Deep within the forgotten catacombs of Beak Falls Barrow lies an untold number of miles of tunnels and shelters. Legends say that this is where the Precursors took refuge from some great threat centuries ago. The smells of mildew and mold permeate the air as the party ventures ever deeper into oblivion. Several hundred years of rust and decay upon a single black coffin shifts and falls away as the lid slowly opens. The sound of grinding stone and metal makes the party jump and scan the darkness.

From within the worn cloth interior of the tomb rises a skeleton, dressed in rags from a time long forgotten. Shambled remains of ancient armor so powerful it could block darkness itself, now nothing more than shards of worthless metal adorning a rotted frame. A mind filled with an unending hatred and an urge to feed resides within its moldy skull, ready to bludgeon all in its way. The undead don’t discriminate.

Along the entirety of the bottom chamber, more of their kind, the draugr ponies, draw their weapons and prey upon the once cocky white pegasus as he crawls away in absolute fear. Not of the draugr themselves, but of the aura of darkness that surrounds them.

One of these reanimated corpses is not among the vengeful, however...

Caro’s iron sword cleaves through the spine of one of the draugr, reducing it to a pile of bones and dust. Shae fires an ice beam from her horn that Caro quickly ducks under, watching as the translucent blue magic freezes another skeleton to the ground. Seizing the opportunity, he bum rushes it, shattering its torso into shimmering shards.

“Where’d you learn a spell like that?”

“It’s called Wendigo’s Frost.” Shae blushes. A tall one with blackened and rotting muscle clinging to its bones in various places swings its axe towards the distracted unicorn. Caro dives forward and shoves her out of the way, the rusted blade clipping his flank.

He leaps back and throws his dagger, watching as the draugr’s left leg is severed, sending it falling to the ground. The unnatural light fades from within its empty sockets. Shae throws a fireball to burn what remains, just to be sure.

“They aren’t what I would call worthy foes.” Caro winces from the pain of Shae healing his wound. Torn flesh and sinew mend themselves together in a gruesome display. “The way they fight is - how do I say this... routine?”

“As if their actions aren’t their own,” Shae whispers, glancing up from her work. Caro lets out a low nicker in agreement. After the brutal brawl with the Thieves Guild, he expected what lay within such a dangerous cave to be a far more fearsome foe. Or at least something deserving of the reputation. It was disappointing, to say the least. Not to mention, skeletons didn’t bleed, robbing Caro of any sense of satisfaction he could’ve gained from this.

Tohro is lying in the fetal position in a corner, trembling and stroking his tail, his eyes darting in all directions. Caro nudges him upright and pulls him to his hooves with some resistance.

“Afraid of a few moving carcasses, are we?”

Tohro shakes his head furiously. “Never! I’ve faced plenty of draugr before!” His wings flare, though clearly trembling. “They’re nothing! Twigs are easier to snap!” The way his voice cracks and waivers with each word makes him flinch in pain and embarrassment.

“Well then, why the long face?”

With shaking hooves, Tohro equips his stolen crossbow and reloads it with old yet sturdy arrows dropped by the draugr ponies. He gives Caro a sideways glance and narrows his eyes. “I’m fine,” he hisses through his teeth.

Despite Caro’s constant reassurance they can stop and rest if he’s so terrified, Tohro stands by his bravado, and even closer to Shae’s illuminated horn.

Shae merely sighs at this invasion of her personal space and leads the group towards their unknown destination through the thick darkness. The silence amplifies the echo of their hoofsteps, which Tohro jumps in terror at each time, eyes darting about and wings flaring to take off at a moment’s notice. All the pegasus can do to calm his thundering heart is imagine the piles of gold filling his pockets after he pawns the copious amounts of jewelry around his neck, returning to the Blackwings a hero for striking the very heart of Thieves Guild. It helps to calm his nerves slightly, but it isn’t enough, not by a long shot.

Draugr continue to crawl from the cracks and crevices of the cave, pouring out of the very darkness that birthed them. Glowing eyes pierce through the black, outshining Shae’s horn and making the party easy prey. The first set that had assaulted Shae and Caro was by surprise and dumb luck. Caro was forced to defend Shae while she had provided firepower that she wished she could improve. Every time she used magic, her limited time before the skeever venom took its toll dwindled slightly faster.

The numbness in her leg begins to fade, replaced by the annoying itch of the skeever’s bite. If things don’t look up soon, the itch will be the least of her worries. She dreads having to use the others for support, wanting to show them how strong she is on her own, that she’s more than just a white mage that screams and cries a lot. Much more than that, however, she wants to prove to Headmaster Frosthelm that all his efforts haven’t been in vain. She’d die before she would let that happen.

She casts a wind gust spell on a nearby draugr, hoping to send it across the room. Instead, the spell merely rattles the skeleton’s ribs like a macabre instrument. She could swear it was enjoying it. Shae steps away, keeping off her injured leg, and charges a fireball at the tip of her horn.

The draugr opens its jaws, and Shae stares in horror at the maggots falling from its eroded teeth. Even with the distance between them she can smell the mucus upon its breath, and her stomach lurches. To the party’s surprise, it speaks with an androgynous voice, having no warmth or life. Just a deathly rasp like the last breath leaving a dying soul.

