-Tambelon, Royal Guard Campsite, large medical tent, Pom-

I had five mangled dogs resting near me waiting for healing, even the Canis Minor were not enough to fight Grogar. Tianhuo was curled up next to me still out cold... and using me as a pillow. No complaints there, but Tianhuo was always a little bit too warm sometimes when she cuddled. Thankfully my wool was heat and fire resistant until I told it not to be.

“Why did you come back?!” I finally shouted angrily at Ocellus and Smolder. “You were finally… able to go home…”

“Wow, she really did not like that you jumped back into Tambelon for her, way to be appreciative by the way.” The blue griffon said as he looked at the two. The Royal Guard armor he wore was obviously scratched and battered by several hours of pitched combat. Yet his injuries seemed to be very minimal compared to some of the other Royal Guard. He apparently went through training one might expect of a Huoshan guard. “Also you’re friend Shanty is good as dead since Grogar took an interest in her… so how are we going to rescue her and beat Grogar? I’m up for ideas.”

“Yona can be understanding why you are the being of angry, but friends do not turn their backs on friends in need.” Right, the yak Yona was right, also apparently these were Ocellus’s and Smolder’s friends from Princess Twilight’s Friendship School.

“Did you really expect us to walk away from all of this insanity after the year we’ve had?” Smolder stated with her claw arms crossed over her chest, she was grumpy and smirking a bit. “Even my brother Garble came in to help in the fighting… surprisingly the Equestrian Royal Guard have stepped it up a lot, even he’s impressed. Must be Flash Magnus influencing them.”

“Can’t get rid of us that easily Pom.” Mumbled a wilting Ocellus, knowing that I was upset with her, but also that I loved her all the same as one of my charges for a time. Did she even ask her parents about coming back in here?

“Mage Meadowbrook should be here soon, the fighting and detaining of prisoners has her and a few others healers busy.” The Earth Pony with the gourd made of sand stated, he had a cutie mark made of several turtles. So that’s why it smelled like it came from a beach, probably related to his special talents.

“I’m going to run out of arrows at this rate…” Fretted the hippogriff with the blue hair and pink fur and feathers.

“Introductions?” I finally asked.

“Well…” The griffons started only for a familiar figure to appear, along with a smell that me and my canine companions all gagged at. Since it had us clutching at our noses, it could only be…

“Did someone say introductions, I am Fortitude, the fantastically fragrant!” Yep, that guy. Fortitude, why was he here? I mean if he was here to fight the Troggles, then his smell could probably disable just about all of them all in short order given how strong it is… Troggles had noses stronger than most dogs as me and Tianhuo had found out. Well it would only disable the Troggles that got close to Fortitude anyway, they could still throw a spear from pretty far away. “I am glad to see friend Arizona has found you in… decent health friend Pom from Huoshan.”

How was the pony next to him not watering at the eyes and… why was she a zombie? Also what’s a zombie doing here and why is nobody freaking out about it?! Wait… the glowing magical eyes, the fur and hair… it could only be.

“This is Skeletal Noria, or Skelly, she is a wonderful friend to have in battle. She is also slightly living impaired.” The yak then proceeded to nuzzle the top of the axe wielding ponies making her blush, zombies shouldn’t be able to have heat in their cheeks… “She ran afoul of a sorcerer named Mosey Wrath that left Saddle Arabia after a battle with a monstrous and even greater evil called Mirage or so she wrote and got added to the history books. She is mostly alive, but she lives a slightly cursed existence.”

Skelly smiled cheerfully one normal eye and the other a glowing mass of energy as she waved at everyone with a hoof, nobody seemed bother by her half skeletal, half fleshy appearance at all. I’ve met her several times before, mostly as a complete skeleton pony and as a normal pony, she’s never looked quite like this before. At least her flesh doesn’t look like it’s rotting off of her body.

“By day she is a normal pony, by night she is a skeleton, here she has no sun or moon to change her appearance and is thus stuck looking like this!” The obnoxiously loud Flamberge everyone, the dragon that reminded me of Garble and wielder of the sword of flames that never go out… unless said sword was asleep. Though one would question why a sword needed sleep, it’s an inanimate object and it’s always technically at rest where it was stored on his back.

