[Apologies for the delay.]

There would be no deaths today. At least not at the doing of the Heart. One could argue that indirectly the Heart would lead to a death occurring in the events to unfold within its core, but only the semantical would bother with such trivial details.

The trio would fall for what seemed an eternity. Long enough to chase away all fears or worries. Enough of forever to make you wish for death rather than cringe from it. An endlessness enough that bestows upon you the rare and all too misunderstood gift of boredom.

You can watch the embers crawling through the rock work like worms in dirt. You could even mesmerize yourself in the waves of heat the flames gave off that distorted and twisted the air. There would be little else in the way of entertainment though, for there existed little but fire, rock and an eerie darkness despite the warm and comfortable glow of flames lining every wall.

Eventually the fall ends and you are suspended on a warm vent of air that sets you to a gentle hover a few hooves above the very bottom. You might be surprised to know the Heart even has a bottom. If you were expecting it to merely be an end to the travel, a dead end, so to say, you'd be surprised again. In channels of blue magma and onyx stone many pathways extend around you in a complex network of tunnels.

The vent beneath you abruptly hisses and pinches shut, dropping you to your feet or otherwise.

By the time you shake your limbs back into functionality, he has arrived.

He is small of stature, standing less in height than even Fajira, and he is covered in a red leather of skin. Horns protrude from the back of his humanoid, though elongated, skull and write with a yellow fire. Black slits of eyes dance wickedly upon you, while the creature rubs its scaly hands with terribly crooked claws. You can almost here him cackle with glee, or hunger? Probably hunger.

It smiles and reveals a row of sharpened teeth and a forked tongue that snakes between them.
It's definitely hunger then.

Yet calm your beating heart and kick that fight or flight instinct back into the pit of your survival organ, because this terrible creature says, "Hello!"

The cheery tone in which the fire gremlin greets you should dissolve any suspicions of malice. Those cruel nails are bitten down with worry, you realize, those sharp teeth displayed in a warm smile, and those beady eyes... well those are still creepy.

"I am Gongflornafrey'mb. Though it is likely easier for you to call me Bob. I have brought you down here, I hope the trip was enjoyable?" The gremlin seemed to hum to himself, although what could be a purr or a content gurgle sounded as equally like a furious dog. Of course the trip was not enjoyable, but he wouldn't know, he's never been up top.

"Oh dear!" he exclaims, suddenly stricken as though by an imaginary blow as he staggers against the wall, legs splayed and a clawed hand clutching his chest in distress. "Oh no this won't do," he mutters again, suddenly approaching Valentine. Without much explanation he reaches his hands out, squats down in a most unsophisticated manner, and begins to shake and growl and snort.

From his posterior a pile of ash descends like a soft snowfall.

He rises and dusting himself off, perhaps even blushing, his cheeks a light cheery red while his body is more like a firetruck shade, he reaches down and grabs a handful of the ash. "Here, if you eat this it will heal your burns."

The moment Valentine's tongue reached out and touched the ash, the healing began. Flecks of ash began to coat the stallion's body from within, pressing out and seeming to bring healthy flesh and blood beneath it as it rose. Just as Valentine black out, a casing of ash that came internally, shattered around his body, scattering to the ground. As the horse fell, his body was whole, not even scarring present from the terrible wounds. He would likely awake within a matter of seconds.

Bob nodded, a smile gracing his lips. "Ay does the trick! He should wake up soon, can't say it's the best tasting stuff." Bob chuckled, noticing Lace's expression. Where else did he think ash came from? Fire burned and in its wake it left the waste of spent existence. The fire gremlins thriving within the heart were just that; fire. They were an embodiment of it, a different form of it, but fire all the same.

As those red, devilish eyes met the webbed horse, for the first time they lit upon the dragon. At once the gremlin's expression changed from one of comfortable ease to bewilderment.
"...Dragon," he breathed, spurts of flame dancing around his mouth as he sighed the word, so precious on his tongue. His clawed hand reached out, almost longingly, though he was so far from being close to touching the divine beast.

