Exodus, The Beginning

Chapters

Chapter 1 "New Arrivals"
Chapter 2 "Meet n" Greet"
Chapter 3 "journey"
Chapter 4 "New Dawn"
Chapter 5 "Anarchist cookbook"
Chapter 6 "The Fort"
chapter 7 "Reign of fire"
Chapter 9 "Greetings"
Side Chapter: Lost but not forgotten
Chapter 10 "The Party"
Chapter 8 "Present days"

Chapter 1 "New Arrivals"

Hello New World!

Okay I’m leaving a journal as an account to my experience in this “magical and wonderful” world.
I believe in leaving a trace or a record in what we’ve been through this land in case other people find themselves lost or worst case scenario I die, I guess I just want to get things out of my chest and according to some psychologist this is a way to do this, like a burn book of some sort.

I think first I should introduce myself and how we arrived to this place, now mind you this wasn’t caused by some wormhole in reality, or some magical near death experience with a truck accident or some strange military experiment, other wise my taxes are...were being misused on something else other than public services.
Anyway I’m getting off the subject, my name is Michael Keener, I’m 32 years old and I arrived in this world with a group of people with me, many of us can speak English while others can barely understand basic words and only speak native or other languages rather than English.

We don’t know how we appeared here, one moment we are in our homes or going out the next moment we just appeared in a spot in a foreign forest all together. We almost turned on each other until (after a couple of not so friendly shouting competition) we came to the realization that NO ONE brought us there, some people were dressed like they were going to work, returning to work or just got teleported by just going to the kitchen (food and drinks not included, dammit I could go for some snacks).

Many of our belonging arrived here with us, now for what I can understand is that the majority of us come from the US, while others come from the mainland of Europe (heard a couple of guys speaking in French, other girls in Italian and I think that there are some Slavic folk. Don’t ask me who set the regional preferences, normally considering what we have seen through our stay in this forest we believe it is mythological related, some girls saw jackalopes and some guys a Manticore.
Yeah just wrote that, a creature that is part of one of those Greek classical books, here’s to hoping that the Gods of the Pantheon aren’t real, if I recall my history lessons they were or at least most of them were a bunch of dicks. Still a maticore and other magical creatures is a big hint that according to a girl and her dog “wE aReN’t In KaNsAS AnYmOrE”.

Thankfully we are armed and really prepped for the worst case scenario, I guess what was going around with the situation in Eastern Europe some people took precaution, which is kinda useful considering that it’s better to be prepared rather than wait for the help of the authorities....just didn’t expected that our Euros cousins to adopt the ideology of staying strapped.
I guess the internet was wrong in that regard, but it really leaves a question someone or something just took a whole bunch of people armed and put it in one place, I believe that’s the case otherwise the universe has a morbid sense of humor or there is a Newton law of reality that we don’t know about....

Anyway many of our folk are armed with the basic hunting weapons of our families (hunting rifles,shotguns and revolvers) other people are armed with more guns the like you find in military museums like Great War firearms, the rest all handguns legal and illegal like one of those 3D printed 9mm carbines...I’m not a gun savant but I know my way around one, so to those who are more knowledgeable around guns, please forgive my mistakes when naming parts, and I promise not to bring the “it’s called magazine and not clip” subject.
Now mind you we are closed to being roughly around 14 people so far, We don’t know if there are more folks out there or somewhere else.....poor unlucky bastards.

OK back to the beginning, we appeared in a forest armed, scared out of our minds and almost made a hail of bullets fly, how did we calmed down? well we began shouting in different languages and kinda sort off started to comprehend each other through noises and hand gestures, people in the groups began roughly translating and soon we made a circle separating ourselves in nationalities just to get a look of how many we were and if our version on what we were doing at That moment brought us here.
After 2 or 3 hours of talking we came to an invisible wall, I mean no one was or were doing anything strange like I don’t know summoning a demon or something like that.

Our belongings were part of our everyday carry or we were close to them at the moment along with some other belongings like phone charges, bags and in some cases pillows and notebooks, kinda like me I was watching some videos of a guy ranting on about Ace Combat and then puff I’m here with my furniture my notebook and the rest of my stuff (I will describe them shortly) like someone just draw a Cube encasing me and threw me in another world, next thing I know people are pointing guns at me while shouting ”!!!ON THE FUCKING GROUND ASSHOLE!!!!” I never react well under pressure and almost ALMOST pooped myself, but having a group of guys and girls pointing guns at your head can make anyone shit themselves or cause a heart attack.
We decided that even though we aren’t friends or not know each other, staying together is the best option and being in the same situation some form of camaraderie could be arranged, I mean we are all in this situation together and with creatures of myths and legends surrounding us, sticking to the good old “united we stand” would be the best way to protect ourselves.

So the first 3 night we were making camp, and thanks to a lot of people who spend more time outdoors we found all types of mushrooms and roots that could be eaten without being cooked, not great flavor, but hey it beats starving to death, plus some of us did "fell down here" with some food so we got some variety...for now. I didn’t sleep that well those nights the trees were bigger than those back home and the constant sounds around us gave me the creeps and I swear that I got that feeling that we were being watched.

After 3 days of walking around we found ourselves in an open field with a well traveled road leading to civilization, now mind you we didn’t recognized the terrain or you know any landmark that would tell us that we were on Earth, we believed that we were on Earth because if you see a mythological creature by some logic someone could put 2 and 2 together and come up with the idea that we were in a magical part of our world or fall into the hollow earth theory, we discussed all theories, logical situations and cover almost every topic.
And still found squat in what place we were, a girl in the US group said something about a local story in her town that a girl and her siblings disappeared and came back with stories about their “friends” but the more she talked the more it felt like she was explaining a children TV show, still it made me think that by recognizing some monster we could figure out in which part of the world we were in, we could go full Bilbo Baggins on this journey, just hoping that Orcs and dragons aren’t real.

Anyway we arrived in a main road leading to what looked like a German town in the distance, so we gather what left of our strength and ran like crazy people towards the town, yelling, singing, laughing all the way thinking we were saved or that we could find help.
All of that stopped when a group of vultures began flying in formation, only that they were not those giants birds, but Griffons, small in height almost reaching our chest when they were in all 4 but when the landed with their back legs they looked like they could reach your neck.
What in the actual Fuck, right?, they were fully armed with Halberds and Spears, Steel plate armor that you would find in a museum or a fantasy movie set, with banners displaying a colorful emblem of a noble house and some sort of crest near the left side, the way knight used to have in medieval times as a form of distinction or something I don't know I'm not an Historian, they just landed in front of us in a professional way,the way trained soldiers do, never breaking eye contact and keeping a distance just close enough to make a stab o a sweep with their weapons. Meanwhile we were stuck in place not making a sound or moving, worse not knowing what to do and keeping our hands up in a non violent way, hoping that they wouldn’t rush at us.

It was a couple of minutes of silence until one Griffon landed behind the phalanx, made his way between the lines, his steel clawed gauntlets making the sound “click click click” as he approached us, how do I know he was a he?, well it looked like a guy, big wings that could cover you in a hug, big frame that intimidated anyone, and those huge claws enveloped in armor that would make even a warrior think twice before fighting it, if he was a she then that misconception would cost me my life.

He was wearing a full plate helm that covered his face kinda like that owl movie “Guardians of Gahole” or something like that. He spoke in a clear English language “My name is Cpt. Silver Feather member of the 33th Talon company of royal guard of his majesty King Grover beloved by all, who are you?, what are you? what is your business in our kingdom? why are you running and screaming like a bunch of raiders? ”.
I panicked, thankfully to some quick reaction of a french girl in our group spoke to Silver Feather in a formal way. It went something like this.
Monique spoke ”Greetings Capitain Silver Feather, we are but a small groups of creatures that are called Humans, we got lost trying to get out of that accursed forest and found the way out after spending 3 days in there, we are lost, hungry and almost abandoned all hope of finding civilization.
That’s when we saw the small city we though we were close to our Home. We thought we could find help or at least shelter for a day or two, it wasn't our intention to look like barbarians to you, and we are most sorry if our actions and appearance cause some sort of distrust to you and your company of Noble Gentlemen".
That introduction and the way we were dressed was more than enough to tell this noble that we weren't your typical raider or barbarian, still a thousand question ran through my mind, Raiders? what sort of medieval shitstorm did we got ourselves into?

The Captain responded "Young Lady if you came from the Edelweiss Forest with just dirt and scratches, you are more than lucky than most of our peasants, reports bandit activities and monster sightings has reached the high court and our king cannot ignore it no longer, me and my fellow knights were sent to deal with the situation, on the other claw, you and most of your retinue can enter the town, just report to the guard station and wait for us there so we can get a full report and clear any doubt of your situation.
But let me clarify that if you or any of your group don't follow my instructions, the full force of the law will befall on you and your companions. Do you understand?".
"Yes my Lord, we will do as you ask and wait on the town garrison, thank you for your time and your help, it's great to see that noble griffins just as you are part of the King's finest".
Man that was nerve wrecking at the middle, but with a little sugarcoating in her speech from our girl Anne a baker from the best Boulangerie of Paris (according to her), we saw some of the griffins guard chests puff out in pride.
And with that the Captain and his knight took off only one remained just enough to give us indications were to go and a seal of his belt to show the town guard that we were coming on their behalf.
We didn't started talking until we were out of earshot of them and began planning how should we introduce ourselves next time or should we keep an identity as the retinue of a noble girl.
We decided that it is better to remain silent until we find the garrison and the captain knows that we come in peace once he returns from his patrol. One thing is clear, even though we stood together in the forest no one like the idea of being a servant of other, and in that moment of silence being a traveling merchant band or foreign diplomats or explorers were all good options that we kept to ourselves in case someone got cold feet and the future interview doesn't transform in a interrogation.

Man I'm beat I'm going to sleep now, I'll continue the rest tomorrow.
I just remember that I have to do my best to recall those memories before I forget any important details, even though whomever is going to read this don’t forget I’m making a recollection of events from my point of view so is not 100 % accurate. Doesn’t matter anyway I think we all have an infatuated egos and that sort of mess the details of some stories.
Oh almost forgot to tell you guys my inventory, meh maybe tomorrow.
Until next time Folks.
Michael Keener.

Author's Note

Hello FiMFiction, just trying new ideas on a story I had around in my head, it's my first story so mistakes and changes are common.
Criticism is welcomed. May post the 2nd chapter this weekend.

Chapter 2 "Meet n" Greet"

So...here’s what happened when we arrived at the little settlement of Erden, Griffins where everywhere flying, walking around and just doing everyday chores ,it’s just looked like a small normal medieval city only filled with fantasy creatures.

When we arrived all eyes fell on our little group, a bunch of bipedal hairless creatures just walking by and every now and then just making a small “hello” , “good morning” and “sup”. Awkward but I think we were glad we were not being chased down by the locals. Arriving at the garrison we were presented with a strange sight, the guards.... who looked more like a small group of militia, were all wearing some sort of minimalist uniform, random bits and pieces of metal here and there, they were set in a formation like the military of our world would look like if they were standing in attention. And at the front there was a proud elderly griffon just taking account of the numbers of what were supposed to be volunteers for something, a normal patrol? , a mission? I don’t know, I hoped it wasn’t because of our sudden arrival on this world, that disturbed the creatures of the forest or that we were being used like pawns in a game we didn’t chose to be a part of.

We waited at the side line until the bird with the big helmet decided to either give is nod of approval to his little army or throw a grandiose speech. the first thing happened and only a couple of griffins wearing painted cuirass began shouting orders, dividing the guards into squads of 5 and sending them to different locations. Mind you dear reader that we haven’t seen the rest of the city, and only when we looked around we began to assimilate that the constructions were designed in a functional way, the market and most of the housing were facing inward and a little bit in the far end we could see a fortification. Imagine a small castle were the Lord lives that is surrounded by a stone wall and the rest of the houses are built in a way to reduce spaces in between, like a 2nd wall built with only houses.

It reminded me when I used to build farms in Warcraft using them as a wall in case I got attacked, only that this was real life and the cruelty of the medieval casts was a reality in this world. it is why many of the reasons we didn’t want to be taken like a bunch of commoners, if a Lord wanted something from us they could just point at us and demand it, but if we were diplomats or maybe someone from a higher position, we could at least negotiate something, right? man I was a hopeful idiot.

As soon as the guards went flying we approached and presented the small badge to the elderly griffon, explained the whole situation, and introduced ourselves.
We were 14...at that moment 5 people were Americans other 5 Europeans and the other 4 were just a mix of other countries from the old Soviet Block, don’t ask me the names otherwise I’ll butcher the pronunciation.
So in order to make things easy for everyone we chose nicknames, short, easy to remember and it worked for all of us to preserves some sort of individuality and our privacy in the process.

In the US group we got Cali (California), Austin (Texas), Mickey (Me, I’m from Michigan and apparently I have no imagination when it came to present myself , then again I did appear with people training the guns on me so yeah sue me I guess), Lucy (Louisiana) and Mary (Maryland) apparently we all watched zombieland and took that idea.
Across the ocean, the Europeans, we got Otto (from Saxony), Maquis (from Lyons and I think she said something about the Blue Coast of France), Toledo (from Spain and because he seems to be proud to come from near the place I guess), Nap (from Napoli) and believe it or not Elsa (I have never seen a Swedish girl and let me tell you stereotypes are true, she looked like the disney princess only taller and more mature).
And finally but not less important the slavics, now i wish to tell you that in certain extreme situations group dynamic and chemistry just appear out of nowhere and makes us show sympathy and socialize among ourselves, this was not the case, aside from Wojtek ( a shy guy from Poland and World War 2 enthusiast I guess), the other 3 were well distrusting of everyone and everything, they gave me a bad feeling. But then again it’s not exactly normal to put all of your trust in complete strangers so I guessed they were playing it safe.

Anyway the Elder Griffon’s name was Iron Beak, former knight of the kings guard and now retired veteran in charge of tutoring and guiding the rest of the hatchlings knights as an advisor. He gave one of those auras of pride even though we knew nothing of him at the moment, like the way those cool World War 2 vet sometime give, the simple way he looked at us was enough to break the heavy weight of the situation we were all feeling at that moment.

“Greetings Ladies and Lords, I welcome you all to the city of Erden, would you happen to cross a group of knights on the road?” now one would expect that if someone refers to you with a title out of respect, specially referring to you as a Lord, one must respond with the same level in order to fit in and to show the same amount of respect.

“Sup’(said the Texan with the grace of an elephant walking through a china shop) yeah we’ve met them on the main road”

“Ah perfect and he sent you here? without an escort or somegriffin to guide you here? Hatchlings, I’ll have a word or two with them later, don’t worry.”

“Nah don’t need, a fella named Silver gave us this...this thing here told us to wait him when he returns from his patrol”

“He gave you his royal crest and trusted you to come here by yourselves? just like that? he must have seen something in you in order to do something so reckless”

“Didn’t do much really, we asked for directions, told him our little experience in the forest and that we needed help, I’m an honest man and if roles were reversed I would try to help them, specially if they were lost”

“Just like that? without compensation or reward? do you even know who you just met?”

“Yeah I’ll help anyone human or griffin if they needed it, don’t care if they’re the son of a noble or some poor bastard on the road”

“Silver Talon is the son of the proud family of Grindelwal, they are close to the king one may say he is even related to him by a few branches, there is no creature in all of Griffinstone, and some part of Equestria that doesn’t know about him.”

“And? He gave us a fancy badge and told us to come here and then he just flew off, and like I told you before we know nothing of this place, the few reasons we decided to follow his orders was to simply avoid any trouble and get a good look on exactly where we are standing ”.

Iron Beak looked at Austin hard, hoping to caught him on lie or just judging him for a simple moment, then he broke the silence.
“I like you Sir Austin, an honest heart and a good head on your shoulders, your kind did good on coming here, you are welcome to wait Silver inside the garrison, we can bring you something to eat while we clarify this whole mess.
Don’t worry we won’t put you in a cell but you must leave your belongings inside the armory, until all of this is over.”

We all agreed reluctantly about leaving our weapons and most of our stuff, but so far doing the right thing has played well for us. Getting something to eat while we figure out where were we and a way to go home was our priority at that moment.

Now I know many of you are dying to know how well armed were we and I know that I promised to tell my audience of some of the weapons that in the present day are part of my inventory...even though their owners aren't longer alive.
The US group was armed with 2 Ruger classical chambered in .300 blackout, those belonged to Cali and Mary, Austin being the texan was sporting a lever action in 45-70 don’t remember the brand but I recognized the iron or more like the polymer on his hip, a Glock one of the many numerical variants 17? I’m going with 17.
Lucy on the other hand had a copy of a 1911 in 45, but this one look more like it belonged in a shooting competition rather than a EDC still the belt she carry that thing out was one of those that allow you to carry up to 5 magazines.
Now before you criticize me like I know you would, I just came from moving out of one place to another and my “pieces” are a TPR chambered in 9mm brand new that I kept in a holster inside one of those big green ammo boxes you find in a gun show or a antique shop, and my father’s rifle that I had just nesting in a box close to my desk, along with all it’s bullets there, it’s a collector rifle with either little to no use in it’s life whatsoever, a Springfield model 1917 chambered in 30-06.

The Euros on the other hand were more or less armed like us, I guess they lived either in the country side or just straight said Fuck the Gov and never turned their guns. Specially Otto he sported a sig sauer in 9mm abut also a Ruger carbine chambered in 9mm, but it wasn’t his weapons that surprised me but his get up the guy looked like had a vest for all the gigs, he looked like a German STALKER.
Maquis on the other hand was carrying a FN HI-Power nothing that out of place if it wasn’t for the double barrel shotgun that looked a little to big for her, but she seems familiar with it.
Nap had a FGC, yeah made it like a carbine with a long barrel, I had a little of a apprehension towards 3d printed guns specially when people think they know what are they doing. Still something told me that this guy did his research and had experience because the gun looked cool it had a ported barrel and every thing, plus he carried a shorted Lupara on his back.
Toledo was more like us with a Glock full of accessories and a great holster that carried his mags, but also big difference he carry most of his spare ammo on a fanny-pack. on his waist.
Elsa on the other hand carried a Mosin a Finnish version I would guess and had a whole belt for her ammo. She also carried a huge bayonet on her side, like a big blonde gun Fairy.
Finally as for the slavs I don’t know they never showed anything but their knives if they had guns they just kept them out of sight, except wojtek who owned a simple civilian saiga shotgun and a 38. special revolver with long barrel, that guy was the living embodiment of gentle giant.

As we left our weapons in the armory, thoughts began to go in my mind, whether this was a good idea. I’m all for trusting and showing a good face, but if we ran into trouble we’re fucked, they may be civilized and in some places as big as a mountain cat, but Griffins have deadly claws if or when a fight could happen we were left defenseless.
Maybe this was their plan all along, the “click” of the interior barred door inside the armory cleared my thoughts and we went to the mess hall being guided by a guard. Once we were seated in a large table they gave us some sort of porridge with cups of water and some wooden spoons, it was better than nothing and only when they gave us the food and drink I’ve realized how hungry I really was.
The rest of the day was just waiting for the knights to return so we can move forward and plan things for our future, with the stress eating us up, we just fell into more comfortable positions some of us even just laying on the long benches while people from the group talked about.

I just lay myself on the bench, listening and from time to time chipping into the conversations, but with some food in my body and some sort of safety from the natural elements I slowly drifted away and felt asleep.

