Ponest Dungeon

Chapter 4: Lamentable Loss

Week 21, Day 1, Morning

“The Heart?” Rainbow asked, echoing murmurs of confusion amongst the gathered company members. Everypony was seated at the drawing room table, with the notable exceptions of Tempest, who never sat, and Yona, who was too large for the chairs.

“What is with this place and weirdo names?” Rainbow sounded both irritated and sober. “First it’s the ‘Ponest Dungeon,’ and now the name of the thing we’re fighting is just ‘The Heart?’” She pressed her hooves to the sides of her head. “Feels like I’m taking crazy pills over here.”

Blueblood tried not to succumb to his irritation at Rainbow’s stubborn narrow-mindedness. “The thing has no name. It has no language. How can something have a name, if it needs no language?”

The unintentional, unanswerable riddle caused the room to quiet down.

“The Heart.” He sighed. “This designation I’m giving to the thing now is as good a name as any, since it is the heart of this spreading corruption.”

Blueblood knew that there was no good time to broach the next topic, so he just jumped into it, like a foal into the deep end of an empty pool. “There’s something else you all deserve to know, since you signed on for a campaign whose ultimate goal was to rescue the Princess, alive and well.”

Everypony, with the exceptions of Tempest, leaned forward, ears perked.

“Unfortunately.” Blueblood took a deep breath. “That goal is no longer possible. I’ve recently learned that Princess Celestia… is dead.”

The commotion amongst the gathered ponies was as intense as it was instantaneous. Even Tempest’s thunderous stamping on the floor failed to bring the room to order. And Blueblood understood it, though he tuned out the specifics. Their goddess, the one who had raised the sun every day for their entire lives, had been laid low, exposed as merely mortal. Up until this point, all of these ponies would’ve held out hope that she would eventually return, and that they could all take the sunrise for granted again. The loss of four unicorns’ magic per day in her stead was perhaps distant and abstract to many of them, but most understood the grave sacrifices being made to purchase a portion of normalcy.

But still, he could not let them vent forever; he needed to regain order. He used his magic to lift the flintlock he’d brought for just this occasion.

The pistol shot was deafening within the confines of the drawing room, causing most of the gathered ponies to cover their ears. Some even ducked under the table for cover. Ditzy fainted.

“Okay,” Blueblood said, dropping the smoking pistol to the table and steepling his hooves. “Now that the blind panicking is over, I’ll inform you of what this means for this company.” He used his magic to place a long scroll of parchment onto the table. “This is an addendum to your contracts. It stipulates that the company’s primary goal is now to find the source of the corruption within the Ponest Dungeon—The Heart—and destroy it. You may either sign, or leave with a severance payment. The decision is yours.” He sat back and waited for everypony to leave the room, fully expecting that there would be nopony left.

Instead, there was only silence.

“This… Heart.” Rainbow shook with barely contained rage. “The Heart is what killed her?”

“I have no doubt that it is responsible for her death.”

“Then I’m in.” Rainbow grabbed a quill with her wing.

“Wait.” Blueblood blocked the first signature line with a hoof before Rainbow could begin to sign. “You understand the danger, correct? There is a good chance that we will not succeed. Even I don’t fully understand how powerful this thing is, or what its true nature is.”

Rainbow shrugged, nudged his hoof aside, and signed her name on the parchment. “I don’t need to know what it is. If this Heart-thing killed Celestia, there’s no way I can let that slide.”

“She’s right,” Shining said, lighting his horn and signing the parchment. “Celestia was more than just a ruler. She was someone who was special to everypony. And I personally won’t rest until we take vengeance on The Heart.”

There was a murmur of agreement amongst everycreature in the room.

Blueblood watched in a daze as one pony after another renewed their contract with him. A strange emotion suffused his being; it was not quite joy, nor was it relief, despite things turning out much better than he had hoped. These ponies had just agreed to lay down their lives in an endeavor that could very well end in failure. But at least they wouldn’t die alone.

“How long has she been dead?”

Twilight’s question broke Blueblood from his trance.

“Apparently since before we even started this endeavor,” Blueblood replied. “Our goal of finding her was doomed to failure before it even began.”

That silenced the room again.

“And,” Blueblood said, steepling his hooves, “I will go ahead right now, and say that the same may very well be true of this expedition.” He shook his head. “We know dreadfully little about our enemy, other than the fact that they are located under the Castle of the Two Sisters, and wield a power magnitudes greater than anything we’ve ever seen. Every twisted monstrosity we have encountered can be attributed to The Heart. The necromancer we defeated, and her hordes of undead, were merely pawns.”

Blueblood gestured to the new-hires. “We’ve just picked up seven fresh recruits,” he said. “They will not be the last; we must build an army if we are to even hope of making a dent in this place.”

Gritting his teeth, Blueblood slammed his hooves down on the table and rose to a standing position. “I want to say something encouraging to you all. Something like ‘have hope,’ or ‘have faith.’ But I find that I, myself, have little of either, and do not wish to render myself a hypocrite. Instead, I will tell you to be ready for combat always; we have been attacked multiple times even within the supposed safety of these walls. Any questions?”

“How soon before we get sent out?” Rainbow’s wing rested on her pistol. “I’m itching for some payback already!”

“In a day or two,” Blueblood answered. “We have sufficient funding to send two expeditions at once, thanks to the previous efforts of Moondancer and her crew. I intend to step up the pressure on the Ponest Dungeon.” He leaned forward over the table. “Let’s see if we can’t give The Heart a coronary, shall we?”

Seeing nothing but nods and hearing nothing but acknowledgements, Blueblood sat, and steepled his hooves. “Dismissed,” he said. “And may Harmony have mercy on our souls.”

Week 21, Day 2, Morning

Blueblood sat at the drawing room table, across from Solmare, Yona, Aloe, and Rarity. “For your first assignment, I need you four to make a sweep up the old road, to Canterlot and back. Those damnable bandits have been harassing travelers and our supply chain again, and I want their heads on pikes before the week is out.” He hoofed a piece of parchment onto the table. It was a map of the road, marked red where bandits had been spotted or where corpses had been found. “Any questions?”

“Do we take prisoners?” Rarity asked.

“No,” Blueblood replied. “Kill. Them. All.”

Rarity opened her mouth, as if to speak, but then she closed it.

Suspecting that she might be apprehensive enough that it could affect her performance on the job, Blueblood locked his eyes onto her necklace. “Rarity, while your sympathy for these bandits is indeed generous, it is also misguided. You should save your pity for those who they have robbed and killed. Remember that I am sending you because of the deaths they have caused.”

