“Hey! Where did all the mountain go?” Twilight asked.
“We reached the top.” Maud said to Twilight, who was staring deliriously into the sky.
“What, seriously?” Twilight said, looking around. Sure enough, there was no more mountain to climb. The three ponies sat on a ledge overlooking the vast island below them, and across the island, the sea sparkled and glimmered.
“We did it… we did it!” The exhausted Twilight cheered, before bursting into hysteric song. “Weeee are the champiooons, my frieeee-“
“NO!” Pinkie said, shoving her hooves into Twilight’s mouth. “Sorry, but please don’t sing that song…” she said. “It brings back memories of… Dashcon…” Pinkie shivered fearfully.
“Dash-what?” Twilight asked.
“Oh, nothing, nothing!” Pinkie said, happy once more. “So! Now that we’re here, where’s the entrance?”
“It should be around here somewhere.” Maud said in her usual drone. “Let’s look.”
“Ooh, glowy!” Pinkie said, sitting down and staring into a vast chasm. Now that Twilight looked around, she saw that they sat not on a plateau, but on a rim between the slope of the mountain, and the edge of the volcanic crater.
Peering into the crater at the center of the peak, Twilight saw a massive pit, filled with lava.
“We have to go down there?!” Twilight cried.
“No.” Maud replied. “According to memory, the entrance to the mountain should be located somewhere on the lip of the crater. We should circle around, and look for it. Pinkie, you search counter-clockwise – Twilight and I will go around clockwise.”
“Okie dokie loki!” Pinkie said, before hopping off around the crater of the volcano.
Maud and Twilight walked round the other way. All was silent for about a minute of walking, before Maud suddenly spoke. “Something’s not right.”
“What?” Twilight asked, looking over at Maud.
“This whole journey… it’s felt like something is off.” Maud stated. “I mean, we couldn’t teleport directly to the volcano for one, and you couldn’t use your magic to scan inside the volcano. But also, do you remember the antlion?”
Twilight shivered. “Like I could forget.” She replied.
“Well, do you remember how I told you that the Antlion only attacked when something walked right over its pit?” Maud began. Twilight nodded. “Well, we didn’t walk over its pit – and yet it attacked anyways. Why? It went out of its way just to attack us – very unnatural behavior for an antlion.”
“What are you saying, Maud?” Twilight questioned.
“I… I don’t know what I’m saying.” Maud stated, a hint of confusion in her voice. “Again, it’s just a hunch, but… this entire journey, it’s almost like something’s been-“
“Found it!” Pinkie cried, suddenly right next to them.
“Gah!” Twilight cried. “Jeez, you think I would get used to that…” She continued, holding a hoof to her chest. “Anyways, what were you about to say, Maud?”
“…Never mind. It was just a thought.” Maud said, looking away.
Twilight shrugged. “If you’re sure… Okay, Pinkie, take us to the entrance.”
“Roger that!” Pinkie chirped before bouncing off, Maud and Twilight following.
After another few minutes of trotting along, Pinkie suddenly stopped. “Here it is!” she said.
Twilight looked where Pinkie pointed, and saw a section of the lip which seemed rougher than the rest. “Nice work, Pinkie.” She said, and began to levitate the rocks out of the way.
Or, at least, she tried.
“Something wrong, Twilight?” Pinkie asked.
“No, I… I must still be tired.” Twilight said. “I just can’t get a grip on these rocks.”
Twilight lit up her horn once more, but once again, it was like her magic just slipped off of the rocks, like water off a duck’s back. “Darnit!” she grumbled, straining herself as she tried to wrap a magic field around the mass, but it just wouldn’t stabilize.
“Twilight, let me.” Maud said, trotting over to the rocks. The former earth pony stared hard at the rocks, before reaching out a hoof and tapping several of them in turn. Finally, she laid her hoof on one of the rocks, and almost instantly, she jutted her hoof forward, shattering the rock like a sugar cube.
There was a rumble, and the entire mass of rocks fell away, revealing a passage that they had been blocking off. “Watch your step.” Maud stated as she fluttered lightly down into the pit.
Twilight blinked, before shaking her head. “Just Maud being Maud, I suppose.” She mumbled to herself, before following Maud down.
After a few seconds of careful fluttering, Twilight reached the caved-in mass of rocks, at the bottom of the passage. Maud waited patiently for her, at the entrance to a long, dark, downwards-sloping tunnel.
“Wait… Pinkie?” Twillight asked, looking behind her.
Then there was a “Wheeeee!” and Pinkie landed in the tunnel. Her body deformed like a ball of jello squishing against the ground, before going back to normal. “That was fun!” Pinkie said, grinning widely and trotting off down the corridor. Twilight followed, not even fazed by Pinkie’s apparent lack of bones.
XXXXXXXX
In the dark tunnels of the volcanic caves, it was impossible to tell how much time had passed. Still, it felt to Twilight that they had been walking for hours, down the gently curving, sloping passage, which wound around the mountain’s molten core like a spiral.
If not for the pink-ish magic from Twilight’s horn, and the pale blue magic from Maud’s, the tunnel would have been pitch black. As it was, the group could only see in a small radius around them. In this eternal darkness, their eyes somehow never seemed to adjust – indeed, the tunnel only seemed to grow darker and darker the further they went down.
There was a slight quiver in the magic light, and Twilight turned to see a disconcerting sight. Maud was shivering. It was fairly slight, but the mare was definitely quivering nervously.
“Maud? You okay?” Twilight asked.
“Twilight, I feel it again.” Maud stated.
“Feel what?” Pinkie asked.
“It feels llike… someone’s watching us.”
Twilight looked around. “Maud, we’re in a secret tunnel, in the heart of a volcano, that’s located on a mostly-deserted island. Who the heck could possibly-“
And then the tunnel came to life.
Without any warning, the walls of the tunnel abruptly lunged inwards, forming tendrils which grasped for the trio.
“RUN!” Twilight cried redundantly, and the three sprinted down the corridor, the cavern behind them collapsing as they ran.
Suddenly, though, Twilight couldn’t move. She looked down to see her hooves sinking into solid stone, as though it was quicksand. She tried to blast the rocks to bits, but to her horror found that her blasts bounced right off.
At this point Twilight’s legs had been completely absorbed, her body soon to follow. “Help!” she cried to the other girls, only to behold a terrible sight.
“Whee!” Pinkie said as tendrils curled around her, dragging her upwards until she was absorbed into the ceiling.
Maud was trying her best, but even she was struggling. For every tendril she literally punched into bits, three more were waiting to try and snatch her up. Eventually, the tunnel just caved in around her, and Maud disappeared from view.
“No!” Twilight screamed, and tried to move, but now she was embedded up to her neck in the solid stone. Like a nightmare, she was pulled into the ground, and everything went black.