Chapter 4. Ladder to Success and Stairs of Torment.
Skeletor stared at the crystal throne that sat atop a tall dias with a sense of mild interest. A small flight of stairs carved from sparkling amethyst crystals led towards a single black obsidian chair that had velvet cushions that had fallen apart from years of cold weather. The carpet beneath his feet was in a similar state of disrepair, fraying at the seams with large patches of cloth missing from it.
The rest of the throne room didn’t fare any better, crumbling support pillars, massive holes in the ceiling that let snow fall into the room, and torn banisters lined the walls. The cleanest part of the throne room was where he had killed the old King, the spot being attacked vigorously with soap and water by the two maids that had been called in to take care of it.
The crystal floors and walls that the maids cleaned sparkled with a vibrant beauty the allowed the magical properties of the crystals to shine through them. A warm and inviting aura radiated off of the crystals that they had cleaned; breathing new life into the throne room that set Skeletor’s nerves at ease whenever he looked at the crystals.
Skeletor allowed a content sigh to escape him as he stared longingly into the crystals, letting his concerns and problems dissolve as he lost himself in the intricate patterns inside the crystals. The calming patterns in the crystals lulled him into a sense of security and comfort in the bizarre fever dream he found himself in, giving him a pleasant part of the nightmare to stare at.
He glanced over his shoulder to see where the green pony was standing earlier, wondering if she was real or another figment of his imagination.
Needless to say, Skeletor wasn’t completely convinced that what he was seeing was real. He expected to be woken up in a hospital bed at any minute. It made sense to him after all, he couldn’t believe that he had been sent to wherever he was, and then inexplicably turned into a king or something.
Skeletor didn’t believe that there was any chance that any of it could have been real, to him, it was all just an incredibly vivid and weird dream. He wondered if someone at comic con had drugged him, or if the hospital he was in gave him the wrong medicine. For a brief moment, he also entertained the idea he had actually lost his mind and was stuck in an insane asylum.
All of those answers made sense, and all of them held the silent promise of being able to go home at some point.
He threw another glance at the spot the green-furred pony stood earlier before he turned his attention back to the intricate patterns in the crystal walls. The pony had left the room around the same time as the guards, quickly bowing to him before she trotted out of sight with the bloody sack that held the other pony’s body. He had idly wondered what they were doing with it when they left but quickly shook that question out of his head.
It didn’t matter what an imaginary pony did with a fake corpse, what mattered was how long they were gone and how much time must have passed while he was unconscious in the real world. He’d wake up in a bed, freed from his rubber mask and scrubbed clean of his blue body paint. Then he’d be able to talk to his family, ask what happened, and hopefully, be sent home immediately after with a clean bill of health. Everything would make sense when he woke up. He’d remember his name and what happened before he passed out at comic con.
The absolute worst part of his nightmare was not being able to remember his name. He had remembered nearly everything else about himself and his family with the exception of his name and face, and it made him feel sick to not know what it was. But, that would be easily fixed when he asked them, or maybe he’d wake up and suddenly remember his own name.
He just needed to keep reassuring himself that everything was fine and it would all work out. He’d wake up from his weird fever dream and forget about it a few hours later, all of it turning into nothing but passing memories as he went on with his life. In the meantime, he’d simply lose himself in the shimmering beauty of the ornate crystal wall in front of him as he tried to bury the memory of when he attacked the other pony.
As he stared into the reflective surface of the crystal walls, he saw a faint image of his skeletal face staring back at him. The crystals weren’t reflective enough to show his face in detail, but Skeletor was still able to see the ghost of a reflection staring back at him if he stared hard enough. Skeletor felt the pit in his stomach grow as he looked at the animate skull staring back at him. His heartbeat steadily rose as the face of death stared into his soul, promising an unfortunate end to his life very soon.
Skeletor quickly tore his eye sockets away from the wall after he noticed his new reflection. He desperately tried to cling to a memory of what he should have looked like, or what he sounded like, of what his Damn name was. He tried to remember anything that could reassure him that he was a living human being.
Skeletor gritted his teeth in frustration as he tried to remember something from his life. He remembered his mother’s name was Saryn, he had a brother named Rand, and he had a girlfriend named Evelyn. He could remember them so clearly, so why couldn’t he remember his name or face?
What was my name, dammit!? He questioned within his mind. Anger and bitterness welled up within him, allowing his emotions to overflow as he struggled to latch onto a clear memory of his life.
Unbeknownst to Skeletor, as he continued to fight a battle against his own memories, his emotions triggered a spark of magic to run through the staff in his hand. The magic of the staff took the confusion and misery of its master’s mind and created a spell of guidance to reveal what laid hidden to him.
While the spell failed to show him any of his memories in full detail, the sudden burst of dark magic from his scepter did reveal something else.
