Deep Delver

by Night_Writer


2 - First Encounters of the Deep Kind

A black pit of a mouth lay beneath me, maw opened wide to swallow me whole. I watched the corners of the stone jaws turn up in a malicious smile as it slowly neared me, preparing to savor the kill. I tried to scream for help, but I couldn't breathe.

Air, I needed to breathe!

I woke up with a gasp and lurched up and the nightmare faded. I immediately regretted it as my chest exploded in pain. I let out a stream of muffled curses and shivered in pain as I collapsed back down. The rough stone of a stalagmite gently curved up against my back me as I clutched at my chest. The pain eventually subsided, and I took in short gasping breaths. It hurt to even breath.

The hiking harness that held my bag and essentials for what should have been a simple splunking trip was still hooked around my neck and barrel. it pressed uncomfortably against my bruised barrel. I gave a pained grunt as I unclasped the constricting buckles criss-crossing atop my chest, sighing in relief as it slide off of me.

"Oh man, what happened?" I coughed as I tried looking around.

Darkness. Utter and impenetrable, darkness surrounded me.

Suddenly, like a switch being clicked on in my head, everything rushed back. I remembered the catastrophe on the bridge and my fall to certain death, and... princess Celestia? As I tried to make sense of everything that'd happened, a bigger question continued to circle around my brain,

How in Equestria am I alive?

"Oh Celestia I'm dead, I really died!" I said, shocked at the implications. But I was most certainly somewhere, and this definetly didn't seem like the rolling green pastures of some post-life paradise to me.

"Oh no. I may be socially awkward, bumbling, clumsy and a little slow, but I've never been a bad pony..." I mumbled, realization setting in.

"If I'm not in paradise... then I must be in," I gulped audibly as I hissed the last word fearfully. "Tartarus!"

I looked fearfully around myself, waiting for some horrible monster or demonic abomination to pop out, but nothing happened. I sat in place, my pulse racing as my heart hammered painfully in my chest.

"Luna and Celestia, don't let me be in Tartarus, I'm too young to die! I mean, I know I was a stupid annoying little colt sometimes, and that I stole my Dad's spectacles just to spite him, but I always gave them back! honest!"

I sat completely still, eyes and ears strained for anything. This was always the part in the movies where the monster jumped out, and scared the living hell out of you. It would happen, any second now!

... and second now...

I heard nothing though. As the seconds turned to minutes, I gave a shuddering sigh. I forcibly relaxed my tensed muscles, nestling back against the stone at my back.

It's too dark to see anything. how am I supposed to even know what's around me at all? I thought glumly, Wait a second! Flash, you bucking idiot! You're a unicorn, use your horn, stupid!

"Ugh, I really am an idiot," I said, slowly focusing energy into my horn. As I coalesced the energies, though, I hissed in pain and gripped my head. That headache from earlier raged back, and I whimpered pitifully.

Reaching a hoof up, I carefully felt around my head for any wounds or bruises that might explain the pain. I found a long delicate crack running neatly up the length of my horn from the base, to tip, of my horn. My horn definetly, irrefutably, had a fracture along it.

I closed my eyes, gritting my teeth as I groaned. This was the worst possible thing that could have happened. I was out of my element in some deep dark cave, apparently dead and stuck in Tartarus, probably going to be eaten for eternity by the other denizens of the cursed place. And to make matters worse, now my horn was broken and I had no way to see or possibly defend myself!

This sucks so hard, I thought, I wonder if its possible to die twice. Where do you even go if you die in Tartarus? Super Tartarus? or like... you descend levels? is Tartarus that organized? and for that matter where's everypony else that got sent down here?

I growled slightly in irritation, smacking my cheeks to snap myself out of it.

Stop thinking of random crap, now is not the time.

I took a slow deep breath to calm myself.

Wait a second, my hiking harness! of course, I should still have all my gear that was strapped onto it, I thought giddily.

