Into Your Dreams...

Chapter 9: On the Threshold

Fluttershy was still adorned with my hat and sunglasses -at my suggestion- as she led me through to the gate to the middle ring. This gate was significantly more ornate than the outer gate. It was gloss black with fleur de lis on top of each post of the gate. At the the tip of each post, the black paint was scrubbed away to reveal a bronze layer underneath. To open this gate however, I had to stand in front of the gate itself and spread my wings. I felt a bolt of silver energy get taken from my horn and the gate opened in front of me. I walked from the wooden platform across the threshold of the second ring, and the doors closed behind me I took a minute to take in the scene in front of me.

There was a huge difference between the past challenge's foliage and the scene in front of me. Instead of ivy covering everything and green foliage everywhere, there was a massive canyon made of reddish sandstone. I could see layers of other rock and sediment embedded in the walls of the canyon much below me, descending into what appeared to be an endless pit. All this I saw from the doorway which essentially opened up to the canyon. I looked left and right and couldn't see any bridge, rope, or anything of the sort. All there was was a two foot wide path along the edge of the cliff, and ended about twenty feet down.

"The challenge…of Faith." Fluttershy said.

"Faith?"

She nodded, "Yes, Faith. This challenge is to test your faith of nature."

"I still don't understand," If anything, her explanation made things even more confusing.

"You don't have to. In fact, if you did understand it wouldn't be faith then would it?"

"I guess not…but what do I do?"

"Get to the other side," She said flatly.

I looked around again, then back to where she had been to find she had taken flight and was halfway across the canyon. I called after her, "but how?"

"Sometimes, you just have to take a leap of faith."

Upon saying this she left. All alone, I tried to decipher the meaning of this new challenge ahead of me. A vague sense of dejavu hit me, but I couldn't figure out where I remembered this whole scenario from, so I cleared my head and went back to thinking about how on earth- Equestria- I was going to get across. I thought of my wings, but found that, once again, they were bound together, unable to open. I figured it wasn't going to be that easy. I peered down into the canyon again and still could not see the bottom. For some reason it was quite dark in this ring. I thought prior that it was simply the immense trees blocking the sun, but upon further inspection I found that I was actually in a massive cave made of sandstone. There were some patterns inscribed in the wall, various swirls and whatnots, and I thought I saw some hieroglyphics on the wall behind me. I decided to follow the path to where it ended. I got to the end of the path to find…nothing but more sandstone. Then I found that across the canyon from the end of the path was a hole in the wall, looking like an entrance to another cave. Again I was hit with a wave of remembrance, feeling like I had seen this setup before. Frustrated at the memory just escaping my search, I started to head back to the entrance.

On the way back to the entrance to look for more clues, my hoof slipped and i started to fall into the canyon. I quickly grabbed the edge with my fore-hoofs and tried to get a grip on the sandy edge. So as not to panic I took a few deep breaths and started to pull myself back out of the gorge. My gaze strayed slightly back to where the sand path had stopped and I saw something that caused me to do a double-take. Back next to the path, was what looked like a bridge. I pulled myself back up and it was gone. But it wasn't gone, it was an illusion. The bridge was made to look like the walls of the canyon so that it seemed like it wasn't there. I walked over to the end of the path and kicked some of the loose sand the path was made of over the edge of the cliff. Instead of plummeting down, it slid across the now-revealed land bridge.

I realized now that when Fluttershy said to, "take a leap of faith," it meant that I was supposed to simply walk across at the end of the path. I cleaned up the sand from the bridge, and it disappeared, so to speak. At this, I took my first step, and it truly seemed like I was walking on nothing across the huge canyon. I walked out to the the center of the bridge and looked back and found that it was clearly visible when looking the other way. I walked the rest of the way and went through the next cave entrance.

Fluttershy was there once again.

"Am I done already?"

"No there are two more tests of faith before you reach the next ring."

"Oh," I had sincerely thought that I was done.

"Just remember, as with the last test, not everything here is as it seems."

And on that note she walked through a passageway in a wall, and it closed behind her.

I looked around the room again, and quickly found that there was no exit from the room, which really didn't make sense because I entered somewhere and even that way seemed to have disappeared. With no escape evident, the roughly ten foot cubed room seemed to shrink slightly. With just a hint of anxiety from my claustrophobia, I began to search the walls for any sign of a lever or switch or mechanism to let me through to the next room. Nothing adorned the walls, leading me to think that maybe I had to break down one of the walls to proceed. I reared up to prepare to buck one of the walls. The wall was solid and the energy transferred from the wall, back into my legs and shot me into the opposite wall. I got up slowly with a headache and a slightly bruised pride and turned back to the room. I was about to go examine the wall to the right when I found that there were two hallways on either side of me. It baffled me that these hallways were here now and weren't before, so I slowly backed away from them. Amazingly, the room was built to conceal this hallway by giving the impression that the wall was flat but could only be found if one knew that the passage was there.

