Ponest Dungeon

Chapter 5: Ruins Reconnoiter

Week 1, Day 2, Afternoon

The sun, which had been a constant companion in Ponyville due to the grounding of the weather ponies, was conspicuously absent in the woods of the Everfree. As the party continued deeper into the forest, they found that the canopy quickly closed overhead and swathed them in a cloak of perpetual gloom. The shadows grew frequent and sinister in appearance, their multitude matched only by the plethora of random noises which emanated from all directions.

As Shining led the others, he was on constant watch for ambush, his eyes checking every tree and rock for anything out of the ordinary, which in the Everfree Forest, was pretty much everything. “We’ve been traveling all day… it’s odd that we haven’t run into so much as a timber wolf out here.”

Blueblood’s disembodied voice, which had been following them since town, answered Shining’s statement.

Let me see here… Celestia’s notes say that the section of the old road, from Ponyville to the Castle, is imbued with some form of… enchantment. It is proof against encroachment by the forest and its inhabitants. Animals and beasts seem to be able to cross it, but refuse to use it for travel or hunting purposes.

“What about bandits?” Rainbow quickly asked.

They would have to leave the road to mount any kind of practical ambush, which would leave them open to attack from the local wildlife, which Celestia’s journals describe as: pernicious, perilous, and puissant.

“She’s a fan of the ‘p’ words, then,” came Rainbow’s sardonic reply.

“Maybe we could harness this magic somehow,” said Amethyst. “If we can unlock the secrets of this section of the old road, perhaps we can repel the mosquito swarms from the town. The weather teams haven’t been able to—”

Amethyst ceased speaking and everypony stopped walking as Shining held up a hoof. Ahead was an area of sunshine; the trees were beginning to clear. Everypony galloped ahead, thankful for actual daylight after the gloom of the forest. They saw that the sun was low in the sky, almost having reached the horizon, but was still high enough that they would still have enough light left to set up their camp without expending any torches.

Strangely enough, though the rays warmed their bodies, they did not lift anypony’s spirits. The surroundings were bleak and lifeless, and the ground swiftly transitioned from soil into a plateau of sterile rock and gravel which had halted all tree and shrub growth. Even lichens and vines seemed loath to grow there.

And then there was the castle, or what remained of it. The crumbling edifice loomed almost a mile away in the distance, its bone-like spires seeming to shimmer, as if they were baking in the heat of a midday sun, despite the clearly advanced hour. The haze was mesmerizing, but not at all in a comforting way.

The ruins, which occupied about a half mile radius around the castle, looked equally uninviting. They had an eerie stillness and silence about them, giving the impression of a massive city-wide tomb. After the noisiness of the Everfree Forest, the lack of birds, insects, and even vegetation, was unnerving. Suddenly, the prospect of camping anywhere near the malign structures seemed like a very poor idea.

“Sir?” Shining asked.

Yes?

“We are going to forego camping inside the ruins,” Shining said. “There’s something… wrong here. My hackles are up just from looking at them—”

“Mine too,” added Rainbow.

“This area puts me ill at ease,” Zecora said. “It’s like my blood is going to freeze.”

“This place is evil,” murmured Amethyst.

Week 1, Day 2, Afternoon

Blueblood facehoofed. “Again, with calling it evil,” he muttered to himself. Perched on a sumptuous cushion, Blueblood overlooked the sturdy, candle-lit observation table to which Celestia had affixed her viewing enchantment. Above the ancient filigree of incomprehensible runework, translucent apparitions of the party, who had begun to set up camp, were contained within a hazily-outlined sphere of arcane energies.

With the accumulated dust having been long cleared out, the multitude of windows provided a breathtaking view of both the surrounding town, as well as the Everfree Forest. With the telescope Celestia had installed, he could probably even see the ruins of the distant castle, though probably not the individual ponies.

Raising his voice, he spoke to the group. “If you are getting a bad vibe from the place, you would do well to avoid sleeping there. Strong magic can induce the effects you’re feeling. You’ll probably want to camp under the tree cover then; it’ll get cold on that rock-face at night.”

Will do,Shining said. We’ll enter the crypts first thing tomorrow.

“I’ll check in again in the morning then,” Blueblood said, following the instructional parchment’s directions to magically place the viewing enchantment into a passive state. The sphere of remote-viewing shrank to a pinprick.

Sitting in the room, Blueblood began preparations for the morrow. He checked his supplies of map-grade parchment and inks, inspected his measuring and graphing tools to make sure they were calibrated for surveying, and made sure that he had a spare bottle of wine stashed under the table.

Now that he had the time, he took it upon himself to look out the windows around the town. With the sun setting, he observed as the town was bathed in the various colors of the encroaching evening. He watched until the final red rays swept through the hamlet, leaving only the glow of the moon and the green comet.

