-???, Buttina ‘Butt Stallion’ Stalliona-

I looked at Fred, he couldn’t be serious right? Right?! I know I’m a bit slow as a badass Pandoran Bicorn, but even I’m not nearly this dumb.

“Which one is the real Ollie though…” Fred muttered as he held a machine cannon ripped off a mech while looking between Oleander… and a big butterfly wearing a horn made a cardboard on a string and doing a horrible impersonation of Oleander with an inflatable pony disguise.

“Honestly?” Even Wrex, my best snuggle buddy ever and life partner that wants me to shoot at him every once in a while to keep him on his Krogan toes, was flummoxed.

“Do you always have this many problems with butterflies?!” I stated in an exasperated tone.

“Fred just shoot the one with wings, it looks nothing like me.” Oleander stated in an irate manner.

“No, I became an alicorn, shoot the one without wings and eat her soul!” The badly mimicking butterfly stated.

“See they both make good arguments.” Fred said a second later.

“Look we really don’t have time for this, Pom could be in Tambelon by now!” Oleander stated in a worried tone.

“We do have time for this, Fred, honey, tell me you can’t believe this fake unicorn over me? Haven’t we spent so many happy years together that you can’t tell us apart?” The obviously evil butterfly stated. “The vows we took when we…”

“Oh we’re not married, at least not yet.” Oleander stated.

“Wait, you’re not?!” The butterfly stated and then its eyes widened in horror as it realized it gave away the game, then was swiftly gunned down under a tirade of energy bullets by Fred who immediately jumped on the soul trying to run from him.

Oleander didn’t say anything about him eating that one, after a moment Fred reached into Oleander and pulled out a screeching butterfly shaped soul and spat a unicorn shaped soul back into Oleander’s body.

“Nice try with trying to trick me!” Fred stated.

“What?” Wrex and I stated at the same time in confusion.

“Thank goodness, I was trapped in that butterfly’s body being used as a puppet, which was quite unpleasant.” Oleander groaned as she stretched out her body. “But yes, we need to start heading on back.”

“No, wait… can you tell me what just happened there?!” I was so confused.

-Tambelon, Equestria Military Rallying Point, Fizzlepop ‘Queen Tempest Shadow’ Berrytwist La Perm-

“Report, did they get through okay?” I asked of Sergeant Shady as he and a group of stealth expert ponies appeared as if from out of nowhere.

“My stallions and Mares made sure they got through and to the moat without being accosted by Troggles. Now it’s up to them to see if they can carry out the mission, if they can’t we’ll send in another team of carefully selected individuals. They got in through where Drog said they could, but there were some complications.” Shady threw me a salute, he was very competent for someone who couldn’t one hundred percent match the talents and capabilities of his much stronger peers. His stealth units were devastating the Troggle lines and we were slowly taking over the City of Bells, but it won’t be a victory unless we could figure out how to deal with Grogar who took down the most powerful unicorn we had. “The slight problem was a run in with some Smooze, thankfully Pom proved to be doubly immune with her poison prevention scarf artifact and her general immunity to magical maladies.”

“Green, gelatinous, generally friendly and sticky fingered for treasure?” I asked remembering all of Discords plus one when it came to events he was invited to usually involved Mr. Smooze Weezencoff. That or Discord go with Fluttershy.

It bothered me that Mr. Weezencoff still showed up to fancy stuff in Canterlot from time to time without Discord while wearing his monocle and top hat, apparently he was quite an entrepreneur and had many investments in a number of Equestrian businesses. Where he was getting his wealth from was questionable given it was a Smooze known for ingesting treasures, but apparently he was a dungeon delver and got into one of Daring Do’s books as a friend she met while treasure hunting.