I went through the hallway to a much larger room to a very scary scene. Fog and mist was coming from a shallow stream on the ground, risen because of the great plumes of fire being shot from the ceiling of the cave. The fire went all the way to the floor of the cave allowing for no passage. The whole scene was quite shocking, especially when a burst of fire jumped out at me, only to be stopped by a wave of thick fog. Although it was frightening, something was off about the room. With all the fire being shot from the ceiling, one would assume that it would be extremely hot in the room. Sure the water would cool it a little, but that amount of fire should be making me sweat. Remembering what Fluttershy told me, I took a step towards the fire, and another, and another. I fully expected to be torched by the flames at any time, but it didn't get any hotter. I looked at the flames again and noticed that they seemed to correspond to the rolling of the fog. It was at this point that I stepped directly into the inferno.

Like before, I was expecting the worst, but intend of being baking in plumes of fire, i was greeted by mist and fog being sprayed from the ceiling. I looked up and found that where I thought fire was being shot from, was actually a projector, surrounded by mist-makers. The fire, in fact, was a projection shot onto the fog. Since the fog is moving, it gives the impression that the fire too is moving. It was in this fashion that the flames seemed to be engulfed in fog when they approached me.

After admiring the projectors a little longer, I headed to the other side of the cave and exit. I head to the what I thought was the last test to find Fluttershy waiting for me.

"Excellent work Joe."

"Wasn't that only two?"

"Yes but did you not also put your faith in me that you could pass?"

"Was that a test?"

"Yes it was. Now, it is time."

"For...?"

"Do I really have to explain?"

"Last ring right?"

"Yup."

"Alright let's do this."

Shy led me from the room I had entered to a room of polished granite with various gems embedded in the walls. It was quite beautiful to look at, but I had my mission to adhere to so I continued following her to the farthest wall. Shy directed me to a circle on the ground which was a massive emerald, and another burst of silver energy burst forth from my jet black horn. The bolt shot and sunk into the wall, tracing a spiral pattern unto the wall in front of me. Once the energy had disappeared, the rock slid away in the same spiral pattern as depicted by the magic, revealing the innermost challenge ring.

This ring was much like the first one, everything overgrown with ivy and other assorted foliage, but all that stood in front of me was a hut seemingly made out of stone. I noticed that Fluttershy was still standing next to me.

"Aren't you going to go wait at the end?"

"You're already here." She replied very simply.

"What do you mean, this hut?"

"The final challenge is to get into the house. The whole thing is a riddle really."

"How so?" I ask, clearly confused.

"Well I can't just give it away, can I? It would ruin the purpose."

"Alright, so no hints then."

"Sorry."

I went forward to examine the hut. It was roughly eight feet in diameter and, luckily for me, the roof started about eight feet high. I did a complete walk-around of the whole thing and found no doors or windows. I looked to Fluttershy to see if I could gather anything from her expression, but all she was doing was watching me with a stoic expression. She noticed my look and put on my hat and glasses and struck a pose. We giggled a bit and I went back to figuring out the "riddle" as Fluttershy had put it. The hut seemed a little decrepit due to the vines, so I tried bucking the wall. As like in the cave, nothing happened except I ended up face first in a pile of dirt.

Upon getting my head out of the ground, I backed up to where I entered and tried consulting Fluttershy for help.

"So...Are you sure you can't give me ANY hints?"

"I suppose...I could give you one hint."

"That works, I'll take what I can get."

Her face stared off, blank while in thought. Finally, she said, "Pay attention to the big picture."

This seemed to follow suit with her first statement about how the whole thing was a riddle. I looked once again at the stone hut. I couldn't seem to understand what she was saying at all. Then it hit me. When I asked her about the hut, she did not confirm anything about it. In fact, she said that I must enter "the house" not the hut like I had asked. I needed to find a house and not even worry about this hut in front of me. Then her latest clue sunk in, the stone hut is a decoy, used to distract from the actual goal by acting as a pseudo-goal for somepony to focus all their effort on, and give up before getting too far.

Looking again at the hut, I shifted my gaze to beyond the hut. What before I had mistaken for the other side of the ring, was actually a quaint little ranch-style house in the distance. I look to Fluttershy as she yawns at the length of time I'm taking to solve the puzzle, and pick her up with my magic and place her on my back, and head for the house. She lets out an "eep!" when I pick her up, obviously startling her, but then makes herself cozy on my back, content that I solved the puzzle.

She hops down once we get there and opens the door for me.

"Congratulations Joe, you made it all the way," She says, leading me to a doorway at the end of the entryway.

"Great what's my prize?" I asked jokingly.

"This." She replied while she opened the vault door leading out into the Inner Sanctum.
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Guess who's back? Yup that's right. Thanks all for bearing with me on this one, It was killing me not to be typing at all(I was going insane from all the ideas I was having for later in the story) so this chapter came pretty quick. I was feeling a little sentimental while typing it so I decided to throw in a few movie references such as, obviously, an Indiana Jones scene. Happy Reading!

Next Chapter may have to wait until the end of april because of an "intensification" in my studies so I apologize for the delay on the next chapter. I am writing though, but I don't have my computer to upload after today so I'll have the chapters written out, and I will just have to transfer (Maybe I'll post a picture of my crappy handwriting (check below for tumblr \/\/\/\/\/)). Until then, my regards.

-Skiskinator

P.S. I just opened a tumblr for updates on the story and various artwork and pictures (the OC, my journal, and whatever else) that I doodle from time to time. Here it is: http://skiskinator. tumblr. com (erase the space between the .tumblr and .com(obviously(three levels deep parenthesis(PARENTHECEPTION))))