Baa-Ram-Ewe!

-Petopia, Paw-tucket, Quincy-

“Do you think they’ll be okay?” I knew they were capable of defending themselves, but it was kind of hard to see friends go. Shanty was really brave and an eventual warrior of the sea, it was nice to idolize her while it lasted.

“I’m sure they’ll be fine.” Loved you’re general enthusiasm Roxy, but the place they described that they were going to… it sounded like the complete opposite of here.

I know I’m a fainting goat, and I did faint a lot, but I can guess how gruesome such a world could be. I think I was on par with Pom’s description of Lambkin kind in being somewhat high-strung.

-Tambelon, City of Bells, above a rooftop, Jaded La Perm-

“Whoa!?” I came out of the portal in mid-air falling towards a sloped roof, I quickly twisted myself into position so that my shoulder would hit the roof first and I’d roll.

I performed the roll flawlessly, unfortunately it was too close to the edge of the roof. I made a leaping kick off the roof and looked for the first thing to grab. My face was almost skewered as I clamped onto the edge of a building across from the roof I just lunged out from with my claws out, also my chest and my right shoulder were nearly skewered as well.

I have to be very careful about how I climb up here, did not want a bleeding wound in this world… at least not when I didn’t know the medical results.

Almost immediately impaled by the malevolent architecture that obviously doesn’t want anyone to climb around on it within the first minute? Check. Red or overcast skies with dark thundering clouds of evil? Check. The air smelling like death and decay? Check. The overall feeling that you shouldn’t be here or even want to be. Big check.

I pulled myself onto the roof carefully avoiding the jagged or serrated edges that were meant to kill people like me for trying to climb around on the rooftops. Much less do other stealthy things, I made sure my cloak didn’t get caught on anything. I was in my domain by being high up at least, I had to get to a higher point than this and really start scouting out the city.

If we were all scattered, then Tianhuo and Pom’s god puppies were all over the place and likely in the city as well. I think arriving outside of it would have been luckier and safer than here in the middle of the place. At least I don’t think I’ve been spotted and have time to adapt and find things out.

The most important thing to do? Scout around to gain an idea of Tambelon’s situation and make a map of the city to share with all my friends and allies, then report the goings on in here using the device Pom currently has in her possession to contact Equestria with the device Tianhuo left in the safety of Twilight’s hooves. From there we’d see what I can do about gathering everyone together and what hitting the Team One’s exit beacon will produce as far as portal locations will go. It’s going to be as random as Discord’s supply drops should we hit the beacon on that, even if Fluttershy was the one to pack them I didn’t trust Discord wouldn’t do something to those crates as a gag.

So far… can confirm the existence of Troggles just by looking over the edge of the rooftop with the jagged blades sticking out at awkward angles, even the smallest ones among the Troggles looked stupidly jacked and had a foot on me in height. I’m putting that down as do not directly fight with my lithe and frail form meant for running and evading or I might incidentally die. Fizzy would find some way to revive me somehow just to kill me again.

Knife? Check, still working and serviceable as ever. Combat Yo-yo? Check, doubles as a short range grapple like one of Daring Do’s many lost whips she never went back for… in fact I have one of them in my pack in case I need another weapon, should probably give that back to Daring Do at some point. Glad I reinforced the string on the yo-yo, the lethal architecture around here might easily snap it otherwise. I’m not exactly proficient with whips, different wrist usage that I’m sure I can make up for with some of my petty kitty brand ingenuity.

Personal food supplies? The fish jerky is never ending and I can drown in it, how did my mother managed to compress all that jerky into such a small space, I’ll live though. Water? Yes, got a full canteen and from what Tianhuo has heard, Shanty the goat can almost generate nigh infinite fresh water with a magic summoning ability.

Magical witch potions from my mother Kuril, I had a variety of limited utility and one use potions of which are clearly labeled. Even had some two part ‘safe explosion’ potions for clearing debris or opening a hole in something like the wall on this city should escape entirely warrant it.

That goat Shanty might be the most valuable person in this realm, won’t know until I see what’s beyond the walls of this horrible misbegotten place that reeked of evil like that castle looming over what I’m assuming is the more back end of the city.

