Tales of Arcania

Chapter 8: Half Dragons

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Cut scene 8: Now we're even

Retro trots a short distance and remembers his helpful AI. He stops to get Butter Muffin out when he notices the brick stallion. Retro shouts out to him, trying to get his attention. He looks to Retro and goes to fisticuffs him, just to have his hooves swept out from under him by Retro's force push spell and then hit once by Retro's club, in the face, knocking him unconscious.

Play

"There we go, now we're even." I say to the unconscious douche stallion and turn to the objective and start walking. "Conjure AI" I command my Dazzler. Butt Muff materialized in front of me. "Good morning lady." I say to her.

She rolls her eyes and asks what I want.

"What type of tree is that over there?" I ask.

"That's an apple tree. You needed my help to tell you what an apple tree is?" she questions.

"Well I mostly just wanted company." I say

"I'm sure." she says sarcastically.

After a very long walk, I decided to be a pegasus, since muffs obviously doesnt want to hang out. "Make it reconstruct me as a pegasus please Muffs." I ask my AI.

She responds and shortly after, I've got my shmexy wexy wings back, at the cost of my horn of course.

I told Muffs to come back into the Dazzler, and when she did, I spread my wings, and took flight. I had forgotten just how much I loved and missed my wings. I forgot how free you get to feel while your flying, the wind, the speed, the wordl below...

It is amazing.

I feel bad for the wingless creatures of Arcania.

While feeling pity for the poor earth-bound creatures, I noticed that there was a shimmer of blue in the forest. I looked directly at it, and noticed a large crystal field.

That's really cool, so I'm flying to that huge chunk of awesome. When I land at the edge of the field, I hear a "t'ponk" from my Dazzler, signifying that I had discovered a new location. I also heard light electricity dancing from the tips of some of the larger crystals, and feel the eerie feeling of being watched.

"Reconstruct Unicorn." I command the Dazzler, as I enter the field. My wings dissipate for my horn, and as soon as It does, I feel my muscles tense in pain. I think the field sees me as an electrical conduit, since I just reconstructed, but I wanted to be able to defend myself, no matter how limited my spells are, or how unnoticed my threat was. I hear the crackling of some of the smaller crystals, sounding like they were trying to create electricity, but failing.

I started to wander around the crystal field, and after some time I look the the sky, and when I do, I notice that it looks as if its night time. Strange, seeing as how its almost noon, the field must have some kind of magic enveloping it. A particularly long and slim "t" shaped crystal catches my eye. I touch it with my hoof... Big mistake... I feel sharp electrical pain surge through my entire body, and I collapse on the ground in front of it. The crystals beneath my belly poke at it uncomfortably, and are sending a numbing electricity through me. I get back up, trying to shake the numbness off. I see a figure approaching me pass the crystal. I try to open my inventory to get trauma, just to find that its a jumble of letters, symbols, and static.

I charge my horn just in case its hostile. When it gets close enough, I notice a pony with a dull silver leathery skin. It has blue lines running down its body, only to have some of the lines stop at certain parts of its body to make circles. Its skin looks as if its tightly pulled around small muscles around weak bones. It has red eyes.

No mouth...

Purity dammit...

"What do you want?" I ask it nervously as it shambles closer.

It doesn't answer me, but some others are coming around me now. I tell myself its time to act, and hit one of them in their legs with my spell. I hear a loud crack come from where I hit it, and it falls to the ground, squirming in pain.

They others horns flicker in response on and lightning is hurled from their curved horns at me.

Many of the bolts miss, but the ones that do hit, hit about half as hard as the crystal rod I touched a bit ago.

Though about three of the bolts hit me... so I went down just the same. I find myself twitching from the electricity, as they continue to shock me until I black out.

I wake up to a red lined one talking to the rest through a voice hes making with his horn.

"This one is super charged, we can eat for months if we keep him alive." Then he looks to me.

"You are a very valuable and tasty morsel, so you wont die too soon." Then he laughs.

I search for something to use against him, and off in the distance, I notice the slim crystal that shocked me earlier. My horn starts to glow as I pull at it with telekinesis, a useless effort. So instead, I concentrate to overdrive my force push spell against it.

The red leader questions what I'm doing, but I ignore him.

And just before he has the chance to strike me, both of our attentions are attracted by a great beam of lightning shooting out of the largest crystal in the field, and striking a low flying pegasus, and it hits them dead on. They pure grey pegasus plummets out of the sky, and hits the crystal rod at an angle, breaking it, and probably hurting the pegasus greatly. That was my goal. The breaking the crystal part, not hurting the pegausus.

So instead of using my overdrive spell on the crystal, I use it on the now unsuspecting red leader. I strike him in the back, and much like from the one I hit in the leg, I hear a sickening crack come from his spine, and his horn sparks with some red static and stops... and I think... hes... dead...

