The Chalice of Rhinyorgrun

by Coyotek4

Solutions and Surges

For a half-hour, Rainbow Dash runs the gamut from manic to depression.

She flies along the ceiling, desperately seeking a way to open the trap door that led her and Quibble Pants to this marble mausoleum. She bangs on all areas of the ceiling, calling out for anypony to hear her cries. Numerous times, she flies down to the ground and suddenly shoots up, attempting to break through the marble interior … but each time she is unable to generate enough speed in the cramped quarters to gain enough momentum, and each time she hits the ceiling with a hard *bang*, followed by a graceless fall back to the ground. After several failed attempts, she then scours the walls and floor, desperately seeking an alternative exit. In the process, she knocks over the sacks of colored rocks and disperses Quibble’s work; though irritated, Quibble holds his tongue and resumes his work, placing rocks of various colors in rows, in an attempt to crack the code given by the back of the parchment Dragonlord Ember entrusted Daring Do.

Rainbow makes a couple more attempts to simply grab the Chalice of Rhinyorgrum from its pedestal; each time, she is met by a jarring electrical surge that flings her backwards.

Finally, broken beat and scarred, Rainbow collapses on her back and stares at the ceiling, devoid of all but hopelessness. “We’re going to die here, aren’t we Quibble.”

Quibble’s focus remains on his rows of rocks, but he engages Rainbow in conversation in an attempt to keep her spirits up. “It’s not healthy for you to sound like I did when you were saving my life during the convention.” He chuckles at his own comment in an effort to add levity to their situation, with little success.

“I guess it’s not all bad. I’m not leaving a whole lot of ponies behind, at least. Well, Mom and Dad, I guess … and Tank, my pet tortoise. But tortoises live forever anyway, so it’s not like this day wasn’t going to come eventually, right?”

“I wish I could empathize,” Quibble offers, “but I’ve never had a pet.”

“And I’m not leaving any siblings behind,” Rainbow continues, oblivious to Quibbles remark. “Well, Scootaloo, I guess; she’s like the sister I never knew before I met her. She’s just the most awesome pony you could ever meet. I’m serious … even more awesome than me. She’s got the biggest heart of anypony I’ve ever known, and she’s taught me so much. *sigh* … Sure wish I could’ve told her all that.”

“There’s still time, Rainbow. There’s no ‘quit’, right? You taught me that.”

Rainbow smiles, but not at Quibble’s comment. “I bet Scootaloo is really enjoying the concert. Did I tell you, Quibble?”

“Uh …”

“I was supposed to be at a Metallicolt concert right now. You know they have a new album? They got this one song, called ‘Moth Into Flames’ … I think that describes what Fluttershy’s feeling right now. *chuckle* ”

“I’ve always been kinda partial to Tantabus, myself. You hear their new song, ‘Nimble Discord’?”

“Now I got another song stuck in my head: ‘Now That We’re Dead’. You think that’s appropriate to describe us now?”

“Right now, I’m partial to lyrics like ‘Whatever tomorrow brings, I’ll be there with open hooves and open eyes’.”

“Seriously, we’re stuck here forever now, aren’t we? I mean, I guess ‘forever’ isn’t really the case; we’ll die of starvation before too long. But eventually, we’ll just be dusty bones like all the others here, won’t we.”

Quibble opens his mouth to respond, but his mind quickly snaps back to one particular, simple row of rocks.

“I’m really sorry you got caught up in all this, too. Bad enough that I have to go this way, but I’m all about adventure and stuff. I pretty much have to accept that something like this could happen to me. But you … you didn’t deserve this.”

“Rainbow …”

“Funny how life can throw you a curving buckball in an instant. It really was only yesterday afternoon that I was chillaxing …”

“Rainbow, get over here!”

Quibble’s command shakes Rainbow out of her stupor long enough for her to get to her hooves and trot over to his position, careful this time not to disperse any of his work. “What is it?” she asks, a faint glimmer of hope in her voice.

“This should work,” Quibble proudly announces as he proceeds to fill half the holes with rocks. Rainbow observes her companion at work, then inspects the final product, reading from left to right.

“Purple-red-green-purple-red-green … I don’t get it.”

