We finally reached the doors of the dungeons after having an encounter with some Fireballs. Grey Quartz gave everyone a shove, and her horn poked into my shoulder very hard.
“Ow!” I yelped, and she growled. I ran into the chamber with the others, and Aqua shut the large wooden doors with her magic.
We all gathered around, with Solar lighting up some torches along the wall, making luminous orange light flicker around the narrow little place.
“OK everypony.” said Lunar, who had somehow become the ‘leader’, despite being rather shy back at the valley camp. “We need to hunt down these tunnels.” She levitated the page she ripped out of the book.
“We know.” Said Solar flatly.
“Yes, but we don’t where they are.” She whipped at her sister. “We need to try and use magic to snoop them out.” Lunar glanced at Crimson and I. “You guys just… follow. We may need some muscles in the group.” She purred. I stood straight and saluted. Solar giggled.
“I know this spell that might help…” said Aqua. She closed her eyes and her horn made a small light at the end, which looked a lot like the torch spell, but it emitted pulses of green light.
“Cool.” Said Quartz, her eyes wide and sparkling.
“It can help me find what I’m looked for.” She said, opening her eyes. Her horn was still doing the strange spell, and she looked around. I was eager to get going.
“OK, Solar, Bolt, and Quartz you go that way,” Lunar pointed down one dark corridor. "Crimson and Aqua, you guys come with me.” I walked up to Aqua and gave her a hug, then Quartz suddenly galloped down the corridor. Her voice echoed around.
“Come on, everypony!” she called. Solar and I looked at each other, then charged down the hall. Why wasn’t I with Aqua? I supposed we needed to separate to work better.
Our hoof-steps sounded very loud, the sound bouncing around everywhere. The hall was very dark, but I didn’t have magic to light it.
“Can somepony give off some light?” I yelled. Solar suddenly threw some fiery magic at more torches again as she galloped, showing my surroundings. Cells. Lots and lots of cells. Scary. Just black, barred holes, so dark and shadowy it made my skin tingle. I didn’t know why they needed so many, but I knew that before Wildfire came to power, the royals barely used them ever. Only to keep criminals before their court trial, and they were kept in far better condition than now. But I supposed every ancient palace had dungeons...
I suddenly saw a light blue glow ahead of us, and Quartz had lit her horn up.
“Quartz, why are you so far up there?” I asked.
“Cause you guys are slow! Hurry up!” she replied in the dark. Solar rolled her eyes. We kept galloping.
It seemed to be a few minutes before the little glowing light stopped moving. We both caught up to her and looked around.
“Why did you stop?” I asked, but she was looking up and down a bare wall at the side of the corridor, using her horn lamp to illuminate it.
“I don’t know.” She muttered, still looking at it. She blew some of her dark red mane out of her face and put her grey hoof upon the wall.
“There can’t be tunnels here.” Said Solar. “Somepony would’ve already found them.”
“For some reason… I doubt that.” She said suspiciously. “Solar, try and used that tracking spell with me, just like Aqua.” She said, glancing at the alicorn.
“Um, OK.” She stuttered. “But neither of us know how.”
“It looked complicated, but easy to do at the same time.” She muttered, getting up on her hind legs to examine the stone wall.
I just stared into space, not knowing what they were talking about. Being very inexperienced with magic I had know clue what they were talking about. “I’ll just… yeah.” I mumbled.
“OK, are you ready?” Quartz asked Solar. The fiery little alicorn nodded, and both of them shut their eyes. Their horns began to glow, then started giving off those little pulses. Wow, they’d done it! Already!
They sighed and opened their eyes. Quartz glanced up at her pulsing blue light and smiled happily. “Cool! I did that!” she said in a proud, boastful tone.
“OK, picture the tunnels.” Instructed Solar. I watched as they worked away, lighting up the surroundings with light. I soon got bored, not particularly interested in their fancy magic. I walked across the corridor, carefully eyeing the empty cells around me.
I found another wall, just plain solid rock like the other where the mares were. I looked around, not really sure if I was looking for the tunnels or not.
“This spell…. Is supposed to show what you want…. Most….” Strained Quartz from across the hall. “I want those tunnels so…. Bad….Hnnnng!” I watched the blue light fade, as the unicorn ran out of energy. She released and began to pant.