A wave of anxiety passed over Blueblood as he considered going back to his room for the evening. He’d rushed everypony out of the manor earlier that morning; the primary reason being the bloodied sheets which he had laid next to his bed—a realization that had had him wondering if he’d lost his mind. The modicum of hope that he’d held on to, that he’d dreamed that horrid encounter the previous night, had been dashed with the rising of the sun.

Avoiding his chambers all day had been easy enough: he’d spent most of his time in the observatory. Still, now he could only dwell on the glaring physicality of the diced corpse, and the especially sickening fact that he had been forced to ingest the Chancellor’s regurgitations—drinking an entire bottle of wine, from the case of rare vintage he’d packed for the journey, hadn’t helped any to remove the taste of blood and bile from his palate.

“How in Tartarus did that foal-fornicator’s corpse get into my room?” Blueblood demanded of the green comet. He observed the heavenly body for a few more minutes, mesmerized by the way the light shifted across its coma. “I wonder if anypony has named you,” he said absentmindedly.

At a sudden hint of sound, Blueblood spun around, eyes scanning the room. But he saw nothing but the empty observatory… and the telescope.

He berated himself; surely the feeling of being watched was due purely to the bizarre and traumatizing nature of the incidents during the previous two nights. Looking at the archaic device for several long moments, Blueblood felt almost as if it were calling to him, beckoning him to observe the comet through its array of magnifying lenses.

“I should send a letter to the Equestrian Astrological Society tomorrow,” Blueblood said absentmindedly as he walked over to the telescope and began to angle it towards the comet. “I’m probably the first pony to have laid eyes on you; I should be the one to name you.”

The telescope itself was likely older than he; the exquisite craftsponyship, mixed with the brilliant patina, hinted that the probable age of the instrument was at least a few hundred years. Looking through the finderscope to check the alignment of the primary lens, Blueblood blinked as he felt his eye water from the magnified and concentrated luminescence. The confidence he felt, that he would be able to get a decent view of the comet’s nucleus, was only slightly offset as he attached a smoked-glass filter onto the primary lens.

Dabbing at his wet eye with a hoofkerchief, he was surprised to see the fabric come away bloody. Checking the smaller scope, he saw that there was some dribbled crimson there as well. “Clumsy oaf,” he berated himself. “You’re so blasted drunk you went and cut your own eye socket on the glass lens.” He wiped down the finderscope and dabbed again at his own eye, which was apparently still bleeding slightly.

Sighing, Blueblood looked over to the telescope and swabbed a little more blood from his eye. “Let’s get a look at you, then,” he said.

As he pressed his right eye to the main eyepiece, Blueblood saw…

Blueblood saw.

He screamed as he tried to cover up his gushing socket with one hoof, but it was too late: he’d already seen everything; he’d seen it all.

“Oh… Celestia,” he wept, tears from his left eye, and a stream of blood from the right.

Week 1, Day 3, Dawn

The rising sun framed the Castle of the Two Sisters like a halo, though not like anything that one would expect from so holy an image. Instead, it looked as if rays of blood lanced through the building, painting the sky in shades of death. The haze was also still present, adding a further air of malignancy to the view.

“Well,” Shining said, looking at the imposing sight, “we’re not being paid by the hour.” He began to walk towards the the city ruins which lay in the castle’s shadow.

Once inside the city’s outer curtain wall, they were greeted by the remnants of the once majestic place. Red light bathed every surface, making it seem that the walls were bleeding from every crack and fissure, and the random piles of rubble appeared to be piled bodies.

Rainbow pointed towards a crumbling stone archway about a hundred mare lengths ahead, only a fraction of the way from the wall to the keep. Stairs were barely apparent beyond the crumbling entrance. “That looks like the way down to the catacombs.”

“One of many,” Shining said, pulling out a hastily made copy of the map from Celestia’s records. “It does seem as good a starting point as any—Sir, are you ready to start mapping as we go?”

Yes. I’ll tell you if I need you to slow down, but I doubt that will be an issue.

Shining approached the stairs, his horn lit, and his sword hovering magically beside him. “My old Ponish is a bit rusty—” he said as he looked at a carved inscription above the entryway.

“Mortem manet omnes nos,” Amethyst read. “Death awaits us all.”

“Cheery,” Rainbow observed.

Shining shrugged and started down the stone stairs. Rainbow shadowed close behind Shining, her pistol held tightly in her teeth. Zecora released the catch on her dagger, unbuttoned a few of her flask pockets and allowed for some distance to open up before following. Amethyst remained close behind Zecora, her mace drawn.

As Shining exited the stairwell, he looked around the tenebrous vestibule, and flared the glow from his horn, the sudden incandescence revealing several twisted forms that immediately fled from the flash. The illumination was far less than they had hoped, swallowed up by their surroundings and fading quickly, despite the brightness in their immediate vicinity.

Shining, you should light up some torches and conserve your magic. The sound of pouring liquid could be heard. If you and Amethyst keep light spells going, you’re going to be too worn out to deal with anything you might find down there.

