//------------------------------// // Onwards and Downwards // Story: Pathfinder Ponies // by terrycloth //------------------------------// “You know, these are pretty light,” Twilight Sparkle said, as they bundled up the piles of slimy bones that, in a bit less than an hour, would regenerate into Rarity’s pet dragons. “Garble could probably carry all of them with him, and the kobold too.” “I don’t believe he could carry quite that much and still fly,” Rarity said, eyeing her remaining pet. “Perhaps in two trips. Did you want to try to carry them with us as we proceed?” “We at least have to keep an eye on the squirmy little bugger,” Applejack said. She’d been sitting on the kobold since she’d knocked him unconscious, half to keep him from escaping again and half to keep the others from casually murdering him. “He won’t wake up for a bit, but when he does he’ll be off like a cockatrice in the henhouse.” “Or we could kill him,” Rainbow Dash said. “Heehee! You can’t kill Applejack’s new boyfriend!” Pinkie Pie said. “We should put him in with the dragons. They’ll probably wake up first.” “And kill him,” Applejack said, ignoring her first sentence. “Not these dragons,” Pinkie Pie said. “When they were alive, they were good dragons, so they’ll do good dragon things if you let them sit around on their lonesome.” Twilight frowned at that. “I thought they were mindless, and only followed orders?” Sergeant Macintosh shook his head. “Skeletons don’t argue, but if you leave them be they pretend to do what they did in life. That’s how my previous commander had so many watching his walls.” “Huh,” Twilight said. “Well, that would be kind of amusing, and with the door barred from the outside, he couldn’t really escape.” Pinkie grinned. “I just wish I could be there to see the look on his face.” After depositing their prisoner and re-barring the door, Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy did their best to conceal any tracks that might reveal to the kobolds which door had been opened, while Applejack made sure the mechanism was still disabled in the exactly the same way as the ones on the doors which hadn’t been opened. Once they were confident that the kobolds wouldn’t know which door to open, they headed back to the theater to decide where to head next. The party gathered around the big double doors on the lower level, and watched while Applejack’s deft mouth and paws repaired the lock, and quietly unlocked it. “Everypony ready?” she asked, in a low voice, as she carefully dripped oil down a wire inserted between the door and the frame, to oil the hinges. Fluttershy finished a quiet chant, and a trio of small stony creatures rose from the floor. “Ready,” she whispered. Applejack and Rainbow Dash pushed open the huge double doors, making sure to stand to the side where any immediate fire wouldn’t hit them. The doors opened smoothly and silently, revealing a huge, carved tunnel sloping slightly downwards into the darkness, stretching as far as they could see, with pillars and arches of stone reinforcing the ceiling. But before the doors had opened far enough to allow anypony through, they hit a pile of precariously balanced metal cans, knocking them over with a huge, horrible racket and spreading greasy waste across the floor of the corridor in front of them – slippery and littered with loose round objects, it would be very difficult terrain to walk across without slipping and falling. Not to mention that the noise had undoubtedly alerted any waiting kobolds. Applejack followed one of the opening doors, which were heavy enough to continue opening even after knocking over the pile. She clung to it to avoid making any more noise, and peered around the edge for any sign of kobolds. She saw a series of arrow slits to either side, one set to each side of a pair of small doors in either wall, but couldn’t tell if anything was hiding behind them before she had to fly up to the stone ‘rafters’ to stay out of sight. Twilight and Macintosh were right behind her, but the two heavily armored warriors stalled out on the slippery patch, although they managed to avoid falling. “There’s kobolds taking a bead on us from either side,” Macintosh said, spotting movement through the arrow slits. Pinkie Pie said, “Give me a sec,” and drank an extract of True Strike, joining Applejack taking cover in the rafters, as she readied a bomb. “Distract them,” Fluttershy said, motioning to her elementals and pointing in the directions she wanted them to go. They sunk into the floor and only a slight rumbling noise gave them away as they moved into the rooms – followed by cries of alarm from the kobolds behind the arrow slits as enemies appeared among them. A couple of arrows – but far short of the barrage expected – flew from the arrow slits to ping harmlessly off Twilight’s armor. Rarity advanced to join her and Macintosh, only to slip and fall with a clatter of cans. Despite that, she summoned a cloud of mist to obscure them from any archers who might cease to be distracted at some point. Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes, and flew over the slippery patch to land in the center of the hall. Seeing doors to either side, she picked one at random – to the left – and flung it open. One of the kobolds waiting behind it tripped her, and hacked at her while she was on the ground, but the other three were already busy trying to fight two of Fluttershy’s elementals and couldn’t join in. “Just –“ Twilight tried to advance, only for one of her hooves to step on a can, crushing it and sending her falling onto her belly. “Hold on for a few seconds, and –“ she made an attempt to stand, with no better luck. Beside her, Macintosh was similarly flailing. “Gah!” Fluttershy finished a second summoning, and a giant bat appeared, grabbing Twilight and dragging her out of the slippery patch, then circling back to get Macintosh. Fluttershy advanced behind it, staying near Twilight, but peeking out of the cloud of mist. Not seeing any particularly dangerous targets – just some ordinary-looking kobolds beating up on Rainbow Dash – she simply said a few quiet words to bless the party’s efforts. Applejack took aim from the rafters, and flung her dagger at the kobold standing in the doorway Rainbow had opened, then tsk’d as it bounced off his shield, which just happened to move into place to block it. The kobold she’d almost hit looked up, and spotted her, but had no way of responding, and his friends were oblivious. Pinkie, for her part, tossed her bomb with magically-guided ease through one of the arrow slits into the room on the opposite side, and a flash of fire followed by leaking green mist made it clear that that was no longer a room that one would wish to be in. One of the kobolds inside opened the door, coughing and choking on the poison, and another ran out of the stinking cloud, spotted Rainbow Dash, and started running across the open hallway, waving his tiny rapier. Rarity couldn’t see through the mist surrounding her, but she could hear the sounds of fighting, and ordered Garble to attack. The skeletal dragon burst out of the cloud and intercepted the kobold, sinking its fangs into the creature’s side. Rainbow Dash leapt to her feet, flipped up over the heads of the line of warriors still fighting the elementals, and cried, “Stunning Fist!” as she punched the one in back who’d tripped her. He staggered back, dropping his polearm and looking dazed. From the other door, another polearm-wielding kobold emerged, moving up to threaten Garble – and behind him was another one of the hulking, mutant kobold alchemists they’d fought in the changeling camp, accompanied by a large humanoid form that seemed to be stitched together from pieces of dozens of different creatures, many of which had had scales or fur or chitin. One of its massive fists slammed into Garble’s side, dislodging several of his ribs. Twilight emerged from the obscuring mist, and swung her hammer in a wide arc, battering both the golem and its master. “So you’re the one in charge,” she said, smirking as the kobold snarled at her, blood dripping from its shattered muzzle. “Well, not for long.” Applejack dropped silently from the rafters and sunk her dagger into the mutant kobold’s back… only for it to fail to penetrate the creature’s scales. “Well, shoot. That would have been properly dramatic and everything.” “I know! It’s so unfair,” Pinkie said, tossing a bomb directly into the flesh golem’s mouth as it tried to say something. Flames burst from its eye sockets and from the seams in its neck, showering the other nearby kobolds, but the golem managed to stay standing, although its movements were slower. Fluttershy’s bat dragged Macintosh out of the grease, and he got to his hooves and stumbled from the mist, advancing on the largest enemies. “You can change it when you tell the stories,” he suggested. Garble tore apart the kobold in his teeth, who’d failed to do any harm to the skeleton with his rapier, then started on the polearm kobold. The kobold took a nasty gash to his side from the dragon’s claws, but hooked Garble on his polearm, pulled him out of the air, and slammed him into the ground – not hurting him, but at least making him an easy target for a follow-up attack, which hit solidly