Ponest Dungeon

Chapter 15: Equestrian Elite

Week 17, Day 1, Dawn

“You look horrible,” Tempest commented as she walked by Blueblood’s side. She was referring to his disheveled mane, his half-lidded bloodshot eyes, and the twin lines of matted fur running down his cheeks. “And it looks like you’ve been crying.”

“I wasn’t able to sleep last night,” Blueblood casually lied, grumbling and wincing as a stray mote of morning sunlight crossed his face. “My eyes get all watery when I can’t—”

Tempest sniffed the air. “And you smell like coitus.”

Blueblood winced. “What do you mean?”

She glanced sidelong at him. “To put it eloquently: you reek in the same manner as a Trottingham whorehouse.” She looked forward again. “Though I am intrigued as to what could have brought you to tears.”

“Tears of joy, of course,” Blueblood muttered in a manner which did more than merely insinuate that he didn’t believe his own words.

“Of course,” Tempest replied in a non-committal way. “On today’s agenda, we’ll need to prepare more accommodations for our new arrivals.”

“Yes, yes,” Blueblood replied in an indifferent tone.

Tempest briefly glanced towards him, but he took no notice. “Fancy’s elites should be arriving today, you know.”

“Uh huh,” Blueblood said automatically.

“Shall I have Ditzy prepare food for them?”

“Whatever you think is best, there.”

Tempest’s eyes cooly regarded the prince. “I was planning on skinning them all alive and using their hides to make boiled-leather armor.”

“Sounds good.”

Tempest stopped walking.

It took Blueblood a moment to realize he’d walked a little past her. “Hmm? Why did you—”

“Hold this for me for a moment,” Tempest said as she slipped the gauntlet off of her right foreleg and hoofed it over to Blueblood.

First looking at the gauntlet with a nonplussed expression, he then turned his eyes to Tempest. He watched as she looked first to the left and then to the right. Blueblood followed her gaze but saw nopony in the hall with them. “Um… why am I holding—”

Tempest swatted Blueblood across the face with the back of her right forehoof. Her right foreleg then snaked down and grabbed her gauntlet out of the air after Blueblood dropped it in shock.

“Harmony above!” Blueblood felt as if she’d struck him in the muzzle with a sack of bricks. “What was that—”

“Ahh, Prince,” Tempest said in a calm but firm tone. “I see you’re finally awake. The elite soldiers sent by Lord Pants should be arriving by noon; you were ecstatic about this event just the other day.”

Still rubbing his aching cheek, and trying to make sure his jaw wasn’t dislocated, Blueblood glared at Tempest. “You could have just poked me.”

“I did,” Tempest replied flatly, reattaching her gauntlet and turning to resume her trot to the drawing room.

Week 17, Day 1, Morning

“Twilight?” Blueblood asked, absentmindedly rubbing a hoof against his cheek and looking around at the rest of the company members, who were gathered around the massive drawing room table.

Somehow, Twilight managed to look even more unkempt than Blueblood as she struggled to raise her head from the table.

“Ah.” The single syllable sighed forth from Tempest’s muzzle.

Blueblood’s eye twitched as low murmurs and a snicker or two came from the other ponies. “Twilight,” he pointed a hoof towards the stone orb on the center of the drawing room table, “how is the research progressing on the artifact you recovered from Mistmane?”

“It’s—” she rubbed her forehead with a hoof, “coming along.” She squinted her eyes. “It’s—ugh,” she grunted in pain. “My head hurts. I must have hit it pretty bad, or something last night; I can’t even remember most of our meeting.”

Steepling his hooves, Blueblood kept his gaze on Twilight. “Maybe you should rest then. We both agreed that you needed to rest after the last expedition, after all.”

Nodding slowly, Twilight shakily rose from her seat.

Shining Armor looked to Blueblood and, after Blueblood nodded his head, stood to assist his sister to her room.

Rarity stood and blocked the siblings’ path. “Hold on just a moment, my dear.” She lit her horn and rummaged in her saddlebag for a moment before producing a vial of amber liquid. “Drink this right before you lay down and your head will feel much better; enough that you’ll be able to rest, at least.”

Shining lit his horn and took hold of the vial. “Thank you, Rarity. What do we owe you for it?”

“Why nothing at all, darling.” Rarity smiled. “I’m just glad to be able to help is all.”

Supporting Twilight with a forehoof, Shining slowly helped her from the room. Unseen to the gathered ponies, the stone sphere at the center of the drawing room table glowed ever so slightly for a just a moment.

