The stone roads of “Blobstain” stretched before Rainbow Dash—desolate and dreary. An occasional sleepless Dihmer or two lingered along the cornerstones that hadn't yet fallen to bits with the ages, but—for the most part—the stroll was an appropriately empty one, serenaded by the nonstop bass chorus of the slime beyond the sloping cliffsides.
Rainbow had only made it about three blocks before she shuffled to a stop, sighed, and muttered to the air beside her.
“Okay. Let's have it out.” She cocked her head at an angle. “...who here thinks this is a stupid idea?”
“Well...” Twilight Sparkle was the first to drift into view. “...at the risk of beating a dead tree to dust, it most definitely is a risky gamble, Rainbow Dash.”
Applejack drifted in second. “We can't be there in yer dreams, sugarcube,” she said, brow furrowing. “Or else I'd tell ya if this Nat'rdo pony was lyin' to you or not.”
Rarity, third. “I hate to say it—but the reputation of the Bloodwings precedes them! How can we measure their word of honor against all of the absolutely horrid violence they've committed to those living here?!”
Pinkie Pie drifted in, eyes crossing. “Farty farty fart fart far!”
“Uhm...” Fluttershy squinted at her. “What are you doing...?”
“Upping the counter!”
“What counter?”
“Fart fart farty fart!”
“Pinkie!” Rarity scowled. “Honestly!” She tilted her powdery nose heavenward with a dainty frown. “If you haven't anything poignant to say on the subject, then don't say anything at all!”
“Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?” Pinkie shrugged with a lazy smile. “Rainbow Dash has to swallow her own pride and make friendly with a bunch of winged murdering savages, just like she had to face the music when it came to dealing with Verlax, and yet after falling into every one of the demented Divine's traps she still managed to save most of Rohbredden and win us a badflank living razor-talon'd griffin girl for beefing up the Herald with extra security while traversing the Dark Side, almost as if Dashie's got a pinkie sense of her own that magically protects her from extreme consequences too severe to ever be able to claw back from—which she has anyways—and now she's gearing up to do it again with the meanie-meanie leatherheads living in a big pew-pew death tree, so what's to be so worried about!”
“... … ...” Rainbow Dash exchanged blinking exchanges with her companions.
“Pinkie...” Applejack arched an eyebrow. “You pick the dang strangest times to let your muzzle run laps.”
“Farty farty fart farty fart!” Pinkie “swam” circles above the group, humming melodically.
“Even with your past successes under consideration, darling...” Rarity looked at their anchor. “I think it would be quite wise to practice caution.”
“How?” Rainbow shrugged. “By doing nothing?” She pointed at the grand fuchsia ocean beyond the last row of buildings. “If I put that between me and Lexxic's hunting party, I'll still be having to make the same decision I have to make now... only then it'll be a whole lot friggin' harder.”
“Mmmhmmm...” Applejack nodded. “Reckon you've learned a thing or two about how downright foolish it is to leave thangs for 'another time.'”
“Yeah, well, patience becomes a tasty virtue after you've lived for nearly a year with a blind zebra and a demented elk...” Rainbow Dash blinked. “... … ...and Zaid.”
“But these sarosian folks may be hankerin' to gobble you up all the same!” Applejack breathed. “Wherever yer fixin' on goin', you'd better take Wildcard, 'cuz these Bloodwingers just might attack on sight!”
“Oh come onnnnn!” Pinkie Pie “backstroked” past the group, smiling upside down. “What could they possibly gain from dropping the axe onto Dashie's dashnoggin?”
“They could claim the Element of Loyalty—and it's lunar enchantment—as their own,” Twilight Sparkle said. “And they'd also seize Axan's dragonstone, which would lead them to the location of the other two Shards of Endrax.”
“Oh...” Pinkie Pie blinked, freezing in mid-swim. “Those are pretty big gains! Oh well!” She resumed frog-stroking through the air. “Farrrrrrrt fart fartsssss!”
“We could leave the dragonstone here,” Fluttershy suggested. “With the Heraldites who stay behind.”
“Nah, Flutters.” Rainbow slowly shook her head. “If this ends with these dreamtrotting melon fudges jumping me, then the quest is good as over. Doesn't matter who would get the dragonstone—or the shards—if there's no hope of saving Urohringr anymore.”
“Oh...” Fluttershy's ears drooped. “...well, when you put it like that...”
“Ideaaaa!” Rarity perked up. “The dragonstone could be used as a bargaining chip—or, rather—the information that Axan's posthumous gift provides!”
“How so?” Applejack squinted.
“The fact that Rainbow Dash possesses the dragonstone gives her intuition concerning the location of the other two shards.” Rarity smiled mischievously. “If she presents this information to the Bloodwings, they'll likely spare her so that they can perform strategic strikes against both the Keepers and the Night Shards to obtain the missing pieces!”
