My Little V/H/S 2: The Dark Foundings

*Footage turns on.*

As the camera turns on, it shows a brown male unicorn colt with the cutie mark of a sun locket whom is holding onto the recording device with his magic while lighting up his horn. In a full recording picture, the unicorn is also wearing a tan vest with a backpack harness onto his back which is filled with climbing gear.

From the background of the footage, the unicorn finds himself coming out of the train the moment it stops at a train station that is surrounded by a huge sandy dune landscape. Before he makes his way to one of the stagecoaches, he makes his introduce while facing his own camera.

"My name is Vindictive Dial and I am assigned to recover a lost treasured relic that once belonged to the Sphinx. Legend has it when the Sphinx flew away into the unknown, the evil creature accidentally left behind a sacred relic in which she never came back for, blinded by humiliation." The unicorn colt spoke in his private announcement. "They did say that Somnambula already recovered it right after she brought the Prince back to his father, the Pharoah. However, some unknown incident happened to her that forced Somnambula to hide the Sphinx's lost relic somewhere deep within the deserts of Colstanbul, in which I have arrived just now."

Through the footage, Vindictive went up to the stagecoach, he paid the driver 600 bits as he embarks.

With the camera footage now showing the inside of the stagecoach, Vindictive sits down on his seat as he continues with his speech as he explains briefly on his assignment.

"Putting the past aside, I happened to be a treasure hunter hired by the museum of the city of Somnambula to finish up where the Pillar of Hope failed. In fact, my team will be waiting for me at the possible location of where the lost artifact is last sighted." Vindictive explained as the camera footage shows him taking out his map with his magic.

With Vindictive's camera showing the map, it is seen with as an old, wrinkled cartography where the city of Colstanbul is located at the upper right corner, a group of pyramids are seen at the left edge, an Oasis located in-between Colstanbul and the pyramids, and line roads connecting to each other. For the rest of the map down south, it is only seen with wavy lines which indicates that it is mostly the sandy dunes that have yet to be explored.

"Right after Somnambula disappeared, my contractor was able to uncover this old map from the very city that was named after her one year ago. And after I made careful examination with it, I did manage to pinpoint the possible location where Somnambula might have left the Sphinx's treasured artifact at." Vindictive explained as he laid the map on the table.

While looking down at the south side of the map, Vindictive takes out a professional compass with a pencil attached to its attached holder as he uses a small paper that shows the coordinates of Longitude of 58 and Latitude of 169 before using them to hold it in place directly at the spot. As Vindictive uses the compass' knurled knob to adjust the distance around the coordinates with his telekinesis magic, he carefully draws out a small circle with the diameter of 1.5inch.

"This map included a small piece of paper that shows the coordinates on where I should look for the lost artifact. From the coordinates given to me, along with this map, the Sphinx's lost artifact may be hidden somewhere in an abandoned cathedral, which was 15 miles west by southwest of Colstanbul. It was built like 700 years ago before it was completely buried underneath the sand. Though, I have still yet to comprehend the history behind the construction of the cathedral since most of the historical documents that describe it have been destroyed for some unexplained, grim reasons. Well, I don't want to waste too much time trying to figure out the main purpose of the old cathedral. If we're able to find the Sphinx's lost artifact there, then we may be heading towards the road of wealth and fame!!!" Vindictive added in as he smiled with overbearing confidence. "Anyway, I'll be meeting up with my team in 2 hours. So, I might as well rest up for our treasure hunt down at the buried cathedral."

After he finished explaining his intentions, Vindictive turns off the camera footage as he catches some Zs.

Two hours later, just as the camera footage turns back on again........

From the Vindictive's camera screen, he wakes up to see that the stagecoach has stopped. With no time to waste, the unicorn treasure hunter opens up the doors before coming outside of the stagecoach. Instantly, a bright sunshine awaits for him as the screen was blind-sighted by its illuminating flash, forcing him to cover his face with his right hoof.

From the bright, blurred vision on his camera footage, it shows a group of five pony silhouettes a mere distance away over the sandy dunes. Regardless, Vindictive puts on his hat to block the sunlight from blinding him before he makes his trek across the dunes, while hearing the stagecoach leave as they make their way back to civilization.

As Vindictive approaches the ponies across the dune, he and his camera footage see a campsite over the sandy hills before greeting him up close.

