Crystal Inkantation

Ridge sounded utterly surprised at the fact that the ghost unicorn suggested jumping off. He found it absurd! How could one jump off?! "I uh... am... Scared of heights!" Ridge said to the other two ponies in a slightly worried tone. Ridge didn't like the idea of jumping AT ALL.

Not only that, he had a feeling that he would just... phase through the ghost unicorn or might land on his horn... Which wouldn't be good to say the least. Another factor that worried him, was the height. With each passing second, the ground below became noticeably lower and lower.

As the castle moved upwards, eventually, the floor moved faster than Fantasy could. Fantasy's physiology meant that he did not move with his enviroment. The two saw the ghost vanish into the floor, even though he/it was moving upwards as quickly as possible. The horrendous noise of the rising castle prevented all communication, so Fantasy could really tell them what was going on, not that he knew himself.

He eventually was completely under the castle. He still followed the castle to the best of his abilities, trying to keep up with it. he would -like- to keep an eye out for the two incase they were ejected off the sides of the castle, but his vision spell didn't let him see the edges of the castle, so he's miss them if they fell off!

Once the castle would stop moving, he'd be able to move back in. He hoped that it would be soon, he didn't know if the two unicorns would be fine for much longer.

It was several minutes until the violent, loud, jerking of the initial lift off was replaced by the quiet swaying off the fact the castle (somehow) was well and truly airborne. Elegance winced as she removed her hooves from her ears. She really wanted somepony to snap at, but she knew that it would make no real difference.

It was hard to think of what would make a difference, really. All she knew was that...that...

Elegance, with great effort, stood up.

"If my knowledge of this building's design is correct," she announced to nopony in particular, "The basement and the lower floors do not have the proper support to remain attached to the building. That means that lest we want the floor to collapse underneath our feet, we must ascend to the upper floors."

As if on cue, the second round of the groaning of a building falling apart started up again. "That would be the basement," Elegance said, "We must hurry."

With that, she ran to the nearest staircase, jumping over the prone clouded pony, not bothering to look back.

Ridge looked absolutely confused, scared and nervous. "We're so high up now... Jumping off is an impossibility..." Ridge said to himself. As he said this however, the castle stopped moving upwards and caused Ridge to be thrown upwards due to the force at which it stopped. Ridge then fell back down and sprained his front-left hoof. "Gosh darn-it!" Ridge shouted at he sulked in pain.

A minute of just... Standing there trying to make sure that his hoof wasn't too badly hurt, he limped over to the same staircase Elegance had trotted over to.

On his way up, Fantasy Flicker would have to move through multiple falling pieces of debris. The castle's lower levels seemed to be falling apart. This worried to ghost greatly. Catching up to the now still and no longer moving castle took a while, but Fantasy rushed himself as much as he could. He was innately invisible, and therefore, the two would not notice him entering the room, unless they were particularily sensitive to magic. He noticed the two moving towards a staircase. It seemed that elegance had managed to keep herself unharmed but Ridge was not doing so great, as he was limping.

The rush of relief which overcame Fantasy was quickly replaced with new worry, as The crumbling floor slowly caught up to Ridge! The two saw Fantasy suddenly appear a small ways behind them, floating over the empty floor, The strange ghostly apparition no longer looked anything like a pony, strange ghastly claws protuding from his front hooves, and eyes were merely a magical glow. The crumbling floor under Ridge cut slowly glowed as it stopped breaking apart, and became straight once more. The ghost seemed to become more transparent, flickering in and out of view the longer he focused on the piece of ground he was levitating. He was fortunate levitating was his expertise, as this feat would have gone past his abilities otherwise. He kept the floor intact for as long as he could, hoping Ridge could make it to the stairs in this time.

"Hurry!" Elegance snapped, still not looking back and thus not noticing Ridge's injured state. If she had...well, she wouldn't have known what to do, would have hesitated...

All in all, it was for the better that she didn't look back.

Anyway, what her mind was currently focused on was the layout of the castle. If she had the breath, she would have chuckled, for being forced into the higher floors meant getting closer to where the Crystal Heart should be. It was probably going to be the key to all of this nonsense.

Ridge started limping his way up the stairs as instructed by Elegence. He continued to limp up the stairs and by the time he made it to the end of the staircase, he dropped on the floor. "So... painful..." Ridge sulked in a whimpering tone.

Fantasy Flicker noticed that neither had recognized him. Perhaps it was for the better? He could use the short moment's rest by casting one spell less for now, so he let his body vanish, focusing his magical abilities on just a sliver of eyesight and hearing, so he could follow the two. He followed the two up the stairs, and kept a 10yard radius view around them with his magic, becoming incapable of seeing further than that.

