The Ancient City of Avros
I didn't want to believe it at first, but I was in a magical world where just about anything was possible, still trying to wrap my head around that one if I'm being honest.
These floating sprites were the spirits of the family I saw, the parents and their child, somehow tethered to the living world instead of passing on. They lingered in the darkness of this mountain home, aimlessly existing in the void for god knows how long, and I could only ask myself why.
I looked down at the bones of the family splayed out on the ground and the beds, I didn't need to know who was who, it was obvious, they were old and decayed like the rest of this mountain city. Their clothes were tattered and rotted away, serving no purpose to someone like me. Nothing in this room seemed to be of any importance, not that I could see. The sprites themselves hovered above the bones and I felt a pang of something in my chest, pain... a pain I couldn't fully grasp.
"I..."
What could I even say? Would they understand me despite being ghosts? Did they even understand my language?
I was at a loss.
The larger of the three spirits hovered close to me, its light bright enough that I could see more. It moved past me and out of the room with barely a sound, soon followed by the other two spirits, forcing me to follow them lest I was left alone in the shadows of a fallen civilization.
I followed them out of the room and into the hall where I saw them heading back downstairs.
I was quick to follow after them downstairs, the only source of light I had, and to be quite frank, I wasn't too keen on being trapped in a bedroom with bones. I followed the Sprites downstairs while they zipped around broken furniture, tattered clothes, and overturned pots until we reached an old cabinet, littered with some plates and other objects, cobwebs especially, but the larger sprite zipped behind it...
My instincts tingled.
"Alrighty then, sorry if I bust this."
I grabbed onto the age-old wood before hefting it to the side. It scraped against the stone floor, and it tried to resist, but I used some clever leverage to push it out of the way, but once I had let it go it decided to topple over and fall to the ground with a loud boom before revealing an old wooden door covered by a moth-eaten cloth. I winced at the echo and waited in case anything heard me, but I heard nothing, hopefully, that shadow monster wouldn't come back anytime soon.
The door didn't look special, but they went in there for a reason. I blew a raspberry and approached the door before I grabbed onto the handle, and pulled it towards me. It struggled but I was able to pull it open to reveal a small spiral stairwell, a cramped one that went down into the darkness, the larger of the spirits eyed me before going down.
Forced to follow less I lose my only light, I ran after it.
I squeezed myself down the stairs and I got dizzy really fucking quick until I found myself in the basement, populated by some kinda small insects that fled from the light and my presence. I took a look around and spotted some shelves full of small pots, some rolls of cloth, and a few bigger pots on the ground, but the chest at the far back was what had gotten my interest. The bigger sprite hovered over it before vanishing inside, and I was in the shadows.
I had no idea where the other sprites went, but I had to blindly make my way over to the chest, and I only found it because my foot slammed into the front of it.
"Fuck!" My shout echoed, and I had to bite my tongue. Idiot.
I knelt in front of the chest and grabbed onto either side before lifting the lid up and back, and I found the sprite inside, lighting up its contents.
I blinked at the sight of a sword still in its scabbard, next to it, a matching dagger.
I looked at the sprite and then to the blade once more.
Then the sprite hit me in the chest again and a flash of white overtook me.
"Father?" I heard the voice of the filly again, the family from before, alive and well.
The stallion had knelt in front of the chest as the filly entered the room, and he smiled before turning around to face her. "Yes, my little princess?"
The young filly rushed over to him with a bright smile as she watched him hold the same sword I had seen in the chest. "Are you really putting away your sword?"
"Aye, child." He said, looking down at the blade. "I've slain many a beast with this, but now it is time for it to rest." He turned around to open the chest, taking the dagger from his hip and placing it inside the chest alongside the sword, which he placed inside with the same reverence one would putting an old friend to rest. "I've retired from the Avrosian Guard, so I no longer need it." Once the blades were inside, he closed the chest before turning around and quickly picking her up.
"Wee! So you get to spend more time with me?"
My heart died a little as he nodded.
"All the time in the world, sweetheart."
I came back to the present and was watching the sprite in front of me... the father, on either side, the mother and child. I could almost sense their eyes on me, and all I could feel was sadness. My heart felt like it was being grabbed, and my mind was flooded with images of the chaos that must have unfolded in this city so long ago. So many lives were lost and destroyed in an instant by the Caribou, the ones who bore the mark I saw splattered on the walls like it was a proud symbol.
