Realm of the Lost

by Orsuros

Chapter 26: Grandeur's Job

Yona yawned and was about to stretch, but then she remembered that Sandbar was cuddled up against her and still asleep. He got all blushy when Yona had said they should sleep together last night. Ponies were often strange like that, but once she explained that it would be friendly cuddling, he gave in. All her friends were special, but Sandbar was even more special to her after how he had helped her after the dance. Yona carefully placed a pillow under Sandbar and left him sleeping as she got up.

Smolder and Ocellus were curled up together nearby. Gallus was now sprawled out around the spot where he and Silverstream had slept. Silverstream was already up and helping Mirage Chaser make breakfast. Starlight sat at a table with a lifeless look in her eyes as she sipped from a cup of coffee.

“Yona, you’re up,” Starlight said. “Morning.”

“Yona want to help. Yaks always get up early and work hard.”

“Why don’t you wake up everyone else? Breakfast is ready.”

Yona took a deep breath then yelled. “Wake up, sleepyheads! The early stomp flattens the path!”

“Stop! I’m up! I’m up!” Gallus held his claws over his ears. “Who needs an alarm clock when we have whatever that was?”

Sandbar stretched as he got up. “Yeah, that was loud. Anything going on?”

“Breakfast time!” Yona replied.

Smolder and Ocellus got tangled up as they both woke up. A moment later they were both looking away from each other as they sat on the cushions.

Silverstream walked over with a stack of small plates. “I hope you all like it!” She placed delicious looking pastries on each plate. She placed a vegetable quiche on most of the plates, but substituted a gemstone quiche for Smolder.

“Wow! That looks great!” Gallus said.

Mirage Chaser placed a hoof on Silverstream’s back. “Silverstream was very helpful. Eat up.”

The food was soon gone. Mirage Chaser handed out cups of herbal tea while they started packing up.

“Sandbar can contact me if you run into any trouble,” Starlight said. “The magic of your crystal circlet should be able to reach me. And before we split up, I’ve recharged enough of Harmony’s magic to give you all a little more of it. I’m hoping we won’t need it, but you can use it to get out of any difficult situations.”

“We’re just talking to a nerdy dragon,” Smolder said. “We should be fine. It’ll be like Spike and his comic books.”

Starlight chuckled. “I hope so. I’m not sure what Grandeur will have us do to repay him. I hope it isn’t too difficult. Anyway, those of you going to see Scriptus gather around Saffron. I’ll teleport you as far as I can.”

Smolder, Ocellus, and Sandbar gathered around the kobold while Starlight created the teleportation circle. The magic always made it feel like Yona’s hair was standing on end. The group disappeared in a bright flash.

Starlight looked at everyone left in the room. “Mirage Chaser, thank you for providing us shelter. I hope we see each other again in better circumstances. Everyone gather near me.”

“It certainly was interesting,” Mirage Chaser said. “We could have gone without the whole chaos seed incident, but it’s natural for youthful creatures to make mistakes like that. Safe travels!”

Starlight cast a second teleport spell that took them to within a mile of the walls of the Bazaar. Glissanda met them once they walked closer, and soon they were being shown to Grandeur’s huge mansion in the middle of the market.

Rows of griffon statues stood guard around the mansion. Glissanda led them to a walled off garden where Grandeur was waiting in a fancy gazebo. Yona liked the red and gold paint, but the entire thing seemed so big.

“Ah, there you all are!” Grandeur said as he waved a hand in the air. “It’s so good to see you again. I’ve been hearing very interesting things about you. One of my contacts said you have less than three days in this world, unless you find other ways to stabilize your temporal placement. But that’s a difficult topic to discuss. Instead, let’s talk about how I hope you can repay me. Come! Let’s have some drinks and snacks while I explain the work I have for you.”

Grandeur offered Gallus the seat next to him. He used his magical bag to produce very fine porcelain cups along with some tea, coffee, and sweets. Yona tried to sip the tea quietly, like Rarity had taught her, but she got tired of that and moved to munching on the cookies. Formal things like this always made her feel impatient.

“I looked over the jobs I need done, and I think I’ve found the perfect one for your group. A powerful unicorn necromancer made a deal with me and borrowed a valuable item, a crystal ball called the orb of spirits. He died, but he continues on in undeath through his magic. The deal we made came due at the end of his life, but he’s arguing that it hasn’t ended even though the contract makes things very clear. Your job is to get into the crypt that he resides in and collect his horn and the orb of spirits.”

“That sounds dangerous,” Starlight said.

“It’s easier than the other jobs I have, especially for nicer creatures such as yourselves. And the contract doesn’t really allow you to refuse a reasonable job like this when it comes to repaying your debts. If you do especially well, I might have another job that will allow you to get two items that can help you return home.”

