//------------------------------// // Diplomacy and Hunting // Story: My Little Pony: Adventures in Tyria. // by Mehnlo //------------------------------// Chapter Nine Mehnlo sits on the wagon caravan heading to the Northlands, the home of the Charr; Cynn was elsehwere, having headed to the Tarnished Coat to warn the Asurans. As he looks out over the flowing green hills, almost able to make out the swamp on the horizon, he starts thinking back to the meeting that he, Devona, Cynn, Eve, and Aidan had. They had all gathered at Mehnlo’s house to talk about the recent going ons, and the one thing on everyone’s mind was the anomalies that have been appearing all over Tyria. Mehnlo, however, had much bad news to give. Two days before the meeting he had been blessed with a vision from Dwayna. It showed the anomalies opening up everywhere, and where ever they did, the very land around them was sucked up. Until nothing but dirt remained. At least most of them. Some of the portals seemed to be ejecting things, as if they were sucking up stuff elsewhere, and spitting it out wherever they were. He saw creatures roaming the wilds, having come out of the portal. Giant beasts with the head of a lion and the stinger of a scorpion. Strange Hydras that he had never seen before. Griffons, smaller than the ones he was used to, but no doubt just as deadly, were flying all over the sky, along with small pegasi. Indeed, that was among the strangest things about the vision. There were many small multicolored horses in abundance, some with wings, some with horns, and some that could pass for a pony if not for them being any color of the rainbow. The last thing he saw in his vision, however, chilled him to his bones. Coiled up on top of the Shiverpeaks was a beast unlike any he had ever seen, looking like an assortment of many other creatures. Its body was long and serpentine, and every appendage was that of a different animal. Despite the creature’s almost silly looking body, its eyes revealed a deep evil cunning. As this beast looked out across the chaos that had resulted from what were obviously portals, if the vision was to be believed, it gave a malicious grin and let out a deep chuckle. After having retold his dream to the rest of the group, they decided that the other races needed to be warned. Cynn went to warn the Asurans, Devona went to warn the remaining humans of Ascalon, Aidan to the Norn, Eve to the human faction, the Shining Blade, and Mehnlo took it upon himself to warn the Krytan government and then warn the Charr. He was the least likely to do nothing anything rash, having lost the least among his friends to the Charr. Mehnlo is jolted out of his day dream by a bump on the road, as he looks ahead, seeing he has almost arrived to the Charr held lands. -------------------- Cynn lets out a groan of annoyance at the small creature in front of her. Mamp was his name, as he rattled on about something. Cynn had stopped listening after the first few minutes of his incessant talking. “Are you listening to me?” Mamp angrily mutters. “Huh? Oh, yes of course I am, honorable council leader.” Cynn absentmindedly says, as she starts listening again. “Yes, well anyway, as I was saying, we already know about these portals, and indeed we know they are portals. Once again, we are far ahead of you bookahs. We had already sent one of our G.O.L.E.M.s through, and while we did lose contact with it, it was able to find its way back, and we were able to look at everything it saw.” Cynn perks up, now this is interesting. To her knowledge, no one has yet seen what was on the other side of these portals. “That’s great. Do you think I could see it?” Cynn asks. This causes a startled reaction out of Mamp. “Oh, of course a bookah like you would ask that. Of course you can’t! Not only is it extremeley confidential, why would we share our secrets with a bookah?! You’d think any simpleton would know that.” “Why you little. . .” Cynn’s hands start burning as she prepares to throw a fireball at the Asuran in front of her. “How about this. You show me what is on the other side, and I won’t burn you to cinders.” Suddenly Cynn feels a metal hand on each of her shoulders, and hears a metallic voice behind her state. “Off-ensive ac-tion will res-ult in imme-diate termin-ation.” Cynn looks behind her to see two large G.O.L.E.M.s behind her as Mamp chuckles. “You Bookahs never learn. Just know that we will deal with these portals ourself. Now, take her away!” Despite her struggling, Cynn can do nothing as the two G.O.L.E.M.s effortlessly drag her out of Rata Sum, and toss her out of the gate as it closes behind her. “I really hate those inconsiderate, little -” -------------------- Devona walks up the less than glorious steps to the throne room of Rin. Amazed that it was still serving as