"Hey, little bro. How have you been??" A unicorn stallion twice as big as Vindictive spoke. As he smiled, the unicorn is seen in a red-orange skin color with black mane, bearing the cutie mark of a pickaxe piercing a small piece of rock.

"I was about to ask the same time, Axe Rock." Vindictive smiled as they both embraced each other in their hooves.

With a few giggles and laughs, Axe Rock leads Vindictive down to the campsite along with four other ponies.

"Vindic, I'd like you to meet my marefriend, Gemstone Grabber. She is known for mining gems in Saddle Arabia. I met her during a mining expedition there 5 months ago. She did liked how I managed to find the gems that she enjoys gathering for the store that her father currently owns." Axe Rock said as a female red earth pony came up to him.

With the camera showing Gemstone's face, she bears the cutie mark of an eagle's claw holding onto a green gemstone.

"Hi there. You must be Vindictive Dial." Gemstone glee with excitement. "I heard about your latest assignment from your employer. Well, I do have the equipment ready for use. Mining and digging out buried treasure is my specialty. I take it you're able to uncover a lead on where the Sphinx's treasure might located at right?!"

"Well, from the map that my contractor gave me, the sacred relic that we're looking for may be inside an ancient, buried cathedral." Vindictive explained as he showed Gemstone and Axe Rock the map while unfurling and holding it with his magic. "From where we are right now, we should be 4 miles eastbound towards the site. Anyway, who else is going to join us on this expedition?"

Before long, three more ponies came out of their tents to meeting Vindictive. As they made their appearance through Vindictive's camera; they introduce themselves to Vindictive.

"My name is Green Sky Lantern. I happened to be a journalist that enters logged in entries whenever we uncover treasures buried below 6 feet under." The pony spoke as he happens to be another earth pony colt with brown fur, green mane, and with the cutie mark of a lantern that is glowing with emerald lights.

"I am Star Dwarf." The second pony spoke as he is seen as a pegasus colt with yellow fur, white mane, a grey beard, and with the cutie mark of a gem cart. "I happened to be a prospector that works in the town of Somnambula. I did my part in mining for Glowpaws before sending it to the town as a tribute to pay respects to the Pillar of Hope."

"And my name is Driller Pitch." The female unicorn spoke as she is seen in amber red fur, black mane, and with the cutie mark of an automatic drill. "I help setup underground tunnels in Dodge Junctions as well as drilling into ore veins."

"So guys, are you all able to understand what we're assigned to?" Vindictive asked, trying to make sure that every pony is aware of what he is up ton.

"We do." All 5 ponies responded in unison.

"If we secure the Sphinx's lost treasure, how should we share our spoils?"

"I don't know, maybe 50, 50?" Star Dwarf answered reluctantly.

"It probably depends on how much wealth are we able to find in this so-called cathedral. Well, from the past 3 years of my prospecting career, most of the ancient religious architectures had treasured items that are worth over 10 million bits for each piece that is secured." Green Sky spoke in confidence. "I'm pretty sure there will be more than enough for every pony in our team, if we can bring it up to the surface. We'll split it all by a 100 grand each."

"That sounds wicked!!!" Driller cackled with excitement. It's been so long since I made any drilling operations back at Dodge Junction. Most of my time over the past 3 years, I was a manager in this one Drilling operation there until most of the veins dried out there. So, now that I'm here, I'd say we'll take advantage of what we can find at the underground cathedral. I already setup the elevator scaffold about one week prior to our meeting. Also, I already sent in a team of cavern explorers to make a brief report down below but that was 24 hours ago; they still haven't came back yet."

"That's weird. Well, there is one way to find out. Every pony, mount up. We'll be starting our underground treasure hunting expedition in the next hour!!" Vindictive announced as he sees all six ponies went to their tents before turning off the camera footage.

As the footage comes back on in one hour, Vindictive sees through the camera that Axe Rock, Gemstone, Green Sky, Star Dwarf, and Driller are all seen carrying backpacks equipped with climbing ropes, mounted shoulder cameras with flashlights, and with pick axes.

With Vindicitive taking the lead, he turned towards a tall, wooden scaffold holding an elevator made up of metal. At the side of the scaffold, the solar panels are activated for they have wires attached to the elevator, giving it power for the machine to go up and down.

No time to lose, Vindictive's team all went inside the elevator as Driller, who was the last one in, presses onto the "down" button as they all feel the elevator taking them below the surface.