“So… the tunnels aren’t around here?” I said.
“Oh, oh!” cried Solar suddenly. Attention was pointed to her. “It’s leading me!” she tottered across the corridor towards where I stood. Her eyes opened and she looked around on the wall. Suddenly her horn flashed and she spun around. She nearly bumped into me.
The alicorn closed her eyes, letting the horn do the work. For about ten seconds she walked around in circles. I looked away at Quartz, who was waiting for Solar’s energy to stop, not convinced.
Suddenly I felt a sharp pain in my shoulder, and looked around to see that her horn was jabbed into my shoulder.
“It’s here!” she whinnied, opening her eyes. Suddenly they went wide and her pupils shrunk as she spotted that it was me she had bumped into, not the wall.
All of a sudden I heard laughter explode from the other side, and Quartz came into our view.
“Ha! Hahaha!” she giggled. “Are you sure that the tunnels are what you want most, Solar?” she wiped a tear from her eye. "Are you sure it's not your precious Golden Bolt? Ha!" Solar whimpered and her white face flushed red, backing into the corner.
Abruptly her rump bumped into the stone wall, and I heard a thump. Solar squeaked and jumped away, staring at the spot she touched. Quartz fell silent, sighing away her last hysteric giggle.
I trotted past Solar and put my hoof on the spot the alicorn touched. I pushed. Thump. I pushed harder. Thump. My heart flipped and I looked.
The large rock that I had shoved was moved. But the rest of the walls were solid. Was this the tunnel?
“Bolt!” squealed Solar. “Did you find it?” she stared at the shifted rock excitedly. I smiled and gave another shove. It wedged. Come on, come on! I used by back legs as the power, shoving as hard as I could.
“You can do it Bolt!” yelled Grey Quartz, bouncing. Sweat dripped down my face from under my helmet and I pushed harder and harder.
Clunk. Thump. Scrape. I gasped and gave it a final push, and suddenly the stone was out of my grasp. It fell through the gap, tumbling down. I heard it crash down and roll away, before all was silent and it was so longer in our hearing range.
It was quiet between for a whole minute, before suddenly Quartz yelled. “YOU DID IT!! BOLT!! YOU FOUND IT!!” she hollered, leaping around and around. She threw her hooves around my neck in the tightest hug I’d ever received. I gagged, pulling her hoof off my throat. Solar started squealing in the same manner, and both mares squealed together.
“I’ll get the others!” said Solar, suddenly sending a creepy mind-message. We waited a few minutes, before the surprisingly speedy group suddenly arrived near us.
“What, what?” demanded Crimson excitedly.
“He found it! Bolt found the tunnel!” squealed Quartz once again, planting a huge kiss on the surprised Pegasus’s lips.
She broke away and he stood there in shock, before blushing and addressing me. “Well done! Now we have to,” suddenly he stopped as Lunar interrupted.
“Go in…” she muttered. She gulped and nervously looked at the large gap in the wall.
“OK, everypony ready?” I said bravely, and they all nodded. I looked down the chute, and saw it was a very steep, dark dirt slide. I put my forehooves in and pulled my front half into the entrance, pulling the rest of my body in and sitting in an awkward position.
“Wait! Bolt, you have to come with me.” Said Aqua, nervously getting in and sitting directly behind me.
“Ready to go?” I asked her. She clung her front hooves around my neck and nodded. I suddenly shuffled to the steep bit and pushed off.
Straight down. All of a sudden, in an abrupt, sharp movement, we were going down at a remarkably high speed, the tunnel going almost vertically down. Aqua hugged me tighter and screamed at the top of her lungs, and we were almost lying flat. My mane flew around as we shot down under the dungeons. I instinctively reached back and grabbed Aqua around her waist.
I heard another scream and immediately knew Lunar and Solar were coming. Solar was yelling with excitement, and Lunar was just screaming as loud as Aqua.
The tunnel seemed to be going forever and ever, and I began to panic. Were we going to get to the bottom?
“We’re gonna go through the centre of the Earth!” Screamed Aqua. I yelled loudly as the tunnel bent, and we turned a sharp corner. I grunted as I hit the side hard.
