Chapter 36: You Are In a Maze of Twisty Little Passages, All Alike
At the Inn of the Prancing Pony
Chapter 36: You Are In a Maze of Twisty Little Passages, All Alike
The party of adventurers reached the bottom of the nine-story staircase, to emerge into a short east-west corridor. The stairs were to the east. To the north, a cavern opened up. It was the source of an unpleasant odor. To the south was another passage.
Torn Deck looked down at his map. “Celestia said that the ‘pig creatures’ were that way,” he said quietly, gesturing to the north.
“Troglodytes,” Burnished Lore said with authority. “I suppose we could try sneaking past them.”
“Aww, do we have to?” asked Choss’ dragon head, which had suddenly inserted itself into the conversation. “I could take them out quite easily.”
“Well...you certainly could,” Midnight conceded, examining the map over Torn’s withers. “But my goddess, Celestia, has tasked me with trying to return as many creatures to their rightful place as possible, such as yourself. Do any of you know where these Troglodytes hail from?”
“They are not from Tartarus,” said the gorgon head. “Rather, they wandered in from the mountains to obtain a fresh supply of meat.” He put on a nasty smile as he added, “Pony meat.”
Torn Deck snorted. “I don’t think that Celestia would care if we did away with them. I mean, they are the quintessential nasty bugger.”
Torn between practicality and morals, Midnight looked to Burnished Lore. “Do you think it would do more harm than good to sneak past them and let them live?”
Burnished took in a deep breath, then exhaled. “Moral dilemma,” he said in awe. “Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve had to deal with a moral dilemma? Cutbelt, I take back every complaint I’ve made about this adventure! As for them, we’ll give them a chance: we’ll go past them, and if they have any brains in their heads, they will have fled when this whole place comes down, as you know has got to happen after we re-open that portal to Tartarus.”
The lion head put on the most-adorable Chaotic Evil frown imaginable.
“Aw, there, there,” Torn Deck said, stroking the lion’s mane. “Save your strength, so you’ll have more to give the guy in charge of this place a piece of your mind.”
“Yeah,” said the lion head. “I like that plan.” Choss walked ahead of the others, westward.
“And what if there isn’t a guy in charge?” Burnished whispered to Torn.
“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it,” replied Torn.
# # #
The western passage split, into northwestern and southwestern passages.
Torn stuck his tongue out as he amended his map. “Well, the southwestern one is pointing more towards the middle, assuming that the two levels are aligned with one another.”
Burnished shrugged. “Are you alright with southwest?” he asked Midnight.
“Sure,” she replied.
“Then we can move on,” Burnished said.
“Hey wait,” Torn Deck said. “What about the other two members of our party?”
Oh! Well, Facet had been sticking to the back of the group, and Itty Bitty was somewhere...even further back.
“And Bumble?” asked Midnight.
“And Bumble what?” the breezie asked from atop Burnished’s head.
“OK, fine. Just wanted to make sure that somebody wasn’t forgetting about their retainers, like we’re not supposed to.”
Yeah, yeah, very funny.
“Tally ho!” Bumble cried, waving a tiny dagger at the southwest passage.
“I notice they didn’t bother to count me,” grumbled gorgon Choss.
# # #
The southwest corridor stretched forward for a few steps, then split into northern, eastern, and southern passages.
“Oh come on!” cried Torn Deck. “This is a mess! It’s...it’s like…”
An actual cave system? You should be very glad of your unnatural sense of where north is at all times, or you’d get as lost as I did.
Torn rolled his eyes. “Whatever. South!”
The southern passage immediately split into passages leading west and southeast.
“West!”
You have reached a dead end.
“Should I bother asking who you are talking to?” asked dragon Choss.
“I wouldn’t advise it,” said Bumble. “That way lies madness.”
Torn consulted his map. “This is definitely the right way,” he said, pointing at the spot on the map corresponding to where they currently were. “Any signs of a cave-in?”
No. Actually, to put that in character...
“No,” reported Facet, putting a hoof to the wall. “This is unhewn stone.” She frowned. “But it does feel...odd.”
