//------------------------------// // Chapter 37: Celestia the Cheating Cheater Cheats Some More // Story: At the Inn of the Prancing Pony // by McPoodle //------------------------------// At the Inn of the Prancing Pony Chapter 37: Celestia the Cheating Cheater Cheats Some More Celestia and Firebelle were standing at the bottom of the narrow stairway that led from the surface entrance of the Lost Caverns of Soap Candy—the one that didn’t bypass two-thirds of the first level. Celestia was disguised as the earth pony Hope Springs. And Firebelle was disguised as her former self. Atop her head was a silver circlet. “I don’t suppose we’ll run into the jerk who did this to me,” Firebelle grumbled. “I thought you said you preferred being a dragon,” said Celestia as she carefully looked around her. A lantern was balanced on her back. “Well, yes...but it’s the principle of the thing!” Firebelle owned her current appearance of being a pegasus to the transformation legband Celestia had given her, but in many respects she was still the dragon that Brian had turned her into: her eyes were that of her dragon self, and she held herself like a dragon, with rear legs splayed and bent while her forelegs were held close and straight, giving her a sloped instead of a horizontal back. “My player’s first action, his first action on gaining control of me, was to scheme to trade my body in for a better one! Adventuring is supposed to be a noble calling! Righting the odds through magic and violence!” “That’s not what I stand for,” Celestia muttered. “Yeah, well I didn’t know who you were, then. So where next?” “Follow me.” She proceeded north into a large natural chamber with six exits. Beside each exit was a face carved into the stone in bas-relief. Celestia didn’t bother with any of the other exits, heading straight for a narrow tunnel heading northeast. The doggish-looking pony face opened its mouth to speak as she approached. “Turn back...this is not the way!” it said in a bass tone. “I know,” she said casually as she continued onwards. “Turn back...this is not the way!” the face mechanically repeated. “Oh wait, that’s right.” She peered into the mouth of the stone face, to see a large, deep red stone resting within. “May I have that gem of yours?” “Turn back...this is not the way!” “Hmm...May I please have the stone?” “Turn back...this is not the way!” “Kinda stubborn, isn’t he?” Firebelle asked with a mocking grin. “Are you going to reach your hoof in there?” “With those fangs? I think not. No, this is a case of rather simple programming,” Celestia said, walking around to view the head from different angles. “Hmm...stick out your tongue.” The statue promptly responded to the request, producing a broad stone tongue with the large gem balanced upon it. “Thank you!” she said, plucking it with her mouth and dropping it into her saddlebag. Without another word, she proceeded into the northeast passage. “Turn back...this is not the way!” the head said, resuming its standard message. “You can wait there,” Celestia instructed Firebelle. “Although you might want to watch out for the giant mosquitos.” “Giant…” Firebelle said nervously, as a swarm of the creatures attracted by the stone head’s loud words surrounded her. She looked around her, seeing how big the chamber was. With a toothy smile, she rotated her legband and turned back into a black dragon. The giant bugs all broke their beaks on her scaly hide. “I love being a dragon!” she proclaimed to nopony in particular. As the light from Celestia’s lantern faded, her glowing eyes soon came to be the only source of illumination. # # # Celestia walked quietly into a small grotto, the walls of which were carved and chiseled into a running series of forms and figures that extended from the floor to an arched ceiling. The work was bas-relief, but far superior in quality to the crude stone faces in the chamber outside. Celestia looked with the eye of an art connoisseur at the forms depicted in the stone: she recognized fungi, blind fish, and insects common to the underdark. And then there were the monsters, several of which Celestia knew she would be soon facing… Celestia’s hoof brushed against something. Looking down, she spied some stone chips scattered across the floor. They were widely scattered near her, but their concentration increased the closer they got to a worked shaft. The shaft was one and a half pony-heights high—stooping height if Celestia were in her true form right now—and equally confining in the horizontal direction. It was running northwest from the far end of the grotto. “Hello!” she cried out. “Are you there?” She began to advance towards the faint sound of metal on stone. “Don’t worry, I will not hurt you. I need your help, and I would like to be your friend. Is there anything, perhaps, that I can do for you?” “Aye,” answered a voice from the shaft. “You could do us a favor.” “Name it!” “How about you...douse that cursed light, stupid!” “Oh!” Celestia exclaimed, turning around to rotate a