The fire crackled loudly in the almost utter silence of nature, accompanies only by crickets chirping in the night. Casting the only light in the camp on a cloudy night, it provided not only a source of comfort for the adventurers, but also the only source of survival against the brutality of nature, the kind of nature that ponies had been separated from for millennia.
Scarecrow had been reading of treasures long lost and forgotten since he was just a colt. The legendary diamond crown of the ancient dragons, the chest piece of Nightmare Moon, the ancient civilizations of the forbidden jungle, he had read everything. But the one thing that particularly caught his eye was the Arimaspi Gold.
The tale was fascinating and terrifying; the Arimaspi had been at war with the wealthy griffin tribe of the south for a decades. The griffins of the south were a vastly wealthy nation, with resources and riches abound. It is said that not one griffin in their society ever went hungry or tired or thirsty, whether for water or wine or pleasure.
The Arimaspi were envious of their wealthy neighbors, who were greedy in their own right and refused to share their wealth or even trade with the Arimaspi. The Arimaspi suffered a great deal; drought, famine, and disease had been plaguing them for ages. It was a miracle that they lasted as long as they did.
Eventually, they had enough, and chose to take what they wanted and needed by force. The griffins fought viciously against the thieving, one-eyed creatures from the deep. The conflict was long and bloody, and legend says, the southern griffins were all slaughtered, and few Arimaspi remained. Those that did, though, claimed their prize with pride, but according to legend, they died off over a short period of time. Destroying the griffins meant destroying their food, resources, and any infrastructure they had. But the Arimaspi had taken the griffin gold.
That was what Scarecrow was after; the legendary Griffin Gold, all in coins depicting the greatest griffins of their societies. To find even one coin would make anypony rich; to find them all would make him as rich as Princess Celestia.
He organized a crew to adventure down into the Arimaspi territory to recover the gold coins. It took some convincing, and many ponies refused, but he gathered a crew of eight and headed south. It was a motley crew, to be sure, but he needed them to carry back all the gold. And of course, they would all get their cuts of the prize.
His first mate, as it were, happened to be his marefriend, Honey Dipper, who was more than happy to go on a trip with him. There were four tents with two ponies each, and of course, they shared theirs. The other crew members made them promise not to be too noisy, though, so the trip was almost exclusively business. Almost.
The other members of the crew were mostly male, except one, the most masculine mare Scarecrow had ever met. She was Root Ripper, a stocky, muscled beast of a pony that everyone was convinced used steroids. The other members were Mason, Tooler, Cutter, Miller, and Stocky. Their names matched their professions. Stocky was the only one who stood out amongst them, as he wasn’t too bright. But he easily did as he was told.
Scarecrow sat next to the fire, looking up at the mountain with excitement. If it were up to him, he would raise the sun and have everyone go up now, but only the princess could do that. He would have to settle for looking up for now, imagining the gold and treasures that awaited him.
“Scaryyyyyyyyy~” came the soothing voice of his lady. “Come to bed already. I’m lonelyyyyyy~”
Scarecrow sighed. He couldn’t resist it when she got this way with him. He knew what it usually meant.
“I’m coming,” he said. Or I will be.
Scarecrow entered the tent to his marefriend lying in her sleeping bag, trying to look seductive. In the cramped space of the tent and sleeping bag, though, she just looked contorted and bizarre, yet with that come-hither stare. Scarecrow could barely contain his laughter.
“What’s so funny, honey?” Honey Dipper asked.
“You, ya goof,” he said, climbing into the sleeping bag and snuggling up to his lady. “You always manage to make the perfect face, even if the rest of you is struggling to match it.”
“Ha! The rest of me matches my beautiful face just fine,” Dipper said.
“Indeed it does,” Scarecrow said, giving her a peck on the forehead. She squirmed. “Greater than any gold in the world.”
“Even the gold we’re here for?” Dipper asked.
