//------------------------------//
// Chapter 9: The Underground Passage 
// Story: Glowing in Everglow 
// by Darkmoon9 
//------------------------------//

Diary Twilight Sparkle

The gathering at Turves went off without a hitch, the Defenders of Taralos all contributing to making the alliance with all but one of the clans possible. And both me and Sunset helped Night’s Blessing and Dawn Rising with the relationship. When it came to uniting the clans, Cozy’s help might’ve been the most valuable of all. Yet I couldn’t shake the feeling that she might turn against us someday. I have been burned before by her; I knew better than to trust her. Yet Sunset faith in her was unshakable, I didn’t understand why. I decided to have a conversation with her about it during the final few days of the gathering. I told her:

“How can you put so much faith in Cozy Glow? You know what she is responsible for, do you truly think she can change?”

Her answer was pretty much what I had expected:

“Did I used to be any different that when we first met? I also attempted to conquer Equestria, and for similar reasons to Cozy. Yet you were able to help me become a better person, if I was not a lost cause, then I also choose to believe Cozy can be helped. And more importantly, Twilight, if you ever go down a dark path, I am willing to stretch out my hoof to help you as well. We are all capable of both good and evil Twilight, Cozy Glow is not an exception, and neither is you.”

I told her that I thought that Cozy was planning something. This time her response was rather unexpected:

“I know, there is certainly something going on, but I have absolute faith in that when it comes down to it, Cozy will choose to do the right thing, as long as I am here for her as a friend, and I believe that Night’s Blessing will also push her in the right direction.”

I had come to terms with the fact that me and Sunset would probably never agree on Cozy, but I hoped she was right. She was right in that she wasn’t that different from Cozy once upon a time. But if she was wrong it could lead to disastrous events that could threaten this entire world.

After the end of the gathering, we traveled back to the camp of the general Moonshadow to report what we have learned, both Night’s Blessing and Dawn rising decided to accompany us. The general invited us to a war meeting for us to give our report. I told the general everything we had learned about being Gnoll King and the mysterious amulet that allowed him to teleport back to his hideout, as well as the tunnels that had been dug underneath the Turves clans territory. General Moonshadow told us there was a powerful artifact in the ruined temple where the Gnoll King had made his base, called the Orb of Mathias, if the orb was destroyed, the Gnoll King would no longer be able to escape from battles. Cozy suggested that we should strike at the orb while the collective army of the Turves Tribes and the kingdom of Taralos engaged with the main Gnoll army. That way we could cut off the Kings escape route. Leaving it up to the forces of General Moonshadow and Queen Regent Scarlet Lance to deal with the Gnoll King. I told her that the Gnoll King’s fortress was probably heavily defended and that attacking it would be suicide. It was then that Night’s Blessing came up with a suggestion. She had been in the tunnels underneath her clans territory, she knew there was a path directly into the Gnoll King’s fortress using these tunnels. So, she suggested we should sneak in that way. General Moonshadow told us that she was confident she could overwhelm the Gnoll King’s forces thanks to the assistance of the tribes, making a comment about that while they might not be disciplined troops, they had numbers on their side as well as ferocity and experience. She then proceeded to tell us that we no doubt wanted to get out of the fortress alive, but that she couldn’t send a rescue party after us while they were dealing with the Gnoll King. She did, however, tell us that she would have ponies hire a boat and wait for us at the coast, if we were able to get to water, we would be safe. Despite this precaution, we were warned that this might be a suicide mission. Sunset told the general that this wasn’t the first time she had accomplished a seemingly impossible mission. 

Night’s Blessing told us the entrance to the tunnel started at some underground docks that was currently occupied by gnolls, from there the underground river would take us to a set of underground ruins, which would lead into some natural caves before leading to the ancient temple at the center of the gem gnoll territory.

