The Heroes of Haygrove

by TerranceJet

Rating: teen
Tags: Alternate Universe, Random, Adventure
Length: 1643

A tale of a band of heroes, trying to save their city from a not-so-ancient evil. Very first draft in-progress. Do not read if you value your sanity.

A single city in the vast wildlands. An unhinged duke. A band of semi-competent heroes step in to save the day. Let's hope they don't kill themselves doing it.
This work of fiction has been proven to cause insanity in 8/10 lab rats.
Everything is subject to change at the drop of a hat. You have been warned. Twice now, actually.

Published 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC
Last updated 2014-02-25 03:23:36 UTC

Introduction 1: Sword and Shield

"Well, this could've gone better." The brown unicorn adventurer, Sword Thrust, said with a slight grimace as he struggled against the ropes holding him.

"It's your fault, don't look at me!" Shield Bash, A silver-coated pegasus, replied. "You're the one that said we should activate the pressure plate to see what it would do. I said we should just step around it! Then you set it off anyway!"

“Well I didn't know it was magical!"

"OF COURSE IT'S MAGICAL! WE'RE IN A FREAKING EVIL UNICORN'S LAIR!" As the two would-be heroes continued shouting at each other, the magical bonds started moving them towards the end of the long corridor they were in.

"Well, great. Twenty bits says it drops us in a spike pit." Sword grumbled.

"For my sake, I sure hope so. Then I could just fly off and leave your sorry flank to rot." Shield said with a smirk.

"Oh, whatever. Wings are just unfair."

"Well, you've got that fancy horn of yours, couldn't you just teleport?"

"I can barely do it with absolutely no distractions, much less while falling to my death! You know that, Shield!" Sword shouted.

"Ugh. Fine. I'll catch you if it drops us. But you'll owe me a liiiiiife deeeebt!"

"No, we'll be even. I saved you from that saw trap three rooms ago, didn't I?"

"Whatever. Hey, are we slowing down?" Shield looked around as they reached the end of the stone corridor.

In front of them were two enormous wooden doors, easily three ponies tall. The rope holding Sword slammed him into the doors, and they opened with a slight creak. Sword was about to complain about being used as a battering ram, But the sight of the chamber they had just entered took away his words. As he and Shield looked, the doors swung open to a vast chamber, made almost entirely of marble. In the center of the room, A large throne sat, with a rather diminutive yellow unicorn with a glowing gear for a cutie mark sitting on it, looking at them with a smug look on her face.

The tiny unicorn got up, walked over to the incapacitated heroes, and took a deep breath.

Then proceeded to laugh maniacally in a voice that sounded like she had been breathing helium for the past week: "I've got you now, pesky heroes! I'm surprised you lasted this long against my traps!"

Sword and shield looked at her, then looked at each other, then looked back at her, and began laughing as hard as they could.

"Pfft! What happened to your voice? It sounds like a mouse!" Sword choked out between laughing fits.

"Yeah! It sounds like a baby bunny!" Shield blurted.

"WHAT? You think the dastardly Sweet Cheek’ voice is funny?!" The little unicorn fumed. Both heroes fell silent immediately. Then began to grin.

"So..." "Wait..." Their grins grew wider. "The ‘evil unicorn’ that's been terrorizing the countryside's name is..." Sword started, beaming.

"SWEET CHEEKS?!" Shield finished, her smile almost touching her ears.

"What? Is Sweet Cheeks not a frightening name? Does it not fill your soul with horror?" Sweet cheeks asked, glaring at the grinning duo.

"Oh, no no no! It's terrifying!" Shield said, thinking. She wondered if she could use this to get them out of their bonds. "It's the kind of name a powerful wizard such as yourself deserves!"

"Heh, yeah. It's the kind of name one must bow down to!" Sword said enthusiastically, catching on.

"But how can we bow while we're tied up like this? We can't give you all the worship and groveling you deserve..." Shield picked up, frowning sadly.

“Oh! Well then. Ropes! Release them!" Sweet cheeks said cheerfully. Sword dropped on his head, while Shield gently landed with the help of her wings. They then proceeded to bow, and began groveling.

"Oh mighty Sweet Cheeks, you have bested us." Shield said solemnly.

"Yes, you have defeated us in both body and spirit." Shield added.

Sweet Cheeks smiled to herself and said, "Go on...".

Shield smiled. "We would, But since we're not being held anymore, we'll be taking our leave NOW!" She said the last word as Sword cast his smokescreen spell, and they dashed for the exit conveniently placed behind the throne.

Sweet Cheeks sat stunned for a split second, before she shouted "ROPES! GET THEM!" at the top of her tiny lungs. Sword and Shield dashed through the door just as the ropes started to lift from the ground. Sword slammed the tiny door shut with his magic as they raced through the low tunnel of the exit, laughing all the while.

