Morning came slow and cold. The dawn's early light touched upon their outcropping in the wall, and it was blinding, even through their tent fabric. Everyone woke up and stepped outside, rubbing their eyes and yawning.
When the tents had been put away and the packs assembled, Pinkie Pie served up a breakfast of oatmeal with the last of the apples.
“Is this it?” Spike asked bluntly, looking into his shallow bowl.
“Ah'm afraid so,” Applejack said. “We're runnin’ low on supplies.”
“How long can we survive on the road with what we have?” Noble Blade asked, a serious look on his face.
“Weeelll,” Pinkie said, doing calculations in the air with a hoof. For some reason, red dotted lines followed her hoof movements. “Let's see, four days or so on the road, take the supplies we had at the beginning, minus the stuff we ate, carry the three, find the derivative, and calculate the slope of the exponential graph…” Pinkie stopped abruptly.
“...What are you trying to say?” Rainbow Dash asked nervously.
“Three days,” Pinkie dramatically whispered. She turned around and clenched a hoof. “We all have three days to live!”
“Three days?” Twilight repeated in shock.
“Three days?” Rarity echoed.
“Three days!” Pinkie repeated in the exact same determined tone she had used before.
“I didn't hear you clearly before,” Firestorm said with a sly smile. “Did you say three days?”
“Three days!” Pinkie repeated.
“Okay, it's three days!” Rainbow irritably shouted. “Can we get off this now?”
“How are we going to get more food?” Starlight asked in concern.
“I could get some of my animal friends to gather some plants and seeds,” Fluttershy volunteered.
“Let's just kill some game and not complain,” Freedom Fighter said carelessly.
Fluttershy looked aghast, and Applejack set her own bowl down. “Ah hope ya know this, but... we don't normally eat meat.”
“This isn't normal circumstances, is it? I've eaten meat before.”
“You have?” Pinkie asked in surprise.
“Of course. You saw it in my memories. The Noxxa are masters of questionable rations. When you've been driven to the edge of sanity like I have, you do some inexplicable things to survive.”
“Well, we won’t have to reach that point anytime soon, will we?”
“Depends on how long you can hold out,” Freedom Fighter muttered.
After that cheerful declaration, breakfast began to be put away. Within the hour they were all on the road again.
The winding red road descended in altitude, and as it dropped, the faded vegetation grew thin and the road became rocky. By late morning they could easily see the ocean. By lunchtime, the smell of salt and rotting seaweed reached their noses, and the red road had turned into a sandy path.
Their spirits were high when they came to the sandy path. It indicated the nearby seashore, and signs of previous civilization were present on the road. Blocky road markers adorned the sides, crumpled into pebbles. Ramshackle huts lay in disrepair on side paths, long abandoned and forgotten. The further they walked, the more decrepit they looked.
It was almost three o'clock in the afternoon by the time the Ten Souls arrived at the forsaken gate to the crumbling city of Maretania.
The entry itself was twenty feet high and made out of fading grey limestone. The metallic gates of the abandoned archway were rusted down to thin brittle bars of brown iron. Starlight Glimmer made short work of the obstacle by blasting it out of the way, revealing the destitute trading port beyond.
Maretania was small, and haggard by any standard. The shacks were made of straw and rotting wood, the cobblestones were cracked and popping out, and garbage littered the overgrown streets. The city was split in half by a river that was now the color of chocolate, which ran for three miles before they saw its source: the ocean, which was no longer pristine or blue. Debris floated in both the river and the far-off harbor. Houses had collapsed into stumps over time and erosion. The air was pungent with salt, rotting seaweed, old wood, and garbage. Every color in the city was faded and had a grey hue to it.
The group traveled in one clump into the city. It was an abandoned and scary place, and nopony trusted each other enough to get lost in the sprawling and broken town.
Starlight Glimmer held up the yellowed map with her magic. “So we're finally here. Now what?”
Noble Blade firmly said, “We do what Star Swirl instructed of us--enter the catacombs.”
“Except, yunnow, where's the entrance?” Applejack asked.
“That's where we're stuck, I guess,” Pinkie said. She broke away from the group and disappeared behind a nearby hut. “It's not here!” Then she instantly appeared across the street from an old barrel. “Or here!” She then went back into the barrel and inexplicably popped out from a deep pothole in the road. “Or here!”
