Chapter 1-5

Cobalt Coral and her stallion companion, Cornfield, stared dumbfounded at the inscription on the plaque beside the large, intimidating stone doors. The confused hippogriff read to herself again and again to try and better understand the cryptic message. "Lose smell. Lose senses. Deceived.” she repeated. “I can't seem to wrap my talon around what this means…”

Impatiently, Cornfield paced around behind her, growing more anxious every second. “Yeah, well, I'm starting to grow a beard here. How much longer?”

Coral glared behind her, increasingly sick of the whining since they arrived at the doors. "Huh. Well. All right. If you are so impatient..." Moving out of the way, she motioned her claws for him to either put up or shut up. "You go first."

With a heavy sigh, he approached the doors with whatever collected vigor he had. “Fine. Here I go!” Taking a deep breath and puffing his chest out, he placed both hooves on each door and pushed as hard as he could. He struggled to shove them open wide enough to walk through but, with a grunt, he slid them as far apart as he could muster. Without even remotely heeding the plaque’s warning, he fearlessly marched forward as Coral watched from behind to see what would happen as he continued onward.

The corridor ahead was filled with vines and budding pink flowers that shivered in Cornfield’s presence. Before he knew what hit him, they slowly opened their petals and blasted their sickly sweet smelling pollen in his face, causing him to choke and gag. “Aaah!” he yelled. “What the buck?!” He looked at the rest of his body as the pollen stuck to his fur. “What...is this?”

"Cornfield?!" Coral cried out, thinking the worst had happened to him. Perhaps the flowers had made it so they would have him propagate more of those pink flowers inside him. Maybe they poisoned him to slowly perish? However, the pollen didn’t have any damaging effects. All that happened to him, after being blasted, was he couldn’t smell anything but the sweet scent of flowers. At the end of the corridor, he saw a large room filled with a floral paradise, from the ground to the walls, of color and magnificence.

He hesitated from entering the room, as he didn’t want to yet disturb the natural beauty. “Ooooooooooooooo.” he marveled in awe before seeing a massive flower the size of a king-sized bed. It beckoned him to come closer with it’s soft looking petals and center. “Hey! Check that out!”

"Check what out?!" she called back. He didn’t respond and had begun to edge ever so closer. “Cornfield?” Not wanting to wait before anything irreversible happened, she dug through her saddle bag and pulled out the towel she used to treat Cornfield's chisel wound. She then wrapped it around her beak and tied it around her head securely.

Cornfield curiously walked toward the flower, uttering a single “...whooooa…” The hippogriff shadowing him successfully managed to pass by the pink flowers without smelling the pollen, thanks to the towel covering her nostrils. When she passed through into the room on the other side and unwrapped the towel, a heavy stench hit her hard!

"BLECH! This garden reeks... It smells like dead fish in here!" Indeed, the garden was full of plant-life, but nearly all of them were dead and rotting with flies buzzing around.

“Yeah, but... look at the flower!” he said in a hypnotic trance.

"What flower, there isn't any--" She screamed in horror when she saw the giant, spotted flower in the middle of the room. Its petals were decorated with razor-sharp teeth, awaiting somepony foolish to approach it. Somepony like a certain careless colt. "CORNFIELD! DON'T GO ON THAT FLOWER!"

“What? It's just... a pretty flower.” Cry as she might, Cornfield was blind to the danger ahead. He wandered close enough for the mighty carnivorous plant to chomp on its prey! By dumb luck, the unevenly spaced teeth missed him by a hair, but he was still trapped between the folded petals and couldn't get out no matter how much he struggled.

"NO!"

“HAYULP!” his shout muffled inside the flower. “GET ME OUT OF HERE! I DON'T WANT TO BE EATEN ALIVE!”

Without hesitation, she galloped over and grabbed his tail in her talons. She started to pull as hard as she could, but time was against her as the digestive acids forming inside the flower's bud were nearly rising to his level. "I'm sorry! But this is the only way to GET. YOU. OUT.”

He couldn’t quite hear her, but the tugs on his tail were a clear indication of her assistance. “HURRY!” In the nick of time, she managed to pull him out with an audible pop! He ended up landing right on Coral as they crashed into each other from the force of his escape.

