//------------------------------// // Chapter 6 // Story: That Changeling's a Bad OC! // by Raugos //------------------------------// “Axle Grease.” Max swallowed hard when Galleon uttered the name of her stolen form. He towered over her with his five cronies – big, red pegasus Blizzard, brown pegasus Wind Shear, bluish-purple thestral Furlong, yellow unicorn Speckle and grey pegasus Short Fuse – wearing the thin smile of a chess master who had all the pieces on the board exactly where he desired, and he wanted them to know it. “You’re either a terrible disappointment for fraternising with the enemy, or we have a very special individual in our midst.” He paused to glance at her impaled leg and sniffed dismissively. He then locked eyes with her and growled, “Shed your disguise. Now.” Oh, grub. Max tried to meet Daring’s eyes, but Galleon had too firm a magical grip on her muzzle to allow more than a glance from the corner of her eyes. She sighed and attempted to revert to her natural form, then yelped when she felt as if somepony had twisted a knife in her leg. The green flames fizzled out almost as soon as they flared into existence. Panting, she twitched her injured leg and shook her head. “I… I can’t. Not with that stuck there.” Galleon’s smile disappeared. His eyes bored into hers, searching for a sign of deceit. For a moment, Max thought he might just command her to transform anyway. She technically could, even if it went against every instinct and might even make her pass out. “I call bull,” Wind Shear said with a sneer. “I’ll bet it’s just playing—” Galleon silenced her with a raised hoof. He then frowned at Max and said, “So be it; we’ll do it your way. But if either of you take advantage of my goodwill, impalement will be the least of your worries. Lie on your back and hold still.” It took a little bit of clumsy manoeuvring under the nets to get into the right position, made all the more awkward under the lamp lights and watchful gazes of Galleon’s followers, but Max eventually lay on her back and exposed her belly to him so he could see the exit wound. She then gasped when the crossbow bolt glowed at both ends with his purple magic; her muscles quivered at the slightest pressure he exerted. He snapped the fletched end off, then tugged at the arrowhead. She gasped and clenched as he dragged it out inch by agonising inch, shrieking whenever he had to jerk it loose like a nail stuck in hard wood. At some point, Daring offered moral support and placed a hoof on her shoulder, but could otherwise do nothing to help. Eventually, the whole shaft came out with a sickening, wet slurp that she might or might not have imagined, all slick and glossy. Galleon then tossed aside the shaft and regarded her coldly. “All done. Your turn.” Still quivering, Max took a moment to breathe deeply and compose herself before the next ordeal. Green fire engulfed her. She screamed through her teeth when it reached her thigh; it felt like a corkscrew working its way into her wound, warping and twisting her flesh aside. Thankfully, the couple of seconds it took to change forms didn’t stretch out too much, and the pain subsided sufficiently that she no longer felt like curling up and whimpering like a kicked puppy. Everything still hurt, though. Her bruises and lacerations remained unhealed underneath her black chitin, and her magical reserves still needed topping up if she wanted to do anything more strenuous than walking and talking. Worse still, her chitin had formed imperfectly over the wound, with fractured edges around the hole. A dark line of blood trickled down her thigh as the others stared at her. Her furiously thumping heart really didn’t help in that regard. “A changeling.” Galleon rubbed his chin and nodded sagely. “That does clear up the mystery quite a bit; certainly gave us a merry time trying to fathom how you’d pulled off such a brazen escape. I assume you played the part of Miss Sunny Spring first, followed by that formidable stallion who helped our mutual acquaintance off the train?” She nodded mutely. “Told ya. Pay up!” Max saw Wind Shear elbow Furlong repeatedly in the ribs whilst wearing a smug grin. Furlong scowled, first at Wind Shear, then at Max, before finally grumbling something unintelligible as she stretched out a webbed wing and dropped a few shiny bits into her pegasus companion’s upturned hoof. They’d figured her out. Unsurprising, given how many clues she’d dropped since their scuffle on the train. Max searched for Speckle and saw him standing a little farther back, with a couple of his accomplices firmly between him and Wind Shear. She tasted a surge of embarrassment laced with fear and longing when he glanced at Wind Shear, and she had to fight back a snigger when he then turned to her and gave her a clear view of his right eye. A faint smile did work its way onto her muzzle, though, and he hurriedly looked away, blushing furiously through his yellow coat. It looked really clownish when combined with his blue hair and teal eyes. Oh, that’s just perfect. Hee hee! Poor sucker must’ve fallen hard for her when she’d smooched him whilst wearing Wind Shear’s face back in the train’s restroom, and he’d probably tried to follow up on that with the real mare when they’d woken up. With that fresh, puffy shiner he had, it didn’t take a genius to figure out exactly how Wind Shear had reacted to his advances. Her smile vanished when she saw Wind Shear and Furlong smiling back at her. They were practically rubbing their hooves in anticipation. Oh, hayseed. “Do you have a name, changeling?” Galleon asked sternly. Max glanced at Daring, then hissed when Galleon prodded her thigh with magic. “I didn’t ask her. I asked you.” “I’m Maxilla,” she murmured, wincing. “Very well, Maxilla.” Galleon turned to Daring and gave her a mirthless smile. “Quite the companion you’ve acquired. We’ll certainly have to chat about how you discovered its importance to our quest, and how you convinced it to aid you in such a dangerous endeavour. You’re not sleeping with it, are you?” “Bite me,” Daring growled. “Considering where you’ve been, I think I’ll pass on that,” Galleon huffed. He then frowned as his horn lit up with magic and added, “Now, you know the drill. No sudden moves.” Blizzard and Furlong kept their crossbows trained on her and Daring Do whilst Galleon disentangled them from the weighted netting with practiced ease, expertly spinning and unravelling the metal balls out of the mess without missing a beat. Max yelped when he gave the netting a final yank from under them, and they both tumbled once before sprawling out on the cold floor. Daring’s hair and feathers looked awfully frazzled from the experience, but she showed no sign of discomfort otherwise. Max’s wings buzzed for a fraction of a second before she forced them still, and she wondered if she and Daring could take to the air quickly enough to evade their shots. Perfectly coordinating that with her would pose a problem, though… Hayseed. Too risky. Galleon packed the netting into Blizzard’s saddlebags whilst Wind Shear unceremoniously stripped Daring of hers. Whilst she rooted through their belongings, he motioned for both of them to stand. “Just wait a minute,” Daring piped up with a frown. She scooted over to Max, then froze when they tightened their grips on their crossbows. “Calm down! Just let me help her.” Galleon shook his head as he levitated out two sets of shackles from his saddlebags. “First things first.” “Aww, come on!” Daring growled through her teeth and jabbed a hoof in the direction of Max’s injured leg. “She’s bleeding real bad. If you’re not going to do anything about it, then at least let us patch it up before the smell attracts predators or something. Who knows what’s lurking down here!” That got them thinking, at least. Speckle and Wind Shear began looking around warily, whilst Blizzard’s and Furlong’s ears perked up and twitched. Galleon simply scowled, and Short Fuse looked more concerned with a few balls he