Anger was swift to bubble up in my heart, the sadness giving way to rage. The door holding it back felt like it was splintering apart from the force, and I wasn't sure how much longer I could contain it either. I didn't even realize my hand had taken hold of the blade's handle.
I paused to take a breath before looking up at the sprite.
"You led me to this for a reason, right?" I asked, but I didn't expect an answer. It just floated there. Figures as much, but maybe they understood, whatever the case may be. I looked down at the blades before I picked them up and stood. "Well, I doubt you led me to these just to show me... and I do need a weapon, so these will definitely help."
I fixed the scabbard of the sword and dagger to my belt, feeling and testing the weight until I had them situated properly. I didn't see anything else in the chest, except for the sprites. They hovered up into the air in front of me.
"I'm sorry you couldn't enjoy your retirement, bud..." I whispered.
A hum snatched my attention away from them to the dagger, which I now noticed was glowing. I grabbed onto the handle and pulled it free, producing a brilliant light that lit up the whole basement.
"Gah!" I had to squint as I slowly got used to the brightness, but once I was able to see properly and my eyes didn't burn, I held it like one would a torch. "Holy-"
"This darkness is no ally to you, my friend." A deep voice whispered, and my hand shot to the sword. "Fear not the one who grants you a boon, fear instead that which makes friends with those who dwell within the deepest realm within the abyss." He told me, and I focused on the sprites in front of me.
Or rather, their pony forms.
The sprites slowly turned into ghostly apparitions of ponies, bat ponies to be precise. I watched as they took the forms of the family I had seen earlier, the ones brutally slaughtered in their own home. The father looked down at me with a grimace, tall and muscular, with rough features and soft eyes.
"You guys are the..." I blinked and the stallion nodded at me. "Why the blades?"
"You are not alone down here, as you already know, friend." He told me and gestured to the blade I held, bright as ever. "The sword you now wield is- rather was a gift from the goddess, Celestia." My eyes widened at the blade, despite the light which had now dulled down to allow me to see the steel itself, emblazoned with runes foreign to me. "It will help you escape these foul depths."
"Really? But why give them to me?"
The stallion only smiled. "Because I have no use for them anymore, and I would rather no one else perish down here if I can help it."
I sighed and lowered the blade until it was by my side, and I looked back up at the stallion. "I greatly appreciate this, it will help... especially after losing my other weapons." I told him and then asked, "what happened here? If you don't mind me asking that is. The entire city is dust and bones, and full of spirits... was it the Caribou?"
He looked back to his wife and child, and then back to me. "The work of the dark lord Ori, and his chaotic thralls, long ago they invaded our home and laid waste to the Thestral kingdoms of Equestria, ours was the last to fall..." He looked down at the blade I now held. "I sense a dark power from you, but it is not your own, is it?"
I adjusted the pack and was firmly reminded of the key I was carrying. "I carry with me something that was used to lock away Ori, a special key... the only reason I have it is because of the Caribou, they're looking to break him free from his prison, so I'm trying to hide it." Can't believe I made it this far without losing it again, yeesh.
"I see, so Ori is to rise again."
"Not if I can help it," I replied swiftly. "I'm not going to let them bring him back."
The stallion nodded and smiled. "It would seem I made the right decision then, in giving you my blade. Go now, escape this wretched tomb before the darkness swallows you whole. The Nightmare hungers for all, and you are the freshest thing here."
"The Nightmare?" I swallowed and felt the hairs on my neck stand on end. "Suddenly things make sense now..."
"The same darkness that devoured our princess, devoured our kingdom..." He closed his eyes and he and his family began to fade away before my eyes. "I wish you luck, stranger."
I almost wanted to stop them, but I held myself firm. "Dee..." I told him before he vanished completely. "My name is Dee."
"A strange name, for a strange creature." Only a torso remaining, he replied, "Nightfall, is my name."
I smiled as he faded away entirely, leaving no trace of him or his family. "I'll remember it."
Once he had faded away, I was left alone in the basement with the glowing sword. Now I had a better weapon, a backup, and a better understanding of what happened to this city and what this foul darkness was. It was the Nightmare, which I didn't even know could exist in this way, it explains a lot though. I spat and turned around before finding my way back upstairs and to the main room.
