The corridor led to a winded staircase downwards. The air was moldy at best; there was almost no ventilation in the hidden corridor. It echoed from the walls when their hooves hit on the floor. There was not even a single grain of dust was on the ground. Dust just guessed that this corridor and staircase was used on a regularly basis by somepony or … something.
The steps were sometimes interrupted by some doors in the wall, all of them unlocked. There were some small, empty rooms behind those doors, which probably were used as storage rooms a long time ago, but judging from the thick layer of dust in those rooms, they weren’t used since the creators of this place left and the corridor, stairs and rooms behind the shelf were abandoned and forgotten.
They didn’t speak a word when they went down into the dark unknown, but all of them could feel the stress of the others around them. The darkness around them was making them nervous, and Dust felt somehow watched, despite that the staircase was too small that anyone could have watched them, even if something was lurking around them in the dark.
It seemed like an eternity to them, but they finally made it to the end of the stairs. Another corridor led straight ahead of them into the darkness. But none of them could have expected what they found deep underground, at the end of the corridor. It was a large, metal portal standing open. Behind the portal was a large hall – at least they thought that it was a hall, since they couldn’t see a wall in the radius of Dusts torch.
As they arrived in the middle of the room, a loud, screeching noise sounded behind them, as the portal closed behind them. They made a run to get out of the hall again, but their try just ended with Rainbow crashing into the metal, as the portal closed just before their noses. A second later, a sudden wind gust blew out Dusts torch. They were standing in complete darkness now; none of them said anything – except for Rainbow, who was muttering curses at the portal as her nose was hurting from the crash.
Suddenly, torches on the walls of the hall lightened up, emitting a warm light which made them feel almost comfortable. And they could now see that the metal portal, which just closed, was the only entrance and exit in this place. They couldn’t see anypony around, as a deep and dark voice echoed back from the walls.
“Welcome.” It said. “So you finally came down here into my realm … welcome …” After those words, a maniacally laughter sounded, and then silence fell over the underground hall again, leaving four scared and confused ponies who had no idea what to do now. Dust was the first one who recovered from the event and stepped towards the middle of the room again.
He noticed a muster of rings built into the ground. They centered in a circle in the middle, and as Dust put a hoof on it, the ground started to shake and almost knocked them all off their hooves, as another exit appeared on the opposite side of the hall. At first it was just an arch made of stone, but then some weird kind of dark light began to float in between the stones of the arch.
When the ‘light’ appeared, it was just a small orb, but it quickly widened to the outside of the arch. After it reached this state, the light just kept billowing around, until it became clear and showed another corridor. Where the light touched the stones of the arch, it flickered and created sparks of purple light.
Dust slowly approached the newly appeared corridor and just turned his head back to the others once to check if they were following him. The three mares closed up to him soon, and just before Twilight could say something, the voice spoke again.
“This is your exit; your one and only chance to get away from here … Don’t waste it.” As the echo of the voice fell silent once again, Dust just exchanged a look with the other from the group, and walked towards the strange kind of portal. He gulped, as he neither trusted the voice nor the energies which formed that portal.
But the voice was right; it was the only exit for them, as the door closed shut behind them. And there was no way that anyone of them could open the door again, not even Twilight with her magic. So he just took a step ahead and went through the portal. As Dust came out on the other side he looked back, but there was nothing more than a stonewall. “Well … Dammit.” Was his only comment as he realized that this would be an one-way ticket.
For the others, Dust just appeared on the other side of the portal. “Well, it looks like it is safe. Let’s do this.” Rainbow was the first of the three mares who went through the portal. She appeared on the other side, next to Dust. And shortly after, Twilight and Pinkie followed their friends.
But the reality looked different from the vision of the portal. As Twilight stepped through the portal, neither Dust nor Rainbow was waiting for her. Not even Pinkie followed her, and as she looked around for her friends, the voice laughed again. And then, Twilight knew what had happened.
She went ahead and came soon to an edge. As she looked down, she just saw a giant maze waiting for her and there - and in the middle of the maze, were the stairs to the surface again. She looked around if she could find any other indications on which she could check where she was in the maze, but there were three other openings in the wall like the one she ended up on. The entire construction was lightened by crystals embedded in the walls and the ceiling.
“Good luck with finding through that maze before you starve, little ponies.” The voice laughed and silence fell over the maze. Somewhere in the distance she could see a cyan and rainbow-colored shape flying above the maze, seemingly without any aim.
Twilight was scared to death for a second as the ground under her hooves shook once more and lowered itself to the entrance of the maze. “Well, that’s just great.” The lavender unicorn said to herself as she began her journey through the maze in the hope that she would stumble upon her friends.
And that nothing dangerous was in this maze.