You look around on the ground for lockpicks. You realize this is pretty stupid, but you have to try. Wait! What’s that gleaming in the sun? You take a few steps forward and- Gasp! It is! It’s a lockpick! You’ve finally found one! You can’t believe it! Amy looks happy for you. Princess looks befuddled. “Where did this lockpick come from?” she askes. But you don’t care! You begin jumping around in circles clutching your new-found purpose in life when you accidentally step on something metal… Wonders beyond wonders! Another lockpick! You pick it up as Amy trots over and hoofs you three more! “Lets forget about this stupid quest and find us a lock to pick,” she says, winking to you. She… She understands you! She knows! You couldn’t be happier!

And that’s how you’d develop an unhealthy obsession with Amy. At least, in your imagination land.

You ask if the three of you could huddle together for warmth. Amy doesn’t seem to mind, but Princess refuses. She’s very temperamental. You let Amy know that it was just a hypothetical question to cover up your original intention. You shall hug that mare before it’s all said and done…

You sling your bow back over your shoulder, which you had been playing a mean tune on this whole time, and the three of you begin to head through the snow toward the semicircular building. Along the way you look for any signs of food, but find nothing amidst the blanket of snow. This place is a barren wasteland and you have no idea how anything could have ever lived here. You glance at the digital clock on your multitool to find that a full two hours have passed since around the time you first arrived. Oh, did you mention your multitool has a clock and a compass too? Told you it was pretty nifty. Anywho, it’s 2 PM at present and the three of you are heading south.

During the march, you ask if either of them can share anything else about the shadow that attacked them. Amy again describes it as a mythological wisp or shade. But this time she goes on to say it had a black core, and mists of transparent black ribbons that would come out, encircle the creature, and slowly thin out until they faded away. You think she means translucent, but you don’t correct her.

Princess describes it as a feral, four-legged creature with sharp teeth and claws. Thinner than a pony, almost like a wolf but with a mane. It had messy, clumped fur that would dance and roll off in chucks, rapidly dissipating in the air. It seemed almost like it was made of fire to her, but it gave off no heat that she could recognize.

After that the stories are just as ambiguous as before. It attacked them, stole something from them, and left. You ask once again what it was exactly that they stole, and once again neither will answer you.

The three of you arrive at your destination. The entrance is on the flat side, closest to the awning you left from. This building is also made of stone, but the roof is curved, with little ventilation holes jetting out and then sloping horizontally along the sides. It’s cold outside, but the three of you have not yet entered. You shiver a little but blame it on the temperature.

You seem a little distraught. All you can manage to get out is something about boxing fascists over new words, like semi-circle.

Your brain takes a few seconds to level out, but you seem okay now. Might want to try again about what to do next, though. So far, you’ve managed one internal vote for four out of three choices. That’s not a good sign.

You might be taking this lockpicking thing a little too far. If, for whatever reason, Princess Mononoke and Amy Rose are hiding tools in… Less than savory places, then they’re welcome to do so. That’s just… You don’t even know what. There are no words.

Amy asks why you’re staring at her with such a strange look. Your face turns a little red, but you say you were just thinking about possibly using light against the shadows if you find them. Amy tells you that she was attacked in broad day light less than an hour before you showed up. Whatever attacked her didn’t seem to care about how bright it was. Or that she was flying.

You ask about possibly running through the snow to one of the larger buildings; the ones with roofs. Amy and Princess not only agree, they encourage the choice. This awning has no walls, and while there isn’t much wind in this frosty box-canyon, every tiny amount is like nails scraping across your skin.

The obvious choices are the building with the high roof, the long, box-shaped building, or the semi-circle… semi-oval… Whatever. The one with the curved side.

When you get to the part about possibly returning to the town below the mountain, the two share a strange forlorn look. They both say they can’t leave. They have to stay here until this is resolved.

You pause at this. You don’t understand. What could be so important that they’d risk their lives staying here over? But rather than argue, you ask if you could leave tonight and come back tomorrow with better supplies. They look between one another and agree to the idea, as long as nothing goes wrong, and as long as you come back.

The implication that you have to come back isn’t nearly as unsettling as the that other part.

“As long as nothing goes wrong.”

Well, other than capturing a salt lake, you don’t really have any.

You’ve been going along with these two, but you haven’t a clue what’s going on. Something about some shadowy creatures that stole something from each of them. But it’s all very vague.

From the sounds of things, Princess is most concerned with finding what was stolen from her, while Amy has her mind leveled more toward revenge.