My poor canines, they didn’t know whether to cover our ears or our noses, I went with my nose personally and the canines agreed with me. Flamberge was obnoxiously loud and sometimes on fire, but he didn’t smell like he killed an entire sewer’s fragrance with his very own to replace it.

“I think I see why you’re here… Sweetcakes?” The griffon stated as a tired looking golden kitsune with many tails fanning out as she walked in, she dragged one under Flamberge’s chin affectionately. Don’t honestly know how to respond to that, Kitsune and dragons are long lived so the relationship would definitely could work. “Anyway, I’m Gallus from Griffonstone, you have here Yona who always introduces herself from Yakyakistan, Silverstream who is cousin to the princess of Seaquestria and might even get a domain eventually. You already know Ocellus from the Changeling Hive in the not-so-badlands and Smolder from the Dragon Lands. So I’ll just get to our designated dude bro of the group Sandbar.”

“Hey there!” Sandbar stated jovially, obviously the calmest member and most level headed of Ocellus and Smolder’s closest friends. At least it seemed that way to me at least.

“Why do you smell like a La Perm though?” I asked blankly while scrutinizing Gallus as I sniffed the air.

“I was adopted by them… wait, there’s a smell and it’s not Fortitude’s?” Gallus asked looking a bit worried. He started sniffed his body with his beak in worry. “I don’t smell anything.”

“Magical scents are not likely to be detected by normal senses.” I stated mysteriously as I felt a tail rub against my head gently... then it jerked away and the kitsune suddenly looked a little wary and worried for me.

“You feel as if cursed, death will want to save your soul, is it late for you?” Was that a haiku from the kitsune and she was giving me a fairly sad look.

“I’m not spent yet, not until I step over the threshold on purpose… with purpose.” I said as I looked away from the worried vixens eyes.

“Situations bad, you will spend your life once dire, a martyr for that fire.” The kitsune followed up and then caressed my forehead, my wounds were healing as were those of my puppies being tickled by the playful tails. Dolly’s bones snapping back into position was a bit sickening, but she was looking healthier afterwards and felt it too.

“We’re here to prevent that.” Ocellus stated boldly while staring into my eyes.

“Her power does grow, no life after a quick death, a soul with no breath.” This is the second kitsune that knew the secret, Tammamo being the first that knew. Kind of glad she didn’t follow me here… also something I would have thanked Arceus for. I’m sure the alpaca god already knew I’d be thankful anyway.

“So you already know or can at least guess…” I said looking at the kitsune, she simply nodded as her response. The golden wool up to my neck was a little concerning, now that the kitsune had brought its attention to Ocellus and Smolders eyes glancing at the golden wool covering my body. “Don’t tell them. They’ll know exactly why ‘if’ I turn and not a moment before… at least every magical sensitive creature here will know then, should I cross that boundary willingly. I doubt even Grogar himself would be able to ignore it.”

“Are you guys done in here? We need everyone to gather, something has come up.” Storm Queen Fizzlepop ‘Tempest Shadow’ Berrytwist announced. “Also have any of you seen Jaded, I know she can take care of herself, but I’m getting worried that no one has spotted her lurking about. Need to keep my cuddly kitty alive, because she has a habit of getting into weird situations once a week at random on said week. This would probably count as weird…”

Shaking her head Fizzlepop walked off and continued grumbling about the missing in action annoying cat. Even Jaded came back in here? I already know the architecture around here hates Jaded with a passion, at least we have the Royal Guard.

-Ten minutes later, Fizzy-

“Okay everyone Stygian, our strategist and liason with Equestria has several problems we need to address. Before that I want a report from Truly Noted, Duly Noted, Grubber and Sergeant Shady on our casualty assessments.” I was thankful that the Storm Creatures Pique and Nique were back in Airship Mauled watching out for my little one and the Abyssinian I was willing to call mother or mother-in-law.