“Try purple, goopy, dangerous and as long as your covered in it you are being pumped full of magical aggression poison that was generally produced by evil witches thousands of years ago. If we get covered in the stuff it would make us start fighting ourselves to death and we don’t exactly have Breezies on hoof to help deal with it.” Shady why would we need breezies to deal with what sounded like monstrous muck I couldn’t even begin to guess. I’m certain he knows a thing or two about history though. “Purple Smooze and Wendigoes would be a bad combination to deal with. We can’t let that Smooze leave this realm alive, yet we don’t know how to destroy it other than freezing it solid and at most that is only suspending the issue we have with it and we’re not doing the Starswirl method of sending it somewhere else and hoping it doesn’t cause major problems for someone that is not us.”

“Try to avoid having anyone going near it unless you absolutely have to, keep freezing at a distance to keep it at bay otherwise. We do not need it becoming a problem on top of all the other ones we’re currently dealing with.” I looked over to see Rockhoof, Garble, Flamberge and Fortitude ‘The Fantastically Fragrant’, coming back in with a number of new prisoners.

We couldn’t keep holding all these Troggles indefinitely. Fortitude was at least proving to be the biggest hero in the invasion of Tambelon… mostly because Troggles couldn’t handle his smell for more than three seconds before it shuts their brains down. Poor guys, glad it’s not me.

I’m just going to assume Jade is doing her job with trying to get that cake to the target, she wasn’t bad at stealth and had trained with Shady. Hopefully Grogar will be temporarily disabled from doing anything once she inevitably does reach the target with it, at least we’ll notice it if the entirety of Castle Tambelon lights up like a Hearth’s Warming Tree. Anything that light touches is going to have a bad day.

I just had to trust that Jaded wouldn’t get into an even crazier situation… which is hard for me to do given I know what my favorite bed warming degenerate Abyssinian is like.

-Castle Tambelon, Sewer Aqueduct, Pom-

(Music: Chrono Trigger- Underground Sewer)

The floor cracked with the impact and I was mildly panicked as was everyone else.

“Oh my goodness, are you okay Arizona?!” I asked as she was hit with a ceiling crusher trap several feet in front of us with the sound of bone crunching force, we had about seven feet of safety distance after the fire trap.

“Yeah, what are you so worried about? Ah yeah… that got a nasty spot out of my spine.” Arizona stood there with several tons of solid stone ceiling on her back as I crouched down to get a look at her and I heard a popping sound, the solid block of stone had crashed down on top of her in an instant and all it had to show for it was Arizona rubbing her back against it to pop a spot on her spine that was apparently giving her trouble.

“Can I just reiterate again how much I appreciate the fact that Arizona is the one in front of all of us?” Gallus stated as he grabbed the edge of the ceiling smasher and tried to push upward, it didn’t budge. “How much weight do you think is on her back right now?”

“Several tons I’d guess.” Arizona stood on her hind legs and pushed the ceiling up with her front hooves.

I’d guess about several tons worth of weight too, Arizona was said to have flipped an entire elephant onto its back once by its trunk. Hard to believe if there hadn’t been many eyewitnesses to the act, this was far surpassing that feat and that happened years ago.

“Come on guys, go on through, I’ve got it.” Arizona might be lifting the ceiling smasher, but even my usually brash and excitable companion Dolly was staring at it warily. Arizona didn’t look like she was even struggling with it either, which was a little bit more comforting when it came to her safety.

“There’s pancake and then there’s the possibility of getting utterly juiced.” Dolly muttered with a slight shiver going down her spine at the sight. “Never thought of a cow as being that strong… well there was that evil cow that wanted my family dead and tried to push an entire bus with all of us on it off a cliff.”

Apparently Dolly was referencing that cow in Cornwall that had it out for her family when they were visiting the coast for beach fun and a vacation for the entirety of Dalmatian family of one zero one Dalmatian Street.

“No kidding, what is that cow made of? I mean I can scan her biology, but there’s no accounting for magical strength or the micro-musculature she has.” Dormarch was more impressed with Arizona’s bizarre strength, apparently she gets it from her father. “Normal does not define her and the impact she just took.”