“Rainbow,” Shining said as he let the glow from his horn decrease in intensity. “Break out the torches.” Once they’d been passed out and his was ignited, he pointed his torch at a barely visible doorway. The motion repelled the shadows, which crept around the periphery of their lights like a circling pack of wolves. “That looks like a pretty lengthy hallway. Let’s follow it first. Everypony be on your guard.”

“Eight left,” Rainbow informed Shining as she lit her torch off of his.

“Well,” Shining replied, “if it seems like we are in danger of exhausting our supply, we’ll make our way towards the exit.”

Thus emboldened, the four ponies worked their way down the hallway that Shining had pointed out. The corridor itself was not incredibly long, but the four had to navigate fallen rubble and large cobwebs that threatened, in some places, to span the entire width of the passage.

The first door opened into a room set with a multitude of caskets and sarcophagi.

Shining approached one of the caskets to inspect it. “Empty… why would it—”

“Shining! Watch out!” Rainbow shouted, throwing her torch past Shining and into the face of an ambulatory pony skeleton, staggering it backwards. She aimed and fired, her shot shattering a decent portion of the skull, but failing to halt the bones’ advance.

“Sweet Celestia!” Shining swore as he backpedaled from the approaching monstrosity.

Zecora threw a glass vial past Shining, which shattered against the skeleton, coating most of it in a bubbling green liquid. Whatever was in the flask caused the bones to smoke and sizzle. It was only a matter of moments before the monster was reduced to a smoldering pile of charred calcification.

Is everypony ok?

There was a series of acknowledgments as each of the four ponies checked themselves over.

“Undead monstrosities?” Amethyst growled the question. “I expected bandits, or grave-robbers. What in Tartarus is going on down here?”

This is most distressing. Those crypts house the bones of my entire family line. It’s supposed to be a place of rest, not a place where the dead walk.

“Somepony must have desecrated it.” Amethyst’s statement had drawn all eyes to her, as well as an incredibly uncomfortable silence. “Don’t look at me like I’m crazy, everypony. The dead don’t just casually rise from their graves. It takes time and power for undead to be created. Can none of you feel the evil that’s been built up here? Somepony in Celestia’s retinue must have been practicing necromancy behind her back, maybe—”

We don’t know anything yet, came Blueblood’s forceful reply. We’ve only seen a single skeleton, nothing to indicate large scale necromantic activity—

There was a “sploosh” sound, and a red stain began to spread across the side of the white robes which covered Amethyst’s barrel. She looked up to see that a cup-wielding, robed skeleton that had splashed her; it brought the cup to its mouth and vomited more red liquid into the goblet.

Amethyst shrieked in undignified shock, pain, and terror as she felt the liquid seep into her fur and burn her skin.

Shining swore and brought his sword down in a sweeping arc that smashed the robed skeleton to pieces.

Rainbow jumped ahead of him and slashed at another progressing bony horror, breaking several of its ribs. She was then beset by that skeleton and another that had joined it. Both monsters lunged at her and missed; Rainbow swiftly countered, destroying her first attacker and smashing the foreleg of the second.

Zecora upended a vial of liquid onto the smoking portion of Amethyst’s robes, after which both the sizzling and Amethyst’s screaming abated.

Amethyst held up a hoof and a bolt of radiance erupted downwards from the ceiling, completely shattering the final skeleton.

The four stood there for a moment, breathing heavily in the aftermath of the attack.

Is anypony injured?

“Just a slight burn to Amethyst’s side. My potion was able to turn the tide.”

“That’s more than just one skeleton,” Amethyst said through clenched teeth. She also noticed Shining Armor hoof something from a stone coffin into his own robes.

Four undead attacking as a group… that's probably a good indication that there’s a necromancer down there. I recommend you watch your backs, since any corpse could be reanimated and… well, you’re in the catacombs, so there could be quite a few.

“No kidding,” snarked Rainbow.

“Focus, Dash,” Shining said. “Ok everypony, this changes nothing; we knew something was wrong here. Let’s get this section mapped and cleared out so we can get back to town.”

The others nodded their assent.

I’ll try to keep an eye out— There was a sigh.—but this spell is fairly limited. I didn’t see those monstrosities until they were right on top of you.

“Don’t worry about it, Sir,” Shining said as he looked in some of the caskets and sarcophagi. “We should be able to handle it.” He finished rummaging. “Well, it doesn’t look like there’s any other missing skeletons in this room, let’s move to the next one.”

Once Shining had turned away to exit the room, Amethyst furrowed her eyebrows as she watched him leave.

Week 1, Day 3, Noon

After coming to his senses the previous night, Blueblood had realized that he couldn’t see anything to the right of his muzzle, and had quickly found a mirror to inspect himself.

