//------------------------------// // The Stars Are Right // Story: The Elder Sign // by Mithos //------------------------------// “What in the world…?” I muttered those words absentmindedly. I already had an idea of what I was looking at. I just couldn’t believe it. This can’t be serious. “It’s a shoggoth,” Hex said simply. Hex’s books were known for containing bare descriptions. The monsters were abominations known for causing madness in ponies simply by looking at them. As such, the descriptions were often just enough to cause the reader to begin filling in blanks, usually creating a horror no words could describe. And I was looking at it. The columns…it was oozing from the columns… They were hollow…and…that noise…! Slopping…horrifying…disgusting… “Snap out of it!” Hex’s hoof slapped across my face. Chaos was running wild. What ponies were left in the ballroom were running for the exits. The thing…the shoggoth…was coming from the fallen columns. It looked like they were hollow, and no one noticed the pinkish fleshy ooze coming from them until it reached a pony…and consumed him. “Get Luna and get out of here!” Hex shouted. He wasn’t joking anymore, this was him serious. “I’m not leaving you to die here, Hex,” Luna immediately shouted back. “Too bad. Emerald!” I nodded and immediately pushed Luna towards the closest exit. If anyone could kill this thing, it was Hex. The doors slammed shut before I could force Luna another step. And another. And another. The exits were closed. I galloped full speed and threw my weight into the door, only to bounce off with no effect. I got myself up and said, “Luna, you need to get out of here! Blow open a wall or something!” She shook her head and said defiantly, “No! I will not leave Hex here to be killed by that thing!” “Look, if Hex is supposed to protect you, he’ll want to do his job and protect you. So will you please just break open a window and fly out of here!” “What’s wrong with the doors?” “They slammed shut in my face and refuse to open.” “The windows won’t open either. No reason to try.” I was confused, and panicking pretty badly. “The stars are right. It was just as Hex and I feared,” Luna muttered. She turned back into the ballroom and gazed at Hex. I turned to look at him and gasped. The thing had grown in size. But Hex wasn’t backing down. His horn glowing brightly, he was standing right in front of the monster. A blast of light caused it to shrink back momentarily, but it advanced again. It started to surround him on all sides. Luna was awestruck for a moment shorter than I. When I snapped out of it, she had already started galloping back towards Hex. Instinct told me to stay. I’d probably live if I stayed far enough away. But, I’m an idiot. I caught up to Luna just as we had to jump over the shoggoth to get to Hex. Luna cleared it easily; I clipped it with my back hoof. “Ugh, that’s…IT BURNS,” I screamed. I collapsed on my side as my hoof that touched the shoggoth seemed to burst into flame. I shut my eyes tight, trying to bear it. The pain was excruciating, like that time I accidentally spilt acid on myself in class. The pain subsided as quickly as it came. My hoof cooled. “Try not to touch it. A shoggoth is nothing more than a moving, living stomach. It’s juices are highly acidic,” Hex’s voice lectured. I opened my eyes and found it extremely dark…WAIT I WASN’T EATEN WAS I?! I took a deep breath and was about to hyperventilate when I noticed Hex’s face in the gloom. He wasn’t smiling anymore. The light from his horn barely lit the grim expression he now wore. It scared me. Luna face came next, rising from where my hoof was. She thankfully healed it…or at the least stopped the pain. “What happened to all the lights? We weren’t…” I started. Hex shook his head, “No, but we may be shortly. I was able to throw up a shield just in time to protect the three of us.” Hex's shield cast an extremely faint light brown glow. The shield was tiny, with barely enough room for Luna to stand. Beyond it, I couldn't see anything. Luna’s horn glowed brighter, and a light blue bubble formed around us. Hex's shield beyond it began to flicker and crack. I got to my hooves and asked, “So what happened to the-“ The words died in my mouth when Hex's shield disappeared. I thought maybe the roof had collapsed, or the lights went out, or I was eaten. It was worse. The shoggoth…the gooey monstrosity…it had surrounded Hex and when we jumped in was just as it attacked. Hex threw up a shield to protect us. The shoggoth attacked anyway. On the other side of the barrier…the eyes…everywhere…I was stuck in a glass dome surrounded by a living stomach! Hex stumbled slightly as his magic died away. He started coughing loudly. Between coughs, he muttered, “I hope we can keep this up until help arrives…” “Why wouldn’t we?” I wondered aloud. Hex looked at me (I think. Without his horn alight all he was to me was a dark shadow) and said, “Shoggoths are pretty strong. Dense. A lot of weight to try and keep back like this…a minute was too much for me and Luna can’t last forever.” I looked over to Luna. She had her eyes closed tight, but beyond that showed little expression. “So how do we get out of here? Teleportation?” Hex shook his head and took a deep breath. “I don’t think I can get