The Hand Of Despair

Hidden away in the very bowels of the earth, where the light is a faint rumor; is the long forgotten deeps where no one ever ventured. But such claim is wrong; there stands utterly alone a statue that mix with the dark that only the most perceptive of eyes can see its form from afar, this statue was unlike any that had been build in civilizations, the statues were known  to show power, victory, sadness, regret, calmness, happiness, memories. However this black pillar of stone could only spoke of the negative aspects that never are showed in statues because art I supposed to be beautiful not terrifying. The shape of the cave where is located has several tunnels connecting to it either be smaller or bigger allowing to the air to reach the place but still barely; however it can create the harmony of the caves filling the environment with its baleful melodies. But the melodies are not alone; is accompanied by a voice a deep one which is distorted but when one can manage to understand it is possible to hear the lyrics of a song; if that can be considered as one.

Beware

Beware, beware from the eyes in yellowish flames

We’re one with the darkness

Dwells in the shadows

Especially yours,

Don’t try to flee

Because betray yourself you will

Near is your End

Beware

The light is your enemy

The darkness is your doom

Run and hide,

If you can

Let your prays loose

When he reaches you

You will die

“I still find amusement with that tune after countless years of playing it back.''

A voice emanated from the supposed artistically structure yet the faint mirth in its voice fades leaving it an empty silent shell for a while.

“No!”

 “Is been EONS, how much longer must I suffer in this gloom!?''

One would believe that there inside a statue there is nothing but as it had been stated before this statue is different from the others meaning that it was a mental escape where the only resident remain there, what lurked in the surreal land was a ‘thing’; describing it with words would have been an impossible task. ''I cannot endure another year inside of this miserable statue,'' he growled with venom and fretfulness, supposedly his form was sitting upon a small structure that served as a seat he didn’t find comfort from it not because the seat wasn’t comfortable because it was fantasy however he still was aware that a body has limbs; even if it was moldable at his tastes, his surrounding both mental and external were pure darkness but from his pseudo-eyes he could see the faint ghost forms of what used to be a capital city where people used to live; more than anger was dread the overwhelming feeling that at last came victorious. His gaze went upwards meeting the nothingness, also can be called the void, there was no point in shouting and yelling curses, furthermore for meaningless pleads and cries of anguish; he passed several centuries intercalating between them. Anyways it served him somehow to spend the time; but immortality is a curse.

“Freedom! I demand liberation from this humiliating prison!”

As always and expected no answer arrived to him.

''HARLOTS!!'' he roared to the void that was supposedly the sky in his mental escape “My freedom will arrive!''

Silence.

He sighed as his hauntingly yellow pseudo-eyes focused on the outside world; or outside prison, so once again he could take a glance at the debris that used to be city.......his proud city. “Thorth-un-gol … seeing you in this state destroy me from the inside, where are your majestic buildings? Your arcane towers? Your proud citizens? The sanctuaries? Your vast fields of natural life?''

He remembers, he recalls the events of that fateful day when the need arises or when he tries to analyses the situation and think what he could’ve done. But this time it was neither of those two, he simply wanted to remember in fake peace.

***Memory Sequence many years ago***

The Great City of Thorth-un-gol, the hidden capital city of unique living beings that stood proud for more than two thousand years…

 Was collapsing by the hellish flames…

Ever city gates were surrounded by armies of Humanity, humanity forgot each other differences and their long history of distrust and wars ended, because they shared a common goal, one single purpose.

Purge the world from the plague.

Humanity held dear the belief that the monsters are to be hunted to the last; to their eyes monsters were irrational creatures which their bloodlust was the only thing they could follow.

 Humanity after reconciling with each other became proud in their numbers, vast armies and especially their technology, and with pride and high morale they began their assault on the city starting to siege the walls; however their armies were pushed back by the braves forces charged to protect those walls with their very lives no matter the cost. The army consisted in every monster that was known in the world and was registered in the human’s archives; Werewolves, Harpies, Giants, Elves; Windigos, Vampires, Minotaurs, Fauns, Gorgons, Ghosts, Trolls, Witches, Zombies, and many others species fought against the persistent humans who tried to force their way in to the city.

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The Goliath was the pride of the last technological masterpiece of human engineers’ creation; kings and generals held together several banquets after the first Goliath was finished, the maximum weapon. Deforestations were done; iron mines were emptied of its resources, quarries were drastically reduced only to produce these masterpieces. Bigger than the giants and also stronger, power to crush entire squads, able to spread boiling oil around it, spit fire like a dragon and several canons accompanied by rifles and crossbows.

Truly a masterpiece.

The numbers in the battlefield were unknown to the defense forces but they couldn’t focus to such things while their own giants were trying to destroy the first deployed Goliath.

But also they couldn’t forget that they had other war-machines to worry for, though unlike the Goliaths some of them were useless against the Trolls who their size and strength could destroy them in a single blow and the goblins easily dismantled them from the inside.

