Misty, Sprout, and the monsters of Knottshurr Island

by RiffRaff7942_YT

Back to the Ridge

All was calm in the forest surrounding Starlight Ridge. Suddenly without warning, a portal opened up, and Misty and Sprout, all glittery now having been transformed into Auroricorns, stepped out to soak in the atmosphere.
“Here we are,” Misty announced, “Starlight Ridge!”
The first thing Sprout noticed was the unusual glittery and neon effects his skin had undergone. His usual tomato red skin now faded into a sparkly yellow hue at his knees, and his mane was now full of glitter. “Woah, I look awesome!” He said, “And so handsome!”
“That’s just something that happens when we travel to this dimension.” Misty explained, “I don’t know why it happens. Anyway, shall we get going?”
Sprout was still a little overwhelmed about the changes to his body. “Just give me a minute, this is a lot to take in.” He said.

After a couple of minutes of getting Sprout acclaimed to the new landscape, Misty led her friend through the small village, towards an Auroricorn. “Morning ladies, gentlemen. So, where are these strange noises coming from?”
“From atop that mountain,” One of the Auroricorns remarked, pointing to a mountain, “We were scared whatever’s up there might be dangerous. That’s why we brought you here.”
“You brought us here to find out what it is, because you were scared?” Sprout asked, a sense of humour in his voice.
The Auroricorn simply answered “Yeah, pretty much.”
“Oh…” Sprout replied after a short pause. “Well, leave it to us, we’ll go suss it out, and then everything will be okay.”
“Thank you brave ponies.” The Auroricorn replied in awe.
“My name’s Sprout by the way,” Sprout called as they left, “and I assume you already knew Misty. Bye!”

It took at least 10 minutes to get to the top of the mountain. That might not seem like a long time, but even with no snowstorms to speak of, the path was steep, and the constant slipping didn’t help. When they eventually stopped at the top, they spent about 2 minutes catching their breath.

Sprout was the first to speak, or rather grunt. “Ugh… this is a steep mountain.”
“Yeah, no kidding…” Misty replied, also out of breath. “I’m kinda more used to you at walking long distances, but still...”
“Yeah, I should workout more.” Sprout replied.
Misty thought for a few seconds. “I can take you to a gym sometime if you want.”
“Not until I get a better job. By the time I’m finished I’m always exhausted. Too tired to do anything else but go home, have dinner, and just lounge around for the evening.”
“You could always join me and my friends.”
“Nah, I’m not ready for a step that big yet.”
“Eh, I’m sure we’ll figure something out.”

The two waited a couple more minutes before they regained their strength. They stared at the mouth of the cave. Completley silent. Misty checked the time on her phone, 11:58AM. “Shall we head inside then?” She asked, looking at Sprout. Sprout showed a little bit of nervousness, but also curiosity.
“Yeah,” he finally said, meekly, “Let’s do it.”

*MYM*

The two stepped inside. The cave was naturally dark, with seemingly no natural light source. Misty lit up her horn. All around them, strange ‘structures’ were dotted around the cavern, clearly there, but not bright enough to fully make out. They were both scared, but neither were undetermined.
“Hello?” Misty called, causing a small yelp of fright to escape Sprout’s mouth.
“Oh, sorry Sprout.” Misty apologised.
“Next time you wanna do that,” Sprout said, hugging himself a little, “warn me in advance.”
“Yeah, sure…” Misty said.

Then, they were both drawn to something. Both of their pairs of eyes locked onto an odd structure in the middle of the room. It was a tiny, purple mountain. And it had a face. Or rather, it had four of them. It had one big face on the side of it, and three smaller purple boulders on top of it, all with their own little eyes and mouthes. And the two noted a strange slightly glowing orb circling the mountain.
“Look at that,” Misty said,
“I can’t not look at it,” Sprout replied, in awe of the odd sphere circling the mountain.
“Not that, this,” Misty said, pointing to what looked like exposed crystals on the side of the mountain.
“Huh, weird…” Sprout remarked. “Do you think that has something to do with this? They both look kinda Crystal like.”
“I dunno,” Misty said slowly, “I’m not really a big Crystal expert.”
Sprout went to touch the orb with his hoof.

Then without warning, the orb suddenly surged into the exposed crystals of the mini mountain, making a sound like that of a bell striking. The mountain’s eyes and mouths began glowing with a bright blue hue, and an eerie organ like noise followed the strike of the bell. Naturally, the two ponies’ first instinct were to scream in fright, and back away as quickly as possible. Both backed up to opposite sides of the room.

Misty backed straight into a four legged creature, with a massive hollow horn protruding from its head. The creature then put a hand to its mouth, and a loud horn blow was heard, knocking Misty off her feet.

Sprout backed into a collection of ice like drums, which were subtlety hit by some kind of floating disembodied puffball of sorts, with a look of pure horror on its face. The puffball began slamming itself into the drums, making steel pan-esque sounds.

Without warning, the cave suddenly began slowly lighting up, with a dark blue hue, revealing at least a dozen other strange and dimly coloured creatures;

A tree with a hollow face, and three big scraggly arms, two protruding from this sides, and an extra to the right side of its head.