“Yona, to the front, Arizona can’t move very much while holding up the ceiling safely so we’ll need someone to handle whatever the next trap is.” I glanced to the side at the water which was a sickly looking color, anyone who would try to avoid the ceiling trap would jump into the obviously poisonous and possibly acidic liquids.

I think something was living in that sludge too and whatever it was had to obviously be terrifying to still be alive in there.

Yona brought up her shield, Fortitude had sourced it from black market Neighpon specialists apparently, she marched forward bravely with a determined look. While the yak was squeezing under the ceiling, that Arizona held up without a struggle apparently, she was readying her shield for anything and we’ve been through several things already.

We’ve been through boulder traps, swinging axes, dart traps, flamethrowers, this wasn’t a sewer anything would normally survive in for long unless it could swim in the toxic waters or was highly prepared for all the various traps. This was the one trap that caught up Arizona slightly, since she was now physically holding up a large portion of the ceiling we were now passing under.

I had wondered what the trap was this time, it seemed like a clear length in the aqueduct that was these ludicrously dangerous sewers. The ceiling suddenly slamming down on Arizona had us spooked, as if the flamethrower trap Tianhuo dealt with didn’t among the other traps.

At least Tianhuo was helping keep thing lit up with her flames, I don’t think torches would have survived the damp environment for long and it was hard to put out a Longma’s fire regardless if they were brave like Tianhuo.

Yona was moving forward cautiously, despite her size she was nowhere near as strong or resilient as Arizona was. Arizona was almost considered to be nigh indestructible up to this point, that or the injuries she was taking didn’t bother her much. Probably the latter knowing what I do about her domestic situation, our Equus Arizona enjoys taking a beating.

“Remember what we are doing here and continue to be vigilant.” Tianhuo offered quietly while also taking glances as the bubbling liquid that nobody wanted to take a bath in, we were all wary of something popping out of it. At least no one who wasn’t wearing a Pecha Berry Scarf. Don’t know how it would effect Dormarch who was wearing his blue defense scarf, didn’t ever want to find out. “If that had been anyone else…”

“Baa-baa I can’t smell things, place is bad.” Whined Ruff, our noses were constantly assaulted with sickly scents, but it wasn’t poisonous at least and the only thing that smelled worse was Fortitude. It would take something seriously impressive to beat Fortitude.

Ocellus could warn us if the air quality was becoming lethal, a changeling was highly aware of their biology more than most beings and it was all but impossible to poison a changeling without them noticing. That and a changeling was generally immune to poison if they understood the concept of a bufogren or anything else with a strong protective chemical pouch like a snake. Dolly and I would be fine regardless, we never took off the Pecha Berry Scarfs for very long and we weren’t going to remove them for any reason while here.

“I know sweetie, but we’ll be through these sewers soon enough… hopefully.” I nuzzled Ruff and continued forward underneath the ceiling behind Yona and saw a wolf pack spider on her looking about. That must be Spindle her familiar, he was keeping an eye out on the liquids and looked at the ceiling every once in a while.

It felt nice to not be the only one with my familiars here, Edith the cockatrice was inside of Silver Streams quiver and handing over arrows with her beak as Silver Stream called for them. So far Silver Stream was being careful with the use of her arrows, she had plenty of normal arrows on top of the two magical varieties used for trapping or immobilizing targets. She had easily locked up the swinging axe traps easily with some sticky arrows, so she was a decent shot at the very least with that long bow.

“We’re here to rescue Starswirl and Shanty, but we’re also possibly going for whatever is keeping us all trapped in Tambelon.” Smolder grumbled, as she stayed in the middle with Ocellus. “Might also be what’s keeping Grogar from leaving too so we’ve got a lot of weight on our shoulders here when we have to make a decision about that… glad I’m not in charge of this mission.”

Tianhuo was at the very back, making sure if we were attacked from behind, whatever it was that did so would have to absolutely be immune to fire or else it’d get a very unpleasant welcome. Tianhuo can heat her flames up enough to melt stone, but she’d be very careful about how she directs her heat around us.