But since the arrivals of the warfare master piece the fighting spirit of the humans skyrocketed, and their numbers were something to not laugh of, Thorth-un-gol’s forces were outnumbered 450 to 1; it was a lost battle. It didn’t matter that they were repelling waves of waves of enemy soldiers it was matter of time for the line of defense to succumb to the enemy. However any of the soldiers were going to fall until they have killed enough, no matter if they were impaled, shoot, pierced, burned, cut; they would use their last breath to deliver a killing blow.

''Captain!'' a strained shout of an ogre could be heard from afar; the same word repeating over and over again and it became louder, the ogre was wounded from both bullets and arrows, his leather armor seemed useless against the power of the fire arms ''Captain Azwraith!! The east gate is failing!! Captain Wind called for reinforcements!”

“Another giant appeared in the battlefield!!!” The ogre finisihed with another terrible notice, each appearance of an artificial giant was a terrible blow to the army morale.

'' DAMNATION!!'' Yelled a grim figure that had resemblance with human silhouette, the yellow flames which served as the eyes turned blood red.

 ''Its impossible!!  The north gate had already fallen; those cursed abominations of giants are wiping out everything that attempt to block its path.''

“But the east gate will fall too!”

“THEN GO AND DEFEND IT!” The black figure was no more, his final shout turned him completely red.

Silence followed, the red color slowly returned to the natural grim dark, Azwraith Nevermore sighed knowingly the reality of the situation at hand, his city was going to be destroyed.

'' Captain I was ordered to search for your aid in the battlefield.'' The wounded soldier spoke, his breaths becoming labored as the time was wasted inefficiently.

“There are no more troops to deploy, reinforcements is an impossible task.”

The soldier averted his gaze to another place but Azwraith’s pseudo-eyes., disappointment and small hint of despair descending upon his shoulders, he a powerful ogre grunt was scared.

“I shall head to the east gate.” The shadow began to take form, he could be anything that he wanted; he could change at will but he always had preference to the human form. However that didn’t mean that he would keep the form one hundred accurately; this time he took a form of an hybrid a combination of all the species known by him. He had already set on his will that he will take down at least one of those fake giants.

“Captain?”

“I shall be the reinforcements for the Captain Wind, bring your hand.” The brutish soldier was hesitant but those thoughts were shaken off hastily and with determination he grabbed the supposed hand of his captain and placed a considerable grip on it. He felt how the wounds of his body were closing as the pieces of metals were falling to the floor, then he saw that he had been healed. “Now is time for us to head to the battlefield where our brothers are fighting with courage.”

*** End Memory Sequence*******

A series of loud sounds echoed through the darkness, it was rocks or ruins falling; and there were only two possibilities for a rock or ruins fall inside the cave, either be that there was an earthquake or that something found the a way to enter the remains of a fallen city. But if it was an earth quake I would have felt the incoming waves from the underground and it would have been louder, leading me to conclude that indeed was a living being who has entered the scorched grounds of Thorth-un-gol.

I’m curious; I want to know the foolish being that dared to invade my sacred land.

Between the trees of the Everfree forest, resided a tree but a different tree; unlike the thousands of trees inside the forest this specifically one had a small but well maintained tree-house, the residence had an owner who was very famous and for being famous being secluded was the best option to avoid crowds and more. Inside the small build currently was a tan Pegasus mare dressed in her symbolic explorer shirt and her famous adventurer hat; of course we are talking about Daring Doo, the author of the Daring Doo’s series a world famous book, which is rumored that even the princesses read the books.

However the author was debating with herself, a lot of things were on her mind but only two issues were which she put more effort to find a solution; the first was about take a bath or not and the second topic was about her last book.

'Daring do and the Golden Dragon's Tooth' was …

Different.

A failure in sales to be brutally honest.

Her right hoof passed over her face as she groaned in annoyance; she blamed those critics and also the company who was designed to publish and announce her work; Daring put a lot of effort in trying to create something new with her last book a different kind of adventure if it could be said; but sometimes what one like doesn’t mean that the rest will do. She blamed the company for not revising the contents or even tried to stop her from publishing the book, she recalled a long time ago when she submitted her first book to the company and they were extremely critical and very perfectionist with the details and since she became famous they trusted her that whatever she gives would be top quality, they trusted her too much it seems.

To her unpleasant surprise also her fans sent letters to her; she was accustomed to them and always it had written on them about how awesome the book was or asking about a sneak peak for the next book, but this time was different; really but really different. This time the letter contained complains and insult, it could be called hate-mail; however between all those letter something held in common, the book was horrible and deserved to be destroyed for good. Daring never thought that she would use her fans’ letters for maintain the fire of her chimney, and here it is doing what she never thought she would do, over and over again a letter was send to be burned but she separated one from the rest because it was formal unlike the others, she had an idea of who was the responsible.

She was right, the company threatened her.

She needed to write another and bring it over as soon as possible, and it must return the fame that the Daring Doo series had before the fall. If not, not only she would be fired, she would never be able to write again for other companies because the owner and directors were very but very spiteful, if she failed to meet the terms of her last chance they would made sure that her career as writer would be ruined for the next 4 generations.

She sighed, she was tired of dealing with that, and she was tired of everything.

“So, this is failure.”

She never had experienced that feeling since she was a filly, but nobody can compare failure as a young with failure as an adult the two of them are different by a long gap.

