

Pinkie blinked. "Touche." She stretched her legs. "How close are we?"

"Enough," Crypt called from the front of the Prowler.

Pinkie bounced out of her sleeping bag and landed at Crypt's side. "Enough?"

"Enough that we can see Ser'ta'al," he said, pointing ahead. It was still a bit far away, but Pinkie could make out similarly constructed buildings to Ser'ta'ta, with the addition of a few structures with more stories and a large, dominating clock tower.

"Cool! I wonder if we'll have some time-related shenanigans over there!"

"Just because there's a clock tower does not mean there will be time shenanigans."

"Aren't all shenanigans time shenanigans, if you think about it?" Myrrh asked.

"Siding with Myrrh on this one," Pinkie said. "All shenanigans are time shenanigans."

Silence fell over the three of them as the Prowler moved on, it's inner clickety-clankity noises seemingly getting louder the longer they went without talking.

Myrrh noticed a river nearby. Without a word to them, she flew over to it and started drinking like a ravenous dog. She returned, mouth dripping with excessive amounts of water. "T-that wasn't as good as I was hoping it would be."

"Dragons need to cool down their fire?" Crypt asked.

"Man, I've got so much fire the water could never put it out. I can flap these girls and boil it alllll away."

Crypt decided he was done talking to her.

"...I am making no progress."

Once again, there was silence, and the clanking threatened to drive them all insane.

"...Are we just going to pretend like nothing happened?" Pinkie asked, suddenly. "Because there was definitely an attack on Ser'ta'ta, we definitely had to fight, and there was definitely a lot of destruction. We were there and we haven't said anything about it since we left!"

Crypt made no response. Myrrh opened her mouth to say something, choked, then looked away embarrassed.

Pinkie looked from Crypt to Myrrh and sighed. "...I'm sorry."

"W-why?" Myrrh asked. "We're the ones bei-"

"I'm expecting you to be like my friends. But you aren't. I shouldn't put you in their boxes just because they're empty." She tossed her mane back. "If you don't want to talk about it, I have no reason to make you. Just be on guard for the Sky King, okay?"

Crypt and Myrrh nodded - the first with little energy, the other with far too much.

Pinkie let out a chuckle. "You two really are different than what I'm used to... That's a good thing." She leaped up on to her hind hooves and pointed. "NOW, ONWARD!"

11 - Ser'ta'al

The ponies of Ser'ta'al invited Pinkie and the others in much like Ser'ta'ta had, with an uncertain meeting followed quickly by smiles and a friendly welcome.

Crypt was no longer surprised or interested in this behavior. Apparently, ponies were just like that out here in this... unusual place. He couldn't really call it the Wilds anymore, or really 'beyond the wilds'. It was its own place, and it likely had its own name.

"Hey, got a question," Pinkie asked their current guide to Ser'ta'al - a green unicorn stallion in long robes by the name of Verneer. "This place is Ser'ta'al, and the last town was Ser'ta'ta - what do you call all of them together?"

"...Enviar?" he responded, confused.

"That's the, uh, whole world," Myrrh offered. "I think Pinkaponk is asking what do you call your... people? Ponies? Uh..." She tapped her chin. "Whatever you are and not the Sky King."

"Oh, yes. We are... all together the ponies of Ser. Or just Ser, I guess. Not something that really comes up in conversation much..."

Crypt nodded to himself, absorbing the information. N, the Wilds, the Sky King, the ponies of Ser, and the desert... He made a map in his mind, keeping everything in its proper place. There was a big question mark in his mind north of the desert labeled 'lobster people', though he had no idea if Myrrh had been truthful in her tale.

"Why are you called Ser?" Pinkie asked.

"That's the name of our capital. Ser - or Ser City, since we usually want to be specific." Verneer smiled. "I've actually been to Ser City. It's such an amazing place... built into the amethyst mountain itself, a city of great splendor and glamour..." His eyes started to twinkle.

"I don't suppose there's any chance the Technician went that way, hmm?" Pinkie asked.

"The Technician?" Verneer paused. "Oh, that... thing. It... I don't remember where exactly it was headed, but it went south - not east. So if you're following it, I don't believe you'd end up in Ser. I'd highly recommend going to see the sights if you could take a large detour."

"Might help if we had a map," Crypt pointed out.

"You're lucky, I have a full map of all Ser's lands," Verneer said with a smirk, leading them to his house - a tall three-story structure painted with a light purple color. He had them wait outside as he rummaged through his things before producing an old, worn map.

Crypt was not surprised to see it didn't show N at all. The borders to Ser were 'the savage forest' to the far south, the Sky King's mountains to the north, and the ocean to the east. The west was poorly defined.

"Yes, I know Ser'ta'al isn't even here," Verneer said, pointing to an area in the vague western areas of the map. "This is where you are, if it had been around when this was made. Ser'ta'ta would be up here, closer to the edge of the mountains."

Crypt made sure to memorize the general layout of the map. It would no doubt be important later.

"Anyway, travelers..." Verneer rolled the map up and gently put it away. "I invite you to our tavern for a night of festivities."

"Thanks, but no thanks," Pinkie said, shaking her head. "We did that in Ser'ta'ta. We actually need to talk to Windstream, do you know him?"

"...Oh. That crazy unicorn." Verneer sighed. "Yes, I unfortunately do. His house is the circular one down the lane. I don't expect him to be of any use to you though."

"Brook said he'd be helpful!" Myrrh said.

"Family is rather blind, often," Verneer pointed out. "If you find him not worth your time, the tavern will still be open."

Crypt knew they had no intention of staying the night at all - staying too long would mean the town was more likely to be attacked. Pinkie wasn't one to unnecessarily risk that.

