//------------------------------// // Chapter Seventy-one // Story: Freedom Through Harmony // by Electricut //------------------------------// Chapter Seventy-one Eclipse Swamps Twilight Morning seemed to come too early the next day, a thick fog rolling into camp from the direction of the swamp. Twilight emerged from the tent rubbing her eyes, feeling as though she had only just gone to sleep after her watch. Pinkie sat by the fire, poking at the embers idly with a stick. Spike and Max stood at the edge of camp, looking on at the heavily wooded swamp with arms crossed, and necessary supplies for the day packed up behind them. Twilight suddenly felt much more awake, her heart speeding up in excitement of the day’s task. Somewhere in that swamp was a hidden stronghold, untouched for five hundred years, holding the last testament of her ancestor. Somewhere out there lay the answers she had torn herself to pieces seeking out, a distant part of the family she had never known, the beginning of the path that was the right one for her to take. More than anything, she would be able to find herself out there, to do what’s right and have things go back to as close to normal as they could be. The party of four feasted on a breakfast of dried fruit and meat, bread that was neither fresh nor rock-hard stale, and plenty of coffee. Max had some with him that was better than anything Twilight had ever tasted, a blend that he said was a gift from a friend of his. Spike still seemed extremely suspicious of The Order member, but said nothing to him. Soon afterwards, the four packed up the rest of the supplies they would need for the day, leaving the tent and a few other provisions where they were for the time being. “The ground is pretty level from here until about half a mile in.” Max explained as the group began to trek through the marsh. “Past that it starts to get rocky, with plenty of clefts underneath the rock and miniature cliffs where a secret passage might be. If there is a hidden fortress in there, starting there is our best bet.” The grey-winged heron boy led them through the muck and humid air of the swamp without much more conversation, Twilight trusting in his ability to lead them to where they needed to be. The remainder of the trip was spent largely in silence, as the very nature of the swamp tended to put people in a sour mood. The air, thick and humid despite the chilly weather outside the tree line, made everyone uncomfortable in their heavier gear. The bottoms of their boots kept sticking to the marshy ground, and several times one of them had to stop to pull their shoe back on and tighten it when the force of the swamp was greater than their stride. Twilight kept her head high the whole time however, her mindset unmovable. She was dead set on her goal, on the next piece of the puzzle that would make the whole bigger picture make sense again, and would not let any minor inconvenience stand in her way. She almost didn’t notice when the ground began to grow more solid, sticky mud giving way to mossy rock. She was brought back to reality when Pinkie grabbed her roughly by the arm, preventing her from unwittingly stepping off of a sudden, almost unseen drop. “Thanks.” She said awkwardly, then turned back to face the area ahead of them. The ground in this area formed a bowl-shaped depression, at the bottom of which festered a small, disgusting, frozen puddle of algae-filled water. Scaling down the bowl were rows of stone jutting out this way and that, almost seeming to form a natural staircase the whole way around. “Looks kinda like a stage.” Pinkie commented, tracing around the area with her finger. “Like, the stones all around almost seem like places where people could sit, and the center would be the actual stage part, if it weren’t just ice.” “I see what you mean...” Spike started, rubbing his chin. He had been almost totally silent throughout the whole trek in the swamp so far, and Twilight began to think he had something on his mind. “I think it’s just a coincidence though. Why would there be a stage way out here? As far as I know, there was never anything here, except this mysterious stronghold...” “Time travel shenanigans if I ever saw them.” Max said quietly. Twilight raised an eyebrow at him, and he continued: “Like I said, a friend of mine in The Order has weird time travel powers. Considering there was never anything here in the past, and judging by past experiences with the subject, I can only guess that there will be a stage here in the future at some point. Sometimes, when a location is exposed to a lot of temporal energy, nature can reshape itself to resemble forms that don’t yet exist...” His explanation, complicating things even more than they were before, was met only with two sets of skeptical and bemused glances, and one completely amazed one from Pinkie. “I never claimed time travel made the slightest bit of sense.” Max stated in his own defense. “I stopped trying to understand it years ago, and just accepted my friend’s explanations without much argument. Much fewer headaches that way. Or, you know, it could just be a weird rock formation.” “Anyway, let’s get searching.” Twilight said, bringing everyone back on topic. “Max was right, there could easily be an opening in between some of these rocks. Everyone take a corner and start looking.” The four carefully picked their way around the edge of the depression, then began to work their way downward while testing each stone, peering into each crack and crevice, and generally looking for anything out of the ordinary. Twilight took another cautious step backward, the moss that crawled over each and every surface providing perfect traction. She lowered her hand to the next rock, then used her other to light a fire spell. She peered in through what had at first appeared to be just another small crevice, but her heart skipped a beat when she could not see where it ended. Excited, she searched around for a moment, then grabbed a loose pebble laying on the rock and jammed it into the crevice, and it fell somewhere below for a solid five seconds before she heard it hit the ground. Twilight spun around quickly to shout for her friends to see her discovery, but just as