Fellowship is Madness

by Imperator Chiashi Zane

Dragon's Peak, Part 1

Iron Hoof rubbed his eyes as he looked out his window. There was a black cloud hovering over part of the town. He sighed and trotted to the stairwell in the middle of the tree, making his way calmly down to the ground floor. He slipped out the front door and looked at the cloud again. The air smelled faintly of soot. Probably the Smithy. With that new griffon in town, and two more that had slipped in in the middle of the night about three days ago, he had gotten used to there being soot in the air early in the morning, but not that much. Slightly worried, he started for the building, hoping that it wasn’t on fire. After all, above the cement floor, it was almost entirely made of wood, the most reasonable construction materiel in the area.

Rounding the corner, he saw that the cloud wasn’t emanating from the Smithy, or from its chimney. It was coming from somewhat further away. Out of town. His eyes traced the cloud towards the tall volcanic peaks nearby. The train tracks ran right past the volcanoes, and for a few minutes, he was concerned that they might have become live again. It seemed that the smoke was only coming from one of them though. Fortunately, that meant if anything, it could be easily controlled. But that meant he had to grab the local fire department. Which in a town like this meant volunteers. Civilians. And of course, since Kajiik was here, he was by default in charge, as the Princess’ direct charge. Iron swore as he turned back to the tree to go wake the Zebra from his slumber. He hated waking the stubborn stallion. Especially early in the morning, when he hadn’t yet gotten his armor on.
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Kajiik was already awake when Iron Hoof pushed the door to his room open, and was sitting with his messaging notebook open on the bed beside him.

Iron tried to speak first, “One of the volcanoes…”

“Has a Dragon slumbering in it. I know. The Princess just told me. Woke me up and everything.”

Iron’s jaw stopped halfway back up, then descended again, “What do you mean a Dragon?”

“Big. Red. Firebreathing. Naps for a thousand years. Snores black smoke. Eats ponies.”

Iron sighed. I’ll go get the others. Gather the necklaces and get my armor ready. I’ll be back.”
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“Yes, Barkskin, I know the smoke is wrecking your cloud schedule. We’re going to go send the dragon away,” Iron sighed. The Unicorn was quite hard-headed sometimes, he was finding, but after he mentioned that it was a dragon, she let out a sound that was half-way between a gleeful yelp and a horrifying battlecry before running into her house to get something. He leaned his head into the open door, “We’re all meeting up at the tree!”
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Blueberry Jam seemed like she was already ready, wearing her saddlebags loaded with farming tools. Sharp ones, he noticed. Before he could speak, she started past him, “Gotta move quick. Black clouds obscure moods and make ponies hostile. Depression isn’t very filling.”

He blinked, then turned to follow the Changeling, “Oookay. We’re meeting at the tree. Better to have all six of us.”

She nodded and changed direction for the tree.
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Hammer Soot was in full armor when he got there, the Mithril shimmering in the dull glow of the sun through the smoke, “I got Kajiik’s message already. Master Bruin wants me to let him know that Earth Elemental messengers need to come up outside the door, please. They wreck the concrete.”

Iron didn’t even pause as he turned towards the last location on the loop, “Ok. I’ll meet you at the tree.”
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Fleethoof seemed a bit panicked at his intrusion. Or possibly at something else. He hadn’t figured the Party Pegasus out yet, but she had shoved at least two dressers in front of her door. Dressers that fortunately for him, were made of clouds, like the door. He trotted right through, coming out the other side with piles of her clothing hanging off of him. She was hiding under her bed when he finally spotted her.
“Come on. We have a dragon to send packing. It’s sort of important. Get out from under your bed or I’ll get you out from under it.”

Fleethoof shimmied out and pulled some of her clothes off Iron’s back, sliding into them, “Fine. I’ll come with, but I’m not going near that dragon.”

He swallowed, “I never said it was a dragon.”

She shook her hoof at the window, “OF COURSE IT’S A DRAGON! CAN’T YOU FEEL THE EVIL!”

Iron sighed, “Look, we need you, or the Elements of Harmony won’t work,” he tried to think of a way to appeal to her other sides, “Plus, after it leaves, there’s going to be plenty of gold and jewels for you to pay for so many more parties with.”

She shot him a look that could wither century old oak, but he didn’t flinch. It was no worse than he had gotten in training.

“Tree. Ten minutes or we’re coming to get you.”
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The Cakes were quite happy to let five heavily armored ponies into their diner to grab the sixth. They waved politely as three of them wrestled their employee out the door. Cup Cake even offered a polite ‘Best of Luck to you!”
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At the edge of the town proper, where the railroad wove towards the volcanoes, the Elements of Harmony were stopped by four more creatures. Thunderlane had on an authentic Guardspony dress uniform, as did Cheerilee. He sighed. Right, those two were part of the Guard auxiliary. They couldn’t be dissuaded from joining this adventure. And the other two were a pair of Griffons he had first met at Sugarcube Corner almost a week ago. He nodded to them. If Ferrous hadn’t managed to convince his little sister to stay home, there was little chance of Iron persuading her either. And if she was going, there was no way in Tartarus the older Griffon would stay home.

Ferrous had a giant hammer cradled on his back, and a second adorned Hammer Soot’s armored spine.

His own sword was at his hip, and both wrist blades were settled comfortably, “Alright. So here’s the deal. We get up there, the four of you STAY OUTSIDE until we know for sure what we’re dealing with. Is that clear?”