"OOF!"

Dazed and confused with the pollen’s influence wearing off, Cornfield shook his head. “Ugh,” he groaned. “What happened…”

"Gff yrrr aff ovv muh fcce."

“Huh? What was that? Coral, are you hiding from me or something?” He laid back as he looked for the source of the sound, putting more weight in his seat.

"MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMPH!!!"

The angry bird-mare hybrid from underneath shoved him aside onto the dead grass and gasped in an attempt to breath again, only for the smell of the dead plants to choke her again. “BLECH!” she coughed. “I don't know what suffocates me more: the garden or your ass!"

“Uh...why were you…” It then donned on him what occurred. Blushing, he got up from the dead grass and looked around for an exit. “Nevermind. Let's hurry up and get the Heart… thing! I've just about had enough of here!”

"Right.” she agreed as she got up and brushed herself off. “Now do you see why I take my time with these things?" They both walk around the large carnivorous flower slowly. On the other side
of the garden, across from the corridor where they came from was another set of stone double doors.

“Hey, it's not my fault…” He paused as he looked at the next set of giant stone doors.
“But this time, you first… Ok?

"Fine!” She scoffed at him before digging in her bags and shoving her translation book forcefully in his hooves. “You want to read the inscription? There's another plaque, just like the one before." Turning her back on him, she sulkingly focused her attention on the door instead of looking at him. "Have fun!"

He opened the book and flipped through its pages randomly to get an idea of what to expect on how to translate the Ancient Ponish writings. “I should warn you I don't read these kinds of books.”

"Fine, whatever. I just want you to get an idea of how hard it is."

“Uhh...let's see what it says.” Identifying the first few symbols and committing it to short-term memory, he frantically turned each page until a few recognizable letters revealed themselves to him. “...T...T...Tea... Something about tea?”

"Tea?" Coral asked, cocking her head and looking bewildered. "Am I going to meet a rabbit and a stallion with a strange hat on the other side of that door?"

“Hold on...Lie...Lie...Mmmmmm…” He browsed the book some more, trying to make sense of the nonsense of letters and words that jumbled in his head. However, after putting enough of the pieces in place, something clicked in his brain. “Oh! Ok, ok… I think I got it. ‘Tea away’... something…’reveal light...in...?’ Or maybe it means to ‘tear’ something off...?” He looked back at Coral, who only just shrugged and motioned him to keep piecing it together. “Hmmmmm… ‘Tear... away something to reveal light in…?’"

After hearing enough to get a good idea on where to get started, she removed her saddle bag off her back and placed it gently on the ground. “I will leave this here. Watch close. If anything happens to me, I hope to have you right behind me using whatever I have brought.”

“Oh yeah! Gotcha!” He said with a smile before putting his nose back in the book. “Hmmmm... I wonder what's it supposed to mean?”

She planted her claws on the stone door and pushed. Although she was bigger than Cornfield, she wasn’t physically stronger, so it took more effort to get it open than before. He barely contained a chuckle looking at her from the corner of his eye. “Oh, and before you get any bright ideas, no, you don’t get my stuff if something happens to me,” She blurted. Without giving him a chance to protest, she walked down the corridor, into the subtle darkness.

Cornfield got a hunch about something, and he shouted out to Coral, who was already deep inside the hallway. “Coral? Do you have anything we can use as light?”

"There's a lantern in my knapsack." she shouted back. "I’m keeping it there until I call you to bring anything to me." Proceeding down the corridor, she found the hallway to be a narrow walk until she bumped into something soft deeper in the darkness. "Huh?!" stymied, she felt around with her claws. There, a small tapestry hanged on the wall. “Did I hit a dead end already? I was only walking a straight line… right?” Upon closer examination of the cloth, it appeared worn and faded. It clearly has seen better days.

“Are you alright in there, Coral?”

"Yeah! I just… Didn’t think that this room would be just a path leading to nothing!"

“I-I think you need to...press...something…” he chimed in, thinking back to all the adventure books he read before. “Do you see anything that might be a switch?”

