Book Two: Wizard Quests
Chapter Thirteen
At sunset, Blinky and Drall were able to emerge from the cave where they had sheltered through the day. "And look what I found, propped against the back wall!" Blinky said, holding up a long staff with a bright green gem set in the top.
"The Staff of Avalon!" Claire exclaimed.
"Merlin's staff?" Twilight wondered, "Why didn't Gunmar use it against us?"
Drall explained "He couldn't. When we fought against the human's army, Gunmar tried, only to discover that while the intonations which activate the staff are in trollish, they must be spoken by a human."
Twilight started a fire, and they discussed how to proceed. "I do remember the way to Merlin's Tomb." Drall said, "But with Trollmarket gone and the gyres without power I do not know how we will get there. It is on the other side of the world, in England."
Twilight said "Claire? You're sure you can't lock in on this Arrrrgh with the staff?"
"I should be able to... But it's not working for some reason. I hope that doesn't mean he's..."
"No. Gunmar left Arrrgh just as I described. Held within a stasis trap created by Angor Rot." Drall said.
Twilight mulled this over. "Hmmm.... I don't have any personal experience with stasis spells, but from what I've read the disconnect with the rest of time they create grows stronger as more time passes outside the stasis field. In all likelihood you would have been able to make the connection sooner, but now... Now we'll have to find another way."
"What about Otto then?" Rainbow Dash asked. "If he really keeps his word, he owes us one for giving him time to evacuate!"
Twilight nodded. "Yeah. I don't like trusting him, but it's probably our only way forward."
"I agree." Drall said, reluctantly. "But, there is something else I should warn you of. Once we free Arrrgh and enter the tomb itself... There is an enchantment upon the tomb, which blocks all other magic. Even Gunmar's control of me failed within, though he and Angor Rot defeated me, chained me, and took control again after leaving."
"At least we have the staff." Jim said.
"And shouldn't need magic as much with Gunmar out of the picture so we won't have to fight him again." Twilight agreed.
"Then let's eat, and go find Otto Evilman." Rainbow pumped a hoof in the air. "We've almost got this!"
XXXXX
As it turned out, the only plan even Otto was able to put into motion for them was eleven hours in a pair of shipping containers (One for Twilight, Rainbow Dash, Claire, and Aja, the other for Jim, Toby, Blinky, and Drall) loaded in a Fed-Ex airplane and flown from Los Angeles to London. Once they arrived, a pair of the few aufs still in England, acting on Otto's orders, slipped the containers past customs and drove them another two hours north before finally uncrating them.
"Otto says you're on your own from here." The taller of the two aufs said, her partner already back in the delivery truck.
"As expected." Blinky said.
Twilight said "I understand that you don't like us, that you're only acting under orders. But thank you." The auf nodded curtly, then boarded the truck and drove away with her partner.
"Well Drall? Anything look familiar?" Jim asked.
"Yes... Come, this way!" Drall led them northwest, through deep forest and across tide flats to a rock spire that jutted up two hundred feet. There was brush growing around the base of the tower, and Drall pushed it aside revealing a cave entrance. They went in single file, following a passageway in the rock that angled downward, curving slightly as it went. The path was only just wide enough for Drall, and he had to duck down. The cave path continued for several hundred feet before finally opening into a vast underground chamber. The roof was high, with a domed shape, the floor was cracked, and right in the middle...
"Arrrgh!" Toby exclaimed, running towards his friend.
The gigantic troll was suspended in mid air, held in place by the stasis trap which was created by a circle of glowing yellow enchanted stones on the ground. Arrrgh's eyes could move, and he focused on Toby and the others who were approaching behind him. "Wingman..." Arrrgh slowly rumbled.
"If I remember my lessons on the subject, stasis traps are generally easy to disarm." Twilight said. "It's typically just a matter of moving the correct stone on the ground. In this case though..."
"Yes, the dwarkstones." Blinky agreed, motioning to several of the explosive rocks that were also suspended in the trap all around Arrrgh. "From the intensity of the glow, these dwarkstones are mere seconds from detonating."
Rainbow asked "So we have to turn this thing off to save Arrrgh, but the second we do we all go boom?"
"Exactly." Twilight said. "Okay look around everyone. There's got to be something we can use."
They scoured the chamber, investigating every nook and cranny, but found nothing until Claire noticed a rat that ran across the cave and vanished into one of the cracks in the floor. Twilight shone light from her horn down into the crack and they peered in. "There appears to be another chamber below this one." Aja said.
"That's our opening then." Toby said. "I'll drop into the trap from above, and use warhammer's weight to collapse the floor. All of us, including Arrrgh, will fall through and the dwarkstones will explode up here."
"Or the disruption to the stasis spell will trigger a massive magical explosion and we'll all cease to exist." Blinky said.
"Yeah that is a valid risk." Twilight confirmed.
"Cool Beans." Toby said. "Let's do this!" Jim knelt down and Toby ran, getting boost from Jim to send him up into the air above the trap. He turned and slammed back down inside the stasis field, the floor cracking and collapsing beneath the massive blow. Everyone fell through, just before the dwarkstones exploded.
