Twisted Fate

Chapter Three – Faith

“Trust me on this!”

Faith and I walked through the streets of Alexmanedria, a bustling metropolis full of colorful vendors and assorted goods. My newfound traveling partner seemed to be focused intently on our goal of retrieving the mysterious artifact from the depths of the Lighthouse catacombs. The first thing we did was stop off at a nearby armor shop to get fitted with some protection. From the tome Faith had found, we had a vague idea of what to expect. Not much in terms of live enemies, but numerous traps and an abundance of necromantic magic was rumored to be housed in the crypt.

“Stand still, Miss,” The armorer said as he took measurements of me. How was I supposed to stand still for this long, it was way too boring for me. “Almost finished now,” The armorer spoke. The armor was fairly straight forward, reinforced light leather for both of us, studded in certain parts such as the shoulder to help in deflecting weapon blows, not likely we would need it now, but it might come in handy if I get in any trouble later.

“We’re so hitting the weapon shop after this,” I said to Faith, who seemed to be having a laugh at my expense of being annoyed by standing still for so long. I glared daggers at her for her chuckles. Her only response was a roll of the eyes.

“Honestly, Destiny,” here we go again, I thought, “what use is a weapon if you are too injured to use it. Let the stallion do his job, he knows what he’s doing.”

“I never said he didn’t,” glancing at the stallion now outfitting the armor around my wing so I could still fly with it on, the weapon adorned on my left wing missing in action as I was forced to remove it so I wouldn’t poke the armorer’s eye out. “I’m just saying I’ve never been fitted for custom armor, it’s always been standard issue for me. Now I know why they didn’t do it. Way too time consuming.”

“Hush now, there’s plenty of time to get all the supplies we need before noon and get over to the lighthouse,” Faith placated me. I quieted down and let the armorer finish outfitting me with the leather.

After we were both fitted with a suitable amount of defense, I took a look at our remaining funds. Full suits of light armor like that came out to 2500 a pony, leaving us with a good 15,000 bits left.

“Alright,” I spoke up, “Let’s go get the fun stuff, where to first?” I turned to Faith, knowing she knew the city far better than I did.

“Why don’t we hit ‘The Gilded Sword’ first?” Faith asked, “It sounds like a good store,” she reasoned.

“Oh, yeah! They had one of those back in Aurora. I got some awesome stuff there once,” I replied.

“I’d love to go there someday,” Faith mused.

“So would I,” I mumbled.

“What was that?” Faith asked, not quite hearing exactly what I mumbled.

“Nothing,” I said back. We walked down the street for another short time, finally arriving at the rather ornate weapons emporium. I was having a field day in there, all kinds of weapons, maces, axes, swords, flails, all kinds of specialized weapons for any situation one might find themselves in. Faith could only scoff and I went from stand to stand, examining each and every detail of the ornate and deadly designs. I decided my needs would be simple. I wasn’t a unicorn, so traditional weapons like swords were out of the question. I opted for two honed wing blades, perfectly balanced to seem virtually weightless on my wing. As well as a single hoof blade magically enchanted to retract and extend at the flex of a muscle, great for hoof to hoof combat. I decided to forgo ranged weapons, assuming any foe I met at a distance I could close the gap easily enough to not be hindered by the lack of ranged damage. After all of it, I still walked out of the store with over 10,000 bits, sure to come in handy later.

“Now that you’re done arming yourself for a world war,” Faith said, “We can get a move on. I want to find out what’s so peculiar about the depths of this place that’s got the Ka so itching to find out. What do you think?” Faith turned to me, as if expecting me to have some kind of actually intellectual answer.

“As far as I know,” I began, “The Ka knows that whatever is in the catacombs is a pretty powerful artifact, considering he was willing to pay me in advance to get his paws on it. Twenty thousand bits isn’t exactly pocket change, even for royalty like him. I’m almost a little suspicious. What do you know of any artifacts of extreme power near here? Real or legend?”

“Well first and most obvious is the giant stone obelisks around the entire nation, and in the center the bottomless abyss that is nothing more than a giant crack in the world. As far as artifacts known to be in Alexmanedria are concerned, I can only think of a few. I don’t know what they do, but I can give a list of them at least,” Faith finished.

