Author's Note

Sorry, technical difficulties while making light edits across multiple chapters.

Island Adventure a Go Go: Part 5

After sniffing deeply for a moment, Applejack’s eyes widened, then she winced as she waved a hoof in front of her face. “Gol-ly Rarity! I know the fiasco from before was mighty shockin’ and all, but warn a downwind mare if you’re gonna just let one off like that!”

At that, Rarity peeled her eyes away from the intricate architecture from the hoof-carved stone all around them and gave Applejack a tight-lipped scowl. “What kind of lady do you take me for?” She made a much lighter series of sniffs compared to her friend's more snort-like inhalations, then cringed for a moment, shaking her head. “I’m afraid that’s a parfum I’m well-acquainted with from my occasional foray into the Dragon Lands. Brimstone, or sulfur for the non-archaic term. Perhaps Master Joe was onto something when he decided to stay behind with Mister Masters…”

Crazy Joe had finally decided to set Rarity and Applejack down once they’d emerged onto an enclosed hall. Gyre was there waiting for them. She explained that this was a zone prone to shifting periodically, so she would go out further to scout ahead to find the safest route. Eventually, Sloop and Percival emerged following behind.

However, Sloop abruptly screamed at everybody to rush to the exit when he felt his foot trigger a pressure plate in the flagstone floor. Applejack, Crazy Joe, and Rarity had made it outside when the stone blocks around the hall’s exit had collapsed completely. Percival turned into his battle form and managed to squeeze through a gap in the stones. Talking through that gap, Sloop professed that he was never any good with moving rubble with his magic, which worked best with masses and bodies that already had some energy or velocity and could produce results with individual objects of great size.

When Applejack had the notion of Crazy Joe blasting him out, Sloop and Rarity strongly rejected the proposal over the possibility of bringing down the rest of the structure on top of him. The next idea was for all of them to participate in digging his way out, but Sloop prioritized Miss June’s safety. Not only had his spell revealed that she was indeed in this zone, but her status had shifted from a yellow Peril to a red one. It took them a minute to notice that Crazy Joe was peering into the distance with a tight look in his eye, making deep, hollow inhalations from his mask’s breathing holes.

He then went to the rubble pile and started lifting them out of the way one at a time by himself. When they reported this to Sloop beyond, he stated that it was likely for the best and that he trusted Crazy Joe’s insight. He let them know that Percival should be able to locate June by transforming one of his focuses to compass elemental magic.

Stepping forward, Percival summoned one of his sharp focuses to his hand and willed the sensation linked with his take on Sloop’s compass element to spark like how he typically flexes a muscle in a human form, aiming it at a memory of June’s face the same way a creature anticipates a particular scent as they inhale through their nostrils. However, his narrow, slitted eye holes widened to circles as after the red aura with a blue outline wrapped it, it pointed ahead at a steep downward angle.

He spared a moment to crane his head around and take in his surroundings in earnest. This landscape was dotted with mountains shorter and broader than the sea stack-like islets strewn throughout the first zone he visited on this bizarre island. Between the dense greenery of the many fern trees filling out the expanse were grassy clearings peppered with marble structures of many sizes but a generally consistent shape across the lot of them in regards to architecture. But the booby trap that Gyre seemed to not know about likely meant that there was definitely more to this zone than what was on the surface.

Applejack bent low, appearing to be calling on her inner bloodhound as she honed in on the unpleasant scent. She passed Percival and steadily made her way to a pair of shorter, bush-like fern trees at the foot of a mountain with a fallen column laying on its side pointing upward at an angle. She got on her hind legs and parted the fronds to reveal a marble-block archway over a tunnel with stairs of the same stone leading downwards. She peered back at Percival. “Y’all think this might be a good path to take to June?”

Percival extended an arm, forming it into a scythe-like shape. “The magic points forward and downward. And this is the most downward path forward. I’d say the urgency justifies taking an unknown route.” He bushwhacked their path clear with a few whipping slashes, but when he took the first step downward, he felt his foot sink as it activated another pressure-plate. He hollered as they all dashed away from the entrance of the tunnel, but the only effect triggered seemed to be fires igniting in alcoves on both sides to light the way ahead.

Sparing a few moments of caution, the group approached the tunnel once again. Percival moved forward with a hand formed into a large shield ahead and his focuses deployed pointing forward floating behind him. They managed to descend a dozen steps with nothing else suddenly happening so far, but they halted their careful march as a new sound from below assailed them. Twitching her ears for a second, Applejack slowly tensed up as she recognized this particular cacophony. “Bats! Skedaddle back the way we came!”

