-Equus, Crystal Empire, Cadence’s private secret room, Shining Armor-

“Oh no, what’s got you going this time Cadence?” I looked at the cork board and all the strings on it.

“I sensed a disturbance in the love matrix!” Right because my wife is a love goddess, she has issues when love goes unrecognized. “I think it’s Twilight! …AGAIN!”

“You do realize she’s a growing mare right? She’ll eventually learn that there’s a stark and highly noticeable difference between friendship and love right? Also, why are you so intent on following all of Twilight’s friends, isn’t this rather… invasive?” I loved my wife, but she could be a little…. off, well at least sometimes when she thinks there’s a problem that needs to be fixed. She gets as bad as Twilight does sometimes, most of the time the problem actually fixes itself if the ponies were meant to be.

I married an extreme meddler.

“Well to start off Pinkie Pie’s relationship is fine, she will at least have one foal male or female and will then go for twins with the gag factory owner Cheese Sandwich based on how many children her parents had.” Oh here we go, Cadence was going to talk about perfect lovers again. “So that’s going great!”

“Look I don’t think you’re listening to me, but you might want to stop before you get ahead of yourself, again.” I couldn’t help Cadence when she gets like this.

“Rarity is dating Capper, but could form a herd with those SMILE agents Britches and Flowers.” Cadence didn’t want to try a herd, even I didn’t think she was ready for anything beyond a monogamous relationship. Elysium help us if she eventually wants to study the Abyssinian method of love. “Fluttershy could wrangle Baast into a herd if Discord would stop being so scared of the goddess. I think Fluttershy gave up on Rarity for being too pushy, but she definitely has Discord even with his potential problem of commitment possibly killing him. It’s still so sweet… Discord would and could probably turn himself into a mass of sugar for Fluttershy to drink in some tea.”

“While that’s nice and all, what’s got you going nuts?” Yep, Cadence was going off again and it wouldn’t be long before our little Flurry Heart wakes up, then I wouldn’t be able to stop the freak out building up unless I got Cadence’s attention on our foal.

“Well it can’t be Applejack and Rainbow Dash, those two are coming along…-ish. Daring Do seems to like them both, Quibble Pants is out of the running, Soarin would be quite a decent one-off sire, but not a good match given he already has several in the Wonder Bolts he’s been sleeping around with. Plus there’s been a bit of a heavy regulation on magical babies that Twilight agrees with and I know Celestia has told me why its important, even if the one between Applejack and Rainbow would be totally adorable!” Yep, Cadence is devolving like Twilight does, I can see where my little sister gets it from when both Celestia and my wife that used to foal sit her have this odd habit. “I can understand regulating love, I am a goddess of it, but things are not as bad as they were in Majesty’s time of Dream Valley and the three tribe’s unification when doing the magic baby thing nearly killed off all ponies by accident. We actually have our population almost stable for once. I still want to see a zap apple pony just as much as Jiutian wants a fluffy Longma, it’d be so perfect with Sweet Apple Acres zap apple jam harvests and…!”

I quickly grab Cadence’s head and kissed her as hard as I could, she paused as our tongues danced. When you have a population that is a bit more female heavy you are going to have herding with multiple mares to a single stallion as a husband, being a sire was more of a one-time thing so that some mares could have children together. It’s why Twilight was interested in Genealogy for a time, she wanted to know if she was related to any of her friends.

“Oh uh… thanks Shiny…” Cadence seemed embarrassed that she was ‘sliding’ again.

When I eventually perished, hopefully in the line of duty and not from old age, Cadence was going to go absolutely ballistic if Flurry Heart wasn’t ready to prop her up or take over for a bit.

“You were saying about this being related to Twilight?” Still her big brother, even if her being an alicorn will eventually make her bigger than me. Best big brother forever!

“Just making sure it’s not her friends, they are doing okay… even if Rainbow Dash and Applejack are dancing around the issue a lot and it’s so very frustrating! Big Mac is already working on a large apple family with Sugar Belle, actually a distant cousin of Rarity’s family even.” Cadence was back to focusing on her cork boards again. “Back to Twilight, she’s the only one who would miss the cues of getting a closer relationship with any pony outside of friendship.”

