Chapter 41
Twilight Sparkle was panting with pain, and Sumac Apple was terrified. He wanted to go home, but he said nothing. He understood that something important was going on here, something big, and he was a part of it. A glowing magical binding had formed around Twilight’s leg, securing the broken bone in place. She stood on three legs, wobbling around a bit, and Starlight did her best to steady her teacher and best friend.
The little colt understood that things were dire and could, in fact, get worse.
Shivering, he leaned against Trixie, who was resting after casting the difficult spell, and looked over at the remains of the null golem. It was a terrible foe and after having watched the battle, Sumac had a new appreciation for both pegasi and earth ponies. There was a lesson to be learned here, there was more to life than magic. Twilight was at her best when she remembered that she was three ponies in one. He made a mental note to show a bit of appreciation to Pebble for being his friend. He could peel her oranges for her as a token of friendship.
“Twilight, can you keep going?” Starlight asked in a hushed whisper.
“Of course,” Twilight replied, her voice sounding strained, “it’s just a broken leg. My magic still works. We can still do what we set out to do. I just… I just need a moment to pull myself together, that’s all.”
“Yes, we must do what is best for others, even at the cost of ourselves.” Starlight bowed her head to Twilight and then nodded. “I remember my lessons and think of them fondly. With great power comes great expectations to use them for the benefit of others.”
“It sounds like you are saying that for Sumac’s benefit,” Trixie remarked as she gave her shivering colt a warm squeeze. “Oh, and by the way, Twilight, I’ll be expecting hazard pay for this.”
Much to Sumac’s surprise, Twilight began laughing, a pained, strained sound of mirth.
“I bet that was also said for Sumac’s benefit,” Starlight said to Trixie. She looked Sumac in the eye. “Always ask for hazard pay when the job becomes dangerous, Sumac.”
“We should get moving.” Twilight moved around on three legs, testing her balance, and she flapped her wings a few times to remain upright when she wobbled. “The labyrinth was all just an elaborate illusion—”
“A powerful one too,” Starlight said, interrupting. “There is an archway over there. I can’t see what’s beyond it because it’s dark. I think it’s the way out. We should investigate it and then figure out what to do next.”
The archway held two staircases, one going up, one going down. The stairs going up ended in a sealed door covered in frost, and something about the door was spooky-scary. Sumac hoped that they would not choose the sealed door. The stairs going down had an open door, and Sumac guessed that the null golem had come from down that way, had charged up the stairs, and attacked them. The way down was not so scary as the sealed door covered in frost.
Twilight, leading the way on three legs, chose down, much to Sumac’s relief. They passed through the open door and found themselves in a dungeon. Cells could be seen on each side of a long hallway, and Sumac saw bones littering the floor of the nearby cells. One of the cells was open, the door ajar, and Sumac felt tingles running up and down his spine as he thought about being locked away in a cell until he starved to death and became one of the permanent guests of this horrific castle of terrors.
“The golem must have served as a jailer,” Starlight said as she peered into one of the cells. “My guess is, if something was powerful enough to cheat its way out of the labyrinth, the golem was sent to fetch them, subdue them, and drag them here, to this place.”
“That wasn’t cheating,” Twilight mumbled under her breath, “that was just an intelligent application of magic to circumvent the security measures posed by the labyrinth.”
The four of them kept moving, traveling together down the long hallway. It turned at a sharp angle, and the cells further down the hallway were larger, meant for bigger creatures. There were all manner of bones in the cells, old bones, dusty bones, and much to Sumac’s horror, fresh bones, bones that still had shreds of meat and skin on them.
He wondered how many treasure seekers had been drawn to this place and had died here. In the back of his mind, he wondered if he would die here. He didn’t say anything, choosing to be brave, and he reminded himself that this was important. If being so scared that he was about to wet himself was part of being a hero, then he would bear it.
The long corridor ended in a massive set of double doors. Sumac began to get a peculiar feeling—not fear, not terror, but creeping dread. Suddenly, the doors up the stairs covered in frost seemed like a good idea, and he longed to return to them.
“I gotta go pee!” Sumac blurted out, not caring how embarrassing it might be.
“You can go in the corner,” Trixie replied in a soft, sympathetic and maternal voice. “We won’t look and I’ll muffle the sound for you.”
Twilight, looking at the double doors, nodded. “After you go, we’ll keep moving…”
The double doors opened and beyond was a natural underground grotto. Glowing fungi lined the walls and the sounds of water dripping could be heard. Something smelled terrible down here, something rotten and foul. Sumac didn’t like it, not one bit.
“Maud would love this place,” Twilight said in an absentminded voice as she hobbled along on three legs.
Starlight moved ahead, passing Twilight, and taking the lead. She walked with her head high, her horn ignited, and her watchful eyes darted from side to side. Twilight followed, carrying Sumac in a protective bubble. Trixie brought up the rear, limping on a little on her bad leg, and she too, watched everything around her.
