Nobody dared to question the process of flight-and-teleport once another sound of wood snapping filled the caverns mere seconds after Natalie got off the bridge. Although, they merely did it much faster in the event that another lich-wyrm or potential dragon was resting in the second chasm beneath the third now-broken bridge. In silence, descending deeper into the darkness that grew colder and colder, the group trotted on after crossing the obstacle.

It went like this for several minutes on end as winding hall after winding hall was traversed, each chillier and decidedly more ice-riddled than the last. It felt like an eternity since anyone, or indeed anything, had last spoken, much less saw the sun's light. Hours may well have passed them by in this cave, with everyone being none the wiser to it.

Katie kept her ears upright and to attention, wondering what aside from possible drakes and wyrms had everyone so tight-lipped all of a sudden. Fenrir and his disdain for being levitated, she could very well understand, and she couldn't exactly communicate with Harry, Angel, nor Owlowiscious. Yet everyone else… at their silence she couldn't help but fidget her bound legs uncomfortably as she was toted along. And in a way, their lack of vocalizing whatever was on their minds had become almost deafening.

Their very silence was… unusual, to say the least. Wrong, even. The lich-wyrm's warning did little to abate her growing concerns; if anything, that was just more fuel for that particular fire. More wary glances were going to the walls and floor now, and as more of the cavern floors became slick with sheets of ice, that she could very well excuse. She was, however, beginning to understand Maria's earlier reservations, albeit for a different reason.

So Katie did what came naturally for her: she broke the tense tranquility by daring to speak, for it was all she could do then. "Alright, what has your tongues this time?" she asked. She did not expect every single set of eyes to fall on her followed by mute stares, although in a few seconds she'd received her answer.

"I was thinking… is it really wise to even stay within Greenwood's… borders once we got there?" Blueblood asked, his gaze averting to Lance rather questioningly. "I mean, it's just some village… or possibly hovel, and nothing more?"

"You would not believe me even if I told you," Anna murmured in response, her voice as low and cold as the ice that surrounded the group. Her eyes flashed crimson briefly, and her face twisted into a scowl, which only caused Katie's ears to droop. She knew what that look meant, and it made her recently-restarted stomach twist into several tight knots just registering its unspoken meaning. "I'd rather... " she paused, turning to start trotting down the seemingly-never-ending hall they'd found themselves in, "let it wither, to put it lightly."

"Let Greenwood wither? Whatever has that town done to upset you?" Blueblood asked, only garnering a slow shake of the head from Lance as he began to trot after Anna again.

"A lot," Anna hissed, and she left it at that. The group's walk-trot began anew, and the vocal silence once more settled in place and became its own deafening din. Katie could not help but let her fidgety legs, bound as they were, drop as much as they could. Her stomach twisted in on itself some more, and her mind began to fill with a sense of clawing dread. She opened her mouth to speak, to ask what was wrong, but her voice died in her throat before it could leave with an empty exhale of air.

She gave the lich-wyrm's warning some more thought and shuddered when she saw his unsavory implications clear as day. Did Greenwood, perhaps, pose some small threat? Or would it be Frostbite Haven all over again? The way Lance and Anna had been mum about it didn't help either; would they even keep the three-day promise or bolt with everyone else in tow at the first chance they got?

Katie started mentally reviewing all that had happened since the group entered the caverns and the night before, paying special heed to the bits of body language she caught sight of. About Eve's warnings. Her eyes narrowed as her stomach soon gathered the newfound determination to turn itself into an unsavory pretzel. She turned to the ice that cascaded on the walls, glaring at her own passing reflection as if it could convey anything other than what she was presently doing.

She didn't pay attention to anything else for a few minutes, though her ears remained fixed upright, trying to catch sounds that simply weren't being made. At least, until Sarah bumbled into her immediate view and averted her gaze. "How're you holding up?" Sarah asked.

Katie's ears drooped, and she took a few seconds to process the question. "Meh," she answered tersely, hoping that was a good enough answer. "I think my tail fell asleep."

Sarah nodded and turned her gaze onto Lance and Anna. "To be honest, I don't want to go to Greenwood either," she murmured, the utterance low enough that Katie had to lift her ears just to catch it. She spread her good wing and waved for emphasis with an added, "Especially not like this."

Katie found herself nodding in agreement. She cocked her head when Blueblood fell back to trot at Sarah's side, sporting a tight frown that marred his muzzle. "How much longer until we exit these blasted caverns?" he groused, eyes narrowing to tiny slivers.

