Baa-Ram-Ewe!

by Darkonshadows

54. Into the castle.

-Equus, Ponyville, Hayburger, Silver Stream-

“So Smolder and Ocellus were adorable together even then?” I asked Shimmy Shake, one of the two ponies I was sharing lunch with.

“Oh yeah, totally!” Shimmy Shake was one of the cheerleader friends of our friends, I was branching out to share lunch with her and Lighthoof at the local Hayburger. “They were so excited to learn about cheerleading together, then Rainbow Dash happened.”

“It’s just like watching you and Gallus spend time together.” After Lighhoof said that I could definitely feel my face turning red.

I started to dig my face into my fries to try and hide my embarrassment in ketchup, being messy was fun sometimes.

“I’m sure that wherever they are Stream, that they are perfectly safe.” Shimmy tried to be reassuring, but I wasn’t so sure.

-Elhorn, Hydrigal, castle town streets, Ligstrun-

I slowly came too in the back of a moving vehicle, I tried to roll over only something held me in place. I suddenly felt very unsafe at the moment as much as I felt agonizing pain in my back.

“Don’t roll over, the scales on your back are pretty badly burnt.” I was gently admonished and stayed there laying on my belly with blankets and pillows underneath me. “Calm down now, it is okay, your safe with us. For the time being anyway. What are you currently feeling?”

“Searing agony running up and down my back… what… what happened?” I decided to be hopefully as I opened my eyes and looked into that of a strangers, her eyes looked bug like.

“Well you tried to help my friend Pom, but… you injured yourself doing it.” The quadruped bug thing said with a worried tone. “Can you sit up? Here…”

As she helped me into a sitting position, a dog that could only come from the Yellow Dog Army made a comment that drew my attention. As the bug thing started to unwind the bandages from my tail and torso.

“Yeah, you burned your back with the rocket pack. The calibrations on it were off, but it is almost close to being like the real thing a rocket knight would use. You just don’t have the kind of protections needed to use it correctly.” The nearby dog said with her hand on a small energy weapon of some kind as she looked outside the back of the wagon at a brick wall.

How would she know the calibrations were off? It would be certainly useful to know what was wrong with the rocket pack if she could fix the problem with it.

“Hold still while I apply some medication.” The bug thing moved behind me and I started to feel a soothing feeling, her gentle hooves soon ran up and down my back. The pain was cooling down as something was pressed into my scales. “This should help with the pain, it’s a good thing we picked up some burn medication after the whole octobot situation. I’m betting the next evil core machine we see also has a thing for fire as much as it does landscape destruction.”

“Nobody would ever take a bet that dumb.” The nearby pig said idly while looking over his sword.

“Where are we?” I looked outside the front of the wagon and saw the land strider looking across a bridge at a large castle.

“About that, we’re currently in Hydrigal and we have a bit of a dangerous situation. I’m Ocellus.” Ocellus introduced herself as she continued to rub some stuff onto my back. “That’s Smolder, Pom, Shanty, Dodo, Bruno, Colleen and Jean.”

Wait, this was Hydrigal? The city of the amphibians in Mystical Mire? Why did the air around here feel… wrong?

“Dangerous in so far as we don’t know what’s going on.” The pig eyed me with suspicion as he said this, he had reason to be. It was my people that kicked the pigs out of Devotindos City, now completely under Gedol control.

“We do have some idea Bruno. Raise your arms, so I can wrap you back up please.” Listening to Ocellus, she started to wrap my torso and tail back up, she turned to the sheep that I helped catch after she got caught in the explosion the Panth-Zer unit caused when its core was destroyed. The sheep looked perfectly fine for having been that close to an evil core going critical, Ocellus was saying a few things to her in a rather melodic language. After the sheep said a few things back, nodding Ocellus turned to the rest of us. “From what we saw when we were packing things away in the wagon, Pom said light and heat are a weakness to the semisolid illusions created by the fog. Beyond that we don’t know what else is going on here.”

“What… fog…?” I looked out the back of the wagon and saw a thick fog billowing where the walls once were, but it didn’t seem to move towards us. It was staying a bit distant from the lantern light from inside and outside the wagon. “What’s going on?”

“I wish you knew, then I would have answers as to where my little sister and mother are.” The quiet amphibian said in a fearful tone as he stared out the front of the wagon at the huge castle and the fog flowing thickly around it and in the moat off the sides of the bridge. “We are going to Castle Hydrigal to find out what is causing this, yes?”

“That’s what we’re going to do, all of you currently have the opportunity to back out now. Pom thinks that once we start crossing the bridge the portcullis will drop behind us. We won’t be able to escape very easily from that point forward.” If Ocellus was telling me the truth, then we were at the entrance to the bridge leading up to Castle Hydrigal. “At least until we deal with whatever this is.”

