Steel Strong Adventuring Company.

Chapters

Chapter 1: A Land of Fantasy.
Chapter 2: Knowing is half the battle.
Chapter 3: Anger Management and You.
Chapter 4: Greetings and Proposals.
Chapter 5: Illusions.
Chapter 6: Bragging rights.
Chapter 7: 'A Fish Fry and Some Light Reading.'
Chapter 8: Communication and Cleanliness

Chapter 1: A Land of Fantasy.

Author's Note

ALRIGHT!

Now quick note and I'll let you get to it.

I want to make this a quality work so any grammatical errors or other such things that could HELP improve this story is welcome. Nobody likes a meany pants.

Alright, that's all folks. Get to it.

'Chapter 1: A Land of Fantasy' was made possible by the joint effort of: kamachkta and SovietVodkaMix

Chapter 1: A Land of Fantasy.

My name is Sergio Peterson, my friends call me 'Sully'. Anyway me and five of my friends were planning on going to a major fantasy roleplaying night at the game store in the next town from mine. We had all dressed up as our characters from our favorite game we like to play as a group.

Dungeons and Dragons.

...Yes, I'm serious...

Anyway, I was going as my Half-elf Monk. I had gotten a lot of my gear off the internet. Everything from my character's metal quarterstaff and short sword all the way to the hand wrappings for my fists and I even shaved off my dark brown hair. I had to make most of the costume by hand though, which was a pain in the ass.

Anyway, it was time to pick up my friends. I hop into my ugly navy blue van and head to the first stop on my trip.
When I pulled up to Brad's shop I could see him standing outside waiting for me. The small guy was out there in a full suit of battle armor and he had even painted the emblem of the god his character worshiped in game along with a pretty big war ax for his size.

Now when I say 'small' I don't mean he's young, he's actually 20 which is the same age as me. He's got a disease known as 'Dwarfism', but that does not stop the dude from being a complete bad ass. The dude works out day and night and even works at a forge for Gods sake.
When you actually look at the guy, sometimes it's hard to not see him as a ale drinking, Orc wrestling, real life Dwarf from Lord of the Rings. Which is one of the reasons he's gotten into D&D. Nobody judges him on what he looks like, and everyone enjoy the dude for being a pretty cool guy.

Anyway he opens up the door to the van and climbs in the passenger seat next to me.

"Sup, Sully. Nice costume you put together."

"Thanks man, same goes for your armor."

"Ha! I put at least a good solid month into making everything. I just quenched the axe yesterday even."

"You just finished the ax yesterday, man that's pretty legit."

"Yeah, so who's next on our pickup?"

"Next is K's place."

We drive up to Kelly's home, which isn't to far from Brad's workplace. I honk the horn twice and after a few minutes Kelly comes out. As she's walking to the van I get a good look at her costume. She's wearing a blood red modified dress with black borders and embroidery of magical runes from the game, which somehow reminds me of those Chinese wedding dresses. She's also carrying a large tome which looks to be a black painted over dictionary. If I remember correctly, she's going as her Elf Sorceress.

She opens up the side door and climbs into the back.

"Sup guys."

"Hey K." Both me and Brad say in unison.

"So-" she asks. "-what do you think about my outfit. Hmmm...?"

"Pretty good." I say.

"Meh, not as good as mine." Brad says smugly.

"Can it or I'll magic missile you." She says with a sly grin.

"Oh god, can we not bring up that again. The past should stay long dead." Brad groans.

"You gotta admit, it was pretty funny." I look to them both.

"Yeah, yeah. Just get going."

"Yeah! We gotta pick up our other heroic members of the guild. ONWARD!" Kelly points straight to the road.

I drove over to the park where both Frank and Grant should be, and lookie what I found, a Half-Orc Fighter with chain mail, a foam war hammer and green skin with short black hair was doing a mock battle with a Human rouge that had black leather armor and a dark cloth hood covering his head and face, and what looks to be plastic throwing knives and sword. The both of them had drawn a small crowd of kids which seemed to be enjoying their performance and they looked well into their demonstration.

I turn to look at both K' and Brad.

"Let's go see what the two of them have done this time."

Brad looked over to where they were fighting. "Actually, that does seem pretty entertaining. Yeah, let's check it out."

"Sure I'm in." K, just said simply.

All three of us got out of the car and started walking to the group, as we approach we catch part of the banter between the two.
"-nd you smell like you fell down a sewer drain! Ya' lumbering Oaf!" Frank shouted at Grant.

"Yeah, well you fight like an elderly nag who wont die from old age! Prancing around with your little butter knives." Grant did a little prance to enhance what he said.

The little crowd of kids were laughing as the big green man did his little dance, then one of the kids noticed our little group.

"Hey, look! More adventurers have come to join the battle!" the kid pointed to our group.

Both Grant and Frank looked at us and put away their weapons.

"Welp, looks like our ride is here guys." Grant said as he started to walk to the van.

"Sorry kids, perhaps another time we can continue this." Frank said as he followed Grant.

The little group started to disperse and go back to the swing sets and jungle gyms as K, Brad and myself walked back to the van and got in our respective seats. With both Grant and Frank in the back.

"You guys really did seem to have the kids there entertained. What did ya do?" Brad asks.

"Well..." Grant starts. "While we were waiting some kids asked what we were wearing and why."

"So." Frank continued. "We decided to play it up a bit and practice our roleplaying skills."

"It was actually pretty fun, then before we knew it we had a small crowd." Grant finishes.

"Huh." I say. "That's pretty neat, now all we need is our last member of our group."

I pulled up the van to the gas station where we were going to meet Jasmine, or 'Jazzy' for short, also to fill up the gas tank and pick up snacks. Everyone gets out of the van and heads to the station to go buy what stuff they need and I start filling up the tank.

After paying for it with my card I go inside to grab myself some snacks, after paying for those and Grant's soda, we all head back and waiting at the van is none other than Jasmine herself.

Going as an Elf Ranger, she's dressed in similar leather armor to that of Franks, she also has an earth green cloak to go with the longbow and quiver she has. She had her golden hair done up in a complex braid going down her back as well.

"Hey everyone. Your costumes all look pretty cool."

"Hi Jazzy, your costume is pretty awesome too." K' responds first.

"Evening Jasmine." Both Grant and Frank say.

"What's with them?" Jasmine looks at them both.

"They did some intense role-playing in the park to entertain some children just a bit ago." Brad says.

"Oh, well now that we're all here. Shall we get going?"

"Yep. Let's get this show on the road." I say.

It's been an interesting drive so far, talking with five of your closest/only friends. It's always been like this for our group. We were the outcasts of society, but we got together and it has been pretty good since then. But, that's a story for another time.

We've been on the road for a good half hour by now and had to stop at a rail crossing because a train was apparently coming, according to the red flashing lights.

So while we sat and waited and talked about our plans for the upcoming session and what we should do. I notice in my side mirror that a truck was coming up behind us pretty fast.

I didn't think anything at first, seeing as how often people usually slow down before getting to the crossing. However, this truck had no intentions of slowing down and I only got to yell out a quick warning of "OH SHIT" before getting hit at god knows what speed and pushes the van onto the train tracks.

I hear the sound of a train horn and I look to my left to see a giant diesel train barreling right for us. I hear the sounds of shouting and screaming before everything goes black...

PAIN, OH THE GODS EVERYTHING HURTS. WHY DOES IT HURT SO MUCH!?

My body feels like it had been kicked down a street like a can, then given an acid bath. Slowly the pain starts to go away after what feels like an hour I can actually feel what my limbs are doing again.

I open my eyes to get look around me and the first thing I notice is my friends around me in various states of unconsciousness. Then I take a look at my surroundings…

…

'Where the hell are we?' I think.

We appear to be in the middle of some kind of fort, if the 3 story keep and walls were any thing to go on with that theory. I feel slightly disoriented as I pick myself up off the ground, while doing so I get a good look at my clothing, and I know for a fact I did not put THIS much detail into my costume.

I take a good minute to look myself over, I had everything that my character had, from the stylish blue waist cloth to what looks like real leather on my wrists and body under my jacket. I shake my head out of my momentary awe and move over to my friends which are just starting to regain consciousness.

“Ah hell, what the fuck happened. It feels like I just had a BAAAAAAD hangover…” I hear… WHAT!?

Sitting right in front of me is someone that looks like the Dwarven Paladin Gralon Hardback straight from our campaign.

“Brad?” I ask. “Is that you?”

“Wha….Sully?” He shakes his head. “Why do you sound and look like Belkas, your Half-elf Monk?”

“Hell if I know, why do you look like your character? Nice beard by the way, it looks good.”

“What? I don't have a beard…” He puts a hand to his chin and strokes his braided beard. “Huh...guess I got one now.”

“UGH! WHY DOES ZURUG'S HEAD HURT!?!”

Both me and Brad look to our left where a towering Half-orc is holding his head.

“Grant?” We both say.

“Huh, Sully, Brad?” He looks at us.

“Dude, you were totally in character there for a bit.” I say to him.

“Really? Huh, cool.” He replies.

“It seems being turned into our characters has also affected our minds.” We all look to see K’ dusting off her robes. She looks extremely stunning. I think my jaw hit the ground.

“Get your minds out of the gutters boys, also I like the idea of becoming our characters.”

“What, why?” I just had to ask.

“Think about it.” Brad says. “It’s every gamer’s wet dream to become their character and be some hero or villain in their own story.”

“He’s right.” I hear from behind me, to which I quickly turn around and see Frank standing as his Rogue does tossing around a knife.

“Hell Friedrich, er… Frank, can you try not to scare the fuck out of me.”

“It’s what my character does best, last I checked yours can't be frightened and is always calm and collected. Almost cold in nature, but that might be stretching it.”

Now when I think about it, it’s almost odd how calm I’ve been, well almost all calm.

“Well, if we are where I think we are, this could be pretty cool.” The last member of our party Jasmine, or as her character name, Thalia, finally joins the conversation. I close my eyes and breath a few deep breaths, when I open my eyes I am totally in character.

“Alright, first things first. Since we’re suddenly our characters, it’s only fair if we use our character names.” They all nod and I continue.

“Second, let us all agree to be in character. It doesn't matter if we’re in or out, we are still friends either way.” Again they nod.

“Third, where do you think we are Thalia?”

“Well, judging by what is around us right now. I’d say we’re in our stronghold. Fort Shatter-Shield.”

Everyone takes a look around and suddenly the banner on the fort’s keep looks strikingly familiar. A white background with a black anvil and hammer striking it. Our coat of arms.

“Alright, now that we’ve deduced where we are. Thalia and Friedrich, go and scout the surrounding area. Kasula, see if you can use any scrying spells or such to get a better idea of where in the world we are.” They nod and run off to do their assigned jobs, I turn to both Zurug and Gralon. “Can you two get up on the walls and patrol until we have an idea of what’s around us? We don't want anything sneaking up on us.”

“ZURUG WILL SMASH AND BASH ALL WHO COME NEAR!”

“Can it meathead, remember not to kill unless it attacks you first.”

“QUIET SHORT STACK.”

“WHO YOU CALLING SHORT!?”

The both of them walk away bickering at each other, as for myself… let’s see what’s around the castle.

(Meanwhile, in a certain crystalline castle where a certain purple pony princess lives )

Nothing in this book either. I set the book down in the ever growing pile on the desk. There’s nothing in my books that can explain all the new monsters and creatures springing up all over Equestria. I sigh as I head to another bookshelf, looking for anything that could be of use.

It has been a month after we sealed away Discord for a second time. Nopony thought what he said before we got him would come true. “If you seal me away again, all the horrors of another world will be unleashed upon Equestria and beyond.”

The princesses assured me it was just some excuse Discord made up in the hope we wouldn't hit him with the elements again. Everything was fine until a month ago when Fluttershy tried to befriend a strange new creature. The creature had the body of a bear and the head of an owl, apparently she tried talking to it and the ‘Owlbear’ as we came to call it, tried to hurt her!

Since the incident with Fluttershy, new and violent creatures have been appearing all over Equestria. Thankfully the royal guard were quick to respond, but things took a turn for the worse. The new monsters are more powerful than we expected and are slowly pushing the royal guard back.

I was just about to grab another book off the shelf when there was a knock at my door.

“Spike, can you see who’s at the door?”

Spike looked up from his comic “Sure thing Twilight.” and promptly went to the door. Only for Spike to come back with a very friendly mailmare.

“Hey Twilight!” Ditzy says.

“Ditzy, how nice to see you. Any mail for me today?” I ask.

“Actually, I want to know if you know anything about a new fort appearing between Ponyville and Canterlot.”

“Hmmm… The princesses didn't mention anything about a new guard encampment, let alone a fort. How did you come across this?”

“Oh! Well… I was returning from Canterlot when there was this bright flash of light, see, and when I look to see what caused the light, there was this small-ish fort where there wasn't one before. I should know since I travel to Canterlot often.

A new fort magically appearing… this could be the break we are looking for! Maybe we could finally push these beasts out from Equestria once and for all. I wonder if it’s some magical weapon or maybe a enchanted book or-

“Twilight, you ok?” Ditzy asks me with a worried expression.

