Hoping to get the necessary supplies before all of their defensive spells expired – or at least before the hundreds of kobolds they’d killed came back to life – the party loaded all their looted treasure onto Rarity’s skeletal dragons, along with the nearly-paralyzed Twilight Sparkle, and Rarity herself to direct them. They were instructed to buy only what they needed in order to fight the shadows – the rest would be split up among the party as normal.
In the meantime, Applejack would work on repairing the portal controls, while the others guarded the area to keep the kobolds from trying anything.
“We’ve got to do something about all those bodies,” Applejack said, as she unwound the tangled ropes so that she could re-set the gears that had popped off their shafts after her sabotage. “There’s a sanctified graveyard at the fort. We could bury ’em there.”
“Or we could use the pit full of acid that’s right here,” Rainbow Dash said. “It’s got a lid that automatically closes and everything.”
Applejack frowned. “Won’t dissolving ‘em in acid just turn ‘em all into ghosts? Last thing we need is an army of kobold ghosts.”
“Nah,” Pinkie Pie said. “I recognize the stuff. A green acid like that, that doesn’t eat through stone won’t eat their bones either. So we’ll just get a horde of acid skeletons, trapped in a pit. It’ll be the most trapped pit ever!”
Moving the hundreds of kobold bodies into the pit took a while. Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Macintosh, and Pinkie Pie were still working on the task by the time Applejack finished repairing the portal mechanism. She took a look at them, covered in soot and blood, and said, “I’ll go scout for the nest of rebels that’s supposed to be hidden around somewhere. Don’t go anywhere.”
It didn’t take Applejack long to find them. After eliminating the two exits from the control room – one of which led to the acid pit hallway which the others were filling with kobolds, the other of which was a straight shot to the guard room at the far end, and probably also full of traps – there was only one place left to check. When Fluttershy had attempted to shape the wall into a ramp out of the stage when it was a pit, she’d exposed an additional room on the top level, right above the control room.
The room was heavily trapped, but a quick check showed that all the traps were controlled from the room below, which would have made it safe to walk through even if Applejack couldn’t fly. Of the two exits from that room, one led to the balcony door that the kobolds had previously booby-trapped – there were a few other rooms down that way, but they were abandoned and empty. The other exit led to a hallway that ran behind the stage catwalks, dead-ending somewhere near the twisting tunnel they’d originally come through to enter the dungeon.
Halfway there was a set of barricades surrounding a heavily reinforced door, which was currently closed and locked. Listening at the door, Applejack could hear low kobold voices and other sounds of movement.
Applejack silently retreated from the door, and headed down to get Fluttershy. “Hey, sugarcube. You got another one of those stone shape spells?”
She nodded.
“Then come on. I’ve got a door that I’d rather not have opening any time soon.”
The door wasn’t very large, and Fluttershy was able to spread almost a foot-thick layer of stone over it, ensuring that it would probably not be opening ever – it would be slightly easier for the kobolds inside to dig out through the walls.
Aside from that encampment, there were no signs of any kobolds anywhere else in the complex – if there were any left alive, they were staying hidden, or perhaps had run away down the passage that led deeper into the underdark, to take their chances with the dark elves.
With Applejack finally lacking any excuse not to help, they managed to dump all the bodies into the pit a few minutes before Twilight and Rarity returned, goggles covering their eyes and their manes windswept.
All told, it had taken them a little less than an hour – the barkskin, delay poison, and Fluttershy’s invisibility purge were still in effect, although they would be expiring soon.
“First off, how much did you spend,” Applejack said, as the two giggling mares extracted themselves from the dragons’ rib cages.
Twilight’s horn glowed, and five gold pieces dropped into a pile at Applejack’s feet.
“This is my share?” she asked, one ear flattening.
Twilight grinned. “Nooo, that’s all of what’s left. You can split it up while we pass out what we bought.”
“What’s got you in such a good mood?” Rainbow Dash asked.
Twilight reached up and removed her goggles, placing them in her saddlebag, before re-donning her helmet. “Um. The dragons. They were fast.”