was juggling with one hoof than anything that might spring out of the shadows. Eventually, Speckle raised a hoof and cleared his throat. “Well, I’ve got a needle and some surgical thread in my pack. I don’t know if they’re good for a changeling, but I could—” “I can take care of myself,” Max interjected. “Just don’t shoot me while I fix it up, ’kay?” “Very well. Make it quick,” Galleon said with a nod. He then turned to Daring and beckoned her over. “You, on the other hoof… come here.” Max tried to ignore the clinking of chains and the mixed taste of varying degrees of fascination and disgust coming from their captors as she secreted resin from her pores and slathered it over the entry and exit wounds on her thigh. It stung at first, but it soon gave way to dull warmth over some internal throbbing as the resin dried and hardened upon prolonged contact with air. Unlike glue, it didn’t get brittle or crusty and retained a certain degree of pliability so that it flexed with her movement. She still felt like she had a knife inside her leg whenever she stretched her muscles, but at least she didn’t have to worry about bleeding all over the place. Any longer, and she might’ve gotten a permanent case of light-headedness. “Eww.” Max looked up and saw the others staring at her, except for Galleon and Daring. Wind Shear in particular had wrinkled her snout and was looking at her with narrowed eyes, as if she’d just seen somepony relieving themselves in public or something equally indecent. Never seen a bug before, huh? She hesitated, but her tongue slipped before she could use her better judgment. “Got a problem with me?” Wind Shear grinned. “Yeah, but not because you’re ugly as heck. You sound gross, too.” Before Max could retort, Galleon’s smooth voice cut in. “Now, now, children. We have more important business to attend to, so let’s make this quick.” He came with a bundle of chains in tow, and Max quietly ground her teeth as he shackled her. One manacle clamped tightly above every hoof, each linked to its lateral neighbour with a length of chain just long enough to allow her to stand up straight in a relaxed stance. Another length of chain linked the pair between her front legs and her hind ones, and it went all the way up to the metal collar that Galleon clanked into place around her neck. Daring was similarly trussed up. She pretended to stare at the floor and her hooves as she struggled up and swayed on the spot, using it as pretext to examine her bindings. The chains weren’t all that thick, but they were also too short for her to get any leverage on them to break through muscle power alone. And when Galleon ordered her to stand, she quickly found that they would not allow anything faster than a brisk walk. The shackles had no kinks in the hinges that she could exploit; Galleon must’ve paid good money for them… “Hey, hey, what do you think you’re—get that thing away from me!” Daring cried. Max looked up and saw Daring shove Speckle away with a wing. He stumbled back with a yelp, and Wind Shear gruffly barged past him to deliver a vicious punch into Daring’s gut. She doubled over, wheezing, and Wind Shear bowled her over with a body slam that sent her crashing to the floor on her side. She then bit the tips of Daring’s primaries, stretched her wing out over the floor and pinned it down with a hoof whilst Speckle loomed over her, with a serrated knife floating in the air beside him. Max’s pulse quickened when the knife descended. “Are you guys serious? Can’t a mare keep some pretty plumage once in a while?” Daring growled into the floor. “I just regrew these!” Speckle didn’t stop until he’d sheared off the top halves of most of her feathers. He then cut across the back of Daring’s shirt and through her sleeves so that Wind Shear could strip the dirty shreds off her and toss them away. Guess they don’t trust her with pockets, either. Upon finishing his task, he turned his eyes to Max. She followed his gaze to her back, to her diaphanous wings, and blinked a couple of times before her jaw dropped when the realisation hit her. She tripped on her chains when she tried backing away and fell onto her rump with a pained grunt. Speckle gulped and turned to their leader. “Brother Galleon?” Max saw Galleon reluctantly tear his eyes away from something in Daring’s saddlebag. He frowned and opened his mouth to answer, but before he could get a word out, she shook her head frantically, rattling her chains as she did so. “Please, no! Our wings have huge veins in them; I’ll bleed out!” Max flattened her ears and threw a terrified glance back at her wings, as if afraid they might vanish any moment, then gulped and shook her head again. “They won’t grow back. Please…” They technically could at her next moult, but she didn’t need to give that away. Galleon waved a hoof irritably and turned his eyes back to the green glow in the bag. “Just bind them with rope. No need to resort to maiming, even if she isn’t a pony.” Daring snorted. “Ever the gentlecolt, aren’t you?” Max narrowed her eyes at her and mouthed, “Not helping!” Daring’s words didn’t get a rise out of him, though. He simply shot her a sideways glance and intoned, “Don’t test me, Miss Do. Your friend is fortunate that I harbour no irrational fear or hatred for her kind; other ponies might not be so accommodating.” “Brother Galleon, might I point out that the changeling could still escape?” Speckle looked almost apologetically at Max, bit his lip, then averted his eyes and added, “She slipped out of her cuffs easily enough last time, and we don’t have a suppression ring for her horn...” Hayseed! She’d been hoping they wouldn’t think of that… “Got an easy fix for that, boss!” Short Fuse piped up. All eyes turned to him as he waved a stick of dynamite in the air. Nopony said a word at first, until Furlong and Wind Shear exchanged knowing looks and grinned like wolves. Even Galleon smirked once the realisation hit him. “Yes, that would do quite nicely.” Oh grub. You’ve got to be kidding m— Max had barely noticed Wind Shear’s approach when she felt something like a sledgehammer slam into her midriff, driving all her air out. “Hope you enjoyed that kiss.” Wind Shear whispered as she shoved Max to the floor and pinned her down. “My barn door don’t swing that way, bugface.” Groaning, Max instinctively tried to push her off with magic, but a quick hoof-jab at her horn sent an explosion of pain and flashing lights behind her eyes, effectively removing any desire to resist. She could only wince as Speckle tied down her wings with coarse rope whilst Short Fuse enthusiastically stuffed a pair of dynamite sticks through the holes on her hind legs and bound them tightly in place with gauze. “Now, I want no more trouble from you. If I see so much as a spark on your horn, you’re resting in pieces,” said Galleon. Her heart sank into her belly. Even if she somehow managed to break free, she couldn’t outrun or outfly their magic. All they needed was one good spark to hit a fuse, and… boom. Instant paraplegic bug, if the blast didn’t send her straight to the afterlife. This is it. These guys mean business. Her limbs trembled. Her jaw quavered. Her insides felt like jelly. They can’t mean to blow me up, right? They’re bluffing. They’re not that ruthless... Right? Short Fuse hummed a happy tune to himself as he inspected his hoofwork, casually tossing another explosive stick into the air and catching it with a wing over and over again. Probably wondering if he could jam another one into her leg somewhere, the psycho. When he met her eyes, he grinned and said, “Hey, nothing personal. Sometimes, I see a hole and I just have to put a boomstick in there, you know? It’s an awful habit.” We’re so bucked. “Now that we’ve gotten the nasty business out of the way,” said Galleon as he sauntered over, carrying a pair of rune stones in his magical grip, one glowing and one inert, “we can finally get back on track to finding the Master. He is close. You can feel him, can’t