“Go for it,” I replied, “Any and all information is helpful.”

“You like to learn,” Faith mused, “I can respect that. Alright, there are two that come to mind. A golden scarab, never found, unknown purpose; and what some tomes in the library refer to as an ‘Infinite Hourglass,’ though I don’t know exactly what it does, one can only guess what a magical hourglass controls.” I looked surprisingly at Faith; she sure knew more than she originally let on. I took a closer look at her face, she held her eyes dead center to my own, but this time I wasn’t gawking at their blueness but rather attempting to sense if she was hiding something from me. I can understand not knowing what the rumored pieces of power do, but being able to spout off the legends at the drop of a hat and to have not told me before hinted to me that this was a mare of many faces. A small part of me admitted that I liked each and every one.

“Well,” I paused, “This is it.”

“Yep,” was the only response I got out of her.

Faith and I stood outside the base of the lighthouse, the nearby area being virtually devoid of any other creatures. For good reasons I assumed. If the Ka was publically announcing that he was sending someone to investigate the lighthouse catacombs, it was likely that others would know to steer clear of the area in order to avoid even the slightest glimpse of the inside of the building at the base of the lighthouse.

The lighthouse itself was nothing more than a tall tower that stood near the edge of the river, a tall flame adorning the top of it, never seeming to go out. I surmised that some pegasus that lived in the city tended to it, though as far as I knew I might be the only pegasus in this entire country. I know it’s mostly a canine and earth pony nation, but I’d still seen a few unicorns, including Faith. The area was devoid of any pegasi however. Maybe the flame just never went out, magically enhanced to burn for all eternity.

“Look here, Destiny,” Faith called me attention to where she was looking, something peculiar at the base of the building. “Look, this stone is old. I mean, really, really old. I’ve never examined the lighthouse up close, but it looks to be as if this lighthouse not only predates the founding of this nation, but predates the earliest buildings in the city itself. A bit of a contradiction to what is spat out in textbooks.”

Upon closer inspection, I saw that she was indeed correct. The stone at the base of the lighthouse looked positively ancient, showing signs of intense aging and wear as it sat there for possible thousands of years at the edge of a river. For all I knew, this could have existed before the river was formed.

“Is the door unlocked?” I asked.

“Should be,” Faith responded, “Legend alone keeps this place empty of most of the sane citizens, the guards never found a reason to put a lock on this.” To test her theory, Faith pressed a hoof to the equally as ancient looking wooden door that sealed off the entrance rather insecurely. The door creaked open with an audible squeak, revealing to the two mares a small circular room lit my torches. I looked around the room, seeing multiple cob webs and signs of intense aging. I was beginning to believe Faith’s story about this building possible being older than the city itself. Was it possible that the city was built around the lighthouse? As I pondered this mystery, I spotted a wooden trap door in the center of the room, most likely the entrance to the lower levels of the catacombs, filled with all of the dangers we read about. The back of my mind was sending a prayer to whoever was listening that they were all false. The rational part of my mind told the back to shut up and get ready. This was going to be interesting.

Faith and I stepped off the last step down the small flight of stairs, ending up roughly 30 or so feet below the surface of the city. I took a moment to allow my eyes to adjust to the change in light, from a bright and arid desert day to a dark and rather depressing low light crypt. I could make out on the edges of the room we were just in a couple of mummified pony and jackal corpses that had been embalmed for some time now. I even saw a gryphon, despite how uncommon they were in this country. Even less so than any pegasus.

“This place isn’t so bad,” I said, walking through the room. I tried to help lift our spirits in this aura of depression. “Once you get past the mummified corpses and the low light that looks like it could be hiding something that wants to kill you, I could definitely warm up to this place.” Just then, I felt a depression in the ground as my hoof stepped on a loose floor stone. No, scratch that; it was a pressure plate. The whirling sound of gears turning and a brief glance to my side showed holes where poison darts would shoot out of. I instinctively ducked, causing Faith to stop in her tracks behind me as three darts shot overhead and embedded themselves into the wall on the opposite side of the room.

“Not so bad, hmm?” Faith said back with a smirk on her face.

“Shut up,” I replied flatly.

