Twilight and the girls spend one night a week relaxing with a good game. This is their story. Their game pieces' story, that is.
There is nothing more relaxing than spending a quiet evening with your friends playing a fun game. Or at least it should be, if you're smart enough to pick the right game! After a disastrous first try, the mane 6 are determined to give game night another go. And this time, they are going to remember that it is just a game and focus on just having fun.
But that's boring. So let's see what it's like from the game's point of view!
This is a sequel to Six Best Friends Play Diplomacy, but you do not need to read that story to enjoy this one. It only really comes up in the first chapter.
“Come on in,” Twilight Sparkle said, stepping back and holding open the door. “You’re just in time.”
“Thank you.” Fluttershy glanced around the library and smiled hesitantly. “My, it looks like the repairs are… coming along nicely.”
Several brand new bookcases flanked one section of the library’s main room opposite the window. The window in question was still boarded over, as tailor-fit glass was at… something of a premium in Ponyville right now, but the sill had been freshly repaired. And you could barely see any of the scorch marks in the floorboards anymore.
Twilight coughed into a hoof and gestured her friend over to the also brand new table. “We’re only waiting on Rarity. She should be here any minute.”
“I think I saw her on my way here, but I’m not sure…” Fluttershy swallowed and steeled her nerves, looking around the table at each of her friends in turn. “I just wanted to apologize once more for how I acted in the game last week. I don’t know what came over me and I hope you’ll be able to forgive me for everything I said…”
Rainbow Dash huffed out a breath and leaned back in her chair. “Come on, Fluttershy, you’ve apologized for that every time we’ve seen you since then! We get it, and we forgive you already!”
“‘Sides, it’s not like we weren’t at fault ourselves,” Applejack put in, shooting a disapproving glance at Rainbow. “We all said things we regret that day. Don’t worry about it, sugarcube.”
“Not to mention,” Pinkie chirped happily, bouncing up from behind the pegasus somehow and eliciting a squeak of surprise from her, “I said sorry to Twilight myself when I showed up and Applejack did too when she showed up after that! And now that you’ve apologized everypony has apologized to everypony else! Save for Rainbow Dash, who’s too cool for that, apparently.” She ended her little speech by zipping over behind the blue pony, staring down at her like a disapproving teacher.
Rainbow shrugged and folded her hooves behind her head. “I already said I was sorry once. I’m over it,” Her eyes opened and sparkled with memory. “Besides, that fight with Princess Celestia was epic. Scary, but in an awesome way!”
She blinked and noticed the way the others were looking at her and quickly tried to backpedal. “Err, not that I think it should happen again or anything…”
Twilight sighed and stepping in before Rainbow could dig herself in any deeper. “It won’t happen again. Last week’s game was… a poor decision, but I still want to spend time with you all. I promise not to let myself get that competitive again.”
“I’m he-ear!” Rarity exclaimed in a singsong voice, brushing the door open with her magic and striking a dramatic entrance. She had a large shopping bag floating in the air behind her. She took a moment to levitate her hat and scarf onto the coat rack by the door before joining the others at the table.
“So sorry I’m late, but there was just a dreadfully long line to wait through at the store. I’m terribly sorry I made you wait.” She took a deep breath and a little more formality crept into her voice. “And I wanted to once again ask for forgiveness for my behavior last week-”
“We forgive you!” all five of her friends said at the same time, with various levels of volume. They stared at each other for a half second and then all devolved into laughter.
Rarity arched her eyebrow daintily and looked around, lost. “I’m… sorry, am I missing something? What’s funny?”
“N-nothing,” Twilight managed to choke out as her chuckles subsided, “So, you volunteered to bring a game for us to play this time. What did you bring?”
“Right. Well,” Rarity said, trying to pull some dignity back into her presentation, “There’s a bit of a story behind that. I was planning on borrowing something from Sweetie Belle but I got a little caught up designing this simply fabulous new line of hats, and I quite forgot until after she’d already gone out to play with her friends. So I stopped by the toy store down by the spa and the nice salespony recommended this game here. It’s apparently very popular.”
She pulled the box out of the bag and settled it into the middle of the table. “It’s called Betrayal at House on the Hill!”
There was silence around the table for a few moments and then Applejack softly cleared her throat. “Um… beg pardon?”
“You bought a game where we betray each other again?!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed.
Rarity levitated the game off the table before her protectively. “No, you see, I had the same reaction at first, but it’s not like that! The salespony explained that it’s an exploration game in which one of us is secretly the enemy, but we don’t find out who that pony is until the very end! Before that we all work together to explore this haunted house.”
“Well sounds good enough for me!” Pinkie bubbled happily, snatching the box out of the air and yanking off the top, “Let’s pop this bad boy open and get to playing!”
Applejack poked her hoof into the box and pushed aside the game board. “That’s a lot of bits and pieces.”
Twilight pulled the instruction booklet – one of three, Rainbow noted with alarm – out with her magic and flipped it open to the first page. “I’ll give this a look through while you girls get everything out and set it up.”
Several minutes, and plenty of “I think these black things clip onto here” and “No, those are supposed to be separate decks, not mixed together” later, the princess put down the booklet and picked up one of the pentagonal tiles.
“I’ve got a good handle on how it works. It’s actually not as complicated as it looks. We each pick one of these characters, and these sliding knobs keep track of various stats like speed and sanity.”
“So how do we set up the rooms?” Fluttershy asked, picking up another stack of tiles.
“We don’t,” Twilight said, shaking her head, “We build the map randomly as we go. The game starts with us…”
“…entering from the front door.” Twilight said with a gulp, staring around the entrance hall with wide eyes.
The hallway stretching before them was paneled with old, worn-out wood that creaked with every shift of their hooves. A threadbare rug the color of dull wine lay in the center of the hall and led to a burnished grand staircase to the second floor. A few flickering candles shed barely enough light to see by, only barely enhanced by the light straining to come in through the soot-stained window above the door behind them. Ancient cobwebs adorned every corner in sight. Four closed doors, two on either side, seemed to sag in their frames with age. A dry rasp echoed down the long hall as the old building settled around them, and a little shower of dust drifted down from the ceiling.
“Alright, no.” Fluttershy said, spinning around and diving for the doorknob. She twisted it desperately this way and that, but somehow the door had gotten stuck after they’d entered. No matter how she pulled at it, it didn’t budge an inch.
Twilight put a calming hoof in her shoulder and calmly but firmly turned her back around. “There’s no going back now. Nothing for it but for us to move forward.”
“…do we have to…?” Fluttershy squeaked, trying to hide behind her own hair.
“So let me get this straight,” Rainbow Dash said slowly, surveying her surroundings, “Anything we find in this place, we get to keep?”
“Unless you want to share it-” Twilight started.
“All I needed to hear!” Rainbow interrupted, launching forward with a powerful flap of her wings. She zoomed across the hall and shot up the stairs before anypony could stop her.
“Wow, she sure can move fast,” Pinkie whistled, shading her eyes as if she could still see her, “I don’t start with anywhere near that much speed!”
Applejack stomped her hoof and called out after her. “Hey, we haven’t made a plan yet! Don’t go rushin’ off on your own like that!”
Rarity smirked and adjusted her mane as she walked past the farmer towards the closed door to the right. “Oh calm down, darling. Just let her go off and do her own thing for a while. We can cover more ground if we split up, after all. Now let’s see what’s to find behind door number ouuuaaaahhhh!”
The rest of her words were cut off in a shriek as the door swung in to reveal a stark metal chute covered in rust and coal dust instead of a floor. Rarity scrambled for a grip on the door as she teetered over the edge, but it was useless. With a wail she overbalanced and tumbled down the chute, quickly vanishing into the shadows below.
“Rarity!” Her friends cried, rushing to the door. Unfortunately the chute dropped down into absolute darkness so they couldn’t see anything. It didn’t seem to be very deep, but the fashionista’s scream just kept getting softer and softer until it disappeared.
“…can I freak out now…?” Fluttershy asked softly.
Applejack sighed and pushed her hat more firmly onto her head. “It doesn’t look like she can get back up from here, so ah’ll go down after her and we’ll try to find stairs or somethin'. There has to be some way back up. You girls search up here and we’ll meet up when we can.”
She faced the chute, took a deep breath, and leapt. “Yee-haw!” she shouted as she hit the ramp hard and coasted down into the darkness.
“Guess it’s my turn!” Pinkie Pie said cheerfully, bouncing off to the door next to the one with the chute. She batted it open with her head and flounced in, shouting, “Ohh! What is THAT?!”
Twilight watched her go with a wry smile, and then leaned down and lay a hoof on Fluttershy’s quivering back. “Fluttershy? I’ve got to go now. Are you going to be alright?”
“…”
“We have to find the way up for Applejack and Rarity, right? And for that, we need to explore.”
“…”
“Would you rather I stay here with you?”
Fluttershy tensed up at the suggestion, but shook her head after a moment. “No,” she said softly, but then gathered her courage and repeated in a louder voice, “No. you should go. I don’t want to hold you back.”
Twilight bit her lip but decided not to press it. “Alright, but you really should look around too. You never know what you might find.”
The princess gave her friend one last encouraging smile and turned to the remaining two doors on the floor. After a moment’s consideration she strode over to the one opposite the one Pinkie had entered. She laid a hoof on the splintery wood, steeled her nerves for whatever lay on the other side, and pushed the door open.
She took a step through the portal and her hoof sank into loamy soil. The scent of moss and rich earth assailed her nostrils and the air was noticeably fresher. She realized she was standing in a small graveyard, enclosed in a cage of old iron bars. Mist curled in the air on the other side of the fence, concealing whatever lay more than a few inches outside and inexplicably not flowing into the graveyard. The yard itself contained at most a dozen small gravestones that she could see and even a large tree, devoid of leaves and tall enough to brush against the ceiling above.
Twilight blinked and leaned forward. Unless her eyes were playing tricks on her, there was some kind of movement on the other side of the tree. “Excuse me, is somepony there?” she called out, pacing forward over the slightly damp ground.
It only took her a minute to reach the tree and peer around it. An old earth pony with a brown coat was working with a shovel in the far corner of the graveyard, whistling tunelessly as he worked. He wore a threadbare vest hanging open and a shapeless hat, and a piece of straw hung from one corner of his mouth.
“Hello,” Twilight said, walking forward, “I didn’t expect to find anypony so quickly. Can you tell me anything about this house? I need to find a way into the basement.”
The old pony froze in place when she started speaking and clutched his shovel tighter. He slowly started turning and some instinct cut Twilight’s next question short. He faced her and she took a startled step backwards with a soft cry of dismay. The pony had a look of such pure hate on his face that it left no doubt in her mind about his intentions.
The pony let loose a wordless roar and lurched forward, raising his shovel high. Twilight dodged the first swing and backed away, but one of her hooves caught in one of the tree’s exposed roots and she went down in a sprawl. She landed on her back hard enough to expel the breath from her lungs and for a few precious seconds all she could do was flounder and struggle to get her bearings. When she could focus again she saw that the old pony was standing directly above her with his shovel raised.
The two of them each let out a scream as the shovel came whistling down… and vanished inches before it connected with her face. Twilight blinked, hyperventilating as adrenaline coursed through her in a fiery river of nerves. She flicked her head in all directions, but the old pony was gone. As if he’d never been there at all. She jerked up into a sitting position and scooted backwards until her back was pressed flat against the tree.
“What… what was that?” she gasped, struggling to calm down. She took stock of her surroundings and immediately became aware of two things.
First, even though the strange groundskeeper had vanished, his hoof prints had not. She could clearly see the places where he’d lurched after her in the slightly muddy ground. Whatever that had been, it hadn’t been just in her head.
Secondly, there was something hard poking her in the back.
Licking her extremely dry lips, she felt around behind her and pulled out from under the tree a small silver bell. She tilted it slightly and it rang with a clear note that seemed just a little too resonant for its size. She immediately encased it with her magic to stop the ring, lest it attract any more unwanted attention.
She looked around the graveyard, but she didn’t relax until a full minute of inactivity. For better or for worse, for the moment at least, she was alone.
Applejack managed to keep her hooves beneath her all the way until the last few feet, when the chute unexpectedly dipped down on a hinge under her weight. She was dumped unceremoniously into a fairly large pile of coal. She tumbled tail over teakettle, limbs flailing wildly to arrest her fall. She finally coasted to a stop at the foot of the pile, quite liberally covered in an itchy layer of coal dust.
“Pah!” she spat, blowing a small black cloud of dust from her mouth and flicking her tongue over her teeth to get rid of the taste, “Let’s not do that again. Rarity? You here?”
She stood up and took stock of the area. She was in a square room with four empty doorways, one on each wall, and she couldn’t make out any details of what was on the other side of them. The coal chute had dropped her into one of the corners and had sprung back up on its hinge once she was clear. Even if she climbed up the pile of coal, she wouldn’t be able to reach it.
And of course, Rarity was nowhere in sight.
“What did ah really expect?” Applejack sighed. She looked down and noted that there were many different sets of sooty hoof prints on the floor, leading to all the doors. Whelp, no help there…
The farmer tapped her chin in thought, but there really wasn’t anything else she could do. So she picked a door at random and walked boldly through it.
That boldness didn’t last long, however. Her chosen path had led her into a long hallway, lined on either side by large stone busts and statues of ponies. Time had worn their features unrecognizable, but she could make out some of them clutching stone spears and shields. At least one had been knocked over at some point in the past, and she had to step lightly over pieces scattered all over the floor.
“Rarity, you better be somewhere this way,” Applejack said in a carrying whisper, not really wishing to be too loud. The back of her neck was starting to twinge and the uncomfortable feeling that the statues were watching her stuck in her mind.
In fact, her neck was really starting to itch. She paused in the middle of the room and twisted her head to the side to see if that’d help. She’d brushed as much of the dust off her as she could while walking, but what she couldn’t reach shouldn’t itch all that much.
