Hatching in Equestria as a Silver Dragon

3 hours later - Onyx's POV

We have been hunting them for a few hours now, turns out the way to kill a zombie fairly fast is to destroy the cerebellum, or the connection from it to the body, destroying the large majority of the brain didn't do more than damage them severely, sure it was a weak spot, but not the place from where their propensity for violence originated.

It was magical in nature.

Cutting the spinal cord from the cerebellum killed the creature because it did now allow it to receive the magical commands keeping it alive, it simply ceased to "live" once it had no more way to receive it's magic.

I had to think of this monsters like puppets, they seemed to work like they were under the control of something much smarter and, even the elite units we killed before were acting odd, I think this is the case because they were completely silent, but not mindless, they attacked as if something was commanding them mentally, and puppets need not to talk, for their master does so for them.

Your correct deduction bout the nature of this Dungeon grants you one Large Radiant Gem.

The game helpfully exclaimed. I blinked for a few seconds, then smiled, that sounds like it would be useful to enchant weapons with Radiant damage! Or make something out of.

We had already cleared all the entirety of the outer palisades, in total we had slain a total of 25 zombies, we got lucky, as it seems they only concentrated in large numbers around the doors to the village, the rest had only small patrols of 2 or 1 that were easily taken care of, usually without even giving them time to be alerted.

I have gained 2 levels and reached level 24 (726/7945) My mom Sylf has leveled up once and reached level 25 (2158/9534) and Kari leveled up once and reached level 24 (5362/7945)

I decided to put 2 points into intelligence to increase my mana and 2 into charisma, I felt I would need to make friends in the future, and I didn't want to be so awkward.

Mom also added her points to charisma, because I recommended that she would need it to have an easier time finding a mate, she glared at me but it was clear she was not really angry.

Also she gained a feat for reaching level 25! She had the Alert feat, she could no longer be surprised by enemies because she was more aware of her surroundings, even if not looking at them, this didn't meant she couldn't be attacked from stealth, she just would react faster to the attack than normal.

Also she gained a new perk, something called Ethereal Blade, which made her sword attacks go from physical to magical, she could activate it at will without having to concentrate, I was not sure what benefit that would habe but it was good to have.

Kari added the points into charisma too, by my recommendation, if she was more charismatic she would be able to make ponies see her as less terrifying, probably? I hope...

We decided to only collect the gold from the low level zombi soldiers, in total about an extra 1000 gold, they had pretty bad gear by our standards now, I would have worn the armor bur they didn't come in my small size, it was... Kind of infuriating honestly, I would have looked very cool in armor...

I sighed, my stubby body was agile, dexterous, very sturdy and fast but... I was short compared to ponies my age, I was shorter than my friends not by much but it made me a bit grumpy to think about.

I was too distracted thinking about my childish problems to react in time.

'Watch out! Above us!' Mom mentally warned us, as a hail of crossbow bolts came down, all aimed directly at me.

Before I could fully turn, a dozen bolts found their way into me, one slammed on top of my head, only the tip pierced my thick scales, making the bolt poke out like a unicorn's horn, thankfully my thick dragon skull was not as easy to pierce as my scales, being harder than the gems dragons, including me, usually ate.

The second bolt found my shoulder, the third hit my back, in fact about 5 of them hit my back and side, two found my hind leg thigh, three others poked out of my long tail, I blinked, having been pushed to the ground by the impacts, then quickly cast the shield spell on all of us to block further projectiles.

Onyx has taken 18 damage! 180/198
Onyx has taken 14 damage! 166/198
Onyx has taken 13 damage! 153/198
Onyx has taken 15 damage! 138/198
Onyx has taken 13 damage! 125/198
Onyx has taken 10 damage! 115/198
Onyx has taken 12 damage! 103/198
Onyx has taken 5 damage! 98/198
Onyx has taken 3 damage! 95/198
Onyx has taken 3 damage! 92/198
Right front leg crippled! Movement slowed
Right back leg crippled! Movement slowed
Internal bleeding! -5 HP per minute

I knew they had hit me but pure adrenaline was keeping the pain from really starting.