“No, but…” She scratched her head as she thought about the clue given to her before. “Tear... away? Revealing light?” With bestial ferocity, she dug her claws in the tapestry and shredded it down into ribbons, revealing a small hole that looked like something could fit inside, large enough to insert a container of some sort. She tried her best to peer inside the cavity, despite the limited visibility. "Is this... a mechanism of some kind... " Looking around her proximity, she tried to find something to stick into the hole. Yet there was nothing, leading her to briefly put her foreleg in it. "Ugh, no, I'd be crazy if I stuck my claws in that. But there’s got to be something…”

“Found it yet?” Cornfield called down the hall, but Coral was too preoccupied with the puzzle in front of her. Worried, he thought to himself “Maybe I should check on her”. So he put on her saddlebags, and proceeded to accompany her. “ALRIGHT, CORAL! I'm coming!”
"Cornfield!” She shouted back. “Don't do anything stupid! Use the lantern!" Halting at her advice, he fished out the lantern from her bag, and lit it to guide his way down to Coral’s position. "Hmmm. Am I thinking TOO hard about this?” she thought.

“Heeeeey...what's this?” He said, discovering shredded fabric and the hole behind it.

"Did you bring my bag with you?"

“Yeah! Why did you leave it behind?”

"I didn't think it would be needing it! I left it with you just in case!"

“Anyway, I gotta say...” Cornfield held the lantern up to Coral’s face. The light from it brought her attention towards it. “This is a very nice lantern you have here!” Coral stared into the flickering flame inside the lantern as gears started turning in her head. “Did you ‘borrow’ it from somepony?” he asked, smiling with a discerning eye.

"May I see that lantern?" she requested, pointing at it.

“Oh, sure!”

“Thanks. And no, I didn't steal it.” Swiping it from his hoof, she gently placed the lantern into the hole. A subtle click resounded from inside as a rumbling noise echoed from above. Coral stepped back, afraid of what might happen next. "Ooooooh no, what did I do...?" Fortunately for them, the worse the rumbling led to was a circular plate descending in front of where the lantern was placed. It was segmented into three circular layers - inner, middle, and outer - and had various holes embedded in each layer. The two approached the discus carefully.

“Uh...Coral?” Cornfield tapped it with his hoof to make doubly sure it was safe. “What is this?”

Reflecting back on her previous heists, she realized that this particular puzzle was nothing new to her. "Ooooh, I've seen this before. I think I can rotate the layers on the plate. Maybe I can make some sort of image with the lantern’s light on the wall if I do it correctly..." She attempted to move the outer layer around to test her hypothesis. Sure enough, they can rotated.

“I don't see any rhyme or reason behind this, Coral.” He looked around the disc and examined the lamp behind it, trying to figure out how an idea that can help them further.

"It’s simple. I just gotta guess what exactly the image is supposed to be. Let’s see." She rotated each of the layers to try and align the holes and make some sort of image, but she's only guessing at this point. "Hmm, maybe if... No, but... maybe..."

“Is there some sort of secret we missed that can help us?” He walked back to Coral’s side to spectate her work.

"Not that I saw… This is pure trial and error and it’s frustrating me more than it should. I know there’s a pattern here.” She looked at her handiwork again, pushed her talon across her beak in irritation, and stepped away. "But an image of what, I have no clue..." She stared at the image intensely while Cornfield observed her. He wanted so badly to be the absolution of the puzzle but didn’t have a clue either. Yet, like finding the right puzzle piece to fit into place, she noticed a particular pattern. "I got it!" Excitedly, she toiled to finish what she started and put the layers of the disk into proper place. Once they all became aligned, there was a resounding click.

“Cornfield! Look at the wall behind us! Let's see what image the light is making to pierce that darkness!"

Intrigued, he looked at the dots of light along the walls, creating a familiar image. “Huh...a unicorn's horn. Go figure!”