“It’s actually simpler than I thought it’d be,” Quibble admits. “Since ‘red-green-purple-red-green’ gives ‘purple-red-green’, adding a purple rock in front will cause that value to double; that means ‘purple-red-green-purple-red-green’ gives back ‘purple-red-green-purple-red-green’. We get back what we put in.” The smile on his face gives Rainbow more hope, but she remains puzzled at a number of concerns.

“But why are there twelve holes in the wall? And why would Sombra create a puzzle that didn’t use even half the information given by that parchment?”

Quibble struggles to answer each of Rainbow’s questions, his eyes darting from one corner to another.

“And by the way,” Rainbow continues, slightly exasperated, “why didn’t anything happen? Where’s the exit? Why are we still stuck here?”

“Well … I dunno, really …” Quibble continues to squirm, before an idea pops in his head. “Maybe we can get out now. Here, I’ll show you.” He begins to walk towards the pedestal.

“Uh, Quibble, you don’t want to touch that … I’m warning you …”

“Hey, I solved the puzzle. It’s done. Now all we need to do is figure out how this Chalice—”

As Quibble reaches for the Chalice, a burst of electricity surges through his body. The shock sends him careening into the hole-filled wall, knocking all the rocks out of their holes as he crashes to the ground.

“QUIBBLE!” Rainbow rushes over to tend to her comrade.

His hooves still quivering, Quibble slowly rolls off his back and takes several breaths while waiting several seconds before applying pressure on his hooves. Content that he can stand up without falling, Quibble rises from the ground and attempts to shake off the tingling sensations in his extremities.

“How… how did …” he starts in between gasps, “How did you put up with all those shocks?”

Rainbow shrugs. “I dunno. I work with lightning all the time, I guess I’m used to getting mild shocks.”

“MILD SHOCKS??? You call that a MILD shock???”

“Look, forget about the shocks for a minute! What do you think went wrong?”

“There was nothing wrong with my reasoning! There was nothing in that parchment that mentioned needing all 12 holes; that’s just being arbitrary. It’s like this Sombra pony’s not playing fair!”

Rainbow briefly rolls her eyes. “OK, so let’s assume that we need to use all twelve holes. And given the nature of that Chalice and the puzzles we’ve already seen, let’s also assume that we need to use all the colors in the solution. Got any ideas for how to continue?”

“Well … I do have another idea. It came to me for a bit, but I abandoned it when I saw what I thought was a simpler solution. Take a look.”

Quibble places a red and green rock into the middle two holes along the wall, leaving 5 holes on each side to fill. All I need now is the right generator, and I guess now it has to contain the other colors.”

Rainbow gives a quizzical look at both the wall and at Quibble. “Generator? What do you mean ‘generator’?”

“It’s like this,” he starts to explain. “We already know that ‘red-green-stuff’ gives back ‘stuff’. What we need is for ‘stuff-red-green-stuff’ to give back ‘stuff-red-green-stuff’. In other words, there should be a five-rock combination that generates the transformation needed to go from ‘stuff’ to ‘stuff-red-green-stuff’; we find that five-rock combination, and we find whatever solution this ‘Sombra’ pony intended.” His last comment comes out with a touch of derision towards his long-gone tormentor.

Fogginess remains in Rainbow’s mind. “You seem confident,” she admits, “but I’m still in the dark by what you mean by ‘generator’ and such.”

“OK, let me illustrate.” Quibble pushes four rocks, one each of the colors blue, yellow, purple, and orange, into a single pile. “Just assume for the moment that this pile of rocks represents the five-rock combination we need.”

“But … there’re only four rocks in that pile.”

“I know, but again, it’s just a representation; right now, we don’t know what the fifth rock color should be, or what order the rocks should be in. But again, just assume that pile represents the five-rock combination, OK?”

Rainbow nods. Quibble moves more rocks around, so that two piles of rocks, each one composed of the four colors as before and separated by a red rock and a green rock, line up in a row.