Usually when someone falls into the dreamland you aren’t supposed to remember everything, unless you are one of those people who can lucid dream, alas I wasn’t and yet I saw with clarity and remember some recollection of what happened, first I felt like I was swimming in the darkness.

That was until I hit the “floor” if touching solid nothingness count as floor stood up and began walking without direction, little by little voices began whispering into my hears, a bunch of nonsensical voices speaking at the same time and they got louder and louder to the point that putting my hands in them didn’t cancel the noise.
Opening my eyes for the 2nd time I was awarded with a long hall filled with wooden doors, I kept walking around and the idea of opening one of the doors was temptation I couldn’t ignore no more.
The door flashed white and then I was transported into a huge Library books filled the different stacks, different subjects and covers all written in a gibberish language that I couldn’t understand.

“Hello?” I asked to none in particular, as I went trying to find someone? a person? a nightmare? anything other than just getting out of being lost in my own subconsciousness. After a while I started hearing a conversation between two girls? the voices I heard talking felt feminine.

“But Princess Luna, the reports from the Griffins aren’t fully verified, they even said so, if new monsters have appeared in their forests we should investigate a little bit closer, “New Monsters” don’t just appear out of nowhere unless somecreature put them there, our friends on Griffonstone said that there have been sighting of Manticores, Hydras and other recorded monster that we know of, just because they have moved from their normal territories and began making a massive migration into other areas is a sign to investigate with our zoologists and professionals on the subject.”

“I know Twilight, but their behavior have began altering not only on certain parts of griffionstone but in some smallest part here in Equestria as well. And considering the very nature of this strange event, we must be aware of other dangers, the invasion of the Storm King left us vulnerable and my Sister believes as well that it is better to prepare for unforeseen consequences. Even Discord showed up at our palace warning us, saying something about having a bad feeling about it, normally I would not care for his shenanigans, but the way he said it. I think he’s actually afraid of what’s to come.”

Wow ominous, right? I thought, I tried to get a closer look but all I could managed to do was to trip with a small pile of books that was on the floor.
It didn't make that much noise but I let out a loud "Fuck" and that got their attention. Panic ran through my body and the idea of meeting the voices just flew out of the window.

“What was that noise?? WHO GOES THERE? SHOW YOURSELVES!!!”

A loud voice like someone yelling through a concert speaker began shoving the books into the floor, aaand I began running back to the door, hearing sounds of what looked like bolts of energy firing from behind.
Running and dodging through stacks that seems to expand instead of ending, but I kept running until I saw the wooden door from which I entered, I opened it fast and closed it behind me thinking I have escaped the danger and stumble on the ground panting trying to catch my breath, why was out of breath in my dream? don't know never happened to me before, but then again never had a dream like this, I opened my eyes I was greeted by a White Horse with huge magenta eyes and expanded wings on the sides and a huge horn just above on the forehead.

” Hello? may I ask who are you?” said the alicorn, yeah you read that right an alicorn, one of those apocalyptic mythological creatures that were supposed to be the harbingers of the End Times? or the first signs of the end?.
I read a lot okay? it took me 1 month to get internet into my home so my mother books collection kept me entertained, so I will puke that information from time to time to you readers.

Her hair was iridescent and ethereal the same as her tail, sporting two fairly shaped suns on her side, she would look like a beautiful angel if it wasn’t the fact that I was internally panicking through the whole ordeal.
Just like that me on the ground panting looking at every detail of her, seeing her glow like a nightlight. I was confused panicking all over and never responded to a word she said, I got up and looked her right back trying to keeping a distance while she followed my steps, getting closer every time I took a step back.
“can you understand me?” She said in a calm voice, she lighted her horn and said the same thing only that I heard her voice in my mind, with a soft smile on her face she kept talking “I am Princess Celest..” I didn't let her finish, I muster all of my courage and balled up my fist and punched her hard into her face, the whole thing just creeped me out and hearing her voice echoing in my head was the last thing I wanted to hear, that and the whole dream was scaring me out. I wanted to yell something cool like "yeah you won't take me alive bitch" but all I managed to say was a incomprehensible yell.

From the shock of the punch She vanished in a white flash, like she never got a chance to react she just vanished like the fairy godmother from Cinderella leaving small little sparks of light behind, and I got transported to the waking world by Louisiana poking my ribs gently, telling me to wake up.

"Come on Mickey we are leaving".

Author's Note

I hope you guys/gals like the story so far, I'll try to make the chapters longer.
I've been busy with a lot of work lately and can take time to write that much.

Chapter 3 "journey"

So it’s been roughly about 6 months since I arrived in this world and some of the memories of the first days are a little fuzzy. I remembered that after being woken up by Lucy from that strange lucid dream, 4 people of the group or at least what the Griffins authorities believed to be the “leaders” of our little company had already explained the general situation in the meeting.

First, we were not in trouble of being incarcerated or detained in anyway at the moment, according to Captain Silver monster activities has escalated and some nearby towns were on danger of being attacked and were calling for assistance. And to add the strange element, our little group just walked out of the most dangerous forest unscathed avoiding all type of patrols on the border. So the griffins wanted us to work with them apparently as a support to the town militia and the guards, until new reinforcements arrive from the nearby City.

Second, because of the importance of the location of the city, even though it was a small in comparison with the others places in Griffonstone, it was located in a cross road between 2 of the main important roads leading to the rest of the capital cities, so it was more like a gate to the rest of the country considering that it withheld the wildlife and threats of the untamed forests of the Eastern border. At least we now we knew were the hell we were, but entering a country with out money or documents seems a little sketchy since we weren’t refugees from a nearby town or country, specially with this situation happening on this side of the kingdom.

And Third our little group was having a discussion on what to do, mind you dear readers, that some of us were hunters by hobby, not tracers or hunters for the profession of it, or even had any experience in conflicts whatsoever. And to add a little drama on the matter, many of the people of our group myself included, didn’t like the idea that our so called “leaders” just took a decision with out our consent specially since some of us were asleep.

All of this happened when I was dreaming about doors, pretty horses and books, kinda felt like an idiot at first, but the more I thought about it....I’ve never remembered dreams with that much clarity or detail. I was questioning that in my mind, when Austin spoke up along with Prag (one of the Slavs that didn’t want to be excluded from the leader meeting), they explained that our little Cpt. Silver was more than willing to vouch for us and reward us for our help if we wished to take the job. Otherwise we would have to be taken to border in shackles and be deported from the country. The guy was a good, honest leader and didn’t want to cause any conflict between us, but he was loyal to his people and his duty to his kingdom, seeing a bunch of illegal “aliens” just trotting around seemed suspicious and couldn’t be ignored regardless of the nature of our arrival, I guess we did leave a lot of unexplained on that matter. But deportation was the lesser of evils, at least that way we still had a choice on were to go next, but we were going into the unknown alone.

We thought about it for a coupe of seconds and we all chose to take the job and went to rearm ourselves thinking about the pros of the situation and how well equipped we were in comparison to some of the guards here, THAT gave us some confidence. Some of the griffins were looking at our gear with curiosity, the way the bolts, wheels and magazines just make a little but ominous noise when locked, and the clicks of the bullets being loaded into chambers seems to get the attention of everygriffin in the armory.

Like I told you before the most advanced weapons in the armory of the griffiins were medieval and there were located in the hips of the knights, a single handed short crossbow with detailed ornaments, dangling from the upper flank of the Knights. The knights themselves looked more like shining gothic knights from medieval Germany with a few changes in details here and there, aside from Halberds, they were equipped with beautiful swords and their armored claws seemed a little bit longer than normal. They wore some sort of protection on the wings, covering most of the upper part that connected the wing muscles.

The rest of the guards were armed with segmented armor and pieces of chain mail, their weapons were pole arms, for example, spears and variants of the same weapon or they were armed with longbows and short swords for those who were part of the ranged troops.

Finally the militia, who were the poor unlucky sods that made up the most numerous part of the force, armed with equipment that had seen better days. but were maintained. Still you could see scratches and dents, old swords from the armory and normal axes that were reforged to give them a more “combat” use, the one thing that did looked well maintained was their daggers and knives, I guess family heirlooms or personal weapons being passed down from generations to another, tools that were the important part of the daily life of the common griffin living in the Borderlands of the kingdom.

Our equipment besides our guns was made out with what we were carrying the moment we “poofed” into this world,
our clothes were suitable for the cold of the mountain but didn’t had any of the “tactical and militaristic” look, typical every day fashion combined with our bags that were made of different bright colors. If we somehow we needed to be stealthy, the only thing enemy was going to see was our fashioned clothes and the trend we followed, we got better chances of hiding in a house party rather than the woods, still it gave a great protection from the elements, at least we got that covered.

Aside from electronics like cellphones, solar or external battery charges, tablets and eBooks, we got miscellaneous stuff, like glue, Swiss army knives of different sizes, multi tools, duct tape and one of the guy got one of those fire starters, the one you use a knife on it and it throw sparks?, small size and it was dangling with the rest of his house keys, not exactly useful it looked more like a prop. Yours truly got my notebook and wireless headphones. All in all nothing that could give us some advantage if we were going to be attacked by some mutated bear on steroids or something.

We didn’t put that much importance into our gear, because apparently we were going to hunt some dangerous animals and not face a medieval army of barbarians, we were going to shoot them from a distance not fight them in close combat. That’s was the thoughts that ran through my mind, until we saw the surprised look the griffins gave us, it wasn’t the fact that we were not carrying any type of armor at all, but most of our changed apparel had different designs, the girls of the group changed into typical sports clothing on the top and jeans, some light jackets that looked like designer brand, the guys went from simple shirts to puffier jackets, black or dark jeans or cargo pants of the same color. All of that with out taking in consideration our footwear, not exactly mountain wear but way better than bear footed like most griffins.
I guess the texture of our clothing was real alien to them, or that we just prove them that we could afford more than 1 piece of clothing, I also guess that luxury is only reserved to the higher classes in this world.

We forgot that comfort was a real luxury that most people couldn’t afford, I felt a little sad until one griffin got close to me and asked about my shirt, I was wearing one of those printed Lord of the Rings shirt, you know the one with the White Tree and the crown (old design but I bought it brand new because I like it better than wearing pajamas at home), I tried to explain to him the meaning behind it, but the moment I started to introduce the whole world of Tolkien, I realized that I had a whole audience looking at me asking all sort of questions, Who’s Isildur? What happened to the Ring? Did your kings really fell into darkness? and on and on. Never got the chance to tell them it was just a story. But to them seeing a bunch of human telling the history on how humanity fought against dark forces of destruction and win to tell the tale seems to only push them to ask for more, that’s when we all got into telling them about other epic tales of our world, knowing that another race was going to help them face the dangers that threaten their kingdom and that their exaggerated idea that we came from the very same world that braved even darkness itself, put them in a good mood.
I didn’t want to break their hearts telling them that it was fiction but morale was high and we needed that. That's when we changed the subject and asked them for stories of their heroes, and boy let me tell you how they almost were familiar references to the classic tales back home.

One of the most curious female knights kept asking me questions from the moment we left the armory to the open road, her name was Leonie Brunhilde, a younger noble girl from a small noble household that was famous not because of the riches or power but for their ancestry, one of the few older houses of nobility that has been with king Grover ever since he united the kingdom all those years ago.
The king regent carried his named like so many others like a title, his real name was Ferdinand Alexios Grover the Third.

He was related by a few branches of the royal tree, technically making him a proper descendant to the throne, but with out the chalice that First Grover used to united the kingdom, an important relic that was lost because some sort of goat monster stole it and then fell into his death in an abyss, because of that the chances of uniting a kingdom again were few. Many nobles were pushing their own agenda and only when the kingdom needed to appear united is when they acted as one, in present days as a way to keep the country united and to not sully the name of their founder Griffnstone remained as one kingdom, at least from the outside.

Leonie was giving a great explanation of their national history so far , until she came to the part that the reason they lost their fancy important magical cup, is because a couple of equines decided to try to retrieve the relic from the abyss.
When I pried for more information she explained about the races of ponies, yeah ponies, tiny little fluffy color pasted equines creatures that have magic and can control the weather, day and night.

I didn’t believe anything about it, even though magic could be a reason why we were there or at least it was one reasonable explanation, control weather? move the sun? I kinda remembered that even nobles in the dark ages were a little bit ignorant and not all of them got a proper education like the modern person.
Still the fact that is a whole kingdom of talking horses gave me a flashback to that weird dream, I was going to ask her about the monarchy of Equestria, when all of the sudden we heard screaming.

Further down the road a small pack of griffins were low flying as fast as their wings could carry them, we broke into a formation, spears and pole arms at front and archer behind. While the rest of the small army just positioned themselves at the sides in order to avoid an attack from the flanks,
We, humans, were in the small space between the spears and archers, while the knights formed a spear head and flew high in the direction of the coming griffins.

Leonie flew straight up to get a a proper view and yelled, “!!!Dogs, twenty and a bull!!!” and ”!!they’ve got nets and have taken prisoners!!”. we couldn’t see much, I didn’t understand why dogs were THAT dangerous and a Bull? and actual bull?, when the enemy force got closer to us we understood what those words now had a different meaning, the “dogs” were more like werewolves and the big mass of muscle was a fucking Minotaur, a bipedal monstrosity wielding a battleaxe the size of a round dinner table.

In total we were just a small army, the majority of our force was in the city far behind us and we were just a scouting party no more than at least 50. It was going to be our first engagement in our lives perhaps the most important one. only 6 knights, 14 humans and the rest were 10 archers from the guard and 20 from the militia, according to the old Iron Beak leaving most of our forces behind a wall while we scouted the roads was the best solution until the reinforcements arrive.

The knights flew like a deadly ballet, sweeping down from the sky, while shooting their crossbows as soon as they got closer to the enemy, doing all kinds of hit and runs trying to get as close to the captured civilians while dodging nets and arrows.
The rest of us were stuck, unmoving not because we couldn’t but because we didn’t know if those 20 “dogs” were the only ones, nerve glances between the front of the militia and the flank began to spread among the lines.
Leonie was the acting officer and she had no idea on what to do, we couldn’t move otherwise we could put the civilians in danger or it could all be a trap and we could be walking straight into an ambush.
That’s when Otto decided to volunteer along with others of our group to use the small mounds and little hills on the sides of the road to provide some sort of support.
Leonie agreed only if we didn’t got discovered since she was going to order a slow advance in order to avoid the casualties, Otto responded with a !JA! and gave us a determined look.

Now i’m not a coward, I believe that courage isn’t the lack of fear but the force of action despise that fear, I was willing to fight along with the Griffins but I wasn’t going to die for them, Otto sent me and Elsa towards the highest mound on the left side of the road and told us to start picking our targets with our bolt actions, meanwhile the 4 Slavs covered our back in case we got ourselves surrounded, the rest of the group move to the other side doing the same thing. I layed down my sights and picked my target, Leonie sounded a horn and began shouting orders to his troops to move forward. Many of those weredogs sprung out of the ground on the foot of the hill in which we were hiding and began their attack as soon as the militia began marching forward between the small hills.

There is no sound more Horrifying that the sound of a 30-06 hitting your helmet, don’t believe me ? go ask the German SS or any german troop in World War 2, I picked a target, aimed down my sights on the closest bastard , breathed in and out and pulled the trigger, the trap that the enemy had saved for us, was dropped.
Seeing their comrade in arms head being obliterated and his helmet flying around broken, put all of the dogs attention on us.
Many of those were-dogs were expecting just a bunch of small army militia and they’ve found themselves fighting royal knight and the sound of thunder and fire coming from the weapons of strange creatures.

They played a gamble and lost, seeing that in front of us there were nothing but full line of targets, all of us humans made a firing line and shot the newly found enemy on the lower ground in order to avoid an attack on the flanks of our approaching allies.

The differential gun fire coming from us allowed the knight to sweep down and picked the hostages from danger, it didn’t help the enemy that they put them on a single place in the open surrounded by only a few dogs, with little time to get their bounty moving before alerting the city guard.
Even if we didn’t kill them with a single shot ,it was the sound of our bullets hitting their armor or they falling to the ground badly wounded or dead that became the signal for our valorous knight to focus on tearing the nets, freeing the captives and carry them out of the battlefield.

The militia saw how fast we shot, picked another target and shot again, as soon as their morale hit the roof they let out a deafening roar that obscured the sound of our guns, that combined with a full blasting of the horn signaling a full charge against their enemy.

The battle was brutal and it ended faster than I thought, bodies were everywhere luckily our little army only got a few scratches and wounded but no dead on our side. The knight and all of the griffins were congratulating us for our support and for helping save the lives of their brothers and sisters.
Whatever negative though they had on us dissapeared the moment we decided to act, we stood there for a couple of hours cleaning out our mess, making a recount of our ammunition. One thing did escaped my mind and it was the fact that there wasn’t a Minotaur among the dead, and we are talking about a wall of muscles with horns, you don’t dissapear just like that from a battle without looking like a coward or anyone noticing you.
Maybe it’s the reason why they were so easily defeated, no commander and it’s everyone for itself.

Anyway, Leonie sent a messenger along with the refugees back to Erden to explain what happened, according to the captives the so called Diamond Dogs were fairly docile, kept to themselves and looked nothing compared to the werewolves we just slaughtered. They said that they usually were smaller, not so bright on the head and depending on who’s the Alpha, capable of reaching an understanding between other races, hell they even barter with them from time to time.

They said that the Minotaur that lead them showed up with other mutated monster at his command along with them dogs turned into what are they now and began hunting them, not killing but looking for more creatures to capture and carry them who know where. And how did they know they were diamond dogs? because one of the poor ugliest was still wearing a collar with his name on it, you could see it’s neck was bruised because it became bigger to the point in which the collar began to cut into the fur of the creature.

With grim determination on our heads we continued marching forward towards the town of Branwick, hoping to find survivors or more living captives.

AAAnd I’m ending it here, got a few more grim chapters to tell you people in the audience and how was my experience through this ordeal, all of sudden forgot to ask you how I should refer to you MS.Journal, MR.Journal?
Does switching in between makes you a transgender? I don’t know, I’m going to keep referring to you reader as my AWdience, and hope to keep down the references of our world.

See you soon.

Michael Keener.

Chapter 4 "New Dawn"

The light of the Moon began to fade away and for the lonesome figure in the tower it was a sign to get up and fulfill her duties once more, fighting to get out of her soft and warm prison she called her bed. Celestia walked to her window and began to rise the sun, if she had to suffer the coldest hour of the morning, the same punishment would happen to that big ball of flaming gas every creature on the world called the Sun.

She was named the First Light of the day, the Lightbringer, the sun raiser and so many other glorifying and yet dumb useless titles used by those who tried to woo her in the past, almost the same level of titles like her nocturnal sister, whom in the present has taken once again her royal duties, collected them like badges of honor all while trying not to laugh at the nobles who came up with them. While for most of her subjects she have shown an image of a caring mother or a wise ruler, her sister instead decided to help her little ponies in their dreams, guiding them through many trials in their subconscious realm and creating a new identity of a guardian that would come to protect them in their most desperate hour of need, eclipsing completely the shadow of that jealous demon that turn her into a nightmarish fairy tale and rob her of her closest living family for a millennia.

This duty was always her little sister responsibility, her pride and joy, because it allowed her to get close, in a certain way, to all her subjects and learn so much from them in a way that Celestia could only dream of. The irony of that last thought was not lost on her. But over the last years with many trials and triumphs carried out by the newly ascended Princess Twilight and her friends, Celestia has found another small but closer group of ponies in which she has become a newly welcomed addition. This little change added a new type of flavor into her everyday life, not that it was boring nor did she felt like a snob for wanting to keep things on a calmed and quiet way inside the Castle of Canterlot.