“Even greater than that,” Scarecrow said. “No amount of riches could ever compare to the wealth I have with you-“
Suddenly, there was an ear-wrenching screech somewhere outside the tents, causing the young couple to jump in their sleeping bag and nearly tear out of it to try and figure out what was happening. Scarecrow told Dipper to stay in the tent while he went out to check.
When he left his tent, he was greeted with the sight of the rest of his crew standing at the ready with various weapons drawn. They had all brought daggers on the trip in case of bandits or monsters, and leather suits for climbing in case they slipped to avoid getting scraped up. Unfortunately, they had no time to don the armor before rushing out.
After the hideous screech, everything went totally silent again. No bats chirping, no wind blowing. Even the rickets were silent.
“What in Tartarus was that?” Scarecrow asked.
“Beats the hay outta me,” Ripper said. She sheathed her dagger. “Probably just one of them nighthowler dogs. They’re mostly harmless, but they make a lotta noise.”
“Aren’t those things only by the Lunar Sea?” Miller asked. “Why would they be down here if they’re cold-weather animals…”
“I don’t know, I’m just saying what’s on my mind!” Ripper retorted angrily. Miller stepped away.
“Guys, guys; and girl; let’s just calm down and go back to sleep,” Scarecrow said. “I did my research. There are no terrifying monsters here. Everything that might’ve wanted to kill us for any reason died a long time ago. It's just basic nature.”
“Whatever you say, boss,” Ripper said. Everypony went back into their tents.
Scarecrow thought it prudent to put out the fire before going back to his tent. He made sure to memorize the way in first so he could navigate in the dark. When he returned, he could feel his marefriend trembling in the sleeping bag.
“You okay?” he asked tenderly. Dipper nodded, but Scarecrow couldn’t see.
“Now that my big, strong knight is back,” she said.
“You really can’t be taken out of the mood, can you?” Scarecrow asked rhetorically.
“You know you love it~” Dipper replied.
Save for a bit of rustling and shaking, the night was silent from then on. Not even a cricket sounded in the darkness.
When morning came, everyone was happy for it. That scream the previous night had riled everyone and rattled some nerves, but with vision restored, no one was concerned anymore. They were all tough; their professions required it; and they could take anything that came at them. Scarecrow assured them there were no monsters here.
As soon as their camps were packed up, they set about climbing up the mountain to go search for the gold. While the Arimaspi and southern griffins were certainly of legend, there was plenty of history behind them, and there was an actual city in the mountain. The paths and openings could be seen from the ground. Unfortunately, no pegasi could enter from flight. The griffins had created magical defenses to shoot down any non-griffin who tried to enter the city during the war.
The climb was easy enough with the paths cut into the mountainside. The griffins did, after all, trade with some foreign tribes, even during the war. They had to create a way to get into their city. Some of the resources they traded for were vital to lasting as long as they did against the Arimaspi.
As they walked up, though, several members of the group noticed that some of their gear appeared to be missing. They had all stored their gear inside their tents with themselves, so clearly it wasn’t stolen. They must have dropped it; they tore down camp hastily, as they wanted to be as far form the source of the screech as possible.
It was all simple gear, though, things like pickaxes and hammers. They only brought them just in case, so odds were, they wouldn’t need them anyway. Even if they did, they wouldn’t have enough supplies to make a straight up excavation effort, nor did they have the horsepower. They still had their weapons, too, so no one was too concerned.
It was maybe an hour into the climb when they hit their first snag; a collapsed tunnel. This was exactly what Scarecrow had hoped wouldn’t happen, and it was also the reason they brought pickaxes. Sadly, they were already in a position of going no further the planned route.
“What’s the plan now?” Dipper asked.
“I say we find a way around,” Ripper said. “This cave passage goes into the mountain, but the mountain’s face isn’t exactly flat; we can still climb if we go carefully.”
“I hope you’ll lead the way,” Tooler said.
“I will, since you’re not enough of a stallion to go,” Ripper said. “Come on, let’s go.”