"We'll see about it," Pinkie said, smiling brightly before bouncing down the street to Windstream's house.

It was, in fact, circular - one might even call it spherical if it wasn't for the huge dent in the side. The structure itself was coated in a dusting of metal, something Crypt expected was commonplace for unicorns here for magic interface. Pinkie bounced right up to the door and knocked. "Hellooo~! Windstream are you in there!?"

"Go away!" a gruff voice shouted.

"But we came all this way to see you!"

"I said go away!"

"But Brook said..."

Windstream threw the door open - he was a midget of a blue unicorn, easily a head shorter than Pinkie, and wore glasses that made his already huge eyes appear even bigger. "Brook needs to stop handing out th- whahahah..." He turned to Myrrh.

Myrrh smirked. "Like what you see?"

He ran right past her and to the Prowler. "What... What is this magnificent piece of machinery?! How does it funciton!? Where is its power source?! How do you - when, how, what - I HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS! Can I buy it?"

Myrrh lowered her head. "Cute as you are, it's not for sale."

"Did. You. Just. Call. Me. CUTE!?"

Myrrh's mind blanked again, failing to come up with a response.

Pinkie pushed her out of the way. "Ehehehe, sorry about that, she was trying to compliment you."

"Bah. I don't need compliments. I need this machine!"

"...Why?" Crypt asked.

"I'm so glad you asked..."

12 - Sparks

Author's Notes:

"Hey GM, why hasn't there been a chapter in a while?"

Well, dear reader, because I decided NOT having a clear-cut plan of where I was going was a bad idea. So I went and planned out the rest of the story in a decidedly more concrete manner. So instead of floundering around, hopefully, things will keep in line a bit more than before. I wasn't in danger of screwing up the lore - but the character motivations were losing focus and I sometimes felt like I'd forget a plot-thread I sewed earlier.

So now you can rest easy knowing Yiyxa actually has an ending planned now. Somewhere down the line.

"...then there's the entire part where it's operating based entirely on non-magically endowed HEAT, pure machinery, nothing more, nothing less - what did you call this part, the engine? Simply a marvel of engineering beyond anything I've ever seen..."

Pinkie whispered in Myrrh's ear. "I was expecting a song."

Myrrh blinked, holding up her nurv and tapping one of the crystals. "...Is there supposed to be a song?"

"Uh... maybe? Do ponies or dragons randomly break out into song here?"

Crypt and Myrrh looked at her like she was crazy.

"No? All right, good to know." She made a mental note, returning her attention to Windstream.

"Then the wheels are so accurately designed they can dig into any terrain aside from smooth metal, and if I'm not mistaken these treads would conquer even that! I wonder if it's watertight... Such a haphazard arrangement of metal couldn't be, surely."

"Ahem," Pinkie said, clearing her throat. "This machine is very important to Myrrh, and while I don't think she minds you looking at it, could you please not tear it apart?"

Windstream lowered a wrench from his telekinetic grip. "I have never seen anything like this. I will give you anything you want for it, name your price?"

"Two Prowlers," Myrrh said, rolling her eyes.

"Done."

Myrrh blinked. "W-what?"

"I can reverse-engineer this machine and re-create it with my resources, easily."

"Ah, we don't have time for that!" Pinkie commented.

"Don't have time!? You're travelers, you have all the time in the world!"

"If we're being pursued by the Sky King?" Pinkie asked, raising an eyebrow.

"...Waitwhat." Windstream shook his head. "The Sky King doesn't pursue anyone! He doesn't' care about anything beyond his mountains!"

"I may have told him we have something called the 'Gem of Oreand' to keep him from attacking Ser'ta'ta to look for it."

Windstream processed this for a minute. "Fascinating. I wonder what this Gem of Oreand is that he would want it so badly. His cloud fortresses are already so far beyond any ancient structure I've ever heard of..." He put a hoof to his chin and began pacing. "Though if he wants something badly enough, I suppose he would seek it out with every resource he had..."

"Windstream, what do you know of our enemy?" Crypt asked.

Pinkie frowned - she supposed he was their enemy. Even though she didn't want anything to do with him, there wasn't exactly any going back now.

Windstream didn't even look at Crypt as he formulated an answer. "The Sky King... no pony of Ser has ever seen him. He never leaves the mountains, but if the legends are to be believed he didn't always live there. When Ser was small and poorly defined, he supposedly descended from the sky and claimed the mountains for his own. The pegasi turned traitor and that's about it. They keep on their mountains, we stay away for the most part. A-" He furrowed his brow. "Wait a minute, I don't have to tell you anything!" He pointed a hoof at the Prowler. "I'll give you whatever you want IF you let me have my way with this device."

"Sorry, no," Pinkie said, shaking her head. "It's not yours."

"Don't you want to know about this world!? I have a vast library in my house and an impressive store of knowledge within my mind! I could arm you with the greatest power of all - knowledge!"

Pinkie glanced to Myrrh - who imperceptibly shook her head.

"No is no, Windstream." Pinkie jumped onto the Prowler. "I think we'll be going."

Crypt nodded in agreement, jumping next to her. Myrrh took her position in the Prowler's harness and started it up, churning away into the distance.

"...That's the second time this month," Windstream muttered, driving his wrench into the ground. "First the Technician doesn't let me examine the armor, now this..."

He growled to himself, stewing in extremely negative thoughts while Pinkie and the rest of the group decided to skip town as quickly as possible.

13 - Left

Windstream walked into his strange, mostly-spherical house and slammed the door. He tried hard - oh so very hard - to forget about the Prowler. To just let them go on, continue on their adventures, leave him in the dust.

Let them leave him in this backwater town...

