Silver Star and the Temple of Crimson Forest
Let's get down to business
Raiding temples was cool, epic, dangerous, the kind of thing ponies dreamed of doing but never actually did. Except for the rare few that did do it, and succeeded. It took wits, it took skill, it was a challenge as physical as it was mental, and it was hard. Nopony was precisely sure where these temples and tombs came from, or why some housed bodies of old ponies and their life's savings and all their stuff, while others held one big and very powerful magical artefact. Also, nobody was sure why most temples that contained lots of money and non-unique magical items would "Refill" themselves a little while after they were raided and have new tricks and traps to surprise the next adventurers, or why some temples would be different every time you went in, or why some temples had giant monsters to fight that would constantly reappear for you and your friends to fight again and again every time you went there, or why some were mazes filled with apparitions of monsters or native tribesponies that would attack adventurers mercilessly and fade away into nothingness when knocked out or defeated because they aren't truly real (Though some of these apparitions would join you and serve you and become bound to you if you earned their respect when fighting them), or why some Ancient Temples had mazes while others had more acrobatic or mental challenges, or why some mazes contained ambient magical energy or charms so powerful they changed the way the world worked when inside them, forcing adventurers and their enemies to take turns moving around on a giant chessboard grid overlayed onto the maze, or forcing adventurers to wander around through the maze and fight turn-based battles against foes that suddenly popped up out of nowhere every few steps, their bodies maintained by a health points stat visible above their heads that would cause them to either die or get knocked out and expelled from the Temple if that number ran out... though the general scientific consensus was split evenly between "When Ley Lines of sufficient power cross over or converge, the powerful buildup creates the Anomalies that some call 'Ancient Tombs'", "Ancient tribes and pre-equestrian civilizations had very specific interests and requirements when it came to buildings that served as item storage, tombs, and banks all in one, and a very focused R+D team/class/caste/cult", "They make good places to seal away ancient and powerful items you don't want just anypony getting their hands on, and they also make good places for Princess Celestia and assorted other powerful spellcasters to seal away enemies they either can't kill or don't want to kill outright, since the moon would have exploded or become sentient and evil and gained a large face by now if she'd banished all her foes there, ba dum tsssh haha oh wow please don't tell the Celestia-lovers I made that joke, I don't want an hour-long speech on the exact capabilities of the EoH", and the ever-popular "Discord did it. He was bored one day before Equestria was made, and he used to create these temples and then send ponies in to try and solve his puzzles and play his games, rewards at the end for those who succeeded, horrible tortures awaiting those who failed. Due to the unpredictability of his magic, these horrible Temples exist, but weaker and actually-beatable variants started to pop up over time due to chaos magic leakage, which is why some are diabolically evil but still able to be completed while others are a walk in the park and good practice for beginners, and others still are tailored specifically to certain things. During the time he spent turned to stone, he either just sorta forgot about it, or he's saying nothing and hoping that some day, Canterlot Castle will become an Ancient Temple and Princess Celestia will be forced to play all kinds of games for his amusement without actually getting in trouble for causing it".
One thing was certain:
When Silver Star teleported into a thick jungle where an ancient temple was said to lie in wait nearby, he decided he'd come up with an opening statement that was both eloquent and poetic when he wrote about this adventure and many better ones at the age of 100-ish when he would seemingly retire, but actually carry on adventuring under a new name and identity. He didn't have to do that, being immortal wasn't THAT unusual - How old was Granny Smith, again? - and he had earned his immortality on a past adventure that took him all over the globe, but he figured that once he was a hundred years old, he'd probably be so awesome that he'd have to start over and go to new places if he ever wanted a challenge. Still, raiding temples sounded like something sufficiently cool, something he could totally do even when he was old.
He appeared, surrounded by trees and bushes on which red peppers the size of peaches grew, the thick canopy overhead blotting out most of the sunlight, allowing only thin beams of light to leak through as similar red peppers hung from the trees above him. His horn glowed with a bright blue light as he first summoned a pair of blue goggles with jade lenses onto his eyes and face, and then he summoned an illusionary golden compass map-symbol in front of him that searched for the right direction and then pointed straight ahead, confirming that the map his Ultimate Newspaper had given him was correct and he had indeed appeared facing the right way. And then he summoned five groups of creatures, about fourty-something of them. Half were like Timberwolves, except rather than wood, they were made of sharp metal blades, eyes blazing like red portals to the forges of tartarus. Which were actually a thing, those forges were great for making high-level stuff. It was a shame that everything the forges of Tartarus made was invariably cursed in some way, though some curses were less awful than others. The other half of the very small army he'd summoned were vultures made of metal parts, the same blazing red eyes and steel bodies as the metal Timberwolves. He wasn't particularly impressed with wolves or vultures, not like some weird ponies who loved wolves and dressed like wolves and changed their names to involve or reference wolves or used big wolf-shaped spellblast attacks when a simple sharp arrow-shapes spellblastwould have been far easier and much faster to fire. The creatures he had just summoned were simply the easiest magical creatures of sufficient strength to summon in large quantities.
"A-1, clear a path for me. A-2 through 5, clear a thirty-foot perimeter around me at all times. There's nothing awesome about deadly plants or poisonous snakes, I'm here for the Temple. Anything you meet that can talk, you take it out nonlethally and with no permanent damage." Silver ordered, his tone allowing no arguments. "Once I'm in that Temple, you stand guard outside in that perimeter, and don't let anything or anyone else in until I get out."
They nodded and clicked their metal teeth once in confirmation, and set off, the first group cutting down trees and slicing vines like hot knives through butter, clearing a path for him to walk through, while the other groups set out to nonlethally take out anything in this forest that planned to attack invaders, be it snakes, toads, ants, natives, or even weird pygmy ponies smaller than the average foal, if something so absurd actually existed.