light-proof shield around her lantern’s light. “How’s that?” “...Better,” said the voice. Celestia stood patiently as she heard seven hooved creatures approach and surround her. “We are the pech!” one of the beings told her. “We work the earth!” said another. “And we are stunningly handsome. It’s a good thing you put out that light, or our manly studliness would probably kill an ordinary mare like you!” “Oh, I’m sure,” Celestia said with a smile. “Yes, well...now that we have that sorted, oddly compliant pony, what are you going to give us?” One of the shapes approached, speaking in a nasally high pitch, clearly the leader of this small group. “Well let’s see...I’ve got one of these…” She fumbled a bit in her saddlebags, to pull out the garnet she had obtained from the stone face. “Will this do?” “Let me see that!” The Pech grabbed hold of the gem and by the humming and “ooh...” he seemed to like what he saw. “Yes-yes, so... What do you need done? I imagine that you have much need if you would search for the great and wise pech.” “I’ve heard you are good with stone—” “We are the best!” another of the pech interjected. “That you can do the impossible. Even...reverse petrification?” With a great laugh, a slight glow came to the hooves of the leader Pech, revealing a spindly thin-limbed equine creature, with massive white eyes that covered so much of its head that only a sharp tiny nose and a puckered mouth could be seen besides them. “You’ve come to Gulrikkc. Of all pech, I am sure that I can do what you ask.” “Excellent!” Celestia said with a beaming smile. “My now-solid friend is at the other end of the caverns. I...I have no right to ask you to accompany us, so my other friend and I will retrieve the statue, and return here. Is that alright with you?” The glow dimmed a little, and Gulrikkc’s expression soured. “I do not like to wait,” he said. “If you will keep me safe to the place, then I will go with you to the place. This will be good. More time after for examining the gem.” “Oh, alright,” Celestia replied with a happily surprised grin. “And don’t worry about safety—I’m pretty sure I have that covered. I’ll try to keep my lamp low, but I guess that means you’ll have to be our eyes. Is there anything you need to collect before we begin?” He hefted an unusually large and sharp pick, and nodded firmly. “I am ready.” “Then follow me.” # # # Celestia and Gulrikkc turned a corner, to face a bored black dragon. “It’s alright!” Celestia said quickly. “She’s with me.” “Black scaled, means no fire. I am not afraid of an acid spitter,” Gulrikkc sneered. “You seem to be making all sorts of unusual friends today,” the dragon said. She reached down and turned a band around her foreleg. Celestia tried to reach up to cover the pech’s sensitive eyes, but was too late. One blinding flash later, a pink pegasus stood where the dragon once was. The pech cursed, eyes closed and forelegs up to shield himself. “No light! Cursed light, and burning flashes. Celestia damn you!” Firebelle looked between Gulrikkc and Celestia. “Alright, I consider myself duly rebuked. It’s nice to see that even down here you know about Celestia.” The identical voice made it clear that the dragon and the pony were one and the same being. “The accursed sun-bringer is well known to our people, hidden scaled one,” he barked, blinking repeatedly to try and clear his vision. “She is the reason our kind is hurt by the light. But...she gives the brightness to our jewels. A cursed light. Take me to your stone one!” “Al...alright,” an abashed Celestia said. I really should bring my sister down here...if I ever get her back, she thought to herself. “This way.” She walked up to another passageway, this one parallel to the entrance passage. “Turn back...this is not the way!” the guardian head spoke. This one looked like the result of a fight between a pony and a walrus. Celestia tossed her head. “Liar,” she said, walking into the passage. “Wait!” Gulrikkc looked up at the stone head with a greedy smile, before slamming his pick into its forehead, splitting it open so that a dark pink gem tumbled out. “Good. Now I am paid twice!” # # # The passage made a sharp left turn, so it was now running eastwards. As soon as they made that turn, they picked up a strong, nearly-choking stench. “What is that?” Firebelle asked curiously. Despite being pony-shaped, she had the reduced sense of smell of a dragon, and so the odor didn’t particularly bother her. Gulrikkc, who barely had a nose, just shrugged. “This is where a couble of thousand carnivorous bats live,” Celestia said, a hoof clamped firmly over her nostrils. Firebelle looked down at the “peat” she had been wading through. “Ew.” “Shush. They are sleeping. No light, no talk. Shush.” The pech guided the other two silently through the stench-filled passage, onwards for nearly half an hour, before a gradual curve brought them around to be walking north. Above them, sleeping bats covered the ceiling, and could be detected by their occasional cries