“Following Ripper,” Scarecrow said.
They made their way to the end of the outer path and looked at the face of the mountain. There were hundreds of holes, with jutting rocks above each. Scarecrow had read about these; they were either archer holes or sites where the air defenses fired at the enemy. They had put so many in the sides to make sure that any Arimaspi that flew in would be positively obliterated before they could even touch the mountain.
“We just have to jump from one to the next,” Ripper said.
“And how do you propose getting the gold down?” Miller asked.
“We wrap it in the tarps, note where we are, and drop them down the side of the mountain,” Scarecrow jumped in. “I never planned for us to carry that stuff down the mountain. The tarps we brought are strong enough to withstand it, and the rope we have won’t come undone because it's enchanted. Then, we climb back down and reclaim it.”
“I like,” Stocky said in his slow, drawn out way of talking.
“See? Stocky likes it,” Scarecrow said.
“No one said they didn’t,” Mason said.
“Anyway,” Ripper cut in. “Let’s get moving.”
Ripper took the first jump to a ledge, landing as softly as her massive body could. Once on, she hopped up and down a few times to test the strength of the rock. It didn’t seem to budge at all, so she turned around and gave the all clear for everyone else to follow along.
Scarecrow and Dipper went one after the other as Ripper continued to jump from ledge to ledge. The other members of the crew followed behind, always being just one step behind the next pony. Once everyone was on the ledges, Ripper took charge and announced when she was going so the train could move.
“This is a good system,” Scarecrow said to anyone listening. “It’s just too bad- HUP- that they didn’t account for how easy this is to jump.” He jumped again when Ripper continued. “They probably collapsed that tunnel to keep the Arimaspi out, but didn’t account for their ability to hop up like this.”
“I’ll say,” Dipper said. “I’m not athletic at all, and I can do this.”
“Now, I wouldn’t say that,” Scarecrow said. “You certainly seem like quite the gymnast to me.”
“Can you not?” Ripper and Miller both said at the same time. They had shared a tent on the journey.
“Sorry,” Dipper said.
“Yeah, seriously,” Tooler said from the back of the line. “You guys need to-“
Tooler was cut off by the sound of a massive CROCK from the rock under his hooves, and it instantly outward. Tooler fell to his belly and grabbed the ledge for dear life.
“TOOLER!” Miller shouted.
“Guys-“ Tooler said.
He was cut off again when the rock seemed to push itself off the face of the mountain and tumble down, taking him with it. The other members of the crew could only watch in absolute horror as their fellow adventurer tumbled with the boulder over four hundred feet down the mountain. He slammed into several jutting rocks and ledges along the way, bending and contorting in ways unimaginable, before they saw him finally slam into the ground, landing right next to the boulder that had taken him down.
“Dammit!” Scarecrow said. “Everyone, let’s move and get off these ledges ASAP!”
The crew complied, and they all rushed their leaps to get to the first path they could find. Thankfully, and also sadly, it wasn’t much further ahead, and the remaining crew all made it to flat path safely. The sheer terror of what just happened gripped them all like an iron vice, and they had to stop for a long breather.
“What in Tartarus,” Ripper said.
“The rocks were fine,” Miller said. “We all had an easy time. It was supporting him just fine at first…”
“Nothing we can do now,” Scarecrow said. “We’ll have to retrieve his body later when we go back down.”
“Good call,” Dipper said. “I think I know where we are relative to where we made camp. It should be easy to get to him.”
“Yeah, we can’t just leave him there,” Mason said.
“I admit, I feel at least partially responsible,” Scarecrow said. Dipper rubbed his back. “I’ll make sure he gets a good funeral.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Ripper said. “Now, let’s move on. There’s a cave opening up ahead, let’s see if we can get inside.”
The crew set out, noting their fallen friend’s location, and entered the mountain through a cave opening. Thankfully, this opening wasn’t collapsed, though the cave did have an eerie feeling of instability. Little bits of wall and ceiling would crumble and crack every now and again as they advanced.
