//------------------------------// // Chapter 32 - Never split the party // Story: Bad Mondays // by Handyman //------------------------------// There were many things Handy would have never assumed possible. He would have never assumed that this forest could be anything more than a lingering nightmare waiting to swallow him up the second he wandered too far from someone with Hartsight. That it could be beautiful in its own right, by its simple existence, had never crossed his mind. He would never have thought he’d be here now, following the stag to God only knew where on some fool of a mission ripped straight out of a fairy tale. Yet there he was. He would also have never assumed he would take a threat from what was essentially a real life Bambi seriously, but life was funny like that. “Come on!” He was snapped back to the present. The three of them had already crossed the ruined ballroom, haunted as it was by eldritch light from the shattered floor tiles. The ancient tables and chairs, all of the decrepit finery and glass works floating upon the air, added to the unease he felt. The spinning and cavorting of ghostly shapes of things long passed and beyond recognition flittering in and out of existence only reinforced the sense of foreboding. The spinning forms of the.... things danced in time to the lullabies and childhood songs his peers sang so as to safely cross, so as to not rouse the ire of the shapeless things that lurked in the shadows above them all. He wracked his brain as he let out a breath, misting the air in front of his face. He had to sing a song from his youth, a truly happy one so as to not attract the attention of the dark creatures above. It was some strange, mystical rule that controlled this place that demanded it to be so. The dance had to continue, and to continue, it had to have more songs, fresh and meaningful, to keep the dark at bay. Handy really wished that this was a problem he could just solve with his hammer. --=-- "See, guys, what did I tell you? Everything's going to be juuuuus-aaaaiit what was that last bit?" Whirlwind asked. The four of them stood in the centre of the room, a grand affair with marble floor depicting a black circle and intricate knot work in white stone and quartz depicting a tree whose branches reached out and twisted into a circle that encapsulated the tree, reaching down to become one with its own roots. Above them sat Chieftain Forestfire behind a low table that stood upon a raised dais that surrounded them in a semi-circle. Large red banners depicting indecipherable script hung from the walls. The back of the room was dominated by a large plain glass window coming to a point at its apex, the glass frame shaped to look like the natural formations of branches and trees. It created odd formations of light that spilled into the room, giving an amazing view of the towering oakenhearts and the city outside. Handy's armour proved more than a little distracting in the light, but it was too amusing watching deer try to act all serious while he was continuously blinding them. What? Handy could be petty sometimes. His fun was spoiled, however, when a guard dear levitated a disused banner, tattered and worn with age, over him. Sighing, he draped it over himself. "It is the decision of the elders of the tribes of the Greenwoods that you, Whirlwind ap Whisperwood, in their wisdom, must become the Lord in Winter," Forestfire said solemnly. To her right and left were a number of deer, most of them with greying manes. Riverblossom was there, representing the mages. Another deer, a stag in a richly embroidered emerald scarf, was to the chieftain’s right. A doe wearing a blindfold with golden script written across it, a stag in armour, and others represented the various castes of deer society. Behind Forestfire were some of the same deer they had seen in the war hall the other day, the representatives of other tribes. Elder Wildwood was nowhere to be seen. "H-Hang on..." Whirlwind said, holding up a shaking hoof "There must be a... a mistake! Aheh! I don't... I mean I'm hardly—" "There is no mistake," the deep voice of one of the other tribesdeer behind Forestfire rumbled. "My tribe's elder reports much the same," he said, looking down at the stag judgingly. "Mine as well," spoke up a doe of another tribe. Several others raised similar affirmations. "W-Wait, wait just wait a minute!" Whirlwind said, taking a few steps forward. He sounded rather desperate. "There has to be somedeer better than me. I-I, well I've been out of the forest for the past few years. I hardly know anydeer from the other tribes. I'd be a terrible lord! Winter isn't even my favourite season!" "It’s nodeer's favourite season, Whirlwind," the kindly voice of Riverblossom spoke. "Exactly!" Whirlwind said, laughing nervously "I-I mean, sure! The crown was to be delivered to me, I get that, but I thought that was only so I could bring it back home!" he said, turning and pointing an accusatory hoof at Handy. He just shrugged. "I was merely paid to deliver a package on behalf of a pony who could not make the journey himself. It was unprofessional to enquire as to its contents," Handy said, even though that was exactly what he had done as soon as he got Crimson alone with it. They had been there only a short while now. Handy was quite pleased to learn they did indeed have a solution to 'expedite' their journey out of the forest. Unfortunately, this method was apparently the same one they entered by and involved the finding and destruction of a rare and, to the deer, priceless artefact. You could see where this was going. Handy certainly could. Why was the 'easy way out' anything but? "This is a mistake..." the suddenly terrified-looking stag said, his voice trembling. "The elder, I wish to speak with the elder!" "Elder Wildwood is currently in communion; he cannot be disturbed. It has been decided. Whirlwind ap Whisperwood, you are to undertake the pilgrimage with the crown, with nodeer to accompany you, to the Hearthfire," Forestfire said before concluding with a brief phrase in the deer language that was, in turn, intoned by the surrounding council. Whirlwind looked as if he had just been condemned to death. Briefly, Handy felt a twinge of concern for the stag, but it was mollified by the assurance that he would be soon out of this damnedable forest. 