FEB 16 Tuesday.

I look up as my head sticks out of the train window at an angle. In the near distance, I see a decent-sized mountain with a large stone tree-like structure reaching high into the sky. Along the stone branches, I can make out a great many buildings and many tiny dots flying around.

Griffonstone is said to rest upon the petrified remains of a great tree, I never knew how accurate that was. The show basically said nothing about it and no book I could find ever said for certain if it was a tree, but this trip might be the time I find an answer to that question.

Dawn broke not long ago and we have finally arrived at our destination. As we get closer I take some time to sketch out the tree and city from the odd angle I'm at, I don't get very far before we arrive at the mountain base and start to ascend. Through rock tunnels, we reach higher and higher before finally reaching the top.

The mountain top is relatively flat with a large amount of buildings around the base of the tree. The buildings are an odd mix of stone and thatch roofs with many wooden support beams, it's an odd way to build homes in my mind but it's not my place to question their way of life.

The train station is an open-air area with a flat platform and not much else. While I pack I glance out the window to see the massive stone tree reaching even higher into the sky as Griffons fly around the busy city. As I finish packing I hear a knock on the door and open it a moment later.

A guard looks me over for a moment before nodding. "Please follow me Sir." I just nod silently. During our card game, I did end up asking Shining what I'd actually be doing. From what I know we'll be headed higher up the city into the branches and near the palace.

We have accommodations waiting for us up there and after that, we won't be doing much for the rest of the day. Meanwhile Cadance will be greeting the royalty of Griffonstone and attending a party in her honor, luckily I'm neither invited nor needed to attend.

The other translators and diplomats will be doing that, while I'm basically just following the guards around for today. The guard leads me out of the train where everypony is gathering with a few carts of cargo, I also notice some well-dressed Griffons greeting Cadance not far away.

The city is somewhat like the show, some buildings are more degraded than they should be and many griffons seem uninterested in the princess or what's happening around them. Some do notice, but then keep their distance and just watch. I wouldn't call this city bad-looking, it's just not well maintained from what I can see.

After a few minutes of standing around Cadance is off with a retinue of guards in a flying carriage and our translators and diplomats. I can't help but notice that it seems I'll be walking with the rest of the staff and guard, and while I'm a little annoyed she got one over me I wouldn't mind a walk through the city.

The Griffons we pass seem mostly uninterested and just go about their days while moving out of the way. Griffonstone is larger than the show even showed, it's not as big as Canterlot but it is still the larger size for a city. We walk down the stone streets as we near the tree's stone trunk.

The city has different rough districts, some markets, an area with many restaurants, and what looks like a few government buildings that are better maintained. This is a city like any other, a busy place with many beings living in it, and now I'm excited to explore it.

As we near the trunk I reach out with my life magic and feel nothing. If this thing was alive once it died so long ago that not even the faintest traces remain. I notice a tunnel in the trunk not far away and after a minute we enter it and start to ascend even further.

The tunnel is lit with many torches and a few braziers that light the many dark steps. To the side of the steps are ramps that Griffons and our guards use to bring the carts with us. The walk is uninteresting for the most part, with many turns and twists before we arrive outside again.

I look out far into the distance as the land and sea stretch out below me, I've got to admit this is one unique city. The branches act as streets with houses on each side of a street, all the buildings look far more professional and neat. We're on the second to last branch with only the palace above us.

This part of Griffonstone reminds me of Canterlot's royal district, large buildings, and well-maintained streets. Its residents are also far more interested in our presence. Several watch us and whisper amongst themselves, a few even walk with a few of the more important ponies and talk to them as we continue walking.

Eventually, we arrive at an older, more disheveled-looking mansion, like many of the upper-class buildings it's made from stone with thick support beams and a nice wooden shingle roof. The rook walls are painted a dull green and the small greenery around the front is struggling a little.

Not a bad place to stay honestly, plus it's interesting to stay in an upper-class Griffon home. A pair of armored Griffons walk out from the front door before handing off a few papers to the pony guard who seems to be in charge of us. The Griffons fly off right after that and the mare guard opens the papers as we all wait.

But after a moment she turns to us after muttering something and looking a little annoyed. "Any translators still with us!" Her voice holds some authority as it carries over our group. I know most of the translators went with Cadance, but after a moment nopony else steps forward.

:Hhhh, fine: I mentally sigh and start to walk over to her with a neutral expression. She sees me and looks at my badge for a second before nodding. "Can you translate this?" Her tone is calm and professional as she holds the paper out to me. I take a moment to take out some paper and a quill before looking over the document.