“She is the alicorn of friendship Cadence.” I said dully.

“Exactly the problem, I’m worried she’ll friend zone every mare or stallion that she earns the interest of!” There was a distinct chance of that Cadence, also I noticed Twilight wasn’t on this particular cork board of her friends which was written down as ‘on the way to pursuing happiness’. Cadence moved to a cork board next door to the small one, it was three times the size and it had a lot of mares and stallions on it. “She’s been capable of celebrating Hearts and Hooves day, but next year I want her to at least have one deep relationship!”

“Twilight… recognizing love? Yeah... okay. Remember how you jumped the gun with Flash Sentry.” I watched as my wife slapped her hooves over her face and groaned audibly.

“Yes, that was entirely my bad and I ruined Flash Sentry’s chances, dimensional alternates are not entirely the same as their counterparts for a variety of reasons. Even Celestia learned that with the whole Sombra thing and I knew it wasn’t going to work out after doing that.” Looking at the cork board, I saw the Royal Guard stallion marked out with a red X. Star Tracker was apparently still in the running however, which was interesting as the words ‘rough start’ were written on his picture and after that whole Neighagra Falls thing I agreed. There’s also… ooh Moon Dancer, if she could survive Twilight’s sanity issues I’d definitely be okay with that one. Fizzlepop Berrytwist had a red X, the reasoning is being taken by Jaded La Perm and Bloody Tracks Maries, their herd relationship has built up and Twilight wouldn't be able to handle such a thing. At least I don’t have to worry about that becoming a thing as I did not want Jaded coming after my sister or for her to become an in-law, which was thankfully not on the board. Celestia had a green circle and had the words ‘eventually after ten to twenty years’ written on it, I saw some problems with that.

“Let me guess, Twilight needs to learn to separate the mare from the goddess?” I said pointing out Celestia.

“That and Celestia needs to separate the foal student from the adult mare alicorn she helped raise, it goes both ways.” A double entendre Cadence, really? Okay, that was a completely fair analysis, but only if Twilight wanted to pursue it. My sister liked cuddling up to Celestia a bit too much and...

“Luna, marked as feasible… seriously?” I gave Cadence a flat look.

“Look, we both know Luna needs all the help she can get, she’s not exactly the luckiest mare around.” Which was mostly true Cadence, but I think they’d better stay as friends. “Luna at least works great as friends with her, there also isn’t that whole hang up that Celestia has in having been her mentor and Twilight wouldn’t mind any awkwardness that Luna presents. Twilight herself is still highly awkward as we both know, even if she’s gained a lot of confidence.”

“Hopefully my sister doesn’t end up getting stuck between two alicorns and causing more problems for the both of them.” I looked over a few names I didn’t recognize, like Jazz Note. Derpy Hooves was attracted to Twilight, but had an extremely high chance of falling out of the running with someone named Time Turner and leaned more towards monogamous relationships. I also noted that Twilight had quite a list of Pegasus Ponies. “I’m guessing my sister has a thing for feathers?”

“Celestia cuddling her with her wings probably led to it, can’t even blame her for it as Twilight was so cute when she was little! Unicorns are fun to cuddle with wings.” Cadence states smoothly as I continued to look over the board and wrapped a wing around me affectionately. “So want to interfere in Twilight’s life with an unexpected visit, I heard she's having the Royal Guard invade some Tartarus level realm for a ‘sealed evil in a can’ reason and might need some help eventually.”

“She needs to learn to stand on her own hooves Cadence, also Flash Magnus?” I queried with a raised brow.

“Never dated a mare or stallion while in service of the Pegasus Military in the distant past before ending up in the future, he’s been sweet on Twilight a few times and is arguably still quite young despite the time displacement. His brothers and sisters are what carried the family name up to Flash Sentry, also yes they have some Neighpon heritage. Besides Flash Magnus could make up for what I did to poor Flash Sentry and he’s a very good guy. Though Somnambula and Mage Meadowbrook have been sniffing around him too.” As I continued to talk with my wife, I couldn’t help but wonder about what my sister has the current Royal Guard of Equestria doing.

