Iato of Yūjō

Iato was sparring with Kito and her other brothers in the castle courtyard when a sudden rush of wind blasted the town, ripping doors off their slides, leveling entire sections of the town, and tearing most of the paper off walls of the homes that still stood of the ponies below. Iato and her brothers, being slightly more shielded to the sudden tempest, only got pelted with wood splinters and knocked on their asses, however their father was knocked out by a stray rock. The blast deafened everypony, but it didn't stop them from getting to their hooves again. Iato tried to call out to her father, but it fell on literally deaf ears. When she went to pick him up, Iato was knocked to the ground again, this time by a pony. But this was no ordinary pony, this pony had been covered in some substance that covered their entire bodies in a pitch black sheen. It had wings, like a bird, and a long horn protruding from its head. She had heard of rumors that this kind of pony existed, but they were just that, rumors.

Iato climbed back to stand upright while the weird pony thing cackled at her efforts. Taking her spear, Iato plunged it into the dark visages skin. But instead of falling to the ground like any normal pony would, she instead started laughing even harder. Iato backed away in fear, but the ponies horn began to glow a radiant black, something Iato didn't even think was possible. It lifted Iato in the air, allowing her to see the carnage below. A great big black sphere had appeared in the sky, blocking out the sun as hundreds of similar. Black figures pooled out in a fashion that Iato likened to bees going out of a hive. Her brothers were the first to go, being killed in various, grotesque ways. The hardest hit was when her brother, Kito, had been impaled through the heart, his eyes finding Iato's before closing for the last time. Iato tried to scream, but no words came out, the visage holding her breath, keeping her from bidding her brother, her best friend, a final goodbye. The visage pulled Iato close, whispering in her ear with the most blood curdling voice: "See what you have done? You see the consequences of your actions?!"

Iato had no clue what this pony was talking about. As far as she was concerned, her actions hadn't really changed all that much in the past few years. The visage released her throat so she could answer. Instead, Iato felt she needed to fight back, so she said "Eat shit and die, tramp.", followed by a quick kick it the stomach. That got her an express trip to the ground, as well as a severe concussion.

The visage coiled back screeching "You will learn to treat your mother with respect, Iato!" words that were followed up with her picking up Iato in a magical grasp and chucking her into a support beam in the now torn apart castle.

Iato wasn't very lucid at this point. All she could see now was a blurry blob approach her as her wounds bled. The blob said something about her mom, and she assumed that it was the blob bragging about killing her or something. When the blob made it to her hooves, she heard, loud and clear, as the world turned dark around her, "Was it worth it, Iato? Did it feel good?" Iatos body started convulsing when the words were done being spoken, she could hear herself screaming, but her body was numb. The pain was so great her body refused to register it. Finally, she succumbed to the torture, and blacked out.

I need to add a later journal entry to this part, as it goes into detail some odd dreamscape where Iato explains seeing her whole family, accept her mother, walk up what seemed to be an infinite slope. She explains that she screamed and yelled, but her family never responded, they just looked forward, continuing their seemingly infinite walk upwards as Iato tried to run after them, only to be stopped by some sort of barrier. While somepony with a more superstitious point of view on life may call this a "out of body experience", but the account lines up with cases of superstitious individuals who have received some sort of major head trauma, which is the working theory that me and my colleagues have been studying under, that Iato was hallucinating the whole thing. It would also explain the less than readable (Or logical) text of most of the following entries, as it has been shown that head trauma victims lose a lot of their fine motor functions and suffer from memory loss, even after making a otherwise full physical recovery...

"everything was blurry... came over and wrapped...there was a boat..."

Lemon Delight wasn't exactly what you would call a very experienced seafarer. Most of what he was doing was just vague imitations of what his father would do anytime they would go out and collect dead barnacles and coral. He tried learning, but he could just never quite seem to get it right. He'd forget a step in making a knot or trip the anchor or do some other thing that would ruin several trips. In general, he was pretty much doing this blind. Despite that, Lemon had decided that he was better off someplace else, because his hometown had been razed and their wasn't a single pony lining up to buy his dad's old coral trinkets anymore, and sugar was to expensive to make a profit, so his baking skills were pretty much useless. When he was little more than a foal, Lemon's mother had died to some disease, but his dad had told him the she came from a wonderful land, far out in the sea, where she had saved my dad from drowning after a nasty storm blew him far off course. He wanted to go to that same wonderful place.

