The Locked Room Mystery
Twilight awoke with a grunt. Something was off, however. It’s cold. Must’ve fallen out of bed. The hard floor had been particularly unkind to her neck. Twilight gave her head a shake as she rose to her hooves, stretching out the sore muscles in her neck. She opened her eyes to see a pitch-black room. “Spike, did you close the blinds again?” she called out into the darkness. No answer. She readied an illumination spell as she rubbed her bleary eyes.
The usual sights of the library had been replaced by an almost featureless, stone-gray room, save for a single door on one of the walls. On floor nearby lay her friends. Twilight reached out a hoof to the pony laying closest to her, who just so happened to be Pinkie Pie. “Pinkie, wake up!” She shook Pinkie a few times, attempting to rouse her sleeping friend. She stirred.
“Mmm… Frosting…” Pinkie muttered softly, a bead of saliva forming at the corner of her mouth. She turned to another.
"...buy some apples..."
A heavy sigh escaped Twilight's mouth. She closed her eyes. Her brows furrowed as she poured more magic into the illumination spell, casting an almost blinding light in the room. A collective groan resound as each pony put a hoof over their eyes.
"Hey, what's that for, Twilight?! I was snoozing, ya'know?"
Twilight's illumination spell faded. The others gasped as the sights of the room came into view. “That’s what for, Rainbow.”
Rarity was the first to speak up after Twilight’s comment. “How did we end up here?” she asked, eyes drifting about the room. “And this room is so drab, such a boring shade of gray…”
“It’s like one of those ‘escape the room’ games! We should look for clues!” she announced her deduction gleefully, then hopped off elsewhere. Her reaction garnered a strange look, but the thought was quickly dismissed from their minds.
“Well, Pinkie’s got the right idea,” Applejack chipped in, “we should be looking for clues.”
“Agreed,” said Twilight, “be on the lookout for something suspicious. If this is indeed a ‘game’, whoever’s behind this likely left a way for us to get out.”
A shout came from the other side of the room “Oh hey, a lever! I wonder what that does?”
“Pinkie-”
flip. Bright lights switched on overhead. “Pinkie!” Twilight shouted, “while yes, finding the lightswitch does help us, please don’t mess with things if you don’t know what they do.”
“Aw, does that mean I can’t press those buttons?” she asked dejectedly, pointing to a console on the opposite side of the room.
“No, Pinkie, not until we’ve ruled out everything else in here.”
“Ooh, hey! A welcome mat!”
“Not a very welcoming place, now is it?” Rarity retorted.
After a while of searching, the group reconvened to go over their findings. “Well, how did the search go?” Twilight questioned.
“A fruitless endeavor, I’m afraid,” Rarity spoke up, “I haven’t found a thing in this dreadful place.”
“Same here,” this time, it was Applejack, “Ain’t found anythin’, I’m afraid.”
“I checked the ceiling,” Dash chimed in, “but didn’t find anything useful up there”
“Ok, let’s try something simple,” Twilight stated, walking over to the door, “I’ll just teleport to the other side.”
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Rarity asked as the others joined her by the door.
“Well, no,” she responded, “But we won’t know until we try” Twilight readied a teleportation spell and vanished… only to smack face-first into the door. She rubbed her nose in a knee-jerk response. “The door blocked my magic.” Her comment was slightly muffled as she held her nose.
“The door blocked your magic?” asked Rainbow.
“Yes, That is what I said,” she said, nose still sore from the impact, “I can’t cast magic through it.”
“Couldn’t ‘ya just teleport through a wall, or sumthin’?” Applejack suggested.
“There’s no telling how thick the walls are, I could end up teleporting into a wall for all I know.”
“Oh… that’d be pretty bad, wouldn’t it?” Applejack thought a bit about Twilight’s earlier comment.
“Alright, time for Plan B. Applejack, try kicking down the door”
She quite liked the sound of that. “One open door coming right up, Twilight.” She stretched out her legs, and stood in front of the door. Applejack gave the door a powerful kick, and a resounding thud fills the room. But the door stood unscathed. So she gave it another kick. And another. But it still the door remained shut. “whew,” she gasped, wiping her forehead with a hoof, “that door ain’t budgin’.”
Pinkie felt the need to throw in her two bits, metaphorically speaking of course. “Ooh! what if Rainbow Dash could slide under the door and unlock it for us?” Dash just stared at her with a confounded look on her face.
“Hmm, a liquefaction spell could work, but I’d be unable to reconstitute her on the other side.”
“Uh, what am I, chopped brussel sprouts? Don’t I get a say in this?” But this time it was Dash’s turn to be ignored.
“Have you tried to pick the lock?” Fluttershy suggested.
“A great idea, but nothing to pick it with…”
Applejack raised an eyebrow. “You know how to pick a lock, Twilight?”
“...Moving on,” she responded, dismissing the question.
“Do you think these would work?” Fluttershy held up a pair of thin, metal pieces of scrap.
“Why didn’t you bring this up earlier when I asked?”
“I didn’t think it was very important…” She rubbed the back of her head. Twilight simply heaved a sigh and levitated the pieces of metal from Fluttershy’s hoof, bending them into a pair of makeshift lockpicking tools. She put the tools to the lock and leaned in an ear to listen for the sound of clicking pins. After a while of fumbling about with the lock, she retrieved the the tools from the lock and shook her head.
