//------------------------------//
// Chapter the Second: Down the Left Bend 
// Story: Mountain of Misfortune 
// by Kiernan 
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Art kept his lantern by his side, holding it aloft in the glow of his horn. It wasn’t that his horn couldn’t produce light; it could, but the lantern was better. All it needed was fuel, and there was plenty of that. 

Taking Sam’s advice, Art hugged the right wall, a task that only seemed difficult because the tunnels were circular, like he was inside of a tube that twisted around. The cave system was surprisingly complex, as he’d already passed two forks on his way down. At least he knew the way back up.

Once he’d found a reasonable spot, that being out of earshot of the rain, and therefore unable to be heard by his sister and best friend, he waved the lantern around, moving it off down some tunnels to make sure no other creatures could hear him, either.

Thankfully, there were no other signs of life, so, confident in his security, Art set the lantern down and lifted his right leg. It had been years since he’d urinated without a toilet, as domestic life had claimed him long ago. It wasn’t something he’d forgotten, he just didn’t want to splash all over himself, especially if there wasn’t a lake for him to dip into. He did wish he was on a soft patch of soil, though, as that would be better at absorbing the fluids than the smooth rocks, but at least he wouldn’t have to keep smelling it for long.

With the last few dribbles slipping out and drifting away, Art lowered his leg and picked up the lantern. “Nopony saw that, right?”

No answer came, save for his own echo. He was safe from embarrassment. 

Placing his left hoof against the wall that had been to his right as he’d come down, he made his way back up the path, following the tunnel back out. As he walked, he began to wonder how the cave had ended up completely circular. Usually, caves were depicted with spikes dripping down from the ceiling and climbing up from the floor, but not this time. Since he’d left his pee spot behind, the walls, floor and ceiling had been dry, smooth stone.

As he passed the fourth fork, he began to feel uneasy. He’d only passed two on the way down, so he should have been back at the entrance. He also remembered that the path he’d taken was a winding one, and the way back had been straight as an arrow. 

Somewhere along the way, he’d missed something. He must have. But how? He’d stayed to the right one way, and to the left the other way. By that logic, he should never have left the wall.

“Maybe I took the wrong path when I finished?” he reasoned aloud. “I should go back to that spot, and try again.”

He turned around and started back down the path. This time, he knew the wall was the same, as his hoof never left it. However, he quickly figured out that this was not a viable plan, as the straight path he had followed led to a dead end at the last fork.

Art began to panic, but took a deep breath to calm down. “I must have misremembered it,” he reasoned, though he didn’t quite believe it. “I must have been paying such close attention to the ceilings and floors that I forgot that I turned right. Silly me…”

He let out a nervous chuckle as he headed back down. “Wouldn’t it be a great joke if I ended up lost down here?” he said to himself. “Ha, ha, Abi, funny joke, you spooked me. You can come out, now. Turn off the illusion, I surrender…”

While he had been hoping that this was a vengeful joke by his sister, the lack of response soon made him reconsider. As much as she did like to watch him struggle, she wasn’t trying to kill him. Or was she?

“You know if I die, there’s nopony to pay your rent, right? You can’t kill me out here and still live in our apartment.”

No response.

He took a deep breath. This was not a poorly-executed prank. On one hoof, that was a relief. If his sister was listening in and making him lose his sense of direction, that meant that she had listened to him pee, and that would be creepy and uncomfortable for both of them. On the other hoof, it was downright harrowing. He was now lost in a winding system of caves, and had no idea how to leave.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. His mother had told him, back when he was a colt, that shouting was no way to solve your problems. Well, if he screamed loudly enough so that his voice reached the others, shouting would absolutely solve his problems. He took a deep breath, sat back on his haunches, cupped his hooves in front of his mouth and yelled as loud as he possibly could.

“SAM!!! ABI!!!”

He remained still and listened closely. For a brief few seconds, he heard his voice echoing down the tunnels, but then came a response. It wasn’t his name, but it sounded like Sam’s voice coming from the tunnel to his right. Even if Abi was trying to trick him, Sam wouldn’t. Bringing everypony back safely was top priority for them.

“SAM!! KEEP CALLING!!” Art shouted as he proceeded down the tunnel after Sam’s voice. “MAKE SURE YOU KNOW THE WAY OUT!!”

The path split four times as he went, always going down. Luckily, at every turn, he heard Sam’s voice calling out to him and leading him back out of the cave. All he needed was to keep following it.

And then, at the next junction, the voice was coming from behind him. The way he’d just come from was apparently the way back to Sam and Abi, or at least Sam. He turned around and started back up, only to hear the voice coming from behind him again.

“What’s going on?!” he shouted, to nopony in particular. He sat down against the wall and put his head in his hooves, leaving the lantern in front of him. He knew, for a fact now, that the tunnels were absolute nonsense. He couldn’t make sense of them, anyway. If there was a way to find a path out of here, he didn’t know it. He was good and lost, now. 

He took a deep breath and wiped his face. He may not have been the smartest pony in their group, but he certainly wasn’t stupid. The mountain was just a big pile of rocks. He was smarter than a pile of rocks, surely.

This was a cave under a mountain. Even if he couldn’t figure out which direction was north, south, east or west, he could at least tell the difference between up and down. Below the mountain were just more rocks, but above the mountain… Above the mountain was the sky. If he made it to the surface, he could just walk down and try to find his party again.

He grabbed the lantern and looked around. He’d spotted four paths when he sat down, and now there were three. The paths were changing, he was sure of it now. But still, up was up. With all the confidence he had, he picked the only path leading up and started walking.

At the first fork, left took him up. It was a steeper grade, too, so he was going to reach the top much faster. Then a right, then a left again. 

