Chapter 18

Final Preparations

Drawing out their plans on the back of the Gazer's map, Spike explained, "Okay, so we know that the Squizzard's palace, or rather his main palace, has just this one entrance. I'm sure the Gazer-"

"Hold up! How many palaces does the Squizzard have?" Pinkie asked.

"Uh, five. Why do you ask?"

"Why would the Squizzard have so many?" she demanded.

"Um… Because he is the Squizzard and is really powerful?"

"Hmm, it sounds like you were trying to justify having him being a recurring villain after we kick his butt at least once. He can just escape to another castle and then set up his operations again!"

"Yeah, but right now we need to focus on," Spike began saying.

"Wait! After everything that we have seen and explored, you want to just go back to fighting the Squizzard all over again?" Rainbow Dash demanded. "Come on man! That sounds a little lame! I mean, you can still use him as a villain, but after all of this, there is so much more of this world for us to see! So many more ponies and other creatures to rescue! More dungeons to find and dive into!"

"They make a fair point," Discord said to him.

"Yup!"

"Alright! We can explore more of this world once we have defeated the Gazer! Can we get back to the planning, please?" Spike said, exasperated.

"Sure!" Pinkie said sweetly.

"At least promise me that you can still deliver high quality adventures, Spike. I know you can do it man!" Rainbow Dash said.

"Yup!"

"Fine, I'll do my best," Spike finally replied with a smile.

The group smiled at each other before Discord coughed into his fist. "Don't we have a plan to make? I'm pretty certain we've already addressed this touching moment at least twice on our quest so far."

"Way to go," Big Mac muttered with a glare at the archer.

"Discord's right; we need to get to work," Spike said, getting to work on his drawing. "The Squizzard's main palace was made to encourage us to have an epic battle at the front gates. It would be rewarding to defeat to the Squizzard's guards and overcome his traps and schemes. That's all part of what makes for a good boss fight. However, there was the possibility that we wouldn't make it through the front doors.

"This led me to design the castle with a kind of backdoor in. But it is very far down. The cliff that the palace is built on goes pretty far down, and that is why no one would immediately guess that there is a hidden door. We just need to break in through there and climb up the stairwell and different basements into the cave proper."

"But why would we want to do that?" Pinkie asked. "The Gazer won't let us out of the game until we deliver the four figurines!"

"Yeah, but we know that we won't keep his word," Rainbow Dash huffed. "I get what you're coming from Spike. We sneak in and catch the Gazer off guard and beat him up! Then we find out from him how we get out!"

"Well…"

Big Mac shook his head. "If we were going to do that, we might as well go through the front door."

"But that would not catch the Gazer off balance and giving us the upper hoof," the rogue protested.

"No! We want to give the Gazer the figurines," Spike said loudly.

"Surely all those earlier talks of friendship are finally getting to you and making you act silly," Discord sighed with a sly grin adorning his face. "We obviously don't want to give the Gazer our four treasures! That would put us at his mercy!"

"That's what I want," Spike retorted, but then he grinned. "Or, that is what I want the Gazer to think. You see, I am pretty certain that the Gazer won't just let us go. We have to give him the figurines, because I bet he won't let us know how to escape this game world, even if we beat him within an inch of his life. Therefore, we need to hand them over and see if he goes through on his word.

"But if he doesn't, he will think that he has beaten us and we can probably get the Gazer to monologue and give up the details on how we break out. And that is when we attack the Gazer from all directions, because by sneaking in, we can rig the castle to fight along with us!"

The others looked impressed, but still a little confused. Spike explained that if they stocked up on enough supplies before entering the castle, they could set up traps all over the place and overwhelm the Gazer with tricks. He wouldn't be able to deflect all of their attacks and traps, because his eyes focus too much on the magical aspects of battle. An OP wizard-type of a villain, much like Spike himself, but lacking where it mattered in terms of defense and health.

"The Gazer seems so formidable because he has so many powers, but up close he's actually super weak. So we remove his advantages of height and setting. We force the Gazer to our level and then Big Mac and Rainbow Dash can deal super amounts of damage while the rest of us draw his full attention and get him to go into our traps!"

"It seems a little complicated," Big Mac worried.

"Yeah, how can we do that and not get caught?" Rainbow Dash asked.

Spike smirked and lifted up his cloak. "We haven't used these much yet, but they will make us nearly invisible! We just need to take our time and be patient. And then we will have the perfect scenario to get out of the game whether or not the Gazer lets us leave!"

"You know, that is cheeky is enough that it just might work!" Discord said. "I think we should go along with it!"

"I think I can along with it, too," Pinkie replied simply.

Big Mac and Rainbow Dash shared a glance before sighing and both agreeing to go along with Spike's plan. With Spike's recreation of the winding stairway up the palace and details about the secret door, the party got themselves together and made their way to a small village on the way back to the palace. It was their only chance to get some supplies to help them assemble their traps.

However, once they arrived at the town, they found a surprise waiting for them. After they had cleared out the small general store of all its rope, wax, arrows, and even a small package of fireworks, a visitor came. The ponies all cried out with fright and scampered away into their homes and locked their doors and windows. A bone warrior trotted down the street.

"Well, it looks like the Squizzard has marshalled his forces again," Discord said, pulling out his bow.

"After everything else we've done, this feels like a joke!" Rainbow Dash laughed.

Pinkie pointed at the warrior. "Hey look! What does it have in its mouth?"

Spike squinted his eyes and saw that there was in indeed a letter in its mouth. The party inched close to the warrior who spat the letter at their feet. It didn't say another word. Discord had his arrow trained on the warrior as Spike knelt to get it. Once he opened it, his eyebrows flew up into his hat.

"Well, scratch all of our preparation," he said numbly.