The Bonding Stone

by Some1Else

Chapter 8

Before stepping into the unknown, Rarity took in what she could from where she stood. A statue of a Draconequus carved out of jade looked right at her. It stood atop a regular stone block that had an opening near the middle with a ceramic tray designed to catch whatever popped out of the hole. The right arm of the creature ended in a cat paw pointing down while the left arm concluded with a monkey fist held high above the head of a bear. Rarity was reminded of a prize machine. Another statue carved from bronze and one made with marble kept the jade statue company. Though the parts of their bodies varied greatly, all of them had their left arms in the air and made some sort of gesture out of whatever their right arm ended in.

Rarity poked her head through the doorway. A fair amount of effort had gone into making the room as white as possible. Drywall, carpet, and paint hadn’t tickled the creative flair of whoever had designed the room. The floor was made of white jelly beans that smelled like vanilla. Whipped cream served as walls. Clouds occupied the ceiling.

She entered the room, squishing candy underneath her hoofs. There were five other statues made from different materials that hadn’t been visible from the doorway.

“This is another puzzle, isn’t it?” Rarity asked.

Discord closed the door behind them and nodded. “They called this the waiting room. It was made in case some creature managed to find the door and the key. There’s one chance to solve this puzzle. Those who can’t are booted from the room. The door then spawns somewhere else.”

“I take it this place never had any problems with peddlers trying to sell vacuums or magazine subscriptions.”

“And you would be correct.”

“Interesting. Does the type of plant placed outside have something to do with where the key is hidden?” Rarity asked. She received a nod. “I thought so. How does one get past this room?”

“There are eight statues. Each of them represents a phase of the moon. As Twilight said, it’s currently in the waxing gibbous phase. That’s the fourth one. The fourth statue will give us the tool we’ll use to move around in here. Which is the fourth statue? That’s a secret.”

Rarity stopped to admire a statue carved out of titanium. “What gave your peers the idea to base so much of the means to enter this kingdom on the moon?”

“It was done out of respect. The moon has an influence on several types of magic.”

“Really? I’ve never heard of that before.”

“That doesn’t make it any less true.”

“I’m sure Twilight would love to hear what you have to say about this.”

Discord smirked. “She has plenty of time to figure it out on her own.”

Of all the statues in the room, Discord stopped in front of one made from alexandrite. He levitated until he was able to grab the octopus tentacle the left arm ended in and pulled it like a slot machine. An object tumbled around inside the stone block the statue stood on until it dispensed into the tray underneath the opening. Discord picked up a recognizable cube and nodded to himself.

“That’s a Brain Twister,” Rarity said. “It’s the seven-by-seven edition.”

“I’m shocked you recognize it.” Discord tossed the cube at Rarity, who caught it in her aura.

Regular Brain Twisters came with their cubes colored and weren’t made of silver. A single cube fashioned from gold was in the mix. The few cubes that were not blank had symbols on them from an alphabet Rarity didn’t recognize.

Rarity gave the cube back to Discord. "I used to be obsessed with these things when I was a filly. I even competed at a local tournament.”

“Did you win?”

“Almost. Second place. I didn’t have this one, though. I had the regular one. The four-by-four. I knew they were an old toy, but I’m surprised to see them here.”

“You shouldn’t be. We invented them. Some twit decided to omit that particular bit of history from your encyclopedias and gave the credit to Starswirl.”

Rarity’s mouth dropped open. “That’s terrible. You should talk to Twilight about it.”

Discord fiddled with the cube. “I don’t think I’m at the point where her colleagues would accept my word as a reliable source. Besides, it’s far from the most egregious error you can find in your history books.” Having reached a solution, he held the cube in front of him. “There we are. This will put us in the dimension where the vault resides if we take the north exit.”

“Isn’t there some place you would like to see again before we go there?” Rarity asked.

“Nope.”

The curt reply startled her. “What about your own dimension? You had one here, didn’t you?”

Discord walked towards the north wall, which now featured a regular door. “It doesn’t matter. There’s no need to stick around here any longer than we have to.”

Rarity caught up with her traveling companion. “I’m sorry. I thought maybe you would be nostalgic.”

“I’m not. And there’s no need to apologize.” Discord opened the door and held it for Rarity.

A relatively tame room awaited them. The marble aesthetic brought to mind banks that only managed clients who accepted their invitations. She had been in one once, but ultimately decided to keep her money local. Ancient coins made of various precious metals were scattered haphazardly across the floor. Sometimes the coins were in stacks. A collection of banknotes flittered about, propelled by an unseen force. Piles of diamonds, none of them red, could be found exactly ten inches apart from one end of the room to the other.

