Chapter 3: Ocean Zone.
The maze master climbed out of an air vent with the girls, and they noticed their were inside a luxurious cruise ship, and after looking at the windows filled with water, they were inside a sunken cruise ship.
" Welcome to zone three, the ocean zone, the S.S. Atlantis. over a century ago this ship hit an iceberg and sunk 20,000 feet under the sea, and the reason we haven't drowned is the fact that we're inside a giant air bubble, because of that, we should be safe", said O'Brien.
" Have you girls ever seen that movie, you know the one with the sunken cruise ship", said O'Brien.
" Titanic", said Rarity.
" No, Poseidon, well this is pretty similar", said O'Brien.
" Wasn't the ship in Poseidon upside down", said Rainbow Dash.
" Okay recap: we've traveled two zones, played eight challenges, won three crystals, that's 15 seconds in the dome, it would've been four crystals but you had to sacrifice a crystal to bail out Twilight in the first zone, each of you have played a game", said the maze master.
" Now, Sunset, what should our next challenge be", said O'Brien.
" Well, me, Twilight, Applejack and Rarity failed our first challenge, we're going to use this zone to redeem ourselves", said Sunset.
" Okay then, but where do we start", said O'Brien.
" We'll start with a Mystery this time, and I nominate Rarity for the challenge", said Sunset.
" Rarity for a Mystery, well, I have just the game", said O'Brien, leading Rarity up some stairs, into the back of the ship.
" This is a three minute game, fair warning you will get soaked, and also I promise I won't start the clock until you hit the water", said O'Brien.
Rarity then climbed down a ladder inside the room, where she discovers a flooded room, and a hole on the wall, leading to a small cave.
Putting her feet in the water, the time starts.
Rarity then swims towards the cave, where some pirate skeletons were shown, along with some other junk.
Picking up a scroll one of the pirates was holding, she read from it.
The next clue is inside a large shell.
Once she read out the clue aloud, her friends told her to look under the water, as there are no shells inside the cave.
And so, Rarity dove back into the water, and was submerged underneath, looking for a large shell.
" Two and a half minutes left", O'Brien said, even though Rarity didn't hear that being underwater.
She noticed the shell, grabbed it, and burst out of the water, she pulled out a small piece of paper, and she read it aloud.
" The next clue is hidden among diamonds", she called out.
" Search for diamonds", Derpy called out.
" I can't find any jewels in the cave", said Rarity.
" There's a chest next to the pirate, maybe the diamonds are in there", Pinkie Pie called out.
Rarity went back into the cave, and tried to open the chest.
" It's locked", said Rarity.
" Is there a key somewhere", said Sunset.
" No, and it's a combination lock", said Rarity.
" What other types of diamonds are there", said O'Brien.
" You mean like Emeralds, like I said, I don't see any jewels in the cave", said Rarity.
" Does Rarity have to go back into the water, maybe the jewels are in the water", said Fluttershy.
" Maybe try thinking outside the box, she won't have to dig for diamonds with her hands if there are any spades, no will she join any pirate clubs as they've lost their hearts literally", O'Brien said.
" Try the deck of cards", said Twilight.
" You caught on very well, two minutes by the way", said O'Brien.
Rarity then approached the cards, and flipped them over, knowing some of them have letters on the back.
After flipping all the cards, she uncovers five letters, D, O, R, S and W.
" It's an anagram, these letters form a word", said O'Brien.
" Sword", said Rarity.
Turning around, she noticed one of the swords has a carving on it, and she read it.
" Unlock the chest with the message in a bottle", she read aloud.
" A minute and 15 seconds left", said O'Brien.
Diving back into the water, Rarity looked for a bottle, after finding one, she burst out, and she opened the bottle, pulled out the message, and read it.
" The combination is 2-0-9", said Rarity, going back into the cave, she dialed the combination and opened the chest, where the crystal is kept, even though Rarity was awestruck by the other treasures inside the chest.
" 45 seconds left", O'Brien called out.
Snapping out of her daze, Rarity grabbed the crystal, left the cave, climbed back up the ladder, and got out of the room.
" Excellent job Rarity, I should've given you two and a half minutes instead, anyways that's now four crystals, 20 seconds in the dome", said O'Brien.
" Where to next Sunset", said O'Brien.
" A mental game next, for Twilight", said Sunset.