With a furrowing of her brow, Rarity locked eyes with him and nodded.

Blueblood looked to the others. “Does anycreature else have concerns?”

“Yona hate bandits,” Yona casually observed.

“You don’t care how we kill them, do you?” Aloe asked.

Blueblood studied Aloe’s flattened expression. “I would normally say that I don’t care,” he said. “But now I need to know why you even asked that question.”

“Lotus didn’t take dying very well,” Aloe said. “She has a lot of pent up aggression, and may… go overboard.”

Blueblood steepled his hooves. “Ponies will be glad for bandits to be killed, or even punished. But don’t do anything that’s going to scare the locals or make them fear us. We’ve generated enough gratitude from our bandit and wildlife patrols to offset the ill-will stemming from a few incidents in and around Berry’s tavern. I’d appreciate it if we could keep the villagers on our side; it’ll make things much easier for us.”

Blueblood looked over to Solmare. “How about you? Any questions?”

“Do you even praise?” Eyes scrutinized Blueblood from the dark recesses of the bucket helm.

“Okay then,” Blueblood said, clapping his hooves together. “You’ll be heading out tomorrow. Tempest will be the one directing you after you link up through Ametrine. Report to the observatory for linking at six this evening, and Tempest will then take you to the storage room for provisioning. If you’re late, Tempest will not be amused. That should scare you. For now, just rest and prepare yourselves for tomorrow. Dismissed.”

Solmare, Yona, Aloe, and Rarity rose from their seats to leave the drawing room.

“Rarity,” Blueblood said.

“Yes, Prince?” Rarity stopped in the doorway and looked at him with confusion.

“Have you or Twilight figured out anything about your fancy new necklace there?”

“Sorry,” Rarity said, touching a hoof to the Element of Generosity. “Twilight’s research has turned up… vague results at best. We’ve both tried poking and prodding it with both hooves and magic, but to no noticeable effect.”

Blueblood frowned. “So it hasn’t done anything since it spontaneously formed around your neck, then?”

“Nothing,” Rarity confirmed.

“Then take it with you. It may react during conflict, as it did in the drawing room. If it does anything at all, let Tempest know.”

Rarity nodded. She turned and left.

“Ditzy,” Blueblood called.

“Yes sir!” Ditzy performed a crisp salute, which was ruined by the rictus grin on her muzzle.

“Send in Shining’s team.”

Saluting again, Ditzy somehow widened her grin and left the drawing room.

Looking down at his left foreleg, Blueblood felt a familiar discomfort as it pulsed and squirmed. Ametrine has been coaching him for the last several days on how to control and shape the leg. But even with the constant practice, he still couldn’t get the damned writhing to stop.

Shining entered the room, his freshly polished helmet hanging from his saddlebag. Rainbow trailed close behind him, still twirling and tossing her gambling chip. Zecora came next, her vials lightly clinking against each other in her pockets, and multiple pouches hanging from an odd metal ring. Lastly came Twilight, her runed skull peeking out from a stuffed saddlebag pouch, and a book hovering in front of her muzzle.

“Welcome,” Blueblood said. “As I said the other day, we’re going to be trying to send two expeditions per week from now on.” He steepled his hooves. “I just finished briefing one of the new teams. They’ll be linking up with Ametrine for this mission.”

“So, you’re sending us in without using the viewing window?” Rainbow Dash grinned. “No problem! You can count on us! All of us—”

Blueblood held up his left hoof. “Well,” he said, “you won’t be using Ametrine. The fact of the matter is, we have a second viewing window.”

“What?!” Twilight exclaimed. “How long have you had it?”

“Only a few days now,” Blueblood replied. “We’ve only just got it up and running today. It’s… mostly reliable. As you three have worked for me the longest, and Twilight is Shining’s sister, I feel that I can trust you to know about it.”

“All then, that we wish to know,” Zecora said, “is where you keep this new window.”

Blueblood’s muzzle twisted into a macabre mixture of a simultaneous grin and wince. He lit his horn and closed the drawing room doors, as well as all of the window shutters. “Try not to scream, everypony.” And his left foreleg, which he had left hanging in the air, peeled open like a sinewy banana.

Three jaws dropped. Zecora reached up and removed her mask. It was actually four jaws that had dropped.

To their credit, nopony screamed.

“Sir?” Shining turned to Blueblood after the others had left the drawing room. He hesitated, then closed the doors after them.

“Yes Shining, what is it?” Blueblood shuffled some papers with his magic.

“Does anypony else know?” Shining asked.

Sighing, Blueblood looked up from the pile of parchment. “You’re not going to accuse me of trying to replace you again, are you?”

Shining grinned. “As long as you’re not actually trying to replace me—kidding! I’m kidding!” Blueblood’s flattened expression had him raising his forehooves in a playful warding gesture.

“Tempest knows,” Blueblood said. “And before you go accusing me of letting her in on something ahead of you, she found out when my leg erupted into a tangle of tentacles that tried to choke the life out of her… I think you walked in on the tail end of that little incident.”

“In the basement, after the massacre?” Worry was foremost in Shining’s mind. “Did this just randomly happen?”

“No, Shining,” Blueblood said. “When your sister’s team breached the farmstead, a surge of eldritch power destroyed the previous viewing window, and caused a chain reaction of events that left Starlight blind, and infected my foreleg with this. I’ve been keeping it a secret from everypony since then. A few days ago, something changed. I can only assume that when the Ponest Dungeon put out enough wooj to blot out the sun, that it must have done something to the corruption in my leg.”

Blueblood held up his left foreleg. Shining flinched, now having seen what the thing was capable of. “Ametrine has been of great assistance in helping me to deal with this. I think that I managed the window activation pretty well, all things considered.”

“Sir, you almost put my eye out when you sprouted those… bone growths.”

“Well, I do seem to have a few issues with the flesh shaping aspect. I’m still working on it, obviously. But I did get the window up and running, and it’s only been a few days. It’s strange; creating the window… it’s almost like it was second nature to me.” He seemed to pause for a moment in thought.

“Sir…” Shining shifted on his hooves, trying to work out the best way to broach an uncomfortable subject. “I know you don’t believe in true evil—”

“Oh,” Blueblood interrupted, “after what I’ve seen, I now definitely believe in evil.” The words caught Shining off guard, and he resorted to gaping. “Don’t look at me like that… I saw The Heart the other day. Well, I saw part of it, or its shadow… or the reverse of a shadow… I can’t really explain. Either way, I don’t think The Heart can be safely beheld by a mortal mind. Even Celestia succumbed to this thing.”

