You should be safe here.

Darkness. Darkness in every direction. Thoughts run through mud and cold infests the darkness. For a long time—or perhaps a short time—nothing happens.

A tremendous roar startles Shade awake. A quick scan of her surroundings reveals a large cavernous area with an equally large, bear towering above her. She had never seen such a bear before—stars litter its coat. The bear bent low to roar in her face.

Shade shields her face and punches with her free limb, connecting with the muzzle of the bear which catches it off guard. “Silence!” she growls at the bear.

The bear had reeled backwards. It stares at the little white pony before him and twitches his nose where the pony had struck him.

Shade gapes at her new limb in horror. “Wh-what?!” An examination of herself reveals her to be an equine instead of her normal self. Rage flushes the surprise out of her system and she vents her anger at the bear, “What in the Hell happened to me? Is this your doing? Answer me!”

The bear did not know what to do. This was his first time encountering a pony not afraid of him. At first, he had intended to remove the intruder from his cave, but now, the pony hurt him and looks angry. The bear turns away from the ivory pony to run to his mother for help.

With a huff, Shade stomps after the hulking, blue bear. She finds walking in this form surprising normal. Luckily, her vision from her previous form had carried over so tracking down the bear in the dark cave did not challenge her in the slightest. Shade stops in her tracks and cranes her head back to look up at the creature the blue bear had clung on to—a purple bear, five times the blue bear’s size and even more imposing: the claws tipping the purple bear’s paws easily matches Shade’s size and the canines hanging down from its jaw equal in length.

“Better to see if this body can fight now, rather than later,” Shade comments lackadaisically as she cracks her neck and stomps towards the bears with a grin on her muzzle.

Shade charges at the bears. The purple bear swipes at the pony which Shade slides under and she positions herself to buck the blue bear's belly with her rear legs. Her hit has more of a success. The purple bear roars angrily and stands up to her full height, shielding her cub behind her. Now, the pony will not make it out the cave alive.

Shade jumps over the paw sent at her as he claws dig into the stony ground. She runs up the arm and head butts the surprised bear in the face. Shade capitalizes on the stunning attack by feeding the bear a strong left hook.

The bear grabs Shade and starts crushing the pony in its massive paws. Shade strains to push the paw open. When it opens suddenly, she finds herself falling to ground. Another purple swipe swings at her. She balls herself to absorb the damage. She did not see the purple bear's follow up strike and the claws prick her and stab her as she is crushed to the ground.

Her breath escapes her. She feels a claw stab into her side and is relieved when the claw can not pierce her hide. With bravado renew, she manages to roll to her side and kick the bear claw pinning her and breaks it in half.

Shade finds herself wishing for her sword right about now. Guess she has to settle on bashing their skulls in. After three hours of brawling with both bears, Shade emerges victorious. She removes her forehooves from the split in the blue bear's skull.

“It is good to see,” Shade spits out the blood from her mouth which paints the ground orange, “that my body is still durable.”

She climbs off of the blue bear and falls to the ground when her right foreleg gives out. Her body screams in pain when she makes contact with the stone ground. A hissing and strings of expletives escape through her clench jaw. The bears had given her quite the thrashing, no surprise there, but were the bears leaving the cave? Shade beams from ear to ear as she limps through the darkness.

“I still got it,” she comments to herself in victory. "A horn would have been a nice addition though. Or a sword. Or an axe."

Light illuminates the bend of the passage she follows. She limps faster to the light. Her hoof kicks something and she hears the object skid across the floor and stop against the stony wall. She lowers her head to inspect the object. She discerns the object as a horn of some sort—a broken piece.

The horn had led her to a short wall of stalagmites and broken pieces of wood with pulverized red stones. The box had seen better days but was unsalvagable. The red pieces of stone was ruby. Peering over the wall leads to her discovery of a pair of faux leather bags. She grabs the material connecting the two with her teeth and takes them with her as she heads for the light.

At the entrance of the cave, Shade opens the bags and rummages through their contents to find: two canteens of water, two stale round cakes (?) of hard bread that has a hint of honey, two bandages, a compass, a map, sunglasses (which she had immediately put on to keep the stabbing light out of her eyes), sixteen gold coins, a coil of hempen rope, flint and steel fire starter, a knife, and three packs of gauze. Quite the cache. She returns to the cave to explore more of the place. Maybe the bears had a treasure horde of sorts?

Shade spends the rest of the day searching the cave system finding quite a number of valuables: she arduously picks up the ruby pieces with her mouth, one hundred and twenty-two more of those gold coins, a bag twice her size (where she found in the chamber where the bear’s bodies rest in), three necklaces of gold that appear to be ancient, two bracelets of silver with a gem of some sorts encrusted in them, faded tapestry and rugs, goblets of varying metals, brittle swords (much to her disappointment), battered helmets, a breastplate slightly too small for her, gems, and crystals. She makes her way out of the cave with pale light spilling between the branches of the trees.

Memorization of the map reveals a town called “Ponyville” to east. As tempting as the name sounds, Shade wants to explore the area for more treasure. Her grumbling stomach also reminds her to keep an eye out for food. She tightens the large bag of her treasures, yet to be full, onto her back and heads south.