Part 1: Into the Zone
Lunaverse: Zone
Part 1: Into the Zone
With the first day of summer break beginning Cheerilee was up earlier than normal. Every year on this very day when she began her own break from her fulfilling but admittedly draining and time consuming work as a teacher Cheerilee had a tradition.
That tradition was adding a new fish to her ever growing family of aquatic house pets!
The very first thing she would do was of course double check her current number of fishy friends and after making sure they were all fed and their bowls, tanks, and in the case of Mr. Bity the Barracuda a tub, she’d re-categorize and examine the list so she could decide just what kind of new fish to order. All her fish except the Gils, her goldfish, of which she was currently on number 38, were ones she’d ordered via mail from a magazine for fish enthusiasts; The LIfe Neighquatic.
She had just finished making sure all the fish were fed, bouncing around her house from one end to the other while humming a jaunty tune, when Cheerilee heard a knock at her door.
She hadn’t been expected company. The knock didn’t startled her, however, and she trotted up to the door, ducking under one of her low hanging fish tanks she had suspended from the ceiling (she used a ladder to get to that one) and when she opened the door she found Ditzy Doo hovering outside. The mailmare was in full uniform and had a smile on her face, but Cheerilee noted Ditzy also looked a tad nervous.
“Morning Cheerilee! Got a package for you.”
“A package?” Cheerilee blinked, “I don’t think I’ve ordered anything. At least not yet. Who’s it from?”
“Dunno,” said Ditzy, poking her muzzle into her mailback and hauling out a surprisingly long, brown package, rectangular and about the length of a foreleg. Ditzy set it down in front of Cheerilee.
“It doesn’t have a return address,” Ditzy said, “But it passed through inspection and came from the main office in Canterlot after arriving from... well, wherever else.”
“Huh...” Cheerilee examined the package, then nudged it with a hoof. She glanced up as she noticed Ditzy was suddenly hovering much further away, and Cheerilee chuckled, “Well, it didn’t explode. I think of Corona was going to try anything through the mail she’d have done it awhile ago. Pretty sure it’s safe.”
“Yeah, sorry, just, heheh, had a weird feeling when you touched it,” said Ditzy, her wandering eye seeming, almost, to be drawn towards the package, “In fact I’ve been having a tingly feeling since I picked it up. Uh, I’m a little early starting my route so I have some time. You mind if I watch you open it? I wanna see what’s inside.”
“Curiosity killed the pegasus, huh? No problem Ditzy, come on in.”
Cheerilee picked up the package and set it on her back as she went back into her house, Ditzy following behind. Ditzy had been to Cheerilee’s place once or twice before so she wasn’t taken aback by the fish, like most tended to when they first came into Cheerrilee’s home. The house wasn’t actually all that cluttered, despite the prevalence of the fish homes. The living room had plenty of space in the center, through just the one couch and one chair, both arranged in front of a flagstone fireplace.
Cheerilee set the package down on the low coffee table in front of the couch and took a seat while Ditzy just sat on the floor at one end of the table. Cheerilee wasted no time in tearing the packaging, pulling out a box.
The box was made from a wood that looked old and was so faded it nearly appeared to be white. Bronze hinges were set at either end of the rectangular box, with a clear seam running down the center. A word was scralled across the wood, not carved, but somehow inlaid with a dull rusty metal.
“Zone,” Cheerilee read the word aloud, her eyebrow quirking up as she looked at Ditzy, “What do you suppose that means?”
Ditzy just shrugged and Cheerilee laughed, “Well, let’s see if we can open it.”
It didn’t take long ot figure out how to work the hinges, a strangely shaped protrusion on each one that resembled a miniature pyramid protruding from each hinge. When both were flipped at the same time a oddly... organic click sounded and the seam opened, the box unfolding down the center.
It opened up into what appeared to be a large, square... game board? Cheerilee couldn’t tell. The majority of it was taken up by a spiral inlay of that same rusty metal the name on the outside was made from. The inlay was shaped like a jagged, uneven spiral, filled with interior spaces of irregular shapes and pattern. It hurt to look at, Cheerilee blinking a couple of times as she her eyes naturally tried to find patterns or order in the spiral of spaces and lines but was thwarted by the seeming randomness of the arrangement. Yet even so it was clear that the center of the spiral eventually spiraled outward to six tapering points, and at each point was a simple divot, as if something was meant to fit inside. There was a similar divot, through larger and smoother, at the center of the game board.
Game board... for some reason Cheerilee kept thinking that’s what this was. Some kind of odd board game.
his thought seemed supported when she noticed that, along either end of the square, was a space that could be pulled out. When she did she found there were three pyramid shaped tokens inside along with a single, larger sphere that Cheerilee noticed wasn’t entirely smooth but instead denoted with little sides like a large, hundred sided dice. Each side on this sphere shaped die was blank, showing no numbers or symbols. The pyramid tokens themselves were odd, each carved from a different material; silver, gold, copper, onyx, jade, and marble.
“That is the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen,” Ditzy said.
At Cheerilee’s look Ditzy grinned and giggled, “Okay, maybe not the weirdest, but still pretty weird.”
