Maud awoke to the strong scent of rotten eggs. Opening her eyes, she saw that the air around them was filled with smoke and steam. The fumaroles were belching more foul smelling air all around them. She lifted her head and saw a column of smoke rising in the distance, right where the Crack of Doom was. The air made her eyes burn and it was hard to breathe.
Almost right away, Maud noticed that her earth pony sense was screaming. It had been what had woken her up. She blinked, still half asleep, trying to take stock of their situation. The stench of rotten eggs was almost gag inducing. Maud rose on stiff legs, yawned through a closed mouth, and had herself a look around.
The earth shook and there was a low rumbling sound, like distant thunder rolling in from the horizon. After the rumble, some of the fumaroles spat out more smoke and steam. The air was hot and it was difficult to breathe. Then, without warning, there was a sharp crack that pealed through the area. Maud saw Tarnish awake and he looked a bit worried and confused.
Maud felt the earth shift beneath her and suddenly, she was no longer standing on flat ground. Most ponies would have never noticed it, the subtle shift of the earth beneath them, but Maud noticed. The ground had risen in the direction of the Crack of Doom. All the hair on the back of Maud’s neck and her withers stood up. Something was wrong, so very wrong.
“What’s going on?” Tarnish asked.
Maud’s fine tuned earth pony senses tensed as she took in everything around her. Her nostrils flared as she looked at Tarnish. “We need to go. Now. Forget about the wagon, We need to go.” Much to Maud’s surprise, she heard her own voice crack with panic. She felt her fine control slipping away.
“What? All our stuff is in the wagon… the samples, the journals, the film, everything. Our food too, but all the science stuff… why leave it?” Tarnish rose up to his hooves, wobbled as the earth shook beneath him like a carpet on a slippery floor and then he steadied.
“We need to go, right away. Like right now… now!” Maud’s voice was not a monotone. It wavered, rising and falling in pitch.
Moving with swiftness, Tarnish sprang to the wagon and began grabbing stuff with his telekinesis. He stuffed things into his saddlebags, which had a surprising amount of room. He grabbed the film but left behind his books and Maud’s books. There were just too many.
There was an explosion off to the east. The ground rolled like a lake being churned in a storm. The ground beneath them rippled. There could be no doubt now, the ground below had taken on an incline, becoming higher in the direction of the Crack of Doom.
Panicked, Tarnish grabbed a little food and crammed that into his saddlebags. He glanced over his shoulder at the smoke rising up in the distance and blinked his watering eyes.
“What’s going on?” Tarnish asked in a strained voice. He coughed from the acrid air and his growing thirst. The air was foul and it was hotter now than it ever was during the height of summer.
“I think…” Maud began and then she took a deep breath. She turned and stared in the direction of the Crack of Doom. “You and I are going to witness the birth of a new volcano.” Maud turned her head and looked Tarnish in the eye. “We need to flee this area right away.”
“Just one more thing, Maud.” Tarnish fought his rising panic and gulped. He rummaged through the wagon and pulled out the motion picture camera. He then pulled out the canisters of film for the camera. Coughing, he loaded the film into the camera and then began stuffing whatever he could into his saddlebags.
Eyes streaming tears from the stinging air, Tarnish felt his lungs begin to burn. He strapped his saddlebags to his sides, grabbed his pith helmet, and made certain that Flamingo was secure.
There was another explosion and thick black smoke rolled out of the Crack of Doom. Fine ash began to fall like snowflakes. The air now had a funny taste that almost made Maud and Tarnish vomit. Tarnish could feel his mouth watering and his need to gag was almost unbearable.
“We should have been gone already,” Maud said, shaking her head. “We need to go right now. Each explosion and out venting of gasses is going to be worse than the last. There might be a pyroclastic cloud at some point.”
Casting one final glance at the wagon, Tarnish felt a rising sorrow within him. The wagon, still filled with so much stuff, had been their home. Their shelter. The wagon was their companion, the third member of their expedition, they had been through so much together. They had fought, strained, and struggled to keep the wagon up to this point. It seemed like such a horrible thing to do just to leave it behind.
Using his telekinesis, Tarnish lifted the motion picture camera over his head and began to crank it as he pointed it at the rising column of smoke and ash in the distance. He took one final glance at the wagon, sniffled, and then began moving, Maud at his side.
When Maud picked up the pace, so did Tarnish.
When faced with life threatening danger, most ponies had few options, so most of them ran. Which is what Tarnished Teapot and Maudlin Persephone Pie were doing. Tarnish was running as fast as he could while Maud continued to tell him to run faster. The camera, pointed behind them, captured every terrifying moment on film.
Every few minutes, there was a rumbling explosion behind them. As bad as things were, it got worse. It began raining flaming bits of rock, some of which were as large as a pony’s head. When one almost smashed into Tarnish, Maud screamed.
But the earth pony mare also reacted. She fell back, running behind Tarnish, and then surged forwards. She shoved her nose between his hind legs, her snoot going beneath Tarnish and sliding along his belly, then, with a flip of her head, she bounced Tarnish onto her back. Tarnish, terrified, wrapped his forelegs around Maud’s neck and his hind legs around her middle.
And then, Maud ran.
Using her earth pony strength, Maud ran like the Wonderbolts flew. Beautiful, graceful, and fast. She poured on the speed, moving at a breakneck pace, moving faster than Tarnish thought was possible for a terrestrial based quadrupedal mammal. He was having trouble holding on. His saddlebags rattled, clanked, and slapped against his sides. It was all he could do to hold on and keep the camera held secure in his telekinesis. Maud was going to get something out of this trip by damn. They had traveled too far and endured too much to leave with nothing.