“FUS...”

One word is enough to send chills up Shae’s spine and make her hair stand on end. Her fire spell dissipates as she braces for whatever this incantation could be.

“...RO DAH!”

The force of a thousand gales rushes forward from the living corpse’s mouth. Cruel irony sweeps Shae off her feet and into a pile of bones shoved into the corner of the room, all of which had been swept up and slammed against the wall. It was like they ran out of coffins for the ponies who—

The realization hits her as suddenly as the impact. Hooves fly to her mouth as she tries not to retch at the sight, shoving off the various bones and rotted flesh. She finds herself pinned to the wall and unable to back up any further, her hind hooves trying to kick away the remains. Her injured leg sends a jolt of pain up her spine and she collapses, coming face to face with a rotted skull.

The scream rending the darkness is enough to get Caro’s attention. He swings his sword around and takes the head off one draugr trying to get the drop.

The decay upon their bones and remaining flesh assures Shae that the draugr have been dead for decades, if not centuries, but what black magic was responsible for forcing them from their places of rest? Her horn glows to search for signs of the magic that caused this obscene display of blasphemy, but she soon realizes closing her eyes only makes the smell worse, and she fights her gag reflex.

The draugr that spoke lumbers her way, gripping a sword in its mouth. Maggots slide down the rusted blade as the skeleton rears its head back for the killing blow.

“I am so, so sorry,” says Shae in a quivering voice. She bites her lip and looks to the ceiling, finding the perfect stalactite looming above them. With a burst of well focused magic, she separates it into many pieces and sends them raining down. The draugr rejoins its fellow deceased in the grody pile of bones.

In the time it took for her to destroy just one, Caro had slaughtered three, leaving their necks separated from their rolling skulls. Even the cowardly Tohro decided to join the fray, albeit with less grace than usual due to his trembling. The fight keeps his mind off things, but even he knows there’s no honor in killing the already dead.

Still, he had impaled his fair share with his wing blades, tossing them around like rag dolls and sending them careening into walls and down pits. One had grappled him from behind, trying to impale him with its horn, and was rewarded with an arrow in the knee.

Caro backs up, bumping flanks with Tohro. Both don’t notice the other slightly blush at the contact, but Tohro is quick to cut the silence.

“Could’ve aimed higher, ya know.”

“You’re welcome,” Caro snorts.

“Follow my lead,” says the pegasus. Catching Caro by complete surprise, he lifts him over his head and tosses him into a bottlenecked line of draugr. Caro spins around in the air, cutting clean through them all and landing a hind hoof on the last one standing. In just a moment, several pairs of glowing eyes were extinguished, bony corpses toppling like demonic dominoes.

Shae is unable to resist leaping into the air and cheering for the acrobatic feat, clopping her hooves together. She hits the ground and immediately regrets it as pain shoots up her leg once again.

The bowels of Beak Falls Barrow are as silent and black as ever, aside from Shae’s glowing horn, which seems to be fading by the minute.

They must have torn through at least fifty draugr by now, and Caro is still not satisfied. Any other pony would be scared out of their coat by moans of dozens of living dead sulking from all directions, but he really can’t take the creatures seriously when they can barely hold weapons in their fragile teeth, let alone stand upright half the time. He’s suspicious that if he gave a draugr a few meters of free reign, its legs would fall off under sheer exertion. The mental image of a limbless pony skeleton rolling towards its prey, only to have its sword stick in the ground and freeze its mobility is hilarious. He tells Shae about it, only to make her green in the face.

“Sorry...” He looks forward and mutters, “I thought it was funny.”

“Did you know they can talk?” Shae finally asks, over her spell of nausea.

Tohro looks at her in bewilderment. “Are you sure you’re not hearing things? Beyond the occasional groan, draugr know only to kill on sight, or anything that’s within the will of their resurrector.”

“Fus ro dah, what could that mean?” Shae whispers to herself.

Caro had barely heard the words amongst the sounds of clashing metal and hoofsteps, but recalling them triggers memories of his cracking skull as he cowered in the burning remains of Reinoc, a black dragon looming over him like a nightmare. He feels his ears to make sure they aren’t bleeding again.

Still clean.

He breathes a sigh of relief. The draugr and dragon’s words sounded similar, yes, but how can they be the from the same language? Another mental image of the dragon, this time a skeleton with eroded flesh fused to its bones, flashes in his mind. It’s not quite as funny.

“Curiouser and curiouser,” says Shae, despite not getting a response to her previous question. “It’s as if they can cast magic from their mouths. That has to be it. Its horn had eroded away, it couldn’t have used a gust spell. I may have to look through my...” She stops trotting as her eyes widen. “I left my damn books at the top of the foothills! They’ll be underneath a foot of snow by now!”

Tohro chuckles, causing Shae to shoot him a dirty look. “Try six. The Weather Guild is pulling out all the stops this winter.”

“Now why in Faust’s name would they go and do that?” Shae whines, stomping a hoof as her horn brightens.

“Our spies told us it was an order from Queen Platinum. She hopes that a dreadful snowfall will quell the conflict between the empire and the Blackwings. Clearly she underestimates our indomitable spirit and devotion to Equestria’s true potential!”

