//------------------------------// // The 3rd Session: Breezy Winter and the Escaped Naga // Story: The Elements of Tyranny // by Wings of Black Glass //------------------------------// No sooner than the serpent faded from view that Red rushed down the hallway to the T-junction at the far end. Wildly, she flung fire down both directions, hoping to hit the monster. With the enemy missing, her temper boils over and she nearly explodes in fury and fire. Her mane and tail ignite for an instant as she roars. “Where is it?!” Then she cools, unharmed by her own flames, and spins back towards Ormr and Tiny. “It just disappeared!” Tiny mumbles it out past the grip on his sword. “Snake invisible?” Ormr seems confused, glancing about still ready to fight. “It vanished?” Eclipse enters the hallway. “Tell me exactly what you saw.” Tiny nods and drops his sword, it clatters on the stone floor. “There was some sort of magic circle that ran down its body. It was too fast to interrupt, and it just sort of popped away.” “A medium range teleport, most likely. Somewhere around a few hundred feet, at most.” “So it’s still in here?” Red eyes the corridors again. “Even right around the corner?” “I should say a few hundred feet in any direction. It could be back up to the city or down to a lower level if there is one.” “I carved it up quite a bit. If I were it I would be running right now.” “That thing, I’ve seen something like it before.” Red scowls. “There was one back in my hometown for a while. It’s called a Naga. They are hard to kill.” “It didn’t seem that tough to me. One or two more good hits would’ve taken it down.” “They don’t stay dead. I watched one revive after being crushed by a boulder.” “You’ve got to be joking. Eclipse, tell me she’s joking.” “I am unfamiliar with Naga. If she says they are immortal, I see no reason to doubt her.” “That’s going to make it difficult to keep this thing down.” “Snake is gone?” “I think so. We should see if we can find anything else down here.” Eclipse points at the door down the right hoof path. “And we should definitely stick-” Ormr doesn’t even wait, and slams into the obstacle. The wooden door nearly explodes into splinters. “-Together… in case it comes back.” “Door is open.” The Yak grins toothily at them. “Ormr, buddy, what is it with you and doors?” Tiny shakes his head and picks his sword off the ground to sheathe it. “Once we’re done here we need to have a conversation about this thing called 'caution,' and how you don’t seem to have any.” Eclipse reprimands the Yak as they enter the next chamber. This one is quite different than the others, clean and orderly. Along one side is what could only be described as a nest, made from pillows and cushions and fabric. Along the other is a bookshelf, the top shelf has a few small sculptures on it, and a desk covered in scrolls and papers next to the shelves. Beside the desk is a traveler’s chest. “I think we found it’s bedroom.” “Odd, I didn’t think Nagas needed to sleep.” Red frowns. “They probably do need to relax from time to time.” Eclipse glances up at the bookshelf, quickly reading the titles. “Judging from some of these books anyway. Only a few involve arcane magic.” “If you say so.” Tiny shrugs and opens the chest, he whistles appreciatively when he sees what’s inside. “That is a lot of bits.” The chest is full, nearly to the brim, with silver coins. He dips in one hoof and scoops some out, letting them fall back into the pile with satisfying clinking. “Thousands, or more.” “We should haul it back to Shine Shire, they could use the extra funds.” “I agree with Red, but first we need to account for all the missing Pegasus. If those Hell Horses back there were who we think they were then there should be nine more.” Tiny glances down at the fortune and bites at his lower lip, hesitant to let such wealth just lie there. “We should keep searching.” Somewhat reluctantly Tiny follows Eclipse and Red down the hall to the corner past the junction. The passageway turns to the right and ends at an open gateway, with an obvious portcullis ready to drop and seal it. The room within is obviously a laboratory of some kind. Numerous tables are covered in alchemical supplies and vials of liquid, some of which glow faintly. “Hey look, Ormr, no door to bash down this time.” The Yak snorts at Tiny and then narrows his eyes at the floor just beyond the entry. “Ponies should wait, pit in the way.” He points, and they can all see the faint gap in the stone where the pit is disguised. “Yak knows what caution is. Wait here.” Ormr leaps over the hidden trap. Then he flips one of the tables over the pit, smashing glass potions and delicate equipment in the process. Some of the spilled vials hiss and sputter on the stone. “Apparently not.” Eclipse sighs. Startled by the sound, something whimpers in the dark. “There’s something in here.” They all step over the makeshift bridge and into the lab, looking for the origin of the weeping. “Over there! In that cage.” Red points to the corner, where a sizable iron prison cell has been installed right into the stone. The cell floor is covered in filthy