Princess of Infinity

by Echo 27

XV: Infinitus Umbra

She felt it fall around her the very moment she stepped forth from the open gates, her senses already alerted to the emptiness that filled the world around her. Even the light, always inherent in the gateway before its sealing, was consumed by the enshrouding veil of darkness. So thick was it in the atmosphere that she could feel it on her skin like small pinpricks, an absence where even the faint gleam of starlight should fall down from the heavens. As her husband came to her side and the doors of the great gateway were sealed closed to leave her world darkened even to her eyes that their journey had at last come to an end.

“We’re here…”

Ford looked about, perhaps hoping his vision would eventually acclimate to such a blackened place. Yet after time passed, he only gave a sigh of defeat and let his shoulders sag. “It is like seeing through a veil,” he murmured. “The darkness here is as much the atmosphere itself! Surely this is-”

“Sombra,” Celestia answered, nodding slowly. “We have come to the heart of Infinity.”

“Heaven help us,” Ford whispered. “Even the Colony’s world was nothing like this.”

Celestia believed it would be far, far worse, but did not allow the words to escape her lips. Already, after only a short time standing in the depths of this place, she could feel its oppression fall against her bones and make her weary, the totality of the darkness causing her soul to cry out for sustenance; she was a creature of Light, and from it did she draw her strength. Here, in a world where Sombra ruled in finality, she would have no hopes of gaining power, nor a means to recover. Every wound she would be dealt would remain, every blow would stagger, every cut and slash across her skin would draw blood and be at the mercy of strength of flesh to heal. All the power and majesty she had brought with her was all that she would possess when they finally met at last.

“So… what are we to do?” Ford asked of her.

“You need to find shelter. Get as far away from me as you can,” Celestia answered.

The answer was an unexpected one. At first her words did not register, Ford’s eyes popping when they finally sank in. “I am sorry, but I surely didn’t hear that right,” he remarked. “You expect me to simply up and run away rather than stand and fight-”

“Ford, this is beyond you. Far, far beyond you,” she said forcefully. “Sombra has been holding here, letting his power grow. He will be monstrous- deadlier than anything you can possibly fathom. For you to stay with me any longer would be suicidal. You have fulfilled your task, beloved. I am here, where the need is greatest. I will face Sombra alone; you should seek shelter until the battle is done.”

“I will do no such thing. Not even if it costs me my life,” he said angrily. “If you expect me to simply hide away like a child-”

“This fight is beyond you, Ford. It is not a matter of bravery, it is to keep you alive!”

“And if you were to die here, do you think that would spare me the pain of it?” he challenged. “The gateway is sealed shut, Tia. No matter what we wish for, we are trapped here with him. I would rather be right there in the middle of it than waiting for the storm to pass.”

“You can’t fight the hurricane, Ford.”

“We can certainly try.”

It would be no use convincing him. She suspected he would follow her in secret if she sent him away; better to at least have him in sight in case things boded ill. “Very well, then,” she said at last, “but if I am unable to overcome him- run. As fast as you can, as far as you can. Do we have an agreement?”

“You certainly do not,” he replied. “I am there with you, even to the end of all things.”

More fool him. But she relented, simply nodding her head and beginning her march forward into the consuming Deep.

The land lay dark and veiled before them, each step into the murky depths of the lightless land just as inscrutable as the last. Every glance up into the sky offered them no sign of a single star by which they could guide themselves or find comfort away from the depths of the shadows. The land through which they wandered was rotted and long-dead, mere husks of trees and plants rising around them as decayed corpses, the soil beneath their feet as dry and desperate as the wastes of the desert.

“It feels more like silt than soil beneath us,” Ford murmured, his voice kept low by the eerie surroundings. “This place must not have seen rain in centuries to become like this.”

“For it to rain would mean there is hope of life,” Celestia replied. “Such a thing would not… assure…”

She paused. Something was above them, far, far into the sky beyond their reach. She could sense its presence, the pressure it generated moving through the heavens. Yet it gave no heartbeat, not even the smallest sign that life still dwelled within it. It was too distant to be a moon- surely, it couldn’t be-

“The Sun,” she breathed, staring up into the sky as though she could see its silhouette even in the endless black. “The sun is up there right now!”