but failed to even crack the bones. Rainbow Dash, off in the room to the left, sheathed her fist in lightning and focused her attack on the other polearm kobold, who was just recovering from being stunned. His scales scorched as electricity arced up and down through his flesh and his armor, and a follow-up kick to his chest took him down. “Who’s next?” she said, turning to face the other three kobolds in the room, with a grin. “My turn!” said the mutant kobold, turning on Applejack in a flurry of teeth and claws. The rogue’s skin was still tough as bark, however, and she was barely scratched by his assault, although one swipe did draw blood. His golem fared even less well, taking a clumsy swing at Twilight that went two feet above her head. “If you insist,” Twilight said, swinging her hammer at both of them again, this time in a downwards arc that finished removing the injured golem’s head before staving in the kobold’s chest, from the side. Both collapsed, leaking blood and fluids onto the stone floor, the golem unravelling at the seams and the kobold shriveling back down to normal kobold size. Macintosh charged past their corpses and impaled the remaining polearm kobold, pinning him to the ground next to Garble. Pinkie Pie tossed more fire at the kobolds trying to face off against Rainbow Dash, while Fluttershy’s elementals pummeled them. The surviving kobolds screamed in terror, and ran off. “Let them go!” Twilight said, as Rainbow Dash looked ready to follow them. “They’ll just lead you into more traps.” “Right,” Rainbow Dash said, fluffing her wings angrily as she stared down the twisty tunnel the kobolds near her had vanished into. “I knew that.” “The leader came from the other way, so that’s where we’ll find their treasure hoard, if they have any,” Applejack said. Pinkie Pie kicked the cloud of mist from her bomb to clear it away, but while there were other exits from the room, there was no sign of which of them the kobolds inside had taken. “Let’s strip these guys, and see if we can… uurgh,” she groaned, licking at the wound the mutant kobold had given her. She frowned, and spit. “Oh, hay. I’ve been poisoned,” she said, wobbling a bit. “Um… I can mix up a remedy, if you give me a minute?” Pinkie Pie said. Applejack winced. “You… get started on that. I’ll just take a little lie down, here.” By the time Pinkie Pie was finished, Applejack was barely moving. “I think it ran its course,” she said. “Leastwise it stopped gettin’ worse. I’m not sure I’m going anywhere any time soon, though.” “Drink this?” Pinkie Pie said, smiling weakly. The infusion helped a little, and after a second dose, Applejack was at least able to stand under the weight of her gear, although she was still too weak to fly. At least her fighting style relied on precision more than force, and she could still be relatively effective in combat, although of course much less mobile. The equipment recovered from the dead kobolds was similar to what they’d seen before, except that the rapier-wielding kobolds – which they’d only killed one of – had magical armor and shields. Rarity took the dead kobolds’ heads and added them to her swarm of skulls, still in its bag, to make it a little more powerful, and to keep them from coming back as independent undead. The rooms to either side were obviously armories and guard rooms, although there were no weapons still on the racks – the kobolds stored their weapons elsewhere. The one to the left, where Rainbow Dash had been fighting, only had one other exit – a twisting, natural-looking passage that smelled like rot and decay. The one to the right, from which the leader had emerged, had three exits: a worked stone tunnel to the right, that stretched off straight and level, with a series of barred doors to the left; a staircase, also to the right, leading up to the level above and possibly eventually connecting to the balcony; and a secret door that Pinkie Pie spotted in the left wall. After carefully checking it for traps and finding none, Applejack opened the secret door to reveal a staircase leading down. “Yeah, it’s trapped,” she said. “Most every stair is – no, wait. Every stair is trapped, I just didn’t spot that one the first time.” She checked a few more stairs, which were also trapped. “For pony’s sake, there have to be some safe stairs or nopony can ever go up and down.” “Can you disarm them?” Twilight asked. “Yeah, yeah, I’ll get on it,” Applejack said. “They’re simple pressure plates. Easy as pie.” While tedious, Applejack was not wrong about the ease of disarming the traps, and the party slowly made their way down the stairs. At the bottom, they