“Oh sorry, I was just thinking. Thanks for the information Ditzy, there’s some muffins in the kitchen if you want some.”

Ditzy quickly dashes, then I turn to Spike.

“Spike, can you go get the girls? I have to write up a letter for the Princesses.”

Chapter 2: Knowing is half the battle.

(POV: Friedrich the Rogue)

I walked out the reinforced doors of Fort Shatter-Shield with Thalia, both of us have high Dexterity which will help us in scouting out the surrounding area. Thankfully our stronghold is on nice hill with open plains around it, which can be a double edged sword. We can see people from miles away but the same can be said for us.

“So, how do you want to do this?” I ask.

“Well, I’ll take the Northern and Eastern sections while you take the Southern and Western. Sound good?” she stated, her eyes never in one place for too long as she spoke.

I simply nod then ask. “Are we going with the standard lookout procedure?”

“Yep, 5 miles in all directions from the stronghold. We should be done in a hour if we hurry.”

“Right, I’ll see you back at the fort.” With that we split off and after a few minutes I pull out my compass and start trudging off in the correct direction. South.

It didn't take me long to spot something, I can see a body lying on the ground about a half a mile away whether they’re alive, asleep, or dead still remained to be seen. I unsheath one of my throwing daggers and start to approach the figure. As I’m approaching I notice the gleam of armor shining right in my eyes every now and then which says two things. One; whoever this is, is a warrior of some type. Two; I’ll have to take care in my approach as to get the jump on whoever it may be if needed.

When I get within about 50 feet of the figure a powerful scent hits my nostrils, a smell I’ve smelt many times. The stench of blood. Then I notice a few disgusting little creatures sitting on the body of the figure. Stirges, the hell spawn bastards must have gotten the poor sap while he was travelling.

There’s 5 stirges on the body, sucking it dry of all its blood. Little shits, they’re a hellspawn cross between a mosquito and a bat, normally you don't have to worry about one or two of them, but in a swarm or in small groups if you’re alone, they can be a problem. Especially if they catch you off guard.

So, I pull out two more throwing knives and line up where I want all three of my knives to go.

I quickly throw all three knives in succession, two of the knives find their marks in the cranium of their hosts, the third hit’s the stirge in the wing effectively crippling the bastard.

The ones that are unharmed remove themselves from the body and start flying to me, I draw my short sword and I wait.

The first one gets within my reach and I swing my blade in an uppercut motion, slicing off the creature’s wing. On the downward stroke I slice the stirge in half.

The second one tries to dive at my leg, I sidestep then promptly stomp the fuck into the ground, killing it on impact with the sole of my boot.

With that finished I walk over to the last of them, the stirge that got it’s wing sliced with my knife at the start, seeing that it’s slowly crawling to me, I decide to end it the same way the last one ended.

With that little problem over I recover my throwing knives from the bodies, wiping the blood off on them as I do so. Now that I’m not fighting bat/insects the size of my fucking fist, it’s time to get a look at the idiot who dropped his guard enough to get killed by these hellspawn.

Well, beside the body looking almost like mummy from all the blood loss, I am actually surprised at what I’m looking at. Some type of furred creature wearing gold armor, who wears gold for armor? Anyway, the creature who I’m going to refer to it as a ‘he’ based on body build, he has some almost pure white fur, minus the blood on it, and has a satchel next to him and a spear. His face structure is unrecognizable, one of the Stirges had clamped itself to the poor fuckers face and broken most of the bones beneath searching for somewhere to get deep enough to get a sizable amount of the guys fluids. Well, if anything, he wasn’t suffering for too long.

I pick up the satchel and sift through its content and I’m happy at what I do find inside. Other that what looks like rations, I find several in common script along with a map! This is extremely convenient, now I can sit back and relax at the fort. Right after I take this guy's armor.

I unlatch the armor and pull the thing off of him and his fur changed color from white to dark brown. Hell, this thing must be enchanted or something. Maybe Kasula will find a use for this stupid thing… or even Gralon now that I think about it. The dwarf does like working with enchanted armor.

I put everything back in the bag and I sling the armor over my shoulder and start my semi-long walk back to the fort. I don't grab the spear because we got enough of those useless things in the armory. Out of curiosity I pull out a random scroll from the satchel and open it.

“Ha! The group is going to get a kick out of this.”

(POV: Belkas the Monk)

For the past hour I’ve been cataloging everything we could use in the fort. We have enough dried meat and bread with other assorted foods to last 2 months if we need it. Everything in the fort’s keep is the same as we decided in game.

On the first floor is a Grand Hall to meet and greet, A conference room which doubles as a dining room, a kitchen, and a library, in the basement is both a dungeon and a storage area, Granted the two are separated by reinforced wooden doors. On the second floor is all the personal quarters for the six owners of this fort, we all got our names on that document.

Finally, the third floor is a lab and war room. Although, the war room will need to be fixed, seeing as we’re in an unknown land.

Then we get to the buildings of the fort itself, we have a barracks able to house up to 25 people if needed and a private quarters for VIP’s and such. We were planning to expand our group, but I think that idea is on hold for now.

There’s the Armory, which doubles as our forge. Most of the time you can find Gralon working on something inside. Just across the road from the barracks and armory is the training field, the field itself takes up the rest of the fort’s available space. Like said earlier we were planning to expand so we made the field bigger and removed a few buildings that were there earlier. I sigh as I walk out of the keep, heading for a particular spot in the fort.

Right next to the gate is a small patch of grass where a well sits and just a few feet behind it is a small weeping willow tree. A nice little area to relax and reflect.

I can hear both Zurug and Gralon arguing over who’s better at… smiting tax collectors?

I tune them both out as I reach my little spot underneath the tree where I proceed to sit. I feel a calming sensation flow over me as I reflect on todays events. Waking up in a strange new land as my character from D&D and an unproven theory of mine that we’re slowly developing our character’s mentality…

I continue to think about other such things like plans and battle strategies our group could use should it encounter trouble. I stay like this for a short while before I hear the gate doors opening and the sound of Friedrich’s hearty laughter and following behind him is a snickering Thalia.

“Oy! What ye’ be laughing at so much down there?” I hear the dwarf yell from the wall.

“You won't believe what this world has problems with!” He says loud enough for all 5 of us outside to hear. “But apparently the leader of this realm is having a, and I quote; “Mad fish people infestation who worship a tortoise and a snail as if they were gods.” he pauses. “Sound familiar to you?”

The inhabitants of this land were actually having a problem with the Kuo-toa. That’s almost sad if not outright funny. I give a light chuckle at this revelation, and pretty much everyone else bursts into laughter.

“THESE PEOPLE ARE WEAK IF THEY CAN NOT EVEN HOLD BACK AN INFESTATION OF THE ‘MAD FISH PEOPLE’”

That comment sent everyone, including myself, into another round of laughter. After a few moments we finally calm down.

“So” I begin “Anything else it says?”

“Only that some princess of the realm, will be arriving at some area on this here map sometime soon.”

“Wait, when did you acquire a map?”

“Oh, there was a dead dude back there. I relieved him of his satchel and armor, which by the way is enchanted so I’m going to take the armor to Kasula and see if she can make any sense out of the enchantments on the armor.”

I nod. “Alright, put the maps and letter in the war room when you’re done. I think Kasula should be in the lab if-”

“Belkas!”

I turn to look at the keep, and out comes a frantic Kasula.

“What is wrong?” I simply ask.

“Belkas, I just discovered something incredible. You know how mages need to use materials sometimes to make a spell work?”

I simply nod.

“Well, when I was casting some spells to see if my magic worked here I noticed I wasn't using up any of the spell components!”

This silenced everyone for a bit, spell components are needed to cast some of the more higher leveled spells. They act as a sort of magical booster to help the spellcaster cast the required spell. Afterwords, said components are destroyed because they used up all their magical properties.

“That is something noteworthy…” Is all I can manage.

“Yeah, however the verbal components and body motions are still needed. Also there’s something I want to talk to you about later.”

“Oh that’s right!” Fredrich snaps his fingers. “Here, some enchanted armor from a dead guy not far from here. His fur changed colors when I took it off, I don't know if there’s any other enchantments on it though.” He hands her the armor.

“Wow, native enchanted armor! Do you know what that means!?” She takes the armor from him excitedly.

“No, I just want to go take a nap...” I hear Fredrich mumble.

“It means,” she continued “That this land has magic of its own, therefore new knowledge and- wait did you say you saw a dead being wearing this?”

“Yeah, his face was pretty toasted by the time I got to him, but he was covered in fur which which was white when he had the armor on but turned brown when it was off. I didn't get a good look at the body other than grabbing the loot, and getting out of there before someone could link me to it.”

“What makes you think someone would accuse you of killing the man?” I had to ask.

“You can never be too careful, also with my clothing I kinda look suspicious next to a body.” he returned, motioning his hands up and down his jacket.

“Makes sense.” I say.

“Well, if you lot don't need me anymore. I’ll be taking a nap in my room. Assuming everything’s the same in it.”

“Yep everything is the same still, just as you left it.”

“Sweeeet!” He says before strutting away for his nap.

By this time, both Zurug and Gralon had gone back to conversing with each other only this time they were both joking about how weak the military of the land must be. Thalia walked off to the training yard and seems to be setting up an archery target.

I turn back to Kasula. “So, what did you want to talk about?”

“Well, when I was casting some spells back in the lab I decided I wanted to keep a journal about what has happened to us.”

“And the problem with that is...?”

“That’s just it, I can’t remember how we got here in the first place! And when I think back to how this all happened all I got was my character's set of memories! All I can remember from my old life is after my birthday party when I was 13!”

This disturbed me and I tried thinking back, the only thing I got was when my dad and mom took me to Disneyland with my sister, but that was when I was 10!

“Woah, Kelly or Kasula, whichever one you are right now… you might just be right. I can't remember anything before a trip I took with my family when I was 10…”

“It’s Kelly right now, and what’s worse is I think that Brad and Grant have already gone fully into their character, it might even be the same with Frank or Jazzy.”

“Well, there’s only one way to find out.” I say

“Hey, Gralon! Come down here for a bit!” I yell up to him.

“Hold yer horses, I’ll be down in bit.” I hear him yell.

After a few moments the beefy dwarf walks over.

“So, you going to spit it out? I was going to tell Zurug the one about the Kobold and the watermelon again when you called.” he asks, looking a little irritated.

“Do you remember anything about your past life?” I ask.

“Well, if yer talkin’ about life in that stink hole I once called home in the mountains of Gauntlgrym an’ callin’ it a ‘past life’” He said with finger quotes he was barely able to make for the size of his fingers, “then yeah, I remember plenty.”

“No, actually,” I begin, a tinge of worry for my friend worming its way into my mind, “I was more referring to an actual past life in the sense that it’s a life you lived preceding the one you’re living now, same soul, same mind, but different situation, time, and experiences. You see, I ask because Kasula and I have found a possible candidate of one for you. Have you ever heard, or even thought, of a … vertically challenged, human named Brad?” I ask him, only getting more anxious, as much as I can, when he starts stroking his beard, A clearly defined trait of Gralon’s that he only does when he’s thinking hard about something. One that Brad never had as he’d never grown a beard.

“Hmmm… Nope, can’t say I have. Appreciate you guys lookin’ into it an’ all, but I got a joke to finish.” Gralon responded after a few seconds of beard stroking before making his way back up the stairs to continue his warrior bonding time with Zurug.

“Belkas.” Kasula muttered to my side, her eyes not leaving the staircase the Dwarf ascended.

“Yeah?” I returned, doing much the same, my mind running a mile a minute trying to figure out what happened to my friend.

“This is bad, worse even than I imagined, isn’t it?”

“Undoubtedly.”

-ng to explain this to all of you in person, we may well have lost ourselves by the time we finished. I apologise again, friends, that I could not stop, nor even slow our affliction. I only hope that you could forgive us, and maybe more importantly, that we could forgive ourselves for our failure.

Your’s in trust and faith, even should the anvil fall and the hammer break~

Standing in the library of fort shatter shield were Belkas and Kasula, where the Elven and half-human mage and monk had spent the last several hours putting their lives, the lives of their friends, and their culture to paper. And now, at the end of the proverbial end game, the two were stuck on something so simple so innocuous that they both neglected to check for it.

“Belkas?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you remember your name? Your human one I mean.”

“.... No, I don’t. Now that I think of it, I can’t remember yours either. Your human one, I mean.”

“.... Crap.”

“Yeah.”

“FRIENDS! ZURUG HAS MADE FOOD! GET IT BEFORE ZURUG TAKES IT ALL!” The voice of their friend, the self proclaimed, Zurug rang throughout the fort and into the fields beyond the walls

“Come on, let’s go eat. We can still work on this later.” Belkas said, wrapping an arm around his friend to usher her to the kitchen. Before a thought came to him.

“But, just in case.” He mumbled to himself, bending to sign their names at the bottom of the page before actually ushering his friend to the kitchen, leaving a leather bound journal lying on a podium surrounded by the shelves and its kin.