Pinkie turned her head to the right, finding a very thick and oddly-shaped portion of ice about to pass her. She stopped in her tracks and stared at it, putting a hoof to her chin as her tail began to twitch violently. Buried in the frost, she could make out clumps of stone that had glowing blue crystals jutting outward, with some making claws and others making sharp spines for reasons she couldn't glean. Two in particular were long, easily the length of one of Lance's wings, yet they faced downward rather casually.

Spike flinched and whimpered as Twilight trotted past, eyes going wide and round as dinner plates the very instant he saw the twitching tail. "Something's gonna fall!" he yelled with an air of hysteria, in turn causing everyone else to grind to a halt and turn to him on the spot.

"What the hell are you on about?" Lance asked, both brows raised high.

The portion of ice Pinkie was staring at shifted slightly, though this only caused her to gasp and twitch her tail that much more. One of her knees began to buckle in tandem with her tail-twitching, and once it did Applejack started to pale. "It's your Pinkie Sense, ain't it?" she guessed.

Pinkie hastily nodded, and opened her mouth to say something when the portion of ice pulsed with blackish-blue mana. One part of the ice then broke free, swinging outwards with a mighty heave and dragging a pony-sized chunk of stone with it, nearly catching Pinkie in the snout in doing so. Pinkie jumped back, her tail going into twitching overdrive as another portion of frozen stone came loose. Then, joints formed, made of stone slick with ice and about as large as two ponies' heads by a fair margin.

Both parts of stone then crashed to the floor, cracking the ice beneath themselves as with another tug, another part that was easily the size of Princess Celestia came loose, supported by the fragments that came first. It twisted around its middle, forming a fearsome set of jaws lined with icicles for teeth.

Matt summoned Heaven's Gate with a snarl. "Oh goody, an ice golem," he hissed as two more protrusions broke loose close to an approximation of where shoulders would be, with both ending in wicked blades of ice that came swinging towards Pinkie. Again, Pinkie backed away before sidestepping, narrowly missing the twin swords by mere inches. "Who let this sadsack stay here?"

The golem in question turned its stony, frozen frame to Matt in a manner that suggested it had heard him somehow. Matt leaned a little to one side, eyelids drooping as a small frown cropped on his face. "Too many of us, only one of you…"

With that, he stuck his sword in one of the golem's legs, wedging the very tip just under the joint before tugging the handle down. The joint popped free, and the sword levitated back as the golem promptly fell on its side with a low groan and ceased pulsing with mana on the spot. The ice encasing it crushed as it collapsed, before flaking off and leaving just the stone and crystals that made up its body more or less intact.

However, it was still moving afterwards. It planted its crystal-blades down into the stone floor and started to crawl to Matt, leaving the leg that got its joint removed behind. "Nada," he stated as he retracted his sword with ease.

"Not gonna finish it off?" Anna asked, watching as the golem tried to crawl to Matt with a pitifully slow pace, not helped by the fact that the ice on the floor was breaking it up and further slowing it down.

"Nah, let it crawl." Matt trotted to, then around the golem before it could even swipe at him. "It'll repair itself once we let it alone." He went specifically for the golem-shaped hole that had just been made, and started eying it up and down as soon as he stopped at Pinkie's side to better examine the anomaly.

The hole, amazingly enough, led into yet another hallway, although another hallway that had much less ice than the one they were presently standing in. Matt squinted his eyes at it. "Huh." He trotted closer, sword hovering next to him at the ready…

Nothing came out from the crevice. Pinkie looked at Matt, still frowning. "Is the golem really gonna repair itself?" she asked.

Matt used his sword to gesture to the golem's severed leg. Pinkie turned to the limb and gasped as, slowly, the leg began to move by itself, kicking at the floor with all its might. Of course, the rest of the golem was farther away, inching toward Lance and Anna who merely took to the air, one of which using her magic to do so. The severed limb had little hope of successfully catching up, regardless of how hard it was trying to.

"These caves seem larger than I remember…" Matt murmured, shrugging before he trotted into the new hole.

Lance and Anna followed him, pausing only to actually land at the hole's entrance. "Maybe ponies started mining them?" Pinkie suggested, hopping behind Lance.

"I don't see anything suggesting such; no minecarts, rails, or scaffolding to hold the rocky ceiling up," Lance replied with a shrug. "Let alone much of a reason to mine these specific parts of the caves."

"Why not? There's plenty of crystals to go around," Pinkie retorted, only causing Spike to snort as Twilight cantered up at her side. Pinkie turned to Spike, a brow raised. Spike kept silent for several minutes on end as Anna, Matt and Lance led the rest of the entourage down another winding hall or three, oddly with less and less ice and crystals as they marched.

