I turned to Tenna and Boomstick whom were waiting patiently behind me. "I'm going to scout ahead for a moment. I haven't been this close before, and I don't want to lead us into their caves completely blind. Don't draw any attention to yourselves, and try to stay quiet."

Tenna made some sort of gesture with his hand onto his forehead before pointing at me with it. "Yes, ma'am!"

My confused look and raised eyebrow told him I had no idea what he just did.

"It's a salute." He grumbled. "Jus' get goin', would ya?"

I nodded and peeked over a large rock to see if the Pack had moved. They were still doing whatever it was that Diamond Dogs did, rolling around and probably fighting amongst themselves by the looks of it. I checked Tenna and Boomstick one last time as I stood up and caught them staring at my flank again.

"Do you two want to have a quickie, or what?"

Their eyes both shot up to mine with a guilty expression before they darted away, exaggerating coughs and looking overly serious.

"No-no, we're just um..." Tenna trailed.

"Coverin' your flank!" Boomstick finished. Tenna groaned.

"I can see that." I deadpanned. "Are you two going to be able to focus if everything goes wrong?"

"We'll be perfectly professional!" Tenna replied with another of his salutes.

My eyebrow raised skeptically. "Sure you will."

Deciding I had delayed long enough, I took a deep breath and vaulted myself over the rock. I landed softly as I could with my hooves and creeped low to avoid being spotted. My coat coloration worked in my favor for the terrain -the quarry being mostly marble and limestone- but my mane and tail stood out like a blazing fire and would be spotted easily. If we were going to sneak around in daylight, I would have to find something to cover up my mane that blended in. At night time however, it'd be my eyes that would stand out. Perhaps Boomstick's goggles would work to hide my eyes?

I was peeking over the ridge and looking deeper into the quarry. The Pack had been play fighting with each other I discovered. Most of them were now tending to the few wounds that happened from being too rough with their practice while the Alpha lorded over all of them in their heavy armor with a large mace over their shoulder held by a single paw. The other paw was busy picking up maimed Pack members and bringing them to what I assume was their Howler. This Dog was dressed in some kind of white coat that went down to the equivalent of his shins, some kind of white bandana and overly large glasses.

That's odd...

I wanted to get a closer look and figure out why the Howler was so different from the rest, but my mission for now was to find a way inside to get what gemstones I could without being caught by a passing patrol. Thankfully, the Dogs hadn't thought to post guards at the entrances to their den. A wooden archway propped up the mine shaft that lead deeper into the quarry and was possibly my only way in if I was going to avoid the group below. Taking a look and finding no dogs to impede my progress, I quickly darted forward to the archway and kept as low to the ground as possible. Reaching the archway and finding that nothing had spotted me I breathed a quiet sigh of relief.

Easy part is done. Now for the more difficult parts.

At this point, I had no idea where I was going. My only boons were my night vision from my glowing eyes and my agility from lack of armor. The dogs would be able to match my speed if they went on all fours, but standing on their hind legs gave me an advantage. They were more suited for chases and swarming, but I hoped that I wouldn't have to fight any in the first place if I was careful enough. The Alphas were strong, but their armor and form made them slow moving. It was difficult for them to balance on their hind paws exclusively, and their fighting style seemed to be a mixture of ducking on all fours with lunges and swinging their large weapons in a wide arc to smash or slice as many foes as possible. They would tire quickly if outmaneuvered, but I wouldn't have the time to do that if I was being swarmed by a Pack. My best bet was to avoid combat all together.

Deciding on that, I moved deeper into the mines. Chunks of marble and limestone were scattered about, accompanied by scratchings on the walls and random debris strewn around like a whirlwind had thrown somepony's belonging all over the place. The place was messy, certainly, but I was more concerned for accidentally stepping on something that would cause a lot of noise or that would make me trip. Or, in worse case scenario, some kind of trap that I could unwittingly trigger that might kill me.

I paused for a moment, my ears picking up noise. I ducked behind a dusty wooden box that had been there for who knows how long while I waited for the noise to go away, thinking it was a Dog. After a few moments of waiting, it turned out that I was right. Two dogs were talking to each other and walking my way at a lazy pace.

"You think Rex beat Wolf in fight? Wolf much bigger than Rex! Rex weak!" One argued.

"Yes, but Rex is the much smarter opponent. Anything that Wolf would throw at him would be neatly avoided by his superior agility and tactical prowess."

"You no use big words! Big words make issue dirty!" The first one barked in annoyance.

"It is not my fault that you do not read any of the literature provided to us, Hamshank." the second tutted.

"Claw better than book at smashing! Hamshank no need book!"

"If you happened to read a book, you would know that claws slice; they do not 'smash'."

"Hamshank smash you if you no shut face!"

