Devourer

by Croabadrake

Chapter Three: In the Halls, In the Walls

Heheheh….. it seems I left an… impression. Where is he going now?
Oh… to the library. I see…… he is going to the darker sister to ask about me.
How flattering. At least he knows I know he’s here.
Wouldn’t want him to think he’s hunting unaware quarry.

He’s arrived. She was awaiting him I see and they are now talking. Hm… that book…..
…..mythology? The intent in it….. that book looks tasty. How can I…?
Nggah, have to widen this hole, I can’t see.
*crumbling sound*
Mmm….. brick appetizer, heheh. Now let’s see…
…………oh yes, that shelf will do. It’s time I got a bit more obvious in my efforts.
Maybe they’ll know I’m luring them away from the table. If so, then it means things are going to get fun.
If not, then I get that book. I win either way. Now then….

*CRASH*

Shining Armor, Luna, and her guards all quickly turned to the sound: a bookshelf had in another part of the library had suddenly been emptied of all of its books, and there was nopony else who had been allowed into the library at this time. There was a quick glance between them before they rapidly made their way to it through the piles of books Princess Luna had strewn about. They got halfway there before Shining Armor had a thought.

“You and you, come back with me,” he said to two of the six guards following Luna. They hesitated for a moment to leave their Princess.
“Go with him,” Luna called to them as she kept running; it was all the convincing they needed.

Shining Armor turned and quickly ran back towards the table. There was a short scuffling sound before the table was back in the view. When it came into sight, his suspicions had been correct: the table had been completely cleared of books, and there was no sign of them on the floor surrounding it. The creature had successfully lured them away from the table to have a meal in private.

Shining Armor facehoofed as the guards stared in shock. He told the guards to go back to Luna and tell her what happened while he searched the area for clues, not sure if he would find any considering how clean it was with the capture of the guard from last night. As he began closely eyeing the floor around the table, he failed to hear the gasps-cut-short of the two guards as they turned out of view and were silenced.

Ohoho, I did not expect that. They searched both possibilities.
Oh, would you two quit struggling! I can only hold you safely if you stay either still or limp!
They’re probably panicking because they can’t see through this darkness like I can. Oh well.
So now I’ve got two more….. very nice, my first double-takedown hee hee!
The darker sister now has fewer guards with her…. Maybe I could—
STOP. THAT.
*sounds of struggling*
*thud*
There. His friend is now complacent. At least an unconscious pony is easier to bring back.
…maybe I should do that to all of the ones I take. Hm.
…….what’s that sound?

Shining Armor stomped again. The floor under his hoof released a sound indicating that the space below it was hollow.

“Princess, I found something!” he called in Luna’s direction. She came around the corner, having returned of her own volition.
“Where did you send my guards?” she asked, noticing that the two guards accompanying Shining Armor were gone.
“I… sent them to get you. Didn’t you see them?” he replied, just before the realization hit. The realization seemed to occur to Luna at the same time, and they both took up a defensive stance with the guards surrounding them, horns outward.

A moment passed in tense silence as they waited to see if the creature would attack them. When no attack came, Shining Armor and Luna relaxed though the guards did not. They looked to each other, not sure what to do now.

“……..this is not good. My sister must be informed immediately, I’ve never had a guard from my personal entourage disappear to the creature,” she said, beginning to make her way to the door.
“Wait! We can’t leave the area, I found something,” Shining Armor said, stopping her. He went to the same spot as before, next to the table, and gave the spot another heavy thump with his hoof. Again, the floor made a hollow sound.
“What is this?” Luna said while walking over to investigate. “There are no secret passages here that I know of…”

No! I must have left the hole loose when I heard him coming back early!
Rrrrgh…. If they get through the floor and find the tunnels…
I can’t believe I was so reckless with that. This one is craftier than the distracted royals and the oblivious guards…

“Go, find my sister and tell her what we’ve found,” Luna instructed one of her guards.

….huh? She’s not THAT dumb…

“Fly with all of the haste your wings can muster and do not touch the floor!”

….oh. Heheh, let’s see if he does what I think he’s going to do.

