Chapter 4: The Menace of Baltimare
The waitress smiled at the Nord priest, almost as if he were a perfectly normal pony customer. Ironically, it actually only served to emphasize the fact that he wasn't. The mare's joviality was beginning to make Heimskr feel a little uneasy. Thalmor spies might be afoot, after all.
Why are they so damn cheerful all the time! More glowing lights, weird alien music... These ponies must be hiding something! He mused.
Maybe the Dwarves actually turned into ponies when they disappeared at Red Mountain? That would explain all the weird technology, like the funky lights, the excessive use of metal, and the poor taste in decorations.
Finally writing down his order on a ticket, she continued to smile sweetly. "I have no idea who or what Dibella might be, but alrighty hon!" Her voice dragged Heimskr out of his musing.
The waitress cleared her throat. "One order of waffles with extra syrup it is, and I'll be right out to with your coffee with... Eh..what was it you asked for?" Her smile diminished slightly, and her brow furrowed in puzzlement around her horn-rimmed glasses.
Heimskr looked at the waitress in the very same bemused way many of the pony customers were looking at him. "Moon sugar! I said moon sugar!" He raised his an eyebrow at her. "Miss..."
"Name's Sunnyside dear, pleased to meet ya."
"Err, yes. The feelings mutual, I'm sure. You may call me Heimskr, Priest of Talos." Setting aside pleasantries, Heimskr let out a chuckle of exasperation. "Haven't you ponies any Khajiit in your land? You know...cat men. Where there's Khajiit, there's moon sugar."
Sunnyside just stared at him blankly, blinking and holding her notepad in the air via telekinesis in a rather awkward fashion.
"C'mon! I couldn't possibly have drifted that far away from Tamriel! What, am I past Yokuda or something? By Shor's bones!" Heimskr exclaimed. Sunnyside frowned in confusion, her brow still furrowed.
"Sweetie, you're gonna have to be a bit more specific with me, you're just uttering words that sound like straight up gobbledygook!" Abandoning her confused look for a sheepish grin, she moved to make her way back, chuckling nervously.
"Coffee with extra 'moon' sugar it is then."
With haste, Sunnyside left the weird human to his grumbling and evidently profound thoughts. Rolling her eyes, she mumbled something about weird, rude foreigners, before vanishing around the corner leading to the kitchen.
Whilst waiting ever so impatiently, Heimskr groaned in boredom, playing around with the contents of the table. Holding up a small vial of reddish-colored liquid to his face, he inspected the label.
"Cherry Jubilee's Homemade Tabasco Sauce." He read aloud. "Guaranteed to put a little extra 'bite' into whatever ya put it on."
Thepriest's curiosity got the better of him, and he furrowed his brow, analyzing the strange sauce. Opening up the top, he chanced a whiff of its aroma.
"ARGH! Talos have mercy, it smells like Peryite took a giant's toenail, troll fat, draugr flesh, some Riften canal water, and mixed it all with the sweat of an Orc!" He held the top of it up to the light to inspect it further, tipping it upside down.
A drop of the Tabasco Sauce fell into his eye.
"By Ysmir...Who cast a flame spell at my face? I knew you were after me, you Thalmor bastards!" The man reeled around his table clutching his eyes, and tripped over his metal chest.
Everypony was looking at him again, this time with shock, and perhaps a little bit of amusement. A few fillies and their mother even giggled at him from a corner booth on the opposite end of the café. Getting up and dusting the lower portion of his priestly robes, he cleared his throat awkwardly, running a hand through his stubble and looking from booth to booth, his eyes gazing back plaintively as they continued to burn.
"What, what are you people looking at? If you see anyone donning black robes and seem up to no good, or any guards walking and repeating the same greeting to your over and over, then for the love of Talos, run for your life! It means something foul is afoot!"
The patrons merely blinked at him, awkward silence pervading the room. Over in another corner, someone coughed casually. Simultaneously, the ponies shrugged him off again, a few of the ones with coffee, newspapers, and business suits flashing him the occasional scowl.
