the Adventures to be had.

Ch.5 Item Get! WOO HOO!

No, no, no, no, NO! Why would he do that? I thought I could keep him a secret, but Lucius just had to go and do something stupid.

“Uh, hi…who are you?” Silver asked. Really, that’s the question he asks? ‘Who are you?’ not something along the lines of ‘OH MY GOD! Be gone evil spawn of Satan.’ I mean Silvers face could be somewhat shocked enough but still.

“Where did you come from?” gold asked, yet another socially incorrect response.

Lucius just put on a warm smile, as if he were enjoying this but wanting us to enjoy this as well. “My dear I just told you, but of course you two must be in such a startled state that you must not have comprehended my greeting.” He started to explain, “A little slower now, I am Lucius. At least that is one of my names.”

“One of them? You have more?” Silver asked quickly.

Lucius just shook his head in response. “As for where did I come from, let’s just say I look down upon your dear friend Excel, here from a cloud.”

“WHAT DO YOU WANT?” I yelled at Lucius.

“Excel, please show some courtesy.” Gold reprimanded me.

I took a deep breath to calm my nerves. “Lucius, hello, so nice for you to stop by and reveal yourself to these two, but why?” I asked.

Lucius disappeared and reappeared next to me, giving me a creepy half hug. “Why my dear Excel, you did it.”

“Did what?” I asked, getting real annoyed.

“Why you made friends, your established trust, you encouraged, and even better, you still held on to your stupid delusion of what ‘adventure’ means.” Lucius answered as he popped in and out, reappearing in random spots around us.

The last time he reappeared he had a sticker in the shape of a star that he stuck on my jacket. I smacked his hand away; feeling like my personal bubble was being intruded. It was fruitless anyways; he just plopped the sticker in the middle of my large forehead with his magic.

“Ouch, why is that so important?” I asked as I peeled the sticker off of my head, probably taking a chunk of my fur with it.

Lucius giggled. “Oh, it’s not. I just wanted to make a good impression on your new friends.”

“Well, you won me over.” Silver chirped up.

Gold slightly pushed Silver back protectively. “Not me, how do I know I can trust you? I’ve never seen anything like you before.”

Lucius put an arm around Gold. “True, Oh so true. You may choose to not trust me, but in time you may see that I am someone you may need to trust.” He explained.

Gold just huffed. “We’ll see about that.” she challenged.

“Maybe we will.” Lucius responded then turned to me. “Now, this is a new Quest.” A red button just like last time popped out of nowhere flashing ‘start’. “You already agreed, but it won’t hurt to make it official.”

“Why not?” I groaned, and I pressed the button with a nice little *click*. Just like last time, my vision flashed to that check list, this time something new on it.

‘Bring a new form of Energy into MinersTown’ it said. “Okay easy enough.” I said confidently.

Lucius shook his head, “I don’t think so. More will come very shortly.” He warned, “But I must be going, things to do and all. Mhm, arrivederci” he called, then in a puff of pink he vanished. Well, that visit was random, quick, and unneeded.

“Well, That was…strange.” Silver was the first to speak. I hardly heard him as my head again got that strange woozy feeling I gets every time Lucius disappears.

Gold rubbed her chin with her hoof, “more like suspicious, if you ask me.”

“I've just gone with crazy.” I added, shrugging.

“Well what do we do now?” Silver asked as he rubbed one fore leg with other.

Gold thought for a second before answering. “We go to Ologycity.”

“How?” Silver asked.

“We trek through the woods, it only a day’s hike,” Gold answered, turning to walk away, gesturing for us to follow, “but we are going to need the camping set and some provisions.”

Camping? I love camping! I may never have had a chance to go camping much back on earth but when I did it was always terrible, but then I look back at what happened and I find that it was really fun. Like the first time I went camping, I was with my dad and a skunk wandered into camp. The skunk sprayed its stink all over but somehow was able to miss everything except my sleeping bag. The rest of that weekend I had to share my sister’s sleeping bag.

I am more than certain that something hilariously funny will go wrong, and that it will somehow only affect me and leave gold and Silver alone, but hay, what are you gonna do, right? Maybe a bear will attack like the time when I was twelve and me and my best friend, Tierney, and her family took us camping or maybe I’ll get lost like the last time I went camping. I was with Peter, Andrew, and Andrew’s older sister, Clair, and I somehow got separated from the group and was lost all day. The only reason I got back to camp was because I came across some other campers who took me back to the camp site.