you?” Those last words were directed at Max. She just kept her mouth shut, hoping that he didn’t know enough about changelings to get a good read on her body language. She could still hear the ghostly whispers coming from the stones, but he didn’t need to know that, and she definitely didn’t want to clue him in on how to reactivate the inert stone. It was probably the first one that she’d accidentally activated several days ago, now dark and blank without a changeling to keep it powered ever since he’d swiped it from them on the train. Not that he needed much cluing in, though. She could see it in his self-assured smile. “So much for your lies about complex rituals and fancy lab equipment,” said Galleon as he waved the glowing one in front of her muzzle. “If you could awaken this stone in the middle of the jungle, I imagine it doesn’t involve anything quite so tedious. Are you ready to cooperate?” Max glanced at Daring, who only gave her a weary nod. She swallowed and murmured, “Okay.” “Show me the spell.” Spell? What? “Wait!” Max recoiled and tried to shield herself with a foreleg when he levitated the dark stone over to her, but the chains only allowed her to raise it a few inches, and she ended up doing an awkward hop to avoid losing her balance. He frowned. “What’s the problem?” “It—it doesn’t use magic. It activates on contact with me. It just needs a changeling.” His eyes widened slightly. “Is that all?” “Yes.” She ground her teeth and frowned as she remembered the visions that assailed her and continued, “But… I can feel something on the other end whenever I touch it. And whatever it is, if it’s really your Master, he sure as hay doesn’t feel like someone you want mucking around inside your head.” “I imagine he would seem perilous to someone unworthy of becoming a disciple.” His eyes hardened, and Blizzard and Wind Shear cracked their hooves together menacingly. “Touch the stone now. It’s not a request.” He held the black stone out to her on an upturned hoof. Max sat on her haunches and reached out gingerly with both forelegs, then steeled herself with a deep breath and placed her hooves on top of it. She gritted her teeth as the ghostly voices swept her into a cold void filled with swirling lights and shadows of varying shades of teal and black. No other colours existed. Once again, the kingly changeling stood in the middle of the void, staring directly at her. But this time, she felt another presence by her side. Turning her metaphorical head, she saw a unicorn stallion, oddly discoloured and wispy to match the teal and black aesthetic of their surroundings. Galleon? He gave her a sideways glance, but she couldn’t make out his expression. He looked like somepony had painted over his face with smoky ink on wet paper. Eyes watched them from all sides, but the only pair that mattered belonged to the figure in front of them. Max tried backing off, but her hooves felt firmly rooted in place. Galleon, on the other hoof, knelt and bowed his head as the changeling king strode towards them. The Master stopped just a tail-length away, towering over them like an ancient titan, regal and beyond comprehension. His smooth, flawless chitin shone with health and vigour; arcs of magic and lightning danced on his jagged horn; and his eyes held in their depths the combined experience and knowledge of an entire civilisation, lost to the ages. “You are close. Waste no more time.” His voice felt like a vice around her skull. Max grimaced under the pressure, but she also noticed that Galleon looked quite comfortable in his submissive position. If he had been subjected to the same mental assault, he gave no indication of it. She turned her gaze back to the changeling king, drawn to the deep, teal glow of his eyes. A master. The Master. Her Master. She needed to find him quickly, before time ran out. Nothing else mattered because— No. Nothing else mattered. Because… Oh, hay no. Max ground her teeth and wrenched her eyes away. She already had a queen, and one monarch was more than enough. The moment she broke eye contact, the creepy desire to cater to his every whim dwindled to a tiny notion at the back of her mind. His voice still exerted pressure on her head from every angle, but at least she no longer felt so… exposed. “You know the way. Come.” “Yes. With due haste,” said Galleon. Max blinked and found herself back in reality, surrounded by Galleon’s lackeys in the middle of the dark vestibule. Shadows danced at the edges of their flickering lamplights. The others were staring at her and Galleon with varying degrees of awe or boredom, the latter coming mostly from Short Fuse whilst he casually spun a cherry bomb on the floor like a top. “You okay?” asked Daring, brows knitted with concern. Max nodded and staggered onto all fours. “I think so.” “Ecstatic,” said Galleon with a thin smile as he packed both glowing rune stones into his own saddlebag and tossed Daring’s over to Blizzard. “Now that you have seen his majesty and felt his power, can you not see that our quest will benefit all of ponykind?” Majesty? Sure, she couldn’t deny that the Master had a compelling aura of power about him. But what made Galleon think that he was going to share any of that with dirt-eating grubs like them? Galleon must’ve mistaken her stare for awe. Chuckling, he turned away and signalled with a hoof to his lackeys. A general ruckus followed as they stowed their crossbows and gathered up their equipment, leaving Max and Daring briefly and idly standing around under Blizzard’s watchful gaze. Once his companions had finished readying up, Galleon took the lead and began trotting straight towards the far end of the vestibule. Wind Shear and Furlong trotted on either side of him, just slightly behind so that he was the tip of their arrowhead formation, with Max and Daring stuck right in the middle. Blizzard stayed right on their tails to bully them along whilst Speckle and Short Fuse brought up the rear. Though reasonably light for their size, Max did not appreciate the extra weight of the chains, and the dull, persistent throbbing in her right hind leg compounded with her other cuts and bruises made each step a trial. She also had to try very hard to ignore the ungainly tightness in her hind legs resulting from Short Fuse’s dynamite implants. If she could just forget they existed, then she wouldn’t have to fret about every possible way somepony might accidentally set the fuses alight… Whenever she failed to match Galleon’s brisk pace and started flagging, Blizzard would give her a shove to put her back in formation. After overbalancing and falling flat on her face for the second time, Daring stayed close so she could lean on her and hobble along. They sometimes stumbled on each other’s leg or chains, but that was preferable to bruising her muzzle further. The incessant clinking and scraping of the metal links grated on her ears, though. “Seriously, we’re making enough noise to wake the dead with these things,” Daring muttered. “Acceptable risk,” Galleon replied without missing a beat. He didn’t even look back at her. “Besides, we’re quite capable of protecting ourselves.” Max remained silent and concentrated on walking. Too many things warred for attention inside her mind. The Master. The explosives in her leg holes. Whispering voices in her head. Ancient golems swinging huge fists at her. Collapsing tunnels… Stale air poisoning her every breath… A battlefield with missing bodies… Crossbow bolts nailing her to a wall… Max felt like somepony had poked a hole in her to let her insides spill away. She felt hollow. An empty shell moving to its doom without reason or purpose. No one would find her down here, so far from the rest of the world. Just another skeleton without a name. A changeling without a hive. A dead— “Hey, take it easy!” Daring gently shook her shoulder. “Breathe!” Max blinked and felt her heart hammering away in her chest. The inside of her mouth had gone bone-dry; her tongue felt like sandpaper against