My(stara's) Little Ponies: Friendship is Adventuring

Now he had an odd look on his face but the smile came back, more pasted on this time, though, which worried me. “From what Helga tells me, you and your friends are definitely ponies of distinction. Certainly worthy of respect.” His head started to turn towards his wife, who was… lifting Marcus over her head? It was some sort of dance, not very dignified but certainly she is impressively strong. I couldn’t lift Marcus over my head in human form.

I think.

“We have had some good adventures. But a lot of it is for the crown and I can’t talk about it too much,” I told him. “But thank you.” How very gracious of him to want me to feel better. So why do he and Marcus clash so much? “I want you to meet everyone but I can’t see anyone but Twilight here. Though Fluttershy will be with us tomorrow.” Dash is off hiding from her mother for *no good reason* and… well, this isn’t Applejack’s thing. But I’m surprised I haven’t seen Pinkie.

Or Spike or Spikey. They love parties like this.

He opened his mouth, then shut it and sighed. “So how long have you lived in Ponyville?”

We talked awhile about my life here and the more we talked, the more convinced I became that his feud with Marcus makes *no sense*. He had good manners, was polite, intelligent… what is it with them? Why doesn’t he trust Marcus?

Then I saw Dona Carlotta, Herr Otto, and Herr Sigismund off across the party talking to Bon-Bon and Berry; I hadn’t realized that they were still in Canterlot; they must have come down with Celestia… wherever she is.

Herr Sigismund saw us and came our way, leaving the others behind and bowed to me, which was flattering, given he is the son of Prince Jaggar and his heir. “Uncle, it is good to see you.”

“It’s good to see you, Sigismund,” Lord Aendyr said. He twirled around in his suit. “How do you like it?”

“Father would like that outfit,” Herr Sigismund said, studying it.

Ka-ching! I smell opportunity!

“Countess Rarity made it,” he said. “You should see her about getting one made for Jaggar before you have to go home.”

Thank you so much, Lord Aendyr. That should boost my business!

I am hoping to make some contacts, though my concern, of course, is to spend some time with my guests and get to know them better.

It was at this point that DJ Pon-3 announced, “We now have a special fashion show of Mistress Clarity’s new line of Glantrian Fashions,” and they switched to a spritely tune as Clarity put the Crusaders and various friends of theirs through their paces. They’re mostly terrible models, though Sweetie will be a beauty one day and Shining Star looked great in her Belcadizian dancing dress. But I would have loved this opportunity but I had too much to do, too much to do.

But I didn’t invite them here to make money. This is for my guests and they enjoyed watching it, laughing and applauding… you shouldn’t laugh at a fashion show but the kids didn’t mind, they ate up all the attention.

“Very impressive,” Herr Sigismund said. “A relative of yours, Countess Rarity?”

“My sister,” I told him. This should… it now struck me that she doesn’t *have* an actual fashion business yet… it was all imaginary. This is her chance to actually set herself up as a real fashion mogul.

I could tell everyone was impressed by her designs, though. Those watching, anyway; a lot of people had scattered to eat, drink, and talk during the show.

I chatted with Herr Sigismund and Lord Aendyr as we watched and then the kid models and Clarity cleared out and DJ Pon-3 grinned again. “And we have a special guest! Time for the special song.”

“Do we have to?” one of the orchestra ponies said, grimacing as he sat at the piano.

“By request of the PRINCESS, here’s HOWL AT THE MOON!” DJ Pon-3 shouted.

I stared in absolute horror; that’s not the kind of song you play at a shindig like this *at all*.

Lyra was laughing her head off and I wondered how you even played that song on a lyre. But the band gamely launched into it, and Princess Luna, back in her normal form and in full royal regalia, descended from the roof on a giant crescent moon, *singing it*. I could see the Crusaders and other fillies and colts their age busy dancing to it and enjoying it while most of the guests stared mindlessly.

I am pretty sure that I fainted at that point, overwhelmed with horror.

*********************

The song had ended but now Sweetie was up on the moon with Luna, busy singing Fly Me To the Moon. People could dance to that, thankfully and Lord Aendyr offered me a drink which I consumed as fast as manners allowed. I could see Princess Celestia had arrived, but in her ‘Vanilla Surprise’ form; she was dancing with Big Mac, Cherilee, and some stallion I didn’t recognize.

I could see Apple Blossom and the Orange family as well, circulating among the crowd, and I regretted Applejack wasn’t here. Lady Aendyr was talking to another tall blond human I didn’t know, who had a wreath on her head and a fancy green dress that… it looked oddly familiar. But the other woman now turned to me. “How do you fare, my friend?” she said. “Or were you fainting for dramatic effect?” She stumbled slightly, then sighed.

Her voice… “Do I know you?” I asked in confusion.

“It’s me, Applejack. I figured… I thought I would see how the other half lives, since I kind… since I promised I would and never got around to it,” she said. Her voice kept wobbling.

I could see Marcus now, talking to Carlotta while Otto tried to destroy Marcus’ head with his gaze. I sighed at that. But one problem at a time.

I saw Fluvia now dancing with a grey-maned purple Earth pony stallion, wearing the suit I made for her for… he must be her love. He looked somewhat trapped, though. But I wished them well.

“You look marvelous, Applejack, though you could use some makeup as well,” I told her.

“One step at a time,” she said firmly. “Hey, want to dance?” she asked Herr Sigismund.

“I would love to,” he said to her, smiling. They were soon dancing, though Applejack clearly didn’t know what she was doing.

“Well, I think this is going to be a grand success,” I said. Despite Princess Luna deciding… why did she *do* that?

But no harm done, I think. So now…

I felt a huge surge of magic; every unicorn in the place turned and stared at an open space by one wall and though Princess Luna kept singing, she moved so she was between Sweetie and the surge.

“Oh fuck,” I heard Marcus say and he moved between Carlotta and the surge of magic as well.

Shadows and ribbons of light intermixed and then collapsed into the form of an Belcadizian elven woman of great beauty with long black hair and an elaborate white and black dress, white layers over a black base with various cuts which looked like runes to me. She wore a golden crown set with rubies and emeralds and four other Belcadizians, two women and two men stood around her in a box formation.

One of them announced, “All hail Dona Carnelia de Belcadiz y Fedorias, Princess of Belcadiz, Vice-Queen of Monteleone, and Marquesa de Alhambra! She who cast down Grazzt and Igwwilv, slayer of the great beast Harambas, and heir to a thousand year dynasty! The rightful queen of Glantrian elves, you are honored by her presence!”

A few Belcadizian elves who had come down from the capital applauded, a few ponies politely stomped their hooves and Don Diego, who I had not seen before, shouted, “Hello, sister! It’s good to see you!”

Mayor Mare emerged from the crowd and said, “Welcome to Ponyville, your highness.”

Dona Carnelia coolly studied Mayor Mare, then said, “Thank you, Mayor.” Then she pointed at Luna. “We must talk. *Now*.”

That set off a wave of whispers, though Marcus actually relaxed a little to my surprise; I could see Otto and Carlotta still looked very tense.

I could see Sweetie whipping her cards out and trying to do a reading as Princess Luna coldly said, “You have no right to give me orders, Carnelia. This is not Glantri, and here, you are no different from anyone else. Whereas I am one of the Diumvirate.”

I… didn’t think she disliked Carnelia, given she was going around as a Belcadizian earlier. Lord Aendyr was whispering frantically to Lady Aendyr, who had her eyes warily on Princess Carnelia.

For a second, I thought Carnelia was going to hurl a lightning bolt across the room, but one of her elves whispered to her, and now with a voice like she was gargling glass, Princess Carnelia said, “I request an audience with Princess Luna of Equestria in private over a matter of one of my subjects who is in your land.”

“I’m not going back, Mother!” Dona Carlotta shouted and I winced. Her aunt’s eyes moved to study her and I could now see that Carnelia hadn’t actually *seen* her before. Marcus, who was in the middle of this line of sight, looked ready to drop dead, but didn’t move. “I won’t back down a second time!”

Otto took her hand and said, “We are under Prince Jaggar’s protection!”

Spitting in the face of an angry queen is not wise. Marcus, at least, had the sense not to shout defiance.

“Granted,” Luna said, flying down to Princess Carnelia. Then shadows enveloped her and the five Belcadizians. Then the shadows faded and they were gone.

Lady Aendyr now ran over to Marcus and company and the rest of us trailed after her. “Does she know?” Lady Aendyr asked Marcus.

“I know he was Eric,” Carlotta said softly. “Hello, Helga. It’s good to see you.”

“It’s my job to protect her,” Otto said angrily to Marcus.

“I am not a wilting flower,” Carlotta said irritably, frowning now and looking more like her aunt.

Twilight had teleported up onto the moon. “Okay, let’s get this party going again!” she said as it wobbled under her. “How about the Moonlight Sonata?”

That clearly made the orchestra happy, though DJ Pon-3 had a weird look on her face like she knew something.

Oh dear.

“Marcus, darling,” I said, then couldn’t even remember what I wanted to say.

“So you’re Herr Otto,” Lady Aendyr said softly to Herr Otto. “You must be a brave man.”

His eyes narrowed. “Of course I am. I am a lord of Aalban, after all.”

Countess Cadence and Shining Armor now galloped across the room and out a side door. I wondered where they were going so fast.

Lady Aendyr winced and buried her face in her hands. “She means that anyone who is willing to risk Carnelia’s wrath must be brave by definition, unlike some people I know who run away from her, abandoning alleged lovers,” Lord Aendyr said, his voice moving from gentle to angry by the end.

“It would have only gotten Eric killed pointlessly or trapped in eternal nightmares,” Dona Carlotta said, frowning. “And we agreed on it.”

“Has anyone seen Ivan?” Lady Aendyr asked, clearly trying to change the subject. “I wanted to dance with him.”

“Probably trying to pick Princess Carnelia’s pocket,” Lord Aendyr grumbled.

“He went off with Luna before the party and I haven’t seen him since,” Marcus said, then sighed deeply. “Hopefully, this won’t blow up into a giant fight that levels the ball.”

I *desperately* hope that. I didn’t invite them here so they could get caught in a brawl.

It was time for some elegant dancing.

*******************

I was dancing with Herr Sigismund while Otto danced with Lady Aendyr, Marcus with Applejack, and Dona Carlotta with Lord Aendyr. The music was elegant and the ball was a grand success despite interruptions.

Then I heard DJ Pon-3 laugh to herself and I felt the icy hand of *doom*.

Worse, nothing bad happened. Vanilla Surprise and Big Mac and Cherilee and the stallion… I *still* don’t know his name… all danced past us, waving, and I waved back, though it was easier for me with hands. I could see Twilight and West Wind but no sign of Dash, though I had invited her and Soarin’.

Then I saw…was it Dash? A pony who looked just like Dash, except her colors were all different. Khaki coat and her hair was various shades of black and grey in stripes; she wore an olive green shirt and a pith helmet and had a compass rose cutie mark. Daring Doo, but Daring Doo is a fictional character, which means… it has to be Rainbow Dash in disguise, HIDING FROM HER MOTHER. She’s shorter than Dash normally is now, but there’s magic for shrinking as well as getting bigger.

I was both impressed by her ingenuity and frustrated at her running away like this. Especially since I could see Crash was here with her mother, dancing with two stallions. Dash’s father was off talking to two nobles… from the Dacoatas, I think. I recognize their heraldry.

When the music ended, I bid my farewell for the moment and went to confront her about being silly; she didn’t notice me as she was watching Ditzy and Dr. Smith dancing with an oddly wistful look. I probably imagined it because Dash would not care. “Dash, stop being ridiculous. Did you make Soarin’ dress up as Clarion?” Clarion is the son of Daring Doo’s mentor, and a sometimes rival, sometimes would-be coltfriend of Daring Doo. It’s complicated, which makes it interesting.

Daring Dash started and looked at me. “What?” She even disguised her voice… It had never hit me before how much Daring Doo looks like Dash but she does.

“You know what I mean, darlin’,” I told her. I pointed at Rainbow Dash, Sr. “There is your mother. Don’t hide from her.” I began trying to herd her.

“I don’t know this person!” she protested as I pushed her, but I couldn’t move her. My human form isn’t strong enough.

Distantly, I heard Pinkie chanting about fine linen but I could not see her anywhere and I chalked it up to nerves. Why would Pinkie chant about fine linen, anyway?

“I am not whoever you think I am!” she shouted and now Rainbow Dash, Sr. and Crash both looked at us, along with the stallions they were dancing with and I suddenly wondered why Rainbow Dash, Sr. wasn’t dancing with her husband, though he did seem wrapped in an argument with people.

I felt… I could see the Crusaders looking at us in unison and starting to come my way, looking determined and I suddenly felt I had stepped into some sort of quicksand.

Daring Dash saw them, facehoofed and bolted, taking to the air, but now Dinky did something magical and one of the clouds dropped and they all got on and began cruising after her. “Come back here! We know you’re an Oard!” Dinky shouted.

“That’s just Dash hiding from her mother!” I shouted.

Dash’s mother saw this and took to the air after Daring Dash, Crash following her. “Young lady, you can’t dye yourself sepia and expect to fool me!” she shouted, flying after her.

A small part of me admired the sheer effort. Dash had covered her cutie mark, evenly dyed her coat and dyed each of the shades of her mane an appropriate sepia-scale color. With utter, perfect precision. My inner artist saluted her.

The rest of me saw clouds and elementals starting to be knocked around by the chase and cringed, doubly so when Ditzy took to the air. “Daring, come back!” she shouted. “Don’t run away!” Roseluck now trotted up to Dr. Smith and they began yelling at each other about something.

I stared, wondering if she was just caught up in the moment or thought this was Daring Doo for *real*.

It began to rain on everyone as more pegasi took to the sky, trying to contain the weather chaos and some of the crepe paper clouds became sodden, falling on people, as Unicorns tried to fend off the falling objects and everyone else began running for cover.

Pinkie chose this moment to arrive, even as Lyra’s band either scattered or began using magic to shield themselves. DJ Pon-3 announced, “The band will now take a break so they can rest and hydrate.” She now broke down laughing at her own wit.

I heard an odd noise as if someone in the audience was very excited by the idea of hydrating.

I resisted the urge to look as I did not want to know.

However, I noticed some of the rain now began falling upwards and reforming into clouds. But some of it turned into FREEZING SLEET. I could hear ponies yelling at each other about ice and water and others just screaming.

Daisy went past me, howling as if the end of the world had come.

“And in their stead, we have a guest appearance by MC 300 Hand Tall Pale Red Cobbler and the Dragon Princes of Ponyville,” DJ Pon-3 said with an almost insane glee as Spikey, dressed like some sort of street thug, now came up to take over her equipment; she galloped off over to Octavia, who looked in horror as Pinkie, wearing a black hat, a clock on a gold chain, a blue jacket and black pants now came out with a thugged-up Spike onto the stage. A dozen dragons in golden baggy pants shuffled in behind them.

The audience stared in absolute shock and I stared with them, with a slowly swelling sense of the apocalypse coming.

“This one is dedicated to my friend Rarity, who is always elegant even when she’s covered with whipped cream and sprinkles!” Pinkie shouted, pointing at me.

I have *never* been covered with whipped cream and sprinkles!

But everyone looked at me as if I had.