“Yeah...” Applejack frowned. “Or they might just chop off the hooves holding the dragonstone and use it on their lonesome!”
“Do... we really need to help the Bloodwings attack the other factions?”
“Well, not necessarily!” Rarity's eyelashes fluttered. “We only need to suggest that—”
“Suggest what?!?” Applejack shrugged hard. “They've been fightin' this war for lifetimes, Rarity! The quest to open the Midnight Armory is all they know! Of course they're gonna want to squash the competition to get to what's inside!”
“And how's Dashie gonna break it to the batty-bats that she needs to grab the Harmonic Prism in the end and not them?” She waggled her eyebrows as she slowly swam by. “Faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarts.”
“They ain't gonna give somethin' like that up,” Applejack said. “At some point, Rainbow's gonna have to come clean with these folks.”
Rarity cleared her throat. “Or rob them blind.”
“She's dead if she tries that nonsense.”
“She'll be dead with the other choice.”
“Reckon not.” Applejack shook her head. “If we can just show these fellers the light—”
“Like we did with the sarosians of Bleak's Plummet?” Rarity folded her forelimbs. “They already had the light, Applejack. Not these murdering brutes. I'm sorry, but I really don't think Rainbow Dash can afford to be fully complicit with them!”
“You know what the ponies of the Dark Side need?” Fluttershy bore a small, delicate smile. “A show of kindness.” A sad, melodic sigh escaped her lips. “I'm afraid they haven't known that in eons. But... if Rainbow can spread the wholesomeness of Equestria... maybe... just maybe they'll consider a non-violent alternative and help save this plane.”
“The problem with that, Flutters,” Rainbow muttered, “Is that I can already tell from Nat'rdo's speech that these sarosians believe that everything under Celestia—the 'Daybreaker'—is completely corrupt and evil.” She looked at Applejack. “They might look at me as an invader and not a friend.”
Applejack shrugged. “Or they could not.”
“It's too risky of a gamble, darling,” Rarity said.
“This entire idea is a risk, Rarity,” Twilight said with a sigh. “A risk that—I fear—we've been putting off for far too long.” Her eyes darted up to meet Rainbow's.
Rainbow slowly nodded.
With a gulp, Twilight continued: “It's not like we'd be going into this completely unarmed. Luna's enchantment... it just might be enough to enlighten these ponies.”
“Right...”
Twilight gestured. “If Princess of the Night's magic is powerful enough to ward off a sarosian presence in Rainbow's dream, then who knows just what it can do in the corporeal world?”
“I won't be going there to experiment, Twi,” Rainbow said. “I'll be going to see if they're the faction that I can work with.”
“And...” Fluttershy curled up into a nervous yellow ball. “...if they're not?”
“... … ...” Rainbow took a deep breath. “Then I've got some flight exercise ahead of me.” She looked out upon the pink expanse. “And we'll need our backup plan to put as much distance between us and the Bloodwings as possible.”
Silence fell over the group.
“We trust you, Rainbow,” Twilight Sparkle said in an earnest tone. “None of us... c-can really make this decision for you.”
“You've faced severe challenges before,” Rarity said. “Our lives were as much in your hooves then as they are now.” A solid—yet nervous—smile blossomed. “We'd be foolish to pretend like we have any greater experience in what to do here...”
“But... we ain't aimin' to make it hard for you either, darlin',” Applejack said. “Please... tell us... what do you need the most right now?”
“To be honest...?” Rainbow rubbed her aching head as her ears twitched with each boom-boom-boom of the alien ocean beyond. “...I could use some peace and quiet to think”
“I...” Twilight Sparkle chuckled nervously, gazing at the inhospitable urbanscape crumbling around them. “...I don't know if we can do much to help there.”
“Faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar—” Pinkie drifted in.
“Httt!” Applejack bucked her hard in the side.
“Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee—” Blip! Pinkie vanished in a vanilla flicker of light.
“Reckon we can go somewhere where we won't make a peep,” Applejack said with a goofy smile.
“Mmmmmm-yessss...” Rarity stifled a yawn. “That sounds divine, actually.”
Twilight looked at her remaining friends, then at their anchor. “It's about time for us to rest up. Do you think that would be alright, Rainbow?”
“Totes, girl.” Rainbow saluted. “So long as one of you stays, of course.”
“I will.” Fluttershy raised her hoof with a bashful. “I'm the quietest,” she whispered.
Applejack, Rarity, and Twilight joined Pinkie in the invisible realm beyond...
...and Rainbow Dash continued her lonesome stroll with a politely silent Fluttershy floating after her as a feather-light chaperone.
Applejack, my lord and savior. Keep the farting out of the serious story.
Flatulence.
Heh. Never a dull moment with Pinks around.
