Trouble at Midnight Castle

by RainbowDoubleDash


5. Exploring the Castle

On a really dark, moonless, cloudy night, with no lights on, if Cozy Glow closed her eyes super tight…it still probably wouldn’t have been as dark as the entry to Midnight Castle was.

The entry into the castle was just sheer and utter blackness. Tirek had conjured up a ball of light to hold over his palm and show the way, but it barely did anything to banish the shadows that seemed to press in all around the two. From her perch atop Tirek’s shoulder, she could barely see the dusty floor beneath them, even when Tirek made the light orb painfully bright to look at.

“This…is going to make things difficult,” Cozy said at last.

“Perhaps…or perhaps not,” Tirek said. The light ball he had conjured seemed to flare up, but actually all that had happened was he had passed beyond some kind of barrier, the oppressive darkness of the entry to Midnight Castle giving way to far more mundane shadows. He dimmed the light and held it out, revealing a wide entry hall supported by four pillars, with stone gargoyles in the ceiling leering down at those who entered. Ahead of them were a great set of brass doors.

Cozy looked back, and saw that indeed the light just stopped at the entry, the shadows pushing back against it in a way that shadows absolutely weren’t supposed to. She fluttered her wings a little, but didn’t get off of Tirek’s shoulder.

“Okay,” she said. “Any idea what the layout of this place is like?”

Tirek shook his head, looking around. There was a set of stairs to the north, leading up, and a hallway to the south the stretched further than Tirek’s light revealed. “I do know that when Tirac was defeated, he was deep within the bowels of Midnight Castle’s dungeons. The Rainbow of Darkness was left with him.”

“But Scorpan had the Rainbow.”

Tirek growled. “Yes. So now it could be anywhere. Thank you, brother…”

Cozy suppressed the urge to giggle at Tirek’s last grumble. “Well, let’s try and find a way down. First place to look for something is the last place you know it was, after all! Maybe Scorpan put it back.” She pointed to the stairs. “Which means that way’s out, obviously. Let’s try the doors!”

Tirek shrugged, not having any better ideas, and did so. The great brass doors opened with hardly a sound despite their age and weight, revealing a long corridor beyond flanked by statues of gargoyles and centaurs in spiked armor. Their eyes seemed to watch Cozy and Tirek as they moved down the hallway, though Cozy could tell that it was just a trick of light and shadow and not their eyes actually following her. She hoped.

The hallway ended in another set of brass doors, which Tirek pushed open as well, revealing a vast chamber. Tirek held up his ball of light and brightened it, revealing the whole thing – including stained-glass windows at the other end, though the windows let in no light. Possibly it was because an awful lot of the panels were made up of jet-black sections depicting a life-sized, broad-horned centaur wreathed in darkness and with legions of followers bowing before him.

“Lord Tirac?” Cozy asked.

Tirek paused in his trot, and looked sidelong at Cozy. “Him you call ‘Lord’? The centaur who’s been dead twenty-five hundred years and you’ve never met?”

Cozy failed to keep down a giggle this time, taking to the air as she looked a little closer at the stained glass, the way the shadows curled around Tirac…especially his wrists and his horns. Almost like…

“Uh, Tirek?”

“See? You’ve never called me ‘Lord’ no matter how often I tell you to…”

Cozy rolled her eyes, flying closer to the stained glass and tapping her hoof against the depiction of Tirac. “What does this look like to you? The way the shadows are shown on him?”

Tirek trod forward, scratching at his beard as he looked over the depiction. “Chains,” he finally said. “The shadows…perhaps it’s just supposed to show the power surrounding him, the Rainbow of Darkness being a part of him…or else…”

Or else it’s showing the Rainbow of Darkness controlling him.” Cozy finished for Tirek. She finally shivered in spite of herself, and flew back to look Tirek in the eye. “And I’m gonna guess that’s what happened to Scorpan. I don’t think there’s any room for doubt anymore: the Rainbow of Darkness corrupts and controls its wielder.”

Tirek nodded, folding one hand behind his back while his other still held the light orb. “I understand your concern, Cozy. But I’ve come too far, waited too long, to turn back now.” He turned from the window, looking around the room, and then pointed to a entryway in the southwest that lead to a set of stairs that spiraled both up and down.

Cozy flew after Tirek as he set off. “I’m not saying we should turn around,” Cozy said. “This is way too much power if you’re right. But we definitely need to study it first.”

“Agreed,” Tirek said. The two reached and started down the spiraling stairs, heading into the bowels of the castle, the plinth that it sat upon. “Pity, I would have liked to test it on whoever else it was that was coming to Midnight Castle…but perhaps not.”

Cozy tapped her hoof on one of Tirek’s massive biceps. “Come on! You don’t need any kind of emo rainbow to take out whoever that was!”

“Of course I don’t,” Tirek agreed, and couldn’t stop himself from flexing his muscles. Cozy giggled once more. Keeping Tirek psyched up was important right now…especially seeing as there was a chance that the two of them might stumble across a certain set of gargoyle bones down here at some point. Cozy didn’t want Tirek thinking about that and getting into a mood. She honestly wasn’t sure what Tirek would do if they found the remains of Scorpan, but Cozy was already cycling through a few possibilities and what she’d do in response.