The worst part was Lady Aendyr looking at me in surprise; I wanted to just *die*, and I fell onto my fainting couch.

o/~ Rarity is the best mare in town / Rarity will make you a gown o/~ she began to chant as Spike sang backup and the dragons… where did she get all those dragons???? They danced in eerie unison behind her. o/~ Now it’s a party / Time for Rarity to get down! o/~

Then she began chanting about how I was as tasty as chocolate mixed with strawberry and something about Marcus and I began to hope the whole place would just collapse and bury me. It could be my monument for the day I died of embarrassment.

Lady Aendyr began blowing clouds around with magic, joined by her husband; I could see the melding of their magics, working to calm the chaos in the sky, even as the Crusaders began opening up with… where did they get all those wands? How are Twist and Apple Bloom *using* wands? Why is Scootaloo spinning around on her back on the cloud and chanting along with Pinkie???

I couldn’t think, couldn’t do anything but panic and despair for the doom of my party. I could see nobles covered in cake to the left and Crash yelling at Scootaloo to the right and Daring Dash knocking clouds around like tenpins trying to escape them.

At this very moment, I could see Marcus trying to get to me as lightning rained down around him; he dodged desperately with Applejack, until she just hefted him and threw him to my side, then began running towards Twilight, shouting about trees. Then she hit an ice patch and slid, crashing into Fluvia and her friends and…

Marcus embraced me, shivering, then relaxed. “I think if we join our power, we can start yanking the Crusaders off the cloud and end this mess.”

Then I saw Spike looking ready to burn the place down as Pinkie began a particularly poorly thought through chant about how much Marcus and I love each other, which would have been sweet if it was MARCUS singing to me and Spike was *not right there*.

Spike now launched into a song about the evil deeds of Eric of Vestland, notorious breaker of women’s hearts and abandoner of them when they most trusted him. I winced and Marcus grimaced and Pinkie… Pinkie stared; this clearly was NOT part of the plan, for which I was grateful. Pinkie can be thoughtless but not THAT thoughtless.

“Spike, I told you we couldn’t do that one!” Pinkie said frantically.

Luna and Carnelia now entered with her followers and stared at the rising chaos. Luna began shouting orders, but no one could see her, while Carnelia… began singing along with Spike, counterpointing his song with her rant about how Eric had seduced her innocent niece and how Herr Otto was clearly Eric in disguise!

…

Marcus made a gurgling noise of disbelief.

Spike opened his mouth wide and Spikey tried to block him speaking; fire went everywhere, crepe paper went up in flames and then the dragon backup dancers went berserk and began to rampage even as Pinkie began chanting about how… Carnelia was the real Eric of Vestland???

At this point, trumpets blared and Manuel of the Plains rode in on Platinum. He began saving people from the chaos and now Carnelia saw him. “YOU!!!!!”

“I am indeed myself!” he shouted as he pulled Daisy out of a trashcan and sent her on her way.

At this very moment, Fluttershy came flying in; I could see Samantha riding Sugar Sparkle behind her, floating in the air. “I can’t find Sugar Sparkle or Samantha anywhere!” she shouted to me.

...

“She’s right behind you,” Marcus shouted. Fluttershy spun and the kids moved; one of them must have done some kind of spell to move themselves whenever she turned around.

“I am never playing Hide and Seek again!” Fluttershy wailed.

“Samantha!” Lord Aendyr shouted at her, clearly unhappy with her prank. With good reason.

Rain poured down on the fire. Fluvia shouted something to Fluttershy, who now noticed the chaos and the flames. Fluttershy breathed hard, then suddenly exploded into a huge water spout. Which flung *everything* around, dousing the fire but also flinging people everywhere, including flinging us right at Princess Carnelia, who went down with us on top of her, sending Applejack and Herr Sigismund up into the air and crashing through the Crusader’s cloud and then crashing onto Ditzy, who plummeted down into the punch bowl with them, and totally dousing Princess Luna.

Marcus picked me up and ran, screaming, while I screamed, both of us utterly panicked as Carnelia shouted curses at us and hurled spells we could barely dodge, until Shining Armor caught us both in a glowing ball of force and rolled us out the door to safety. And on down the street because he used too much force. We headed for the river as I saw the grand hall seething in chaos.

I began to wail, instinctively summoned my fainting couch and now we were both pinned to the walls and utterly discombobulated by it all.

It could not possibly get any worse.

********************

It’s amazing how fast this sphere can float down a river. Even our combined strength couldn’t break it either, and I began to think the party would crash and burn without us. But then Dash dove out of the sky, out of her costume, wearing an orange flight suit and Soarin’ was with her in his Wonderbolt uniform. They crashed into the sphere and it popped, dumping Marcus and I into the water to cling to my fainting couch, though Dash and Soarin’ went flying into trees in the process.

Then they pulled us out of the water and I leaned on a tree, wet and miserable. Marcus leaned by me, an arm around me.

“What the hell happened? We were out flying and saw you come tumbling out,” Dash said.

“That wasn’t you at the party disguised as Daring Doo?” I asked, eyes narrowing. I’d assumed she’d found some way to shrink herself to complete the disguise, but apparently not.

“What? Damn, that would have been awesome and Soarin’ could have been Clarion! Hmm, could have made the Amulet of Rarashishboomba, too…” Dash was now lost inside her own head.

I could see hordes of bat ponies descending on the distant pillar of fire, smoke, and steam which had once been my grand ball. “Just bury me here,” I said, moaning.

“We can’t die, we have to save our guests,” Marcus said. “You two mind giving us a ride?”

“You’ll have to boost Soarin’,” Dash said.

Marcus cast the spell and rode Dash while I rode Soarin’. The wind blow-dried me but now I was an utterly frizzled mess. Hands made holding onto Soarin’ a lot easier, I have to say.

We approached the ruins of what had been a ball. Applejack had hogtied the Crusaders. Manuel of the Plains galloped off with Carnelia and her flunkies chasing him. Shining Armor was reinforcing the walls as Twilight did magical repairs. Pinkie was crumpled up in a ball, looking frustrated. Spikey was patting her on the back and Clarity stood by them, looking stunned and drenched. I couldn’t see Spike anywhere to my surprise. Ditzy, Daring Doo or whoever it was, and Dr. Smith had all vanished. Vanilla Surprise and Big Mac were helping to do repairs and West Wind was working with other pegasi to herd clouds around.

Fluttershy was on the ground, apparently passed out, while Fluvia stood guard over her protectively and Lord Aendyr lectured Samantha and Sugar Sparkle. Lady Aendyr was busy assisting with repairs and cleanup. Much of the nobility had fled the site, probably never to return. Luna was busy directing batponies and Ivan was helping Lady Aendyr.

“Never ever do that to someone again,” Lord Aendyr said firmly to his daughter, waving at me with one hand without looking as Samantha and Sugar Sparkle stared at the ground. “You scared poor Fluttershy to death.”

“I just always lose at hide and seek,” Samantha mumbled. “I thought she’d dispel it once she realized she was there.”

“She can’t feel magic like you and I do,” I told her sternly. I think. I know she can do Druid magics, but I think that’s a different power source. “Not arcane magic. She was terrified that you got hurt; she lives right near the Everfree and that’s dangerous.”

The candy wore off now and I turned back to pony form and sighed.

“Where is Spike?” I asked.

“Off with Countess Cadence,” Lord Aendyr said. “Getting a stern talking to, I think.” He made grumbly noises and turned back to his daughter and her friend. “I think it is time for us to go home and put these two to bed.”

I went to check on Fluttershy, who now recovered as I nuzzled her gently. “You okay, dear?” I asked her.

“No but I’ll live,” she mumbled. “Thank you, Fluvia.”

“Just keep practicing,” Fluvia said firmly to Fluttershy, who nodded. “Rarity, thank you for the dress. It’s perfect.”

I smiled weakly. At least one thing went right.

“I’m sorry I wrecked your party,” Fluttershy said weakly.

“It was wrecked long before you arrived,” I told her and leaned on her. “It seems like every time I dream big, it blows up in my face.”

We leaned on each other a while until we both felt better.

****************

“Thank you for the nice party,” Lady Aendyr said as we took the kids home. “I assume the brawl wasn’t planned, but I enjoyed that.”

…

Lord Aendyr said, “At least there were no undead this time. Never going to a party in Klantyre again.”

“Not until Samantha is much older,” Lady Aendyr said.

“Good candy there, though,” Marcus mumbled.

Lord Aendyr glared at him and I said sharply, “Get over it, Lord Aendyr. I am sick of you two glaring at each other and I am *not* going to put up with it.”

He started and blinked at me.

“And don’t you say anything either, Marcus. I didn’t invite them here so everyone could chew on each other’s heads.” I was being far too blunt but my patience was gone. At least they didn’t attack each other.

“He…” Lord Aendyr began.

“NOTHING,” I snapped.

The rest of the trip was in miserable silence, though at least Marcus put his hand on my back, which was a little comfort. But now Lady Aendyr wasn’t happy either and… this just can’t get any worse.

*********************

“You go back to Canterlot to see Dash’s museum and everything tomorrow, right?” Sweetie said at breakfast. “So you’re still here today?”

“Yes. I planned this as a day of rest and recovery. Then tomorrow we go to Canterlot, since you’re back in school the day after that,” I told her.

“Perfect. You can try the dungeon we built so you can have an adventure together!” Sweetie announced.

They built a dungeon.

“Oh that sounds fun,” Lady Aendyr said before I could shut things down. “Someone who can actually handle Samantha and Sugar Sparkle will need to babysit them, though.”

“I want to go in the dungeon!” Samantha insisted. “I’m a big girl!”

Sweetie blinked, then laughed. “I’m sorry but this is for adults only.”

“You’re not an adult!”

She and Sweetie now had a long argument about adulthood while I felt my peaceful day slip away and die. Still, it’s not like…

Then I remembered the Moonraker and laughed nervously. “It’s not another flying warmachine, right?”

“It’s in one of the hills under Sweet Apple Acres. There were already some caves, so we just improved on that,” Sweetie said.

How did they find time to build a dungeon???

On the other hand, hitting things until they fall down might get rid of my stress.

“I do…” Lord Aendyr looked at Lady Aendyr and sighed. “Okay.”

“It will be fun. And the kids must have worked very hard to get this done in time,” Lady Aendyr said to him, patting his hand.

“You ever been in a dungeon, Darien?” Marcus asked him.

“No head chewing,” I said firmly. What is it with stallions?

“I have a GD from the Great School, unlike you, and thus passed such tests for my Basic through Companion level tests, thank you,” Lord Aendyr said sullenly. “My wife got her GD as well. Unlike you.”

“Congratulations,” Marcus said warmly to Lady Aendyr. “That should shut up anyone whining about your status.”

“I wish,” she said wearily. “I’m going to be proving myself until I die with some people.”

Marcus patted her hand. “I’m sorry. You’re probably a better wizard than me at this point.”

“Mommy’s a great wizard,” Samantha said proudly.

“I’m not on a level with your friend Twilight, but I am good,” Lady Aendyr said proudly.

“Hardly anyone’s on a level with Twilight,” Marcus said, shaking his head. “There’s no shame in that. She will be one of the great wizards of our age. I don’t think she knows any secret arts, but otherwise, she could probably easily match any of the Princes of Glantri.”

“We asked Pinkie and she volunteered to play with your kids,” Sweetie now said.

“I think we’re going to need a unicorn,” Lord Aendyr said, sighing. “Who can’t be hornswoggled by simple tricks.”

“Pinkie babysits a baby unicorn, she can handle it,” Sweetie said. “And she’s a Bard.”

I now had a good idea.

*****************

Pinkie and Lyra clapped hooves. “Bard sisters forever!” they shouted. “We’ll musically educate as we babysit.”

“I’m so sorry about your band,” I told Lyra. I still don’t know what a mangoon band is and nothing showed up claiming to be it; I must have been flaking out when I wrote that.

“It’s okay,” Lyra said. “It wasn’t your fault.” She turned to Samantha. “You can ride me back to Pinkie’s if you want.”

“YEAH!” They soon galloped off together, singing a song.

Okay, that should go smoothly.

I hope.

******************

I carefully pinned Lady Aendyr’s hair into a bun. “Why a bun?” I asked.

“My ‘air armor’ spell… kind of blows all of your hair straight up the whole time,” Lady Aendyr said, laughing. “You should spray this on yourself.” She passed me a perfume bottle.

“What does it do?” I asked.

“Keeps small vermin off you; my air armor blows them away but I have this for situations where I can’t use air armor. Otherwise, you may end up infested by the time you leave a dungeon,” she said.

I made sure to spritz myself thoroughly; it has a pleasant smell of cherry blossoms.

“So what made you decide to take up wizardry?” I asked her curiously as we continued suiting up for the dungeon; I could hear the men in another room and prayed they were not trying to kill each other. Sweetie was supposed to be helping them. I could feel her cringing through the wall.

“It’s the only way to get any respect in Glantri. There’s some things I love about it and some I hate and the dumping on non-wizards is the big hate thing.” She sighed. “So I used my share of a Ring of Three Wishes to get the potential and then I could learn. Marcus taught me the very basics, and then I studied.”

“You each got one?” I asked curiously. Marcus had never told me about this.

She paused and laughed nervously. “Yes.”

He could wish for anything… what did he wish for?

I raised an eyebrow. “Did he wish for something foolish?”

She sighed, then picked up a large axe with runes on the blade and swished it, moving away from me. “Marcus found out what it was by accidentally wishing for a sandwich.”

…

“Ivan used his to make his parents’ farm more fertile,” she said softly. “I wanted to help my parents too, but it took me a while to be able to do so. My parents farm on our estates now. And my siblings too. I convinced them all to move and now they have four times as much land and won’t get shot if they do a little hunting.”

“Ivan… I’m not sure *what* he plans, but he wants to change things in Karameikos,” I told her. “Some kind of big change.” Does she know about the Immortality quest? Should I tell her?

“I don’t know if going head to head with Petra, Halav and Zirchev is very wise, but then Ivan always dreamed big and got in over his head. We grew up a few miles from each other; our fathers are brothers,” Lady Aendyr said softly. She touched the axe and it shrank down and became an earring which she donned. “I’ve never been good at politics, which makes my life hard sometimes, because Glantrian nobles are knee-deep in it. I just stand next to Darien and look terrifying and back him up because I still… A lot of Glantrians look down on him because he married me and it doesn’t help that Marcus looks down on him too.” She was wearing leather armor now and reached into a pocket, pulling out her staff. “I think Twilight likes him; he really enjoyed meeting her. He’s a scholar more than a politician, though he has no choice but to do the latter. I just hope Samantha won’t face a lot of prejudice.” Then she sagged. “But she will. She’s too young to get it, but I see it already.” Her voice was now very bitter. “But no one here cares about that. So I envy him that.”

Him? Oh, Marcus, I guess. “My father hates Marcus.”

“All fathers hate Marcus,” Lady Aendyr said, smiling ruefully. “Mothers too, usually. But especially Fathers. I remember that mob that chased us out of that little village… we had to jump in the river and then that giant turtle attacked us. I never found out why there was a giant turtle hanging out in a river in Darokin.” Her eyes were far away now. “It would be a lot easier if I could just solve everything by hitting it like the old days.”

I heard Lord Aendyr’s voice rise and we both winced. “But those days are gone,” she said softly, staring at the wall.

“But why do the Glantrians look down on you? You are a Wizard after all. It’s not like they were born Wizards the way I was born a Unicorn,” I said hesitantly. I felt I wasn’t grasping something.

