//------------------------------// // XIV – Lost on the Moon // Story: From the West They Came // by Not That Anon //------------------------------// This part of the cave was even more ancient. The unadorned walls of raw, black stone gave the impression of being as old as the world itself, possibly older. We didn’t have the time to take a closer look because the corridor ended as unexpectedly as it started, with a simple wooden door. I carefully pushed it open. The contrast between everything we’ve seen so far and this room was staggering. Or it would have been had I never visited it in my dreams. Sawbones looked around and said, “Is this the place you’ve seen in your… visions?” “It is,” I said. “Midnight?” The bat unicorn finished her detection spell. “No illusions here.” “Then let’s –“ another flash of light and numbing pain interrupted me “– go. Fast.” Midnight and Sawbones exchanged concerned looks. Whatever was going to happen next, it’d be the end of our journey, one way or another. We stepped inside. It was a lot smaller than what I saw in the dream – the table and the three chairs were almost pony-sized. The walls were made from plain logs just as I remembered them and nothing new appeared inside. The only way to tell it apart from a regular log cabin was the starry sky above our heads. But the stars were different and foreign. As we watched them, they aligned themselves in familiar shapes. Midnight was the first to notice the pattern. “On the longest day on the thousandth year,” she began the translation much more smoothly this time. “The stars will aid in her escape, and she will bring about nighttime eternal,” I finished, not even trying to understand how did I know what the words meant. Midnight raised her brow, “A prediction? But I thought–” Suddenly, somepony – no, something – clapped. “Congratulations, little ponies,” a weak distorted voice called out from far away, something that should be impossible in a room the size of a large broom closet. “Princess?” fearfully asked Sawbones. The voice spoke again, this time much closer to us. “I’d prefer Prince, if you’d be so kind.” Out of the corner of my eye I saw a malformed shadow skirt across the wall and onto one of the chairs. “Show yourself!” demanded Midnight, her horn crackling with the energy. “What an arrogant little bat!” He laughed. His laughter resembled the wailing of a thousand damned souls. “Trust me, you’d rather not see my handsome visage. I am the spirit of chaos, the Great Deceiver, the Multifarious, and whatever other names my future subjects will call me.” Sawbones took a step back. “Discord?” he said in a trembling voice. “It can’t be! You were defeated!” “I was, wasn’t I? How could I have forgotten?” his voices turned to a mocking dismay. “Just like a certain someone you wished to find here. Terribly sorry, my dears, but your princess is in another castle. Truth be told, I am not exactly the one you call Discord, either, but the details can wait until you become my servants.” I gritted my teeth. Sawbones stealthily reached into his saddlebags. “Servants?!” Midnight looked around with determination. “Never. I’ve sworn fealty to Princess Luna and her alone!” “I know, I know, but you might wish to reconsider that.” He laughed again. “After all, my victory is all but assured. Celestia doesn’t even know when the banishment spells will end but as you saw yourselves, it's all written here. First, your princess will come back and catch her by surprise. I don’t care who wins, really. Either way when ‘Discord’ comes back there will be no one strong enough to stop him. So what will it be?” “Answer’s still no,” she drawled. “That’s so sad! Do you know I can crush your world with a snap of my fingers?” “You can’t escape this prison.” I gathered the remaining scraps of my courage and stepped forward. “The rules bind you, too. You’re just smoke and mirrors.” I felt the thing’s attention shift and focus on me. It was like a downpour of filth striking every inch of my body. “Is that… my favorite persistent little bat!” he said with great merriment. At the same time shadowy tentacles shot from the dark corners of the room and held me and Midnight in place. “So that’s how you found the way here. Sadly, it looks like I’ll have to teach you both some manners.” An enormous fish eye opened in the air before us. It was the color of sulfur, with a red pupil of searing magma. Its gaze burned, turning the minds and will of those who wished to disobey it to dust. I flailed my limbs trying to break free. I failed; the Deceiver already seized our minds. As it began to dawn on me that my life was about to end here, in a place beyond places, a dagger flew through the air, striking the monster right in the middle of his eye. He shrieked and – in a moment of confusion – released us from its grasp, both physical and mental. “Run!” shouted Sawbones as he threw his scalpel using his other wing. We dashed to the exit but the thing that simultaneously was and wasn’t Discord turned out to be faster. As we were about to cross the threshold, he ensnared Sawbones and began dragging him back to the eye. “Go! Don’t let it escape,” he cried out. “I am ready.” Those were his last words. We burst out of the room and I turned around to shut the door. Before I did, I saw dozens of shadowy spear-sized spikes launch itself at the surgeon. There was no way he could survive that but at least his end happened in an instant. A small cloud of sparkly blue smoke left his lungs. The cloud drifted out of the room and to the exit of the dungeon. As it did, I felt the familiar cold sting in the homecoming rune. “Even if you run, you cannot hope to escape my prison yourselves,” boomed a horrifying choir of a thousand disharmonious voices. “My new puppets will bring you to me and then I'll use your help to sail to Equestria, whether you submit willingly or not.” We ran. Somewhere along the way, two more waves of cold struck me. Only one soldier left standing. When we turned the corner, Straight Pike was desperately fighting with his back against the wall. He heard us, glanced at the corridor blocked by at least two dozen enemies, and charged forward swinging his partisan like a