//------------------------------// // Rescue Cut Short // Story: Surviving Sand Island // by The 24th Pegasus //------------------------------// Hot Coals had to try to swallow down the bile rising in his throat from the grisly sights filling the tunnel. Even though the minotaurs could only make their way through the tunnel one at a time due to their sheer size, the war chief leading the expedition proved more than capable of tearing apart the resistance arrayed against him. As he shuffled past a small chamber in the middle of the hallway, Coals had to avert his eyes away from the twitching pile of gory limbs and brown-blooded corpses the war chief had simply discarded as he chewed through Soft Step’s army. But as they made their way through the shrine, Coals found himself worrying about what the minotaurs would do when they finally found the others that were trapped down here. Would they treat them with the same tolerance they’d given him, courtesy of Chirp’s intervention? Or would they kill them like they’d apparently done to so many other ponies? Assuming the others were still alive, of course. Given how this place was crawling with mummies, Coals didn’t know how likely that was. But the ones that had overpowered him on the beach had only dragged him away as their captive, not ripped through his flesh with their rotten teeth. Maybe they were keeping the other four as prisoners down here as well? Whatever was going on, at least the minotaurs were putting a stop to it. And given how effortlessly they plowed through the undead both above and now below the island, Coals almost felt confident that they could undo whatever plans Soft Step and that dark god had in store. Not only that, but they’d decided to take the waterproofed papers down into the shrine with them. Though Coals had no idea what it said or why the minotaurs were even interested in it, he decided to at least trust that they were going to get some use out of it. Maybe they wouldn’t be so pointless to their survival now unlike how they feared when they’d first looked at them. The minotaurs had some discussion ahead of him, and the warrior at the rear passed the papers forward before he and the next minotaur pulled back out of the tunnel and set up in the wider chamber they had just begun to pass through. Hot Coals hesitated as they moved back and planted their spears in the ground, their attention turned back towards the entrance. He could only assume that their chief had ordered them to stand guard against any reinforcements in a good defensive position, and so he decided that he’d be better off following the lead body. If the minotaur chief stumbled across the others, then he had to be as close to him as possible to try and protect them. A set of stairs greeted him, and Coals grimaced as he climbed up the slippery stones behind the minotaurs. The hallway ahead was even narrower than the one he’d just navigated, and the minotaurs had to practically crawl and shimmy through the narrow space just to advance. At one point, they stopped for a minute or so to clear out some debris before advancing again, leaving the rocks scattered along the hallway wherever they could toss them to make space. But soon enough, Coals slipped through the last obstruction in the hall and stepped into a large, dark chamber nearly impossible to see in. The moans and groans of several mummies filled the chamber, matched with ferocious shouts and war cries from the minotaurs ahead of him. Coals flared his horn to life, manifesting as strong a glow as he could, bathing the round chamber in light before the mummies could jump the minotaurs in the dark. With the light shed from his horn, the minotaurs ahead of him were able to quickly find the mummies advancing on them and rip them apart with their spears and bare hands. In less than a minute, it was over, and the last of the mummies in the shrine had been reduced to piles of rotting flesh. Coals found a torch lying on the ground and managed to get it lit with the aid of one of the minotaurs, who struck his spear against the wall to provide a spark. The minotaur then took the torch from his grasp and began to light fire bowls along the walls while the other two minotaurs and Coals turned their attention to the ponies beginning to stand along the walls of the chamber. Coals breathed a sigh of relief when he saw Ruse, Gauze, and even Black Flag begin to cautiously congregate and watch the minotaurs moving about the shrine with worry. When they saw Coals, however, they started to relax, albeit only slightly. “Coals?” Flag asked, narrowing his eyes at the former pirate. “What the fuck are you doing with the walking sirloins?” “Forget about that!” Ruse said, trotting away from the group and making a beeline right for the stallion. “They just chopped all those mummies into pieces! I sure as hell ain’t gonna complain about the company so long as it doesn’t eat us alive!” The minotaurs watched the ponies congregating with obvious mistrust, though they didn’t make a move against them—yet. Instead, they busied themselves with examining the dais and the pony figurines arranged on the pedestals surrounding it, and one spread the papers out on the dais so they could read them easier. Gauze noted it and nodded his head in their direction. “Looks like they’re literate,” he said. “We might have underestimated them.” “They showed up a little while ago and cleared the island of all the mummies,” Coals said. “About fifty of them all arrived in canoes and waded ashore. The only reason they didn’t immediately butcher me was because Chirp showed up.” “Chirp?” Ruse blinked in surprise. “Really?” “I think he’s some kind of religious symbol for them,” Coals said. “They seemed to treat him with reverence.” “Huh. Imagine that.” Ruse chuckled and shook his head. “I always knew there was something funny about that bird.” “Yeah.” Coals looked past the group and noticed that Ratchet still sat on the sidelines, staring out into space. Frowning, he pointed to the chief engineer and cocked his head. “What happened to him?” “Soft Step did something to him,” Gauze said. “She broke into his mind to find out where the pegasi had gone. She was hardly what I’d call ‘gentle’ about it.” “Well… shit. Hopefully we can help him when this is all over.” “I certainly hope so,” Gauze said. “I might be able to help if I had some time to examine him, but I can’t do that from down here.” “We should get the fuck out of here,” Flag said. “If the minotaurs have cleared the island, we need to leave before Soft Step comes back. She was going to sacrifice us to her god as soon as she got the pegasi.” Ruse nodded along. “I agree entirely with you, my scallywag brother,” he said, earning an annoyed scowl from the pirate. “The sooner we’re out of here, the better.” “Then let’s get moving,” Coals said, gesturing back toward the exit. “Let’s grab Ratchet and get out of here. Leave the minotaurs to… whatever it is they’re doing.” Before they could move, however, the shouts of minotaurs echoed up the stairway leading out of the shrine. Everyone present immediately tensed and turned to the hall to see one of the two minotaurs left behind running back into the chamber—only to be cut down with a powerful surge of lunar magic. As the smoking corpse fell to the ground, Soft Step emerged from the hallway behind him. Her horn glowed faintly from the spell she’d just cast, and she turned her predatory eyes to everyone assembled in the shrine. She parted her lips and revealed her fangs in a murderous smile, and her horn flared as she flung Champagne and Stargazer into the chamber. “Well, well, well, looks like I have uninvited guests,” she said, glaring at the minotaurs. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave. I need privacy while I work!”