Scarecrow pulled out a flashlight and took the front, Dipper right behind, followed then by Ripper and the rest. The cave passageways were large and winding, as if to give room for griffins to glide through from the outside. It didn’t seem like the greatest idea, but with the flying talent they’d seen in the Wonderbolts, it wasn’t an impossibility.
Eventually, they came upon a fork with three separate passageways. No light came from any of them, but in the light of the flashlight, it was clear that the left passage went down, the right up, and the center stayed level. It likely went to a single great room, given its position in the mountain, and would either have no other passages or would have countless passageways coming off of it.
“Hmm…” Scarecrow pondered his options. He wanted to take the simplest paths with the fewest choices, but adventures never go as planned. That’s kinda the point.
“Which way are we going?” Miller asked.
“We can stay at this level, or change levels,” Scarecrow said.
“Stay level, explore this height first,” Stocky piped in. “When we finish, we move on.”
“Good call by Stocky,” Cutter said.
“Agreed,” Ripper said.
“Alright, we stay level,” Scarecrow said, glad that the decision was clear for everyone. Stocky may have been slow, but he worked out the decision before anyone else. “Once we finish this level, we’ll move up. Might as well get the climb out of the way.”
Everyone nodded in agreement and the crew moved down the passage, anticipating some kind of major, central location to the Mountain City. What they found was anything but; it was just more passageways with rooms off of each one, markings on the wall indicating that they were living rooms. The griffins used these halls as a residential wing.
The crew searched each room as they went along, hoping to find treasure in at least one of them. Given the brutal history of what happened here, though, it was likely that the Arimaspi had taken absolutely everything and moved it to a single room so that they could admire their new horse.
The rooms themselves told a dark tale; death, suffering, and loss showed everywhere. The floors and walls still had clear bloodstains and dried puddles and splatters. Ancient nests lay rotted and destroyed by some external force; the Arimaspi; and there were still some feathers, though nearly gone.
The most disturbing sight they found was the smashed eggs, bits and pieces laying everywhere. The stories told of the anger and savagery of the Arimaspi, everyone knew about that. What terrified Scarecrow about it was that when he researched the events, they seemed to indicate that the eggs were smashed in front of the mothers, who were then killed themselves, sometimes with eggshell fragments.
It was barbarism on an entirely different scale.
“By Celestia, I am glad I wasn’t born to this society,” Dipper commented.
“All of us are,” Scarecrow said.
“I sure as hay wouldn’t want to be a griffin,” Miller said. “So… distasteful.”
“Amen to that,” Cutter said. Stocky looked away uncomfortably.
“Cut the chatter,” Ripper said. “Where are we headed, ‘Scary’?”
Scarecrow ignored the use of his nickname and looked ahead. The passageway kept twisting and changing, if the coming turn was anything to go by.
“We keep forward,” he said. “It shouldn’t be long before we find some kind of change.”
The crew pushed onward into the dark, cold mountain. The passageway often twisted and turned in bizarre ways, ways even griffins wouldn’t be inclined to build. Sometimes, it was a nearly vertical drop with just a few ladder steps, and other times, the passageway literally twisted as if it were a towel being wrung dry.
After a short time, the crew finally came upon an entrance to a new area. Through the archway, Scarecrow could see it opened up into a massive room, with some light coming from up high. Without warning, he started trotting forward, leaving his crew behind.
“Scary!” Dipper shouted, running after him. Ripper just sighed and pursued, and Stocky ran with her to avoid being the only one not running. Miller and Cutter, however, remained behind and kept walking.
“I ain’t running,” Miller said. “I can’t even see the ground without that flashlight.”
“We each have one,” Cutter said.
“You wanna pull yours out?” Miller asked. It was pitch black, save for the opening, and they couldn’t see. Cutter was silent. “Thought so.”
