//------------------------------// // chapter 6 // Story: Life In Lace // by Harasha the Gryphon //------------------------------// “Uggh why isn’t anything working?” Amethyst was in his cabin and still as much a mare as ever. The hairdo that Stylish had crafted on his head was long gone, lost forever to his tendency not to comb his mane in the morning. Three days had passed since his trip to the mall with Orchid and his new wardrobe was safely tucked away in a chest in the cabin somewhere. Surrounding Amethyst were the machines that he used to examine magical relics. he held his head in frustration. “Why won’t you just reveal your secrets to me?” Amethyst practically screamed at the object in front of him. That object was the mare figurine that had landed him in his feminine predicament. “The most I’ve learned from my three hard days of work is that the magic of the statue is something I haven‘t encountered.” In his growing frustration, Amethyst pounded his hooves on the table. soon after, he got up from his chair and started trotting around the basement. “I could try my more complex devices but those could take months to work, and Misty comes home a day or two after the spring festival.” Amethyst said. This statue is truly a remarkable device, Amethyst thought. There’s no doubt in my mind that King Clovis made it. The craftsmanship in the magic is flawless. The curse it put on me is seamless. My own ‘tests’ seem to confirm I’m a biological female. he blushed, bringing his hoof up to his muzzle. With a slight groan, he said, “Unfortunately there’s only one quick way to undo this: find the enchanting formula for the statue.” An enchanting formula was a set of magical instructions on how to enchant an object with a certain charm. Most Sorcerers – Amethyst included – kept these formulas written down somewhere. he hadn’t found any of Clovis’s formulas in the castle – this led him to the conclusion that they were all compiled into a single, very large volume that he had yet to locate. Amethyst groaned at the possibility of going to look for the alleged book. Exploring the castle had become a pain in recent weeks as he steadily weeded out the easy-to-access areas of the old castle. My hooves are tied; I gotta find Clovis’s old notes if I expect to get my stallionhood back in a reasonable time frame. In the meantime, I should put the statue into one of the scanners  that’ll take a while to run. The binary scanner will take at least 48 hours to run completely; plenty of time to go looking for that enchanting formula, Amethyst thought as he levitated the statue into a large machine directly behind him. He flipped a red switch on the device and it began to hum. Gotta get to Orchid and tell her where I’m going, normally I’d just tell Misty but he’s not here and frankly I think he’d be more interested in saving my plot than the rest of me if I got trapped, Amethyst reminded himself. With that, Amethyst draped his saddlebags over his back and went out the door. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Amethyst trotted over the landscape blackened by Luna’s night. he looked upon the familiar sight of King Clovis’s old castle. It had been four days since he laid eyes on the architecture of the castle. It certainly wasn’t an elegant castle like Canterlot’s. Where Canterlot Castle was made of beautiful white marble, this castle was made of dull grey stone. A large wall surrounded this architectural marvel, obscuring the bulk of the castle from view. Amethyst knew the chateau well; it was three stories high but that was only the tip of the iceberg so to speak. Below ground there was a massive network of catacombs that extended for miles. Amethyst inspected his bag and ran through a verbal list of some of the supplies he needed for his expedition, “Emergency food, check; two canteens full of water, check. Map of the castle, check. Some canned tuna and milk, check.” The last item was for what he considered the most dangerous hazard he had ever found in the castle, and it had always waited for him to appear whenever he was there. Slowly, he approached the old crumbling ruin. Amethyst stopped abruptly about half way – a pair of glowing eyes had fixed themselves on him. he looked back at the eyes; he knew that this was the wicked, evil danger of the castle. He promptly pulled out the fish and milk. Immediately the horrid monstrosity responded to the sight, with a meek meow. The devilish figure revealed itself to stand a terrifying three feet high, have green eyes that pierced the soul, fur as black as the night, and claws that could tear out the throats of many mice. A few weeks ago, this cat showed up at the dig site, and followed him into the castle. The cat accidentally knocked over a piece of rotting timber and caused a hallway to collapse. That nearly got them both killed. From that day on he brought food and milk for the cat so the kitty wouldn’t follow him into the castle. Amethyst promptly opened the tuna and poured the bottle of milk into a saucer. Immediately the cat started lapping away at the milk. Without another word, he trotted past the cat and onward to the castle. As Amethyst approached the aging castle, he took note of the ladder he had used a few days ago to enter a chimney from the outside. He walked right past the ladder and through a set of aging oak doors. Once inside he went past a gatehouse and through an archway with iron barred gates. Beyond the gate, he looked around. The area beyond the gate was an enclosed courtyard; a ruined fountain and broken throne stood immediately in front of him. he turned to his left and walked toward a rotting wooden door. With a