Where his genius was shunned and never appreciated...

He pushed the thoughts out of his mind, returning to his work. Currently, he was tinkering with a metallic needle twice as long as he was, suspended in the air by several cables. He levitated his wrench into the air and latched onto the hook on the back of the needle. He began to push it back and forth, discovering very quickly that he was sapping his energy. Keeping the periodic motion driven by his own magic for an hour would be near impossible, even if he had access to injections...

The Prowler though, it clearly didn't run on magic. It could have been set to rotate and provide the needed force for as long as he could dream. Of course, it needed fuel, but it would be a much simpler task to get solid fuel than magical fuel.

He twitched. They were gone. He just needed to let them go. Like he had let so many things before. Curiosities, ponies, everything. Even the Technician.

Your life is not defined by things passing you by, he told himself, shaking his head. You have a lab. You have experiments. Experiments nobody cares about... Every measly paycheck is spent entirely on food to keep your magic reserves up... He scowled, dropping his telekinetic grip on the pendulum-needle. He wasn't going to get any work done on it like this. For these precise experiments, a unicorn's mind needed to be clear.

He walked up the stairs to his humble observatory: little more than a balcony. He walked to his simple mounted telescope - ignoring, for the moment, the menacing cylindrical device he had set up right next to it. He looked into the sky, able to catch a beautiful glimpse of Lurse in the daytime sky. A smile came to his face - it was so beautiful and mysterious. If only the Academy would listen to him; he knew it was possible to reach it with enough power.

He looked down from Lurse to the scenery in the distance, taking in the distant southern sea, the forests, and...

His scowl returned when he caught sight of the Prowler heading down the road at a leisurely pace.

Taking away his opportunities... How dare Brook send their kind to him... Completely worthless...

He tore his head away from the telescope, hardly bothering to think anymore. Setting his hooves upon the menacing cylinder next to the telescope, his scowl twisted into a grin. I'll get that Prowler one way or another...

He strapped the metallic cylinder to the telescope, tapping it with his magic. This prompted a thin, metallic spike to protrude from the device. Once more, he returned his eye to the telescope and looked right at the Prowler.

"Steady... Steady..." He began to charge a magical current through the cylinder, keeping a hoof carefully placed on a lever in the back. "Steady..."

Twitcha-twitch.

Pinkie looked over the Prowler's edge. "Hey, Myrrh, think you could shift to the left a bit? I think it'd give us a nicer view."

"Caaaaan do!"

Windstream unleashed the magical discharge, prompting the iron spike to launch out of the barrel at supersonic speeds. It would have hit the Prowler dead on.

Had it not swerved to the left just before he fired. Instead, the rod harmlessly buried itself so deep into the ground it would not be recoverable.

"Oh for the love of snakes!" Windstream hissed. They hadn't seemed to notice the spike hit - which was to be expected, since it was so thin and the earth out there was so loose. They probably thought a rock had fallen or something. He rushed downstairs, took an apple out of his pantry, devoured it in a handful of seconds, and rushed back up to the telescope.

He had two spikes left. They were difficult to fashion, and he'd made all of them by hoof given the lack of excess funds. Which meant every one he fired was about a week of effort down the drain.

Windstream, to put it mildly, wasn't thinking.

He loaded another spike.

Twitcha-twitch.

"I'm thinking left-ish again."

"We'll be off the road," Crypt commented.

"Does it look like the Prowler needs road?"

Once more, they swerved out of the way just in time. Furious, Windstream didn't even stop to devour something before loading another spike into the barrel. He charged it up and aimed once again, this time with shaking hooves.

Twitcha-twitch.

"Myrrh! Rock! Left!"

"AUGH! NOT A ROCK!"

Crypt sighed. "The wheels can handle a rock..."

Then something metallic and moving really fast hit a rock about an inch to the left of them. The rock split in two with a resounding CRACK, and the thing itself buried itself deep into the ground.

"...Pinkie, are we being shot at?" Crypt asked.

"Yep!"

"WHAT!?" Myrrh shouted.

"Oh, don't worry, I think he just ran out of spikes," Pinkie shrugged. "We should probably move a bit faster though, so he doesn't get creative in his attempts to steal the Prowler."

"...Nobody takes my baby. Full steam ahead!"

There went his last spike.

They'd noticed it that time, and were now speeding away at a ridiculous velocity.

It was absurd. Annoying. And a waste. Not only had they taken away the Prowler, but they had also taken away his ammunition! It was just too much!

He had wasted too much energy. Legs shaky, he tried to turn away - but he just tripped over his front hooves and let out a whine of pain.

"Hey. You. Eat this."

He felt a granola bar hit him in the head. He ravenously devoured it without thinking - registering that someone was in his house. He turned around, eyes wild, jaw dropping when he saw a deep purple pegasus mare perched on his balcony. "Wh... Hah... Geh..."

"Yes, I'm a solder for the Sky King. No, I'm not here to kill you." She tossed her mane back. "I'm Crepuscular. Why are you shooting at that automatic cart?"

"I d-don't want any trouble with the Sky King! I apologize, I didn't k-"

"They're our enemies, I wanted you to hit them," Crepuscular deadpanned.

"Oh, right, they did say something about that..."

"Focus, goggles. Why were you shooting?"

"They refused to let me examine the Prowler."

Crepuscular nodded slowly. "I'll make it simple for you. It's hard for my kind to move in the lands of Ser, and their leader is too powerful for a direct attack to be worth the effort at this juncture. If you can get them into our hooves - by any means, I don't care - you could have the Prowler entirely to yourself."

Windstream paused. "...I'll need a bit more than that to work for the Sky King."

"What do you want?"

"Access to the devices in your clouds. I want to know how they work."

