“So tell me Miss Jensen, how goes your work with the radio station?” Dilip calmly inquired as the canine served a fresh cup of tea to the much smaller batpony across from him.

Sandra tore her eyes away from looking at the decorations around the room and tapped a wingtip against her snout, searching for words. The two were having a meeting of sorts on Amandine – which was fine by her, since she did have broadcasting equipment on board – in the Captain’s office.

As per usual, the room was decorated with various items accrued over the course of their travels, including the most recent addition of a group shot of the crew taken after the battle in Mexico. She rather liked the feel of the room, it gave one-on-one meetings with the Captain like this one a more informal tone.

That said, with few on board to run maintenance and the rest of the crew ashore in Brielle… the vessel was almost deathly quiet. Unnervingly so, when Sandra had grown used to the bustling of activity, chatter and running engines to the point where the batpony had to keep a set of headphones on most of the time to avoid injuring her sensitive hearing.

“It’s err… it’s going very well Captain.” She started after a few seconds. “We’ve set aside some space for our broadcasting equipment in harbor control and linked it to the mainframe to pass on our data. We also have a comms relay set up in Brielle to convert our sat radio broadcast to FM, and in addition to the broadcasting station we already have on Amandine, I’ve ensured the one on Rhine Forest was upgraded to a fully-fledged one, and another on Fugro should be finished next week.”

“On Fugro?” Dilip’s ear twitched, denoting curiosity.

“Aye Cap’n. We wanted to up the ante, so we had Lekan and I making broadcasts previously, and now we’re inviting Scott on board so we have three presenters, one per ship.” She explained.

“Scott, hmmm...” Dilip took a sip of his tea and trailed off, drawing a blank on the name.

“Scott Price, their Assistant Steward, a Hedgefog. He volunteered as soon as we asked, and so far we’re not regretting the decision. He’s got a great voice for radio, the accent helps too.” Sandra clarified, nodding sagely.

“So that’s the three of you then?”

“Yes and no… Managing WSU Radio and organizing the broadcasts, checking connectivity with our relays, that’s our stuff, but since we try to spread knowledge on how to survive and create colonies, we’ve kept ties with the Intel Officers in the fleet and anyone who’s willing to lend their expertise when we record our broadcasts.”

“And in turn any info you gather in passed on to Intel I take it?” He guessed. “That’s how you’ve come to know about some colonies? They contact you on their own.”

“Correct sir.” She nodded. “Some, I openly tell about if they’re fine with it, others just request for specific data or recorded podcasts, but I do keep tabs on all the info that passes through. I’ve got contacts with Aussies, some in Africa, and recently I’ve started getting logs from a group that’s found a ship and is sailing down the Missisippi trying to join us.”

“Oh are they now?”

“I’m steering them towards Havana in the meantime, hopefully we’ll have a ship there to pick them up by the time they get there.” Sandra told him. “Though I’ll give you that, most of the contacts I get that want to join us here in Rotterdam, they’re Europeans, not Yanks.” She shrugged with her wings. “Got some more groups headed our way that are bound to turn up. I usually pass down how many of them there are, their races, their jobs, to Roberto so he can log that. That should be… half-a-dozen arrivals a month? Ten if we’re lucky? I’m sorry it’s not much, but...”

“It’s more than fine, rest easy. You’re doing good work.” The Captain comforted her. “Those manpower shortages are really what’s slowing us down, and I couldn’t ask better than having folks dedicated to solving that. The sooner we sort that out, the sooner we can expand.” Dilip smiled. “Good job, any particular plans beyond that? Specialists you would need?” He inquired.

“IT workers sir. Hardware or software, we’ll need both, but more of the latter.” Sandra started, recalling a conversation she’d had about that exact topic with the Intel Officers. “Thing is… our data management is a mess right now. It’s really just folders within folders without much sorting. We can make do, but it’s tedious. What we could use, is something like a website, or a platform, that we can connect to remotely. Thing is, we need access to our whole database wherever we go, to organize scavenging, and it would also really help with colonial management and setting up the trade routes. Think… Ebay crossbred with Wikipedia and Google Earth?”

“Watch your scope creep there.” Dilip warned. “I know centralizing data would be nifty, but chances are that even if we find someone that could pull it off, we’ll only have the resources and bandwidth for a library-style database. No need to be greedy.” He advised her, setting down his teacup.

