The Nerds Fable

Epic quest time aww yeah!​

Lying on two beds at the same time is not comfortable. And neither is using a couch cushion for a pillow. I was extremely sore in the morning, as one would expect. It was a dreamless, restless sleep. I had slept fine before I met the princess. The biggest thing keeping me awake was the fact there were other humans. I thought that I was the only one. Did that weird god type guy send more in? Or were there other powerful beings like him, sending humans to this world for entertainment?

​I also had trouble getting comfortable. When I slept outside I was leaning against things to sleep and putting my hands on my chest and lap. But having nowhere to put all four of my hands is just uncomfortable. My hands have to be higher than my hip for me to get comfortable doing anything. Having four to do this with just got things tangled up.

​It was also apparent that after the royals left they posted two guards outside my door without telling me. I wondered if the other humans had a reputation of sorts. It seemed likely. They spent the whole night talking to each other. It would have been fine had they whispered, but alas they talked as though they were on other sides of a long hallway.

​When the sun finally came up I decided that I had been in bed long enough. I heaved myself off the bed, collected my equipment, minus the hammer, and went out to find some grub.

​“Excuse me you two, but would you happen to know where I can get breakfast?”

​“Follow us sir.”

​They led me through a few corridors, back through the giant round room, and into a small dining area. Cadence was already up, along with some castle staff serving her. I made myself comfortable on the floor, and noticed that I was still taller than the ponies around me. When a waiter came I ordered a breakfast salad with extra bananas.

​“Did you sleep well Goliath?”

​“Not really. It’s gonna be a bitch trying to find a place to stay later on.”

​“I would expect such, maybe we could prepare a special room for you to stay in.”

​“I don’t think I’m going to be here that long. Don’t bother with it.”

​Just then Shining Armor came in. His mane was a complete mess and he had a bleary look in his eyes that conveyed that he was not a morning pony. He stumbled over to a seat next to his wife and dropped into it. He ordered black coffee and moved into a catatonic state until his beverage came.

​“Oh good, you’re here, I was about to explain our predicament to Goliath.”

​“Uh huh.”

​“Do you want to explain?”

​“Nuh uh.”

​She looked at me blushing. “I’m sorry, he can’t really do anything until he gets his coffee in the morning. Wait a minute or two and we can get to why we invited you in last ight.”

​“Um… Okay.”

​The server came back in with my salad and sleeping beauty’s liquefied true love’s kiss. He downed it in one gulp and asked for more. I began to slowly munch away at my salad. After a minute or two and a second coffee Shining seemed to be awake enough to begin.

​“Okay, so let’s get down to business. We need your help. There is a group of bandits that has raided three trains on their way here. They took all of the items of value and didn’t take any hostages until three days ago, when my sister was coming here.”

​I understood instantly. Someone kidnapped Twilight Sparkle. They wanted me to go out there and rescue her. Of course, if they managed to raid three trains that most likely had guards, they probably managed to defeat the guards on the trains, and they weren’t willing to throw away guards to save them. My inner fanboy was completely flipping out over this. Saving Twighlight! That is awesome! “Is there more?”

​“We believe they used some of the magical inhibitors that they took off of our train guards from a previous raid. Twilie’s too powerful for just one to incapacitate her. All you have to do is go, remove the inhibitor, and she can help you get out after that. We are willing to pay you whatever price you demand.”

​Any price I wanted? That sounded too good to be true. I could become rich on my second day here! But I also took from the lessons given to me from the show and decide to be generous. “How about I rescue her for free, and you give me financial aid when I need it. I’m reasonable, I won’t ask for mountains of jewels or a mansion, just the necessities for further endeavors.”

​“Yes! Anything! Just get my sister back. We’ll even throw in citizenship in the Empire if you bring in their leader alive or dead.”

​Citizenship? Wow, they were really going all out. “Deal.”

​“Good. Please leave as soon as you can. Oh and also, were sending two guards with you. Both are pegasi. If Twilight is hurt they’ll carry her back so she can get treatment more quickly.”

​“Sounds fair. Let me go get my hammer from my room and I’ll leave immediately.”

​“Meet us in the armory when you’re done.”

I returned to my room and retrieved my weapon. It would be my first time using it. Hopefully I was good.

​I asked around and found my way to the armory. There waiting was Shining, the guard that woke me up the previous night for loitering, and the asshole that did the same. Of course it was them.

​“Hello again Goliath. Nice to know we’ll be having someone like you backing us up on this.” Well at least he’s polite. “I don’t think I told you this last night, but my name is Iron Hide.”

​Flash just ignored me.

​“Nice to meet you formally Iron Hide. So, what are we doing here?”

​“I have some extra information before I send you three on your way,” stated Shining. “And I thought maybe we could equip you with some more equipment.”

​“Do you have anything that will even fit me?”

​“Well, no, but we have medical supplies, and we can supply you with a side arm, maybe a sword as an equivalent of a dagger.”

​We went through a few swords, and I picked two small hand and a half swords (mouth and a half?) and a longbow that I could sort of kind of draw. He gave me some gauze, antiseptic, and a field kit for stitches. I packed the meds in my backpack and the saddlebags of Flash and Iron, sheathed my swords on both sides, put my bow in my pack, and positioned the quiver with about twenty arrows on the left of my bag. I was armed and deadly. Hell yeah.

​We were also given a map of the landscape of the northern province, and three copies of a map of the old mine they had tracked the bandits to. I was also made sure to know they were one thousand year old maps and might not be one hundred percent accurate.

​After we were fully equipped we were off. It was a thirty mile hike to where the old mine was, and we needed to move fast to make it before dark.

​As we went I asked about the old mine. Iron said it was a crystal mine started by King Sombra before he became corrupt. It was a deadly place to work at during the end of his reign because he didn’t buy proper equipment for cave wall supports and many ponies died in cave ins. It was now supposedly haunted by the thousand year old spirits of the dead. Sounds like a perfect place for a bandit hive to be situated.

​The whole time from when I came to the armory, Flash Sentry didn’t say a single word. I would have just thought him the quiet type had he not laughed at my joke at a bad time, and badmouthed me a couple hours later. Iron was very talkative though. He asked me about the human world, I told him all about it, from the simple things like clothes, to amazing feats of technology. He was very intrigued by how we went from day to night without magic. Saying it was “the most astounding thing he had ever heard.”

​After that we began playing word games. I would say a word, and he had to say another word that had something to do with the word, be it synonym antonym, or part of a subject, and it had to begin with the last letter of the word I said. We got bored of that after a while and just walked in silence, keeping our thoughts to ourselves.

​After about eight hours we finally made it. A gaping hole in the earth, it had no doors or anything on the top, and the stone ramp into the interior was encased in ice, quite literally a slippery slope to get down. It was getting late, and it was decided that it would be best to camp out outside of the hideout overnight a small distance away. We went over the layout of the mine. It had a nice and neat grid texture, or it was supposed to. There were many cave-ins and the like that might not have been marked on the map. We decided to mark the map to attempt to update it as needed when we found something not actually there, so our getaway would be easier. In the morning, we would go it, and use deadly force on any of the criminals hiding inside.