//------------------------------// // Chapter 13: RTB // Story: The Royal Thief // by LTBroski //------------------------------// Chapter 13 – RTB “Alright everypony, the sooner we get this done the sooner we can get some shuteye!” Flow shouted across the room at the party as they spread out to take in what they were seeing. He continued barking out instructions as the Guard began picking up various items scattered across the room. “There’s a lot of stuff here, so we need to be sure everything gets packed away so we don’t leave anything behind. Clear Sky, you’re in charge of cataloguing everything. We don’t need the ponnequins, so you can strip the armor off them. Az, Longshot, Wise Guy, you’re in charge of the archive. Get those books packed away in one of the carts; make sure we don’t miss anything. The rest of you, get those weapons and armor loaded up, let’s move!” Like a well-oiled machine, the party spread out across the room and began taking everything they could hold off the racks, ponnequins, and shelves that they could carry. Az descended to the bottom of the pit in the middle of the room and began removing tomes from their shelves and balancing them carefully on his back or holding them beneath his wings. Longshot and Wise Guy collected numerous books within their magical grip and placed them in a waiting cart with a decent amount of speed. Az placed his load in the cart and made his way back into the pit. A member of Shadow Wing, Fall Gust, cried out from across the room, causing many to stop and look to see what had happened. “Turns out these weapons are sharper than our usual stuff!” she called out. “Everypony be careful with them. Oh, and medic?” Flow rushed over to her and wrapped up the gash in her foreleg. Az continued into the pit and collected another load, only to find on his way up that Longshot and Wise Guy had cleared the first two spirals of the staircase already. Looking around the room, he was pleased to see that most of the ponnequins now lay bare, as well as the majority of the weapon racks. Those Guard members holding the black weapons were proceeding more carefully as well since Fall Gust’s mishap. On his third trip into the pit, Az hit a snag. One of the books refused to come off the shelf, and he did not want to tug on it too hard, for fear of damaging the millennium-old text. He cleared the shelves around it, deposited them in the cart, and returned to see what the issue was. Upon closer inspection, the book appeared attached to the marble shelf. Az blew away some of the dust that had settled on the shelf, and used his wingtip to brush away what remained. The book actually rested on a small circular cutout in the marble. I’m surprised the dust didn’t fall in. Maybe another way of safeguarding some secret. I should probably let somepony know about this before I start poking around though. He looked up through the hole left by the staircase to see if he could spot anypony else. Wise Guy had just departed the pit with another load of books. Longshot, on the other hoof, had just entered again. He caught her attention and motioned that she needed to come to the bottom of the pit. “Whatcha got, bud?” she asked after teleporting beside Az. “Some sort of secret latch. I had to clear off the dust to see it was there.” She cocked an eyebrow at him. “Some sort of magic mumbo jumbo” he explained with a shrug. “You think we should get somepony else down here? Like Flow or maybe Clear Sky?” He looked back up at the mouth of the pit. “Nah, we should be ok by ourselves. I doubt there’s some sort of scary monster down here. And if there is, I’m here to protect your helpless flank.” She flashed a grin at him, earning a scowl in response. She chuckled before continuing “so are we going to do this or what?” Az nodded and placed a hoof on the book-switch. He tried pushing it counter-clockwise, to no avail. He reversed his strategy, pushing the book in the other direction. It resisted for a moment before slowly turning under the pressure he was applying to it. Once the book was perpendicular to the shelf’s edge, a soft click emanated from the base it was resting on. Az finally got a good look at what the book looked like. While the spine had been an innocuous burgundy color, the covers were the same polished marble as the rest of the room. Az looked around to see if anything had happened, but when nothing did, he winged up to the mouth of the pit to see if there was any change in the remainder of the room. He was greeted by the sight of the rest of the party finishing packing up the armor and weapons. The room remained unchanged in size or structure. He returned to the floor of the pit to find Longshot inspecting the false book, seeing if there was something more to it. She straightened up and scratched her head as he landed. “Nothing new up there. Maybe there’s a secondary stage to the switch?” “That’s what I thought, but there’s nothing readily obvious about it.” Wise Guy, who had finished putting away the remainder of the books from the pit in a cart, joined them. “Let me take a look at it.” He squeezed past Az and Longshot in order to get a better look at the switch. He poked his head around the false book for a few seconds before taking a step back with a puzzled look on his face. “It doesn’t look like there’s any other way it can move, unless…” He placed a hoof on the top of the book and pushed down on it. The circular panel of the shelf shifted down slightly and issued another soft click. Az and Longshot, who had been standing