she came to a stop, the moss underneath her fingertips tore away from its place on the rock. It’s become brittle in the cold... Why didn’t I think of that before?! The thoughts raced through her mind in a matter of seconds, but she was unable to move as her whole body fell backward away from the rocky wall, her arms pinwheeling at her sides in a desperate attempt to retain her balance. The few seconds that it took for her to fall seemed to stretch out into an eternity. For the longest time, she was weightless in the air, free-falling past the cold rock and moss. Then, reality snapped back into blinding focus when her left wrist slammed into one of the stones on the way down. White hot pain lanced up her arm, and she was temporarily blinded, recovering just in time to see the frozen swamp water below rushing up to meet her. In the background, she could hear the faint cries of her friends calling out to her in surprise. Twilight closed her eyes in anticipation of the impact, knowing that it was too late to stop her fall. The impact did come a moment later, but it was not nearly as jarring as Twilight had expected. The ice around her shattered cleanly, and instead of being drenched in freezing, filthy water, she fell through a few more feet of air before coming to a rough- but not serious- landing. Biting back the pain from her arm, she cracked her eyes open to see where she had ended up, and her racing heart skipped a beat. Directly above her, sunlight streamed down lazily from the hole left in the ice- no, not ice, but glass stained to look as such- and all around her grew thick, springy grass that helped to cushion her fall. Beyond the fringes of the grass and the light cast by the sun overhead, she could see nothing but darkness, but it hardly mattered. She had inadvertently found exactly what the group was looking for. She was sure that this was the stronghold, buried directly underneath the swamp, and that somewhere beyond her line of sight would be the last will of hers and Pinkie’s ancestors. “Twilight!” She heard Spike shout in alarm from above. Putting together immediately that he would jump down the same portal Twilight had fallen through, and still lay directly underneath, Twilight used her uninjured right hand to drag herself out of harm’s way. Her left wrist still burned with pain, and tears began forming in the pit of her eyes, but she held herself together. There was no time to lie around and be hurt. She’d let the others get to her, treat her wound properly, and then they would move on. Sure enough, Spike was the first through, diving feet-first through the meter-wide hole and landing shakily a few feet away. It only took him half a second more to get his bearings and locate Twilight lying in the grass, then run over to her and deftly scoop her up in his arms. She whimpered slightly, involuntarily, when her injured arm’s position was shifted. She cursed herself for not being able to hold it together and making Spike worry. Pinkie dropped through a few moments later, then Max slipped through and floated to the ground, gracefully but with appropriate speed. Spike was already examining Twilight’s arm, careful not to jostle it and cause her more pain. “I guess we’re just lucky you didn’t get hurt any worse...” He mumbled after a minute. “Looks like it’s only sprained. We should put it up in a splint right away, but it should be alright otherwise. If we can just find a way out of here so we can get back to camp...” “No.” Twilight stated with all the strength she could muster. “We can’t leave yet... We’ve only just found the stronghold. We have to keep moving.” “But Twilight, your arm-” “I’ll be alright, Spike. Let’s just get a splint on it and move on. We’re too close to go back now.” She stared stubbornly into his concerned eyes for quite a while, until he broke and sighed in defeat. “Fine. We’ll keep moving, but if it looks like it will take a while, we’re going back to rest. This place isn’t going anywhere. Max, you can get out of here easiest, go get some sticks for a splint.” Max, pausing only for a moment, possibly slightly annoyed at being ordered around, nodded and leapt back up to the entrance portal, scrambling up through the hole. “Just need a cloth now...” Spike said, looking around for anything to use. At last, he moved his eyes to try and look directly over his head, then removed the white bandana covering the top of his head. He shook his head to put his long violet hair back into place, but it still looked strange without his ever-present accessory. Max returned a moment later with a bundle of branches, more than Twilight’s injury could possibly need, but he dropped most of them in the halo of light as he approached her. “These ones looked best for a sling,” He explained, “but I found more to make torches out of. I doubt there will be any more windows deeper in the stronghold, so we need light sources.” Spike nodded tersely, then gently lay Twilight back onto the tough grass and went to work on her arm. Her wrist still throbbed with pain, but she did her best to bite back the urge to cry out as he tied the branches together and put the makeshift sling over her head so that her arm rested in front of her. Almost immediately, some of the pain began to recede, and she was able to sit up using her uninjured arm and look to the rest of her party. Pinkie simply stood where she was, a concerned and helpless look on her face, and Max was much the same. “I’m alright, really.” Twilight insisted. “Let’s make those torches and get searching. Who knows how big this stronghold is...” Max nodded uncertainly and knelt down for the remains of the bundle of sticks. He used some of the tough grass growing all over the ground to wrap around the tips of the torches, a suitable burning material. For the first time, though, Twilight cast a confused glance around at her surroundings. “How... How is there so much grass down here?” She asked. “It’s still winter, so how has this all survived in the cold?” Spike looked critically at the greenery as well. “Come to think of it, the temperature is higher down here too. Water could probably drip through from above and be absorbed from below and keep it alive. But... Why is it warm enough