My Second Life: Alchemy is Profit!

by Bojack H

Rating: mature
Tags: Slice of Life, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Human, Princess Luna, Original Character, Comedy, Random, Princess Celestia
Length: 28246

A brony gets another life in Equestria, only if he uses it to bring about 10,000 years of darkness to it. Too bad he gets caught in the first act. These are the stories that followed.

A brony gets another life in Equestria, only if he uses it to bring about 10,000 years of darkness to it. Too bad he gets caught in the first act.

Now he's on trial, recounting the story of his wild ride through Equestria, a tale of money, industry, trade-wars, and importantly, always having fun of the whole thing.

Human brony turned pegasus pony.

Pre-emptively rated M for: most likely sexual innuendo
Brought to you by crackfiction.

Crackfiction, for when you have a silly idea that refuses to die.

Published 2016-12-28 05:20:01 UTC
Last updated 2018-09-04 03:28:29 UTC

Prologue: The Deal.

Author's Note

Warning, this is loosely edited and may remain so for some time.

Second warning, this is a crackfic, while I will try to avoid some tropes and keep it somewhat grounded, expect ridiculousness and plotholes

Anyways, this is an idea that keeps refusing to die and I finally figured out how to format it to where I don't have to write a bazillion chapters.

Prologue: The Deal.

Alchemy is profit!

MLP:Alchemy is profit!

===/===

I woke to a loud deep groan. A dark haze obscured the world for as far as I could see. I looked down only to see nothing but a dark void.

The world groaned again. This time a pair of enormous red eyes appeared out of the darkness, fixated on me.

It groaned again, this time my head was filled with a chorus of voices, hundreds in indecipherable languages.

“Um… hello?” I tentatively asked.

It groaned in response, the voices becoming clear in my head.

“Oh good that’s much better.”

The eyes blinked, an unseen mouth grunted, a thought was projected in my mind.

“Great so you want me to do something for you.”

Another grunt in affirmation. In an instant, plans, arcane knowledge, and more flooded through my mind. I felt my head swell before finally everything settled down and it was all clear to me.

“Right got it. Create a doorway, summon you and bring about 10,000 years of darkness in... wait seriously?” I said, realizing where this thing wanted to takeover.

A grunt, yes.

“I mean, isn’t it kind of cliched?” I responded, finding myself oddly more intrigued than scared. Don’t get me wrong, I should be terrified but the whole proposal was so absurd.

It groaned loudly.

“Ok OK, Fine, what’s in it for me?”

A blink, and another grunt.

“Eternal life, rule by your side, all the debauchery I could ever want? Ok I get that but is that it?”

The ancient entity grunted again.

“OH a pony body? Well I guess I could see the use in that, after all it would make everything a whole lot easier.” I mean I wasn’t necessarily going to say no, it was like the dream of 78% of all bronies.

It rolled its eyes.

Suddenly a muzzle appeared in my field of view. Reaching up, I tapped a blue hoof against it. Something ruffled on my back. Pivoting in my suspended place I was in, I could see a pair of teal wings connected to a fuzzy teal back with a black mane and tail. Looking down, which was surprisingly easy due to my longer neck, I saw where my junk would be, well hidden under a layer of fur and skin. I tapped it just to be sure everything was all there.

“So a pegasus, I guess that's cool, you couldn’t make me like an alicorn princess or something, maybe a unicorn, I mean if i’m going to such a girly place maybe I should have the right equipment?”

It groaned angrily.

“I’m just saying, it’d be a lot easier if I could have a magical unicorn on unicorn hookup with one of the princesses, no?”

Another angry groan.

“OK OK don’t throw a hissy fit, I like it. So how what now, I wake up in Ponyville or the Everfree or something?”

It grunted.

The world spun, something hard and yellow came rushing up to meet my face. A brief bit of pain and the world went black again but for a totally different reason because my new dark lord is an idiot with no sense of directions.

Chapter 1: Wait.. this is the End?

~An undisclosed amount of time later~

“Y'all can’t do this!” Applejack shouted. “Please for the love of Celestia!” Rarity shouted as well. I think Fluttershy probably said something but Rainbow Dash cut her off with a shout and struggled against the chains that bound all of them. Pinkie ate popcorn and Twilight was still sleeping off the effects of the tranquilizer.

Anyways. “Look, if there were some other way, I’d totally consider it but I kind of have to do this now so…” I turned around to the large electrical panel in front of me. Above me lightning cracked and arced down cables into the machinery of the large gateway in front of me. Donning a cool technomagical gauntlet studded with tubes and all sorts of other stuff, I flipped the switch to bring my master into the world. “MWAHAHAHAHAA” I laughed, playing up the part. Nearby, my business partner/accountant/lawyer Double Book, facehoofed.

The giant portal groaned with the effort. Lights and runes all along the parameter surged to life and space in the middle of the portal shimmered before turning black.

“Oh get it over with already” Discord shouted from his seat, a convoluted array of wires and straps resembling an electric chair. A milkshake with a large curly straw floated nearby. “Some of us have important chaos to attend to.” He said, taking a sip from the drink.

“Hey this is my moment ok, just let me have this.” I said.

“NOT SO FAST!” An impressively loud female voice shouted.

The gate to the castle crashed inwards with two large hoof shaped prints cartoonishly imprinted in it.

“Stop in the name of Equestria.” Celestia commanded, her and her sister strided over the ruined gate. “Thou shalt not hurt mine friends!” Luna added in her adorkable royal accent.

“Hmmm… na sorry, I’m already sort of committed here.” I said, leaning over the metal railing. The portal shook with a loud deep groan. “Besides, my master is sort of already on his way through.”

Indeed, out from the portal stepped one slimy dark green hoof, followed by another. The horrible form of my master began to emerged from the portal.

“Brace thyself sister, the enemy approacheth!” Luna shouted as the two took up positions in front of the portal

With a deep grunt, my master tumbled on through.

……

“Is that all?” Luna asked in surprise, shocking her out of her Royal Battle Voice™.

I facehoofed, nearly bludgeoning myself on my totally useless technomagical gauntlet. My dark master, the one that sent me here, the one that would not stop pestering me since I first got here, stood in all its slimy, tentacled glory at just over a foot in height, about the size of a small foal. “Oh thank heavens, the princesses are here to save me from this evil entity.” I deadpanned.
“Luna it could be a trap!” Celestia said.

“Sister, look, it is adorable.” she said, outstretching a hoof.

“Sister stop! You do not know where this creature has been, it could be poisonous.”

My master groaned, but all that came out was a little peep.

“Please save us all Princesses from this evil that intended to bring about 10,000 years of darkness that's totally different from nightmare moon’s darkness but still quite dim.” I said, twisting and fainting on the guardrail in my best Rarity impression.

Celestia glowing with golden fury, stood over my master, towering with her freaky alicorn height. “Is that true? Did you intend to enslave this kingdom and all the ponies inside of it?”

With a squeak, my master backed and tripped on a rock.

“Aww sister, you made it soil itself.” Luna coo’d.

From my platform, I could in fact see, a small inky puddle form on the ground.

With another peep, my master turned around and hopped back into the portal which promptly exploded in a mass of arcs and fire for some reason.

“And once again, the day is saved thanks to plot-onium.” I said, taking a chug from a soda. “So when can I expect my repairs che...OOF.” A bolt of yellow smacked right into me, knocking me off the platform and headfirst into a pile of gears.

“Sister, you did not have to hurt him so.” Luna said concerned. Damn she’s best princess.

“It’ll take a lot more head trauma to keep me… down.” I said, pulling myself out from the pile. Another totally random explosion occurred. I should have probably not skimped on those power shunts after all I guess. The catwalk gave way and collapsed on top of me. They say the definition of irony is doing something over and over again and expecting a different outcome, or is that insanity? Who cares, concussions suck.

Chapter 2: Judge Sunnybottom's Court of Law

“Mr Bojack H. You stand accused of forgery, bribery, assault with a deadly vegetable, conspiracy to commit fraud, fraud, tax evasion, tax forgery, tax fraud, impersonation of a guard, illegally operating an alchemical business without a license, illegally possessing controlled alchemical reagents,illegally tampering with the weather, illegally manufacturing weather, black magic, conspiracy to use black magic, conspiracy to overthrow the crown, attempting to overthrow the crown, and finally attempting to bring about 10,000 years of darkness.” Celestia read from the bench.

“OBJECTION!” Double Book shouted. “There’s no such crime as ‘attempting to bring about 10,000 years of darkness’”

With a flash, Celestia made a thick and lawbook poof in front of her and a pair of reading glasses appear on her face. “According to the Equestria Criminal Code volume 24 on special circumstances, section 8 on villany, sub section 10 on old or ancient entities states, “An attempt to usher in a new era of malice, evil, darkness, or similar adjectives by force through means of overthrowing the current ruling body of the kingdom, for a period of length greater than one standard day.” In hundreds of years, I have never seen a pony with such disregard for the laws of the land or the harmony of the ponies around them.

“Objection Your honor!” Double book exclaimed again. “I ask that her honor and your honor recuse yourselves from this trial on questions of objectivity.”

“I have ruled this kingdom for 1000 years and served as a judge longer than any pony alive, overruled.” Celestia said, slamming her book down. “Now, defendant Bojack how do-”

“OBJECTION!” Double Book once again shouted.

“What is it now?”

“I ask that this trial be moved to a more public venue.”

“Overruled, sit down my little pony.”

“Objection!” Rainbow Dash groaned loudly as did several other of the few ponies assembled in the secret underground courtroom. “I request week’s recess to discuss the matter with my client.”

“Overruled. This matter must be put to rest immediately.”

“10 minutes?”

“No.”

“A stiff drink?”

Celestia’s horn lit up again, and a glass of amber liquid appeared on the table in front of him. “If it will keep you quiet.”

Unfortunately before he could reach the glass, he was pelted with a snowball that totally didn’t come from me catching him by surprise and knocking him off his seat. Accepting defeat, he whimpered on the floor for the moment.

She banged her gavel. “Defendant, there will be no snow throwing in my court room, Do you understand?”

“Sure, lets just get this over with.” I said.

“Now then, how do you plead?”

“Is that all of them? I honestly thought there would be more.”

“We are not dealing with the complaints from the Alchemy Guild or the Noble Houses in this court.”

“Right then. Permission to address the bench?” I asked, Celestia’s gavel raised in anticipation.’ “Pretty please your honors.” Celestia sighed and set her gavel down, Luna chuckled. “Thank you.”
I stood up on all four hooves, a long rune studded chain trailed behind me, bound to a matching leg-iron. “Now these crimes, taken together, sound like I have no regard for the law or anypony but myself. Did I commit these crimes, I certainly did, but I intend to explain why I did so to prove my innocence. I believe under the ECC volume 24 on special circumstances, section 8 sub section 24..., for Celestia’s sake Double Book what do I pay you for?”

The embattled lawyer crawled out from under the table with a smaller copy of the book that Celestia currently had on the bench and passed it to me.

“As I was saying Subsection 24, “In the event that the persons herein referred as ‘the villain’ are in service to, indebted to, and or compelled to commit criminal acts by some malevolent force, they may provide testimony for the purpose of clemency.” I intend to prove that not only was I indebted to the entity which I summoned from the gateway, the most serious of my crimes were committed in order to release my bondage.”

“OH COME ON!” Dash shouted from her seat. “HE FOALNAPPED US, SUMMONED A MONSTER AND- oompf” Her shout was cut off by Celestia’s gentle telekinetic grip.

“After considering the severity of the charges and the criminal code as written, I have decided to allow this. In preparation, I will allow the defendant a 10 minute recess as requested to organize his defense.” She said striking her gavel.

I know Luna is best princess but right now Celestia kind of feels like best princess for not summarily banishing me to the moon or something. “Phew, I can’t believe that worked.” I said to Double Book. He just stood slack jawed.

“Are you kidding me?! How the hay am I supposed to mount a defense in 10 minutes when you just admitted to the charges?”

“Relax, we’ve been through worse.” I said, nudging him with a wing.

“When?”

“I mean what about the time when everything was about to explode?”

“That’s different! I wasn’t about to be banished to Tartarus or the moon for that!”

“Relax, I’ll get through this.” I said, leaning back in my chair. Oh yes, I was going to get through this, and if i didn’t well, hey it was one heck of a good second life in crazy pony land.

Chapter 3: A long winded introduction Pt 1.

Chapter 3

===/===
===\/===

The benches and seats creaked as a couple dozen ponies, guards and other guests took their seats again. Celestia remounted the bench, absent though was her much more attractive sister, Luna. Oddly enough some other pony took a seat at the table across the aisle from me, like they were the prosecution or something...

Celestia gaveled in. “My sister has excused herself from this tribunal to deal with matters of state, the court is now back in session. I would like to introduce Pertinent Law, who has been the primary agent in charge of the investigation into many of the allegations prior to now.” she pointed to the other pony with her gavel then looked straight back at me. “He shall also be arguing against you as well, to ensure the truth and only the truth is brought forth. Pertinent, you may present a statement to the court.”

The cream colored unicorn across the aisle got up and approached the bench. “Thank you your majesty.” he turned and started pacing around the floor as if we even had a jury. “What is a pony? What we shall hear from the defense is that all these misdeeds and actions were simply done in service to some dark power, that he should be given clemency for his own actions, that he is in fact NOT a bad pony. And yet, how does a pony find themselves in service of a dark malevolent force, how does operating businesses under fraudulent credentials, or repeated tampering with local weather forecasts for profit connect to a dark power? I Pertinent Law will argue that the defendant is in fact a bad pony, not deserving of your clemency your highness.”

Celestia sat still listening to his monologue. Well I never said this was going to be easy, but what she and her stupid lawpony doesn’t know is how some of her subjects act when she’s not around.

“The defense may now state his opening statement.” she said with her legal voice.

“I’m not sure how to respond to being called a bad guy or a villain. My friend, Pertinent Law there will contend that I am motivated by greed or a hatred of my fellow ponies. Frankly, nopony really truly knows me, or what motivates me. I admit that i may have been deceitful in some ways, but not without good cause. What I intend to prove here for you is that I am not a bad-pony, and the only way to do that is to simply tell my story and hope you get to know me through it.” I finished.

the only noise in the courtroom was of the occasional shifting bottom in their seat. Celestia produced a tea cup from behind her bench and took a slow long sip before setting it down and taking a look back across the courtroom.

“Um so anyways, Where do I start.” I thought for a moment. Where should I start? I don’t exactly want to play the human card yet, since they’re like the boogeymen in this world’s fairytales. “um so-”

“Actually your honor, I would like to clarify the identity of this pony.” Pertinent said, interrupting me. “You see, in the course of our investigation, we have discovered that this pony’s identity is a facade. All the documents we have uncovered thus far have been either clever forgeries or generated quite recently. Until this pegasus walked into a Manehattan bank, there was no pony named Bojack H. Eque-”

“Oh there, let's start there!” I shouted. “I mean, that's where I first struck rich.” I dragged my chains behind me. “See, I like Manehattan, it's full of hucksters, tricksters, con-ponies and more. So obviously it's the perfect place for a guy to make a quick bit.”
==/==

I remember it being a special day. I had in an afternoon made quite a haul selling my new drink.

I had been living in the city for several months cycling between jobs, you guys put so much emphasis on these magical tramp stamps, but what's a pegasus who can barely fly supposed to do? I tried the weather department but everything I touch turns to snow, I tried the docks but they booted me for dropping a piano on someone. I’d probably be out on the streets if it weren’t for the fact that I had a roommate guest lecturing for the Manehatten University.

You’d have thought working for dark gods would pay pretty well right? Well after trying all the legitimate routes, I ended up getting involved with some 'friends’ who had connections on the docks. I don’t really remember the specifics but basically I got a crate or two of stuff every few days and had to turn it into a sack of bits, which after taking a few out, I would leave in a garbage can in the park.

==/==
“Excuse me, are you saying your businesses are connected to the Manehatten Crime Syndicate?”

“Hey don’t interrupt, and there’s no such thing as organized crime. Like I said, I just got free merchandise from my friends and sold it and always misplaced most of the bits, nothing more.”

“Your honor, He clearly is connected to mafia elements in Manehattan.”

“hey let me finish my story before you start taking more charges on my.”

==\/==

It wasn’t a bad existence… Oh hell, I was bored, very very bored. I mean what the hay, here I am living in bucking Equestria and I’m no better off than I was before.

Anyways, things started that day like they normally did.

“Get-up you lazy yak!” My roommate shouted at me. He had an angry look on his striped face.

He tugged my blanket off the couch, dropping me on the floor. “Ow, what the heck.” I moaned

“You used all my wana root and wapaka slime! I have to demonstrate a traditional xandi poultice today and you’ve used it all up mucking about in MY kitchen!” Xanny said, continuing to scold me.

Zebras, normally very hard to anger, but when they get going, you don’t want to be the target of their ire.

==/==

“Your honor, are we supposed to believe this pony had a zebra, named Xanny, living with him as a roommate in Manehattan?!” Pertinent Law interrupted, yet again before being pelted by a snowball.