“What in tarnation?” she asked, reaching back to scratch it directly. Something clicked by her ear and something with too many legs crawled up onto her foreleg from her back. She had barely a second to realize that a spider the size of a dinner plate was crawling rapidly up her leg before the thing hissed at her and jumped directly onto her face!
Applejack screamed bloody murder and reared back, swiping blindly at her head to dislodge it. The spider avoided her first swing and crawled up under her hat, entangling itself in her mane. AJ whipped the hat from her head and sent it flinging away in her panic, bucking wildly back and forth across the hall. She head-butted one of the statues by accident and the world spun wildly for a moment.
There was a sharp pain on the back of her neck and she cried out, slapping at in instinctively. She got lucky and hit the spider head-on, dislodging it from its perch along with a number of long hairs. The spider hissed again and scuttled into a hole in the wall.
Applejack staggered away, one hoof pressed to the back of her neck. Her hoof came down wrong on a piece of statuary and she flopped to the ground for the second time in five minutes. She lay where she was for a minute, just focusing on breathing and calming down.
She stood and discovered that she’d twisted her leg a little when she’d fallen. Spotting her hat lying against the wall, she limped over and picked it up, checking to see if there were any more arachnids inside before putting it back on.
She glared around the hallway. “You know, ah don’t think ah like this place much,” she grumbled. The statues stared back at her expressionlessly, but Applejack felt sure that they were mocking her.
Drip… Drip… Drip…
“What was that?” Rarity asked, cocking her ears behind her at the door. For a little bit there she could have sworn she’d heard somepony calling her name… but no, there was nothing.
“Just my imagination,” she muttered, returning to her task. “Just this house, trying to play a trick on me.”
She’d managed to find a small room, wide but not any longer than her if she sat on the stone floor. And sitting she was, before a large metal door set into the wall just out of view of the way back into the horrid coal room. It was like the door to the vault in Ponyville’s one small bank, save that the large spin-wheel handle also contained a combination lock with four tumblers. She was currently spinning those tumblers with her magic, with one ear pressed to the steel door in an attempt to hear the slightest of sounds.
“Think of what such a large door must be hiding,” she said aloud, concentrating too hard to realize she was talking to nopony. “Bits, jewelry, something else equally precious… but most importantly…”
Drip… Drip… Drip…
Water! She might have passed by this room entirely if she hadn’t caught the sound on the edge of her hearing. She’d already scoured this small area and couldn’t find the source of the sound, so it had to be coming from the other side of the door. A steady dripping means there might be a sink or, please Celestia, a bath on the other side! I can wash this filthy black filth out of my fur!
She thought she heard a slight tumble and she leaned back eagerly, giving the door a firm tug with her magic. The wheel rattled in place but didn’t budge an inch to either side.
“Arrgh!” Rarity exclaimed in a very unladylike fashion, stamping her hooves petulantly before starting in on the door again, “I will not be beaten by a hunk of metal! I will get through!”
Drip… Drip… Drip…
That sound. It was like a needle, rhythmically stabbing at her brain. Unbeknownst to Rarity, her left eyelid had started to twitch in perfect harmony with the sound. But she pressed on regardless, determined to reach the promise of water.
Drip… Drip… Drip…
There was a creak of settling wood from the doorway behind her and Fluttershy nearly jumped a foot into the air with a squeak of terror. She spun in place and stared down the offending door just in case it got any funny ideas and reluctantly retreated until she was in the center of the hall.
“OK, big scary house,” she whispered to herself, scrunching in to present as small a target to potential predators as possible, “Big, scary, rundown, absolutely-haunted-for-a-fact, house. But I’m not scared.”
A soft sigh of wind ghosted across her back and she spun in place, eyes as wide as saucers.
“Alright, I am scared! But you know what, that’s fine. It’s perfectly natural to be scared in a haunted house. It is exactly what I should be feeling. So I don’t need to go anywhere. I’ll just stay here, by the entrance, and wait for the others to get back.”
Fluttershy started nodding to herself. “Yes, that’s it. I’ll just wait here. The others will probably be coming back this way when they are done exploring and they might miss each other if I’m not here to greet them. If you think about it, this is the smartest thing I can do right now. There’s no need for me to go any further inside. I’ll just wait right here and be ready when everypony comes back!” She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, determination easing the worst of her racing heart. She looked up at the empty hallway and mentally prepared herself for the task ahead.
At which point a hideous shriek boiled down the stairs from the second floor like a living thing. The soul-rending sound raised every hair on Fluttershy’s body and locked her muscles tight. Rainbow Dash was the only one who’d gone upstairs, but this didn’t sound like her at all. The shriek kept growing in volume until it cut out like a knife. In the sudden silence, Fluttershy’s panicked breathing was almost painfully loud.
“Or-maybe-I’ll-go-find-them-instead!” she said in a panic, rushing blindly out of the hallway in whatever direction would take her away from the stairs as quickly as possible.
She charged through the door to the left of the entrance and found herself in a mostly empty room. A threadbare rug was the only decoration in the room besides an old decrepit radiator against the far wall. A thin layer of dust coated the floor and gave the room the firm impression of having been abandoned.
There were three other doors out of the room but the pegasus gave them no mind, making a beeline for the radiator. She squeezed herself into the small space created by it in the corner and cowered, dreading the return of that blood-curdling scream. Or whatever it was that had made it. After a while, she realized her straining ears could hear something. A low panting. Coming from right next to her.
Fluttershy almost panicked again, but something held her back and she considered the sound again. There was a note of fear in it that she was instinctively reacting to. She knew that sound. It was…
“A dog!” she said, immediately perking up and scanning for the source of the panting. She quickly discerned that it was coming from the far side of the radiator and inched her way along the floor until she was a little closer.
“It’s OK, you can come out,” she said coaxingly, “I’m not going to hurt you. My name is Fluttershy. What are you doing in a scary place like this?”
Her soft tone seemed to get through to the scared animal and the dog slowly crawled out from her hiding spot. When she spotted Fluttershy’s face she bounded to her feet and started running around her in an excited circle, barking with evident relief.
Fluttershy blinked, startled that she recognized this dog. “Winona? What are you doing here, girl? How did you get here?”
Winona, of course, couldn’t answer her. Instead she came to a stop in front of the pegasus and held out her paw, as if to shake.
Fluttershy held up her hoof hesitantly. “Do you want to come with me?” she asked. Winona barked and continued to hold out her paw.
As Fluttershy reached forward there was an eerie sensation, as if the entire house was holding its breath. The air seemed to still, the various creaks and groans seemed to quiet, and the flickering from the few candles providing light slowed. The moment held… and then passed. Fluttershy took Winona’s paw and shook it firmly and the dog barked happily as she ruffled the fur on her head with her other hoof.
“Alright, let’s do this together,” she said, looking around the room with new purpose. “I’m sure we can bring you back to Applejack safe and sound.”
She picked a direction at random and the two of them set out, proceeding deeper into the mansion.
“Well, that room sure was messy!” Pinkie said happily, bouncing back out into the creaky hallway she’d discovered, “Wasn’t it, Monkey?”
She arched her back sharply and the little toy monkey on her back bounced into the air. Its insides gave a groan as it landed and its arms jerkily pulled back, as if the gears inside it were defying the laws of death to live again. It suddenly found the power to clap its tiny cymbals once and its head lolled back, one eye rolling in its socket.
Pinkie, of course, pressed on completely oblivious to how creepy that was. “Now where should we go next, Monkey? Back to the others? Or further into… mystery!” She pointed dramatically to the unopened door directly opposite the way back to the foyer and blithely hopped over to it, opening and entering without even a moment’s hesitation.
If there was one word that could describe the next room, Pinkie would have a hard time choosing it because she could think of lots of words that could describe it. Cozy came to mind, especially those two plush-looking sofa seats. Three, if you counted the one on its side with its back torn open. Another word was cramped, what with the piles of books all over the floor and one of the bookcases leaning partway off the wall. Or trashed, that’s a good word, because of stuff like the torn open sofa seat and the books all over the floor and the leaning bookcase.
But if Twilight were here, she’d probably use the word library, because that’s what this room was.
“Maybe I should go find Twilight,” Pinkie thought aloud, trying to look everywhere as she wandered further into the room. “I just bet she’d find something in here that would tell us more about this place. Also, she’d like all the books! You’ll like Twilight, Monkey, she’s very smart! And very… um, that’s weird… the floor’s a little… sticky…”
The pink pony pulled up her hoof and the wooden floor lifted a bit with it, sliding off her hoof with a strange “plorp” sound. The wood rippled like some kind of thick liquid as it settled back into a flat surface. Pinkie blinked at it but slipped backwards before she could react further. She twisted her head back and saw that her hind legs were slipping into the suddenly gel-like floor.
“Monkey! Go get help!” Pinkie cried as she struggled not to get sucked down, rolling her back and launching the toy with a flick of her hips. The toy bounced off the edge of the overturned seat, ricocheted against a stack of books, and landed into the liquefying floor by her hooves, where it sank from view.
“Monkey, no!” Pinkie shouted, making one last attempt to pull herself up from the muck. It stretched up like taffy, but in the end it was just too sticky. After several seconds of straining, she shot back like a rubber band and vanished into the floor with a “vloip”. The floor wobbled like jello for a little bit and then settled as if nothing had happened.
The last bit of movement in the floor had barely ceased when the door was hesitantly pushed open and Twilight wandered in. “Hello, is anypony here? I thought I heard voices… oh!”
Twilight all but pranced into the library, her hooves clopping sharply on the solid wooden floors, and spun around to take in all of the room. “Finally, something I can work with! Let’s see if there’s anything about this strange house in here somewhere…”
She wandered over to the bookcase across from the door she entered from and scanned the shelves. Spotting a book that seemed interesting, she pulled it out with her magic and opened it to a random page. There was a moment of absolute stillness in the air, as if the entire house were holding its breath in anticipation, but the moment passed. Twilight, deeply engrossed in her new book, didn’t even notice.
“I can’t believe that there was no water!” Rarity complained for the seventh time, stomping back out of the vault in her admittedly stylish new armor, “All that work, and for nothing! I just want a wa-ah-ah-ash!”
Her head twitched and she seemed to notice that she was back where she’d landed in the basement. She flipped up the visor on her helmet and peered at the other doors. “There simply must be a washroom somewhere in this drab house. I will find it, and no phantom dripping is going to make a fool of me a second time!”
She boldly marched over to the nearest door and threw it open. There was a cheerful “ping” and the grate on the other side of the door slid back, allowing her to see what appeared to be a perfectly normal metal elevator. Rarity sniffed and marched in, letting the grate slide closed behind her. “Well, at least I can get out of that filthy basement.”
Instead of a row of buttons, the elevator only had a single lever attached to the wall. Rarity gave it a tug and sat down in the middle of the elevator as it groaned into motion and took stock of her situation. She wasn’t sure why she’d immediately put on the armor she’d found inside the vault when she’d finally opened it, but she had to admit is was surprisingly comfortable. It was of a pleasing robin’s-egg blue color and clung snugly to her barrel, but soft inserts sewn to the inside kept it from chaffing. It had also come with a set of hoof covers and a plumed helmet, which of course she had to put on to complete the ensemble. All in all, she felt much safer in it, if still itchy from where the black powder was being pressing into her precious coat.
She briefly pressed her hoof to a saddlebag set on the side of the armor, where she’d placed the other item she’s found in the vault. She considered, but then shook her head and moved her hoof away. No, not yet. But if I don’t find some water soon…
It had just occurred to her that the elevator was taking an awfully long time when it rattled to a halt. That mysterious bell dinged once more as the door opened on its own. Rarity hopped up and rushed out of the room and looked around. She was on a balcony overlooking the top of the grand staircase they’d seen from the entrance. Three other doors led to other rooms on the second floor, only one of which was hanging partly open.
“If I’m upstairs, then that means bedrooms,” Rarity said with a note of hope creeping into her voice, “And that means restrooms! Sinks! A bath!” She rushed over to the nearest door and ripped it open with her magic, eagerly moving in and looking around for the expected toiletries.
There was no floor.
Rarity screamed as she plummeted straight down not just one, but two floors, as the room beneath also had its floor ripped out. She just barely had time to grasp that the place she was falling into was much larger than it should have been when she landed… with a splash into a massive amount of still water.
Rarity floundered, struggling against the pull of her heavy armor, but managed to get her head above the surface. Since she couldn’t feel the bottom, she started treading water desperately and looked about wildly. The cave or whatever it was turned out to be even larger than she’d first thought, stretching farther than she could see under the house. It appeared to be an entire underground lake of some kind, barely lit by the light shining down from the ruined floors above.
“Wha-why?!” Rarity sputtered, barely able to keep afloat and spitting water with each word. “Why is this even here?! Urk, it’s slimy! It’s getting in my mane!!!!”
She suddenly clamped up so fast she nearly bit off the end of her tongue, her whole body going ridged. Something large and slimy had just brushed against her back hoof. Her mind offered up dozens of possibilities of what it had been, each one more horrible than the last. A fish? A big bug? A tentacle? Some dead thing, floating for years down here in the dark…
In her horror she’d forgotten to keep swimming and her head slipped under the waves. She fought her way back up with pure panic-driven energy and cast about for safety.
“Over here!” somepony shouted and Rarity blindly set off in that direction, swimming faster than she’d ever swam before. There was a square block of light on what appeared to be an old dock of some kind. Rarity homed in on it and shot through the water like a fear powered missile. At the last second she thought she felt the slimy thing on her back leg again, trying to wrap around it…
The fashionista slammed her forelegs onto the dock and pulled herself bodily up onto it. She collapsed onto the old wood and panted in a completely undignified manner. She was soaked and miserable and for a few seconds she simply wallowed in it, ignoring anything else around her. After a while her curiosity got the better of her and she wearily pulled her head up.
The light was pouring out from a doorway that led to what looked like a very well stocked larder. Applejack stood leaning in the doorway looking down at her. She was also wet, as if she’d recently taken a dip herself.