Both Guard auxiliaries nodded, saluted, and barked out ‘YES SIR!”
Both Griffons nodded, but said nothing.
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The walk would have been much longer had Thunderlane not had the foresight to call ahead and have one of the small pusher locomotives brought in from the lumberyards on the opposite side of the town, along with a carriage to ride in.
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The bottom of the volcano was immense. Of course, with the peak stretching fully four kilometers up into the sky, the base had to be big to support all of that weight, but it was still rather imposing to look at. At least, it was for the eight that were looking at it. Fleethoof had her head under her hooves, and her wings wrapped around her hooves on top of that, and didn’t even want to get out of the carriage.
Hammer sighed and dragged the element of Generosity onto her back, securing her beside the hammer. “Come on. Let’s get this dragon dealt with. I need to get back to the Smithy before Master Bruin notices that me and Ferrous are gone.”

Ferrous grabbed his sister, “I agree. The sooner we get this issue solved, the sooner we can get those suits of armor finished up, and shipped up to Canterlot.”

Iron Hoof started up the path, leading the party, “How many of those do you have left?”

“Oh, sixteen or so. We’ll be done within the week if everything goes smoothly. But this, right here, this is not going smoothly. We can’t run the forge with ash in the flues, and if this cloud gets any bigger, ash will be raining down into the chimney.”

Kajiik nodded, “And if the ash gets into the vegetation, who knows what effects it will have on this year’s harvest.”

His sentiment was echoed by Blueberry Jam as she joined them on the march up the trail. Gilda was strangely silent, and not a word tried to escape from Fleethoof’s muzzle.
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The trail curved up around the mountain, and was strangely normal looking. There was absolutely no evidence that the mountain was inhabited by a dragon. Grass was green, flowers were blooming. Barkskin picked a couple in her magic and chewed on them as they climbed higher. Finally, Fleethoof started speaking, instead of quivering on Hammer’s back like a sack of jello.

“You know I can’t do this! I can’t go up against a dragon. It won’t work. The elements won’t work on Dragons. They’re immune to magic, you know. Even the magic of parties.”

Hammer scoffed, “What makes you say that?”

“Have YOU ever seen a dragon smile at a party? NO. It’s all swoop down and burn everything to the ground. Streamers, balloons, even the poor ice-cream cake!”

Kajiik put a hoof on the Pegasus’ back, “Did you bring any of those things with you?”

She shook her head, “No. I packed a rifle, but it won’t be able to do anything, you know. Scales like armor.”

Iron Hoof smacked his hoof against his breastplate, “Yeah, armor that will stop a sword, maybe. If a magical friendship rainbow can’t do it, I’ve got a Solaris class Battlecruiser on call, Princess’ orders.”

Kajiik smiled, and he heard Hammer Soot’s talons grinding together as she gleefully wrung some air between them, “Nice.”

Cheerilee spoke up next, “What, exactly, is a Solaris Class Battlecruiser? And should we be thinking about a way off the mountain if you do need to call it?”

Iron laughed, “No. It would be disgraceful of a noble Guardspony such as myself to call in an airstrike on an innocent creature. If I need to call in the Gargantua, you won’t need to worry about anything at all, ever again.”

The violet mare shuddered, and started wondering why she had thought joining this expedition was a good idea in the first place. After all, it wasn’t like helping get an Ursa Minor back to its cave wasn’t enough life-threatening adventure for one lifetime.

“So,” Ferrous trotted up beside Kajiik, “If the magical juju necklaces don’t work, how long do we have to delay it before the cannon-fire arrives?”

The Zebra thought for a moment, “The cannons on a Solaris Class Battlecruiser are fifty centimeters bore. They propel a chunk of steel weighing two tons, four thousand kilograms, out of an eighty caliber barrel at a velocity of fifteen hundred meters per second. One and a half kilometers, approximately, in the time it takes you to take a single step. The Airship Gargantua is in stable orbit along the south-side air-base of Canterlot, approximately five hundred kilometers away. The rounds from the cannon will take approximately five and a half minutes to reach us. We will have plenty of time to all be dead before the shells reach us.”

“ShellS?” Cheerilee had clear emphasis on the plural, and an edge of panic in her voice.

Kajiik nodded, “A Solaris Class Battlecruiser has fifteen long-guns. All of Gargantua’s are loaded and ready to turn this volcano into a crater.”

“So, we’ll be getting hit by fifteen of those things then?” Now it was Blueberry who was getting inquisitive about the nature of potential raining death.

Iron Hoof shrugged, “If the captain only authorizes a warning shot, sure. But since this is a dragon, he’ll probably authorize at the very least a Warming salvo. That’s six shells for each gun. They’ll be spaced thirty seconds apart. If the Princess decides that the mountain must go, for the last five minutes of our lives, we’ll be watching an incoming rolling salvo. Two seconds between shells until the stores run dry.”

“So, we might survive then?”

Kajiik laughed, “That means there is a Three Kilometer gap between shells. The first shell will arrive with thirty-five shells remaining in the stores. If you survive the first, you won’t survive the second.”

Comments

[nightwalker]

The gun range is a little over the top. The Dora only had half the muzzle velocity (albeit it tossing a shell nearly twice as large) and a max range of 50km. Coastal defense and battleship are in the 20-30km range. I'd have bought a 70-80km range, but 500 is just silly.

[Imperator Chiashi Zane]

5625784 I know. I exaggerated the range (though the ship itself might show up later). Kajiik's saying most of that just to keep everypony calm. The ship IS ready to bombard the mountain, but not necessarily from that far away.