“To be honest I feel kind of sorry for Somnambula… she lost her prince.” A second later Cadence clutched onto me as if I were a life raft. “So, do you have an entire board for Rockhoof?”

“Yes and Stygian Abyss as well.” My wife, ever the optimist that even time displaced ponies could find love. “I would love to continue this Shiny, but I think Flurry is about to wake up.”

“Wait, why does this one say Operation: Snuggle Bug and have Chrysalis’s name on it?!” I stated as I saw that a different cork board that had a familiar face on it.

“Yep, we certainly need to go take care of Flurry this instant!” Cadence stated in a panic as she levitated me after her.

My wife, the ever hopeless romantic.

-Tambelon, Castle Tambelon, Dungeons, Pom-

I glanced around at the stone walls and the barely lit corridor, someone apparently had been here recently or else there wouldn’t be lit torches and it would be pitch black darkness in here. The cells were empty, some were stained brown from someone possibly having been killed in them. I didn’t want to think too hard about that.

“So you managed to kill that monster, it looked really scary and seemed familiar to me for some reason. Maybe something Auntie Novo had in her books.” Silver Stream stated while holding Edith with her right leg, Edith seems to be clucking merrily at being generally safe. “Glad we all made it out of that alright.”

I glanced at Tianhuo and we both shared a look with Arizona.

“Well… about that… I’m fairly certain Squirk is still alive.” I stated as calmly as I could, there was a freeze from the ones who didn’t know what was going on. Ocellus, Silver Stream and Velvet gave us questioning looks as they saw the aftermath of what we did to Squirk.

“Can confirm, his form of functional immortality must be fairly amazing… but I doubt he has any great recovery ability. He’s not going to be a problem for a long time if he has to start growing his body back as a small octopus again if having budded from his own chunked up body.” Says my son Dormarch who could functionally reincarnate near infinitely in the form of a digitama, but might not be the same person every time he does. Also there were ways that he could permanently die that we knew of, which was worrying that his Cure Liquor ability couldn’t handle everything aside from his personal injuries. “I’d be more worried about everyone’s injuries, on top of having been in that disgusting water. Tianhuo has some nasty bruises, mom has even worse bruises from the shockwaves of the impacts, Gallus almost drowned and there’s the whole thing he did at the end with ripping that monsters skull in half. Yona got pretty battered too. Arizona will live and I somehow doubt it’ll be a problem for her to walk it off, that she is not a walking bruise despite being crushed under several hundred pounds of weight being put on her from all sides is amazing. Sandbar is completely fine as are those who were trapped in the clam shell. Dolly has a mild headache and won’t be able to use ‘Haste’ for approximately fifty three minutes, and fifty three… fifty two seconds. Cousins Woof, Ruff, Tuft and Puff… their biology is ridiculous sturdy.”

“Dormarch they are Canis Minor, sure they might be small and not have been able to do much damage until we shattered Squirk’s skin and squeezed at least seventy percent of his blood out of his body, but they are about half as tough as Arizona is naturally.” Which was saying a lot as my three… wait three? Where’s Ruff?! “Ruff, don’t wander off alone!”

I quickly ran up to my god puppy sniffing about an open cell room that was missing a door frame and door.

“Baa-baa, fun chase was here!” That led me to blinking in curiosity, as Ruff my tough rapscallion pointed his nose into the cell.

“Boys, confirm!” I called out to my other three god puppies they ran up and started sniffing about.

“Baa-baa, fun chase!” Stated Puff who was the last one of my four Canis Minor to get a good sniff of Jaded La Perm.

“Is fun chase okay Baa-baa?” Tuft asked while whining, always caring about others even if Jaded annoyed my boys plenty of times with being outsmarted by the rather wily and possibly evil Abyssinian.

“What’s got them up in arms?” Gallus was still reeling from the disgusting things he had done to get his spear back and he smelled nasty. Dormarch was able to clean himself off through various methods, Gallus wasn’t nearly as luck to have similar methods.