Applejack took a bite out of an apple and grinned at her. “Look on the bright side; at least you washed off all that itchy coal powder.”
“This is boring!” Rainbow Dash shouted, spinning in place and aiming a kick at the drawer she’d been rooting through. She slammed it closed and glared at the rest of the dull room. At some point it had been a fancy bedroom of some kind, but it had been left to the dust and the cobwebs for too long. She’d already rooted through the one dresser and turned over the blankets on the bed, but had come up emptyhooved.
“I mean, that scream was a little startling,” Dash admitted, stomping to the center of the room and giving it one last look-over. “But it’s not like anything happened after that. And I haven’t found a single weapon or anything! Something had better happen soon, or I’m going to…” Her vague threat died on her lips as the old mirror in the corner of the room caught her eye. There was some kind of movement in it, even though she was alone in the room and not moving. Psyched that something was finally happening, she hurried over and gasped at what she saw.
The room on the other side of the mirror was not the room she was in! Instead of one master bed, it had a pair of twin beds. If anything, it was even drabber and sparsely furnished than this one. And right in the middle of the room, staring back at her, was a very different looking Rainbow Dash.
The Rainbow Dash in the mirror looked horrified. Her pupils were tiny pinpricks in her wide eyes and her face glistened under a sheen of sweat. She appeared to be so shaky she could barely stand. Clutched in one hoof was a wicked looking axe, which she clung to like a life preserver.
“Whoa, I wonder what happened to her… er, me?” Rainbow exclaimed, leaning closer to get a better look.
She almost leaped back when her mirror doppelganger shot forward and breathed heavily on the mirror. The frightened mare lifted one hoof and shakily wrote something in the fogged-over glass.
“PLEH… LLIW… SIHT?” Rainbow read, tilting her head as she tried to understand the message. Before she could make heads or tails of it, her reflection shoved her hoof forward and the axe slipped through the glass without any resistance. Rainbow grabbed the weapon out of reflex and then her sense of reality crashing in on her and she leapt back, making room for her doppelganger to come through the obviously magic mirror. But the other Rainbow suddenly zoomed to the left of where the mirror reflected and disappeared from view.
Dash blinked a few times, and then whooped and gave the axe a few satisfying practice swings. “All right, this is more like it! Now I’ve got something to use against any monsters I might come across!”
Eager to put her new tool to use, Rainbow decided to leave out the way she’d come. She passed through the door into the weird lab, completely devoid of anything interesting as she’d already discovered, and then back onto the upstairs landing. Surprisingly, one of the other doors was wide open and appeared to be some kind of old-timey elevator.
“Somepony else must be up here somewhere…” she wondered aloud, glancing back and forth between the other two doorways. She picked the door on her left at random and burst through it determined to do some violence.
What she saw caused her to grin in unexpected pleasure. “Hey, it’s that room I saw in the mirror!” she exclaimed, striding into the middle of the room. “It looks exactly the same! Here are the two beds and that ancient dresser. So that means there must be another mirror in this room too! And it should be right… over…”
She turned and the words died in her mouth, every muscle in her body tightening in sudden tension. Her eyes widened as her pupils shrank to the size of pinpricks as she realized what she was seeing. All the moisture seemed to dry out of her mouth in an instant. It was all she could do not to start hyperventilating. Sweat began popping up all over her face, threatening to drip into her eyes, but she couldn’t move her hoof to wipe it away.
The mirror stood against the wall right where she expected it would be. Through it she could see the other bedroom and right in the middle of it was another Rainbow Dash, just as she remembered. The other Rainbow was rooting through a set of drawers just barely in view of what she could see, looking very annoyed about something, and THERE WAS SOMETHING RIGHT BEHIND HER!!!!!
The… thing, because her mind refused to grasp what she was seeing, was right behind her!
She must have made some kind of movement, because the other Rainbow suddenly looked up and right at her, which was the completely wrong direction to see the thing. Her doppelganger rushed closer to the mirror, just barely missing brushing against the thing, and the thing followed after her. Rainbow realized she was trembling like a newborn.
How?, she thought, her mind a whirlwind. How can she not know it’s there? Oh Celestia, it’s reaching out! It’s going to get her… I mean, me! That’s me! It’s going to get me! It’s just inches away from grabbing me… I mean, her! And then… and then…
What happens to me if it gets her first?
All at once her paralysis broke and she rushed forward, desperate to help her past self in some way. Her first thought was to leap through the mirror and fight off the thing, but one terrified glance up at it and the fear ran the thought clear out of her mind. But she knew that her past self needed to defend herself somehow, so she did the only thing she could think of.
She breathed heavily on the glass and fogged it over. She quickly wrote THIS WILL HELP into the condensation and then lifted the axe. “Come on, this worked once.” she whispered, partially horrified at how weak her voice sounded, and pushed the axe through the mirror.
The weapon passed through the glass as if dipping into a standing pool of slightly thick soup. She felt her doppelganger grab it from her side and pull it the rest of the way through. She peered forward, eager to see if her past self would use the weapon against it, when it occurred to her that the events in the mirror had only happened a few minutes ago. Which means…
She spun in place and shot out of the room with all the speed she could muster. “That thing must still be there!” she shouted. She shot through the landing, blew through the lab fast enough to raise the dust from the countertops, and froze in the door to the bedroom.
The thing wasn’t in the room.
“Where did it go?!?” Rainbow screeched in a near panic, zipping all around the room. She checked under the bed. She tore open the dresser again. She scanned the ceiling, the floor, and all four corners of the room. She even peered into the mirror again, but it only showed her reflection like a normal mirror, so she ripped it off the wall to see if there was anything behind it. There was not.
She eventually stopped in the center of the room, her wings extended in agitation. “Where did it go? It had to go somewhere. Is it… somewhere else in the house? It could be behind any door I open…”
Dash gulped and hesitantly left the room, carefully closing the door between it and the lab as if she expected it to bite her. For a few moments after she left the room was calm, but then the wallpaper along one of the walls bulged out. The wallpaper expanded to the size of an adult pony and suddenly burst, sending Pinkie Pie sprawling onto the floor in a heap. Almost as an afterthought, her toy monkey bounced out of the hole and landed in front of her face with a clang. The hole immediately repaired itself and within moments looked the same as always.
“Whoa, that was so freaky!” Pinkie exclaimed from her prone position, rolling over to look at her toy, “I totally don’t recommend traveling like that in the future. Right, Monkey?”
Her toy monkey made a clang sound somewhere in its guts and the little head turned slightly, so that it seemed to be looking directly into the party pony’s eyes.
“…Monkey?” Pinkie asked, a note of uncertainty entering her voice.
Gears whirled inside the toy monkey and its mouth split into a wide grin, revealing pointed teeth. It sprang into sudden motion and launched itself onto the pony’s back before she could blink. Pinkie reared back and tried to buck it off, but one of its legs somehow got tangled in her hair and it clung on. A sharp pain in her shoulder caused her to cry out and she threw caution to the wind, spinning in place like a dervish. The toy was thrown clear from her to crash heavily into the far wall.
“”What did you do that for, Monkey?” Pinkie shouted. She started forward to the toy, but she buckled after the first step and clutched her shoulder. There was a deep cut there, inflicted by the monkey’s cymbals. Doing her best to ignore the pain of the wound, she ran over to the toy and picked it up, savagely shaking it back and forth.
“That was mean! You could have seriously hurt me! Do you have anything to say for yourself?”
The toy clanged its cymbals together once and then went still.
Pinkie glared at it for a few seconds and then nodded, deciding the matter settled. “Good. As long as you understand what you did was wrong and won’t do it again. Now let’s see where we are!”
Happily putting the recent events from her mind, she hopped over to one of the rooms two doors (not the one Rainbow had passed through, although there was no way for her to know that) and pushed it open.
“Huh, that’s weird,” Fluttershy said, looking down at the spear between her two hooves, “For some reason, I’m feeling a little stronger.”
Winona barked her encouragement. Fluttershy smiled and applied more pressure on the spear, pushing with all her might. This time she managed to successfully tilt the overturned cabinet out of the way of the door, sending it crashing on its side far enough away so that she could now open the door.
“I-I did it!” Fluttershy said happily, fluttering up into the air in excitement. Winona barked joyfully, and the two of them celebrated for a moment, dancing around the junk and debris that was all over this room.
Fluttershy finally calmed down and considered the spear, which she’d picked up from the clutter in this very room. “You know, girl, I think I’m going to be OK. I was a little frightened of this house at first, but I’m feeling much braver now. With this spear, and with you at my side, I just know that there’s nothing this spooky old house can do to scare me! We are going to find the others, and everything is going to be just fine!”
Confident in herself, she bravely grasped the door handle and pulled the door open. Directly on the other side of the door, inches away from her, was a pony that was on fire. The pony screamed right in her face and started running wildly around what appeared to be a ballroom, which was also on fire. The burning pony ran around the ballroom, stumbled, flailed around for a little bit, regained its footing, and charged forward again, screaming at bloodcurdling levels the whole time. The fire ate away from it until it was just a skeleton, somehow still screaming and running about. Then the bones crumbled and all that was left was the flaming skull, which bounced to a halt in front of the pegasus. The skull burned away to nothing and the moment the last piece vanished, every bit of fire in the room died out all at once, leaving a ringing silence.
Fluttershy stood shock still in the doorway, her determined smile frozen on her face. “Well, alright then,” she said in an even tone. A part of her was very proud of how calm she was.
The next instant she was at the front door. She didn’t know how she’d gotten here, she had no memory of passing through the other rooms, but she didn’t care one wit. There was only one thought racing through her head like a leaf caught in a whirlwind.
“Let me out!” she screamed, battering helplessly against the stout wood with the haft of her spear. “Let me out, let me out, let me out, let me out, LET ME OUT!!!!”
Winona sat on her haunches behind the yellow pony and whined as Fluttershy poured every last bit of strength into destroying the door and escaping into the night. But despite her every effort, the portal remained closed.
“I hate this grubby mansion!” Rarity complained for the umpteenth time, trying unsuccessfully to wring the water out of her mane without removing her helmet. “Who would even build a place like this? I have had just about enough of underground lakes, giant holes in the floors, and the rest of this ungrateful house! It just doesn’t make any logical sense!”
“Yeah,” Applejack said, rubbing the part of her neck where she’d been bitten, “And you didn’t even see the worst of it.”
“I think I’ve had plenty of horrible experiences for one night, thank you very much!” Rarity sniffed. “Ew, I’m still dripping… drip…drip…”
Applejack rolled her eyes and shifted her attention to the coal chute in the ceiling. “You know, ah think ah can hook this rope ah found in the larder around that scoop and pull it down. Then it’s just a quick climb and we’re out of here!”
“Absolutely not!” Rarity exclaimed, “I only just got that dust off of me. There is no way I’m going to set hoof in that filthy slide again! Besides, we can just take the elevator up.”
She marched over to the door she’d used earlier and pulled it open, and then stopped in her tracks when she saw what was on the other side. One of her eyes started twitching.
Applejack peered over Rarity’s shoulder and whistled. “Well, look at that. Say, Rarity…”
“I know!”
“This isn’t an elevator.”
“I KNOW! This horrible, gloomy, drip-drip house is driving me insane!”
AJ stepped past her armored friend and into the stone-walled room. It had no other exits besides the one they were standing at and the only light was coming from about five large, black candlesticks set around the floor. Each candlestick stood at the point of a pentagram drawn in something that was hopefully chalk on the ground. Heavy spider webs coated the room’s four corners, making the room seem round.
“Well, this is right weird,” Applejack said mostly to herself, as Rarity had slumped against the door and was muttering the word “drip” over and over again. She decided to let her friend have her little moment. “Ah wonder who set this all up? It doesn’t look all that old… hey! There’s somethin’ shiny here in the middle.”
A bright metal coin about two and a half times bigger than a bit, and about as thick as one, lay in the exact center of the pentagram. Its surface was blank save for a squiggle that looked vaguely like a long curving quill coming out of a pot of ink. The symbol emitted a feeling of calm in the farmer that was at odds with the unsettling house around her.
“This seems like it’s important,” Applejack said, bending down to pick it up off the floor.
As soon as her hoof touched its metal surface, the very air seemed to still. The flickering of the candles slowed, the various creaks and groans of the house quieted, and it felt like the whole house was holding its breath. And then… the stillness deepened, going farther than it should have been possible. All sound stopped, time seemed to freeze, and for one agonizing moment the utter stillness held supreme. And then, with a popping of ears as if the pressure had changed, the moment ended.
The absolute quiet passed through the entire house like an anti-sonic wave, sweeping through discovered and undiscovered rooms alike. Every pony in the house dropped to their knees and pressed their hooves to their ears to keep out the quiet. When it passed the house felt strange, like it was waiting for something important to happen. Everypony waiting in apprehension, unsure of what it was they were waiting for.
The first to happen, which caused them all to nearly jump out of their skin, was the sound of every clock in the house striking midnight at the same time. There weren’t all that many clocks, but after the oppressive silence they were almost deafening. After the last chime there was another moment of quiet, although this was more out of shock than anything mystical. In the quiet, everypony could hear the sound of a fiddle warming up to a haunting melody. There was something about the song, something that made you just want to… dance.
Twilight Sparkle held the three items she’d found up in her magic and appraised them. The lit candle cast a soft glow around the room, playing along the dusty shelves and cabinets that lined the walls. It appeared to have been an arsenal of some kind in the past, but the candle had been the only thing left of any value.
She levitated the candle over her book, magically flicking the page open to the appropriate spot. She gave her bell a firm ring and the sound shone clear through the room. She closed her eyes and reveled in how it temporarily drowned out that… music. With these three items she felt stronger, smarter, more sane.
The effect was only temporary and too soon the melody was back, but it had been enough. She knew where she needed to go.