"Did you see her face? She was all, ‘wha?’ If she wasn't trying to kill us, I would've thought it was cute!" Sword exclaimed as they neared the end of the tunnel.

"I know, right?" Shield laughed as they shot out into the open air, chuckling as they ran back to Haygrove.

Introduction 2: Bow and Quiver

"Uh... Bowstring? C'mere a minute..." A soft green earth pony said, looking worriedly off the trail.

"Quiver? What'd you find? Loot? Treasure? Gold?" His (Three guesses.) gold-coated sibling asked, sidling over to her brother.

"Oh, it's nothing. Just, uh... A cavern. Nothing special to it!" He said nervously as he turned around and backed away from the large, imposing opening in the mountainside, glancing at the sword on his back.

"What're you- WHOAH! BRO! That's a HUGE HOLE!" Bowstring yelled, rushing forwards to look inside the gaping maw of the cave. "We're checking it out, right? Quiver? Please? PleasepleasepleasePLEASEpleaseplea-HEEEEEEESEpleasepuhlease? Ahem. That was, 'Please' with Quiver on bass."

"What do you mean by that? That sounded nothing like a song! And I don't play bass. Anyway, if you want to check it out, go right ahead. I'll stay here and wait for the soothing sound of you screaming for my help as some ravenous beast tears you apart."

"Oh, c'mon, Quiver! Where's your sense of adventure?" Bowstring  asked with a sideways grin, leaning closer to the unamused earth pony.

"It's being clubbed to death by my sense of caution, thank you very much. Now then, you wanted to go in the pit of endless nightmares and suffering, you go first." The stallion said with a grin, sweeping his hoof in a 'go ahead' gesture.

Bowstring shifted from hoof to hoof before steeling herself. "Alright then! I wi-HURK!"

Predictably, a clawed paw belonging to a large slightly-describable horror grabbed the excited pony, cutting her off mid-word.

The beast shambled out of its den, rearing to it's full height of about twenty feet, a good bit bigger than the adventurers. It's beady black eyes shone out of their sockets, as it bared it's canines menacingly. The horror (With Bowstring in hand) began loping towards Quiver, pleased with finding such easy prey.

Quiver had just one thing to say about this.

"I TOLD YOU SO!" He yelled as clambered to his hooves. "I BUCKING TOLD YOU SO! DID I NOT TELL YOU SO?" He ranted as he dashed away from the horror's grasping paw, scarcely evading the claws. The beast growled in frustration and reached again, only for Quiver to jump onto his paw, his sword now in his mouth. "Maybe you'll LISTEN next time!" He grumbled around the padded hilt of the weapon as he dashed up the surprised creatures arm.

Reaching the creature's shoulder, he leapt for the face of the beast with his sword. The creature's right eye was pierced, and a small flood of crimson blood shot out of the wound. The beast howled in pain, dropping Bowstring while Quiver landed with a slight thud at it's feet. He turned to Bowstring, who pulled her luckily unbroken bow off her back, and nocked an arrow.

"Y'know the best part about this? You only got one of the thing's eyes!" Bowstring exclaimed happily as the arrow found a nice home in the creature's left one. The beast roared loudly swinging blindly in the hopes of killing the ponies who had caused it so much pain. They sidestepped the uncoordinated blows easily, Backing towards the edge of the mountain trail as they did so.

Quiver and Bowstring noticed this simultaneously, smiled broadly, and dashed straight between the beast's legs. The horror roared and started to turn around, but two well-placed applebucks to the rump sent the thing careening forward, straight off the cliff.

Bowstring smiled at her brother while he fixed a glare at the cliff, waiting for the creature to suddenly pull itself back up for round two. It didn't. After a few moment's Quiver looked cautiously over the edge, waiting for the creature's claws to rake across his face. They didn't. Hundreds of feet below, the horror had fallen on some very sharp rocks, creating quite the mess. Quiver's green coat turned a slight shade darker. Sticking his tongue out in disgust, he made his way back to his sister.

"Well?" She asked expectantly, practically bouncing on her hooves.

"The thing is dead, and should stay that way for a while." Quiver grimaced slightly. "Now then, shall we head back to town?"

Bowstring hastily agreed, and they started wandering down the mountain, heading back to the Haygrove Inn.

Prelude To Madness

Prelude To Madness

The duke of Haygrove was not a happy pony. He looked out from the top of his keep with a grin, but that was just for his subject's benefit. The throngs of earth ponies, with a scattering of pegasi and the occasional unicorn, looked up at him with a mix of fear and adoration. He was not tyrannical, but he still had the respect of everypony in his city. They knew he was prone to fits of madness that could get them all killed, but they never did. Today, on the other hoof...