The wind whipped through your hair as you and Amber stood in the middle of the field. Given the situation, being in the open like this probably wasn’t the best idea. Every so often, you look nervously to the sky, almost waiting to see one of those Pegasus diving towards you at high speed.
Okay, not Wimpy. She looked like the type to be afraid of heights.
The Elements were undoubtedly hunting you down now. It had been a few days since your escape from the compound, so they were likely awake and after you. Whatever Father had done probably wasn’t lethal, because releasing a toxic gas or whatever when you were close to it would have just been moronic.
Then again…this was Father.
Currently, your progress was impeded by a decision. In this field was a set of train tracks of all things. A part of you wanted to be surprised, but at this point you felt sort of numb to this place’s brand of crazy.
You had three options: forward, left, or right. Doubling back was probably not the best idea for your continued survival. Ahead of you was more open field, which as previously mentioned, may not be the best idea. Train tracks meant civilization. If nothing else, it was a better option to get supplies than foraging in the wilderness.
To your left seemed to be a mountain range. Based on the vague recollection of your brief stint in Scouting, you guessed it was to the North of you. It was a way off, but still reachable. While the idea of climbing those didn’t exactly excite you, it would be a good place to hide.
The tracks to the South appeared to head to a bridge over a deep, rocky gorge. So either way it was rock climbing, it was just a matter of whether you wanted to go up first then down, or vice versa.
“What do you think, left or right?” you ask, turning to Amber.
She thought for a moment tapping her chin with a hoof.
“If I remember right, Canterlot’s to the North in the mountains. That’s where the Princesses are.”
“The Princesses. The stupidly over-powered, possibly immortal, quasi celestial deities I’ve been forcefully summoned to overthrow despite my overall lack powers, skills, or basic knowledge of the world I’ve found myself in?”
There was a long moment of silence as the two of you weighed your options.
“Right.” You both say in unison.
The air was cool in the chasm as your helped Amber clamber down the rocky slope. She was able to use her magic to clear a path down, but still needed your help past the steeper parts. Apparently hooves weren’t the best on rocky slopes.
The bridge towered above you. You wished you could have crossed it, but it was too narrow for you be comfortable. Besides, you seen too many movies to trust train tracks on a bridge. It would be just your luck to meet a locomotive halfway across.
To your dismay, the cliffside opposite was nearly straight up. No way you could climb it, much less while helping Amber.
“What do you think, should we head back up?” you ask the unicorn.
"I’d rather not. If we need to climb again, I think we should be making progress. We need to keep ahead of the Elements.” She warned.
You nod, and look down the chasm to you right.
“Maybe it flattens up down that way. Might as well keep going.”
Hours passed you walked, your feet screaming in protest. The sky above turned orange as you assumed the sun was setting, you couldn’t see above the walls of the chasm. You noticed Amber was looking nervous. Well, even more nervous than normal.
“You okay? You don’t look so good.” You ask.
“It’s not good to be out in the open in a place like this…especially at night.” She whispered.
"Why? It’s not like there are monsters out here, right?” you joke.
Amber didn’t laugh, and instead kept looking over her shoulder.
“…Right…?” you ask again, far less confidant.
She didn’t answer, but the look she gave you was clear enough.
Suddenly finding a place to hole up for the night became your top priority.
Ironically, the best place you found was, in fact, a hole. A decent-sized cave in the cliff, only a foot or so taller than yourself. You didn’t want to take the risk in trying find anywhere better, so it would have to do.
Grateful for the rest, you sit against the cavern wall. Closing your eyes, you wondered if Amber was going to take her usual place in your lap. It had become her favorite place to sleep while you were with the cult, but ever since you’d left she’d felt a bit…distant.
Sure enough you heard her hoofsteps stop nearby, followed by the shuffling sounds as she settled down.
You crack your eyes open and steal a glance at her. She was laying on her side against the opposite wall, and staring intently at the cave’s entrance. Her ears were upright, and twitched at the slightest sound. She reminded of you of a nervous cat, alert for any potential danger.
“Are there really monsters out there?” you ask after a moment.
“Father always said that the world was filled with monsters that would gobble up any pony they came across. I never knew if was telling the truth but…” she shook her head. “I don’t know what to believe anymore…”
“…You want to talk about it..?”
“Is that an order, Master?”
“No, of course not.”
“Then I think I’d rather get some sleep.” She laid down, clearly done with the conversation.
You sigh to yourself, and close your eyes again. If she didn’t want to talk, you weren’t going to force her. Settling into the most comfortable position you could manage against the rocks, you let exhaustion take over.
It didn’t take long for you to drift off to sleep.
Nice
To answer your second question: A little bit of both. Here have a brownie!
A Master and an Apprentice. The rule of 2; the way of the sith!
This made me sad
At least they should be missed. Noone in their right mind would take a terrifying journey down unstable cliffs, when theres a perfectly good bridge to cross in front of them, if theyre not being shot at. At least if the bridge is on a curve, limiting the speed, and has spaced sleepers and framework or drainage channel etc that can be dropped into for maintenance workers?