“Boo,” Caro whispers into Tohro’s ear. The pegasus leaps into the air, nearly colliding the ceiling. After hanging there for a moment, he plummets to the ground and lands on his rump. He’s sweating again, and Caro is laughing.

“Indomitable spirit, eh?”

“That... is not funny!”

Shae is chuckling too, much to Tohro’s chagrin. He folds his forelegs and grumbles to himself. “Honestly. With friends like you...”

As far as Caro is concerned, if Tohro isn’t going to admit he’s on the verge of having a panic attack, which is very obvious, then they may as well try to break the tension. It’s far too late to try and play super duper happy go lucky BBBFFs! he thinks.

“He- hello? Is- is anyone there?”

Caro and Tohro leap in front of Shae, brandishing their weapons. If Shae was right about the draugr speaking, they don’t need to take chances.

“Show yourself!”

A small figure steps out of the shadows, barely visible in the light peering from an opening in the ceiling. The party gasps when they see the source of the voice is a small red gryphon in tattered leather armor. He’s completely unarmed aside from a blunt pickaxe that looks like it was scavenged off one of the corpses.

Tohro aims down the sights of his crossbow, causing the gryphon to raise his talons in surrender. “Don’t shoot, Ezio! It’s me, Caimen!”

The name Ezio flies over Caro’s head. He signals for Tohro to lower the crossbow. “Come on over here into the light, uh, fellow thief.”

A better view of the limping gryphon reveals a crooked smile across his beak and red eyes that haven’t blinked for days. He also desperately needs a bath and a good preening by Tohro’s guess. The poor fellow is twitching madly.

“It’s so good to seeeeeee you, Master Ezio. You and the others left me down here yester... last week? I think?” An idle talon taps his chin in thought. “But, but! I never stopped digging! I mined so so so sooooo much ore! There’s even diamonds down here! But watch out for creepers! Oh yes, terrible things!”

Yes, this one has definitely taken a plunge into the pit of lost minds. Caro wants to believe it was possibly from isolation, but he also sees an advantage in this. This gryphon has gone so far off the deep end that he thinks three ponies are a single Ezio character. He assumes that the massive black bird several floors up with an arrow between his eyes and a missing prosthetic talon that now lies in Tohro’s bag was Ezio.

“Uh, yes!” says Caro, trying to emulate Ezio’s voice from what little he heard of it. “Well done, Caimen.” He gives a hesitant pat on the gryphon’s back. “What other, um, objects of interest have you found?”

“Um, um, what was it?” Caimen ruffles the molting feathers on his head trying to recall something. Caro hopes that something is Boysenberry’s gemstone. “Yes yes yes! I found a... ah, a lever!”

“Lever? This is disappointing, to say the least. What good is a lever?”

“Yes! It’s quite a beautiful lever! Please, please, come this way. A most excellent lever! You must pull it! It might even open the Nether or the Enderlands!”

Keeping his distance, just in case the mad fellow’s mind takes a turn for the violent, Caro follows Caimen through a narrow passageway. The place hasn’t been occupied very long. Shovels, pickaxes and hand drills litter the floor among the cobwebs and dust.

They hop out and take a short drop into a long hallway that doesn’t look like it has been touched by the gryphons... much. The decapitated corpse of a gryphon with emerald feathers lies in front a rusty lever set before a large circular gate. Caro hears Shae trying not to retch from the scent. The blood is still fresh.

Caimen looks at the lever as if it were made of solid gold, though in his twisted mind, it probably is.

“Well, go on, Master Ezio. Give it a good pull,” he says, motioning to it. “Pull it reeeeeeal good! The lever demands it!”

Common sense says that the gate will open as soon as the lever is pulled, but the fact that the gate isn’t open and the presence of a fresh corpse clues Caro in. He lets a sadistic grin creep across his face as he realizes how he can rid himself of Caimen as well as relieve the gryphon of his insanity.

“Why don’t you pull the lever, Caimen?”

The gryphon rubs his wrists with his dirt stained talons. “Are you sure, Master Ezio? I, I’d hate to undermine your authority. You are the king of levers, after all.”

“You are undermining my authority by questioning my orders.” Caro has to admit, being in a position of power such as this is oddly pleasing. “Now, go on.”

Caimen nods slowly and awkwardly, then, with still trembling talons, grips the lever and pulls.

It only takes a second. From three different slots in the ceiling come large pendulums. Caro pins Shae and Tohro to the floor, and the blade passes over harmlessly. Caimen isn’t so lucky, and his head is severed, falling from its perch upon his neck in a splatter of blood and gore.

Shae wipes the sick from her mouth and groans. “That was just....” Her mind struggles to find the words. She replaces her frown with an unusual smile. "That was brutal."

Caro shrugs. The sight and smell of two headless gryphons is less than pleasant, despite being oddly amusing to him and Shae both.

“Better him than us,” says Tohro, though he seems disturbed from the act as well. "To be fair, he had lost his head a while ago."

Caro shakes his head, offering the lavender unicorn a helping hoof. “If he went and had just one moment of sanity, he would have realized we are, in fact, not Ezio. Then, odds are one of us would have ended up with tetanus from that little pickaxe of his, or worse.” He gestures to the bloody scene.

