A Time to Act

by The Sonic Mage

Chapter 6: Exploration

Author's Note:

Got this one cleaned up a little early so I guess I'll post it.

Also, fun fact: I technically finished writing this chapter before the previous one, but then I realized I needed to check in on the brothers and slow down events a bit. So yeah...

Anyway, ENJOY!

The last thing Chrysalis expected to do was wake up. Especially after falling as far as she had. Even more surprising was the fact that she was relatively unharmed. She fully expected to be very dead, never mind grievously injured. Nevertheless, she was alive and awake.

‘For better or for worse,’ the ex-Queen thought.

Alive and awake in a very strange place now that she thought about it. The entire space was large, dark, and cold with a foggy mist that hung in the stale air.

As Chrysalis came to her hooves with a groan, she noticed other odd things about her surroundings. The ground felt dusty and grainy. The outlines of jagged, twisted shapes and structures rested all around her and in the distance. And most importantly, there was no sound.

The former Queen liked to think that her ears were pretty sharp. At this moment, however, there was nothing. Not the dripping of water, not the chitter of bugs and critters. Not a creek. Not a groan. Not a single sign of life.

This did not bode well for her.

Chrysalis looked up and tried to cast a light spell and spot her point of entry, but haze in the air didn’t let the light reach. She tried to strengthen the beam but she started to feel how low her reserves were.

With that in mind, Chrysalis went with option two: scope out the area and see if there is anything useful.

The ex-Queen then began to stroll about the messy space. The light she could afford to project made it clearer what was around her. There were jagged rocks and piles of twisted scrap metal about. Some she recognized as pieces of armor. There were what looked to be the dilapidated remains of houses, the wood showing signs of buns and rot. Some other odd-looking structures could be made out as well. As she made her way to the rim of the chamber, she could make out engravings on the wall. Still no way out though.

It all looked very old. The bits of recognizable armor gave that away quite clearly. None of it looked like the standard Royal Guard outfits. It is more like platting from before the reign of the Alicorn sisters.

‘Where did all this come from?’ The ex-Queen pondered, ‘And how long has it been here?’

The one recurring sight in her exploration, and one that irked her, was a great many chains about the space. They seemed to be wrapped around almost every standing post and pile of scrap around like ivy vines, or just dangling or laying on the ground. Chrysalis avoided touching them out of fear that disturbing them or anything else in the chamber might awaken something.

Chrysalis wondered where they all came from and if she could use them to escape. That train of thought was interrupted when she suddenly lost her footing and tripped.

Her anger flared up as she looked for what had interrupted her stride. Her eyes came to rest on an odd sight. A piece of black crystal-like rock that oddly resembled a root.

Chrysalis looked closer tapping the odd substance a few times, odd pulses visible underneath each time she touched it.

‘That’s...quite odd. Where do you come from?’ The former Queen brought her face closer to the strange substance giving it a sniff. There wasn’t anything she could make out about it, the only other smell being that of the stale air that filled the entire chamber. Despite this, she knew there was something special about this small piece of rock, something...magical.

‘I could try and appraise it,’ Chrysalis thought to herself, ‘But I don’t think I’ll have much magic leftover if I do.’

So, Chrysalis did the only thing she could do: she raised her head to look for any more of the stuff. If this rock was magical in nature, and if there was any more of it, she just might be able to use it to get out of this chamber.

She looked around for several more minutes until she came across another small vein of the strange rock. It was certainly larger than the first one she had found, but not by a whole lot. Still, it was another piece, and there was a slightly more prominent smell of magic coming from it, which meant that there was more to be found and that there was more potential magic to use to find the exit and escape. Granted, what she could detect didn’t seem like any magic she had come across before, but at this point magic was magic.

‘I’ll worry about the particulars later.’ thought Chrysalis, as she carried on with her hunt.

As Chrysalis came across increasingly bigger veins in greater numbers and closer to each other, she began to notice a few things. Firstly, she seemed to be heading towards the center of the chamber. Second, the ground was gently sloping upward as she continued forward. Third, the ground was becoming increasingly dominated by the rocks as well as the odd magic they gave off. Fourth, the terrane was getting increasingly unfriendly as it was taken over by the crystal-like rocks she had been following. Their harsh, pointed edges made them awkward to walk across like she was standing on pure darkness that was poking the bottom of her hooves.

“As if I don’t have enough holes in my legs already.” the ex-Queen grumbled as she carried on. The only assurance she had that she wasn't walking on nothing was the fact that every step she took caused a small, faint ripple under the surface of the crystals. The crystals seemed to flare up in shape in areas, like a smooth spiked wave or the shattered shape of some figure. That was also concerning. Which brought her to the final thing that she noticed that concerned her on top of everything else as she climbed the small crystalline hill. As she neared the top, not only did the smell of magic increase slightly, but also the temperature of the air. It wasn’t becoming blisteringly hot by any means, but the rising temperature was still noticeable.

Chrysalis knew that she should probably turn back, or at least stop and do what she could to take what she could get. But curiosity was something that she had always had in spades, especially when it came to magical powers. So she continued on, carefully stepping around the molded waves and brutal spikes.

As she carried on, she began to notice something about the magic coming off the crystals she trod upon. The smell was still strange, but a part of it seemed awfully close to…

“Empathic magic?” Chrysalis said with much surprise. She took a good long sniff of the air. She was right. It was empathic magic. A very odd kind of empathic magic for sure, but still. ‘That’s a magic I can almost certainly harness!’ she thought. She picked up her pace, her excitement temporarily overshadowing her caution as she weaved between the obstacles blocking her path, eventually reaching the top of the mound, and the center point of the chamber.

