With her polearm being bashed to the side, Blossom leapt backwards. She had forced the statue to act, that much was certain, but now she would have to deal with the advancing strikes that it was making. She could not hold her own as well as Bastion could with his shield, but the long metal stick that she had could still at least parry a blade against its shaft. Of course, that was something she would only want to attempt as a last resort, so for the time, she kept backing up, looking over to Bastion to see that he was doing the same.

"Grrrr, these statues!" she growled through clenched teeth, watching the unicorn statue to see if it was going to try to advance again. They were clearly not having any luck with tactics that would work against any other living creature, all that they seemed to accomplish was inconveniencing the statues and getting a few new marks on their gear. As she watched the unicorn statue though, she noticed that it seemed to be struggling a bit to raise its shield once more. Perhaps the magic that was powering the statue was weakening? It must be too demanding for it to use both of its armaments at the same time. Using her superior reach to swipe at that statue and maybe force it to use its sword to parry the strike, and hopefully keep its shield from being raised, she said, "They look like they are getting weaker, keep forcing them!"

As the two of them waited for the door to slowly attempt the arduous act of opening, Blossom let out an annoyed huff. Of course it was too much to ask for a door to be prompt, she would have to wait for the old thing to get out its walker and trudge along in its tracks while making all of the young ponies wait on it. Even that would have been bearable compared to the door just giving out with one last crumbly gasp, sealing the opening that the door had worked so hard to create. Now the two of them were sitting on the wrong side of it, eyeing up the statues who have decided it was time to stretch the old joints and test the new blood that was challenging their perilous portal. Blossom couldn't really blame them, she felt as stiff as a statue after long shifts as well.

Readying her polearm to strike at a moments notice, she took some time to assess the situation. There was a unicorn statue on one side with both a sword and shield, whom Bastion has already taken the time to stop from taking off both of their heads, and a pegasus on the other side, brandishing its wings as if they were weapons. Normally she would laugh at a recruit trying to use their wings as a weapon, but the fact that they were made of stone was definitely working out in the statues favour. In fact, it was going to turn out to be the pair of guards' biggest disadvantage: that they were flesh and blood, and their adversaries were solid rock and gemstone.

Keeping to the plan that Bastion was calling out, Blossom started to circle around the flank of the unicorn statue, moving nimbly to keep it between herself and Bastion. There was no way that it would be able to withstand an attack from behind while Bastion was pressuring it from the front. Drawing her sword to keep as a backup plan, Blossom then jabbed at the back legs of the unicorn statue, twisting the hook of her guisarme to hook around the right thigh before pulling quickly in such a way that it would yank one leg out from under it, destabilizing its rock solid form, "Try to hit the horn, Bastille, the gem seems to be the focus of its magic."

Blossom listened to the stallion's story as she continued to look around the room and at the statues, once more eyeing the gems carefully. There was no easy way to tell if they were magic or simply for decoration, and if they were for decoration, they were in pretty odd places on each statue. The fact that they both didn't match with a gem in the center of the breastplate was what gave her reason to pause, but if Darrus was able to approach it so carelessly and even touch it, then maybe she was just overreacting for now. She looked back to the strange stallion as he finished up his story, bringing up the point of the castle being off limits, and that maybe he wasn't even trying to steal anything. It would have been a fair point... if he hadn't spilled what he said after Darrus started looking a little more closely at the gems. If he wasn't careful with what he said, they could very well charge him with something, and they'd have witnesses to prove it.

"You," she spoke back to Darrus, "please stop that. At least wait until after we finish with the vault before you go back to whatever it is you are doing, just in case those are integral to the magic lock over the vault." She stopped to see if he was going to do as she kindly asked before looking back to the stallion. "As for you, yes, we are members of the Royal Guard, here by order of Princess Celestia, and yes, we do have business in the vault." She examined the vault door a little while longer before taking off her pack and leaning her polearm against the wall, rummaging through for the key that they were given, and trying to remember the key features of the artifact they were to be getting.

"Oui, we will get you out of here, garçon, and we can stop to get you some medicine along the way back and see to it that you are bandaged up properly. Heck, you might even get some apple juice with that." It was hard to tell if she was being just as snarky as the stallion was with that last remark. After finding the key in the saddlebag, she looked up at Bastion and asked, "So how are we going to do this, Bastille? We need to move quickly, and somepony needs to watch the doors and our quarry here to make sure they get out alright in case something happens. At the same time though, we don't know just how big these vaults are, and if even one pony is enough to scope the entire vault out for our artifact."

Blossom shook her head with Applejack at the exaggerated stories that came out of both of the stallions in the group, guessing that, like Darrus, Bastion was telling tall tales. She wasn't quite sure she understood what a bunyip was, but she did know that a tennis racket and that strange canned string substance that he called 'silly string' were probably poor choices of weaponry for whatever it was. She would have to ask Bastion later what a bunyip was later, as Applejack had decided to turn her attention to the female guard again.

In response to Applejack's question about Prance being more uppity and fancy, Blossom shook her head and said, "It is rare, oui, for a guard to come out of Prance. Culture is of much greater focus in my home, and most ponies are more concerned with their art, be that fine dining, painting, wine-tasting, fashion, baking, anything that can be associated with high class art, Prance has noteworthy artisans. I am personally one more for the theatre." She paused before continuing, "But nay, I digress, I chose to be a guard because my father was a high ranking officer in the Equestrian Military, and I learned how to wield a weapon under his tutelage. He was wanting to teach all of my sisters how to fight in the hopes of contributing more to the country, but of me and my two sisters, only I pursued this career, and he is proud of me."