She began remembering the days in which she and her little sister were simple unicorns learning spells and defending their (rather small at that time) kingdom like so many others all those years ago, she could never let go the pain of the wars between the nobles houses, the distrust and xenophobia between the 3 tribes even though they were newly united, and the very large quantity of monsters that prowled through their country side destroying lives, families and every single piece of hope for a more harmonious future. It was a grim time in which those monster were a never ending tide, an unstoppable flood. She remembered that her father told her the story of Grogar ” The Father of Monsters” and the cursed land of Tambelon, in which the Demon experimented on animals and creatures alike, every single moment in order to create more horrifying and deadly creations to release them upon their lives. Until he was finally defeated, but the heroes of that time never managed to end him, and his name was thankfully a distant memory.

When news arrived that the newly rising star of Griffinstone, the young Prince Ferdinand finally decided that it was time to hop into the throne and put their house in order, she was more than happy to finally see that her Allies across the ocean were in the process of healing their country once and for all. Maybe this time if any of the two great kingdoms were in danger, they could arrive and assist each other in their hour of need.

The scar of the invasion of the Storm King left a sour taste in her mouth, the same way many other times when they got a close call with destiny fighting for their future. Besides the news of the return of king Grover, it also came the reports of many animals migrating into other lands in a desperate manner, trying to escape an unknown species of predators , it felt like a new threat was coming on the horizon and it came in a very familiar way like all those years ago, only this time it wasn’t her father reading them from a story book about the heroes of the dark ages.

It is one of the many reasons in which she decided to call for the assistance of Princess Twilight to investigate this strange phenomenon, even though she was now royalty, she never let her academic side or her appetite for knowledge fade away. Her strange quirks were perhaps many of the blessings she was born with and Celestia adored her for it. For two weeks there weren’t any advances or news of the horde, on the second day of the 3rd week of August, the tendrils of waves of monsters began appearing, not on Equestria though, but on the neighboring kingdoms, she felt sadness knowing the Ferdinand and others rulers were about to be a part of the same experience her little ponies felt when Grogar plagued the land, or at least she hoped that wasn’t the case and it was just the cruel part of the world just reminding them of the dangers of the unexplored lands.

It’s why the alicorns decided to make a quick meeting in order to discuss whether they provide any type of help for the Griffins in Griffinstone and the Hippogriffs in Mount Aris. But because of their busy scheduled and not wanting to raise any unnecessary alarms without knowing for certain that this event was or wasn’t a manufactured crisis by a new warlord wanting to take over the world.

They set a time in which the 4 of them could meet in the dreamland and another one during the tea time in Canterlot just in case they received updates on the growing situation, technically there were not supposed to had any inconveniences but sadly they had found problems, Candace was awakened by a crying Flurry Heart while she was walking with Celestia along the corridor towards the dream of Twilight. Shame that it couldn’t be her dream, at least she could have cake in there, se continued Trotting knowing full well that the Princess of Love will be meeting them later in the day. So to no waste any more time, she decided to do the same as her sister and teleported in front of the door that belonged to Twilight’s dream.

Only to find out that a strange creature that was now holding the door as it tried to keep it closed, the poor thing was on the floor in a state of shock, trying to catch it’s breath. The first thing that caught her eyes was the clothing, even though her subjects wear almost the same type of modern clothes on certain places, this creature was wearing a full set covering almost all of his body, the texture and detail of the fabric were similar but different. The other thing she noticed was the emblem of a white tree with a crown and stars in a pattern that she felt an oddly resemblance to the tree of Harmony.

Never in her life Celestia believed in mere coincidences, a creature that appeared in the dream realm, specifically in front of the door to the dream of her former student and was wearing a symbol that carry a powerful meaning, a meaning almost the same as the very Tree that helped protect Equestria from all those threats and enemies through the years. The more she looked at him (because a few stolen glances on the physique told her that it was he) the more she wanted to learn from him, besides it’s not everyday that a new species is found or met regardless of the circumstances, she tried saying a few words hoping that it knew her language or at least make him let go of the door knob.

The creature opened his eyes and gave her a surprised look, taking this as a sign that he at least knew of her presence, she stood there presenting her wing in a low manner almost as a low subtle way of bowing to appear less threatening, while the creature began to rise up to his full height becoming a little bit higher than her horn. “so that’s what it’s feels like” she thought as she measured her self with him, she could at least reached his face if she decided to stand on her hind legs. At the same time she began to take in the sight in front of her , how in a strange manner his limbs and arms moved, the detail of the muscles on his arms and how the jeans adjusted tight to the muscles of his legs. That's when he began to explore her body with similarity, his small but very expressive eyes were mapping in awe her figure.
She almost felt a little hot on her cheeks when he decided to cast more than few glances on her flanks, she felt a little bit of pride knowing that despise her non existing romantic life, she still “got it”, but then he slowly began to walk away never giving his back on her, like walking away from a dangerous predator.

That’s when Celestia tried to communicate even further with him in order to avoid losing a chance of meeting him, when he didn’t responded at first, she tried to deliver the same message by using a spell that would allow him to proper understand a simple gesture of a greeting.
She thought she was doing a great job and was about to formally introduce herself, when all of the sudden, she felt some force on her face that made her open her eyes in the material world, she found herself in her bed, looking around her room and then to her side to the clock that marked the hour of 04:30 am.

Feeling dread of being woken up in an ungodly hour, she went back to sleep knowing full well that the princesses could meet later in the day and plan again. The last thing the royal alicorn’s mind decided to remember at 4:30 am was the fact that the two of them at different time during their first meeting of species, an important historical event some would say, they decided to try to look at very specific parts of their bodies, like a bunch of horny teenagers that played around during a class.

That’s when Celestia grabbed one of the biggest pillows and tried to suffocate her redded shameful face all the while discussing with her own thoughts and realizing that she may also had stolen a few glances in a certain sensible male region, knowing full well what Luna will never let that go when she finds out, and she always found a way to know.

Despise her little outburst, the discovery of a new race was on the horizon and maybe if her feelings were right, new allies that could help face the ever looming darkness. Her mind toyed with her for the last time before fading into slumber “He looked kinda cute” and The Lightbringer turned red and suffocated her face even further into her pillow.

Meanwhile on the other side of the world.

Hello Dear Readers,

It’s that time again to continue were we left off, ah yeah the aftermath of the battle.

The feeling of killing mutated creatures or anything in particular that has a form of sapience left a scar on us, well not exactly a scar, but a weird feeling none the less. In the military they condition you to act and somehow numb the feeling of taking a life, they teach you to follow orders in a chaotic situation and turn your fear into fuel that could drive you to face the enemy and follow your orders. Now I don’t have military experience, unlike my dad whom served during the Gulf War and some deployments in the East. He never wanted to show his kids the things he saw during his stay and the combat in which he lost most of his friends. My dad was a pacifist but he also believed that if you need to use violence or someone put your life in danger you should react violently in order to save yourself. It was one of the many reasons in which he taught his son and daughter the lessons on how to protect yourself.

Brutal in a way but understandably an effective method of teaching, like sergeant Payne only with less grenades. Besides learning the principles on how to shoot a gun or basic ways to disarm someone, were all somewhat normal ways he showed his love to us. Unlike some parents that fill their kids with pills and treatments because they become too rowdy in kindergarten. And to be a little honest being forced to do any type of sports during my life gave me the push to continue to improve my body in different ways. I do not have the body of Chris Evans, but the fact that I can feel strength in my muscles and know how to use them feels good.

His lessons helped me and guided me through life and even came handy in a couple of fights, some of them for example, when I had to trade bullets with a group of burglars trying to enter my house, didn’t kill any of them but at least some of them ended up being arrested in the hospital with critical injuries. Knowing that you are willing to take a life to defend yourself is a responsibility that you must be willing to take but on the other hand there is big difference than fighting a war and killing on purpose, and that exactly was what ate me inside.

Like I said in the other entry, those poor werewolves were in fact victims of an experiment, we didn’t know if their condition could be reversed with treatment, or if there was anything left of their individual personality to save.
No one on the group said anything on the way towards the town of Branwick, but I know that some of us if not all of us had similar thoughts on what we did. With every step the idea of being deported sounded more pleasing but it couldn’t wash away the guilt of our choices. It’s one of those feelings that you either accept, deal with it or let it eat you inside.

Who would have thought that a magical world had some serious darkness in it, I remembered a saying from our world “the brighter the light, the bigger the shadow” maybe it was because we just has been reminded that fantasy is real but it comes with it’s grim realistic side of it. That’s when all of the sudden, our Polish friend began to sing, it had a little tune that carried all the way through the ranks, the militia and guards tried to join in with smiles on their faces while the knights remained silent but approved with smirks, except Leonie and some younger knight who flew at our sides and from to time to time bobbing in their fly path as in trying to follow the rhythm with their wings.
Thankfully the sour mood turned a 180 degree and our groups began introducing our playlists to a new race, one of the Slavs pulled out a Bluetooth speaker from her bag and began searching for songs to play.

The reaction was instantaneous, to see a detachment of troops turning their heads full expecting a full orchestra or a band with instruments and seeing the humans showing off their technology to them, hearing and playing music that was so alien to what they were used to, it was hilarious. At least it made the trip more pleasing and helped pass the time. The captain allowed us to have our little moment for a few miles until we reached the road to the entrance to the forest, in which we had to cross in order to get quickly to Branwick.

As soon as we turned off the music, the silence of our march echoed through the trees, the distance to our objective wasn’t far but it was a dangerous path that took us into a natural labyrinth that could easily make you loose your way.
Marching in single line all griffins on the ground, keeping an eye out for danger , it made me nervous. As if all of the sudden something could just attack us with out warning while we continued marching on the path to the town.

Branwick was a big lumberjack town, many of the wood of the eastern province came from that spot...like a growing island in the thick forest of Edelweiss, the town had a small wooden palisade wall that protected the most important part of their industry, one big Sawmill that loomed above the wall, the rest were small houses that belonged to the workers. Outside of the protection of that wall were little houses in which were connected through a cobblestone path leading all the way inside the town. Many of them looked like they had been vandalized, broken windows, a hole in the wall here and there, some of them were partially burnt.

When we got close to main gate a griffin wearing a kettle helmet and armed with a heavy crossbow began shouting ”!!!they are here, the guards are here, open the gate!!!” and slowly the gate began to open, as fast as the two griffins in charge of guarding it could move it, we made our way inside were greeted with the sight of the town, there were 2 bars, the sawmill, a couple of small inns, a blacksmith forge, a weapon store and far in the back a small rounded corner were the small local market was.

The Captain introduced themselves and began giving orders and talking with the griffins in charge, they explained what happened on the road towards here that further reinforcements would arrive and that the strange creatures (talking about us) not only came to help but already helped saving the lives of their friends.

The citizens of Branwick gave us a weird but not hostile look, the fact that a knight said the we helped them and that we were here to help deal with what ever attacked them, soothed their fears. Many of the figures of the town came forth and introduced themselves to us, willing to give us a place to stay instead of sleeping within the tents of the militia or the barracks of the guards. The girls accepted the idea of being able to take a bath for the first time in this world, and to be honest, a hot bath and a soft place to sleep was something that I couldn’t reject at that moment.

Once we got ourselves cleaned, washed our clothes and made a quick check out of our gear. We came outside and tried to make ourselves useful in any way possible. In a remote location close to the market there were the tents of the few families that escaped the attacks, they explained with detail what happened to their family members and described the Diamond Dogs and some other creatures that were mutated but contained somewhat a glint of what they looked like.

Apparently the Minotaur was responsible of the attacks, he had some sort of crystal embedded on his battle axe and every time he swing that thing and yelled orders all of the monsters eyes glew in the dark with a strange color, before following what ever order he gave. Many of the griffins managed to escape but some of the few who tried to defend their homes were taken away, injured and screaming but not dead. Meanwhile Toledo went into the market to get some cheap robes we could use to cover ourselves, while Mary went to get some fisherman’s web in order to mix with the robes and make a home made gillie suit for everyone. We came to the conclusion that if our clothing made us stand out in our current enviroment, we will need to figure a way out to blend ourselves with it. Having stealth and the element of surprise can make a difference in a life or death situation, and after what we went through our first battle in which luck played on our part, we wanted to have the upper hand on the next one.

At first the knights didn’t understand what were we doing but seeing the final product changed their minds, we looked like a bunch of walking trees and bushes, a simple game of hide and seek to test them out with our friends was more than enough to prove that they worked just fine. Captain Silver was in charge of just defending the town, even if he like the idea of a search and rescue mission, he had to think of the safety not only on the present but future of the town. We told him that with only 2 volunteers we could scout the surroundings and if things got out of our control we were more than capable of defending ourselves, besides the sounds of our guns could be used as a signal to man the station and prepare the defenses.

Prag and the rest of the slavs were making their presence known and started to include themselves more with the rest of the group, we discussed the idea of going out of our way to make this search and rescue operation a reality, first we discussed whether we were all in or not, after what happened in the city, we didn’t want our choices to drag the rest of the people in the group or at least if someone didn’t want to follow the rest, he or she could just simply choose not to.

We knew that we put ourselves in this mess the moment we fired our guns into the D-dogs, even though there were enough reasons to do so, but the idea that a maniac was running around with a magical weapon and experimenting with animals and sentient creatures alike looked more like an opportunity the more we thought about it. The guy was here in this forest attacking the town every night.
Our debt with Captain Silver could be paid by just a single pull of a trigger, and to add the cherry on top, there were a few places were our guy could be hiding according to the locals. So all we had to do was to divide ourselves into groups search 3 different places at the same time, come back with the Intel and kill the fucker.

The when, the how and where we could put traps or use the terrain into our advantage were a lot. When we called a meeting with the knights, the guards and the militia, showing our strategy and how could we do it with out moving the defenders out of the safety of the wall. They loved it, some of the more experienced officers gave us hints and other called for locals to get accurate information of the places, after all “knowing is half of the battle, the other half is violence”.

What really surprised me was on how our leaders began to barter with Captain Silver, if we killed that Minotaur, took his magical weapon or whatever tool he used to control the monsters. we could figure out if we could reverse their condition, a kind paragon path but if this guy was just a pawn in the grand schemes of a bigger Tyrant, we could at least get to learn a way to...I don’t know... deal with his magic? or learn from it?

We weren’t expecting to become wizards or touch anything that looked like dark powers, still getting paid even more and in a short notice would be great, but first of all things we needed to prepare to find and save the poor unlucky souls that were taken away by that madman. And our little Team America was going to search and old keep that was left abandoned by the griffins all the way back in the days of unification of GriffonStone.

Phew I'm going to end it right here, but for many of you dear readers you'll probably dying were the hell am I? in the present. Well I'm still in Griffonstone, in a small province of the South enjoying the view of the Sea, apparently a local Lord just moved out and with my savings I made of my adventures, I bought a small Villa just out side of a City.
Not planning of retiring soon, but I feel the house is way to big for me alone. Talk to you soon Mr.Journal, Goodnight.
Michael Keener.

Chapter 5 "Anarchist cookbook"

My dearest audience,
Hello how’s your day been so far?, I’m going to keep telling where we left of, we got ourselves a half made plan in order to scout, find and kill the bloodthirsty warmonger that had been prowling the town of Branwick for days, all of this according to the town folk, one of the many reasons they didn’t fly out of danger was the fact that one, they are griffins, pride is part of their nature and when you are a flying predator half lion/half eagle running away is not an option. I mean think about it their claws are even more bigger and detailed than a bald eagle and even those birds have natural karambits as their claws.

The other and more important was the sawmill, even though it had been fixed and looked like a normal building, it was the oldest one in the town, even though it didn’t started as an industrial building. In the history of the town the ancient sawmill’s foundation was made out of old stones that were brought straight form the western mountains to build a second castle in the dangerous corners of the kingdom , as a promise from the old king Grover himself to expand the kingdom and proclaim the savage lands that expanded further beyond the eastern border. Strange Runes and Glyphs were carved here and there specially in the corner stones. With this said the building itself was a simbol that they didn't wanted to lose.

And as a last reason as an example, one that is a feeling that is quite familiar to every kind of people, this town was their home, they sweated, bled, cried and toiled for it for many years. And many of them weren’t going to give it up with out a fight, even as abominations attacked them over and over again. Besides a town closer to the Borderlands was a proof that Griffonstone’s heart was still beating on and on. Close to the border, a natural resource for wood and metal, it’s what any growing nation needs in order to progress.

Still it wasn’t enough to make me want to fight for this kingdom, to die in the process of saving lives is a noble cause but I’m not exactly hero material, I have no redeeming qualities or virtues like those heroes of old. I could sympathies with their pain and suffering, and even praise their valor but I was scared out of my mind of the whole situation.

Who in the right mind goes into the darkwoods to fight mutated creatures?, you don’t see humans going to the wild searching for wendigos with a shotgun, right?, specially when all we had to do is just wait for reinforcements and let the army deal with this mess. I mean we weren’t army or had any military background, I felt that we were playing a dangerous game and taken it like a quest from an old RPG. Hardly ever in every armed conflict, you don’t simply end the fight just because you kill the Big Bad Guy.

Yet here we were, planning on how to face this situation and do the unthinkable, a search and rescue a form of an attack in a tactical view of some sort, it was the unexpected option that any enemy wouldn’t be ready for it, “when the enemy is standing still, force him to move”, it felt like poking a hornets nest. Worst case scenario not only we all die, but we force the enemy to make a full assault on the wall, even if with the arrival of newly troops, the town was in peril.

We would need the rest of the stationed troops in Erden to even make a difference. All of this taking in consideration that every single night that Minotaur turned normal animals into monsters, a long with his hostages in which who knows what he was doing with them. So He kept making his army bigger by the moment while we stood with practically our numbers. Humans don’t have magic, for as far that I know, but our firearms did put a serious advantage against his monsters.

Like I told you before the divisions of the squads was like this, Team America would take Prag and Wojtek and the Eurobros the other 2 slavs and we will scout the biggest of locations in which many Griffins believed this “Mad Scientist” was keeping the hostages. So we divided the locations in which a guy like him would make his lair, one was an old abandoned fortress of the firsts days of Griffonstone, even older than their golden age. It did made sense, a fortress, castle or medieval fortification that had stone walls, towers, etc, no matter how decayed it’s still a perfect place for a hideout or base for any one.

The other one was a mine, the typical mine that looks creepy straight out of a Horror film, with it’s own network of tunnels made by the previous clan of dogs who took residence there, if our guy started experimenting with the Diamond Dogs first, that means that he has his own slave labor force to expand and get resources for himself, an access to a source of metal is a good way to make it to the top. Besides if you were to be attacked the only thing you’ll have to do is to dig your way out or collapse the tunnels to cover your retreat and start all over again.

The reason the slavs group were divided was because we liked the idea of having messengers or more like people who could draw a signal, remember what I told you about the contents in their bags? the other 3 people were robbers, yeah you heard me, criminals, their preferred method of breaking in was simple, pick a building, break in, steal what you can get your hands on it and then set something on fire 2 block down below while you ran in the other direction not precisely in this order.. Normally this guys weren’t your typical wanna be gangsters, they only went for big bureaucratic government buildings, since they could get a couple of CPU’s and printers that were worth somethings, a little anarchy against “The Man”.

And many of those buildings had installed a basic form of alarm, corruption in places of power is normal in many countries and they like to buy the cheapest of materials and keep the rest of the budget for themselves. Their way of doing things most of the time twas to set up a “bomb” with the fireworks that scared the night watchmen and call the fire brigade, the alarm would go off everybody would leave the building and with masks and some tools, they get in and out in seconds.