(POV: Twilight)

I looked out the window of the train car watching as the fields of grass passed by. I wondered what we could discover inside that fort, hopefully no monsters lived inside it. Poor Fluttershy has had enough encounters with the strange monsters already, she even had to move out of her home and into Ponyville because of them. I heard the loud whistle of the train and I could see Canterlot not to far from where we were.

I look around me and see all my friends sleeping peacefully, I smiled at this. ‘I wish I didn't have to wake them up.’

I shook my head free of the thought and shook Spike awake who was sleeping next to me. “Come on girls, we’re almost to Canterlot.”

Slowly, all of them rubbed the sleep from their eyes.

“This is going to be so cool! Going on a monster hunting campaign with the Princess!” Dash says while doing a fist pump.

“Well, ah’ hope if there is a monster that we can take em’. I heard some of em’ things are as strong as 10 stallions put together.” Applejack says to Rainbow.

“Oh… I do hope I don't have to meet any more mean creatures…”

“Don't worry Fluttershy, I’ll beat those monsters to a pulp in 10 seconds flat.” Dash says proudly as she strikes a pose.

“I hope something more civilized is in the fort, compared to all of the monsters that are now roaming Equestria, it would be a nice change.” Rarity says.

“Oh! I hope they like parties, and cake, and cupcakes! Oh it’ll be super-duper fun!” Pinkie Pie responds.
“Girls” I remind them “Remember that the princesses wish the speak with us on how we’re going to approach the fort. We have to be prepared for anything.”

They all nod at this as the train pulls into the station and I can’t help but smile when I see Luna and a contingent of her guards waiting for us, and when the conductor calls and we all file out, I wonder just what this day has in store for us.

Chapter 3: Anger Management and You.

(POV: Twilight)

Me and the girls along with Spike walk past the crowds jamming the station over to where Princess Luna is waiting.

“Princess Luna.” I say, greeting her with a bow.

“Twilight, you are also a princess.Please refer to me as ‘Luna’” She says

“Sorry, force of habit.” I reply.

“Come along, we have much to discuss.” She motions for us to follow her.

We walk along the path heading up to the palace, when we finally get there the guards all leave us at the front door. From there on is just us eight.

“So prin- er, Luna. What did you want to discuss.” I ask.

“Well, for starters, the fort itself. As well, what may or may not be hiding inside, how many guards to deem necessary for the expedition, and what should be done with the fort when we have finished.”

“Well as for what may be hiding inside, we won't know until we get there, As for the number of guards, what can we spare at the moment?”

“Canterlot can spare about 10 guards at the moment, if we were not stretched so thin I would bring more with.”

“Sounds reasonable, as for what we should do with the fort… maybe the royal guard could use it?”

“That will be something to look into Twilight. Now, I’ll have the guest rooms prepared for you all, we’ll leave for the fort in the morning. Now if you’ll excuse me, I must prepare to raise the moon” Luna says before walking off.

(The next morning at fort Shatter-Shield...)

(POV: Fredrich the Rogue)

“Gods above be dammed! Why am I stuck with dusting this shitty library, all I wanted to do was take a damn nap after dinner but no~” I angrily dust off the top of this stupid book shelf

“All this just because I skipped out on cleaning the dishes, it’s not my fault that I finished before everyone else.” He kicks the shelf to push the ladder over to the next shelf.

“Kasula just HAD to find me with her magic, I was having a nice nap on the bookshelf, I was sure she wouldn't find me. I should have listened before I got locked in here.” I groaned.

“This is stupid! Me! The best thief in the realm was caught sleeping on a shelf! Master Xaemarra would wring my neck if she caught me doing something as stupid as that.” I stop for a moment.”Now that I think about it, I’m rather glad she's’ not here.” I shudder from all the memories of how I got punished when I was caught during my training with her.

“Uhg, bad thoughts. I don't need nightmares right now.” I climb down from the ladder and look around the library when I see the door open and in walks Thalia with her bow across her back.

“Hey Fred, Kasula sent me down to see how it’s going.” She waves to me from the door.

“Oh, hey Thalia. You can tell her she can quit using her dirty cheating magic to find me.

“Hmm, I thought you couldn't be found by magical means.”

“I can’t, I think she used Zurug’s stupidly strong sense of smell to find me. But that’s only me looking for an excuse. I was caught, and you know any good rogue worth his weight in gold is very hard to catch.” I point my index finger at her.

“Yeah, well you are also the laziest rogue I’ve had to meet so far. How you even get the jobs assigned to you done is still beyond me.”

“Hey! You know when I’m on a job I’ll get it done, granted I piss and moan throughout the whole thing, but incase you didn't happen to notice.” I gesture to the library window “I seem to be lacking my usual clientele.”

“I know, and that is why we are having a meeting in the war room in a couple of hours to go over all the parchment you brought back from your scouting mission.” She crosses her arms.

I wave her off “Yeah, yeah. That’s probably how long it will take me to finish dusting this stupid place.”

“Alright, I’ll let Belkas know. See you around.” and with that she walks off, closing the door behind her.

I walk over to the small library window and look out the window at the peaceful morning sky for several moments. “I think I could use a quick break, the others won't mind as long as the stupid dusting gets done in the end.”

“...Maybe there’s something interesting to read, It's been awhile since I last indulged in a good book.” I look to the nearest shelf and start scanning the books for anything interesting, and of course there’s nothing interesting on this shelf after looking through it for a few minutes.

I start walking to a shelf across the room when I notice a brown leather bound book on the podium, no title just something that looks like someone's personal diary or something I would use to keep a log of all my dealings.

“Huh, maybe this’ll be a good read.” I pick up the book and walk back to my seat, sitting down and kicking up my leg. “Right, let’s see what we got here.” I open the book and begin to read.

I am surprised at the first pages, this book, mentioned me and several others in the group, I continue to page through the book until I can't take it anymore and slam it shut.

“The others need to know of this. Fuck the dusting.” with that I jump out of my chair and race out of the library to find Belkas.

(POV: Belkas the Monk)

’I am like the wind.
Ever moving without restraint
Somedays the wind shall be calm
Others, shall be destructive
I hold the choices in my palms
The path I choose is filled with obstacles
But I am free to-’

“BELKAS!”

I hear the doors to the keep slam open and Fredrich yelling for me. I sigh and get off the ground from underneath the tree and proceed to walk to Fredrich who’s running to me with a book in his hand. It was such a nice morning to begin with too.

“Good morning Fredrich. I was in morning meditation just now and you know I hate being disturbed. As well, I doubt you’re done with the library this early. So this had better be good.” I say with a hint of anger in my voice.

“Belkas, this book. Read it, it’s definitely something we need to look at.”

I take the book from his hands and flip it open to the first few pages. What I start to read is so surreal, almost crazy. I continue to read for a few minutes and when I finally close the book I look back to Fredrich his eyes never leaving the book.

“Go get the others and inform them that the meeting has been pushed ahead.” I inform him before walking to the keep.

“When are we meeting?” he asks.

“Now.” is all I say before walking straight into the keep and up the two flights of stairs and down a narrow hallway. There’s only three doors in this hallway, to the left facing the front of the fort is the war room, and to the right is the lab. There is a ladder with a trap door going to the roof but besides that and the occasional lighting crystal.

I briskly enter the war room, once upon a time this room would have been useful with all of it’s maps. However, recently all of the maps have become useless and thus promptly thrown into a chest at the foot of one of the three big windows in this room.

There is a single large table in the room, and the map of this realm is pinned down in the center of it along with the scrolls that were in the satchel that was recovered. I had prepared everything for this afternoon, what had seemed like a normal meeting has now turned into something more mysterious.

The two elves, Thalia and Kasula, enter and walk to the table and stand opposite from me.

“Belkas, what is this about? I was about to go on a hunt.” Thalia says, clearly upset that I disturbed her preparations for her hunt.

“Well, it’s a good thing that we’re meeting before you head out. I was going to talk to you about our future food problem.”

“Oh, well in that case you should have just said something.” A small smile coming to her face.

“So” Kasula starts “Why is the meeting being called early?”

“I’ll explain once everyone gets here.” Is all I say before Zurug walks in. He simply grunts with a nod to the three of us already at the table before making his way to an open spot around the table next to Thalia.

After a few minutes of waiting around and the two girls starting up a conversation on alchemic ingredients that could be used into potions, Gralon and Fredrich both come in.

“What’s the big idea, I was havin’ at a nice bottle of mead.”

“Really, drinking before it’s even noon?” I raise an eyebrow at this.

“Kiss my axe.” He says in an annoyed tone standing next to Zurug. Fredrich just stands next to me, with everyone here I clear my throat to get their attention.

“Alright, now that everyone is here I’ll explain the situation.” I toss the book onto the center of the table where everyone but me and Fredrich stare at it.

“I suggest you all take a few minutes and read that to get a better understanding of what we are dealing with.”

Zurug is the first to pick it up and start reading, his expression goes from calm to confused in the span of a few second, and after of about a minute he passes it onto Gralon.

“Zurug doesn't get it, what does it mean?” he says in a surprisingly low tone.

Gralon looks through the book, quickly flipping page by page until he sets it back on the table and slides it across to Thalia who then promptly picks it up and just goes to a random page in it.

“You know, this sounds oddly familiar.” Gralon says, looking directly at me.

“What do you mean?”

“I’m saying, you asked me about something similar to this sometime yesterday when I was doing a patrol on the wall with Zurug.” Everyone looks between me and Gralon, in that time Thalia hands the book to Kasula.

I think back to yesterday and I can only remember bits and pieces of it, but nothing to where I confronted Gralon like it said in the book and asked if he was a short human.

“I’m sorry Gralon, but I don't remember ever talking to you about such a subject.”

“This is odd.” I hear Kasula say “This looks like my handwriting, but I don't remember ever writing something like this, also there’s only eight people who know our sigil and two of them are dead.” She looks up from the book to look at me and Gralon.

Gralon turns to her. “If I remember correctly, you were there also when Belkas asked me. Were you not?”

She thinks for a few moments before coming to a conclusion. “No, I can only remember bits and pieces of yesterday. Nothing related to the question that was posed.”

“Now that I think about it.” Thalia points out “The same can be said for me. I only remember you telling me to go on a scouting mission.”

“ZURUG REMEMBERS BEING ON WALL TELLING JOKES! THEN THE COOKING OF THE MEAT!” he says with a chuckle.

“Basicly the same as Thalia.” Fredrich says.

“Is it possible that a spell was cast on us to remove certain memories, Kasula?” I direct

She brings a hand up to her chin and says “It is possible, but it would have to take a high tier mage much like myself to be able to even imagine casting a spell as intricate as this one to pick and choose which memories we lose and which we get to keep.” She says returning the book to my side of the table.

“I will meditate on this and see if I can find any answers in the coming days, for now we should talk about more pressing issues.” I pick the book up and look at it for a few seconds before walking over to the chest with the old maps where I unlatch it and place the book inside then I return to my place at the table.

“Although Fredrich’s scouting mission was somewhat of a failure-” “HEY!” he interrupts. “-he did manage to bring back some invaluable information on this realm, the map and the scrolls. So Thalia, you said you saw a mountain with a city built into it?”

She nods. “Yep, although I would say we still are quite a distance away.”

I put a small tower model onto a section of the map..“Thanks to Thalia actually completing her mission, we now have a rough idea of where we are situated. We are assumed to be Southeast of that city.”

“Did it look like one of the dwarven fortresses that we occasionally build into the side of a mountain?” Gralon asks.

“You’ll have to look for yourself Gralon, I’m not very familiar with dwarven architecture.” Thalia responds.

“So, now that we have our location, we need to talk about our food problems. Specifically how we don’t have enough for the long term, and how to get more. I propose that we head towards the citadel and see if we can’t set up a long term trade agreement with whoever is in charge there, or, in the worst case scenario, sack the city for everything we need should they be slavers or some such.” I say, pausing to make room for the others to give their opinions.

“I see where you’re wanting to go with this. But,” Gralon states, a finger in the air. “If they’re peaceful, whadda we trade ‘em? Sure we have plenty of weapons, but we only have that many and they’d run out sooner rather than later ‘cause we don’t have a way to make more right now. We can’t trade food, ‘cause that’s what we’re gettin’ from them. We can’t trade the books ‘cause those aren’t exactly worth much, we only have so many, and despite that, they’re useful. We can’t trade gold, ‘cause, as far as I know, we don’t have any. So, What can we offer ‘em?” He finishes, crossing his arms grumpily.

“Our services.” Kasula states before I can say exactly that.

“Whadya’ mean ‘services’” Gralon responds, uncrossing his arms just long enough to do the air quotes.

“Simple.” I continue for Kasula, “We ask the mayor or constable if they’re having monster problems or anything like that, if they do, we have our usual short term employment for money or food. If they don’t we’ll ask around about someone that needs bodyguards, or hunters, or a particular unethical person killed, that way we still have short term employment, and thus, food.”

“ Fine! Have it yer way, we’ll just be gettin’ us a reputation as th’ kind that’ll do anything fer food, what next? Ye’ll bern a hospital fer a piece a’ silver?” Gralon spits back.

