Death Be Not Proud

by ShinigamiDad

Kaleidoscope

After trotting along the passageway for over twenty minutes the team stopped in a small chamber, studded with crystal and gem outcroppings and veins. The unicorns dimmed their horns and everypony stood quietly for several moments, looking back up the passage, on the lookout for any tell-tale red glow.

Shatter let out a long-held breath: “Good! It looks like our luck is holding, at least for the moment…”

Smudge sat down and grabbed an oat cake: “My nerves are getting seriously frayed! Any idea how much further we have to go?”

Noble Steel rubbed his muzzle as he levitated and unrolled the map: “Well, we left the end of the map almost a half hour ago, and the path’s been steep, so I suspect we knocked off another forty or fifty yards. I need to make a few notes and update the Major’s map.”

Shatter took a swig from her water bottle: “Yeah, well make it quick–I want to add as much distance between us and that red cloud as possible before we work our way around and inevitably end up back at the chasm.”

Solar Gleam frowned: “Yes, that is worrying; I am unsure what we may find. If the Lieutenant is right, and these passages continue to descend in a similar pattern as above, I expect we’ll have dropped roughly 250 or 300 feet below our last position. I can’t guess how far that cloud may have spread.”

Steel looked up from his notes: “If it spread at all. Maybe it coalesced into a single cloud-blob-thing, and is still trying to follow us past Zecora’s barrier.”

Zecora took a bite of apple: “We must assume it took all likely routes / Unless there’s some way to send out a scout.”

Shatter swallowed hard and furrowed her brow: “One–there are only five of us, so not much to spare, and two–I’m not a big fan of suicide missions.”

Solar looked over Steel’s shoulder as the officer sketched in a bit of detail on the newest map sections: “Unfortunately, I do not see a good way to reconcile these views–Zecora’s right that it may have spread along multiple vectors, and you’re right, Captain, that backtracking now would likely end in disaster.”

Shatter wiped the back of a hoof across her mouth: “Then it looks like ‘onward and downward,’ to retool an old pegasus saying, unless you have something else in that bag of tricks of yours, Zecora…”

Zecora shook her head: “Nothing I possess has such a long reach / to span back through caves and across the breach.”

“Then I don’t see much of a choice. We can’t just sit here with Celestia-only-knows-what behind us. Our mission lies ahead, so let’s saddle-up! Red Tabs!”

Steel shouldered past, adjusting his packs and weapon load: “I know, I know–taking the point now…”

Shatter grinned and capped her bottle: “That’s my colt!”

The other four ponies fell in behind Steel as he set a brisk pace, deeper into the branching web of tunnels and passages, guided by the glowing blue thread of Zecora’s powder.

Shatter called from her position at the rear of the group: “So how’s this thing spreading? What’s it feeding on? I can’t believe it’s killing and absorbing any ponies now, not with Twilight and Celestia on the lookout!”

Solar glanced over his shoulder: “I believe it is being forced to make do with death.”

Smudge raised an eyebrow: “Come again?”

“Just as Zecora’s compound seeks out the lines of force and traces left behind by death, so too does the Void–or whatever it’s become. This explains Twilight’s reports of sacked graveyards, disturbed bone piles, and the like.”

“So, what–it’s sucking out remnants of life energy, or…?

“No. Death has an energy of its own. This energy is, in fact, one of the foundations of dark magic. It would appear the Void has substituted death’s energy in the absence of its intended sustenance.”

Zecora tossed down another small pile of powder: “And do you believe this new means of support / is causing our foe to morph and distort?”

“Yes–as I said: ‘whatever it’s become.’ I suspect soon that even Grey Thorn would not recognize his creation. As it feeds on death, even while desperately seeking life energy, it’s being forced to adapt and evolve, far beyond its original constraints.”

Steel ducked under a low-hanging stalactite: “Watch your heads! So will this ‘evolution’ cause it to become weaker or stronger or what?”

“Unsure. It will certainly be altered, now that it has to fend for itself and subsist on a different energy source. I would suspect its absolute power will be less, but it is undoubtedly still quite strong.”

Steel stepped across a small stream onto a patch of grass beyond, as the passageway suddenly opened into a broad meadow. A ruined temple rose in the distance. Steel slowed his pace for a moment and furrowed his brow.