Celestia gave me a stern look.

“Hey, it's my story and let me finish before poking holes in it.”
Celestia’s glare continued unabated.

“Ok to clarify, his name was Xanidus and he wasn’t my roommate by choice, we were tribe brothers so he couldn’t really kick me out since it would bring a curse onto seven or eight generations of his family.”

“Is this Xanidus still within Equestria to verify your story?” Celestia asked.

I shrugged. “Honestly, Last I heard he was working somewhere in Canterlot. We sort of had a falling out which kind of started on the day I was talking about so if you mind, I’d like to continue my story.” I said. “Your honor.”

Celestia sighed, obviously my charm was rubbing off on her.

==\/==

Anyways, back to the good old days. After some fumbling around in the cabinets, I found the missing spices, Xanny was always critical of me being a slob but I always put my working materials back in their proper places… just not the ones he knew of.

“You gotta put more salted leeches in that.” I said, eating my bowl of cereal.

“Quiet boo-yak, I’ve been practicing this art for years.” Xanny said as he stirred the bubbling crock on our stove.

“I’m telling you, more leeches, it’ll go bad if you don’t.”

“Ooya quite you. I brewed this with ma grandmother for countless years before you came along.” The pot emitted a noxious burp before turning black.

“Told you, always add more leeches.”

Xanny broke down into a storm of zebran curses.

====

After cleaning up the mess, and assisting him brewing yet another poultice, this time with an appropriate amount of salted leaches, somepony pounded on our door.

Xanny frowned. “I thought I told you to keep your friends and their packages downstairs.”

“Actually I’m expecting a different sort of package today.” I said, opening the door. I was greeted by a gold toothed earth pony and a ridiculously bulked up pegasus. “Hello gents can I help you?”

The earth pony frowned. “Drop the stupid act. You got the bits?”

I tossed him a small sack. “You’re never any fun.”

“Good, remember that.” He said, hoofing me an envelope. “You’d better not be paying for this with the boss’s money.”

“I got that, don’t worry. I just need it for another day as collateral, you’ll have your bits by tomorrow.”

“You’d better, else we’re gonna have to set up an appointment with the concrete farrier.”

These mafiosa types, always with the concrete cliches.

"Ya ya, don't worry, they'll be better than my lead shoes." I said, closing the door.

With our business concluded I went back to the kitchen with the envelope in my grasp and dug through its contents.

==/==
“Out of curiosity, whatever did you do to endear yourself to these friends of yours?” Celestia asked.

“Oh thats a funny side story. See I’m a terrible flyer and a terrible worker but there was this foreman that nopony liked either. Well one day we were unloading a shipment of pianos and I may have accidentally dropped one, on him. It got me fired but that's how I ended up in a certain circle of people in Manehattan.”

=\/=
Xanny wasn’t happy, he wasn’t usually happy so it didn’t really bother me.

“What are those?”

“These” I said, pulling out one of the documents. “Are me, but on paper.”

I looked over the forged birth certificate.

See, Equestria isn’t exactly a hard place to live, and it's certainly not a place that seems to ask a lot of questions, but you still need some documents to do things like say open a bank account. Normally this isn’t an issue but when you completely lack any of that, you are a little bit stuck. Fortunately, I knew a guy who knew a guy who had a cousin who knew a friend who knew another guy, and now I had all the paperwork I needed.

Xanny huffed at me. “Never mind that I asked, I do not want to know of any of these dealings.” A bell tower chimed outside. Xanny nearly jumped. “Oohy you have made me late too!” He said, frantically grabbing bits and bobs to stuff in his satchel.

“You wouldn't have been late if you remembered the leaches!” I shouted back as he flew out the door.

----+----

With Xanny gone, and my documents safely tucked away, I got up myself and proceeded to brew my own stuff.

See a few weeks earlier I had finally come up with my first great hit, a blend of cheap spoiled vegetables, fruits, and a few other bits that when properly mixed together was perfectly palatable, and importantly, filled one up on the cheap.

With my daily cargo brewed then, I made my trip downstairs to the back alley where my humble wooden cart lay covered up. The poor thing was in pretty bad shape but it could fit the couple crates and barrels I carried about every day and the harness wasn’t too itchy even for a pegasus.

After hitching up and a quick trot across town, I parked my cart in front of the Manehattan's Grand Central and opened for business. See, the brewing bit was smart cooking with a dash of Zebrican herbalism, figuring out where to sell it was the real stroke of genius. In the morning, when everypony is rushing off the morning trains into the high rises for work, I always parked my stand across the street from the door where plenty of hungry, sleepy ponies traveled by, then in the afternoon, I moved to outside the stalk market, and then by the end of the day, I migrated down towards the theater districts.If everything went right, I could expect to clear a hundred bits or more, pretty good for a crate of spoiled or damaged fruits.

==/==

“Wait!”

“What now?” Celestia asked, mildly annoyed at this point.

“Nothing, it's just this is way more boring for me to tell the next part.”

“But you-”

“So I’m going to let my business partner Double Book finish this chapter.” I said, giving my partner a whack on the back.

Double book let out a squeak, having found himself suddenly in the witness box.

Everyone did a double take.

“How did…” Celestia stuttered.

“Oh that's easy, I bumped into the fourth wall.”

She looked around the courtroom.

“See, its right there!” I said pointing towards the back of the courtroom.

“I see only the far wall of this courtroom.” She said, looking annoyed.

“No, not there, there! in front of the audience but behind the tables. We bumped it just now”

She shook her head. “Does this happen often?” She said,turning to Double Book.

“Please don’t your highness.” Double Book begged.

“Hey, at least my fourth wall is in good shape, not like a certain pink party pony’s”

Everyone turned to look at Pinkie who just shrugged.

“Oh don’t give me that, you’ve broken your fourth wall so much you’re capable of non-euclidian motion!”

“What do eclairs have anything to do about it?” She said casually pulling an eclair from her mane before stuffing it into her mouth. “Sheesh.”

“Anyway, i’m getting boring so I’ll let Double Book tell you what happened next.” I said, taking advantage of the momentary lapse in narrative cohesion to pull a margarita from under the defense table. “Mmm frosty.” My head was still pretty sore from having taken a pounding after all.

Double Book cleared his throat. “Lets see.. well that day…”

==\/==

It was like any normal day. I was working as usual at the prestigious Goldmane and Sacks bank, Manehatten branch, things were perfectly fine. Nothing out of the ordinary.

“Double I need those quarterly projections, and a graph on that Bitsons project. For Celestia’s sake, are you sleeping!” My boss shouted at me.

“No Sir! I mean,Yyyyes sir! right away.” I said, toppling off my chair.

“Good, I wouldn’t want to have to give you a poor quarterly performance rating.” My boss said, plodding past into his office.

“Oh and one more thing, there’s some poor fruit sales pony at the front teller asking about a loan or something, get rid of him, we don’t give out loans to his kind.”

I sighed. Another pony turned away by this elitist jerk. It always seemed to work that way, we gladly took savings accounts, charged banking fees, even billed postage to our customers, but only the richest of rich would ever be granted any sort of loan from us. Not that we would immediately turn them away, no, it would always be some sort of undotted I or superficial defect in their paperwork that would disqualify them.

Nevertheless I left my desk and proceeded to the lobby.

“...and then the landlady said “Oatmeal!”.”

As I rounded the corner, I saw a teal pegasus leaning against the counter. Other than a pair of patched saddlebags, he had nothing else with him.

The teller, a young mare was trying her best to keep a straight face. As Mr. Peterbit often remarked, “Tellers are paid to serve, not chatter!”

I cleared my throat. “Ahem, I believe you were asking about a loan mr?”

“Bojack” He said. “Bojack H.” He grabbed my hoof and shook it violently. For a pegasus, he had the grip of an earth pony.

“Nice to make your acquaintance Mr. um Bojack.”

“Please, Mr. Bojack was my father. Anyways, I was just telling your clerk there, and your constable here that I have an exciting business proposition that I think your bank would love to invest in and I won’t take no for an answer.”

Why would anypony like him come to a place like this? I thought. He seemed too cheery.

“Well isn’t that interesting…” I said, pulling out my most sincere smile. “Let’s see if we can work something out.”

===

Fruit juice. This pegasus must have hit his head a few too many times. I thought. For the last several minutes I listened to him explain his entire business of pushing a cart from point A to point B selling fruit juices to ponies. I looked at the number he was asking for and grimmaced. Only a madmane would come up with such a number when they’re selling blended fruits.

“So um, sir you have no credit…”
“Absolutely.”

“And no collateral.”

“Oh yes, I’m completely broke.”

“And you lack even a written business plan or proof of income.”

“Quite valid.”

“And so for these reasons we here at Goldmane and Sacks simply cannot loan you the bits you are asking for.” I half expected him to break down and cry. They always cry when they get turned down

“I know.” He said, if I didn’t know any better, it would seem like he was actually happy that I turned him down... I gulped. I leaned over my desk. “Are you some kind of investigator from the crown?”

He leaned in across my desk. “If I said yes, would you process this paperwork like I was approved?”

I felt nauseous. Why would somepony from the crown be interested in us? It's not like we had two books, one filled with massive amounts of red ink showing enormous losses while the other one showed solid black figures, nope not at all.

“Ahhahaha.” the pegasus laughed falling back into his seat. “Just kidding. I wanted to see how you’d react.”

I collapsed on my desk. Clearly there was no reason why I should have been so worried. Unfortunately, all this commotion drew the ire of Mr. Peterbit who leaned angrily out of his office.

“Double Book, may I have a word with you?” He said.

“Yyess mr.-”

“Hey can’t you see the guy’s working here?” Bojack interrupted. The vein under my boss’s horn throbbed. “Now you were telling me about how I can access my funds?”

Mr. Peterbit’s brow twitched, not in a subtle way either. This ridiculous pegasus began blathering on deliberately ignoring him. “So anyways. When I first started out placing the stand in front of the tourist traps seemed like a good idea you know, but then tourists don’t want to eat from food stands they want to go to the crappy restaurants, so I said to myself “hey, who’s got a lot of money and not enough time? BANKERS! The lazy butts, can’t drag themselves over to an actual place for lunch, so they’ll gladly eat whatever you sell them, so long as they can get back to counting bits.”

“Excuse me sir, I think it is time for you to leave.”

“What is your problem? I’m having a nice conversation with um… bookkeeper here.”

“Sir you are causing a scene, and you are insulting my profession here in my own bank so i’m asking you to leave before I call sec-”

“Its because I’m teal isn’t it!” He interrupted. “How many teal ponies do you have here anyways? I haven’t seen any.”

By now, the two security guardsponies at the door had arrived.

“BU...What. I’ll have you know, Goldmane and Sacks has never denied a loan to a pony based on the color of their coat. Now you can either

“Well fine then, I don’t need your bits anyways. I’ll go make my own bits, with hookers and blackjack!” He said pushing between the two guards. “And GOOD HURUMPADA TO YOU SIR!” I heard him shout from the lobby, followed by the door slamming.

“AND YOU, GET BACK TO WORK.” Mr Peterbit shouted at me. “I cannot believe you were about to offer that wretch a loan.”

“But sir, I-”

“No buts, You’re lucky I have a dinner with some actual potential clients. I expect you to review our loan policies while I’m gone and your finished accounts better be on my desk by tomorrow morning or you’re fired!”

“But sir I- yes sir.” I sighed. I needed this job too much anyways. I silently cursed that stupid featherbrain for giving me extra work and set about finishing my reports.

It took me more or less an hour before I was done filling out the paperwork. Standing up, I started walking over Mr. Peterbit’s office to deliver them when I tripped on something heavy, sending my finished reports all over the place.

“Ow, son of Celes-” I froze. Sitting on the floor, where that stupid pegasus had, was a well worn saddlebag. Inside it was the object that I had tripped over.

Sitting there, shining in the late sun, a solid bar of gold. I looked around, fortunately all of my co-workers had all clocked out for the evening. “What the hay?”

I tried to pick it up, the weight alone proved it was solid gold. “What the hay is a fruit stand owning pegasus doing with a solid brick of gold?” I said.

“Everything alright back there?” I jumped. The guard had obviously heard me fall. “Yyya I’m fine, just uh tripped.” I stammered.

Quickly, I threw the brick back into the bag. There was more going on here. Nopony is just walking around with gold bars. This brick alone represents at least 10,000 bits worth of actual gold, if that idiot had just presented this instead of going through the hoops, we would have gladly forked out the loan.

I heard a door get thrown open out front. “Mr. Peterbit, I thought you were going to be gone for the rest of the day”

“Yes yes, Is Double Book still in by chance?”

Crap, what now? I heard quick hoofsteps on the marble floor as he rushed to the office space.

“Ah there you are. Double Book, a model employee!” He sang. I knew something was seriously wrong at this point. Mr. Peterbit was smiling. “Always diligent to a fault!” He pulled me into a hug.

“My boy, you’ve hit the motherload of all customers.”

“I...I did?” I wheezed.

“Why Yes you did! You have to act quickly though.” He said, dropping me on the ground.

“I… do?” I rubbed my head. “What do I have to… do?”

“My boy, that pegasus, the one who was in earlier. He’s loaded. I mentioned him to some colleagues just now and did you know what they had to say about him? That crazy pegasus walked into each and every bank in Manehattan today and deposited thousands of bits worth of gold in each bank, he even paid extra processing fees, he didn’t even negotiate, just accepted everything. Imagine what kind of charges we could have made if he had taken a loan with us, or maybe a line of credit! Maybe we can sell him a mortgage.... ” He said, staring off into the distance.

“But you tossed him out of here.”

He froze up. I swear I heard the sound of shattering glass. “Yes… yes I did.” He turned towards me with a creepy smile on his face. “But you seemed to hit it off with him didn’t you? I want you to find that crazy pegasus, beg him, apologize to him, do whatever it takes to bring him back through these doors tomorrow. I shouldn’t have to tell you how important it is to the continued success of this institution to bring in wealthy clients who pay our outrageous fees!”
“B-but my accounts…” I said, nonchalantly shouldering the bag with the gold.

“Oh those forms can wait for another day to get filled out. Go find that pegasus!” He said, practically pushing me out the office door.

“And whatever you do, remember to get his yearly income and credit score!” He said, as I headed through the door.

Author's Note

This chapter and the next full one hopefully will get the stage set.

I don't know how well it flows or how consistent it is, this is the product of several interruptions and many small additions.

Anyways, I know where this chapter has to go, I just haven't had time to get there quite yet.

Chapter 3.5: More Introductions, less Interruptions!

=====/===
“Excuse me your honor, Are we to actually believe this fable? I find it hard to believe that someone barely making a living selling pilfered goods could simply have a pile of gold bricks lying around.”

“Hey, he was just getting to the good part, where through mutual felonies we establish a lasting bond of friendship which eventually blossomed into a romantic encounter.”

“THAT LAST PART HAPPENED YOUR HONOR!” Double book shouted.

THWACK. Celestia gaveled yet again. “In the interest of time, please keep further interruptions to a minimum; and Pertinent, I shall be the judge of what is true or not, am I clear?” He nodded, his white coat turning a shade of embarrassing red. “Good. Now you may continue.”

Double Book took a sip of water before continuing.

==\/==

Darnit, that stupid featherbrain. I thought, walking down the street. The gold brick felt heavier and heavier on my back with each passing mile. “Why couldn’t he have just been honest in the first place! Why did he have to get me into this!” I shouted to nobody in particular. It was late in the afternoon now, everypony was either on their way home, eating out or off doing something that didn’t involve tracking down a birdbrain pegasus to beg for their patronage!

“Dangit.” I swore again. All I wanted to do today was finish my accounts and go home on time for once, was that so hard to ask for? I hung my head in defeat and kept walking, right into a brick wall.

“Looking for someone?” Somepony asked. I turned around and would have jumped if it were not for the gold. “YOU!”

The pegasus grinned from behind his stand. “And it's that guy from the bank with my bag on his back.” A pony interrupted our conversation by rushing up and plopping a pair of bits on the stand. “What can I do you for anyways?” He said to me as he served the pony.

“Um I’m here to tell you personally that after reviewing your financials, your loan has been approved!” I said.

He laughed while serving another customer. “I’m sure the brick of gold I left behind had nothing to do with it.”

I stuttered.

Yet another customer ran up to be served. “You know, I normally require someone to buy a drink before loitering.” He said.

I looked over his stand again. “Sure i’ll uh take whatever.” He poured a drink out from a keg and hoofed it to me. “So this is the um, what did you call it?”

“V-12, 12 fruits, vegetables and 1 special ingredient. Everypony loves it.” He said, hoofing me a cup. I stared at the orange liquid suspiciously. “Go ahead, try it.”

I took a sip. The explosive collage of flavors assaulted my tongue. Each individual ingredient added to the next.

“It's good isn’t it?” He asked.