Shae refuses his hoof and stands up on her own, grunting from the pressure on her leg. Caro can tell the numbing spell has almost completely worn off. Shae seems more concerned with other matters, though. She trots forward, keeping herself balanced on three legs.

So much for being a miracle worker. Caro sighs, feeling that despite his best efforts to act as a temporary guardian, that she might not let him do so when she most needs him. He can just hope he doesn’t lose her entirely. “Just... rest your leg for a moment. Tohro and I will figure this out. I don’t want to risk our necks twice.”

Shae slumps in a safe corner and rubs her sore leg. "Do what you must."

"I promise I'll protect you."

Tracing the circular door with his hoof, Caro sees that it’s segmented into three disks, each embroidered with three crests that boast different etchings. A pair of wings, a unicorn horn, and a horseshoe. The disks, with enough effort, could be rotated to match in a vertical line.

“So, it requires some sort of combination, else your head is forfeit,” says Caro, tapping his hoof. He slams his foreleg against the cryptic door. “Dammit! Of course it’s not going to be that easy!”

Tohro is laughing at the ridiculousness of the situation. “So, what, we just try the symbols at random until the damn thing opens?”

“Do you trust yourself to be able to dodge the pendulum every time?”

The pegasus thinks about that for a moment, but decides it’s hardly worth the danger to go about this haphazardly. “Wait a minute,” he says with a stomp, “I recognize those symbols.” With a face spelling excitement from revelation, Tohro reaches into his pouch. The golden talons. Like before, he gazes at his stolen prize longingly before examining its palm. He holds the talons to Shae’s light, adjusting until he sees...

“Yes, there it is!”

Caro raises an eyebrow. “There is what?”

Not breaking away from the talons, Tohro points to the door. “Okay, I need you to arrange the crests in this order from top to bottom. Horn, horseshoe, wings.”

“Wait, the combination is on the-”

“Yup!” Tohro triumphantly tosses the talons into the air and catches them in the pouch. “It really is that easy.”

While reluctant to believe this hunch, Caro facehoofs. He then turns the disks until they’re in the supposedly correct order. Horn, horseshoe, wings. And... nothing happens. Of course.

“I... I think we have to pull the lever now,” Shae whimpers from her spot.

Caro groans. No, it’s never that easy. What if the symbols on the talons are supposed to be read in reverse order? What if it’s mere coincidence that they’re the same? What if it’s a code where one means another? Maybe Boysenberry is the absolute king of all jokes of the practical kind, and this whole escapade has been nothing but a snipe hunt. Or to get rid of them...

Caro shakes that thought from his mind when he’s shoved aside by Tohro. “Oh, for the love of-” He punches the door. “Fine! Fine! I’ll do it!”

Caro smiles, finding his companion’s enthusiasm amusing. “I’ll be here, ready to dive in and rescue you from the pendulums of punishment. Or if it turns the lights off.”

“My hero.” Tohro rolls his eyes.

Mentally preparing himself to make a dodging roll should this entire plan go to Tartarus, the pegasus grabs ahold of the lever in his teeth and slowly yanks back. He ducks, fearing the blade has already made halves of his skull and he hasn’t realized it yet, but nothing of the sort comes to be. Instead, the segments make a full rotation before sinking into the floor.

Caro allows himself to breathe, knowing they won’t have to suffer the same fate as Caimen, at least for the time being.

The trio stare into the abyss below, illuminated by Shae’s ever fading horn. Stretched before them is a winding mass of catacombs, even more tangled than the previous set.

Shae whimpers at the distance she’ll have to trek, her leg dully throbbing to remind her of her plight.

Caro sighs in frustration, knowing that more draugr will probably be down there, leaving more hollow victories in his wake.

Tohro swallows hard at how dark it is. “Well, looks like our work is cut out for us.”

After blindly running about in the seemingly endless catacombs, it’s a relief to see a lengthy and linear path with no detours or crossroads to speak of. The walls are polished and smooth obsidian, boasting the same indecipherable language Caro and Shae had seen at the entrance. The runes appear to be etched into the stone itself.

Out of curiosity, Caro makes an attempt to read the words, but his mind draws a large blank. The sheer absurdity of what happened several floors ago still lingers. How had I gotten The Precursors Welcome Thee from a set of claw marks? Maybe I spent far too long in a prison cell with no proper reading material. That, or the darkness is eating my mind like it did to Caimen.

Shae’s horn flashes briefly. “The Fae is strong with this place, but I don’t know what kind of magic it is. It kind of hurts my horn to even sense it. You said you were looking for a gemstone of sorts?”

Caro nods, causing Shae to smile. It is refreshing to see he hadn’t totally lost her trust.

“I think we’re close, then! Some gemstones contain properties of the Fae within them, and I can feel this energy coming from a small source dead ahead.” She points into the darkness beyond the path.

Tohro’s ears perk up at the idea of leaving the accursed dungeon. He spreads his ivory white wings and glides ahead of the pack. “Hurrah! Let’s nab that little sucker and get the hell out of—”

Dirt clods crumble from the walls as a skeletal arm extends forth and clips his wing, sending him into a barrel roll that ends with smashing into the floor. Tohro raises his scratched and bloodied face in time to see the rest of the draugr pull himself from its tomb.