"Prance though, if you ever wish to visit it, is a good place to go and experience all of the fine arts. Back when I was young, I would see many tourists in the city, mostly lovers on their honeymoons or some sort of vacation, and you wouldn't have to worry about not speaking the language. Most of the big attractions, hotels, and restaurants all have Equestrian speaking staff, as long as you are fine listening to an accent like mine." Blossom left it at that before turning her attention to the light at the end of the tunnel, dodging a root that snaked around the corridor. The one thing that Blossom left out that even for all of its culture, Prance was an expensive place to go to for a tourist; she didn't wish to say it outright, but she wasn't sure if a pony that made their income on an apple orchard would be able to afford such a trip, nor even be interested, but she never knew, maybe if she and Darrus were serious, it could be a place for them to consider.

She approached the corner with Bastion, walking around the corner with him, looking first at the pony at the ground to see if he was a threat or in any danger before evaluating the room around them. The stallion on the ground was alone, but seemed to have come armed and armour clad, even if the armour was flimsy compared to the heavy plates that Bastion wore. He did have an injury across his side though, so if he was a threat, he was a crippled threat. It was a bad idea to underestimate the capability of an injured opponent though, so she kept herself at the ready as she stood beside Bastion, offering a brief glance at the two statues further into the room, both the statue of the unicorn with the sword and shield, and the statue of the pegasus, both with cut purple gems somewhere on them. This had to be a trap, there was no other reason that these two statues would be embossed with those amethysts. Were they enchanted gemstones charged to activate when the trap was set off?

They'd cross that bridge when they got to it, as she turned her attention back to the stallion on the ground within seconds of looking away, putting on her authoritative tone again as she said, "In the name of Princess Celestia, what is your name, why are you here, and how were you hurt?" She quickly added afterward, remembering that he started to address them as though he was expecting somepony else, "Who else is here?"

Blossom furrowed her brow at the snide reply that came from Darrus, definitely noting the undertones that came with that reply. It wasn't exactly the most polite thing to say; more excessively blunt than necessary, especially considering the fact that she was only concerned about their safety for the time being. Absentmindedly, she tapped the bottom of her guisarme on the smooth brick floor to reposition it, then again just a little more slightly, but Bastion could probably recognize that this constant subtle shifting was one of her more subtle cues that she was getting a little irritated, if he was paying attention, that is. Looking at Bastion as he nudged her, she quirked an eyebrow in a slightly amused fashion. "Sugarcube?" What could he have been snickering at? Was it the fact that the little nickname was a funny thing to call a guard in itself, or was it funny simply because of the juxtaposition that it caused?

Whatever the case may be, this 'sugarcube' had a job to do, and as Bastion pointed out to Applejack, it would now involve taking care of the very important pony and her coltfriend who happened to wander into an area that really shouldn't be open to the public. All in a day's work it would seem, whether it be in Canterlot or not. She followed Applejack and Darrus out of the room alongside Bastion, though was quick to notice that Bastion had turned most of his attention to the other colt. Well wasn't that just splendid, he was getting along with the other colt who was already rubbing her the wrong way, leaving her to walk on the other side closer to Applejack. At least she was still the more agreeable of the pair in her eyes, if only because she has already proven herself multiple times, and was very much considered nothing short of a heroine alongside her five friends.

Maybe as she watched the path ahead for more traps, she could... strike up a conversation with this incredibly influential figure? It isn't every day that she gets to talk to somepony who was part of a group that pretty much had an impressive stained glass window in the Canterlot castle dedicated to them. It was something that Blossom looked at nearly every day since it was installed, yet here she was. The least she could do was not horribly butcher her name in her Prench accent, but given the fact that her name ended in a hard consonant that she was not used to pronouncing, of course it would go wrong, "Pardons, miss Applejacque, if you do not mind me asking, how did you and mister Darrus get together?"

Blossom raised her weapon once more after catching it onto Bastion's armour, unaware that he would have dodged it on his own. Putting her guisarme back over her shoulder, she looked back at her map, turning it at a few different angles to try to read what it said about the room ahead of them, "It does not say what it was for, but one can only imagine. I'm not sure if Starswirl was even around when Nightmare Moon was banished either." She sighed and closed the map once more before adding, "I'm not much of a historian, I could not tell anyone anything about any historical topic other than that it might have happened. Let's just see what's ahead for ourselves."

As she said that, they walked into the room, and Bastion's light spell illuminated it. In the middle of the room was a table with a dusty tablecloth over it. On top of this table was a clouded crystal ball surrounded by stacks of old tomes that have long since been devoured into uselessness by bookworms. Along the walls were many other faded diagrams, drawings, and other information that Blossom could only recognize as advanced magical spells, way too advanced for someone of her pay grade. Bookcases lined a few walls, and a few dusty potion bottles still filled with coloured liquids sat on a bottle rack. After looking around, Blossom said, "Well, if there was anything close to a wizard's room, it would look something like this. I'm not sure I'd want to touch any of this; no telling what the wizard in question wanted untouched."

Blossom rolled her eyes as they began to walk down the stairs, taking care not to bump her polearm against the walls or the ceiling. “Pssh, demons and skeletons… Bastille, your imagination is running wild again. Of course there is no such thing as living skeletons and demons,” she muttered as she shook her head. When they reached the landing at the bottom, the sight of more claustrophobia inducing corridors was enough to make Blossom sigh. Bastion was right, these corridors were going to be labyrinthine. “I think we did get blueprints for this floor, let me see…” she opened her saddlebag and fished out the map, plastering it against the wall with her magic so that Bastion could light it and look at it. Examining the map, Blossom pointed out the stairs that they were standing next to, “We should be here, I think… merde, it doesn’t point out where the traps are, or what they are. We are going to have to be careful with those.” Rolling the map back up, she said, “As bad as it sounds, I’m hoping that we weren’t the only ones down here. I’d hate for us to be the ones to set off these dusty, century old traps and get rusty metal infections.”