“Huh. Well this is a nice change-of-pace…”

Shatter’s hooves rang out on the passageway’s rust-scored corrugated steel planking as dim, yellowish lights flickered overhead: “Not quite sure I’d call it nice, but whatever…”

Smudge wrinkled her nose and ran the back of a hoof across her watering eyes as she picked her way across a shallow pool of sewage, avoiding several dismembered, decaying corpses of unknown and unrecognizable beasts: “No shit, Steel! You have a funny definition of ‘nice!’”

Solar cocked an ear, then stopped suddenly after he took a long stride to avoid a deep crack in the ancient, weathered marble floor. He stood next to a fluted column that reached up to a dark, domed roof, and closed his eyes for a few moments.

He reopened them slowly and frowned: “Everypony stop!”

The group halted and looked around in confusion. Shatter stepped up beside Solar: “What’s the hold-up?”

Solar took a deep breath: “Can you describe what you see around you, Captain?”

She shrugged: “Sure. It looks like we’ve entered some sort of derelict ship or factory. I’m not quite sure why it’s down here, but I’ve sort of stopped worrying about things that aren’t actively trying to kill us!”

Solar smiled: “Entirely understandable. Would you please stamp your hoof down?”

Shatter raised an eyebrow, then slammed her right front hoof against the metal decking with a resounding ‘clang.’”

Smudge retched into her mouth and spat: “Fuck me with Celestia’s white-hot horn, Captain! Don’t splash that shit around–it’s stirring up bubbles!”

Solar tipped his head sideways: “Interesting. What did you hear, Lieutenant Steel?”

“Nothing, really–just the typical ‘thump’ of hoof on grass.”

“Yes, and I heard the crack of shoe on marble. It seems to me that we are walking through the ruins of some large, classical structure, from just before the era of the Sisters’ ascendance.”

Zecora furrowed her brow: “We each see this place through our own unique lens / and not merely sight it warps and it bends!”

Solar nodded: “Yes, these are very detailed and durable illusions. I smell ancient dust, Lieutenant Steel I assume smells grass, and poor Lieutenant Dusk appears to have encountered another noisome situation.”

“Just ‘Smudge.’ And yeah, if by ‘noisome’ you mean it smells like Tartarus’ backed-up sewer, you’re spot-on!”

“This is most worrisome. We are now in a situation where nothing we experience is to be trusted. Any of us could walk into a pit, off a ledge, into a spike, and not only would we not know, our teammates would be unaware until it was too late.”

Shatter ground her teeth: “So what in Tartarus do we do now? We can’t just sit here!”

Zecora tapped her chin thoughtfully, then pulled her bag open: “Perhaps our cloak can screen out these lies / and allow us again to trust in our eyes!”

Solar nodded: “It’s possible. Let me set up the energy envelope, then you cast your component into the air for my field to capture. I can then try to tune the cloak to our needs.”

Zecora nodded and lifted a small gourd from her bag. She carefully removed its stopper and poured out a measure of finely-ground, bright-yellow crystals into her hoof.

Solar looked around, gauging the distance from Steel in the lead, to Shatter in the rear: “Come in closer, everypony; we’re going to need to get cozy for this to work.”

The five ponies pressed in tight, with Solar in the middle, his horn shining a pale blue, casting a shimmering umbrella over the group, that slowly settled over them. Zecora tossed her yellow dust into the air and it was caught like golden dew on a spider’s web. It hung suspended for a moment, then flowed downward like glowing honey.

Shatter looked down as the metal decking beneath her hooves flickered like a candle-lit reflection for a moment, then resolved itself as dark grey stone: “That seems to have done the trick!”

Steel peered at the glowing curtain surrounding the group: “Yeah, but now we can’t see anything! Not seeing strikes me as just as bad as seeing illusions!”

Solar chuckled: “Bear with me a moment, Lieutenant! As I said, I need to tune the effect.”

The cloak began to flicker and pulsate through various colors and intensities, until it finally dimmed and settled into a translucent state, like thick, tinted glass.

Smudge squinted: “Well, that’s better, but it’s pretty dark!”

Solar nodded: “That’s true--the field is filtering the Void’s distortion and illusion effects, but at the cost of some brightness and clarity.”

Shatter pressed forward: “And at the cost of mobility, too! Alright, it doesn’t matter--this works, and we have to move on. How long can you keep this cloak up?”

Solar furrowed his brow: “I would say I can keep this effect functioning for at least the next six hours. At that point I will need some rest. I trust Zecora has enough of her powder for occasional touch-ups?”