The ones in charge here were Tianhuo, Gallus and finally me. Ocellus was backup leader in case things went horribly sideways. Also we’d been talking to keep ourselves from freaking out at the faintest noises such as the bubbling liquids shifting ominously on occasion. Not to mention we had to keep our eyes out for traps and stay alert.

Talking could distract us from noticing something, but we were all quite focused right now after we all made it by the ceiling smasher trap and had to wait for Arizona to finagle herself out from under it, even let it create a shockwave that threatened to knock us over when she dropped it and she simple just absorbed said explosive force without flinching.

“This is not how I pictured things would be when I came along with all of you, at least not this strange.” Foenum Velvet had been fairly helpful with several things, the flying boulder traps in particular as she stopped their momentum cold in a literal manner and saved Silver Stream some ice arrow ammunition. “These sewers are suspiciously clean and spacious despite the awful smell.”

“What were you expecting, corn chips and lakes of molten molten cheese?” Arizona stated rolling her eyes, but she seemed a bit upset when Foenum Velvet didn’t fight her on anything or seem to pick up the cues that Arizona possibly wanted to be hit. The Foenum versions of us were very much different thing entirely. “Just not the same… anyway, I’m taking lead again right?”

Yona looked relieved to be behind Arizona again, as the next trap set off within the next minute of moving along the pathway into branching sections sewer which seemed to turn into a maze of pathways and bridges.

Up until this point things had been fairly straightforward until we were at least halfway under the castle.

When we were going to reach the intersection there was this rumbling sound that started up.

“Everybody move!” Arizona called out.

It had us all reacting, we dove toward the wall on our left as it didn’t seem to be what she was calling out. Since nobody wanted to jump towards the toxic sewage to our right, we all ended up piling up against the wall as Arizona was hit by a fairly large spinning horizontal bar full of spikes and was sent backwards towards where the ceiling crusher was. We thankfully avoided being gored by the rotating spikes on the sides of said drill bar.

We heard a loud crunched and then the spike cylindrical drill wall thing started slowly retracted, until it stopped and then it fell into the floor with a strange wrenching noise and then was rolled into the sewage to our right. We were all silent and we heard the trotting of hooves approaching us, a minute later Arizona came strolling up to us looking a little more chipper.

“Ow.” Arizona stated to us after taking a trap that would have killed most of us to her body. “Okay so which direction we heading again?”

“You just got hit by a massive horizontal pillar how are you still okay?!” Sandbar was quite spooked to see that Arizona was looking mostly fine aside from some spots of blood leaking out of her chest where spike pierced her hide.

“My mother puts lit sticks of dynamite in her mouth and I’m more concerned about her sanity than her health.” Yeah Arizona wasn’t really concerned about this event. “Also I’ve had way worse than a spinning spiked pillar slamming me into the side of that ceiling smasher and drilling into me painfully… decided to break the trap before it became a problem again later.”

Arizona continued on her way past us with all of us staring after her, she wasn’t bleeding very badly and at most the injury was minimal and already scabbing over.

“Wow… you weren’t kidding about Arizona and all the things you said she was capable of Pom.” Smolder stated wide eyed.

“Tianhuo is really incredible too, I haven’t exactly met a longma before.” Ocellus was reminding me how much I talked up Tianhuo and Arizona, they were living up to my interpretations of them.

“Tianhuo can you shoot some fire forward?” We were at the intersection now.

“Of course.” Tianhuo sent a small ball of flames down the tunnel straight ahead alongside the spinning death bar.

“Do it to the right.” Tianhuo sent a ball of flames over the now useless spiked log from the broken trap laying in the sewer water. “Now finally to the left.”

I had watched as each fireball travel the distance and nodded to myself.

“Bridge over the sewage to our left, Yona you’re our forward now. Arizona you’re bleeding and might have internal injuries after that, so you’ll need to hang back a bit.” I noticed Arizona looked like she was about to complain. “Look we don’t need you at the front anymore, I’m quite sure we’re by all the traps now.”

