And They Gnawed Their Tongues in Pain

As he peered downward into the mysterious darkness from whence the noise was coming from, Evening Star let out a deep sigh of frustration through his nostrils, which appeared as a small cloud before him as it touched the cold air around him, before disappearing just as quickly as it had came into view. And as he stared down into the waiting opening, a single thought entered his mind. It was a quote, to be precise: Abandon all hope, ye who enter here. The cause of his immediate annoyance was that there were, surprise surprise, even more of those damned stairs. He swore, his journey so far had been like 85% walking down stairways. How every riveting, what a wild and epic adventure that would be told for many generations to come. He could picture himself a few decades from now, his grandfoals racing to him as he rested in a rocking chair and begging for him to tell the epic climb of the stairs. Actually, that was a joke in and of itself; him having offspring, much less grandfoals. After all, he attracted the opposite gender about as well as a giant pile of fresh dog shit would attract royalty to come visit. Sighing once more, he readjusted his hold on the spear's thick, long shaft, and began to make his way down the obsidian stone steps. Perhaps whatever was down there would provide some variety, at the very least. Heck, if he was super lucky, it might be something absolutely amazing like another pony, which meant an incredible event could occur: Social activity! He doubted it would happen, but he was keeping his hopes up.

With the King by her side, Celestia led the small group of guards inside the building, with an illumination spell's bright light to lead their way and to pierce the dark that seemed to choke the very air itself like a nocturnal poisoning. With the brightness of the spell as her guide, she came to realize that the room they were standing in lacked any form of decor or furnishing, and was completely barren of any life. The floor was covered in a fine layer of dust that had clearly remained undisturbed for quite a while now, something that was surprisingly evident, even if somepony was just giving the floor a quick, nondescript glance. The only thing keeping this room from being nothing more than a glorified box was an opening in the northern wall that appeared to be completely identical to the one that had led into this empty chamber in the first place.

"Go that way, and you will find what you are looking for," Sombra said without a hint of any readable emotion in his voice. His tone was the same as it had been since they had all made the descent; it carried with it nothing more than cold indifference to the situation. "I will not be joining you from here on out, for I must attend to some business elsewhere." Celestia turned to face Sombra, the magic that enshrouded her horn washing across his dark features in a rather intense manner. His eyes seemed to gleam like a pair of emeralds, and not once did they break contact with her gaze.

"Where will you be going?" Celestia inquired with interest and curiosity lathering her voice. Something else she was quite curious about was what exactly the King would be doing; it wasn't like this was just a relaxed get-together where they could just leave whenever they pleased.

"I will be going elsewhere," Sombra said, completely deadpan in his tone and reply. Celestia scowled, not exactly thrilled with the King's snark. She never could stand a smart-ass response like that, but with the situation at hoof being such a dire one it truly made her blood boil like the magma chamber of the Emperor volcano chain right before it was about to have an eruption that the King would be cracking wise like that. However, she thankfully managed to keep her cool and didn't say another word as he finally broke eye contact and turned towards the way that the group entered; guards that stood in front of the entrance parting like the curtains to a theater to give him passage. And like that, he left them alone to traverse the building's interior, while he trekked the long staircase all the way back up.

The guard continued his descent into the mysterious darkness, thankful that there were torches placed along the walls to light his way. He smiled as the image of himself bravely racing down the stairway only to trip over his own hooves and tumbling down the stairs entered his mind. He wondered if they would write that down on his tombstone. 'Here lies Evening Star, son of Iced Earth and Burnt Offerings. Killed by a flight of stairs.' That would be an embarrassing way to go, that was for sure. Maybe Sombra kicked his servants down a flight as a form of punishment; it wouldn't surprise him in the slightest, as it would be suitably painful, and would actually give all of these blasted stairs a real purpose outside of giving a decent cardio workout. Though, he could think of worse fates, like being forced to listen to that obnoxious excuse for a musical track called Vanvidd for all eternity. That would be a real pain in the rear end, he was certain of that. The farther he went, the more distinguished the sound he was constantly hearing became. He realized that it was the sound of some metal tool hitting stone; something he was well-acquainted with from his first job as a miner before he joined the Guard. That repetitious sound, which he would usually consider quite obnoxious and headache-inducing, now raised his hopes that he would finally find civilians, and would hopefully be able to rescue them from this freezing land.

