The party looked at each other and nodded and pushed open the door to the fifty first floor. The fancy marble interior gave way to dilapidated ruins, much like the marble floor they just left, but destroyed and overgrown.
As they made their way into the first room, rattling movements brought their attention upward. Above them, crawling on the walls were lizardmen, far far on the side of the bestial side of beast tribes, some with bows, others with swords and shields.
The enemies jumped down and battle was begun.
----------------------------------------
Spike cast soothing healing spells as they ascended further through the floors. The trap door to the next floor opened up at the top of their elevator, opening up to bright lights and a roaring crowd. The same voice as twice before came on, “And now, for their third outings in the arena… the dragons and a human!”
The crowd erupted into a louder roar, cheering for them. Immediately Garble stood up, his fists above his head, hearing the roar get higher. “Heh, that’s right,” he muttered.
“Calm down, bro,” Smolder bumped him with her elbow. “It isn’t real, right?”
“That just means I should enjoy it more.” He raised his sword up, calling out. “That’s right, and we’re making it to the top.”
“Bold words from the challengers, bold words,” the voice rang out. “He hasn’t even seen his opponents yet, and speaking of it, here they are now!”
The opposing group rose from their own platform, not even ten feet away, which is far less mysterious now that they know these were not real adventurers, but just very fancy magic monsters.
And what rose up was dominated by a huge silhouette. Some kind of huge gray skinned beast tribe member towered over the rest of his group, holding a huge spiked club. Sitting on his shoulder, a smaller winged member gripped a magical staff.
There was another well-armed person ahead of him, and behind him some manner of wizard, and he raised his own club up, in a mockery of Garble’s pose, and bellowed a roar.
Smolder's eyes narrowed, recognizing one of the beast folk. A member of her mentor's party, brought back to life to serve as their challenge. "Well, shoot," she muttered, not entirely sure if putting them back down would put a smile on her rabbit friend's face or not. "Maybe I'll keep this one under my hat."
There wasn't time to muse on that for too long, the two parties coming into a violent clash. Spike's chinting litany of protective magic drew their attention even as he dulled their blows. His lessons from Tabitha were displayed as he turned their blows aside, crushing impacts turned into mild grunts of discomfort.
Garble couldn't resist, coming down on the side of the largest enemy, but his sword left a small mark instead of the great gash he had been hoping for. "Die," ordered his opponent with a shove that felt instant, but his impact against the wall felt like it went on forever, Garble wheezing as he struggled back to his feet, Spike's green glow already hastening his recovery. "One free hit, all I give."
Spike did his best to prevent or heal the damage, and he was doing well, but the opponents seemed unharmed, no matter how much damage they did. “I’m not sure I can keep this up forever.”
“Well they can’t either, right?” Smolder said, slicing at her assailant.
“Have you ever seen tower monsters run out of gas?” Spike said, blocking another huge spiked mace strike with his staff, which was almost surprisingly easy. The magic did most of the work.
“I’ve seen them run out of life.” Garble sliced across the large beastman’s leg, causing a cut that disappeared in short time. “But what is up with this.”
Sandra had summoned Twilight and was directing her to blast the enemies on the ground, but began looking around. Something was going on with their three opponents. Weren’t there four? And she finally looked up to see one flying assailant, unnoticed, sending green energy orbs at her allies.
“Twilight! In the sky!”
Twilight looked up, and a wordless, “I see it” came from her, and she sent a star blast into the sky, the flying healer dodging it, sticking out her tongue as she sent another heal to her party.
Twilight sent blazing bolt after bolt, careening wildly in a chase after that healer. Her target veered to the left, then jinked to the right, but that was the way Twilight had aimed, an accidental strike that allowed a star burst to smack the flying woman, who recovered, and touched herself with her own wand, the bruise disappearing, and she dodged out of the way of the next hit.
“We have to get rid of that, Sandra said. “We’ll never make any progress.”
“Well, there is the one thing you haven’t tried. I know you did it with the other summons…” Twilight’s wordless voice trailed off.
Garble clambered up, abandoning his fight to try to reach the healer, but she was so far away. "Get down here!" he fruitlessly yelled at their nemesis.
"It's time for strength." Sandra dodged just to the left of the huge club that pierced and smashed the ground she had avoided. "Magic." She hopped back as bolts of power peppered the ground in front of her. "And the power of friendship."
Garble made a little gagging noise in defiance.
Twilight vanished with a flash of her cutie mark, only for it to flare out brightly from Sandra. Sandra brought up her staff, parrying that great sword that had been about to crush her in a dome of fierce magic. "Time to go," sternly demanded the composite of Sandra and Twilight's voice, her ears growing long and furry as a tail burst free of her, becoming as much pony as human. "Leave my friends alone!"
The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
Ascending on new wings, Sandra soared towards the healer, leaving purple trails behind herself, her new tail whipping in the wind. "This is kind of great," she said without talking, though Twilight could hear her.
"Can I talk?" she actually said out loud, but it was Twilight, cheating in their union. "Woohoo!"
Sandra's face twisted in surprise and a moment of visceral disconcerting concern at having something else speaking through her lips. "Please don't do that without a warning. Let's smash that thing."
"Yeah!" Twilight replied, out loud.
They had two eyes, or at least two minds working with the same pair of eyes, following the jinks and swerves of the flying healer. "I got left."
"I got right." Which of them said which was impossible to tell from the outside. They raised their hands, rainbow beams with stars at the end firing rapidly out. Each hand directed by a different person, they swerved, trapping the darting one. The instant one solid hit was landed, the other hand was locked in, rapidly bashing the healer with little time left for administering their own wounds.