"Huh, odd reactions." Heimskr mumbled, before reorienting his trunk of junk and returning to his seat, waiting for his meal, and having survived his ordeal.
After what felt like an eternity to Heimskr...or by Akatosh's reckoning, around a minute and thirty five seconds, Sunnyside returned with the Nord's coffee. She set the cup of java down, told him his waffles would be done "lickety-split", and that she hoped regular sugar and something she called 'caffeine' already in the brew would suffice.
Begrudgingly, the Nord nodded and grasped the mug in his hands as Sunnyside made her way to another table. He surveyed the steaming hot brown liquid, and noted its taste.
Shrugging his shoulders, Heimskr took a sip of the strong-smelling beverage. The taste, was better than anything he could have imagined. He chugged the rest of it down.
Another waitress passed near him, and he held out the mug in his hand. "This drink, I quite like it!" He threw the mug to the ground, where it shattered loudly, garnering further odd looks from the other patrons, whose patience seemed oddly thick.
"ANOTHER!"
Nodding warily, the mare rushed to fulfill Heimskr's request. He downed the cup, and the waitress kept bringing him more.
Eventually, it got old and she said, "Ya know what, just take the darn whole pot!" The waitress slammed the container of coffee down on Heimskr's table just short of shattering and spilling it.
She then trotted away, grunting angrily. "They don't pay me enough to work here!" The priest paid her no mind, and set about consuming his new most favorite beverage in the whole of Nirn.
And...then the caffeine took effect.
The Nord's mind went on a joyride, much like when one raised their speed and agility to ridiculous heights, than drank several skooma vials. The constant occurrences of random citizens climbing and falling from cathedral steeples, jumping over city walls, and harassing Imperial Guards by running circles around them was one of the main reasons it had been banned in Cyrodiil over two hundred years ago.
Now fully zoning out, Heimskr inevitably began to see things again as he clamped his hands to the table edge, his body shaking like a noisy old Dwemer machine in need of some oiling.
"Whoa, who needs skooma? This stuff is far more worth my time!"
The same fillies who had giggled at him earlier did so again. Their laughter came into the Nord's ears as if they were in slow motion. Come to think of it, everything seemed to be in ultra slow motion, as if the Dovakhiin had suddenly used his time-bending shout somewhere nearby.
Just as Sunnyside slowly materialized again to bring the man his waffles and maple syrup, M'aiq the Liar chose now to pay the priest a visit once again, sprinting in from the kitchen with supernatural speed.
Heimskr greeted him with wide eyes. "Wha...? What do you want now?"
The Khajiit chuckled at him, his feline eyes glimmering with all the mischievous mirth of a feisty kitten.
"Good day to you as well, oh great 'Anointed One of Talos'." M'aiq chuckled once more.
"Calm yourself. M'aiq comes bearing another message from the great Storm Crown himself. There is a settlement you see, far to the west. A quaint town most fair, and peaceful. There, you will find the best place to commence your work for Tiber Septim."
The cat-man yawned, as if he had just drank a large bowl of warm milk. "M'aiq must be going now."
"But...but wait!"
M'aiq sighed, his ears flattening against his head. Turning towards the still wigged-out priest, he replied, "Yes...?"
"What is the name of this town of which you speak? Ere I leave, I need to know of a few things at least!" Heimskr paused for a second, then added, "Oh, and have you heard any good rumors, Khajiit?"
Abandoning his impatience, M'aiq flashed his pointy-toothed grin at the Nord. "Ponyville, you will find. Ah, and before M'aiq forgets... Khajiit remembers hearing mention of the main ruler of this land. Some may say in hushed whispers that she is secretly a troll hiding in the form of an alicorn pony, and steals from the bakers of the land at high moon each night."
Heimskr gave him a worried look, and M'aiq's grin widened. "No worries, priest. Khajiit is certain these are simply the idle ramblings of immature kittens, looking only to satire their monarch to past the time."
