Three long, hard days. Standard days, mind you. Three long, freezing, boring days trudging through ancient ruins so old the Ancients called them ancient. Or the remains of said ruins. Parts of a road here, corners of buildings there, all good stuff.
Foss was having a great time with the rocks. Old rocks. Cracking them open and taking samples. Much of her saddlebags were full of them. She was also the data analyst, specializing in… You guessed it. Rocks. Stone. At the time, Foss was rambling on about how none of the bricks were from the surrounding region to the other two. She didn’t care if they were listening or not. She had a recorder on, too, just in case they wanted to hear later.
Scintilla walked ahead, horn glowing bright blue through his hood. He liked hoods. Too bad the wind was blowing straight up into his face off of the snow-covered… He wasn’t even sure if they were going in the right direction. After all, all there was to see was white snow on slightly-darker but still white snow.
At the back of the group was a small zebra pulling at the unresponsive hovercraft she was leading. It sagged and bounced on the surface of the snow.
“You know, if we wasn’t goin’ uphill at a uselessly slow pace, we’d -- No, I’d be at the top without freezin’.”
“No, you don’t get to ride the skimmer,” Foss said. “The last time--”
“Nope.” Fractal shook her head. “Don’t say it. We promised to never talk ‘bout that.”
“About what?” Foss smiled. “What, that time when you stuck your--”
Not this again. Scintilla stopped, lowered his hood, and took a deep breath.“Shush.”
“Hey! Stop interrupting me, guys! Take turns. By Polaris…”
Scintilla’s horn flashed once. “Be quiet. I need to scan the area.”
Fractal asked what was wrong.
“Maybe a radiation burst. Can’t tell. Shh.” Scintilla shut his eyes and focussed.
The other two waited patiently.
“Uphill.” He groaned. “Can’t tell what it is. Are we gonna check or what?” No answer. “Hey. Hey? Hello?”
Fractal pointed uphill with a manipulator arm. Foss gaped.
“Fine. Fine, I’ll look,” Scintilla grumbled. He got really annoyed when ponies didn’t answer him. It was bad enough at…
...What.
What was that?
“So you’re sure this isn’t a volcano?”
“Frac, you ever been to a volcano before? ‘Cause that is not a freaking volcano.”
“No. Ain’t been to a volcano before. What’s it like?”
Foss sighed and turned to share a look with Scintilla.
He wasn’t behind her.
There he was, a pulsating blue light making its way up the mountainside. “H-hey! Wait up, you jerk!”
Hehe. That burst of radiation didn’t fit many of the frequencies he had sensed before. It was somewhere between magical fire, animation, and soul magic. Maybe necromancy. There were many eldritch occurrences of trapped magic, none too harmful. But this… This was one of the strongest waves of magic he had ever felt before.
And so he made his way through knee-high snow, searching for the source of the magic. he ignored his companions’ shouting behind him. They’d catch up. And, after all, they hadn’t listened to him a minute ago, he was going to have his turn.
Scintilla skidded on the icy surface near where he was sure the magic had come from. Maybe it was just an underground deposit. But that burst felt like it had been there for centuries.
He couldn’t feel his hooves, even through his boots. His hoofbeats were masked by the splashing of three ponies’ hooves and a badly-fixed hovercraft bouncing on the surface of the water.
Foss stared at the bones. “Hope those are fossilised.” Fractal nodded vigorously, breathing harder than Foss.
There was a cave.
“So that’s where the fire came from,” Scintilla whispered.
“Yeah.”
“Do we stop here, or…?”
The entrance looked freshly melted.
Foss neighed. She was never one for danger. Or, at least, putting her friends and partners in danger. “Do we want to go in there? There might be more fire.”
“Let’s git going. Please.”
Scintilla was poking his head into the cave entrance. His horn was glowing an eerie blue-green now. “It’s in here.”
I felt heavy and dead, I couldn't move, breath, hear, or even feel. All I had were my thoughts, but even those seemed distant. If this was the afterlife, I have to say it sucked. I tried to recall some basic information, but, it all eluded me, even my name. But as I sat there I started hearing things, I don't know if it was just my brain creating illusions out of boredom, or if I genuinely wasn't dead. And that gave me hope, hope that I wasn't going to sit here for eternity stewing in my own insanity, a fate I wouldn't force upon anyone, even the most vile.
Mainly, I heard the soft pattering of dripping water, but if I strained enough, I could just make out the sound of voices, too far and faint to make out, though. It made me think, maybe others were in this hell with me, and if I swam through the ethereal veil enough I could reach them, and we could go through this together. Or that I wasn't dead and I was just blind and isolated. Or I just haven't opened my goddamn eyes yet. It was worth a shot.
I felt so weak and unused to my body, it felt so alien to me like it was not my own. But if I tried enough, I could just barely crack open my eyes, shedding a little light on my situation. From the tiny crack I could see out of, I saw tables covered in runes long forgotten, and tools rotted beyond use. Everything was covered in a thin layer of ash, but I know not what from.
