Equescape: Tale of the six

Chapter 1: "Welcome to the world of Gielinor"

A young mare finds herself awakening in the courtyard of a castle, she has entered the world of Gielinor from an unknown past. She remembers nothing and stands on the cobblestones of the courtyard dazed and confused. A strange old stallion wearing dark blue robes comes to greet her.

"Why, hello there,welcome to the world of Gielinor! Did Miss Cheerilee send you after passing your exams in Sleighville?" the stallion questions. "Oh how rude of me, I didn't even introduce myself! I am the Saddlebridge guide, I helped aspiring young ponies to become brave adventurers, until they all started heading to Marerley instead…" he exclaims, pausing for a moment and revealing the astronomical pattern on his robes.

"Anyway, I haven't seen anypony like you around here, so you must be wondering how to become an artisan of your trade, become the mightiest warrior or maybe become a wise wizard like myself! The only problem is that Gielinor has become somewhat different since I started showing colts and fillies around, then with the gods coming back, I just can't keep up lately…".

The young mare listens as she familiarizes herself with the surroundings, the wide river Sadd was flowing fresh water to her right, then ahead of her was a store of sorts that seemed quiet for such a time in the morning. A combat camp was nearby where mares and stallions were analysing the three combat masters that fought before them, one wielding a metal spear that gleamed red, another casting spells from a staff that emitted the essence of light itself and the last firing arrows from a bow that neutralised the light the staff was emitting, as if it displaced the light with shadows.

"But I can offer you one handy piece of advice, you will want to make some friends to assist you on the path you take. It is not safe to go alone, so take this" He hands the young mare a bronze dagger. The mare thanks the Guide and turns to see some goblins shouting at an old stallion on the bridge stretching across the river Sadd. She quickly turns back to ask the Guide how to equip the dagger, but he has vanished.

The mare charges at one of the grimy, green goblins and wildly flails her hooves in the air, attempting to fight unarmed to no avail. The goblins then turn their attention to her and one starts clubbing her with a crude wooden club while the old mare makes a successful escape attempt. As the others join in, poking at her with their swords and spears, she feels her life-force draining away until she fades away, leaving the goblins pitting against each other for the dagger that is left on the ground.  Shortly after the attempt though, she appears back in the courtyard, again puzzled how she got there and the fact that her dagger is nowhere in sight.She walks north to further investigate the landmarks at the northern side of the town. .

As the Saddlebridge general store comes into his view, an orange mare exits wearing some tattered sheet and sheathing a large bronze battle-axe under a saddle filled with what looked to be apples and supplies. The mare spots her and approaches her with a joyful expression.

"Hey there Twilight, remember me from the entrance exam?" the mare asks.

Twilight shows a puzzled expression on her face as they share an awkward moment of silence.

"It's me, Applejack. I actually came to Saddlebridge because I heard this place had been livelier so I could sell some of my gardenin' gatherin's for the farm, but you seemed to be a nice pony back at the exam preparation, do you want to come back and explore around Applenor with me?" Applejack invites.

"Well, I..err...guess" Twilight answers as she inherits a more cheerful tone and they leave Saddlebridge to its usual quietness.

They head into the forest leading toward Applenor, ignoring the surrounding goblins that dotted around and Applejack explains that she passed parts of the exam with flying colours.

"And that's why I've been growin' potatoes,choppin' wood and harvesting apples lately, turns out I'm a strong green-hoof like the rest o' the apples, no surprise really" she states.

"So how did your exam go Twi?" Applejack asks.

Before Twilight can think about some kind of response, a burst of magic explodes in-front of them and the now angered goblins of the area turn to attack the pair, while they get a glimpse of a figure fleeing to the side of them.

As the goblins charge at them, Applejack draws her axe and swings it forcefully at the goblins, knocking back a large portion of them. Twilight paralysed in fear, she trembles stationary before feeling a sensation from her saddlebag and sees glowing light illuminating from her horn that blasts the remaining goblins a large distance away.

"That's my Twi, usin' your fancy magic on these vermin!" Applejack shouts as she fends off the group of attackers.

Twilight attempts to repeat the process again, with no success, while Applejack manages to make the remainder of the goblins flee in fear.

"Wow Twi, you were right about studying magic for the exam so much, you must be able to cast a bazillion spells with all the work you've been doing at the Friendship tower" Applejack compliments.

"Magic, Friendship tower, EXAMS, what are you talking about Applejack? I don't even know you or anything about magical or towers or friendship!" Twilight yells, confused and furious. After she calms down, Applejack gets an idea.

"Follow me sugar-cube, I think I know where we can find out what's going on."

They continue to trot through the forest, seeing the occasional large tree along the way.

"I bet when I get better at choppin' trees, I could chop one of those" Applejack says, pointing to a nearby yew tree.

They head south to find the coast of the land, a large tower erected at the cape.

"That there's yer Friendship tower Twi" Applejack says, “I bet the headmaster lady there knows what’s going on”.

They approach the enormous tower, as its white gleam shimmers in the sun, while wizards and sorceresses could be seen from the windows, experimenting with various magical apparatuses. Once their hooves hit the bricks in the entrance way, the doorkeeper turns to face them, only to reveal a surprised expression on her face.

With that, she holds a strange orb to her face and speaks to it as if somepony is listening from the inside of it. No sooner do two wizards adorned in mystical white robes teleport from the floor above and request Twilight Sparkle to follow them.

Applejack shouts at the keeper in protest, as she is obligated to keep all non-unicorns or scholars from entering the tower.

The wizards escort Twilight through the tower, passing by all sorts of testing rooms from enchanting seeds, blasting feathers off of chickens and levitating rocks to conjuring water, separating metals from rocks and giving keystones enchantments that can give attributes to a large space.

They reach a door adorned in exquisite artwork for Twilight to see a white mare with both a unicorn horn and wings.

“Welcome back Twilight, how did your mission go?” the alicorn asks Twilight.

“Wha…what mission? I'm sure I don’t even know you.” Twilight responds.

“Hmm, it seems that news was true gentlecolts, we may have to initiate a number 127…” the alicorn states.

The wizards’ then pin Twilight on the spot using magic, while the alicorn retrieves a ghostly essence from a nearby storage source and fuses the essence into Twilight’s horn.

It takes a few moments for Twilight then awaken, Princess Celestia then asking her “Twilight, how are you feeling?”.

“I'm fine Celestia. So is everything ready for the mission?” Twilight asks.

“There has been some complications Twilight, it seems your partner won’t be able to join you, so I'm just going to have to find a replacement. In the meantime though, I think there is someone at the door who is eager to see you again”.

Twilight leaves the room under Celestia’s orders, curious why everything seemed slightly odd about the time of day.

The clock in the lobby says the equivalent of 6:27 pm, but she was sure she arrived at the tower ready to go exactly one hour before she was needed, at 10:30 am.

Celestia then converses with the high-ranking wizards in private “We may have an... issue with our mission partner, be sure to expel her from her quarters and alert the doorkeeper to place a protection ward against her, we can’t risk losing our budding student again can we?”.

As Twilight exits the tower, her teeth show as she spots Applejack waiting for her across the bridge.

“Twi, did the ponies with the baggy clothes do you any good in there?” AJ asks.

“Well Applejack, apparently I’m not needed there just yet, I’m sure there’s a good reason for it though”.

Applejack shoots her a look of confusion, before realising Twilight has remembered who she was again.

“Well Sugarcube, lets head on out to Applenor, at least you’ll be close by if anything comes up” .

They trot to Applenor, passing through the main town and head towards Applejack’s farm ‘Sweet Apple Acres’.