//------------------------------//
// Chapter 2: Chess Game of the Ageless 
// Story: Discord's Home for Cosmic Misfits 
// by Knowledge 
//------------------------------//

	Fluttershy and Discord, the little parasprite, passed through the stained-glass room, running to escape and get help handling Starswirl the Bearded. They reached the end of the hall only to be blocked by two gargoyles.
“No ponies are allowed to pass,” they say in monotone unison. 
“But, ma'ams we just want to leave,” Fluttershy asks, but stone constructs are impervious to her charm.
“Well, I guess we will have to find different friends. I doubt your friends would even lift a finger for me anyways, and Twilight would just side with my her idol, great old stupid Starswirl the Bearded.” Discord laments, clearly pissed at his father.
“What do you mean different friends?” Fluttershy asks.
“I told you. Behind locked doors lies several chaotic beings. All of them I gathered recently so they can learn the magic of friendship like I did. Not only are they powerful, but they are going to be eager to get out of this place and onto getting what I promised them.”
“What did you promise them?” Fluttershy again feels overwhelmed by the sheer amount of new things being dumped on her head.
“You know, the normal stuff. A school, the answer to what minds are, the highest seat in Equestrian government,” the itty-bitty parasprite replies nonchalantly.
“Those don't sound normal to me.”
“Well, that is because you are not a chaotic being.” Discord starts looking around, ignoring Fluttershy. “Why don't we try down the guest room hall? Maybe this normal key will end up being useful.”
They go down the right hall. They pass nine gargoyles guarding six normal-sized doors.  There is also an unguarded big blue door with the sign “second floor.” The pair look at the smaller doors. 
The first door has the ideograph for “Pond” or “Pool”. This door had two gargoyle's in front of it, one large, one small. There was also two holes by either gargoyle. The first led into the wall and said “Shortcut to Arena” in common Equestrian. The second hole led into the ground and a little ladder leading down.
The second  had two ideographs, one for “Crystal” and  and the other  for “Mine”. The “Crystal Mine” had a slightly-smaller-than-average gargoyle who had a permanent frown. Again, another gargoyle that Fluttershy had no intention in speaking to any time soon. 
The third had the ideograph for “Garden”. It had two gargoyles in a heated argument. The shy pegasus had no intention of going through that door until they stopped.
The fourth had for “Stove”, “Hearth”, “Smith”, or something on it. Fluttershy was not quite sure. It had a lapis gargoyle that shivered periodically. 
The fifth and sixth, which were side-by-side, had “Classroom” and “Library” on them respectively. The fifth had two sleeping gargoyle's in front of it. The sixth had an obsidian gargoyle guarding it.  
Fluttershy not interested in dealing with anymore gargoyles walked up to the big blue door. Fluttershy attempted to open this door with the key but it was definitely too small.
“Hey, do you want to go to the second floor?” called a gravelly voice. The group turn around to see that a very large gargoyle in front of “Garden” standing with a much smaller gargoyle had beckoned them.
The large gargoyle intimidated Fluttershy too much for her to respond so Discord did in her stead. “Perhaps yes, perhaps no. We might just go into one of these rooms instead.” 
“Hahaha, you get into these rooms. These guys are very picky on who they let into these rooms,” the little one said. Fluttershy could tell from the way the little one talked and acted that he was much younger than the rest of them.
“Explain,” Discord commanded.
The little one energetically responded. “You see, after waiting for so long, we all become our own gargoyles. Blacky over there wants very particular artifacts.” The adventurers turned to look at the obsidian gargoyle. “Hitty and Speedy, over there arguing, want somepony to decide their argument. Lazy and Droopy sleeping want somepony to answer their riddle and supposedly got some keys to guard because they are so good at their job. That's a life Behind all of our doors are trapped rooms because with a special key that will unlock a chaotic being's room because that is how Discord designed this place. If you want those guys out of their rooms, you will have to go through us. By the way, I am Tiny and this  guy is my brother Biggy.”
Discord turns to the large gargoyle. “And you were saying about the upper rooms?”
“You seem eager to go up there. I sorry to say that Starswirl has the key for that room,” the large one replied.
“You didn't say what you two want,” the little parasprite asks.
“We want to fight. Me and my brother, Tiny, want to prove ourselves valiant warriors. To beat us, all you have to do is hit us three times. If somepony beats me you can have four keys. If somepony  can beat Tiny, you can go into the Pond room.”
Discord buzzes back to Fluttershy who has remained completely silent through the whole conversation.