Your attempt at circular logic fails as miserably as anypony could have guessed it would. You don’t possess the first blacksmith hammer to create the second. Continuing along that line, you don’t have the raw materials to create a new hammer from, even if you had the other aforementioned necessary tools.

Rather than go through all that hullabaloo and fail, you just ask everypony to empty their bags so you can see what all they have; citing Amy’s previously unknown possession of paper and a writing utensil as adequate reason. They both agree, though Princess does so reluctantly.

Amy has more paper and a few pencils, along with a pocket pencil sharpener. In addition she has a few more strong silk straps, like the one she uses to carry one of her knives in her right forehoof. She carries the other in her mouth for some reason, which limits her speech most of the time. You can’t help but think maybe she’s a fan of that stupid anime about the pirates that aren’t really pirates. Sort of like that stupid anime about the ninjas that aren’t really ninjas. You aren’t a fan of anime, but this isn’t exactly the best platform to talk about that. I mean, this is just the inside of your head. Nopony else is even listening, right?

Anyway, Amy says all that, plus the small medical kit she carries are all for her job.

Princess produces a small oxygen canister and a fitted mask, along with diving goggles and a pair of flippers. She says it’s also for her job, but she’s so used to carrying it around, she completely forgot to unpack it before coming here. Her other bag produces two handheld receivers, or in laypony terms, walkie-talkies! Before she can explain, you begin to reminisce about the hours and hours of fun you’ve had with walkie-talkies as a little filly! Though, after a short time, you come to realize hours and hours of fun were probably more like, one afternoon. Things sure do look different in hindsight.

Princess clears her throat and goes on to say she didn’t want to say anything about having the walkie-talkies because she refuses to split up. Plus the batteries are half dead.

You produce the food you had remaining after your trip; half a loaf of bread and two juice boxes. You also draw your nifty multitool and start to explain all the cool little things it can do. Before you can finish, Amy and Princess begin going back and forth about the food and how long it might last the three of you. Somehow they come up with a figure of two days, which is baffling to you! You intended to down that before getting home this evening! When asked about it, they evidently meant to say two days before the three of you become too weak to function properly and… the likely outcome after that isn’t pleasant.

You begin to realize that the situation may be a little more dire than the quint little quest you initially thought it was. You wish you’d known ahead of time this was going to happen. You’d have brought better supplies.

The three of you turn your bags upside down to prove that none of you have anything else. As you could have guessed, no lockpicks. Darn it.

You don’t have a bowtie, but you swing your head around in a dignified manner and “bequeath” unto your traveling companions the names Lockpick and Amy. Afterward, you draw your cello, which is actually a bow, and begin to play on one string with the shaft of an arrow. Not because bows only have one string, but because you’re so regal you need but one string to play!

You have no idea if you just used the word bequeath right or not. Probably not. Namy seems fine going by Amy, but Princess refuses the name Lockpick. Just to cover all your bases, you ask about reversing the naming, but they both refuse to that.

A blacksmith’s hammer wouldn’t make a very good weapon, but you do wish you had it with you. This gauntlet, while in very good condition, is very old. Age and modern smithing techniques have left it antiquated at best by today’s standards. If you could find a hammer and a forge with an anvil and grinding wheel, you could tamper it into something several times better than it is currently. Same goes with the-pegasus-born-again-as-Amy’s two knives. Not much you could do with Princess’ mace, though.

You pause from your musical masterpiece to ask if Princess or Amy have ever accidentally the whole thing. Princess just rolls her eyes. Amy says only once, but no one caught her so she got away with it.

Princess has a point. You apologize and tell them your real name, along with a background.

You were born on a farm in a quiet town and had a simple youth. Your siblings made certain you remained in school and studied a vast number of subjects. You tried a number of things growing up, but found your special talent in metallurgy, explaining your cutie mark. Your family was supportive but sad by your decision to move off the apple farm and begin your training as a blacksmith. You still visit your brother and sister, but your grandmother has since passed on.

Your name is Applebloom. Your cutie mark is a hammer hovering over a red anvil with a leaf hanging off of the step, making up the anvil’s horn.

You finish up by telling them they don’t have to give you their names. They can consider this information part of the apology.

The only information they offer so far is that they were also born in Ponyville.

The three of you are warmed up enough to try something else.

You ask Princess if she can redraw the map with a little more detail, but she says what’s there already should serve it’s purpose well enough. Food is short, so time is of the essence here. Namy seems a little sad by your implied critique of her work.

After you suggest checking out the little face drawing, the three of you set out through the snow. It’s cold on your hoofsies and the snow coming down chills you further with each passing second.