This place is definitely not on a planet and I had no idea how this realm would work otherwise if magic weren’t involved. It had to be floating in some kind of void somewhere.

At least I’m near the city center… huh? The Troggles looked to be mobilizing, they must already know we’re here. So that’s a confirmation on Grogar’s ability to see anywhere in the realm even if it’s only one location at a time and provided he’s aware there is something to see there to occasionally look in that direction.

So Grogar is not an omnipotent demon, but some mild omniscient abilities akin to an oracle, seer, clairvoyant, diviner or anything with a scrying talent as an ability. Those are always dangerous, especially to me or any plans I make that requires convoluted series of events to occur, one look into any of the events and if Grogar is smart enough, he can stop a stack of any dominoes I set up from falling over if his intellect is as keen as I think it is. There’s no way anyone who wasn’t at least somewhat intelligent wouldn’t have been able keep an entire species alive under the circumstances I’m seeing here, probably worse outside the city.

I better get started with my job then. That nearby bell tower will be a good starting point to start drawing up a map of the City of Bells! Hard to remember having followed Gusty the Great here once, I followed her around when I was bored a few thousand years back and was a useless discorporate wandering spirit.

Being a part of history gives me all kinds of headaches just thinking about how long my spirit has been around for and how young my body still is. Just a reminder that I should pay tribute to Baast a few more times… such as setting up Discord to be captured by her. No better tribute than the guy she wants to snuggle, it would be even better if I planned to make that happen as chaotically as possible so Discord won’t be too upset with the end results.

Provided I survive this and Discord doesn’t screw us over with the chaotic delivery of the backup supplies. This was supposedly supposed to be a short mission and yet there was a bigger scope to all of this I wasn’t seeing yet.

-Gusty Valley, Pom-

I felt a chill and looked at the sky, it felt like something glanced over us for a second there. It was an unpleasant feeling of being watched by something that could easily turn Arizona into a pretzel. Wasn’t most of Grogar’s power sealed away in his bell though? How could he still be ‘that’ strong exactly?

I noted everyone shivered and started looking around as if someone was watching us, likely Grogar and then the feeling left us.

“Okay we should avoid that city in the distance at all… never mind, all of you should avoid the city at all costs while I sneak in and out.” There was a hint of a question coming my way, but both Dolly and Dormarch made sounds of understanding when the words ‘baa-baa’ were being repeated excitedly over our bond. My poor four god puppies were scattered all about the city in the vast distance across a wasteland that once was a part of Equestria. “Dodo please be a dear and get us out of the valley quickly and help us find a place in the badlands I’m seeing around the city to hide. We’ll worry about retrieving my god puppies later… that or they’ll find their way to us. They’re plenty smart enough on their own… but I can give them some directions on what they should be doing from here.”

The bonds made me feel a little more like my old self, alongside sharing the energy between me and my six canine companions I had access to. My god puppies sure were excitable as I remember them being and quite eager to help or protect me.

Dodo started moving the wagon quickly. If the puppies were here… wait. They were telling me my mate came here with ‘Fun Chase Cat’, so that meant Jaded La Perm was here too… joy. She’s annoying, but I can’t say that she wouldn’t be a welcome addition to what’s likely going to occur here.

I directed my beloved Tuft, Puff, Woof and Ruff to stay out of sight and sneak around until they found Tianhuo or Jaded, then they should stick with them and help where needed. I’d trust Jaded with my puppies, but I wouldn’t trust her with math or Saddle Arabia’s safety in remaining named Saddle Arabia. Otherwise my puppies are to try to get out of the city by following the bond to wherever I am. They were in great danger and should be wary of their surroundings.

No aggressiveness towards anything, unless Jaded, Tianhuo or one of their brothers were in danger. If seen they were to run or hide, otherwise they are to stick strictly to stealth and not do any fighting yet… not until we had an idea if we even could fight whatever Grogar has here in Tambelon. Canis Minor were surprising good at stealth, whereas a Canis Major was decidedly quite incapable of it entirely.

