The Olden World

by Czar_Yoshi

Deep Into Shadow

Starlight's hooves hurt from walking by the time the stairs finally ended. It wasn't abrupt; they curved to a broad, gentle stop, like the base of a grand staircase in a palace. A dark brick wall with an identical stone door loomed before her, boggling her with how a place like this could be built in thirty years, let alone financed. Her only conclusion was that this cave had to exist before it was used to seal Yanavan.

"Bananas, that staircase was long," Valey grumbled, stretching as she reached the base. "I'm going to the creepy door first this time, okay?"

Starlight didn't object. She was too busy looking longingly at Maple's back, having already received several invitations to ride. But Glimmer's words stayed in her ears from before not to let her friends weigh her, and she was starting to put two and two together on why: nothing would have changed if she had used the harmony extractor save for giving Maple a fright, she was told, and now she was lightheaded, slightly dizzy and fairly certain she wasn't at her usual weight... Had something she did started her along the same disappearing effect even though she never touched the machine?

She could be half dead and her friends wouldn't even know.

A wave of bitter loneliness washed across her heart, but Maple and Gerardo were too busy watching the door to see her squeeze her eyes shut and hold back tears.

With a smooth rumble of rock, the door slid open, no traps or telekinetic fields activating as Valey scanned it and warily stepped through. Again, Starlight followed, weariness mounting in her legs as her hooves met harsh, hard stone. Why did the floor hurt? If she was really lighter, her steps should have been easy, but it felt like the cut stone was rejecting her, punishing her darkened hooves for touching its form. It took everything Starlight had to keep her eyes off Maple, and even then, her mother's harmonic brightness burned in her vision. But she couldn't have that. Not right now. Why? Didn't remember. Why not use the flame and get back to normal? Something about Yanavan using Nightmare Modules too. The specifics weren't important. She helped her friends and they loved her. Even Gerardo, who had just been suspicious that she wasn't herself, and everyone else who... something...

"Hold up, everyone," Valey declared, and Starlight looked up to see the batpony with a spread wing. "This doesn't look good."

They were in a rectangular room longer than it was wide, with effigies of arches and pillars built into the wall to give the room the illusion of more sophistication than it had. But it felt like a box or even a coffin, dark bricks forming the walls and ceiling in neat, orderly rows. Murals had been painted on them to give the illusion of mirrors, but the room they reflected was full, two lines of pews stretching down to an altar at the far end. In the real room, the altar and its pulpit were missing, nothing but a glossy black door set into the wall in their place.

The murals had ponies, too. Line after line of blurry equine forms seemed prostrate before the altar, though nothing or no one was at the head and Starlight couldn't make out any of the ponies' details. The floor was a mosaic of small tiles, the ceiling flat, rough-cut rock... What was Valey stopping for?

"Don't touch the floor," Valey muttered, frowning downwards. "I think... a tiny hoofful of these tiles are moon glass."

Maple bit her lip. "They all look the same to me. But you're right, they do sort of look like moon glass..."

"A trapped obsidian floorway? Devilish and ingenious," Gerardo remarked. "You'll be flying from here on out, I take it?"

"Yeah, uhh..." Valey tapped the doorframe uncertainly. "You guys know how dangerous this is to me, right? The absolute unbreakable rule of being a batpony is that you never, ever mess with this stuff. And if it's in the floor, one accidental landing and I'd be..." She swallowed. "It's built into this place, too. You wouldn't even be able to dig me out and take me with you. This is a kind of a huge risk, you know what I'm saying?"

Starlight didn't need telepathy to read the fear in Valey's eyes. One mistake in this room meant a fate worse than death, and who was to say there wasn't more moon glass through the next door? Her heart clenched; Valey was the one who had known for sure she was alright when Gerardo worried she had been replaced. Valey trusted her. Valey cared. Valey wouldn't leave her alone.

"Nnngh..." What would hurt more, to leave Valey behind when she needed her now, or to risk losing her forever? Starlight grunted and clung to Valey's chest, not wanting to decide. But it was her decision. She had to-

"Heh. Sorry, kiddo. Sorry, everyone." Valey nodded at Maple and Gerardo, ruffling Starlight's mane with a wing. "But I see what the locals meant about no batponies, and this is as far as I go." She continued before anyone else could interrupt. "Doesn't mean any of you have to keep going either. But this is my decision, I figured we'd run into this since we were warned, and already had time to think it over. You'd try and talk me out of it if I wanted to go, too, wouldn't you?"

Starlight blinked.

Maple weakly chuckled. "Really? I thought for sure I'd have to tell you to stay safe. You could try to fly along and avoid touching anything, you know."

"Yeah, but then I'm one bad situation away from kicking the bucket," Valey sighed. "And if it were anything but moon glass, anything where the danger applied to you as well, I would in a heartbeat. But this just doesn't seem like the place to have a big long argument about who risks themselves and who stays safe, you know?"

