Of Fire and Ice

It had been a few hours since my assault on a noble, and we were sitting in the town tavern. It had been cleared of debris and the holes in the roof had been patched up by the surprisingly efficient earth ponies. The acting mayor of the town had offered to give us a reward, but all three of us declined, though I did ask for a backpack to be created and my clothes repaired. Freezie sat on my left, drinking some sort of cider with a lethal amount of salt in it, and Gryphos sat to my right, drinking the same as me, which is to say nothing. It would seem alcohol never was particularly popular in this country. I wish I had some though, as I was a bit disheartened when I found out that Gryphos could only do air related spells.

“Hey Gryphos,” I said, my voice questioning, “Have you ever seen one of these before?” I asked, lifting the keystone out of my pocket. He turned to look, and his eyes widened.

“I haven’t seen a keystone before, however I believe I have seen the runes on that particular keystone.” He said, clearly excited. “I saw them on a pillar in a nearby swamp. I believe it’s called the Mareson swamp, only an hour’s walk from here.”

“That’s very convenient.” I mumbled, before responding in a louder voice. “Cool. If you guys are ok, we can head out tomorrow. I figure it would be pretty cool.” I stood, then walked to the bartender, and paid for rooms for the three of us. We retired early, as we had adventure in our near futures.

~~~

I woke up to find that the others were waiting downstairs, ready to go. I was glad I wouldn’t need to wake one of them up. I grabbed my bag and we headed off out of town, toward where the innkeeper and Gryphos said the swamp was. Our hike lasted for a little over an hour, with our only delays being Cold getting stuck up to her neck in mud and Gryphos whining about how hard it would be to get the mud out of his fur while we helped her out. I didn’t really feel like talking, as I was still thinking about the dismal news about Gryphos not being able to help me.

“Hey Al, you’ve been really quiet lately. Something on your mind?” I heard Cold ask me. I didn’t really want to talk about it, but my training had taught me how bad it is to bottle up feelings, especially ones like helplessness.

“Just thinking about how few options I have to get home. Don’t get me wrong, you guys and this magic stuff is pretty cool, but I had family and friends back home. It’s hitting me hard, Freezie.” I said quietly, taking sudden interest in the ground. I heard Cold stop next to me, so I stopped too. I turned around, and she made motions for me to come closer. I obliged, and she wrapped me in a bone crushing hug.

“Don’t worry about it Al. We’ll find a way, we still have options left. Hay, for all we know, this ruin could have a way back for you in it.” She said, releasing me from her death grip and stepping back. I was genuinely touched by her concern. After all, it’s not every day you get such heartfelt sympathy from an asocial stranger you had met only days prior.

“Yeah, there are tons of other advanced magic users. Also, there are legends that these tombs have some crazy powerful magic artefacts in them.” Gryphos chimed in.

“Thanks guys. If I am stuck here, at least I’m stuck in good company.” I said, feeling slightly better about the whole situation. I rustled Cold’s mane and started walking again. I had forgotten how nice it was to have good friends.

~~~

We had arrived at the ruins in short order, and were looking around for a way in. The ruins were really something, the entrance was a spiral staircase downwards, leading to a door. Or, what we assumed was a door, but might just be another wall. I was feeling around a wall, when I found an indent in the wall.

“What have we here?” I muttered, then snapped, lighting a small flame just above my thumb, not unlike a lighter. Now able to see, I saw it was a cube shaped indent in the wall with only one obvious purpose. “Guys, I think I found the keyhole!” I called, the other two coming to my sides. “So, you guys think I just put this in here?” I asked, taking the keystone out of my pocket.

“I would be careful, we don’t know what kind of traps might be down here.” Said Freezie, ever the voice of reason.

“Just do it!” I hear Gryphos call from the door. I shrugged.

“Your funeral!” I called back to him, and slid the stone into the slot. I heard a rumbling behind me, and I whirled around to see the door sliding downward on some sort of mechanism. “Well, that’s neat.” I commented, before taking a tentative step toward the now open door. I was stopped by a gryphon’s talons pulling on my pant leg.