“Well boss lady, the Storm Creatures have taken a beating, we’re not out of touch on training though. The Troggles are just that dangerous. No deaths, but we’ve have had a few close calls and some very nasty injuries.” Grubber the ever lovable hedgehog who might have some puckwudgie ancestry to him… don’t think about it too hard Fizzy and don’t utter the words that’ll make things worse out loud. The Puckwudgies will know and will show up… THEY ALWAYS SHOW UP. “Without the Royal Guard we could maybe commit to a standing draw. With them… well I’m surprised to say it, but we could actually capture the city. The castle is a different issue entirely. Also the ability to bake in this world is pretty bad.”

“Look, you know as well as I do that the portal was a big as we could make it Grubber, there was no way we were fitting an entire airship through it… which is why Jackie ‘Blackcap’ Chickadee La Perm isn’t here and is off doing other things.” Honestly with what I know, I don’t know who’s unluckier at the moment, all of us or just her In general. “She is also healing off several arrow related wounds from what I last heard.”

“Yeah… that’s my bad.” Ignoring the Silver Stream, I decided to move on to Shady. Jackie would be a good archery teacher if not for her being badly cursed. I’m surprised she even managed to have little Gavin with how bad it gets for her sometimes.

“Stealth corps?” Yes, Shady the changeling ran the stealth guards. We weren’t trying to stereotype him, Shady actively asked for his own units to be trained in anti-espionage, anti-terrorists and anti-cult capabilities. Grogar’s cult definitely couldn’t stand up to these guys back on Equus when we started rooting them out.

Apparently none of stealth units under Shady were injured until after they entered active combat in Tambelon, before then not a Troggle saw a single one of them or so much as heard them sneeze at an inopportune moment that is common with those sneaking around like his units in the Royal Guard can. In fact as long as they managed to hold the advantage of surprise they could take out Troggles without retaliation provided their smell didn’t give them away.

Troggles had strong noses, which is why Fortitude had been a huge boon on the battlefield. He personally knocked out over one hundred of them from his ‘fantastic fragrance’ alone. Troggles were ridiculously resilient to a lot of things, except for that. Only those without a sense of smell or have no nose to begin with would survive being next to Fortitude, probably why he and Skelly got along so well.

“Minimal injuries, we’re good to keep fighting.” Shady stated with a salute, his squads were to remain on the lookout for suspicious activity and made for good sentries.

“Magic Corps?” I turned to Duly Noted.

“Lots of injuries, we figured out quickly that directly attacking Troggles with magic was a bad idea. Indirectly however, by the will of Celestia we shined despite the battering we took. No captures that I know of under my command… but I do have the most injured. They know how to fight unicorns to an absurd degree.” Duly Noted and his brother Truly were here for Equestria in its time of need and they were delivering results based on what was said next. “We might have the most injuries, but we’ve also captured the most enemy forces and were the most embattled once we got ourselves together after coming into Tambelon. A number of ponies are still unaccounted for, which means we’ll need the help of...”

“Strife Corps?” I turned to Truly Noted, guy was one that taught survival in the harshest of conditions and battle… he was darn good at it too, quite a number of his units were Pegasus or winged ponies since they’ve always appreciated militaristic outlooks.

Now if only the rest of the Royal Guard had the kind of spine they do now when I attack Canterlot with the Storm Creatures and took the capital city of Equestria in a few hours. I would have actually been challenged by these guys as they are today.

“We have a few nasty injuries and many moderately injured casualties from poking their defenses, Castle Tambelon is unassailable from the air and the skies above it really is not a pegasus friendly flying zone. The defenses of the place are deadly enough that a number of unicorns unified together can’t approach it with a shield powerful enough to stand up to an assault from the Troggles.” Yes, Truly and Strife Corps were specifically good for scouting purposes and pathfinding routes to safety. Where there’s strife, these guys would survive the worst situations… like the one we’re currently in. If they were lost after teleporting into Tambelon then they had a capacity similar to Jaded in skills to deal with suddenly being dropped into danger. “Mage Meadowbrook says she can get our guys back on their hooves, flying and using magic in no time. By the light of Luna’s moon we can hopefully do this without having to involve Princess Twilight or endangering our beloved vacationing princesses.”

