Author's Note

boop, have another longer chapter, you guys.

Now then I must admit writing Harbinger in the third person was a little strange to me given how long I've written her in first but I think it turned out well no?

As I asked in the last chapter please leave a number in the recent blog I made, there will likely be two to four more chapters before the vote ends and I introduce the first Permanent resident of Haven, coincidentally if I can work up the will to write it so will the first smut scene.

The griffon named in Celestia's pov is a reference to another fic on this site, one that in my personal opinion is one of the best, kudos to whoever knows it.

Like always please drop a comment, whether constructive criticism, a joke, or just a question, I enjoy them.

Inpediement

Harbinger grimaced slightly as her eyes fell on the scorched and cracked stone where she had cremated the bodies of the hunting party, the ash had long since blown away in the wind and yet the phantom scent of burning flesh and charred bone assaulted her nostrils as she took tentative steps through the old broken gate into the courtyard. The few days that had passed had washed away a lot of any real scent that would have lingered from the actual fight but her strangely vivid ability to remember detail allowed her brain to bring them to her senses anyway.

Her ribs ached in phantom pain as she narrowed her eyes in a suspicious glare over at the broken and cracked cobblestone that had once housed the body of the lindworm that had slaughtered the hunting party and almost ended her journey only a few days ago. The fact that the corpse was gone was not a good omen in her already stressed day. The only reason she continued going forward at all was the simple fact that she knew the great serpent was dead and gone. She had made sure of that before she had stumbled out of the courtyard that day, it may have been one hell of a monster but very few things could live after having their head sawed off.

Still, she kept her head on a swivel for what had happened to the body. The snake had been a huge beast and the chances that something bigger had seen it as an easy meal was too great for her to relax. Then again, a small horde of smaller predators would likely be more problematic than say, a small dragon as they could actually chase her through the undergrowth. She came to a stop near the center of the courtyard, the overwhelming smell of rot and old blood seeping from the blackened puddles that hadn't washed away with the storm causing her to retch. Taking a minute to breathe through her mouth and regain her stomach, she eyed the castle's main gate with a weary eye. In truth, she had hoped to avoid this place for a while but circumstances had forced her paw.

The wards of Haven had been so easy to connect to that she had honestly retried to do it two more times than necessary thinking she had fucked up somehow. In fact, it had been so simple for her to do so that it had set off several alarm bells in her already paranoid brain. After she had worked up the courage to look at the tree with her true sight the reason had become shockingly clear and She had walloped her head with her tails for nearly five minutes after the fact for not bothering to do so sooner. When she had recovered from her trip to whatever the odd plane of existence she had been trapped on she had simply assumed the tree had replaced the well as a siphon for the wards to draw magic from the leyline underneath Haven.

The tree did siphon magic from the leyline, It also converted it to be almost identical to her own languid inferno of magic that ran through her body. She felt beyond stupid for not checking the tree before, there had been so many signs that something had changed about the wards. The way they felt like a caressing protective blanket only after the incident, the fact that she always knew where the invisible barrier stopped, hell even the fact that it was easier to sleep and rest within the walls. It was her magic powering them, to the intent of the spells she was literally part of the wards. Honestly, despite the stupidity she felt she was happy it was that easy, the next two steps of modifying wards were not.

When she had first learned of proper magic the books had said that runes, normal runes that is, were only used in the creation of wards and permanent magical enchantments. You were supposed to carve them into wardstones or other magical receivers to help direct the intent of your magic as it set into a permanent array. Oddly this step wasn't as much of a problem as it could have been, thanks in part to her unusual knowledge base. She was actually pretty handy with futhark and had at least three books on the subject, one for each runic alphabet. Even on the off chance futhark wasn't a viable runic language she also happened to have a pair of books from the castle on draconic and threstrali runes.

The third and most problematic step was more of a material issue than anything else. While runes could be carved in plain wood or stone they were often stronger, more malleable, and long-lasting when inlaid with separate material. The main caveat to this was that the material needed to be magically conductive, With the lack of access to an alchemist or competent blacksmith she was limited to mundane simple metals specifically Copper, gold, and silver. She had a little gold and silver but not nearly enough to do the amount of carving she needed to do.

