Chapters
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A little while later.Vesper stared across a vast gulf, hovering in the air on a pair of membranous wings. Before her was a terrible vortex of stormy sky, where gale winds lifted chunks of rock as big as houses and flung them like toys. The desert landscape beneath it was scoured clean, with huge gaps and craters that suggested a sustained bombardment. Vesper adjusted the goggles over her eyes, keeping out the moisture as best she could.The wind howled, but she kept herself still in the air. At least around…-
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Bit was not alone for long—only a few seconds. There were pounding hoof falls behind her, and Pathfinder appeared, catching up with her. "Then I'm going too! The Union might think I'm too unpredictable to lead a trade, but that doesn't mean I can't help in other ways. How can we really know we got everything worth taking from the palace if nobody comes back?"He hesitated, retreating a few steps closer to her as they climbed. "I just hope you're sure, or I'll die too. And if that sounds like a reason to…-
67.7 K •
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Bit stepped into the royal bedroom, and found it occupied. But there was no pony reclining in bed, as she had so often seen her Wizard as the years wore on. Instead she found a pair of automatons near the door, their bodies making strange clicking and whirring sounds as they moved. They twitched in her direction, apparently regarding her, but she could see no visual signs.No eyes blinked, and they lacked speech. They were visibly damaged, and not just a consequence of a long time without maintenance. One…
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67.7 K •
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Bit brought the injured pony back with her to the tower.It wasn't easy to make the trip—even skirting the edge of the square brought stares and shouts of confusion and fear. Ponies scattered around them, shouting about “death machines”. Before her eyes, whole sections of the temporary town collapsed, as ponies trampled over and around each other to escape from within.She thought about leaving Pathfinder there, so that his own ponies could find him. Whatever sickness he had contracted would be best…
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67.7 K •
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For the first time in Bit's timeless existence, she found herself beset with an entirely unique problem: a task that was time sensitive. This was her one great advantage, the thing that made the Wizard sing so much praise to her precision and thoroughness. She could devote herself completely to every endeavor she attempted, learning every possible fact of relevance, examining it from all angles, and only acting when she was precisely confident in her choice.This was how she had got the power working, with…
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Bit watched as the crystal seed spread through Pathfinder. She had positioned him atop a plastic liner, body raised so that he would let no crystal feelers grow into the rest of the lab. In crystalcraft, such growth was normally performed within isolated chambers, kept electrically charged to prevent outgrowth. Bit had to make do with the resources she could get her hooves on.Pathfinder had been so borderline that he might not have even survived transport down to the basement crystal chambers.Then again,…
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67.7 K •
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Secretary Keen Ardor stared openly at her reply, unblinking. Finally he levitated something from a pocket—a tiny pad of paper and a pencil. It was no thaumic recorder, but it seemed effective enough at the same purpose. "How much of that is euphemism?" he asked. "The cold bit first. You don't require warmth?" He shivered as he said it, brushing a few faint wisps of snow from his mane."I barely feel it," she said. "I can be harmed by temperatures, but only in the swift transition between great cold and…
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67.7 K •
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By the time Bit made it back to the tower, the sun was low on the horizon, stretching all the shadows into the reaching talons of an angry mob. But the threat was nowhere to be seen—there was no mob, no soldiers storming the building and tossing equipment from the windows. The tower's lights still shone from the upper floors.Sorry to keep you waiting, Pathfinder. I hope you didn't wake up yet. There were a pair of soldiers waiting at the gate, wearing the same gear symbols that Keen Ardor had worn. They…
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67.7 K •
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Pathfinder took a slow, exaggerated breath. Of course it no longer served the same purpose, since they didn't require respiration. That cavity worked only to allow them to speak. Which was what Pathfinder did. "You are going to tell me... what you did to me," he said. "And how we reverse it."Bit didn't look away, even as he advanced on her. Though maybe she shouldn't expect entirely rational behavior—he had only just been created. In some ways, he was also the first of his kind. A pony of crystal created…
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It didn't matter that Bit's entire world had changed. It didn't matter that she was no longer the only member of her species, and that she'd confirmed beyond any doubt that she was alive. What mattered was that she had a report to file, and that was exactly what she did.Bit gathered every observation she'd made over the course of Pathfinder's treatment. Most of them were about her own experience trying to follow the crystal production process, and the difficulties she'd encountered as a result. She wasn't…
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