An Otherworldly Adventure

A few days have gone by since Adam has meet Twilight and her friends, and for most of that time the young man has spent a lot of time in the castles library so he could study up on Equestria, mostly its history, and basic information about the world and the ponies in general. And with a list made by the princess Adam was able to find the morse helpful books for him to read, another lucky thing that Adam was told was that the translation spell placed on him, also helps in reading non-human languages. But as for today though Adam was taking a break from his studies, as he thinks he has the majority of what to expect of this world already committed to memory. Although he still has the books in his room in case he does need to read up on some things.

At the moment Adam was with princess Celestia and a few of the royal guards, plus a pegasus mare that was supposedly a world famous treasure hunter named Daring Doo. But he cocky attitude, and just general rude behavior towards Adam. Especially when she called him a hairless monkey. But that was beside the point, the reason why Adam and Celestia was meeting the guards and the pegasus mare, was that all of them had a new artifacts which turned out to be new shen gong wu.

“Well done everypony.” Celestia praised as she stood before the four ponies, who looked proud in being able to please their princess.

“You all managed to find four new shen gong wu.”

“Shen what?” one of the guards, a young looking unicorn said with confusion.

“The artifacts that I’ve sent you out to look for are known shen gong wu, ancient tools created to fight back against evil.” Celestia said before looking over to Adam.

“Would you be kind enough Adam to identify the new artifacts.”

The young man nodded and started with the earth pony mare on the far right, and took the small shield looking thing and started to study it. a moment later a smile graced his face before he gave the shield a small shake, which caused a pair of large metallic wings to spread out, surprising ponies as they marveled at the artifact.

“Looks like you found the Wings of Tinabi.”

“And what do these ‘wings’ do?” Daring Do asked as she looked very intrigued as she continues to stare at the artifact.

“Basically with these wings you can fly.”

To demonstrate this Adam announced the artifacts name, then a second later the young man was floating above the ground, before he took of flying through the large chamber the group was in. And as he flew around a rainbow trail followed in behind him. While Adam flew around the room, all of the ponies were honestly really surprised to see what was going on in front of them. Eventually Adam landed after a solid minute of flying around, Adam then offered the mare the artifact to give it a try, and while the earth pony was hesitant at first she took the wings and seemed to love the ability to fly around. Once the mare was done with flying around she landed back down, and gave the shen gong wu to Celestia, while Adam continued to identify the other artifacts.

The next artifact that the young man check was held by an older pegasus stallion, and was just a simple golden coin with some red markings. The young man quickly identified the coin as something called, the Mantis Flip Coin, which could make whoever holds it to make incredible jumps. Now to the ponies had to see what this artifact does, and Adam seemed more than happy to demonstrate, although when he used the shen gong wu he nearly smacked right into the ceiling of the chamber they were in. and it was over 300ft from the ground, and yet Adam managed to only dodge becoming a full-body splat on the ceiling, but also landed back down on the ground with seemingly no repercussions.

The third artifact, which the unicorn guard found in a communal bathhouse, again just looked like a plain ordinary item. A shirt in this case, which was colored dusty brown and bronze, but the ponies have grown to know that these shen gong wu are more than they appear. And when Adam was asked to show what this artifact did, instead of wearing it as the ponies thought he would do, the young man instead just laid it out across the ground. then when he said the artifacts name to activate it, which was Two Tone Tunic, the ponies watched as the simple shirt turn into giant, bulky, and clearly metallic armored chest piece. Adam then said that artifact is primarily used as a defensive shield, but since it weighs so much its mostly used as a more stationary bulwark. Unless the wearer of the artifact was strong enough to move around with an extra 2 pounds of weigh added to them.

“I gotta say, I’m impressed that all of you managed to find this many sheng gong wu.” Adam said as he handed the un-transformed Two Tone Tunic back to the unicorn.

“Honestly I can’t wait to find more, so we can see what they can do!” the earth pony guard said as she seemed to really want to go for another round of flying.

“Same. But first we still gotta take a look at my artifact.” Daring Do said as she held her artifact out, which looked like black ring with blue gems embedded in it, with four pronged spires sticking upward.

“That’s the Fountain of Hui.” Adam said as he took the object in his hands.

“And what does this thing do? Make an endless amount of water since it’s a fountain?”

“Nope.” Adam simply said as he looks the shen gong wu over. “This shen gong wu allows to gain knowledge of the universe. Basically makes you the smartest being there is by having all the information there is.”

