Sadly Sings Destiny

Sadly Sings Destiny
Chapter Three: Lost in the Twilight Hall
By: Jace Arveduin

Emerald Dawn got up fairly early the next morning, and decided to go tell Jesse that they could start the search for the artifact today. After arriving at his house, she knocked on the door. Since he didn't answer, she knocked again. This time footsteps could be heard coming from inside, which was followed by Jesse opening the door.

“Bit early for this, ain't it?” he asked, still rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

“I think I found a way to get you home,” she said, a pleased expression on her face.

“Well maybe it’s not too early then. So how many dragons do I have to slay?” he asked nonchalantly.

She looked at him with an odd expression. “Why do you think we would have to slay dragons?”

“Just ignore that. Where I'm from, it’s almost against the law to write an adventure without having to kill something at the end. Dragons guarding the treasure is a popular choice.”

“Uh... Anyway, do you want to start searching today or tomorrow?”

“Might as well leave today. So what exactly am I getting into?”

“I’ve found an artifact that’s supposed to be close by called ‘The Time Twister’. If we can find it, it should be able to take you back home, though I will admit I’m not exactly sure how it works or the specifics of its powers.”

“Eh, just a bit of dynamic risk assessment then, what could possibly go wrong?”

She looked at him as though he were crazy.

“Why does everyone look at me like I'm nutter when I say that? You’d think I’d just said the sun was blue or that it’s only a good day when an anvil drops on my head.”

“Because saying that is just inviting something bad to happen.” She shook her head with a sigh. “I’ll come pick you up after I eat lunch, does that sound good to you?”

“Sounds good to me, see you then." He paused, then added, "Oh, and I may or may not be as crazy as you think I may or may not be.”

Emerald just continued to shake her head as she left to finish up her packing, and Jesse disappeared back into the house to start his. She arrived at her house later and started arranging her saddlebags, making sure she had everything. Looking through them again, she discarded a few things that weren't necessary. A rumbling stomach distracted her, so she decided to go have lunch at the diner. She took her time getting there, pausing on occasion to see if there was anything new in the shops. Upon her arrival, she saw Steel Crescent sitting at the same spot they had eaten at the day before.

“Mind if I join you, Steel?” she asked him when she arrived.

“Not at all Ms. Dawn, please take a seat. And if I may ask, where are you going?” he asked, motioning towards her full saddlebags.

“I’m about to go with Jesse to try and find an artifact I researched last night. Its true name is unknown, though it was referred to as ‘The Time Twister’ in the old tome I found it in.”

“So you’re going to go out on an adventure with a creature you know nothing about?" He chuckled before adding, "If you’ll excuse me, Ms. Dawn, I’ll go pack up and join you for this journey.”

“You don’t have to Steel -- we’ll be fine.”

“I know I don’t have to, but I’m not going to let you find out how nice this creature is by yourself.”

“Okay then, but what about your shop?”

“It’ll be fine for a few days, business has been slow lately anyway.”

“Alright, meet me outside of my house as soon as you can.”

“Sounds good to me.”

Fifteen minutes later, Steel Crescent was outside of Emerald’s house, and another ten of companionable silence after that, they were at Jesse’s front door. She knocked and waited for Jesse to show up, which didn’t take long. When he opened the door, she didn’t know what to think about his appearance. The backpack didn’t seem out of place, but what did seem out of place was the thing strapped to his right thigh, the thing slung over his shoulder, and the rather large knife on his left hip, all complemented by a few metal rectangles in various places.

“Hello Jesse. What are those?” she asked while pointing at the foreign objects.

“Evenin’ Emerald, just some protection in case something takes offense at my appearance, though if you want a word, just call them ‘guns’.” He nodded towards the grey stallion, “Don’t believe we’ve met. I’m Jesse.”

“I’m Steel Crescent, nice to meet you.”

“Well gentlecolts, we might as well get started.” With that, Emerald started walking northward towards the heavily wooded mountains.

As they walked through the woods, the two ponies hadn’t said anything, Jesse seemed to give off an unpleasant aura that made them feel as if silence was the best course of action. After walking a few more minutes, Jesse suddenly motioned for them to stop, which they heeded out of surprise. Jesse’s face was slightly narrowed in concentration before a smirk came across his face.

“Okay Frostfire, I know you’re around, so you might as well join the party,” he yelled suddenly, which startled the two ponies that were standing near him. A minute later, the pegasus in question came out from behind a tree.

“How did you know I was following?”