The two continued arguing past me, causing me to be greatly confused. I thought Diamond Dogs were stupid? I shook my head. I would have to dwell on that later. I couldn't afford to be distracted now. I checked over the top of the box, my ears swiveling around to see if anything was still making enough noise for me to hear. After a pause, I decided that it was clear for me to continue.

I peeked down the hall that the two Dogs had gone down and found neither of them. Continuing the opposite way instead, I later found myself in some kind of large room containing a great deal of fur cloaks scattered on the floor.

Bedding, maybe?

Not wanting to stick around to find out, or for some dog to ambush me from behind while I considered dog sleeping schedules, I decided to ignore that room entirely and move along deeper into the mines. Weaving around debris that was in my way to avoid making noise, hiding behind boxes or other spaces where I could fit and sometimes simply hiding in a dark corner were my go-to places to dodge passing Dogs.

Ducking into a room to evade another patrol, I looked around to find myself in their armory. My expression lit up with joy, finding various weapons and armor. I was more interested in the spears!

Come to Sanguine! I thought happily, swiping a fairly well crafted steel spear from a weapons rack. Now I had a longer ranged option available to me that would be of more use than my knife. All I needed to find now was something to replace my cloak, and the problems of yesterday would be only memory!

"Why you keep losing claw?" I heard a voice complain right outside of the room. I panicked and dove into a pile of armor with a loud clanging giving me away.

"What noise!?" Another voice barked.

"You go see what noise!"

"No, You see what noise!

"It just noise! You go!"

"No! Noise maybe stab! You see noise!"

"You scared of noise? You scared pup!" The gruffer voice of the two taunted.

"You no want see noise; you scared pup!" the other countered.

"You take back!"

"Grrrrr-uuuf!!"

Then, to my relief, the two idiot dogs decided to brawl right there on the spot. They soon barreled into the armory room and continued their duel; knocking over weapons racks with a loud clattering and clanging of metal. This allowed me the chance to pry myself free of the tangled mess of jagged plating I had flung myself into and sneak out of the room. I hid behind more boxes and held my spear to the wall to avoid tripping more dogs that ran past to either find out what the problem was or join the fight.

When the fight had gained full force and turned into an all out skirmish, I decided that staying around was likely to get me killed from just being in the immediate area. With that, I sprinted off deeper into the mine. I was still keeping track of where I had been and thankfully the place wasn't a complicated maze. It supposed it made sense that miners wouldn't want to deal with a labyrinth if they had to swing picks all day at rock on top of everything. Further on that idea, I doubt that these Diamond Dogs would be able to navigate themselves out of a wet shirt, let alone a maze.

I decided I was far enough away from the skirmish of dogs to take a breather and ducked behind a larger box to catch my breath. I tried to keep my breathing as quiet as possible in this darker section of mine and noticed that the debris had toned down considerably compared to the more well lit areas. Checking that everything I owned was still on my body as well, I was caught off-guard when a voice spoke up right next to me.

"Hey there, cool cat." A smooth voice whispered in my ear, making me recoil and fall on my face in my moment of panic to get away. I scrambled to get my spear, but a paw stepped directly on top of it and snapped it in half. "Why the rush?" The dog continued, still with a calm and relaxed tone.

I was laying on my back, my body freezing in fear while my mind raced with all the ways this encounter could go wrong.

"No need to be stressed; chill a while." The dog insisted. They were the size of an Alpha but lacked the heavy armoring. They wore dark black robes that helped conceal them further in the darkness. Their face was concealed by a hood, only their muzzle poking from it. He didn't seem as vicious as the other dogs, but this could simply be a very large Howler.

"U-uh..." I blurted, my brain fighting my body's urge to run away while my legs were jelly, causing all of my internal red flags to wave at once and cause me to freeze.

The dog reached a paw out to me smoothly, confusing me. "You want to stay on the marble? That's fine." It then smiled, my eyes picking up pure white jagged teeth that made my fur crawl, imagining them sinking into my neck at any moment. "We can have a talk like this."

"T-talk?" I stammered.

"You went and snuck past all my dogs; didn't harm a single one n' all that. I can respect that, mare." His voice continued to be relaxed, soothing and somewhat melodic. It was sort of hypnotizing to hear, actually. "Makes me interested in the type of unicorn you are to do that kind of service for me."

"Service?" I asked. This was throwing me for a loop and my body had decided it was more interested in whatever was happening than running now.

"You didn't kill my dogs, dog." he explained. I assume that calling me a 'dog' was a term of... endearment, or something. "That's somethin' very rare."

"Ah... I'm..." I tried to explain my confusion, but my brain and mouth hadn't caught up with each other yet.

