//------------------------------// // Chapter 18 // Story: Celestia Goes West // by DungeonMiner //------------------------------// The temple towered above them, standing like a mountain that blocked their path. The jungle around the pair of ponies couldn’t swallow the pyramidal stone structure, and the ancient carvings of feathered serpents smiled at them with wide teeth. If Sunny had to guess, it would probably be a history-making find if they could actually navigate their way back here. “Well, that’s certainly a temple,” Sunny said. “No, really?” Marble asked. Sunny shook her head. “It’s very impressive.” “I will agree with you on that.” Sunny began climbing the main staircase of the pyramid before she finally stepped out of the underbrush. Marble followed after her, climbing up the stairs as they began to head for the temple structure at the very top. The steep staircase nearly caused her to trip once or twice, but Sunny managed the climb well enough. She did, however, notice with some annoyance that Marble only climbed a handful of stairs before he used his wings to carry him, a no-doubt easier time than climbing what equated to a giant stone ladder. The moment she crested the top and found herself staring at the temple doors, she sighed and released a shaking breath. “Those are some serious stairs.” “Do you need to rest?” Marble asked, amusement obvious in his voice. “Hey! I do not want to hear it from the stallion that flew his way up here.” Marble smiled but said nothing. A wise move on his part. Sunny caught her breath quickly before she glanced at the small temple structure. The room was no bigger than three cart lengths wide and maybe one deep. The back wall, decorated with a mural of the Coatl with storm clouds forming in its wings, seemed far too close for anypony to actually use the building as intended and left just enough room for the altar that sat before it. Sunny ignored both the altar and the mural before she looked to the sides of the room. A set of stairs on each side of the room led down into the pyramid proper. “Well, if we’re going to find anything, it would have to be down there,” Sunny thought to herself. She crossed the room over to the left-hand side before she felt a hoof grab her shoulder. “Where are you going?” “Down?” Sunny asked. “Never go down on the left,” Marble said. “Why?” Sunny asked. “The Lusitanpec always believed that the path to death started with a left-hand turn. We should go down the right stairs.” “What, you think the left one’s trapped or something?” “I’m not...positive,” he said. “I haven’t looked at it yet, but if they were going to go down either of the stairs, we should probably go down the right ones.” Inner Celestia regarded the pegasus with a smirk that didn’t reach Sunny’s face. “He does know his history. I haven’t heard about the left-handed superstition in centuries. He might be onto something, you know?” “Can we at least check it?” Sunny asked. “To satisfy my curiosity? It’s not like we’re on a strict timetable or anything.” Marble glanced at her. “Weren’t you the one talking about—” “Yes, yes. That was to actually move, though. We can spend a day or two at a temple, just like we spent a day over at the tower. Now stop arguing with me, and let’s check the stairs.” Sunny led the pegasus over and glanced down at the staircase, Marble sighing the entire way through. As they stood over the stairs, Sunny motioned her hoof to the stairs, and Marble rolled his eyes before he dropped to the ground and began running his hooves down steps. Sunny watched as he began to check each of the stairs and nodded as she “oversaw” his work. “He really does seem like he knows what he’s doing,” Inner Celestia commented. “You could almost say that he seems to be an expert at figuring out traps.” Sunny ignored the comment. She knew that Inner Celestia was just trying to make a point. Ever since the tower, a part of Sunny wondered at how he managed to find that trap in the door. Sure, Marble explained how he saw it, but she had to wonder how much of that was a fluke or lucky guess and how much was actual skill in recognizing cultural cues that would mark a trap. Marble paused. “What is it?” “This is a fake stair,” he said before he flew back up. “Do you have a stick?” “I’d have to get one from outside,” she replied. Marble sighed before he drew the knife from his side and hovered back over the fake stair. The pegasus slowly began lowering himself down onto the stair, the point of his knife pressing down on it as he began to press harder and harder— A snap sounded as the stair fell away and swung downward. Marble shot up, pulling up and out in case whatever sat below the stair shot up at him. And nothing else happened. “What is it?” Sunny asked. “The stair fell away,” Marble explained before he slowly hovered back over the staircase. “It looks like it opened up to a hole.” The pegasus dropped one of his hooves onto a stair on their side of the hole before he officially landed and began checking the trap in earnest. “Ooh, that is nasty. Come here, see what they did.” Sunny slowly made her down, testing the stairs as she moved down and joined Marble. “Here, look at this,” he said, pointing into the hole. Sunny already saw it. Large, four-inch spikes stuck to the walls of the hole, all pointing downward. The goal was obvious. “As soon as somepony steps on it, their hoof drops into the hole. The moment they try to pull it out, the spike digs into the hoof, locking them in under threat of pain.” “I-I got that, thanks.” “It wouldn’t kill you,” Marble said. “It would just hurt a lot. Unless they poisoned the spikes, then it might kill you.” Sunny sighed. “Alright, my