“How fast?” asked one of the mephits. The six had wandered off while the adventurers were moving bodies, but two of them had wandered back to greet Twilight and Rarity upon their return.
“Undead are tireless,” Rarity explained. “That means we could have them fly at full speed the whole way there. We covered twenty miles in twenty minutes.”
“And I had my eyes closed the whole time, because the wind was, wow,” Twilight said. “But goggles are cheap if you don’t need them enchanted, so I could see everything on the way back.”
“I’m surprised you weren’t shot down by the army,” Macintosh said.
“Well, we were stopped, but we just showed them our ID and they let us past,” Rarity said. “We’re not the first adventurers to go rushing around at impossible speeds. They were mostly confused since we were using skeletons instead of the more traditional ‘phantom steed’ spell.”
“When we got to the guild, we headed right to the purchase area instead of waiting at the desk,” Twilight said. “They dragged me off to a cleric to heal me, while Rarity handled the purchases.”
“You let Rarity decide what to buy,” Applejack said. “All on her lonesome.”
”What did she do, blow it all on some mumbo jumbo to let her skeletons fight shadows for us?” Rainbow Dash asked.
“Basically,” Twilight said, rolling her eyes. “I think it’s safe to say that she isn’t getting a share the next time we have a bunch of treasure to divide up.”
“Hmph!” Rarity turned up her nose. “Amulets of Ghost Touch were the most effective way to let them assist us against the shadows, and in the long run my skeletons will be our most effective weapon against incorporeal undead. They’re naturally immune to almost everything that sort of undead uses as an attack. Speaking of which,” she took out a bag and passed it to Fluttershy. “I didn’t spend all of the gold on my pets. A good chunk went to those scrolls of Death Ward. They won’t last long, but it should be plenty of time to destroy the shadows, or at least the portal stabilizers.”
“We also got Pinkie a wand of lesser restoration so that she can stop using all her infusions on it,” Twilight said. “And a ghost-touch rapier for you, Applejack. It’s a better weapon than your dagger for most normal fighting, and it’ll let you hit shadows’ vital areas. I know precision is most of your combat style, so it was more important that you have ghost touch than me or Macintosh.”
“What about –“ Rainbow Dash started, before Rarity tossed her one of the Ghost Touch amulets. “Oh. Thanks. I’ve already got an amulet.”
“Yes,” Twilight said. “Unfortunately, the only standard item to enchant all of your natural weapons at once is an amulet, so you’ll have to switch off. There was a ‘body wrap of mighty strikes’ –“
“Yeah, I saw those last time we were shopping,” Rainbow Dash said. “It looked like a good deal until I read the fine print. It’s basically useless.”
Twilight nodded. “So, is the portal ready?”
“We’re good to go here,” Applejack said.
“Then let’s get those Death Ward spells up, and bring on the shadows!”
Even though the party hadn’t bought Death Ward spells for them, the mephits were eager to follow them to the other plane…
“No,” Fluttershy said firmly. “You will die, and turn into more shadows for us to fight. Stay here, okay? We’ll be back soon.”
…but Fluttershy was able to convince them to stay behind in the trap-filled dungeon, where it was relatively safe. Once she’d cast the Death Ward spells on all the living members of the party, Applejack threw the lever in the control room, and the curtains began to open, filling the stage with a bright green light.
And shadows. Lots of shadows.
Three of the kobold shadows leapt through the gate as it opened, rushing at the three nearest targets – Rainbow Dash managed to dodge, but Pinkie Pie took a set of dark claws down her side, while Twilight was caught off guard, and the shadow that attacked her was able to rake its claws across her throat and sink them deep into her chest – it would have been a devastating hit, if the Death Ward spell hadn’t rendered the shadows’ attacks completely pointless.
“Wow, I didn’t even feel that,” Pinkie Pie said. “I think I’ll save my bombs.”
Applejack swooped down from the control room to stab the shadow assaulting Twilight with her new rapier, and the creature jerked and twitched as she impaled it through what would have been its heart, had it not been a soulless monstrosity. Macintosh finished it off with his lance, sweeping the enchanted weapon through its form and dispersing it.