"You're confused, scared and not at all chill, am I right?" He asked, extending his paw towards me again. This time, I took it. "Let me do some explainin', then." When I was halfway upright, he lunged forward and flipped me onto his shoulder, a large paw and muscular arm keeping me pinned and unable to break free. "Chill, mare." he insisted calmly.

Well, he could snap me in half, bite me, throw me into a wall or just bark loudly if he wanted to kill me. I guess I was going to be a pony shoulder-pad for now.

"Take a moment to listen and feel the breeze." he insisted, carrying me off into a darker part of the mines. While I was on his shoulder, he continued to talk. "I know why you here, unicorn. You want some gems fo' your ponies, yeah?"

"Y-yes?" I responded, a step causing my reply to stutter.

"I can get you gems; that's easy. We all got more than we know what to do with anyway. What I want in exchange though, that's up to you to decide if it worth the price."

I heard some shuffling ahead and my worry spiked. A few Alphas were marching towards the dog that was holding me!

"What's happ'nin, my dogs?" My holder asked.

The two dogs looked at me with confusion, before one hit the other on the shoulder and snickered. "Hey boss. You get a good catch?"

"It ain't like that, B." He replied, shaking his head slightly.

"Oh... Well, she gives you any trouble, let us know." The other spoke.

The dog looked towards me, I assume from where his muzzle moved towards my face. "I think she won't be causin' problems." he grinned.

The other two chuckled darkly before moving past us, causing me to worry even more than I had been.

"Don't worry 'bout those two, they're like puppies."

I looked over my shoulder as well as I was able at the two Alphas walking away. They were completely geared in advanced plate armor, large two paw'ed swords and covered in spikes that had more than a skull or two adorning them.

"Sure. Puppies." I replied sarcastically

"What's your name, mare?" He asked, switching the subject.

I figured I might as well be honest. It's not like my name was a secret or anything. "I am called Sanguine Dreams." I paused for a moment and decided to ask, "What is your name?"

"Sanguine Dreams, huh?" He replied cooly, "I'll let you know mine if we reach an... understandin'." He paused in his steps for a moment before his muzzle looked in my vague direction. "Tell me, Sanguine. You gonna run if I set you down?"

"Well... you would probably be able to out-run me anyway, so there's not much point to that." I replied. There really wasn't. He had caught me when I was hiding, destroyed my spear and captured me effortlessly. What would the point of running be?

"That's good." He replied, lifting me from his shoulders and setting me down. I now learned that even standing, I barely came up to his waist. This dog is massive! "I was gettin' tired of carrying you around, even if you're lightweight."

"Uh... thanks."

"Don't mention it." He patted my shoulder. "Follow me; I got a lot to talk about with you."

He walked ahead of me, and I decided that following his wishes would be the best way to stay alive in my current situation.

"You want them gems cause your dragon is sick, right?" He asked.

"How did you know?"

"I got eyes and ears, Sanguine. Don't take much to keep 'em open." he replied cryptically. "My point is that we can help each otha' out."

"How so?"

"You need gems, we got gems. You got friends with guns, we don't."

My blood ran cold. Did that mean they had found Tenna and Boomstick?

"Chill, Sanny. They a'ight."

The tone of the conversation had changed dramatically, despite the continued cool from the Dog. I followed him stiffly along, my body tensing up as if I was walking into an ambush.

"They're right on ahead of us, so you can check on 'em for yourself." I tried to move but his paw caused me to stop. "In a moment."

His calm attitude was starting to unnerve me.

"I need yo help, Sanguine." he said suddenly. Why does everything need my help? First the tribe, now the dogs?

"What for?"

"We got us a little problem with some feather dusters; been killin' our hunters for days now and movin' in on our turf."

"Feather dusters?"

"Pegasai, Sanny. Bird ponies. You know." He made half hearted flapping motions with his arms before giving up on the effort. "They fly?"

"Why would they be attacking you?"

"Doesn't matter, does it? You got guns, they got wings. Shoot em out of the sky, we'll send gems to your little fort out there on the woods' edge."

Uh oh. "But, my friends are the only two I know of that have guns..."

"Hey, if you can solve that problem then good for you. All I need is these pigeons taken care of, and you got yo gems. If you can't have your friends here on the regular, then maybe they know where some guns are that we can use fo ourself."

The idea of Diamond Dogs with guns was unnerving, but so was being eaten alive. "I'll see what I can do..."

"That's all I'm askin', mare." He smiled, his large form looming over me and causing me to involuntarily back up a step. "Your friends'll be around that corner. The other dogs know you're comin', so don't worry 'bout 'em."

I nodded and backed away from the very large robed dog, sincerely hoping that this wasn't some elaborate game of his.

"Hey Sanny." He called out, still calm in tone but able to shout by just raising the tone of his voice in the echoing mines. "My name's Snoop."

Author's Note

Double chapter in the same day!

Surprise!

Enter, the Dogg!