As dark energy crackled through the ram skull of his scepter, causing the dried blood on it to flake away, a bolt of magic leapt from the ram horns and struck one of the crystals that stood behind the immaculate throne. Skeletor only noticed what was happening when a thunderous explosion of magic alerted him to the mystical scene happening right next to him.
He watched in an awed terror as the magic reflected off of the crystals behind the throne, hitting the center of the throne room and revealing a spiraling staircase that descended into a void of darkness.
Skeletor stood there momentarily in stunned silence as he stared into the black abyss below him. Another layer of his nightmare had opened up to a shadowy abyss that called out to him. A faint siren’s song whispered sweet reassuring promises of comfort and safety, compelling him to slowly make his way towards the edge of the descending staircase.
“What the fuck…” Skeletor muttered under his breath as he tried to peer into the darkness below him.
He hesitantly placed one of his feet on the first step, testing its durability before he put all of his weight on it. The stone stair beneath his foot stood firmly in place, not budging an inch underneath him.
Before he continued on, he looked back to the throne room doors as if waiting for someone to tell him not to go down. Skeletor stared at the closed doors for a full minute, counting the seconds in his mind, before he took the next step down.
“Down the rabbit hole we go,” Skeletor said to himself as he steeled his nerves and continued down the spiral staircase.
Emerald Secret and the guards, along with a hoofful of cleaning staff, stared at the sack that held the old king’s corpse. Several ponies covered their noses with their hooves as they attempted to block out the smell of his rotting carcass.
Their gazes never left the bloody sack as fear had compelled them to not look away. Each of them was worried that, at any given moment, his corpse would spring to life and slaughter them all. But, that wouldn’t happen. They knew that the old king was finally dead, but reasoning did nothing to dissuade their immense fear.
“So… What do we do with it?” Track Record finally asked.
Emerald Secret pondered that question and had thrown out a series of answers that wouldn’t work. They couldn’t give him a proper burial, and it wasn’t like they could just toss his body in a trash can. Emerald Secret had briefly thought of throwing his body in the pit but quickly tossed away that idea as well. First, they would need to get all of the other corpses out of it and give them a respectful send-off.
“It’s obvious,” Cannon Fodder stated firmly. “We burn it and then we burn the ashes.”
“But… Shouldn’t the citizens know that he’s dead first?” One of the maids asked.
“I tried that," Track Record told her. "They didn’t believe me when I told any of them.”
“But we have his body as proof," one of the guards spoke up. "That’ll work better than your word.”
“Alright then, raise your hoof if you want to touch his corpse, let alone parade it around the Empire on a stick,” Cannon Fodder stated to the collected ponies. To the shock of no one, not a single hoof was raised. “Thought so, none of us even want to touch it because we’re afraid it’ll burst to life at any moment. So, I say we burn it and get it over with.”
“So how do we convince the ponies outside that we’re finally free?” Emerald Secret asked.
“We’ve got a walking monster as proof in the throne room!” Cannon Fodder exclaimed.
“Hey now, you can’t talk badly about our new lord like that,” Track Record admonished.
“That thing isn’t our lord, it’s our next tyrant. Do you think a monster like that helped us out of the goodness of its bucking heart? Tartarus no! We just traded one monster for another, and as soon as we burn this corpse we’ll have to burn that thing next!”
“We can’t do that! Lord Skeletor saved us!”
“It was a coincidence! He just killed the first pony he saw and that was it! His bloodlust may be sated now, but once he gets that itch again he’ll kill any random pony he can get his hands on. I say we kill it quickly and wait for Princess Celestia or Princess Luna to come from Dream Valley.”
“They did come and guess what, they’re gone. I don’t know about the rest of you, but Princess Luna knocked me out the moment she arrived. She and Princess Celestia must have fought King Sombra, and since I didn’t see either of them when I woke up, then that means they’re DEAD!” Track Record shouted at Cannon Fodder as tears began to well up in his eyes.
A stunning silence filled the room as everypony stared at Track Record with wide eyes. None of them had really considered the fact that the princesses were already there a few minutes before they fell asleep, and none of them had known that they were locked in a dimensional void for over a thousand years. The only ones who knew about their imprisonment were currently rotting inside of a sack or in another country.
Slowly, tears began to fall from Track Record’s eyes as his own words slowly caught up to him. The pain and misery he had felt from years of being a slave had burst forth like a broken dam, letting all of his emotions rush forward as he openly wept in front of everypony in the room.
“They’re… They’re dead…” Track Record silently spoke, as more tears rolled down his cheeks. “King… Sombra killed them… And now you want to kill the one creature that avenged them?! I don’t care if it was a coincidence, I don’t care what Skeletor wants! He killed Sombra, and that’s good enough for me! That bastard enslaved us, made us kill our friends, he… He made me kill my mom, dammit….” Track Record quietly admitted as he fell to his forehooves to cry.