Regardless, he walked along the path his Summons gave him, his magical strength and reserves gradually recovering from 80% to 100% as he walked, his golden compass telling him the way he had to go. He hadn't brought along his Griffon secretary, Aquilla, because he wanted to see if he alone could complete a temple.
It wasn't long before he finally reached it, The Temple of Crimson Forest. It was given this name because it was an Ancient Temple in a place outside of Equestria, an unowned location known as Crimson Forest due to how many unhealthily spicy red peppers grew here and how most of the local wildlife and magical creatures were red. He heard that many of the spices in this area were so spicy, the ambient magic they contained caused a pony to literally breathe fire. And then become hospitalized for months or until someone heals their mouth into usability.
One hundred and eight gold steps lined with bronze led up a pony-made flat-topped mountain built from large marble blocks. The Temple entrance at the top looked like it'd be a pretty small Temple, but he knew Temple doors typically led to extradimensional 'Pocket Dimension' areas that allowed them to be as bigger on the inside as they needed to be.
There was a certain other temple he planned on raiding soon, the legendary Highwater Temple, the hellish temple that drove experienced temple-raiders and explorers and dungeoneers to insanity. In a fan-magazine interview, Daring Do once had the following to say about it: "That place is so impossible it isn't even funny. I doubt a team of experienced adventurers and Temple raiders, immortals, well-geared specialists, teams of experienced puzzle-solvers, and even all three Alicorn Princesses could get through that place without cheating, most of the puzzles are impossible without magic anyway, and I'm not going to throw myself at it just to see what happens. If Discord himself didn't make that place, I don't want to know what did. A good adventure knows the terrain, and that place is so far south of possible you can't see 'actually pretty difficult' with a telescope."
The interview was old, and it sent shockwaves through her fanbase for her to admit that an undefeatable Temple actually was undefeatable, but after a record four days of uncertainty, they all collectively decided admitting an impossible thing was impossible wasn't shameful, and neither was knowing your limits. That temple was just evil, really really evil, and besides, she had better and cooler things to do, like awesome adventures. He was pretty sure it was around the time of Twilight's second year in Ponyville. Regardless, this place would serve as a nice test-run, something to check if his temple-raiding skill was as high as he expected it to be. If it was, well, he'd tackle the legendary Highwater Temple, and if not, he'd go home and nopony would ever know about this. Ever. He wasn't sure why he was looking forwards to trying to beat a place the greatest Adventuring Archeologist ever called impossible. Maybe he had somehow, at some point when he wasn't paying attention, become the type of hero who would merrily stroll into a Forest Of Doooom covered in Danger and Keep Out signs while the reader yelled at him and said to not go there, knowing how the book would end because they peeked at the final pages and did not like what they saw. Or maybe he was just dangerously curious, and he wanted to discard the conflicting reports of what the temple was like and see it for himself.
Ah, well... test-run time.
He didn't mind that the whole forest seemed oddly deserted and silent, his summoned monsters had cleaned the place out before he got there, and if any plant suddenly came to life and spewed spicy powder in his face, an enchantment on those goggles of his would activate and create an interlocking web of many overlayed hexagonal shields. As he approached the staircase, a metal platform formed at his hooves, and he stepped up onto it. He levitated it up over the stairs, giving him a quick ride to the top floor, where he telekinetically tossed the platform away, not caring what it would hit, and entered the temple door, entering into darkness.
It didn't feel like he had teleported, though portals were great for this effect because you didn't feel anything when you went through them. It felt like he had walked into the entrance, walked through a straight hardened-dirt path that shouldn't have been able to fit in that small building, and then he came upon two burning bronze torches and a large, ornate set of stone doors decorated with a fractal pattern of odd eight-sided triangles facing him down.
This was it... Once he was in, there was no turning back. Well, he could turn back, he just really, really didn't want to, and that was kind of the same thing.
He walked up to the doors, they opened inwards slowly and dramatically, and he could feel himself start to get excited. This was it. The adventure had begun. He was raiding a temple, a real one. This was going to be awesome!
He walked through the doorway, and found a long hallway with seven piles of bones on either side of the dark brown pathway in the center of the room, a heavy and large set of two stone doors at the end.
Oh, good, it was starting with a simple combat test. Silver's horn flashed blue, and then nine apple-sized blue gems that matched the colour of his eyed and one that matched the colour of the dark orange part of his mane were suddenly floating above his head in the shape of his Cutie Mark, orange gem in the center, thin blue magical links keeping them connected. He slowly stepped forwards, waiting for the bone piles to do something. Because they were so, so totally going to do something. Rule Eight of dungeoneering: It wouldn't be there if there wasn't a reason for it being there.
As expected, the bone piles shuddered and floated up, forming into skeletal ponies with horns and wings, Ponies and not Alicorns because they weren't the right size, blue flames lighting up the area where their hearts would be, their eyes hollow yet filled with ha-
Silver fired a thin blue beam of light into the gem at the base of his collection of floating gems, which was refracted into the next gem, and the next gem, until all of them had thick and powerful beams of blue magical laser running through them, getting stronger by the second. A second later, Silver's horn stopped firing its energy beam, but the gems continued to shimmer, and then each gem rotated in place, each firing blue beams of magical energy at different angles that swept in different directions in an un-dodgeable frenzy of lasers that hit everything in an arc in front of him multiple times, striking the skeletal ponies and causing the magical energy to run through their bodies, not just knocking them apart and causing them to reform, but disintegrating their bones completely.
"Well, that was-" Silver said loudly, and then he stopped talking and fired another thin and kinda-weak magical laser into his floating gems, causing their connection to flare up a moment before a blue tornado of spectral magical flames appeared in front of the stone doors, the flames flickering out to reveal a gigantic monstrous skeletal pony twenty feet tall, with eight legs and hooves, seven horns, and ten pairs of sharp skeletal wings lining his back.