for that here, when it’s so cold just outside?” For once, no one had an answer to that fact, not even Max. A few minutes passed while the torches were put together, and the group prepared to set out into the darkened stronghold. At last, Spike and Max both took one of the torches, electing to take the front and rear of the line respectively. Twilight closed her right hand around each of the torches’ heads, lighting them quickly and efficiently. After a few moments of searching the outer edges of the sunlit room, they located a passage in the middle of the wall to the south, and the four began their slow, cautious trek through the cavern-like underground fortress. It was definitely more fortress than cave however; the walls were almost totally flat, the corners exact. Twilight wondered how the original builders of this place could have dug out a passage so uniform, but she soon realized that the walls were not natural rock, but extremely weathered brick, almost indistinguishable. “How old do you think this place is?” Twilight said quietly, the sound echoing up and down the passage. “Was it originally above ground... or was it constructed like it is now? And by who...?” “I think this was always a swamp.” Max stated. “Hard to say when I am just going on Celestia’s version of history and what I’ve picked up from my friend, but I think it was always like this. So, this stronghold was most likely built as an underground fortress. Probably as a place hidden from the Queen during the war, but by who... It’s really hard to say. Some ancient resistance faction?” Twilight shrugged as best she could without jostling her injured arm, and the team continued through the passage for a ways, until they came to a dead end. “Oh, no...” Twilight groaned. “Did we miss a turn or something?” “I did not see anywhere else to go.” Max argued. “This was literally the only pathway in the entire place. This cannot be a total dead end.” Spike closed his eyes and leaned against the side of the passage, tapping his foot thoughtfully. Pinkie, however, moved over to the far wall, examining it closely, her whole head darting here and there to check each tiny crevice in the ancient brick. “I’m feeling something about this wall...” She muttered. “Like... it shouldn’t even be here, or something...” She stood back for a moment to appraise it from a distance... then pulled her arm back and slammed her fist into the wall. Twilight cringed, sure that the bones in Pinkie’s hand would have been shattered, but she opened her eyes when she heard a much louder crack. In fact, Pinkie was merely rubbing her hand as though it were barely hurt, and half of the wall had cracked, sand falling gently to the ground. “It’s sandstone.” Pinkie confirmed. “A fake wall. We’re supposed to break through.” Nodding with a sense of accomplishment, she unsheathed her spear and began jabbing at the wall, shattering the weak sandstone foundation and causing the dead end to soon disappear. In place of the wall was soon nothing more than a pile of sand for the group to climb over. Beyond the mound was a larger room, only slightly smaller than the one the party had started in. Spike shook his head in amazement. “Irregular temperatures and sandstone that’s that fragile... What kind of place is this stronghold?” “As I said earlier...” Max stated, stepping forward. “Time travel shenanigans. Now, I think we might be close here. I see some light filtering in from above. Seems like an important room.” He nodded, confirming the thought to himself, and stepped carefully over the pile of sand obscuring the doorway. Pinkie scrambled over next, and Spike motioned for Twilight to follow. “I’ll be right behind you, in case you have trouble with your arm like that.” Twilight smirked at him, accepting the challenge, and clambered over the mound on three limbs. She lowered herself down the other side more carefully, but came to a rest on clear stone without any problems. Spike trudged in a moment later, the light of his torch dancing across the walls and leaving the preceding corridor dark. As Max had said, a few cracks in the ceiling above allowed some faint rays of light to filter through, thick dust from the freshly disturbed room plainly visible in the air. Max and Pinkie stood at the far end of the room, his torchlight illuminating a large grey object centered against the wall. Looking more closely, Twilight could see that it was a life size statue, the figure depicted looking armed to the teeth. Two katanas hung at her hip, staves crossed across her back, and various depictions of other weapons equipped all over her body, which was clothed in a simple long-sleeved garment. However, the strangest thing about it by far was the statue’s face. Pinkie took a step back, her eyes squinted nervously. “It... It looks just like me...” While the statue’s eyes were shut, the resemblance to Pinkie was undeniable. The shape of her face, the cute fluffiness of her hair... The only thing missing was a smile. “I’ll be honest, I’m getting a little creeped out...” Pinkie continued, speaking to herself. “What does it mean...?” Twilight shook her head, unsure of what to tell her. Before she could speak, a pale yellow light began to emanate from the statue, so suddenly that all four members of the group jumped slightly. The glow continued for a moment later before fading out, then the eyes of the statue shot open, shining with golden light. The party stepped back again, Twilight backing right into the wall, but Pinkie making a decision and stepping forward. “Pinkie, wait! You don’t know what that thing’s going to do!” Twilight shouted, to no avail. The situation didn’t get any better, because with a low grinding noise, the statue actually moved forward a step, slowly at first, but its stone limbs were clearly operational. It came to a stop after a few steps, staring down Pinkie with its luminescent yellow eyes, and slowly drew its stone swords from its belt. It held them backhanded, dropped into a battle stance, then stopped, preparing to pounce. The tension in the air was palpable. Pinkie had just enough time to draw the spear from the sheath on her back and settle into a sloppy battle stance before the statue leapt at her.