As if remembering himself and his situation he brought his hand back quickly to himself, his gaze turning away abruptly, as though ashamed of his childish display of awe. "She may partake of the ash as well," he murmured, his eyes flickering with a sort fo inner pain when he noticed she seemed afflicted as well. The Heart's flame was intense enough to wound even them, a dragon would fare no better. He held out the pile to her, but first knelt on the ground and gently deposited it there, as if suspecting her a wild creature that might rip his digits off. Mostly he was shy of the mysterious beast, enamoured as round eyes watched her expectantly.

Catching himself again he cleared his throat, turning away hastily. He clenched and unclenched his claws for a moment and then began to walk forward. He seemed to assume they would follow as he started down the hallway, beginning to talk. "I apologize for bringing you here. Understand I would not out of great necessity." There was truth in that. His kind did not go near the top world and likely he would be punished for interfering as he did. His passion for his kind outweighed his self preservation of justice however. "I have need of your abilities however. You....horses, are strong and magical in ways we are not." The word 'horses' rolled uncertainly from his tongue, as if not entirely sure it was the right term. It didn't truly matter however and he pressed onward, fear shaking his tones as he continued.

"We have a terrible thing that has come down here and we cannot seem to be rid of it." He breathed deeply, pausing at a great iron and ebony door. He cast a glance back at his travel companions, smiling a toothy smile of unease. In the next moment he pushed on the doors. They gave a low whine of resistance before swinging open.

As the smoke and ash swirled and cleared, the doorway stood to reveal a vast and mighty underground metropolis. Walkways of stone intricately woven together coursed above them while buildings and edifices spun around the walls and reached so high up they vanished from sight. No sun shone but a great swath of fire light on nearly every point of a building cast the place in a warm and inviting glow, though it was dimmed a pale purple. It would not be immediately apparent to the newcomers, but the fires' colors changes with the world's turn of sun above ground, so the flames would soon be a dull blue within the next hour.

It was so incredibly alien from anything the horses could have ever known, and there was an appealing beauty to this hidden, forgotten world of fire and brimstone. Yet for all the world of differences, the place had a similarity with the horses, one born within community regardless of species. It was a busy place, but it seemed content and not the least bit threatened.

That was at least, until the scream pealed over the buildings from the distance. It echoed with such an unsightly reminder, bouncing off every nook and cranny, even the buildings themselves seemed to quiver and shrink in cowardice.

[no rush for anyone ^^ just didn't want this to get buried is all.]

Bob shuddered and dropped down to his knees as the scream shook the city. His tail wrapped about him for comfort while he buried his head beneath his hands.

"B-b-bu-bu-boggart" Bob stammered in response to Lace's question.

Just then the monstrous thing washed over one of the large buildings. It was not visible, moving like a cruel wind over this stale and buried place, but it could be felt like a cold dread crawling up your spine. Its rage was a nearly palpable thing as it snuffed out all the lighting in the surrounding area. The cave plummeted to near darkness, lit only by the occasional flicker of a fire gremlin and some resistant lamps.

A growl forewarned that the Boggart had appeared behind the horses, a speedy thing with high interest in these new creatures, like knights come to face a dragon in its lair after it had grown accustomed to peasants and sticks.

Silence descended.
The entire city seemed to be holding its breath, waiting.

Suddenly Fajira screamed, the pale dragon visible beside lace with a wound the size of a hoof gaping through her chest. Blood fell like a curtain from the opening that hollowed her though and through. Her pitiful wails of demise nearly split the cave ceiling with the high pitched tenor of misery and agony. The sound was like no other and even those not bonded to her seemed to feel the pang of the loss in their very cores.

Of course, it was all an illusion. The real Fajira had merely been made invisible, but the bond between her and Lace was something the creature could not sever or hide. However the mind trick upon the webbed horse would likely be sufficient enough to incapacitate him.

