Ponest Dungeon

Chapter 6: Fresh Faces

Week 2, Day 2, Morning

The sounds of a great many pony voices carried from the townhouse foyer, down the hall, and into the room where Blueblood sat with his original recruits.

“Word must be spreading about the expedition,” Shining said, looking over the applicant list. “Some of these ponies are from the towns neighboring Ponyville. I was starting to worry that we’d have to start accepting some of the underqualified locals.”

Blueblood looked at the reorganized space that they had designated as a drawing room. Tall windows on the back wall allowed sunlight in for illumination, and a massive chandelier hung from the twenty hoof high ceiling. The enormous antique table in the center had room for far more than the five ponies currently sitting around it. “I’m just glad Ditzy was able to fix up the townhouse to the point where we can actually do the recruiting from here, especially in light of both the assassination attempt, and the… noise at the tavern. The relative calm of the manor definitely makes for a much better venue”.

Everypony at the table, with the notable exception of the incredibly hungover Rainbow Dash, looked much better after having had a few full days of rest.

Ditzy brought trays of various fruits and grains for the fledgling company to break their fast.

“So many earth ponies and unicorns,” Blueblood commented, putting down the interviewee list and taking a bite out of a pear.

“Yeah, about that,” Rainbow said as she tore a piece off of a loaf of bread, “we’d have as many pegasus ponies on there if it weren’t for the mosquitos. Anypony who tries to fly into town is getting driven off, or worse. There are reports of pegasus corpses and crashed chariots all up and down the old road out of town.”

“Blast it all,” Blueblood struck the table, jostling several plates and cups. “We will need the diversity the pegasi bring if our forces are to be properly balanced. We need to find the source of these—” he smashed a mosquito on the table, “—damnable things!”

Tilting her head slightly, Zecora wiped at one of the eye lenses of her mask. “If the mosquitos, you wish to destroy: to the Everfree, we must deploy.”

“I know,” Shining said, “everypony has seen the swarms coming out of the forest, but we have no idea where they are spawning in those woods, and the Everfree is incredibly vast.”

There was another angling of the mask, and Zecora’s hoof raised to her chin. “With the mosquito buzzing, there always comes fog… our best chance then, is to try Froggy Bottom Bog.” She pulled her mask slightly away from her face and slid a hoofful of oats into her muzzle.

Blueblood scratched his chin in thought for a moment. “I have noticed that.” He looked out the window at the cloudless morning sky. “Alright, Zecora. After we finish here, you and Rainbow will go scout out the bog, see if there is any merit to the idea. Be quick, and return before it starts getting dark, you’ll have plenty of light to work with.”

“Be wary, these things aren’t like normal mosquitos,” Amethyst said, setting a goblet of orange juice back to the table. “They won’t hesitate to swarm you, direct sunlight or not.”

Rainbow nodded. “I know, I flew through—”

“Fell through,” Shining coughed.

“Flew through—” Rainbow said, glaring daggers at Shining’s shameless grin, “—a swarm of them before. I know how nasty they can be.”

Finishing a small plate of greens, Zecora tightened the straps of her mask. “Miss Dash, we cannot stay, if we wish to be done today.”

“Right,” Rainbow answered, following Zecora’s lead to stand and head from the table.

“Be careful,” Shining called after them.

“Don’t worry, Shining,” Blueblood said when he noticed his personal guard’s worried expression. “I’m not going to send either of you two on errands until I have more trustworthy ponies to stick around here… speaking of which, Ditzy!”

“Yes, sir!”

Clock!

Ditzy’s sudden appearance and sloppy salute didn’t worry Blueblood so much as the fact that she physically hoof-punched herself in the head every time she did it. He even thought he saw a welt swelling up where she kept hitting herself.

“You can send in the first round of applicants now.”

“Yes, sir!”

Blueblood cringed.

Clock!

After the bubbly mare had staggered from the drawing room, the three heard a pair of incoming hoofsteps… and a click-clacking sound. A pair of earth ponies sauntered into the room, a dog close on their heels. The smaller of the pair, an orange mare, wore ragged leathers and carried a crude cudgel. The large, red stallion carried a flail and wore, aside from the tattered robes covering his scarred flesh, a metal collar and bracelet, which had both outward and inward facing spikes. The dog was a brown and white border collie.

“Welcome, I am Prince Blueblood, and you are—”

The mare cut him off with a bout of energetic verbal diarrhea: “Name’s Applejack, yer lordship, and this here is Big Macintosh—”

“Eeyup,” confirmed the red giant.

“—and this here,” she indicated the dog, “is Winona—”

The dog also barked in confirmation.

