~3~
From Bad, To Worse

========================================

~Inside The Temple~

James ducked his head, passing under a fallen pillar of stone as he walked through the passageway of the temple. As he exited from under the debris, he stood to his full height and waved the flashlight around nonchalantly, not really expecting to find anything in the worn out tunnel.

Finding nothing of interest, the young Drake continued his journey through the dark passage. It startled him a bit when the door closed behind him but some part of him expected that after visiting other temples. The good news is that this wasn't his first time, he could clearly remember the first time he got locked in a temple with his sister. She had to slap him in the face hard when he wouldn't calm down.

James chuckled at the memory that played in his head, if was frightening at first but now it was something to laugh about. After hearing the door to this temple closed, he had continued his descent down the stairs. Eventually he reached a single passage at the bottom and continued on his way with nothing else in mind. It had been a few minutes of walking down the path that had some open rooms on the sides with nothing in them, and some that had collapsed.

During his boring walk, he would sometimes enter an open room where the main path would turn or go down somewhere else which lead him to where he is now.

James sighed tiredly as he took a sip of water from the bottle he had in his pack. He had been walking for what felt like hours with nothing new but a few side rooms and some other passageways that had collapsed.

As he continued to walk, he came to a wall that split the path in two ways. One going to the left and the other going to the right.

Flashing his flashlight each way, the boy took out the leather book and began reading its pages with the flashlight. Not finding anything that could be helpful yet, he looked around himself to find anything that would give him a clue. He couldn't find anything leading down the paths, but he did see some strange writing on the wall in front of him. Walking up to the wall, he studied the writing and looked back down at the book. Turning a few pages, he arrived to some new ones that he made. One these pages were some notes and useful messages to anything that he would need to remember.

On one page was a long line of the many symbols and writings that were on the older pages and under them were letters and small writings that told him what they meant according to his knowledge.

James checked the book up and down before looking back at the writing on the wall. As he looked at the writing, he took out the notebook and pencil from his pouch and wrote down the words that were on the wall and began deciphering them.

After some hard thinking, James put a hand on his hip as he held the books with the deciphered words on it. He casted a few glances back and forth until he read the saying out loud.

“A path, chosen correctly, shall lead to Harmony.”

The young boy raised an eyebrow at the sentence and looked back and forth between the left and right path. Not really having any clue as what to do, he looked back down at the rest of the sentence.

“Do not stray away, for the aid of Harmony, shall lead your way.”

James seemed to become more confused and worried. He would have to choose this correctly or one of the wrong paths could lead him to a terrible demise.

With nothing coming to mind, he took his freed hand and leaned against the wall. He became surprised when he felt a gentle hum from the wall and quickly pulled away from it. He stared at it a bit and then at his hand.

Eyeing the wall again, he slowly reached out and touched it, immediately feeling that hum again. James took this as a way to find the path and looked back and forth again. In his mind, he could feel something telling him to go left. Turning to the left path, he pursued his lips in thought before giving a slight shake of his head and took his first step in that direction.

He suddenly stopped in his tracks before his hand could even leave the wall. He could feel the hum on the wall become more noticeable as if it was telling him that that was the wrong choice. Turning around he looked down the right path and sighed. The hum seem to become more gentle as he looked down the right path.

Shaking his head, he put the books and the pencils in their respectable places before flashing his light down the right path.

“God help me if I made the wrong choice.”

Taking a tentative step forward, he began a slowly walk down the path that may or may not lead him to his death. As he began to walk slowly down the path, he carefully looked around the walls, ceiling, and floors, looking for anything that stuck out. He stopped his flashlight in front of him when he saw the the path seemed to go down like a stair case. Raising an eyebrow, he walked the rest of the way until his thoughts were confirmed that it was indeed a stair case.

Quickly looking behind him for anything that might have jumped out, he directed his gaze back to the stairs before taking a deep breath.

“Down we go.”

With some speed in his step, James began his descent down the steps into god knows where. Silently, he asked himself if he took the right path and if he did, where it would lead him.

He didn't have to ask for long as he saw a faint, orange glow at, what looked like, the end of the stair case. Picking up his pace slightly, James went down the rest of the stairs until his eyes widened at what he had entered.