But the real reason any of that mattered was because Lemon found himself in a very similar predicament. Lemon was sitting on his little lounging cot when the sea around went into a deathly quiet. He took off the sunglasses he was wearing to look around. Nothing seemed off, other than the stark lack of sound anyway, until he looked behind him and saw a three pony tall wall of water rushing at him. Lemon barely had enough time to brace for impact on the mast when the miniature tsunami struck the small, but sturdy coral collecting boat. Lemon felt a temporary moment of pure, uninterrupted bliss whilst in the cold, soothing water. He knew what he was getting into when he set off on this little journey of his, to a faraway land that the ponies there, in all likelihood, did not speak a word of Poneglish. But that didn't really faze Lemon. He just wanted to be happy, and maybe his mothers homeland can give that to him.

As the water fell back down around Lemon, he opened his eyes to see a horrifying scene play out in front of him. Ponies screamed silently as pitch black caricatures of pegasi hunted them down, one by one. Stallions, mares, even fillies weren't spared. He hadn't escaped the horror, he just prolonged his suffering. Lemon nearly fell off the boat just by trying to back up, away from the carnage. He was fucked, through and through. The best Lemon could do was rip out all of his emergency supplies and hide in the compartment, but that would obviously mean he wouldn't have anything to eat or survive on. He didn't want to fight, but other ponies had different plans. In his hesitation, Lemon Delight failed to notice the presence of one of the shadow ponies flying towards him at full speed.

The umbral figure connected to his side as Lemon felt his ribs crack under the blow. But Lemon wasn't a push over, so he was back on his hooves in no time, but due to his little injury, his movement was limited. The pegasus lunged back into Lemon, this time with some sort spikey appendage protruding from its left hoof. Lemon side-stepped the attack to his left, but the pegasus still nicked his flank, sending a shear of pain down his side. But what took Lemons surprise the most was the shrill screams and bubbling coming from the pegasus. His hearing was returning at this point. He looked behind him to see the pegasus had overshot the boat and caught the water, making the winged pony fall in to the depths. Lemon swore he saw a yellow and pink pegasus sink into the depths, but the blast had knocked up so much sediment he could barely see more than a couple of inches below the surface. Maybe he was just seeing things. These were the same creatures that had attacked his hometown, and they were next to the sea as well.

Lemon was nearing the shore enough to pull the boat up and anchor it. He winced as the combination of salt water and fractured ribs made him regret not just waiting for the boat to get closer. In his swim, the blood that came from the dead ponies that had tried to escape on their boats washed over him. Lemon pushed back the urge to hurl his lunch at the gruesome sight. He was in a literal bloodbath, and he couldn't imagine the village above was much better. Once the boat was ashore, Lemon pulled out the medical supplies from the boat so he could patch up his cut, taking a second to ironically thank the pony he had fought so that the could deliver the leftovers to any survivors, despite Lemon's doubts that anypony had survived.

There were no screams, no 'My fillies!' or uncontrollable sobbing. It was just silent, the only thing making sound was Lemons hooves clopping against the stone path leading up to the village. Lemon eventually made it to the top, peering at the town. The whole place had pretty much been leveled, probably a side effect of all the houses being made out of wood and paper. Lemon walked past a house that happened to still be standing, and what he saw made him hurl his lunch this time, the sensation overcoming his body before he could even react. There was a fat pony, strung up on a support beam with his chest and ribs splayed out like some sort of fucked up pegasus. His head had been severed completely off, with an image of a pig drawn out on the floor in front of him. It was an image that would stick with Lemon for the rest of his life.

Lemon diverted his eyes as soon as he could move again, the sight paralyzing him. He noticed a pony crawling on the ground, without its rear legs. Lemon rushed over, even though he knew the only thing he could do at that point was hold him as he slipped gently into that good night. Lemon propped up the ponies head up and took out his canteen of hard cider to give to the mortally wounded pony, but the bottle was pushed away. "Ryōshu, ryōshu o sukuu..." was all the pony said.

"I don't understand you, what are you saying?!" said Lemon, horrified that this ponies last words were spoken to somepony who had no knowledge of the language in which they were spoken.

The pony hooked Lemons hoof to pull him closer as he looked over and pointed at a great big building resting atop a hill. "Ryōshu no kazoku... o oka no ue ni tsureteitte kudasai..." upon which he released his grip and died.