“I’ve found it!” she shouted loudly, gathering her items into the crook of her wing. She took off out of the arsenal, through the library, the creaky hallway, the foyer, and stopped right before the front door of the mansion. Taking a deep breath, she looked to her right.
Bright light shone out from the open doorway of an elegant ballroom. Even from here she could see that it was far larger than any other room she’d seen in the mansion so far. And dead center on its polished floor a single pony capered. It had a cream-colored coat and a blue mane, but the rest of its features were hidden by a laughing mask. The pony held a fiddle and bow in its hooves and was continuously sawing away on it at a fever pitch. The resultant music seemed to fill the whole mansion and was… so… hard to… resist…
Twilight blinked hard and tried to clear her head of the music. It was only then that she noticed that the room between the entrance and ballroom was occupied.
“Is that you, Rainbow Dash?” she asked cautiously, stepping closer. “We’ve got a plan to stop the Dark Fiddler, and we need to-”
She gasped as her friend turned to face her and she saw that Rainbow’s eyes had become black pools of nothing. The pegasus swayed in tune with the music and her hooves were somehow clopping along to the music’s insane speed. She seemed to notice her at the same time and spun across the room in an oddly rhythmic fashion.
Twilight reared back and launched a paralyzing beam at her, but the pegasus somehow dodged at the last second. She tap-danced closer and Twilight only had an instant to realize that she had something clasped under her wings before it was aimed right at her. The revolver boomed and Twilight felt pain blossom through her left wing. She gasped and fell to the floor, trying to limp away, but her speed had been cut nearly in half by that one attack.
Her madly-dancing former friend twirled around for a second time and Twilight thought she was a goner. But then an unexpected voice jolted her from her terror. “Twilight, cover your eyes!”
Pinkie Pie flew through the air over Twilight’s head and landed between them. Rainbow tried bring her revolver to bear again but Pinkie pulled what appeared to be a bracelet covered in druidic charms off her foreleg and threw it at her feet. The charm erupted like a miniature sun and Rainbow stumbled backwards, stunned.
“Pinkie, that was amazing!” Twilight said, blinked the sunspots from her eyes as the two of them retreated back to the entrance, “Where did you get that?”
Pinkie shrugged and started rooting through her mane. “It’s this whole long story where I found two little foals and one named Jonah stole my monkey and hit the other foal with it and then the two of them disappeared but monkey was in so many pieces and that had been hidden inside it.” Pinkie paused and seemed to come to her senses. “Huh, I guess it wasn’t as long a story as I thought.”
“Are… you doing alright?” Twilight asked. She looked down at Pinkie’s back left hoof, which was tapping along to the ever-present melody, with concern.
“Oh I… uh, I uh, dum de dum dumm…” Pinkie faded out for a minute but then snapped back. “I haven’t been making very good rolls against that music lately. But I found this and it’s really helped me a bunch!”
From the bottomless depths of her hair she pulled an ancient amulet on an ornate chain. She held it up for the bookworm to inspect, but just then there was a tremendous boom and the chain shattered into a dozen pieces. The amulet went spinning down the hall and was soon swallowed by one of the many dark corners.
The two of them turned horrified looks back to Rainbow Dash, who seemed to have recovered from whatever spell the charm had cast. Despite dancing wildly in place, the smoking gun barrel remained perfectly steady.
“Oh… it’s so… beautiful…” Pinkie said softly, as without the amulet the strength seemed to drain straight out of her. She turned and started to sway in the direction of the ballroom. The last glimpse Twilight had of her friend’s face was the black of her eyes beginning to expand and deepen.
She hesitated, but only for a moment. Rainbow was drawing closer by the second. She sprinted around the corner towards the grand staircase, breaking Dash’s direct line of sight, and pressed herself against the wall. If either of her corrupted friends came around the corner and towards the open coal chute, she was prepared to stop them at any cost.
“Hurry! We’re running out of time!” she screamed.
“Almost there!” Applejack shouted, concentrating as hard as she could on the medallion in her hooves. She focused her will until everything emptied from her thoughts but the small disk of silver. The pressure built against her mind until it fuzzed out with a pop. Applejack let out the breath she’d been holding in a defeated sigh.
“Consarnit, ah almost had that one!” she grunted, staring down at the medallion. Five points of light shone on its circumference, needing only one more to complete the chain.
“Applejack, I… I need to… hold it again…” Rarity gasped. Her hooves were starting to tap along the stone floor rhythmically and it took a visible effort on her part to still them.
Applejack looked at her friend with concern. The two of them had been holed up in this room for quite a while now, concentrating on empowering the holy symbol, but the strain was clearly showing on one of them more than the other. AJ couldn’t see her face, as the visor on her helmet kept falling down over her eyes, but she knew Rarity’s sanity couldn’t hold up much longer. After all, only one of them could be holding the holy symbol at a time.
“Sure thing, Rarity. We’ve only got one more to go-” she said, before a hoof smashed into her jaw.
Caught completely by surprise, Applejack flopped nearly one-eighty degrees and landed hard on her back. The holy symbol flew from her grasp, and instantly the music pressed in on her psyche. The fiddle was so hard to resist, inviting her to dance and dance, forever and ever…
For a long second all she saw were stars, and then her vision cleared to reveal Rarity standing over her, the medallion clutched tightly in her armored hoof. The punch she’d thrown had also caused her helmet to tilt slightly and for the first time in a while AJ got a clear look at her face.
Rarity’s eyes were black, lifeless pools.
“Drip drip drippity drip drip drip!” she sang madly, swaying in time to the music before twirling out of the chamber.
Applejack cursed and lurched to her feet, desperate to give chase. But she’d set no more than one hoof outside of the pentagram drawn on the floor when all the candles surged to towering pillars of flame and she felt something like a mule kick to her brain. She faltered and face-planted into the ground, the pain of scraping her face on the rough stones nothing to the ache in her mind. For a fleeting moment she considered just lying there and letting the music sooth away all thoughts of strife and resistance.
“They’re countin’ on me…” she groaned, pulling herself to her feet with all the resolve she had left. She focused and wasn’t surprised to see no trace of Rarity anywhere in sight. Stumbling out of the chamber, she ran right up to the pile of coal in the landing and spun around to find where she went.
She caught a glimpse of metal and spotted her former ally just entering the larder. She was making pretty good time considering she was twirling around like a ballerina despite the heavy armor. She gyrated right up the start of the dock leading out to the underground lake and raised the hoof holding the symbol over her head. Applejack felt her heart sink. If she lobbed the symbol into those dark waters, it would be gone forever.
But there was something on the dock already. Something small and furry, standing its ground before the whirling dervish, growling bravely.
Applejack squinted, just in case her eyes were deceiving her. “…Winona?”
The barking dog caused Rarity to pause for a moment, which was just enough time for Fluttershy to come barreling out from behind the door. She had an absolutely terrified look on her face as she swung her spear as if it were a baseball bat. The haft glanced off Rarity’s helmet without dealing any real damage, but it did cause her to stumble and drop the disk.
Rarity sang in a wordless, perfectly pitched cry as she pirouetted low enough to scoop the holy symbol back up, but Applejack had been given enough time to act. She’d tied the rope she’d found into a lasso and perfectly looped it around Rarity’s reaching hoof. She yanked back on the rope and pulled her off balance, flipping her onto her back.
“Grab the symbol!” she shouted, running for all she was worth. She leapt the last few yards, tackling Rarity as she pulled herself up. With practiced motioned she looped the rope around her hooves, hogtying the zombified fashionista like a pig at a rodeo.
Fluttershy ran forward, spear held high, but at that moment Rarity gave a mighty heave, nearly throwing Applejack off. Fluttershy froze before she accidentally skewered her ally and looked uncertainly between them.
“What are you waitin’ for?” Applejack grunted, “Take the symbol and go!”
Fluttershy bit her lip and glanced down at her weapon. “Shouldn’t you do it? I’ve got a better chance at taking her down, don’t I?”
Applejack glanced at the symbol on the ground. It was so tempting to pick it back up, but she shook her head. “With this armor, it’ll take too long to take her down that way. Besides, the symbol still needs one more charge and the pentagram chamber is booby-trapped. Ah don’t have the mental stats to survive goin’ back in there anymore. It has to be you!”
The yellow pegasus hesitated for a moment longer and then bent down to talk to her dog. “You go and keep her safe for me, alright?” she told her, and Winona barked affirmative. Fluttershy took a steadying breath, scooped up the medallion from the floor, and flew out of the room.
The farmer sighed. It’s all in her hooves now, she thought, unconsciously bumping her head along to the music. All of a sudden she realized she’d zoned out for a few moments there. Rarity was still pinned beneath her, but the lack of opposition on AJ’s part had allowed her to free one of her hooves and reach into her saddlebag. Applejack grunted in determination and reached around to wrestle that hoof back into the bindings.
Applejack’s eye widened. Clutched in Rarity’s hoof was a bundle of dynamite, the lit fuse sizzling away. Applejack had time to give one last incredulous look at her prisoner.
“Drip drippity drip!” Rarity sang.
The explosion came just as Fluttershy rounded the corner to the pentagram chamber. The force of it blew her mane wildly around her head and the heat sizzled her back. She pressed herself against the wall and tried to still her jackhammering heart.
“What was that?” she shouted in a hoarse whisper, barely keeping a lid on her rising panic. She passes a few precious seconds internally screaming and then proceeded with her task. To be honest, she was feeling a lot better since picking up the medallion. Something about it was just so soothing.
She knelt in the center of the pentagram and pressed the holy symbol tightly between her hooves, concentrating with all her might. Her sanity wasn’t the best, especially not after spending so long subjected to that horrible fiddle, but if she was just lucky enough… the medallion burst into silvery light as it acquired the last bit of power it needed.
“Yes, yes, yes!” she whispered, visibly shaking with relief, “It’s almost over, it’s finally almost over…”
She took off into the air and flew straight up to the coal chute. The rusty metal resisted her as she tried to pull the lip down, but she managed to shove it open wide enough for her to slip through. But the instant she let up to climb into it the grate snapped closed like a mousetrap, nearly slicing the tip of her nose off.
Frantic, Fluttershy looked around to try and find some way to wedge the chute open and noticed a little hook welded to its edge. There was a similar hook bolted to the ceiling behind the chute too, so if she had some way to tie them together…
Her ears flopped and she sagged all the way back down to the floor. “Oh no, I’m going to need to get the rope…”
Turning around, she got her first look at what remained of the docks. The wooden pier was now nothing more than a splintered mess scattered into the underground lake, several pieces of which were still burning. The blast had set fire to a few boxes in the larder as well, and a haze of smoke now obscured everything in murky darkness. There was no sign of the two ponies or dog anywhere.
Fluttershy swallowed and clutched the medallion and spear to her chest for strength. Creeping forward as fast as her rapidly-depleting courage would allow, she made her way slowly through the adjoining corridor. The various statues in the hallway seemed to sway menacingly in the smoke and soon she developed a crick in her neck from nervously trying to keep them all in sight.
She stopped in the door of the larder and coughed on the thick smoke. The fire was so far restricted to the far side of the room, but the blast had scattered everything in the room in a spread-out mess that coated the floor. She rapidly blinked her eyes against the smoke and felt her heart sink at the task ahead.
“How am I ever going to find-” she started, before noticing the rope draped across a box right next to her, “Oh wait, here it is!”
Fluttershy yanked on the rope until it was freed from the tangle of wreckage and looped it around her foreleg. She took a relieved breath and choked on a lungful of smoke. Hacking up little clouds, she turned and stumbled back into the relatively clearer air of the corridor. Rubbing her eyes until they stopped burning, she blinked away the tears and suddenly knew something was wrong. Unfortunately, she couldn’t quite figure out what it was. It was almost like… one of the statues she’d walked past earlier was missing.
At that exact moment Rarity suddenly danced out of the shadows by the door and swung a hoof at Fluttershy’s head. “Come dance with us forever!” she sang at the top of her lungs.
An entire lifetime of instinctively flinching from loud noises saved her life, as she was already diving to the floor long before the blow could land. Her wings propelled her forward along the floor with panic driven strength, and as luck would have it the half of her spear swept through Rarity’s legs as she shot forward. Rarity was knocked clean to the ground, temporarily stunned.
Fluttershy was working on nothing but pure, fear induced adrenalin at this point. Her higher brain functions shut down and instinct picked up the slack. She wove around the fallen statues like an eel through reeds and zoomed up the pile of coal. She snapped the rope as she crested the pile and it looped around the end of the ceiling hook with an ease that Applejack would have envied. She slipped it through the other hook and yanked it taunt in one fluid motion, using the momentum to vault herself through the chute. It was much too narrow to spread her wings for proper flight so she pressed her legs against the sides like a spider and shimmied with a surprising amount of speed.
She almost made it too.
The open top of the chute had just come into sight when Fluttershy felt something clamp down over her tail. All at once her mind was back in the driver’s seat and she cast a terrified glance over her shoulder. Somehow, inexplicably, Rarity had managed to match her speed. The last six inches of her tail were incased in the fashionista’s blue aura while the pony herself was climbing around the turn of the chute.
And then Fluttershy noticed something that shed light on how such a thing was possible. Rarity reached up with her armored hoof and the chute dimpled slightly before she put the hoof down, giving the unicorn a small ledge to lean into. The coal grime even gathered below her hoof to make the hold less slippery.
The house is helping her catch me, she thought, trying desperately to pull her tail out of the magical grasp. She felt a presence behind her and for a fleeting moment she shared the glimmer of hope that help had arrived.
“It’s time to dance with us.” Pinkie Pie sang, blocking her only way forward.
Fluttershy flinched on reflex and slipped backwards on the chute. She strained her limbs to stop her descent, but she wasn’t able to stop far away enough from her other pursuer. Rarity’s hoof snagged the end of her tail and Shy yelped in fear and pain as she was dragged back another foot. Pinkie leaned over the ledge eagerly, swaying in time with the melody.