“What makes you say that and so certain?” Arizona asked with a raised ear as she wrapped a pair of ropes over her chest like bandages… that the ropes were made of medical gauze was a little weird. I’m chalking it up to the fact that Arizona had ‘rope magic’.

(Music- Chrono Trigger, Battle Theme 1)

“Them.” I pointed my left hoof forward as Yona raised the shield she wielded and then promptly slammed a lunging green scaled sewage covered monster into the wall to the left on the left path from the way we came in.

The sewage splattered all across the wall and the shield smashed frog like monstrosity croaked audibly as it flopped to the floor out cold. They were about three to four feet in height, had bumpy skin and were likely mucus covered to deal with the toxic atmosphere down here.

“Wait, a froglin, those are supposed to be… eep?!” Ocellus quickly transformed into a rock and an arrow made of solid carved rock deflected off her hardened hide.

“I got it!” Silver Stream fired an arrow into the dark and the sound of something being iced over could be heard and panicked croaking. She then quickly ducked behind Yona as several rock spears like what the Troggles wield hurtled out of the shadows of the sewers.

We all scattered slightly or moved closer to Yona or Sandbar who took up defensive measure to block the projectile attacks, some of which were stone arrows.

“Let me guess what you were going to say Ocellus, am I to guess that froglins are also considered an extinct race?” I didn’t know what a froglin was, but if the appearance and the ramshackle makeshift armor if the one Yona just bashed down was anything to go by, I’d guess they were swamp monsters.

“Tambelon is from before Equestria was fully settled, even before the wendigoes were beaten.” Tianhuo stated flatly. “We should expect creatures that haven’t been around for more than thousands of years.”

“Froglins were said to be highly aggressive to the point of stupidity, have night vision, make weapons from whatever materials they have available and tend to like the most horrible of places for anything else to live in… like where we currently are.” That and we could see at least four coming at us Ocellus.

Two with crude stone clubs, one with a jagged misshapen sword of metal that wasn’t rusted that looked like someone’s idea of what mimicking blacksmithing was supposed to look like and a Froglin with several spears. Their solid purple eyes were not very fun to look at as they stared at us from the shadows as they slowly approached.

“Everyone close your eyes!” Doing as Tianhuo asked, she let loose a powerful flare that had our eyelids being lit up. We heard the clattered of a weapon and panicked ribbiting, upon opening my eyes I saw the four were on the ground and rolling around in pain. “Take them out now!”

I lunged forward and got my wool wrapped around the spear wielder wielders wrist before they could throw a spear uncontrolled, I toppled them over and slapped the back of their head against the floor and they were out of the fight. Jean the frog person from Elhorn these guys were certainly not.

Gallus disarmed the sword wielding one trying to come at me by deflecting the sword upwards with his spear and then bashed them across the forehead with it.

One of the club wielders was slammed into the wall by a mass of sand and Yona finished it off for Sandbar who was too kind hearted to really put the hurt on.

The one that had dropped their stone club got a ribbon wrapped around their throat and slung about by Smolder to be slammed into a wall head first by the flying dragon.

If one had to wonder what my puppies, Dormarch and Dolly were doing, they were watching the shadows beyond Tianhuo’s fiery light for anything moving.

Dolly then popped into the air and brought her board around, an arrow deflect away from me and went flying back to sender which screeched in pain.

“Wow, their biology is quite hardy for the conditions they live in.” Dormarch was clinically looking over the froglins we took down with a scanning eye. “They’ll live, but they aren’t really much of a threat to us even in large numbers… could still cause injuries though. Also the one that just shot at you is still active and trying for another shot.”

“Woof, Ruff, Tuft and Puff…” I said calmly. “Get them lads!”

The four were off like a shot and after some panicked croaking and the sounds of a poor Froglin being battered by super strong puppies smashing their head into it several times, the pair of froglin archers were dragged over to the other Froglins we took down and we left them all in a clump together.

“Good puppies, can you use their arrows Silver Stream?” As I coddled my favorite god puppies, Silver Stream had a slightly disturbed look on her beak.