I was about to leave and hunt down the exit, before looking at the stairs leading up to the second floor. I frowned and walked back up to check on the bones of the family, still covered in dust and cobwebs, in a room stained with blood. I went over to the bed before ripping off the sheet and tossing it over the bones. I would rather dig graves for them, but not only did I lack a shovel to use, but there also wasn't exactly any dirt down here to dig through.
It was all I could do.
"Rest in peace," I told them and then walked downstairs and out of the door, back into the streets of a city swallowed up by shadows and darkness.
Armed with newfound courage, I turned and started jogging through the city in my search for the exit.
A brisk jog swiftly turned into a heated walk as I found myself in what looked like a sort of marketplace for Avros, thoroughly ransacked of any goods worthwhile, and the majority left behind was broken or otherwise rendered unusable by the hordes of Ori, which was a shame, I was hoping to at least grab some other useful items for myself. Some things I stumbled upon were coins, small bags of bronze and silver coins with a few gold ones here and there, a disturbing amount.
I wasn't sure about the exact costs of things but I had searched one stall after another, and even a few of the warehouses, and found a decent amount of loot that could reasonably afford anything. Given my loot-goblin nature, I naturally grabbed as much as I could shove into my own coin purse with a healthy amount stowed away in a pocket in my backpack, which weighed it down.
Somehow I'm gonna regret this.
After getting a good amount, I made my way through the market before finding a large open area of the plaza fixed with a fountain, long dried up. I saw more skeletons laying around, tattered armor and clothing on them all, some wearing next to nothing with broken pelvic bones and shattered arms and legs.
"Christ." I kept my sword out to light up the area, and it started to glow brighter the closer to the fountain I got.
It wasn't until it almost burned my eyes that something felt off.
"Fuck's sake, why so damn brigh-"
I was moving forward when I was cursing the brightness and I almost kicked something, had my body not stopped on its own. I felt an immense pressure surrounding me as if the Nightmare had come back to swiftly take hold of me again, my bones felt cold and my eyes widened. I felt drawn to something in front of me, and naturally, I started to look closer at whatever it was, only to wish I hadn't.
A large pile of bones, a corpse, was laying up against a small guardpost, absolutely massive to look at. It was a large winged beast at some point before its death, with a colossal jaw full of sharp teeth, dozens of them, and horns on its head. It looked like a demon out of some fantasy game, but thankfully it was dead and I didn't have to worry much.
Yet I couldn't stop the lingering feeling in my heart, why was I so spooked? And what the hell was this feeling?
The bones in front of me shifted in the silence, just the barest crunch of long dead bones starting to move.
The sword was glowing a bright blue color as the pile of bones was suddenly overflowing with some sort of dark magic, swirling around the legs and snaking its way up to the exposed ribcage and whirling around inside like a whirlpool of sickeningly dark magic that began taking hold of the skeletal creature. I watched as the magic formed around the legs and arms, forcing the long dead bones to move from where they slumbered for god knows how long.
The skull lifted up and snapped back into place before shifting to turn its dead gaze toward me. Its eye sockets, once empty, now glowed with a dark bluish light that reminded me of the undead creatures above, was the Nightmare responsible for doing that too? I didn't know the Nightmare spread beyond just Luna, fuck.
The beast rumbled as it was forced with undead life, bones cracked and crunched under its own weight as it slowly moved into a hunched-over position. It kept itself up as a gorilla would, with a long tail swishing behind it, long and spiked for smashing and piercing attacks.
It watched me and I it, before slowly backing away.
I felt absolutely overwhelmed.
The beast roared and the once quiet tomb of Avros echoed with its war cry, the force of such a bellow caused me to fall backward and nearly drop my only form of light. The darkness I felt around me seemed to tighten its unnatural grip and I almost puked from how powerful it felt. Its hold on the bones in front of me only worsened as the creature seemed to loosen up from centuries of death as it started to stalk toward me.
No armor covered its body, only bone with spikes protruding from certain areas to act as a defense, and the dark magic swirling inside its chest condensed itself into a sort of orb, every pulse it sent out like a sickening heartbeat to allow it movement and life.
"Hell no." I said and scrambled onto my feet before rushing away, sword in hand, lighting my way and allowing me to keep the darkness at bay as it seemed to swallow up everything in sight.
