//------------------------------// // Chapter 8: The Library // Story: The Fallen Kingdom Chronicles. // by Dawnforge //------------------------------// Chapter 8: The Library After parting ways with Zeal and Cloud to explore different parts of the library; Faith moved through the back of the library, Thunderstrike following her with his mace slung over his back as he used his wings to hover slightly above the floor. She frowned, glancing around at the books idly taking in their titles if they still existed on the covers. Her mind wandered to sadder thoughts. ‘Zeal has been drifting away from us... especially me...’ She bit her lip, her horn lighting up its signature silver to pick an interesting tome up and hovering it before her green over to read it, The title displayed was, ‘The Celestial Magiks and the Princesses of Equis, By Twilight Sparkle.’ Faith sighed, setting it down, it was a common tome in the Paladin order. ‘Why do I try? He wants to burn himself to ash with his zealotry.’ Her hoof stepped on something soft and she looked down at it. The object her hoof had fallen on was a stuffed doll in the shape of a pony with two button eyes and polka dotted pants and oddly bent and stretched ears. She frowned at the doll, saddened by its presence for some unexplainable reason. Faith sighed, shaking her mane. ‘You know exactly why you try... You are Faith. And... yo-' The loud thunder clap of a certain mace against a wooden door could be heard, startling Faith from her thoughts. She turned to find her companion standing before a broken door that fell to the ground with a thud, its hinges ripped from the door frame by the impact of the blow. “Faith.” Thunder spoke gravely, “You... may want to see this...” Faith tilted her head, “What is it, Thunder?” As she walked up to the doorway, her friend moved aside revealing the room in all its horror. The room was a simple storage room, large in size but, it held shelves with chemicals for cleaning a few brooms and a few crates. It wasn't any of this that brought utter disgust and horror to Faith’s face and causing her to step back in shock. What caused this reaction, was the corpses, skin and bones of various ponies, in some places all there was, was bones or just piles of tattered skin. “T-that is not good.” Faith regained her composure and lit her horn, illuminating the room to better see the horrors of what it was. In the center there was a pentagram of demonic design with dried blood pooled in the center. At the sight of it, Faith gasped. “No... It can’t be...” She turned to Thunderstrike, “Go upstairs and check on Cl-” The sound of a crash in the main room cut her off. Without a moment of hesitation Faith ran to the source of the noise, followed by Thunderstrike. When they arrived in the main room, they were introduced with Cloudchaser shakily crawling from out of a massive pile of books that fell on him when he crashed into the wall. “F-faith!” Cloud flapped his wings taking to a low hovering stance for his fighting as he drew his dual axes. “Zeal is trapped upstairs! He said that we have a devourer here!” “So I've noticed. Zeal should be alright, but did you find anything upstairs?” Faith said, turning to walked back to the storage room, motioning for the others to follow her. “A... intricate pentagram and a few sacrifices it looked like...” Faith frowned and turned. “We need to remove the one down he-” Faith stopped dead as she entered the area towards the storage room, for the corpses, all of them, were crawling, walking or stalking their way towards the three. There were dozens of them coming from other adjacent rooms they had not previously explored all too well. Thunderstrike grunted, standing on his hind-legs as his wings flared to balance himself. He wielded his mace in his left hoof and his shield on his right, a wicked expression crossed his face as he looked to Cloud. “Shall we play the usual game, my bubbly brother?” Cloud smirked and his eyes glinted in response, demons he was not the best at. Corpses? OH he loved fighting them. “One with the loser buys the booze!” Faith looked at them and rolled her eyes, muttering a prayer as her horn glowed with magic. She fired off a bolt that disintegrated a moving pile of flesh and skin. “You boys better hurry then. I am at one. And I need to get to the pentagram.” The Stallions both nodded before using their wings to propel them towards the mass of walking corpses. Thunderstrike lived up to his name. Each hammer blow peeled with the thunder of crunching bone. His shield and armor taking blow after blow, yet he never staggered or faltered. Cloud was more agile, dodge and weaving easily between the sluggish and haphazard blows of the walking and lifeless corpses. His dual axes carving through fleshy skin and rending bone like butter. Faith simply walked forward, towards the pentagram. Her will was iron, for she knew what it meant the longer they tarried with these lifeless corpses. They were worse then the undead, for unlike those who were ponies who bodies and souls were chained to servitude with magic and could be released, the minions of a devourer were husks, the souls of the ponies in the devourer’s grip until the demon himself was killed. Muttering prayers, Faith continued to stride forward, blasting undead that flocked to her instead of Thunder and Cloud. Her horn sent bolt after bolt of magic out, sometimes she turned the magic into a ball of fire, that would consume the enemies in swathes. ‘This is too easy.’ She thought as she blasted another two undead apart, they were already almost to the pentagram and then it would simply be a matter of dispelling the horrible thing. That was when they heard it, a cry that stopped them for a precious moment. It was the cry of a pony they knew being tortured. Faith set her jaw, her horn glowing brighter then the stars in the night sky and firing off. Zeal was in pain, and that only added to her resolve. ‘Hold on, Zeal. I’m coming for you.’ “Thunder! Destroy the pentagram! I have to go help Zeal!” Thunder simply nodded and went back to work, both him and Cloud’s movements were quicker. She left them to it as she turned and ran, galloping through the library, blasting anything that stood in her path as she raced for the stairs that led to her Captain, best friend and the pony she knew she loved.