Nature hates me and has a sick sense of humor, but that won’t dampen my spirits. Besides, what could possibly go wrong?

“I have to pee.” Silver complain as we walked.

“We haven’t even been hiking 30 minutes,” Gold responded, “Why didn’t you go before you left town?”

Silver put on a cheeky grin. “I didn't have to go then.” Gold just rolled her eyes.

We really hadn't been walking for very long, we only left town about 20 minutes ago and the only reason it took us awhile to leave town was because I was a wee-bit unprepared. We had no food, no change of clothes ready, or any idea which way were supposed to go.

I didn't really need a change of clothes, mostly due to the fact I have non to change, but I did need stuff to sleep with. Gold help me pack together a fresh pillow, a sleeping bag, that I rolled my blanket in (you never know when you’ll need one), and a canteen in case I needed water, which I will. All this went in my Backpack, which was surprisingly light.

Gold packed in her own backpack: two fresh shirts that looked exactly alike, man, is that like the only kind of shirt she owns, and some of her bangles; her own pillow and sleeping bag; a canteen, a box of matches and fire fluid, and finally a tiny tent kit.

“That looks a bit small to make a tent.” I said, eyeing her tent kit.

“Oh, this?” she responded, indicating the kit. “It works with magic. Silver can put it up using his magic, along with his own. You can’t expect me to share a tent with him, do you?”

“No, no I guess not…”I said still I bit confused with the whole ‘magic’ thing.

This magic thing is starting to irk me a bit, actually. My whole life I sort of knew that there was no such thing as magic, only illusions and miracles. Here, magic is a science, from what I can tell, and I’m no good at science…well maybe chemistry, but that’s beside the point. Now, having all I believe in challenged like this, It’s scary and I don’t know what to make of it. I mean Lucius is magic, or the result of powerful LSD, I’m not sure yet, Silver is a Unicorn that can levitate objects, and apparently make me move against my will, Still creepy, and then there’s all this other crazy stuff like rock farming and cutie marks. It’s a lot to take in all at once.

Gold had packed more than enough food for us all, as did Silver, I found out, when we met up with him at the edge of town. The Sun was getting high in the sky, warming the earth. Lucky for us, we had a cool gentle breeze blowing on us, and we would be under the shade of the trees the whole time.

Back to where I was a few paragraphs before, “I still have to pee.” Silver persisted.

“Go behind a tree.” I suggested.

“I can’t, not when I know others are nearby.” He retorted.

Okay that makes little sense; he doesn’t even where pants, if he were a human, his junk would be all hanging out. But he’s a Pony, the use for pants would require the use of thumbs and ponies don’t even have hands…of course Silver dose have his Magic, so he could just…ugh, my head hurts, I hate having to try and think.

“Okay,” I finally said, “we’ll walk ahead and you can stay here and be eaten by a wild bear or lion…or an over grown mole rat.”

Silver gulped loudly. “Okay, fine, I’ll go, but you have to look away.”

Ya, I’m not going to go into detail about what went down after that. I’m just gonna get back to us walking…well we walked…and walked, and walked, and walked, and walked, until…

*clonk!

“OUCH!” I yelled out loud. Something had hit me in the back of the head. I turned around to see who the culprit was and low and behold it where those damn squirrels from the other day, they were back.

“What’s wrong, Excel?” Gold asked, oblivious to the situation at hand.

“Evil Satan squirrels, that’s what.” I replied, sill glaring at the nut hording, tree rats.

“Evil what now…OUCH!” Silver Exclaimed as a nut hit him square in the fore head. I swear to God, I’m going to mount those Squirrels over my fire place, if I ever get my hands on them.

Suddenly a flurry of nuts, rocks, sticks, and other things came hurtling at us. Glancing up, I saw that there were more squirrels, at least 500, relentlessly pelting us with projectiles.

“Quick, we need to find safety!” Gold Yelled back to me and Silver, as she began to sprint away as fast as possible. We quickly followed suit.

“Ouch! Why are they—Ow, doing this—whoa, to us?” Silver huffed out, as we kept on dodging the onslaught of projectiles.

I had to look back real quick to answer. “I don’t know maybe squirrels are just—Ah!” the ground under my paws disappeared, causing me to scream in surprise and cut myself off.