After leading us to the docks, Night’s Blessing motioned for silence. She led us into a passage she claimed would lead us to the docks. Whoever built the passage were not tall people, the ceiling was low enough for us to reach up and touch it. But it seemed well-crafted and secure. The passage soon opened up to a large square room with another passageway leading through to the far side. The room was empty, yet marks in the dust suggested it had been used reasonably regularly. There was also a set of tracks in the room that appeared to be from gem gnolls. But Cozy pointed out that they seemed to follow a strange zigzag pattern. Night’s Blessing suggested that this might be because there were pit traps in the floor. I suggested that if that was true, we had to be careful to follow the pattern of the gem gnoll tracks, not once putting our hooves on the parts of the floor the tracks didn’t frequent. Following my advice, we all managed to get across the room without incident.

The room above us after passing the room with the pit traps seemed to be a sleeping area for the gem gnolls, Cozy spotted bells attached to string scattered all over the room as a crude alarm system, we decided it would be best to not disturb this room and search for another way to the boats. The passage to the south led to a square room but seems to have been used as a storage area. Going through this room, we could hear running water before we could see it, we arrived at the underground river. To the side of this river was a pier and tied to be pier were two boats, each one of them large enough to hold eight ponies. We also spotted two gem gnolls in the process of patching up a leak in one of the boats with tar. The gnolls tried to push the boats into the water upon seeing us, but were quickly overwhelmed by Cipher, Night’s Blessing, Silverwing and Shadow Chaser jumping them at once, taking them captive and tying them up by the riverbed. We then all helped push one of the boats into the water and got into it. As we pushed it away from the pier the current gripped the boat, sending it spinning away downstream. We spent the next few hours watching cave walls go past as we continued down the river. Then Night’s Blessing pointed out a landmark, a bridge had collapsed into the river, the river running shallow over the remains of the bridge, beyond was a second bridge that was still standing. Night’s Blessing told us that this meant that it was time to get off. Night’s Blessing pointed out that we could skip navigating through most of the ruins if we got up on a steep cliff that led to the final section of ruins that led directly into the natural caves that followed. Cozy and Silverwing got up on the cliff using their wings while I employed a teleportation spell to get up there instantly. We were just to let down some ropes to let Cipher, Shadow Chaser, Sunset and Night’s Blessing get up there, but before he could look down the road we were ambushed by strange small pale human-like creatures with a pale skin, clad in black rags. The first time I had ever encountered humanoid beings outside of the world that Sunset originally fled to. But apparently humanoids existed in this new strange world in addition to ponies. 

Cozy quickly finished tying the rope to the top of the cliff as one of the creatures cast a spell that emitted darkness across the area, eliminating the light from my horn. We were now fighting in pitch blackness. I could hear Night’s Blessing quickly climb up the rope and jumping between Cozy and one of the stalkers, I heard her blade strike something in the darkness, it shrieked. I could feel one of the creatures trying to strike me, but it seemed the force field I had erected around me blocked it. Cipher then jumped up and aided Night’s Blessing, who then was able to finish off one of the creatures, a blinding flash of light illuminated the area as she struck down the creature, blinding the other creatures used to the darkness. With that it wasn’t difficult for us to overwhelm the remaining creatures.

“What was that?” I asked the rest of the group. I had never even heard of anything like this, even with my extensive knowledge back in my world. Night’s Blessing answered:

“Dark Creepers, foul creatures that live in the underground, thrive in the darkness and their blades are often poisoned. You were lucky not to get struck. They are servants of the stronger Dark Stalkers; their presence probably means there is one of those around here somewhere.”

Where the dark creepers had fallen, there were no remains of their bodies, only the black rags they had been carrying and their poisoned daggers, as well as the vials of poison they used to poison them. Cipher gathered as much of the poison as he could. Something I took specific note of.

