Into Your Dreams...

Chapter 8: The Challenges-The Outer Ring

I awoke the following morning being aroused by Fluttershy, looking extremely scared. She whimpered slightly and I bolted upright, scaring her into the corner of the tent by accident. She saw me get up and relaxed.

"What's wrong Fluttershy?"

"Oh, sorry, I didn't want you to get angry at me for waking you up," She said frowning, starting to hide her face behind her mane.

I blew out a sigh of relief, "Oh thank God, I thought something was wrong."

"I'm…sorry…" She squeaked out

"No no I overreacted, it's not your fault. In any case, we…I…need to get going on the challenges."

"Right. So, like I said before, there are three rings before the Inner Sanctum, each containing a different challenge."

"The first being?"

"The first being the challenge of perseverance. Since this challenge is supposed to deter ponies from entering the Inner Sanctum, it is the longest, but the least difficult of the three. It is a multi-staged obstacle course that is about a mile long."

"We're that far away?" I said getting discouraged slightly, thinking it must be three to four miles to the Sanctum.

"Oh no, remember it's a ring so the course winds all the way around in a circle. Actually we're about three quarters of a mile out."

"Oh thank God."

With that, we repacked our site and swept for any garbage, then Fluttershy hopped up and we headed to the first ring entrance. The path abruptly veered left ahead and Fluttershy led me away from the path before it did so. She fished out the deforestation blade out of her bag and nudged me with it, motioning for me to take it. I grabbed it with my magic, and forged ahead, using it very sparingly, not wishing to cause permanent damage to the ecosystem surrounding. On we headed in the opposite direction of the path, as it grew smaller and smaller behind us. About an hour later, I had just cut some vines barring my path, and encountered a family of what looked like grizzly bears, cubs and all. Fluttershy hopped down and started fishing around in her bag again. The father bear took notice of us cocking his head to the side. I looked frantically to Fluttershy and saw that she found what she wanted and stuck her head in the bag to pull it out. The other bears started looking at us following the father's stare. I looked again and Fluttershy had seemed to have pulled out a massive bin of feed out of the minuscule bag. The bears took notice too and walked over to the tub and started eating. Fluttershy hopped back up and motioned for me to go around them.

Eventually we reached another iron gate, this one was painted jet black and was overgrown with vines, making look much more intimidating than the Forest's entry gate. This time instead of Fluttershy having to open it, she directed me to a winch with a handle on it, but stopped me before I started pulling.

"That winch is part of the first challenge, once you activate it, then the challenge starts." She warned.

"So you're going to go meet me in the second ring?" I asked somewhat jokingly.

"Yep, I'll see you there."

"Mind holding onto my hat and sunglasses?"

"Sure," I handed them to her and she put them on, looking even more cute than usual, "Good luck."

"Thanks."

She bowed again and a pink lighting bolt like from before ascended from the ground and pulled her down and then she was gone. I looked to the winch again and reached for the handle and started cranking. The gate was incredibly well oiled, not making a sound as I cranked it open. I let go after opening it sufficiently for me to walk through, but it started closing back up. I quickly grabbed the handle again before it closed all the way again. 'It really is part of the challenge,' I thought to myself, thinking that this was probably the easiest that it's going to get. I winched open the doors to full expanse and dashed through before it closed.

I looked around once I was inside and saw that this ring was pretty much cleared of trees, as I could see the second ring fence about a quarter mile away. To the left of the entrance was another fence, but it was not see-through so I assumed it was the exit. Then to my right, I could see cement walls in the distance, but no obstacles. Slightly curious, I took a few steps towards the first wall, but my hoof got stuck and I flung forward landing in a pit of mud. I silently thanked myself for thinking to give my hat to Fluttershy before-hand…hoof…before-hoof. I tried to get up, being met with a lot of resistance, but I eventually unstuck my body after hearing a huge sucking sound. Once I was up, I looked and saw that this pit went all the way to the cement wall about 100 yards away, normally an easily achieved distance, but not through this rubber-cement-like mud. Each step was rewarded by a sucking sound followed by sinking back as I replaced the foot in front of me.

It took me about 5 minutes to make it 75 yards, then my energy started depleting, reaching the end of the base carbohydrates, meaning I hit "the wall". I knew, however, that if I pressed through it, I would be able to tap into my fat-energy. I pushed through the last 25 meters and saw a doorway through the cement wall appear. I opened it up and stepped through, jaw dropping as I saw the next part of the course. I saw several 3-foot square platforms raised on pillars about 10 feet in the air, ranging in distance from about one foot apart to seven feet apart. Below the pillars was a net hung from the second ring fence to the outer fence. It struck me that these obstacles ARE in fact achievable, and there is really no penalty for failing, it just takes that much longer. This part was a prime example of this, how if I fell, I would simply roll back to where I am now, instead of possibly hurting myself on the fall.