“Well, no argument from me. This definitely classifies as at least somewhere in the top fifty oddest things I’ve seen,” Cheerilee said, looking upwards for a second in thought, “Right behind Prench cuisine, and just ahead of those crazy golems Grogar sent after us.”
Ditzy stifled a laugh with a wing, but soon her mirth died away as she gave the strange board game(?) a longer glance rife with trepidation. Ditzy’s tail twitched nervously as she spoke in a much more quiet and subdued tone than her usual cheerful chirp, “Umm, Cheerilee, what are you going to do with it?”
“Don’t know. I don’t see an instruction manual anywhere, so even if it is a game its not like I’d even know how to play it. Probably stick it in my basement with the rest of my ‘random stuff I don’t use’. Although...” Cheerilee rubbed her chin, looking at the board thoughtfully, then on impulse reached town and picked up one of the spheres with her mouth and placed it in the central divot.
Both mares jumped back as the sphere flashed with a pop of white light for a second and seemed to sent a similar current of magical light flowing over the many curving, twisting lines of the spiral. Cheerilee felt her fur stand on end, a tingle along her mane that last a moment before it settled back down.
“Cheerilee,” Ditzy said with a slight frown and a agitated flap of her wings.
“Sorry,” she replied with an apologetic grin, “You know, we should probably get Lyra or Trixie over here to check this thing out.”
“Actually I kind of need to get back to my route, “ said Ditzy.
“Right. Sorry. Hey, how about I invite everypony over this afternoon?”
“Sure! I’ll pass it along. Dinky’s staying over at Pipsqueak’s tonight so I’m free.”
Cheerilee paused, considering. Ditzy’s daughter Dinky and Pipsqueak were both students of hers. She noticed that particular pair had spent more and more time playing together during recess. It made Cheerilee smile a bit, remembering her first crush. She wondered if Ditzy grasped what was going on yet and how the momma bear of Cheerilee’s circle of friends would handle her daughter getting interested in colts.
She imagined that everything was purely innocent right now, but in about five years or so it’d be an interesting situation to watch develop.
Cheerilee bid farewell to Ditzy and went back to her fish magazine. Or tried to.
Every time she took her eyes off of the game, Zone, she felt that cold tingle again and she kept, without even realizing she was doing it, setting aside the magazine to look at the board. Then she caught herself raising a hoof towards the sphere without having planned to and actually jerked her hoof back quite suddenly.
“Okay... maybe I should go for a walk,” she said to herself, “Yup, a nice long walk. Might not come back until the afternoon... when everypony else shows up.”
Actually she was thinking that paying an early visit to the unicorns among her friends would be a good idea. She didn’t think she was being paranoid or anything, she just suddenly didn’t want to be alone in her house. It was a nice day out, after all. It wasn’t as if she was... afraid.
Not of a board game.
----------
“Seriously? Not that I don't like hanging out Cheerilee, and it was nice of you to order in pizza, but you get a package out of nowhere with no return address and you just open it?”
Raindrops’ admonishing look was somewhat ruined by the fact that she was munching away at her slice of pizza with and content flutter of her wings. Cheerilee just smiled at her friend, shrugging.
“If I didn’t I’d have spent the whole day getting more and more curious until I would’ve ended up opening it anyway,” she said.
“Well, there’s clearly magic in it,” said Trixie, who was sitting at the couch, examining Zone with her eyes slightly aglow with her magic-sight spell, “But I can’t identify what kind. My recommendation is to toss it in the nearest available trash can and forget about it.”
“Is it dangerous?” asked Carrot Top, looking at the game board warily from the other side of the table.
I doubt it,” said Trixie, “The magical aura is masked and muddled, but its also very weak. I’ve seen comic books with more potent magical enchantments then what I’m sensing here.”
“You read comic books?” asked Lyra, finishing off her own pizza slice and talking around it without any care for propriety, “Didn’t take you for the type.”
Trixie huffed, indignantly puffing her cheeks out, “I’m not! I just happen to know that there are certain enchanted comic books that may or may not have some impressive spells placed on them.”
She glanced away and muttered, “Never did find out how that old nag of a shopkeeper did it...”
Lyra grinned impishly, but before she could nettle her friend any further Cheerilee stepped in so she was standing more or less between everypony.
So, now that I’ve all got you here, and everypony is fed, first let me say thanks for coming over. I don’t actually bring you all here all that often.”
“Or at all,” Raindrops pointed out.
“No,” Cheerilee admitted, “Trixie’s usually is better for these sorts of hangouts. Less fish.”
“Yeah, I’ve been meaning to ask what that’s all about,” said Lyra glancing around at the various fish habitats, poking lightly at one of the fishbowls sitting on a stool nearby, only to have Ditzy poke her and shake her head. Lyra smiled sheepishly and pulled her hoof back.
Cheerilee looked on with a somewhat embarrassed smile of her own, “I just like fish.”
