Where You're Needed Most

Slowly, night turned to day, and even more slowly the ponies got to their feet and prepared to climb up the series of giant steps that lay before them. Sunny Rose was the first to rise, checking her pack to make sure nothing had been taken or damaged from it, and when she saw the tracks surrounding the camp, went to immediately awaken Weighted Words and Triple Blaze. "Guys, we're not alone."

"I could have told you that." Weighted Words replied, somewhat groggy.

"If we're not alone, we'd better get to someplace with cover." Triple Blaze said, pawing at the tracks with a hoof. The tracks were lizard-like in origin, four toes studded in tiny spikes or spines that dug right into the solid stone. Triple Blaze hated to think what could have made such a track. "I think there's a cave further up these steps; Weighted Words, can you..."

"One step ahead of you, as always." Weighted Words said. "But I can't levitate us all the way up. I'm still tired from using my magic yesterday, so let's find a more normal route up instead."

"Do you see where the next gravestone is?" Sunny Rose asked.

Weighted Words squinted, the telltale reddish-pink glow tough to see in the brightening daylight. "Far, far above us. If we pick and choose our path, I bet we can make it before lunchtime, though. There are piles of stones and rough paths leading from one of these steps to the next in some areas."

The three ponies headed out, and slowly began their climb up the many giant steps on the other side of the canyon that led closer and closer to the castle. It was not easy travel at all; twice the rocks grew unstable under their hooves and Weighted Words had to stop the makings of a possible avalanche, the further they climbed up the steps the more windy it got (and nearly blew Sunny Rose over on more than one occasion), and twice boulders were knocked loose by the wind from above and all of them had to dodge them as they fell.

"You need to improve your reaction time, slowpoke." Weighted Words said, using his magic to stop a boulder from coming down right on top of Triple Blaze. The big pony had leapt to the side to avoid one and had nearly jumped into the path of another.

"I don't have eyes in the back of my head." Triple Blaze said, looking at the boulder that Weighted Words froze in mid-air, then threw against the canyon wall as hard as he could before watching it fall down to the bottom of the canyon. There was an explosion of dirt and stone where he slammed it against the wall, and it collapsed, revealing a cave.

Weighted Words grinned. "But I do. It's how I knew that was there."

Triple Blaze and Sunny Rose looked at each other, and Sunny Rose just rolled her eyes with a smirk. They now had two ways to go, either up the steps, or into the cave. "Which way?"

"We should stay under cover. I didn't like the look of those tracks. There were too many of them. I say the cave Weighted Words smashed his way into." Triple Blaze said.

They were rewarded with Weighted Words levitating them across the canyon to where he'd smashed in the wall, the unicorn pretending to drop them before they landed at the cave "entrance". The cave ahead of them did not look natural, as it had bits and chunks cut out of it like somepony had been looking for something. A series of primitive lanterns had been hung from iron spikes set into the wall, lighting the path leading up and around. They had been there for a long long time, as the spikes were rusty and the glowing tree sap that was used for a light source was all but burnt out.

Weighted Words created another circle of light around them, and they began to go uphill through the cave. Along the way they passed by stalagmites populated by strange blue earthworms, a moss-covered room that seemed to be a breeding ground for sightless bugs, and an underground stream that flowed from the floor abruptly into the ceiling via a small field of reversed gravity (or so said Weighted Words). Sunny Rose had hollowed out several wooden tubes to store water in, and as she refilled them at the stream, heard something approaching.

"Do you hear that?" She asked, her ears perking forward and up.

Triple Blaze sniffed the air. "I hear them." It sounded like a group of creatures were headed down to the stream, and were making no effort to conceal their movements. "We should hide."

"Both of you, next to me." Weighted Words said, horn beginning to glow a pale yellow.

"What are you going to-- eep!" Sunny Rose said, before being grabbed by Weighted Words' telekinesis and pulled to his side.

The circle of light that Weighted Words had created to light their way visibly flowed up and around them, and then faded out taking them with it and rendering them effectively invisible. "Don't move. This spell is self-only and I had to tweak it to expand it so that it'd catch the two of you. It won't last long either, so let's hope whatever these things are don't stick around."

Not long thereafter, four large creatures came into view from further up the path and Sunny Rose had to hold her breath to avoid gasping. The creatures were ponies, but horribly deformed ponies; in place of hooves were claws each covered in tiny spikes that allowed them to climb on the walls and ceilings, strange moss green growths emerged from their flanks like long plantlike tentacles to slap either side of them, and in place of eyes were multiple tiny red orbs that shifted and moved as if suspended in some sort of jelly.