“So take a look at this new row,” he continues. “We need to find a series of blue, yellow, purple, and orange rocks that can turn any pile into what you see here: ‘pile-red-green-pile’. And remember our options: ‘blue’ adds a red rock in front, ‘yellow’ adds a green rock in front, ‘purple’ clones the entire row, and ‘orange’ removes the first rock in line. With the right combination, we can turn that pile into ‘pile-red-green-pile’; we use that combination as our actual pile, and … and that should work.”

Rainbow takes a minute to process Quibble’s explanation. “OK, I think I see what you’re getting at … so for example, you say we need two of those ‘piles’, so we need a purple rock somewhere.”

“I agree … but not immediately,” Quibble states. “I think we start with the pile on the right … and the first step is to add that green rock right in front of it.”

“And to do that,” Rainbow adds, “we need a yellow rock. And I guess we also need a blue rock, to add the red in front of the green, right?”

“We’re on our way,” Quibble states, excitement in his voice. “So ‘blue-yellow’ generates adding a red and green rock to the front of the pile. Now I think we double the row.”

“OK, so put a purple rock in front of the blue and yellow ones,” Rainbow continues. “That would make ‘red-green-pile-red-green-pile’.”

“And now we get rid of the two rocks in front, so we add two orange rocks to the purple-blue-yellow group.” Quibble moves more stones around, creating a row of orange-orange-purple-blue-yellow. “This should be our generator, and it’s exactly five rocks in length … so we should have Sombra’s intended solution.”

“So … orange-orange-purple-blue-yellow-red-green-orange-orange-purple-blue-yellow? That’s an awful lot of color, even for me. How can we know for sure?”

“To start,” Quibble says, “we know that ‘red-green-pile’ gives us ‘pile’. That means ‘red-green-orange-orange-purple-blue-yellow’ gives us ‘orange-orange-purple-blue-yellow’. Now we just keep adding rocks in front:

“ ‘YELLOW-red-green-orange-orange-purple-blue-yellow’ gives us ‘GREEN-orange-orange-purple-blue-yellow’.

“ ‘BLUE-yellow-red-green-orange-orange-purple-blue-yellow’ gives us ‘RED-green-orange-orange-purple-blue-yellow’.

“The next stone doubles the whole result, so ‘PURPLE-blue-yellow-red-green-orange-orange-purple-blue-yellow’ gives us ‘red-green-orange-orange-purple-blue-yellow—red-green-orange-orange-purple-blue-yellow’.

“Finally, adding two orange rocks removes the red and green result rocks from the front … so ‘ORANGE-ORANGE-purple-blue-yellow-red-green-orange-orange-purple-blue-yellow’ gives us ‘orange-orange-purple-blue-yellow-red-green-orange-orange-purple-blue-yellow’. It’s twelve rocks in length, it contains every color, and we still get out what we put in.”

“So you think this time,” Rainbow finally adds, her heart pounding faster than ever, “we get out.”

“There’s only one way to be absolutely sure: you fill in the first five holes, while I fill in the last five.”

Together, the two quickly fill each hole with its respective colored rock. Rainbow fills in her final hole first; as Quibble moves to fill his last hole, she detects a humming sound emanating from the far corner. She turns towards the chalice, which is now cycling through its color pattern at a dizzying rate as an electrical buildup gathers within its bowl.

“Uh, Quibble?”

Her companion’s focus is on the rocks in the holes; as Quibble places the last rock, it and the other rocks begin to glow. “WE DID IT!” Quibble triumphantly announces, ignorant of his companion as he hoof-pumps in the air. “We solved the Chalice Puzzle!”

“Yeah, that’s great Quibble, but—”

“I’ve never solved a puzzle so difficult in my life … twice! That’ll show that smug Sombra guy!”

“I’m real happy for you, great job, but seriously—”

“Now this is a puzzle worthy of the next Daring Do adventure … once we add the extra restrictions, of course. I mean, it’d be just lazy to allow a simple solution to—”

“QUIBBLE!”

He finally turns to Rainbow Dash. “Yeah?”

“HIT THE DECK!!!”

---

Why do I always put these things off ‘til the last second?