“At least you’re still alive,” Faith said matter-of-factly. I knew she was right, but it didn’t make it any less annoying to have the universe toss my words right back in my fact in the form of traps.

“And,” I added, “At least we know there are some pressure plate traps now, I’ll keep an eye out for them now, as long as the room is well lit enough we should be able to spot them without triggering any of them. Think there are any others?” I turned back to Faith.

“Tripwires?” She asked, pointing a hoof over at the door at the end of the long hallway like room, revealing a long thin rope laid just low enough to the ground to avoid being seen unless you’re looking for it, but just high enough that a passerby wouldn’t step directly over it. I quickly glanced around and noticed a small spike protruding from the edge of the wall, cleverly concealed by what seemed like a mini architectural arch. Maybe it really did provide support, but I was almost positive that the arch’s main purpose was to hide this devilish trap.

I motioned for Faith to stay back with my hoof. I leaned down close to the floor near the tripwire, carefully extending my hoof blade out with a flex of my muscle and lowered the sharpened blade towards the wire, sawing through it with ease. I jumped a little as the spike shot out over my head abruptly. It then retracted itself, the trap assuming it had killed the intruder in a manner most grueling. I winced at the thought that it could have been me and not air the spike impaled.

“Close one,” I said and turned to Faith, “Thanks.”

“No problem,” she replied. “Let’s keep moving.” We moved in towards the door stationed at the end of the hallway like room, this one slightly more ornate and made out of metal. A small lock held the two doors together and prevented someone from opening it.

“A lock?” I said, “That’s the best they can do?” I extended my blade again, carefully inserting the thin, sharp metal in between the tumblers of the lock and poking them into place before giving a final tug on the lock and opening it. “Piece of cake,” I said.

“Quite,” was Faith’s only reply. We both entered the next room, the setting seeming to change abruptly from a desolate catacomb littered with a few traps to a vast, expansive chamber filled with doors branching off to different sections. A brief look over the railing on the opposite side of the hallway showed the chamber to continue downwards for several levels, a stone statue taking place in the center of the bottom of the chamber room. “Oh, how interesting,” Faith perked up at the new setting, “Oh and what’s this?” Faith looked over the railing and towards the statue, “We should get a closer look, but how…” Faith paused and turned to me.

“Uh, Faith,” I flexed my wings for emphasis.

“Oh right, not used to pegasi still,” she blushed in embarrassment; I guess missing obvious things like that wasn’t very scholarly like. I floated up behind my new companion and grabbed her sides as she yelped in surprise. I wasn’t used to carrying the extra weight of another pony, but I did the task without too much complication. Definitely not an activity I would do in my spare time though, it was quite taxing.

We neared the floor at a slow pace, as I was doing my best to make sure Faith had a soft landing. Eventually her hooves touched the ground and I dropped her off, letting go of her sides and letting out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding. She turned back to me as I landed my hooves on the ground and folded in my wings, content with my flight.

“Not bad,” she commented, “You’re stronger than you look, you know.”

“Thanks,” I blushed slightly at the praise. “Let’s go see that statue though.”

Both of us turned towards the center of the floor, a large statue almost as tall as two gryphons stood on top of each other dominated the chamber. It was a statue of a great owl, its wings folded neatly to its side and its gaze unwavering as it stared straight forward towards a grand door. I followed its gaze towards the spot in the center, a seal of three triangles surrounding a fourth.

“Check this out,” I grabbed Faith’s attention as I walked slowly towards the door locked with a seal. “What is it?” I asked hoping to get an explanation.

“I’ve seen this somewhere before!” Faith gasped. She floated out a book from her saddlebags as I gave her a flat look.

“What? I thought it might come in handy. Ok, let’s see here. Ah, here we go. This is a seal of wisdom. There are several noted around the world, but it never mentions one in Alexmanedria.”

“Okay, so how do we open it?” I inquired.

“Ah, right, opening it,” Faith paused. “To open a seal of wisdom, you must have a piece of wisdom. It is said that a piece of wisdom will reveal itself to a creature only when it has solved the riddle of the seal.”

“And this riddle is where exactly,” I asked. I took a brief glance around the room, noting several doors along the walls. I strode up to the owl statue, taking in all of its details, from how it preened it wings to position of its feet. I took a quick glance at the owl’s tail, noting its peculiar position to its side as it pointed toward one door in particular.