“What if it's under the canal?” Firestorm asked, pointing at the stagnant brown river. “If it is, I call not jumping in first.” He gave a few glances into several side alleys and shuddered. “Oh, this is freaky. I'll feel a lot better when we're all out of this ruin.”
“There should be a hidden entrance somewhere major in the city,” Twilight mused. She seemed to be more alert and mindful than on the road over the past week. “Like in the sewers.”
“Oh, please don’t talk about us going into the sewers,” Rarity moaned.
Spike laid his hand on her back. “Don't worry, Rarity. I'll protect you from anything in there!”
“Oh, Spike, you're such a gentlecolt, but what are you going to do against mold and musty air and bad smells?”
“Uh…” Spike thought for a moment before clapping his hands together. “I'll just tell Twilight to keep a bubble around you while we're in the catacombs!”
“Spike?” Twilight's voice was heavy. “Don't.”
The dragon chuckled nervously. “Y-yeah, sure! I was joking!”
After they had walked for fifteen minutes they reached the center of the town. It was a large roundabout with old shops around the perimeter of the circle. Built directly on top of a wide stone bridge spanning the murky river, it was the most logical crossing point for all trade in the city. Now there were fallen branches and old moss over the buildings. The smell became even more pervasive, and the grime on the floor was an inch thick.
“Ew!” Rainbow Dash lifted up a dripping green hoof and stuck her tongue out. “Eeew!”
“Delicious,” Freedom Fighter muttered.
“No, it's not!” Freedom Fighter exclaimed.
“Oh, shut up,” he told himself. “What do you know about tasting stuff anyway?”
“You guys?” Fluttershy whispered, pointing her hoof. “What's that?”
Everyone turned their head to see what Fluttershy was talking about. In the center of the town square was a large ashen-grey statue, atop a slanted pedestal, of an upraised unicorn firing a stone beam down upon a writhing creature whose features were indistinguishable. The unicorn wasn't recognizable on his own, but if the pointed hat and cape weren’t enough to distinguish him, it was the thin but cloudy beard beginning to wreath his face.
“It's Star Swirl the Bearded!” Twilight cried, and sped past the rest of the other ponies and raced to the statue, keeping her gaze upon him the entire time.
When she reached the statue, Twilight inspected it closer. Around the pedestal base was a series of small holes indented in the ground, evenly spread out so it looked like a dotted halo surrounding the monument. Each hole had a strip of color surrounding the rim. From pink to pale yellow, from blue to white to pale purple, each color was familiar to Twilight.
Twilight fit her hoof into a dark orange one experimentally. Nothing seemed to happen. Spotting a purple-rimmed one, Twilight decided to use that one instead, and snugly fit her hoof into the hole.
A small but distinguished whine suddenly sounded from the monument.
Twilight hurriedly took her hoof out of the small pit, igniting her horn for signs of trouble, but the whining noise subsided until all was silent.
“Was that you?” Firestorm asked Twilight from far away.
“I...I think so,” Twilight doubtfully confirmed, putting her hoof back into the purple hole around the pedestal.
The monument to Star Swirl began charging again, and this time the rest of the party gathered around intently.
“What does this mean?” Rarity asked in wonder, moving to a random hole around the pedestal and probing it.
“The monument must have batteries in it!” Pinkie shot out.
Twilight began to bob her head as she slowly counted the number of holes around the monument of Star Swirl. Twilight suddenly stopped when the final count reached ten.
Twilight took her hoof out of the small hole again, and the whine subsided.
“Girls?” Twilight said in that certain tone she used when she had a surge of inspiration. “This is the entrance to the catacombs.”
Voices, overlapping and protesting, arose at once.
“What do you mean?”
“This doesn't look like an entrance at all!”
“There’s no way we can enter the catacombs from here!”
“But what if there is? That would be the intent, right?”
“What if this is a dead end?”
“LOOK!” Twilight shouted over the din, and the sound died down. “This is the only obvious way. Star Swirl said that he had hidden an Element of Harmony underneath Maretania, didn't he?”
Is that the candlestick he used to light the way when he was exploring the caverns of Maretania?
Twilight reeled her head as she remembered the quote from her day with Cadence before it had been interrupted by a sick Discord. It came to her in the moment of her speech, and as it came Twilight became even more assured. Star Swirl himself had explored and scoured the catacombs underneath the city. But what if... the reason he did it... was to discover an Element of Harmony?