Up ahead, Scarecrow ran through the archway and entered a massive room, the type he had been expecting to find before. Almost, at least. The light source was a magical lamp at the top of the room, casting a soft blue light over the rest of the room.
The walls of the room were masterfully carved with the history of the Mountain City, from seceding from the griffin empires of the east, to finding gold mines under the mountain, to creating thriving farms and fishing industry. The walls told tales of battles won and alliances made. The Arimaspi, however, were nowhere to be found.
There history would be visible on the ground in the center of the room. There was a fire pit sitting smack in the middle of the room, with bones strewn about around it. Scarecrow felt his heart sink and moved forward to examine the bones.
“Scary!” Dipper said, emerging from the passageway. “Why did you… run…”
Dipper saw Scarecrow’s slow movements and the horror in his eyes as he approached the fire pit. Gingerly, he picked up the bones and examined them; there were obvious wing bones and beaks sitting on the ground.
“By Celestia’s mane,” he said, going cold. “They ate them.”
“They what?” Dipper asked.
“The Arimaspi… They ate the griffins after they killed them. They didn’t… The books didn’t walk about that…”
“Well, no one was around to record that, were they?” Ripper asked as she entered the room with Stocky.
“What in Tartarus happened?” Scarecrow asked of no one in particular. “The Arimaspi only ever consumed domestic animals…”
Before anyone could respond, there was a faint noise from one of the passageways around them. It sounded like screeching, like what they heard in the camp before, but it was faint and difficult to make out.
“Did you hear that?” Dipper asked.
“Hey, did you guys hear that?!” Miller asked from the passageway.
“Yeah, how loud was it for you guys?” Ripper asked.
“It was pretty lou- WHAT THE HELL?!” Cutter shouted.
There was a powerful rumbling, almost like an earthquake, and in an instant, Miller and Cutter’s entrance started to collapse. The crew felt their hearts stop and sprinted for the passageway; they couldn’t afford to get separated. It would almost definitely mean certain death.
“Guys!” Stocky shouted. He could just see Miller and Cutter running.
They weren’t going to make it.
The ceiling started to collapse in the passageway toward the entrance right as Miller and Cutter got closer, and a large rock collided with Miller’s neck. It sent him to the ground, but he managed to roll back up and keep running. Before they could make it, though, the entranceway completely came down, blocking the way through with rubble.
“GUYS!” Scarecrow said. He stopped running. It was clear that they weren’t going to meet up.
“Dammit!” Ripper said. Stocky pressed himself against the rocks, trying to hear anything he could.
“Dammit,” Scarecrow said. “Dammit dammit dammit! This wasn’t supposed to happen!”
“We have to get out of here,” Dipper said. “This is too dangerous for us.”
“Agreed,” Ripper said, walking over. “Let’s go, we need to find a way out. Stocky-“
Stocky was still as a statue against the rubble, face completely white, ear pressed against the rocks. The crew couldn’t hear anything except the falling of small rocks at this point. One would think that silence wouldn’t be so terrifying.
And one would be right.
Stocky could just hear Miller and Cutter struggling on the other side. Cutter was screaming the most bloodcurdling scream, like his leg had been ripped off by a rock, but that wasn’t the worst part.
“NO NO NO NO NO NO NO-“ Miller kept saying it, until eventually, he just screamed, and suddenly, everything on the other side was totally silent.
Complete, utter silence.
“Stocky,” Ripper said. “It’s time to go.”
“Yes,” Stocky said. He didn’t know what was happening on the other side of the rubble, but one thing was painfully clear.
Rocks didn’t kill his friends.
Stocky was silent the whole time they were moving. Mason stayed next to him to try and figure out why he was so spooked. Their friends were gone, but something else was in the fear on his face. It was almost like he knew something.
Scarecrow and Dipper took the lead on the way out. They decided to go up because they could still use more ledges to escape, and there was no entrance they knew of going down the mountain. The only one was the first they found on the way up, and it had collapsed.
