After dinner, Ted returned the foals to their room and back to Mirage's care, promising to stop by when he found the time. He then spent the next few hour agonizing over the rules of officiating a marriage, and all the details that entailed.
'So similar to an earth wedding and yet so different.' He thought to himself. With literal Gods walking the planet, not to mention some of them ruling countries, the idea of marriage was more of an official thing than a religious one. This meant that the officiate was often someone who was granted that power by the ruler of the country, not someone who was a member of a religious caste. Not only that, but to have one of said rulers preside over a wedding was one of the highest honors one could receive, usually reserved for other individuals of great political clout or, in Celestia's case, whenever she could slip out the doors unnoticed. Ted was amazed at the official list the author had managed to pull together for the number of times the solar princess had shown up out of the blue and asked to preside over weddings, even as her court waited for her to return from lunch.
'She really did love weddings.' He thought to himself. 'Shame I can't talk to her about this, she'd love to hear this. In fact, I'm sure Tia would be more than happy to teach me every damnable detail I need to know. She probably has them memorized.'
Certain he wasn't going to get anymore information to stick for the night, he made his way back to his room, the bath already drawn and the twins waiting for him. He relaxed into their care, allowing the stresses of the week to wash away along with all the dirt and grime. It was wonderful having a bath, even if the water was lukewarm at best. After soaking for a short time, he emerged from the bath, drying off with a few older towels before moving back to his room. Halfway through the doorway he stopped.
"H-hungry."
In the hallway door was the proto-queen, looking at him for another meal. He took a step towards her and stopped, taking in her current appearance. She'd obviously been busy setting up her new nest. Dirt was caked into every hole, her chitin was dull and her mane and tail were ragged and greasy. He looked back at the tub, just about to be drained by the twins, and back at the changeling, a wicked grin playing across his face, even as the shape shifter took an uneasy step back.
<-(0)->
"Oh come on, it wasn't that bad" Ted said with a grin, the proto-queen shivering slightly under one of his wings. Hugs worked well for feeding the others, so until he learned more about feeding habits of the changelings, it would be his go-to method. Not only that, she'd been pretty angry when he'd thrown her in the tub and had Humble and Swift give her a good scrubbing. Thinking about it, he'd even decided to leave the bath open to the rest of the Temple's residents when he wasn't in the room, since the public one had crumbled under old age and they didn't have the know-how to repair it yet. Maybe having access to a tub would spur some unicorn to add heating runes to the tub? It wasn't like he was in his room all the time, no reason to keep such a wonderful thing to himself. Besides, four to five ponies could bathe in the tub at once. Maybe Gleam and Shadow could set up a rotating list?
"C-cold."
Pulling her a bit tighter, he chuckled at her expense. She looked a lot better, even if she was pissed at him, and despite her race the two servants had been more than motivated to scrub every last inch of the proto-queen down. She probably wouldn't have stayed in the tub for a minute if Ted hadn't made it part of the deal; she gets cleaned, then he'd let her feed off of him. She'd begrudgingly gone along with it, and barely let the serving ponies dry her before she'd jumped onto his bed, pulled a wing over her back and demanded food and warmth.
Finally not shivering anymore, she buried as much of herself as she could into his side, and soon stopped moving, apparently dozing off.
'Wonderful,' Ted thought shaking his head, staring at the planet's largest tick. 'Even if she tries to overthrow me, I'll be safe. I'm way to valuable as the royal pillow and buffet. She's adorable like that, too. How old is she, 14? Yea, cute kid.' Trying to wake her up to go back to her own chambers didn't work, so eventually he just settled down, dozing off comfortably on his big soft bed.
Gleam was right, nothing beat sleeping in your own bed. Even if someone else claimed your wing as a blanket.
<-(0)->
The night was relatively uneventful, though Ted noticed a strangely high amount of pink dreams. He avoided those, and brushed against any yellow dreams, easily pushing away nightmares. It was becoming simple to him, almost instinctual. When the morning arrived, he ended up having to disentangle himself from his attachment, to her grumbling displeasure.
"Warm." She mumbled, trying to pull his leg back into her chest. Finding a few loose feathers with a quick pass of his magic, he held them over the proto-queen, before sending them brushing all over her body, darting in and out of areas that were lacking chitin. She shrieked, springing out of bed and away from the dark alicorn, hissing at what was brushing against her. Her anger turned to confusion and embarrassment when she saw the floating feathers and the laughing alicorn. She stuck her tongue out at him, drawing a raised eyebrow from Ted when her childish raspberry was done with an almost snakelike tongue, and darted out the door, nearly running over several ponies in her path.