" Twilight, well first off, lets head downstairs, we'll take Rarity to the boiler room so she can dry off, and then we'll do your challenge next", said O'Brien.
The group made their way back downstairs, as O'Brien lead Rarity to the boiler room, afterwards, O'Brien lead Twilight to the next room.
" Now, this is just a simple two minute game, easy peasy", said O'Brien, opening the door, letting Twilight in.
Twilight notices she was in like an office, the main concern was a large box in the middle, and keys hanging on the wall, each key has a tag attached with a picture of a flag of a country.
She looked inside the box, which has a padlock, and writing on it, Tokyo.
" Tokyo, that's in Japan", said Twilight.
Approaching the wall, she finds the key with the Japanese flag, a white flag with a red circle in the middle, and detaches it from the wall, returning to the chest, she unlocks it, and pulls out another box, smaller than the first.
" You got the right idea", said O'Brien.
Twilight then read the next clue on the second box, Paris.
" Paris, France", said Twilight.
" A minute and a half left by the way", said O'Brien.
Twilight then finds the next key, a three striped flag, red on top, white in the middle, blue at the bottom, and she used it to unlock the box, and pulled out a third box, an even smaller box.
" You will need to pick up the pace a bit", said O'Brien.
Twilight then reads the third clue, Canberra.
" Canberra, Australia", said Twilight.
" A minute left", said O'Brien.
Twilight then grabbed a key with a blue flag that has the union jack at the top left corner, and six stars, one below the union jack, and the rest at the side, former the southern cross.
She tried to unlocked, but it wouldn't fit.
She looked down and realized why.
" Damn, I should've known, the Australian flag and New Zealand flag look almost the same, why did they have to be next to each other", said Twilight, going back to grab the Australian key.
Once she has the key, she unlocks the box, pulling out a fourth box, showing the next clue, Ottawa.
" Ottawa, Canada", Twilight said, finding the next key, which had a red maple leaf.
Grabbing the key, she unlocks the box, revealing the smallest box of the bunch, and the last clue, Berlin.
" Berlin, Germany", said Twilight, finding the final key.
" 30 seconds left", said O'Brien.
But Twilight didn't need the reminder, she found the key with the Black, Red and Yellow stripes, and tried to unlock the box, but it wouldn't budge.
" Wait, is this the right key, oh that's right, this one's Belgium, my bad", said Twilight, she went back to find the other key, the German key, and she went back to the box and unlocked it, revealing the crystal.
Taking it, she ran out the room in time.
" Congratulations Twilight, five crystals, 25 seconds in the dome", said O'Brien.
" Our next game is going to be a skill game, and I'm going to give Applejack a go", said Sunset.
" Okay then, follow me Applejack", said O'Brien, leading Applejack to a room across the hall, just as Rarity returned from the boiler room, all dried off.
" How was the boiler room Rarity", said O'Brien.
" Warm, almost like a sauna, dried off very quickly, what happened while I was gone, did Twilight win a crystal", said Rarity.
" She did, and Applejack is just about to do hers, another two minute game, should be easy", said O'Brien, opening the door.
Applejack enters the room, and the time starts, she discovers a large pipe above, and a large box containing coal.
" I only want eight lumps up there, that pipe leads to the furnace", said O'Brien.
Applejack then picked up a lump of coal, and threw it up, however it missed, she tried again a couple more times until she got her first one in.
" Excellent, one down seven to go", said O'Brien.
Applejack continued throwing coal, it wasn't long until she got her second one in.
" You're doing great Applejack", said Derpy.
" Only six more to go", said Applejack, grabbing another lump as she threw it.
" A minute and a half left", said O'Brien.
Just after he said that, Applejack manage to score another lump.
And she soon scored another afterwards.
" Excellent, you're halfway there", said O'Brien.
Applejack then throws more coal, until she scores a fifth point.
" Three more to go, and she's still got over a minute", said O'Brien.
" This is darn easy", said Applejack.
Throwing another lump of coal into the furnace, she only needs two more to go.
" 45 seconds", said O'Brien.
As soon as he said that, Applejack grabbed more coal and continued throwing.
" You girls might want to give out some space by the door", said O'Brien.
Applejack then gets her second to last lump in.
" Nice, one more to go", said Applejack.
" 25 seconds left, don't crack now", said O'Brien.