For the most part, she decided giving him space would be for the best. Time to process it, or to stomp the bones to dust, or maybe even to genuinely grieve. He could probably use that, to be honest.

The end of the spiraling stairs finally came into sight after they’d descended Cozy-hadn’t-counted-how-many steps. Certainly they were now at least a couple hundred feet beneath the surface. The stairs gave way to a twenty-foot-wide, twenty-foot-long entry that revealed beyond it the largest chamber yet. Tirek’s light at its brightest didn’t reach the far walls, though this was at least partially due to the light being blocked by a series of regularly spaced pillars, each ten feet wide and with ten feet between them, supporting the ceiling some twenty or thirty feet overhead.

The oppressive darkness would have continued to be unsettling enough…but more unsettling was the pillars. Each and every one of them was adorned with what almost looked like gargoyles of centaurs or even a few horses fused into them, utterly lifelike in appearance if still obviously make of stone. The carvings were in various poses suggesting agony and suffering, yet their expressions were completely blank and emotionless, and somehow that made things worse.

Cozy felt her throat going dry, and she got off of Tirek’s shoulder in order to retrieve a canteen and swallow a few mouthfuls of water. Yup. She was gonna have nightmares about this place. She wondered if she’d run into Princess Luna. That might be neat, especially if she had to bluff about still being in Tartaros…

She was still hovering in place and drinking when Tirek started forward again. Cozy made to follow him, but just as his fourth hoof crossed the threshold, she noticed a faintly glowing green sigil on the ground.

Tirek – ” was as far as Cozy got when the sigil flared to life. Tirek looked down in surprise as the sigil became one of many, a circle of runes that surrounded him and ignited with a sickly green glow. The hand holding aloft the ball of light suddenly dropped like the ball had gained a ton of weight, and Tirek let out a shout of surprise as he fell to the ground. His orb of light almost seemed to melt in his hand, getting sucked down into the green glow – and the glow surrounded Tirek as well.

Cozy shot forward to the edge of the circle, letting out a cry as she brought the canteen she’d grabbed down hard on the nearest rune, thwacking it as hard as she could over and over while being careful not to let any part of her cross it herself. The circle of runes sputtered, but didn’t give out. Cozy couldn’t hit it hard enough.

Tirek got his legs under him. With a mighty roar, he tore his hand free of his own light orb, then gathered himself and leapt forward, clearing several dozen feet even without any kind of running start. The rune circle didn’t stop his leaving, though some of the green glow seemed to try to cling to him. When Tirek landed – gracelessly, stumbling to his knees – he was glowing with yellow-and-black energy again, like he had outside, and Cozy swore she saw him shrink yet again.

She made to fly around the circle and over to him, but Tirek held out a hand. “Stay there!” He shouted as he picked himself up. “We don’t know that it’s safe!”

Cozy swallowed, but nodded, turning her attention back to the rune circle. The orb of light finished melting into it, leaving only the dim, baleful green glow of the circle that barely provided any light at all. That, too, began to fade – because the light started flowing, moving like it was some kind of oil, and tracing its way straight towards the pillars…

“Oh…shoot,” Cozy mumbled, as the first of the carving’s eyes began to glow.


Tirek noticed light to his left, and glanced. He saw one of the gargoyle carvings in the wall twitching, reaching out with one hand and grabbing the ground, then physically pulling itself free from the pillar that held it, eyes glowing bright green. It stood up and turned its expressionless gaze onto Tirek.

It wasn’t the only one. All around Tirek, the statues and carvings in the pillars were awakening and pulling themselves free from their agonized poses, the lights of their eyes replacing the glow of Tirek’s light orb. They spared only a moment before charging at Tirek with thundering footfalls that sounded like the slamming of sepulcher doors.

The centaur grunted, snapping his fingers and conjuring a shield around himself and letting the statues crash into it. He grimaced at the feedback of so much kinetic energy and mass slamming against his construct, but it gave him a moment to assess his odds. The golems tried nothing more than physical attacks, and he grinned at that.

Gathering magical energy into his horns, he dropped his shield even as he unleashed a burst of telekinesis all around him. The golems nearest him were pulverized, limbs falling off, as they impacted the ones behind them. They were too heavy to be sent flying, but they did knock back all the golems around him.

He leaped and conjured another magical bubble around himself as he came down, landing on and crushing a golem in the rear of the pack, then whirling and slamming his fist straight into the face of another. He felt the satisfying vibration of impact travel up his arm, while the golem’s head burst apart like it was made of chalk.

“Heh,” Tirek chucked as the golems turned around, struggling to re-orient themselves. But the wings of the gargoyles and long bodies of the horses and centaurs bumped into each other, making them far less effective as a group then they should have been.

He looked over his shoulder, and saw Cozy Glow in the dim light of the golems’ eyes, still hovering in the entryway, keeping clear of the magic circle. She looked concerned – and afraid.

That wouldn’t do at all. Tirek gathered up telekinetic force and shoved it forward, pushing back the golems just as they had been about to charge him once more, then undid the straps on his packs and threw them back into the entry.

“There’s a torch and matches in there,” he said. “If any golems come for you, fly back outside. But I think they only care about me.”