Fluttershy hit the shadow menacing Pinkie Pie with a crossbow bolt, and Twilight trotted over and dispersed it with her hammer. “If all we’re up against are these little ones, it’ll be trivial,” Twilight said. “We saw something larger last time, though – it might not even be a shadow, so stay on your guard.”
Rainbow Dash gave the third shadow a one-two punch, destroying it. “Yeah, yeah, thank you captain obvious.”
“Now now, Rainbow,” Rarity said, as she set her skeletons to lurk in wait to either side of the widening gap in the curtains. “Twilight is at best a corporal. She was never commissioned, after all.”
The curtain swung open wider, and three more tiny kobold shadows flew out to uselessly menace the party, this time flying towards Macintosh, Fluttershy, and Pinkie Pie again. Once again, the Death Wards held, and the shadows’ claws passed through their targets to no effect.
But a much larger darkness loomed in the portal. Pinkie Pie got a bomb ready to throw at it when it finally came through.
As Applejack sprung across the stage to skewer – and instantly destroy – the shadow who’d tried to claw Fluttershy, the looming darkness finally arrived.
It was a giant, bristly worm, ten feet long. A shadow itself, but its mouth dripped with liquid shadows that sizzled as they ate away at the wooden floor. It lunged at Rainbow Dash, and while the Death Ward protected her strength from being drained by its mandibles, it also showered her fur and feathers with acid, leaving painful burns.
Rarity’s skeletons were waiting for it, and bit at its shadowy flesh, but only one of them managed to hit the swiftly writhing worm with a solid bite. The creature hissed in pain, but it was a minor wound. Pinkie Pie’s bomb exploded in a burst of concussive force, which rippled down its length, but it managed to stay in the air.
Macintosh ignored the impotent shadow who’d tried to claw him, and charged at the new threat – like Pinkie, Rainbow Dash was flying close to the ground to lure the shadows in range of his and Twilight’s attacks. His lance struck true, and he dragged it down the length of the worm, but it was a merely physical weapon, and could not tear the worm’s guts out like it might have. Still, the shadowy substance of the creature was heavily disrupted by the powerful charge.
Twilight followed, swiping her hammer through the creature’s head, with similar results. “Don’t worry,” she said. “Just keep it up – it can’t take much more!”
Then the Gloomwings arrived. Or rather, the gloomwing shadows, their wings writhing black on black and an aura of weakness washing over everyone near them. The Death Ward protected the party from the aura, but did nothing against the confusion from the wings, and nopony had prepared to avert their gaze.
Rainbow Dash managed to keep her head together, and lightning crackled around her fist as she punched the acid-spitting shadow – which burst open, destroyed at last. With a final scream, it dissipated, and the rest of the shadows stopped, almost as if they were afraid. The two remaining kobold shadows turned and ran back through the portal.
“You are mine!” Rarity said, sending a burst of darkness at the shadow gloomwings. Two of them wavered, and flew over to her side. She gestured for them to fly up into the catwalks, where they would be too far away to confuse the party with their wings.
As Pinkie Pie gnawed on her own leg, and Applejack tried to skewer Fluttershy, the skeletal dragons fell on the remaining gloomwing shadow and tore it to pieces. Twilight ran full speed into a wall, while Fluttershy clumsily took a swing at Applejack with her unloaded crossbow, but with the gloomwings gone, they were able to snap out of their funk. The others also came to their senses shortly, without doing any serious damage to themselves or their companions.
Twilight staggered a bit, and rubbed her forehead near her horn, which she’d just tried to drive into a stone wall. “I hate gloomwings.”
“There’s probably more on the far side,” Applejack said, watching the portal as it opened the rest of the way. “They backed off when we killed the big one, but they might pounce us again if we go through.”
As the curtain reached its furthest extent, the green glow brightened into a brief, blinding flash – and then instead of an opaque barrier, what they saw was a window into another world.