The skeletal beast began to roar with fury, and Silver used his gem-laser spell differently this time, blasting out an immense and incredibly thick blue laser from the area between the gems that made up the upper part of the tree, a focused ray of absolute destruction with orange energy beams spiralling around it, striking the skeletal monster and obliterating it and the bones that gave it physical form and the spell that held those bones together, completely wiping it from the face of existence like sunlight wiping away a shadow. The beam continued on past it like a tsunami striking an errant rock, blasting the walls behind it.
Silver's laser beam faded, revealing that he monster was obliterated and that there were some seriously bad scorch marks on the stone door, and between Silver and the doors, there was a thick black mark that would have been a trench if Ancient Temples were not immune to destruction. Still, this was a dirt floor, so if he'd purposefully been trying to dig through it, the Ancient Temple would have let him. His gems vanished back into his pocket dimension as the stone doors opened up inwards, beckoning him forwards. Silver walked through the stone gates, through a corridor wide enough for three rows of ponies, and got to the next room.
He entered a wide circular room about fourty feet across, with a high ceiling and a wide table with seven legs in the center of the room. On the farthest side of the room, there were two heavy stone doors. He glanced around, checking for traps with his regular eyes, the trap-sensing and X-ray enchantment of his goggles (He wasn't sure why it was called X-ray since it didn't use actual X-rays, just magic, but he supposed it sounded better and cooler than See-Through Spell), his Connection Sight that would inform him of any good trap hiding places when he was actively looking for them, and his own mind that was running a subroutine known as "If I were a temple designer, where would I hide my traps?", which also gave him ideas on where to look. He found nothing, so he approached the table, while still keeping his eyes open for traps because it was a Temple and it was tricky like that.
The table showed seven large ancient golden coins surrounding a plaque, equidistant from each other. From the top, going clockwise, there were two coins showing a long shimmering Unicorn horn, one coin showing what might have been the bottom of a hoof, then three more horn coins, and one final hoof coin. The plaque in the center was in an ancient dead language, but Silver's connection-sight activated and retrieved the memories of the books he'd read on ancient languages ahead of time from his subconscious, translating the two symbols.
The first symbol was a black vertical sausage-like shape, like a lone pony lying down viewed from above, and the second was of two severed unicorn horns crossed over in an X shape, a simple image of hoof stamping down on their center.
Above them, their meanings appeared in a language he could understand, thin blue lines connecting the glowing ethereal words to their symbols.
In order, the meanings were "SINGULAR. Equal.".
So... this was the puzzle, and that was his hint.
Singular... equal...
He had to make the coins equal somehow? Make the number of Horn coins and Hoof coins equal?
He picked up a coin with a hoof, and the ceiling slowly started to descend, sand falling down the sides. He slammed the coin back down, and the ceiling went back up to its original place.
So... the ceiling was part of this puzzle, and if he got it wrong, the ceiling would come down and crush him. Which would be a pain, since even though he was immortal thanks to a previous adventure, the ceiling coming down and crushing his body into pulp and keeping it like that would make it impossible to regenerate, causing his body to regrow in one of his designated Home areas, he'd probably choose the bedroom of his Silver Spire house in Canterlot. And he really didn't want to have to fly all the way over here and go through this temple AGAIN.
His connection-sight informed him that he had enough time to make one move before the ceiling came down completely.
Hm... he couldn't cheat, puzzles like this typically had anti-cheat mechanisms that locked up the whole temple until you left if you tried to cheat. He couldn't transform the coins into three horn coins and three hoof coins and... one coin that was both? He also couldn't simply force the door to the next chamber open, the temple wouldn't allow him. He could try, but either nothing would happen because the temple would resist his cheating attempts, or the puzzle would initiate some kind of cheater-killing protocol.
He looked at the puzzle, thinking. He had one move to make...
He quickly picked up a horn coin, he looked at its base and saw the hoof symbol as the ceiling started to descend, and then he slammed the coin back down exactly where it originally was, letting the ceiling rise back up again.
So, he could flip over the coin, causing it to change. There were five horn coins and only two hoof coins... using his one move to flip a horn coin over and making it a hoof coin would mean there would be four horn coins and three hoof coins. An unequal number.
There had to be a trick to thi-
"Solved it." Silver said, and a wide grin formed on his face at the sheer absurdity of this solution. This couldn't be it, this couldn't possibly be it, there was no way the puzzle's creator actually wanted him to do... this.
He chuckled to himself in an unhinged manner, his mind feeling unusual, very... unusual. He knew this was ridiculous, but it was the only way he could see that would solve the puzzle, even if it was insane and he'd probably bring that ceiling crashing down on his head and he'd be forced to go through this temple all over again. Maybe on the second try, he'd come across different puzzles. Maybe that was why part of him loved this idea while part of him hated it and he was doing it anyway.
He breathed in deeply, picked up the horn coin at the top, turned it over in midair, the hoof side now facing the descending ceiling, and he placed it upon another horn coin. After this action, there were now three horn coins and three hoof coins visible.
The ceiling stopped descending, and rose back up as the large stone doors opened.
That... that was actually right. That wasn't cheating, that was actually the correct answer.
He burst into laughter for a little while, and then trotted on to the next room, still chuckling to himself.
He passed through a short antechamber, and found a wall blocking his path, a sudden wall clearly designed to move up when the puzzle was solved. This brown wall had something on it, like a painting with a darker brown frame. The painting was of a 3x3 grid, alternating between light brown and dark brown.
"Really?" He asked flatly, knowing this wouldn't take long. In fact, he was going to see if he could do it in five seconds or less.
