Sophia was restless tonight. For some reason, the anticipation of tomorrow was keeping sleep at bay. Thankfully, she was able to go days without sleep before her performance would be affected.
Since she wasn’t getting any sleep, she figured that she might as well check out the crystal shard that she received from Duggus Forest. She pulled out the Ihan crystal stand and the shard from her pockets. She activated the stand which displayed the first shard before placing the second into the field holding the first. The two shards came together and fused with each other to create a larger shard.
Sophia sighed as she mentally prepared herself. “Alright, I found another shard from this scavenger hunt you’ve sent me on. What else can you tell me?”
The shard glowed brighter and like before, Sophia’s consciousness was cast into the same space as before. Once again, an image of Gerald appeared before her.
“Hello again, my grandchild. I suspect that you likely have doubts about the validity of my claims as your grandfather. There’s not much that I can do to prove that, but that’s not important.
“Before I begin, I would like to tell you something about the hunt for the crystal shards. Originally, the places where the shards were hidden did contain some small, but insignificant treasure at one time but I replaced those treasures with the shards shortly after I had to send you away. In the least, the shards hold more value to you than those preserved berries would.
“I do not expect you to forgive me for sending you to live with that family, but I do wish for you to understand why I did so. My explanation for that, however, is not in this memory.
“This memory is part of a three part series that will help you to understand the power within you that I suspect has begun to slowly awaken, despite the failsafes I have placed upon you.
“Your humanity is the foundation from which your powers are based. Without it, the other facets of your power will continue to conflict with each other in an endless stalemate, leaving you unable to access your full power. It is also the strongest facet of your power because it is the unifying factor of the three. Through this power comes leadership, charisma, tactical mastery and analytical thinking.
“Aside from such abilities, I do hope that you learn how to make friends as you are being raised and during the course of your adventure. Having such ability at your command is one thing, but having strength of heart is the making of a great leader. Friendships are one of the best ways to improve on that strength.
“For the remainder of this memory, I would like to show you my fleet which acts as the military muscle of your birth family.
Sophia had no idea how long she had been touring the fleet, relative to the time outside of the memory, but she saw a lot of military hardware in that time. She saw fighter craft, frigates, capital ships, sophisticated stealth technology, soldiers wearing thick metal suits and carrying automatic rifles that seemed too big for normal people to carry without encumbering themselves. She did notice that the ships didn’t look as sleek as the ships that she was used to seeing and the insides were lacking in decor.
While she was in awe of the military hardware before her, Sophia couldn’t help but wonder what kind of changes she could make to improve it. She could envision herself instilling discipline into the hearts of such crude soldiers. She could see herself…leading them? Such a strange thought, but it felt so right at the same time. Could this feeling be part of the power her grandfather talked about?
She was pulled away from her thoughts as she felt her consciousness being pulled back to reality. She took the time to recollect her thoughts. She remembered that she was in a room in Castle Aquaria in the capital city of Aquios. She noticed that the sun was rising through her window which meant that she spent the whole night in the memory. Strangely though, she felt well rested.
Someone knocked on her door. She made herself as presentable as she could in a short time before she answered it.
Lyra stood on the other side of the door, looking at her apprentice in anticipation for what she had planned today.
“Hey Sophia, I got permission from the guards to use the castle courtyard for our training. I wanna spar with you to see how far you have come.”
“Sure,” Sophia affirmed. She looked around the hallway and found nobody. “What are the others doing?”
“Nel took Fayt and Cliff to the Runological Weapon Research Facility in the west wing where he will likely take a look at their designs. Twilight, Peppita and Roger went into town. I expect Peppita is doing some street performing while Twilight is investigating a couple of people in town for her side project with Peterny’s artisan’s guild. I have no idea what Roger is doing though.”
A ringing sound was heard nearby. Sophia and Lyra looked to see that Twilight had teleported next to them before she walked up to them. “Sophia, you wouldn’t happen to still have that bottle of cider that you stole from the bandits’ hideout, would you?” Sophia walked into her room and came out a moment later with the bottle in question and handed it to Twilight. “Thanks, and for the record, I don’t approve of you stealing from the bandits. They may be thieves but it’s still wrong.” She then disappeared in a flash of teleportation.
The hall was silent for a few moments until Sophia broke that silence. “Well, that happened.”
The two shrugged and headed to the courtyard.
Sophia and Lyra sparred with each other for an hour. Both agreed to use painted training blades to avoid the risk of injuring each other. Sophia did her best to avoid her master’s strikes. Some of the attacks from Lyra were such that Sophia could almost swear that she read her master’s mind before the attack was executed. While a few attacks from Lyra did get through Sophia’s defenses and paint her face and a few places on her clothes, Sophia managed to get a couple of marks on the mare in return. Thankfully the paint easily washed off.
