Chapter 6: A good night’s sleep
Waking up in a place you don’t recognize

Double Bubble’s vision slowly came back to him blinking his eyes trying to wake up, vague images of the party last night in his head. He stood up finally awake giving his whole body a stretch. He fumbled around eyes barely open looking for a coffee maker of some kind. His hoof felt somepony’s head and let it be thinking it was just somepony who was asleep until the head fell off shocking him wide awake to stare in the face of a pony skeleton. Immediately he freaked out and ran around the room knocking more skeletons on top of him until the shock finally wore off and he shook the skeletons with a shiver going down his spine. A quick look at his surroundings revealed a long square room the extended off in both directions the walls covered in some form of hieroglyphics and some runes that he recognized but couldn't make sense of out of context. He walked down the room a little farther until he started to hear some voices, he followed them until he found Babs apathetically watching Flash Sentry run around the room screaming.

“Oh thank Celestia you’re here too!” Babs said upon seeing Double Bubble. “I think this Flash guy is kind of a whimp.”

“Go easy on him Babs this place is kind of scary didn't you freak out with all of the skeletons.”

“Well yeah, but he’s been at this for two and a half hours.”

“Oh wow what a whimp.”

“Yeah we aren't getting any help from him, but you can read these symbols no?”

“Well some of them, the ones that are magically charged anyway. The other symbols seem to be some kind of language so I don’t think they’re important.”

“Ok then what can you read, how do we get out of here before turning into skeletons.” Double Bubble scanned the room looking for runes that had significance.

“Ah!” he said finally figuring something out. “See those circles on the wall? Those translate roughly to ‘those who are hurt come here’ and there’s several others that makes me think the range is about 1 kilometer so we’re still in Las Pegasus so there's one bit of good news.”

“That doesn't make sense though none of us were hurt.”

“Yeah we weren't unless you count hopelessly drunk as hurt.” As he said this Clockwerk teleported into the room in a flash of light, stumbled around a bit, fell, and then threw up.

“That theory is becoming increasingly valid.” Babs said looking at the twitching body of Clockwerk.

“Well how did you get here then?”

“Take a guess.” she said gesturing toward Flash who was still running around the room screaming.

"Somepony hold me."

After a few minutes Clockwerk was finally awake enough to help and he and Double Bubble started thinking of a plan to escape from the mysterious room.

“Alright, the good news,” Double Bubble said positively. “Most of these runes are mechanical pieces. This means there’s probably a simple switch somewhere that’ll open a door out of here.”

“Right,” Clockwerk said realizing his particular expertise was needed. “I can trace the mechanics back from the power source.”

“Well that’s just it," Double Bubble said bewildered, "I can’t find the power source, which is weird because it would take something massive to run a room this big for this long.”

“Wait,” Babs said confused, “what’s going on?”

“Alright,” Double bubble said with authority. ”Let me give you a simple lesson on how runes work. Runes are magical symbols that when carved correctly manipulate the properties of an object, the manipulation also depends on what the rune is carved on for example my old wings needed to move fast and have lift so I carved the rune for fast on a ruby because it’s the best gem for manipulating an objects speed and carved wind onto a sapphire because it’s best at expelling forces like wind or fire, but nothing will work on its own without a magical source of power usually supplied by a potion or unicorn magic which again is different depending on the runes you’re using.”

“The problem here,” Clockwerk interjected, “Is that for a room of this size to be running something as demanding as life searching rune and a teleportation rune would take a lot of power to run even for a day. It’s almost impossible in fact, unless you were a really talented unicorn that is. and even then it would be a day at most.”

“And this place looks a thousand years old.” Babs said amazed
.

After some effort the three finally calmed Flash down enough to where he could help them find the switch they were looking for and after a tedious search they found it. As they pressed it the room lit up brightly and the runes activated removing a section of the wall in a blinding flash of light revealing a long hallway.

“What do you think is down there?” Flash asked scared.

“Sweet Celestia you are the worst Flash,” Clockwerk said getting annoyed at the petrified Pegasus. “It doesn’t matter what’s down there it’s the only way we have to go.”

“Yeah and they hid it behind a wall,” Babs added. “Must be something cool back there.”

“Maybe it’s another alicorn.” Clockwerk said sarcastically.

“That would be a treat,” Double bubble said ". The group entered a circular room at the end of the hallway with a pedestal in the center that housed a staff with a glowing green crystal at its tip.

“What is that?” Clockwerk asked as he approached it. He was stopped by an anxious Double Bubble.

“I've got a bad feeling about that, like it isn't supposed to be here.”

“You said the same thing at Babs' and nothing happened; besides we don’t have much of a choice.” Clockwerk grabbed the staff by the handle and attempted to pull it out failing miserably until Double Bubble went to help him.

