Twilight's senses returned and she spun around in alarm. She still had her axe, and a quick inventory showed she hadn't lost anything for her traumatic passing.

But that wasn't true. She felt an emptiness inside. Her power, the souls, they had been lost, every single one. She slumped even as a wince played over her face, replaying her painful last few moments in her mind. She would find no succor with that undead. She would have to fight it, or get around it. "Considering how fast it is..."

She shook her head. "Fight it is." Fighting was the only real option that cruel world seemed to offer her. She decided to try and get some help. With a raised hoof towards the bonfire she had been returned to, she thought of the shrine, and lost herself in its warmth until she came to, standing in the shrine. "At least here is safe."

The firekeeper was seated on the bleachers, watching her.

Twilight decided to start there. "Excuse me."

"Yes?"

"I'm trying... but this is really hard. Do you have any advice?"

She may have frowned, or not, it was hard to tell with her mask. "Hollow one, you are where you should not be. An improper tool, but we can'st ask for other. An ashen one was to perform this task."

Twilight sat on her haunches. "And an 'ashen one' is? I'm not hollow. I'm Twilight ..." She had a last name, didn't she? She frowned trying to draw it out, but it refused to come.

"The curse," spoke the fire keeper in her soft tones. "With every death you are brought closer to the very death you battle."

Twilight shook her head. "What do you--" She paled as it clicked. "All those people?! They... They lost everything... They... went hollow, like I am." She began to dance from hoof to hoof, heart hammering. "How do I stop it?!"

A mocking voice spoke from the opposing bleachers, "you don't." Hawkwood sneered at Twilight. "You'll go mad, no doubt there. You're looking worse for wear."

Twilight wheeled on him and trot towards him, fury rising with every step. "As if you're better! You've been nothing but--"

He held up his hands. "Yes yes, I've failed in my task as well. Why don't we just have a pity party together, less painful than what you're doing."

Twilight clopped down a hoof, crunching stone with her angry motion. "What was your task?!"

"Oh? Haven't figured it out?" He leaned forward. "Not that it matters much anymore." A laugh came from him, unhinged in the way that laughter seemed to be in that broken world. "I'm what the fire keeper there wishes you were. I am an 'ashen one'."

Twilight took a slow breath, barrel swelling before she let it out. It did not come out as a sigh, but more of a rattle, like someone's last breath. She shuddered at the sound of it. "Alright... What is that? Tell me, please."

He crossed his hands over his legs as if every motion took some effort. "Do I look like a scholar to you?"

"You look like an ashen one," retorted Twilight. "Which, I hope, means you know what one is."

"Right... So I went on a big quest, back when I was still alive." He frowned at Twilight. "Failed. I mean, in the end. I got to the last, first fire, tried to link it, didn't have it in me." He spread his fingers in a show of an explosion. "Fwoosh, nothing but ash. I was killed, that I was."

Twilight pointed at herself. "I was killed, twice. Why aren't I an ashen one?"

"You weren't roasted by the first fire, stupid horse." Despite, or perhaps because of Twilight's scowl, he howled with laughter. "You're just a garden variety undead, like all the rest. Look, there ain't no getting 'round that. You want help?"

"Yes! That's what I asked for!" shouted Twilight before she caught herself, her voice lowering. "Sorry, yes... I'm doing my best."

"Ain't we all..." He pointed down the hall. "Talk to the old crone back there, ask her about the soapstone. You can use it to reach across to other worlds."

Twilight's eyes widened. "Other worlds?" Like Equestria? "Thank you!" She took off in a frantic gallop, getting to the shrine maiden in scarcely a moment. "Hello!"

The maiden frowned down at Twilight. "You don't have any souls."

Twilight blinked at that, some air let loose of her sails. "Oh, no, I wanted to ask about a 'soapstone'?"

The crone produced the long white stone from her robes. "This? You can use it to inscribe your name, to let others call you. If you assist them, you will be rewarded with fire, and souls."

Twilight tilted her head. "That sounds interesting, but I was hoping to say more than my name."

She tucked the white one away and shook her head. "Just a matter of how you use it. Not that it matters, you've not a single soul to your sorry name."

Twilight's ears sagged along with much of the rest of her. "Right... Could you...?"

"I am not in the habit of giving things without payment," she spoke in clear decision. "Fetch some souls."

She considered the situation a moment and realized she did have a soul, two in fact. She drew out the crystallized souls and the shrine maiden seemed to perk up. "Do these count as souls?"

"Oh, yes, they do indeed." She reached out an aged hand. "Kept them in case of poor fortune? Wiser than I had'st bethought. Give them up and the soapstone is yours, provided thee intend to get more souls with it."

That was not the primary use Twilight had in mind. "If I let others call me, won't that just mean I'll die more, and lose my souls?"

She laughed. Each laughter in that world was a reflection of the breaks of the person doing the laughing. Hers was an old chortle, speaking of equally aged secrets she would likely never tell and pains she would not share. "When thou'rst in another world, your souls are your own, and thee can take a portion of theirs as well. Thine profit be increased at no risk to thee."