Cozy started fishing around for the light sources, though she kept an eye on Tirek. “And what about you?” she asked.

Tirek grinned, cracking his knuckles and popping the joints in his neck. “I’m going to enjoy myself,” he responded, His horns glowed, and he fired a blast of pure magical force straight forward. The beam impacted a gargoyle-golem straight in the chest and shattered the thing, did the same to the next two golems, and finally only knocked over the fourth one.

By the time the magic had cleared the golems were as a whole charging him again, moving as fast as creatures made of more-or-less solid rock could…not very fast. The first one to reach Tirek was punched in half. The next one he grabbed the face of and swung it into a third. He reared back and brought his front hooves down on another golem. One finally managed a swing, but Tirek deflected it with the back of his arm and then smacked the golem away with a backhand.

Standing still was a sure way to be overwhelmed, of course, so he once again leapt, conjured a shield, and landed on another golem just as he saw the orange glow of fire flare to life at the entry. He looked and saw Cozy holding a now-lit torch, but also saw that none of the golems had any interest in her at all, as he’d suspected. They wanted the creature with magic.

Tirek grinned. His body still ached somewhat from the swim over, but the rush of adrenaline was fixing that. That and the sheer visceral pleasure of smashing these constructs. Punch, kick, backhand, slap, chop, elbow, knee, buck…Tirek honestly lost track of time, focusing purely on crushing the enemies that lay before him. He didn’t even use magic that often – only when he stood a chance of being overwhelmed, then he’d use telekinesis to give himself some breathing room, or leap clear and land behind the pack.

The golems got a few lucky hits in, of course. One in particular, a centaur, brought its fists down in a sledgehammer blow across Tirek’s face. Unfortunately, that golem made the critical error of looking rather like Vorak. Tirek used magic for that one, unleashing a blast of eldritch might that turned the golem – and several golems surrounding it – to dust.

If the golems had been faster, or smarter, this would have been dangerous. Tirek would have had to fight more of a running battle, blast-and-retreat. But as it stood…it was essentially an intense work-out routine, for keeps.

After Tirek wasn’t sure how long, the last of the golems, a horse, was broken apart when Tirek hefted it over his head and slammed it into a pillar. Tirek watched the light fade from its eyes, growling…and then roaring in triumph.

“Now that was fun!” He shouted, looking around and spotting the glow of Cozy’s torch. He trotted back over to her, and found the pegasus sitting on the ground, head in one hoof while she tapped another on the ground. Her eyes widened at the sight of Tirek.

“You’re covered in rock dust!” She exclaimed, then put her hooves to her nose. “And, ugh, you stink of sweat! Why didn’t you just blast them all with magic?”

“I’m allowed to enjoy myself,” Tirek said, considering the magic circle that had activated all the golems. One of its runes still glowed, but Tirek thought about how it had pulled at his magical light orb – and likewise, how the entry outside had tried to feed on the magic that he was conjuring to attack the airship. Right now, however, Tirek was channeling no magic…he put a hoof boldly into the magic circle, and nodded when nothing happened.

Cozy stared, then looked back up at Tirek. “That was dangerous.”

Tirek shrugged, waving a hand at the wreckage he’d created. “What’s the worst that could have happened? More golems? I think I demonstrated fairly well how that would turn out.”

Cozy flew up into the air. “That’s not the point! Maybe you didn’t notice since you’re so big anyway, but you lost a little height again.” She waved a hoof out at the golems. “And you used a lot of magic out there too, didn’t you?”

“Hardly,” Tirek objected, though perhaps he had used slightly more than necessary on the one that had looked like his father. He went to his packs and pulled out a towel, beginning to wipe himself free of dust.

He also used the time to consider Cozy’s words. “The magic traps…you’re worried about them draining me of all my magic.” He looked to the golems. “And perhaps the golems were never intended to defeat whoever came down here, only make them use up their magic. Drain them.”

“Mm-hmm,” Cozy said. She waved her hooves at Tirek. “How much of your muscles are magic and how much are real? Does exerting yourself expend your magic?”

Tirek shook his head. “There’s a long answer. The short one is no. If the golems were intended to drain magic, their creator didn’t take into consideration blunt force instead of eldritch blasts.” He wiped his face down, then threw the towel over his shoulder and crossed his arms, looking back out at what he’d done while Cozy went digging around in her own saddlebags.

“I admit that I could have been more cautious,” Tirek allowed at last. “I will be in the future. But I definitely think I needed – ack!

The last came as he felt himself being sprayed by something, but more importantly as the scent reached his nostrils. Cozy Glow was flying around him with a spray bottle. “What is that?!” Tirek demanded even as he tried to fend off the pegasus.

“Perfume!” Cozy answered, flitting nimbly around Tirek. “Smells like strawberries! For all the sweat.”

Tirek finally managed to grab Cozy. “Lord Tirek should not smell like strawberries!” He objected, throwing the bottle down at her saddlebags.

“Well I wish you would have told me that, I also have apple and cherry…”

Tirek might have rolled his eyes if he weren’t trying to wipe the scent from him. It didn’t work at all, and all he could do was sigh and gather up his saddlebags again, strapping them on. Cozy gathered up her own bags, taking out a blanket and laying it on Tirek’s shoulder before settling down again.