I thought they'd just forgotten to translate a certain part, but no, it was all in pure Griffon. It's not hard to guess this is some classic incompetence or political bullshit, either way, I can fix this. I turned to her, "Give me a few minutes." I answer before moving to the side of the gate and just getting to work.

"All right, you lot get inside and start setting up!" She shouts out and everypony gets to work. She turns back to me, "Can you give me the basics of that?" She asks while I start to work.

I read through it quickly and it is basically a document giving us permission to use this building for our visit. "It lets us legally stay here for the duration of the trip," I answer simply and she nods. Over the next few minutes, ponies walk past me and I feel a little uncomfortable as many start to notice me.

I don't like the attention but I brought this on myself, so much for staying low key I guess. Once I'm done I copy my translation twice and give her all three documents while keeping a copy for myself. "Don't let anyone have the original, if it's lost we can be kicked out easily," I warn bluntly before walking inside with the rest as she holds the documents with more care than before.

The inside has an old feel to it, it's dark though and I cast a magical light to walk around the large main room as everypony starts to clean up and sort out where everypony will sleep and eat. I don't really know what to do, so I just pick up a broom and ask where a cleaner is needed.

I asked the same mare that asked for a translator earlier, in response she gave me a confused look but shrugged after a moment. "A few are already working on the upper rooms." She points to a staircase. "You can do that if you like?" She suggests and I just nod before doing just that.

I get a few more odd looks from the other ponies cleaning but I continue to clean over the next two hours before being assigned a room. It's nothing great, just a dusty bed with clean sheets and a wooden desk, but that's all I really need. I don't want to unpack and I don't have anything to do so I just start to work on a few things.

time skip

FEB 17 Wednesday.

I decided to start the new day by joining the guards for their morning run. I may not have been in formation or wearing armor, but I kept the weight of my saddlebags and ran alongside them. Eventually, they stopped but I kept going to finish the daily regimen Stone demanded of me.

I run my last lap around the mansion breathing heavily, but I still push my limit and make sure my body is exhausted and my legs feel like stones before I stop. I stop after that and sit down while casting my muscle healing spell on myself as I sit down and recover.

After a moment a pair of hoof steps come near me and I look up to see Shining with a water flask held out to me, I shake my head and take out my own flask to quench my thirst. "You sure know how to train, I guess that training with old Stone paid off huh?" He greets me with a friendly tone.

I nod. "Yup, I dread every Wednesday and he never goes easy on me." I chuckle and start to stretch out my legs before standing up again.

His smile turns into a lopsided grin. "Wow, you're still training with him? Guess you are tough. I heard most only last a few weeks with him." I hear some respect in his tone and smile back. I noticed that he had a wooden sword at his side and raised a brow.

He sees that. "Training, some of the ones here are recruits, and somepony needs to teach them." He explains before giving him an odd smile. "Want to join us?" He offers happily.

I stop at that as indecision overcomes me. On one hoof I don't like attention or training with others. But on the other hoof, it sounds fun, and training seems like a good way to gain a little more respect from Shining. It's not something I need, but earning that respect could lead to a good foundation for a friendship. "Sure." Eventually, I agree.

That gets a larger smile from him. "Come on then, I'm late as it is." He says with a little humor as we walk back into the mansion. I spent yesterday helping with a few small things and relaxing in my room, but while walking around the mansion I kept my senses sharp.

I didn't find anything bad, but I still memorized the building's basic layout and counted the entrances. From what I learned Griffonstone is a somewhat tense place right now. Griffonstone seems to be having a bit of a hard time over the past decade or two.

Mostly because of a few minor territory disputes with neighboring city-states, they never turned into a war and what little conflict that did happen seems small and relatively nonlethal. Honestly, even full-scale wars in this world have nothing on wars from my old world.

Even if I use a similar time period like the eleven hundreds human wars were way more violent and bloody. To be blunt the many races of this world are less prone to using extreme means for victory. As an example, prisoners of war are almost always treated decently no matter the conflict, but like with all things there are exceptions.

I once pondered that this could be the influence of harmony, and I still think it might be, but I have no way to ever prove that. Back to my point though, Griffonstone has had a few small conflicts with other city-states that resulted in concessions and territory losses which led to economic troubles.

This is partly why Cadance is on this trip. Griffonstone is a large exporter from the East continent to the West continent mostly shipping things by boat where traders on the coast of Equestria move those goods further inland. It's a large trade route Griffonstone is perfectly positioned for. So this trip is about negotiating more trade on that route.