“Well they wasted no time in reestablishing their bond to you mother.” Of course they didn’t Dormarch, they were basically your cousins and family and it’s been a long time since they’ve last felt our connection. It seems like my god puppies felt much stronger, they’ve obviously been training for this with Tianhuo. I definitely know Ruff has trained, he loves to grow stronger and to wrestle with his brothers. Tuft is always the affectionate and friendly one, likes giving as much as receiving some love. Woof is the smart one, he’s really good at making judgment calls about things and had better instincts than the rest. As for Puff, he’s the tracker and can fly the best out of the four and he’ll likely be the first to find a friend or ally to stick with, which is if he doesn’t decide just come directly to me. “They seem really eager to meet me and Dolly.”

“They just want to officiate your scents in their noses.” Don’t know why my son found that a little off-putting, Dolly was okay with it and knew she’d be adding her scent to that of my family whereas her family would be adding ours if circumstances permitted such a thing happening. It was a canine thing, does everyone think the whole butt sniffing thing was for absolutely no reason?

Oh right, Dormarch was a digital entity and not necessarily a normal canine. Dolly would know all about scents already given how she grew up.

“Now I know what it means to go from an ocean to a desert…” Ocellus wasn’t taking the atmosphere of this world very well and looked visibly shaken by it, not much love to be found here other than us being near her. We were going to get out of the valley soon… the trees around here all looked quite decrepit with no leaves, but still alive if barely at all. The ground was mostly dry and cracked and I didn’t want to know what they did for water around here if it wasn’t readily available in large quantities. “The badlands we changelings live in, it feels a far sight better and livelier than this place currently does despite looking similar… that’s even when Chrysalis was running us all into the ground on a deficit. It’s like the air here despises all forms of positivity…”

“Well this place doesn’t feel foreboding at all, I’m pretty sure we’ll be invited in for tea and a snack. Totally doesn’t feel like we’ll be beaten to death just by the very atmosphere alone.” Loved the sarcasm Smolder, but we really had keep our attentions heightened.

“It’s being a good thing Pom is being quite paranoid already, I’m starting to be a bit fearful myself.” Shanty admitted as she eyed the surroundings as Dodo picked up speed to get us entirely out of this valley and somewhere more or less out of sight. Don’t know how much it would help if Grogar spotted us so quickly. “This place be feeling like bad juju warmed over from fresh carrion. We be needing a place where we can’t be seen by Grogar, I did not be liking the feeling of him looking at us. ”

Dodo warbled warily and let off a mechanical whine that he didn’t like the feel of Tambelon. It was sufficient to say that no one with a sane mind would ever like being here.

“Well I feel a bit bad about being a little happy to be here… Tianhuo is out there somewhere and I know she’ll find us.” Somehow, even without a specially designed firework guide to lure her to where I was. I could create a Thousand Spears: Huo, but that would only be drawing too much attention to where we are and I doubted that would be a good idea. We likely already had enough attention coming our way with Grogar not watching us… if he wasn’t watching us, then what was he doing currently? He glanced at us, we all felt it, so likely we’re going to get the world’s most unpleasant welcoming committee looking for us soon. “Don’t know how to feel about Jaded being here though, she’s… one of the weirdest Abyssinians to ever exist. I mean she has a cutie mark, which can only happen if she were half pony, specifically unicorn. She doesn’t have a horn or can do unicorn magic, she doesn’t walk on clouds like a pegasus and she definitely doesn’t have earth pony nature based abilities or resilience. She doesn’t have any pony attributes aside from her hair, yet she’s pony enough to have a cutie mark?”

“Yeah, I kind of want to study that phenomenon… provided I get the chance to actually meet her. Fluttershy told me her friend Jaded was somewhat adorable, but tended to be a walking trouble magnet.” Ocellus was likely going to make up for being in a world with so much love she was choking it down every time she opened her mouth. “She can’t be any worse than you are Pom.”

“Jinxed it.” I said flatly.

“I’m aware of that Pom and you can even tell me you ‘told me so’ later, but Jade did come here for you… so you know she’s your friend right?” Look Ocellus, just because I might not like having to run Jaded down when she steals something, it does not mean I hate her. I just dislike her for her habit of being affectionately diabolical.