her fangs. Her chains rattled with each shaking step. Gradually working her clenched jaw loose, she got her saliva flowing again and gulped. She then forced herself to take slow, steady breaths until the walls stopped closing in on her. “How do you deal with this?” she croaked. “The books never—” “Teen rating, remember?” Daring chuckled wryly. “Things don’t get this bad every time, but you’ll get used to it. I did. Just your luck that you got thrown into the deep end for your first adventu—” Blizzard cut her off with a shove to her rump. “No talking!” Daring threw him a dirty look, then rolled her eyes once she’d straightened out and gave Max a pat on the shoulder. A small gesture, but her calm reassurance and concern tasted like honey to Max, filling the void in her chest. It didn’t sate her – nothing ever did – but at least it took the edge off her weakness so she could focus on things other than impending doom. Galleon led them from the vastness of the vestibule into a broad passage, wide enough to accommodate three or four carts side by side and about two and a half storeys in height. It was just as dark as the previous ones, but Max could visualise it branching for miles under the mountain, leading to a vast network of halls, caverns and ventilation shafts. One specific pathway stood out in her mind like a beacon – the one that led to the Master. Her brain ached with the implanted memory. She knew the way. Presumably, so did Galleon. Beneath his calm mask, he practically glowed with pride and anticipation. The others tasted more of cautious optimism. Wind Shear, Furlong and Blizzard tempered that with a dry, shady miasma of apprehension that tickled her hunger. They knew they were entering the presence of a predator, the Master’s if not whatever creatures that lurked in the city. Short Fuse, on the other hoof, tasted like a colt on his first day at a theme park. Bright, sweet and bouncy. Glancing back, she could see him turning his head left and right to admire every pillar, arch and tunnel that they passed with huge, roving eyes that almost sparkled with little stars. Probably can’t decide which one to blow up first… Max’s eyes widened when she focused on Speckle’s output. She could taste sympathy, and something else bubbling just under the surface. Something vaguely spicy. She threw a look his way and caught him with his gaze somewhere in the vicinity of her rump. His pupils shrank when she locked eyes with him, and he turned his head so quickly that she almost heard his neck creak in protest. She didn’t miss the fiery-red patch blooming on his cheek, though. Wait. Is he… Facing forward once more, Max waited a while before putting a subtle sway into her hips as she walked, swishing her tail from side to side. She then had to suppress a grin when she tasted a rush of spicy redness radiating from Speckle. Oh, this is just adorable. Hah! Max didn’t care if he was just plain desperate after Wind Shear’s rejection or if he’d accidentally discovered a kink back at the train with her, but that was definitely something going at least halfway right on their unmitigated disaster of an adventure. She kept feeding him eye candy, and in return, she got to soak up some of his appreciation for her admittedly sleek form. Just an extra snack to tide her over until they found an opportunity to escape. Speaking of which… They could not go back the way they’d entered. Not after collapsing the tunnel on the golem. That pretty much left Galleon’s entry point, unless they lucked out and found another exit before starving or running out of air. She had the implanted knowledge somewhere in her brain, but whether she could muscle through the pain to recall them clearly was something she didn’t want to test at the moment. How had Galleon even found a way in without an active rune stone, anyway? She remembered the unicorn cultists back at the outpost fretting about his displeasure if they couldn’t get the door to open with their magic, and— Oh. Max almost tripped over her chains as she remembered the cultist’s words: “I’m not sure if he’ll be in a position to complain if it doesn’t open.” She remembered the steady wind in the passage ceasing a few minutes after entering from their end on surface. Galleon had already gotten in before them, just from the other side of the mountain. The door had simply shut after him, the same way theirs had. And his rune stone must’ve simply run out of power in the meantime, the same way theirs had before she’d recharged it at the entrance. So much for being one step ahead of them… She shook her head. That’s enough. No more downer thoughts. Daring always had an eye for detail when in a tight spot. “You never know when it might save your life,” she once said to a sidekick. Time to pay attention. Suppressing a shiver, Max turned her gaze back to her surroundings as their party marched deeper into the labyrinth. Scraps of metal and probable bone shards littered the floor all the way from their point of capture. Farther in, the walls and floor still bore cracks, grooves and streaks of black residue and dark stains. Scorched blocks of stone the size of carts and some ruined pillars obstructed the passage at intervals of ten to twenty yards, often accompanied by gaping hollows in nearby walls and shattered arches. “Barricades,” said Blizzard. “They were under sustained attack.” “From what?” Speckle’s voice quavered slightly as he cast his teal horn-light onto a misshapen lump of rock that looked suspiciously like golem’s leg, if partially melted. “I don’t fancy our chances if we meet whatever it is that destroyed such a powerful civilisation.” Suddenly, Furlong raised a hoof and clicked her tongue sharply. The others immediately froze in response and shuttered the lamps, plunging them all into darkness. A few tense seconds passed as everyone held their breaths, during which Max heard some dull thumps and scraping echoing faintly from up ahead, too far along the passage to have been made by anyone in their party. It came at irregular intervals whilst they waited in silence, long enough that everypony had to breathe again. By then, Max’s eyes had adjusted to the gloom, and there was just enough light leaking from the shuttered lamps for her to see everyone standing with tense postures and perked ears. Short Fuse chewed on an unlit match whilst the rest of them kept sweeping their gazes to and fro – futilely, she noted, judging by their unfocused pupils. Her heart rate spiked when she looked at Daring Do. At first, she thought she was rubbing her fetlocks together to scratch an itch whilst resolutely staring off into the distance, until she spotted the tiny metal pin stuck into the key hole of the shackle around her right fetlock. At the same time, she saw Furlong turning her gaze towards them, and she urgently tapped Daring’s fetlocks twice with a hoof. Daring got the message and ceased her efforts barely a second before Furlong locked eyes with Max. Clearly, Furlong could see in the dark just as well as she did, and she frowned at them for a couple of seconds before she reluctantly turned her attention to Galleon and said, “I didn’t see anything. Whatever it is, it’s probably stationary and a ways ahead. Sounds mechanical. It should be safe to use the lights, but keep them low just in case.” “Very well.” Galleon nodded. “You heard her, friends; lights low, and we move quietly.” “Some of us can, at any rate,” Daring muttered, clinking her chains as they opened the shutters on their lamps. “I’ll thank you not to deliberately draw unnecessary attention to us,” he retorted with a severe frown. “Your safety is very much intertwined with ours.” “Better start being nice to us then, eh?” Daring sneered. “Desperate ponies do stupid things.” His frown deepened. “One more word, and I’ll have you gagged.” “Is it the ball type?” Daring grinned back. “Never would’ve pegged you as the kinky one.” “Truly, yours is a wit to last the ages.” He sighed and gave Wind Shear a curt nod. Whatever