Fluttershy pushed past mounds of loose rock as she traveled down the wide tunnel that the Singing Mushroom Brothers had directed her towards. If the moles (who lived in Moleville) were this direction, Fluttershy was determined to find them. It sounded like Angel Bunny was in danger and needed rescuing, so despite Fluttershy’s myriad of fears and how dark things had gotten again, she was going deeper and deeper.
“Ouch!” She scuffed her hoof on a sharp rook on the ground she couldn’t see. The entire tunnel was like loose gravel, some of it sliding further down whenever Fluttershy moved and making her worry there would be a rockslide each time. Her helmet light simply didn’t give her enough vision in such a wide tunnel.
It was only gently sloped at least, like going down a gentle hill, so she wasn’t worried about suddenly falling and the trip was pretty easy so far aside from the loose ground. There hadn’t been anything strange again so far like the mushrooms nor had she come across any animals… which after the bats and mosquitoes may have been a good thing. She hadn’t exactly had good luck with the animals down here. Fluttershy sincerely hoped that when it came to these moles too that everything was just a big misunderstanding. Maybe the Mushroom Brothers had been mistaken with what they saw, or maybe Angel Bunny had just done something a little rude and a simple explanation would solve things. She wasn’t sure but she’d get to the bottom of things. Both figuratively and literally.
She just hoped whatever conflict there was could be resolved peacefully. And that nothing else scary would be there on the way to Moleville.
Another stumble over a pile of hoof-sized rocks made Fluttershy pause for a brief moment. It might be better for her to slowly float down the tunnel instead of walk like this. She didn’t want to twist anything. Looking up at the ceiling she saw that it was covered in the expected stalactites, but she should have enough room to fly under them. She’d just have to make sure to keep her flight angled low. Didn’t want to be flying straight and smack her head on one of them.
Fluttershy nodded and flapped her wings to float a couple feet above the gravel floor of the tunnel, but with a curious thought she picked up one last rock from the ground and tossed it into the darkness, down the tunnel. It quickly bounced out of the field of her light and disappeared but she continued to hear it tumble, and tumble, and tumble with more and more rocks being dislodged and sliding down with it. Fluttershy turned her head and put her hoof behind her ear to listen in as best she could, trying to figure out how far this tunnel went. Soon the echoing of the falling rock stopped but it didn’t exactly tell Fluttershy how far it had gone. Just far. She still had quite a ways down to go before she got to Moleville it seemed.
And she didn’t even know if Moleville was at the end of this tunnel or even further below. There could be so much more she had to go through.
“Moleville…” Fluttershy muttered. “I hope it’s straight ahead and I can’t miss it. But what if it’s somewhere where only moles can get to? What if the deeper I go the more like a maze this place becomes and I go past it or get lost? Ohhh, Fluttershy, you’re making yourself worry so much.”
Since she could only go one direction now though she continued flying, pretty much gliding, at a steady descent down the tunnel. The air still flowed well so Fluttershy could breathe easily and she hoped that meant it would keep leading her in the right direction too. While the tunnel was mostly quiet aside from the sound of some shifting rocks, a new noise came from Fluttershy that shattered that silence.
Groan~
Her stomach grumbled and a blush rose to her cheeks. She didn’t realize she had gotten that hungry. “Oh my,” Fluttershy brought her hooves up to hide her face, despite not having anyone to hide from. “How embarrassing… thank Celestia no one was here to hear that.”
It did bring attention to one of her big problems though. She still hadn’t found any food to eat. It was possible there were some edible mushrooms back up there but now the thought of eating them just felt weird. Even if they didn’t sing. Fluttershy would have to look for other sources of food and water as she continued on her journey. There was no turning back. It was just that now she really, really needed that food to come sooner rather than later. Some moss, grass, flowers, anything like that growing down here would do. If she felt like it was nightfall before she had found a source of clean water, Fluttershy figured she might have to chance it with whatever the next source of water she found was.