He’d been horrified to see that the entirety of his right eye had turned black as pitch, almost as if his pupil had somehow expanded to consume the rest of his eyeball. It also continued to weep blood. Crimson continuously seeped out from the socket, which had necessitated the fashioning of an impromptu eyepatch from a hoofkerchief.

He’d needed to create a second one in the morning, this time utilizing fabric from a pillowcase—the original and the pillow beneath had been completely ruined by ocular discharge after he’d drunk himself to sleep last night.

He couldn’t even recall what he had seen that had taken his vision, the knowledge seemingly lost along with his sight. Truly, the only upside that Blueblood was able to claim regarding the previous evening was the mysterious lack of molestation on his part by the recently deceased—something that had truly vexed him, since he had been singularly unable to dispose of Neighsay’s remains.

In the morning, despite having the benefit of only a single eye, he had managed to drag the glistening pile of sheets into his chamber fireplace. The damp remains had resisted incineration at first but, after he’d fanned the flames to sufficient height, they eventually burned away to ash. He only wished that the act hadn’t filled the entire manor with the smell of roasting flesh.

Blueblood was sure that nopony on the team suspected anything was amiss, as he had gotten to the observatory and checked in just as the team had finished breaking their fast. He had dared hope that the expedition would be straightforward, but those expectations had been dashed at the first sign of animate corpses.

The party now seemed to be making decent headway, progressing through the ruined crypts. Blueblood felt a knot of trepidation in his stomach regarding the apparent abundance of the trotting dead in the catacombs. Their very presence shone a new light onto the visitations he’d had the previous nights, though he couldn’t quite wrap his head around how somepony had managed to acquire and then smuggle Neighsay’s corpse all the way to Ponyville for reanimation. He spent much of his time pondering the implications of a necromancer lurking in the catacombs. Wishing he could delay those thoughts until the group was out of danger, he instead guided the party as best as he could to ensure the expedition’s success.

Despite the party’s lack of serious injuries so far, Blueblood was worried about their mental health. Most of the group was starting to look frazzled, and he was worried that Amethyst was in serious danger of misplacing her feculence if the unruly undead deemed to douse her with much more of that caustic crimson concoction.

Taking advantage of a break in the action, brought about by the group having to dig through a collapsed portion of tunnel, Blueblood took a few moments to adjust the arrangement of maps on the table. Using a pencil and a ruler, Blueblood had catalogued the tunnels as the four ponies progressed. He had also made rough technical sketches of some of the undead the group had encountered. But cartography and map-making were his special talent, and had assisted greatly in his efforts to compensate for only having the use of one eye. He allowed himself a proud grin at the progress being made.

Tracing out the halls of your lineage?

Blueblood bolted upright from his cushion, horn lit, sword drawn, and his good eye darting around, searching for targets. “Who’s there?” he demanded as he stumbled to turn completely around. His scrutiny of the shadows, which were prevalent and seemingly motile despite the time of day, caused him to flinch at every imagined movement.

Eventually, you will know the woeful magnitude of my shortcomings.

“Celestia?” he asked the empty room.

There was no answer.

The platemail-clad skeleton, which Blueblood had quickly—and quite unoriginally—dubbed a “defender,” was giving the party more problems than the other denizens of the catacombs. It continued to interpose itself and block any attacks meant for its companions, which was problematic since it and its large wooden shield seemed rather resistant to damage.

Shining now sported several gashes, from a series of lucky skeleton attacks in the preceding hallways and rooms. Zecora only had a few dark stains on her robes, mostly from the cup-wielding horrors Blueblood had designated as “courtiers,” and seemed relatively uninjured. Amethyst was covered head-to-hoof in red stains and, despite lack of obvious injury, was suffering from a severe tremor in one of her eyes. Rainbow was unscathed, having miraculously dodged every attack sent her way so far.

“Gotcha!” Rainbow shouted as she fired her pistol at one of the courtiers, hitting the interposed shield of the defender instead. Despite her quick reflexes and sailor-level swearing, she was unable to avoid the retaliatory back-hoofed shield bash, which sent her flying past Zecora and into Amethyst.

Zecora dodged a stream of red liquid from the courtier, and then a crossbow bolt from a skeletal arbalester, allowing her to retreat unharmed to a position where she could lob vials again.

Shining swung the butt of his sword, cracking the side of the defender’s head, staggering it. “Now!” he shouted.

Zecora threw a sachet over the pile of bones that had been a skeletal soldier, and doused both the courtier and arbalester. Amethyst roared as she unleashed a bolt of solar radiance which severely damaged the courtier.

Rainbow dove past Shining and the defender, planted both hooves on the arbalester, and kicked off of it while she swiped, breaking off the front of its ribcage. She swung and decapitated the smoking courtier when it tried to splash her with liquid, but was then spun around, stumbling to a sitting position after receiving a crossbow bolt to one of her kidneys.

Amethyst pointed her hoof at Rainbow and a surge of light passed between them, popping the bolt out of Rainbow’s back and sealing the wound—mostly.