Twilight tried to keep on her original thoughts. “Star Swirl would have wanted only those who would possess the Elements to find it. How else to do it…” Twilight put her hoof in the purple hole again, and the statue began again to power up. “but to disguise the entrance in plain sight... waiting for those who he meant to find it!”
Applejack got it first. “So if we all put our hooves inta these here holes, they'll recognize our touch and the entrance will open?”
“I assume so, yes.”
“That might be also how it's been prevented from opening accidentally,” Firestorm offered. “If it'll recognize our touch alone, then the chambers below would never offer up its treasures to the wrong pony.”
“Yes,” Noble said slowly. “That's... what we just said.”
“I was trying to sound smart!” he protested.
One by one, each pony stuck their front hoof into an indent around the statue. With each hoof, the whining in the center of the pedestal rose to a building crescendo. Eventually, only Freedom Fighter was left with an unoccupied socket, and the sound echoing in everyone's ears was tremendous.
“I don't see a yellow strip around mine,” he observed, squinting into the hole. It was a uniform grey all throughout. “Maybe Fluttershy got mine instead. Check and see, Fluttershy.”
“Okay,” she meeped, and stepped out of the hollow hole. The whining noise died down marginally.
“I don't think that's the case,” Starlight interjected. “Just put your arm in. The hole needs contact with your arm directly. That means no bodysuit, Freedom.”
Freedom Fighter gave a very ugly glare at her, but he unbuckled some straps, pulled off the hoof sleeve, and scrunched it up to his elbow, showing his scarred and pale arm.
“What if…” Rarity suggested slowly, “you use your mechanical arm instead?”
This time the glare went to Rarity.
“It may be the reason there isn't a corresponding color,” Rarity defended. “Yellow goes with yellow and grey with grey. It may be worth a shot.”
Freedom Fighter was about to let his thoughts explode at her. But then he relaxed and pushed the black skin over his arm of flesh again. “You couldn't have told me before?”
He then revealed the tip of his mechanical arm by pulling off the hoof cover and inserted it into the hollow indent made specifically for him. There was a faint click as it went like a key into a lock, and as Fluttershy stepped her hoof back in her own hole, the powerful whining reached a peak. The air seemed to vibrate with power, and the very statue seemed to shake as the ancient magic took effect for the first time.
Twist your hoof in the hole, came a voice in Freedom Fighter’s head.
“Why the heck should I do that?” he muttered back, unheard over the roaring noise in their ears.
“That… wasn't me,” the other voice said, unnerved.
“Well, should I do it? This is vital! I don't want to interrupt this!”
“Sure, go ahead! What harm could it do?”
Freedom Fighter then twisted his hoof inside the hole, there came a small click, and the roar of power in their ears came to a halt. The statue stopped rumbling. The air returned to normal.
Slowly, after realizing what had happened and who had done it, every single pony leveled the same glare at Freedom Fighter that he had sent to Starlight and Rarity earlier.
Freedom Fighter, upon seeing this unified glare, shot a dirty look over his shoulder. “Look at what you did. Look. The heck. At what. You. Did.”
“If I wanted an editorial I would have asked for it,” he snapped back. “You always blame me for what you've done. Shaddup, will you?”
“We were on the verge of unlocking this town's secrets,” Twilight said heavily to him, stepping out of her little hoofhole and stomping over to him. “We were this close. And then you had to go and stop it all.”
“Hey, don't blame me,” Freedom Fighter defended quickly. “That wasn't me, I swear! It was him!” He pointed at himself violently, then, almost as an afterthought, said, “He’s got something personal to tell you, by the way!”
“What are you doing?” he asked himself panickedly over his shoulder. “Are you trying to do this?”
“Twilight's angry with you now. That's not comfortable for you, is it? Oh, it's clenching your stomach, how you feel.”
“I have Vinyl! I don't care anymore about that!”
“About what?” Twilight asked harshly.
“Ah, nothing!” Freedom Fighter hastily replied. Unbeknownst to either of them, a rumbling noise began to emanate from the center of the memorial as it began to rise out of the ground.
“Why isn't it comfortable for you now that I'm angry at you?” Twilight accused him, unaware of the opening chamber behind her.
“It's nothing platonically-related,” he said casually. “Because Princess Twilight is nothing more to you than a friend, the close friend, the friend that you want to-”
“Not another word!” Freedom Fighter yelled at himself.
