Monochrome Mystery and the Lost King

The entrance to the cave loomed ominously in front of Monochrome, and the darkness seemed to be unaffected by the daylight, with it shrouding anything more than a stone's throw away. Monochrome produced a small gas lamp, struck a match, lit it, and levitated it slightly above his head, but not before quickly regretting skipping magic class when he was a young colt; the light-casting spells would have helped him here a lot. He swung his head to look at the plains behind him, and turned back to the cave - now was not the time to have second thoughts. Slowly but steadily, he walked into the cave.

The walls of the cave had drawings and strange dialogues etched into them, languages lost to time. The walls were cold, and as Monochrome descended further, the tunnel became smaller, until he was forced to crouch down into an uncomfortable position, but he pressed on down nonetheless. To his relief, it wasn't long before it began to widen, but the cave seemed to be much more uniform. to the point of the walls intersecting at exact right angles.

"I must be getting close. Why else would someone carve an artificial cave?" he said to himself. At the same time as he spoke, the ground beneath his hooves began to shake. Instinctively, he stepped back, just in time to see a small crack begin to open in the ground. It continued to open until it was the size and shape of a large ball - and then something began to rise from it.

It was a small podium, with a weapon made of wood and string. Once it had fully risen from the ground, Monochrome saw exactly what was on the podium. It was a small bow, with a quiver and a note next to it. The note read:

Use this bow to pierce the night; use these arrows to spread the light.

"Hmm... I was never one for riddles. 'Use these arrows to spread the light'?" As he spoke, the answer suddenly clicked in his head, and he looked ahead into the darkness... A few meters away, there was a unlit torch on the wall. He carefully removed the glass casing of his lantern, and began to walk towards the lantern. However, just as his magic could almost reach the torch, a magical shield formed around it, casting a low, throbbing light on the floor. There were patterns engraved, and Monochrome could see the ones directly under the torch were either a shade of brown like the walls, or they had a red tint.

"Red can never be good. So, if I can't use magic to light the torches, that means that hopefully my theory was correct. And if I shoot a lit arrow at it -" He paused to light the tip of an arrow in his lamp, picked up the bow using his magic, and readied the bow, "- then it should go straight through the shield and light this place up." He shot the arrow directly at the top of the torch, and chuckled to himself as the torch lit up.

Just like the tiles under the torch, all of the tiles had different symbols on them, some tiles red, some tiles not. Quickly, Monochrome noted that the red tiles had pictures of villains from the past on them, such as Discord and Nightmare Moon. He also noticed that the normal coloured ones had some random Cutie Marks on them, with a row of Luna's on the other side of the room, and a row of Celestia's at Monochrome's feet.

"Well then," he sighed. He began to walk forwards, stepping on the first tile. It clicked down under his feet, and shone bright white for a second, before the light died down and revealed the tile once again, except this time it was green. He stepped forwards again, onto what looked like Twilight Sparkle's cutie mark. Once again, it went through the process of shining, then becoming green. He began to waltz across the floor, the tiles forming a pattern, until he was two tiles away from the other side. He was almost surrounded by Discord tiles, and the only way to continue was a black tile on the floor. Hesitating before he continued, he stepped forwards.

The ground began to shake once again. Monochrome looked down, and to his dismay, the black tile had turned red. He jumped across the rest of the puzzle, and galloped towards the exit. As soon as he was safely through the door, he turned back just in time to see the tunnel cave in behind him.

"Hmmph," he grunted, "Looks like we're not getting out that way then."