"We're done here," Crepuscular said, spreading her wings to reveal numerous blades.

"W-wait! I won't give it to anypony in Ser!"

"...Excuse me?"

"Just... give me a workshop in the Sky King's domain. One with resources! And funding! Let me live my dream of being a bright inventor!"

Crepuscular pondered this for a moment. "I can't promise you'll live your dream. But I can get you a private laboratory."

"I'll take it!" Windstream said, grinning. "All I have to do is capture them somehow?"

"Yes. And you won't have to work alone. My troop can work alongside you. But we are pegasi, and would be outed immediately. We do not have access to our storms this far from our borders."

"I can work with this..."

14 - Dreams

The Prowler rolled throughout the night.

One of the three would be awake at any given time, keeping watch for Sky King clouds, or other dangerous things. There would be little interaction between the trio.

Crypt did not want there to be. Their last conversation with Pinkie had been... concerning.

("How did you know to get us out of the way!?" Myrrh asked.

"Pinkie sense," Pinkie answered, brushing her mane back and grinning.

"Excuse me?" Crypt asked.

"It's a thing I can do where I can sense things about to happen. I can also sense stuff happening nowhere near us. Pretty sure Windstream is going to help the Sky King find us."

"You... KNOW that!?" Myrrh said, jaw hanging open. "H-how!? I've been exploring the world for years and I've never come across ANYTHING like that!"

"I'm Pinkie Pie! I'm pretty unique."

"You're the most powerful pony in the world," Crypt said, voice dry.

Pinkie looked into the distance. "...It's possible. I don't really know for sure.")

There had been little desire for conversation after that. Pinkie had tried to talk to them again, but Crypt had remained resolute and Myrrh had ended up trying to hit on the pink pony again, which just made Pinkie go sulk for a while.

Right now, Pinkie was on watch, and Crypt was trying to sleep.

He thought he wouldn't be able to.

He was wrong.

He dreamed...

("Heya, Crypt!" Pinkie announced with a grin. "Ready for the race?"

Crypt realized they were standing neck in neck, surrounded by vague, almost faceless ponies. They were on a road that led right into the Wilds, directly away from the lands of Ser.

"...We should not race here," Crypt said, matter-of-factly.

"Don't worry," Pinkie said with a wink. "I'll keep everypony safe! Don't you trust me?"

"...I trust you," Crypt said, nodding slowly. He hard a voice that sounded distinctly like his own screaming in the distance.

They ran. The other ponies didn't matter, it was just him and Pinkie, running into the Wilds. He fell behind as she jumped impossibly forward, swinging from branches, vines, and the necks of gigantic snakes.

They ran away from her in fear.

Crypt skidded to a stop. There it was. The grave.

Pinkie was leaning on the cross shape, a playful smirk on her face. She fluttered her eyes. "Quite the evening, huh Crypt?" She pulled him close, smirking deviously. "We could have some fun here, you and I."

"P-Pinkie..."

"Yes?"

The red gemstone in the grave started glowing profusely. Crypt could only scream as he thought of what it meant.)

(Myrrh slept, but awoke, but also slept.

Something was wrong.

Something had been wrong ever since the desert.

The dreams had never been the same.

She'd almost never had dreams before. And when she did, they were vague, blurry, distant.

Here they were as sharp as iron and as cold as ice. She was sitting in a cave she had sheltered in during a blizzard several years prior. She looked to her side, expecting to see a male griffon she had been spending a lot of time with.

She was shocked to see that he was nothing more than bones.

Gandriel was fine, right? When Myrrh left those griffon lands, he had been fine. Absolutely livid at her for flirting with the locals in the latest town, but fine nonetheless. This isn't what had happened...

"I'm coming for you, Myrrh," the deep, dark voice said.

"GO AWAY! You wanted me gone! I left!"

"You were not meant to survive..."

"I haven't seen you in years! YEARS! No sign! You gave up!"

"The heat does little to stop me, little one... It is just a manner of finding you."

"YOU'RE JUST A DREAM!" She shouted. "JUST A DREAM!"

"And your dreams have always been ugly, disgusting, and improper..."

"Not listening! Lalalalalalalalalalalalaal!)

Pinkie knew she was going to get a freaky dream the moment she went to sleep. Crypt was on watch. The two had shared a very awkward glance just a few seconds prior.

Pinkie wondered if he knew...

She shook her head and told herself to fall asleep.

(Pinkie was mildly surprised to find herself in the purple miasma from her last bizarre dream immediately.

"Pinkie!" a voice shouted in the distance. "Pinkie, where have you been!?"

That wasn't the reverberating voice from last time. That was a pony. A pony she knew.

"Flutter-" she stopped short, seeing a gigantic flower forming in the sky before her. It excreted a horrible gas that she could both see and not see. A yellow pegasus floated above it, tears falling down her eyes.

"Pinkie! It's too late! Run away!"

"I'm not leaving you!"

"A destination," the reverberating voice said from behind her. The image of the flower and the pegasus dissipated.

"Get lost," Pinkie muttered.

The being did no such thing, instead asking another question. "Why do you do what you do?"

"Ah-buh-buh-buh! Nope! I'm not answering your question until you answer mine!" She held out a hoof at the miasma - at the lightning, the clouds, and the churning darkness. "Are you the Sky King?"

"Why do you do what you do?"

"For Pete's sake, I'm not giving you what you want without a little information in return!"

"Why do you do what you do?"

Pinkie twitched. "Enough games. RAAAAAAH!" She charged forward, pulling out her hammer and swinging wildly.

She hit something.)

She woke up with a start. With a sigh, she closed her eyes agian and tried to go back.