“Judging by the looks of the stone walls, Jaded La Perm has apparently been here and stole the door frame to the cell she somehow got stuck in. She slowly worked the doorframe out by prying apart the rocks around it with a knife.” Investigating the site even further I even took a sniff about myself, the smells of a cat, chimera and my most familiar scent of the Storm Queen Tempest, also the magical smell of the La Perm family that still hung off of Gallus. Yep that was Jaded La Perm alright, she left the cell and started heading in the opposite direction of the cistern heading further inward after checking it out. “She must have seen Squirk, her scent has her heading towards the cistern first and she likely said no to fighting Squirk or the Froglins by herself and turned around to head further inward.”

“If I know Jaded, she’ll likely be alright, but in what state… well I don’t think she can fight a Troggle on even ground.” Arizona knew what Jaded was capable of. “Outsmarting them, no contest, Jaded is crafty, conniving and clever. Her beating a Troggle in a straight up fight? It would be the Troggle I’m betting on there, she doesn’t have the brute force muscle to handle one by herself.”

“Do you think we can be catching up to her?” Foenum Velvet asked curiously her ears were erect and soon I was listening for something too.

Crackling of fire, our own breathing and heartbeats, not much else… mostly silent, disturbingly so.

“Also it was more like eighty five percent of his blood was squeeze out of him by Arizona with that powerful impact.” Dormarch commented loudly in an attempt to break the quite tension of the stone hallways.

“We’ll see…” I stated cautiously, because catching up with a running Jaded was hard to do as she had a highly athletic style body from a training regimen given to her by Sekhet or Sekhmet. “Ocellus, do you suppose you can detect if there is anything around?”

“I feel a massive amounts of resentment back from the way we came, the Froglins might be making it harder for Squirk to be a further issue even if he is immortal. As for ahead?” Ocellus turned her head and blinked and she shivered. “Guys… we’re not alone here, but I can’t tell what it is.”

“Well can you at least try to tell us what feels like Ocellus?” Smolder was alert when Ocellus squished in on herself and looked frightened.

“It’s something big… massive… it possibly encompasses the entirety of the dungeon and it knows we’re already here. Aside from that I’m not picking up any strong emotions and everything seems… muted. Even you guys and I’m standing right next to you. Which is very weird.” Ocellus pointed to us and then hugged Smolder to herself shivering with fright. “I don’t like it here.”

“Edith doesn’t either…” Silver Stream announced and we all looked to Edith looking about and was on high alert, but still staying with Silver Stream. A loyal and protective familiar if I ever saw one, Edith had a slightly aggressive look in her eyes and it wasn’t directed at us. “She might know something, but I don’t speak serpent bird. I am getting feelings of danger from her though, Edith used to live in the Ever Free Forest and I would trust her senses on this one.”

“For a lack of better options we’ll follow Jade’s scent to see if she found her way through here.” As the dungeon was starting to open up into maze like corridors in structure. “Hopefully we don’t find her and get through this place, she might even be able to get us to where we need to be.”

“Yeah, because if we found her and she didn’t…” Gallus started to say and then quickly quieted down and he angrily gripped his spear in his left talon.

We were quiet as we made our way down the stone corridors, following Jaded’s scent and I had to wonder what we would find. Jaded could sneak around, but if she was ever caught off guard, then she wouldn’t be able to do much fighting against a bigger opponent that even I’d have problems with.

“This feels so wrong…” Ocellus muttered, quietly behind me next to Smolder. “Why does everything feel so muted?!”

There wasn’t a feeling of malice, but there was feeling that we were being watched and it wasn’t Grogar who was watching us. If not him then who… or what?

Tianhuo was on high alert after the whole fight with Squirk and I was feeling it too, something was going on here in the dungeon and things didn’t feel right as we walked by a number of torches and came to an octagonal pathway. The torches on every pathway were lit, but Jaded couldn’t have lit them all as we found her scent heading in a specific direction and didn’t enter the other torch lit corridors.

