Shortly past midday
April 6th, 71 BNM
Nokotaford Royal Palace
Queen Aurora’s office chambers

She’d received word of Starswirl’s ‘dreamwalking’ and coming into contact with the Wizard in the Citadel, Siral, and his seven powerful beings. But it had been the Salamander, Chack, giving a witness account inside the same dreamscape that lended the credibility needed to not doubt it.
A letter from Luna in the Crystal Empire, saying she’d sensed erratic activity over the vast dream world, corroborated the events of last night.
Now she, Starswirl, Chack and a pair of key generals collaborated in her office chambers.

“You are sure?”
“Yes. I don’t know how it works exactly, but when these dreams come, they’re always right. Whatever happened, Siral has been somehow, silenced, and the minions he has have been affected, they’re disordered, it is like an echo I hear from them in my dreams. That blasted prophecy makes me too aware of them for my liking.”
Reclining back somewhat in her throne seat, Queen Aurora asked suggestively:
“Perhaps this is a good thing? They’re falling apart by some cause we don’t have to contribute to, leaving them weak.”
“Not the way it is happening. Right as I felt Siral’s power growing with theirs, right as they were slowly seeming to blur together into one presence far away, something just snapped. I fear they might have rebelled against him, maybe killed him.”
“Again, perhaps a good thing?” Aurora pondered, to which Chack, the salamander having been standing away from the 3 ponies and Wizard, remarked bluntly:
“Given their powers, and their violent streaks that Siral’s clearly been stoking like a fire, I would not call them being unleashed a good thing…”
Grimly nodding, regarding the Salamander at half an Alicorn’s body height with less scepticism than her two generals, she turned to them, her expectant look speaking for itself.
General Broadwing, of the Pegasus cavalry groups, shuffled on his hooves slightly as he weighed the knowledge they had, sketchy as it was:
“Less than a day has passed since this, but I see no reason we can’t divert some scouts to investigate. I can have them sent off within a week, equipped and with a Unicorn in case there is still a stronghold there they risk attracting eyes from.”
General Obsidian Aura, a Unicorn stallion of the army, spoke now:
“As for the beings, under Siral’s hoof or not, I can reallocate resources to the new spell development. If they have grown disarrayed, it may give us some breathing time to better improve the Tartarus ritual spells.”
At the latter point, Starswirl’s brow darkened slightly. He had his misgivings about using such raw power, but given he’d been studying Necromantium spells as a last resort, to voice his concerns would be hypocritical of him.
Chack on the other hand, voiced support as he stood near the door:
“I saw enough of that weapon, and of the beings, a few of the at least, at Tartarus. Boosting effort into the only thing that truly did damage to any of them is best, I was in the Nationalists long enough to know they’ll still be scrambling to even scratch the surface of how it works.”
“That settles it then.” Queen Aurora surmised, though Starswirl kept his look of dubiousness to himself, only being shared secretly by Chack.

Same Day
Mid Afternoon
North midland Equestria
Citadel fortress
Upper towers

Pouring through Siral’s personal records, Teal Quirt had taken it upon herself to be the defacto leader of their little group of 6, plus one now mentally emptied seventh.
Countless scrolls, tomes, books and personal notes of the Wizard littered the now disarrayed office, but the scorpion/ape torso’d hybrid was focused primarily on the writings on them each.
Mumbling under her breath, her green magic hovering the papers around her as she read, what she murmured to herself wasn’t pleasant in its implications when it came to long term plans:
“…Mental link, empty minds to make control much easier. Seventh to be created must include small fragments of each of the six to ensure he can manipulate them better. Mind to be easily wiped in event of rebellion on Gaudium’s part…”
Scowling at this, Teal stroked her chin with her ape hand, while her scorpion claws on her lower body snipped at the odd paper stacks lying around the office floor now in aggravated thought.
She made a mental note that Golmov would want to hear this, as would Odi-Viscer. They both shared sentiments on Gauidum that she did as well, and knew of the risks of that Draconeraqus being alive, mind erased as he was.
Caution was a key lesson they willingly maintained from Siral after all he did to them.