I look to the first pillar and see a passageway angling up to the first platform, covered entirely by a wooden tunnel that was, like everything else here, overgrown with vegetation such as ivy. I started to head towards it, and candles mysteriously lit inside of it, lighting the way sufficiently. I was wary, but entered anyway. Walking up the tunnel, it started curving back the other way, back towards the platform most likely. As I followed, I felt my hoof depress slightly into the planking. Thinking I had accidentally punched through I recoiled back slightly as a vine wrapped itself around my midsection, rendering my wings useless. I exited the tunnel shortly after and examined the handiwork. It was a simple clove hitch, one end of the vine wrapping over the other creating the grip. I then looked around from the platform. There in front of me was the next platform about six inches away. I looked down from the platform, against my better judgment, and saw that it wasn't as high up as I thought it was. I decided to test the net here so I wouldn't have to "test" it later.

I worked myself up, and I leapt onto the net. I felt myself falling, and abruptly stopped as I was caught by the net, which flexed and tossed me back into the air. Pleased, I walked back up the tunnel to the platform, not getting a vine this time through. I stepped forward onto the second platform, and stepped over the foot to the next one, and took a long stride over the two foot gap, which was where I had to stop. There were about 10 more platforms, two for each distance it seemed. I readied myself for the first three foot gap, and hopped across. I make it without issue, but stumble a little forward, catching myself before falling off the platform. I did the same for the second three foot gap. I reared up some for the four foot gap, and jumped for the platform. I tripped over my back foot and fell all the way down to the net and was rolled back to the start of the obstacle. Climbing up, I went back and to the same spot as before. Preparing myself once more for the four foot gap, I leapt across it, but retained too much momentum, so I simply jumped again across the second four foot gap and was able to stop. The five foot gap stretched ahead of me. Luckily, it seemed as though the platforms were getting longer, whereas it was 3 foot square before, it looked now to be roughly 5 foot long now. They were still the same width, but that shouldn't' be a problem. I backed up as far as my platform would allow, and ran forward and jumped as far as I could. It was far enough and I cleared the landing onto the five foot platform. I did the same for the current platform as on the the previous, backing up all the way and running forward and jumping to the next platform. I could see the next concrete partition from where I was standing. The final gap, six feet in length, waited in front of me, challenging me.

I reared back again, nervous for the longest gap. I ran forward, completing the 5 feet of the platform quickly, and I leapt for the final platform. I felt myself soaring through the air and I closed my eyes out of fear. It felt like an abnormally long amount of time, and I felt as though I missed the platform. I opened my eyes fast to see where I was. I stumbled frantically as I clipped the front edge of the platform with my back hooves. I crouched, regaining my balance by lowering my center of gravity. I stood up straight again and looked to the wall. It was about twenty feet ahead of me at the moment, and I started upon the wooded pathway that lead from the platform I landed on. Two things happened as I walked on the path: First, the vine holding my wings fell of and tuned to dust, second, a door appeared in the cement wall allowing me passage through.

There were many other obstacles over the course of…the course, but one in particular made a lasting impression on me: The scales of vital et mortem. The scales were massive, roughly the size of the town hall on either side of the center post. The center post was a slightly tarnished gold, with silver plates for scales. One tarnished silver plate had the word "Vital" Inscribed on it in black, while the other silver plate had inscribed "Mortem on it."

The first thing I saw entering the room was a sign. The sign read:

"All living things are equal, but also depend on one another, as is proved by these scales, the scales of vital et mortem.

To pass, you must use the wildlife around you to equate the scale to your own weight."

Though I wasn't sure how anything really made sense in that obstacle, the name was simply awesome. I forgot about the name, however, after having to haul almost 200 pounds of hay and vines and other things to match my weight.

The other obstacles, other than the scales, followed suit of the first two, possible to do, and only mild penalties for failure. They were relatively easy, and after about an hour, I made it full circle and saw a rather bluesy looking Fluttershy.

"Maybe we should get Rarity to make you some accessories too, you look good."

"Oh…thank you," She said with a blush, "So I see you made it through okay, more or less."

I didn't know what she meant by "more or less" immediately, but then I looked down at my coat of fur and saw it covered in mud, brambles, twigs, and other things accumulated throughout the past challenge. I started laughing.

"Yea, I guess I did." I replied still laughing.

"Here's your reward," She said turning red as she leaned forward and kissed me on the cheek. I too immediately blushed as she did this. I began to question my feelings again. I felt tingling inside when she kissed me that I hadn't felt before, even when sharing a kiss with Vinyl. I realized just how much my feelings for Fluttershy have grown since meeting her. The problem was that Vinyl was the one who brought me here, and had she not, I wouldn't have even MET Fluttershy.

We stood there for a few moments until came back from my thoughts.

"So…What's the next challenge?
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Hey all, this and the next two chapters were supposed to be one chapter being titled, "The Challenges" but it was getting to be a little long, I felt, so I split it up into the different rings. I am going to be out for the next week so I won't be uploading till the eighth or ninth. Thanks for all the support.

P.S. The if you were wondering about the name for the scales, it's latin for life and death. See if you can find the deeper meaning in the scales. Message me if you think you have it.

-Skiskinator