They’re quiet and easy to take care of, she didn’t add. She loved her job. She found teaching incredibly fulfilling. But when she got home having some quiet wasn’t a bad thing. Cheerilee also wasn’t a fan of feeling alone, so the fish were kind of the perfect balance of company and silence all rolled up into one. Low maintenance too, at least until dreaded Tank Cleaning Day arrived. But one day of hard, mucky work was a small price to pay for what Cheerilee considered good quiet company. She just didn’t really know how to explain that without feeling judgmental towards herself.
“Anyway, now that Trixie and Lyra have had a chance to look at it, what do you think this Zone thing is?” Cheerilee asked.
Trixie shrugged, “Could be anything. Like, literally anything. Just because it has what looks like a game board and game pieces doesn’t mean its a board game. In magic there’s countless different styles and methods of approaching the actual art. For all I can tell this is somepony’s attempt at testing out some minor enchantment on a harmless board game. Or its a summoning circle that’ll bring forth the Dark Destroyer of the Omniverse.”
“Dark Destroyer of the Omniverse?” Raindrops asked.
“Not actually a thing,” Trixie said, then looked thoughtful, “I hope. Now that I know there is multiple realities I wouldn’t be be shocked if there was a Dark Destroyer of the Omniverse hanging around in one of them.”
“I hate to say it but I’m drawing a blank on this one,” said Lyra with a shrug, “All I can tell by looking at it is that this ‘Zone’ or whatever is pretty old. Like, super old. Not Pre-Princesses old, but still...”
Cheerilee smiled helplessly and shook her head, “Okay, okay, figured it couldn’t hurt to have you two look at it. Suppose I’ll just stick it in my basement and let it collect dust.”
She went to go put the board game away, or whatever it was. Her hoof reached out to pick up the sphere that she’d left sitting in the middle of the spiral earlier to put it back with the pyramid pieces, but the moment her hoof touched the sphere to push it out she found the sphere stuck fast to the board. Frowning, Cheerilee felt a cold rush through her, and she pushed harder on the sphere.
The sphere spun, faster than it should have for the force she’d put on it. Abruptly there was a faint pulse of light and small threads of magic flowed from the sphere to touch Cheerilee and each of her friends. There were startled shouts and yelps from her friends as they mystically pulled around the table, as if the board game were a lodestone.
One by one the pyramid pieces floated from their cradles on the side of the board and floated in front of Cheerilee and her friends.
The silver piece in front of Trixie, the gold piece in front of Ditzy, the jade piece in front of Lyra, the copper piece in front of Carrot Top, the onyx piece in front of Raindrops, and finally the marble piece in front of Cheerilee.
“What’s going on?” asked Ditzy, gulping.
"I don’t know!” snapped Trixie, her own eyes wide as she looked at the board, “I... I don’t even feel any more magic coming out of it!”
Slowly each piece set itself down on one of the far tips of the spiral on the board, and when the pyramids settled there, the magic holding the mares in place vanished. Almost instantly Raindrops was flying up, nearly smashing into a fish tank hanging from the ceiling.
“Alright, we’re out of here! We get ahold of somepony else to deal with this thing, probably by burning it.”
At that declaration Raindrops went for the door and fling it open.
Or try to at any rate. Cheerilee’s front door stuck fast, and to Raindrops’ clear shock as she pounded on the wood, the door seemed to unnaturally resist the pegasus mare’s strong hooves. Even when Raindrops wound up a heavy buck with her hind legs she merely bounced off the door.
“What!? No way!” Raindrops growled at the door.
“Maybe a window?” Lyra suggested.
“Actually, I don’t know if that’s-” Cherilee began but Raindrops snorted like a mad minotaur and charged the nearest window, shoulder ramming it, only to halt flatly with a loud cracking noise.
“Uh... Raindrops? Are you okay?” asked Carrot Top, perhaps the calmest appearing of the six mares.
“...Ow...” Raindrops said as she slowly slid down the wall.
“So, we’re trapped?” asked Ditzy.
“No we’re not ‘trapped’!” said Trixie, who was breathing a tad quickly, “There’s no way a silly little piece of wood can just... randomly make it impossible to leave a house! I’ll just contact Luna really quick and let her know a magical impossible board game has us held hostage and she...”
Trixie trailed off as she patted her head, realizing for the first time that today she’d left her hat and cape at home. The Night Court Representative's ears and mane wilted as she muttered, “Great, just great, the first time I decide to just leave the outfit at home and my friend has to get a possessed, evil board game!”
“Well, it might not be evil or anything,” Ditzy said, smiling nervously, “Maybe its just some old foal’s game that happens to be really heavily enchanted? I bet if we just play it we can leave once the game is over.”
“Fine,” muttered Raindrops, picking herself up and plopping down heavily in front of her onyx piece, “So, how do we start this?”
Slowly each mare leaned over the board, all casting each other wary and worried glances. None of them knew exactly what to do expect from this, and Cheerilee felt a spike of guilt at having invited them all over to get trapped in this situation. Perhaps she should’ve just tossed the package away, or had Ditzy return it ot the post office? Her curiosity had gotten the better of her, and she’d wanted an excuse to invite all her friends over to her house. They hung out at Trixie’s so often, Cheerilee had to admit she kind of felt jealous.
