Lights both above me and beneath me, helping me able to see somewhat but not as well as my phone’s flashlight once did. Above me the stars started to shine and the moon is still rising somewhere letting out its pure white glow across the night sky. While below me, I kept seeing the greenish lights from the stone runes every few steps I take. It has only being a few minutes since I was forced to stop using my phone flashlight due to its running low on battery, but my eyes are starting to adjust to dark gloom of the forest as I kept on moving onward.
The greenish runes I kept on seeing have now started appearing in greater numbers than what I had previously seen. Before, I would had seen these runes in groups of four or seven every metre or so spaced out from one another, but now they are in groups of ten or fifteen every half a metre and very close to each other. Which lead me to think that I might be closing in on the old castle since it should be swarming with these runes [or something similar] and the areas around to protect Celestia and Luna from whatever might try and attack them, though that’s just a theory at this time. But it’s better than nothing, I thought to myself, All I got to do is follow the road that has the most runes on it and I should end up at their old castle.
After ten minutes of more walking and I come across another fork in the road. At first I thought that somehow I got turned around and ended back up at the fork in the road to Zecora’s hut but I couldn’t see the same lights as last time, although this path does have more of those runes going down it and in way larger groups than what I’ve seen so far. Although I can’t remember if these runes were on Zecora path to begin with and for all I could know that she might of just turned off her hut’s lights. Hang on, I didn’t see any of those runes until after pasting her hut, so this must be a new path, I concluded to myself while I thought back to what I was thinking about earlier on these runes. Follow the road with the most runes and end up at the castle. I tried looking ahead on the path that I’m currently on and saw that runes are still staying in there groups of ten or so before turning to the new road found that groups of runes just keep growing in number and brighter.
“Well, we have a clear winner here folks” I said out loud to no one in particular.
But before I started walking down this new path, I better make a few marks on a tree or two for later. The reason for this is so I don’t get lost when I’m walking back to the library seeing how the last thing I want is to go any further into the Everfree Forest then what I need to. Finding a jagged rock nearby, I walked towards to one of the trees that is in between the fork in the road and drew some large crosses on the tree so it could be seen in any direction, then moving to the other side of the path and drew a few large arrows around the tree pointing to where I just walked from.
“Okay then, just follow the arrow and everything will be just peachy” I with some confidence, while I discarded the helpful rock by throwing it back forest.
After throwing the rock, I started my walk down the new road towards what I hope is the old sisters’ castle. With the amount of dirt that covering this old stone road, I’m surprise that these runes still have any energy left in them to shine so brightly, despite being mostly covered in dirt and made around a thousand or more years ago.
For the next few minutes or so nothing really happen, that was until I found a piece of metal covered in green moss and from what I could see it looked to be a chest piece off some armour off on the right side away from the path. Stopping, I started thinking if I should leave the path to check out the chest piece I found but if these runes are the only thing protecting me from the monsters of this forest, I really don’t want to try and tempt fate while I’m in here, but then again if this runes are not the thing that protecting me at the moment, that’s even more of a reason to not leave it. It is at this time that I wish that the light from the runes were brighter than what they’re now, even though there is enough light for me to clear see, the light doesn't go that far off the sides of the path.
“Well... I could use my phone flashlight” I told myself and fished it out of my jeans pocket, checking its battery.
“12% huh, I just quickly use it” before I pushed the flashlight app on, revealing more bits of armour.
Like the chest piece, the rest of the armour is also covered in green moss but in certain area the metal is showing through with small bits of rust and colours of white, blue and gold. This armour does somewhat looks like the armour that Celestia’s guards used on the show or at least their colour scheme of it. Looking at the suit of armour helmet and noticing that the visor was down, I started to wonder about the possibility that if there is a dead person inside the armour. I reached my arm holding the phone outwards towards the helmet's visor, hopefully with the light I might get look inside of it. When the light hit the inside of the armour there was nothing, no decaying body or skeleton for that matter. But if this was here a thousand years ago then the skeleton might have either turned to dust or at least half way there by now, I thought as I turned off the flashlight, I doubt that whoever this guard was just dropped dead of age, so maybe either someone or something killed the guard. With the body of dead guard this proves that the old castle is somewhere nearby, I can’t believe that I’m getting close.