“Um ya, its good.” I said, setting the cup down. I straightened my hat and grabbed the bag. “I um wanted to apologize on behalf of the bank of Goldenmane and Sacks for any improprieties on our part and to return the property you accidentally left behind.”

“You mean your boss sent you here to kiss ass.” He said, fiddling with something on his stand.

“However you want to put it Mr. um... Bojack.”

“Please, Mr. Bojack was my father, call me Bojack. Anyways, look I need an assistant tonight, come with me and tomorrow I’ll go to your bank and sign up for and pay whatever ridiculous fees you want.”

I needed to get his business at all costs, so I immediately agreed without giving it any second thoughts. “Sure I’ll help you out.” It's not like a juice stand is going to be that difficult to run anyways.

“Oh good, now go stand over there and look the other way, there's a constable coming.” Sure enough, one of the city’s constables was walking this way. his blue uniform and hat clearly visible in the evening light.

“Good evening officer!” he said, placing a small sack of bits on the countertop. “What can I do you for?”

He tossed a ball of paper at me. 'Right, go look the other way.’

They exchanged a few words and the officer was on his way, the sack of bits having gone missing in the process.

“Did you just bribe that constable?” I asked.

“I wouldn’t go using the B-word too loudly, I just accidentally gave him a lot of change with his drink. Look if everything goes to plan tonight that's the last time I’ll have to do this kind of thing.”

I frowned. Something felt wrong about all of this but I still couldn’t back out, not with all that was riding on this guy.

“So what do your butt-marks mean?” He said, attempting to make small talk.

I looked to the ledger on my flanks. “You mean my Cutie-mark?”

“Ya whatever. What’s it mean?” He said, packing up his stand. “Everypony’s got a story behind theirs, what’s yours mean?”

“It just means I’m good at math and book keeping and calculations. I discovered it one night looking over my parent’s taxes I spent all night audi-.”

“Pfff lame.” He interrupted. “Bet you can’t guess mine!” He said sticking his rump in the air in a very undignified manner. I looked, on either side of it were a single white snowflake.

“You’re a weather pony?” I guessed.

“Oh god no, I’m not allowed to fly more than 10 feet off the ground within the city limits, court order. No mine says I’m a special snowflake.”

'Did the guards hit this guy over the head on the way out?' I thought, staring at Bojack. “Are you sure that’s the only thing that means?”

“Oh ya I can also do this!”

POMF

I wiped snow from my face. “What the?”

POMF

“Huh, it never usually strikes twice.” I coughed as another snowball hit me square in the mouth sending me flying. Several more white frozen projectiles pounded me into submission.

“Aww it likes you alot.” He said, offering me a hoof after the barrage ceased.

“What even was that?!”

“I don’t know, it just happens sometimes.” He said, shrugging. “Anyways, you wanna see how I made that gold don’t you?” He said, strapping on the cart’s harness. “We’d better get a move on, we don’t wanna be late for tonight.”

==/==

I followed Bojack as he dragged his cart up town through the city, with him stopping at the most eclectic of stores and stalls, every odd ingredient was just explained with “We need this tonight.”

By the end of it all, one end of the ramshackle cart was stuffed with glass jars and wax bags full of unidentifiable ingredients, one in particular kept making me cringe. “Salted leech?” He said, presenting what looked like a shriveled black chip.

“No thanks.” I said politely. He did that wing shrug that pegasi do, and swallowed the salted insect.

“Ahh, thats good.” I gagged.

Finally as Celestia’s sun was lowering amongst the buildings he turned down an alleyway and parked his cart behind a rather unimpressive brick apartment building, the sort that were cheaply thrown up to meet the city’s booming population and often run by shoddy landlords.

“Home sweet hovel.” He joked as he pulled some of the reagents out of the back of the cart. “Oh fair warning, my roommate is a bit eccentric.”

As I followed him into the building, I couldn’t help but be nervous. Who could be even more eccentric than this guy?

We made our way up a flight of stairs to the second floor where he stopped by a door and pulled out a key. He opened the door and dodged to the right. A knife embedded itself in the door behind me. “Xanny!” He shouted in a surprisingly cheery voice. Another knife, another dodge. I took cover outside.

“GET OUT YOU BOO-YAK!” A strangely accented voice shouted from within.

“Xanny, what’s wrong?”

“YOU AND YOUR SO CALLED FRIENDS, I WANT YOU OUT AND NEVER COME BACK!” This time he threw a piece of cookware which shattered against the wall.

“Xanny, what happened?”

“Your friends came by looking for you, they said they wanted their money and they even went so far as to threaten to turn my stripes white!”

“Wait, does that mean you’re white with black stripes?” A dish went sailing by. “Ok I deserved that one but we’re tribe-brothers, we have to stick together, we have to look out for each other.”

“DON’T you use my people’s beliefs against me! You are no zebra! I want you out of my home, my life and I want nothing to do with you ever again!”

“Xanny, fine I’ll move out if that's what you really want.”

I peeked around the doorway. The inside of the small apartment had looked like a stormcloud had passed through it, with all the furniture overturned and everything pulled out and left on the floor. Standing in the kitchen area, was some kind of pony i’d only ever heard about. The pony called Xanny, was covered in an alternating pattern of black and white stripes with something vaguely resembling a cutie mark on his flank but was of the same colors as his coat.

“And who is this, another one of your friends?” He said, fixating on me.

“Xanny, meet… er what was it? Ledger Butt? No that wasn’t it, Spread Sheet? No…”

“Double Book.” I answered, rolling my eyes. “Accounts manager for Goldmane and Sacks Manehattan branch.”

“Ah so you have moved up in the world. Moved up from swindlers on the streets to swindlers in the banks!” Xanny said.

“Xanny, be nice. Double Book, this is Xanidus, a zebra and fellow tribe-brother.” Bojack said. “Look, Xanny, I have something to take care of tonight, but I promise by tomorrow I will have taken care of my other friends and I can even move out if you still want that.”

The zebra gave him a stern look. “Fine.” Turning to me, he said. “Whatever business you have with this pony, beware, he is not what he seems. Now unlike you, I have a faculty diner to attend.” He said storming out of the apartment.

“Zebras, you either love’em or hate’em.” Bojack said chuckling.

I still stood there spellshocked.

“SO anyways, we’ve got important work to do.” He said, taking even more ingredients out from his kitchen. “Well, come on, I can’t carry all of this.”

He shoved a pile of jars on the counter my way.
==\/==

Author's Note

Sorry, I didn't want this chapter to get so long so I broke it up once again.

Lightly edited, I probably will make another pass later on when I finish this chapter

Chapter 3+1/2: Illegal High Stakes Bingo Night!

MSL Chapter 3+ 1/2: Illegal High Stakes Bingo Night!
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Ponies. Perhaps the most friendly species I’ve ever seen. When someone is mean to you guys, you don’t respond by violence, you stick out a hoof in friendship, and even when it gets bitten off, you guys stick another one out, and another, and another, and then maybe a wing or a horn or tongue. Its a good thing you guys have a lot of spare limbs….

You have more words for friendship than any other concept in your language. Your magical, social, and technological progress has all been built around equalizing and improving relationships. The unicorns bring the sun and night to help the earth ponies grow their plants, the pegasi move weather and build giant traveling cities to meet new faces, and the earth ponies build castles, houses, grow food, and do the other things that the pegasi and the unicorns can’t be bothered to do because they want to help them.

I mean you guys can’t even industrialize right. Take the steam engine. The genesis of industrialization. Where I come from, it allowed mine owners to drain the mines and move things so they could send people down deeper and deeper to unearth more riches for the mine owners. Here it was invented because an earth pony wanted to clear out a mine for his unicorn friends and so his pegasi friends wouldn’t have to fly far away for water to make weather with.

“Your honor...”

I mean what’s with you ponies, you invest your efforts into bettering each other out of kindness? Where’s the profit, where’s the driving force, where’s the invisible hoof of the market forces! You’re all a bunch of egalitarian socialists even before the great industrial revolution!

“I believe that is enough.” Celestia said, banging her gavel and leering at me. My wings may or may not have been flapping enough to levitate me off the ground throughout the whole thing. “It feels like we’ve been here for months with no progress since you interrupted again.”

“Fine, interrupt my monologue why don’t you.” I said dropping down back onto my seat.

Celestia used leer again. “Now then where were we? I believe Mr. Double Book was recounting the tale of how you two first formed a business partnership.”

“Oh he can’t finish that story.” I interrupted.

“I can’t?” Double Book said from the stand.

“No you can’t because I want to finish that story. See my view point offers the audience a unique outlook on ponykind and the next part it will be more important than yours.”

“OBJECTION, your honor.”

Celestia sighed. “If one of you would please get on with it.”

“Thank you your honor.” I said, taking flight again and coming to rest on Double Book’s lap, which is considerably smaller than my pony behind.

“Now then….”

=-=-=-=-=-

“Alright, Everypony put your hooves and wings where I can see’em and don’t you think for a minute of using any spells, we have the whole place covered in an anti-magic field!” The constable barked.

=-=-=-=

“Wait, hold on….” The stenographer who had been tapping away on her stenotype, which is goofy itself since normal pony typewriters are already basically stenotypes, until now said interupting my riviting tale. “We were just in the defendant’s apartment and now we’re somewhere else? I’m sorry did I miss something?”

Sigh…

“Much later but somewhat earlier than before….” I started again.

=-=-=-=

“What is this place?” My new less than willing compatriot asked.

“Just an underground alchemy ring. Just watch, this’ll be over in a minute.”

We were in the warehouse district near the docks. Since the docks weren’t very well lit yet, and because ponies are a bunch of leftist socialists who only work five hours a day…. Anyways the daily business of loading and offloading those sailboats you consider ships was done for the day.

The warehouse was crammed with mostly earth ponies, not uncommon for the earth pony city really, many sitting on makeshift benches made out of various crates. On the make-shift stage, a pair of unicorns were rotating a cage of balls, and calling out numbers.

“G-48! G-48!” He shouted with his magically amplified voice.

I sat down and unhitched myself from my cart. One of the tougher looking unicorns, the one that judged the competition saw me in the corner and trotted over.

“Oh no, no no no, you’re banned from here!” He said, flanked by two bruisers. His name was Basil Leaf, and he was pretty clear about where I should go last time we had an encounter.

“Banned?” Double whispered to me.

“A simple misunderstanding.” I whispered.

“Bassil relax. This is the guy I was telling you about,” I said to the irate unicorn.

“You the guy?” The leafy unicorn said to Double Book.

“Of course he’s the guy, I wouldn’t have told you he was the guy unless he was the guy. You wanted me to bring the guy and so I went and got the guy and now we’re here and so this is the guy!” I rambled on taking a huge breath in. “So the guy is here and he’s ready to go!” Double yipped as I gave him a smack on the back with my wings.

Basil leaned in, nose to nose, but Double stood his ground. “He’d better do what you said he could. We’re all waiting in the back. You’d better not flake out.” He said before turning away, his tail intentionally whacking my nose, which in zebran culture by the way, is considered an invitation to go to the nearest hut and rut but I doubt that’s exactly what he was going for, in any case, all I could smell for a while was dirt and hay because these floors are dirty and he really needed to wash his tail more.

“Phew, that could have gone worse. I think he thought you were a unicorn,” I said, “Which is really funny because you being an earth pony will really surprise him.”

“But I AM a unicorn,” Double said.

I took another good look at him, doing a bit of mental math. Looking over the slim built earth pony from fetlock to the brim of his hat, and didn’t see a horn.

“You sure about that?” I said.

He sighed.

“Promise not to laugh?” He said, looking slightly uncomfortable.

“Stick a knife right in my eye and beat me up until I die.” I said, going through the motions.

He shot me a look of concern for my morbid promise but lifted a fetlock up to his hat.

I nearly squee-ed. Underneath, in the part of his hair was the most itty bitty baby carrot sized horn I had ever seen.

=-=-=-=

“I mean look at this thing!” I said, ripping Double out from underneath me. “Its a widdle baby carrot!”

“I have a condition your honor.” He said solemnly. “Can we go back to the story, or are you going to sit here all day poking it?” He said resigned to the obvious.

A squee leaked out as I poked it. Even after all these years it still was fun to boop the tiny thing. It had gotten bigger but still it was no bigger than one of the frogs on my fore hooves.

“Ahem.” Celestia said.

“Oh sorry, you can poke it too your royal sunbottomedness, he really doesn’t mind.” I said, with a cocky smile.

=-=-=-=-=-=

“So… The guy?” He asked me as I started unpacking my cart.

“You’re the guy!” I said emphatically.

“I-73! I-73!”

“Please stop saying that, and what is this place, why do you keep calling me the guy?”

“This,” I said, gesturing to the room. “Is but one part of the seedy underbelly of the Manehatten underground. Here, there’s everything that stuffy princesses deem socially unacceptable. Sea salt licks, illicit potions, uncensored tomes, ALCOHOL, illegal gambling, and did I mention alcohol; because they have a lot of that here too.

“B-32! B-32!”

“And tonight is uh… bingo night.” I added.

=-=-=-=-=

“Ahem. Less social commentary if you would,” Celestia said.

“Oh come on! You know how long it took me to find a good bottle of gin in the damn dry mess of a country you were running? Why the hell would you ban everything but wine? Honestly, just because you’re a teetotaler doesn’t mean the rest of use have to suffer for it. Best thing I ever did was get them to abolish that stupid law.”

She banged her gavel once again, this time hard enough to sending little chips flying. “Would you just get on with it.” She said rather out of character. I must have struck a nerve.

“Fine, but I think I’m owed an answer to that question!”

From the bench, Celestia leered at me with her meanie face.

“So anyways...”

=-=-=-=-=

“And how does this involve me, what are we even here for?” He said.

“So I was in here last week, and there was this mare running her mouth about how she could transmute zinc to copper and bragging about how she’s the greatest alchemist in the world.”

“But successfully transmuting any element is incredibly difficult, at least that’s what they said in school. If she did discover a new transmutation, that would be an incredible break through.”

“Oh pshaw. Zinc to copper? Give me a break, not even zinc wants to be zinc! Its the lamest metal on the periodic table, all its good for is melting exactly at 419.56 C. So naturally I called her out, and she bet I couldn’t do better, me being a pegasus after all. As if that was an impediment. Maybe if he didn’t have a stupid horn sticking into her brain!-”

“Hey!”

“Right, sorry,” I said. “So long story short, I told them I could make gold out of lead.”

“But that’s-”

“Impossible?” I said with a wink.

“Dangerous, incredibly illegal, and completely impossible! Even if you could actually make gold, why the value of the bit would crater, the economy would collapse, you’d have celestia herself kicking in your door and dragging you off to the dun-” I fopped him with a wing. “Sorry,” he said composing himself. “So what happened?”

“At the time I might have been bragging a bit so instead I tried to to make something that would have fooled them. Instead I ended up with a mixture of iron pyrite, elemental cesium, and a few flakes of lead iodide .” I said.

“You think?”

“Have you ever seen a piece of sodium in water?” I said, he started at me blankly. Equestria lacked some spaces in the periodic table, but at least they had pieced one together by now, even if things weren’t quite what I was used to. Something about chemistry here, it works perfectly fine until you add magic to the reaction. Then logic goes out the window with little bits of glass from your shattered glassware. Also fun fact, most carbon weighs 13 grams per mole here! But that’s all later in the story.

Getting back on track though, He nodded.

“O-56! O-56!”

“BINGO!”

The warehouse was filled with whines and groans as dozens of cards were kicked over and chips went flying.

“Think a bit bigger,” I said. “Anyways, with you being The Guy here, nothing is going to go wrong at all!”

“Quit calling me the guy!” He said, stomping a hoof. “I am not the guy!”

“Oh but you’re the guy who showed me exactly how to make lead into gold, the one who works at the bank. You know, like all the tabloids say. Oh you told me it yourself one day, accidentally letting it slip that all the banks make their own gold to fool the masses. Then I convinced you to teach me how to do it in secret, and tonight you’re going to demonstrate it to a small gathering of like minded individuals, because your boss secretly instructed you to do whatever it takes to get me to go to the bank tomorrow and deposit a huge heap of gold in his vault,” I said. The seedy underbelly of Equestria was certainly very gullible.

“But you!-” He said exasperated. He paused, took a deep breath, and steadied himself. “Look, I don’t know what buisness you are wrapped up in and I don’t want to anymore, I’m out. Peterbit can fire me if he wants,” He said, turning to leave.

“Oh come on, you’re already here. Plus if I could make gold, wouldn’t it be a good thing to warn your boss about, maybe turn me in to the police?” I said slyly. “Think, they’d promote you, give you a raise, why they might even make you a partner because you single hoofidly stopped a mademane who might have destabilized the entire foundation of the modern economy! Celestia might even give you a medal.”

He stopped in his tracks and grumbled to under his breath.

“You’ll have to stick around to see.”

“Fine, but what am I supposed to do then? They expect me to do it!” He said, turning to me.