“Um, Twilight?” Spike asked, tapping her on the shoulder.
Twilight ignored him. “Freedom Fighter, is there something you're hiding from me?”
“Yes.”
“No!”
“You're hiding something from me, aren't you?” Twilight flatly asked.
“How'd you guess?”
“No, I'm not! This, right here, is why I don't want you to talk when I'm around Twilight!”
“Twilight?” Spike asked again, tugging on her mane and looking over his shoulder at the open chamber where the pedestal was only a moment ago.
“What more do you have to hide?” Twilight pressed him, stepping forward, and Freedom Fighter surprisingly gave ground. “I thought that all of our secrets needed to be shared. What is it you're hiding from me?”
“If you knew,” he said, “you wouldn't want me to say it.”
“Because she'd already know it, dummy!”
“If this is about me,” the purple alicorn said, taking another step, “then you need to spill it. Now.”
“Twilight!”
“What, Spike?” Twilight all but shouted at him.
Spike jabbed a thumb at the revealed passage.
Twilight's mouth fell open for three seconds exactly. Her expression tumbled from demanding to shocked.
A few seconds passed as she blinked hard and leaned forward. Finally, she shut her mouth, but not before scraping off a fly that had settled on her tongue.
After she confirmed the entrance was genuine, she shook her head and whirled to Freedom Fighter. “Don't think this is over. Secrets are dangerous now, and the less we have the better.”
“You had some seaweed in your hair.”
Twilight incredulously gave him a stare.
“That was the, uh, secret,” he admitted. He took a step backward. “I didn't want you to think of me badly if I pointed it out.”
Twilight felt atop her head, where indeed a strip of green was mingled with her flat purple hair. She took the limp piece of weed out of her mane and flung it away contemptuously. “We’re going into the chambers now. But no more secrets. Got it?”
And she trudged away after another poignant moment.
“If that wasn't the lamest dodge ever,” he muttered when she was far enough away.
“It was your idea!”
“Shut up.”
“Ooooh! What a smart comeback! How will I recover?”
“Shut up-” the other voice started, and paused. He then shamefacedly replied, “One for your side.”
By now everyone had gravitated towards the entrance to the crypt below, and Starlight Glimmer was walking carefully to the entrance.
The light purple unicorn took the first step into the cavern. Chill air whistled into her face from the abyss leading down. A rude staircase descended well beyond natural light.
Starlight began to feel a sharp pain in her chest, one so great she had to stop and kneel down.
“Starlight! Are you okay?” Noble Blade approached the unicorn to check on her.
“There’s something down here,” Starlight barely managed to get out.
“Yeah!” said the blue pegasus who appeared next to her. “An Element of Harmony! Duh!”
“No, this is different. There's something... bad about this. I feel it. I feel like my heart is going to grow out of my chest.”
And indeed, the maw of the cavern did seem a lot less inviting now that it was pointed out. Everyone felt the same feeling Starlight described, that their chests were constricted in knotted fear.
“Fair enough. If no one else is up to it, I'll lead, then,” Firestorm volunteered at last. He pushed aside both Starlight and his girlfriend to stand halfway in the gaping cavern, yawning open to lure him in. He was trembling imperceptibly, and a bead of sweat shone on his forehead as he stared down the abyss. “You all follow me, and if there is something bad down there, I'll be the first to know.” He drew both of his swords, held them in his wings, and ignited them into flame, leaving him free to walk.
“I'll bring up the rear,” Noble Blade said, drawing his broadsword with a flash of blue magic. The glowing sword levitated near his face. “Freedom, stay in the middle.”
Freedom Fighter accepted the order without protest.
Firestorm, shaking in the knees, descended into the darkness first, and Starlight Glimmer followed him shortly. Applejack and Rainbow Dash then went down, followed by Rarity, who was scrunching her face in disgust at the smell that came with the adventure. Freedom Fighter went in next, after attaching a headlamp between his ears and holding a dagger in his mouth. Following him was Twilight, who was still eyeing Freedom Fighter strangely, and behind her came Spike and Pinkie Pie. Finally, only Fluttershy was left to follow the others, yet the yellow pegasus didn’t look like she wanted to budge.
Noble placed a comforting hoof on the Element of Kindness’ shoulder, causing her to open her eyes and look to him. Her eyes portrayed none of the warmness Noble was used too, replaced them was pure unadulterated terror, practically begging him to make the fear go away.