'And away from that road...' This was a deer matter and the deer were sorting it out. It was kind of them to speak in Eques— English. It was English, Handy, don't be silly now. It was kind of them to do so that they had an idea of what was going on, but it simply did not concern them. Jacques, however, looked at Whirlwind, his face a stoic mask. His tail twitched. "I will discuss with the outsiders, the Milesian and the Equestrians, their means of acquiring a vortex shard," Forestfire said. "This council is brought to a close." The noise of wood on wood resounded as a red-robed aide at the chieftain's side stomped his wood-encompassed hoof upon a small black block carved to resemble a stylised deer head. The hall was filled with voices as the gathered deer filed out to the doors to the side. Forestfire didn't move, however, waiting patiently as the others left. Soon it was merely her, a few guards, Riverblossom, her aide, Handy, Crimson, Jacques, and the dejected Whirlwind. "Seer Riverblossom," Forestfire said, not looking away from the four of them below her, "please take Whirlwind to the temple. My own aide will assist you in preparing him for his pilgrimage." "Now dear, I do not—" Riverblossom found herself interrupted by a rather sharp burst from Forestfire's mouth. She looked quite taken aback by what Handy could only assume was a harsh rebuke in the deer language. Her next words seemed more measured, gentler. Riverblossom stared hard at her granddaughter for a few moments before raising her head. She then turned to Whirlwind. "Come along, young Whirls. There is a lot for you to consider," she said, getting up from her spot and walking down to guide the young stag away. The red robed doe quickly made to follow after the seer as they left the room with the guards Forestfire dismissed, leaving the four of them there. "You may leave. You will be given supplies to accommodate your travels. And while it was not easy to convince the council of your need, we will provide you with the location of one vortex shard so that you may leave our realms as quickly as you entered," she said, breaking the awkward silence that had hung heavy on the air. "Please wait in the war hall to be guided out of the city. You may go," she said before turning her attention to a scroll on the table before her. They looked at each other for a moment before doing as she said. "Not you, Milesian." Handy paused at the threshold of the doorway, the two great stone doors, so at odds with the wood building hung open, flanked on their far side by two rather large stags completely encased in vicious-looking armour, bearing large, vertically attached scythe blades upon poles. The blades positively glowed with whatever magic was in them. Jacques and Thorax looked at him uncertainly for a moment. He turned to look at the red eyes of the doe boring into his head from across the room. He glanced at the other two for a moment before turning around. The doors closed behind him with a solid final thud, leaving him alone with the chieftain. Handy shifted the generously gifted banner he was using as a makeshift cloak just enough so that he didn't raise any hackles when he discreetly moved his hand closer to the loop holding his hammer in place. He stood there by the door for a while. She, meanwhile, just looked at him, then to the scroll before her, then off to the side. She was very visibly rotating her jaw. Handy sighed. "Yes?" The question seemed to jolt her back to reality. She cleared her throat and pushed herself away from the table. She trotted down until she was just before the human. "I have... a favour to ask of you," she said. Handy just looked down at her. "No." "What?" "I said no." "I have not even asked anything yet!" "Thou dost assume I care?" Handy asked, his implacable steel helm betraying nothing. The doe bared her teeth for a minute, visible shaking, the horn stubs on her head sparking with magic. She shakily raised a forehoof, and Handy took a step back, the gauntlet of his right hand clinking as it clasped the head of his war hammer. Then she put her hoof down. She seemed to slump as she hung her head. The small, particles of dust that had been levitated by the force of the magic, gathering about the doe, fell to the floor "Please," she said, sounding tired, "just... listen to what I have to say." Despite himself, Handy's curiosity was piqued. The powerful, forceful, if somewhat disarmingly adorable doe appeared so small right at that moment, as if borne down by the weight of the world. She looked up slightly from the floor after a moment, red eyes scanning the lines between black and white marble stones. "There... are some traditions deer cannot break. Rituals too important to be profaned by cloven hoof. Whirl..." she paused. "He can't have anydeer accompany him on the pilgrimage." "So?" Handy asked. "If I understand correctly, this... Lord of Winter title is one all thine tribes respect?" "Yes," Forestfire said carefully. "And that there is a lord of Winter, one agreed upon by the elders of all the tribes, he would be safe from attack by all tribes on this pilgrimage? And you deer seem to command this forest, so he should not be attacked by animals?" "That is... accurate." "Then what is the problem?" "The Hearthfire has gone out," Forestfire explained. Handy just tilted his head. Rolling her eyes, she continued, "It’s... difficult to explain. Just understand that it is important. It hasn't gone out in centuries. I fear... something has snuffed the flame." "You have my sympathies." She did not. "But I fail to see what thou hopes for me, an ignorant outsider," he put a harsh emphasis on the last two words. Forestfire for her part did not wince, but her ears pressed closer to her head, "to do about it." "Jacques is hired to defend him. And the unicorn mare, she is your servant yes? She'll go where you go?" "Generally speaking," Handy said before the penny dropped. "... Thou art not asking of me what I am thinking thou art asking, art thee?" She merely stared up at him in silence, a hard expression on her face. He held up a hand. "Let me just explain everything that is wrong with that," he began. "Alright." "One, I don't care. Two, thou hath just said there are things too sacred to be broken. That Whirlwind must journey alone is one of them. Would not going with him break this sacred trust? And three, I fail to see how I can assist him on this and then go about my business of finding my way out of this accursed forest." Then, oh so slowly, a small smile graced the chieftain's muzzle. Handy was confused for a moment before his eyes widened slightly. He ground his teeth together for a moment and greatly desired to rub the palm of his hand up against his face, in a vain hope that all the fuckery in the world might disappear if he simply tried to erase his face like a bad doodle on a homework essay. "The place whereupon Whirlwind will make pilgrimage..." Handy began, "…and the place where I might find a shard... they are one and the same, are they not?" "I got the Council's agreement to let you destroy one for your own needs so long as it was not one of the Whisperwood's," Forestfire explained, looking away. "I placated the other tribes by specifying that none of theirs would be threatened..." "So what is stopping thee from just giving us one of thine on the sly?" "Oh, because we don't have any," she said, smiling a tad sheepishly. "Had Whirlwind not broken the one that brought you here, it would have been our first. Council doesn't need to know that though. And the Hearthfire is at the centre of one of the few known ruins that is definitely untouched by deer, except for those who are to become new lords. If there are any to be found easily, it'd be there." "What exactly are these things anyway?" Handy asked. "And why are they so valuable?" "They are relics filled with a strange magic unknown to our kind. The ancients who made them and the ruins they used to inhabit are older than this entire forest," she explained. That... That was pretty fucking old, judging by the apparent size of this forest and size of these trees. Handy was no archaeologist, but he was pretty sure any civilization's ruins should have long since crumbled to dust over such a long time span, especially with plants growing over them. "Their study and possession is highly prized by deer." "Can you use them?" Handy asked, suddenly intrigued. If these things could operate outside most magic, it might be worth investigating