Us and Them

Chapter 15

Medallions

The hallway Shade led us down ended at a spiral staircase. After we reached the top of the stairs, Epoch stopped in front of a massive stone door and announced to the group "Welcome to the Test of Time. Allow me to explain the rules of the Test. You can attempt each room as many times as you like. Should you fail, the room will magically reset and you will begin anew. If at any point you decide to end the Test, you can simply go down the stairs and you will find yourself in the lobby. If your current party returns to the Test after giving up, you can start from where you left off. Any questions?"

Pinkie spoke up, eager to ask a silly question. "What's your favorite kind of cake? Favorite color? Ooh! Ooh! Favorite fruit! Favorite fruit!"

"Yellow cake, red, golden delicious apples. Anything else?" Shade was completely unfazed by Pinkie's bizarre questions. I actually kinda respected that. Nobody seemed to have any real questions to ask though, so he continued on to describe what was behind the door. "This is the first room of the Courage trial. You will have to collect six medallions in the next room and give them to me within 90 seconds. The timer starts when you pick up the first medallion. There will be many traps set up to impede your progress, though they should not be deadly." Shade laughed gently under his breath after saying that. "Good luck."

With that, the door behind him rose, revealing a massive chamber filled with fences, stone walls, and six pillars adorned with a medallion on each one. The room was so massive, and the paths so twisting, there was no way that just anypony would be able to navigate the maze in 90 seconds. I was also concerned with how he mentioned traps that could, in theory, be deadly.

"Alright, who's gonna give a shot at this? Should we send somepony in just to test out what the run will be like? Or just run in blindly and hope that these traps don't do anything to bad to us?" I asked.

"I say I just go in and get those medal things before those traps can even get to me" Rainbow Dash brazenly replied.

"Rainbow, we don't even know what those traps are like." Twilight responded. "I think I should go in since I can just teleport out if anything goes wrong. If I can't get them and it seems safe, maybe you can give it a shot." Rainbow Dash grudgingly agreed, and Twilight trotted up to the entrance to the trial to begin her run. As she did, a "90" made of fire appeared in the top of the room, obviously a timer to show how much time was left in the trial.

As soon as Twilight set a hoof in the maze, the flames above began ticking down. Rather than trying for a record time, Twilight was being extremely cautious in her run. It wasn't long before she ran into her first trap. The stone ceiling above her glowed with a strange insignia, and out of that insignia, spikes grew out of the stone face at an alarming rate. Twilight closed her eyes and clenched her body, as though she were trying to use her teleport spell. For some reason, the spell she was trying to cast didn't seem to be working. Luckily for Twilight, the spikes ended a short distance above her head. If she were trying to fly, she would've been mincemeat. Looks like this test run was a good idea after all. This same kind of trap kept triggering throughout the maze, the spikes always stopping just above Twilight's head.

Because she was being so cautious, Twilight hardly made it to the first medallion pedestal before time ran out. When time ran out, she suddenly appeared in the room the rest of us were waiting in, clearly not by her own spell.

"Why couldn't I use my teleportation spell while I was in there?" Twilight asked, shaking of the mental fog that tended to accompany spatial distortions such as short-distance teleportation.

"Well it's hardly a test of speed if you're allowed to jump from medallion to medallion. There's a special spell in place to suppress any teleportation magic other than The Great Lord's own ru- special spells."

We reconvened to decide who to send in. Most of the group thought it would be smart to send in Rainbow Dash, since she was probably the fastest of us all. Twilight thought that it might be risky to send her in if the spikes were just going to keep coming down from the ceiling. Dusty, in his quiet way, suggested that he'd be willing to give it a shot. We realized that as long as he kept his head down, Dusty would probably have no issue getting through the room in 90 seconds.