His presence had completely vanished. only magic sensing or a spell which lets you see magic would detect him now.

"Oh, deal with it," Elegance grumbled, more than a little annoyed at Ridge's sulking, "It's either that or plummet to your death to the ground below."

She looked around the room, eyes narrowed. "There should be a large, floating, heart-shaped crystal here. There is not." She let out a breath of concern. "This really isn't good."

Despite her facade of calm, she was panicking inside with the realisation that she had no inkling of an idea of what to do. Was she now supposed to look for clues showing where the Crystal Heart may have been taken to? Should she instead try to figure out what exactly had attached to the castle, lifting it from its foundations?

Then she realised.

"Hang on. What happened to creepy no-eyes?"

"You mean the other guy? I have no idea... And hey! It hurts y'know!" Ridge responded. He took the time to look around himself. From what he could see, a trail of black crystals lead to another set of stairs. He could also make out from the window that it had been shattered. Possibly due to the vibrations...? Well whatever it was, Ridge took great caution to avoid tripping over and landing on one of the crystals or a glass shard.

"This place is a wreck now huh..." Ridge said in a slightly negative tone. "This is a bit freaky... Even for me..." Ridge thought to himself as he continued to look around.

"Creepy No-Eyes? What an affectionate name. I like it." Fantasy Flicker's voice sounded right above them, but the wouldn't see a thing if they looked up. "I'm around. Was helping our less-than-perfectly-healthy unicorn not fall to his untimely demise, so i'm a bit tired now. It's easier for me to stay invisible than become visible. if you -really- need to see me, just pour some unicorn magic in your eyes and look around. You'll notice." Fantasy flicker, quite talkative despite the situation. perhaps being a ghost made it somewhat easier to stay calm. He couldn't see further than 10 yards, at the moment, so he took their word on it that the crystal heart was missing.

then again, he was not surprised, had the crystal heart been here, he would never be able to enter the kingdom to start with. He simply 'floated'(existed?) close to the two unicorns, waiting for them to take action and follow after them, relaxing and ready to step in with his powerful levitation magic if need be.

"So..."

Elegance looked around the room. Okay, she thought, Let's list everything that we can see, and then draw out conclusions.

- Stallion limping about in pain. Ankle pain? Did he hurt his ankle from the take-off?
- Creepy no-eyes being creepy. Definitely suspicious. Still don't trust the ghost-like being.
- No Crystal Heart. The source of all the problems. Will need to solve.
- Broken window. Escape route? Broken in the lift off? Unless the culprit could fly really, really fast... Maybe magic could- no. Crystal Heart. Probably difficult to shift easily.
- Black Crystals-

"If we're going to continue investigation, that trail is where we should begin," Elegance said, "Follow the dark magic crystals." She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, then gave a critical glance at Ridge. "Or we could simply wait here for rescue, if you're too hurt to be of much help."

"Unless there's suddenly a pegasi squad heading here, I don't think there WILL be help..." Ridge pointed out as he closed his eyes in thought. "It couldn't be HIM... Could it...?" He questioned himself in thought.

He slowly but surely got up from the ground and took one step before he started limping again. "So... You think we should go up there where they are huh... Well from my experience... Following black crystals may not be the most efficient. For all we know there could be a trap waiting for us at the end of the trail." Ridge pointed out.

"If you need me to scout ahead, then just say the word. Just to keep an eye on me though, make sure to cast a spell of magic detection, i can teach it quickly if necessary. From what i can tell, the trail is definitively imbued with some kind of dark magic, but it's too faint for me to see the whole trail." The disembodied voice continued on a talkative spree.

"If you two -really- want to escape, i could levitate you down on two pieces of rocks, but;
A: You two don't seem to trust me, which is fair, all things considered,
B: It's super windy outside and cold, and if either of you fell from your part, i wouldn't be able to save you because i can't descend that swiftly,
C: Even when we get down, you two will have to survive the blizzard and escape southwards
D: I'd need to rest for atleast a good 3 to 4 hours before i have the magical energy to even try that, i think." the disembodied voice stated, the volume reduced at times, although still mostly understandable. Enough to get the rest from the context, at least. "i'm not exactly partial to -either- idea, so i'll just follow you two in your decisions and help you out." He finally said, evidently still floating close to the two, although remaining invisible.

"A pegasus squad is exactly what I'm hoping for," Elegance snapped back in irritation, "News of what's happening in the Crystal Empire has surely spread abroad, and it would be remiss of the international community not to respond in some fashion. Now unless you have an alternative proposal-"

Her rant was cut short by the words of the invisible spectre. Listening to the words of something she couldn't see or touch, she sighed, bringing a hoof to her head. "Okay. Okay. Something I can work with. From what I hear, the safest way to proceed is for the spirit to act as a scout, whilst we observe said spirit from afar with magical detection. Hmm."