Still didn’t explained their guns, who looked like they stole it from their parents or uncles. a sawed-off 12 gauge pump action shotgun and a couple of makarovs that has seen better days. I guess these guys were messing around when they got pulled into this world and this was a new chance to start again.

If you live in poverty or are in a bad place and the chance to make real actual gold came to you, many would just jump to the occasion. The rest of us just wanted to go home, but for the others this was a new beginning, and carrying a gun in medieval times is like carrying a bazooka and use it against cavemen. but even that could go wrong on so many ways. But I think that our little trio of troublemakers wanted to see how far we could go and when the chances of getting a job straight out of a noble knight that came with gold and reputation, was more than enough to accept the second chance. “When life gives you lemons”,. Right?

They said that they used to crawl through the underbelly of derelict buildings all the time, their main experience was to get in through the sewer system, many main buildings in Ukraine, Lithuania, Poland and every other that belonged to the other side of the Iron Curtain had a network of tunnels connections that could get you inside almost everywhere in the city. The fear of nuclear annihilation made the soviets built in a couple of cities a networks of old bunkers and communication centers, even though they were left to rot or were transformed in something else. Some parts of that Network still existed.

Prag’s little sister Ludmilla or Milla for short, was the best tunneler of the 3, she had some experience in making improvised explosives with little resources, even though her criminal background was “tainted’ to say the least, she had a knack for chemistry. with little powder from some bullets and some ingredients from an apothecary in the town she began to make pipe bombs, or the closest thing to a pipe bomb as it could be. Not exactly firecrackers but it’ll have to do. And her body frame was small and she helped the other 2 to get inside in many places in their little “adventures”.

Aliana was the last of the group, at first she looked like a dude, short hair, piercing in her mouth and the body of a Crossfitter, not unappealing but it confused everyone at first sight. She of course was the older of the group but her face , yelled “old anarchist” , the only thing missing was the crossed logo of the A on her bag or clothes. Typical late 20’s that still believes that her phase is not over....yet. Ask her about how her relationship with her father is and she’ll beat you up for sure.

So the girls went with the Eurobros and the guys with us, effective for both sides, only I hoped that the griffins don’t miss their mine if it suddenly explodes because Milla made the fuse of her “inventions” a little bit shorter than expected. We left the town and went deep into the woods, marking trees with X’s in case we had to make a full retreat and find our way back.

The forest wasn’t that bad, maybe it was the whole experience so far into this world that made me kinda want to forget everything and go back to that youtuber making rantings of the last Ace Combat game, after a couple of hours of walking and trekking, we found the keep...

The whole thing looked like it was going to fall apart by it’s own weight, nature has done a number on it, we didn’t see any sentry or guards or any of the monsters outside. The Stone wall restricted our vision on what was inside but there was no noises or movements so far, we made camp just on the hill up top giving us a perfect look of he whole place.

The courtyard was empty but we could see big footprints of a big animal, perhaps as big or even bigger than an elephant just on the outside of the main gate like it was leaving the place, couldn’t make it out of what kind of animal though, we waited until the night fell, knowing full well that the other group had a window of 1 more day to return to town with some Intel on their objective. Otherwise they had to light up the explosives and shut down the mine entrance, buying everyone some time until the army arrive. But if the mine was the place were the hostages were being locked up, then we condemn those poor souls into a horrible fate and everything we did was going to lead into a last stand in Branwick. If we were going to fight anyway, I would like to do it with the survivors we picked up if there were any of them left.

That’s when we saw a light on the tower, far in the corner adjacent to a cliff and hugging what was left of the Western wall, a big silhouette moving form one side to the other, and then a flash of dark purple light appeared. That’s when the illusion surrounding the keep “glitched”and we could see some of the griffins in cages protected by a couple of those were-dogs and some sort of lizardmen. They looked like the ones from Total War War hammer, only smaller and with a dumb look on their faces, then the “glitch” stopped and everything returned to normal and empty. Austin told Prag to go back to the town and tell the Captain of the news, if the captain approved we could try to save the griffins on our own or we could wait for his help.

If Prag made a run for it, it would take him 40’ to get to the town unless they were being attacked. so in order to figure out how to respond, Prag would sent a signal lighting up a colorful rocket, that would tell us that operation “Chicken Little” was a go go, if it was a single firework it will said that we found the hostages and will wait until morning.

One way or the other the town would be attacked immediately the moment we returned and we will have to be a part of the defense. If those prints in the mud going farther away, the worst was yet to come.

Waiting in the cold of the night sucked, not being able to light a fire, warming ourselves with our damp gillie capes and eating bits and pieces of cold food made all of us miserable, Austin and Lucy had some experience with hunting and you could see how the patience held up so far. After an hour Prag returned, he said that the town was being attacked in small numbers by smaller critters, barely anything worth getting the attention of the guards, but he managed to climb in and out of the wall without drawing attention in order to deliver the news.

According to him, the moment he said we found the rest of the hostages alive, the Captain and the rest of the town folk went ecstatic, many wanting to rush into the dark to get their families and friends to safety. But when Prag told the about the cages and especially the lizardmen, they just went silent. They asked him about the banners, if there were some, what uniform or color, or if they wore some sort of distinct armor.

There was no time for details and Prag did the best thing he could and told them that we could go in and try to save their families as well as to kill the bastard, one stone two birds or just get the griffins to safety. He left the fireworks and came back to us unseen.
We heard the signal and with Mary on top of a tree gave us the OK to proceed with the mission. Locking and loading our guns we made our move.

Captain Heinrich Silver Feather.

The evasive human was gone, the one they called “Prag” explained the situation of the keep and left with out a trace above the wall. The fireworks remained in the claw of Captain Silver , one would just go into the sky and simply explode, the other one would make a small light show, He told the rest of the officers the result of choosing one or the other and their consequences, for us, for them, for everything that was on play.

The small group of distinguished officers looked around, seeing the faces of those they have sworn to protect and ponder on their choices, even the idea of not choosing either was still an option, but even if sacrificing their kin was a choice they didn’t have the heart to make it. With a determined look on their faces one of the officers of the guard lifted the Flag of Griffonstone among the banners and with the help of another they lit the medium sized colorful rocket, the projectile went upwards in a straight line and then exploded, hundreds of little sparks glowed the night sky with a different variety of colors like little suns piercing the darkness, the last thing Sergeant Francisco and Lieutenant Gribaldi from the 10th steel guard heard was the sound of war horns coming from down below where his brothers and sisters in arms blew as in supporting their choice, hoping that rescue goes well and the favor of their ancestors bring luck to the humans who were going to embark in a dangerous task.

Meanwhile on the other group

Milla was never a top grade student, not because of her grades but because of her backgrounds, the assimilation with her older brother, just another college dropout whom had a reputation of going against the authorities like so many others of his age, put a taint in her family name like carrying a curse that it was nearly impossible to get rid of, the lost generation they were called, a generational gap in the society of the former soviet satellite they called a country.

Unless you had connections or if the people who were up top would spare a couple of grams of attention at what supposed to be the future of their country, you were out of luck of succeeding in life. It was no surprise for anyone that if you didn’t play their little game by their pathetic egomaniac set of rules, then you were cast off or “invited” to leave, and why would any of them spare you? after all there were an incredible amount of others willing to fill the empty seat that you left behind.

Public education was brutal, but it also created a competition ground weaving out the weak or lazy from the rest, it was a way to prepare the students for the reality of the world specially if you were trying to be a doctor or any type of professional. It’s not about just being the best but to give the students a brutal, competitive ground to become the best.
Milla found herself studying to become a Chemical Engineer, even though she was still in first year of the basics courses of Chemistry 101, everything related to work and study in a fully equipped lab, filled her life with joy.

Her main problem was that even if his big brother was a criminal like many people said, he was the one bringing the bread to the table. Her parents died when she was little and her grandma was getting older by the years and could barely sustain herself. Even if the old soviet bloc was gone, “thanks the heavens for that”, the country could barely sustain the social programs that allowed the poorest of the country to rise up of their brutal situation.
It was like a pendulum either you are a slave of the state like her parents and grandparents, or you were a tool to be used and discarded by some corporation, the middle class was either gone or hiding somewhere else.

So when her Institution started to become more privatized because of lack of founding a new generous company needed of assistants stepped in, Milla didn’t like the idea that much at first, but as long as she could pay her courses with a part time job in the lab, she didn’t object. Besides that gave her experience and a look at her bright future.
Tragically even if she still could pay her tuition, everything else became more expensive. With war going on and the big Russian government just acting like the old starving soviet bear, a known shadow began to casts itself on the Orient of Europe. Life became more depressing and she ended up helping her brother with his nightly break ins.

Her brother whom was called in the group “Prag”, was a tall lanky pale man, even though he was as smart as her little sister despise of what he believed in, he was going to study to try to become a lawyer, but without money it was impossible to get that education. He still thought of the world in her sister and believed that his sacrifices would pay in the end, it tore his heart to see her sister trying to convince him to help him in his nightly activities in the city.

But when her sister decided to step in the robbing, her little input of disguising their break ins with a fire accident in big old government buildings, the fruit of their labor became bigger. It wasn’t just the computers that they stole but the information inside what had more value and gave a bigger reward.

Her experience with explosives were not that extended, she knew the chemicals and their mix, but she actually never made them with this amount of measure. She only made small disposable and untraceable enough to cause a fire or just a raise a fire alarm. When news began to run about her last gig, the stealing of PC’s that belong to certain political party containing a fair amount of delicate information, the authorities began to turn more violent towards the “undesirables” of the population, with his brother status as a known crook even among their kind They knew that it was a matter of time that they could either get caught or worse.

That's when Aliana,an older friend of Prag and the muscles of the trio, managed to get her ex-boyfriend stash of guns and the 3 moved out of the city towards a safe area, until all the situation calmed down. Instead they found themselves in another forest with other people with bigger guns aiming at them.

Making bombs is an art to be taken seriously,the mixing of any chemical doing it the wrong way or even a sigle mistake in the mixing, could bring horrible results. Milla used the used shells of the 12 gauge as a form of measure, but when the apothecary of the town of Branwick told her that she could use her set of Alchemist glasses, she was more than thankful. Milla talked with the elderly griffon while she worked in making the closest thing to pipe bombs.

Selina was the name of the Apothecary and she explained a little about the world the humans just “drop” off, she talked about the history of Griffonstone and the surrounding kingdoms, the moment she mentioned Equestria, Milla nearly drop a glass that contained a mix. A whole kingdom made out of color pastel ponies, with cutie marks and magic, in which was protected by the alicorn sisters for nearly a 1000 years. It felt like when her grandma told her stories of places of wonder and adventure, in her mind she could barely contain her little innocent childhood version squealing with joy at the idea of even getting there one day. The idea or studying magic or anything related to it was an opportunity she didn't want to let go. Maybe this was just a fresh start after all.

In the present, the sight of the caves to the mine filled her with dread, it’s one thing to crawl through a gap in a wall, another to make that gap in the wall and another to have the horrible chance of getting stuck in a tiny hole in the darkness of an abandoned mine.

But with Aliana on her side and the golden reward of Captain Silver echoing in her head was enough to make her focus on the task ahead. Just the idea of learning magic with cute little ponies in a kingdom far more kinder than the one they arrived was the motivation to keep moving forward with the mission.

According to the plan they were to explore the main tunnels of the mine and if they found the hostages rescue them, shut the tunnels with explosives, then run like hell all the way to Branwick and fight until reinforcements arrive.
All in all not the worst plan she heard, but with little time to think about a better one and with lives on the line they had to make do with what they got. 2 of the side tunnels lead nowhere, rusted picks and metal carts filled the sideways tunnels and the main tunnel, like a caricature theme park attraction, had a steeped angled drop just enough to walk the way down but enough to lose your balance if you weren’t being careful.

The darkness enveloped the whole way down for the exception of the barely lit torches that were in the walls to either side, that’s when the group began to set up the explosives, they went for the key structures and the ones that could fall even with the lightest of forces to bring down the weight of the mountain, being very careful Milla tied up the fuses to a large main one that dangled in the ceiling of the mine like a dangerous string web. Every thing was set up on the biggest boulder that formed their ceiling above a little platform that gave way to the stairs going down.

Otto began to hear voices down below, little moans of pain filled his ears, he called up the group with a whisper and told Aliana to stay with Milla while the rest of the group went down even further to investigate. Milla worked diligently while Aliana looked around the cave searching for anything in particular, when Milla said that all was set ready to blow, they heard a loud roaring inside the cave.
There were silence for a moment until gun shots began echoing inside the mine all accompanied with the screaming of the Europeans who were fighting for their lives. The shouting, screaming, and full auto fire of one of the guns continued sounding in the cave down below.
Then all of the sudden as soon as the group came to sight in the lowest of lights, Milla finally heard what they were screaming about “DRAGON!!!!” and big wall of fire went in a horizontal way from one side of cave to another, bringing light to the whole place. That’s when they found out the the main tunnel was the most recent addition to the mine, the marks of gigantic claws scrapping and leaving scars on the sides of the walls indicating that this dragon decided to nest here.

Otto, Nap and Toledo took a stance in the upper part of the platform with the mess of the strings of the explosives behind them a couple of meters away. They began firing down while Aliana helped a wounded Maquis to climb up. Elsa on the other hand screamed at Milla to light up the fuse in order to blow up the mine and trap the fire breather inside, Milla didn't wasted much time and did as told. The guys trying to play heroes decided to hold up until the dragon got a little closer to the explosives in hope to kill it with it.

Once the 3 ladies passed the firing line and moved to the entrance of the cave, they looked behind and saw a horrible image. The explosive’s fuse were damp and never managed to go all the way, the other one was that the Dragon was deformed in a horrible way and was chewing the body of Toledo, Nap screamed bloody murder and fired again and again panic filling his body. Otto on the other hand was telling them to run for their lives.
Then a second maw opened up from the throat of the mutated Drake and fire came out, burning the remainder of the males of the group alive and for the luck of the poor souls outside, setting up the charges of explosives on the wall. Ashes and rocks were the only thing standing inside the tunnel, but the full force of the mountain fell on the monstrosity that killed their companions. There was no sight of any type of corpses, only rocks pilling up the whole entrance of the mine.

There was no time for mourning their dead, they had to go back and tell The captain on what was coming towards them, if they were right neither the charges nor the collapse of the mine was enough to bring down the Dragon. And after they have seen, the Wall that protected Branwick won't be enough to hold on this new enemy.

To be continued.

Author's Note

Okay here's the new Chapter, I'm thinking on remaking the whole thing and fuse some of the chapters, but so far I like the length I'm leaving so far. But still want to write a lot more.

Chapter 6 "The Fort"

The Fort

The exiled Minotaur walked around in the study room mumbling and speaking in a low voice, his plan to take over the small mountain region of the great forest of Edelweiss has gone up in a direction that he didn’t intend but despise his little mistakes he could still continue with his work . When he first met his master in the forgotten lands that his clan called the Wastelands, he could have never believed the amount of magical knowledge he had been shown when this newly met “warlock” appeared , promising not only return to his clan as a new powerful warrior but to reclaim it and lead it towards the known civilized kingdoms to ravage them of their wealth and power.

His race was once a proud and emblematic as the rest of the species that roamed the world. Their land, their kingdom and their culture was on par with the rest of the world during their golden age a couple thousands years ago. But when interests and corruption between other nations began to slither in the minds of their leaders, a civil war erupted leaving nothing but scattered clans all around on what they used to call the kingdom of Minos.

That war and many other calamities that ravaged their lands through the ages was more than enough to reduce their population to nearly nothingness, leaving only a handful of separated clans and groups scattered in the far corners of their ruined kingdom. They either lived and prospered in the tranquility of their nomadic ways or lived in the tumultuous life of the few coastal cities that survived the End of their country.
In the tribes only a handful of individuals managed to get out of their ignorant and tribalism way of life. To go against the will of the elders and the chiefs is like to be against your identity. your place was determined in how the clan can benefit from you, whether you are a warrior or a shaman or anything else that could bring honor or to safeguard the future of your clan. The leaders of the clans were afraid that if the members of their kind were to have the same amount of pride and greed as those in the past, they could bring ruin back to their homes and restart the same vicious cycle that brought misery and death thousands of years ago. So it was normal that as the old saying goes ” the nail that stands out, must be hammered”.

Still there were a couple of individuals that tried to better their quality of life by questioning their will, every now and then a single young and naive child will began pestering and try to improve in some way their repetitive tasks and chores during their life. With time those thoughts could easily fade away and the growing child would assume a new interest or purpose, but there were examples in which one of their kind couldn’t just keep thing the way there were and either abandon their clan to seek fortune and glory outside, or simply be cast out and marked as an exiled. In most cases those who were exiled took the work of common mercenaries or venture into dangerous places and never return, their fates were unknown.

Such was the fate of Adrix, once the son of a proud warrior in his clan, now just another name to added to those who decided to change their fate, he tried to explore the ancient ruins of a temple close to their home, defiling their ancestral tombs and finding different tomes in which could grant him the ability to become a conduit of magic and unleash his rage towards the other clans in other to finally fulfill his dream of rebuilding Minos once again. It was like a prophesied weapon delivered to him in order to protect his home from from the dangers that apparently were getting closer and closer to his family. For this sin alone the shamans and the chiefs chastised him and gave him the option of either surrender this rebellious path or become an exiled and seek his vision somewhere else, his choice was easier than he ever imagined the freedom of knowledge or the slavery bliss of ignorance? he felt a smile forming on his face the moment he began wandering out of his country, some how he knew he would find a way to bring back Minos from the ashes and show those old cows the true way of the Minotaur.

On his journey he met with a wanderer who was heading the same way, their path crossed and the moment they shared their tales, they began to form a bond of student and teacher. His new master was in all words a ram, a simple goat, at least that’s what his appearance looked like when he met him.
Grogar “The Father of Monsters” was nothing but a 4 legged weak little creature that couldn’t even look menacing even if he tried to, his magic has been lost, the great creator of the most vile, violent and deadly creatures known in the world was now a beggar. His defeat at the hooves of the ponies brought a rage deep inside him, and when he met the exiled Minotaur Adrix following the shameful path towards forgetfulness, he was met with a chance for revenge.

The Ram taught the Minotaur the basics on how to channel magic, and the student in return showed his knowledge of locations were they could obtain powerful artifacts and magical objects. With magic slowly returning to Grogar, his image began to return as he was remembered, a big blue coated ram with sharped teeth and fang, and his signature red eyes glowing with pure unadulterated hatred.

Adrix swore himself to him the moment the ram gave him a powerful axe from the defiled grave of a great general of his people, what was once a weapon created to protect Minos was turned into a weapon to destroy and corrupt all those who stood against them. They began traveling West towards the ancient lair in which Grogar first began experimenting, lacking of tools and test subjects and ingredients but it will have to do for the time being. While the 2 of them began making preparations to bring down the most powerful nations of the world to their knees. Grogar knew he will need time and allies in order to bring calamity to Equestria and the species of ponies that wronged him in the past, but he would have to wait, for the time being he needed a plan, so he would make use of his new apprentice to acquire what he needed. Adrix was a perfect example to begin with, he was sent to sow chaos and confusion in Griffonstone, but more importantly to get slaves and subjects to experiment. The magic of the world was wild and dangerous to both attain and control, specially if you are trying to mix dangerous species, even the sentient ones.