“Gralon. Your accent’s showing. Go to the forge and cool down.” I state calmly, watching as the dwarf sputters half formed insults at me for a full minute before stomping out the door and down the stairs, muttering the whole way.

“Alright, Gralon’s shown he doesn’t agree, though I suspect he may change his mind when he’s calmed. What do the rest of you think?” I say, addressing the rest of my friends as if nothing strange just happened. Mostly because it didn’t, it’s a well known and documented fact that the longer a dwarf is away from gems or metal, the more irritable they get, and Graylon had just gone a full day without either

“Where there’s a city, there’s nobles willing to off each other for a position of power. I’m in..” Fredrich responds, a cheesy grin accompanying his words.

“I do believe there can be some use of this world's knowledge, perhaps there’s more alchemical recipes that have been discovered and maybe an unknown magical spell. I’m all for this plan.” Kasula says giving me a nod.

“ZURUG GETS FOOD, ALL ZURUG NEEDS TO KNOW.” Zurug states plainly.

“... I’d rather hunt than go anywhere near a city. But I can see how this would work better for us in the long run. I’ll go.” Thalia says with a sigh.

“Alright, we’ll gather our things and head for the city at sunrise tomorrow. Zurug, make sure to check in on Gralon sometime today and see if he’s cooled off.”

“ZURUG WILL CHECK ON SHORT STACK IN A WHILE. NO WAY HE IS CALM RIGHT NOW.” Zurug said, walking out the door shortly after to do whatever he does around this time of day. He’s probably getting started on lunch now that I think on it.

(An hour earlier...)

(POV: Twilight)

I stood next to the runway waiting for the carriage Prin-.. Luna commandeered for our expedition, my friends standing in a group around me, as well as the four guards standing at attention next to our group, the other guards and the prince-.... Luna having gone to the hangar, where they’ve been for the past ten minutes.

That’s when I notice Luna and the six of her guards coming out with a fairly large chariot, the separately blue and gold armored stallions marching in time pulling it behind them, and the pri-.. Luna walking alongside.
“Are you all ready to go?” Luna asks our group. “If so hurry up and get in. While we’re not exactly on a deadline I’m eager to see what lies ahead.” She says, opening the side door and seating herself inside. My friends and I quickly following, and the guards accompanying us waiting for us to get comfortable before making their own way in.

The ride to the fort itself wasn't too exciting, other than some small talk among the girls and the princess, the guards that were in a position to talk didn’t as they were on duty and were required to keep their responses as short and conversation killing as possible, no matter how much they wanted to talk about the latest fashions in Trottingham or what horn gloss went with what fur color.

Needless to say, the lot of them were regretting joining the guard and not going into cosmetology or tailoring at that moment.

As Rarity, Twilight and pinkie were inspiring jealousy in the guards with their conversation, Applejack had pulled her hat over her eyes and started doing her best to take a nap despite all the noise around her, Fluttershy was sat, cowering in her seat as the guards stared blankly ahead, and while she knew it was an illusion, she couldn’t help but think they were all staring right at her. Which left Luna and Rainbow to entertain themselves.

“So, Luna. Ho-”

“Rainbow Dash, as you are not a princess, I must ask that you use my title when addressing me.”

“Alright. So, Princess Selene ‘Luna’ Noctis, herald of the moon, Banisher of Nightmares and Demons alike and Mistress of Dreams. How are we gonna’ get this thing into the fort?”

‘Sigh’ “And just when you were showing intelligence.” Luna mutters under her breath.

“We aren’t going to land the carriage in the fort, Rainbow Dash, we are going to land outside of it, and make our way inside by wing and hoof.”

“Oh, okay. So princess Sel-”

And so the trip went, the guards lamenting their life choices, Rarity entertaining what she believed to be an enthralled audience, Twilight and Pinkie pretending to listen to her so as to not hurt her feelings, Applejack trying and failing to sleep, Fluttershy trying and failing to push herself through the floor to escape her imagined demons, and Luna resisting while Rainbow Dash did her best to commit Princessicide.

We eventually land in front of the fort and I get my first look at the fort. The dark grey stone walls of the fort tower at around 15 feet which is complimented by a sturdy iron and wood reinforced gate. Just behind the walls I can make out a keep which seems to be standing at around 30 feet in height, there also appears to be a banner hanging from the keep with a coat of arms I have not seen before, a red hammer striking an anvil on a white background.

“Guards, line and prepare to advance.” Luna ordered, the guards quickly getting in line in front of us, pegasi making up either end of the line, and a staggering or races making up the center.

“Come, my little ponies, it is time to see just what lies behind those gates.” The princess told us before we made our way behind the guards and they started walking forward.

As we approach the fort my ears perk up as I hear what sounds like someone is metalworking inside, specifically that they’re striking a piece of metal with a hammer.I turn to the girls.

“Does anyone else hear that?” I ask to confirm what I am hearing.

“Yes, I hear it as well. It seems as though somepony is inside.” Luna says.

“Helllo! Is anypony home!” Pinkie calls. Despite Luna just saying there was somepony in there.

There was no response, only the continued noise of metal striking metal inside.

“Welp, That’s good enough for me!” Pinkie.. Pinkies before running at the door. Before an aura of dark blue magic encases her and stops her in her tracks.

“PEOPLE OF THIS FORT! BE KNOWN TO PRINCESS LUNA OF EQUESTRIA, THE LAND IN WHICH YOU RESIDE. OPEN THE GATES FOR US IF YOU ARE ABLE!” Luna ‘says’ with the royal canterlot voice. After 10 seconds of nothing but the continuing pounding of a hammer Luna releases Pinkie.

“Do as you will, Pinky Pie. I doubt it will garner their attention.”

Pinky just walks up to the door and...opens it…

What was being held behind those doors, however, none of them were expecting. The power held behind what came from that opening enough to push Pinky back into the line of guards and pin her there, her normally poofy mane plastered to their leg guards.

“-dainty no good tool-snatchin’ plan of his! Ah’ aint no milk-drinkin girly who’ll do anything for some grub! That incompetent knife-eared ballet dancing tree bedder can shove it up his witless gas pore!”

Right next to the gate doors is where all the cursing is coming from, a brick red building with a wooden awning and fence jutting out in front of it where rows of weapons hang from their racks. As we approach the building, I can see it’s a forge as there’s a furnace and bellows and a rather, stocky, somepony operating them. Pinky just walks right up the the gentlecolt when he’s right in the middle of spewing his obscenities.

“Hiya mister!”

“SHITE!”

Chapter 4: Greetings and Proposals.

(POV: Twilight)

“SHITE!”

I watch as Pinky startles the stocky pony, my friend towering above him, and even as he’s jumping in the air, the top of his head only reaches her midsection.

“WHO IN THE SEVEN HELL-” he starts to say as he turns around to get a look at the offender, cutting off just as suddenly as he started when he caught sight of us, though all I could make out of him was the shine of a pair of eyes, and the most voluminous beard I’d ever seen.

“OY’ YE ‘OSPITAL BERNIN’ NINNIES. YEH GOT GUESTS!” He yells, somehow louder than he was just a minute ago, literally throwing Pinkie out of the opening in the building, who was thankfully able to catch herself with a quick backflip, and going back to hammering on whatever he was working on, muttering under his breath as he seemed to work himself up to his previous rage.

I hear the sound of a large door opening and I turn to look at the keep of the fort. And out comes a green skinned giant that would tower over Celestia by a head. I can clearly see two large canines sticking out from the front of his mouth. More like tusks than actual teeth, but not quite long enough to qualify as tusks. It also has pitch black hair on the top of his head, tied back into a ponytail, and muscled arms that look like tree trunks, the veins clearly showing through his skin. All complimented by his battle damaged half-plate armor.

“WHY ARE THERE LITTLE CANDY HORSE PEOPLE?” The giant bellows, looking down at us as he crosses his meaty arms.

“Hey! We’re not horses ya’ meat head. We’re ponies, get it right!” Rainbow yells back, taking flight and getting in the giant’s face.

“STILL DOES NOT ANSWER QUESTION.” The giant states, looking her directly in the eyes as she’s blown back slightly by his voice.

“Please excuse my friend. We’re actually here to investigate what’s going on behind this fort and its appearance on Equestrian soil.” Twilight answers, motioning for rainbow to get further from the giant.

The giant jabs his thumb back at the keep and bellows out “TALK TO BELKAS. HE WILL BE OUT SOON. SHORT STACK IS LOUD.”

“WHO YA CALLIN’ SHORT YA’ FREAKIN’ MUTANT?!” The group heard from the forge to their back.

“You are short Gralon, now go back to your work before you have a heart attack.”

(POV: Belkas the Monk)

I stood there in the doorway to the keep for several seconds observing the group that somehow managed to get past all the enchantments and barriers guarding the fort itself. Kasula is going to throw a fit if she finds out she needs to redo all of those spells. There appears to be a small squad of guards following a group of what I can only assume are nobles. Our first clients.

I walk out right as Zurug and Gralon are about to get into a heated argument right in front of potential clients. “You are short Gralon, now go back to your work before you have a heart attack.” I tell him. Watching for a moment as he grumbles and sulks his way back into the forge.

“Now then,” I continue, turning to look at our visitors for the first time. I do a quick count of how many there are. eightteen people, ten of which are easily recognizable as guards. As for the other eight, there is a short, scaled humanoid that reminds me of the half-dragons, though not nearly as tall as he is most likely a child.

Two of them have crowns, a lavender colored figure and a navy blue figure, who is slightly taller than her counterpart. The lavender one’s crown, made of gold and set with some large purple starburst cut gem that radiated magic I could feel from a fair distance was by and far more intricate than her counterparts, a simple ridged headpiece of black metal, though with that simple crown she wore a petreyal of the same style, a white silhouette of a star at the center base sitting above her sternum.

There were five others, but I can only assume that they are advisors of some sort to these nobles, and as such, were largely unimportant. Though I did note one thing of interest. All of them were largely naked aside from the guards, nobles, and one of the advisors. They wore absolutely nothing while still managing to keep their decency due to extra fluff in their fur at key areas.

“I’m not sure how you managed to get past our defences, but you are here nonetheless. You do have some reason for being here, correct?” I ask them.

“HERE TO INVESTIGATE. FORT IS ON THEIR LAND.” Zurug supplied from the sidelines.

“Well, I can assure you that the lands under our feet was given to us by the king of the realm we were in. We do have the deed after all, if you would like proof of my claim.” I state, fully prepared to make Fredrich go get the deed.

“That will not be necessary, if appreciated. Though I do believe that introductions are in order. As we are the ones to come to your door, I will begin. I am Princess Selene Noctis of Equestria, the land your fortress finds itself in. Most, however, have taken to calling me by ‘Luna’ as it would seem my full name is an ‘inconvenience upon the royal tongue’ if my nephew were to be believed.” The tall navy blue one stated, giving a small bow before she continued.

“The one beside me is Princess Twilight Sparkle, Also of Equestria. Though new to her position, she is an element of harmony as well, putting her well above many of our other little ponies. The ones behind us are guards from me and my sisters royal guards, and the others that make up the elements of Harmony. Applejack, Rarity, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, and Fluttershy.” She finished, the guards being impassive, and the advisors giving their own greeting to go with their names. Aside from Fluttershy, she merely squeaked and hid behind her hair when my eyes found her.

“Well met your majesty. I am Master Belkas of the Order of the Long Death, beside me is Battle Master Zurug, and you already met our Paladin and resident smith Gralon, the surly little man in the forge.” I say, a smile tugging at my lips at the future prospects before me. To think, they were no mere nobles, but royalty.

“SHOVE IT YOU CORPSE LOVER!” Comes a shout from the forge, leaving one to wonder how Gralon could have heard him over the din of ringing metal.

“I apologize for him. He is usually much less abrasive, but our lack of funds has left him in a foul mood. There are three others here, but I will introduce them as they appear. Now, would you care to listen to a..” I start, but cut myself off as I see one of the advisors… Fluttershy, raise her hand from behind the orange one.

“E-excuse me, but. W-what did Gralon m-m-mean by c-corpse lover?” The yellow woman barely got out. Quickly ducking behind her wall of fur when I turn to address her.

“Do not put too much stock in Gralon’s words, he is agitated and lashing out. But, there is truth there to be sure. I, and the rest of my order, take it upon ourselves to delve where others dare not, in the realms related to death. Be it causing it, preventing it, or easing it along, my brothers and I take this duty upon ourselves to relieve others of the burden, as the other orders often find our duties and doctrines just short of despicable, but necessary to our shared existence.” I state, addressing all of them, as the one who asked hid herself from me.

Everyone there seemed to be in some form of shock or intrigue, Princess Selene seemed to look at me with curiosity, while the other Princess seemed to be slightly afraid, the half-dragon seemed to back off just a step. While the guards, collectively, seemed to raise their ‘guard’ subconsciously the orange one named ‘Applejack’ seemed to steel her resolve with a slight movement hiding Fluttershy from my view completely as she seemed to be shivering in fear.