them as a possible way of getting home. What? Ancient ruins, enchanted forest, magical McGuffins, it was perfectly reasonable for Handy to think he might get lucky and stumble across some ancient doorway of almighty bullshit or other. A guy could hope, right? "Oh, we have no idea how they work," Forestfire explained. Handy just glared at her. "Then why prize them so much?" he demanded. She shrugged, her armour clinking with her motions. "Because they're cool?" she said, smiling brightly. At that moment, Handy's natural inclination against striking women had briefly, oh so briefly, been readily in favour of punting the doe in the face. Fucking deer. Handy's clenched fist shook violently under his cloak, but reason prevailed and he didn't do something he was going to regret. "Okay..." Handy said, taking a few steps to the left. "Just... Why can't thee send a detachment of guards to defend Whirlwind if thou art so concerned?" he asked. "Because sending soldiers of any tribe to the lake would cause a war," Forestfire said. "And that'd be bad. Oh, also, any other deer entering the valley will be turned to ash. Several previous lords found that out the hard way." That made Handy stop. He turned on the spot. "Hold on," Handy said, "that sounds like something thou really should have mentioned first! If we go with Whirlwind, what prevents us from being turned to ash!?" "Well you aren't a deer!" Forestfire said happily. There it was, the typical deer inappropriate joviality breaking through her stern cheiftainly demeanour. Handy was livid! "I am not going to walk to my death just to watch the back of the stag you don't have the fortitude to admit you desire with the intensity of a God damn kiln!" Handy barked. Forestfire reeled. "That's not- I-I mean, it’s just I don't want anything to happen to him, I mean the crown! Its- uh..." "I am not even the same species as thee and it is so very terribly obvious," Handy said. The doe seemed to be caught between indignation and embarrassment. Either way, she was flustered. “You have it wrong. I don’t, that is… uhhh..” “Thou hast known each other how long?” “W-What? Why would I even—” “And thou hast,what? Pulled how many strings and favours in order to get his attention?” “How dare you insinuate—!” “Whirlwind is very talkative over a game of cards.” Handy deadpanned. The doe was visibly squirming now, her ears splayed back against her head, rubbing one foreleg against the other and looking like she really regretted starting this conversation. Not that Handy cared. If anything, he was enjoying watching her brought low. “So, if thou art so concerned for his sake out of unrequited love, why don’t you go tell him? Better yet, why not go with him. Make a day trip out of it. Eve—” “THAT IS NOT THE REASON I AM ASKING THIS FAVOUR AT ALL!” she shouted, face flush with either indignation or rage. Probably both. "Then why on earth would thee think it reasonable to ask me to go on this suicide mission?" Forestfire's face went through a variety of emotions as she tried to give word to her answer, eventually letting out an explosive sigh. "Look... Here's the simple truth. This forest... it’s wild. The border between this world and the beyond wears thin. We deer manage and rule it, care for it only because we made a pact." "A pact with what?" "A great spirit, one who gave us the power of Hartsight. It allows us to see the forest for what it is, to banish its illusions and keeps us safe from the wildness of it. It gives us our magic for as long as we are within the Greenwoods. We care for the forest, its inhabitants and the seasons... except for winter," she explained. "Winter is... It’s a force of its own in the Greenwoods, uncompromising and destructive. It tears and it rips and overstays its due time. The Lord in Winter... The first lord was our last king, who made the pact for the whole of our race, that we may have a home to call our own. In return, he gave up his right to rule and bore the crown of winter, his crown lost to time so that none may claim dominion over all deer. So that the icy winds would obey him, so that he could stay winter's fury, so that any of us might survive to see another spring." She paused. "And this Hearthfire?" Handy probed. "It is the kindling, the promise remembered before gods and deer. A sign of fidelity that it has gone out... It... It could mean the spirit has left." "If no one can visit this place but the supposed Lord, how do you know it has gone out?" Handy asked. She chuckled. "Oh human, if it were lit, trust me when I say you'd notice." "Seems like a rather bad deal to me," Handy said. "You made a deal with a spirit that tied your people to this... enchanting forest, took away your unity, and left you as bickering tribes cut off from the world." She simply smiled wryly at that. "Desperate times. It is a fool who judges their ancestors harshly while knowing they can see more than they could at the time." "I suppose this is all supposed to make me feel oh so sorry for dear Whirlwind?" Handy asked. "I still hear no guarantee that neither me nor my companions will be turned to ash." She snapped back to look at him. "As I said, you are not deer. If anything, the valley will not reject you anymore than it should reject a finch... provided you don't offend the spirits that dwell there. The rituals and vows are specific, know the right loopholes..." she trailed off. Handy actually took off his helmet and rubbed his eyes before exhaling. "If I never see another deer again... Fine. I'll protect thy little sweetheart if it gets me out of here all the sooner." Forestfire actually beamed at him. He looked at her dispassionately, "In fact, I'll go one step further, and indeed, I shall become the most reliable of friends of his." She raised an eyebrow at him, tilting her head to the side. "And as good friend, I shalt tell him a little bird told me a certain someone holds a candle for him and simply cannot wait to see him again." Forestfire's face dropped and she looked sufficiently mortified. "No!" she shouted. "Uh, I mean, just uh..." "Glad we had this chat." Handy placed his helmet back on and walked towards the doorway. It was a small thing and ultimately harmless, but if it made her squirm, he was more than happy to take petty pleasure in her discomfort. She bounded after him, literally bounded, and got in front of him. "You can't! He doesn't know!" 