But now, they were lost, because Scarecrow didn’t know the actual layout of the city and who knew how much of the city was still intact. Now it was clear why no one had ever come here; this was a place of death, and any adventurer with half a brain would have known that before coming. The riches simply weren’t worth it.
As the crew entered new passageways, it became clear that the city had been drastically altered specifically to fight the war with the Arimaspi. Passageways were altered and made difficult to travel through, there were old and nonfunctioning traps, and there were miniature passageways, presumably to help the children escape in the event of a breach of the city.
There were claw marks at almost every one of those small openings.
Some of them had also apparently been enlarged, probably for mother griffins to escape and care for the children. All male griffins would stay and fight as long as they could, as their society dictated. Unfortunately, the hatred of the Arimaspi was far too great to defeat.
“If we hear anything out of the ordinary, we run,” Mason said. “You got that, Stocky?” Stocky didn’t reply.
“What’s gotten into you?” Ripper asked. Still, no reply.
“Leave him be,” Scarecrow said. “He’s traumatized.”
They had been wandering for some time, taking every path up that they could. The mountain was enormous, and it would be impossible to say how close they were to being outside again. It was probably close to night now, and outside, they would have no better vision than in here.
After some time, they came upon another fork in the path, but there were only two options. Both of them led up, so the choice wasn’t obvious as Scarecrow would like it to be. The crew came to a complete stand-still as their leader tried to figure out which way to go.
“What are we waiting for?” Ripper said, leaning up against the wall. “Pick a direction. I wanna get out of here.”
“Hang on, I’m thinking,” Scarecrow said. “I think there may have been a pattern to which passageways lead outside and which ones go further into the city.”
Ripper sighed and let Scarecrow think. Stocky and Mason took up a spot on either side of Dipper, for while Stocky was white from fear, Dipper was clearly not having anymore of this. They had to keep her calm.
As Ripper waited for Scarecrow to make his decision, she started noticing an odd sound. It was like the screeching from before, but it was very soft and faint and came from nearby. She started looking around, but the only ways they could go were forward and where they came from. When she looked to the wall, she noticed a small hole at the base, just large enough for a grown griffin to go through. Listening closely, she realized the noise was coming from there.
“Hey, guys,” she said trepidatiously, turning to her crew. “Something is coming from the holes in the wall.”
Mason turned around to ask her what she meant. When he looked her way, though, he froze solid.
“STAY AWAY FROM THE WALL!” he shouted.
A horrifying, spidery hand crept from out of the hole and grabbed Ripper by the leg, yanking her to the ground. Before she could react to fight back, the hand started dragging her into the hole. She just managed to get her forelegs up in time to hold herself out of the hole.
“HELP ME!” she screamed.
Scarecrow had just turned to see what was going on when Mason rushed forward to grab Ripper by her hooves. Stocky went still next to a screaming Dipper as Mason tried to pull Ripper back out of the hole.
“Hang on!” Mason said.
Ripper jolted and brought her head upright, looking Mason straight in the eyes. Mason heard a sickening crunch from inside the hole, and Ripper just gasped, unable to even scream, as the horrific sound of tearing flesh came from the hole. Mason tried to pull her away, but when she finally gave, only her upper half came; the lower was gone.
“WHAT IN TARTARUS!” Scarecrow shouted.
Mason looked in horror at what was left of Ripper, then fumbled his way up to stand. He stepped back from the corpse and helplessly watched as the hand returned to grab her remains.
“We need to go, we need to go!” Mason shouted.
Scarecrow agreed and ordered everyone to go right Stocky picked up Dipper a petrified Dipper and carried her as he chased after Scarecrow and Mason. The group stayed together and drew any weapons they had, although they weren’t sure daggers would help against whatever beasts had come to reside in this accursed mountain.
The remains of the adventuring party sprinted through the passageway. Whatever creature had killed Ripper; and, quite possibly, Miller, Cutter, and Tooler; started screeching again.