Just as I was about to ask Aqua to magically stop us, the ground disappeared from beneath my backside as we suddenly fell down with a thud. We landed on dirt ground, surrounded by darkness.
I helped Aqua up and we looked three metres up to where the tunnel exit was. Suddenly the two alicorn sisters shot out, falling down the high drop to the ground.
“Ow!” yelled Lunar and Solar groaned.
“You guys OK?” Aqua asked her friends, and they nodded. Then abruptly there was a yell and a thud, as Crimson and Quartz tumbled from the tunnel.
I walked over and helped both ponies up, and Quartz shook herself off.
“Well, are we going to find Aka?” said Solar, making her way across the chamber to another tunnel. This one wasn’t a sharp drop like the other, just a horizontal little tube.
Solar stepped inside, followed by Lunar, Aqua, me, Quartz and Crimson.
We trudged along the stuffy dirt tunnel. It was small and I had to stoop my head. “Anypony here claustrophobic?” I said, addressing all of them. No reply. Good.
A few minutes past before I heard rustling paper as Lunar looked at her book page. “Hmm, the King and Queen needed a little place to hide, right?” she said. “Maybe there’s a cosy chamber that Aka’s in right now.”
“Cosy? Really, Lunar?” said her sister.
“Mm.” she muttered in reply, concentrating on the script. “Oh, I sure hope we don’t find the skeletons of the Shadows!” she said nervously.
“I bet the skeletons would be rotten by now!” said Crimson. “I mean, a thousand years?”
“Yeah, but there’s no air or animals or insects down here!” replied Lunar, looking down the line to the Pegasus. "And what's wrong with you; skeletons can't rot!"
“There’s air now.” He said. Lunar’s mouth dropped open in a ‘you’re such an idiot’ expression, before looking back down at her papers.
“Hey, what’s this?” said Solar suddenly. She had found a large rock blocking the end of the tunnel.
“Push it away!” I said to her. “It’s obviously not a dead end, just a trick.” The white alicorn shrugged and used all her might to shove the stone out of her way. She kept pushing to try and get it out of our walking path, when suddenly he gasped as the rock jerked and tumbled away from her, rolling down the tunnel.
“What? Another drop off??” yelled Solar in frustration. “Ugh, let’s go.” She jumped in and her sister grabbed onto her, before there was a scream from Lunar and they were gone.
“Ready?” asked Aqua over her shoulder. I nodded and she jumped in, me sitting behind her. I pushed and we suddenly dropped, Aqua screeching.
This tunnel was way steeper, and we were almost falling. My rump kept hitting the floor over and over, hurting me. Aqua screamed again as we rounded a bend, and we rocketed down.
Suddenly there was a yell from in front of us. Solar. “Aqua! Put a shield up! Big drop!” she hollered. Aqua gasped and made a green shield bubble around us, just as we came to the end of the chute. We fell, Aqua’s bubble shielding us from the impact. We landed on all four hooves, and she removed the protective force-field.
Obviously Quartz had heard Solar’s instruction, as the last two came out wrapped in a light blue bubble. They landed and she removed it.
I looked around. This chamber was far large than the other. The ceiling stretched upwards, and I guessed it was the living chamber of the two royals. Cosy….
“Hey, look!” exclaimed my marefriend as she sifted her hoof through the dirt. She levitated a silver item out and blew off the dust.
It was a magnificent silver tiara. It was rather tall with patterns carved into it. There were little light blue and green gems studding it.
“Whoa!” I said, looking at it. “It must have been Queen Naraka’s!”
“This is probably worth millions of gems!” said Solar. “Think, it’s a thousand year old queen’s tiara. Museums, collectors, nobles and just anypony anywhere would give up everything for it!” Lunar looked at her and rolled her eyes.
“What if we gave it to Aka? If we find her and give it to her, she’d be one hundred times more beautiful!” said Aqua.
“Come on, we don’t need to worry about a million gem tiara right now. If we want the Queen to lovely in it, we have to actually find her first.” Said Quartz, heading down another tunnel. I watched as Aqua somehow conjured up a leather saddlebag and put the tiara inside. Lunar put her book page in as well, and we all went down the way Quartz went.
