Prompt: Difficult Castle



"We've got another one," Rainbow exclaims with unusual enthusiasm. "Rank 9. One of the hardest."

Twilight, Applejack and Rarity are crowded around a small, circular table where a hologram of a foreboding structure floats above a grand pool of lava. Rarity leans in and squints. "A black castle? Just floating there?"

"That's right!" Rainbow answers. "And the best part, we've got all 6 keys needed to unlock the door." She looks to the side at a decent pile of things. Miscellaneous to the untrained, but to the lot of them, this pile was their everything: their gear, their wealth, and most importantly, their restoration items, among other things.

Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie enters their building through a half-broken door. "Sorry it took so long to find her. She was really getting into haggling over some fruit."

"Listen, 5 bits for 3 cherries is ridiculous!" She throws her arms up in frustration. "Is it so much to ask that food be affordable?"

Aj finally stands, her leather armor creaking quietly as it adjusts. "No, but we can't be picky. Food's been hard enough to come by as it is, with everyone scrounging up everything they can find."

"She's right," Twilight adds. "With all these new dungeons popping up, more and more groups are joining the fight." She looks to Rainbow. "How... did you get this information anyway? It hasn't been announced?"

Rainbow scoffs and leans in. "That network of spies, remember? They owed me a favor." Again, she looks at the hologram.

The rest of them take a seat around the table. Armor clinks and rattles, leather chafes against itself and cloth kinda flumps. Rainbow clears her throat and gestures to Twilight. Twilight stands up and looks at the castle closely. "You said we have all 6 keys?"

"Yep. It wasn't obvious. The favor didn't buy me much, but she said something about colored discs, won through other dungeons."

"Ah, the Virtues. Right." Twilight holds up her hand and conjures an image of six distinctly colored discs, swirling around the air above her palm. "We got these a long while back, and just now the dungeon shows up for them to be useful?"

Fluttershy and Rarity share a glance of worry. Rarity looks over to Twilight. "Say, Twilight, are you sure we're ready for a ... Rank, 9, you said?" She glances at Rainbow for a brief moment, receiving a nod. "Rank 9. That's one below the hardest we've ever seen, and 3 above the hardest we've ever cleared alone."

"Which is why we've got to be prepared." She swiped her hand and the discs vanish. "How are we on all of our things?"

Pinkie starts rummaging through their entire inventory, firing off at rapid pace everything they have in the pile. When she finishes, she sits up and stretches. "Not including everything we have on our persons."

"Then all we need is to get there first and -" Rainbow silences herself.

Twilight looks with wide eyes, as if waiting for her to finish the thought. When nothing happens, she finally speaks. "Get there first and clear the castle." She pats Rainbow on the back. "You had the right idea, Rainbow."

Rainbow sighs in relief, hunching slightly, then straightens. "Right. As for the location, it's in the north, and we can get there by carriage, take a 30 minute walk and interact with the gate."



After the group prepares, in which they put their belongings into their bags, which can hold vast quantities of things, gather their courage and go through their carrying inventory one more time, they board a carriage that takes them to the northern plains to a small city.

The group starts their walk to the gate. "I haven't been here in a long time. When my brother and I were here, we took a picture of the High Crystal Mountains to the northeast." Twilight points to them. "And the city square has this fountain of fairies that has no less than 20 water spouts."

Applejack chuckles. Rainbow leans forward and lowers her voice. "I hear that a lot of the strongest Hunters come from here."

Fluttershy stops walking. "If that's the case, then maybe they already cleared it? We should just go home."

"No going back now, Fluttershy. We already here, an' we all been waitin' to get some good stuff from these dungeons." Aj lightly pats Fluttershy on the back. "We've got you, so you can get us. Good?" Hesitantly, Fluttershy nods. "Good. Deep breaths. We'll be fine."

Once they reach the gate, the target of their destination, Twilight steps up and the gate, which is a dark red and green swirling mass of energy, and puts her hand on it. A blue screen opens in front of her with six colored, though faded, holes. She looks to the others, who each offer up a colored disc in their possession.

From Pinkie, a purple disc, won from a graveyard dungeon called the Temple of Solitude. From Applejack, the red disc, won from a volcanic dungeon called the Temple of Power. From Fluttershy, a green disc, won from a forest dungeon called the Temple of Nature. From Rarity, a blue disc, won from an underwater dungeon called the Temple of Serenity. And from Rainbow, an orange disc, won from a desert dungeon called the Temple of Light. With those five and Twilight's own yellow disc, won from a city dungeon called the Temple of Magic, the discs themselves floated to the screen and inserted themselves into it. The screen clears away and the gate gains a light blue glow.

