Twilight Sparkle raised her hoof to knock on Rainbow Dash’s door. The sound of the knock was oddly muffled, in a way that Twilight wasn’t accustomed to - but then, even since gaining her wings she’d rarely had the opportunity to interact with cloud-based architecture. Solidified clouds were surprisingly reliable building materials, but even a forceful knock produced an unsatisfying sound.
Looking beside the doorframe, Twilight found a doorbell button that was, unhelpfully, the same color as everything around it. She pressed it with the tip of her wing, listened for the sound from inside, and waited for the door to open.
“Hey Twilight!” called out Rainbow Dash, from some thirty feet up. “How’s tricks?”
“Still on the straight and narrow, last I heard,” yelled Twilight, craning her neck to look up at the third-story window Dash was leaning out of. “She and Starlight Glimmer are keeping in touch. I think she’s doing shows in Fillydelphia this week.”
“Huh?” said Rainbow Dash. “Hey, just fly up here, okay? I can’t hear you too well.”
Twilight flapped her wings and ascended to the third floor, coming in through an open window and landing on an unmade bed. Though the room as a whole was messier than she would have liked, it was an impressive place, with shimmering white walls and what looked like marble pillars. They weren’t marble, of course; they were made of clouds, just like the rest of the structure.
“You know, I don’t think I’ve ever been here before,” said Twilight, hopping off the bed.
“In my bedroom?” asked Rainbow Dash, with an intrigued look on her face. “Did you… want to be?”
“No, in your house,” said Twilight. “It’s really nice! I wish everyone could come see it.”
“I know, right?” said Rainbow Dash. “I’ve got basically the coolest house in Ponyville and I can’t have any friends over unless they’re, like, all pegasi. On the other hoof: super good excuse for not having to host stuff. So what’s up?”
“The map!” said Twilight. “It’s got a mission for you.”
“Oh, cool!” said Dash. She paused, raising her hoof to her chin thoughtfully. “Is it cool? Are we talking, like, me and Pinkie helping a punk band stay together? Or more like me and Rarity going to a… shoe… museum?”
“It’s the precise midpoint of those two things, Dash,” said Twilight.
“Huh?”
“I’m joking. Actually, it’s just you, and it’s… some sort of temple, if I was reading the map correctly. I cross-referenced it with another map of the region, and… I didn’t see a temple on the other map.”
“Wait. Wait,” said Rainbow Dash.
“I’m waiting.”
“You’re telling me that I’m going on a mission to a lost, forgotten temple? Because what I’m hearing is that it’ll definitely be exactly as cool as a Daring Do story. Guaranteed. Is that what you’re telling me?” She pointed at Twilight with the tip of her wing. “You’re giving me your personal, royal guarantee that it’ll be totally awesome?”
Twilight was silent for a moment, staring nervously into Rainbow Dash’s shining eyes. Eventually, she just shrugged. “...Yes?”
The weight of her saddlebags was a literal and figurative drag as Rainbow Dash flew above the treetops. She’d left civilization behind some time ago, shortly after taking flight from the train station, and she was starting to see why the map had given this mission to her alone. Anyone taking this journey by hoof would probably take ten times longer and encounter infinitely more danger.
Still, another pegasus could have made the journey easily enough. Fluttershy… maybe didn’t have the temperament for infiltrating ancient temples. Twilight would have been a good partner, though: she could fly, she was a nerd for weird ancient stuff, and she liked Daring Do almost as much as Dash did. It was a little strange that the map didn’t send her along.
Dash didn’t love the idea of blindly trusting a magical map whose origins she didn’t understand. On the other hoof, following a magic map to a forgotten temple was classic Daring Do. If the map was going to keep giving her cherry assignments like this, she could live with it.
She flapped her wings, rising higher to get a better look at the terrain. She should have been getting close, but she didn’t see anything that looked like a temple. And yet - aside from that detail - the area looked just like what the Cutie Map had shown her. Towards the east, there were a pair of tall stones with a little waterfall between them… and to the north, a small crescent-shaped clearing… and according to the map the temple should have been practically right underneath her.
For a second, Rainbow Dash contemplated the possibility of coming back empty-hoofed. Would anything… happen… if she just didn’t do the friendship mission?
Well, more importantly, it would be lame if she just gave up now. She went into a gentle, spiraling dive, circling the spot where the temple was supposed to be. By the time she was just above the treetops, there was still no sign of the place - just a little hill where the trees rose a little higher from the raised ground. Sighing, she went lower, rusting the leafy treetops as she dipped below them - and then she gasped.