In just a few minutes later, the elevator downs open up to reveal a huge, dark chamber that is 1,000 feet both high and wide. Once they ventured out of the elevator, they could feel their hooves touching the stone floors. All around them, there is unused construction lights placed all over the floor, with them aiming towards one direction.

Though, Vindictive noticed that the lights are all attached to a huge generator which is seen left of the elevator shaft.

Before he could say anything, Axe Rock went up to the generator and turned on its power. Once the construction lights turned on, they all shined their light towards the direction that is facing the elevator.

As the lights illuminated a huge circular spot, they reveal only the tall entrance of the underground cathedral, with the rest of the exterior structure still shrouded with an enveloping darkness below the surface. At the front, the entrance of the cathedral is shown to have a tall arch with small, colorful glass panes above the doorway. For the doorway, it was seen to support huge double doors made up of iron cast metal with two handle bars used to open it up from the outside.

However, the double doors are already seen to be wide open once Vindictive's flashlight shined upon it while seeing it through his camera footage.

By the time Vindictive first came through it, he saw a construction helmet lying on the floor a few feet away from the open doors as the light was shinning on top of it. As for the rest of the interior, it is still pitch black. When Vindictive went further in, he could hear the rest of the team follow him from behind.

In a creepy atmosphere, Gemstone felt a dreadful chill as she could hear a ghastly, gibberish voice flowing through the darkness above her and Axe Rock.

"Did you guys hear that??" Gemstone asked, feeling a bit disturbed as she started to look through her own camera footage.

"I didn't hear anything." Driller replied, feeling confused on what Gemstone is getting at.

"It's okay, my dear. I'm pretty sure its just the a small breeze coming from above the surface." Axe Rock spoke, trying to calm his marefriend down.

"Well, we haven't gotten far yet." Vindictive said as he turned his camera to face his team. "There won't be anything down here to worry about. Right?"

Through the footage of each pony team member's camera, they could only see the floor with their flashlights. However, in just a few steps forward, they soon see skeletal remains of deceased ponies lying on the concrete floors inside the cathedral and from underneath the seats. Speaking of which, the flashlights show that most of the seats have been seen either to be toppled over or seen broken beyond into scraps of wood.

"I wonder what happened to this place that made the cathedral get sealed off centuries ago?" Driller muttered in chilling confusion.

"I don't know for sure either. However, I did hear a rumor that a group of ponies down here failed to contain a vile demonic spirit before it possessed one of the priestesses that used to work down here." Gemstone murmured in anxiety.

"Well, I don't have time to listen to any superstitions. Besides, I already made my promise to the museum of Somnambula before they sent me down here." Vindictive said sternly before he almost stepped on top of a pony skull. "WHOA!! That does seem startling."

"We all might as well watch our steps, every pony." Driller said with a fair warning to the team.

With the pony team making their way through the cathedral's main hall, they reached a wide set of stairs that lead up a few feet where Gemstone's and Axe Rock's flashlights reveal an organ piano untouched as it is seen covered up in cobwebs and dust.

Since most of the interiors of the cathedral's main hall is still condensed with pitch blackness, the team can only see what their flashlights are shinning on through their camera footage.

However, the moment they approached the organ, Green Sky sees through his camera footage and his flashlight that a small paper on top of the organ.

"Guys, I think I found something on top of the organ keys." Green Sky whispered before Vindictive came up to him.

Through Vindictive's camera footage, he uses his magic to lift the small paper before reading it.

"I am the emotion that is reverse of hope. I am the one that makes others suffer through a certain sadness. What am I?"

"That's sounds pretty grim for a riddle. I wonder what could that mean?" Vindictive thought.

Through Star Dwarf's footage, he spots something lurking in the shadows behind the old organs. It looked like a shadowy blur. Before he could get a closer look at it with his flashlight, it disappeared behind the organ instantly, nearly spooking him.

"Guys, I think there's something behind the organ." Star Dwarf exclaimed in a shivering tone.

With interest, most of Vindictive's team were following Star Dwarf as they circled around the organ. Through Vindictive's camera footage, his flashlight sees a wooden trap door that is already left wide open with a ladder sticking out from the thick darkness below.

While most of the team went down to check out the floor below the trap door, Driller of them starts to hear more ominous whispering coming from behind the ears.

Through Driller's camera footage, she was getting a side-tracked by the voices entering her head.

"Driller!! Are you looking for us??"

"Who's there??" Driller gasped in startled confusion.