Finally free, he stretched and checked himself in the mirror, straightening out his growing mane and even taking a look at his own tongue in the mirror. Chuckling, he touched the tip of his nose with his tongue, then lifted his leg up and licked the underside of his elbow, or at least the joint that was most similar to it. Mentally promising to get not just a haircut, but all of them cut, he made his way to the dining hall, where his breakfast was interrupted by an cheerful Slop, thanking him for picking up the spices. Afterwards he watched as the logs claimed from the jungle earlier were slowly prepared in the halls, being cut into boards and planks for use in the buildings outside. Some stone had also been pulled from the tunnels for the forge, a unicorn and earth pony working the stone chunks into proper shapes for when the building was ready to go up.
<-(0)->
During lunch the gnolls arrived, and Ted picked up his bags on the way out the door. The armor would allow him to keep an eye on things while he was gone, so he'd set it on his bed with orders that it was not to be moved. It wasn't very useful if he was stuck on the wooden posts designed to hold the armor up. The gnolls were both males, the larger calling itself Buster, and introducing the smaller as Auto. Leaving the Temple, the canines lead him to the north east, their pace nearly twice that of the caravans and gathering runs Ted had manned before. The two gnolls easily led the way, darting through the underbrush with practiced ease.
Finally approaching evening, the escorts were getting jumpy. Ted first thought they were getting ready for some sort of ambush that was prepared for him when it finally reached him. The smell of smoke.
"Faster, I want to know what's going on." He told the guides, picking up the pace to a quick trot. Soon the group broke into the clearing just outside the den, and were greeted by the sight of a massacre.
All around them the bloody remains of gnolls were scattered, though the majority seemed piled onto bonfires that were slowly burning out. Death hung heavily in the air, nearly drawing a dry heave from the alicorn. However he pushed forward, past his guides and cast his life detection spell, going from faint glow to fain glow, checking to see if there were any survivors. Finally, he found himself just outside the main entrance, having no luck besides a few jungle reavers that hissed at him and flew off to other bodies. Stuck into the ground at the entrance to the den was a single banner, bearing three white claw marks. Ted just stared at it, almost instantly recognizing the symbol.
'Oh my god.' he thought 'I never told Sahkest or the mercenaries my plans for the gnolls, just that we drove them back with heavy losses inflicted on them.' It didn't take much imagination to figure out what had happened next. Having one of their own returned who knew the location of the den, the Talons had decided to put an end to the raids once and for all, razing the den while it was weak. He'd told the gnolls he'd help them, and while he was gone they were wiped out because of his ignorance.
'Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid!' he berated himself, renewing the spell deep in the den, but receiving no hits. Ted searched for what felt like hours, before coming back to the entrance, to find his guides howling at the moon in long, mournful tones. Ted approached them, letting them howl for a bit before laying a hoof on the shoulder of the Buster, whispering to him.
"You should see if you can find anything you need from the area. Afterwards you two are more than welcome back at the Temple."
The canine just whimpered in response. "Should been here. Helped pack."
"No, the ones who attacked your den, they were strong. Very strong. Bigger soldiers, better weapons, more complex tactics. You'd be dead as well. So don't throw this away." Ted stopped, ears swiveling to a sound from the shadowy underbrush. He saw what was there, and smiled, pointing a hoof in front of the despondent gnoll. "Besides, they'll need your help. We'll stay here for the night, salvage what we can, and head back tomorrow."
Out of the underbrush, drawn by the howling, were several smaller pups and three injured survivors, who luckily only seemed to have a few cuts on their pelts. Ted brushed past the guides and approached them, sitting down before the survivors and questioning them about the attack, afterwards repeating his offer to them. The remaining den members huddled together on the outside of the battlefield that night, mourning their losses and recovering from the ordeal. Ted kept watch all night, not daring to interrupt them while he felt the crushing guilt of being partly responsible for the destruction.
The next morning the group left a trail marker pointing any survivors to the Temple of the Shadows, and after gathering what little was left, they made their way back. The entire group was silent for the duration of the march. The survivors from what they'd seen, the guides from guilt of not being present to help, and Ted, from his growing sense of self-loathing.
He couldn't help but feel he should have done something more, that he could have done something different or said something to the mercenaries to prevent this disaster. Because he returned the griffon, the gnolls were destroyed. Because he'd not thought of the possibility. The possibility that his actions would impact more than just those he was living with. Ted had made a grievous error in judgment, and the gnolls had paid the price.
'True their own actions before this set it up, but still,' He thought shaking his head as the Temple came into sight. 'I can't help but wonder if I could have prevented the loss of so many lives.'
Ouch! Poor Ted is gonna just feel terrible about letting slip that bit about the dogs.
Ted needs to start thinking about the future, like how he could start to destabilize the Mad Queen's authority.
If this were a /tg/ quest thread, I'd have suggested thinking about a few well placed propaganda flyers denouncing the "parasite queen" as a false ruler.
He totally needed thay bitch slap to the face. Good chapter my friend.