The words did nothing to allay Shining’s disquietude. “Then how are we going to defeat it, if it can do that even to one such as Celestia?”

“Because… I do not believe that Celestia had the advantage that I now possess.”

“What advantage?”

“This,” Blueblood said as he held up his left foreleg. “I have the benefit of being able to slowly adapt to this… thing. Also, we have Ametrine, a being created by The Heart, but who has turned against it. Even without Celestia’s immortality, we have two assets that should help us succeed where she could not. I mean, right now, I understand what Ametrine meant by being able to perceive the ponies she was linked to while not actually ‘looking’ at them. I… don’t know how to describe it in Equish; words fail to grasp even the basic concepts of the… feeling?” He shook his head. “Either way, I think I can get used to it, get used to this… multiplacedness. By steeping myself in this newness, I should be much better prepared to deal with The Heart.”

Normally, Shining found Blueblood’s determination inspiring, or at least clarifying. But what he now saw writ upon Blueblood’s face made his hackles rise. The use of the word “steeping” brought an unbidden mental image to his mind, of Blueblood wrapped in burlap, and repeatedly dunked into boiling water. “If you repeatedly expose yourself to The Heart, and its—” Shining couldn’t believe he was about to use the word “—wooj, then don’t you risk being injured by, or even fully corrupted by it?”

“I do,” Blueblood said. “Which is why I will ask you, as somepony who I can trust, to tell me if I’ve started to change.”

“You… you trust me with that?”

“Of course I do Shining,” Blueblood said. “With Moondancer’s death, you are now the only one who knew me well before we all came here. You are the only one who can possibly know if I truly start to change.”

“But then why aren’t you keeping me in the loop on these things?” Shining closed his eyes tightly and put a hoof to the growing pain in his forehead. “Why didn’t you tell me about your leg back when it first happened?”

“Would that be like me at all, Shining?”

He barked with sudden laughter and an accompanying release of tension. “You’re right Sir. You’ve never been free with the flow of information.” He reopened his eyes. “But… another question: why risk me in the field if I’m the only one who can tell if you’ve changed?”

“You’re a soldier.” Blueblood smiled. “Always have been, always will be. I saw you chomping at the proverbial bit when Moondancer’s team went into the Ponest Dungeon, and every other time you’ve stayed back and watched. Not putting you in the field is a waste.”

Shining couldn’t help but smile. “I’m glad you feel that way, Sir.”

Blueblood returned the smile. “Dismissed, Shining.”

“Yes Sir!” Shining saluted, turned, opened the drawing room door.

“Shining.”

The bottom dropped out of Shining Armor’s stomach. The change in tone was one he’d heard before. He turned his head back to see that all hints of mirth had vanished from Blueblood’s face.

“If I do change… if I become a danger to others…”

Knowing what Blueblood was going to say, Shining opened his mouth to object, but found his throat suddenly dry. He realized that, were their roles reversed, he would be asking the same thing.

“You’ll need to… put me down.”

Words failed him as he looked upon the pained expression etched on Blueblood’s muzzle. Instead, Shining nodded in affirmation.

Relief eased the features of Blueblood’s face. “Thank you, Shining.”

Week 21, Day 3, Afternoon

The shadowy boughs of the Everfree hung with gloomy menace. The sky above was curtained by clouds that had moved in just around noon, reducing the already poor visibility and trapping the stifling afternoon heat within the forest. In addition to the high temperatures, a complete lack of wind refused to provide any relief, and only exacerbated what had already been an oppressively humid day.

Shining and Twilight lit their horns in an attempt to fight back against the encroaching darkness, keeping themselves, Rainbow, and Zecora in a relative bubble of illumination.

“Lovely day we’re having,” Rainbow snarked.

“It’s bound to be a sign of the encroaching corruption,” Twilight said. “Everything’s being touched, changed…”

“Your worries may prove to be well-founded,” Zecora said. “But let us keep our perspectives grounded.”

“I suppose…”

Shining could see from the furrowing of Twilight’s brows that she wasn’t satisfied with cutting off her concerns, though. “What is it?”

“It’s… Blueblood.” A faint blush reddened her cheeks. “He’s being… touched and corrupted… in a more direct way.”

It took Shining a moment to catch her implication, but his eyebrows climbed as he finally got there. “Of course he’d be sleeping with Ametrine.”

Twilight nodded, sweat dripping from her chin. “I kinda walked in on them.”

Shining shook his head. “For any other pony, I’d say that sleeping with an eldritch abomination would set off all kinds of alarm bells.” He magically dragged a kerchief across his face, soaking up a good amount of moisture from his fur. “But Blueblood is probably the most promiscuous pony I know. I’m actually surprised he hasn’t slept with more company members.”

Rainbow, whose pegasus biology inured her to weather extremes, was entirely sweat-free. She chuckled. “He can’t be that bad, Shiny.” One of her wings caught her lucky chip out of the air.

“He’s slept with a quarter of the royal council,” Shining said flatly, ignoring the others’ glances of disgust or shock. “And don’t get me started on the castle staff.”

“Of the castle staff,” Zecora said, with a hint of bitterness in her voice, “I’ll bet he’s had more than half.” If she was sweating under her heavy mask and robes, nopony else could tell.

“You’re… not wrong.” Shining shook his head, sending some sweat droplets flying.

“Should we really be discussing this?” Rainbow asked. “You said he can see and hear everything we do.”

“He doesn’t care. He’s well aware of the rumors… or facts. He doesn’t even care if we embellish them; such exaggerations only add to his legend as a sexual tyrannosaurus.”

“Rulers are weird,” Rainbow said.

“Well, like you said, he’s listening,” Shining said with a smile. “All I’ll say is that I don’t think I’d ever be able to deal with rulership.”

“The number of social faux pas would be tremendous.” Twilight giggled. “Not to mention how you treat fillies.”

“Twily,” Shining said, with a hint of warning in his voice, “don’t you dare—”

“This one time,” Twilight began.

Shining groaned.

“Shining threw me like a javelin to catch a buckball out of the air,” Twilight finished.

He facehoofed.

“You threw a family member into the air to catch something?” Rainbow asked. “No offense Shiny, but… she doesn’t have wings; that was pretty bone-headed, even for you.”

“You threw a foal who could not fly?! Truly, sir Shining, were you high?”

“For the record, no,” Shining grumbled. “And don’t worry, I won’t be doing it again. I don’t even think I’ll end up being a family stallion, at this rate.”

“Oh c’mon Shiny,” Rainbow teased. “If I were your wife, you could toss me all you wanted!”

Shining stopped dead in his tracks. A furious blush crept over his face.