“It really is a good job,” Gallus added. “Let’s do it. I’m not afraid of a few old bones.”

A yak always kept her word, so repaying her debt seemed perfectly reasonable, even if the work would be difficult and dangerous.

“Yona fine with job, too.”

Silverstream fiddled nervously with her talons. “As long as I can stay with you three, I’ll be okay.”

One of the living statues brought in a large mirror with a golden frame. Large gems and runes covered the edges. Grandeur fiddled with the gems and runes until the mirror stopped reflecting him and showed a foggy graveyard on a steep hill. The image vanished and Grandeur stepped aside.

“Okay, I have this thing configured to take you near his crypt. Starswirl’s mirrors are always so useful, especially my upgraded version. I’ll watch from this side, but if I have to waste workers or items to save you, it’ll cost you extra. The old necromancer would usually get too focused on his magic, so it shouldn’t be too hard to sneak up on him, unless he decided to put in some traps or other things to try to stop me from reclaiming what is mine. Anyway, you’re all strong and smart. You can figure it out as you go.”

Starlight checked the mirror over and stuck her head through before pulling back. “Okay, the mirror is safe. Let’s go.”

Yona didn’t really like warping around with magic very much, but the mirror didn’t feel as bad as a regular teleport spell. Yona looked around the graveyard. The thick fog made it hard to see much. A few mausoleums and larger gravestones were silhouetted at the edge of where Yona could make out. The entire graveyard was on a steep slope, and the hill quickly gave way to a cliff that Yona couldn’t see the bottom of.

“Let’s look around quietly,” Starlight said. “He said the entrance should be nearby.”

Silverstream poked the lock on one of the mausoleums. “Crypts are usually in underground tunnels, right? Maybe one of these buildings has a way in.”

Gallus pointed down the foggy cliff. “Or I could try flying down there.”

Yona spotted a large spiderweb as the light from Starlight’s horn caught the small droplets on it. A big brown spider sat in the middle of it.

“Hey, spider friend,” Yona whispered. “Do you know about crypts nearby? Or where to get in?”

Yona watched the spider gesture with her legs. A large entrance was at the bottom of the cliffs, but it was mostly blocked by heavy stone doors. A second entrance was hidden behind a nearby mausoleum. Many bugs would crawl up from the cracks to it.

“Thank you, spider friend.” Yona trotted back to the group. “Yona know way in! Spider friend tell Yona to look over here.”

Yona followed the spider’s directions to the back of one of the small rectangular buildings. Various cutie marks were etched into the wall, and slabs of stones created a small walkway around the building. Yona pressed a few of the cutie marks until one pushed in further. It clicked, and the stone slabs slid down to form a staircase into a small, dark tunnel.

“Uh, do we really have to go this way?” Gallus said. “I’m not scared or anything, but can we really trust that tunnel. Hey! Yona! What are you doing?”

Yona pushed Gallus toward the opening. “Yona help Gallus conquer fear.”

Gallus stopped himself from sliding and walked down the stairs as Starlight led the way with her magical light. The tunnel had stone supports, but the sides and sections of the roof were dirt. Roots and small piles of dirt made the footing difficult as they sneaked forward.

“See? Gallus already getting better at facing it.”

“I’m not scared.”

Yona stumbled on a root, and green runes suddenly lit up. The roots all around them came to life and grew jagged thorns. Yona kicked and stomped as she ran forward to get free from the roots. Her friends and Starlight were less lucky.

“Ouch! These are poking me!” Silverstream said. She slashed at the roots with her claws, but the roots continued to grow and hold her.

Yona was about to run back to help, but a clattering sound behind her caught her attention. Three sets of flaming blue eyes appeared at a bend in the tunnel. As the eyes got closer, Yona could see that they belonged to three pony skeletons. They stared silently at Yona before charging at her. They tried to kick and bite, but Yona smashed one before any of their attacks could hit. Yona grunted as one skeleton pulled out a chunk of her fur with a bite. The other kicked her in the side, but her coat softened the blow.

Yona was angry now. She reared up on her back legs and slammed her front hooves down. The skeletons were both smashed to pieces. Yona kicked the bones away to make sure they wouldn’t get back up before looking back at her friends. They were free of the roots and thorns, but they all were covered in bruises and scrapes.

Silverstream held Yona’s hoof. “Wow! You smashed them to pieces! That was so cool!”

Gallus scratched under his feathers. “I think those thorns were poisonous. It burns and itches where they poked me.”

“Not much we can do about that,” Starlight said. “That trap was definitely magical. Let’s hope those skeletons didn’t alert the necromancer about us.”