"I'm sorry" Lemon let the pony down, gently shutting his eyes. He looked up at the building, and then to the destroyed buildings around him, making sure nopony else needed his comfort, and rushed up the hill, wincing the whole way. Whatever was up here was important enough for somepony to to make telling him about it their last words. He neared the top and noted the plumes of smoke billowing from the building. As Lemon pushed himself harder he began to taste his blood in his mouth. He just hoped it wasn't a punctured lung, but rather a bruised one. Becoming more insensitive to the gore around him, the bodies that were mangled in the courtyard of the building began to bother Lemon less and less. He looked around for anypony, eventually hearing giggles and whooshes from inside the burning building. He rushed over in a panic to see a mare with a dark grey coat and a cyan blue mane sitting under a burning table giggling at the sight on what used to be the second floor of this building. Lemon ran over and yanked the mare out from under the flaming wood as it fell down, saving the young mares life.

Lemon pulled the mare out of the wreckage to see if she had any injuries, which she did. She had gotten hit so hard in the head, grey matter was actively leaking out of her ears. He was half surprised her head hadn't popped open under such a blow. He wrapped up her head, hoping that would do something, but he knew that he had to get her to a real doctor if any actual help was going to occur. He pulled out shards of wood and applied disinfectant to the wounds, eventually dressing them. He noticed the mare didn't have her cutie mark, reasoning the perhaps she was either a really big filly or a late bloomer, but it didn't really matter anyway. He didn't see any roads out of the village and everypony else was dead. He had to go back to Equestria if he was going to save this mares life. He eventually got her to follow him, stumbling the whole way down to the shoreline. Lemon had to basically push her on board, but eventually they managed, opening full sail and starting the magical motor, they were off.

The seas were pretty rocky because of the blast, which caused a rainstorm to roll in. Lemon took a rope and tied the delusional mare to the mast so she wouldn't accidentally just walk off in the storm. "Hold on, missy, this is going to be a rough ride". Lemon closed the sail so they wouldn't capsize in the wind but kept the motor on so they could get out of this mess. Lemon had been tying down the sail when he noticed a much larger vessel in the distance, which seemed to be on a collision course with them. He couldn't steer in the storm, so he just tried to make his presence as well known as possible to alert them to divert their course, which didn't happen. Instead, once the ship got close enough, a harpoon was shot into the side of his boat. It was at that point Lemon noticed the deep red flag with a white skull and crossed swords.

Lemon Delight didn't realize that there were pirates on this sea, and was surprised to find out the crew was made up mostly of unicorns and the occasional griffin or two, so this was probably going to be a short trip, he assumed. Two griffins, holding scimitars, came down and threatened to come quietly and untie 'his little buddy', which he did. He wasn't in any shape to fight, so the griffins bagged the two captives and a bunch of coral trinkets without much resistance. They brought him and the mare onboard and put them on the deck, in front of a mean looking unicorn with a scar running through both of her eyes, making her completely blind. One of the griffins who had brought them onboard whispered into her ears, probably telling her what was going on and putting a mini coral dreamcatcher in her right hoof. Her head pointed down as her horn glowed and picked up the item. She yelled through the storm so she could introduce herself "Hello, name is Captain Ivory Keys, welcome to the Crabapple! I have a question, Mr. Stallion. What's your name!?"

"It's Lemon Delight, Captain!" Lemon answered

"And what about your little friend here, Mr. Lemon!?" Said Ivory

"I don't know, I just found her in a razed village! She needs help! She's hurt really bad, something with her head! I-" Lemon got cut off by Ivory

"Woah, woah, buddy! Slow your role! You don't even know her name!? That's kind of the bare minimum if I were to let somecreature tie me up, if you know what I mean!" The whole crew started laughing.

"It's not like that! Like I said I found her in a razed village. She was the only survivor. Please! She needs medical attention!" Lemon repeated.

"Ooooh, a village with nocreature to defend it? Hear that, boys and girls? We got ourselves easy pickins'!" The whole crew raised a cheer this time. "C'mon, Mr. Lemon, tell us, were is this village!?"

"Uh, it's, uh, you get her medical attention first!" Lemon said as he pointed at the mare, who had fallen over on her face when a heavy wave hit and didn't seem to worried about it.

"Smart stallion! Malignant, get this mare a full checkup and throw her in the brig!" Ivory motioned to a tall unicorn who promptly picked up the grey-blue mare and brought her under the deck. Captain Ivory moved closer to Lemon and asked "Now Mr. Lemon, those directions?"