curiosity is sated. Let’s go ahead and try the other stair.” Marble nodded before he took off back up the stairs. “I do want you to check the other stairs, though,” Sunny said as she followed after him. “I’d much rather not find a trap like that.” “That, I can appreciate,” he replied as he began checking the stairs. “I’ll need you to watch the hallway then. I can only pay attention to so many things. If they have a trap hiding in the walls, I don’t want to find it after it’s already stabbed me.” “I’ll do what I can.” Sunny glued her eyes to the walls, looking for any sign of a hole or trap that might be hiding in the stones before she took a moment to check the ceiling as well. She didn’t see anything that looked terribly suspicious, but the artwork on the walls did look nice. The Great Coatl, with scales of blue and green, danced in a painted sky. He slithered through down the whole hall, weaving back and forth across the fresco covering the walls and ceiling, from each of the dozen sets of wings that she could see left a trail of storm clouds behind them, the only gray marks on an otherwise blue sky. She watched as the serpent danced around the hall before she noticed something. On a point further up, a few dozen feet ahead of them, the mural suddenly stopped. Bare, grey stone sat on the side of the wall in a sudden, jarring break. “Marble,” Sunny called, The pegasus froze. “What?” “Ahead of us, on the left-hand side, the mural stops suddenly.” Marble picked up his head slowly and glanced at the wall that she indicated before he nodded. “Okay, I’m pretty sure the floor is safe, but watch your step,” he said before he began walking toward the broken part of the mural. Sunny noticed he didn’t fly over but decided not to mention it yet. Instead, she focused on where Marble stepped and did her best to fit her hooves into the spaces he stepped in. Before long, they both stood in front of the break in the mural. “The Coatl isn’t broken,” Marble noted. Sunny nodded, concurring. His gaze dropped to the sides of the break. “The mural isn’t broken. It looks like it was cut here. This empty space is meant to be here. The fresco’s too big for somepony to try and grab a piece unless it was plated with gold, but even then, the cuts on this side are too perfect.” Sunny kept watching. “At the same time,” Marble continued, muttering, “not continuing the mural doesn’t make sense.” His gaze trailed down to the base of the wall and frowned. “There are tool marks down here, and…” he trailed off, and Sunny saw why. The flagstone had been wiped clean, but dried blood clung to the spaces between the rock. Someone had died here. They’d fallen for the trap. “This happened recently.” “What?” Sunny asked. “Or at least, within the past hundred years as opposed to when the Lusitanpec actually lived here. It had to have. There’s no way this happened back when the temple was in one piece. No way.” His voice began to climb into higher and higher registers as he began speaking faster, hyperventilation just seconds away. “Slow down,” Sunny said. “Why are you saying that?” “The tool marks,” Marble said, his voice shaking. “Copper chisels don’t make those kinds of marks. These are at least iron, if not steel. The ponies native to this area didn’t have this kind of metallurgy until the past hundred and forty years ago.” “So somepony from Equestria is in the wall? Is that what you’re telling me?” “I-I hope not,” Marble said, voice wavering. “I think...I think this was an alcove, and when he triggered the trap, it dropped down onto the alcove.” Sunny raised an eyebrow before she reached out with her magic. Her Control Matter spell enveloped the stone, and she quickly grasped the size of it. The stone, as large as a carriage, sat perfectly cut in a shaft that reached upward. From just the size of it, she could tell that Marble’s guess might be more right than she gave it credit. “Well, I think you’re right,” she said as she dropped the stone. “That’s definitely a trap.” Marble shook himself. “It’s a rough way to go out.” “Yeah, but there wasn’t anything we could do for them,” Sunny said. “This pony was probably dead before either of us were born.” “Low bar for you,” Inner Celestia remarked. “That had to be, what, two weeks now? Two and a half?” Marble nodded, looking green around the gills. “I-I guess you’re right.” “Think you’ll be okay?” Sunny asked. She’d never seen Marble act quite like this before, and she was starting to worry. “Yeah, yeah,” he muttered. “I just... I’ve seen a lot of injuries by traps, and...and I keep imagining ponies I know getting in there and—” “Deep breath,” Sunny said. Marble inhaled without even pausing. “Exhale.” He let it all out. “Slower,” Sunny admonished. “Again.” Marble obeyed. “Nopony you know fell for these traps,” Sunny said. “Everypony is okay.” There was silence for a long moment. For the whole time, Marble didn’t even look her in the eye. For a moment, Sunny wondered if he somehow went catatonic before a response finally crawled out of his throat. “You’re right. Nopony I know fell for these traps.” Inner Celestia sighed. “You struck a nerve.” Sunny ignored the comment. It’s not like she knew that Marble was sensitive about this. Besides, she needed the stallion to focus. He still had a knack for finding traps, and the unicorn required that skill down here. If he started freezing up, then Marble would be next to useless for her. “What a bleeding heart you are,” Inner Celestia remarked, sarcasm dripping off the words. “Truly a more caring pony there has never been.” Sunny brushed that thought aside. Yes, it was a heartless attitude to take, but more importantly, it was a pragmatic