They explored the tunnel the skeletons had come from. It slowly changed from dirt to stone, but many suspicious roots still grew out from between the stones. Starlight would stop every few moments to check for any magical traps, but she didn’t find any. The tunnel sloped down and split into a few paths.

One path had a metal door. Gallus opened it and looked inside before shutting it quietly. “This way seems to be the main entrance. There are some skeletons guarding the door. Should we surprise them and take care of them now? Or hope they don’t come after us later?

Silverstream pulled him back from near the door. “Let’s not fight any more magical undead, please. They’re gross and scary.”

A tunnel opposite to theirs led back up and seemed to mirror the tunnel they had just come down. Starlight looked at it a moment before going back to the dark staircase that led further down.

“I’m sensing a lot of dark magic up ahead, but it’s still far away. A lot of this type of magic is banned in Equestria, for good reasons.”

“Yona remember stories of bad ponies that hid in the mountains near Yaktakistan. They had magic like this, but the yaks stomped their undead apart and sent them back to the princess’s dungeons.”

Gallus raised an eyebrow. “Really? You should tell us more about that one sometime. It sounds like one of the better yak stories.”

Yona snorted and glared at the griffon. “All yak stories good. All tell about greatest yak warriors and leaders.”

Starlight held out a hoof to stop them as the stairway ended. A room that was barely tall enough to stand in spread out into a grid of tiles. Each tile was big enough for one creature to stand on, and each tile had a sickly green rune glowing on it.

Starlight looked it over and started thinking. “I can sense the spells. The right tiles have magic that holds them up, but the wrong ones have spells that will only hold until someone steps onto them. It’s all too close together for me to tell which is which. We’ll have to think through this carefully. Maybe there’s a pattern.”

Silverstream had to hunch down to keep her head from scraping the ceiling. “It’s too tight in here to fly, but me and Gallus could test it out. We could catch ourselves with our wings if we fall. Hey, Gallus! Quit hiding by the stairs.” Silverstream pulled Gallus in, but the griffon’s eyes were wide and he was breathing hard.

“I don’t like this room. Maybe we should check out the other tunnel.”

Yona gave Gallus an encouraging pat. “Everything fine. Yona will protect Gallus.”

Yona expected some snarky remark, but instead Gallus slumped in place and kept glancing back at the stairs. Starlight pulled out a paper and wrote down the runes. She made copies with a spell and handed them out.

“Here are all the symbols. Each row has 5 of them, and there are 15 total. We have 6 rows to get past to reach that stairway on the other side.”

Gallus pointed at Starlight’s horn. “Why not just use magic to float across?”

“I can sense a trap that will activate if we try to use magic or disturb the tiles or walls too much. We’re going to have to outsmart this unicorn lich.”

They all looked for patterns in the symbols. Yona didn’t really see anything special, but after a few minutes, Starlight and Silverstream seemed to think they had answers.

“I’ll try mine!” Silverstream said.

She hopped onto the first block, but it immediately collapsed under her. Her yelp of surprise was cut short when the block flipped back up and locked into place again.

“Silverstream!” Gallus was about to rush out onto the blocks, but Starlight held him back with her magic.

Yona thought she heard something nearby, but she couldn’t seem to figure out where it was coming from.

“We’ll have to trust she’s okay,” Starlight said. “But if you want to help her, why don’t you try my first idea? Step on the sun symbol, then hop over to the cloud, then rain, then earth.”

“I won’t leave her alone in this place, so I’ll do it.”

Gallus padded out onto the sun, and it held.

“So far so good!” Starlight said. “Keep going.”

He crouched and pounced over to the cloud block. It flipped downward in an instant, and Gallus’s squawk of alarm was cut off as the block rotated back into place.

Starlight crossed out a few things on her paper. “I feel bad putting you all in danger. I’ll go next. If my next idea doesn’t work, take your time and figure this out.”

“Yona will save friends and Starlight, no matter what.”

Yona tried to stay confident as Starlight took a shaky step onto the sun block. Starlight closed her eyes and stepped onto the leaf block that came after that. She paused and took a deep breath. She took a step to the right. Yona watched that block flip down, and Starlight vanished. The room went dark.

Yona wasn’t sure what to be angry at. She wanted to stomp the stupid blocks, but if she did, she’d just end up falling like her friends. She took out a small lamp and lit it. She growled and kicked a loose rock into the corner. A faint, annoyed chittering came from the darkness.

“Hello? Is someone there?”

A fuzzy brown spider even larger than Yona’s hoof walked out of the shadows. Yona crouched down and apologized as she tried to understand him.

