“Just a few more steps, Moondancer,” Spike said, walking backwards and guiding the unicorn with his voice, since she was too tired to lift her head enough to see where she was going.
“I’m going to actually die,” she croaked. “I can feel the blackness creeping in at the corners of my vision… spots flashing before my eyes…”
“Don’t die,” Bon Bon said. “We haven’t seen a Giant Floating Crystal on this entire mountain, so you’d have to climb all the way back up.”
Moondancer wobbled, then slumped to the ground on the snow-covered slope, head resting in the thick powder.
Derpy descended and took hold of her, and lifted her limp form into the air, flying her the remaining twenty feet to the top of the pass, where Spike cleared off a patch of rock with his fire breath, leaving it toasty warm for the ponies to rest on.
“So… where’s the train?” Derpy asked.
“Obvious Trader mentioned someplace called ‘Moriaz’,” Bon Bon said. “It’s probably farther down the path.”
Moondancer groaned.
“The path looks pretty flat,” Spike said, patting her on the head. “It just goes along the ridge for a while.”
Moondancer grumbled something incomprehensible.
Spike chattered on, “And we’re probably past the orcish territory. There’s nowhere to hide up here, and I don’t see anything but snow.”
“The orcs could be hiding in the snow,” Bon Bon suggested.
Spike raised an eyebrow. “They’re bright red.”
Bon Bon shrugged. “There’s a lot of snow.”
“Well, I’m in no hurry,” Derpy said, bouncing around in the snowbanks at the edge of the melted area. “Trader is kind of a jerk, so I don’t care how long we keep him waiting.”
“He might have had a reason for us to hurry,” Spike said, then added as Derpy opened her mouth, “A reason other than being a jerk.”
“So you think we should head out immediately?” Bon Bon asked. “Who’s going to carry Moondancer not it.”
“Not it!” Derpy said.
“Huh?” Spike said, confused.
“You have to carry Moondancer!” Derpy said, giggling and rolling over onto her back, flapping her wings to make a snow alicorn.
Spike considered the motionless pony. He was probably strong enough to lift her, but she was so much larger than him. “I guess we’re waiting, then,” Spike said, rolling his eyes.
===
Fort Spike sat atop the mountain pass, its many cannon and catapults on the ready, keeping a careful eye out for the pirate invasion force rumored to be in the area.
It was quiet. Too quiet. An innocent cloud drifted overhead.
“Time for a little target practice,” said the artillery commander. “All cannon, focus on that cloud!” One after the other, the massive guns shook and hurled their deadly balls into the sky, heading right for the innocent bit of fluff – only for it to dodge out of the way at the last second.
“Return fire!” shouted the captain of the pirate airship hiding in the cloud. But forced to move and dodge, the ship’s fire was inaccurate and mostly splatted harmlessly against the sturdy walls of the fort.
“Are you two having fun?” Bon Bon asked, reclining on the still-warm patch of rock, next to the still-unconscious Moondancer. Her friends were too busy laughing and throwing snowballs at each other to answer, but that was an answer in itself.
She sighed, and pried open Moondancer’s lips to slip a jelly bean inside. Moondancer’s jaw moved, chewing it, and she eventually swallowed.
“It didn’t work,” she croaked, not so unconscious after all. “The problem with extreme exhaustion is a build-up of lactic acid, not a lack of energy per se.”
Bon Bon searched through her saddlebag. “I’ve got some poison-curing lemon –” she cut off as a snowball splatted against her face, and stood up, glowering. “Hey, what’s the big idea?”
Derpy and Spike stopped their fight to look at her. “Huh?” Spike asked.
“Which one of you threw that?” Bon Bon asked, wiping off her face. A huge wet snowball smacked into the back of her head, soaking her mane.
“Uh…” Spike said.
“Right,” Bon Bon said, shaking out her mane. “It wasn’t you. That one wasn’t even from the right direction.”
Spike shakily lifted a claw to point behind her, and Bon Bon whirled around. There, standing in the snow as if they’d always been there, was a line of crude snowponies – each was just a lump of snow rising from the ground, with a stick poking out of the rear end as a tail, a rolled sphere for a head, and little lumps of coal for eyes. Some of them had carrots sticking out where a unicorn’s horn would be, others had bare forked branches to either side of their bodies, like wings.
“Those weren’t there before,” Bon Bon said. “Did you see them appear?”
“No,” Spike said, “but I saw the one in front use her horn to throw that snowball.”
“You mean her carrot,” Derpy said.
With a groan, Moondancer got to her hooves, and lit her horn to start shaping a wall out of the snow at the edge of the melted area.
“What are you doing?” Bon Bon asked.
“If there’s going to be a snowball fight, we’ll need a fort,” she said, blearily.
“No,” Bon Bon said, slipping up beneath her and popping the unicorn onto her back, ignoring her startled cry. “What we need is to get out of here. Derpy, Spike!”
“We’re with you!” Spike said, clambering over the wall of his fort, struggling a bit until Derpy snagged him in her hooves and air-lifted him over to the others.