I suddenly wasn't feeling so bad about all the bits I'd paid to buy it. My friends had assured me that I would have regretted not buying one to help distribute the weight of all the gear I would need to bring with me after the first few days. I grinned victoriously as my hooves found the straps where I'd stashed the high-power glow sticks. My friends had told me about their plan to do a bit of shallow splunking, and had advised me to buy a few.

Thank you, Sterling. You always were the smart one.

My hooves brushed across the thin slotted pouches holding the rods, and I eagerly tore the Velcro open to find them empty. I rapidly began to pat the harness. I tore through my saddlebags, the other pouches on the harness, and even traced all the straps of the hiking harness itself.

They're gone!

Not just the glow sticks either. As I felt through my belongings, I noticed that a lot of my other things had been taken. I was missing my bedroll, a blanket, most of my food, my canteen, my map of the surface, some socks, a compass, and even the tiny pen-light and book I'd brought along. Had someone come and taken my things?

"Are you KIDDING me?" I shouted, giving a frustrated snarl. " Cut me a damn break!" I clenched my eyes shut, and pressed a hoof against my face. After my little outburst I didn't feel angry anymore, I just felt defeated.The fall down and my sudden awakening slowly pressing down on me as the full realization of my helplessness began to crash down on me.

Don't cry, Flash, don't cry. You can't break down now, not with your life on the line like this. Maybe they're just somewhere nearby! yeah... and maybe I was just going to starve to death in this cursed pitch black darkness. Never to see my family and my friends again. Soon I'd just be some unnamed skeleton to be forgotten in the dark until I was stumbled upon by another explorer.

I began to feel tears roll down my muzzle. I tried to stifle my sobs, but it just continued to come out in choking bursts of pathetic-sounding cries.

I felt a hard tube-like piece of plastic being pressed against one of hooves covering my face.

I took it, gratefully, rubbing at my tears as I took it. "What's this?Oh, a Glow stick! thanks. I was looking for one of these."

A quiet lilting voice responded just in front of me, "no problem..."

Huh, that accent sort of sounded like a more flutelike, musical Sterling.

Thinking of Sterling didn't help my mounting depression. I could only imagine how horrible she must have felt accidentally letting me go like that. She was probably blaming herself for my death. I just wished I could tell her that it wasn't her fault, and thank her for trying. I was such a burden to my friends...

Wait a second. Something just handed me a glow stick and spoke...

I sat there stunned, glow stick in hoof as I stared at the impenetrable darkness in front of me.

Something is there... right in front of me! I gave a quiet yelp of panic as I almost dropped the glow stick in my hurry to crack the plastic tube and ignite it. I firmly grabbed it, my heart fluttering with trepidation.

I cracked the rod against the ground to break the internal seal, and shook the tube hard to quickly mix the phosphorescent chemicals within. A bright neon green began to slowly spread from the glow stick as I gave a sigh of relief and the darkness was slowly peeled away around me. I Looked around myself for whatever had spoken.

My breath caught in my throat at what I saw before me.

Wide amber eyes with a slit for pupils glinted back at. The eerie green light revealed sharp canines as they flashed from its scowled ghoulishly and squinted, shying from the glow stick. The creature scowled as the light shone against its eyes, and it flapped large leathery wings irritably against the light. It had the body of a mare, and it was lithe and athletic. its large tufted ears were pointed directly at me as it continued to squint at me, focused as intently upon me as I was now on it.

Princess-damned, I thought numbly, I found an actual demon.

My hoof began to shake as it held the light out and just continued to stare. The creature began to advance, nearly inaudible as it moved across the hard stone.

I found my voice again as it neared. "N-no! S-s-stay back. Leave me alone, I don't want any trouble!"

The creature responded with that same flute-like, musical voice from before as it quietly murmured, "I'm afraid you've found trouble whether you wanted it or not, surfacer."

"Please, d-don't!," I squeaked. The creature towered over me, reaching out a hoof towards me.

I screamed, "Don't eat me, I'm not tasty Miss scary Demon mare, I swe-Hmmmfffghkk!" My scream was cut short as it stuffed a hoof in my mouth and growled at me threateningly, sharp fangs fully bared. Its muzzle was dangerously close to my face and throat.