snarky remark Daring had coming up, it died on her lips when Wind Shear punched her in the muzzle. Her smirk twisted into a pained grimace as she hunched over and sneezed blood onto the floor a couple of times. Max stared. Hayseed, what is up with you? If she didn’t shut up, they might just decide to hold her responsible for Daring’s tongue, too. Then, Daring’s eyes flicked up to give her a sideways glance, and Max thought she saw them twinkle for a moment before she groaned, awkwardly wiped at her muzzle and straightened up. “Any more words of wisdom?” Galleon asked. Daring blinked a couple of times and said nothing. She simply glowered at him, her mouth a thin line. He smirked. “Good girl.” They resumed marching, though at a somewhat slower pace that allowed Furlong to scout ahead on the wing, sweeping back and forth amongst the debris. Max’s mind still reeled from Daring’s lack of self-preservation. Galleon’s cult meant business and had already shown themselves plenty willing to dish out pain, so why would she— Oh. Daring had already unlocked one of the shackles; she still wore it around her right front fetlock, but unfastened so that she could easily pry it open when she needed to. Unless their captors looked closely with proper lighting, they probably wouldn’t notice, and Furlong had other things to worry about just then. The metal pin had disappeared, too. Max realised that she must’ve moved it whilst she was hunched over from Wind Shear’s sucker punch, and she was probably already working on one of the other shackles. Either that, or Daring was hiding it in her mouth. It would explain her sudden inclination to keep her muzzle shut. Max shifted her gaze elsewhere. With some luck, the others wouldn’t notice anything amiss, and she had no intention of tipping them off. The scraping noises still came at irregular intervals as they traversed the passage, growing louder as they went deeper and deeper. The place showed increasing signs of combat and structural damage along the way. A couple of times, they came across substantial piles of rubble nearly a storey high; she and Daring received plenty of assistance in the form of rough pushing and tail-pulling to climb over them. Streams of damp sand spilled from cracks in the walls, leaving smooth, wavy patterns on the floor to mark where water leaked in from the surrounding earth. All around, Max saw scraps of equipment made unrecognisable by rust and rot. Eventually, about half an hour from when they first heard those scraping, thumping noises, Furlong came back to the party from a particularly long sweep ahead. “Good news is that I’ve found the source of disturbance – it’s a wrecked statue, exactly like the one we blew up. Looks like it can’t move, so we should be safe so long as we don’t get too close to it,” she said whilst hovering restlessly. She then threw a glance to the darkness ahead and clicked her tongue a couple of times, frowning. “I know that face. What’s the bad news?” asked Blizzard. Furlong landed deftly and pointed a wing-thumb over her shoulder. “Bad news is that we’ve got a total cave-in up ahead. I can’t find a way through, and the last detour was a long way back.” “I am not backtracking through this dirt hole unless we absolutely have to. This air makes my feathers itch.” Frowning, Wind Shear trotted forward and tipped her head towards Blizzard. “You sure our meathead can’t just smash his way through?” Furlong shrugged and beckoned them with a wing. “Can’t say. See for yourselves.” They trotted past a long stretch where the entire wall and half of the ceiling on the left had collapsed, leaving a slope of rubble that narrowed the passage to a third of its original width. It still left them plenty of room to move at first, but it gradually narrowed the farther they went. A headless golem lay half-buried up to its torso in the slope of rubble, pinned to the floor by a huge, broken pillar on its back. Its single remaining arm clawed at the floor in a futile attempt to drag itself forward; its blunt, worn-down fingers had dug furrows into the solid stone. They kept a respectful distance from the golem as they went past it, but they couldn’t go very far before the entire breadth of the passage was completely obstructed by a mound of pale, shattered limestone and huge blocks of black, marble-like rock. It stretched from left to right and went all the way up to the cracked ceiling, with no discernible gaps. “Yeah, I’m not bucking my way through that.” Blizzard kicked a pebble away and shook his head. “We’ll probably need a full team with pickaxes to get through this any reasonable timeframe.” “Is there another way around it?” asked Speckle. Galleon’s eyes narrowed as he peered at the massive pile of rubble. A moment later, he directed his scowl to the floor and began pacing and murmuring to himself. Max hid a smile. She still knew with uncanny certainty that they had to go straight ahead to reach the Master, but the implanted memories didn’t say anything about such a significant roadblock. After fighting through a bit of painful throbbing in her brain to browse through the foreign memories, she realised that there was an alternative route, one that would probably take the better part of a day looping back around to find the correct underground road. Guiding them through this route implied that he didn’t know about the cave-in, and if the Master didn’t even know that about his own city, then maybe he wasn’t quite as powerful and all-knowing as Galleon wanted them to think… “It doesn’t look like a natural cave-in. It’s a little too clean and steep,” Speckle mused as he trotted up to the rubble and swept his horn’s teal light from the base to the ceiling. His eyes then widened when he prodded at a patch of apple-sized rocks; they didn’t give way, even though they looked quite loose at first glance. “They’re fused together! Doesn’t look like tar or mortar – could be extreme heat. This definitely looks like a deliberate attempt to seal off the passage.” “I’d say they did a pretty good job of it,” Furlong huffed. “I can’t hear anything from the other side.” But why? The question hung in the air as everyone turned to Galleon. His scowl deepened. “Anypony with enough power and influence will eventually accrue enemies envious of their gifts, and I believe the Master is no exception. Be they dragons, windigos, rival alicorns or even accursed inhabitants of Tartarus itself, we will not be deterred by a mere wall they built, and a crude one at that.” Daring snorted. “Oh, sure. Digging out an ancient being that had been deliberately sealed away, all because he has promised you immortality and limitless power. What could possibly go wrong?” “Still unconvinced, I see.” Daring rolled her eyes. “What gave me away?” “If you have seen what I’ve seen, you might not be so quick to dismiss it.” Galleon inclined his head to Max and added, “Just ask your friend.” Max shared a look with Daring but kept her mouth shut. “In any case, your opinion matters not,” Galleon continued, turning to face the rubble once more. “We’ll find a way. Short Fuse, if you could—” “Celestia’s hoof clippings, Shorty, don’t you dare light that thing!” cried Wind Shear. Max whirled around and saw Short Fuse way behind, crouching just out of the headless golem’s reach. He had a burning match in his mouth and was frozen in the act of inching towards a long fuse on the floor that ran all the way to a bundle of dynamite sticks he’d planted on the golem’s torso. Short Fuse blinked innocently at them. “What?” Galleon facehoofed and sighed. “Short, leave that thing alone and come here. We have more important problems to deal with.” He raised a hoof. “Okay, but can’t I just—” “Now!” Blizzard roared and stomped his hoof. “On the double, acolyte!” Short Fuse winced and flattened his ears. He then spat the match out and reluctantly trotted over to them with a pout, muttering under his breath. “Do this… do that…” Max kept well out of his way in case he had another lit match