Like a neverending void of shadows clinging to every surface, swallowing up the buildings around me until it looked as if I was in the abyss, threatening to drown in perpetual darkness. My sword was the only thing keeping back the darkness with its brilliant glow, and I couldn't help but wonder why Celestia would causally give this out as a gift.
I shook my head and kept running before almost running into a wall.
It was then I realized I was surrounded by darkness, this sword only uncovered a few feet in front of me, nothing more.
Whatsmore, it also lent me a clear visual of the monster awoken from its eternal slumber. An undead monster half stomping half crawling its way across a void of abysmal darkness.
Fuck, I can't just blindly run around like this. I told myself and turned around, before pulling out the dagger and holding the blade facing down. The sword I held was short enough to be held with one hand, so I opted for a duel-wield stance. I did everything I could to steel my nerves and stop my panicking heart, lest I go into cardiac arrest. Come on, Dee, come on!
"Ugly fucking bastard!" I shouted at the beast as it kept coming. "You're in for an ass-kicking today! Was just thinking about how boring shit was until you came along!" My voice cracked.
Fuck I think that made it madder somehow.
The beast crashed through building after building, sending debris flying all around as it closed in on me. I rushed forward through the darkness and used the sword to light up the path in front of me, and I jumped over corpses and piles of junk as I made a beeline for the monster making a damn mess of everything.
Only way out is through him.
I had to fight this thing off somehow, but how? I couldn't see any obvious weakness and I doubt I could just slash and hack it down with this blade, it looked too sturdy for that kind of strategy.
I caught sight of it bringing back its arm, no doubt for a swipe, and cursed as I was already running full tilt toward it.
"Shit shit shit!"
I pushed myself to go even faster to try and beat it. My legs were already burning but I kept running until I managed to just narrowly miss the arm as it crashed down behind me and swept across where I had just been standing not a moment ago, and quickly I examined the creature for any kind of weakness, something I could use to combat it.
Everything had a weakness, everything!
The magic was moving across its body from that orb in its chest, every bit of it interwoven through every bone like threads all connected to one another, like muscle fibers. Every one of them led back to that orb.
An idea hit me. Mimicking the ancient Trojan Prince Paris, sans the bow, I moved toward the creature's heels and swiftly slashed at the magic swirling around it, causing the threads to catch fire and sever completely, and like the once great Achilles, the creature roared before it fell to one knee, unable to continue using the ankle I had weakened.
"Paris, you glorious bastard," I murmured as I looked up at the beast, tail violently swishing around as one of the claws reached underneath to try and grab at me.
I quickly avoided it and swung my sword at the deadly claws coming toward me. The tip of my blade hit the longest claw and took off half of it, sending it flying somewhere as the creature roared again.
"Get fucked!" I shouted and rushed away from it as it tried to recover.
As I circled around the beast, I watched the threads I had cut try and mend themselves, but the aftermath of my attack had done something to it, leaving behind a burning edge the magic couldn't touch. Try as it could, it was unable to mend the ankle, thus leaving it disabled.
Seems like this sword is magical in other ways, it's able to hurt the Nightmare. I looked down at the blade, which still glowed brightly as ever. I took a moment to thank Nightfall for his gift again as I continued to study the creature. The Nightmare seems confused, it hasn't lashed out at me yet, I need to take out the other limbs, I disable it, and killing it should be simple enough.
I watched the threads continue to reconnect before the Nightmare grew frustrated, as much as a voiceless/faceless entity could, I imagine. It gave up and the creature turned its attention to me as the power seemingly grew, and the cords of black magic covering it grew larger before it slammed its claws into the stone below and on both arms and one leg, forced itself towards me.
I jumped from where I was hiding near some rubble and changed spots as it crushed everything in its path to find me. If it was truly connected to the shadows like I was thinking, then it didn't matter where I was hiding, it could sense me regardless, and I had to act fast or I was done for.
I'd join Nightfall and his family in the void.
I gotta take this thing down. As I jumped over more rubble and ended up behind the creature, I eyed that orb inside its chest as it grew in size and another idea came to mind. The threads are all coming from that, so maybe if I directly strike that, it'll kill it. All of the darkness is centered on that orb... and with my sword capable of taking out said darkness.
I felt a rush of adrenaline surge through me as it all fell into place.
"I love it when a plan comes together."