They closed, hands outstretched in a rapid barrage until the instant they swung a heavy two-handed blow, knocking the priest towards the ground with a squeak. They vanished before even making contact, defeated.
"Woo!" called out Spike from far below, batting aside an incoming blow with well-trained practice. "Now we can finish this. Garble, you're up!"
"You didn't need to remind me." He jumped down from where he had climbed, his massive sword coming down to finish what he had started, confident they wouldn't be shrugging off their attacks.
----------------------------------------
"Congratulations." Garble jumped just as the platform ahead of him turned a bright blue. "You're officially infected with pony cooties."
"That's not fair." Sandra sprang to a yellow platform, wobbling in place a moment. "It was amazing."
"It was pretty cool." Smolder landed just as the platform went purple. "Spike, you're up."
"On it." His wings flapped, carrying him the extra little distance to land, the party, hopscotching along the bright colors as they made their way through the puzzle. "We'll get it this time."
----------------------------------------
"Envision the worst possibility," read Smolder off writing on the wall. "Overcome and reach your goal."
"The… worst thing?" Spike shrugged. "Twilight gone mad with power?"
Twilight snorted wordlessly. She knew there was worse than that!
The room trembled beneath them. Light bathed them from above as the roof was sheared free as if some great hand had wrenched it off. "My faithful student," came a deafening call as a strange not-right Celestia leaned in over them all. "It is time for a test. You haven't studied, but I have faith in you."
Her horn glowed, firing deadly beams all around them. The battle had begun.
----------------------------------------
The five of them walked through the floor, another basic floor shown to be more of a boss fight, with Garble laughing. “See! I knew ponies were no match for dragons.”
“You are aware it wasn’t really Celestia, right?” Spike nearly spat, with him and Twilight having the same sour expression. “It doesn’t mean you beat up actual ponies.”
“Which is why I did nothing wrong even by you,” Garble laughed. “The fact that all this stuff is fake means you’re not allowed to be mad at me for beating her senseless.”
Twilight snorted, but said nothing and the five of them stomped onward quietly.
“... I really liked the song she was singing,” Sandra said.
Twilight whinnied and groaned.
----------------------------------------
As they moved their way up, right before the boss floor, floor fifty nine, they found a large ornate door with four very obvious slots to insert some kind of orbs, and four other doors. Well, not exactly doors, more like chambers that had room for exactly one person to stand in, and a visible area behind them where everyone could see corridors that seemed to be empty, but were no doubt filled with traps and monsters waiting to ambush the entrant.
At the end of each corridor there was a brightly glowing dot, generally too far away to make out what it was sitting on.
“Look,” Spike said. “More instructions.” He walked up to the sign in the center. “Mastery of each class must be proven, one by one. Show the tower you are truly a master of your craft, and only then you will be allowed to proceed.” He leaned up closer to read smaller text at the bottom. “The doors are two way, there is no shame in fleeing, the challenge will remain.”
“Psh.” Garble pushed Spike aside. “Says you.”
“No, that wasn’t me,” Spike pulled himself up. “It was the si--”
“I was talking to the sign!” Garble blurted out, and walked up to the door that had a curved sword above it. “I’ve been doing this for months now. I won’t need more than one turn.” He cracked his knuckles, pulling his sword out. “Imma show this tower what I’m made of.”
He stepped into the chamber, the doors rotating around it so that he had access to the corridor for his class.
The four other party members rushed to the window to watch.
Garble held his sword up, heading down the corridor. From the ground, three thin shadowy monsters appeared, all of them pulling out claws, and he slashed at them. His sword went through, and they were clearly all hit, but they didn’t fall.
Garble redoubled his effort, twisting around. “Rolling Cresecent” and the slash of energy banished the two.
Immediately, in front of him another shade appeared, larger, and he raised his sword in turn. “You stand in my way, and you’re going to pay!” Bringing it down in an energy laden crash.
Another wave, he crashed into with a rhyme, and bird monsters appeared, divebombing him, which he dodged and countered. The enemies continued to appear, and he used
Three appeared in a row, and he spun around again. “Your life is forfeit, my win is surefeit,” spinning to hit them with a rolling crescent, but they did not fall this time, and he backed up, and his next wave appeared, another group of fliers.
His rhythm faltered, but he picked it up. “You’re pretty tough, but my sword is harder!” He spun, and a weak blast emanated from his sword for the non-rhyme he used. He cursed, trying to hop back out of the range of the birds, only for several to score a hit.
The third wave appeared, a giant ogre shadow, which he knew he had to use one of his high crash down attacks, but now there were three waves. “Even in a gang, you all will hang!” he said, landing the rhyme and rolling crescent the lot of them, but only finishing off the first group.
The ogre brought it’s fists down, slamming the ground, stunning Garble. He pulled himself up, only for the birds to divebomb him, knocking him back again.
As the shadows coalesced, Garble didn’t even wait for the next wave, and turned tail and ran back to the exit door, the doors revolving, spitting him out back at his party.
Spike folded his arms, raising an eyebrow. “First time, huh Garble?”
“Shut up!” he spat. “That was hard. I made like, what, one mistake and it ate me alive! And not even a mistake, the enemies were just getting harder.” He flumped down onto the ground, panting hard.
“It’s alright, bro,” Smolder said, dishing out a piece of impromptu jerky from before. “Give yourself some time to rest. It’s supposed to be hard, right?”
“Sure, yeah, I guess,” he said, panting on the floor.
Sandra looked back into the room. “It’s resetting. We all have to go through a thing like that?”
Spike looked ready to proceed, but thought better for it. "Go on, Sandra. Show us what you've learned. You're the best summoner there is!"