“There is nothing wrong with working up a good sweat,” Tirek said, even as he picked up the torch and then started forward once more.

“Maybe not for you,” Cozy said. “I want to have other creatures to do the sweating for me.” She brightened at her own words, then looked to Tirek with a huge smile on her face.

He did roll his eyes at that. “Well, fair’s fair. I suppose you were my minion for my plan to drain Equestria of all its magic, so the shoe can go on the other hoof here – ”

“I was not a minion! And that was my plan, you…”

She went on for some time, and Tirek just chuckled, folding one hand behind his back while he trotted, while the other held the torch high. The two came to yet another entry way, this one thirty feet across and flanked by carved reliefs of two kneeling gargoyles with an image of a roaring Tirac above them. Tirek paid it little mind, but did pay attention to the floor this time. He spotted the rune of another magic circle, and in deference to Cozy’s concerns carefully stepped around it rather than chance activating it.

The entry led to a set of stairs leading further down more than fifty steps, into a broad, square chamber that was maybe fifty feet on a side. Its walls were covered in mosaic, life-sized images of creatures suffering once more – the source of their suffering wasn’t clear, only their agonized poses and the fact that all of them had their shadows stretching away from them and straight up into a thick black cloud that hovered overhead.

The mosaic images on the wall led to an aperture that was shaped like Tirac’s face, fifteen feet tall, mouth once again wide open in a roar. Despite the mouth being open, however, the light of Tirek’s torch couldn’t reach beyond the mouth, stopping at an edge of utter blackness at least as deep as the one that lurked at the entry into Midnight Castle. Directly in front of the blackness was a glowing green rune – but rather than faint, this one was obvious, its glow deep but impossible to miss when contrasted against the sheer darkness in front of it.

Tirek advanced about halfway into the room and then stopped to consider, then walked over to one wall and smacked it with his free hand, shattering the mosaic. He picked up a piece and tossed it at the darkness and watched as seemed to hit something physical and simply disappear. It didn’t pass beyond or into the darkness – it simply vanished the moment it touched its edge.

Cozy swallowed. “Uh…good catch, Tirek.”

“Indeed,” Tirek agreed, considering. He held out his free hand and conjured up an orb of light once more, and wasn’t surprised when the rune flared up and green lines started tracing out from it and towards him. He dispelled the orb, and the lines disappeared.

“Just like the entry,” Cozy said as she took to the air, rubbing her chin with one hoof. “Gonna have to blast it again…which means using up more of your power.”

“Except that the barrier at the entrance merely repelled intruders,” Tirek said. “This annihilates them. That means far more magic will be required.” Tirek glanced at one hand, and clenched it into a fist, watching the muscles of his arm tense. “Power has a price…and we no doubt will soon have those other arrivals to the castle to deal with…”

Cozy clapped her hooves together. “Ooh! Or…we could bean two birds with one stone! Remember atop Mount Everhoof, when you took Chrysalis’ magic to get through that shield? Well, why not do it here, to those other invaders?”

Tirek rubbed at his beard. “Yes…only this time, I won’t be giving anything back.”


The darkness that enveloped the entryway to Midnight Castle gave way before Glory Pose’s horn-light, but it seemed to do so only reluctantly, seeming to linger for a moment longer than it should have before the light. After just twenty feet, however, the clinging darkness gave way entirely, revealing a great entry hall supported by four massive columns that stretched up to a vaulted ceiling. Thick cobwebs hung between the columns, while iron sconces contained unlit torches.

They’d entered from the west. To the north was a wide staircase the climbed up into the darkness. East was a set of wide brass doors, one of them open but the room beyond too dark to see in. South was another set of brass doors, these ones shut tight. The rim of the vaulted ceiling, meanwhile, had eight stone gargoyles perched around it and leering down at them; Dash couldn’t help but want to keep her eyes on them. At least Daring did as well. She held out a hoof to stop the herd once they reached the edge of the entry hall.

“If I was a trap…” Daring mumbled., then beat her wings and took off towards the statues. Dash hung back, stepping out of the way of Caballeron and his goon squad as they came up behind Glory.

Caballeron glanced around at the floor, then up at Daring. “You see something?”

“Not yet, just being cautious,” Daring called down. “Check the floor, I noticed something off about it.”

Dash looked down, but all she saw was dusty stone tiles fitted tightly together. Caballeron risked getting a little closer, leaning down and inspecting the floor closely, with Glory brightening her horn for additional light.

Dash shook her head after a moment. “What are we looking for? Tripwires? Pressure plates?”

“No, not that…” Daring was hanging onto one gargoyle and glanced down at the floor. Her eyes widened. “Hoof-prints. I can see them better from up here.”

The group shifted their focus, and Dash saw what Daring had: broad imprints in the dust. The prints were cloven, unlike a pony’s hoof, and huge, at least twice as big around as Dash’s own hoof, or even Rogue’s, the biggest of Caballeron’s goons. The prints led east, to the open brass door.

“What made those?” Glory asked.