“—and we’re—”

Blueblood held up a hoof. “I’m well aware of the exploits of the legendary duo, ‘Mac-Jack.’ The Royal Guard has a file on your exactions of ‘righteous justice.’” He looked between the three. “At last count, over twenty confirmed beatings and maulings, dozens more suspected… you’ve definitely proved your abilities, although I worry about—”

“If you’ll pardon my interruption, Prince,” Applejack said, “we only break the spines of the dishonest, those who prey on other—”

“Sir,” Amethyst interjected when she saw Blueblood was about to hold his hoof up again, “Big Macintosh there is a holy flagellant. His life is dedicated to purity and justice. Their reputation should only speak to the depth of their convictions.”

“A flagellant?” Blueblood eyed Big Mac for a moment. “Show me the mark.”

“Eeyup,” Big Mac said as he lifted a portion of robe that had covered his barrel. The exposed hide was scarred as much as the rest of him, but it also bore the enormous spiked-collar brand used by the religious extremists who called themselves “flagellants.”

Newly aspiring members would have the plain-collar portion of the brand applied first, a process which weeded out the weak and faint of heart; most could not endure even this level of agony and would quit without ever obtaining a single spike-brand. If the candidate did not pass out or beg for the pain to stop, they would then have to demand each of the spikes be bestowed upon them—one at a time, up to five total—to show the depths of their convictions in the face of unimaginable suffering.

Big Mac’s weathered hide showed all five spikes.

Blueblood steepled his hooves. “We’ll need your unique brand of ruthlessness in the coming days. We cover basic necessities, food and lodging, while you’re not out on dangerous errands, and pay 200 bits per day while on a dangerous mission. If those rates are acceptable, you can consider yourselves hired.”

Applejack bowed. “Yessir, we’re just happier than a hog in mud to join your company, right Big Mac?”

“Eeyup.”

Marking some parchment, Blueblood indicated the drawing room door. “Ditzy will show you to your rooms and give you a tour of the guest wing, dining area, and common area. You may feel free to leave the estate at any time, but while on grounds, please restrict yourself to those areas… any other questions?”

“Eeynope.”

Week 2, Day 2, Afternoon

The perpetual press of pathetic prospects continued well into the afternoon, the crowd of ponies that had gathered over the previous week having piled up to positively preposterous proportions. Unfortunately the day-long hire session, aside from the Apple siblings, had only presented cannon-fodder quality applicants, including a stallion whose name was actually—

“Cannon Fodder…” Blueblood looked up from the resumé with an expression that straddled the line between general disbelief and severe constipation.

“That’s me!” The exuberance practically bled from the stallion, which might have explained the rust-red coloration of his fur.

“Under qualifications, you put—” Blueblood checked the parchment again to make sure he hadn’t hallucinated the listed attribute. “—that you can… and I’m quoting you here; ‘take a savage beating like a champ.’”

Shining pressed one of his forehooves into his head with an audible grinding sound while Amethyst tapped her hoof and eyed the bottle of wine Blueblood had set on the table. She looked like she was in serious danger of violating her vow of abstinence.

“That’s right sir!” Cannon said with a toothy grin.

Shining lit his horn and smashed a priceless-looking antique chair over Cannon’s head, knocking the applicant into immediate unconsciousness.

Frowning, Blueblood glanced over at Shining. “That chair was probably older than both of us combined.”

“Sorry sir,” Shining replied. I just wanted to see if his story checked out.” He looked down at the senseless stallion. “He obviously lied on his resumé, sir.”

Cracking something that could have either been a smirk or a wince, Blueblood waved a hoof at Ditzy. “Take him out, please. Next!”

Looking down at the two colt unicorns who had just been led into the drawing room together, Blueblood decided that two o’clock was, most decidedly, not too early to begin drinking. He uncorked his bottle and poured himself a generous measure of wine. “And you are?”

“You tell him!” the short one said as he nudged the taller of the two. He was pudgy, opal-coated, carrying a mace and wearing a suit of slipshod plate that barely covered his vitals.

“Hay! We both agreed to introduce ourselves, eh?” The second pony, who was taller, amber-coated, carrying a massive crossbow, and encased in equally second-hoof plate, looked down at his companion. “Me introducing us both don’t work there, now does it, eh?”

Blueblood’s eye twitched. Downing the first cup, he quickly poured himself a second. He was going to need somepony to start screening the applicants at this rate, lest he start randomly murdering potential new hires—

“I’m Snips,” the pudgy one finally said.

“And my name is Snails, your grace. Pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

“Charmed,” Blueblood managed between a series of gulps that emptied his goblet again. He blatantly ignored the askance look that Shining was giving him. “So then,” he said as he filled his cup again to brimming, “what are your areas of expertise?”

“Well now, I’m really good with this here arbalest,” Snails said, unslinging the massive weapon.