In the room below, they found a gyre. Gyres were a method of high speed transportation used by trolls, traveling through underground tunnels at speeds to shame even the fastest aircraft ever built by man. "This will be powerless with Trollmarket gone." Blinky said.
"I guess we follow the tunnel then." Twilight nodded. "But I wish I knew how far it is."
Rainbow Dash saluted. "One scouting mission coming up!" She said, and vanished down the tunnel at high speed. They didn't have to wait long for her return. "It's not too far. Walking speed, I'd say we can reach the far end in maybe two hours."
"Then what are we waiting for?" Jim said, and started down the tunnel.
The end of the tunnel opened into another underground room which appeared to have been used as living quarters. There was a cot in a corner, bookshelves along several walls, and a table laden down with books, scrolls, glass jars of potions which, after eight centuries had dried up or evaporated away even though they were stoppered, and a plate with a long-ago decayed to bones fish dinner. The only possible way out was a path set very high at the top of the one wall which lacked shelves.
"How are you supposed to get up there!?" Rainbow wondered. "I mean I can fly and carry Twilight and maybe Claire and Aja, but the rest of you are too heavy!"
"Too smooth to climb." Arrrgh said, running a hand over the rock wall.
Blinky said "Everyone look around. There's bound to be a solution... Merlin himself would have came and gone from this chamber regularly after all."
They looked about, but for a time nothing was forthcoming. Then Toby happened to step on a tile in the floor that sunk down with his weight, and in an instant the entire room changed to look brand new. The cobwebs vanished, the glass vials were full, and the fish dinner was hot and edible. "Don't you dare." Twilight said as she caught Rainbow staring at the plate.
"Aw phooey."
"What is this?" Aja wondered.
"Great Gorkus!" Blinky exclaimed, "Tobias! Take your foot off that tile!" The boy did so, and the room was old again.
"It's some kind of time spell!" Twilight said. "It restores the room to a specific point hundreds of years ago!"
"Have you seen anything like this before?" Claire asked.
Twilight shook her head. "Seen, no, but I have heard of the idea... Certain wizards like their work spaces neat and orderly but don't have the patience to clean, so they clean once, then cast the spell, and no matter what they do the room is clean when they activate the enchantment."
"Cool." Toby said. He began pressing and releasing the tile. "Modern time. Olden times. Modern times. Olden times." This went on for several repetitions before Blinky yelled at him to stop. "Sorry." He left a bag full of seeds on the tile to weigh it down.
Unfortunately though, there was no more an obvious way to continue on in the past as there was in the present. "And it would probably be a bad idea anyway." Twilight muttered. Then, at the same moment, Twilight and Claire laid eyes on a flowerpot filled with soil. "I've got it!" They exclaimed together, then looked at each other in surprise and laughed. Twilight levitated the flowerpot to the base of the sheer wall, and Claire retrieved a seed from the bag weighing down the floor tile and planted it. "Okay Toby! Take the bag off the tile!"
They all watched in awe when, as soon as the room reverted to modern times, the seed they planted turned into a giant plant growing up the sheer wall and providing them with a way to climb. "Lively!" Aja cheered, and they all began to climb.
They found a disaster in the next room. There was a large hole in the floor, and there were massive white quartz crystals glowing faintly there, both in the bottom of the hole and also along the sides, including several places where they had fallen in ways that created stair steps going down. "These crystals..." Drall said. "This space below us must be where the staff was kept. But it was not in ruins like this before."
"Maybe the staff's magic kept it intact and it imploded once that was gone." Twilight suggested.
"Good thing these steps are here." Rainbow said. "I can't seem to fly in here." She beat her wings hard and didn't lift off the ground at all.
Twilight tried to light her horn and failed. "Of course! It's what Drall said before, no magic in Merlin's Tomb, save that of Merlin himself! Dash you can't fly because pegasus wings aren't big enough for flight without pegasus magic!"
"This means we are in Merlin's Tomb itself now then, right?" Jim asked. "We go down?"
Blinky said "Indeed. But take a look at this first..." He motioned towards a wall where there were many images inscribed into the stone, glowing faintly with Merlin's magic. "It is a timeline of the conflict between Merlin and Morgana. Incredibly, the images seem to continue into the future! And look at this one..." Everyone gasped as they saw what was carved into the stone in one particular image: It was all of them, Jim holding the Daylight sword on high, Twilight's horn glowing (With the Element of Magic on her head even though it was back in Canterlot,) Dash hovering over them, and even Aja depicted in her true four armed form.
"How...?" Claire wondered.
"Merlin." Twilight said. "He must have foreseen this."
"Let's go get him." Arrrgh said. They nodded and continued on their way, down into the crystal caverns below.
Once at the bottom, they needed several hours to search through the wreckage of shattered crystals before finding a path that led out of the crystal room and continued even deeper into the earth. And at the end of the path...
"Is that...?"
"Must be..."
Before them, laying atop a stone slab, was the figure of a man, still as death. No other features could be seen, given that he was covered in centuries worth of cobwebs. Almost immediately, a trio of blue glowing motes of light emerged from Jim's amulet and entered the man, then all was still once more.
After several minutes with nothing else happening they stepped closer, and looked down on the body.
"Um, I'm pretty sure he's dead." Rainbow said. And then everyone screamed when he took a deep breath...