“Alright,” said Torn, putting the map on the ground so all could see it. “let’s say that the place we are heading for is around...here.” He drew a small circle to the southwest of where they were. “And Celestia said that it was surrounded by a hexagonal passage…”
“This is where I’d have Carry On check for a secret door,” Midnight grumbled, examining the wall. “I could try blasting it...but you’d be better at raw damage than I would, Bernie.”
“Now, now, hold on,” said Burnished, “this looks like a mental puzzle.”
Torn Deck used his lips to move the tip of his pencil in circles around the postulated center room, bigger and bigger. He dropped it to point out the northwestern passage they didn’t take. “That’s got to be part of the hexagon. It continues here with the southern passage.”
“I’m...I’m alone!” exclaimed Facet, holding up her holy symbol. “I have no contact with Kelogto whatsoever!”
Midnight stepped forward and did her best to comfort Facet. “We have entered the part of this cursed place where our deities cannot see or hear us. We will have to rely on each other now. Our friendship and camaraderie.”
“Do...do you hear that?” asked Itty Bitty from the back. “It’s like hooves...but very far away.”
“I think we’ve been in this dead end long enough,” said Gorgon Choss.
“Hooves...but far away?” Midnight strained to hear what Itty Bitty was talking about, holding out a hoof to silence the others.
“How...sure...going?” “Blasted teleporters!” That was all that could be heard of the voices of ponies, quite far away.
“Are those...adventurers?” asked Burnished. He led the group out of the dead end, and looked both northwest and south. His ears pivoted about as he waited for the members of the other group to speak once more.
Facet took a few steps east, then waved Midnight over to her to show her faintly glowing holy symbol. She waved a hoof, to indicate the invisible barrier they must have just crossed.
“It’s no good,” Burnished said after a few minutes. “I can’t hear anybody else.”
“That’s because they’re just outside the barrier! Or just inside, we’re dealing with a wall between realities here, why wouldn’t there be some bleed through?” Midnight asked excitedly.
“Alright,” said Burnished with a nod. “So the next question is: shall we go around clockwise to find the next passage to penetrate this barrier, or counter-clockwise?”
Torn Deck looked down both passages. “Clockwise,” he said. “Easier for me to map.”
# # #
The passage south opened out into a small chamber. Within this grotto stood a huge stone idol, as tall as Celestia and very broad. It was roughly chiseled into the shape of a male alicorn with wings outspread and two curved horns instead of the usual one. An expression of utter cruelty was upon the statue’s face.
“Graze!” exclaimed gorgon Choss, bowing his head. “A representation of my lord and master!”
Midnight tried not to let her horror show too much. “Impressively...intimidating.”
Bumble in particular noticed the eyes of the idol, which glittered with the fire of inset gems. To either side of the idol were strangely shaped copper weapons. One was similar to...
“Copper! Copper, where are you?!” Luke cried out, jumping to his feet. His voice had an odd echo in the confined space of the auditorium, as if it had a second voice behind it.
Susan reached up to put a hand over Luke’s. “What happened?” she asked. “I noticed you slipping off to sleep earlier. Bit of a breezie-induced nightmare?”
“It’s all right. It’s...all...right,” Luke said slowly. He seemed to aim the words more to himself than to anybody else.
“Luke?” Gary asked cautiously as he got up.
“It...it was just a dream. About Winter…” He grimaced. “About Carry On. I...I don’t mean to add any more drama to this story than is already there.”
Mary Jo looked sympathetically over at Luke. “Look, I’m about to start introducing some new characters. You’ll be able to rejoin the others then. Until that point...don’t dream.”
The sympathy was covering quite a bit of fear. For M.J. had read those reports about players going mad and thinking they were ponies. And dreams about their characters was always how it started. There was another thing, something M.J. hadn’t really caught on to before now: it had started after the character died or was put in some other dreadful state, like petrification.
Ellen passed Luke a few sheets of information she had been writing up about Discord earlier in the day. “Read these over to keep yourself awake, let me know what you think later.”
“Um...OK,” Luke said. He dragged the sheets over to himself with a fist closed into the shape of a hoof.