“I'll be at your back, Fluttershy,” Noble reassured her, lowering his voice to make it as soothing as possible. He stroked the yellow angel from her ears to her neck, and from the neck to her back. “Whatever comes, I'll be right behind you.”
Fluttershy leaned into his touch, and after a brief peck on his lips, she inched slowly into the darkness underneath the upraised monument with her boyfriend right behind her.
The instant he stepped into the opening of the catacombs, a grinding noise sounded from above him, and he whirled around to see the stone base above him descend.
“Hurry!” he shouted to the front. “The monument's falling back into place!”
Shouts and muffled exclamations filled the cavern as everyone began to push against each other, and Noble Blade managed to descend down the narrow staircase enough so the pedestal's base would not touch him. A hollow boom thundered behind him, and the world was plunged into darkness.
Then there was a ruddy glow down in the front as Firestorm's swords provided orange light in the narrow corridor. The four unicorns, Rarity, Twilight, Starlight, and Noble, all had a ball of light on the tips of their horns, and Freedom Fighter’s headlamp was tactical-issue and blinding. In this shared light, they could see that the walls to either side were chiseled out bit by bit, and reflected the light all around them into dull clouds of color.
“You know something?” Firestorm grimly said from the front of the column. Though the light was all around him, the shadows were even darker, and some of those shadows were across his resolute face. “We’re all gonna die in here. Hooray, you guys, yay, we won, woo hoo!”
“Just lead the way, Firestorm.”
He gave a sputtering sigh and held up the swords at his sides. “Okey-doke-loki, Twilight,” he reluctantly said, and started down the passage in half-swallowed terror.
The journey down into the depths of the earth seemed to pass without time. Pinkie Pie took to counting the steps to pass the time away, but every step was the same, and soon--or very, very late--Pinkie lost count.
The walls were undecorated, unadorned, blank but for the sheen that threw blue and orange color to every corner. Fluttershy could see nothing but the pink poofy tail of Pinkie Pie bouncing up and down. The air was stuffy yet cold, and set them all sweating.
She felt scared, naturally. Dark, cramped spaces weren't her forte, and the imminent danger they were sure to face wasn’t helping, but she took solace in the presence of the Knight Protector at her back. She knew that he would not let anything harm her. Fluttershy's trust in the blue unicorn made her strong and willing to descend one step deeper than before. With him behind her, she could take on anything the caverns could throw at her.
There was no noise in their descent except for the crackle of Firestorm's swords, the sparkle of magic from the unicorn's horns, and their hooves clopping on the wet stone steps. The close proximity and the stuffy air made a bad smell arise amidst them all.
“I wonder when this'll end,” Spike mused after he almost slipped on a shallow puddle of stagnant water. “All this earth above us is making me shaky.”
“Y-yeah,” Firestorm replied, all the way from the front. There was a tremor in his voice. “This isn't disturbing in the least! I'm cramping up already, but whatever! This isn't making me nervous at all!”
“We get it!” Pinkie shouted to him, and the shrill voice echoed in the narrow passage. “You're claustrophobic!”
“That's enough from you, Pink-”
All of a sudden Firestorm stumbled on something and let out a curse that caused some of the more delicate mares to blanch.
“What is it?” Rainbow Dash said, one place behind her boyfriend. “And can I say that word?”
“No more steps!” Firestorm reported, moving away to allow more mares to gather at the bottom of the stairs. The orange light from his swords grew fainter as he moved away, and so did his voice. “They ended?! Whoa!”
With a feeling of excitement pounding in their heads, all of the ponies soon found themselves in a small room lit by the lights of the group alone. Iron rings supported dead torches in the side of the wall, and where their light did not reach, only black existed.
“Twilight?” Applejack said. “Can you light those torches?”
“Only one way to find out.”
The lavender alicorn ignited her horn in a beam of violet energy and pulsed it. Instantly, orange flames sprouted up from every dead torch embedded in the wall, and everyone could see the details of the room. It was circular, black, and made of stone, and had only two ways out. One was the staircase at their back. The other lay in front of them.
“That's a biiiiiig door,” Pinkie laconically commented.
Embedded in the wall was a pair of double doors several times higher than the average pony. There were elaborate flames carved into the solid stone, and they were inlaid with solid gold. Around the edges were prancing figures with disproportionate limbs. The doors were sealed by a golden circle in the middle with a scarlet ruby bigger than Spike.