Before him was a large room. Nothing was special since most of its walls were nothing but dirt with some stones or bricks in it, indicating that this room was covered in them once before age wore it down. Some torches however, lit the large room casting it in a glow, but not enough for James to see clearly so he still had to keep his flashlight on.

However, that's not what made his eyes become wide in amazement. What made them widen was the large double doors on the other side of the room that were entirely made of pristine oak wood, with gold outlines on them. One of the large doors was closed while the other was open just enough for James to see that it was blocked off by debris but from where he was standing he couldn't really know for sure so he shrugged it off for now as his eyes took in the rest of the room.

On the sides of the two doors, were two, very large anthropomorphic pony statues. The one on the right had its top half gone, only leaving the bottom portion. The left still had its body, but its arms and what looked like a horn on its head were missing.

James stared with amazement and awe at the two ten foot statues that stood almost to the ceiling before him. Casting his glance down slightly, he saw the floor between him and the doors was divided by a drop. Walking forward while taking in the sites of the room, he arrived at the sudden and drop and looked down to see nothing but black darkness. Not even his flashlight could fight it away, it was like a black hole that just sucked it in.

The adventurer looked at the other side and knew that he couldn't jump that, but he did see in the middle of the long drop, was some stone jutting out of the side which probably acted like a bridge. Walking over to it, he studied it with a critical eye while using one foot to test its sturdiness. The small path didn't reach to the other side, only leaving a few feet of space that dropped down below, but it was long enough for James to get a running start to jump the rest of the way.

Having that in mind, James put some more weight on the rock and waited for anything to shift or jerk. When nothing happened he took a step forward, and another, and another.

He soon saw himself in the middle of the stretch of stone and gave a satisfied hum. Said satisfaction was short lived when the path jerked with a rumble forcing him to run back to the side he came from.

When he turned back towards the path, he just caught a glance of it dropping into the darkness with a few bangs and booms. After hearing it hit the walls a few times, everything in the room went silent, indicating that it was still falling or it stopped.

A disappointed, yet relieved sigh escaped the Drake who looked around for another way over. His eyes caught the sight of cracks and small ledges on the wall that led to the giant statue that was still intact. Not feeling patient whatsoever, he went over to the ledges and began to shimmy across them.

As he continued, he made sure that he went up slightly so he could climb the statue. The doors -from what he could see now- were definitely blocked off by large debris on the other side, so there was no way through them. However, there was a small hole above the doors that he could fit through but it was about eight feet off the ground. So the ten foot statue was the only thing that could probably get him through it and onto the other side of the doors.

As the boy continued to climb, he didn't pay attention to where his hands were going and grabbed a false ledge. Cracks reached his ears as the ledge gave out causing him to fall with a startled yell. He was able to save himself when he quickly grabbed the spike at his belt and jammed it into the dirt, immediately stopping his long fall into the darkness.

James gave a few shaky breaths through his nose as he chuckled a bit and looked down into the darkness. “Eh-heh, now wasn't that just exciting.”

With a few more breaths, James looked around until he spotted another ledge he could continue climbing with. With a few swings back and forth, he launched his body while quickly jerking the spike out of the wall and grabbing on to the ledge.

With a shout of accomplishment, he continued his ascent up the wall and up to the statue. When he reached the waste line of the statue, he used cracks and anything that stood out, allowing him to climb its large stone body. James was so focused on climbing that he didn't notice where his left hand was until he felt it hit something round.

Looking at his right hand he saw that he was grabbing a stoney breast which cause his gaze to look at the face that was looking slightly down. James would call his eyes playing tricks on him but the statue almost look like it was glaring at him.

Slowly staring at the statue for a while, James used its stoney breasts to hoist himself up until he arrived at its neck. Still looking at the statue, he gave a small nod of his head.

“Sorry uh,” taking a pause he looked at a stone necklace around the statue’s neck that looked like a sun, “Celestia, just needed to use your bosom to hoist myself up.”

After saying his unseeded apology to a statue that wasn't even alive, James climbed the rest of the way up until he was on its left shoulder, which was closest to the hole near the double doors.