Looking around, they found themselves almost encircled by the sinister snowponies. The thinnest area was back the way they’d come – sparse enough that could have easily slipped between them.
Bon Bon charged instead towards the thickest concentration, which somehow seemed to get thicker as she got closer, despite none of the snowponies seeming to move. She slammed into the unicorn in front, splattering her like the snow-statue that she was, but couldn’t help but lose some momentum, as her hooves slipped on the icy ground beneath.
Then the snowballs started coming, forcing her to squint her eyes mostly shut and lift a hoof to cover her face, slogging forwards on three legs with Moondancer weighing her down.
There was a flash of Spike’s green flame, and the roar of Derpy’s cannon, but their progress got slower and slower as the snowponies hedged them in on all sides, and the barrage of snowballs continued unabated.
Until, suddenly, it abated. Bon Bon looked up to see the snowballs splattering off a familiar bubble shield, which bulged inwards as snowponies leaned on it from all directions.
“Set me down,” Moondancer said. “We’re going to have to fight them.”
As Bon Bon was doing that, Spike’s flames poured over the bubble, melting the snow of the ponies pressing up against it and setting their sticks and coals alight. Moondancer took the opportunity to drop the barrier, and Derpy and Spike dropped in beside them.
“What’s the plan?” Spike asked.
“Fire seems to work,” Moondancer said. “Otherwise I’d try to aim at their eyes?”
“I’ll eat the carrots!” Derpy said, snatching a roasted carrot off the ground and gobbling it down. “Mmm!”
“Give us a batter barrier,” Bon Bon said. “It might help against the –” she rolled to the side to avoid an incoming projectile “—snowballs.”
One heartfelt plea to the Great Muffin later, all of them were covered in goopy muffin batter, which quickly stiffened in the cold. It did help ignore the snowballs, but Derpy had gooped herself up as well this time and couldn’t fly, and Bon Bon was too sluggish to use her speed to hide.
At least hitting them in the eyes worked. It didn’t make them instantly collapse, but the ones who’d lost eyes or other parts didn’t seem to be there anymore as soon as everypony looked away.
“There’s no end to them!” Spike said, breathing a blindingly bright cone of fire at the snowponies to the left. The fire was effective on the ones it hit, but only a few were set on fire – the rest had somehow dodged.
“Then clear a path!” Moondancer said, standing proud, her exhaustion forgotten for the moment. Snowballs flew at her, but between the batter barrier, the skin-tight forcefield she’d learned to maintain, and the elemental resistance of her armor, she could ignore them completely, leaving her free to pluck loose coal eye after coal eye with simple levitation.
Spike moved to the front and drove the snowponies back with his fire breath, and they advanced.
After what seemed like forever, but couldn’t have been half a mile, they stumbled into a steam-filled grotto where the snowponies wouldn’t follow. The rocks were slick and bare around a possibly-natural hot spring, with the other directions save the one they’d come from blocked off by natural cliffs and a clearly pony-built wall. The wall had a small door set into it, with a bright yellow sign.
Employees Only
Guests Must Use Front Entrance
use passcode ‘Marsh’ for emergency
Derpy went over to the door and poked at it, but there was no handle and it didn’t open.
“Don’t touch anything,” Bon Bon said, grabbing her by her hips and dragging her back. After spotting the sign, she added, “and don’t say anything.”
“That hot spring looks really nice,” Spike said.
“Can’t we just say ‘marsh’ and get in?” Derpy replied. Everypony (and dragon) cringed, but nothing happened.
“I guess that’s just the passcode hint,” Moondancer said. “I can guess what the passcode is but I’m NOT GOING TO,” she added as Derpy and Bon Bon both opened their mouths. “Not until I try out this hot spring.”
Spike stripped off his armor, the batter barrier peeling off in strips and chunks, and slid bare-naked into the water. “Oooh, this is nice,” he said, staying at the edge but lowering himself until it was up to his neck. “I thought I’d never be warm again.”
Moondancer cleaned the batter off herself with a spell, then poked at the water with a hoof. It was hot, but not unbearably so. She eyed the intricate windings of her Battle Saddle, and decided that the leather was probably waterproof enough, and followed him in. “Oooh, I needed this,” she said, closing her eyes and letting herself sink into the wonderful heat.
“Cannonball!” Derpy said, taking a running jump and leaping into the center of the pool. There was a loud sizzling noise, like a pan of hay frying, and she shrieked and splashed around, flailing wildly until Bon Bon looped her with her lasso and dragged her up onto the shore. The batter covering her was cooked, now, and she whimpered in pain until Bon Bon fed her some candy to heal her burns.
“What the hay, you guys?” Bon Bon asked Spike and Moondancer. “That water is boiling hot!”
Moondancer stared back at her in confusion, then down at the water, which was indeed bubbling, but still felt pleasantly warm. She backed towards the middle a little way, but the temperature didn’t change. “It must be my armor,” she guessed, “and Spike’s a dragon.”