“It all tastes the same at least, doesn’t it?” She grimaced as she thought about it. “Hopefully those moles are at least being courteous and giving Angel plenty to eat and drink.” Fluttershy smiled. “Of course they must, what kinds of creatures wouldn’t?”
Fluttershy was a cynic in a number of areas but when it came to the innate goodness of others she was most definitely an optimist despite a number of other encounters seemingly trying to prove her otherwise. There was the issue with the Diamond Dogs, and most dragons, and Iron Will, and occasionally her own fellow ponies, but that still didn’t mean she would think the worst of these moles without real proof to. Her cynical side mostly revolved around her own issues and how she seemingly kept finding herself stuck on crazy adventures. And with how her life had gone she figured she had good reason to be cynical in that regard. Of course the good and optimistic parts still far outweighed the bad and cynical, her friendships alone made everything worth it.
With a smile on her face now, Fluttershy easily breezed through he tunnel, no longer worrying over little things. Her hardhat light gave her all the vision she needed as she hummed to herself to pass the time. Maybe it was just coincidence but she felt like her attitude got her to the end of the tunnel faster than if she had just been moping or worrying. Relatively quickly the tunnel leveled off and Fluttershy landed at the “bottom” of it, the ground still made up entirely of loose rocks and gravel but on a straight path now.
“Okay, let’s see what’s ahead,” Fluttershy said to herself as she tucked in her wings and started walking again. It was still just dark right now but she could tell the bottom of the tunnel was slightly narrower than the rest and may have been getting more narrow the further she went. The ceiling with its stalactites was closer to her head too, she didn’t want to risk flying right now.
“Anybody there?” She called into the darkness, purely by habit now.
No response once more.
Fluttershy didn’t let that get her down though, she knew a response was probably unlikely so for now she kept walking until she got to the next part of these caves. Her hardhat light was proving much more useful to her now in the smaller section of tunnel too. She could easily see the ground in front of her and ahead enough to know she wasn’t going to walk into a wall. Every now and then she still stumbled or slipped on some of the loose pebbles below her hooves but she was careful enough not to hurt herself. Things were going decently well for Fluttershy now.
It wasn’t long until she came to the end of this gravelly tunnel either. The walls narrowed together until they were at a point no wider than a double-door and the stalactites trailed off until the ceiling of the tunnel was nice and smooth. Fluttershy stopped at the new “doorway” for a moment instead of just immediately walking ahead, getting her bearings and looking around to see if there was anything significant here. It didn’t seem like it for now so she peaked her head further in and used the light to scan around the next chamber.
She had ended up in a small room of sorts. The pebbles and loose stones that lied all over the tunnel stopped at the entrance and inside was a simple oval chamber of rock. The walls had nothing of note on them, no other passages, nothing unnatural, it was the floor that was the interesting part. In the middle of the chamber there was a hole cut into the floor, clearly with the use of tools, and it went down deeper into the ground. When Fluttershy walked up to it to inspect it further she saw that it wasn’t just an empty hole but the start of a spiral stone staircase that spun down into darkness.
“I wonder if the moles made this?” It was as good a guess as any.
The stairs looked like they were enclosed by a wall of rock on all sides for at least a little while, but Fluttershy couldn’t really see too far into it from the top to make sure. All of the steps were totally solid at least, not only were there not spaces between them but she didn’t see any cracked or broken either. Fluttershy still fidgeted before them for a moment though. These had to lead to Moleville and there was nowhere else to go but she was still apprehensive about them. It was the first thing down here she had come across that was without a doubt not a natural formation and built with a purpose. Somehow… Fluttershy just felt like her little underground adventure might be taking a new turn.
It was impossible to tall how far down the stairs went too. They could’ve merely made a single revolution before dumping her off somewhere new or they could go down and down and down. No end was in sight with her standing here.
Despite knowing it was probably pointless, Fluttershy leaned down and cupped her hooves over her mouth before quietly yelling down the stairs. “Helloooooo?”