Yona tried to make sense of the complicated idea the spider was trying to communicate. If she understood correctly, the spider was saying that the tiles were meant to trap any clever intruders. There was a correct path, but it was something that would have to be memorized. The symbols on the tiles were meant to throw off intruders.

Yona decided to trust the spider. He drew a little pattern in the dust to show Yona how to get through.

“Thank you, spider friend. Yona wish she had a tasty bug snack for you.”

Yona hated falling, so she tiptoed onto the first few tiles. She kept expecting to be dumped into whatever was below the tiles, but her confidence quickly grew as the spider’s map guided her safely through.

“Phew! Now Yona go find friends.”

A spiral staircase led sharply downward. It was long, and it seemed even longer because each step Yona took had to be quiet and careful.

A sense of wrongness filled the air as Yona stepped into the next room. A skeletal unicorn with flaming eyes sat on a black throne. He held a crystal ball that glowed with a green light under one hoof. He seemed to be talking to someone.

“I sense Grandeur’s magic about you. I yet live, so I reject his attempts to reclaim this magnificent orb. Maybe once I pull away your spirits and control them with my magic, I can send them back as messengers. He might get the point then.”

The unicorn lich laughed. It was a grating, harsh sound. His horn glowed with the same sickly green magic as the orb, and two large earth pony skeletons rose up from the bones scattered around the floor of the room. The lich touched the orb. A green laser hit Silverstream.

Silverstream screamed in pain as magic pulled at a ghostly version of her.

Yona flattened her ears and looked around. Gallus, Silverstream, and Starlight were all in a cell, but the bars looked old and rusty.

Yona charged. The bars snapped under her weight.

“Friends free! Starlight, what do we do now?” Yona had never seen Starlight look so worried.

Starlight stepped between them and the lich. “I’ll do what I can to stop his magic.”

“Maybe you can.” The lich spoke with amusement in his voice. “I sense you’ve dabbled in a little of the dark arts.”

Starlight put up a magical shield and started charging her attack.

“Simple dueling magic will only get you so far. Your shield may protect you from normal magic, but can it protect your soul?” The lich touched the orb.

The green ray hit Starlight’s shield. The shield stopped most of the attack, but Starlight groaned in pain as the magic tugged at her soul.

Starlight pointed at the lich. “You three stop him or get that orb away from him. I don’t know how long I can stop his magic.”

The lich motioned his own skeletal guards forward. “Let’s see if your friends like my friends.”

Starlight was blasted into the wall as the lich’s next magical blast broke through her shield. She stood back up and resumed the magical duel.

Yona ran to stop the large pony skeletons from reaching Starlight. She dodged their kicks. Gallus did the same.

“Jump to the side,Yona. Now!” Silverstream yelled.

Yona followed her friend’s advice. The skeleton stumbled past her and fell into a large pit that Silverstream had painted with her magical brush.

The lich waved a hoof in the air, and a faintly glowing pegasus spirit appeared. It flew after Gallus and kept him from getting closer to the orb. Another large earth pony skeleton pieced itself together and shambled forward.

“These guys keep coming!” Gallus said.

“Then Yona keep stomping until they go away!” Yona slammed the ground and pushed the second skeleton into the pit.

Starlight was breathing hard as she dodged, shielded, and teleported. She weaved in her attack spells when she could, but the lich’s dark magic was still draining her spirit. She looked over at Yona.

“I can’t hold on. I’m going to use as much magic as I can. That’s going to be your opening to stop this lich. Gallus, Yona, Silverstream, I know you can beat him!”

Starlight’s horn sparked as she drew in more and more magic. She glowed white with the immense power. The lich threw up a shield, but Starlight’s attack obliterated it.

Yona closed her eyes until the brilliant light was gone. The skeletal unicorn grunted in pain as he stood back up. His helpers had been reduced to nothing. Starlight slumped to the ground.

Gallus swiped at the orb, but the lich pulled it away. Yona lowered her horns and toppled his throne. It fell on top of him and cracked his bones.

His horn glowed. The throne almost hit Silverstream as it flew across the room. The lich’s bones knit back together.

“You should have used her distraction to run away. Now you’ll serve me in death.”

The lich readied his magic. Yona said a short prayer in her head to the ancient yak spirits for protection as she scraped a hoof against the ground in preparation for her next charge.

Author's Note:

Click here for stat sheets and other information.

A lot of nasty traps, magic, and undead have hurt our group's stamina. Without Starlight to protect them, Gallus, Silverstream, and Yona may need a lot of Harmony's magic to protect them. We'll find out about that after we see what the other group is up to.

Comments

[Yoshifan30]

Wow yona Really gotten good with her communication with the spiders and she really strong too And now they had to deal with a skeleton army Hopefully the others will figure out how to stop them