Spike's Doom and/or Destiny

by terrycloth

Driven Batty

A short trip down a spiraling staircase led them to a larger underground chamber, lit by the green and blue flames of eldritch torches that burned without heat. Darker passageways led off to the left and right, flanked by sinister statues of ponies in full plate, while a larger statue of a demonic orc stood in the middle of the room. In the far wall, behind the statue, was a massive set of double doors, carved with ornate geometric designs.

“I don’t see any enemies,” Bon Bon noted.

“Do we ever?” Moondancer asked. “They’ve been jumping out of nowhere to attack us since we started.”

Bon Bon grumbled, “I was hoping the dungeons in this game would be like the cows on the farm.”

“Only not as strong,” Derpy added. “Those cows were nasty.”

“How are they even going to jump out at us, though?” Spike asked. “This place is too well lit, and it’s not like the last dungeon with the piles of bones everywhere that could stand up and jump us. The floor’s a bit slimy, but –” He paused and scratched at the floor with his sword. “Do you think there’ll be slime monsters?”

“Probably,” Bon Bon said. “Come on, let’s check the double doors. Either they’re guarding a closet with treasure chests, or they’re the path to the boss that won’t open until we find some special key.”

They hadn’t even gotten halfway across the room when the bats attacked, swooping down from shadows near the ceiling, that nopony had thought to check.

“Dark Eidous!” Moondancer said, and lightning crackled between the floor and ceiling, incinerating one of the bats. Derpy charged at another bat, slicing it with her cutlass and taking of a wing.

Spike was just about to breathe fire at the rest, when one of the remaining bats let out an ear-piercing screech. He coughed and choked, belching out a cloud of smoke which he tried to wave away with his shield. He heard Derpy squeal as two of the other bats latched onto her, sinking their fangs into her armor.

“Dark Ei—” started Moondancer, before another screech cut her off, drowning out the rest of the spell. The spell still went off – frying another random bat – but even under her concealing hood the others could tell that she was in pain, gritting her teeth.

Bon Bon jumped up onto Derpy’s back, hacking at the bats with her cleaver, and Spike managed to skewer the last one when it swooped down to try to bite Moondancer.

“Everypony okay?” Derpy asked, summoning a muffin for herself, since the bats had managed to get through her armor a bit. Or at least, that was her excuse.

“I think so,” Spike said. “They were really weak, even if that screeching thing was annoying.”

“I’m not okay,” Moondancer said. “Kind of dizzy, and my head aches. The screeching resonated with my horn – I think it might have been a mana drain.”

“That, or you’ve got low blood sugar,” Spike said.

“Right,” she snapped. “Because clearly bats screeching in my ears would cause low blood sugar.”

“Irritability!” Spike said, smiling. “Another sign!”

“I’ve got plenty of candy,” Bon Bon said, nosing into her saddlebags to get some.

“No, hard candy won’t work,” Spike said. “You want pure sugar, or maybe –”

“A muffin?” Derpy suggested.

Spike shook his head. “Too much fat, it buffers the sucrose. Fruit juice, though – do we still have those juice boxes we picked up in Castle Town?”

“Since when are you a blood-sugar expert?” Moondancer asked.

“Twilight made me look it up,” Spike said. “She was worried about Pinkie Pie.”

“Pinkie Pie’s diabetic?” Bon Bon asked, trying to find the juice.

“No…” Spike said. “I mean, not yet. But Twilight wanted to have a checklist ready in case she was ever diagnosed.”

Derpy snorted, and then everypony got a case of the giggles. Even Moondancer. As the laughter was dying down, Bon Bon dug out a slightly-crushed juice box, and tossed it to the mana-drained wizard.

Moondancer caught it in her magic, and carefully inserted the straw. She missed on her first attempt, bending it sharply, and hissed in frustration.

“Do you need some help?” Spike offered.

“This would be a lot easier without you all staring at me,” she said, but managed to get it on the second try. She stuck the end of the straw into her mouth, and quickly sucked down the sugary liquid. The juice box’s walls caved inwards as she drank, and in seconds she was sucking down the last of the juice with a loud ‘sluurrrrp’.

She tossed the box onto the floor, and glanced around at her friends, who were all watching her expectantly.

“Did it work?” Spike asked.

Moondancer nodded. “I feel better. I just hope we don’t run into any more of those bats.”

===

They made it safely across the room, but the doors wouldn’t open. The device locking them had a large circular slot – to open it they’d need some sort of head-sized disk.

“That must be where we put the Biforce!” Derpy said.

“What’s a Biforce?” Spike asked.

“I don’t know, but there was a sign on the big statue that talked about it.”

“And you didn’t think to mention it before we came all this way?” Bon Bon asked.

