King and I - 15

Lily seems very keen to get somewhere. Her “tour” is less of a leisurely stroll and more of a power walk to an unknown destination. Instead of pointing out landmarks and important facilities, she’s shouting at the other ponies running around the base for getting in the way. The entire place becomes one big blur as she deftly ignores every room she passes by.

“Where are we going?” You ask, struggling to keep pace with her. She ignores your question for a moment, shoving a pig headed drunken guard out of the way first.

“We need to get to the blacksmith; he’s going to help us get rid of your collar. We’ve wasted enough time already so try to keep up,” she demands in a condescending tone. She’s all warm and friendly when there’s another pony to recruit, but once she’s got you it’s all business.

She makes a sharp right that causes you to stumble on the muddy floor. The hallways have opened up even more now into a large system of tunnels and caves. This must have been some kind of mine before the conflict. The rails for the mine carts still wind around the place like metal snakes. Occasionally one is pushed pass you by a burly crystal pony, full to the brim with more crates that are either supplies or the weapons from Equestria.

She comes to a sudden stop. She politely knocks on the old wooden door before opening it slowly. “Come in!” A gravelly voice yells from inside. Lily ushers you into the room. A large black furnace takes up a good portion of the place, a roaring fire still blazing inside its open maw. A large funnel runs from the top into the ceiling, a ventilation system for the heavy smoke.

A sooty grey earth pony hammers away and an anvil, the white hot metal being folded into the shape of a new piece of armor, although you aren’t quite sure what it’s designed for. Pony armor design isn’t your specialty. Lily stands there patiently as he places the hammer down and delicately picks up the metal plate with a pair of tongs, dipping them into a bucket of cold water. A rush of steam bellows from the bucket as his attention is placed on his commanding officer.

“Good morning commander, it’s been a while since you’ve been down here,” he greets her, shaking her hoof with his own.

“Haven’t had much time with all that’s going on,” she replies, wiping her now soot covered hoof against the floor. “I came down here to pick your brain for a little while, I hope you don’t mind.”

“I can always make time for you Sir,” he nods, looking to you, “a fresh face? Who’s your new friend?”

“This is Rose; she’s agreed to help us out.”

The blacksmith confidently walks up to you, eyebrows wiggling. “A pretty name for a pretty lady,” he lifts one your hooves up in his own and places a dainty kiss on it. You give him a nervous smile and chuckle while repressing the urge to gag.

“Such a flatterer,” you seethe.

“Keep it in your sheathe Anvil,” she chides, knocking him around the back of his head. “We came here on business, not so you can flirt with the new girl.”

“O-of course Sir,” he apologizes, “business as always.” The commander doesn’t seem too convinced, but she seems to drop the problem for now.

“You see that slave collar, get rid of it,” She asks simply. Anvil nods and heads over to his tools, his hoof drifts across the selection before pulling out a pair of fence cutters. You wonder why a blacksmith needs something usually reserved for breaking and entering. “Need a hoof?” Anvil nods as he drags the large cutters towards you. Seems a bit overkill for a leather collar.

“Isn’t that a bit much? Can’t you just use some scissors?”

“Scissors aren’t going to get through that stuff,” Lily says taking the other handle opposite Anvil. “It’s designed to withstand little stuff like that, it was originally used to identify slaves from these gem mines, but the conflict put production of hold and now they’re mainly used as low level bondage gear for pouty nobles.”

Anvil and Lily position the cutters, prying it under the collar. It’s a tight squeeze and it cuts of your airflow, forcing you to breath rapidly through your nose. They’re quite blunt, so you don’t see how it’ll actually cut through the thing. “On three, one, two, three-“

“Arrrrggggghhhh!” they both shout, bodies tensed. The cutters fall away as they both wrestle with their suddenly uncooperative muscles. Anvil falls to the floor, still convulsing. Lily manages to hold herself steady, but is rendered unable to move for several minutes. You sit there, unable to decide whether to run and get help or stay and watch over them.

Luckily they begin recover on their own. Slight signs of movement come from the previously unconscious Anvil and Lily takes a moment to sit down and gather herself. “W-what the buck was that!” She yells finally regaining control of her vocal cords. “Anvil, you ok buddy?” She prods his body a few times, to which he only returns a quiet groan. “He’ll be fine.”

“So… you can’t get it off?” You ask suddenly disheartened. The idea of getting rid of that collar, another hallmark of Sombra’s manipulation actually had you quite excited for once in your currently dire life. It seems that nothing wants to go your way recently.

“Tartarus no, there’s some kind of spell on that thing stopping us,” Anvil declares, finally rising from the ground. Lily nods and takes a closer look.