She didn’t yet think the situation was really dangerous, but if it did, it was her responsibility. So Cheerilee also felt responsible for fixing the matter. She reached out a hoof to tentatively touch her marble piece, but the moment her hoof made contact it was as she felt a force push her away from it and push her hoof towards the sphere.
“Huh... guess we’re not supposed to pick up the pieces,” she said, frowning inquisitively as she reached for the sphere.
Carrot Top suddenly spoke up, “Cheerilee, maybe I should go first? We don’t know what this thing will do next.”
“How does you going first make things any better?” asked Ditzy, “You’d just be putting yourself at risk instead of Cheerilee.”
“I know,” said Carrot Top with a embarrased droop of her ears, “I just, I don’t know, I don’t want to see any of you get hurt.”
“Let me go first. I’m pretty durable,” said Raindrops.
“No,” said Cheerilee, adopting her authoritative teachers tone, “I’ll be going first. This is all my doing, so this falls on me.”
Before any of her friends could raise further protest she touched the sphere and gave it a shove, setting it to spinning once more. It made the strangest noise, somewhere between a buzz and a insects chirping, like a cicada. As if under the guidance of an invisible hoof Cheerilee’s marble pyramid piece moved. It didn’t move in a straight line, or even in a recognizable pattern, but rather in a haphazard, jerking series of motions that put it on a seemingly random part of the spiral board.
Once there the piece glowed a faint green hue, then a similar colored hue of magic rose up from the sphere like some kind of cone, filling the space above the game board.
In that space, words appeared in a oddly jagged, uneven script that was hard to read.
“Count to ten...” Ditzy said, reading aloud. Everypony shared a confused look.
“That’s weird,” said Carrot Top.
“So what, this game just has us do pointless stuff?” asked Trixe.
Cheerilee shrugged and did what the game said, slowly counting to ten. When she was done the green magical hue faded away. She glanced at her friends. To her right was Ditzy, and Cheerilee nodded to the mare.
“Might as well do this around the table,” she said and Ditzy nodded, through the mare’s nervousness was palpable as her wings twitched, her hoof going to spin the sphere.
And around it went, each of Cheerilee’s friends taking a turn spinning the sphere and sending their game pieces skittering randomly around the board. Each time they performed some equally random, yet seemingly harmless task. Jumping in place for thirty seconds, or balancing on one hoof... all rather mundane.
Then the second time Cheerilee spun the sphere there was something different.
Instead of a command, the words formed within the green hue appeared as a question.
Do you like all of your fish?
The question itself was harmless enough, even seemingly innocent, but...
“Cheerilee, how does a board game know that you have a lot of pet fish?” asked Lyra.
"Creepy possessed evil board game?” Cheerilee responded with a bewildered shrug.
Lyra bit her lower lip and nodded, “Yeah, sounds about right. Might as well answer it, before it starts getting impatient.”
“Cheerilee, just for the record, do you have anything like, I don’t know, a saw or a wood chopping axe?” asked Raindrops, eyeing the board game, “I mean, just in case this whole ‘playing the game’ doesn’t work and I feel like trying a more direct method?”
“In the basement,” Cheerilee said, “Got an axe in case I ever need to get firewood.”
She then cleared her throat and leaned forward, speaking to the board itself, through she felt a tad silly doing so, “Yes, I like all of my fish.”
Just as it had with the oddly simple physical challenges the words inside the green hue vanished. Ditzy moved to take her turn with a clearly greater hesitance than before, “I’m really starting to not like this.”
Ditzy spun the sphere, which made that buzzing chirp, a noise that Cheerilee realized was really starting to grate on her. The faint rustling of shifting hooves and wings clued her in to the growing nervousness in her friends as well.
When the words appeared this time they weren’t a question or a challenge, but rather just a single word.
Cold.
Suddenly Ditzy started to shiver, teeth chattering as she rubbed her hooves together.
“Ditzy, are you okay?” asked Carrot Top, almost immediately moving to come around to the pegasus mare’s side. Cheerilee reached out a hoof and touched Ditzy’s shoulder, and found the mare’s coat was cold as if she’d been out in a winter night.
“I-uh, its not bad,” Ditzy said, “Just chilly. Got a blanket Cheerilee?”
Cheerilee nodded and went to retrieve a few while Carrot Top leaned close to Ditzy to help keep Ditzy warm. When Cheerilee came back with blankets she also saw that Lyra and Trixie were stacking firewood in teh fireplace and getting a fire going. Trixie broke off from that and pulled Cheerilee aside briefly after she gave the blankets over to Ditzy.
“Cheerilee, are you sure you have no idea who sent this thing to you?” Trixie asked.
“Certain. I don’t know anypony who’d send anything dangeorus like this to me,” Cheerilee said in a quiet voice.
“What about any of your old friends? You guys traveled a lot back then, right?” pressed Trixie, “Could any of you touched something you shouldn’t have and gotten some old magical curse on you that’s only now coming to bite you on the flank?”
Cheerilee chuckled, though there wasn’t much humor in it, “If that happened then there’s no way I’d remember it.”