He jabbed the bottom-left square with his hoof, causing that square, the square above it, the square to the right, and the square in the center connected to those two squares to all turn gold. This created four gold squares, with unchanged light and brown squares in an L-shaped pattern on its top and right side like a shell.
"Really." He said, unimpressed, quickly tapping the top-right square. This caused the square he'd touched, and the two squared adjacent to it, to turn gold... but the already-gold square turned brown once more. This resulted in a grid of gold squares, with the top-left, center, and bottom-right squares a boring brown.
He tapped the center square, the "brown squares turning gold and gold squares turning brown" effect happening to the square he'd touched and all squares in a one-square radius, resulting in the grid now showing mainly brown squares, a gash of golden squares running from the top-right corner to the bottom-left.
He touched the top-right square, squares changing colours, resulting in a clump of four brown squares in the bottom right corner appearing to wear the L-shaped clump of gold squares like a shell.
Finally, he tapped the bottom-right square, turning all the affected brown squares gold.
In just under two seconds, he'd solved this "Puzzle", the wall rising up to reveal a similar wall four feet behind it, a 4x4 grid of brown squares.
"Even easier." He said, tapping the four corners and turning all the squares gold in record time.
The ceiling rose up, revealing a 9x9 grid of brown squares on the next wall. He did the same thing he'd done on the first grid, he just did it on a larger scale, clumping brown squares together and taking them out, turning them gold.
Finally, that wall rose up, revealing a long staircase. His horn lit up with a radiant blue light that spread out around his whole body, and he quickly levitate up the staircase at a speed that'd make an average Pegasi applaud as their wings extended, both at his speed and acceleration time. (Though Rainbow Dash was still faster)
At the top of the staircase, he found a room that made him consider turning around and going home right there.
There was a little balcony at the edge of the doorframe at the top of the staircase he'd just walked up, and then there was an entire wide square-shaped room fourty feet across and seventy feet long with no floor. Way over at the other end of the room, there was a balcony similar to the one he stood near now. He wasn't walking out onto that balcony until he had a good idea of what to expect and what to do, he knew what these temples were like.
He cast a Detect Magic spell on his eyes, seeing the world in vibrant ethereal hues, realising that the whole room he was soon going to enter was absolutely soaked in magic. A purple box showed the anti-teleportation ward placed on the far balcony, and another wider one showed the larger one over the room that stopped after it descended twelve feet into the seemingly-bottomless pit, allowing him to teleport back to the start of this room and get onto that balcony if he needed to.
This room didn't seem too tough, except for two things. One: most of the room was covered in a maze made from the telltale faint and faded yellow nine-pointed-star sign of hidden invisible obstacles that would come into existence and get in his way mere milliseconds before he hit it. When he focused on the one nearest to him, he saw that they were all large bronze spiked balls, hidden and waiting to pounce. Or rather, waiting to be crashed into.
Two: there were wide-area wards in place to prevent teleportation, gravity spells, time spells, weight-altering spells, portals, flight spells, self-levitation, regular levitation, bridge-building spells, the existence of bridges, summoning spells, elemental spells, the usage of non-medical magical items, the continued existence of summoned creatures, anything that granted wingless flight, anything that gave wings to any creature, spells and magical items included, the existence of nonmagical wings that weren't naturally a part of the user...
He thought of the solution to this puzzle instantly, but forced himself to reconsider because there would surely be something else.
Maybe he could make a hang-glider or set of wings and use that to get across? No, those would be incapable of the sharp turns he needed to take.
Maybe he could... make a bridge? No, there were wards to prevent that. Actual anti-bridge wards. Wow, someone really wanted to cover all the bases.
Maybe he could use his immensely heavy training weights as stepping stones as he rapidly leapt from one to another to get to the end of this room? Or just jump across, taking advantage of his amazing agility when his weights were off? No, there were too many sudden turns for either of those options.
But no, it seemed he'd actually have to use... That Technique.
Sweet Celestia, he hated That Technique.
He focused his magic and mind, deactivated his Magic Sight spell, and then he summoned his Spellblade in a flash of blue magic, levitating it sideways in front of his head.
The blade was a five foot long and half-foot thick double-edged sword that looked like it was made of steel, even though it was actually made from titansteel, an element that laughed haughtily at titanium and tungsten. The lower edge was blue, like his eyes, and sharp, incredibly sharp, like his eyes, while the upper edge was covered in backwards-facing serrated orange spikes perfect for sawing through bone and blade alike. The blade was tipped not with a standard sword point, but it instead ended in a large orange four-pointed star-shaped protrusion outlined in blue, a foot across from left blade tip to right blade tip and from the top point to the bottom point where it met the sword, the sides of this star curving inwards around an image of his Cutie Mark, ten stars in the shape of a tree, and this protrusion maximized piercing and slashing power while also allowing it to pierce something head-on and then be easily pulled out or swung to the side. The blade was connected to the hilt by indestructible blue crystal, the handle was made from orange snakeskin (It was a magical construct manifested into true existence by the wielder, but if he'd actually made it for real, the snakeskin would habe been harvested safely from a farm snake with regeneration and pain-proof spells cast on him), sympathetic magic connected to said snakeskin allowing the whole thing to suddenly be coated in orange-flavoured paralytic acid corrosive to organic matter that his immortality would allow him to painlessly shrug off if any of it got onto him, due to how it deadened the skin it touched just before it melted and evaporated it, though the poison would evaporate after seven seconds unless he didn't want it to, and the handle ended in a short half-centimeter titansteel cylinder that served as both a counterweight and detachable part he could use as a source of steel if he had to. The blue gem that connected blade to handle, on the other hand, was enchanted to spew a continuous stream of silver swords at opponents wherever the flat part of the gem was pointed, its design making it suited to shooting swords at an opponent while being held sideways to block a sword strike. And despite its tremendous weight and power, his magic could swing it around so easily it might as well have been a feather. He heard spellblades were a reflection of their user, which was why they were typically perfect for their user in length and weight, and why certain design flourishes became useful design features. And looking at this blade, he couldn't help but think back to the times he'd used it...
