Exodus, The Beginning

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.