"Hmm,” Coral pondered. “The first room was a large garden, an inherited talent of earth ponies. And now, we have a unicorn, and the idea of it casting light in the darkness... Could that mean-"

The wall where the lantern was inserted rumbled and slowly shifted upwards with the sounds of scrapping stone, revealing a grand room beyond with stairs leading up to another set of stone doors. The completed disc had also lifted itself up, giving the two unrestricted access forward.

“Oh! Finally...-wait…” Cornfield looked up the stairs and gazed at the doors in disbelief. “Aww, again?!”

"Ah, of course…” Coral added while massaging the sides of her head with her claw. “It's always a rule of three with these temples…” Suddenly, a harsh realization snapped in her brain as she slammed her claw back on the stone floor. "HEY, DID THE WALL JUST TAKE MY LANTERN WITH IT?!?!"

Cornfield couldn’t help but snicker at her misfortune. “I think it was actually meant for torches.”

Growling and stomping her right claws on the stone floor, Coral was almost dead set at tearing the temple brick by brick to get what she lost back. "SHOOT! That was favorite lantern!" Air blasted in and out of her nostrils, but she managed to cool herself off a little bit after thinking about what she came her for. “...I suppose The Heart of Nature is a good trade-off for this."

“...Uhhhhhhh, you gonna be ok, Coral?” Uttered the colt.

Once she fully got her mind together, although she was still muttering obscenities under her breath, they scaled the steps to the stone door. “So,” as if to challenge her. “What do you suppose is next, Coral?” He glanced slightly behind him to see her lagging behind. “Uh...Coral?”

Snapping out of it, she shook off her loss completely. “Yeah, I’m all here now. I know The Heart of Nature is worth it, but I just don't like being cheated out of what's mine. And no, the irony isn’t lost on me.” Suddenly, she stopped herself in the middle of the steps, lost in thought again. "Hey…” she said sheepishly. “I... want to ask you something."

“Oh?” Cornfield turned to face her. “What was that?”

“So…” She hesitated while brushing her claws through her feathery mane, a habit which he has caught on to. “I've shared with you my dream. Getting the four gems... But you know..." She stared into his eyes, showing genuine concern in her own. "I never got ask what your dreams really were. Surely, it's not to stick close to someone like me as she risks her life to raid temples, right?"

He didn’t expect that kind of question at a time like this. Rubbing one of his forelegs nervously, he turned his head away. “Uh...No, not quite like that. I'd say my dream is more like-” He stopped himself before he said any more. “Ah...Never mind.”

"Oh, come on. Don't give me that." She said as she approached casually to him. "You can't just lead with something like that and not finish your thought." Even so, he continued to look downward, embarrassed about what was on his mind. Coral sighed and shook her head. "Look, I know that we're both here for our own selfish purposes. But, if we're going to continue working together, I want to know more about my partner."

“Ahhh...Well…” He looked her in the eye and summoned the courage to just say it. “I just hope, maybe one day, females will start to notice me more.” Saying what he needed to say, he went back to staring at one of the steps and drawing circles on its surface with his hoof.

"Yeah?” Coral placed a single talon lightly on his head and pushed it back. “And what exactly am I to you? I don't know if you've been getting tunnel vision lately, but you got a female noticing you now." She climbed a couple more steps ahead and turned again to face him. "And besides, even if you get a bunch of mares to notice you, fight over you even, what then?"

Mentally forced into a corner, he stomped his hoof as he faced her. “Well then, maybe I wouldn't feel like a friggin' ghost SOMETIMES! Maybe I'd feel like there something to admire about me! Or maybe, just maybe, I CAN GET LAID!”

“ACK!”

Realizing what he just said, he covered his mouth with his hooves as Coral reeled back with one of her forelegs lifted defensively. At first, she's shocked, but realized who she's talking to. She relaxed herself and proceeded to offer her shoulder to cry on. "You feel alone, don't you?" He said nothing, leaving her to really question what was aching him. "If it makes you feel better, Cornfield, there is one thing I do admire about you." He looked up into her eyes. “Once you have your sights on something, nothing short of death will stop you from getting it. If you really wanted to, you could accomplish great things with the right mindset. Maybe you haven't seen the good that does because you spend all that energy on a more negative outlook... A selfish end goal..."

