The Warlock

Trains sucked. I learned that from the very beginning of the trip. Never having been on a train, I very quickly realized that I get motion sick on trains. Something about the bumpy track paired with the slight side to side movement made me feel like I ate a tuna salad sandwich off of a gas station bathroom.

The train ride was the longest two and a half hours of my life. Finally it came to a stop at the Ponyville station. I vowed there and then to never ride it again.

Exiting the train, I was greeted with openly hostile and fearful stares. Mares and stallions ushered their young back into their homes, slamming the door shut. Within seconds, I was alone on the station. This could not get any worse.

Almost as if the gods themselves were taking my inner monologue as a personal challenge, the skies opened up with the crack of lightning and began the largest torrent of rain I had ever seen in my life. And add to that the fact that it was still winter, made the rain really fucking cold.

Perfect. At least my bag was waterproof.

I was lamenting my lack of good fortune and an umbrella, through the sheets of freezing rain, I could make out the forms of six ponies walking up to me was a group.

As they drew closer, I could make out the umbrellas they were carrying. There was five umbrellas in total. Two of them were levitating above their respective owners, though one was wavering slightly. Two were held in the wings of pegasi, and the last was, for whatever reason, attached to a helmet. The one without almost seemed to bask in the rain, tilting their head back and letting the rain hit their face

When they were ten feet out or so, I could finally make out finer details. For one, they were all mares. Immediately, I recognized Twilight and Fluttershy. The others were all new to me.

Twilight was the first in line. She stood around three and a half feet at her head. Twilight was carrying a set of saddle bags with her. She seemed to be average in body type for Equestria, certainly not unhealthy. She had stopped chatting with her friends while approaching me.

She was followed by the other unicorn. She was slightly shorter than Twilight, and a bit slimmer as well. She had a very light ivory coat, and her royal purple mane and tail were both curled in perfect spirals, though the sudden onset of humidity was interfering with that. She was the other unicorn in the group. And for what ever reason, she looked like she was having trouble keeping the umbrella up. Next to her was Fluttershy.

Fluttershy was actually the shortest of the group, the one with no umbrella standing a full head higher than her. She had the figure that I could only equate to “in shape”, nothing particularly special there. Her overly long mane and tail were dragging in the mud, but she did not seem to be paying it any mind. She was too busy cowering under it. Her bright blue eyes shifting from me, to the train, and even craning her neck to look at something behind her. I knew a guy in high school that reminded me of the butter yellow pegasus, constantly jumping at every noise and terrified at his own shadow. Heart of gold, spine of a stepfather smaller than you.

Directly next to Fluttershy was the most colorful creature, human or pony, that I had ever seen. This one was slightly taller than Fluttershy, and built like a steel wall; slim, but solid. Her short mane a bright rainbow. I had no idea how she managed to do that, but it was cool. She had her wing wrapped tightly around Fluttershy, and would squeeze just a little bit tighter when she jumped at something, obviously comforting her terrified friend.

Next to the multi chromatic pegasus was the one with the hat. She was an oddity. And pink. Everything about her was so pink it hurt. It was hard to tell much about her, because she was bouncing on all four hooves. At once. I could tell that she was about the same height as Twilight, and her mane and tail were somehow still dry and reminiscent of cotton candy. She also had a perpetual grin plastered on her face.

Lastly was one without an umbrella. She stood a full head taller than Fluttershy, and half a head taller than the next tallest, Twilight. She had a dark orange coat, though it may just have been the rain and mud soaking it. Her blond mane and tail were, funny enough, in ponytails. She was built like a brick shit house. Even from this distance, I could see the muscles rippling just underneath her coat, like coiled snakes. It was a bit odd to see someone built like her practically frolicking in the rain and mud like she was. It was adorable in a terrifying way.

“Looks like someone is enjoying the weather at least.” I called out to the orange one, having decided to initate the conversation.

“Eyup. Good ‘ta meet ‘ya. I’m Applejack!” She called out in heavily accented English, and stuck out her mud encrusted hoof to me. Not wanting to be rude, I gave it a firm pump. After releasing it, she took on a look of complete confusion for a few seconds before shrugging it off and smiling.

“Gareth! It’s good to see you again! Let’s head over to the library and get out of this rain.” Twilight called in her thick German accent (still haven’t gotten used to that).

I followed Twilight and the group back to the tree house. The pink one was chattering away nonstop, somehow not needing to breathe. It would have been mildly entertaining, only if she spoke English. She was just an endless river of German garbage.