Both Twilight and Zecora stopped as well, leaving Rainbow to continue forward, laughing hysterically.

Turning her head back and forth between Shining and Rainbow, Twilight stifled a laugh. “The knight falls for the rogue; it’s like a bad romance novel.”

If he could have set fire to Twilight with his gaze alone, Shining would have. “You… don’t know what you’re talking about.” The redness of his muzzle deepened further.

“Oh c’mon Shiny,” Twilight said. “I kinda suspected before, with you two being so close all the time and—”

“I’m not listening!” Shining immediately trotted off to catch up with Rainbow.

“Wow,” Twilight said. “He’s got it bad.”

Zecora chuckled. “It is possible that he does not know, that he loves Miss Rainbow.”

“Let’s go.” Twilight snorted a laugh.

Week 21, Day 4, Morning

The sound of Yona’s war-bellow drew the wide eyes of the bandits. But before they had time to react, one of them, a stallion, was already impaled on one of her horns, coughing gouts of blood out onto the charging yak’s backside.

Yona steered the speared stallion into a collision course with a wall, collapsing the bandit’s ribcage in a unison of snaps. Even more blood vomited from the dead stallion’s mouth. Yona stumbled away, slightly staggered by the impact.

A brigand mare lifted a foreleg blade and took a step towards the dazed yak. “Stupid freaking yaks,” she said.

“Excuse me darling.”

The brigand turned to see a gorgeous unicorn mare with a tall hat and a seductive smile on her muzzle. “Buh?”

“Hold this for me, will you, dear?” Rarity buried a dagger into the top of the brigand’s head. A quick twist, and the blade snapped off at the hilt.

“Burfurdiglarp!!” exclaimed the brigand as her central nervous system was exposed to much higher quantities of low-quality iron and sooty atmosphere than it was used to.

Solmare shouted something incomprehensible as she lanced a brigand mare with a bolt of sun-yellow lightning. The charred corpse convulsed and dropped the shotgun it had been in the middle reloading.

The final bandit mare lifted a foreleg blade and growled. The snarl abruptly turned into a wet cough, followed by her collapse. Her back and side were covered with multiple stab wounds.

Lotus stood behind the crumpled mare, a bloody knife in her grinning mouth. The spectre of Aloe, who was floating behind her, facehoofed as Lotus began to rapid-fire stab the cadaver.

Week 21, Day 4, Morning

Tempest grunted in annoyance at the viewing display comprising Ametrine’s split-open barrel.

Blueblood stared blankly at the image. “Maybe we were wrong, and should have split those three new-hires into different groups,” he said.

“Our other teams already have high levels of synergy,” Tempest said. “Rarity was the only unattached, untested member of the company. Your decision to group these four together, as you did, seemed a wise choice at the time.” One of her eyes twitched as another fight began to unfold. She blew out a single huff of irritation.

Blueblood sighed as well. “Judging by the unsubtle and dissatisfied noises you’re making over there, I assume that you’re agreeing with me that it was actually a horrible idea.”

“Each member of this team seems remarkably proficient in murder,” Tempest said with a deepening scowl. “Proficient enough that they have avoided casualties, despite their complete and utter lack of coordination or teamwork.”

“It could be worse,” Blueblood said.

“It is brittle.” Tempest somehow managed to narrow her eyes even further without closing them entirely. “I should have known better; advised you against this grouping. My own failure in judgement is at fault here. Rarity worked alone as a grave robber for years. Yona fought in the pits for years, alone. Solmare…” She shook her head. “No pony even knows where that mare came from. Her abilities are all as potent as they are unique; she must have journeyed alone for a long time to reach us. And Aloe… I hardly expected her to be a paragon of unit cohesion. I was hoping that one of them would show some form of leadership potential, or that they would have some kind, any kind, of synergy. We will likely have to separate them after this mission.”

One of Tempest’s eyes twitched again as she watched the group disperse again to go after yet more bandits. “Also, with the exception of Solmare, the entire group’s equipment is substandard.” The statement was punctuated by Yona crumpling a gauntlet on a bandit’s face. The yak then discarded her broken accessory into the face of another bandit, with deadly results. “We will need to have Rivet provide—” Aloe struck a blow that snapped off her dagger’s blade from its hilt “—this team with new, higher durability gear. At this rate, it will be a miracle if they are able to complete their patrol with the equipment they brought with them.”

The image of Rarity knelt next to a felled bandit and retrieved the bandit’s daggers.

“Although Rarity is showing a degree of in-the-field resourcefulness,” Tempest said with begrudging approval.

She turned her gaze to Blueblood for a moment, curious if he was still watching Ametrine’s display, or if he was focused on his own. “Shining’s team must be doing well if you can find the time to converse with me about mine.”

Blueblood harrumphed. “They’re doing fine,” he said. “They’ve been tearing through the cultists easily enough; just like you said, astronomers don’t seem to have any predilection towards combat.” His eyes closed for a few moments. “Shining just cut somepony in half—they had blades strapped to their forelegs, if you can believe it. Meanwhile, Zecora is melting the faces… well, skull… faces… off of some courtiers. I’m actually surprised that the undead don’t seem to be trying to kill the cultists; they actually seem to be working together. I guess that without the Necromancer to guide them, they’re succumbing to The Heart’s control, just as the cultists have.” He shuffled closer. “Why so glum? Something eating you?”

“You may not need to open your foreleg to keep an eye on Shining’s team,” Tempest said in a menacing tone, “but I need to put my full concentration into what Ametrine can show me if I am to catalogue and correct the deficiencies of this team.”

“Fine, fine,” Blueblood grumbled. “Wait a minute… this is new.”

Tempest turned her head for the first time.

“Tell your team to hold up a moment, I may need you here,” Blueblood said, as his foreleg tore open into something reminiscent of a split ribcage. Between the strings of dripping bone and sinew, the gory display flickered to life. “Be careful Shining,” Blueblood said. “We’ve—”

—never seen skeletons like these two before.

True enough, Shining thought as he looked around a bend in the hallway at the first monstrosity, a massive amalgamation of bones which easily stood two hooves taller than Big Macintosh. To top it off, it was covered head to hindquarters in full plate. The second one was more regular-pony sized, but had saddlebags filled with what looked like spears.

“We’ll be careful Sir,” Shining said.

Hold on. Blueblood’s command halted the group’s advance. Designation for the big guy is “captain.” “Spearmare…” should be obvious.

Wait, Tempest’s voice boomed over the link. There is another one over there, just out of your line of sight. I haven’t seen one like it before either. Looks like it’s carrying a battle standard.