On the other side of the grotto, three openings presented themselves, and peering through them, Sumac saw bones. Lots of bones. This was an ossuary. He had seen ossuaries before, and they never bothered him, but this one did. This was a place full of spooks, spectres, and undead. The last place he wanted to be was the place where the dead came to rest.
Unable to stop himself, Sumac let out a whimper.
There were three entrances into the vast catacombs beneath Castle Midnight, and all of them were chock full of bones. Bones filled the cubbies carved into the walls. A decorative mosaic made of skulls could be seen. Three ways, three doorways, and none of them seemed like a good idea.
“That’s a lot of bones,” Starlight said in a matter-of-fact voice. “If any of you start moving, I swear, I’ll roll your bones—”
“Starlight!” Twilight snapped. “This isn’t the time for jokes!”
Saying nothing else, Starlight stuck out her tongue and blew a raspberry at Twilight. She ignored Twilight’s huff of annoyance, and then made her way into the center passage, the one with the mosaic of skulls. The bones gleamed in a weird way from the light cast by her horn. Sumac wasn’t pleased with this turn of events, not at all, and he was so scared that he couldn’t even laugh about the fact that Starlight had stuck out her tongue in a foalish act of defiance.
Under most circumstances, Sumac would have been fascinated by being in a catacomb, he had been in some neat ones, and he wanted to visit the famous catacombs of Canterlot. But these catacombs, these catacombs, they weren’t interesting. Or neat. Or fascinating.
“Some of these are human bones,” Twilight whispered, “I wonder if it’s true—”
“What’s true?” Starlight asked as she kept an eye out for any danger.
“I found an old book… a really old book. It had preservation spells keeping it intact...” Twilight glanced at a strange looking skull and shook her head. “The book talked about an ancient witch named Hydia. She was a human, a terrible hag, a truly awful creature.”
“So.. humans, like beyond the mirror?” Starlight turned her head around and glanced over her shoulder at Twilight.
“Yeah,” Twilight replied. “Hydia was a horrid witch and the book said that she learned of a way to cross between worlds. She would go to the other world and find children, bratty, horrible, disrespectful children, and she would lure them away with promises of cakes, candies, sweet treats, and a magical land of enchantment with no adults to tell them what to do. The book said she brought them here, to this world, and she kept them as slaves. She used her magic to bind them and make them do her bidding.”
“Ugh.” Starlight shook her head in disgust and kept going. “Thank goodness she’s gone.”
“Uh, Starlight…” Twilight cleared her throat. “That’s a matter of some debate. Some scholars suggest that she’s still around… her current form is debatable, but it is said that she is still around and some think she works to resurrect You-Know-Who.”
“That’s pretty repugnant.” Trixie’s voice had a cold, unfamiliar sounding edge to it. “Even bratty foals don’t deserve to be stolen away from their parents and kept as slaves.” As she spoke, Trixie glanced at an unfamiliar looking skull. A look of intense anger and sadness made her eyes glitter and the sound of her teeth grinding together could be heard over the clattering of hooves on stone.
“These bones are so well preserved,” Starlight said as she passed.
No sooner had Starlight spoken than the well preserved bones began to rattle, then move. There was a clatter as bones began to spill out of holes in the walls, rattle all over the floor, and then began to assemble themselves into misshapen horrors. Griffon bones mixed with human bones, centuar bones mixed with minotaur bones, pony bones mixed with diamond dog bones, and everything scrambled together to produce indescribable combinations.
“NOPE!” Starlight let fly with a ray of disruption and a beam of silvery light shot from her horn. It struck a skeleton and it flew apart, the bones glittering and gleaming from her magic. “NO!” She shot again, and again, and then again. “NO!”
Already, the first bones she shot were moving and reassembling themselves once more. She kept zapping, shooting at anything that got too close, all while still trying to move forward. Twilight hobbled along behind her, and Trixie got in on the action. She let fly with powerful bolts of telekinetic force, which smashed the bones apart.
“NOPE!” Starlight aimed her horn and fired at a skeleton that was so mixed that it was indescribable. Intense magical energies crackled throughout the room all around her. “I had enough of you boneheads the last time Twilight and I went off on an adventure together! I will not be boned by the likes of you!”
“Are you still mad about that?” Twilight asked as she redoubled her shield efforts around Sumac.
“You wanted to study the reanimation magic and you used me as bait!” Starlight shouted as she blasted the path ahead clear. “Oh, go on Starlight, it will be fine! Oh, go on Starlight, it’s just a few bones! It will advance knowledge, Starlight!”
“Starlight, it sounds like you still have a bone in your craw—”
“Trixie! Don’t you start!” Twilight cried out.
“Twilight wanted me to kick them apart so she could study them without magical interference or influence!” Focusing her anger, Starlight blasted a mismatched skeleton into a pile of bones and then kicked the pile, scattering it as she forged ahead. “I still have the memory of the minotaur’s boney finger going down inside of my ear when he grabbed me and tried to debone me!”