Leading the way into the narrow hallway, Celestia couldn't help but feel quite unnerved by the whole experience. Not just the horrendous stench of rot, or the darkness that seemed to go on for eternity, but just how quiet everything was. The previously chatty guards had become a group of mutes, leaving only the deathlike silence to fill the atmosphere around them. The hall's design was just like the entrance, completely empty of anything to break apart the monotony of the nihilistic bleakness that just seemed to continue stretching on and on. Celestia would have thought that they weren't going anywhere at all and they had been lured into some kind of endless trap or illusion if the sudden and dissonant sound of her hoof landing in a shallow puddle of some liquid hadn't reached her ears. Stopping in utter and total shock, she looked down to see what exactly she had stepped in. At first,s he thought it might have been water, but how could it have gotten in there? Then, it dawned on her: It was piss. It was a puddle of piss. Her stomach wretched as she tried to ignore the implications of such unsanitary conditions, but she could not when every step from that point onward was accompanied with that same soft splash. Her companions seemed to have taken notice as well if their murmurs of disgust were any indication to go by. Suddenly, her magic's light washed over a different sight amidst the all-enshrouding shadows in the hall, and the sight of some actual progress for once made her both relieved and very tense. It was a decrepit, well-worn doorway that was painted a pallid white color. Her gaze falling to the floor once again, the Princess could see that this was where that repulsive stream of liquid was coming from; under the crack at the bottom of  the door.

"Princess," Called out a guard from behind her as she slowly approached the final obstruction to their destination. When she turned to face the pony, she realized that it was Brimstone Sorcery; the same unicorn soldier that had been reduced to a shivering wreck when they had first arrived at this kingdom of darkness, and she could tell he wasn't exactly doing any better now than he was back then. His gray fur was marred with beads of glistening sweat that were constantly rolling down his armor-clad figure. He paused, audibly cleared his throat, then continued his inquiry, "What are we going to find in that room?" After hearing this, Celestia let out a soft sigh and turned to face all of her guards.

"I want all of you to know," She said with a firm, yet compassionate tone that seemed to brighten up the incredibly gloomy atmosphere that twisted around her and the guards. "I am beyond grateful for every last one of you who have accompanied Luna and I on this journey. I know not what lies beyond this door, and part of me does not want to find out. But, I know in my heart that we cannot give in to our fears and our worries. We must uncover whatever lies hidden, and be prepared for anything. Now, I am going to pull this door open, so keep your spears close."

With those final words to her guards having come to an end, she turned to face the large door once again. She grasped the black metal handle in her magic's grasp and began to pull. For a few moments, the door didn't budge even a little bit. However, with some time and some patience, it did finally give way. Moving outward with a hollow grinding noise as the old hinges were finally put to use after who knew how long. Immediately afterward, Celestia knew that things were far worse than she could have imagined. It wasn't just the noxious smell of decay that choked the air, she had grown used to it by now; no what truly made her hide crawl and the fur on the back of her neck stand straight up was the splat sound she heard, which came from right in front of her.

"Celestia, what was that noise?" Brimstone muttered from behind her. Panic constricting and twisting around his voice like a boa. Smothering any certainty or hope he may have previously had. As much as she didn't want to find out the answer to her guard's inquiry, her duty still remained. Even as her mind screamed at her not to look, she ignored her better sensibilities and gazed downward to find a poor filly's carcass lying face-down in the wretched pool of urine. Everything was silent, but death was howling. Unable to twist her gaze away from the horrid sight, she took in several details that made her stomach churn like an alchemist's cauldron. For one, there was a sickening gash caked in dried blood, starting from where the ear would have been and tearing down the back of the skull, revealing the repulsively shriveled external muscles underneath. The filly's mane had been ripped out of her scalp, and what little of it that remained attached was frayed like well-worn rope or twine.