“More like a friend of my friends that I’m not particularly fond of because of her habits.” Like being an ‘unrepentant mercenary rogue’ and somehow still being a ‘sun priestess’ at the same time, one would think those two vocations would be mutually exclusive to the other and not compatible at all. “She’s going to be quite helpful though, she has a reputation known around the world… half of it bad.”

“But she does be having a reputation.” Shanty wanted one too, be it for good or ill. I believe she could do it at this rate on her own, but Dodo would go a long way to helping her.

Dodo got us out of the valley and he turned to dragging us across the strange lands, now we needed to find a cave or a hole to hide in and stow our stuff away and then I will set out for the city. I’m not leaving my god puppies in the middle of that place!

-City of Bells, alleyway, Tianhuo-

I hit the ground on all four hooves in an alleyway. I glanced about and then sighed. The air here felt horrid, the stench was quite cloying and I did not appreciate the feeling in the air of being distinctly unwelcome.

Having a job to do and a lambkin to hug, I dimmed my flames and started moving forward towards the end of the alleyway. I’m certain Jaded will find us, she was going to be quite busy though. I did not worry about her capabilities, anyone who can give longma a trouble in a chase was going to be hard to pin down.

Dimming the flames that my body produced to nothing around my neck and head, my flaming wings were down to little tufts of heat and mild light. I crept to the end of the alleyway and looked outside of it.

Bipedal pigs with spears, well disciplined, highly muscled and if these were the Troggles, then they were dangerous. Even I should be wary of fighting them in great numbers, there were too many here to do anything quite yet.

I extended my neck and head out to look around the square and a nearby entrance to the city, it seems like the guard was being doubled in this moment. So Grogar was definitely aware of our presence given the movements of the guards.

Arceus, the god of a world of ‘generally friendly’ monsters, said he’d deliver Pom here safely. I trust that she isn’t already in the city at the moment as this place was crawling, but that doesn’t help me with finding her.

There was a fountain like structure in the center of the square. It didn’t have water in it, only wet mud and a perfectly sculpted appearance of Grogar, yep, it is as Discord replicated of his general appearance.

After some glances around I saw that Troggles weren’t the only beings around, there were a few donkeys and even a few ponies with no cutie marks. They were very quiet around the Troggles and trying to not draw attention as they seemingly worked in an exhausted state.

While the ponies didn’t have any cuties marks, they looked to be at least fed, but not very well. Most of the food here had to be going to the Troggles. Don’t think there were many other ways to maintain those kind of muscles, unless they were using the ponies and donkeys as livestock… quite a sickening and rather morbid thought.

The ponies and donkeys were definitely slaves, but they weren’t in chains, but why would they be? There’s no place for them to run to in this realm and there is very little in ways of supplies beyond the city from what I can see beyond the entrance. Wasteland as far as the eyes can see and maybe some mountainous terrain.

If a pony or donkey were to run, how long would they survive outside the city of bells and would anyone care to chase after someone who was foolish enough to run away to die in the wastes beyond the walls? I am currently glad Pom is safer of the two of us.

Looking around some more, I saw something fairly disheartening and slightly unusual. There were foals here and they looked about as healthy as the other ponies and donkey, which wasn’t good when foals needed a lot more nutrition to grow. None of them would be capable of facing the Troggles if they were as strong as they looked. They seemed to be taking a moment to do something playful.

“Back to work!” One of the Troggles shouted and snapped a whip, to my horror the fillies and colts started to work as the adults did in fright. “Now you see Drog, that’s how you keep them little ones in proper line. So what did you have to say that was a message from our lord?”

Their speaking was a bit ugly sounding, but fairly understandable.

“Lord Grogar says with have to catch the intruders that have come into his domain!” A number of pony ears flicked at hearing this news, but they didn’t stop whatever they were working on at the time. They were all being used as maintenance crews with the Troggles watching over them. “We are to bring any and all intruders to Lord Grogar so he can ultimately decide their fates. If they fight back, we are to rough them up. We can’t kill them or we will be in dire trouble with the lord himself, so we are to send out search parties throughout all corners of the realm! I’ve already formed one of my own.”