Tohro’s wing blades extend forth from his feathers as he jumps to his hooves. “The walls!” he shouts with disbelief. “They’re coming out of the fucking walls!”

Caro hears a distorted moan directly behind him. He turns and sees more living corpses seeping their way through cracks and crevices that didn’t even exist a moment ago. Apparently trudging on a sacred burial ground is a taboo that even the dead can’t tolerate.

Still limping on her infected leg, Shae casts a lavender lightning bolt that shatters three draugr into shimmering dust. Caro follows up by picking up a dropped mace in his teeth and disarming the one nearest him. Literally.

With no weapon, the draugr swings its one remaining arm at him, leaving a nasty scratch. Caro swings the mace downwards, crushing the skull like a melon.

Tohro tosses two wing blades into the hooves of the draugr that clipped him. As it struggles to get unstuck, he takes one of the blades in hoof and slices through the remains of its tendons. It isn’t enough. For every corpse they send back to Tartarus, two more join in the battle. At this rate, they will be surrounded. Draugr may be weak, but in sheer numbers they will easily overpower any threat.

Caro, Shae and Tohro get back to back, facing an incalculable number of undead. Caro decides to go for broke and do the one thing anypony can do in the face of death. “Run!”

He’s not sure which direction he's going, but he doesn’t care so long as it’s somewhere without sentient skeletons. The unnatural river of corpses just would not stop pouring forth from the walls and ground. How many of them were buried here?

Suddenly, a harsh red barrier materializes at the base of the cryptic symbols. The draugr swing their swords futilely, kicking and moaning, but the barrier renders their attempts useless. More seem to flood behind them, causing a riot as they hammer and groan at the shield.

Caro taps the barrier with a curious hoof and is immediately jolted away with a stinging blast. He shakes his hoof, trying to get feeling back into it.

“I wouldn’t boooother!~” sings a voice that has no right to be so enthusiastic, given how drop dead ancient and gravelly it sounds. “The sacred language is a powerful art that cannot be comprehended by mere mortals, much less countered by one.”

The voice, foreboding as it is, hypnotizes Caro. Despite every bone in his body telling him he shouldn’t approach the source, he can’t help but slowly walk forward towards it. It sounds so foreign, yet so familiar. Torho and Shae exchange glances, shrugging at the sight and follow, wary of any more surprises. An entrance not visible before comes into Shae’s light, which Tohro notices is growing dimmer by the second. Caro doesn’t hesitate walking into this new room, completely unprepared.

A dimly lit room filled with streams and waterfalls greets the trio. Small rivulets of water run cracks in the ceiling and cascade down the walls in almost deliberate patterns. Other cracks offer the faintest of glances to the cloudy sky that awaited them.

Small piles of fresh snow are melting at the bases of recently lit torches. One torch among them is unlit, and is approached by a dark figure wearing ancient faded robes. With the same voice Caro heard before, the figure speaks into the torch, causing the red powder to spark and fill the chamber with a warm light. The faint smell of brimstone lingers in the air as Tohro and Shae welcome its liberation from their fears.

It is then that Caro realizes he has grown to miss such warmth in the short time he and his friends were traversing the Barrow.

The figure looks Caro’s way, and all three recoil at the sight. It’s another undead type creature, but this one seems different, somehow. Its skeletal face appears to show emotion, though the trio pass it off as a trick of the light. Instead of soulless sockets glowing with the toxic taint of dark magic, there are a pair of fully intact gold eyes. Eyes that appear to glow with happiness, if not a hint of worry.

“Come in, come in! You are more than welcome here! In fact, I’ve been expecting you. Don’t worry, your companions can join the party too.”

Shae looks simultaneously fascinated and horrified by this unusual pony, while Tohro seems close to throwing himself to its mercy for the simple fact of providing a light source.

Wait, Shae had mentioned the draugr casting magic from their mouths, Caro realises. “Are you a draugr?” he asks.

The skeletal one rears back slightly, his eyes showing offense despite the lack of lips to frown. “The nidilon? Heavens no! Why in the name of Saviikaan would you compare me to those... things?!”

Caro tilts his head. “Saviikaan? That name doesn’t belong to any of the nine Divines. And since when are draugr called nidal... nidora... what now?”

The skeletal stallion doesn’t seem to hear Caro. “Just think for a moment! If I were a nidilon, would I be able to speak your common language?” he gestures to himself with his bony hooves. “Unlike them, I still have my sil. The nidilon just obey the commands of another.”

Caro draws his sword as well as a conclusion. “Are you the one who sent those things after us?”

“No, you mey! Weren’t you listening?! I said you are welcome here! But if you insist on swinging that pathetic excuse for a zahkrii about, I am willing to change that luxury and leave you in the care of the flesh craving monstrosities you prefer to socialize with.”

Tohro taps Caro on the shoulder. “I’d take a conversation with a zombie hermit over fighting another corpse any day.”

Caro can't help but notice how Tohro’s eyes keep wandering to the torch that gives light. With a heavy sigh, he agrees and puts away his weapon.

“I am no hermit!” says the skeletal stallion. “For your information, my name is Otar, and I demand to be referred to as such.” He takes a polite bow.