“Really! That’s incredible.” Celestia said as she looked at the artifact.

“Unfortunately without its sister wu if you use the fountain, you’ll just get your brain scrambled for a few days and rattle off random useless information.” Adam informed the princess as he looked at her.

“Sister wu?” all of the ponies said in unison. “What’s a sister wu?”

“Well you see some shen gong wu can’t really operate properly, or be used correctly without having a designated other shen gong wu to help them.” Adam explained as he held the artifact out.

“And for the Fountain of Hui, we’ll need a shen gong wu called the Eagles Scope to help focus the information the fountain produces.”

“So this thing is basically useless without this other artifact.” Daring Do commented as she looked less than interested than she did a moment ago.

“Basically.”

“Well in any case, we should take these shen gong wu to the treasury vault.” Celestia suggested to the group, who fell in line and followed the princess through the castle until they reached the vault.

Upon reaching the vault Adam gazed upon the large circular golden door with astonishment, and a little bit a strange sense of realization. Mostly in how the vault door looked like something from Duck Tales, or some other colorful cartoon with a rich character. And the inside of the vault was just as astonishing as the door. The inside of the vault was truly massive in size, as it looked like it could house several 2 or 3 story buildings, and still have room left over. As for the contents of the vault itself it was nothing but carefully stacked mounds of gold coins, each mount separated by dividing panels. There was also a section of the vault that housed precious gems and other jewelry like objects, there were even a few pure gold statues of what looked like prominent figures, of course there was one that looked like Celestia. The group continued to make their way through the vault till they reached probably the most vacant spot in the vault, with only the shen gong wu that the ponies have already found, and Adam’s own shen gong wu.

“There we go, safe and secure.” Celestia said as she placed the last of the new artifacts on one of the many vacant shelves.

“I’m still surprised you were able to make such a massive shelving area in one day.” Adam commented as he looked at the nearly two-hundred shelves.

“Unicorn magic is very handy.” Celestia simply stated before she turned to the rest of the ponies.

“Before you all go back out and look for more artifacts, take some time to recover and rest up.” the ponies nodded their heads before making their way to the exit of the vault, Adam was about to join them but stopped when he noticed Celestia was still standing in front of the artifact.

“Something wrong Celestia?”

“No, nothing is wrong. Just wondering about something.”

“Like what?” Adam asked as he walked up to the princess’s side.

“I’ve just been wandering on the variety of powers that some of my previous human visitors have had, all radically different from the other.” the alicorn commented as she looked from one artifacts to another.

“What kind of powers did they have?”

“One was able to manipulate the weather. Another was able to make a perfect double of herself, and telepathically communicate with it. then there were the four in the hall.”

“The ones that showed you that not all humans are trustworthy.” Adam remarked to which the alicorn nodded. “And judging by the titles, they had I assume their powers are self-explanatory.” Celestia nodded as a depressed expression quickly took over her face, followed by a few tears swelling in her eyes.

“I still feel like such a fool to be tricked like that four times, especially when…” the princess visibly tensed up as she spoke, her wings ruffling uncomfortably while her hind leg’s clenched tight against each other. Adam reached over to the princess and started to give her a comfortable pat on the back, trying to ease the alicorn down from her clearly pained state.

“I’m sorry Adam. It’s just—”

“You don’t need to say anything princess. You don’t need to explain anything especially if it’s a bad experience.” Adam quickly said before the princess could really say anything, after of which the princess gave the young man a thankful smile.