in the center of the pit to examine Wise Guy’s musings felt the ground beneath them shift. At once, they both uttered small noises of surprise and stumbled off the now moving block of marble. The panel shifted down and then underneath the floor where Wise Guy was standing. The low rumbling of the stone moving drew some onlookers around the mouth of the pit, but they went unnoticed by the three examining the new-found secret compartment. The moving marble slab disappeared under the rest of the floor, and Az could pick out the clinking of metallic gears through the growing noise of the crowd at the mouth of the archival pit. At the opening of the secret compartment, a glass case slowly became visible under the now waning moonlight that continued to shine in the room. It rose slowly, taking in and reflecting the light, and as it continued upwards, Az, Longshot, and Wise Guy could see their reflections in the perfectly polished glass. The case was a cube of five-by-five panels of glass, resting on a platform comprised of the same metal as the ancient Guard armor and weapons. At each corner of the base, grooves replaced sharp corners, which Az assumed were the mechanism by which the case was raised. While the contraption was interesting in and of itself, what resided inside the case caught the attention of every eye in the room. Underneath the glass sat a ponnequin, slightly larger than those scattered throughout the main room, clad in a set of plate and leather armor that could only be described as magnificent. Instead of the same black metal as the rest, it was midnight blue in color, and left very little of the fake pony unprotected. Its structure comprised of shoulder, chest, leg, back, and facial protection. The gaps between each plate showed worn leather, also colored in midnight blue. Upon closer inspection, the plate showed signs of wear, with several small gashes and dents covering the chest and shoulder pieces. What drew the most attention, however was the wing and horn protection that the armor provided. The option for leading edge protection of both wing and horn showed that this armor belonged to an alicorn. Its coloration made it clear whose armor it was. “No way” Clear Sky breathed from the upper level. She flew down to the floor of the pit and gazed longingly at the set of armor. “This must be Princess Luna’s armor from before the Nightmare! I can’t believe how well preserved it is!” Az looked over to see her practically ready to burst, the energy apparently spawning from the grin that stretched almost painfully wide across her face. A chuckle sounded from the top of the pit. “Uh oh, we’re about to witness another nerd-splosion” one of Clear Sky’s teammates remarked, drawing a few chuckles. Clear Sky visibly deflated, and a dejected look spread across her face in response to the jab. Az walked over to her and shot a death glare at the speaker, who shrugged it off and left the rim of the pit. “Why don’t you open it, then?” he said to her, smiling. A small grin found itself back onto her face as she began nodding emphatically. She walked up to the case and circled around it, looking for a way to open it. Finding none, she reached up and began pushing and tugging on the case, to no avail. “Maybe you need magic to open it” she said, looking to Longshot and Wise Guy, albeit with a disappointment. The two looked at each other and nodded. Az heard the clip clop of hooves on marble and looked up to see Flow descending the spiral staircase. Longshot and Wise Guy began trying to lift the glass off the pedestal, but it continued to resist any attempts of its removal. Flow reached the floor of the pit and inspected the team’s find. “Clear Sky, why don’t you go about cataloguing our new find while we try to get it out of the case?” Flow said to Clear Sky, drawing a nod from her. She spread her wings and flew up to the main room to get her clipboard. He turned to Az, who was watching Longshot and Wise Guy struggle to lift the glass case from over the armor. “Az, would you have any ideas on how to get into this?” Az drew is gaze away from the case to look at Flow. “Unfortunately, no. There might be some sort of magical trigger, or some kind of artifact that opens it via proximity, but outside of that, I have as much insight on this as you.” Longshot and Wise Guy had given up their effort and stood glaring at the case, breathing a little heavier than they had been before. Az walked up to the case to get a closer look at whatever may be holding the glass in place. Seeing nothing, he inspected the contents of the case. The armor on its own was impressive, and Az noticed that nestled beneath the right wing-joint, the hilt of a thin sword in a blue, metallic scabbard was visible. I never took her for a fencer, different times… he mused continuing to look at the case. While inspecting the leg and hoof armor of the suit, the rear of which was emblazoned with a crescent moon, Az noticed a disturbance in the flat surface of the bottom of the case. He could not quite see what it was simply standing on the floor, so he reared up and put his front two hooves at the base of the glass so he could get a better look. As he did this, a slight hiss escaped from around the bottom of the case. Az jumped back at the sudden release of pressure and landed a pace away from the pedestal. “Looks like the seal’s popped. Longshot, you think you can give it another try?” he said over the continuing hissing noise. Longshot nodded and effortlessly lifted the glass from around the