Zecora nodded and dropped the gourd back in her bag.

Shatter turned back toward the front of the group: “Let’s try not to step on each others’ hooves, shall we? I’ll take point this time, Red Tabs--you bring up the rear!”

Steel rolled his eyes: “Which rear? I practically have my muzzle up Smudge’s rear! The distinction between ‘point’ and ‘rear’ is practically nil by now!”

Shatter looked back over her shoulder with a grin: “Well, just make sure to keep it professional back there, you two--General Staff frowns on fraternization in the field!”

Smudge laughed, and the team stumbled and jostled forward and downward into a deep, steep spiral of cracked and stained dry grottoes. The darkness swallowed the passageway behind them like a black fog rolling in.

---

After four hours of slow, clumsy progress Zecora’s team halted at the edge of the chasm. The far rim appeared to be roughly 80 yards distant, and was covered in a thick layer of tumbled stone and crumbled stalactites.

Shatter squinted ahead as Steel pressed up beside her and threw as strong a light beam toward the far side as he could: “Damn! I can’t make out any detail--just a whole lot of loose rock and boulders. It’s going to be another tricky landing!”

She looked back over her shoulder: “OK, we’re going to change it up this time. Smudge--there don’t appear to be any bad winds or fog this time. Fly over with a charged-up crystal lance and mark us an LZ for teleporting and ferrying.”

Smudge furrowed her brow: “Alright, but how will I know what’s really going on around me once I leave this cloak?”

“We’ll be able to see the true cavern around you. You’ll just have to trust that we’re giving you proper guidance as you cross.”

Smudge sighed and pulled a lance from the bundle strapped to Noble Steel’s back: “OK--I’m really not looking forward to puking again, but let’s do this. Charge me up, Steel!”

The unicorn’s horn glowed cherry-red for a moment, then fired a beam into the lance’s butt-end. The shaft glowed, then the crystal tip.

After thirty seconds he stopped, and nodded: “That should do for now. I didn’t load it up fully, since you just need it as a beacon.”

Shatter shook her head: “Top her off, Lieutenant--there’s no telling what she may run into over there. I’d rather have her ready to rock and roll, if necessary.”

Steel’s horn glowed again as he poured another minute’s-worth of magic into the lance: “That’s the best I can do, without risking a discharge.”

Smudge tucked the lance under her right foreleg, stepped out of the cloak and fanned out her wings. She stared in horror across the chasm, and nearly dropped the lance.

“Oh, sweet Celestia…”

The opposite rim of the chasm was now brightly-lit, as though for a stage performance, and arrayed across its surface were a variety of timbers, girders, rock slabs, and giant bones lashed together in ‘X’ shapes. Each ‘X’ had a pony bound to it by chains, or wire, or nails. There were scores of them.

The ponies’ bodies appeared to be emaciated and covered with numerous bleeding cuts. Most pegasi wings were broken or torn away, unicorns’ horns had been ripped from their skulls, leaving jagged holes, and many earth ponies were disemboweled. All had empty eye sockets that glowed with a pale, grey light. At the very front hung the broken, desecrated bodies of Green Streak and Top Cover.

Smudge trembled violently: “Oh...oh, Captain! I...I can’t!”

Shatter poked her head out of the field and beheld the ghastly spectacle across the chasm: “Fuck. Stand by, Smudge!”

She pulled her head back in and the scene cleared, presenting the far side again as devoid of crucified bodies: “We have a problem.”

Solar furrowed his brow: “What does Smudge believe she sees?”

“The same thing I do, I assume. It looks like a host of the Void’s victims all dead and splayed-out like fucked-up trophies, with Top Cover and Green Streak front-and-center!”

Steel ground his teeth: “That’s just wrong! Is it trying to scare us off or bait us?”

Zecora poked her head through the field for a moment, then withdrew: “I assume our foe would be content / to spawn both moods in any event!”

Shatter nodded: “Right--it wants us to panic or rush in or freeze or anything else, as long as it’s not a coordinated response. Smudge! How you doin’ out there?”

“Cap--Captain! Their mouths are moving, like they’re talking or crying! I--I’m trying not to throw up!”

Shatter grabbed a lance off Steel’s back: “Charge this thing! I’m heading over!”

Steel tipped his head toward the lance’s shaft, when Smudge's muffled voice interrupted: “No, Ma’am--you need to stay here to coordinate and rear-guard until everypony’s across. You gave an order, and it’s a soldier's duty to execute that order! Look for an LZ in a minute!”