All she returned to was a fragmented memory of a ring of energy, an explosion, and stars flying past her vision...

15 - Southward

Travel became awkward and uneventful.

They had stopped spending much time in towns at all - not only was the Sky King still after them and a risk to the places they went, but their experiences with Windstream hadn't left them with a very good impression of ponies around here. Sure, most were friendly, but clearly not all. It pained Pinkie and Myrrh, but it was best if they just moved towns quickly. After they'd found the technician, they might mix that up but for now...

Speed was of the essence.

Every town they entered was named in a similar way. Ser'mu'ze was one of the first, then Ser'mu'io, and on and on until the names blended together. They stopped being distinct, blurring together in a mess of ponies and buildings... The days wore on, and the moons changed positions with each other constantly.

"You could stay behind, you know," Pinkie told Crypt after they were preparing to leave Ser'mu'ka, having learned that the Technician passed through just as wordlessly here as everywhere else. "They'll be looking for me and Myrrh's Prowler. You can settle down."

Crypt didn't respond. He so rarely did. He talked to her even less now. Was he afraid of her? Had she done something wrong?

She didn't know. It haunted her. She was supposed to be the mare who made friends, and here she was, seemingly making things strained between them. Was it just because he was such a quiet person? ...No, that couldn't be it, she knew lots of quiet people, some really well...

Myrrh had stopped hitting on Pinkie too. Unlike Crypt, she was easy to read - she was scared of Pinkie. Sure, she'd laugh, she'd smile, but she'd also look at the pink pony with a wary expression every now and then as though she were some animal that might bite back.

"Myrrh, you don't have to be afraid you know."

"A-afraid? Psh, I'm not afraid, I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Myrrh..."

One of her companions never spoke, the other would never tell the truth about how she really felt about anything.

Could she even really call them friends?

Crypt, maybe, though for all she knew he had some ulterior motive for being here. Myrrh wasn't here by choice since she needed protection from the Sky King. Pinkie provided that, at least somewhat. More than anything else.

"Hiiiiya!" Pinkie shouted, decking a large beast with a dozen horns in the head with her hammer. It wobbled back and fell into a river. "Now sit there and think about what you've done!"

It whimpered.

So did Myrrh.

Pinkie would often sit up alone during the nights, making her watch longer than the others. She would look up at the stars, a twisting feeling in her heart that something was wrong.

She needed her friends. She needed them with her. She needed them badly. She couldn't lean on Crypt or Myrrh, not by a long shot, and the way they were going along they weren't likely to make many new friends. And they already had enemies. She had seen pegasi overhead a few times.

She had never seen a single pegasus living in a Ser town. They were always spoken of as outside. Other.

On one hoof that was depressing. On the other it let her know the Sky King was still watching.

"Where are you?" She asked the air, getting no response.

"What are you?" the thing in her dream asked.

"Why don't you come and find out!?"

She'd wake up breathing heavily. She knew the thing couldn't harm her, not in her dreams. But its continual visits were taxing her mental fortitude.

"You've been through worse, Pinkie," she told herself. "Farpoint. Zhui..."

You've never been separated from your friends this long.

She gulped. "I need to find you..."

She had started talking to herself a lot. Much more than was healthy.

With a sigh, she looked forward. The sun was high in the sky, and before them was their first actual city. Ser'ka'om. It was about time they got to an actual city - the unfortunate direction of their path had been along the western edge of the lands of Ser, ensuring that they encountered towns almost exclusively. The only cities on the direct southern route were Ser'ka'om and Ser'ga'pi. She hoped the Technician would stop before leaving the border.

It would be difficult to move through the dense jungle to the south. Already she could see patches of it that reached along the south-western edge of Ser, taunting her with mists, immense trees, and the sounds of exotic animals.

How she would have loved to jump off the Prowler just to see what was in there. But she couldn't. She couldn't abandon these two... acquaintances of hers.

She focused her gaze on Ser'ka'om, forcing a smile. This was a city. There would be more ponies, more culture, and more chance to find out what was going on. There might be an actual library, some politicians who actually knew something... They could stick around for a while. The Sky King wouldn't dare attack something this far away from his borders and so well defended.

There was hope.

"You look like you're in a good mood," Crypt said, emotionless.

"Yeah... I am," Pinkie said. A moment later she realized she didn't know if she had been telling the truth or not.

16 - Ser'ka'om

"Wow! You're a dragon?"

"You came all the way from the desert?"

"What's it like in the north?"

"Did the savages attack you?"

"Isn't being that close to the Sky King nerve-wracking?"

Myrrh let out a nervous laugh as she piloted the Prowler through the streets of Ser'ka'om, no small amount of ponies stopping to ask them curious questions. As was always the case when she entered a new area, Myrrh had a deep, contradictory mixture of 'I love seeing new things!' and 'something unexpectedly bad is going to happen, I can feel it...' Today, she tried to convince herself the second one was especially untrue. They were staying in the city specifically to be safe from the Sky King. It should have felt safer in the streets. None of the ponies were trying to hurt them and Pinkie wasn't having any of her inclinations...

Myrrh shivered at the thought of Pinkie's strange ability to know things. It was like she could read minds. Like now - she had just looked slightly ashamed of herself!

Myrrh quickly tried to push all conscious thought out of her mind, focusing instead on the scenery of Ser'ka'om. The buildings were a lot more compact than the villages and towns they had been traveling in over the last week or so, even though most were made out of the same simple wood and stone. There were significantly more decorative colors around, usually in the forms of banners draping the buildings. It was here Myrrh finally picked up on the symbol that represented Ser itself - a set of three vertical lines where the middle one was slightly longer than the others. They apparently liked coloring the symbol in any and all colors, though yellow, blue, and gray seemed the most common.