The trio rushed back out onto grassy terrain yet again, but this time they were followed by a colony of pursuers. There were only three in this one, but their size made up for their number. Their bodies alone were the size of small wolves, to say nothing of their wingspans. They could easily be mistaken for the notable flying fox if not for their faces bearing the distinctive appearance of a carnivore species.

One flew straight for Percival, baring its fangs. With some raised fingers and a forward double-point, he sent two of his focuses to the agitated creature. The spatially-aware predator merely flew at an angle to evade the attack on its big weak points, but with a couple snaps from his fingers, Percival’s weapons sparked as their transformed lightning magic ionized, shocking the bat as it was caught in the arc of equalizing electricity.

A seasoned Applejack made her bat halt its charge and hover in place as she made a series of shrill cries and began loudly stomping the ground in front of her. She then took a coil of rope made from twisted palm tree fibers in her teeth and was able to lasso one of the bats legs as it attempted to evade. She swung it around, getting the beast nice and dazed, and with a snapping motion from her head flung it over a nearby hill landing on the other side with a ka-thump!

Rarity managed to send the bat coming for her to the ground by reflexively bashing with a shield of ethereal crystal, but it managed to stand itself up on the ghastly digits at the middle of its membranous wings and scurried on with a horrific skree-ing sound. However, that development gave her an idea.

She floated her shield over to the snapped-off stump of what was another majestic marble column and started rubbing it against the edge to produce a high-pitched cacophony of her own. The bat abruptly paused its charge, and Rarity almost felt sorry for it as cringed, burying its head under its wings. When it couldn’t take anymore, it unfurled its wings and took off to the sky.

Waving away the burnt bat hair fumes from his virtual nose, Percival moved to Applejack and gave his friend a playful nuggie with his instant knuckles. “Nice going! Not often do adventuring parties get an early warning both to oncoming danger and its specific identification!” However, the glad look in his eye holes fell as he stepped back towards the tunnel. “But I’ve got a sinking feeling that most of the danger we’ll face ahead won’t give us a warning until it's already hit at least one of us.”

Rarity rubbed the bottom of her jaw with a front leg, gazing at the tunnel’s entrance with a cocked eye. “Maybe… Then again, maybe not, Percival-darling.” Rarity pranced over to the tunnel’s entrance and lit up her horn, focusing the magical light into a directable cone. She examined the slab Percival stepped on which triggered the alcoves. “Hm… Yes… Yes! I knew it! I didn’t get the chance to look at the one Sloop triggered at the hall we came in at, but this stone is different from all the others! A different grain in the cut and mineral strata now that I get a good look at it up close! I wonder if…”

Rarity tightly shut her eyes and concentrated as her horn’s light started glowing more intensely. Then with a ballet-like tilt and flourish, Rarity’s horn let off a sparking flash and the flagstone-pressure pate suddenly began glowing in Rarity’s sparkling bluish magic. Looking down into the tunnel, they spotted more flagstones among both the stairs and walls glowing the same.

At that sight, Percival’s eyeholes betrayed amazement as he scratched the side of his amorphous head. “Leapin’ father of Ultima! Sloop’s been trying to learn spells like that for years! Would’ve definitely made the trips we took in the caves way simpler and easier!”

Applejack cantered forward with a stern look. “I like hearin’ about how amazing we are as much as the next mare, but we were on a time limit even before all the hoopla with this tunnel!” The harsh but sincere words sobering them, Rarity proceeded downward behind Percival with Applejack beside her.

At the bottom of the stairs, they came upon another long hallway full of marble carvings and architecture accented by wrought iron. Along with the flames in the alcoves, the place was illuminated by some lattice windows whose view was nearly ground-level, revealing this structure having been built into a dug-out hill. Rarity barely had any time to admire the surrounding fineries as she had to periodically use her spell to reveal the triggers for any hidden trips and traps. However, all that was waiting for them was a dead end at the other side of the hall.

Applejack gave the back wall a few hard taps with her hoof, then held it to the tip of her jaw with a raised eyebrow. “Don’t tell her I said this, but I really wish Rainbow Dash were here right now.” She swept her gaze all around. “This whole place seems just like one of her Daring Do books. There’s gotta be somethin’ around here to open the way forward. But I don’t wanna trigger a trap by accident.”