We followed Jaded’s scent all the same down another corridor after taking a left. I started noticing what looked like claw marks from an Abyssinian moving on all fours, something likely had spooked Jaded badly and she was scrabbling to safety.

One would think there would be more noise, unless Grogar takes care of them in permanent fashion or at least torture those who have failed him. Nothing except the silence of us moving through the corridors between large stone rooms. All of them lined with notably empty prison cells.

My god puppies were starting to feel quite uneasy, as was Dolly and Dormarch who had their ears, eyes and noses out for any sudden movements. I’m almost expecting Hollow Heart to show up.

We entered a four way from one side and followed the scent straight through the intersection ignoring the corridors to our left and right.

“Stop…” Dormarch’s voice caused us all to freeze. “Something passed through the intersection behind us. We’re being stalked by something that’s not making any noise.”

“Could it have been the… yeah no, there’s no wind down here and the way those torches are flickering…” Gallus narrowed his eyes at the way the torches behind us fluttered in the presence of something have moved through the corridor without all of us hearing it. “This thing better not be invisible too, whatever it is.”

We kept moving and then came to see something interesting… it was a frame and door propped up against the wall in the middle of the corridor. It was the very one Jaded had obviously stolen from the cell she broke out of. My puppies all sniffed around and then came back to the door shaking their heads.

“According to my god puppies, her scent ends at that door.” Which was not connected to anything as it leaned against the stone wall.

“What kind of Magical Alchemy could she have done with an entire door?” Gallus muttered reminding me that Jaded has some unusual capabilities.

“Open a path to somewhere else down here at random maybe?” That was not a good sign Arizona, especially not when something was possibly hunting us or watching us from the shadows.

I thought I saw a movement from the stone ceiling behind us. Yet when I looked, nothing moved and I didn’t see anything other than empty corridor behind everyone. We were all still here together too, did not want to be caught off guard like we were with Squirk.

“Well there is a feel of magic about the door and frame…” Ocellus opened the door and we all blinked. I looked behind the door frame leaning against a blank stone wall and yes the stone wall was still there. I pulled my head back to look at the open door that led somewhere else entirely. “How in the world?”

“Magical Alchemy has done some pretty bizarre stuff in the past, the wielder doesn’t always need to be present for certain effects to keep going.” Great just what we needed to deal with Gallus, magical inertia. Normal inertia was bad enough. “So anyone going to try the…”

My four god puppies made the decision for us by going through the mystical doorway and sniffed about the room on the other side. The strange thing was that they felt like they were close to me and very far away at the same time, close through the door and in another part of the dungeon entirely by the feeling I’m getting.

“I can feel all four them in another part of the dungeon and right next to me. Everyone go through the magical door… maybe whatever is stalking us won’t be able to follow us.” Or do anything to us as quickly when we do.

“Baa-baa I found the scent again!” Announced Tuft with a yip and his brothers were suddenly sniffing the spot near the entrance and spreading throughout various parts of the room.

“Fun chase was here Baa-baa!” Puff also exclaimed with a wagging tail, his brothers started moving more in that direction.

Everyone made their way through as I kept watch and inhaled sharply. My eyes were watching the shadows and the flickering lights of the lit torches. I didn’t see anything as I backed up towards the doorway as everyone passed through, I was about to close the door when a knife came flying towards my chest blade first. It actually made noise as it passed through the air, unlike whatever had just launched it at me.

I exhaled and dodged backwards as I slammed the door shut and the knife created sparks as it skittered across the stone flooring of the room. Everyone scattered out of the way of it. It had almost grazed my wool and had been aiming to stab me in the heart.

“Someone or ‘something’ just threw that knife at me… we’re definitely not alone here and it’s definitely not the froglins this time.” I stated while looking around at the others as they all looked at the knife that had skittered along the floor after missing me. “Did anyone see where that came from?”

“I did not, but I would like to know who attacked you and impress upon them a grave reason not to.” Tianhuo had her eyes narrowed at the closed door and frame.

“The answer all around is a big ‘no’ Pom… but I do think something happened to Jaded.” Gallus looked a little pale. “This is one of her knives, but why is its handle is covered in stone?”

