Chapter 16

Problems

Growls and wicked laughter echoed in the darkness around the six adventurers, causing Flute R'Shye to whimper and Reyna to grit her teeth. Pin Kay prepared her guitar and after humming a few notes told the others, "Don't worry, girls... er, and Jack! Auntie Pin Kay will give you a boost!"

The bard began strumming on her instrument...

"Uh-oh. That wasn't a good roll."

Pinkie looked down at the die she had just rolled and then up at Roller. She asked, "Didn't you say that something bad happens if we roll a one?"

Roller looked a little surprised, but then a mischievous grin formed on his features. What started as a low, menacing chuckle soon erupted into outright maniacal laughter to rival that of any comic book villain. He soon stopped his laughter as he noticed that the others were giving him looks of concern, confusion or fear and he told them, "The roll of a one on the die is what we call a Fumble. While normally a low roll simply means that you've failed at whatever you're trying to do, a Fumble means that you failed in a manner hitherto unknown to ponydom."

Rainbow Dash arched an eyebrow. Giving her Horse Master a befuddled look, she asked, "What does that mean in the game?"

The author replied, "I get to roll my dice to see exactly how badly Pin Kay failed," he then did just that behind the small screen in front of him and winced when he saw the result.

"You're not going to like this."

The other adventurers heard a strange, twanging sound followed immediately by bright flash of light and Pin Kay yelping in pain. "Pin!" Twin Star called to the bard, "Are you alright? What happened?"

The bard replied, "Ow! Ow! My guitar burst into flames! Ow! And it burned! How does this even happen?" her tone suddenly changed, "Hey, who's cooking? I smell something burn... oh wait, that's me!"

The bard screamed and panicked, running in a random direction until eventually, the others heard a splashing noise and their friend went silent. "Pin?" called Flute, "Are you there?"

The darkness around them was quiet for a few seconds before Twin Star let out a sudden shout in pain. Something had struck the side of her head very hard and the sorceress fell over. She struggled to get back to her feat, but to no avail. Her vision filled with stars that quickly faded as the dark world around her went quiet.

Lady Styles pulled on the hood of her cloak and crouched down. She quickly made her way over to the wall of the room and pressed up against it, hoping that no one saw her. The thief held her breath and tried to peer through the darkness, but could only see faint shapes and couldn't tell what they were.

Flute R'Shye concentrated and the vines around her frail body began to move. A cloud of mist rose up around her and a thousand tiny points of light appeared within in. The mist faded and the points of light spread throughout the room, one of them settling on Jack's nose. "Is that a lightnin' bug?" the knight was puzzled, "Dang. How many times can she do this in one day?"

"Too many!" Yelled a a shrill voice right next to the knight. Jack ducked just in time to avoid the swipe of a Diamond Dog's claw. One of the tiny, glowing insects then landed on top of the dog's head, making him a much more visible target.

"Thank you kindly, Miss R'Shye," Jack said as he reared up and planted a hoof in his attacker's face. The dog stumbled back and his eyes crossed, but he didn't fall over. The dog steadied himself only to see even more points of light illuminate where his fellow monsters were hiding.

A dog standing to Reyna's side muttered, "Uh-oh," as he realized that his prey could see him. He turned and tried to flee, but on his way through the door he passed Lady Styles' hiding place. The thief jumped out from the remaining shadows and forced her back hooves into the incoming foe's chest, sending him breathless, confused and dizzy to the floor.

The last two dogs were by the edge of a large pool of water that seemed to take up the entire middle of the room. One of them looked to the other and told him, "We need more dogs to crush puny ponies. I use whistle," before pulling a small, metallic cylinder from his vest pocket and blowing into it. At first the ponies heard nothing, but could soon make out the sounds of barking, growling and running coming closer to them.

Reyna charged forward and kicked the dog with the whistle into the water. Despite her efforts, the sounds of incoming foes kept getting louder. "Darn it!" She turned to Jack, "What do we do now?"

Suddenly, Pin Kay emerged from the surface of the water. After spitting out a mouthful of water, she shouted her answer "Just keep bucking!"

The other dog by the water ordered the bard, "Be quiet, stupid pony!" before swinging one its claws at Reyna. Reyna tried to duck under the blow, but didn't move fast enough and felt the full force of the dog's strength against the side of her head. Her ears rang and she saw two of everything for a second, but quickly regained her senses and could see the dog trying to run past her to the tunnel they just entered from.