She had a pretty good theory about why that was, but she'd learned long ago not to point cultural things like that out. It could go south really quickly.

In the distance, she could see the three towers that cast immense shadows over the city of Ser'ka'om. The three of them were equal in height and had metallic protrusions that reached toward the area in the center but didn't touch, remaining separate constructions. They matched the three most common colors - blue, yellow, grey. If one could consider metal gray, that was. That tower was particularly shiny... almost hard to look at in the current light.

"I'm going to check out some party avenues!" Pinkie called to Myrrh. "Who wants to come?"

Crypt grunted. Myrrh thought about going with her at first, but closed her mouth before she could let out an affirming noise. You're being stupid, she told herself. Just agree to go. It won't hurt.

Pinkie visibly sighed. "I'll be around." She bounced behind a building, vanishing inexplicably.

Myrrh felt her stomach tie into knots. Upon realizing that she was feeling conflicted, she did what she had taught herself to do in this situation.

Find something to flirt with.

"Heeeeey Crypt!" Myrrh said, winking at him. "While she's off getting so-"

"I haven't said this because she's always around," Crypt said, interrupting her. "She would have chided me for being 'unfair' and 'short'. Well, she's gone, so let me make myself absolutely clear. You are to stop trying to get into any sort of relationship with me. You are not to insinuate that you might be interested. I will actively start humiliating you if you do not cease and desist immediately."

Myrrh's heart caught in her throat. With a reptilian hiss and tears in her eyes, she tore herself out of the Prowler's harness and took to the skies, leaving Crypt alone with the Prowler.

He didn't flinch.

The ponies who had been asking questions and watching closely decided now was a good time to disperse.

"MORE ROOT BEER!" Pinkie shouted, slamming her mug into the counter.

"...Wouldn't you like something... stronger?" the unicorn mare behind the counter asked.

"What? Why would I want anything stronger?" Pinkie laughed. "Then I'd get drunk and that's not really fun!"

"I didn't think you were looking to have fun."

Pinkie flattened her face into the bar countertop. She let out an annoyed moan.

The unicorn mare rolled her eyes and smiled sadly. She got Pinkie another root beer. "Want to talk about it?"

"I'm the most powerful pony in the world and everyone's afraid of me even though I smile all the time, laugh, and... who am I kidding, that sounds too ridiculous."

"...Maybe?"

Pinkie shrugged. "I just need some friends. The ponies I'm traveling with are either secrety-mystery-cryptic or emotionally unstable to the point of hiding behind like three different obvious masks!"

"...How long have you been holding this in?"

"I don't know! A week?" She took a huge swig of the root beer - drinking almost the entire mug in a few seconds. "I've lost my friends, I don't know the land very well, and... and... you know how you never realize something's important until it's gone?"

The unicorn nodded in sympathy. "My son left to find his fortune last year. I get letters every now and then, he's doing pretty well, but I never actually hear from him anymore." She found herself pouring a glass of root beer and taking a sip. "Believe it or not, it's a daily struggl..." Her eyes narrowed and she looked at her root beer in confusion. "This tastes wrong."

Pinkie narrowed her eyes. "Like, spoiled wrong or poisoned wrong?"

"Considering that I feel like passing out, probably the latter." The unicorn's eyes rolled into the back of her skull and she passed out.

Pinkie stared at her in shock - jumping to feel for a pulse. She was still alive, and there wasn't anything erratic happening in her body, so it had probably just been a sleeping drug.

It didn't take Pinkie long to realize they had been trying to drug her.

"Ha! Joke's on you! I'm immune to almost any intoxicant you could throw at me! Years and years and years of eating endless sugar and toxic dishes has given me a-" she yawned "-amazing tolerance for drugs..." Her eyes drooped. "...Ponyfeathers..." She teetered to the edge of her front hooves and fell flat onto the floor.

Then everything went black.

"Excuse me, sir, do you own this machine?" a mare's voice asked.

Crypt looked down at three robed unicorns, their robes so thick and billowing they completely hid everything that wasn't a face. Two mares and a stallion, wearing yellow, gray, and blue respectively.

"It's an acquaintance of mine's," Crypt said. "She'll be back eventually. I'm just watching it for now."

"Then we shall wait for her too."

"She won't want to sell it."

"We are not looking for purchase. We simply wish to know where such fine engineering came from. It is beyond our knowledge, even as the Priesthood of Om."

Crypt shrugged. "Be my guest. I have no idea when she'll be back, so if you're in the mood to wait a while..."

17 - Drugged

Pinkie's unconscious form was dumped into a dark basement somewhere within the shady depths of Ser'ka'om.

Crepuscular tore her hood off and let out a sigh of relief. "It worked," she said, turning on a lantern.

A few other pegasi were in the basement along with Windstream. The unicorn perked up. "I told you it would work. She's biological in nature, no matter what, she would have fallen."

"It almost didn't," Crepuscular commented, removing her cloak completely. She carefully unbound the rope that had been keeping her wings painfully pinned to her sides. The things she went through for the sake of avoiding the mob. "She bragged about being heavily resistant to such thing."

Windstream shrugged. "Then we just need to keep the sedatives at high levels. She won't wake up unless we want her to."

"Good," Crepuscular said, glaring at the pink pony. "...We could kill her now..."

"And waste this opportunity to study magic beyond the three divisions!?" Windstream gasped. "Are you insane?"

The pegasus facehooved. "While you are right that we shouldn't, I was thinking more that she would be useful for leverage. We haven't seen the Gem of Oreand with them, they may have hidden it. With her under our control we could extort the information in exchange for her." She furrowed her brow. "Though she is a major risk..."