The hole only reach the chest level of the statues which would make it difficult for him to climb to it. Looking above it, he could just make out a ledge for him to put his grapple hook into and swing over to the hole. With that in mind, he took out his grapple and began swinging it around until he had the right momentum.

When the amount of momentum was met, he let it soar to the small ledge and watched it anchor itself in place. Making sure it would hold, he swung away from the statue and to the hole. With a grunt, he latched on to the opening and hoisted himself up and situated himself into a comfortable position. Letting his grapple come loose, the treasure hunter began to reel it back to him.

Turning around to face the other side of the hole with his grapple back on his belt, James eyes widen as he gave a whistle of awe. Letting himself down, he used the crackers and debris against the doors to let himself down to the ground safely. When his feet were on solid rock, he put his hands on his hips and gave another whistle.

“Well ain't this just something else.”

Before him was another open room but a whole lot bigger. From what James could tell, the roof reached up to maybe thirteen feet while the room itself was big enough to fit 10 cars, front to back, going from the left side to the other.

The room fared much better than the previous ones as not much of it was destroy. Large stone pillars that were still intact lined a single path going up to what looked like an altar of some kind. James counted about eight of them on either with large torches of fire in between them that lit the room fairly well. Switching his flashlight off and setting it in his pocket, the room was indeed well lit enough for him to see.

Studying the room a little more, James saw behind the large pillars, small fountains with no water in them, along with statues of anthro ponies beside them that were surprisingly still intact.

As the Drake looked around the room, he brought a hand to his chin as thoughts began to cloud his head.

‘Ok, this is pretty cool but I have a few questions. One is how are these torches still lit? This temple has been here for god knows how long and yet they look like someone just lit them or something. Hmm, maybe they were self activated or something when I entered the temple.’

Dropping his hand, the young man approached one of the torches and studied it with a critical gaze. His eyes narrowed as he continued to study it yet, didn't really know what he was looking for.

With a shrug he looked at the statues that seemed to still be intact. As a matter of fact, they didn't even look like the years have even touched them. The only indication that they were old, was the worn down stone and few cracks that adorned them.

‘Which brings another question, how are these things looking like they are about ten to fifteen years old when the other two looked they were centuries old?’

A finger scratched the boy’s head as he tried to figure out how this was possible. From what he had seen outside of this room, this temple could very well be a millennia old or probably more than that. Yet in this very room, everything looked like it wasn't any more than ten years of age.

The boy huffed loudly as he shook his head. ‘I won't worry about it for now, this room still has some things to show me.’

Clearing anymore thoughts from his head, he walked away from the torch and towards the very end of the room that seems to have a bit more, interesting things to look at.

The walk wasn't very long as approached the end of the room. James couldn't help but quickly fumble the notebook and pencil out and right down notes and pictures as to what he was seeing.

The platform he now stood on was flat. In the middle, there looked to be some very large runes in the middle with writing around them. On the far wall in front of him, was a image of a very large tree with the same image of the six gems. However, instead of them being stone images, they were actual gems, yet they seemed to be dim and have no type of color. Almost like they were lifeless.

James kept walking towards the runes with a frozen look of wonder on his face. He stopped directly in the middle of the runes as he looked at the large tree with the six gems on it. As he continued to study it, he could see writing at the bottom of the tree and squinted his eyes to see what it said.

“The…..re-.....Free- no wait….The Tree of…..Harmony.”

His eyes opened up a little more, as he looked back at the tree with newfound excitement. “Tree of Harmony huh, well ain't that just a beaut.”

Looking back down at his notebook, he wrote down the name of the tree under the image he drew. Putting the bundle of pages away, he took the time to study the runes. They weren't anything special except for the fact that they were huge. Looking down at his feet he could clearly see small writing going in a circle. Kind of reminded him of Lord of The Rings for some reason.

Still mesmerizing the runes below, he took out the leather book and flipped a few pages until he came to an old drawing of what closely resembled the room he was in. As his eyes scanned the pages, he quickly looked back around the room with wonder.

