Twilight was, once again, exploring underground. This time, she went a different direction from the initial crossroads and found herself in a massive black cavern. Twilight would have wanted to enjoy the sight, but apparently had to deal with the various monsters that came with this area. Specifically, the flying black rocks and the black rock golems.

The flying ones weren’t that annoying, as they just drifted lazily towards her. The golems were a lot more annoying, however, as they took a lot of punishment and would often become invulnerable by crossing their arms in front of them.

As Twilight explored the cavern, she had to use a lot of her platforms simply because it was so massive. Unfortunately, she wasn’t able to find anything very interesting or useful, save for a couple of hearts. Down one of the numerous tunnels, she did manage to find another abandoned building, which had an extractinator in it. Twilight really wanted to see what it did, and kept it as she continued exploring.

Now Twilight found herself under attack from various gold-plated skeletons throwing javelins. This was Twilight’s first encounter with ranged enemies, and as such, she was taken completely by surprise. She could have used her mirror to escape before becoming a gross pile of flesh, but she was too focused on trying her best to defeat them to notice the fatal javelin about to turn her into a pony shish kabab.

On the bright side, Twilight was back home and now able to try out this extractinator. Its dull grey exterior sat motionless as Twilight somehow held it with one hoof. Upon placing it, the spiral thing on top started to rotate, even with Twilight doing nothing to activate it. She noticed faint writing on the side, telling her that it “Turns silt/slush/fossils into something more useful.”

Twilight quickly went over to her chests, which were absolutely full of items. She rooted trough to eventually find her silt and slush, then went back to the extractinator. She couldn’t see any silt or slush slots at first glance, though, and had to take a second to look around. When she didn’t find anything useful, she double-checked it, just to see if she had missed something. On her triple-check, she finally realized there probably isn’t a slot. Sighing in frustration, she smacked it with the same hoof she was using to carry the slush. She was pleasantly surprised to find a number of coins being ejected from somewhere into her inventory, which led her to determine that she had to blindly smack it to get it to work.

Twilight sat down in a comfortable position and started swinging, while idly contemplating the effectiveness of just hitting things with other things to get them to work. After a while of silt and slush bashing, she ended up with a nice, full inventory, which consisted of a number of ores, coins, and the occasional gem. In Twilight’s mind, it was entirely worth her getting killed by a spear-wielding skeleton.

A number of ingots later, Twilight stepped out of the guide’s house to greet the rising sun. A number of zombies and eye monsters had started to run away, which was very convenient for Twilight. Today, she decided, she would brave the Crimson on her quest to find loot. Although she had to reassure herself that she wasn’t just being greedy, she was going treasure hunting.

But first, she had to deal with the Traveling Merchant that had just arrived. She had never heard of a Travelling Merchant before, but she decided she really wanted to know what he sold. He was relatively easy to spot in his gaudy blue outfit, and she found him wandering around next to some slimes. She quickly killed off the slimes before walking up to his stoic, uncaring self.

“Hello?” she asked. She wasn’t expecting something very intelligent, but she was going to be polite anyway.

“Meet me behind Joe’s house in about three hours,” he said, “I think I have something you will find very appealing.”

“Well, I actually had some plans for today, so I might not be able to do that.” Twilight gave him a friendly smile. “But thanks for the offer!”

“Hmm, you look like you could use an angel statue! They slice, they dice, and make everything nice!”

“Uh, sure?” Twilight looked at what he was selling, but wasn’t able to find any angel statues. “I thought you said you have angel statues?”

“If you’re looking for junk, you’ve come to the wrong place.”

Twilight tilted her head in confusion. “Why would you be selling me junk?”

“Buy now, and get free shipping!”

Twilight decided she didn’t want to deal with him anymore, and turned away from him just as he started yelling about fish. She took a few seconds to remember what her previous plans were, and upon remembering them, she set course for the Crimson lands.

They were just as she remembered them, in their completely bloody glory. She stepped cautiously through the pulsating masses of flesh that she would normally lose her lunch to, keeping an eye out for the denizens of this land. She seemed alone for now, but she knew she would have to prepare for the worst.

One of the face monsters came charging down the hill at a breakneck speed, roaring out of its terrible, gaping maw. A few flying monsters started to circle Twilight, as if sizing her up before striking. Twilight was starting to rethink her decision to come here.

Looking behind her, Twilight realized she wouldn’t be able to go back the way she came, as evidenced by the army of monsters behind her. Her fight-or-flight instinct took over logic and she charged through the lone face monster in front of her, narrowly missing the lunges of the flyers. She attempted to jump over the monster, but it just had to jump at the same time, stopping her in her tracks. She swung her sword madly at the monster, just barely able to keep it from overtaking her. Twilight raced through its already fading flesh pile, jumping over the cavity that just so happened to be there, and raced over the first stone hill. The flyers were still after her, so she started throwing her boomerang back at them as she continued to run through the uneven terrain.

