As we headed towards the mines, Luna sent two ahead to sweep the area for any changelings who might be on watch. Luna’s guards uncovered three Changeling sentries and expertly silenced them before giving the all clear.

As a group we entered the mines and found it to be surprisingly spacious. I could only assume the Changelings had been modifying the tunnels for their own use and/or comfort. Something I noticed right away was that there didn’t seem to be any kind of pods for keeping victims. The mine, other than seemingly being carved out some more, seemed perfectly normal. Maybe they had hidden their victims even deeper into the mines, but we had been walking unopposed for ten minutes.

Eventually we came to a spacious chamber. I was trying to temper my frustration with not finding any clues to Fluttershy’s location. But as we were nearing the center of the chamber…

“INTRUDERS!” Suddenly the room was flooded with Changelings, “PROTECT THE RITUAL CHAMBER WITH YOUR LIVES!”

Ritual chamber? That didn’t sound good. Indeed, that sounded quite bad. If they had Fluttershy kidnapped for some kind of ritual…my mind was already jumping with horrible possibilities.

In a situation like this, in an enclosed space with enemies swarming on all sides, it would be unsurprising for panic to erupt. But Luna’s guard maintained discipline and together we fought through the horde of Changelings. Blasts of magic were flying every which way, and while my chi blasts weren’t on the level of someone like Luna’s Alicorn might, at full power they were enough to knock around a fair few Changelings.

Slowly we carved a path to the back entrance of the room, the Changelings becoming more vicious and desperate the closer we got. Whatever was back in this ritual chamber, they really were defending it with their very lives. What could drive them to such madness? If whatever it was involved Fluttershy…that just gave me more strength to push forward. The determination to save someone I love fueled my attacks.

We made it into the next tunnel and ahead of us saw a great stone door. Along the edges of the door was some kind of runes. It was all properly esoteric horror-y. We continued to press forward while the rear guard fended off those Changelings that were still behind us. As we got closer to the door, there were naturally less Changelings between us and it, letting us put more into reinforcing our rear.

In short order, we arrived at the door. We tried opening it, but of course nothing was ever that simple. The door resisted efforts magical and mundane to open it. So we hunkered down while Luna worked on translating the runes in the hope that it held some kind of answer for opening the door.

It was certainly something, down there in the dark, claustrophobic tunnels, defending ourselves while Luna calmly translated the runes as if there were nothing more pressing going on than a summer breeze. I couldn’t help but once again be amazed with one of my girlfriends. As for me, I was quickly realizing I needed to work on my endurance. I was also strongly considering learning some way of carrying hot water on me at all times. While it wouldn’t have been much, my male form would have had at least a smidge more endurance.

As sweat pour down my face and determination was the only thing keeping me up and fighting, I heard Luna make a sound of displeasure.

“What’s wrong?” I called to her.

“This door requires a sacrifice of blood to open. What a distasteful group of Changelings we’ve found,” Luna sneered. Quick as a flash, Luna used a small knife to cut her hand and placed the bleeding wound against the door. The door glowed an ominous red before slowly swinging open.

“Quickly now, we don’t know how long the door will remain open,” Luna ordered her troops as she healed the cut. As expected of professionals, they were able to orderly and efficiently fall back through the door. Just like Luna had warned, soon after we were on the other side, the door closed shut.

While this meant we no longer had to deal with the swarm, it also meant we either had to find a new way out or fight our way through a second time. Neither option seemed particularly attractive, but we took a minute to catch our collective breaths, drink some water, and pressed on.

It didn’t take us long thereafter to reach the ritual room. The five Changelings in black hoods, with runes on the floor and fire that seemingly burned without fuel kinda gave it away. What I was more concerned with was the trussed up Fluttershy lying on the floor in the center of some kind of runic circle.

“If you value your lives, you will release her!” Luna shouted, just barely below Royal Canterlot volume.

“Infidels! You dare desecrate this sacred place with your uncleanliness?!” One of the Changelings hissed. As much as he sounded like a cartoon villain, the knife he held was real enough.

“Step away from Fluttershy,” I growled.

“Never! The girl is to be a sacrifice to our goddess! She should be honored!” The Changeling declared, wildly gesturing with his knife.

“It seems cultists are the same, no matter the era,” Luna complained and cast a concussive blast that knocked the five Changelings away from Fluttershy.

“No! The Formless Mother will not be denied!” The one I assumed was the head cultist shrieked. We were all on guard for any sort of funny business, but were not expecting him to jam the knife into his own arm!

“O Formless Mother, take this sacrifice of wounded flesh and give me the power to smite your foes!” He thrust his bleeding arm upward and some kind of strange distortion appeared in the air. Some kind of tendril reached out from the distortion and touched the cultist’s wound and the blood that was pouring out was seemingly set aflame!

“Praise the Formless Mother!” The other four cultists exclaimed.

“Stop him!” Luna shouted urgently and her guard sprang into action, casting spells and firing guns. I joined in with my chi blasts. However, all our attacks seemed to wither and fade as they got close to the cultist, who started laughing madly.