This left her with two options for gathering the needed resources. Option A, she fell back on her Viking roots and lead a raid on the town to rob the ponies of all their bling. Option B was to return to the castle of the Pony sisters and channel her inner dnd player. Harbinger wondered if she should find it concerning that the first option sounded far more fun, She'd finally get to see if the guard's armor was actually gold or not. Fortunately for the guards, the second option was more viable for the simple fact that she didn't know if the wolf-mare had left the village yet and thus she was opening the doors to the castle's entrance hall.

The doors opened with the sound of old ancient henges shrieking as they were once again forced to move, She winced slightly at the noise, her ears flattening against her head in protest. The entrance hall was not too different from when she had last seen it. Part of her regretted not searching the place more than the basic looting she had done the first time, in her defense she had probably been suffering from internal bleeding and a concussion at the time. The hall was a larger room that was well decorated with torn and tattered banners and old worn suits of ancient armor. The door that led into the throne room was a shattered wreck of mostly degraded wood and rusted steel.

The throne room itself held the first two objects of interest to her plans, the thrones of the pony sisters were both inlaid with a large amount of silver and gold just as she remembered when she had seen them the first time. The solar diarch's chair had been where she had recovered the few pieces of gold she currently had. Though the thrones likely had all of the material she would likely need they would have to wait till later, the magic she planned to use to extract the silver and gold would likely leave her strained and she wanted to save her strength for any unwanted surprises the castle might be hiding in its confines.

Retracing her steps she made her way past the thrones and to the door she had entered through the first time, Stopping by the fancy bedroom that she now realized was probably some sort of consort room she took a minute to root through the debris of the desk. Harbinger flicked a tail in irritation as she found nothing but rotting wood and the remains of a half-dozen vials. searching under the bed revealed a small trunk that held the moth-eaten remains of a few blankets and a bottle of wine so old she doubted it was anything more than vintage or sludge either way she had no wish to open it and find out. Seeing nothing else of major worth she backed out of the room and made her way towards the end of the hall.

She had only grabbed a single set of silverware from the kitchen last time, this time she made sure to grab all of it, and took the time to fish around in all of the nooks and crannies of the place. Other than more silverware she managed to find a single pouch that practically disintegrated in her grip as she brought it closer to her. She panicked slightly as it's contents spilled all over the ground. Her tails lashed out trying to catch the small cascade of a few dozen silver and copper coins landing all around her paws. She took a moment to silently listen for anything that might have been attracted to the noise before picking the multitude of metal disks off the floor. Honestly, the amount of silver alone improved her mood a little.

While silver did have a few more benefits than gold or copper when making certain kinds of wards the truth was a little more conceited than that. Truthfully she had never been overly fond of gold, and while copper would probably work a little better than silver when it came to the sheer flexibility she needed for the wards she didn't have enough of the stuff. It boiled down to the fact that she liked the look of silver over gold and didn't want to have the stuff all over her home.

She left the kitchens and turned into the connected hallway to the other side of the bottom level of the castle, There were a multitude of doors on this side of the castle as well, the first she entered proved to lead into what seemed to be a small guest quarters. It was a circular room with a small living area and three other doors that led into small private rooms. A quick search scrounged up a few more coins and a yellow-backed beetle the size of a small rat. The beetle quickly died with a conflagration of cyan flames as she quickly noped the hell out and back into the hallway.

The second door was some kind of general-purpose craft room that at first glance had not fared well when the castle had fallen. The large room had a small smeltery and forge against the far wall, or rather what was left of the far wall. the heavy stone brick had been blasted apart by something and had taken a large chunk of the forge with it. The rest of the room was covered in shattered rotting furniture and rusting metal items. The other three walls were covered in mostly empty weapon racks and shelves. Oddly the few weapons that were hung within the racks were in decent condition and with a closer look revealed soft designs inscribed along the metal of the weapons.

Realization struck her, it was a runic script. The enchantments on the blades were likely all the same given the runes were all similar with little variation, likely some kind of durability inscription. She ran a tail along the blade of one, a shorter polearm with similarities to a boar spear with a broad leaf-shaped blade and slightly shorter than average lugs. A shudder ran through her as she remembered as she remembered a similar spear grazing the front of her throat close enough to leave a cut in the small bamboo throat plate of her armor. The other weapons consisted of two swords that were of similar design to that of the gladius-like blades the guards had used, a flanged mace, and a set of what she thought might be throwing knives. With a happy grin she quickly plucked the weapons from the walls and added them to her bags.

