//------------------------------// // Chapter 45 // Story: Friendship is Scaleless // by Limescale //------------------------------// “Finally! Another bonfire!” Trixie exhaled in glee, fording through the mess of broken bones to the ever welcoming flames. “Trixie was beginning to think she’d never get a chance to rest from all the damn skeletons in this place!” The exhausted unicorn put down her sword and let the heat of the bonfire ease her pain. “Ah well, if nothing else, Trixie has proven her mettle with her new powers… and… hmmm, in fairness, you haven’t been too shabby either, Pinkie…” Trixie commented, to complete silence. “Erm… Pinkie?” She looked around the immediate area and noticed, to her horror, that she was alone. “Pinkie??” Trixie said with greater alarm. This time, a rather psychotic giggle echoed from beyond the bonfire’s chamber. Against her better judgement, Trixie picked up her Astora sword and stepped back out, feeling her spirits sink upon seeing the skeletons she’d just finished cutting to pieces were now reforming themselves. “Dammit, Pinkie! Where are you??” She called out. The skeletons turned and noticed her, their jaws clapping together as they raised their falchions and readied their shields. With a deep breath, Trixie prepared herself for battle once again… only for her opponents to be blown away by a huge wad of confetti mixed with grape shot. “Ooops! Sorry, missed!” Into the vicinity stumbled a new sort of strange apparition, a blue ghostly figure, dressed in a ragged hood and coat, and bearing an exotic server sword with a forward curving blade. “So that’s how this thing works! I send all manner of other warriors to your world, you come back to this world as a spirit of vengeance, and I get to take you out one on one! Hee hee, damn, I never thought it’d be that user friendly.” Pinkie trotted in hefting her party cannon, while brushing her limp, deflated mane out of her eyes. The blue spirit moved to attack, and she sent it flying with another round of colored paper and small steel balls. “Oooh, this is going to be so much fun! I get to test all sorts of new types of ammo on you guys! See what works on some and doesn’t work on others! Finally make use of the lead weights I got from Ponyville’s blacksmith, the snowballs with the rocks in them I’ve been keeping in my personal freezer, and the portable barrels of gunpowder I secretly took from the fireworks factory!” The blue spirit rose with the skeletons, all of them turning their attention on the maniacally smiling pink pony. To Trixie’s horror, their raised their weapons and made to overwhelm Pinkie. “Oooh, but first, the one thing I’ve been saving up for a very special occasion! A celebration of finally no longer having to bow to the will of that goody little two-shoes!” Pinkie dropped something unseen into her party cannon. Spirit and skeleton alike were promptly blasted apart by a new manner of brightly colored projectile. “CEMENT CUPCAKES!” Pinkie cheered as her opponents all fell down dead. The skeletons burst apart into assorted messes of bones again, the blue spirit collapsed and vanished, leaving behind another stone eyeball in the midst of the sweetly frosted blocks of concrete. Trixie stared in quiet terror at the carnage as Pinkie blew the smoke from her cannon’s barrel and twirled it back into her mane. “Hee hee hee hee! Oh… oh damn, did that feel good! A sorry turn out indeed for…” Pinkie squinted as if reading something in the air. “XXXsmokeweed&dieXXX… wow, seriously? Someone actually thought that was a good moniker? Eh, well, better he’s now out of the picture!” The mare picked up the stone eyeball, giving her new prize a kiss. “And one more trophy for the collection! Ah, Nito! Why couldn’t we have been met sooner?” She declared. “Pinkie?” The mare promptly snapped out of her post-battle victory high, turning to see Trixie staring at her in bewilderment. “Are… are you okay?” Trixie said, hesitantly keeping her fetlocks wrapped around the hilt of her sword. Pinkie’s mane promptly swelled back to full inflation and the insanity promptly left her eyes. “I… I… whooh… yes, I’m… I’m fine now. Sorry, Trixie, I… I think I had one of my episodes there for a moment.” Pinkie blushed. “No kidding! Trixie is… well, she’s grateful that you saved her having to fight all the skeletons again, but at the same time, she hopes the morbid atmosphere of this place isn’t getting to you.” Trixie said, still tensing her