We were left in a slightly stunned silence following Twilight’s declaration, unsure what to make of this sudden revelation. Details on how exactly Celestia had come to rule Equestria were sketchy, just like ponies weren’t certain on the existence of the other alicorns that made up the Six, nopony knew for sure if there had ever been any other rulers of Equestria before or alongside Celestia… until now it seemed.
“A Princess,” I breathed in amazement. “Could it be true?”
I looked between the pair of them, both of my friends being more qualified to talk on the subject.
“I don’t actually know,” Pinkie admitted. “Yet more questions I’ve always asked myself.”
“I’m afraid I don’t know either,” Twilight seconded. “Princess Celestia has always refused to discuss the legends with anypony, including myself. I’ve tried asking her before if they were true, if there really were other alicorns, but she would always give me some enigmatic response and changd the topic.”
“But if this tomb really is for an alicorn,” I began in a voice brimming with childlike wonderment. “And she was a Princess; does that not mean that the stories are true after all? That the Six were real?!”
“We… we shouldn’t jump to conclusions,” Twilight said, although I could see she too was getting excited at the thought.
“Twilight’s right, we can’t jump to conclusions…” Pinkie repeated in a tone that worried me. “Not until we crack this open and see it for ourselves.”
“Pinkie!” Twilight yelled in indignation. “We cannot just open up her sarcophagus and look at her body, that is the height of disrespect!”
“Actually Twilight…” I began a concerned voice. “I think we might have to.”
“What?!” Twilight exclaimed, looking at me as if I had gone mad. “Pinkie saying something like that, I can sort of understand, but you?!”
“I know what you’re thinking Twilight, and I agree it’s an awful thing to even consider,” I said hurriedly. “But we don’t know why the Covenant were so fixated on finding this place, for all we know, there’s nothing left inside that coffin.”
Twilight paled as she realised what I was getting at.
“You don’t mean…” she began in a horrified voice. “No, they wouldn’t do something that low.”
“I don’t see why not,” Pinkie argued. “After everything they’ve done, I think grave robbing is pretty low key for them. Look, I’m not saying we do anything more than peek. If the body is in there, then we close it and search elsewhere, if not…”
“Alright, but… I don’t want to do it,” Twilight said, looking torn. “In fact, I don’t even want to look, please just get it over with quickly.”
Pinkie nodded and moved past Twilight to the sarcophagus, I did likewise, while I didn’t want to see either, I thought Pinkie might need the help. I did of course forget that Pinkie was an earth pony, and while she didn’t show it much, she was still unusually strong. She lifted the stone lid up and slid it off with ease, the first warning came when no cloud of dust was released, indicating that it had been opened recently. The second warning was when we both looked inside and found the sarcophagus completely devoid of all unlife... yes, that one was a dead giveaway.
“Ah…” Pinkie uttered in an awkward tone.
“Ah?” Twilight repeated in a panicked voice, spinning around to see what was wrong. “Don’t say 'ah', that makes it sound like… oh no.”
Twilight stumbled over to the bare sarcophagus and knelt down beside it, her eyes wide and her hooves trembling.
“This is bad,” she said in a shaky voice. “This is really bad.”
“Not to perpetuate the panic, but I agree,” I concurred with a tense nod. “If it wasn’t obvious before that the Covenant are up to something downright evil, I think it’s safe to say so now.”
“But where did they go?” Pinkie asked, looking around the chamber as if expecting them to magically appear on command. “Did they just run back the way they came? And if they got out of the Demon Shaft, where did they take the body?”
“They must have some kind of base,” I proposed. “Perhaps the place Spike escaped from… a castle by the sea.”
“We need to start a search,” Twilight stated, sounding a little more confident after she was over the initial shock. “We’ll go back to Pivot, explain what’s happened to Maverick. Hopefully somepony will know where this castle is, and if not, he can send his agents out to find it.”
“Agreed,” I responded. “Now we just have to get…”
I stopped talking at once, when I felt something slam into my back, sending me flying through the air and sprawling on the ground at the statue's hooves. I heard Twilight and Pinkie call out as they too were sent flying by whatever hit me, it hadn’t been physical, it reminded me more of a magical shockwave. Looking around, I saw the pony we had thought was dead, his body was now shifting slightly, as if he was trying to stand up. I didn’t stop to think why a pegasus had been able to use what appeared to be magic on us, but quickly stood up, drew my sword and charged at him.