The defender shook its skull and advanced again.

Shining moved to attack, but the defender slammed him with its shield, smashing him into a pillar. He stood there, stunned for several moments.

Rainbow got up on all four hooves and immediately took a crossbow bolt to the center of her chest. She tried to gasp but was rewarded with only a wet gurgle. She tasted blood as it ran from her mouth down her chin, and she collapsed to the ground.

Zecora lobbed another vial that stuck the arbalester, dissolving them away into a sizzling pile.

Amethyst kept her hoof pointed at Rainbow Dash and blasted her again with radiant energy, causing the new crossbow bolt to be forced out, and allowing Rainbow to inhale a ragged breath—

Just in time for the defender to bury its axe into Rainbow’s ribs, eliciting her to shriek and vomit a gout of blood across the stone floor.

“Aaaaugh!” Amethyst shrieked at the defender. “Stop killing Rainbow Dash!” She irradiated the stricken pony with healing powers and again Rainbow, now with a shocked and haunted look in her eyes, gasped back to life.

Shining bellowed a battle cry as he surged forward and brought his sword down, removing the defender’s shield-foreleg.

Zecora lobbed a vial right into the defender’s face, coating its entire skull in bubbling green causticity.

As the defender brought the axe back for another swing, its skull and most of its upper half dissolved away, leaving the rest to collapse to the floor.

Everypony stood there panting for a moment, with the notable exception of Rainbow Dash, who seemed more interested in remaining curled on the floor, twitching and stroking her own tail.

“You ok there, Dash?” Shining asked as he extended a hoof towards the panicked, prone pegasus.

“Don’t touch me!” Rainbow screamed.

Shining jumped back, looking quite hurt at the exclamation. Everypony else stood there for a moment, watching as Rainbow lay there, shaking. “Rainbow—”

“We’re doomed! Doomed, I tell you!” Rainbow said from the ground. She started muttering to herself, various incomprehensible phrases passing between her lips.

“We should leave this place,” Amethyst offered, her look a mixture of concern and fear. “Rainbow’s not in any shape to continue, and quite frankly, neither am I. We’ve already accomplished a great deal, between the journal pages, that accounting ledger, those chests and cabinets with all of the bits, gems, and trinkets… Let’s head back while we still can.”

“We’re also on our last torches,” Shining pointed out.

I concur. I’ve already mapped out what I need to in your current location and, if Rainbow can’t fight, I don’t want you taking any unnecessary risks.

“Alright, Sir,” Shining said, looking down towards the huddled mare. “Rainbow, let’s go.” He kept his voice as calm and soothing as he could. “We’re leaving this place… I’ll—I’ll buy you a cider when we get back to town.”

Shining felt a tightening in his chest when Rainbow didn’t immediately jump to her hooves. After a few moments she did start moving, though, allowing him to sigh in relief.

With Rainbow Dash motile again, the party started to shuffle their way towards the exit of the catacombs.

“We’ll camp on the edge of the Everfree and head out first light,” Shining said, flashing Rainbow a grin. “Should be home by happy-hour tomorrow.”

Rainbow only responded by wiping at the tears which streamed down her muzzle, crushing Shining’s spirit and removing the smile from his face.

Excellent, I’ll keep my eye out for you until then.

Week 1, Day 3, Midnight

“You’re definitely larger,” Blueblood said to the comet as he stood in the observatory, his gaze pointed skyward. A fresh patch covered the left side of his face, but his right eye, as black and foreboding as the night sky it was pointed towards, absorbed the entirety of the stygian heavens.

“Why can I see you? I haven’t been able to see anything with this eye since last night, but now you are as clear as day…”

Blueblood paused, listening to the sounds of the room. For a moment, he could swear that he heard whispers, speaking unidentifiable syllables which made his brain hurt—but the only sound was that of his own breathing and heartbeat.

He’d given up on sleep earlier when he’d first heard those insistent-yet-incoherent vocalizations. They’d led him all the way from his room downstairs to the spiral staircase, and then up to the observatory. Much to his surprise, he discovered that he could still see the comet with his right eye, even through his eyelid, the patch, and through the gloomy clouds which had crept in earlier on a stale breeze from the Everfree.

Thankfully, the bleeding had stopped. Never really an aficionado of sanitariums, Blueblood was relieved that he wouldn’t have need of the surely capable Nurse Redheart’s care—not that leeches would be able to prevent his eye from gushing blood, though.

Why he’d covered the left side of his face, and exposed the umbral malignancy that had replaced his right eye, was completely unknown to him. It must have been that whispering he thought that he heard. No actual words were being spoken to him, but there was still an implacable impetus for him to continue.

Slowly rotating his ears, Blueblood listened again. Still there was nothing, regardless of how he positioned himself. He concluded that the whispers were not actually audible, even though they did take on some semblance of sound in the manner he was perceiving them. This led him to believe that they were originating in his mind, like a daydream or memory, which was odd since he’d never heard anything like them before.