Her voice reverberated off the walls of the stairwell, bouncing and echoing around before disappearing. Fluttershy leaned in with her ears open for a response but ended up with nothing. She didn’t sigh or frown this time, knowing that it was unlikely anyways, and instead lifted up her hoof to take her first step down the stairs. The problem was her hoof stopped in midair. Fluttershy could feel her leg shaking, her inner worries and fears making her afraid to take that first step.
“Stop it Fluttershy, it’s nothing. It’s just stairs. You’re a big pony, you can do this.” She closed her eyes. “You can do this, you can do this, you can do this.”
With a deep breath she steadied herself and took the first step. Her hoof plopped onto the stone step and Fluttershy hesitantly opened one eye and then the other. Nothing had happened, she hadn’t fallen into a trap door, no monsters had come screaming out of nowhere, it was just a spiral staircase she had started to go down. Sighing in relief, Fluttershy quickly took another step and then another until she had fully started walking down the stairs. It was a fairly tight staircase that she couldn’t really extend her wings in but she still had plenty of room to walk down it. It curved pretty tightly too. With only a few more steps she had made a full revolution around it and continued going lower and lower. The hardhat light again proving its worth as it fully lit up the stairs and everything else in the stairwell for her.
Fluttershy once again started humming to herself as she walked down the stairs to pass the time since there wasn’t really anything to look at now. Although that would change very soon. The air flow was still strong going down these stairs and Fluttershy could actually feel a cold breeze picking up. Seemed wherever these stairs took her there was a strong air flow, she couldn’t wait to see it. Unless it was something scary or creepy again.
As she walked down it got breezier and breezier and she soon saw why. The wall around the staircase disappeared, leaving only a “railing” of solid stone that came up to her shoulders. Now Fluttershy could look out and see what was around her and this spiral staircase.
Nothingness.
Total blackness in every direction, enough to make her pause and a small amount of sweat to begin collecting at her brow. She put her hooves on top of the railing and peaked over the side. The stairs continued on down as far as she could see and probably then some. If she was Rainbow Dash she’d just jump and fly down them but the cavernous darkness of this, well, cavern, was off-putting to her. She had no idea what might be out there just beyond the staircase or how quickly the ground might catch up. Her hardhat light couldn’t penetrate the thick darkness.
Looking down at her hooves she found a tiny pebble and decided to repeat a prior experiment of hers. Picking it up she dropped it off the side of the stairs and listened in for when it hit the ground.
She never heard anything.
“This is a very long staircase...” Fluttershy blinked and looked straight ahead into the dark. It was impossible to see how big the cavern was but she was guessing pretty big. “Hello?” She called out into it.
“Hello… hello… hello...” Her voice echoed off far away into the darkness.
It was obviously a very large chamber she was in, probably stretching far in every direction instead of just down. Without anything to illuminate it though she couldn’t tell for sure or see anything besides darkness a few feet in front of her face. So there was nothing to do but keep walking down these stairs. However many thousand of them there were. Fluttershy didn’t exactly have all the time in the world on her hooves but she wasn’t going to think super negatively and think Angel Bunny needed to be immediately rescued from danger.
For such a long and simple stone staircase it was well-constructed and clearly had no problems staying up even without any other real support. It was basically just one gigantic pillar. There wasn’t much else to occupy Fluttershy as she went down it other than her thoughts, and she had to think about how long it would’ve actually taken the moles to carve such a thing. Applejack would be able to appreciate that sort of hard work. Maud maybe even moreso since it involved rocks. She should definitely tell Maud about this place when she got back home, contrary to Fluttershy, Maud would probably love going on a trip through all of this.
Her ears suddenly picked up the sound of flapping wings coming from the darkness. She swiveled her head and passed the light over the direction the sound had come from, but whatever had made it was either gone or the light couldn’t penetrate deeply enough. Fluttershy stood there frozen like a statue for a minute. Then two. Then five. Not moving her head and the light from the spot, waiting to see if that noise would return or something would appear. The flapping wings sounded larger than any simple bats’ wings. It sounded closer in size to a pegasus like herself but different at the same time too. The wings didn’t sound feathery, nor buzzing like insect wings. It sounded closer to leathery bat wings but again, too big to be any sort of bat.