The third and fourth rooms in the long hall were both collapsed old rubble feeling the spaces to the point that spending the time to try and dig through would not be worth the limited time she had before dark fell. The fifth and final door on the bottom level of the castle led to a small sitting room that had long lost its splendor to time. She got the feeling that this was the kind of room that had seen countless familial discussions and long-avoided arguments. She let out a dissatisfied huff at the sight of the ruined bookshelves along the walls, whatever protective spells had preserved the books in the mage's room had clearly not been applied in here.

A short walk later she was carefully making her way up the central stairs. The second level of the castle was in as bad a shape as she remembered, most of the rooms inaccessible for one reason or another. She took a moment to grab the few coins and garnet she had disregarded the first time before continuing on to the servant's quarters.

The servant quarters had eight private rooms and upon squeezing herself into the more narrow corridor she found that the rooms were all surprisingly intact. Unfortunately for her while the rest of the castle had been designed with the two rulers in mind the servant's wing was what she would consider compact even for normal ponies. A series of strained noises and effort later and she managed to squeeze enough of her body into the rooms to search them for anything of value. despite her best efforts she only found a few more coins and a single jasper ring that based on the odd grooves on the inside was probably meant to go on a unicorn's horn.

Eventually she made her way to the mage's room once again, the room was still intact like it had been the last time she was here, minus the books of course. The bed and mattress were still soaked in a copious amount of her old blood however and the room had little else to offer besides a plain desk and chair that while intact were bare of any oddities or decorations. She wondered if perhaps the old unicorn had somehow managed to survive the massive blast that had vaporized a large chunk of the fighting armies and shattered the room's window. It would explain why such a person's room would have so little personal effects in it. A quick search revealed no hidden treasures or interesting nicknacks and with a disappointed frown she made her way back out into the hallway for the more dangerous part of this little expedition of hers.

The third floor of the keep was only accessible from a large chunk of rubble that had fallen in such a way to form a makeshift ramp from the second. With careful steps, Harbinger made her way up the incline of loose stone and rotting wood wincing as an errant paw sent a small cascade of rubble crashing through the second floor. She came up in a hall with a few accessible doors that turned sharply into a corner. A glance around the corner caused her to blanch, it was a large circular room that had a mural of the world carved into the floor. In its prime it must have been beautiful now it had a series of large cracks running through it that left no doubt about what would happen if something like her tried to walk across it. At the risk of fat jokes she could at least admit to herself that she was not a light fox.

With a shake of her head she turned to investigate the few doors she could reach. She had survived a death forest, kaleidoscope hell, and the angriest snake she hoped to ever meet. She was not going to die to a bunch of fucking bricks, if fate wanted a rocks-fall-and-you-all-die moment it could find some other poor fox to put down. there were three accessible doors on the other side of the hall, pulling one open with her magic revealed a large bath that was filled with murky green water. She quickly closed the door before the smell of the impromptu swamp could hit her and quickly moved to the next.

The second door opened into a massive sun-themed bedroom, the room was almost as big as the apartment she had above her old bookshop and in her head she immediately decided that this must have belonged to the solar diarch. The bed alone was large enough to fit two of her and was covered in long mildewed pillows. A large writing desk covered in decayed matter sat in the corner of the room. A quick search of the room had netted half a pound of gold in jewelry and a book written in a language unfamiliar to her. Flipping through the book left her with the distinct impression that it was a journal or diary. A toothy grin formed as she pondered if it was bad manners to air the dirty laundry of a sun goddess to her subjects.

Taking a minute to examine the third floor a little closer caused Harbinger to realize that this entire wing of the third level was likely dedicated to the solar goddess. A fact that made the third door especially interesting to her, it was reinforced with bands of iron and the frame was etched with runes that had mostly faded from the rusted metal. Just what, she wondered could be behind door number three. She took a moment to sit on her haunches and focus her magic to her eyes. She needed to use the ability more, get into the habit as it was a valuable tool that she had neglected to use.