Derpy was busily eating the flash-boiled muffin batter off her wings. “’sokay,” she said. “No harm no foul.”
“You were boiled alive,” Bon Bon said.
Derpy giggled. “Better than being boiled dead!”
===
It was still pleasant enough for the non-fireproof ponies to rest near the edge of the pool, so they spent quite a while at the hot spring. They were almost ready to get out (Spike kept asking for ‘five more minutes’) when the orcs arrived.
“No fight,” one of the orcs said. “We off shift.”
The orcs stripped out of their armor and other clothing, and climbed into the hot spring, staying at the far edge.
“So you’re the employees this entrance is for,” Bon Bon guessed. “I don’t suppose you can let us in? We don’t want to walk all the way to the other side of Moriaz.”
“We get in trouble,” one of the female orcs said. “No one gets in without passcard.”
“Don’t you mean ‘passcode’?” Moondancer asked.
“If you use passcode, wait until we go in,” the orc said. “If we here for emergency, they make us work overtime.”
===
The orcs didn’t spend long in the hot spring before putting their clothes back on and heading for the door. Each of them held up a little ID card, and the door swung open to let that orc in before slamming shut in the next orc’s face.
“You didn’t steal their passcards?” Moondancer asked Bon Bon. “I thought you were a thief.”
“They’re personalized,” Bon Bon said. “I wasn’t sure they’d work for us, so I put them back. Figured it was safer to use the password. You do know what it is, right?”
“Let’s get Spike back into his armor, and then I’ll take my best guess,” she said. “We should be ready for a fight, just in case.”
“Five more minutes,” Spike said, eyes closed blissfully as he continued to doze in the heat.
===
Ten minutes later, Spike was out of the water and back in his armor, and they approached the door.
“So,” Moondancer said. “’Marsh’ is a hint, and not the passcode itself. What words does ‘marsh’ make you think of?”
“Um… hydra?” Spike guessed.
“Mosquito. Cragadile,” Bon Bon scrunched up her face. “Cat-tail?”
“Marshmallow!” Derpy said gleefully.
There was a rumbling behind them, and they turned to watch the hot spring swirl and vanish into a drain at the bottom of the basin. With a bubbling, gloopy sound, the basin filled back up with a thick white fluid… and when it was full, it continued to build up into a giant mound of viscous white goop, until a giant snowpony shape loomed over them, with jet black gems for eyes. It opened a sticky, goopy mouth, and roared at them, legs emerging from its base and pulling it out of the basin.
“And this must be the emergency,” Moondancer said, closing her eyes and giving a sigh. “Good work, Derpy.”
“I don’t know what went wrong,” Derpy said, flapping into the air. “Wasn’t that the password?”
“Yes, but it was also a trap,” Bon Bon said. “It’s not your fault.”
“Oh good!” Derpy said. “I’d hate to be the reason we were all going to get boiled alive inside a melty marshmallow golem.”
The marshmallow golem roared again.
“It’s just a boss monster,” Bon Bon said. “We can take it.”
“Are you sure?” Spike said. “It’s really big.”
Bon Bon laughed. “It’s made out of marshmallow, and you’re a dragon. Toast that puppy.”
It wasn’t quite that simple. Toasting the marshmallow didn’t stop it, but it did get its attention, and made the surface firm enough for Bon Bon to climb. By the time she’d reached its head, Spike had been stomped into the ground and trapped inside one of the golem’s legs – and after she pried out one of its eyes, it shook its head to fling her loose, and its wild thrashing broke its crust and turned it all gooey again.
Moondancer, seeing Bon Bon’s plan, was able to set up a line of solid hoofholds using her fire bombs, walking them up one leg, across the shoulder, and then up the giant’s neck. Bon Bon scrambled up along the path, ignoring the lingering flames that licked at her, and pried out the golem’s other eye just as it slammed itself down on Moondancer, engulfing her as well.
With both eyes gone, the beast roared one last time and dissolved back into goop – the bulk of it flowed back into the hot spring and drained away, but it left a giant sticky mess all over the floor near the door. It also freed Spike and Moondancer -- completely slimed, but still breathing, and both were immune to the goop’s heat so they hadn’t cooked while inside it.
“That would have been a lot easier if you’d just flown over and attacked its eyes right off,” Bon Bon said to Derpy, who was huddling terrified in a corner.
“Do you know how long it takes to get melted marshmallow out of feathers?” she said.
Bon Bon dug through her bag to get a candy to heal her burns. “Half an hour?”
Derpy looked down. “Sorry.” She held out a hoof. “Muffin?”
There was a creak, and a shuffling noise, as the employee entrance opened and a janitor donkey, dressed up in yellow with a mop and bucket, paused in the doorway to take in the scene.
“Hold that door!” Bon Bon snapped.
Derpy was quick to obey, holding it open as Bon Bon gathered up Spike and Moondancer and dragged them through, pushing the janitor aside.
“Um… hey,” he said, weakly. “You’re not supposed to go in there…”
The door shut behind them, leaving him with the massive marshmallow mess. “Damn tourists,” he grumbled.