'GET READY TO KILL THEM! I'm bringing them down!'
I mentally screamed, receiving immediate confirmation, then i concentrated, the stings of the crossbow bolts were forgotten for a few seconds as I channeled a large amount of mana. -60mp 161/221mp

I grabbed them all from the sky, this ones were wearing light armor, I felt it, they were able to fly because their armor was gambeson that protected their torso only.

I used my strongest possible telekinesis, making a lot of effort at this distance, they were about 10 meters up, much higher than the roof of the houses, but thankfully they were all clustered up, so grabbing them was easy, now with a powerful shove down, they came crashing to the ground much faster than they would have if they had just stopped flying.

4 landed their heads, some breaking their necks and dying instantly, the rest broke their legs, some their wings, but all were crippled and unable to use their crossbows, they had heavy crossbows with much stronger than normal mechanisms, not the same weak ones that the other zombies had.

As soon as they hit the ground, Sylf and Kari jumped into action, stabbing, slicing and butchering the griffons, cutting heads, limbs, wings, anything they could reach, at this point I was starting to feel the pain, I let out a silent gasp, I couldn't move... If I even tried to move in the least, a sharp pain would overcome my body, every breath hurt like hell.

I decided to inspect one of the griffons that had ambushed us

LvL 20 Undead Griffon Imperial Airforce
200hp
Elite unit trained to rain armor piercing bolts on armored priority targets, the bolts they shoot from their large crossbows have much more power behind them, along with an unknown metal alloy that can pierce steel plate armor easier than a steel bolt would.

Air strike: this units work in tight formations to rain down saturation fire on designated priority targets, focusing on landing as many bolts on a single target to kill them outright, before moving on to the next one.
Air Maneuvers: this units are able to fight in the air against other flying opponents, they are trained for aerial combat with their large crossbows, normally a single shot is enough to incapacitate or kill a lightly armored opponent, so in air combat one shot is often one kill.
Deadly payload: most armor can't stop the heavy bolts fired by this units, only magic shields are able to deflect them.

I barely could whimper as even making noises hurt, but I couldn't sit idle, my body trembled as I grabbed the bolts with my left claw, and one by one I pulled them off, leaving a bleeding, gaping wound behind.

Onyx takes 5 damage from his wounds! 87/198

It feels ten times more painful than they did on the way in... but i had to, the one on my head hurt the most, my eyes were brimming with tears of pain as I pulled out the thankfully not barbed bolts, they were made to pierce armor more than to inflict damage on flesh, and barbed bolts would have a harder time going though armored enemies.

Onyx takes 5 damage from his wounds! 82/198

I panted with effort, this were stuck hard inside, but I yanked them off, finally taking off the ones on my tail, this hurt a lot, and I was bleeding more, but maybe... Maybe I would get healed after they killed all this enemies... Even now I decided to save the potions for when there was no other choice.

Onyx takes 5 damage from blood loss! 77/198

My whole face was covered in blood, I couldn't see, I wiped the blood off my face with my left paw, I saw the enemies were already almost all dead, their mini ballistas discarded on the ground, those things were too big for me to consider them crossbows! No wonder they had enough power to pierce through my scales... I was full on crying now, despite the pain I just hated that I had to endure this awful suffering, why couldn't I be stronger and just somehow sense the attack and react in time? I was thinking stupid unimportant thoughts on the battlefield and that almost got me killed, ughhh... I'm so stupid! But whoever is controlling this griffins is going to pay for humiliating me like this!

All the undead Imperial Airforce griffons have been slain! You party earns 9600 EXP! Onyx has leveled up to level 25! 2381/9534 Sylf has leveled up to level 26! 2224/11441 Kari has leveled up to level 25! 7017/9534
Kari has obtained the following perk:
Ethereal Claws: your claws become magically infused, dealing magical damage that can bypass some resistances or immunities, you can activate this effect at will.
Ethereal Fangs: your fangs become magically infused, dealing magical damage that can bypass some resistances or immunities, you can activate this effect at will.