After hearing Drog’s announcement, I noted that some of the ponies around seem interested in hearing this news as much as I did. I quietly pulled my head back into the alleyway and thought about my actions from here.

“Now if only I knew what direction to find Pom in…” I felt a tug at my hooves and looked down as the mass of pink shadow shaped itself into an arrow and pointed in a general direction beyond the entrance.

Right, B. Lighter or Blighter would know how to find Pom even if they were currently bound to me as my familiar. The suggestion that Pom was currently not in the city to see the state of things, the Troggles were definitely not the ones maintaining things around here and they were in charge by brute force.

I turned around and quickly made my way for the other end of the alleyway and thought about flying over the walls, only to see many Troggles posted on the walls with spears.

I watched one of the spears was thrown and heard something cry out in its death throes. With the speed that the spear left the Troggles hand, even as fast as I was I might not be able to evade it while trying to get high in the air. I did not know if the tops of buildings were occupied or if the air would be safe if they could throw those spears like lightning, best not to chance it.

Sneaking my way out of the entrance is my safest option, either that or I go deeper into the city in search of Woof, Tuft, Puff and Ruff.

“Ruff-rrrr…” I heard a distinct whine as a familiar puppy nuzzled up against my left hind leg. Ah it was Tuft, good fortune to have found him so soon. He was aware enough to keep his barking quiet. He had apparently spotted me and quickly joined up with me.

“Is Pom alright?” I asked.

Tuft nodded enthusiastically and looked off in a given direction, almost the same direction that Blighter pointed me. Pom must be on the move.

Tuft leapt up and licked at my face affectionately, a likely sign of Pom sending her love to me until we can properly meet.

-Bell Tower, Jaded La Perm-

A barking noise and I looked up to see Puff, flopping down next to my perch, little guy looked tired from spinning his tail so hard.

I ran a claw over the back of his ear and he gave off several happy noises, his tail fluffed out and the fur shaped itself back to normal. He had some fluffmancer talent, not much but it was there. Explains how the puppy’s tail could form a working propeller screw that could generate limited flight capability.

Quickly went back to getting the layout of the city sketched down, I glanced at the castle… doubt I could sneak in there without being noticed as the place had guards covering every square inch of it. Not willing to risk my life on a merry chase this time, those Troggles had no compunctions about killing.

The edge of the rooftops not only had menacing architecture, it also had Troggles with barrels full of spears… I did not want to find out how good their throwing arms were so I managed to get up here without a noise or being spotted. The patrols were also doubled.

I didn’t know Grogar very well, but it seems that he was definitely on full alert.

“Sticking with me little buddy?” Knowing familiars as I do, like with Snickers… I should really apologize to Snickers for the major disconnect in our bond later. Seeing Puff nod at me made me aware that he was likely in contact with Pom. “Get a good eyeful of the surroundings and send what you see to Pom.”

Puff immediately started doing so, I still had to scratch up a map of the city and copy it a few times. This was to help Pom become aware of where I was and in case the other teams needed a map of the place. I already had several interesting landmarks jotted down.

-Streets, Ruff-

I was hiding underneath a bit of an overhang when I saw something that got me really angry.

A foal got kicked and I was going to bite the mean monster thing a lot when I felt my tail get grabbed, I looked back and saw my brother frantically shaking his head no with his teeth dug into the fur of my tail. He was biting down hard enough to stop me, but not hard enough to hurt me

Did he not see someone hurting a puppy like us? Baa-baa may have told us not to get aggressive, but my blood was boiling to go on the attack.

“Baa-baa said we had to stay quiet, we aren’t safe here.” Woof stated after letting go of my tail and I stopped trying to rush out there. I growled and then sighed… and looked at the kicked foal. She was still alive, but… “Come on brother, we need to find a way out of the city or at least a way to meet up with the others. Puff has found Chase Cat and Tuft found Baa-baa’s mate. Their pack is bigger than ours and we can’t do anything right now without Baa-baa or others.”

I was pulled back into the shadows by Woof whimpering in anger. Baa-baa trained us to protect the weak and to help those in need, but this wasn’t like home and what I was seeing did not make me happy.