The guard nodded and took flight immediately, rushing out the door and towards the throne room. He flew high off of the ground, hugging the ceiling instead.

Haaaaaaa……..
*skittering sounds*

‘Almost there,’ the guard thought to himself. ‘Just two more corners and then I’ll-WHAT!?’

COME HERE.

The long black arm reaching out of the ceiling caught the guard by the wing, dislocating it. It then immediately withdrew itself and the screaming guard into the hole above, which was then re-bricked in a matter of seconds. Nopony was around to witness it, the guards that came to answer the cry for help saw nothing, and the message failed to reach Celestia.

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You know, this place is really, really big. I never thought about it until now.
I’ve been doing my job here for… what, two months? Is that how long after the banishing it took me to decide to go ahead and begin?
And yet I’ve still not eaten out all of the walls. There are still some places untouched, and I’ve occasionally had to leave the tunnels to go into those areas and eat objects to keep from raising suspicion to the areas I have tunnels in. It’s irritating.
And more irritating, they figured out that I took the messenger. They seem to have gone to the brighter princess themselves, in a group, to deliver their message.
I refortified the hole they found, so it won’t raise any further suspicion… but they still might try to dig into it. I had to refill that entire section of tunnels…
NNGAH, that took forever! Time I could’ve spent expanding my tunnels elsewhere!
Time I could’ve spent eating! Or-

The Devourer’s thoughts paused and it stopped eating out the tunnel it was working on. It felt something nearby.

Is that….. that’s some sort of magic. Powerful, very powerful magic…
What could that be? That source of magic… I think I should tunnel towards it.
*crumbling sounds*
Woah. There’s also a ward there, surrounding the magic source. And it’s equally powerful.
What IS this? It’s just a little further this way… a floor. There’s a room here…
……back of the room, through a door with another ward, this one special.
It can only be undone by the royals… heh. It’s only on the door.
But still, that other ward is there over the first source of magic, past the door. Secure, secure.
Hm….. I’ll come back to this room later. Right now is about when I need to get back to the den.

…hm, now that I think about it, they might start checking other areas for my tunnels.
Grgh… I can’t fill in that many areas. They’ll just have to find them.
It’s not like they can do much if they do find them. They won’t be able to attack me with magic.
Now let’s see, another left…. A down, and… ah!
Hello.

Most of the prisoners, servant ponies and guards, began struggling when they heard the skittering sound that indicated the creature’s arrival in the den. The sound stopped, and after a few moments most of them stopped moving. One unicorn guard attempted to light the blackness with his horn, only managing a very dim glow. The outline of the creature in the darkness was all they could see by the light, and by all means it was enough to inspire them all to begin struggling again.

Nah-ah-ah. You won’t be able to escape those ropes I took from the store room.
I sampled them, and they’re quite sturdy I assure you.

The dark shape moved towards his most recent captive: the guard with the injured wing. He froze as it drew near to him, but it didn’t descend upon him with teeth and claws as he expected. Instead, it moved an arm closer to it, the glow being closer revealing that it had extended its claw close to his helmet.

Come on now, take the hint.

Unsure of what the creature wanted, the guard moved his head away.

……come onnn….. take the hiiiint!

The glow reflected off of teeth in the darkness formed into a wide grin; each tooth looked sharp enough to cut through bone. The guard let out a cry and attempted to flatten himself against the wall.

……I’m losing patience…….

The guard suddenly noticed his fellows, many of which were desperately tilting their heads forward in a suggestive motion. Suddenly realizing what it wanted, the guard stopped struggling.

…ha, now you see.

He tilted his head forward as they had done, hooking the front of his helmet onto the thing’s claw. Satisfied, it lifted the helmet off and withdrew far enough into the darkness that the glow didn’t even vaguely outline it anymore.

There was a moment of silence, and then a loud crunch as it bit into the metal, causing some of the guards to jump. It took around four seconds for it to completely eat the helmet, biting and swallowing rapidly. There was a satisfied sigh (at least it sounded sort of like a sigh) from the darkness, and then they heard it move to the exit before it suddenly stopped.