“You admire that I'm selfish?!” Cornfield shouted, completely missing the point.

Her brows heightened, shocked by his reaction. "NO! That's-!" She sighed, closed her eyes, and grunted a flustered noise from the side of her beak. "No. That's not it. I'm saying that you spend so much energy with your good traits towards a short-lived and foolish end goal." She lifted her claws to his face and counted down each talon for what he had. "Tenacity.... Persistence... Determination..." She put her claws down. "You have that quality in you that drives you to not quit."

“So, what you're saying is, you appreciate my foolishness? Real good complimenting, Coral!” He motioned his hoof anxiously toward the plaque. “Just hurry up and read it. I want to go home and take a nap.”

Her faced strained to contain her anger and, instead, it failed to do so. She latched her talons into the scruff of his chest and forcefully pulled him towards her, putting her beak to his snout. "LISTEN TO ME, YOU PETTY LITTLE COLT!" Her shout echoed down the halls and off the walls. "You do have good traits to you, but it’s clear to me that YOU don't have the maturity to realize them! So, when something goes wrong, what do you do?! You wallow in self-pity instead of learning to improve yourself!" She freed one of her claws and pointed right at his face while he stared back in horror. "Is that how you want to live the rest of your life? Because I swear to both Princess Celestia and Queen Novo that it will NOT go well for you!"

She was breathing heavy, glaring at him, but a single tear was rolling down her cheek, too. After letting go of him, he slightly cowered away from her. “Ok...ok...I'm sorry...I'll be better, ok?” He never thought he could have some creature like her cut to the bone with her words, and he didn’t want to make her resort to other measures. “Uhhhhh...So...” he asked meekly. “Can you please do something about this plaque?”

She breathed in deep, calming herself down and easing her mind. Once her eyes were dry again, she cleared her throat. "Yes.” she said, focused on what’s in front of her now. “Yes, I will... But..." She pointed in his direction as she climbed towards the door. "Don't think this is over. Once we are done here,I'll teach you what it means to be a stallion, even if it kills me." Once she was in reading distance of the plaque, she pulled out her trusty translation book again and flipped through its pages. "It's the least I can do before I set out for the next gem."

With a sudden gulp, Cornfield could only imagine what she might do. “...I just hope it doesn't kill me.” As he peeked around her shoulder curiously.

Piecing together each word she found one by one through the pages of her book, Coral read aloud what was on the plaque. "One... set... of wings.... stays... caged... trust... one another.... or... die..." Her pupils shrunk and her heart jumped to her throat when she read that last word.

“Oh.” Cornfield blurted out. “...Shit…”

"Ooooooh, well, um…I... guess that mean it's... good that I came with a partner?" She tried saying with no confidence in her voice. "I mean... somepony's life is now on the line, but..."

“Are they expecting us to fly? Because I can't fly!”

Coral stood silent, steeling herself on what might be behind the door. "That's not a problem for you, Cornfield. The plaque said that one set of wings stay caged..." She unfurled her large wings to further emphasize her point. "I'm the one with wings, so..." Folding them back down again, she struggled to push the door open. "No time like the present. I'm going all-in on this one..." Once the way was wide enough, she boldly continued forward.

‘W-wait for me!” He cried out, and followed her closely. The room they entered in consisted of a narrow stone bridge, stretching from where they came in to straight across a large chasm. In the middle of the bridge was a circular path that surrounded a large cage hanging off a rusty chain. To the north, south, east, and west side of the cage were levers on the path that could be pulled. “I'm starting to think this was ethier to filter out the ‘unworthy’ or some architect's bad idea of a joke…”

Looking under the bridge, Coral could see that the cage seemed to descend into a hollow well, leading through a sea of thorny vines thrashing and writhing underneath. The thorns were also furiously squirting what seemed to be deadly acid from the tips. Coral gulped a bit at the sight.