“I wonder what really happened to her,” Rarity said after the two siblings had exited the drawing room and closed the doors.

“Pardon?” Blueblood asked with a slight widening of his eyes.

“Darling,” Rarity said, “if she simply hit her head, then I’m a mule.”

Blueblood canted his head. “If she hit her head, she hit her head, Miss Rarity.”

“You make a valid point, Prince,” Rarity said. “But the fact of the matter is, she did not.”

Scowling, Blueblood directed his gaze towards Rarity. “By what means do you claim to know this?”

“Quite simple really,” Rarity replied. “A head injury severe enough to scramble memory would have left one doozy of a bump or welt upon Miss Sparkle’s head.”

“Her hair was pretty disheveled,” Blueblood said as he swung a foreleg out for emphasis. “The lump could have been under there.”

“Except she wasn’t holding her hoof to that part of her head, Dear.” Rarity steepled her own hooves and glanced at Blueblood.

Blueblood’s veins suddenly turned to ice. He felt the sudden scrutiny in her gaze. His mind reeled as to how quickly she had caught on that he knew more than he was telling.

“To top it off,” Rarity continued, “head trauma from an impact doesn’t tend to leave bruising and ligature marks like the ones I just observed around her neck.”

The world slowed to a stop for Blueblood. “You think she was strangled?” As the words flowed out of his suddenly dry mouth, slow as molasses, he racked his brain to try and outthink the grave robber sitting before him.

“Yes.” She didn’t take her gaze off of Blueblood.

Feeling her eyes observing his every movement, Blueblood forced himself to stillness, denying her keen senses as they looked for some indicator of guilt. He cursed himself as he remembered that she had worked for a crime syndicate. Lying and seeing through lies was probably her bread and butter.

But Blueblood was a politician, born and raised. He lifted an eyebrow in the most skeptical manner he could muster. “Okay,” he said. “I’m game; who did it?”

Rarity’s eyes widened in shock, and she seemed at a loss for words.

Blueblood breathed an internal sigh of relief. Learning a set of skills later in life didn’t hold a candle to be raised in them. He allowed his face to rest into a neutral expression.

“W-well,” Rarity stammered, “I haven’t… deduced that far yet.”

“Induced,” Blueblood corrected, with the barest hint of derision in his voice.

Rarity frowned. “What—”

“Deduction is a logical conclusion made from irrefutable facts,” Blueblood slowly explained. “We know that A equals B and that B equals C; logically we deduce that A equals C. Now,” he gestured towards the set of doors, “all of your evidence regarding this alleged assault is predicated on assumptions.” He tsked. “Even your verbiage is shaky; you use ‘would have’s’ and ‘doesn’t tend to’s.”

“Well I—”

“Look,” Blueblood said, placing both forehooves on the table. “I will hear no more baseless accusations or half baked theories. If you want to investigate this little mystery that you’ve concocted, you can do so on your own time.”

“Of course,” Rarity replied. “I would be more than happy to lend my own time to this effort.”

“First you give away a vial of expensive medicine, and now you’re just… volunteering your free time. How very generous of you,” Blueblood snarked.

Everypony became silent; their attention was pulled away from the argument as the orb in the center of the table began to emit an eerie, oscillating, deep-violet light.

“Is it supposed to do that?” Lyra’s question violently punctured the silence like a party balloon exposed to an errant unicorn horn.

Blueblood stared at the pulsating artifact. “We don’t know anything about it—”

The glow abruptly intensified and then the stone sphere suddenly sailed through the air towards Rarity at high speed.

Tempest moved as quickly as her namesake, her hoof colliding with the gliding glowing globe mid-air. The dead center strike stopped the orb’s momentum completely—and also shattered it into a dozen pieces.

Following the falling shards with his eyes, Blueblood was unable to stifle a sharp intake of breath. “Tempest—” he stared at the still-glowing fragments scattered over the table, “—what have you done?”

“Damned reflexes,” the mountainous mare mused humorlessly. “They die hard.”

“It was coming right for me,” Rarity said. “But… why?”

The stone pieces began to rattle on the table surface, startling everypony for a second time. They lifted into the air and again made a beeline for Rarity. They dodged Tempest’s attempts to block their progress, zipping past and around her, until they began a sparkling orbit around Rarity.

