Locksmith

by QuartzScale


48. Forest of Nibel: Roots

Spirit Caverns

Once again playing the noble steed I carried a few ponies up the shaft of sheer rock walls seeing as poisonous brambles coated several portions of the area. There wasn’t much time for bantering or chit chat surprisingly which confused me completely since we had a lot more to do back during the times with the mercs underground. Though with only Sein as someone new to speak with I could see why it would be disconcerting. His voice boomed every time he spoke up leaving a few of us startled at his range. Octavia compared it to the Royal Canterlot Voice that was being whispered about around the Canterlot nobility. Though she mentioned most of it being hogwash so I quickly burned those brain cells of that useless information.

“So we make for the tree then Sein?”

“Yes. If my predilections are correct when we get closer to the tree it should give Ori the general locations of the keys that would unlock the areas that lead to where the heart of each element resides. And before you ask, unfortunately, keyblades would not be able to open these particular locks. At least not the ones you possess on you as of this moment. They were keyed into to these specific locks because of the rumors going around.”

“Rumors?” Sunshower immediately squeaked out seeming more interested than she did before hoof when she was focusing on Ori.

“You received rumors?”

“As a being of light you hear things along the vine that inform you about the state of the world. We are not the first light tree in this universe and we shall not be the last.”

“Right… mind telling us what you have heard?”

“Yes, sorry. It seems as though there has been a few ponies wandering the universe as of late. Tales are whispered that there are six ponies who have been steeping themselves in darkness and other rumors that two more have joined their ranks.”

I sighed to myself whether in relief or exasperation I didn’t really know. We were luckily not the ones being talked about meaning we still had some modicum of stealth on our side. What frightened me to the core was that there were ponies who had figured out out to travel through the universe and this particular spirit of light noticed it happening. With Merlin’s information as well that meant they were explicitly an Equestrian pony but as far as I’ve seen no one had ever heard anything about heartless in any capacity.

“So there is somepony out there… six of them in fact.” Spitfire muttered as she held a hoof to her mouth lost in thought once again. From what I could tell she was letting her militarized mind plan out just how things might go.

“Spitfire save it for much later. Until we actually figure out where these ponies are we shouldn’t worry too much about them until we have actually met them. Remain on guard but don’t dwell on it.”

Spitfire nodded slightly though there was still a worried look plastered on her face. In fact, several of the mares were worried now because of the unknown out there in the universe. I couldn’t fault them though. As I have learned from my observations, ponies hate drastic changes though I did fight a giant heartless in the middle of town so I couldn’t actually consider this study useful. Ori tapped me on the head and pointed me in a different direction as we all had to climb up more sheer cliff walls. At this point all of us were used to having to fly up to separate platforms in order to make it any farther through the forest. In truth, they were more often than not the desiccated remains of the tree boughs and crumbling rock formations.

As we kept climbing up we noticed that the darkness was starting to get thicker once again. We reached a large field with a well before us and a large tree out in the distance. Ori jumped off my back and immediately ran off for the well. We all took a measured approach as we joined Ori amongst the broken remains of the sealed off well.

“Welcome… Welcome to the Spirit Tree, the very lifeblood of the entire world.”

“So this is where Ori came from? What do we need to do here then?” Vinyl called out as she lit up her horn making certain that nothing was hiding in the brush.

“We must tell you the tale of what occurred here before you came. Long ago Ori was taken away from the light of the tree towards another who took him in under her own wing. As we tried to find him the shadows hated that we shot out the light to try to coax Ori back home. Kuro, the owl of darkness, grew enraged and immediately attacked the light tearing it from the tree and breaking it into me, Sein.”

“So… why did she attack the light then?”

“Gray, isn’t she a creature of darkness?” Octavia was the first to speak out about it.

“See… that’s the biggest problem. If the owl hated the light then why didn’t it attack before hoof? While she might be a creature of darkness she also depends on the light to keep the world alive. There is probably a much deeper reason behind her actions rather than just a creature of darkness that hated the light.”

“So you think something else happened?” Octavia continued.

“I’d hope so otherwise this would be too stereotypical of the darkness attacking the light.”

There were a few chuckles at my reasons most likely because my own reasons were kind of shallow about the concept of darkness and light. Honestly, I had a feeling that something else was going on. I had watched the Atlantis movie back on earth and I had this feeling that every world I would go to would be something I’ve seen before but so far this particular world eluded me to the point where I had no idea what was going on on this planet in particular.