Good catch Tempest, Blueblood said. We’ll go with “bearer” for that one, then.

“A battle standard, huh?” Shining said. “Well, if there’s only three, I’m sure we can handle it.”

Lunging out around the bend, Shining delivered a staggering blow to the captain’s head, knocking It bodily into a wall. He pushed up against the bony behemoth, holding it in place. He grinned as Rainbow jumped forward, ducking between them, and began hacking at the massive skeletal hind legs with Mister Stabby, putting several notable notches in both of them.

The spearmare and bearer advanced, but a sudden burst of chemicals before them heralded Zecora’s countercharge. Shining turned his head to see her plucking more satchets from her new dispenser ring and hurling them. And Twilight brought up the rear, sticking near Zecora as they advanced together. Twilight’s horn glowed, and rents in reality opened, raining down a hail of magically summoned tentacles upon the two smaller foes.

“Looks like we got this,” Shining said with a smirk.

Then the captain pushed back with supernatural force, sending Shining scrambling to stay upright. He brought his sword around in a defensive posture just as his assailant slammed its forehooves down to the ground, creating a tremor that knocked everypony in the party, except Rainbow, to the floor.

The spearmare flanked to the left. It threw a javelin. Shining’s breath caught as it hit Rainbow and stuck into her right side, spinning her around and sending her to the floor. Mister Stabby went skittering into the darkness.

Shining stood and lunged towards Rainbow, only to have the bearer interpose itself, still brandishing its battle standard. He was now close enough to see—and feel revulsion—that the standard was made of genuine pony-hide. The hideous tapestry of patchworked cutie-marks was arranged in such a way that everything came together into a series of cryptic designs. As the creature raised the amalgamation of pony flesh into the air, it began to glow. A similar luminescence enveloped the skeletal trio, and within moments, all visible damage to them vanished.

Get up everypony! They’re advancing on you!

“On it,” Shining said as he tried to circle around to get between the bearer and Rainbow.

The captain charged Shining. It swung a forehoof that knocked his sword flying. Then, as if in retribution for his earlier attempt, it pressed him forcefully against a wall. Shining could hear the creaking of his breastplate under the pressure and grunted as he tried to push the captain off of him and draw breath.

“Hay! Bonehead!”

The captain turned, coming face-to-barrel with Rainbow’s pistol. The weapon discharged and blew the captain’s head to pieces. It also left Shining’s ears ringing as he was dropped, dazed and reeling, to the floor.

Rainbow stumbled and also fell to the ground, blood and entrails pouring from the gaping hole in her side. She convulsed as lavender motes of energy sprang from Twilight’s levitating skull and painfully stitched her guts back together.

“Don’t worry Shiny,” Twilight said, “I’ve got Rainbow—” Her sentence suddenly turned into a wet gurgle as a javelin pierced through her back, passing all the way through until it erupted from her stomach and pinned her to the spot.

The bearer moved forward and the collapsed pile that had been the captain started to rattle.

Seeing Twilight injured in such a manner, Shining let out a primordial scream, rose to his hooves, and charge-tackled the bearer. He started wildly raining his hooves down against it, breaking several rib bones and sending its jaw flying.

“Shining, beware! Satchets in air!”

Zecora’s words pierced Shining’s violent trance, and he turned to see her lining up a good throwing angle. He watched her tug at a satchet on her dispenser ring. But instead of retrieving a single pouch as she’d intended, the thin lace affixing the ring to her coat snapped, and she ended up lifting almost a dozen sachets above her head at once. She paused mid-throw as she noticed what had happened.

The spearmare, however, did not pause.

It threw a javelin at Zecora.

Shining’s subconscious mind recognized what was happening, and the entire combat slowed down to a terrifying crawl. He was forced to watch the events of mere moments stretch out into a seeming eternity.

The javelin pierced through the bundle of sachets Zecora held, before it arced downward. It then punctured through Zecora’s long coat and embedded itself into the cobbled floor, effectively trapping her in place.

The vitriolic contents of the entire bundle of sachets poured out onto her.

Zecora let out a shout of alarm as she was completely doused in a misty multitude of reactive reagents. Her short cry was swiftly replaced by a shriek, and then a long, pained scream as she struggled in vain to unpin her coat from the floor, and to remove her smoldering clothes. Greenish smoke, and the acrid smell of cooking flesh, wafted up from the stricken zebra.

“No!” Shining yelled as the flow of time sped back up. With a sudden surge of resolve, adrenaline coursed unchecked through his veins and empowered his forelegs. He gave a predatory growl, grabbed the bearer’s head, ripped it clean off, and crushed it to dust between his hooves.

Another shot rang out. Shining saw it punch a hole through the spearmare’s head, but not completely destroy it.

“Dammit!” Rainbow shouted as she struggled to pour a fresh load of powder into her firearm.

Shining jumped to his hooves, just in time for the spearmare to grab another javelin from its bag and throw it, skewering Twilight again.

Rainbow finished loading the pistol and pulled back on the hammer. She placed a firing cap, took careful aim, fired—

And missed.

Zecora’s screams stole Shining’s attention from the other parts of their deteriorating situation. He gazed in horror at her robes and mask, which had been burned all the way through in several places. The potent acids had started to work on her head and back, dissolving both fur and flesh, exposing sinew and bone.

Roaring like a manticore, Shining charged in a frenzied gallop towards the spearmare, who quickly set a spear to counter his advance. He caught the point of the weapon in his shoulder, causing his whole right foreleg to seize up. Nevertheless, he still full-body-tackled the skeleton and pinned the grinning monstrosity to the floor with his left foreleg.

Shining heard a series of clicks nearby.

“Dodge this.” Rainbow placed her pistol against the spearmare’s head and pulled the trigger. The skull exploded in a shower of bone and residual corruption.

“Twilight!” Shining tried to turn and almost whacked Rainbow with the spear that was still embedded in him. “We need—” He stopped when he saw that Twilight was having issues pulling out the second javelin, which had caused several of her vitals to spill out onto the floor. “Help her!” he shouted at Rainbow, before turning back to where Zecora lay in a smoldering heap.

“But Shiny—” Rainbow was looking at the spear sprouting from his shoulder like a stunted sapling.

“I’ll live, Dashie,” Shining said through clenched teeth. “You have to hurry, there’s no time!”

As Rainbow galloped to help Twilight, Shining pushed himself up off of the inanimate skeleton, gripped the haft of the embedded spear with his teeth, and pulled it out of his shoulder. He was vaguely aware of the sound of clattering as he stumbled over to Zecora.