We made it to the tree house soon after. The rain had only gotten worse, and I had unwillingly given the mares a taste of human slapstick. I had tripped over one of the stones in the road, and gotten a mouth full of mud. It was surprisingly the white one to try and help me up. Taking her hoof, I pulled myself up, and spat out a massive mouth full of mud. All of the mares were giggling at my expense, which I did not mind all that much. So getting back to a dry floor would be appreciated.

We entered, and much as I remembered it, the entrance was actually the town library. Twilight stopped me and Applejack and floated over towels. I did my best to dry off, but the robes just got in the way. I pealed as much as I felt comfortable off, ignoring the sudden hush and whispers at the acid burns all along my right side, and marched over to where I remembered the bathroom being.

Pony bathrooms were an interesting thing for anybody accustomed to human bathrooms. A pony toilet was actually an enchanted bucket sunk into the ground. The waste would go in, the pony would hit an activation ruin on the wall, and the waste would be vanished. There was a second apparatus in the room that I quickly figured out was a bidet. And as the pony’s hooves had no interaction with the process, there was no sink, only a small basin one could use to rinse debris off of ones face. However, Twilight had a bipedal roommate/brother/son, and there was a sink in this one, though it was two feet off the ground. The room was far too short, and far too wide. All in all, it was a very weird experience.

I changed into my blue robes, bundled the wet ones up in a bag, and stuffed them into my new favorite toy. The satchel, or as I liked to call it, the bag of holding. If it was  anything like a bag of holding from D&D, then it should be able to hold up to a quarter ton. And what I had with me barley weighted fifty pounds.

I walked out to the main room and found no one. There were voices wafting through a door set into the far wall. I padded my way over, having taken my boots and socks off to dry, and opened the door. It was the kitchen, and all of the ponies were facing away from me, looking at something Twilight’s roommate/brother/son was doing.

I did not meet him the last time I was in town. From what I could see of him, he looked like Barney had a baby with Alduin. He was bright purple with a green belly and green spikes. All of his scales and spines looked like they were razor sharp. He shifted slightly and I could hear the clicking of his talons on the hard wood floor. I could not understand what he was blathering on about, but he sounded like he knew what he was doing.

I stepped closer, not getting close enough to alert any of them, but close enough to see what was going on.

Apparently, Barnduin was giving the mares a cooking lesson. The kitchen was a mess with ingredients and dirty bowls and platters. The air was filled with the scent of boiling fruit, baked plums, and beat soup. He looked like he had been cooking for hours judging on how much food was caked on to the frilly pink apron strapped around his short form. He had just set down the last pot down when I decided to speak up.

“Smells good. Borscht?”

This got some interesting responses from them. Fluttershy, who was the farthest from me, jumped and squeezed herself into a corner. The loud and proud one had taken a mid air fighting stance in front of Fluttershy. Both Applejack and Twilight jumped and screamed. Little Miss Cocaine just smiled and waived at me, starting to chat like crazy. The white one gasped and ran. And Barnduin, who had stared cleaning the monumental mess that was the kitchen, turned and shouted.

“Cyka blyat!”

That explains all of the Slavic foods. Apparently dragons were Slavs or something? Were their gopnik dragons? How would they get drunk, what with the breathing fire and all that. Were there Adidas tracksuits for dragons?

I laughed. The others realized that it was only me, and started laughing with me.

“How did you sneak up on us? We should have heard your hoof steps way before you got in.” Twilight asked after we finished laughing.

“What hooves? I don’t have hooves.” As I said that, I could feel three sets of eyes stair at my feet, and the other four following suit. Most of them were a little bit confused, or weirded out. But Twilight and Fluttershy looked genuinely interested. I had large feet, even by human standards. It had been a bitch and a half finding combat boots in 14 wide.

“Is that why you have those things that go over your, um, things?” Well said Twilight.

“Yep. These are called feet. They only have a layer of thicker skin on the bottom of them, not a hard hoof. That is how I was able to sneak up on you. And for why I have the boots,” I pointed in the general direction of the sopping wet mess that was my boots. “The bottoms of my feet are very sensitive, and it hurts when I step on something like a rock, or a piece of wood, or anything that is pointier than a marble. The bottoms of those boots are made of some of the most durable materials my people are capable of making.” It felt weird explaining what boots and feet were to a group of talking, German ponies, and a Slavic dragon.