the Ascalonian capital even after it was sacked during the second Charr offensive. She is pleased that King Adlebern saw fit to grant her an audience. Despite his original anger at her perceived betrayal, abandoning Ascalon, and fleeing over the Shiverpeaks with the rest of the refugees, including the kings own son. He may have been an aged man, and foolishly set in his ways, but he was far from stupid. As she got to his throne room she was stopped by two royal guards. Two of the last remaining members of the Ascalon vanguard. “Halt, what business do you have here?” The one on the right asks. Devona looks at him for a bit, then realizes that she remembers him from before she left. “Arne? Captain Arne? Looks like you got a promotion, ‘eh?” Devona jokingly asks Arne. Upon seeing his confused look she re-introduces herself to him. “C’mon don’t you remember me? It’s me Devona, we used to train together.” With that Arne’s stern demeanor melts. “Devona? By the Five, it’s been too long, I haven’t seen you since you took the other refugees across the border to Kryta. What brings you back to Rin?” Arne asks. “I need to speak to King Adlebern, about the recent problems, that have been happening all over Tyra.” Devona explains, not wanting to tell Arne anything that did not need to be said. Arne nods, as he begins to open the doors to the Throne Room. “Ah, I see. Well, be careful ‘round the old man. He has a lot on his plate. The Charr have mostly retreated from Ascalon, Adlebern thinks they are finally retreating and is planning a decisive blow to end the war once and for all.” Devona thanks him for the information and walks in to see Adlebern. Adlebern is sitting on his throne, nothing more than a somewhat ornate chair, but when he sees Devona walking in he stands up. “Aaaahh, Devona, it is so good to see you again. Have you finally regained your senses and decided to come back and join us against the Charr?” He asks. Devona lets out a sigh on the inside. Maybe he couldn’t let go of the fact that she left, like she thought he had. “No, King Adlebern, I have not. I am here to warn you of a new threat. Perhaps you know of the -” “If you are not here to rejoin your own people then you have no business here. Now begone! I have much business to attend to, the day of reckoning has come. Soon, the Charr will suffer for their crimes.” “But, King Adlebern, you don’t understand. This world is in peril! If the individual kingdoms do not work to stop it, then they may very well be wiped off the face of the map, literally! I do not ask that you work with anyone but yourself, all I ask is you do something, anything, to deal with the portals!” Devona all but screamed, trying to get it all out before she was interrupted again. Adlebern lets out a sigh as he sits back back down. “Perhaps you are right Devona. I apologize for my outburst. I will have my personal magi deal with this problem as it arises. Now, please, leave.” “Of course, king Adlebern” Devona says as she bows and slowly retreats from the throne room. -------------------- “Bring them down! We cannot let the beasts escape!” Olaf shouts, leading his small hunting party against these strange wolf like creatures. One of the wolves pounces at another Norn warrior, trying to bite his throat, however the Norn’d able to push the wolf off, just as two more pounce on him. Olaf charges the two wolves, calling on the spirit of the bear. As he quickly morphs into the form of an anthropomorphic bear, he tackles one of the wolves off of his fallen Norn warrior, he proceeds to hack at its thick hide with his axe. Only when his axe gets caught in its hide does he realize, these wolves were made of wood. This catches Olaf off guard, but not enough for him to duck under a wolf as it leaps for his head, he then proceeds to finish off the wolf he tackled with a strong, quick chop to its neck, beheading it. Olaf gets back up to face the wolf that had previously jumped at him. He gets ready to receive a second pounce, just as another Norn, also in the form of a bear, charges the wolf with her axe raised high, bringing it down, and cleaving the wolf almost in half. “Ha! You’ll have to be faster than that father if you want to get more kills than I!” The Norn says, as she sheaths her axe, taking out her bow and notching arrow after arrow, shooting at a third wolf. Olaf grins at his daughter, Olrin, as he turns around, only to be pounced upon by three of more wolves. Their sheer weight and momentum is enough to knock him on the ground as two of them land on top of him, and the third one goes to find another victim. Olaf struggles with the two wolves, but whenever he focuses on one of them, the other one strikes at his flesh. No, I can’t die now dammit! Not to these. . . Things! Olaf thinks, as he tries to push them both off