I’ve never been here before, but I heard that Hydrigal was supposed to be a lot more cheerful and colorful. The fog was supposed to go around the city creating rainbows, not inside of it and creating a sense of dread.

This was supposed to be a place known for its artists, artisans and cooks, that wasn’t to say they didn’t have martial prowess. The people around here were known for high end aquatic combat and could effortlessly swim through mud and muck without suffocating. We lizards seriously didn’t want to fight the amphibians on their home turf for a variety of reasons, even if we had air superiority.

“The air around here, it feels… off.” The only thing I’ve ever had or seen from Hydrigal was a fruit fly pie. One that I was told wasn’t very well made and wasn’t the best the amphibians around here could do.

It had tasted really darn good to me and if it could be better… then I sincerely hope that whatever was going on here wasn’t permanent. That the people could all be saved.

“I’m seeing this through, I’m no coward!” The pig snorted out before he glanced my way.

“I wish to know more about this, I’m not going to back out.” The dog was also sending me looks.

“Do I really have a choice? I have nowhere to go and I really don’t want to die…” I looked at the cobblestone street to see claws marks as Ocellus finished tying off my bandages, they were the kind a Panth-Zer would make without its energy claws leading across the bridge in front of us. “Are those- are those claw marks?!”

“Yeah, that machine you took when you left your ‘friends’ behind, it came to life and supposedly ran straight to the castle.” The pig stated with concern and a grim look at the castle. “We’re going to see where it went or why we’re seemingly being pushed to go to the castle.”

“That should be impossible, it shouldn’t be able to move or go very far without simple commands. Not when it doesn’t have its evil core anymore.” I sat down and started to panic until I felt something gripping my shoulder, I looked into the eyes of the sheep.

They were gentle and reassuring, I calmed down a bit. Ocellus said her name was Pom? She seemed nice and I remembered her giving me such a look before, she was accepting of me without thinking much about what I am.

I think I needed that acceptance more than anything else right now, with the way both the dog and pig were eyeing me with suspicions.

“Impossible or not, it seems we’re facing a haunted castle. The town is empty of life and we have no true idea of what we are up against.” The dog stated with a flat no nonsense tone. “The only reason we stopped is because you started waking up. That the machine is capable of acting like it did without a core has me worried for more than one reason, can it activate its weapons like that?”

“It shouldn’t be able to, even I couldn’t activate them in its limited state.” As far as I knew, the weapon systems should not be able to activate.

This didn’t mean the machine wasn’t dangerous if it was going rogue or wild. It shouldn’t have the capacity to go wild or rogue though, I’m not an expert on evil cores or machines that run around on their own without them… I don’t think anyone is.

The dog turned and bark something, in what had to be ancient Yellow Dog considering how feral it sounded, to the sheep.

Pom nodded and turned to the goat and started to tell her something. The goat was currently straddling the land strider’s neck and she said something to the land strider.

The land strider seemed to be fairly wary of our surroundings and it started to stride forward across the bridge following the claw marks.

The second we were beyond the portcullis leading onto the bridge, it slammed down behind the wagon and it made us all jump as the fog wall swirled up to the portcullis and stopped.

“Well… that just clearly confirmed some fears.” The look on Ocellus’s face was deeply concerning.

“I’m Ligstrun by the way, I am… or was… a mechanic for Gedol.” I whimpered out, fixing machines used to be my job and I didn’t know what to do with myself now that I was on the run. “Please don’t hurt me, I’m not really much of a fighter… none of us that were forced into Gedol’s forces are.”

“It’s not us that you have to worry about Ligstrun.” Ocellus turned her gaze from me to the swirling fog around the castle, I gulped. “It’s whatever is going on in the castle that we need to be wary of.”

The land strider started forward again, it made a mechanical whining noise that sounded… afraid? Since when can machines be afraid… or have emotions for that matter? Animal style strider units tend to have rudimentary cores driving them.

Said cores weren’t necessarily evil or intelligent, then again I’ve never really studied a truly wild machine before and this one seemed to be ultimately friendly. Nobody is quite sure how Yellow Dog messed up and accidentally created wild machines, ones that reproduced like normal animals at a fixed rate and even acted like them. This machine was definitely one of the more intelligent ones, to a degree.

Most machines weren't really that complicated. Whatever this fog was that I was seeing, it didn’t have anything to do with mechanical engineering. It was also really quite silent, I could hear everyone breathing increasing in pace the closer we got to the open portcullis leading into the castle’s courtyard.

The claws marks heading straight into the castle made me fear that the Panth-Zer was on the loose in there.

-Pom-

Even expecting the first portcullis to slam down, it didn’t ease my nerves one bit when the second on came down locking us in with our supplies within the castle walls. Dodo pulled off to the side and was quickly unhitched from the wagon, he whined and looking around with worry.