Blueblood’s ears perked; he had definitely heard something this time. Swiftly hoofing the patch back over the right side of his face, Blueblood attempted to look around the observatory. Silently cursing his decision to not bring his sword when he’d left his chambers, he was nevertheless glad that covering his left eye had allowed his night-vision to acclimate to the gloom. The whispers were still frustratingly present, though their tone had changed considerably, to one of warning—they knew.

“Who’s there?” Blueblood demanded of the darkness. “I know you’re there, and you should know I don’t take kindly to trespassers.” He slowly worked his way along one wall as he spoke, keeping himself fully within the shadow provided by the angle of the moon to one of the pillars.

“You… monster,” said a stallion’s voice.

His ears focusing on the source of the statement, Blueblood strained his vision in the same place and was rewarded with the vague outline of a hooded pony on the opposite side of the observatory. From his tone and pitch, Blueblood guessed that the pony was quite a bit younger than him, barely a stallion in his own right. He also vaguely recognized the accent and voice which, although he couldn’t quite put his hoof on it, reminded him of Neighsay.

“Monster?” Blueblood said. “You sneak into my house in the middle of the night, and dare to call me the monster?”

The hooded figure stepped out into the moonlight and drew back their hood, revealing a tenuous, trim, young unicorn. Despite his healthy complexion, it looked like he’d gotten about as much sleep as Blueblood had over the last week. “Yes,” he sneered. “You are a murderer and a coward!”

Remaining silent, Blueblood regarded the pony for several moments before he finally remembered. “I know you,” he said, lighting his horn enough to illuminate the entire room. “You’re… Cynic, aren’t you? Youngest of Neighsay’s—”

“Don’t you dare say his name, murderer!” Cynic shouted, brandishing a dagger in his own magical field as tears of rage and anguish streamed down his face. “You killed my father! And then you got away with it! You… you… you—”

“Your father was a fool and a traitor.” The bluntness of Blueblood’s statement stopped the stammering Cynic and caused him to lower his gaze and the knife slightly. “I pitied him for the former, and executed him for the latter.”

Tears continued to run down Cynic’s muzzle as he raised both knife and gaze again. “Why?” He gestured emphatically with the knife.

“It’s been ten days since Celestia has vanished,” Blueblood said as he approached Cynic. “This is what I was afraid of. Your father wanted to delay the raising of the sun with his blasted committees, and if I’d let him… sure, forty unicorns would still have their magic, but this land would be frozen by—”

“Lies! The pegasi can keep the land warm for weeks without—”

“Celestia above, you are your father’s son,” Blueblood said, facehoofing. “Always the debate, always arguing for the scientific minority, even when the threat is clear and present.” He put his hoof down and furrowed his brows. “I refuse to argue weather-engineering with a knife-wielding trespasser. Now, I’ll tell you once, and only once: leave my residence, now. If you do, I’ll even be so generous as to forego having you arrested and executed for this attempted assassination.”

His eyes narrowing, Cynic’s pointed an accusatory hoof at Blueblood. “I’m not leaving! Not until I—”

There was the sound of a meaty thud.

Cynic stumbled forward a hoofstep. “—ge… et juz… jush tish—” The knife dropped out of the air and his horn-glow flickered a few times before sputtering out. His expression became one of confusion as he raised his hoof to the back of his head and started pawing at it. A sickly sucking sound issued forth as he pulled at what he found there. With a wince and a wet ‘pop,’ he brought his hoof around to where he could stare at it, and the object it now held, in abject confusion.

Cynic’s legs wavered, then buckled, causing him to fall onto his haunches. There was a metal clatter as a bloodied drawing-compass hit the floor.

Blueblood approached the partially paralyzed pony and knelt down next to him. “Damnit kid, why did you make me—looks like I clipped your brain stem there, champ. Missed all the major veins and arteries though.” He sighed heavily and sat down next to the unmoving unicorn. “The horrible thing, is that you won’t die like this… not for a while at any rate… damnit.”

Picking up the dropped knife in his magic, Blueblood looked into Cynic’s confused, yet still hate-filled eyes. “It will be a mercy, if I kill you now—you know that, right? Otherwise you’ll either take hours or even days to die. Worse would be if you live, crippled for life…”

“Muh brujjers… kii you,” Cynic managed to slur out.

Blueblood stood to his hooves and looked down at Cynic. “I didn’t want to kill you, or your father—” Raising the knife to the prone pony’s neck, Blueblood narrowed his eye. “—but if your brothers are dead-set on coming for me?” He slid the blade across the young stallion’s throat and watched as crimson flowed down Cynic’s convulsing chest. “Well… I’m just going to have to make this into a family tradition.”

