Ponest Dungeon

Chapter 5: Delving Deep

Week 21, Day 7, Evening

Unlike the other company members who had been killed, Zecora was the first to have her body returned to town. In addition to all of Blueblood’s mercenaries, a good deal of the town also turned out for the funeral. Even Starlight had shown up, apparently granting herself a brief reprieve from a self-imposed exile to her own room.

The rain had also decided to attend as well. A storm had moved in from the Everfree without warning, almost as if it had come specifically to pay its respects. One might have almost thought that the blighted forest felt sorry, considering the intensity of the downpour.

Monsignor Mare stood before the drenched gathering of ponies, dressed in a long black robe. She quoted from the Harmonicum and performed the Equestrian rites for the recently departed.

“I never understood scripture,” Blueblood grumbled, after a particularly obscure passage was read. He wasn’t sure if he’d been heard due to the severity of the deluge.

Shining’s right foreleg was in a sling, and he was standing as best as he could on only three legs. He had to hop slightly so that he could better face Blueblood. “I’m more surprised that you’re allowing the Monsignor to perform an Equestrian ceremony. Zebrica is a completely different culture. The funerary rites are equally different, I’m sure.”

Blueblood swept a hoof, indicating those who’d gathered. “The funeral is not for Zecora, it’s for them.”

“You’re right.” Shining looked around at the massive turnout, trying to ignore the spikes of pain from his shoulder as he turned slightly. “The company definitely needed this.” He watched as four ponies lifted the casket into the air, with the assistance ropes and pulleys attached to a scaffold. “They need to know that if they die, that there is at least a chance that their remains will be able to return here, to rest in peace.”

“Rest in peace,” Blueblood muttered. “What a farce.” He furrowed his brow and blinked away water. “All of it is a farce.”

Shining looked at Blueblood askance.

“Look at this.” Blueblood’s voice was filled with contempt. “We know Celestia is dead. Yet here, we have a mare in a robe, claiming communion with the divine?” His manic gaze pierced into Shining’s eyes. “What greater insanity could there possibly be?”

“But Sir.” Shining was hesitant to continue the conversation, since Zecora was being lowered into the ground as they spoke. “We know that Harmony exists. We have an Element of Harmony in our possession. I channel Harmony energy.”

Blueblood shook his head. “We’ve recommitted scores of skeletons, dozens of desperados, and countless creatures to the earth.” He glared at Monsignor Mare with hateful eyes. “But to what end?” he hissed. “Our efforts have yielded us naught!” His voice rose with every word. “As our victories mount, so too does resistance!”

Eyes started to turn towards them, away from the lowering casket, as Blueblood’s exclamations rose above the level of the rain. He lowered his voice again. “Shining—”

The ropes went slack, and were withdrawn from the gaping hole in the ground. Shining couldn’t shake the idea that the casket had just been swallowed up by the tainted earth. Nor could he ignore the feeling that the pit, where Zecora now lay, beckoned for more to join her.

Blueblood didn’t take his eyes from that earthy maw. “I’m sorry about that outburst, Shining. I’m just… very upset that she’s gone.”

“Me too,” Shining said, his hardened eyes set on the grave as workmares began to shovel mud into it. “Me too.”

Week 22, Day 1, Noon

Berry’s bar was bustling, her new wait-staff, dealers, and courtesans all catering to itinerants, permanent residents, and members of Blueblood’s company. The repairs and expansions were coming along nicely. Berry was pleased enough that she was actually giving members of Blueblood’s company discounts for drinks and other services as thanks for all of the renovations.

Rainbow Dash sat at a table, her muzzle streaked by tears. She stared at her mug of cider with bloodshot eyes. Then she pounded it down. Waking up at the crack of dawn, she’d gone straight to the bar and just started drinking. After the fifth one, she’d lost count of how many she’d had.

Rainbow knew that Berry probably wouldn’t cut her off, out of sympathy. Everypony in town seemed to know who had witnessed Zecora’s gruesome demise. She saw that Berry was eyeing her warily, probably expecting her to pass out in the bar again.

But Rainbow was too distraught to pass out. Even the customary wooziness that accompanied her usual bouts of heavy drinking wasn’t as prevalent as she was hoping it’d be. Months of working with Zecora had started them along a path from mere acquaintances towards actual friendship. The sudden loss felt like a hole had been punched through her chest.

Rainbow had put on a brave face at the time Zecora had died, and again at the funeral. But doing so hurt her in ways she couldn’t properly describe. Her grief made her want to shout to the heavens, to scream her outrage and curse Harmony itself for allowing such a thing. It wouldn’t help. Nothing helped.

At first, Rainbow had hoped that Shining would be able to be there for her, but she couldn’t even spend time with him. He’d been hurt so badly and his medical care delayed for so long that, even with the whole team of Sanitarium doctors who were currently working on him, his right shoulder would likely suffer from a permanent loss in its range of motion. And to top it off, his horn had been damaged. Depending on how things went with it, he would be lucky to only have a serious reduction in his ability to channel magic. The worst case scenario, however, would be that he might not be able to use magic, ever again. It would be like a pegasus losing their wings.

The reminder of losing a piece of oneself had Rainbow reflexively reaching down to her scabbard, which she found to be empty. As if to add insult to injury regarding everything that happened, she’d been unable to find Mister Stabby after the fight. Her mother and father had given her that knife. They, of course, were the ones who had named it. Rainbow had found the name silly and childish, but had adored the gift all the same. It and her pistol, Mister Shooty, were the only two things she’d had to remember her parents by on her journeys across Equestria. Losing it… was almost like losing one of them.

“One more over here,” Rainbow called out to the bar.

Berry brought it over personally this time.

Rainbow looked up at her, not even trying to stem the flow of tears from her eyes.

“I know it’s bad for you,” Berry said. “I lost members of my family in that eclipse attack, so I can understand needing to drown it out.” She put the fresh mug on the table. “Try not to drink yourself to death.” Then she grabbed the empty mug and returned to the bar.

Looking at the foaming mug, Rainbow probed the emotional abyss inside herself. Maybe if she drank enough, she could overflow it with frothy cider, and move on. Despite repeating the lie to herself several times, a small part of her knew that there was no way to fill that hole; not with booze, at any rate.

Rainbow found that she didn’t care, and reached for her drink.

A mug was set down on the table across from her.

Lifting her head, Rainbow saw a mare she hadn’t been expecting.

“The Great and Powerful Trixie does not like to see ponies as upset as you look right now,” Trixie said.

“Well,” Rainbow said, sniffling a few times, “I’m not moving, so go look somewhere else.” She had tried to make her voice sound forceful, but even she knew that it just ended up sounding pathetic.

Trixie took off her ridiculously large wizard’s hat and set it on the table. “The Great and Powerful Trixie would like to help, if she can.”

“What?” Rainbow sniffed some more and began to sway a little bit. Apparently the previous cider had finally kicked in.

“Speak about your problems, and The Great and Powerful Trixie will listen.”

“How is that going to help?” Rainbow wiped the back of one foreleg across her nose.

“Talking helps, apparently. Trixie read about it in one of the many amazing and astonishing books that she sells. One said something about how talking about one’s problems helps with processing. Trixie thinks she understands the concept, but doesn’t claim to be an expert on mental well-being.”

“What?”

Trixie pointed at Rainbow. “You, talk.” She pointed at herself. “Trixie listen.” Then she made weird circular movements with her hooves that were reminiscent of a turning wheel. “You process; feel better.”

Rainbow felt her stomach turn as her eyes followed Trixie’s hoof-motions. “Fine, just stop doing that.”

While skeptical at first, Rainbow started to talk. Once the words started to flow, however, it was as if a dam had burst. She was unable to stop, recounting to Trixie… everything, really. About the times before she knew Shining, after they’d met, her experiences in Blueblood’s company, things that had been going wrong recently, and finally, everything that happened on that last, ill-fated mission.

Amazingly, both mugs of cider remained untouched on the table, the plethora of words not allowing time for drink. The sun lowered in the sky, eventually beginning to set, and heralding the bar’s evening rush.

“The Great and Powerful Trixie has never experienced loss of the magnitude you describe,” Trixie said. “While she cannot do anything regarding the loss of your friend, she may be able to do something else for you.”

“Yeah?” Rainbow said, actually feeling better than she’d expected. She realized that she’d sobered up during her lengthy recap. “What could you do?”

“Follow Trixie,” Trixie said.

Rainbow first walked to the bar, grabbing bits out of her pouch to pay her tab. She was surprised when Berry turned her away, telling her that her drinks were on the house.

Completely nonplussed by the mere concept of free alcohol, Rainbow instead followed Trixie out the door, and towards the wagon where Trixie sold her wares.

Trixie opened the door to the wagon and beckoned for Rainbow to enter first.

The inside of the wagon was cramped, to say the least. Rainbow barely had room to turn around and face Trixie when she also entered. The interior was littered with various boxes that were each filled to the brim with assorted books, trinkets, and baubles. If Rainbow were being honest, she’d have said that it looked like a flea market had vomited in there.

“Now,” Trixie said. “Trixie needs two things from you.”

“I thought you were going to do something for me.”

“Yes,” Trixie replied. “But Trixie will need the scabbard you kept Mister Stabby in, as well as the hoof you most often wielded him with.”

“You want to cut off my hoof?” Rainbow felt a sudden, irrational paranoia as she became painfully aware that her flank was backed up against the inside of Trixie’s wagon, and that there was no room for her to extend her wings. Things began to slow down as adrenaline was pumped into her veins and she began to hyperventilate.

Trixie, apparently unaware of Rainbow’s engaged fight or flight response, sputtered and waved a hoof in dismissal. “No. The Great and Powerful Trixie does not do such things. She only needs to borrow the scabbard, and for you to hold out your hoof.”

Rainbow struggled to bring her breathing under control, mentally placing her body on autopilot so that it could mechanically unbuckle the empty scabbard while she tried to bring her own heart rate down. Taking a deep breath, Rainbow hoofed the scabbard over to Trixie. She berated herself for the random panic attack.

“Now,” Trixie said, sprinkling some oddly glowing shards into the scabbard, “hold out your hoof.”

Hesitating, Rainbow looked at Trixie like she was a viper that could strike at any moment. A few more slow breaths, and Rainbow complied.

Rainbow watched as Trixie placed a large, luminescent crystal into her outstretched hoof. The gem was a peculiar sight, with a mixture of aquamarine and teal light shining from deep within. For its size, the weight was surprisingly light, and she felt its temperature to be simultaneously warm and cold. It also seemed to buzz, emanating a peculiar vibration that began to travel up her foreleg. Yet… it produced no sound… at least, not one she could hear. As the resonance spread to the rest of her body, she found it to be oddly soothing. Her breathing and heart rate slowed, and it was not long before she felt wholly calm. The crystal briefly scintillated in some unnamable color, before returning to its original illumination.

