//------------------------------//
// Discovery 
// Story: An Equestrian Edda 
// by LordSpur 
//------------------------------//

Chapter Three: Discovery

“Coincidence has always been a friend to me. I always seem to wind up where I’m meant to be.”
 -Miracle of Sound, Keep Drifting


~The Explorer~


        It was quite the worthwhile adventure, coming down here to Saddle Arabia. I would be Manehatten University’s most famous archeologist for discovering this place. Everypony would forget that damnable hack Daring Do when they heard about this! They would remember Professor Pyramid!
        In the light of my bodyguard’s torch, I inspected some of the wall carvings. “Yes,” I said, growing ever more excited, “these are definitely ancient Minotaur hieroglyphics! All the figures here are bipedal and have two horns! Oh, this is a major breakthrough. I’ve found it, after years of research and wandering around in the desert, I’ve finally found it!” I was practically giddy with excitement. Reaching into my saddlebags, I pulled out a piece of charcoal and some paper, and holding the charcoal in my mouth and the paper between my forehooves, made a quick rubbing of the hieroglyphics. I had to have something to take back, after all.
        “Ma’am,” my bodyguard/guide said quietly, adjusting his hat ever so slightly on his head, “are you sure you want to continue deeper into here?”
        I gave him a sideways glance. “Of course. I need to see as much as I can for my journal, and bring back enough artifacts that the University will agree to finance a dig out here.” I turned towards him more fully. “What’s wrong? You aren’t scared are you?”
        He shook his head, his tail swishing slightly. “No ma’am. You’re certainly paying me enough to stick around.” His voice dropped into an even quieter register, and I had to strain to hear it. “It’s just that, a buck might’ve heard legends and rumors about places like this. They say that these old minotaur tombs are filled with booby traps to protect against scavengers, and some of them are even cursed.” The way he used that last word sent an involuntary shiver down my spine.
        I raised an eyebrow at him. “I didn’t take you for a superstitious stallion.”
        “I’m not, Ma’am,” He said, kicking a loose rock with his forehooves. “I believe in what I can see with my eyes, what I can touch with my hooves.” He looked at me, sighing slightly. “It’s just that, there were a lot of stories that I’ve heard in my travels across the desert. All about ponies wandering into ancient minotaur tombs and never coming back out, or ponies who went in, and came out changed.” He snorted. “As your gainfully employed bodyguard, I feel it’s my duty to keep you safe from harm.”
        I sighed slightly. “Alright then, we’ll continue on just a little longer, and then we can head back out.” He grumbled slightly but followed me along. We continued down a stone corridor until we came to a stone entry way flanked on either side by a fearsome statue.
        “What in the unholy name of Nightmare Moon do we have here?” he asked, gesturing with his torch at one of the statues. It was of a terrifying creature, which looked like some kind of giant snake, but with fur instead of scales, and a wolf-like head. I noticed that it had two arms, no legs, and each arm ended in a set of five thick, sharp claws. I smiled looking at it.
        “Ah, a lindwyrm!” I rushed up to the statue. “This tomb must be REALLY ancient, lindwyrms have been extinct for thousands of years. I’m guessing that, due to its position here, it must be a kind of tomb guardian, scaring away evil spirits from the central burial chamber.” I turned to look at my guard, who was inspecting the other statue. This one was of a pegasus, oddly enough, wearing archaic looking armored barding, culminating in a helmet topped with a pair of bull’s horns. “Hmmm, that’s odd.”
        I turned back to the statue of the Lindwyrm. For a second I could have sworn I saw it move. There it was again. What in sweet Celestia’s name was going on here?
        We backed away from the statues as they began to move and shake slightly, shaking off pieces of stone like dandruff. I let off a less than dignified scream. Maybe he had been right about traps and curses.