You activate your super secret special talent and shapeshift into a jet fighter! Taking off at the blink of an eye you quickly pick up speed and gain altitude. Before long, you’re high enough to begin your strike! Bombs rain down in a fantastic fashion and obliterate the surrounding area! Then you turn your attention to the cursed sun and speed toward it through space! It’ll never see you coming!

…

Not really. In fact, none of that happened. You just started galloping around in circles making engine and explosion noises. When your pseudonym partners ask you what you’re doing, you just tell them you’re keeping warm.

The three of you start to look though the wreckage of what appears to have at one point been a house. But every time you wipe snow off of something, more comes down to replace it. You continuously get colder and colder and eventually Princess requests the three of you head back to the awning. Being that there’s no way you’ll get any work done like this, you can’t help but agree.

Back where you began, and trying to warm up with more fighter jet noises, you pause and ask for your companion’s real names. Princess, hooves on her hips, looks offended, saying you’re the one that started the name-lying game. She and Namy already know each other’s names, and would have told you if you’d been straightforward at the start. But now even if you told them yours, they’d have to think about it.

Namy says she doesn’t mind being called Namy because it’s sort of like Amy, and that’s kind of a cool name.

A few minutes pass and Namy abruptly lands in front of the two of you and back under the awning. After shaking the snow off, she pulls out a piece of paper to show the both of you. She says she’s sorry it’s not very good, she tried her best but the cold was starting to get to her.

It looks like a map of the area. The three of you are in the northwestern corner. Namy says the small boxes are the destroyed buildings. She couldn’t be sure what the other three were.

Surely there’s some locks to try picking out there somewhere.

You leap to Princess and start spouting all manner of mysticism-fearing sentiments. Going so far as grabbing her horn and swatting at the light, though without striking her. Enraged, she shoves you off of her. Evidently walking down the dark corridor is serious time. You’re always the last pony to find out these things.

Princess begins to slowly lead, having taken your nonsense to mean you aren’t going to help. But you decide better and head on in front. You glance back a few times to make sure Princess and Namy are still behind you, and the pace is much quicker this way.

You begin to softly hum a little tune, though you can’t remember where you first heard it. Princess and Namy recognize it, but they can’t remember it’s origin either. The three of you spend the next minute or so humming various tunes, some you recognize and some you don’t. For the first time, the three of you seem to all be getting along.

As you near the stairway, you start to wish you had brought the spear along. It’s not that you couldn’t have carried all of the weapons and then some; they certainly weren’t that heavy. But this isn’t a video game and the actual act of carrying them would have proven difficult. You already have a bow slung over your back, a quiver with twenty arrows on your side, your saddlebags with a little food, and the clawed gauntlet on your right forehoof. The staff and spear are still back in the armory, if you ever need them.

The stairs emerge into what amounts to little more than a stone awning; much smaller than the hall you first entered. Pillars support the roof, but there are no walls. From here you see snow on the ground, and more falling from the sky. It’s certainly much colder out here than where you entered! In the distance are a few structures, but some of them look destroyed.

Stepping toward the edge of the roof and looking up reveals this area to be a boxed canyon. The cliff sides go up quite a ways, and even curve slightly inward. The cloud producing the snow is actually resting inside the crown, obscuring the sky.

Namy sounds perplexed. She says she’s flown over and around every inch of this mountain a thousand times and never seen an opening like this. Before anything else can be said, she puts her knives away and takes to the skies.

She disappears from view.

You follow behind Princess, which seems to be turning into a pattern. You’re still getting used to walking on three hooves because of the gauntlet, but it isn’t so bad. Much easier if you brace yourself against a wall while moving.

At the bottom of the stairs is what appears to be a long hallway. You see a faint light coming from another set of stairs leading back upward at the end, but in between it’s too dark to see. Namy’s sense of direction is telling her that you’re heading further into the mountain. It’s a little warmer here than it was outside and in the hall, but not as warm as the armory was.

Princess activates a minor light spell, but seems reluctant to lead.

You violently spin around and start yelling at Princess and Namy! They know where the Magical Ring is, and you demand they tell you!

Namy takes a few steps back, but Princess rolls her eyes and walks on by you. She’s evidently getting tired of you. You get the feeling she doesn’t believe the Multiple Personality Disorder ruse either.

You ask the two if either of them have seen a locked door anywhere, though you don’t say why. They shake their heads.

You wisely decide to let that second thought slip on by. Neither of them seem the type, and you don’t want to get in trouble.