“Oh, my stars and garters!” Rarity gasped when she saw the massive jewel. “Could you imagine how many chiffons I could make with that ruby alone?”
“How do we get through?” interrupted Twilight, who evidently had more on her mind than jewelry.
“Look for a doorbell!” Pinkie Pie suggested. The perky pink party pony pranced to the seam between the doors and began to scan between them. Then she drew herself up. “Ah-ha! I know!”
Pulling out a pizza box from her mane, she knocked on the flame-decorated doors three times. “Helloooo! Did someone order pizza? Come and get it!” After a moment she added, “You don't have to tip me or anything!”
Applejack was squinting above the twin doors. “There's some kinda writin’ over the entrance,” she pointed out.
That was the remark that got everyone's attention, and everypony looked up curiously.
Engraved on a small stone banner above the door were several deep black glyphs. They were archaic symbols, deep, jagged, and black. They gave off a sinister aura, cold and sharp to the senses.
Firestorm shuddered when he laid eyes upon them. They looked so alien and dark that his heart dropped into his stomach. His head began to feel woozy from his dark surroundings and his fear of the ominous glyphs above the doors. He took several deep breaths to steady himself, pressing a hoof to his head.
Spike put a hand over his forehead to get a better view. “I-I can't read it,” he admitted.
“There are few who can,” Noble Blade grimly said. “Old Ponish has been a dead language for a long time. No one speaks it today.” He sighed. “A pity.”
Starlight Glimmer stepped forward, her gaze lingering curiously on the inscriptions. “Oh, I can read that.”
Noble Blade whipped his head to her. “What?”
“Yeah, I took a Diabolical Languages class in 7th grade. It was an elective. Why do you ask?”
“And they say electives don't matter,” Rarity quipped quietly.
“Well, what does it say?” Twilight urged her former pupil.
Starlight squinted up at the stone banner above the door. “It reads... The Portals... of Purpose.”
“Ohoho!” Firestorm broke into a wide grin. “I like this already!”
Starlight shot him a look but returned to translating. “That was the first row. The second row’s a little longer.” Her gaze fell upon the dozen or so runes above the door. “It says:
He who seeks to pass this door must first a riddle solve.
For the treasure lying within, you must have grand resolve.
What trait of every living thing, within their hearts, doth shout and ring,
But when it comes to be displayed, doth quickly disappear and fade?
Like a fire, it burns within, and to conceal it is a sin.
It clouds their minds, doth havoc wreak, yet maketh strong things out of weak.
‘Tis fake, but real; large but small; and you possess it not at all.
If thy first guess ringeth true, passage I shall grant to you.
But if in err you judge, my friend, the door will bar and thy journey end.”
The ancient words resonated within each of their chests, clenching their throats and tightening their stomachs. The door of golden flames shone a little brighter; the Portals of Purpose seemed to illuminate themselves momentarily. Then they died down until they stopped glowing.
“We only have one shot,” Freedom Fighter said, illuminating the glyphs with his headlamp. “So let's make it count.”
“A trait of every living thing,” Fluttershy whispered in thought.
“Burns like a fire,” Rarity added, putting a hoof to her chin.
“Clouds our minds... and wreaks havoc,” Noble Blade muttered.
“An apple!” Applejack volunteered out of nowhere.
“Of course you would say that,” Rainbow remarked off to the side.
“It’s tiredness,” Noble disagreed. Then he tentatively said, “Fatigue?”
“Passion,” Freedom Fighter said. Then he altered his voice. “Lust!”
“A PARTY!” Pinkie exploded, throwing confetti and streamers into the air.
After seeing the looks directed at her, Pinkie Pie pawed at the ground. “It's a long shot.”
“I got it!” Rainbow said. “A three-ring binder!”
“That's about the worst answer so far,” Freedom Fighter dryly said.
“Generosity?” Rarity guessed. “I wouldn't put it past Star Swirl to put an Element as this special trait we're looking for.”
“He didn't make this door,” Twilight disagreed. “It was here when he explored it for the first time.”
“Well, who did make it?”
“How should I know that?” Twilight asked.
“It has to be a trait we don't have at the moment,” Noble Blade reminded everyone. “The poem said as much.”
“So... being full?” Spike remarked.
“Cleanliness!”
“Laziness?”
“Goofiness!”
“Courage.”