“Regardless of her reason, we must restore the light of the world before everything falls to ruin and the world is lost to the darkness. There are three places that hold the very key to the world. The first is within the Thornfelt Swamp. It holds the Ginso Tree, the resting place of the Element of Water. The second is near the Misty Woods. Hidden within are the Forlorn Ruins, there lies the resting place of the Element of Winds. Finally beyond Sorrow’s Pass lies Mount Horu. It is there within that resides the Element of Warmth. Please, you must assist us, otherwise, we are all doomed to perish.”

“Sein, we are already gonna help Ori out on this task. Please. We’re key bearers. Of course we’re gonna meddle in the affairs of this world to keep it from falling.”

“Aw yeah. Time to crank out the big guns!” Vinyl cried out as she summoned her armor and for some reason posed and strutted around as if to show off.

“Vinyl… the tree doesn’t have any eyes to see you.” Octavia facehoofed and snorted most likely to stop the laughter she was trying to hide if her smile was anything to go by. Ori chirped though and jumped onto Vinyl’s back posing with her.

“Well… at least they’re enthusiastic about this then…” Redheart chuckled stiffly as she trotted around the well trying to discern which way we needed to go.

Ori immediately took point pointing us off to the west, through the mists towards the next couple of areas we needed to go through. As we trotted along I noted something odd every once in a while. Out in the distance in the darkest parts of the world a pair of glowing orange eyes would leer at us. While they never did more than look at us I felt something strange whenever I locked sight with them. They stared into my soul in such a way that I had only small recollections of what it meant. It felt… familiar as if I was seeing something I had only seen when I was a kid. That feeling left as soon as the eyes closed. Whatever was within the darkness was now watching us… and as far as I could tell with the distance between us… it wasn’t a heartless of any sorts.


Starswirl kept looking around for any other light creature that might have survived the purge as he came to understand it. Frustrated and tired he slowly rubbed his eyes with a hoof. Before long he decided enough was enough and teleported closer to the tree.

“Blasted owl… got in my way one too many times already.”

The other ponies he had sensed with his life detection spell had inadvertently made it impossible to harvest the light creature as the delicate essence he needed for his plans could only be gotten from weakened light spirits. This one had been restored and strengthened by the sheer number of light wielding keyblade knights. At least he assumed they were knights. Even Celestia wasn’t foolish enough to send greenhorns out on missions of this importance even if she never did learn anything about keyblades in the first place.

“This is pointless… and this tree is almost deader than dead. Might as well leave for the next ingredient.”

With a simple flick of his horn he teleported out of the area. It was almost as if he was never there in the first place.


Hollow Grove

The following area was covered in a deep haze as several new bramble bushes covered in poisonous clumps of burrs covered the area we walked through. It took us several minutes just to find another one of those trees of light that seemed to occupy random areas. As Ori absorbed the light into his body another monkey like heartless popped out of the darkness. It looked like it was wearing a mask and seemed to dance in place as several bladewilds and bouncywilds took center stage.

Redheart immediately countered the bouncywilds by firing off several spears of ice towards them with a blizzard spell. The few that didn’t get hit slipped on the ice that had formed from the missed shots letting the others get free hits in. The bladewilds were much trickier since only Spitfire and Octavia could outspeed and outpower them reliably. Even I couldn’t do that though I was at least skilled enough to outbluff them in any match of strength. As much as the heartless do at adapting they are still very straightforward in what they actually want to do.

The bladewilds immediately took the first chance they got to try and carve out one of our hearts only to get smacked away by a well timed reflect spell. Though every couple of swings they would managed to knock a few of us back. It got so bad that Sunshower was knocked into some of the poisonous brambles and yelping in pain from it. That distracted me immensely allowing the shaman heartless, I remembered what it was, to jump on my back.

The shaman immediately lit his hands with will o’wisps and plunged them into my back causing me to scream in pain and fury as I immediately flew upwards slamming the bastard into one of the cut trees. The shaman’s hands lost their glow and I kept slamming him over and over again into the scenery trying to smear it into paste. I knew I couldn’t though because it would dissipate into darkness before I could. As it stumbled around slightly I grabbed his staff and threw him into a patch of brambles causing it to dissipate.