Onyx has learned Paralyzing Breath!

Suddenly my body felt fine, the pain was gone almost instantly, and I felt my energy returning, bigger and stronger but I didn't really want to get up, I was still sulking and growling to myself angrily, once I managed to get my claws on whoever did this to me... I would kill them slowly.

'Son... Are you okay?! Onyx! You... Oh, you're healed now are you?' mom asked with concern, but she probably already knew the answer, as there were no more bolts or holes in my scales, the silver color was back to it's pristine metallic condition, but there was plenty of very cold blood still clinging to my scales, the blood started to lose its luminescence slowly over time as it was out of my body.

'Yeah... I'm just really upset mom, at myself, but more so at whoever did this to me, this... Puppets did not come up with this plan, and they were aiming solely for me, someone sees me as the best target here, like I am the one they should be going after, you probably realized since they didn't aim at neither of you, and I intend to find out what is going on, because something ain't right with all of this...'

'I agree with you Onyx, this... griffons, there is something off about them, all of them.' Kari shared my thoughts, even she could realize this was very strange, I stood up now, shaking myself clean from my own blood that was drying on the ground, then wiped off the blood from my body where there was still some, and took off the bottle of water from the inventory, and started drinking it, finishing it and handing each of my friends one, it has been several hours since we started the dungeon, I would say about 6 hours, and we had been too busy killing to drink water, that could be what was causing my mind to not focus.

'Lets loot this bodies, I think their weapons are very powerful... Learned that out the hard way, I can still feel those bolts, the sensation is fresh in my mind, if I can use this things myself then I will gladly do so.'

We then go and start looking them, one by one we turn them to ash by looting, then we discard their armor as it's not even that good, but we keep the weapons, the crossbows are heavy, I certainly can feel the weight but its honestly not hard for me to carry, as now I'm incredibly strong compared to even adult earth ponies.

We also got about about 4000 gold pieces, but I had to discard all the level 15 or lower swords to fit all this gold, gold was very heavy.

Should we throw away some of the armor? The mail armor was really heavy, maybe I could leave it all inside a house and then come back to pick it up at a later date, when the dungeon was completed? Well... Why not?

I decided it was time to go find some more information about this place, I knew the boss was in the castle, so that would be the last place we look, for now I just wanted to uncover the truth.

'Come along, let's look at the houses, we haven't been checking them and they could have some clues about what happened here, follow me please.'

'Yes but be careful my little dragon, there could be dangers inside the houses too...' Sylf warns with concern in her voice, she was right, but we needed to find out more.

I opened the door, it was unlocked, we walked inside but immediately I knew something was wrong, there was something here, watching us, and this one was not friendly, then once we took a few steps inside, the door closed, and 3 ghostly figures appeared around us, they were ponies, but this ones didn't talk, they looked horrifying, they had empty eye sockets, their muzzles were open to reveal razor sharp needle like fangs, just looking at them you could feel the malice and desire for death, were this... They must have suffered something horrible to manifest as this things. 'Inspect'

LvL 20 Ghost
HP 100

Accumulation of suffering, anger and pain of those who died long ago.

Withering touch: the attacks of this creature deal cold and necrotic damage.

Horrifying visage: living creatures can become terrified upon looking at it.

Possession: it can take control of weaker living beings and becomes immune to any form of damage while is in control, the only way to get the ghost to leave is to kill, knock unconscious or use Turn Undead or Dispel Evil and Good on the creature being possessed.

Darkvision and passive perception.

Weaknesses and resistances: resistance to Acid, fire, lightning, thunder, bludgeoning, piercing or slashing.
Weakness to radiant damage.

Immunities: Cold, necrotic, poison

'Stay together, don't let them scare you, they are just ghosts made of negative emotions, use your new perks, the ethereal weapons will deal a lot more damage! I will handle this one myself, I have a plan.' I pointed to the one nearest to us, they nodded and we got to it.