Nearby mountains
Labyrinth entrance

The entrance tunnel was deserted, as Golmov sat in the clearing just before it as passively as usual.
He and Odi-Viscer had a simple task, make sure that any survivors didn’t try to flee until they were sure of their next move, be it killing them or offering them a deal of some sort.
So far, only one, a kitchen staff pony, had been bold enough, and likely smart enough without knowing he was waiting, to head out of the labyrinth. His ashen skeleton now rested at the entrance mouth of the tunnel.
The centipede like dragon hybrid fluttered his 4 clawed wings impatiently, yellow eyes fighting off boredom from his end.
Looking at the dirt, he fired a small beam of yellow magic, the dirt compressing many times over until it then flashed a yellow colour, a small pile of raspberry sized, orange sandstone crystals sitting before him.
Looking at the crystals he had created with a glint of draconian greed, Golmov’s expression faltered slightly as one of his centipede like legs fondled the pile. Giving a snort as he carefully examined it, he remarked:
“It is not the same satisfaction, of things taken…”
Flickering his eyes to the entrance again as he sifted the pile of seemingly unappealing, self-made gems, Golmov figured that the satisfaction of his own horde of treasure would come as it always did, gathered, not homemade.

Catacombs, Underground lake bridge chamber

Slithering to the cages, Iena gestured with a clawed hand towards the nearest one, as each of the former staff ponies clambered fearfully into the creaking metal cage suspended over the black lake.
Their fearful eyes would wander over her serpentine body, the changeling plating on her back and siren ears further showcasing her frightening appearance to them. But from what little they knew, she was paltry compared to who was making sure they arrived here.
His footsteps echoing as they made heavy thuds on the bridge, Odi-Viscer’s grey, stone and flesh coated ape like body came to stand a few metres from the cage as the last pony clumsily walked in, Iena’s dark blue magic sealing the door.
“Alright, that’s it, we can hold them here until we decide what to, do…”
As she spoke, Iena turned to Odi-Viscer, but she trailed off as she saw him staring at the cage, and at each of the staff ponies regarding him with terror from inside. His red eyes lit up slightly, and the staff ponies were bathed in a red light as he looked them over.
As a silver glint reflected in each of them, Odi-Viscer grunted to Iena with a growing rage:
“Siral’s influence is in them all.”
“Yes, but we can get Teal, use what she did to Gaudium, free them.”
“You saw Gaudium. Freeing them from Siral’s rule may as well be death to them in all but body as was shown.”
“And I have no reason to let any remnant of Siral endure.”
“Please, we served the master loyally, why are you doing this to us!?”
A desperate plea came from one of the imprisoned staff cooks, a skinny Unicorn stallion who had suddenly grown silent as Odi Viscer and Iena gave him looks, though the latter’s was more of subdued anxiety.
“You are corrupted by his influence, reason enough.”
As he finished, Odi-Viscer’s eyes flared red, as a pair of twin beams shot out, severing the heavy chains suspending the cage above the black lake, a foot out from the bridge. Screams rang from the cage as they began to fall.
But dark blue magic seized the cage, as Iena’s magic caught them mid fall. But the moment the cage stopped in her magical grip, just below the bridge, Odi-Viscer’s tone turned as stony as his skin armour:
“You dare let them live!?”
“We can’t just kill them, they only served the place, nothing more!” Iena rebuked, as she slowly levitated the cage upwards to
“Siral has tricks everywhere, he could use one of them to return somehow. We cannot take chances if we are to be free of him. He must lose everything for what he did to me!”
“He ruined my life too Odi, if you recall our near shared brainwashing yesterday…” Iena drawled, as Odi-Viscer then drew up above her, his massive form double her height as his eyes glowed a fierce red:
“All the more of a betrayal by saving them.”
As she stood her ground, Iena shut her eyes as red flared out.
But as she was bathed in red light, the screams and smell of burning flesh behind her alerted her to what Odi had done.
As she turned, the cage hovering in her magical grasp had been melted in half, and charred remnants of the ponies inside began to slowly spill out to splash below into the water. In shock, her magic released the cage to fall as well, the leeches already swarming to try and gain any edible parts they could.
As she looked on in shock, she turned to see Odi-Viscer standing as impassively as ever, the red in his eyes vanishing as his hard expression contradicted the conciliatory words from his mouth:
“It has to be this way. In time, you will understand.”
Without another word, he left, the stomps of his footfalls echoing over the noises of the leeches down in the lake swarming the sinking cage and the charred pony bodies in there too.
Her snake tail coiling about uncomfortably, Iena rubbed her arm, thinking to herself before she murmured darkly, hesitant in her train of thought:
“I understand. But agreeing is not the same thing.”