Royal Guard was oddly competent here, hopefully they’ll keep this up when I drop the news.

“Battlefront Corps report in!” I called out to the bulkiest of the Royal Guard. The heavy armor units I helped train to handle a war footing, a lot of them were earth ponies and pegasus ponies.

“We did good lass.” Rockhoof the bulkiest stallion hear with his stone tipped ancient shovel, a shovel that sent large chunks of ground at Troggles and buried them halfway alive. Guy took out more than any pegasus or unicorn could, he was just that tough. He wasn’t going to like hearing what I had to say. “Moderate injuries, we’ll live though. No losses and we hoofed them their own flanks mighty hard. If only Asterisk and Obelisk were here… they’d show these Troggles what for they would. Glad to hear they were remembered by history for having the gall to take on entire armies by themselves.”

Now those were two historically powerful Earth Ponies, one specifically known for his size and surviving ingesting a cauldron full of strengthening brew living up to the name of Obelisk and the other one for his wit as much as his strength known as Asterisk. Wish I knew Asterisk’s secret to destroying Bureaucracy, would help so much with the paperwork after all of this.

Rockhoof wasn’t the brightest guy around, but he was definitely one of the strongest… even physically stronger than Equus Arizona at any rate and the Foenum Arizona was no pushover either. There’s also Fortitude and Yona that made a good show of things too. I believed we had everything we needed to be successful… because my goodness did we need everyone to be at the top of their abilities here.

Now if I wanted to say who the most resilient among us was… it would still be Equus Arizona Arid. She got batted around like a cat toy… darn it where are you Jade to make silly commentary based on my thoughts?! In any case Arizona didn’t need healing despite being a walking bruise after Grogar was done with her, she just literally walked that off despite Pom and Tianhuo being taken out of the fight near instantly. Apparently Mage Meadowbrook reported a cracked skull from the impact… that was Tianhuo’s injury from being thrown and the head smash had almost killed Pom despite Grogar not hitting her with his full strength.

“Okay, I have something to announce, there are those of us still fighting out there… we need to rally them here. To everyone here, we currently have several major problems we need to address in an immediate fashion.” I turned to Stygian and nodded for him to go ahead.

“First off, Grogar has two captive, one of which is Starswirl.” It was kind of sad to watch Stygian flinch as he caused a gasp throughout the unicorn crowd. “There is something of a history between Starswirl and Gusty the great, Grogar still remembers what happened apparently. Starswirl did kind of write the book on the spell that helped seal Tambelon and Grogar in this pocket dimension… you know, instead of banishing him to entirely different realm to takeover like he did with all of those magical artifacts, the sirens, the several other magical creatures and a few door to door sales ponies. It’s why that world has legends of our existence… Anyway, Grogar is aware of this fact I’m sure, which is why he isn’t asking for or taking one our beacons to summon a portal to open in this realm. My belief is that Grogar intends to push the entirety of Tambelon back onto Equus by force. We cannot let him do that or reach his bell!”

The audience was silent at that and I could see Pom’s right eye twitching, even as Tianhuo held her right hoof and gave it a gentle squeeze. Pom for her part was already looking ready to head in the direction of Tambelon Castle to rescue Starswirl and that goat Shanty.

“Starswirl could give him the key willingly or not to doing just that, if Grogar can somehow find a way to access his memories through various methods of torture… well… let’s say ‘not good’ by any stretch of the imagination and leave it at that if we fail in our mission to stop him here and now. That Starswirl came here has become something of a grave error on our part.” Stygian shivered violently as did most of the unicorn crowd. “Another problem is that Grogar is actively preventing us from escaping Tambelon, while he doesn’t have the power to break Tambelon from the pocket dimension’s bindings… yet… he does have the power to hold us in entrapment indefinitely.”

“Explain.” Truly noted stated flatly with a look in his eyes that asked for an explanation immediately.