~Gus~

         I blinked, then rolled my shoulders and cracked my neck. In Valhalla, I hadn’t noticed my lack of a physical body, but now that I had one again, I could feel the difference. I looked at my hands, or, more accurately, talons. I had four fingers and a thumb on each one, which was good, but each one ended in a long, bladelike claw. It was then that I noticed that I could see my nose, or perhaps snout, in front of my face. I took a deep breath in through the nose, then promptly sneezed. Dust, lots of it. This place hasn’t had anybody inside for a while. There were other smells too. Thousand year old spices and papyrus, long preserved flesh that had ceased decaying centuries ago. I could smell the blood of the ponies in front of me, in their veins, smell it pulsing through them. I licked my lips, then blanched.
        What the hell was that? I stared at myself after that. What was I? I turned around, inspecting myself. It was that moment that I realized I no longer had legs. Instead, I had a four foot tail, like that of a giant snake, except it was covered in sleek black fur rather than scales. It inspected my height against that of the entryway around me, and surmised that I was about 4-5 ft tall, standing on about four feet of tail. I tried to take a step forward and immediately fell on my face.
        That’s when I heard Johanna laughing at me. I twisted my head around to scowl at her. Unlike me, she looked like some kind of cartoon pony, but dressed in almost viking-like armor: scale-mail barding and a horned helmet. And… she had wings. I blinked again. Well then, this is what you signed up for. Go to Pony-world, grab some stuff, kill a dragon and win a game of chess. But why do I lose my legs, and she ends up with wings?
        I start to snicker as she flairs her wings. “Well, looks like you can fly now.” Flight of the Valkyries, heh.
        She gave me a death glare. “I swear, if you so much as hum Wagner I’ll,” she started to threaten, but I cut her off.
        “Yeah yeah, balls, marbles, I got the point the first time.” I straighten myself up to just a bit above her height. Apparently I can stand on this tail. I turn around, starting to get the hang of the slithering motion required. Thankfully, it looked like Odin had programmed in how to maneuver, otherwise I’d still have been writhing on the floor. “How do I look?”
        She gave a snarling, wolfish grin at me. “Absolutely monstrous.” Then she cocked an eyebrow. “So, on the whole, significantly better than before.”
        I snorted. “Thanks.”
        It was just then that I noticed something to my left was screaming. I could feel the vibrations of eight hooves moving around on the stone floor, scrambling away from us. I turned to see two ponies looking at me, one a screaming female in a light jacket and old-school Pith Helmet, and the other was dressed up like Indiana Jones, or maybe the Man with No Name. The one in the adventurer’s hat was surrounded by a quartet of levitating crossbows, all of which glowed slightly yellow and were pointed at me. Unlike the mare’s face, the stallion’s visage was grim and determined.
        I raised my claws defensively. “Hey now, no need for any of that!” It was then that I noticed that my voice had changed, becoming raspy and gravely, like a knife on sandpaper. I winced. Yeah, that’s certainly going to calm them down. Now my voice sounds like its made of evil. I could see the torch light reflected off of the points of the crossbow bolts. Dammit. I was really looking forward to not getting shot again.
        Luckily, Johanna was able to intervene. “Wait! Don’t hurt him!” She walked up to him, getting between the bows and me. 
        The mare in the Pith helmet was still scared out of her mind. “He’s a monster!” She blinked again in the light of the torch. “The two of you were statues, then you just… just shook off the stone! The only other creature who’s ever done that was Discord!” She glared at me some more. Great. “You even kind of look like him.”
        Johanna adopted a conciliatory tone. “Please,” she said, obviously thinking quickly, “we’ve been frozen in that stone for a long time. A cockatrice froze us here!” I raised an eyebrow, but let her continue. She gestured at me with a hoof. “This is Grendel, my pet lindwyrm.” I glared at her. 
        The crossbowman (stallion?) narrowed his eyes at us, but lowered the crossbows, returning two of them to holsters on his flanks. I could tell the other mare was considering what Johanna had said.
        “Alright then, what’s your name?” Pith-helmet asked sceptically. I could tell she wasn’t quite convinced.
        Johanna coughed for a moment. “Shield Splinter, ma’am.” She looked around the room. I had to commend her for her ability to bullshit a story on the fly. Then she looked at the other two, a confused look on her face. “Please, can you tell me how far away from Pegasopolis we are?”
        That drew a chuckle from Crossbow McGee’s muzzle. “About three hundred miles and two thousand years, give or take a few centuries.” The look that crossed Johanna’s equine face proved to me that she was an excellent actor. She looked truly shocked, then quickly shifted to heart broken, sitting down on her rump. I slithered up beside her, looking as if to comfort her.