Scarecrow came to a dreadful realization; the creature had been making those screeches since the previous night. It had been stalking them the entire time. From the moment they all arrived, they were all in its crosshairs. Their only hope was escape.
The winding paths eventually opened up into a large room with an opening to the outside. The opening was up in the air, toward the high ceiling, but it was there, and they had to find a way out. Maybe twenty feet or so off the ground. The room was full of old crates, many rotted away, revealing what the group initially came for. The crates contained many gold coins, though it wasn’t nearly what Scarecrow read about. To make matters stranger, in the center of the room was a gemstone sphere in a gold lattice, unlike anything he had ever read about.
Based on the way the gold was boxed, the griffins had been evacuating their treasures and civilians. Maybe there were griffins in the east who descended from these ones?
“Aww, great, what do we do now?” Mason lamented. “We’re stuck!”
“No,” Stocky said. Mason looked at him in bewilderment. “I can stack the crates.” No one expected that the skills of a stock-colt would come in handy on a trip like this.
“Then work fast, Stocky!” Scarecrow said. The screeching from the passageway continued, and it was getting louder. “That thing is coming for us!”
Stocky got to work, grabbing any crates he could that weren’t too full of gold to lift. Some of the crates he touched disintegrated instantly, letting the gold spill out all over the floor as if someone had just mopped. The screeches were getting louder and louder.
Feeling like it was just in the nick of time, Stocky had stacked the crates to make a crude staircase up to about twelve feet, and they could jump the rest of the way. Mason grabbed Dipper and went first, taking each step one at a time. The crate barely supported them as they went one at a time, Mason guiding the young mare behind him.
Scarecrow jumped up after, creates bending under the force of his poor landings and unathletic body. Even without the athleticism, though, he bounded those crates like a maniac, desperate to get away from whatever hellspawn had come for them.
Scarecrow was already at the top by the time Stocky started his own climb and hadn’t even turned to look by the time it ended. As he turned around, he heard a massive crash from below and saw Stocky lying on the remains of a destroyed crate. He had been too heavy for the crate to support him.
“Stocky!” Scarecrow yelled.
“Scarecrow!” Stocky yelled back.
And another creature yelled at them from the entranceway.
The screech was deafening, but the sight of the creature was too terrifying for anyone to notice. The creature was hideous; two mal-formed and uneven horns, a single, hate-filled eye, leathery skin covered in scars and rough patches of fur in random places. It’s legs were long and thin, like pencils, compared to its body. Lit displayed long, spidery fingers dripping with blood and ruthless, razor teeth revealed by its primal, aggressive expression.
It was one of the Arimaspi.
Slowly, it advanced on Stocky, who had suffered gashes from the crate and would stand no chance in battle. He fumbled for his dagger and held it in his teeth, but as the creature closed in, he lost all will to fear and simply wanted to cower and fade away.
“Stocky!” Mason shouted.
“I’m scared,” Stocky rasped.
Like a flash of lightning, the creature lunged, the crew helpless but to watch as it tore into their friend. As the screams filled the mountain, the survivors could only turn away and run, hoping that their friend’s fate would be quick.
The trio ran hard along the path they found themselves on, but not for long. In a matter of moments, they found themselves before another gridwork of ledges and holes. With what happened to Ripper earlier, it was clear that Tooler had been killed by the creature somehow interfering with the stone. They could simply reach through the holes.
“What do we do now?” Dipper asked in a panic. “We can’t escape, that thing’s gonna kill us!”
“We have to keep moving,” Mason said. “I’ll go first, you and Scarecrow try to stick together.”
“Got it,” Scarecrow said.
They started their descent down the mountain face, going from ledge to ledge, hoping the creature hadn’t come for them. Their fears were realized when they saw the creature standing where they came from, but abated when they saw it wasn’t following them. It just stood at the end of the path, screeching.