madpony. He disappeared under the hateful pile of our former crew well before we could reach him but his sacrifice cleared the way just barely long enough for us to gallop through, leaving the monsters that used to be ponies behind us. The flash of light and the stinging cold came seconds later. With no other distractions, Discord’s puppets quickly identified us as the new targets. They began chasing us with unnatural speed, threatening to catch us in seconds. Midnight’s telekinesis pushed the tables and the rubble from the collapsed ceiling into the exit, creating a makeshift barricade in front of us. Her horn glowed again and she gestured for me to stop. Just as some of the former sailors jumped to reach us, we disappeared from the room and reappeared on the other side of the barricade, at the maze’s exit. I could see the glowing path that led us to this hell. Midnight lied down, breathing heavily. She took off her hat and said, “So that’s how it ends, huh?” “Ends?” I lied next to her, shocked by what she said. “We’ve escaped them!” “For how long? Ten minutes? Thirty? Listen close, those things are already starting to clear the rubble.” She looked me in the eyes. “We can’t allow the Great Deceiver to reach Equestria, no matter the cost.” “What are you saying?” I said in a voice barely louder than a whisper. She averted her eyes. “Even if I could still run – which I can’t – they’d catch us on the stairs. However, if they’re distracted for long enough, maybe you could–“ “No!” I shouted, “Not you!” “You’ve said that ‘We all knew what we were getting ourselves into.’, didn’t you?” asked Midnight. “Yes but now that–“ She put her hoof on mine and smiled. “It’s no big deal, really. I doubt any of us are getting out of this alive. Unless…” she trailed off. “Unless what?” I raised my brow. She sighed and said, “Unless the Night will keep her promise.” We remained silent for a moment. Then, I said, “You know, I’ve seen something like a spirit or a soul leave the bodies of Sawbones and the fallen soldiers. Maybe she–“ “Shh –“ Midnight snuggled closer “– whatever happens, happens. Let’s not waste what little time we have talking about it.” “I wish we’d met under different circumstances.” I draped a wing over her. “So do I,” she said, grabbing her giant hat with her magic and putting it on my head. “What are you doing?” “Well, I can’t allow myself to be seen in public without my hat.” A single tear glistened in the corner of her eye. “Now that you have it, you’ll have to make it a priority to find me wherever we may meet next.” “I promise I won’t forget,” I said in a shaky voice. “You better don’t!” She tried to smile. “You don’t want to make the famous Bat Witch angry.” Rumbling behind us grew louder. Midnight stood up and said, “I always hated farewells. Get moving already. I’ll buy you as much time as anypony could.” “What’s your plan?” I asked, mostly to keep my mind from thinking about the immediate future. Rather than respond, Midnight’s horn glowed and soon we found ourselves standing in complete darkness. The only visible elements were Midnight’s magic aura, the stars that appeared above us and the path leading through the maze. She said, “Can you still see how to get out of here?” I nodded. “Good, I’m sure that they can’t.” She took a few steps into one of the wrong passages. “But they can see your aura, can they not?” I asked, even though I knew the answer already. Everything about this situation was so surreal that I needed to hear it to believe it. “Yes, thankfully we’re in a maze. By the time they find me, you’ll hopefully already be out of here.” She took a dagger out of my saddlebags. “Is it sharp?” “As sharp as it could be,” I answered. “Still, I doubt that a single dagger will help you much against dozens of those things.” “I won’t be using it against them. See you, Vigil!” She waved her hoof and galloped into the darkness. I waved back, though of course she couldn’t have seen the gesture. “See you, Midnight.” Everything since then went by in a blur. The maze, the corridor, the path to the ship – it all happened less than an hour ago and I don’t remember any of it. Well, that’s not entirely true. I remember that when I finally left the forsaken underground, a blue sparkly cloud nimbly zipped past me and flew into the sky. In contrast to all the previous cases of it happening, this time it was my heart which hurt the most. I already had a plan ready by the time I set my hooves on the ship. The two barrels of explosive powder we took for emergencies were still in the hold. A quarter of one could blow a sea serpent into pieces; two barrels would turn a ship into tiny splinters. I opened the barrels and evenly spread their contents in the hold. As for the source of fire, in a couple minutes I’ll go and retrieve the vial of dragonfire from the safe and drop it onto this journal. The book – alongside some explosive powder, I apologize for that – will travel to you, Celestia, and the heat in the surrounding area will set off the explosion. If you’re wondering why I’m doing this, I need to stress that I am not sorry for what I and the other sailors have done. We tried to help our Princess and nothing more. With that in mind, I dare to ask of You, Princess, two favors. One, strike all records of the farthest west from history. No one deserves to repeat our fate. Alter the legends and bury the records that hint at the mere possibility. There is nothing for a sane pony to find here. Or, to put it another way, nothing that should be found by a sane pony. Two, help our good Princess Luna leave her nightmarish state and stop the Great Deceiver. You now know when she will return, so please, use the coming thousand years as well as you can. I can hear the hoofsteps up above. Two dozen or more, the fool must’ve sent all of his servants after me. If the explosion won’t be enough to get rid of them, a bath in the purple acid should suffice. My hoof is shaking. A part of me can’t believe that it has come down to this but I suppose if you’re reading the journal, you already know how this story ends. There’s no point in delaying the inevitable any longer. Farewell. The last survivor and the captain of Luna’s Grace, Long Vigil