"It's me, Scrapper Sparks, the team leader in charge of the group you sent us down here!!!" The voice whispered intensely. "We're over to the other side!!!"

"The other side of where??" Driller asked, feeling more confused and disturbed as she frantically looked up and down with her camera footage.

"This way my dear!!!"

As Driller's camera footage is moving and shaking frantically, she starts to wander around the thick darkness within the cathedral's main hall until she catches a shadowy glimpse of an earth pony at the far eastern corner of the huge area.

Before Driller could come any closer, the shadowy pony silhouette pranced to her left as it disappeared into another doorway up on the eastern interior walls within the shadows of the cathedral.

She felt nervous not wanting to decide to go after the source of the whispering voice or regroup with Vindictive's team. Well either way, because she is being held responsible for the previous' team's safety, Driller may need to take her chance to investigate the unexplained disappearance of Scrapper's group. So without any seconds to spare, Driller cautiously walked towards the doorway that the pony silhouette disappeared into.

From the footage of Vindictive's camera, he sees that most of his team went down the ladder before they continue to look around the room below the ground floor of the cathedral, unaware that Manager Driller is not with them.

In one minute of surveying the underground room with their flashlights and their recording camera footage, Axe Rock sees through his footage a tunnel from his right as he started waving to the rest of Vindictive's team.

"Every pony over here!!" Axe Rock spoke out.

Just as Vindictive approaches the door that Axe Rock as standing at, his footage sees an inscription above the door imprinted in a arch label made of stone.

Inside pandora's box spills out an emotion where wealth consumes and corrupts!! Once it possesses the obsessed, selfishness kicks in. What am I?

"Wow, another riddle." Vindictive thought as he sees Axe Rock slowly pushes the door open with his hoof. "This keeps getting better doesn't it?"

With Axe Rock the first to venture into the tunnel, they see a shadowy brick interior wall with small pony bones lying on the floor. The moment Axe Rock makes his way through the tunnel, he then sees a dark room at the end, with Gemstone and Star Dwarf following him from behind.

When Vindictive comes into the tunnel next, with Green Sky following behind, his camera footage soon approaches the room that Axe Rock went into as the light unveils a floor made up of stone and hardened dirt. Though, it wasn't long before a piece of golden coin was spotted underneath the little light.

"Guys, I think we may have found some treasure down here!!" Vindictive muttered in delight as Axe Rock was the first to discover the treasure room below the ground floor of the Cathedral.

From Driller's camera footage, she then goes up a ramping stairwell where the second floor of the cathedral awaits her.
With the breezing voices intensifying, they are luring Driller to uncover the fate of her first surveying team.

"Something doesn't feel right here!!" Driller thought as she could feel a dread entering her brain. "Maybe I should tell the others first."

"Fret not, Driller. This will be resolved very soon!!!" The voice whispered in a alluring tone.

Taking a big gulp, Driller walks through the balcony as her footage sees a dark shroud from the Cathedral's interior ceilings above her. Before long, Driller could see a light torrent of grey mist coming from a doorway that is glowing with red and yellow dim candle lights.

"What? What could that be over there??" Driller asked to herself as she approached the ominous glowing room.

As soon as Driller enters the glowing room, she sees on her footage that some small glass cage is seen in the middle. Inside it is a skeletal pegasi covered up in dried bloodstains. Driller couldn't see what to make of it. However, as she peered her camera downwards while trying to examine the skeleton inside the cage, she sees a small red diamond that is glowing orange by a dim speck.

Just as Driller got closer to the glass cage, she hears the door behind her slam shut.

"WHAT THE??" Driller gasped in utter confusion as her camera turned towards the door that just closed on her."WHAT'S HAPPENING??!!"

"YOU ARE MINE!!!!" The chilling voice boom, startling Driller in an alarming rate.

"WHAT'S GOING ON HERE!!! LET ME OUT!!" Driller screamed as she frantically pounded on the door. "ANYPONY!!! SOMEPONY!!! HELP ME!!! HELP ME!!!"

When Driller's camera footage turns back towards the glass cage, the red diamond is seen floating outside of the glass cage. This time, the diamond starts to glow bright orange as it is starting to accumulated strange black energy from all around the room.

Instantly, a shadowy glitch of a pony is starting to come out of the diamond as it lunges towards Driller's camera footage. Upon impact, the camera shook as Driller screamed in fright as she feels herself getting pulled up to the dark ceiling.