“Ah!” Rarity shrieked shrilly as the shards continued to circle her, their luminescence bathing her in a violet magical field. She released another cry of alarm as she was lifted bodily into the air.

At this point, the other ponies in the room—with the notable exceptions of Tempest, Blueblood, and Rainbow Dash—had tried to make as much distance as they could between the rapidly-rising and resplendently-radiant mare. The orb fragments began to rotate faster and faster, the amount of light emanating from them growing in magnitude in sync with their increase in speed.

As the shards accelerated into a blur, Rarity began to emit a bright illumination as well, the combined intensity of both her and the fragments joined into a blinding white light that soon washed out all other colors in the room. The only things still visible in the brilliance were the outlines of the fragments and Rarity herself.

All of the fragments then rushed together; at first wrapping tightly all the way around her neck, but then all gathering directly in front. Releasing another blinding flash, the shards vanished, along with all of the illumination that had been soaking the room mere moments ago.

Standing just below where she had been levitating, Rarity looked around the room with a look of abject confusion plastered across her muzzle. “What just—”

“Interesting new necklace there,” Blueblood commented, indicating the golden collar that now encircled Rarity’s neck.

Rarity looked down to see the violet gem set into the front of the piece of jewelry. “This is peculiar,” she said, her ears twitching. “I’m hearing a single word repeating in my head right now; like it’s being forced into my brain.”

“What word?” Blueblood pressed.

Gingerly lifting her gaze from the gem, Rarity looked Blueblood in the eye.

“Generosity.”

Week 17, Day 1, Noon

“You want me to what?”

Blueblood held up his forehooves in a symbolic defensive gesture at Amethyst’s question. “This is the only way I think we’ll be able to keep your true origins a secret,” he insisted. “I’ll just lie and say that I read Celestia’s notes and managed to summon a fleshform, then molded you to this shape to honor the original Amethyst’s passing.”

“Oh, I’m sure everypony will appreciate that,” Amethyst snarked. She turned to return to her cellar hiding place.

“Look,” Blueblood said, “we need one of your kind for the viewing window. Since you aren’t mindless, we won’t have to actually bind you to anything. I trust you a lot more than I trust any random entity I manage to conjure.”

“Then you’re a fool,” Amethyst said. “I’m more likely to derail your plans due to my intense hatred of you.”

“Again,” Blueblood said slowly, “getting mixed signals here. Especially since we—”

“Please,” Amethyst interjected. “If you think that last night was anything other than me needing to blow off two months of pent-up pelvic aggression, then you’ll really need to tell me how the weather up your own flank is.”

“So… you used me,” Blueblood said in a tone straddling the line between disappointment and disgust.

“Says the stallion who tried to do the same to me,” Amethyst snarled over her shoulder as she stalked towards the shadows.

Blueblood turned away. “They’ll find you, you know.”

Amethyst’s hoofsteps stopped.

“Twilight may not remember that you attacked her, but everypony else is alerted to something being wrong in the manor due to the dubious nature of her injuries. They want to search the grounds, investigate. I can’t very well tell them to ignore what they’ve already seen, because that will just bring suspicion down on myself. But… if you agree to be the window, I can just present you to the others, and draw suspicion away from you. I’m willing to bet once they find out what you are, the investigation will be long forgotten. Besides, this will give you a chance to talk to the others. I know you can’t possibly enjoy it down here, especially if last night was any indicator.”

Amethyst grumbled. “What even makes you think that they will accept me? I’m a monster.”

Blueblood smirked. “Lyra turns into a scantily furred, bipedal colossus, and Octavia turns into a giant shark-on-legs; you will fit right in.”

“Wonderful,” Amethyst snarked again, “I’ll fit right in with the rest of the freaks.” She sighed. “Well, go; meet your new arrivals. Don’t come back to find me again until you’re ready for me to ‘appear,’” she said as she walked away.

Listening to the retreating hoofsteps, Blueblood allowed the smile to vanish from his face.

“It’s a passable plan,” Tempest’s voice suddenly said.

“GAH!” Blueblood almost successfully jumped out of his skin.

“You should have let me in on it sooner,” Tempest continued as she appeared from behind a support beam. “A lie is more convincing when told by more than one individual.”

“How long have you been there?” Blueblood blurted.

Tempest approached him. “Long enough to know that your plan has some flaws that could cause it to fall apart without a little added assistance.”

“You’re not angry?” Blueblood cocked an eyebrow. “You said you’d lay me to rest if I lied to you.”

