//------------------------------// // Chapter 6 // Story: Secret of the Pies // by Player 4 //------------------------------// They land their hooves back onto the ground they came from, and now it's time for them to undergo the second step of this mysterious voice's quest. "So the note says we need to go to the back room, which, it must be right over there, since this has to be the front room.", Pinkie says, pointing down the hall to a seemingly completely black area of the temple behind a doorless, round-top entry way. "Yep. And then we need to go upstairs, to temple number 145, which is red.", Maud continues. "Let's go!", Pinkie says. The room behind the starting point of their portal journey did not turn out to be pitch-black, but it was significantly darker than the previous room. The creepy change gave Pinkie a ghostly feeling that whatever alternate universes lie behind these back-room portals were even scarier. And that's not a good prospect for her to be faced with, when she was just exposed to a world destroyed by climate change. Pinkie and Maud find a corner-placed, enclosed, circling staircase in the darker temple room, where they take themselves up to the rectangular loft along the wall that houses the higher row of portals. The portals are numbered by left-to-right, bottom-to-top, and the first room went up to 80. This room appeared to be the same size as the last, so portal 145 must be on the top right. Looking over in that direction, the ponies can see a bright red light shining from that exact area, so they head over. And their eyes were correct. In front of them stood the red swirl with "#145" engraved on a gold plaque above. "Alright, so this is the portal. Let's go in.", Maud says. Maud and her sister now having prior experience with portals, they're not afraid to jump in this time, and they remember to optimally position their landing on their way out. So, what's behind portal 145? Well, Pinkie and Maud are about to find out by the method of direct exposure to the world that awaits them. After successfully landing on their hooves and giving each other a high-hoof for the accomplishment, they give their surroundings a first look, and notice they had landed by a large tree with dark-green leaves; a tree that, as they quickly found out, is just one of many. They were in a forest. But, upon suddenly hearing a noise that sounded like nothing short of a deep-throated growl, they knew this was not just any old forest. This is further confirmed when, upon looking in front of them, they see ponies, but ponies that look... different. In a wide variety of different, but overall different from the ponies they know. There's one pony who has long fangs. Another one has a mane and tail made of fire. One looks like a hybrid of pony and timberwolf. Despite their scary appearance, though, Pinkie and Maud's senses didn't signal any danger, nor did they see any. None of the monsters were making an attempt to attack them or anything of the sort. They were just going about their days. That is, until one local noticed the stand-out ponies and suddenly appeared in front of their eyes with a frightening-sounding greeting. "Hello. Welcome to Monster Pony Equestria. Hiss...", a pony with a snake tongue and tail, but body of a pony, says. That's what Pinkie and Maud thought this creature was. But what they didn't know is that Pinkie leaping into her sister's arms again wasn't necessary, which they can infer from the monster's calm behavior. He was wearing a smile, and standing there. Not charging at them in any way, shape or form. "Uh... hi.", Pinkie says in un-Pinkie like fashion, landing back on the ground. "Why... why aren't you attacking us?" If the snake pony wasn't ever used to this. "Oh... We are not those kinds of monsters. We may look and ssound scary, and I will say that we engage in a lot of violent sportsss... but we are friendly. We even have our own Elements of Harmony in this universssse..." Another Elements of Harmony? Well, that's another long-lasting theory confirmed. Pinkie would love to explore more of these alternate universes and see how many of them also have Elements of Harmony. But, like helping the flooded Equestria, it would have to wait until later. "Wow, that's awesome! We come from a place with Elements of Harmony as well.", Pinkie says. "Nice to meet you, too!" She shakes the snake pony's hoof. "Same. You really are friendly.", Maud continues. She then re-tells the relevant story. "What we're here for is that we're on a big journey, and a mysterious voice from a temple of portals we just came from laid out steps for us, in that we have to go to one alternate universe to find a paper note that contains the next step, for which universe to go to next." "Ooh, sssounds interesssting! Hiss...", the snake pony says. "Good luck on your journey." "And I think I can help you. You say you are looking for a paper note; I just saw one close to that river over there." The snake pony points to a vibrantly blue river under a sky-covering cluster of big trees located to the east of where Pinkie and Maud are standing; a river they hadn't noticed before. "Oh, really? You saw one just over there? Thanks so much!", Pinkie exclaims. "Where do we find it?" "It is in a glass bottle and floating on a raft. You can't see it right now as the river moved it away.", the snake pony responds. "But do not worry; it is a very short river that loops back around, so the note will soon be back for you to pick up. Hisss..." Pinkie and Maud look at each other. A short river that doesn't connect to an ocean? Count them lucky on that! "Alright! Let's go over there then! Thanks so much for the help!", Pinkie beams. "Hiss... no problem, little ponies. You seem very nice, and you, the gray one, talked about this 'temple of portals', so if you want to come back here sometime, you would be welcome." "I think we will come back someday! So long!", Pinkie says, as the snake pony slithers back into his burrow. "Alright. Let's go to that river.", Maud says. They walk over a few meters east of their starting tree through a pathway, where the very clean-looking creek can be found, very much under an even darker shade of trees than before. This place was a jungle if there ever was one. "Now we just wait for the raft!", Pinkie says. Not many minutes of waiting were