A small furry creature, with no arms legs or eyes, just two ears, a mouth with a blue log for a bottom jaw, and a small stump on its head.

A stack of sentient mounds, the bottom one with one eye, the second sporting wings and a beak, and the top one which looked a little like a diseased one eyed pumpkin.

A one eyed icy stalagmite protruding from the ground. How bit it actually was they weren’t certain.

A smaller tree with a face and three long fingers, holding a big black ball, pulsing with small beams of light.

A babushka looking rock, holding a a piece of rag it had presumably knotted all by itself.

A small furry creature with one leg, sporting two little maracas.

And another furry creature, this one a little like a spider, resting atop a branch with four leaves made of ice.

Altogether, these creatures began performing some sort of ambience music, which Misty and Sprout figured was what the townsfolk has overtone over the weekend. At first, the two could only stare, and marvel at the bizarre monster like specimens, as their performance completed its opening. Finally, Misty spoke; “At least we found the source of the music. Now we just need to fi-“
“Please…”
The two jumped, and looked where the voice had come from.
“…do…”
The three armed tree had began speaking to them.
“…not…”
It spoke to the beat of the music.
“…fear us!”

The two were silent for a moment as they took in what the tree had said. “Umm, okay…?” Misty said, “We won’t fear you. I assume this means you’re friendly.” Misty tried her best to take the tree’s advice and not be scared. But the overall ambience and spooky creatures didn’t make it easy.
Now it was Sprout’s turn to speak up. “Yeah, Uhh… So, the town has been a little disturbed by your midday and midnight, Uhh… ‘performances’. Who are you, and what are you doing here?”
The three didn’t answer. It simply swayed with the beat, as if waiting for a chance to speak again.
Sprout spoke up again; “Hello? I Asked you a question.”
Still nothing.
“I said, who-“
“We…”
The tree spoke again.
“…are…”
Every time the tree spoke, its hollow face and head pulsed with bright blue light, not unlike the purple mound beforehand.
“…from…”
“…from a land…”
“…not…”
“…like…”
“…your own!”

“I think he speaks with the beat of the song.” Misty said.
“Yeah, I gathered…” Sprout said, struggling a little at processing what was happening. “So, where is your home anyway?”
The tree once again remained silently swaying to the beat.
“I think he has to wait for the song to let him speak again.” Misty commented.
“Okay… when do you think-“
“We’ve…” the tree spoke again, in its warmly and gritty voice.
“…been…”
“…here…”
“…three days!”

“Three days,” Misty said “Friday, and the whole weekend.”
“Well how can we help you home then?” Sprout asked.
The two ponies waited for the tree to answer, looking around at the creatures as they did so. The creatures were contributing to the music in the weirdest ways. The babuska rock was plucking its knitted blanket, and it was making string instrument like noises as it’s armed partly lit up with every pluck, and the ice stalagmite was releasing long icy sighs as if to transition the song from verse to verse.

“…I…”
“…am…”
“…not…”
“…too sure! You…”
“…should…”
“…ask…”
“…Some-one else…”
“…if…”
“…they…”
“…could help!”
Then, just as abruptly as it had started, the music ended, the echos bouncing off the walls signifying the end of their performance.

Sprout spoke again; “Umm, we’re gonna have a quick discussion about this, heh… outside.”
“Yeah, outside,” Misty chimed in “No offence, it’s just a little, Uhh…”
“Eerie?” Sprout suggested.
“Yeah, that,” Misty said “it’s a little eerie in here, heh. We’ll see you in a minute.”
With that, the two started trotting towards the exit. The creatures didn’t stop them, they simply watched as these new life forms left. However, The ice stalagmite released a cheeky little spray of cold air behind Sprout.
“AGH!” He cried, “Okay, I’m going I’m going!”

The stalagmite chuckled to itself. The bottom layer of the small mound however hummed to it, as if to tell it off. The other mounds chipped in. The top one seemed to want the bottom mound to let it go, and what the middle mound said they couldn’t tell, though it seemed to disagree with them both. Other creatures pitched in too, making random non-on-beat noises as if to communicate, almost as if they were having an argument. Misty and Sprout noticed the tree signal to the massive horned creature, and that creature blew an extra loud noise to get all the other creatures’ attention. They looked at the horn creature, and then at the tree. Though the tree didn’t speak, its (lack of) body language told the whole story. The tree seemed to signal that the creatures needed to calm down, and remain chilled, chill being the appropriate word, even though the way the tree spoke, it was unlikely to say a word like that.

*MYM*

“Okay, soooo, what do we do?” Misty asked.
“Beats me.” Sprout replied, “Lemme think for a minute.”
The two did just that. They sat in the snow for a little while and thought.
“Apart from the big tree, we can’t really understand the others,” Sprout remarked, “I think we need Hitch for this. He can understand animals, right? Maybe he can understand these monsters and figure something out.”
“Yeah, he can talk to animals,” Misty said, “Though I wouldn’t really call them monsters.”
“Okay then,” Sprout replied, “Let’s get Hitch here, and then we’ll see where we go from there.”
“You’re right,” Misty replied, fully on board with Sprouts plan at hoof, “let’s go get Hitch.”