Good to hear the phantoms thoughts, it is a gamble no matter how she tries to stack the deck in her favour.
She'd have to lie pretty friggin' hard to get their allegiance 100%.
-Through the path long forgotten, into the darkness long begotten. Ofolrodi.
8918072
Lmao
9025 beat you to the punch this time
Pinkie brings the right kind of levity to a serious section of the story.
Finally finished Yaerfaerda.
Still hope to catch up soon. And more twists and turns
Didn't realize Ponk got kicked to the vanilla zone at first, and thought something bad was about to happen.
Another reason to keep the dragon stone with dash- she doesn't know what the shards look like. If shit goes south and she needs to grab and go, she'll need some way to identify it with surety.
The Secret Meeting.
At this point how much is there to really think about? You're never going to get another opening like this, and there's literally nowhere to go on the Dark Side that's any safer. Crossing the Blob isn't likely to be a sunny picnic either. And honestly, if it comes down to everything going sideways, how much help will bringing any of the Herald actually be? Four fliers or one, it'd still be having to deal with a whole army while being directly in the center of their territory. I'd almost say you might as well fly this one alone, Dash, because at least then if you have to run then its only your own ass you have to worry about getting out.
That said, its not like any of the Herald would let you go off alone, so might as well take the ones who can fly almost as fast as you can. Still think bringing Ariel is painting the biggest set of crosshairs on her, but at least she's fast.
Hey, maybe if you're lucky if all of this ends up exploding you'll manage to not only find an opening to jack the Shard, but score a swanky bat pony zepplin out of the deal? They have those right? Like waaaaay back at the start of this part of the story we saw bat zepplins in the flashback. Perhaps by now they've got better, faster models.
Seraphimus x Logan Ship Confirmation Chapter Counter: 72
I'm honestly hoping Dash can't just waltz into Bat Country and convince them to be her friends with Luna's enchantment. I'm kind of hoping she can't do that at all. Just turning an objectively evil and horrible faction to the side of goodness and justice with a magic doodad feels like it would be incredibly cheap and anticlimactic. There's no way the bats could make a complete 180 like that, and if she does recruit some to help her, I doubt it's going to be all of them or even be done without a lot of civil strife and conflict amongst the Remnant. I'm just trying to think realistically here, and anything other than a realistic answer to centuries of death and slaughter will feel cheap and just bad in my opinion...
F A R T S
its
Gonna try something out. For science.
This story has gone 0 chapters without use of the word 'fart'.
Let's see if that number ever goes past 1.
She increased the count by 19.
Would it be an ass pull if Pinkie gleaned important information for Rainbow Dash from our comments at some point?
Pinkie just hasnt been saying enough to let go of all teh gasping she been doing, so it has to come out another way, and I dont mean ears?
Music for today. Should I Stay or Should I Go?
It's been fairly clear for a while that she will go in any case. Now they only have to find the best approach to deal with those guys.
8918445
Chapter 79 (Short and not Sweet) says otherwise. No farts there.
God, I can't believe I really looked that up.
This is definitely something that I've been wondering as well. Even if If Dash somehow convinces the Bloodwings to let her have the Harmonic Prism, she still has two other factions to deal with. This is gonna be fun.
And I have a feeling that Pinkie might be foreshadowing something with all the "farts" she's been saying this chapter...
All of this is risky, but they still need to give peace a chance. The Sarosians may be beyond saving, but what does it say about them if they don't even try.
So much dispute over an action so devoid of alternatives. I am now conviced this story is set well after Rainbow was introduced to D&D!
Pinkie. Lay off the cheese. You're almost as bad as Zaid.
So I have nothing to say about this chapter, but I'd like to get into two tangents:
Tangent #1: we're hitting a wall again, like we had in Splindertown. Skirts said recently that he was begining to get some feeling that Ofol is not going anywhere, and I have to agree. The problem in Splindertown - and in here again - is that Rainbow Dash is thinking too much.
In earlier books, her whole thing was about "not thinking, but doing", and I do agree that she can't be reckless, but spending several hours in two discussions where all the parties do nothing but talking in circles, it gets tiring.
I don't know if IC/Skirts reads the comment section or just the Lemur Cave, but I hope he sees this and ponder about how much nothing has happened for several chapters.
Tangent #2: moving on is important, but seeing Dash remembering Zaid and Floydien and Pilates without showing any emotion was weird for me.
Stories do these things where after some time, the characters remember someone who died or got left behind, and there is supposed to be some feeling about that, because those people meant a lot. The Jurist meant a lot to Rainbow Dash, and it feels like she barely remembers them.
I know about moving on, and I know about heat of the moment, I just... am irked about this. Like... i don't think it has been done correctly, but I don't know how to do it right either.
So basically everyone agrees: this is a stupid idea and majorly risky, but the longer we stall the worse our options get so we're taking this course of action while it's still the least bad.