“Upstarts are never taken well by nobles, doubly so in Glantri if they were originally just a warrior like me. And I look like a barbarian to them.” She touched her hair and her arm, which looked very strong to me, especially in the leather armor. “I do my best to fit in, but I am still rather awkward. Being noble doesn’t come naturally to me like it does to you,” she said to me.

I had no idea at all what to say to that. I don’t feel natural, though I try very hard. I have worked hard to be this elegant and noble. And it still feels fake sometimes.

“You looked so natural at the ball,” she said wistfully. “Knowing all the dances and being so graceful and speaking like a high-born lady. I can speak Alphatian now but I sound terrible. Samantha… she’s good. But kids learn easier.”

“Samantha speaks Alphatian?” I said in shock.

“Well, only as well as a kid her age, but she has the right accent. Like Darien. His house is descended from Alphatian settlers from centuries ago. They’re kin to the House of Aalban, which was founded by a mixture of Thyatian and Alphatian refugees. It’s why I’m now Prince Jaggar’s cousin-in-law-by-marriage, which is… I would never have imagined that.” Now her eyes were very distant. “I was only a touch older than Sweetie when I met Marcus. He was Cufen then. He drifted into town, looking barely older than us. He and Ivan became friends and he came with us when we went on our Shearing. I expected to have a few adventures, come home with enough money to buy more land and get a good husband, like most women did on their Shearings. They go and serve as a maid or learn a craft, build a dowry and come home. I never thought of the things I would see or the places I would go or who I would become.” She studied her hands, rough hands and worn; the beautiful rings she wore looked like they’d wandered in from somewhere else. “This ring is worth what my parents used to earn in a decade,” she said softly, idly stroking it with one finger. The amethyst gleamed brightly in the lamplight. “One of Darien’s kin gives me a ring like this twice a year, once for my birthday and once for Arcanium, which is both the national holiday of Blackhill and one of the biggest in Glantri as a whole. Each one is different. I don’t know what he’ll do when he works through every kind of gemstone. But he’s some kind of gem wizard.” She glanced at my cutie mark. “Which I guess your Cutie Mark relates to, right?”

“I have a knack for finding and using gems, though I am not a jeweler,” I told her. “But I would enjoy sharing notes with him; I am trying to learn more magic.”

She touched my horn, froze, and pulled her hand back. “I’m sorry, that was terribly rude of me.” Her shoulders slumped. “Does Marcus really have an invisible horn now?”

“Celestia gave it to him,” I told her. I am not entirely clear on why, given he could use magic before. “It’s only visible in his pony form.”

There was a soft chime; I wove the reply spell and Twilight teleported into the room. It’s a unicorn protocol which Twilight often forgets. “The Crusaders haven’t really kidnapped your children in order to make you go into a dungeon after them, right?”

We both stared at her in surprise.

“I got a garbled message from Cadence. Someone tried to send Spike a message in the middle of him eating and it got messed up,” Twilight said hesitantly.

“The Crusaders built us a ‘dungeon’, so we’re going to explore it,” Lady Aendyr said. “It should be cute.”

Twilight rubbed her forehead with a hoof. “They built a flying treehouse which is now used by the Equestrian SkyNavy as a warship, full of traps. And Apple Bloom is training under *Keraptis*, which I think is really not wise, but they won’t listen.” Twilight shifted back and forth on her hooves. “I’d better go with you. I can’t finish my current experiment with Spike gone, anyway. He’s going to Canterlot with Cadence for a few weeks to cool off.” She sighed. “I suppose I could get Dinky to help but she always starts putting her weird cosmological theories into everything.”

“We’ve handled dungeons much worse than what kids can make,” Lady Aendyr said and I wondered now again if this was wise. But she wanted to do this so much… I felt I couldn’t say no.

And I have survived worse too. “I’m sure everyone would love to have you, Twilight.”

“I’d better go.”

We could hear Marcus loudly through the wall and Twilight sighed. “So what exactly is up with those two?”

“I don’t know,” Lady Aendyr said. “If I knew, I could stop it. They don’t like or trust each other at all. They both expect the other is going to fail at everything all the time. I do know Darien worries because Marcus tends to be surrounded by disaster all the time. And it probably didn’t help that Darien mistook him for a servant the first time they met.” She rubbed her forehead. “I hoped they would get over it, being away from each other.”

“Marcus is kind of unlucky but…” Twilight sighed. “He likes West Wind, so it’s not like he hates any guy who gets close to one of his female friends.”

I had a coltfriend like that once, which is part of why I’m not seeing him anymore. It drove me crazy. He freaked out if I talked to any colt about anything at all.

We have to find some way to get them to trust each other. Maybe they will learn some respect for each other from this.

*******************

The entrance to the dungeon was obscured by vines, which Ivan pushed away with a ten foot pole. He’d insisted on bringing it for some reason, though Lady Aendyr had a staff. Thankfully, the children had thought to scale the entrance for humans so everyone could get in; given my own boost in size since our quest in the Broken Lands, I can use a larger entrance myself. We’re all big enough for a human to ride without magic now, though still smaller than Celestia.

It was well cut and dressed stone inside to my surprise; how did they possibly carve all this out so quickly? I was impressed. Though I know Earth Ponies are good at this kind of thing. They work wonders with the Earth. And its products.

The walls were covered with odd images of huge green devil faces with gaping mouths, oddly stylized lightning bolts and mummies… running away from goats? All had a thin layer of dirt on them which Ivan rubbed at with his pole.

“Don’t touch the devil faces,” Marcus said, frowning. “I assume you all are listening in?”

“We can hear you!” Sweetie said proudly. “We’re watching you all on a crystal ball.”

Lady Aendyr blinked. “Is this the new thing in dungeons these days?”

“Well, it was at White Plume Mountain,” Marcus said. “Did you consult a book on famous dungeons to decorate the place?”

“Oh wow, you recognize it!” Dinky said proudly. “I checked out Volumes I through VIII of Famous Dungeons Quarterly.”

Twilight facehoofed. “Aargh, I could have brought that.”

“Not with it checked out,” Dinky said. “I’m afraid a lot of this isn’t as pretty as the entrance hallway, because most of it is natural caves we just added stuff to.”

Ivan continued to sweep ahead of us with a pole as we advanced; he made us all stop and disarmed a set of plates so we could pass. It was getting darker and I made my horn glow as did Twilight, so we could see.

We advanced with Ivan in the lead, Lady Aendyr behind him and to the right, Marcus behind him and to the left, sword in hand. Twilight was between them and Lord Aendyr and I were the rear guard. He looked rather tense, which was my own feeling too. The Crusaders have a knack for getting carried away with things.

Weird noises began to come from the ceiling, like someone was moaning rather hammily. “You okay up there?” Lady Aendyr asked, sounding worried.

“Sorry, we couldn’t figure out how to get the noise machines to work, so we’re having to do the wailing of the damned ourselves,” Sweetie said apologetically.

“Don’t undercut my wailing!,” Scootaloo said, sounding irritated.

“Ghouls wail like this,” Dinky said and began a really horrible loud wailing that made it hard to focus.

Which is how Ivan stepped on a pressure plate. “Dammit!” he said and now a series of panels slid open and a half dozen shambling figures stepped out of hidden wall niches. They felt intensely magical to me, and looked like sickly humans with claws instead of fingernails.

“You could let them do their own wailing,” Marcus pointed out and now the three of them levelled sword, axe and hammer at the oncoming ghouls. “Don’t let them touch you.”

Twilight fired a barrage of lightning balls which left the ghouls staggering and twitching and then I fired arrows into the eyes of two of them. Lord Aendyr was studying them even as Lady Aendyr, Ivan, and Marcus fell on them. Marcus’ sword took off the outstretched arms of one foe and Ivan smashed in the skull of a second one even as Lady Aendyr felled a third with a series of axe blows. She was laughing as she kicked that one into a fourth and then hacked him as he went down, while Marcus narrowly dodged the fifth and then kicked him down and stabbed him from behind over and over as Twilight blasted him with glowing darts in the face. “Sorry, Twilight, I left you open,” Marcus apologized.

“It’s okay, he would have gotten you,” Twilight said.

The last ghoul tried to flee but Ivan threw his hammer at him, knocking him down and then Lady Aendyr hacked his arms off and he died. All of them crumbled into darkness and evaporated.

“Shadow creatures,” Lady Aendyr said hesitantly.

“I’ll just ca… oh, it’s over,” Lord Aendyr said, then looked embarrassed. “Yes, shadow conjurations. I would imagine young ponies would have a hard time rounding up a lot of real monsters.”

“The stupid will-o-the-wisp lured us into quicksand,” Twist grumbled.

“That’s what they do,” Lady Aendyr said. “Lure their prey into terrain which traps them so they can feed on your despair.” She began cleaning her axe and Marcus his sword. “Man, I remember the first time we met ghouls, we had to run for our lives.”

“You two ran, carrying me, because I got hit,” Marcus said, laughing softly. “Then we got lost in the woods for a *week*.”

Ivan began carefully poking the ground ahead, Twilight sallying forward with him to give him enough light. “Don’t go too far forwards,” Lord Aendyr said.

“I know,” Ivan said. “Just doing this while the slowpokes clean up.” He grinned a little.

“I’m ready,” Lady Aendyr said.

Marcus finished, but his sword didn’t have a proper sheen, so I polished it as well, while Ivan slowly drifted further and further forward. “Come on, slowpokes,” Ivan said. “Twilight and I will take all the treasure if you don’t keep up.”

“Ivan, that wouldn’t be nice at all!” Twilight said frantically. “We’re not going to steal all the treasure!” she said, turning back to face us.

I wonder if there will be any real treasure; shadow conjuration treasure would fade away with time and the Crusaders don’t have piles of it lying… where does Keraptis get his treasures? Beyond the gems, which I know he mines.

“Oh, so is this really Scootaloo in disguise?” Marcus said, laughing and starting forwards.

“I’d disguise myself as someone way cooler than Twilight,” Scootaloo said. “Like Rainbow Dash! Or Princess Luna. Or Daring Doo.”

“That wasn’t you at the party, was it? Someone disguised themselves as Daring Doo for some reason and… I thought it was Dash,” I said, embarrassed.

“Of course it wasn’t me, I was CHASING the Oard, but it got away!” Scootaloo said, frustrated. “Our best lead ever and we blew it, dammit.”

Of course it couldn’t be her. Think clearly, Rarity, I told myself. I can’t afford any mistakes.

“These devil faces… they have really strong magic,” Twilight said hesitantly.

“Don’t touch them, they either destroy anything that goes in the mouth or teleport you somewhere naked,” Marcus said. “I think it’s an imported Alphatian tradition.”

“It’s generally thought to have been brought back by adventurers who visited a Parallel Prime Plane,” Dinky said. “Back in the time of Blackmoor. From an alternate Blackmoor. The Nithians revived it as an image of Thanatos and his all-devouring maw. Various other civilizations then found Nithian ruins and copied the concept.”

Twilight grumbled about research materials and short notice.

“Looks kind of like that time Albinus had that intestinal disease,” Lady Aendyr said, then laughed.

Ivan laughed too, but Marcus gagged. “Don’t remind me. We couldn’t… dammit, we don’t have a healer in this party. And I don’t have any potions any more.”

“I have a half-dozen in this nifty jacket,” Ivan said, sticking his hand in a pocket and pulling out a blue liquid. “Luna was kind enough to arrange to have the pockets turned into bags of holding for me.”

“And I brought a couple of disease cures and healing potions on the trip, just in case,” Helga said, touching her backpack.

I have a full load of material for clothing emergencies myself, but I should see about having things for this sort of situation. I felt rather underdressed.

“This is why staying out of the reach of monsters is better than rushing in to get yourself eaten and need healing,” Lord Aendyr said gruffly.

“Easy to say when we’re up here ensuring nothing rushes you,” Ivan said, frowning and then turned back towards the direction we were going. “Anyway, let’s get going.”

Honestly, given it’s just the Crusaders running this, if the first fight is any indication, nothing is going to hurt us really anyway.

*********************

“AAAAA!” I screamed. We had reached the first natural cave, which like all limestone, looked far too much like hardened snot. There were stalagmites and stalactites and places where they grew together and we had to walk carefully on slick stone because it was very wet. We were gradually circling the cave to get a feeling for how many exits there were; in places, patches of fungus grew somehow despite the lack of light. Unfortunately, the first tunnel was full of bats and now they had rushed us, not trying to hurt us but panicking all over us as we panicked; Lord Aendyr was screaming about bats and staggering and I kept crashing into pillars and I could feel bats using me as a toilet or snagging on my clothing and Marcus kept shouting ‘Camazotz’, whatever that means and I couldn’t see anything but Twilight chanting and how could I see her chanting?

Lord Aendyr tried to cast a spell but the magic went wild and I felt knots of power crashing into everything and then exploding into spiders. Giant purple spiders the size of a normal pony. One jumped onto Twilight, who began rolling around with it. One tried to jump onto Lady Aendyr, who grabbed it by the front legs and began bashing it into a pillar, shouting angrily. A third knocked down Lord Aendyr, who was digging desperately in a pocket and screaming. And the fourth appeared under Marcus and fled with him stuck on top of it, yelling as it carried him into the darkness; I could hear him trying to cast a spell and shouting my name.

“Rarity, save dumbass,” Ivan shouted but I couldn’t see him and I wasn’t sure who he meant. Probably Lord Aendyr but sometimes he does call Marcus dumbass and then they wrestle and… I couldn’t find Marcus, anyway and I’m guessing Ivan sees in the dark now, though maybe I could follow the screaming.

Twilight teleported out from under her foe and lifted it into the air and began to spin it in place as it made odd, frantic chittering noises, then began to spew a purple liquid out of its mouth which stuck to things and turned into goo. This stirred me to action and I tried to flip the spider off Lord Aendyr; this only rocked it gently to my frustration but it did distract it long enough for him to pull a wand and jam it into the creature’s underbelly; lighting washed over it, spreading in tendrils along its carapace and it stumbled off and now couldn’t move coherently at all while Lord Aendyr rolled over and threw up breakfast, kneeling over his own vomit like he was going to… I hated that biology lesson.

I had forgotten it.

“Thank you,” he said weakly to me even as Lady Aendyr took her foe, hit the one which had been on her own husband and knocked that one into Twilight’s foe and they all crashed into the wall and blew up in a puff of smoke.

“Rarity, I need a clean up,” Ivan said; he and Marcus stumbled out of the dark, covered in purple goo. “When this hardens, we won’t be able to move.”

*That* I could do. “You’re welcome, Lord Aendyr,” I said, then washed the gunk off Marcus and Ivan with my magic. The bats had fled, I noticed. I guess all the magic and violence panicked them.

Then I heard a rattling noise in my saddle bag; three bats came out when I opened it as I stared. They circled me once and fled into the darkness.

“Twist, you put the wild magic zone in the wrong room,” Scootaloo grumbled.

“It’s in the right room! Look!” Twist said.

“Thanks for the warning,” Lady Aendyr said, grinning a little, then turning to her husband. “I’m sorry I didn’t come help you quicker, honey but I had a dance partner.”

“It’s okay, I somehow summoned them with a burst of wind spell,” he said, frowning. “I’m not sure what went wrong.”

“Your casting got disrupted and the magic went wild,” Twilight said, patting his arm with a hoof. “Happens to everyone.”