When recounting the events of the following entries. Iato describes a big pirate ship with a funny looking captain.. Her next memory, however, is more interesting. She says some unicorn took her below deck to dress her wounds properly and put her to sleep. She then describes the same unicorn in her dreams, fiddling with great big spider webs. She said that after she woke up from her dream, she could think clearly again. Some of the researchers think that this might be some sort of lost technique used to heal brain damage in patients, rather than just another hallucination. It's not completely unheard of ponies entering others dreams, after all. This little discovery might actually help save a lot of ponies lives, if it can be rediscovered that is.

A beautiful mare came into my dreams... weaving great big spiders webs... she asked me many questions, but even without knowing what she was saying, I completely understood...

Iato took a deep breath of air. She found herself in some sort of wierd glowing blue void, surrounded by these giant spider webs that seemed disconnected, torn out of place. She was soon joined by another mare, with a beautiful mocha coat and a brown mane. She opened her mouth to talk, but the words she heard were not any she knew, but she still completely understood what she was saying. "Hello, my name is Malignant Tumor, I'm going to help repair your brain, and from what I can see, I got a lot of work ahead of me. But first, what's your name?"

"It's Iato. My name is Iato Yari Horudā"

"Nice to meet you Iato. So, how did this even happen in the first place?" Malignant then used her magic to reconnected several webs back together, allowing Iato to remember more of why she was even there.

"I barely remember. It was so... quiet. So many ponies were dying..."

"Wait, hold on, let me get this one. It seems to be one of the newest here..." Malignant took a small, shredded web and did her best to put it back together "...alright!"

Iato continued her story "There was a big, pitch black pony with a horn like yours, but it also had wings. I think I bucked it in the guts and it threw me to the ground. The only stuff I remember after that was a black blob whispering 'Was it worth it Iato? Did it feel good?' and some yellow pony who took me on a boat with some pirates."

"The impact must have given you some sort of head trauma. From the looks of it, your yellow friend really saved your life there. By the way his names Lemon Delight."

"Lemon Delight... what a weird name." Iato mused

"Yeah, but I guess it isn't as bad as my name. Here, walk with me." Malignant continued to put together the webs in the dream, giving Iato sudden rushes of knowledge and memory.

"I... ugh... that is not a pleasant feeling. How did you get that name anyway?"

Well, if I am going to be honest with you, its because my parents really didn't like me all that much. Jokes on them though, I became a doctor... on a pirates ship anyway..."

"Sorry, I didn't mean too... Wait, were still on a pirates ship?!"

"Oh, hehe, I forgot to mention that. Yeah, the only reason I'm allowed to heal you is because the Captain is probably just going to sell you to some slavers on the coast, sorry kid. Can't be selling slaves that are dead!"

"WHAT?! Your lucky your the one helping me otherwise I'd kick your fuckin' ass!"

"It's not like I have a choice in the matter! I'm a slave to, you fuckwit!" Malignant pointed towards her flank, where a foreign symbol shaped like a slithering snake that was in a circle branded on to where her cutie mark used to be, "I don't even remember what it was..."

Iato quickly glanced at her flank, hoping she had not gotten the same treatment. However, when she looked, what she saw was worse than if her cutie mark had been branded over: there wasn't anything at all. She started to panic "Where is my cutie mark you witch!? What did you do to my cutie mark?!"

"We didn't do anything!" Malignant held up one of her hooves in surprise. "We found you like that as far as I'm concerned! I can't take away cutie marks, not even the Captain can, and she's one of the most powerful unicorns in Equestria!"

Iato backed up a bit and fell on her flank, looking down in shame. She began to cry for the lost of the one thing that made her, her.

"Iato...?" Malignant wanted to comfort the broken pony, but the consequences outweighed the benefits. She had a job to do, and the Captain wasn't so forgiving to things that took to long. She continued on without Iato, restoring her brain to what it once was.

Iato cried more and more as the memories of her father and brothers rushed in, giving even more reason why her cutie mark was so important to her. By the time Malignant had completed her job, Iato had been reduced to a groveling mess lying on the dreamscapes floor. Malignant came back to her to say "Iato, I'm sorry. I saw everything, and I'm so sorry. You didn't deserve to lose them. Nopony does." Malignant pulled Iato into a hug as the dream fell apart around them.