Gallus reached for it to get a better look and Ocellus did something that she was not normally known for, raising her voice.

“Don’t touch it, there’s magic on that knife!” Ocellus stated and Gallus quickly pulled his talons away and backed up from it as if actively burned. Soon the changeling approached it carefully. “Yeah that feels like dark magic… Pom, can you grab it?”

“Why would…” Silver Stream started to ask.

I just did as Ocellus said and took it up in my right hoof and I felt something sickening trying to squirm its way into my body. Only to fail horribly as I oddly felt like a living brick wall for whatever it was that tried.

I felt the magic trying to desperately cling to me and do something, only it failed and was immediately destroyed in one golden flash of anti-magical energy and something changed with the knife I was holding.

Gripping the knife by the blade with some wool from my left hoof and letting go with my right hoof… the stone wrapping around the knife immediately started to fall off of it and crumble away to nothing. When I looked at the floor all the stone on the knife had turned into… dirt? Well that was odd.

“Whatever that dark magic was, we probably don’t want to be near whatever it has been used on as it seemed to be highly agressive.” Ocellus was positively cowering. “That magic tried to get inside you Pom, but you’re general immunity to harmful magic stopped it entirely. Also no, I did not gamble with Pom’s life before any of you ask. Pom is immune to all negative forms of magic directly applied to her. However if you create an elemental energy with magic and fire it at her, unless it has a magical component it’ll still hit her so there are some ways to bypass her anti-magic using magic indirectly. Pom was perfectly safe to remove whatever that magic was by taking hold of it.”

“I will hold my reservations about that course of action, at least Pom does not seem to have become ill from it nor did it worsen her current condition.” Though Tianhuo still sent me a worried look and a slight side glance at Ocellus, she was right and my golden wool was still only up to my neck and hasn’t move an inch since we first got trapped in Tambelon.

“Tianhuo, trust in the fact that I trusted Ocellus enough to do that in the first place.” I received a bowed head in acknowledgment from Tianhuo, but I could still see the worry in her eyes for me. We were still walking off a fairly nasty fight with a giant magical octopus after all and we weren’t stopping to heal up or even have snacks from that. Not that we were carrying much food on us to begin with, but we still had enough to stop for a bit and now wasn’t exactly the time for it.

Gallus moved forward and picked up the knife and checked it over, his wings wilted and his tail flicked with a hint of anger.

“Yeah, this knife definitely belongs to Jaded.” Gallus stated as he slowly stowed it away.

“What are the chances that Jaded might have been the one to throw that at me?” I stated slowly with a hint of rising concern and everyone was now staring at me quietly.

“I really don’t think, and would highly doubt, Jaded would actually want to throw one of her knives at you.” Gallus stated firmly with some belief in Jaded as a marginally good person, as long as you didn’t live in Saddle Arabia that is. “She generally doesn’t like throwing her weapons unless there is a purpose or an absolutely needed reason to do so.”

“Not if she were in the right state of mind, sure, but… what if she wasn’t because of whatever that dark magic is…?” I trailed off letting the thought hang in the air and Gallus looked highly uncomfortable with my current train of thought. “So where are we? Looks like another prison cell, only slightly better accommodations than the few rooms we looked into before going through the door.”

Looking around the room we saw a few things, it was a slightly fancier than the bare bones jail cells with some bedding, a few empty shelves, a wooden table or two with no signs of rot and a small side room with a foul smelling hole for leavings that likely led into the sewers below. I took a few more sniffs of the air as my god puppies were wandering around interested in the various parts of the room.

Gallus was talking to Sandbar, Smolder and Silver Stream in a quiet voice, as they took a moment to rest. Yona was watching the door we came through with her shield at the ready for anything that would follow us through. Tianhuo and Ocellus silently followed me about as I investigated the room and what might have happened here.

“Baa-baa!” Woof called out and most of us were drawn over to a place where various frantic traces of light claw marks were seen.