"No you don't!" Reyna shouted as she jumped up and tackled the dog, pinning him face first to the floor. The enemy struggled under her hooves, but the barbarian refused to let him up. She smirked as she stated, "No one disses my friends and get away with it."

Lady Styles could hear the dogs coming closer and closer. She looked around in a panic, eventually looking down at Twin Star. "Miss Star!" She called out, "Get out of the open!"

Twin Star didn't move, she only made a confused, mumbling noise. "Oh dear, you're hurt, aren't you?" Lady Styles sounded worried, "Here, let me help you."

The thief approached her injured friend and tried to drag her back to the relative safety of the remaining shadows. "Come on, Twin Star," she pleaded, "It's time to move!"

The dog that had gotten his face bucked in by Jack saw an opportunity. He jumped over the knight, just barely avoiding another hoof to the face and rushed the thief. Lady Styles gasped and dropped her friend as she leaped back to avoid taking a claw to her flawless features. "Watch where you're swinging those!" she complained, "You could really ruin somepony's makeup."

Before the dog could make a comeback it felt something hard against the back its head. The creature stood straight up with eyes looking in different directions and his tongue hanging out the side of his mouth before falling to the floor in a heap. Jack stood behind the beast and apologized, "Sorry, M'lady. That one got away from me. Y'all alright?"

"She's doing a lot better then this guy," Reyna told them as she stomped on the Diamond Dog that she had pinned. She smiled a little as she saw the creature go limp and stepped away. Walking over to her friends, she asked, "What about the baddies still on their way?"

Pin Kay climbed out of the water and said, "This room seems kind of familiar. Anypony else feel like they've been here before?"

Styles and Jack looked around, but shook their heads. Just as Reyna tried to look through the dim lighting, she saw that a cloud of Flute's insects were buzzing around the mouth of a waterfall near the ceiling of the room. "Hey!" Reyna realized, "This is the same room we found the door from," she then braked out orders, "Somepony find a way to get us up that waterfall!"

Styles reached into her saddlebags before telling the others, "We don't have anymore rope. Our magic-user is too injured to cast spells. Whatever shall we do?"

Almost as if on cue, the unconscious body of a diamond dog floated belly up to the surface of the pool. Pin Kay ran to the water's edge and said, "That guy has a whip. We can use that, right?" to which the others all nodded.

Lady Styles jumped from the shore to on top of the dog and took the whip hanging on his side. Gripping the handle in her mouth, she lashed out with the weapon and managed to wrap the end of it on a stalactite near the waterfall. "Hurry!" she pleaded the others, "The other dogs are getting closer!"

The ponies all started climbing the whip with Reyna carrying Twin Star. Just as they reached the top, the incoming dogs reached the room. One of the dogs tried to climb after them, but just as he did, Flute's lightning bugs swarmed around the top of the water and disappeared with the forest pony standing in their place. She untied the rope to the stalactite and said, "Um. Sorry, but, um, take that, you, um, meanie," as her enemy fell back down into the water.

"That was close."

Fluttershy took a deep breath, "Um, can we take a little break? That was way too exciting."

Roller nodded and stretched as he answered, "Sure thing, I have to check my upstairs window locks anyway. Everypony take five. You can grab something to drink from the fridge if you want."

They all walked off away from the table except for Twilight Sparkle. She waited for the others to leave before going upstairs after Roller. The unicorn stopped just outside the author's room and could hear him talking to some unseen guest.

"Of course you're busy," he sounded sad, "it's not a problem. We're not foals anymore and you have lives of your own to live. It's fine, really. I'm busy too..." he trailed off and corrected himself, "I'm too busy. Th-that's it. No time to see the old gang when there are books to write, right?"

Twilight stepped into the doorway and could see that Roller was looking at a smaller version of the poster he had downstairs. He sighed and told it, "I... I miss you guys," before taking a glance at his window and turning to leave. Looking up, he saw Twilight standing on the threshold of his room and completely froze.

Twilight and Roller locked eyes and neither of them moved. While she had a confused and concerned expression, Roller's face was stuck in a look of embarrassment and horror. After what felt like forever, he requested, "Please don't tell the others that I do this sometimes. Ponies in this town already think I'm weird."

Twilight took a step back and said, "I didn't see anything. Especially not you talking to a poster," then she stopped and asked, "but if I did see that, would you care to explain it?"

Before he could answer, Rainbow Dash called from downstairs, "You coming back soon? We've got adventuring to do."

"Coming," they both replied in unison. As he walked past Twilight and into the hallway, he said to her, "Please, not a word," and then proceeded down the stairs.