Twilight set the glowing souls in her hand, and eagerly accepted the soapstone in her magic. "Thank you."

She crushed the souls without hesitation, letting their energy pour free and into herself. Twilight gaped a moment before she turned away. She should have seen that coming. She chastised herself for being surprised. What use were souls still crystallized, except for, apparently, resisting being lost on death.

Holding the stone aloft, she felt her senses shift subtly. She could subtly see signs on the floors. Some proclaimed the smith to be a friend, while others extolled the physical beauty of the firekeeper, as well as some lewd acts that Twilight quickly ignored. What other world did the stone link to wherein the residents faced the same things she did? They were very close worlds, she decided.

She lowered the rock to the floor and tried to write her name. It was not the name she remembered. A large sigil was the result, but it felt like 'her', all of her, condensed into one symbol.

"That... was interesting..." If the shrine was as peaceful as it had been for her in the other worlds, she doubted she would be called to assist there. That mattered little, she was just testing. She banished her sigil with a wave of a hoof and some will, then got to writing an actual message.

Dear Princess Celestia, I hope this message reaches you. I'm stuck! Please send help.

Your

She paused. What was she? Right!

student,
Twilight

She stepped back from the glowing letters and waited, but nothing happened. She let out a quiet delirious laugh. "Can't expect instant results... I should... try to proceed."

Reflecting on the fire, she was sent back to the high wall. To her dismay, all the undead were back as if she had never defeated them. They were hollow, just as her. They would return again and again, each time diminished faintly, though most had already long past the point of losing themselves. She hefted her axe in her mental grip. "I'm sorry I can't help you," she said as an apology to them all before she took a firm step forward.

She remembered which undead had attacked her and went for each first. They did not react differently, not remembering her last approach. They were too far gone for such things. Barely golems. Golems made of dead flesh. She carved a bloody path with her axe, sending each back to the earth to rest, for a little while.

She slid down the ladder and emerged to see the shield wielding undead and the crossbow holding one. Above them, the dragon remained. It had not lost where it was. Was it not part of the curse? Perhaps not. Twilight wondered at the implications a moment before she had to duck back to avoid a crossbow bolt.

With a sudden charge, she felled the shielded undead, then removed the legs from the crossbow one before it could take another shot. She was getting used to things. This did not comfort her. She did not want to fight that armored and skilled undead again, not so quickly.

"But if I..." she muttered to herself, stepping forward just far enough to goad the dragon into looking over the side. Even as it began to breath fire down at her, Twilight was scrambling up the stairs. She hurried across the courtyard, the dragon turning its head back into position to blast her. There were a lot of things to be gotten, but she dared not stop to get any of them. Instead she ran straight forward, diving under the stone of the very building the dragon was perched on, where its flames did not find her, instead roasting the already dead forms of the undead in the courtyard.

"Made it..." She let out a little breath of relief and turned to the gate she was in front of. She pushed it open, stepping inside away from the roars of the angry dragon she had evaded. She followed a ramp heading downwards and beheld her prize, a chest! There was writing in front of it, the scrawlings of another with a soapstone?

Liar ahead

Twilight tilted her head at the message. "Liar? It's a chest." She pointed at it, then peered at the chest, wondering how a chest could lie.

That's when she saw it move. Its upper lid rose and fell ever so slowly. It was breathing? "Liar," she whispered to herself. It wasn't a chest at all!

Did she move past it. Attack it? "If I just go past it, it might follow me..." She raised her axe. "On the other hoof... Chest? Can you hear me?" It did not respond. "Hello?" Nothing. She had tried. She rose the axe high and brought it own. It bit into the roof of the chest, but it rose up instead of shattering. It had the body of a skinny but impossibly tall human beneath it. With a little laugh, it kicked the startled Twilight across the room.

She didn't have time to ponder it. She scrambled to her hooves just in time to dive out of the way of of a swipe of its hands. Each movement came with its hauntingly deep giggle. Twilight brought her axe down on its leg, but it did not piece far, and the chest monster seemed hardly impressed. It made a lunge for her and she dived between its legs to avoid being grabbed. She brought down her axe across its back in the moment of exposure, but it reacted with a lighting spin of a foot, launching itself across the room.

Twilight stepped towards it cautiously. She ducked under the next violent kick and brought in her axe. It let out a howl of agony before falling backwards stiffly like a puppet with its strings severed and vanished in a great shower of soul energy that she could feel passing into herself. An axe was left behind. It looked like her axe, but it thrummed with dark energy.

"A dark weapon for a dark world," sighed out Twilight as she lifted it up in her magic, testing it. It swung just as the other, but she could feel the dark energy in it, hungry to bite into flesh. "I am going to need the longest bath after I get out of this place..." Next Chapter: 9 - The Flame Spreads Estimated time remaining: 40 Minutes