Chapter 9: When the Going Gets Tough
The four prisoners walked down the stairs in silence. Their coordinated efforts to walk together had gotten better over the past few days, though they weren't exactly sure how much time had passed in the depths of Mt. Grimrock. There was no sunlight in the dark dungeon.
Twilight found that she hardly even needed her light spell. Artificial light seemed strangely abundant down here. There were many torches on the walls, and they never seemed to burn out. The shadows thrown by the flickering orange light could not light up the entirety of the chamber the four found themselves in. It was smooth-tiled, the same as the previous floor.
Twilight spotted a torn note lying on the marble floor. Levitating it up, she read it aloud:
I don't know the history of this place, but there must have been a lot of hatred and distrust. I've seen Windigos lurking about in the shadows. They can deliver quite a nasty frostbite. Sorry about that pun. I would recommend using fire on them if you can. Good luck!
Root Rum
Setting the letter back down where she had found it, Twilight looked to her companions. “Well, I already have my fireball spell. Do you three have any other ideas?”
“It's too late for other ideas,” Spike said. “There's one now!” he screamed, pointing with a claw.
The other three swiveled their heads to see the white and blue form of the huge lupine creature materializing in their circle of light. They could see misty condensation forming an aura around it, owing to its low body temperature. It emitted a low growl, and jumped at the group with surprising agility. Big McIntosh took the full force of the impact; the sound of his ribs as they cracked was sickening. Blood leaked out of the corner of his mouth as he fell to the ground. He seemed to be suffering from severe hypothermia, and the only indication that he was still alive was the shivering of his body.
Iron Will swung his axe mightily, embedding it deep into the creature's back. However, it was not felled by the blow, and swiped at the group's conscious fighter with its enormous paw. Iron Will managed to block most of the blow with his battleaxe, and the creature recoiled in pain from hitting such a hard material.
Spike hurled a dagger right at its nose, which sliced across its face but failed to stick. It slid along the body of the creature, leaving a long, clean cut which leaked blood at an alarming rate. It didn't seem to feel pain at all from the serious wound, and it took a few steps back before leaping again, this time at Spike.
But the dragon was far too agile and too small of a target. He easily dodged the pounce, and the creature slammed hard on the ground behind him.
Twilight's horn burned with an intense light as she unleashed a blast of fire. The flaming ball struck the dazed creature and exploded, igniting it and causing it to writhe about as its flesh cooked and crackled.
With Twilight levitating the injured Big Mac, the four approached the mostly-dead Windigo to allow Iron Will to deliver the coup de grâce with his axe. The monster's head rolled across the floor.
“Hey, little guy, lend Iron Will a knife,” Iron Will said to Spike. Spike handed him the cleanest one of his throwing knives, then went to go pick up the fallen one. Iron Will busied himself cutting the cooked parts of the Windigo's flesh from the inedible parts as best as he could. In a few minutes they had several nicely-sized Windigo steaks. They munched on them as they continued onwards. By this time, Big McIntosh had regained consciousness and hobbled alongside the others, although his ribs weren't completely healed from Twilight's regeneration spell yet.
Between bites of the tasty meat, Twilight said, “You know, I'm starting to rethink your idea, Big McIntosh,”
“Huh?” responded the strong stallion, raising an eyebrow as he munched his steak.
“About this place being a prison. I've noticed there aren't any shackles on the walls on this floor. Or any of the ones above us with the tiles like these.”
“Eyup.”
“Now just hold on a second,” Spike interjected. “If this isn't a prison, what is it? Some kind of evil villain's lair??” Spike looked around, nervously. “Does that mean we're gonna have to fight a boss at the end of all this?”
“Hold on, Spike, before you get carried away–”
“Iron Will agrees with the little guy.”
“What? Why?” Twilight was confused.
“Because he already predicted the zombies. Besides, someone had to have designed all this. And,” Iron Will gestured to a previously unseen statue on the wall. “That's probably them right there.”
The four walked over to the granite statue. Though worn and slightly mossy, it seemed to be a perfect likeness of –
“Oh, dear, sweet Celestia,” Twilight mumbled, not even bothering to remember that Celestia had brought this upon her.
The four didn't talk much after realizing the gravity of the place in which they were trapped. Not only were they very likely to die, all of Equestria and even the world could be in grave danger. Not even the Princesses knew what was hidden away this far down in the dungeon.
The party fought off two more Windigos, three snails and a pair of zombies without speaking more than two words to each other. They had gotten so used to functioning as a group that they hardly needed to communicate verbally. Unfortunately, they didn't get anything useful off of the monster corpses. The living creatures had been far too malnourished to provide any real meat, and the zombies' weapons were as fragile and rusty as ever. By this time, Big McIntosh's wounds had completely closed over and he was back to full health, Twilight's slow healing spell working its benefits.
The four prisoners soon reached a room that had four pressure plates on the floor, arranged in a square. A metal grate sat on the end of the room, and some shiny loot was visible through the iron bars. The party found that as soon as they stepped off of one plate onto the next, the previous plate lifted. They could not reach all four at once, and no item they carried was heavy enough to push the plates down.
“Forget it, Twilight. Let's just go and get out of this place. Not that I'm scared, or anything,” Spike whined.
“Hold on a second, macho man,” Twilight muttered faceciously. “Where did we leave those Windigo and snail corpses?”
Four trails of blood and slime later, the party found themselves in ownership of a shiny chainmail vest and steel leg gauntlets. Iron Will donned the former, and Big McIntosh the latter, to give more weight to his blows.
The group was becoming a walking armory with their various weapons and barding. It would probably explain why they hadn't encountered anything but monsters down here. Any sapient being in its right mind would stay far away from such powerful individuals. Or, perhaps, they were watching from the darkness, biding their time. A pair of eyes glinted for a moment, then scuttled away unseen into the shadows.
The four prisoners marched down the stairs to the next floor.