“It’s not working…” she said finally.
Rainbow stamped a hoof on the ground. “Come on, you’re the egghead here, surely you’ve got another plan to get us out, right?”
“But her name’s not ‘Shirley’, Dashie.” Dash just shot her a look.
“Well… the only thing we haven’t tried are those buttons over there…”
“I got it!” Pinkie shot over to the console, hoof eagerly hovering over one of the buttons.
“Pinkie- just be careful, ok?” Twilight put a hoof to her forehead.
She pressed the first button, which had an up arrow on it. The section of floor under Applejack’s hooves sprang up, launching her into the air with a yelp. A few seconds later, she hit the ground with a heavy thud, which was met with a collective groan at the sound of the impact. “Please don’t press that again…” she said wearily.
“Okie dokie lokie!” Pinkie said gleefully as she pressed the next button, this one emblazoned with a down arrow. A hole opened up under her and she squealed with delight as she fell. Rainbow dove in after her. She emerged shortly after, with Pinkie in tow. she set her down and pressed the button again, closing the opening to the pit.
“And that one…” Dash added, returning to her earlier spot.
The next button Pinkie press had three diagonal lines on it. Holes opened up in the walls to the sounds of several loud pops, accompanied by streamers and confetti. Fluttershy jumped at the sound and let out a small squeak. “Let’s do that again!”
“Let’s not…” Fluttershy said meekly.
Pinkie deflated a little. “Ok, fine…” She pressed the next button in line, this one decorated with the image of a pair of scissors. a group of slender, cylindrical appendages slithered out of a hole that opened in the wall, grabbing the nearest pony to them, Applejack, and pulled her into the wall. They gasped as the wall closed behind her. Applejack’s protests could be faintly heard from the other side. She was soon deposited back on the other side in a rather frilly, and surprisingly flattering dress. Rainbow broke out into a fit of laughter at the sight.
“How’s that ‘best twenty bits you ever spent’ looking now, Applejack?”
“Laugh it up, mare of the evening.” She took off the dress, throwing it to the floor. Rarity took this moment to inspect it. It certainly had a hoof-made look to it. She had to admit, it wasn’t bad, for whatever it was that made it. Applejack raised an eyebrow.
“What? It looked good on you.” She let out a sigh.
“Aw, do I have to?” she asked as she drifted by on the wind.
“Yes!”
She floated back to the console, and pressed the fan button once more. The fan slowed to a stop, and the wall segments previously hiding the fan returned to their original positions. The next button down the line had an image of a pillow, which was promptly met with Pinkie’s hoof. Soft padding popped out on all the walls, ceiling and floor. She took the opportunity to bounce about the room. “Best button ever~”
“Come on, Pinkie, quit fooling around…” said an unamused Twilight. She repressed the button, retracting the padding and resulting in Pinkie landing flat on her face.
“But fooling around is what I do best.”
“I just want to get this over with…” Twilight said with a sigh as she pressed the last button, this one had a heart shape on it. A group of tendrils dropped out of this ceiling this time, plucking Dash and retreating back where they came from. Faint noises could be heard overhead, though it was impossible to determine their context. After a while, the noises stopped, and out popped Dash from a hole in the wall. Her coat was wet and matted in places, and her body twitched slightly.
“I feel like I’ve lost many things at once…” she managed after a slight pause.
“What happened…?” Twilight asked, a slight note of concern in her voice.
“...I’d rather not talk about it…”
This only succeeded in raising more concern. With a sigh, Twilight said, “Well, that’s all the buttons, what now? There’s nothing left to try.”
“Well then, how about this?” came a reply from Pinkie, as she was standing by the door. With a turn of the knob, it swung open, revealing the sights of Ponyville. Twilight’s jaw dropped to the floor.
“H-how did you…?”
“There was a key under the doormat~,” she said with a grin.
“But I checked under that mat earlier, are you telling me you had that key this whole time?!” A vein pulsed in her forehead.
A sheepish grin creeped onto Pinkie’s face. “Yeah… I thought it’d be fun.” A collective groan ensued, creating a palpable sense of annoyance in the room. “Come on, you have to admit, the bouncy room button was run.” The others said nothing as they left the room.
“Well, it could have worse,” Fluttershy commented. After a second to ponder this, they nodded in agreement. If nothing else, they could take solace in that. When the last pony left, the door closed behind them. The noise of the door shutting came as a surprise, and they turned to face the closed door. But there was nothing to be seen. Twilight waved a hoof where the door should have been, but struck nothing.
“It’s gone…” she remarked, a note of curiosity in her voice.
Rainbow Dash rubbed her eyes with a hoof. “I think I’m gonna need a mug of cider or two after the day I’ve had…”
“I think I might join ‘ya,” Applejack added.
“I need to go fix the damage that horrid fan caused.” Rarity ran a hoof through her mane as she said this.
“Well, I’d like to take a nice, relaxing rest after this… event…” Twilight said wearily. Everypony took off in separate directions, save for Pinkie. She turned around, key in hoof, and held it out in front of her. She gave it a turn, and an invisible door seemed to open in front of her. Pinkie peered inside. “This key is so cool!”