Into The City

The Village

Twilight made her way to the stone door way, but along the way she found some more of the Earth Herb she had and picked those. If there was going to be lots of fighting, she was going to need it and badly. When she came to the door way, she found another metal door. But this one opened when she pushed on it. It swung open and she walked into the tunnel. The door closed behind her with a thud. She walked through the short tunnel to another door, she opened that one too and stepped through it. She was now in the opening of a cave.

Twilight paused as she saw an earth pony stallion sitting on the ground, he looked very very sad. Twilight walked over and greeted the stallion. He looked up at her in confusion. For a few moments neither pony spoke a word, but the earth pony stallion broke the silence.

"You... what are you?" He asked and Twilight looked at him in confusion.

"What... do you mean?" Twilight asked and he pointed to her head with his hoof.

"Why do you have... that thing on your head?" He asked and Twilight guessed he was referring to her horn.

"It's a horn, I'm a unicorn....you know... a pony that can use magic," Twilight said and the stallion's eyes widened.

"Magic! That's impossible! Only the forest folk could use magic! And they're all dead!"

"W-What!? But... where I come from... there are lots of... ponies who use magic."

"And what place would that be?" The stallion eyed Twilight suspiciously.

"Some... place.. far away...," Twilight said. She figured here Equestria didn't exist. So it'd be ideal not to tell them because then they'd think her a mad pony. And that is not what she needed at the moment. The stallion grumbled something under his breath.

"Well, what ever. What are you here for?" He asked and Twilight thought about what to say. After a few moments of silence she knew what to say.

"I'm here to find a way home. Like I said it's very far away, and I'm not even supposed to be here. So I'm looking around this place because I know there is a way home here. I just have to find it," Twilight told him.

"Hmph... well if you're gonna be in the cursed lands, then you should take this." He stood up and walked over to the side of the cave, he picked something up and then walked back to Twilight. In his mouth was a wooden club. Twilight gulped uneasily and took the club in her magic. She didn't want to take it, but if this land was as dangerous as Story said it was. She was gonna need a weapon. And while close range magic was no problem, it did take some time to charge it, time she may or may not have.

"Thank you," She said.

"Don't mention it, just helping out a fellow pony." He went back to his spot and sat down. Twilight figured now would be an ideal time to leave. So she walked out of the cave and took in the sight of the village. The village was basically a ruin. Only one building stood among all the rubble, but even that building was falling apart. Twilight decided to check out the building, maybe there would be something inside she could use. So she made her way to the building.

She pushed open the metal doors, and entered the ruined building. The first floor was very small and a piece of the ceiling had caved in. Though there was a fire, which was still alight and there were barrels and wooden boxes in the small room. And there was a single chest. Twilight walked over to the chest and opened it, inside was a pair of leather boots for her front legs, or back. Which ever she wanted to put them on. But she put them on her front, in case she had to punch anything.

But then, she heard some rustling, and Twilight twirled around, only to find her self pushed against the wall roughly and a knife held against her throat. She looked at the pony holding the knife. the pony wore a black robe that covered most of their body, the only things Twilight could see was a small amount of their face. They had crimson eyes and a onyx coat. The pony glared at Twilight, then spoke.

"Who are you and why are you in my home rummaging through my items?" They asked.

"I-I'm Twilight Sparkle and I'm sorry for rummaging through your items. I knew there was a fire alight but I didn't think anyone actually was living here," Twilight replied. The onyx pony eyed Twilight before letting her down. The pony said nothing and went over to sit by the fire. Twilight bit her lip.

"I-if it makes you feel any better... I only took the leather boots," Twilight levitated the boots in front of the pony. The pony jumped away from the boots and looked at Twilight with wide eyes.

"How did you do that!?" They exclaimed.

"I... I'm a unicorn... and where I come from Unicorns can do magic," Twilight explained. The pony looked at Twilight suspiciously.

"Didn't you notice my horn?" Twilight motioned to the horn on her head and the pony laughed.

"I just thought that was some weird head gear or something," they replied and Twilight groaned. 'Really? Have they seriously never seen a Unicorn before?'  She thought.

"Well, what ever. Piece of advice, don't go around showing ponies your magic. Or ponies are gonna think you're a freak. The only ponies 'round here are the ground ponies. And they don't take to kindly to those that aren't like them," the robed pony told her.

"H-hey... thanks... uhh... what's your name?" Twilight asked. The pony looked away and appeared to be thinking. After a few moments they looked back at Twilight.

They said, "just call me Misty."

"Well, thanks Misty.... I'll be going now," Twilight said and turned to leave, only to be stopped by a hoof on her shoulder.