As if just remembering it, he added, "I read it in something they call, the Ponyville Confidential. M'aiq does not understand the ironic contradictory name, but that aside, he finds the publication quite tickling!"
He yawned again, then waved at Heimskr casually. "Well... Until next we meet, Heimskr the Doomsayer."
Giving M'aiq an annoyed, wide-eyed look, and raising his mug of coffee to him, the priest simply replied, "Aye."
M'aiq motioned to leave, but one final thing pressed into the Nord's mind. "Wait, wait!"
The robed Khajiit hissed in annoyance."What?! Khajiit has places to be."
"Do you have any moon sugar? Ugh, you know... just for the road then?"
The Liar rolled his eyes, and slipped a pouch out of his robe, tossing it one handed onto Heimskr's table. "This does not validate your bigoted stereotypes of the Moon-Born of Elsweyr, filthy Nord.
Time regained its normal pace, and before the priest could rebuke him, M'aiq the Liar sprinted out the front door past everypony, gone from the room in approximately two and a half seconds.
Sunnyside reached the table, looking oddly flustered as she set the tray full of waffles and sweet maple syrup onto Heimskr's table. The Nord's stomach growled as he analyzed the local cuisine lingering in front of him.
"Say, Heimskr, did you just by any chance feel an odd draft pass through here?"
He gave her an odd look as he picked up a fork and knife. "Ugh, no. Pray tell, why do you ask?"
The waitress put a hoof to her muzzle inquisitively. "Well, it fell like a Wonderbolt had just up and flew through the place!" She looked around the roomful of customers, then shrugged. "Well, I suppose there would be a large mess of papers if that had actually happened."
Sunnyside waved the odd occurrence off with a lighthearted chuckle. "Enjoy, hon."
Humming a pleasant tune in contrast to the strange music playing throughout the café, the mare made her way to other tables. Seeing her go, Heimskr was oddly reminded of how his own mother used to hum whenever she would make breakfast.
Without hesitating, Heimskr shrugged off the weird exchanges he had just had in the café, and dug into his meal like there was no tomorrow. He used up all of the syrup zealously as he ate. A few ponies in the booths on either side of him made faces at his lacking in table manners.
Looking back at them with syrup all up and down his face and chest, he glared at them. "What?" He said, with a mouthful of waffles.
He was again met with silence and more annoyed scowls.
Once again, the patrons begrudgingly returned to their own business, leaving the Nord to his own accord. Upon finishing, Sunnyside appeared at his table again in the supernatural way that waiters and waitress seem to do, and inquired if that would be all. Heimskr nodded and ordered more.
And more.
And...more.
After a certain amount of time, Heimskr finally finished his waffles. The priest was so stuffed, he looked like a taxidermy bear in a hunter's lodge.
With the main course out of the way, Heimskr returned to his coffee. Pulling out the pouch of Moon Sugar the Khajiit had reluctantly given him, he put some of it in his coffee. As it would seem, this was a catastrophic combination.
"Will that be all Heimskr?" Sunnyside inquired, teleporting to his table once again.
The Nord sat in his seat, wigging out again. "Nah... that'll be all lass. How... much for it all?"
"Here's your bill, and I'll clean up those plates for ya dear."
Grasping his ticket with shaky hands, he read the bill aloud. "Fifty seven bits. What in Talos' name are bits?" He shook his head, too impatient and zoned out to care. With a strange amount of coordination given his current over-hyper state, the Nord retrieved fifty seven septims from his coin purse, and deposited them on the table.
Seeing the gold coins, and assuming them to be bits, Sunnyside flashed him a concerned look, then walked away, dirty dishes and ticket floating beside her. Just as Heimskr was about to consume more of the narcotic Moon Sugar powder, the rainstorm outside flashed a lick of lightning.
Without warning, the lighting jumped to the inside of the building.
Suddenly, everypony's sweet rolls were struck by the lightning, causing the patrons to jump in shock. The sweet pastries began to quiver and convulse, as if coming to life. A mare wearing a finely decorated chapeau screamed with a jarring intensity.