(Music: Chrono Trigger- Underground Sewer)

Right, Silver Stream and Sandbar are the ones that are more reluctant to get into combat. They were still here to help though and Sandbar had a powerful defensive talent at the very least with his beach sand.

“I can, but I would rather not. Also they look a little heavy, I guess I’ll take them… never know when they might be useful.” Still Silver Stream took the arrows off the half frozen froglin and the froglin battered by my puppies. “These things are made of solid carved stone, who would go to all that… right the Froglins apparently because they did go to the effort, silly me. I guess playing a live game of Ogre’s and Oubliettes for real isn’t nearly as fun as I thought it would be.”

“We should keep moving…” The fire I had Tianhuo fire down the paths of the sewer likely attracted attention of those Froglins and I doubted that was all of them, I glanced at the bubbling sewage. There wasn’t much water in Tambelon, but there was this much sewage below Tambelon Castle? “Also keep an eye out on movements in the muck.”

I calmly traipsed over the bridge to the right up ahead, past the Froglin ambush with Yona and Tianhuo leading the way now.

“Arizona are you okay?” It took me a moment to realize that Arizona hadn’t taken action against the Froglin, she was currently calmly comforting a freaking out Foenum Velvet.

“I’m fine, Foenum Velvet here apparently has an amphibian phobia.” The reindeer was cowering against Arizona.

“Phobia nothing, those creatures are horrid and are likely diseased, that they are also sickening and terrible to look at that it doesn’t help their case in the slightest either!” Foenum Velvet really didn’t like the Froglins, noted. “Icky doesn’t even begin to describe the horrors they could let loose upon us at a moment’s notice and they smell like everything else down here, vaguely rank… which is odd considering how clean the pathways are.”

“Yeah, that is weird…” I commented after a second of thought, as we crossed the bridge and went straight down a pathway instead of taking a right that would lead back towards the broken spiked log. “Any suggestions on why the pathways are so clean, with those Froglin’s living down here?”

“Probably whoever is behind running the sewers down here, also have you noticed how there are a lot of circular spots in the floor?” Gallus stated as he pointed the tip of his spear at the patterns that sometimes hid traps. “I’d think something with tentacles is down here too… and from what I’ve heard of Flamberge and Fortitude’s adventures, anything with tentacles was generally bad news if it was something eldritch in nature. Like Giant Sumatran Rat bad news, saw a picture of one once and I really don’t want to visit Abyssinia if the rats can get that horrifying.”

“… I can’t say that’s not a probable idea of what we could be facing eventually.” We walked along with a wall at our right and sewage to our left now. “With the possibility of more Froglins being around, I’d say the Froglins were keeping things clean but… they don’t seem to particularly care about the muck they were covered in or cleanliness.”

“You can say that again!” Foenum Velvet whined looking sick to her stomach.

“Yona can believe that, my shield will be needing a cleaning after all of this.” Yona looked at the mess covering her shield with a wrinkled nose. “I hope to be living up to the expectations of Rockhoof and Fortitude ‘The Fantastically Fragrant’ as to become a great hero myself!”

“Doing a good job of that Yona, took out the front man immediately with ease.” Gallus had his head on a swivel. "Sandbar be ready to protect us from projectiles again like you did with those dart traps.”

“This is scarier than those pukw… oh- I was about to invoke them.” Sandbar looked worried for almost stating the word ‘puckwudgie’. Saying ‘pukwudgie’ doesn’t make them appear, from what I heard it was a bit more specific than that and all too easy to do by accident. “Do you think they’d make this situation better or worse?”

“The Puks? Always worse, Airship Mauled might have friendly merchant Puks show up from time to time to sell their unusual knickknacks, but they still like to invade by force of habit and for fun. Somehow they always know when people are talking about them.” Gallus had a smirk on his beak as he rubbed at his chin with a claw. “What are the chances they can invade Tambelon in mass if we mentioned enough of their tribes?”