For a couple of weeks Adrix did as he was tasked, the griffins never cared much for nature or the prey and predators that roamed the forest, when he finally met the diamond dogs he was thankful for fate has finally rewarded him with a chance to try out the new magic his master has bestowed upon him. Even better when his diamond dogs were making tunnels towards the top of the mountain he found a sleeping dragon, the drake wasn't fully adult but was big enough to be of use to them, the poor legendary lord of the flame was still asleep when the magic began to corrupt his flesh. The dragon screamed for one and last time and with the magical help of Grogar he was now another fallen victim.

With a great number of creatures and monsters to his command and the will of his master, Adrix began kidnapping the workers of a small town deep in the forest. Unbeknown to him one of the griffins escaped and sent news of his presence towards the town and the border city of Erden, expecting the worst he prepared himself for a full attack, but that never came, instead the town Branwick was almost left to suffer alone his little reign of terror. A couple of days he would find out that the descendant Prince would be coronated in the Capital and all the attention would be put on the safety of their new monarch, leaving enough time to send part of his captured animals along with the griffins he had been collecting to his master.

Everything was according to plan, until one day while he was trying to cut off the couriers from the town from delivering further news of his actions, he was met with the reinforcements on the open road....He expected only griffins but they were accompanied by strange creatures armed with weapons that could bring down even his most stronger of warriors with a speed and accuracy that he couldn’t dream in his entire life, he saw how this hairless and hornless minotaurs began firing their weapons in a rhythm that was almost entrancing in a way but with devastating results, one by one the numbers of his army was cut down to the last. He wasn’t a coward but he was way to important to waste his life in a single engagement, if the griffins had an ace under their sleeve then he will have to use all of his cards in order to conquer something as simple as a forest.

By the time the reinforcements arrived at Branwick, Adrix was preparing to transport his hostages towards the lair of Grogar but when he told his master of the creatures, Grogar told him to leave the griffins and prepare for a full assault. The ram wasn’t an idiot but he new that his student has already over stayed his presence in the country and the chances of returning with the full loot was a window that was closing the more time he wasted. So he gave his student 2 choices to either attack and leave no survivors on the town or pack it all up and leave, knowing full well that the griffins would come looking for their relatives, that’s when Adrix decided to go out and test out his new pets on his enemies.

Michael Keener heard the first explosion, signaling the beginning of the operation but they never expected a more powerful explosion a couple of minutes later, as soon as they began getting closer to the fort. They heard the Minotaur yell orders from the balcony of the tower and soon the were-dogs as well as some of the lizardmen began running towards the direction of the mine. The Slavs knew something went wrong and decided to retreat back to Branwick.
Separating the group was a smart move the Slavs Wojtek and Prag would retreat back to the town and leave an opening for them when they return. Hoping that the other group remembered the plan. the Slavs fell back, leaving the Americans to take their chances.

The Fort wasn’t empty but the security that was left wasn’t nearly enough to cover all of the wall and battlements, the Fort itself wasn’t completely empty but it didn’t show that much of troops to begin with, when the humans sneaked close to the cages, they whispered to captives and shown them the badge of Captain Silver, telling them that the “cavalry” just arrived. That's when Calli was trying to break open the lock of the cage with a knife, when all of the sudden a Lizardman pointed his spear at her, it was a bout to yell the alarm when claws from the cages grabbed the lizard from the limbs and head. While It tried to pry itself free a couple of claws went directly to his throat and squeezed then other 2 went in for the kill, the gurgle of gushing blood coming out of it’s mouth and throat was the only noise it made, while the rest of the guards simply didn’t take no mind, almost as if they were statues just looking outside deep into the forest.

Thankfully one of the griffins told her that the keys were hanging inside one of the makeshift watch tower, moving fast and with the rest of the group covering the area around the cages, soon one by one the captives got out, Austin told the griffins to not go to Branwick but to go directly to Erden, it was a longer flight but a safer one and if they managed to reach the city they could alert Iron Beak of the situation in the forest. So with the badge given by the humans and using the dark of the night the griffins left. The team gathered in the shadow of the tower were the one creature responsible for all the grievances in the forest lay with a false sense of security, the humans discussed whether to risk it all and kill the Minotaur or fall back and join in the defense of the town.

With a confidence that irradiated out of their bodies the human group began slowly to go up the set of stairs towards the upper floor of the tower, the creaking of the wooden door making a soft echo in the building as they went inside one by one, Lucy was the one faster on her feet and the lighter one of the group, she was the first to reach out and slowly peer out of the heavy wooden door that lead directly to the great room of the tower..
The Minotaur was standing in waiting in front of a huge mirror that had a strange glow around it, it appeared that he was speaking to another person, the group couldn’t make heads or tails on whom was on the other side. The whole situation felt like a DnD session to Lucy, a group of adventurers about to face the BBEG only to find out that he was just another piece of the grand puzzle, the cliche of the conversation that the creature was having, was word to word a typical back and forth between a curious minion and his dark master. Her scoffing and roll of her eyes would have been hilarious if it wasn’t for the fact that even if they kill him, they would have to face the rest of his army later.

“Just because you kill a bad guy doesn’t make his army dissapear”, she thought as the Minotaur spun around and smiled back to his hidden audience. showing his battle axe. “Come my friends there is no need for more violence, I’m sure we can reach an accord” he said the blade of the axe pointing down while the strange crystal pommel just pointed up, the Minotaur tried to look as diplomatic as he could but in case the whole situation went down even further he would down fighting like a warrior of the old kingdom of Minos.

One by one the group of humans stepped out into his view, the 5 humans pointing their weapons towards the hulking Minotaur, what they didn’t expect was the image behind him in the mirror to laugh at them. The humans saw the blue coated head of a demonic Ram with crooked fangs just laughing, even weirder they didn’t expect that animal to talk. “It’s been a couple of millennia that I had the chance to meet new creatures roaming the world, specially young humans such as yourselves, to whom I own the pleasure to talk?”

No one said anything, for a couple of seconds the group stayed in complete silence, the humans just kept their guns aiming at both the Minotaur and the mirror, the look on their faces showing complete distrust at the two, just when one of the group was about to speak, Lucy took a shot at Adrix the bullet bounced on the axe and then Ram yelled, “Very well then if that’s how you want it, ADRIX KILL THEM, BRING ME THEIR CORPSES!!!” and with a flash of light coming out of the pommel of the battleaxe the Minotaur launched his first magical attack on Michael, the tall human was launched against the wall, his chest smoking like if a lightning just struck his body in full force but there wasn’t any damage Michael got up to his feet, the white tree emblem of his shirt unscathed, the rest of the group opened fire on the Minotaur, bullets flew fast hitting his bulking arms and legs but they were protected by the metal armor he was wearing, still the barrage was enough to force Adrix to seek cover behind a stone pillar in the room.

Just when Grogar was about to shout a new order Calli loaded a new round and shot the mirror shattering it into pieces, the rest of the group fired round after round, each time cutting holes into the pillar where Adrix was taking cover, then the Minotaur warrior charged the moment the humans were reloading their weapons. With his Axe powered up Adrix tried to struck Austin, the Texan after loading a few rounds into his lever action, he began to hip fire while he retreated trying to put a bigger distance from the horned hulk, each round making new holes in the armor, but that wasn’t enough to stop Adrix from slashing the chest of the Texan, Austin fell into the ground heavily injured and bleeding.

Grogar saw from the bigger fragments that remained scattered in the fight, before his vision went black, he saw that magic could barely affect the humans, as if their bodies were showing an immunity of some sort or maybe because they were new their bodies hadn’t adapted fully to their environment, the Ram began to theorize and the idea of having at least 1 of this creatures alive or under his control was enough to draw out his scientific imagination, if he could at least implement their innate ability on other more powerful monsters then Equestria would fall easily.

Humans were known to him, in the past the few tribes of humans that walked the land began hunting down his monsters one by one, no matter how big or deadly, the nature of their species always prevailed against many obstacles the world threw at them. It is perhaps mere luck that only a handful of humans managed to make contact with the ponies of Equestria, but their relationship was sour and distant from the beginning, leaving nothing but a few myth and legends about them.

Back to the fight Grogar was a witness of their capabilities.
Adrix was losing, he knew that he would die there on that tower, his skill as a warrior was no match to the technological advances of the world, in the past the Minotaur race prided themselves as the greatest warriors, even thought they still were in some aspects in the present, most of that prowess began to fade away the more other nations tested their new inventions. the appearance of the griffin crossbow and it’s variants, the ponies with their spells and magical power that grew with time were some of the examples in which a Minotaur mercenary couldn’t compete in the world at least on the bigger scene.

When the humans began firing their weapons at him, he thought he could have at least a chance to take at least one down with him, the wounds they made were too many and they spread almost on all of his body, his armor managed to bounce a few rounds on the small distance but the moment he got closer, he was ripped apart in almost all directions. with no other choice and feeling the strength of his body leaving, Adrix overcharged the crystal pommel on his axe and struck the floor beneath him hoping to bring down the whole tower and the humans with him. The moment of the explosion took the humans by surprise, they were pushed in different direction of the room. It was like a green explosion of energy and fire, there was nothing left of the Minotaur but an ashen silouette on the floor. Fragments of glass, wood and rock flew at incredible speed in all directions, some hurting the humans who were closer the warrior.

The base of the room began to crack, leaving fissures opening and fragmenting the whole structure, the humans barely got time to get to their feet when parts of the ground began to fall. It wasn’t a long fall but with injuries sustained on the short battle made and the tower collapsing was enough to put the fear of death into the minds of the group. Michael and Calli were the least injured and they rushed to help their friends, with enough luck they barely escaped the crumbling of the tower and began fighting their way out of the fort. Austin, Lucy and Mary took the worst of the fight, wounds covering almost all of their bodies but they were still conscious and capable of stand on their 2 feet.

With little help from their friends and by following the X trail they left behind, the group finally managed to fall back to the town, the first wave of attacks had been repelled and the griffins and other humans were already waiting for them. When the American team finally got to safety, they realized that the other group was short on numbers, while they were getting first aid and treatment. The other group explained the situation on the mine, a small army of mutated diamond dog and lizarmen was easy to resist but the addition of a Dragon changed the whole situation.

That’s when they heard the horns signalling another attack followed by a deafening roar just out side the Wall.

To be Continued

Author's Note

Okay, here's another chapter for the Friday.
Enjoy.

chapter 7 "Reign of fire"

Fire, it surrounded us.

The main gate and it’s surroundings became alight in a flash of a second, screams began to fill that night in Branwick, shouts and orders from the officers to the troops to prepare to defend the town, common folk moving buckets of water while many try to bring old pumps to try to save the only thing protecting them from the claws and maws of the monsters outside.

The humans, badly injured prepared themselves on what supposed to be the last stand, apparently the reinforcements wont arrive in time to save them, those thoughts and similar grim words echoed in the mind of our chosen heroes. “Heroes” Michael thought, many of them believed that with just their weapons and a little bit of luck they could just overpower everything the world threw at them and yet here they were about to face a real foe, at least they managed to rescue the captives and force the Minotaur to kill himself in the process or so they thought, but now a whole army of monsters, different creatures and what appeared to be a dragon were now at the gates. Their primary “advanced” weapons that caught the attention of many griffins were now nearly depleted of their ammunition.

Aliana, Elsa, Maquis and Milla were helping around moving buckets of water along with the rest of the griffins while a bandaged and injured Austin try to move up to the wall to shoot at the approaching invaders, with the help of Prag and Wojtek, the 3 males exchanged mortified looks seeing the enemy so close, they turned their heads back and shouted “The Gate!!, they are going for the GATE!!!” with hurry and fear gripping their hearts griffins began building a improvised barricade to hold the already damaged gate. a fire drake began pounding the burning gate with his claws each strike felt like the toll of a requiem bell signaling Death to all who remained on the other side.

That’s when a second wall of fire ignited the top of the wall, every griffin and humans jumped towards safety while the smoke turned itself into a wall of darkness and fire obscuring the horror behind it, the troops remained on the back of the burning wall expecting anything to come from behind it. All of the sudden sinkholes appeared behind the lines and mutated diamond dogs, lizarmen and other creatures sharing the similarities of normal animals began rushing forward the surprised defenders.

The town folk had nowhere to go, a few tried to escape by flying high but a stream of fire threatened to burn them out, with no other option part of the population joined the defenders of the town, clashing of weapons, claws, roars and blood filled the moment.
Michael didn’t know how to react, to him everything was pure chaos and death, all he thought at that moment was to simply find a place to cover, the sound of a shot replaced his train of thoughts, Milla began to shoot at the closest creatures giving the poor griffins a chance to disengage the fight or place a killing strike on the enemy, the rest of the girls in the group put their backs against the foundations of the sawmill, the strange runes glowing ever so slightly whenever one of the humans got a little bit close to them. Prag, Austin and Wojtek made a run for it and with little help from the civilians looking for shelter they placed all kinds of furniture as a cover , anything to just buy a couple of seconds in case they needed to reload.

The knights flew close to the ground swiping, impaling and shooting their crossbows at anything down their path, with their Captain leading the charging arrow formation the knights flew around providing support and much needed time to the rest of the troops to organize, the rest of the griffins guards took the formation of a phalanx stabbing with their spears and pole-arms, all while slowly moving forward towards the sinkhole forcing the creatures to fall back inside the darkness of their entrance. The already exhausted town guard was fighting for their lives many remained heavily injured on the ground, others doing their best to protect the civilians while they run for salvation inside the main buildings.

More tunnels appeared close to the main roads of the town, the combined forces of the griffins helped with the invaders, the torrent of monsters were dwindling, the smallest of sinkholes even thought they were far more numerous began to simply collapse one by one the mutated monsters falling one after the other made the griffin guards feel confident on their tactics and the hope of victory became a light glowing in the dark of the night. While on the bigger sinkholes diamond dogs and lizarmen crawled out with armor and forged weapons forcing the griffin defenders to change their tactics, their “new” enemy showed up to be far more challenging than the cannon fodder they have been fighting the whole time, the knights seeing this decided to join in the lines, the appearance of nets throwers and enemy pole-arms forced the griffins to fight the enemy on the ground.

The situation was becoming more desperate, two armies facing each other on the cobblestone streets of Branwick, small skirmishes raging all around the inner roads of the few blocks, random fighting and screams while 2 armies stare down each other waiting for one or other signal to charge forward.
Little by little the griffins move forward while the lizardmen did the same, their speed increasing, wings flapping rapidly and the sound of armored claws from both sides becoming louder and louder, at the few last moments both sides screamed at each other while preparing to strike.

The griffins took the initiative of the charge and flew low into the ranks of the enemy lines forcing the diamond dogs to the ground, the lizarmen were bigger, broader and moved far more experienced for the looks of it. The charge of the griffins was lethal for the first few seconds but now they were facing an enemy that could beat them at close quarters.
Michael saw with confusion “how is it that a whole species that can fly and has natural claws, can be defeated by just a bipedal enemy?”, sure the lizardfolk had a few advantages, more armor, better weapons and their physique was near the same as the humans, almost same height, and body complexion, only they were a little bit smaller and slim than the human counterparts, except for the bigger lizards that carried two-handed weapons, they looked just like Conan the barbarian only a scalier version.

The young knight Leonie shot her last two bolts into the body of the closest lizard berserk barely doing any damage, the deep growl of the beast sent a chill down her spine as he got closer, the sight of the heavy blade mortified the noble girl, hoping her training and agility was more than enough to dodge his attacks, Leonie prepared herself for the worst, only to hear a distinct sound above the chaos of the battle, she quickly turned around to see Michael the human loading another round, the focused look on his eyes moved above her choosing another target. Just when she turned back to the approaching berserk, she saw the tower of muscles and metal collapse in front of her, on the front of the head a small hole appeared and when the corpse lunged forward she saw a bigger exit showing the brutality and gore of the projectile.

The brutal response of the humans towards the enemy was as quick as was deadly, with more shots sounds escalating and more enemy falling leaving pockets of space between the attackers and defenders, that’s when an officer of the lizards pointed at the humans and suddenly a full charge of the enemy waved towards them.
The numbers of griffin were not enough and with the ongoing battle, their numbers began to dwindle, nobody could stop the wave of enemies, the addition of falling chairs, vases and others objects coming from the griffins that were hiding on the upper floors of their houses, began to fall in hopes to stop them.

The barricade barely did anything to protect the humans, Wojtek and Austin were impaled instantaneously by a full line of spears while the rest of the humans did their best to fight them off, with one or two militia that appeared out of different locations to join in the main battle that would determined who will be the victor of that night.
The group tried helping their companions, but it was too late, they were dead on the spot, Prag and Aliana took their weapons and bags and told the rest of the group to go inside the sawmill.
Mary and Lucy just stared at the two corpses of their companions, they closed their eyes and put their arms to their chest, it was the least they could do for the time being. Just the idea that a few hours they were alive and talking to them now they were gone, the fear of not getting out alive began to grip the hearts of the two specially when they counted their ammo while reloading their rifles, soon it will be all over.

Milla began to rummage through her bag to find anything that could be of use to blow the enemy apart, a couple of pipe bombs, some flares and a whole box of firecrackers was the only thing she had left, her brother gave her the guns from Texan while he took the saiga and revolver of the polish man.
Aliana move towards the corpses of the enemy and took a hatchet and a one handed sword, knowing full well that in the end there won’t be enough bullets for all.

The group moved to the upper floors of the sawmill, running from window to window, their interest changing the moment they saw the battle, the griffins were winning but they were out numbered and they still had to deal with drake that was pounding the burning gate. That with each strike the gate just broke little by little pieces of it falling inwards. The enemy didn’t need to defeat the griffins in combat, just stall them enough for the drake to finish them off.
The humans saw an opportunity to make a run for it, the enemy was focused on the main griffin army, the majority if not all the mutated monsters were either dead or scattered to who knows where and to the south the rest of the town looked pretty normal, completely untouched by the battle.

Prag tried to reason with his little sister, he tried to convince her to leave the town that the whole situation was hopeless, Milla didn’t want to leave the grffins to their fate, Aliana and the rest were looking side ways at the civilians knowing full well what would happen to them if they left them.
Prag was trying to prove his point until a random arrow from outside pierced his neck, Milla rushed to his brother trying desperately to stop the bleeding but there wasn’t anything she could do, for a few seconds of agony Prag tried to tell Milla to run then he just simply stared at the ceiling, the light of his eyes fading away. With grief and hatred Milla grabbed the shotgun and the rest of the pipe bombs and attacked the lizarmen army outside, the rest of the humans followed after her, shooting faster barely without aim, the sound of the bullets hitting the enemy in different places wasn’t what made the lizarfolk retreat but the sheer velocity of the rapid fire and the explosion that left a few holes in the middle of their formation was that broke the morale in their ranks.

The rifles of the humans roared in the battlefield, taking shots at the officers and bigger threats, their movement desperate but without flinching, shooting round after round and then switching to the weapons of their fallen comrades with a grim determination to eradicate the lizardfolk.
The griffins saw this as an opportunity to push forward and with a final effort the lizardmen army fell. On the last moment when the enemy ran from the battlefield, the gate fell, the dragon with part of his face blown up pushed forward, the stomps on the ground shaking the buildings nearby. Some griffins knights moved up to face the drake knowing that the army was already dealt with, they began to use their wing to fly around taking shots at the great lizard continuing with their aerial maneuvers.

