Spike plowed through the bushes, and stumbled upon a small, natural made path leading deeper into the woods.  He took out the map and looked at the grid.  It said he was near the starting point, and he started along the path.  

He walked slowly as the bats screeched and the owls who'd, It was very dark, but the light from the fireworks and his torch made a successful lamp.  The dirt was dry, but  the grass along the dirt was wet.  It was rare that would happen, for the dew would have been soaked up by the dirt, and made mud.  But this time, the dirt avoided it.  He saw that the trees made a wall and connected over his head, so he thought of it as an archway of leaves.  The moon was barley visible behind the branches, and the wind was blowing towards him, from ahead in the darkness.  

He took another look at the map, which he pulled out of his scale pouch, and it said that it was leading away from the dirt path, across the wet dew grass, and into a large group of dense trees.  He hopped of the trail, and crossed over onto the woods.  He couldn't see a few feet ahead of him from the darkness, so he smacked into a few trees along the way.  The grass and leaves crunched under his scaly feet, and he pushed away the small twigs and bendable branches.  The whole thing felt like, well, a treasure hunt, but he thought to himself, that how could such a childish game, turn into such a deadly risk for fortune.  There was always a hint of doubt, and those fiends he escaped were still out in the woods, but he stuck to his mission.

He was almost through the patch of trees and twigs.  He pushed the remaining branches out, and hopped into another dirt path, he took one look at the map, and it stated that he was on the right trail.  It showed a long, swiveled line, standing for the trail, and then a big, dark hole.  What in Equestria could that mean?  He started down the trail, and it looked like the old one he was on.  It was untouched by the dew, and the trees overlapped each other, making the moon hardly visible.  He grabbed a few leaves and twigs, and threw them into the torch with his arm, since he was fireproof, and the torch blew brighter.

The trail he walked was very long, it was about ten minutes later, when he finally reached a fork in the trail.  There were to options, they both had rugged old, wooden signs written in a sloppy hand writing, Spike leaned over to the one on the left and tried to read it.  He couldn't see it, so he brought the torch closer to it, but to his mistake, he sent a few sparks onto the sign, and it caught on fire.  It burned very fast, and when it was finally put out, it was unreadable.  

"Great, just great," he sighed, and walked over to the other one.  It was written in a neater hand writing than the other one, but still hard to read, it said 'Everfree Caves' on it, and an arrow pointing down the path.  He couldn't make up his mind, so after a random decision of 'catching a pony by the hoof', he decided to go down the path with the burned sign, away from the caves.

He walked down the path, and discovered a small ditch and the trail stopped.  It was a cliff, about 20 feet high, but it didn't feel like he was climbing a hill.  He came to a conclusion that it was a dead end, and he looked out into the open sky.  He could see Canterlot, and the Gala.  He could pick out the Wonderbolts flying around the palace, and see more fireworks.  He looked below and tried to spot out the path opposite of the one he took.  He found it, and walked back to the fork in the road. The moon was moving very slowly, about twice as slow as normal, he knew that Princess Celestia would leave the moon up for an extra amount of time, wanting the Gala to be very long.  He arrived back at the fork, and took the other trail.

When he reached the end of the trail, there was no cave entrance, no huge rock formation, only a pile of leaves, so it didn't make sense.  He thought hard, "Did I go the wrong way? No! I followed the map correctly,"  He couldn't solve the problem, so out of frustration, he ran over and kicked the pile of leaves.  The leaves exploded into a raining storm of them, they swirled around, and were pushed away by the wind.  Spike sat on the dirt, disappointed, but when he turned and looked at where the pile of leaves once were, there was a wooden door.

"What?"

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He looked at it in a discovering way, what was it?  He inched towards it, and the door squeaked, and opened up, all on its own!  How could this be, it wasn't the wind, not a breeze blew by after the leaves had settled, and nopony else was around him.  He looked down into the door, and all he could see was darkness, a black hole... Wait! It looked like the one on the map.  This is what it must of meant!  There was a broke ladder dug into the side of the hole.  The inside of the hole was rock, so it must lead to the caves.  Spike, without hesitation, hopped into the hole, and climbed down the ladder.  

The Darkest of Descents

He went down deep, it was a hundred cross ties of the ladder exactly, when he reached the floor.  There was a gross stench in the air.  The floor, it was solid dirt, and the walls and ceiling were made of rock.  It was so dark, even the torch could only see a few feet ahead of him, so he kept close to the ground with the light, so watch where he was stepping.  The ceiling was 7 feet above him, and everything looked so strange.  It didn't look like any cave he had seen before, but couldn't get a full analysis on it because there was not much to see.  He stumbled upon something in the long cave that would help him, it was a lantern, but it was missing a glass lens.  

It was no problem to Spike.  He knew that behind the rock, there would be a layer of sand.  He tried to look around for something to break the rock, and he found a rock of iron, and bashed the rock in with it.  The humidity was warm, so the rock was a bit softer then he expected, and when he reached it, a little hose of sand poured out of the wall.  He plugged up the hole, with the iron, and cupped the sand in his hands.  He measured the lantern hole, and blew his fire into the sand, turning it into a glass lens, good as new.  He pulled a spark out of his mouth, and lit the medium sized candle in the lantern.  He put the lens in, and it shined like a flashlight.  He looked around, and the light shined 30 feet now.  He traveled down the cave, and everything started to seem more strange.  He was beginning to think that it wasn't a natural cave.  Why was there a lantern down here, and the cave seemed to stay the same width and height the whole time.  Then, he figured out where he really was, when he looked down again, there were railway ties.  It wasn't a cave, it was a mine...