Shae relaxes slightly, knowing for the most part that their lives are not in jeopardy. She slowly approaches their strange host and gives a modest curtsy. “It is a pleasure to see a friendly, er, face.” She flinches, waiting to be berated for her insult, but nothing happens. “I hope we aren’t imposing.”

“You are most certainly not, but apparently you still have trouble opening your ears. I have been expecting you, and when I say you, I refer to him.” He points a shivering cloaked hoof at Caro, who looks about, hoping that it was somepony behind him or one that just entered the room. “Do you have a name, colt?”

“Y-Yes, I do.” Caro pauses to take stock of the fact he is talking to a skeleton who has probably endured senility several times over. How borderline preposterous will this adventure get? “I am—”

“Caro of Riverhoof,” Otar answers for him.

“Why did you bother asking if you already knew the answer?” Caro stomps a hoof, which echoes through the chamber. “For that matter, how do you know my name at all?”

“You’re still not listening! How could I expect you if I didn’t know who you were?” Otar points his commanding hoof to a cracked bowl sitting upon a flat stone table. It’s filled to the brim with the same silver liquid Jarl Drake was using to spy on Caro. He scoffs at the sight of his previous escapades repeating endlessly within the bowl. Enraged by the audacity of both Drake and Otar keeping an unwanted eye over him and his friends, he bucks the bowl away, letting the soil absorb the liquid glass.

Otar does a double take with an expression that makes Caro grin, though he only feels frustration.

“Once again, I find myself as a plaything of fate. I want nothing to do with you, or whatever you’re interested in me for. I am only here to—”

“Seek the gemstone, yes?” Otar interrupts. “Ah, the ancient prophetic crystal, my kind’s most prized possession.” He taps three nondescript rocks embedded in the wall. The sound of grinding stone accompanies the wall parting to reveal a small pedestal. A set of dull jagged crystals, small enough to hold in one’s hoof, sits upon it. Otar is able to halt his shaking limbs enough to carefully remove the ‘prized possession’. With a single puff of air from his lungs several hundred years of settled dust cascade to the floor.

Boysenberry had spoken of the gemstone as if it were a hundred thousand bits wrapped in a jewel encrusted harem of sultry mares. What an understatement, Tohro thinks, licking his lips at the radiant beauty. Even Caro has to admit he can understand why the Precursors would lock such a priceless artifact away from the eyes of thieves.

“I can tell by your hornless friend’s euphoria that this is what you desire,” says Otar, taking such a splendid sight for granted.

He holds the gemstone within a leg’s reach. Caro attempts to take it for his own to complete this chaotic and regrettable quest and get the answers he’s been looking for, but Otar snatches it away.

“Ah ah ah.” He clicks his tongue. “Naughty naughty naughty, Caro of Riverhoof! I will allow you to look at and appreciate the prophetic crystal’s existence and majesty but...” His eyes look upon the gem with remorse. “I am reluctant to part with it. Might I ask you, what day is it?”

“Uh, I believe it’s Tuesday?” Shae guesses.

Otar nods with grim clarification. “My suspicions are correct, then,” he sighs. “A thousand years have passed since the infestation.” Not taking his gaze away from the gem, he sets it upon the stone slab beside his emptied bowl.

“Infestation?” asks Caro.

“There was a war. We lost.”

“We... who?”

“The Precursors.”

A grim silence permeates the dank and mildewed air.

“Caro, I cannot stress how important it is that you hear my words. I know you have your own business to go about, but... if you listen... I know I can help you with your little dragon problem.”

Tempting as the offer is, Caro has already been told the same lies by Boysenberry and Jarl Drake. He sighs, unable to bring forth any enthusiasm as he resigns to his fate of another quest. However, if Otar is a Precursor, if that is at all possible, then his word is as good as anypony’s. At least, if he even is a pony anymore. “Otar, I’m all ears.”

The skeletal stallion perks up in an instant, returning to his disturbingly-upbeat-for-a-dead-pony disposition. “Alright, then! You should all know that it was over a millennia ago when the land you call Equestria was dominated by my brothers and sisters. Of course, it was not referred to as Equestria back then. If I were to tell you the name of our old kingdom, you might lose your ability to hear, and I most certainly do not want that. Ponykind was far different in that era, not segmented into race or class, nor did we bear unsightly marks upon our flanks. We were a perfect race, with the strength, cunning and wisdom to lead the nation into a bright future.

"Of course, we were not alone in the advancement of life, magic, and technology. It would have been impossible if it weren’t for our guardian deities, the Dovah. It would be selfish to assume ponykind was the only sentient species, but the Dovah were something else entirely. You, of course, call them dragons. Dragons have a lifespan bordering on immortality, with generations of knowledge and arcane abilities your kind can only dream of. Runic magic more powerful than any spell I invented in my past life. Fortunately, we Precursors were in their good favor. A select few of us were chosen by the Dovah to interpret their language and pass on their wisdom to those below. A gift to better ourselves. Dragon Priests, we were called, bridging the gap between ponykind and the Dovah. The old kingdom entered an age of prosperity. Our towers reached for the heavens. The oceans and rivers were as clear as diamonds, and our fertile grounds spanned to the horizon."