forelegs, lest she have to bring her blade between her and the very strange party pony. Pinkie looked down at the stone eye, a terrible shiver overtaking her at the realisation of what she just did. After that though, she placed a hoof to her forehead, blinking in surprise as if sensing something was different about her. “I… well… I think it is… but not in the way you’re thinking.” She said in shock. “I mean... I’m sorry you had to witness... whatever I just did… but… I don’t think you need to worry. I’m feeling calmer now… like… she’s actually gone quiet for a little bit… wow.” Trixie warily arched her eyebrow as Pinkie took several deep breaths, her pose slackening as she indeed seemed to return to her normal strange, but hopefully harmless, self. “Right, so… do you need to do anything here by the bonfire or can we press on? Trixie aims to find the poor soul who’s trapped down here, and get them to safety! Hopefully then she can catch up to that Nito creep, and finish exchanging a few choice words with him!” Trixie said. Pinkie blinked again in surprise, then snorted in bemusement. “Sure, just let me warm my hooves for a moment, then we’ll be on our way. Wouldn’t want to hold you back from pursuing such a surprisingly noble goal.” She said, while walking over to the bonfire. Trixie looked at the destroyed skeletons, then at the darkened interiors that lay ahead in the catacombs. Though the promise of more danger chilled her heart, the unicorn resolutely stamped her hooves down, smashing a skull on the ground into dust for good measure. “The Great and Powerful Trixie cannot turn back now. This gives her purpose, and thus she must pursue it to whatever lies at the end.” Trixie looked back to where Pinkie was examining her growing collection of stone eyes. “She only hopes this course of action you’re pursuing, whatever it may entail, at least gives you the same purpose…” *** Back in Anor Londo, Gwyndolin crashed painfully onto the floor several feet away from Applejack. The orange mare sighed and spat in disappointment that she was still too weak to have done her usual amount of damage. “Ngh… nay… nay, I fear not… equine.” The Dark Sun intoned sinisterly as he rose while clutching his ribs. “A far worse fate awaits me than mere imprisonment in the depths of Nito’s realm.” “Darn tootin it does!” Applejack notched several of her arrows and let them fly as the human hybrid tried to flee. To her delight, several of them sank deep into Gwyndolin’s body, staggering him as red began to stain the pure white of his gown. “Ah held hope that when Ah died, Ah’d finally be reunited with mah parents. Now you’ve stolen even that from me!” Gwyndolin’s snake tendrils coiled protectively around him, acting like the legs of a chair to keep him upright while he tore the arrows out of his body. “Heh, and thou believeth this merits revenge? More hath I lost than thou can imagine! Father, mother, brother, and sister! Dost thou still have other family? Living and well?” He asked. Applejack’s grip on her next arrow salvo slackened, her rage wavering as she thought about Big Mac and Applebloom, not to mention the rest of her relatives. Gwyndolin took advantage of her distraction to teleport again, putting enough distance between himself and the mare so his arrows could reach her, yet hers could not do the same to him. “And thou claimeth I a hypocrite.” Gwyndolin tsked as he pulled out his bow and landed three shots in Applejack as she tried to take aim and fire. The mare fell on her wounds, crying in pain. “Applejack! ARGH!” Twilight moved to protect her friend, only to get riddled with six more shots from the Dark Sun. She too fell as Gwyndolin raised a final arrow to the rafters, letting out a relieved sigh as Seath now faced him alone. “Thou seeketh to cast the stones of judgement, when thou art as burdened with sin as I. Truly, I do this for thine own good.” The serpentine hybrid murmured as Seath retreated from the third rain of arrows. “And for thine daughter, she who art fated to suffer, as shalt her descendants suffer, for sins thou burdened her with her birth!” Seath threw up a crystal wall, grabbing and breaking it off the ground to hold it like an umbrella to shield him from the arrows. He made to close the distance between himself and Gwyndolin, but as the hail of bolts clattered relentlessly off his cover, the Dark Sun revealed he’d been anticipating this move. With his hands occupied holding the crystal