“Thank you Adam.” After giving the princess another comforting pat on the back, and a small smile, Adam and Celestia finally started to make their way out of the vault.

~~~~~

After the identifying of the new shen gong wu, and having a nice early lunch with Celestia before she had to get back to work, Adam was now just wandering around the castle trying to figure out what else he should do. Reading about this world is all fun and good, and getting a chance to look around a castle, there really wasn’t much that Adam could see that would occupy his time. Then again, it’s only been a few days, when he wasn’t running around in the wilds or being hospitalized, that he remembers that he’s in another world. so he just hasn’t gotten a chance to really find anything that could occupy his time. The situation could’ve been better if he had someone to at least hang out with, it could make his time in the castle go by better. sure Celestia is probably his first actual friend, there isn’t anyone else that Adam is close with.

The only other pony, or ponies, that Adam was somewhat close with was that unicorn named Lyra, and her friend Bonbon. Ever since they came to the castle the day before Twilight’s group did the following day, they were quiet a charming pair. Lyra was a bit much as she was really, excited and overjoyed to finally meet someone like Adam, especially when she went into the couple oh hours asking questions. Questions that came from a book she conjured up with her magic, which had facts from other nations, religions, and many other factors of humans and earths history depending on the human that recently came before him.

While Lyra was a really energetic, and sometimes overzealous pony to be around, she was still plenty nice to be around. As for Bonbon she wasn’t as enthused about meeting Adam as her friend, but the earth pony was still a really nice girl to be around. Aside from those two, there wasn’t anyone else that Adam could think of trying to befriend, in fact, he was unsure how to just outright walk up to a pony and try to be friends with them. sure Celestia said that ponies are generally a trusting, and kind hearted people that were fairly easy to make friends with.

“You there!”

Adam stopped in his tracks when a voice called out and broke his train of thought, and the peace and quite of his little walk through the castle. When he looked for the owner of the voice Adam found another alicorn, with this one looking almost like Luna in size and body shape, but with a color palette that made her look like a generic barbie doll character. But in equine form. And for some reason, she looked rather annoyed as she stomped towards Adam.

“Is there something you need miss?” Adam asked the mare as she stopped a foot from him, and started to look him over like she was uncertain of what to make of him.

“How did you get in the castle?” the mare asked in a rather nasty tone.

“I live here, I guess.”

“You. live here?” the mare repeated before snickering. “Why would my aunt allow such a weird hairless monkey to live here in the castle.

‘Ooooookay. This pony is clearly a brat. And that’s putting it lightly.’ Adam thought before he replied to the rude pony.

“Well if you don’t believe me, go ask your aunt. She’s the one who both brought me here, and said I’m more than able to live here.”

“Don’t take that tone with me creature.” The alicorn said as she flared her fluffy wings. “I am a princess of Equestria, you will show me the respect that is afforded to one such as me.” Adam’s only response to the mare was a controlled, yet clearly, annoyed groan as he rubs the bridge of his nose.

“Okay look miss. I’m not going to get into an argument with you about me living here, or how I’m talking to you, so I’m going to go this way—” Adam said as he pointed down a nearby hallway. “—and we’re going to go our separate ways.”

With that Adam just up and left. The mare tried to say something, but just jogged away so he didn’t have to deal with someone who was clearly being antagonistic for no reason. after a few minutes of jogging through the hall, and looking back to see if the mare wasn’t following him Adam came to a stop to catch his breath.

“Well looks like I stumbled onto one of the few not, nice, ponies in this castle.” After getting over the brief little encounter with the rude mare, Adam went to trying to find something to do, and hopefully avoid whoever that alicorn was.

~~???~~

Chrysalis was utterly dumb founded about the strange creature that she had just stumbled upon. She has heard ponies of the castle speak of strange creature that the princess had brought to the castle, but so few ponies that work in the castle have seen it, so the disguised queen didn’t know what to expect. So when she stumbled upon the creature, and saw what it was, she was honestly baffled about what it was. After all nothing like it has ever been seen before, but that was little concern to the designed changeling matriarch.

“Will this thing be a complication to my plan?” Chrysalis muttered to herself as she slowly trots through the halls of the castle. “I don’t know what this thing is capable of, and judging how didn’t respect my disguises crown, it might not take orders from royalty.”

“Who doesn’t take orders from royalties?” the impersonated alicorn turned to look to her side and found her would be faience.

“Shining.” The false alicorn cooed as she nuzzled up to the captain of the guard. “I was just talking about this strange creature wandering the castle.”

“You mean that tall bipedal thing?” the captain said to the queen before a concerned looked took over his face. “Did it do anything to you!”

“No dear it didn’t, but…I would like to know more about it. Perhaps you could find out what it is?”

“I could sweety, but princess Celestia is the one that seems to know it the best.” Shining Armor suggested to the alicorn.

“I would sweetie but with our wedding coming up soon, and both my aunts helping with the proceedings, I don’t want to trouble them.” the stallion seemed to be thinking things over for a few moments before nodding to the fake alicorn.

“I’ll see if I can get some alone time with this creature, and see what I can learn.” Chrysalis leaned over and gives the stallion a loving kiss on the cheek, while also draining a nice dose of love energy from said stallion. Who went a little weak in the knees but recovered a few seconds later.

“Thank you, darling~”