At that, Rarity smirked and raised an eyebrow. “Well, if I know my Daring Do and Shadow Spade, darling, then that’s exactly what whoever built this place would want us to think!” Rarity let out one last flash, revealing the pressure plate closest to the dead end. “To go forward and help Miss June, we may need to take a risk or two…”

Bracing herself to expect the unexpected, Rarity raised her front leg and laid a hoof on the pressure plate. They were suddenly beset by a prolonged cracking and crackling sound that echoed throughout the room, all of them sweeping their heads around, bracing themselves for the source to reveal itself. However, the danger proved itself closer than they thought, as Applejack had to jump as the floor gave way beneath her, coming up short as she clung to the edge of the hole in the floor.

Applejack twisted her head around, her eyes wide at the pit of lava below her in a hole with more rough-hewn stone walls. Her eyes went even wider when she felt the edge of the stone floor she clung to give way with a loud crack. But right before she plummeted, Percival stretched his arms out and grabbed onto her flailing front limbs, pulling her back to safety as she was able to grab her hat before it fell in. Adjusting her stetson, she tipped it at her human companion. “Much obliged, Perce’.” Percival’s eyeholes betrayed a hint of shyness, pointing his mask-like face away as he fidgeted.

Taking a breath now that the crisis was over, Rarity continued her search for the way onward. The good result of the bad situation before had given her what could be a very important clue: Whoever built the place would definitely make it so that the mechanism to open the path would be very different from the traps, which would be positioned to be triggered accidentally by intruders.

Her eyes halted at something different: A large stone block with a lit brazier on top that glowed as the same stone the pressure plates were carved from. She cantered over to it and pushed after placing her hooves against it. After struggling for a few moments, she gave a furrowed expression at the vacant looks on her companions. “A little help would be appreciated right now, dears!”

Flinching in realization, Applejack and Percival raced over, the other pony pushing on the block with her shoulder and the human growing ten extra arms and four extra legs to add as much strength as he could create at once. With all the assistance, the block began to slide across the ground as if it were one of ice instead of stone. Eventually, it stopped fast and with a few mechanical clanks, the blocks making up the hall’s back wall began to shift, revealing another flame-lit way ahead.

Percival scratched the back of his head, forming his fingertips into fork-like points. “Well…! I never would have guessed!” He summoned a focus to channel the compass magic yet again, the sharp tip pointing straight down the way. With a few arm motions, Percival hurried the ponies along as he led the way, wary of any parts of the floor and walls that glowed as Rarity repeatedly flashed her magic.

The group accelerated once they saw the light at the end of the tunnel, but as the one getting there first and taking a look, Percival stopped right at the edge and attempted to bar the ponies by expanding his arms over the exit, but the ponies sent him and themselves tumbling down the steep slope heading straight for the lake of lava at the bottom of the valley. Percival managed to regain his focus and expanded his torso into a broad flat shape that the ponies rolled into, but they were still sliding into the molten danger below. Extending his fingers, Percival rematerialized his focuses and with a pair of clenched fists covered them in a layer of rocky terrain. Flicking his arms as dramatically as he could despite not having much of himself to spread any thinner, the focuses lined up and expanded into large pizza slice-shaped slabs of crack-covered but solid rock that they zoomed across to the safety of an island made out of a hill.

Rarity sat down for a moment to straighten out her mane with her front hooves. “It’s my pleasure this time to thank you, Percival, for saving my life from hot lava!”

Applejack approached the edge of the island, and gazed out with a worried expression. She experimentally kicked a dirt clod into the lava lake, watching as it caught fire and blackened before sinking into the molten earth. “I’m mighty grateful to be alive and all too, but honestly, it looks like we can’t go any further.” She gave a cocked-eye glance at Rarity with a raised hoof. “Unless’n you think you could float us all over the rest of the way?”

Rarity briefly reminisced about an incident in her youth where she had an idea after contemplating how easily she could float a mobile clothes rack, and the neck brace she could only bear to wear for the whole month after bejeweling it. She quickly shook her head. “Certainly not! Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to if I could, dears. Believe me!”

Percival crossed his arms in a tight coil and nodded. “I definitely get how fickle that kind of alteration magic can be! I’d offer to float us over on my focuses, but it takes everything I have just to get myself across a gap!” Percival walked over to join Applejack gazing out into the expanse of lava. “I can make wings to fly short distances pretty well, but too short a distance for this, and even less with passengers! I can’t touch the lava to transform it without losing a hand, and I can’t use the earth configuration for my focuses to cross this distance with just six, and it’s way too risky to turn this place we’re standing on into something to cross the distance!” Percival made a sigh, then flowed sitting on the island’s ground. “Honestly, after saying all that, I’m starting to feel pretty useless!”