Stygian created a visual screen and started doing a presentation on what was going on with Tambelon.

“While we are still in contact with Equestria and ponies or more help can come in, none can open a portal leading out… apparently Grogar’s castle is giving off a powerful magical effect that prevents any form of exfiltration from Tambelon. As in a portal leading out cannot be opened while Grogar has this method of blocking us active, he’s definitely prepared for such a situation as this. We need to find the object behind the magic involved and destroy it if we are to start evacuating.” In other words we’d need to tear down the whole castle to find out what was keeping us here and then destroy it, if anything it’ll be Grogar’s throne or something as simple as a hearthstone brick. “Discord’s random supply crate are now very important to us, no matter how many of them may prank you or be filled halfway with gags, Pom and Tianhuo have already found a crate with food and other useful supplies we’ve already picked up… we’re in dire need of medical supplies and those with the knowledge to use them for Magic Corps. We have some magical healing available… but we’re wearing them out with the influx of injured troops they simply cannot handle. We can’t send any unicorn smart enough to maybe even remotely assist Grogar in his goals if he can pull information from the minds of others. He’s stronger than most beings physically, he’s got the stolen magic of thousands of unicorns and he’s not going to feel threatened by anyone here… given he defeated Starswirl I don’t think anyone would be stupid enough to volunteer to sneak into that castle and destroy what we need to so we can create an evacuation point.”

“I volunteer!” Pom stated immediately with a firm look in her eyes.

“I volunteer as well!” Tianhuo stated a second afterwards. “How will we know what to look for to destroy? What if instead we destroy something that makes it so Grogar can free of this pocket dimension Tambelon that much sooner?”

“That’s a major concern, we need at least someone I can give a quick rundown on how to find the thing that needs to be destroyed… because Gusty and Starswirl practically made this world to hold Grogar the Demon and he’s had plenty of time to think about how he’s going to get free. Even if Grogar didn’t get Starswirl, he still would likely have a method to do something in a similar vein anyway.” Stygian looked about at the worried guards. “This might even be a trap to get us to incidentally help him and we’d have to functionally do so anyway to leave, which is likely why he said it was inevitable. For if the very thing we need to destroy to escape is the same thing Grogar needs to push Tambelon back out onto Equus… then this situation is very troubling to say the least as we’re now trapped in here with him.”

“Can’t have a party without me, I’m going whether anyone says I will or not!” Equus Arizona stated. “We can’t exactly sit on our flanks and do nothing, I got a home to return to and I’ve got a reason to keep fighting even if every bone in my body is broken! I’ll crawl out of Tambelon with my eyelids if I have to, I’m not dying or living here for the rest of my life! Besides I came here to save my friends, can’t let them go dying on me now.”

“We can’t have too many volunteers, we still need the Royal Guard to work on detaining, securing and readying the Troggles and other locals for evacuation.” Stygian said quickly as half the ponies wanted to volunteer for the mission into Castle Tambelon within the City of Bells. “We also need guards going for those vital resources, we can’t feed so many prisoners or liberated ponies and donkeys without them. The undertaking we’re committing to here is clearly quite daunting…”

“And the Royal Guard will actually see things through to the very end!” Shady yelled, much to the cheering of the troops all around us.

Despite some taking quite a battering morale was not low, not by a long shot, but it was still questionable on how we were going to pull this all off.

“Now let’s get to assignments on what each of you will be doing while we pick out our volunteers for this mission into Castle Tambelon…” Stygian looked at me and I raised a brow at him. “The question for us is… who organizes what?”

Good question which one of us takes the responsibility of organizing a jaunt through that death trap, one that Grogar all but invited us into quite openly after wrecking so much of our forces by himself and then calmly walking away having only lost a single drop of blood.

-Pom-

I idly listened in onto the planned movements of the Royal Guard, nobody realized just how many ponies went into the Royal Guard when they had little direction in life besides their special talents.

“I don’t envy you’re position.” Turning to look at the voice, it was Foenum Pom and she shook her head at me sadly. “Though I’m surprised you’d actively volunteered for it.”

