Forbidden Land

Pinkamena closed Mane's notebook while he finished cleaning her pistols and reloading them.

"Seems griffins have bad fame since those ages." Pinkamena commented.

"Yeah. They have a big historic of war." Mane grumbled. "I hate griffins..."

"They are really arrogant and bad tempered." Pinka added. "They look even more shinny." She looked at the pistols in the rock table.

"You must keep a good maintenance of your weapons." Mane got up stretching his his legs from the squatting position.

"Should we keep moving? I want to see this dinning hall."

"Why not? I feel like exploring even more." Mane smiled, picking his backpack.

They walked around in the dark halls at the lights of the torch and magic. Checking the engravings of sorrow that civilization endured. Pony dwarfs burning or being massacred by elephants. It was weird how such low height ponies have carved such place fit to a normal pony, giving that a dwarf pony's max height was by a pony's stomach. Even stranger when the diary sounded like a nice start but not what the engravings were saying at all.

"Here." Said Mane, pointing the magic light at a open door showing eight rock tables and thrones.

"Everything is made of stone." Pinkamena observed.

"It was their main resource, giving they lived in mountains."

"If this is the dinning room, means the food stocks aren't far away." Pinka spotted a rock door. "There?"

They opened the door and destroyed barrels littered the place everywhere and some of them burned down leaving only the metal strands that held the wooden boards together.

"It stinks here!" Mane complained covering his muzzle, but Pinkamena didn't mind.

"I'm not surprised. The food has rotten away but the way this room was closed, seems the stench took possession." Pinkamena saw in the weak light some barrels in a corner, all still intact. "Look!"

"Go get It. I can't enter in there..." Mane squeezed his muzzle harder so the smell would stop on his head.

Pinkamena entered with her torch and lay the barrel on the smooth floor and rolled It to the dinning hall. Mane turned his fist into crystal and punched It's top open, and the smell of alcohol filled their lungs.

"Oh my... how strong is this?" Pinkamena asked a bit dizzy.

"Only one way to find out!" Mane dived a hand in the liquid and took to his mouth. "Woa! Shiiit! This thing is strong!" Mane laughed.

"How strong?"

"Doesn't get to the level of a Crystal Vodka but It's almost there. I think this is dwarven whiskey." Mane thought for a moment. "Maybe It's made of mushrooms, which is an art lost in time."

"An art lost with It's own civilization..." Pinkamena sighed, looking at the torch's fire dying slowly. "Wait." Pinkamena took a bit of the ancient drink in her hand and spilled on the floor, then took the torch to the puddle and It blazed instantly and kept burning for some time. "Perfect!" She smiled.

"What are you gonna do?" Mane asked.

"Wait and see!" She giggled, going to the food and drink stockpile and returning with a wooden plank of a destroyed barrel. "Grab this." Pinkamena passed her torch to Mane, and she searched her backpack for a rolled bandage. She rolled the piece of medical equipment around the board and dived It into the booze barrel. As soon she touched the soaked cloth in the torch, the thing exploded into fire without harming them, giving even more light than the previous torch. She looked at Mane with a smile, but his expression was of a terrified stallion as if he saw a ghost. "Are you okay?" She asked worried.

"N-no..." He babbled.

"What happened?" She asked again.

"It's like... as soon your new torch caught fire, I heard screams in my head. Screams of pain and terror."

"Are you sure?" She raised an eyebrow.

"So sure like just like I'm seeing you now." Mane looked to the sides nervous. "I don't like this place, let's go." He requested.

"Fine..." Pinkamena sighed.

They kept walking and eventually found the bedrooms. They were squares of two meters, all with rock doors and most of them without beds or anything. One of them at one small bed fitted for a dwarf pony, made of wood and the mattress were bags of straw along with the pillow and a rock chest without anything inside. That was the most complete one they could find.

"So tiny, but the room is rather... big?" Mane looked around.

"Only for a dwarf pony, but such space is still not good for a living." Pinkamena commented.

"Indeed. At least there's no engravings of elephants or dwarfs burning..." Mane sighed in relief.

"Look at this!" Pinkamena got up from the floor after grabbing something under the bed. "Another book!" She announced happily.

"Another diary?" Mane wondered, looking at the wooden cape decorated with gold. "I'll translate."

Sitting in the small bed, Pinkamena observed Mane's magic translating the whole thing with his magic flowing through the ancient diary and his notebook. Moments later, he finished while she opened a can of fruit and started eating.

"I'll read this one." Said Mane.