hidden somewhere. She’d almost forgotten about the dynamite he’d stuffed into her leg holes. “What do you think?” asked Galleon when he reached his side. “Can you clear a way for us?” Short Fuse stuck his tongue out the side of his mouth like a colt trying to figure out a particularly difficult math problem as he peered at the rubble. He then took to the air and flitted to and fro along the blockage, prodding and kicking it at various intervals. A couple of times, he pressed his ear against the smoother, solid sections and listened whilst tapping a hoof against the stone. Eventually, he landed beside Galleon and tapped his chin thoughtfully with a hoof whilst he frowned at the rubble. “Not too thick, but it’s a pretty good seal. I could get through it with a couple hundred pounds of dynamite, maybe a barrel of pure nitro-glycerine…” “Short Fuse… I want to get to the other side. Not level a mountain,” Galleon deadpanned with half-lidded eyes. “Do you have enough on you to get us through?” “Oh, not a full clear, then.” Short slumped his shoulders and pawed at the floor with a crestfallen sigh. “Well, if you just want a hole big enough to crawl through… yeah. I can do that. Just gimme fifteen minutes.” “And how bad will it be?” asked Wind Shear. “What?” Furlong groaned and flicked her tail. “She means, how far should we run in order to, you know, not die?” Short Fuse thought about it for a moment before giving them all a manic grin. “Oh, you won’t have to run too far. A hundred metres should do. I’ll be good, I promise!” “For the record, I’d much rather take a detour,” said Speckle. “There isn’t one,” said Galleon with an air of finality as he levitated a small pickaxe from one of the bags and tossed to Short Fuse. “Set up and let’s get this over with.” They left Short Fuse one of the lamps, and Max last saw him zipping back and forth around a small section of the blockage like a hummingbird, hacking his way into invisible weak points with surprising skill and precision. He then stuffed the resulting cavities full of explosives that he pulled out of his mane, tail and from under his wings – more than any mortal pony should’ve been able to hide on their naked self at any given time. When she turned to Daring for an explanation, she simply got one of those helpless shrugs that said, ‘Try not to think too hard about it. You’ll only hurt yourself.’ They retreated a good two hundred metres or so back and hunkered down behind one of the improvised barricades. It was a solid block of black stone at least a metre thick and tall enough that even Blizzard couldn’t peer over the top after rearing up on his hind legs. Max and Daring had wedged themselves in the corner where the barricade met the wall, whilst Galleon, Wind Shear, Furlong and Speckle sat in a row with their backs to solid rock. There wasn’t enough room for Blizzard, but he seemed content enough to just sit in front of Max and Daring like a guard dog. Almost ten minutes had passed since they’d left Short Fuse to his business. The only sounds in the tunnel were their nervous breaths and the incessant scraping of the golem’s arm. “I would suggest covering your ears the moment we hear him coming,” said Galleon. Max paused halfway raising her forelegs to her head. “Wait, what? Won’t he be setting up the detonator here with us, where it’s safe?” “Really, have you even met him?” Furlong cocked an eyebrow and snorted. “He’s called Short Fuse.” Just then, Short’s voice reached them, long and hollow from echoing through the passage. “Here we go. Hold on to your flanks!” Max had just enough time to duck and cover her ears before a deafening boom shook the passage. The world trembled for a couple of seconds, followed by a surge of air that washed over the top of the stone block, raining dust and stone flakes down on them. It took a few seconds for the ringing in her ears to go away, and even then, everything sounded a little tinny, from the collective coughing around her to the distant flapping of wings. “You guys can come out now!” Short Fuse called out. “I’m going to kill him. I’m going to kill him so hard that his ancestors will feel it,” Furlong growled as she massaged her ears. She had tears leaking from the corners of her eyes. “Get in line,” Max muttered. Furlong glared at her for a moment, then chuckled before turning away. Upon leaving cover, they heard Short Fuse fluttering ahead of them in the passage. Upon catching up, they found him hovering before the improvised wall. His ashy, muted green hair and grey coat were blackened with patches of soot, clouds of dust cascaded from his wings with every beat, and he had a huge grin plastered to his face as he admired his work. He’d apparently planted his explosives along a fault line, and the blast had created a fissure just large enough for a mid-sized pony to squeeze through. Furlong poked her head in first and listened. “Anything?” whispered Galleon as he trotted up to her side. She pulled her head back and shook it, wincing a little. “It’s probably clear, assuming this maniac didn’t burst my eardrums. I’ll go first. Keep the lights low.” They went through one at a time without incident, except for the part where Blizzard had to suck his gut in whilst Wind Shear pushed him from behind. The air on the other side stung the inside of Max’s nostrils with its dryness, and it also carried some sharp, musty scent that she couldn’t quite place. It conjured up images of thorns, sand and spiders in her mind, for some reason, and she could see from their flared nostrils and the way Speckle and some of the others were fidgeting that they didn’t like it any more than she did. After marching for only a couple of minutes, they found the bodies. Ponies. Minotaurs. Diamond Dogs. Even a couple of adolescent dragons. Scaly or hairy, their skins were discoloured, wrinkled and bone-dry with age, drawn tightly over skeletal forms frozen in various postures of agony. Some crawling, some on their backs with their limbs held up to shield their faces, some lying flat on their sides with their empty eye sockets and jaws wide open, locked in a silent scream. Most of them wore scale barding, though several ponies, mostly unicorns, had plate barding covered with cloaks or robes that would’ve looked resplendent several centuries ago. Swords, spears, clubs and shields littered the floor. The tarnished metal bore many notches and angular grooves, with entire sections either warped or cracked from clashing against other weapons and armour. Shattered golems lay scattered throughout the passage, too. Fractured limbs and melted torsos lay here and there, interspersed between groups of armoured bodies. “Stars above, what happened here?” whispered Speckle as he gingerly trotted past a couple of splayed-out earth pony corpses. “Looks like one heck of a last stand,” Blizzard muttered. He tapped a discarded helmet with his hoof and sighed. “Poor slobs never got a decent burial.” Everyone in the party gradually drifted out of formation from there. Even Blizzard seemed to have forgotten about policing Max’s every move. He still watched her and Daring, but he didn’t shove or shout when they wandered a little to inspect the ancient carnage. Max peered at a male minotaur and saw metal and stone shards embedded in his desiccated flesh, in the gaps where the heavy armour couldn’t protect him. Smashing a golem into a thousand pieces had probably been his last act before he fell. “Psst.” Turning, Max saw Daring Do silently tap a hoof on the armour of a nearby diamond dog before giving her a pointed look. She then lowered her gaze to the body beside Max. With a frown, Max dipped her head and peered more closely at the minotaur’s armour. Though badly tarnished, she could see zigzags, wavy swirls and sharp angles engraved onto the metal plating. The breastplate and helmet bore the most intricate patterns, though she could see some on the shields and even on a few of the leggings. Fancy stuff that would probably fetch ridiculous prices on