“No latch to get it off, but no signs of any active enchantment.”

“Sombra had to use his magic on it to make it work,” you point out.

“Selective control, that’s some advanced stuff for something that small. Either Sombra’s getting senile these days or he’s using you as a test subject,” Lily scoffs. “No tact, honestly.”

“You were expecting the slave driving tyrant to have tact?” Anvil quips. Lily glares at him before turning back to you. “Yeah, let’s not try that again.”

“There’s something to be said about respecting a lady,” Lily complains, “some royalty he is.”

“He isn’t really royalty though, is he?” Anvil fires back.

“I suppose not,” she concedes, “let’s not get distracted.”

“What is this collar thing about,” you ask, tired of their argument. “You guys just got shocked and paralyzed, and you’re busy arguing over whether or not Sombra is a bucking gentlecolt or not?”

“We can’t do anything about it,” Anvil interrupts, “this is some extremely advanced magic, and the few unicorns that work with us have the magical understanding of an eight year old filly.”

“He’s right,” Lily admits. “We don’t have brains to pick over this so it’s going to have to stay for now.”

“What if it has some kind of tracking spell on it too? Sombra could be sending soldiers over here right now,” you point out.

Lily laughs, “Tracking spell? I don’t think so. That’s usually reserved for something larger, like some important cargo. Even then it only lasts for so long. I’m pretty sure the King wasn’t planning on you getting captured…”

So why did he run off?

“…and didn’t have the foresight to put a tracking spell on that thing before you left. It’s impossible for him to put a long lasting spell on that little collar.”

“So how did he put such a powerful shock spell on it too?” Anvil ponders. Lily stops in her tracks for a moment.

“I don’t know,” she seethes. Anvil flinches and backs up from the irritated mare. “It doesn’t matter now, if there was a tracking spell on the thing he’d be down here with all of his army by now, so just shut up before I shove those cutters up your ass.”

This mare needs to take a chill pill. Anvil nods mutely and turns back to his workstation. “We’re done right? I need to get back to work.”

“Fine, come on.”

---

You’ve been walking in silence for quite a while now, the gradient of the floor indicating that you’re heading to the surface. The tunnels have become increasingly empty as you’ve gone along, an occasional spattering of discarded boxes and supplies break up the monotony. Lily’s voice cuts through the silence.

“You’re probably wondering what I need you to do when you get back to the castle.”

“I thought we’d have discussed this earlier,” you say in confusion.

“Don’t tell him, but Anvil rustled my feathers so to speak. I’m not willing to take any more chances with Sombra and his fancy magic tricks. He’s caught us out one too many times for my liking.” So she got angry at him because he was right? This mare is kind of a bitch.

“Anyway, it’s real easy stuff. I just need you to give me the inside angle on what’s going down in the castle, potential sleepers, supply locations, guard movements, all that fun stuff. It’ll be simple to report back too, one of our guys works in the mail room and combs through all the stuff, which is why we knew about Spyglass’ impending execution.

Just mark your letter with an “R” and he’ll pick it out. There’s no time limit, so don’t feel pressure to put yourself in abnormal amounts of danger,” she smiles at her salesmare pitch. She stops as the cascading light crosses the tip of her hooves; you’re at the exit already. You can’t see outside from this angle because of the harsh mid-day sun. “Just tell some bullshit to them about how you escaped; they’ll believe anything these days.”

She stands there for a moment before realizing something. “Oh and never tell them where you came from,” she warns with an out of place smile.

“I don’t think I could find your base again if I tried,” you wave her off. Knowing full well the path she took, but she doesn’t need to know that does she. You’re also fairly certain that was a thinly veiled threat pointed firmly in your direction.

With that she turns and descends back into the tunnels leaving you on your lonesome once again. You walk out of the cave mouth to a beautiful looking vista that covers a lot of the Empire. The city stands tall and proud in the distance, its glimmering spires reflecting the morning sunlight. The streets are empty of civilians still; you mustn’t have been gone for long as you can still see the occasional guard patrol march up and down the streets.

You’re fairly close to the outer dome of the city. You look behind you and see that it abruptly cuts away part of the hill the mine is dug into. A degraded wooden scaffold still stands around the mouth, but it’s clear that this mine hasn’t been used for its original purpose for some time.

You have quite a ways to walk to get back to the city; you’re close to the farm that Sombra showed off on his tour of the city. You trot across the green fields and onto the dirt path before following it back to the city. You take in the scenery in this brief moment of solitude. A few animals, bunnies and birds fly and run across the fields. It almost makes you forget the bloody civil war currently happening under the surface.