“Uhhh… Don't worry, Coral.” he said. “I won't get myself into danger this time…”

She walked over to the cage and stuck her head inside to get a better look. There were two open shackles hanging off the bars to her left and right. Carefully, she stepped inside to inspect them in better detail. She tried to close one of them with nothing inside it. It won’t stay shut. As the only option, she put one of her forelegs in a shackle. Same as before, it refused to stay shut. “According to what the plaque said,” she thought, “It’s asking for a set of wings to stay inside this cage. I wonder if they are magically enchanted to accept only wings...” She gulped again, looking down at the well underneath through the iron bars. "I don't think you have to worry about being in danger, Cornfield." She cautiously stepped out of the cage and joined him in walking around the circular road.

“Wow, this is a little too perplexing for me,” He said while passing by and examining the southernmost lever.

"Indeed... I don't know exactly what this expects us to do, but I think I know the first step."

“Can't we just walk past this bridge to the other side?”

This was a good question that didn’t cross her mind until Cornfield asked it. She looked across only to find that the the stone door leading forward had an iron gate blocking it. "Not with that in the way..." Turning around, her curiosity got the best of her as she pulled the lever. The cage dropped like a stone, startling them both.

“Whoa, what did you do, Coral!?”

"Testing what I'm going to be up against..." They waited until the cage slowly lifted itself up out of the well. The puddles of acid covering it dissolved and evaporated with a loud sizzling sound.

“Hmmmm…” Cornfield let out a sarcastic hum. “Well, that's not intimidating at all! I wonder what the end game is here?”

"Seems pretty simple to me.” She pointed to each of the levers as she continued talking. “These levers are here for a reason. I’m willing to bet my gem collection that it’s probably the order to which they are pulled the decides if we progress. Pull the right ones, we go through." The crests on her head drooped as she imagined the pain of all that acid splashed on some creature at once. "Pull the wrong one… Well, I hope you enjoyed my company..." She desperately surveyed around the cage, the bridge, the levers, anything for a clue.*

“So,” he scratched his head trying to figure this out. “How do we find the right order?”

"I'm not sure and there's no obvious answer... yet." Without a second thought, Coral circled around and climbed back inside the cage.

“Wait!” Cornfield cried out, rushing to the cage door. “What do you think you're doing?!”

The troubled hippogriff turned and stared back him with a sorrowful expression. "You know, Cornfield... When we apologized and reconciled back at your house, I told you that I trusted no one. It was me against the world." Lifting her claw, she pointed out towards his position. "But you? You told me that there's good in every pony, and maybe every creature… It's time to put your money where your mouth is. Show me that I should believe in you, despite everything we've said and done."

Panicking and confused, Cornfield frantically looked around, wondering what he missed to have her doing this. “Wha? What are you saying?” He reached his hoof out to her. “Dammit, Coral, DON’T DO THIS!”

"Listen close!” Coral shouted in a commanding tone. “I have a feeling that I'll need you to stay here to pull these lever while I'm in this death trap. The plaque says I should trust you, so that's what I'm going to do.

“B-But, I don't know the answer!”

She paused and sighed. Meekly, she whispered "Neither do I". Taking the shackles, she closed them around the base of her wings. As she surmised, they were enchanted as the magic surged through her each time they sealed shut. She grunted in pain as the cage very slowly descended into the darkness. "But... we don't win if we don't try..." As she watched herself slowly sinking down into the well, she thought to herself more about the situation she’s in. “Ok... Hopefully, that was enough of a morale-boosting speech... Hopefully, that will put his head in the game... for my sake... Oh gosh, I might die here..."

“No!” He still attempted to reach out for her as her head lowered to hoof level. “Don't do this! We can come up with an alternative!”

"Focus!" she snapped back at him. “We already started. We can’t turn back now!” She lost sight of Cornfield as she delved further down, with nothing but stone masonry all around her. But, just before she was convinced that she ran into this trap headfirst with no way out, she passed by some arrows etched into the bricks in front of her. Fate smiled on her. "AH HA!” she cried out. Ok, listen to me! I found the answer!"

“Huh? Really?! What is it?”

"Ok! Do you know which is north? That's in the direction of the iron-gated door!” She quickly double-checked the arrows before they disappeared from view. “Pull the north, then left lever! Hurry! But, try not to slip and fall off the bridge!"

“Ok!” He’s about to take a step before doubting her words. “Wait! Are you absolutely certain?”