Michael and the rest of the Americans couldn’t believe their eyes, a mutated dragon was now walking around the main street, it’s wings broken, part of it’s face falling apart and part of it’s tail missing, the gigantic lizard move with a purpose searching for something. On it’s back, a familiar figure rode it, holding a magical axe and barely holding to the mount, Adrix was still alive, injured but breathing none the less and was looking for revenge.
Even with griffins flying around both the drake and the Minotaur were looking after the humans, when they located them hiding in the sawmill, Adrix lead his titanic pet towards them ignoring the bolts and spears of the guards.

The humans ran deeper into the building trying to find an exit, Michael with weapons in hand and the rest of his ammo, jumped down hitting the wooden floor hard, Aliana, Elsa and Milla following his action while the rest of the girls simply took shots at the drake with a fain hope to kill it.
The civilians who were taking refuge in there were lead by Aliana out side through a side door, on the last moment the drake opened up his two mouths and with it's breath set fire the inside of the building, Calli, Mary and Lucy didn’t had time to scream while the torrent of fire burned the entire upper floor to ash in an instant, the rest of the humans moved outside hugging the stony wall of the building, when suddenly as soon as Elsa got close to one of the runes, the stone began to shine brightly the mark of the rune etching it self on the back of her hand, then with light flowing
through her eyes she spoke in a strange dialect "Den som bryter detta minnesmärke skall ständigt plågas av arghet. Svekfull död ska träffa honom".

She began shooting at the fire drake, the normal bullet were now like magical artillery shot hitting the monster time after time, sadly she only got 5 shots on her mosin but then she took out her bayonet and with a simple gesture of her hand the blade glowed with a golden aura. Michael and the rest stood there dumbfounded seeing this oversized tinkerbell with a rifle charging straight at the flaming dragon without fear.
Seconds later they saw Aliana mimicking the Swedish girl and touching a different rune, but it didn’t had the same effect, Michael tried to do the same as well as Milla but only the american had some sort of magical effect on him.
Michael felt a power surge as his blood was boiling inside without hurting him, as his actions were being lead by a strange force, pointing him in the same direction of the drake and with a glowing aura. The emblem of the white tree shining on his chest as he ran forward to the danger ahead. Michael ran along side Elsa shooting his rounds while trying to dodge the attacks. taking different directions both humans looked for a way to kill their target. Ancient Magic flowing out of their bodies into their weapons.

Shot after shot the projectiles found their mark obliterating the drake piece by piece, parts of decaying flesh hit the ground as the broken drake tried to cough up some flames to burn his enemies but to no avail, 5 shots hit their mark and then 5 more shots hit it again forcing the remnant dragon to fall, the head tried to take one last bite of it’s prey that was rushing towards him but before he could open his maw a blonde figure jumped over a turned cart and landed on the head piercing a long blade in his skull. a long drawl of pain was the last thing he felt before collapsing dead on the road. The blonde Swedish girl jumped of the head after she removed the bayonet from his skull and for a few seconds of clarity the dragon looked at his adversary and with a kind and sorrowful look on his eye the dragon silently thanked her. With this victory and the magic fadeing away, Michael and Elsa jumped, cheering and shouting for in the distance with the light of the morning sun, Iron Beak showed up with the rest of the army, the sound of warhorns and the roar of a thousand griffoon soldiers coming to their aid.

Adrix fell into the ground hiding in one of it’s broken wings, unable to keep control over his gigantic slave, the injuries sustained during his first engagement with the humans and his poorly teleportation using wild magic nearly brought the end to him. But now he has lost everything except for his chance to kill or restrain at least one human, he could at least bring one corpse to his master and the future he was promised would be his. He saw both humans jumping unaware of the dangers that was lurking around, it was perfect, he would only had to rush them and take both of them with him. The glow of his axe began to turn into a sickly color and as soon as the Minotaur was about to rush he felt something piercing his chest from the back, Captain Silver held his Sword in place and dug it deeper forcing the blade to protrude from the chest of Adrix. The student of Grogar and the Terror of Edelweiss was dead his little reign of terror was finally brought to an end.

The Griffin captain saw one pair of humans celebrating and other pair just lumped on the ground crying their loss, it was a Pyrrhic victory but a victory none the less. He hoped that at least the reward they were going to received was enough to thank them for their sacrifice, with out the help of the humans more lives would have been lost and he knew that both their technology and magic that they showed would be a great addition for the growing kingdom.
Embarrassed that his idea to try to buy the human affection so they can teach their secrets to the griffon make him felt like one of those nobles that lived in the capital. So for now he will keep all of this as a secret and will make sure that it all fall into a rumor, it's at least the kindest thing he could do for them.

The few day that passed were filled with grief and sorrow, both the humans and griffins had lost friends and families, they lighted up funeral pyres and said their goodbyes to their fallen. With the arrival of the rest of the reinforcements from Erden, life in the town of Branwick began to flow again, shops were repaired, stocks were filled and the sawmill once again was repaired and had a whole roof replaced. The humans were paid a handful of riches for their efforts and to their fallen companions, the group that accompanied the troops for the short duration left a great impression on the griffins both noble birth and commoners.

With a heavy heart and a heavier purse the humans moved inwards towards the capital of Griffonstone, the idea that Milla brought to the group was to go towards Equestria,after hearing about magic and the knownldge the equine had, if the ponies were friend with the Griffins they could at least try to cross the ocean in order to find a magical way back home, and after what Michael and Elsa felt that night they believed it was a good option as any.

All of the sudden on that exact moment Captain Silver and Iron Beak met them as soon as they were leaving, with an opened golden scroll on his claws, he told them that the new King Grover wanted to meet them and reward them for their acts, he said he wanted to meet the creatures that helped protect his subjects in their most dire of times. The girls were enthusiastic while Michael just simply cursed inside, a gentle “fuck” barely leaving his mouth.

Author's Note

I know it has it's errors I'll try to fix them before posting the chapter, and that I said that I was going for the format of a diary but I'm going to leave a couple of chapter like this to try something new. I'm really busy with work and barely got time to write and check everything. So I'm going to take a little more time the next time.
Hope you guys like it.

Chapter 9 "Greetings"

Chapter 9

The humans were greeted as the proper customs dictates when it comes to greet a veteran of a campaign or a renowned hero, after all when it came to help his subjects,the humans without a doubt in their hearts offered their support asking for nothing or barely nothing in return.

The so called trespass or “crimes” could be swept aside for the time being, the knights in all their wisdom expected them to turn and run or to fall like many other refugees into either bandits or beggars, and yet, here they went into the fire, literally in some way, to help a forgotten town in the border of his kingdom.
Losing most of their group in the conflict and still having the strength to push forward, that is a characteristic that most if not all griffins can respect. Their display of old griffin magic and their so called “immunity” to the attacks of that foul Minotaur brought great interest to the king.

Magic isn’t something that everygriffin can do, sure some are more adept to it thanks to the use of staffs and wands, but most of the knowledge of old magic was all but lost, still everyday new books and grimoires were restored thanks to the help of historians and guilds, so learning or rediscovering griffin magic and spells is still a slow and complicated process, and with the appearance of new educational ways of learning the arcane arts, griffin wizards regardless of experience or academic achievements, became a expensive luxury.
As the old saying goes, knowledge is power and many noble houses like to hoard that kind of power for themselves. When news came that this small group of humans were leaving the country, the king thought of a way to both gather them and reward them for their service and if with little luck, get them to work for him. That way he could protect them from foreign and domestic opportunists without looking like he was forcing out his way.

Ferdinand wanted to change the ways of governing the kingdom but from time to time he felt like he was falling little by little to the roads of tyranny, if it wasn’t for some of his friends in the guard making jokes with him when no griffin was looking or having a small talk in the privacy of his chambers he thinks he would have fallen a long time ago. He never liked the idea of forcing his way, but the traditionalist griffins were always fighting with the new generations of nobles, it was like the past and future weren’t allowing the present to exist. Still those conflicts forced him to choose either side whenever a debate or problem arose, and with the crown on his head,he felt that his image as a ruler of the kingdom was being questioned every time. The idea of bringing the humans wasn’t just to learn of their magic and protect them from others but to distract the court and the landsmeet representatives with a new opportunity, and maybe to bring them both to the problems that the kingdom was having on the present. Perhaps to have a new chance to give his race a new fresh and first impression to a new world was what they needed now.

When the humans arrived he could not believe their appearance, the reports his knights gave him days ago described them like tall, hairless monkeys, but now that he was seeing them face to face, the reports could not be far from the truth.
Sure they had some semblance to the primates but barely, in truth they looked more like a whole new species, their faces were more detailed and contained some fine features, the females were tall and standing straight with their backs, their faces thin with long hair and their eyes...oh their eyes, soft but fierce like he had seen on some other female griffins guards. Their bodies showed the developed muscles on their arms and their busts were...well they were Big, bigger than he expected drawing most of his view to them. With soft pinkish skin adorning their faces and thinner figures with some well detailed proportions on their bodies , they moved nothing like monkeys or looked nothing like the warriors that were described in the reports he received, maybe he expected the closest thing to a minotaur or some creature in between. The reports said they fought with the fierce foulness of a barbarian and here they looked more civilized like a noble from Canterlot or his court.

The male on the other side looked exactly like a male counterpart, more muscles, taller than all the females, and his so called “hands” were bigger and thicker than the others, Ferdinand could see that his shoulders were broader than the rest and his limbs were bigger, still he was surprised to see that even with his physicality, the male looked even more nervous than the rest of them in this situation. What was really the surprise was their clothing, resembling most of the modern fashionable look that he had seen on urban places in the world like Manehattan, but with strange materials, that and the fact that most of the clothes wore strange language and words unknown to him.

They all arrived with their belongings , but he could see their weapons on their backs like “spears” with a hole on their tips. “rifles” he thought the reports said something about their strange weapons that allowed them to gain a superior strength on their enemies, stronger than any crossbow and capable of shooting with an accuracy and speed that ignored even the forged steel armor of the enemy.

He guessed it was a good idea to be ready if the situation went south and having the Hussarian guards was his way to ensure safety to all griffins welcoming the party.
Still surrounded with knights and guards they showed no signs of threat or aggression, Ferdinand was still studying their faces when he saw one of the females who pulled out a little case with a small mirror and began to use the reflection of the sun to shine at the biggest Hussarian close to her, after seeing the newly famous Captain Silver stopping her from further shenanigans, with a small smile forming on his face Ferdinand knew he was going to liked them. So after the formal greetings, he decided to have a conversation with them without the nobility, to learn from their point of view their side of the story.

For little knowledge he could get the so called human were like a mix of both Griffin and Equestrian when it came to personalities, they talked open and friendly like the Equestrian he knew all of his life, but their eyes showed a little of that wild and dangerous look that most griffins who lived a rough life or those who were present serving on the military had.
Even with the Hussarian guard and the knights present the humans talked without fear and a little nervousness, that doesn’t mean they didn’t know how to properly address the king but for most of their speech the idea of an authoritative figure brought a little of rejection from them, apparently their history with politicians and Tyrants from their world showed them to not trust anyone with power, regardless how much they had. Still regardless of everything in this situation the humans payed a high price and the Griffins in whole were in debt to them. Ferdinand could see that one the humans female had a sorrowful look on her face, the pain of loss that the king was quite familiar with.

Surrounded with his closest of friends Ferdinand knew he could bring himself to be more open to the humans and began explaining their choices if they wanted to accept them, he explained the whole situation with his crowning and what appeared to be the first steps of a plot to unstable his rule on the land. he offered the humans a chance to stay and in return they will have a place to stay for the time being, he will accept them as nobility of the land and give them a small location for them to use for whatever purpose, and that further details will be discussed once they met with the rest of the officials later that day. That way the humans could get a proper leveling of their choices and don’t feel forced to make one that quickly, that honesty is what brought a sincere look on the faces of the humans, giving for the first time in their life a chance to put their trust in monarch.
The welcoming party event was as formal as it could be, later in the day the humans and the knights were allowed to clean themselves and look presentable for the night when more nobles and representatives of the neighboring kingdoms would come to meet them.

News of the conflict in the borders of the kingdom flew faster than expected with the Equestrian sisters and the Queen of the Hippogrifs showing concern about the threats that came from the East. The dragons being true to their nature were either isolated or didn’t care about the whole thing, but the rumors that said that of one of their kind was used as an experiment, THAT itself rose some attention on the south of their territory, but as long as no drake venture outside of their mountains the dragons were safe, the last thing Ferdinand wanted was to have a shouting match with the newly crowned Princess Ember or to draw a new conflict with the dragons.

Early in the night, the ambassadors were greeted one by one as they were being presented on the steps of the castle, on the balcony of their chambers the humans were looking out the small line of guests, the girls of the group were absolutely enjoying themselves gleefully pointing with their fingers at the carriages belonging to different dignitaries, when the ponies arrived and feathers and horn made and appearance the so called female “adults” began their high pitched song and dance reminiscing the Disney like classic tales and going further back to the age of 10.

On the other side of the room Michael Keener, who has been the voice of reason of the group, the responsible adult, the newly appointed leader when it came to deal with their situation, who was doing his best to remain calm during his conversation with a king of a country, was now having the closest thing of a nervous breakdown, it didn’t help that he buttoned wrong his attire for the night or that his new friends were singing like the muses of the movie of Hercules.

After learning the knowledge of the kingdoms of the known world thanks to Ferdinand, he realized that magic is far more complicated that he believed in the first place and that Alicorns are a real deal, more over one of them is capable of entering the dreams of her subjects, even more over the biggest ally of Griffonstone was Equestria, and to ado even further the damage he may or may not knocked out was supposed to be the kindest of rulers in the world, doesn’t matter if it happened in a dream. On Earth you can’t say you want to kill the president “On Minecraft” without having the federal agencies breathing down on your neck the moment you post that on the internet.

The fact that he remembered bits and pieces of that encounter and like puzzle pieces they all felt into place didn’t make his feeling on the whole situation any more easier , after the final thought went through his head, he remembered how he looked at her flank before he Myke Tyson’d her out of unconsciousness or out of dreamland whatever the expression you are looking for.

Even though no Alicorn was present at the moment their ambassadors were there and now they all have to mingle with them, Kenner knew that even if he would sound like a madman if he told them what has happened a couple of days when they arrived on this world or even if the girls would believe him, they would began asking questions, one of those being why did you look at the ass of a princess and then punched her on her face?, just the idea of being called a depraved monster in front of everyone was enough to give him a cold sweat, this was reality after all not some forum or a smash or pass challenge on the internet. He felt that he needed to save some face even if it meant to deny or ignore every allegation that they were going to throw at him if the truth came out.

Earlier that day, The king in all his glory decided on that moment to ask him,since the expression of his face went a little pale when he mentioned a certain solar princess during their talk , Michael couldn’t remain calm and told the king if he would tell him if he took the secret to his grave, Ferdinand expecting something worse accepted, when truth finally came out, the griffon king couldn’t keep his dignity any further and laughed out loud, after getting some air in his lungs he promised to protect the human if any of the Princess demanded his head then laughed again.

Guilt was overcoming him until the girls saw at the new arrivals, the Queen of the Hippogriffs have arrived in a very colorful carriage with her daughter no less, probably to get to know the heroes of Griffonstone and to properly meet the newly crowned King Grover. It was all a display of opulence and grace, the one you would expect from royalty, everything looked like she was the one leader of their country that didn’t let their ambassador to represent them alone.

That was until a open carriage appeared on the sky bringing the attention of all viewers, the Alicorn sisters have arrived surprising everyone on the vicinity, and while the girls were in awe looking at them, Michael felt a lump on his throat and looked further down the balcony thinking “maybe the fall would kill me faster” as soon as that thought went to his head, a maid knocked on their door to let them know that the king called for them to present them.

Author's Note

Sorry for the wait, haven't being on the best moods latetly and work has been very demanding.
Good new getting a new PC so may post new chapters in the near future.

Side Chapter: Lost but not forgotten

The fire of combat engulfed him, adrenaline was running through his veins and his breath was getting shorter and shorter every time he tried to catch a little more oxygen to his tired lungs. Sprinting and taking cover all the while shooting back at the enemy wasn’t easy.
The enemy was making a push and two teams were already making a move towards the objective, his friends were nowhere to be seen and to make matters worse he was short on ammunition. Putting a fresh magazine into his Beryl and adjusting the visor on his helmet he said a few encouraging words to himself and decided to move on to the next building.
Just when he was about to peek through the corner of a wooden structure his helmet got hit and with a soft “plink” he knew it was over, he raised his left hand and yelled “HIT” and fell back to the spawn point of the area.

When Henry was introduced by his friends into playing air-soft, he never believed that he would get really into the game.
At first he was a bit slow catching things up in to the game, but when his group of friends decided to introduce more people into their little fire team, he knew he could perform a better role .
Henry was tall and fast or fast for someone whose height was 6'2 and lived a not so active life when it came to sports, he always looking for that one something in life that would make his daily routine a little more exciting and the idea of playing air-soft seemed to scratch that hitch in his life.
He didn’t come from a rich family, but he was never struggling to get by if you where to ask him he would admit to be a little spoiled even, but his life was a life of comfort never having to deal with economic troubles like most of his friends or being able to go on vacations outside of his country once or twice in recent years, examples like that were the ones that made him look in his groups of friends like a rich kid.

When you ask for a little change in life, sometimes the cold hard reality likes to strike you low, 2 years ago his mother suffered from cancer and went through surgery, doctors were surprised to see some amazing recovery but after a year the disease strikes back with a vengeance and made his life a living hell.
Taking care of his mother while at the same time helping his father wasn’t easy, and when you have to work and study at the same time there is little time for a moment of respite from all of it.
With the passing of his mother Henry felt a moment of relief knowing that she was in a better place but the void that was in his home and that occupied a part of his life was still there bothering him with guilt,

So when his friends decided to try this new sport Henry was a little apprehensive at first, but the rush he got from playing a few rounds was a feeling he didn’t want to let go, from having barely anytime on his life to finding a new hobby to dedicate his time brought the motivation he needed to get out of that spot of despair he found himself into, oh he sucked playing the first couple of times and a little more after that. But after finding new ways to play the game he decided to get serious and bought some specially made gear for himself.
His father never saw really the appeal of the sport but seeing his son motivated like that after going through the stages of grief, he was glad that his son still had that spark of light that made him go forward.

He didn’t take air-soft with the seriousness like some players, Henry always played it cosplaying some character from a video game or some television series but then when a new guy from the group came and said about getting matching uniforms and gear from an antique shop down the street, the group began to assimilate their new identity and became more competitive.
Today was Friday and the protection gear Henry was using was the closest thing one could assimilate to a modern special operator from a military group except for the clothes he was actually wearing, everything was on point even the cheap night vision google that he got for a discount on a gun show, a really old version of the ones that the military use but a real piece none the less. Being the rich kid from the group came with some advantages, he didn’t had the mannerism of a rich asshole but he did liked the idea of flaunting his new purchases to the rest of the team.

Henry was supposed to meet his team on the corner store cafe just a couple of blocks near his house, making a final check on his stuff and putting everything on his bag, he sent a final goodbye and “I love you” to his dad, Henry stepped out of his home.
Putting his head phones and shuffling through his phone while walking trying to get to that one song to listen while he waited for his friends barely watching where he stepped on, suddenly he felt his blood rushing down on his body.
It felt like getting up fast and getting dizzy only ten time stronger.
He felt to his knees and found himself in dark room, after a couple of seconds of him getting to his senses he realized that his hands were on a cobblestone floor, looking around his eyes focused on the barely lighted chamber of a castle with torches hanging on the walls, you don’t have to be a fantasy nerd or have the historical knowledge to figure out that you are in the dungeon of a castle or at the very least on the basement of one.
looking around he saw paintings and furniture being covered with white cloths to avoid the dust, shuffling around with the bigger and closest one he saw a painting of a creature that looked like an albino satyr with armor throwing a pose that resembled a conqueror from the past.