“You’re too late! The Formless Mother protects me!” He crowed.

“Damn,” Luna swore, “You all focus on the other four cultists before they get the bright idea to power up as well. I’ll deal with this one.”

“Right!” Her troops and I all agreed and we sprang into action. Given spells and other long ranged attacks seemed to do nothing, so that left us with melee combat. Fortunately melee combat was something I had gotten quite good at over the last couple of months. Luna’s guard was no slouches either. Unfortunately, we were tired from the gauntlet we had gone through to get here.

“Fools! Even an Alicorn is as an ant before the Formless Mother!” The head cultist exclaimed and threw his flaming blood at us. There was too much blood and too many of us in a relatively small area for us to dodge all of the blood. Fortunately, while it definitely hurt something fierce, it didn’t seem to do much more than that. Even better, it didn’t care about friendly fire, if the cultist that got hit crying out in pain was any indication.

Fiery blood or bloody fire rained down upon us all. Luna attacked the head cultist in an attempt to stop the downpour. She held nothing back as blasts of powerful struck the head cultist. For all his boasting, it was clear Luna was having an effect.

With this opening, the guard and I resumed are attacks on the lesser cultists. Fortunately for us, it seemed these cultists were less adapt at dealing with pain than we were or their leader. As they writhed from the searing blood, we fell upon them. Two of them we knocked out and tied up, but the other two still had the wherewithal to fight.

They cast spells with wild abandon, clearly not caring who or what they hit. I saw a spell flying towards Fluttershy, who was still tied up. I just barely managed to deflect it with a chi blast and rushed to Fluttershy’s side to untie her.

The attack that nearly hit Fluttershy did not go unnoticed by Luna. If she was mad before, she was nuclear now. With an almighty blast of what seemed like pure moonlight, she sends the offender several inches into the stone wall.

“This farce ends now!” Luna declared, fury in her eyes and her aetherial mane flapping in an unseen gale. The night’s cold rage clashed against the fiery blood as I finished untying Fluttershy and she clung to me like a drowning woman holding a life preserver.

“It’s OK Flutters, we’re here,” I soothed, rubbing her back gently as the guards finished off the last of the four lesser cultists.

“I-I knew you’d come for me…but I was so scared…” Fluttershy trembled.

“I know sweetheart, it’s OK,” I assured her over and over.

Meanwhile Luna was slowly but surely overwhelming the head cultist.

“No! This is impossible! I am chosen of the Formless Mother! The head cultist cried.

“Whatever eldritch abomination you call god has no place on Equuis!” Luna declared imperiously and with one final push the bloody fire spluttered and was snuffled out by Luna’s Cold Night, leaving the head cultist frozen to death.

Luna powered down from full goddess mode and immediately rushed over to Fluttershy and me, sweeping us both up in a bone crushing hug.

“I’m so glad you’re OK!” Luna cried with her face buried in Fluttershy’s mane.

“Luna…air…” Fluttershy gasped as we were smushed against Luna’s chest.

“Oh!” Luna exclaimed in realization and let us go. Fluttershy and I gasped for air as Luna’s guard ensured the surviving cultists were secured.

After some less life threatening hugging, the inevitable question needed to be asked.

“So what do we do now?” Fluttershy wondered. A quick sweep of the ritual chamber made it pretty clear there was only two ways out: teleportation or through the stone door. Unfortunately and predictably, there was a runic array to prevent teleporting and it was carved deep enough into the rock that removing it could very well destabilize the room and breaking the runic enchantment would take days.

That left us the door and probably the adherent Changelings outside. Not an attractive prospect, but at least there was plenty of blood around to open the door. Thus we prepared ourselves to fight back the way we came, but as the door opened there was a noticeable lack of an angry swarm of Changelings. In many ways this was more concerning. It meant they had fled. It meant they could strike again.

Despite the bitter taste this left in my mouth, the important thing was that Fluttershy was safe. We could go home and prepare for the next time. They wouldn’t catch us off guard again. And when they did come for revenge, they’d find a Ranma Saotome who was a hell of a lot stronger than I was now. They’d be sorry for messing with my family.

Why yes, I've been known to enjoy a spot of Elden Ring and Elden Ring lore, why do you ask?

This has been a looooong month for me, but mostly positive. My family are planning to move to tentatively Alabama sometime in the next 3-5 years, so we've started cleaning out the house in preparation for that.

I have the surgery for my deviated septum scheduled which will hopefully fix my airways and thus let me have air as I sleep. That'll be March 30th.

And the thing I'm most personally pleased about is I got the Necromancer title in Final Fantasy XIV on the 14th after grinding for it since December of last year and Lone Hero on the 22nd. For those who don't know, long story short, Necromancer is earned by doing a piece of side content known as Palace of the Dead, a place meant for a party of 4, solo, starting from floor 1 and going all the way to the final floor of 200 without getting a duty fail, either by dying, dcing, or going over the time limit. It's one of the rarest titles and widely considered to be one of the most difficult. Lone Hero is from a similar type of side content, known as Heaven on High, which is only 100 floors.

So yeah, I'm pretty pleased with myself.