Week 1, Day 4, Afternoon

“I need a Celestia-damned drink,” muttered Rainbow Dash as the party entered Ponyville proper.

Shining trotted up beside her. “Rainbow, I know I said I’d buy you a cider when we got back, but… you can wait until after we meet with the Prince to get sloshed, can’t you?”

Her dispiritingly despondent expression was the only answer Shining needed.

He smiled at the thought of possibly cheering Rainbow up after having had to endure the trip home with her persistent pessimism. “Fine,” he said, flipping her some bits. “You can go, but only because you’re adorable when you pout.”

Rainbow, while looking slightly relieved, still managed to glower at him. “I’m not that adorable.” She threw her saddlebags at him. “There, I don’t want anypony interrupting me, unless it’s to join in.”

Grinning with relief, Shining watched as Rainbow dashed over to the tavern. “I… think she’ll be ok,” he said, gladness threatening to enter his voice.

“Her soul would have been better served praying at the abbey,” Amethyst said.

Shining shook his head. “Naw, Rainbow loves her cider, it’s prolly the best thing for her right now. We should hurry up, I want to get back to her before she’s passed out on the floor.”

As they approached Celestia’s townhouse, they saw that the massive front doors were open, occupied by the conversing forms of Cheese and Ditzy, though it appeared that Cheese was actually doing most of the talking.

“And I said ‘hey, ma! What’s with all the sauerkraut? And my—oh, hey! Look who’s back! Gotta go tell the town!”

Amethyst, Shining and Zecora covered their ears with their hooves as fast as was ponily possible, still barely in time to avoid going deaf from Cheese’s proclamation.

“Hear ye! Hear ye! The Prince’s troops have returned with only one casualty! I repeat—”

“Hay!” Shining shouted, causing Cheese to look at him expectantly. “Rainbow is still alive, she just went to the tavern!”

“Oh,” Cheese said, going googly-eyed. “Well, how was I supposed to know that?”

Shining facehoofed, then immediately regretted not using that hoof to cover an ear when Cheese began again.

“Hear ye! Hear ye! The Prince’s troops have returned unscathed! No casualties! I repeat—”

Zecora removed her hooves from her head once Cheese had achieved sufficient distance from the group. “It is among my greatest fears, the damage he causes to my ears!”

“No kidding,” Shining said, rubbing at his own head. “Hay Ditzy, where’s the Prince?”

“In the drawing room,” answered the bubbly mare. “Here, I’ll take you!”

As Ditzy led them through the halls of the townhouse, Shining’s nose twitched at a peculiar, smoky odor. He’d felt as if he’d almost identified it when the drawing room doors opened and something else snatched away his attention.

“What in Celestia’s name happened to your eye?”

Blueblood was seated on a comfortable-looking cushion, in front of a large wooden table. His right eye was hidden under a paisley-patterned patch. “I was attacked last night by one of Neighsay’s colts—Cynic, I believe.”

His eyes widening, Shining approached for a closer inspection. “He put your eye out? Celestia above.” He scrutinized the patch closely, despite Blueblood leaning away from the invasion of personal space.

“It’s not out, it’s… complicated.”

“Having only one eye is pretty complicated. Have you had Nurse Redheart take a look at it?”

“Suffice to say, I have taken care of it,” Blueblood said cooly. “And I will appreciate it if you don’t ask me any more questions about it.”

Shining sat back. “Right, Sir. Sorry, Sir. It’s just… it’s my job to protect you… and you were attacked while I was out. I’m just looking out for your well-being.”

“And I appreciate it Shining, I really do, but I’m not a foal. If I need your assistance being dragged to the sanitarium, I’ll ask.”

Sweeping a foreleg across the table to clear it of a stack of parchment, Blueblood gestured to the now empty space. “Well, let’s see what you managed to recover.”

Some saddlebags were upended; these contained coins, gems, and some odd-looking trinkets. Other saddlebags were laid down carefully, with books or parchment then carefully removed from within.

As eyes all around the table took in the haul, Shining used a hoof to nudge a particularly fat ruby. “From the coin count, and the going rate for these gems, I’d estimate we brought in about eight thousand.”

“That we found money, was no surprise,” Zecora said. “But how much did we spend on supplies?”

Checking his own accounting ledger, Blueblood responded: “Forty-eight hundred—”

This earned a series of cringes from around the table.

“Yes,” Blueblood said. “Mounting these expeditions is going to be costly. Food and torches, while not impressive in cost individually, add up over several days for several ponies. We may need to be more sparing in the future if we’re to be able to continue our efforts.”

Laying the ledger down, Blueblood continued: “I was able to bring seven thousand with us from Canterlot. After supplies, we were down to twenty-two hundred, and now we’re up to ten thousand, two hundred… I’m giving you each six hundred for personal wages, rated at two hundred per day you were out there. I know it may sound a bit generous, but the work is exceptionally dangerous, and I expect you all to be responsible and do what you need to in town in order to unwind. That only leaves us a profit margin of eight hundred bits, which is not nearly enough if we hope to do any longer expeditions.”