Oh god...

That feeling is back...

Don't give in to it now Retro. That pegasus may need our help. If you can save the pegasus, maybe you can make up for your murder... Ya... I'm sure thats how it works...

I notice a large amount of the blue ones are going after the pegasus that I now thought was surely dead.

I take the opportunity to look for a way out so that I can just leave the place. But that's when I notice the pegasus get up as if it was unharmed, and then I also notice that it is not a small group of those things going after it, it looks more like a small army making its way towards him... Fuck.

I start a full gallop towards them when the pegasus starts to fire beams of energy from their sides, skillfully killing a small number of the creatures, but not enough.

As I get closer, I notice the pegasus is in a full suit of armor, with Varo's 'battle assisting exoskeletons' built into it, with two guns fit into its sides. The creatures fire at the pegasus mercilessly, striking its metal armor with multiple lightning bolts, sending the pegasus to the ground again. They keep striking it with lightning for good measure.

"No!" I yell out to try and avert their attention towards me.

To my surprise, and to my dismay, it works... Too well I might add. They're starting to run at me now. I quickly pick up the Pegasus and the crystal rod with my telekinesis. I lift the pegasus above the crowd and put the pegasus behind me, so that I'm standing between the pegasus and the crowd.

I use the crystal rod to take in most of their electricity. I swing at the closest one twice, It dodges the first swing, and I hit it in the face on the second.

A red spark envelopes its horn like the red boss, and it turns to blue. Its eyes also fade from red to blue and It turns towards the others and starts firing lightning at them. With each bolt of lightning striking them, their eyes change back too blue like the first one.

I follow its lead, and turn more to blue. I get shocked a few times in the process, though it doesn't hurt as bad as earlier. It actually feels kind of good!

I start to hit harder as they strike me more and more with their electricity. It feels so good!

I drop the pegasus and start galloping through the crowd, just swinging left and right gleefully.

"WOO!!! The feeling of redemption!!" I scream out as I drop my crystal and fall to the ground.

The electricity coming from my enemies stops after a while...

And once it does, I open my eyes... Awesome! I can see my heartbeat! And I can taste it!!!

...Wait... thats not good... I hear a staticy warning beeping from my dazzler, It wont open, but I'm pretty sure that means that I'm probably pretty close to death... I should really calm down.

Deep breath in... And out...

As I regulate my breathing, the first one that I attacked walked up to me after the battle.

Update!
New weapon gained: Electric Crystal - You've found a natural conduit, and generator of electricity! This weapon deals a 1d8 + 2 electrical damage!

"Thank you for freeing us from the red one." it says to me before walking away.

"Wha? Thats it?" I say out loud

That was... Anticlimactic.

I think to myself before turning to the pegasus. I go to take it's helmet off when it does some combat move and pins me against the ground.

"Hey, how ya doin?" I ask it, trying not to piss it off.

In a deeper than my own, stallion's voice, the pegasus asks "Whats going on?"

'He.' Definitely a 'He'

"I saved your life, and I was going to check for injury when you woke up and, well, this." I explained.

He was about to say something when barrage of fire based spells come from the woods, striking some of the creatures, and making the others flee. The pegasus gets off of me to face the spells when a white coated, blue maned mare comes out and tackles the pegasus in the full outfit of armor while Shouting.

It was kind of funny to watch her try and bring him down, shes much smaller than him and her struggle is entirely useless.

"First you Fly away! Then you get shot down and almost die! Then your getting with random mares?!" She yells at him, reprimanding him.

He cuts into her questioning as I approach.

"That's not a mare, its a stallion." He says.

She continues. "So your getting with random stallions?! What the fuck Atlas?!" she yells out.

"Stop now Dragon Fire." He roars. "I am the leader of our group, and I will do what I think is necessary. And hell no! My barn door dont swing that way!"

She looked at him angrily, and then broke into tears."I thought you were going to die!" She says with hurt, weak words.

He hugs her to ease her sadness. "I'm sorry. I didn't want to listen to the group argue, They're almost as annoyin as losin some bits in a game of cards against some dogs, so I left. It was immature of me, and I'm sorry. And I'm sorry for what I'm gonna say next."

She looked at me, standing next to him, and then looks back up at him.

"You are now the temporary leader of our group, and I cant travel with ya any longer. I'm joining him." Atlas says as he points to me.

"What?" Dragon fire and I say in unison.

"He saved my life, and I now owe it to him." He says.

"Oh that's okay, you dont owe me. You can keep leading your team." I tell him.

"See? You dont have to stay with that ass hat. Come back before our team gets lost in the woods." She tries to convince him.

"No" he roars.

"I order you to go back to the group, and finish the job. And you have no permission to speak, now leave." He says commandingly in a tone of finality.