“Never got attacked by spiders before, though,” Marcus said, looking around and peering into the darkness though I doubt he could see anything. “Not from a spell misfire.”

“You can’t get wiped out until you get to where my genius will wipe you out,” Scootaloo said urgently.

“You okay, Rarity?” Sweetie asked me.

“I’m fine, thank you,” I told her. I don’t think Sweetie is suited by nature to run a dungeon, which is for the best, really.

“Press on! We gotta finish this before our curfew,” Apple Bloom said urgently. “Uncle K says it’s rude to leave your guests unwatched and alone.”

“Sometimes a lady does want her privacy, but I think we’re ready to go on,” I said, looking at everyone.

“I’m ready,” Lord Aendyr said, sighing as he and his wife brushed him off. “I should have brought something darker.” He was in traditional Blackhill robes, which is to say, they started as white and we may be cleaning them for a week after this.

Soon, we were ready to start exploring the rim some more.

************************

The cave had five tunnels leading away from it. I guessed that likely each of the Crusaders dreamed up what’s down each tunnel; this central cave really didn’t have anything dangerous or exciting once the bats were all gone. Hopefully not swarming across the countryside.

We ended up letting Lady Aendyr pick the first one; she choose the furthest left one. The tunnel began to slope down and became slicker. Twilight and I could handle it with our horseshoes, but everyone else had to slow down some to avoid slipping on the wet stone. Lord Aendyr had to grab stalactites several times and at one point, Marcus stopped moving, Twilight crashed into him from behind and he went sliding down in front of everyone, then Ivan tried to sprint up to help him, tripped and they crashed into each other and both tumbled as Lady Aendyr ran after them until Twilight lifted them both into the air just shy of an underground stream. Lord Aendyr began laughing, then nearly fell on me in the process.

“I am sorry, Countess Rarity,” he said, bowing to me.

“I think you should ride me,” I told him. “Until we get to where the footing is easier.”

I heard Marcus make the ‘disapproval but I think no one can tell’ noise. When he just barely is containing his disapproval of something, he makes that noise. I’m sure sometimes he does hide it but I am getting good at seeing through his feints. Anyway, he may not like it, but it is only logical for me to do it; I am stronger than Twilight and we need to stay in the back. So I chose to ignore it because otherwise this would turn into a stupid argument.

I just wish they would get along!

I had a sudden moment of intense sympathy for Sweetie, who just wishes this all the time.

Lord Aendyr glanced at Marcus, Marcus frowned at him, then he said, “I accept your gracious offer if it will not get in the way of you performing your duties.”

Lady Aendyr licked her lips, then pulled Marcus aside and talked to him quietly. Marcus sighed and nodded and Lady Aendyr nodded to me.

“It will not,” I told him. “I should practice, anyway, since Marcus and I will likely want to do this together in the future.”

He did not grimace as I feared, but Marcus smiled a little smile and I relaxed. One crisis averted.

But I am going to go mad if they keep wishing each other ill.

*********************

We splashed across the stream into a cave full of pools of water and even more stalactites and stalagmites. Some of the pools looked very deep, though the water tended to be kind of milky and hard to see through. Ivan kept poking away with his pole, then stopped and pointed at a stalactite. “Light that up, please.”

Twilight made it glow and he studied it. It looked like an ordinary stalactite to me, but he said, “Piercer, go around it.”

“If you go around it, it can’t fall on someone!” Scootaloo said, sounding aggravated. “I was counting on a good laugh!”

“Don’t go confirming guesses!” Apple Bloom said irritably. “Rule eight, right here, don’t confirm guesses!”

I heard a hoof strike paper.

“Did Keraptis give you a Dungeon Master’s Code of Conduct?” Marcus asked, amused.

There is a code of conduct? That’s somewhat reassuring, really. Every profession needs standards.

“How did you know?” Apple Bloom asked and Marcus laughed more. “Don’t laugh at me! I’m a big pony now!”

“Yeah, and you still haven’t told us all the adult secrets even though we’re grown up now,” Scootaloo said.

Sweetie made an odd noise and now I could hear them all badgering her about whatever exactly she was thinking about. While they bickered, I turned to my friends. “Marcus, what makes a piercer fall?”

“They sense prey by heat, I think,” Marcus said hesitantly. He looked at Twilight.

“I don’t know, I got drafted at the last minute and didn’t research AT ALL,” she said miserably. “I am completely unprepared for this. I don’t even have Spike.”

“Cadence will take good care of Spike,” I told her. “She seems like a very nice lady.”

“Oh, she will but I guess I am used to having him here,” Twilight said. “I’m going to fret about him a lot.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll help you out all I can once you’re out of the dungeon. When I’m not in school or hunting Oards or … family stuff,” Dinky said, suddenly trailing off at the end.

“Hmm…” Marcus said, then fired off a burst of flame under the piercer. It dropped down to the ground, WHACK, then dissolved away into shadows which evaporated.

“It attacks by killing itself in a fall?” Lord Aendyr said, as confused as I was.

“I’m guessing the shadow material can’t handle the impact well,” Marcus said. He fired bursts of flame under all the stalactites, which took a while but about half of them fell down and killed themselves.

“I HATE YOU! You ruined it!” Scootaloo said angrily. “You were supposed to run around in terror and keep running under new ones so you would get attacked again and run more! I had music ready to go and everything.”

Lively saxophone music began to play.

“That was not the cue, Sweetie!” Scootaloo said irritably.

“And now I need a little rest after casting that over and over,” Marcus said weakly, leaning on a stalagmite.

“I’m not Sweetie!” Twist said and now more command chamber bickering ensued.

“A real wizard wouldn’t be tired from that,” Lord Aendyr said cheerfully.

“A real noble wouldn’t rub it in,” Marcus said.

“Enough,” I said firmly. “No more fighting.” I looked them both in the eye as best I could.

“You’re right,” Marcus said, sighing. “Just give me a minute.”

Ivan scouted around a little with Twilight while the rest of us stayed with Marcus. Lady Aendyr didn’t quite sit down by him, just… I’m not sure how she balanced down so low, kind of doing this thing with folded legs but not sitting… They talked quietly, so I said to Lord Aendyr, “Your wife has been teaching me some magic of your people.”

“Yes, not many Ponies have been initiated into our arts, though Sugar Sparkle’s father is. A lot of my family is very… insular,” he said after a long hesitation. “We are Alphatian in descent and our ancestors were quite sure they were the greatest of all wizards. And passed that on to their children. There’s a lot of conflict between those more stuck in their ways and those who recognize that if we stay locked in our shell, the world will pass us by,” he continued, then sighed. “I opened my eyes to new places and things at the Great School of Magic. But I’ve seen lots of new things on this trip too.” His voice dropped and became soft. “Equestria is very different from my homeland, even from the Pony part of it.”

“So you’ve been to Dream Valley?” I asked.

“Sugar Sparkle’s father, Honey Crunch, went to school with me at the Great School of Magic. There was some sort of messup in records and we ended up as roommates.” Lord Aendyr laughed loudly. “That was a shock for both of us.”

“Did he have some kind of honey magic?” I asked curiously.

“His cutie mark let him command bees. Mostly to make him honey. Which he ate on everything,” Lord Aendyr said. “And still does. He has this ultimate spell where he calls up a huge air elemental and fills it with bees.”

I shivered at the thought.

“Anyway, I invited him and his wife to come but they had too much work. He normally vacations in the winter, when there’s nothing to help fertilize or raid for pollen to make honey,” Lord Aendyr said. Then he glanced off at Twilight and Ivan. “And he seemed… He wanted Sugar to see Equestria but seemed afraid of coming himself.”

“He would have been most welcome,” I told Lord Aendyr. “I understand your wife has had some problem with people who can’t accept her in your land.”

His face darkened and his eyes flashed. “Yes, and it angers me. Moreso because there is only so much I can do about it.” He paused. “Do the different kinds of Pony intermarry in Equestria?”

“It’s less common but does happen,” I told him. “Scootaloo has a Pegasus parent and an Earth Pony parent. But also sometimes, though it’s rare, Ponies will give birth to a different kind of Pony because of past intermarriage.”

He nodded, but now Ivan said, “Dammit, I’ve seen this door before.”

We could see him and Twilight off in the distance; I could vaguely make out a door in the wall by Twilight’s horn glow. “Should we come?”

“Yeah,” Ivan said and we all came over, splashing through the cave.

“That’s just like the door you made for testing lockpicking,” Marcus said, studying the wooden door which looked… lost, really, set into a wooden frame in the wall of the cave.

Ivan raised an eyebrow and then got out the Lockpicks of Asterius and touched them to the door, which clicked and unlocked. He poked it open with his pole.

“HEY! You’re supposed to have to unlock it! After HOURS of effort!” Scootaloo said angrily.

“I *told* you,” Dinky said. “I knew that would happen.”

“Please, let’s not have another fight!” Sweetie pleaded.

Ivan tapped the ground beyond it and now a giant pie fell into the wooden hallway beyond.

“So I added that,” Dinky continued and sighed. “Stupid pole.”

“Rarity, if you will?” Ivan asked.

“I can’t eat pie which fell on the floor,” I said.

For a few seconds, he stared at me, then said, “I meant your cleaning magic.”

“Oh,” I said, now embarrassed. I soon had the mess cleaned up and we headed into the wooden hallway.

*****************

This hallway led us to a thirty foot cube room with the exits halfway up the walls and strange bears with mantis heads rappelling down the walls to attack us.

Our staring at the strange sight let the first wave hit the floor and then the battle began in earnest. Lady Aendyr charged one of them, battering him back with the flat of her axe, then hacking at him as he stumbled around. Ivan smacked a second in the head, knocking him back and Marcus held off his foe with his sword, each alternately stabbing and dodging. Twilight seized two of them with her magic and hurled them back the way we came in; I heard them land in a pool and then they began yelping and running around as that music played again. I shot the antenna off two of them and they began to wander around, disoriented and I nudged them to wander back out into the cave with the others.

“Well, at least someone is getting hit in the head,” Scootaloo muttered as I heard one of the creatures get hit by a piercer we must have missed.

Lord Aendyr finally finished the spell and sent a glowing blade flying around the room, cutting ropes and causing more of the strange insect-bears to fall down and dissolve away. “A definite weakness.”

“Dammit, Uncle K’s monsters don’t die from a short fall,” Apple Bloom grumbled.

“I’m pretty sure bugbears aren’t mantis-bear hybrids, either,” Twist said.

“The ones on Epsilon Kappa are,” Dinky said firmly.

“How do you know what they’re like in another star system?” Twilight asked as she set Marcus’ foe on fire with his own spell and it dissolved away.

“I’ve been there,” Dinky said.

Dinky makes many wild claims like that but has no proof. I think it’s the imagination of youth.

That was easy but then, the Crusaders aren’t really trying to kill us. At least in theory. I hope they know what they’re doing.

“Hmm, Ivan, you can climb up to one of the doors and pull me up, right?” Lady Aendyr said to him. “Then I can lift everyone up.”

“I can get us up there,” Lord Aendyr said proudly. “Everyone get close to Countess Rarity and myself.”

Everyone gathered around us; I noticed that Marcus didn’t protest this, and gave a sigh of relief. Maybe it’s a good sign. Then he began a long rite and the air under us began to swirl and then we lifted a touch off the ground and the air seemed to almost solidify and the platform lifted us up to one of the three exits.

“Almost as good as my spell, almost,” Dinky said like a father clumsily praising his child. A mother, given Dinky is a filly.

Ivan checked out the tunnel and we stepped into it, once he approved.

“I can never make that work,” Lady Aendyr said ruefully.

“With time you will,” Lord Aendyr said. “I could only lift myself originally.” He let out a great sigh. “That’s the most weight I’ve ever lifted, in fact.”

He and Twilight now began a technical discussion which flew over my head. But which I could not avoid while carrying him. So I listened politely and watched for trouble as Ivan and Lady Aendyr and Marcus led us on.

****************

The hallway soon began to be decorated with pictures of fire elementals doing things like burning the homework of Ponies, forcing them to grow carrots, making them go to bed when the adults stayed up, and other such themes. I had to fight not to laugh very hard at it.

“How… Does this happen often here?” Lord Aendyr asked hesitantly.

“Sweetie made us censor it,” Scootaloo grumbled.

Marcus, Ivan, and Lady Aendyr froze in unison. “STOP,” Marcus said urgently. They stopped advancing.

Twilight crashed into him AGAIN and he fell down. “Marcus! I’m sorry!”

“Do you think…?” Lady Aendyr asked Marcus.

“Can you light up the end of the hallway?” Ivan asked Twilight as he helped Marcus up.

“Yes,” she said and the end of the hallway glowed brightly, showing doors of beaten brass, inset with fancy inlaid red, yellow, and orange jade, showing a huge bonfire. If you looked carefully, you could see salamanders dancing in the fire.

Marcus’ left hand clenched and unclenched and Ivan began to laugh softly, while Lady Aendyr buried her face in her hands. “The Temple of Elemental Evil was in those magazines, I take it?” Ivan said.

“Sal… oh dear.” Twilight said, looking at Marcus.

Lord Aendyr began to laugh loudly.

“There’s going to be braziers past this door, ten of them and EACH of them is going to spawn a damn Salamander. The firey elemental kind,” Marcus said. “There may be a priest by the altar at the far end and there’s a chest which is trapped to hell and BACK.”

“That was a sweet sword in it, though,” Lady Aendyr said appreciatively.

“Yeah, I guess Faisal still has it,” Marcus said. “I… didn’t forget him dying, right?” he said weakly.

“He died twice but we had him raised,” Lady Aendyr said. “But no, he retired once he had enough money for the coffee shop he always wanted.” She sighed. “He probably uses Frostrazor to chop carrots or something.”

“DAMN CARROTS!” Scootaloo shouted.

“Did you have too much coffee?” I asked her. She’s jumpier than usual.

“No, I’m drinking lemonade,” Scootaloo said.

“I got rid of the coffee,” Twist said. “Lemonade’s tastier anyway.”

“Wait, Frostrazor was a sword?” Apple Bloom said.

Marcus rubbed his forehead. “Yes, a two-handed sword made of enchanted ice which froze things it hit. So chopping carrots with it wouldn’t go too well, I think.”

“But I bet you could make some great ice cream with it,” Ivan said thoughtfully. “Which in Ylarum would sell like crazy.”

“I can make ice cream if I had some milk and sugar,” Lord Aendyr said. “Honey Crunch and I worked out a spell for it to combine our powers back in school.” He sounded oddly sentimental.

“So this place is going to be full of fire magic,” I said thoughtfully.

“And damn Salamanders,” Marcus said, shivering.

“Assuming they copied it perfectly,” Lady Aendyr said.

“Well, I have some fire protection magic,” Twilight said, giving a happy sigh. “It’s one of the first things I learned after getting Spike.”

“Did he set something on fire?” Lady Aendyr asked.

“The laundry. He was still a baby and he burped and it all burned,” Twilight said ruefully. “He hasn’t set the laundry on fire in a long time but I am surrounded by flammables all the time. I regret it isn’t a permanent effect, so I could treat the library with it and stop worrying about it.”

She then proceeded to cast a spell on us; I tried to watch her but I couldn’t quite keep up with it despite seeing the flows of magic. Twilight really is a great wizard.

Each of us glowed a soft red now from our protection as Ivan poked at the door. A half dozen times and it wouldn’t open until Lord Aendyr reached out and… pulled the door open. It opened towards us.