“Look you have to push it in and turn like this.” As the staff was removed a spectral form flew out of the pedestal knocking the Clockwerk and Double Bubble and back the glowing cloud hovered in front of the cowering group and began to speak.

“’Ello whose this then,” The ghost said in a surprisingly calm voice.

“Uhhh,” Clockwerk said as the calm voice relieved some of the initial fear. He looked toward Double Bubble to see if he had any ideas and he simply shrugged no idea how they should proceed. “Well I’m Clockwerk.”

“Clockwerk, that’s a weird name,” the voice said

“Must be one of them pony folk George,” said another voice emanating from the ghostly cloud

“That’s true Paul must be a pony.”

“Oh great there’s more than one,” Flash said in terror

“There’s four of us actually.”

“So just clarifying,” Babs spoke up, “You aren’t the vengeful haunting kind of spirits.”

“Only if you’re a dragon.”

“I don’t think a dragon could fit in this room Ringo.”

“That’s a good point Jhon they must not be dragons.”

"Ringo we already agreed they were ponies."

"Not really you just sort of declared it on your own."

Double Bubble interjected between the conversing spirits. “Ok well if you aren’t going to kill us or possess us or whatever, we would like to leave so could you just point us to the exit.”

“Of course we can you just have to...”

“Ringo the prophecy we have to tell them the prophecy.” said one of the voices cutting off the other.

“It’s not much of a prophecy really more of a set of instructions.”

“Whatever look,” The one of the voices began to speak more formally “He who pulls the staff is the chosen one.”

“Not really chosen because anyone can do it. He just happens to be the one that grabbed it.”

“Shush Ringo George is reading the prophecy.”

“The chosen one who will avenge all elves and slay the dragons who killed us.”

“Whats an elf?” Flash asked.

“Shut up Flash!” Double Bubble yelled, “I don’t care what an elf is I just want to leave and not die in a room with four ghosts who sound remarkably similar.”

“We do sound alike don’t we?”

“Yes”

“Yeah”

“I think I sound like a rock star.”

“Thank you for clarifying that,” Double Bubble said starting to get annoyed at the easily distracted spirits.

“So here’s the deal,” one of the ghost voices said, “we cannot be released from our ghost like form unto the glorious elven afterlife until we get a promise that you will kill the dragons with the stick there.”

“How’s he supposed to kill a dragon with that?” Clockwerk asked feeling Double Bubble's annoyance.

“It is a glowing stick,” Flash added.

“Yeah everyone knows dragons are weak against faint green glowing.” Babs said sarcastically.

“Calling it stick is really undermining it.” The ghost answered.

“It is, in all likelihood, the last magical generator.”

“Wait what?” Double Bubble said amazed.

“A magical generator it’s able to power runes without the need of potions or unicorns.” Double Bubble looked at the staff closely. The shaft was covered with runes of many types and the large green crystal at the top was surrounded by four forks each of was composed of different types of gems like ruby, sapphire, and quartz. Double Bubble found that by twisting part of the shaft he could re position the forks. After moving it a certain way the staff started levitating around Double Bubble surrounded in a green aura.

“And I can just take this?” Double bubble asked still in disbelief.

“As long as you promise to kill dragons with it,” the ghost answered.

“To be honest you don’t even have to kill them you just have to say you will.”

“Well don’t tell him that Paul.”

“I’m tired of waiting on someone Ringo I’m ready to move on.”

“If I promise we can go?’ Double Bubble asked.

“Sure why not.”

“Fine then I promise.” said Double Bubble halfheartedly

“Cool, well I guess we are free to go to the afterlife.” the ghostly cloud started to grow fainter and fainter.

“Bye ponies it’s been real.”

“Wait!” Clockwerk yelled. “How do we get out of here!”

“Don’t worry that problem is going to take care of itself.” The ghost said as it finally disappeared.

“Well what’s that supposed to mean?” Babs asked. After a few more seconds a large laser shot through the roof of the room and it was filled with a blinding light as Celestia descended into the room clad in shining armor. She hovered over the floor of the room and pointed her hoof at Clockwerk who was still stunned that equestrian royalt just burst in shooting lasers. She slowly approached Clockwerk as the rest of the group backed away. She spoke in the booming royal voice.

“Clockwerk of the griffon kingdom you will come with us.” She pointed her horn at Clockwerk’s head and it started to faintly glow with a rainbow color.

“Ok.” The Pegasus said meekly. Celestia the raised her head and the group was covered by a magical bubble her eyes began to glow white and she stamped her front hooves on the ground and the group was teleported away.

Author's Note

yup another chapter where nothing much happens, but fret not in the next chapter dragons happen.