The ponies' bodies' were desiccated and rotting off of their frames; in some places the bones were clearly exposed and all three of them could see that in every instance, the femur bone was glowing with a reddish-pink radiance. Whatever these ponies were doing was a mockery of what they did in life; it took them several attempts to properly fill three stone buckets with water from the stream. They made no sound throughout the entire encounter.

Just as the last of the undead ponies disappeared down the hallway ahead of them, Weighted Words dropped the invisibility. "What the heck were those things?"

“Undead ponies.” Triple Blaze snorted.

“Thank you, captain obvious.” Weighted Words replied, re-establishing the circle of light.

The three of them continued, slower this time, along the cavern corridor. The further they made progress, the more they felt like something else was sharing the caverns. Twice Weighted Words brought the invisibility back up as some of the undead ponies were patrolling the tunnel, and after a couple of hours of slowly moving uphill and ducking into side tunnels to avoid the undead ponies, they emerged into a huge underground room lit by more of the primitive torches.

They were standing on a bridge that crossed the cavern close to its ceiling. Twenty feet below they could see that the room was covered wall to wall in undead ponies, all of which seemed to be standing at attention or as if waiting for something. Nothing made a sound, not even a muffled zombie growl or scraping of hoof against the stone floor of the cavern.

The only ponies doing anything were those they had seen earlier; they had dumped the water into a strange glowing stone carving. This carving was spraying mist all over the room, and where the droplets hit the ponies, the same reddish-pink glow blinked for a second or two. Once they had finished, they took up positions in the middle of the group, standing stock-still like the rest of them as the mist splashed them.

Across the bridge, Sunny Rose could see another cave opening, this one leading to a ladder made of wrought iron and just as rusty as the iron spikes they had encountered earlier on. “There... it looks like the way out.” She whispered.

Triple Blaze raised a hoof in a gesture to be quiet as he pointed down at the massive amount of undead ponies. “Look, down there and to the right. Is that...?” To the right and up against the cavern wall, six small raised stone steps led to what appeared to be seven gravestones, each with a pony chained to them. These ponies were not undead, from what Triple Blaze could see.

“The undead ponies are ignoring them. I wonder why?” Weighted Words said.

“We can't just leave them here, look at them! They're suffering!” Sunny Rose said.

Weighted Words shook his head. “I don't know.” His horn lit up gently. “Something's not right here.”

“Something hasn't been right the moment we arrived here, Weighted.” Triple Blaze said.

Weighted Words looked toward the ladder and then back down at the chained ponies. “All right, smart guy, what do you suggest we do? Jump into the fray? Those things will slaughter us!”

“They appear to be just waiting for something.” Sunny Rose said, then she perked up as an idea began to take hold. “Weighted, can you widen the stream we passed by a couple hours ago?”

“What are you planning to do, drown them?” Weighted Words replied, regarding her with a quizzical look. “They can't breathe, they're already dead.”

Sunny Rose pointed with a hoof down at the carving. “Yes, but look at the way the water splashes them after it goes through that carving. I'm thinking regular water might not have the same effect, whatever it is.”

“What are you planning to do?” Triple Blaze asked.

“Have Weighted Words widen the stream and lure some of them into it to see what happens.” Sunny Rose said. “If nothing happens, we can run back down and back out onto the steps and just start climbing again. I doubt they can fly and Weighted Words can levitate us back over.”

“Water's easier to levitate than you two.” Weighted Words said. “I can grab a few giant 'bubbles' of water and dump them down into the room, then in the chaos Triple Blaze can run down and break those chains. He's stronger than either of us and I doubt I could do it.”

“I'll go explore ahead, then.” Sunny Rose said. “I'll climb to the top of the ladder and have a look around to make sure it is safe.”

“Just be careful, Sunny.” Triple Blaze said.

“I will.” She trotted on ahead, slowly, looking down at the room below, then stopped abruptly in the middle of the bridge as it gave way beneath her hooves. She backed up to avoid falling down into the room, and where the chunks of the bridge hit the undead ponies, nothing happened. Some of the undead ponies had their bones snapped or heads caved in, but that didn't stop them from getting right back up and repositioning themselves in their original spots.