Lady Aendyr laughed and now we could see into a long grand hall with many images of fire on the walls; ten huge pots of fire went down the middle of the room in two rows of fire; at the far end, a huge red sandstone altar squatted below a statue of a humanoid figure made out of fire. There were three red gold knives on the altar, next to a large copper bowl.

But no sign of Salamanders, though Marcus said they would be in the braziers.

And no sign of a priest or a chest.

“Hmm, I think it’s time to put out the fires before approaching the altar,” Twilight said.

Lady Aendyr studied everything, studied her aura, breathed in and out, then said, “I can try and put out the fires with some wind.”

“We’re going to be ass-deep in salamanders as soon as we attack the braziers,” Marcus said. “I can try hurling water balls into them. I think I have that spell down.”

“If Rarity and I combine our abilities, I think we can rain down water on all the braziers at the same time,” Twilight said. “While Marcus and Ivan and Lady Aendyr stand ready to fight and… Lord Aendyr can work with us.”

Lord Aendyr looked worried but then he breathed out. “Agreed.”

Marcus shifted back and forth on his feet. “Damn salamanders.”

“It’ll be okay,” Lady Aendyr said, patting his shoulder. “You ready, Ivan, Marcus?”

“Always,” Ivan said, taking his hammer by the strap, ready for throwing.

Twilight and I reached out with our horns; Lord Aendyr cast a spell I did not know and it connected him to us. Ten balls of water, ringed by winds, rushed at the braziers dousing them; ten red-scaled humanoids… sort of humanoids… Salamanders are like the snake equivalent of a centaur with the rear half a red-scaled snake and the front mostly human in shape, though with big pointed ears and red scales.

They were armed with strange spears, red and slightly shiny but not metallic, twisted in a tight spiral like a corkscrew with a half-dozen javelins of the same style in quivers on their backs.

And the air smelled like wet licorice.

“Feel the power of fire-hardened candy!” Twist said proudly.

I now wondered if they were edible.

“At least Brannart is unlikely to show up,” Marcus mumbled and then the battle was joined.

The ten angry Salamanders threw a barrage of javelins at us. I shot four of them out of the sky and felt quite proud, even as Lord Aendyr extended his wind armor to shield both of us; I began to feel a little cold from constant rushing wind but now we were quite safe inside it. Two more came at Lady Aendyr and skidded off her wind armor spell and crashed into the wall, shattering. Marcus desperately dodged two which came at him and now was running around the room, yelling as two Salamanders chased him, hurling javelins. Two hurled javelins at Ivan, who dodged them and counter-threw Whelm, smacking one of them in the chest and knocking him down; he still had his spear but his javelins shattered on the impact with the ground. Then the hammer came back to Ivan.

Twilight paused and began casting some spell, frowning, while Lord Aendyr began thinking hard. I began aiming counter-battery fire at the four who were hurling at Lord Aendyr and I, keeping them on the run so they couldn’t fire at us. ‘What are you two trying to figure out?’

‘None of them attacked me and I don’t know why but it makes me suspicious,’ Twilight told me.

‘Trying to remember if they have any special weaknesses beyond water, but I took that class many years ago,’ Lord Aendyr said, brows furrowed.

“MY ASS!” Marcus shouted as he got knocked into the altar by a hurled javelin. Which.. well, you can tell where he got hit.

I shot the straps of one of his foe’s quiver, causing it to fall off his back, while missiles at us bounced off our wind shield and Lord Aendyr tugged his ears and mumbled under his breath, eyes unfocused.

Lady Aendyr launched herself in a charge at the two who were shelling her. Things didn’t go as well as she planned, though, as one dodged to the side and whacked the back of her knees, knocking her down as the other parried her axe attack barely. She tumbled towards Marcus.

Ivan now nailed his other foe in the chest; he fell and broke his Javelins but now the first one slithered at him on the ground and rose up around Ivan, twining him in its coils, knocking aside Whelm when it tried to return to him.

“Fancy meeting you here,” Lady Aendyr said as she crashed into the altar. It shook and the bowl flipped off, landing on her head like a helm.

“Very stylish,” Marcus said, rising with her as four salamanders closed in on them and they stood… not quite back to back but making a triangle with the altar as their rear guard. It would protect them from attack from behind. Clever.

“DESECRATORS OF MY ALTAR, YOU FIVE WILL PERISH IN FIRE,” the statue announced.

“SIX! SIX!” Twilight insisted. “I’m here too.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were coming and I think I programmed them too rigidly, I’m not used to this, I’m really sorry,” Twist said frantically. “I didn’t mean to be rude and leave you out.”

“I REMEMBER HOW YOU TURNED MY HIGH PRIEST INTO A DUCK AND THEN PUT ON HIS ROBES AND MOCKED ME IN MY OWN TEMPLE, CUFEN,” the statue continued.

“He was evil and trying to kill us! He had it coming!” Marcus protested. “Evil Immortals don’t get to complain when they lose!”

Lord Aendyr made panicky noises and cast a spell, then said, “It’s not the real Imix, just a shadow creature.” But he still eyed it nervously.

Twilight teleported onto the altar. “Time for your BATH!” She began hurling balls of water and Imix… Shadow-Imix counter-fired with balls of fire and soon thick steam began to engulf the far end of the room.

Four salamanders began to close on Lord Aendyr and I, having abandoned throwing things at us.

Ivan concentrated, then cursed. “There’s too much fire, I can’t touch the Plane of Shadow here!” Then he made gurgly noises as he got crushed, his arms pinned. The other Salamander stood by, ready to attack Ivan but unable to do so because his friend’s body was in the way, crushing Ivan.

“Darien, save Ivan!” Lady Aendyr said, then began fending off her foes even as Marcus did the same and hot steam flowed over both of them, hiding them from us.

“HELGA!” Lord Aendyr shouted in a panic.

“Spike, take a… dammit, Spike isn’t here!” Twilight said, turning from excited to angry. I couldn’t see her in the fog but I could hear the chaos within it.

I bolted towards Ivan, away from our onrushing foes and tried to think of a spell or way to get him loose before it was too late. ‘Can you cast a darkness spell?’ I asked him.

He tried but the fire and light dispelled it in a moment and he cursed. He tried a wind blast but it just knocked them both around, making it worse for Ivan and now Lord Aendyr gave a cry of frustration. And now we had FIVE salamanders after us and I was running out of room to move as the battle raged on in the growing fog.

If Ivan had some darkness, but magical… ahah! I felt proud of myself as I yanked a long length of red cloth out of my saddlebags, lifted it into the air and dumped it down over Ivan and his foe, hiding them from all the glittering surfaces in the room. Creating… DARKNESS. Totally mundane but it was enough; when the cloth burned up, there was only the Salamander and now Ivan appeared in the doorway from the hallway. “Thanks, Rarity,” he said.

“Now you can help us,” I told him. Neither of us are really hand-to-hand fighters and without anyone to cover us, we were in trouble. I can scrap if I must but not with a rider.

Another door now opened and a red-robed priest, armed with a long blue-ice blade, charged out. “CUFEN! THIS IS MY REVENGE!”

No, not more foes! I could hear Scootaloo and Apple Bloom making excited noises, while Sweetie sounded worried. And I could hear pages flipping. “Don’t go adding more foes constantly,” I protested.

“Just doing a little research,” Dinky said calmly over the com system.

Lord Aendyr snapped off a spell; a whirlwind hit the priest, who lost control of his blade; it flew through a Salamander, who dissolved away into quickly vanishing shadows. Then Lord Aendyr seized it with more magic and began rotating it around us; our foes kept a wary distance, clearly afraid of it, as the priest now tried to rush at us to grab it. I used my magic and tied him up with his own robes, then sent him rolling back the way he came.

Ivan now charged to our aid, bashing down another salamander and breaking his spear and knocking him out; he evaporated and now we had four. Two of them came at him while I shot arrows at a third and the fourth tried to duel Frostrazor but Lord Aendyr now made wind rise under him and slammed him into the ceiling. “Yeah!” he said proudly, then re-directed Frostrazor to aid Ivan. Soon all our foes were down.

The steam now dispersed. Marcus, Twilight and Lady Aendyr were all dripping wet and their clothing was in tatters. Well, Twilight only had her saddlebags. But Marcus was down to mere scraps of clothing and Lady Aendyr was basically in her underwear and backpack, except that the neck of her shirt was still intact. They also looked somewhat baked, though Ivan threw Marcus a potion and Lady Aendyr got one from her pack; they chugged them down and their skin returned to healthier tones. Lord Aendyr dismounted and ran to his wife and I nuzzled Marcus.

“Are you okay?” Lord Aendyr asked.

“I’ve had much worse,” Lady Aendyr said, kissing him and embracing. “However, I need new clothing.” She looked at me.

“Me too,” Marcus said.

“Of course, we can take a break here and I will make new outfits.” That was ugly.

“There’s a chest hidden inside the altar,” Ivan said, pointing Whelm at it. “Twilight and I can crack its defenses while Rarity dresses you two up.”

“I will help if I can,” Lord Aendyr said hesitantly.

Ivan studied him, then said, “Be careful, this thing is trapped to hell and back if it’s like the original one. And you’re not experienced in this kind of thing and if you blow up, Helga’s going to be pissed at me.”

“If I can’t go where she goes, I can’t ask her to go where I go,” Lord Aendyr said, studying the altar now.

Ivan stared at him, made an odd noise, then said, “Done much work with wards?”

I nuzzled Lord Aendyr. “You’re doing fine,” I told him reassuringly, then worried I had been too forward.

He blinked, then patted my head weakly. “Thank you, Countess Rarity.” He turned back to Ivan. “I am versed in keeping Elementals out of things and using Air Elementals to ward things, along with basic magical security.”

“If you can circle the altar with some kind of anti-Elemental ward, that would be a good start,” Ivan said.

He began slowly etching the symbols with Twilight while I turned to making clothing for Marcus and Lady Aendyr. It would have to be a rush job. But I perform well under pressure.

“Hurry up and blow up, watching people scratch the rock is *boring*,” Scootaloo said.

I had all of the whale dress prototypes… but I couldn’t inflict those on Lady Aendyr. I would have to modify them anyway.

But black and white… yes…

I was half finished when they finished ringing the Altar; you could see everything inside the circle stop glowing with fire energy and now Ivan borrowed Marcus’ sword and began cutting the Altar open.

“The door’s on the side,” Twist said hesitantly.

“Which is why I’m avoiding it,” Ivan said, removing the panel of stone. Twilight now pulled the chest out and set it atop the Altar. The three of them disarmed it as Lady Aendyr and Marcus traded memories of the old days and got suited up by me.

“Tell me we didn’t leave Allistair as a statue forever,” Marcus said, rubbing his forehead.

“That was the start of the series of quests to pay for the last quest’s ending,” Lady Aendyr said, shaking her head. “Finally, we were all okay, and then Cindi lost all our money gambling.”

Ivan made grumbly noises; something began to glow near him and Twilight burned it. “Thanks, Twilight,” he said. “Don’t reminisce so loudly when I’m dealing with stupid numbers of traps.”

“HAHHAHAHAHA,” Scootaloo began to chortle. “Now you know how it feels.”

“So you’ve forgotten a lot of it,” Lady Aendyr said to Marcus.

“It’s easier to remember with you here,” Marcus said, studying the floor as I fitted his new shirt. “I’ve missed you a lot, you know.”

“Me too,” Lady Aendyr said, then sighed. “Of course, you *could* visit.”

“Maybe next summer or during the winter when school is out,” Marcus said, lifting his arms at my command. “While I’m teaching, I can’t really go anywhere.”

“School is totally boring,” Scootaloo said.

“I like school,” Twist replied and they all began bickering about school while I tried to avoid jabbing my coltfriend with pins and Ivan finally asked Twilight to cast a silence spell around them so he didn’t have to listen.

“You should be grateful. There are no schools in Karameikos for children,” Lady Aendyr said loudly to the kids. “I couldn’t read at your age, I’d never been more than ten miles from home and I didn’t know *anything* except how to grow potatoes and wheat.”

“And chop things,” Marcus pointed out, smiling a little.

“And how to cut wood and burn it, yes, but who doesn’t know that?” Lady Aendyr said.

“I’ve never cut wood,” Twist said.

“Me neither,” Sweetie said.

“Or me,” Scootaloo confessed.

“That’s because you all are lazy town people,” Apple Bloom said irritably. “I had to chop wood today. With my tail!”

“I’ve seen wood chop itself,” Dinky said proudly.

…

“I can burn it, though! I help run the ovens and everything at home,” Twist said proudly.

Ivan finally finished the chest and opened it with his lockpicks. Carefully he opened it and found…

Several dozen candies, carefully wrapped. Very tasty but… well, candy.

Ivan stared, mouth open.

“My finest candy! There is no greater treasure!” Twist said proudly.

Ivan buried his face in his hands and Marcus made choking sounds, while Lady Aendyr laughed loudly. “Thank you, Twist.”

But then, it is the Crusaders. They don’t have great treasures to hand out, though… “Where did you get Frostrazor?”

“Uncle K threw it in with some of the dungeon building gear, and some other neat stuff too. A real dungeon needs real treasure, he said,” Apple Bloom said. “Also, I gave him ten barrels of cider for it all.”

“I hope AJ knows you did that,” Marcus said.

Apple Bloom laughed nervously. Oh dear.

******************

We were somewhat lost, having had to run away from a pack of Leucrotta, strange badger/stag crossbreeds with an added power to subvert your mind with their whisperings, which is why one of them is now wearing Marcus’ hat, much to his aggravation. But there were too many of them and now we were running through room after room; luck or maybe the pity of the Crusaders kept us from being killed and when we fell down a chute, the Leucrotta finally lost us.

We now landed inside this giant spinning chamber full of clothing and proceeded to tumble around inside it while it tried to bake us alive. Twilight managed to cast her fire protection spell again or we would have been in serious trouble. Finally, though, it stopped tumbling and began making this awful buzzing noise.

The clothing was quite odd; it was all full body suits with shirts and pants attached to each other and weird clamps to hook on… footwear, I assume. None was present. It had many pockets and was made of shiny material of various colors: blue, black, green, red, white, and yellow.

When the top of the huge spinning box we were in opened, giant golems began taking out the clothing and sorting it into huge baskets. We managed to ride out by clinging to clothing, which was easier for everyone who was not me. However, Twilight just lifted me out.

The whole room was a giant mechanized laundry run by golden golems; the chute we’d fallen into now discharged more wet laundry into the machine.

“These look like the suits from the Beagle,” Twilight said, eyes wide.

“Beagle, darling?” I asked, confused.

“Holy shit, this is duplicating part of the Beagle?” Marcus said, clearly shocked.

“It’s from the Warden, to be precise,” Dinky said. “If you were on the Beagle, you’d have its rearing dog logo, whereas you’ll notice the shield symbol over the heart.”

Each outfit did have such a logo but also a second log; each color had its own logo, I soon noticed. I snagged some of the outfits for later study; they gave me ideas.

There was a loud chime and now voices began to speak in a language even Twilight didn’t know. Not well, anyway. “Something about intruders,” she said hesitantly.

The golems all turned and looked at us.

“That is US,” Lord Aendyr said and soon had us all flying towards the door on a pillar of air as giant golems fired at us and we dodged desperately. Twilight began firing lighting at them, but they seemed resistant and fire and water balls rolled off them too.