We moved on form the topic of boots, and onto food. For as odd as a Slavic dragon seemed to me, the little guy could really cook. I hadn’t eaten this well since I had cracked open one of the MREs in the Vegas sewers. As much as the palace tried to cater to my diet, they could not get any meat for me. Cheese spread with jalapenos and ravioli in a sack beat out salad and tea any day.

After eating ourselves stupid, we worked ourselves up to Twilight’s living room. It was on the second floor of the library, and was small and conservative, but had room for all of us. Twilight put up a translation spell, and I finally got to learn the others names. Pride parade was Rainbow Dash. Snowflame was Pinkie Pie. The white one was Rarity. And Barnduin was Spike. We got to know each other for a while, and eventually decided to call it a night. The rest had stayed over as the rain hadn’t let up yet. The rest of the night passed quietly.

///

The next day was subdued. Not much happened, other than the town coming out of it’s shell a little bit, and I got to meet a few new faces. One of which was a mare by the name of Lyra Heartstrings.

All I can say about Lyra is that she puts me on edge. Everything about her screamed “Free Candy”. I never actually met her, just saw her staring at me from fifty feet out or so. Everywhere I went, she was there, looking at me. It eventually ended when a cream colored pony bit Lyra by the ear and dragged her off.

Other than that spot of craziness, the day was completely uneventful.

The day after that, however was much more exciting.

The research team had arrived from Canterlot. They entered the library around eight in the morning the next day. For a research team, they were pretty eclectic. There was an orange unicorn who was an ancient human expert, a blue earth pony who was there as a photographer, and a hulking red earth pony who was acting almost as a bodyguard. Of course, upon hearing about the expedition, Twilight dropped everything and joined us. We then teleported to the cave where I had evaded capture ala Han Solo (i.e. Shooting the control panel until the thing stopped doing the thing that it was supposed to).

I did not like teleporting. I hated it in fact. It was worse than the trains. Twilight had explained the concept yesterday, but I did not think it would this bad.

“Twilight, I have a question.” Twilight was levitating a number of books in her study, reading them all at once somehow. Not waiting for a response, I continued. “Earlier today, I saw you vanish in a flash of light, and a few minutes later, you were back. What was that?”

Twilight set the books back on their shelves, bookmarks flying from various places around the room, and sticking themselves in between the proper pages before the books closed.

“That was a telaportation spell. I use it to move from one place to another. It works by creating an almost uncountable number of quantum tunnels, and pieces being shoved through these tunnels and reassembled in an instant on the other side. Like pushing cooked spaghetti through a colander. It’s perfectly safe, so don’t worry. It preserves your quantum state and soul, so there is nothing to worry about.” She had just described the single most terrifying method of travel I had ever heard of, and she thought there was nothing to worry about.

I looked up from the puddle of vomit in front of me, and stared Twilight in the eyes.

“The spaghetti analogy was completely unnecessarily.” I spat as I wiped my mouth. The cave was mostly unchanged from the last time I had been in here. Getting back onto the ledge was much easier than last time.

We fumbled around with the wall for a while before Twilight was fed up with the lack of entry, and made one for us.

She ushered us back, and her body shifted to take a wider stance. Her barrel was closer to the ground, knees were bent, and her legs were splayed. A rushing-tingling noise filled the cavern before a monstrous wave of purple energy bored a hole in the wall where the door was.

Twilight had been helping me develop my telekinesis yesterday. While I was disappointed to learn that I could only lift ten pounds, but I had a plan to work on it. What was more interesting was how magic flowing through a focus can create an auditory resonance. Every magical hum was different. Twilight’s sounded like bells in a low pitch vacuum cleaner. Mine sounded like a portal gun holding something. I was also surprised to learn that my magic did not have a shimmer like Twilight. It was a rare trait that only a few ponies in the world had.

Looking back to the wall, there was not a pony sized hole leading directly into the cavern. Twilight looked a little bit tired, but she shrugged it off like it was nothing, instead being excited to finally step into an ancient human city.

We had to wait for an hour of so after Twilight melted a hole in the wall, because she had not memorized a cryo spell today, and we had to wait on her to pull out the book and memorize one. After that though, we entered the cavern.

It was exactly as I remembered it. Big empty cavern, ever-glowing half melted gate, and the lift. Somehow, the lift was back in it’s original position. Must have been on a timer.

We all stood on the pad, and with a deep breath, I yanked on the lever.