Triple Blaze pointed to the broken bits of the bridge on either side of them. “That's not natural. Look at the way the rock has fallen. It was set to go off like that.”

“So what do we do now?” Sunny Rose asked, looking back down at the ponies chained to the gravestones. One of them looked up and saw them, looking pained and about to cry. Sunny could see her pleading with her eyes to be rescued.

“All right, let's do this right.” Weighted Words said, turning to return to the stream, but Sunny Rose stopped him. The pony below that had seen them had mouthed the words “Don't go.” as the unicorn turned his back.

“Hey, can you hear us?” Triple Blaze called down, as quietly as he could without attracting attention from the undead masses below.

The other pony nodded. “These things won't harm you if you don't bother them first. You can come down from over there.” The other pony pointed toward a spiral stone staircase to the left of where Triple Blaze was standing. “The sixth and fourteenth steps are traps. Step over them.”

Before long the group had clambered down the staircase and moved on the outside wall of the room in order to reach the gravestones and chained up ponies. Sunny Rose read the inscriptions of the gravestones to herself while Triple Blaze looked back at the horde of undead and Weighted Words went to work breaking the chains with his horn.

“What is going on here?” asked Sunny Rose, looking back at the undead.

The pony who had seen them, a young mare with a smooth orange-beige coat and dim violet eyes, sighed a bit. “The master is establishing an army. We were to power the mindless horde here. The water strengthens the spell used to hold them in place until he gathers enough innocent souls to form a giant undead beast.”

“The master?” Triple Blaze asked.

“Let me guess, Silent Eagle.” Weighted Words snorted.

The other pony looked away, embarrassed.

Sunny Rose glanced at Weighted Words for a moment, then looked at the other ponies that were chained up. “Who are you and your friends?”

“We're the original six who banished him.” The other pony replied. “Don't bother freeing them, their wills are gone and they are slaves to the master. I don't give up, for anything, so I still have my mind. Unfortunately my friends Three Strikes, High Jump, Mint Lime, Golden Sky and Rumble Brawn here are all...”

“That's terrible!” Sunny Rose stepped forward to give the other mare a hug, but she phased right through her as if she were a ghost.

“He took my body. You can see it in the mass of undead there.” The pony pointed with a hoof, where they could see what was left of her body standing stock still in position. In life, whomever she was had been very attractive, but in undeath it was horrible. Most of her ribs were exposed, both eyes were gone (but not replaced with the jelly-like orbs), her tail had been ripped clean off and half of her backbone was covered in bony spikes sheathed in iron. “I am just a spirit, a mental echo. I can see you from both over there, and here. I can't move from that spot under my own power.”

“What about wrecking the carving?” Triple Blaze asked.

Weighted Words shook his head. “Near as I can tell, that's what's holding them in place.”

“Correct, so you'll have a horde of angry undead lashing out at you in no time at all.” The spirit pony looked down at her hooves, ashamed of herself. “We banished Silent Eagle as a joke, but never imagined he'd get back at us for doing so.”

“What did he do?” Weighted Words asked, getting annoyed. His obnoxious sarcasm was one thing, but deliberately hurting ponies was something he wouldn't normally dream of doing.

“He projected an image of himself back to us, which we thought was the real thing.” The spirit pony replied. “He got us to chase him into the Everfree where he had an ambush waiting, then he banished -us- to where we had sent -him- and he began to drain our willpower and spirit. We were each promised freedom if we completed a specific task, but none of us managed to do it.”

“Somehow I don't think he would have kept his end of the bargain.” Triple Blaze snorted, slamming his hoof down on some of the chains. He managed to free each pony one at a time, but the only one who stirred or moved from their spot was the spirit pony they were speaking with.

“Do you know how to get out of here?” Sunny Rose asked. “We came in through a hole Weighted Words punched into the rock.”

The spirit pony looked up at the broken bridge. “Across the bridge leads to a large chamber sealed from above. It contains a giant animated stone sphinx that requires its riddles be answered before passage can be obtained. If you go back out the way you came in, you might be ambushed by more of these ponies roaming the area; this isn't the only room with a large horde that the master has.”

“How cliché.” Weighted Words said. “What's after that?”

“Anypony that managed to break the hold the master has on us (rare, but I've seen it happen) could not pass the sphinx because one needs a mind to think of answers and our minds are all but gone. Above that room is just another ladder leading straight to Fluffikins' nest in a forest at the top of the canyon after you pass a few more chambers holding more hordes like this one.”