The dirt soon gives way to the crystal. The guards don’t pay much attention to the roads; the rebels must have another way of getting into the city. Considering their entrenched position underground it isn’t unreasonable to presume that they have some kind of tunnel system running under the city and have completely forgone the direct approach. It’s a good strategy considering their ability to infiltrate the hanging and blend into the crowd.

You approach the Palace, the mess from the battle still scattered across the ground. They haven’t had the opportunity to clean it up yet. Blood stains still spread across the formerly pristine ground. The door is now guarded; the two ponies stationed there gawp as you walk up to them casually. “May I enter?” you ask as if nothing was up.

They look to each other for a moment. “Okay, but you’ll need to talk to the King straight away.”

The other nods and opens the door, motioning for you to follow him back to the throne room.

---

Sombra lets out a mighty yawn from his seat on the crystal throne. Without Rose around it was dreadfully boring. Picking on the help wasn’t as fun as the flustered mare he’d been toying with for the past month.

Sombra knew full well the risk associated with letting Rose of the leash, the potential for her to be switch to the other side. He grimaces as he remembers his brother’s reaction to the news of her capture. Unbeknownst to the short sighted unicorn, this was an important step in bring them down. He wrote out new plans in his head for every situation all the time, to make sure he was one step ahead of everypony else.

Mild hubris aside, Sombra knew exactly how to keep Rose on a short chain for the time being. Not only would it cause her to falter in undermining him, but it would benefit him too. All pretenses of keeping the relationship solely professional, or master and slave in this case, were flung out of the window as soon as Fury set his sights on her too. Luckily he already had a head start on the mage.

He looked out of one of the stained glass windows running down the room. They weren’t always like that, before the rebellion they were open for all to enter and exit. Most didn’t out of courtesy for the various nobles and citizens waiting for an audience. It provided a valuable way for guards to dart between the ground and the throne room so they could keep him in the know.

Rose… a fanged grin split his calm façade. What a perfect little guinea pig, proficient in a form of forbidden magic none of the others had demonstrated. He had struck gold. But now he had to wait in the hopes that she hadn’t perished under the eye of those rebels. It was a fairly safe bet to say they hadn’t executed such a high value target; they do have spies among his staff after all filling them in on all the gritty details.

Maybe the guards should pay them a visit, a nice way to build reliance on their new, weakest link.

---

His scheming is interrupted by a knock at his grand door. He had asked the guards to leave him along unless something important happened. “Enter,” he shouts down the long hall. The guard pushes open the door and allows you in; he doesn’t follow after you, having to return to his post at the front door.

Sombra looks surprised at your sudden arrival. You get the distinct feeling that he knows exactly what happened and has some malicious ideas in mind for your new position. It this case it seems the only winning move is not to play.

“How good to see you again,” he begins with false sincerity, “I was hoping you’d escape from the grasp of those rebels before something awful befell you.”

He sweeps onto the floor and wraps a hoof around your neck like you’re a pair of old friends, quite unlike him. He holds his smile for a moment, dropping it when he notices your unamused glare. “You’re an asshole,” you jab.

His face clenches, “Nice to see you too.” He drops the act and returns to his throne, resting his head on a leg as if he were bored. “I suppose you’re wondering why I didn’t do anything about your capture?”

“Naturally.”

“I’m afraid that I couldn’t spare the resources to rescue you. There was quite the battle raging after you were moved and I had to make sure my guard could handle it.”

You study his expression for a minute, noticing a slight falter as you remain silent. “What’s the real reason?”

He laughs a loud, rapturous belly laugh. It catches you off guard considering his humorless demeanor. You stand there, baffled as he tries to calm himself down. “You’re good, really good. You saw right through me didn’t you? Most others wouldn’t dare to ask again.” He takes a deep breath and wipes his face. “I must apologize, that was most unbecoming of me.”

“You wanted them to make me their informant didn’t you?”

“Naturally! I can’t just imprison all those nasty little weasels running around my palace without giving them a suitable replacement first. It’d be rude of me,” he grins, picking at one of his hooves with another. “Listen closely dear, I will not repeat this. Do not give them the information they want or else there will be consequences, are we clear?”

You nod.

“Good,” he shakes a hoof at the door, “you may leave, and dinner is being prepared as we speak. So come to the dining room in half an hour.”

“Wouldn’t dream of missing it,” you mutter sarcastically as you walk down the corridors to your room. The guards have been moved away from your door, a small comfort knowing that Sombra at least trusts you enough to walk around unattended. You open the door to your room and flop down onto the bed, your day isn’t even over yet and you feel like death