Her face tightened in a serious look as she glanced at the game board, which innocuously sat here, seemingly so harmless, “If this gets any weirder, or worse, then Raindrops can feel free to take an axe to it.”
“Not filled to the brim with confidence that will work,” said Trixie, frowning, “If it has magic to keep us trapped here, don’t see why it wouldn’t have magic to protect itself. But not ruling it out as a Plan B.”
When they returned to the group Cheerilee took a closer look at Ditzy, who didn’t seem like she was too uncomfortable, now that a fire was going and she was wrapped up in a few of Cheerilee’s flower stitched blankets. Ditzy even gave Cheerilee a steady smile.
“I’m fine. Still a bit cold, but I can keep going. Its weird, it feels like having an ice pack on my chest.”
Next in line was Raindrops, whose nostrils flared as she snorted, giving Zone a heated, stabbing look as she spun the sphere, “Just give me an excuse to turn you into kindling.”
“Yeah, maybe tossing this in the fire would be a good idea?” suggested Carrot Top.
Lyra grimaced, “Weird magic plus fire probably equals bad. I’ve known some magic items to kind of... well... explode.”
“Whatever, let’s see what ti does next,” grumbled Raindrops, glaring at the green hue of magic above the sphere as words formed there. She cocked her head slightly as she read them.
“Go into the kitchen and close the door?” Raindrops read aloud in a questioning tone.
Cheerilee’s gut instincts were coming alive with warning bells. She hadn’t thought of it at all when she’d gone to get the blankets for Ditzy but her house was starting to feel less and less... familiar. Even the short jaunt to her room and back had an aura of wandering a stranger’s house, rather than her own familiar halls. She suddenly didn’t like the idea of Raindrops getting separated from them, even if the kitchen was literally right next to the living room.
“Raindrops, maybe you shouldn’t-” she began but Raindrops just stood up with a huff and flare of her wings.
“We’re not getting out of this by just waiting around. Its just the kitchen.”
Raindrops trotted into the kitchen and turned to close the door. Trixie stood and spoke up suddenly, a tremor of actual fear in her voice.
“Be careful.”
Raindrops paused, gave Trixie a small smile and nodded, then closed the door.
The five mares left in the living room were quiet for a few seconds, all seeming to hold their breaths. For Cheerilee it just made it easier for her to hear the increasing and louder pace of her heart. Despite the fact that it couldn’t have been more than a few seconds since Raindrops had closed the door it felt as if an hour had stretched out by the time anypony spoke.
“Should we ask if she’s okay?” Lyra’s voice was just a small octave above a whisper, her gold eyes lidded with worry.
Trixie was scuffing a hoof on the floor, her body stiff as a wood plank as she shuffled towards the door. She gave the rest of her friends a wary look before turning to the door and saying, “Raindrops?”
There was no response.
Before Cheerilee or any of the other mares could say anything Trixie growled and with her horn lighting up with magic she yanked the door open, “Raindrops!”
The kitchen was there, plain as Cheerilee had last seen it. But there was no sign of the jasimine pegasus anywhere. Trixie jumped in, and Cheerilee found herself right behind the other mare. Their friends came in behind them, one by one, and they looked around the empty kitchen.
“She’s... not here?” Carrot Top looked like she’d just found an army of rabbits destroying her farm.
“Maybe she’s playing a prank?” suggested Ditzy, who still had the blankets wrapped firmly around her shivering body.
“That’s not like her,” said Trixie firmly, “She wouldn’t prank in a situation like this. Something’s happened.”
Trixie had a dangerous look in her eyes, the violet orbs flashing with a simmering anger that Cheerilee could tell were cloaking no small amount of fear. Trixie marched right out of the kitchen, which didn’t have any other doors in or out save the one. Her magic bloomed around her horn as she tried to life the game board with telekinesis.
“Trixie, what are you doing!?” Cheerilee exclaimed, rushing back out of the kitchen.
“This is going in the fire,” Trixie said, frowning as she tugged at the game board with her magic. However Zone didn’t budge, remaining rooted in place on the table.
“I don’t think you can move it,” said Cheerilee, “And even if you could, its a bad idea.”
“Why’s that!?” snapped Trixie, “It did something to Raindrops! Its dangerous, we have to get rid of it! It was a dumb idea to play this game!”
Cheerilee put a hoof on the unicorn’s trembling shoulder, her voice going soft, “I know, I know, I wish i hadn’t invited you girls over. But if something has happened to Raindrops then there’s no way of knowing what destroying the game board will do to her.”
“Cheerilee’s right,” chimed in Lyra, “We have no idea how this magic works. Screwing with it could be worse than playing along. Look, Raindrops’ piece is still on the board, right?”
A quick glance confirmed that indeed the onyx pyramid piece was still where it’d last landed after Raindrops had spun the sphere.
“If something really bad had happened to her or if she was out of the game then that piece would’ve reacted,” said Lyra with confidence that Cheerilee wasn’t certain Lyra actually felt, but she certainly managed to fake well, “So if we keep playing, she might come back when its her turn again.”