“How? How is that possible? It is pitch black out here!”

“I can sense it! The gravity keeping us tied to it, the rotation, its weight moving through the rest of the universe- Sombra extinguished it!” she cried, falling to her knees at the realization of it. “Sombra extinguished the Sun…”

“But he is an Umbra- he draws strength from the dark. So if he somehow put a blight on the sun, then he’d…” Ford’s voice left him as he too came to the conclusion his wife already knew. “Then he’d never stop growing stronger. He’d be able to feed his power endlessly.”

“The very air we breathe would betray our presence,” Celestia said. “Everything in this place- every single thing is at his command.”

Ford was left staggered by it, slowly beginning to understand the gravity of the battle they now faced. To defeat Sombra would not be some mere clash of good versus evil but two souls rising against the very fundament of this world’s existence. “How long has he been here just waiting for us? It must have been thousands- tens of thousands of years just waiting for us to arrive!”

“And how likely do you think it is that he already knows we are here?” she asked.

“Why doesn’t he stop us, then?” Ford looked this way and that as though he expected the rotting weeds at his feet to suddenly come alive and drag him into the earth. “What is he waiting for? Surely this is everything he’s wanted.”

“For the same reason he did not slay us where we stood when we came to his City,” Celestia said bitterly. “He must prove his strength. He wants to beat us –to beat me- in such finality that there can never be doubt of his victory. We are his last trial, Ford. If he defeats us…”

“He would leave this place. Leave the Palace and crush the world beneath his feet,” he breathed. “By heaven, Tia, can you hope to stop him?”

“I don’t know,” she said faintly, her words disappearing even in this silent, echoless place.

“What?”

“I don’t know!” she said again. “I have grown strong, but this- this is not rule of a physical kind, he is part of the very existence of this place! He has darkened the world so utterly, I don’t know if any wound I dealt him would not simply heal right before my eyes.”

“You’re an Alicorn- the Alicorn!” Ford said. “No one has ever come close to you in thousands of years, how can your altered kin hope to stand against you?”

“This is not the world you know, Ford. This is- it is so much worse. It is like the Accursed Days, before the Dark-Maker was dispelled into the Abyss. I- I do not know if we can fight this and hope to win.”

“Then we need to have a plan, some way of stopping this or else he’ll be on top of us before we can do anything-”

A long, baying call in the distance brought an end to their argument, the two coming together and facing towards the direction from which they cry had come, wondering if the sudden sound of such a thing was no coincidence.

“That sounded like a wolf,” Ford breathed.

“No wolf would serve such a master,” Celestia said. “No proud beast of nature beyond Man would deign to bend to his will. It will be something born of a nightmare’s mind.”

The baying call came through the emptiness once more, soon answered by a trio of calls from further beyond the deep.

“Perhaps they are hunting for us?”

“Then we need to find a place of safety if we can manage it. Do we have hope of such a thing?”

“Not here. We are too exposed, the trees are still open.”

“Look ahead, could you find a way to-” Ford stopped himself, shaking his head. “I am sorry. You can see here no better than I.”

“Keep your eyes open, and hope for what we can find. Hurry now!”

They moved swiftly across the decayed terrain and sought out shelter in the veil of dark, their path slick as ice across the loose soil. Searching for outcroppings of rock or caverns into the earth bore fruitless, their weariness eventually coming to them and slowing their progress, even Celestia coming to feel sweat drip across her brow. The stale, empty air of this place bore no wind or hint of coolness that would lessen their discomfort. Finally, as they began to wonder if their search would ever end at all, a small grove of dead trees came to their eyes, the many husks of wood thick and numerous. Even with no leaves or green of any kind to shelter them, the mere numbers would be enough to keep them from peering eye.