Caballeron scratched at his chin. “Something with cloven hooves…a centaur, I imagine, given where we are. Perhaps a minotaur…”

“Maybe,” Daring said. She’d finished looking over the last gargoyle, and gave it a tap. “These are just statues. Should be safe to move forward…” she tested that herself by gliding down and landing in the middle of the entry, between the four columns, but nothing happened even when she pranced in place a few times.

The rest of the group came forward, and Caballeron pointed to the sconces as he looked to his henchponies. “Biff, Withers, get some torches into those, give us more light. Rogue, set up our tents. We’ll make this spot our base camp. It could take days to search just the upper levels of this castle, nevermind the caverns beneath us.”

“Days?” Daring asked, smirking. “I could search all the top levels in an afternoon.”

“By all means, do so,” Caballeron didn’t look directly at Daring as he spoke, instead helping Rogue unpack their tents. “You can feel free to set off every trap in this castle. Luck runs out, my friend, and the odds are on my side that sooner or later some poison spike or falling rock will finally put you out of my misery.”

“Keep dreaming,” Dash retorted, bumping a hoof with Daring in support.

“Also,” Glory put in, “there’s still whoever or whatever was shooting fireballs at us. Maybe Cilia was right about focusing on that first…” She narrowed her eyes at Daring. “Do you really want to face whatever was throwing fireballs big enough to take down an airship alone?”

Daring shrugged. “Maybe they just knew that Caballeron was coming.” She looked behind her, at the hoof-prints in the dirt. “Gonna go out on a limb and say it was a centaur. Someone trying to follow in Tirac’s hoofsteps.”

Glory paled, tail reflexively covering one flank’s cutie mark. “Or Tirek’s…”

Dash had to suppress a grimace of her own at the memory of the ancient centaur’s rampage a few years back. Glory must have been a victim of his, not that Dash was surprised to learn that – he’d taken the magic of every pony in Equestria, after all.

Daring had, meanwhile, gone over to Biff and taken one of the torches he had just lit from its iron sconce, ignoring his protests as she came up to Dash. “Let’s at least check out the nearby rooms,” she said, holding out the torch.

Dash took it in both hooves. “You really think some centaur is trying to become the next Tirek? Or Tirac, or…don’t centaurs have other names?”

“A few,” Daring chuckled as the two trotted south. “And…I don’t know. I hope not…but something didn’t want us to come here.” She smiled. “Though, I wouldn’t worry. We were sitting ducks once we crashed but they stopped firing. I’m going to guess whoever they were, they ran out of power.”

The two continued south for a few dozen feet, the torchlight fluttering against the shadows of the vaulted hall they traveled down. Another set of brass double doors greeted them on the western wall at the end, while in the east was a narrow hallway leading to a set of spiral stairs that curved both up and down. Daring went to the door, looking it over carefully before finally pushing it open a few inches, then, when nothing happened, opening it the rest of the way.

Pillars of stone supported the ceiling of the enormous chamber beyond, with a long and heavy-looking stone table sitting in the center, stretching back into the darkness beyond the torch’s light.

“Dining room,” Dash noted. “Huh…you kinda’ forget that even evil overlords have to eat.”

“Doubt there’s anything edible left in any pantry,” Daring said as the two trotted in, looking around. Dash noticed chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, and flew up to them. They were covered in cobwebs, but unlit candles also lay within a few of them still; she set them alight, burning away the cobwebs in the process. The increased light pushed back at the omnipresent darkness, revealing the chamber more fully – in particular, to a massive pipe organ that sat at its far end.

“You’re kidding,” Dash said as she flew over to the organ, Daring joining her. “So Tirac wasn’t even pretending to not be, like, the evilest overlord ever.”

“Guess not,” Daring agreed. She eyed Dash. “Do me a favor and please don’t try and play it.”

“I’ve read too many of your books,” Dash assured her. Daring nodded, looking around the chamber for a few moments but finding nothing. The two pegasi went back out into the hall, and Daring pointed towards the spiral stairs.

“Since this is the dining room,” she indicated the room they’d come out of, “those will lead to the kitchens, pantry, all that stuff. The Sun Stone won’t be there.”

“It might be in a hidden vault that you could only access from there, though,” Dash pointed out.

“Maybe.” She shook her head. “I don’t know enough about Scorpan to even begin to guess where he might have hidden it, and that’s before we remember that he apparently went insane. Still, probably not. Caballeron can search down that way.”

The two went back to the main hall – Dash briefly considered recommending their camp be moved to the dining room, but then decided being based near to the exit was probably a better idea. The great brass doors in the east, one of which hung open, revealed a grand hall that was positively choked with dust and stretched on into darkness beyond the torch’s light. Life-sized statues of centaur and gargoyle warriors lined the hallway as far as the light stretched, each of them glaring down at whoever walked down the hallway, and bedecked in armor covered in spikes.

“I honestly think that Nightmare Moon was more subtle,” Dash said.

Daring didn’t respond, instead studying the floor and the hoof-prints that traced their way down the hall, then spending a few minutes checking up and down the door’s edges before tentatively stepping out a few paces into the hallway. Once again, no traps were set off, and she waved Dash forward as she took to the air.

Dash followed Daring, though she also made sure to pay attention to then hoof-steps. “You’re sure that the Sun Stone only glowed and was warm?” She asked. “Because whoever this centaur is, they’re going through a lot of effort to protect it.”

