//------------------------------// // Obsidian Night // Story: Surviving Sand Island // by The 24th Pegasus //------------------------------// —and appeared on the other side. Rarity trembled and immediately staggered against the nearest wall, trying to right her sense of vertigo and keep her dinner down. She hadn’t exactly stayed conscious the last time she teleported, and now she was glad about that. After doing it once and not passing out, Rarity felt overwhelmed with nausea and motion sickness. She felt like she flung herself down a long hallway only to fly backwards as the ground slid away from her, and the resulting confusion had scrambled her senses. She wasn’t sure how Twilight or Starlight or any other mage who could teleport could do it without immediately feeling sick. “Rarity?” Rainbow shouted through the door. “Are you alright? Is everything okay in there?” Rarity pressed her cheek against the cool stone door and softly moaned to herself. “Yes, it’s… fine,” she managed. “I just feel sick and dizzy, that’s all. I’m not used to teleporting.” “Oh.” The worried edge in Rainbow’s voice nevertheless persisted despite Rarity’s assurances. “I mean, if you’re fine, then that’s good. Just catch your breath and stuff, okay?” “That’s what I’m trying to do.” Rarity slid down the door until the cool water around her reached up to her shoulders. The cool feeling around her body didn’t exactly help her with her nausea; it made her feel like she was breaking out in the cold sweat that proceeds vomiting. But with her legs feeling like noodles, she wasn’t exactly in a position to fight it off and stand up tall. It took a minute before she finally felt mostly normal again and could start to move about. The first thing she did was summon a mote of light to her aching horn, gradually brightening the room enough for her to see in. Little by little, the walls of the tomb beyond came into view, the blue light of Rarity’s horn sharpening the corners and runes carved into the walls. Pushing herself away from the wall, Rarity waded through the water into the center of the room to get a better look at her surroundings. The room she teleported into had numerous statues of ponies armed with weapons gathered around the walls, but most were concentrated around the hallway at the opposite end of the door. Above that hallway, another statue of the Ponynesians’ sun god erupted from the wall and ceiling, wings raining gold spears down on the floor around it. Beyond the statue and the spears, the hallway continued for some time, vanishing into the darkness. “See anything?” Rainbow asked through the door. Rarity glanced to the side to see the pegasus almost trying to put her muzzle through the split in the stone. “Anything blocking the door?” “There’s a hallway leading deeper into these catacombs,” Rarity said. Then she looked down at the ground and brightened her horn to peer through the water. “There is rubble in front of the door, yes. It looks like it came from the arch above the doors and the ceiling.” She looked up and saw the remains of a larger than life statue sticking out of the wall above the doors. “And a statue that’s broken to pieces. It’s a good thing we were able to get the door open this much as it was.” “Do you think you can clear it?” she heard Stargazer ask from the other side of the door. Rarity eyed the rubble and shrugged. “I probably can,” she said. “It just might take a while with my horn as exhausted as it is.” “Save your strength,” Rainbow said. “Just go and explore a little bit. It’s probably easiest if you just find the statue thingy and bring it back to us instead of clearing the door for no reason.” “Right, I suppose that makes sense.” Turning around, she swallowed down a nervous lump in her throat and started to cross the room. “I shall let you know if I find anything.” “Please only scream if something bad happens,” Rainbow said. “I don’t want to get worked up by you freaking out over every dead body you find.” Rarity shot the doors a dirty look. “I have enough composure over myself to refrain from such false alarms,” Rarity said. But nevertheless, she did eye the dark passage further into the catacombs with apprehension. “That being said, I think you should find it in your heart to forgive me if I become surprised or startled by something and make a scream of my own.” “No promises…” Shaking her head, Rarity moved to the entrance of the hallway. Her horn illuminated a long dark passage that seemed to decline the further along it went. Perhaps about a hundred feet down, the water finally touched the ceiling, and Rarity shivered at the thought. “More diving,” she muttered to herself, beginning to walk down the hallway. “Great…” It didn’t take long before she reached a point where she couldn’t stand and keep her head above the water anymore. After making sure her weapons were secured to her body, Rarity sucked down a deep breath and stuck her head under the water, brightening her horn as much as she could without overly exerting herself. Though the water carried with it the sting of salt, it was at least considerably lessened and dulled compared to the sharp salty concentration of the sea. There must’ve been some sort of fresh water reservoir that diluted the seawater leaking into the tomb, but Rarity swiftly decided that wasn’t important right now. What she needed at the moment was to navigate the water-filled hallway as fast as she could before she ran out of breath. Moving her limbs in long, smooth strokes, Rarity swiftly propelled herself through the water and down the declining hallway. If she had more time, perhaps she would have examined the walls some more, but as it was, she needed to figure out what was at the end of the hall. She saw where it bottomed out just a bit in front of her, and with any luck, it would start to rise again. If not, she’d have to turn back and think of something else… but if everything was submerged underwater, there wasn’t much she could do to find the statuette from here. She’d have to think of another plan, and she wasn’t sure that they had enough moonlight for that. Rubble lined the floor of the hallway, and Rarity used it to help quicken her swim through the tunnel. Thankfully, as soon as she reached the flat part of the hallway, she saw steps rise out of it a ways in front of her. With the promise of air ahead of her and Rarity’s lungs already beginning to ache from holding her breath, the unicorn redoubled her pace, quickly pushing through the water and making it to the stairs on the other side. Just as her lungs felt like they were about to burst, Rarity’s head broke the surface, and she sucked down several breaths of old, stagnant air. But it was air nonetheless, and she took the time to get oxygen back to her muscles and let her heart slow down again. Of course, now she found herself in an entirely new predicament. Because of the water filling the tunnel, she wouldn’t be able to hear or communicate with the rest of her friends. If something happened to her, they’d never know about it, and vice versa. She needed to work quickly just in case something bad happened. Rising to her hooves, Rarity shook what water she could out of her coat and regarded her surroundings. The stairs ended in front of another large, sealed door, but unlike the last one, this one was in such a bad state of crumbling decay that Rarity could see a hole in it that she could probably squeeze through. Not wanting to waste any more time, she scarpered over to the door and immediately started crawling through the hole. It was a tight fit, but she managed it fairly easily with a little bit of wiggling past the stones. Thankfully they were covered in a slime of some kind to lubricate her body, but it smelled awful and clung to the hairs of her white coat. Apart from a moment to grimace and gag, Rarity immediately pushed the sensation to the back of her mind and observed her surroundings once more. The walls of this room seemed to be made out of obsidian and somepony had carefully scratched white lines into the surface of the stones. Between the harsh, angular architecture and the pure black decoration, the entire chamber sent an evil chill down Rarity’s spine. Statues leered at her out of the darkness, and the entire place seemed alive with a menacing energy. Perhaps most unsettling of all was the shroud of darkness protecting the heart of the room, so thick and heavy that Rarity’s horn light failed to penetrate it more than a few inches. There was obviously something magical about it, and Rarity wasn’t sure she wanted to push forward. But on the other hoof, that was as sure a sign as any that she had to be close to her destination. These figurines were supposed to be magical in some way, right? If so, the figurine of the unicorn god of the night would be fittingly surrounded by darkness. Besides, it wasn’t like Rarity had any other options. She needed to venture into the darkness and check it out. Swallowing hard, Rarity slowly advanced on the shroud with a hoof held in front of her in case she bumped into something she couldn’t see. “Here goes nothing…”