straw and stinks of filth and blood. A single blue pony is curled up in the corner, weeping and whimpering. “Are you alright?” Upon closer inspection, its clear that the pony is badly wounded, fresh scars and open cuts cover him from head to tail. He hasn’t eaten in days or longer, his body wretchedly thin, badly malnourished. He tenses, afraid to look up as they approach. “Don’t be afraid, we’re here to help.” He blinks and looks up at them. “Mayor Fluffy Ribbon sent us.” “Thank Celestia… you’re real?” his voice is cracked and hoarse. “Give us a minute, and we’ll get this cage open.” Tiny and Ormr start to pry at the metal bars and the lock. “What happened here?” “That thing… it tortured us. It would strap one of us down to that table.” He gestures with his eyes to the largest table in the center of the room. The wood is stained with pony blood and covered with thick leather straps. “And it would cut, and cut. They screamed. Screaming, and screaming.” He starts to shake, overwhelmed by terror, and babbles unintelligibly. “I got it, I got it!” Tiny finally pries the lock open and swings the cage door wide. Eclipse and Red enter and kneel beside the prone pony. “Oh no, his wings…” Red gestures to the bloody stumps behind his shoulders. She reaches out to put a hoof on him, but Eclipse holds her arm back. “Don’t touch him yet.” Then Eclipse leans down until he’s level with the wounded Pegasus. “Can you hear me? I need you to calm down. Tell me your name.” The blue Pegasus shudders. “My name?” His eyes flicker around. “Breezy Winter.” “Alright, Breezy. You need to tell me if there are any other Pegasus here.” “I’m the only one left. All the others… It took them and tortured them. Oh, Celestia… it pulled their wings off! It made us watch! They screamed, and burned!” He devolves back into weeping and babbling. “Come on, we’re going to get you out of here and back to Shine Shire. Can you stand?” Breezy doesn’t respond. “Ormr, do you think you can carry him back to town?” “Yak will do this.” It takes both Red and Eclipse to lift the Pegasus off the floor and set him on Ormr’s back. They cover him with Ormr’s cloak to keep him warm. Meanwhile, Tiny searches the room for more information. “So the good news is this thing tried to keep them alive while he was ‘working’ On them. So it had some healing potions here.” He points to some vials on a nearby table before passing them out to the others. “As well as a couple of scrolls I can’t read, I think they are more healing magic.” He passes them to Eclipse, who glances over them. “You’re right about that. This magic can stabilize an individual on the brink of death, but nothing else.” Eclipse tucks them into his saddlebag in case they are needed later. “So what’s the bad news?” "It tried to keep them alive and conscious while it was working on them. All this stuff…” He waves at the tables of chemicals and knives. “It’s evil. With a capital ‘E.’ It should all be destroyed.” Eclipse glances over all the materials. “It should be studied.” “That’s not funny.” Tiny backs away from the midnight blue unicorn. “You cannot be serious.” “If there is any chance we can restore those ponies back to their old forms, we need to know what was done to them.” “No, Eclipse. We don’t. This is knowledge no one needs.” She places a hoof on his shoulder and finds him shaking. “You really want to save them, don’t you?” He looks down at his hooves. “What good is power if I can’t? I don’t understand why the tree gave us this gift if not to save lives.” “We couldn’t possibly have done anything about it. Most of this horror was done to them before we found our way to the tree.” “Tiny is right. We saved Breezy from the same fate. Now we have to make sure that Naga is put down so it can’t do the same to anypony else.” Eclipse hesitates to turn away from the experiments. “You told me yourself, the obligation of power is to use it responsibly. The responsible thing to do here is to destroy this foul stuff and find the other eight missing Pegasus.” “I’m sorry. You’re right.” He wipes away tears that were forming. “Let’s go. There was still another doorway in the cage room.” Then he leaves the room, right behind Ormr. Red and Tiny hold back a moment longer. “I thought he was the stoic one.” “I think the stress of his father’s demands and what he thinks the tree expects of him is starting to get to him. We need to get out of this place.” “If anypony was going to snap I thought it would be you.” “Thanks for the vote of confidence.” At the doorway Red turns inward and faces the lab, readying to burn it to the ground. “Hold up, hot-head.” Tiny steps in her way. “We need to wait until we know what this stuff is.” “We just talked Eclipse out of this.” Red raises an eyebrow towards him. “I mean we don’t know if it’s going to poison us or explode when you light it on fire. I want to see this place burn just as much as you. Just hold on till we nail the Naga and get this crap all outside, then it can all go up in smoke.” Red nods as Tiny finishes explaining, and they follow the others back to the cage room. The Nightmares kick at the bars and