of him. Suddenly he hears a small bang on top of him, as one of the wolves stops fighting him, falls onto him, and rolls to the ground. Now, with only one wolf fighting him, Olaf is able to fight it with all of his strength, he grabs it’s jaw, and starts to pull it apart with both hands. Letting out a shout, Olaf rips off its entire muzzle, then notices an arrow piercing it’s hide that quickly explodes, killing the muzzle-less wolf too. Olaf gets up, and looks to where the arrows came from to see a human clothed in white, standing on a hill, notching another arrow into his bow as he takes aim at another wolf. There are only a few of them left, so the wolves finally decide to flee. However, few things can outrun a Norn, and they are quickly caught and killed. With the battle over, Olaf goes to find his daughter, Olrin. She is sitting on top of a dead wolf, tending to a wounded thigh. As she sees her father walking up to her she grins. “That was a glorious hunt, was it not, Olaf? Tell me, father, how many did you get?” She asks him, as he sits down next to her. Olaf sighs, as he counts his kills. “Seven, how about you?” “Bah, only four, I’ll become a better warrior than you sooner or later, father.” Olrin grins as she looks up to see the human who had been shooting the strange wolf like creatures, she taps her fathers shoulder, motioning to the human. Olaf stands upright, looking down on the human with a menacing scowl, trying to intimidate him. However, the ranger simply stares back at Olaf, standing his ground with an impassive glare in his eyes. Suddenly Olaf lets out a boisterous laugh, now looking at the human without any menace in his face. Finally, Olaf stops laughing. “Good show, good show. You don’t back down from a challenge, nor do you run from a fight. What brings you all the way into the Shiverpeaks, human? Your kind don’t usually come up here unless they are looking for a fight. Not that there is anything wrong with looking for a fight mind you, it’s one of the best things a living being can do! By the way, my name is Olaf.” The human looks up at Olaf. “My name is Aidan, I am here on behalf of the priest Mehnlo; I believe you know him.” Aidan sees the look of recognition on Olaf’s face and continues. “He believes that the defeat of the destroyers may have caused something very bad to happen. Tell me, have your people encountered any of the portals that have been appearing throughout Tyria?” Olaf stops to think for a moment. “Portals. . . You mean those strange magicy thingies? One of our warriors went through it and never came back. The druids say to stay away from them until they find out more. What’s a portal anyways?” “A portal is kind of like a magical tunnel, that things can travel through to go from one place to another no matter the distance.” Aidan’s gaze moves over to one of the dead wolves. He walks over to them, realizing that they are nothing like the wolves he knows of on Tryia. “Olaf, what are these? I thought they were a pack of dire wolves, but these look nothing like I have ever seen. . . Are they native to these parts?” Aidan touches the dead wolf’s skin, and gasps as he realizes it is made entirely of wood. Olaf shrugs. “We’ve no idea. Four days ago Thorik went to his families hut in the woods only to find them massacred, even the children. He saw many wolf tracks all around the place, and arrived at Olafstead to organize this hunting party. We had been tracking them for a while ‘til we finally found them today.” Olaf’s eyes open wide as it dawns on him. “If you said those magicy thingies were portals, and that portals were like tunnels, could those wood wolves have come through them?!” Aidan stands up and looks at the Norn. “I was thinking the same thing. Olaf, can you take me to see the druids? I would like to talk to them.” “Of course, they will want to know this as soon as possible.” Olaf motions for his daughter to come forward. “Olrin, I want you to lead the rest of the Norn back to Olafstead. I will take Aidan here to meet the druids.” -------------------- Eve is walking through the Maguuma Jungle, trying to find any sign of the Shining Blade. However, despite having searched for a good three hours she is yet to find anything. While walking she hears the telltale noise that is created by a portal, and so decides to check it out. After looking for it for about ten minutes she finally stumbles upon it. I really want to see whats on the otherside. . . And I am completely lost so, really, what’s the worst that could happen right? She thinks to herself. Overcome by curiosity, Eve decides to enter the portal. She quickly blacks out, only to reawaken in another world that seems to be completely pastel. “Oh my. . . I don’t think I’m in the Maguuma Jungle anymore. . .” She says to herself. End of Chapter Nine