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// Chapter 101: Into the Well of Shade 
// Story: Marshmallow Dreams 
// by Halira 
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"Do we have to go down there?" Sunflower asked as she looked into the abyss of the well. 

"I do, and probably Rebecca too, but you had best stay up here with Jonathan and Roger," Blanche said as she checked the rope. 

I took several steps back. "Why just me?"

Blanche gave her a flat look. "Because you say there is something incorporeal down there, and I'm not sure if my methods of fighting will work on it. I need something ethereal to fight something ethereal."

"I'm not sure I would call myself ethereal. Miss Seapony says that term means something else," I replied nervously. 

"I need to come down too," Roger insisted. 

"And how do you expect to do that?" Blanche asked. "How is an earth pony going to climb a rope down? Do you expect Rebecca and Sunflower to fly you down there? Have you seen the two of them? There's no way they'd manage it without dropping you."

"The Element Bearers have earth ponies, and they got down there, and Wild Growth went down there too," Roger reminded her. 

Blanche nodded. "They also have a unicorn and a unicorn who can teleport them and one of the best flyers who has ever lived. Given their records for durability, Wild Growth, Applejack, and probably even Pinkie Pie could probably survive the jump down without any serious risk. You aren't them."

Jonathan adjusted his glasses. "I assume it is our job to make sure Rebecca's body doesn't go dancing off into trouble or into the well."

I shivered. "That would be very bad."

Sunflower gulped and looked down the well again. "I'm coming with you. I can fly for help if you get into trouble."

"You're claustrophobic, and we're going underground. That makes you more a liability than anything else," Blanche said as she crossed her arms. 

"I can be brave!" Sunflower insisted as she took a step back and flapped her wings. "I wanna help! Yeah, it's scary, but you're my friends and worrying about you and Rebecca is scarier. You can't stop me from coming!"

Blanche sighed in exasperation. "Fine, but if you get to being a burden, or if I think it is getting too dangerous, I'm sending you back."

"And how are you going to protect yourself?" Roger asked. 

Blanche held out a hand, and a long pike appeared in it; a second later, it vanished. "I can make my weapons in an instant. Whatever took your mother has to be flesh and blood. If it's flesh and blood, I can put a blade through it. They brought Ulysses and Wild Growth with them, which means they anticipate a physical confrontation."

"They also brought Crystal, who is better at fighting magical threats," I reminded her.

"We should be prepared to face anything. If we are lucky, the others will be able to deal with it without any aid," Blanche replied. 

"I don't know what we're supposed to do if all of them fail. We're in way above our heads," I muttered. 

"I don't disagree," Jonathan said with a nod. "But this is for one of our own. We're doing this to help settle his mind. I'm confident you're just going to run into the Element Bearers returning from a victory with Roger's mother in tow."

"In which case, the worst we have to worry about is getting chewed out," Blanche said with confidence, heading towards the lip of the well. "Someone start up a song for Rebecca."

Sunflower shuffled her hooves and took a deep breath. "#When I was a little filly, and the sun was going down—"

I listened to Sunflower sing; none of the others were singing with her, probably because they didn't know the song. I knew why she was singing that one in particular. She was trying to get herself prepped to go down there. Bravery wasn't the absence of fear, but facing it, and she was about to face one of her biggest fears— if not her biggest fear— head-on. I was scared too. I didn't like that there was something down there that could see me when I was just an invisible spirit. I needed an extra helping of bravery too. Roger better appreciate us doing this for him. 

I didn't know the lyrics, but I have a good memory for tunes and was able to recall that much. So I hummed along. 

It didn't take long for me to get in the grove and separate myself from my body. I didn't bother making myself invisible and quickly signaled that I was ready as Sunflower stopped singing. 

Blanche grabbed the rope leading down the well. "Let's move." She then went over the edge into the well. 

Sunflower and I shared a nervous look and took to the air and followed. 

It was dark going in, but when we got further down, I saw all the torches were lit with an eerie bluish-grey light. It hadn't been that way a few minutes ago. Whatever was in the dark was expecting us. The shadows in the corners were still moving, and I knew we were being watched. 

Blanche finished her slide down the rope, and Sunflower landed beside her. I came down in a hover near them. 

ANOTHER PONY! YOU ARE AFRAID, LITTLE PEGASUS. WE CAN GIVE YOU POWER. POWER, SO YOU NEVER HAVE TO BE AFRAID AGAIN!

Sunflower whimpered. "I-I'm not interested! Go away!"

Blanche arched an eyebrow at her. "Who are you talking to?"

Sunflower jumped around, looking for the source. "The scary voice that is offering me power. Like I would accept anything from something that sounds like that."

"What scary voice?" Blanche questioned as she looked around. 

I looked at her in confusion. "You didn't hear that? You don't see the shadows moving?"

Blanche shook her head. 

"I don't see anything; I just hear it," Sunflower said, ears flattened to her head. 

"I guess you have to be half in the dream realm to see it," I said as I looked at the shadows. "But why can't you hear it, Blanche?"