As I got close, I saw his body rise up and realised that he was in fact dead, or at least, the pony he once was had died. There was a massive gash running from his neck all the way down the front of his torso. His whole body looked to be cut open, and from the open wound, six spindly legs stretched out. I came to a halt when I saw what he really was, it was like a giant hermit crab using a pony as its shell. The stallion’s head twisted about in violent jerking motions, his jaw dislocating so his mouth opened up wide to reveal a chasm of a throat.
A low bellow emanated from deep within the pony’s body, like a fog horn, sending out a second shockwave from its deformed mouth. I was prepared this time, and hunkered low to avoid being thrown off my hooves. When the sound wave stopped, I stood up and charged the monster, readying myself to strike out with my sword, the creature also rushed forward on its six scuttling legs. As I drew close, it snapped out at me with its gaping maw, I ducked under it and ran my sword along its undercarriage, hoping to do some internal damage. Unfortunately while I drew a considerable amount of black bile from cutting into pony’s body, my sword simply glanced off the crab legs.
I rolled to the side as it began stabbing down at me with its legs, which could easily have impaled me. As I got out of the way, Pinkie appeared over the creature and landed on its back, repeatedly stabbing into it with her daggers.
“Pinkie, get off it!” Twilight called out as she aimed her sceptre at the monster, channelling her magic through it.
Pinkie flipped off the creature’s back, just as Twilight released a series of fireballs which homed in on the monster’s face. It was sent crashing to the ground from the impact, from there it writhed in pain as it flailed its head about, trying desperately to rid itself of the spreading flames. It wasn’t long before the crab legs stopped squirming and the whole monster was still. Twilight walked over to where we were, putting her sceptre away while I examined the corpse.
“That’s the second time one of those guys turned into a monster around us!” Pinkie exclaimed as she sheathed her daggers. “They must be seriously loyal if they allow themselves to be experimented on like this.”
“We’ll put a stop to it,” Twilight assured her. “But right now, we have to get out of here.”
I nodded and led the way across the tomb to where the archway and the staircase awaited. I was the first at the foot of the steps, and the first to see the darkness flooding down.
“Get back!” I screamed, turning and rushing away from the archway as the shadows burst into the chamber.
The other two only had to jump back slightly as they hadn’t been that close. Luckily the shadows didn’t come very far into the room, they convulsed together in the archway, reaching and snapping out at us to keep us back, but the flickering lights kept them at bay where they were. I was about to suggest finding another way out, when we heard a low groaning noise coming from behind us. We all spun around to see the monster standing back up, its whole body shaking as it wrenched itself apart, right down the middle until both halves stood independently of one another.
We watched in horror as both halves sprouted additional limbs, until they were both whole… and charging directly for us. Twilight grabbed us both and teleported us across the room, behind the statue. We ducked down behind it, while the two monsters collided and began snapping at one another, looking around for where we had disappeared to.
“Now what?” I hissed, looking from the monsters to the archway that was still brimming with aggressive darkness.
“Now we hope there’s another way out,” Twilight whispered back. “Pinkie and I will try to keep them busy; you use the lantern and see what you can find.”
I nodded and darted away from the statue, making for the back wall while my friends charged off to fight the monsters. I could hear the engagement taking place on the other side of the room as I approached the wall and began shinning the light of the lantern over, hoping it would reveal some secret door like it did upstairs. I began making my way around the room, meticulously examining every inch of wall in case anything was revealed and I just failed to see it because of the increased light in this chamber.
As I began to near the archway and still hadn’t found anything, I saw Pinkie Pie bringing her opponent to the ground, only to have it split into another pair of identical monsters. I started on the other side of the room to the sound of Twilight and Pinkie arguing while still trying to hold off the monsters, I decided to let it slide this time since I was in enough of a panic myself, and their arguing wasn’t actually affecting their ability to work as a team for a change. By the time I reached the blank stretch of wall where I had begun, I was starting to get seriously worked up, dreading the idea that we might be trapped, doomed to be overwhelmed by a flood of monsters.