The more I opened my eyes, the better I felt in my body. Soon enough I could open them all the way. The room I was in was dark, save for the faint glow of the runes, and something on my body. I still couldn't move my arms, but they felt wrong. Almost like they were trying to fuse with my body. I didnt want to force it and risk the pain of breaking something, but I was getting impatient. As I used all I had to move my arms, they finally snapped and with the strange sound of rocks being split and crushed, I could move my arms. I brought them up to massage my neck, hoping that my muscles being tense was my movement problem. But as they came into my field of vision, I could tell something was wrong. I don't know how but I just seem to know that I'm not MADE OF ROCK.
I would have hyperventilated if I could’ve, but my mouth was still sealed shut. I may not remember much but I know i wasnt made of rock, I was bone, flesh, blood, and a thick coat of… of what I wondered as my thoughts left me. My fear had now been replaced by curiosity. Taking a deep (metaphorical) breath, I thought about how the situation has changed, I obviously had no tense muscles since I was rock. But now I was left with why I couldn't move, thinking back to when I first moved my arms, I was reminded of the sound of breaking rocks. I started to draw the conclusion that my body was trying to fuse together, but I would have had to been here for a long time for a process like that to even start. It made me wonder just how long I had been here. I couldn't have been here for too long. Right? … Right?
Disheartened by the possible answer, I decided to start regaining mobility. Reaching for one of the still intact tools, I started to chip away at some of the fused rock in my neck.
“What’s in there!? Get the heck outta there or I swear I’m going to--”
“Follow me in.” Scintilla said nothing much else. He poked more of himself in. “‘S a bit steep. Watch your hooves. There’s ice.” He continued his descent, slowly but continuously into the icy dark. Foss made several kinds of noises that somehow qualified as both frustration and fright.
“Ah really think we should be… Hey, where do I leave the skimmer?” Fractal turned around after unhitching the rope from--
“Seriously?” Fractal stomped her hooves hard on the slush. Little waves spread out from where Fractal stood. “Hey.” No answer. “P-please wait up. C’mon.” The light from Scintilla’s magic aura started to fade away from the entrance. Little echoes reverberated through the opening, grotesque and warped breathing and the drip of water.
And somewhere far ahead, a constant clicking noise that didn’t sound like ponies’ hooves.
Fractal almost dove in the hole, determined to catch up.
Scintilla felt it. It was closer. Stronger.
Right ahead. He fired up his horn’s light. He heard Foss gasp.
“I hope that’s a fossil.”
Scintilla snickered under his breath. What the--
He really hoped it was a fossil.
I was nearing the end, my left knee, the final stretch. With renewed vigor, I picked up the pace. An inch of rock left almost done. Annnnnnd…… (OPEN, Yes!)
AHHH The light... it BURNS. Myself being blinded, I struck a dramatic pose to cover my eyes, my right palm stretched out towards the source, and my left covering my face.
“SHIT, turn it off, turn it OFF.” Is that my voice? It sounds really deep and gravelly. Heh. Rocks.
I started to wave my hand at the light, trying in a vain attempt to turn it off.
My eyes slowly adjusted, allowing me to move my arm further and further from my face.
I finally moved it away to see, not one, not two, but three, count em three, slackjawed people staring at me. I looked over them, My eyes narrowing on one, the source of this light. The cause of my pain, thorn in my side, bane of my life. And he is confused as hell. Its what he gets. Jerk.
I waited. And waited. And waited some more. But they still just sat there, like an old lazy cat. I was getting tired of them just standing there. I held up my fingers and snapped. I think one of them finally blinked. Note that i said think, they may not have. If they don't start moving soon im just gonna leave them here, obviously mind fucked. Its not every day you see a glowing moving pile of rock. I wonder if they died? And their muscles just haven't relaxed, forcing their corpses into this upright position. Quite a morbid train of thought, must be more pessimistic than i knew, maybe.It would explain their jaws. But not their magic.
“DO. YOU. UNDER. STAND. ME?” Might as well take it slow if they do. Or don’t.
“So e speaks,” Fractal finally said.
Scintilla twitched a bit and finally seemed to regain his composure. He dimmed his light and formed a shield between them and their newest discovery. “Won’t turn it off completely. Sorry. I want to be able to see. That’d be an awful shame.” What a drama queen.
“Igneous?” Foss interrupted. She wanted a sample. A readout on the rock elemental’s magic frequency. Was it sophont, or just pretending?
“Obsidian, to be precise.” It responded. Turning to Scintilla, it remarked on the dimming of the light. “Won't do nothing now, my eyes already adjusted. And you're saying that like I can see in the dark.”
“Can you? And what do I call you?” Scintilla tried to get a clear reading on the thing’s frequencies, but it was hard. Maybe all that obsidian was getting in the way.
“Obsidian,” Foss muttered. “I’m sorry, but I don’t recognize you.” Nothing from the Maud Geology Foundation looked like that, not even the cragadile fossils. She thought this area was supposed to have low ambient magic. How had this survived here for so long, in the cold, without being discovered?
“I would say not. I sat here in the dark for a while, waiting for my eyes to adjust to my own dim light. Why would you recognize me? We haven't met before, have we? You see, I am at a loss when it comes to my personal life, so I can't exactly tell you my name yet.” A pensive look crossed its face. “Let’s go with Phyre, at least for now. It seems a fitting name for one such as myself.”