Only a couple of nitpicks!
too
led him to the
Yay! Reality!
Seriously though, with these quick chapters you may have to mull over this a bit more than just the bottom half of one chapter or it wont really have that much of an impact. Otherwise ted is a very likeable character that doesn't seem to op
Oh dear... I reckon quite a few are going to have nightmares tonight.
6049952 Heh, you're not the only one whose crazy about the comments on their stories. I'd ask if I could join you on space engineers, but my computer wouldn't handle it at the moment. I've got some cleaning to do on it. Other than that, THANK YOU!!!
Why do i feel that this would be something that the 11th doctor would think...
I think it's been said before, but you are a writing machine. I just read a chapter this morning, and there's already a new one!
According to the story page, you've put up 5k+ words today, and ~18k over the past week. Sweet Celestia.
Anyway, keep 'em coming - it's awesome - just please be sure not to burn yourself out.
Auto, Buster? Those guys going to end up being called Master Blaster sometme?
theres a reason lead was used in castles, it could be easily extracted, hammered to sheet, and then effectively welded by hammering sheets together or into containers and pipes etc.
If you have runes of heat, why would you need firewood, as for magicc to work at that level, it would be using energy conversion behaviours, as in, take a crystal or material, carve heat runes into it, and observe it, after a period of time, the crystal degrades and falls apart, due to the magic converting enough of the atoms to pure energy. Get the correct runes, and you can have Star Trek lifestyles, and city busting hand grenades.
The dogs, good and bad, the fighters, how many did Ted take out himself,a nd how many o them left were still hard core slavers, how many of the pups remaining are old enough to have learnt how to treat slaves, or just think of everyone the same, to play with?
6050094
His crew is still little more than a ragtag band of misfits. Luna's absolutely correct about his relative anonymity is his best protection against Queen Twilight since she has all the power right now. Anti-Twilight propaganda is going to let her know that someone is out there and then she'll start looking. Ted can't afford that yet.
I was wondering about that. Also i wonder what other mistakes hes already made.
I've been wondering this for a while, and it's high time I get it clarified. Are these gnolls actually misidentified diamond dogs, some other but related species, or something completely new? I've been leaning towards "something completely new" (my brain image is a leaner, taller, more war-based version of the rock trolls from frozen) but now it says they were howling at the moon, so I'm all lost again. Anyone care to clarify? (Preferably the author, but I'll take whoever I can get).
Love it
Hey, great job with this chapter. I started reading your story shortly after I started another one of Bucking Nonsense's stories, glad to have caught up and I'm looking forward to more.
Just please remember to take time to enjoy yourself a little. You've sent so many chapters this week that it is almost unreal, i don't want to see you burn out
A painful but valuable lesson he just learned. He's got a lot on his plate an he will have to look to the future else more terrible and damaging lessons will come to him. One of the major long term issues that he has deal with immediately is secrecy the only thing keeping them hidden right now is there size and his power. Once they get too a decent size that goes right out the window an Queeny will come nocking on there door.
6050385
Yeah are the Gnolls like classic rpg Gnolls?
Tall lean can walk on 2 to 4 legs and strong
While Diomond dogs are more like Gorillas shorter subterranean ect ect
6050342
Never said it was a thing he should do immediately, but it does pay to think ahead.
A bipedal dog named buster?
I'll let that one slide and let's never speak of it again.
As for what happened, see, this is why narcissistic guys like me exist. So crap like that doesn't happen.
So we continue our game of one step forward, smack in the face. One step forward, smack in the face. Rinse repeat. Any chance of real progression occurring so Ted can kill Twilight sometime before chapter 9001?
If I sound a bit harsh I apologize. I haven't been getting much sleep lately.
Good job
6050525
Spoilers: Ted uses his inherited Nightmare traits to directly engage in mental-plane combat with the Second Nightmare, parasite-to-parasite at the point of attachment to Twilight, except Ted is being reinforced by the full psychic assistance of a fully empowered Changeling Hive thanks to his Alicorn-Of-Family-Powered-Hive-Link, and memory-clone-Luna manages the mana flow of the mental battle to prevent The Second Nightmare from drawing mana from the Elemental Array onto the mental plane and preventing The Second Nightmare from escaping into Twilight's dream/psyche.
Fact of the matter, the merc would bring it up fairly quickly to his fellow mercenaries, Ted just told them it was a gnoll den.
6050654 I can't help but imagining the final battle of Gurenn Lagann.
Never trust a talon merc.
6050211 both are individuals with power in an alien world, both care for almost all life and tries to resolve things peacefully, and you should really anger them, well...
Demons run when a food man goes to war.
6050525 I really hope she doesn't get killed, as the characters mentioned before, she appears to be under the influence of the nightmare (in retrospect I'm pretty sure she rather die than continue being controlled into harming those she cared for), but I hope they can free her.