wall, Seath had no means of priming a defense for the next soul bomb his opponent cast at him. As such, no sooner did the rain of arrows cease than Seath found himself flying again, rubble and masonry burying him under their weight as the explosion tore down a fresh chunk of the hallway. “Thine life is forfeit, traitor, as is mine. Only one matter remains before… before…” Gwyndolin paused as the dust cleared and he was able to get a look at the path of his destruction. Seath was pinned down by rubble, Applejack and Twilight were pinned by his arrows, the Chosen Undead was down and possibly out, having made another crater in the wall thanks to likewise getting caught in the blast radius… Still… that left a few other souls unaccounted for… some very critical other souls. Gwyndolin clutched his catalyst as he looked around the hall. “T’is time to settle our grievances, Priscilla. Hiding now shalt only delay the inevitable!” He declared. All he heard was silence, save for the groans of the soon to be permanently deceased. “I assure thee, crossbreed, death is a greater mercy than life. Naught but desolation and despair awaits thee, in this cycle, the next, and all hereafter! This I hath seen, and so much worse!” He declared. More silence, more unnerving stillness, and shadows. Gwyndolin lit up his catalyst and raised it high to shed a bit more light… It was light that revealed the ghostly gleam of an invisible blade coming at him with deadly intent. He barely managed to dodge and force its wielder back with another soul arrow. “Such is the suffering I shall endure then… if fate hath granted me the small closure of seeing you punished… for all you hath done!” Priscilla declared as she ducked the arrow and swung her scythe again at the Dark Sun. Gwyndolin promptly raised his catalyst and teleported away yet again… only this time, he felt himself materialise up against an impassable barrier. “Well, what do you know? This hallway isn’t actually endless after all!” Discord quipped. Gwyndolin turned around and found himself staring at a wall, out of which the chaos god’s head and hands were emerging, waving at him with delightful malice. “Sorry I took so long to join the fray. Had to see how far you’d stretched this illusion of yours, and cut it down to a more manageable size.” Discord chortled. “Props that you managed to craft such a solid manifestation, but you lose marks for the lack of variety. Really, if you’re going to whip up an infinite stretching corridor, at least try to have something more epic at the end!” Gwyndolin looked at the wall, then the bizarre patchwork body parts projecting out of it. He promptly reeled back as Discord then stepped the rest of the way out of the stone, cracking his knuckles in preparation for battle. “Thine soul… thine essence… I know it well… but thine shape… no, t’is all wrong!” He declared. Discord huffed. “Well duh! I mean, hello, spirit of chaos here! Being wrong is my whole reason for existing!” He said while striking a fashion model pose. “No idea what you’re getting at with the ‘know me well’ bit. Never seen you before in my life, and now I’m not so sure it was worth seeing you at all.” He said while approaching the Dark Sun. Gwyndolin retreated further. “Get thee back! Mine soul is too much charged with blood and sin, no cause have I to add that of a fellow god to it!” He said, now sounding a bit panicked. “No place is this for another of the gods’ stature either!” Discord arched the eyebrow over his larger eye. “Well, nice of you to put me on such a pedestal…” He snapped his tail and a tall marble pedestal, decorated with colorful ribbons, blinking Christmas tree lights, and a plaque reading ‘DISCORD - #1 CHAOS STUD’ rose up from under his feet. A bevy of spotlights clicked on from overhead, presenting the draconequus as a monument of grandeur. “But flattery will only get you as far as me staying my hand… mostly so the one who has the greater beef with you can have the first strike!” Discord folded his arms and smiled with evident sinister intent. Realizing what this meant, Gwyndolin whirled around and parried the strike from Priscilla, gritting his teeth as the crossbreed reappeared, staring at him with a face perfectly fixed in a cold, stony expression of loathing. “Such ‘beef,’ crude as thine phrasing art, doth not remove the danger presented thus. I tell thee now, a greater evil lies waiting for its just reward, and the soul of chaos shalt tempt it