Many moons ago...
"What is that?!"
"It's my Spellblade, Big Sis!" Star Apple said happily, about two years younger than Apple Bloom was right now, holding the gleaming weapon aloft as his eyes darted between it and the cake, most of the town's foals having gathered for her birthday.
"NO, STAR!" Everyone at the party yelled.
"But it'll be so much cooler if we cut the cake with this!" Silver protested.
"NO, STAR!" Everypony retreated.
"Spoilsports." Silver grumbled, dismissing his spellblade in a flash of blue light, trying not to show how much it hurt him that everypony could say no in unison by now, as if everyone hated what he could do.
Fewer moons ago...
Silver Star stood ten feet away from some fat blue Unicorn in a dark suit whose name he'd forgotten, facing him down, a crowd of his yes-ponies gathered around them in a circle.
"You shouldn't have challenged me, for you will now taste..." The Unicorn said ominously, horn glowing green as his yes-ponies leaned in for a closer look. "My spellblade!"
His horn glowed with a dark navy blue light as he summoned a long, thin six-foot stainless steel rapier, which was connected to a golden handle tipped with a dark blue gem. The gem glowed with a harsh green light, causing the whole blade to visibly crackle with blue arcs of electricity, causing the audience to applaud in the pony manner, appearing impressed.
One of Silver's eyebrows rose. "I can't decide which line to say, so I'll say both. Firstly, are you compensating for something?"
The ponies around them laughed, much to Whatshisname's irritation.
"And secondly... Is that all?!" Silver asked, and let out a low battle cry that rose slowly in pitch as he summoned his spellblade, its powerful and complex design making his opponent's blade look absolutely bog-standard.
The yes-ponies gasped, shocked and impressed, but then they put on a weird closed-eyed frowning expression and shook their heads as if they were trying to look unimpressed.
"Your spellblade looks silly. Amateur." Whatshisname sneered
"My spellblade is awesome. Your spellblade looks boring. Like you." Silver responded.
"Very well... let's duel!" He yelled, his blade crackling with electricity.
"Are you ready?" Silver asked casually, his spellblade taking a few experimental swings though the air, moving faster than a nonmagical eye could track.
"Of course I'm ready, I just said I-" Whatshisname began, and then his blade split apart into three pieces, Silver's Starsword reappearing horizontally, its serrated edge having already sliced that rapier apart three times.
Whatshisname screamed in a very unmanly way as his spellblade shattered, and he collapsed.
"Are you going to get up, reveal the second form of your spellblade, and duel me again?" Silver asked.
"Give... me... a minute." Whatshisname demanded.
"Sure." Silver shrugged, sitting on his haunches and dismissing his spellblade, summoning an apple into his hoof to casually eat.
Even fewer moons ago...
"Oh, sweet, a letter." Silver said, getting a letter out of the sometimes-invisible mailbox outside his Silver Spire in Canterlot. The letter wasn't stamped with any official seals, so he shrugged and summoned his spellblade, using it as a letter opener. It was sharp enough to precisely cut letters without harming the paper inside, and his telekinesis gave him absolutely masterful control over it, so he didn't mind using it like that. After all, it wasn't as if he got to use it often.
000
Silver Star smiled fondly. "Good times, gooood times." He said, and then frowned. "Except for that first one, that was bad. But now I'm awesome and I go on epic adventures, so I don't care if things sucked at the start."
Silver held his spellblade in a firm telekinetic grip and strode out onto the balcony, glancing at the blackness between him and the balcony on the far side of the room.
Flying was impossible, teleporting was impossible, even his usual trick with the metal was impossible. And the trick with the plants he didn't use often since metal was usually the better option.
But there was still one trick he could use.
He just didn't like using it.
First, he focused his mind, closing his eyes, resting them for a few moments, and then slowly opening them, a blue glimmer in his eyes as his connection-sight was turned up, seeing the whole room around him in all directions as a bunch of wireframe meshes that didn't go away even when he closed his eyes. The wireframe world moved when he moved his head, for this was a frame built by his mind, a mind that could calculate how much he moved and where he was going and adjust his image of the room in real-time.
"Mi mi mi mi miii..." Silver sang, exercising his throat. "Da da do da da, da da do do dough, de de do de dum, la li lu le lo..."
He cleared his throat. "Haaa. Haaaah... Haa-aa-haaah... haa-aa-haa-haa-haa..." He sang, and then he got serious, and his horn glowed brightly. "HAAAAAAAAAAAA-"
Gold and crimson lightning flashed into being around his form and his spellblade, and he reared up on two legs and held his sword between his hooves in the Earth Pony way, holding it in front of his face. He pounced forwards using the strength of his rear hooves like a Griffon, holding his sword out in front of him, and suddenly shot forwards as he became a golden lightning bolt wreathed in crimson that charged forwards until a large bronze spiked ball appeared in front of him and he immediately turned ninety degrees and shot left at the same rapid speed, bronze spiked balls appearing in his way, noticing them and moving around them as expertly as a champion Wonderbolt. This technique took incredible reflexes and foresight to avoid piercing something you shouldn't or crashing into something you shouldn't, and he had plenty of those.
The path was long and circuitous, often having to go down to get to the next area without it being blocked by those spiked bronze balls that popped up miliseconds before you hit them.
Finally, he got to the balcony, despite being about ten feet beneath it, walls of spiked balls appearing on all four sides around him, swarms magical creatures suddenly appearing above him, they were like bats, only made of thin knife blades and shields, teeth containing sharp points rather than proper teeth.