What lay collapsed upon the ground in front of Shining bore little resemblance to the zebra he’d grown to call friend over the last several months. Zecora’s mask had melted almost completely away, and the upper left quarter of her face had been reduced to hissing bone. Her screams were now nothing more than gargling whimpers.

“Dammit Zecora! Stay with me!” Removing his helmet and lighting his horn, Shining poured healing magic into Zecora. He didn’t know if his magic would’ve been enough to save her even at full capacity, much less through a haze of blood-loss and pain. As it was, the caustic chemicals were eating away at her flesh faster than he could force it to regrow.

Zecora looked at Shining with her remaining eye. She tried to say something, but winced in pain and inhaled a ragged breath.

“Stay still,” Shining said, trying to keep his voice even. “Don’t worry, Zecora; Twilight will be here in a second or two and then you’ll be fine.” What was left of her expression told him that neither of them believed the well-intentioned lie.

Zecora opened her mouth and started to wheeze out partial words.

Shining leaned close, placing his ear as close as he dared.

“There is only one… thing now, that I fear,” Zecora said. The effort caused her to cough up blood, which began to smoke on her lips and chin. “Please, do not… leave… me… down…” Her features slackened and she went limp.

“No!” Shining grabbed Zecora with both forehooves and shook her as he spoke. His left forehoof sizzled where it came in contact with her blood. “No, no, no, not again!”

Shining was there, once more. Amethyst was on the floor, her own entrails wrapped around her legs like tinsel on a hearthswarming tree. He watched as Twilight tried to save her by blasting her full of eldritch energy. The resulting reaction between that energy, and Amethyst’s internal well of Harmony, produced an explosion which obliterated Amethyst and left them drenched in… her.

Twilight had used her own energies, yes; but it reacted with something.

That power.

It was far more than anything he had ever seen Amethyst use, but it was there, within her. A connection to Harmony, just like his own. If he had even a fraction of what she had residing within himself… then there was a chance that he could save Zecora.

In the now, Shining dug into the drained recesses of his own reservoir of Harmony. Exhaustion and injury had emptied it; there was nothing left to draw on. He would have to rest, would have to wait for it to refill.

No.

There was no time. Shining reached, pressing against the confines of the limitations placed by himself, by the world, by Harmony itself. And it was there, as he stretched his own boundaries, that he found it. A steady trickle of distilled Harmony, leading from his own empty stores, back to a source. He followed that stream, deeper and deeper within himself, until he saw it: a golden halo seeping through the cracks of what he could only assume was the bridge that connected his physical body directly to the Harmony that he channeled.

But the flow was weak. It was not nearly enough to be able to accomplish what he needed to do. There was nothing he had, no tools with which to open it further.

No; that was incorrect.

Twilight. She called on powerful things, otherworldly entities. Their potency was vast, forcing her to open gateways in order to allow a small amount of that power through. But she used different techniques, different methods. The way she manipulated these things, it wasn’t something that he could ever accomplish… or could he?

Shining combed his mind, straining to remember every instance, every time she opened one of her portals. The answer presented itself to him, clear as crystal. Whenever she opened a portal, the obscure incantation she used was the same.

Always.

Heedless of his own safety, he spoke the word, if it could truly be called such. It was more of an idea, a concept, than it was a mere string of syllables. He saw a sudden surge in the flow, and he beamed that what he now had would surely be enough to accomplish—

If the trickle of distilled Harmony that flowed from the bridge were like a tap placed into a cider keg, then the blasphemous word he had spoken took a proverbial axe to the side of that keg. The resultant surge of Harmony was as overwhelming as it was painful.

Horror dawned upon him as he realized that the incantation was not merely obscure, but eldritch.

He had just mixed eldritch magic and Harmony.

Inside of himself.

Before he could dwell on it further, Shining’s horn blazed bright enough to wash out his vision, and he was wracked by the feeling that his skin was being stripped from his body in the same manner that Time Turner would remove his clothes in Berry’s brothel—only with less erotic dancing, and more unfathomable pain. Then a new phase grew out of the last one, and quite suddenly the sensation of having his skin discarded paled in comparison to the torture of his blood beginning to boil in his veins. Each heartbeat sent pulsing, sharp, stinging pain throughout the entirety of his physical being. And yet all of that was paradise compared to the unnameable experience of his very soul beginning to burn. It was a feeling of heat so intense that it circled back around to freezing-out his nerves in an oversaturated, shuddering chill.

With what little remained of his conscious mind, Shining fought to direct the raw, undiluted flow of Harmony erupting from his forehead down onto Zecora. He saturated both her corpse and their surroundings, heedless of the small flames that erupted out of the creases in his armor, seeming to emulate a stove that had been overloaded with firewood.

Abruptly, the flow stopped. Shining fell back, completely out of breath, his fur singed in many places, and smoke rising from him like morning fog off of a lake.

“She’s gone Shiny!” Twilight limped over with the assistance of Rainbow. She had obviously come as fast as she possibly could, since she was using one of her hooves to keep her insides… inside. The look of pain on her face was from more than just her wounds, however. “What you just did… How did you even know how to… You… Do you realize what you just did?! You could have killed yourself!”

Shining tried to form coherent words, but only wound up coughing uncontrollably instead. He struggled for each breath; each inhalation burned in his chest, as if it were on fire. Which seemed entirely plausible since he produced black smoke with every cough. Pain suffused the entirety of his body and mind; it felt like being scalded by boiling water, only it was everywhere, including inside. The very idea that it was possible for a pony to channel that much Harmony was unthinkable. As he beheld the charred fur, the smoke which still rose from him, he realized that he very easily could have—

“You could have gone up like a Romane candle, you dumbflank… idiot… stupid!” Twilight was shaking, the motes of eldritch energy which were stitching her wounds closed moving erratically. “Did you stop to think about how this could affect me, your sister; how I would feel if I had to watch you turn into a pony torch?”

Shining was about to say something in his own defense—

“Did you even stop for one second to consider how this could affect the ones who care about you? About how it would make Rainbow feel? I know you love her! And she loves you too! You… you… stupid!”

All the arguments Shining had been mentally preparing, and all feelings of righteousness he harbored died when Twilight said Rainbow’s name. He looked over to Rainbow and saw that her eyes were wide, and that her body was trembling.

“Can you imagine what it would do to her if you died right in front of her?!”

Shining stared into Rainbow’s eyes. He saw a pain there that he knew very well. Memories flooded into him, of the time right after Twilight had vanished, and of two years later, when the authorities had declared her legally dead. The very idea of thoughtlessly inflicting such a burden on Dash filled him with shame. Averting his gaze, he chose to focus instead on Zecora.