“Understood. Uh… so yes, I think that’s about all? Roberto will probably process all the intel I give him into a report, and if any of those folks up on the Missisipi have something that would warrant giving them your details, I will. So far, I only gave them Alejandro's details so he can give some nautical tips, but they're competent enough it seems.”

“Thank you Miss Jensen.” Dilip decided to bring the conversation to its due conclusion, standing up and extending a paw down towards the batpony. “Glad to have you on my crew.”

“Thanks Captain.” Sandra beamed, revealing her fangs as she shook his paw gingerly before she took off and left the office.

Dilip sat back down behind his desk, remaining silent for a while, thinking, before he pulled a drawer open and uncorked a vial of glowing golden potion. Healthcare-grade healing potion, and he felt the usual ensuing fatigue as soon as it entered his body, like a lead blanket had been laid on his shoulders as the magic used his energy to rebuild his missing limb. Not very convenient, but necessary.

With a sigh, the spent potion was tossed in a bin. He wasn’t particularly busy that day, all personnel available had already been provided with weekly plannings that already accounted for Rhine Forest’s upcoming departure for the Americas, and all projects were being handled by their respective departments.

Really, the most involved task that could possibly await him that day would be to tour the farmsteads that had been resettled around Brielle, and even then barring a few greenhouses and stables, it was the dead of winter, so not much activity there.

Only waiting for teams to give their reports when they were done, and on that front Aleksei had yet to reach the Black Forest last he checked, and… well, there was still the mystery of what Mikhail and Pavlos would find at the Africa Museum.

Now that couldn’t go too weirdly, could it?

“What the fuck is that?”Pavlosmumbled aloud, lowering his binoculars.

“That… is a urinal.” The dragon under him commented over their mental connection, his rider feeling the thrum he’d learned to identify as amusement pass across.

“Yeah I can see that!” Pavlos replied right back, leaning deeper into the saddle as a gust of wind rocked them while they circled their target high above the ground. “Now what’s it doing floating thirty meters off the ground?”

Because there was, indeed, a floating urinal lazily hovering above a hole in the roof of the building, swaying in the breeze like a kite. It was, though by far the oddest, not the only object attending the apparent protest against gravity around the museum. Various bits of paper, books, loose tiles and masonry were floating above a gaping hole blown through the roof of the late 19th century building. Along with those, strands of multicolored magic had burst through, some wrapping around the building like vines, others rising up like trees. Their glow was faint, but enough to cast an aura around the museum under the late afternoon’s sun. Adding to that, the aura of the museum seemed to ward off the current winter, allowing for the park’s vegetation to flourish with the slightest frost or snow to slow it down.

The museum would have been imposing at its peak, an old monument dedicated to the findings made in Belgian Congo that lined up with the surrounding – now overgrown- park and its ponds. It was a wide rectangle-shaped construction with a tall, transparent cupola on its roof, and a courtyard in the middle. In front of its gates, a large statue of an elephant stood…

… or it would have, if it wasn’t wandering through the pathways around the museum right then.

“Now that ain’t something you see everyday...” Mikhail rumbled, the purple feral dragon angling his wings to get a better look at the animal that didn’t quite seem to grasp it didn’t have a mouth to swallow the leaves it was grabbing with its trunk.

“You think it’s aggressive?” Pavlos wondered, the gargoyle idly stroking a finger against the holster where he kept his machinegun on Mikhail’s saddle.

“Probably? Not like I’d put myself in a posture where it would matter if it is or not.” Mikhail eyed the elephant again before banking for another pass and gesturing towards the park’s pathways with a talon. “Look at the tracks it’s left behind. Doesn’t look like it strays too far away from here… my guess is...”

“That something in there is feeding it power?” Pavlos completed.

Without even needing to look, Mikhail slapped Pavlos’ wrist with his ear for cutting him off, the gargoyle’s only response to the gesture being a brief chuckle.

“And, it keeps urinals airborne for some reason.”

“Investigate?” Pavlos started unbuckling the straps keeping him tied to his dragon companion for long flights.

“What are we here for? Picking flowers?”

This time it was Pavlos that flicked Mikhail’s ear.