She had found her temple. But wow - it was buried deep. She’d been looking for a lost, forgotten temple, but she hadn’t expected it to be this lost. There was basically a layer of jungle resting on top of the whole temple, hiding it from overhead view. Even from the ground, only its tall, open door and the stone walls surrounding it were visible.
“All right,” said Rainbow Dash, alighting on the mossy ground. “Time to… solve a friendship problem, I guess. Couple of friends hangin’ out in a forgotten temple? Havin’ a fight?” She shrugged. “Rainbow Dash is here to help.”
And as unlikely as it seemed that a “friendship problem” would exist in an ancient, lost temple… Rainbow Dash did begin to hear voices echoing down the dark hallway as she stepped inside.
“And I’m saying there's every reason to think it's possible,” said one voice. It was feminine, a bit breathy, with a bit of a hiss to it. “Ponies, for example, they have those, uh, butt symbols - maybe one of them has a talent for exactly this sort of thing!”
“No,” said the other voice. This one was masculine, but high-pitched, with a confident air. “No, they… look, I don't think those marks work the way you think they do. They don't increase talents, they just signify what the pony’s capable of.”
The voices were exceptionally clear, resounding through the dark front passage of the temple. Rusted sconces lined the walls, signs that this passageway had once been lit… but any torch that might have occupied them had burned out and rotted away long ago. There was a dim light at the far end of the hall, though… and approaching that light seemed to bring her closer to the source of the voices.
“Okay, forget ponies,” said the first voice. “Our dominion is limited, right? There's whole swathes of the world that we know nothing about. You don't think it's possible that some species out there has the right combination of abilities?”
“You're asking me to prove a negative?” asked the second voice incredulously. “You're saying that, unless I can stand in this room and prove there's no exotic species anywhere that fits the bill, you're automatically right?”
Rainbow Dash reached the edge of a long staircase, descending several stories down to a place where the dim light grew stronger. Fortunately, the ceiling was high enough that she could simply fly down, and she did, hearing the voices grow to a booming volume as she drew closer.
But the light grew in intensity faster than she anticipated. As she reached the foot of the stairs, brilliant golden light assaulted her eyes, blinding her. She flapped her wings, staying level, still hearing the booming voices.
“Well, no-” said the feminine voice, sounding a little uncertain. “I mean it all depends what the terms of our debate are. Are we trying to determine if it's certain that a mortal could complete the trials, or that it's possible? Ugh, we really should have defined our terms when we started arguing…”
“Finally we agree on something!” said the masculine voice. “Yes, absolutely, we need to figure out exactly what we're arguing about. But first, let me draw your attention to the mortal who just flew into our chamber. Shall we use her as a test case? I'm not trying to delay our discussion, but knowing you, I suspect we would exhaust the mortal’s lifespan before we came to any sort of agreement.”
Rainbow Dash felt her eyes adjust, and she blinked them open, finally beholding the source of the voices. On one side of the chamber was a coiled emerald snake - perhaps literally emerald, given how her scales shone. And Dash felt confident that the snake was in fact female; her face was soft and expressive, with long dark eyelashes fluttering as she blinked. She stood some twenty feet tall - although if her body uncoiled she might have been five times that long. She was looking dispassionately at Rainbow Dash, her arms crossed.
Oh, and she had arms, as well. Unusual for a snake. “Oh, yes, good idea,” she said. “We’ll send her through the trials - provided you agree in advance that one failure would not conclusively prove your case.”
The source of the other voice was a crouching cat, whose black fur gave way to prismatic plumage just below his neckline. He stood just as tall as the snake - although he obviously didn't have a serpentine body to uncoil. “Of course not,” he said, “but you must admit it would strengthen my case.”
“Hey, guys!” called Rainbow Dash. “I'm here to solve a friendship problem, so just, like, let me know what's up!”
“Very well,” said the snake. “I'll summon the ceremonial outfit for her. She looks like she's in good shape; I may just win this debate outright!”
“Wait,” said Dash. “Outfit?”
“Don't get your hopes up,” said the cat. “But yes, of course, if she wins I will be forced to admit that you were right. Go ahead and suit her up.”
“Suit?” said Dash, a little louder. “Hang on, can you just-”
The snake lifted one arm and gestured in Dash’s direction, sending a swirl of golden light in her direction. Before she could react, Dash was swept up in it, spinning in midair - and by the time she was back in her original orientation, she realized she was suddenly wearing something. Something strange.
It felt somewhat like her Wonderbolts uniform - like the spandex garment, it covered every inch of her body. But it was far heavier, and thicker. That was uncomfortable - but something far worse became immediately apparent. Her wings were bound, held against her back, immobile - and she dropped like a stone from the spot where she'd been hovering.