“Well, I suppose a demonstration is in order,” Shining said with a grin.

With a massive twang, the—apparently loaded—arbalest fired a bolt, which crossed the room and imbedded itself into Shining’s chair, the shaft lightly brushing his neck.

Raising a hoof to where the projectile had brushed him, Shining’s hoof came away red. Eyes narrowing, he placed his forehooves on the table, lit his horn, and unsheathed his sword. “Shooting me in the neck is not an acceptable—” He stopped shouting when he realized Blueblood was tapping his shoulder.

Blueblood’s brows were raised in surprise. His hoof trailed from Shining’s shoulder to where the head of the arbalest bolt was buried into the seat… and the twitching insect legs that protruded from the sides of the shaft. “He just shot a mosquito off of you… even at this range, that’s incredible hoof-eye coordination.”

Shining still looked pretty livid, so Blueblood offered him the remainder of the wine while turning his own gaze to Snips. “What about you?”

“I’m a holy vestal!” Snips replied, causing Amethyst to assume a position not dissimilar to the one Shining was frozen in.

“Really, you two? Blueblood asked, switching his gaze from Shining to Amethyst and back again. “I thought if anypony was going to get physically violent today, that it’d be me.”

Pointing a hoof at the diminutive unicorn, Amethyst seemed momentarily at a loss for words. “You! There’s—there’s no way that you passed the trials! You’re too young! How—”

Snips shrugged and pointed a hoof to the room’s chandelier, causing the lighting levels to increase dramatically, and causing a smoking insect to fall to the floor. “Yeah, the head priest seemed pretty confused too.”

The sound of Amethyst’s jaw dropping was interrupted by a sudden staccato of approaching hooffalls from outside the drawing room door.

“No! The Prince is in an important meeting, you’ll have to wait—I said wait!! You can’t go in there!” Ditzy’s voice also dopplered towards the door.

Shining stood and lifted his sword from where it had fallen on the table as the door was bucked inwards.

Zecora staggered into the room with Rainbow Dash sprawled across her back, took several shaky steps into the room, shrugged Rainbow onto the ground, and then collapsed.

Shining dropped his sword and ran to Rainbow’s side, as Snips and Amethyst moved in to douse the fallen ponies with healing energies.

“Dash!” Shining shook Rainbow as he spoke, his voice despondent. “What in Tartarus happened?”

Blueblood slowly approached, not wishing to crowd the injured. He could see that Rainbow was covered in well over a hundred mosquito bites, with a much larger gash also evident on her side. He wasn’t able to spot any signs of small insect bites on Zecora, though there were several weeping punctures in her robes.

Zecora shuddered to consciousness first, coughing violently and scrambling to remove her mask. When the false visage fell away, the sight elicited gasps from all of the ponies present—

Except for Blueblood. He continued his unhurried advance, giving Zecora time to recover. Having seen Zebras before, he wasn’t startled by her stripes. In fact, he found himself slightly—and considering the circumstances, quite inappropriately—enamored by her exotic appearance. Still, it was strange to see her without the mask. That she always wore it was a choice, and Blueblood felt almost like seeing her uncovered like this was an invasion of her privacy. Still, he had to know; “You found it, I assume.”

Zecora nodded her head. “Yes, indeed we found the hive. In the bog, the swarms do thrive. Rainbow threw a torch, whilst I hid, in hope the swarms, we’d soon be rid. Their home indeed, they did defend. Upon us then, they did descend. From us, our blood, they did deprive. A miracle, that we did survive.”

As Snips and Amethyst worked, Zecora lay back down and closed her eyes. Her breathing became more regular and she seemed to slowly recover, her wounds sealing and the welts that covered her hide receding.

Rainbow, on the other hoof, was showing far less promptness in her reaction to the healing magicks.

“Celestia above,” swore Shining as he cradled Rainbow’s unconscious form, looking up with a horrified expression. He turned Rainbow so that the gash in her side faced Blueblood directly.

A gasp escaped Blueblood’s lips as he recognized the massive, puckered wound. “It’s the same as on the corpse we found on the road.” He looked over at Snips and Snails, saw their youth and inexperience, and immediately wished that he had more wine. “You two are hired. 200 bits per day for hazard pay, living expenses otherwise… Now that we know where to strike, we need to do this, and do it fast—Ditzy!”

Clock!

“Yes, Sir!” She had entered the drawing room right behind Zecora and Rainbow, but hadn’t made herself particularly conspicuous until that moment.

“Grab the Apples, dismiss the other applicants for today, and get the provisions together. We have our second team, and they’re going to Froggy Bottom Bog, first thing tomorrow, to clear out these—” He smashed another mosquito against the table. “—damnable pests, once and for all!”