Sumac, surrounded by what could only be described as chaos, didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Overall, the bones didn’t seem very dangerous, but they were still creepy. Bones shouldn’t move and he worried that he would spend the rest of his life looking over his shoulder when he was in a cemetery or a catacomb.
“But we learned so much!” Twilight said as she wobbled after Starlight.
“They tried to stick their boney fingers into my various orifices and peel me like an orange!” Starlight zapped a skeleton that got too close and then picked up Twilight, as Twilight was moving far too slow. She dropped Twilight on her back and then resumed blasting apart skeletons, which kept reanimating.
Peel her like an orange? Pure nightmare fuel! Sumac shivered and wondered when that might show up to plague his bad dreams. Seeing a skeleton that was way too close for comfort, Sumac blasted its skull off of its shoulders with a telekinetic pulse.
The skeleton, now headless, stood there clutching at its neck stump with two mismatched arms, while stomping two different sorts of feet on the stone floor. Trixie finished it off with a powerful pulse of magic, smashing it into a wall, and then she fired upon other targets.
“Hey!” Starlight shouted. “There’s a bright light ahead and some kind big weird statue! I think I see the way out of this place!”
Shuddering, Sumac took aim at another skeleton and blasted its head off. He wanted to go home, he wanted to leave this place and go to someplace skeleton free. He wanted to be in bed, with Trixie, and he wanted her to use that spell that she knew that would keep the pillow cool all night, because a cool pillow was soothing against his cheek. He wanted to be piled beneath warm blankets in a cool room, because breathing in cool or even chilly air while buried beneath warm blankets was the best thing ever.
He wanted to be home…
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Another great chapter.
So, when are all the bones going to become a giant monstrosity?
7513927
Like this?
wallpapercraze.com/images/wallpapers/dark_souls_skeletons_w1.jpeg
7513992 So, Kudzu... Did you enjoy Kubo and the Two Strings?
7514017
Never heard of it before.
7514035
Now, take all of that, and then try to think of a way to explain it to a five year old that doesn't sound patronising or snobby.
7514046
Hah. Point taken.
Those catacombs look like they have a bone to pick with them.
Listening to Twilight and Starlight, I'm thinking their adventures are more of Beaker and Dr. Bunsen Honeydew, or possibly Abbott and Costello rather than Alicorn Princess and Supercharged Unicorn. These two are completely nuts!
static2.comicvine.com/uploads/original/0/40/776024-beakerhoneydew460.jpg
pre11.deviantart.net/ca6c/th/pre/f/2016/071/b/3/season_6_spoilers__twilight_and_starlight_by_illumnious-d9u6qbn.png
The tone on this is... interesting. Sumac is terrified but the seasoned adventurers are joking.
And that joking may be exactly to stop the terror.
I remember this page of Dr McNinja where he tells his apprentice/ward to use one liners when fighting terrible things because the satisfaction of a bit of well timed wit helps stop you from cracking under the pressure.
7514133
This is touched on by Sumac not knowing to laugh or cry. He's scared enough to wet himself, but still somehow finds that some of what is said is funny.
I just couldn't come right out and say it. That would be telling.
7514082
Twilight has a knack for putting the "mad" into science.
7514137
Well, it definitely contributes to a lightening of the mood of the chapter proper, even though I am sure I should be on my guard for some serious consequences of the danger they've been dealing with.
7514082
One of them has to go "Mimi! Mimi! Miiiii!"
7514133
Good ol' raptor-riding bandito Gordito, with his father's pistols.
7514444
It went into her ear, mang. This is rated E. Don't be a pervert!
7514698
The boy whose mustache makes most men ashamed of their upper lips.
7514133 it's an honest truth we all deal with things differently. In joking about something they are giving themselves a couple of moments to react logically rather than in panic and maybe make the situation worse
Are the relics dead too, I wonder?
7514713 nope you ruined the E rating when you put "orifices" in that sentence and the "nightmare fuel"
Starlight "NOPE!"-ING the fuck out reminds me of my DND group XD I feel her on a deep level right now, undead surrounding you? Fuck that I'm out XD
Hazard pay is a very important concept.
Now that is just asking for it.
Yeah, figures.
Working for Twilight is apparently code for burning off all of your karma problems.
Unicorn cleverness! It's not cheating when we do it!
Either, this has become a Harry Potter crossover, or Grogar (or the purple Smooze..?) is the pony world Voldemort.
This increasingly reminds me of the shenanigans that Insue when an Inquisitor takes a small number of specialists to "learn" about stuff.
Looks like they atumbled into the catacombs of Lordran. So long as they dont enter the Tomb of the Giants, Lord Nito wont bother them...much.
Dem bones:
https://m.Warning somewhat gross:
7514017
One of the greatest movies ever
7514017
Excellent recommendation !!
It could be said that Kubo and the Two Strings and Kudzu's Weed Verse take inspiration from each other.
In particular - the story of the female Diamond Dog pup (Black Dog) has a similar sense of journey and honour.