The entire painting described the figure like a bringer of storm against many other creatures that looked like a demonic version of the creatures he knew or at least he could identify easily, Hippogrifs, Dragons, Unicorns, Pegasuses and the likes who looked deformed and evil while the so called savior showed himself like a shield against the monsters.
Henry just stood there looking at this painting for a couple of moments thinking how familiar it was from the old posters of the Great Wars from his world, just like the plain propaganda posters but it wasn’t that what surprised him, it was the idea of him being there in the first place, where was he? what happened to him in the first place? How did he arrived there? questions after questions flooded his mind until he decided to leave the room he was in, since standing there hoping for an answer to his present dilemma wasn’t going to appear just like that.

Moving around slowly He found himself on a huge cellar filled from wall to wall with bottles of wine, huge barrels were sitting in a pile on one corner and some furniture like the one he saw on the storage room was sitting on the other corner of room closest to a double door. Henry was about to call out for help until he heard heavy footsteps coming closer to where he was.
Acting quickly he dove for the furniture and seeing an extra white tarp he threw it on top of him, blending in closer with the rest of the covered furniture in the room.

Two creatures came in looking awfully familiar to the satyr he saw on the painting, they looked around for a couple of seconds and then they sighed, once they felt they were safe, one took a couple of bottles from the cellar and a couple of pint sized cups that were on a shelf while the other one moved a couple of chairs and a small table to the middle of the room. They began to speak in a foreign language that he could not understand at all, he could figure out that they complaining a lot thanks to the gesturing on their bodies but aside from that nothing else. Once the creatures began to drink, Henry decided to slowly move away towards the door leading upstairs hoping that he could find the exit of this place.

Once he was out on the top floor he removed the tarp on his body and began sneaking his way out of the castle, which way? Henry didn’t know he just expected to find a window so he could open to get a view on the outside, after that he could figure something out, so far there were a couple of soldiers moving around the corridors but they were avoidable. The Left hall seemed to guide him even further inside the castle while the Right hall was almost the same with only a difference it had more doors, testing his luck He decided to try out his options on the Right hall.

After 15 minutes of sneaking around he finally decided to enter a room through a large dark oak door, it wasn’t a way out but it lead to a gigantic library, dusty books and shelves covered the entire room, picking one book after the other in order to find a semblance of any language closes to the languages of his world or at least the closest to the languages he knew so far.
Book after book he put them back into their place, finding nothing close to the answers he was looking for, the languages differed from one book to the other , different changes in the writings, like symbols that resemble scratches to geometric forms of writing and so many other examples. He stood there trying to make sense of his situation, he felt he had his answers in front of him but there was no way for him to understand it, the impatience and the danger of it all was stressing him.
Trying not to panic and make his presence known he move around the library checking the corners and when he felt safe he decided to change into his gear, being dressed in his uniform with his kit out in the open gave him some sense of safety, even if it was a false sense of security the idea of just being able to find a shred of comfort from all of it was the best he could do.
After changing into his uniform and loading his beryl and 1911 with BBs he walk around until he stumbled into a shelf that contained maps with a globe showing the terrain of the known world standing in front of the shelf with strange measuring equipment on the table, with determination he searched the globe and removed some of the huge scrolls that contained the maps, that’s when reality hit him hard for the third time on his life.
the globe itself was half covered with detailed terrain on one side describing the names of the continents and countries that made it, the other side was blank like someone decided to make a sculpture and left it unfinished, but the maps where of more help, for starters they had names written in English or what appeared to be a form of crude English, maps of countries with the name of Equestria, Griffonstone and Mount Aris where displayed in front of him, putting two and two together Henry found an inconvenient truth, he was no longer on Earth.

Grabbing three of the maps and saving them on his back bag he moved towards the upper floor of the library, finding a huge window, he looked outside only to find out he was on what looked like a fortress surrounded by walls. he could see battlements and more of the creatures guarding the walls and at the same time he could see a port on the far side down below leading to the open sea. The docks also had warehouses in which flying ships would make a stop to recharge their fuel or bring goods to trade.
On that spot Henry formed a plan, he wanted to get out of wherever he was and moved towards any other place rather than stay here and deal with a race of creatures that he couldn’t communicate or understand them in the first place. The dark armor and gloomy aesthetic of the place gave him an idea of what kind of ruler they had, having a storm raging outside didn’t make this place any more accepting or appealing.
Looking for a way out he scanned with the x4 sights of his air-soft rifle and he found out why the castle looked so empty, standing in a parade formation there were rows upon rows of armored creatures listening to speech of a general or at least what looked like a leader.

Not wanting to overstay his welcome Henry just simply decided to leave the place, going back to the halls, Henry looked for stairs that lead down to the lower floors in order to find a way out. he chose to go down through a spiral stair, after the 5th spin it came at a stop and what Henry expected to find an open hall with a great door leaving outside, he found what looked like the dungeons where prisoners where being kept.
With barely any security guarding the prisoners aside from a lonely guard that was sleeping in the comfort of a wooden chair, Henry moved slowly only to be heard by a creature from the other side of a cell, when he looked to side he saw a Hippogriff with bright colors and sharp talons, the Griff looked at him with an expression of curiosity and surprise. Both stood there not saying anything at all and when Henry was about to leave the Griff spoke.

The Hipogriff voice sounded almost like a whisper “Wait, don’t leave, you look strange but you are not one of the storm king minions, are you? (Henry said nothing but his confused face said a lot) you know part of the remnants of the Storm King's army?”

Apprehensive and not wanting to draw attention Henry realized that maybe this was a good way to find a escape route from this place and having a flying companion seemed like a good idea, “No, never heard of them, I just got here, I’ve been going around in circles trying to leave this place, Do you know the way out?”

With a small smile on his beak the Griff responded “Yeah, I thought so, Yes I know the way out, it’s easy to get out of the castle since most of the guards are out of their posts, usually they are more tight with their security specially since what happened with their last king. I can help you escape but I need your help the guards took my belongings and put them on the storage room on your left, the most important one is a small pendant with a stone on it, I need that pendant”

Thinking for a moment Henry thought of his chances, looking back and forth between the door to the storage and the sleeping guard he moved slowly towards the door, once he was inside the storage looked not that important but what really looked out of place was a couple of crossbows with their bolts and a whole set of golden armor sitting on a table along with the pendant the Griff described previously and a set of saddlebags.
Grabbing the pendant Henry did a double take and grabbed one of the crossbows, the design didn’t looked that complicated to use and after loading it he decided to keep it with him replacing the air-soft Beryl, it was a medieval weapon but a real weapon none the less. Moving towards the Griff Henry held out the pendant, the Griff grabbed it with out a second thought and put it on, with a soft sight he thanked Henry and told him that the keys to the cell were hanging on the other side where the guard was sleeping.

“That’s one of my weapons where did you found it? did they just put everything back there? ah forget it, their negligence work in our favor”
“Yeah there is also a set of armor and I think your saddlebags?”
“Ha idiots, good for us then, get me out of here and once I have my stuff back I’ll fly us out of here, take that crossbow with you I’ll have the other”

Nodding and walking slowly Henry went to the other side of the room to get the keys, he wasn’t completely sure why he decided to put his trust on the Hippogriff but he decided to trust his instinct, so far he found out barely anything about this place but the little thing he saw gave him a bad feeling to it.
The good thing about the keys is that there were only three hanging from a steel loop on the wall, Taking them with him Henry spun around and found that guard was waking up from his sleep, luckily the guard was focused on one direction down the hall and not behind him, seeing nothing out of the ordinary the guard went back to sleep turning himself back snoring even louder.

Making the trip back with his heart beat going through the roof, Henry fiddled with keys until on the second try he managed to open the cell door. Coming out without making a sound the Hippogriff stretched his wings and make a move towards the storage room ” Give 5 minutes please, keep a lookout”.
Henry took a position on the dark corner aiming down the crossbow to anything that came out of the corner, after a moment and some shuffling of metal, the Griff came out fully geared with the other crossbow attached to a small mechanism on his right side.
Giving himself and approval nod he looked at Henry and motion him towards the stairs making small talk while they climbed up, once they went back to the upper floors, the Griff asked Henry where was the library in which he found the maps with the hallways empty they entered the library and made sure they were alone.

”My name is Summer Breeze I am a scout of the kingdom of Mount Aris and Seaquestria, I was on orders from Queen Novo herself to find out what happened to the remnants of the storm king army since there has been rumors of some activities on the borders of our kingdom, may I ask your name, what are you doing here?...” The Griff asked and Henry answered question after question while they both secured the library together.

“My name is Henry I am a Human and like I told you before I just got here, got no idea who the Storm King is or what for that matter neither do I care, I’ve been trying to find a way out as soon as I found myself in this place.” Henry said nearly reaching a point of breaking apart, so far he managed to toughen up to the challenge but rushing through the lair of a tyrant and now helping an agent of a foreign kingdom escape, wasn’t something He would have wished for his weekend to turn up to be. He asked the Griff for some context of the situation of the world.

Summer talked about the storm king and what had he done to the Hippogriffs, their departure from Mount Aris to Seaquestria, The Princess of Equestria and her friends calling for help, and so forth. In the meantime he was ripping the pages of books and throwing them all over the floor, grabbing the oil from other lanterns and staining the ground, he encouraged Henry to do the same and after a couple of minutes of destruction Summer and Henry went to the upper floor of library and prepared themselves.
Opening the windows and throwing a lit lantern in the ground, the library was suddenly engulfed in fire, Summer told Henry to hop on his back and with the human grabbing for his dear life he lifted off the ground with a few flaps and flew out into the raging storm outside.

It took nearly all of his strength to keep himself and the human on the air against the strong winds of the storm, and with the fire consuming that part of the building the alarms went off and the distraction was enough to keep any gaze from looking up to a small figure moving thorough the Cirrus and Cumulus.

Henry inner monologue of flying on the back of a creature that only existed in fantasy or mythology was replaced with the screams of fear once they flew higher and higher towards the belly of a storm, the black clouds looked like they moved like they were being controlled by an unknown source, the lightning didn’t help either since Summer was wearing more metal than him, and asking to a Hippogriff to strip in the middle of the sky wasn’t a good idea at the moment.
It was the most terrifying experience he ever had, like being on a roller coaster with no tracks to guide the cart, gravity was being pulled from one side to the other, but after some maneuvering they managed to escape and the gaze of a morning sun and soft winds was greeting them both.

The feeling of the wind underneath his wings made Summer feel relieved that he was finally out of that place, he explained Henry that he wasn’t a prisoner too long but the idea of never escaping was a fear that he had gripping his mind. They both talked through the flight and Summer agreed to take Henry with him to Mount Aris, Summer knew where to find some warm air currents that will take them faster towards his home.

The short stay on the castle and the flight on the back of Summer put things into perspective, Henry realize that his answers lie elsewhere and that it wasn’t just chance how he got there he felt like a piece of chess being moved around a non existent board and He didn't like that at all , He talked to summer through the whole flight towards Mount Aris asking about the world, it was an informative and serious talk about the geopolitical situation of world so far, that was until Summer asked “Are you perhaps a Soldier? is that the emblem of your regiment?" said the Griff slowly grinning, Henry looked to his side only to figure out that his uniform had 2 patches one was the Foxhound unit from the saga of Metal Gear and the other one bigger and more colorful, It was an anime girl barely naked with a weird expression on her face and the words of wisdom “The louder you scream, the faster we come” the latest addition to his air-soft gear as a joke for the team and now he had to explain what hentai was to a mythological creature, a mouthful of words came out in order to save some face but he failed, Summer laughed out loud.

Author's Note

Here's a new chapter, sorry for the wait.
I'm trying to write more but with writers block and work taking most of my time can barely get some paragraphs out.
Trying to improve my writing and get out more characters.

Chapter 10 "The Party"

Chapter 10 “The Party”.

To those people wandering about high end social parties let me tell you first hand that most people who even got close to a celebrity or even attended an event from the jet set, know nothing about the ungodly amount of wealth being put on display for this some-what meaningless social get-together. The decorations, the pastries and even the clothing etiquette was over the top, like someone decided to paint the whole castle with a golden and crystal paint or something like that, it was a show of splendor and extravagance the like you have never seen before, at least for me. With gigantic crystal chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, an entire ensemble of flowers as center tables, details that showed what a royal event was for the likes of the creatures of this world, all happening in front of your eyes, and to see it through television is one thing but to see it from my point of view was another type of experience.

I mean sure it was part of a formal event to congratulate the bravery of the soldiers of a battle well fought and the first real victory of a reunited kingdom over a millennia. But I was never the kind of guy who liked being put in the center of attention, mind you I wasn’t a stranger to this type of formal events, after all I do come from a family that has connections to people in power or at least people who moved in high circles of the society, but not of this caliber. So after all the medals, handshakes and the ceremony to the knights who fulfilled their duty, now it was the time to shown the gratitude to the new group of humans who helped save the lives of the innocent in their desperate time.

And I could not feel anymore awkward than I was before, I wasn’t about to puke out of embarrassment in front of everybody but when the prince was awarding us for our involvement in the rescue mission, He pulled out what looked like golden eggs, the likes you see in museums with ruby and emeralds and the works, it reminded me the eggs the Zar of Russia gave to his dukes in X-mas and Easter. I guess it was an important detail because every cretaure seeing this reacted with a gasp, I thought it must be a cultural thing or something, I don’t know, didn’t manage to learn about it in our short time in the castle, but everyone was excited so !yay! free golden egg. Still having all eyes on me wasn’t a pleasant experience.

Not only that, being knighted or as close as you can be recognized by the crown is no small feature, I am sure that he did it in order to impose his image or at least let the rest of the foreign envoys known that the Griffon Crown was now making a presence in the world again and their rule would not be questioned or at least not lightly criticized by the low naysayers.

With giant golden egg in one hand, a medal on my chest and being watched by all manners of creatures, I was feeling a little overwhelmed, thankfully the girls helped alleviate some of that pressure and reminded me that I wasn’t completely alone. We gave our eggs to the servants not to lose them and began to introduce ourselves in the crowd of dignitaries, I always believed that the best way to deal with this kind of situations is to tell little white lies or at least half truths, not to over do it but it always a good thing to have some reservation or a advantage against these kind of people, or maybe it was the spur of the moment that made me a little apprehensive during the party.

Let me remind you that our group of humans already had a close relation with Fernidand, and in this world most of the friendship politics it has always been the Equestrians who took the first step when it came down to making allies, whether was a new species or a new country being discovered, the ponies always had first contact.
Thus giving them advantage in commerce, knowledge and everything else, sure it also brought new threats but according to records despite their innocent nature and looks the ponies always came on top of every challenge turning their kingdom stronger every time or as close as a modern day super power on this side of the world.

Why this is important you ask? well because during the whole event the ponies dignitaries both nobles from Canterlot and other places of Equestria looked desperate to steal us from the claws from the griffins, often saying things about giving us proper welcoming if we ever stop to visit their country or to share their “gifts” with us at the same time praising us for our display of courage and generosity during the event of the forest, it was the whole dog and pony show. That was why I never liked this kind of people, always willing to shower you with gifts and smiles in return for something else, hiding their true faces beneath all that glamour.

Some had some tact when taking to us and tried to demonstrate that not all off the Equestrians were greedy and selfish, perhaps 1 out of every 5 of the whole Equestrian entourage, then came the Saddle Arabians (in which apparently are another type of equestrian but with more fined features even though they share similarities with their race yet they are another kingdom entirely) whom were quite fascinated with our appearance or should I say the girls appearance, when describing us some of the rumors said that we looked a little like shaved monkeys, but when they got a first glance at us, they very same rumors couldn’t be further away from the truth.

The girls with their clean hair and long dresses resembled an alien race that not even the imagination of those present could entirely understand, it was like these ambassadors expected a bunch of tribal monkeys from planets of the apes or a bunch of bloodthirsty hairy savages, I think it was because our involvement with all the fighting the rumors and talks made us look like some sort of war like tribesmen, either that or just how common we were took them by surprise.

Elsa on the other hand was enjoying the whole thing, but then again a tall blonde girl with blue eyes can cause a lot of turning of heads specially with the male population, her white pale skin made her look like Galadriel I could see that some of the most young noble ponies were awestruck by her and some of the ponies girls kept a close shoulder on their partners just in case they would go chasing after her.
She talked about almost everything with some group of ponies that came from the Northern parts of Equestria and I swear that I saw a huge pony with a viking beard and beads talking to her, the guy was happy to have met her and hear her side of her story but then when Elsa discovered that his mother tongue was a mix of Finnish with some other Nordic dialect, Elsa couldn't stop herself from going full Swedish and both began to talk in their own languages excitedly, no one from outside those two understood a thing they were saying but some of the ponies accompanying that guy just sweetly smiled at their interaction. I’m good with languages and I could get some words out of their conversation but nothing concrete, it was like hearing two versions of Dobby from the Thornberries talking to each other.

Aliana was another side of the spectrum when it came to socialize her thic accent made her sound a little strong but she was clearly trying out a soft demeanor with it, she was talking with some griffin nobles and some Arabians about her country, nothing too graphic or bad about it, but it surprised her audience that we came from different countries and not just one big country. That’s when we heard a loud !WHAT? and turned my head to Milla who was talking to princess Skylar of the Hippogrifs, apparently she was saying something about travel and the idea of being able to cross continents in a matter of days or even hours made her lose her composure, meanwhile Queen Novo gave her daughter a stern look but she was also surprised of this new discovery, things turned a whole lot different when Milla pulled her phone and showed satellites pictures of our world among those photos was the whole Solar Sytem.

In a single moment in that little device Milla just showed to the entire Hippogriff royal family that we were in fact literal aliens in a way, it was a good thing that Skylar little shout was the only thing everyone heard, maybe it wasn’t a shock to us now but to Skylar and Novo seeing pictures of our galaxy through our phone was like seeing a whole other realm of possibilities and we ourselves were evidence of the existence of other Worlds. A revelation that was being processed through the minds of both mother and daughter, while Milla merely chuckled and reminded them that she had the same reaction, only that she was lost in a forest surrounded by strangers in the same situation.
Then Milla showed how to take selfies on her phone and called Aliana to join up with her, it was nice seeing her slowly get out of her depression, I’m sure the loss of her brother was hard on her but she looked like she was powering through, still the image of both girls making poses and silly faces with the Hippogriff royal family while taking selfies is something to scratch off the bucket list.

I was just fine talking with the knights about their plans for the future, now that I was technically speaking one of them, the moment I went to get something to drink I felt like someone was looking at me from behind, I turned around and was met with a sea of stars floating ethereally above the head of an Alicorn with navy blue fur, I looked down a little and met her eyes.
I just stood there watching her right in her eyes while she did the same to me, I would have been panicking but the height difference made her look way more smaller than she looked, like come on the tallest ponies reached our waist
aside from a few of them who managed to go a little beyond that line but they all had the height of adults dogs.
And there I was looking down on a Princess not saying anything and apparently she didn’t find that exchange as funny as I did. Finally I decided to speak and formally introduced myself to her while apologizing, she thought nothing of it, smiling softly saying that it reminded her the exchanges she had with her older sister back when they were young.
From then on we just spoke about different subjects family, my world, her world and on and on. I’m sure she seemed to recognize me from somewhere but didn’t know where from. The same was happening to me while I looked at her, that sense of familiarity was running in both of our heads, and we stood there both of us talking ignoring for the most part the rest of the party, after a moment of back and forth in our conversation Princess Luna decided to introduce me to her sister to talk about my experience in the forest and how magic reacts to our bodies.