He pulled out the map, and jotted down where he was, the next picture was leading to another opening.  It was a large door, that seemed to look like stone, and a line, probably standing for the mine system.  He concluded that it meant that he was supposed to follow the cave system.  He put the map away, and ran down the mine hall.  This is where his true adventure begins!  The lantern was jumping up and down from Spike's jog.  It was the same sight over and over, rock walls and rock ceilings.  He came up to another fork in mine.  Three entrances, and there were no signs pointing in any directions.  "What do I do here?" his voice echoed,  he pulled out the map, and it didn't say anything, but he never did check the other side.

There was writing on the back, and a few numbers written on it.  It was a written in neat handwriting, it said that there would be three entrances, like the ones in front of Spike and that the right one would be revealed 'all in good time'.  It must be a riddle,  but what does 'all in good time' mean?  He decided to take a look around the mine for a clue.  

He found another entrance, but it was a wooden door, leading to a small room.  There was a desk, a few papers on it, and many drawers.  Next to the drawers, there was a closet.  Spike walked in the room, and checked everything.  He started off with the desk.  There were a few drawers in it, he opened each of them, only to find some old pens, a few erasers, about 50 gold coins, which he couldn't take, and lot's of spider webs.  The light flickered as he looked at the papers on the desk, and they were from about 70 years ago.  They were just some job applications for a mining company, that went bankrupt a long time ago.  

"They were looking for something," Spike thought, "Something they wanted to keep a secret, I never heard of this operation in the history books,"  He walked over to the dresser with the big draws next to the closet, and he opened up the first one.  Nothing but spiders and cobwebs.  The next one, more coins and a few gems, which Spike gobbled down on.  He also found a candle, and put it in the lantern, the old one was melted to the core and to old to last.  The last one, a key.  A very old fashioned key with two pivots on it, and a little handle.  He kept it in his hand, and walked over to the closet.  He tried to push and pull on it.  It was locked, with a very old fashioned lock.  Obviously the key fit into the lock, and he pulled open the closet door, and a rush of wind blew into him, almost blowing out his new candle lantern out.  What? This was a closet, no way there could be wind! But there was, he felt it.  "That was very, uh, very paranormal," he stuttered.

In the closet, there were some shelves with bottles of unknown substances, more coins, a few gems, and many cobwebs.  He searched the shelves, he ate the gems, and tossed away the coins.  They had no meaning to him.  He was on the last shelve, and there was a bottle of a very old wine sitting on the last item of the shelve.  He picked it up, it felt empty, and the title of the wine was The Good Times: Fine Grape Wine.  "Wait, Good Times? Time!" he figured out the riddle.

He opened the bottle, and a piece of paper fell out of it.  "A message in a bottle? How original," he thought and chuckled.  He unfolded the paper, it was old, musty, and torn on each edge.  It also had a brown tint to it.  It had an arrow pointing in a forward direction, and that was it.  He put it in his pouch, along with the map, and ran back with his lantern to the three entrances.  He ran down the center one, it was wider than the original one, and had a ceiling of about 9 to 10 feet.

He walked down the mine for another twenty minutes, and by the time he reached an actual point of interest, he had been down underground for an hour and a half.  He came upon another glowing light around the corner, and blew the lantern out, no need to waste the candle.  There were torches stuck  in the wall, but the cave was almost a century old, how could torches be lit?  He ignored the fact, and at the end of the mine, there was a huge circular door.  He popped open the map, and the door was, uh, some what correct to the drawing.  It looked ancient, and looked like it rolled over to be open, but how would he get in there.  He noticed there was writing on the door.  They were scattered and all over the door, and they were written in a odd language.  "How can I read this?", then there was a gust of wind from behind him, and it bounced off the door, and the letters written on the door slid across the stone into one sentence.

Present your reason of why you got here.

His reason of why he came?  Well, he came in search of treasure, "I came for the riches," he called out,

"Wrong answer," the door spelled out,

"What? That's why I'm here,"

"How did you get here?" the door spelled out.

He searched his pouch, and pulled out the key and the letter with the arrow on it.

"Present them," the door spelled out once more,

He brought them over to the door, and he watched as another gust of wind wished around them, and lifted up the paper.  The paper flew up in the air, and then burned up and evaporated, then the door spelled out, "Correct, put the key in the slot," and a little rock fell of the wall and revealed a slot that would fit a key.  He walked over, looked at the key, and slid it in.  It sucked the key up, and then closed.  The door rumbled,

"You may enter, adventurer," it stated, and then rolled over and opened.  The torches blew out, and Spike took out another spark from his mouth, and lit the lantern.  Behind the door, there was a huge architectural change in the mine.  It was no longer a mine, but a temple design, and a large staircase leading up towards another bright light.

All of his friends were still at the Grand Galloping Gala, probably having fun, but Spike was loving this.  Spike had nowhere to go but up, and he started walking up the many stairs, with only the gusts of unnatural wind and the echoing of the footsteps to accompany him.