"No discoveries would be made if ponies didn't take risks," Windstream huffed.

Crepuscular nodded in admission - he was right there. They would keep her alive. Though definitely not awake. Nothing they had seen attack them had been able to keep her pinned or still for even a minute.

"Can I run my tests?" Windstream asked.

"Sure. Don't wake her up, though, under any circumstances."

"Oh, I won't." He quickly opened up a small box of tools, undoing the silvery latch with his magic. He took out a pair of tweezers and plucked some of her hairs. Her coat seemed perfectly normal, though her mane had an unusual springiness to it. He sniffed it, finding that it smelled like sugar. With a curious expression, he reached into her mane trying to pull something out like they had seen her do so many times before.

He only found more mane hairs. "Hmm..."

He tested her eyes - big, bright, and just as responsive as they should have been while drugged this heavily. Everything seemed normal about her.

Until he took a blood sample.

"What in...?" He looked at the neon red liquid coming from the minuscule cut he had made at the bottom of her foreleg. "What IS this?"

Crepuscular was interested enough to end her conversation with the other pegasi. "...Hmm..."

"I have no idea what could cause a blood color this... neon. I wonder if she's even a pony..."

"There's something more concerning," Crepuscular said, frowning. "We've never seen this color before now. Nothing she's encountered has managed to draw blood from her - we would have noticed it. She's been hit with things more than powerful enough..."

"She's not more durable than a normal pony though!" Windstream complained. "She has bones, skin, flesh... all behaving normally right now! ...There must be some conscious component to it..."

"Don't wake her up."

"I won't! Promise!"

Myrrh alighted on top of a four-story building with an impressive ledge on the roof. She was trying her best not to think about anything. She'd already had her cry. Time to be a big girl and just...

...Just what?

She had to go back. She couldn't leave the Prowler. And she wasn't about to kick them off of it...

Could she even do that if she wanted? Crypt, maybe. Pinkie...

She'd try to get them to talk it out, to resolve their differences peacefully.

Why does she have to be that way? Myrrh thought angrily to herself. I could always rely on my claws before if it came to it! She's... she's hindering me!

She's protecting me.

Myrrh groaned, realizing there wasn't really a way out of it. Of course she'd stop going after Crypt - as painful as it would be for her to quell her urges, she could do it. She knew she could. There had been many times she was in enemy territory and her 'way' would just have gotten her killed.

It never felt right, though.

All of a sudden she found herself wanting to talk to Pinkie about it.

Am I going crazy!?

The next thing she saw made her honestly consider the thought. In the city center, an open marketplace in the center of the three towers, she saw someone.

Or, rather, something.

It had a slender form marked with two legs and two arms. The upper limbs ended in five-fingered hands, one of which was rubbing the back of the creature's round, featureless head. Every inch of it was covered in a sort of shiny white carapace dotted with occasional green highlights. Where there should have been a face, there was only a smooth blue plate that might have been glowing slightly. Even with her draconic eyes, it was hard for her to tell in the middle of the day.

After she confirmed she wasn't crazy - seeing multiple ponies around the thing looking at it curiously as it walked by - she knew exactly what she was looking at.

The Technician. Of course, armor had been mentioned, and it had been a highly unusual creature... This had to be it!

Forgetting all her emotional problems momentarily she bolted back to the Prowler.

Crypt looked at her with an annoyed expression. "About ti-"

"NO TIME!" Myrrh shouted. "I FOUND THE TECHNICIAN!" She ignored the protests of the robed ponies and pushed the Prowler into overdrive, charging right toward the city center. She barely registered that the ponies began pursuing them.

18 - Technician

Crypt held on to the Prowler's top as hard as his hooves would let him - which wasn't very hard, but he managed to keep from falling off. "Slow... down!"

"But then we might miss it!" Myrrh called back, taking a sharp turn toward the city center, knocking over a cabbage stand. "SORRY! I'll pay for that later!"

"Myrrh there's no way you actually just found the technician wandering a-"

And then Crypt saw it.

Two arms... two legs... white armor with green highlights that covered everything...

It looked exactly as he remembered. He'd only gotten one glimpse in N, but this was undoubtedly the same thing.

He suddenly felt concerned. It might know...

"I knew it!" Myrrh laughed, taking his silence as confirmation. "That's it! Woo! Myrrh's still got it ba-by!" She gaged on her words. "N-not that you're my, uh, uh..."

"Focus on not crashing!" Crypt shouted.

Myrrh managed to get enough control back in her feet to avoid crashing into a mango cart, skidding to a stop just at the marketplace's edge. She unholstered herself and jumped toward the Technician. "Hey!"

The Technician took one look at the fuschia dragon and bolted, running for the front doors of the chrome tower.

"Wh- come back here we just want to talk!" Myrrh called.

Crypt sighed as Myrrh flew after the humanoid being. At least this gave him an excuse not to get involved with the being. The less it saw him, the better. ...Though if he was being fair, there was probably no way it would recognize him.

But he wasn't known to be fair. He was known to be cautious.

The robed ponies caught up with him - the one in blue robes staying behind. "...Why is your friend pursuing the Technician?"

"We came in search of it," Crypt answered. "She's just getting excited. Probably desperate for some success or point."

"...The Technician is under the protection of the Priesthood of Om. If she does not wish to see you, she will not see you."

"...She?!"

The priest ignored his startled expression. "No doubt your friend is about to be arrested for undue harassment. It will be a simple matter to seize her possessions after that."

Crypt stared at him. He had to admire the priest for thinking that far ahead, even if it was a bit inconvenient.