“So this room was some sort of….ritual of some kind, but what kind of ritual?” The boy asked himself as his voice echoed in the large room. Looking down at his feet, he studied the writing and flipped to his, deciphering page and began to line up the letters.

“To whom that has seeked the new path to harmony….bring about these six tasks to find it…..”

As James continued to read the small rhyme of words on the ground, unknown to him, was that the tree on the wall began to glow a small white hue that reached out to the six gems.

“To bring the smiles of Laughter….”

As those words echoed around the large space, a blue glow went around the respectable gem as the others waited patiently.

“To give Generosity…..” Then a green gem.

“To bring acts of great Kindness and undoubtable Loyalty….” Then a pink and red gem.

“To always tell the truth and bring Honesty…..” An orange gem.

“And to spread the Magic of….Friendship and Harmony?”

Lastly, a purple gem glowed as did the tree which brought bright light to the wall that James was mindlessly ignoring as he confusingly eyed the last words of the sentence. Just the way those last words were said made it seem like it was written by a little girl or something.

‘These were some strange people.’

Putting the leather book back in his pouch he turned back to the tree and reeled back in surprise when he saw them all glowing. James breathed in sharply as he took in the beautiful sight before him. It was truly magnificent to see something that looked lifeless, now looked full of life and color. With a big goofy and dumb smile on his face, James reached into his pocket and took out his phone.

“Well, Sully did say he wanted pictures.”

Turning around he held the phone in front of him and smiled to the camera as he flipped it to a selfie. Adjusting it so the tree was perfectly behind him he took the picture and flipped the camera back around to take more.

However, James didn't get that the chance as a loud boom echoed around the room along with a gentle hum, startling the young Drake. Looking around quickly with alert eyes, James put his phone away and took out the revolver, expecting thugs to come out of the walls.

That didn't happen however as he felt a slight hum around hum. It was the same gentle hum that he had felt before he took the right path in the passageways. Instead of it going through his arm, he could feel it flowing through his body causing him to turn back to the tree. Vape like appendages came off the tree as it seemed to radiate power and glow brightly.

A flash of light cause his gaze to quickly look down at the runes with his weapon raised. He slowly lowered it when he noticed the lines of the runes glowing a soft rainbow color. The lines gradually started to become brighter forcing the Treasure hunter to look away.

A rumble sounded around the temple forcing the young Drake to look around with frightened eyes while the hum coming from the tree seemed to become louder.

“Ok, I think it's high time I leave now!”

With that in mind he quickly left the center of the runes and began to quickly make his way towards the doors. He didn't get far when his face was struck with pain, forcing him to stumble back. With confusion and slight fear in his eyes, he pressed his hand forward and became surprised when a purple like wall showed itself when his hand neared it. Panic struck him as he put both hands on the purple wall that had locked him inside and started to hit it with all his strength.

"The hell is this magic shit?!"

His results weren't satisfying as the wall didn't even break or even show cracks from his hits forcing the young Drake to look for a way out. Finding nothing, he quickly raised the revolver again and took aim at the invisible purple wall. Not waiting for a second, he felt the kick back of the weapon as he fired it at the magical cage. Dread clearly showed on his face when the bullet bounced off the wall into a bent heap of metal.

Cursing loudly, he looked back at the tree with fear stricken eyes as he tried to take deep breathes.

“Alright, alright James, just calm down, everything is going to be fine, just calm- AHH!”

His effort to calm himself was short lived when he saw a huge chunk of the ceiling fall towards him. He quickly covered his head with his arms and hands and waited for the large rocky chunk to crush him under its weight. James started to become confused as he quickly looked up to see that the chunk was stopped by the purple wall, being nothing but large rocks now.

His attention didn't linger for long as the hum got louder and the gems began to form a rainbow like ball in front of them. His eyes widen as it continued to grow bigger and hang right above the runes, causing the temple to rumble more.

“I am one, dead, mother fuc-” His words were quickly drowned out as the rainbow ball shot a beam directly into the runes, encasing his entire body in a bright light.

Outside, the top of the temple glowed with the same light as it sent a rainbow shockwave, scaring the shit out of the nearby wildlife. Eventually the glow stopped and all became quiet again.