It would seem that I had fallen in to some sort of hole in the ground, as did Gold; for in the split second that I had any sense of what was happening, I heard the surprised yelp of Gold, who fell in right before I did. Silver, of course, followed suit, only being a step or two behind me and not having any time to react.

My screaming had turned my focus away from that fact that we weren’t actually falling, but just sliding down through a very slippery hole, like a twisty slide in the play-pins at McDonalds (copyright B.T.W. … Does that count? I mean, I am in an alternate world where McDonalds might not even exist). The hole twisted and turned further in to the earth, and I even would have enjoyed the ride, if I would just stop screaming. From the yells coming from Silver, I could tell he was having fun. Gold, surprisingly, was able to keep her yelp small; only crying out when a turn was a bit too sharp.

As all things, this little ride came to an end, a slow end, but an end. The downwardness of the tunnel slide evened out to level ground which, in turn, caused us to slow down as well. In the dim, dim light, the end of the slide seems to stop in a large room, from what I could see, maybe an underground cave.

Gold came to a gentle and safe stop, as did me, and then Silver. “Hold on,” Silver’s voice whisper to us, as we got up to dust ourselves off from the ride. Why would Silver need to whisper? That’s something I never really got? People always whisper when they are in the dark. Can’t we just talk normally, no matter what the light is like?

Speaking of light, what Silver meant by ‘hold on’ was that he wanted to take a second to get some light in this cave. His horn glowed, a soft, silver light and soon the whole cave, too, was lit with the soft light emanating from the silver unicorn’s horn.

I took this time to look around the cave, but soon wished I hadn’t. Over on the far wall of the cave I saw non-other than red-faced, skinny armed, skinny legged Lucius. He was just standing there in a long robe, looking wise (ha that would be a first), not moving.

“What do want now, Lucius?” I asked with obvious annoyance in my voice.

All he said was, “It’s dangerous to go alone! Take this.” He didn’t move or gesture to any specific location, so I just assumed he meant what was sitting on the small pedestal in front of him.

“Go alone? What do mean? I’m not—OH, IT SHINY!” When I saw the object, I guess Lucius wanted me to have; the first thing I noticed was that it is a shiny…well, whatever it is. “Thank you, I love it.” I thanked him as I picked it up.

The second I touched it, the shine that concealed its image faded and it turned out to be a cute golden bracelet. It was just so cute that I just had to put it on right away, so I did, and it was a perfect fit too.

There was a beautiful blue stone in it that was so smooth and sparkled so much, you would think that it was a star from the night sky…but of course that would be ridiculous. A star is mass of incandescent gas, like a gigantic nuclear furnace. It’s where hydrogen is converted into helium in a process known as the hydrogen cycle. You see, first: two protons hit each other and one is converted—I’m sorry, I got off topic again.

“Your very much Welcome, my little Excel.” Lucius returned my gratitude.

Holding it up to the light of Silver’s horn, I admired the shine that came from it. “So why are you giving this to me?”

Lucius’s gleeful grin grew wider. “Why, I told you that you needed a weapon to defend yourself, didn’t I?” Lucius flashed from where he was sitting to right next to me, in his usual attire.

This confused me; how could the most adorable and shiny bracelet I have ever seen, be a weapon? “, This Bracelet, you mean?”

Lucius nodded slowly, “Why yes. This bracelet is capable of far more than just an accessory.” He mused.

“How so?” I asked confused.

He gently took my arm in one claw and with the other touched the gem on the bracelet. It glowed slightly and then, to my utter surprise (haha, utter. It’s funny because of cows.), the glow condensed into a small ball and then flew out of the gem.

Silver gasp, “Holy sweet Celestia!” and the glow in his horn disappeared.

“And now we’re in the dark.” Gold pointed out, unamused.

“Hold on,” Lucius assured, and then there was a *snap* and the whole cave lit up with an ever present light coming from nowhere. “Better, now observe.”

The little ball of light was still there, just hovering around Lucius. He scooped it up in one claw, and with his other he waved it towered the opposite side of the cave. There was a *POOF* of pink cloud and a small black creacher appeared. Its movements were twitchy as it swung its small head around to look at, well, everything with it big glowing yellow eyes.

“Now watch and learn.” Lucius eyed the small creacher before winding up a pitch: The ball of light being the projectile. The throw was hard and hit the small creacher with pin-point accuracy. The creacher vanished in a puff of dark gas.