It was at the next fork that he didn’t know where to go. The slope was so steep by now that he was starting to hurt his knees, and every single path went down from here. Granted, the slopes going down were steep enough that he could slide down them instead of walking, but he didn’t know where he’d end up if he went down one of them, or if he could make it back up. What if one of them sped up into a freefall that would land him on a set of spikes?

“There has to be another way,” he reasoned, thinking to himself. He looked up, and the ceiling looked pretty solid. He couldn’t dig through it.

With a sigh, he considered his best option was to go back the way he came. Sure, it could lead to an entirely new route, but maybe he was making that up in his head to explain why everything felt so unfamiliar.

He didn’t have a chance to weigh that option, either, as the stone holding up his back left hoof suddenly broke, and he began sliding backwards down the path. He tried to dig his hoof into the side of the tunnel wall, but he couldn’t find purchase, no matter how steep the path became. In fact, he was pretty sure he spent a few seconds in freefall before he finally slid to a stop in the centre of a room he’d never seen before.

It was a rotunda, and when he held up his lantern, he saw twelve paths leading out in straight lines, almost perfectly arranged. What’s worse, even the path he’d come from had straightened out when he wasn’t looking. It no longer led up, but out.

Art took a deep breath. He had to face the facts. 

First and foremost, he was lost. He didn’t know the way out, and that meant that he was trapped here until somepony found him. When he was a kid, he’d been told that, if ever he was lost, he should just wait where he was, and somepony would come find him. But if these walls were moving, nopony might ever find him, and worse, they could end up just as lost trying to find their way to him, and be equally unable to escape.

Second, he had to come to grips with the fact that this was not a simple prank. He wasn’t being tricked or made fun of, because what was being done to him was damaging beyond a joke. This wasn’t waiting for him to try and hop in the wagon and then moving it as soon as his hooves touched it, this was more akin to running over his leg with a wagon wheel. This was too far for a simple prank. It was malicious at this point.

Third, he knew that the tunnels were changing. No matter how hard he tried to reason and logic his way out, something or someone was causing the mountain to fight back against him, and he didn’t know who, what or why.

Fourth, and perhaps worst, he knew that he’d been away for quite some time. That on its own was not such a bad thing, but it meant that Sam and Abi were probably about to wonder where he was and come looking for him, or worse, they already were. If they entered this shifting cave, it was likely they’d end up just as lost as he was. While it would suck if he died, that was just one pony whose death he’d caused, even accidentally. If Sam and Abi came looking for him, that’d be two more, and they hadn’t done anything to deserve it. 

He took another deep breath. He didn’t know how much oxygen he had, but now wasn’t the time to worry about that. If he did worry about it, he’d just blow through it faster, and that would  be his own fault.

“Okay,” he whispered. “So, if going up takes me down, and the path is always shifting, then I suppose it doesn’t matter where I go, as long as I’m going. Right?”

He didn’t expect an answer, nor did he receive one. He was kind of hoping to hear somepony from around the corner grow angry at his nonsense, giving him some degree of clarity, but there was nothing.

He picked a path at random and started forward. He wasn’t going to find his way out by standing there. He had to move, and move he did. When he reached the opening, he was in another room, but this time, he spotted a grey pony with a dusty blue tail holding a light, standing in one of the exiting doorways.

“Hey!” he shouted, tearing off after them. “Come back here!”

As soon as he shouted, the pony took off, carrying their lantern into the next room. Art only just spotted the light from his lantern as he slipped around the corner. Every time, it was the same thing, until Art tripped. The other pony, whoever he or she was, was running at the same rate he was, and barring them tripping, there was no catching up with them now. 

“I don’t want to hurt you!” called Art, hoping they could still hear him. “I just wanted to talk, I swear!”

As he stood up, Art could feel something running down his elbow. Moving the lantern into range, he spotted a soft trickle of blood. He’d injured himself when he fell. Nothing serious; just a scrape.

“I’m sorry if I scared you!” he shouted. “I’m pretty scared, myself, so I know how you feel! If you come back, I really really need your help, and I can’t thank you enough!”

Not knowing if he could be heard, he followed the path they had taken into yet another identical room. As he approached, he spotted the light from the lantern, and the back half of a pony. 

“Hold on!” he called, holding up his hoof. “Please, don’t run. I’m harmless. I’m not trying to hurt you, and if I do, I’m sorry in advance. I’m going to stay put for now, and if you’re willing to hear me out, just stay there.”

The tail end of the pony in front of him didn’t move.

“Thanks. My name’s Art. I’m camping with my friends. Rather, I’m supposed to be, but I can’t find them. Do you know these caves?”

No answer came.

“Do you speak?”

Still nothing. 

“Can you tell me your name? Please, anything to show you can hear me?”

The hind end seemed to be uninterested in anything he had to say. However, as he sat down, so did it. He flicked his tail, and the tail in front of him flicked the same way. He put his bloody elbow back and held the lantern behind him, and the coat, cut and cutie mark were identical to his own. 

“Great,” he sighed. “Not even a day alone in the cave, and I’m already crazy enough to talk to myself…”

Cursing himself for his stupidity, he picked up his lantern and picked a path at random. If there was to be no rhyme or reason for his choices, he may as well not make any, and just let the mountain take him wherever it wanted him to go. If he had no control, then there was no sense in holding onto the illusion of control.

It only took two turns from there to show him something new, though. He found that his path ended in a vertical shaft. Along the side, there was a ladder. And if there was a ladder, there was civilization. Ladders were not grown in the wild, they were made by ponies who needed to climb things. This one even looked pretty sturdy.

Gripping the lantern in his mouth, he looked up and down. It was nothing but darkness, but either way, he should find something, right? Up was the way he picked. It could possibly lead him out of the cave and into the open sky. If nothing else, it would be easier to go down after he reached the top.