However, the door into this room was only ten feet tall and we flew down and ran out it; the golems, I noticed, could not fit through the door. Or the giant laundry baskets.

We fled down a long metal hallway; I was impressed by how much the Crusaders had built and a little worried how they could build it all so quickly.

But for now, I focused on running as more but smaller golden golems poured through the doorways after us.

*********************

We managed to lose the golems by jumping through a portal, which put us in a long ten foot wide hallway which led into a ninety foot by ninety foot square room with a twenty foot ceiling; another hallway led out of the room via the left wall of the room and by the far wall was a sarcophagus of some long dead Nithian pharaoh; he’d inscribed himself into the lid, holding his staff and… the other thing. Crook? A flail? Anyway, Twilight said, “I doubt that’s the real Jozer, but it looks like him.”

In addition, there were sixteen bugbears (the normal ones, not half-insect/half-bear monstrosities), all in various combat poses, not moving at all, sprinkled randomly around the room.

“Could be a chess puzzle,” Ivan said thoughtfully.

“But they don’t have any accessories to indicate which is which piece and there’s no grid,” Lady Aendyr said, studying the whole thing. “Probably they all just come to life and attack when you disturb the sarcophagus.”

“Not a place you’ve been?” Lord Aendyr asked her.

“We haven’t been everywhere, though I guess we did get around a lot,” Lady Aendyr said, sighing. “Sorry, honey.”

“There were no bugbears in Nithia,” Twilight said, frowning. “It breaks vermillisitude.”

“Well, I just copied the journal,” Sweetie said apologetically. “This isn’t one of my better ones but we were in a hurry.”

“The one where you have to sing your way out is much better,” Twist said.

“Don’t go dumping spoilers!” Scootaloo protested. “Rainbow Dash never dumps spoilers.”

“Rainbow Dash spoils EVERYTHING the second she learns it,” Twist said chidingly. “The second she reads one of the Daring Doo books, she tells everyone on Mystara what happened. Before I can read it myself.”

Twilight felt out the room and said, “Ahh, they’re in temporal stasis. Each time someone passes through the doorway, four of them wake up.”

“I have the perfect idea. If everyone rides in my saddlebags, we can all enter at once and only wake up four,” I said, feeling proud of myself.

“Hey! That’s not the answer!” Sweetie protested.

“Well, what is?” I asked.

“You have to…” The sounds of Sweetie being prevented from talking now broke out over the PA along with a lot of shouting.

We decided to follow my plan, though Lady Aendyr just rode me in so she could deploy to cover the others climbing out. The four charged us, but she took one out with her first swing and pinned two more in a duel but I had to dodge the fourth with Ivan hanging half-in and half-out of my saddlebag, making motion sickness noises as he whipped out; Twilight teleported out and hurled the one charging me away so I could stop and let the others out, then flung the two on Lady Aendyr at a wall.

They all now charged at the doorway for some… oh dear. Before we could stop them, they ran through the door in a line, waking up all the others.

I will never remember the rest of that fight clearly; someone shoved a sack over my head and I panicked, flinging things everywhere and shouting about monkeys and kicking anything that got too close. I heard a lot of thumping and shouting and bashing and Lord Aendyr screaming about morningstars have nothing to do with the morning.

Finally, Twilight pulled the sack off my head and I calmed down and there were evaporating bugbears everywhere and Marcus and Lord Aendyr were lying on the ground breathing hard, next to each other until they saw the other and rolled on their sides to not look at each other. There was no body in the coffin, just thousands of copper coins and several thousand silver. Four gems caught my eye: a ruby, an agate, a moonstone and an amethyst. There was also a flat piece of metal with a circle at one end, just the right size to lie flat on Ivan’s palm.

Ivan began slowly shoving coins in his left pocket and then Twilight helped him with magic; I took the gems and Ivan passed the flat metal object to Marcus who studied it with Lady Aendyr.

“Magical key,” Marcus said. He looked at Lady Aendyr, who nodded. “Probably to the exit from the dungeon.”

“Collect them all!” Apple Bloom said proudly.

I watched Ivan dump coins; it’s going to take forever to stack all those to take to the bank. At least I can buy some nice cloth with my cut; I used up a lot of my best fabric on the outfits for the visit.

And then it was time to move on.

*****************

I began to wonder how long we’d been in here. We do need to get enough sleep for the trip tomorrow. “Sweetie, honey, what time is it?” I asked her.

“Granny Smith’s calling us for dinner, but we’ll be back soon as we can,” she said.

“I am starving,” Lord Aendyr said. “I think it’s time for us to go home and have dinner.”

“Well, umm.. we kind of teleport blocked it so you’ll have to make your way back unless you get the keys,” Sweetie said, laughing nervously. “I think we may have overdone it.”

“We’ll be back as soon as we finish dinner,” Apple Bloom said. “We can save the rest for another time. I’ll figure out something.”

And then we heard them gallop off.

We were in a room which had been full of traps but now was just a stone room with three exits. “Hmm, I can try and summon some food,” Twilight said but to her frustration, it didn’t work. Probably the same reason she can’t just teleport out.

“I’m surprised they have wards which work on my level of power,” Twilight said and reached out with her magic studying it.

A chime went off. “No cheating,” the voice of Keraptis now said and suddenly the floor opened and we all tumbled down three different chutes; I went rolling along with Lord Aendyr, and saw Ivan and Twilight go down one and Marcus and Lady Aendyr. We tumbled until we landed on a pile of mattresses in a room full of abandoned mattresses. It wasn’t very dangerous but it was hard to get around because my hooves kept driving through the mattress covers. Lord Aendyr finally lifted me with his magic and got me to the nice stone hallway which soon opened into a natural cave.

“Great, my wife’s stuck with the doombringer,” Lord Aendyr grumbled.

“Marcus is not a doombringer,” I said sharply. “He is not going to let her get hurt if he can help it. She’s important to him, you know. And him to her.”

“I know,” he said, staring off across the cavern. “She’s been very excited to make this trip ever since you invited her. She really likes you.”

“I like her too. And we both… would at least like you and Marcus to not chew on each other. I know you can’t just will yourself to like someone but this constant hostility is driving us both crazy.” I tried to be firm without being too pushy, since I have… he doesn’t have to listen to me.

You’d think after being apart for so long, they’d get over it. I hope Spike gets over it while he’s off with Cadence, but if these two can’t let go after years… But I won’t give up. I can at least try here in ways I can’t with Spike, since it’s all about me with him but not with Marcus and Lord Aendyr.

I hoped I might have more luck with him than I did with Marcus.

“How can you love someone who is always surrounded by death and devastation?” Lord Aendyr asked me, sounding baffled. “Chaos follows him everywhere. I met him when I was trying to go buy some dinner and he comes running down the street, screaming, being chased by a half dozen cockatrices. Even in Glantri City, that’s unusual. I didn’t react fast enough and I would have been turned to stone if not for Helga picking me up as she ran by and saving me. It’s how we met.” His voice was distant and hard to read. “He and Ivan ruined our first date by first following us and then getting themselves busted for some kind of expired license problem and Helga worried about them the rest of the night and had to go bail them out.”

“I met Marcus when he and Ivan were about to drown in a river in the Malpheggi Swamp and we pulled them out,” I told Lord Aendyr. “I never expected to fall in love with him. He was not at all the sort of stallion I had fallen for before.” I paused, rethinking. “Well, he had one thing in common with the best of them. He was hugely charming. He treated me as the lady I had always dreamed of being. He looked rough but he was a gentleman. Still, it gradually crept up on me. It was only around the time we returned to Equestria that I could admit it to myself fully.”

I stepped into the cave finally and we talked as we began to circle the walls, trying to see what ways led out and if we could find a tunnel back the ways I think the others went.

“I was mad for her within minutes of us meeting. That smile… she has the most natural smile. There is no pretense in anything she does. When she loves, she loves and when she hates, she hates and her smile is never pasted on and neither is her anger. My family… we tend to all be tightly controlled and we’re always acting, even with each other a lot of the time. Being what nobles must be, doing what nobles must do.” His hand trailed along the wall as we went. “Helga is my truth in the middle of lies and fronts and posturing.” He sighed. “I suppose I must sound as if Glantri is hell. It’s not, or I would leave. But it makes demands and with her, I am freed of those demands.”

My hooves splashed in little puddles. These natural caves are all so wet. And filthy. I suddenly became keenly aware that my forelegs were rather filthy from splashing water and I forced myself clean with magic, knowing it would soon get dirty again.

Why must the world be that way?

“She loves you very much; just from her letters, I know that,” I told him.

“I still don’t know why,” he said softly. “Why me, of all people.”

I nearly tripped at that. “You’re married and you don’t know why she loves you?” How is that even possible?

“A woman like her could have any man. I mean, she’s told me why she loves me but there’s a million people like me and only one of her,” he said urgently. “I am not someone who women normally fall in love with.” Then he mumbled something about Marcus.

“If she wanted him, she could have had him long before she ever met you or he met me,” I told him. It can’t just… Do they just never talk about how they feel to each other? She practically gushes in her letters to me.

“I… what? No, I have no fear of that,” he said firmly, hand still trailing on the wall, though his fingertips had to be stained with fungus and mold by now. “It’s that he’s going to get her hurt or killed. Everyone around him suffers disasters and he sails on, untouched and uncaring. He’s a bird of ill omen, a dead albatross, a disaster, a… I can’t think of the right metaphor,” he said in frustration. Frostrazor, floating along in the air after him, carried by a little whirlwind for him, now bobbed about as if mirroring his emotions. Maybe it was. “I fear he will doom you one day and run.”

“Marcus never abandons those he cares about,” I said firmly. “He is afraid sometimes, so afraid.” I shivered in memory. “But he would not abandon even you, who hates him, for Lady Aendyr’s sake. He loves her, I know. Like a sister.”

“I wouldn’t drag my sister into deadly situations and I don’t even like her very much,” Lord Aendyr said, frowning. “Haven’t you heard all their stories this whole trip about people turning to stone and getting eaten and having to be rescued from the Quasi-Elemental Plane of Ice?”

“She wants to be here,” I told him. “I think she misses it sometimes. The old days.”

I think I missed the Plane of… there’s a Plane of Ice?

I fear I will have to find time to study more metaphysics, especially if we become Immortal. The very idea boggles me, I will confess. I cannot let Twilight go alone or Marcus too but I never dreamed that large.

But there is no Immortal dedicated to fashion, so I definitely know what my niche will be. Some of the Immortals dress as if Snips and Snails picked out their outfits. While drunk and half-asleep. Not that colts their age should ever be drunk.

Admittedly, it’s a lot harder for Ponies to get drunk than humans. I believe it has to do with body mass. But I never seek to get drunk, anyway. It isn’t elegant.

He gently rapped the wall with a fist, and then sighed deeply. “You’ve done a lot of this sort of thing, right? Dungeons?”

“No, I have had some adventures, but I think Lady Aendyr and Marcus have had twenty times as many. Or more. I had never been in a full-blown dungeon until I met Marcus,” I told him.

Now he made a noise and rapped the wall again. “Well, we’re doing fine so far.” But I could feel his legs tense up, though his face was calm.

“Do not worry. I have survived White Plume Mountain and this place was created by children.” It’s hard for me to be sure how dangerous this place really is. More than I expected, but we’ve handled it. But still, I am ready to go home and just have a quiet evening and get ready for tomorrow in Canterlot.

Or at least eat, as I didn’t bring any food and now I am starving.

It doesn’t help knowing the Crusaders are eating right now.

“Created by the children to challenge five of us at a time,” he said softly.

My nerves jangled but I put on my war face. I have to be strong for both of us. “We can handle it. We are nobles and wizards.” I am sort of noble. Sort of a wizard. I have a title, but I don’t feel noble.

He sighed and straightened up. “Yes, but you know as well as I how much of nobility is a front. Inside, you know better. I am not indestructible. I don’t know everything.” He paused. “Now I cannot help but remember the time Dona Carlotta tried to be a waitress.” He began laughing loudly.

“Why?” I asked in confusion.

“She and Marcus were seeing each other when I started seeing Helga. After Marcus turned my poor Monsters’ Fair party into a travesty, they and Ivan tried to make it up to me by ensuring that Helga and I would have a perfect date. Which they completely destroyed by their efforts to help.” He grumbled to himself. “I *told* him it was a costume party, but he panicked anyway… Lady Jerbat will probably never forgive me or him for throwing all that holy water on her.” He buried his face in his hands.

“This happened on the date?” I asked, confused.

“No, no, we went to Helga’s favorite restaurant, a wonderful sea food place in the style of Sind. And Dona Carlotta tried to disguise herself and be our waitress, to ensure we got the best service. But she had no experience waitressing and became completely overwhelmed and then one of the customers… well, he touched her posterior and Marcus, who had been… I don’t know where. He freaked out and everything went to hell and none of us are allowed within 100 feet of it now.” He sighed.

I couldn’t help but laugh. “A lady’s posterior is something not to be touched without permission,” I said. “And I know he loved her deeply.” I wish he would be nicer to Herr Otto, though. “And don’t say it.”

“She’s only angry with him because he didn’t tell her who he was when he first saw her again. Not because he left her and I can’t understand that,” Lord Aendyr said, sounding confused.

We finally reached a tunnel; it seemed to go the right way, heading upwards; it was… I think someone widened a natural tunnel. “Shall we?” I asked him.

“Sure, I have no idea where to go,” he confessed.

“They chose to break up for fear of her mother,” I told him. “He didn’t abandon her. But he didn’t have to lie to her later. That’s why she’s angry.” I understand why he did it. He lied to all of us but… his fears were too great. But I understand them. He was so hurt when he met us. Slowly worn away like the rocks under a waterfall. He is stronger now.

And having Lady Aendyr here makes him stronger. I can see how they had so many adventures together. I wonder if Twilight and Fluttershy and I and everyone come off like that too. I know we’ve all changed from our adventures. Grown closer. They are sisters to me now, dear to me. Even when we fight. But sisters do that sometimes.

We started up the tunnel, him still trailing a hand on the wall, me moving carefully because the stone was wet. “If only we had some way to track them, but my divination magics aren’t really good for finding people. If they were books…” He laughed softly.

“Books… Twilight must be carrying some,” I told him. “Do you have to have a specific title?”

“I need a topic,” he said.

Hmm… “History.”

He chanted and waved his arms and I felt the spell go off. “Hmm, the way we’re going. So it could be her or a trap.” He sighed.

“Keep it up; we’ll see if it guides us.”

We’ll see.

***************

It led us to a room with three more tunnels leading out and a high vaulted ceiling. There was a chest by one wall, apparently unguarded but probably locked and trapped. I assumed.

No sign of magical wards. Sending a small air elemental didn’t trigger any traps. Warily, we drew closer to it; I wondered if ‘paranoia’ was one of its traps.

I opened it remotely with telekinesis; nothing happened but you could see a jumble of gold and silver coins in the chest. “It has to be a trap but it’s not an illusion or anything,” Lord Aendyr said, frowning.

We slowly grew closer and I lifted a few coins out and still nothing happened. We crept closer and then…

The wall smashed open and a huge ochre creature broke through the wall; it was like a cross between a human, a lobster, and an ant with huge segmented eyes, huge manibles around its mouth and a hideous roar. Multicolored light rushed out of its eyes at us and I panicked, fleeing down one of the tunnels with the creature in hot pursuit as Lord Aendyr shouted about crumpets.