“No,” Tempest clarified. “I said I would kill you if you didn’t keep your promises to me. And I am not fool enough to think I would be privy to all of your dealings until I had proven myself.”

“And,” Blueblood said, “you don’t care that I… umm…”

“My only perturbation regarding the fact that you had intercourse with an eldritch abomination,” Tempest stated flatly, “is that I think it may affect your performance as this company’s leader.”

“So… you’re willing to assist me with this, then?”

Tempest looked at him as if he’d just asked the most asinine question in the world. “It’s my job,” she replied.

Week 17, Day 1, Afternoon

The mare who approached the drawing room table had fur that was the same color as the rolls of parchment she was levitating towards Blueblood. She used a hoof to push her spectacles closer to her eyes. “Our credentials, your grace,” she announced.

“Moondancer,” Blueblood said without opening the ribboned scrolls, “you’ve been the royal antiquarian for years now; we know each other; you can cut the ceremony.”

“Sorry Prince,” Moondancer said, “I wasn’t sure how formal you were keeping things.”

Blueblood sighed. “I’m surrounded by mercenaries, Moony,” he said, eliciting a blush from the mare as he gestured to the other members of the company. “Standard procedure has been mostly left by the wayside.” He looked at the other ponies by Moondancer’s side, who all wore full suits of platemail. “These three however, I do not know.”

One of the armored ponies stepped forward and removed her helmet, revealing her to be a blue-furred mare with lighter and darker blue stripes in her mane. She smiled with teeth so white that they could probably be used to weaponize reflected light. “My name is Minuette,” she announced, “Holy Vestal of Celestia.”

After Minuette stepped back, the next plated pony of the group stepped forward and raised her visor, revealing a cream colored muzzle and light blue eyes. “Twinkleshine; Celestial Crusader.”

“And I am Lemon Hearts,” slurred the metal-masked mare who was wrapped head to hoof in white bandages anywhere they weren’t covered in slabs of iron, “Devotee to Celestia.”

“She volunteered for the sun raising procedure,” Moondancer clarified to the confused countenances caused by the unfamiliar title.

“Thank you for your sacrifice,” Blueblood said with no small degree of sincerity, steepling his hooves as he spoke. “Is it true what they say?” he asked Lemon Hearts. “That the nerve endings in the unicorn body fry out in response to the sudden surge and then utter lack of magic?”

Lemon Hearts affected a bow. “It is true, Prince; I feel nothing. The doctors told me that it is similar to the scourge of leprosy, before ponykind developed treatments for that ailment, at any rate.”

After digesting that information for a few moments, Blueblood looked back over the four Canterlot Elites. “Well,” he said, “Lord Fancy Pants has told me that you are the best that Canterlot has to offer and he does not give out praise lightly. I will be expecting much of you; namely, I need you for an immediate mission.”

“We live to serve the crown,” Moondancer and the other elites announced automatically.

“Very well,” Blueblood replied. “The first order of business is the Everfree Forest. The undead corruption which originated from the ruins has spread into the surrounding forest and the townsponies have reported things like skeletons, timberwolves, and other nightmarish creatures beginning to range outside of the forest proper, even coming close to town. We’ve been sending patrols to take care of any creatures that exit the forest, and to take care of bandits as well. Moondancer, I need your team to go into the Everfree itself and do a sweep to clear out the acres closest to town. We need to drive these horrors back into the shadows from whence they came.”

“When can we set out?” Moondancer asked.

“We’ll have the logistics worked out in a few days,” Blueblood replied.

“Excellent,” Moondancer said. “But before we prepare—” She unhitched one of her saddlebags, a motion mirrored by her companions, and they all dropped the pouches onto the table. The clinking of coins could be heard within as the bags settled. “Ten thousand bits, from Lord Fancy Pants.”

“Ten… thousand?” Blueblood’s tone betrayed his shock. “I didn’t think he’d be able to spare even half of that.”

Moondancer pushed her spectacles back up her muzzle. “Lord Fancy Pants thinks very highly of you, Prince.”

“Well,” Blueblood said, suppressing a smile. “Let us get you moved in for a proper night’s rest first, we’ll discuss deployment details tomorrow, and hopefully have you properly provisioned by the end of the week.”