Deep catacombs, hidden storehouses levels

Footsteps, and a sort of slithering noise with each step, echoed up the hallway.
Inside the darkened room, they heard the noises.
They had been searching for survivors hiding, rounding them up and trapping them, or else killing them outright. A few screams had echoed already through even the underground sections away from them and above in the upper basement levels.
Wedged between barrels of grain, Tacit Scrivener was within eyesight of the door as it began to open, hued in orange magic.
The pileup of barrels before the door, desperately and hastily erected as a barricade, was a desperate ploy to save them a few minutes.
Squeezing through a small hole between the barrels like a jellyfish, the being of Gluttony came into the darkened grain storage room, body lit up in orange light as its shape changed to a fat minotaur with glowing orange fur and horns.
Satio’s eyes widened at the sight of at least 4 of them hiding here, including the mute scribe, Tacit Scrivener. His own orange ones meeting the terrified Unicorn’s own, Satio looked him over thoroughly from the door barrel pileup, only 10 metres from his hiding spot between grain store barrels.
Giving a slight sigh, Satio slowly shuffled forwards, as the portly orange Minotaur saw every pony he saw hiding in this grain storeroom cower further back into their hiding places. The room was alight with his orange glow, and their fear reflected in their eyes.
Coming up to a barrel, Satio’s orange eyes met Tacit Scrivener’s terrified grey ones. With a small flick of orange magic, the barrel’s latch unhooked, letting a small stream of grain out from the storage, falling into an orange hued magical bowl of sorts.
Slowly, the Minotaur’s gelatinous form sat down, quiet taking the storeroom as he began to quietly, but rather swiftly, eat large quantities of the wheat grain, compressed into large cake-like lumps as he ate them at a nervous pace.
“I needed this, food to calm the nerves…”
As the hybrid Minotaur snacked, the hiding 4 ponies spared slightly nervous glances from their spots, while it was Tacit Scrivener whose gaze was the one Satio was closest to.
“…We’re making our choices today, things could get heated, violent even, if things go wrong. We’re all going to be there in a few minutes.”
After a few moments, as Satio’s gelatinous body levitated some crushed ‘biscuits’ of grain to enter his skin for more direct consumption, he stood up, giving a suppressed belch as he turned around and murmured quietly while he began to compress his body to squeeze back through between the barrels.
“We can afford to leave the maze unguarded while we plan, it is not like you’ll have the initiative to leave while we’re distracted.”
As he remarked these words, the orange morphing shape vanishing through the piled up crates and barrels at the door, Tacit Scrivener turned from his hiding spot to see the other 3 in the storeroom with him.
“Blessing upon us, mercy among the rebel creatures.”
One chambermaid’s whispers carried through the storeroom, though Tacit kept quiet, the Unicorn knowing they still had to get out in the first place.
A echo, from the bridge and lake dungeons it seemed, reverberated through the main hole ridden hallways outside the doors.