The white one referred to as ‘Rarity’ looks at me with unhidden disgust, while Pinkie Pie seems to lose a slight coloration in her fur and hair. Then there is Rainbow Dash, who seems to hold her ground but when I look into her eyes, I can see a slight fear in them.

“Now, if you would so kindly follow me we can talk about this at further length inside.” I motion for them to follow me into the keep as I turn to make my way through the doors myself. Reluctantly they follow, the guards are a bit more on edge now that I’ve revealed a part of my history to them.

As we all walk through the keep, there’s only the sound of footsteps and shifting armor. It would seem my little story killed the mood rather thoroughly. A few minutes of near silence later we’d made our way to the dining room to where we all enter and I take my place at the head of the table where one of our banners is behind me right above a fireplace. The dining room is meant to impress potential clients so no expense is spared since it also doubles as our meeting room. The guards seem to stand around the room at attention while the others take places around the table, Princess Selene sitting at the other end across from me.

“Now that we’re away from Gralon’s ears, I have a proposition for you.” I say, getting straight to the point, remembering the hammer that clipped my ear the last time I thought I was out of the dwarfs hearing while he was angry with me, A mistake I nearly made earlier in my excitement.

“I would like to offer you the services of the Steel Strong Adventuring guild. Now, my guild and I recently came across a scroll that detailed your problems with, and I quote ‘Mad fish people who worship a tortoise and snail as if they were gods.’ And hearing that, I can’t help but think you don’t have other similar problems elsewhere. And, as it so happens, my compatriots and I specialize in the nullification of threats such as these. So, Princesses Selene Noctis and Twilight Sparkle, How does, say, 5 gold pieces per head sound?” They seemed to mull over my offer for a few moments before one of them spoke up.

“I'm sorry, we do not have ‘gold pieces’ here, the currency we use is called ‘bits” Twilight explained.

“Hmmm… Fredrich, go grab the scale would you?” After calling his name, Fredrich jumps down from the rafters and startles everyone in the room as he suddenly lands on the center of the table where he simply slides off and heads out the kitchen door.

“W-WHAT THE BUCK WAS THAT!?” Cries Rainbow, taken a bit more off guard than the others as she was the one Fredrich had landed in front of.

“That was our master thief Fredrich, if he wanted your coin purse, he would have it right now. Though I think he was merely testing to see if any of you would notice him this time.” I tell her, deliberately hiding that he was equally skilled at stealing people’s’ lives from the group he’d just gotten the ‘drop’ on.

A couple minutes of tense silence later, Friedrich returned, placing the scale set in front of me before throwing a smoke bomb and disappearing into a shadowed corner of the rafters once more.

“... Thank you Fredrich. But you know how I feel about you using those infernal things indoors. You’re going to be dusting the carpets now once you’re done with your other task. Now, if any of you have some of these ‘bits’ I could borrow, we can get started.” I say, addressing our guests after I finished with Fredrich, a few ‘bits’ coming from the orange advisor, that she’d kept in her hat somehow. “Here, catch.” She says and tosses the bits across the table to me.

“Thank you.” I simply reply as she tossed them to me where I make a show of my quick reflexes to catch all of them even though they were spread out in the air. “Fredrich if you would please…” After a few seconds a golden octagon shaped coin drops out of the rafters and lands perfectly onto one of the scales.

“So, that’s one… two… three… four… Five……. Yep, five bits to one Gold piece.”I say picking up the unused bits and tossing them back to her. Pausing a moment to watch her scoop them out of the air with her hat.

“How do we know that this is correct?” I hear Twilight say with some concern.

“Simple, Princess. We’ve had the scales enchanted so that they measure common value rather than weight. It’s really more useful for appraising small objects and situations such as this than anything though, so we hardly ever use it.” I explain to her.

“I see. Would you mind if I verified that?” The princess responds.

“Of course not.” I tell her, sliding the scale across to her, but not before grabbing the coin still on it and flicking it into the air, hearing a swoosh, and the distinct lack of the sound of a coin hitting anything.

I notice that the horn at the top of her head lights up in a purple hue and covers the scale in the same aura. Interesting, I’ll file that information away for later use.

“Fascinating.” I hear the princess mutter under her breath, the scale place back onto the table a moment later.

“Does this confirm your suspicions Princess?” I ask her.

“Um. Yes, it does.” She responds simply, still lost in thought.

“So, your majesties, how does 25 of these bits per head sound?” I say, getting the conversation back on track.

After a few moments, Princess Selene Noctis speaks up. “That sounds like a reasonable price to pay for the well being of our little ponies.” She states.

I smile with satisfaction. “Then we have a deal.”

Chapter 5: Illusions.

(POV: Twilight)

I sat there at the table thinking of everything that had just happened, when we entered the fort, I never expected to find anypony inside. Then the… creatures reasoned with us. None of the new creatures have shown any intelligence other than what Princess Celestia went to go handle, But they’re more insane than intelligent from what I hear. Then they offer to...kill the creatures, for a price lower than most guards get paid. On top of all that, they have magical items that are completely new to me, something that hasn’t happened since I was a filly.

‘Twilight, are you ok?’ Luna asks me through a telepathic link.

‘I’m fine, Luna. Just… Thinking. Do you really think we can trust them?’ I think back at her.

‘I don't know Twilight, but if they can solve our current predicament then we must take that chance.’ she replies.

“Now then.” I hear Master Belkas say from across the table. “I’d suppose you’d like to meet the group that will be assigned to this mission. You’ve already met Zurug, but there will be two others you have not met that will be going with. I’ll fetch them shortly, in the meantime Fredrich will show you the door.”

I watch as he gets up from his seat and head out a side door, then I hear something drop behind me. I turn around and there stands a stallion clad in black clothing from head to toe. The stallion identified as Fredrich walks to the doors we came in and opens them, turning to look at us for a second. “Follow.” is all he says as he steps out.

Me and the rest of my friends look at eachother for a quick moment before hurriedly getting up from our seats and going after him. When we catch up to him, he is already waiting for us at the main doors. He simply opens one door, the sound of the smith’s work fills our ears. Fredrich just points outside then walks away to somewhere deeper into the keep.

As we made our way outside we saw Zurug off to the side sitting cross legged on the ground with a vase in his hands, the giant seemed to be… painting it? Perhaps there is more to these being than meets the eyes. I stare at the giant for a good minute before I hear a polite cough from behind me.

When I turn around I see Master Belkas and two more of his companions.

“To my right is our sorceress Kasula, she is an expert in all things magical around the fort here.” He gestures to her, she is wearing some type of deep red dress, she is also carrying a messenger bag.

‘Perhaps she can answer a bunch of my questions about the magic here!’ I think to myself.

“And to my left is our huntress, Thalia.” She is carrying a large bow and quiver with a sword at her waist. “These two, along with Zurug will be going on the mission you have just requested. They are masters at their trade and they shall not let you down.” He assures me.

Zurug sets the vase down gently along with his painting equipment before heading inside the forge, only a few moments later he comes out with a MASSIVE hammer which is slung over his shoulder. Where he then stands next to the gate, the other two, Thalia and Kasula, both walk past our group and stand next to him.

“They are ready to depart, however they will need a guide as we don’t have an exact location of the infestation site.” He tells us.

“I’ll have a group of guards escort them to the beach the creatures have taken a liking to.” Luna says and nods to two of her pegasus guards, they both salute and head to the gate where the three adventurers are waiting.

“Then that looks to be everything for now, how shall we contact you to know when we have completed the job?” Belkas asks.

“I will send word to my sister, she is on her way there currently and can give you the rewards on completion” Luna replies.

He nods and looks to his companions gathered. “You have your job, now go do it.” The three of them along with the two guards head out the gate without looking back.

“Is there anything else you require?” Belkas asks, looking each one of us over.

“Nay, that shall be all for now. Come along girls, we must head back to Canterlot for now.” Luna says to us.

(POV: Belkas the Monk)

I watch as the royals and their escort leave after looking around the fort one last time, internally smiling at the thought of our little fort impressing royalty to such a degree.

After they make their way out to the other side of the gate, Gralon closing it after them with a well aimed hammer I turn to speak to the branches of the tree by my side.

“Fredrich, I want you to follow them to wherever it is that they mentioned. See if you can’t gather some more information on our surroundings and maybe, if possible, set up an information network. You do this and you can forget about all the dusting, the carpets too.”

I turn back to the keep fully knowing he is going to go through with what I just said. On another note, Kasula actually planned for something like all of her barriers and wards breaking. She had prepared a number of scrolls and a book on how to use them. Granted she was still upset that she will need to make another copy of all the scrolls, but at least we will have our defences up again in a relatively short while. Not that me and Gralon couldn't handle anything that came our way, but it’s better to minimize damage to the property as much as possible.

I enter Kasula’s room, the whole place is lined with bookshelves and stacks of scrolls up to almost waist height. This is more of an office than a bedroom, seeing as she used her bed as a place to stack several dozen books. Off to the side is a single desk where Kasula said all the scrolls that were needed to restore the defences of the fort were.

I sigh as I look over the two dozen scrolls and a single tome. “This is going to be a long day.”

(POV: Kasula the Sorceress)

I looked around the grassy field as we marched east from our home. In all honesty to myself, I want to wring the neck of whoever broke all of the wards I placed on the walls and doors. Thankfully, Belkas is going to have a wonderful time spending all day and almost all night doing the preparations and casting for those spells. Although it is a lot faster than the old world where I spent a little over a month gathering all sorts of ingredients to cast the needed wards, another bonus to this place.

“So,” I ask the guards who are leading us. “How long should it take to get to our destination?”

“Just a little over two days ma’am.” The one on the left answers, not so much as looking at me, or even moving his face more than necessary.

I hear both Zurug and Thalia grunt with approval as we continue our trek to the east.

(POV: Fredrich the Rogue)

I watched from a shady spot on the battlements as our guests get into some sort of large carriage before several of their guard hook themselves up to the front of it and start to pull it away. Before they could actually gain some distance I take out an enchanted tracking dart and the collapsable blowgun that goes with it. I fire the dart which makes contact into one of the wheels of the carriage.

With that job done I pull out my compass and start to follow them North. Unfortunately for me, the direction they are going is all grassland for as far as the eye can see, minus the singular mountain in the distance. Meaning, to stay hidden, I’d either need to follow directly beneath them, an impossibility at the speed they’re going, or follow at a distance, which I hate doing with a passion. There are just too many things that can go wrong, none of which you have any control over when you’re that far away from your mark.

I am forced to follow them from a good distance away, the carriage quickly making its way further ahead however, they don't seem to be turning off the path of the mountain and if I recall correctly, Thalia said there was some sort of city there. Perhaps that’s where they’re going.

I continue to jog in the general direction of the mountain for several hours, by now the carriage is well out of sight, likely parked and waiting by now, although the tracker does still respond so it confirms that they have not found the small metal dart. I’ll have to find the carriage and grab it while I’m there to make sure no trace of my involvement is found. That would be bad for business.

However, before that I have to reach the base of the mountain, which only took me a couple more hours of boredom. What stopped that boredom in its tracks was the view I suddenly got an eyeful of as I passed over a hillock, there, seemingly close enough to reach out and touch, was the mountain, the city, complete with a gold and white palace I could distinguish from the rest being so close, gleamed in the setting sun, sending motes of light dancing across the horizon and over the plains. Below the architectural light show, at the base of the mountain and sitting on the edge of a lake was smaller village, not as flashy as the palace, but just as entrancing in its own way. An entrancement that was broken by the sound of a whistle in the distance, the familiar chugging of machinery coming soon after from a hill a bit off to my left.

As I watched, curious of what would make that noise, I was filled with a kind of fear, one that got worse the louder the noises got, until finally the thing passed over the hill, and the sight of candy colored steel, baby blue wheels rolling smoothly across the track, and decoration made to make it look edible filled me with a mess of rage and sorrow, and a moment more was all it took for me to recognize my fear. The fear of death, something I was so used to giving rather than receiving. If one thing is for certain, I am never going anywhere near that thing for as long as I can help it. I shake myself back to reality from the mechanical abomination and proceed to make my way to the smaller village, I’ll probably find more common information from these people than the aristocrats in the palace, though that is my next stop.

As I make my way into the village I start to notice several things, such as guard patrols, what vendors are out in the streets, alleyways and other such things. After getting halfway through the area, I notice that there is a library off to the side. I should probably ‘borrow’ a few for the library back home.

I head into the library and I just glance at the librarian sitting behind a desk with a stack of books she seems to be looking through and stamping.

‘Alright, first thing on the shopping list should be… World history, followed by any lore, then the educational and scientific stuff. Thank the gods for bags of holding.’ I think while I look at the directory that is next to one of the many rows of shelves. For the first time, I notice that the writing here is written in common. The most basic language almost all intelligent species can read and speak. Although I wonder why I didn't notice it before when I was looking at all the shops.

I file that information away for later use and head further into the library,near the back where they keep their history books. Where I find myself grabbing several books such as Equus world history’ and ‘History of Equestria vol.1’ to name a few. All of which are deposited into my bag of holding which I emptied out earlier before going on this job.