“I’m not sure,” Faith replied.

“I think I might know,” I said, turning towards the door the tail pointed at. “Come on, follow me,” I motioned Faith over.

“Why would it be over there? No offense Destiny, but there is over a hundred doors in this chamber, it could be any one of them,” Faith reasoned.

“No, no I’m sure it’s this one. If it doesn’t have the piece of wisdom it probably has the riddle to obtain it at least,” I reasoned. I was completely going out on a limb here with this idea that the way to open the door was located where the tail was pointing, but hey, it wasn’t like that tail was pointing directly behind the statue. It was oddly skewed to the side, like the sculptor of the piece had been secretly pointing to the door.

“Any logical reasoning behind that conclusion?” Faith asked.

“Trust me on this, okay. Have some, pff, faith,” I nearly burst out laughing from that line.

“You’ve been holding that in since you’ve met me haven’t you,” Faith asked flatly.

“Maybe,” I smirked. “Now come on, follow me.” I started off towards the marked door. As we approached I took note of the subtle differences between this door and the surrounding chamber exits. A worn carving would usually have made it a lot more obvious what was behind this room was different, but both a low light setting and aging have taken its toll, reducing the wood to looking virtually the same as the others.

I pushed open the door with my hoof, placing it down inside the doorway on the cold stone floor that greeted me. I looked around cautiously, the room turning out to be a long hallway just as low lit as the rest of the crypt. However, it was surprisingly devoid of any mummified corpses.

“Looks empty to me,” Faith commented, “We should still keep an eye out for traps, though. Shall we?” Faith took the lead in front of me, either spurred on by the curiosity of the ever expanding mystery surrounding this catacomb or driven by the desire to prove herself as an intellectual superior by showing that I was incorrect in my assumption that the tail of the owl statue held some sort of significance.

I carefully surveyed the hallway as the two of us walked down it, keeping a sharp eye out for anything that might want to kill us. I looked to Faith, shooting her a questionable glance at the sudden lack of hostility that lay beyond the original entrance to the crypt.

“Wait,” I held out my hoof to stop her as we approached a part of the hallway. Two pairs of gemstones stood embedded inside the wall, one on each side of the hallway. “It might be a trap?” I virtually asked to nopony in particular. I mean it did look like a trap, but it also looked like someone just stuck some garnets into a wall and called it a day.

“Might be?” Faith asked back. We both began treading with the utmost caution as we approached the small studded gems, glancing at every wall and every stone in the floor for some sort of trap, be it pressure plate, trip wire or the likes. I looked over to the gems in the opposite side of the wall, bright red garnets instead being replaced with equally as stunning clear blue chalcedonies embedded into small holes in the wall.

I wanted to rush up and take a closer look, wondering if the two types of gems had any sort of significance to how the seal of wisdom works. It might even be some crazy metaphor on how to obtain the piece of wisdom so we could unlock the door.

“It doesn’t look like they do anything,” I commented, “Even so; I’ll pass on looting them. It might be linked to a trap if removed.”

“Good choice,” Faith said back, “Keep cautious though, I still don’t trust this place.”

We moved at a snails’ pace past the gems, my gaze shifting back and forth between my left and my right as I readied myself to spring into action if anything were to suddenly come to life. As we passed by the gems, I let out a sigh of relief, glad that they weren’t linked to some sort of trap.

I could see the end of the hallway in the distance, some sort of shrine marking the end of the passage. Faith and I approached the area with caution, unsure if there was still anything looking to kill us. I turned my attention towards the shrine itself, taking in the details.

It was like something out of a Daring Do novel, an ancient looking shrine covered in a bit of overgrown yet long dead plants, and some candles that I can only guess were somehow magically enchanted to never burn out. A book lay open to a particular page, and as I read it, a chill ran down my spine.

As one acquires wisdom, the mind and body shall be tested, and from the ruins of the remaining, new wisdom is born.

Faith and I stopped reading it at the same time, glancing up to each other with a worried expression worn plainly across our faces.

“Take the book,” Faith spoke abruptly.

“What?” I asked back, “Why? I don’t want to steal anything from a haunted and creepy crypt like this!”