I took a sniff… it seems that the trail of Jaded’s smell ended right here on this spot. Jaded didn’t get any further than this room apparently, which was strange because I didn’t see anything vaguely cat shaped anywhere in here. It was poorly lit with a few torches and I was looking at the shadows with worry.

One would think I was jumping at nothing, but then Hollow Heart could basically sink into shadows and I had a reason to be on high alert from that thought alone.

“There was a struggle of some kind and Jaded was moderately bleeding… not heavily or anywhere close to a mortal injury though. She’d have to have staunched the injury at some point. There’s only a few spots to show she was injured and here at least more than an hour earlier.” I knew something was wrong with that. Jaded was struggling against something and lost, but she didn’t seem to have exited this room after entering. “Something was attacking her here and then suddenly… nothing. It’s like she gave up, but wasn’t killed or else there would be far more blood and more signs of a corpse being here or at least the stench of death.”

The smell of a living Jaded ended here and aside from a few specks of brown from where she bled a bit, there wasn’t a lot of blood spilled here. Whatever it was that had attacked Jaded didn’t meet much resistance from the Abyssinian after a minute of struggle. I looked towards the ceiling, nothing seemed out of place aside from cold hard stone.

“Please don’t tell me that we’re going to have to fight Jaded.” Gallus voice wavered a bit and his wings flexed in a way that showed he was scared or worried.

“I’m quite horrified at the possibility of facing her myself Gallus, especially if her mind was to be put behind whatever is going on in this dungeon. We don’t even know what that is yet and I really get this sinking feeling we don’t want to find out anytime soon.” That was something for me to obviously fear, anything that might have Jaded’s mind under its control was likely to be horrifically powerful on some level. “Things around here will certainly become a lot more dangerous at the very least.”

“How terrifying can one Abyssinian be?” A curious Sandbar wondered, did he not know of Mirage of Saddle Arabia? Jaded was infamous for being Mirage in several stories in one hundred and one Saddle Arabian tales.

“Depends on the Abyssinian.” Tianhuo stated calmly and her flames subtly increased in intensity, to light the large room up further.

“Uh dude, we haven’t seen or heard from any prisoners down here and we didn’t even see what threw that knife. We’re here to rescue people too you know… it might not just be Jaded down here with whatever is going on with the dark magic that was on that knife.” Gallus response led us all to being silent for a moment. “So… who wants to be the first to poke their heads outside of this prison cell?”

I immediately moved over to the door and noticed something immediately.

“Guys… this room isn’t a prison cell.” This was met with some confusion from the entirety of the group. I also noticed Edith was doing something unusual, she was backed up into a corner looking around warily with her wings spreading out slightly in a warning display and was not sticking by Silver Stream’s side despite her obvious worry for her partner.

“How is this not a… ah, I see. So would this be a safe room then?” What Gallus was talking about was the drawbar that would prevent things from getting into this room from the outside. Said drawbar hadn’t been moved, meaning this room had been for all intents and purposes sealed after Jaded came in and more importantly, she hadn’t left this room at all. If she was dragged away from the room then my boys and I would have smelled something to that effect. “Do you think Jaded used this place? Maybe she locked herself in here to think for a bit?”

“Don’t know, but given she was attacked in here and if the door is still barred from this side of it and I’m hopefully assuming that the thing that was stalking us in the corridors can’t open doors…” I certainly didn’t feel very safe at all right now and I had an idea of where my mind was going with this. “I don’t think anything has left this room nor has anything else come in since we entered it ourselves. Does anyone else see the obvious problem with that?”

“But if nothing has left this room since Jaded was here…” Gallus was about to point out the possibility that there was a threat in here with us and we were entirely incapable of actually detecting it.

Edith seemed to be the only one who could seemingly detect what was happening, she was staring at something and I tried to figure out what before it was too late.

“You know that muted feeling? It is getting so much worse now.” Ocellus announced blankly while clutching at her head with her left hoof.

“Yona thinks… AHHHHH?!” Yona’s shrill scream drew our attention to the fact that several threats were already in the process of attacking her before anyone could do anything.

Author's Note

Another Generation 1 MLP villain enters the ring... and has the environmental advantage.