“Positive,” Daring said. “I guess it could probably be used as some sort of focus for magic, but I can think of a half-dozen artifacts that would be better and easier to access. More likely this is some centaur who wants to try and plunder this place for Tirac’s magical secrets.” She whickered in annoyance. “I wish the centaurs were more open to outsiders, might at least know what we’re up against…”

They flew seventy feet, eventually arriving at another set of brass doors, both of these open and revealing a massive chamber – the torch’s light didn’t reveal any far walls. After once again thoroughly checking for traps, the two advanced inwards – keeping to the air – and spotted a short set of stairs leading up to a raised dais forty feet into the room, atop which sat an obsidian black altar, and tall, stained glass windows another ten feet beyond that, though no light of any sort came in from the outside.

The stained glass depicted scenes of a great black centaur with broad horns looming over a dune sea. His arms were spread wide, while stretching out from him were vast shadows that touched the far corners of the desert. Centaurs, gargoyles, and even some horses were depicted bowing to the centaur, while behind and above the black centaur was a vast black cloud with tendrils that wrapped around his wrists and horns.

“Rainbow Dash,” Daring said, “meet Tirac, the Lord of Midnight Castle.”

“And one-hundred-and-twenty percent a very bad creature,” Dash noted. “What happened to him? Like…there’s no chance of running into him or awakening him or something is there?”

“Don’t want to say ‘no chance’ and jinx it,” Daring answered, which was emphatically not the answer that Dash had wanted to here. But she then shook her head. “But as far as I know, when he was overthrown, the creatures who did it made it pretty permanent.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought about Sombra.” Dash scowled. “Never did figure out how he came back a second time. I really hope Twilight’s looking into that.”

The two explored the chamber’s edges, and found along its southwest wall another, far larger set of spiraling stairs that again stretched both up and down into darkness. The northwest, meanwhile, had an alcove with more mundane stairs that only went upwards.

“We’re exploring up first, right?” Dash asked. “What was it you said in one of your books…any ruin can only have so much up but could go down forever, so it’s best to start at the top and work your way down?”

“Normally, yes,” Daring said, pointing down at the dust-covered floor, and the hoofprints there. She followed them back to the southwest spiraling stairs – and the fact that they were heading down. “But I’m pretty sure that whoever was attacking us is down there. We should deal with that sooner rather than later.”

Dash nodded, following Daring as the two once again headed back to the camp. By now several tents had been set up, bedrolls already lain out inside of them, and Caballeron had even lain out a collapsible table and had pencils, papers, and rulers on it.

He slid over a piece of paper and pencil as Daring got close. “Care to do the honors?”

Daring nodded, taking the pencil into her mouth and starting to sketch out a rough map of what she and Dash had explored. Dash, meanwhile, flew up to the edge of the hallway and landed in front of the exit, still holding the torch aloft in one hoof. She frowned at the fact that the darkness that surrounded the entrance was an insistent thing, reacting to the torch’s fire like it was far dimmer than it was supposed to be.

“Maybe Scorpan just wanted a light for this place,” she mused, turning back around and setting the torch into an empty sconce that had been saved for it.

“You think that Scorpan took one of the legendary treasures of the pre-classical era because he wanted a flashlight?” Glory Pose demanded, glaring up at Dash.

Dash glared back. “Hey, at the time it wasn’t the pre-whatever anything.” She crossed her hooves. “Maybe Sun Stones were a jangle a dozen back then! You don’t know.”

“As a matter of fact I do know,” Glory insisted. “The Sun Stone is a one-of-a-kind artifact, a tiny shard of the Sun itself according to myth and a gemstone beyond compare. Those don’t just grow on trees.”

“Of course not, gems grow in the ground,” Dash deadpanned. “Duh, everypony knows that.”

Glory’s eye twitched. “Are you being obtuse on purpose?”

“Maybe!” Absolutely, actually, but frankly Dash was enjoying Glory’s sour mood. It was the least that the traitor deserved. The unicorn’s eye twitched again, and she stuck up her nose and stomped over to the table where Daring had finished drawing out her rough match of what they’d found so far.

Daring tapped the location of the great spiral stairs down. “We should go and deal with the centaur-or-whatever,” Daring said. “Maybe there’s a way we can talk them out of…whatever they’re going to do. If not, better to face them head-on then whenever they want to attack us.”

“I agree,” Caballeron said, putting a hoof to his chin as he considered. He looked to his goon squad. “Biff, Withers, Rogue, remain here and guard the camp. Keep Miss Glory Pose safe. I shall go with Daring and Dash to deal with our intruder.”

Glory’s eyes widened. “Wh…Doctor Caballeron, trusting Daring Do out in the desert was one thing, but you want to head off with her and her thug alone?

Dash looked over to the other three thugs with a smirk. “Hey, I’m in your club now.”

“I’m not a thug,” Biff insisted.

“It is of no concern, Miss Pose,” Caballeron insisted, waving a hoof at Daring even as he smiled at Glory. “Miss Do is far too honorable and upstanding to try anything, as is her companion. But your worry is appreciated.”