"Maybe I'm not on the right mental wavelength," Blanche mused. "If it was created by ponies and exists partially in a dream state, it might not be able to communicate with humans, and whatever it is offering might not be compatible."

"If it is partially a dream, do you think Luna knows about it?" Sunflower asked. "It stopped talking."

"You weren't interested. I'm guessing it needs a pony to give into it willingly. You rejected it, and it lost interest," Blanche said. "That would be why it still exists despite Luna. It isn't doing anything without permission. The ones who created it died fighting a Dreamwarden, but before that, when it was already too late, they must have learned the trick to it...you follow the rules."

I looked around and saw the shadows withdrawing. They did seem to be losing interest in us. I had to wonder what would happen if a pony ended up accepting, but I also was glad I didn't know. 

"I doubt any of the Element Bearers, Wild Growth, or Crystal would accept," I said after the last shadow left. 

"And Ulysses is on the wrong wavelength and has no magic, thankfully. I wouldn't trust him to say no," Blanche muttered. 

"So… we're safe from the monsters? We don't need to worry about being attacked?" Sunflower asked in a hopeful tone.

Blanche shook her head. "Whatever took Roger's mother wasn't this; it was something physical. That is still a threat. We're also in thousand-year-old ruins; I would still be concerned about structural integrity."

I looked around. There were a lot of doors in the corners leading off to the unknown. "Which way do we go?"

Blanche bent down and pointed at the floor. "The good thing about ruins, there's a lot of undisturbed dust, and people leave tracks in the dust. There's an easy trail to follow. Sunflower, keep your hooves on the ground for now. We don't want your wing beats blowing away the trail."

Sunflower landed while I stayed floating in the air. I had no physical form, and I couldn't blow anything around. Blanche continued to stay bent down, examining the floor. 

She stood up. "Something other than a pony or human is down here. I don't recognize what kind of tracks these are. I think it is a quadruped, but not like any quadruped I have ever seen, but it's big, based on how far apart the tracks are. It is hard to make out a lot of information about it because its tracks are partially obscured by the Element Bearers tracks following it."

"If something big came and took Roger's mom, how did it get on and off the airship without being noticed?" I asked. 

Blanche shook her head as she stood up. "I have no idea, but it's definitely what the Element Bearers are following. There are no return tracks, so they must all still down here, somewhere deeper inside."

"I hope whatever it is that we're following didn't accept the voice's offer," Sunflower said in a quiet voice that seemed too loud in the ruins. 

"If I'm not hearing anything, I don't think it can either. Whatever this is, it isn't a pony, and the voices are tuned to ponies," Blanche said, still looking at the floor. "If I had to guess, I would say something insectoid or arachnoid. It isn't a mammal, bird, or reptile."

I shivered. "Giant bug or spider? I'm glad Phobia isn't here, considering how she reacted when she thought I was a spider."

"It's her mom, Sunset Blessing, that's arachnophobic. She'd probably run away as fast as she could," Sunflower said and kept her head low. "Although I'm not thrilled about going into Shelob's lair either."

"Think we can do without the Lord of the Rings references," I said. "I don't want to be thinking of giant killer spiders."

"I don't see any webs, so it might not be anything like that," Blanche said as she looked around. "Let's move forward. We aren't doing anything by just standing around other than losing our nerve."

Blanche started walking, and Sunflower and I fearfully followed behind, constantly looking to our sides, half-expecting something to come out of the shadows at any minute. 

"These weird blue torches weren't lit when I came down here earlier," I said as we headed towards one of the doors to the side of the main entrance gallery.

"Maybe they're motion sensitive!" Sunflower suggested. "They detect that someone is moving around and turn on for that?"

"Why would night ponies have motion-sensitive lights?" I asked. "They see in the dark."

"They aren't that bright of lights, and even back in the city, they have lights there," Sunflower pointed out. "Just because they don't like bright light doesn't mean they don't like light at all."

"You two need to be quiet. Your voices can echo and carry. We don't want to draw attention to ourselves," Blanche scolded in a harsh whisper. 

We shut up, but that only made me feel more nervous. Talking was soothing. It made me think more about how I was with friends instead of in a horrible place tracking down some unknown monster, and it also distracted me from looking at every shadow. The voices might be silent for the moment, but whatever had been in the shadows shared the same non-space with me. 

We went through a darkened door, and the next room's torches came to life as we entered. We might have needed that light to navigate, but I wished they had stayed out. That way, I wouldn't have to see what littered the floor. 

"Yinyu save us," Sunflower whimpered. 

It was more a long wide hallway than a room, and from one end to the other, it was filled with skeletons. None disturbed or dedicated by scavengers, some still had the metal remains of their armor on them, although all trace of cloth and flesh had long since disintegrated with time. Spears were jutting out of many of the skeletons. This was a final battlefield where no one had ever removed the dead, and no animal had ever come to scavenge. This wasn't just ruins of the palace; this was a tomb. 

And the shadows crawled along the walls, watching and waiting among the dead.