There was only one thing to do now, and Fluttershy swallowed bravely in the face of it. “If you want it so much, take it!”
She hurled the holy symbol with all her strength over Pinkie’s head. Pinkie followed its arc all the way around until she was facing the other way and realized she was face to face with Twilight Sparkle, who had somehow snuck up right behind her. Twilight shoved the bright candle into Pinkie’s face and she stumbled back, temporarily off balance. With a surge of motion Fluttershy stretched out and wrapped the spear around Pinkie’s barrel, completely letting go of the sides of the chute to get it done. Gravity took over as Rarity, suddenly straining against nothing, pulled herself, Fluttershy, and Pinkie back into the depths of the basement.
“Fluttershy!” Twilight Sparkle shouted, still poised at the top of the chute. She continued to stare into the darkness and call her friend’s name, but whatever was happening down below, it was impossible for her to find out. After a little while she stopped shouting and felt a single tear slip down her cheek.
And then she grit her teeth and spun around with renewed determination. “I will not let all my friends hard work go to waste. There’s only one thing left to do!”
A bullet whined over her head and Twilight instinctively ducked, once again pressing herself against the wall. Of course, Rainbow Dash was still blocking the path to the ballroom. There was no way she was going to be able to out maneuver the agile pegasus, especially with her injured wing. She pulled her newly acquired medallion to her chest, relishing in the relief it gave her from the relentless allure of the fiddling.
She opened her eyes and immediately spotted the amulet Pinkie had dropped lying across the room. It was a gamble, but if she could just get to it… She ran from her hiding spot as fast as she could. Another shot barked through the air behind her and Twilight felt a sharp pain in her back. Fortunately it wasn’t enough of a hit to cause her to drop her precious medallion and she launched herself in a slide across the floor, scooping up the amulet as she slammed into the opposite wall.
Instantly Twilight felt her strength, agility, intelligence, and sanity bolster themselves. It was such a rush that she temporarily forgot where she was for a moment. No wonder Pinkie succumbed immediately after losing this. The shock of falling out of this rush must have crushed her willpower at just the wrong moment!
With renewed determination Twilight charged out of the foyer, her many items orbiting her in a cloud of her magic. Rainbow Dash had planted herself in the center of the room, spinning around in a mad jig as she blocked the way forward. The random gyrations of her dance somehow didn’t impede her from training the sights of her gun on her the second she stepped into the room.
Twilight knew the she didn’t have the speed to dodge the attack, so she relied on her instincts. With a few lightning quick calculations she had the silver bell held just so when the gun went off, intercepting the bullet and ricocheting it harmlessly away. The bell flew out of her magical grasp, broken and useless, and Twilight felt her sanity drop in response. Fortunately she had the ancient amulet to cover the loss.
She hurtled the candle at Rainbow’s feet and set the threadbare carpet aflame, then drove as fast as she could for the opposite door. With a shout of effort Rainbow somersaulted over the rising flames and landed directly in Twilight’s path, and the alicorn had to skid to a stop before she bowled right into her.
“You’ll never escape the dance!” Rainbow sang, lashing out with a hoof.
Twilight managed to turn the blow aside with her book, but she knew she’d never win in a hoof-to-hoof fight against her. Rainbow had started with the best physical condition out of any of them and, unlike Twilight, hadn’t suffered an ounce of damage to those stats yet. It was only a matter of time before she was worn down and either killed or driven insane by the music.
“Which means it’s time to do something drastic,” she declared, doing a few quick calculations in her head. It’s going to be close, and if it doesn’t work… it’s all over.
“This is what you want, right?” Twilight shouted, holding up the symbol in her magic as Rainbow trained the gun on her point black. Her assaulter froze and stared at the item, her expression completely unreadable thanks to those empty eyes.
“Then go get it!” Twilight screamed. She spun it around to build up speed and launched the disk back out of the room, where it bounced against the front door and skittered along the floor.
Rainbow Dash surged after it, desperate to recover the medallion before it left her sight. She scooped it up just before it would have rolled down the coal chute and held it up in triumph, anticipating the redundant boost to her sanity that it would bring. But what she didn’t expect was the surge of strength, agility, and mental activity as well.
Fearing the worst, the traitor opened her hoof and stared down at her new prize. It wasn’t the holy symbol, but the amulet of the ancients.
Meanwhile, Twilight gasped in exhaustion and leaned heavily against the doorway to the ballroom. Losing the amulet had drained her of a lot more than she’d expected, but she was still somehow on her feet. She heard a wordless cry of thwarted rage as Rainbow came barreling back around the corner, but it was too late and both of them new it.
“Game over,” Twilight laughed, using the last of her strength to toss the symbol into the ballroom.
The symbol slid across the floor, picking up speed and flew to the fiddler like a piece of metal to a magnet. The medallion adhered itself to the fiddler’s chest and the fiddler twirled faster still, its music rising to a fever pitch. The entire house lurched as if it pain and a great hole suddenly smashed open in the ceiling, revealing a raging storm was shaking the mansion.
Rain poured down from the widening hole, drenching the fiddler as if trying to focus the entire fury of the storm on that one spot. Twilight clutched the door frame against the raging winds that were trying to pick her up and carry her off. Behind her, Rainbow Dash crashed to the floor like a puppet with its strings cut.
The fiddler began to play faster and faster, as if trying to drown out the storm. Twilight squinted against the driving rain and gasped at what was happening to the musician. The fiddler’s mask was starting to run like hot wax, leaving great trails of itself through the air as the fiddler capered defiantly. The terribly beautiful music rose to a fever pitch as the fiddler’s entire body joined its mask in melting away, fading only when the last remnant of its body disappeared into the driving rain.
And then with a soul-shattering loud clap of thunder the rain suddenly cut out completely, revealing nothing left of the dark specter but a lone fiddle with all of its strings snapped.
“And that’s it,” Twilight said, snapping the player’s handbook shut with a snap, “We won!”
“Hooray!” Pinkie Pie shouted, dancing around the table in victory. The rest of her friends shared her enthusiasm, but chose to keep their seats at the table.
“That was a lot closer than ah thought,” Applejack said tiredly, wiping the sweat from her brow. “Ah’m beat!”
“And I almost got all of you, too!” Rainbow Dash said in mock disappointment, crossing her arms and leaning back over the back of her chair, “But that was surprisingly a ton of fun! Though I feel it took us waaaaay too long to get back into it after the haunt started!”
“All in all, I think this was a fine purchase,” Rarity smiled. She used her magic to start collecting all the chips, cards, characters, tiles, and figurines back into her box.
Fluttershy shuddered and held up her hoof like a filly in school. “Perhaps we could play something less scary next time?”
“What’s wrong? You did amazing!” Rainbow said, reaching across the table and holding up her hoof. Fluttershy smiled softly and bumped it.
“I agree though. We should mix it up every week, for fun,” Twilight said, looking around the table. “So who wants to bring the next game?”
“Ohh, ME!” Pinkie shouted, bouncing excitedly, “I’ve got just the game in mind!”
"Sorry I’m a little late,” Fluttershy said softly, slipping through the door into the library, “I only just got done giving all my little critters their bath… goodness! Twilight, what happened? You look terrible!”
Twilight grunted and used her magic to slam the door closed. Both her mane and her tail were in complete disarray, there were deep lines under her eyes, and she walked with a distinct tiredness to her gait. She didn’t answer right away, instead slumping over to her wide table and planting her head face down onto it.
“Are you telling me you didn’t see all that happened?” Rainbow Dash asked incredulously.
Fluttershy took a step back self-consciously and rubbed her hoof. “Well, I’ve been busy at my cottage all day. Everypony in town did seem to be a little on edge about something…”
“Spike and I had a little… adventure today,” Rarity said delicately, “It seems I went a bit slightly crazy after trying a new spell and wound up redecorating all of Ponyville. I don’t remember much of it, honestly, but Spike says I was rather forceful with my artistic alterations.”
“And Spike is not allowed back into the Two Sister’s library again without asking first!” Twilight said loudly into the table.
“And once again I promise not to!” Spike’s voice floated down the stairway from the upper living area.
“Spike’s keepin’ out of Twi’s way for the moment,” Applejack explained, leading Fluttershy over to the table, “Apparently, he’s the one who found the book with the spell in it.”
“Wait,” Fluttershy said, sudden understanding flashing through her eyes, “Is that what happened to Mr. Robin’s house earlier?!”
Rarity hissed in a slight breath and coughed politely into her hoof. “Er, yes, sorry about that, dear. I suppose in my delusional state I was only trying to help.”
“I spent hours de-gilding the roads…” Twilight groaned into the table.
“If yer too tired for this, we could try again another night,” Applejack offered, resting a comforting hoof on her shoulder.
“No,” Twilight said with determination, pushing herself up, “I need something to unwind right now. Presuming Pinkie Pie is going to show up at some point with the game.”
“I’m right here, Twilight!” Pinkie shouted, popping up from nowhere right behind the princess. Twilight squeaked in surprise and flopped out of her chair in an ungainly pile. Pinkie immediately took her seat and planted a large box onto the table.
“How long have you been here?” Rainbow Dash asked, floating down from where she’d been chilling along the ceiling.
Pinkie laughed and waved her hoof dismissively. “Oh, you know me better than to ask that. Now who’s ready for a great game?!”
Rarity used her magic to lift up the box cover and squinted at the title. “Key to the Kingdom?”
The rather eye catching box art featured a scene of epic battle taking place on top of a game board. On the left stood a spot on depiction of Starswirl the Bearded raising up dramatically to cast a spell, and a pony in full armor standing protectively before him. The knight was thrusting out a large gold key that was shining light the sun. On the right a green dragon was clawing its way out of the game board, readying itself to breathe fire on the hapless knight. And behind the dragon loomed a rather familiar smoky figure.
“Is this supposed to be King Sombra?!” Rarity asked in shock, pointing at the drawing as if she wanted to punch a hole through it.
Pinkie nodded enthusiastically and started pulling out piles of cards. “Yeah, the pony who made this read a lot of old stories before making the game. And I was all like ‘Oh no!’ when we actually met Sombra up in the Crystal Empire, but inside I was all ‘No way, I’m going to actually meet the pony from my favorite game’, so I knew it’d be neat for us to play the game having that shared experience!
“Anyway, it’s really simple to play. We are adventurers, exploring a magical kingdom in search of loot and treasure! First pony who makes it back to the start with at least one treasure is the bestest adventurer ever and wins!”
“And we start with all these?” Twilight asked, picking up the pile of cards Pinkie was giving to each of them, “Equipment cards… a torch, net, grappling hook…”
“Bag of food, and a rope; the most useful piece of equipment.” Applejack said confidently, tapping the rope card smartly.
“A sword, a shield, and an axe!” Rainbow said excitedly, fanning all eight cards out on the table. “Sweet! I won’t have to wait until I’m an evil, mind controlled zombie to find a weapon this time!”
Pinkie pulled out not one, but two folded game boards and snapped them together like puzzle pieces, setting it in the center of the table and placing six figurines on the starting space.
Rainbow looked over her shoulder and groaned. “Two rule books? What’s with these games and not being simple?”
“Oh this one’s for me!” Pinkie said with an evil giggle, snapping up the thicker book and holding it protectively. “The other one’s just the rulebook, but trust me, you’ll pick it up easy enough!”
Fluttershy leaned down to look closely at the figurines. “So how do we start?”
Pinkie grinned widely and held up her booklet, reading aloud in a booming dramatic voice. “Our adventure begins with six great friends striding through the gates…”
“… to the magical Kingdom of Worpol!” Pinkie shouted excitedly, thrusting her foreleg out dramatically like a showmare on a game show.
“Don’t take this the wrong way, Pinkie Pie,” Applejack said slowly, “But this place doesn’t seem very magical to me.”
The six of them stood on a cobbled platform, from which started a clay path that split in two directions. While it was true that the path to the right traveled through a fairly pleasant looking meadow, the rest of the view before them was filled with a blasted wasteland of dirt and loose stone. A wave of heat-haze obscured everything more than a couple dozen feet in any direction. A strange “Woork!” came from a hole in the ground, but by the time they focused on it all they could make out was a red blur retreating into the dirt.
A loud clang caused all six of them to nearly ump out of their coats. Spinning around, they saw the giant gates had slammed closed of their own accord, sealing them inside. The keyhole, about head height and large enough to fit a hoof into, was the only feature on the ominous gate.
“Wait, you never said we’d be trapped in here!” Rarity objected, giving the rough road a cautious tap with her delicately-pedicured hoof.
“Of the many treasures we can find, the Key to the only exit is one of them!” Pinkie cheered happily, visibly bouncing with excitement, “Now which way do you wanna go first? Which way do you wanna go first?!”
Twilight scratched her chin and cantered off to the right. “Seems simple enough. I’ll start this way.”
“Are you suuuuure?” Pinkie asked, leaning over nearly forty-five degrees and raising her eyebrow as high as it could go. Which for Pinkie Pie was pretty high indeed.
Twilight paused at the top of a hill and looked back over her shoulder at her. “What do you mean? Why wouldn’t I rather go through this nice field instead of that hot desert?”
At that exact moment a cloud of black smoke surged out of the ground around the alicorn, billowing into the sky. Twilight had time to turn and look right into King Sombra’s evil eyes before his smog-like body coursed over her. She vanished from view with a yelp, leaving Sombra looming menacingly over the hill.
“Twilight!” Applejack shouted, galloping down the path. But she had barely taken four steps before Sombra sank back into the ground like his appearance in reverse. Too soon the smog was gone, leaving no trace of either of them other than Sombra’s disembodied laughter.
Pinkie shrugged. “Yeah, he’s gonna pop all over the place like that. That’s why I’m heading this way.”
Fluttershy looked between the two of them before guiltly following Pinkie into the desert. “I’m… I’m going with her…”
“Shouldn’t we save her or something?” Applejack asked, flabbergasted.