Week 17, Day 6, Evening

The gathered group of ponies consisted of whom Blueblood considered his trusted inner circle: Shining, Rainbow, Zecora, Tempest, and Twilight. He’d tried to invite Starlight, but she’d already known what he was planning on revealing, and showed no interest in attending. A brief consideration had been given to inviting Bon Bon, but he decided against it since that meant Lyra would be close behind. Those who arrived were confused as to why Blueblood had decided that they should all meet in the manor’s cellars.

“Alright everypony,” Blueblood announced, “I’m going to show you something, and I need you all to not freak out.”

“Well,” Twilight said, “we won’t know if we’ll ‘freak out’ until you show us whatever it is.”

Sighing, Blueblood looked into the deeper shadows at the end of a series of wine kegs. “You can come out now—slowly, so you don’t spook anypony.”

As Amethyst emerged from the tenebrous corners of the basement, a wash of different emotions fell over the ponies present.

“No,” Shining breathed, a look of confusion and terror creeping across his muzzle. “It… can’t be.”

“I do not believe my eyes,” Zecora said. “By what sorcery do the dead rise?!”

Twilight remained silent, looking fascinated but wary.

“Uh,” Rainbow Dash seemed more confused than anything. “Didn’t you guys say she died?”

“She did,” Tempest confirmed, her facial expression not changing even slightly.

“Then,” Shining said, “who… or what, is it?”

Amethyst pointed a hoof at Blueblood. “He made this,” she said while bringing her hoof back to indicate herself, “to honor her.”

“Blueblood,” Shining’s voice shook with a combination of frustration and rage, “what… what have you done?”

Blueblood held a placating hoof out to Shining. “Let me explain before you have a complete conniption fit, Shining.”

“I’m not—”

Rainbow put a hoof on Shining’s withers, and he flinched slightly, but then visibly calmed down as Rainbow ran her hoof back and forth. “Let him explain, Shiny.”

“Ok,” Blueblood said, “first things first: this is not Amethyst.” He paused before he starting mixing in the deliberate falsehoods. “She is an eldritch fleshform that I summoned using Celestia’s notes and records. I did this because she can turn into anything, like the viewing window that we used up until the Farmstead breach. I’m keeping her in pony-form while she’s not remote viewing for us. This is my choice, for some very important reasons.”

Blueblood looked around at the group, which had gone completely silent with shock. “Now, Celestia’s notes indicated that raw fleshforms are mindless, but that one molded into pony form can gain sentience… and with time, even sapience. This would be a boon to us. Even if she eventually decides not to work with us, she can give us invaluable insight into the enemy. Plus… I believe she has already obtained sentience; she is aware of her surroundings.”

“So,” Shining said, “it’s not Amethyst?”

“No,” Blueblood answered. “She isn’t. But—while we know she isn’t Amethyst, I want you to treat her as you would any other pony. She actually chose a name for herself: ‘Ametrine.’ Being able to choose a name means that she is on the verge of being able to self-actualize—if she hasn’t done so already. I will not abide any intolerance towards her because of her origins. She is one of us now. We already have two members of this company who are not wholly pony, and they haven’t gotten any blowback from the others. I expect the same for her.”

“Why did you make it look like her?” Shining croaked the question through dry vocal chords.

“It’s obvious,” Tempest said. “He could only mold Ametrine here into the form of a pony he had already seen. Forming her into a duplicate of a pony who was still alive would cause problems for both her and the original. Nopony is going to mistake Ametrine here for Amethyst, because they all know that Amethyst is dead.”

“I know; I watched her die,” Shining spat.

Blueblood shook his head from side to side. “And you’ll watch others die before we’re done here, Shining. This place is unkind; we can expect more losses before the end. Having ponies like Ametrine on our side will help tip the scales in our favor. It doesn’t matter who she looks like.”

When Shining declined to protest again, Blueblood looked around at the others. “Does anypony else have any objections before I introduce our new member to the others?”

Twilight raised a hoof. “Lyra and Bon Bon may not react too well to seeing the face of a comrade who literally exploded right in front of them. Their reaction may be as… poor as my brother’s.”

“Noted,” Blueblood said. “We’ll inform them first, separately from the others so that we can talk them through it.”

“We’d best hurry then,” Tempest stated. “Time is wasting, and we have many ponies to speak with.”

Blueblood nodded. “Once we notify everypony, I want you all to turn in early; get some rest. Tomorrow is going to be busy: Ametrine here will have her first test run as the window tomorrow. The Canterlot Elite will have their first mission as well.” He looked over to Ametrine. “Let’s hope both of you are able to deliver.”

The look she gave him was full of venom.