found a lever which would have disabled all the traps if they were still active. They also found the alchemist’s workshop – a table stained with blood and worse, on which the golem had likely been assembled, along with instructions for building a golem, and equipment and supplies for building other magical items. There was also, of course, a full alchemy set of exceptional quality, although it was not in any way portable. Pinkie Pie thought that she could scavenge several hundred gold pieces worth of quality glassware and parts from it, if she was willing to destroy it in the process. There was also a large cask of purple worm poison, like the sort used on Applejack, with several dozen doses remaining. In the back of the room was a large vault door, heavy but unlocked. “I don’t see any traps,” Applejack said. “It’s got to be trapped,” Twilight insisted. “I know that, but I don’t see none, so I can’t disable ‘em,” Applejack snapped. “I guess we can all stand way back and you can open it with your magic or something, right?” “Worth a try,” Twilight said. The party backed up the staircase, and Twilight lit her horn to swing the door open from a distance. To nopony’s surprise, there was a flash of magical light, and a gigantic demonic bear appeared, bony spikes jutting from its shoulders. It wasted no time charging at the nearest target, swiping with a massive paw. Twilight blocked the paw with her brand new magical shield, and countered with two crushing blows from her hammer. It was still up, so Rainbow Dash leapt over her back, ducked under a paw that tried to intercept her, and slammed her fist, crackling with lightning, into the bear’s jaw, lifting the hulking creature up off the ground briefly before it disintegrated into a shower of magical light. “Piece of cake,” Rainbow Dash said, posing in the middle of the room and blowing imaginary smoke off her talons. Inside the vault was no hoard of gold and jewels – there were a few scattered pieces, but it appeared that the kobolds had spent most of their money long ago. Instead, there was a pile with a random assortment of the items the kobolds had been seen using. This was their armory. There was also a table, dusty from disuse, which Rarity recognized instantly as a wizard’s laboratory, used for experimenting with magic and developing new spells and rituals. Aside from various bits of equipment which were portable enough and would fetch a good price, there were eight portal-opening books, labelled with draconic symbols for the elemental and para-elemental planes, each with a matching set of five candles of various colors. Next to them was a massive tome, bound in the hide of a purple worm. “Mine!” Rarity said, rushing across the room to grab it. “Okay,” Twilight said, a small smile on her face. “You’re the wizard, so you can probably make the best use of it.” Rarity opened it carefully, and read through the preface. “It says this is Rendrax the Magnificent’s study of Planes and Portals. With this tome, a wizard of any skill should be able to open a –“ The words of the preface peeled themselves off the page, transforming into a large serpent which sank its fangs into Rarity’s nose, before vanishing. The ghoul was engulfed in a shimmering amber field, staring motionless at the book still held in her hoof. Pinkie Pie threw several of her dispelling bombs at the field, but it was no use. “Sorry, I’m out,” she said, as she reached for another catalyst and found that part of her belt bare. “I can try again tomorrow? I recognize the spell, and she’ll be stuck like this for days.” “Can we move her?” Twilight asked, walking over and tugging on Rarity’s tail, but she wouldn’t budge. “Huh. Guess not.” “That’s, uh,” Rainbow Dash said, poking at the frozen ghoul. “That’s really not good.” “Huh,” Applejack said, examining the room. “Actually, this isn’t such a bad place to rest. If we lock the door, I doubt the kobolds will be able to do much to us. If they knew how to unlock the vault, it would’a been locked. Not to mention that their leaders are pushing up daisies.” “Not all of them,” Rainbow Dash said. “There’s supposed to be three, and we only fought two.” “The third was an outcast,” Twilight said. “But with his rivals disposed of he’ll take over, right?” “Hmm, true,” Applejack said. “Him or that other rogue that got away. Neither of them is going to bust through a door like this one, though.” “And how will we get out?” Rainbow Dash asked. “I don’t see any other exits.” “If we free Rarity, she’ll be able to memorize Knock?” Pinkie Pie suggested. Twilight looked around, but there were no objections. “Sounds like a plan, then.”