Blade Bats? He thought, surprised. This technique ends after it pierces ten things or I stop it, there are too many bats for me to get through it with this. If I ran this technique at its uncontrollable full speed, it'd pierce anything until it slowed down enough to stop, but I'm barely running it at a fraction of its speed right now, and its speed can't be changed in the middle of using it.
He cancelled the technique, appearing for a moment in the air, body wreathed in crimson and gold lightning, the raw magic around him preventing gravity from affecting for the brief moment it took to change techniques.
He held his sword high above his head, bent his upper body back, and swung down as lightning gathered around his form as it spun faster and faster with each rotation, his whole body becoming a large and impenetrable orange and blue ball of lightning six feet in width and height with a thick six-foot blade pointing out of the front, his lightning blade slamming down onto a floating bronze spiked ball and propelling himself upwards, his rapid spinning letting him hit more spiked balls on the way up, propelling him higher and higher into the air until he hit the final spiked bronze ball, propelled himself upwards and forwards, and landed on the balcony that led to the next floor in a blast of blue and orange lightning, a ball of energy blasting out as a blue column rose up from him and an orange shockwave spread out beneath his hooves. The balcony was fine, it was part of the temple, so it couldn't be destroyed. As for why that Thunder Pierce move he'd used initially used gold and crimson lightning rather than the blue and orange of his own techniques, and why it was so destructive and hard to control when used anywhere near its top speed, it was because he stol- he learned that technique from Gold Standard, a sorta-friend of his in the military. It was also why it was so hard to control, its original creator typically had it run at full speed, turning him into a rapidly-moving spear faster than lightning, moving so fast he couldn't even see where he was going and couldn't really tell. One major flaw of this technique was that it didn't discriminate between friend and foe, it'd pierce a hostage and the one taking it, and it'd pierce an enemy and anything or anypony standing in his way. Though, admittedly, he warned his soldiers about this beforehand in strategy briefings and they all knew that when he yelled "P7!", it meant they needed to duck and run for cover, and quickly.
Another limitation on this technique was that it had to be used offensively at a target the user considered an enemy, Gold Standard couldn't simply use it to flee or fly around or get from point A to point B in record time. Silver got around this limitation by temporarily considering the directions he aimed this technique in as his enemy and imagining himself piercing it with that technique, which actually worked, much to his amusement. Still, a technique so hard to control and so deadly that all that needed to be done was decide what to pierce and then pierce it... it suited Gold Standard and his simple brute-force acceptable-losses hit-it-with-all-you've-got rout-foes-every-day tactics perfectly.
Silver Star was pretty good at copying interesting spells and techniques, though admittedly not as good as ponies with Magic or specific fields of Magic as their talents. Those ponies were creepily good, and he often considered messing with them by intentionally designing lame spells for them to accidentally copy, as he once did for a truly great prank. Still, if he had a Detect Magic spell running on his eyes, or he just got a good look at a spell or technique, it wasn't too hard to figure out how it worked and replicate it, or make an educated guess as to how it worked and experiment through trial and error until he exactly replicated the effect he was looking for. Besides, the idea of spells being sacred and mysterious things only idiots and heretics experimented with and altered to see what would happen was an old and stupid idea that died out and became a joke, a mere stock evil belief of fictional villainous Unicorn cultists, somewhere around the time Equestria was founded. It probably had something to do with Clover the Clever, she was amazing, hundreds of years ahead of her time and a big part of why things suddenly got so much better. Oh, the great things she would probably do if he was willing to risk disguising himself, going back in time to moments before her death and stopping time, leaving a Death Doll currently replicating her in its place, reducing her age and putting her in the prime of her youth once more, and then bringing her to the present day and then disappearing and seeing what would happen! Unfortunately, a Time Block had been put on events surrounding the creation of Equestria, or their lives, so time-travellers couldn't even try to prevent that. He could get around that by time-travelling to a time a few years before that and hanging around as either a survivalist hermit in a cave or he'd bring a house and supplies and MANY BOOKS with him, and he'd wait for the right time and THEN stop time and teleport in and do the thing, but he didn't feel like doing that just yet. Maybe he'd do it on a really, really, really slow week.
The shockwaves and energy attacks faded, snapping Silver's mind back to the present, and he stood there, his Spellblade raised, breathing deeply, his magic reserves at about 40% after such rapid usage of medium-high level techniques, though his magic was gradually replenished by his own stamina and mental fortitude, and the summonable creatures he liked enough to soul-link himself to... and then his immortality quickly raised his magical energy back to its maximum after a few seconds spent without spellcasting. He could turn off that part of his regeneration if he wanted to, but he was currently in a dangerous temple and he couldn't let his guard down for a second. He mentally kicked himself for getting caught up in his memories and thoughts, he was supposed to be trying to live in the moment more, that was what his secret therapist recommended. And then he mentally glared angrily at himself for mentally kicking himself, remembering that she also said he needed to be kinder to himself and others, and beating himself up over past mistakes wouldn't help him any more than staring out a window and wangsting about his childhood would.
The stone doors opened inwards when they sensed his presence on that balcony connected to the doors, and he hummed an epic and dramatic-sounding tune to himself as he passed through the door and entered into the next room.
And when he saw the next room, he suddenly stopped humming, the note cutting off.
He found a grand circular hall seventy feet in diameter, and at the far end of the hall, there was a stone door with five square indents that would fit five gem-keys. Overhead, he saw swarms of blade bats, and a brief glimmer of blue overhead informed him that some of these Blade Bats had shards of the gems embedded into their bodies. As for the magic, he could sense that an enchantment on the ceiling would summon more Blade Bats whenever they were destroyed, so he couldn't simply use a powerful wide-area Magic Blast spell to destroy them all in an instant.