Tears filled the eyes of all those present, memories of the atrocities they were forced to commit flooding to the forefront of their minds. Cannon Fodder placed a hoof on Track Record’s withers as he fought back his own tears.
“Who’s left?” Track Record quietly asked them. “Princess Amore is dead, Princess Celestia and Princess Luna are probably dead too… All of the Alicorns are dead. Sombra killed our goddesses. All we have left is Skeletor… He killed Sombra, he avenged everypony who was ever killed by Sombra, he freed us from Sombra. Can’t we give him a chance?”
Silence was their only reply as everypony around him considered his words. Their princesses, the goddesses who brought peace to Terra for hundreds of years, were all most likely dead. There wasn’t anypony left who could even face off against their new lord, was there any reason to try fighting a battle they knew they’d lose?
“So… We just accept Skeletor as our new leader?” One of the maids asked.
“I mean, he did kill Sombra,” one of the guards added on.
“But why did he do it?" Another guard asked. "He didn’t know who Sombra was, so why'd he kill him?”
“Well, we could ask Lord Skeletor,” one of the maids suggested. "Maybe he could sense the evil in Sombra? Or, maybe he had a different reason for killing him."
“You’re suggesting we talk to it?” Cannon Fodder asked.
“Do you have a better idea?” The maid asked.
“Alright, one thing at a time everypony,” Emerald Secret firmly announced. “First, we burn Sombra’s remains to a crisp. Then, we’ll discuss what to do about… about Lord Skeletor.”
Several guards and maids nodded their heads in agreement as two guards went off in search of a matchbox to light the corpse on fire.
“Do you think he’s still where we left him?” Emerald Secret asked Cannon Fodder quietly.
“Yeah. I had two guards placed outside the doors just in case it tried to leave. It should still be in the throne room when we get back,” Cannon Fodder reassured her. "I mean, where could it possibly wander off to?"
“Fuck… You… Stairs!” Skeletor complained between large breaths as he physically climbed his way up a disturbingly long staircase.
After he had reached the bottom of the first staircase, he had found a strange door that led to a stone wall. After hitting the door with his scepter in a fit of anger, the stones behind it crumbled away to reveal an ascending spiral staircase in a white void.
After looking at the void of light that stretched in every direction, giving the room an appearance of something between a wall and the concept of infinity, he decided to go up the new staircase.
A decision that he was greatly regretting with each passing moment.
Twenty consecutive minutes of walking had stripped Skeletor of his strength, his legs wobbling loosely under him with each shaky step. And with each step forward, he considered the possibility of throwing himself back down the stairs, letting his body tumble down the seemingly endless staircase so his pain could end. But each time he thought of just turning around and falling down, he’d look up to see the top of the stairs just a few flights higher so he continued on with great effort.
He had no idea what was at the top of the tower and he didn’t really give a damn at that point. Unless it was a gallon of water or an elevator back down then nothing at the top of those stairs would be worth it.
“Fuck… Stairs… Fuck ‘em…” Skeletor mumbled to himself as he silently promised to find the architect who built that staircase and make them climb it.
Thoughts of his situation being a dream vanished as he felt his lungs burn. Since he had never felt pain in a dream, he went to the next plausible answer, it was all a delusional fantasy. He was most likely walking up a large staircase at the hotel he was staying at after assaulting a mailbox with the scepter he bought at comic con.
That was the only thing that made sense to him, it was the only thing that explained away all of the craziness. He just needed to let whatever drugs were in his system wear off or wait to be carted off to a hospital. They’d fix him up, and everything would make sense again.
Skeletor stopped for a moment to catch his breath. He looked down to see how much progress he made and was taken aback by how high up he was. He desperately cringed to the wall behind him as he shoved his body against it, trying to get away from the edge of the stairs as best he could.
Don’t look down, don’t look down, don’t look down, don’t look down. Skeletor thought to himself as he looked in the opposite direction. When he looked up, he could see the end of the stairs just a flight above him and decided to continue on his arduous trek. His muscles burned with an indescribable pain as he continued forward. As Skeletor neared his goal, he began skipping every other step, physically throwing his body forward to catch himself on the step above him so he could get to the top sooner.
After a few grueling minutes of tormenting his body by pushing it beyond its limits, Skeletor reached the peak of the staircase.
“I… I made… it…” Skeletor croaked out as he passed the final step. His body immediately gave out afterwards, demanding him to rest and recuperate for a bit before he killed himself.
His chest heaved up and down as his burning lungs demanded oxygen. His throat felt like it was made of solid concrete, making breathing a much more painful task for him. Skeletor couldn’t find the strength to move any of his limbs after he collapsed and resided himself to laying on the cold floor of the circular room.
As Skeletor laid on the floor, his head fell limply to the side allowing him to see something through his blurred vision.