“If we had means of covering our scent I would use it,” Ford said, walking slowly behind them as he swept away their tracks. “I have done all I can. If something finds us here, it will not be for lack of effort.”

“Keep your eyes open. If you have a plan, now would be a good time to divulge it.”

“I have nothing yet-”

“Then we must think. Quickly- Sombra will not let us remain idle forever,” Celestia said, settling down in the deadened earth and beginning to think.

“How do you feel?” She was broken from her reverie before it even began to find Ford sitting beside her, looking at her with concern written on his face. “Your face is still red. And you’re still sweating…”

“The lifelessness of this place is unmerciful to me,” she said. “I will be slow to recover in anything we do.”

Ford looked at her and tried to do what he could, brushing away the dirt and grime on her face, checking her body over for injuries. Despite all his hopes in helping, there was simply little he could do. Her will against Sombra’s machinations was all she had to aid in the struggle.

“How will we find him?” he asked her. “If he truly does know where we are…”

“He will reveal himself in time, of that I am certain,” she replied. “If possible, I wish to find him first. He would have us try to defend against him- I would rather strike first.”

“So we search him out; where would he be?”

Celestia knew the answer easily. “Wherever the foulest, deepest, darkest part of this world can be found. A place where he can fester and rot, to let his strength multiply.”

“So underground. Shall we set to digging?”

It was a weak attempt at humor, but enough to elicit a small laugh from her lips. “We seek a way underground. Right now, it seems we are in what was once a forest. We need to seek rockier terrain, mountains perhaps. And from there- find a way down.”

“And then do what we came to this Palace to do,” Ford said, trying his best to keep his head held high. “I like the way you think.”

Celestia took notice of him. The dark circles around his eyes, the way his face sagged on his bones, how heavy his shoulders were for him to keep held high…

“You look at me as though I am ill,” he remarked.

“When was the last time you had any rest?” she asked.

Ford took his time to think it over. “However long it has been since we left our true home, I suppose,” he answered. “How long has it been for us? Hours? Days? I have no means to know any longer.”

“Ford…” His gallantry had yet to fade, and though she was appreciative he was beginning to wear thin. “You need to have some sort of rest- real rest, not just something as simple as this.”

“Then so do you,” he countered. “You are the only thing of importance left for me- I will not rest if I am not certain of your safety.”

“Ford, you are just a human being. You need sleep, if only for a little while.”

“But if something were to happen to you!”

“Would it ease your conscience if we took turns, then?” Celestia asked. “Please, I need your eyes and ears sharp.”

He appeared unconvinced, but Ford nodded in assent of her words. “Every hour, we swap,” he said. “It will be more than what I need to be strengthened again.”

She kissed him, motioning for him to lie beside her as she kept guard. “I will think of a plan while you sleep.”

Despite his protests and concerns, Ford was fast asleep in a matter of moments, his slumber heavy as he slumbered beside his bride. She found herself enjoying the gentle sound of it, the rhythmic breathing a peaceful sound in the midst of all absence of it. A small, quiet sound of life where no real life had yet to be seen. She knew how exhausted he truly was; their journey across the Palace had been a gauntlet, and every trial they had encountered he had taken head on. His mentality, right from the very beginning, had been to bring her to Sombra even if it cost him his life- admirable, but she had no intention of seeing him fall here. If Sombra was here, so was the Philosopher’s Stone. Defeat Sombra, take the Stone, and return to Equestria with eternity in grasp.

But could she even do such a thing? Sombra owned this place, a progenitor of the Void that had come to consume this land. It would be a battle against the very essence of nature in this world, and she would have no relief from the tide of black that covered this place. And Ford-! she grimaced. He was determined to be caught in a battle that could very well be the end of him, yet if he had any fear of the end, he gave no show of it. In fact, for all that they had endured, Ford had shown remarkable courage against the growing adversity; a relentless dedication to his task.

She thought back across the years to her last meeting with Sombra. He had demanded to know Ford’s true nature, something not even she had knowledge of. He had seen her husband as a potential threat- a variable he had not planned for. Though Ford had no powers of magic or flight, or anything remarkable beyond the strengths of mere man, he had endured trials even great kings had never known. She pondered him, gently stroking his hair from his face… just what was her husband, really?