“So what did the shard tell you this time?” Lyra asked. “I could sense some distraction in your thoughts as we fought.”
Sophia giggled, “I’m that obvious, huh? He told me that my humanity is the foundation of my powers and that this power is where my leadership abilities come from. Do you think of me as a leader?”
Lyra hummed. “I think you have the qualities of a leader, but me and Twilight both have plenty of experience as leaders and would only follow your orders if we agreed on your decision. I have seen you keep Fayt and Cliff in line when they do or say stupid things and I can sense the respect that Nel has for you and she leads her own group.”
Sophia nodded before continuing. “He showed me his peculiar fleet and as I saw it, I kept imagining myself leading them. I know they belong to my maybe-grandfather, but a part of me wants to take the fleet from him.”
“Sounds like you have a strong desire to lead your own military organization. It might explain your desire to enter into the Pangalactic Federation Officer Academy. The desire to take his fleet from him might be attributed to the infested side of your abilities as that side will always see imperfection and improve on it. It likely sees your grandfather as a liability to that fleet and it makes you want to usurp him for the good of that fleet.”
“Maybe. He also said he placed some failsafes on me. I wish I knew why though.”
“That might explain why you were unable to sit in the captain’s chair in your mindscape. All we can do is keep collecting the shards and hope that one of them has an explanation for the failsafes.”
“Personally, I’d like to find a way to remove them. Sure, I’d also like to know why I have them, but I’d like to know how to access that power at some point.”
Suddenly, Cliff ran through the courtyard while yelling for them, “Hey you two, let’s get back to the castle! We have something to do!”
The two looked at each other and shrugged before following Cliff back into the castle. Everyone, including Twilight, Peppita and Roger, regrouped at the research facility where Fayt appeared to want to make an announcement.
“Guys, I talked with the researchers and looked at their weapon’s blueprints. It appears that the weapon is suffering from an overheating issue because they were channeling runological energy through iron wire which is a poor conductor for the energy they were channeling. Our best bet is to mine some copper since that conducts the energy much better than iron. The problem is that the nearest mine is in Airyglyph territory on the mountain path between Kirlsa Caverns and Arias.
“We’ll be escorting a team to help mine, refine, and transport several dozen kilos of copper back to Aquios where the runologists will be working to install the copper wiring.”
“Traveling from here to Arias will take a few hours without diversions,” Nel added. “This is last minute so the team has to be selected, then the team has to go to Peterny to obtain a large enough cart to transport the copper, then bring it to Aquios. By my calculations, we have a couple of hours to spare before we need to start heading to Arias.”
“In that case, I have an idea,” Roger proudly declared. “My friend Melt told me about some ruins near Aquios that lie underground in an area between Irisa Fields and Surferio. I figure it might be fun to explore it for a couple of hours and maybe find some treasure down there.”
“Is this really a good time to be exploring ruins when we have a war looming over us?” Fayt asked.
“I’m up for it,” Sophia said. “We do have some time to spare so we might as well try doing something fun.”
“I’m going with Sophia on this one,” Cliff said.
Everyone else shrugged and went along with the idea.
The group crossed the bridge out of the city and returned to the Irisa Fields. As they explored the western side of the area, they found a bridge which crossed the western river. The other side appeared to be uninhabited by hostile creatures or beings, which meant that they could explore the area unmolested.
Their exploration eventually brought the group to a set of stairs that led underground. Roger cheered because he believed that he found what he was looking for and that the ruins exploration adventure was happening.
Once everyone descended the stairs, their eyes widened in awe of what they saw. The underground ruins were vast. While they were on a pathway that hung far above the bottom of the ruins which appeared to dwarf Aquios in size, everyone knew they had to be careful not to fall off the walkway or they would not survive the fall. Some of the group were curious as to how such a vast complex could exist without the surface collapsing on it at some point.
With caution, the group descended the curving staircase while taking care to avoid the collapsed sections.
The path soon led to a platform that had several holes in it along with three new enemies that resembled floating stone slabs with a relief on them that resembled a mage.
One statue noticed the group and alerted the others. Each of them began channeling different spells.
Sophia and Twilight reacted quickly and cast a Thunder Flare on two of the statues before they could get their casts off. Roger interrupted the third one when he launched himself into it and slammed the point on his helmet on it, knocking it into a nearby wall. Roger got stuck on the statue temporarily and went flying with it.
The others split up and fought the living statues.