“Is there any inherent value in the documentation we recovered?” Amethyst asked. “Some of the loose parchment looked like deeds, but others looked like requisition orders… only Shining had any kind of experience with legal forms, and—”

“I wasn’t able to decipher most of it,” Shining finished.

Frowning slightly, Blueblood started to look through the piles of papers. “Interesting,” he murmured. “Some of these are, indeed, proof of property ownership—and Celestia has apparently acquired a great deal of the land surrounding Ponyville—but some of these are supply vouchers…” Opening the recovered accounting ledger, Blueblood whistled sharply.

“What is it?” Shining asked.

Suppressing a short laugh, Blueblood continued to flip through the pages as he spoke. “Well, I’ve found what she did with the missing bits: this ledger accounts for the millions she spent, a vast amount of which was expended in an effort to rebuild this town and several areas of surrounding countryside. This is her master ledger, it is quite fortuitous that it is one of the books you recovered. Considering how many hundreds of volumes she must have stored away, you finding this on your first trip in—”

Is extremely fortunate.

Jumping to his hooves, and startling all ponies present, Blueblood looked frantically around the room. “Did you all hear that?”

“Hear what?” Shining eyed Blueblood with an exercised expression.

Looking around slowly once more, Blueblood sat back on the cushion. “Sorry, my nerves are shot. Attempted assassinations will do that to you, I suppose—” he sighed. “All of this adventuring is starting to get to me, putting me on edge.”

“With your safety compromised like this, I don’t think we can leave you alone here, Sir. I think—”

“I concur with you on that, Shining,” Blueblood said. “It’s time to recruit some more ponies.”

“What about the documents?” Amethyst tapped a hoof impatiently

“Right,” responded Blueblood. “Shining, Rainbow, and I discovered a cart with crates containing emblems on our way into town. I’ll need you all to rush out and retrieve the rest at some point this week—”

“For Celestia’s sake, why?” Shining looked confused and mildly irritated.

“Because,” Blueblood stated, “those emblems are proof of either alliance, or agreement regarding all of Celestia’s expenditures.”

“This does make a lot of sense,” Zecora said. “Using tokens for copious recompense.”

“Zecora is right on the muzzle with this one,” Blueblood said. “Why carry around one hundred thousand bits—which would be dozens of crates—when you can carry around a single crate with a few proofs of allegiance, which could be worth ten times the amount? That shield that I took back with us is indicative of a favor owed to Celestia by a household listed in this book.”

“So,” Shining remarked, “what you’re saying is that Celestia isn’t dealing in monetary currency?”

“Correct,” Blueblood replied. “She definitely expended bits—in staggering amounts—but she converted it into a much more valuable form of currency.”

“Influence,” Shining said, scratching his chin thoughtfully.

“Yes. She makes particular mention of paintings and busts in this ledger—they will have Celestia’s family emblem located on them, though smaller than with the crests—and it will be of utmost importance that we retrieve these as well.”

“Do you think it will be worth it, to try and call-in all of these debts and favors?” Shining asked.

“Yes. It will be vital to our efforts that we continue with Celestia’s efforts to restore the town—”

“This doesn’t make any sense,” Amethyst interrupted. “If she was restoring the town, then why is it falling apart?”

Sighing heavily, Blueblood allowed a warm, nostalgic smile to creep onto his face. “Because, if my Aunt was anything, it was melodramatic. Why spend ten to twenty years, slowly restoring a town piece by piece, and not really getting any gratitude for it? Ponies do tend to only see what isn’t currently being fixed. Why do that when you can announce one day that you are going to restore the entire town, all at once, and all inside of a single year? When Aunt Celestia did something, she did it big.” Blueblood seemed to think for a few moments and the smile suddenly vanished from his muzzle, replaced with a look of pain. “Does… when she… does something, she does it big.”

Week 1, Day 4, Evening

Blueblood opened his eyes, coming muzzle to muzzle with Cynic.

The rotted corpse pointed an accusatory hoof at him. “You killed—hrkk!”

The stallion’s own glowing knife had jammed itself up under his jaw and driven itself through his mouth and into his dead brain.

“Ready for you this time, you undead bastards,” Blueblood spat at the struggling corpse. His horn was already lit from grabbing the knife, but it flared slightly as he enveloped the entirety of Cynic’s writhing form, dragging it towards the fireplace he’d purposefully left blazing, despite the hot weather. With a grunt of effort, Blueblood heaved the twitching cadaver into the flames, eliciting muffled shrieks through sealed lips as the rotting flesh began to catch and fill the room with the odor of roasting meat.

With the firelight reflected in his eye, he grinned as he watched the squirming pile burn. “I don’t know what part of Tartarus you crawled out of, but when you get back, make sure you tell them how I sent you there.”