“Like I’d let you nap on the roof while I’m doing all the work.” Pavlos joked.

“Oh? And what am I supposed to do then? One, I got no thumbs...” The dragon pointed out. “Second, I can barely fit in there. Probably.”

“There’s no probably there pal, it’s an old museum, they built them wide back then.” The gargoyle said over the mental link before he let himself fall off the saddle, spreading his wings to descend in a slow glide.

“Like your m-”

“Oh shut up.” Pavlos rolled his eyes, though it didn’t stop the glow of mirth that passed through their mental link, bringing a smile to his muzzle as he touched down near the hole in a roof, the tiles clicking slightly under his hooves.

The roof trembled behind him as his companion came to a landing, the dragon much less discrete than he was.

“Pray tell, what do you expect to do inside there?” Mikhail queried, twisting his neck to look over the comparatively diminutive gargoyle.

“I think I’ve got a way to give the HPI scientists the exact kind of readings they want, and it won’t cost me much mana. Just make sure I don’t have to waste it on constructs like Mr. Elephant out there.”

“Why would there be other constructs?”

Pavlos tapped a digit against the side of his head.

“Think.” The gargoyle warned. “When we checked the data we could find on the museum, the statue of the elephant had tribals sitting on its back. You see them now?”

“Ah, I see.”

“Well… no. Which is my point.”

“Potato-potayto, you jumping in or do I need to push you?” Mikhail growled.

“Fine then.” Pavlos raised a hand and summoned his gun from the saddle with telekinesis before taking the leap and hopping down the hole.

As a testament to the gravity-defying anomaly that had blown through the roof, he didn’t even need to spread his wings to slow his fall. When he landed, he did a quick sweep of his surroundings with his gun, unveiling dusty, damaged and dimly lit hallways… but nothing that jumped at him to tear his face off. Only the glow of his gun’s flashlight, and the multicolored strands of magic.

He breathed in. The air felt charged with energy. The focis on his forearms almost lit up on their own from the ambient magic.

There was a loud crash behind him as Mikhail followed, accidentally crushing a display case of rare minerals under his bulk. It was a bit cramped for the large feral, but he could fit inside alright.

“Target?” Said dragon asked over their link.

“Let’s see...” Pavlos shone his flashlight over a plan of the museum hanging off the wall “Given what we know, the art section is unlikely to be causing that, and I don’t think biodiversity would either. Meaning we’re going for anthropology for the ‘cultures and ceremonies’ exposition.”

“Lead on.”

To the credit of 19th century architecture, the museum’s interior was as far removed from an eyesore as it could possibly be, though the various displays made it hard for Mikhail to squeeze past without toppling them.

Much glass was shattered that day.

The minerals’ section they had entered through wasn’t much to look at in terms of magic, more so in terms of light snacks – gems that is- for Mikhail to chew on idly as Pavlos carefully advanced, the gargoyle cautiously eyeing the strands of magic weaving all over the place, some so intense they had drilled straight through the museum’s structure. Each thrummed with power, almost raw ambient magic bent and altered by the concentrated presence of so many artifacts in close proximity of each other.

It was when they reached the ceremonial section of the museum that things took a more interesting turn, and that Pavlos turned off his gun’s flashlight. It wasn’t necessary anymore: the entire exhibit was aglow with vibrant magic.

The mana in the air was in fact, so intense that Pavlos had to pause and massage his forearms as the foci in his bones charged up. Out of habit, his dragon companion sent him a wave of soothing through their mental link.

“Thanks.” Pavlos nodded, already eyeing a set of wooden masks on pedestals. “Now...”

“What’s your plan?”

“A little bit of magic is the plan.” The gargoyle grinned before lifting one arm and summoning his power.

With a flick of his wrist, he cast mage sight.

It wasn’t a very hard spell to cast in itself, nor did it cost much power. The difficulty with it was that you had to know how to interpret the results correctly, how to adjust its settings, and also the little twists Pavlos had taken the liberty of adding to the base spell.

The first one being that he didn’t cast it on his own eyes, he cast it on the goggles of the aviator’s cap he wore, the glass instantly gaining an iridescent hue from the magic as he lowered them over his muzzle. He kept one paw up and charged with mana, already tuning the spell to the ambient magic as his other paw reached into pouch hanging off his belt, filled with a blank photo album.