“YOU MONSTER!” exclaimed Silver. “How could you do that to a small little animal?”

Lucius popped right next to Silver and patted the back of his neck with a claw. “Silly little pony, he wasn’t even real.” He assured. “It was just a demonstration to show what this wonderful little trinket can do.”

“So I just touch the gem…like this?” I touched the gem and to my amazement there was a small glow that condensed into a ball, like last time. “Whoa!”

The small orb hovered around me, as if it was weightless. I reached my hand out to grab it, and as I did, it seem to want to listen to gravity, and I could feel the weight of the ball in my hand. It wasn’t heavy, probably only weighing as much as a golf ball, but it did feel dense and hard.

“Go ahead, knock some baddies out with it” Lucius invited as several of the same black creacher rematerialized where the last one was.

“uh, Okay.” I wound up for a pitch and, with all my strength, threw the ball as hard as I could. The ball screeched through the air, “Whoa! Never knew I could throw that hard before!”

Something was off about this, I threw the ball quite hard, yes, but I my aim was and I somehow still hit the creacher.

Lucius put on a small grin. “Oh, I did for get to mention, this new body of yours is much stronger and more durable than your shabby old form.”

I heard a small gasp from Gold, “What do you mean ‘new body’? Excel what is he talking about?”

“oh, it’s nothing you need to worry about.” Lucius reassured, “now, like I was saying,” he turned back to me, “you are much stronger, now, so please do be careful.”

I nodded my head. “Sure. Whatever.”

“And to make things easier on you, that orb can home in on wherever you’re aiming…provided you throw it closes enough.” Lucius continued.

“Well that pretty cool! Don’t you think Gold?” Silver said, looking around for the dark yellow earth pony.

Gold had gone to the other far side of the cave, eyeing Lucius. She obviously doesn’t trust him. She has good reason not to, I mean look at the guy; he’s creepy as all get out.

Lucius diverted my attention back to him by speaking again. “Now I don’t have time to describe the ‘level-up” feature, right now so when it happens, you can rest assure I will be there to help.”

Ok, now I’m confused again. Damn it, Lucius: You and your fancy technical gobbledygook on pretty much everything. Oh well, at least he might finally leave.

“Well, I believe that is all that is needed to be said right now.” Lucius said.

Gold looked up from where she was sitting. “So that’s all? You’re leaving now?”

Lucius shook his head, “Yes, I do believe I am.”

“Good. I still don’t trust you, and I am going to want some answers later, but for now we have taken an unneeded side tour and we really need to get back on track.” Gold stood up and began to dust herself off from the cave floor. Silver did likewise.

“How do we get out of here anyways?” Silver asked, looking around.

Lucius tapped his claw on one of the cave walls, “I can help with that.”

There a loud rumbling noise, like a huge truck driving by a small metal shack you’re in. the cave wall then began to move, like it was some kind of secret wall.

Light from the outside poured into the cave, blinding us all for a moment. When our eyes adjusted to the light we saw that Lucius had vanished.

Silver and Gold ran out quickly. Silver put his snout down in the fresh green grass to sniff it, “Aw, fresh outside grass, I love you! Never leave me again.” He then rolled on to his back and started rolling around in the grass like a bog: tongue hanging our and everything.

Okay, that’s odd, but I mean really, what hasn’t been odd so far since I’ve been here? (I dare you to go back through the last chapters and tell me), I looked over at Gold, who just had her hoof on her face in embarrassment.

“Silver! Get up you idiot!” She yelled at him.

Right away, sliver stopped, rolled back on to his stomach, and stood up. he grinned innocently, “sorry, I get stir crazy sometimes. I am 1/8th Pit-bull by the way.” He said with his tongue still hanging out. He shook the grass out of his mane like a dog would shake grass out of its fur.

I Looked over to Gold, “How…” Gold quickly shook her head no. “okay…so where are we?” I asked.

Gold looked around “I don’t know.” She too out her map and began to scrutinize it, while muttering to herself.

“What’s up? What does the map say?” Silver asked, coming over to glance at the map too.

Gold just shook her head in disbelief, looked at our surroundings and then back at the map again. “I hate to say this you guys, but I think we’re lost.”

Well, despite the fact that I acquired a means to defend myself and my friends, Lucius’s ‘little’ side track got us hopelessly lost. Well, shit!