"It sounds beautiful," Shae mutters.

"It was, and it was all made possible by the Dovah and their uncanny connection to the Fae. They could speak directly into the Fae, manipulating and bending it to their will. We Dragon Priests were taught their elegant yet near indecipherable language, and permitted to use it as a weapon. Only we are able to use the Thu’um. Well, us, and those descended from the Dovah themselves. And that brings us to you, Caro. Before the tragic events that forced us underground came to be, the liquid glass granted us a vision. Someday, in an era far on the horizon, the world will be blessed with a pony who carries the Precursor legacy in his veins. It is he who will spread his mighty wings to speak the word and will of the Dovah.”

Caro and Otar recite that prophecy at the exact same time, leaving the others to back away in bewilderment, eyes wide in awe.

“That’s...” Caro’s eyes slowly open as he takes a deep breath, fighting fresh tears. “Master Hammerfell told me about the Precursors before. You said what he said almost word for word."

Otar nods. “I see... this Hammerfell, he’s...”

“Dead.”

Another moment of silence passes over like a thick wave of salt water, broken only by Caro’s heavy breathing.

Otar nods again. “Yes, that’s right. I saw through the glass. He was murdered by Nahkriin. I had the... misfortune of knowing that dragon when I was a Priest. She was named after one of them.”

“Hammerfell wasn’t the only one she killed,” says Caro, trying to restrain the tears that come forth at the mere mention of his master’s name. “Everyone else in Reinoc was at the mercy of the dragons.”

"That is disconcerting..." Otar mutters. “Why would Saviikaan command such genocide? He is a kind and generous Dovah! I sense treachery in these lands, Caro.”

“There is more than enough of that without the dragons. I was blamed for Nah-ka-reen's crime and sentenced to death. My life was saved, but... my sanity wasn’t.”

“That is also true. The liquid glass has shown me everything you endured in that cell. You are worth more to the world than that. You are—”

“Is this all a joke to you?!” Caro stomps his hoof, his voice louder than he intended. His anguished yelling makes dust fall from the ceiling. “If I’m worth so damn much, why did I have to watch so many ponies die?!”

Otar is doing his best to wear a look of sympathy despite his lack of skin. He raises his hoof to silence Caro. "Child, be calm..." It doesn’t work.

“It’s not just me! Everywhere I turn there’s an innocent mare getting raped by keepers of the peace! I take a glance in the other direction and there’s a mother and child murdered for setting foot on a lowlife guild’s territory! What happened to the great and luxurious kingdom of Equestria I heard so much about?!” He holds back a sob, and takes a deep breath. He speaks again, this time so low that Otar must strain his rotting ears to listen. “No matter how hard anypony fights, they're...”

“But, Caro of Riverhoof, what if I told you that the power to change the world around you lies within your blood?” He holds the prophetic gem a hair's width away from Caro’s muzzle. Staring into its reflective interior reveals more cryptic symbols. “I assume by the look upon your face that you have seen this language before.”

“This..." Caro wipes his eyes. "This is the dragon's language, isn’t it?”

“Yes. Look deep. Read the letters you ponies deem so cryptic and tell me this doesn’t mean something to you.”

Caro is about to insist that he cannot so much as hazard a guess as to what these runes mean, if they even are words at all, but some part of him keeps his eyes trained on them. Over the course of what seems like hours, the symbols begin to shift and turn, transforming into plain Equine.

“Mercy me,” he murmurs. “Tohro, are you seeing this?”

The pegasus trots forward and glances over Caro’s shoulder, staring into the gemstone. “It’s all gibberish to me.” He shakes his head. “What am I supposed to be looking at?”

"I can read it! Why can’t you?"

When every last symbol has arranged itself before Caro’s eyes, he reads the passage aloud.

“‘Here lie our fallen lords. Roaring power of the Reclaimer revives. Dragonborn swift as the wind. Holds control over their very lives...’”

It feels as if a blade had just pierced his forehead, Caro keels over in mind numbing pain, moaning and shouting obscenities that prompt Shae to cover her ears.

Tohro’s wings spread, cocking his blades into position. “What are you doing to him?!”

Otar sweeps his hood from his head, revealing a tattered gray mane and a long, jagged horn that glows with a harsh violet aura. A shield forms just as Tohro leaps from the ground, pressing his blades forward as he dives for the undead creature. The attack bounces off harmlessly, sending Tohro falling to the floor.

“Restrain yourself, young one! I have waited too long for this day to have it be interrupted!”

Tohro pulls himself up and dives again. Shae notices what appear to be tears in his eyes as he hammers at the shield, Otar staring in a mix of confusion and anger.

“You leave me no choice!” he rasps. “FUS RO!”

A small gust of wind sends Tohro across the room, his wings struggling to upright himself. Everything blacks out for a brief second. Tohro feels himself collide with another body. He slowly opens his eyes and sees Shae staring in disbelief, making him curious enough to look up at what has her so surprised. It’s the last yellow and orange mare he wants to see at this moment, standing right above him.

Tohro crawls away from Tangerine. “Oh, hey there, General...”

Caro pays no mind to the scene, as he is surrounded by an unusual swirling energy that causes everypony’s mane to stand on end.

