Cube Land

Chapter Seven

Day 95

Thankfully, the ponies all followed me without question. I noticed that they seemed to look to Daybreak for the answer, which leads me to believe that she is the leader, or perhaps the eldest. She has shown more curiosity than the others, which may also indicate that she has a higher intelligence level than the other ponies.

The Mine was roughly a hundred meters away and I arrived there in no time at all. I looked behind me to make sure that all of the ponies were following me: they were, save for the blue winged pony. To my surprise, she had been flying for the majority of the trip. She was hovering in mid-air, her wings flapping constantly to keep her airborne. I wondered how much she weighed: I wasn't entirely sure that something of their size could fly properly. Even stranger, when I approached the entrance to the Mine, which is where she was hovering, the blue pony shot straight up into the air.

The blue pony treated me to...I don't know how to describe it. She performed all sorts of acrobatic manoeuvres, doing flips and swoops in the air. I think that she was either trying to boast about the fact that she had wings and I didn't, or she was just trying to show what she was capable of. I hope it was the latter. Regardless of the cause or reason, I noticed a most peculiar phenomenon when she was zipping around in the sky at high speed: she left a small streak of colours behind her.

I am not sure whether this was caused by the fact that her hair is multi-coloured, but that would certainly explain it better than anything else I have come up with. I know there is a word for the collection of colours...I will ponder it for a while. Of course, if someone is reading this, you will not notice the time lapse.

I thought of the word. Spectrum. The blue ponies hair is made up of a spectrum of colours. She left behind a spectrum streak of colours when she performed her aerial acrobatics. Hmm. I think I have inadvertently thought of a name for the blue pony.

I will call her Spectrum Streak. Chances are, I will shorten it to simply Spectrum.

After Spectrum's aerial display, I descended cautiously into the mine. I was glad that I had taken the time to carve out stairs into the stone at the entrance. They were spaced well enough for me to walk up and down with ease, but they were slightly more problematic for the ponies, as their legs are not as long as mine, not even close. All of the ponies except for one braved my staircase.

The pony who seemingly refused to enter the main cavern of the Mine is one that I have not really touched upon. She seems to have a more feminine personality than the others, as evidenced by her styled hair and her seeming hatred for anything dirty. Her hair colour is a combination of blue and purple and her coat colour is seemingly white, but seems to be more of a very light grey. I tried to coax the stubborn pony down into the cavern, but she firmly planted her feet outside and shook her head. It took Daybreak, Apple, and Spectrum to finally convince her to step into the Mine. By convince I mean that they had to forcibly drag her into the Mine. The look on the ponies faces seemed to indicate that they were used to this sort of behaviour.

With the ponies behind me, I pulled a torch from one of the pockets on my belt. I grabbed my flint and steel from another pocket and lit the tip of the torch as it expanded to fit my hand. Taking comfort from the light of the torch, I placed the flint and steel back in its pocket. I shifted the torch to my left hand and grabbed my diamond pickaxe that was fixed to my belt.

I glanced behind me and motioned for the ponies to stay close.

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Twilight's friends were excited to see where the creature was leading them. Twilight, however, was far more interested in something else.

"Did anypony else see the torch get bigger when he pulled it out of his pocket?" asked Twilight. "I mean, that couldn't have possibly fit in the pouch on his belt. Look at the size of it!"

Applejack was the first to reply. "Yer right, Twilight. Now that Ah think about it, that there torch did seem to get bigger when he pulled it out..."

Twilight thought about that as she and the others followed the creature closely as they walked deeper into the cave, and into a narrow tunnel. Maybe that's how things work here, thought Twilight idly. They shrink when they're not in use. That would explain what happened to the flower that we found.

Twilight nearly ran in to the creature, distracted by her thoughts as she was, stopping mere inches from his hand. The creature had stopped abruptly and stuck out his hand that was holding the torch, making the motion of 'Stop'.

"What's going on?" asked somepony behind her. "Why'd you stop?"

Twilight poked her head around the creature's blocky arm, trying to see what had given the creature indecision. There was a fairly large gap that she certainly didn't want to jump. Twilight looked down the crevasse. Twilight felt queasy when she realized that she couldn't see the bottom.

Just as Twilight was going to say why they were stopped, something whizzed by her head and embedded itself into the stone behind her.

"What the hay was that?!" exclaimed Twilight as she backpedalled. The logical part of her took note of how quickly the creature reacted. He immediately jumped across the gap, his powerful legs launching him across the gap. He hit the other side already running, sprinting towards whatever had shot the object, his massive pickaxe in one hand and a flickering torch in the other.

Twilight watched as the creature swung his pickaxe at the monster that tried to hurt them. From the flickering torchlight, Twilight could only vaguely see the battle play out. She hoped that the friendly creature was winning.

"What's happenin' up there?!" yelled Applejack. "I'm hearin' the sound of fightin'!"

"I don't know! A monster threw something at me and the friendly creature went to fight him!" shouted Twilight in response.

"Then what are we waiting for?" asked Rainbow Dash. "Let's go help him!"

"Wait!" cried Twilight. "There's a big crevice that cuts the path in half! There's no way for us to get across!"

Rainbow Dash snorted. "There's no way for you to get across." With those words, she unfurled her wings and flew over everypony, creating a gust of wind that nearly knocked Twilight into the hole.

"Horse apples! You girls stay here. Ah'll go get both of 'em!" exclaimed Applejack as she took several steps backwards to get a running start. Twilight attempted to convince Applejack to wait, but to no avail. She ran to the edge of the abyss and bounded over the gap, barely clearing it.

Twilight turned around to Rarity and Fluttershy. "I hope they're going to be okay," said Fluttershy.