Everypony stopped and looked at each other and said the same thing at the same time. “Fluffikins?”

The spirit pony looked down again. “The remains of the souls of my friends here mostly went into that abominable creation. It's a giant undead gryphon about ten ponies tall, sheathed in iron, bristling with necromantic magic and can spit wicked green and black flames.”

“How did he get so many ponies?” Sunny Rose turned to look at what had been the spirit pony's body in life.

“He fragmented our souls. Each tiny fragment went into a twisted 'copy' of our bodies, with no two bodies being the same.” The spirit pony replied. “I resisted, because that's what just what I do. Nopony can make me do anything.” She motioned to her flank where her cutie mark, a bright blue square metal shield surrounded by crisscrossing swords, was faintly glowing against her skin. “My name's Chalcedony Chalice.”

“I'm Sunny Rose, and these are my friends Triple Blaze and Weighted Words. Is there any way we can release you?” Sunny Rose asked.

“Besides destroying the master? No.” Chalcedony looked down at her hooves.

“What was your task?” Weighted Words asked.

Chalcedony sighed. “I simply had to open a door, but the door had a magical lock on it. I'm just an earth pony, I have no talent in magic.”

“Enough grilling her.” Triple Blaze snorted. “Let's get out of here. Can you come with us, Chalcedony?”

“I can, but I can't really help you.” Chalcedony replied. “Well... maybe I can. I have a photographic memory; I know the easiest route to the master's castle. He keeps a number of wards on it that I memorized him casting. He's not expecting anypony to directly challenge him; If you brazenly break down his front door, it might give him pause enough for you to get the drop on him.”

The ponies left the area with Chalcedony in tow, the spirit pony explaining a lot of things about the island. When he had first arrived, Silent Eagle had mined out several large holes or caves and chambers for undead storage. Originally he was going to use them to hold his 'experiments' but when he found a way to raise an undead army from a limited amount of souls, he decided to get his revenge on Ponyville.

“All this? In just over what, a decade or two?” Weighted Words had asked; Silent Eagle was still in the minds of some ponies, but he had rapidly faded out of public conversation since his banishment to the Everfree. It was not that long ago at all that the event occurred.

Chalcedony explained that Silent Eagle had used his evil magic to contact something evil known only as “The Corona”. Whatever this thing was had lent him a considerable portion of its power, and now he was using that power to empower himself enough to get back at Ponyville and all of the other cities of Equestria. Chalcedony didn't know whether his true goal was sacrifice everything to The Corona, destroy everything just because he could out of spite, or something more sinister than that. They had emerged back at the hole Weighted Words had made, and as Weighted Words levitated them back to the giant steps, Chalcedony simply walked on air as if it were solid ground.

“Show off.” Weighted Words smirked. For the first time since they'd met, Sunny Rose saw Chalcedony smile.

“Where to?” Triple Blaze asked.

“Go straight up the steps and we will come to three paths. If we're to take the most direct path, we'll want the middle one.” Chalcedony said. “I'll float up and scout ahead, please be careful down here while you're climbing. There are roving bands of undead ponies wandering the cliffs here that have orders to kill all living beings.”

The group nodded and continued their long and difficult climb, Weighted Words rolling boulders out of the way as they made their way up. At one point they came to another false grave, and Weighted Words yelled considerably at it for a good ten minutes before causing the stone to shatter. They could almost sense true malevolence coming from the stone before it broke.

“Next time, I'm bringing holy water, stakes, salt, and about twenty other anti-evil tokens.” Weighted Words remarked, kicking sand on the remains of the stone.

At the top of the giant steps, the group stopped to catch their breath. Chalcedony had been correct in that there were three paths leading on ahead; the left one went into a larger cave, while the right one curled back down and around to another series of cliffs leading back down into the canyon. The path straight ahead of them led into a dark overgrown forest that reminded Sunny Rose of the Everfree, only this forest was an even darker, twisted mockery.

Chalcedony pointed at some of the trees. “Be careful here, we'll have to pass Fluffikins' nest; the cavern tunnels lead straight up into the forest here.” Chalcedony said. “If we're seen or have to deal with the gryphon, keep it guessing and trying to focus on one target; it can't hit us if it can't track us. You'll know when we're getting close to the nest.”

“The trees become more twisted?” Triple Blaze asked.