What she saw was...odd to say the least. It was hard to describe with words. It seemed to be a crystal-rock structure that was an even odder shape than what she was standing on. Some parts had flat sides and corners; others were swirled and smooth; some parts lashed outwards like branches or slashes of water; others looked more inwardly directed. More importantly, some sections faintly resemble body parts. There were the beginnings of a hoof at the base of the structure, the tips of a clawed...paw? Hand? Whatever words the bipeds of Equis used to describe the ends of their arms.

Chrysalis took a few steps forward to analyze further. Visually, that was difficult since the light spell she was using reflected off the surface slightly. Magically, there was no doubt that this was where the magic was strongest. All she had to do was find a way to take it from inside this odd crystal and harness it herself. Luckily, she was a Changeling...an old Changeling anyway...and she still knew how to drain things of their magic. Magical objects were always the easiest since they didn’t require any...convincing.

Chrysalis shuddered as she did her best to push those dreadful memories aside, and focussed on the task at hand.

Chrysalis closed her eyes and focussed in on the strange magical energy that the crystal structure in front of her (and technically, all around her) was giving off. She reached out to it, gently calling it to her. She sensed a thread, a dark orange, wispy trail of the strange magic coming out to her. With great patience, she delicately took hold of the thread and pulled it toward herself, careful not to break the line. The magic felt as strange in her grip as it smelled on her nose. It felt like tar or oil. Slimy and slippery, but sticky at the same time. No matter, this was going to be her ticket out of here. She had come this far, she couldn’t stop now. She slowly reeled the strange magic in, preparing herself to consume it.

After what felt like an eternity of meticulous movement, Chrysalis opened her mouth and slowly let the magic flow into her system. She cringed slightly as it washed over her tongue. Its taste was as odd and off-putting as its smell and texture. It had a somewhat bitter and tart taste to it, with the consistency of syrup or molasses. Whatever it was, it certainly wasn’t love energy.

‘The sooner I get what I need, the sooner I can leave and forget about this stuff.’ Chrysalis thought. She just had to take the amount she needed. A task that would be easier to accomplish if it weren't for the fact the magic tasted so off, and that she had to go slowly. She had managed to go a little faster now that the connection had been established, but didn’t make the taste any better.

As Chrysalis consumed the magic, she felt something. It started as a slight discomfort in her stomach. She tried to ignore it, chalking it up to her body having a hard time processing what she was ingesting.

‘I’ll take a stomach ache over being trapped down here for the rest of my life.’ the ex-Queen thought. At least, that’s what she thought at first.

The aches and pains grew worse, and the magic was becoming increasingly distasteful, to the point of sickness. Still, Chrysalis fought to stomach the vile stuff, needing only a little more before she could get out.

Then things took a turn…

As Chrysalis neared her limit in terms of capacity and tolerance, an odd feeling of warmth was added to the magic’s repulsive taste. That warmth then became a more noticeable heat. A heat that started drowning out the awful taste of the magic and the ache of her insides. That heat then grew uncomfortably hot. Chrysalis groaned. Hotter. She began to sweat. Hotter. Until a terrible, fiery, burning sensation suddenly filled Chrysalis’s mouth. Which then spread to her stomach and then moved throughout her entire body.

At that moment, the pain quickly became too much for Chrysalis. Her eyes shot open as her mouth clamped shut, severing the connection. It did little to quell the pain. The former Queen stumbled backward. Her eyes screwed shut, tears beginning to gather and spill, as the fiery pain filled her head. She grabbed her temples and stumbled aimlessly, desperately wishing for the pain to go away. Her entire body, inside and out, felt like it was burning in a bonfire, from the tip of her horn to the bottoms of their hooves.

Chrysalis couldn’t help but begin to cough and wheeze as the urge came over her. The wretched orange bile came up, coating and dripping from her mouth accompanied, unbeknownst to Chrysalis, by embers and black smoke. She cried out in terrible anguish. Her thoughts became fragmented and disjointed. There were hardly any words to describe it, it was just pain. Pure, all-encompassing, agonizing pain. Her mind became overtaken by one thought, one feeling: Anger. A seemingly impossible amount of hatred.

What was she even angry at? Why? Those questions didn’t matter. All she knew was that she had the overwhelming desire to punch something. Hard. As Chrysalis’s vision was colored red, she let out a wrath-filled roar as she swung and kicked at the crystals surrounding her. Breaking off the tips of spikes, putting deep cracks in the floor with incredible strength. She swung and screamed all around her. Winding her right hoof back, took a hard swing at another crystal surface. This time, the impact echoed throughout the entire chamber.

Finally, the pain began to steadily fade. Chrysalis breathed hard, keeping her hoof right where it was, leaning on it as her senses slowly came back to her. She felt drained. More so than when she had first woken up in the chamber. The sudden strength, pain, and rage all seemed to have faded away.

“What...W-What in the name of Tartarus was that?” She said hoarsely.

Her question was interrupted by a glow that caught her eye. An orange glow, coming from inside the central crystal structure. The very same one that she was leaning against. The one that she had punched a crack into with her resting hoof.

And the glow was getting brighter.

Comments

[BezierBallad]

Glad to see this story getting updated more. I missed reading your stuff.

[Batpony46]

What could it be I must know more awesome work my dude another awesome chapter

[GrandAdmiral MitthRawN]

Thats a nice surprise.

[Melody Song]

Woah...

[Matrix11335]

You finally continue :-)
And this chapters is very good.

[Great White Prime]

Wondering what's going on?