"...Do take care of yourself this way, as well," Gerardo urged, looking reticent. "Please remember that being on one's own in this place might produce unusual effects."

Valey winced. "Yeah, uhh... bananas. Coming down here seems like a worse and worse idea the more I think about it. Like, hey, maybe we should have just trusted Harshwater not to awaken or unseal some ancient evil? Only problem is, when has doing that ever worked out for us...?"

"Well?" Maple sighed. "If we're all in agreement, those of us who are going might as well press on..."

She took three steps forward and was suddenly met by a quiet hissing sound. Lifting her hoof in surprise, she revealed a floor tile that was steaming unhappily from contact with her harmonic body. "That's good to know..."

Starlight and Gerardo followed in careful procession. Starlight stepped on a moon glass tile once, but since she was already glassed, it didn't have nearly its usual effect. She felt a vague sensation of walking on ice that could break at any moment, dropping her into a pool of dark, but it would hold unless she wanted it to. Still, there was a yawning sensation within hoof's reach, like the tile she had brushed was actually a vast cavern that could hold all that she was many times over... She didn't want to think about it. It wasn't hurting her on contact, and she could live with feeling creepy.

"The door is moon glass, too," Maple murmured, surveying the structure as they reached the end of the room. Unlike the smooth stone slabs before, this one had hinges, and the handle was clearly a polished, glassy nub. Anyone without a horn would have to take it and work it in their mouth, and Starlight had a strange feeling even if she wasn't glassed, this would be one of the world's places where her horn just wouldn't work.

"Well then..." Gerardo took the handle in his talons, and the door swung open. Starlight was afforded one last glance at Valey's worried, waiting form, and then the door closed of its own accord, shutting her completely away.

A short, featureless hallway came next, and nothing stopped them from reaching the door on the other side. More moon glass steamed beneath Maple's sacred hooves; Starlight took care to avoid the revealed spots, just in case.

As the next door opened, another stone slab that seemed to retract into the ceiling with a will of its own, a rush of wind tingled Starlight's senses. Wind? In a cave? Whether it made sense or not, it was there, and soon she saw the room that contained it: a giant unlit canyon, stretching to the sides as far as the eye could see.

"Hmm. Impressive," Gerardo remarked, wielding Valey's flash club. To the sides, the canyon curved out of sight, its underground roof looming a short distance ahead. Their door sat on a platform on one wall, and two doors marked the way forward, one a short distance along the near wall, heading back the way they had come, and another on the far wall, linked only by a narrow bridge.

Maple shuddered, her mane lifting slightly in the ravine's unnatural wind. "I'm not liking the look of that bridge..."

"This is a very interesting construction," Gerardo agreed. "Whoever designed this place would know any sane explorer takes the path of least resistance first, and the seasoned and reckless try to brave that which is most heavily guarded. I suspect one of the two routes of being a trap, but the question is which one? That bridge does indeed look dangerous."

Starlight folded her ears, being small and unnoticed in the middle of the procession. She didn't have her shadow cloak up, but was tempted to change that. Valey was gone, her head hurt, she couldn't tell Maple she wasn't alright, but Maple was so bright...

"I'm inclined to think this place's architects would have believed the idle wanderers to be weeded out by this point," Gerardo continued, talking over her thoughts. "Any sarosians present are likely to have progressed at their own peril, and this isn't the kind of cave many others would find. So let me make two cases for the bridge being a trap and the easy door being the right way: first is that. They would believe the psychology of most who could find this place past its local cult of guards sufficient to-"

Maple cleared her throat. "Whoever built this thinks anyone who could make it inside would think the easy way is a trap and would go the hard way instead. Across the bridge." She eyed the spur of carved rock unhappily.

Gerardo nodded. "That's a succinct way of putting it. And second, our friend Harshwater is both used to such exploration as per her career... I hope... and believes herself to be looking for treasure. And another rule of dungeoneering is that dead ends frequently make good treasure rooms. So if she thought the correct way to be across the bridge, she might have taken the near door first."

Maple frowned. "That sounds like a stretch of logic..."

Gerardo shrugged. "Would you rather flip a coin?"

"Fine," Starlight decided, making the call for her indecisive friends. "We're going through the closer door!"

She stepped on past them to lead the way, hoping the show of faith in Gerardo would alleviate any worries about her she still suspected he had.

Comments

[Mira Starlight]

Moon glass hallways? Interesting …

[karnazom]

"Bananas, that staircase was long," Valey grumbled, stretching as she reached the base. "I'm going to the creepy door first this time, okay?"

Now that's a quote worthy of persevering.

[Mini-Joe]

welcome to.... the FIRST final boss dungeon

[Boopers]

9555339
It must be the opposite to the cave in Ironridge, where the walls were made out of crystallized harmonic energy.

[RoboRed]

This place is spooky.

[Hap]

9555943
youre_goddamn_right.gif