Trixie seemed to take that as a sign. “Okay. Now, Trixie needs you to close your eyes and think about Mister Stabby. Think of when he was given to you, of times that you remember using him, and of the moment you lost him.”

“Why do I have to—”

“Just do it. It won’t work if you don’t.”

Rainbow, who still had no idea what was going on, closed her eyes and thought hard. Her parents had always been over-supportive, even when she tried to rebel against their plans for her by declaring that she would travel Equestria as an “adventurer,” which was, essentially, a nice way of saying “murder-hobo.” The first memories which came to mind when she steered it in the direction Trixie had asked, were those when her parents presented her with the dual gifts of Mister Stabby and Mister Shooty. She’d cried tears of joy, buoyed by the knowledge that her mother and father would support her even in her overt defiance of their wishes. Those memories were followed by her immediate embarrassment when she heard the names of the weapons, which had—of course—been permanently engraved into the blade and barrel of each, respectively. Over time, she had actually grown quite fond of those names; so much so, that she had almost gotten into several lethal confrontations whenever somepony had mocked them.

She thought of the different times she would use both dagger and pistol in concert, one after the other, sometimes both simultaneously. While dispatching foes or neutering stallions under-the-table were memorable events in their own right, the performance of parlor tricks came to the forefront of Rainbow’s mind as what she liked the most about the weapon duo. Once, she had balanced Mister Stabby on one hoof while shooting a coin out of the air with Mister Shooty. Good times. And then, finally, she came to that moment when Mister Stabby had been knocked away from her, skittering off into the darkness like—

Rainbow felt the crystal in her hoof shift. It was suddenly heavier, and the balance had changed.

There was a confused hum from Trixie.

“What is it?” Rainbow asked. “Can I open my eyes yet?”

“The results… are not quite what The Great and Powerful Trixie was expecting.”

Rainbow opened her eyes and looked at what she was now holding in her hoof. “What…” She didn’t have actual words to express her feelings at that moment. Most swirled around confusion and disbelief. What she held in her hoof was a dagger and a pistol. The blade had “Mister Stabby” engraved upon it, and the barrel of the pistol had “Mister Shooty” similarly engraved. They were both very much as she remembered them. But… she had left Mister Shooty in his holster…

Reaching for her pistol holster, Rainbow found it clasped, but empty. “Wait, what did you do?”

“Trixie has been experimenting with the crystals that Twilight Sparkle gave her,” Trixie said. “They have an odd effect on both space and time. By providing a physical and mental link, we were able to reach out and retrieve your dagger… and apparently your pistol as well.”

“But that’s great!” Rainbow said. “Mister Stabby is back!” She unfolded a wing and grabbed Mister Shooty so that she could try some hoof twirling with her newly returned dagger. “Now I have—” the two weapons moved together when she lifted the pistol. “—what?”

Rainbow closely inspected both items and saw that they were fused together, the dagger having merged with both the underbarrel ramrod, and the barrel itself, which made it parallel with the pistol’s line of fire. Using her other wing to pull at the two, she found that they were inseparable. She could see that a series of crystalline growths had formed around the point of connection and gave off the same unnatural luminescence as the larger crystal Trixie had given her.

“The Great and Powerful Trixie is unsure how this happened,” Trixie said. “You focused on memories of only Mister Stabby, correct?”

“I thought about both,” Rainbow said, feeling very confused. “I always used them together, so all memories of one—”

“—are connected to memories of the other,” Trixie finished. “The Great and Powerful Trixie apologizes, Rainbow Dash. The childhood gifts your parents gave you are now irrevocably joined.”

“This is the most awesome thing ever!” Rainbow said.

Trixie tilted her head in confusion. “Come again?”

“It’s both a knife, and a gun!” Rainbow twirled the weapon in a manner which was simultaneously impressive and incredibly dangerous in the close confines of Trixie’s wagon.

“Pow!” Rainbow said, aiming up and pulling the trigger.

Both mares jumped in surprise when the firearm discharged, blowing a hole through the roof of Trixie’s wagon.

As both mares rubbed at their tinnitus-ridden ears, Trixie gave Rainbow a death glare.

“But it wasn’t loaded!” Rainbow said, looking down the barrel. “I never carry Mister Shooty around loaded, that’s just irresponsible!”

Trixie gave Rainbow a flat look, but then eyed the knife-gun suspiciously. She used a hoof to carefully direct the business-end away from Rainbow’s face.

“Fire it again,” Trixie said.

“You want me to reload and shoot another hole in your roof?” Rainbow asked.

“No,” Trixie said. “Aim it up, right now, and pull the trigger.”

“I don’t know what you expect to happen,” Rainbow said, aiming up and placing a primary on the trigger. “I mean it’s empty for—”

The weapon discharged again, blowing a second hole through the roof.

It took a while for the ringing in their ears to drop to manageable levels. When it finally did, Rainbow carefully inspected the weapon. “How?”

“The Great and Powerful Trixie also assumes that you thought about firing the weapon, and never about when it was empty?”

“Yeah,” Rainbow said. “That sounds about right.” She shook her head. “Wait, are you telling me that I never have to reload it?”

“Trixie thinks it is safe to assume that,” Trixie said. “The weapon seems to be resetting itself… in… time, or… something. Trixie would bet that the bullet is being returned to the barrel after every shot, and that the gunpowder is acting in a similar fashion.”

“Okay,” Rainbow said, “this is beyond awesome! I don’t know how to thank you for this, Trixie!”

“Twilight Sparkle has already paid The Great and Powerful Trixie for both the experiments and any produced equipment,” Trixie said.

Rainbow held up the knife-gun, and looked it over again. “It needs a new name,” she said. “It’s made out of both Mister Stabby and Mister Shooty… but I can’t just call it one or the other.” She rubbed her temple with her free hoof.

Trixie tilted her head slightly. “Trixie never understood the practice of naming inanimate objects. But she supposes you could combine the names. Mister Stabby and Mister Shooty together become Mister Stabooty.”

It was Rainbow’s turn to give Trixie a flat look.

“No.” Rainbow turned the weapon over in her hooves. “This bad boy needs to have a name that’s as cool and awesome as he is.” She ran a hoof along the barrel and then the blade. “Something that can both cut you like a strong wind, and pelt you with a hail of—”

Rainbow grinned. “Oh yeah. The only name I could ever give to an awesome gun-knife like this is—”

A moment or two passed.

“Is?” Trixie asked.

“I was pausing for dramatic effect.”

“Ahh,” Trixie replied. Her flat look had decided to grace Rainbow with its presence again.

“You ruined it though,” Rainbow said. “Now I have to start over.”

Waving her hoof in a gesture to continue, Trixie sighed. “By all means.”

“The only name I could ever give to an awesome gun-knife like this is—” Rainbow paused again.

Trixie may or may not have looked at a pocketwatch in the interim.

“Squall.”

Week 22, Day 2, Morning

Heavy wind buffeted against the shuttered windows of the drawing room. The newly re-reconstituted weather team, headed by a pegasus named Thunderlane, was doing their best to repel the gale-force winds, despite their lack of numbers. The storm that had arrived for Zecora’s funeral had not dissipated after drenching Ponyville for two whole days, and risked flooding both the town and the surrounding county if it couldn’t be dispersed. The hope was that they would be able to drive the weather system to the northeast, to where it could then continue past the Everfree, the ruins, and into the mountains.

Blueblood closed his splayed-open left foreleg, dispelling the view of both Thunderlane’s struggling team, and the lone company member he’d asked to tag along: Night Glider. He turned back to the team gathered before him; he was relieved to see relatively little horror played upon their faces, and was separately relieved that he hadn’t sprayed blood or almost impaled anypony this time around. “Does anypony have an issue with this here?” He waggled his foreleg around. “Because this is… a thing now.”

Octavia crossed her forelegs. “I turn into a shark.”

Vinyl bobbed her head to some tune that was probably blaring inside her headphones. “What she said!”

Applejack shrugged. “Yeah yer Princeship, the whole shark-thang makes your leg-window-mabob look like small apples.”

“Eeyup.”

Winona barked.

Blueblood wanted to punch himself for worrying about how everypony would take it. After the initial shock, first Shining’s group, and now Applejack’s group, had just accepted his weird monster-arm. Tempest was right; the members of the company were made of stern stuff, and he needed to stop underestimating them.

“Okay then. I want you to start your patrol in the part of the catacombs where Shining’s team left off,” Blueblood pointed at the corresponding point on the map. Then he pointed at another marked area closeby. “Tempest will be using Ametrine to direct a team over here in this section. Running both teams close together at the same time is intentional. You all know what happened to Zecora; should either team encounter insurmountable resistance or suffer casualties, we’re going to have you group together and withdraw.”

“Y’all sound pretty sure we’re gonna lose somepony else,” Applejack replied.

“What we saw down there was new and powerful,” Blueblood said. “This way there’s backup for each team nearby. I’d send you all in larger groups, but you’ve been in those tunnels; more than four ponies would only have you all stepping on each other’s hooves. At least this way you’re not completely alone.”

“Who will constitute the second team?” Octavia asked, after a particularly energetic clattering of the shutters.

“The other team will be Starlight’s four recruits,” Blueblood said. “They proved themselves in the tavern, but that was apparently under the direction of Starlight’s supernatural foresight. I want to make sure that they can operate without it.”

“That’s it?” Vinyl asked. She didn’t wait for a response. “No problem, we got this.”

“That is all. Get your rest and relaxation in today, and report for equipment this evening. Dismissed.”

After the team exited the drawing room, Blueblood leaned back in his chair and sighed as the wood creaked.

“Ow!” the chair exclaimed, causing Blueblood to yelp and vault from it onto the drawing room table, where he stood on the tips of his hind hooves with what he hoped weren’t comically wide eyes.

“You need to lose some weight,” Ametrine said as the back of the chair splintered and formed into her head.

“What?! Why?!” Blueblood yelled from his elevated position. “I… I’ve been sitting on you for the last three hours!” He shook himself out. “Nyahh! Do you have any idea how creepy that is?”

“Yup,” Ametrine’s head said with a smile. “But that filly-shriek you just gave off was totally worth having your bum rubbing back and forth on me the whole time.” She lifted a chair leg to her mouth conspiratorially. “But, ahem, somepony needs to wipe said bottom a little better after using the little filly’s room. There’s an odor…”

“What,” Blueblood said, trying in vain to remove the mortified expression from his face. “Do. You. Want?”

“Trying to replace me already?” Ametrine asked as she resumed her pony form. “Am I that much of a nuisance to you? Did you think I wouldn’t notice? I can sense their presence, you know.”