…what….? Is that…….?

A bright green flash erupted from the darkness, centered on the creature. None of the captured ponies could see through it to get a good view of the creature before the light faded. What followed was a stunned silence. A voice, only audible to the creature, echoed out.

“Devourer. Devourer, this is your Queen speaking.”

The creature silently bent to one knee.

“I and the swarm are safely on the other side of the Everfree Forest. We cannot enter Equestria, but I can sense that you are still in Canterlot. You are now tasked with replying to me as you know how, and then I shall issue orders to you. Proceed immediately.”

The creature waited a few moments to see if the message had anything else to say. When it was sure that it didn’t, it turned back to its prisoners. It looked over them as they felt it watching them, and then it crawled off through the exit, leaving the prisoners alone in the darkness once more.

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The Queen has contacted me! I am so happy to hear her voice once again!
….even if it is through a magically-sent voicemail of sorts. I must reply at once.
Good thing I have that series of tunnels that leads all the way up to the roof.
………..here. Here it is. Now then… hooooo…….

The creature breathed out as it rested on a small ledge in the vertical tunnel. The tunnel continued above, but it was far too narrow for even it. But then, it began to change…

Its exoskeleton softened, and then turned into a dark, swirling mist. Following was the grey flesh underneath, and then everything underneath that. When the transformation was complete, all that was left was a cloud of black smoke with dim yellow lights for eyes and a mouth full of teeth just as sharp as they were in its normal form.

Ugh, for the love of the Dear Queen, how I hate having to use this form. It’s handy, but…..

The creature paused its thoughts and squeezed through the narrow opening, which opened up into a small cavity that was evidently the hollowed-out inside of the roof of a tower.

…but I don’t like how it can be affected by magic. I hate how hard it is to keep myself together with this form too. Then again, it’s the only way I can use magic myself, so…

It used its teeth, the only truly solid part of it in this form, to push aside a group of shingles that were revealed by a hole. It flowed outside onto the roof of the tallest tower of Canterlot Castle. There, it moved towards the peak of the cone and stopped. It turned until it felt the direction the signal came from and then opened its mouth wide, speaking aloud.

“I’m eating at the moment. Call again later.”

Satisfied with the message, the green glow from earlier returned to it, which it cloaked by enveloping it with its own body. When the glow died down, it released its form and the magic escaped, invisibly heading off in the chosen direction. It waited a few moments, relaxing at having finished the task… before suddenly returning to its normal form on the steep slant of the roof.

Startled, it quickly wrapped its arms around the top of the spire, careful not to make any noise. After making sure it had a good grip on things, it very carefully removed sections of shingles from an area by holding them in its mouth and swallowing any excess ones. When it had made enough of a hole, it carefully transferred the shingles to one of its hands and began carving out a hole in the roof underneath with care equal to the original shingle-removing process. When it finished, it slipped through the hole into the small attic. It glued the shingles back onto the board with a substance it secreted from the tips of its claws and then glued the board back into place. There were fewer shingles on that little section now, but it was sure that it had spread them out evenly enough to not be noticeable to anypony that wasn’t flying right next to it.

I forgot how much that drains my strength. That’s what I get for not using that form for a while…
…now then. What tower was this again?

It carefully proceeded down a ladder into another attic, this one above a normal room. It carved a very tiny hole in the floor and looked through.

Oh, this must be one of the more important roo-
Aha! I see, this is the brighter princess’ bedroom! Hee hee, I can see she has six guards with her as she sleeps, just like the darker sister.
I can see she’s pretending to be asleep. She’s anticipating an attack, but no… one will not come.
Not tonight. She is sleep-worn I can tell, though. She’s quite tired…
It must take much concentration to not actually fall asleep, laying in bed like that while being so tired.
Oh well. It’s not my place to criticize how she spends her nights.

The creature yawned.

……wow, today has been busy. She may not be allowing herself to sleep…
…but I certainly feel like I deserve some...

The creature moved through a hidden hole that it then patched back up with care before proceeding back to its den.

Comments

[Demic]

what a troll lol

[Razzy]

Aww, it didn't kill the captives.