'No shit he doesn't know. The guy is as thick as custard.' "That is quite the point actually. I simply can't keep this from him. Why, it would be quite the betrayal. I mean, I am supposed to be trusted to watch his back, so how can I in good conscience not tell him something so wonderful!" He was laying it on thick and he didn't care. "You can't!" she hissed, now walking backwards in front of him as he neared the door. "Pretty sure I can." "You won't! "I will." "No you won't!" she almost shouted as she hit the door "I forbid it!" That was cute. "So? I do not answer to thee. What exactly art thou going to do?" She narrowed her eyes. "Got kids?" Handy frowned. "No." "Plan on having them?" --=-- Don't judge him. Look, when it was your 'inheritance' on the line, you could call bullshit on a deer who had the command of two remarkably heavily armed and armoured stags with bladed antlers and magical scythes in the room next door. Sure, he was pretty confident she was bluffing. In fact, he was almost certain of it. Buuuut given what he knew of deer, and the rather lethal look she had in her eyes at that point in time... Well, better to lean on the safe side of things. Taking a joke that far wasn't worth it. It was not as if he was actually not going to tell him anyway. Just... not within earshot of other deer. The others had gathered and had been given supplies for their little trek. Handy was leery of letting any of the others carry his goods, opting instead to keep his pack and satchels right where they were on his person and carrying the deer goods, canteen supplies rations of the god awful tasting fare the deer called food, and other goods, including rope and sheets for a makeshift shelter. "How far away is this valley anyway?" he asked, following the dejected Whirlwind, looking back down the trail at Jacques and Thorax who were happily chatting away. Crimson laughed at something the stallion had said. Odd. "A few days..." Whirlwind said. Handy spread his arms wide before letting them fall back to his sides. In a few days, his last enjoyable moments of feeling like an ordinary human would be over and he'd be back to the constant reminders of his new nature. He'd rather be out of this forest before then. "Right. Sure. Why not." He swatted away flies flitting about his helmet that tried to find their way in to get at the sweat upon his face. It was sweltering despite the fact it should be August. Why weren't there any leaves falling? Was it because the deer not shaking the trees hard enough? "What’s the matter?" "Hm?" "Thou art not thyself. Ever since the council, thou hast been just this sad sack. So you are becoming a Lord in Winter. What is the problem?" Whirlwind laughed at that, a joyless sound. "Oh I don't know, maybe the fact I have to abandon my tribal affiliations, I have to feel cold all the time, I have to hibernate three seasons out of every four and every winter I have to battle the elemental force of ice and death. Otherwise everydeer I know starves and freezes to death. Yeah, I should be just perky about that." Whirlwind gave him a tired smile before continuing walking down a decline and pushing his way through several bushes. Handy didn't respond to that. No wonder Forestfire didn't want him to know... "Surely it cannot be all that bad," Handy tried to reason. "I mean, sure thou needst to control the elements all winter, but that doesn't mean you can't visit thine home at that time, right?" "Heh, I like you Handy. But I'm afraid even that is denied me. ‘Neither walls nor roof shall hide you; ne'er the earth shall shelter you. The heights of the sky shall not give thee respite. You must be as the wind and ne'er know stillness for as long as ye shalt wear thy crown.'" "What is that?" "Just a little thing I learned as a fawn at my mother's hooves," Whirlwind answered. "It means a Lord in Winter can never know peace except when he sleeps. As much as I would like to, I can never set hoof in a city during winter again. I will be needed across the forest." The simple deadpan tone to his voice seemed so strange coming from the stag. For once, Handy felt a twinge of sympathy for the deer but remained silent. There really wasn't much more he could say that would actually help. He thought about telling him about Forestfire, but realised if he knew that, at best he'd shrug it off, at worst it would always be on his mind for the rest of his days. And he could do nothing about it either way. Handy didn't hate him enough to do that to him. --=-- The second day's traveling was largely uneventful, having spent the previous night by a stream, and Handy had, rather generously, volunteered to go get firewood. So long as someone else went to the task of actually lighting the damn thing. However, something was bothering him. Thorax was smiling. Now generally speaking, a changeling smiling was always cause for concern to anyone with half a brain, a sense of self preservation and enough dignity to find the idea of having been fed on as being mildly offensive. He snuck glances at her as they went. She was always lagging behind, talking with Jacques. It did not take him too long to put two and two together. "What do you think you're doing?" he asked rather coldly as they stopped for moment. He had cornered her by a tree, using the excuse of requesting that she 'check the integrity of the enchantment on his torch', even producing the arcane device he had received from the witch. All the while, Jacques helped Whirlwind set up the camp cover to keep the light drizzle of the rain off. The downpour had been going on for an hour now, but it simply could not penetrate the canopy to reach the ground in force, leaving a gentle, scattered rainfall as the water worked its way through the canopy. "What?" she asked, blinking up at him. He looked around the tree for a moment before looking back, hissing. "Really? You're trying to feed off of Jacques?" "Oh come off of it, I'm starving!" she protested, batting away the unlit torch. Handy's foot clamped down on it as it rolled across the ground. "Can you not wait?" Handy said "Heartless, I am a changeling," she said lowly, eyeing the direction of the camp. The voices of Jacques and the stag as the former tried cheering up the latter to no avail were plain to hear. "If I don't do something, I can't maintain my disguise indefinitely!" "We're already so close to getting out of here. Are you seriously going to jeopardize that!?" "I know what I am doing." "Clearly not!" He looked about, levelling a finger at her when he turned back. "No feeding off of party members." "Oh, that's a rule now? How convenient for those of us who already broke it." She deadpanned. Handy scowled at her as she batted his hand away. "You can starve yourself all you want. Me? I need a pick me up. Badly. And I figured Jacques would be easy. However..." She trailed off momentarily. "He's been oddly hard to lure." "Yeah, that's probably because I warned him off of you." Her eyes went wide at that. "You tol—" "Don't be stupid. Jacques was asking about you and I didn't want to have you tempted by an easy feedbag and blow our fucking cover. I thought you'd be too professional to risk it but noooo, I guess that was too much to hope for!" She growled at him. "So that's why it's been so difficult. Thanks." She began to stomp off. "Wait." "I don't think so." Thorax paused to look back at him. "If I don't get something from him, or Tartarus, Whirl, I'm going to lose this disguise and our cover will be blown anyway. Would you prefer that?" Handy was silent. "Hmph." Her eyes briefly flashed bright green, revealing her true chartreuse irises before feeding back to Crimson's blue. She said no more as she trotted off, calling out to the other two, offering to help with camp. Handy stooped to pick up the witch-torch, stuffing it back into his pack. It wasn't that he cared about Jacques' wellbeing. All the same, he was antsy about things going wrong this close to getting out of this hell of a forest, and soooo much could go wrong if Jacques, or even Whirlwind, discovered her true nature. Perhaps he was merely being too paranoid for his own good. She was a changeling after all – this was her element and if she had survived this long, she must know what she was doing. Still, it did not pay to be complacent. He had to be sure. Hopefully, the knowledge that he was keeping a watchful eye would force her to either stick it out until they were free of the forest or, at the very least, be much more discrete with feeding. A slight tremor of disgust shot through him as the thought struck him at his own hypocrisy, willingly standing by and allowing someone to fall victim to feeding by someone else. It wasn't the same thing, sure, but it was close enough. Kicking up too much of a fuss would raise suspicions, and if she was as bad off as she said, then preventing her from feeding would just reveal her anyway. He gritted his teeth and turned his head to look up at the rain. 