"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!!! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!" Driller screamed as she felt an invisible force dragging her wildly upwards, back and forth while her shoulder-mounted camera drops to the floor.

While off-screen as the camera footage only shows the glass cage, Driller continues to scream in fright before the whole room gets drowned with with demonic screeches. In just one minute, the room fell silent as the camera turns off itself due to low battery.

From the footage of Axe Rock's camera, it now shows that Vindictive was able to use his magic to illuminate the underground room. Once the room lit up, they now see that a mountain of bits and glowpaws are appeared in the middle of the room. Surrounding it, there is golden vases and glass cases filled with jewelry made up of white diamonds, topaz, rubies, and sapphires, much to every pony's excitement.

"Oh thank the Mighty Faust, we just uncovered the cathedral's jackpot!!" Gemstone squealed in delight.

"We're so rich!! I don't think we could do this without you, Vindictive." Green Sky chirped in happiness.

"Feel free to take whatever you want from her. But I'm only here for one thing only." Vindictive said, as he sees through his camera footage that most of his team started to dig into the bits and into the cases of accessories.

With seeing them all distracted, Vindictive turns his camera towards the top of the mountain of glow paws and bits where he now sees a small chest. Once he approaches the chest, Vindictive's camera uncovers another inscription on top of its lid.

"What used to belong to the Sphinx, possess essence that will undo happiness and hope!!! What am I?!"

Curious, Vindictive takes a deep breath before he uses his magic to carefully remove the lid of the small chest. Once the lid is off, inside the chest is revealed to be a golden opal with a small red drawing of the Sphinx herself, glowing yellow. Inside the opal, there is a small mist of pink-reddish colors. There's no doubt about it, this is definitely the same treasure that Somnambula was forced to abandon in this cathedral, same sacred object that the Sphinx left behind.

However, right after Vindictive used his magic to retrieve the Sphinx's golden opal and put it inside the pocket of his vest, it wasn't long before he heard Axe Rock walk up the mountain of bits and glowpaz. In fact, his unicorn brother appeared right next to him as the camera footage shows Axe's face smirking with obsession as he looked at the glowing, yellow light inside Vindictive's vest and then towards him straight in the eye.

"Axe Rock, what are you doing??" Vindictive said, feeling disturbed by the narrow look on his brother's eyes.

"It seems that you finally found what you're looking for, brother. I can't thank you enough for helping us find all this treasure for us. But now that we found what we all desired, I have to change my plans." Axe grinned as he used his magic to pull out a War Axe from his backpack. "I have no further use for you, Vindictive Dial."

"Say what??" Vindictive exclaimed as his footage sees that his brother is about to hack him with his axe. "HEY!!!"

Just before the axe head could hit Vindictive in the skull, his horn lit up as he conjured a barrier shield to block Axe Rock's attack instantly. At the same time, Gemstone noticed the shouting coming from Vindictive as she sees that her coltfriend is going crazy from off-screen.

"AXE ROCK, WHAT ARE YOU DOING???" Gemstone shrieked as she lunged at him in trying to grab the axe from his magical grip. "HE'S YOUR BROTHER!!!!"

"I could hear a voice ringing in my head!!" Axe Rock hissed as his eyes started to turn into a bright yellow color. "It wants me TO HAVE IT!!!"

"GET AWAY FROM ME!!!" Vindictive shouted as the whole treasure room is starting to rumble violently as sand started to spew down from above.

As Vindictive jumped off the mountain of bits and glowpaz, he turns his camera to see that Axe Rock and Gemstone are both struggling over the war axe. Before he could see it coming, Axe Rock breaks free from Gemstone as she slips backwards down the pile of bits, falling onto the floors.

For Star Dwarf and Green Sky, they heard Axe Rock going crazy as the two ponies turned around to see through their footage that the rogue unicorn leaps down the mountain pile of treasure before chasing after Vindictive, who ran out of the treasure room.

"WHAT THE HAY IS GOING ON HERE??" Star Dwarf shouted in frightful confusion.

Just as Star Dwarf sees Gemstone chasing after Axe Rock and Vindictive through his footage, he notices that most of the treasured vases started to resonate with a red-purple hue. Before they knew it, all the vases started to break apart by themselves as a swarm of floating, flaming balls started to fly up above the ceiling of the treasure room.

"That can't be good!! Green Sky exclaimed as he sees on his footage that one of the floating flaming balls get closer below eye level. "Let's just get as much as we can and get out of here!!"

