Father of Monsters

by BaeroRemedy

Shackled

“Rise.”

The voice commanded and his body obeyed. Despite the lack of heart, despite the extreme blood loss, despite the fact that his body had died some time ago, he rose. The old pegasus’ body rose against its will, his eyes opening and glazing over with a hint of red.

“Strata…” He mumbled out as his hooves found purchase on the featureless stone floor. Once he was fully upright, he was once again face to face with Grogar and his squad of the damned. Instead of malice like before, the ram only regarded Intrepid with a mild curiosity.

“This one is more metal than flesh.” The necromancer observed cooly as he lifted the pony’s metal leg with his magic grip. “You will be instrumental to my escape, I think.” The beast then moved past Intrepid and towards the stone door above.

Everything in Intrepid’s mind was telling him to fight or run. He wanted to spin and use his metal hoof to bash Grogar’s skull in, then sprint off back into the temple to hide and wait… or maybe just to die again. But whatever he wanted to do, whatever he told his body to do, it wouldn’t happen. His body refused to comply and stood there, waiting. The only view he was provided with was the the almost two dozen Shackled thralls staring back at him with their empty sockets.

“Yes, you want to kill me. I know.” Grogar grumbled out. “Get those ideas out while you still can!” Intrepid’s mind froze as the ram spoke. How, how did this monster know what he was thinking? Was it just common with his thralls, or- “I know what you’re thinking because I have consumed your essence, your soul is now forever linked to my own. I can hear you, I control you… but you still exist. You will remain in there for as long as you stay sane, so a decade at most I think. Do not fret, I will put you to good use.”

Without a word Grogar retreated from the door and his army of the dead advanced, minus Intrepid. The ancient bodies clambered over one another as they reached up to stone door, then they threw their brittle bones at the stone, wailing on it and pounding away at solid rock in a vain attempt to dig through. Their bodies broke, hooves and legs splintering and shattering as they willingly broke what was left of their corpses to please the command of their masters.

“She got away…” Intrepid spoke aloud, apparently only his mouth under his control at this point. “She got away…” He couldn’t make it say more than just a couple of words at a time, but it mattered to him. He was still here, he could still do something apart from Grogar.

“It will go away in time. All of you will.” Grogar walked past the pegasus, his head held high and purpose in his steps. “When they are spent, only then will you start.”

Intrepid didn’t question it, he just knew that he would obey.

-- ?????? --

How long had he been here? There was no more light, the torches had gone out an entire lifetime ago. The rest of the undead horde had left their bodies in pieces underneath the door, leaving but a dent in the solid stone.

Then he took over.

At first he bashed his metal hoof against the rock. He had beat it against the door until it was nothing more than a metal stump extending from his body. He ripped his metal wing from the socket, using that to chip away all he could until nothing was left but a twisted shard.

When the metal ran out, he started using his hooves.

How long ago had his voice gone? He remembered repeating names… names of ponies he knew, then one day he started to forget the names… then he started to forget words, and then eventually his voice had left him altogether.

Even his thoughts now were simple, long since devolved from words and now just a series of images flashing through his mind. One kept popping up in particular, a shining white city on the side of a mountain. It made him happy as he beat himself bloody against the stone to think of that place, but he wasn’t sure why anymore.

Then there were the images of the mares. One white and one brown. They made him happy too. Who were they? What happened to them? He just knew that they were okay, and that made him happy too.

Now his other hoof was gone too. It hadn’t lasted as long as the metal one, just chipped away against the rock in… well, he didn’t know how long it lasted. It wasn’t long. He just knew that the bone breaking and the sinew and blood leaking out wasn’t good.

Once his hooves had stopped, his head was the only tool left. He didn’t stop to think about it, he just did as he was told. This time, his body won over the stone. Finally. His head was cracking, he had already lost the sight in one of his eyes...but he only needed one to see sunlight pour through the once thick stone doors.

“Good.” That source of his orders stood by him, his two horns glowing and splitting the rocks apart easily now that the hard work had been done by the pony and the others. “Your time is up now, rest.”

The Shackled pony didn’t know why, but the thought of that made him so happy. So he did just that, he followed orders and finally rested.

Comments

[Miller Minus]

I like the imagination of this story a lot. It's got a lot of the qualities that make Uncharted's stories great, but with the added twist of existing in a world full of magic. And ponies. I think you blended the treasure-hunter storyline into the world of MLP very well, and built an excellent world to play in. The magic seal in front of the tomb, for example, was a neat obstacle for the characters to overcome. The touches of language-related flair also added a lot to the scenery.

All that said, the narration didn't make reading this easy. It's over the tell-y, handhold-y deep end, with every part of Intrepid's inner workings explained outright. The easiest place to see this is in the dialogue. Every time two characters are talking, they say one line, then there's a whole paragraph of what Intrepid's feeling. Then another line, and a paragraph of a character performing an action. Another line, a paragraph of Intrepid's upcoming thought process. The dialogue gets no chance to flow.

Really, there's several paragraphs I could pick out that could be reduced pretty drastically, without changing what happened. Like these paragraphs... I hope you don't mind the scratches:

“Indeed, I am.” Her voice seemed to lighten up just a bit. as she began to speak about her work. “I found something rather interesting during my last dig and I’m following up.” Those icy blue eyes seemed to warm a little, her posture became a little less rigid and more open and relaxed. The marks of a mare with passion, he liked that.

“Oh? ” he asked, now knowing how to get Strata to talk. Ponies like this, the kind that lived for their work, were an easy egg to crack once you knew the right spot to hit. “Might I ask what you found?” These types loved talking about their work, especially if it was something that they thought of as theirs. So if this was Strata’s discovery, she would be singing like a canary soon.

“What I find every time, ruins,” Strata stated simply, with just a hint of sarcasm behind the words. Intrepid cracked a smile and leaned in, interested if she would add more. “There were some markings that indicated another lost ruin, something nopony has even heard of before.” There it was, her discovery. “I am going to find it.”That was not just a statement, that was a promise. He could tell.

In my opinion, you really don't need any of that. As it is, your dialogue and your character expressions tell us what's happening perfectly well. We can tell she's warming up now that she's talking about her work, we can tell Intrepid enjoys talking to someone about their passion, etc. The reader isn't going to complain that they weren't warned how Intrepid would approach the conversation. If you were to apply this to the whole story, we're talking about thousands of words in savings.

Speaking of your characters, I like them a lot. They're distinct and unique, and they each play an important role in the plot. That said, I would rethink Strata's reactions to the things around her a little more. I get that she doesn't care about anything but her work, but even when she makes great advances in her work, she doesn't react too strongly. When they made it inside the tomb, for example, I was expecting her to contribute a little more fanfare to their success. Unless you want to go the full Maud, I recommend having her show a little more emotion during the scenes in the tomb.

The ending felt rushed. And gruesome. Seriously gruesome. Of course, this level of gore is very different from the Grogar in the show, but even putting that aside (it's fanfiction after all), it's different from everything we read leading up to it. If you want to be that gory, I recommend having something up front so that the reader knows what they're getting in to.

Thanks for writing!

[Foggy Dreams]

Hmm. Will say I didn't expect the ending. I only wish that there was more to this story and to Intrepid.