terribly!” Gwyndolin warned, much to Discord’s and Priscilla’s combined bewilderment. “And what lies art these, that thou dost seek to waste thine final breath on?” Priscilla seethed as she swung and sliced at the serpentine hybrid. Gwyndolin coughed dryly as he felt the blade of the crossbreed’s scythe at last find its mark, cutting open a long gash across his chest. He and Priscilla both reeled back from the agony of fresh blood spilling onto the ground. “Ngh… thou seeketh to know why I imprisoned thee… why I sought to end thee, along with the Painted World… thine answers I give forth now… but only if thou believes what I say!” He declared. Priscilla paused for a moment, then raise her scythe and continued her assault. “Say what thou must, it will not save thee from thine imminent demise!” She declared. Gwyndolin nodded glumly as he parried the attacks, trying to counter with one hand while clutching his other to the bleeding wound in his front. “T’was not by chance that thine existence came to be. It had before… in the time before the Age of Ancients… and it shalt again…” Gwyndolin glowered at Seath as he began to stir. Beside him, Twilight was showing impressive fortitude, rising up despite the blood flowing from her arrow wounds, and lighting up her horn to levitate the mountain of rubble off her teacher. “And t’is not only thine that shall do so.” Priscilla stilled her scythe, the frame of scales around her eyes knitting together, accentuating how she care little for his confession, and halted so only so Gwyndolin could dig himself a little further into his own grave. “Seen hath I the cycles that turn afore and after now; in each we art present, changed in form, but burning with the same soul as before, and in each, naught but suffering is our fate.” Gwyndolin growled as Priscilla approached him. He swung his catalyst out at her, forcing her back with more soul arrows. “Flames burn, they art linked again and again, and then fade. With every new age our cause is lost, but our presence remains, ever shining, ever threatened by the darkness!” Discord sighed heavily and pressed his lion’s paw to his face. “I’m sorry, are we fighting a battle here, or auditioning for one of Tree Hugger’s poetry slams? Cause I can guarantee, one is indeed going to cause you a lot more suffering than the other.” He scowled. Gwyndolin strangely laughed at that. “Heh heh, mine suffering is great enough as is, for what the traitor hath done to me, for how my family was destroyed, for knowing that which was to be my ultimate fate…” The Dark Sun suddenly collapsed, his robes turning dark with the ever growing bloodstain. “And now that I seek to follow the Great Lord’s path, to spit in the face of destiny, mine suffering shalt grow tenfold. Mine only recourse, that which may be mine light in the darkness, is I shall save thee from a worser fate…” Priscilla arched one of her eyebrows, then followed with her entire body… not out of suspicion, but because of Gwyndolin hitting her with some new power of his, not like the soul bomb of before, but more like a force miracle, which sent her hurtling back to join her father in the rubble. “... and send the traitor to his, justly deserved!” The Dark Sun declared while charging his catalyst. Discord made to counter, but Gwyndolin saw to that by turning and slicing him vertically in two with another energy wave. The two halves of the chaos god tumbled off the pedestal. “May Nito afford thee the peace that this wretched life could not!” Gwyndolin prayed as he prepared to unleash one final attack… … a final attack that never came, due to something else attacking him first. “No!” Fluttershy cried, leaping up from where she and Spike had been hiding behind a nearby pillar. Gwyndolin turned his attention, and his weapons on the galloping pegasus, only to see the little purple dragon on her back leap at him with his dueling swords bared. Instinctively, he blasted the bothersome drake out of the air… and just as quickly realised this to be a bad move. Spike had merely been a distraction, allowing Fluttershy to close the gap between her and Gwyndolin, and let him feel the edge of Priscilla’s dagger. “Stop it! Stop it right now!” Fluttershy cried, cutting a second deep gash across Gwyndolin’s gut. The Dark Sun threw himself back, away from the bitterly cold bite of the occult weapon, and reached for his bow. His serpentine legs surged out from under his robes to attack Fluttershy and give