Terrarian

Cortez walked through one of his mansion's many hallways, a bottle of ale in his hand and the moonlight glinting off his Shroomite Armour. He approached a chest and flung it open with a creak that echoed through the halls. As he was about to pull out his Venus Magnum, an odd glow coming from off to the side caught his attention. The glow's source was a long wooden rod with what looked like a small unicorn cut from a large Amethyst, which seemed to glow with violet energy.

'What in Red's name is that?' thought Cortez, as he examined it more closely. He noticed it had the words Baculum Equestria engraved on the lower end. 'What could that mean? It's certainly not Terrarian,' he thought. Cortez could feel strange magic pulsing off of it. 'Maybe I should consult Tagar. He's smart when it comes to magic stuff, maybe he might know what this is,' he decided, before grabbing the strange staff and heading off to find his Wizard.

Cortez arrived at Tagar's sleeping chambers shortly. Upon his gentle prodding, Tagar awoke and greeted Cortez with a bleary, "Someone once said friendship is magic. That's ridiculous, you can't turn people into frogs with friendship! Oh, hello there Levi, what can I do for you today?"

"My name is Cortez, not Levi," Corrected Cortez. "Can you tell me what this strange stick with a horse on the end does?" The old Wizard stared into his crystal ball for a moment and then placed the staff on the table. "I can most certainly attempt to, Dominique," he stated, ignoring Cortez's sigh.

After a few waves of his hands across the staff and more silent staring into his crystal ball, Tagar seemed more confused than enlightened. "Definitely magic, but I don't think it is a strong weapon...perhaps it's a teleporter of some kind, like the Rod of Discord?" Tagar ventured. "Perhaps you should go ask the Goblin."

Cortez flung his hands into the air with a heavy sigh. "Yeah, I'll go ask him. Thanks anyway. Useless Wizard..." Grabbing the staff, he left the room in search of the Goblin's forge.

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"I still don't know why we carry around all these spiky balls, do you?" the Goblin asked as he spotted Cortez entering.

"I don't, and I also don't know what this staff is," was Cortez's reply.

"Hmm," he said as he inspected the offered staff carefully, running a small object over it"It seems to be an object, a magic staff, pulsing with 20,000 Terathaum's!"

"It that a lot?" Cortez asked.

"Well, considering the Heat Ray is one of the most powerful weapons we have seen and only has 40 megaathaums..." the Goblin trailed off.

"That's a lot, then."

"I would say ask Levi. He has explored many places and is generally quite a good guide," the Goblin offered.

"Okay." Taking the staff, Cortez left the oppressive heat of the Goblin's forge. Cortez walked outside to where the Levi was not sleeping, but rather pacing the length of the garden. Levi jumped when Cortez appeared.

"Sorry, didn't see you there, it must be that Shroomite stealth mode," he said, rubbing his neck.

"I wasn't using it, you were just too focused on the floor. Also, I was wondering if you might know what this staff is?" Cortez asked as he handed him the staff.

"I'm not sure, I've never seen anything like this in all my hours of travelling. Try pointing it into the sky and focusing mana through it. Maybe something'll happen," he offered.

"Alright then, I'll do that. Can't hurt anything if I point it into the sky...except maybe a harpy or two..." Cortez left the garden to find a quiet spot to cast, blissfully unaware about how wrong he was.

When reached the top of a nearby hill, ignoring the dozens of rabbits swarming at his feet, he pointed the staff upwards. Drawing upon his mana and pouring it into the staff, he felt the power of a hundred great Wizards (and unicorns) flow through him, as though the staff were reacting to his magic. A rainbow beam shot out into the evening sky, but instead of simply flying off, it curved towards his wondrous mansion and began wrapping it up. After a moment, the mansion was fully enveloped, and the rainbow flashed, extending a beam into the sky and causing a very loud ping noise. Cortez stared in disbelief; every last pixel of his mansion was now gone, even the garden and Levi, who were outside. Cortez looked towards the beam of light flying into the sky, almost gone by now, and knew what he he had to do.

"I'm coming for you, guys!" he shouted, before pointing the unicorn at his face and pouring as much mana into it as he could. He felt the rainbow envelop him, before a strange squeezing sensation and a blur as he suddenly rocketed upwards in the same direction as his manor.

Every pixel zoomed and whirled through space, passing thousands of stars, black holes, even entire galaxies, until the light beams landed in a system an enormous amount of astronomical units away, where it flew into a planet in a strange orbit around its sun. The beam of rainbows and light and pixels landed near a small village, on the edge of a really large and spooky forest. Every atom in the beam's landing zone was vaporized, and replaced by a very large mansion with a garden attached, a bunch of vendors, and soon one very dazed and confused Cortez.

______________________________________________________________Meanwhile, in the CMC clubhouse.___________________________________________________________________

"Ok, we're sure to get our Cutie Marks this time!" Scootaloo exclaimed enthusiastically.

"I dunno scoots, I think this might be a bit dangerous. I mean, more so than last time when we tried to get our Cutie Marks in bomb disarming," Sweetie Belle retorted.

"I think trying to disarming a bomb in the middle of Ponyville is more dangerous that this," Scootaloo argued.

"Ah think we should jes' do it, Ah mean, what's tha worst that could happen?" Applebloom ended the argument.

"CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS DEEP EVERFREE EXPLORERS, YAY!" the trio shouted in not-so-perfect harmony.

The trio wandered through the forest, and after about half an hour stopped by a tree to rest.

"You sure night was a good time to do this?" Sweetie Belle asked Scootaloo.

"Duh! Any other time and our sisters would have stopped us," Scootloo answered.

"Ah wonder why they wouldn't want us out here this late..." Applebloom said to no-one in particular.

"Cause, they don't have adventurous minds like us. It's something that happens when you grow up, you start to think that anything fun is too dangerous to do."

"Well let's jes' not grow up then! C'mon, let's keep goin'!" Applebloom led them away from their resting place.

...They did not expect to find a pack of corrupted timberwolves.

They walked for several more minutes before Sweetie Belle smelled something. "What's that awful smell?" she hollered, nose contorted in disgust.

"I dunno, but it smells kinda' like... TIMBERWOLVES!" All three of them screamed in terror and began to run forward, the pack of timberwolves bursting from their hiding spots in the nearby brush in pursuit. They dodged trees and jumped over rocks, but soon Applebloom cried out in pain. She had slipped, and the timberwolves, sensing her predicament, pounced!

______________________________________________________________Meanwhile, outside the forest..._________________________________________________________________

Cortez stumbled away from his manor and looked around. Not too far away he saw what looked like a jungle crossed with the Corruption. After taking a few steps away, he idly broke away some Corrupt grass with his Shroomite Digging Claw. He wondered how the Corruption got this close to his house, and why the surrounding terrain was so different from what he was used to. Perhaps the rod had simply moved his house, rather than sending him to space? Hadn't he had stopped the spread of the Corruption and the Hallow ages ago? Before his many questions could be answered, he heard what sounded like several loud screams coming from just inside the forest. Cortez pulled out his Megashark, loaded some Chlorophyte bullets into the chamber, and with lightning speed, leaped over a rock and began firing into the forest at random. He heard several loud crack! sounds in retort, as well as the sounds of dying wolves.

Applebloom and the other Crusaders shook in fright as the wolves came down to make the kill, only to be rent apart by what looked like tiny green streaks of magic moving very fast. The fire in the wolves' eyes died as they fell apart with a loud howl, before all was still. Something had killed the wolves, but what or who was it?