Is Twilight right? What does it say about how it makes me feel to see Dashie’s fear and pain, that I would rather look upon Zecora’s smoldering remains?

Unbidden, Tempest’s words wormed their way into his consciousness. “Your selflessness is an admirable trait. But do not let it blind you to your needs, and the needs of those closest to you.”

“Shiny.” A wing draped over his withers.

Shining glanced over to where he’d dropped his helmet and stared down at it. He couldn’t look Rainbow in the eyes, not if he would see pain there. “I’m sorry Dash. I… I wasn’t thinking. Twilight’s right; I’m stupid.”

Several moments of relative silence passed, the only sound being that of Twilight’s flesh being magically knitted back together.

Shining saw Rainbow reach a hoof under his chin. He put up no resistance as she lifted his gaze to meet hers. The look on her face was one he’d never seen before. There was pain written there, yes. But there was also something else… a tired smile.

“Hi Stupid, I’m Rainbow Dash.”

He tried to laugh, but all that came out was a cough and some smoke.

“Forgiven, Dummy.” She sat next to him, and pulled him closer with her wing.

Shining… Blueblood’s voice quavered. We should… honor Zecora’s final wishes. After you all heal up… Bring her back here.

Shining looked back to the corpse. One eye stared back at him, filled with pleading. Raising his left foreleg to close Zecora’s intact eye, he saw that his hoof still had acid on it, and was hissing slightly. Lowering his left foreleg, he tried to complete the deed with his right, only to find he could barely move the limb; his wounded shoulder had locked up. The attempt to light his horn resulted in only a few errant sparks falling from its tip, and a splitting headache.

When he looked up, he saw scorch marks on his horn. His already-heavy heart sank further as he considered whether he’d caused irreparable damage to his own ability to channel Harmony magic. Which meant, at the very least, he wouldn’t be able to heal until they returned to Ponyville. A mental picture of Amethyst exploding came to the forefront of his mind when he thought of Twilight trying to seal his wounds with her magic. Until then, he couldn’t even do something as simple as—

Much to Shining’s relief, Rainbow reached out with the wing that wasn’t wrapped around him, and brushed it down over Zecora’s face, closing the eye for him.

Rainbow pulled Shining closer, and the two ponies stared at their fallen comrade.

“You weren’t a pony Zecora,” Shining said. “But wherever you are now, brave warrior, we’ll meet again. There is only one place where the valorous go when they die.”

As Twilight started to heal Rainbow’s wounds, her mind drifted into deep reflection on what she could or should say to them. They were family, or would be someday, if Shining ever pulled his head out of his rump and made things official. It felt important to share the knowledge she’d gained about the dark forces arrayed against them. But then she saw the expressions on their faces. Sadness did predominate there, but Shining’s words had injected a faint glimmer of hope.

There was no way that Twilight would take that away from them.

She reflected on her prior research with Starlight, covering many different explorations of, and explanations for, the physical laws that governed reality… and beyond. However, since Starlight’s blinding, Twilight had begun her own lines of research based on her explorations into the crypts, her reading of Celestia’s journals, and from the things she’d seen when Moondancer’s team was massacred.

Seeing Zecora die in a melting mess before them echoed memories of the few ancient, and often forbidden, texts that correlated with her own observations. And though she knew correlation did not automatically equal causation, the signatures of eldritch energy present in the captain, spearmare, and bearer, all seemed damningly reminiscent of arcane power-matrices scrawled in dead languages on the most dangerous of tomes she’d encountered. More than mere necromancy was at work here. There were hints of techniques and rituals long-forgotten, and for good reason. They were things not even she and Starlight had dared emulate, regardless of how many lines they had already crossed.

If such techniques were being used, here, now… then progress was no longer something to be judged by the number of books she’d read, or the amount of magic she could channel through herself. Instead, it would be measured by the others in progressive realization, and dawning horror.

Twilight remained silent. There was no way that she could ruin the moment by telling them the things that she knew, even as she watched Zecora’s blood soak into the ground much, much faster than it should have been able to.

The pitch-blackness of the manor’s cellar was pierced by the sounds of uncontrollable sobbing. Starlight lit her horn, slightly brightening the small space in which she’d sequestered herself. She sat on a patch of packed dirt floor, in a corner as far as possible from the stairs which led up to the ground floor.

While she didn’t need the light itself, the incidental illumination revealed the twin lines of wetness that poured out from under her eye bandages, and down her muzzle. She sniffled ineffectually, snot having already run down from her nose, to where it slowly dripped from her chin.

A dagger lifted into the air, carried on the thaumaturgical currents of her channeled eldritch energies.

The blade slowly turned towards her, alternating between different vital spots; eyes, throat, carotid artery, jugular vein.

She’d known that Zecora was going to die screaming. And that her “gift” of the satchet ring would precipitate it. Doubting her own predictions was something she’d stopped doing weeks ago. But—and she knew this too—it would never prepare her for the emotional impact of actually experiencing the events.

Everything prior to this point had been excusable, as either triage during a chaotic situation, or just a matter of not acting when her own efforts would have failed to produce reasonable change, or even change things for the worse.

But this time…

With a wracking sob, Starlight flared her horn, and the dagger flew towards one of her eye sockets at high speed. She gritted her teeth to prepare for the inevitable, but then suddenly reversed the direction of her telekinesis, stopping the blade just as it pierced into the cloth bandages around her eyes.

She struggled against herself, letting grief and rage war unchecked in her mind, causing a violent tug of war with the dagger. Seemingly of its own accord, it alternately tried to push into, or away from, her blackened eyes, which had cursed her with this singularly frustrating ability of foresight. And she thrashed about wildly as her muzzle issued streams of words, almost unbidden, that reflected her unraveling psyche:

“How could you?!”

“I had to…”

“You killed Zecora!”

“I know…”

“On purpose!”

“If I didn’t…”

“You murdered her! You monster!”

“You know I had to…”

“No! You could have done something!”

“I couldn’t…”

“Yes you could!”

“I don’t have a choice…”

“You do have a choice!”

“No…”

“You have a choice, you piece of—”

“NO! I DON'T HAVE A CHOICE!”

Starlight’s scream echoed in the cellar, slowly dying with each repetition until it faded into nothingness. Her writhing subsided. A breathless calm settled over her, born from acceptance—not of herself, but of the futility of everything. She couldn’t fight it anymore. She didn’t have a choice.

“None of us do,” she whispered to herself.

