//------------------------------// // Chapter Sixty Five, Pyramid Power: Magic. // Story: Airship Mauled // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// -Shifting Sands Track, Kuril- “Okay, that’s a new level of absurd.” Having watched the first two races, the next one was just as weird. The racetrack had shifted into multiple paths, each one being fit for Maries all together and if they decided to split up and go separately. Despite how fast Maries were, they were having issues with keeping Brash the Sand Sprinter behind them. She was using the goat portion of the course whereas Maries was using the more open full chimera portion for their bulk running along the twisting shifting paths. They dodged rolling boulders of sand, ran along a pathway that rotated upside down and sideways using their momentum to barely stay on the track and sand pillars spiked up, down and sideways into their paths randomly. There were even streams of sand arcing sweeping towards them every now and then like water hoses going full blast. Brash even visibly hit one of the pillars and got dazed at one point, Maries ability to leap and their athletic form was what was keeping them barely ahead of Brash. They pulled ahead in the last quarter of the track, only for Brash to really start picking up the speed and she managed to pass the finish line thirty feet ahead of Maries. “She’s… really… fast.” Maria was huffing and puffing along with her sisters. “You were really great out there, now take a breather.” Brash was still ready and raring to go. “Also that was one of the wildest tracks I’ve even been through and it was great! Who wants to try me next? I could almost take you guys with my paws tied behind my back.” Blade took a few steps forward, only to be pushed out of the way by Jacky who vocally shouted. “I’m next!” Jacky quickly made her way over to the line while pulling on some goggles as Maries flopped into a comfortable sand cushion next to Fizzle. I was fairly curious as to what was going to happen, Jacky hasn’t exactly had much bad luck since she fell down one of the flights of stairs. Blade came back to sit next to me and I rubbed one of her ears. She smiled and leaned into the touch as we watched Jacky stand at the starting line looking at the far wall with a small frown on her beak. “You did your best Maries.” Fizzle wrapped her hooves around Mara’s head and hugged her tenderly. “She may be a little full of herself, but Brash definitely backs up her boasting. Why didn’t you fly Daring?” “You’re about to find out, because it looks like Jacky is going to try it.” A whining noise started up as Daring stated that, I turned back and saw Jacky’s long feathers spreading out slightly as she crouched down with flames building up at her back. “Uh… what is…?” Brash seemed confused about what Jacky was doing. I hadn’t seen it in action, but apparently the cursed artifact made from dragon blood was powerful enough to power a small airship sized tank. So I could only imagine what it did for Jacky’s flying… Jacky blasted over the starting line, the sand she kicked up in her wake knocked Brash backwards off the final quarter of the course as she flew forward at a high speed. There were rubber ducks that quacked a lot, pine trees with an alarming amount of velocity, swordfish spearing up out of the ground and going back into it, hundreds of walls, swords, shields and an instantaneous worsening sandstorm from nowhere that all created a chaotic mass of movement. Every single thing was made of sand and was currently aimed at not only Jacky, who was kicking off a forming shield to change directions to get into the second half of the track, but this stuff was also aimed at Brash in the name of fairness. It was a good thing Brash was already a ghost, being hit by a ton of sand trees might have hurt otherwise. Once her head popped out of the sand the sand duckies started to peck at her head and a sword fish launched her back towards the starting line where she rolled and then started to evade all the stuff coming at her like her afterlife depended on it. It seems Jacky’s luck was way too much for Brash to handle, as she couldn’t even get started with the chaos that the entire track became as soon as Jacky got over the starting line. This was about as much as I saw before the sandstorm completely blinded us to what was happening in the race. Five minutes later, the sands died down and we were witness to the victor. Jacky was coughing up sand and shaking it out of her clothing and feathers, I had no idea how she finished the second half of the track and I really doubt that even the goddesses did as they had astonished expressions on their faces. I took some time to help Blade get some sand out of her ears, I now