The ground beneath her trembled. She paused, waiting for it to happen again; the soil shifted back and forth once more, this time more violently. Something large was moving across the area- and likely headed straight for them. With what discretion she could manage, she leaned over and began to rouse Ford, trying her best to keep him quiet. Each footstep she felt was only growing in strength.

“Tia, what-”

“Ssh! Something is coming this way!” she whispered, the growing rumble of earth shaking the nearby trees-

Ford was up in an instant, coming to her side as they faced out into the blackness, wondering when their heavyweight foe would reveal itself. The trees shook back and forth, some coming to crash down on the earth and shatter into pieces-

Show yourself! Foul servant of the Deep, come meet your fate! Celestia thought, her hands beginning to pulse with her inner fire. All her years of rest had been for this place, where she would bring an end to their hunt at last-

Ford gripped her arm tightly and pulled her close, his other hand falling across her mouth for fear she would make a sound. Close enough to see his gaze, he freed his hand from her lips and pointed upwards.

Celestia looked up and knew the being was atop them. Though she could hardly make out its form in the darkness, she could still see the dim silhouette towering above them, a great glistening shape of impenetrable black, and its many limbs walking through the grove without a care. Several twisting, writhing appendages akin to tentacles trailed from its back and down past its belly, trailing across the treetops, the tendrils flicking madly as though they sought for someone to grasp. If there was a head she could not see it, though she could hear a horrid squelching sound of fluid meeting flesh. Each veiny limb sank into the earth like a stone in water, throwing decayed soil about in a spray of dirt and dust, Celestia and Ford falling low to the ground in the hopes of being left unnoticed.

Ford tensed beside her, his hand twitching madly. She reached out for him and held tight, hoping whatever cosmic horror above them would not notice his fear- or her own. The Titan from long ago had been a noble beast, an innocent creature doomed by Sombra’s machinations. Whatever creature that traveled above them was no such beast, but a creature of the Deep.

For how long it rested above their head she could not say. Perhaps its length was sprawling and it seemed to go on forever, or it paused above them and simply stodd- but when it at last moved off into the horizon and out of sight, its heavy footfalls no longer causing the ground to roil, she at last gave a quiet sigh of relief. “I think it has left us,” she said.

“For how long?” Ford replied. “Its presence here was no coincidence. We have rested for too long.”

She was about to agree when she heard a twig snap. One of the broken limbs of a downed tree had been damaged by something- something very close. Her hands were brought to the ready, eager to fire at a moment’s notice. Perhaps the larger creature had been one to clear a path, and this was the true assault-

“Lower your hands! I mean thee no harm!” The harried whisper of a woman met their ears and left them stunned. A pair of figures crept out from the destruction and shuffled towards them cautiously, each carrying a primitive spear. “Please, we offer no resistance! Do not harm us!”

Ford looked over at his beloved, hardly able to believe it. “People have survived this place!”

“Come forward and reveal yourself,” Celestia commanded. A snap of her fingers and her right hand glowed with a soft tongue of flame, illuminating the destroyed grove- and revealing a pair of young women, looking at Celestia as though she was a great horror.

“It will seek the light! Cease your fire!” they pleaded, their faces stark with terror.

Celestia extinguished her flames immediately. “Who are you and who is your master?”

“M-master?” the girl spoke again, Celestia suspecting it was the younger-looking of the two. “We… we have none. Our father has us on patrol for food…”

“Please, let us go. We don’t mean any harm to you, oh great spirit,” said the other. “We merely seek sustenance. Do not devour my sister, at least!”

“What? Of course not! We are here to stop this darkness!” Celestia replied. “We seek Sombra- the Dark-Maker of this world. Can you lead us to him?”

If she was to guess, Celestia believed she had likely left the two women confused. “We do not know anyone by such a name,” the younger said. “But perhaps our father might. He is the oldest member of our tribe, he might be able to answer your question.”