A large floating bronze and glass hourglass with its base filled with golden sand appeared to the right of the stone door with a faint 'Whoom' sound. It turned itself over, the stone door behind him slammed shut, and his connection-sight quickly analyzed the hourglass and informed him that it was connected to both doors by magic, and it gave him just fifteen minutes to finish this puzzle.
He would have to get all the shards of all the gems and piece them together, and only then could he open the door, which he was hoping would be the final door, since this test would likely be the hardest one yet.
He needed to fly - Which was fine, he could use the basic Unicorn telekinesis on himself and levitate himself, or waste magic energy using the Self-Levitation Spell to achieve the same result, or create a metal platform and use his metal-controlling ability to levitate it while he stood upon it without having to use any of his magical energy, or he could use that spell that gave wings to any being on himself, deciding he'd likely give himself hawk wings, falcon wings, or Pegasus wings if he went with this option, since those were fastest and the most maneuverable - And he needed to get all the gem shards, put them together - he hoped the shards were enchanted to bind themselves together into gems when they were collected - and use the five gems to open the stone door... without getting cut to ribbons by the Blade Bats. Sure, it wouldn't kill him, the parts would all converge once more and regrow quicker than if he had to completely regrow a whole body, but it'd still hurt.
Yes... this room may just be the hardest room in the whole temple, the ultimate challenge for a flying creature.
Now this... this would be tricky...
...
...
...Yes, very tricky indeed...
...
...If he were a Pegasus.
He nodded his head upwards, and four steel bars rose up out of the ground, converging in a tent above his head.
His horn glowed brightly as he first cast a Permament Shield spell that would last ten seconds and block pretty much anything short of having four suns thrown at it, a blue magical orb-shaped shield appearing above his head. He then cast a wide-beam Gravity spell on everything in the room outside of his barrier, and all the Blade Bats suddenly fell to the ground like dropped nutshells, unable to even squirm from the intense gravity crushing their bodies.
His horn, still glowing blue, cast a wide-range Gem-Detecting spell he'd copied from Gold Standard after he suggested he had his R+D department work on it after adding a small and common gem to the outfits of every soldier under his command. This spell resulted in golden illusionary arrows outlined in crimson a half-foot in height appearing above the blade bats with gems, a few small crimson numbers appearing above the arrows that said how many yards, feet, or cm away the targets were. Those numbers would first appear blue, but turn gold and eventually crimson the closer they got to the target. But since those gem shards were already within 50ft, the numbers above the arrows that appeared here were already red.
His Unicorn Telekinesis reached out amd grabbed the gems that were exactly where the arrows said they were, wrenching them away from the Blade Bats with the painful shriek of torn living metal, which was muffled to an acceptable level by his shield.
The gem shards were brought up overhead and gathered into clouds of red, blue, gold, bronze and silver gems, which suddenly leapt together and formed into perfect vaguely-rectangular-shaped gems. He pushed those gems over to the indents in the door, which lit up in different colours, indicating which gem went where. He put the gems into the right holes, and smirked. He could almost hear the creators of this ancient temple furiously rolling in their tombs at his blatant cheating. Unless they were laughing at his sheer audacity, in awe of his brilliance, wondering why they hadn't thought of this. Or maybe this was how he was supposed to do things, in which case, they were probably just happy that somepony was finally using their heads.
He released his Gravity spell, allowing the bats to rise back up-
But instead, they vanished, since the puzzle was completed.
And finally, his barrier spell dissipated, for its time had run out. Speaking of time, he could have also used a gravity spell on that hourglass, which now faded away as the heavy stone door opened up, reducing the gravity and giving him either more time or an unlimited amount of time. Or he could have time-frozen the hourglass, or even the whole puzzle, leisurely floating up and moving Blade Bats around, plucking the gem shards out of the air and combining them, and still finishing the puzzle in record time to see if he got some kind of reward for finishing it abnormally quickly, as some puzzles sometimes did.
Hey, it wasn't cheating if it was allowed. If it was allowed, it was called Thinking Creatively, and considering the previous puzzle, the one with the coins, thinking creatively was something the creators of this temple admired.
In a flash of bronze light, a large sack appeared where the hourglass had once been, a bonus reward for finishing the puzzle so quickly and getting the answer exactly right. He idly wondered if there was a different Perfect Solution for Pegasi, probably creating a tornado and using it to destroy the Blade Bats, searching through the wreckage and getting the gem shards together as more Blade Bats appeared and descended from the ceiling, or if this was it and Pegasi were expected to either carry around magical artefacts that could replicate his spells or to have a skilled team that included a competent spellcaster.
Regardless, he trotted over to the sack and opened it with his magic, levitating out 350 bits, a set of bronze knives in their belt-with-sheathes with armour-piercing enchantments on them and ten charges of a basic Fireball spell each, a steel chainmail necklace with a golden broach that displayed a simple symbol of a rising pheonix, a Second Chance enchantment that would revive its wearer from death and fully restore their health, magic reserves and stamima once per day cast upon said broach, a bronze and clay +8 Saddle of Strength, and five small green Agate gems that were fairly common and 'meh' in the world of jewelry.
He smiled, deciding he could get a very good price for this stuff if he ever actually sold it instead of hoarding it like a hoarder with hoarding problems as he usually did, and he put everything back into the bag and teleported it to the Incoming Treasure room in his Silver Spire's vault, where a low-rank permanently-summoned magical creature (A six-armed three-tailed monkey made from steel plate armour and steel body parts with extra hands on each tail and glowing blue eyes, the phrase 'Official Item-Sorter' written on his chest and back in orange letters) bound to that location would begin sorting the things into different parts of his impenetrable and remarkably-well-organized vault.