I continued walking while finding more pieces of armour along the way, mostly from the same type as the first one I found but mostly in pieces and badly damaged. Among some of the bodies are a few weapons too, mostly just some; swords, axes, maces, spears and all of them in bad shape due to either; the rust, being broken, covered in moss or all of the above. I wouldn’t have a problem picking up one of the weapons to help protect myself with, that’s if I was wearing gloves to avoid getting tetanus and even if I even did have gloves it wouldn’t make much of a difference since the weapon will possibility break in half after one hit with it. Among one of the groups of damaged armour laid a shield matching the colours of the guards armour with a barely seeable sun emblem on the front.
“Okay, so they’re Celestia’s guards... well old guards, seriously what the fuck happen to these guys?” I commented.
It didn’t get any better from here. The more I walked the more bodies I see. Well to be accurate the more armour bodies or silhouettes of armour I saw but I knew that there are or there were once people inside of those suits of armour just left there to rot. I try not to think about it otherwise since it’s just going to make me sick, but that easier said than done, luckily for me, these corpses aren’t fresh or any of the flesh isn’t visible for that matter either otherwise I might be throwing up for like the third time by now. You would think that with the amount of dead bodies I might of seen from playing video games, watching TV and movies that I might be desensitized by this by now... nope not the same in the slightest, hell I can’t even sit through a gory movie without having to leaving the room. Having to walk through this... graveyard for lack of a better word, even I’m starting to wonder what the hell happen here. So far all I seen is bodies of Celestia’s guards, yet nothing else, so who or what the hell kill these guys.
It didn’t take long before I got my answer and another suit of armour appeared. Half of its armour lying on the path, but this is similar in design to Celestia’s guards design but this guard’s colour scheme is different to the others. Instead of the white, gold and blue like the other armours I saw before, the colours are black with shades of dark and pale blue. Just like all of the other armour I’ve seen this one is covered in moss and whatever patches are visible has either rust or colour visible.
“Is this guy supposed to be one of Nightmare Moon’s guards? If so, then how did she manage to turn this guy against Celestia?” I asked myself. Mind control maybe or possibility blackmail with the whole ‘Join me or I’ll kill your whole family’ bit. That would have worked, but then again he could have just hated working with Celestia for whatever reason or thought that Nightmare Moon was right in some way and just join her willingly or maybe in the most likely case, he was bribed. But to be honest I really don’t care. While I’m curious about all of this and honestly if anyone else was in my position they would be too, but I just can’t keep on being distracted like this.
I avoid going near the Nightmare guard, or are they the Night guard, Moon guard, Lunar guards? Ah fuck it, Nightmare guard sounds better. Anyway I just walk around the armour and kept on moving. It wasn’t before too long that more of the Nightmare guards started showing up while finding them near a group of Celestia guards and it look like that both parties didn’t get to far.
Besides the visible damage on both parties armour from their weapons, it looks like magic was somehow involved here as well. One of the guards is missing half of it chest plate and an arm, can’t tell if it was torn off or it was melted off due to the moss covering it. Close by a guard was impaled on a rock spike while another one was covered in vines and roots that snaked into the armour likely killing whoever was inside and another guard was also covered in vines but this one is hanging upside down from a nearby tree; I doubt that these guards had heard the term ‘overkill’ before. Though then again, they did make sure that they stayed down since the last thing you would need is someone getting back up and killing you.
The scenes of death unfortunately didn’t end there. It feels like I’m stuck in some fucked up vision of an art gallery.
“And on your left is some guard with a large hole in it back that looks to go through to the other side and on you right is a massive rock and at the bottom is bits of armour that scattered around it, my guess someone decided to hit someone or some people with a rock. A classic move” I said mockingly while pretending to someone who’s bored of being a tour guide as he led a group of tourists.