Rising from their plates, the sweet rolls grew legs, and jumped to the floor. Heimskr watched the proceedings with pure terror. Mudcrabs dressed like aristocrats were one thing, but this... this was a new class of creepy.
The newly summoned sweet roll trolls roared, angered to find that their new territories were inhabited by colorful-maned intruders, and of course one robed priest of Talos.
Sweet roll trolls are a common sight in bakers' nightmares, where they would often render bakeries into messy disaster zones in a matter of seconds, or scare away customers at twice that speed. Such sweet-toothed beings are rivaled only in power and ferocity by the menacing gingerbread men.
Their skin was the same golden brown like the pastry dough, but instead of nasty matted fur, their bodies were lined with white streams of cinnamon sugary frosting. Nevertheless, the trolls peered at any all through three beady little eyes, and roared again, jumping up and down and pounding their powerful fists into the ground like agitated apes.
The creepiness continued from there, for their roars were not the normal roars of the trolls of Tamriel either. Instead, it sounded like they were laughing in a deep goofy voice.
One of the creatures stamped past a group of shaking ponies, and hit the jukebox in the far corner with his balled fist, evidentially finding the current soundtrack to be in poor taste.
A new song replaced the lively jazz music of the café. It sounded like a deep-voiced person was singing the word 'troll' in a ridiculous manner.
The song was equally creepy, but was at least backed up by lively background instruments.
"Trollololollllol, huh ha, ha, huh ha, ha, HA! Lol, lol, lollol laaaa!" The music was finally too much. The pony customers looked at the Heimskr and glared at him dangerously.
"Summoner!"
"He's probably trying to scare us out and rob us!"
"Why is it so difficult for a business stallion to just enjoy his coffee in peace!"
Ignoring the trolls, who continued bouncing up and down in annoyance, several unicorns in the establishment grabbed him and his trunk in their telekinesis, and tossed him out the front door and into the rain.
"Heathens! How dare you assume a priest of the Divines to be a filthy summoner of Daedra!" Heimskr hollered, his vision colorful and warped from the Moon Sugar.
The rain appeared to be blowing sideways, and he heard something like festive party music again.
"Oh! The new guy will be here soon, he's already in Equestria!" An unknown feminine voice declared again.
"Pinkie Pie, seriously you are starting to really creep us all out. See me at the Library tomorrow so we can begin our therapy sessions again."
"But Twilight, those are so boring!"
Heimskr pulled himself up, groaning in the rain. The rainstorm had turned into a thunderstorm, and few ponies could be seen about in the streets now. Hefting his trunk with him, Heimskr grumbled and made his way to the nearest shop, eager to offload his chest of goods in exchange for lighter, more suitable traveling supplies.
Exactly thirty seconds after the Nord had gone around the street corner, the sweet roll trolls smashed and jumped through the windows of Hon's Café, scattering out in random directions into the rain-slicked streets of Baltimare.
Heimskr could not believe what he was reading when he looked at the sign to the shop in front of him. For some odd reason, the man decided to enter the shop regardless.
Loading...
Level 4. Equestria is one of the few lands on Nirn blessed with the wonder of electric lighting, which is why no power line poles are to be seen anywhere...
"Everything's for sale my friend, everything! If I had a sister, I'd sell her in a second!"
The mare looked at the Breton man wide-eyed, her jaw agape. "I'd even by one of your relatives if you gave me a decent enough price. Ha, ha-ha! That's a little joke!"
She gasped in disgust, slapping him across his sideburn-covered cheek with her forehoof.
"You weird, strange little ruffian! I shan't chance a wander into this horrendous establishment ever again!" The mare declared, storming out of the premises, ignoring the Nord as she past him.
"Gahhh!" Belethor cried, rubbing the side of his face with a single grimy hand. "Blasted upper-crust ponies, wouldn't know a good deal if it teleported up their..." He finally noticed he had a new visitor.