As I was saying, the idol had a couple of...metallic weapons next to it. One was similar to a fauchard-fork, the other was a large sword with a wavy blade and leafed tip. Each of the weapons rested in a brass stand.
“A fauchard-fork!” Burnished exclaimed. “I love fauchard-forks! They’re like my favorite polearm.”
I said it was like a fauchard-fork. I didn’t say it was a fauchard-fork.
“So, a little glaivish, maybe?”
Maybe.
“You adventurers are weird,” commented lion Choss.
“What, some of us like our weapons,” Midnight said cheerily. She then walked a little closer to the statue, trying to examine it safely.
“But you’re talking to nobody!” lion Choss exclaimed.
At that moment, the mouth—and no other part—of the idol came to life. “Leave one magical item before me, and you may have your choice of those that others have left!”
Once these words had been spoken, a chest appeared magically under the rearing hooves of the idol. There was a grinding of stone as the statue reared even further back. The lid of the chest opened itself, revealing dozens if not hundreds of magical weapons, armor, pendants, musical instruments, potions...in short, every non-artifact magical device imaginable.
The unicorn cleric looked back at the rest of the group. “Seems like a trap to me.”
Itty Bitty had already beaten her to this conclusion, having turned and fled the moment the idol began to speak. Her panicked screams faded for a while, and then suddenly cut out.
Bumble flew straight for the open chest, followed by Torn Deck, Facet and Burnished, who began shoving each other in their greed and desire.
“Mine! Mine!” they cried.
Burnished cast a spell to electrify his coat, knocking the other two ponies out. He was then tackled by Choss.
“Stop! All of you!” Midnight shouted, trying to pull them back with her magic. “Greed is not the answer!”
“Snack break!” announced Gary, getting up and walking over to the far table.
“What?” asked M.J. “How could you call a break now?”
“Oh not for everybody,” Gary said. “Just those of us who failed our saves and went crazy. I mean, we’re not controlling our characters anymore.”
“Ah, do what you want,” M.J. said dismissively. “Midnight, the best you can do with your magic is pull back one of them. Who do you choose?”
Ellen groaned, head in hands as she thought it over. “Is Choss in there too?”
“The dragon head is resisting, but has been overpowered by the other two. You know, the ones not wearing anti-mind control headbands at the moment?”
“Right! So...I don’t have any of those headbands on me, do I? Who has them?”
“Burnished.”
Ellen looked over to Gary at the snack table and shrugged. “I grab hold of him and drag him back, so that I can grab the bands from him. Then I’m putting one on Torn Deck and one on Facet. I...don’t think I can get one on the breezie against his will, since he’d have to change size.”
“Alright, that would count as an attack roll to grab Burnished. He’s AC 2.”
Ellen groaned and covered her eyes as she rolled a die.
“...Three.” Not enough.
“So, what did I miss?” Gary asked, sitting down with a bowl full of Snickers bars.
“I don’t suppose you’re going to share any of those…?” asked Susan.
“Sorry, I’m too overwhelmed with greed,” Gary said with a smile, as he shoved a full bar into his mouth...and then started choking.
Mary Jo laughed continuously as she repeatedly slapped his back until he spat the bar out.
“...I’m not hungry anymore.”
“The crazed wizard evades your tackle. Lucky for you, he’s too obsessed to fight you.”
“Well, that’s good I suppose,” Ellen grumbles. “Can I grab at his bags?”
“Sure,” M.J. replied. “Make a Dexterity check.”
She rolled, and cheered as the die stopped. “Eight, so I grab the bags. Take out a ring, slap it on his head.”
“Not so fast! OK, first, you pull the bags off of his back and begin digging. ‘No!’ Burnished cries as he turns to face you. ‘I need to trade my Wand of Magic Detection for a Wand of Polymorph Other, so I can fulfil my lifelong dream of becoming a pegasus on my left side and a unicorn on my right!’”
“OK, first of all, I do not sound like that!” Gary protested at his wife’s impersonation. “And secondly...when did you read my Uncle Bernie fanfic?”