'Catch twenty two...' he thought to himself, looked back down, and went back to the camp. 'For your sake, I hope you know what you're doing...' --=-- The rain had not let up and in more than a few places where the canopy gave way, so there was an occasional patch of the forest that appeared to have been encompassed in a torrential waterfall of rainwater in comparison to the light drizzle everywhere else. Whirlwind had been surprised that the three of them were sticking with him all the way there until Handy explained that it was the only place Forestfire knew of that could have untouched shards. Whirlwind pointed out the little tidbit about trespassers not supposed to be there being turned to ash. Handy mentioned that Bambi assured him that only applied to trespassing deer, and did so with exactly as much confidence about that as he felt. Whirlwind had tapped his chin and then beamed, convinced of the logic. Jacques and Thorax looked decidedly nervous about the prospect. After, they pushed their way through a particularly difficult to traverse part of the forest, in between fissures in the ground that rose up to bisect a large, rocky outcropping in half. Passing through it, they emerged into a valley. It was startling at first. The entire area was surrounded on all sides by those titanic trees they had been used to. However, the valley itself was covered in much smaller birch trees, their branches pregnant and heavy with fiery red leaves. Leaving as the most immediate visible feature the sky above them, that seemed shockingly vast after so long trapped in the Greenwoods. The clouds were grey, the light of the sun blocked out leaving a grey and heavy atmosphere that dulled the otherwise vibrant appearance of the birch woodland in the valley below. It was then Handy noticed the clouds were churning, roiling, moving far too quickly. They also didn't seem to be obeying the wind direction. He thought about asking Whirlwind about that, but he held his peace, figuring the deer must've had an influence over the weather if they managed this entire forest. It was a bad sign, he thought to himself, when you looked at the weather being unusual and found it entirely reasonable that you could blame someone for that. They wandered around, following Whirlwind, until they came across a broken path laid with ancient flagstones winding through the valley, guiding them through the rolling hills and meadows bursting with flower beds. Handy thought that they almost certainly had to be going in circles after they took far too many right turns and really should have doubled over on themselves, yet somehow they did not. Jacques noticed this too and enquired about it. Whirlwind merely smiled in response but didn't answer. So when they came upon it, it was almost a shock. The path rather suddenly came to an end after another right turn, ending in a wide, circular clearing dominated by huge dolman-standing stones. Each one was unique, made from a bright white stone that was at odds with the yellowish, constructed flagstones that were littered across the clearing and which had made up the path. Each one had very simple but sprawling designs chiselled into them, and each possessed a large circular hole that bore through the entire stone near their top. What really dominated the clearing was the large, lopsided archway that towered over them, easily fifteen feet in height. Two heavy, verdigris-covered metal doors were flanked on either side by black iron stylized lizard figures coiling around pillars that held up the arch. The entire structure was partially sunken into the ground on one side and covered with creeping ivy. It seemed woefully out of place somehow. It did not match the dolmans, nor did it match the ruined path. Whirlwind stepped within the clearing and seemed to pause. Thorax, who was studying the huge doorway in awe, had followed him absentmindedly. "Oh, that’s good!" Whirlwind suddenly beamed, ears perking. Thorax raised an eyebrow at him. Whirlwind pointed at the circle of dolmans. "You're not ash! So I guess Forestfire was right!" Thorax eyes bugged out and her head snapped back and forth. Her ears splayed against her head and her foreleg rose to her chest fearfully. Handy, being in no mood to approach the horrifically ominous doorway in the ominous clearing surrounded by ominous standing stones at the heart of an ominous valley in the centre of an ominous forest, had wisely stayed back. Jacques, it seemed, was of similar mind. Well, it was not as if he pushed the changeling ahead of him into the obvious magical death trap to see if it was, in fact, a deathtrap. But if the little unseelie fae wanted to go ahead of him into terribly dangerous scenarios... well, far be it for him to stop her. It was as Handy was smiling at this little fortuitous turnabout that it happened. He and Jacques, being the last to cross the clearing's threshold, were a little taken aback when a rather worrying humming sound emanated from the dolmans. Eldritch blue light emerged from the standing stones, running up and down their lengths, illuminating the carvings in their surface. A ball of fire burst into existence within the holes of the stones, one after another, with a rush of air and the hiss of evaporating water as raindrops touched the tongues of flame. Handy, being not as keen on fire these days as he used to be, was understandably concerned. "Art thou entirely sure we weren't supposed to be turned to ash?" Handy asked, trying to hold onto his nerve, clutching the hammer at his side reflexively. A very large, very persuasive part of him told him to turn and fucking leg it. And he was already turning before a hoof landed on his shoulder, pulling him around. Whirlwind had reared up. "If you were going to be turned to ash, you would be already." His tone was meant to sound reassuring, but it is hard to find comfort in a smile when it was in the midst of a rainstorm and odd shadows were cast upon its owner's face by eldritch fire. "Relax!" "...There is nothing remotely relaxing about this situation," Handy pointed out. As if to further cement his point, each ball of flame stretched and contorted, flowing and reaching out to one another in ghostly, sluggish movements. They floated upon the air, not at all bothered by the heavy rainfall, eventually leaving the entire clearing surrounded by a ring of fire. The flames travelled down the dolmans in lines and burned their way through the grass, following unknown, predetermined paths in concentric patterns around them, slowly drawing near each of them. "Whirl..." Panic was slowly rising in Handy’s voice. "Whirl what's going on!?" he shouted as the fire snaked its way towards him. "I have to agree with our tall friend." Jacques backed up towards the centre of the group. "I, too, am not entirely comfortable with this." Whirlwind, meanwhile, stood where he was, utterly