Their steps echoed as they pressed onward. One pile of loot stood out from the rest. Three stands made to hold coats had been used to hang crowns instead. Two were knocked over. A laced crown constructed from white gold and inlaid with blue sapphires was lying upside down on top of a golden fleece. The crown stood out from the others for a simple reason. It was the missing piece of Ocean’s wedding dress.

“Rarity, you’re drooling,” Discord said.

She wiped her mouth to see if he was telling the truth, which wasn’t the case. “Would you be upset if I asked you to let me have that crown?”

“That old thing? It’s yours. There isn’t a curse on it, so go ahead and put it in your bag.”

Rarity levitated the crown in front of her and checked its dimensions. Miraculously, Ocean would be able to wear it. Despite having been in the room for at least a century, it hadn’t gotten dirty. She placed it inside her saddlebag.

“Is that for your own collection or part of an ensemble for a client?” Discord asked.

“The latter.”

Discord grinned. “Are you sure that’s a good idea? I would think most of your clientele would be too prissy to wear something plundered from a hall of discarded trinkets inside of a dimension beyond time and space. What are you going to tell them if they ask where you got the crown?”

“If they must know, I’ll say it was chosen from a collection of treasure retrieved from the remains of a lost civilization.”

“What a spin. With lingual gymnastics like that, you could be a politician.”

They reached the middle of the chamber. Rarity felt something watching her. Off to the right and nearly hidden in an alcove was a giant, bipedal stone golem. She had limited knowledge of such beings, but could tell the lack of fire where its eyes should have been meant it was sleeping. Any number of hidden triggers could jar it awake. The silent golem sat on a chair pressing a cotton rag to an enormous hammer it held in its other hand. Another golem was to Rarity’s left. It was on its hands and knees so it could have a better look at what was on the ground the second it sprang back to life.

Anxiety wasn’t far behind her. “Are those sentries still active?” A banknote that had strayed from the pack slammed against her face while trying to rejoin its group. She pulled it off and let the spell take it back to where it belonged.

“I disabled the traps in this specific dimension the last time I was here in case I ever needed to take anything out of the vault,” Discord replied. “Don’t let that worry you. What’s in there stays in there. The only other creature smart enough to get this far would have to be one of my peers.”

“Come to think of it, what would a regular Draconequus need with a communal vault, anyway?”

“They kept relics and artifacts in there that they didn’t want to share.”

A watercolor painting of a regular door with the dimensions of a real door had been placed where a door should have been. She wasn’t surprised. An actual vault door wouldn’t have been any fun. The painting lacked effort and whoever had hung it hadn’t gone farther than a flea market to find the frame, which somehow outdid what it had been forced to display.

Discord held out his lion paw. “Stand back.”

He drew a circle on the door with his eagle talon. A red arcane symbol appeared on the painting. Looking at it made Rarity feel dizzy, but Discord wasn’t fazed. A kitchen timer dinged. Discord extended his open lion paw and a torrent of ice erupted from a point of focus a few inches in front of it. The painting took the beating like a champ, but the wall surrounding it began to frost over. Rarity could feel the chill from where she stood. The symbol changed. Blazing fire replaced the ice, sending steam into the air and water to the floor. Just when Rarity believed Discord was only dealing with elements, white chocolate splattered onto the painting. A cheerful ding rewarded his performance. The frame fell off the painting and the crudely drawn door opened, revealing the pathway to the vault.

Discord turned to Rarity. “Looks like we got off easy this time, although that sudden demand for the generation of white chocolate almost threw me for a loop. You must be good luck.” A piece of white chocolate still glued to the wall broke off and found its way over to her. “Care for a bite?”

“I think I’ll pass.”

“Suit yourself.” Discord ate the chunk of chocolate. “It’s going to vanish in less than ten minutes, anyway. Once that happens, it will be as if I hadn’t eaten anything at all.”

“That sounds unhealthy.”

“Excess of anything usually is.”

The vault contained a large swimming pool filled to the brim with tapioca pudding. Benches instead of tables with parasols signaled that the pool had been intended to be used in a gym setting for exercise. Light streamed in through the windows. A quick glance outside revealed that they were floating in the middle of outer space. The light came from a distant sun. It was a cozy choice of ambiance that made up for the drab interior.

A set of goggles with a snorkel appeared on Discord’s head. He climbed the high dive and leapt off it. Discord emerged on the far side of the pool with a large white brick that he placed on the concrete floor. Rarity rushed over to him.

“Is this pool made up of safety deposit boxes?” Rarity asked.

“Yes, and each of them has a different lock,” Discord replied.

He cast a spell on the box, causing it to pop open. A collection of moonstones was inside. They were a dark shade of pink and cut in the briolette style.

Rarity recognized them. “Aren’t these the same stones that are set in the frame of the Crystal Mirror?”