“It’s good to gain gratification by being helpful, but bad to base your self-worth on your usefulness to others. Life’s interesting that way.” Everyone and everypony was startled by Gyre droping down from out of nowhere into their blind spot, Applejack nearly slipped into the lava at the shock of her unexpected voice. Even the innately analytical Percival had absolutely no clue exactly how she’s always been able to do that.

Completely indifferent to the reaction of her previous action, Gyre continued her line of thought, gesturing out into the lava. “If no one magic or skill you all have can cut it, try using more than one! Could be all at once, one at a time, or a mix of those!” Finishing her insights, Gyre rematerialized her weapon, raised it up gripping it by the handles and with a jump out into the lava rapidly ascended as it began spinning. When she was up above the tops of the immediate surrounding mountains, she kicked with both feet and her energy spurs took a new orange colored form. These had a more tire-like shape with two broad spikes pointing in opposite directions emerging from the center of the wheel and smaller, narrower, more numerous spikes extending outward from around the circumference. As Gyre dropped, she extended her limbs fully outward and her energy spurs flew and affixed into the gaps between her arms and legs, somehow altering her fall into a tightly diagonal forward glide as they spun, eventually making it to the far shore of the lava lake they needed to go. She gave a wave to the completely overwhelmed trio.

Percival was the first to shake himself out of his stupor, holding his fists to his hips. “Well… Now I think you can understand why Trace always had the biggest crush on Gyre. But don’t you tell Sloop, and definitely don’t tell Trace that I told you!”

Still mulling over what Gyre told and showed them, Applejack approached the edge of the lava again, sweeping her gaze up and down across the distance to the far shore, scratching her jaw with a hoof. “Y’know… Gyre’s given me an inklin’ of an idea! It’s not much right now, but bare with me as I talk my way through it.” Applejack gestured hither and about with her hoof as she methodically explained her partially-formed plan. Percival and Rarity were struck with inspirations of their own that they unhesitatingly shared with Applejack. Eventually, once it was just about finished, Rarity stammered trying to come up with a different way of playing her vital but embarrassing role, but their brainstorming went nowhere that way. Conceding out of urgency and necessity, they all took positions docking together around Percival’s new form.

Percival sat on Applejack’s back with all six focuses manifested as he spread as much of himself to a pair of the biggest wings he could make while Rarity had her hooves draped forward over his shoulders as she sat at between the bases of the tapering strips taking the place of plumage.

Applejack cantered to the opposite side of the island, then took off in a gallop. Rarity’s magic covered her and Percival right before she jumped, Percival extending his wings as far as he could to add to their extended hangtime. Right when they were at the end of their descent a fifth of the way across, Percival extended a hand and one of his focuses flew below and turned into another slab for Applejack to jump off of with a kick. They each gave their all to repeat this process again and again. Right when Percival ran out of focuses and all of their strength was about to give out, Applejack scurried away from the edge of the lava with her front hooves, pulling her rear-end away from the burning red death before all of them tumbled to safety inland, collapsed, exhausted, and thankfully still raw and uncooked.

Gyre strode up to the panting pair of ponies and amorphous anthro. “There you have it! You had an idea and went with it! Sometimes, flying or falling is just a leap of faith!” She gazed back out into the lake. “I can only imagine how Sloop is going to make it across!”

Rarity raised her head, wincing at the aching in her neck from forcing herself to lift all of them as much she could. “Actually, we ran into a bit of a debacle and Master Sloop is rather… Stuck.” The three of them explained how Sloop accidentally triggered a booby trap that collapsed the end of the hall, how Crazy Joe opted to stay behind and clear a way out for him, and how the spell monitoring Miss June had gone to urgent.

Gyre’s smile fell and she put her chin in the crux of her thumb and forefinger. “Oh… I guess that makes sense. Rubble would be next to impossible for a compass elemental with his range of spells to clear themselves… But it’s just odd! I’ve had to have taken that way to this zone hundreds of times and I never triggered something like that…”

Percival stepped forward, his recalled focus pointing forward as it let off its two-tone glow. “I like deducting solutions from problems as much as the next sentient being, we have no idea how much time Miss June has!” Finding some extra vim in the sense of urgency, the trio plus one took off at full speed down the path forward.