It didn’t take long before something else besides large heaps of armoured bodies were appearing and thank god for it, since this is starting to become unsettling for me at how creative these people are at killing each other.
I can’t tell what it is from where I am standing but it looks to be a building of some type, but due to how dark it is I can’t tell exactly what it is. As I got closer to the building however it turns out that this wasn’t the right path I needed, so much for my earlier theory I had. The building wasn’t the old royal castle I was after since it was way too small to be one but it looks to be either a fort or a stronghold of some type, if I had to take a guess why it is here, maybe it acted like a first or whatever line of defence to protect the castle from attackers, but even that is a theory.
I let a deep and irritated sigh at how bloody lost I managed to get. I lost track of time of how long I have being in this forest for, maybe longer than half an hour or even just over an hour at most. I could start walking back out of the forest; but for all I could know Applejack and or Fluttershy might still be at her house or if not that then the Main six are still looking for me in and around the surrounding areas of the their town.
Looking at this fort in front of me I could just do the same thing as I was going to do at the old castle; just stay here for a few hours until the search is over while getting some rest and after the crap I went through today, my body is begging for it at this point.
The fort is basically in the same state as the guards in that graveyard; badly damaged, covered in moss, falling apart and vines crawling on it. I walked until I stood in front of portcullis which is unfortunately for me, currently down and looked rusted to hell from what I could tell.
“I highly doubt that this is going to magically open for me if I asked it to” I said in a deadpan tone, “If I could use magic, then I could use telekinesis to lift the gate or melt the gate with some fire magic or freeze the gate solid and breaking it or a number of other things if I knew how use bloody magic!” I said before letting out another sigh, since I doubt that going to happen anytime soon.
“Okay so going through the front is out of the question” I stated the obvious, “Well, the fort is falling apart, so maybe one of the outer walls collapsed somewhere” There is no point in staying out the front since I can’t get in, so I should start by followed along the wall to around the right side of the fort.
However while the path leads straight into the fort through the gate, that’s where it ends so I am kind of worried about stepping off it to follow the wall since I might be attacked by whatever the hell is out there as I was thinking earlier. Although, it’s kind of weird that ever since I started walking down the path towards the fort, there has being barely anything growling at me from the bushes. Maybe it has something to do with the mass graveyard of armoured corpses or the fort that here, but something is keeping everything away from here and hopefully that’s true.
“Okay Vincent, if something comes out and attacks after stepping off the path just leg it and forget about the fort” I told myself out aloud hoping for some form of a morale booster to come from it. I lifted my left leg off the path and slowly placed it on the forest grass. I waited to see if anything was going to jump out at me. Nothing came. I moved my other leg along with the rest of body, now completely off the path and from safety, if there was any. I waited. If that was the only thing that was protecting me, then any animals or monsters that are in the area would be coming at me if they had been watching me like they were earlier. Still, nothing came.
“Huh... so maybe my earlier theory about the armoured corpse graveyard or the fort might hold water, or maybe something in the fort is preventing the animals and whatever else from getting to close to it” I said out aloud “Either way, I don’t think I’m going to be attacked anytime soon... hopefully” I said, before moving around the corner to the other side of the fort. The other side isn't that interesting, wall still covered in moss and vines but at least there are no armoured corpses over here. The walk over the right back corner didn’t really show any way for me to get inside since either the holes were too small for me to fit through or too high for me to reach, I’m still kind of wishing that I knew how to work my Avatar abilities at this moment since they would be so useful right now.
Going around the corner to the back of the fort, I instantly see a hole big enough for me to go through and I can just step through it. Standing in front of it, it made me wonder how the hole was made. I looked behind to see two more armoured corpses along with some stones that looked the same as the ones made up for the fort walls. My bet these two were either thrown through the wall or something when through it and these two were just caught up in it. But that’s not my problem, since I just solved my problem of getting inside.