There was a curtain of beads, huge beads the size of an apple… the shape of apples too, but clearly made out of various colors of pearl. But I didn’t care, just shoved them out of the way and fled through the room, crashing into a barrel being used for a dice game by six hyena-headed humanoids with spears and a seventh, taller one armed with a strange set of three metal rods, connected by short lengths of chain. They would have attacked us, but by the time they hefted their weapons and the dice stopped flying around the room, the huge lobster-ant-man crashed into the room and we left them to fight each other as I fled on screaming and Lord Aendyr cursed someone named Margle for stealing his crumpets.

******************

There was a room like a chessboard, full of human-sized chess pieces but I just raced through it as things blew up and the ground tried to zap me and the pieces tried to attack me and Lord Aendyr randomly blasted everything that caught his attention; wind whipped through the room and I leaped THROUGH the door at the far end.

A hallway led us into a jungle, where weird purple-faced monkeys threw cocoanuts at us with their minds. Twilight would have been fascinated, I was just terrified and I ran and dodged and parried with my magic and threw a whale dress prototype in the face of one of them and Lord Aendyr shouted about how the trees were full of evil elves and they wouldn’t have his sugar.

Then we tumbled down a slope into a lake and finally snapped out of it as we rose, sodden, in the water, which came about halfway up my torso. “Please forget everything I just did,” Lord Aendyr said, trying to squeeze out his clothing.

“I agree that we will never speak of this again,” I told him, looking around the cave. It stretched maybe a hundred feet out to three exits, two of which were rivers feeding into the lake. I decided to head for the dry one.

However, of course, electric eels decided to attack us and we soon were running around desperately dodging them, though once we got across the room, we managed to fling them into the walls with our magics. There wasn’t even any proper treasure. And still no sign of the Crusaders coming back from dinner.

We pressed on to a spiral staircase; four other corridors went on and there was writing on the wall. ‘Ivan and Twilight were here, we went up.’

Finally! Lord Aendyr gave a huge sigh of relief. “We should have marked our trail.” He now carved the wall with Frostrazor and we headed up the staircase.

Halfway up it, however, I felt something cold and strange and Lord Aendyr shivered. “Something’s lurking. Show yourself!” he shouted angrily. “I AM SICK OF THIS SHIT!”

Then he froze and covered his mouth and looked mortified, while I tittered nervously. I was a filthy mess and still rather wet and exhausted and hungry and there had been a distinct lack of gems.

“Hey, ya’ll,” I heard Applejack say. “I’m gonna get you all out of this silly thing as soon as I can. Apple Bloom’s in big trouble for trading cider without asking me.”

“Maybe you can turn it into a tourist attraction and make back the money,” Lord Aendyr said. “I know Ierendi is full of this kind of crazy thing.”

“Hey… that might work,” Applejack said excitedly. “It ain’t like we wuz usin’ these caves for nothin’.” Her accent got thicker as she spoke. “Apple Bloom, how the hay do these controls work, anyway?”

you are not the one, I heard a voice whisper and then the cold retreated.

“Did you hear that?” I asked Lord Aendyr.

He frowned. “I definitely heard something,” I said.

“Scootaloo, quit your bitchin’,” Applejack said to Scootaloo, who I hadn’t heard at all.

“We could send a shadow construction crew to remove the wards, but until the teleport wards go down, there ain’t no way in or out but walking and falling,” Apple Bloom said. “I think we kinda overestimated how much they could cover in one day.”

“We got split up,” I said. “And some creepy invisible thing was whispering about how I wasn’t the one, whatever that means.” I frowned. Clearly it has no taste.

“I’m gonna be pissed if the Oard’s hidin’ in my dungeon,” Apple Bloom said darkly.

“Oards are myths,” Lord Aendyr said firmly.

“They’re real! Cunning Thought wouldn’t lie to us, she’s Celestia’s mother,” Sweetie said. “And people pretended to be Oards at the club, so they have to be real or you couldn’t get anyone to believe your lie!”

Lord Aendyr rubbed his forehead and whispered, “Did you understand that?”

“Twilight, Ivan, Marcus, Helga, any of you hear us?” Applejack asked.

I didn’t hear them but Applejack said, “Okay, that’s Marcus and Helga checkin’ in. What about Twilight? Ivan?”

“I’ll call Uncle K, see if he knows some quicker way to take the wards down,” Apple Bloom said.

“No more puttin’ up wards without my say-so,” Applejack said sternly to Apple Bloom.

We reached the top of the stairs, found the ‘Twilight and Ivan were here’ marker and I said, “We’re on Twilight and Ivan’s trail, so we’ll keep following it.”

“You two okay? Marcus and Helga are kinda’ freakin’,” Applejack said.

“We are filthy messes, exhausted, and hungry and I regret my own birth,” I said miserably. “But other than that, we’re fine.”

“Tell her I miss her,” Lord Aendyr said plaintively. I smiled at that.

“I will,” Applejack said.

We began following a trail of destruction; everything was blown up or smashed up, from traps to golem remnants to the room which was strewn with pine sap and pine branches; Lord Aendyr flew us over that, to my gratitude.

After a while of this and periodically leaving our mark and seeing Twilight and Ivan’s, Applejack said, “Hey, Rarity, you carryin’ any rubies?”

“No,” I told her.

“Well, that won’t do no good and I still don’t know why we can’t reach Ivan and Twilight either,” Applejack said, sounding aggravated.

“Well, they’ve more or less destroyed everything in their path,” I said.

“Wait, don’t the Crusaders have a map of this place?” Lord Aendyr said. “We could probably figure things out better with a map.”

“I can’t find the map! We had this big fancy map and now it’s vanished,” Apple Bloom said, sounding frustrated.

Delightful.

“That was very irresponsible, young lady,” Lord Aendyr said sternly. “No recall mechanism, no map… what kind of Dungeon Master are you?”

Apple Bloom said weakly, “It’s my first dungeon.”

“We just wanted to do something fun for you,” Sweetie said weakly.

“I know y’all meant well but you shoulda asked someone to look over your plans,” Applejack said sternly. “We’ll have to fix all that before we turn this into a tourist dungeon.” I could almost hear coins jingling in her voice. It was odd, more like I’d expect of Clarity.

“Whatever you heard, it wasn’t an Oard; I scanned the entrance to the dungeon and there were no traces of temporal energy,” Dinky said. “It might have been a Shadow that decided you weren’t tasty enough.”

“I’m kinda worried we can’t hail Twilight and Ivan,” Applejack said. “Scootaloo, go find Clarity. Maybe she can magic something up.”

“It had glowing red eyes, I think,” Lord Aendyr said. “But I might have imagined that.”

“Lord Aendyr, your kids are in bed, at least in theory,” I now heard Bon-Bon say. “Lyra sent me to tell you.”

“Thank you, Lady Bon-Bon,” Lord Aendyr said. “I hope they weren’t too much trouble.”

“Once Lyra sleeps for a few days, she’ll be fine,” Bon-Bon said.

I laughed softly, then heard a distant explosion. “I think we’re getting closer,” I told her. Oddly the smell of pine sap was getting stronger.

I heard the sounds of pages flipping. “I am pretty sure there’s some kind of X-ray vision scanner thing around here somewhere…” Apple Bloom said.

We passed a destroyed giant snake statue and smashed up altar and the explosions got louder. We were closing in. I had a bad feeling Twilight had gone berserk and was just destroying everything. Which could be hard to calm her down from. Either that or she was just overreacting to the various threats.

But I was worried about that weird shadowy thing. Who was it looking for? Given the Crusaders didn’t seem to know what it was… what was it and why was it here?

Applejack said something but I couldn’t understand it. “Can you repeat that?”

But now I couldn’t hear her at all, just a staticky sound. Maybe Twilight’s using so much magic it’s frying out the communications?

“We’d best retreat to where we can hear them,” Lord Aendyr said.

I didn’t want to retreat; I had a feeling Twilight needed us. “I think they need us. If nothing else, I may need to calm down Twilight. She wouldn’t do this much damage if she was calm.”

He eyed the scorch marks on the wall, clearly worried about how much damage Twilight could do. I was worried too, but Twilight needed me. I have to help her. “Okay, forwards,” he said hesitantly and we pressed on.

*****************

We could hear Ivan and Twilight shouting and some kind of something howling and then a loud chime went off and I cursed, then tried to cover my mouth and nearly fell down, since I had a passenger.

I tried to press on through the remains of a tunnel which was a tube with metal walls but now there was an odd shimmering field, softly rose colored in front of us. I now realized the field didn’t quite fit the tube… it was square and the tube was round.

It slowly drifted closer and I could see bones floating in the air behind it, though there was something odd about them…

“Well, that is certainly creepy,” Lord Aendyr said.

And now we heard the sound of many feet striking the ground at once behind us. Trapped between foes.

“Let’s try and push it back,” I told Lord Aendyr; it resisted, but we pressed forwards, shoving it out of the tube and into a hallway it fit more closely, whatever it was. But now the foe behind us was catching up.

It was a strange creature, maybe thirty feet long with a draconic head and many legs and a long snakey body. Its scales were metallic blue and lighting crackled around its mouth and nose. We threw ourselves flat when it spat lightning at us, and it blew away the field which dissolved into a gooey looking puddle of liquid.

“Forward, I’ll lift us,” Lord Aendyr said and we sailed over the gunk; the creature briefly froze up when it splashed through the gunk, giving us more room to move. Until we reached a great chasm; the bridge was blown up and I could see flashes of light from a room beyond it. And the creature was closing in.

“I can…” Then Lord Aendyr grimaced. “There’s a huge downdraft; if I try to fly, we’ll likely get pushed into the chasm.”

The creature stalked towards us and I tried shouting for help, but no one could hear us.

“Hopefully the Crusaders were sensible…” Even as I said it, I knew I was foolish to hope that. This thing was intended for *all* of us to fight it.

“If I was a better elementalist, I could get us past the downdraft or turn into an Air Elemental and take this thing out,” Lord Aendyr said ruefully. “Countess Rarity, should this be our tomb, I can at least say I am glad to have met you.”

“Don’t give up,” I told him. “While there is life, there is hope.” Why hasn’t it spat at us again? I could see the lightning around its mouth. “Marcus never gives up.” This was… not entirely true, though he doesn’t give up when it’s important. But my job was to light a fire under his feet.

He winced at that and straightened up. “At the least, it isn’t blasting us again for some reason. It must need time to recharge its power.”

It has to support itself with its legs, so it won’t…

Then I had an idea. I whipped out a length of cloth, flew it at high speed and blindfolded the creature. As I hoped, it couldn’t lift its legs enough to work the blindfold and now it couldn’t see and began to thrash wildly at nothing.

Lord Aendyr studied the chasm and the draft, which I couldn’t see but he could. I haven’t gotten that far in my studies yet. “Do you have any of your shapeshifting candy?” he asked.

“I always carry a few now,” I told him.

“I am trying to think of something we could turn into in order to get across,” he told me.

We were still discussing this when our foe gave a great roar and managed to scrape off his blindfold on the wall. I have rarely been this scared in my entire life. Certainly not since I had to watch Marcus die for us at the gateway to the Hells.

I could feel the air shift as if in anticipation of blasting us to hell and gone, as if a road was somehow building itself in a line forward from the creature’s mouth. I probably imagined it, though I think Pegasi can actually feel that kind of thing and even produce it.

This was the end; if the lightning didn’t kill us, it would likely send us over the edge or it would just rush in on us and eat us. I was readying arrows instinctively but it was too late. We were doomed.

“Oww, dammit,” I heard Lady Aendyr curse and then she grabbed the creature’s head and forced its mouth shut.

…

She’d somehow grown so tall she couldn’t stand up in the hallway and jumped onto the thing from behind and was now grappling its mouth, even as Marcus hacked away at the creature. The good news was that it couldn’t blast us. The bad news was that we were running out of space because the wrestling match between Lady Aendyr and the monster pushed it towards us and left us between a monster and a long fall.

But I had a plan. “In my saddlebags now,” I told him and he clambered in as quick as he could, even as the creature thrashed and got ever closer.

And then I prayed I could make this work. I’ve seen Twilight do it many times, but I never have done it. I know the teleport protocol for replying to a request to teleport in but I could never make teleporting work. But it was our best hope here.

It is a complex weave of magical energies but I do excel at complex work.

And I had to protect Lord Aendyr; he is my guest and it would be unmannerly to let him die.

Ahaha.

This would be so much easier with my element but it was locked away securely. Artifacts should not be used lightly.

I knew where I wanted to land. I reached out and wove the spell, praying that I was not dooming myself and Lord Aendyr to wander the planes or to die. He was counting on me and I would not fail him. For the heart of nobility, the heart of being a true lady, is to live up to your obligations and those who depend on you.

I may not ever be the lady I once dreamed of being. I can see from talking to Lord Aendyr and Lady Aendyr that there are aspects of nobility which would gall me if I had to live them. But true nobility is being someone others can rely on. And aiding others with your abilities.

Even if they want to look like a whale.

I *had* to do this. And so I assembled the spell and released it and felt the world whirl around me; I could see my target destination and where I left at once and then they became one and I felt magic in my veins.

My legacy as a unicorn.

And then the world returned to normal and I was behind Marcus, who was a mess and once again *nearly naked*. His new clothing was reduced to basically a pair of shorts. What is it with this place?

Lady Aendyr now threw the monstrosity into the chasm and it fell out of sight, blasting the side of the chasm with lightning as it fell. “Oh shit, Countess Rarity! Darien!”

“We’re back here,” I told her and helped Lord Aendyr out; Lady Aendyr was so tall she couldn’t actually stand in the hallway, so it looked like her hugging a doll until Marcus dispelled the spell and she shrank down to normal. Her clothing was shredded as well; I felt bad for her as I know that’s very embarrassing to humans.

And painful to me that my work was destroyed so quickly.

Marcus hugged me tightly as well. “Tell me you’re okay.”

“I’m fine,” I told him. I was exhausted from the teleport, though; I may have the finesse for this now but I don’t have Twilight’s raw power. Still don’t.

“Countess Rarity, thank you,” Lady Aendyr said to me warmly. “For protecting Darien.”

“He did his part to protect me as well,” I said and *looked* at Marcus.

Marcus and Lord Aendyr looked at each other. Then Marcus said to Lord Aendyr, stiffly, “Thank you for helping Rarity. When I couldn’t be there for her.”

Lord Aendyr looked stunned, then said, “Countess Rarity is a woman… a mare of many fine qualities.” His lips quirked into a little smile. “I regret you do not live closer to us, Countess. Helga could use a friend like you who she could see more often.” He sighed, then stiffened as if forcing himself to something. “Marcus, you have likely saved my life or at least prevented hideous injury and you have stuck by my wife’s side when she needed you here and brought her back to me as safe as anything in this madhouse can be.” For a second, I heard his teeth grind. “Thank you, Marcus.”

“I have to assume that someone helped them out with this, though they did build the Moonraker really quickly…” Marcus said, looking around. “You’re welcome, Darien. And yes, we’re both very lucky men.”

“You certainly are,” Lady Aendyr said, slapping him on the back; he nearly fell down. “Now we have to go save Ivan and Twilight.”

“Or possibly save the dungeon from them,” Marcus said. “I can hear faint explosions even with the wind howling ahead.”

We then began brainstorming on how to get past said howling wind.

