Golden Plate looked up from his cider. He still saw one barpony, so he went back into his drink with renewed vigor. After an interview like that, even the most stalwart of teetotalers would look for a stiff drink. The memory of the ancient stallion who could barely even remember his own name was enough to keep Golden's nose in the drink. That his search for the history of the Hoofdew Uprising led him to that decrepit old beast discouraged him greatly. Sure, he could just ask Celestia about it, but he felt like that was a cop-out. Besides, she was busy with her student, some Twilight Twinkle or something like that. No way she'd have the time for an in-depth interview about the Hoofdew Uprising with her student taking up so much of her attention. Add to that the daily task of keeping the sun moving, and keeping the administrative arm of Equestria from grinding to a halt from constant strife between nobles... he smiled when he realized that he did not envy Princess Celestia one whit.
He fished some more bits out of his purse, with the intention of ordering some water to offset the alcohol in his system. No sense in waking up more dehydrated than necessary, even with the desire to get completely marinated. He was out of leads, out of luck, and soon he would be out of bits for the evening as well. It was his rapidly draining purse that really knocked him back onto the road to sobriety. He figured he had just enough bits left to get back to Canterlot, provided he stopped with the cider and went straight to water. But he thought about how many bits he had wasted just trying to find that decrepit old fool, and he realized that he had spent about a thousand bits on a fruitless venture. Again. It wasn't like he was struggling for bits on the grand scale - he knew enough history to be able to teach anywhere, and he had a sizable amount in the bank should it be necessary for him to survive off of it - but it was the principle of the thing. Besides, the bank was closed by now and he still would have to pay for another night in Fillydelphia out of his rapidly dwindling supply of bits-on-hand.
"I'd like to avoid that if at all possible." He said, not realizing he had said it out loud. He took a quick glance into the mirror behind the bar. His honey-colored coat was a dull brown, and his normally neatly-combed brown mane was all over the place. He sighed when he realized that he didn't look like himself, and took a slow drink from his cider. He wondered just how long he would be able to draw out this cider. It certainly couldn't last forever, but at least he had some thinking room.
It was about this time that the barkeeper shoved a bowl of water towards Golden saying, "Ya look like you could use it." Golden put his entire face in the bowl without a word, and let the coldness and wetness of the water - plus the sudden lack of breathable air - shock his brain back into normal operation. At this point he remembered that he was going to be very thirsty in the morning unless he started drinking water at this very moment.
He lifted his face out of the bowl. "Can I get some drinkin' water, buddy?" He heard a slight slur in his own voice. He figured that he was just intoxicated enough to know to stop drinking alcohol. The barpony smiled and poured out a second saucer of water, this one for Golden to drink from. Golden hoofed him three bits for the water and started to drink. His mind cleared as he drank the water, and his situation began to really sink in. His backer would not be happy to know that he had wasted a thousand bits on this lead. Asking Celestia about the Hoofdew Uprising suddenly didn't seem like such a bad idea, though he would need to do some sort of work to pay his backer in the meantime.
As he finished with his water he realized that there were still three bits sitting on the counter, right where he had put them. The barkeeper shrugged and said, "Water's on the house, pal. Stay safe." Golden made his way out the door - a little bit wobbly, but not as badly as it could have been - and started to work his way to the hotel that he was staying at.
Golden opened his eyes. He was in his hotel room, but he couldn't remember getting there. Everything after leaving the bar was one long, painful blur in his memory. His head hurt, so he surmised that he'd gotten more alcohol on the way back to the hotel. The two empty cider bottles on the floor were a testament to that. He groaned and got up, trying to remember what happened. There was something about a pegasus mare, but nothing else really stood out in the alcohol-fringed haze. He looked in the mirror to comb his mane for the morning. His coat was it's normal honey color, so he must have cleaned himself up at some point before falling asleep. Or been cleaned up. He sincerely hoped it was the former.
He looked around the room, and finally noticed the note on the mirror. It read "705 West Elm, Room 27, 9:30 AM. Dream Chaser's Expedition." With a quick glance at the clock, he realized he had an hour to get there. Now, Golden Plate was no dummy. He knew his own writing well enough to know that he had written it himself. It must have been very important, otherwise he would have boasted about his own memory and never have written it down at all - which when combined with the additional alcohol that he must have drunk the previous night meant that he would have never remembered it at all. He sighed and counted out how many bits were in his purse. Just enough to pay for another night in the hotel. At least his bank card and identification card were still there, so he could withdraw from his personal account on the way back from his meeting.
He paid for another night's stay and set out for the address marked on the note. He found the proper building soon enough. The office building was right next to an art museum that had recently been purchased by Applied College University. As if those pretentious snots needed another one, Golden thought bitterly. He'd been turned down for teaching positions repeatedly by ACU, and had all but given up at teaching there. He was silently thankful that the office building was unrelated to ACU so far as he knew.