understood why I never saw any thestrals in Cow-ro. Jacky looked to have been roughed up, but Brash couldn’t even get into the first quarter of the track and everything just stopped the instant Jacky won. “Ugh, does anyone realize how hard it is to get sand out of long feathers like this?!” Jacky complained as I saw some red dripping from her body and was horrified to see something glinting in the light of this magically lit room. “Darn it, I made some glass in the sandstorm.” Only some glass? I guess my daughter probably hasn’t realized that she had at least fifteen large shards of glass sticking out of her sides close to her pack. There were at least seven in her chest and stomach, one in her shoulder and we needed to clean those wounds out like yesterday. “Jacky don’t move too much, Fluttershy!” I called out, she was up and ready with the medical kit. Fluttershy was apparently ready for this. -After Jacky is treated for sand and glass wounds, Blade- “Okay, so that hurricane of sand should have been impossible to race in and she got seriously injured actually managing to do it… that definitely warrants a pass. Well it would be a serious injury thousands of years ago before medicinal practices obviously picked up the slack in this day and age.” Brash looked fairly upset and she should be, she got one of Kuril’s daughters injured! Sure the healing potion fixed the damage after her wounds were completely cleaned of sand and glass, but she had been quite traumatized throughout the whole process and couldn’t take a healing potion until it was finished. “I was going to pass you guys anyway for having courage to keep trying eventually, but I was having too much fun. I don’t know what the tracks problem with beak face was, but I can honestly say that’s never happened before. Okay, you can all go on to the next trial now.” “I’ll carry Jacky, she’s going to be a bit light headed for a while after that.” It was nice of Sekhet to make that offer, for a war god she was quite considerate. I was still learning to be friends with her all over again. “Add this to the things that your healing potions can’t immediately deal with Kuril.” I probably wouldn’t want my open wounds healing over a painful amount of sand. So the rules were setting bones first and we’re adding cleaning the wounds of detritus before use of said potions. Kuril is going to have a small side business selling them. “Right then, we’ll take a break so she can recover and then we’ll move on.” Baast nodded serenely, both she and her sister didn’t seem like they were affected by the sandstorm at all. I looked to Kuril and made a gesture or two, I’m sure she’d know what I was talking about. She always seemed to know. “Yes, I’m fairly concerned when the shifting sands track turned nearly lethal for Jacky too.” After sighing audibly, Kuril rubbed at her forehead with both her paws. “It’s a good thing Fluttershy had the chemicals for treating wounds with sand in them and that I could see every speck of sand.” “I just thought it was best to be prepared for the eventuality even if we weren’t going to be in the desert much.” When Fluttershy was hugged by Kuril, I didn’t feel any sense of jealousy. “Thank you for being so thoughtful Fluttershy.” Kuril was happy her luck challenged daughter was going to be okay, after she got some rest of course. Once more we traveled down some stairs, ever deeper into the pyramid. We walked through a labyrinth style amount of construction following Baast, most of the labyrinth we ignored and eventually came into a room full of scrolls and the stone shelves containing them. “Oh, is it time already? I’m so sorry that I’m not fully prepared, hello I’m Bright Beam.” The translucent purple cat announced this, she rolled up a scroll and put it away. She hopped down from the many rows of stone shelves. “I’m a keeper of history and a teacher of accumulated knowledge, anything learned from me should never be forgotten! Even knowledge dryer than the desert we used to live in could one day save the world. I was just making sure my scrolls were all correct and that nothing is being left out, I just got finished checking all five hundred and seventy three thousand scrolls.” “Hello Bright, it’s been a long time since I’ve left you to your devices.” Baast strode forward with a smile. “Oh no, how long has it been this time?” Bright seemed worried and had a paw on her face. “A few thousand years, you could stand to spend more time with your friends and loved ones, you are all in the same pyramid after all.” Baast giggled at the purple cats face as it fell into a look of horror. “I don’t think she’ll hold it against you, she knows that you loved your job in life and beyond.” “Oh my goodness, Princess Clarity is going to be so mad