******************

Our combined magical ability and Lord Aendyr and Lady Aendyr’s air magical knowledge enabled us to re-direct the downdraft enough to leave a gap; then I built a rope-bridge out of my remaining clothing supplies and we crossed, then I rolled it up and stored it for later use. We followed the sound of explosions and finally found Twilight and Ivan busy smashing up crystals set into the walls of a cavern. “Twilight, calm down!” I shouted to her. “We’re here, we’re okay, we need to work together to get out.”

Twilight saw us now and galloped over, Ivan barely hanging on; he was riding her. “Rarity!”

We hugged as best as Ponies can, and then I stood close to her, letting her share my calm; I could feel the tug of her panic, but I fought it off. Ivan and Lady Aendyr were embracing and I could see him calming down.

“Rarity figured out how to teleport,” Marcus said proudly to Twilight.

“It’s so exhausting,” I said. “And I am SO hungry,” I continued. “And filthy.”

“Hey, we do have that candy,” Ivan said. “We shouldn’t eat too much or we’ll get sick but it should take the worst of the edge off, right?”

I had some taffy, Marcus took a redhot, Ivan tried a white candy, Twilight took a green hard candy, Lady Aendyr took some licorice and Lord Aendyr tried a black candy. “This is deliciously like good ice coffee,” Lord Aendyr said approvingly.

Frost began to drift out of Ivan’s mouth and Marcus stared at tiny tendrils of smoke coming out of his mouth. My taffy was quite delicious, but… Then Ivan breathed out a freezing cloud. “I… does this give you a breath weapon?” More frost came out.

“This must be magic candy… which she said it was her finest…” Marcus said weakly, flames coming out of his mouth. “TOO HOT.”

Twilight shoved a waterball into his mouth and now he spat up water on her and himself but the fire went out. “Thank you, sorry,” he mumbled.

Ivan began freezing crystals and laughing.

“We need to figure out a quick way to get out.”

There was a sound like ice breaking and then I heard the voice of Cunning Thought. “There you go. Can you hear me now?” She sounded hugely amused.

Oh dear.

“I can hear you, Cunning Thought,” Twilight said wearily.

“You’re fortunate that Sweetie called me,” Cunning Thought said cheerfully. “Don’t worry, dear Sweetie, we’ll have them right out now.”

Twilight now teleported us right to the control room, which surprised me; did she know where it was? It was full of odd magical gimcracks and… it was up inside their new treehouse. Which flies but they’re not allowed to cruise around unsupervised.

Cunning Thought was here, along with Clarity, Spikey, Applejack, Fluttershy, and Rainbow Dash. But no Pinkie. Most of the Crusaders were gone, except an exhausted Apple Bloom and Sweetie.

“You all okay?” Dash asked, clearly worried.

“I am miserably hungry and filthy and I think I smell of dead monster,” I moaned, flopping onto my fainting couch.

“Rarity!” Fluttershy said, then whipped grapes out of her saddlebags and began trying to cram them all into my mouth. Too many at once, but I was so hungry, I didn’t care.

Cunning Thought began fussing over Twilight.

“Are you okay?” Sweetie asked Marcus.

“I’m fine, but you all need to think these things through,” Marcus said, ruffling her mane. “Applejack, I hope you have something we can eat.”

“Grannie and Big Mac will whip up a ton of pancakes and we can test my new apple bacon,” Applejack said.

“You have bacon?” Ivan asked, surprised.

“It’s fake-bacon but should be right good,” Applejack said proudly.

“Does it smell like Marcus?” Ivan continued, grinning a little.

“Shut up,” he mumbled, but now ruffled my mane gently and smiled and I smiled at him and tried to not spew crumbs in his face.

“I’m afraid I don’t know you, but thank you,” Lord Aendyr said to Cunning Thought.

“I am Celestia and Luna’s mother, Cunning Thought,” she said grandly.

“LOKI,” I heard Marcus hiss to Lady Aendyr, whose eyes widened.

“She’s our good friend,” Sweetie said and nuzzled her.

Right now, I could accept anyone who got us out of that as our good friend.

“Mother!” Princess Luna said, now appearing. “What are you doing… Ivan?” She stared at Ivan, who was covered in ashes and glowing with random magic and still making frost come out of his mouth.

“Luna, there was a Shadow Pony; I think Twilight drove it off, maybe blew it up entirely,” Ivan said, turning serious. “Mumbling about crystals.”

Princess Luna’s eyes narrowed and I could see fire in them and Cunning Thought turned to study Ivan. “Mumbling what about crystals?”

“I don’t know, but he said he’d found something and something about crystals and then he kind of blew up,” Ivan said.

“I was too busy destroying things to listen,” Twilight said, laughing nervously.

“Did he do anything beyond lurk and explode?” Princess Luna asked, frowning.

“We saw him,” I said. “He studied us and left, saying we weren’t who he was looking for.”

“You had best all go rest,” Princess Luna said. “Mother and I are going down to look around.”

“If you need us…,” I began.

“It is probably nothing,” Princess Luna said but she clearly didn’t believe that. “But you are all worn and torn and I know Celestia is expecting you in Canterlot tomorrow. Go, rest and recover. I will see you later.”

Cunning Thought sighed. “Well, this is the perfect chance for me to tell you about your new siblings. They’ve already burned down the artificial womb Rathanos made for them! I’m so proud of them!”

Lord and Lady Aendyr stared, eyes wide.

I would have stared but I hardly had any energy left.

“Mother!” Princess Luna protested, hiding her face with her wings.

“Anyway, when are you and Ivan going to give me grandchildren?” Cunning Thought grinned.

“MOTHER!” Princess Luna shouted.

Ivan buried his face in his hands.

“We’re going NOW,” Princess Luna said and she vanished with Cunning Thought.

It was time to go home before I die of hunger.

***************

Applejack fed us very well, so well I fell into a food coma and didn’t wake up until the next morning. (I can tell you that apple-bacon has the look and texture of bacon but smells and tastes like apples. I have no idea how it works.) I still don’t know how they got me home but I woke up at sunrise to the sound of Marcus screaming in his sleep; I shook him awake. “Honey, it’s okay, it was just a dream.”

“Everyone was eaten by slime monsters,” he mumbled and sat up. “Oh good, we did get out.”

“We need to get dressed, have breakfast and get ready to head to Canterlot.”

Sweetie hugged me very tightly when I came out and found her and Lady Aendyr making breakfast. “I’m so sorry! We just thought it would be fun!”

“It was fun,” Lady Aendyr said, stretching. “I haven’t gotten to do that in forever.”

“I can’t let you cook,” I said, mortified. “You’re my guest.”

“It’s okay, I could tell you would sleep in,” Lady Aendyr said. “It’s kind of nice to do this myself.”

“Where’s your husband?” I asked. He should be helping her.

“Talking to the kids and Pinkie,” Lady Aendyr said. “And Lyra. Who both basically passed out on the floor by the kid’s beds.” She laughed at that.

“Thank you, Lady Aendyr,” I told her. “How can I help?”

“Please, call me Helga. After everything we’ve been through, we ought to be able to use each other’s first names,” she said hesitantly.

“Okay, Helga,” I said, feeling a little embarrassed. But I thought about all I’d been through.

To be noble… to be a lady… is more complicated than I’d always thought. And it’s nice to have people you don’t have to put up a front with. And from what I have heard, she doesn’t have many. I feel terrible for her. So I will be the best friend I can.

“We will have a grand time in Canterlot. Dash will be coming with us, since we’ll be visiting her museum,” I told Helga.

“Tell me all about it,” she said. “I understand you all took a trip to the North Pole.”

“But they wouldn’t let us go,” Sweetie said mournfully.

So I launched into the tale as we made breakfast.

******************

Princess Luna and Ivan showed up as we had all assembled to take off (joined by Rainbow Dash), then she took Marcus, Ivan, Dash, and I aside into my room. “We’re not entirely sure if something got loose from the Wandering Monster Generator to cause trouble or if a real Shadow Pony infiltrated the place. If it was real, it should have left a body, so probably it was either a construct or something the WMG made. We think the amount of magic Twilight was slinging jammed communications around her, but it’s not impossible the creature was doing it for some reason.”

“Who do the Shadow Ponies serve?” I asked. I have heard legends of them but no one I know has ever seen a real one.

“Many different immortals of Entropy,” Princess Luna said. “Including mother, but I believe she is innocent. This isn’t her style and I do not think she would deliberately ruin something the Crusaders did. Give them the tools to blow themselves up… yes. But she’d make sure they loved her more for it.” Princess Luna tried to pace but my room doesn’t have enough room for proper pacing.

I’m sorry, Princess. I should fix that.

“He had some kind of Thanatos connection but something else too, something I didn’t recognize,” Ivan said, frowning and trying to pace as well, which now caused him and Luna to collide, then laugh weakly.

Marcus laughed loudly. “We could go out back if you need space to move.”

“You should not have any trouble in Canterlot,” Princess Luna said. “Enjoy your time with your friends.”

“So we have no idea what this Shadow Pony wanted,” Marcus said, frowning.

“I think he wanted some kind of crystal thing,” Ivan said. “That’s why we were kind of smashing those crystals when you found us.”

“They were all mundane or only very mildly enchanted,” Princess Luna said. “Mother has a theory but I can’t talk about it.” She sighed. “Immortal business.”

“I understand,” I told her. “I just want our trip to go smoothly.”

“So what’s this business with Loki claiming she and Rathanos had babies?” Marcus asked hesitantly.

Princess Luna buried her face with her wings for a few seconds, then sighed. “Mother is busy shoving her face into a lion’s mouth again. If it causes trouble for us, I will be very cross.”

“So at this point, you don’t need us to do anything,” Marcus said.

“Ivan and I will be doing some investigating later, but for now, just enjoy your vacation and your work. Celestia and I will let you know when and if further action is needed,” Princess Luna said.

That was a relief. I just don’t want anything *else* to go wrong on this vacation.

******************

Much as I feared it might be trouble, I invited Dona Carlotta and Otto to join us at Dash’s museum. She is friends with Darien and I hope she and Marcus can get past everything and he has to get over his issues with Otto. Her father, Don Diego, joined us as well. Sweetie came with us, but not the other Crusaders, having volunteered to run herd on Samantha and Sugar Sparkle. Marcus had a new hat… bought for him from the gift shop by Darien and Helga; it showed Rainbow Dash flying over the North Pole; he bought a second for Scootaloo, which I’m sure she’ll appreciate.

Dash was utterly excited as she roamed around the museum with us, showing everything off. “This is Cherry Blossom, the first Unicorn to break through the…” Dash’s face screwed up. “O c t y llic barrier.” She had to slowly make her way through the word.

“Octyllic,” Darien said. “You can think of magical potential in terms of how much energy you can channel. To pass the Expert level test at the Great School of Magic, you must be able to break through the Octyllic barrier and cast spells which require power beyond that level. It’s unclear if there’s a real barrier or if it’s a purely intellectual concept for us to organize degrees of power.”

“Right,” Dash said. “Her generation was the first to begin showing the modern range of colors of Ponies; you can see her parents were brown and dappled.” She pointed them out. “The researchers were baffled by the color changes and never did figure out the basis of them.”

“What was the basis? Beyond magic?” Darien asked.

“They never figured it out,” Dash said nervously and Marcus laughed softly. “You don’t know either!”

“My slime breeding experiments have shown a set of combinations which always result; is Pony coat and mane color predictable from the parents?” Don Diego asked.

“Well… sometimes…” Dash said. “Mom and I don’t have the exact same Mane colors but we have the same kind of a striped pattern.”

“Rose breeding is very predictable,” Dona Carlotta said. “As long as you have a good idea of the geneaology of the roses and they’ve been bred true for several generations. But they don’t have the full diversity of Ponies.”

“I expect there’s some kind of destiny component, given how Cutie Marks work,” Marcus said.

They now got into a long argument which didn’t interest me much but no one I liked was trying to kill each other with their eyes, and I considered that a step forwards. You can’t just get rid of enmity in a day but I felt there was hope for the future.

To my surprise, Princess Celestia now approached us, having somehow gotten in unannounced. “Rarity, thank you for that nice party in Ponyville. It was nice to be a guest instead of the hostess for once and just enjoy myself.”

I smiled warmly. “I’m glad you enjoyed it. It didn’t end the way I hoped, though.” I sighed.

“I had a grand time,” Celestia said.

Then I had to introduce her to my guests. She patted Samantha and Sugar Sparkle on the head and shook hand-to-hoof with the adult Aendyrs. “I will ensure your stay here for your business is smooth,” she told them very seriously. “I have been considering your uncle’s offer, Lord Aendyr; we can discuss that tomorrow, though. For now, I just would like to see Dash’s masterwork here, and get to know you better.”

I could see Helga was breathing hard, nervous, while Darien seemed totally comfortable. “Don’t worry, she’s very nice but likes to tease,” I told her softly. “Just be yourself and I’m sure she’ll like you.”

“I just don’t want to mess this up,” she said softly to me. “Diplomacy is not my strong point.”

“Can I ride you?” Samantha asked.

“Samantha, you can’t ask a Princess to carry you,” Darien said chidingly to her.

“I would love to carry you,” Celestia said warmly. “Marcus, won’t you help her up?”

Marcus did so and Sugar Sparkle said, “I want to go next!”

Darien buried his face in his hands, but Celestia said, “In a little while, young lady.” Then she looked at me.

“You can ride me if you like,” I told Sugar Sparkle kindly.

“Okay!”

“I understand you are an old friend of my special agent, Marcus,” Celestia said to Helga. “From his adventuring days.”

“I’m Ivan’s cousin; the two of us went adventuring with him for a long time,” Helga said. “We’ve known each other a long time.”

“You must know some good, embarrassing stories you can tell about him, then,” Celestia said cheerfully.

Marcus buried his face in his hands.

Helga perked up. “Most definitely.”

“Ahh, you shouldn’t tell embarrassing stories about your friends!” Sweetie said urgently.

“They’re the best people to tell such stories about,” Helga said and launched into a long story about the time Marcus tried to be a model. By the end of it, Marcus had to launch into a story about Helga in revenge. By the time we finished our tour, Helga had relaxed around Celestia.

And I think that’s what she wanted.

Celestia is a true lady, a true noble. We follow her because we love her and she understands us and how to make us happy. With her, you can always be at your ease. That is a model I aspire to.

****************

Eventually, we had to go home; we had to catch the train home, so we couldn’t stay too late. I hugged Helga goodbye. “Drop by for dinner when you finish here; we’d love to see you one more time,” I told her.

“You should move to Glantri,” she told me. “I’d like to see you all more often.”

“When Ivan conquers Karameikos, we can all move in with him,” I told her, smiling.

She rubbed her forehead. “Please keep him from getting in over his head.”

“Of course,” I told her.

This time, we got a big open space for them to teleport home in, so nothing got messed up, and then it was time to go home and collapse. I work tomorrow and Marcus has school to teach and Sweetie school to go to.

I think I have much to think about with regards to my future. What it means to be noble. Our future as Immortals… something I had never dreamed of, and yet, that is the road we walk now. That Twilight needs us to walk with her.

I am a dreamer, a creator at heart. An artist. And sometimes I have to confront the reality behind my dreams. But I will not turn aside. This will help me to be better in the future. Even when people want me to help them look like a whale.

I need to stop whining about that. But I haven’t reached perfection yet.

Yet.

The End.