necessary; the snake pony was right about the river being short in length and looping back around, as the brown wooden raft containing nothing on it except a clear glass bottle holding a paper note that perfectly resembles the previous notes; this has to be what they are looking for. Pinkie grabs the bottle, and being Pinkie, needs hardly any effort to pop the cork off. She turns the bottle upside down to free the note, and unrolls it. Step 3 Go through the door at the end of the room this red portal was in, take a left down that hall, then left again into a new room. Once in that room, go upstairs, and search for temple 235, which is yellow. "Alright! Temple 235, yellow!", Pinkie says. "Back we go!" With the red portal having been respawned by the magic of collecting the next note, they wave goodbye to Monster Pony Equestria and yet again return to the temple. They're back, and this time, they've got a river of thoughts running through their mind. "Maud, I'm really happy all these unfamiliar creatures in these unfamiliar universes we're encountering and had never heard of before are all so friendly!", Pinkie says. "I know.", Maud says. "You would think that with all these alternates, there has to, somewhere in this temple, be an Equestria where everypony lives in disharmony." "Yikes! I sure hope we don't have to go there!", Pinkie responds. Maud has an idea of what's going on that may support the cautious optimism that led to them even deciding to go to these places at all. "Maybe whoever was talking to us intentionally chose only nice universes. I mean, not nice as in it's a good place to live, we went to that flooded Equestria, but nice as in the creatures are peaceful." "Oh yeah, maybe you're right!", Pinkie says. "And so far, it's only gotten better, even! Unlike the flooded Equestria, where we went to first, Monster Pony Equestria actually looks like a good place to live!" "It sure does. Because they have a usable ground there.", Maud says. Pinkie giggles at Maud's uncharacteristic humor again, but that session got quickly interrupted by the deep thinking that she now spearheaded out of Maud's comment. I think Maud is right. If this mysterious voice is evil, why isn't she sending us to evil places? With these portals all leading to alternate universes and there being so many of them, well, as Maud said, there have to be portals here that lead to the worst Equestrias imaginable. But we've been taken to two out of two places that have me wanting to go back and visit them again. Pinkie's mind wanted to counter this with the idea that the creature behind the voice is tricking them; setting them up for a perfect chance to do something evil by making them think they're safe. But she then quickly argued against that by the fact that the mystery creature's choice of universe to put that second note in led to Pinkie finding another place where she could use her element. (The flooded Equestria.) And if this mysterious being knows who she and Maud are, as she told them when they first arrived here, she must know about what Pinkie's personality is. So if this mystery creature was evil, she'd be a fool to take Pinkie to a world that desperately needs help. So Pinkie feels confident that she and Maud are safe. Pinkie and Maud walked in the temple following the directions during the process of those thoughts, and as a result, they have now made it to the yellow portal 235. Here's time for universe #3; off they go! Behind the yellow portal, Pinkie and Maud are hit with a surprise when they don't have any need to time their landing right... at all. They don't even get flung up or anything. They slid right out of the portal in a straight line, and... they're floating. Completely suspended in the air. And when they look at their surroundings, it's nothing but sky. A yellow pony, who looks no different in species from them, walks up to offer help, continuing the sweet pattern. "Hi. You two new to our world? You look confused.", the yellow stallion says. "Yeah. We totally are.", Pinkie responds. "We're used to... uh, having gravity and such. And... wait, how did you know we came from a different world?" The stallion lightly giggles. "Good questions, ponies." "I shall explain.", he continues. "First off, we are Equestria, but we are a zero-gravity Equestria. Everything in this world takes place in the air. Grocery stores, friend meet-ups, schools, jobs, everything.", he says, pointing to examples of each of those four air-suspended things he spoke of. "As for how I know about all this alternate universe business, I have explored other Equestrias myself. We have a 'temple of portals' on this world, where you can, from one place, access about 250 of them!" Pinkie and Maud snapped their heads to look at each other faster than you could say "Suspicions confirmed!" "Temple of portals? We came from one of those places!", Pinkie exclaims. Maud nods, confirming Pinkie's statement. "That's what I thought.", the zero-gravity stallion responds. With Pinkie mentioning how they got to this universe that's unfamiliar to them, Maud now must give the backstory for a third time. "The reason we're here is because we're on a journey, and we were assigned by a hidden voice to go to a couple of different universes of her choice to pick up notes, one in each universe, that will tell us where to go next." "Ooh. So that must be why there's a paper note moving all by itself over there.", the stallion says, pointing east. Pinkie and Maud look over; there is indeed a brown paper note there, completely on its own. It's not being manipulated by any visible creature, yet it's still behaving like a crazy bird, flying forward, backward, and sideways. "I guess you'll have to catch it.", the stallion says. Pinkie, with her randomness and craziness, doesn't take long to do so. It would also appear that she has zero-gravity movement totally figured out already. She zips over, snags the note, and unrolls it as she floats back to Maud. Step 4 Simply go a few portals down where you already were, for portal 243. That portal is lime-green in color. The yellow portal respawned, they say goodbye to Zero-Gravity Equestria, head back into the portal, and once back in the temple, just a few doors down to go straight into the next one. On the other side of the lime-green portal was an Equestria covered in a vast