"Those crystals are volatile. They attack you if you so much as poke them," Spike replied solemnly, shaking his head.

Katie piped up from the back of the line, "I got to be a guinea pig last night! Almost got set on fire and frozen simultaneously, with a side-order of paralysis!"

"Something like that," Spike stated with a shrug.

Pinkie's frown deepened, and her ears fell back. "Is being frozen and burned at the same time possible?" she queried.

"Yes, Pinkie, it is. So is being frozen and paralyzed," Twilight replied with a shrug. "But being set on fire and frozen at once… that I find as likely as something exploding twice, even when accounting for paralysis."

"Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but that is indeed possible," Anna interjected from up ahead. Twilight turned to look at her incredulously, noticing an encroaching red light coming from a yawning hole up ahead. Anna conjured three crystal arrows with a flash of light, making sure each was a different color. "Freezing and setting things on fire, that is. I'll show you one of these days, once I can find a suitable target."

Twilight ignored Anna's second utterance and sighed as she squinted her eyes to better look at the source of the incoming light, noticing subtle oranges and yellows permeating the predominate red that stemmed from something which jutted upright from the floor. Noticing a deep brown hue upon the object, as well as its square top from which the reds and oranges and yellows exploded and its cylindrical body, she cocked her head. "A torch? Who put this here?" she asked.

Matt paused before he could pass the torch, and Anna and Lance slowed to a stop behind him. All three turned to the torch and pursed their lips, opening their mouths to answer before closing them, shrugging, and promptly continuing on their way. Twilight's brow furrowed and she sighed in exasperation. So much for that. After that, though, more torches cropped up as the group trotted. Some were spaced mere feet from each other, while others had entire yards' worth of space all to themselves, and others still were so close their flames actually merged into one large ball that gave off more heat.

Yet again everyone went tight-lipped, passing each torch or two wordlessly with gazes rigidly fixed ahead. Katie sighed after several more minutes of silence came and went, her annoyance and boredom only growing because of it. She took to twisting her head left and right, letting her tongue dart out to wrap around her own muzzle just to see how tight she could hold it shut. As an added touch, she tried looping it into a rather loose bow-shaped knot, but with no hooves to move as hers were bound, all she could achieve was what could be best described as a tangle.

Attempt after attempt only made the pale, prehensile tongue twist and turn with all the grace of a shoddily-made trail, but she giggled when the tongue started to form into ruder shapes, or at the least close approximations thereof. But she retracted her tongue after the delicate act of making some questionably-shaped protrusions with which to gesticulate at Lance failed to keep her entertained for more than five minutes, so she settled on the next best thing. "Are we there yet?" Katie asked.

"Does it look like we're there yet?" Lance hissed in irritation, not even bothering to look over his shoulders. He fanned his wings out and gestured to the stone around them, though the motions looked more like wild exasperated flailing on his part. "Does it?!"

"No," Katie answered with a titter of amusement.

"Then keep that trap of yours shut," Lance hissed, folding his wings closed.

Katie rolled her orbs dismissively. She felt a prominent itch on her back, and twisted her head to try and pinpoint whatever the irritant was, only to dim her orbs as she spotted four little bulbous buds where her wings were. She turned her head around again, making a mental note to eat meat that night.

~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~

The group had followed the torches diligently, all the way to the other side of the cavern where a thick forest with a line of torches weaving through the trees was the first thing to greet them, and by that point all their limbs were sore and dragging hooves and claws tiredly. "Okay, those caves have gotten much longer. Did the lich-wyrm dig burrows?" Matt groused.

Lance mutely shrugged and looked up as the sky came into view, scowling as he spotted a navy backdrop housing numerous glittering stars. Everyone's stomach growled, and some winced, now regretting their decision to not take at least one biscuit with them on the go. Lance simply parked where he was, and turned his attention back to the forest ahead. He immediately noticed barren branches, illuminated only by the torchlight.

Everyone else had parked too, and all horns except for Twilight's were red-hot and steaming. Katie wiggled her legs as Harry shifted to let her rest against his chest. "Alright Smartass, what do we do?" she asked, orbs poised on Lance.

Lance let his wings slump against his sides. He turned to Twilight and asked, "Did you bring any food with you? I overheard something about chariots earlier and couldn't help but wonder."

Twilight nodded, and in several flashes of light conjured… apples. A lot of apples. Enough apples to fill a crate snugly, in fact. "It's not much, and I don't hunt for my food, so… bon apetit." With that, she handed everyone an apple or two, except for Katie. Twilight turned to said wraith and sighed; her lack of teeth meant she had to get a little more creative. "You want applesauce?"