Fortunately, she'd only been seven or eight feet above the ground. She’d handled much worse freefalls, albeit not while wearing such binding clothing - or such awkward footwear. When she hit the ground, she struggled to stay upright on four wedge heels, brutally tall shoes that even Rarity would have balked at. Ultimately, she failed to stay on her feet, falling sideways onto the hard stone floor.
“Not a promising start,” said the cat. “Well, a failure might not prove much, but at least it’ll be entertaining.”
The snake had a reply for that, but Dash didn’t hear it over the sound of her own fiercely pumping blood. These weirdos were ignoring her… making decisions for her… dressing her this bizarre getup… she ground her teeth and rose to her feet, her legs wobbling as she struggled to stay upright on her wedge heels. A bellow welled up in her throat and burst forth. “HEY!”
The snake and the cat finally looked directly at her, neither seeming especially put off by her outburst. “Yes?” said the cat.
“What are you guys doing?”
“I suppose some context would be useful to you,” said the cat. “I am Balin Mu, and this is Sutha. The two of us are the gods of this city, and we oversee a set of trials housed within this temple For about three millenia, the two of us have been holding a debate as to whether there are any mortals remaining who are capable of completing the trials.”
“Yes,” said Sutha. “In the beginning, these trials were the centerpiece of our culture, the pride of the ponies who lived in the city under our protection. But as the city grew, and ponies began to turn their attention to more “modern” pursuits, fewer and fewer were born who had the skill to overcome the trials. Eventually none were able to… and shortly after, we began debating.”
“And that was three thousand years ago?” asked Dash. The gods nodded. “And… hold on, you said something about a city… you know there’s no city out there, right?”
“Oh, well, yes,” said Balin Mu. “Our debate occupied much of our attention, and… admittedly, we stopped answering very many prayers or providing very much protection. So the ponies packed up and left. I don’t really blame them; without our protection, the jungle is fairly inhospitable. I imagine they’re much better off wherever they ended up. Or… their descendants are, in any case.”
“Wait,” said Dash. “So your people left because you couldn’t stop arguing? And you were okay with that?”
“We like debating,” said Sutha. “Although, if I’m being honest, I feel like this one’s sort of dragging on too long. A couple days ago, I remember just saying to myself - ugh, can’t we just be done with this?”
“No kidding?” said Balin Mu. “I thought the exact same thing! Yeah, a couple days ago I was drawing that, uh, diagram for you, and I just realized how tired of this argument I was.”
“So you’ve been arguing for three thousand years,” said Dash, “and two days ago you got tired of it? I… guess that’s why the map sent me to sort this out.”
“You came here to help?” asked the cat. “That’s great! Well, you’re already suited up, you can start the trial any time you’re ready.” He gestured to a circular stone door between the two gods, and at his gesture the door rolled to the side, revealing another hallway beyond.
Rainbow Dash looked down at the bulky, binding garment she was wearing. “Yeah, I’m not really down for this,” she said. “How about you just… stop arguing? I mean, no one even lives around here anymore, so… it kinda doesn’t matter whether someone can get through the trial, right? Also, uh…” Rainbow Dash paused to collect her thoughts. “You know, debates aren’t always the best way to settle things. Cuz, like, whoever’s the better debater is probably just going to win, no matter what the truth is. My friend Twilight has been gettin’ into politics recently, and she’s been sayin, like… debates are ‘situationally’ useful, but treating them like they’re always the best way to figure out the truth is sorta-”
“Yes, yes, I’m sure that’s largely true for mortals,” said Sutha, waving one hand dismissively. “But the two of us are gods. You ponies only live, like… what? Two hundred years? Two fifty?”
Dash raised a hoof. “Actually-”
“The point is, we’re immortal. On a long enough timeline, a debate will eventually lead to the truth - but in a lot of cases that timeline tends to exceed the mortal lifespan. However... since the two of us are growing a teensy bit tired of this discussion, we’re happy to grant you the opportunity to settle it for us.” She gestured to the doorway. “Go on! There’s even a reward if you succeed!”
Rainbow Dash eyed the hallway skeptically. “I’d rather take another stab at talking you out of arguing, if it’s all the same to you guys…”
“No, that doesn’t really work for us,” said Balin Mu. Golden light surrounded Rainbow Dash, and gravity seemed to shift. Suddenly the flat ground seemed like a steep incline - and while Dash was ordinarily a nimble pony, she had no hope of standing. She tumbled forward, as if rolling down a hill, and she braced herself for rough impacts with the ground. But each time she hit the stone floor - whether with her head, her joints, or her butt - it only felt like a light nudge. This outfit restricted her movements unbearably, but it actually seemed to function as magical armor.