“It’ll be okay, Trixie, Raindrops is the toughest out of all of us,” said Ditzy, smiling despite the way she was still shivering under the blankets, “She’ll be fine, I’m sure of it.”
Trixie looked as if she were ready to bite the game board in half but she slowly nodded and silently resumed her spot around the table. Soon enough the others joined her and it was Carrot Top’s turn to spin the sphere.
“This thing better not send me into the basement,” the farmer muttered as her hoof gave the sphere a twirl.
Slowly the words formed above the sphere, and even before the mare’s had a chance to read them there was a strange, loud grinding sound like stone on stone that made them all jump.
“I am really starting to resent this thing,” Carrot Top said with a rueful sigh and read off the words that had appeared, “...Get to the other side? The other side of what?”
That’s when a door banged open on its own, one that was, one on the wall opposite the kitchen.
“...Cheerilee,” said Lyra, “Was that door there before?”
Cheerilee shook her head, feeling her skin prickle with goosebumps, “No, no it wasn’t. There’s never been a door there.”
One by one the mares got up to go examine the new door, hesitation in each of their steps. Carrot Top had taken the lead, and was first to comment on what they saw beyond the threshold.
“Scratch what I said before. I’m not starting to resent this game. I’m starting to loathe it.”
Beyond the door was what looked like a natural chasm of stone, black darkness both above and below what seemed to be two sheer cliffs. The only thing connecting one end to the other was a horribly narrow bridge, no longer across than half a pony’s foreleg. On the other side was another door, closed.
“You don’t have to do this,” said Ditzy, coming up next to Carrot Top and putting a protective wing around her friend, “It can’t make you.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” said Cheerilee, looking back at the game board and the words above it, which had shifted from the command to a series of changing numbers.
“Horseapples, is that a countdown?” asked Carrot Top.
“Looks like it,” said Trixie, rubbing her head, “So we either wait to see what happens when it reaches zero... or you go across. Cheerilee, are you sure about not just trying to flip the entire table into the fire?”
“No, I’ll go,” said Carrot Top, “I’m not putting the rest of you, or Raindrops, in danger by waiting to see what happens when that count ends.”
Despite her words it was clear Carrot Top needed to take a second to prepare herself for this. Her breathing was quick and her face beading with sweat, her green eyes staring at the dark chasm before her. Ditzy hugged her closer.
“We’ll keep the door open and watch the whole way,” Ditzy said, “If something goes wrong, I’ll catch you.”
“Me and Trixie got magic to grab you with, too, just in case,” put in Lyra.
Carrot Top gave her friends a brief smile, albeit a strained one, at their encouraging words, “Thanks. Here goes nothing, I guess.”
Gulping, Carrot Top started to edge her way out onto the horribly narrow bridge. The second she did the countdown stopped. The rest of the ponies held their collective breaths as they watched Carrot Top slowly work her way out with one, careful step, then another. Her legs were quivering ever so slightly and Carrot Top’s breathing could be heard as a series of gradually loudening gasps.
“Carrot?” Cheerilee said, “I know this is the same thing everypony says in situations like this, but seriously, don’t look down.”
“Kind of...kind of hard not to...” Carrot Top said, “Need to see where I’m putting my hooves!”
“Just feel it out,” Cheerilee said, “Slide your hooves in a slow shuffle. Looking down can make you lose your balance.”
“Cheerilee, no offense, but please, just let me do this without talking!” Carrot Top said, a tremor in her voice of barely contained fear as she took another careful step.
Seconds stretched into minutes and Carrot Top gradually made her way just past the halfway point, her every movement stiff and hesitant. Cheerilee watched with her mouth clenched shut and her pulse pounding harder with each step Carrot Top took. Ditzy, if anything, looked even more tense than Cheerilee felt, having taking off the blankets and flexed her wings to be ready to dive to Carrot Top’s rescue. Trixie and Lyra were similarly primed, their horns already glowing with their respective auras of magic.
Then Carrot Top paused and turned her head to look over her shoulder, “Um, girls? Does anypony hear something?”
There was a brief exchange of glances, and Cheerilee at first was about to say she didn’t, but then her ears perked up as they picked up a noise. A faint howling that was already getting louder by the time Cheerilee registered what it was.
“Its sounds like wind,” Lyra said, blinking.
Ditzy seemed to pick up on what this meant immediately and her shout was filled with worry, “Carrot Top, hurry! That’s not a simple breeze, that’s a strong wind coming!”
“I, uh, yeah, okay,” Carrot Top breathed, gulping and resuming her shuffle across the bridge. The sound of the incoming wind was starting to get so loud Cheerilee could almost feel it before it arrived. A crashing roar of high pitched whistling wind was so loud it made it hard to hear the sound of everypony shouting warnings or encouragement to Carrot Top.
Then Cheerilee thought of something, “Trixie, Lyra, grab her with magic, help root her in place!”
Trixie blinked, then slapped her head as if she should've thought of that. Both Trixie and Lyra’s horns glowed with greater focus as they wreathed Carrot Top with their magical auras. The wind hit at almost that exact moment, a hurricane force that, even with two unicorns’ magic holding her, still pushed at Carrot Top so that she almost lost her hooves’ balance.
