A deep sigh had released itself through the mouth of Rarity. She and her team stood in the caverns that stretched far below the mighty castle. She had seen a sight that wasn't all too pretty to begin. A sight that actually horrified her to degrees only the most severe cases could. Which was something that didn't add to the mood to begin with either. For they had been wandering down the stairs for what seemed to have been an eternity already.
For in the cavern itself could the lights be seen among the darkness. Lights that went up in pretty much every single shape and form there was imaginable. Lights that danced around among the darkness in near perfect symphony. Those managed to scare nopony more than Rarity herself. While the rest of the team was already gathering the torches for some form of light, the unicorn shushed them. Something else could be lurking at them, hunting them.
Confusion was the thing that struck each of the ponies. All of them looked in silence towards her and then back to one another. Whatever she could have meant, they had to stop doing what they were working on and just keep quiet. Which was luckily something they all did. None of them knew just how the caverns worked or even how the gems down there worked. But if there was one pony in the company that knew it, it would be the gem-huntress herself.
“Why can’t we make a light here? Is something the matter?” Rare Thinker questioned in a whisper loud enough for the mare to hear it. While their eyes had slowly grown accustomed to the dark, they could hear the hooves of the mare turning and they all looked straight into the sapphire blue eyes she carried. Eyes that almost looked like they were cut from the most exquisite sapphires themselves.
“Because, master Thinker, the torches that you will be lighting up will consume the oxygen in this very cavern. We do not know how this place is stretching and for all we know, the way we came is the only way out, meaning there won’t be any ventilation at all. You want us all to suffocate to death before we manage to get to our target, hm?” Rarity had spoken her words in a stone cold, yet highly professional voice towards him. She did happen to have a point on the matter. The eyes looked stern among the darkness while the other ponies just gulped deeply towards themselves.
Whether the stallion liked it or not, he had been in set in the sights of Rarity and a prime target. “C-Course not, lass, I just, hadn't thought about that little fact,” he pleaded for himself in the vague hope that she would be letting him go. Yet the opposing fact happened to have been the truth.
“Didn't thought of the fact, master Thinker? And when would you have realized it then, when the air was running out? No, we’re going to do it another way. Masters Drawn and Brush, you happen to know any illuminating spells?” Rarity then asked towards the two unicorn stallions of the company. The both of them nodded and allowed their horns to be covered in the magical aura. The aura of Drawn happened to be green whereas Brush had gotten a more yellowish color to it.
Yet above their horns appeared two orbs which then were emitting their lights wonderfully. The third pony who would conjure up such a sphere of light would be Rarity herself. Who seemed to have been quite pleased with the fact that there were three unicorns there that could be shining lights through the darkness. “Right then, shall we go?”
When the company continued to travel down the cavern, it was Rarity who kept a rather close eye on the gems. She didn’t seem to be paying that much attention to the road ahead. Though managed to continue down the path without a hitch. It was a little fact that was picked up by Velvet, who first glared a little bit confused at the scene. Yet then decided to talk to the mare with the blue light. Velvet had to know more about it all.
“Miss Rarity, can I talk to you for a second?” she dared to ask after trotted up next to the mare. The attention of the ivory mare was then taken away from the gems themselves and unto the mare herself. Her eyes still as stern as ever yet there was a kindness to be found deeply within them.
“Go right ahead, my dear, speak the matters that are upon your heart,” said Rarity before her lips cracked a small and genuine looking smile.
It was an excuse for Velvet to finally open her mouth. Now she could speak the matter that had been troubling her since almost the beginning. Words perhaps couldn't describe how thankful she was in that little moment. “I see you constantly looking at the gems, as if… well, how do I say it?”
“As if they are poisonous plants?” Rarity had suddenly interrupted her. It was a little something that caused the earth pony mare to jump a little bit. Yet then she gave a small nod to the fact. It was actually as Rarity herself had thought that it would have been. Another deep sigh left through her nostrils before she shook her head gently.
Then her eyes looked dead serious into those of the other mare and her words left the mouth. “Some of these gems possess a power I haven’t seen in years. Neither my expertise nor my mother’s had been fully able to figure out how it came to be. But some of these gems around here are magically enhanced by nature itself.”
“But, but that’s dangerous! We should warn the others straight away!” Velvet exclaimed in a whisper. She didn't wanted to alarm the other unnecessary though. The mare she had some very good reasons for that. Though in response kept Rarity it more towards herself and simply pointed to the stallion that was Brush.
The eyes of the mare looked over to him in an almost shady manner before they went back over to the unicorn mare. “I’m not sure, if I follow you here.” Words that caused Rarity to chuckle softly to herself as she could explain the matter perhaps better than anypony around there.
“Let’s just say that you might want to stay away from mister Drawn over there. It can happen any minute now,” said Rarity. It felt like she was waiting for the moment to happen. The moment in which everything would be going down for the stallion himself. Yet instead of warning them, she allowed the games to be played by the rules of nature.
“Hey guys, do you mind if I take a little bit of this wonderful amethyst, you know, as souvenir?” Brush Drawn then brought forth. It were words that caused both of the other stallions to first look at one another for a moment or two before they gave their approval.
Though just when the stallion wanted to walk away and collect his prize, it was nopony else but Rarity who turned herself around fully and stomped one of her forehooves firmly into the ground. “I wouldn't do that, if I were you. Nasty things shall happen on my word.”
The words that the mare spoke certainly got the attention of everypony that was there, yet few actually dared to say anything against them. “And what if I just do it?” the stallion in question replied to her. She could see it in his eyes, the greed of a unicorn and powerful gems. A situation she had been numerous times before getting a control over herself.
“Because, there are no amethysts here.” That caused all of the ponies to just stand there in bafflement. Each of them had some knowledge of gems and how they looked like, but something like that hadn't any of them expected. “You’re mesmerized, master Drawn. Master Brush, if you please would restrain your brother, the last thing we need is a psychopath on the loose down here.”
“And how do we know you aren't mesmerized and want it all for yourself?” Brush Drawn replied in the tone of a snake. It was a legitimate question to be asked of course. Weren't it for the simple fact that Rarity was a gem-huntress.
“Because I have been looking at the gems and their formations for quite some time now, there’s foul magic in play here. Miss Fashion, if you would set up our camp here… I think that we will be staying here for as long as necessary,” said Rarity in a calm and collected tone.
And then it happened. The battle between Rarity and Brush Drawn had erupted. A battle that would have determined who of the two would have been the toughest in their mind before the muscle would take over. The other two stallion walked away from the circle that the two had entered while waiting for the attacks to begin.
The calm before the storm was often the most agonizing thing to live with. Though seeing it happen to his twin brother, almost proved to have been too much for the poor Drawn Brush.