She looks at him with an angry, and somehow disappointing expression mixed into one. She accepts her orders, and walks back into the woods.

"You know you dont have to do this." I tell him, giving him another chance to leave.

"No. My loyalty is towards you now, you were brave enough to charge in and save a stranger, and I must pay you back. Now, what is your name?" He asks.

I give him my name and welcome him the the team. He gets into a less hostile stance, and takes his helmet off.

"Good to meet you friend. Happy to be a part of this team." He says as he takes my hoof and shakes the hay out of it.

"Good to meet you too Atlas." I say, hoping to get him to stop shaking my hoof, and when he does, I thank Purity for her unfathomable mercy and kindness.

"So whats our first mission?" He asks happily.

I'm caught off guard by how quickly his mood changed from when he was talking to that mare, hes much more up-beat than before.

"I uh. We have to go stop a small battle between two groups of longma to protect some goobles." I say

"Could we not? I really dont like goobles. Highway robbery is all they're good for." He asks with an obvious distaste for the goobles.

"Sorry Atlas, I'm getting paid for saving them." I say as I gesture for us to move on.

He shrugs and knods like he understands the payment part. I decide to try and conversation with Atlas on our walk there.

"So ehm, Atlas?" I say

"Yeah boss?" He asks

"Who was that mare back there?" I ask.

"Who? Dragon fire? Well shes mah sister. Shes also co-captain in our small division of Rapture company mercs. Well, now captain, cause I quit."

He confused me on that last part. "I'm sorry, Rapture company?" I ask.

The look on his face was asking if I was that stupid. "Are you kiddin me?! Rapture company! Ponies pay us, and we do dangerous stuff for them. But we will stay loyal to the first client that hired us, not the highest paying." He states proudly.

"I thought the Heroes were the only ones that did that?" I question.

"Sorry for this, but were you born last night?" He says in a completely serious tone.

"Well uh, I kind of, oh look at that, the map says we're at the destination." I say, trying to avoid looking stupid.

He raises an eyebrow to give me a questioning look when a little bipedal bunny hops up to us.

"You vere sent to stop zeh battles, ya?" It asks in a strange high pitched tone, and accent.

"Yes, were here to stop the longma from hurting any goobles." I state to the little bunny.

"Ya, ve are the goobles. Zeh longma aren't so far away. zey are taking a break right now." It says, and I notice the small village up ahead. And no, I dont mean a lack of buildings as "small village", I mean the building are sized for dogs, or well, bunnies in this case.

This is a joke...

Varo is fucking with me...

I bet the longma are miniature land fish or something...

"Please point me to the longmas, so that me and my associate can finish the job." I tell it in a slightly annoyed tone.

It holds its little fur covered hand out, and points to the left of the village.

"Thank you." I say, leaving the little guy behind.

"Did you see that little thief take anything from me?" Atlas asks, suspicious of the gooble.

"No? I was talking to it the whole time, looking right at it." I say with a confused look

"Well they're sneaky little bastards. I just had to ask... It could have taken our clothes without us noticing" He tells me, looking back at the gooble.

It waves at him and he sticks his tongue out at it.

What the hell Atlas...

Fast Forward

We walk up to a small piece of the forest with some scorch marks on the trees and forest floor.

"Hello?" I ask the empty forest, just to be greeted with Atlas's hoof pushing me away from a bullet that zooms passed me.

"Stop firin! We're not the bad guys!" Atlas yells out to the attacker.

To our luck, they listen, momentarily at least. A pony with a snake like tail, leathery wings, and scales covering its entire body comes out from behind its cover.

"Whoa." I say, looking at the creature.

"Leave the battlefield strangers. The battle will pick up again soon, and I'm making sure that this WILL be the last round." He says with an emphasis on the "will" as he talks.

I say "Listen, I cant just leave. I HAVE to help, its what I was sent here for, and its what-" I get interrupted by a clank from Atlas's armor.

"Ah shit!" he says after the bullet clanks off, and he hurriedly put his helmet on and runs for cover.

I figure he knows what hes doing, so I follow swiftly behind a fallen tree.

"This is it!" the longma beside us says.

"There's three. One for the each of us ah suppose." Atlas says

"How do you know there's three?" I ask. We just got shot at, how could he know how many there are?

"Oni co. full body exo skeletons! They have a threat scanner, pretty nifty." He says about his armor proudly. "We can talk about it more later. I'll take to the sky to flank em. Go team." He says as he gallops out from behind the cover and takes flight.

That armor looks pretty heavy though, he must be pretty strong to be flying with that.

A piece of the tree next to my head explodes into small splinters when one of the opposing team's bullets hit it. Damn that was close!

I peek over the tree when the shooting stops. They're reloading!

I jump over the log and charge one as I pull out my crystal. I charge the middle one as I swing the sharp end of my crystal at him. He's dodging it fairly well, seeing as how I'm only nicking him here and there. The other two longma finished loading their guns. I hear a 'click click' and turn to face it.