What was worse, none of the mares had accounted for the door itself, which had been left hanging open. It started to slam closed from the wind, but Cheerilee jumped forward and used her hooves to block the door, keeping it open. She had to fight against the push of the wind, her head and front half precariously hanging out over the chasm.
Finally the wind abated. For a few moments there was no sound except the five mares all breathing heavily.
“I... I think its safe to put me down,” Carrot Top said.
Slowly Lyra and Trixie did so, making sure Carrot Top was steady before withdrawing their magic. Carrot Top stood where she was for a moment, taking in deep breaths and slowly letting them out, a slight shudder running through her, “Whoever made this game is an ass.”
“I don’t think donkey magic can account for-” Trixie began, then blanched, “Right. Well, at least you feel well enough to make jokes. Keep going, we’ll keep the magic ready in case that wind comes back.”
Carrot Top laughed, though it was dry and forced, and took another step.
A slab of the stone bridge under her hoof completely fell apart as if it’d been made out of dust. Carrot Top cried out and Lyra and Trixie both instantly reacted to catch her with magic, except a fresh gust of wind, seemingly out of nowhere, hit the bridge and the door at the same time. Cheerilee had gotten up, thinking it was at least temporarily safe, and wasn’t able to react in time before the door slammed shut, cutting off Lyra and Trixie’s line of sight to Carrot Top.
None of the mares saw if Carrot Top fell or not, the door having closed just as she was losing her balance. Ditzy was first to try and tear the door open, but it held fast with unnatural strength. Both Ditzy and Cheerilee hit the door, slammed into it, while Trixie tried to use her magic to undo the hinges. None of it worked, the door held fast, imovable.
“No!” Ditzy had a wild look about her as she kept hitting the door, well after the other mares had backed away, “Open up! Carrot Top!”
“What do we do?” asked Lyra, looking lost.
Trixie, ears flat against her skull, grimaced, “I... don’t know.”
Cheerilee stood there, watching Ditzy continue to beat her hooves against the unbudging door, but she wasn’t really seeing that. She was seeing the look of terror that’d been on Carrot Top’s face just before the door had closed.
----------
It took the remaining four mares some time to regroup. Ditzy kept sitting in front of the door Carrot Top had last been seen behind, having given up pounding on it only when Lyra had hugged and held Ditzy for several straight minutes. Cheerilee hadn’t heard the details of the whispered words of comfort Lyra had given their friend but she was grateful to Lyra for whatever she said, as Ditzy looked a shade calmer now.
“We’ll get them both back,” Trixie herself declared firmly once they were all sitting back at the table, “Their game pieces are still here. That... that must mean they’re still in this, right? That’s what you said, Cheerilee?”
Cheerilee looked at Trixie, seeing the light of growing desperation in her friend’s eyes, and though she was feeling a pit of doubts herself she managed a confident nod, “It makes sense that if something had happened to them in the... permanent sense, then their game pieces wouldn’t be on the board any more. At least that’s how all other board games work. When a player is eliminated they take their game piece off.”
“Why would this game behave like other board games?” asked Ditzy sullently, “This one so far hasn’t played fair at all, or behaved remotely normal.”
“True,” said Cheerilee, “But it still seems to operate on some kind of set of rules. Even if we can’t figure out what all those rules are. Uh... whose turn was it next?”
“Mine,” said Lyra with a deep sigh, looking at the sphere in the center of the board with a glower. LIcking her lips she reached out to spin it, “Whatever it takes to get our friends back...”
The sphere spun and the words appeared amid the sickly green hue of magic above the game board, their spidery, twisted script seeming to become even more distorted than previous times, making them hard to read and leaving Cheerilee with a faint headache as she did so.
Choose a close friend.
Lyra blinked a few times, her face screwing up in confusion.
“The horseapples does that mean? Choose a close friend? For what!?”
As Cheerilee tried to piece out exactly what the game was, well, playing at, the countdown appeared in place of the words much like it had with Carrot Top’s challenge, giving Lyra five minutes of time to, apparently, choose.
“I don’t get it...” Ditzy said, tilting her head.
Trixie, however, had her forelegs crossed over her chest as she closed her eyes and shook her head, “This thing is hitting Lyra where it hurts.”
Cheerilee understood what Trixie meant instantly. Lyra woudl’ve been willing to take on any challenge the game could throw at her, no matter how dangerous or terrifying, as long as it was Lyra taking on the risk and not her friends. By forcing Lyra to choose another, presumably to take on a challenge, it was sliding a dagger right to the heart of Lyra’s strongest held value; her loyalty to her friends.
And the effect was immediate, as Lyra simply took a calming breath, her whole stance going still, as she said, “No.”
“Lyra, but... the countdown!” Ditzy cried out.
Lyra didn’t budge her face becoming a mask of stone, “No. I’m not choosing anypony. Let the game do what it wants. Nopony else is taking my place.”