“Easy, if you stalked my house for the first few days, then met me, I’m pretty sure it’s a safe bet to say you’d follow me if I left. Come to think of it, you probably snooped around my house, then followed us when you realized it’s sealed shut.”

“Hello Frostfire, it’s been quite some time,” Emerald Dawn said.

“Good evening Ms. Frostfire,” Steel Crescent added.

“Hey! So what’s going on here? And don’t tell me it’s nothing! I know it’s more than ‘nothing.’ This is only the second time he’s left his house since he’s arrived! And I did not try to get into your house either!” She finished with a huff

“Well, we’re going to search various ruins throughout the mountains to try and find an artifact that will take him home.” Emerald replied to her.

“Eeyup. Just going to do some dungeon crawling till we find the magical artifact that saves the world while slaying the undead until we reach the dragon overlord at the very bottom of the ruins. Then we just have to find the Magic Sword of Dragon-Slaying so we can finish him off and take the loot.” Jesse added with a straight face.

Frostfire glared at him for a full minute before saying, “I really can’t tell if you’re serious or not...”

Emerald facehoofed. “Come on you two, we need to make as much progress as we can today.”

Jesse shrugged with a chuckle while Frostfire backed off, much to Emeralds relief, and the group continued walking in silence. It was starting to get dark when Jesse spoke up.

“Might as well set up camp here for the night.”

The others readily agreed, especially Emerald, and started gathering wood to start a fire and laying out their sleeping bags. The night air had a slight chill to it, but the ponies didn’t notice it as much due to their coats. Jesse took his backpack off, laying it and the assault rifle on the ground, and rummaged through his bag for his jacket. He found it shortly after and put it on. He looked around at the others, noticing that Steel Crescent and Frostfire appeared to be asleep, and decided to let his curiosity get the better of him.

“Since I may be here for some time, mind telling me more about the place I’m stuck in?”

Emerald shook her head to get herself completely out of the book she was reading. “Well, you’re in Equestria, which is ruled by our two Princesses; Celestia and Luna. They raise the sun and the moon, respectively, and help keep order in the land.”

“Princesses eh? So is there a king or queen, or did they just choose ‘princess’ arbitrarily?”

“You know... I don’t think anyone has ever asked that...”

“Really? Hmm. Okay, so next question is what’s with all of the... magic that seems to be floating around this place?”

“Well, a lot of it is innate and is sometimes tied to the ponies special talent. Let’s say my talent is healing, I’d be good with healing spells, other spells would be harder to learn. I may not even be able to learn any other spells except telekinesis, which is innate to all unicorns.”

“Well that would be handy. My people lack magic, so we’ve advanced our technology as much as possible. The last fifty years has seen a drastic leap in the fields of science and technology, we have even managed to learn how many atoms are in a given amount of an element.”

“That’s amazing! How do you see them to count?”

“Ah, well that’s not quite how it works, if I remember correctly, it was more theoretical and eventually proven somehow. That part of my memory is sketchy, it’s been some time. Okay, I can’t think of a way to ask the other questions I have, so I’ll leave them for later. Are we going to set a watch?”

“Set a watch?”

“Make sure someone is always awake and keeping an eye out for beasties that might get too curious.”

“You don’t have to worry about that, there aren’t any ‘beasties’ in here to worry about.”

“If you say so...” Emerald lay down next to the others, while Jesse propped his back up against a tree and slept with his rifle across his lap.

The next morning they had woken up roughly at the same time, with Steel Crescent up first and Frostfire the last to wake. They had been walking for a while in the serene silence under the boughs of the trees when a faint roar was heard in the distance.

“What was it you were saying about there not being any beasties in this place?” Jesse asked the green mare.

“There weren't any, but now we’re getting closer to the untamed lands.”

“Okay, just making sure.”

They walked for most of the day, swapping stories and explaining little bits that Jesse asked about, when they finally made it to the first ruin about the time dusk was starting to arrive. It looked like it used to be a large and airy affair, though gravity had claimed a good deal of it. During the twilight the decrepit fortress still had the grace of its youth as the dust motes shown in the waning light.

“Well, here’s the first location, there’s no name for it, and no one knows who built it.” Emerald told the group.

“So we go in, find the artifact, get out and be back two days from now? Easy. Now let’s go, it can’t be that hard to find some artifact.” Frostfire stated.

“Don’t be hasty, we don’t know how safe this place is.” Steel warned her.