Woof walked around to stand in front of me and placed his forehead against mine.

“I know.” Woof stated with his own anger and he further calmed my roaring rage as he started pushing my back further. “That this place is bad, very bad and not like home, but Baa-baa needs us to listen to her!”

I let out a whine and wilted… then I really whined as I got a view of the city from Puff, he really liked high up places. I prefer being on the ground where I can hunt snakes, there were a lot of those here.

-Tambelon Badlands, Pom-

“Okay, I got some information and a layout of the city. I even managed to direct Woof into stopping Ruff from making a hasty mistake. I know where Tianhuo and Jaded are… but their situations are a little precarious.” I don’t think either of them will suddenly learn to speak dog so we were limited on communicating… also the image of a foal being kicked by a Troggle got my hackles as raised as Ruff’s currently were, even if the kick was done lightly. “The exits to the city is heavily guarded so Jade can’t make a move to get out, but I think she’ll be fine if she’s spotted. Tianhuo is in a precarious place to be spotted and can’t make too much movement at the moment, she’s not exactly stealthy given you can see her burning wing tufts from a quarter of a mile away easily when she’s at her dimmest.”

That the foal didn’t even cry said a lot about the horrid things that likely occurred here in Tambelon.

It’s at this moment that I realized that we weren’t moving any longer and the wagon came to a standstill.

“Yeah, that’s great and all, but what are we going to do about those?” Ocellus brought my attention to the growling cross between a crocodile, an armadillo and possibly parts of dragons without wings.

They had us surrounded and Dodo warbled warily and tried to back away while defensively raising his bladed wings. Shanty was up and at the back of the wagon looking ready to fight for our lives against these things.

“Ocellus, told you so.” I carefully hopped out of the wagon and tried not to look threatening at the large ancient Equestrian mega fauna surrounded us and were all staring and slobbering. “Uh, hello there. We’re not from around here, you wouldn’t happen to have a place we could hide away right?”

“Pom I don’t… huh? Intelligent emotions beyond sentience, wait… these things are actually sapient?!” There was a long stare as the armadillos tilted its head to look at us and had some unrestrained curiosity about Ocellus’s outburst.

I stared into the armadillo monsters eyes.

“Uh… want to be friends?” Surprisingly the armadillo nodded enthusiastically, then made a noise and motioned for us to follow it with its nose, everyone in the wagon looked at me in disbelief as I looked at them as I slowly got back in with them. Dodo immediately started following after the armadillo dragons while chirping curiously at them. “Well okay then… does anyone else think that this is weird?”

“I think Dodo already be trusting them.” That was all Shanty needed to know on the subject as the armadillos started to lead us somewhere. While Dodo had been startled at first, he was now less wary or scared around the scary looking walking elongated boulders.

“Hey, Ocellus, know any ancient animals fitting these guys descriptions… they keep staring at me oddly.” Yeah, they were scrutinizing Smolder quite a lot in an affectionately protective manner.

“Only a threatening extinct species that once existed around the time of Gusty the Great… or maybe not so extinct given that they were all in the Tambelon region… how is the sky red without a sun?” After her question about the state of this world being eternally bathed in a red glowing sky, Ocellus seemed to perk up and then waved to us all excitedly drawing our attentions onto her. “Oh, I think I know what they are! They are stone backed land dragons or Stonebacks for short! They don’t breathe fire or don’t do it much at least if they can, they are dragons that are good at burrowing through the ground like Dread Maulwurfs and have armored bodies as tough as a dragons. Did not know they were intelligent though, it seems like the magic of friendship is not quite dead in this world.”

“Gra…” One of the Stonebacks gurgled out excitedly in answer to Ocellus’s words and hopped forward several times, their loud thuds of excitement were actually somewhat endearing.

I’m guessing there’s a reason why Grogar doesn’t have them under his control? Also why the city wasn’t currently swarming with these things given how dangerous they looked. I guess we were going to figure by having to do charades after they find us a safe place to put our wagon away and then I can try to get into the City of Bells to try and extricate Jaded, Tianhuo and my puppies from the place.

They came to help rescue us, but why does it feel like I’m rescuing them instead?