“Have you really come to stop the darkness? Can you help us?”

“That is our aim,” Celestia answered. “Please, if you believe your father can help us, take us to him immediately.”

“Papa? Papa!” the two girls called out into the cavern mouth, where a flickering glow of firelight could be seen far within its depths. “Papa, come quickly!”

“Renaya? Saliya, quiet your voices! The Lycanthropes will hear you for miles across this empty place!” said a male’s voice, a figure silhouetted against the light far in the back.

“Papa, we found someone! We found people out near the grove!”

The group of four came into the cave mouth and their faces were dimly illuminated by the weak light, Celestia and Ford at last seen by their guides, and by their father who now stared at them with mouth agape.

“God in heaven,” he breathed. “You are not of this place at all!”

“We are not,” Celestia answered. “And I believe we have come to redeem your home.”

The man rubbed his eyes madly, trying to assure he was not seeing things. “My name is Jairus. Into the cave, quickly! I wish to see the light upon your face.” He fell back into the cave away from the mouth, taking a torch in hand and leading them onwards.

Their trek into the depths of the cave took them considerable time, Jairus’ route through the tunnels a twisting, winding road. Celestia wondered if the nature of it was intentional, a maze meant to protect them from outside threats. Each step further in only heightened her lack of direction; if it had not been for guidance, she and Ford surely would have been lost in this labyrinth of rock.

“Just through here. Hurry now!” Jairus said, ushering them through a tight corridor that opened into an expansive cavern. “You will be safe here from the Blightkeepers and the rest of the world’s horrors.”

It was a meager, desperate sight that Celestia now faced, looking out into a crowd of perhaps only a few dozen people, each one covered in pitiful rags to cover their bones. Every pair of eyes she fell upon bore that same dull, hopeless stare of a despaired soul; their skin was pale from lack of light, and sickly from malnourishment, hanging onto their frames like wet rags. Not even in the last days of the Colony had she seen such misery.

“Is this all that is left of you?” Celestia whispered.

“Perhaps. We have yet to encounter others in this land,” Jairus answered. “My grandfather met strangers when he was young- but that was so long ago, who could know what came of them? Please, excuse me…” he turned from Celestia and took his daughters in arm, holding them tight.

“We are fine, Papa. I promise,” said the younger, a sweet-faced girl whose hair was nearly the cover of silver.

“I have to make sure, Renaya. Every time,” Jairus replied, kissing her forehead before turning to her sister and doing the same. “I am glad you are safe. It was brave of you to venture out so far.”

“We could not find anything, Papa,” Saliya added. “The grove has been destroyed, there is no more food there.”

“Yes! We went to look when the Cryptonus took it down, and found- we found them.” Renaya’s voice was quiet, but not of disgust- rather, it seemed more fascination. In fact, as Ford looked about, he could see their presence was causing quite a stir among these poor folk. He looked down at his arms and considered his own form, so strong and blessed by the strength of the sun. To them, they may as well be gods.

“Come sit by the fire, my friends,” Jairus offered, sending his daughters away and turning to his guests. “We have little food and water, but what we have to share we will grant you.”

“Grant us nothing! We have our own with us,” Celestia said fiercely, taking the canteen from her side and offering it to the man. “Clear water, from better shores than this land can know. Drink your fill.”

For a moment, Jairus looked at the offered water as though it were poison before taking it in his hands and gulping it down in a matter of seconds like a man dying of thirst in the desert. “God help me, such a thing-! The taste on my lips!” He looked at her with a powerful hunger. “Is there more? My head is clearer than it has been in all my days, I wish for more for my people!”

“Here. Take the lot, I have reserves for she and I,” Ford said, offering his own and watching as it was shared about the huddled mass. “Take what you need. As for the rest… we will do what we can.”

“I have no doubt of it now; surely you have come from the heavens to deliver us from this hell,” Jairus proclaimed.

“We- we certainly hope so,” Celestia replied. “But to do so, I believe we will require your aid.”