I see two green beams of light go through the longma's neck, and it slumps to the ground. I look up at Atlas, flying back around to give more cover fire.

I look back at the longma that had been doging my attacks, and then to the one pointing her gun at me, and I try to think of something to do.

Think, think, think! Your life is on the line here Retro!

After a few seconds, I notice that nothing is moving. Everything has stopped...

"What is this?" I think to myself

"It's battle assistance." I hear Butter Muffin say.

"Battle assistance? What do you mean?" I ask

"I'm using the dazzler's magic, mixed with your magic, to help you in battle." She says

"You stopped time?! Thats awesome!!!" I say

"What? No you doofus. Your just thinking really, really fast. Though, I suggest you hurry, it wont last forever. Here. Now hurry." She tells me.

All kinds of numbers and symbol appear around, and near everything, as if calculating possibilities, and equations. I look at them, and somehow understand them. So I get to work, using them in my plan to fight theses longma.

Wow... That should work quite nicely... Yes!

Everything starts to speed back up as I set my plan into action. I shove the dull end of my crystal into a tree nearest to the longma that was dodging my attacks, and I go to hoof fight him.

He's far better than I am, but I'm just trying to wait until he gets in position.

I punch at him, he dodges, and hits me in the ribs.

I back up by the crystal and try to punch him again, he dodges of course and hits me in my other side

he dodges of course, and decks me in the nose...

I put my hoof on my nose to try and make it hurt less. "Fine! Dodge this asshole!" I yell out as I hit him with my force push spell.

When he gets hit, he looks around, confused by what had just happened, then he looks at me worried. I smile and hit him a few more times. Then when I knock him off balance, I overdrive my force push into the side of his head, driving it into the crystal. Light electricity dances across his body as the crystal finds its way through the other side of his head.

And I killed another one... but this time I was defending myself. Not like last time, where I wasn't directly threatened...

My train of thought is interrupted by a bullet that goes through my right ear from the mare behind me.

"Fuck!" I yell out in pain and look back at the longma mare.

She's wearing one of those lightweight exoskeletons Varo had, and has one small gun on her left side. I look over to the body of the longma that Atlas shot earlier, and grab the gun it was going to use on me.

The mare fires again, and again... Her aim, is atrocious...

I run behind a tree as she fires, and as I try and figure out how to use the gun. I look it over, and put pressure on areas of it with my telekinesis until it fires. It startles me when it does so I jump a bit. I shake it off and jump out from behind the tree and fire until it stops shooting stuff out...

Oh purity...

The longma mare stands there with a sad look on her face, and then falls to the ground. I gallop to her. She she has a few bullet holes in her torso...

From me...

I hold her and tell her "It's going to be okay. Just hang in there." as I hurriedly open my inventory, searching for something to help her with. She's breathing quickly, and brokenly...

She looks so afraid...

She looks into my eyes, her pupils start to grow, and she breathes more quickly, and then she stops...

The breathing stops...

Her eyes close...

Her life ends... Because of me...

"It's okay Retro, we can make up for it." I tell myself as I try to shake off the feeling.

I get up and walk over to where the longma behind cover was just to find Dragon Fire holding his head with her telekinesis.

She looks over towards me and then to the now landing Atlas, both of us confused by the fact that she killed the last longma, and that she was even here.

"Hey brother!" She shouts at Atlas. "I beat you to the prize!" She continues shouting, more cheerful than I would have thought after murder.

"Oh yeah." Atlas says.

"Oh yeah? Forget to tell me something?" I ask

"Well maybe a small thing about my team coming here to eliminate the longma threat against the goobles." Atlas says, embarrassed.

"Thats not little at all! How do you forget something like that?! And I thought you hated goobles?!" I question angrily

"Well ah do, but they bring in a lot of money for Rapture company, even if their prices are way too high." Atlas says

Dragon Fire cuts in. "Come on Atlas. Lets go collect the reward, then you are coming back home, since Im sure you've payed your debt with this loser."

What did I ever do to piss her off?

"Well... Kind of" Atlas says.

"That's what I thought, now lets go. Go back home kid, we've got this under control." Dragon Fire says with a tone of 'Go fuck yourself' in her voice.

"But I... I walked all this way and... I just..." I sign. "You know what, fuck you." I say angrily as I walk away from the siblings in home's direction.

"This whole mission was stupid anyways." I say aloud to myself "Atlas was worth the trouble though, it's good to see ponies with his dedication to loyalty. And Im happy I get to go home and see Dirge, at least he's kind to me."

Half dragons... That's awesome as hell.

I wish I was a longma...

Level Up!
Level 4:
Exploit Gained: Quick Study - You now gain an extra three skill points when you level up!
18 skill points added

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