us to a safe place in the ballroom. Plus I can’t teleport multiple times in the speed necessary to get us all out alive. Luna can’t either. The moment she shifts focus to try, the barrier will likely shatter and we’d probably die.” “Probably?” “The chance is slight-“ Luna began, but the second she broke her concentration a crack appeared at the roof of the barrier. She stopped speaking and became expressionless once more. “It’s not going to work. The best we can do is dig our hooves in and stay alive long enough for backup to arrive,” Hex sat down. His tone didn’t carry the usually light-heartedness that I knew him for. I looked up. The eyes shifted left and right and up and down and around at dizzying speed. I tore my gaze away when my head started to pulse painfully. “Help will come…right?” I asked. “Yes,” Hex said quietly. I heard a slight cracking sound coming from the shield. I looked up again and saw the cracks beginning to spread. “Emerald!” Hex said loudly. His horn glowed brightly, illuminating his features. I could see the panic on his face. He drew a small journal from his coat and dropped it in front of me. It glowed slightly as the pages opened and started flipping. “I need you to help Luna by reinforcing the shield with your own,” Hex explained, the pages stopping. A lone symbol was scribbled onto the page. “Focus your mind on this rune, and you’ll produce a shield.” “Uhh…” I looked down at the page. “I’m not really-“ “Now’s not the time to doubt yourself!” Hex yelled, “I can’t do it, Luna’s getting exhausted, and you’re the only other unicorn here! Focus for once in your life or…” Hex fell silent. I took a deep breath and stared at the page. To create a spell, you had to focus on the ‘structure’ of the spell. Basically, you had to visualize the desire result. For more potent and focused results, you could use a rune. Simply focus on the symbol, visualize it, and it will produce the spell. Best to know what spell is produced before you stare too hard at a rune! I closed my eyes. The symbol floated in my mind. Now focus… Visualize… Focus… I strained my mind as I forced my thoughts to stay locked. We’re going to die… No! Focus! Dead… Focus! DEAD. I was losing it… The cracking is getting louder! I can’t do this! We’re going to die and it’s my fault because I’m a bucking useless unicorn! “That spell will not save you. It will only stall the inevitable.” Hex? No…the voice I just heard buzzed in my ears. It was like the person was whispering in my ear…way too close for comfort…I didn’t recognize it at all… “Focus not on prolonging your life…instead: protecting it.” A new symbol popped into my head. Instead of the odd squiggle from Hex’s book, a five-pointed star with an eye in the center. I knew this symbol. My cutie mark. It was comforting. Familiar. “You know this symbol. Use it.” I focused once more. It came easier, like I had done this hundreds of time before. It was automatic, like breathing. The power was building in my horn. I could feel the magic burning at the tip. I’d never been able to pull off anything like this before, well, not on purpose. I opened my eyes. The bubble was gone. The shoggoth had shrunk back. Hex was looking at me with a surprised look on his face, his mouth hanging open slightly. Luna was…I couldn’t tell. She was looking at me…like…she…it looked kinda like she was waiting. I spared them a single look before focusing on the shoggoth. The eyes were no longer whizzing around frantically. They were all fixed on me. I dropped my head and aimed my horn at the largest section before me. A beam of light shot from my horn. The shoggoth…it made this squelching noise…and it started to turn darker. Where my magic had hit, the shoggoth looked to have a dark burn. Within a few moments, the dark color began to spread outward. The shoggoth’s skin turned from a wet dark pink to a dry crusty black. It was hardening. The shoggoth kept making that squelching noise. As the color spread, it began separating itself, moving away from the damaged part. I felt myself grin. I lowered and fired again. Another section began to turn black. It separated again, trying to stay alive. I suppose each smaller part was able to operate alone…or something… Whatever! Thing tried to eat me, it’s gonna die! I fired again. Another dying blob. It separated. I turned and blasted another section. It separated. My grin grew bigger. I fired. And another. And again. And how about some more? Gonna keep separating? I’ll just keep going! Again. And another. And some more. And another. It couldn’t separate fast enough. I wasn’t waiting for it to run, I wasn’t trying to keep it at bay; I was exterminating it. All that was left was a single pinkish red blob with a single eye. Everything else was black and dry and dust. I trotted over to it and stood over it. I grinned like a madman. It looked up at me and made that noise again. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a whimper of fear. One last shot. I let out a sigh as the power flowed away. I turned and looked back at the center of the ballroom. Luna and Hex hadn’t moved. I took a step towards them. Was I always this heavy? I collapsed onto my side. My vision blurred for the second time in the night as I heard Hex shouting my name. Best night ever.