A roundabout way of snapping pictures of the magic around them, including what wasn’t on the visible spectrum.

Though he was no expert at it, gargoyles like Pavlos had this intuitive grasp of spellcrafting that allowed them to tune spells on the go like that, which proved rather useful in… well, he really was no expert, but to him it felt like highlighting the different layers of magic. He felt a prodding in his mind, which he recognized as Mikhail requesting to see through his eyes over their mental link.

“Feast your eyes then.” He complied, to which the dragon replied with a half-appreciative half-awed rumble.

Most of the artifacts spread out among regular items in the exhibit weren’t particularly powerful or interesting. Enchanted masks, relics and whatnot that might have been of some us, but none they had the time or will to inspect in detail to determine whether or not they were safe to pick up. Pavlos could spot them easily enough, some radiant with magic, others more muted, less conspicuous.

More interesting than that, were the interactions between all the artifacts. If each was a drop of water hitting the surface of a lake, the ripples they caused were the fluctuations in magic around them.

And they reverberated off each other. Sure, maybe two artifacts weren’t on the same spectrum or power range to directly interact, but if two were, then the fluctuation they caused could in turn bounce off – and amplify off- of other artifacts’ fluctuations.

All those would in turn feed off each other to reach ever higher levels.

Naturally, he wasn’t getting the full picture, that much he was aware of. Interactions he couldn’t see, gaps he didn’t have the knowledge or skill to fill.

But the short picture was that the magic of the enchantments in close proximity of each other was amplifying itself. He could visualize the points where it did that in the air, knots of a sort, that beat and thrummed like semi-visible hearts of mana of increasing size and power. They grouped up in clusters: some near a pair of artifacts, large ones between two clusters, up until it increased to balls of mana the size of Pavlos’ fist at which point thin strands of magic flowed between them.

Pavlos blinked, then turned his head towards the pulsating root-like strands of magic that had drilled holes through the building.

There was some serious power in there… He felt a cold sweat form in the back of his neck. If one exhibit was already forming clusters the size of his fist, he dreaded to see the…

“The what?” Mikhail ‘bumped’ his train of thought, noting him struggle for words across the mental link.

“No idea? The locus? Point of convergence? It’s not my job to name it.” Pavlos shrugged, but turned his eyes towards the center of the building from where he could feel the height of its artifacts' power.

“But you’re going to take a picture of it.”

“’'course I wi-”

That was when they were cut off by having spears hurled their way.

Luxembourg was… fairly nice actually. The diminutive-but-wealthy enclave made for a sharp contrast compared to the wilderness of the Ardennes and the damp swamps of the Netherlands. In spite of everything that had swept the world, the little country had fared surprisingly well.

Granted, it bore similar damage to what you’d see anywhere else, as should be expected of places left abandoned for a prolonged period, but compared to other places, the industrial damage, the derelict structures, even the overgrowth was rather mild. Young trees could be seen growing near the edges of treelines and the grass poking through the snow in the wide meadows was definitely taller than normal… but the rest was almost unscathed.

And so the southern part of the Grand Duchy greeted them with its gently sloped meadows that only rarely showed harsh lines, revealing the iron-infused red soils that had given the area its name. Terres Rouges, the Red Lands, the springboard the country had used to launch its industries two centuries prior.

All for naught sadly. Before Aleksei’s eyes, the history lay bare and derelict: ancient castles, churches and fortifications dating back to the middle ages. The gargantuan silhouettes of old steelworks the little country had used to expand its riches thanks to the Red Lands. The expansive highways, rail yards and logistics support facilities that had followed to cement a place as a hub between France and Germany. Even the sparkling ultramodern skyscrapers and office buildings of companies drawn in by favorable tax conditions.

And empty streets and highways. Not a soul in sight, except for stray animals and cattle that scattered at their passage.

Sad though it may be, all were in a well-kept state, barring unavoidable signs of disuse like dirt, dust and broken windows.Probably thanks to locals having the money for it prior to the Event, constructions were made to last, and it showed. There wasn’t too much modern architecture around, but the locals seemed to have held a love for brightly colored roughcast, because nearly every house they had passed was covered in it, bearing colors that ranged from bright white to pink, yellow, purple...