“Only do it in an emergency Gallus, everyone’s heard about how the Puks became royal guard training monsters for a reason.” Commented a nervous looking Sandbar, that earth pony looked how I felt a lot of the time.

I wondered if Shanty was doing okay? Grogar better not be hurting her or so help me…!

-Throne Room, Grogar-

“You’ll never get free of this pocket dimension Grogar!” Starswirl seemed to still have his faculties about him, he was quite ancient and powerful. Not nearly enough for me though. "Gusty's seal still holds true!"

“Can you be letting me go?” The Capricornus asked pleasantly.

“No, I do not let go what’s mine easily, not after what happened with my bell.” Hm… a problem in the sewers, probably a few of the Troggles turned traitor. I expected them to find out how to get in somehow, all roads will lead to my victory in any case. Squirk better not be lazing about down there, I at least want him to make a good showing of how dangerous my minions are. “Also taking you seems to have put things into motion that I wanted to happen… how fortuitous. If any of my visitors destroy the thing keeping us trapped in this realm, why it would be oh so helpful to my cause. I can’t exactly make it easy for them either, it is the only thing keeping all my prisoners here and a lot of them are quite delectable unicorns. Aged fresh horns will taste as sweet… I would have yours, but I’d rather you be whole for what is to come Starswirl.”

I started chanting with a grin and magic started swirling around my massive curled horns.

“Rise my servants of bone!” Hundreds of Troggle, pony and donkey skeletons after thousands of years of keeping a cycle going… I had plenty for a hoard of undead to protect what I wanted to be destroyed. Unfortunately the only two who knew what I was doing were in the same room as me and they couldn’t escape to tell anyone about it. “Go protect Gusty the Greats failsafe against me, one that I am now using to trap every visitor within my realm now. If you can kill any intruders, good… I’ll add them to my collection. If not, then they’ll do what I simply cannot quite yet. I have all the time I could ever want Starswirl. I can wait an eternity, but you… you will die of old age and I can’t have that now. I want you to live to see the destruction of all that you have built with your hooves… so what would you like to eat while I’m hosting you and this young goat?”

Green energy swirled around the undead bones of the fallen, quite a number of them unicorns with broken horns. They started to move and creak as they left the throne room, given motion by my power.

The troggles loyal to me shivered at the sight, whereas I just grinned at the thought of having an army waiting to be summoned. All of them were currently under the hooves of the invaders. I could let them all loose upon those mortals who dared invade my realm at any time I wished and they would be outnumbered thousands to one.

I had nothing to fear from my guests or any of the visitors to 'MY' world, the only suspect thing is the odd golden sheep. Something was very off with her magic, something I’ve never quite seen before, but it has yet to coalesce into something I can solidly understand.

Hollow Heart seems to know of the sheep and wants her grievously dead several times over, yet did not offer an explanation as to why he was quite dire on the issue. Apparently her presence was anathema to him somehow given he was actually able to be injured when she was around.

“Like I would eat the food a demon necromancer such as you offers!” Starswirl seemed quite reluctant in his frail blustering as did the goat that could eventually grow to be a dangerous concubine. I’d have to beat a lot of that spirit out of her first, I’d leave some because I like the idea of her trying and failing to kill me.

“Oh, but I am offering it freely with no strings attached or even malicious intent Starswirl my old enemy. On this you have my word, for whatever it may be worth. I have no need of poisoning my guests, especially not ones I want to be alive. For why would I want to kill what is mine unless it irks me gravely?” I gave a narrow eyed look to the two chained up figures. “After all as the ruler of Tambelon I will eventually take over the whole world once I do get free and it is only a matter of time. There eventually won’t be anyone left to be guests after that, I might as well enjoy the novelty of it while I can. So what meager offerings can I provide to fill your bellies in your last days of freedom hm? The best of everything in Tambelon is at my disposal after all, I can spare any expense.”

The first thing I would do once back on Equus? Hunt down Discord Lord of Chaos, I heard he had made quite a mockery of my name through my cultists.

Author's Note

I said it was going to take a while...