I rushed out into the open as it broke through another stall and swung one of its arms toward me. It had gotten faster and I was almost ill-prepared to face it, but I leaped right over the arm and lost balance briefly.
I landed on the ground in a roll as it roared and smashed its elbow into the ground and twisted its body to try and get at me, and I had to react fast.
I swung the blade as hard as I could at the arm closing in on me and felt the metal connected with bone with a violent clang that sent a shockwave up my arm and into my shoulder. My blade bounced off and I almost lost the grip on it, but my attack wasn't in vain.
The sword hit true and the darkness connected to it lost its hold as a blazing blue fire surged across it like a bushfire. The creature roared again as the darkness severed its own connections lest the flame spread and consume it.
It was weak to fire, and this sword gave me that edge.
Goddamn Nightfall, you lucky bastard, thank you.
I swung my sword back around and ran forward, fueled by crazed bravado or insanity, I wasn't sure, but I took the advantage I was given and sprinted straight past its dead arm and toward the chest cavity where its beating heart was throbbing. I brought my blade back and hacked away at the shadows trying to defend its wretched source, easily cutting through it all with the blazing sword of mine until I reached the orb.
"Back to hell with you, bitch!" I screamed and shoved the tip of my sword into the orb, cracking its smooth surface and piercing the inside.
The beast froze before the orb and its entire body caught flame, exploding brilliantly and lighting up the cavern from the darkness. The flame spread beyond the creature and devoured the darkness surrounding me like a hungry dragon, its mighty roar echoing throughout as it followed the Nightmare into the depths of Avros, lighting up every tunnel and hole I could see. It was like a domino effect and the flame was spreading from this creature, and cascading across the mountain city like a cleansing inferno.
The bones surrounding me were devoured by the intense flame, yet I barely felt the heat of it as the bones turned to dust and fell around me. The shadow was gone, the darkness retreated and I was left in the plaza, thoroughly destroyed but cleansed of the abyss that had consumed it for centuries.
The orb I had cracked fell from my sword and hit the ground, shattering into pieces that faded away, save for one large shard that glowed brightly.
I blinked and stowed my knife away before I knelt to grab onto it as my sword's glow disappeared. The shard didn't look special, but it was the only thing that remained of that creature that I had just killed...
It then hit me.
I killed what basically amounted to a mini-boss in an RPG.
The shard was my prize, I guess?
"Huh..." I looked around as the rest of the city looked to be brighter than before, despite being so deep underground. I didn't feel that crushing weight around me, I felt... freed, almost. "You'd think I'd be a little more excited considering I took that thing out, but..." I felt nothing.
Around me though, I saw those spirits from before reappear, but from all over the city. Rising from every building, every corpse, every nook, and cranny from here to where I had been prior, to further ahead where the exit had to be located. I watched them rise up and take rough forms of their pony selves. Thousands upon thousands of bat ponies rose from the darkness, shining brightly like starlight.
I could feel the eyes of thousands upon me and I felt worried.
In front of me, I saw the spirit of one of the batponies, a young filly... too young to suffer a fate like this.
She was smiling at me.
"Thank you for freeing us, stranger." She spoke to me.
"F-freeing you?" I asked as some of the spirits around me began to fade away as they rose up above.
"The Nightmare kept us here... we were unable to leave, but you freed us." She told me before she too, rose with the rest of the people of Avros. "Thank you, stranger."
As I watched them all leave, I found myself uttering, "Dee... my name is Dee."
She kept smiling even as she disappeared alongside the countless other souls, and before long... Avros was silent once more, with only myself as its sole occupant.
I don't know why, but I felt immensely sad. A weight fell upon my heart as I slowly sheathed my blade, and felt truly alone for the first time since arriving here in the world of MLP. I really just did that, didn't I?
I almost couldn't fathom it. I had taken on a beast and with Nightfall's sword, sent a cleansing inferno chasing away the Nightmare, possibly forever, and breaking its hold on the ancient batpony city for good.
A sense of pride took hold after my sadness faded, and I smiled.
"The city can rest, now." I chuckled and stretched out my aching bones before pocketing the shard. "Guess the adventure isn't over yet... still more to do, still have to deal with this damn orb." I looked back at the city. "Hmm, at least I did some good before leaving."
With a wave to the city, I made my way towards the exit... wherever that was.