Applejack was starting to panic, but she kept throwing more coal.
" Ten seconds", said O'Brien.
" Quick, get out Applejack", said Sunset.
Applejack didn't listen, she then threw one final lump into the furnace, and the crystal was released.
" Five...Four...", O'Brien counted down.
Applejack went for the crystal.
" Three...Two...".
She made her way back to the door.
" One...Zero".
But it was too late, O'Brien locked the door, leaving Applejack trapped in the room.
" Disappointing, I thought she was going to get it, but then at the last second, she failed, maybe if she didn't go for the crystal, she would've made it out, you know what they say, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, but then again, if she did choose to leave the crystal instead of going back for it, we might wonder if she would've made it out if she went back for it instead", said O'Brien.
" Now, captain Sunset, the team has five crystals at the moment, we still have one more game to play before we leave this zone, you can buy her out now, or wait until after the next game to decide", said O'Brien.
" We bought out Twilight last time right away, and it would be unfair if we leave Applejack behind", said Sunset.
" We can't keep wasting crystals though", said Twilight.
" I respect whatever decision you make, sugar cube", said Applejack.
" Well, you've done two challenges already, and we did say we were each going to do three challenges, so you only need to do one more, but that won't be for a while, we'll wait until we get more crystals till then", said Sunset.
" Alright, so make yourself comfy Applejack, in the meantime, the final game is a physical game, in which you will be doing I assume Sunset", said O'Brien.
" Yep", said Sunset.
" In that case, right this way", said O'Brien, leading Sunset to the next room.
" This is a two minute game, and it's also an automatic lock in, should you touch the floor, the door is bolted, and Twilight to take over as team captain", said O'Brien.
Sunset enters the room, where she finds herself onto a ledge, the floor below is fogged, across the room is a small laundry chute, also on the ledge are eight sacks of dirty laundry.
Above the ledge is a zip line, with a small chair attached.
Sitting down on the chair, Sunset grabs a sack, and moves herself towards the chute, once close enough, she throws the sack into the chute.
" She's got the right idea, but she can't touch the floor beneath the fog, I also recommend grabbing two at a time instead of just one", said O'Brien.
Sunset however didn't hear the last bit, as she grabbed another sack, and began moving towards the chute.
" A minute and a half left", said O'Brien.
After tossing the second sack into the chute, she made her way back.
" Try doing two at a time", said Twilight.
Sunset this time did hear that, and grabbed two sacks, and she made her way to the chute.
" A minute left", said O'Brien.
After tossing both sacks into the chute, she made her way back.
" Okay, four more to go, you really need to get your skates on", said O'Brien.
She grabs another two sacks, and made her way back to the chute.
" Under thirty seconds left, I don't think she'll finish", said O'Brien.
" Come on out Sunset", said Twilight.
Sunset made her way back, however, unfortunate she slipped off her seat halfway, and landed on the floor.
" I'm sorry, but that's an automatic lock in, such a pity", said O'Brien, he then takes out two crystals from his pocket, ironically, the same crystals won from the first two challenges in the ocean zone.
" Well Twilight, these are the two crystals both you and Rarity won in this zone, you can spend them both and bail out Applejack and Sunset, or you can save them and leave the next zone as six, or you can buy one out now and leave the other behind", said O'Brien.
" We're not going to chose one over the other, either we buy them both out, or neither at all", said Twilight.
" And your choice is...", O'Brien asked.
" If we lose both crystals, we'll be back down to three like when we arrived, and they both played two challenges already, and only need to do one more each, but that won't be for a while, we'll press on for now", said Twilight.
" Okay then, we're halfway through the maze, there's still three more zones to get through, 12 more crystals to obtain if you want to claim more crystals than Crystal Prep, you will need to start improving", said the maze master.
" This zone may have started out good, but then it ended badly, but we mustn't dwell, it's all water under the bridge, or in this case, water under the boat, as well as over, and on the sides, maybe we're better off on land, the next zone we'll face should be better, it's where the cherry blossoms bloom", said O'Brien.
He then leaves the ocean zone with Twilight, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, Rarity and Derpy, while Applejack and Sunset are still in their rooms.
O'Brien climbed up a ladder, and opened a small man hole, revealing a cave, in which he and the remaining six girls went through.
Next chapter: Eastern Zone.