"Ahemmm! Welcome to Belethor's General Goods, how can I help... Oh no, not you again! You aren't here to start ranting about the Thalmor being in Equestria and it being the end of days are you?"
Heimskr sneered. "It's you, the milk-drinking Breton pawnbroker!"
Belethor gave him a scathing rebuke. "Huh, so I see her majesty Celestia has let fair Equestria become the dumping ground for Tamriel's excess garbage, eh? First the ship full of adventurers with injured knees, then the boat full of adventurers hunting for spears and daedric crescent blades and spell tomes of levitation, now rambling priests? Oh man, Gods have mercy on me! I left Whiterun for these very reasons!"
"Enough blather, I shan't waste anymore of mighty Talos' time, I must trade, then be on my way Breton!"
"Oh, for the love of...FINE! Show me your junk and I'll name ya a price."
The pawnbroker was greeted by a trunk full of various junk, but at least one thing of value. Cyrodillic Brandy, and lots of it.
In the end, Belethor gave him over two thousand bits for the brandy and miscellaneous items, including the trunk itself and the rest of the skooma. He offered to take the Nord's septims in hand, claiming only bits would be accepted in Equestria. Heimskr obliged and took the thousand bits in exchange for his original septims, got his satchel of stuff, both old and new, and made his way out.
"Do come back." Belethor called out after him as he vanished out into the rain. The sleazy merchant mumbled excitedly to himself on how he was going to melt down the septims and make them into gold trim for garments.
"That snobbish garment dressmaker over in the western town will pay a small fortune for this gold, I'll be sure to market it at as 'extra exotic'. The fools won't ever know the difference." Belethor concluded, chuckling like a maniac.
Back outside, things had turned to chaos in the open air market place near Belethor's shop.
A large tarp was pulled over the merchant stalls to provide bustling shoppers shelter from the rain. But under it, something else besides the storm was threatening to ruin the business day.
Swarms of newly created sweet roll trolls overwhelmed the place, their brethren having raided and trashed bakeries, creating more of themselves and looking for more bakeries to target.
Now reaching a critical population, they had now decided to do what trolls do best, trolling ponies.
Dozens of ponies ran about, their faces covered in sugar and frosting from the sweet roll and cake projectiles the creatures launched.
"Please, no! I'm a diabetic!" Somepony said.
"No, no not the mane!" Another cried out.
"Hey, sweet rolls!"
"Sweet Celestia, you...MONSTERS! This isn't even one hundred percent real sugar!" A food critic declared as he inspected the sugary carnage.
A random wood elf appeared out of nowhere in the periphery of Heimskr's vision as he observed the trolling in progress.
"Fimmion want sweet roll!" The crazy little elf attacked one of the trolls with a fork, managing to slay it in one strike. He then began to nibble on its skin. "Sweeet Roooollll." He declared.
Suddenly, somepony from the café coincidentally noticed the Nord from earlier, believing him to have summoned the evil beasts.
He ran to a group of guards wearing bibs and wielding butter knives. The unicorns listened to the tattling stallion, before turning to look at Heimskr suspiciously. As the man stood his ground, the guardsponies trotted towards him purposefully, their bibs billowing in the rain and their butter knives at the ready for troll ambushes.
Doing some last minute thinking, Heimskr decided he had only one option.
Pulling the remainder of the coffee pot from his satchel, Heimskr chugged the contents down, and bellowed, "TALOS BLESS ME!"
"You there, halt!"
"Stop, in the name of the Princesses!"
"You will pay with your blood!"
Heimskr broke off into a sprint straight past the unicorn guards and out of town. The guards attempted to gallop after him as he slowly disappeared into the rain-soaked foliage west of Baltimare, the coast now far behind him. The guards had been easily ditched by the priest as he sprinted past tree after tree.
At last, he was free from their pursuit.
Checking the map he had bought from Belethor, as well as the 'legitimate' Adventurer's Guide to Equestria as the Breton had put it, Heimskr discovered he had several hundred more miles before he would be able to reach the town M'aiq had labeled as Ponyville.