unconcerned. "Oh come on, guys, you're overreacting!" he chirped. "There is magical fire coming closer and closer to us!" Thorax shouted, turning this way and that, desperately looking for a means of escape. "There is no such thing as 'overreacting' to that!" "Sure there is!" he objected. Thorax just let out a frustrated noise. Handy was meanwhile trying to work up the nerve to try to leap over the, frankly, small flames and just hope to God his armour and soaked cloak kept the fire from his flesh. Each time he took off at a run to make the attempt, something deep, intrinsic to him, pulled him back. It was an almost physical force, pulling at his skin to draw him away from the fire. The three of them continued to panic as the fire slowly encroached. Handy was almost certain he was going to lose it until... The fire stopped. As soon as each snaking line of fire reached one of them, it broke off, going around them and surrounding them in their own personal rings of flame. The others had managed to settle down somewhat when it became obvious the fire wasn't going to enclose further on them. Handy? Handy was waging an internal war, the same animalistic terror he felt in the presence of fire almost forcing him to take flight and running for it. While the more sane part of him, also afraid of fire, clamped down on that mad impulse which was only going to end up having him flailing over the flames between him and sweet, blissful, non-fiery freedom. This, meanwhile, left him a heavily breathing wreck turning about at the fire surrounding him, utterly dead to the world. "Handy?" Thorax had called out. No response. She turned to Jacques and then to the quietly humming Whirlwind. "Mon ami." Jacques had picked up the alarmed look in the mare's eyes and turned to the stag. "What... What is going on?" "No idea!" Whirlwind said cheerfully. Jacques just... looked at his friend for a long moment before reaching up and tilting the hat over his face and screaming into it. "So what now?" Thorax said, desperation evident in her voice, "We—" ZHOKUR SEV-REM, J'LUK COMREUN PENFER CRUME The echoing noise was seismic and was less a voice and more the sound of an avalanche of rock and sand that mimicked something resembling speech. It seemed to come from everywhere at once, and Thorax felt the pseudo fur on her guise stand on end all over her body as the force behind the foreign words chilled her to her core. Jacques' head snapped back and forth, looking for a foe as he drew his sword in a blur of metal, the blade clasped to his hoof. Handy was knocked out of his mad reverie by the force of the noise. There was nothing familiar about those words. They were unlike the deer tongue, which was alive and full of energy, jumping from one word to the next. This was heavy, ponderous, each utterance a great weight full of consequence. So Whirlwind casually looking around, then gesturing to himself and saying, "Wait... Oh! Oh you were referring to me? Oh right! Hah! Sorry," was slightly concerning. "You can understand it!?" Jacques shouted. "Oh yeah, he's just speaking the language of stone!" "What in Tartarus is the language of stone!?" Thorax asked, desperately turning about to try to locate a definitive source of the voice and failing. "Its the language stones speak!" Whirlwind chirped happily. "Took two years of it as a scribe, quite dull, much like rocks, isn't that right Mr.Rumbles?" he shouted in the general direction of the door. There was a shaking of the earth and Handy, to his mortal terror, almost fell over. He gave out a shout of alarm. "Whirlwind!" he hissed. "Stop fucking with the horrible voice of doom!" FERINTH YRUIL COMERTI J'LUK FERENGUR "What in Tartarus is it saying?" Jacques asked. "Oh, it’s saying we can't enter unless we prove ourselves worthy," Whirlwind replied. DERINTH THUR "Or it'll burn us to ashes," the stag continued. Handy was very much in favour becoming all sorts of worthy right at that moment. "Right. Fine! Whatever!" 'Fucking magic, fucking fire, fucking deer, fucking forest, fucking God-damn fantasy land of bullshit!' "We'll go on its stupid quest or, or, gather the magic beans or whatever the fuck a voice in a druidic clearing wants! Fine!" Thorax eyed him curiously, not having seen the human out of sorts so vividly, taking note of his preoccupation with the fire surrounding him and trying to keep the banner he still had draped over him out of the flames reach. GHRENTH YM FHIJUL "What is it saying!?" Jacques asked. "Oh, it wants us to solve its riddle! Isn't that cool!?" There was a long silence, the only sound the now low hum from the standing stones, the crackle of fire and the sound of pouring rain. "Are you serious?" Handy asked, breathing heavily. "That’s all? Really?" Whirlwind nodded vigorously. And they were left in silence for a few moments longer. Thorax spat some of her mane from her face. The rain had made it sopping wet and it was getting in the way of important things. Like seeing or occasionally breathing. "Well!?" she yelled. "Well what?" the stag asked, cocking his head to the side. Jacques rolled his eyes. "Well what's the riddle?" Handy could only voice an affirmation to that. "Oh, I don't know, uhm..." Whirlwind turned in the direction of the huge doorway standing on its lonesome. He then began shouting something in the deer tongue. The voice, for lack of a better descriptor, responded with a long, monotonous droning grind of more nonsense noises in the guise of words whose meaning was lost to the rest of them. His mind slowly wandered from the ridiculousness of the task at hand to the reality of the fiery circle of death surrounding him. 'You know,' he thought, 'standing stones, ancient carvings, shenanigans, an ancient rumbling ominous voice of doom that can shake the earth... If we die here, does this count as a sacrificial circle? Is my soul going to be consigned to some dark spirit's stomach for eternity or some such nonsense? Bambi mentioned a great spirit or something. Is that a thing? Is that a thing which can happen?' He pondered, a little too light-heartedly considering their circumstances. But hey, when your only other things to focus on was a giant ancient doorway of a bygone civilization playing Golum sez with a magical talking stag or the imminence of your own death by immolation, your thoughts would go weird places too. "Well that’s just weird..." Handy snapped back to attention. "What is?" he asked. "The riddle erm... I am not sure how to answer—" "SHHhhhhHHHHhhhhh!" Jacques shushed, holding his hoof to his lips in a silencing gesture. "Don't admit you don't kn—" Jacques scrunched up his muzzle in silence and glanced fearfully at the huge portal. "Ce que je veux dire est, if we get this wrong, in any way, we may be deemed uh, how you say, unworthy?" That was met with a cold response, no one really willing to risk getting it wrong. "So, what’s the riddle?" Handy asked quietly. Whirlwind churned it over in his head, as if trying to think up the words in Eques— English. They speak English. Bad narration. "What always goes up, never comes down, is taller than trees and as old as the ground?" Whirlwind asked. "What?" Thorax’s confusion was evident. "I am not sure..." Jacques said, sitting on his haunches, his tail swishing and coming dangerously close to hitting the ring of flames. "The hell kind of question is that?" Handy asked. "Nothing goes up and doesn't come down." Which