global ocean, and with any and all land activity taking place on numerous small islands that don't stay in place. They constantly float around, sometimes bumping into each other. But other than that, it seemed like a really cool, really fun place. It was a tropical world, bathed in sunny warmth, decorated in palm trees, and appropriately featuring a multitude of ponies wearing sunglasses while drinking out of lemon-decorated glasses. Said glasses have little umbrellas in them too, for a classic look. What an eventful time going to all these universes! Most of them were really neat-looking places filled with friendly ponies; even the residents of the dystopian flooded Equestria were nice. And with Pinkie's efforts, that world could be given help in the not-so-distant future. Pinkie and Maud especially wanted to stay in this floating-island world, much like how they didn't want to leave the flooded Equestria. This place was totally inviting them to take a tropical vacation. But now is not the time. A resident directs them back onto their path, by pointing at a brown note sitting at the top of a palm tree, and little did Pinkie and Maud know, this was the most notable note (pun intended) out of them all. Step 5 Congratulations! You have collected all five notes! Because you have done so, you have now unlocked a new portal. There are normally 250 portals in the entire temple, but now, I have created a portal 251. And for you to find the thing you went on this adventure for, you will need to enter portal 251. To get there, return to the first room of the temple, stand in the center of the hall, and say this line: "Temple of portals, temple of portals. Bring us to the gold." You will then feel a tremor, then a part of the wall will sink into the ground. After the wall sinks, a large flash of golden light can then be seen from where are you standing. Simply follow the light, and behind the golden portal is where your destination lies. Pinkie and Maud had a long look into each other's eyes, and then Pinkie squeed in accomplishment-generated excitement. They couldn't compose words at this news. A hidden Portal 251? The portal that will lead to them to the giant thing they started this adventure for? And all they had to do for it to appear was recite a line? They are off. All they could do was eagerly head back to the place to do so, saying nothing to the residents of Floating Islands Equestria except a classic goodbye. The sisters run at a high speed back to the point in the temple where they can then give themselves access to their destination. Eee! We're finally gonna find out!, Pinkie thinks to herself. She and Maud, in absolutely no wasted time, reach the familiar main room they started this portal journey in. They position themselves in the center, and, through high-energy shivering at the prospect of this mystery being solved, perform the command that will hopefully show them this golden portal. "Temple of portals. Temple of portals. Bring us to the gold.", the sisters say in unison. Sure enough, a tremor occurs. Pinkie knew it was going to happen, but it suddenly hit at such a strong magnitude that she jumped into Maud's arms anyway. Lol. The temple shakes more and more, to the point of Pinkie and Maud hearing the loud, rumbling sound of a wall sinking. Exactly what they were looking for. After the sinking noise reaches its end and the chaos dissipates, they can now see the shining side beams of a golden-colored light. The mysterious voice was right. Pinkie and Maud could sense gold behind that gold, just waiting for them to collect it. If the mysterious voice is further telling the truth with what they said in the last note, behind that portal is where Pinkie and Maud will have it revealed to them who their original parents are and where all their randomness and craziness comes from. Here comes another thought that Pinkie was thinking pre-temple, and now believes she has evidence to support. "Maud, I was thinking a while ago, do you think it's possible that one or both of our parents might be a draconeqqus, like Discord?", she says. "I mean, as far as we know, they're the only other creatures that can do things like we can, and we're the only ponies who can do them, so..." "That does make sense.", Maud replies. "The problem with that theory being that all the evidence we have tells us that Discord is the only draconeqqus in existence." "That's what I was thinking too, but, remember what all we just went through here.", Pinkie says. "The mysterious voice that knows who are are and why we're here, was also then able to just... put all of those notes in four different universes like that. And in case of the zero-gravity one, making them do weird things like flying around on their own." "And then a creature who has some special kind of oversight over this temple and the places it leads to. I mean, they were able to just create a whole new portal." "A draconeqqus seems to be the only species that could do such things." Maud taps her hoof to her chin. Pinkie does have a compelling argument. And while she's at it, there seems to be something else fishy about this whole thing. Okay, well, assuming it is a draconeqqus that is behind this, well, we know that they can know about us and why we're here, but the question is... why? Why exactly, is this creature helping Pinkie and I out? What's her motivation? It doesn't seem like the existence of this temple is very well-known, and I've never heard of anypony else using it, so we are very likely getting special attention somehow. Maud connects the dots, and her brain leads her to a point where she could gasp as wide as Pinkie does sometimes. Could the creature with this hidden voice be... our mother?, Maud thinks to herself. She looks back at the shining golden light behind the darkness. Well, there's only one way to find out. Pinkie and Maud, still heavily trembling in anticipation for finally the solving of this deep, life-shaking mystery, walk forward, through the second room again and then back into the connecting hall from before, where that fateful golden light lives. They arrive at the source of the light; the larger-than-average portal brightly shining in fine gold, where the end of this mystery lies on the other side. The sisters take the biggest leap of faith they've ever taken, ever, in their lives.