Quest For Salvation

by Chrome Masquerade

Chapter 15: Prison Break (edited)

The second party, composed of Emberglow, Peach Potion, Garett, Silver Masquerade, Asterion and Vurning Bright dashed down the right hall. They'd also divided into a natural division of labour.

Garett and Emberglow were checking ahead for traps, Silveer tapped the walls i suspicous looking locations, trying to find secret doors. She had the best attention to detail of the group. Asterion and Burning Bright were equally tough, so they ran next to each other. Peach Potion stood in back, ready to work her magic if need be.

Suddenly, a well hidden pressure plate was triggered. A red exclamation mark appeared above everyone's heads, accompanied by an alarm sound(1)

"JUMP!" Garett shouted. As they all leaped, a gigantic blade sliced through where they were standing, actually slicing through a few shadowed pursuers.

The heroes had little time to gloat, as the next door cae up, which they gladly went through, On the other side, Genevive, breathing heavily, queried, "Okay, how do the minions in this place not trigger these traps?!"

Garett was the one to reply. "An Avoidance enchantment. It's Changeling magic, so most wouldn't notice it. Extremely well crafted, too. Whatever the one we're going against may be, fool isn't on the list."

The party then scanned the room that they were in. It looked to be a gigantic prison complex. Despite being seemingly grungy, it was equally as well sculpted as the rest of the dungeon.

"What is this place?" Peach said in wonder.

"It looks like... a prison of sorts. An old timey one." said Asterion. "Specially made to break spirits."

All around, there were cages with creatures of various races within. Many were seemingly sleeping, but others were rousing slowly. Near to the cages were large plates of food, juuust out of reach of the occupants.

"So... hungry." said one emaciated Earth Pony, echoed by some others..

Most of the Ponies were so broken of spirit, so hopeless that their Cutie Marks were almost invisible.

Burning Bright bared his fangs. As a paladin, this disgusted him on a very visceral level. "This. Will. Not. STAND." he hissed.

[Burning Bright's Rage Meter is at 80% capcity. 81%... 82%...]

Immediately, the draconic paladin went to the nearest of the cages, shoving the food closer to the pony inside.

The thin equine ate greedily, as if he hadn't had anything to eat in months, which was probably close to the case. Still, he paused long enough to say, "Thank... you..." before he esumed gobbling down as much as he could.

As the Pony ate, his Cutie Mark became more visible, being a green star. His colour also visibly brightened.

Peach Potion was the next to react, doing similarly. "I can't stand seeing this. Here. Have as much as you want, you poor thing." she soothed the Gryphon in the metal pen.

The others made to follow suit, each helping the thin creatures inside the cages.

Silver asked one, "What's with this place?"

The response was, "It's the master's prison. Designed to leech the soul out of the occupants. But first they tantalize us with succulent morsels every day... only for it to be out of reach. So that when they do extract our souls, usually the moment one's Cutie Mark disappears entirely, our spirits are broken, and we'll do anything they say."

Another paused in eating to say, "This is only one of six facilities inside this Tartarus-hole. Surely the others are having equal trouble. Even if our souls return, which happened for some of us recently, it's no better!"

Burning Bright started to channel his namesake as wisps of golden flame flickered around him, gradually gaining in frequency. Peach Potion was also showing signs of getting 'fired up', as bue flames began to crawl across her form and her coat began to darken.

"We're getting you guys out of here." Genevive said, seeing the way the wind was blowing.

"Whr wld we go?" one Gryphon mumbled, mouth half full.

"Would you rather stay here?" Garett asked, half-rhetorically.

"I suppose not." was the response.

The party began exerting their strength to free the prisoners. After eating their fill, Asterion began handing out weapons.

Peach asked, "Hey, how are you carrying all of those?"

"Bag of Holding." Asterion said, not pausing in the task. "We all got one. Didn't you notice?"

"Honestly? No. I kinda didn't." Peach said. "It would have helped greatly to know."

One of the freed prisoners spoke up. "I remember hearing some of the guards talking about a potions storeroom right down the hall, relatively near to their forge."

At that, Peach perked up. "That helps a lot! Thank you!"

With that, the enlarged party proceeded, passing by more prison rooms and freeing more emaciated prisoners.

Garett got the bright idea to stash some of the leftovers, just in case.

At length, they reached the mentioned storeroom.

Peach quickly applied her skills, identifying the different potions with rapid-fire celerity.

"Invisibility, Invisibility, poison (leaving that behind), Moderate Cure, Light Cure..."

She sorted them out by effect and stuffed them, group by group, into her bag.

"OOH! I'm DEFINITELY taking these!" she suddely exclaimed, looking at one set of potions yet untouched.