“No,” Chalcedony replied. “You'll see the corpses.”

Sunny Rose and Weighted Words looked at one another before following Chalcedony into the forest.

“You keep calling Silent Eagle the 'master'. That implies he can control you.” Triple Blaze said.

Chalcedony shook her head. “My talent is to resist; he would be unsuccessful. He kept me chained down there with my friends hoping I'd lose my mind by my own decision in sorrow, but I am not going to ever give up.” She adopted a stronger-looking stance, looking fierce. “If we can break his staff, we can free my friends and they can come running. He won't survive against all of us.”

Triple Blaze didn't sound convinced. “If you can resist everything he throws at you, why didn't you break out of his chain down there and go up yourself?”

Chalcedony shuddered. “He keeps things in the castle that eat souls. I'm resistant, not stupid.”

Sunny Rose turned back to look behind her; the trip up the steps had consumed most of the day and the sun was beginning to go down. “We should camp before going through the forest. Any bright light we put up to see by will only attract things we don't want to attract.”

“We need to keep moving. The sooner we get there the sooner we can smack him around.” Chalcedony said, a slight growl entering her voice.

“Unlike you, we get tired.” Weighted Words said. “I also need to relax and recharge my magic again.”

Chalcedony shuddered slightly. “I haven't been able to rest since he caught us.”

Triple Blaze winced. “Good point, spirits locked to the material world can't usually rest...”

“Don't lose your mind over this.” Weighted Words said.

Chalcedony shook her head from side to side and re-centered herself. “Sorry about that, I kind of felt a little bit of anger building up.” She floated upward to get a look over the treetops, then flew down to land next to Sunny Rose. Even as a ghost, she was leaving hoof prints in the dirt.

“Those leaves don't look edible.” Sunny Rose observed. “If they're anything like what I saw down below, this is going to be a difficult trip. I'm running out of edible leaves and such I brought with me from before the canyon.” She was going to say more, but as she turned to look back over the canyon below, a large shadow loomed over them; something very large was trying to use the setting sun as blinding cover for a diving attack.

Chalcedony's eyes widened. “It's Fluffikins! Run! Into the forest!”

As the giant creature dove toward them, it stalled in the air for a minute while Chalcedony and Sunny Rose bolted into the forest with Triple Blaze hot in pursuit. Weighted Words was frozen with surprise for a few seconds, looking at the giant creature. It was indeed a gryphon, but it had been built from the bones and skins of countless ponies.

He could make out the remains of fifteen or sixteen different individual cutie marks, nearly rotted off. Its beak was composed of several spines, fashioned and intertwined into a hooked shape like that of an eagle's beak. Its wings were rotten webs of skin, with several holes and tears that made him wonder how it could stay airborne. Its tail was alight with greenish black flames, and its skull had been built out of interlocking pony skulls with its eye sockets wreathed in reddish-pink flame.

“Weighted! Run for it!” Sunny Rose called.

Weighted Words was still paralyzed in place, looking up into the body of the gryphon as it dived closer and closer. Its ribs clicked open and closed like a separate mouth, and one could see multiple ponies in the same condition as Chalcedony being held within. He mused that they were the remains of her friends as well as search parties; there were way too many ponies in its ribcage.

Fluffikins stalled in midair in front of Weighted Words and opened its beak, spitting out a blast of green and black flames that seemed to scorch the very air around them, leaving fine soot in its wake. Triple Blaze bolted out at top speed and grabbed Weighted Words a split second before the ball of fire hit the ground, its impact throwing them both ahead into the forest next to Sunny Rose. The gryphon landed and pawed the ground, with its bony, iron-sheathed talons leaving deep gashes in the rock.

“Follow me! We run to its nest!” Chalcedony said. “I have a way to beat it, but we need to get to its nest!”

“I hate showing up for dinner unannounced.” Weighted Words grumbled, shaking off the surprise he'd had from watching the giant bird. “Especially when that dinner might be me.”

Triple Blaze looked up at Chalcedony, who was motioning for them to follow her. “You want us to what? Last I checked, we want to go as far away as possible from this thing... not to its very home!”

“Do the undead even have homes?” Weighted Words asked.

“Just trust me! Now RUN!” Chalcedony called.

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Next: I'm not entirely sure, since this chapter deviated from my plot so extremely. The characters absolutely fought hoof and horn against my original plot (which is why I'm not satisfied at all with this chapter), so we'll have to see. :)