"You'll have to speak to our leader to finalize that," Crypt asserted. "It may be that, in the event of Myrrh's absence, the cart falls to Pinkie's ownership. I do not know for certain, myself, but I believe it would be legally troubling for you if that was the case, correct?"

The priest twitched. "You are correct... I will need to speak with this... Pinkie."

The two of them glanced back at Myrrh, who had tackled the Technician to the ground. "I just want to talk!"

"You have some way of talking!" the Technician said - definitely female. A lot younger-sounding than anyone had expected, at that.

At this point, the yellow and white robed mares took up flanking positions to the sides of Myrrh, their horns brimming with electricity and light, respectively.

"Uh..." Myrrh gulped. "H-hey, I'm sure this is all just a misunderstanding..."

"Yeah, it is," the Technician said. There was a burst of blue light from a pack on her back, launching her up with enough force to knock Myrrh off of her. "I have no idea who you are."

"Well duh, but we were just looking for you!"

"Why?"

Myrrh paused. "I... uh... well we're on the run from the Sky King and Pinkie said you might know something interesting and we found your mark at the top of the tower thing and uh..."

"So, no good reason?" Myrrh could feel the Technician raise an eyebrow behind her blue visor.

"Er..."

"Yeah, apparently not." She dusted herself off. "Go easy on her, will you?" she asked the priests.

"She assaulted you and must be tried," the yellow one responded.

"If you have to." The Technician shrugged. "Just make the sentence minimized. Like, oh, what would happen if she tackled someon- somepony random in the street."

"It will be done."

The Technician nodded. "I need to get back to work - the calibration of the reality fibers is well overdue, and if I'm to make any progress with breaching the interference I need my full focus. Keep me secluded until the sun rises tomorrow, okay?"

"Yes, of course."

The Technician flashed her a thumbs up and entered the chrome tower.

Myrrh looked at the ground, disappointed.

"So, we're going to have to go easy on you..." the white mare said, pursing her lips. "Hmm..."

"Lock her up for a day and let her go?"

"Sure. Hammer Smasher wouldn't want to deal with this."

The two of them carried Myrrh over to the blue priest. She didn't fight. The blue priest took a thin metallic wire from his robes and bundled it together, creating a rope he used to cuff Myrrh's hands and feet.

"That was dumb," Crypt said.

"Yeah..."

"They're trying to take the Prowler."

"W-WHAT!?"

"They won't be able to do it without talking to Pinkie since she's in charge of us." he hoped to the Myst that she wasn't stupid enough to give up his little ruse.

"Oh... right..." she smiled weakly at him.

"Now, try to behave in jail for a day."

"I actually tend to enjoy jails," Myrrh commented. "You meet the most interesting people..."

Crypt facehooved as she was carried away. He noticed, with annoyance, that the blue priest was still here.

"What do you want?"

"I want this Prowler."

"Pinkie's not here."

"Then we're going to find her."

Crypt groaned. "Fine. We can hunt for her, but knowing her, she could be anywhere in town."

"Then we will search."

With a grunt, Crypt popped his head into the Prowler and turned on the engine again. He still had no idea how Myrrh controlled it from outside. Slowly, they started moving through the city.

"I am a Priest of Iron. My name is Ore's Depth. You may call me Rectifier."

Crypt found his hatred of this random stallion increasing with every passing moment.

19 - A Cancellation

"What? Hey!" Pinkie shouted, pointing up at the title of the chapter. "What gives?"

Since she was dreaming, she didn't kn-

"Shush, I know what you're doing. You're canceling the story!"

I mean, yeah, there was that blog post about it...

"That was putting it on hiatus. But now... now you're getting rid of it? WHY?"

Hey, no using emotes in prose. That's not h-

" You're canceling the story I can do what I want."

Fine.

"Good. Now explain to me why you're bothering to make an entirely new chapter that'll get people's hopes up only to dash them when they read the first few sentences? Sounds cruel. Why not just quietly wipe this thing away?"

Well, because while I'm canceling Yiyxa, I'm going to be re-using a lot of ideas from it in another story. A re-imagining of sorts, if you will. It's called The Protagonist.

"Ooooooh. Am I the Protagonist?"

No. The readers get to create the Protagonist themselves in the story's comments.

"Wow! Do I get to meet this Protagonist?"

Probably.

"Right. So... We just leave it here? With me drugged and everything?"

Well, I am going to rewind everything and erase a lot of the world's finer edges... You won't be drugged. In fact, everything that happened will just be undone. The world will even change far beyond what I had in mind...

"How much?"

More than I'm willing to reveal to the readers!

"Aw, drat, I was hoping for some juicy insider tidbits!"

That's the problem, I need to keep this a level playing field. Interactive stories are a fun little juggling dance, you know?

"Nope!"

Ah. Right. Well, let me just... reset this all.

"Do you have a nice explanation for the reset? Or is it just because I say so?"

Oh, I do have a nice explanation, but most people won't understand it. Ahem.

ZAP!

I stood at the grave Lone Crypt had created at the start of the story that would have no ending.

I frowned. This grave remained. What else? I knew not.

I flared my large purple wings, allowing the rain to cover every part of me. I took a moment to relish in the simple pleasure of the water.

Then I sighed - who was I kidding? I couldn't pretend to revel in this. A story had just been undone, left without an ending. Maybe somewhere in the expanse of existence, it was completed. But not here.

"I'm sorry," I said, looking down - at the world below my hooves. The center of the universe known as Yiyxa.

So many things they didn't get to figure out...

So many mysteries.

How many mysteries would be kept in the redefinition?

"Take care of this world," I told the readers. "It is in your hands. And... many of you know what can happen at your hands."

I spread my wings and took to the air, leaving the grave behind. I tore a hole in reality and left Yiyxa behind.

Endings are lies.