“She’ll be fine!” Pinkie’s voice echoed back to her. The pink pony was already lost from sight due to the haze.
Rainbow Dash shrugged. “In that case, I’m hitting the desert too. She’s got the inside info about this place.”
Rarity sniffed and stepped lightly onto the path. “Well if I must, I’m going to see where the pleasant road leads.”
“Are we really goin’ to just ignore how Twi got foalnapped?” Applejack asked to her departing friends’ backs.
“Oh, do calm down. I’m sure she’s perfectly fine,” Rarity huffed as she passed her.
The farmer watched her as she crested the hill and on with her adventure. Heaving a sigh, she set off after her, eyeing the spot where Sombra had disappeared warily.
Twilight Sparkle woke up to the sound of King Sombra’s laughter echoing all around her. She launched herself up and stared around wildly, but the spectral villain was nowhere to be seen. The room she found herself in appeared to be made entirely of ice, making the room so cold she could already feel her hooves going numb. The only feature in the room was a large metal door, obviously locked, set with a window crossed by bars.
Shivering and pressing her wings to her sides for warmth, her first thought was to check the saddlebacks still tied to her sides. “Looks like he didn’t take any of my equipment. Now I just got to find a way out of this cell. First thing’s first.”
She walked up to the door and gave it an experimental shove, but of course it was locked. “Well, had to try. Let’s see if you can handle this!”
She turned around and gave the door a hard kick with both of her hind legs. The door shuddered, sending a shock through her spine, but it didn’t budge an inch. She huddled over, rubbing the numbness from her legs, and then shot a glare at the door.
“Alright, you asked for it!” she said, focusing all her magic into the tip of her horn. She shot a beam of pure force at the door, which rebounded harmlessly off of it in a completely unexpected manner. The blast ricocheted around the frozen room wildly, forcing Twilight to huddle in a tiny ball as it slowly spent itself out.
“This… may be harder than I thought…” she said.
Rarity and Applejack stood side by side, staring at the sign at the fork in the road. Beware of the Swamp, it read, along with an arrow pointing to the left. The two ponies turned to each other at almost the same time, and Applejack raised her eyebrow questioningly.
“Oh, don’t give me that look,” Rarity huffed, turning away from the sign. “There’s no chance I’m going that way.”
“It looks like it’s in the direction we need to head,” Applejack pointed out, nodding at a tall peak they could see rising in the distance past the swamp. Even from here they could make out what looked like a whole palace carved into the mountain’s icy exterior.
“Oh no, no, no, no, no, darling,” Rarity said over her shoulder, walking determinedly down the other path. “I do not do swamps. This way may be longer, but at least I won’t be slogging through muck. But by all means, take the ‘shortcut’ if you feel it suits you sensibilities.”
“Perhaps ah will!” Applejack said, annoyed, but her friend was already out of earshot. “Hrmph… she just bein’ fussy about nothin’. The fastest way anywhere is straight through. Ah doubt it’s goin’ to be as bad as all that.”
She turned left at the sign and immediately the ground fell away to be replaced by a wide swath of still water. She teetered on the edge of the drop-off before catching her balance and taking a step back.
“What in the hay… how didn’t ah see that from the sign?” she asked incredulously. She squinted to take in the drastically changed scenery.
The water stretched the length of a large pond, mirror flat and interrupted by a string of round stones. The rocks formed a bridge… of sorts, leading all the way to the other side of the swamp. Oddly enough, every other stone was a bright red. She peered over the edge at the water, but it was so murky she couldn’t make out how deep it was. Something slithered through the depths, momentarily stirring the silt, and she pulled back in a hurry.
“Guess ah don’t want to swim for it.” Applejack muttered. She reached into her saddlebag and pulled out her grappling hook, just in case she needed it. Then she jumped onto the first stone. The stepping stone was a little slick but otherwise supported her weight just fine. Laughing, she hopped onto the next one.
Immediately the red stone rolled under her hooves like a ball, threatening to dump her into the fetid water. Ready for something just like this, AJ hurled the grappling hook over the other side of the rock and latched it into a crack. For a fraction of a second equilibrium caused the rock to stop rolling and in that instant Applejack leapt off onto the next stone in the line. A practiced flick of her wrist unhooked the line and she reeled it in with practiced motions.
“So the red ones are trapped, huh?” she said in a smug voice, “Pretty simple trick. This’ll be a breeze!”
She set off once again, making sure to land on only the normal grey stones.
“So tell me again why I can’t simply fly over this?” Rainbow Dash asked archly, tapping the old wooden planks. A long rickety bridge stretched across a watery chasm, swaying precariously in the wind. Across the abyss rose a dark and foreboding castle which Pinkie Pie had named the Banshee Towers. Apparently, it was their first destination.
“Because of him!” Pinkie said in a loud whisper, pointing over the side of the cliff. The two pegasi peeked curiously over the edge; Fluttershy immediately pulling back with a whimper while Rainbow Dash let out a low whistle.
An enormous pony was asleep directly under the far end of the bridge, so massive that he almost rose up to the top of the cliff. The wind blowing through the canyon appeared to have been the giant’s breathing all along. Each of his deep snores rattled the bridge built over his back, causing it to rise and fall in a nerve-wracking manner.
“So… how are we supposed to get across?” Fluttershy whispered, backing away, “Go another way? I think I saw another path over there…”
“Quickly and quietly, of course!” Pinkie said cheerily, giving Fluttershy a firm push. “Go on, you’re first up!”
Fluttershy squeaked as she landed on the first plank, causing the entire structure to groan dangerously. She hiccupped in fear and froze up like a statue, but the weakened boards beneath her hooves creaked under even her light weight. The slight shift in elevation as the plank started to give way broke her free of her paralysis and she leapt forward, clearing the entire length of the bridge in two bounds.
“Wooo!” Pinkie cheered, probably more loudly that she should have. “I’m up. Watch this!”
She bounced forward, seemingly oblivious to the way the bridge swayed like the surface of the sea. Three hops later she landed on the far side right next to her friend, eliciting a small “eep” out of her. She laid a hoof across the shy mare’s shoulders comfortingly and beamed across to her other friend.
“See, easy! No flying though, he has amazing hearing!” Pinkie shouted. Below her the giant pony grunted and rolled over, but then settled back to sleep.
“Psshh, no problem!” Rainbow said dismissively, “I can do this in ten seconds flat!”
Rainbow stretched her legs and wings one at a time, working out all the kinks, and then hunkered down in a ready stance. With a powerful flap of her wings she launched herself forward at full speed over the rolling planks. One step, two, but on the third one of her back hooves caught on a splintered bit of wood. Rainbow face-planted onto the bridge, breaking a plank with her face and sending it spinning through the air to collide with the giant’s face.
The giant pony snapped awake in an instant and roared as he rose to his full towering height. Rainbow Dash took to the air as the bridge splintered to pieces, shooting forward to make the far bank. But the giant snatched her from the air with deceptive ease, pulling her close to his sleep crinkled eyes and expelling a cloud of morning breath over her.
“If that’s the way you want to do it!” Rainbow crowed, eager to get to some action. She ripped open her saddlepack with her free wing and somehow managed to juggle her sword, axe, and a lit torch. Screaming a battle cry, she prepared to unleash some violence on the monster.
“Ah! Don’t hurt me!” the giant said in a surprisingly high-pitched voice, shrinking back from her weapons. “You just surprised me, is all. Here, let me give you a helping hoof.”
The giant set her gingerly down on the far cliff next to her friends, and then he turned around and started to carefully rebuild the bridge. Rainbow Dash stood shock still, still gripped her various weapons, seething in impotent rage. She suddenly threw her equipment to the ground and thrust her hooves to the sky.
“OH COME ON!!!” she shouted, “That’s it?! I thought something fun was going to happen, and it just… just…” Her tirade sputtered down to incoherent mutterings as she regathered her stuff.
“Maybe the others are having a harder time…” Fluttershy said consolingly, privately happy nothing terrible was happening but understanding of her friend’s preferences.
Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. “Oh yeah, I’m sure they’re having a hard time!”
“WHY IS THIS EVEN HERE?!” Rarity screamed, clutching the board for dear life as it rocked half a foot further down. She was suspended halfway across a large pit dug into the muddy earth, traversable by only a single plank of wood that was clearly not as firmly propped on the other side as first appeared. Below, literally dozens of filthy rats scrambled over themselves to be right beneath the flailing unicorn, chittering and stirring up the muck.
Rarity floundered around with her rope, trying her best to imitate whatever it was that Applejack did to get the thing to work properly, but all she managed to do was cause the plank to slip even further from its moorings. She wailed as she was nearly thrown clear of her hold.
“WHY DID I THINK THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA?! WHY DID I EVEN COME THIS WAY?! WHY AM I DOING THIS AT ALL?! WHY?! WHHHHYYYYY?!?!?!”
Thunk, went Twilight’s forehead, as she beat it dully against the icy wall of her prison. Isolation had gotten to her faster than she thought possible. Around her lay the fruits of her repeated efforts to get through that impossibly indestructible door, the chipped axe next to the bashed shield next to a heavy icicle she’d broken off the ceiling to use as a club.
Her current plan was to bypass the indomitable door entirely and go through the walls. And clearly, as the walls were made of ice, they must be weak to the might of fire. Which was why she was pressing her torch to the wall in an attempt to melt a tunnel. And while she waited, she beat her head against the wall to alleviate boredom and maybe, just maybe, break the wall down.
Thunk… thunk… thunk…
“I bet they’re just coasting through this,” Rainbow grumbled.
“Oh no,” Fluttershy said, pointing back over the bridge, “He’s back!”
The thick cloud of King Sombra’s body clung to the side of the cliff they had just left. His mocking laughter echoed across the distance and rang in their ears as he faded away to nothing.
“Yeah, you’d better run!” Rainbow shouted to the dissipating villain, shaking her hoof, “You’re more of an annoyance than a real enemy! Hey, where are you going?”
“Wha-at?” Pinkie asked innocently, already halfway down a path leading into the gorge.
“Um, the castle?!” Rainbow said, pointing at the looming castle blocking out most of the horizon down the opposite path. “Isn’t this the place we need to go to?”
Pinkie laughed dismissively and bounced away in the other direction. “Nah, I’ve got an even better place to get to first. You can have that one if you like. You’re gonna neeeeed iiiitt!”
Rainbow Dash snorted and glanced over at her other companion. “Well, looks like it’s just us. You want to go in first?”
Fluttershy peeked out from behind her mane at the dark spires above. Right at that moment a dramatic bolt of lightning streaked behind the castle ominously and she let out a little squeak. “No I think I’ll just head this way!” she said, trotting quickly down yet another path.
“…Alright, I guess it’s up to me,” Rainbow said, settling to the ground and walking towards the castle’s open gates. As she passed into the shadows cast by the gloomy structure a shiver ran up her spine. This whole experience was starting to bring back memories of that time she explored the old Princess's castle in the Everfree with Applejack.
Stones, dislodged by something unseen, clattered down the wall behind her. Rainbow spun around, but nothing presented itself. Swallowing, she back the rest of the way into the cathedral like room that took up the entire central chamber of the citadel. A shadow obliterated the dim light filtering in through the broken skylight, but by the time she’d spun around to stare upwards whatever it had been was gone.
Rainbow swallowed nervously and continued making her way forward. Ahead, a dais made of the same grey stone rose up from the floor, illuminated by a shaft of light from a ragged hole in the roof. Atop it lay a glittering treasure chest of polished oak and gold inlay, the only thing in this entire place that seemed new and unblemished. Clearly that was what she’d come in here for. She was almost at the dais when a great crack filled the air from directly behind her.
A large creature was climbing in through a great rend in the roof. It scaled the wall like a diabolical spider, thick claws digging into the stonework with deceptive ease. Its midnight blue fur made it blend almost perfectly into the shadows, save for the golden bands wrapped around its wrists and two curving rams horns. Its single glowing eye shone with hate and madness as the slobbering monster reached the ground and rose up on its cloven goat’s legs.
“Now this is going to be epic!” Rainbow Dash shouted excitedly. She yanked all the weapons she could carry from her pack and readied herself for battle. She held her sword in one hoof, her axe in the other, her shield tied across the back of one wing, and the flaming torch wrapped in her other wing; she’d even managed to yank her net out and held it clamped between her teeth.
The skull-eating Arimaspi roared its battle challenge and the two of them surged forward as one.
The whole cell shook, waking Twilight from her reverie. She blinked, half convinced she’d imagined it, but when the second tremor came she leapt up and raced to the door. Placing an ear to the door, she listened to the sounds echoing through the icy walls.
“Somepony’s fighting out there!” she said, and the thought of not being alone brought wind to her sails. Then she noticed something else that made her heart leap; the last tremor had shifted the cell door slightly off its frame.
She quickly assessed her options. Magic doesn’t work on the door, so… She dove for her saddlebags and withdrew one of the few items in it she hadn’t used yet. Rushing back to the door, she pushed the head of the grappling hook through the door’s tiny window and attached it firmly on one of the bars. She gripped the length of rope in her teeth and pulled with all her alicorn might. For several long moments she strained, until the thought that this might end up just like all her other attempts flitted through her mind.
Then the wall around the lock broke with a loud crack. The sudden lack of resistance caused Twilight to flop forward onto her face, but she was up again in an instant. She capered about in victory before a tremor reminded her that she didn't have time to waste. She quickly used her magic to scoop her equipment back into her satchels, all save for her grappling hook.
She held the length up and examined it. The jolt that had finally dislodged the door had also snapped the hook clean from the base. In addition, the rope near the head was frayed to the point where a few more seconds would have snapped the rope in two. There didn’t seem to be a way to salvage it.
“Thank you,” she told the hook, before letting it slip to the floor.
She ran from the cell and found herself on a balcony overlooking a large icy cavern. The floor was purple tile, also made of ice, and appeared slippery. The walls and ceiling looked just like the walls of a natural cave, and enormous icicles dripped from above. It was from one of these icicles that a lasso had been attached.