armor. Az took to wing and hovered close to the armor to see what the disturbance had been. It turned out to be a sealed envelope, with Her Highness, Princess Luna scrawled across the front of the envelope in elegantly lettered black ink. The paper of the envelope was inexplicably unyellowed by time, and as Az flipped the letter over, he saw that the black wax seal remained unbroken and untarnished by its age. The seal was detailed with the moon and dagger sigil of the Guard, and was as fresh as if it had been pressed the previous day. Flow walked up to see what Az was holding and looked up at the armored ponnequin on the stand. “There was a magical release I recognized when you put your hooves up on the case.” Az tore his gaze away from the pristine letter to look at him. “It was a stasis spell. An incredibly detailed, complex one. I could only catch part of the release conditions, but it seems that only somepony close to royalty could have opened it. It’s either your ehem relationship with Princess Twilight,” Az shot him a glare “or it could be the fact that you were the first Guard member welcomed into the order by Princess Luna since before the time of Nightmare Moon. Either way, it looks like you get to present her with this.” Az nodded and looked back at the set of armor. “This can’t be seen by anyone in Ponyville. We’re going to need to cover up the carts with something. The trick is, what could we possibly use?” he said, looking around. Flow nodded, thoughtful for a moment before the metaphorical light bulb clicked. “You, Lightning Shift, and Shadow Wing will donate your cloaks and fly around Ponyville, meeting us at the train station.” Az nodded, agreeing with the idea. Flow collected the ponnequin in his magic and began walking it up the staircase. His magic produced more light than the moon, as the dawn was fast approaching. “In the meantime, everypony should catch some rest, we’ll get going out of here around sunset tomorrow.” --------- The sunlight in the room was waning by the time Az woke up the next day. Most of his compatriots were still asleep, and those who were awake were poking around the new sets of armor and weapons they had acquired. He yawned, stretched his wings, and looked around the room. The pit was laid bare, as well as every weapon rack and ponnequin in the room. Princess Luna’s armor was already wrapped up in a cloak and sitting in the same cart as the rest of the armor. He noticed Wise Guy poking around a section of wall on the far side of the room and walked over to see what he was doing. “What’s up?” he asked, yawning. “Find something useful?” “You could say that” Wise Guy answered. His horn glowed and the outline of a door illuminated itself in the wall. “I think I found an exit, not sure where it leads, but it’s gotta be easier than going back through those traps.” “Damn straight” Az replied. “Let’s get this open then, we should probably figure out where it goes.” Wise Guy tugged magically on the door, causing it to swing open. After telling one of the members of Heavy Squad to watch the door and ensure it did not close, thereby locking the pair out, Az and Wise Guy trotted through the opening to see where it led. The passage continued for a decent distance, but light was visible at the end of a lightly sloped tunnel. The rock returned to the dark granite of the original tunnel, and echoed as Wise Guy’s hoof-steps bounced off the walls. “How come your steps don’t make any noise?” Wise Guy asked suddenly. Az showed him the bottom of one of his hooves, the shoe shining slightly in the gloom of the tunnel. “Enchanted horseshoes. Cost me a pretty penny, but they work wonders don’t they?” Wise Guy nodded and they continued on in silence. At the mouth of the tunnel, they paused to see where they had been deposited. “That can’t be right…” Az started as he looked out at the vista. They appeared to be no more than a mile from Ponyville’s outskirts, amongst the apple grove he had noticed on the train ride into town. “There is no way we walked ten miles in those tunnels is there?” Wise Guy shook his head in the negative. “Then how the hay did we end up here?” “Magic maybe? I thought I felt a bit of rumbling when I was trying to fall asleep last night but this seems slightly absurd.” Wise Guy scratched his head, puzzled. “In any case, we probably ought to let Flow know, this changes our plans a bit.” As he was finishing the sentence, they both noticed movement outside the tunnel entrance and froze. “…tellin’ you, Pinkie. Ah thought ah felt some tremors comin’ from this section of the farm last night.” An orange mare with a brown Stetson hat walked in front of the tunnel, looking back at another mare, this one bubblegum pink, that was walking behind her. Az and Wise Guy stood still as statues, barely daring to breath as they watched the two mares come into view. “Nope! Sorry Applejack, but my Pinkie Sense didn’t do anything last night. I would have known if there was an earthquake, ‘cause my whole body would shake and by eyes would have gone all whoa!” She sat up on her hindquarters and screwed her eyes up. She giggled before continuing “it might have just been your imagination.” The two continued walking, apparently oblivious to the two black-clad ponies watching their every move in silent apprehension. “Ah guess you’re right. Maybe a bit too much cider. That Rainbow sure likes her competitions…” Applejack walked directly in front of Az and Wise Guy and continued on her way without looking at them. “Anyways, what’s this ah