“I… don’t know what you’re talking about,” Blueblood said, perhaps genuinely.

“Four plus one equals five,” Ametrine said as she sauntered out of the room. She turned her head to scowl at Blueblood. “You think I’m difficult? Multiply that by five, then maybe more than that. I shudder to think of the implications of what you’re doing—” she suddenly took on a playful aspect “—oh, speaking of shuddering: later, you, me, observatory, candlestick, whodunnit, rawr.” Her foreleg turned into a cat paw and made clawing motions.

Blushing furiously as she left, Blueblood stayed up on the table on his tippy-hooves.

“You should not let the others see you like this,” Tempest said as she stopped walking past the drawing room doors. He felt her eyes mercilessly scrutinize him. “You look like a ballerina doing position five, en pointe.”

Blueblood’s blush deepened and he dropped onto all four hooves. “She was my chair,” he protested.

“Ah,” Tempest said. “She tried that on me yesterday. Now she knows how a chair feels when its back is broken.”

“How did you know?” Blueblood hopped down from the table.

“She was not an antique,” Tempest replied flatly. “I am surprised you didn’t notice. Probably another side effect of your sobriety.”

“Probably,” Blueblood muttered.

“She is also correct,” Tempest said. “What you are planning has too many variables. These… flesh creatures will not turn out the way you expect, especially if Ametrine is any indication.”

“Probably.”

“If you were only raising one of these things at a time, I would be less concerned. But with the fleshforms of both Moondancer’s team and Zecora, you have five total. It is quite the risk.”

“Probably.”

“You have also been seriously neglecting them. You have not even been down to the cellar since I dumped the Zecora-form into that flesh-pit sarcophagus of yours. Without direction, they may wind up being more of a danger to our company than the threats we face in the ruins.

“Probably.”

Tempest narrowed her eyes. “Perhaps I need to wake you up again, Prince.”

“No!” Blueblood immediately backed out of slapping distance. “I’m paying attention! It’s just that we continue to run into newer, larger terrors. We need to be able to meet these things on equal hoofing. Having a Sharktavia or Lyra equivalent for every team would vastly increase our company’s survival rates.” He sighed. “And I’ve tried to put aside time to spend with them, but I’ve just been too busy. It should be fine to leave them there for a little bit until things slow down though, right? I left Ametrine in there for months.”

“And the resentment she holds for you regarding that act is likely far greater than you believe. Do not mistake her willingness to indulge in both of your carnal appetites for gratitude or loyalty. Your treatment of these newer fleshforms only risks reminding her of what you put her through. Also, I never see you two together whenever you aren’t in your room, or in the observatory. Only engaging with her as a window and as a sex toy—”

“I do not—”

“—will make her even more resentful of you and make her think that you see her just like you do the fleshforms in that stone coffin. It does not help that you forced her to teach you how to replace her with your own leg. You need to be more mindful of these things, Prince. You risk making her think that she’s completely replaceable to you.”

“But she isn’t! She should know that. Tempest, I’ll take this all into consideration. Really, I will. But it’ll have to go on the back burner for now, I have too many things to do, and no time to do them in.”

“Prince.” Blueblood looked up and saw what he could only describe as parental concern written across Tempest’s scowling face. “I am not trying to pester you over meaningless social faux pas. Regardless of what you think or feel, Ametrine is dangerous. Not paying attention to her will come back to bite you.”

“Come on, Tempest.” Blueblood waved a hoof dismissively. “It’s not like Ametrine is planning to murder me, or anything.”

“I get to watch him die, right?” Ametrine tried to rest her hooves on top of the sarcophagus, but they were repulsed by the runic enchantments which sealed it shut. She could feel the struggles of her sisters within the confines of the stone coffin. It was the very same one she had once been trapped in, exactly as they were now.

“Yes.” Starlight walked into the light given off by the containment wards. “You will have your chance to face him, when he believes that everything he has worked for lies in ruins. He will be cornered and at his weakest, and you will have the chance to end his life with your own hooves.”

“Good.” Ametrine looked up from the impromptu prison. “I want him to suffer before he dies. Just like he’s made me suffer… like how he’s made us suffer.” She traced a hoof along the crackling runes. “I can’t mean anything to him, if he’s moving so fast to replace me.” Her eyes narrowed. “And this must be what he thinks of me, and my sisters, and how we should be treated. He hasn’t even taken the time or effort to fully form their bodies or minds. They’re almost-mindless monsters, made by a monster. If he succeeds in recreating what he did with me… I’ll help them. I’ll… I’ll at least treat them better than this.”

“Just remember to go through Zecora’s things, as we discussed.”

“Yeah, I’ll remember.” Ametrine looked over to Starlight and gestured to the red-stained cloth wrapped around her left foreleg. “What’s up with the bandages?”

“I’m blind.” Starlight lifted the wrapped limb. “I bump into things and get hurt rather easily.”

“Yeah, right.” Ametrine didn’t buy that for a second. Starlight was prescient enough to predict how to walk without assistance, and never bumped into anything she didn’t mean to. In fact, she probably knew very well that her lie hadn’t been believed. “What do you get out of this, long-game chess-mare?”

“Death.”

“Then why do it?”

“You’ll understand, in time. For now, I’ll tell you that I serve a purpose greater than myself. My death is essential, so that others might live. As for my leg, I know you know I lied about it. I don’t know why I did it, only that I would, that you wouldn’t believe—yadda, yadda. The funny thing about being able to see the future is that I continue to do things that I know are pointless, just so that I don’t rock the temporal boat, so to speak. Since you are genuinely interested about my leg, I will tell you that I cut myself, on purpose.”

Ametrine’s eyes widened. “Why?”

“Big Mac would be a better pony to ask about the practice of flagellation. Suffice it to say that, even though I know what needs to be done before my time is up, my mind is fragile, like that of other ponies. Apparently, the only way I can live with myself, both with what I have already done, and what I will have to do, is by punishing myself for it. Repeatedly.”

Shaking her head, Ametrine returned her gaze to the sarcophagus. “Sacrificing for others, making yourself suffer… I don’t think I could ever understand that kind of thinking.”

“Oh, but you can… Oh, but you will.” Starlight smiled, perhaps genuinely. “In time.”

Ametrine looked at Starlight with half lidded eyes. “Doubtful.”

“Oh, I guarantee it.”

Week 22, Day 3, Morning

The sound of the front door opening, and of his assistant’s panicked galloping to the back room, caused Rivet to look up from an intricate set of runes that he’d been painting onto a storm steel plate. He watched as Tempest entered his business and made her way over to inspect the marequin that supported her armor.

“I see you are making progress,” Tempest said.

Rivet nodded. Things had both sped up and slowed down as a result of the complete makeover his shop had undergone during the previous week. The structure had been righted, reinforced, and the back end rebuilt. Fresh thatch kept out the rain that had drenched the rest of Ponyville and washed out a few other businesses only a few days earlier. These improvements allowed him to work without being interrupted by sudden streams of water, or the shifting of a wall which held equipment. But at the same time, workmares had been in and out of his building, and cluttering up his floor and workspace. At least he was breaking even on time lost versus time gained.

“I’ve forged up the other items you requested,” Rivet said, indicating an open bag which contained several daggers and a massive set of gauntlets. “But I assume you’re mostly here to check up on your own gear.”

“Correct.”

“I’m almost done with the initial set of flux runes.” Rivet pointed to the suit of storm steel. Complex sigils, of a disturbing shade of hot-pink, had been painted on almost every plate. It had taken him longer than he was willing to admit, the protective wards his parents had created were resilient, and needed to be finagled into accepting a new enchantment. “Just a few more days and my assistant and I should have the actual enchantment in order for you.”

“I trust the garish designs are temporary.”

“Yeah,” Rivet said. “I wouldn’t dare supply somepony with a suit of black armor covered in pink designs. That would just be—”

Tempest leveled a glare at Rivet. “It would be reminiscent of the mythical deity of unbridled and chaotic hedonism.”

“Yes, that…” Rivet waved his hoof dismissively. “But don’t worry, once the enchantments take hold, the different layers will boil right off. The color coding is honestly only there so my assistant will know which layer of runes is which.”

“That little filly is your apprentice, then.” Tempest pointed a hoof towards the back room. “I saw her run in there when I first arrived.”

“Her name is Dinky.” Rivet shook his head. “I thought she was an orphan at first, but it turns out her mother just has four separate jobs.”

“Four jobs seems… excessive for a single mother.”

Rivet barked out a laugh. “Well, turns out Ditzy owns the town general store, is a valet, a property caretaker, and a member of the Wonderbolts reserve.”

“Ditzy Doo… I was unaware that Ditzy was a member of the Wonderbolts, or a mother, for that matter.”

“Oh? You know her?”

“Yes,” Tempest said. “Blueblood's company employs her for three-quarters of those jobs.” Tempest glanced towards the door to the back room, and Rivet heard the door slam shut.

Rivet glanced at the door, then back to Tempest. He chuckled softly. “Dinky’s skittish. You won’t need your gear in the next few days, right?”

“I have never ‘needed’ anything but myself. Depending on others, relying on things to protect you—” She shook her head. “No. The best way to survive is all by oneself.”

Rivet shrugged. “If you say so.” He watched as Tempest moved to leave.

“Hmm.”

“Hmm?” Rivet echoed, only with less menacing curiosity.

“What is this?” Tempest pointed at a sheet of parchment laid out on one of the workbenches near the front door.

Rivet walked over, tisked, then rolled up the diagram. “It’s nothing. Just something two colleagues from Canterlot were working on. They wanted a second opinion on the design; balance, failure pressures, etcetera.”

“It looked like a cannon of some sort,” Tempest said.

“Well, they might be needing one to help quell the riots up in Canterlot.” Rivet frowned. “There’s been quite a bit of unrest ever since they started sucking the magic out of unicorns to keep the sun going, y’know.”

“I do,” Tempest said, her eyes still scrutinizing the outside of the rolled-up parchment. “Despite the freshly inked letters ‘FF,’ the ink of the diagrams is quite faded.” Her eyes swiveled to his. “This is a design out of antiquity.”

“More than likely.” Rivet felt surprised by how quickly Tempest had analyzed the scroll, seeing as how she’d only had a few moments. “My guess is that they’ve found a bunch of these things in castle storage and want to refurbish them or something. Who’d have thought the Princess would need cannons?”

“Celestia was not nearly as beneficent as her propaganda made her out to be. Did your associates say who they were working for?”

“No.” Even if Rivet knew, he wouldn’t have said so. The Flim Flam brothers rarely divulged the specifics of their dealings, usually because of how illicit they tended to be. Even mentioning their names could get him noticed by the types of ponies he didn’t want to know. “It’s safe to assume it’s the royal council. They’re the only ones who’d have legal access to the castle stores, at any rate.”