They attacked while I pulled a bottle of holy water from my inventory, I had a bit of a plan.

So holy water, it destroys undead and ghosts, it damages them and makes them disappear, but what if I heat up the holy water? Time to try it out.

I used prestidigitation to heat up the water, at first nothing happened but after another more use, the water started to want to boil, I quickly opened the bottle and heated the water again, this time much more, the vapors were trying to escape but I held them in my telekinesis, sort of making a ball of vapor, heating it up inside the ball of telekinetic pressure, then I pushed around the ball of holy water vapor, it must be really hot and high pressure by now, I simply levitated the sphere near the ghost, it had been trying to attack me for a while but I dodged it's strikes more or less easily thanks to being short and agile, and it being kind of clumsy.

The ghost teleported around often, trying to hit me from different sides, but they were slower than the griffins, and much more predictable, seems the pony fighting skill before they became ghosts carried over.

Once the ghost was between me and and the ball of pressurized holy vapor I propelled the attack towards it, releasing my telekinesis in a small hole aimed at the ghost and hitting it head on, dissolving it instantly.

Ghost was exorcised! you party earns 1000 EXP
Onyx 3381/9534 Sylf 3224/11441 Kari 8017/9534
The only downside to this was that I used up the whole bottle of holy water, and I didn't know how to make more...

I focused on the present, helping mom and Kari to fight the ghosts, I used mostly telekinesis to stop the ghost from moving as mom slashed at it with the Ethereal blade, with the creature trapped momentarily it was easier to attack over and over, all meanwhile Kari was slapping around with her paws at her own enemy, whittling away at its hp.

Kari's impressive dexterity and speed was a sight to behold, she didn't get hit even a single time, mom dodged too but she had the advantage of a sword to protect herself and block strikes.

Ghost has taken 22 damage! 78/100
Ghost has taken 20 damage! 58/100
Ghost has taken 23 damage! 35/100

The ghost that I was holding still teleported away to attack from a new side, it seems my telekinetic hold was not able to keep it from teleporting, which was annoying to say the least.

I decided to use magic missile, but upcast to level 4
-40mp

Ghost has taken 6 damage! 29/100
Ghost has taken 6 damage! 23/100
Ghost has taken 6 damage! 17/100
Ghost has taken 6 damage! 11/100
Ghost has taken 6 damage! 5/100
Ghost has taken 5 damage! 5/100

Ghost has taken 10 damage and has been exorcised! Your party has earned 1000 EXP
Onyx 4381/9534 Sylf 4224/11441 Kari 9017/9534

The last ghost was the only one remaining, solely focused on Kari, this creatures clearly were not under the control of anyone, they were feral ghosts, unlike the undead, they also were much weaker for us, if i had more holy water I would use it much more freely, but the experiment was a success, I suppose I could call that spell 'Holy Vapor Bomb' but I needed an item to cast, and also concentrate on my telekinesis to hold it in the air and condensed, it did however not use any mana as the spells were very basic and weak, by themselves, maybe there was something to using simple everyday items in spells... Water could be weaponized, maybe so could other things?

While I pondered this, I watched mom and Kari gang up on the last ghost, they clearly didn't need my help so I just stayed back and watched.

Ghost has been exorcised! Your party earned 1000 EXP
Onyx 5381/9534 Sylf 5224/11441 Kari has leveled up to level 26! 483/11441

'Well done, now this place is clear, and best of all, none of us took any damage! This ghosts give a lot of experience for their weak attacks, tho I suppose if we had been weaker they may have been able to posses us or something... Which honestly would be terrifying and traumatic to any of us, having to fight one another, you know what? I'll stop thinking for now.'

'Agreed, let's see what's in this house son.' After that we got to exploring, looking around for anything that may help, the was large, one of the biggest in the village.

We found some useful items here, books on ancient stories and historical events, but none of them were important right now, there were no spell books and no weapons here and we found a small bag of gemstones but they were not worth saving, so I ate them for a snack, we had not stopped to eat since the morning, and I was guessing it was near nightfall by now.