“Fluttershy, I guess we will just have to see if we can find any friends in these rooms. Based on how I structured this place before my father woke up, there should be one pony in each room. I am not sure about what traps we will encountered. Perhaps you can steal the sleeping gargoyle's keys, but we cannot use them on any room unless we get access to one of these doors. I also know there is at least one pony in the barracks we can get if we can get her key.”
“Why can't I just use this key on all the plain doors?” Fluttershy asked innocently. Discord responds by just staring at her if he was not sure if she was joking or serious.
“That aside, you will have to pick what you want to do. Either you try your luck with the gargoyles here or you go to the barracks,” Discord presented.
The shy adventurer had some difficulty making the decision. She knew she lacked the courage to talk to any of the frightening stone alicorn creatures, but the barracks sounded like it would be fully of just as aggressive ponies. 
“I think we should look into the barracks,” Fluttershy finally decided.
“What do we have to lose, aside from everything I mean. Nothing we can do here if you are not going to even try to solve a riddle or end an argument,” the parasprite mocked. Fluttershy huffed quietly again at Discord's rudeness.
“Come back if you find some good fighters, you hear?” called Tiny.
“We will, we will,” Discord calls back as the pair walk out of the guest quarters to the main hall. After leaving, the two trot by the gargoyle sisters blocking the rusted entrance to the whole castle-slash-cottage. The alicorn sisters just ignored them completely.
Entering the barracks, the first thing Discord and Fluttershy noticed was a large, bearded gargoyle with an arrow sticking out of his rear hoof. The towering figure sat in the middle of the hallway which split into two directions. To the left was archway with retractable bars blocking it. To the right was a simple door that probably took Fluttershy's plain key. In front of him, the gargoyle had a chess game on a table, which he stared at intently.
Something about the gargoyle did not scare Fluttershy, so she walked up to him.
“Um hello mister,” Fluttershy greeted, but the gargoyle continued to stare at his game of chess. Fluttershy repeated her greeting, slightly increasing her volume each time.
“Blast it, Fluttershy! If you want somepony's attention sometimes, you have to be assertive,” Discord shouted. 
“What, huh?” the large Gargoyle uttered. Discord's shouting at Fluttershy had seemingly woken the gargoyle out of his trance. “Oh, Discord, why haven't you made your move yet, and why are you so small?”
Discord looked at the gargoyle and buzzed around him a few times curiously. “Oh, I think I remember you. Aren't you Oldie? Still kicking after all these years?”
“You know I ain't kicking anymore after that arrow to my leg in the crystal empire, how could you forget my name while playing this game against me?” Oldie replied.
“Um, I don't even remember playing a game with you, Oldie,” Discord replied.
“All you said is that you would be back in a bit for a little thing you had to do in Canterlot.” Oldie said.
“It has been a thousand years, Oldie.”
“I think I would notice if a thousand years passed me by playing this darn game.”
“I beg to differ. I clearly remember you playing one of poker for five hundred years just because you didn't notice your partner had died.”
“Well, whatever, let's finish this game.”
“It has been one thousand years! I don't even remember what the game is.”
“It's chess blast you. The game is simple.”
At this point, Fluttershy spoke up, feeling some courage again because nopony frightened her in the room. “I know how to play chess.”
Discord and Oldie turned to look at the pegasus. “Well, then you can finish where Discord left off. To make it interesting, tell you what, I will reset the board to where it is now every time I put you in checkmate, and if you win, I will give you this key that bearded mage game me.”
Fluttershy moved up to the chess board to see that Discord's pieces were in a difficult position. Oldie had his knight forking her queen and her bishop One of her other rooks was in place to advance on the enemy king but could also go back to strike the knight. The first time Fluttershy brought back her forward rook and took out the knight, but soon after the enemy bishops put her king in check and in three turns Fluttershy lost.
The pegasus repeated this a few times. Nothing she did to save her queen worked. The enemy bishops would always immediately cross the board and put her king in check. Fluttershy resigned herself to the loss of her queen, and decided to put the enemy in check this time. She put her forward rook between the enemy king and his rook, creating her own fork. After Oldie moved his king out of check, Fluttershy took his bishop, which would have put her in check if she didn't take it. This meant, however, that the enemy knight would take her queen.
The game continued. While her bishop protected her king from the enemy knight, her forward rook used check to take out as many pieces as it could. The sheer capture count on that one rook was amazing. Eventually, Fluttershy pushed a pawn all the way the enemy rear and got her queen back. This queen took out the enemy knight and finally put Oldie in checkmate.