“I will do all that I can. But please, before we continue, I must know,” Jairus said, looking at them with an absolute desperation. “Please, will you be able to deliver us? Truly?”

Celestia still had her doubts, but she knew better than to voice them here before a man who clearly looked to them for hope. Perhaps for the first time in all their lives they had found something beyond the inescapable darkness of their world. “We have come to strike down the Deep,” she answered.

There was a hushed murmur about the huddled group, all of them speaking to one another rapidly; a few brave folk reached out to touch her and Ford or even just the hem of their garments, as if the mere grasp of them would bring about a miracle.

“All that we are is at your service, my friends,” Jairus said. “What is it that you ask of us?”

“We seek the heart of the Void. A place deep in the earth,” Celestia answered. “You would not dare to tread before its mouth; you would look upon it and feel it try to suck you into its grasp. As though the very darkness had eyes and teeth that sought you out and would try to grind you into the dust.”

Her words seemed overly descriptive to Ford, but Jairus appeared so disturbed that it seemed as though she had said the perfect thing. “God in heaven, surely you do not mean to go down to that place!” he cried. “Please, do not descend into that darkened hall! You are fair and beautiful, surely you could do much good here above the earth?”

“You know where it is!” Ford exclaimed.

“We live in the shadow of it,” Jairus replied. “My grandfather brought us here long before I was born and deemed it wise that we keep it in sight. So close are we to its heart that the Blightkeepers do not see us. It is as though the seeping of the Deep hides us from their gaze.”

“How close are we?”

“Please, do not try to go there! The Prison of Souls only breeds terrible, terrible darkness! If you go down there, you will never come out!”

“Do we look afraid?” Celestia asked of him. “We are of Light, and in us there is no darkness left to be found. We are the antithesis of the Deep, and we seek to snuff it out. We have hunted it across countless worlds, through the great expanse of land and time, knowing it by name. We have seen all its strengths and fury and still we stand. Do not try to hinder us when we seek to save you!” Celestia seemed to glow with power as she spoke, her words bringing a warmth that even fire could not bring. All those about them seemed to grow stronger as they heard them, the deepened spell of darkness that was on the world lessening slightly. Some even dared to smile.

Jairus’s face still spoke of his despair, but he motioned to his fellows. “At the end of this cavern is a hidden stairway into the quarry. We have kept it safeguarded in case we ever are discovered in this place, or one of us begins to Turn.”

“Turn?”

“When the darkness takes hold of us, we exile them through the stairway and into the quarry, in the hopes that they are killed before they Turn completely. I assure you, it is better than the fate that would await them otherwise.”

“What fate is that?” Ford asked.

Jairus looked down at his covered hands and took away his gloves, revealing a blackened hand so deeply colored of the dark that it seemed more an absence of all flesh and light. Even the nearby glow of the fire disappeared into the void where his hand should have been. “It is the fate that awaits us all,” Jairus answered. “Not long ago, I awoke and found the tips of my fingers had begun to blacken. When I awoke yesterday, the entire hand was dark. Before too long, it will spread to my heart and I will become one of the Blightmakers; a beast without thought or will, an absence of life that serves the one who dwells in the Prison.”

Ford was left disturbed by the sight of it, leaning away as far as he could. Even Celestia was disgusted by the horror of it. “He consumes you.”

“Every day we grow more desperate,” Jairus said. “The water that flows beneath the surface of the earth is slowly being poisoned. There is little food, even if we travel for days to find it. The more time passes, the faster we Turn. My grandfather survived for sixty years, my father for fifty- I am only a man of forty, yet I have only a few weeks before I am consumed. In time, we will all be Turned and there will be nothing left on this world but beasts and monsters!”

“Silence your fears! Now is not the time for despair, when you are so close to seeing it come to an end,” Ford said. “You spoke of a stairway that would lead us to this Prison. Gather yourself and what strength of numbers you will need and lead us to it. My beloved and I will finish this fight.”

Jairus’ despair was momentarily broken and he began his work, leaving Ford and Celestia alone as they conferred together, huddled closely in the hopes their whispers would not carry across the cavern.