Cliff ran toward the statue that Roger struck on. Once Roger removed himself and his helmet from the figure, it tried getting back up only for Cliff to set his aura ablaze and rush forward, slamming his fiery aura against it and causing it to fall off the platform.
The remaining two statues tried to cast a Thunder Flare while the others were in close proximity to each other but the delay in casting the spell was a second too long as their minds were suddenly thrown into confusion as a magical circle formed under them that resembled purple rings on an image of storm clouds.
“How do ya like my Panic Dance?” Peppita said.
The others took advantage of the confusion, with Sophia and Lyra cutting one statue diagonally from the front and the back, cutting the statue into four pieces. Nel froze the last statue with her Ice Daggers which Fayt capitalized on by shattering the now brittle foe with his sword.
With the statues destroyed, the group moved forward.
On the next walkway, they encountered axebeak birds which were flightless birds with huge beaks that would hurt a lot if they got hit by them. They also encountered humanoids that resembled birds. Nel referred to them as harpies.
The axebeaks were slow moving and easily dealt with by Peppita freezing them with her Frozen Daggers and smashing them when they froze.
One harpy tried to fight the group from the air where most of them couldn’t fight her but Twilight dragged her down to the walkway with her magic. The harpy had no time to recover before everyone piled on her.
On the next platform, they encountered more statues except these carried axes. Without any ranged counters, they were particularly vulnerable to the group’s symbologists.
The next walkway had a crossroad where the right path took them to a dead end with another of the axe wielding statues while the other led to an interesting platform.
It was then that Twilight recognized the place they were in and she facepalmed in realization.
“What is it, Twilight?” Lyra mentally asked.
“I just remembered that this place is a puzzle dungeon. To get through this, we have to move the colored transparent blocks around to create a path that leads further in.”
Lyra looked at the platform in confusion. She saw a number of colored lines as well as a pair of green transparent squares that looked like they had maze patterns on them. “Do those squares activate the puzzle?”
“Yes,” Twilight replied. “The moment anyone starts to go over them, even if they were levitated, the puzzle will activate. Also, the doors beyond here remain locked until the puzzle activates to ensure that nobody cheats. I even installed teleportation wards in the area to make extra sure of that.”
“I’m guessing that you took every precaution to ensure that the only way forward is to solve the puzzle, even levitating people?”
Twilight nodded.
“So how does this puzzle work?” Lyra asked.
“Once started, the blocks will appear on each of the colored lines on the floor. The blocks can only be moved along their respective lines and will continue to move until it either reaches the other end of the line or another block prevents it from moving further. We need to move the blocks out of the way of our intended exit.”
Fayt stepped on one of the activators a moment later before everyone but the ponies took a small step back in surprise when a series of colored transparent blocks appeared out of thin air.
“What is this?” Fayt asked.
“It’s a block puzzle,” Twilight answered. “Hang on, let me handle this.”
Twilight moved toward a white block that blocked their path and with a gentle push, the block moved forward. She then moved the nearby red block left. Moving to the next row, she moved a white block left before moving a blue block ahead of her forward, allowing everyone to move on.
The group moved down another walkway while dealing with a chameleon which tried to block their path. They came across a four-way crossroads where the left and right paths led to dead ends so they continued moving forward.
More statues and birds awaited the group as they crossed another broken platform and a walkway where the path formed a rectangle. At the end of the walkway, they came across another platform with a block puzzle.
Once again, Twilight moved to solve the puzzle. She moved a red block downwards, then moved a yellow block, that was next to where the red block ended up, to the left. She then moved a white block that was south of the yellow block before following it and moving a red block, that was to the left of where the white block ended up, to the left. Finally, she moved a red and blue block upward before heading left and downward to push a red block right which allowed everyone to exit the platform from the west exit.
They proceeded west to another platform where they dealt with more statues. As they explored further, they discovered two more platforms which, along with the previous one, were interconnected with each other. One of the three platforms eventually led them to the next part of the hanging ruins.
The southernmost platform housed a small army of puppet golems like the ones in Duggus Forest. Thankfully, while numerous, the space on the platform was a little cramped, even for their small figures. They were easy prey for the casters’ Thunder Flares while Fayt infused his sword with lightning and assaulted the ones caught in the spells.
The group moved south from the platform and came across a third block puzzle. This one promised to take a while.
Whether it was a credit to Twilight’s genius or the possibility that she designed the dungeon and the block puzzles and might have known the solution, she was able to open a passage through the blocks and lead the group through the southern exit of the platform.
After another platform and a few more statues, the group finally reached the deepest part of the ruins.
“Looks like this is the farthest we can go,” Cliff noted.