While a small trace of magic still lingered on the door, the power behind the runes was either not that great to begin with or had faded with time. She stared at the door handle for a few seconds before using a tail to test the lock. The door did not budge. Flicking an ear in irritation she huffed and sent a single tail tip flicking towards the door's lock with all the speed and power of a whip. The ancient iron mechanism shattered as it was sent through the door and into the room beyond. The sheer force of the blow sent the door careening into the wall with a loud crash and she winced as the sound echoed through the ancient halls of the keep like a cannon volley. Hesitantly she poked a paw through the door to make sure there were no ward-based traps her form tensed to leap and crash through the floor if needed.

Quietly, she blew a sigh of relief through her teeth as nothing happened. With a careful pace, she entered the room and blinked. Her jaw lowered in shock as her brain caught up with the contents of the room. She expected there was a dungeon, just not one of that nature. She eyed one of the sets of leather straps and cuffs for a second and wondered if... "Nope, nope, nope, note to self don't get caught by the solar sister."

She quickly made her way back down the rubble and second-floor stairs, distracting herself from the imagery of the more exotic devices that had been in the room by imagining what her challenge rating would be if she were a dnd encounter. By the time she had reached the throne room, she had decided that she'd be a six, with a likelihood of becoming an eight if a DM used her right.

It was time for her to Salvage the thrones of their material and leave, with the amount of time she had been exploring she only had a few more hours of light left. She put a few meters between her and the lunar throne before reaching deeply and drawing the swirling Chaotic inferno of her magic to her lungs, then stopped as a thought struck her. The drawn magic dissipated into her manna pool as she pulled a lesser amount to her eyes. The lunar throne was soaked in magic, though it was a passive ambient amount that spoke of a heavy magical presence rather than wards and enchantments, it was oddly faded for the amount that was there almost like how a scent of someone's home would be if they hadn't been around for a few months. Harbinger twitched in irritation and decided not to focus on how she knew that. Still, from what she could tell the throne's enchantments if any were long since faded.

With an exhale she let the manna flow from her eyes and upon the inhale began to draw it back to her chest and lungs, holding her breath she brought one of her tails forward and used it to form a loop in front of her muzzle. A spell array formed within its confines, it honestly reminded her of the bubble wands she used to play with as a kid. With her next exhale she blew a steady stream of her cyan fire through the array. The heat immediately dried the air and the silver on the throne began to melt in steady streams, she curled her other tails in pain as the strain of the next part of her plan hit her brain. grabbing the molten silver in her magic while simultaneously keeping her fire focused to only melt the silver was harder than she had planned but it was working, the silver began to pool in her grip like a malleable ball of glowing liquid.

With a rasping cough, she let the fire stutter and then stop, snapping her jaw shut and clenching her teeth as the sheer weight of the basketball-sized sphere of molten silver strained against her mind. With a grimace, she brought her tail to hover near the molten metal and carefully cast the small cooling spell she had seen in one of the books. She thanked whatever god would listen for the fact that she needed silver and not something that took too long to cool like steel, she was no longer looking forward to making her den as much as she had been. She planned on using a similar method to coat the tunnel walls with molten stone, she hoped she could compress the stuff into the wall so it came out smooth instead of rough or jagged.

Thirty minutes of strained faces later she finally put the gleaming sphere of silver into her ever-present bag. Relief pulsed through her at the lack of weight and she turned with dread to look at the solar throne, Then looked back at her bag as something dawned in her. A concerned frown crossed her expression even as she panted from the effort of her actions. while bags of holding were invaluable tools to just about anybody in any media they almost always had a limit, She already kept nearly one hundred and fifty pounds of stuff in the thing, along with almost fifty of whatever food she could get her paws on. Combined with the orb of silver it made for a little more than five hundred pounds. That was already more than your average D&D version could hold.

She would have to leave the gold. Gold as a material weighed almost twice what silver did and while she wasn't exactly sure of the exact weight four to five hundred more pounds was not something she was willing to risk. If the bag ruptured not only would she lose an invaluable tool but the resulting effects could do anything from crushing her back half to sucking her into another dimension. She sighed in annoyance as she cast her gaze up at one of the empty windows and wondered how a life without any of the more modern distractions could be just as fucking complicated. Now not only did she need to figure out how to build effective wards, learn firsthand experience in underground architecture, and learn how to do a multitude of carpentry, but she now had to add learning artifice to the workload.