“Great job, kid. Here is your key as promised,” the big gargoyle alicorn replied with a sincere smile. Fluttershy decided to inspect the key. It was a very red bronze. Like the previous keys, this one had ideographs on both sides. On one side, it had “Gray” and “Mare”. On the other, the key had several ideographs. The first was an ideograph resembling the one for Captain, Equestria's highest ranking position in the Royal Guard. The key difference between Captain and this ideograph is that it had four extra lines in it denoting a higher rank. The second was “Alicorn” which often meant princess or ruler. The third was “mismatched and clumsy”, strangely enough. The final ideograph denoted very specifically “Hoof.” In Fluttershy's mind, the key read “High-ranking Captain Alicorn Mismatched Hoof, the Gray Mare.” 
Fluttershy felt invigorated after gleaming some insight into what the key unlocked. She could very well use a princess's or a captain's help now.
With that, Fluttershy walked up to the door on the right. She was glad no gargoyle was guarding this one. “Of course, they are not guarding the barracks. Who would sneak into the barracks?” Discord said, providing his insight into the situation.
Again she got up on her rearhooves and put in her new key, only to find that it didn't fit.
“Fluttershy, use the plain key on the plain doors,” Discord said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. Fluttershy switched to the other key and found that it indeed fit. Upon turning it, the key and the door disappeared this time.
The room ahead seemed fairly strange. There was a gravel path zig-zagging through hardwood flooring. The ceiling sat too low for Fluttershy to fly in the room, so the mare just walked in, which caused bars to raise up behind her and block her exit. This elicited an 'eep' from the shy pegasus. Bars also rose up to block the doors to the right and the archway to the left of the adventurers. The door on the right looked like a tent flap with a lock on it. The archway to the left seemed to lead into a hallway. Straight ahead, at the end of the gravel path, there was a switch.
“Look, there is the switch. If you can get that, it will probably take down the bars and let us out,” Fluttershy's companion explained. Fluttershy walked on the gravel, which felt completely flat underneath her hooves, making the timid pegasus slip and fall on her face. This, of course, made Discord laugh in his little sprite voice, but Fluttershy had grown a lot in the last month teaching Discord and did not let him get to her.
Fluttershy decided to try her luck with the waxed hardwood flooring. She tentatively put a hoof on it only to find her hoof being pricked by an invisible splintered surface. Fluttershy was lucky. If she had been any other pony, they would have put enough force down on their hoof and hurt themselves.
“A trick floor, huh. If you look closely, the depth of the floor is an illusion. The gravel is all flat and the hardwood has splinters coming up like jagged glass. I guess the name on the key was accurate when it came to confusion on depth perception and hoof-clumsiness,” Discord explained astutely.
“Confusion on depth perception?” Fluttershy asked trying her best to stand up properly. 
“Yeah, take out the key,” Discord commanded. Fluttershy obliged though with some difficulty. Her natural grace helped tremendously on the almost frictionless floor. “See this ideograph.” Discord attempted to point at what Fluttershy had read as “Mismatched” with his wing only to find that he lost the lift he was creating with it and fell frighteningly near the hardwood. “Woo that was close. Back to what I was saying, that ideograph denotes lack of depth perception, but usually connotes something regarding an eye condition.”
Discord's scholarly tone absolutely flabbergasted Fluttershy who then almost slipped. “Discord, I didn't know you knew so much about reading ideographs.”
“My father is Starswirl the Bearded,” Discord said as if it explained everything. Fluttershy thought she remembered the name, but she could not recall in what context.
Fluttershy continued down the gravel path, being extra careful not to go too fast around the corners. This was not very hard because this pegasus never put a lot of force behind her hooves. Finally, she reached the niche at the end of the path where the wooden switch was. After flipping it, the ceiling rose and the bars lifted the tent door and the archway that led to an unexplored room. The archway back to Oldie remained barred.
“Good job, Fluttershy!” Discord chirped. Fluttershy had builted up a lot of nerves and leaped backwards into the hardwood floor. Noticing what she landed on, she leaped in the air and started flying out of instinct. “Haha, don't worry Fluttershy, trapped floor is off now.”
Despite not being injured, Fluttershy was too cautious and superstitious to tempt injury on the floor. Fluttershy moved to the door and put the key in. After turning the piece of bronze metal, the tent flap opened revealing the first friend Fluttershy needed to beat Discord's father.