Finding all the books in which I need took me roughly about 10 minutes before I head back to the door where I sneak out when I notice the librarian’s face stuck into a book. 'The first objective has been accomplished.' I announce to myself, wondering where the thought to do so came from. Which leads me to the more difficult part of my mission, getting that dart back and seeing what information I can grab from noble gossip.

After quickly avoiding a guard patrol by blending in with a nicely sized crowd around a market stand, I pull out my compass and it appears to be pointing directly at the mountain. I look up and stare at the oversized palace and the single, thankfully paved, pathway leading up to it. ‘Looks like I’ll be working a night shift’ I tell myself, seeing the only other path to the upper levels of the city occupied by the steel abomination.

After finding a decent inn where I haggled for the price and pickpocketed an unfortunate man for a few of his coins to pay for the room when I got the bill. I decided to settle down for the day until night befalls this place, thinking back and wondering why in the seven hells something as innocent looking as the thing on the tracks could scare me so badly.

(POV: Gralon the Paladin)

(An a few minutes earlier…)

As I wipe the sweat from my brow I look down at my creation. A fine specimen of a two hander if I ever saw one. 50 inches in length from point to pommel, the thing’s longer than I am tall, and giving it four inches between the blades made it just about as heavy as I am too. Along the flats of that blade, mirrored perfectly to each other, danced lines of runes glowing blue with the power flowing through them as they swirled and backtracked on themselves, seeming to move along the steel by themselves as I look at them.

The parrying hooks, defining where it was, and was not safe to grab the weapon were styled after dragons heads, open and roaring as the miniature steel teeth and spines presented themselves as a threat. The length of steel between the hooks and the guard, designed to act as a secondary grip was shaped to look like the intertwined bodies of the Drake heads as they perched on the branch of some great tree the steel bark and leaves forming the guard and the dragon’s tails flowing around and together to make the grip, and wrapping around a marble sized circular ruby as the pommel.

In all, worth a pretty bit of silver, though It’ll be impossible to tell if it’s worth half as much in a fight until Zurug gets back from wherever in the seven hells he ran off to. Some gods forsaken beach at the edge of civilization to take care of a fish problem by Belkas’ count.

After inspecting my newest creation, I carefully set it in one of the many empty weapons racks I have around the forge. With that completed, I walk out to see Belkas still at the walls performing all of the rituals needed for the wards. He’s been at it for almost the entire day now and I’m sure he’ll be forced to continue throughout the night. i

Eh’ not my problem anyway, anything that did come through the gate without an invitation would get my war axe to the face. Either way, it looks like I am fending for myself in the kitchens tonight. I always save a nice bottle of mead for myself during times like this, when everyone else is gone or busy, and I don’t have to look over my shoulder every two minutes for someone worried I’ll drink myself dead, even though we dwarves can drink three times our weight in alcohol and come out of it with nothing more than a hangover.

As I grab my bottle, I can’t help but picture the barrels of the stuff I keep in the keep’s basement, giving a smile at my plans for the night.

'Although I do wonder where that lazy guy Fredrich is off to now... Eh, not my problem.'

(POV: Fredrich the Rogue)

(Back at the inn…)

I look over my equipment one last time, several feet of climbing rope and grappling hook, plenty of smoke bombs should I get found, my trusty blowgun with the darts dipped in sedative which should knock someone out in seconds, and a single parrying dagger just incase. Combined with my black attire I should be able to quickly make it up the side of the mountain and into the palace to grab what I came here for and finally get this mission done with.

I watch as the metal beast leaves form the mountain and heads off for some destination unknown. With that thing gone, I’ll use the tracks that it ran on to get me close to the palace since it hugs the cliff face, I’ll be easily able to blend in with the side of the mountain if someone is unlucky enough to come my way.

With that thought I walk over to the tracks and jump onto them where I cautiously follow the tracks up the mountain. To my luck, the tracks actually dig into and through the mountain at several points which I can use to hide out if I get spotted in the near future. Although I doubt that which, while convenient for my purposes, left me shuddering at the thought of being pressed between the abomination and the wall of carved stone.

After a grueling time following the tracks I finally make it to where that ‘thing’ parks near the palace. On the platform next to the tracks I can spot two guards lazily patrolling around. This shouldn't need more than a thrown rock to get their attention.

With that simple plan down I grab a small pebble from next to the track and I throw it at one of the many gas lamps that dot this area. Although I may have thrown it a bit too hard, the pebble hits its mark but it also breaks the glass and somehow puts out the flame inside. Granted it does the job of getting the guards attention.

I use the time they are freaking out to slip away from the tracks and into the palace grounds, to which is more or less like the higher class districts, with the palace at the back. Thankfully there are a few alleyways I can use to get close to the palace itself. Only having to dodge one patrol along the way, to which I just hid behind some trash cans until they moved on.

Which brings me to my next problem, there is a nice big wall protecting the palace which is guarded both on the ground and in the air. Granted, this precise scenario is why I brought the grappling hook, unfortunately, said hook is hard to miss when set against white marble and it’d take far too long to climb the height of the wall to do it without being spotted.

That’s when an idea hits my mind, although it might not be worth it if this goes downhill. I backpedal to the small alleyway where I had to dodge some guards earlier where I go back into my hiding spot. I didn’t have to wait long as a pair of guards comes from down the street.

As they pass by the mouth to the alley I kick over some garbage cans to grab their attention, and get them out of the streetlight. I watch as both guards stop, their ears perked and facing my way. One of them motions for his partner to stay there while he cautiously advances into the darkness. Not aware of the threat/non-threat that was hiding within as I pull my blowgun and a dart. This is where it gets tricky, when I knock this guy out, I’m not going to be in a position to catch him, he’s going to make noise, which means his partner will know something happened resulting in either A: He follows his partner into the dark and gets knocked out for his trouble, or B: He does the smart thing and marches his happy ass back to the castle to gather his friends, and when they find his partner here, effectively put a time limit on my operation and give them cause to suspect something amiss.

I wait a moment for the guard near me to present a good shot. It doesn't take long.

“Urk.” The guard urks as he drops, making a predictable racket, Now, for the moment defining the rest of my night.

“C-cloud? You okay in there?” I hear the other say, mentally celebrating as he creeps closer, decorative spear caught in a death grip. A newbie then.

It doesn’t take long for him to spot the lump on the ground, rushing forward to crouch by his friend and put a finger to his neck. Likely finding the dart along with the pulse he’s looking for. ‘Heh, nice kid’ I think to myself before I plant a dart in the kids neck, dropping him next to his friend.

I step out of the alleyway, decorative spear in hand, unfamiliar armor on my body, and a cookie cutter cut out of a stallions face overlapping my own. As I start making my way back to the palace, imitating the guards march as best as I could without hooves I mentally thank the pair that made my night, chuckling at the state I left them in.

Moving on, I quickly found my way to the front gate of the palace, quickly passing between the guards standing on either side of the entrance, finding myself on the edge of a pretty luxurious courtyard.

Marching forward without missing a beat, and subtly pulling out my compass, taking note of where the needle is facing, I turn myself towards a building separate from the castle proper I caught out of the corner of my eye likely used as storage for the carriages.

Making my way across the courtyard without any trouble I get on the other side of the doors, finding myself in pitch darkness and surrounded by shadows that were likely carriages sitting and gathering dust.

Finally nearing my objective, it feels like the moment is missing something but I’m not sure what it could be before a sudden thought struck.

“I’m in.” I say with a large grin across my face. Finding that that was exactly what the moment needed ‘for some reason’ I figure as I start making my way between the carriages, my eyes on my compass as I think of better times, specifically the ones of my laying in bed doing nothing.

Chapter 6: Bragging rights.

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter 7: 'A Fish Fry and Some Light Reading.'

(POV: Kasula the Sorceress)

It has been an interesting two days during our walk to the site. Granted we had to wait a short while in a field for some flying chariot to pick us up along the way, apparently the princess that hired us needed us there as soon as possible. I did however get to observe some of the local flora when we touched down for the night. The guards that came with our merry band of adventurers have been wary of all three of us since we left the fort and their royal highness. With good reason, as Zurug could turn them to paste in a few seconds if he so chose, I could do the same but with a different tool, and Talia even quicker but from a distance. But still, it stung a little.

Sure we do a lot of questionable things if the coin is good enough, but we’re not that bad of people… well Fredrich is an exception, but still. And then there was that thing with Gralon and the sheep, but that was under extenuating circumstances so it doesn’t count. Hopefully, after we put down their pest problem, they’ll see us in a different light.

The carriage starts to descend from the skies I decide to look out the window, because I need a change of scenery from the one I currently have of Zurug drooling all over the carriage in his sleep.

The land around us is a lightly wooded area consisting of mostly open fields just before reaching the coastline, I can make out a decent encampment in one of the said fields. Assuming from the size of the place from this distance, I’m guessing there’s probably about a little over one hundred soldiers, give or take thirty I figure.

“Thalia, do you think you can wake Zurug. We’re about to land here.” I politely ask her as she’s sitting next to me testing the string on her bow.

“Yeah, I can do that.” She says to me before leaning her bow up against the wall of the carriage then proceeds to punching Zurug several times in the arm as hard as she could without hurting herself.

Zurug stops his drooling as he is rudely awakened to the world around him, he instinctively grabs his warhammer which is across his lap before getting a good look at his surroundings.

“WHY WAKE ZURUG?” He asks Thalia, slightly annoyed he didn't get a nice wakeup.

“Because, we’re here.” I simply tell him right as the carriage hits the ground with a light bump.

We all feel the chariot stop followed by several knocks on the side of the carriage, indicating that we should get out now. I open the door to the outside world where I get a good look at the encampment. There are fairly flashy tents that are brightly colored, no army in their right mind would use such silly things, it’s almost like they want to be spotted from several miles away. I notice some of the soldiers look at our group as Thalia exits followed closely by Zurug.

Most of the soldiers visibly tense when the seven foot half-orc steps out of the carriage with his massive warhammer dragging lazily on the ground. Gralon always hated when he did that, ‘ruined the weapon’ he said. I turn to one of the two guards that came with us on this trip.

“So, any idea where the leader of this encampment is?”

“It should be right up ahead of the carriage a ways. Just follow us.” He says to me, I simply nod and I know my companions heard him also.

After passing a good amount of confused soldiers we reach a fairly large tent that can be considered the command tent as it easily sticks out in the encampment.

“Wait here one moment.” The guard tells me before heading inside the tent.

He comes out a few moments later. “Alright, you can go in.”

The three of us enter the tent, the first things we notice is that there’s some kind of magical projection of some landscape above a table. There’s four people around the table, three of them are wearing armor similar to the soldiers outside, though these ones have capes each one a different color probably indicating some kind of rank and division. The last being at the table looks similar to Princess Selene, in that she is exactly her opposite. While Selene had a navy blue coat, this one has pure white fur, along with some rainbow colored hair, similar to a cyan being that Zurug was talking about earlier that got in his face, stupid as that was. And to top it all off, her hair some somehow moving without any wind, probably a spell of some kind.

All four of them look over at us as we approach them, each one of them sizing us up.

“Ah, you must be the soldiers that my sister has hired.” The white one addresses us.

“Your assumption is correct, I am the sorceress Kasula and these are some of my companions. The big guy is Zurug and this is Thalia.” I gesture to them both. “And we prefer the term ‘mercenaries’” I correct her.

“It’s nice to meet you, I am Princess Celestia, co-ruler of Equestria and these are my lieutenants, Nible Force, Swift Bolt, and Emerald Star.” She introduces her group, the colors of their capes going from red, to blue, to green.

“So, you are mercenaries then. Are you aware of what you’ve been hired to help with?” getting right to the point.

“Yes we do, we handle these sort of problems all the time.” I tell her.

“I can't help but be slightly sceptical of your claims, we’ve lost several of our guards to these monsters.” She tells us.

“Well, when the next attack comes, let us know and we’ll handle it.”

“You can’t be serious!” The one named ‘Swift Bolt’ yells at us. “It takes three of our guards to take down one of the little buckers! There’s no way you can take them all on your own!”

“THEN YOU ARE WEAKER THAN WE FIRST ANTICIPATED.” Zurug helpfully puts his two silver into the conversation. With that he heads outside the tent, I’m assuming to find somewhere to finish his nap.

“Unfortunately he’s right.” Thalia adds. “If it takes a few of your guards to bring down one Kao-toa, then either your guards are pretty specifically incompetent, or someone screwed up their training and made them too soft.”

“I’m sorry, Kao-Toa?” Celestia asks, pointedly ignoring Thalia’s critique of her military.

“The generally accepted name of the fish cultists you’re having a problem with.”

“I see, well. I suppose there is little else to do but wait in any case. I will see to it that you and your companions are informed when the next group of these ‘Kao-Toa’ arrive on the beach. You’ll find a guard waiting outside to guide you to the accommodations we’ve had prepared.”

“Thanks.” is all I say before I turn to head out of the tent with Thalia in tow. Coming out from the tent I see Zurug standing around looking down on all the guards, he’s probably trying to find someone worthy to spar with but I doubt he’ll have any luck here.

“Zurug!” I call to him. “Come on, we’re going to our spot in the encampment!”