The next room we entered was fully furnished, almost luxuriously so, there was a four-poster bed, a chest of drawers and even a vanity stand with a mirror in his room, there was a tunnel to the north of that into what appeared to be a natural cave. But the most eye-catching of all was a circular hole about 10 feet across in the corner of the room, there was a rope attached to it, leading down into pitch blackness. Out of the hole in the ground came a strange creature. It looked a lot like the dark creepers earlier, with its pale skin, humanoid appearance and dark garb, but this one was much bigger, fully the size of a pony. It wielded a pair of scimitars in each hand. Night’s Blessing moved to engage it, connecting a blow from her own jet- black scimitar. Then the Dark Stalker submerged the room in pitch darkness, drowning out the light from both mine and Sunset’s horns. There was the sound of intense fighting in the pitch blackness before a flash of light once again illuminated the room, putting an end to the darkness. The black garb of the Dark Stalker was lying on the ground in the corner of the room where it had emerged from the dark hole in the floor, standing on top of its remains was Night’s Blessing, who had finished it off in a matter of seconds in pitch blackness.

Cozy was in awe over Night’s Blessing’s fighting skills. And to tell the truth so was I. Cozy questioned her over where she learned to fight so well in the darkness, and she told her that her clan trained themselves to fight effectively at night. I inquired about her special looking black scimitar, she told me that it was a family heirloom passed down from chieftain to chieftain, a magical blade called the Blade of Night. We found various potions in the room, as well as some gold in a hidden compartment. Cipher collected the poison from the remains of the Dark Stalker, maybe it was just to help against our enemies, yet I found myself unable to fully trust him. He seemed to be close to Cozy Glow, even if not as close as Night’s Blessing, so I was wondering if they needed the poison for a more nefarious purpose. I didn’t say anything for now, but I was going to watch the two of them more closely from now on. 

We continued into the natural caves, following the lead of Night’s Blessing. She seemed to be able to detect marks on the ground that revealed which way we should go, it was clear she had been here before, or at least her tribe has. We spent over two days without much incident navigating the cave system in the darkness. The only light coming from mine and Sunset’s horns. Taking breaks whenever we got tired to get some sleep, always making sure there was at least one awake, watching for danger. I made sure to always accompany Cipher or Cozy during their time to watch, I didn’t trust them and was afraid either of them would plunge a knife in my back while sleeping. I also made sure to only eat my own rations, knowing full well that Cipher might attempt to poison any food cooked for the group. Sunset seems to take notice of my paranoia; she told me that my caution was excessive and that I should knock it off. But I knew it was better to be safe than sorry. 

When continued through the cavern in what I presume was the next morning, it was hard to tell time this far underground, we came across a cavern that split into three different passages. Night’s Blessing seemed to be deep in thought over what path was the correct one, while she was thinking, I noticed a giant centipede, big as a small house come down from the ceiling. It wasn’t as strong as its size suggested, the creature was quickly overwhelmed by Night’s Blessing, Silverwing and my own spells, not before it managed to bite Silverwing, poisoning him severely. Sunset’s magic unable to cure the poison, we had to leave it to Silverwing’s on natural hardiness to fight the poison. He was able to overcome it with a little bit of rest, but not before the poison had severely weakened his body, making him significantly slower than before. Nevertheless, Silverwing insisted we had to continue forward, regardless of his weakened state, as our mission was more important.

Night’s Blessing soon remembered which way to go, leading us into the tunnel to our right. As we squeezed through a narrow passageway into a stone room, I could see the shape of a pony in the darkness in front of us. But upon closer inspection it was just a stone formation that somewhat looked like a pony, not even a pony that had been petrified, just regular stones. But the sight of the stone formation still seems to have made Cozy uneasy. Maybe her time as a stone statue really had severely traumatized her, I must admit that was never my intention. Maybe Sunset was right, maybe we did go too far with the punishment we gave her. Those petrified were never supposed to be self-aware while in their stone form, they were supposed to be in suspended animation, yet Sunset told me that Cozy had been aware of every single second. I remembered Discord having mentioned this was the way it had been for him, but he was the God of Chaos, so I thought it might be different. Maybe Discord created a special kind of petrification when he punished Cozy, Tirek and Chrysalis as a form of revenge. If that was so, I needed to speak to him about this once I finally returned to Equestria.