“Apath--hold on a second.” Starlight gave Firestorm a strange look. “Courage?”
Firestorm nodded.
The mood of the chamber had changed upon hearing the grim statement from Firestorm's mouth.
“Look, I know that I don't have it,” he said shortly. “I've been scared stiff since I first stepped in this cavern.”
“Yeah, but you also went first, tough guy,” his girlfriend said. “Ain't that courageous or what?”
“That was false!” he replied. “That courage was fake.” He gestured at the glyphs. “I felt courage in myself at other points in my life, right before something risky happened, but when it was time for me to face the danger, I was scared. S-C-A-E-R-”
“That's not how you spell-”
“Whatever!” he interrupted Rarity. “Courage is mostly faked anyway. No matter how brave you feel, courage is never there. It's just bravado. I certainly don't have it.” Firestorm de-ignited one of his swords and sheathed it. “And yet... it feels so real to me whenever I risk my life.”
There was an alarming solemnity in Firestorm's words.
“Large but small,” he continued. “Fake but real. When the time comes to show it, courage disappears. But it burns inside us, all of us, and to keep it hidden is a sin.” Firestorm looked certain of himself. “What else could it be?” He stepped past all of the girls, looking to them for approval.
Applejack, Fluttershy, Spike, and Rainbow Dash all were passive in their looks. Rarity and Pinkie smiled, though Pinkie did so reluctantly. Noble Blade and Freedom Fighter solemnly nodded their approval. Finally, he met the eyes of Starlight Glimmer and Twilight Sparkle.
“This is my answer,” he whispered to the leaders. “I know it. Trust my... intuition.” He cocked his head. “Unless a better answer wormed its way into your head as it did to me.”
Twilight pursed her lips firmly. What other choice do we have? I have to trust him. But still... An answer from Firestorm? Did he really think this through?
Of course not. I put the thought in his mind. Have a little faith in me, will you?
Twilight almost lost her breath. That voice had come once again and had inserted itself cleanly into Twilight's mind like it was made to fit. With the voice came a warm feeling, and a small pressure on Twilight's breastbone.
Why are you here? Twilight desperately thought.
No answer came. The warm influence had disappeared, and so had the physical feeling on her breastbone. Twilight was once again cold and alone.
“Princess?” came Firestorm's voice, and Twilight suddenly remembered that the dark orange pegasus had said something.
“Alright. Go ahead.”
Firestorm's sun-colored eyes shone, but he nodded outwardly.
He trotted to the Portals of Purpose, and he stared up the flaming golden surface with a kind of fixed intent. “I have thy answer, O Portal,” he intoned reverently. “It is Courage.”
Even more shocking than the archaic dialect he used was the joyous bell-like sound that rang from the center of the door. The ruby embedded in the center twisted ninety degrees, and with an overriding creak, the two gates slowly opened outward.
The ponies all let out breaths of relief and began to make noises of acclamation.
However, the voices died down when they saw another door twenty feet beyond it, much less adorned and regal. It was wooden and small, and almost rude.
“...Did we miss something?” Rarity asked shortly. “That door is a lot smaller than us.”
“No, wait,” Pinkie said. “I've read about this! It's an ‘optimal illusion.’ It only looks so small because we're so far away! Watch!”
Pinkie bounced in three strides to the door, smacked her head into the low door frame, turned, and flopped on her face.
Pinkie then raised a hoof. “I could be wrong,” she muffled admittingly.
As Pinkie trudged back, Twilight pushed her way to the front. “Why is it so small?” she muttered, more to herself. “It looks so crude, but couldn’t we just break it?”
Freedom Fighter, overhearing her, snapped a single combat baton off his hip and twisted it. The bar of yellow light shone so brightly Twilight averted her eyes, and Freedom Fighter went past her and slashed the magical weapon on the golden lock.
With a flash of light and a burst of force, Freedom Fighter was thrown back hard. He bounced once before sliding on his back to the circular wall of the antechamber.
Rarity and Pinkie Pie rushed to his aid, while the other ponies were either looking at him or at the now-dangerous door.
“I think this needs a bit of fine-tuning, wouldn't you say?” Firestorm remarked while squinting at the door.
“Enough,” Noble rebuked him. “Now, the door is impenetrable. The only way to open a locked door is with a key. So this door needs a golden key to access the passage beyond.”
“Yeah, you're right, but we don't have a golden key on us, do we?”