“Just what the fuck is going on here?!” Tangerine shouts as she takes in the scene before her. “I can’t leave the three of you alone for five minutes, can I?”

Caro’s screams descend into an exotic and incomprehensible tongue, reverberating across the antechamber and making stones shift and fall. “Tar’okim vas ork’la heka maar aartu detu tenosaara moe’mo glisnok ko’ora ro kaan tre’yark hoaardokes ske paarth yokanok esko beth’roas thaan tu shal’kan forkestal stratos!” he babbles.

“He’s possessed!” shouts Tangerine, having forgotten her previous intentions in an instant.

Tohro pushes her away from the vortex of chaotic light, covering his head from falling debris. “Sure, let’s go with that! And to answer your question, no! I don’t know what the fuck this is!”

Shae forgoes limping to join them. “You’re just as clueless as the rest of us, General!”

Tohro pauses for a moment at how that was phrased and laughs out loud.

“And by the way,” Shae continues, “I’m still not so keen to how you held a blade to my neck! I have half a mind to let Otar eat you alive!”

Tangerine has a look of remorse. Until now, Tohro doubted she could feel such a thing.

“Who are you, earthwalker?” Otar asks Tangerine, shaking his head at the scene as he tries to restrain Caro’s thrashing. “The liquid glass did not foresee your arrival!” His eyes wander over to the bowl, then back to Tangerine with a look of concern. “How did you get past my barrier?”

Tangerine blinks. “What barrier?”

A roar breaks the silence, and sounds of bony hoofsteps begin marching towards the chamber.

“Oh, great...” Tohro mutters.

Otar curses under his breath. “The nidilon serve many purposes. To ensure the prophetic gem stays in its rightful place, to keep outsiders out, and to keep intruders in. But I can't control them in such numbers!”

Tangerine glances to Tohro, making a silent plea for an explanation. The pegasus can only offer a shrug.

Just as things can’t seem to any worse, the torches Otar had spoken into all burn out simultaneously, plunging the room into darkness save for the unnatural glow from Caro’s body.

Tohro falters. '“Great...”

“Blackwing... are you... shivering?” Tangerine asks, her voice sounding more concerned than it has any right to.

“NO!” Tohro snaps, shoving away her sudden touch.

The draugr are closing in on Shae, Tohro and Tangerine fast. Tangerine turns to them, her tail reaching for her sword.

“Nid!” With never before seen grace, Caro leaps in front of the three. He tenses up his body and closes his eyes, his entire body trembling like a coiled spring as he prepares to do the impossible. "Fus..." Merely uttering the first syllable makes his body tingle with anticipation, and fear. Energy crackles off of his rough coat in white arcs. The draugr grow closer now, so close that their putrid odor is almost visible. "...RO DAAAAAH!"

Caro shouts the last two syllables, eyes tearing open to reveal draconic slits, shining with the beauty and majesty of his draconic forefathers. It is the last thing the draugr see before they are obliterated by the gale.

It takes Shae a moment to register that the undead they have been fighting this whole time were the Precursors themselves. With the corpses tossed aside into the neighboring walls of the antechamber, further embedded into the stone by the sheer force of Caro’s Thu'um. They impact upon one another, bone shattering against bone. Tens upon hundreds of cold, unforgiving sockets going out as their final moments of unlife leave their possessed remains.

Bone dust, eroded flesh and mildewed cartilage fall from the ceiling like vile snow, and all is silent. Caro stands perfectly still, his draconic eyes not blinking.

Until Tohro speaks up. "I almost feel like... that was too easy..." he says.

Caro sways and reach out to his pegasus companion to steady himself.

“Are you okay, mate?”

“Geh... I’m fine...”

“Fine?!” shouts Shae, standing so close to Caro he can feel her every breath. “Do you have any idea how worried I was?! You were speaking in tongues! For a moment, I thought your head was going to twist about, then you'd spew fluids and climb the walls!”

“That'd actually be hilarious,” Tohro adds with a smirk.

Otar clears his throat. “As humorous as that may have been, I’m afraid what just happened to your friend is quite natural... for a Dragonborn.”

Shae tilts her head. “How do you mean by—” Her hesitant trot forward is cut off by another jolt of pain up her leg, and she falls to the ground with a scream. Caro leaps to her side and helps her stand.

“Dragonborn?” Tohro tilts his head, finding himself mesmerized by his friend’s very un-pony like eyes. “Are you telling me he’s the fruit of a dragon’s loins?”

“No,” says Caro, his voice clearer and more mature than ever before. “The prophetic gem held the answers... I am a foal of ponies, but the Dovah lie in my ancestry. The power of the Thu’um is mine to command.” He approaches Otar and gives a respectful bow. “Thanks to you, of course. I think I'm going to enjoy this power.”

“You now have nothing to fear, Caro Dragonborn,” Otar says, reciprocating the bow. “With your mighty voice, noble heart and unwavering spirit, you can face any challenge before you, and shape Equestria in your image. I bid thee farewell, though I pray to Saviikaan that our paths cross again.”

With a soft violet glow protruding outward from his jagged horn, Otar the Dragon Priest disappears.

"What... the fuck..." Tangerine gasps, falling onto her haunches.

Caro the Dragonborn grins.