"Alright, girls. We can do this." Twiligh put her hand on the gate and the six of them were transported to the dungeon.



When the six of them appear, they find the floating, black castle floating over a massive pool of lava. On approach to the castle, the six discs descend from the sky and create a rainbow bridge to the castle's front gate.

"That wasn't so hard."

"This is a Rank 9. Maybe the inside is tougher?" Rainbow shrugs.

Upon entry, the torches flicker to life, giving just enough light to see that they find themselves in a narrow hall with a door on the far end. The hall is lined with suits of armor, each carrying a spear or sword or staff or sword of some kind. And there were only 12 of them. Six on either side.

And they start coming to life when Rarity looks a little too closely at her reflection in one. It brings its sword down on her. Aj body-checks Rarity out of the way and takes the full weight with her massive shield. She brings her mace across the armored body and watches it slide, barely leaving a dent in the chest piece. "Rarity, you good?"

Rarity picks herself up off the floor and dusts herself off, drawing her rapier. "Could have landed more gracefully, but I appreciate the save all the same." She raises her weapon and stands beside Aj.

Two more suits come to life behind the group, one with a spear while the other holds a labrys. Fluttershy summons a book in front of her and Rainbow balls up her fists. "Cover me!" Rainbow charges in, delivering decisive strikes on the suits while Fluttershy casts her magic from afar, to deflect incoming attacks. "Wait, these things are hollow inside!"

"Well, yeah! They ain't Hunters. It's a -" She blocks a swing with enough effort to drive her to her knee. "Dungeon!" She pushes off and knocks the sword up. With the opening she made, she charges into the suit, which crashes into the door behind it. Rarity stabs it through the kidney belt, pinning it to the door. Then Aj hops up and slams her mace into the helmet, crumpling it and removing it from the suit.

The suit of armor shudders a moment, before falling limp. Rarity removes her rapier from the suit and watches it his the floor. Rainbow chances a glance at that. "Always go for the head." She leaps to the wall, and uses it to gain more height as she brings her heel down on the head of the labrys user. Even though it blocks with the handle, Rainbow kicks out with her other foot and knocks the helmet off the body. Like before, the suit crumbles to the floor.

Three more suits come to life at the same time Fluttershy conjures wind to knock the helmet off the last one. "So we have to beat all of them to get through?" Twilight asks.

While her group does their thing, she preemptively takes her weapon out - a gnarled length of wood - and starts knocking the helmets off of the suits of armor that have yet to animate. Each one crumbles to the floor after shuddering. "Should be just these three left then." She points her rod down the hall and orders, "Get behind me!" Everyone does, and an intense flame shoots from her weapon and explodes on contact with the suits of armor, reducing them to ash. "Done."

The bars on the door slide up and out of sight. The suit of armor that had fallen against the door pushes it open as it falls further. Rainbow kicks it out of the way and looks around as the others enter the room. "What's all this then?"

Twilight looks around. "There's a column of energy blocking the way deeper into the castle, and six beams of energy powering it." She puts a hand to her chin. "Rank 9 indeed..."

"I don't get it..." Pinkie said, rather confusedly. "It's been easy so far."

"You didden even fight back there," Aj retorts. "Easy my booty."

"You have a mace, Rainbow has fists. I'm stabby." She pats the pair of daggers at her sides.

"Well, allow me to explain: This dungeon requires that six other keys be found, from six other dungeons. Each one was a Rank 5. And since most Hunters prefer to work alone, it's unlikely any individual Hunter has more than one. But, in our case, we each had one, because we never work alone. For a group other than ours to have all six, they would have to willingly partner up and decide what to do with what they found. True, a Rank 5 would be hard for an individual, and a Rank 9 would be near impossible, for the six of us who always work together, we might just pull through."

Rarity asks, "So this castle's difficulty is determined by ... what, the assumption that it is entered alone?"

"Maybe... But ..." Twilight looks back at the hall they just came from. "It could also be reflecting how many are here. Strength comes higher in numbers, after all."

Rainbow points up at the beams of energy. "What do we do about that then?"

Twilight looks at the beams, then to the walls below them. "Each one has a door. Doors lead to rooms, rooms lead to challenges and challenges lead to rewards. A reward, like... shutting off the beam? Six doors, six of us. To each their own? In case they need to be shut down within a certain time frame of each other."

