Rainbow Dash could hardly describe how relieved she was to see the tomb doors still closed. She had fully expected them to be open somehow, just because things always seemed to go wrong or get more complicated for them just when they thought they were starting to get things under control. The recent disappointment after collecting all the figures was just the latest such example, and Rainbow was glad to see that things hadn’t gone from bad to worse.

Yet.

The prospect of future difficulties, however, was not something Rainbow wanted to focus on at the moment. Pushing those thoughts out of her mind, she simply lied down on her back at the edge of the drop into the stairs and sighed with relief. Champagne and Stargazer slowly crept up to her, almost as if they were afraid Rainbow was lying and they’d see an open door at the bottom of the steps, but they relaxed as soon as they laid eyes on the untouched stone below them. Assured in the knowledge that they hadn’t stumbled into a mummy-infested deathtrap, all three pegasi took some time to relax and recover their nerve before moving again.

“I was one hundred percent thinking that the door was going to be open,” Stargazer said. “Just because, you know?”

“I feel that,” Rainbow said. “I didn’t know if it would still be closed either. But it is, which means we don’t have anything to worry about.”

Though Champagne had relaxed some, the Prench mare still carried a nervous edge to her movements. “What if it’s just closed because it’s daytime?” she asked, her eyes wandering to the sky, which was beginning to turn faintly yellow as the sun continued to descend. “If it opened last night or the night before…”

“Then there’d be a lot more mummies wandering about here,” Rainbow said. “Plus, we’d probably already have our backs broken by Nightmare Masseuse’s Hooves of Fury. I think it’s safe to say it hasn’t.”

Stargazer sadly shook his head. “I forgot about Soft Step,” he said, eyes downcast. “It’s been such a frantic fight for survival these past few days that I’ve hardly had any time to think about her.”

“Me as well,” Champagne admitted. “That poor mare…”

Rainbow slowly nodded her head once. It was easy to forget about while planning, but they’d lost a good number of ponies to this tomb right here, and Soft Step was one of them. But she hadn’t died; she’d become something far worse, a twisted slave to an evil moon god. “Maybe we can still save her,” Rainbow said. “I don’t know how, but we could.”

“I’m not sure there’s anyway to undo dark magic like that,” Stargazer said. “Whatever happened to her, that’s way beyond our league.”

“But not beyond the Princesses’,” Rainbow said. “When we get out of here, maybe they can fix her!”

“You really think we’ll be able to get Soft Step out of here when she’s like that?” Champagne asked. “I think we’ll be lucky if she doesn’t kill us!”

“Maybe there’s still something of her left inside of that body,” Rainbow said. “When I saw her at these doors during the full moon, when she was trying to get out… I felt like I saw something of her in her eyes. Maybe.” She sighed and shut her eyes. “Or, I don’t know. Maybe I’m just imagining it because I want it to be true.”

Stargazer smirked at her. “You just want her back so you can get more massages, right?”

Rainbow glared in his direction. “So what if I do? Her massages were great. I think I’m gonna try to get her to come back to the Wonderbolts when this is all over. And we remove that horn from her head and make her normal sized again, at least.”

“Having an alicorn masseuse could be pretty great, though,” Stargazer said. “The Princesses could make her the Princess of Spas.”

“I think she’ll have to wait in line for Starlight Glimmer. She’s probably next on the list. Heck if I know.” Rainbow Dash sat up and stretched out her wings, then forced herself to her hooves. “Anyway, let’s go snag something to eat quick, and then we gotta get this thing covered before the sun goes down. I really don’t want to get caught with our tails between our legs by the door just randomly opening up while we’re trying to cover it.”

Champagne tilted her eyes skyward and nodded. “It looks like there’s some cloud cover moving in from the west, but it’s fairly spotty. I’m not sure if it will hold through the evening.”

“That’s probably my fault,” Rainbow said. “I did kinda break everything with my Rainboom. I wouldn’t be surprised if I made the enchantment go haywire and stuff.”

Stargazer chuckled. “Rainbow Dash, Wonderbolt flyer, breaker of very ancient magic.”

“You forgot ‘overall badflank’.”

The three pegasi chuckled at that, but soon Rainbow started walking away from the tomb, her eyes scanning the ground for green things to eat. “So, where the crap are these berries and stuff? I’m friggin’ famished.”

Champagne and Stargazer also stood up and quickly trotted over to Rainbow’s sides. “This way,” Champagne said, taking the lead and picking her way through the crumbling ruins of the temple site. “There were a few bushes closer to one of the channels. They should still be good.”

“What, you think they’re gonna be turned into moon mummies, too?” Stargazer teased.

Rainbow laughed at the absurdity of it all. “Zombie plants. If we saw that, I think I’d just give up right away.”

“Be careful what you say,” Champagne said. “We’ve been bit in the flank too many times already.”

“Heh. True that, girl. True that.”