"Yes! Trust me! North and west! Upper and left! HURRY!” Beads of sweat dripped down her face. “Don't second guess me!” She thought. “My life is on the line here!”

“Alright!” Cooperated Cornfield as he ran to pull the north lever, then the west one. Each lever made the cage rumble with recognition. She winced with each sound of the lever being pulled. Fortunately, nothing bad happened yet.

"Oh!” she said with great relief. “Ok! Ok! Next is..." Her heart sank as she inhaled a sharp gasp. For instead of arrows, there were ancient texts etched into the stone. Frantically, she pulled the translation booklet out of her saddlebags and began translating as fast as she could. “Oh, no. No…” she cursed under her breath. “Uh... Opposites... Reversed?” She lost her cool as the words left her view. “UHHH...!"

“What?! What's going on, Coral?” As he cried out, he noticed the cage was going deeper in, getting closer to the toxic vines! “No!” he cursed to himself. “Come on, Coral! PLEASE!”

Coral worked through the message in her head, trying desperately to find the answer. "Uh... Opposite.... North? West? South and East... Reversed?" A light bulb went off in her head the moment she pieced it together. "CORNFIELD!” she shouted. “EAST AND SOUTH LEVERS!"

“Uhh...East...Oh! Facing right!” Without hesitation, he practically jumped for the eastern-most lever, and then reached for the south.

All the clicks startled her, but nothing happened yet. She was looking to the last hint, but it's on the last set of stone bricks. Underneath, all she could see was vines below her, reaching out to ensnare the cage. Her heart was racing as panic set in. She was staring death right in the eyes with nowhere to run. The clue was in ancient text again, so she frantically translated as fast as she could. "UM! UH! I...UH...!" she stammered, trying to piece it all together… "IT SAYS.... PATH... OF...SUN...SALVATION?!"

Completely misunderstanding the meaning, Cornfield laid down, put his hooves together, and muttered "Oh Celestia, thy name I bear, for I ask thine power to save thee. Oh Celestia, hear my prayer, Forein".

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING UP THERE?!" A droplet of acid hit Coral’s hindleg, she let out a high-pitched screech as it burned her flesh. "CORNFIELD! THE PATH OF THE SUN! THINK!"

Startled by her screams, he got himself up and started racking his brain to save his fair maiden. “Uhh! Ummmm! Maybe...down? But how...?” The tips of the vines had reached the bottom of the cage. They worked their way upward, slowly entangling it.

"NO!” Coral shouted. “NOOO! GET AWAY! AAAAAAAH!" The vines were getting too close to her, spouting acid from their thorns. Then, as if the answer came to him in divine providence, Cornfield remembered which way the sun travelled in a day. He sprinted to hit the east and west levers as fast as possible. Coral put her talons over her eyes, anticipating the end. However, the cage stopped its descent suddenly, causing her to lose balance. Then, it began to ascend, slowly. "He..." she said with a pause, holding her chest with both claws. "...He did it..."

The vines lost their grip on the cage as it rose up the well into safety. Cornfield looked over the well’s edge, watching the cage come closer. “Coral! Are you alright?!” The cage reached its peak as the shackles broke their own grip on her wings. She stumbled out, disoriented and a bit dizzy from the intensity of her latest brush with death.

She approached Cornfield until she was close enough, then she tucked her legs in and lied down where she was eye to eye with him.

"Cornfield..." she whispered weakly.

“...Uhhhhhhhh...” he responded back, pathetically.

She didn't know what prompted her to do it. Maybe because she saw her life flash before her eyes. Maybe it was overwhelming gratitude and wanted to pay her partner back. Maybe it was the fact that she did it simply for his reaction and still riding on the thrill. It didn't change the fact that she kissed him, right then and there, as she leaned in, opened her beak and surrounded his lips with it.

Cornfield froze, processing the spur-of-the-moment kiss he received. After all, he too, just went through an intense moment of his life. He's not even sure how they're still alive after what they’ve been through to survive the three trials of the perilous dungeon.

Author's Note

Thank you so much for those following this story for reading so far.