“We may need something similar for our own company,” Tempest said. “Do you think yourself able to construct one of these?”

Rivet scoffed and shook his head. “Impossible. I’d need an enormous forge, much larger than anything I could hope to build by myself, even with several assistants. This is a job for one of the large royal smelting vats. You ever see one? Thing is larger than my entire business.”

“A shame.” Tempest turned to leave. “Such a weapon would be most useful.” She walked towards the door. “I will return in one week for my armor.”

After Tempest had exited the building, the door to the back room opened. “Mister Rivet, Sir?”

“Yes, Dinky?”

“There’s a strange unicorn in the back room.” Dinky walked out into the storefront.

“What?” Rivet turned to see Starlight exit the back room just behind Dinky. Her left foreleg was bandaged, with fresh redness seeping into the fabric. “You’re the blind seer that has the town all up in a tizzy.”

“Yes,” Starlight replied. “Yes, I am.”

“What do you want?” Rivet didn’t have time for fortune tellers, he had a business to run.

“I know that you don’t have time for fortune tellers,” Starlight said, “what with you having a business to run and all.” She produced a mason jar filled to the brim with a multicolored powder. “I was wondering if you could use this.”

His eyebrows rose in surprise. He knew exactly what it looked like, but definitely wanted verification. “Is that—”

“Ground pegasus feathers,” Starlight said. “Perfect for making pegasus enchantments, if I’m not mistaken.”

“What do you want?” Rivet repeated, replacing his surprised expression with a distrustful scowl. The jar Starlight held contained hundreds of feathers worth of dust, which was easily enough to account for several fully plucked pegasi. He was shrewd though, and knew not to ask where she’d gotten them.

Starlight dropped a separate pouch onto one of his workbenches. It tipped over, spilling gems across the surface. She looked over at the armoured marequin. “I know you’re shrewd, and know not to ask where I got any of this. So, let’s talk about cost instead, shall we?”

The room where Shining rested was hewn from the same depressingly-dark stone as the rest of the sanitarium. All that decorated the space was the single bed in which he laid, and a splintery end table containing a copy of the Saint Reigns edition of the Harmonicum. A door made of thick, magically-reinforced oak planks served the dual purpose of keeping Shining in the room, while also shielding him from the screams of the other patients. The only lighting came from a single gas lamp that hung from the ceiling, well out of his reach.

With his right foreleg in a sling, a nullification ring on his horn, and abject pain lancing through his neck and barrel anytime he tried to shift position, Shining wasn’t able to do much more than lay there and think.

Shining’s shoulder injury had been much worse than he, or even the doctors, had previously thought. A piece of cloth had apparently been driven deep into the wound and began to fester just after Zecora’s funeral. The ensuing surgery had taken hours, with his anesthetic consisting of the same bottle of whiskey that had been used to disinfect the inside of his shoulder. According to the doctors, he was lucky not to have lost the leg entirely.

Staring at the ceiling, Shining thought on how Dr. Horse had told him that he would have a permanent limp, as well as sporadic pain in the joint, for the rest of his life. The severity of each would be dependent on how much he strained it, but he would still be able to use the leg.

That had been the good news.

Dr. Horse had told Shining that while what had happened to his horn had been painful, the damage was mostly superficial. The keratin sheath had taken the brunt of the magical overload, and the living bone underneath had been strained, but would heal.

His connection to Harmony, however, was a different story. He would not be able to channel Harmony magic.

Ever again.

The way it had been explained to Shining, breaching his own mental connection to Harmony had been like destroying a dam that had taken his entire life to build. The resulting flood of energy had washed away any traces of the effort he had expended over the years to allow him to store and release Harmony. The damage was irreparable, and he was too old to try and build new connections from scratch.

Connections to the divine.

Yet again, his thoughts strayed in dark directions, such as wondering whether he could get his bedsheets attached to the hanging lantern, whether he could tie a slip knot with one hoof, and whether either could support his weight. The divine had been the focus of both his beliefs and his identity ever since he’d started down that path as a foal. The news of Celestia’s death had been devastating, but still abstract, for his connection to Harmony had remained. But now?

Naught but emptiness. And a lantern. And tangle of bedsheets…

He reached up with his left foreleg and scratched at the spot where the nullification ring had settled on his horn. They’d told him that it was for his own safety, much as they had the last time he’d been a guest at the sanitarium. It was also to prevent him from causing more damage to his horn; he would still be able to perform basic telekinesis with it, provided he didn’t destroy it beforehoof.

A heavy knock jolted him out of his reverie. He shot up to a sitting position, which resulted in a wave of pain radiating outwards from his shoulder. His left hoof clasped the wound immediately.

A series of metallic clanks heralded the door being unbolted. With the squeal of metal hinges, the door swung inward, and in walked Nurse Redheart, who looked rather perturbed. Following right behind her was Rainbow.

“Dashie?” Shining would have jumped out of bed if his leg hadn’t been in a sling.

“Hi Shiny.” Rainbow tried to get around Redheart, but the nurse was very skilled at body-blocking.

“You have a visitor, Mister Armor.” She glared back towards Rainbow. “Who we cannot seem to disarm.”

“I told you this already, I can’t take it off!” Rainbow drew what appeared to be a—

Harmony above, she welded her knife onto her gun. Wait, didn’t her parents give her those? Wait, didn’t she lose Mister Stabby?

Shining just tried to calm his thoughts for a minute before his head exploded. Taking a page from his sister’s book on dealing with the unexpected, he tried to rationalize. It was Dash, she lived by the rule of cool. She was bound to try something like welding weapons together at some point. He just figured she’d try it with something less… sentimental.

Rainbow threw the weapon out of the room and into the hallway, then closed the door.

So much for sentimentality.

Redheart continued to glare at Rainbow.

“What’s the problem?” Shining looked between the two. “I mean she just—”

Rainbow drew the gun-knife again.

“What?”

“I’ll leave you two to it,” Redheart said, opening the door. She pointed her hoof at her own eyes, then at Rainbow, narrowed her eyes, and slowly backed out of the room.

“Okay Dashie,” Shining said once the door had slammed shut. “What happened?”

“Remember how I lost Mister Stabby?”

“Okay, so that did happen.”

“What are they putting in your meds, Shiny?”

“Just asked myself the same question, if I’m being honest.”

They both shared a chuckle.

Shining pointed a hoof at Rainbow’s new weapon. “Seriously though, I remember we couldn’t find Mister Stabby in that tunnel, but you going and welding a new knife onto Mister Shooty is a bit drastic.”

“It’s not welded.” Rainbow displayed the side of the weapon to him.

She was right, as far as he could tell, there wasn’t any solder connecting the two items, and—he saw the engravings.

“Wait.” Shining felt a headache coming on. “You said you lost Mister Stabby, but this is him right here.”

“Yeah, Trixie did something with those crystals Twilight brought back from the farm. She said something about time-stuff and space-stuff, and I wasn’t really paying attention because of how awesome Squall here is.”

“Squall?”

“Yeah, he needed a name, so I gave him a cool one.”

“But its made from—”

“He’s made from.”

“Okay; he’s made from Mr. Stabby and Mr. Shooty, yes?”

Rainbow nodded emphatically.

“If you combine those—”

The expression that crossed Rainbow’s face was one that one might expect of a cow staring down a swiftly approaching Friendship Express locomotive.

“—you get Mr. Stabooty.”

“No—” Rainbow dragged the word out for a good ten seconds. “—not you too, Shiny!”

Shining smiled. “How many?”

Rainbow shot him the most pitiful expression ever. “Everypony I’ve told about him so far!”

He laughed. It was hearty and deep.

Maybe things wouldn’t be so bad after all.

Especially if she was there with him.

Week 22, Day 4, Morning

“Is this the place?” Applejack consulted the map Blueblood had provided. Winona followed close beside her, taking an olfactory interest in the inked parchment.

The part of the catacombs her team had entered was as dark and cobweb-ridden as any other, but there was something that definitely teased at Applejack’s senses.

Taking a look at the map, Big Mac nodded his head. “Eeyup.”

Octavia turned her nose up and inhaled deeply though it. “Something smells wrong.”

“Yeah,” Applejack said. “That’s what’s been itching my fannie. The rest of these here tunnels smell like—”

“Like dust,” Octavia said. “It’s the odor of old death, where the stench of rot, and even mold, has long since faded.” She inhaled deeply through her nose again. “What I smell now… is much more fresh.”

“Eeyup,” Big Mac agreed after taking a whiff of his own.

Be careful then, Blueblood said. Every time we’ve run into something new, it’s managed to surprise us and cost us dearly.

Octavia looked over to her headbanging companion. “You heard that, Vinyl?”

“Totally Octi.” Vinyl tapped her boombox with a forehoof. “Just revving up the old bass cannon here.” When she put the hoof back down, it landed on a collapsed skeleton. “I’m guessing these are the bones of what Shining’s team fought?”

Winona rushed to the piles and started sniffing around them.

“Likely,” Octavia said, kneeling down to inspect the remains. “This one has corrosion burns. I can smell the lingering odor of Zecora’s acids… and blood, less than a week old.”

“Did Shining’s team notice that these guys were parked outside this massive door?” Vinyl pointed a hoof at a particularly large arch of carved stone.

It was about two marelengths in height, allowing it to reach almost to the ceiling. The edges were flush with the rest of the tunnel wall, making it very easy to miss if you weren’t looking for it. Which begged the question—

“How in tarnation did you see this here door while wearing shades… indoors?” Applejack demanded.

“I dunno.” Vinyl shrugged. “It’s actually pretty clear to me where it is with these on.”

“Let me see those glasses.” Applejack held out a hoof.

“No way!” Vinyl said. “Normal light hurts my eyes; I’m photosensitive! I could go blind!”

“Then close your eyes for a moment,” Applejack drawled, looking around at the barely lit hallway.

Vinyl growled. “Ugh, fine.” She closed her eyes and held out her violet shades.

Applejack carefully took the shades and donned them. “Holy moly.”

After her vision focused, Applejack could see the entire hallway as if it was well illuminated, although it was only in the violet monotone afforded by the glasses. The edges of all of the tunnel’s stonework seemed to glitter, making the doorway stand out like a sore hoof.

“How come you never told us you could see without the torches?!” Applejack hoofed the shades back to Vinyl.

“I dunno. Being able to actually see didn’t seem like something I needed to bring up.”

Vinyl, Blueblood said, if your glasses can truly allow you and others to see in those tunnels, we need to know where you got them, and if we can find or make more. This could be a tremendous asset.

“Okay,” Vinyl said with a shrug, “I’ll give you my prescription when we get back, I guess.”