“Thats defeatist talk!” I said, “Did Napolion stop invading Germany when Britain told him not to? Did Ceasar stop at the Rhine and say ‘I guess its not worth my time’, did George Washington Carver say ‘No I’m sorry I can’t make that out of peanuts!’? NO They did not! They manned up and turned lead into gold! And you will too!”

“You’re nuts aren’t you?” He said.

“Probably. Look you’re a banker guy, you’ve given presentations to big wigs before. Here’s all you have to do.” I said, leaning in to quietly explain my plan.

=-=-=-

“Ahem, I present, the guy,” I said to the small gathering of thugs and ne'er-do-wells.

“This is it?” The mare, one Aloe Verra Estipone said. She was the one who had been running her mouth about being the best alchemist in Manehatten. Basil had arranged this whole thing. “These two here look like they couldn’t tell the difference between barium and a banana!”

Double cleared his throat while I started setting up a cauldron. “um good evening mares and gentlecolts. Tonight I’ll be-”

“Get on with it already!” One of the thugs shouted.

“Yes get on with it!” Another said.

“Um right… first step… First step...”

“Try lighting the fire.” Aloe said sarcastically.

“Yes, the fire.” He said nervously. Fortunately I had already brought out a small gas burner and had it ready to light.

“Ahem,” I coughed. Pointing to the bogus recipe that he had been reading off of. The real magic was tucked away between the pinions on my left wing, a small vial, prepared ahead of time. I’d just put a drop in by accident, and that’d be enough. Hopefully anyways. That was the main issue with Equestria’s chemistry. Big and magical didn’t mix.

In fact, that’s why potion cauldrons were as far as I could tell, the standard measure of one’s skill. Brew a vial’s worth of something successfully, you’re a novice alchemist, brew a cauldron and you’re a journeymare, brew with a five-cauldron and not blow yourself up, you’re a master. Me brewing with a re-purposed soup pot? Ya its about as impressive as a science fair volcano.

“Now then, my assistant will uh…”

“I’ll melt the ingots up and skim the oxides,” I said.

“Right! Melt the lead. And as it is doing that, I will uh make the-”

“Your voice is really annoying,” Aloe interrupted. “I’m sorry I thought this was a demonstration, not a lecture.”

“Uh yes, as I was saying, stir in two table spoons of-”

“Tablespoons? I thought you were supposed to be a professional at this.”

This went back and forth for some time. Double Book was doing as good a job as could be expected, having been tossed into this situation that is.

“And uh, let set for five minutes and the gold will condense from the lead and… that’s it?” He said, reaching the end of the scroll. “Oh um, that’s it, the gold will now condense.”

“Let me have a look at that!” Aloe finally running out of patience said.

Yanking the list out of Double’s grip with her magic, she stomped up to the cauldron. “This isn’t gold! This is complete gibberish.”

“THIS IS THE ROYAL GUARD. THIS IS A RAID. EVERYPONY FREEZE!” An armored unicorn shouted, his voice easily overpowering the crowd which in turn tried to bolt. Stun blasts flew left and right, dropping everypony that was brave enough to escape.

The door, which was little more than a flimsy piece of scrap wood, was ripped off its hinges as several armored guards charged in, their enchanted armor glowing in the sparsely lit room, followed by an assortment of blue clothed police.

“IT’S NOT WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE!” Aloe shouted as the guards filed in.

“Alright, Everypony put your hooves and wings where I can see’em and don’t you think for a minute of using any spells, we have the whole place covered in an anti-magic field!” The constable barked. “Ah what do we got here lassy? An illegal transmutation demonstration?

“You!” She said, pointing at me. “This was all a set-up! I’m being framed.”

“Tell it to the judge. We caught you in the act, recipe in hoof, cauldron steaming.” He retorted.

“I’m not going anywhere!” She shouted before tossing over the table, causing the constables and guards to jump backwards. The thugs taking advantage, kicked the nearest guards, sending them sprawling. In an instant, stun spells, glass bottles, and crates started flying left and right.

“You two stay right there!” The nearest constable shouted at us.

Innocently, I let the vial slip from my pinions into the smoldering cauldron in front of me. The vial shattered when it hit the molten lead. The whole room erupted into smoke as the guards and thugs all jumped at each other.

=-=-=-=

“Why me!?” Double Book sobbed against the bars. “They’ll jail me, then tell my boss, and he’ll fire me and then-” A snowball pelted him in the head. “OW would you stop that! This is all your fault.”

“A very green pony once said ‘don’t worry, about a thing, cas every little thing, its gonna be alight!’” I said from the bench.

“… Look I told you, I was just there delivering my friend’s wallet, honestly!” Basil barked as he was lead past our cell. “You got the wrong pony!”

“Save it for the judge in the morning.” The not-royal guard said as he stopped and undid his chains.

“Oh hey Basil, you manage to hide your stash under your manepiece? I bet they didn’t even notice its a fake!” I blurted out.

“Why you!” He started to say before the guard levitated off his toupe, revealing a small linen pouch tied up under it.

“What is this?” The guard demanded.

“Nnnothing! Just some sunflour seeds, honest, I keep’em there as a snack!”

The guard eyed the pouch. He pulled out one of the seeds, and took a bite before spitting it out in disgust. “Pfff, these are awful. Nice try though, I’ll add it to your charges,” He said, tossing the whole thing into the trash. “And quiet down you!” He said barking to our cell as he sat down behind his desk.

It was at that point, another pony came walking down the rows, and stopped in front of our cell doing a double take. “Guard!” He barked, causing the guard to jump up from his seat.

“SIR!” he shouted in salute.

“Can you explain what this upstanding citizen is doing here?” He said, pointing to me.

“Uh sir, he was uh caught up in tonight’s raid at the docks,” the guard responded. “He’s still being proce-”

“I want him released immediately. This is a fine hard working pony!”

“But sir, he was-”

“I’m sure he was accidentally apprehended in the raid. This lad is merely guilty of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“But he was-”

“No buts! I want him out of there immediately or do you want to be bumped down to latrine duty?”

“N-no sir.” He grumbled as he pulled out his key ring.

“Hey can you let my assistant go too? He was accidentally caught up in this too.” I said to the constable.

The guard just sighed. “You’re both free to go,” He said opening the door. “On behoof of the Manehattan Constabulary we are sorry for the inconvenience, would like to formally apologize for this accident, and hope you have a wonderful evening,” He monologued.

“You too,” I said, “Come along Double Book! We’ve got important business to do,” I said to the stunned unicorn. “See ya around Basil.”

-=-=-=-=

“What did I do to deserve this?” Double mused as I picked through the trash. While we were released right away, it still had taken a couple hours just to get out of the city jail

“You let your concern for your job and employer overwhelm your personal life.” I said, tossing another pile of trash to the side. I kept digging.

“They’ve got my flank-print and know I was at the scene of a crime, and they’ll tell my boss tomorrow and then he’ll tell his manager and-” Another snowball pelted him. “HOW ARE YOU EVEN DOING THAT!”

I shrugged. “You don’t have to worry about any of that if it makes you feel better. Our early release wasn’t by chance.” Nope still not what I was looking for.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that there’s two sides to this city, and nobody said you can’t work both of them.”

“The bribes.”

“Sometimes bits to look the other way, sometimes they come to me for information. I do the same for the other side too.”

“Are you talking about…. The Herd?” He asked in a hushed tone.

I chuckled. Even after being a pony so long, there are still ridiculous things in this world that you never get over. Yep, in Equestria, pony mob you! The mafia, the don, the various families, all of that still existed, just ponified in the same way that this whole city was really. The Gallopino’s, the Pinkie Gang (no relation), the Genhoovese, the Loofhese, and probably a few more I hadn’t heard of.

Granted, they weren’t the “break all your legs” type of gangsters, this IS Equestria after all, but you still didn’t want to mess with them, especially with the sometimes cartoon physics of this world.

“I’m talking about both sides, and not a word more,” I said. “Aah ha!” I said triumphantly as my hoof reached the linen bag.

I opened it up and carefully dumped some of the seeds on the frog of my hoof. “This is what all of tonight was all about,” I said.

“That’s it? ALL OF THIS, the gold, the speak easy, the guard, all of it for a bag full of seeds?”

“Well, the guard was a surprise. If I had won the competition, these would have been the prize. I normally keep my alchemy under wraps, but this time I made an exception for these. These are worth more than all the gold in Canterlot.”

“What’s so special about them?”

I carefully put the rest of the seeds back in their pouch. “I’m not sure you want to know, but out here’s not the place to talk,” I said as I examined one in the gas light of the street lamps. From a distance, indeed they would be indistinguishable from normal sunflower seeds that ponies enjoy all the time. Up close though, they were something to behold. They were almost completely black with impossibly blue stripes running down the seams, terminating in a multicolored starburst at the base.

I slipped them back into the bag and looped the string around my neck.

=-=-=-

Celestia banged her gavel interrupting my story. “This has been enough for tonight.”

“Aw cmon it was almost over,” I said. “I was just about to tell him everything about the seeds.”

“Everypony is dismissed, and the transcript of the defendant’s description will be stricken from the record.”

“Your honor!” Lawyer whatshisflank protested.

“My decision is final. The court will resume tomorrow. I remind everypony gathered, the proceedings here are to be kept secret and shall not be repeated outside this court. Guards, take these two to the dungeon for holding until then.” She said before turning and exiting through the door behind her bench.

=-=-=-=

“They just look like sunflower seeds.” Double Book said looking over the seed in my hoof. “Why are these worth so much?”

Famished and in need of someplace to talk, we went to a nearby soda shop I knew of. Like its historical counterpart back home these places were all the rage right now, what with pony drinking culture being non existent thanks to most ponies being conformists, probably due to the fact that we as a species are herd animals, natural socialists, something that will need to change.

Pony science progresses in weird spurts. Ponies seem to adopt and perfect a technology before advancing anything else. The soda fountain was a recent adoption, having exploded into popularity because, I kid you not, Celestia was offered a drink and found it interesting.

“What happens when a pony gets sick?” I asked over my root beer float.

“I guess they go to a doctor and get healed by a unicorn,” he said.

I shook my head. “No, what happens when a pony gets really sick. Sick with something magical that a healing spell won’t fix.”

He scratched his head in thought. “I guess, they put them in the hospital and give them the Medicine and then they get better, usually.”

“Right, but its more than that. Medicine in Equestria is really great. Its the best in the world. Magical even. This,” I held up the seed, “is the reason behind it all. This is a seed of what the Zebras call the starflower, better known here as celestials. Everything about this plant is magical. The seeds are ground into the most powerful medicines, the leaves of this into the most potent magical cures in the known world. The stem is used in the creation of the most powerful forms of alchemy and the roots are said to be able to reverse any poisoning. Only one crop of these are grown each year, personally planted by Celestia herself. All knowledge about how to grow these, where to grow them, even what they look like is kept a secret, and all written works on it have been either locked away in secure archives or have been heavily censored,” I said. What I didn’t say was that possession and smuggling of the seeds were one of the few high crimes on the books.

These were some potent flowers, all I had to do was exploit them.

“So why go through all of this, why the gold, why this scheme, why put yourself in so much trouble?”

“Look, have you ever had a dream?” I asked.

He looked down wistfully into his drink. “Once,” He said with a hint of bitterness, taking a sip of his rootbeer.

“Well, I have a dream, a dream of iron, steel, a dream of capitalism and commerce. This country’s ripe for taking, it just takes somepony with the guts and know how to do it, and I need somepony like you to help me do it.”

He chuckled. “I’m nopony, you, Peterbit, all of you-” His moping was interrupted by a stallion litterally busting through the front door. Outside, bells began ringing and fireworks began shooting off.

“EVERYPONY! THERE’S BEEN ANOTHER ALICORN DISCOVERED! SHE’S TO BE CROWNED PRINCESS TOMMOROW! BY FAUST ITS A MIRACLE!” He shouted, before galoping off to spread the news to the next establishment.

For a brief moment, all was quiet as everypony digested the news. Then the soda shop erupted into cheers, and sugary carbonated drinks were all quickly poured on the ground. Hoof flasks, flank-tankards, beer bottles, and casks all appeared as if by magic from their concealment, and everypony began breaking into song. Something about magic and princesses and friendship or there abouts.

“Huh, I was wondering when Cadance would show her horn.” I said casually to Double Book who was about as shocked as one could be. “Here, you look like you need this more than I do,” I said, tossing out his rootbeer and refilling it with something from my own personal supply.

“TO FRIENDSHIP!” I shouted.

The room cheered.

=-=-=-=-=-=-

Drab, yet spacious, not much of a view, but its probably the cheapest realestate in Canterlot right now what with there being a massive housing bubble (not at all created by my machinations…)

“Why did you have to antagonize her!” Double barked from the other side of the cell. His chains rattled as he shook his hooves at me.

After being muscled out of court and hauled down here, we were essentially alone, the six stallions guarding us were pretty distracted with their poker game after all. In this day and age, the dungeon was probably used more as a drunk tank and for less reputable things by the adventurous noble couple after all.

“I did tell you this day was gonna happen at some point didn’t I?”

“Oh ya, was that before or after the blood contract?” He said, miffed. “What will my father think when all this gets out? What’s this going to do to our company?”

“Relax old friend. We’ve got this in the bag.” I said, stopping short as the door up above creaked open, followed by four pairs of metal shod hooves clacking on the stone floor.

‘Please be Moon-moon princess.’ I silently prayed as I clung to the bars.

Sure enough after an entirely too long descent, it was not sexy moon-moon but instead her quite irritated sister, Sun-butt the inflamed. Oh and she was quite angry with me.

Before anypony but me could see her though she paused and put on that stupid composed porcelain face.

The guards scrambled to attention, knocking over their card game and taking up their positions in the alcoves around the dungeon.

“Guards, you are dismissed,” She said.

“Your maj-”

“Now please.”

Without another word, the two unicorns quietly teleported away, the three earth ponies each pulled seperate hidden levers, disappearing down three different hidden passages, and the pegasis tried to fly upwards, only to banged around on the ceiling before darting up the passageway, slaming the door shut behind herself.

“You!” She said, letting her angry face slip for one moment. “You insisted on making this a trial, then decided to turn it into an endless mockery of my kingdom, my little ponies and myself. I was hoping for a glimmer of remorse, but then you go and admit to knowingly steal one of the closest guarded secrets of Equestria for personal gain no less, all the while mocking my kingdom and my ponies in the process.”

Maybe I had pushed one too many buttons. Was it me or was it getting warm in here?

She took a long deep breath, collecting herself. “You’d better have a good explanation for all your crimes, and I expect it first thing tomorrow when we begin again,” She said calmly, turning to leave. “Maybe there’s still hope for you-”

“OH WAH!” I said interrupting her monologue. “I’m such a bad pony! I only stole Equestria’s greedy widdle secrets, brought about an industrial revolution, and carried out my contract,” I said angrily. “Maybe just maybe if you weren’t censoring all the damn text books, and forbidding all sorts of study, ponies might stand up to you more from time to time. Oh can’t have that now can we? Oh and I fluoridated the water and iodized the salt licks while I was at it because I’m that EVIL!”

She started chuckling, her anger replaced by humor. “Now I think I understand. Quite evil indeed. I look forward to listening to more of your absurd tale, under a truth array of course. Oh and for your information, I only appoint the ponies that censor the textbooks, and I don’t really approve of the practice myself but found it necessary for my little ponies sake,” She said, this time turning to leave for good.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

End of Chapter 3

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Author's Note

Is long and ponderous? Yes
Is there more to come? Yes
Am I really REALLY bad at sticking to a schedule? Absolutely

Chapter 4: A Mostly Honest Business Proposal

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Chapitre Quatre: A Mostly Honest Business Proposal.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

“Hmm… more litch grass.” I said to myself, taking a taste of the large omelet. Cooking, very similar to alchemy, was something I had become pretty good at since becoming pony, especially since Xanny was one of those ponies who could somehow burn boiled water. Ah Xanny, I gotta straighten things out there….

I sighed and glanced over at the simple planting pot soaking up Celestia’s morning sun on the windowsill. There was probably no patching that up, especially if he recognizes what those seeds are.

“Ugh, my horn.” A very hungover Double Book said groggily shuffling out of his bedroom. Even hungover from what probably was his first drink ever, he still managed to pull on his tweed hat and stuff his hooves into two pair of slippers.

He shuffled over past me to the small table, fixing a small bowl of cereal and grabbing toast on his way, which he collapsed into, slowly slurping the mix through his front teeth.

“Morning.” I said, startling him.

“BAH!, what are you doing here!?” He shouted, startled.

“You let me in. Right before passing out in the hallway. You’re a lightweight.”

He groaned and collapsed back into his cereal. Damn he’s adorable.

“Omelet du fromage?” I said, offering the large frying pan. Oddly enough, while most pony houses had cast iron stoves in Manehatten, few had cast iron cooking implements. Another one of Equestria’s quirks, iron was rather uncommon and expensive. My trusty frying pan was a treasured gift from my tribe, and it always seemed to find its way back to me. My cart on the other wing had managed to turn up on the street on the way back here, ransacked and slammed into a pole. My precious cast iron pan was overlooked in the carnage. Obviously somepony had used it to escape from the raid or stole it afterwards, who knows with these hooligans.