he knew wasn't true. Fundamentally, if you broke orbit and spiralled off into space, 'technically' you'd never come down. But then you'd never go up either since direction is near meaningless in space. Still, he got the distinct impression that whatever it was going to accept as an answer wasn't going to be something beyond the planet. It was taller than trees too, but why would that be relevant if it always went up yet never came down? "A cloud?" Thorax offered. "They're always up and never come down. Clouds have been around forever." "Non..." Jacques said, brow furrowed in thought. "Pegasi bring clouds down all the time, usually to fix defective ones before they hurt somepony. Besides, they are made from water brought up from the ground and then return to the ground as rain." He waved a hoof around to indicate the downpour around them "Like this." Thorax looked a bit put off, probably embarrassed. As a creature who presumably only felt relaxed in some hidey hole in the middle of the Badlands where she was likely raised, that wouldn't have been common knowledge to her. "A glacier?" Handy offered. "They're ancient.” He eyed the fire around him carefully. "Taller than trees... sometimes." "Glaciers melt, Handy... sir," Thorax said, adding the honorific as an afterthought. Handy scowled at her from behind his helmet. "The sun?" Jacques asked, looking up, blinking into the rain above. "The sun tends to rise and go down beyond the horizon," Handy said, grimacing. That little fact that the sun apparently went around the world and not the other way around was... still something that just annoyed him more than anything. He just couldn't understand it, but he had gotten a rude awakening to the fact in Canterlot months ago. Given that the fires didn't seem to be dissipating, they could guess Jacques' answer was as wrong as the rest of theirs. "Let’s hope the 'king of the mountain' over here has an answer," he said, exasperated, gesturing to the stag. "... Mountain..." Whirlwind muttered before his eyes went wide and he stamped a hoof into the ground "Aha! A mountain the answer is a mountain!" he said, gesturing triumphantly at the door. "What?" Thorax asked. "Think about it, a mountain is taller than trees." "But trees grow on mountains," Jacques objected. "But they're still taller! And they are as old as the ground because they are the ground! They're a part of the earth!" "Hold on," Handy said. "Mountains fall apart, they go down. Avalanches, caves within it falling in, the wind bites away at it bit by bit over time..." "Yes but it’s not in their nature to go down!" Whirlwind said excitedly. "Just as it’s not in the ground’s nature to go up!" "A glacier moves and comes to an end, the sun moves and goes along its cycle, clouds form and reform all the time. But a mountain? That always goes up, it has to, otherwise it just becomes the ground, which it always was to begin with. The trick to the answer was hidden in the riddle. A mountain is just the ground elevated!" Handy wasn't entirely convinced, but it was a more solid guess than the other three. "And if you're wrong?" Thorax asked. "You uh... kinda shouted it as if it was the answer." "Well if I'm wrong..." Whirlwind said, pointing at the changeling before pausing, his happy expression falling, "Oh... oh dear." The lot of them were quiet after that, turning expectantly towards the door. There was no sound to be heard, no rumbling of the earth, no terrible voice to condemn them. The fire stayed where it was, bright and crackling and dancing. Someone inhaled as if to say something, but at that very moment the verdigris-covered doors opened. It was a strained, laboured opening, the sound of a long suffering hinges holding up a great weight as the doors swung away from the group. Despite the doorway standing on its own, unsupported by any structure bar the remnants of some brick wall clinging to parts of the archway, the doors revealed an interior room. It was dark and was hard to see from this distance. Without an additional sound, the flames sputtered and died, and Handy found himself letting go of a breath he had not known he was holding. Looking around, the fires receded into the dolmans as they died and the great standing stones were stilled, their humming ceased. As he turned to face the door once again, he noticed the changeling eyeing him curiously out of the corner of the slit of his helmet. "What?" he asked, somewhat too quickly. The changeling did not flinch and held her gaze, her tail flicking. "Nothing," she said before, like the other two, getting up and walking to the doorway. "I was right..." Whirlwind’s voice was disbelieving. "Hahaha! I was right!" "I've never been happier to hear one of your silly leaps of logic, mon ami." Jacques’ characteristic lazy smile once more was upon his face as he curiously walked to the far side of the archway, ignoring the open portal. Once around the bend, the archway's interior was filled up with a solid brick wall, with no sign of the open doors. Jacques paused as he tried to process that but let out a yelp of surprise as an exuberant Whirlwind bounded over to him and wrapped him into a one-armed hug. "Yes! Happy! I am so glad you guys could be here when I did this! I would've been here for hours otherwise!" "I am sure you would've –hrmph– got it eventually." Jacques tried to get out of the stag's surprisingly strong grip. Handy and Thorax left them to their foolishness, both of them approaching the open doorway before them as the downpour continued to beat down on them. The room beyond was dark. "Thorax?" The mare looked up. "Can you light something for me?" he asked, fumbling in his pack for the witch-torch and holding it for her. She raised an eyebrow at it before her horn lit up. Handy flinched as a tiny burst of flame erupted from it in a matchstick spell, catching the torch alight. She blinked in surprise at seeing the small quartz stone at the torch's tip light on fire. The flame was a darker deeper blue than the fire of the standing stone circle around them. "Thanks." He held the torch above him, the rain hissing as it beat down on it but failing to put it out. The light revealed a stone room. The blocks that made up the floor and walls were ancient and unadorned, worn with time. Damp moss clung to places, and water seemed to drip from the rounded ceiling to a puddle of standing water in one corner. It went deeper than the light of his torch could reach from the threshold, however. He sighed. "Another magical portal." "Well..." Thorax began. "If you want to get technical, this isn't a portal." She looked as though she was thinking heavily. "Been a while since my training. I'm no mage, but this is more like a magical translocation." Handy raised an eyebrow. "What’s the difference?" "A portal is like a door made of magic." Thorax pointed out, making a circular motion with a hoof. "Translocation is like magic made like a door." "...In Equestrian, if you could be so kind." "Okay, you know..." She glanced around. The other two were busy either trying to wrestle or dance – she didn't have time to double check, "...When I brought you, ahem, home." "Kind of hard to forget." "That's a portal. It’s a door that opened in one place and allows one to step through to another. This," She gestured at the archway in front of them, "is not so much that as much as it is bring that other place here to let us step through