“Don’t you see, Destiny,” Faith replied, “That’s the riddle! If we take the book it triggers some sort of trap. If we beat it, we get the piece of wisdom. It’s how we unlock the door.”

I looked back and forth, from Faith to the book. On one hoof, if it was true and I did pick up the book, I can leave here without an angry Ka breathing down my neck about robbing him of twenty-thousand bits. On the other hand, leaving without having to kill anything is a lovely alternative. I thought briefly for a moment, weighing my options before coming to a decision on how to act.

“Oh, screw it,” and with that, I snagged the book off of the pedestal it resided on in the shrine, a weight sensitive pressure pad lifting as I did so. The hall shook violently, and as I glanced back down it I saw the area where the two sets of gemstones had been before were now coming to life as a pair of creatures made of stone and resembling minotaur’s, walking with two legs and two bulbous arms, began walking down the hall.

“You wanted a fight,” I said back to Faith, “Well here’s our chance.” I sprang into action, unsure of how to first tackle my newfound adversaries. How does a pony fight a minotaur of stone anyway? I decided to play it safe, taking up a defensive stance as I waited for the two stone golems to make a move. It was best to size up opponents and see what they’re working with first before hitting them with something that might not be very effective against them. The garnet eyed stone beast was first to make a move, stomping forward in an attempt to land a devastating ground pound and fracture my little pony skull.

I tumbled to the side, narrowly avoiding being crushed by the fists of a seemingly invincible enemy. I called out to my adventuring companion, wanting to quickly fish her mind for any ideas.

“Any ideas Faith?” She looked quickly to me then back to our big problem.

“Give me a second,” Faith said back. “Just keep doing, whatever it is you’re doing.”

Great. So I was fighting two rock hard minotaur golems and had no idea on how to scratch them. Obviously hitting them with a blade wouldn’t do anything, hitting rock with refined rock doesn’t accomplish much. Guess I just keep dodging and hope that Faith has some crazy unicorn magic to knock out or obliterate the moving statues. Hopefully she came up with the solution before I ran out of energy.

I managed to sneak a glance at whatever Faith was up to between hopping between angry fists and the occasional magical laser beam of death from my enemies. I saw Faith’s horn glowing, becoming enveloped in a blue magical aura as she readied a spell from her repertoire of deadly casts.

I dodged another shot from the blue eyed laser minotaur golem as the entire hallway was suddenly enveloped in an incredible bright flash of white light. I opened my eyes, my pupils slowly adjusting to the new setting as I took stock of the situation. I looked to where the golems were previously; in their place was instead a rather large pile of dust topped with four gemstones, two garnets and two chalcedonies.

“W-What did you do?” I asked, turning to look for Faith, who was currently sweating profusely and panting heavily.

“I dispelled the come to life spell on the golems,” Faith said between breaths. “It takes a lot of energy to revert to spells at once, especially those of such power as a come to life spell. I need a moment.”

I went back to the piles of dust, sifting through them as I attempted to look for what the book mentioned should be the piece of wisdom we needed to unlock the door. I decided to pick up the gems from the golems and stash them in my bags, earning a questionable look from Faith. I ignored and continued looking for the key to the door.

Eventually, lying at the bottom of the pile, I found the piece of wisdom and scooped it up in my hoof, carefully placing it at the top of my bags.

“Come on Faith,” I said to my exploring companion once she had caught her breath. “Let’s go find out what’s behind that door.”

“Well,” I paused, “This is it.” Faith and I stood outside the door, the owl statue still dominating the floor of the multi-story chamber. I took the piece of wisdom in my hand and moved it into the seal, pressing it in firmly with my hoof. I heard an audible click and some tumblers moving around to open the lock on the door. The door creaked open on its own, revealing a surprisingly well lit room. At the end of the room lay another shrine, and our goal lay at the end of it.

The Golden Scarab.

We both rushed forward at the sight of the artifact, Faith leaning in particularly close to the golden bug, when she spoke up.

“Wait! I’ve seen this somewhere before!”

New Perk: Wisdom of the Ancients: You react quicker to situations under stress.

New Artifact: Golden Scarab: This Artifact's purpose is currently unknown.

New Perk: Fleet Foot: You no longer unintentionally trigger pressure plate traps.