him a moment to notch up a shot. Fluttershy made the serpents pay for their bravery by wildly swinging the dagger, cutting the poor tendrils to pieces. “I’m not letting you hurt anyone else!” Fluttershy cried as she leapt back and swung again at the hissing and snapping snake heads. Despite their wounds, they continued to defend their symbiotic other half, till at last he was able to rise up behind them and nail Fluttershy with an arrow… not that it did much to slow her down. “No.” The butterscotch pegasus tearfully said as she moved to attack again. Gwyndolin shot her with a second arrow. “No.” He hit her with a third, a fourth, a fifth. Blood stained Fluttershy’s maiden robes like crimson zebra stripes, but either due to adrenaline, or just her own suicidal bravery, she refused to submit to her injuries. Gwyndolin traded his bow for his catalyst as Fluttershy got too close for arrows. She made him pay for the delay with another gash to his arm. “You… will… stop!” Fluttershy cried, her sobbing voice not at all matching her determined pace. Gwyndolin threw himself against the back wall, switching to his bow and aiming another arrow to the rafters. This time he never got the chance to let loose. From behind Fluttershy, the Chosen Undead leaped into view and cleaved his bow in twain with her greatsword. “Do as she says!” The undead warrior commanded, hitting the ground and rolling onto her feet. Gwyndolin dropped his destroyed bow and primed his catalyst again. The warrior charged him, braving the blast of sorcery to score another strike with her blade. Gwyndolin was forced up against the wall again, holding his catalyst in a defensive position to parry the relentless attacks of the undead. “Thine fortitude… thine expertise… thou fights as no normal human should!” He said in growing horror. The Chosen Undead swung her giant, craggy weapon again with one hand, using the other to charge up a fireball and throw it as part of a one-two punch. “You claim I’m just one of hundreds of chosen undead, but you’re wrong.” She said as Gwyndolin threw himself onto his stomach to avoid the fireball. “This time, you, or Frampt, chose something that by all rights should not exist, just like Seath, and Priscilla.” The Dark Sun looked up, aghast to see both a low borne human, and an arrow riddled equine standing over him in triumph. “This time you chose… wisely.” She said as Fluttershy nervously clutched Priscilla’s dagger in her mouth. “Please, lay down your arms.” The yellow pegasus pleaded. “Do it now, or so help me I’ll… I’ll… for what you did to Discord, I’ll…” “Erm… girls? Flutters?” The two halves of Discord piped up. “I’m okay, you know?” The bisected chaos spirit wobbly pushed himself to his feet, swaying back and forth like two halves of a paper doll. “I mean, yes, this is a bit inconvenient, and quite unbecoming of my stunning beauty, but if I can just…” Discord slowly navigated his halves back together, reaching for the tab of a zipper that was now hanging beside his donkey leg. Slowly and carefully he zipped himself up into a properly complete mess of parts again. “There we go! Much better!” He dusted himself off and smiled as his body sparkled like a literal marble statue. The clink of Fluttershy dropping Priscilla’s dagger on the ground snapped him from his posing though. “You’re… you’re okay Discord?” She asked breathlessly. The draconequus looked at her in puzzlement. “You do know it takes more than a bit of brutally honed magic to cause me any serious injury, right?” He said before going wide eyed at the arrows sticking out of Fluttershy’s body, and the blood dripping from her clothes onto the floor. “At any rate, I’m in better shape than you are… not that it appears to be slowing you down…” Fluttershy followed his gaze, and gasped as she finally realised why her flank felt so warm and wet… not to mention, sticky. “Oh… Faust…” The pegasus said weakly before flopping over, straight into Discord’s hands. “Whoa whoa, now hold on there, my dear! I’m sure we can patch these up! Might be a bit painful pulling these out, but nothing I haven’t treated before!” Discord summoned his medical book and glasses, along with ointment, tweezers, and bandages. Fluttershy weakly pointed behind him. “N-No… Gwyndolin! Get Gwyndolin first!” She said. Discord checked the crumpled hybrid, slowly painting the wall with smeary bloody handprints as he struggled to get back onto his serpent legs. “Oh, he’ll be fine. Really, the