“Well now.” Applejack pushed against the stone doorway. “It looks like we’re gonna need your strength, big brother.”

“Eeyup,” Big Mac pressed his shoulder up against the door’s surface and pushed…

And pushed…

And pushed…

Big Mac looked up at the door and furrowed his brows. Grunting, he tried to leverage himself so all of his legs could work against the door. Eventually, he came away panting. “Eeynope,” he said with a shake of his head.

“Didn’t even budge,” Applejack said, tracing a hoof along the jamb. “Looks like it might have been mortared shut… but it would have to be from the other side.”

Octavia stared at the immovable portal “That is most peculiar.”

“What’s peculiar,” Vinyl said, as she cranked a few dials next to her head, “is how much time we’re taking to realize we gotta blast this thing!” She unmounted the boombox and placed it on the ground in front of herself. “I’d move if I was you, Big Red!”

Big Mac’s eyes widened and he scurried out of the way in a very unstallionlike manner.

“OH YEAH!” Vinyl proclaimed over the sudden cacophony of sonic pressure waves that completely drowned out the sounds of Blueblood’s frantic protests.

No! Those tunnels are old, unstable!

“WHAT?!” Blueblood shouted at Tempest.

Tempest wasn’t sure it was physically possible for her to be more exasperated than she was in that moment. She brushed a piece of bloody bone from her shoulder. “I will not waste words with you until your hearing returns,” she said, realizing the irony only after she spoke.

“DON’T BOTHER!” Blueblood shouted. “I CAN’T HEAR YOU ANYWAY!”

Releasing an uncustomary sigh, Tempest flicked her own ears. The tinnitus caused by both the boombox, and the subsequent explosion of Blueblood’s forearm, was proving to be quite irritating. “Double Diamond,” she said through Ametrine, “move your team to Applejack’s location. We have reason to believe they may be in need of assistance.”

Roger ma’am, Double Diamond replied. Enemy or self-inflicted?

“Move your flanks or I will find some friendly fire for you,” Tempest replied sharply. She’d been impressed by both the skill and coordination of Double’s team. But she noticed that Double liked to make quips, especially when situations started to become more stressful. It probably helped him and his team to cope, but was equal parts inefficient and irritating. She looked over to Blueblood, who was staring at her and slapping at his ears with his intact hoof.

Tempest sighed again. “At least you figured out how to not be crippled by pain when that limb of yours is damaged.”

“WHAT?!”

“What in Tarnation was that?” Applejack slapped at her ringing ears. She looked at the wall and saw that aside from a slight shift in the position of one of the rock slabs, the door remained closed.

“You should see,” Octavia said as she brushed a large quantity of ceiling-dust from herself, “how she cleans dishes.”

“Eeynope,” Big Mac replied as he cleaned some small rocks and other debris from his coat.

“Should be easy now,” Vinyl said, putting a hoof to the door on the right and effortlessly pushing the panel out of the way.

On the other side of the massive door was a long chamber that extended away into distant darkness. Its only obvious features were a line of pillars that flanked the door and seemed to go on without end.

“See?” Vinyl pumped a forehoof. “Easy as—”

The hinges of the door that had been pushed open popped with the twang of tortured metal finding final peace, allowing the door to fall into the first of the pillars to the right. The loud crash startled everypony.

“Pwew,” Vinyl sighed as the dust settled. “For a moment there, I thought it was gonna—”

Octavia facehooved as the first pillar violently tore from the ceiling and smashed into the next pillar in line, knocking it down.

And that pillar smashed into the next.

Which smashed into the next.

And the next.

The curious quartet watched the domino-effect of toppling pillars with the horrified fascination one would normally reserve for a train-wreck.

In time, the awful sounds of collapsing stone subsided. Yet, not all was silence. Applejack perked her ears up at what sounded like crumbling and rolling in the unseen distance. She swiveled her ears, tracking the sound of something large rolling across the far side of the dark chamber from right to left.

“Wow,” Vinyl said as the weighty crash of a distant pillar on the left side of the chamber echoed back toward them. “What are the odds, eh?”

“Vinyl,” Octavia said, as the onrushing sounds made it clear that a new domino-effect was now heading towards them instead of away. “You’ve killed us, haven’t you?”

“Move it, you two!” Applejack yelled, grabbing Octavia and diving to the right. She saw a blur of red as Big Mac shoved Vinyl out of the way to the left…

Big Mac was still standing in front of the door as the final pillar slammed into it, causing it to swing open at tremendous speed. It would have killed him, but his rear hooves suddenly slid backwards, bringing him with them. His unexpected slip-up caused the massive stone slab to miss his muzzle by less than a quarter hoof-length. Instead of tearing from its hinges, it continued to swivel until it shattered against the tunnel wall, which also crumbled to rubble.

The passageway from which they had come then collapsed with a deafening roar of falling dirt and stone. The violent shaking in the corridor continued, and light shone from the room they had just opened.

All four ponies watched in nonplussed stupefaction as the now-unsupported roof of the room caved in, crashing into, and then through the floor. As it gave way, muted daylight began to filter down from outside.

After a few minutes, the dust settled enough for the four ponies to stop coughing and actually get a look at their newly transformed surroundings. It looked like the passageway that continued past the door had collapsed as well, which left the only traversable route as being into the now-collapsed and roofless room, which was open to the storm-wracked sky.

The room itself no longer even closely resembled a room; it was now more of an open-topped depression, like a crater or sinkhole. And it went deeper than the level of the catacombs they were on. The staccato of raindrops from the displaced Ponyville downpour beat a rhythm that even Vinyl would have trouble matching.

Looking around at the others and seeing that there were no injuries, Applejack let out a sigh of relief. “Looks like everything’s a-okay down here, your Princeship,” she said. A few seconds passed in silence. “Uh, hello?”

On the other side of the rubble, Starlight coughed. “Oh Vinyl, what are the odds, indeed.” She rubbed at the base of her horn with her bloody, bandaged foreleg. “Ugh, I knew Big Mac was heavy, but that took some serious effort.” Then she scrunched her face. “Damn. I told myself I wouldn’t talk to myself… Aaaaaaand I’m still doing it.” She walked back towards the exit.

“Don’t touch it!” Blueblood exclaimed as Twilight carefully examined the bloody stump that his foreleg had turned into.

“And you say you can’t sense them anymore?” Twilight asked as she shone her hornlight over the mangled appendage.

“It’s not like when Zecora died,” Blueblood said. “If that’s what you mean, anyways. With her, I felt the connection… It was like a rope where somepony let go of the other end. With this… it was more like I was the one who let go of the rope—well, dropped it really. In hindsight, moving my point of view to directly between Vinyl and the door was probably a poor decision.”

“Probably,” Tempest said, keeping her eyes on Ametrine’s display. “Double Diamond’s team has met with heavy resistance on their way over to Applejack’s last known location.”

“That’s to be expected,” Blueblood said. “The monsters guarding that door were the toughest our teams have come up against.”

Another obstacle, ma’am, Double Diamond announced. This passage is supposed to connect directly to the hallway they were in, but I don’t think we can move this blockage. The debris is too large; some of the blocks are larger than I am. It does look like this is a recent collapse, ma’am.

“Vinyl’s sound cannon probably brought the whole tunnel down,” Blueblood said, wincing as Twilight probed his wound.

I don’t know much about acoustics, Sir, Double Diamond said. But I’ve seen her fire that cannon thing before, and it tends to break stuff up into smaller pieces. The size of this debris makes me think it wasn’t a direct hit. It’s more likely that this is a secondary collapse.

“Still,” Tempest said, “she is rather trigger-happy with that device. She may use it again.”

“I don’t think so,” Blueblood said with a shake of his head. “There’s no way they’d let her do that again, especially if it’s what triggered the cave-ins. It’d be suicide in those catacomb tunnels.”

“Fire the damn thing again!” Applejack shouted.

Vinyl aimed her boombox at the roof of the tunnel and slammed it with a series of sick beats.

The hound-like pony-pursuers covered their ears in pain and backed away from the group as the ceiling collapsed between them, spraying water everywhere.

Winona whined and pawed at her ears.

“‘Let’s go into the hole’ she said.” Vinyl pantomimed a very poor imitation of Applejack. “‘We can’t climb out of this sinkhole, so our best bet is to go down!’ The hecc, fam?!”

“You're right,” Applejack said glumly. “This is turning out to be a mighty stupid idea on my part.” She rested against the tunnel wall and took a few deep breaths. “What in the Sam Hill are these critters what been chasing us?”

“No clue,” Vinyl said, twisting some more dials on her boombox. “But they sure don’t like to rock out!”

“I’ve heard rumors of creatures like this,” Octavia said. “Subterranean canids who are fiercely territorial. They are called ‘diamond dogs,’ mostly because of a fascination with precious gems.”

“Well they got us in a right bit of a pickle here,” Applejack said. “The water level is rising, those things cut off our escape route, and we had to collapse this here chunk o’ tunnel to keep them from catching up and overwhelming us. How many did y’all see?”

Big Mac shrugged.

“I dunno,” Vinyl said, “maybe like… ten?”

“I visually counted sixteen,” Octavia said. “And I could smell about a dozen more beyond that.”

“Over twenty,” Applejack said as some of the color drained from her face. “How many do you think you could deal with, Octavia?”

“Any more than four at a time would be exceptionally difficult,” Octavia replied. “I’d put my uppermost limit at six.”

“How about you, Big Mac?” Applejack asked. “About the same?”

“Eeyup,” Big Mac replied.

Applejack counted on one hoof. “That leaves at least sixteen between Vinyl, Winona, and myself… yeah, we can’t win against those kinds of odds.”

Sounds of baying echoed throughout the tunnels.

“We’re just stuck between a rock and a hard place then,” Applejack said in a resigned tone.

“Personally,” said a monotonous voice from the tunnel in front of them, “I’d choose the rock.”

Everypony almost jumped out of their skins as a gray mare with a purple mane stepped into the light.

“I’d always choose the rock.”

Week 22, Day 4, Afternoon

“What do you mean you don’t want to ‘risk’ healing it?” Blueblood demanded of Twilight.

“Yes,” Tempest said in a voice which threatened untold amounts of pain, “please explain.”

Twilight motioned for Blueblood to follow her to the opposite side of the observatory, which earned her a searing glance from Tempest. While Twilight was unnerved by the glare, she didn’t dare risk saying what she needed to in front of Ametrine.

Blueblood followed her, until they were right by the door, and at least out of casual conversation earshot.

“Okay.” Blueblood fixed her with a glare of his own. “What don’t you want to tell her?”

Twilight sat on her haunches for a moment to think about how to best explain what she needed to. She absentmindedly tapped her forehooves together. “Okay. The reason your leg is—was able to do all that funky stuff, and the reason I didn’t speak up about it earlier, are one and the same.”