After what seemed like only a few moments, she could already see a second hill with another one of the cave entrances. Twilight couldn’t see any convenient way to get over it, so she ended up running into the cave and pulling out her pickaxe. She could hear monsters coming very close to her, so she started swinging as fast as she could. In was very unforgivably slow, however, and she couldn’t see cracks of any kind in the fleshy wall.

Come on, come on! The monsters were pretty much breathing down Twilight’s neck at this point. Let me through!

The wall didn’t even budge, and Twilight eventually gave up trying to destroy it. As she was about to accept her fate, she realized she could just teleport out. She got out her mirror and tried to use it as fast as she could, while still aware of the monstrous blood spiders swarming her. Her mirror just didn’t activate in time, and her face got bitten off.

Understandably, Twilight was pretty upset. As soon as she was able to calm down, she started going over what had happened. The caves were too tall to jump over, and the enemies too numerous to handle them efficiently.

Maybe her explosives could do something. Twilight had obtained a large amount of bombs from going spelunking, but had kept them in her chest to just forget them. Maybe they’d be more useful then she originally thought.

Of course it was Tartarus to get through that land again, but Twilight would like to think she was slightly more prepared.

Twilight made her way into the same cave she died in before. It was empty for now, but she knew it would fill up really quickly, at which point she’d most likely be dead again. She noticed she had a little stone in her inventory, so she decided to surround herself with it. But she was pretty sure the bombs would hurt her if she was too close to them. So, making sure not to let the bloodthirsty blood spiders get through to her, she expanded her little stone hideout until it very nearly blocked off the whole passageway. Then she rolled one of her bombs over to the far wall, expecting it to stop somewhere around there. What surprised her was when the bomb, without slowing down, made it to the other end of the platform, bounced off of the far wall, and slowly rested right in front of her. Then it exploded.

Twilight was starting to wonder if trying to dig through the wall was the wrong idea. Perhaps she should just risk the open air and make some platforms to jump up on. It was certainly risky, but Twilight didn’t really have anything to lose in this world.

Once again making her way back to the dreaded cave entrance, she attempted to place a platform above her. Of course she should have realized they couldn’t just hang in mid-air. Although it should be a simple-enough matter to make a base for the platforms somewhere in the cave, on which she could accomplish her mission. The snarling monsters behind her are probably, ultimately more important than the platforms, so she turned to face them. And then promptly got knocked into their awaiting mouths by the previously hidden spider.

Twilight sighed in frustration. And it was a very large sigh. Maybe she should just leave that place alone. Of course, given the mare she was, Twilight wouldn’t be Twilight if she just gave up! She went back yet again, and accidentally fell down a hole she had forgotten was there. And when she went back to patch that hole up, she was smacked into it by one of the silent flying things!

The pattern of Twilight dying continued for quite a while, before she FINALLY managed to scale the cliff. Twilight was afraid she might have been getting too angry to operate intelligently, but had just barely managed to accomplish the thing which was frustrating her.

Twilight made it to the other side of the Crimson lands and found herself in a small forest, which was like every other forest that existed, and was, ultimately, absolutely boring. She did find a chest, which happened to have climbing claws in it, completely nullifying Twilight’s need for platforms. At least, if she could figure out how to use them.

Eventually, something caught Twilight’s eye. It appeared to be a large, pinkish dungeon jutting out from the ground, with a figure in it. As she got closer, she realized the figure was an old man, with a faded grey coat and eerily red eyes. Twilight expected some sort of attack, but was pleasantly surprised when the figure just decided to aimlessly wander about.

"Hello?" She ventured.

"I cannot let you enter until you free me of my curse."

"Curse? I don't actually believe in curses..."

"My master cannot be summoned under the light of day."

Twilight understood now. "Oh! Your 'curse' is probably just having to defeat your 'master,' right?"

"I cannot let you enter until you free me of my curse."

Now she was confused. "I don't see any doors anywhere. Is your master inside?" Twilight walked toward the entrance into the dungeon tentatively. "Well, wherever he is, I will free you!" And so Twilight plunged into the darkness.

She didn't actually plunge, though; that would just kill her, which wouldn't be very useful. Instead, she tried to hug the jagged wall as best as she could, lighting the way with some torches she had. It shouldn't be too hard to-

Before Twilight knew what happened, a roaring, spinning skull flew out of the wall and smashed Twilight into a non-existent paste. And then night fell, bringing a blood moon with it. Yep, Twilight was probably going to have to resign herself to quite a lot of frustration.

Author's Note

A new chapter, at long last!

I will try to keep this story updated, but my life is deemed a lot more important than this story, which means I won't be able to update as much. I swear I will NOT forget this story!