She fell down the hallway for about fifty feet before crossing another threshold - and when she did, gravity righted itself and she tumbled to a stop. A grinding sound from behind her told her that the door behind her was closing, and a quick look confirmed that another block of stone has sealed off the door she came through She rose to her feet, a little more easily than last time, and took in the room she found herself in.
It was a long corridor, not totally unlike the one she’d just fallen through - but it was narrower, only about four times the width of her shoulders. Starting a few feet in front of her, the whole floor seemed to be covered in sand, continuing as far as she could see. The opposite side was maybe a hundred yards ahead of her, and nothing about the room seemed obviously dangerous… but if it was a trial, thought Dash, there had to be something tricky about it.
“First trial!” said the voice of the snake goddess. “The sinking sands!”
Rainbow Dash waited in silence for a moment. “Uh, is that all?” she called upwards, in the direction the voice had seemed to come from. “Is there anything else I should know?”
“While we can hear you,” said the voice of the cat god, “It is our policy not to answer questions after the trial has begun.”
“Great,” mumbled Dash. “Well, I guess I just have to get to the other end…” she sighed. “Okay, sinking sands means quicksand, probably, and if Daring Do can deal with that, so can I.” She took a step onto the sand, and found it to be stable enough footing. Not quicksand at all - just like walking on a beach. Of course, the tall wedge heels she was wearing still made it a pain; the base of the shoe was narrower than her hoof in places, causing it to sink unevenly into the sand.
“So maybe only some of it is quicksand?” said Dash. “But it all looks the same from here. Ugh, and I have to wear this getup while I do it… Daring Do never had to go through anything like this. Or… maybe she did, and she left it out of her books because it made her sound really dumb.”
Dash took another step forward, carefully testing the sand, placing a little bit of her weight on it, then a little more, until she was satisfied that it was solid. Then she put another hoof ahead of her, then another… and another… each hoofstep made her wobble as her heels sunk into the sand, but she was beginning to get the hang of it.
She was keeping her eyes down, still unable to see any spots that looked different from the rest of the sand. After several steps, she raised her head to look at the far end of the corridor… which was barely any closer now. She looked behind her, and groaned when she saw just how little ground she’d covered. This was going to take forever.
“Well, no time limit, right?” muttered Dash. “I guess-”
“Although it is our policy not to answer questions at this stage,” said the cat god’s voice, booming through the hallway, “Is seems reasonable to inform you that there is, in fact, not a time limit. That’s something the typical aspirant would already know.”
“I was actually talking to myself,” said Rainbow Dash. “But yeah. Good to know.” She took another step forward - and felt her hoof immediately begin to sink. The interruption from the god had put her off guard, and she put more of her weight on the sand than she’d intended; by the time she reacted and began to pull herself back, she was in up to her knee.
“Damn it!” she yelled, tugging at her forehoof. Instinctively, she struggled to flap her wings, but it was useless - they couldn’t move an inch under the suit’s wing-bindings. She scrabbled backwards on the sand, trying to recover her hoof. She’d never been in quicksand before, but she was shocked at just how hard it was pulling at her. Her stuck hoof seemed incredibly heavy… but little by little, she pulled it up.
And once she got it past the quicksand’s surface, she saw why her hoof had seemed so heavy: there was something attached to it. Latched onto her hoof, biting into her bodysuit just above the ankle, was an immense white worm, its mouth just large enough to get around her leg. Fortunately it didn’t hurt - the suit seemed to be protecting against that - but it was huge and heavy. If every patch of quicksand had one of these, it would be pretty rough going.
Dash kept pulling until her hoof was on solid ground - although the worm, whose body was several feet long at least, was still mostly in the quicksand. It wanted to be in the quicksand, and it wanted to drag Rainbow Dash in right along with it… and it was stronger than a worm had any right to be. Lifting her other forehoof, she kicked at it, bashing its head until it finally released its grip and slithered back into the pit.
“Okay,” said Dash, huffing from effort, “So… that… was quicksand.” She looked around herself, trying to figure out - again - which portions of the floor were quicksand and which weren’t. The patch of sand the worm had just retreated into was slightly indented… but that hadn’t been the case before she stepped on it, so that didn’t help. But… the sand looked like it was maybe a little darker?
Okay, that was something. She inched further forward, boredom quickly setting in after the quick flash of panic she’d just escaped. She’d read about things like this in Daring Do books - corridors where Daring had to creep along at an agonizing snail’s pace, never more than a single misstep from a quick and brutal end.