at me… I’m likely at least fifty years late! Some priestess of wisdom I am, I should have been the priestess of lost time!” Bright was soon drawn from being upset by Baast clearing her throat. “Huh, oh… living people, right the challenge, a task, the trial, of course! Oh no, oh no, oh no, I’m still not ready! I need to go find the scroll, be right back… it should be in section… let’s see gamma… no… zeta… that’s it!” “I’m sorry… Bright was always a little late on things.” After Baast’s comment, we waited for ten minutes. In which Cheerful came up to Baast with a scroll and present it to her. “Can you sign this please, Nubi said I needed your signature on this that you’re willing to let me run the pyramid in the case that you leave.” Looking at Cheerful with a surprised glance, Baast read the thing over. “Okay… this seems fair, though you do realize you could be stuck to the pyramid forever right?” Baast received a grin. “That’s what the special clause is for silly!” Cheerful giggled as Maries read the clause in question over Baast’s shoulder. “I’m surprised Nubi allowed me to get away with it.” “You should have been a lawyer Cheerful Dye.” Maria proclaimed immediately. “Really?! Wait, what’s a lawyer?” Cheerful seemed confused, she was from a time when lawyers didn’t exist. Baast signed the scroll and passed it back to the pink ghost. “Really, yippee, this is going to be so good! Now to get the other girls to sign it, hey Bright sign this and don’t think about it!” “You always read something before signing it, especially when it comes to gods!” Placing her scroll on the floor and perusing the one given to her, Bright looked it over. “I’m not dumb Cheerful, but apparently you just got one over on Anubis. This is a fairly good deal, I’ll sign. Though asking me to not think about things, it is like asking Princess Clarity to not be overly dramatic about things!” After Bright signed the scroll, Cheerful quickly ran off shouting with joy. After picking up the scroll she put down, Bright turned to us. “Okay this task shouldn’t take but a minute, I made sure to make this as short as possible… after which I’m going to be yelled at by Clarity as you know. No… wait… you wouldn’t know who Clarity is. That’s right, they haven’t met her yet because they are doing things in order… ugh get yourself together Bright!” Taking a calming long deep breath, she sighed and turned to us bright eyed and bushy flail tails. “The task is to decipher the meaning of this scroll, only a few understand the wisdom of it and even fewer still take it to heart. So who’s going to take it?” I moved up to take the scroll, it felt a bit heavy in my hoof and I unrolled it to look at it. I blinked at what I saw, I turned to Kuril’s pony daughter Fizzle and passed the scroll to her. “A wise decision...” Bright said to me, I was too busy looking at Fizzle’s face as she blinked in confusion and then a look of understanding passed over her face as she passed the scroll off to Fluttershy. Fluttershy looked it over and blinked, she smiled a little and passed it to Kuril. Kuril looked it over through her blindfolded eyes and nodded, then she passed it to Daring. “Huh, but what does this… oh…” Daring paused and her eyes widened as she looked at the scroll for another minute, she soon passed it off to Jacky. “I get it.” “I may be… a little bit… very lightheaded at the moment, but… even I can understand this easily enough.” The dizzy looking Jacky passed it to Nefer, he looked it over and blinked a few times. “Woah… that’s… here Maries!” Nefer rolled up the scroll and passed it to Maries. Once they unrolled and looked at it, they each had something to say about it. “That’s…” Mara started. “Quite a…” Maria continued. “Thing.” Marie finished, they then pawed it over to Sekhet, and the goddess took a peak. “Ah, that lesson.” Sekhet then passed the scroll too Baast, Baast didn’t even look at it and passed it back to Bright. “A good choice echo, you are truly a priestess of wisdom.” “Good, you all understand the lesson… er trial.” Bright beamed at us. “Now, what’s the answer?” I made several gestures to Bright, she nodded. “You pass, since I’m coming with you… will you please protect me from Clarity?” Bright turned some watery eyes to Baast and the goddess rolled her eyes. “You know she’s going to get at you anyway right?” A snickering Baast slinked right on by a blushing purple ghost cat. “Sorry, but I’m not going to get in her way for you Bright. Come along, we’re going to meet the anugyptian princess that backed me when I started the 'War of Anubis' with Discord’s help.” “How did that war end exactly?” Why did that concern Fluttershy? “In a very fairly unusual manner.” Baast eyed us all curiously. "You will learn about it soon enough."