Inside the temple, the light show began to die down as the tree and six gems dimmed down to their lifeless look again. In the middle of the runes, smoke emitted from the lines as the hum dyed down. As the smoke cleared, it was clear that something was missing from the middle of these runes.

And that was the missing form of a young Drake.

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~Time, Unknown~

~Location, Unknown~

In the middle of a dark and very dense forest, lied a temple. Said temple started to form light at its tip as it made a rainbow like shockwave. Just as quickly as the shockwave came, it disappeared into thin air.

Inside the temple in a large open room, a form groaned as it began to come back to the world of the living. The large formed picked itself up as it brought a hand to its head to rub out the headache it was getting.

James groaned again as his head throbbed with pain. At first, he thought he was gonna die to a freakin light show inside an ancient temple that no one had ever seen before. Instead of pain though, he felt a warm feeling as his body seemed to get lifted up from the ground and shot off in different directions. James wouldn't be able to explain it further as he passed out during the little field trip and now was awake with a painful migraine.

“Fuck...that hurts.” Were the first words that left his mouth as he stood up. Opening his eyes slightly, he saw that he was still in the room. Looking back at the tree, he could see that the gems and tree were back into their lifeless state like he first saw them.

Shaking his head he slowly began to walk away from the runes. Before he fully left, he reached a hand out and waved it around, checking to see if the purple wall was still their. When nothing stopped his advance, he fully stepped out of the runes and made his way to the doors.

“Ok...first, I need to get some damn pills for my head and then a nice bed for me to sleep in. That shit was too weird for me.”

Coming to the doors, he pushed on one of them, slowly opening it.

James immediately stopped in his tracks as he looked at the doors that were missing the tall tale signs of debris blocking it. Call him crazy, but he could have sworn that these doors were blocked off by huge chunks of rock. Looking up, his eyebrows raised in confusion as he saw no hole at the top of the doors.

“What the what?”

Slowly, he opened the door as he eyed them with a critical gaze. Poking his head out, his eyes opened wide to the point that they threatened to fall out of his head.

“Mother of christ….”

Before him was not the same room that he had first entered before going into the ritual room as he was going to call it. Instead of there being one entrance that he came through, there were multiple entrances that lead different ways with lit torches leading down to god knows where. With his mouth open in complete bafflement, the boy looked at his right to see the Celestia statue. Completely intact.

With an audible gulp, his gaze turned to the left seeing something that caused him to freeze.

There on the right side of the doors, was the statue of Luna. But it wasn't just the bottom portion. It was EVERYTHING. The top half was completely there with arms, wings, horn, and all.

Looking back and forth between the statues, he started to wobble a bit as his body threatened to faint from all the shock he was receiving from this new room.

“Where the hell…”

His words died in his throat as he heard echoes of other voices. His confusion and bafflement soon became realization and anger.

“Mother fucker!”

Taking out his revolver again, he began to make his way across the bridge which he eyed confusingly as it was completely intact but shook it off as he followed the voices. Entering through the hallway that the echoes seemed to be coming from, his thoughts began to make scenarios as to what happened.

‘Ok, magical shit happens and I get blinded by that light. While I'm blinded, something or someone starts throwing me around so that I'm disoriented and drugs me to knock me unconscious, either that or they hit me which would explain the migraine. Anyway, after that they dragged me to some other temple or did something and now I'm here.’

Stopping in his tracks, he backtracked towards the voices as he took a wrong turn. ‘Either way, if this is some stupid cult or something and I'm some sort of sacrifice then I'm gonna blow some heads off.’

After taking another turn down the maze of hallways, he could hear the voices more clearly as an open space started to approach. When he exited the narrow passage, he could see from the top of a staircase, a large room that echoed of the two mysterious voices and some growls.

The two voices consisted that of a male and a female arguing with each other as the growls sounded like animals.

Shaking his head, he went to the edge of the stairs and glared at the people who probably brought him here. His glare quickly turned to shock and disbelief as to what he saw. What he saw just wasn't possible and just couldn't be real as he looked at the two arguing figures below.

As he continued to stare, only one thought came to his head that he formed in words.

“Where the fuck am I?”