to it. Which is why we can see into it from this side." Handy blinked. If he understood that correctly and if he knew his science, which he didn’t, that sounded like bending time and space. "So what... It’s like someone imagined reality as one large sheet of paper and bent it so that two points come together so as to make a doorway?" "What? No that’s stupid. That’s not how it works at all." "Forgive me if my magic is a little rusty. I have all of zero understanding of it. I was just going off based on your description." "Okay, maybe my description wasn't the best, but I'm paraphrasing," she said as the two continued looking into the room. "Maybe your real Crimson can explain it better." "She probably could," Handy said, then looked up and around at the archway. "Still a portal." "What?" "The doorway. It’s still a portal." "I just told you it isn't." Handy reached across the threshold with an armoured gauntlet, quite surprise to see no magical effect on the metal. Seemed Thorax wasn't entirely wrong. If it had of been like that hex portal she'd used to transport them to Lepidopolis, he was sure it would have repelled him or some nonsense like that. Handy didn't want to find out what happened if he walked head-first into a portal while wearing magically resistant armour. He knew the vortex shard somehow affected his armour without problem the first time around, but he couldn't bet that it would always be the case. "And I am not disputing that. I am just pointing out that this is a door, by definition, is a portal." "Yes, but grammar and definitions aside," she said, rolling her eyes, "it isn't a portal portal." "Are you two seriously arguing over doors?" Both of them turned to see Whirlwind looking at them with a bemused expression. They looked at each other. "Well uh, I guess?" Handy said. "Huh.... can I join!?" Whirlwind beamed. The two of them blinked. "I think..." Jacques strolled past the three of them. "We have lingered a touch too long in the rain, qui?" He stopped just at the threshold and looked back at the three of them, his hat utterly soaked with water gathering at the tip and spilling from it to the ground. He crossed the threshold. "Now come, before we catch our death of the cold." "Right you are!" Whirlwind cheered as he leapt, leapt Handy's height, bounding over the suddenly alarmed mare and into the stone room. With one last shared looked between two masks, one metal and the other a stolen face, the two followed the stallion and stag. As all four of them entered, the metal doors creaked as they began their slow journey to swing shut once more. The doors shut with a resounding 'thoom' that knocked rock dust from the ceiling. Slowly, light filtered in from rectangular slits in the walls at the point near where the rounded ceiling met the walls. Warm fires came to life of their own accord, and Handy was quite glad they did so on the far side of stone walls from him. The rain, which had seemed so loud before, could no longer be heard, the only noise the sound of fire and the echoing drops of water falling from ceiling to the ground. The light revealed four corridors at the far side of the room, each one curving off to obscure the possible destinations of each corridor. "Huh," Whirlwind said, "River never said anything about four ways to go. Convenient that there is four of us, huh?" "Qui. But how do we know which one is the correct one?" "Maybe we should split up!" Whirlwind suggested. "What?" Handy swivelled around to stare at him. "And then return the way we came." Thorax rested her chin on a fetlock. "If we find the correct way through, or we come to a dead end, we can return here and wait on the others." "Wait a minute—" "En fait, otherwise we'd be here arguing over which way to go." "HOLD ON!" Handy shouted. The three looked at him. "Art thee three dense? How many of thee have been in ancient, presumably underground ruins before?" he asked pointedly. 'Crimson' put her hoof up. "Thou dost not count, Crimson." She put her hoof down and rolled her eyes. "Speaking as someone who has, despite his better judgement, gone into underground dungeons more often than he cares to recall, I can safely say the idea of 'splitting up' is a profoundly stupid move." He recalled being chased through the abandoned streets of an underground city by a particularly bony dragon and recalling how wonderful it would have been to have been in a group that he could have ditched and let them deal with the problem. I mean, sure that sounded bad but come on, it was an undead, fire breathing dragon. "Why?" Jacques asked. "Doth thee ponies possess the phrase ‘divide and conquer?’" Handy asked. At the blank looks, he either got the impression they did not or that these ones at least had not heard of it. "An ancient ruin. Full of magic. Guarded by an ancient doorway we had to answer a riddle to in order to get pass. There are bound to be horrible traps lying in wait for us and I, for one, am of the opinion we are safer staying together and simply choosing which way we should go." "But how will we know?" Whirlwind asked. Handy waved his torch. "This little thing, got it from the same witch that gave me the... vortex shard was it?" Whirlwind frowned. "It shows you the direction you ought to head towards that which thee desire. Such as a way out. We can use this to find uh..." He looked at Whirlwind. "Well thou can find where we need to go." "Can it help us find a specific thing?" Jacques asked. "Like another shard?" "Hopefully. I have not tried it for hunting for a specific object yet." "Well!" Whirlwind spoke up. "That saves a lot of time! Let’s go then!" "Right, now stay together," Handy said, taking a few steps forward. There was the metallic noise of metal on metal as a block Handy's weighted boot fell upon sank beneath him. The ominous sound of ancient gears turning resounded from the floor beneath them. He turned slowly to look at the group. In an instant, a line of blocks in the floor, leading from the verdigris doors to the center between the four corridors at the far end of the room, shot up. A wall bisecting the room rose between them, separating Handy and Whirlwind on one side and Thorax and Jacques on another. Shaped walls slid out of the floor, blocking off both corridors on the pony side of the wall while only one was cordoned off on the human's side. "What the—!?" Thorax was cut off by her own squeal of surprise as the floor fell from under her, the ground slanting away into the ground to reveal only blackness as both she and a cursing Jacques fell into the unknown before the floor rose back into its proper place as their shouts disappeared into the distance. Whirlwind stared wide-eyed at the new wall that had appeared not more than a few inches from his antlers before slowly turning and looking at Handy. Both of them were frozen in place from sheer shock. The sounds of stone settling into place and the sound of the gears turning ceased, and both of them were untouched. No ground falling away beneath them, no roof falling on their heads, just the deafening silence in the wake of the fact that one false step had completely undone everything Handy had tried to achieve in preventing idiocy splitting them up. "Well..." Handy chewed the inside of his cheek in thought before finally coming to utter the only words that could properly express his frustration, alarm, and overall exasperation at the situation. "Bollocks."