The receptionist was kind enough; she had pointed him to the proper hallway and informed him that it was the last door on the left, but asked him to wait a moment. Golden listened to the receptionist while she picked up the telephone. "Hello, Dream? Your 9:30 is here... Yes, that's his name. He looks a lot more sober than you described... uh-huh... yes, will do. Good luck, Dream." She put the receiver on the hook and smiled at Golden. "She's ready to see you now. Thank you for not being marinated this morning, Mister Plate."
Golden had a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach as he walked down the hallway. Apparently he had spoken with this Dream Chaser while he was between bouts of drunkenness, which did not bode well for him. Still, he figured that this was better than not meeting her. The door to Room 27 opened and out stepped a pegasus mare with a pale blue coat and a wild white mane and tail. It matched the mare in his memory, and the pit in his stomach widened.
She smiled disarmingly. "Well, Golden Plate, I'm glad to meet you. Or should I say 'Good to see you again'? I'm glad to see you clean."
Golden blinked. "Uh, it's nice to meet you too, miss..."
"Dream Chaser, but you can call me Dream." She turned around. Golden caught a glimpse of her cutie mark as she did so; it was of the kind of brush that you'd see at an archaeological dig. "I suppose that you do not remember our conversation from last night? You were kind of... well, drunk. Not very drunk, but you were outside the office building raging all about how ACU wasn't good enough for you... or too good for you. I don't really remember it clearly myself." she said with a slight giggle. "I'd had some drinks myself last night, thought probably not as many as you had."
Golden nodded. "I do remember seeing you last night, though not much beyond that."
Dream Chaser turned around to face him. "Then I suppose I should start from the beginning. Last night, I was coming home from a party celebrating the Griffon Emperor's approval of our dig in his lands. You were going back to your hotel room after spending an evening at a local pub, trying to forget a particularly bad interview with a senile old fool that you somehow had gotten into your head had information about the Hoofdew Uprising."
Golden swallowed. "And you know this because..."
"You were out there raging about how you were going to be out a thousand bits because of this trip." Dream laughed. "You were using some fairly colorful language, too. I crashed into you during my own celebratory drunken flight and got you talking about a lot of things. I only remember this because you wrote it down and put it on paper. I understand that you can read Ancient Gryphon, Mister Plate."
"I can read several ancient languages. I'm not confident in my Ancient Gryphon, but if I can be of any assistance to you then I would be glad to help you," Golden said with a smile. "I guess this trip to Fillydelphia wasn't a total waste after all."
Sixty years before the Ousting of Discord...
It was a small village on the border of the Griffin Empire of about ten families, with all three types of ponies represented. They all worked together to survive - they didn't really have much of a choice, seeing how close they were to the borders - both to keep themselves fed and to repel the occasional dragon, minotaur, or changeling. Being on the frontier, they were also frequently conquered by one of the surrounding nations. At the time of this record, they were under the dominion of the Griffin Empire, who had conquered them just a few years before and taken them from the Unicorn Kingdom, who had in turn taken them from the Earthers, who had in their turn liberated them from the clutches of the Pegasus Republic, and so on and so forth, for as long as the village had existed. But this last, final attack on the village was no simple conquering... it was a massacre, wholesale slaughter. Even the Griffins - who in those days would have happily eaten some of the villagers - shied away from what those in the Wyvern Cult had done that day.
The attack started during the early morning hours, before the sun had cleared the horizon. All those who were out and active were quickly defeated and killed. Those who had been inside their homes, sleeping or otherwise, were lined up according to age. All those of foal-bearing age were eaten by the cultists in front of the village foals, who were taken into captivity. The last thing they did was burn the village to the ground in a ceremony that only the chieftain understood fully. The ashes of the village lay there as a testament to the carnage and destruction, and as a witness of the depravity of those who worshiped the wyvern.
No civilized beast could tell you where these cannibals came from, and no creature could predict where they would strike next. Every kind of creature knew that the cultists were some other creature from themself, and each species accused all the others of allowing these cultists to take root. The only common factor between the attacks by the cultists was that they only ever raided small border villages.
Many creatures feared this cult, and for good reason. Their chieftains sought to summon the Wyvern, a creature strong enough to oust Discord. The chieftains all thought and taught that the only way to summon the Wyvern was through gorging on the flesh of many different kinds of creatures, until their collective memories coalesced into that single moment of enlightenment that would lead to Discord's defeat. All of the civilized creatures knew that this was bunk, of course, but that didn't stop the Wyvernites from using this as an excuse to be the worst creatures they could be.
~ An excerpt from Golden Plate's The Wyvern Cult, published in the nine hundred and ninety-eighth year of the Celestian Era.