Ori had finally finished absorbing the light and ran into the middle of our fight. Before anypony could stop him, he let out a burst of light energy causing the stragglers of our battle to dissipate back into darkness and release several crystal heart emblems. I flew back down and immediately cast a cure spell over everypony. Luckily the poisonous looking material wasn’t as bad as I once thought. Sunshower didn’t look poisoned at all which let me relax.

That was a big mistake. I finally felt the pain from the burns caused by that damn shaman and I winced from the feeling. Adrenaline was truly a very useful thing and Redheart had to check over my burns quickly. The cure spell had made them slowly start to heal over but she assisted with her own spell. Strangely from what I felt from the flow of magic, if you could call me feeling the burns disappear some kind of superpower, the cure spell she cast was far more potent than my own.

“Thanks Red. That was far more uncomfortable than I really wanted to admit.”

“You really need to stop getting hurt. You take far worse wounds than we do. Don’t think we haven’t noticed.” Redheart tapping her hoof against my chest. Ori, for some reason, tapped my leg in tandem mimicking her

I noted that once again everypony looked at me with that worried look that they usually gave me. I didn’t know what to feel at this point. Honestly I wasn’t trying to get hurt yet, at the same time I didn’t try to dodge really heard. I do know that they at the very least saw me distracted by Sunshower getting hurt. As we all wound down from the sudden fight I felt Sunshower nuzzle against me.

“Don’t worry too much. I’m a tough mare already. I managed to keep up with you a few nights ago didn’t I?” Sunshower whispered to me as we continued on for the Ginso Tree.
The path was fraught with plenty of forcing Spitfire, Sunshower and myself to carry the others from time to time. Ori climbed on his own power most of the time using the foliage to climb around while he fired his light off at any obstacles that got in our way. At one point he used his spirit charge, my name for it, to break open several rock walls that would get in our way.

Once again I felt eyes immediately focus on us off in the distance but instead of there being something unknown out in the darkness there were two yellow eyes. Redheart was the closest at this point to me and also noticed. The figure immediately sat up showing that it was a bipedal creature with a spherical body. It soon fled into the shadows leaving the two of us pondering what we just saw.

“What’s up you two? See something out there? More heartless?” Fresh Coat stopped and traipsed back towards us.

“I don’t know… It had the same yellow eyes most heartless do but it didn’t come out swinging like they usually do. It took one look at us and dismissed us on the spot.” Redheart sighed but I couldn’t tell if it was in relief or not.
“Maybe it was an inhabitant of this world that survived?”
“Well it’s not there anymore so hurry up already. I think we found the entrance to a new place.” Fresh Coat shuddered in disgust.

“Is it that bad?”

“Worse… there’s too much water around here.” Fresh Coat answered back blowing a raspberry in response as well.


Thornfelt Swamp

It was very very wet around here. There were literal lakes all around us filled with the foulest water imaginable. I was certain that everything in the water was deader than dead. ‘What would that be? Corpse-y or skeletal? I’m certain not even those survived water that looked like that.’

“This place looks horrible. Where can we find that tree that Sein was talking about?” Fresh Coat called out as she climbed onto my back and peered around lifting her hoof above her eyes mimicking a lookout very well.

“Fresh… we’re still below the tree line. I don’t think doing that would get you better results. Ori don’t copy her t-, oh you already did…”

Ori did indeed climb up and copied her. Strangely enough he pointed off in the distance figuring out exactly where the tree was… I wanted to call bullshit but he probably could sense minute details of how the light functioned around here or instinct from being a spirit of Nibel. After climbing down and in Fresh Coat’s case lying down on my back we continued on over several rotted logs that were bobbing on the water.

Several times we had to stop due in no small part to the heartless’ growing expectations of beating us in battle. sniperwilds made several more appearances making certain to keep me in particular under their targeting sights. Thankfully having reaction commands let me send their shots back. They would still fire several volleys before they were satisfied. Octavia had nearly fallen into the water which forced me to grab her and toss her onto the closest solid ground I could see. More often than not those ‘safe’ spots were next to the heartless.

Spitfire and Sunshower became more invaluable as we trekked through the swamplands. With their extremely accurate eyesight they usually found several keystones which apparently we needed to get because the world was falling faster and faster. Vinyl joked around that we should make an album cover with the scenery as it is. I couldn’t deny it would look very metal like.