“I’m not…” Glory began, but checked herself. “Well, that’s not entirely the problem. The problem is, what if you find the Sun Stone down there? Two pegasi, one of them a Wonderbolt? She’ll get the Sun Stone and then all of this will have been for nothing!”

“An unfortunate risk, though I wouldn’t concern yourself too much. I have been facing off against Daring for years now – I have some tricks up my sleeves as well.”

“No.” Glory stomped a hoof on the floor. “I came along to protect my investments in this venture, and I’m not stopping now. I’m coming with you.”

Caballeron’s eyes grew wide. “What? No, Miss Pose, it’s too dangerous, you are not used to – ”

“I insist,” Glory glared hard at him, then turned her gaze to Daring. “I am well able to protect myself, I have taken self-defense courses. I trust you will raise no objections?”

Daring sighed, taking off her pith helmet and rubbing her face. “Fine. Two rules: you step where I step and you don’t touch anything. Otherwise we can all just sit here and wait to be attacked – it’ll be safer.”

Glory looked to Caballeron, who looked more than a little nonplussed, but he finally relented and nodded in recognition of a losing argument. The unicorn herself nodded to Daring. Dash, meanwhile, suppressed a groan of annoyance. Sure, Caballeron was a potentially dangerous villain, but he was at least experienced with this whole adventure thing, same as she was. Dash didn’t doubt for a second that Glory was going to make a huge mistake at some point that would put them all in danger.

Daring seemed to feel the same way, but likewise seemed determined to get a move on already – the Sun Stone wasn’t going to find itself, after all. “Okay. Dash, you’re still on torch duty; Glory, you’ll be providing light as well. I take point and look for traps, Caballeron does the heavy lifting. Goon squad – ”

Hey!

“ – guard the camp.” She half-turned, but then quickly came around again. “Oh, and there’s a dining room with a pipe organ that way, don’t play it, Withers.

The hench-pony raised his hooves. “You ring one gong…”

“You summon up one spectral army…” Rogue countered.

“Worst. Hearth’s Warming. Ever,” Biff agreed.

Glory’s eyes widened, but she couldn’t voice anything before Dash was already herding her along and after Caballeron and Daring after retrieving a torch once more. The two quickly caught up and fell in behind the more seasoned dungeon-delvers, making their way down the hallway of creepy statues and into what Dash was thinking of as the Chamber of Maximum Evil Overlordness. She didn’t want to think of what that altar – just visible from the entrance now that there were two sources of light – had once been used for, but it was wide and broad enough that old Tirac had probably had only a few things in mind, none of them good.

Still, nothing impaired their progress to the spiraling stairs, and so down they started to go. Dash had to admit to the tiniest bit of nervousness at this. After all, she was a pegasus, and she was putting dozens of feet of solid rock between her and the sky. Even with a roof overhead, it was one thing to be just inside, like she was in the castle. Now she was underground…and no pegasus liked being cramped up.

But she managed to keep herself cool, of course, and focused just on the path ahead and the passage that lead down, down, down and into the dungeons below. After what had to have been at least a couple hundred feet, the stairs at last stopped, revealing a wide, broad chamber beyond, too large for the light of even Glory’s horn and Dash’s torch to illuminate its far walls. Ten-foot-wide pillars spaced evenly as far as they could see supported a roof overhead, while the floor…

…the floor was covered with broken statuary, which looked like it had first been torn from the pillars. Arms and legs and tails and wings and heads made of stone littered the ground, the faces of the statues all blank and expressionless.

“Huh,” Dash said. “Wonder why these statues are broken but the ones upstairs aren’t…also anypony smell strawberries?”

“I do,” Glory put in, sniffing. “Smells like some foal’s perfume…”

“I doubt it.” Dash deadpanned. Glory shot her a glare, but Dash just returned it.

Daring, meanwhile, stopped them at the edge of the chamber, squinting down at the floor. “Trap,” she said at length, pointing. “There’s a rune here, see the green glow?”

“Barely,” Caballeron said, but nodded. “Hmm, a magical trap. I always prefer the mechanical ones…much easier to circumvent.” He joined Daring on the floor as the two looked the trap over. “There are fainter runes connected to this one, they form a circle…”

“I see it,” Daring said, and frowned as she scooted just a little closer. “The main rune’s been scratched…not enough to disable it. The scratch looks recent.” She eyed the rune, then the broken statues beyond. “And…I think I know why those statues are broken.”

Dash looked to the rune, then out at the statues. “Huh, something that activates golems or something? That’s pretty cool.”

Daring walked to the far edge of the entry, right up to the wall and outside the edge of the rune circle. She grimaced as she stuck a hoof out beyond the edge, then when nothing happened stepped out entirely. After a few moments of nothing out of the ordinary occurring, she waved everypony else forward, looking at Glory in particular. But Glory did as Daring had told her, stepping exactly where the adventurer had and keeping well clear of the magic circle.

Soon the four were in the vast chamber, looking around. “So where to now?” Dash asked, looking closely at the ground. She thought she saw the outline of giant hoofprints in the dust, but couldn’t make heads or tails of them.