Just like that, Twilight sent the group down each door separately, determined by the color of disc they each had before entering. Twilight took the yellow door, and once she stepped through, she found another door with bars. A quick examination of the room reveals a button on the wall just to the right and holes in the floor just below it. "Hmm..." She takes her rod and pokes the button. Slowly, spikes come up from the floor under the button at the same time that the bars slowly rise into the ceiling. With enough time, she let go of the button and made it through the door before the bars came down. "Definitely not a one person puzzle."

The next room was circular, with a large spinning set of three paddles made of spiked surfaces. Carefully she maneuvers through, pushing all the buttons to open the barred door at the end.

Once through the door, she sees a bright yellow ball, tied to the floor and hanging from the ceiling. "That must be the power source." She aims her rod at it and fire explodes from it, dimming the power source. She hears all manner of machinery behind her. Once she opens the door, she sees that all the traps leading in have been disabled, allowing safe passage back.

It took about twenty minutes for everyone else to succeed in their own path, and once they met up, the barrier was dispelled and they proceeded into the central tower.

"How was your guys' trials?" Aj asks.

"Pretty hard. I had to pick so many locks," Pinkie answers.

"I had to use my head. I don't want to have to use my head," Rainbow points at her head.

"Well, we've just got the tower left. And there's probably the boss up there." Twilight leads the group up a red velvet carpeted set of stairs to a grand gilded door.

When they opened the door, there sat a fellow in all black armor, minus a helmet. He was playing an organ in the center of the room. "Welcome to my castle... You've certainly made a mess of things..." He stops playing and turns around, standing up. "But it matters not that you have done them. Only that you are here to challenge me. The King of Evil!"

Rainbow scoffs. "Pfft, how cliche." She balls up her fists and readies to fight.

The man in armor dispels the illusion cast on the room and reveals it to be a tiled floor. He slams his fist into the floor in the middle and drops away the surrounding tiles. They fall, fall, fall, into the lava below.

Rainbow jumps the gap and starts trying to wail on him, but he's surprisingly swift, dodging or blocking a majority of her attempts. She gets grabbed and is flung across the gap to the wall. Aj and Rarity join the fight and are pretty handily fended off by his armor and skill. He manages to boot Aj in the chest and throw Rarity across the gap with a ball of dark magic. Twilight points her rod at the man and casts her fire spell. The man in armor turns his cape to the attack and deflects it up, exploding a hole in the ceiling. Fluttershy tends to Rainbow, then to Rarity. The man in armor looks down at Aj, and picks her up. He leaps into the air, and slams her down into the floor. A few more tiles fall away into the lava. He picks her up again and flings her to Twilight's feet. Twilight looks down at her, then at the man as he smirks.

Pinkie appears right above him and lands on him, driving the tips of her daggers into his body a few times before she's tossed off. She skids to a stop before the gap and chucks a pair of knives sat him. They go through the weak points in his armor and he stumbles back. Fluttershy runs over and starts healing Aj, who has so far taken the most of the damage.

"How do we with this?" Aj asks. "He's a monster."

"Knock him into the lava, maybe?" Twilight answers. "He deflects my magic, is great in close combat, has magic of his own and is strong besides."

Rarity shouts at the man in armor after seeing him kick Pinkie across the gap. "Hey! That magic you just hit me with! Bet you can't do it again!"

The man looks over and starts floating into the air. "Is that right." He charges up a ball and flings it at her. She swipes her rapier at it and sends it back. He flicks his cape at it and sends it at her again. Rarity dashes a step forward and swings violently, casting the energy ball back many times faster than before. It surprises the man in armor and he is hit by it. Twilight casts another fire explosion at him and without his cape to deflect it, he takes the full force of the impact, getting blown against the wall where Rainbow stands in wait. She delivers a strong enough gut punch to the man in armor, who keels over. Rainbow drops her heel onto the back of the man's exposed head and knocks him out. She rolls him off the floor and lets him fall into the lava below.

Twilight and the others group up. A screen appears before them with a list of rewards, which all go to Rainbow's inventory for delivering the final attack.



Once back at their hideout, Rainbow divides up all the loot between the six of them, determined by who could make the most use of it.

"Rank 9..." Twilight sits down. "That was without a doubt, the most difficult dungeon we've ever done."

"A castle though? And a King of Evil?" Rainbow shakes her head. "Something tells me that wasn't the last we see of that place."