Double extracted himself from his bowl and sniffed the large omelet greedily. His stomach audibly rumbled. Flapping around the kitchen, I tipped the golden nectar onto a plate and served it up to him, where he proceeded to dig in.

“That was the best omelet I’ve ever had,” he said after vacuuming up the whole thing. “I’ve never tasted eggs so good, what was in those eggs?”

“Emu!” I said as I cracked another giant egg into my pan. “There’s an old mare not too far from here who raises them.”

He worked his mouth a couple times before making a very equine huff and shaking his head. “I don’t even care anymore,” He said clutching his head.

Withdrawing a vial from my wing-folds, I dropped two aspirin on the table along with a glass of water. “Take two of these, they’re Bojack’s magic hangover pills.”

He sniffed them suspiciously. “What are they some kind of root from the lava swamps or something?”

“Acetylsalicylic acid, a pinch of caffeine, and some other stuff,” to which he gave me a confused look. “The active thing in willow bark but this won’t eat the bottom of your stomach. Trust me, they work every time.”

Looking wearily at it again, he levitated them up, and dutifully took them. “I don’t feel any better,” He said when they didn’t immediately cure his hangover.

“Give it ten minutes, they aren’t literally magic.”

He grumbled a bit and magic’ed up his paper to float nearby while he ate.

“Princess Celestia to officially crown new princess at summer sun celebration in Canterlot. This mysterious filly was seen briefly along side Princess Celestia this morning as Celestia ushered in the new day. Further details to come,” He read.

He didn’t actually read the paper out loud, this is just for exposition since a scene of two hungover stallions eating emu eggs around a table would be boring.

It was when he got to the finance section that he nearly choked on his eggs. “PANIC IN THE BANKS! Guard uncovers far-reaching gold transmutation scheme. Stampedes expected on the following banks...”

“OH FAUST!” was all that I heard as he fell out of his chair, rolled around on the floor before getting his hooves under him, and charged out the door.

“Some ponies are always in a hurry to get nowhere,” I said, sitting down to eat my own eggs, “Oh new crossword.”

=-=-=-=-=-=-

=-=-=-=-=-=-

Many hours later, the poor boy dragged himself back into his apartment, his mane was frazzled, and his face was dour.

“Its all gone,” he said solemnly closing the door behind him. “They came, they took everything, the guard found the books...” He said flopping down on his sofa.

“Bad day huh?” I said from the kitchen where I had begun unraveling the secrets of the star-flower seeds.

“The stock market crashed, pegasi were jumping out of windows, flying back to Cloudsdale, First and Third Stable had been making fake gold for years, selling it to all the banks, and we loaned it out on stock. I cooked our books for years trying to hide our debts, bbbut the guard they have it all now. They’re going after Peterbit, they’re going after Goldmane, all because of what we did last night, all because of you.”

“Well that sounds-”

“I’m an utter failure. Everything I touch crumbles before me. Why did I follow after you? We didn’t need your business that badly, you wanted some stupid seeds. First BARNIAC, now Goldmane. I’m going to have to move back with my father; I can’t go back to Canterlot like this, not after another failure,” He said rambling on and on.

He had flopped on his back in a perfect imitation of Rarity, well I mean he would be if not for the fact that she’s probably not even born yet. Since Cadance is a little filly then that means Rarity, Twilight, and the rest of the mane six haven’t even been born yet, assuming Cadance is in her early thirties by her introduction in the show. Gee I hope I haven’t done anything to disrupt that, there’s no way I’m putting on girly tiaras and saving the world.

Nah. That would probably be a bad idea. Best to stay away from the magical friendship nuke of doom harmony, especially when you’re body is made from void-stuff.

“You’re not a failure, you just need to join the right team,” I said while scribbling notes on my latest experiment. “I’ve been looking for someone with a good head for business.”

“Oh let me just get out my resume here, oh wait, I can’t because I’m going to get tossed into jail.”

“Pff, don’t worry about that, Celestia’s going to have bigger problems to worry about than go after some minor banker.” I said, dumping the solution into a waste beaker.

“What do you mean more problems?” He said, sitting upright and staring square at me.

“Nothing you should be concerned about,” I shrugged.

“What did you do?”

“Promise not to tell?”

“NO!”

“Fine then, I’ll tell you anyways since it’ll make you feel better. That mare last night? Mr. Peterbit might have told you she was the one responsible for everything, and maybe he doesn’t know, but in fact, everypony has been doing it, and for years.” I said settling down on the couch and flipping through my notebook to the right page.

“Some friends of mine were concerned they were being cheated so they came to me a while back to see if I could figure anything out.”

“And?”

“It took about five minutes to prove it wasn’t pure gold. A little longer to prove it wasn’t an alloy either. See if this was pure gold, a flame test would have just melted it. Then aqua regia should have cleanly dissolved it if it were any blend of valuable metals. What I wouldn’t do for a good ICP...” I said trailing off. “Regardless! My best guess is they’re blending and alloying metals together to get the density right with just enough gold to use some alchemy to make it all look homogeneous, something that’s completely possible without any sort of advanced microscopy or analytical chemistry. The problem is its unstable, capable of turning back into a valuable brick at a moment’s notice. Not a problem though when you’ve stacked them up in your vault. Just make sure to rotate the bars out back to whomever was doing the job.”

“Peterbit! We had an account that always had to be closed out every weekend, they took their earnings in gold bars, Peterbit always oversaw it,” He said punching a pillow. “Darn it! They used me, my name is all over those logs, and then our books, the book they ordered me to doctor! GAAAHH!” He shouted to his ceiling, which prompted a thumping from the apartment above. “Sorry!” He shouted in response.

“If you came to work for me it’d be different,” I said.

“Oh lovely, now the only work I can get is from a criminal.”

“Hey I resent that. I’m only a crooked pony because I have to be. Besides, if you worked with me, we’d be equals.”

“Equals in what? Selling fruit juice?”

“Everything. Remember what I was saying last night? No wait, you got pretty loaded after that. Look, see this pill?” I said, holding up one of the aspirin I gave him earlier. “Right now, this would cost any alchemist in Manehatten anywhere between three to five pony hours and two to three bolts to manufacture. Still with me?” He nodded. “Good, now what if I told you I could make this for one sixth of a pony hour, at one hundredth of a nut? What if I could make so many of these that the cost to manufacture each pill is almost zero? In such a market, we could sell this at prices everypony can afford, cheap enough they’d take them for headaches, they’d take them for joint pain, hay, they’d take them just because they thought it might make them feel better. Its all scale. Pills, soda pop, chemicals, furniture, even electric computers can all be made cheaply if you’re building at scale.”

“This country wants to leap forward, needs to leap forward,” needed to because I had to summon an old god and by god I’m not gonna start sacrificing virgins and forming death cults. I can’t drink to that koolaid. “It all starts with one company. Think about it. We could have computers in no time flat. ” And I’ll probably need them too if I’m going to get this all done without blowing up half of Equestria in the process as I suspect.

“Fuff. Computers,” He said, trotting off to his bookshelf and retrieving a thick book. “You’ve been reading too many Buck-Rover comics. Here’s the closest Equstria ever got to A computer,” He said, slamming the book down on his coffee table.

The faded title read ‘BARNIAC, an alternate to magical arithmatic arrays.’

“Ten years ago I tried to build one, it didn’t work at all. Its totally impossible, cannot be done,” he said with certainty as I flipped through the book. “Oh sure I could get simple electronic circuits to work, individual pieces, but it would take a hundred years of machining to build all the parts, another hundred just to assemble it all in any working order. It would take more gold than all the dragon hordes out there just to pay for the whole thing.”

“Here’s your problem.”

“And to what end? The Arithmatic Array took them less than five to build and its been humming away doing their computations for years now. Am I bitter? No, how can I be, I’m just a humble computer, doing my tabulations day by day, what do I know about electronics, or adding machines? I’m just a, wait what?”

“Found your problem. You’re right, this mess is totally unworkable,”

“See, another pony that doesn’t believe it can work!”

“No see your problem is that you’ve got this thing designed like you’d add and subtract,” I said, flipping to the simplified schematic page. “You’re passing these values around these stacks here and controlling things from here, but its all painfully slow, got a pen? Never mind, I always have one,” I said plucking a feather that I probably didn’t need and flipping the page over. “See you want this to be a black box. All your inputs and outputs are here,” I said drawing several rectangles. “You want your memory to be here, and your computer to be here. All your programming should be loaded into core memory so the computer can quickly jump back and forth between it, and it only outputs when its completed its operations, there like this,” I said, finishing the drawing. “You want a Von Neumancomputer, not ENIAC. Oh and its got to be completely electronic, mechanicals can be used for inputs and outputs but everything else should absolutely be electronic.”

He stared at it speechless for a minute, mulling it over. “But- How-,” He stammered.

“Take up my offer and I’ll let you have a peak behind the curtain,” I said.

“We could build this. But it would take a fortune.”

“A damn fortune. Also more electricity than Equestria has ever generated. But we’ll need to do that anyways.”

“But it would take years to design everything.” He said, talking more to himself.

“At least a decade away in technological development, if we wait to make it out of solid state components. If we stuck with vacuum tubes we could do it sooner but we’re going to quickly leapfrog that technology anyways.”

“But it could be done,” He said, turning to me. “You could do this?”

“Undoubtedly, not all of it, but there’s ponies out there that can,” Many not even born yet. “All I need is someone to keep the business running. I’ll get us the bits, but I need someone who I can trust that will push the limits of Equstria’s tax code, that knows her laws inside and out, someone who can manage the largest most complex venture that has ever been attempted in the history of this world. It’ll make you one of the richest ponies ever to have lived, and bring about fantastic changes in everything. Are you in?”

He paced around for a minute, mumbling to himself before finally sitting back down. “We’re going to build a computer right? Then I’m in,” He said, giving me a hoof to shake.

“Excellent! Now sign right here,” I said, whipping out a blank contract and vial of my own ink from under my wing-folds and quickly setting it on the coffee table and scratched out the terms. “You Double Book are hereby entitled to exactly one half of all profits and entitlements that result from this contract, and assume one half of all obligations of this company,” I said, emphatically. “Those terms good for you?”

He eyed the contract for a moment suspiciously. “Just like that?”

“Just like that. All you have to do is put your John Hoofcock right there.”

With only a hint of reluctance, he took the quill in hoof and began signing.

“Ow,” He grunted as he pricked himself with the quill. A drop of blood dripped on to the line next to his name. “That’s never happened before,” he said with a hint of embarrassment. “Do you want to draw up a new one?”

“Nope, that’s perfectly fine,” I said, rolling the dried contract up and tucking it into my magical wing folds. “Put’er there, partner,” I said, giving him a shake. “I wish we had something to celebrate with but you drank my stash last night.”

“Oh, I think I have some pop or something in the ice chest,” He said, getting up and trotting back into the kitchen area. “So we’re going to change the wor-” Whatever he was going to say was cut off by a loud, very shrill scream, followed by a thud on the floor.

“Double?” I said, trotting into the kitchen. On the floor lay my new business partner, his face frozen in fear and shock.

I looked up at the ice-box and sighed. “Five years and you don’t call, and then you had to pick right now of all times to remind me,” I said to the swirling mass of tentacles and darkness seeping out of the appliance.

It made a sound like an endless avalanche of gravel, with a hint of regret that turned to admonishment.

“Oh don’t blame Xanny for interference,” I said. “Its not my fault that you happened to drop me right in the middle of Zebran Savannah, and by drop I mean, shot me into it at mach 5! I didn’t even know how to fly back then.”

the mass of tentacles responded with the sound of glass in a washing machine, with some of the tentacles jiggling.

“Ya I never would have guessed that’s why I would need the strength of an earth pony and the crash proofing of a pegasus. Look can we do this later? Xanny is out of the picture now, and I need to revive my colleague here before his mind is totally blanked by your horror,” I said, cradling Double Book’s stiff form.

The tentacles jerked in agreement.

“Good. Glad you’re so receptive. I want you to know I'm working as fast as I can but its gonna take time. These dang ponies haven’t built even one third of everything I need to build a gateway. Another decade at least,”

The two of the tentacles clapped in approval. Then the whole mass retreated with a wet sucking sound, with a little one pulling the door shut behind it.

“Honestly that guy is a piece of work,” I sighed, slipping a tentacle out of my fetlock and slithering it down Double’s ear. “Now where’s that reset nerve….”

Author's Note

The story goes on... and on... and on...

MSL Chapter 5: Ocean’s 1 and a Half

MSL Chapter 5: Ocean’s 1 and a Half.

“Clear!”

I dropped my now collegue into his bathtub, which I had filled with ice.

“GAH! CCCCCOLD!” He shouted, bolting out of the tub and into the wall. Fortunately pony building materials aren’t particularly strong. In any case he knocked himself out cold, again, leaving quite the indent in the wall as well.

“If at first you don’t succeed...” I said, dragging him back to the tub.

=-=-=-=-

Later, in the kitchen with Double Book clutching his coffee mug for dear life. He was still shivering even though it was mid summer and his apartment was sweltering.

“Sssso many ttttenticless,” He said, adjusting the blanket he was wearing like a poncho. “Iiiiit reached out and grabbed me by the hhhhooof.”

“Ya so about that….” I said, taking his foreleg and turning it over exposing what looked like a long burn. “You’re now marked as one of your new master’s chosen. I was going to break the news gently but he’s uh, lets say impatient, for a mileniums old being that is.”

“Yyyyou tricked mmmme,” He said, weakly trying to punch me.

“Hey! You agreed to this, it was all in that contract, you assumed one half of the rewards and obligations of this company.”

“Tttthat’s entrapment!”

“There’s no such thing in the twisting void, trust me, I’ve got their lawbook shoved up in here,” I said, tapping my head with a hoof. “Its not so bad anyways. That mark’ll blend into your coat soon enough, and its actually a pretty good gift, not only are you now generally immune to mind control, blood magic, and have some improved resistances to all magics, you’ll get a slight boost in your own magic output. Oh and you can cross seas without worrying about kraken.”

He mulled this over for a minute, taking another sip from his coffee. “I want out,” He finally said.

“Sorry It doesn’t work like that.”

“Well I’m not going to help you do, whatever it is with whatever that was.”

I shrugged. “That’s your decision, but hear me out. We’re still going to do everything I said we were, and more, I don’t need help with him, I need help with everything that comes before that. Plus this isn’t the kind of contract you can back out of without consiquences. Besides which you don’t have to make this decision now, you’ve got by my estimation at least a decade or so to make up your mind. Just don’t go popping a letter off to Celestia or anypony about it, you’ll find he has eyes and tenticles everywhere.”

“Fine. But you’ll never ever keep any more secrets from me.” He said, “What does a thing like that even want with Equestria anyways?”

“Eh, same old same old, bring about 10,000 years of darkness, enslave ponykind, play with the pretty little ponies, errect giant mind numbing monoliths, pet the pretty ponies and brush their manes, fill the skies with flying horrors, the lakes with black icor, and prance around with the pretty ponies, the usual.”

“Rrrriiiight, and you’re going to do what exactly?”

“Oh just build a gateway for him to get here and then the contract is complete.”

He whacked his head against the table. “How did I even get in this mess, how did you even,” he mumbled to the wood.

“Well I didn’t exactly have a lot of options at the time, dying really sucks you know.”

He sighed.

“So what about you? How does a pony like you build a computer?”

He floated his manuscript over and slid it on the table, still with his head down. He flipped it open to the back which was filled with some faded newspaper clippings. “It started with the Arithmatic Array, a massive matrix of spellwork that would be able to tabulate and solve mathematical problems, and it was to be built by SGU for the princess. My graduate study at University of Canterlot was in electrophysics and mathematics, it was MY idea to use electro-mechanical computation circuits to do asthmatics, it should have been simple but no, the dean stepped in, then the board of the university, then next thing I know Princess Celestia herself was made aware. We had a year, a bucking year, to get it to work, and I just, there were too many ponies involved, they took my computer away from me and one day I snapped and just… ran,” he said. He had tears in his eyes as he flipped through the technical schematics on the table before me. “I left everypony, my father, my position, I haven’t been back to this day. I found a job at Goldenmane doing tabulations and here I am, I guess.”

“Ouch.”

He closed the book with a sigh. “It’s not all bad, they managed to get something working, but it’s a fragment of what we were supposed to build, now I hear they’re going to build a second Arithmatic Array on the grounds of Cant U. We’re going to do this, you’re absolutely certain about it?”

“As my word as a servant of the dark lords in the Cyclopian lands beyond, we will build a computer,” I said, giving him a hoofshake.

(Dark) Lord knows, we’re going to need a supercomputer just to check if this portal is even remotely stable.

“So um, where do we start,” He said, wiping tears away with his other hoof. A clock tower in the distance chimed half past nine.

“Eh its too late tonight, let’s start taking over the world tomorrow,” I said.