He simply nods while hoisting up his warhammer to be slung back across his shoulder. At least he’s not tearing up the grass in a long line like he did coming here from the carriage. Not that it matters to me what he does with his weapon, but I don't feel like having to listen to Gralon complain all day when I get back.

With that done I turn to look at one of the guards that are standing outside the grand tent here where I ask him to direct us to our spot in the encampment. Rather than pointing us in any one direction, he asks us to follow and starts making his way through the sea of fabric and ponies. Which is apparently what the main race here in Equestria calls themselves, according to Belkas anyway. I don’t really see the resemblance, but it’s not my species so I won’t judge.

When we arrive at our destination I notice that our little spot is on the very edge of the camp, closest to the direction of the beach. Our little site has three single person tents and a small pile of rocks to make a fire ring to cook on. I only brought enough provisions to last for four days, and I used two of them up already on the way here. We shouldn't be here very long anyways, considering it should be pretty easy… I probably just cursed our luck. Oh well.

Zurug immediately walks to the rightmost tent, setting his hammer down in front of it and crawling inside to take a nap. Figures he would want to finish what he started earlier today. Thalia actually starts going over her weapons after grabbing the middle tent for herself. As for myself, I decide to go over all the spells I would need for a possible fight later, mostly picking attack spells with only a few support spells to assist. As well as one ‘just in case’ to deal with whatever might come of my lack of caution.

After prepping the spells I wanted to use in a fight, I decide I should rest up for whenever the attack somes. Knowing the Kao-Toa they’ll either attack at night or at dusk, either one works for me. With that in mind, I climb into the small tent that’s left for myself and head off into dreamland.

I reawaken an unknown amount of time later to Thalia pushing me about.

“Wake up, the Kao-Toa are on the move.” That’s all the notion I need to get myself up and out of my tent in several seconds. Zurug’s already standing around with his warhammer in a menacing position in his hands all the while grinning like a madman. There are several guards running about the encampment while a single guard is waiting for us, I’m assuming the same one that came to inform us of the attack.

“Alright team, let’s kill some Kao-Toa and roast them over an open fire.” Thalia just nods at my little speech while Zurug gives a mighty battle cry as we follow our guide who’s leading us to the mass of soldiers gathering a bit aways.

After a short run to the battle lines to which I notice that their Princess is going to lead them in the defence, it’s always nice to see a leader have some fight in them and willing to join in the bloodshed, unlike those ungrateful pricks that sit on their chairs and pretend to play general. She’s wearing a impressive set of golden full plate armor and a greatsword to match the armor was floating by her side in her telekinetic grip.

“It’s always nice to see a ruler on the field of battle with their troops, really tells someone how much they care about their citizens when the meet a threat head on.” I say to her as me and my companions approach.

She looks to us with a serious express upon her face. “Thank you for the compliment, however we can talk more after we push back this attack.”

“Fair enough.” I reply, readying my first spell and drawing my mace from its loop on my belt as the first bulbous head started approaching from the water. After several seconds the ugly creature comes out of the water, its fish head looking around the beach then to the army assembled two hundred feet ahead of it. Raising its head, it lets out a series of clicks, louder than it looked capable of producing, and charged straight at the line of armor, a full score of it’s fishy brethren coming from the water, running a pace behind the leader each of them armed with flimsy spears in their grips.

I finish the preparation for my spell right as they get to roughly 120 feet away from the line, well in the spells range. I thrust my left hand into the air and speak the words to cast ’Ice Storm’, several dozen rock sized ice chunks form in the air and a few seconds later come crashing down on three of the Kao-Toa, practically bludgeoning them to death with the hail of ice chunks.

Zurug takes this as his que to charge them, as is his nature, his longer legs taking him to them faster than they were coming to us. Holding his warhammer high in the air for an overhead hit, he charges the first of many Kao-Toa and promptly turns its head into nothing more than mush with a single hit, his hammer coming out of its cranium to swing at another one that came to avenge its friend. Who then promptly gets a hit right in the torso and sent flying back into the water. Just as he’s about to do the same to yet another, an arrow courtesy of Thalia pierces its head, a grunt of annoyance coming from the half orc.

Thalia, coming to the support of Zurug fires an arrow from her longbow at one of the Kao-toa in Zurug’s blind spot to make up for stealing his kill earlier, the arrow piercing its weak flesh right in the abdomen. She then knocks another arrow and fires again at the same creature, this time piercing its throat, effectively killing it.

I look back for a moment to see what the army is doing and they seem to be standing there, waiting for the Kao-toa to come to them and not even in the slightest help us. Not like we need it anyway, might as well put on a good show for the Princess, repeat customers are the best kind of customers after all. Deciding on a nice flashy spell that does good damage, I cast ’Chain Lightning’ shouting for Zurug to get down as I do. A single large bolt of lightning leaps from my fingertips lances over Zurugs head and fries one of the Kao-Toa before the lightning jumps off his body and hits three others, internally and externally cooking all four of them to a crisp.

Rising from his crouch with an upward swing of his hammer, Zurug launches another fish into the air, it impacting the sand with a dull thud and making a crater as he turns his quite lethal attention to the next one. This one actually manages to land a hit with its spear upon Zurug’s armored form, the spear hits his breastplate and the tip of the spear snaps off from the force used behind it. The fish only had a split second to regret his decision before his ribcage is caved in.

Thalia aims for one to the back of the group, launches an arrow right into its open maw and out the back of its neck as its screaming and running up the beach like a deranged animal. All noise from it stops as it plops down in the sand dead. Another arrow is launched from her bow which flies past my shoulder and hits one of them in it’s bulging eyeball only 40 feet away from me.

I spot a small group of Kao-Toa running up the back, two of them are carrying chiten shields while two more are following behind them, I decide to cast a favorite of all magic users ’Fireball’ right into the center of their group, flash frying them in an explosion which leaves a small hunk of glass on the ground where they once stood, now decorating the glass plate with their corpses, like a fine dinner for a giant. All it needs is a bit of seasoning.

There’s only a single Kao-Toa left on the beach which Zurug is standing over, about to bash the poor thing into the sand with his hammer, but he never gets the chance as an arrow decides to pierce its skull before he can get hit.

“RRRRAAAAAAAGGGH!” is the noise that comes from my usually tactile friend, as he beats the corpse into a red paste that’s quickly absorbed by the sand.

“DON’T STEAL ZURUG’S KILLS! ZURUG WILL HURT YOU NO MATTER HOW MUCH HE LIKES YOU!” he yells at Thalia, pointing the blood soaked head of his hammer at her. She only gives him a smirk and a shrug in response.

“You actually managed to defeat all of the cre- Kao-Toa, by yourselves. And here I though you were just another group trying to swindle money off of me.” I hear Celestia’s voice behind me. To which I turn around and give a smile.

“We’re professionals ma’am, now I do believe we are in need of payment since you did bring it up.”

“Very well, how much did my sister say you would get paid. She didn't mention it in the letter she sent to me.”

“Let’s see, there’s roughly twenty dead… 25 pieces a head should bring us to 500 ‘bits’ I believe they were called.” I tell her after doing some quick math.

“.... That explains why she didn’t tell me.” She says, magicking up the hefty sum of coinage and passing it to me.

“Thank you for doing business with the Steel Strong Adventuring Guild.” I say after grabbing the money and placing it all in my bag of holding to be sorted out later. Both Zurug and Thalia come over a moment later where I nod to them.

“Our work here is-” And that’s when I get interrupted by some flying pony yelling for its princess.

Figuring that whatever caused that reaction was probably on the beach, I look over to see an absolutely huge crest of black coral shooting up out of the water, and getting bigger as it gets closer, soon revealing that the crest was actually attached to the head of some giant twenty foot godsforsaken creature. Turning back to Celestia, who’s staring at the thing in horror as it gets larger, I clear my throat to get her attention.

“This is going to cost you a bit extra, princess.” I tell her, charging up my ‘just in case’, an orange glow encompassing my hands as a spell array forms around my feet carving the sigils into the sand and glowing the same orange as magical power is pushed through them. I build up this power for several seconds before releasing my ninth tier spell ’Meteor Swarm’, four layers of a similar array forming over the recently revealed torso of the creature before a dull roaring could be heard in the distance behind us.

It doesn’t take long for a 40ft by 40ft rock, currently on fire and traveling faster than any living creature could survive passed over our heads in the blink of an eye, impacting the creature and driving it into the sand, throwing a flood of sand into the ocean and forming a crater in the beach lined in glass, shaking the ground and sending most that were on the ground and weren’t expecting it sprawling which was pretty much everyone but my friends and I and the princess.

Then, three more stones of equal size shot overhead and arc’d down to the bottom of the crater one after the other. Shattering the glass and reforming it three times in an instant and sending a plume of sand and glass shards 80 feet high into the air.

Once the dust from the impacts had settled, I turn back to the Princess, a devious thought entering my mind.

“That’ll be another 500 bits if you please.” I tell her, she magics up a mound of money and passes it to me silently, not taking her eyes off the hole that hid the carcass of a thing that likely would have easily slaughtered everyone on this beach before she could take it down if we weren’t here.
I probably didn't have to use my best spell on it, but I had to put on a show.

Belkas the Monk

“Thank you Fredrich, excellent work as always.” I tell him as he sets down a nice stack of books in front of me. The table in the library now becoming the new home for the assorted information Fredrich stole.

Looking at the cover of the book on top of the stack I see an illustration of a crystalline heart surrounded by some sort of wind or snow spirit with a depiction of six ponies on either edge, the ones on the left look to be encased in ice or some kind of clear crystal while the ones on the right look to be about to do battle with the spirit.
Figuring this was as good a place to start as any on the stack of books, I take it from the literary tower and prepare myself to read. Opening the front cover, I find a foreword written in particularly elegant script . Apparently this was the true story behind a rather popular holiday story here, as written by a ‘Princess Celestia’ I’m assuming to be the sister of Princess Selene.

Now, according to this book, there was three leaders to ‘tribes’ of different races of ponies. Apparently in the moderated version, they got out of their ice coverings with ‘The Magic of Friendship’ as much as I scoff at that. What apparently actually happened is that they all died as frozen meatcicles and their primary advisors took control of the respective countries to form a temporary alliance against these ‘windigos’.

By time that all happened, any and all fighting against the windigos was a lost cause. So they retreated south to warmer conditions. Where instead of the Windigos being the main threat, they were instead facing the combined militaries of Bullgaria and the Griffon Empire, two of the world powers at the time. The war lasted for five years until the Griffon Emperor died from natural causes, as dying from deadly nightshade was quite common and as an herb, was completely natural, it only growing in Equestria, and not recognized as a poison by the griffic physician was a complete coincidence.. Bullgaria’s king decided it was better to pick off a weakened allie than to continue to attack ‘Equestria’ the pony nation as they called it. Thus signing a ten year armistice, between the two and continuing to war with the griffons until they suffered a major defeat at the hands of the griffon’s new king.

It was around this time that the spirits of the sun and moon came to Equis in the forms of a pair of alicorns, Celestia Invictus and Selene Noctis, to lead the ponies into a new era both as protectors and diplomats as they were unable to aid their mortal brethren as the war previous raged.

With both world powers weakened, Equestria, formed from the united pony tribes and lead by the alicorn spirits, was able to establish itself as a recognized country, quickly placing itself over both the Griffons and Minotaurs in terms of political power, and with the sun and moon under the command of the ponies new leaders, they gained military immunity due to the assured destruction of all life on the planet should both fall.

And so, the ponies were brought into a golden age of peace as those that would harm them were brought low by their own treachery and ageless spirits armed with the wisdom of eons led them into prosperity.

I set the book off to the side where I plan to start my ‘finished’ pile. I grab another and flip it to the first page.

‘Combat through the ages’ by Captain Stonewall. Interesting.

(POV ???)

I give a sigh in boredom around the femur in my teeth, my butt firmly planted on one of the many parapets decorating the walls of my mountain keep and my eyes on the horizon. I couldn’t see much for the mountain in the way, but a view isn’t needed for dramatic brooding.

Giving another sigh, I crunch the femur in my teeth, catching the half that falls out, and probing the one that stuck for the cooked marrow I knew to be inside as I remove myself from my stone seat. Moving across the stone towards the staircase, I finish sucking my bone and grind the shell up before swallowing and put the other half of my snack between my jaws.

Heading down the stairs as I finish my femur I look over the stone courtyard, empty except for the keep itself and an open forge off to one side. In the forge’s general area I have a stone cauldron I use to ‘refine’ the steel I collect as well as I can without an actual facility, heading over to said cauldron I see that it had slagged over the top in the time I spent brooding. I must have been at it longer than I thought.

Letting that thought slip away I Scoop the slag out with my claws onto the cobblestone at my feet. A process that would leave most others injured and likely to never use their appendages again if they tried it. Seeing the red molten liquid beneath cleared up I take the time to heat the stone again, taking a deep breath I then release a flame from my mouth easily able to melt steel and cook flesh in an instant on the bottom of the cauldron I made from stone for this specific reason.