gentle flick from his magic, Amethyst opened it and walked through. Furniture covered in white sheets cluttered the room that he entered. Wooden floorboards creaked lightly under his hooves. Amethyst went to his left and into another corridor. This corridor was different from the room before, because it was made entirely of grey stone instead of wood. As he trotted down it, he glanced around the hallway, admiring the fact it was perfectly spotless. he smiled internally at seeing the results of a considerable amount of time spent removing the debris and dust that had coated the hallway when he had first arrived. As he glanced around, he saw that one of the statues had acquired a new cobweb. Amethyst sneered at the web and promptly trotted over to the newest bit of chaos to mess up his hard work. He looked at it and quickly discovered that the cobweb had an inhabitant, namely a small black spider. “I hate spiders,” Amethyst declared as he used a weak magical bolt to kill the spider. With a slight wave of his tail the new cobweb was gone. He pulled out the notebook in which he had doodled the map of the castle. He flipped through the pages until he stopped at one in particular. Ok I’m here, where should I search first? Amethyst stared at the map. He had searched and mapped a large portion of the aboveground section; the section he had found the mare figurine in was one of the last of places in the castle he had yet explored above ground. The catacombs however were still very much of a mystery to him. The network was massive, on a scale to rival that of the caves beneath Canterlot. It extended for miles and miles with seemingly no end. Amethyst had only mapped a small fraction of these underground tunnels, but that fraction equated to at least another castle’s worth of space to be explored. Sadly, it appeared that many of the catacombs beyond had caved in centuries before he had even been born. He suspected that the book he was looking for was somewhere down there, written on paper that might have turned to dust long ago. he shook his head at that thought. No, can’t think like that. I have to believe that the formula is written somewhere. Clovis had enchanted paper – there’s no reason to assume that his formulas are written on anything else. It bothered Amethyst quite a bit that he hadn’t been able to find a single enchanting formula for the relics he’d uncovered. This lack of information had convinced him that all of the formulae were compiled into a single place: either one large book or several smaller books. He still had to choose exactly where to search for the book that day. A few minutes of pondering later, he settled on going through a passageway deep underground. Amethyst promptly set off down the hallway. Several minutes of walking, and he found himself a few levels down and in another stone hallway. That hallway was more cluttered than the one he was in a few minutes ago. He tripped over a piece of fallen rubble as he walked through the hallway – he hadn’t been in that hallway long enough to clean it properly. As Amethyst trotted on, something caught his eye. He turned and saw a collapsed passageway to his left. Amethyst checked his map and found a big black X over where that passageway was. He had determined that whatever was behind that passageway was completely inaccessible. There was a small gap in the rubble, Amethyst cringed at the memory of that passageway; he had tried to squeeze into that small gap quite some time ago and quickly got his barrel caught in the rubble. With a groan, Amethyst went onward. I gotta find that book, being a mare is so weird. Going to the bathroom is strange. I get those creepy stares from stallions I know. Then there’s the whole size thing, I’m at least a whole foot shorter than I – he stopped mid-step and thought. I’m smaller than I was as a stallion. Maybe I can fit into that gap now. A huge grin spread on Amethyst’s face. He bolted back to the collapsed passageway and approached the small gap in the rubble. With a deep breath, Amethyst said, “Well, here goes nothing.” Amethyst went towards the gap and began to squeeze into it. With a smile, he realized that he fit pretty well – the only resistance he encountered was his rump. The gap was pitch black, so Amethyst made his horn glow a bright pink. He smiled as he looked on to see that there was another tiny hole in the rubble presumably leading to the hallway on the other side. Before he went any further, he pulled out a yellow gemstone and levitated it. In an instant, the entire passageway glowed with a pink force field. “Can’t be too safe; don’t want all of that rock crushing me flat while I’m in here.” Amethyst had brought several enchanted crystals with him to the castle to aid in his expedition. he tossed a blue crystal back into the hallway he had come from. The blue crystal was a scrying crystal, he could see everything through it via a paired crystal that acted like a crystal ball. This was vital for Amethyst. With that crystal there, he could teleport back whenever he wanted. Since teleportation was a line of sight magic, he needed to see where he was going to teleport effectively. He went on through the passageway until he ran into a problem; a single part of the gap in the rubble was much too small for him to fit through. He poked his head through the small gap and smiled at the sight of a massive hallway on the other side. A faint blue light illuminated the large hallway; stone debris and cobwebs covered the stone. The ceiling of this passageway towered well above Amethyst’s head, and columns held the roof up. With a smile, he teleported beyond the small gap and right into the