He chuckled.

=-=-=-=-=

Several Days Later…

=-=-=-=-=

“So how is getting dressed up and staring at a wall supposed to get us somewhere?” Double asked always the skeptic.

He was wearing formal pony attire which was basically a black bow tie and a nice dress shirt. I meanwhile was wearing basically a bow tie and a sleeveless shirt given how nothing in his wardrobe fit me or my wings. Not a pair of pants between the two of us though, ponies have no qualm about seeing each other’s butts exposed, all the time, in fact hiding one’s butt in public draws scrutiny.

See what I’m dealing with folks?

Still I guess pants didn’t exist in antiquity either given the roman penchant for leather skirts, if the movies are to be believed.

Anyways, we weren’t just outside some wall on Saddle island, this was the outer wall of the mansion of the godmother, no not Faust or Celestia, just the pony in charge of the entire pony mafia, and if my sources are correct, her eighth grand niece was getting married today.

“While I’ve got my own master, but one doesn’t just trot away from the Herd...especially when you’ve just exposed their gold multiplying conspiracy,” I said, boosting him up over the wall. I heard him land with a thud on the other side. “Catch,” I said, tossing the bottle of moderately priced champagne over, where Double responded with a yelp.

Using my prestigious pegasi powers, I followed him over the wall and found him rolling out of a bush.

“...Besides which, there are more than just government officials you need to get a business license from in this town, at least if you don’t want it to burn down under mysterious circumstances,” I said.

“How do you know all of this?” He said, as we started walking the large grounds towards the party.

“Movies, Television, Video Games, History Channel specials.”

“I have no idea what any of that is,” He said. He was already building a mental wall around his small slice of reality. After learning that eldritch beings exist, something which to his credit hasn’t driven him insane yet, he just shakes his head whenever I try to broach the subject. Probably for the best right now.

Really pony technology was around Douglass Adams levels of complicated. They had invented the spray can for example but still haven’t mastered mass refinement of steel or aluminum, let alone proper synthetic plastics. Unicorns and their magic have been both a crutch and a kludge to innovation, I blame Celestia.

She’s been the guiding force to Equestria’s developments. They should have nuclear fusion by now, instead they’re just starting to wrap their minds around the underpinnings of atomic theory, physics is a half baked mess, and nopony has connected medicine, alchemy, and chemistry together. It simply won’t do.

“Just act like you belong here, and if anyone asks who you are just say you’re Nickel's third cousin twice removed, oh and never ever accept an offer for a cantaloupe.”

“Why?”

“Just don’t do it alright.”

He huffed as we climbed a hill reaching the main event.

Herdsters of all colors and tribe were milling around chatting and laughing with each other in the distance.

“Just went on a walk to clear our heads,” I said to a pair of burly looking earth ponies guarding the path to the party. They each gave us a stern look. “Ok you got us, we were doing pony stuff in the bushes.”

They looked at us even sterner.

“It was sexy stuff OK, sexy pony stuff in the bushes over there, and we’re proud of it!”

“Please just let us in,” Double said, his brown coat turning a shade of red from embarrassment.

“Spruce?” the one on the left said to his other.

“Ya Fig?”

“You believe them?”

“Nope. Invitation or we’ll have to get tough with you,” Fig said popping his neck.

OK, plan B time.

I cleared my throat and stood up, eye to eye with them. “Gentlecolts, I am honor bound to inform you I am a master of the ancient art of Wang-Bong, and as such, if you do not let my compatriot and I through, I will be forced to disable you with haste.”

The one named Spruce stepped forward. “Oh ya, is that a threat tough guy?” he said, raising a forehoof towards me.

WANG!

My frying pan rang out. Spruce crumpled to the ground in a daze.

“WHA-”

BONG!

It rang again on the backhoof, sending Fig sprawling.

“WHAT THE HAY WAS THAT, WHERE DID YOU EVEN!” Double stammered as I sheathed my frying pan back into my mane.

“I warned them didn’t I?” I said with a cocky smile. “They’ll be fine, in like ten to twelve hours… Help me drag them into the bush over there,” I said, grabbing a foreleg in my mouth.

This was a cartoon world anyways right? They’ll be fine.

=-=-=-=-

“We’re dead, we’re sooo dead, so completely dead.” Double whispered to nopony in particular as we were walking through the party.

“We’re fine, all fine,” I said as a server trotted on by with a platter of cheese cubes and carrots floating beside him. My two greatest weaknesses. Pony noses and consequently, taste, were so just so strong. “Besides, been there, done that. Oh and don’t get any ideas, dying is not nearly as permanent as you might expect, especially to the Elder ones.” I said before grabbing a hoof full of cheese.

“Wait what?!” He said stammering.

“In time, you just need to expand your mind.”

“Melon sir?” A sever said, levitating a tray over.

Double, in need of comfort food, greedily grabbed one.

“Ew honeydew. Get that garbage out of here!” I said knocking it out of Double’s hoof. “You should be ashamed of yourself for serving that here.”

“Why I never,” The server said with a huff and trotted off.

“Whew dodged a bullet there,” I said wiping my hoof on the table cloth. “We’re just here to tie up some loose ends of this arc, we’ll be in and out in 5 minutes tops.”

“What?”

“NO TIME!” I said, pushing him along to the house.

=-=-=

“Are you sure we should be here?” Double whispered behind me. As we rounded a corner, I held up a wing to stop him as I peered around the corner. Two guards were standing watch around an otherwise ordinary door that lead down to the basement.

“Hang here for a second,” I said, taking a vase in one hoof and my frying pan in the other.

“Catch!” I shouted, rounding the corner. Henchpony #154 dumbly scrambled to grab the vase as I brought my frying pan to bear on Henchpony #153. Before they knew what hit them they were both down for the count.

“All clear,” I said back to Double as I searched the guard’s suit for a key.

“We came all this way for a closet door?” Double asked, opening the door to reveal a linen closet.

“Here we go,” I said, pulling a silver key on a lanyard off of the pony’s neck after shoving him and his friend in the closet. “On the outside it looks like an ordinary closet, but behold!” I said as I slipped the key into the lock and turned it the opposite direction. Opening the door this time revealed a stairway to a large basement room. “After you,” I said, holding the door open.

At the bottom of the stairs we reached a cavernous room dimly lit by spell torches hanging on chandalears above. On our end of the room were stacks and stacks of material covered in canvas sheets.

“What is this place?” He said, pulling the cover off of one stacks. The gold bars underneath glinted in the pale light cast by the spell torches.

“Fakes,” I said, picking up a bar and breaking it in two. “These must have been rejects.”

Further into the room, there was an assembly line of cauldrons and drying tables stacked with ingots of inferior metals awaiting the pseudo transmutation. “Come on, the vault is going to be this way, I think,” I said taking the path that felt familiar.

“You think?”

“Look it was a while ago and I was blind folded the entire time,”

It was a few months ago actually. Through the grapevine, my name, or more aptly, my description, was mentioned as somepony that knew a thing or two about alchemy, the occult, and magical botiny. One rough blind folded carraige ride later I found myself down here identifying a particular object they had filched from darklords only knew where.

Thankfully we pegasuses have a flawless sense of direction.

Quietly making our way down the dim hallways, punctuated regularly by the light of spell lamps, we eventually came upon a large banded metal door inset into an archway.

“This will only take a second,” I said, digging into my wing folds for the right vial. I pulled out a little crystal vial with a grey mixture inside, broke the seal and tipped it into the lock. “Add a little concentrated entropy, and then give it a little frost...” The latch fizzled and rusted as the mixture did its work. Putting my hoof to the door, I pushed the power of my pegasi body into the metal. Frost spread across the rusting lock mechanism, working its way into the latch bolt.

“I’ve never seen a pegasus do that before,” Double said.

“I told you, I am a special snowflake, it says so right on my sexy flanks," I said giving my pony butt a shake. "Besides, the whole ‘manufactured weather’ thing is a giant government conspiracy,” I said turning around in the cramped hallway, positioning myself. With a swift kick, the door buckled inwards, yielding to the ice and rust. “Now then, where is that little...” I trailed off coming to a stop in the middle of the room. “Well shiiiiiiit.”

Where there was once piles of gems, sacks of bits and other treasures, instead, chalked onto the floor was a large pentagram with a painted goat’s skull. The walls themselves had banners hanging, each emblazened with an individual demonic rune, and at the back of the room, surrounded by candelabras rose an alter made of one monolithic slab of granite. Resting on top though was a still steaming pile of entrails that I would hope came from one of the very few non-sentient animals on this planet.

“You know, on second thought; Double I dont think this is the right place, Double?” I turned to see him collapse just inside the doorway. Another stun spell slammed into my side before I could react, I felt the bite of the electricity, but it takes more than that to drop me.

Too bad they had much more. I whipped my pan around knocking away one spell, dropping a unicorn hidden in the shadow, but by then three, four, no five spells each blasted me.

My pan clattered to the ground as the world went hazy.

=-=-=-=-=

Smack.

“Wakey wakey, mr intruder.” A very german voice said.

My head was spinning, my body ached. I was chained up by my forelegs. We must have been outside, I could smell the scent of grass and dirt as well as copious amounts of incense.

“Wake up I said!”

Smack!

I felt a jolt of pain flair across my back.

I cracked my eyes. A unicorn was standing in front of me wearing a black robe adorned with various golden stitched glyphs. A riding crop was held aloft by his azure magic. I was chained up on a post driven into the dirt. To my front was a large grotto, the entrance dimly illuminated by the roaring bonfire behind me. Around the edge of the firelight, I could see the dim outlines of dozens of unicorns standing at attention, each concealed underneath a hooded robe.

“Ya, there you are mr sleepypony,” He said, holding my head up with a hoof. “I will only ask this once, and I will get an answer. What were you doing invading the inner sanctum of The Mule Society?”

“Where’s my friend.”

He whipped me across the muzzle with the crop.

“I am the asking of the questions here. Now who sent you to spy on the Mule Society?”

“Mule Society?” I said, geninuinely ignorant.

I was rewarded with another smack, this time across the inner ridges of my left wing, sending a confusing mess of pain along the nerves.

“Don’t play dumb with me. You come on this most unholy of days, and invade the inner sanctum of the Mule Society to disrupt our rituals. This is an incontrovertible fact. What I want to hear is who sent you and why.”

I coughed. They must have beaten me after knocking me out, that or I was the stage for an inpromptu river stomp concert. “Honestly, I thought this was the Gallopino House.”

My captor laughed. “Ah I see, you were looking for the house three doors down on the left.”

“Look, I’m not a judgemental kind of guy, I believe in the absolute right to practice whatever tortured religioun you want. Just let us go and you have my word that we’ll never speak of this ever again.”

“hmmm… Ohkay. Let me just.” Smack. He cracked the crop across my nose, sending me cross eyed. “Who do you think we are? The Mule Society has escaped detection for hundreds of years because we do not simply take individuals at their word, especially that of the lesser tribes.”

He shouted something in Germane, eliciting a large laugh from the crowd.

Suddenly the gears meshed in my head. Black robes, secret society, unicorn supremacy, germane accents….

“NAZIS you’re goddamned nazis! I hate goddamn nazis.” I shouted, eliciting another whip. “Why am I not supprised?”

“We are the true rulers of this world.”

“Fuff,” I said, “You’ve got as much of a claim to this world as Celestia does. Last I checked, you guys were a protectorate of Equestria.”

The crowd hissed and my captor cracked his crop hard across my barrel, probably drawing blood.

“The Kaiser Winnyhelm was a fool to accept her terms. He singlehoofedly threw away the masterwork of Otto Von Bismare for what? Protection from the likes of the Prench and their legions of mudponies? But I digress. Someday, even the likes of Celestia will fall, our new found powers will see to that, and then this land too will be ruled by unicorns!”

The crowd clopped in cheer.

“And what about the Equestrians that don’t particularly agree with that plan?”

“The lesser tribes will be put in their place, and those of the horned will have to be reeducated of course. We have methods of dealing with the horned that resist. Just ask your friend.” He said, practically spitting the last word.

“Where’s Double Book,” I demanded.

He laughed. “Your companion was of the weak minded. I have a feeling that in time he may be corrected. But until then...” He gestured with a hoof to someponies behind me.

Flanked by two cultist mares, he strode lethargically into view. His normally large pony eyes were fully dialated and unfocused.

“Mind control huh? You’re really the worst kind of nazis then. What are you going to try on me, turn me into a maid or something?”

He chuckled. “I would not even attempt to waste the magic. You shall be tonight’s main course. You see, our society has been gifted with such a rare creature from the depths of Tartarus itself. It is such a hungry beast however. Fortune indeed brought you here tonight though. I shall enjoy watching it rend your flesh,” He said stuffing a gag into my mouth before turning to the grotto entrance.

Another pair of ponies with an ark suspended between them knelt in front of him. The crowd began humming something gutteral.

Chanting in germane, he opened the ark and floated out a red leather bound tome and flipped through its pages.

As the ritual progressed the crowd became more and more energized.

“AND IN THE NAME OF HE WHO RULES FROM TAMBLERON WE CALL FORTH THE BEAST OF THE GATE TO FEAST UPON THIS SACRIFICE, SO THAT HE MAY KNOW OF OUR DEVOTION AND REWARD US HIS FAITHFUL WITH HIS KNOWLEDGE AND POWER!” He shouted, capping the ritual. The crowd suddenly went silent. From the ark, he drew forth a jeweled dagger made of a black metal and turned towards me.

“Now now, it wouldn’t do to muffle your screams now would it?” He said, cutting the gag. “Any last words before your flesh and soul are devoured?”

With a smirk, I answered. “Just this,” I said, taking a deep breath. “Wenn ist das Nunstück git und Slotermeyer? Ja! Beiherhund das Oder die Flipperwaldt gersput!” I shouted. The words echoed across the clearing.

“Jokes? That wasn’t even funny!” He said. “Do you dare to insult He Whom Tolls The Bell?”

Around the clearing however, things were different. The gathered ponies were all throwing back their hoods, trying to suppress a chuckle. One by one, they burst into laughter, eventually rolling onto their sides, gasping for air.

“Stop it all of you! STOP IT I SAY! ITS NOT EVEN-” A chuckle interupted his train of thought. “It… What did you do?!” He said, dropping to his knees. His chest heaved as he fought off the laughter.

“Oh nothing much, just exposed you to the world’s funniest joke. Nothing the iron willed disciples of the Mule Society can’t handle.”

“I...bwaha…. Will… BWAHAHA….have….Gersput! BAWAHAHAA!” He finally collapsed against me, the knife clutched in his hoof knicked my barrel, drawing blood.

He laughed and laughed until in one big gasp, he went silent. An expression of pure hilarity, frozen on his face.

“Phew, that could have gone a lot worse.” I said, pulling against the restraints. I looked down at my barrel. My fur was wet where his knife nicked my barrel. A few droppletts of blood stained the ground.

Something in the shadows of the grotto grumbled.

“Oh crap,” I said, trying to pull myself free from the restraints as the noise grew louder.

A canine head emerged from the grotto, followed by another, and finally, another, each rooted to an immensly thick body that emerged from the cave. Three sets of noses sniffed the air, and three sets of eyes locked with mine as I struggled. Slowly it lumbered towards me. Its giant pug body moving awkwardly.

“Gggoood boy, down boy!” I said, trying to curl myself away.

The tripug barred its teeth at me.

Suddenly I had an idea. Reaching inwards, I called upon the dark swirling mass inside me and a dark tenticle slithered out from a wingfold, grabbing the crop that my captor had discarded.

“Pfwet,” I whistled. “Here boy! Come get the stick! Come get the stick!” I said, waving the riding crop.

Immediately, the tripug jolted to action, each head nipping for the stick. Quickly I tossed it as hard as I could, the preternatural limb sending it flying far into the darkness, with the pug chasing after it.

Breaking my chains, I dropped down to all fours and looked around.

Every single cultist was frozen much like my captor, and none seemed to be coming to their aid.

“ghhhuuuuuhhhhhhh.”

Even as his attendants were keeled over, Double Book stood there, slack jawed with a little drool dribbling from his chin.

“Snap out of it!” I said smacking him with a wet meaty smack from the tenticle, jolting him to his senses.

“W-what…” He said, looking around.

With a sucking sound, the tenticle returned back inside of me. “I’ll explain later, but lets get as far away as we can from here.”

“I… yes.” He said, still shaking off the effects of the mind control.

=-=-=-=-=

“So I’m confused, so we weren’t there to take out that cult?” Double said, over his seventh cup of coffee.

“No, apparently I had the wrong address in the first place.”

“Uh.. What did I sign up for.” He groaned, putting his hoof to his temples. “So all of that was a waste of time?”

“Well, not complete waste of time,” I said, holding up the codex I swiped from them.

“Wait! That could be cursed or something. Shouldn’t’ we take it to the authorities or something? In fact, shouldn’t we go turn ourselves in or something, tell them what happened?”