“Um… I mentioned it just now,” Derpy said. “We haven’t even left the room yet.”

“We’re in a dungeon,” Bon Bon said. “Walking across a room could mean the difference between life and death!”

“I thought we wanted to fight extra monsters?” Spike asked. “Aren’t we supposed to be wandering all over the place to level up?”

“Yes, but –” Bon Bon paused. “Mana drain is really bad. These bats – if they run Derpy out of mana she won’t be able to heal us.”

“I use mana?” Derpy asked.

“What else would you use?” Bon Bon asked.

“But I don’t even have a horn.”

“You’re casting spells,” Moondancer said. “You’re probably using mana.”

Derpy scrunched up her nose. “Then why didn’t the bats make me go all dizzy?”

“You probably have a larger mana pool, and you don’t use it as much,” Moondancer said. “If I’d been conserving my mana and relying on the scythe more, I might not have been drained dry by the first bat attack either. There’s no point conserving it now, though. Anything I don’t use is just going to be drained again.”

===

They’d almost made it back across the room before the next group of monsters attacked them out of nowhere. This time, it was the slime on the floor rippling and congealing into a pair of glistening, translucent lumps – one light blue, the other bright orange. They wobbled slightly, like jello.

“I knew it,” Spike said, drawing his sword. “Slime monsters!”

“Can we just eat them?” Derpy asked. “They look delicious.”

“Only if we can beat them in less than thirty seconds,” Spike said. “They’re touching the floor.”

The blue slime made a noise that sounded something like ‘blooorp!’, and spat a glob of slime at Spike.

Spike caught it on his shield. “Yeah, you’re going to have to do better than that.”

The orange slime spat out a brightly glowing glob, which exploded in a massive fireball, hitting everypony. Spike was unharmed, of course, and Moondancer was also unaffected, somewhat to her surprise. Bon Bon looked slightly singed, but managed to curl up and avoid the worst of it.

Derpy was on fire. She flapped flaming wings and screamed as she fluttered around in a circle. “Ahhh! Put it out put it out!”

“I can help!” Bon Bon said, trying to catch her. “Just come down where I can reach!”

Spike charged at the orange slime, swinging his sword with all his might, and while it sliced through the substance like a magically sharp sword through a slime monster, that didn’t really accomplish much. The gash healed immediately, and the entire slime lit up with electricity as it shocked its attacker.

“Dark Eidous!” Moondancer said, invoking her own lightning. The blue slime was struck by the random bolt, but also appeared unharmed.

Spike took a few steps back, shaking off the painful shock. “What do we do! Nothing’s working!”

“Stop panicking!” Bon Bon said, as she chased Derpy around in circle. “You just need to eat one of these candies!”

There was a ‘spang!’ as the blue slime’s next projectile bounced off Spike’s helmet, ringing it like a bell. He growled, and charged right at it, swinging his sword in an overhand chop – and it was like chopping into a block of meat. The sword met enough resistance to stop it before it had made it halfway through, and when Spike drew it back, the wound remained, leaking a sickly green fluid.

“Of course!” Moondancer said, and took out a firebomb, chucking it at the orange slime. “We use magic on the magic ones, and physical force on the physical ones.”

The orange slime sizzled and crackled as it burned, but summoned a massive blizzard to put itself out – which swept over the heroes as well, chilling and slowing them. On the plus side, it did put out Derpy’s wings.

“I though the bombs weren’t magic?” Spike said, chopping at the blue slime again as it flung its entire body at him, battering him but not nearly as badly as some of the other things he’d fought.

“Elemental damage, then,” Moondancer said, tossing another bomb at the orange slime. “Close enough.”

Before long, both slimes were reduced to thin pools of ooze, sinking back into the slimy layer coating the floor. Derpy and Bon Bon rejoined the others.

“I’m so sorry I panicked,” Derpy said. “I didn’t mean to but I hate being set on fire! It’s the worst thing except for getting stabbed I guess but until I came here it was the worst thing and it always makes me panic.”

“Does it happen a lot?” Spike asked.

“The Great Muffin can be a harsh mistress,” Derpy said, her lightly singed wings drooping. “Although it hasn’t happened as much since I started letting Dinky light the stove.”

Bon Bon, meanwhile, was searching the slime’s remains. There was no golz, but she did find a small pile of… “Jelly beans?”

Spike turned to look at what she was holding in her hoof. “Oh, neat! Those are good for low blood sugar, too. In case we run into more bats.”

“They came out of a slime’s body,” Moondancer said, grimacing.

Spike blinked. “And?”

She shuddered. “I’ll stick to the juice boxes.”

Comments

[RowynII]

Maybe they're magic beans!