Daring looked similarly unsure. “Our centaur buddy was definitely fighting these golems from the looks of things. So…that means he’s an invader, same as us. Good to know…” She shrugged. “The hoof-prints are too chaotic, I can’t tell where they went. Let’s look for an exit and see if they made it.”

“Should we be perhaps concerned that the centaur was able to defeat all of these?” Caballeron asked as they set off, following the wall north. There were golems – pieces of them, anyway – wherever they went.

“We should,” Daring agreed. “We really should. But the alternative is going back to Istanbull and asking to borrow an army from the Sultan, and he still doesn’t like either of us.”

Caballeron grinned. “Emira Numnah asked after you, by the way. I think she agreed to my bribe and provided as much aid as she did only as a means of getting your attention.”

“Well it worked,” Daring groused.

More of that never-before-told adventure?” Dash asked. “Wait, what does Caballeron mean that Numnah was trying to get your attention? Why does she want your attention if she doesn’t like you?”

Only silence greeted Dash for several seconds afterwards, with Daring, Caballeron, and Glory all pausing in their trots to look at her. She stared back. “What?”

Finally, Glory looked to Daring. “These books that A.K. Yearling writes for you…what’s their age range?”

“What does that have to do with anything?” Dash demanded.

Daring didn’t respond to Glory’s question, leaving Dash with little choice but to mumble to herself as the small herd continued onwards. In addition to the pieces of golems on the ground, the four saw the occasional scorch mark or broken stone or cracked pillar. The scorch marks were cool to the touch, but that didn’t mean much on its own. Finally, they came to a northern wall, and following it led to another gap guarded by yet another magical rune.

Daring peered at it and past it, then shook her head. “I don’t see any tracks – I don’t think our centaur went this way.”

“Is there any way to disable the traps?” Caballeron asked as the quartet moved around it. “If we break the circle of runes, that should simplify things for us, yes?”

“Yes,” Daring agreed, “but in my experience there’s also a one-in-ten chance that it’ll explode. You want to roll those dice?”

Caballeron grimaced. “I defer to your expertise.”

Daring nodded. They came to another wall and once again started following it, eventually coming on yet another exit – this one grand in construction, easily thirty feet across and leading back to a set of stairs that went down and out of sight, flanked by two kneeling reliefs of gargoyles carved into the wall. Another relief overhead displayed an image of Tirac looming over the two gargoyles, mouth open in a silent roar despite his face appearing completely passive. The flickering torchlight did not aid in the creepy look to the carvings, nor did the blue glow of Glory’s telekinesis.

But Daring nodded as she pointed down at the dust in the ground. “Tracks,” she noted, pointing them out. “Heading straight…our centaur went this way.”

The four of them almost began the process of going around the magic circle, but then Daring stopped them again, ears perked up and forward. Straining her own ears, Dash heard the sound of heavy hoofsteps coming up from the stairs.

“Centaur!” She said, though she had the presence of mind to keep her voice low.

Daring nodded. She grabbed the torch from Dash’s hooves and stuck her helmet on top of it, smothering its flame. Glory took the hint and quelled her own horn-light down to the bare minimum needed for the four to see each other.

To Dash’s surprise, Daring then looked to Caballeron. “I’ll defer to your expertise,” she whispered. Then again, Dash supposed that Caballeron was more used to working in groups.

The earth pony glanced around himself. “Miss Glory, over there,” he said, pointing to a pillar a dozen feet away. “Wait for our signal. The signal will be the three of us attacking.” He turned to the two pegasi. “Behind two pillars on opposite sides…those ones,” He pointed to two pillars twenty feet back from the entry. “Stay on the ground until I move, don’t want to risk the centaur hearing your wingbeats. I’ll go low. You go high.” He smiled. “But perhaps I can charm them?”

Daring glanced around at the wrecked golems. “Charm runs out too,” she said, then tapped Dash on the withers. Dash nodded, moving as quietly as possible to the pillar Caballeron had indicated, Daring moving to the opposite one. Caballeron took a pillar an extra ten feet back, so that when Daring and Dash moved, they’d be behind the centaur.

Dash hunkered down in the darkness and waited. The remains of a centaur golem were next to her, providing additional cover; she chanced glancing out and in the direction of the entry. Torchlight could now be seen coming up from the stairs, the orange flickering light adding a whole additional layer of menace to the sound of the advancing centaur hooves, heavy beats from broad cloven hooves that just didn’t sound right to pony ears.

After what seemed like forever, the actual flames of the torch came into view…followed by the red hand that clutched the torch and held it high. Then the black horns…and then a face that Rainbow Dash recognized.

Dash’s jaw dropped, and she felt her blood running cold.

That was Tirek.

That was Lord Tirek.

Tirek, who had once fought Twilight Sparkle channeling the power of all four alicorns, to a draw.

That was a thousand-year-old pure evil villain who was supposed to be in Tartaros. Thousands of miles away and locked up so that he couldn’t harm any creature again.

But how…?

And then, from behind him, somepony small and pink with blue hair flew up, hovering beside him with her hooves folded behind her back.

“Excuse me! We know you’re here! We were waiting for you! So…could you please come out and play? Pretty please?

Cozy Glow smiled a smile that was full of teeth and malevolence into the darkness, and giggled. “Pretty please, with a cherry on top?”