//------------------------------// // Light Quantifiable // Story: Deer Me: Adwanee Sands // by The Psychopath //------------------------------// "We're here," Tenyom announced casually. "We're in the world of the dead?" "No." "Then why can't I see?" "Because there's no light." "...Oh." The darkness made way for softly glowing blue light, revealing all the secrets hidden under the surface. Multiple, well-preserved murals and walls made from smooth, non-porous black sand. A few broken walls were scattered about, but with the presence of wooden tools around... "This place is currently occupied," Radivus noted. "Be careful. Whoever took our king is nearby still." Tenyom snorted and delicately walked over a few 'bricks' and shone her own antler light onto the murals. "Hmmm. Interesting," she mumbled. "What is it? The walls?" "Yes. Old art, but taken care of." The art in question was always displayed facing the observer, so there were no displays from profile or angular perspectives. They were a mixture of 'oozing', gooey styles with tiny tiles. Radivus nodded to himself at the creativity. "Hey look; The god-kings," Tenyom noticed. The five god-kings were placed next to each other in a rising arc on a white surface, a large glacier growing behind them. The water at their hooves 'melted' into grassy plains where they were seen walking away from a blackened landscape that became engulfed in the light of the sun, creating another transition to the deserts of...well, whatever they were called back then. There, they met up with what looked like creatures three times their size. The 'meeting' was creatively orchestrated with the art style using the goopy effect to swing to the giants right next to the deer, and if their size and the location of their many white eyes was an indicator, than the assumption of said size was well founded. The many, many giants seemingly collapsed like sand constructs, flowed over the ground, then reformed to show everyone fighting a massive giant and a swarm of dark creatures. Unlike the ponies, the giants were more than capable of cutting down the monsters with relative ease, but they still had no way of fighting off the colossus. "Hey, isn't that the giant we fought during the most recent Black Snow?" Radivus wondered aloud. Tenyom nodded and followed along the path. A black wall went towards a large, clawed hand slowly grasping one of the deer while said deer was surrounded by a multi-pointed star of light. The light faded to a scene where the smallest of the deer was on its knees, mourning the loss, but a 'zoom' to its white chest showed blackness trying to seep through it but being washed away by tears. This repeated twice more, the ponies having joined the second battle, but the colossi were absent in the second battle. In the third, another deer was quite literally disintegrated, and the ashes became the tears of the smallest one. Strangely enough, the tears were shown as black veins coming from the cervine's heart and rising upwards. "You think this is Grmiliss?" Radivus pondered. "Maybe. Stelimus did mention that he was the most heartbroken of the three." "He said that to ease us when he's around, but I seriously doubt that to be true." "Look at this one." The mural showed the three deer turning their backs on angered colossi, one such deer being sloppily painted black like some sort of graffiti defacing. Afterwards, the murals only depicted the life of the colossi, but as neither deer knew who they were or what their lives were like, they couldn't discern what was being shown. "Let's keep going," Radivus suggested. "I think we've read through history enough like that." Tenyom nodded in agreement, and the two continued along their way, the images freshly inscribed into their minds for deconstruction. There was nothing relating to Stelimus that they could find. No matter how hard they looked or how much they searched, they couldn't find anything, and Tenyom growled in annoyance. She grabbed a hoof full of sand and let the porous substance slipped through her toes, some solid pieces breaking against the ground. "This sand is too hard to analyze. I can't see where anyone has gone." "So what are we supposed to do then?" She shrugged, and Radivus through his forelegs into the air in disbelief. "I TOLD him we should have stayed with him and not the cart," he complained. "Now look what has happened." "In retrospect, the idea that we stay behind was not a bad one. He knows what we're capable of more than he knows the other bodyguards of his. If we follow the pattern, than we can deduce that these sands have some tunnel system hidden beneath the surface. We just need to find the least solid area and continue through." Tenyom looked around and scratched her chin. "That's right. Look for the least solid surface you can. See if tapping them will--" Radivus' first tap tore away a large chunk of the floor and blasted both deer's eyes with light. "What are the odds?!" Radivus thought. He was almost tempted to scream in pain because of the sudden blinding, but he managed to withhold himself. The two deer slid down the hole and crawled along the ground to the source of the strongest light further away. They stopped at a corner next to several stairways leading all over the place, and right around said shape were multiple colossi holding the two deer and one pony hostage. They were absolutely titanic in size. Where Stelimus was now just about as tall as his late father, they were easily thrice that in height. One of them was holding Stelimus by his forelegs with one claw-hand and staring at him with its six compound eyes. While its arrow-head like cranium lacked any kind of ability to display physical emotions, the two bodyguards knew it wasn't happy. It was slouched over slightly, accentuating its back plating. It only had two arms, but they were gifted with six fingers and two opposable thumbs on the opposite ends of their limbs, all ending in very thick, sharp, dexterous claws. Their torsos were large and covered were several layers of green chitin that grew back with every wound, creating a strange autumn-imitation by summer with all the varying shades of green. Their legs look like armored buildings, and thick, rough skin was present all over them. It even covered the reverse joints on their knees. As for their feet, they had four toes placed in a 'x' fashion, the ends of their 'toes' being extremely sharp claws digging into the porous sand sculptures. All of them had the same, flat head shape as the one holding Stelimus: Arrow-head shape with a horizontal, concave arc at the back of their heads. On both sides of their heads were three patches of yellow, compound eyes scanning their surroundings at all times. They were standing in a well of sorts, the rounded, circular walls around them displaying water clearly flowing through them without any leaking onto the floor below. The light, confused from being that of a torch, was actually coming from most of the colossi here. They had natural phosphorescence strong enough to blind anyone when in a large enough group and illuminating the entry of a cave opposite Stelimus and the other two high above the water wall. "Tenyom, there's about eleven of them in this well. If we can do this stealthily, we might be able to kill a few of these things, and in the confusion, save the king and queen and get out of here just as fast." "What about the princess?" Radivus waved his hoof and appeared disinterested. "Oh. Sure. Her too I guess." They were as quick as they could be, using the various holes and tension strength of the black sand rings to climb along the walls and sneak up on two of the colossi. Once in position, they nodded to each other then jumped onto the necks of the creatures with the intent of breaking them. The colossi didn't noticed anything more than something on their necks. Tenyom was grabbed by one and casually slammed, back first, into the wall by aid of her hind leg. It was followed up by her being slammed quadrice into the ground then tossed against Copper and Yolumay. Radivus, being so small, practically fit in the palm of one of them and was held there like some kind of micro pet. Despite being muffled, Stelimus still had to say what was on his mind. "Ah. Radivus. Tenyom. Nice of you two to drop in," he commented. "I would like to present to you our hosts: The big bugs. They feel like showing us the Berbiers." The one holding the king hissed and its mandibles jittered. "Berbiers?! We aren't Berbiers!" "That's what everyone is calling you," Yolumay said. The others chittered in response to her straight answer. "We aren't Berbiers, and these aren't your sands." Radivus raised an eyebrow. "So it's only now that you've started talking with each other after so long? It's been three hours!" he yelled. "Well, we weren't captured that long ago..." Stelimus chuckled. "Turns out ice isn't that effective on this sand." The one holding Stelimus' head's chittering gradually degraded to screeching as it started to crush the deer's head in its grasp.