I patted the side of his body with my left hoof and gave him a weak smile, he just nuzzled me with his beak and kept looking around.

“So his name is Ligstrun, he said he was a mechanic for Gedol.” Ocellus informed me after we stopped to eat some food for breakfast, Shanty already had a snack and we didn’t know when we were going to have an opportunity to eat again.

“So he fixes machinery like trains and prosthetics?” Well that was good news, at least he wouldn’t be around to help Gedol fix evil core machines if something broke in them.

“Yes, but I don’t think he understands any nuances beyond knowing how to do that, like how one would go about making an evil core or anything like it for instance.” From what we've already learned Ocellus, the prosthetics in this world had an insanely high chance to start eating your soul.

Back on Equus prosthetics were made to help the disabled, here they were likely made and used for warlike purposes where you lost bits of yourself until they outright consumed your entire being if the talk of Generalissimo Lioness was to be believed.

I certainly believed it was a bad idea to replace one’s body parts with machinery unless it was absolutely necessary.

“Okay we need to split up, we need people to wait out here with Dodo.” I wasn’t certain that Dodo would fair very well in the cramped hallways of the castle or be very maneuverable. “I’m definitely heading into the castle, can you ask the others what they want to do?”

-Ocellus-

I just got finished telling Smolder and Shanty who our new guest was.

“Right, Pom wants to know who’s going into the castle and who’s staying here with the wagon and Dodo.” For some reason I had caught Ligstrun’s interest.

“Who’s Dodo again?” He asked while wincing at his back shifting slightly.

“He’s our lovable mechanical friend here.” At my words Dodo warbled happily and nuzzled me, he was getting more affectionate and emotional as time went on. We knew he wasn’t just a machine, since he was acting less like one every day and was happy to be Shanty’s familiar. I pointed out each person for Ligstrun again. “Pom here is going in there, we expect you’ll be staying out here.”

“Y-yeah, I think I’m safer with the wagon and I don’t want to be a hindrance with my injuries.” Poor guy, he probably felt useless, I knew how that felt. “I’m no good in a fight and I’d be even worse than that as I currently am, at least I can check the wagon and make sure it’s in good condition at least. I don’t want to be a… a liability.”

“Can I borrow your rocket pack?” Colleen's question made us blink.

“Sure, I’ve no use for it anymore.” Ligstrun moaned out as he sat down and tried not to move too much, Colleen took the rocket pack and checked it over.

She slung it on her back and I personally hoped that she didn’t intend to use it after what happened to Ligstrun.

“I’m going.” Colleen stated firmly while glancing in Pom’s direction.

“Like you could keep me away from the action.” Bruno commented aggressively with a snort and squeal.

“I need to find out what became of my people.” Jean had the best reason out of us for going in. “And… my family…”

“I think I be wanting to sit this one out, besides it be being better if I was here for Dodo.” Shanty for once wasn’t rushing headlong into a fight, it seems she was less than enthusiastic about this place. “I can be watching Mr. Strum.”

“It’s ‘Strun’, Shanty, Ligstrun.” I received a shrug from Shanty who smiled a bit.

“Yep, Mr. Strum.” Shanty insisted not a second afterward. “That is what I be saying.”

“So no one’s going to bring up the fact that Lig’s only wearing shorts?” Smolder queried.

“You’re not wearing anything at all Smolder.” I stated flatly.

“I withdraw my previous statement.” Smolder immediately backpedaled, she seemed a bit nervous. “I’m… I’m staying out here, someone needs to keep a fire going to protect our supplies.”

“I suppose I’m going in with Pom to make sure she’s not going in without someone from our group.” This would actually be an opportunity for me to do something useful, I can create both heat and light with magic. I can even transform into my dragon form if needed. “In fact, I think I’m actually suited for this situation given this may be a problem that requires magical knowhow.”

“Be safe Ozzy.” Smolder said while hugging me and I felt a massive amount of love slam into my gut, I smiled and cuddled her back.

“Don’t worry ‘Smol’, we’ll be back… Pinkie Promise.” As I turned to address our friends that were native to this world, I thought I saw a pink flash in Dodo’s eyes. Must have been my imagination. “Okay the five of us are going in, those four are staying behind.”

They nodded, but Bruno had to make a comment.

“Wait, four?” Bruno looked at me curiously.

“I count Dodo as his own person.” Being a familiar, I knew he practically was because of Shanty.

Bruno grunted audibly, but didn’t comment any further as we turned to the castle. We lit several torches and moved forward towards the open frame where doors used to sit following the claw marks that abruptly ended beyond the entrance.

“Well that’s not spooky at all.” Bruno dryly stated. “Reminds me of the wolf warlock's assault on Devotindos that I dealt with, this kind of thing would be up their alley.”