        “All my friends, everyone I’ve ever known… they’re all gone. All dead.” Convincing crocodile tears flowed from her eyes. I caught the idea she was trying for. This… this might work. If we can convince them we’ve been frozen in stone for thousands of years, then any lack of understanding we have about the world can easily be written off. Smart. I had to mentally re-categorize the acerbic woman I knew so little about.
        The other mare’s glare softened as she looked at the crying pegasus-valkyrie. She came over and gave Johanna a hug. “It’s okay Shield.” She pulled back and looked into the Valkyrie’s eyes. “My name’s Lost Pyramid, I’m a professor at Manehatten University. I was exploring tomb, and that’s how we found you.”
        The other pony came forward, swiping his hat off of his head, revealing a slightly glowing horn and dark brown mane. “And my name’s Aimless Drifter, I’m the Professor’s guide and bodyguard.”
        Johanna nodded slightly. “Where are we, geographically speaking?” She wiped the tears from her eye with a hoof. Damn, I need to learn how to do that.
        Pyramid sighed. “Does the name Saddle Arabia mean anything to you?”
        And so the four of us journeyed out of the tomb, which I learned was disguised as a cave. Johanna hadn’t apparently been kidding about not having been to Equis in quite some time, she wasn’t faking not knowing about the world. Oh, she recognized most of the shapes on the map Pyramid showed her, but almost none of the names. I took it all in, trying to learn as much as I could, as it was all new to me. And apparently, there had been some social changes since she had last been here as well.
        “It seems strange,” she commented offhandedly (hoofedly?), “to see an Earth Pony and a Unicorn traveling together, even if one is paying for the services of the other.” The two of them looked at each other and blushed, obviously taking that the wrong way.
        I’m at the point, I thought to myself, where I honestly don’t know if that entendre was intentional or not. There were so many hidden layers to Johanna, but considering that she had lived for multiple millennia that was to be expected.
        Drifter chuckled slightly. “Ah, um, about that.” He kicked a loose hooful of dirt out of the cave’s mouth. “The tribes aren’t exactly split and fighting with each other anymore.”
        Pyramid nodded. “We’ve been unified for some time now. Ever since Hearth’s Warming Eve, when the Windigo were finally defeated and the Ice Age ended, ponies of all kinds have been living and working together.” She put her foreleg around Aimless’s shoulders in a comeradic gesture. “We’ve discovered the Magic of Friendship.”
        That got me laughing. Pyramid glared at me slightly. “Hush, beast. What would you know about magic, or friendship?” I snickered again.
        “Of course, because an abstract concept of the bonds of social interaction have their own innate power.” The loquaciousness of my response made her blink slightly. She cocked her head at me.
        “Friendship is more than that. Friendship is Generosity, Honesty, Loyalty, Kindness, and Laughter. When they come together among ponies, they create the magic that guides and shapes our lives.”
        I turned away. That smacked too much of religion for me to consider arguing further. I turned away. “Whatever.” 
        I looked out of the cave’s entrance. The sun was setting over the dunes. Of course, this place being a desert made sense when it was a play on a freaking nation in the real world. Hmph. Saddle Arabia, my ass.
        I took a deep breath through my nose, smelling the hot, sandy air of the desert, and I could smell something else as well. There were several distinct aromas out there, some of them smelled similarly to my companions, others smelled completely different. Some of them smelled slightly like dogs, others smelled so foul I almost choked, and I could tell from the faintness of the scents that they were still a ways off. But the smells were getting stronger.
        “Something’s out there,” I told the ponies around me. “Several somethings, coming in on our position fast.” I blinked, my eyes rapidly adjusting to the decreasing light. Faintly, I thought I could see a group of silhouettes skylined against a dune.
        Pyramid gasped and Drifter grit his teeth, telekinetically withdrawing his crossbows from their various holsters and loaded them with a bolt each. His reaction set me on edge.
        “Who are they?” Pyramid whispered to him. Her answer came when an arrow flew through the cave mouth, just barely going over her head and splintering against the cavern wall. She ducked, curling up into a ball.
        Aimless Drifter responded with a single word. “Bandits.”



Achievement Unlocked! Getting your Bearings
Level Up!
Perk Gained: Lindwyrm Physiology Rank I Welcome to the Chessgame! Your old human body has been taken away, and now you have a fantastical one in its place! As a Lindwyrm, an ancient draconic species, you now posses a body completely unlike anything you've ever seen. Take it out for a spin! (-15Chr, +25 Agi, +20 Per)   
Allies Met: Lost Pyramid, PhD.
Aimless Drifter, Captain of the Rangers