Frantically, Star Dwarf and Green Sky grabbed only a handful of jewelry and glowpaz and stuffed them into their backpacks. The next thing they see through Star Dwarf's camera footage is when one of the flaming, flying balls came up to him.

In an alarming, sudden flash, the flaming ball transformed into a huge silhouette of a flaming dragon face that roared horrendously at the screen really loud. Upon seeing the dragon sihouette fiercely up close and in person, Star Dwarf and Green Sky both screamed in a palpable fright.

"GROOOOOOOOOOOOOOWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR!!!!"

"GAAAAAAAAH!!! RUN!!!" Star Dwarf screamed in terror as he and Green Sky made a mad dash towards out of the treasure room.

Through Vindictive's camera footage, he gallops towards the ladder as he could hear his crazed brother ululating and panting while hearing his hoofsteps get closer. Then again, Vindictive summons his magic shield to stop Axe Rock from hacking down on him with his war axe.

"PLEASE STOP IT!!! YOU ALREADY HAVE MORE THAN ENOUGH SPOILS TO SATISFY YOURSELF, DON'T YOU??" Vindictive shrieked in a panicking tone.

"Nice try, Vindictive. But I WANT THAT PRECIOUS OPAL FOR MYSELF!!!!" Axe Rock said in a disturbing loud screech as he continues to bear down attacks onto his brother's shield repeatedly. "NOTHING ELSE MATTERS ANYMORE!!!!"

"AXE ROCK, PLEASE FORGIVE ME!!!" Gemstone screamed as she grabbed a nearby rock from the floor and smashed it at the back of her coltfriends head.

*BAM!!!*

Upon impact, Axe Rock gets knocked out cold as his magic disappeared, losing control of his war axe.

*CLANG!!!*

With the war axe hitting the stone floors, Gemstone started to pant in fear that something must've happened when Vindictive opened up the small chest containing the opal.

"I don't understand. He never even for once hurt me at all." Vindictive gasped as he tried to take a breather after being chased by his crazed brother.

"I think it might be something to do with whatever is inside that little chest box." Gemstone said in a grim tone.

"Hey wait... I think the two riddles might have something to do with the golden opal." Vindictive pointed out as he went over the two riddles that he just read from the door arch before they went into the tunnel leading to the treasure room and the little sign on the treasure box's lid.

After digging into some thought from the two riddles, Vindictive's could feel his face sweating profusely in fear.

"Uh oh. I think I know they both means." Vindictive exclaimed in horror. "The golden opal that the Sphinx left behind was no accident. She deliberately to left her golden opal behind as a way to get revenge on Somnambula one day, which is already enchanted with her dark magic."

"Then that the Sacred, treasured Relic that the Sphinx left behind is actually........." Gemstone added in.

"THE GOLDEN OPAL OF DESPAIR!!!" Vindictive and Gemstone exclaimed in a fearful unison.

"And if it is exposed, it will drive nearby ponies mad with GREED!!!!" Vindictive gasped, realizing that the opal was what making his brother go crazy with attempted murder. "This isn't good. What have I done??!!!"

"RUN!!! RUN!!!!" A terrified, booming voice echoed from the tunnels behind Vindictive and Gemstone.

As Vindictive and Gemstone turned their cameras toward the tunnels, they both see on their footage that Star Dwarf is flapping his wings frantically while carrying Green Sky. Behind them, an encroaching thick fog of flames is chasing them as it starts snarling and bellowing with the voice of an unidentified monstrosity.

"WHAT THE FAUST IS THAT THING??" Gemstone gasped as she sees the flaming fog come closer out of the tunnel.

"I don't know, let's get out of here!!!" Vindictive shouted as he used his magic to carry an unconscious Axe Rock before teleporting himself back to the Cathedral's first floor.

After Vindictive disappeared from her camera footage, Gemstone faces it towards the ladder as she uses her hooves to immediately climb. At the same time, Gemstone could hear frantic flapping of Star Dwarf's wings for he flies past her off-screen. However, as soon as Gemstone looks up with her camera, she sees that a flaming dragon head silhouette shoots past her and struck Green Sky in the back as it bursts through his chest before it disappears.

"AAAAACK ARRRRULLGH!!!" Green Sky gasped and gurgled before going limp as a pool of blood and entrails came out of his chest.

"NO!!! GREEN SKY!!!!" Gemstone and Star Dwarf screamed.