The audience laughed.
“And then,” M.J. continued, “since he’s heading right for you, it’s easy for you to put the circlet on his head. ‘What...what happened?’ he asks. ‘What happened to the Inn?’”
“Um, Dear…” Gary asked gently. “Doesn’t the anti-mind control band mean that I’ve got control of my character again?”
“Not...exactly,” said Mary Jo. “It’s a bit of new rule.”
Luke looked up from his paperwork. “What new rule?”
“P.H. ruling, just...we will address it later,” Ellen said with a hopeful smile.
“No, I want to know what you’re doing with my character,” Gary said, pushing the bowl of Snickers aside for dramatic emphasis.
“You...kinda lost him,” said M.J.
“To who?”
“To Burnished Lore.”
“But I’m Burnished Lore!”
“No, you’re Gary Powell. I’m talking about the original Burnished Lore, the one who was running around all the time when you and I weren’t controlling him.”
Gary stared at M.J. for several seconds. “Fine,” he said with a false degree of calm. “It’s part of the performance. Fine! I’m having some more snacks!” He got up and stalked over to the back table. Then he walked back, dramatically knocked over his chair, and returned to the snack table.
Everyone stared at the toppled chair for a few seconds.
“Dear Diary... Today I got Gary on camera knocking over his chair. Jackpot,” Ellen said jokingly.
Up in the stands, Dorothy Reichart was filling page after page in her notebook with notes.
“The other three charmed adventurers have reached the chest,” M.J. said, “and are fighting over who gets to put a magical item into it. The contents of the chest are glowing brighter and brighter… Burnished looks around him, and then casts his personal Sleep spell, which as Gary should remember—since he wrote it—has a more powerful effect at the cost of affecting the caster and only affecting mammals. Save vs. Spells at minus 4.”
The Pony Handler made several rolls. “Torn Deck’s out, Bumble’s out, Burnished is out, Facet is out, the gorgon and lion heads are out...Ellen?”
“Ellen is... Err, Midnight is out,” she declared with a shrug. “Not the worst thing that could happen.”
“Right, so that means the only one of you still awake, is Dragon Choss. ‘You...you knocked yourself out?’ he asks. ‘That’s just nuts!’ He reaches down and picks up the circlet from off of Burnished’s head with its mouth, and transfers it to a wingtip. ‘Alright, who’s in charge here!’ he cries out. ‘Step forward so I can fix you!’ He tries to look around him, but the increasing glare from the chest is becoming blinding. ‘Enough of that!’ he cries, using his other wing to close the chest. ‘Ah, there, that’s better,’ he says. ‘Now then...hey, where’d that statue go? I didn’t see it move. It opened the chest, and then...it sort of faded away. Aha!’ he cries, as he wheels about and blows a stream of fire towards the exit of the cavern. The flames bend around the figure of an invisible pony blocking the way out. ‘Alright, alright,’ the dragon says, unnerved by the figure steadily advancing towards him through his flames. ‘Living stone pony...not a giant, giants can’t go invisible...not an elemental, or we’d be dead already...golem? Yes, golem!’ The red-glowing adversary swings its head towards Choss, who pivots so the blow harmlessly strikes the inert gorgon head. ‘You’re nothing but a command! So that means...’ The two wings are used to place the anti-mind control band upon the golem’s head, causing it to freeze, then vibrate, and finally collapse into rubble.”
Ellen, having been listening with an expression of awe, clapped happily at the defeat of the golem. “Bravo, Chossy!”
“The dragon head bows to the nearest wall. ‘I imagine you saw all that, invisible adventurer voice,’ he comments. ‘If I can’t have treasure, at least I can have glory.’ He stands there for a few seconds, basking in the imaginary praise. ‘And...now I’m bored,’ he says. He picks up the anti-mind control circlet, and puts it on the head of the nearest adventurer, who happens to be Facet. ‘Oh, what happened?’ she asks. ‘You were even more adventure-y than usual,’ he comments. He next uses the band on his fellow heads. It’s at this point that the rest of you can try to resist the Sleep spell—try another save vs. spells to wake up. No negative modifier.”