“How do you think it gets its power? Moonstone takes well to magic dealing with time, teleportation and inter-dimensional travel. It won’t hold anything else. Take three of them. I’ll leave the rest here. The fewer creatures we have running around who can bend time and open portals to who knows where, the better.”

Using telekinesis, she placed three moonstones into her saddlebag. The final ingredient had been gathered. Now was hardly the time to celebrate. Rarity would allow herself to feel accomplished after the final product was in front of her. Even so, a sense of exhilaration still rushed through her. Spike would love it, so long as it didn’t destroy his stomach.

Discord shut the box and made sure it was closed before diving back into the pudding to put the brick back where he had gotten it. He emerged holding two bowls of pudding with spoons protruding from their sides. “You should really try some of this. It’s made with a secret recipe. The pudding is kept edible and sanitized with an enchantment. My dead skin and hair aren’t anywhere in it. Also, regeneration is automatic.”

“Does it vanish after ten minutes as well?”

Discord kept one bowl levitated and began eating out of the other. “No, this is going straight to my thighs.”

Rarity grabbed the bowl with her aura, sat down on a nearby bench, and had a bite. It was quite delicious, but only when she told herself she hadn’t just watched Discord swim through it. A quick spell cleaned the pudding off Discord and the tracks he had left on the floor. He sat next to Rarity and began enjoying his meal.

They ate in silence. Rarity was hungrier than she thought. She finished first and sat her bowl down on an empty spot to her right. Her attention drifted towards the shallow end of the swimming pool. Hatchlings had probably played in there eons ago. If Discord’s kind hatched. For all she knew, they were birthed like mammals.

Her curiosity had peaked. Discord’s guard was down. Once they left the vault, he would be less likely to answer. If she delayed asking the question any further, she might not get a straight answer out of him.

“What happened to your kind?”

Discord scoffed. “That’s quite the question to ask while I’m eating.”

“I couldn’t help it. I want to know.”

“You’re a smart pony. You could probably put it together.”

“If I had to guess, I’d say they must have gotten trapped in some alternate universe while they were busy playing around with this one.”

“Close enough.” Discord sat his bowl down, half-eaten. “I found some notes in the chamber where the core that powers this place is kept. They had been looking for a way to ascend into a higher plane of existence since the other creatures have never shared our sense of humor and friendship wasn’t in vogue at the time. The note said they figured it out and everyone was leaving. Anyone who wasn’t present was out of luck since the spell was, and I quote, a real doozy that requires more than one participant.”

Rarity perked up. “Having worded it like that, it sounds as if you weren’t the only one who was absent.”

“I think you’re reading too much into it. They knew I would try to come back. Birds of a feather flock together, and all that jazz. That note was left to smite me. This might come as a shock, but I was exiled from this place for being too edgy, which some considered an accomplishment.”

She had to come up with something to lighten the mood. “Youth is a series of embarrassments. You’ve come a long way and you have at least two friends who truly care about you.”

Discord gave no indication that he had picked up on her hint. “Perhaps.”

“Do you think when they said they had ascended into a higher plane of existence, they really meant that they had become chaos itself?”

“The idea had occurred to me. It would make sense. If that indeed is the case, no creature on this planet is ever going to have more than a decade of peace.” Discord stood up and headed for the exit. “Enough reminiscing. We can talk more about my past some other time, preferably in a setting that isn’t anywhere near this depressing. Come on. We can’t use the cube until we leave this room.”

Rarity eyed the entrances to the locker rooms on her way out, wondering if they lead anywhere. The door to the vault closed itself after they passed through it. A different yet equally crude attempt at painting a door was hung inside a new frame. The Brain Twister shot out of her saddlebag, heading right for Discord’s outstretched lion paw. Once it made contact, Rarity heard something sizzle. Discord cried out in pain, clutching his paw with his eagle claw. The Brain Buster landed on the floor a hoof away.

Six magical barriers each featuring a different color immediately appeared over them. Discord moved closer to Rarity and stood ready to attack while Rarity tried to keep up with all the sudden action. The lighting in the room diminished, causing it to take on a more sinister atmosphere.

“Rarity, this isn’t a joke. Something went wrong,” Discord said. “I messed up. Do exactly what I tell you to do and everything will be fine. I promise.”

“How did you mess up?” Rarity asked. “I thought you said you were here before.”

“Yes, I did say something like that, but I didn’t say I tried taking anything out of the vault. In order to get in it, I had to trick the magic on the door and in the room into thinking I was someone who had permission to be here. That might have been very easy to watch, but it certainly wasn’t simple to do.”

Arguing wasn’t going to get them anywhere. “Alright, so how do we get out of here?”