We continued forward, entering a cave that seemed empty apart from a scattering of rock on the floor that seemed to have fallen from the ceiling. Night’s Blessing whispered to us to be quiet, as even the slightest sound could cause a cave-in. We all remained quiet as we crossed this cave, the only sound being the sound of our hooves against the hard rock beneath us. 

As we stepped out of the caves, we started to see stone works around us, Night’s Blessing told us that we had entered the undertemple. As we continued forward, we entered a large hexagonal chamber. I must admit I was impressed by both the scale of his room and the huge arches that supported the roof. In the center of the ceiling there was a large ornate metal disc together with a matching metal disc on the floor, both covered with various markings. It seemed to be a mechanism to open a stairway to the temple above, but how to open it I wasn’t certain, but I suspected that there might be mechanisms in the other rooms. 

The chamber to our left was a room dominated by a huge wheel that emerged from the ground, it looked like it was designed to be pushed in order to turn it works a mechanism beneath. I suspected that this was how you opened the way into the temple, Cozy seemed to have the same suspicion, as she ordered Silverwing and Shadow Chaser, the two most physically strong members of our group to push it, but it was no use, the wheel seems to be stuck, probably due to a lack of maintenance. Had we really come so far just to be unable to progress due to a broken wheel? No, I wouldn’t stand for that. After all, I had read some books on these types of mechanisms, I just needed to find some sort of workshop that would have the right tools. Maybe there would be one somewhere around here, the people who once maintained these mechanisms must’ve had maintenance workers nearby. I told the others of my idea, and we started searching through the rest of the complex. 

In the room to the right of where the entrance to the temple proper would be, we found a room dominated by a waterfall tumbling down one of the walls. There was some sort of contraption collapsed on the floor near the waterfall, and a large metal cube stood beside the waterfall. The cube had a ladder leading up to its side, climbing up the ladder, the cube turned out to be hollow upon further investigation. The collapsed remains near the waterfall seemed to have once been a chute of some kind, funneling water into the cube, which I surmised to be some kind of counterweight. Probably a part of the mechanism that would open the path to the temple. Great, now I had two things to repair. 

Further into the undertemple we discovered what seemed to be an engineer’s worship, I knew such a thing would be present here. There were rusted tools and spare parts scattered everywhere, barrels scattered in one corner and a forge in the other corner. While there was a layer of dust around the tools and spare parts, everything seemed to be functional. I decided to get to work repairing both the broken wheel and the water counterweight system in the other room. This took a few hours, but once finished we were able to turn the wheel, that raised the lower half of the stairway leading upwards. The other half of the stairway came from the top of the ceiling and was activated by the counterweight system. We now had a path upwards to the temple. But attempting to go up the stairs faced us with yet another problem, as there was yet another door, sealed by a magical seal my current level of magic couldn’t break. It would’ve been easy if I still had all the power I had back in Equestria, but alas that was not the case. Searching for a solution, I realized that there was yet another room we hadn’t explored in the undertemple. 

This final room was large and strangely shaped, dominated by pits in the floor. In the center of the east wall was a pedestal with some kind of markings. Both me and Cozy decided to go and inspect the pedestal closer, the pedestal had three concentric rings on it that could all be moved around. Working together, me and Cozy worked out that maybe we should move the rings in such a way that it aligns with the markings. As we moved the rings into place however, it seems to have triggered some kind of teleportation spell, a group of skeletal ponies teleporting into the room. Their bones appear to be animated by some kind of dark magic; I had never seen anything like it in my entire life. I had only heard stories about the so-called undead ponies, yet here some were right in front of us. We prepared ourselves to fight the guardians. 