the black market or even regular art houses. And they were practically trotting through a field littered with them… We’ll need to first make it out of here alive before we can see any of those bits. They still made progress, though with less speed than before. The air tasted thick and sour with apprehension. “Who’s fighting whom?” Furlong wondered aloud. “The golems obviously belong here, so they’re the defenders,” Blizzard said. He inclined his head to a pair of ponies who’d apparently died after trading blows, then rubbed his chin and added, “Not sure if all these other guys are on the same side, but it would make sense that at least half of them are the invaders. It’s hard to say unless we can identify the original colours of their banners and insignias.” “Where are the changelings?” Speckle piped up. “If they’re supposed to be the gatekeepers, shouldn’t we be seeing some of them?” Galleon cleared his throat and strode forward authoritatively as he looked down on the bodies and said, “Probably a servitor caste, so it wouldn’t make sense to let them be part of a defence force. I would expect to find them in the living quarters or workplaces, if any remain. In any case, the golems seem formidable enough on their own.” “They weren’t enough to win, though,” said Blizzard. He then pointed at an ornate spear with a hoof and continued, “Victors usually loot the battlefield, so this looks more like an unresolved stalemate. Formations are all out of whack – must’ve been chaos after the chain of command broke down. Something went very wrong for both sides, and that’s before we even consider the possibility of a third faction.” “Galleon.” All eyes turned to Max. She squirmed a little under their collective gaze, but something had been nagging at the back of her mind for a long time, and she really needed to know if Galleon was as crazy as he seemed. “The Master is a changeling, so what makes you think we’re supposed to be the servant caste?” she said, raising an eye ridge. “Sounds like it should be the other way around.” Galleon’s eyes widened for a fraction of a second before his brow furrowed. “You lie. The Master is an alicorn,” he seethed. Then, he swept a hoof over the equine bodies around them and stomped over to Max, saying, “These ponies are properly dressed for battle. Hardly the attire of rebelling slaves, wouldn’t you say? No, I’ll have none of it; if you slander his majesty one more time, I’ll make sure you never walk again, insect. Know your place!” Max recoiled when he stepped so close that his muzzle almost smashed into hers. A railroad spike of agony corkscrewed into her brain, and a deluge of contempt so black and bitter washed over her that she reeled as if hit by a wrecking ball. Her chains clinked almost musically as she wobbled on her hooves before tripping over somepony’s mummified leg. Well, that struck a nerve, she thought, then hissed when landing on her rump sent a jolt of pain from her thigh up her spine. She opened her mouth to retort, but only a strangled yelp came out when she saw his eyes flash with teal light; something unfathomably ancient glared at her, boring so deeply into her soul that she almost threw herself onto the floor to grovel and apologise for ever questioning him. Barely resisting the urge, she settled for a meek nod as she lay on the floor with a dozen thoughts whirling in her mind. The Master couldn’t be both changeling and alicorn, so he was definitely giving one of them a false impression. It had to be Galleon. The Master had to be a changeling. She could partially understand the golems; it made more sense to have changelings in charge if that was the case. Galleon’s servitor theory couldn’t be right… could it? Seemingly satisfied, Galleon gave her one last derisive snort and turned away. “Keep moving, everypony. We haven’t far to go. Also, be mindful of what you touch; some of these artefacts still possess active enchantments.” Max blinked. He was right. Latent magic permeated some of the weapons and pieces of armour around them. Faint, but possibly still functional. She didn’t know enough about enchantments to identify their properties, but she guessed that most of them were designed to improve durability, if not to standardise coat and hair colours like the modern royal guard. A dry, hollow crack rang out in the passage, and Max nearly tripped over again when she whirled round to face the source of disturbance. She then grumbled softly to herself when she saw Short Fuse holding up a helmet with both hooves for inspection, leaving its former owner’s muzzle kissing the floor. It had a stiff plume like a traditional legionnaire’s helm that ancient pegasi wore, and runes adorned the edges of the faceguard. He slipped it on, and Max felt her jaw drop. She couldn’t sense his emotions anymore. Just… just like the odd tribe of minotaurs, earth ponies and diamond dogs in the jungle. The runes. No wonder they looked so familiar – the natives’ tribal markings had a very similar style, and she hadn’t been able to sense their emotions either! She quickly closed her mouth and schooled her expression to a neutral one before somepony noticed. “Put it back, Short,” Galleon called out irritably. “There will be plenty of time to claim these treasures after we complete our quest.” “Bleh. It’s too loose, anyway.” Short Fuse removed the helmet and planted it on the corpse’s butt, and Max immediately felt his happy-go-lucky cloud of excitement reappear. She’d never heard of enchantments that could so thoroughly fool a changeling’s senses, save for farfetched rumours and hysterical accounts. Even the princesses in Canterlot didn’t have these things. What is this place? Who are these ponies? Was that what Daring had tried to communicate earlier? She tried to catch her attention with a meaningful look, but before their eyes met, Blizzard whistled sharply and barked out a command to resume marching. They did so with wary steps. The grim scenery extended all the way through the passage, with only a couple of long stretches where nearly every surface was pockmarked with craters and scorch marks from either magical or mundane bombardment. They passed wreckages of hastily-assembled ballistae and carts laden with long-rotted supplies and rusty armaments. More broken golems, ponies, minotaurs and diamond dogs. About half an hour later, the passage opened up into a massive hexagonal cavern with huge pillars rising up into the impenetrable darkness above. Rows and rows of blocky structures with doorways lined the sides of the cavern, reminiscent of the tightly-packed shop houses of Canterlot, except for the dark, bone-like aesthetic that they’d already seen in the passages. More bodies, too. Furlong’s scratchy voice rang out as they crossed the midway point of the cavern. “Horse apples, what in the hay is that?” Max followed her gaze and felt an odd stirring in her chest when her eyes fell on the twisted figure lying on the floor. It looked like a diamond dog, but with unnaturally long limbs covered in tight, sallow skin that ended in spindly toes or fingers with gleaming claws. A robe of dark, iridescent cloth covered most of its torso and legs, shredded at the hems and pierced in several places with long spears. Two skeletal ponies lay on the ground before it. As for its missing head… Max blinked. No, that can’t be right… At first, it looked as if a spider the size of a housecat had latched onto the creature’s head and swallowed it whole. And a very oddly proportioned spider, at that. Its head and thorax looked like they had fused into a single segment, shaped vaguely like a minotaur’s skull. It had two rows of black, beady eyes beneath its hard, jutting brows and several pairs of chitinous legs attached way too closely to its mandibles. Fibrous spines covered the bony surface of its back, and its thick, segmented abdomen hung behind the figure like a fat bundle of dreadlocks. Even the bugs in Everfree aren’t this freaky. Then, Max saw the thin neck connecting