as they slept. Celestia wondered for a moment what carnivorous bats dreamed about. Unfortunately, her imagination dutifully provided an answer. They walked north, in the dark, for an additional half hour. Both the pech and the transformed dragon seemed in high spirits, looking around at the natural rock formations. Celestia, on the other hoof, was completely blind. Finally, Firebelle tapped Celestia on her left side. Celestia stopped. “This way,” she whispered, turning towards an opening in the west wall of the passage that had a faintly flickering blue-green glow. The trio emerged onto a stone shelf overlooking an underground lake. There were faint phosphorescent fungi on the ceiling that provided a comfortable level of light for the non-ponies, in addition to the occasional flashes given off by pale white fish as they breached the surface. Much of what Celestia saw was reproduced in the stonework in the pech cave. “Ah,” said Gulrikkc in wonder. “It has been long. Long time. The cave of stars. The fish, do not touch the water, they bite,” he said simply, before gesturing to a thin ledge that they could walk along, if only wide enough for a single pony or pech to cross carefully. “Scaled one, you may fly, yes? No need for stompy heavy weight on the path.” “Yes...well, I think so.” She stretched out and flapped her wings, one whole, the other withered, and easily rose into the air, great gusts of wind driven into every direction, far more wind than could possibly be generated by pegasus wings flapped that slowly. “I love this!” she exclaimed. “Good,” said Celestia with a grin. “Now do you see that small waterfall over there?” “Yes?” “I need you to fly down the river in that direction. When you see the bridge…” # # # Celestia sat on the edge of the ledge, a pair of hooves waving just above the water. It was getting close on an hour since Firebelle had left. The pech looked at her. “You have a dragon friend. She is not the angry hurting type, why is that? Do you keep her mind yours?” he asked curiously. Celestia pulled a silver ring out of her saddlebags. “She’s wearing one of these. It clears her mind. I do not control her, for she is my friend.” He chuckled, holding out a tiny hoof to take the ring. Celestia passed it over. “I expect we’ll need that before we’re done. Several of the creatures here are bound against their will.” He put it on his head and chuckled. “Smart magic. Bound in metal...so many layers... This is a special special ring.” He gave it back with a huff. “Would be better if made of stone.” “I don’t doubt it,” Celestia said with a laugh. # # # A large wooden boat sailed into view. It stopped momentarily at the three-hoof high waterfall, and then sailed up it to enter the lake. At the back of the boat could be seen Firebelle, who was turning an oar in the water to steer it. She nearly fell out when the boat defied gravity, but was able to catch herself in time. “Ah, there we go,” Celestia said, rising to her hooves. “Our ride has arrived.” The boat sailed against the current, and despite not a single breeze in the air, until it beached upon the ledge. “Stop!” declared the pegasus, and the boat did just that. “A magic boat, for a magic dungeon, for a magic dragon. We go on the magic boat?” “Yes,” Celestia said with a teary smile. “Rather like a fairy tale, don’t you think? We need a little more of that in this world. No, we need a lot more of that, and I’m going to bring it.” She set hoof gently into the boat, then turned and held out a hoof for Gulrikkc. “Just a little bit further,” she said to the apprehensive pech. He sighed and let her pull him up, before settling in at the center of the boat. “You have so much spirit, for living in such a dark world, gold pony.” “Not for much longer,” she said with a gentle smile. “My friends and I shall clean out these caverns, and you can do what you will with them.” She looked sternly up at the cave ceiling, and beyond that to the constellations that housed the current gods of Equestria. “And after that, the sun is coming out once more.” “Go!” cried Firebelle impishly. The boat shot forward across the ledge and back into the water, and Celestia nearly fell off. “The look on your face!” “No court position for you!” said Celestia, laughing. “I should hope not—I’m allergic to dramatic speeches! Now hold on for this drop…” # # # A couple of flights later, the same lasso as before had been re-applied, and the boat was anchored below Gargoyle Bridge. Celestia led the others up the slope to the path, avoiding the northern and eastern passages when they reached a crossroads. “How did your stone friend get here? So many twists and turns... Is she a crazy pony?” Gilrikkc asked, scornfully, as he squinted to drown out the light refracting in the tunnels. “She was part of a group dedicated to destroying the evil at the heart of these caverns,” Celestia explained as she led them westwards. “I broke off from them to save Firebelle here. They faced off against a most unique monster in this