“I’m a rather unfortunate lambkin.” I admitted sadly. “I’m functionally driven to sacrifice, how I go about it is what little choice I get.”

“Glad I’m not you then, don’t know how long I’d live if I couldn’t decide what I wanted to do for myself.” Foenum Pom stated as she nuzzled one of her puppies. “Still going to do my best to help with finding the supplies, well away from all of that mess.”

“Good luck with not finding trouble, I seriously mean that given Discord’s involvement in the supply crates. One of them is bound to be a jack-in-the-box.” Another version of me was far luckier than I, yet she still ended up here. “Well it’s been nice knowing myself.”

“You could talk to our Paprika, she gives nice free hugs.” Foenum Pom stated sadly.

“I think I will.” Making my way over to Paprika, I said the first thing that came to mind. “Can you spare a hug?”

Foenum Paprika was affectionate and as loving as Equus Paprika, the difference is she knew how to control her strength compared to Equus Paprika’s instant power squeezes. Foenum Paprika hugged me gently and then tightened it a little before letting me go and patting me on the head with a jovial smile.

“Thank you.” I then made my way over to the volunteer group Fizzlepop was weeding out for the trip into Tambelon Castle. As I approached I broached the question. “Do we even have a way to enter the castle safely? Truly Noted kind of implied that the castle is impenetrable.”

“Yes, Drog here seems to have some insider knowledge of the castle.” Fizzlepop pointed out the Troggle who tentatively gave us a half-hearted wave. Red hair, blue hat and clothing that wasn’t exactly armor, light brown skin and a calculating look in his eyes… he was also bit short for a troggle. “At least an entrance you could use as far as we can trust him.”

“Dodo likes him, I trust that.” I said plainly, Dodo was plenty smart in his own unique way.

“That’s your prerogative. Mine is the safety of the Storm Creatures and Royal Guard, specifically in that order, so I’m needed out here to make sure things don’t fall into disarray. I don’t think Grogar even cares about the Troggles outside the ones guarding his castle.” Fizzlepop stated while glancing at Drog.

“He doesn’t and he likely already knows your coming, he’s probably already prepared for everything you’re going to do even.” Drog stated with a slightly frightened certainty. “Those guards are the best of the best, given the best stuff too.”

“He can’t predict everything, Grogar’s powerful, but he’s far from what I would call completely impossible to defeat.” The question is, how much is it going to cost us or more specifically me, to beat him in any lasting capacity? He’s mostly impossible to defeat with how fast he took out Tianhuo, Arizona and me. “Also why are you turning on him?”

“Troggles are basically Grogar’s slaves as much as we treat the ponies and donkeys as being beneath us, we’re all beneath him equally and nobody wants to be near him when he’s having a bad day.” Drog answered readily as a good reason to want a change of pace. “There’s got to be more to life than Tambelon… I want to see everything out there for myself beyond this red sky I was born under.”

“Who’s our team and who’s heading it?” The look I got from Fizzlepop made me get a dropping feeling in my stomach. “Oh no, no-no-no, anyone else… how about Tianhuo she’s good for it?!”

“I will lead, but I will defer to you if you make sound queries on the situation at hoof.” Tianhuo always making me feel safe. “Listening to the sound advisement of others is an intention of mine. So where do we start Drog?”

-A number of hours later, Castle Tambelon, sewers entrance-

Getting here wasn’t the problem, it's exactly where Drog said it was.

We’d start by entering Tambelon Castle through the sewers and aqueducts beneath the castle, also someone forgot to mention that Grogar’s castle is full of monsters… so the elite Troggles definitely weren’t our only problem here.

A large purple mass of malevolent sludge growled at us with multiple eyes sticking out of it, along with hundreds of toothless mouths guarding the entrance.

“Smoooo--” The sludge groaned out.

“Thank goodness I’m here, move aside and let a professional reindeer show them how it’s done…. TORNADO!” Foenum Velvet was immediately spinning and rising into the air as she created a tornado of ice and wind. Massive portions of the purple sludge monster froze over from the sudden localized magical blizzard. “That is how you do it!”