"Shut up," hissed the monster. I immediately did, eyes wide.

It glared at me for a second more before sitting down and slowly continuing to reach out a hoof to press the glow stick down and away so the it wasn't shining directly in her eyes. As it did, the creature looked around to slowly scan around us with its odd slit-like eyes; large tufted ears swiveling around alertly to listen all around us.

Now that I could see I noticed we were in a small tight little cave. Other stalagmites like the one I was leaned up against poked up towards the ceiling at stalactites, and it looked like a small opening led off towards somewhere else further beyond the creature before me.

What's it doing, checking for other demons? maybe it just wants to eat me itself. I guess that makes sense, I wouldn't want to share either if I found a free tasty unicorn snack to munch on, I thought.

Wow, did I just think of myself as a tasty unicorn snack? I have issues.

It was official, I'd gone completely and utterly insane. Also, still stupid (just to keep the record straight so far). No unicorn worth their salt lets themselves get stuck in a situation where they're defenseless and about to be eaten and then thinks that they'd make a good meal. But it did make me wonder if I was tasty... what did I taste like?

Sheesh. I gotta figure out how to install an off switch on my brain, I thought, shaking my head to clear it.

I noticed the demon was starring at me intently again, done with her sweep of the surrounding area.

"Don't scream. It only attracts unwanted attention, and the last thing I need is some changeling or diamond dog coming to investigate you while you're screaming like a newborn foal in the dark. You're being loud enough to wake the dead," said the demon-thing. It leaned in as it spoke, scrutinizing me. When It spoke I also noticed it seemed to carry loudly as it bounced around the small cave walls.

Guess sound would behave differently in such tight quarters, I noted.

"Now," she said sharply, "I'm going to take my hoof out of your mouth and you're not going to do something stupid like yell, scream, or even talk louder than a whisper. Otherwise, I cut out your tongue, and then you definitely wont be loud. got it?" She said quietly and calmly, speaking of horribly maiming me as patiently as a Mother talking to a senseless foal.

I nodded rapidly my understanding. Anything to placate the angry demon mare from Tartarus.

"Good," she said simply, slowly removing her hoof.

I sucked in a shallow breath of air, quivering with fright. "A-are you going to-" I was cut off as she growled at me, and I realized I was talking loudly. I dropped into a whisper quickly, "are you going to eat me?"

"Eat you?" she looked surprised, "why in the black void would I eat you?"

"Because you're a, uh, well, a demon?" I asked, feeling awkward.

She stared at me, surprised, before making a choking-squeaking sound and covered her mouth. It took me a second to realize she was laughing at me. I felt my cheeks flush red a bit with embarassment.

"What? You're a demon, that's what demons do!" I insisted, continuing to whisper insistently.

"No, I'm not a demon you moron. Demons don't exist. At least, not in this day and age," she snorted, smirking at me.

"Well... you have those big nasty sharp looking fangs, cat-like eyes, leathery demon-wings, and you're all scary looking," I said, slowly mumbling into silence as my embarrassment grew. I fiddled with my hooves awkwardly.

She seemed to puff up a bit as I said she was scary. The thicker fur of her coat standing out a bit as if to make herself more imposing as she grinned toothily.

I shuddered, I didn't think I'd be getting used to those fangs anytime soon. In fact, I decided that with the green lighting throwing shadows across her face combined with her own unsettling proximity, the image ranked somewhere between 'haunted for life,' and 'I pissed myself.' I hoped that I didn't do the latter.

A quick check confirmed I hadn't.

"yeah, I'm pretty scary," said the demon-mare nonchalantly, polishing a hoof against her thick coat. "I can see why you'd think that, but no I'm not a demon. I'm a bat pony." She stated. I swear even her short spiky mane stood up a bit taller as she just oozed satisfaction and pride in stating that to me.

Ego trip much, I thought, watching her.

"Oh," I said, feeling relieved, finally relaxing a bit. But as I thought about it I suddenly realized that there was something important about that, the simple little fact that I was still confused about.

"Wait," I said, scrunching up my face in confusion, "what in Tartarus is a bat pony?"