“Whoa, hold on there, Al. I’ve read about something like this in a Daring Doo book. We need to watch for tripwires and other traps.” Gryphos said from next to me. He was glaring into the dark ahead of us, as if he could vaporize any foe with his gaze alone.

“Well, what do you propose we do Gryph?” I asked, using the new nickname I had come up with a whopping twenty seconds previous. “We need to go in, but you’re right about the possible traps. I’m open to suggestions here, guys.” I said, looking at the area right in front of the door, hoping to any deity listening that there were no giant boulders in my immediate future.

“Well, the roof looks too low for Gryphos to fly safely, so there goes that.” Cold Snap mused, hoof on her muzzle. “You could try to light the way for us with fire, Al. That way we have a fighting chance to spot any traps that may be ahead. Other than that, I’m not sure.” She finished, putting her hoof back on the floor. I shrugged and obliged, creating a small flame in my hand. We started walking forward, with all of us looking at the floor constantly. We came up to a door, which opened easily with a push from my not aflame hand. What I saw almost brought me to my knees.

“So. Much. GOLD!” I all but shouted, seeing the piles of dosh and assorted weapons and armor scattered all around the room.

“I think I just came.” I head Cold mutter, and I saw Gryph nod in agreement, drooling a little bit. In our little greed induced stupor, none of us noticed the tripwire right in front of us. As we stepped toward the treasure, the floor gave way under us, each of use falling into separate tunnels. My tunnel slowly ran on a tilt till it was more like a carnival slide than a devious trap meant to maim and kill intruders. I finally fell off the chute into a room. I quickly lit up my hand and looked around. I saw a bundle of white and blue fur on the ground, and quickly ran to it.

“You ok, Freezie?” I asked, poking her fetlock. She groaned in response and struggled to stand. I helped her up, then looked around. Needless to say, I wasn’t surprised that there wasn’t any sort of exit. “Well, this is a fine mess we’ve gotten into.” I said, turning back to Cold. “It seems there are no doors, and neither of us can fly.”

“Yeah, I suppose that is a problem, isn’t it.” Cold said sarcastically. I simply sat and looked around once more. The room hadn’t changed. There was still no door.

“What do we do now?” I asked Cold, hoping for some sort of reassuring answer.

“I don’t know…” She whispered, looking around. I was glad that I had gotten over my claustrophobia long ago, because this would have driven me nuts.

“We could bang.”  I said, trying to lighten the mood. This train of thought was promptly derailed when I felt a hoof crash into my shin. I did the one thing a real man could do after an injury like that, and curled into a little ball, whimpering. “I was just joking!” I whined, clutching my injured leg.

“Well, it wasn’t funny.” She said dryly.

“I dunno, I thought it was pretty funny. You sure you don’t want to turn this temple of doom into a temple of poon?” I asked, smirking. Before she could respond in some overly violent form, a part of the wall opened up, and a gryphon with green tipped primaries stuck his fluffy lion head into the chamber.

“Would you two stop discussing your plans for this evening and come on? I want to make it back for dinner.” He said with a laugh, before pulling his head back through the panel. Cold glared in his direction, then at me, then walked through the panel. I walked over to the panel, then stepped through. It led to an open chamber and another door. A look up revealed that there was a hole in the ceiling. I turned to Gryphos.

“How did you know where we were? I didn’t see any sort of door.” I asked, confused about how he found us.

“Well, I looked around, and found one panel in the wall that was exuding weak magic, almost as if it was enchanted. I simply put a bit of magic into it, and it popped open.” He said.

“Neat. You know what’s on the other side of that door?” I asked.

“Nope. You?” He responded.

“Not a clue. Wanna find out?” I said, walking toward the door.

“Why not.” He said, then together we pushed open the door. As we stepped into the huge multi-level chamber, I suppressed a gasp. All around us were hundreds of coffins. That wasn’t what bothered me, however. What bothered me, was that many of the lids were now open.