Elegance pointed at Ridge. "You. Learn detection from the ghost, if you don't know it already, I need to cast a spell of my own."

Her horn started glowing as detailed outlines started forming in front of her, weaving and interlinking to form a three dimensional image of the Crystal Castle.

"But I hardly know any such genre of magic!" Ridge snapped back in anger. "Above all, I don't know most of the existing powerful OR complex magic at all!" He continued. Ridge just... Looked to the broken window after making those two statements. He then began to become one tone dimmer in colour. "How did we get here..." Ridge sighed.

"Don't worry! this magic is super easy. It's basically just casting a generic spell on your eyes. here, i can show you." A snapping sound was heard as a book suddenly appeared infront of Ridge Cut, open on a page with a spell. The letters and the book were blurry at first, but it slowly gains focus and soon looked almost real, even though it was an illusion. On the open pages, stood the instruction for a simple spell, which wasn't that complex at all. It was simply locating your magic correctly and opening your mind to seeing something new. You had to sort of, 'imagine' magic had a colour. Once this spell was Cast, the unicorn responsible would be able to see magical effects and traces in his surroundings until he or she purposefully stopped doing so.

"It's no powerful magic at all. It's mostly untaught because others consider it useless. Why make an effort of detecting magic, when all important magic can already be seen? Cases where you want to see raw magic which isn't doing something is quite rare. But hey, i suppose i'm a rare case~" The ghost chimed into the air with a chuckle. he kept the illusion infront od Ridge so Ridge could read it and learn the spell.

"Hmm. Well, regardless of how we ended up in this situation, we need to think of a way to get out of it, one way or another. And we're in it together, right~?" Fantasy finally chimed in. "Speaking of being together. Did we already share our names? Mine's Fantasy Flicker. Or was Fantasy Flicker, i suppose... Well, technically it both is AND was?" he finished, ruminating on that thought a bit, although because he was invisible, there wasn't much of it to show.

Elegance stared at the image of the Crystal Castle hovering in front of her, tracking the blackened crystal staircase, trying to figure out where the trail might lead to. In doing so, she mostly ignored the other two ponies, focusing on her thoughts. She did not have the time nor the motivation to get caught up in pointless argument.

At the mention of the ghost's name, Elegance raised her head briefly. "Elegance," she said curtly, "Elegance Design."

"Oh we're introducing ourselves now? W-well... It's Ridge..." Ridge muttered under his breath. He looked downwards and started reading the pages of the book. "So you're saying this isn't... Powerful... But useless...?" Ridge questioned in confusion.

"Wellll, useless isn't exactly how -I- would put it. But it's less useful than it is difficult, yeah. You should probably be able to cast it on your first go." Fantasy told of the spell. it was indeed nothing complicated, and it wouldn't surprise anyone, let alone Fantasy, if even a foal could learn it. It wasn't much harder than levitation.

Once a pony would cast a spell in an environment like this, He or she would notice the ambient magic in the surrounding was practically invisible. The black crystals seemed to give off some kind of lingering magic, but most notably, where they had simply seen the ceiling, was a large mote of nothing but raw, glowing magic. The illusion of the book was connected to the large shine by what could only be described as a 'wispy thread'. All evidence pointed to this magic 'being' Fantasy Flicker, in a strange manner.

Elegance dispelled the magical map that she had conjured, turning to the others. "Are we done?"

Ridge closed the book with a sort of gentle tap to the surface looking up to Elegance. "I assume so... Maybe I can learn this sometime other than now but as in our current state of situation..." He said in an assessing tone.

As Ridge cut attempted to close the book, his hoof went through it, as if it wasn't really there. It simply vanished in a wispy smoke, leaving no trace behind of it's existence. As with everything the ghost had shown thusfar, it was simply an illusion created by a spell. "i believe the plan was you learn magical detection -now- so you can keep an eye on me. Creating visible illusions is suprisingly difficult. Creating audible illusions to talk is actually a bit draining already." Fantasy mentioned. Hipe could move ahead in his current state, but if he was drained or had to flee due to danger, the two would have no way of telling what happened unless one of them had magical detection.

He realized he was draining too much of his energy talking and making books pop up. He decided to sit still for a moment and follow the conversation instead of talking, he'd make sure he chose his words more selectively and efficiently from here on out.

"..."

Elegance breathed.

"Useless," she muttered under her breath, before saying out loud, "Unless anypony has any better ideas, I'll learn the magic detection spell. Or-" She turned to Ridge. "Do you want to act as bait for whatever's waiting at the end of the black crystal trail?"

"... Maybe" he replied in a curious and childish tone.