While slavery outside Equestria's borders had always been a thing, it was only after the fall of the Royals were ponies ever subjugated to such a horrible thing in large numbers. The slavers would prey on villages that had recently been attacked by the mysterious shadow ponies, as they would offer the least resistance as well as thin out any undesirables (The sick, the old, etc.), so when Iato was enslaved by the pirates who captured them, it was interesting to see how exactly the inner workings of the slave trade actually worked, as it would prove that it wasn't just a land based system, and that anypony could potentially sell another into the slave market without needing to be strictly apart of the system themselves...

...bastards locked me into the cell with this other yellow pony. He tried teaching... I was learning fairly well, but it was...I don't think I will ever fully recover.

When Iato awoke, she was laying in a dark, uncomfortably wet cell with another yellow earth pony. Iato assumed this was the 'Lemon' fellow she had heard about. Her face had been soaked in her own tears and she had a killer headache from the dream she had with Malignant Tumor. She grunted in pain, which got Lemon Delight's attention. He rushed over and started to ask a barrage of questions, none of which Iato could understand. Despite this, Lemon still tried to communicate anyway, this time playing a game of charades, making a jackass of himself. This made Iato giggle a bit. With all the shit that had gone down, Iato was glad that there was something to laugh at.

Weeks went by while the pirates sailed around the seas eastern of Equestria, eventually going to plunder the spoils of what used to be Yūjō when they found the time. Malignant would come by twice a day and give the two a grueling mix of pickles and beer, a sailors lifeline, but a stark difference to the banquettes Iato was used to eating every night.

Lemon, out of boredom, attempted to teach Iato Poneglish so that when they are sold she could at least communicate properly. The lessons were slow at first, but eventually Iato gained a rather basic understanding of the comparatively basic language.

"So, Iato, what's this?" Lemon pointed to the Poneglish alphabet he had carved into the wall with a spoon, specifically a plate with food on it that sat under 'F'.

"That food" Iato responded.

Lemon smiled weakly, "Yes, thats right!". Lemon turned away from Iato to dry a tear forming in his eye. He understood just how fucked up this whole situation was. If he had just not left his town, and instead stayed, maybe he could've been better off, but now he was stuck on a pirates boat, completely screwed and sailing towards a dismal future. Teaching Iato how to speak his language was his last kindness to the mare he had probably fucked over. She probably would have been better off dead, under the burning mass of that table. Fuck.

Lemon felt the boat lurch to a sudden halt, sending him into the wall. This made his still bruised ribcage flare up again, just when it was starting to get comfortable to breath again. Malignant Tumor came to the cell in which the two were staying to tell them that they had arrived at the depot in which they were to be sold.

"I'm sorry Lemon and Iato. End of the line. Put on these." Malignant tossed a line of shackles and chain to the pair, which they put on while staring at Malignant, as if it were her fault they were in this whole mess. She could only divert her gaze to avoid the blame. "C'mon, lets go." Malignant unlocked the cell and led the two ponies out of the cell, stopping right before they were to climb the stairs to the main deck above. She pulled out a small key from her mouth and gave it to Lemon, who wiped it down and put it into his. "I'm so sorry for everything. The key will pop open the shackles and let you escape, just don't do it until I make a distraction. If either of you get a brand, your properly fucked. They can track you with these artifacts they have, so if I don't cause the distraction in time, just unlock your shackles and high tail it out of there, its better than nothing, at least."

Lemon, who had loathed the very existence of this pony just seconds earlier, was now dumbstruck. He could only hug the pony in response, even though he had wanted to say thank you out loud, he couldn't because there were other ponies and griffons around. The trio ascended the stairs, Iato and Lemon being blinded by the bright sun out. at the moment. The Captain was arguing with some ugly naked mole rat looking slaver.

"I don't have to have eyes to see I'm getting fucked, Verko! Those two are easily worth their weight in gold to you. 'The Oriental Princess Pony from a faraway land and her husband, a king from another great kingdom', fucking gold, Verko!"

Verko recoiled in disgust. The captains words were true, but he didn't want to really pay full price. "You drive a hard bargain, Captain Keys, but I'm only willing to pay in silver, not gold. Maybe we could work something out? A slave and some silver in exchange?"

Lemon blocked out the talk as Malignant led them down the ramp to the docks. The trotted over to a line next to a forest with all sorts of exotic creatures, sentient and not, lined up chained together waiting to be branded.

Malignant locked the shackles to the chain rather than using the chain and lock provided so the key she gave Lemon would still work. "Alright, I'm going to go find something that will distract the guards. But whatever happens, don't let them brand you." Malignant instructed, trotting off at a slightly higher speed than normal. Verko's workers, also slaves, began branding every creature in the line, only slowed because they had to re-heat the iron every couple of creatures.