"Dammit!" The man swore. "How am I suppose to get there in decent time to begin my holy work? If only I had a spell tome of teleportation..."
Lightning struck the ground next to him, and he vanished into vortex of purple energy before he could say anything else.
Loading...
Level 4. Never visit Canterlot Castle with cake in your possession.
Everypony was trying careful not to slip on the mud from the storm yesterday as they strode around the Ponyville market this fine, sunny morning.
Spike was no exception, as he hustled and bustled from stall to stall, eager to cross off all the items on Twilight Sparkle's ever expansive list of shopping lists that one needs to do shopping for.
While this wasn't the baby dragon's most favorite task among his list of responsibilities as Sparkle's assistant, Spike nevertheless enjoyed the prospect of meeting new ponies each and every time he set out. And besides, it was preferable to having to deal with Pinkie Pie as Twilight continued in her ever-so-futile attempts to try to understand just what makes the party pony tick.
A murmuring in the crowd nearby drew Spike's attention away from a cherry stall he had been perusing.
Pushing his way through the crowd by way of crawling under several ponies, Spike surveyed what it was that had everypony's attention so focused. What he saw was... weird, to say the least.
For there, standing on a hastily built wooden platform, with a strange looking shrine at his back, was a robed human.
The fact that the stranger was human wasn't particularly interesting to Spike. Equestria would get the occasional Tsaesci human, serpent dragon, or tiger-folk merchant come in from the distant western continent of Akavir to trade exotic pottery. Rather, it was what the man was doing, that ignited the baby dragon's curiosity.
The orange-robed Nord was standing on the highest bier of the platform, and had his arms held out high, as if reaching to the stars.
"TRUST IN ME PONYVILLE, TRUST IN HEIMSKR! FOR I ALONE, HAVE BEEN ANOINTED BY THE NINTH, TO SAVE YOU ALL FROM THE WRATH OF THE THALMOR, WITH THE POWER OF MY ASS MAN!"
"TALOS HAS CHOSEN MY HUMBLE SELF, TO INFORM YOUR LAND OF THE GREATNESS, THAT IS THE NINE DIVINES!"
Stats
Page generated in 0.02 seconds
Total duration
904 users online
441,940 hits today, 1,887,535 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
lel
This is delightfully insane, I love it
And so it begins
I'm so glad that happened
Never thought Belethor would be in Equestria as well
M'aiq's warnings are so hilarious, along with the 'song' that the 'trolls' played in the restaurant
Tea party with Discord and Sheogorath.
DO IT.
The Dark Brotherhood approves of this...
How's Spike going to react to the whole dragon slaying thing?
3293583 What I wonder is, how is Heimskr going to react to Spike
3293128 Night Mother be Praised
3293069 I actually have that planned as a bonus chapter for my finished villain mash-up story Friendship is Chaos
3292850 I just had to include that scene in there!
Wow, Belethor left Tamriel, and ended up in Equestria and apparently Heimskr isn't the first person there!
This is going to be good.
Heimskr lands in Ponyville!
That wasn't funny. That was HILARIOUS! The whole cinnamon bun horde assault was pure genius. And now Heimskr is proselytizing in Ponyville. WHAT WILL HAPPEN NOW?!
3319394 The title of the next chapter actually is going to be called 'Proselytizing is Magic'.
3320782 LOL!
Was I high when I read this? Or was the priest fly high? Men I like the story =3
*pokes author with a stick*
3319394 HUR HAHA HEEHHE, Ass man it said!
3536937
MASSIVE LULS!
Oh gawd xD
3436979 Your profile pic killed me. I haven't laughed this hard in weeks.
I want a sweet roll! I cant believe you added the wood elf from Oblivion DLC that's just funny too
more funnies, ANOTHER
Holy crap! Are you a lore master?
This reference to Oblivion was perfect...
And wait a minute, I thought there were no humans in Akavir as they were devoured by the snakes of Tsaesci...
Perhaps I'm wrong though...