"It's a..." Celestia felt her throat go as dry as the eternally shifting sands of the desert as she tried to speak, but the sheer shock and boiling rage were choking her words. "Just come take a look, but prepare yourselves. It's a pretty grisly sight." Tentatively, she grasped the body with her magic and turned her over on her back, causing beads of urine to roll off her face and back onto the floor. Blood caked her murky brown fur like the pulsing polyps of a maggot-infested infection or disease, and her hide hung loosely around the pony's bony frame. The smell of regurgitated stomach acids pierced the already repulsive smell of rot and stung the Princess' nostrils.

"Why would anypony be so sick as to let such a young life wither away like this?" Brimstone said, clearly on the verge of tears. Celestia shook her head, the knowledge that as bad as this was, it was only going to be worse once they took a look inside the room itself. As gently as she could, she rested the limp corpse as far from the pool of bodily waste as she was able to in the confined hallway. She had suffered enough, there was no need to humiliate her body even more. Celestia inhaled deeply, before slowly exhaling the carbon dioxide she had accumulated in her lungs through her nostrils. It was finally time to enter the room itself, and see what horrible secrets lied inside.

As she took the first few steps past the entryway; Celestia's magical light purged the darkness from sight, unveiling what it cloaked within its black void. And what she revealed was something that she would never forget.  The carcasses of maybe a dozen fillies laid about the room, their bodies soaking in the repugnant pool of urine which must have been a full inch of the stagnant fluid. Looking downward, if only to find literally anything else to lay her eyes upon, Celestia found the half-digested remains of an ear, with the strip of equine hide still attached, lying halfway out of another corpse's gaping mouth as they laid within the murky wastes of their deceased friends, their body covered in their own feces. If that wasn't enough, the disgusting liquid was mixed with liquefied excrement that mixed with the sickening waste to form an absolutely stomach-churning concoction that made the Royal want to vomit. And while she was able to keep from doing so, some of her guards were not, made blatantly clear as her ears were assaulted by the nauseous sound of bile being forced out of their mouths, only adding to the already repulsive environment around them. And the longer that they stood in that chamber of decay and waste, the more their collective emotion of disgust was overcome by something else: Untamed seething rage.

"That sick, worthless cunt," A soldier growled from beside Celestia, his hatred for the cruel tyrant dripping from his voice like the corrosive venom of a cobra. Gripping his weapon's shaft in his hoof he screamed, "I swear, I am going to ram my spear through his stomach until he vomits blood! I say we track this fucker down and rip him apart!" Within moments, the group was shaken from their disbelief at the sight, and their resolve to end this madness was once again kindled. Shouts of what they were going to do to the King filled the air, along with incredibly foul barrages of language. And quite frankly, the Princess couldn't really blame them. While Celestia had been trying her hardest to make the relationship between Equestria and the Crystal Empire a peaceful and beneficial one, she was not going to allow this senseless neglect and torture of the innocent populace to continue any longer.

"Comrades," Celestia roared, her eyes blazing like the mighty fires of a forge as it crafted new tools upon an anvil, designed to bring enemies to a fatal standstill as her voice echoed throughout the hall. All went silent, each guard was ready to do as the Royal mare asked. "We are going to make him pay the price for all those who died under his rule, this I swear to you. However, we must keep cool heads, and not charge blindly into danger. Now, Brimstone Sorcery, I have a special task for you."

"Yes, Princess?"

"Once we leave this forsaken hall, go find Luna and her escorts in the other building, and tell her we require their assistance. I would do it myself, but we can't eat up any more time than we already have," Celestia explained firmly. The unicorn nodded, to affirm that he understood. "Now, let's get going." And with that final command, they finally began to make their way back to the entrance.