In front of the chimney her legs slowly gave away and she allowed her body to gently fall and meet the wooden floor of her house, she brought both of her hooves to her head and tried to cover herself with them hoping that everything will end or just vanish, that somehow exist the edit option to she could correct her mistakes. No, she wasn’t going to cry for something so petty she was going to overcome this obstacle but dread was an understanding;

''Daring Doo?'' a voice echoed through the room where she was laying, she knew who the owner was but she didn’t say anything much less move her body. ''Are you alright?''

No response.

“We need to talk.” The owner voice became serious, it was obvious what he wanted to talk. After all she went behind his back and published it without him knowing because she feared that the he was going to reject it and prevent her from publishing it; she also regretted that course of action.

“I know Ahuizotl!” The pony from the floor replied with mild anger or frustration that had been coaxing inside her.

“I just… you know… this is... I’m sorry okay?!”

“You wanted me to say it?! I AM SORRY!”

“SORRY!”

Ahuizotl remained silent as he stared at his friend, and how she tried to cover herself with both of her hooves.

“You don’t need to yell at me, you know?” He deadpanned.

“Gosh… all of this…is just…frustrating.”

Daring Doo and Ahuizotl the main character and the villain from the book were next to each other, they were friends and also adventurers, or explorers.

Her books actually contains her adventures over the unknown part of the world shouting to be discovered, technically is her diary in some way that was sold for the public to read it. Most of the contents happened for real, you heard right; most. It was true that exploring and venturing into isolated places were dangerous and you could have the bad luck to encounter grave robber or just thieves hoping to find an old artifact or relic; however those cases were rare. The traps were not that dangerous, though they were very well hidden between the ruins and literally a bad step was the meaning of dead; so it could be said that her life was always on the line in each temple or sanctuary she had entered before, but also there were other times that she found all the traps already triggered and a corpse or just bones.

But how she was able to find lost ruins when other didn’t?

The answer was easy.

She asked for help with the local natives.

Strangely she found somepony who knew how to speak Equestrian, the natives weren’t wild like her books described; most of them were quite friendly and were fascinated by the foreigners, but other times any of them knew the language so she needed to spend a few months learning the basics so the interaction could be possible and with that obstacle surpassed they could tell her the stories about their culture and lead her to places that used to be from lost civilizations.

She could say that she knew more languages than any other being in the planet; of course don’t counting the princesses since she didn’t know if they are multilingual.

But what does this has to do with Ahuizotl being her friend?

Ahuizotl was a native from a tribe that was near a lost temple from the south continent, that place is still unexplored but the crown had already send expeditions teams this year; however the Pegasus could claim with pride that she was the first to discover those places, the first foreigner of course; she already forgot the name of the tribe and that’s something that might stay in secret in front of her friend. The story with her friend was that he had the adventurer spirit and wanted meet the world so he left the tribe with Daring Doo; at first she was very hesitant with the idea of a companion even more that said fellow adventurer only knew his native language so Daring taught him how to speak Equestrian as they explored more; it took him years to learn the language and the written part was another story. They met each other for years in other words.

But why she put him as the villain?

Simple.

When Daring began to write her first book she needed a villain with a good name and also not a common, so Ahuizotl was perfect; of course with his approval.

'' Well, your little stunt ruined the good name of the series'' Ahuizotl remarked.

“Thanks! You really know how to cheer up somepony.” The tan Pegasus glared daggers at him; her sarcasm was too easy to find in her voice.

Ahuizotl rubbed his temples as he sighed in exasperation; it was ONE of those times.

“Are you going to calm down?”

Daring Doo kept staring at him with her narrowed face, he just raised an eyebrow with the intentions to say without words that his position wasn’t going to change in the slightest unless she realized her mistake.

It was a stare battle; but it didn’t last long since the pony sighed in defeat and slowly stood up from the wooden floor, in her mind she prayed that she didn’t get an itch stuck somewhere on her belly because she felt a pinch minutes ago.

So they talked.

A lot.

Despite letting everything out of her chest she didn’t drop a single tear in the whole ordeal, she believed that crying was a waste of time.

Now Daring was resting on her hammock which was customized enough so she wouldn’t have any problems with her wings at the moment of sleep; the reason she didn’t get a bed was that with a hammock one can move side to side with it, it is a moving object unlike the bed. Probably is a child thing but it was her decision after all.

 “Hey” her friend started

“Mmm?” The Pegasus was not fine and was exhausted mentally, staying in her hammock and swaying side to side was everything that she wanted to do, nothing was going to move her even if the there was an incoming arrow or fire she wouldn’t not move an inch she could die for all what she care; however it appears that her luck only accompany her when she is exploring.

“Its adventure time.”

“What?” Surprisingly to her, she had moved from her spot.

“Its adventure time.” Ahuizotl’s grin was any indication, he had something in mind that might cheer her up.

“That sounded very childish.” She returned with a small smile of hers

“So…I take it as a yes?”

Daring Doo forgot all the reasons of why she stayed on her hammock and gave a determinate look “Bring me my hat and count me in.”

He rolled his eyes and shook his head, however he already achieved his objective, Daring Doo has returned to business.