“YEEHAW!” Applejack howled as she swung past, like the heroine in a Daring Do novel. Nipping at her tail was a giant golden dragon, his huge jaws just barely closing on air behind her. It was clearly an old, fully grown beast, comparable in size to the dragon that had slept on that mountain outside of Ponyville once.
The dragon reared back and unleashed a blast of fire, but Applejack was already on the other side of the cavern. She skidded to a halt and dug in her pack, pulling out… her small bag of food. Twilight sucked in a breath. How is that going to help?
She spread her wings and prepared to leap to her friend’s assistance, but the dragon was acting strange. Its eyes zeroed in on the bag in an almost hypnotized manner and its tail began lashing from side to side. Applejack threw the food out the large entrance and the dragon raced after it like a dog going after a treat.
“Thought you were just a hungry fella,” Applejack said. “Heh, the fire dragon of the Ice Palace, ironic... Twilight, there you are! Guess ah’m here to rescue you! But first…”
She trotted over to a large treasure chest set against the wall below Twilight and kicked it open, whistling at what lay within. Twilight flew down and caught a glimpse of something long and black, but the farmer quickly stuffed it into a sack that also came from the chest.
“I can’t believe you made it all the way here!” Twilight exclaimed, giving her friend a quick hug.
“Ah, it wasn’t all that hard,” Applejack said modestly, eyeing Twilight up and down. “You all right? We were worried when Sombra just snatched you like that.”
Twilight looked around, as if expecting the others to waltz out from around the corner. “Are you the only one here? Where’s everypony else?”
“Well…” Applejack hummed, unsure of where to start. She was saved from answering as everything around them began to rumble menacingly. The two of them looked at each other in fear as pieces of the ceiling started to tumble down.
“What in tarnation is happening now?!” Applejack shouted.
“That… was… horrible!” Rarity shuddered, remembering her fresh ordeal. The mud, the rotting board, the rats… but it was behind her now. She’d cast aside her rope once she’d reached the other side of that dastardly trap. It wasn’t really necessary for her to do so, but she couldn’t stand the thought of carrying it around after it had touched such disgusting things.
So when she trudged up the path and found this pool of water, she hadn’t given it a second though and simply dived right in. She sighed contently and sank into the cool water, letting the natural flow wash away the grime she’d accumulated.
She coughed as a sudden surge caused water to flow up her nose and opened her eyes. “Bleh… guess I shouldn’t lower my guard too much. This is a ‘magical kingdom’, after all. Anything could be lurking in these waters, and… was it always moving this fast? Now that I think about it, why is there a current in a pond anyway?”
She looked to the center of the pond and saw that it was spinning faster and faster in a circle, forming into a giant whirlpool. She stood up quickly, but found that the water was rising with her. It splashed up and over the banks, spreading out as far as she could see in all directions. The water appeared to be endless as well, just growing larger as the whirlpool spun faster yet.
“What now?” Rarity cried, battling against the current as her whole world filled with water.
And it wasn’t just her. The water surged outwards at great speed, drowning the swamp and flowing over the icy mountains. Nearly half the entire kingdom shuddered and dropped, as if a great sinkhole had finally let go and collapsed. But then everything seemed to bend upwards, and change! In a great wave of water and magic, the whole world opened up like a flower to the morning sunshine.
The water receded, revealing a very different kingdom.
Twilight sucked in a quick breath and took a moment to rest, setting down on the rough gravel path. The walkway was very narrow here, rising up around a hill that turned into a natural bridge. Below, the raging waters picked up speed astonishingly fast before roaring over an enormous waterfall. From her perch Twilight could see that it emptied into a vast ocean which stretched as far as she could see. It was a little freaky, actually, how the land simply fell away as if it had been just carved off. Or as if whatever creator built this place wanted to cram as much into it and didn’t care about the natural formation of landmasses.
She shuddered, the sound of water bringing back memories of the whirlpool that had overtaken her and Applejack as they’d left the Ice Palace. Applejack had made a break for what looked like a series of caves, but Twilight had been caught up in the initial waves and hadn’t been able to follow. She’d barely been able to swim against the current and reach the center of the whirlpool before her whole world have become flooded. After an indeterminate time she’d clawed her way to the surface to find that everything had changed drastically. Gone was the snow-topped mountains, replaced with what seemed an endless grassy plain split with a couple of paths.
“And this,” she muttered, appraising the problem before her. The bridge before her had randomly become clear glass for no discernable reason. Thin cracks said pretty clearly how structurally sound it was, and it seemed like a pretty stupid idea to try crossing it. But just on the other side she could make out what looked a pony-made structure, so…
“I suppose I’m not going to get anywhere just waiting,” Twilight said, putting one hoof tentatively forward. A few more cracks spread out from her hoof with a light ‘pik’ sound, but it seemed to hold her weight. She took two more steps and breathed a sigh of relief. “Haa… there! Nothing to be worried abouOAHHH!!!”
The glass suddenly shattered under her hooves, sending her howling down towards the waters below. Flailing and screaming, she managed to angle herself so she landed on a thin sandbar she hadn’t seen below the bridge. She landed heavily on her side and immediately started to sink into it like quicksand.
“Seriously?!” she shouted, struggling against its sticky pull. She managed to slip a hoof into her saddlebags and rooted around for something to get her out of this mess. Yanking out her net, she awkwardly flung it out and snagged the far end of the broken bridge. She hauled herself out of the muck, every other pull threatening to dislodge the net from its tenuous hold. After the third such slip she bitterly wished she still had her grappling hook.
With a final cry of effort she climbed the last rung of the net and collapsed upon solid ground. She lay panting, wet sand plastered to her fur, and focused on just stilling her furiously beating heart. After a while she sat up and glanced behind her at the ruined bridge. The glass was somehow magically growing back together with a sound vaguely like wind chimes.
She stood up and tried unsuccessfully to brush the wet sand off. “Well, that’s one way to cross a bridge!”
Down below in the quicksand, where it must have fallen out of her saddlebags, her shield bobbed one last time before getting sucked down.
Sputtering, Fluttershy crawled out of the water. “What… what was that? I just thought I’d say hello to the friendly fish in that pond and then…”
“That’s why it’s called the Kingdom of Worpol!” Pinkie Pie said happily, bouncing from seemingly empty water next to her. “It’s a pun! I’m going to head off this way. Wanna come with?”
Pinkie hopped into a rowboat that was inexplicably bobbing in the waters next to them. Fluttershy took one look at the tall, violent looking waves further out to sea and meekly pointed up a stone pathway leading up from the whirlpool. “I think I’m going to go this way…” she said softly.
“Okie doki loki!” Pinkie said happily, as the boat turned about on its own and shot off into the distance.
Fluttershy sighed and climbed out of the water, shaking herself like one of her dogs to dry off. “Got to strike out on my own now,” she whispered, taking her first steps up the slope.
Black smoke poured out of the ground before she’d taken two steps. It pooled up and around her, cutting off any chance of escape. A pair of glowing green eyes floated out of the cloud and closed in on her with an evil cackle.
“O-oh, already?” Fluttershy squeaked as King Sombra whisked her away to prison.
Meanwhile, Pinkie was making good time on her self-propelled rowboat. She stood on the prow and shaded her eyes like a pirate, humming a sea shanty to fit the mood. The boat bobbed and dipped with the waves like a rollercoaster, which was a ton of fun for a while. But far too soon it was back to the game.
“Now, where is it… where is it…” Pinkie stage-whispered, scanning the ocean closely. Directly behind her, the sea bulged up as a large creature rose from the depths. Salty streams poured from the sea serpents’ bright orange hair as it bared its fangs over the little boat.
“There it is!” Pinkie shouted happily, leaping out of the rowboat at the exact moment the serpent crushed it to pieces in its purple jaws. She landed on the first of a line of stones randomly in the middle of the ocean and skipped over them one by one, continuing to sing her shanty. The stones led her to a sandy island surrounded by an ugly ring of rocks. Up the pebbly beach sprawled the broken remains of an old fort, its few remaining stone walls bleaching in the sunlight. Its few windows were set with rusty bars and all the doors were long gone.
Pinkie grinned and rubbed her hooves together in anticipation. “The Island Fortress! And I’m the first one here! The treasure’s as good as mine! Sorry girls, but I’m not called the expert for noth-”
Black smoke bubbled up from the sand around her hooves. It encircled her in an instant and Sombra’s face floated out of the darkness with a throaty chuckle.
“Aww… you’re no fun!” Pinkie sighed as Sombra’s smog engulfed her.
“Alright… steady…” Rainbow Dash mumbled around the nails clamped between her teeth. The small end of the rickety bridge she’d managed to construct to far swayed dangerously in the heavy wind. Far too far below the waves crashed against rows of uneven rocks. Her wings struggled to maintain their hold on a large disorganized pile of boards as she struggled to nail down the latest plank.
“Phew!” Rainbow sighed, wiping her sweating forehead, “There! Two down…”
A sudden strong gust caused the partial bridge to sway violently and the remaining planks slipped out of her tenuous grip. They spiraled end over end and smashed against the waves far below.
“…zero to go…” she finished, spitting the useless nails out of her teeth over the side, “You know what? I’ve got a better idea.”
She spread her wings and flew across the gap with ease, landing smartly on the other side. She took a moment to preen and run a hoof through her hair to get out the ocean’s spray. Turning around, she appraised the island’s only feature.
The island itself was a perfect circle, rising out of the sea as if it had been placed here on purpose. Taking up most of the center of the circle, leaving only a small pathway barely wide enough for a pony to use around it, was a conical black tower. It squatted as if it couldn’t stand the sun shining down on it, its black stones absorbing the heat of the day with an intensity Rainbow Dash could feel even from this far away. She knew without even having to get closer that actually entering the tower would be like walking into a furnace.
She was about to start circling the tower for an entrance when a voice stopped her short. “Rainbow Dash? That you?”
She spun around to see Applejack standing on the furthest board she’d nailed in. “Hey! How’s the adventure going so far?” she asked, shuffling her bags so that the item she’d looted from the Towers was out of sight.
“Not bad, not bad…” Applejack said evasively, nonchalantly shoving the bag from the Ice Palace deeper into her saddlebags, “Ah just crossed over a log over a pit full of skulls.”
Rainbow’s eyebrows shot up. “Whoa, awesome! Was it dangerous?”
Applejack scratched under her hat self-consciously. “Well… not really. Nothing happened.”
Rainbow blinked. “What, nothing? No monster burst out of the bones? It didn’t spin and try to throw you into the pit? The skulls didn’t even cackle evilly?”
Applejack shrugged. “Nope. Ah just walked over the log and kept goin’.”
The two of them stared at each other awkwardly for a moment before Applejack pointed at the bridge. “So… you build this?”
“Yeah, but I got bored,” Rainbow said quickly, turning away so her friend couldn’t see her face turn red in embarrassment.
Applejack sighed and backed up a little. “Ah think Ah can jump it,” she said, rolling her shoulders to loosen them up. She launched herself over the end of the bridge and time seemed to move in slow motion as she arced over the gap. Then time resumed its normal speed as she fell far too short and dropped screaming into the waves below.
“You alright down there?” Rainbow Dash called, leaning over the edge of the cliff and struggling to suppress giggles as her friend paddled to the nearest rock and spat out a stream of water.
“Ah’m fine,” Applejack shouted back irritably, “Ah think my torch was put out by the water… the only way back up seems to be goin’ all the way around.”
“Well, then this treasure’s all mine! Catch you later, slowpoke!” she taunted, prancing off to find the entrance to the tower.
Halfway around the tower Rainbow found an opening shaped like the face of some kind of horrible monster. The inside of the tower was pitch black and just as hot as she’d expected it to be. It seemed like the entire middle of the tower was one large hallowed out chamber, much like the Banshee Towers had been. Rainbow drew out her sword and axe and strode confidently out to the middle of the room, looking for the boss.
“Come on out!” she called, “I’m ready for you, whatever you are!”
“Oh, are you?” a squeaky voice said, floating out from the gloom.
Rainbow spun around and spotted a figure leaning against the far wall. A… very small figure. The creature slouched forward into the dim light from the entrance and she saw that it was bipedal, like Spike, and wearing a moth-eaten blue suit that would have given Rarity nightmares for a week. It had moss green skin and sickly yellow eyes, one of which was covered by its pulled down aged fedora. The creature walked right up to the pegasus and it barely came up to her barrel in height.
“I’m the goblin of this tower,” the goblin said with a grin, picking its nose, “You think you’re good enough to steal my treasure?”
Rainbow Dash barked a laugh and hefted her weapons. “Oh yeah! This is going to be a piece of cake!”
“Well… I thought you did very well.” Fluttershy said, patting Rainbow Dash consolingly on the back.
On the other side of the prison bars, the goblin hefted Rainbow’s sword appreciavely. “Hey, this is pretty good workmanship! I’m keeping this!”
Rarity ducked behind a new crumbling pillar and reassessed her situation. The glass bridge she’d crossed over had been beautiful enough, in its own way, but the place it had led to was just hideous. It appeared to have been a temple of some kind in the past, but it had been allowed to fall to ruin. The stone pillars that surrounded it were wreathed in wild vines, those which weren’t randomly on fire. There were suspicious stains all over the polished floor and rough stone alter set to one side of the complex. A trap door led to a submerged area that Rarity could only presume contained this place’s dungeon.
In the middle of the room she spied Twilight Sparkle darting left and right, firing a steady stream of lasers from her horn. After her was a rather large cockatrice, whose eyes were glowing with a horrid red light. At odd intervals the cockatrice also shot lasers from its eyes, which was something Rarity was quite sure cockatrices weren’t supposed to be able to do.
“Not something I want to get in the middle of,” Rarity muttered, making a break for the opposite side of the building, “You can have this one, I’ll just take the next one.”