Susan sat up and rolled a 20-sided die. “Torn Deck’s still out.”
“Bumble’s still out,” reported M.J. Seeing that Gary wasn’t back, she rolled for him. “And so is Burnished.”
“Midnight wakes up!” Ellen said as she rolled and scooted her seat in, looking around to see that Gary was still standing at the back table, talking to Alexia.
“‘Wake up!’ Dragon Choss cries, putting the circlet back on Burnished’s head. ‘I’m back!’ Burnished declares, sitting up. ‘Now who needs to know something? That’s usually why you call me for anything.’ Dragon tries to put the circlet on Bumble, but fails his save against Euclidian Geometry. He then goes to Torn Deck and—”
“Can I please try to wake up again, before Choss gets to me?” Susan begged. “I don’t want to spend the rest of the game at the snack table.”
“Have you got a good in-game reason?”
“I...I uh...I use my earth pony vitality!”
Ellen giggled.
“Alright,” said M.J. “I’ll give you a plus two adjustment.”
“Come on...thirteen, lucky thirteen…One! Yes!”
“I guess you’re awake,” Mary Jo said with a smile.
“I go over to Bumble,” said Susan, “and turn his little transformation bracelet.”
“Wait, that can’t work, can it?” asked Gary.
“You’re not even at our table anymore, bystander!” teased Luke.
“It does work,” said M.J., “and has the side effect of waking Bumble up. ‘What did I miss?’ he asks. ‘Me being awesome!’ Dragon replies. ‘Ha! I don’t believe you,’ says Lion. (Yeah, I’ve gotten bored enough to call Choss’s heads by the species names now.)”
“‘What kind of magic is that?!’ Burnished asks, examining the legband around Pegasus Bumble. The shifting of his head causes him to notice the circlet. ‘And what is this?’ he asks, taking off the circlet with his wing to get a closer look at it.”
Gary raced back to the table. “Make him save vs. spells, or I take him over again!”
“Go mind-control-Gary!” Ellen said cheerfully.
“Five,” M.J. said, briefly raising her shield to show the die to Gary. “You can try again in an hour.”
Gary sulked back to the snack table. “If I have a candy-induced heart attack in the next hour, it’s all your fault!” he said facetiously.
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Yep. The interdimensional nexus thingy is definitely also present in the human world.
So, a pony who dies while possessed by an adventurer kind of sticks around in the adventurer's head? I wonder how many personalities are running around Brian's head.
I'm kind of wondering as well what Facet's state is - if she was a GMPC up to now, did she just become as free to act in front of adventurers as Hope Springs? Choss certainly seems to have that quality as well.
Man, a colossal caverns reference, that game frustrated the heck out me. Great chapter though!
Seeing a reference to Adventure in the title is a lovely piece of nostalgia.
And really this chapter is just a generally joyful cluster of chaos as mind control of both adventurer & in character sort is disrupted all over.
Does anyone else realize how creepy this is in-universe? The otherworldly being is trying to reassert mind control over the innocent pony...
5302558
To be fair, he's not exactly in the know, and thinks it's a game, but yes it is kind of creepy. Burnished Lore must be having a really hard time.
Hmn, sounds like the other adventuring party is getting close to the center of the cave system.
Oh crap, that's bad, but it also makes a lot of sense. Once the original body of the pony in question is out of commission in some fashion, the connection between player and pony that we already know can go both ways must be letting the disembodied mind through to the player.
While cute in Rainbow Rocks when Twilight kept doing it, less cute here.
Oh wow, so the mind control rings are restoring the original personalities of the ponies?
Hahaha!
That trap is an unpleasant one, good thing for Burnished Lore, the mind control rings, and Choss. Everyone asleep is almost certainly better than everyone starting to attack each other, and definitely better than that golem killing everyone while they're fighting.
Wow, some pretty major developments this chapter, most notably having the player/pony connection broken mid-adventure. Just Facet and Lore for now, but that's going to shake up the party dramatically.
5300898
Ooo, good point. He might actually be crazy as a bag of
catsponies.