"Here, take this. You're gonna need it more than I am," Misty handed the boots to Twilight. Twilight's eyes widened and looked at Misty. She took the boots in her mouth, taking Misty's advice not to use magic.

"No need to thank me," Misty said and turned away from Twilight and went back to the fire. Twilight smiled and left the building, she put the boots on the second she left the building. She walked around a little bit to get the feel of the boots. She'd worn shoes before, but boots were different. Boots were typically used as protection against.. well lots of things. But shoes for ponies were used mainly as decoration. Twilight put the club in her saddle bag, which appeared to be quite larger than it looked. Perhaps Celestia had placed an enchantment on it, in case she ran into anything interesting.

Twilight looked around the village a little bit and found a shop. She went into the shop and found a green and brown pony. Who was yet again an earth pony, or a ground pony as Misty had called them. She entered the shop and there was a little bell that rang to single her entrance. The earth pony looked up from his counter which he was cleaning and looked at Twilight.

"A customer? How odd....," He mumbled and then looked back down at his counter top and continued to clean it.

"Umm... hello... I'm Twiligh-"

"I could careless what your name is, chances are you're going to die in the next few days. No pony survives here long....," he cut her off. Twilight closed her mouth and looked down at her hooves. She didn't know how to reply to that.

"But... what ever, business is business. So what do you want?" He asked. Twilight walked up to the counter and looked around in her saddle bag. She found a bag of bits and she pulled it out. The earth pony opened the bag and looked at the bits.

"What's this?" He looked at Twilight in confusion and Twilight's eyes widened. She face hoofed and thought 'of course! If this is a completely different place than they probably use a different legal tender.' She cursed her stupidity.

"That's money from where I come from. It's called bits," Twilight explained. The stallion eyed the bits closely.

"Looks like tiny pieces of gold....," He picked one up in his hoof and bit it.

"Tastes like it too... Is this pieces of gold?" He asked and Twilight nodded. "Hmmm....," He put a hoof to his chin and appeared to be deep in thought. Twilight started to sweat nervously, wondering if this could be used as a legal tender.

"Well they're small pieces of gold. And here we use pieces of gold, but large pieces. Gold coins actually. So... how about we say 10 bits to a coin," he said, Twilight's eyes widened.

"What!? 10 bits to a coin! That's an outrage! A rip off! 6 bits could easily make a full gold coin!" Twilight protested at the stallions outrageous price. The pony snorted.

"Well take it or leave it cause I ain't changing the price. So it's 10 bits to a coin or nothing," he stated. Twilight's mouth hung open in shock. 'Do ponies normally rip off other ponies here!?' Twilight thought in disbelief. She sighed and weighed the options, money to no money. Obviously money was the better option here, so she had no choice but to give into his outrageous price....

"Fine... there should be about 130 bits in there," Twilight said in defeat. The pony opened the bag and dumped all it's contents onto the counter. Then he counted each and every little bit.

"Nope, you got about 100 here," He said and Twilight's eyes widened. She looked at the pile of bits and proceeded to count them her self. 99.... 100...101... 129... 130. There was 130 bits in total in that pile. She looked up at the pony angerly.

"There is 130 bits here, I just counted them. So hand over... the 13 gold coins," Twilight said and the pony shook his head.

"Can't give you what you don't have, you clearly have 100 bits there, so that's 10 gold coins," He said and pulled out 10 coins and pushed them towards her.

"Take it or leave it, it's fine by me. I'll just be looting your corpse when your dead anyways," He hissed. Twilight groaned and took the bag that held the bits and put the coins in. The pony smirked. 'Rip off....' She thought bitterly.

"Pleasure doing business with ya," He grinned and she scowled then turned to leave the place. She exited and she was back in the ruins of the town.

"David being a dick again?" She heard a pony say and she twirled around, it was just Misty. Twilight sighed in relief and nodded. Misty sighed.

"I thought we talked about that.... looks like I have to talk to him AGAIN," Misty grumbled and entered the shop. Twilight couldn't hear what happened. But Misty came out a few minutes later and she handed Twilight 3 gold coins.

"Here. It's not much, but I guess it's a start in the cursed place," Misty said. Twilight pocketed the gold coins but when she looked up to thank the onyx pony, she was no where to be found. Twilight sighed and decided she'd have to thank her another time. Twilight looked up at the sky, which she noticed had started to get progressivly darker than normal. Which she guessed meant night time was coming. She'd need a place to sleep. After searching around for a little bit, she eventually found a place. But it was a ruined home with no ceiling. But it's walls were more intact than the other buildings.

This is where Twilight would stay the night. And in the morning Twilight would leave the village to look around for information.