The dagger pulled away from her face, and moved down to her left foreleg. Starlight dragged the blade across the outward-facing side of the limb, cutting through fur and skin, whilst carefully avoiding all of the major arteries and veins. She hissed at the pain she felt, but continued until she’d made an incision into her subdermis which straddled half of the circumference of her leg.

“None of us do.”

She cut another line into herself.

“None of us do.”

And another.

“None of us do.”

And another.

“None of us do.”

And—

Week 21, Day 4, Noon

Blueblood stared at the bowl of nuts and fruit that Ditzy had prepared for his lunch. His frown deepened and he pushed the bowl away with a sigh.

“I should not have to tell you that you need to eat,” Tempest said from across him. “Because only foals need to have that explained to them.”

Blueblood blinked at the bluntness of the statement. He looked around the opulent dining room, which was empty except for the two of them.

“You know I would never say such a thing in front of the others,” Tempest said sternly.

“Sorry,” Blueblood said. “Years spent in the royal court have me looking for spectator reactions anyway.” He sighed again. “What a simple time that was, where the only threats were from tittering sycophants and scandals.” He raised his forehooves and shook them haphazardly. “Oh no! The Prince’s top General just berated him!” The sarcastic display raised a smile from neither pony. “Guaranteed front page of the newspaper material, right there,” he said, slamming a hoof down on the table. “Dammit! And do you know what the worst part is?”

“Zecora’s death would be lucky to make the obituaries,” Tempest said, not unkindly.

“Exactly!” Blueblood backhoofed his plate off the table. “To Tartarus with them all!”

Tempest calmly sipped her tea. “I normally do not engage in the support of rampant alcoholism,” she said. “But you were a much more stable individual before you went dry.”

“I’ve relied on that blasted crutch for too long.” He quickly stood and began pacing up and down one side of the table. “I’d rather be angry and alert—” He slammed a hoof down on the table. “—than… soothed and sedated!”

“You are taking Zecora’s death particularly hard,” Tempest said.

“We were—” Blueblood paused for a moment “—almost intimate.”

In a rare showing, Tempest furrowed her brow in confusion. “Almost intimate does not sound like you.”

“Hardy-har-har,” Blueblood said with a frown. “It was when Amethyst died.” He turned away. “You… you don’t need or want to hear this.”

“Tell me,” Tempest said, in something approaching empathy. “You need to talk about it or you will carry this much longer than you have to.” Her features hardened again. “Besides, I despise moping employers.”

“What if I want to suffer?” Blueblood said to the wall.

“Then I will break one of your bones for you.” Tempest cracked one of her fetlock joints.

“Fine, I’ll talk.” Blueblood sat down again. “Zecora and I were chatting about her being kicked out of the brothel.”

That particular piece of news raised an eyebrow.

“Anyway, one thing led to another and then we were kissing in the streets.” Blueblood sighed heavily. “I was supposed to be watching the viewer, keeping an eye on the team. I remembered just in time to walk in on them summoning the shambler. None of them ever told me why they were being so reckless as to mess with that altar in the first place. While I’ve privately wagered it had something to do with Shining’s now-cured kleptomania, it was ultimately my fault for being so neglectful.”

Tempest nodded.

“Afterwards, Zecora started getting all touchy and feely. And… I let her. We probably both figured that it would take our minds off of what happened.” Blueblood put a hoof to his forehead. “Then I went and freaked out on her, told her to get lost.” Letting his hoof drop to the table, he looked up at Tempest, who was listening intently. “I never apologized, Tempest.”

“Regrets come with every death,” Tempest said, in a solid, steady tone. “There are things left unsaid, things left undone, things that you think should have been done differently. All of this is normal, whether the deceased is friend, foe, or even a complete stranger.”

“Are you going to tell me to ‘get over it?’”

“No,” Tempest replied. “You are the only one capable of doing that. You cannot rely on others to forgive you, or you will never be able to move forward.”

“So, what am I supposed to do? Just stop caring?”

“Whatever you do, you must never do that.” Tempest’s eyes glittered like fire. “The day you feel nothing upon witnessing the death of another pony… is the day you cease to be a pony yourself.” She looked away with an odd combination of glaring wistfulness. “While I do not bother to debate the necessity of the deaths I have caused, I regret each and every one.”

Blueblood pondered for a moment, considering how he felt about that philosophy. His thoughts, however, kept returning to one thing that had haunted him since his arrival. “Still, at least you don’t have the dead coming back to visit afterwards.”

“I will assume you are being literal,” Tempest said. “I really should not be surprised at this point, considering our mission, locale, and your distinct predilection for attracting every malevolence under the sun.”

“Well, I—”

“And then fornicating with it,” Tempest added bluntly.

“That’s fair.”

“Everything is beginning to make more sense now,” Tempest said. “Amethyst coming back as Ametrine, the piles of bones that you have hidden around the grounds—”

Blueblood facehoofed.

“—not to mention the sounds coming from the stone sarcophagi in the cellar.”

Blueblood ground his hooves into his temples. “You didn’t think of mentioning that you’d noticed these things earlier?”

“You obviously had things well enough in hoof,” Tempest said. “Otherwise, I am sure you would have asked for assistance.”

“Speaking of which—” Blueblood sighed “—could you stop by my room later tonight—”

Tempest narrowed her eyes.

“Not for that!”

Week 21, Day 4, Night

Blueblood tossed and turned under the covers. The grilling Tempest had subjected him to earlier had left him feeling exhausted enough that, for the first time in ages, sleep instantly claimed him upon laying in his bed. Despite that, it seemed his mind conjured plenty of phantoms to haunt his dreams.

Something slid into the room, the noise of its entry partially masked by the distressed sounds Blueblood was making. There was a sickening series of squelches, followed by the light sound of hoofsteps. The acid-marred visage of Zecora walked out to be illuminated by the moonlight. Slowy, the Zecora-thing approached where Blueblood slept. It reached out a hoof to touch the prince.

Suddenly, something grabbed it by the shoulder and it was violently spun around.

“Hello Zecora,” Tempest said.

The Zecora thing stared at Tempest with eyes that expressed both shock and fear. It backed slowly until its flank hit a wall. “I.. I just arrived in this place!”

“And you will be leaving shortly.” Tempest cracked her neck. “Any requests before I send you to dreamland?”

The Zecora thing looked absolutely terrified. “Please, Tempest! Not in the face!”

Narrowing her eyes, Tempest gave the creature her number-one glare. “Request... denied.”

The Zecora-thing tried to fight back in a blind panic, but what followed was ten straight minutes of Tempest beating the ever-living shit out of the fleshform, until it finally collapsed into a gelatinous pile of unconsciousness.