But in writing, those scenes were always briskly paced, edited down to their highlights, jumping from one point of interest to the next without forcing the reader to experience the boredom that Daring Do must have endured. And Dash simply didn’t have the patience to live through something like that.
She backed up, feeling a little more confident about walking on sand in wedge heels. She’d never be able to run at full speed in these things - even with weeks of practice, they would still slow her down - but she felt like she could manage a spirited trot. Hopefully, that’d be good enough. She kept backing up util her butt hit the door she’d come through, and she stared down the corridor. Go time.
And she went. Compared to the speeds she could attain with her wings unbound, it was nothing - but it would have been enough to get her across the corridor in no time at all. She sidestepped the pit that had snagged her before, hugging the right wall as she proceeded - but soon her hoof sunk into a patch of sand.
Fortunately - as she’d hoped - her momentum was enough to carry her forward. With a surge of effort, she pulled her hoof free, bringing a worm with her. She trotted forward, now with a sort of limping gait thanks to the worm latched onto her hoof. She was glaring at the ground in front of her, trying to distinguish quicksand from regular sand - and when she sidestepped what looked like a suspiciously dark patch of ground, she ended up with one back hoof in another bit of sinking, sucking sand. This time it was harder to pull herself free - she didn’t have the momentum she did last time. With her other feet, she pushed off from the ground, yanking her hoof - and the worm that had latched onto it - out of the quicksand.
And she did get herself free - but as she jerked her body to the side, she stumbled, landing her hoof in another patch of quicksand. Another worm latched onto it - for a total of three, and by Celestia, the damn things were heavy - and she jerked herself free again.
And she set off at the best, fastest trot she could manage, finding it almost easier now that she had worms resolutely clinging to three of her hooves. In a weird, uncomfortable, squishy way, they kind of negated the primary drawbacks of the wedge heels she was wearing; they were wide and basically flat, which prevented her from sinking into normal sand, at least.
Finding herself with less and less patience as her burdens increased in number, Rainbow Dash charged forward, zigzagging at random in the hope that pure luck would get her around all the quicksand pits. And it worked. It worked for a surprisingly long time, at least; with only about twenty feet til the end of the corridor, Dash caught her hoof on the edge of one of the pits. It wasn’t enough to make her sink, but it did trip her… and that might have been worse, because now she was hurling her body forward, falling face-first onto the sand - and if her head got stuck in the quicksand, it was game over for sure.
But it wasn’t. Dash landed chin-first on ordinary, dry sand - and when she put her hoof forward - the one hoof that wasn’t currently carrying a worm - she felt solid stone underneath. She pulled herself forward, through the door to the next room - and as soon as she crossed the threshold, the worms released her - and then vanished completely.
“The second trial!” called out the voice of the snake goddess. “The hobble gauntlet!”
Dash looked out over the room ahead of her. Another corridor, same length as the last one. No sand this time; instead, the ground was crisscrossed with heavy-looking metal chains. “Okay,” said Dash, stretching her legs. “I guess… don’t touch the chains? At least I can see them this time…”
She stepped forward, gingerly placing her hoof on an empty section of the floor. The wedge heels actually made her hooves take up less floor space than they normally would, which potentially served as an advantage. The crisscrossing chains left her with small gaps she could step through, and if she was very, very careful, stepping lightly and angling her legs correctly, she could get the bottoms of her heels into some of the narrower gaps.
And for a while, she was willing to take things slow. The spill she’d taken in the last room - which could easily have gotten her stuck head-first in quicksand - had her heart racing, and she was all right with taking things slow for a while. She stepped slowly through the gaps, noting with some chagrin that the chains seemed to become more numerous, and the gaps smaller, as she proceeded.
And she hadn’t even started to become careless when she made her first misstep. She placed her hoof down, just as carefully as before, but she misjudged just how tall her heels were, The back of the shoes brushed against the edge of a chain, ever so lightly - but even that was enough to snare her. The chain sprang to life, wrapping itself around her ankle.
Rainbow Dash staggered back in surprise. She'd expected something bad to happen when she touched the chains, but seeing an inert metal chain suddenly jump up and constrict her like a snake was still shocking. And - predictably enough - when she staggered back, she tripped over another chain, snagging one of her back legs with it. This chain was longer; it coiled around her ankle, then kept wrapping itself around her leg, rising past the knee, stopping at mid-thigh.
It was a miracle that she didn't trip over more chains, but even two was a considerable burden. They were heavier than the worms, and they were wrapped pretty tight; the suit insulated her from some of the pressure, but Dash was worried that they were cutting off - or at least impeding - the circulation to her legs. That gave her a ticking clock; if her legs started to fall asleep, getting through this room would be impossible.
