//------------------------------// // Chapter 9: The Shiny // Story: Daring Do and the Iron Pyramid // by Unwhole Hole //------------------------------// A griffon was suddenly startled awake. Confused, he looked up at the sky, only to find it dark. This immediately alleviated his instinctive desire to crow, as the crack of dawn had not yet occurred. He was, however, immediately confused as to why he had awoken; being half rooster and half cat, he was unsure if he was supposed to be nocturnal or diurnal. He looked over the edge of his guard post atop a crane assembly and saw a pony moving through the darkness, approaching the weird pyramid. “Hey, hey you! Stop waking me up—I mean, who goes there?!” The pony moved his torch closer to his face, and the griffon recognized him as the archaeologist pony. “Doc, what are you doing up? I thought you were muzzle-deep in a pair of fluffy wings right now.” The archaeologist seemed strongly displeased by this, and blushed slightly. “A touch of insomnia,” he sighed. “I can’t sleep. An idea occurred to me, and I simply need to test it out immediately before I can go to bed. It concerns a particular inscription that does in fact bear an unusual homology to a known unicorn runic conformation that was briefly used in the year five hundred seventy-six during the reign of--” “Save it! I’m not getting paid to listen to blabbering! And, frankly? You’re not getting paid enough to work overtime. You ponies are weird and probably stupid. Go ahead.” Caballeron nodded and entered the Pyramid. The griffon, maintaining his position of night watchcock, leaned against the black stone of the structure and went right back to sleep. Caballeron moved quickly through the tomb. He knew the exact path he needed to take, the only modification being the assembly of a portable roping system over the descent hole. Indeed, the presence of such a hole was almost sure evidence that this structure had, somehow, been built by thestrals, or at the very least some other species capable of flight. With a rope, though, he was able to descend properly. With a slower descent, he could see that the descent was in fact terrifyingly long. The pyramid itself was several hundred feet over the bottom of the hole—a hole with extra thick plated walls stained with odd discolorations. Upon landing, he produced his light. He heard the sound of slithering, but by now the snakes new him. “Pleasssssse nooooooo...” whispered a quiet, rasping voice as they retreated into the unseen crevices of the forgotten temple. Beyond them, he knew the way. Through the dark and amongst the skeletons, alone, with only the barest light of his torch to guide him. It seemed so much more ominous in the darkness, and the blackness around him seemed to swirl and reach out. It had grown so much thicker, and in the distance Caballeron could hear things occasionally shifting within it. Quiet things too quiet and too large to be snakes. Fear struck him, but he suppressed it. That was simply business. If anything, it was less when he was alone. Then, in time, he came to the final room. Everything was how it had been left earlier the day, in the same positions as before. The dripping, bitumen statue was exactly where it had been, open and staring through the empty eyes of its mask. The statue was not relevant, at least not yet. Caballeron instead approached the podium that stood before it. Wun had closed and locked it earlier. However, she had been foolish enough to do so while Caballeron was watching. He had noted the fact that she had not fully reactivated the spell, either out of arrogance or from not knowing how to. She had simply shifted the outermost ring over one space. Caballeron was prepared. On his descent, he had quickly inscribed from memory the exact symbols she had used. Although he could not read them, he recalled them perfectly, jotting them down using specialized magical ink on a particularly expensive brand of unicornic paper. He pressed the symbol over the access port, adjusting it as necessary, and completed the shape of the unlocking spell. The runes in the paper ignited, consuming it in flame as the pedestal reacted, opening its outer shell and revealing the massive crystal of revenite within. Caballeron smiled. This was the sort of moment he lived for. Daring Do had unwittingly provided him with a perfect alibi. She, as a result of the herbs she had used to restore Caballeron’s health, had fallen into a deep sleep while facing him—and she would awake to see him sleeping peacefully before him, having been there for the duration of the long desert night. It would take the team several days to set up a proper roping system, and to enter this chamber. By then, it would be a simple matter of blaming the thestrals for the loss of the jewel. They had already been established as able to evade the griffons, especially a sleepy night guard. They were likely the ones who had taken the others and sold them to be carved into earrings and broaches—and the fact that they refused to speak to the ponies in the camp only improved their quality as a scapegoat. Caballeron unpacked his tools, including a large case. He opened it. It was lined with dimeritium, a fortune’s worth but enough to block the magical signal from the stone. He had already found a hiding place and would collect it at the end of the expedition. His other supplies included a variety of things. Some were devices of incredible subtlety, but others were not. From the shape of this stone, the extraction was simply a matter of prying it out. He circled it, looking at it carefully from every angle, examining the clasp that held it in. Then, with expert care, he selected his chosen tool: a substantial but thin prybar. Inserting the bar into the space near the gem, he began to twist, and then to pull down with great force. As an earth pony, this was not difficult. The gem, however, barely moved. On examination, Caballeron found that the mechanism that held the gem in place had become oxidized, somehow, and the resulting stiffness had trapped the stone in tightly. So he chose a different tool. A more specialized prybar, intending to brute-force