There was a remarkable amount of bonus treasure, there was usually only one thing given out per bonus reward. Had he gotten the bonus rewards for more than one puzzle/room? Well, he had gotten through this place quickly...
And so, he went on, and entered the final room, the Treasure room.
He saw a wide thirty-foot circular room with twelve piles of gold coins, a long and thin bronze rapier carved from one long continuous piece of bronze that'd probably be perfect for channelling electricity through, a coiled-up bronze whip, and a golden set of medium-sized segmented wing-armour that fits on the front and top-parts of the wings thar fasten themselves to the wings using magic, they'd probably fit Rainbow Dash or Fluttershy perfectly. Yeah, this would make a nice gift for RD, he'd give Fluttershy a flowe- a plant that wasn't a flower, or something. Fluttershy was his fifth favourite of the mane six, tied for last place with Rarity. He didn't hate those two, far from it, he just liked Applejack more than them, and he liked the other three more than them, too. Pinkie and Twilight shared the top spot, Rainbow and AJ fluctuated between second, third, and fourth place, and Rarity and Fluttershy shared the last spot because he just wasn't that into clothes, animals, sewing, fashion, plants or gems. Sure, they were nice ponies, he liked them, he just liked the others more. Maybe he'd give Fluttershy some seeds for one of the apple trees he'd altered using magic when he was a kid, he still had some seeds for gammon-flavoured apples that tasted great but, admittedly, felt weird when eaten raw... although, they were absolutely brilliant when baked into soft, sweet pies. Then again, gammon was a type of meat, and she probably didn't eat meat often if at all... chocolate apples, then. Everypony loved chocolate. Oh, the deliciousness of applesauce made from chocolate-flavoured apples...
Eeeyup, she'd like that just fine. He was hoping there'd be some cool stuff for the others, too, but then again, he wasn't here to go searching for gifts. Even if he was, it wouldn't be too hard... a rare book for Twilight that she hadn't already read or a scroll/some notes for a powerful and cool spell she couls learn, some kind of hilarious item or pranking tool for Pinkie Pie like a kazoo that could make the sound of any instrument or a whoopee cushion that automatically teleported into place on anypony below a certain weight limit about to sit down (The weight limit was so it wouldn't teleport into Princess Celestia's castle when she or Princess Luna was about to sit down. Celestia would probably find it funny, Luna would be confused, but either way, he wasn't taking any chances... then again, that might be funny, maybe he'd leave out the weight limit clause entirely), for Rarity... something like a dress or a rare gem or a ticket to some fancy party or... actually, he didn't know her that well, which was why he focused on the basics. Maybe she'd want a magic-enhanced sewing machine or awesome clothes scissors that could also use laser-blades for intense precision. He'd already given Spike an enchanted steel quill that would levitate itself and write/draw whatever he wanted it to, one that could also make commandable mirror images of himself that could turn invisible at will, and become a three-foot golden laser sword when he held it by the feather part and stroked its bristles with one clawed digit. So he'd get a better enchanted quill that could do more stuff, or maybe one of those old books that would teach him Dragon Magic, since he apparently couldn't do any Dragon Magic at all. Which was lame. He'd have to offer that option to him, leaving out the lame and obviously evil Dragon Magic spells and focusing on the cool ones and useful ones. For Applejack, either a big sack of money that she could spend on something nice for herself, or something related to farming, or a necklace of an apple tree with many apples enchanted to allow the user to create and control either level-one conjured creatures or replicas of the user so she could get more farm stuff done quicker and have more time for non-farm stuff like hanging out with friends while also making farm management a lot easier on her... something involving animals, plants, sewing or nature, maybe a rare and cool but also nice summoned creature not from Equestria permanently bound to a gem he'd give her, and for Rainbow Dash... it was tempting to jokingly say 'A lock of Spitfire's mane teleported away from her when she wasn't looking', but no, she'd prefer... well, she wouldn't like any speed-boosting magical items since the Wonderbolts refused to ever use those, preferring to use their own speeds and flight capabilities. (Supposedly. And those thick and uniform cloud trails weren't caused by a magical item, they simply happened to get together a number of fast Pegasi with the exact same vapor trail when not using enchantments to lay down coloured smoke trails in their shows. Riiiight.) Therefore, she'd probably like either an awesome metal outfit with cool spikes - since Rarity was a tailor and not a blacksmith - that wouldn't obstruct her flying, or flight goggles that did something cool or unusual like casting awesome illusion spells around her that'd let her make awesome cresting waves or multicoloured explosions or giant rainbow tornadoes seem to appear behind her out of thin air, or a yellow gem cradled in thin protective steel bars - to make sure Spike wouldn't even want to eat it - enchanted to generate a Spectral Image of Spitfire when shaken that would do whatever RD said - the idea of her ordering it to dance like Twilight and it complying made him laugh - or... maybe one of those comics you could jump into, those were cool. Yeah, she'd like those, but it'd have to be one she didn't already have, maybe a custom one where Changelings attacked Generic Unnamed Hero City and so Rainbow Fast, heroic Pegasus nopony knew the true identity of, teamed up with the Wonderbolts, who worked for her as her wingponies as she fought to save GUHC from Changelings who rarely actually changed into things, usually just staying as their bug selves. Or maybe he'd get her a six month subscription to a Daring Do fan magazine she liked, there were plenty of those fanzines about.
Hang on, what was he originally here for?
Oh, right. He was in a temple, he'd just beaten a bunch of puzzles, fought a bunch of skeletal monsters, and gotten through a dangerous deathcourse. And he'd done so well on one puzzle/all puzzles, he'd even gotten a bonus sack of prizes.
He had originally done this to test his abilities, to see if he really had a hope in hell of beating the legendarily impossible Highwater Temple.
And did he have a chance?
He was pretty sure he did.