Her shoulders slumped and with a tired gait she made her way out of the courtyard, she held her breath until she was back at the bridge that spanned the gap of the ravine. She eyed the eighty-foot drop underneath her for a minute and pondered how much work adding a moat around the walls of Haven would be. To her eternal confusion, she had quickly figured out that while the moon moved like it had been fed crack the sun was relatively normal in its positions, enough that she could still tell time with the thing. given where it sat at the moment she probably had an hour before dusk and another before the month's new moon cast the entire forest into pitch black.

Harbinger returned her gaze to the forest edge, watching carefully for any unusual movement before she made her way across the bridge. As the shade of the canopy returned to cover her form she sniffed the air a few times. the myriad of scents no longer confused her and she quickly began sorting the smells. Racoon, canine, skunk, some kind of reptilian, a tired smile crossed her muzzle as she located the scent she was looking for, deer. If she was lucky and hurried she might manage to catch dinner on her way to Haven. An adventure well done and a full stomach of venison would do her wonders right now.

Celestia blinked as she looked up from her paperwork with a frown, her brow furrowed as she tried to place the strange mental ping that had sounded off in her head. She blinked even harder face smoothing out as she realised it was a ward falling. though she doubted it was an overly important one given its location indicated it was one she had placed in the old castle a long time ago. She looked back down at the report Shining Armor had brought her and sighed in irritation. The last few weeks had brought her nothing but problems with very few solutions.

The first strike had been Twilight informing her of the magispawn recorded in Ponyville, why some fool had to go and create monsters near a populated town she didn't know but if the person was alive and identified they would have words. The fact that the creature had survived the clash with one of the best hunters of the guild and then likely slaughtered the rest of the hunting party only a day later had not helped. She supposed she should be thankful that Snowtalons little project had asked to stay and defend the town. She didn't have anything against the mare but her existence had caused her several issues on the political side of things and she was quite happy the wolf-pony was out of the capital.

Then there was a small protest that had turned violent in Los Pegasus when the mayor declared he was revoking the license of some griffon chef named Fredrik. Why the royalty and officials of her country seemed to think she needed help in keeping the populations of non-ponies in her country in check bewildered her. She'd have put her hoof down a long time ago if it didn't make for such a fine tool. She let the nobles do what they did and when they went just too far she was there to pull the policies back to more respectable levels. She rubbed a hoof at the base of her horn for a second, trying to relieve the headache that was building.

It was perhaps unfortunate that her third issue spawned directly from said tactics. Her sister simply did not understand, co-existence as equals did not work with so many different races, She could get fellow equines to work together with a few minor bumps here and there but dragons, griffons, or mother above, the changelings? It just didn't work, they thought too differently from her ponies, their shapes simply too different to accommodate effectively. Hells the predatory species were perhaps the worst, they had done most of her work for her.

The griffons oh so proud and quick to anger, had declared war over simple insults and a small skirmish that hadn't even had any casualties. They had thrown themselves into war even with such a poor economy and then when she had personally smote the few armies that had managed to be effective they had declared it an abomination against decency. Even now reduced to a vassal state of the kingdom they prided themselves in their history not willing to let go of what they had lost. When she was younger she found that stubbornness endearing in the few she had called friends, now she just found it exhausting. The surface-dwelling dog tribes were a little better, Her ponies needed land to expand so they used the forest, their magic allowing them to conquer nature and tame the land into something far more useful. Yet the brutes had continued to attack the pony settlements until they had all but wiped themselves out trying to... oh how did they put it, ah yes she remembered, restore things back to the natural order. The subterranean ones were still a nuisance to this day even with the hunters guild culling their packs when they did their raids.

Dragons and kobolds, the now-extinct wolf tribes, hippogryphs, the cat folk of the Far East, all they had to do was submit to her rule but no like all the rest they had to be stubborn, all she wanted was to lead them all to a harmonious existence was that too much to ask? She shook herself out of her thoughts as she looked back down at the paper she had crumbled in her magic. Now she just needed to figure out why half of Luna's non-threstral night guards had seemingly taken a paid vacation, sick leave, or had emergencies at the same time.