She wiped away the tears that were clouding her vision, rose into the air, and shot across the chasm as the other ponies watched breathlessly through the cloak.

Shatter’s eyes flicked up and down as she calculated the best landing point for her fellow flyer. She thrust her head through the shimmering field: “That’s it, Smudge! Drop now, and you’ll hit an open patch, best as I can tell!”

Smudge glanced down and saw two crucified ponies looking up at her with their mouths hanging open in agonized screams. She clenched her teeth as the bile rose in her throat: “You’re not real, you’re not real, you’re NOT REAL!”

The pegasus swooped in low, landed heavily between two cracked, fallen stalactites, and dropped to one knee as she heaved violently, spewing vomit across the cave floor. The lance clattered to the ground beside her.

Instantly a dozen skeletal remains of rodent-like creatures scurried toward her, their bones scraping and clattering as they shambled forward. She looked around and lurched to her hooves, scooping up the lance, even as her stomach was wracked with a final spasm.

She flared her wings with a crisp ‘pop’ and pirouetted, swinging the lance in a wide, cherry-red arc, cutting down the carcasses and skeletons closing in on her.

She hacked and spat as she held the glowing lance aloft: “Captain! Here’s your LZ! Be aware there are rat skeleton things over here, and I think they’re real!”

Shatter pulled her head back inside the cloak and turned to Steel: “You’re up, Red Tabs! I didn’t get a real good look across the gap, but it sure seems like Smudge is fighting with something! Give a shout when you’re situated.”

Steel saluted, stepped outside the field and disappeared with a flash. He appeared a moment later next to Smudge, and dropped into a defensive crouch, his horn glowing a bright blue.

Smudge glanced down: “Shit, am I glad to see you! Tell me what you see!”

Steel scanned the area quickly: “I see a bunch of jacked-up pony corpses which I know aren’t real, but damn if they still don’t piss me off!”

“Yeah, yeah, but are there rat skeleton things?”

One of the skeletons, roughly the size of a small dog, leaped at Steel’s face. He disintegrated it with a blast of magic: “Yes--they sure seem real! I’ll expand a magic bubble and clear the LZ--Shatter’s going to want to get Solar and Zecora over here stat!”

Smudge nodded as Steel formed a rapidly-expanding shield wall of pale violet energy that swept the area clean. He then turned to face the opposite rim and boosted his horn’s brightness to its maximum.

Shatter squinted: “That’s the signal! OK, let’s double-up this time! Solar--you ferry Zecora across, and I’ll fly alongside as a spotter.”

Solar nodded and walked to the edge of the chasm. Zecora stepped beside him and was immediately wrapped in a pale golden glow. She nodded to Solar and began moving across the open gap between the rims. Shatter hovered for a moment, taking in the scene on the far side, shaking her head in disgust, then flew out into the open, tracking Zecora’s movement.

Solar knit his brows in concentration as Zecora neared the opposite rim. He felt eyes behind him, and a bead of cold sweat sprang up on the back of his neck.

Shatter swept in tight against Zecora as Solar’s levitation field dissipated, tucking a wing around her, pushing her away from the lip of the chasm, She looked back over her shoulder: “She’s here safe and sound, Solar! Flash-bang on over!”

Solar stood stock still, listening to sounds of breathing and slavering behind him. He turned slowly and saw a dense, charcoal-grey cloud filling the passageway behind him. Hovering just inside the cloud was a pair of pale, lidless, golden eyes.

A faint, thin whisper drifted to Solar’s ears: “Stay. I will teach you…I will give you a gift...”

Solar’s voice caught in his throat and his legs wobbled as the eyes closed in. Suddenly a hoof landed heavily on his left shoulder. He shouted in surprise and jumped sideways, nearly falling off the edge.

Shatter hovered behind and to the startled unicorn’s right: “By Celestia’s holy teats, old timer--why the delay this time?”

Solar blinked and shuddered: “I--I don’t know! Somepony or something was behind me. It tried to talk to me!”

Shatter squinted toward the ascending passage: “Yeah, well it’s gone now, and you should be too! Let’s move out! The others are encountering resistance, and can use all the help they can get!”

She lifted off in a cloud of dust as Solar furrowed his brow and disappeared with a flash. The golden eyes reemerged from the shadows and stared across the chasm, unblinking.

Comments

[FridayPie]

This is some first class horror dungeon