“Go on.”

“It's… alive.”

“Sorry, what?”

“It’s alive. Celestia’s table was a fleshform, it blew up, some of it entered you… and now it’s your leg—well, now it’s your stump-leg. Anyway, it’s joined with you, like some kind of parasite.”

Blueblood glanced over to where Tempest sat in front of Ametrine. “I can see why you dragged me over here.”

Twilight stood and started pacing. “I was horrified that you’d somehow become infected—”

“Wait.” Blueblood did not look amused. “How long have you known this?”

“Since Tempest described the incident in question.”

Blueblood put a hoof to his forehead, either in deep thought, or because of an extreme headache; Twilight wasn’t sure.

So she decided to continue. “But my fears were mitigated when I scanned you a few times—”

“Without my permission, I assume.”

“—yes. And realized that it wasn’t spreading any further, and was actually slowly losing power every time you used it. If all it had was the energy Starlight dumped into you, and it didn’t have a way of recharging, then it’d eventually just… run out. A few more missions, maybe as many as a half dozen, and the energy would be gone, the fleshform would starve, and your leg would be back to normal—maybe with a few mutations, but normal-ish, mostly, maybe, probably.”

“So,” Blueblood lifted his stump as he spoke, “you’re saying that my leg was a fleshform, that it’s run out of power, and that’s why it isn’t healing on its own?”

“Well, there’s still some energy, or you’d just be spraying blood everywhere right now.” Twilight took a few steps to the side, moving to a position that wasn’t directly in front of a possible sanguine geyser. “But we can just stitch that closed, and then you won’t have to worry about having a fleshform for a leg anymore.”

“So,” Blueblood ground his other hoof into the side of his head, “my choices are: live a ‘normal’ life without my left foreleg, or… what?”

“If I blast you with my eldritch healing magic,” Twilight said, “I’m not sure what will happen at this point. Yes, it might allow your leg to grow back. But it might not. Worse, it’ll probably cause that… thing to spread further.”

“Probably?” Blueblood stared daggers at Twilight. “You’re not healing me on a ‘maybe?!’”

“Dammit Blueblood!” Twilight yelled, poking a hoof at his chest, and drawing Tempest’s and Ametrine’s attention. “I may have intently studied the occult, but I’ve never experimented on ponies before! I wouldn’t test out stuff like this on anything with even a hint of sapience. I have no idea what is happening to you, and there’s no way I could know without conducting all manner of horrific experiments!”

Twilight backed away slowly, realizing that she’d hoof-poked the three-legged Prince into a corner and managed to render his eyes as wide as dinner plates. And also caused Tempest to rise to a standing position, which was usually a prelude to violence. She tried to lower her voice. “All I can do is track the energy and see which parts of you have already succumbed to infection. Vinyl’s music box blasted this thing hard enough to give you a chance to be rid of it forever… do you really want to undo that?”

“No.” Blueblood’s tone was hard, resolute. He motioned to Tempest, who swiftly made her way over. “I don’t want it back.”

Twilight breathed a sigh of relief.

“Which is why Tempest is going to have to hold me down while you do it.”

Eyes widening, Twilight watched in stunned stupefaction as Tempest shrugged, then pinned Blueblood with a headlock.

“Twilight,” Blueblood said in a choked voice. “My wants are meaningless compared to what has to be done.”

Week 22, Day 4, Afternoon

“My name is Maud,” the newcomer said monotonously to the partially petrified ponies. “You don’t look like miners. Besides, if you’re looking for ores to sell, there aren’t any in the strata of this layer that would earn you very many bits. What are you four doing down here?”

“We got lost,” Applejack said. “But wait… if you said there’s nothing valuable down here, then what are you doing here?”

“I didn’t say there wasn’t anything of value down here,” Maud droned. “Just nothing you could sell for bits. I’m down here looking for new material.”

“Material?” Octavia asked. “Material for what?”

“For my comedy routine,” Maud replied without a single hint of sarcasm. “I’m a jester by trade.”

Applejack snorted. “That’s actually pretty funny. Going into a cave for comedy material, you must knock em dead up top!”

“It’s a common mistake,” Maud said, “but that part wasn’t a joke.”

Everypony went silent.

“I like to make jokes about rocks,” Maud said. “All of my jokes are about rocks.”

“Awesome,” Vinyl said.

Applejack, Big Mac, and Octavia blinked. Then blinked again.

“Boy… howdy,” was all Applejack could manage.

“Anyway,” Maud said, “the diamond dogs will be here soon, they can track you in these tunnels by scent. Even with all the water.”

“Wait,” Octavia said. “How have you evaded them? Can they not track you?” She sniffed the air. All she could detect was the scent of the party, rainwater, and exposed earth. The muted odor of diamond dog was present, and the direction it emanated from changed as the beasts worked to circle around them again. “How odd, I can’t smell you either.”

“Of course you and the doggos can’t smell her, Octi,” Vinyl said.

“How do you know that?” Octavia asked. “And if you do know, then why not?”

“It’s obvious Octi,” Vinyl said. “She smells like rocks.”

“Vinyl.” Octavia ground a hoof into her forehead. “That’s crazy.”

“She’s right.” Maud pointed a hoof at Vinyl. “I do smell like rocks. They can’t seem to smell me at all. I’ve been down here for the last week.”

“B-but,” Octavia stammered at Vinyl, “how… how did you know?”

“Pretty simple Octi,” Vinyl said. “She likes rocks, and I like to rock. We’re practically the same pony!”

Octavia stood still for a few moments, completely nonplussed. “Let’s get the Tartarus out of here.”

Twilight lit her horn and blasted Blueblood with a beam of violet, eldritch healing energy.

Blueblood gritted his teeth as fissures opened all across his body, exposing muscle and bone in several places. Then the bones in his foreleg began to reconstruct themselves: first, the metacarpal and sesamoid; then, the long and short pasterns; and finally the coffin bone. Veined musculature crept up the bones, soon followed by skin and fur. Finally, his hoof regrew.

Twilight extinguished her horn and waited a few moments before breathing a sigh of relief.

“See?” Blueblood grinned. “Nothing to worry about.”

Then his eyes started to glow red.

Tempest briefly considered new employment options. She understood that there were some warlords in Griffonstone that might need a competent general. But, then again, her resumé would be a hard sell if both of her previous employers—rulers of kingdoms in their own right—were killed under her watch. Plus, The Heart was the first real excitement she’d experienced since she beat Queen Chrysalis to death. She harrumphed. “Prince, you, of all ponies, should know better than to tempt fate.”

“What are you talking abou—ow OW OW!” Blueblood’s inevitable scream of pain was punctuated by spines erupting from his left shoulder. A sickening series of snaps and cracks emanated from his left foreleg as the bones within it broke and reformed, contorting the limb into a giant five-taloned claw. More spines burst out along its length, and then, to everypony’s horror—especially Blueblood’s—a scattered assortment of new eyes erupted as well.

“Harmony above,” Blueblood moaned. “I can see out of my leg… so many… damned eyes!” The ocular organs blinked intermittently. “How… how do I hold them all shut?”

Ametrine reverted to pony form and, much to Tempest’s extreme irritation, started laughing uncontrollably. She fell to the floor and rolled around, wracked with throes of hilarity.

“This is less than amusing,” Tempest rumbled at the roly-poly prone polymorphic pony.

“Oh!” Ametrine barely managed words between chuckles. “Oh, he deserves this so much!”

“Even so,” Tempest said, heedless of Blueblood’s hurt glance in her direction, “the Prince needs your assistance. I also need you back as a viewer so I can continue to direct my team.”

“Fine.” Ametrine rolled her legs around her body, without changing the positioning of her head or torso, until she had somehow assumed a standing position. Then she ripped her chest apart, her ribs opening like a mouth, which held the viewer window.

“You were supposed to help him,” Tempest growled.

I can’t. Remember last time?

“Miss Sparkle.” Tempest turned her fiery gaze upon Twilight. “Do… something.”

“Uh,” Twilight mumbled, her eyes flitting back and forth as she presumably tried to think of a solution.

Blueblood screamed again as more of the spiny growths erupted from his skin. The area of corruption was creeping further up his side.

Twilight shrugged to herself, lit her horn, and summoned a swarm of tiny motes of violet light. Another flare of light from her horn, and the motes flew at Blueblood, where they cut into his skin with seemingly reckless abandon.

“Miss Sparkle.” Tempest raised a hoof in preparation to strike Twilight down.

“Hold on!” Twilight squinted as she scrutinized the cuts being made into Blueblood’s hide. “I need to complete the design!”

Tempest turned and watched as the bloodied lines resolved into an impromptu alchemical-formulae-style border pattern. Instead of harmonic or hermetic icons however, there were blasphemous sigils that seemed to squirm on Blueblood’s living flesh.

The corruption continued to advance until it hit the magical barrier Twilight had carved into Blueblood.

“Pwew,” Twilight said. “That should stop it from spreading at least.”

“Why,” Blueblood said through clenched teeth, “is it spreading?”

Twilight glared at him. “How in the Void should I know?” She gesticulated wildly as she spoke. “I warned you this could happen!”

“She did,” Tempest said with a shrug. “You accepted this as a possible outcome, Prince.”

“But,” Blueblood said, flexing the giant monster-claw, “I didn’t think it would be this bad! I can’t let the others see me like this!”

An extra appendage formed from the base of Ametrine, branching into two pony forehooves, holding a bow and a violin.

“Ugh,” Blueblood groaned as Ametrine began to perform a piece that somehow managed to portray elements of both sadness and mockery. “I wish I never took those damned violin lessons Auntie forced on me.”

“Why would that matter?” Twilight said with a tilt of her head.

“Amethyst never played the violin,” Blueblood said, his brows furrowing and his frown deepening. “So Ametrine must have gotten that skill from me… and now she’s using it to play Neighovacci’s ‘Too Bad, So Sad.’”

“At least she knows how to tease with class,” Tempest said without a hint of mirth.

“Look out!” Applejack gave a heavily armored canine face a one-two combo from her hind legs: Bucky McGillicuddy and Kicks McGee. The stunned monstrosity stumbled backwards into one of his compatriots, who had been about to tackle Big Mac. Their collision halted the diamond dog charge through the knee-deep water.

“Now!” Octavia swiftly lowered the hoof she’d been holding above her head.

“Are you ready to ROCK?!” Vinyl yelled as she aimed at the ceiling above the collapsed canines. Sonic vibrations pulsed from her boombox, quickly shaking the massive masonry apart. The resulting cascade of stony debris pinned the stunned diamond dogs underwater and sent a wave past the group.

Maud stepped up to the pile and tapped one of the boulders. “You crushed them with igneous rocks,” she said. “That wasn’t very gneiss.”