Twilight locked up in place. “Wait. Yes we do!” She slowly opened the saddlebag on her side and drew out the thin golden key with her magic.
Firestorm stared dumbfoundingly at the key, then said, “Well, would you look at that! We have a golden key after all!”
“Where did you get that?” Rainbow Dash asked.
“It was on Star Swirl’s body,” Twilight answered, and twisted the key to catch the glimmering orange light. “He must have intended to give it to me.” After examining it, Twilight went to the keyhole on the rude wooden door. “Even if intruders got past the entrance, through the catacombs, and through the Portals of Purpose, they would still go nowhere without the one thing needed to gain access.” Twilight held up the key triumphantly. “The trust of Star Swirl himself!” Twilight thrust the key forward without resistance from the door's magic, stuck it into the keyhole, and twisted it.
After a heavy click, the small door easily opened.
After rejoicing briefly, the party collectively examined the interior. The passage beyond was even darker than the corridor they had just walked down, and looked much, much more sinister. A faint whistling sang from the depths as wind shot out, and from what they could see, the walls were jagged and naturally formed instead of neatly chiseled. But above all, it looked small enough for only one to go through at a time.
Firestorm shuddered. The cold and his fear had something to do with it, but there was something else nipping at him. It was a feeling of direction. He could feel himself being drawn to the chamber like a magnet.
Firestorm mindlessly pushed his way through the others without regard for their position and stepped into the small corridor alone.
“Firestorm?” Rainbow Dash asked suspiciously, trotting to the door.
All of a sudden the door slammed shut, and Firestorm was cut off from the other ponies.
Screams of shock and surprise sounded from the girls, and from the other side Firestorm let out a cry of sudden awareness.
“Stormy!” Rainbow cried, pounding on the door. “Come back through!”
The door jiggled. “I can't!” he yelled. “It's locked from the other side!”
Twilight tried to turn the key in the lock, but the key was stuck in like it had welded itself to the metal. She screamed in frustration and twisted it harder, and with a small clicking noise, the key snapped off, leaving only a stump in the door.
The purple pony dropped her face in shock.
“That didn't sound good!” Firestorm said suspiciously from the other side of the door. “Am I in trouble?”
“Ah…” Noble Blade said, trying to keep his voice level as he put his face to the door to talk to his isolated friend. “Of...of c-course not. You're only in trouble if you're dead.” He paused. “Or if you've committed a major felony.” After another pause, he added, “Or if you've eaten expired yogurt.”
“So I'm not in trouble.”
“Not... yet,” he said calmly. “Just see where that passage leads and come back here when you're done. We'll wait here for you.” He put his hoof on the door. “Promise?”
There came another clop as Firestorm put his hoof on the other side of the door. “I promise.”
“Good Luck, Stormy,” Rainbow Dash whispered to the door. “I’ll have something special waiting for you if you come back with that element!”
“I’m looking forward to it already,” Firestorm said sensitively. “But I'd be content if it was just you. You're special enough.”
Rainbow grew a wavering smile, her color high and her eyes wide. She nodded, then realized Firestorm couldn't see that. “See you later, alligator.”
“In a while, crocodile,” Firestorm completed.
And then he quietly trotted away. Before long the sound of his hoofsteps faded away.
“We're in trouble,” Noble Blade whispered, dropping the facade.
Right from behind him, the Portals of Purpose swung shut with a ponderous boom. Darkness sealed them in once more.
“I'm sorry, what was that?” Pinkie remarked in absolute blackness. “You seemed to be saying something about being in trouble.”
Panic was taking hold in the heads of all of them. They were trapped between two impenetrable doors, in darkness, with Firestorm gone, and with no way to-
A crumbling sound caught their attention, and they turned to the cave wall with pounding hearts. A hidden stone section had slid away to reveal a larger carved stone passage, easily fitting all of them. It gaped wide open, almost invitingly, to welcome the ponies in their journey onward.
At first, the panicking redoubled. Then, realizing it would bring no harm, their pounding hearts relaxed and anticipation and hope filled their minds. The same thought abounded in everyone's head: there may yet still be a way to reunite with their friend.
With no verbal communication, everypony slowly agreed on what to do. Lighting their horns and lights, the nine ponies and the baby dragon advanced into the passage warily.
When the last of them had entered the dank and musty cavern, the slab of rock slowly moved back into place and shut with a crack of thunder in the quiet crypt.