hear about you organizin’ another party? What’s it for this time?” “Oh, the new ponies that came through yesterday!” Pinkie Pie answered. “They were all gloomy and mysterious and went into the Everfree forest! Since they have to come back through Ponyville to get to the train station, I thought I’d throw them a surprise party!” She giggled but suddenly tensed up. He back left leg shook and her right ear flopped forward, causing her to gasp and Applejack to turn around to see what was happening. “What is it?” Applejack asked, concerned. “Left leg shake and right ear flap! Somepony’s watching us!” The pink mare wheeled around, searching for the source of the sensation. Her gaze passed right over Az and Wise Guy, and settled on a squirrel sitting in a tree a few yards away. “Oh it’s just a squirrel. False alarm!” She giggled and bounced off, humming to herself. Applejack shook her head and followed after her, chuckling. Once they were out of sight, Az and Wise Guy let out a sigh of relief. “Well, we know to steer clear of the center of town tonight” Az said. “We’d best get back and get ready to leave. I guess there was some sort of magical façade hiding the entryway here. Might be worth a look once we’re out.” They returned to the room and told Flow about what they had found. “A party?” Az and Wise Guy nodded. “Great, just what we needed, some random pony throwing parties for a secret mission into the Everfree forest. We need to steer clear of the town, take a back route in.” “Should be easy enough” Iron Feather stated from across the room. “Just a matter of avoiding a large group of ponies, likely waiting for us at the edge of town. I say we just go around them.” Flow nodded. “Alright, once the sun’s completely down, we head out through that door, get to the station as fast as possible, and get out of here.” Once the sun had finally descended below the horizon and the moon took its place in the night sky, the eight Guard members with cloaks on departed for the train station, and the other seven departed through the sky. The group seeming appeared out of the side of a stone wall, etched into the hill on the Apple family’s western orchard. The flying group spread out to avoid detection, and met with one another on the side of train opposite from the majority of the town. Fifteen minutes later, eight cloaked figures made their way from the outskirts of town to the train station, loaded the carts, and departed Ponyville. Az sighed as he pulled back his mask and hood and gazed out the window at the countryside, which was now bathed in moonlight. Easy enough job, no snags, I could get used to this kind of work. He looked around the train’s compartment at the Guard members, who were spending their time chatting and telling jokes. I really can’t believe this line of work didn’t come up sooner. He spent the rest of the train ride lost in his thoughts about the last few days. Upon arriving back at the base, they were greeted by Captain Shade, who nodding approvingly at the full carts unloaded from the back of the train. “Well done, everypony. I trust the mission went well?” “Aside from being berated by a ghost for using rank, yeah, everything went swimmingly” Flow responded. Some of the party chucked at his remark, and Captain Shade looked at him with a puzzled expression. “I’ll tell you in the debrief. In the meantime, I think some food is in order.” He looked longingly at the long house, which showed signs that food was being served, based on the smoke coming out the chimney. “I actually need to speak with you and your team first” Captain Shade said, suddenly growing serious. Flow looked slightly dejected at the thought and looked back at Shade. “I have a mission that needs to be taken care of, and your team is the best qualified to get it accomplished. Meet me in my office in fifteen minutes.” He turned back towards the building as several ponies stared, dumbfounded, at the back of his head. “Great, looks like we have to work some more” he muttered to Az. “I’d better go spread the word, see you there in fifteen.” Az nodded and began walking after Shade to hear about the new mission. --------- Pinkie Pie stood at the edge of the Everfree forest, waiting for any sort of movement to allow her to spring her super surprise party. She had been waiting for hours and many of the town’s residents had gone home, too tired to wait out the band of cloaked strangers for any longer. She was beginning to lose hope as well, and really hoped that they would love all the preparation she put into the surprise. There were streamers everywhere, balloons, confetti, and cake! So much cake. The sun dipped below the horizon, and her hoped began to dwindle to nothingness. Only her bestest of best friends were still with her, and they too were showing signs of fatigue. She was about to call off the party (a thought which broke her heart) when all of a sudden she felt a small tap at her shoulder and looked over to see a small paper airplane lying on the ground. Her friends gathered around her as she picked it up. Unfolding the paper, she was able to see that somepony had written her a note. Pinkie Pie, I’m sorry that my friends and I are unable to attend the party you had lined up for us outside the Everfree forest. We’re kind of working right now and can’t afford the attention. Thank you for the thought, and tell your friends I said hi. -Az P.S. The cake is delicious. Pinkie whirled around to see a slice of cake missing and let out a small giggle before showing the note to her friends.