Chapter 4: The Wolves, the Bats, and the Knowing Stone. Part 2.
They had been walking for a whole hour straight, but after the two incidents they no longer stayed silent. To increase moral, they bickered amongst each other like old friends, and with their friendship helping them get through the scary forest, the time seemed to go faster. When they were finally stopped by something, not even the map helped them with this.
It was an incredibly annoying fork in the road, with only a stone that had gibberish written on it to help them.
“Out of all the challenges today, this one is the most annoying!” Astra growled as the other two sat down and took a break from the exhausting walk.
“Calm down, Sis.” Shimmer called out.
“No, Shimmer, I won’t calm down.” She snorted, though did stop her pacing. “Even Eclipse is stumped by this, and she knows a lot.”
“Right here.” The adult reminded them.
“Sorry.” Astra said and sat down to glare at the gibberish stone.
On the round stone that sat between the path, there was only one thing the three ponies could understand, the arrows. One arrow pointed one way, the other arrow to the left path. The stone demanded that they choose a path, and yet it told them nothing!
Growling she wondered what to do, and decided to trust her gut. As she was about to choose, another thought crossed her mind, the book, and map. She wondered if the words were transferred to the map.
Bringing the map from Eclipse’s bag, she heard her say, “Astra, you know that wont help.”
“It might though.” Astra insisted as she looked all over the front.
Finding nothing but the regular map and key, she glanced at the back, and a smile broke on her face.
“A foggy path needs some clearing winds that only a pair of wings could create.
Beware the dark bringing beasts that lie in wait.
Come across two paths that only an adventurers heart shall know.
The plants must wither, the ones no pony, but only the Everfree can grow.
Entrance to the cave, holds the treasure, everything promised is there.”
She finished reading the last line and looked up in triumph. “That’s my sister!”
Shimmer let out a small laugh while Eclipsed sat there stunned. Finally she spoke. “Ok, well, I know that this isn’t my test. I am no true adventurer.”
Astra mused. “What about you, Shims?”
“Hate to say it, but ditto, Sis. I don’t think I will want to go on another adventure after we are done with all of this.”
Astra got up and looked at them both. “Well I think that, I, have the heart of an adventurer!” She flashed a grin. “Besides, I am determined to get that treasure. Heck, I may even get my cutie mark for it.” She swished her tail of her sadly blank flank.
“Then you go, choose our path, Astra!” Eclipse urged.
“And don’t choose wrong, I don’t want to end up in a manticores cave!” Shimmer added.
Astra glared at her sister, who only gave her a goofy grin. Sighing she faced the path and looked at them. Now how to go about this? She doubted her magick could help her this time.
She closed her eyes and searched her heart, despite feeling a bit silly about it. The book did say her heart would know the way though, and almost like she had cast a spell herself, her legs began to move. Down the left path she walked.
She knew why she was going this way now. Her heart beat fiercely, and though it lacked a mouth, it told her why the left was best. On the right path, though it looked identical, her ears could suddenly hear the screeching animals. Her nose some how smelled a hauntingly scary metallic tang in the air that hovered over right path. When she opened her eyes, they saw nothing, but she knew the eyes could lie.
“Come on girls, the correct path is left.” She informed them. “Trust me, I’m a- ok, well, I am not a professional, but just trust me. Would I lead us to certain doom?”
“I am beginning to question that myself.” Mused Eclipse.
As they walked on a wolf howled in the distance, but they didn't notice.
They had spent a good 30 minutes or so there, and they continued to walk in a friendly silence for about two hours, with a few breaks in between.
“We have been walking for forever!” Shimmer complained, taking a sip of water from one of Eclipses extra bottles.
“Nonsense,” Eclipse spoke, “It has only been about two hours. We can take another rest if you want to though.”
Shimmer was about to agree when Astra pipped up. “Uh, no we can’t! We will already have to spend the night here, look at the sun!”
They did just that and to their dismay, it was sinking faster than expected. “How long have we been in here for?” Eclipse asked.
“At least 8 hours. Seriously, those challenges may seem like they take a few extremely scarey minutes of our time, but really? They took a good ten minutes or so each. Time flies when you’re terrified.” Informed Astra.
Eclipse rubbed her nose with her hoof. “Wonderful. Maybe on the way home our lovely little map can give us a shortcut, if we don’t cramp up so badly tomorrow morning.”
“Well, my sister and I are kinda used to walking long distances, even if they aren’t this long.” Shimmer shrugged. “Plus, I can fly.” With that she flapped her wings and hovered over them.
“Shimmer, get done here!” Astra hissed. “What if something separates us again?” It ended in a whimper.