Aleksei was damn sure Ornithians would love the place.

It was refreshing really. After the stuff they’d seen, passing through didn’t look as though a bomb had exploded there was a nice change of pace. Adding to that, the roads were nowhere near as bad as they were previously (for which Aleksei’s back was thankful), and morale among the trio had improved considerably after a good night’s rest.

“You know… it’s kinda funny when you think about it.” Sri quipped as they left the motel they had spent the night in behind, the diesel of the Defender releasing a large plume of smoke as it slowly warmed up in the wintry cold.

The hippogriff was wrapped up tightly in her winter clothes, wings kept furled up under a poncho she wore above her parka whilst she held a steaming thermos of coffee in her talons. Hippogriff feathers? Good in the rain and water, not so much in the cold.

“What is?” Aleksei’s right ear twitched, idly orienting itself towards her fellow hippogriff who had taken the backseat that day.

“Well… I know Amandine used to switch back and forth between the Maltese and Luxembourgish ship register, meaning technically we’ve sailed under Luxembourg’s flag for a good while, yet we’ve never even set foot there before the world ended.”

Not that it was particularly strange in the shipping industry. Wouldn’t be the first time sailors served on a ship from a place they’d never actually been to. Panama, Liberia, the Marshall Islands...

“Ah!” Bart laughed. “I have come here, a few times.” The unicorn said in his usual, heavily-accented voice. “Cheap fuel and cheap alcohol, it’s a good stop when you go on holiday.” He told them, nodding sagely.

True that. They did fill up on alcohol off the motel’s minibar. Fuel though… the filters for fuel recycler would have been too cumbersome on their journey.

Not that Aleksei was worried about running out. They had extra in the trailer’s tank, and she trusted her math on how much fuel was needed for the expedition.

“Holidays… Well I don’t know about you Bart, but these days my idea of well-spent time off is more about getting to lay back at home without having to worry about anything. Traveling is...” Aleksei trailed off.

“I noticed! Worst roads ever, full of potholes.” He joked back with a laugh.

“Insofar that the road is the pothole, then yes.” She cracked a smile with her beak. “No taxpayer money? The entire highway network melts away immediately. And they said the roads sucked in Belgium before. Try to get a tank through that now. Your move Rommel.”

The group burst into laughter.

“Ah, now you’re making me wonder what he’d turn into if he were alive now.” Bart wondered.

“Weeeell...” Sri decided to join in. “If I need to remind you two, Captain Lorelei is a unicorn, and she’s German, so...”

Aleksei went silent, her mind slowly drawing the picture of Nazi High Command as tiny pastel-colored fillies like the poor Captain.

She guffawed.

Lorelei frowned.

“Something wrong?” Dilip inquired.

“Nein, I just got the sudden urge to buck a fool for some reason.” The filly Captain replied.

"Nothing out of the ordinary then. Want some more darjeeling?"

Since Luxembourg was apparently in such a good shape, they decided a bit of afternoon salvaging would do them some good, if only because Sri felt it wise to stop in a garage for a moment to look the Land Rover over. The truck had after all been a bit… mistreated, to put it mildly. What with wading through the Dutch swamps and traversing the whole of the Ardennes off-road in one stretch.

For all their ruggedness, Land Rovers had a reputation of being rather capricious, so Aleksei didn’t raise an argument against that. The trio quickly found a garage that looked somewhat specialized in off-roaders and the Indonesian of the group went to work as soon as they jacked the door open and drove the truck over to the pit whilst Bart went around securing the building.

As for Aleksei, the cleric took to the skies with a flap of her wings, intent on getting a feel of the area from the air. Her robes billowed in the wind as she banked and flew lazy circles over the industrial zone where they’d found the garage. Though well-off, it wasn’t much to look at: warehouses and office buildings with large depots and parking lots around them, with the odd blotch of color where shops and fast-food joints had been developed.

Satisfied she had a good bearing of her surroundings, the hippogriff proceeded to perch on top of a McDonald's sign and slung her rifle off her back whilst she reached for her cigarettes with her other claw.

“Aleksei here… Take your time in the garage...” She reported over the radio. “No sign of monsters of looting in the area. Want me to go and grab some stuff at the gas station after I finish my smoke? Over.” She offered, eyeing a nearby Q8 through her rifle’s scope.