Free of the temple, Rarity took stock of her options. To the right the path split in two directions, both of which led off into what appeared to be an ocean. And to the right… the entire path was blocked by the smoky form of King Sombra. His leering face floated out of the smog at her, but she was apparently just out of his reach.
“Well, that certainly makes the decision much easier!” Rarity quipped, turning her back to the villain and marching smartly towards the water.
At the fork, a helpful sign informed her that the left branch led to the ‘Broken Bridge’. Indeed, the structure didn’t look very safe and several planks were missing entirely. However, the other path headed straight down into the water where ostensibly she’d have to leap from one slick stone to another.
Rarity sniffed. “Hardly,” she said, turning smartly and starting off down the bridge. It turned out to be much sturdier than it first appeared and it was easy to jump over the missing sections. “I do hope this is going somewhere nice. So far I am not very impressed by this so-called enchanted kingdom…”
At that moment a rushing sound caused her to pause. Her eye twitched as she felt sure, absolutely sure, that there was something horrible and disgusting behind her. There was a sound like dripping water and a sensation of hot breath on her back. She didn’t want to look, she really didn’t want to look, but she had no choice…
She looked.
The creature was large, moss green, and slimy. Three bulbous tentacles flailed out of its malformed head. Its mouth took up most of its body, all dripping hooked teeth that spiraled all the way down its yawning gullet. A single rolling eye perched lopsidedly along one side of the maw. The entire thing had risen out of the waters below and was just seconds from engulfing her and the part of the bridge she was standing on whole.
Rarity screamed at the top of her lungs and reared back on her hind legs. Her magic dug into her saddlebags and pulled out the first thing it could, her shield, and chucked it down the creature’s throat. Whatever it was flopped back, as if the sudden intrusion had lodged itself and it was choking. Rarity didn’t even pause to check, sprinting for all she was worth for the end of the bridge. Making it in record time, she collapsed on the sand and sat there unmoving until the adrenalin burned itself from her system.
“Hi Rarity!” Pinkie Pie’s voice cut through the air, jarring the unicorn from her exhaustion.
“What, Pinkie?” Rarity said, sitting up sharply and looking around for the first time. She’d collapsed on the beach of an island in the middle of the sea, surrounded by pointy rocks on all sides. In the center of the island was a stone fortress gone to ruin, much like everything else in this world.
On the far side of the beach, waving what looked like the remains of her net, was a very familiar pink pony. “Glad you could make it! I’ve only just broken out of the jail cell, had to lose my net to get out, don’t ask me how one breaks out of a cell with a net, but it’s good to see somepony again, and-”
Her usual babble was interrupted as Sombra suddenly poured out of the ground and snatched up Pinkie in his smoky tendrils. “Oh come on, not again!” Pinkie whined as she was carted through the air back into the fortress.
“Pinkie!” Rarity shouted, dashing up and after her friend as fast as she could.
Inside the fort was brightly lit, as the ceiling was completely missing. There was nothing inside but a door on the far side of the single room, apparently leading to the dungeon Pinkie was locked in. In front of the door, an earth pony sat on a square object as if awaiting her arrival. The pony was dressed up like an extra from a Daring Do novel in full cultist robes and a long cape synched tight with a golden insignia. The pony’s magenta mane and tail were bunched up in a tight weave that made them look like paint brushes, and clutched in one hoof was a long spear adorned with a skull below the tip.
“My, my, my… I’d have expected somepony with your fashion tastes to be at that other temple,” Rarity said brightly, sidestepping to try and find a clear path to the door. But the pony stood up and stayed between her and it, lowering his spear in her direction.
“You have four tries to get the treasure,” the cultist said in a low voice, “Come at me, or be imprisoned like your companion!”
“…If I must!” Rarity declared, using her magic to draw her sword and somehow still lit torch from her bags. She lunged the sword forward with a flick of her magic, but her enemy laughed and easily knocked the sword from the air with his spear.
“One!” the cultist shouted, stabbing forward with his own weapon. Rarity leapt back just barely out of range and levitated the sword between them, whirling it about randomly. They traded a couple of blows and the cultist laughed as each half-hearted attack was turned aside. “Two! Three!”
Realizing she was far too outmatched in this particular contest, Rarity decided to switch tactics. Pulling the sword back, she held it before her like a salute in an official fencing match. The cultist held back for a moment, confused as to this sudden shift in her behavior, and in that instant Rarity brought down the torch she’d levitated above the two of them. It landed right on the cultist’s head and set his mane alight. Dropping his spear, the pony reared back and tried to beat of the flames with his hooves to no avail.
“That’s quite enough of that,” Rarity said, stowing away her sword and fire while the cultist ran wildly around the room in a panic, “I didn’t want to have to do that, you know. Drab though they may be, you do pull of the tribal look very well and I didn’t want to accidentally scorch your attire.”
The cultist ran out the gaping door of the fortress and plunged into the water off the beach, disappearing from view. As he did, there was a click from the square object he’d been sitting on at the start. Now that there was no distractions, Rarity realized it was a large chest, and recalling the cultist’s earlier mention of treasure perked her interest. She stepped up to the chest and easily lifted the lid with one hoof.
“Ooh…! It’s… beautiful!” Rarity gasped, putting a hoof to her mouth as her eyes grew to the size of dinner plates. Inside the chest was a fabulous crown the likes of which deserved to lie upon only the most royal of heads. It was worked in soft gold and plush red velvet, and speckled with emeralds and other shining gems. A delicate pink porcelain rose adorned the top of the magnificent headpiece, shimmering with the sort of soft rainbow hues normally only associated with sea shells. Lying next to it was a black velvet bag adorned with the words ‘Island Fortress’ is elegant script.
“Congratulations!” Pinkie Pie shouted from the other side of the locked door, “You got him good!”
Rarity snapped back to attention, shaking her head as if coming out of hypnosis and starting for the door. “Pinkie, dear, I’m sorry! If forgot all about you for a second there. Hold on, and I’ll have you right out of there in two shakes!”
“Don’t worry about it!” Pinkie said casually, drawing her friend up short. “I’ll get out of here on my own pretty quickly. Anyway, you should take your treasure and get out of here before that happens!”
“What? Why?” Rarity asked.
“Because,” Pinkie said with an uncharacteristically creepy chuckle, “There’s one part of this adventure I’ve neglected to mention…!”
BAM!!!!
The impact echoed the empty chamber, rebounding off the pitch black walls. In the far back of the Evil Tower, the door to the prison cell shook in its frame and cracks spread out from its center.
BAM!!!! BAM!!!! BAM!!!! CRAAAAASSHHH!!!!!!
The door flew off its hinges and skittered several yards across the smooth flagstones. Dust filled the air around the open portal, completely obscuring the insides save for the form of a pony standing with wings spread and a wicked blade aloft in one hoof. The pegasus took a step out of the cell and coughed on the slowly dissipating dust cloud.
“Oh… that was a bit more than I expected…” Fluttershy said as the haft of her axe split and the head clattered free to the floor.
“WOO! That was incredible!” Rainbow Dash cheered from further back in the cell where she lounged against the bars, “I mean… yeah, I softened it up for you. You were just lucky it was your turn to try.”
Fluttershy panted as the excitement caught up to her and stepped to the side. “Aren’t you coming out too?”
Rainbow considered and then shook her head, taking a bite out of an apple from her sack of food. “Nah, it’s not my turn. I’ll wait a bit. Besides, you’re at the boss’s chamber; it’s time to fight the boss! You got this! Give that goblin a smack for me!”
“Oh… al-alright…” Fluttershy said uncertainly, inching her way further into the cavern-like interior of the tower. She pulled out her shield and cowered behind it as she made her way forward. The tower was pitch black on the inside, with not a single window to lighten up the space. Even the daylight coming in from the far entrance to the tower felt small and far away in the oppressive atmosphere.
Suddenly Rainbow Dash noticed a small movement and leapt to her hooves. “Fluttershy, look out!”
There was a ‘thwack’ sound and something thunked hard into her shield. Fluttershy squeaked and hunkered down behind it, trying to be as small as she could be. Rainbow strained to make out the figure she’d spotted high up on the wall across the room above the gateway outside. Whoever it was, it wasn’t the goblin she’d faced earlier. While mostly covered in shadows, it appeared to be a grown pony standing on a small ledge on the wall. It had a large bow set up before him and was firing a steady stream of arrows with amazing speed.
Arrow after arrow slammed into Fluttershy’s shield with arm-jarring force. The poor pegasus flinched with each blow, her eyes squeezed tightly shut in fear. After an uncomfortable amount of time the barrage finally stopped, although Fluttershy remained frozen in place.
“What number did I make?!” a deep voice boomed out.
“W-what?” Fluttershy said in a shrill whisper, still trembling with her eyes clamped shut.
“My arrows on your shield!” the dark archer roared, “What number do they form?!”
Fluttershy jumped a bit at his tone but still couldn’t open her eyes. “I-I d-d-don’t know! F-four?”
There was a pregnant pause before the archer gave a slight nod. “Correct,” he intoned, before melting into the shadows. Summoning up the courage to peek around, Fluttershy found herself completely alone in the big room. She glanced down at her shield and noted with dull surprise that the arrows were indeed wedged in the shape of a perfect number four.
Rainbow was already at the door to the cells and gaping in mute shock. “Aw, come on! I had to fight my boss, and all you had to do was guess a number? How fair is that?!”
But something else had caught Fluttershy’s attention. She tapped her shield on the ground, knocking loose most of the arrows, before slipping it back into her saddlebags as she strode over to the large chest in the middle of the room. It popped open at her touch and she gasped as she saw what was inside. After appraising her prize for a few moments she reached in and swept it into the provided velvet sack, slipping it into her bags.
“You got the treasure?” Rainbow asked casually, walking out into the main room while finished off the last of her food.
Fluttershy nodded proudly and patted her bags. “Yes, all stowed away nice and safe.”
“Well then,” Rainbow said with an evil grin, “Tag! You’re it!”
Rainbow Dash shot forward with a surge from her wings and slapped Fluttershy smartly on the back. A glow shimmered to life from her pack and the velvet bag she’d just put her treasure in floated out on its own, its black cloth transformed into bright gold. It hovered for a second before shooting off to the entrance in a glittering comet, to where Rainbow had paused in her flight. The bag slipped into her saddlebags silently and Dash struck a salute towards her friend.
“Sorry Shy, but I intend to win one of these games!” she said with a jaunty wave goodbye. “Now let’s see what you had in here…”
“YEE-HAW!” Applejack shouted, leaping out of nowhere and slapping Rainbow on the back as she passed overhead. As Rainbow faltered under the blow, one of the two treasure bags floated out of her pack and transferred to the farmer. Applejack landed lightly and offered a taunting flick of her mane as she took off running.
“That was for the dip in the water earlier!” she called over her shoulder as she rounded the tower.
“Get back here with that!” Rainbow hollered, taking off after her.
Applejack reached the end of the trail and jumped for all she was worth, this time managing to just land on the end of the bit of bridge that’d been constructed. It wobbled a little but held her weight as she surged over it. Rainbow cleared the same distance in a flash, striking Applejack on the back as she flew passed and stealing one of her treasures. The two of them raced off into the distance, swerving to trade their spoils back and forth.
Meanwhile back in the Evil Tower, Fluttershy sat unmoving and trying to figure out what just happened. “Um… OK. I’ll just… wait here then…”
Twilight Sparkle pressed herself against the back of a pillar and peered around cautiously. From what she could see, she’d lost the cockatrice for good this time. The creature had put up quite the fight, but it appeared to lose interest once it had driven her from the premises. Now it was nowhere to be seen, but Twilight wasn’t taking any chances.
“Where did it go?” she wondered aloud. She ran to the next pillar and considered her options. The treasure chest was right there out in the open, next to the stone altar. If she was quick enough, she could make it there and back before the cockatrice returned from wherever it was.
She concentrated and teleported to the chest with a pop of magic. Her triumphant grin instantly became a grimace as smoke poured out from beneath the chest. She flopped back onto her seat as the smoke boiled up into a very familiar shape.
“Discord?” she asked in confusion as the draconequus formed out of most of the resultant cloud.
“If you want the treasure in the chest, you’ll have to try and beat my test!” Discord rhymed, using his own magic to lift the princess back up.
Twilight brushed herself reflexively as his aura let her go and she looked around the temple in confusion. “Discord, what are you doing here? I thought that cockatrice was guarding the chest?”
“And he chased you off pretty good,” Discord laughed, wiping a tear from his eyes with a handkerchief that looked suspiciously like her tail colors, “Ran away with your tail between your legs! But now it’s my turn, and to play you’ve got to bring out your rope and shield!”
Twilight sighed and rooted around in her saddlebags with her magic. Her rope quickly floated out into Discord’s waiting claw, but the shield… Twilight dug deeper in her bags, growing more concerned and frantic the longer she looked.
“I don’t have all day.” Discord reminded her with an exaggerated yawn.
“I can’t find it!” Twilight said, practically turning her bag inside out, “It must have fallen out at some point!”
Discord shrugged and snapped his fingers. “Well then, without both items you can’t even try my challenge… but a win by default is still a win! So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, adieu!”
Once more Twilight was lifted by Discord’s strange magic and flung through the air. She screamed as she cleared the temple and headed at breakneck speed towards the hard ground. She tried to pull enough magic together to teleport, but she knew she wasn’t going to make it in time and prepared for the worst.
At the last second a massive balloon with a bullseye on it appeared and she thumped into it. The balloon deflated with the sound of a giant whoopee cushion as it slowly settled her down to the ground safely. The ends of it flopped down over her as the last of the air escaped and she irritably flicked it off her head with her wings.
“And I’m keeping your rope!” Discord’s voice floated through the air from the far off temple, and the balloon disappeared with a pop of chaos magic.
Twilight sighed and got back to her feet. “Great. Just great. I bet the others have already gotten their hooves on the other treasures. I don’t have time to waste here. I have to get into the game before it’s too late!”