“Okay, great,” muttered Rainbow Dash. “Now I'm heavier, and i can barely bend one of my knees.” She sighed, looking across the room. If she could keep up a trot, she could make it across the room without worrying too much about her legs falling asleep… but her pace had already gotten her snared twice. If she didn't slow down, things could get worse pretty quickly…
Dash grumbled. Slowing down was risky, thanks to the chains constricting her legs. Speeding up was also risky, for basically the same reason. As long as she was taking risks either way, she thought, she might as well do the thing she was good at. She bent her forelegs, set her eyes on the far end of the hall, and charged.
Well, she did the closest thing to charging as she could, under the circumstances - which was barely more than a trot. Actually sprinting would have been suicide - she’d trip over the first chain, then stumble over ten more as she skidded to a halt - and by that time, she’d be so heavy and constricted that she wouldn’t be able to move at all.
As she picked up her pace, she did her best to aim her feet for the larger gaps between the chains - but those became fewer and fewer in number as time went on. If she weren’t wearing those damn heels, she could have navigated the chains easily; even without her wings, Rainbow Dash’s body was a precise machine of athleticism. But the heels made her hooves land at an unfamiliar angle, forcing her to shift her weight differently each time she pushed off the ground. Each time she took a step, she landed just a little bit wrong… and at a lower pace, it was possible to correct her gait after each step. But there was no time for correction at her pace, and so those small errors added up, bit by bit, until her forehoof brushed against another chain.
This time Rainbow Dash knew what to expect. As the chain wound its way up her foreleg, she just kept going. She was a little heavier, and a little less comfortable, but she was still moving. But a new complication hit when she was about halfway down the hall - both her back legs hit the same long chain, and the chain wrapped itself around both of them. No matter how Dash tried to pull her legs apart; the chains held; her back legs were tied together at the ankles, and would stay that way - presumably - until she cleared the room.
Having her back legs tied together didn’t stop her, but it certainly slowed her down. She was trotting with her front legs and hopping with her back legs, which was far from ideal - although her back legs were a lot more stable now that they operated as one unit. They were also wider, unfortunately, and that meant it was much easier to get them snagged on another chain - and another one. As the corridor went on, the chains weren’t just more numerous, they were longer, winding around and around her back legs, clinking and clanking as metal wrapped around metal, until finally her backside was too heavy to lift.
By this time there was less than a quarter of the room left to go… but since she couldn’t lift her back legs anymore, she was going to have to drag them through the rest of the corridor. And that meant snagging every single chain in her path.
“Urgh…” grumbled Dash, “Come on…” Still stepping over chains with her forelegs, she dragged her increasingly heavy backside though the corridor. Her back legs were soon hidden behind a growing mass of chains, a tangle of metal that scraped the stone floor as it moved and rattled continuously as it picked up every chain in its path. Dash was panting, sweating, the muscles of her forelegs pushed to their limits as she struggled to drag more and more metal behind her. Dash was a consummate athlete, but she was built for speed. Not for hauling huge, unwieldy masses of metal.
What was worse, the chains were creeping up her body as more and more wrapped around her. Her legs got completely covered, then her butt, and then each additional chain wrapped itself a little bit further up her torso. But she was close - she was sweating, sore, and fatigued, but she was close. Only a little more ground to cover, only a few more chains to endure, and she’d be in the next chamber. As she dragged her body past the final chain and felt it wrap around her chest, just below her chest, a dark thought surfaced in her mind: if her first mistake had happened just a little earlier, she’d be completely entombed in chains by this point. And if that happened - if she failed - would the gods intervene? Or would they just leave her? She didn’t know, and she had a feeling they wouldn’t answer.
Finally at the end of the corridor, she reached a trembling hoof into the threshold - and instantly the chains vanished. Dash gasped, then sighed with relief, rolling onto her back and flexing her legs to try and restore the feeling to them.
“The third and final trial!” called the voice of the cat god. “The slime pit!”
“The slime pit” was an inauspicious name - but Dash was mostly just relieved that it was the final trial. It could have been called anything - it could have been “the slime pit where you get kicked out of the Wonderbolts and all your friends say you’re ugly” and Rainbow Dash still would have been really, really happy to hear the word “final.”