“Bart here, Sri says she wants a Sprite. I’ll have an Ice Tea if you find some, thanks for the offer. Out.” The radio crackled with the unicorn’s voice.

Aleksei nodded inwardly at the request before taking a long drag of her cigarette. She might grab a pack or two while she was in there.

Her ear twitched as the wind carried a faint sound in her direction. She twisted her head, wings unfolding reflexively, eyes scanning the landscape off in the distance.

Another noise, she caught a flicker of movement.

Then a flare raced up towards the sky, fired from the outer edge of the industrial zone roughly three kilometers away.

Her eyes immediately zeroed in on the shooter. It was an Ornithian, a bright white male parrot clad in a fluo parka, waving at her. He was with another male parrot – a green one- and a pair of deer.

It took her a few seconds before she raised a claw and waved back. The parrot in the parka jumped up at the sight, and the group started racing towards her position.

“Errr… team, Aleksei here. Be advised, we have company. No hostile contact. Meetup at the McDonald’s, hang back for now. Out.”

Tall pines and rolling hills as far as the eye could see, that was the sight the Black Forest presented to newcomers. Though it wasn’t as badly overgrown as most other magic forests of its type, the dark pines it owed its name to still cast their foreboding shadows over the bits of clear lands available in the narrow valleys between the hills, which wasn’t helped by the gray skies overhead as snow fell upon the area. The winter months had set in deep over there, and the snow cover was thick with a fine powder that would be kicked up by the wind at nearly every opportunity, creating strange semi-blizzards that could cover an area in minutes as they picked up on magic, before disappearing just as suddenly.

Magic-induced weather anomalies aside, winter had the benefit for the forest of enforcing some quiet on its inhabitants, as animals and monsters alike settled in their dens to endure the cold, creating a welcome reprieve for the few stubborn returnees that had made the region their home, their fortified homesteads and chalets snuggled tightly at the bottom of the safer valleys.

Although they did have to remain vigilant. Most of the returnees being unicorns and batponies in that area, they made for enticing snacks for the odd pack of predators that wanted to leave their den for some appetizers.

Speaking of which...

“RAAAOOWWRR!”

*thwack!*

“Bad dog!” Rodrigo chastised with a grin as he somersaulted above a pouncing Dire Wolf and smacked its snout with the flat of Durandal.

The lone canine whirled around and snapped its jaws at the knight unicorn, but Rodrigo had already nimbly sprung out of reach despite the weight of his armor. It then swiped a paw at him, only for its strike to be blocked by Durandal as Rodrigo manipulated the enchanted sword with his telekinesis.

Droplets of warm blood sprayed from the humongous wolf’s paw as it recoiled with a pained whine, staining the snow.

“Come on now!” Veillantif complained from where he was casually observing the fight on the edge of the clearing. “Why are you dragging the fight? I’ve seen you down a hydra in under a minute, why are you not finishing it now?”

“Training!” Rodrigo barked over his shoulder towards the other pony. “I can’t get better if I always end it too quic-” He paused, rolling away from another pounce as the wolf resumed its assault, its bulk slamming into the ground and kicking up powdery snow as it went on the offense. “Darn, feisty one ain’t ya? Your alpha must be a mean one if you’re the type it sends out there.” Rodrigo quipped at the monster.

The only reply he got was an ear-shattering roar that made his ears fold back against his head.

“Ew...” He wiped the spittle off his snout with a hoof. “Ya ever wash your mouth? Nasty.”

“Rodrigo!” Veillantif stomped with his hoof.

“On it, on it.” The knight backpedaled on his hind legs, quickly conjuring up a shield to deflect a bite that otherwise could have bisected him, armor or no armor.

With seemingly little effort on his part, the Spaniard went to work, almost dancing around his foe as he thrust and slashed with his sword, drawing lines of blood in the snow but not quite wounding it. It hurt it. It infuriated it to no end. But there was little the wolf could do against the diminutive pony as it danced around it.

Finally, with a slash of Durandal that shortened its ear tip by a third, the Dire Wolf decided to cut its losses and ran off the clearing with its tail between its legs.

Rodrigo gave a satisfied nod, pulling out a rag from a pouch on his armor he quickly used to wipe the blood off his prized sword.