rest of the party seems to still want a word with him so a moment spent tending to you won’t be any trouble at all.” The draconequus soothed while checking on everyone else. Seath and Priscilla were helping each back to their respective tentacles and feet, Applejack was checking on Twilight, who in turn was helping Spike recover from taking several soul arrows to the gut. “Spike! Spike! You okay?” Twilight said nervously while fanning her assistant’s face with her wings. Spike groaned, then winced in agony as he slowly sat up, smoke rising from the charred front of his outfit. “I… I think so. Ooogh, in hindsight, maybe that wasn’t such a good idea… but at least I distracted that monster long enough for Fluttershy to take him out.” He smiled weakly. Twilight sighed in relief and quickly kissed the dragon on the cheek. “Well, you’ve done your part. Stay back and let us handle the rest. I did promise Rarity I’d bring you back from this alive.” The alicorn said, smiling as Spike’s eyes widened and he seemingly forgot the pain of his injuries to stand back up. “And if this bucker still ain’t gettin’ the picture, well he’s still got more bones Ah won’t hesitate to shatter!” Applejack glowered as she approached the hobbled Dark Sun. “You wanna finish this creep off Miss Priscilla? Seath? Or can Ah?” Gwyndolin took one look at the advancing number of souls seeking to punish him for all his trespasses. “Wilst thou at last confess, fallen god? Or take thine sins with thee to the thereafter?” Seath said, exhaling cold crystalline flecks to match the hatred of his voice. Gwyndolin paid him back with an expression ladened with equal loathing… …. and then the Dark Sun promptly formed a black hole in the ground and vanished into it. “What the? Oh… well now, that’s just being rude!” Discord said indignantly, before pressing his eagle talon to his chin. “However… given what I saw lying beyond this wall…” The chaos god waved his hand and dismissed the end of the corridor like it was fog. Beyond it, Gwyndolin sat kneeling before a massive stone sarcophagus, head bent as if in desperate prayer. Beside him sat a suit of brass armor, the very same one that had been worn by the Darkmoon Knightess. “All at last art our dreams shattered, the darkness of time and the sins we hath wrought come to dash all light from the world. For we, who standeth as mere reflection of the Great Lord’s light… now at last is our moment of truth.” The party filed into the chamber, all of them eyeing the Dark Sun with equal suspicion and confusion. Without lifting his head, Gwyndolin feebly held out his hand. “Stay thine acts… thou seeketh mine retribution… rest assured, thou shalt get it!” Around the chamber there came an ominous rumbling. Gwyndolin cringed as he reached up and pressed his bloody hands to the sarcophagus. “From ages to come, a terror beyond mortal comprehension senses thine essence. It hungers for prey, as it hungered for those who shalt carry thine flames into future days.” The Dark Sun announced as the rumbling intensified. A deep, wrenching crack appeared in the stone sarcophagus. “Hoped did I to spare Anor Londo from this horror, to do what thou refused to, Seath! To save they that shall walk in thine daughter’s footsteps from a fate worse than death.” Gwyndolin rose and turned on the party in accusation, his robes almost black now with his own blood. He pointed an accusing finger at the white dragon. “Thou knowest not what suffering thou wrought by agreeing to mine sister’s request for a child. Naive was the Godmother, for all her good intentions and gentle, loving nature. Blind was she, blind as thou, to what ruin she brought with her desire for all species to live in harmony!” The crack slowly worked its way down the sarcophagus. A second soon joined it from the opposite direction. “Thus was I forced to sign a pact with this evil, to see that it have not the beauty it hath dreamt of for all these years. A pale soul, in a painted world.” Priscilla took a step back in shock, as the cracks both split and branched out across the marble stone. A disgusting brown muck began seeping its way through the widening fissures. “But now… now it hath more to dream of. Of that which inherited the witch’s chaos flames, of the paledrake who stands as the last of his kind… gods that by right should now be gone… it desires you all.” Gwyndolin said in despondent sadness. “Yet still it desires its pale painted beauty the