Shall we Play a Game?

by BlurredTheLines

Chapter Four: A Test of Magic

Twilight awoke to find herself in another strange room. She quickly scans her surroundings. There appears to be a narrow walkway leading off to a doorway on the other side of the room, with a few obstacles in the way. The rest of the room is featureless, seemingly dropping off into a pit. More immediately, however, is something about her. Something is binding her wings.

“Ah, Twilight, you're awake. Let's see if you can puzzle your way out of this. Step forward so the game can begin.” The sights and sounds of their mysterious captor return.

She walks forward. There are four hoof-shaped indents in the floor. She steps into them. “This seems easy enough” Twilight responds confidently.

“Oh but there are a few twists” they continue. A part of the floor retracts, that was previously holding the walkway in place. With the beam freed, it begins rocking up and down, balancing out the weights at either end. “First things first, that banding around your midsection interferes with your ability to use your magic, and your wings of course. Second, there is a pit of acid below you.”

Twilight looks down. A thick, sickly green-looking liquid sits in bottom of the room. Her eyes widen in terror.

“Third, your balance is being maintained by the plates your hooves are standing on, should you find your legs give out, your life shall soon follow. Of course, take too long and the room will fill with acid. Thirty minutes is your time limit.”

Hmm, first, let's see if this thing really does inhibit my magic like they said, Twilight thought. She prepares to use a teleportation spell to move her to the other side of the room, but finds herself unable to muster the energy to do so. “So it's true...” she says to herself. She lifts one of her legs to test the beam. It drops down, almost throwing Twilight off her balance. “Hmm...” she moves one of her back legs off the plate slightly, allowing room to place her front leg on it. As she does so, the beam rises, becoming level once more.

“Aha...” Twilight says aloud, as she looks around the room for a way to put this new piece of information to use. She spots the corner of the alcove she was sitting in a moment ago. The corner looks just close enough to push against. She shifts her other back leg to accommodate the other leg currently sharing a space with her front leg. Twilight carefully moves her leg over to the other plate, taking care not to lift it off either plate. No change. The beam remained stable.

She uses this method to turn herself around, so that she's facing the wall. But now what? She couldn't remove a hoof to push off the wall. But she did have her horn. Its better than nothing. She tilts her head forward, reaching out with her horn in an attempt to touch the wall. Contact. She pushes her head to the side, in the hopes the beam would rotate. Which it does, and she is now a little bit closer to the corner.

Twilight looks over toward her destination. Its a long way to go. She pushes off the wall again, inching closer to the corner, and farther away from the wall each time she did so. “Uh, what now?” Twilight ponders, looking for an answer. But there is only one. She'd have to push off as hard as she could and hope its enough to get her to the other side. Twilight let out a sigh, steeled her nerves, and made a push for the opposite wall.

As the beam swings across the gap, she turns her head to face the next corner, in preparation for the next part of the crawl. She reaches the other side and her horn touches the wall. She takes a moment to look down at the acid pool. It seems higher than when she first saw it. As she continues her efforts to make it to the exit, she found the wall getting closer to her.

The side of her face is now touching the wall, and she could no longer use her horn to continue on. A simple solution, though, just push with her face. But as she does so, she discovers something. The wall is rough, sharp bits sticking out here and there, scratching and scraping at her cheek as her face slides across the surface of the wall.

Just bare with it, Twilight, you can do this, she thought to her self. She keeps going, feeling the sting of the rough wall's edge with each movement. Now at the halfway point, Twilight checks the level of the acid again. It is definitely higher than when she'd started. “I'd better hurry.”

Twilight presses on, her cheek cut and scratched by the jagged edges in the wall. Now at the second corner, she takes another peek at the pit. It is nearing the level of the beam. Just one hoof removed, and she'd be uncomfortably close to the acid. One more corner, and I'm on the home stretch, Twilight thought. She readies herself for the next jump, and pushes off

But as she does so, something in her neck pops, sending out a jolt of pain. In the lapse of concentration, Twilight hit the other wall with the right side of her face. The impact twists her neck at a sharp angle, further compounding the injury. She let out a cry of pain as she hit the wall. Fighting against the pain, she pushes away from the wall to turn her head around, and inches off to the exit.

The distance closed and the exit in sight, Twilight regards the moment with joy and apprehension. She is standing on a free-floating platform, if she messed up on the jump, she might not make the landing. Gathering her composure, and all the strength she had, she makes the leap of faith.

The platform shifts as she pushes off with her back legs, throwing her off her intended jump. Twilight's heart sunk as felt it move. She closes her eyes and braces for impact. Twilight lands hard on the other side, but safely. She opens her eyes and let out a sigh of relief. A click is heard and the door to the exit begins to close, and the level of the acid begins rising at an alarming rate. She jumps to her hooves, and makes a dash for the door, reaching the other side just before it closes.

As the danger fades, so does the adrenaline, and with it, her strength. She collapses to the floor, her heart racing. Twilight passed her test, she's alive, and that is all that matters. She wonders for a moment how the others are doing, and if they had it any better or worse than she did. Twilight picks herself back up and begins a slow unsteady walk down the dark hallway.

Comments

[Charlie2016]

I really like how this story is going, and I am excited to see later chapters.