Upper hallway levels

As she heard the commotion downstairs from the dungeon lake, the echoes carrying through the holes burst in the floors from the battles less than a day ago through the hallways, Ave-Dol hung her head in despair and lament.
So much paranoia about anyone who followed or gave into Siral’s service, how long before they turned on each other.
As she walked sullenly, her hoof clicked as she came across something metal, discarded amidst a pile of rubble beneath a burst hole in the hallway’s ceiling. Peering down, the Windigo/Alicorn hybrid saw a strange amulet half buried amidst dust and small stone debris loads.
Her light blue magic pulling it out, she saw the blood red gem, and the dark grey metallic Alicorn carving on the amulet. But as she felt it, she felt an echo of pain, and a tinge of sinister power.
All of a sudden, a burning flash in her mind gave her an image forever burned into her mind.
An Alicorn, skin sagging and screaming as he was drained of life and power, his essence and magical power being absorbed by the amulet, one of a fair number.
Dropping it, she gasped at the knowledge that this artefact was born of an Alicorn’s death, and that it was one of many Siral made, wherever the others were.
Carefully, as she saw this horrific item, she blinked a few times, her mouth going dry, before something started to stir in her mind. Thoughts she’d dabbled with among two of the others, but now made certain to her as the right path.
Her light blue magic enveloped the amulet, hovering it to store inside of her flowing, ghostly blue mane, with magic in a way to seal it in there, tangled but removable when needed.

Late-Afternoon
Citadel, Iena’s quarters

They sat in silence, having discussed much between the three of them.
Ave-Dol shifted in her position on the floor, the glowing, Windigo/Alicorn hybrid looking to the other two:
“So we agree then?”
Satio shuffled, the portly orange Minotaur remarking:
“I am. I can’t do this anymore, especially not what may well come later.”
Iena’s coils slithered on her bed slightly, laying a scaly hand on Satio’s thick thigh as she remarked sternly:
“I’m not a monster, but I won’t do anything I don’t want to anymore. Those three can go on with whatever they wish. I want no part either.”
With a slight sigh, Ave-Dol pointed out:
“We cannot leave him though, not in their care. Teal did enough, but the others…”
“I know he suffered, but he’s gone Ave-Dol. He’s aware of how to use his body enough to live, but nothing.”
“I know. But I can’t leave him here. Mind shattered or not, I’ll never be able to live with myself if I leave him in their care.”
Ave-Dol was adamant, while Satio merely grunted as asked:
“When?”
“Before sunset.”
“They won’t let us leave, you know that. They’ve made it clear they want us to be united still.” Iena reminded them, though her expression made it clear she was on board as well.
“We are disunited already. It is too late.”
“He responds to what is immediately before him, like a child. That is all I need...”
Ave-Dol would say no more, only knowing they would have to be swift when the plan came.
Suffice to say that Satio’s prediction of conflict between them with this split would prove correct.

Sunset
Upper catacombs
Garrison quarters

He stared at the wall, seemingly transfixed by it. His red and yellow eyes were blank as his mind however.
Gaudium was passive, placed in this garrison quarters, out of the way, not reinforced for reasons that he was too passive at this point.
But a sound of hooffalls caught his attention, as he slowly turned around to see a light blue glowing figure he vaguely remembered from earlier today. She had a glowing blue body like an Alicorn, but yet also not. Her mane was a fiery red, but her body an ethereal blue.
“Listen to me, we have to leave. There are ones here who might want to hurt you, and we have to leave now. Do you understand?”
Blinking slowly, Gaudium nodded to this strange figure, though her tone was comforting to him, yet somehow, familiar. As if he had heard it a long time ago, that he knew her once.
Slowly standing to his feet, Gaudium the figure, Ave-Dol, take him into a sort of embrace of light blue magical energy, helping steady and hurry him alone as they began to leave.
“Hold on, don’t get scared, I’m just helping us leave swiftly.”
As she began to summon light blue magic to teleport them, Gaudium’s eyes widened ever so slightly at the feeling of cold energy surrounding them.
In a flash of blue, they vanished.
Elsewhere in the castle, a silent alarm spell was activated from Gaudium’s holding area.