most!” Twilight looked to Priscilla, who was likewise quickly losing her nerve at this unsettling new development. “What desires its pale painted beauty? What are you talking about?” The alicorn demanded. “Yeah, and be straight with us about it! Ah’m still about five seconds away from introducing mah hooves to yer skull if you keep spoutin’ riddles and garbage.” Applejack threatened, yet as more muck seeped from the sarcophagus, she too kept her distance. Gwyndolin merely stayed where he was, even as the primordial essence flowed around his serpentine legs. “The land thou hails from, equines, t’is not a region known to Lordran, nor any land that shalt come thereafter… a hidden menace seeks to escape Lordran to the sanctuary of thine…” He said, making Twilight’s ears perk. “That’s right, it’s how Seath and I were met, and Miss Aurelia afterwards!” She said. “What do you know about that?” Gwyndolin grit his teeth and clutched his gloved hands to the wounds on his front. His blood felt so cold, so robbed of the warmth of his father’s light… of any light, for that matter. “Only that they invite no salvation with their acts, nay, they open the door to terrors that once lay dead and dreaming… and now awaken to the warmth of only cinders and embers.” He said as a massive crack spread out across the lid of the sarcophagus, as if the primordial entity were now trying to force its out into the chamber. “Thought did I to deny one its unsightly claim, to atone for my sins with an act that would see it never possess that which it covets…” Priscilla halted her retreat, a thin veil of anger returned to her features. “Thus was thine action against Gwynevere? Against thine own family… against mine mother??” She demanded. Gwyndolin shook his head and raised his catalyst. “Thus was why I sought to end thine life before it could be taken by another harborer of sin and vice…” He said, before being drowned out by the lid exploding off the sarcophagus. Huge fragments of stone rained down everywhere, forcing the party to disperse and again seek cover. Gwyndolin merely turned around and fired multiple soul arrows at the hail of masonry, vaporizing any boulders before they could flatten him under their weight. “And thus, at last thou comes… be it on thine own accord, or at another’s beckoning… if indeed I may hope that the Godmother’s soul still burns in another time.” The Dark Sun intoned as out of the destroyed sarcophagus rose a most nightmarish apparition. There were no words to describe it, other than a collapsed epitome of every negative essence associated with death. Bones, humanity dregs, maggots, filth, and fetid black flesh were woven together in the tapestry of the abominable mass. The stench of rot filled the chamber, turning the stomachs of those still living sick with revulsion, and the spines of those who were undead cold with terror. “Wh-What… is… that?” Twilight cried as the mountain of decay rose high above everyone present. Discord slowly moved in front of Fluttershy, pulling a huge clothes peg from his fur and clipping it over his nose as the abomination loomed towards him in particular. “Well, if I were feeling somewhat courteous, I’d ask if it’s a relative of the Smooze. However, right now I’m not, so I’m just going to assume it’s as stupid and dangerous as everything else in this world… which, ironically, doesn’t discount it being a relative of the Smooze.” Discord replied, scrunching up his face as the putrid creature drew closer. “Seriously, you’ve nailed the perfect look for Nightmare Night, but I think you went a bit overboard on the cologne compliment.” He plucked a tree shaped air freshener from behind his ear and hung it on a rib bone protruding from the mass of death. It turned to look at the scented ornament in bewilderment, thereby giving Gwyndolin the perfect opportunity to hammer it from behind with soul arrows. “Trouble thyself not with the guardian of the witch’s essence. T’is I whose dreams first drew thee from slumber, I thou hath pursued to sate thine appetite for divine godly souls!” The Dark Sun declared. The black mass spread itself across the floor, flowing towards both Gwyndolin and Priscilla simultaneously. The crossbreed duly retreated back up the steps to the hallway as it rose again, then lowered itself upon being blasted with Seath’s crystal breath. Gwyndolin followed up with another salvo of soul spears. “If thou still hungers, then thou shalt have I to dine upon! Ne’er the