Trixie turned angry eyes upon the other unicorn, “Lyra, listen to me, you’re doing exactly what it wants you to do! You’re giving it an excuse to punish you however it decides! Look, just pick me, alright? I can deal with whatever challenge it wants to toss my way.”
“Not happening Trixie,” Lyra said as the countdown reached below three minutes, “Raindrops and Carrot Top have vanished on us, I’m not losing another one of you!”
“And what about us losing you!” yelled Ditzy suddenly, tears in her eyes, “You don’t know what’ll happen to you if the countdown reaches zero! Please Lyra, just let one of us go, we can make it together.”
“They’re right,” Cheerilee said, a growing burn of sick nervousness boiling in her gut as the numbers continued to count downward, “Lyra, you may hate it, but if you pick one of us to go at least there’s a chance we can make it through the challenge. But if you just let that counter reach zip, then you’ve got no defense against whatever happens.”
Lyra took a deep breath and let it out slowly, and looked at her friends with a mixture of sadness and determination, “This game isn’t playing fair, one way or another. If I pick somepony else, whatever challenge it conjures up is just going to be some horrible unfair bit of horsehockey. Sorry girls, I really am... but the only way to win this, I’m thinking, is not to play at all.”
Trixie and Ditzy kept trying, kept pleading with Lyra, but Cheerilee went silent, seeing that there wa no convincing their friend to change her mind. Fear gripped her, but she forced herself to stay quiet as she watched the countdown get down to the last minute. At that point she just gave Lyra a look, Lyra meeting Cheerilee’s gaze solidly.Cheerilee had an idea, and Lyra wasn’t going to like it, but Cheerilee had no desire to see what would happen when that countdown hit zero.
“Sorry about this, Lyra,” Cheerilee said, then pounced on her friend.
“What the-!?” Lyra had no time to respond as Cheerilee jumped on her and began... tickling her.
“Wha-wha-wha, hey! Q-quit that!” Lyra shouted as Cheerilee went to work with both hooves and lips to tickle Lyra, “Cheerilee!”
Lyra had said it with admonishment while trying to push Cheeriee off her, but it was made easy by the fact that Cheerilee hopped off the second Lyra had inadvertently said her name. Lyra got up, face red, “What was that all about!? Geez, and you went right for me weak spots!”
Cheerilee grinned, “Yes, well, you have invited me over to share a few... nights with you and Bon Bon. I know where to strike for maximum effect.”
Trixie gagged a bit and Ditzy, despite the situation, giggled a bit. Lyra just huffed, “What was the point of that, through?”
Cheerilee glanced at the game board and gestured, “Well, you did say my name, after all...”
Lyra blinked, then saw that the countdown was gone. Lyra’s mouth dropped open, then she narrowed her eyes at Cheerilee, “That... that wasn’t fair Cheerliee! I didn’t want ot chose anypony!”
“Well, too bad,” Cheerilee said with a shrug, “I’m not risking your life. I’d rather you be mad at me.”
“Cheerilee... “ Ditzy said, pointing at the game board. Cheerilee looked, seeing what had replaced the countdown. It was just a single word.
Run
Cheerilee wasn’t given any time to even question what she’d be running from when the floor beneath her opened up as if it’d always been a trap door, despite one never having been there before. She gave a startled yelp as she fell down, swallowed up by darkness for a second before she hit solidly onto... damp, cold floor.
“Cheerilee!” she heard Lyra shout from above, followed by her other friends. Looking up she saw a square opening, presumably where she’d fallen through, and saw her friends staring down at her from up there.
“I’m okay,” she said,standing, and looking around, “Not sure where I am...”
This certainly wasn’t her basement. She was in a bare, damp stone corridor, like some ancient dungeon, but the walls were covered in strange carved images. It was hard to look at, because nothing fit where it looked like it was supposed to, but Cheerilee thought she was looking at ponies. Ponies that might’ve been wearing some old, tribal clothing, seemingly fighting violently with each other... or perhaps more carnal activities, but the way the carvings fit together and twisted and bent in strange ways made it impossible to tell just what was going on.
“Hold on,” said Trixie, “Lyra and me can probably lift you out.”
“Wait,” said Cheerilee, “I have to win the challenge, if we’re going to get anywhere! I... I guess I have to run.”
“Cheerilee, don’t!” said Ditzy, “Just let us get you out of there!”
“Don’t worry Ditzy, when it comes to running, I’m actually pretty good. Got a lot of practice back in the day. Just wait for me.”
The question was, through, where was she running to? The corridor had only two directions to choose from.There was a strange, flickering green light, much like the light that emanated from the sphere itself, that illuminated the corridor. Cheerilee couldn't see much more than a few dozen paces in either direction, however, so there was nothing to indicate which way she was supposed to run... at least until she heard the sound.
It wasn’t a growl, or a anything overtly hostile. No, it was more like the barest noise of something sliding gently across the floor followed by a scrape, like a sharp object on stone. It was coming from the way behind her, and it was getting ever so slightly louder with each passing second. That was all the indication Cheerilee needed, and she turned and dashed at a full gallop the opposite direction.
She heard her friend’s voices vanish behind her, and she hoped they’d be okay until she found her way back to them.