“Okay, I’ll take lead and you follow a few feet behind me.” Jesse told the group as he started into the ruin. They walked along the seemingly endless maze of halls in silence, the airy feeling of grace somehow managed to feel oppressive. It didn’t bother Jesse much, but the ponies weren’t used to such unease and kept looking behind them. When it started getting dark, Jesse pulled out his flashlight and kept searching. It was about midnight when they finally found a door with a large iron lock, the only locked door they had found so far, which promised something important was beyond.

“Any of you have an easy way to get this open?” Jesse asked the group, all of which shrugged. “Okay let me think of something.” After a few minutes, he had an idea. “Okay, Frostfire, can you freeze the lock, and Steel, any chance you’d have a hammer or something made of iron?”

“Yeah, I can freeze that lock easily.”

“I did bring a hammer, as it happens, I didn’t think I would need it, but then again, I didn’t really know where we were going.”

“Okay, that’s great, Frost, you freeze the lock and get out of the way once it is as cold as you can get it. Steel, when she jumps back, hit it as hard as you can with your hammer. Questions?”

Both ponies shook their heads and Frost started chilling the metal. It took her several minutes, but then she fluttered out of the way, and Steel charged and swung his hammer with all of his might. It contacted with a thunderous crash, and several clicks of metal on stone was heard shortly after, as the lock had broken in several pieces.

“Good job, now let’s see what lies within.” Jesse said as he opened the door and shown the light inside. Illuminated in the room was several large and feral looking rats. “Rats? Does it always have to be rats first?” He barely managed that sentence before they came charging. There was a small click as he flipped the safety on his pistol and fired at the rats, giving each a double tap. The ponies were shocked, but recovered by the first shot fired, and stood still as they watched Jesse kill the rats that charged at him.

“Jesse! Why didn’t you try to subdue them or talk to them, you didn’t have to kill them!” Emerald practically screeched.

“They charged me while snarling. If I feel threatened, I aim to kill.” He responded with a shrug.

The three ponies looked at each other incredulously, they had never seen any creature that killed so readily. They honestly didn’t know what to think, between the shock of seeing the rats killed and the noise from his pistol, they just stood there stunned.

“You didn’t even give them the option to run away...” Steel managed to say.

“I could tell you exactly why this doesn’t bother me, but that would just make you even more sad. If you insist, can we leave it until we set up camp away from this place??”

The ponies nodded, not really sure if they had another course of option. They searched the room in silence, occasionally calling out to see if they had found what they were looking for. After searching the room over, it they decided the artifact wasn’t here. It took an hour to find their way out, even if they had spent four searching the ruin. They set up camp about an hours walk away, the ponies hadn’t talked, unsure of what to say, and Jesse was just enjoying the silent night.

“So Jesse, why did you kill them before asking them to stop or surrender?” Emerald finally asked, her voice trembling slightly.

“Well, if you three haven’t quite figured it out yet, I tend to have a lack of empathy for those that aren’t my friends. There’s also the fact they looked like huge carnivorous rats that had been locked in a room for who knows how long. And I really don’t know how well you all packed healing provisions, but what little I had wouldn’t help with the kind of gashes those things would have made. Throw in the fact they are animals and I’m an omnivore, and you’ll realize I’ve nothing against killing animals. I don’t do it for fun, but if they threaten me or I’m in need of some food, then they’re in trouble.”

Emerald tried to come up with something to say, but he said it all in such a logical tone that she had a heard time coming up with any faults other than it was against her morals. Frostfire, on the other hoof, had caught something in his explanation that she wanted to clear up.

“Wait, a lack of empathy for those who aren’t your friends? We’re your friends, right?”

Jesse chucked. “Yeah, I’ve no idea why, but I do consider you three friends of mine. That also means that you're very safe right now.”

Steel didn’t ask any questions, instead he decided to keep an eye on him just in case. With the fire built up, they felt secure enough to not set a watch and each on drifted asleep slowly. Jesse wondering why he felt a small inkling of guilt, nothing huge, just enough for him to realize what it was. Emerald was wondering what other nasty surprises would show up on this trip, and dreading the time they would arrive. Steel pondered the mechanics behind the weapon Jesse had used, all he saw was a flash of light and a loud noise akin to that of a pony cracking a whip, he didn't know how Jesse had killed the rats, and now he was curious. Frostfire was wondering why she didn’t feel as bad as the others... Maybe it was being in his house and having a larger glimpse into his life than Emerald and Steel. She shrugged and squirmed into a more comfortable position. They all finally went to sleep under the starry sky while listening to the crackling of the flames.