Sand and sediment trickled down through the gaps in the now-open ceiling, finally freed from centuries of build up between the stone blocks of the chamber. Rarity could even taste the difference in the seawater drifting down from the ceiling into the chamber her and Melody floated in. It was briny and stale, and her sharp siren eyes could see the difference in the salinity of the water as it mingled with the rest of the seawater. It was also lacking in oxygen, and when it ran over Rarity’s gills, she felt like it was the aquatic equivalent to trying to breathe in a very steamy sauna, where the air was just dripping with moisture. While the water here similarly posed no risk to suffocating her, it was nevertheless unpleasant to breathe.
Even Melody got a taste of the salt as it made its way to the door. “That chamber’s been sealed off for a long time,” she said. “All the oxygen is gone and it’s just been pooling brine. I’d be surprised if there was anything living in there.”
Rarity put her hooves on the edge of the hole and poked her head into the room. At a quick glance, all she saw was barren, lifeless stone, lacking even in the simple algae slime that had coated many walls of the structure so far. “It’s dead as the grave,” she said, glancing back at Melody. “Which doesn’t reassure me by any stretch of the imagination, because the tomb was similarly dead until it wasn’t.”
“Just try not to touch anything that looks evil,” Melody offered. “That’s about the best we can do.”
“I’ll certainly make an attempt not to,” Rarity said, pulling herself through the hole. “Everything went horribly wrong when I did last time…”
The room above the ceiling was like an ancient holy temple’s equivalent of an attic. It was cramped and obviously had been designed to be hidden between different rooms, judging by the slopes of the walls and the overall cramped quarters. For the first time so far, Rarity felt like her enormous siren size was definitely a detriment in this place. Where the previous rooms and halls had been so grand and large her and Melody could easily swim and maneuver through them, Rarity knew she wouldn’t be able to pull her whole siren body into the attic above the empty chamber. She was already having a difficult enough time just getting her head, hooves, and dorsal fin to fit comfortably in the cramped space. But, at the very least, she seemed to have found what she was looking for.
She immediately knew the room was different because of the carvings and panels squeezed into the tiny spaces available for the Ponynesians to work with. What they couldn’t fit onto the tiny walls, they’d placed on the low ceiling instead, but instead of murals depicting some history, every inch seemed to be covered with runes and other holy or religious symbols. They were wards of some kind, Rarity realized, though she couldn’t feel any magic through her antennae. At least, not in the same way she could feel the magic around the islands in her horn.
“What do you see?” Melody asked from below, unable to see past Rarity’s body into the room. “Is this what we’re looking for?”
“I think so,” Rarity said. “There’s runes and holy symbols and carvings. A lot of effort was put into this little hideaway, certainly a lot more than the room below. Apart from the fake ceiling, perhaps.” She squinted and peered through the darkness, her surroundings taking on a more grayish tone as the available light dwindled further. “I think I see something in the back, though. I’ll try to reach it.”
That something in the back was a small rectangular box, made out of stone with a heavy stone lid on top of it. It had been carved into the wall so Rarity couldn’t move it, but she had a good feeling she knew what was inside. After all, she figured that the concept of a sarcophagus would be fairly universal between different distinct cultures, and she knew she was looking at one right now.
The body of the first avatar was lying in front of her. But where was the figurine?
She relayed the information back down to Melody while she tried to look around and peer into the shadowy corners of the room. “There’s a large, stone container in here. I think it must be the resting place of the first avatar’s body. But I don’t see the figurine anywhere else. It’s certainly not in the open.”
“There aren’t any hidden panels or nooks to conceal it in?” Melody asked. “Someplace safe that the Ponynesians might have tucked it away in?”
After a few more seconds to look around the room, Rarity had to shake her head. “No, not that I can see. The walls here are very plain and barren, and these figurines were usually proudly presented in the open. Both the pegasus and the unicorn statuette were resting on altars, sitting in plain sight.”
“Is it inside the sarcophagus?”
Rarity wince and rubbed her hooves together. “It might be… but I’m not very keen on opening that up for obvious reasons.”
“True.” Melody was silent for a few moments, her tail swishing back and forth. “You’re sure it’s not anywhere else?”