the gemstone out. From what he understood, revanite was virtually indestructible—at least after it had been cut. And if it fragmented, that would be bad—but still profitable regardless. Even easier to hide, if necessary. He inserted the new bar and increased the force, putting all his might into the operation. Suddenly, the bar gave way, and Caballeron fell to the floor. He looked up, prepared to grab the stone before it fell, but found that it had not broken free. Rather, it had changed position. Something from beneath the gem moved with lightning speed. A new system of clasps, resembling needles surrounded it, followed by a sheath of dark iron. It stood for a moment, aligning itself, and then suddenly retracted to ground level, twisting its way into a different machine and aligning the tubes linking the gem with a new system of conduits and pipes. In this state, only the very tip of the crystal was exposed. “Drat,” hissed Caballeron, realizing that he must have activated some sort of protective system. The machine was foreign to him, and time was short. In his rush, he had moved too hastily. As he tried to decide what to do next, something suddenly caught his eye. The gem appeared to be changing. Its brightness increased, and then rapidly began to fade. From the top, it seemed to be almost draining, as if it were filled with liquid. The blue-green glow of it was departing, leaving behind only an inert clear husk. The color, instead, began to flow into the hoses linked to the machine. It was visible through a number of small glass windows built into their flexible surfaces, seen moving outward from the machine and toward the bitumen-covered statue. Caballeron, horrified at what he might have done to damage the crystal, stared intently at it, desperately searching for a way to stop it—and did not see as the light from the hoses passed through them all the way until it reached the enormous masked figure on the far side of the room, disappearing into what was left of its body where the pipes were linked. He did not see the red lights within its eyes flicker, or the mechanical irises click open and adjust focus. A cold breeze suddenly passed through the empty tomb. Caballeron shuddered, and then gasped as his torch went out, leaving him in absolute darkness. “In the name of Celestia’s...because of course this happens now...” Caballeron continued to swear as he searched for a tool to relight the torch. Upon finding a flint, he ceased his muttering and began attempting to restore his only source of light. This was not an easy task, considering that he had to use his mouth to operate the flint. It was even harder in the absolute darkness. Then, in the silence, Caballeron suddenly froze. In the almost deafening silence, he heard something. The sudden sound of hissing and something falling to the floor. In the strange acoustics of the iron walls, it sounded strange, as if it came from every angle at once—and the silence was quickly restored as the strange echoes faded. Caballeron did his best to dismiss it as a trick of the breeze, a result of a sudden surge of cold air several hundred feet below the nighttime desert above. Then he heard another sound. Equally quiet, but so horribly clear. A single step. A click of a hoof against the metal floor. Then, following it, another—and the sound of usless limb dragging across the floor behind the others. Jagged, mismatched steps of something slowly limping forward in the darkness. Caballeron felt himself breathing faster. In the darkness, he could see nothing. He knew there was nothing to worry about but all the fear he had suppressed suddenly came to him all at once. He was alone in an ancient tomb, in darkness, and something was moving. He no longer even cared about the gem, and he stepped forward, trying to find the exit—but found that he had become turned around in the darkness, and met only wall. The sound continued. Except that it was now not just footsteps. There was something else. Caballeron did not understand what it was, or what it could have been. A ghastly sound, like liquid squelching around itself or something being stretched taught, almost to the point of tearing. The hoofsteps grew louder and firmer. A limb dragging, and then a pause. And then the limp was gone. By this time, Caballeron was in a full panic, his mind refusing to admit what might be in the room with him. Surely snakes. Snakes with a limp. His heavy breathing grew faster and faster, further disturbing the flint, blowing the sparks away from the torch—a torch that had somehow faded to complete blackness, without even an ember, suppressed by some unseen force that did not require ts glow in the slightest. Then the hoofsteps stopped. Caballeron froze, holding his breath—and for a moment heard nothing. Then more gurgling, a horrible liquid sound somewhere behind him. Then something wet falling against the floor. Then his breathing resumed. Except it was ragged and strained, sounding sick and horribly diseased. He then realized that it was not his breath at all. He was still holding his. Desperately, he gave the flint one more flick—and the room suddenly flooded with red light. Caballeron almost laughed, although something caught in his mind. A sudden realization that despite the glow, his torch remained dark. It had not been lit at all. He slowly turned and looked up to the source of the light, a halo of red around a horrifying iron sha mask, its glassy red eyes now staring down at him. It no longer sat on the statue of a skeleton, but on a massive, hulking figure of bone and distorted, ragged black flesh. Flesh that was writhing in the red light, rapidly growing and spreading over bone, forming new organs, muscles and skin. Caballeron was too scared to scream. All he could do was run, ignoring the darkness and running headlong out of the room and down the stairs, falling most of the way. Through the dark, stumbling and crying, desperately trying to find the way back. The red glow remained in the room behind him, turning only slightly as a pair of mechanical eyes scanned the room. Then the glow began to move as its owner moved, slowly, in pursuit.