“Hey we’re bad guys remember. Besides, I had a chat with the Big Mane while you were sleeping off the after effects of that spell. He said the Mule Society was inconsequential, none in his circle would ever waste their time on them. They probably found that book and were taken under its curse. Broken from its hold, they probably won’t remember a thing. Its likely the Mule Society was just your run of the mill cult, doing paegan rituals and other occult stuff and stumbled across this cursed tome and couldn’t resist it. I guess we’ll never really know though.” I said sipping my tea and unrolling today’s paper.

“I guess.” Double said, still a bit dazed. “I’m just… I’m having a hard time processing all of this.”

“So you had your first run in with the stuff that goes bump in the night. Look, Equestria isn’t the wholesome family friendly place you think it is. Everywhere there’s some hidden cult, or some magic googah that can destroy the world. The key is to just take it in stride.”

“Still, cultists...”

=-=-=-=-=

“Again, princess I don’t know! I showed you the recipe I had.” Aloe Vera said, breaking into tears. “Please, I’m sorry!”

Princess Celestia, ever cool, remained silent as the mare broke down in front of her. She had already ascertained that Aloe was already telling the truth through subtle magical means, what she needed however was more information. Such as what banks were complicit in this financial scam, and names of ponies that knowingly defrauded her ponies. All that would come in time as the royal investigation proceeded of course. Aloe was but one part of a vast conspiracy, a talented young alchemist prodigy, from noble blood, never quite aware of the consequences her actions may have. Celestia really had no more immediate use for her as a subject of investigation.

And yet, there was still the nagging matter at hoof. One standard alchemy cauldron completely transmuted to pure gold as well as the contents within. Her own examinations had proven that it was not that of the cheap mass produced gold that had created this mess either. It was a full fledged transmutation, something that even her own small passion for the art had not yet achieved.

“I believe you,” She said. “However in your pursuit of the arts, you have broken several laws that were in place for very necessary reasons. I do not know yet the full extent of your crimes, however I do believe you have the capacity to change your ways and will if given the chance.”

With a wave of her hoof, she summoned the guard to the room who escorted the sobbing mare away. Alone in the modestly sized office she had commandeered for her stay, she stood up, taking a moment to stretch the tension out of her limbs. She had set the sun on its course downwards hours ago, now the city was lit in that unique mix of electrical and magical lighting that Manehatten was becoming famous for.

Taking in the view from the window, she sighed. “Why now of all times,” Celestia said to nopony.

She should be home in Canterlot with Sunset, with Cadance, teaching her student and preparing the young princess for her role. There was so much that Cadence needed to learn about herself and her new abilities. There was so much that Sunset had to learn if she is to live up to her potential.

And yet, she was stuck here in Manehatten, once again putting off family and friendship for the good of her kingdom. Guaranteeing the value of the gold was not enough, even pledging to replace the phony gold with that from her own fortune was not enough. This modern concept of stock trading, the tool that had reaped so much wealth upon this very city, had now exposed the skittish tendencies of her little ponies.

There was a knock on the frosted glass of the office door. At this hour it could only be the captain assigned to this case, Persistent Lead.

“Come in.” She said, turning to see one of her own investigators, even still he gave an informal bow before presenting his findings.

“Your Radiance,” He said, taking out a manila folder from his satchel and set it on the table.

“I have compiled my initial report on the sting operation and the ensuing false gold scheme. We believe that while each of the major banks in this city were at least complicit in passing off this gold as genuine, each bank separately employed their own network of gold suppliers.”

“Further, we suspect that the leadership and upper management of each bank were at least aware of if not active in the cover up of the fake gold deposits. We’re still sifting through what records we were able to obtain.”

“I recommend that the guard be allowed to take lead of the Constabulary's existing probe into criminal activities around Manehatten that lead to this scandal.”

“Of course,” Celestia said with a hoof wave. “Is there any more developments that may require my attention before I prepare to return to Canterlot?”

Persistent double checked his notes. “There is still the matter of partially transmuted gold turning up in the mail at various papers around Manehatten. We have been able to delay the stories, however it is only a matter of time until the information leaks out,”

Celestia lowered her head to the desk and sighed. “We are still no closer to determining the whereabouts of these mysterious packages?”

“None your majesty. The packages were routed through various branches of the postal system including those as far out as Dodge City. While we have traced them to back individual postage boxes using magical and deductive means, they all appear to have been sent from widely trafficked areas and were all sent at least a month or more. Whomever is sending these packages has detailed knowledge of the postal system, as well as I have sent the packages onward to Canterlot for more thorough study,” He said, finishing up, “I believe that we are either dealing with an alchemist of extraordinary talent or another syndicate of criminals trying to expose their competition.”

“Then there is the matter of the informant that brought this to our attention in the first place.”

“Yes, a Pegasus of medium build, with a light blue coat, black mane, and a weather related cutie mark. We might as well summon half the pegasi in this city for questioning.”

“Mam?”

“A joke Persistent.”

“Ah yes,” He said, as if he had just heard of the concept.

“If that is all then, I feel that I must return to Canterlot,” She said, folding her forelegs over the desk.

It was then that the door to her office barged open. A constable of inconsequential rank, stumbled in. “Y-y-yer highness, an emergency!” He shuddered, “A monster on Stallion Island, ponies dead, we need your help,” He dropped to the ground in a bow.

Silently part of Celestia sighed. Her ponies always came first though.

“Shall I assemble a guard detachment?” Persistent asked.

“Gather what troops you can and assemble outside immediately. I shall see to this matter at once,” She said, straightening her regalia and refreshing her own defensive wards.

=-=-=-=-=-

=-=-=-=-=

One quick mass teleport later and Celestia found herself standing outside a large mansion on the Island of Stallions.

The manor was on fire, with flames dancing in all the windows. The woods around it had likewise erupted in flames. Rescue workers and weather ponies had assembled to fight the fire, but had retreated to the perimeter wall after catching sight of the beast that had caused this devastation.

The Constabulary chief had already found his way to the scene before her, having lived in the area and took charge of the situation. An old acquaintance of hers, he saved her the pleasantries and simply greeted her with a nod as he was directing his forces.

“All of my ponies are safe, nopony was found in the manner, but the cloud stompers already count a dozen ponies down in the woods around the house.”

“I see, then there’s no time to waste,” Celestia said resolutely.

=-=-=

Alone she stood in front of the mansion gate, its size even dwarfed her own. Behind it lie the burning mansion, slowly crumbling inwards on itself.

Behind her stood her guard holding her rear, followed by the constables and other emergency workers, all waiting for her to subdue this threat so they may apply their own talents. Ponies of all tribes working together each playing off of the other’s strengths. This was what she embodied.

Stepping forward she pushing the gates inwards. The wrought iron glided smoothly on well oiled hinges.

Taking stock of the ruined courtyard, she saw the remains of a large gathering with smashed tables and singed decorations all around. Glass crunched under her hoofguards as she passed the remains of what was once a wide array of wine bottles, now only a singular bottle of mild quality remained, pressure building under the cork. With a bang, the bottle burst. Scalding liquid and shattered glass bounced off her warding, momentarily flashing solid.

Celestia gritted her teeth. She had hoped to quietly assess the situation, her bestiary knowledge and experience told her facing an unknown creature head on would do more harm than good.

Instead, Celestia heard three sets of growls directly behind her. Slowly, she turned to face her foe.

=-=-=-=

“You may move your ponies in to do their duties,” Celestia said exiting through the gate. “I have contained the creature for the time being. I have already summoned specialists from Canterlot to facilitate its transfer to a safer location. Until then though, I do require these items to be brought here,” She said handing a scroll to the constabulary chief who skimmed it wide eyed.

“Is this accurate your highness?”

Celestia took this moment to wipe some of the ash from her coat using a towel that had been set aside by one of the rescue workers. “Is there anything amiss with this list?”

“No its just, well it looks like a list for pet supplies for a dog.”

“Indeed it is. A giant three headed one at that. A Tartarus Hound, quite exotic.”

“If you don’t mind me asking, what will you do with such a dangerous creature?”

“Not at all. I have made use of them to guard the entrance to Tartarus for some centuries now as they are nearly impervious to magic.”

“Are you hurt? My pegasi saw you grapple with it and wrestle it to the ground.”

“I am unharmed, and do not worry though it is resistant to spells, I have made use of an ancient enchantment to put it to sleep until experienced hooves arrive,” She said, suppressing a grin.

Sometimes it was easier to explain away things with magic instead of say, explaining that they can be lulled to sleep with an extensive amount of belly rubs, chin scratches, and ear rubs. Something Luna had discovered much to her chagrin. Properly trained they make excellent guard dogs. Immovable from their post.

For a moment, she glanced up at the night sky. Luna as due to set soon. She had already spent much of the day and the previous night working, and now she had put off sleeping for yet another night.

Just then a guard came trotting up, huffing and out of breath. “Mam, you’d better come see this,” The guard said with a salute.

=-=-=-

Celestia was baffled and disturbed by the scene before her. In the pale morning sun, she could see what remained of yet another cult ritual gone wrong.

Investigators had already begun their work documenting the scene. White sheets covered the few remaining of the unfortunate ponies that while alive, were frozen with a bizarre smile, as if they had fallen to laughter. That alone had set her stomach on edge. None of the spells she dare use right now could break their trance.

Another pair of pegasi landed with an air stretcher nearby.

In the meantime, they were being air lifted to the hospital to stabilize, before they would be transported to a special wing in Canterlot if the trance can’t be broken.

“Now just how did you escape?” She asked herself as she stared at the cross that stood in front of the remnants of a bonfire. A pair of broken manacles hung from chains on the arms.

She had seen this before, too many times in fact. They were offering up this poor pony as a sacrifice to their hound, but just how then did they end up how they are? Why were the shackles broken? Where was the pony now?

Hoof-prints trailed off down the path. The pattern was not that of a desperate gallop though, but one of a slow walk. None of the ponies found on the ground had apparently given chase, indicating that they must have already been incapacitated. This pony had not been a unicorn, a crushed sky blue feather found trampled into the dirt indicated such. Who cast this spell then? Why had this pegasus not come forth to the authorities if they were just an innocent bystander? Was this their informant?

The truth was sadly something that would have to be pieced together by other ponies, as with a yawn, Celestia felt the weight of the last few weeks finally hit her. She turned away from the scene walked back towards the manor where her chariot awaited to return her to Canterlot for a well needed rest.

=-=-=-=-=-=

Author's Note

I'm still alive, oh yes I'm still alive.

Hopefully the next few chapters will get out quicker.

Chapter 6: In The Court of The Dagon King

==== In The Court of The Dagon King ====

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

‘Dear Father,

I’m sorry its been so long. Its been entirely too long actually.

I guess recent events have made me reflect on my life and where I’ve been. After everything that happened back in university, I just threw myself at work and kept my nose down. I pushed away all my dreams just like I did with you.

I’m doing fine by the way. I lost my job and most of my savings, but I don’t really care about any of that anymore. I met someone who shares my dreams, who doesn’t let anything stand in his way to achieve those dreams. He’s a little eccentric, more so than is normal for a pegasus. We’re going into business together. I think we have a real shot at making it big, and I hope someday soon you’ll see our names written in the paper for all the right reasons.

Respectfully,

Your Son

Double Book’

I carefully set the page down to dry and returned my pen to its holder. I had been working myself up into knots all day over this. It was only a week ago that I had been brainwashed by a cult and almost forced to watch them sacrifice Bojack in front of me. At least I wasn’t having nightmares of it anymore, the entity that I had accidentally indentured myself to.

Checking to see the page was dry, I then placed it into an envelope that I had already prepared with the proper address and sealed it with a dabble of wax.

I hesitated though, that nagging feeling of failure kept pulling on my horn, tempting me to rip this letter up like all the rest I had authored over the years.

No, I was going to mail this one!

BOOM

My toilet room door blasted backwards, partially falling off its hinges. My business partner prepelled out of the tiny darkened room by some concussive force.

“Well that’s not going to work,” He said, dusting himself off from the shattered remains of my coffee table. A small stream of violet smoke was emanating from the small room.

I should be mad, I should be assertive, I kept telling myself. But really what choice did I have at this point? Every day now Bojack would brew some wicked potion in my kitchen or in my water closet and then dash off for hours on end only to return with a large sack of bits which he further plowed into yet more exotic reagents and references, with just enough left to cover food, rent, and the scolding of my landlady.

She had not taken too kindly to his machinations, though he seemed to always have a way with talking her down from evicting us. Its no coincidence she had been able to afford a new pair of gemstone earrings and those golden anklets she now wore around.

“We should get out for a while,” He said, throwing one of the three apartment windows open. “How’s a cruise sound? Go on a little trip for the weekend, my treat.”

I looked down at my letter then back to him, “That actually sounds great,” I said with a grin.

“Great! You go pack, We gotta leave like in five minutes.,” He said, before darting back into the water closet. “Oh and don’t bother with anything in here its uh, just trust me,” He shouted through the half closed door. “We’ll just pick up whatever we need on the way!”

I shuddered at the thought of what my toothbrush looked like now. Maybe getting out of here for a while was just what I needed.

I glanced down at the letter again. Maybe Dad can wait.

=-=-=-=

“The propensity to truck, barter and exchange one thing for another is common to all ponies, and to be found in all other races of creatures.” I read from the old book.

‘On the Wealth of Equestria’ was a text that had sat on my bookshelf for many years gathering dust and fur. Bojack had practically lept through the ceiling when he saw it as I was looking for something to read. Apple Smith had been an early thinker on economics though modern scholars regard much of his work as too selfish and singularly guided by profit. Though maybe that’s exactly what one has to be, driven by one singular goal in order to achieve that goal. Then again, maybe Bojack had read too much into it. Sometimes it seems amazing he even has the attention span to read at all. Maybe that’s just what all pegasi are like though.

Closing my book with a content sigh, I watched the clouds drift lazily across the sky and listened to the gentle rhythmic splash of the paddle wheels as they propelled the ship along. For the first time in years I felt myself actually relax, no customer accounts to balance, no books to collate, just me, my book, and a cold brewed tea on a boat. No explosions, no cults, no Bojack.

I sat upright.

No Bojack.

Come to think of it, I hadn’t seen him at all today.

For whatever reason, the thought terrified me. Maybe I had been spending too much time with him, but he seemed to attract trouble wherever he went, half of the time its of his own making. Maybe that’s why he was now living with me instead of that zebra.

Tucking my book away in the bag, I set off to find him, hopefully he hadn’t started anything.

=-=-=-

I found Bojack at the rear of the boat, hanging over the railing chanting something quietly. “ch’ c-nyth gof’nn,” he said, in a strange tongue as he added ingredients to a jar. I saw him retrieve a penknife from the deck behind him with his wing, and watched as he dripped something into the jar before sealing it and resuming his chant. “vulgtlagln ch’ah nglui ooboshu’ah f’nnnah lw’nafh!” He exclaimed as he tossed the jar into the ocean. As he turned to gather his belongings I ducked back out of sight around the corner.

“Hey Double Book!”

“YAH!” I yelped nearly jumped over the railing. I turned around to see Bojack behind me. “Uh.. Hey,” I said meekly.

“Hope you’re enjoying the cruise so far. They say Trottingham is great this time of the year, though I’m partial to Shetland.”

“Yes uh, they say the weather in Trottingham is always nice in Januestary.”

He looked down at me from his impressive height with his usual lackadaisical smile. “Don’t like the snow do you? Can’t say I blame you, this was sort of short notice. Though you know what they say, its not the destination, but the journey itself,” He said draping a wing over me and coming in closer. “You’d better get an early sleep though, we have an early day tomorrow.”

I gulped. We weren’t due into port for another day.

“Well as they say, Cheerio, I’m off to the seafood buffet.” He said, hopping over the railing and taking flight, leaving me alone with my thoughts again, and again seriously questioning what I had gotten involved with.

=-=-=-

“Dear Father, I am well, how are you...No,” I said, scratching out the message once again. It was late, my nerves had gotten the better of me. For as relaxing and worry free as this trip had been I just couldn’t work past what to say to father, nor could I get Bojack’s cryptic warning out of my head.

With a sigh, I closed my journal and turned out the lights, the small cabin was illuminated only by the pale moonlight seeping through the porthole, its glow casting deep shadows across the room. I pulled the covers tight around me.

Eventually the effects of the drink the griffons served and the swaying of the boat on the calm seas dragged me to sleep.

=-=-=-=-

Thunk

I awoke some time later as the boat pitched violently, dumping me from my bed.

“Ow,” I said, rubbing my sore horn. I felt a piece of paper speared on it, one of Bojack’s pranks. Before I could read it the ship rocked again, sending me tumbling around in the small cabin and into the wall.

Staggering to my hooves, I picked up the note and lit the spell-lamp. Scribbled on it was a message from Bojack, it read simply,

“Meet me at the stern of the ship.”

The ship groaned as the waves crashed against it. Staggering out the door, I was nearly bowled over by some of the griffon crew who were running towards the front of the ship.

