//------------------------------//
// Chapter 4: Scouting your Surroundings 
// Story: A Time to Act 
// by The Sonic Mage 
//------------------------------//

When Chrysalis awoke, it was almost nightfall, and the rain had mostly subsided, but it was still coming down. The former monarch slowly lifted her head from the floor of the cave. The damp smell of the air did not help her initial grogginess. She looked around to see if anything had changed from when she had dozed off. Aside from the loss of light, there was nothing else different about the space. Rising to her hole-filled hooves, she walked to the mouth of the cave. She watched as the rain came down, driving birds and squirrels to the safety of the more sheltered tree branches. It seemed all the creatures of the woods were not keen on the idea of spending any amount of time in the rain. Chrysalis would certainly include herself in that group. She made her way back to the rock she had been resting on earlier. The smartest thing to do would be to wait out the rainstorm afterall. Though, the fact that it had been raining the entire time she had been asleep was rather annoying.

“If it rains any longer, I might start thinking it’s a sign from the heavens,” Chrysalis mumbled to herself. 

Settling herself onto the smooth stone, the ex-Queen began to let herself drift off into sleep. 

She was just about to shut down for the next few hours, until a sound jarred her awake. Her head shot up looking around for where the sound had originated. However, there wasn’t a single living creature around her. 

After a few more seconds of letting the sound of the rainfall settle into her ears, Chrysalis cautiously laid her head back down on the stone, and closed her eyes. Once again, the calming white-noise was interrupted by a distant low sound, echoing inside the cave.  

This time Chrysalis was able to look directly to where the sound came from. Worryingly, it did not come from the wet outdoors. It came from the deeper, shadowy depths of the cave. 

Chrysalis quickly stood as the sound came echoing through again. It was like the growl of a great beast, and she was in no position to come face to face with one. ‘I can tolerate a little rain,’ she thought as she quickly made her way to the mouth of the cave. She was about to cross the threshold, when the sound came again. 

For some reason, she stopped. The sound seemed to have gone from a growl to a strange ethereal whisper. A whisper that tugged at one of the worst aspects of her mind, regardless of how small it was: her curiosity.

The sound made her curious, perhaps even a little hypnotized. She should run. She should sprint through the rain and woods until she finds another cave or dry spot under a tree. That’s what she should’ve done. But instead, against her better judgment, she looked back at the cave and the shadows that held a potentially unknown number of secrets. 
One look. That’s all it took for the curiosity to take full hold in her mind. As the sound came again, Chrysalis decided that she had to determine what that sound was, If for no other purpose than getting it over with so she could leave. So she made her way deeper into the dark cavern. 

‘Surely, it won’t take that long.’





The investigative task was taking longer than Chrysalis had expected, which was longer than she would’ve liked. The light projected from the tip of her horn did a good job of illuminating the cave, but the unfortunate fact was that there was nothing to see. There were several times where she decided to head back, only for that infernal whispering to drive her to continue.

“I swear, this is intentional,” Chrysalis grumbled.

The former queen continued to make her way deeper into the dark cave, as water dripped from the stalactites above her. She was just about to turn around and not look back, when she saw something. 

Just at the edge of her light, on the right wall of the cave, was the beginning of a black line. Chrysalis continued forward slowly, her curiosity renewed. As she continued, the line led into a drawing. A crude image of what looked to be a group of ponies standing on a flat plane of land. Is this what she was being led to? Cave drawings? Chrysalis continued on. Drawings such as the ones before her often told a story.  

‘So, what story are you trying to tell?’





As far as she could tell, the story of the drawings went something like this:

Sometime in the past, most likely hundreds of years ago, there was a great dispute between ponies. This most likely referred to the time when the three tribes fought contatanly. Eventually, the many ponies came together in peace, warding of what was probably the artist’s depiction of the Wendigo. However, many years later, the ponies came under attack from a creature made of fire, bones, and chains. This new creature laid waste to many villages and caught many ponies in its clutches. After a long period of fighting, the creature was defeated and sealed away, deep underground.





Chrysalis felt a tad perplexed. She had never heard about such an event in pony history. Not in any books or paintings or anywhere. ‘Why is that?’

Unfortunately Chrysalis was not given the time to find an answer to her own question, as the ground beneath her started to crack. Before she could run for more solid ground, the floor crumbled under her hooves. So she fell into the darkness below.