//------------------------------// // on-the-job-training: the B-team // Story: Should I? // by The Collapsed Library //------------------------------// Blueblood simply couldn't believe what had transpired. One minute he'd been regaling Fancypants with the details of his recent exploits, embellished only to the slightest degree of course, and the next he was surrounded by rubble and was most certainly not screaming like a filly. No-one must ever find out about his soprano. Before too long however he had been roughly dragged back to his hooves by a guard and was ushered, rather rudely he might add later when he complained to Celestia, to the door. As he and the other guests filed out the door he finally took notice of the rather sizable amount of dust caking his fur. Every guest and guard evacuated from the chapel received a rather large sum of bits and the scream was later chalked up to a maid who'd seen a spider. It was a BIIIIIG spider. After said maid graciously offered Blueblood a damp towel, and he'd subsequently cleaned his coat to the best of his abilities, he began his descent towards the lower floors, silently cursing the enchantment surrounding and concealing the vast middle section of the castle. Very few people knew they were there, he only knew because he'd overheard Auntie and her student discussing it one afternoon some years ago, but once you knew, the illusion would fail inside the castle's walls. The castle was immense, standing a vast many stories taller than it appeared on the outside, with some floors being taken up almost entirely by single rooms. A particular favorite of his was the floor made entirely of mirrors. After stopping there to make sure there was no dust marring his pristine coat, he descended a couple more floors before cursing again, he'd forgotten about the maze of floors beneath the mirror floor and had subsequently forgotten the way out. making his way towards the room that he hoped might have a map of some sort for this insidious maze, otherwise he'd simply find the hole he'd accidentally punched through each floor of the maze and then continue on his quest to... ... To where exactly, he actually couldn't remember where he'd been going. Shrugging it off as an after-effect of the events in the chapel he turned around in the sun-marked doorway he'd been walking through and proceeded back to the floor of mirrors. His hair had looked like it might need grooming the last time he was there, and auntie had taught him to always double check on the matters of greatest import. He couldn't believe it. He, Prince Blueblood, Duke of the western reaches, last living heir of the platinum dynasty, was lost in the castle. It should've been simple, he was sure that first turn was the right one, and from there it should've been a straight shot to the stairs, however he'd been running almost in circles for ages now and couldn't seem to find even a hint of the stairway to the hall of mirrors. He couldn't remember where in the maze he was when he'd turned around, but every piece of decor he'd seen since was baffling. If he was being honest, it was almost as if he'd switched floors somehow and that made him a little uneasy. Finding a staircase down, he joyously headed towards it, only to find himself on a floor he didn't recognize. Knowing that there must be a staircase leading down to the floor below, which was hopefully one he recognized, Blueblood began the process of exploring. After a few hours however, he began to think that maybe there simply WASN'T one on this particular floor. Before he could grumble too much, he came across a curious door. It wasn't visually any different than any other door on this damnable floor, apart from the strange--almost charred--pattern on the doors appearing to be unique to each specific door. No, this door was just as unremarkable as all the other locked doors on the floor. Except the damned thing was ajar. There was no light coming from inside, which wasn't that odd seeing as few people knew the extra floors existed. There was a strange, almost unnoticeable breeze coming from the room. As he got closer to the door, he took notice of how real that charred pattern seemed to be. Indeed, looking back at the many doors he'd passed in the labyrinthine halls of this particular floor. He finally realized how very real the pattern appeared to be. It was almost as if... Before he could finish his thought, the door swung open completely, revealing the pure blackness awaiting him on the other side. Tentatively, the prince approached the threshold of the room. Peering into the darkness, Blueblood could make little out other than what appeared to be a large piece of furniture in the center. Stepping even further, and then across the threshold into the darkened room, he noticed that the air inside of this particular room felt several degrees colder than the hallway. Looking around, he was astonished at how truly dark this particular room was; the atmosphere felt oppressive and thick, and the darkness seemed to exist as a part of said atmosphere. He thought it might've been a spell's doing, yet felt little to no magic--ambient or otherwise-- from the surrounding floor. Before he could ponder long on the potential cause however, he felt his hackles raise and whirled around to hopefully face the potential threat. Then the door closed. As the door closed Blueblood was made acutely aware of the sudden thrum beneath his feet, almost as if something had turned on in the floor below. as he turned around in the darkness, what he'd thought was furniture illuminated and revealed itself to be a stone of some sort. Approaching the stone, he realized that the illumination was coming from runes running along the top edges of it. The runes were in a dialect he'd never read before, surprising him seeing as his family had such a large collection of magical texts in their personal library. As he tried to decipher the runes on the slab, he began to take notice of the atmosphere around him shifting. The oppressive thickness he'd experienced the entire time he'd been in the room was dissipating, taking with it the darkness that'd surrounded the room. Finally able to take stock of his surroundings, the Duke of the western reaches realized that wherever he was, he wasn't even near the castle anymore. The walls were made of darkened limestone blocks--a material he was keenly aware was NOT found very frequently in equestria-- moss and other such undergrowth had penetrated the stonework, clinging to the walls and letting him know that wherever he'd been taken was very, VERY, old. The roof was wood, much to his shock, and looked almost petrified. The room was much larger than it had seemed when he'd entered, nearing the size of a modern low-class house in length and width. There was a window on one side of the room, and as he approached it he was met with a beautiful sight. Below the window and in the distance, was a massive crystal complex, with walls so smooth they almost seemed invisible as the sun shone off them. The room appeared to be on the brim of some sort of ravine leading into the valley the complex sat in. Before he could take much more in however, he saw a shadow cover the valley and again felt his hackles rise. Sprinting back towards the door, he set his shoulder to try and break through only to have the door swing open and leave him careening through an entirely different hallway of the castle than the one he'd started in. stopping himself before he hit the far wall, he turned just in time to see the door he'd exited slam shut. Approaching the door, he gave it a tentative pull and it surprisingly opened, revealing one of the many entrances to the enchanted pathways the servants used to traverse the castle, whilst avoiding the floors no-one was meant to see. Shaking off his surprise, Blueblood walked through the door, deciding to use the tried and true method of exploring the castle to get back to the ground floor. Meanwhile, somewhere much higher in the castle, in a hallway none had been down in a very long time, a doorway with a sun burned harshly into the lintel began to vibrate in it's fittings. Not much, but enough to send an imperceptible tone echoing through the stonework of the castle and into the mountain off which that castle jutted.