Katie's ears perked up at that. "Sauce? Apples can become sauce?" she asked, a note of disbelieving in her voice.

Twilight resisted the urge to facehoof and nodded. "Yes, but only the pulp and skin. So… you want applesauce?" she repeated.

Katie nodded. "Just don't stick a funnel in my throat and I'll chow," she chirped.

Twilight nodded, and conjured a bowl of wood, a small knife forged of light, a spoon, and a mortar. She set to work coring and grinding an apple into something that Katie wouldn't have problems with, while everyone else bit into their apples with relish.

Lazarus paused, looking at his freshly-bit apple wide-eyed in a manner that suggested it somehow gained sentience and told him off. It took him a few seconds to bite into it again, and that time a smile crept on his face. "Who grew this sweet lil' nubbin?" he asked the moment he finished chewing and swallowed. "Because this is a very good apple!"

Several hooves, in that moment, pointed at Applejack. The owners of the hooves were smiling even as they polished off their snack. Lazarus turned to Applejack, who merely smiled back and wolfed down her treat. "T'weren't nothin'," she chirped. "Just brought these on the airship from Mythos 'case we needed 'em. Made sure to have Twi work her magic on 'em for easy transport."

By that point, Twilight had finished up with the applesauce and hoofed the bowl and spoon over to Katie to see how she'd tackle the issue with her legs tied. She bit into her apple as that four-foot tongue undulated and gingerly wrapped around the spoon's handle, lifting it up and down a few times as if testing its weight.

"Should we stop her before she eats the spoon?" Sarah asked, watching the scene intently.

Armin waved her off with a hoof, also watching. "I think she has a throat sac. It'll be fine," he stated. Katie had taken her first scoop of sauce and crammed the whole thing, spoon and all, into her throat, though not before tilting her muzzle all the way up to spare everyone from seeing it actually go down the gullet. It took a few seconds, but the spoon came back out still wrapped and this time without applesauce stuck to it.

Lance flexed his wings and turned to look at the sky again, seeing nary a cloud overhead. "Well, looks like we're in the clear. We'll just wait for Katie to finish up her grub, and then…" He turned to the ground once more, noticing the erratic line of dimming torches up ahead. "I don't remember those being here either."

Twilight turned to the torches and frowned. "Maybe they lead to Greenwood?" she suggested.

She saw Lance shaking his head in the corner of her eye, frowning rather ruefully. "Likely, or to a place near it. And unless we started flying and levitating again, we'll be stuck here for a week trying to scrounge for it on ground," he hissed.

Twilight sighed, before several lightbulbs went off in her head when 'flying and levitating again' left Lance's mouth. A thought hit her before the mental gears could start to grind, and she paused just shy of opening her mouth. Spike, however, was all too happy to ask something she'd only just now considered, "Are there any lich-wyrms here, outside the caverns?"

Lance shrugged, still frowning. "Likely, and frankly I don't want to risk any chances. All of us are running low on energy at this point, so something that drastic wouldn't be wise," he hissed.

"Fair enough," Spike agreed with a nod. He turned to Katie, who had stopped using the spoon entirely and simply took to slurping helpings of applesauce at her leisure. He walked over to inspect her bowl, finding the spoon laying in a very shallow pool of sauce at the bottom.

Katie slurped up the rest of the sauce and chittered, head bobbing up and down fervently. "I'm full," she cooed.

Twilight turned to her and made the bowl and spoon vanish in light, and then she got up and stretched her legs a bit. "Everyone ready?" she asked.

Blueblood stood up and snorted. "As ready as one can expect… to flop into the nearest bed," he hissed sardonically.

Lance stood up and cricked his neck a little. "Same here." He turned to the torches as everyone else rose, and he took a moment to see where they were going. The torches veered sharply to the left, but past a few trees split into two paths, both of which he could barely make out as their glow was dying. He began trotting towards the one that veered farther to the left, and the group fell in step behind him. "I wonder where this goes…"

Spike's eyelids drooped as he assessed the situation. "Okay… village full of possibly dangerous folks of currently-unknown species, which Lance of all ponies wants to avoid, and a trail into a forest on par with the Everfree…" he mumbled in a dejected, sarcastic tone of voice. Then he threw his claws into the air. "What could possibly go wrong?"

Katie turned to Spike and shrugged. "What, you're expecting nothing too bad here?" she asked.

Spike shook his head. "Eh, nothing worse than flippin' Frostbite," he stated.

Katie rolled her orbs and flapped her regrowing wing-nubs. "Well, given Brassballs's disposition, I'm inclined to think that it won't all be sunshine and dandelions," she stated with another shrug. "Especially if he's not willing to stick around for more than three days tops."