“Do you know the castle Jean, where are we going from here?” As Pom asked this with a nervous lilt in her voice, the fog around us moved slightly.

It didn’t try to block off the entrance or sight of the wagon, but it did seem to try and flow into the castle in bits above us as if it were trying to follow us in or at least flow towards some place. It didn’t get very far before disappearing.

I translated for Pom and would continue to as my best skill.

“I believe we should check the throne room first, it is straight ahead and up the stairs in the next room through some doors.” Translating for Jean, he started to slowly walk forward.

The rest of us walked forward into the entrance carefully after him, Bruno slowly pulled his sword out and looked around. Colleen tensed and had her hand on her makeshift weapon.

The sound of Pom’s hooves hitting the floor echoed down the wide corridor with six pillars, the artistry and design of the entryway would have been more magnificent if it wasn’t so dark. All the frog themed aesthetics and wall art were a given, we were in the amphibian capital on Elhorn.

The further forward we moved, the more we could hear the sounds of running water.

“Is that water I’m hearing?” Pom asked curiously as we passed by the pillars and the large stone statues of what looked to be four frog knights in the corridor entryway standing between them.

The stone statues each had a different bits of equipment. The first one on the left was wearing armor, wielding a large tower shield in its left webbed hand and an equally large sword it’s right. The first one on the right had a mace, robes and a strangely shaped mouth. The next one on the left, more bulky looking than the others with very little clothing, that one was wielding a double bladed stone axe and looked angry. The last one was ominously blindfolded and wielding a staff, it had a vaguely feminine shape.

One quick translation of Pom’s words later, since I stopped being distracted by the beautiful architecture of what looked to be past heroes of the realm.

“Yes, my friend, water flows throughout the castle. It is part of the lifeblood of Hydrigal and all amphibians to have a close connection with water, fresh or murky. We have aqueducts running all over the castle and there might even be some hidden rooms that can only be reached by swimming through them. I wouldn’t know, I've never found any of them personally.” Jean stated as we approached the end of the corridor leading towards the next room which looked to have staircases. I continued to translate his words as he spoke them, I wasn’t going to even try and copy his odd accent though. “It is, how to say, strange that no one is around to care for the water systems of the castle and yet it is all still in perfect working order.”

Pom didn’t seem to like hearing that or something else had drawn her attention, she raised a hoof making us all halt. She looked behind us as we reached the entrance to the next room. There were various hallways we could have taken, but those weren’t our current destination.

If we were heading for the throne room, then we were on the right track. With what little light we were producing, I could see that the next room was a mansion style foyer. It had a crystal chandelier hanging above, two stair cases curving upwards and far too many doors to explore. The doors to the throne room was at the top of the stairs, there was a solid wall straight ahead with two spouts of water pouring out into a fountain between the staircases.

There were four paths down here, two to the direct left and right of the entrance and the ones to the left and right of the staircases down small hallways. The upper floors had even more hallways, this place was really quite big and hopefully Jean would be a good enough guide.

We still didn’t move from our spot as Pom still had her hoof raise. She slowly looked to each of us and then turned her head back and stared at the empty corridor behind us, the fog was now blocking the entrance off and wasn’t coming into the corridor itself for some reason.

“Ocellus, tell the others to prepare for a fight.” Pom said gently.

I relayed this to the others, they looked as confused as I did.

We didn’t hear anything other than running water, suddenly a loud sound echoed from the corridor behind us. I turned and lit my horn to shine a light that way.

I saw one of the statues had moved, that’s when I noticed something.

The solid stone the statue was made of was slowly turning to metal starting from the legs in a surge of dark purple energy that made it take another step, making a hollow metallic echoing noise.

Once it was facing us, the whole statue turned metallic. The eyes in the statues head were a deep blood red as it held up its sword in a threatening manner.

“What… but the Armello Quadruplets are just statues!? They should not be capable of moving!” That was likely the wrong thing to say Jean, I turned the light from my horn onto the other statues and saw that they too were slowly turning to metal. “They’ve been here for as long as I’ve been alive, longer even!”

The others weren’t moving... yet.

“Jean… I don’t think they care.” I said slowly as the knight statue with the shield started to take steps towards us. “Is it me, or is it starting to move faster?”

“It’s not just you." Pom, looking quite panicked, took a stance.

Author's Note:

Four stone statues turned from stone to hollow metal, now it's time for those entering the haunted castle to test their mettle.

Against weapons both powerful and magically weird, these four statues are something to be feared.

Comments

[Herald of Opera]

“It is, how to say, strange that no one is around to care for the water systems of the castle and yet it is all still in perfect working order.”

Fog is made of water, so whoever or whatever is doing the rest of this should suffice for that upkeep.