(Though she will need a hell of a lot of counselling.)
You know I started this around 11:30 and finished at 1:56 and now I'm sad because I have nothing else to read.
6050963 The Doctor can obliterate you entire race with your own weapons.
I'll admit it: I laughed.
6050421 Honestly, this is one of the few things besides video games I've found that I enjoy. Some people may find writing like this a chore, I find it relaxing. And the feedback is addicting.
6050183 as I've said, steam name is same as account name, feel free to send me an friend request. Just leave some type of message, so I don't delete it with the rest of the new account friend spam.
6050385 If I'm completely honest about this, I'm thinking about the Warcraft gnolls which are closer to hyenas/jackals than those strange mutants that attacked Rarity.
6050525 I can't in good conscience have Ted just go ahead and lay the smack-down on someone whose stolen the body and mind of an alicorn that's dedicated their lives to studying magic, even if half of it is useless and trivial. Yes with Luna's memories he has more combat experience, but he has little to no personal experience with it.
6050901 so many bad guys could win if they'd just read that list....
6050964 I'm a fan of her being a good person. Yes I can see anyone going bad under the right circumstances, but Tia's just heartwarming IMO
6051038 It's like my story 'If you give someone Super Powers,' Don't tell me you wouldn't try doing stupid shit like that as well. In fact I'd probably also try using a thu'um on a pony or three, have tried flying by now, and possibly, just maybe, miiiiight wonder if I could lick my own balls in that form.
6051195
"Paar Tii En Haart!" =>
And yeah, I totally would, just because you're not supposed to be able to. That's why I thought it was funny.
*yawn* time to head to work, but it's a short day, and I already have 1k on the next chapter. This one's pretty depressing so far. I'm having to fight off wanting to go back to bed while writing it.
noice
That line alone convince me to read this whole story.
And I'm sure the story will be good.
6051307 warframe, a f2p third person shooter with some interesting parkour options.
6051670 hope ya like it.
6051195 Thanks! Uhh... your friend list is oddly full though... eh, I'll just write your name down and keep it stowed away for later.
That was very clever. I wasn't expecting this story to have such good tellings of the consequences of power. Please continue.
So... you're taking a week break? Or is this a reference I'm missing?
6052185
Its a catchy cliche phrase that is also accurate: the trip to Sakhest Town and the trip back to the temple took a whole week of caravanning.
I'm liking the Proto-Queen more and more. She's quite amusing/adorable for an oversized emotion-eating bug equine. Looking forward to more shenanigans with her. And the rest of the cultists, really xD
I still find it funny that someone named Slop is actually a good cook...
Well, Ted fucked up. Though In his defense ,he can't think of everything and Luna's memories aside, he's very new to this kind of thing.
6051752 I just looked through it and realized I don't know half of them. XD
seriously, though, two were army buddies, and one hasn't been online in over 2 years. love ya, man, but.... I need the space
6052253 It's cool. I'll just follow you instead.
The answer? Call the insurance companies!
6050963
A food man you say?
artnewsblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/food-art-7.jpg
Fear him.
Some may think he did it on purpose, let the mercenaries attack then "rescue" the survivors. Diamond Dogs have their uses, after all.
6053024 I am afraid.
Being a powerful spell-caster does not make one a god. Hell, the fact they must use spells instead of just willing it is proof in-and-of itself that they are not divine in the least. Especially since even their strongest spells can be replicated by a unicorn and the scale can be replicated by a team of unicorns.
I like how you are tying in Ted with the princesses. It is like family. Now for Cadance to show her pretty, pink, badass head.
"faint"
Note: The queen is so cuuuuuute. But she is 14... well, maybe my ship can sail in a couple of years.
6180575
The definition of a god isn't defined like that. Not all gods are the Omniscient, Omnipotent, Omnipresent ones of the Abrahamic Faiths. A god is simply a being that is revered as being a spiritual force (and need not even be stronger than the worshiper) and which ritual and reverence is necessary for the god to act for the worshiper's benefit. That's it.
In Japanese Shinto, gods are often simply spirits that protect a small area or village. In this sense, Ted is a gods (his immortality and power definitely solidify this).
As for your other point, often times, worshipers even use the powers of the gods in ritual or ceremony (although often not nearly as powerful as the gods themselves) independent of the gods they worship. In African Witchcraft for example, the Tagati will use Divine Magic to poison and harm others independent of the gods of the religion.
He isn't just a powerful spellcaster, he is an immortal being of ambiguous origin. Gods on Earth have been worshiped for far less.
6263379 well put together, and educational! a like for you!
The Proto-Queen(Name Pending), shall voiced by Lilu from Fifth Element.
All actions, inactions and choices have consequence, and in such, a lesson is learned.
Unless you're dead
In all honesty? The 'actual' Talon Company would have done the same thing...