one. They were in the wilderness, in ancient, trap-filled ruins. The last thing she needed was a non-responsive stallion that needed a therapist. “Which we are not,” Sunny thought, “even though you love to try and disassemble everypony’s problems as though you were.” Inner Celestia didn’t answer, but she did frown disapprovingly. They continued to move down the hallway before they came down another set of stairs. As they began to descend, Marble started to checking the steps once more. He seemed to have recovered somewhat, but he still shook as he worked. “Hey, we’re fine. These traps haven’t been triggered in decades, if not centuries. The chances of half of them even working anymore is—” A fresh body lay at their hooves as they turned the corner, a hole stuck through his chest. Sunny sighed. “There goes the universe again.” ---☼--- The further down they went, the more bodies they found. Fresh, no more than two or three weeks old. Every single one of them managed to have triggered a trap, and they even somehow cleared a path for Sunny and Marble to follow. Pegasi, earth ponies, and unicorns all lay scattered across the floor, sometimes in pieces, through the lower levels of the ruins. As both Sunny and Marble passed them by, the unicorn couldn’t help but take a long look at the bodies. Each one of them, excuse her for saying so, looked like they might be more at home in a seedy bar. What’s more, they all wore vests, black vests with a cloud-shaped patch on the back. In fact, the only ponies that didn’t have a vest on were the ones that seemed charred because they burned to death. Despite his previous reaction, Marble pushed through the carpet of bodies without so much as a stuttered word. In fact, he seemed to recover completely, giving a few ponies a curious but otherwise emotionless glare. “What were they doing here?” he asked aloud. “I don’t know,” Sunny replied, “and I don’t think we’ll find out when we get to the end.” “What makes you say that?” “Gut feeling,” she responded. They kept pushing forward, finding more and more dead, before they found a set of open stone doors. The deceased had been piled off to the side, but whatever trap that sealed the doors lay deactivated. The room beyond the doors, however, held their complete attention. The mural of the Coatl, the snake-like figure that stretched from the start of this hallway to where they stood now, finally ended in the room beyond. The head of the Coatl finally appeared and opened wide in the center of the room, transforming from painted fresco into a sculpture that looked like it was poking from the wall. The sculpted head of the Coatl sat decorated with a mosaic of blue and green stones that obviously represented scales. What truly stood out, though, was the podium set in the open mouth of the serpent’s head. The platform sat empty, without a single sign of what once sat there. Sunny sighed. “Told you,” she muttered. “These ponies grabbed whatever they were trying to get to. Though, very obvious my, the cost was very high.” That part did concern both Sunny and Inner Celestia on a profound level. Who could someone command this many ponies to the point where they’d throw their lives away just so that someone could grab whatever lay beyond the doors. She walked into the room, with Marble following on her heels. The mural continued inside, though Sunny focused on the pedestal in the sculpture’s jaws. The flat stone offered no sign of what it once held. She had no idea if a weapon or cloth or trophy sat on its surface. Sunny had no way of knowing. “What on Equus?” Marble muttered. Sunny glanced over at him. “What? Did you find something?” “Something that makes no sense,” he said. He stood off to the side, staring at the mural near the left-side corner by the door. “What?” she asked. “Look at this,” he said, pointing to the wall. Sunny followed his hoof to a scene of ponies gathered beneath a storm cloud. One of the earth ponies held a staff shaped like the Coatl above them, and the storm cloud above transformed from an angry storm to a slight rain before it thundered again, flashing with lightning. “What’s not making sense?” Sunny asked. Though Inner Celestia had a suspicion growing in her mind. “How much do you know about weather magic?” “I’m a unicorn,” she replied. “And I don’t want to make assumptions,” he replied. “What this is implying is that the Lusitanpec ponies had access to weather magic somehow. Storm clouds don’t work this way. They don’t rain and then suddenly storm. The only way this makes sense is if an entire culture of earth ponies could control the weather.” It was unheard of. There had never been a non-pegasi tribe that managed to get close to controlling the skies. Nothing got close, so for a tribe of earth ponies to do the same as the pegasus, without the same access to magic, the unicorns had seemed...crazy. But possible. “It might be true,” Sunny said. “They might have had a magical item or something? I know the Storm King had something like that back when he invaded.” “Maybe,” Marble slowly agreed. “There’s this staff this one pony is holding. That might be it.” “Maybe,” she agreed. “We can’t say for sure. Maybe they thought the Coatl changed the weather for them, and that’s a priest who’s trying to speak to the Coatl?” “That’s possible. The Lusitanpec ponies had a still relatively unknown religion. It’s possible that they tried to bargain with the Coatl to change the weather, or perhaps even thought they bargained with him, and that’s all there is to it.” Sunny nodded and turned back to the pedestal. “More importantly, what was here, and why was it so important that all of these ponies died for it?”