Then a thought occurred to me, a door didn’t have to be on a wall, and I had kept the lantern unlit while we examined the sarcophagus... It was a long shot, but it seemed like our last hope. Rushing over to the chamber’s centrepiece, lantern still lit, I mounted the rectangular dais and shone my revealing light over the coffin. The entire stone container lit up as I did, eliciting a relived grin from me as I set about trying to figure out how to open the passage. I heard a yell and looked back to see the number of monsters had somehow increased to six, Twilight was staring at Pinkie with a look that just screamed ‘what the buck’.
“Okay…” Pinkie said slowly as she looked at the oncoming wave of monsters. “I’ll admit, that time it really was my fault.”
“Rarity!” Twilight called out as she erected a shield between us and the enemies. “Please tell me you found something!”
“Yes, there’s a staircase beneath this sarcophagus!” I announced, seeing the ghostly structure shining through the solid stone. “But I don’t know how to open it!”
“Have you tried turning it off and on again?!” Pinkie asked, stifling a giggle.
“What does that even mean?!” I shouted back in desperation.
“Forget that!” Twilight interrupted as the monsters threw themselves repeatedly at her shield. “Have you tried using brute force to move it?!”
I gave it a go, pushing the sarcophagus with my hooves before trying again with my magic. The second time I could feel it shifting ever so slightly, but I wasn’t strong enough.
“I need help!” I called back.
Twilight urgently gestured to Pinkie Pie, who hurried my way and immediately started pushing while I applied magic. We were definitely getting somewhere, but it still wasn’t enough.
“Twilight, we need you too!” Pinkie shouted over. “It’s gonna take all of us to push this thing!”
Twilight bit her lip as she looked at the monsters still trying to break down her barrier. Making a snap decision, she lowered her shield before jabbing out with her sceptre, sending out a tidal wave of water to sweep all the monsters back into the clawing darkness. As soon as the water was released, she turned and made her way over to us. Once she was ready, we all began pushing, Pinkie with her hooves, while Twilight and I used our magic. The task proved much easier when all three of us were putting our backs into it, and soon the sarcophagus was out of the way, revealing a narrow staircase leading down into another chamber which emanated a faint blue glow.
Glancing back, we saw that the monsters had disentangled themselves from the clinging shadows and were charging our way. Without any further encouragement, Twilight bustled me down first, then Pinkie before following herself. All three of us descended into the new chamber, just in time as the monsters began smashing against the gap that was too small for them. The room we found ourselves in was very small, a simple square room with a strange machine built inside that was the source of the blue light.
The main feature was a smooth stone platform, circular in shape with a slight dip in the middle. This platform was placed just before the centre of the far wall, resting within it was a large stone ring that hovered slightly above it, within which was a translucent sheet of rippling blue light. The platform had what appeared to be pipes trailing away from it, around the room to four stone pedestals that were dotted, seemingly at random, about the place. Hovering over each of these pedestals were blue crystals, roughly the size of a ponies head, each one humming slightly.
“Most peculiar,” Twilight murmured, barely audible over the crashing sounds from the tomb we just vacated. “It seems to be some kind of portal, powered by these crystals.”
“If that’s a portal, then let’s go on and get out of here,” Pinkie declared, making a run for it, but being held in place as Twilight grabbed onto her tail with magic.
“We can’t just go running through a portal when we don’t know where it leads!” Twilight exclaimed. “That could be extremely dangerous.”
“Twilight,” I began with a roll of my eyes. “Staying here is ‘extremely dangerous’, you wanted a way out, and I think this is going to be the best we’ll get.”
Twilight opened her mouth to retort, but then her ears swivelled to the sound of the monsters trying to make the narrow opening wider.
“I suppose,” she relented. “But let me take the lead, if I don’t come back in a few minutes, assume it’s not safe.”
“Way ahead of you Twi!” Pinkie announced from beside the portal.
Before either of us could stop her, she leaned in and stretched her neck through the portal. Her head disappeared momentarily before she pulled it back out, looking a little disorientated, but smiling.
“It’s all fine!” she declared. “Not sure where it is, but it looks much safer than here.”
I glanced over at Twilight, who was trying to hide the fact that she was breathing rather heavily for some reason, but she nodded calmly and started making her way forward, with me just a few steps behind. We reached the portal and once again Pinkie took the lead, disappearing entirely this time as she stepped through the ring. Twilight mumbled something before stepping after her, and finally I moved forward and stepped up over the edge of the floating ring, and plunged through the portal.