In a spooked reaction, Star Dwarf ended up losing his grip on a dead Green Sky as he sees through his camera that the brown earth pony fell straight down as it disappeared into the red, flaming fog before the corpse exploded in a flaming combustion.

Unable to look back, Gemstone kept climbing up the ladder in a jiffy while Star Dwarf flew out of the trapdoor as tears came down from his eyes.

Back at the first floor of the Cathedral, through Vindictive's footage, he sets the unconscious Axe Rock down on the floor as he helped Gemstone climb out of the trapdoor.

With Star Dwarf landing on his hooves, he came up to Vindictive just as he got Gemstone out before closing the trapdoor with his hooves.

"What the hay just happened in the treasure room??" Vindictive frantically asked as he faced Star Dwarf.

"I don't know!!! Most of the vases down there broke apart on their own. The next thing I saw is when a swarm of flaming dragon-like faces came out of the broken vases and started to attack me and Green Sky." Star Dwarf replied, feeling both exhausted, frightened, and confused. "Well, I still have some of the collected treasure inside my backpack."

"Same goes for me." Gemstone added in, trying to catch her breath.

"Well, I think I probably should've only took what was in that treasure room instead of the Opal of Despair." Vindictive murmured in embarrassment, as he closed the small chest containing the Sphinx's relic.

"Say what?" Star Dwarf.

"It was actually the name of the sacred relic that the Sphinx left behind." Vindictive continued. "I'm sorry every pony. I should never have opened the chest containing it."

Before any pony could say anything else, they heard another chilling roar coming from outside the Cathedral as it's interior, cavernous walls started to rumble.

"WHAT WAS THAT??" Gemstone gasped. "I'm scared!!!"

Just as Axe Rock regained his consciousness, he gets up feeling a sharp pain coming from the back of his head.

"UGH!! What happened?? Where am I??" Axe Rock spoke in confusion while being comforted by Gemstone.

"Axe Rock, I don't think there is anytime to explain. I think we better........." Gemstone said before she heard something that interrupted her speech.

*SPLAT!*

Through her camera footage, the red earth mare sees a pile of bloody entrails and intestines hit the floor several feet in front of her.

"EEEEEEEEEEKKKKK!!!!" Gemstone shrieked as the blood almost splattered on her chest. "W-W-WHAT IS THIS??"

*SHOOM!!! BAM!!!"*

When Vindictive's camera turned towards the sudden explosion, he sees that the trapdoor Star Dwarf just came shooting out as a tall pillar of fire exploded, making the wooden frame hit the dark ceiling above before it crashed onto the floor in a big mess of splinters and nails.

Not a moment too soon, the flaming specters came flying out of the exposed trapdoor as they ascended up to the cathedral's ceilings and circled around the main hall. With their glowing flames illuminating the ceiling and the walls, they reveal huge stained, glass windows of giant flaming ghost dragons.

The dragons in the stained glass windows are seen made out of bones that are set aflame as their faces to pointing upwards as if they are trying to fly out of the abyss.

As Vindictive, Axe Rock, Star Dwarf, and Gemstone looked up in confusion and with horror, they see a shadowy glimpse of a Sphinx flying past the stained glass windows, uttering an earth-shaken roar.

"HOLY FAUST. THIS IS NOT HAPPENING!!!" Axe Rock screamed in confusion.

Before they knew it, most of the Flaming ghost dragons on the windows started to resonate as their eye sockets start to glow in an ominous orange. Instantly, the orange glowing eye sockets start to shoot out red-orange beams to the center of the ceiling.

Just as soon as Vindictive's camera footage faces towards where the beams are heading, they reveal that the corpse of Driller Pitch is seen hanging upside down chained up as three metal hooks ripped her chest apart, exposing her insides. When Vindictive looked at the bloody entrails that landed near Gemstone and back at Driller's hanging mutilated corpse, he started to hyperventilate out of fright.

Before long, the lights that the stained glass windows are shooting out also reveal more pony corpses hanging upside down in a similar display of horrific affection.

"OH FAUST IT CAN'T BE!!!" Star Dwarf gasped as his eyes widened with fear, as he recognized the corpse of Scrapper Sparks for he is seen as a red-yellow earth colt with the cutie mark of a metal piece has sparks shooting from its edges. "IT'S THE MISSING TEAM THAT DRILLER SENT IN EARLIER!!!"

Suddenly, the stained glass windows all started to shoot out more red beams as they all hit floor in the middle of the main hall. Before they knew it, a huge fiery portal appeared and what came out of it is a huge bone dragon encased with ghastly flames.