room and...befriended it after removing its curse. But before they accomplished this goal...that happened.” She gestured towards the stone statue of a shocked pegasus tilted to one side, wings outstretched and legs tucked inward. “Oh!” she exclaimed, racing over. “She was flying! I wasn’t told that. It’s a miracle that she’s still intact.” Gilrikkc held out a hoof to hold the pony back, as he stalked around the stone pegasus, before sighing, leaning in to smell her tone curled mane. “It is a shame I must change her...she’s so beautiful like this. She was surrounded by a great amount of magic just after stone. No spell! Surprise, she was surrounded with only magic, magic energy with no order. Such power...” He ran a withered hoof over her wings, and smiled wistfully. “Stone does not fly so well, she knows now I think. She will be angry when awake. At many things. I can feel her shaking. Angry...fear? No...anger. I will help you, stone pony...” The glow in his hooves increased, and began to stick to the spots where he touched her, his massive pupilless eyes flicking back and forth while the glow caused tiny cracks across her body, and her eyes wept tears, as they faded back to her natural color. Once her eyes and her wings were returned to their natural state, the rest of her stone skin shattered, and the pech stepped away. Celestia quickly stepped forward, and put a leg over Carry On’s withers. “It’s alright, it’s alright,” she said soothingly. For a moment, she considered putting her anti-mind control ring on the adventurer’s head, to get back her friend Winter Harvest. But she decided that this wasn’t fair to the adventurer who had tried so hard to protect the others. Winter Harvest would be free, but not yet. Luke was sitting back in his chair, watching the other players do their thing and awaiting an opportunity to play another character, when his eyes suddenly went wide. “She’s gone…” he whispered. “Cutbelt!” he said to Mary Jo. She turned to him curiously, and somewhat apprehensively as well. “Yes?” He looked at her expectantly. She looked back in confusion. Then she blinked a few times in rapid succession. “Oh!” she cried. “Back at the gorgimera’s lair, Carry On suddenly returns to awareness.” “Yay Carry!” Ellen cheered. “Great, but we don’t know that, right?” “Right, this is a private scene with Luke,” said M.J. “But I’ve got to play to the crowd sometime, right?” “So what happened?” asked Laura Curtis from the stands. “Hope Springs went into the caverns using the correct entrance, found the magical stone-shaping creatures that are available to hire for precisely this scenario, and took the little guy out to de-stone Carry On here. I figured you had enough of my NPC antics that you didn’t need to hear that in detail.” The audience cried out their protest. “Hope Springs is best adventurer!” one of them declared. “Yeah, well tough, I’m not rewinding,” said Mary Jo with a smirk. “Carry On, as far as you’re concerned, you were about to put the anti-mind control band on the gorgon head, when suddenly it breathed smoke on you, everything went crazy, and now you’re somehow on the ground, with no monster in sight, and no band in your hooves. A pony is embracing you. What do you do?” Luke shrugged. “I continue screaming, because I was frozen right about to scream.” “The pony, who is quite strong, is holding you still. ‘It’s alright, it’s alright,’ she repeats, over and over. You realize that it’s Hope Springs. In the corner of your eye you see a strange spindly pony walking away. ‘Stone pony is gone, and so am I,’ he declares mysteriously before leaving. ‘You can have the boat!’ Hope tells him.” “Got you, I stop screaming. ‘Hope! Thank goodness! What happened, was I petrified?’” “‘Yes,’ she says. ‘And we arranged to get you back to normal. This here is Firebelle.’ She gestures towards a pink pegasus mare that is holding herself very oddly. The pegasus sort of slithers forward and peers into your eyes with its own, which somewhat resembles those of a cat. ‘Are you in there?’ she asks, her temper barely controlled. ‘B...B...argh, I almost have the name.’ Hope pulls the strange pony back. ‘It’s not him,’ she insists.” Susan watched this entire performance with eyebrow in a permanently lifted position, but said nothing. “‘I’m Carry On,’” Luke said, just as confused. “‘Well, that’s a name,’ retorts Firebelle. ‘It seems that everypony has at least two nowadays. Perhaps I’ll choose another as well. Sophia, perhaps?’ ‘I think you have to earn a “Sophia”,’ Hope says.” “Um...okay,” Luke said. “Well. I guess she’d ask, ‘Do either of you know where the rest of the group has gone?’” “‘They continued to the next level,’ Hope says, ‘and so shall we.’ She began to walk around the chamber, looking for something. She stops when she picks up a gold mind-control ring that had been discarded in the fight. ‘Well, I’m ready,’ she announces. ‘Shall we catch up with them?’” “‘We shall!’ Carry on says, waving to the tunnel away. ‘Let’s meet up with the rest.’”