Spike turned to Katie and arched a brow. "So… have you run into a lich-wyrm before today?" he asked.

Katie's orbs dimmed momentarily, and she stared for a few seconds prior to nodding. "A couple of times, but none were as grouchy as the one in the caves. Then again, we kinda did interrupt his nap and we kinda did attack him on top of that. I'd be pretty pissed too, if that were to happen to me," she replied, tilting her head. "It's like breaking into someone's house and then mailing the victim with a return address weeks after—basically something that's just begging for a good asskicking."

Spike nodded, seeing Katie's point. "Any lich-dragons?" he tried.

Katie shook her head. "Zilch," she stated tersely.

A low hum filled the air, and Katie snapped her gaze forward, ears straining to make out just where the noise was coming from. She caught sight of Lance looking up and tilting his head, so she followed suit to see what had managed to catch his attention this time.

An airship sailed across the sky without warning, close to the treeline and barely illuminated by dying torchlight as it went. Its thin, glittering wings flapped just once, and from that airship came that hum. It vanished from sight after a few hundred yards or so, but oddly enough through the act of dropping beneath the treeline itself. Something shot from it as it descended, but moved so quick she couldn't even catch it.

"Well then," Lance huffed, turning ahead again. "Looks like we got an airship to catch. Again." He picked up his pace, to the point he started galloping. This caused a chain reaction; everyone likewise began hurrying after him to see where the airship landed and whatever the hell it was doing in the immediate area. Before they could get more than a few feet from the torches, though, a bright green light started glowing overhead. It grew brighter within seconds, almost like a halo in of itself.

"General, sir, stooooooop!" a feminine voice screeched with an unearthly reverb, and within seconds everyone looked up to see Sergeant Cassida homing in on them with green fire encasing her, hooves outstretched and a sickly trail being left in her wake. With surprised whinnies, squawks, and howls the group ground to a halt and hid behind the nearest trees just before Cassida could land on anybody, impacting the ground and snuffing out her flames in one sitting.

Silence settled as Cassida lay there, crumpled on the ground, face-first in the dirt with a massive scorch mark singing the area around her. Slowly, Lance poked his head around from the tree he took shelter behind, his heart stopping for just a moment as he studied the unmoving form that very nearly crashed into his party. When he saw her chest shakily rise, he emerged and made a beeline for her, kneeling down to better inspect his soldier.

He nudged her withers with a hoof, turning her over when he saw nothing more than a few scrapes and bruises. He winced as his action revealed a snout leaking blood and a pair of twisted forehooves beneath it. Yet her green eyes were wide awake and looking at him. "S-sir, A-Armin sent w-word through his r-radio t-telepathically… b-before you got f-far in the c-caves..." Cassida stammered, wincing in pain with each word she spoke. "Going back… t-to Greenwood… w-why?"

"I want to go around it, not to it," Lance clarified, internally facehoofing but outwardly sighing. "But some of my charges…" He looked to Applejack as she emerged and came over, "want to go into that village."

Cassida nodded with a groan, and shifted her now-bad hooves under her. Lance lifted a hoof again and stopped her by planting it on her shoulder. "Good Godcat, you've crumpled yourself up again. Don't move. I'll pick you up," Lance ordered in a stern but gentle voice. He knelt down and used his wings to nudge and guide her onto his back, being mindful of her new wounds. Applejack silently helped her climb aboard, and made sure she was steady before Lance rose to stand again.

"Th-thank you, s-sir…" Cassida murmured, before her brain caught up to the fact that Lance had used his wings. "Y-you got… out of the…" she trailed off, her voice riddled with disbelief.

"I had help, but yes, my wings are no longer tied," Lance replied, turning a full circle to see everyone else coming out of hiding. "Just tell us where the airship is, please. And leave it on the ground; we're dead-tired on our hooves."

Cassida nodded again, this time smiling. She noticed that Applejack was still staring at her. "R-relax… this i-isn't the first t-time I c-crashed," she murmured.

"Well, it's just that…" Applejack trailed off when Cassida lifted a hoof to gesticulate northwest.

"Th-that way, t-to the ship," Cassida chirped weakly, the limb shaking as she struggled to hold it up through all the pain her body was undergoing. "Tw-twelve miles, a-approximately… f-from h-here."

Lance nodded and started trotting in that direction again. "Did you and the rest of Delta Unit find anything?" he asked.

"W-we did. I-it's on the sh-ship, s-sir, and we f-felt you'd n-need to see i-it," Cassida answered with another nod. "I-it's wh-why we c-came here."