After another few minutes, Fluttershy started moving again. But this time she kept her light out aimed at the darkness the whole time she walked down the stairs. She was always watching and carefully listening in. She maybe should have been looking down at her hooves and the steps, that was probably much safer when going down stairs, but her fear that something was out there watching her, maybe waiting for the moment to swoop in, overrode that.
She wanted to think of a song she could sing or hum to herself right now to pass the time or show whatever was out there that she wasn’t afraid but at the moment she just couldn’t come up with anything. Fluttershy wished the staircase would end soon. She had already been winding her way through it for a while now, it couldn’t be that much longer. How huge could this chamber actually be after all? The geode was gigantic too but that was a little different. As far as Fluttershy could tell, this entire dark cavern was just one big empty space. It was a little scary to think of. Anything could be out flying around in that darkness… what kind of creature would live in a place like this? If it was just a normal animal, Fluttershy would be quite happy. She’d try and make friends with it. But even the normal animals down here hadn’t been very appreciative of her and she had a nagging feeling that whatever had made that flapping noise wasn’t anything normal…
Fluttershy gasped when her hoof slipped off the edge of one of the steps and she almost tripped, just barely catching herself before she began what would’ve been a very long and painful tumble down the staircase. “Oh my, that was close.” She held a wing to her chest and took a few deep breaths to calm herself down.
Only after that had she realized that she wasn’t keeping her light and ears trained on the darkness anymore.
Her heart pounded inside her chest but thankfully the sound of leathery flapping didn’t return.
“Goodness...” Fluttershy whispered, taking a gulp of air and getting her bearings back. Her hooves were shaking a little bit but she managed to still herself and calmly stand up straight on the stairs. No more danger of falling down them. She very likely should have been paying attention to where she was walking instead of where something that might not even be out there might come at her from. Pay attention to the danger you knew about rather than worry about a danger that might not even be real.
So Fluttershy briefly shut her eyes and fought to push the thought of leathery wings out of her head before opening them back up and continuing her walk down the stairs.
The winding and winding walk. Her hardhat light now illuminated every step in front of her as Fluttershy practically kept her eyes on her hooves to make sure she wouldn’t step on a crack or miss a step. Luckily most of the steps were still kept up very well, she only saw a few that actually had broken bits and they were all still mostly intact. Or at least intact enough for her to walk over. She doubted these stairs were actually used that much, from what the Mushroom Brothers had said it just didn’t seem like many creatures came up from here. By the looks of it, even though the stairs were in relatively good condition, it also didn’t look like the moles did anything to really keep them in tip top shape. At some point the cracks and fissures would expand and you’d either really have to do something about the spiral staircase or the whole thing would just collapse.
At least Fluttershy could fly.
But for any creatures that couldn’t… with the way this chamber seemed to be it didn’t seem possible to get from the bottom to the top without this staircase. What an odd place this was. And even odder to live in that they had to use something like this. There was no way it could be their only way to the surface or the upper levels of the caves. It was just too unreasonable.
The leather flapping came back and Fluttershy froze. This time not swiveling her head to look in the direction the sound came from. She didn’t know if it was because she thought it was pointless or if because she was afraid she might actually see something this time. Either way the hardhat light stayed trained on the stairs and the fluttering disappeared as quickly as it came. Fluttershy was back to being alone. Maybe she was always alone and she had only imagined things. It didn’t really, she had a staircase to go down, moles to find, and Angel Bunny to rescue.
It had been a long day and the staircase descent was making it longer still. It was obvious now, but finding Angel wasn’t going to be a simple day trip and every day she spent down here looking for him was probably going to be tense and packed with adventure and exploration. Just what she didn’t want.
Fluttershy sighed to herself. “I just hope things can be nice and quiet from here on out.”