3 minutes later
Sunset
Citadel, opposite lake shoreline

Stood in the treeline, just away from the lake shores glistening red on the sunset, the 3 of them were gathered together, Gaudium attatched to Ave-Dol by a magical light blue leash of sorts, the draconeraqus passive and disengaged as the others quickly spoke of their plan.
“We head south as fast as we can, split off in the worst case.”
Ave-Dol finished her remark, as Satio and Iena got ready to teleport. Standing to face Gaudium, Ave-Dol gazed at his snuggle toothed face and spoke calmly, as if she were a mother addressing an unaware child with no understanding of the situation:
“Stick with me, I’ll keep you safe.”
Glazed eyes met hers, as Ave-Dol saw no recognition in Gaudium’s eyes still.
As Satio and Iena were charging to teleport however, a rustle of wind caught their attention, as something flew overhead.
Pausing, Ave-Dol looked around just in time to see the Minotaur and former Pegasus go flying, as something massive shimmered in the air as it had grabbed them and hurled them across the lake.
His massive form glowing yellow as it came out from invisibility, Golmov looped back as Iena shot out a series of long strings of dark blue magic to slow her landing. Satio on the other hand crashed into a small tower of the Citadel, a few bricks falling as his shapeshifting form distorted from the impact and bounced off, drooping in a crumpled heap as it landed in a Citadel garden below.
From up above, in the highest tower, a green light began to grow in brightness as Tea Quirt teleported down, seizing Satio in her claw to hurl him skywards, a green magic aura catching him to then slam him into the ground with a hiss at him:
“Turncoats!”
Back on the shoreline opposite, Ave-Dol urged Gaudium:
“We have to go, they-.”
A loud crash sounded on the hills away from them, as something landed from a massive jump across the lake.
Red light filled the forest beyond as something massive came charging her way, before Odi-Viscer tore through the treeline, red eyes ablaze with all killer instinct trained on Gaudium.
The Draconeraqus’s eyes lit up with subdued fear, all his emotions and reactions subdued in his damaged mental state. But Ave-Dol’s light blue magic shot out, deflecting Odi-Viscer enough to send him charging past to a stumbling halt at the lake’s edge.
As the battle between the beings of Greed and Envy took place against the ones of Lust and Gluttony in the Citadel itself, Odi-Viscer’s red eyes glowed brighter as he stomped up the shoreline, his figure towering over Ave-Dol’s, and standing at least a head taller than Gaudium’s draconeraqus form, yet also much, much more heavily built.
“Odi, please, we don’t have to do this.” Ave-Dol pleaded.
But the being of Wrath would not listen to the being of Sloth, despite her heart being in the right place in what little calm mind existed in him in wake of the treachery to their unity.
“You aid a slave of Siral, corrupted, both of you. Soon, dead as well.”
“Odi, this isn’t you, you’re better than the anger Siral urged you to embrace for power!” She pleaded once more, but the large creature slowly stomped forwards, the stony spikes on his body actually growing as he advanced faster and faster towards her, as she used her magic to shuffle Gaudium behind her:
“It is all I have left after all the lies, as even those who suffered cannot see he and all who are corrupted must die, even you!”
Flaring her light blue magic on Gaudium, before herself, she whispered to the Draconeraqus as the being of Wrath began to charge, hurling a large fir tree aside with a single swipe as a dust cloud rose in the distance from a conflict in the Citadel grounds.
“Stay with me, I’ll protect you.”
All Gaudium could comprehend was that there was danger, and this light blue one was helping him, and the grey and red eyed one wanted to hurt him. Perhaps it was a blessing he was unaware of how much Odi-Viscer wanted him dead just for what he was, what he’d been turned into before losing his mind.
Ignorance was bliss, especially in the wake of such discordant violence unfolding across the valley in the two conflicts.

Author's Notes:

Anyway, now comes the closing part of the Citadel’s fall, and the splitting of the seven. There are two distinct groups in them now, the militants of Teal Quirt, Golmov and Odi-Viscer, and the ones who wish to not get into such trouble right now with Ave-Dol, Satio and Iena, with Gaudium being rescued for his own sake by Ave-Dol.
Given the danger Gaudium is by his existence, if he regains even a sliver of Siral’s mind or his skillset, the militant three want him controlled or dead, and n this circumstance, dead is more likely by necessity.
All the while though, this is happening too fast for the Equestrians, Starswirl included, to do anything effective yet.