“Great, now it ran off and we have to track it.” Veillantif came up to him, though for all his complaints Rodrigo could see the Earth Pony was relieved his companion was uninjured.

“That’s the point, yes.” Rodrigo nodded with a smile.

“… I think we’re not on the same page here. Didn’t the villagers want us to get rid of the wolves?”

“And where do you think that one ran off?”

“To its…”He paused.“Oh I get it now.” Veillantif finally understood.

“The den, yeah.” Rodrigo nodded as he sheathed Durandal. “Did you pay attention when we passed the last colony? They said a pack of Dire Wolves, not a loner. I’d rather not have to track down the whole pack across the forest, thank you very much. We’re hitting the problem at its source.”

“And so, you’re just going to run up to their front door, charge in like a maniac and take them all on at once?” The taller of the two ponies sighed resignedly. “Will you at least use the shotgun? I swear we picked up those slugs for nothing if you’re just going to stab every monster in sight until it stops moving.”

For a moment, Rodrigo didn’t give a reply, the unicorn simply going for the edge of the clearing where he picked up a smaller set of travel saddlebags than Veillantif’s (can’t be helped, strong as he was, he wasn’t an Earth Pony) before he went back to the trail of blood the fleeing wolf left behind and finally spoke up.

“Veill’… Why do you think we don’t use a truck? I’m not stupid. I could fix one up easily enough, even if the upkeep is a lot of work I’ll admit.”

“Because we have hooves and we enjoy the sights?” The other pony joined him as he bent over the blood.

The wolf was injured, but it should be shallow enough, he nodded to himself.

“True though it may be… It’s about training.” He turned his head towards Veillantif. “That’s why I use my spells whenever possible. That’s why we walk for days on end. That’s why I drag my fights and practice my moves as long as possible. Because she is after us, and if I’m honest with you, right now I’m not sure we’d be able to do much if she managed to catch up.”

“You’re still on to that...”

Rodrigo frowned.

“Think. Before she clouded herself and when Starswirl could still pinpoint her, her course started heading for Aachen when we went there. When we started heading south? She starts heading south. It’s not Starswirl she wants, it’s us.”Rodrigo said, the last word with just a tint of alarm to it.

“Or maybe Starswirl was right and she’s just dragging her draconeequs apprentice to places of power in Europe to train him? Hmmm, you thought about that?”Veillantif countered.

“No tiene sentido.” Rodrigo shook his head negatively. “Think, it’s Baba Yaga we’re talking about. She’d have easy access to all the places of power she wants east of Poland, but for some reason she’d prefer coming outside her territory, to western Europe?” He turned his eyes towards Veillantif that turned more sympathetic as he took note of the fear on his companion’s snout. “Look… I don’t know how she travels or how close to the myth she is, but by hoofing it cross-country like that we can’t be making it easy for her. So we’ll do the usual. Get across the Black Forest, fight off the monsters that are annoying the locals so we get some training in and they help us in return… then we stock up on gear and supplies and cut across the Alps to reach the Balkans. I’d like to see her try and follow us through that. No way the tunnels under the mountains are still okay.” He comforted him, patting a hoof on Veill’s shoulder.

The taller Earth Pony nodded.

“Good. Now that we’re on the same page… Let’s start tracking this thing. We’ll lose the trail if it gets too dark. And if we’re done early, maybe you’ll be able to have a chat with that batpony mare down in the valley? She looked like she had some room in her bed, eh?” Rodrigo joked as he started trotting along the blood trail.

That got Veillantif out of it, and the Earth Pony hurried to catch up as the two started bantering about what they’d do at the colony once they were done with their hunt.

Author's Note

Took me long enough to get that one out... Sad to say, I'm a long way from the time where I could reliably push out one chapter per week. Life be like that sometimes.

Story-wise... Return of the Knight-Errant duo as they monster-hunting takes them into the Black Forest, so now you're getting an idea of which groups will be at the turning point when this arc unfolds.

At the same time, I'm trying to add tidbits of worldbuilding and details as to how the factions are developping. The WSU has a lot of steps to go through before they reach peak efficiency with their supply chains. Needless to say, it will be slow-going for them.

Aside from that, hope you like the dragonrider duo.