“Could you be a little more subtle… please? I’m pretty sure the Troggles watching all sides of the castle saw that.” That actually cowed Foenum Velvet as we ran towards the entrance over the frozen sludge mass and spears started being chucked our way. The Royal Guard would deal with all the Troggles outside the castle, in the city and the outskirts of it, we wouldn’t be getting reinforcements here.

We had Tianhuo, Foenum Velvet, Arizona, Dolly, Dormarch, Puff, Tuft, Ruff, Woof, Gallus, Sandbar, Silver Stream, Ocellus, Smolder, Yona and lastly me. So Friendship School Alumni, My team, Arizona who might be taking after her mother in the 'mad cow' department and a reindeer that doesn't have projectile farting issues. That’s what we had to work with… I’m surprised we had a friend from Foenum join us on this, we needed at least two magical knowhow experts and Ocellus and Foenum Velvet were hopefully enough.

Dodo stayed behind to assist Foenum Pom with hauling supply crates. That and Dodo was afraid of Grogar, you’d have to be pretty dumb not to be when he took down one of the greatest unicorns to ever live. I only saw the aftermath of that fight, Starswirl destroyed a tenth of the city trying to fight Grogar and Grogar walked away without looking the least bit bothered by that fact.

The likes of Rockhoof, Flamberge and Fortitude were too valuable fighting on the front lines in the embattled zones all around the City of Bells. Not even the Royal Guard campgrounds were exactly one hundred percent safe.

I felt something grab me by the hind leg and tried to do something… I looked back at the purple sludge trying to pull me in and engulf me. Instead I gave off a gold glow and the sludge started screeching in pain, the fluid part of the sludge that wasn’t frozen immediately perished violently.

“Must be malicious magic based entity… with that in mind, let’s be a bit more careful moving forward.” I said as I started into the sewers with everyone spooked at the slight scare. “My anti-magic properties aren’t going to protect us from everything here.”

“Like what, demented well placed traps?” Dolly stated as she moved ahead of everyone and stopped when she heard a distinctive clicking noise and we had barely gotten through the entrance and past the sludge guarding it. Dolly should be thankful that she was rather thin… otherwise the multiple spears that came out of the floor, walls and ceiling would have skewered her to death. “Seriously, who traps a sewer with something like this?!”

“Dolly… stop tempting fate.” I said as calmly as I could muster with an aggravated tone in my voice. “*NOW*.”

“Why do I feel so glad that I can’t understand what she’s barking?” Gallus stated blithely as the spears retreated into the crevices they sprouted from. His eyes sharpened as he glanced about and put a talon on my back as I was about to move past Dolly and poked the tip of his standard issue royal guard spear forward at something, the walls were suddenly filled with sharp bits of metal in an explosive display. The shafts of his spear now had sharp bits of metal sticking out of it. “Yikes, shrapnel trap a second after the spears. If you were trying to run past the spears... well this guy definitely takes his home security very seriously.”

Right, ratcheting up my paranoia to three times what it was a second ago.

"Fairly understandable, we are out to get Grogar, everything else we need to do is secondary to that." Tianhuo commented idly as her eyes were roaming the sewers liquids and the various aqueduct pathways forward underneath the castle.

"I'll run forward set off all the traps and make it easier for the rest of you to get through!" Arizona stated with a wild grin.

My four beloved God Puppies took that as a challenge, as did Dolly and surprisingly Tianhuo who seemed to be considering setting off traps herself.

"Can I question your sanity on this?" Dormarch spoke up with a slight whine.

"I'll be perfectly fine." Arizona stated while waving off everyone's concern.

So very glad I got in that alone time with Tianhuo before we came here, because I really don't know which one of us is going to die first here at the rate things were already going.

Author's Note

Yep, tired and slightly sickly... start of the year bug got to me.

Xanatos Gambit Grogar anyone? No matter what you do the one making the gambit always wins in some way.