crossbreed, nor that thou spoke of as Yorshka, her follower in the later time!” The Dark Sun cried, then whimpered as his physical effort reminded him of the open wounds in his flesh. He collapsed from the pain, driving his catalyst into the surrounding muck to act as a support. The primordial monster turned and closed in on him. “For all I hath done, for failing the Great Lord, disgracing the Godmother, losing the homeland of the gods… I accept this, my own long awaited punishment.” Gwyndolin intoned lowly as the black sludge rose. He suddenly charged his catalyst and blasted it several more times with sorcery, until it just up and tackled him to the ground, swallowing up his serpent limbs. “Should… should we be doing something about this?” Spike asked, gagging heavily as the muck spread across the floor towards him. Gwyndolin let out a dry laugh as he was cruelly yanked back towards the sarcophagus. “Yea… flee… flee from this cursed land, and ne’er look upon it again. T’is thine own realm that now lies in jeopardy… thus I ask only this…” The Dark Sun grabbed the edge of the broken sarcophagus, pointing his catalyst at the Chosen Undead. “Thee… thou who claimeth to be more than the sum of all other undead chosen for thine quest… if thou be whom I suspect… a soul that should not exist… then thine purpose is more vital than ever. I beseech thee… link the fires of the Great Lord! Keep the cinders burning for the rulers to come!” The black sludge gave a wrenching tear and pulled Gwyndolin back down into the sarcophagus. “Save Priscilla! And all who art innocent yet doomed to suffer under this calamity!” With a sickening crunch of bones and a cry of agony, the Dark Sun was pulled out of sight. The remains of the black primordial waste being retreated into the stone sarcophagus, leaving the party standing in the muck strewn ruins of the tomb. A very cold and painful silence descended as the shock slowly settled upon them. “Okay… so… that happened…” Spike said, feeling a second round of dry heaves coming on. “Uh… can we go now?” Shoving down her nausea, Priscilla carefully stepped into the muck, wading through to the sarcophagus and peering into its dark abyss. “Permit me to attain that which shall vindicate the Dark Sun’s sins… then… yea, then we may flee this place.” The crossbreed reached into the sarcophagus shutting her eyes tight as she felt something hard and durable amidst all the slimy remains. “Father… if thou hast not been cowed by that which just happened… I offer to cast aside one last deception, one final… truly terrible lie of the Dark Sun, that thou hast unknowingly lived with for all these years…” Seath looked up from his cautious examination of the bizarre substance oozing from additional orifices around the tomb, his breath stilling as he saw his daughter now wore an expression not of anger or hatred, but rather apprehension. “Of what dost thou speak?” He asked. With a heavy breath, Priscilla withdrew her hand. “This.” She intoned, holding up Gwynevere’s shawl and golden circlet. *** In the darkness of the Abyss, Manus turned as the emergence of something truly terrible was detected, across all space and time! He lowered his hands from the bonfire, reached for his catalyst staff, and turned as if to defend himself from an unexpected new nightmare. “Stay!” Manus paused as his other acquaintance called out from the shadows. “I sense it too. Keep to thine work, ne’er can we afford to tarry!” Sombra’s horn was placed in Manus’ smaller hand. He looked up with his many eyes, only to be cowed by the other entity’s eternal red glare. “If ever there was a time that I must place my trust in thee, it is now. Receive death to this dominion, and unshackle my son from its embrace. Investigate this, I shalt in the interim.” It ordered. The warped monstrosity stared at it doubtfully. “Dred… ngh… Dreaded things… luh-hgragh-lurk ever clo… argargh… closer. Ti-time… hurrrk… time grows short.” Manus intoned. “Far faster and stronger than thou am I, enough to stand against it. Finish thine work, I shall defend thee!” The entity withdrew its great body from the Abyss. In the coin filled cavern behind it, the lone prisoner of the monstrosity slowly raised his helmeted head. “Sun… I feel it… after so long… the sun!” Into the blackness Solaire stared, his hands tightening into fists. “In this most desperate hour, at last my prayers are answered. Heh heh, praise to she who brings salvation. Praise the sun!”