Leaving the melted steel for now, I head over to the other side of the forge where I’m smoking the goblin flesh I’d brought in the day before. Taking a strip of flesh I have on the line over the fire, I give it a taste, deciding that they were done I remove my jacket and undershirt, technically a Hitatare and Kosode according to my father figure, and smother the flames with my chest and wingspan, rolling around to be sure it was out, and standing to take the line down, leaving my upper body dressings where they were until I had a bath. It wouldn’t do to get ash all over the cotton weave.

As I’m heading inside my stone home, shirtless and with a line of meat dragging behind me, I pause, a deep rushing from the air causing me to perk my ear fins before a giant flaming ball of stone shoots across the sky, quickly followed by three others.

“Well… I might as well see where those are headed.” I tell myself in my slow baritone before looking down at my chest. “After dinner and a bath though... It wouldn’t do to introduce myself half naked and covered in ash after all.”

Author's Note

'Chapter 7 : A Fish Fry and Some Light Reading.' was made possible by the joint effort of: kamachkta and SovietVodkaMix

Fish sticks! Fish Sticks for sale! $.99 each! ~

Chapter 8: Communication and Cleanliness

(POV: Celestia)

I stood there staring at the massive crater in the sand, the magic I felt off the girl was nothing I have experienced before. It was almost raw power she was emanating, and her companions were no lightweights either. The big one smashed and bashed his way through everything that came near him while the other girl gave support from her bow. Everything they did was like a well oiled machine, it takes years to refine that kind of teamwork. There’s no doubt about their skill in their trade, perhaps my sister overpaid them, but seeing them in action and doing what seventy of my guards could not do, it was well worth the money. Not to mention that huge monstrosity that rose out of the sea, and they just defeated it like it was just an average day on the job for anypony.

I shake myself free from my thoughts to see the mercenaries heading back to the camp

“Excuse me, Kasula was it?” I ask, catching up to the three of them as my guards dispersed back into the camp now that there was no more threat.

“Yes, that is my name. What do you require Princess?” The lady turns to me as she motions for her companions to continue onwards.

“You have to tell me what were those spells you used against the monsters.”

“Ah, Princess, that kind of information will cost you some more bits.” She says with a sly smirk.

“You can’t be serious, you could save lives with the information you’re withholding. Do you not care about those around you?” I ask her, somewhat appalled that she would demand money for information that could save Equestria from these attacks.

“Excuse me Princess, but where I come from there’s a saying ‘Cash makes the world go round.’ and that’s true everywhere in the world. Even here I’d imagine. You want information from our guild, you pay for it.” She tells me with a hit of annoyance in her voice.

“Fine, how much do you require?” I sigh, if I have to pay a some bits to save the lives of my little ponies then it’s a small price to pay.

“100 bits.” She tells me with an innocent smile.

“100 bits!? Why would you need that much for information on a few spells?” I reply

“Supply and demand Princess, You need my information badly and I so happen to have it, so I can charge whatever rate I want. Oh and before you think about asking the other two, they’ll charge more for less info than I got. The only information we give out for free is cooking lessons from Zurug, only because he enjoys that stuff. So what’ll it be?”

“Fine. 100 bits for information of several spells. Including.” I state, raising a finger when she opens her mouth to interject. “The one that did that. I finish, pointing my raised finger at the glass lined crater in the beach.”

“Alright, I’ll tell you since you’re paying, but before we can even get to any of the high tier stuff we need to see what your magic level is at. So, let me cast a spell on you which will determine what magic level and type you are.” She explains to me, to which I just nod. Kasula raises har hand and points to me and mutters something to which I spot a small rune appear at the end of her finger and glow a variety of colors.

“Hmmm… that’s slightly troubling.” She says after she’s done casting the spell. “Your magic type is that of pure magic.”

“Is that a bad thing…?” I ask cautiously.

“Well… Yes and no. While pure magic is some of the most useful magic in terms of assistance it is limited to just telekinesis and enchantments and some light teleportation even though it can be cast as much as you wanted. For the spells you want to do, pure magic will not cut it even close, even though you have the biggest pure magic store I’ve sensed in an individual thus far. You’d probably only be able to make it to third tier magic.” The girl says, holding up three of her spindly fingers to illustrate, reminding me of a spider in how they seemed to dance and curl on themselves as she spoke.

“I’m sorry, but could you elaborate on what this ‘tier’ system is? And is there a way I can cast that magic you used to crush the tall creature.”

“Hmmm… I do know a way that might help with casting higher tier spells. Although it involves changing your magic type. I have heard some rumors of pure magic users changing magic types, but I’ll have to do some research and get back to you on that one. As for your first question. The ‘tier’ system is used to cast certain spells, for example, that spell I cast to bash the creature into the ground with space rocks is a ninth tier spell while the fiery explosion was only a third. The tiers go from zero to nine, each tier of spell you know gradually gains in power as your overall magic level goes up. Which reminds me…”

“Yes…?”

“Your magic level is… if I condense pure magic into the spells… you're at a level five in magic.”

“Wait, didn't you just say I could cast tier three magic? What’s this magic level you’re talking about?”

“A Magic level is how many spells of each tier you can cast. There is a perfect equation for each level. I’m assuming you’re at a level five with just pure magic but I’ll have to do some more extensive studies on your magic to be exact. Also, even though you have a huge pure magic store in you it is very light, the spells I use are more condensed thus packing more of a punch.”

“So what you’re saying is while I have the power to cast some of the spells you can do, I can’t because of my magic type. Is that correct?”

“Precisely Princess. While you technically can cast the same spells, pure magic is almost useless in any role other than to help power someone else's spell.”

“Alright, next. Do you know what that giant monster was that came out of the ocean?”

“It looked similar to a Myconid, but it had an odd look to it. It shouldn't be that big or even have black and green coral all over it. To top it off, that stuff it was oozing is not natural. If I didn't incinerate it twice over I would have loved to study it.”

“I see, do you perhaps have more knowledge on the other creatures attacking Equestria and maybe a way to defeat them.”

“That depends on what creatures are attacking, it would also help if you didn't have poor quality soldiers who seemed a little distraught at fighting. But I can offer information on the creatures as they show up, for a price of course.”

“I see.Well, I’ll be in contact with your guild. Now, if you’ll excuse me I must prepare the spell to send us all back home.” I tell her before heading back to the main part of camp thinking about all the secrets and knowledge they have about these creatures.

(POV: Kasula the Sorceress)

With a little more gold...er well bits now, in the pocket from some magical information that’s almost useless to her, I return to our portion of the camp… where Zurug is taking his tent down and packing it in his bag.

“Zurug, how many times do I have to tell you not to take everything that’s given to us to use.”

“ZURUG WANTS A COLORFUL TENT, AND HE WILL HAVE ONE FROM THE SMALL HORSE PEOPLE.”

“Well, I do have to agree with him. The fabric on these tents are nice and would make for some nice sheets or even spare materials to repair clothes.” I hear Thalia say just before she emerges from her tent.

“You do realise I have a spell that can repair stuff like that.”

“You’ve told us on multiple occasions, but I like to do it myself from time to time. Keeps me from going nuts around the fort when there’s no jobs coming in. Kinda like right now.”

“Well, I expect that to change here in a bit now that we got to show the royalty our stuff. Anyway, you know the drill, I’ll prepare the teleportation circle to take us back.”

With that being said, both Zurug and Thalia got packing everything they brought with, including the tents. I got a feeling Zurug is going to be sleeping outside in his new tent tonight. Anyway, I start drawing the runes in the ground in a ten foot circle and imbue it with a bit of my magic, when both Zurug and Thalia get in the circle I power it up sending us home.

(A few hours later back at the royal palace...)

(POV: Luna)

“So sister, how was the battle with the fish people.” I say taking a sip from the cup of tea that she made for me.

“Kao-Toa, actually, as I’ve been told. It was, informative. And expensive. And a little horrifying.” My sister responds between sips of her own tea on the other side of the table.

“Care to explain a little more sister? I’m not really in the mood to read your mind at the moment.”

“Well.” She starts, putting her cup on its saucer. “I ended up spending eleven hundred bits on these mercenaries of yours. I found out that they might have all sorts of information on the creatures we face right now. As well, I was given quite the demonstration of Miss Kasula’s destructive ability.”

“Ah, the girl in the red dress I presume? So, what did she accomplish that had you spending over a thousand bits?”

“She summoned four rocks from your sky and brought them down upon the giant creature that towered easily five times my height, killing it and turning a part of the beach to glass.”

I nearly make a spit take with my tea at the notion. “She took rocks from my sky and used them to defeat a creature!?”

“It was more of an incineration, but yes sister.”

“It seems that there is more to these ‘mercenaries’ than we first expected, let alone that they are clearly a different race from any I can remember having met.”

“Indeed, then perhaps-” My sister was interrupted by the dining room door slamming open and a guard rushing in.

“I’m sorry to disturb you your highnesses, but this is an urgent matter.”

“Then speak, what has happened guard?” I ask him.

“Everything in the restricted section of the archives have gone missing.”

“... What?”

“U-um, everything in the restricted section of the archives has gone missing?”

“That’s what I thought you said. I’m afraid, dear sister, that we will have to continue this some other time.” She tells me, exiting the room and motioning for the guard to follow her.

“We have a restricted section?” I can’t help but question the furnishings in our tea room, the thought of something like that confusing me.

Since when where we anything but open and honest with all of our little ponies?

(POV ???)

I give a sigh as I wing myself forward through the night air, boredom having set in long ago after I began this particular trip and the steady brightening on the horizon spoke to just how long I’d been flying.

As the sky brightens further I find myself looking down at a beach, the lighting turning the sand gray and the depths of the crater near the water’s edge pitch black. Giving another sigh, this one in relief at finally probably arriving, and making a mental note to start counting just how many times I sigh in a day, I pull my wings in and start an aileron roll, using the centrifugal force to launch my sword blade first at the sand, and dropping myself soon after.

Landing in a crouch and kicking up a plume of sand, I look around as I stand, taking my sword in hand and making my way towards the crater I saw from the air. On my way, I spot several forms, shadowed in the dim lighting hunched over something. As I draw nearer I gather their attention in turn, the lot of them hissing expletives in fishic, a sub dialect of Draconic I have a passing knowledge of, and charging straight at me with little regard for subtlety or technique.

It takes a matter of seconds for me to unwrap my blade and dispatch my four assailants with its spine, taking a moment to examine one of the bodies and finding a Kao-Toa. Dreadful things that they are, with their bulbous eyes and general lack of any kind of decency. I’m sure there’s a decent one, maybe even more than one out there somewhere, I just haven’t met them yet.

Finishing my inner triad as I approach the thing the Kao-Toa were huddled around, I find the half eaten remains of another of their kind. ‘Lack of decency indeed’ I think to myself with a derisive ‘hmmph’ and continue on my way to the crater, dispatching more of the Kao-Toa as they notice me and invariably attack. With each group of them gathered around the corpses of their fallen and more sprouting from the sea at a respectable rate, likely drawn in by the scent of recently spilled blood, I make my way along easily enough, most of the Kao-Toa distracted enough by the smell of ‘food’ such as it was, that they didn’t bother with me unless I was directly in their sight.

Approaching the crater I notice the sand getting, sharper? Looking down I see glittering shards of shattered glass covering this part of the beach, a piece having gotten lodged between a pair of scales on my foot. Quickly picking it out, I continue forward, largely unconcerned by the dull pricks.

At the edge of the crater, made entirely of broken, sharpened glass, I look into the abating darkness to the sight of something absolutely huge and charred beyond recognition lying at the bottom. Jumping into the darkness and landing heavily on yet more sharp pieces of glass, I come face to smell with the stink of pure corruption encasing the corpse before me. Figuring that it’d be best to finish destroying it rather than wait for the darkness to seep out of the hardened flesh of what this thing used to be, I take a breath, almost gagging at the taste of the air down here, and push, sending a jet of flames at it and setting it alight, illuminating the area arounds me and sending spots of light dancing across nearly every available surface as it was reflected by the innumerable glass shards.

Figuring I’d best leave the impending inferno before my clothing was singed I leap out of the hole with the aid of my wings, landing once more on the significantly less gray sand. And as I look around the beach I come to a decision, it was time to clean. After all, it wouldn’t do to leave all this filth mulling about.

Hours later, I’m left sitting on the perfectly sand colored sand next to a 30 foot tall bonfire and staring at the sun finally making it’s way over from the edge of the world. Looking around I feel a sense of satisfaction, there were no bodies, hostile fish, or glass shards waiting to catch the unwary and fragile off guard.

Getting up and turning back inland in preparation to head home I catch sight of something interesting in the distance, a rather expensive looking city was mounted on the side of a mountain.

“Well… Might as well see what that’s about.” I tell myself, before looking down at my chest. “After breakfast and a bath though. It wouldn’t do to introduce myself while I’m covered in blood and sand after all.”

Author's Note

'Chapter 8: Communication and Cleanliness' was made possible by the joint effort of: kamachkta and SovietVodkaMix

Soon all will be revealed about our mystery person. Soon...

....Yes....

On another note, to keep in mind that if you spot any errors in the work. Please do point them out, we'll fix them as soon as we can.