Everyone noticed the giant two-sided statue that looked like he was the most powerful of the statues in the ruins. There were also a pair of living boulders next to it.
“I wonder what this guy is guarding?” Sophia wondered.
“Let’s take him down and find out,” Roger said.
Before the group could charge in, however, the boulders took the initiative and rushed at the group, hoping to get some hits in before their master did.
That was when a shining red aura rushed past the group and smashed into the boulders, sending them hurdling back toward their master.
Everyone looked at the newcomer who slammed the boulders with confusion while Nel gasped in shock and recognition.
The man was dark skinned and quite muscular. He wore no shirt so his tattoos on his arms and back were on full display. His only clothing was the lower part of his brown robe with a white and gold border and a pair of Japanese-style sandals along with the socks to go with them. His black and gold belt had a red sash tied to it which held the sheath of his katana. He wore a gold necklace with a ruby in the center. His face had a cocky expression while his shaggy hair, mustache and beard were all gray. Despite his expression, his eyes revealed his decades of experience on the battlefield.
“Adray!” Nel uttered.
Adray laughed heartily for a moment, “You guys look like you were about to have some fun, so I joined in.”
“How did you get past the block puzzles?” Nel asked.
“Why bother with that headache when I can just jump over here?” he casually answered.
Twilight’s left eye twitched.
“Let’s tear this thing down and get outta here,” Adray declared.
That Sculpture Lord roared in fury before it readied its two sets of crescent staves for battle.
Sophia, Twilight and Adray opened things up by unleashing a trio of Efreet spells upon the statue and its boulder attendants. The three were heavily burned but continued their fight.
Cliff and Roger targeted the boulders. Cliff closed the distance between his target by jumping high into the air and landing on it with a devastating kick that caused a shockwave which not only cracked the boulder but blew back the Sculpture Lord. He then shattered his boulder with a few punches. Roger took out a tunneling drill and drilled into his boulder before smashing it with his axe.
The Sculpture Lord prepared a powerful symbol to send at them, but Sophia countered that with a Silence symbol. Meanwhile, Peppita and Twilight worked together to increase the effectiveness of their attack and make their foe more vulnerable to their attacks with a combination of Peppita’s Power Dance and Twilight’s Acid Rain symbol.
Fayt, Nel, Lyra, Adray and Sophia moved in to engage the Sculpture Lord. The figure tried to attack them all at once by spinning around with its four crescent staves and managed to hit and knock back Fayt and Nel. Lyra, Sophia and Adray jumped back in time.
When the figure stopped spinning, Adray charged in with his shiny red aura charge, or his Chaos Tide as he called it, and hit it point blank with a Lightning Blast. Lyra began moving at the rapid speeds that she was known for and striking the Sculpture Lord from many angles, chipping off pieces of the statue as she went. Sophia decided to grab one of the statue’s weapons and engaged in a tug of war with it which ended with Sophia ripping the weapon away along with the hand that held it. Adray smiled in amusement when he saw Sophia beating it with its own weapon.
Lyra soon found an opening to exploit thanks to her apprentice. She rendered herself invisible using the shadows which left the statue confused as to where the pony went. With her foe’s attention taken away, she was able to gather all of her focus before she unleashed a powerful assassination technique that horizontally cleaved through the Sculpture Lord and cut it in half. The two halves soon crumbled into rubble.
As the statue crumbled, Adray whistled in awe at what he saw. “At some point, you and I have to have a match. From that display, you must have some impressive skill.”
Lyra smirked, “Sure, I’ll take you on when we have the time. For now, we need to get out of here and get to Arias.”
“So you’re headed there, huh? Then I’ll be headed there as well. It’ll be good to see my little girl again.”
As the group moved to the back of the platform to the treasure that the Sculpture Lord was guarding, Nel couldn’t help but feel sorry for Clair who would soon be visited by her doting father. She had been the one to listen to Clair vent about her father many times before.
For their trouble of exploring the ruins, they found a chest which contained a strange table along with a deck of cards. The weirdest thing about the cards, however, was that the images on the cards looked just like most of the group members along with others familiar and mostly not familiar. One card resembled Mirage, one resembled Albel and one, to the ponies’ surprise, resembled Maria Traydor. Though the one that they did not expect to see was a card that resembled Ameena carrying a staff like the one Sophia carried.
Twilight decided to keep the deck in her pocket for the time being and leave them and the table in Grape’s safekeeping once they got back to Peterny.
With the exploration complete and their spare time nearly at an end, the group, now with more Adray, headed back toward the entrance. Since the stairway to the entrance was nearby and it would take some time to walk around the ruins to get back, Twilight teleported everyone near the entrance where they ascended the stairs and back to fresh air.