Rainbow Dash rolled over, stood on her revitalized legs, and surveyed the chamber. The room ahead of her was circular - aside from the ledge she was standing on, and a similar one on the opposite side. In between the two ledges was a wide basin, dipping down at a steep angle and then curving into a flat base. The basin itself seemed to be made of stone, but it was covered by a translucent layer of… well, the gods had called it “slime,” so that seemed like as good a term as any. It had what Twilight would have described as very high viscosity - it was clinging to the sides of the basin, forming a layer one inch thick rather than flowing into the middle.
Dash stuck one hoof out over the rim of the basin and brought the tip of her heel into contact with the slime. When she pulled her hoof away, she could feel the slime pulling back, sucking at the wedge heel. The slime had a surprisingly strong hold on her, considering how little of her heel she’d brought into contact with it. It was easy enough to overcome now, but with all four hooves resting on it… it might not be so effortless.
The first trick, Rainbow Dash reasoned, would be descending the side of the basin. If she lost her footing, she would tumble forward, potentially landing face-first in the slime. She felt as though she could probably extract her face if that happened… but there was no point risking it. She cautiously lowered one foreleg into the basin, let her heel sink a fraction of an inch into the slime, and pulled back against the sticky goo.
It pulled even stronger at her heels, now that she’d deliberately stuck the whole base of her shoes into the slime. If they’d been normal shoes, the slime would have pulled them right off when she tugged on her legs - but these shoes were part of the ensemble in some sort of magically-cursed, can’t-be-removed kind of way.
And that could actually work to Dash’s advantage here. As long as her heels stuck to the ground, she wouldn’t need to worry about falling, no matter what angle she was walking at. She cautiously walked her forelegs a short distance down the side of the basin, securely anchoring them to the slime, then moved her back legs onto the sticky ooze. And - although she was standing at more than a forty-five-degree angle, her feet stayed planted to the slime as if she were on terra firma.
“Okay,” she sighed, “this can work.” She pulled one forehoof up, wincing at the slimy splortch it made as it tried to hold onto her. “Gross,” she moaned, “If Daring Do were here, she’d… somehow not be doing this. She’d… swing on something, or… dissolve the slime… or maybe she’d just talk the gods out of putting her through the trials in the first place.”
“Impossible!” bellowed the voice of the snake goddess. “I mean, I don’t actually know who this Daring Do is, but no one can talk me out of anything unless they possess tremendous oratory skill and unlimited free time!”
“I can attest to that,” said the cat god.
“Okay,” muttered Rainbow Dash. “Like, with all due respect, whatever.” She proceeded down the side of the basin, grunting with effort each time she had to lift one of her legs. At first, she suspected it was just the soreness of her legs, which had already been through an intense workout. But it couldn’t have been just that - each footstep was noticeably harder than the last, far more than fatigue alone would explain.
None of her heels ever sunk that far into the slime; there wasn’t far to sink, since the slime was uniformly an inch thick. But even sinking an extra fraction of an inch seemed to drastically increase the stickiness of the slime; despite not entirely knowing what the term meant, she felt certain that Twilight Sparkle would have described it as exponentially more sticky. And if he impression was right, that was bad news: sinking a full inch into the slime would get her intractably stuck.
The curve of the basin eased off, and Dash made her way to the nearly level ground at the basin’s bottom. And while it felt nice to be on flat ground, it also meant that gravity was pushing her straight down, sinking her heels further into the slime. A thin layer of the stuff seemed to be clinging to her heels, and that accumulation only made things worse. She was yanking her legs out of the slime with each step, using practically all the strength in her aching limbs to pull her hooves free. Instinctively, she tried to flap her wings to generate some lift - but they were still bound tight to her back. She crossed the bottom of the basin at a snail’s paced, then stared up despairingly at the rising curve that led up to the exit.
Dash’s patience was wearing extremely thin… but unlike in the last two trials, there wasn’t much she could actually do about it. Recklessly charging forward just wasn’t an option this time, not when every step took all her strength. Even still, impatience was boiling up inside her - every step was a fresh indignity, not simply because of the ooze clinging to her heels and the stomach-turning glorp her hoofsteps made. Being forced to go so slow felt like an insult, an insult from the Cutie Map in collaboration with two useless, forgotten gods.
A rumble was growing in Dash’s throat, and her whole body was beginning to shake. “These are the trials you’ve been arguing about for three thousand years?” She shouted. “Urgh, they’re just.. weird! And pointless! No wonder the ponies you were supposed to be taking care of moved away! Why is this so important to you two?”
The gods didn’t answer.
“Okay, great!” shouted Dash. “Well guess what! I’m going to beat your dumb trial, and the next time you decide to argue about something, maybe make it something that matters to anyone!” She bent her knees, all four of them, and flexed as hard as she could, leaping out of the slime and throwing herself onto the upward curve of the basin’s surface. She didn’t exactly have a plan, other than expressing her frustration - but she managed to extend her forehooves and catch herself on the sloping edge of the basin.