Normally, being draped over Maud’s back was a pleasant experience, one that Tarnish was fond of. Maud had a very pleasant and inviting back, and he knew every inch in intimate detail. He had spent a lot of time staring at the back of Maud’s head and breathing into her ear. This was torture. He bounced up and down, smashing very delicate things into Maud’s knobby spine. To say that it hurt was an understatement.
There was a terrific explosion behind them and Tarnished dared to turn and have a look. He saw that the pillar of smoke and ash was now a pillar of fire. A black column rose up into the sky and the darkness was illuminated by bright orange and red flames within. Lightning flashed and crackled inside the rising cloud. Flaming rocks shot out of the cloud and went streaking down to the earth like shooting stars.
Somehow, Maud dodged every incoming rock, leaping from side to side. Tarnish became aware of the fact that Maud was screaming as she ran, it was almost impossible to hear over the sounds of the explosions, which made Tarnish’s ears ring with invisible bells.
The whole earth shook yet again and maybe thirty yards away, off to the side, the ground opened up, yawning wide, smoke as well as fire belched out of a new fissure. Tarnish pointed the camera at it as the ground split apart, the earthen maw opening and expanding.
Just when it appeared that things couldn’t begin to get any worse, Tarnish began to feel funny.
It wasn’t enough that the Crack of Doom was erupting, going from a geological hotspot to an active volcano, oh no. The fact that it was a major ley line intersection meant that it was belching out magically supercharged ash and smoke. The flaming rocks were thaumaturgical bombs raining down out of the sky.
As Maud ran, a trail of poison joke bloomed in her wake. Some of the poison joke was catching on fire from the falling flaming debris, but Tarnish’s talent didn’t care about an erupting volcano, it only wanted to correct the thaumaturgical imbalance that was present. Blue mist streamed from his eyes and Tarnish fought to hold back a full blown surge. He clung to Maud and focused on keeping the camera rolling.
The camera that was pointed behind them catching all of the devastation and spontaneous poison joke growth. Tarnish had no idea where Maud was running, or how long she could keep running. Danger was behind them. Black clouds now hung over the area, soot and smoke drifted around, and the world had gone dim, the sun having been blocked out by dense black clouds.
The ground buckled and heaved, it was like jerking a carpet out from beneath a table. Maud ran south, trying to avoid the blackened forest where the poison joke had been burned. She dodged from side to side, carrying the most precious thing in her life upon her back. She had to run faster. Each time her hooves struck the earth, she drew the strength she needed to keep going.
Dead ahead, the ground split open and a curtain of flame and steam billowed up. Maud, unable to avoid it, lept, trying to get as much height as possible. She flew through both the steam as well as the fire, singing the hairs along her underside and scalding her skin. She ignored it, knowing that if she stopped running, she and Tarnish would die. Gritting her teeth, she demanded more of her legs and her muscles.
She hit the ground running, bounding, and leaping. Just a few yards away, to her left, a flaming boulder the size of her torso crashed into the ground. She lept again, angling off to the right. Maud’s lungs burned, everything in her body screamed with fatigue, but she had no choice. She had to keep running.
After running for what felt like hours, Maud began to slow. Her sides hitched and she was soaked with sweat. Far, far behind them, the Crack of Doom continued to erupt, changing from a crack in the ground to a newborn volcano. The earth behind them had formed a rise, and in the far distance there was a new lava dome that was beginning to take shape.
Unable to run any longer, Maud stumbled and fell down onto the ashy ground. Her eyes stung and her lungs burned. It was difficult to even breathe. She felt Tarnish on top of her and he struggled to get onto his own hooves.
Discovering that she couldn’t speak, Maud panicked. She was too exhausted, her throat was too dry, too parched, and too damaged from the acrid air all around them. She lay on the ground, wheezing, struggling to breathe. She felt Tarnish’s canteen pressed to her lips. She drank, but only a little, fearful that she would choke. She could hardly even hear Tarnish’s laboured breathing over her own gasping wheezes.
The air, filled with volcanic gasses, ashes, and tephra, made her eyes feel dry and gritty. She could feel her eyelids sticking to her eyeballs, and each blink felt like something horrid was scraping over her eyes.
She felt herself being rolled over and moved around. She had no strength left. She felt as though she had failed both herself and Tarnish. As strong as she was, it wasn’t enough. She tried moving her legs but only managed a feeble kick. She heard the tearing sound of fabric and felt her smock being pulled away from her. She wondered what Tarnish was up to.
Wet fabric was tied over her face, protecting her eyes, her nose, and her mouth. It helped her breathe a little easier. The cool wetness was soothing upon her eyes. She heard clicking sounds, metallic clicking sounds, and she had no idea what was going on. She tried to slow her breathing, knowing that each lungful of the toxic air was doing serious harm.
She felt herself lifted, there was a tickle-tingle of magic all over her, and then she felt herself draped over Tarnish’s warm back. Her tongue felt like a raisin in her mouth and she couldn’t tell for certain, but she thought her nose might be bleeding. With the wet cloth over her face, it was difficult to tell what was going on. She wanted to tell Tarnish that if they spent too long in the toxic miasma the volcano had made, they would both die, but she couldn’t get herself to speak.
She felt herself bounce on Tarnish’s back as he took off at his steady trot.