“Simple. Solve the cube. Only now, there’s a catch. You must solve it with the worst migraine you’ve ever had.”

She sighed. “Take a minute if you need one.”

Discord levitated the cube and flinched, his face contorting with pain. “I wouldn’t want to keep you waiting.”

The moment the cube clicked after he had turned one side of it, a large portion of the floor slid open. Fireworks and party streamers erupted from the pit as a platform began raising something out of it. Something with a flat head and two eyes made of blue fire.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” Discord said as a harness appeared around him.

Rarity chuckled nervously. “We should probably start running.”

Before she could move, Discord scooped her up and dropped her into the harness. Her back was up against his. Discord took off with more speed than he looked capable of having. The eyes of the giant golem followed them as they made their way down a thin path next to the pit. A hand came up, hoping to grab them. Discord jumped straight into it and slithered through the fingers as they closed. Rarity didn’t dare scream since doing so might distract him. Safely on the back of the hand, Discord leapt and hit the ground running.

The golem tried to grab them again, sending a wave of air that tussled Rarity’s mane and tail. Even in the low light, she could still make out the cracks and grooves on its fingers as they passed right in front of her. They had thought enough of its design to give it the illusion of fingernails. If Discord had been running half a mile slower, it would have caught them.

Since the platform wasn’t raising fast enough for it, the stone monstrosity climbed out of the pit. It moved with a surprising degree of agility. The rocks that made up its body grinded together audibly while it was in motion. It took one step towards them and abruptly turned around to fetch something from the pit that it had forgotten.

A magical barrier surrounded Discord just as the bank notes from earlier swooped in to attack. They stuck to the barrier, attempting to slice through it with their edges. Though her view was obscured, Rarity could tell they were being followed by the booming footsteps echoing through the hall. The notes caught fire and released themselves from the barrier, burning away into ash and allowing Rarity to view their overly enthusiastic stalker. It now carried a hammer, which was what it had retrieved from the pit.

Discord reached the door they had used to enter the room and opened it while running. Rarity struggled to get a view of their new environment. They stepped into nothing. Discord’s feet were running on an invisible road in a black void. All at once, a room made of cobblestone built itself around them. Columns to hide behind shot up from the ground and rocketed into the ceiling, merging with it. Torches attached to the columns provided light. Discord ducked behind a random column and observed the entrance of the room. Rarity craned her neck and watched the wall above the door explode into debris as the golem charged through it.

The golem took two steps forward before being met with uncertainty and coming to a halt. It dropped the business end of its hammer to the ground, sending chips of broken cobblestone everywhere. The golem leaned on the hammer and stroked its chin as it tried to figure out what to do next.

Discord turned his head, put a talon to his lips, and blew. They needed to remain quiet. “We’re not getting out of here until we deal with that thing. We were lucky to be in the neighborhood of an unused dimension. I can use my magic in here to create whatever I want, but I need to be careful. Once I use magic, the golem will know where I am.”

“Then what are you waiting for? Drop a three-hundred-ton weight on its head.”

“It would survive that. These things are made to be virtually indestructible.”

The golem smashed a column into bits with its hammer.

Rarity started shaking. “What if you stop it from moving? Freeze it or drop it in a vat of glue.”

“It would break free from it before I had a chance to get us out of here.”

Their new friend was getting close.

“Didn’t you disable the other two golems?” Rarity asked.

“Yes, but I don’t remember how. I’m trying, but the time limit we’re under is making it somewhat difficult to concentrate.”

Just as she was about to start yelling at him, it hit her. Puppeteers. “Wait, I’ve read a book about this. Don’t you just disenchant them?”

“If it was that easy, they would be nearly useless.”

“No, there’s a specific spot on their body that is weak against it. Right behind the neck, if I remember right. You have to hit that spot in its exact center or the spell won’t work.”

Discord smiled and shook his head. “Unbelievable. You are absolutely correct. Wait here.”

He took her out of the harness without the aid of magic and jumped into the sky, flying straight for the neck of the golem. Levitation had to be in use since the golem turned to face him. Rarity watched Discord vanish behind the golem’s neck. It swatted the area Discord was in with its hand as if he were a mosquito. The golem used two fingers to pick a familiar figure from its neck. After confirming its catch, it flung Discord into the ground as hard as it could.

Rarity’s mouth dropped open. Her chest started feeling funny.

The golem swung its hammer over its head and brought it down.

“Discord!” Rarity screamed, which gave away her position.

Her adversary turned to face her. The odds of her winning a fight against it alone were slim to none. All she could hope to do was evade it until she figured out how to beat it. Rarity turned around and started galloping, determined to find a new hiding place.

Comments

[Foggy Dreams]

Oh boy, Discord is gonna be getting an earful about this later. If there is a later, that is