She also got her snout a fraction of an inch into the slime, just enough that she had to grunt and struggle to yank her nose out of it. She could still feel a tiny layer of the stuff clinging to her fur; it was odorless, but the feeling was… unpleasant. She growled, her teeth gritted, yanking one forehoof free and climbing higher up the slimy wall.
The slime was still powerfully sticky, but anger was giving Dash strength now. Hoof over hoof, she climbed towards the rim - and she looked pretty badass, if you could ignore the splortch that accompanied each motion. Slowly, arduously, she breached the rim of the basin and dragged herself onto the solid stone floor. The doorway ahead led into darkness, and a less exhausted Rainbow Dash might have found herself suspicious at the sight. But right now she was ready to risk it, if there was a chance that this was just going to be over.
“There,” she groaned, crawling through the doorway shead, “I did your stupid-”
The dark room exploded in golden light and a shower of rainbow-colored confetti. Dash felt herself being lifted into the air, and she flailed her limbs, struggling against something strong… and furry… and warm…
There was something profoundly soothing about the way she was being grappled. In fact, it was starting to feel less like a grapple and more like a hug. She stopped flailing, and saw the face of the cat god smiling down at her. He was, in fact hugging her, with a carefree grin on his face.
“You did it, mortal!” he said. “Oh, I’ve never been happier to be wrong!”
“Yes,” said the snake goddess, approaching from a corner of the room. “It seems there is at least one mortal who possesses the skill to overcome the trials. The two of us can finally stop arguing about it, and move on to…” she paused, putting a finger to her mouth and flicking her tongue thoughtfully. “Well, I don’t have any plans, but I’m sure I’ll figure out something.”
“Cool, great,” said Rainbow Dash. “Hey… suddenly I don’t feel tired at all. What gives?”
“That’s a typical side effect of being hugged by a god,” said the cat god, setting her down. “But your reward is something even grander.”
“Is my reward being let out of this stupid costume?” muttered Rainbow Dash. “Cuz that would be-”
“No!” said the cat god excitedly. “It’s the exact opposite of that! You get to keep it!”
“Okay, well… that’s cool, but… does it come off? Because I’m kinda ready to not be wearing it.”
“Ah, it is sealed to your body with divine magic,” said the snake goddess. “It is possible for one of us to break the enchantment, but it is… to use a colloquialism of our forgotten culture… a ‘pain in the ass.’”
“Worry not,” said the cat god. “The magic binding it to your body should dissipate once you return to your own home.”
“I’ll never get home if I can’t fly,” said Dash, scowling, “and this suit is binding my wings.”
“Hmm, I see what you mean,” said the snake goddess. “I suppose we can grant you one additional boon. Before you flew, how did you arrive here?”
“I took a train out to a little town?” said Dash, not sure where this line of questioning was headed. “Uh, I dunno if you had trains back in your time, but-”
“It matters not,” said the goddess. “Simply hold the image of that place in your mind.”
“Okay,” said Dash, shutting her eyes tight. “But if this surprise isn’t better than the last few, I’m gonna be-” she paused, hearing the silence of the stone chamber replaced by the voices of ponies all around her. She opened her eyes to find herself suddenly out in the open, back in the town at the edge of the jungle. At first, she was relieved - but then she realized she’d be taking the train home while wearing the “ceremonial” bodysuit the whole time. She was already getting looks she didn’t like, and she had a feeling that wasn’t going to let up until she got home and could finally take the damn suit off.
Rainbow Dash kicked open her front door and collapsed onto the couch. She’d mostly avoided talking with other ponies on the way home, instead choosing to stew in her humiliation as the goofy outfit stayed bound to her body, but she’d been forced to explain her predicament to a couple of fellow pegasi at the ponyville train station - and they’d given her a lift back to her airborne home. The gods had been right - as soon as she entered her home, she felt the suit loosen slightly, and when she pulled at it, it seemed like it would be possible to remove it. Finding a seam in the back, she began to wiggle out of it, sighing joyously as her wings came free.
But she couldn’t seem to actually get the damn thing off. The boots weren’t budging - and Dash soon realized why. The boots sported some decorative holes along the sides of the heels - and during the third trial, the slime had seeped in, coating her hooves. Its intense stickiness was all over the interior of the boots, And they weren’t coming off - not without a lot of pulling or some pretty serious magic.
“Uh, forget it,” groaned Dash, sprawling out on the couch. “Tomorrow. I’ll deal with it tomorrow.”