Cipher moved to engage one of the skeletal archers, but his dagger didn’t seem to be able to do much against an enemy but was only bone held together with magic. One of the other skeletal archers fired two arrows at Cozy in rapid succession, both hitting the weak spots of her armor, but despite the pain, Cozy was still standing. Night’s Blessing moved up to engage one of the skeletal guardians with heavy armor and melee weapons as Cozy put some kind of enchantment on Silverwing that seemed to increase his battle fervor. One of the skeletal champions moved to flank Night’s Blessing, but she parried their attack and inflicted damage in return with a counterattack. Silverwing at this moment took to the skies and used his momentum to descend upon the skeleton that had just attacked Night’s Blessing, annihilating it completely. Sunset emitting a holy light from her horn but seem to be causing pain to the undead, weakening every single undead warrior in the room. I decided to blast one of the skeletons with a ray of magic, annihilating it completely. It was now that even more undead ponies teleported into the room, these ones still appearing to have their rotten flesh attached to their bodies, they appeared to be zombies, but far faster and more agile than is usually associated with zombies. Night’s Blessing struck down the last skeletal champion and moved to engage the zombies. The last remaining archer from the first wave who was engaged with Cipher seemed to have the upper hand against him, managing to strike him with the long sword they used as a side arm. The zombies focused their attention on Nights Blessing, but she parried their attacks with ease. 

It was by the point I started to hear Cozy’s voice echoing in the chamber, I could feel the enchantments she laced into her words, bolstering the morale of each and every one of us.  The holy light Sunset emitted from her horn managed to take down the skeleton that Cipher was fighting and hurt the zombies. The enchantment on Silverwing spread to Night’s Blessing, who used her increased fervor to cut down another zombie, just as Silverwing slaid another. I tried to help with my magic, shooting force bolts at the remaining zombies.

It was now that the first and most horrible wave teleported in. Accompanied by another one of these strange agile zombies, as well as another skeletal archer, there was another far more horrible undead. It had the form of a horrifically decayed pony wearing a tattered brown cloak, its eyes alight with red balefire, where it should have had hooves, it instead had horrible long claws. The thing exuded an aura of pure terror. By this point Cipher decided to cast a spell and vanished from sight, it was either a teleportation spell or an invisibility spell. I guess he was feeling outmatched by these horrible undead creatures. Night’s Blessing, obviously invigorated by Cozy’s spell bravely challenged the horrible undead abomination, the only one to dare approach them. Cozy turned towards the horror and decided to insult their mother, oddly enough the vindictive enchantments laced into her words seemed to physically hurt the creature. Sunset’s light managed to kill off the zombie. But someone needed to deal with the skeletal archer, remembering having read something about skeletal undead being especially vulnerable to bludgeoning weapons, I took out the club I carried with me just in case from my saddlebags and charged at the skeleton with it, lifting it with my telekinesis and striking it as hard as I could. The club cracked its skull and the enchantments that bound it together fell apart, leaving only checkered skeletal remains on the ground. 

Now there was only the horror to deal with, the creature managed to savagely claw at Night’s Blessing, wounding her quite badly, but she was still defiant. Working together with Silverwing, who was also resistant to its order of terror due to Cozy, they managed to severely wound the creature. Seeing an opportunity, I decided to act, blasting it with magical energy. Destroying the creature utterly.

After destroying the undead guardians, Sunset and Cozy work together to heal those among us who had been wounded in the fight. Sunset patching up Cozy with her magic, Cozy healing her friend, Night’s Blessing, and Cozy and Sunset worked together to heal Cipher, who had now mysteriously reappeared, as well as Silverwing.

When we were ready to continue, we once again checked the door at the top of the stairway, turns out that what we did with the pedestal did indeed dispel the magical seal on the door. We now had access to the temple where the Gnoll King had hidden the Orb of Mathias. We were now very close to accomplishing our goal of destroying it and rendering the Gnoll King vulnerable to the combined forces of Taralos and the tribes of the Turves.