"What are they?" Silver queried.

"Rare Quality."

"Huh?" Silver asked, confused. Suddenly, a notification window appeared.

[Items have seven different quality rankings: Normal, Magical, Rare, Epic, Legendary, Unique and Mythic. The effect of the item and its qualities increase in rank exponentially with each rank up. For example, a Normal item will have 1% the quality of a Rare item. A Rare item will have 1% of a Legendary item's quality.]

"Oh. Thanks!"

[You're welcome. ]

At the second window's appearance, Silver startled, certainly not expecting that.

"Ooooo-kay!" she said, slightly creeped out.

The party moved on to the next room, where two Ponies were chained to slabs of red and purple metal respectively sticking out of the floor. One, a brown Earth Pony, stopped to slice a chunk of the metal from the slab. He lamented, "We'll never get rid of this stuff."

The female, a bright gold Pegasus, nodded. "Now I know how Sisyphus felt." she concurred.

'They're players!' the party realized as one.

Asterion commented casually, "Nice forge! Wish my father's was of this quality."

Not even noticing the party yet, the male said, "The demons here chained us to slabs of Iridium and Veridium(1). Thhey said that when the slabs were gone, we would be free to go. Until then, we're forced to make weapons for them."

"You'd think that they'd feed their Blacksmith and Enchanter." the female added, "But NOPE. We get plenty of water, but hardly a morsel. Yet we somehow keep moving, even as we starve."

"That's probably because of the properties of the metal you're chained to." Emberglow said. "Iridium and Veridium hold high levels of positive energy. You've been in contact with them repeatedly over your time here, so it's natural that you'd be energized by it. Very clever."

At this point, the hope-lost Ponies looked behind them, finally spotting the party.

"Other players?" the female queried, incredulous.

"How'd you get here?" The male asked the next obvious question.

"We're on a mission from Gawdess." Silver joked. "What are your names?"

"Kendo Rein." answeredthe male.

"Imbi Wing." the female responded as well.

"Imbi Wing?" Emberglow asked.

"Sound it out. Slowly" Imbi said, as if she'd explained this a dozen times

Asterion was the one who did so. "Imbi wing Im-bi Wing..." then more slowly. "Im-bi-u-wing. Imbuing. I get it."

"Dad thought it was hilarious. Mom thought it was a good name."

"Ah. One of those." Burning Bright dadpanned.

"Right you are." Imbi continued. "What he forges, I make gorgeous."

Without further ado, the chains of the two Ponies were severed, setting them free. Only then did they truly feel the hunger they had.

Fortunately, Garett said, "I figured that something like this might occur. Rule #1: Preparation is key." So saying, he drew out the leftovers from the now-fed prisoners. The two ate greedily. Garett turned to his comrades. "We'd better eat something too; we've only had a slab of journey-bread each, remember."

So the party sat down to repast with the freed forge-Ponies.

"So." Emberglow said between mouthfuls, "How'd you get here?"

"Capped early on." Imbi said. "Given a potion that aged us up until we were old enough to work efficiently. Might not look it, but we're about three and four, respecctively. Been here a loooong time, but when you don't see the sun or moon, time tends to lose meaning."

"In return for our freedom, we'll GLADLY make equipment for you. You're only wearing +1 gear, I see." Kendo offered. "The others I see, too. They wn't be back for the next little while, so we're safe to do so."

"And when we're done... payback." Imbi said, slamming her forehooves together with an audible *CLACK!*

"Agreed." Burning Bright said. "Those villains need to learn a lesson. And after this, they won't know what hit 'em."

Garett took the severed chains and tossed them into the molten metal. "Rule #6: Exploit every resource you can as soon as possible."

Burning Bright ordered to the ponies behind them, "I know you don't want to, but just in case, return to your cells to keep up appearances. We'll get you out again soon. My word is my bond."

"What about you guys?" Kendo asked.

In response, Peach took an Invisibility potion out for each and they were eagerly imbibed, the party vanishing immediately after. "Improved Invisiblility. This should last for about 8 hours, or until we attack something. We're good." she explained.

The two smiths grinned in unison and got back to work.

Peach Potion heard CelestAI's voice in her mind. "While your party followed, you were among the first to start feeding the prisoners, the ones who reacted the most to the injustice dealt and the first to welcome them into the fold. And while it would be expected of the paladin, you did similarly without being expected to. This is a great show of Compassion."

Upon her necks appeared torcs bearing a mostly-filled sun for Peach Potion. However, their invisibility made this impossible to notice for the others.

Author's Note:

1: Obvious MGS reference is obvious.
2:
3:
Thanks go to Amulet Star and That1MageLeaFan on deviantart for the images!