Mostly Zaid, I think.
This chapter contributes literally nothing to the story
8918637
Dear Celestia. What have you done man? You’ve doomed us all to fart jokes!
So....off we go and all that "gulps"
Skirts no
stahp
Fact Checker, what have you done?
OOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHH BOOOOOOYYYYYYYYYYYYY
e: HEY WAIT A MINUTE, I ALREADY HAVE AN IMAGE FOR THIS
discogenie.dyndns.org/imgur/pota.jpg
HOW DID WE MANAGE TO LET THIS HAPPEN TWICE
I'm sorry, everyone. Please forgive me. I never meant for this to happen.
8918151
You got this!
You know, I think it might be easier if they told the truth in a way the night-blooders could handle.
Luna currently rules the light side. Celestia welcomed her sister back. Even while Luna was gone, Celestia maintained the cycle of day and night - which Luna maintains now.
I just think there's a way to present the truth that will be more palatable to them, but also show them what they're missing out on, and what they could have if they join Rainbow's side.
8922023
YOU MANIACS! YOU BLEW IT UP WITH YOUR EXCESSIVE FARTING!!
Yay.
8927237
That, is actually not a bad idea, it is true that Luna rules the heavens now. That was what the whole Nightmare Moon thing was about, so technically mission accomplished. In the end though, the Herald cannot control what the Bloodwings will do. only how they react to the Bloodwings, and in the end that is what matters.
06/11/2018
16:38 UTC
WELCOME TO THE CONCEPT OF RISK IN A NUTSHELL
Austraoh fact checker, do your thing.
Anyone ever wonder why there's are four blips on the dragonstone?
Think about it. It points towards the other dragons, 3 of which are dead, one alive.
Why is it that her stone can only detect the black dragon but not the last remaining sister on the Light Side?
I know exactly the comment this chapter is referring to and yes Pinkie! Raise that counter!
Tell the blood wings that Luna/Nightmare Moon/Mother of all Nightmares personally sent you to retrieve the Harmonic Prison. And that she will be VARY angry if she does not personally return with it. Also her amulet has been enchanted to open a direct line with Luna under a full moon, so once we get back to the light side you can talk to her nightlyness her self.
I'm sure I'm about to read through forty variations of what I'm about to say here, but let me just get it out with too.
I'll give you six reasons: Kepler Seraphimus, Flynn, Ariel, Bigshow and Wildcard. Not to mention while it's possible everyone survives this encounter, there's no telling what sort of complications a direct confrontation with this Council could bring about. This confrontation could have enormous ramifications through the entire rest of the series!
Happy to say I did not just read through forty variations of what I just said! I do have an unrelated ran however.
8919147
I super agree with tangent #1: the choices Spidertown and this whole dream council thing have recieved way too much focus and are slowing down the book as a whole. I'd even take it a step further: they are part of a larger trend present all over the Austraeoh series.
Characters in this series --especially Rainbow Dash-- will antagonize over ethical decisions for chapters at a time. Often times, I feel like while they do warrant a good discussion (in the context of the characters' minds especially), the discussions are entirely too trite to warrant their length. I can skim (usually skip) through chapters of dialogue without feeling like I missed anything. It's because the characters will reiterate the same points again and again and again! This can make the pacing extremely slow which is boring and disinteresting.
I feel like the characters kind of like to very very slowly ease into the plot, but they should be walking into it. To call back to Nevlamas' comment (8918637), it's like DnD: players tend to squabble and be sticks in the mud quite a lot. IC as a GM seems to be perfectly content to let an entire session (that's like eight hours) just roll away to the character squabble. However, when the players get together and actually chip into the GM's story it's awesome-- it makes the entirety of a session worth listening/watching to if the group has good grasps on their characters...
The only problem is that Austraeoh isn't DnD, it's a series of books! While it's acceptable (fun!) to sit through four to eight hours of real people chatting about stuff in a video, in a book It's different. It's just. so. tedious. I mean, reading text off a page takes some effort, you expect payoff, Most of the time this series more than pays off, just... There are parts like this!
I feel like an editor or a proof reader would go a very long way to polishing these rough, long chapters into stable stones, each satisfying and made with intent.
Alright, that concludes my rant!
Ah, time to hear from the Ghost 5 (and possibly Discord).
Yeah, living with Zaid teaches you a lot, and not anything you wanted to deal with.
Fluttershy, as much as I want to agree with you, we're dealing with a complete murder cabal that has only known war and such for generations. This isn't gonna just be solved by kindness alone, or even at all.
God this is worrisome. We're taking all our fliers to meet the murder bats and just hoping that the boat will be here if we need to jet. There's a lotta parts here that need to be in place no matter what happens, and I don't think the Dark Side will be all that kind...