I hesitated for a moment, contemplating following them, or heading to Bojack, but they were gone already.

Making my way to the rear of the ship, I passed my fellow passengers, all of which had worried looks on their faces, some inquired as to what was happening to the ship but without any answer myself I kept moving.

Reaching the hatch to the rear, I was nearly knocked down by the swell, as the water tight door had been forced open already. Carefully I made my way up the stairs, and finally got a glimpse of the storm that was assaulting our vessel.

Above us, the once placid sky rocked with wild thunder and lightning, the ocean frothed with waves that cascaded across the deck.

Standing at the back of the ship working on a life boat was the one who brought me here in the first place, too busy knotting rope to notice me.

“BOJACK, BOJACK WHAT IS GOING ON?” I shouted over the raging storm.

Looking up from his rope, he brushed back his wet mane with a hoof. “I GUESS YOU SAW MY LITTLE OFFERING EARLIER!” He said.

A wave crashed over the railing, knocking me into Bojack who caught me with his wings. All in all he didn’t seem the least bit bothered by the weather as he finished tying the rope to the lifeboat.

“WHAT DID YOU DO?!” I shouted in his grasp. “THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO BE RELAXING!” I shouted angrily.

Bojack pointed out into the distance. A flash of lightning illuminating it. In the light, I saw them. Giant pillars of writhing flesh, taller than buildings, a forest of them towering out of the ocean.

“OUR OFFERING HAS BEEN ACCEPTED, THE DOORWAY IS OPENED. WE MERELY HAVE TO STEP ON THROUGH!” He shouted over the thunder’s boom. I pulled myself away from him as he prepared to launch the lifeboat.

“YOU WANT ME TO GET IN THAT THING, ARE YOU CRAZY!?”

“DO YOU TRUST ME?” He asked.

I hesitated once more. The nightmares of the cult came back to me. “NO!” I shouted.

“OH WELL THAT’S OK!” He said, kicking the lever to release the boat.

I watched as the rope spooled out through the pulleys. Down below the boat hit the water with a crash but the magically reinforced timbers held strong. I noticed the rope he had tied to the boat, trailing back to the coil he had arranged on the deck.

“EVEN IF YOU CAN’T SWIM JUST RELAX AND LET THE RAFT DO THE WORK!” He said jamming a cork life vest on my back. Before I could respond, he back flipped overboard, the rope trailing behind him.

It was then I noticed the rope trailed not just through the coil on the deck but to my own back hoof. I reached for the knot but in an instant, I was yanked from the ship and fell to the icy water below.

Struggling in the surging water I watched weakly as the ship accelerated away, bobbing and weaving amongst the waves.

In the confusion I saw the small boat I was tied to bobbing around, I started making my way to it but suddenly several limbs wrapped around me.

“DON’T GO TO THE BOAT!” Bojack shouted as he pulled at me. I tried to fight him back but his limbs were longer than mine and more numerous.

“YOU’RE GOING TO KILL US BOTH!” I shouted as the water crept up my neck. “I HAD TOO MUCH TO LIVE FOR!” I sobbed.

“JUST TRUST ME ITS ALL GOING EXACTLY LIKE IT SHOULD!” He shouted. “NOW WE JUST HAVE TO DROWN!”

“WAIT WHA-” was all I managed to say before he unhooked the cork preserver and dragged me down under the dark and icy water.

Desperately I fought but to no avail. When we were too far down to ever return, Bojack let go, letting me drift away.

Drowning is a strange thing. In an instant, I realized the chaos of the sea above had been replaced with tranquility. Tilting my head up, I watched as the stars shrank as the darkness encroached. With a gasp, I felt the icy water fill my lungs as I drifted away.

=-=-=-=-=-=-

“Breath!”

I felt the waves pushing me along, their gentle push and pull relaxing my aching body. The water was warm like taking a soothing bath. The sun stood high in the sky, Celestia’s warmth watching over me.

“Oh Double Book...” I heard a seductive voice call.

I felt sand under my back as the waves deposited me on a beach.

Stella I thought as I saw the familiar figure fill my view. Stella Shine, my school crush wrapped me in her forelegs, bringing me close to her salt sprayed coat.

“Oh Double, I never noticed how handsome of a stallion you were.” She said, bringing herself down onto my barrel. I remained speechless as she brought her petite muzzle down to mine. I moaned as she pressed her lips against mine. For a minute we sat there, her on my barrel, lips locked in a passionate embrace. Closing my eyes, I felt her limber tongue explore the depths of my own muzzle.

Breaking off she whispered in my ear. “Double, time to wake up now.”

I felt her lips against mine once again, only they pressed harder, forcing her breath down my throat. Something felt different though.

Opening my eyes, I saw Bojack, bent over me, his lips locked on my own, his tongue pressed against my teeth, forcing them open.

“Gah!” I shouted bolting up. Before I could say another word though, I began coughing and coughing, I felt water at the back of my throat, my lungs desperately trying to push it out.

Twisting over, I hacked up a lung-full of water, then another.

“What...were….” I tried to say through cough fits.

“You’re welcome,” He said smugly as he thumped me on the back, spawning another coughing fit. “There there, get it all out, its OK now.”

“You….YOU….You drowned me!” I said, trying to limp away from him, only for my leg to get yanked out from under me, sending me horn first into the sand.

“First of all, you don’t want to be above the water going through the doorway, and second, is that any way to treat your partner?” He said, pulling the rope off of my leg.

“Why, why did you throw me off the ship,” I shouted.

“Sssshhh, You don’t want to attract too much attention,” He said cryptically, as he dug the rope out of the sand. “Okay so Trottingham was not really the destination I had in mind when we boarded that ship. Long story short, we’re here to meet some….er...something. Just calm down, we’ll be fine, this place is pretty tame as far as other spaces go.”

“okay fine, why did I have to come on this trip with you then?” I said, sitting up and brushing the sand out of my salt filled coat. “Why didn’t you at least tell me about this?”

He sighed, his unkempt wings ruffling at his sides. “I didn’t know if I could get in, and I didn’t want to ruin your vacation. I’ve already driven off enough friends with my escapades. Anyways, we’re here now.”

“And where is here?” I said, looking around.

The featureless beach stretched onward, gently arcing as far as the eye could see. The sky was hazy and lit only by the diffuse light of the clouds with not a hint of any sun above them. The air reeked of the smell of salt and rotten fish. The only visible object was the longboat, discarded from our ship, dragged up from the shoreline and staked to the ground.

“That’s kind of hard to explain without a lot of background but in essence its a space between spaces, one that usually only the invited can enter. Occasionally sailors get glimpses of it, or those unfortunate to be lost at sea may find themselves here, usually to never return” He said, passing me a water bottle. “Fortunately, we’re guests here. If everything goes right, we should be able to pass right through the doorway again.”

“And if things don’t?” I said, taking a sip from the water bottle, feeling the refreshing water invigorate me.

“Things won’t go wrong this time,” He said, leaving my question unanswered. “Now then, I hope you’re ready to go, we don’t want to keep him waiting,” He said, shrugging on a pair of heavy saddlebags from out of the longboat and setting off away from the shore.

“Him?” I asked, following behind. “Who’s Him?”

Bojack instead began singing something to himself, ignoring my questions.

=-=-=-

“Are we there yet?” I asked after walking what felt like hours, which was impossible to tell given how the light hadn’t changed one bit. The landscape had just continued sloping upwards at a gentle grade the whole time.

“And I’m gonna join the family circle at the throne!” He sang, ignoring me for the hundredth time.

Oof. I grunted as my hoof fell into open air. My chin impacted the sand as I tripped into a hole. Looking around, I yelped as I realized I was standing in an enormous print in the sand. To the left of it, another giant three toed print, at least as wide as I was long, and as deep as I was tall.

“Need a hoof?” Bojack said, offering me one of his longer limbs to climb out, breaking from his series of unusual, colorful country songs.

“Thanks,” I said, stopping at the edge of the paw prints, taking a momentary rest. “Those have to be the biggest dragon tracks I’ve ever seen,” I said, looking closely at the strangely spaced tracks.

“No not a dragon,” He said nervously. I watched as he took a careful look, before giving a sigh of relief. “Phew, not a cragalisk,” He said with certainty. “Just a penguin.”

“Penguin?” I said, picturing the strange little birds that I had once seen at a zoo exhibit in Canterlot. “Wait, that can’t be a penguin,”

Just then the air was pierced by a loud deep rattling sound that didn’t sound at all like any penguin I had ever seen or heard of before. It set my nerves on edge.

“Yep, not a cragalisk, just an ordinary 20 foot tall penguin. That’s like four Celestia’s tall to you,” He said, setting off again. “Dun da da nah na na naaaah!” He began singing again. “Love is a burning thing!”

The creature sounded off in the distance again, its deep cry making me shutter.

“JUST AN ORDINARY PENGUIN, JUST AN ORDINARY PENGUIN HE SAYS.” I shouted over his singing and the creature’s calls.

After another few songs with me lagging behind, he crested another dune and stopped his singing. Reaching his position, I stopped in my tracks too. “We’re here,” He said, as I took in the dramatic change in landscape.

Instead of yet another dune, we found ourselves on the shores of an endless expanse of thick black ooze, its expanse broken by seething masses of appendages contained under its surface. Immediately in front of us however was a singular black monolith, standing alone from the shore with a simple bench composed of the same impossibly black stone in front of it. The monument’s surface was etched with indecipherable hieroglyphs who’s appearance seemed to wriggle and flex much like the water behind it. An almost inaudible buzzing sound echoed around the cauldron, and the stench of rotten fish filled the air.

“Stay here,” He said, which I was inclined to do so anyways.

Approaching the monolith I expected him to begin chanting in that strange guttural language again, make some sort of blood offering, or prostrate himself before the monument in reverence.

Perhaps I my expectations and imagination had grown too great with time, as Bojack instead shrugged off his pack and put a hoof to his mouth and whistled. “YOTENTACLED GUY, WE’RE HERE!” He shouted, his voice carrying across the lake followed by a low Its surface turned to glass for a moment and all was quiet and still. then a single ripple made its way across the lake.

A wave formed in the ooze, building into an ever growing bulge as it traveled faster and faster to the shore. As it crested, the ooze rolled off its sickly flesh in sheets, the oil spilling across the sand.

My primal instincts screamed to gallop away, to find the shelter and safety of the herd, instead my knees gave way, depositing my bum on the sand, my tail pressed tight between my legs, and my ears flat to my head.

“HAIL HAIL THE DAGON, LORD OF THIS REALM OF KNOWLEDGE!” Bojack shouted as the part of the creature that emerged from the lake began wrapping itself around the monument. After coiling around itself for many minutes, a single bulbous eye emerged from the mass, its skin slick with the oil still. Opening wide, its enormous unfocused pupil stared out into the distance before shrinking down to a pinprick the size of my head, focused right on us.

The landscape echoed with a deep guttural echo. I felt my insides freeze solid as its gaze wandered towards me.

“Hi,” Bojack waved to the thing, drawing its attention again. “Uh, you don’t know us but your nephew sent us, you know the one with the two big red eyes, kind of like your own, and the black mass of tentacles. He said he left a book with you when he was visiting last.”

It groaned again, the mass of limbs tightened around the monument, threatening to shatter the stone.

“OH good, um.. can we uh… have it?” He said, acting as if nothing was at all unusual about this encounter.

The air began buzzing again, louder and louder as I clutched my ears with my hooves to block out the noise. Slowly emerging from the oil, an enormous limb towered over us, each of the suckers on its fleshy underside larger than my entire body. I felt cold and small in its shadow.

Time seemed to slow as it descended on us. I closed my eyes, imagining I was back on the beach in the dream, wanting the last thing to go through my mind to be Stella’s kiss.

The buzzing stopped.

Peaking one eye open, I saw the gargantuan limb stretched above us, only a thin little tip reaching down to the bench, placing a small black bound book on the stone before retracting back into the ooze with a splash.

“Cool, Thanks.” He said, hoofing through the tome before setting it in his saddle bags. “Well if that’s everything we’ll be off then,” He turned to leave, but the creatures gaze darted to me. It grumbled something unintelligible.

Bojack sighed. “Really?” He said to the creature.

In response the buzzing began again, building once again as the creature’s gaze remained firmly on me.

“OKAY OKAY,” He said, trotting over to me. “He wants you,” He said approaching me.

“Me? What does he want with me!” I asked dumbfound.

“He uh, he wants you to buy a sculpture from his stand,” He said, trying to not sound mildly perturbed by the turn of events.

“His stand?” I said looking around. I blinked in surprise. Where I was certain there was nothing but empty shore before, stood a lone stall, made out of what looked like drift wood. On its gnarled surface rested various objects of perplexing quality.

“Just pick something and say how nice it is so we can get out of here,” He said whispering in my ear as we walked up to the stand. A lone tentacle swayed gently behind the counter as its eye tracked us from the monument.

“Oh aren’t these lovely!” Bojack proclaimed as I poured over the pile of objects.

Each one of them were made of either some kind of unknown metal, stone, or a combination of both. Some had the finish of glass, others polished granite, all depicting a bizarre collage of figures.

Out of the pile, one caught my eye, or really, one eye caught my eye.

The figure was a large half lidded eye made out of what looked like granite, with some sort of tarnished silvery metal inlay around its edges. As I stared at it, I felt as if the surface was staring back at me, a whisper tugging at the edges of my perception. Picking it up in my hooves, even in the cold air, it felt warm to the touch.

“I’ll, I’ll um...” I said, trying to break away from the figure for a moment.

“He’ll take this one,” Bojack said breaking my concentration.

The creature groaned in response.

“Twenty five bits! That’s outrageous. Twenty!” He shouted back.

The air burst to life with the buzzing again. “ARE YOU REALLY DOING THIS?!” I shouted to Bojack.

“Well he’s being unreasonable!” He shouted back.

“JUST GIVE IT THE BITS!” I shouted back at him.

Grumbling, he counted out twenty five gold bits on the counter, the landscape growing still again as the final bit hit the counter. “There, twenty five bits,” He said, stuffing the pouch back under his wing. “Good eternal twilight to you then, Let’s go Double,” He said, turning to leave as the creature scooped its earnings off the stand.

I paused briefly for a moment, transfixed as the vast bulk uncoiled itself and retracted back to the depths. I almost didn’t take notice when a limb deposited my purchase, almost. The slick limb dropped the wrapped item in a linen bag on the ground in front of me before slithering itself back into the depth with a long slurping sound.

Scooping up my package in my teeth, I turned and galloped after Bojack.

=-=-=-=-

“FOR I AM A PIIIIIIIIIRAAAAAATEEEE……. KIIIIIIIIIIIING!” Bojack shouted as he rowed the boat through the mist. Once on the water, his country singing had devolved into a long unbroken chain of sea shanties.

For my part, I just kept quiet, occasionally stealing a glance down at the idol at my hooves.

We had been rowing for what seemed like hours through an endless mist, only Bojack’s incessant singing marked the time.

Putting the dagon out of my mind, I found myself once again dwelling on the letters that sat half finished in the top drawer of my bureau. Life just seemed to precarious to push away the only family I had left anymore.

I sighed.

“LAND HOOOOOO!” Bojack sang shouted.

Without realizing it, we had passed through the fog and into the unfamiliar waters of an unknown port.

With a bump, I felt the boat impact the shore. Craning my neck, I noticed the sign on the building next to the beach. “Edneighburgh Port Authority,” I read. “Edneighburgh!?” I shouted, jumping out of the longboat.

“Huh look at that, almost exactly where we intended to go,” He said surprised himself.

A quick trot up the beach indeed confirmed, we were in the midst of the busy port city on the Isles of Mane.

“Hey you there colt!” He shouted paper-colt hawking papers on the corner. “What day is it?”

“Why its the 12th of Feblunestuary!” He said, offering up a paper.

“Wait, that’s… That’s four weeks from now!” I said, doing the mental math. “OH FAUST I have to send a letter!” I shouted dashing down the street towards the nearest royal post office.

=-=-=-=-

“You gonna buy a paper mister or what?” The colt asked me, as I watched Double Book gallop away.

“Ya sure kid,” I said, tipping a bolt into his hat. “Let’s see what the censored press has to say.” I said, flipping over the headline.

Sea Liner Grifiana Strikes Iceberg, Dozens Lost At Sea! The headline read. “Huh,” I said, glancing back towards the beach where the lifeboat sat on its side. With my pegasi vision I could just make out the letters G R I F peaking above the dune. “Hey kid, you know where a guy can get a bite of fish to eat?” I said, to the cockneyed colt.

“Fish? I think the Swagger’in Griff’en has that on the menu. It’s around the corner, up the street”

“Thanks a lot,” I said, tipping him a nut in his hat for the extra news and set off, whistling a shanty tune as I slipped away into the pony crowd, my acquisition gently rocking in the bags around my hips.

Author's Note

Hey look a new chapter and it only took getting shipwrecked on a timeless plane of existence to get it finished! I promise the next chapter will be about alchemy, somewhat.

Anyways, see you then.