directly to the spider’s underside. The others saw it too, and she could’ve sworn that the ambient temperature dipped several degrees with their collective surge of primal fear. Max saw Speckle and Furlong trembling a little, and the others had somewhat shrunken pupils. Even Short Fuse felt uneasy, if his twitchy, clumsy fiddling with a cherry bomb was any indication. Wind Shear whistled and shot Max a grin. “Wow. And here I was thinking you were the ugly one.” “There’s more of them…” Furlong murmured, lifting her lamp high to cast light farther ahead. Two. Three. Five. Eight… More spider-headed monstrosities lay on the floor amongst the rest of the slain races in the cavern, as far as Max’s eyes could see. They all wore the same kind of wispy robes and had very spindly limbs for their height, but their bodies also varied in several distinct ways: some had long, spade-tipped tails; some had bony projections on their backs; some had long claws like the first one on the floor before them; and others had thicker, stumpy toes and fingers. “Well, I guess we know what wiped out the city.” Wind Shear darted forward into the shadows and came back with a gleaming spear in her hooves. “I don’t care what anypony says; I’m carrying this from now on.” Galleon hummed his assent. “Abominations. Imagine the courage it must have taken for these brave folk to stand against them… I suppose we cannot fault the Master’s people for faltering against such an invasion.” Speckle shivered. “It was the end of their world… There aren’t any more of them around, are there?” “Doubtful. It was a long time ago,” said Galleon. He rubbed his chin, then plucked an arming sword from a dead minotaur's grasp and levitated it to Speckle whilst taking another for himself. “Best not to take chances, though.” “Hey, what about me?” Daring rattled her chains for emphasis. “Nice try, but we’re not in the business of arming prisoners.” Galleon’s smirk widened. “In fact, you would make a superb decoy if something were to attack us.” Daring simply snorted. They moved in a much tighter formation after that, with Furlong reluctantly flying recon some distance ahead of them with a spear in her hooves. Galleon frequently called out instructions to her, guiding their party towards one side of the cavern. Max felt some tightness in her chest, as if she had an invisible wire tugging her forward, leading her to a section where some of the structures had scorch marks and cracked stone. Her headache had returned, and the ghostly whispers at the back of her mind grew louder with every step she took, but she pressed on and tried to ignore the pain in her thigh. Several doorways greeted them when they reached the side of the cavern, sealed so perfectly that Max had trouble discerning the border between door and wall. All, except for one. This stone door apparently opened and closed by sliding up and down, and a mangled helmet lay crushed beneath it, leaving a gap barely a couple of inches high. More bodies littered the floor around them, their shadows dancing in the lamp light. Enter. Enter now. Max flinched when she felt something cold worming its way into her brain. She took a couple of shaky steps forward, then balked when Blizzard glared at her. “Yes, this is it! This is…” Galleon’s voice faltered. His horn sputtered a couple of times whilst he stared at the door, and he eventually gave up on using magic and grabbed the rune stone out of his saddlebag with trembling hooves. His pupils had clouded over, and he had his gaze focused on some point beyond the jammed door before them. A bead of sweat slid down his temple. Short Fuse waved a hoof in front of Galleon’s muzzle. “Boss? You don’t look too good…” We need a way in. We need it now. Max gritted her teeth and fought the urge to rush forward and shove Galleon aside so that she could open the door herself. Thankfully, Galleon got his act together before she lost control. He pressed the rune stone into a receptacle on the door, and it slowly rose with a screech of tortured rock. Galleon rushed in first, followed by Furlong and Wind Shear, and then Blizzard prodded Max and Daring to follow suit. Speckle and Short Fuse entered last. Inside, Max saw several upended tables, chairs and a whole assortment of devices with sharp angles, warped holes and bulbous tubes that she couldn’t make sense of. It looked almost like an abstract painting, or one of those campy illustrations of alien factories in Star Trot. The entire room looked spacious enough to comfortably house fifteen to twenty seated ponies, and it reminded Max of a bar for some reason, creepy furniture aside. “He’s here,” Galleon whispered. Max could taste his intoxicating euphoria as he pointed towards a huge unicorn stallion hunched over on the floor with his back to them. He wore a majestic combination of plate barding and ceremonial robes so thick that they could’ve easily hidden a set of wings. His silky mane flowed from the crest of his helmet and over his back, white as snow. The air practically hummed with magic, emanating from the huge, dusty tomes lying open on the floor, linked to the unicorn’s armour with chains to their thick covers. Wow. He looked almost exactly like an over-designed Ogres and Oubliettes paladin. And apparently, he did just as much monster-slaying as the fictional ones, too. A spider-headed abomination lay propped up against the wall in front of the paladin, with its thin legs splayed out and its arms resting by its sides. Its black robe had huge holes with scorched edges. The paladin’s golden spear had impaled it just above the hip and practically nailed it to the wall, and Max could sense powerful enchantments still active in the engraved shaft. “Brothers and sisters, our quest is at an end…” Everypony stood still and watched in silence as Galleon walked towards the paladin with carefully-placed, reverent steps. Max felt compelled to follow Galleon’s example, but she shied away from the notion and instead focused her attention on the monster. The abomination had its spidery head tilted to one side, as if sleeping, its beady, black eyes dull and lifeless. Her gaze drifted down to its bony, wraith-like hands, and she frowned when she saw a black, roundish object in its palm. Is that… The thought vanished when a familiar, colossal presence bore down on her mind, and she winced when the Master voice reverberated inside her skull. “Step forward.” This time, the others heard it, too. Aside from herself and Galleon, everypony either yelped, jumped, winced, or did some combination of the three before looking around in bewilderment. “Master, we are here!” Galleon placed a hoof on the paladin’s shoulder, and then gasped when the huge stallion tilted to one side with a metallic creak. He crashed to the floor with a resonant clang of armour, and his helm rolled away, revealing a grinning skull. The most majestic, bearded skull Max had ever laid her eyes on, but still a dead one. Everypony stared, frozen. Then, Max’s ears twitched when she heard a dry, chittering scrape. And then her blood chilled when she realised that it had come from the spidery head. Oh grub. “We screwed up. Run!” she screeched. Or rather, she tried to. Everything below her eyes refused to move, no matter how much she concentrated and tried to flail around. She couldn’t tell if she was even breathing anymore, or even feel the weight of her chains. Nopony else moved, either; Galleon was still as a statue, and the others’ shadows remained frozen in place. From the corner of her eye, she saw Furlong’s eyes twitching erratically in place, pupils shrunken to pinpricks. Under different circumstances, Max might’ve enjoyed the appetising flood of savoury-white terror radiating from her captors, but this once, she just wanted to cower and hide just as much as they did. Max could only stare at the abomination as it slowly, almost imperceptibly tilted its head up a couple of degrees, just enough to give them a baleful glare with all six eyes. “Release me.”