Evening Star was beginning to get quite frustrated. All he had been hearing for the longest while now was that monotonous  noise, which may have at first been a beacon of hope  that he would find somepony that could actually explain the full situation to him was now just drilling into his skull over and over and over again like a rain of magical blasts upon a war-torn battlefield. By the time he could see the bottom of the staircase, those infernal pounding sounds were almost deafening. As he finally reached the last step on this accursed journey (Or so he was desperately hoping, anyway), he took in the sights around him in utter awe. There must have been at least a couple hundred workers diligently carving away at colossal  walls of black rock. Scattered about the mining site were carts loaded with the stuff, being gathered for whatever the King desired to be constructed. Suddenly, after a few moments of an incredibly uncomfortable silence, Evening Star realized that the entire site went as still as a graveyard when the funeral fog begins to roll over the seemingly endless rows of tombstones.

"Why hello there," a lanky, rather tall stallion said as he and a few other stallions set aside their tools and approached the guard, his tone sounding on the verge of being flirtatious, for some strange reason. His fur was gray as the smoke of a beautiful bonfire, and his mane was a dark brown hue. While his looks weren't that strange at all, there was just something about this stallion that truly made Evening Star feel uneasy. It was just how he talked, and the way his eyes seemed to scan every inch of Evening Star that they could. In fact, it seemed that all of the stallions seemed to be doing the exact same thing. Though, the mares actually seemed to be acting somewhat normal, surprisingly enough. They just quietly watched, as if they were waiting for something.

"Um, hello," Evening Star muttered after resting his spear against the nearest wall so he could speak properly, trying his hardest to avoid eye contact with the stallion. "I hope you don't mind me asking, but what's your name? Mine is Evening Star," After hearing this, the stallions just laughed at him, which puzzled and angered the guard quite a bit. "What did I say? What's so funny?" For once, one of the mares spoke up before any of the stallions. It was a somewhat older mare, with a dull, lifeless blue color to her hide and a graying mane.

"We don't have any names, not anymore at least." She called from across the mine. Intrigued by her answer, Evening Star quickly pushed his way through the small group of stallions (Which rapidly disbanded afterward) and made his way over to the mare. Seeing as she seemed somewhat sane, he figured that it would probably be wise to ask for a few explanations. When he finally reached her, she continued. "Now, we're just assigned different numbers, and he just enforces that number into our heads until we forget our names. I was assigned the number 1991, for example."

"Why? What did Sombra do to all of you? Surely not all of you were given Cutie Marks that have something to do with a mine. That would be absolutely insane," Evening Star said quizzically. The elderly mare sighed, and continued her tale.

"You wouldn't believe it, but we all used to have a purpose. That stallion," she said, pausing once more to gesture towards the one who had originally greeted him (And was still watching him with a rather unnerving look of interest in his eyes). "the one with the grey coat, he used to be an author. I used to be a cook, to give another example.  But, that was before our former king was murdered before Sombra plunged his dagger into Immortal's chest over and over again. He sees anypony without magic as nothing more than equipment that can easily be replaced once it breaks. Now, all were are permitted to do is work in this mine, eat whatever scraps Sombra throws us, and work some more. Well, unless you happen to be a stallion that he finds...appealing to his tastes. If that happens, you wind up like the stallions who greeted you. I don't know what he does to them, all I know is that magic is involved somehow..." Suddenly, the mare just trailed off, as if she had lost her voice all of a sudden.

"Is something the matter?" Evening Star asked, hoping to the stars above that there wasn't anything wrong at all, and that she had just forgotten what she was going to say. But as he witnessed a pale hue wash over her cheeks as she gave him a nod, he knew precisely what was wrong. "...He's right behind me, isn't he?" Another nod from the former culinary expert.

"How very observant," A deep rumble like the very foundations of tectonic plates were coming apart spoke, seemingly inches away from the Earth pony. After he slowly turned around, Evening Star found himself face-to-face with the King, who did not exactly look pleased to see him. His eyes seemed to pierce his own gaze like steel daggers through a warrior's heart, and when he was about to try and back way, he suddenly realized that he had nowhere to run. He was trapped.