shriek at them. Breezy looks at what used to be his friends, and recognition flashes in his eyes when he sees what’s left of their cutie-marks. “Cloudburst, Rainyday, West Wind… no… no…” Then Breezy falls apart into weeping and distraught gasps. Red eyes the creatures as Eclipse heads down to the last doorway. “We really should do something about getting rid of these Nightmares…” She startles and glances at Breezy, who seems even more upset. “Did I just say that out loud?” “Seriously Red, right next to him?” Tiny shakes his head disapprovingly. Eclipse opens the last door but immediately shuts it when the stench of decay whiffs out towards him. “We don’t want to go that way. Not with Breezy.” The unicorn is visibly shaken as he returns. Ormr harrumphs and drops the injured Pegasus onto Eclipse. He stumbles and nearly falls over trying to catch the Pegasus. “Then Yak will check it if little pony stomach is too weak.” “That was… not what I meant.” Eclipse groans as he tries to hold Breezy steady, Red and tiny give him some help as the Yak proceeds down the foul-smelling corridor. Exactly what Eclipse meant becomes instantly clear the moment the Yak enters the final room. The chamber is home to the scent of decaying meat and corpses. In one corner of the room are stacked the removed wings of a dozen Pegasus. In the other, eight badly mutilated pony bodies, all quite dead. Some of them appear to have been partially eaten. The stench and the sight are almost more than even the Yak can bear, he briefly looks for some kind of identification for the dead Pegasi but finds none. Once he counts the bodies he immediately turns away. “Yak is sorry.” His voice is more subdued than before, and he allows them to put Breezy on his back again. In silence, he waits by the exit to the cage room. “Eight bodies. Twelve wing pairs.” Red goes to one of the cages and looks at the creature within. Its burning eyes watch her back with only incomprehensible hate. Her anger boils over again, and she shouts as she engulfs the Nightmare within her flames. It ignores her fire and only snorts at her again. “Ormr, get Breezy out of here. We’ll be right behind you.” Tiny and Eclipse step up beside her, glad the raging fire is inside the cage. “Cool it, Red. You can’t hurt it.” “It’s literally made of fire and hate and pain. Your magic cannot injure it like that.” Still, she ignites the monster until the metal bars starts to glow. Now the Nightmare kicks out at her, rattling the cage, the metal bends slightly under the blow. “Red, stop!” “It’s going to escape if you keep going!” It takes both of them to pull her away. Her flames fade away, leaving the Nightmare still trapped inside. “They need to be destroyed! It would be merciful to end their suffering.” “I agree. I’ll do it. Neither of you can kill them.” Eclipse sighs and looks down. “Are they immune to a sword through the neck?” “I doubt it, but they have enough room to move away should you try it through the bars. Let me finish this.” With nothing else to say he steps closer to the cage and focuses on the Nightmare within. He lances out with his arcane blast, but when the bright beams lance through the Nightmare it disappears in a flash of fire and smoke. The other two caged monsters follow suit until the room appears empty. “That’s new. Where did they go?” “I… don’t know. I didn’t know they could do that.” “Was it another teleport?” “I just said I don’t know.” Eclipse blinks a few times, looking around the chamber uselessly. “We need to get out of here and get Breezy back to Shine Shire before the Naga comes back.” Then he turns away and the others follow him. They find Ormr waiting at the top of the stairway back out at the ancient prison. “Ponies slow. Yak almost left without you.” “We’ll have to go slow this time, I don’t think Breezy could take the run.” Tiny checks on the injured Pegasus, covered by Ormr’s cloak. The Pegasus blinks and groans, but is secure and alive. “Right, move out.” This time Tiny takes point and Ormr the middle of the formation. Red and Eclipse take turns at the rear, or beside Ormr and Breezy. Something bothers Ormr, and the Yak stops and looks around. “Little ones, stop. Something is out there.” “Is it the Naga?” Red scans the horizon ahead of them. “I don’t see anything.” Eclipse checks the surrounding ruins from where he stands beside Ormr. “Tiny, do you see anything?” “No. Just snow and rubble. If its out there, it’s hidden well.” “We should keep moving then, but keep your eyes open.” “Yak always watchful.” “Sure buddy, why not.” They continue on their way, largely unaware that the Naga is watching them from the shadows. It trails them for a short time until it is certain they are leaving the ruined city. Once they have left, it turns back and slithers into the darkness as the sun begins to set. It is already dark by the time the companions make it back to Shine Shire. This time, the guard recognizes them when they arrive and opens the gate without questioning them. Few ponies are still up, although Dusty badge is waiting for them, they don’t get crowded again, but the Mayor is woken and arrives