Lemon muttered under his breath "Come on, hurry up Malignant..." The branders were getting to close for comfort. The animal in front of them, a mammoth, would block their actions, but they couldn't run unnoticed. The branders eventually made their way down to the animal in front of the mammoth and Lemon decided it was now or never. He slipped the key out of his mouth and unlocked his front and rear shackles, but as he turned around to get Iato out, a shipment of gunpowder due to be loaded onto the Crabapple exploded, knocking every creature onto their respective appendages and killing several dock workers. In the confusion the guards had indeed been distracted, but Lemon also dropped the key he needed to get Iato out. Him and Iato fumbled around in the dirt looking for the key, eventually finding it and freeing Iato, but not before a guard noticed the two had freed themselves. "We got some runners!" said the guard to his buddies, who were already focused on keeping a group of creatures at bay. "Oh, blimey, guess I have to do everything myself."

At this point, Lemon and Iato had not hesitated to start booking it into the woods, but the lone guard cut off their escape before it could really begin. The guard triumphantly declared "Alright you two, exercise time is over, time to go back to your line."

The guard was an Earth pony equipped with a halberd, one of the weapons Iato had gotten some training with. Because of her training, Iato understood both the strengths and weaknesses of her preferred weapons class, that being that they were pretty much useless if you opponent was right in front of you. a skilled user could easily hold of an opponent for hours, but two opponents were an issue due to it not having great speed and maneuverability compared to the likes of a sword or throwing javelins. Iato commanded lemon to run to the guards left side, which opened up the guard to an attack when the guard followed the bigger of the two targets allowing for Iato to run up and buck his head hard enough to knock him straight out.

"Alright, we need to... to go, Iato" Lemon said between labored breaths.

Iato picked up the polearm from the guards unconscious body, before she began to run with Lemon further into the woods. They eventually came to a stop to catch their breath and see if anypony was looking for them, which thankfully, nopony was. They decided to continue on, but at a walking pace to ensure they weren't to exhausted to fight if they needed to. But no matter how far they went, it never sat right with Iato that there were so many creatures who still had to endure the slavery. Iato came to a stop, as she didn't really have the words to formulate what she meant and needed Lemon to help her. "Lemon."

"Yes, Iato, what is it? We have to keep on moving." Lemon said with an expression of mixed pain and annoyance.

"I... we need to stop slave owner." Iato bumbled out.

"How are we supposed to do that? Were just two ponies, how are we supposed to stop an operation that big?"

Iato didn't fully understand what Lemon had said, but understood that it wasn't positive in the slightest. Instead, she tried to reiterate her point at a different angle. "Get Verko."

"What? Why would we go and do that?" Lemon retorted

"It fair." Iato simply replied.

"So you want to stop the slave owners by getting Verko, because it's fair?"

Iato paused for a second, thinking, before confirming by a brisk nod.

"Alright, Iato, I think I know what you want to do. Because of some moral obligation, you want to hunt down Verko and kill him to stop him from slaving?"

Iato cocked an eyebrow and shook her head, confused by Lemon's words.

"Yeah, I guess I probably should have expected that." Lemon takes a deep breath and exhales. "Alright Iato, we will Verko and stop the slave owners. It's not like I have much of anything else to do."

Iato understood most of what Lemon said and ran over and hugged him. Iato didn't want anycreature else to suffer anymore than they already were, and they had to find and kill this Verko fellow for fucking with them anyway. It was a two for one deal.

Iato and Lemon continued their walk through the forest until coming across a road that led to a nearby town. Instead of continuing along the path, the pair decided that the best thing to do was lay down and rest for the night. They took shifts in looking out for trouble along the road and around their little campsite. Iato took this time to inspect the weapon she had stolen off of the slave guard, noting its high quality blade and solid shaft. Whoever equipped those guards was shelling out the big bucks on weapons, but not so much on the ponies wielding them.

Halberds weren't exactly Iato's favorite type of polearm, as she saw them as a Jack of All Trades; Master of None type of weapon with it's axe head like a bardiche and a tip like a spear, but the weapon had an interesting contraption rigged onto its blade, reaching down the pole to a switch. It was some kind of device that opened up two small compartments on either side of the axe parts blade. What was most odd is that it smelt of seawater, a smell Iato was hoping to avoid after being forced to basically live in it whenever a heavy storm occurred on the Crabapple. She would just ask Lemon in the morning, he probably knew why it was like this.