We also found a diary of a certain pony who's name was for some reason erased from it, like as if magically, maybe no one here could have names as for the nature of this place. The dairy was old but in decent shape it spoke of everyday occurrences and day to day life on the village.

The dairy then got interesting, something had happened at some point, I told the others to come and sit next to me so I read the dairy to them mentally, it was easier and I got used to it.

'Lately life in our village was going well the crops were growing beautifully, the soil was fertile, the weather was nice and we were happy, working on the fields and growing crops, my wife and I raising our foals and enjoying nights at the bar with friends now and then.

Today the Duchess fell ill, a mysterious disease that we knew nothing off started to affect her, the Duchess was a very wealthy mare and she did not spare any expense to find a cure, but even the expensive alchemical potions imported from Saddle Arabia wouldn't do more than calm her pain.

A few months passed, she could no longer walk, and became increasingly distrustful and cruel towards us earth ponies, punishing us for doing so much as make a simple mistake, she even had 2 ponies lashed and tortured when she heard rumors about them talking about her in a negative light.

During the 15th day of winter, a pony arrived in town during the night, wearing dark red and black robes that covered his entire body, his face and head was covered by a hood of the same robe, he was a stallion unicorn, unicorns were not well liked by us earth ponies, the Duchess was only respected because despite her being an unicorn, she was kind to us and more or less let us live how we wanted, she only took from us what was needed to pay the village tax, other unicorns, however were seen as suspicious, specially ones coming at night and covering their face, but it seems he was a guest to our once beloved Duchess.

The small garrison escorted the visitor to the castle as if he was expected, but nopony knows what happened then, the Duchess seemingly disappeared and the pony garrison started to act strange, they didn't go to their houses and just stayed at the castle, watching over it day and night as if they were statues, their families were ignored and even pushed back by force if they tried to approach the castle.

One day the griffons arrived, they ignoring us peasants and marched directly towards the castle, demanding to see the Duchess, and the guards, without speaking a single word, opened the gates for them, no hesitation in their actions at all, the griffons walked inside and then there was silence, for hours, and then the griffons came out, their eyes were lacking something they had when they arrived, they seemed... empty and distant, and they didn't blink.

It's been a few hours, I've been watching them from the window with the blinds almost fully closed, they have yet to blink a single time, I haven't seeing them twitch or sit down, they're just standing there around the castle like statues... What is happening?

They are going inside the houses and dragging out ponies, kicking and screaming, I've also seen them going out of town and gathering long wooden sticks, and stabbing then on a circle around the defenses of the village, my family and I need to escape from here, but how? Goodness, this is a nightmare!'

That was the last written in the dairy, the few last parts seemed to have been written in a hurry, and the dairy was left on the table, seemingly unperturbed for all this time along with the writing instruments.

Whoever that pony that came to 'help' the Duchess that night is surely the one behind all this, maybe that explains why the griffons were so cruel to the ponies, maybe it was part of the plan of this pony to make it seem to anyone that this was all a massacre by their enemies, and to start a war, but why? What benefits did that have?

That we would have to find out tomorrow, it was time to sleep, we were tired and weary from all the fighting, not to mention very hungry.

I pulled out supplies out, grabbing the pot of stew, we had no real choice because this was the only food we had, other than gems and only I could eat those.

I served everyone a warmer up plate and stored the pot back in the inventory, we ate in silence and washed down the food with a bit of water, before wiping our maws, putting down our sleeping mat and laying together in it, hopefully no one would disturb us in our sleep, but just in case I casted a spell on the entrance, a glyph of warding, that would activate only upon an undead creature going over it, and it would cause an explosion of thunder damage, a type of damage that was particularly loud.

After that I headed back and laid between the two, closing my eyes and relaxing, slowly drifting off to sleep. Tomorrow was going to be the decisive day, we either will win, or we will die and become just memories, our friends will probably wonder where we disappeared off to, maybe the guard will look for us, but here they wouldn't ever find our bodies, we would be just memories.