"This is precisely the reason why I didn't want to go down here in the first place," remarked Rarity. "But did anypony listen? No..."

Twilight, however, had a much more pressing concern. "Girls...where's Pinkie Pie?"

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Day 95

I followed my staggered torch guidelines, the ponies right behind me. I kept my eyes peeled for any Night dwellers, but didn't come across any along the first stretch of the Pit. When we descended into the short, skinny tunnel that had given me the chills last time, I had a bad feeling about bringing the ponies along with me. When I think about it now, I realize that they would've tracked me down, even if I locked them in the house, since I showed Daybreak the button combination to my front door.

Taking a deep breath to dispel my worries, I led the way into the cramped tunnel. It was barely tall enough for me to stand up straight. I could have reached up and put my hand flat against the ceiling, if I so chose. We walked for about thirty meters before I nearly fell down a chasm. The abyss had seemingly appeared out of nowhere, if the three meter gap that it spanned was anything to go by. Luckily, I had the presence of mind to signal the ponies behind me to stop, which very possibly saved Daybreak's life.

I was wondering where the fissure had come from, as it wasn't there the last time I had delved down into the depths of the Pit. As I was pondering, I heard the twang of a bow and before I could react, an arrow flew by my hand, nearly hit Daybreak, then burrowed itself into the stone wall.

Time seemed to slow down for me, as it has in the past when I or someone I cared about was threatened. It took me only a few fractions of a second to make a plan: jump the gap, deal with the skeleton, then find some way to get the ponies across. As I have seemingly been unable to learn, my plans haven't exactly gone as I planned.

I cleared the chasm fairly easily, landing on the other side with enough momentum to continue my sprint. A detached part of mind noticed that the ceiling was noticeably higher on the other side. I closed the distance between the me and the skeleton, whose form was flickering from the torchlight that I was still carrying.

Skeletons. I don't know what has caused the bones of deceased bipeds to become reanimated, and, quite frankly, I don't want to know. The bones of the undead are somehow held together, but very loosely, causing them to rattle and shake whenever they move. I don't know what species they once were, nor if they have some sort of leader, but I can say this: they aren't that intelligent. Sneaky, yes. Cunning, maybe. Smart? No.

For yet another reason I can't explain, they use bows and arrows as their main forms of attack. I don't know how they can even grasp the bow, let alone notch an arrow. I am deviating into semantics again. Back to the journal.

I swung my pickaxe at the skeleton's legs, shattering them before it could get loose another arrow at me or the ponies. The skeleton fell to the stone floor, it's empty eye sockets two black voids that stared straight into my soul. I raised my pickaxe above my head and brought it down onto the skeleton's skull, smashing it into bits.

I took no chances with skeletons: their bones may collapse when the skull is removed or crushed, but I still crunched the bones into bone meal. It had two purposes: it prevented the possibility of the skeleton somehow managing to pull itself back together and the bone meal could be used as a sort of super fertilizer for any sort of plant life.

As I finished crushing the bones of the skeleton, I heard the distinctive...clopping sound that I had associated with the ponies hooves stepping across the stone coming from behind me. I turned around and saw that Apple and Spectrum were both rushing towards me, one flying and one running. I thought that the motion was sweet: the ponies wanted to help me combat the monsters. I had thought that I wouldn't need any help fighting. I have since retracted that statement.

I tried to shoo the ponies back, so that I could scout ahead without endangering any of them, but to no avail. As I was thinking on how I could convince the ponies to return to the other side of the fissure, a heard an unnerving moan coming from right behind me. Before I could swing my pickaxe, Spectrum flew past me in a burst of speed and kicked the zombie in its face.

I absolutely abhor zombies. They are the single most vile and nauseating abomination that walks this cube land. They are single minded in their one and only desire: flesh. They are slow, pandering creatures that are easily dealt with, as long as you have a sword or bow. They come towards you, their arms outstretched, their throats gurgling with the sound of decaying tissue. They are walking corpses that have no purpose, none whatsoever. No matter how many of them I slay, more always come. Not right away, but they come. I feel that I am doing the right thing by releasing them from their torment, if they were truly ever alive. Nightmares of zombies have been the cause of many a sleepless night for me.

...

I realize that I let too much of my emotion seep into my words. I apologize to whomever may read this; zombies are, and always will be, a sore subject.

Either Spectrum must have been going quite fast, or she might just pack a strong kick since the zombie fell backwards into the wall, it's arms still reaching upwards, grasping at invisible prey even as it slid further and further down the side of the tunnel. I had managed to put my pickaxe away and draw my sword, but Apple had already dealt with the zombie before I could act. She turned around and kicked the zombie with both of her back legs, balancing on her front legs as she did so, right in the side of its head.

I took no chances this time, like I did with the creeper. I cut the zombie's head off with my sword, its green blood dripping down the sharpened steel edge. I returned to the fine, white powder that was the remains of the skeleton and picked up the bow that it had carried, along with seven stray arrows that the skeleton must have held before I destroyed it. I returned to Apple and Spectrum, who were both staring at the zombie's corpse. They're thoughts and mine were interrupted when a cacophony of groans and hisses came from down the tunnel.

I looked back at Spectrum and Apple, who seemed to be sharing a look of their own. With almost perfect synchronization, they both looked up at me and nodded, their eyes filled with determination. I smiled outwardly, but I was pained internally. I had seen the same look before on my previous companion.

...

Not yet. Maybe next journal entry.

...

I nodded to them in return as I fitted an arrow into my new bow. I turned around and prepared to face the onslaught.

Author's Note: Hopefully this makes up for the shortness of the last chapter!

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