before long. “Did you find them? Please tell me you found them.” “Yes…” Eclipse nods sadly. “We found them.” “Well, where are they?” Dusty looks around and counts only the four companions and Breezy, his head poking out from beneath the cloak. “Breezy, are you alright?” Breezy starts to cry again, both from the pain of the journey and the joy of being back among his friends. “We need to get him to the doctor, he requires immediate medical attention.” “Why? What happened out there?” Fluffy Ribbon follows alongside. “Where are the others?” “We’ll tell you, in private.” The group enters the doctor’s clinic and deposit Breezy on one of the beds. Rampart Rock looks up from where he was resting on another, curious. The Mayor and the guard commander both gasp when they see the state of Breezy Winter. “His wings! Oh, my… I can’t look.” Fluffy turns away, nearly gagging. The doctor comes in a moment later, woken by one of the militia, and herds them away from his newest patient. They reconvene in the town hall. “Tell us… what happened out there?” “Do you know what a Nightmare is?” Red begins. “A bad dream did this to him?” The guard tips his head to the side. “Hell Horses. She means Hell Horses. Beings made of fire and hate and pain, they will kill other ponies without a thought.” “I thought those were myths?” “If only that were true.” Red shudders. “There is a Naga out there, abducting your Pegasus citizens and turning them into those things…” “What under Celestia’s sun is a Naga?” “A giant intelligent snake, in possession of powerful magic and terrible intent.” “Thank goodness you killed it then.” The companions glance at each other and the mayor raises an eyebrow. “You… did kill it… didn’t you?” “Magic snake escaped us.” Ormr grunts. “What about the Hell Horses? How many are there?” “Three, under the Naga’s thrall.” “What about the rest of the Pegasus? Did you find them with Breezy? Where are they?” “In… a manner of speaking, we found them, yes.” “Wing ponies are dead.” Ormr is quite blunt about it. Silence falls around them for a moment as the mayor and guard commander take it in. “We need to send a message south immediately. We need the Royal Guard.” Red is the one to break the silence. “You should send a messenger immediately.” “I’m not sending anyone out there. Not if there’s a giant evil snake and flaming demon ponies out there. It would be suicide.” “Then we’ll have to get them ourselves.” “You’re going to abandon us?” The mayor bites her lip and shudders, on the verge of tears. “What? No!” “Red…” Tiny pulls her away from the conversation. “Remember what you talked about earlier, with Eclipse?” She nods. “We can’t go running to the royal guard. They called for help, and we came.” “Tiny is right.” Eclipse joins them. “Even if we did run for help, it would take days, even pushing ourselves to the limit, to get all the way back south and then north again with help. We are the reinforcements, we have to do this ourselves.” “Can we fight this thing on our own? How are we going to take it down when it will just revive?” “We’ll cross that bridge when we reach it.” “How are we going to find it? It can just teleport out of reach even if we do spot it again.” “I told you before, it’s a medium range spell. The Naga is still nearby. Even then, it can’t do it many times without running out of strength. Come on, we need to work with them.” Eclipse pulls the other two back to Fluffy Ribbon and Dusty Badge. “You don’t have to worry, we’re here to help.” “What do you need from us?” “You need to protect yourselves.” Tiny takes over. “We’ve kicked a hornet’s nest now, it’ll be coming for you now that it knows it's been spotted.” “Actually…” Eclipse speaks. “We have to go back out there, tonight.” “What? You can’t be serious.” “It’s wounded, and it knows it’s been found. It won’t attack tonight. If it was willing to attack with only three Hell Horses then it would have already. It will search for a new hiding spot and prepare properly for an assault.” “I agree with Eclipse. It might even have allies to call on.” “Yak concurs. Ambush the snake at ruins.” “Ormr has the right idea. Its base and resources will take time to move to a new location. This may be our only chance to catch it before it gets away and heals.” “Especially if it knows it is being tracked and can teleport. We’ll never get close.” Tiny and Eclipse both nod, the Yak grunts approvingly, and all three look to Red Haze. “Well…” she sighs. “I guess it’s my fault I signed up for this. Let’s get going.” “Yak has a thought.” “That’s a first.” “Ponies can work iron? Build cage into a wagon.” “What good will that do if it can teleport out?” “Ormr will nail Snake mouth shut.” “That might work.” Eclipse nods. “It had to speak to cast its spells back there. If we can knock it unconscious or otherwise subdue it we can take it back to Canterlot to be properly punished.” “How quickly can you have a cage built?” “If we have the smiths work through the night it’ll be done by mid-morning, noon at the latest.” “Good, you do that.” Tiny glances at his companions, who each nod. “The rest of us have hunting to do.”