“Tia, we’re close. We are this close. I know you had doubts earlier, but this is not the place for them,” Ford said. “If he leads us to Sombra and we go down into his chamber, how certain are you that you can defeat him?”

“Ford, I don’t know!” Celestia whispered, her voice husky with grief at the sight of the despairing people. “What he is doing to them is unlike anything I have ever seen!”

“That’s not good enough anymore. We are out of time and they’re going to die if we don’t do something to save them! Yes or no- can you kill Sombra?” Ford asked, his eyes widening with fear as he slowly came to realize her answer.

“Y- may- no. No!” Celestia said. “This is a power that was only ever seen in one, and Tavan was a being beyond any Alicorn or Umbra could have ever dreamed of becoming. Sombra has bided his time for so long, he has left his old title behind. Whatever he is here, it is not an Umbra any longer.”

Ford looked about, stricken by her words and the sight of the dying folk who now looked to them as their saviors. “The gateway, then,” he said bracingly, trying to recover his own steam. “Could you destroy the gateway, seal him off? Then when we have him trapped here, we hack away at him bit by bit as best we can.”

Maybe! I cannot say anything for certain here-”

A horrible shriek echoed through the cavern and brought all word and motion to a halt. Renaya screamed again, rushing towards Celestia and fell at her feet. “Please, help me!” she cried, lifting up her hands and showing them as black- strong, dark, and steadily growing down her arms. “Please, stop it from spreading! Save me!” She was absolutely desperate, terrified by the sight of her own body being stolen from her, and Celestia could only watch in horror as she was slowly stolen from her. Renaya looked upon her and the realization that she was doomed came upon her in earnest, understanding that not even Celestia had the strength to spare her-

“Help! Please, spare us!” the cry was echoed throughout the cavern one after another, each man, woman and child becoming consumed by the ever-seeping darkness that blotted out flesh and bone and life. All about them each one was being taken, turned into a crawling wound upon the earth.

“You thought you would save them?!” came a roaring voice, echoing through the very air itself as though it seeped from the rocks. “That they would be spared my wrath? Watch as they suffer before you, and see as they offer you to me!”

“Darkness be damned, can’t we stop it?” Ford cried, grabbing hold of one of them and trying to shake them of their affliction, his hands burned by the heat of the consuming Void. “Tia!”

“Run! Through the stairway!” Jairus cried, writhing on the ground as the blackness stretched across his chest and upwards to his neck. “Run! Run-” his words were cut away and twisted into a horrid, gurgling sound as the black overcame him, leaving no more but a burning, seeping blackness that screamed its horrors into the cavern- with dozens surrounding him.
“Run!” Celestia cried, seizing Ford by the arm as they rushed to the stairway, up and out through the tightened space of rock as the sound of the hordes behind them grew closer. “Don’t look back, don’t look back!”

The shrieks and screams of the Blightmakers echoed across stone, mingled with that horrible laughter that seemed to come from the very earth itself, an endless cacophony of nightmarish noise that blared in their ears. It did not stop for even a moment, not as they ran up the stairway, into the open world, and out into the derelict quarry. The sound followed them wherever they ran in their desperate hopes to escape it, the viscous footfalls of the beasts loping behind. They ran hard, knowing they could not turn and fight back or bring harm to the beasts, for they would surely again see the desperate, hoping faces of the souls that had been twisted and broken-

Celestia felt grubby claws grab hold of her and throw her to the ground, a cry ahead of her suggesting Ford had also been taken down. The two writhed and kicked and fought with all their might, but more of the Blightmakers came to aid their fellows and dragged them away, their screams echoing endlessly through the blackness, even as she and Ford were hoisted and thrown into the depths of the Void where all sense and feeling were lost in a sharp, sickening Thud!

Author's Note:

And so we have arrived. The end is almost upon us. Prepare yourselves, for everything has led to this.

New additions to the soundtrack can be found here: Boop

As always, comments and corrections below.

And... be ready.