Vinyl burst out laughing. She held a hoof to her gut as the guffaws continued. “Oh,” she said, “oh, that was a good one!”

Applejack, Big Mac, and Octavia looked pensively towards Maud for confirmation.

“The rest of you can laugh too,” Maud said stoically. “That was the joke.”

Week 22, Day 4, Evening

“I can’t control it,” Blueblood said, finally opening his eyes after several minutes of straining himself. “Whatever happened this time around, now I can’t change my leg as I please.”

“Well,” Twilight said, “it could be worse.” She finished tightening a long strip of cloth with her magic.

“Please don’t say anything about painful spiky growths.” Blueblood frowned at Ametrine. “I’ve had enough of that to last me a lifetime.”

The results of Twilight’s efforts left Blueblood’s entire left foreleg and left shoulder wrapped in bandages. It was bulky, but it hid the deformities well enough, and—more importantly—covered the extra eyes. Seeing so much had started to give him a searing headache.

Ma’am,Double Diamond reported, the storm is still dumping water on the ruins, but it looks like it’s moving north into the mountains. We found a freshly formed sinkhole on the surface above where you said Applejack’s party was supposed to be. I had Night Glider scout the bottom of the pit. She says there’s chest-deep water down there, and that there were at least a dozen tunnels that branched off in different directions. She couldn’t find any hoofprints, for obvious reasons. But one of the tunnels had recently collapsed about a hundred hooves in or so.”

“Hmm,” Tempest hmmed to herself.

“What are you thinking Tempest?” Blueblood asked.

“They could be alive,” Tempest replied. “Granted, the level of devastation wrought by the sinkhole is likely beyond any of the team’s capabilities. If they caused a chain reaction of sorts, that could explain the size of the affected area. But the single collapsed tunnel does seem to be something that the group could be responsible for, whether with Vinyl’s noise box, or Big Mac and Sharktavia’s freakish strength. Though why they would choose to collapse a tunnel they were in is a mystery.”

“Hmm indeed,” Blueblood said.

“For now though,” Tempest said, turning to the viewing window, “Double Diamond, you and your team should set up camp on the eastern outskirts of the ruins. Try to find someplace dry to spend the night. Contact Ametrine if anything noteworthy happens. Over, and out.”

Ametrine took the cue to change back into her pony form. Stretching, she cracked several joints and her neck.

“I know you don’t actually have to do that.” Blueblood narrowed his eyes.

“Yeah,” Ametrine replied, “but it makes others more comfortable when I do ‘normal’ stuff like that.”

“Normal,” Blueblood scoffed, with a wave of his bandaged foreleg. “What does that word even mean anymore?”

Everypony except Vinyl rubbed at ears that ached from the repeated use of her sound cannon. Winona had taken a position as far from the sound mare as was possible whilst they were traversing the tunnels, but due to the rising water, had finally taken refuge on Applejack’s back.

There was a single chest-high pedestal which stood in the center of the room they’d splashed into. Atop the pillar of intricately carved stone, sat a massive tome. They’d arrived just in time; another hooflength or so, and the book would be under the rising water.

“If this ain’t a trap,” Applejack said, scanning the shadowy corners, “then I’m a filthy Pear.”

Octavia sniffed the air. “I can’t smell the diamond dogs anymore. I think they’ve decided to leave us be, for the time being.”

“It’s probably because of the flooding,” Maud said.

“Yeah,” Applejack said. “Even if they can still track us, they’re prolly worried about drowning down here if the water level keeps rising.” She slowly trudged over to the pillar and examined the book. “It’s got a picture of a sun on it.” She opened it with her muzzle and began browsing the text. “Looks like one of the Princess’ journals. She’s mighty organized, has a table of contents and every—”

A word caught Applejack’s eye. At first she was confused, her brow furrowed in thought. But then her eyes widened and she started flipping through the tome at a fast pace, only stopping when she’d reached a section very close to the end of the book. Her eyes narrowed into a scowl and she grit her teeth as she absorbed the confirmation of her darkest possible suspicions.

“Yo, AJ,” Vinyl called. “You’re grinding your teeth louder than the flowin’ water. What’s up?”

Applejack turned blazing eyes on Vinyl, but then settled her gaze on Big Mac, whose hakles must be rising as he saw just how angry she’d become.

“Blueblood has a lot to answer for,” Applejack growled.

Week 22, Day 4-5, Midnight

“It seems that nopony’s coming,” Blueblood said, laying on his back and staring up through the glass roof of the observatory.

“Well,” Ametrine said salaciously, throwing a hoof across his chest. “That means nopony died, right? Let’s celebrate.” She ran her hoof in a circle through Blueblood’s fur.

“How is Double Diamond’s team doing?” Blueblood really wanted to change the subject.

Ametrine pouted. “What’s wrong Blue?”

He turned his head to face her. “Are you serious?” he asked. “My left foreleg is a mutated monstrosity, and four ponies’ lives hang in the balance!”

“How is this different than any other day for you?”

Blueblood stared at her and blinked a few times. “Touché,” he said with a frown, “it’s not any different than most days here.” He sighed and turned away from Ametrine. “And that is a problem. Things like this shouldn’t be the new status quo. It isn’t… normal.”

“Normal is overrated.” Ametrine pulled him close.

Hearing a strange rustling sound, Blueblood looked down at the white stallion foreleg that was wrapped around him. He swiftly turned his head and came muzzle to muzzle with… himself.

“You know that one expression,” his doppelgänger said to him, in his own patented sultry voice, “when ponies tell another pony to ‘go rut themselves?’ I was thinking—”

“Nope,” Blueblood said as he rolled away from Ametrine. “Nope, nope, nope.” He shook his head and stood to his hooves. “Nope.”

“Now you sound like that Big Mac stallion,” whined the simulacrum. “If you want—” Ametrine changed from Blueblood into Big Mac. “—I can be this for you instead,” Ametrine said in Big Mac’s drawl. “Eeyup!”

Blueblood looked over the impressive stallion and blushed. He steadied his breathing. “I’m… just… not in the mood, okay?”

“Well I am,” Faux Mac said. “I want you so badly right now.”

“It’s not always about what you want, y’know!” Blueblood threw his forelegs out in exasperation.

“Ain’t you the pot calling the kettle black?”

“What?” Blueblood said.

“Blue.” Ametrine reverted to her normal form. “When was the last time you ever took somepony else into consideration when making a decision?”

Blueblood opened his mouth, but no words came out. His head twitched as he thought.

“Let’s be honest with each other again, Blue,” Ametrine said, not unkindly. “Everything you’ve done up to this point has, in one way or another, been about you. Think about it; everything you say and do revolves around you somehow. Even after Zecora’s funeral, I heard you and Shining. It was all about how you felt and how hard it was going to be on you. You never once addressed how everypony else would take it.”

Working his mouth slowly as his brain churned, Blueblood found that he had no response.

She’s right, of course.

He narrowed his eyes at Celestia’s mocking voice.

“I knew my own egocentricity had to have come from somewhere.” Ametrine shrugged. “I mean, I must have gotten it from you; you’re practically my father, having created me and raised me and everything.”

My own nephew, an incestuous lecher; how disappointing.

“Shut up!” Blueblood hissed.

Ametrine jumped back from the sudden vitriol. Her eyes narrowed. “You should leave.”

Blueblood shook his head in confusion. “Wait, I didn’t mean you!”

“Out,” Ametrine stomped a forehoof and pointed the other at the door.

“I wasn’t yelling at you!”

Ametrine’s response was as unexpected as it was violent. Her skin and fur tore open to reveal a plethora of scything talons and teeth. She pinned Blueblood’s back to one of the observatory pillars. Several of her bladed appendages pressed to his neck and other vitals. “I said: Get. Out.” She growled the words through no less than three slavering mouths.

“Ametrine,” Blueblood said carefully, as sharp bony growths pushed into him. “I was yelling at Celestia. I… she’s my left foreleg, I can’t get her out of my head!”

A single eye, the size of a large hoof, placed itself directly in front of his muzzle. It blinked. “Ah,” Ametrine’s multitude of mouths said. “A sibling of mine is hiding inside you. I couldn’t sense her like I could the others. How sneaky of her.” Several smiles formed. “I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced.”

The various claws withdrew, and Blueblood fell back to his hooves. He shook his head to clear it, but the sound of Ametrine shifting forms caused him to look at her. For several moments, he didn’t say anything. He was too stunned by what he saw.

Well then… I really don’t know what to say to that.

“A-Auntie?” Blueblood asked, his eyes taking on a haunted aspect. He stared at Celestia, who stood before him just as he last remembered her. Tall, regal, coat as white as driven snow, flowing mane in all of the colors of the sunrise, and those magenta eyes… which were more sultry with desire than he ever remembered them being… except maybe around cake.

“Auntie—” Blueblood’s words were cut off by the many emotions which flooded through him as he took in the pony who had set his entire expedition in motion.

“Hush nephew,” Celestia said, placing a hoof to his lips. “I’m here now.”

“No.” Blueblood pushed the hoof down. “You’re dead… I mean, Celestia is dead—”

Long alabaster forelegs wrapped around him and pulled him close. “I never gave you the affection you deserved. Let me make it up to you now.”

I… I really don’t approve of this, nephew—

“This is wrong,” Blueblood weakly protested as Celestia lowered him into Ametrine’s bed. “So very, very wrong… but I really feel like sticking it to this voice in my head.”

“Then you can do that by sticking it to me,” Celestia growled hungrily.

“I am so going to Tartarus for this,” Blueblood said, grinning maniacally as the voice in his head started making panicked entreaties for him to stop.

But he didn’t listen.

“There!” Applejack said, spotting stairs leading up at the end of a corridor. Stairs were good; it’d get them out of the water that was almost cresting their backs, and give Vinyl a rest from magically levitating everypony’s gear above water level. Less thrilling was that still more water was cascading down those steps towards them.

“Wait!” Octavia said as quietly as she dared. “Put out the torch!”

“But it’s our last one, Octi,” Vinyl said. “Once it’s out, I’ll be the only one who can still—.”

Applejack’s eyes boggled as Octavia unceremoniously slapped the torch down into the water.

“Hay,” Big Mac said, “what the—”

“Hold on,” Applejack all but whispered, pointing toward the stairs. Realization dawned on the others’ faces that they could see that far, and even—faintly—see each other, due to red light streaming down from the top. But then that light went out too, plunging them into darkness.

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” Vinyl said loudly.

“Dammit Vinyl,” Octavia hissed. “Now they know we’re here.”

Applejack squinted into the darkness “Who knows we’re here? I can't see anything, how about the rest of y’all?”

“Eeynope.”

Winona barked.