“I don’t think it’s following us yet,” Scarecrow said. “It won’t travel on the ledges. We can try to take these all the way down.”
“Yeah, yeah, good idea,” Mason said. He stopped to look at the creature. “We’re coming back here with an army for this rat-“
“Mason-“ Dipper gasped. She could see a new hand coming from under the ledge.
Mason already knew what she was trying to say; he could just tell. He tried to turn around to jump to the next ledge, but he wasn’t quick enough, and the rock underneath him broke away and tumbled down the mountain. He just barely managed to keep a grip on the broken pieces of the ledge still attached to the mountain, hanging like a coat.
“Mason, no!” Scarecrow said.
Mason looked in Scarecrow’s direction, fear yet acceptance of his fate in his eyes. He had decided in that instant to simply let go and let fate have him. It would be better than these monsters having him.
But fate would not have him. As he let go, the hand shot back out, driving blade-like fingers into his chest and out the other side. Mason gasped as the pain jolted him out of his plans for death on his terms and looked down at his impalement. Slowly, the fingers started separating, and Mason could only look on in shock as he was torn apart. He couldn’t her anything anymore, but he could sense his remaining partners screaming.
Then, the fingers shot back into the mountain, and Mason fell, leaving a trail of blood in his wake.
“No…” Scarecrow said. “No, no, no, no, no, no, no, this… This shouldn’t be!” he said. Scarecrow fell to his knees. “It can’t end like this. It can’t…”
Scarecrow started to sob. It was all he could do anymore. Hope was gone. Behind them, Arimaspi waited for them to return. Inside the mountain, they waited to rip their chests open. In front, no ledge to jump to, to their side, open air and a fall to their death. It was over.
“Baby, hold me,” Scarecrow said. Dipper embraced her lover and held him tight, and he reciprocated. “I don’t wanna die.”
“I love you, Scary,” Dipper said.
At the edge of their ledge, the couple saw the spidery fingers of death itself crawl their way onto the rock and grip. They each took in a deep breath and prepared for their fate. When the rock gave away, they just kept holding each other and refused to let go.
They rolled down the mountain, slamming into ledges and rocks all the way for what must have been five hundred feet. It wasn’t a vertical mountain face, but it was steep enough to pick up speed. They tumbled past any rocks they loosed and came to crash into the dirt at the base of the mountain in just minutes.
They barely held themselves together by the hooves as they hit the ground, driving through the dirt and coming to the final chapter of their lives. After they finally stopped, Scarecrow opened his eyes and looked at his mare. She was barely conscious. He couldn’t move his legs or even feel them, and he felt a horrible pain in the center of his spine.
“Baby-“ he rasped. “Baby…”
“Honey,” Dipper said. “I love yo-“
She was cut off when a jagged rock came from above and crashed into the front of her throat, punching it open. Her eyes shot wide, and seconds later, they went dull. Scarecrow let his head fall. He had lost everything.
Slowly, he blacked out, and the world went dark.
Scarecrow came to slowly, the pain in his spine still ever present and his body tattered and in ruins. He blinked his eyes open to the sight of a dark room, save for a small fire pit in the center. He had been in this room earlier.
As he came to, he saw before him the mutilated corpses of his comrades. Every one of them was laid out before him, skinned and stripped of most of the meat off their bones. Tooler was roasting in the fire pit.
Scarecrow turned his head slowly to see his killers behind him. The Arimaspi were already eating his friends, not even bothering to cook all of them. Various body parts were in their hands, dripping of blood, bone and sinew falling from their grasps.
One of the twisted Arimaspi turned to see him looking at them. It said something to the others; Scarecrow couldn’t make out what it was; then looked back at Scarecrow. Slowly and deliberately, it picked up a stone axe and walked over to Scarecrow.
Scarecrow looked up at the axe-wielding monster. He was too tired to speak; he was just happy this whole nightmare was about to end.
And the axe came down, crushing his head, creating a kind of silence unfound anywhere else in the world.