I for one didn’t want to face the Solar Alicorn alone, but I saw Elsa being dragged by a group of ponies the same way that I was to get introduced to their leader. I expected to be awkward and nervous by whole exchange, but I decided to face her anyway, might as well get over with this instead of finding a hole to hide myself.
Celestia tried to looked tall in front of us but our height compared to her was little more different that she expected, we could see that reaction through her eyes, I guess she got used to be the tallest of ponies and wasn’t expecting this much difference.
Still she introduced herself with a slight bow and with refined grace she told us that it was an honor to have met us, we responded back the same way with much less grace and refinement but the action spoke louder than words and to the rest of the equestrians it shown that it was the right way to show respect to their princesses.
We talk almost about everything that happened, from whom we were, our countries and our arrival to this world to our fight in Branwick, I tried to make it sound like what really occurred in the forest with all details but the more We explained our story and the more we described it , more fantastical it sounded, like lets be real everything felt like a crazy session chapter of a D&D campaign and the final confrontation appeared to impress both alicorn sisters, I guess they don’t leave the castle that much or the rumors they heard were nothing but bullshit.

The Sisters had an odd look on their faces when got to the part of using magic, we told them about having no magic in our world, no real knowledge about it and yet we were able to used part of it, they said that they could get some materials for us to get to know a little bit more about it but they will need time to make some research, that their teacher Star-something might be able to scrounge something for us to train or some skill to develop, we agreed to it and when Milla and Aliana joined us in our conversation the whole thing just exploded with questions about the whole idea of being able to use magic, Milla specially asking a whole barrage of theories and what ifs meanwhile both sisters had a bemused expression on their faces as if this reaction was all too familiar to them.
The rest of the party went as expected with the whole inter-species meet and greet going much better than it was anticipated, the whole celebration was something that was going to be the talk of the century or at least for the next months, just when thing calmed down a little Princess Celestia wanted me to talk in private for a little while before leaving.

Dreading the interaction we went to a balcony that was close to the main hall and we talked, on that moment the guilt of what happened in the past came rushing back and I spilled an apology like a 7 years old only without crying, the white bitch just brought a hoof to her mouth and chuckled but she was glad that I remembered her and from then on we just talked with out formality, no titles no decorum, seeing her in a new light like this was a strange change of pace of what I’ve been experiencing so far but it was a wholesome one, that was until she said something about getting revenge for the punch I gave her while giving a little smirk.

And from then on we argued about the legitimacy of attacking royalty in the dream space, the whole thing was absurd and I lost the argument, mind you I did make the mistake of using logic and reason with a magical woman on what was technically an event that never actually happened, but might as well let her have this small victory and not incite her wrath, at the end of it we both ended up having a laugh about the whole ordeal.
In a serious light in the conversation I asked her how was I even able to go through the dreams like that, and her response gave me no real answer or at least not the one I was looking for, It appears that magic is finicky when it comes to certain individuals, some are born with a great skill to manipulate magic while others simply either learn or have a late blooming for it.
Kind off like going through a second puberty in a short time only this time you may be able to throw lightning or fireballs, She said that even with all the knowledge and experience her species gathered through time there are still a lot to learn about magic in this world.
It was all good to learn about this sort of things and I wanted to hear more of it but all of the sudden a Pegasus guard with a golden armor came to us and told Celestia that they were about to depart, so we said our goodbyes but before I could even retreat back inside Celestia asked if we could have conversations like this in the nearby future, she said that even though her nobles were a little invasive with me and my friends, she really wanted to be friends with us and apologized personally for their actions.
I told her that I thought nothing of it and that me and the girls would love to talk more with her and her sister, specially Milla whom the idea of learning magic straight from the source was like a dream come true, to this Celestia said that she may have a teacher or two in mind and with a slight bow she left.

All in all the party was great and the whole group went back to our rooms with some leftovers while we talked about everything that happened, I decided to tell the girls everything that happened with me and Celestia, the idea of meeting the rest of the equestrian royal family as well the possibility of learning magic, also told them that maybe all of us at some point might be able to use it like the literal wizard we all knew about even if those were products of fantasy stories.

I expected the worst to happen in the party like a paranoid freak and instead was left surprised with a good impression of all of it, still can’t shake the feeling that We were missing an important piece of the puzzle, so much everything was left behind not only through what happened to us in the forest but to all of our doings in this short period of time.
I wasn’t going to get the answers on that moment so I decided to go to sleep, maybe shaking the whole stress of the party might be able to find some specific detail that we overlooked.
But like most people know sometime you can't just choose what kind of dream you’re going to have, I expected something calm like a sunny beach instead I found myself in the same corridor with all kinds of doors on both sides, annoyed I sighted and began to walk down the path hoping to find a certain Princess to guide me through this mess.

Author's Note

Sorry for the long wait a lot has happened and writer's block is a bitch to have.
Might be able to get a new chapter in the middle of the month but for now enjoy.

Chapter 8 "Present days"

Good Morning Mr. Journal, Keener here.

It’s been a couple of crazy days with the restoration of the estate here in Griffonstone, I’ve been put in charge of getting the necessary materials for the construction and maintenance of some parts of the main building and the small cottages where part of the help lives. Did you know that in most parts of Griffonstone a griffin family can sell years of servitude in exchange for a piece of land or a house?
Technically what most families do is they ask for the nobility for a job, work a couple of years and Bam!, you got yourself and your family a house and land. Now it sounds like a fairy tale right? yeah I guess, most Noble Lords in the past did that type of contract in order to gain loyalty among their house banners also expand their territory allowing the development of the land and it worked, but that was in the past, after generations of noble griffins living in luxury and forgetting the virtues of chivalry that their ancestors used to lived by, many figured out a way to exploit said laws and traditions.

Such was the case with the estate we were given by the King, the servants and some families that live close to the mansion are, in some legal and twisted way, enslaved to the land. The first lord agreed on fulfilling the old contract of servitude but then he passed away and his sons took over saying that the verbal contract was made to their father and that it wasn’t their responsibility to fulfill a contract since they weren't a part of it.
I know some lawyers would love to have a part in this, but in some way they were right, sadly they sold their mansion and ever since lord after lord that came did the same, bought the land force the commoners to a life time of servitude and then sold the land, repeating the cycle again and again.

When we were given the land and the servants came to do the old dance with us, we talked over many subjects, when they told us their story we just gave them what was rightfully theirs in the first place. The look on the majordomo was hilarious, he thought he was dreaming we told him that his piece of land was his and that he could do whatever he wanted with it, signed a title of the land and the building that came with it on the spot and gave it to him. He kept it close to his chest with relief going through his face, poor guy. That same day We told him that if he wanted he could come work with us tomorrow morning and that we could discuss payment and everything else.

His entire family and many other griffins came with tools, food and plans and were set to work.
Anyways I’ve been put in charge of going to different parts of Griffonstone and Equestria to get specific materials and some supplies while I’m in those places.

Whew...right now I feel like I want to talk about what happened in Branwick, alright back where we left off, I know it’s opening a bad wound but I feel like I have to explain myself about some guilt and feelings about THAT day.
Okay, after we got ourselves sorted of that mess with the dragon and the burial and burning ceremonies, we picked ourselves up and began planning what to do then, where to go and if we could get some answers about the strange magic that we used that night. I was in a state of guilt, and still am only that I manged to deal with it with time. We lost people and to be honest I never felt as bad as I should be and that’s what was wriggling my brain. Normally when it comes to losing people close to you is heartbreaking but losing people that you barely met for a couple of days isn’t exactly sad, I know I sound like a monster without a soul, but I didn’t know those folks, I mean, we didn’t spend that much time together, we just been going with the flow of the situation for a couple of days, hoping something would come out and explain why we were there in the first place.

I joked with Austin and Otto, talk with Nap about Italian football and even got caught checking the ass of Cali and Lucy form time to time, but now....they were all dead. The only thing left of them were some of their weapons, ammo and personal belongings, other than that and their nicknames we knew nothing of them aside form what they decided to share during our little “adventure”. It didn’t felt right calling them friends back then and doing it now feels insulting. Am I wrong readers? I guess you folk can judge better from your point of view.

I guess if we didn’t rush into dangerous situation we could have become something more than just acquaintances. The real deal was for Milla and Aliana, they lost someone close to them and it tore their heart apart. I’ve learned that Prag was Milla’s big brother and that he always took care of her carrying the heaviest of burdens of their past life, Aliana knew Prag since they were little and it kinda looked like that they were more than just friends. Still seeing the bodies of the people that came with us into this new world was surreal and bizarre in a grim kind of way.

And then is the whole slaying of the dragon and the enemy that we fought over, a demonic goat that knew of our kind? a Minotaur using magic to mutate normal beings into monsters? and finally that undead dragon? Not without forgetting the whole magic bullets that we shot that night W T F, right?, Viking Elsa bayonet charging into the mouth of a dark souls knock off gaping dragon and me having elvish runes glowing out of my shirt into my hands, It was just weird.
The captain told us about the glowing runes of the sawmill and their origin, something that predates back in the dark ages of their people, a time of strife and heroes, it sounded really good and all but it didn’t explain why we were able to cast or call their magic into us. That’s when Iron Beak decided to tell us more of Equestria and that the only “people” that could tell us about magic were the ponies since part of their species are fully connected to the whole magic development, not to say the griffins didn’t have wizards of their own, just not on the same arcane level or quantity as Equestria.

Also the dragon we killed? yeah it wasn’t a fully adult, The marks of magic being induced into the flesh gave indications of a some sort of transmutation that this poor creature was forced to grow and the whole process that came with where simply side effects, those griffins that had some experience with magic or at least basic knowledge told us that it was the work of someone whom barely knew how to wield magic and it was sloppy and rushed, I guess our friend the Minotaur was an apprentice and wanted to know how far he could go with his little experiment.

So without any other alternative we decided to go to Equestria in order to know more about magic and maybe just maybe find a way home, we were half way finishing packing and leaving when the Captain and Iron Beak came with a scroll telling them to bring us to the king, apparently the newly crowed king Grover wanted to reward us for our actions. Even with the heavy ambience of loss and sorrow still in our minds and hearts, the idea of discovery and meeting of royalty gave us a 180° on our mood. We had to...otherwise all of this suffering was for nothing. Besides my inner kid wanted to know if I could throw fireballs or lighting, if I could do that then Harry Potter got nothing on me. Guns are cool, but raw power coming out of your fingertips? it’s something we all want to try at least once in our life. It’s a shame that we lucky few are the ones going to live the good part of this experience, so in the end we chose to pospone our roadtrip to Equestria and decided to meet the king of the kingdom.

Traveling was easier this time around the knights were to accompany us to the capital, which was both a good thing and bad, the knights were respectful to us but wanted to know more about us humans in general, the moment we told and showed a little of our world, music, knowledge, etc. They were completely in awe, what to us was the most mundane thing to them it was a luxury only a few could have, computers the size of a mirror that could fit in our pockets and play orchestrated music? check, bags with solar panels that turn sunlight into energy for our electronics? check and don’t get me started when we told them about the galaxy and everything space related, even Captain Silver was listening when we told him that we put a flag on the moon.
The “bad” thing was that the young knight Leonie became obsessed with us, some of our technology wasn’t completely alien to them but it was something that you only find in certain places, besides our most basic things looked like way more advanced that theirs in major ways. In some places the had industrial revolution vibes, like Jules Verne steampunk culture and in other places well might as well be a simple medieval village with a water source. The whole distribution was weird but it worked for them I guess.
And don’t get me started with the music, that made the knights just fly closer to our sides even when we put our little portable speakers at full volume, listening to free bird while you are flying in a chariot with an open canopy and having griffins doing barrel rolls? Fuck Yeah Mr.Journal, just straight out of a rock music video and it made the whole trip easier on our spirits too.

After a while the young knight Leonie started asking question after question and me having the worthless content of the internet stored in my head began telling her, did that shut her up? of course not but I was just trying to keep the subject of weaponry and our war history out of the conversation as much as I could.

Thankfully the girls began asking questions of their own, in order to get to know more about this place, specially about how magic works and if they could give us a basic course on what they know about it. It kinda felt like a Q & A from there, still the griffoness never tore her eyes out of me and Elsa and after what we pulled off in Branwick, I think we got ourselves a fan of Humanity, I just hope that number stays in 1 don’t want to deal with any followers for the moment, just imagine a griffin magically appears in a furry convention on Earth, disaster 100% guaranteed.

Now I know some of you want to know whether we can use magic or not, well the answer is not that simple, when it come to magic we can’t “make it” we can be a conduit of it though, like getting zapped with magic won’t have the effects on you but you’ll feel like drinking tequila only without the flavor and having all the effects of a hangover.
Getting zapped multiple times could knock you off, a full barrage could kill you, maybe haven’t tried it yet and don’t want to risk it too. But when it come to “use” magic spells we can do in a primitive way like using a muscle that you didn’t know you had until you felt it and then boom it’s how you do it, how concentrated you are and believe it or not how you felt on that moment, pure raw emotions can affect the spells like throwing a punch in blind rage.

Also we can't choose which spell to cast, like we absorb whatever comes and we spew it out. That night on Branwick we wanted to kill that dragon and the little magic that was stored in those runes amplified with the residual magical attacks on the tower with the Minotaur gave us just the kick to go full Avatar.
We haven’t tried to practice much with it since we want to go home and the idea that we can store the type of “fuel” that brought us here gave us the inspiration to just keep it in store just in case we need to punch through whatever barrier comes in our way. So far we haven't felt any diferent and we want to keep it that way.

But me being the immature idiot that I am decided to try to do a Palpatine impression in an empty room on the Villa, nearly got myself self electrocuted in the process but got at least full 5 seconds of “POWER, UNLIMITED POWER!!!” then I felt like being tasered and cattle prodded from almost all sides, Human 0 - Magic 1.

Anyway the whole trip was some what relaxing, a little turbulence on the way, but pleasant none the less. The knights began describing the hot spots of the Capital, the places were you can get a nice drink or were the food is delicious, most of the descriptions they gave us were places they frequented since even though they were noble born, they still followed a militaristic way of life and restrictions were high, specially with Iron Beak breathing down on you. I guess the knights of the realm have a reputation to uphold and the officers keep them in line.

He got his name when he became an officer fighting the colonial forces of Equestria back when Griffonstone was disputing the claim of some islands on the northern coast or so they said. Ever since then he built himself a reputation like major Payne, so unless you grew on the Capital walls, the only thing you were going to know for sure is when to get your R&R when you are out with your friends. And now we were about to become the first humans to witness on first hand the Capital city of a new species, their culture and history, starting first with no other by meeting with their royalty.

As we approached the castle the more nervous we got or at least that was my case, have you ever seen a castle? an actual castle that isn’t a ruin or turned into a museum? I guess you lucky few do, the whole thing screamed to be out of a fantasy story but we could see clearly the defenses of that place, like scorpions batteries in different places and fortified towers, guards making their rounds, you know the typical thing you would expect from a medieval fortification.
Now it was in front of our eyes, the once crumbling castle that was left to fall into disgrace had a new shine and apparently the restoration work was far from over, it looked like time did a number on this structure, still we could see the look of determination on the workers and every griffin who was tending to repairs or busy with their work, no matter how mundane it was, they carried it with an air of pride and focus.

It was amazing to see them like this, Captain silver told us about their new king, a distant descendant Princeling who was simply tired of seeing his people fall into disgrace and decided to do something about it, I know I said it all before but the changes he made around, the way he carried himself and others, made everygriff believe that the only way forward was to remain objective to the present instead of longing for the past. After losing their relic on that accident with the ponies, a lot of noble griffins wanted to make Equestria pay, Ferdinand decided to step up and threw a speech on how the griffins simply lost their way and that every simple griffin from the highest to the lowest had a degree of responsibility on what happened.
It did made sense and when he decided to step up to claim the throne with the help and approval of many their support was made clear. Little by little his ideas to bring modernization into the traditional way of life in the kingdom allowed even the most uptight noble open to his ideals, either they adapted to the changes or their country would suffer the same fate like many others in the known world.

He sounded like a great guy and after hearing what happened to us in the forest and the whole business with the dragon, he wanted to get even with us and reward us for our help and sacrifice, as we approached the side of the castle his personal guard came to greet us at the landing platform. Here’s another thing you folks might not know, some griffins are freaking huge, not giant like but close enough and with their wings spread to increase their size in a way to intimidate, chills man chills, I was just amazed by the display.

The whole capital was placed on a Giant tree that looked dead and hollow, houses and roads were built on the base but the castle was on the top, and with a change of a monarch the whole place looked like it was healing a little bit, green spots appeared in the dry branches that spread on the top of the tree.
New construction were being made all around going even further to the fields below the mountain, it was the sight of progress and now here we were, in a castle being greeted by the griffin version of a space marine, and behind them a flock of nobles wearing official uniforms and what it appeared to be the nobility closest to royalty and the rest of the court.

The crowd got closer to meet the knights who faced the horrors on their borders and to finally meet the humans who fought along side them, their murmuring was loud and their glances at us wasn’t hostile but it really showed that they were surprised to see us, I guess rumors flew faster than us, the eyes of every griffin was right on us. On that moment the crowd made way to a couple of announcers and in the middle the High king of Griffonstone forever named Grover even though his name was Ferdinand, a tall griffin with a colorful brown with some blonde hairs going through his hide, like the guy was born with golden streaks and his lion part was covered by the purple cape he carried.

The knights stood in a line presenting arms awaiting for the orders from the personal guards, but nothing came the huge group of griffins just stood there in silence watching us, looking at our movement. Aliana was getting impatient and decided to mess around with them, slowly bringing one hand on her pocket and pulling slowly a small pocket mirror and started using the sunlight to reflect it in the faces of the bigger griffins, Captain Silver pulled his wing over her hands in a motion to stop her, some of the knights were smirking though even Iron Beak appeared amused.
We were about to bow along with the knights when all of the sudden we heard him speak ”Don’t, do not bow to me, it is us should we bow to you, young heroes, In the name of King Grover and all of Griffonstone I thank thee for the length of your efforts and sacrifices, I know there is nothing I own that I could give you to replace the loss of your loved ones, but whatever favor you ask, I’ll do my best in my power to grant it to you.”
We thanked him and his gaze went towards the knights who were standing in position puffing their chest and looking forward.
The king thank them for their service and had a little words with Iron Beak and Captain Silver, what did he said? don’t know, as soon as he finished saying a few words, he invited us to a banquet with the rest of the court so we may re tell the story of our arrival and our time in this kingdom. He said that we were more than welcome to stay as long as we wanted and that many ambassadors of different kingdoms were coming to greet us later in the day, but first he would allow us to rest.

And that was our first day in the Capital, I know this sounds of little importance but you must know that despise our arrival, the rumors that a new enemy just breached the borders of the kingdom and a dragon no less, it looked like war was on their doorstep, just in time when a new king was crown and hope was rekindled all through their country?, is it any wonder they would like to pass our arrival on the castle as just another formal greeting?
Don’t exactly know the length of the rumors themselves but I for once know they are greatly exaggerated for sure.

Talk to you soon Mr.journal.

Michael Keener.

Author's Note

Here's a filler, had a few days that completely left me without any will to write but I managed to force myself into it again.
Hope you people enjoy it.