There was a wide clearing, a hundred feet in diameter, surrounded by ropey walls of vines and thorns and sticks – changeling construction, like they’d seen at the camp up on the mesa. This looked older and better made, but it was also completely dead. The leaves were brown and curled, the vines shriveled, and the ground dry and dusty. Here and there were shattered eggs, with the skeletons of young changelings and kobolds lying abandoned. Something seemed off about them…
“They don’t have shadows,” Pinkie Pie whimpered.
“Yes, they do,” Rarity replied softly. “We were just fighting them.”
Around the perimeter of the clearing were the portal stabilizers, set in a circle. The party could see four, but if the spacing continued there were a total of eight. As far as the party could see, there was nothing moving in the clearing – no sign of the shadows, or anything else.
“Let’s go,” Twilight said. “We smash one of them at a time. If the portal starts to flicker, everyone run back through – we won’t have long before it collapses, and I don’t want to be trapped in the middle of an undead changeling nest.”
“And if it just up and shuts off all sudden-like?” Applejack asked.
“When we put out the candles on the air portal, it flickered for a few seconds before it shut,” Twilight said. “This portal works on the same principles, so I’m willing to bet it’ll have the same behavior.”
“Willing to bet all our lives?” Rainbow Dash asked.
“Oh, Nightmare’s teeth, no,” Twilight said, laughing nervously. “If we get trapped, I have several back-up plans for surviving and possibly returning to our own world. But I don’t think it’ll come to that.”
“Actually, we shouldn’t have anything to worry about,” Rarity said. “According to Rendrax’s Tome, a destabilized portal of this size should take several minutes to close completely.”
Twilight nodded. “But just in case, if there’s any visible sign of the portal wavering, drop everything and run back through.”
“Got it,” Rainbow Dash said, and flew out into the clearing, making a beeline for the nearest obelisk. The rest of the party was close behind.
Before Rainbow could get halfway to the obelisk, giant leprous bats descended from the ceiling, baring their fangs as they swooped at her. Behind them, another shadowy gloomwing flapped its mind-warping wings.
The undead bats surrounded Rainbow Dash, but she managed to twist and dodge and avoid all their attacks. Lightning crackled around one of her claws, but her swing went wide -- her second swing, as well. Frustrated, she head-butted the bat, which connected with its nose, shattering it in a spray of rotting ooze.
Twilight tried to charge in to help her, but caught sight of the gloomwing out of the corner of her eye and ended up tripping over her own hooves. As she stood back up unsteadily, she smacked her hoof against her head, over and over, as if to knock the confusion loose.
Pinkie was right behind, taking out a force bomb to throw at the annoying gloomwing – but as she looked at it to aim, her eyes started to move in circles, and she spaced out, trying to follow the patterns.
Macintosh managed to avert his gaze from the gloomwing, and charged at the ghoul bats menacing Rainbow Dash. The flighty creatures were too agile, however, and what looked like it was about to be a solid hit ended up hitting nothing but air. Clinging to his back, Fluttershy, who’d been less successful with her attempt not to look at the gloomwing, gnawed on his armor, squealing softly.
Rarity tossed a ball of glitter at the ball of bats, blinding several of them, while her dragons swarmed the shadow that was confusing so many of her companions. This one was luckier than the last that they’d attacked, and managed to avoid several of their bites. But while it was distracted, Applejack charged at it with her rapier and skewered it in the head – and it disintegrated, turning to dust which swirled away into nothingness, starting from its wings.
The blinding glittery dust seemed to have no effect on the ghoul bats, which chirped to locate their prey by sound. One sank its teeth into Rainbow Dash, and she felt all her muscles seize up, as she was paralyzed. The others turned to bite Macintosh, and although one managed to get its fangs into him, he shook off the paralysis.
Twilight moved in to assist, smashing her hammer into the bat about to feast on the paralyzed griffon, getting its attention at least, and following through to smash into the back of one of the ones going after Macintosh. Pinkie Pie shook herself out of her daze and used a firebomb, splashing burning liquid over three of the putrid creatures. Fluttershy launched herself from Macintosh’s back, dodged an attack from one of the bats as she passed, and cast a spell to break Rainbow’s paralysis. Then Rarity’s skeletal dragons descended on the melee, each picking out a different bat to savage with their teeth.