“I’m very certain,” Rarity said. “There’s no place else it could be in here.”
“Then I guess we have to open the coffin. Can you reach it?”
Rarity warily eyed the stone container in front of her. “I can. I’m just worried that this will be a mistake.”
“Well, mistake or not, if we get all the figurines then we can get your backup and reinforcements that you’ve promised,” Melody said. “It’ll give us time to figure out what to do.”
“I’m just going to prepare to swim for my life once I open this thing,” Rarity said. “You’ll know if a headless corpse lunges at me by my panicked screaming.”
“I’ll try to hold the doors open long enough for you to swim through, but I make no promises.”
“Thanks,” Rarity said with a roll of her eyes. Then, grimacing, she set her hooves on either side of the sarcophagus and tried to ready herself. “If opening this box dooms us all, I swear to Celestia…”
Her legs flexed almost without her realizing it, and her siren strength easily pried the lid off of the sarcophagus. She fully expected something horrible to burst out of the box as soon as the heavy stone lid slid off to the side and slammed against the ground, but after a few seconds of cringing and tensing, waiting for anything to happen, Rarity finally concluded that nothing had changed. There was still the box, and there hadn’t been any noise or any movement.
Frowning, Rarity slowly inched her head up and forward, angling her neck to the side to try and make room for the large fins jutting out of her spine in the cramped quarters of the room. She got just close enough to peer into the sarcophagus, though her eyes didn’t linger on what lied inside all that long. She caught a quick glimpse of dark hair clinging to a body, and that was all she needed to see. If the murals back at the tomb on the archipelago were right, then the ponies had cut the avatar’s head off or something to that effect. She didn’t exactly want to see that.
Instead, she carefully lowered her hooves into the box, being extra careful to make sure she did any exploring of the environment with her hooves alone. Sirens’ hooves were much more solid than a pony’s hooves, and so she had less risk of accidentally cutting herself on something and repeating the accident she’d made back in the tomb with the dark spirit. She shuddered when they brushed against something soft, but she didn’t waste any time dealing with her revulsion; even she realized that the fastest way to get this done and over with was to just push on until she found what she was looking for. Never mind the dead body in the stone box; all she needed was the statuette.
Her hoof hit something hard, and Rarity immediately latched onto it with the two halves, pinching it and dragging it out. She almost squealed with joy when she saw the tiny shape of an earth pony staring back up at her. Somehow, finding the final statuette had gone off without too many problems, the worst of which had simply been solving a puzzle. But now, despite the odds, Rarity found herself cradling the last missing piece that would take them home.
“I-I’ve got it!” she stammered, still not quite believing her luck. “It was inside the sarcophagus all along! We have them all, now!”
“Really?” Melody asked, her voice carrying a note of disbelief. “It can’t have been that easy…”
“I wouldn’t have thought so either, yet here we are!” Rarity said. She quickly darted back down out of the ceiling and proudly displayed the little figurine to Melody. “We have it! We have them all! We can finally, finally go home!”
Melody’s expression brightened upon seeing the statuette. “That’s great!” she exclaimed, her scaly lips curving into a grin. “I’ve been dreaming of this day for so long, but I can’t believe that it’s finally here!”
“Me neither,” Rarity said, carefully cradling the figurine. “Yet here we are! Are you ready to finally be rid of these islands?”
“I most certainly am!” Melody giggled and pushed the door halves back out in a spurt of excitement-fueled energy. Still, they nevertheless came pushing back on her tiring limbs, and she winced. “But perhaps we should celebrate outside. I don’t think I can hold these doors open all that much longer.”
“A fair point,” Rarity said, slipping between the halves underneath Melody. With a grunt, Melody pushed herself out of the gap, and the two halves of the doors slid back together in a few seconds as the counterweights dragged them back into position. Grunting, Melody winced and rolled her shoulders, idly flexing and grabbing at her legs as the soreness crept up and down her muscles. “I’m so glad I don’t have to hold that thing open anymore.”
“I’m so glad I don’t have to worry about getting trapped inside anymore.” Sighing, Rarity looked the final figurine over, grinning to herself as she did so. “Let’s take you back home,” she said to it. “There are a lot of ponies who will be very happy to see you!”