A perfectly cut diamond in the shape of a heart hovered in the center of the room two yards away from him, emitting a strange thumping noise that sounded like the bewitching lullaby of a mother's heartbeat. The siren serenade of the heart called out to him, begging him to come towards it. As much as he wanted to answer the call of the heart, his exhausted body refused to move from its spot on the floor.
With a great deal of effort, Skeletor weakly raised a hand towards the shimmering heart, reaching towards it as if his arm could just stretch the rest of the distance and grab it. As his mind fell into a drifting haze, his arm fell to the ground with a loud thud and his consciousness was carried away into a calming sea of darkness.
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I hope he doesn't corrupt the heart. It sounds like the ponies could sure use a win.
Is that a movie reference? It sounds like something out of that one drunk movie with the three guys and the baby. I can't remember the name of it.
Where does everyone get the idea that they can't feel pain in a dream? You can totally feel pain in a dream. I remember being stabbed in the leg when I was a small kid in a dream once. Anecdotal, sure, but where is everyone's evidence that you never feel pain in a dream?
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I've definitely felt pain in a dream before, so I know that it's possible, but not everyone does. I think it must have evolved from the old belief where if you die in a dream, you die in real life (Not like that one movie). I guess over time, people realized that they've died dozens of times in dreams and were still alive, and so it eventually evolved into "you can't feel pain in a dream." That's what I think at least, I could be entirely wrong.
No.....
Fuck this
Now I can't unsee a couple of uneducated peasants talking about their owners like they were gods
Gods don't bleed
True gods can't die
There is a difference between immortality and long-living
10139354
Eh...
Gods can be killed, well most Gods at least.
Immortality id usually used as biological imortality, as in not aging and not dying for age or biological reasons, as such beheading would kill those Gods (Nordic Gods usually fit here).
Soma Gods are Undying, totally imortal as in can't die, but even those Gods can be "killed", usually by erasing their existence (Greek and most Arabic Gods would fit here).
Then you have the intangible but letargic Gods that are immortal can't even be reached and are eternal, usually from monotheiatic religions (Alla , Yaweh and other interations of this God fit here).
If you wanted proof Sombra was evil just look at the massive stair case he built, that's proof for you. But on a more serious note quite eager to see how the Crystal Heart will interact with Skeletor.
.....I bet Sombra made the Stairs.
10141609
He did!
I like the fact that because he didn't try to magic the door at the bottom of the pit, the trap on it never triggered.
10167016
Spoke too soon..... whoops.
with all that serious tone I'm surprised how i can laugh in each chapter by just imagining the original voice of skeletor saying these lines
“Fuck… You… Stairs!”
10176406
This. I died laughing because I didn't do it at the time. But now, that whole scene is even better.
10179676
Hearing it in Skeletor's voice has a way of amplifying the humor. Maybe because I can almost imagine the real deal saying it. Like, canonically.
10139354
Gods get killed all the time in fiction.
10380733 10139354 Of courses, I agree they do. Why do you think there is a god of dead god, or god of god's graveyard.
10400882
That's a thing? Sounds like an Metal album cover. God of The God's Graveyard; Featuring vocals by Death Blossom and Carnage Carriage.
10380733
King in the old days were also seen as the chosen of God and for a time peaple thought that some leaders when they died just hung around to give wisdom to the next king, religion and state the two great powers that i am glad are some what separated today
I always give a Story 3 chapters whether it be a yay or nay if I follow it. I've been on this site for over 9 years and over that time I've read millions of words, thousands of stories. And over all that time I've read dozens of displced stories and none of them have hit quite like this one has. the pacing is good the characters have realistic emotions in reaction to situations there in. With all that out of the way I have to say what a fantastic start to an interesting story so I'm going to track this one give it a thumbs up and maybe even a fav. Good job and keep up the good work.
Damn... I have no bloody clue whsts going to happen! Time to find out!!!
Great chapter! Wonder if the ponys will be a unthankfull bunch or at least let him life amongst em.
Unknowing hero is doing the right thing. Awesome
There are ungrateful fucks like Canon Fooder working on nothing but bad assumptions because he has nothing better to do. Guilty until proven innocent is a fucked up way of thinking.
Skeletor will be judged harshly if he slips up, let's hope we will rather not...
No matter the population, with all foals dead only the adult and old stand still, Sombra is a idiot to kill foals!
Unless he want to see the Crystal Empire purged of life this was a absolutely retarded move...
Neat. I do however admit to concern about him passing out from going up stairs, of all things. Just how tall are they? Sure, take a sit down, but passing out? Exercise. But yeah, neat. Like the emotional trauma the ponies got going on, and there will likely be consequences amusing and otherwise.
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To be fair I think he just walked an unknown distance to the crystal empire then beat a dead whorse for like a full minute.