When Dusty lined up, the flaming timer once again blazed a bright "90" against the dark stone ceiling. When he started, all I could see was his signature dust cloud where he was standing before. Despite twists, turns, and spikes coming from the ceiling, Dusty was having no trouble running through the maze. in only thirty seconds, he had managed to gather three of the medallions. After he had gotten the third medallion, the spikes began coming out of the walls and the floor. Dusty just kept running, and I noticed that he was running past the spikes before they could even touch him.

After he picked up the sixth medallion, a stone door began to close in a straightaway leading to where Shade was waiting for Dusty to give him the medallions. In a move straight from a movie, Dusty dove under the door just before it closed, barely making it to the other side before the door slammed shut.

After allowing a moment for the dust to clear, Shade let out a chuckle and announced. "I only see five medallions. You missed one. You've failed the room and you'll have to-"

"Hey Mr. Ghostybutt!" Lyrica hollered at Shade. Sometimes I wondered how she made friends. "He dropped one when he did his cool slide thingy! It's right there on the ground!" She pointed a hoof at the ground to Dusty's side, where a gold medallion with a dark purple gem inlaid inside lay. This was the sixth medallion, a part of the set that was hanging on Dusty's neck.

"So it is. I suppose then, that you did indeed pass, very well then. Follow me to the next room of the speed trial. The medallions hanging from Dusty's neck disappeared, and Shade turned and walked towards a door that had suddenly appeared next to the staircase that led to this floor. For some reason, the purple medallion lay on the ground, unaffected by Shade's spell. Intrigued by this strange medallion, I decided I would hold on to it. After I quickly stuffed it into my saddlebags, I followed the rest of our group up the next spiral staircase to the next test.

At the top of the stairs, Epoch had already opened up the next room. It was a humongous cavern with 6 medallions hanging from the walls. Standing near the edge, I could see that there was no bottom in sight for this cavern. Sending in anything other than a pegasus was suicide. At least there would be no doubt about sending Rainbow Dash in this time. Epoch explained the rules, though they were essentially the same as before.

Dash only had 30 seconds to gather the six medallions, but it would be an easy feat for her. If it was a test of straight-up speed in the air, nopony could match her. Since I knew she would get the medallions with time to spare, I chatted with Shade while the test occurred.

"So if the Bastion of Eons is as big as it is, how can you have giant caverns like this inside it? I mean, there's no way that this room alone could even fit inside the Bastion."

"It's surprisingly simple actually. The Great Lord created ley lines to make magic-aided spatial distortion possible, even great distances underground. Each room of the Test is actually deep within the bedrock below Equestria, connected to the Bastion and each other by the magic of the Great Lord. By utilizing a simple teleportation enchantment, any one of the rooms of the test can lead to either the Bastion or the next room. Though simple, it is truly brilliant, if I might say."

"So essentially by creating magical conduits out of these ley lines you can transfer a physical object long distances using enchantments. I'll assume that there's some sort of magic spell to direct it then?" Everypony stared at me quizzically. Even Twilight looked a little befuddled, though I couldn't tell if that was because she didn't understand what I was saying or how I knew so much about magic.

"You're pretty knowledgeable about magic for someone you know. That's right. Without any magic to direct it, the stairs will continue on forever. If you go back the way you came, you'll quickly find yourself back in the room you were just in. Truly a magnificent spell for being so simple."

Before he could go any further, Dash came sliding along with all of the medallions slung around her neck. The clock read 10 seconds remaining. She was probably showboating for a few seconds anyways. Without a word, Shade waved a hoof and the six medallions disappeared. None were remaining this time, though I could still feel the weight of the purple medallion from the last run in my saddlebags. A door opened and Epoch stood before it.

"Well done my friends," he announced to the group. "You have completed the first of the three trials of the Test of Time, the Medallions of Courage. The next trial is the Stones of Power. The trial lies before you. Will you continue or would you rather rest and regather your strength?"

We shared a single glance at each other and I spoke up, reading everyone's sentiment. "We will continue onward towards the next trial." And so began the walk up the mystical stairs towards the next trial.