Split Second certainly meant to return his copy of ‘Inspector Brown Beauty’ sooner; the pegasus had finished reading the coming-of-age/detective fusion novel several days ago. But then there were ponies to see, parties to attend, work that always seemed to intrude … and then there was that unfortunate coming down of hoofing cough just the other day. Now he only had minutes left to return the novel before the inevitable … a two-bit fine! And so he found himself galloping through the streets in the dark of night, grateful at least that the library would be open for him.

Almost there … FINALLY! …

Reaching the main entrance, Split Second pushes open the doors and trots towards the information desk. “Excuse me, I know it’s very late but I need to return … oh my!”

Upon reaching the desk, he peers over the counter and sees two ponies bound and gagged, each struggling with their ties. Upon seeing the visitor, each makes muffled pleas to the pegasus stranger, who quickly flies over the counter to reach them and undo their ties. “What in the name of Celestia happened to you two?”

“There’s no time to explain,” Daring hastily declares. “You two head immediately to Princess Cadence; she must be informed of a dire threat to all of Equestria. I need to find my friends, and—”

Without warning, the ground beneath them begins to quake. Suddenly, a beam of dozens of rotating colors blasts through the floor of the library proper, continuing upward through the ceiling and causing chunks of wood, stone, and crystal debris to rain down from above. The shockwave from the blast causes several rows of bookshelves to topple over as the threesome are flung backwards into a wall. Moments later, the beam wisps away to nothingness; all becomes calm once again.

---

As a dust cloud dissipates from around the pedestal, a small hill of fallen marble, stone, and library debris several feet in height reveals itself. Along an opposite corner, two ponies cower in response to the power surge that they anticipated right before the pulse emitted towards the sky. Covered in dust and shaken up but otherwise unharmed, the two slowly pick their heads up, dust themselves off, and look up at the hole in the chamber.

Quibble gapes at the carnage for a minute. “What in Equestria caused that?”

Rainbow’s focus is on the pedestal; the Chalice remains standing atop the structure, dust- and damage-free and continuing its cycling brilliance of colors. “I guess Sombra somehow had the Chalice hardwired to do … that …” she continues as she looks up at the hole in the wall.

Quibble trots over to directly below the hole, looking up through multiple levels of floor and ceiling. “Sweet Celestia, whatever did this went straight through the library’s roof! I can see the stars from all the way down here!” He then looks back towards the Chalice. “You think it’s now safe to …”

“Only one way to find out.” Rainbow flutters over to the Chalice, takes a deep breath, and reaches for the Chalice. As she touches its sides, another surge of energy fills her body … but not a shock. She cradles the Chalice in her forehooves as she begins to feel a warm glow spread throughout her entire body.

Whoa …

She slowly turns to Quibble, surprised to see him gaping again. “What?”

“Your … your body. It’s …”

Rainbow looks over her body, and is stunned to see its hue cycle through various shades of blue. From cyan to azure, midnight to morning to powder, light, dark, and every shade in between, Rainbow’s entire body changes blues as the Chalice continues to cycle through the myriad of colors in existence.

Oooohhh … myyyyyy … gawwwwd!!!

“How are you … feeling?” Quibble cautiously asks.

“It’s incredible. It’s like I’m permanently being hugged by every loved one I’ve ever known. I … I don’t really know how else to describe this. It’s just …”

“HELLLLOOOOOHHHHHH …”

A cry from above draws the attention of the twosome who each look up. Through several layers of floor, they spot Daring floating above them, calling out.

“Come on,” Rainbow tells Quibble. “grab on to my body and I’ll get us outta here.”

Quibble nods and grabs Rainbow’s midsection. As his hooves come in contact with her body, he feels the same warm sensation; taking a brief glance at his body, he notices his natural orange color cycle through various shades of apricot, peach, pumpkin, melon … from tan to brown, and everything in between. Mesmerized for a moment, he refocuses on holding on tight as Rainbow Dash, Chalice in hooves, flies the twosome up through the holes and eventually into the library proper.

Author's Note:

Yes ... Sombra cheated our heroes, and not the writer who failed to see a much simpler solution than the intended one.

Comments

[Inspector Brown]

I was not expecting you to combine my username with the name of Paul Revere's horse. You, sir, just made my life.

[Adderbane]

I'm liking this. There needs to be more stories with Quibble on this site. You write him pretty well.