Immediately her wings stopped buzzing and she flopped down next to her walking sister. Those words were all that were needed to strike fear into their hearts.
Half an hour later they began to stumble upon unruly plants. A few were mere vines, while others were foul smelling flowers, or had thorns attached to them. Quickly there numbers grews, and the path became covered.
Astra was holding the map ever so carefully in her magickal grasp as they were forced to duck under one low hanging thick vine.
“I think the Everfree forest has grown in on itself!” Astra growled as she swatted a nasty smelling flower away.
“Agreed!” Shimmer said, bare managing to avoid planting her hoof on a poky plant.
“Do you girls think this is the last trial?” Eclipse wondered.
As they walked on the vines grew thicker, longer, and more numerous, soon they stopped seeing the trunks of the tree altogether as the dark green plants overtook everything.
Just then all the flowers spurted out obnoxious smelling green pollen. Astra stumbled as this happened, and Shimmer resorted to her second nature, flying. As more pollen was spat out though, the harder Shimmer appeared to be flapping her wings, and astra’s eyes grew dimmer. Eclipse felt just fine though, and she merely felt annoyed by the pollen.
“Girls, are you ok?” She asked as Shimmer crashed to the ground and Astra collapsed.
“Noooo.” They moaned.
“I can’t fly!” Shimmer wailed, flapping her wings uselessly.
Eclipse rushed to Astra first, as she stopped moving. Lifting up her head she gasped.
The tiny Unicorn had aged ten years, her spotless white fur turned grey, and her lovely dark blue eyes dimmed to a mere grey-blue. She checked Shimmers too, but the Pegasus couldn’t use her wings, and that was about it.
“Why aren’t I affected?” Eclipse murmured.
“That last... test.” Astra struggled to say.
“Shimmer, protect Astra, I think the plant pollen is the cause of your loss of powers.” She said fearfully.
Shimmer nodded, her strength waning by the second. but not as quickly as Astra’s. Panicked, the grown mare looked around not knowing what to do. She was no adventurer, just a book mare. She couldn’t fly like a Pegasus, or create fire like a Unicorn, tartarus, she didn’t even delve into her Earth pony powers!
That was it, her earth pony powers! She hesitated for a few seconds to look at her friends. Astra had passed out, and Shimmer was on the verge of losing herself too. Eclipse had no time to waste trying to figure out which power to use on these plants, which grew by themselves!
She concentrated on her tiny ball of Earth pony power that allowed her to not only grow plants, but be stronger than the average pony. She didn’t even use that much, so her power was weak, dim, and nearly useless. But it still worked.
She called on it and didn’t even need to move to touch a plant, as the vines had moved on their own to surround them. A trickle of knowledge about them came to her, and it was just enough. It told her one thing, these weren’t separate plants of the same species, but one large plant that had its roots nearby.
Gasping she opened her eyes and rushed from her spot. The vines attacked her, but she managed to dodge them as she drew closer to its center. These things were feeding from a power source, and all she had to do was deliver one strong buck to its stem to disrupt everything.
She stopped as she found the uncharacteristically small stem that had thousands upon thousands of vines leaving it. At the base, it was bare, and there she would buck that monster plant out of the ground!
It may have been small, but it was thick, and when Eclipse called upon her power and bucked it, nothing happened.
She looked back and saw the vines entrapping her immobile friend and gave it another buck.
“Dang it!” She growled.
Calling upon everything her power could give her, she struck out with her back legs at the stem and it shuddered upon impact. She had disrupted its power feeding! As that happened she bucked it once more to make sure it couldn’t reconnect, and the plan grew tiny splits all over. The vines stopped moving, and many fell off. and only 25% of them still had their normal color while the rest withered and blackened. The pollen that once polluted the air stopped floating around and the wind was able to clear itself.
“Astra, Shimmer!” She shrieked and pushed the now dead vines off of the girls.
As she spoke, they began to regain themselves and their strength. Hurriedly, Eclipse grabbed food from her bag and handed it to them. She didn't notice the piercing howl of a wolf as the vines died.
Astra woke slowly to a pounding headache. The fuzzy world came into view and stopped rocking back and forth. She felt like she had just used all her power on a new spell.
Shimmer was not much better, but unlike Unicorns, Pegasi did not have horns that were easily accessed, instead she had wings that were slightly harder to get too. When she opened her eyes, she was greeted with a worried Eclipse.
“I am so sorry that took so long.” She said, and then a small grin lit her face. “But there is good news yet. I think I just found our Night Gems cave.”
She pointed her muzzle to a stone that said in their language, “The Knowing Stone.” And beneath it was gibberish.