large hallway. “I can’t believe I made it!” Amethyst exclaimed with a smile. His enthusiasm was quick to fade when he suddenly felt a dozen crawling sensations on his fur. In a panic, he looked down and laid eyes on several spiders dancing across his hooves. A loud girly shriek rattled the hallway as Amethyst felt his new eight legged companions enjoying his company. ------ A spider fell onto a black and white checkered floor. It tried to scurry away before a bolt of pink energy from above quickly ended its life. The bolt had originated from an exacerbated Amethyst, who was no longer covered in spiders. “I HATE spiders!” Amethyst screamed in anger as he drew heavy breaths. he stood there for ten minutes or so before regaining his composure. With a deep breath, Amethyst walked on. The hallway was impressive beyond words; it had an elegance and beauty to its stones and crystals that he just couldn’t help but admire. He found the gemstones to be of particular note; most were embedded in the mouths of stone unicorn statues spaced evenly along the length of the hallway. The entire passageway was illuminated with a faint blue glow, thanks to some irregularly shaped blue crystals on pedestals near the top of the hall. He had found a few other hallways a lot like that one and they were still quite breathtaking despite being old and worn. As Amethyst walked through the hallway, his horn began to glow violently. “By Celestia’s mane, I sense a huge concentration of magical artifacts. I must be getting close to something!” Amethyst said. He started going toward the source of the magic when he stopped dead. He heard clicking and rumbling. He looked upward to the source of the sound to see several green crystals protruding from the walls above, “Son of a b-” Amethyst barely had time to say, as the crystals began shooting green bolts of energy at him. With quick reflexes, he was able to dodge the first barrage of magical blasts. Soon he found himself running through the corridor like a maniac as the crystals continuously shot magic blasts at him. he had years of working as a relic hunter to thank for being able to dodge those blasts. Sometimes he had to teleport to escape, but he still did. “Crap how could I forget about the defenses – gotta get to the power relay box,” Amethyst said as he continued to dodge magic blasts. He quickly spotted a stone sticking out from the side of the wall several yards ahead of him. With great haste, he made his way toward the stone. His run there was made more perilous as the crystals on the unicorn statues fired laser beams in response to his proximity to them. In a scene out of a Daring Do book, he managed to dodge all of the lasers and magic bolts. He arrived at the stone after a minute of uninterrupted fire from the laser beams and magic blasters. Without a moment’s hesitation, Amethyst used his magic to open a panel on the face of the stone, exposing a light blue crystal. With one quick magic motion, he pulled the crystal forward. Instantly the magical bombardment ceased. Amethyst slouched against the wall to catch his breath. “Wow that was terrifying, yet so exhilarating. I have the best job in the world!” A quick rest later, he was back on his hooves and walking down the hallway. About five minutes after that, he arrived at a stone archway. He glanced through and saw a descending spiral staircase. “What’s it with Clovis and stairs?” Amethyst groaned. He quickly began his descent. Several minutes went by, and Amethyst found that he was nowhere near reaching the bottom of the stairwell. Suddenly he felt a section of the stairway give way, he fell down into the layer of stairs below. He grunted as he found himself tumbling down the last few feet of stairs. After finally landing at the bottom, he wobbled as he got to his feet, stars swirling around his field of vision. he found himself in a small chamber with several wooden doors adorned with crystals of differing colors. The pony used his magic to open all of the doors, and found nothing but smooth stone on the other side of all of them. “My magic indicates that the artifacts are on the other side of this wall. One of these doors must be real,” Amethyst remarked. He hummed as he attempted to compute a solution to this puzzle. “Clovis used magic riddles to conceal important secrets, so whatever is beyond this door has gotta be good. I suspect he would have made it simple for him to use, like a simple revealing spell. But only one door is likely the correct one to use the spell on. I’ve only got one guess, and I don’t want to speculate what’ll happen if I chose wrong.” Amethyst continued thinking for a few minutes. His face lit up as it hit him. “Clovis is fond of the color red. I’ve seen it all over his castle and personal effects; maybe the red crystal is the one. Well, here goes nothing.” he took a deep breath and cast the revealing spell on a door with a blood red crystal above it. Gently the door opened into another room. This room was about two stories high, with stone tables full of baubles and old paper. On the left and right sides, he saw several stone-carved shelves with all sorts of odds and ends on them. In front of him, on the other side of the room, was a large window made of crystalline squares of glass overlooking a large underground lake. The sound of roaring water echoed in the room as a massive waterfall next to the window poured continuously into the lake below. The magic in the room was all around Amethyst, emanating from the many enchanted objects in the room. Gazing at the artifacts in the room lead Amethyst to a single conclusion: “I’ve done it, I found Clovis’s magical laboratory!”