"WHO DARES TAKE THE RELIC OF THE SPHINX!!!!" The bone dragon bellowed in fury.

"RUN!!!!" Vindictive screamed as he, Gemstone, Axe Rock, and Star Dwarf made a run for it to the exit of the cathedral.

"NO PONY DARES TO VIOLATE THE CATHEDRAL OF THE FLAMING GHOST DRAGON LORD AND RAID HIM OF HIS TREASURE!!!!" The bone dragon roared as he slammed his right dragon claw on the floor, causing a huge shockwave that sends most of the ponies flying towards the door.

Upon impact, Axe Rock was the first to crash into the front door of the Cathedral as its frame broke apart at the same time. For Vindictive and Gemstone, the unicorn sees through his footage that he was sent flying forward second as he landed a few feet behind Axe Rock while Gemstone crashed onto his right. .

As for Star Dwarf, he landed forward on Vindictive's left. The moment they all got up on their hooves, Vindictive's footage turns to see an enraged ghastly, flaming bone dragon crawled out of the cathedral as it ripped apart the doorway and its front walls with its mighty undead strength.

"SHIT!! EVERY PONY GET UP NOW!! IT'S STILL AFTER US!!!" Vindictive shouted as he was helping Axe Rock and Gemstone get up on their hooves.

Unfortunately, by the time Star Dwarf was on his feet, he was met with a huge torrent of black fire that swallowed him whole, making him unable to scream as he disintegrated into a pile of molten ash.

"MOVE IT!! QUICKLY!!!" Vindictive yelled as he sees Gemstone and Axe Rock galloped further towards the elevator.

As soon as all three remaining ponies reached the elevator, they went inside while Axe Rock pressed on the button taking them all back up to the surface. However, just as they reached 10 feet closer, they could hear the dragon banging its sheer boned mass on the scaffold supporting the elevator, making the structure rock back and forth as the three ponies struggled to hold on.

"WHAT DO WE DO??" Gemstone shrieked as she was held on tightly by Axe Rock. "I DON'T WANT TO DIE LIKE THIS!!!!"

"BROTHER, DO SOMETHING!!!" Axe Rock screamed as he is trying to hold onto Gemstone.

Unfortunately, the scaffold is soon breaking apart from below. In just seconds, the scaffold breaks apart as the elevator they're all in is plummeting back down to where the underground cathedral is. With no time to think, Vindictive lights up his horn as he is about to teleport himself, Gemstone, and Axe Rock to the surface.

However, he immediately felt a sharp stab coming out from his back as Vindictive's footage sees that a huge flaming boned dragon tail came out of his chest. Seeing this, Axes Rock and Gemstone both gasped in horror for Vindictive gets impaled by the Flaming Ghost dragon as they hear it making huge wings flaps.

"VINDICT!!!!" Gemstone shrieked as her eyes widened with terror.

"NO!! BROTHER!!!" Axe Rock screamed as he sees that his younger brother is heading towards death's door.

"A-axe Rock. G-g-gemstone!! I-I-I'm sorry!!" Vindictive gasped as he feels blood pouring out of his mouth.

Before Gemstone or Axe Rock could say or do anything, Vindictive succumbed from his wounds as the flaming dragon pulls its tail out from behind. Just as Vindictive collapsed dead on floor, the elevator falls straight down on the ground as it crashes and rolls violently as the camera footage started to go in and out of static. At the same time, Axe Rock and Gemstone both started screaming in horror as they both feel themselves spinning violently while inside the rolling, dismantled elevator.

*CRASH!!!*

"AAAAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHH!!!"

*BAM!!!*

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!"

*THUD!!!*

"AUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGH!!!!"

"KYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!"

*SMASH!!!!*

*FZZZT!!!*

In the last recording of the footage, the camera's flashlight now sees the shadowy wreckage of broken metal parts that came from the destroyed elevator. Closer to the camera, it shows the corpses of Axe Rock and Gemstone seen face flat on the ground while holding their hooves together as it turns out that they both are crushed to death by the fallen elevator as the sheer weight of its top broke both of their backs.

As the blood of the two dead ponies are seeping out and spilling down a small stream of blood underneath the Opal of Despair, which is now lying on the ground and up close to the footage, a thunderous roar is heard from the pitch blackness off-screen.

*End of Footage as the screen turns black.*