I leave my thoughts as we enter a somewhat busy room with several guards out of armor talking, as soon as we enter they quickly sprint to the middle of the room and stand at attention. It's a large room with the floor covered in a layer of cloth for padding.

I'm already a little jealous, they got padding. "At ease, you're here to learn not stand around, now pair up and start, no more slouching around. Except you, come here." Shining gives them orders and points at a unicorn mare who looked like a hard ass at first sight.

She looked stern and not very fun, but she marched up with a nod of respect. "Captain?"

"He's with you, get him a weapon and in the ring." Shining's tone is all authority and leaves no room for argument.

She stops at that and looks like she swallowed something sour, she just looks me over and looks annoyed before eventually nodding curtly at me. I don't know what crawled up her behind but I don't really care. We walk over to a weapon rack and she grabs a single short sword with her horn.

I can tell she's not going to talk to me so I just grab both a greatsword and dagger, much to the confusion of Shining and all the other guards who are pretending to train while watching us. The mare just huffs at me and a few moments later we're starting in an empty area.

She did give me a slightly confused look when I grabbed my weapons with my field and not my hoofs, but she just took a stance that I recognized well. Stone uses the same stance and so do most guards, but I can tell Stone is much better at it than she is. Honestly, this might be an unfair match-up for her.

Shining moves to the side and addresses both of us. "No spells, no tricks, just your weapons, make sure to stay in the circle. First solid hit wins. " He has the same tone and a moment later she moves. I'm used to Stone throwing shit at me at all times so something this big doesn't catch me off guard.

She starts with a basic strike that I deflect with my greatsword as she moves back a little after I swipe with my dagger before taking my own battle stance. I hold my greatsword at an angle from the front of my body and hold the dagger at its midsection, I hold that stance and simply wait.

The mare seems to actually consider me an opponent now. She moves quickly and tries to break through my defense with several fast blows. The battle technique she's using mostly uses fast and well-timed strikes, so I move to deflect with the dagger and start to swing back.

I rotate the greatsword at the handle's base causing it to swing much faster than it normally should, but this mare has some skill and barely deflects the blow before it hits her. All the other guards have basically stopped training and are now just watching as I follow up my strikes with more rapid swings.

She doesn't have a weighty enough weapon to properly deflect the blows and is forced to dodge and starts to be pushed back as I rapidly swing while constantly switching between the dagger and greatsword. The flurry of blows doesn't stop as I just keep chaining my swings together and keep pushing her back more and more.

Only when she was right at the edge of the circle was she forced to attack again, only to be deflected again and knocked back with a blow to her side from the greatsword. "Out!" Shining shouts and I stop before lowering my weapons. The poor mare still looks a little stunned.

The whole fight took a minute at the most and she was backpaddling for most of that. I just reach out a hoof to help her up, she just stares me down for a moment before taking the offered hoof. Once she's upright again I feel a little embarrassed as a few guards start to clap a little.

Honestly, the mare put up a decent fight for a recruit and somepony fighting me for the first time. My fighting style is different from most and she probably didn't know how to counter it or know what to expect next. To be blunt she was at a disadvantage from the start.

Shining smiles at me before turning to the others in the room. "All right you lot, enough slacking! Get to it before I give you extra patrol duty." He has an upbeat tone but I can tell he's serious.

I'm about to go over to him, but I'm cut off. "Not bad." The mare I fought gives me something of a compliment before walking off. Not the best compliment, but I'll take it.

I walk over to Shining as he observes the training guards. "Well, that was certainly not what I expected." He seems even more relaxed with me, it seems this is the way to get to know him. "Where did you even learn that? I consider myself knowledgeable about things like that, but I don't recognize that style." He asks calmly.

Shining seems to ask things in a blunt way while not really expecting much of an answer. Celestia will leave a topic alone out of respect, but Shining just lets things go and shrugs them off most of the time. Although I strongly suspect that he can be very different if needed.

I feel hungry and honestly, I have other plans, so I just smile at him and put the wooden weapons away before walking away. "I invented it," I answered simply before walking out of the room leaving an impressed Shining. I'm really starting to think that he and I will get along just fine as friends.

Now, it's time for my paranoia to kick in.

Author's Note

Thanks for reading. :D
Current year is 994

I know there's not much going on in this one, but I got a little carried away with world building and fleshing out Griffonstone. I may be addicted to world building, and I'm going to make it your problem.