The Boggart Fajira collapsed to the ground as a pale corpse, quickly dissolving into ash.

Before the duo should have had the time to recover the Boggart turned upon Valentine. It grinned and for a brief second teeth seemed visible in the air before vanishing. From the doorway behind them a dark mare with feathers in her mane walked forward. Her voice, a strong but uncertain warble on the air as she called for Valentine.

"What is this..." Psyche wondered, her steps light on the stone but ringing faintly none the less. As her eyes turned to Valentine she brightened, closing the gap between them in a lope. "Valentine! I was looking for you, what is going on?" Psyche embraced him in a neck hug, her breath warm on his skin before she pulled away to ask her questions, perplexed.

Burns on her shoulders suggested she had gone down the Heart same as they, but with no Bob to guide or heal her had only just wandered upon the scene. The Boggart unleashed a scream from a distance and Psyche snapped her head around towards it. She angled her horn defensively, cautious.

"Valentine what was that?"

The dragon and its bonded recover sooner than the boggart had anticipated, and Valentine is not nearly as receptive to its love ploys. Exposed and subsequently attacked, the boggart shifts from the body of the unicorn mare with a furious howl that claws into the octaves of pain as fire just nips at its end.

In an outrage of hurt and defeat the boggart sweeps down the hallway that the horses had come from, bouncing along the stone way until it finally re-discovers the tunnel leading back to the surface. In a plume of ash the boggart explodes from the heart and spreads across the land of Helovia.

---

There is a cautious moment of quiet and peace as the city seems to hold its breath, afraid that even that smallest of sounds might break the fragile reality of finally being rid of the beast.

As the moment stretches on however, the fire gremlins begin to pour from their hiding spots, light and flame returning to the city as if symbolic of the rejuvination of their livelihood.

Bob claps as he leaps into the air, doing a small jig of merriment while other gremlins rush forward to sing praises to the surface dwellers. The horses were more or less pushed and coerced to the center of the city, where the king of the fire gremlins looked down upon them with a great gratitude.

In a sudden quiet the king made to speak and all the other citizens retreated, eyes expectant as they watched.

"May I ask, who are you?"

There was a murmur among the crowd as others seemed to be similarly inquisitive. Bob cleared his throat among the crowd and stepped forward.

"Your lordship, if I may. These horses and almighty dragon come from the surface, brought down by I to help us with the monstrosity."

There is a gasp among the crowd and a small fragment of outrage. Even the king is shocked, but a wave of his bejeweled claw has them hushed once more.
"It matters not from whence they come, these horses and dragon have rescued us from a terrible plight. For that we say thanks to them, and to Gongflornafrey'mb for the insight and bravery that the rest of us lacked."

Bob beamed in the crowd, his fear for his crime abolished by the king's kind words.

The king now turned his attention solely to Lace, Fajira and Valentine. "My dear saviors, how can we ever repay you for this deed this day? You will be returned to the top world as soon as you wish, but I could no sit without imparting gifts to honor your courage and good will."

A toothy smile met them as the fire gremlin king reached to the side of his robe. From a pocket he pulled out two blue flames. A quiet mutter under his breath and a blow of air sent the spelled flame to settle in the chest of each horse; painless, though warm.

"I am afraid we have not the ability to enchant a dragon..." the king frowned, obviously upset by their lack of skill. "But for each of you horses, a magic will manifest in the top world for some time. If it is home you seek, Bob can return you as he took you."

---

We can end it here if you both like.

Valentine can say he discovered his post amulet when walking back down the hallway to return home -- it felt awkward to reward him an amulet and not lace is why I didn't mention it in post/with the king.

They both have received a temporary magic for 2 months, this will not fill a magic slot but has battle use restrictions same as any other.

Lace -- the ability to breathe flame as his dragon does.
Valentine -- all the red on your body you may turn to flame at will and burn with.