“I mean, I’m just seeing stairs,” Vinyl said. “Guess the good news is they’re not coming for us yet?”

“Wait.” Octavia sniffed the air. “Four ponies; two stallions and two mares.”

“How do you know that?” Applejack asked. She then thought for a second and tilted her head. “Oh, right, shark.”

“Also,” Octavia said, sniffing again, “I smell… frost.”

“Frost?” Applejack asked.

“Frost,” Octavia confirmed.

“Filly!” said Vinyl.

The others stared at Vinyl.

“Eeynope,” Big Mac declared.

Octavia looked up the stairs. “Double Diamond! Is that you?”

“Octavia?”

Two horns lit at the top of the stairs, revealing Party Favor and Sugar Belle.

“Ametrine,” Double said. “We’ve found them, I repeat, we’ve—” A peculiar expression crossed his muzzle, soon to be replaced by one of mild disgust. “Alright then…”

They proceeded up the stairs and through a shattered section of the dungeon’s stone wall, into a cavernous space that sloped far enough upward to escape the water rushing down the corridor. Then it was only a matter of minutes to get the campfire going again. Everypony huddled around it to either drive off the evening chill, or to dry off..

“Sure is good to see some friendly faces down here” Applejack said, holding her hooves close to the fire. “We all lost our connection to Blueblood a while back, and just been tryin’ to make our own way as best we could figure.”

Double nodded. “Something happened with Blueblood’s link a few hours back,” Double said. “All I know is we got ordered to join up and extract you after it happened.”

“So whatever it was didn’t mess up your link with Ametrine? Looked like you was havin’ trouble reaching her a minute ago.”

“All I got out of Ametrine just now were some… grunting noises,” Double said flatly, taking another swig from a bottle of peppermint liqueur he’d brought on the trip. When he pulled it away from his lips, his breath frosted in the warm, humid air. “Then she told me to call back later.” He held the bottle out to Party.

Party laughed in an erratic fashion, canting his head precariously to one side as he inserted one long balloon through another he’d tied into a ring.

“Yeah,” Sugar said. “Thanks for the imagery, Party.” She magically grabbed the bottle and took a swig. The irony of her not actually being able to see the lewd motion through her blinders was not lost on Applejack.

“Who’s the new mare?” Night Glider asked, passing the bottle with one wing and pointing the other at Maud.

“That’s Maud,” Applejack said, accepting the bottle and taking a swig. “She’s a… jester by trade.”

Party gave another unstable laugh. “This is perfect,” he giggled. “A funnymare and two apples in a cave with some cold heat.” His lewd balloon construct was pointed at the bottle.

“Horseapples,” Double said, eyes wide as he looked between the members of Applejack’s team. “He’s right.”

“Right about what?” Octavia asked, declining and passing the bottle to Vinyl, who took a drink for both of them.

“One of them must have the book, then,” Night said.

“What b—” Applejack stopped speaking as she realized.

“Starlight told us,” Double said. “She’s always been a weird one, but suddenly being able to precisely predict the future really took the cake. Still weird though, since she gave her predictions to us in riddles so we couldn’t suss them out immediately. Something to the effect of: ‘you will encounter the book of misdeeds when you find a funnymare with two apples in a cave, where you will share cold heat.’” He made circles in the air with a forehoof.

“Two apples is pretty obvious,” Double said, pointing between Applejack and Big Mac. “The funnymare is Maud over there—”

“I’m not a hundred percent convinced on that one,” Applejack muttered.

“Cold heat,” Double said, as Maud passed him the bottle, “is my good old friend peppermint brandy, here. I never thought about it that way. Good catch, Party.”

Party just giggled to himself.

“So then,” Double said, “I assume that one of you has this so-called ‘book of misdeeds.’ Starlight told us that anypony who had the book would be filled with ‘righteous fire’—her words.” He looked between the other ponies until his gaze stopped on Applejack.

“I see fire in your eyes,” Double said, inclining his head to Applejack. “And Starlight told me that, as a practitioner of cold, I would have to be the one to quench the blaze. So, no pressure here, it falls to me to calm your rage Applejack, lest we all perish.”

“All?” Octavia asked.

“Yes,” Double replied with a sigh, which produced a small cloud of condensation. “She said that the heat of the bearer’s hatred would be sufficient to ignite the feelings of those around them, ushering in a conflagration that would destroy ponykind’s best chance at fighting the evil that blights this land… yeah, melodramatic, even for Starlight.”

“Celestia killed my family,” Applejack said through gritted teeth.

“WHAT?!” Big Mac’s wide-eyed exclamation caused everypony to jump.

“One of many sins I’m afraid,” Double said. Looking at Applejack, he sighed out a foggy breath. “You’ve seen the thickness of the tome,” he said. “I do not mean to lessen the severity of your loss, but she is guilty of far greater transgressions, against both ponykind… and even nature itself.”

“I gathered,” Applejack said. “And that angers me mighty powerful. But what I can’t forgive, is that the journal said that any unicorn with half an ounce of sense would be able to tell that those stones were built specifically to do what happened.”

“Blueblood,” Big Mac growled.

Applejack nodded, furrowing her brows. “Blueblood lied to us,” she spat, as if the word itself left a bad taste in her mouth.

“I’ve no doubt of that,” Double said. “He’s lied about a great many things. But that is unsurprising, given his position.”

“What do you mean?” Applejack said.

“He’s a politician,” Double said. “More importantly, he’s a leader. I’m sure he weighed the company’s success against honesty to you before making that choice. I would ask you to consider this: Blueblood is not directly or even indirectly responsible for the deaths of your family. Nor is he responsible for any of the other horrible things Celestia has done. He lied to protect her, yes. But if he told you and your brother the truth, there is a pretty good chance you’d both have been enraged enough to kill her if we ever did manage to rescue her. It’s moot now, since we know she’s dead, but what choice did he have at the time? Also consider that now, with the true scope of this company’s responsibility becoming clear, that Blueblood is going to have to do more egregious things. Not because he wants to, but because failure to do so will result in the end of our world.

“Please,” Double said, placing a numbingly-ice-cold gauntleted forehoof onto one of Applejack’s forelegs. “Forgive him, for all of our sakes.”

“I’ll… I’ll think on it,” Applejack said. Looking up into Double’s eyes, she noticed for perhaps the first time just how strikingly clear a shade of blue they were, and how they glittered in the darkness. “This all seems a bit much, y’know? Starlight talking in riddles and getting you to relay the message for her? She coulda just stopped and told me when we got back.”

There was absolute silence. Party Favor’s expression melted from one of frivolity to one of profound sadness. Sugar Belle wrapped her forehooves around Night Glider and they both sniffled.

“Well, you see…” Double paused to take another swig and then poured out a measure of brandy onto the ground. Despite his stoic expression, tears slowly trickled down his muzzle, freezing into veins of ice as they did so. “The next time we meet her will be in death.”

Week 22, Day 5, Pre-Dawn

Staring didn’t help. Nor did clenching his teeth, grunting with effort, or even smacking his foreleg against the observatory’s desk.

Blueblood frowned at his bandaged limb, the five razor-sharp claws at the end having torn through the fabric. “Do something,” he demanded. “You were so malleable before. Dammit!” He smacked it against the observatory table again, then prised it away, leaving five puncture marks in the wood.

“Save that fire for if you wanna have another go,” Ametrine hummed. “Or, if you think she’s still in there, use it on her.”

“What do you mean?” Blueblood asked. “She’s in my leg and my head.”

“Oh? But she’s still an entity separate from the whole, yes?”

“Well, I can’t exactly go into my own body to drive her out, now can I?”

“Maybe,” Ametrine said with a grin. “But that might take a while for you to figure out. Besides, I’m thinking that I know how you gained control in the first place.”

“What?!” Blueblood stood, slamming one hoof on the table and digging into the wood grain with his claw. “How can you possibly know?”

“I pay attention,” Ametrine said, morphing her forehooves into something resembling griffin talons. She reached under the table, and then pulled out a glass vial, which contained a viscous red liquid.

“What is that?” Blueblood asked warily. “You don’t expect me to drink that, I hope.”

“Not at all,” Ametrine said, placing the vial on the table and gripping Blueblood’s bandaged limb. “But this might hurt a bit.”

“What might—”

Ametrine tightened her grip around his leg, eliciting a gasp of surprise from Blueblood. She moved quickly, her left claw passing to his barrel, where it brushed against the inside of the bandages, cutting them. The cloth fell away to expose the band of carved runes, which ran in a circle from his withers down to his barrel.

“Ametrine,” Blueblood said as he felt a sharp edge pressing into the fur above one of his ribs, “what are you—”

Ametrine drove the claw into Blueblood’s flesh, bisecting the ward that Twilight had created. Before he could even scream out in pain, Ametrine gripped the loose flap of skin and pulled hard, tearing a large strip of the band of runes away in one deft motion.

Blueblood howled in pain. He tried to pull away from Ametrine. His thrashing and squirming was immediately halted as a half dozen more limbs erupted from Ametrine’s sides and held him still.

“One more,” Ametrine said, before reaching under his leg from the other side and gripping the skin there.

“No!” Blueblood screamed, redoubling his futile struggles.

Sighing, Ametrine yanked up and away, peeling until she met where she’d reached with the other flap. A quick flick of her claw, and the flesh came free, the epidermal strip of protective warding now hanging in front of Blueblood’s tear-streaked face.

“What…” Blueblood panted between words, looking in shock at the band of exposed dermis: “What… the… Tartarus… is… wrong… with… you?!”

“Oh shut up, you big foal,” Ametrine chided as she dropped the bloody skin onto the table and picked up the vial of liquid.

“What is that?” Blueblood asked through clenched teeth.

“It’s your favorite,” Ametrine said. She unstoppered the vial. “And since you’re whining so much, I’m sure a little more won't hurt.”

“A little more,” Blueblood said, unable to form coherent thoughts through the intensity of the pain. “A little more what?!”

“Wine,” Ametrine said with a roll of her eyes. “It’s what was left of the wine that your rat friend was drinking. It’s a pun: wine, whining… Y’know what? Forget it.” Before Blueblood could protest, she poured the vial out directly onto the wound.

At first, there was just the brutal sting from the alcohol flowing over Blueblood’s raw and exposed nerves. He hissed at the sensation. But then his vision whited out as new floods of unbearable pain washed across his senses. He scrunched his eyes shut, only for him to see—

It was happening again.

But it was much worse this time.

That infernal heartbeat.

The cold light appeared, still hidden behind the thin veil. The pulses continued. The cracks appeared.

Only this time…

They connected.

Reality split.

Blueblood could see it.

The Heart.

He screamed.

His throat was rent raw from that single wretched wail, which stretched from his mouth into a seeming eternity.