“Maybe when we find the tree.”

“Did you bring a camera, Nebby?” Vinyl immediately stopped her ribbing and looked at me in the most serious expression possible… not counting our first date night.

“Uh… no. Wait… let me try something.”

I pulled out the Lexicon and allowed the illusions to do their trick. Within seconds of thinking about it the book shifted into a very old fashioned camera. I was thinking of a digital camera which makes this weird. Maybe I still wasn’t strong enough to fully use the illusions to their greatest effects but for now this was a start.

“Whoa… how did you do that Nebby? I mean I know we all have magic but that was like magic magic. Wait… the book did, um… what was it? Illusions, right?” Vinyl nodded up and down while the others looked on at the book.

“Yeah. This is a really old fashioned camera though… I have no idea how to operate this at all.”

I turned the camera over in my hooves noticing that it was for the most part mechanically correct. I even managed to see the film that would be used though it looked highly customized to the point of not really making sense. I didn’t understand it at all.

“That’s not a normal camera.” Sunshower pointed out.

“Yeah… it’s a very strange hybrid.”

I turned it back into the book just to escape the headache that was forming from the uncertainty of how it actually worked and continued to carry on for the tree that Ori was supposedly pointing at. The trip was barely a couple yards ahead and I was still amazed that things like this existed.

Before us all was an even larger tree though the dessicated bark and large ornate door that seemed to naturally form within the confines of the bark before us. Within the center of the door was an indentation with what looked like a circle with waves on it. It was kind of on the nose really…

“This is bad! The Water Vein has been taken from its position. We must find it to get into the inner depths of the Ginso Tree to revive the Element of Water. I can sense it faintly coming from the direction of the Moon Grotto. Something took it into that area.”

“Ok… gimme a sec.”

I summoned the lexicon and immediately shifted it into the camera. I took a picture of the tree entrance just to appease Vinyl for her want of a cover for anything she made in the future. She quickly glomped onto me nearly causing me to fall over but I was able to keep from falling and thankfully no one glowered at the sight. It seemed that the act of sleeping with everypony together managed to get them all ok with the public displays of affection. Octavia didn’t even look annoyed either making things at the very least easier to handle.

“Ok, ok. Let’s head for the grotto to find this Water Vein and get inside the tree.”

Just to make certain I tried to tap the door with the keyblade but nothing actually happened. There was a certain limit to the keyblades I suppose… unless it’s more because the world is the reason that these doors are remaining sealed. The heart of each world are sentient to a certain degree from what I remembered. There were certain worlds who could create their own keyblades for wielders to use in their name since they are what all heartless are looking for. Strangely I didn’t receive one from Atlantis though it might be the same case with the first game in the series since Wonderland deigned to never give you a keyblade.


It took a few hours of climbing over several dangerous areas when we noticed a small figure hopping around while also holding some shiny blue orb. Before we could fully go after it several heartless appeared and started chasing after it in droves. The powerwilds immediately rushed through while it slowly made it’s way into what was more than likely the entrance of the Moon Grotto.

“Get over to him quickly!”

Spitfire and Vinyl shot forward zooming through the heartless in a shower of fire spells and whirling blades. Luckily, the powerwilds were focused primarily on the figure that was running away. Ori ran over to the cracking column and actually broke it with an explosion of light flames. Rushing in we found the heartless being thrashed by… laser beams?
“How do lasers even form in nature like that!?”

I quietly cut off those thoughts as we chased after the figure that rushed into the darkness with the key we needed to reawaken the waters of this world. The heartless were quickly mopped up leaving us a clear path deeper into the depths of the grotto.

“So… who wants to go underground then?”

“Not me.” Fresh Coat answered.

“I’m good up here.” Redheart replied next.

“Not enough open room down here.” Spitfire explained.

“T-t-tight spaces and me don’t mix.” Sunshower stuttered.

“I just don’t want to be down there.” Vinyl smirked as she flipped her glasses down.

“I’ll be heading down there with you Gray.” Octavia responded with a pat on my back. Ori copied the actions and hopped on my back.

“Fine fine. Let’s head down there then. I’m gonna call it here, we’re splitting up the work in this world then. Each place one of you will go in with Ori and I to scope out or solve the place.”

“So there are six places, one for each of us to go inside then?” Octavia explained in more detail.

“Pretty much. We’ll decide as we go along.”