Surrounded, the bats had no choice but to fight to the last. One managed to bite Twilight, but couldn’t paralyze her. Then, between Twilight and Macintosh and Rarity’s dragons, which could finally bring their claws and tails as well as their teeth to bear, the bats were utterly destroyed.
If there were any other shadows hiding in the clearing, they stayed hidden.
With all the enemies destroyed who were willing to face the party in combat, it was a simple matter to walk over to the obelisks and shatter them. Twilight was able to shatter two obelisks in about thirty seconds each, with her hammer. Macintosh took about a minute to shatter one with his bare hooves, since trying to use his lance would have shattered it instead of the stone. Rainbow Dash took a little longer than Twilight, and was about halfway through her second when the portal started to shiver, a ripple of instability running around the edge.
As planned, the adventurers dropped everything and ran back through the portal before it collapsed.
After several minutes, it had still not collapsed, and in fact there had been no other sign of instability.
“If we wait any longer, we lose the Death Wards,” Twilight said. “I don’t know if any shadows hiding there can tell, but if they aren’t still intimidated we’ll be defenseless against them.” She took a deep breath. “You all wait here – I’ll go through and smash the rest of the obelisks. I’m best at it.”
“Nope,” Macintosh said. “I’ll go.” The others turned to look at him. “You’re all adventurers, critical to the Empire’s security. I’m just a soldier. If we’re risking anypony on this, it should be me.”
“Okay,” Twilight said. “But you’d better not get lost, mister. Fluttershy needs you.”
“I can be replaced,” he said. “But I don’t intend to die today, don’t you worry.”
The obelisks visible from the stage side of the portal were already smashed, but there was a secret door near the control room – not secret from the control room side – that let them into the theater so that they could watch Macintosh through the other side of the portal as he went to work. He smashed the first obelisk without incident – it had already been weakened by Rainbow Dash. The second took a bit longer, but eventually fell.
As he was working on the third, the Death Ward spells finally faded. For a few seconds, it looked like it wasn’t going to matter, but then the shadows emerged, and began to approach. With a grunt of effort, Macintosh kicked over the obelisk, just as the shadows closed in and began to claw at him, draining him.
He ran for the portal, with the shadows on his tail.
“Come on, come on,” Fluttershy whimpered, as her mount ran for safety.
Macintosh burst through the portal, into the theater, with four dark shadows trailing him. Twilight tried to swing at them as they passed, but her attack went wide. Fluttershy summoned positive energy into her hoof, but didn’t manage to touch the darting shadows with it.
Pinkie Pie did manage to hit them with a force bomb, at least, although it wasn’t enough to destroy them. Rainbow Dash and Applejack followed up, and each managed to finish one off.
The remaining pair stayed focused on Macintosh, draining away a bit more of his strength before Rarity’s belated volley of magic missiles destroyed one of them, and her flight of skeletal dragons overwhelmed the other.
With only one obelisk remaining, the portal’s instability was clearly visible. With nothing else pressing them for time, the party was able to wait for a few more minutes until, with a loud SNAP, the window into the realm of Faerie finally vanished, leaving them watching nothing but an empty stage.
A wave of dispelling energy washed over the party, but most of their active spells had already faded by that point. Rainbow Dash did lose the mage armor spell that Rarity had put on her in the morning, but nopony else was affected.
As Fluttershy embraced her mount, and thanked him for not dying on her, Pinkie Pie took out her new wand to heal his strength drain, but Twilight put a hoof on her shoulder. “Save it,” she said. “It’s much cheaper to just pay someone to cast the spell back in Rally. We’re done here, so there’s no urgent need for him to be at full strength right away.”
“Pay them with what?” Applejack asked. “Rarity spent all our cash, and we didn’t get any more loot from the portal.”
“Oh, come on!” Rainbow Dash said, throwing up her claws. “Are we broke again?”
“Eheh,” Twilight said. “We’ve got five gold – that’s enough for an inn room at least?”