I sensed a new pony is coming to Ponyville, I need to finish this whatever task quickly and return home to prepare for a party.
I really hope Amber's gonna be okay.
Nice chapter
I can’t wait to read when the mane six find out the one they have been chasing is a powerless human
Wonder if this will lead to Luna finding him through true dream realm?
well i have a surprise for you......
Feelz for the Amber pony.
Father's little spell probably had a bit of code that read something like "SUMMON: DEMON WITH THE MOST MAGIC," , only the idjit messed up and wrote it as "SUMMON: DE MAN" and where most humans have a natural thaumatic capacity of 0.00000001 Average Unicorn Foals, our protagonist has a capacity of 0.000000015 AUF.
The magic just took his requirement literally.
That's how stupid villains are foiled before they've even begun!
That depends on the type of hooves, really...
10384159
maybe it was a mistake like Gandhi's coding in Civilization. Hostility=0. The programmer meant 0, but the game interpenetrated it as 10, IE max hostility.
10384328
Writing spells is like writing computer programs. You have to create a set of specific instructions For the algorithm/spell to perform and one little error can cause the whole thing to fall apart
10384328
IIRC, it wasn't that the game interpreted 0 as 10. It was that Ghandi, having the lowest aggression of anyone, could be reduced below 0, and since the game wouldn't recognize the aggression value as anything but a positive integer, a change that would make it -1 instead rolled it back around to become 10.
Amber pony needs therapy when all of this is done and through. PTSD is no joke.
10384357
Actually, the value was an unsigned integer, which means that once you go below zero, the value becomes (2^32)-1, aka the max value an integer can take. Though, to be fair, I do believe that anything above 10 still acted as 10.
10384379
You're right and also wrong ^^
Civ I released 1991, pre windows and pre 32-bit era. The hostility/aggressivity counter was stored in a simple 8-bit block, interpreted as 0 to 255. The Ghandi-AI started lowest with a value of 2 which was lowered over time by several developments. I don't remember them all, but I think democracy caused the overflow.
So yeah, after India became a democracy they started throwing nukes left and right
It's always the nice ones you have to be worried about because they keep that gibbering crazy homicidal ape buried the deepest. Hurt the cute little pony Amber, well then it is game on for all the really twisted shit to come out of everyone's psyche... And suddenly I realize the whole Demon thing makes perfect sense, because really what is more dangerous than a human with something to protect and nothing to lose.
it be funny if some how he accidentally did overthrow them
10384427
That’s fair, I forgot that the operating system didn’t have 32-bit memory back then, though the rest would still be true, it was an unsigned integer (I think it was still referred to as an Integer), just that it would become (2^8)-1 instead of (2^32)-1.
Nice little chapter. Its sad they are forced to go into a world unknown to them... One can only wish them the best of luck
Good story so far. I hope "Father" gets what's coming to him: pain. Unimaginable pain. Rip off his limbs and beat him half to death with 'em, and then set the bast@rd on fire. NO MERCY
10384502
Do you play Doom, by chance?
10384028
If he can lucid dream and ponies can't without a spell to help them, that will solidify their demon belief
10384774
Yikes. Good call.
10384029
What do they do when they fall
10384029
While a fine example, respectfully, there is a rather significant difference between the cloven hoof of a goat and the solid hoof of a horse.
Creative suggestions? Oh, you mean like gutting Father and using his vocal cords as guitar strings?
Loving this story by the way.
10384639
Old school DOOM, yes. But watching that trailer for 2016 DOOM was a nice thing, and the chainsaw segment made me feel warm and fuzzy inside.
And someone downvoted my comment? Wow, I guess child abusers can be fans of MLP as well.
10384774
What if humans are actually "demons"?
Even though they can be played off as, 'father being incompetent' and 'MC isn't evil so the Elements won't work on him'...
What if Humans are actually resistant to magic?
So say a pony found this race of beings known as humans, immune to your greatest weapon, and they happen to view a moment in WW II, I would not be surprised we would be labeled demons from hell.
10384006
I dunno. Power comes in many forms. Sure, there's the obvious showy magic of unicorns but Earth ponies are just as powerful as they shape the world with their hooves and pegasi work the skies. And that's not considering a different, human, way of thinking. Who's to say when push comes to shove, he could not make the world bend to his human perseverance, or at least make normally fearsome monsters cower to his will? Magic strength tends to be both knowledge and will. Sheer will could be enough to make a land based on magic falter a moment to an inequine mind simply because he's fed up with all this crazy crap and he's not gonna take it any more.
10386413
Very true I didn’t think of it that way
If he isn't going to do anything to try and fix his situation, why hasn't he just given up all hope of both going home or being seen as anything other than a monster? Its starting to look like he's deliberately trying to not solve anything.
Thank you for the update!
10386329
Another time and place that would make them think we are demons is the age of Vikings. Imagine a group of Vikings in a warship accidentally travel through a portal and land on an equestrian shore. Imagine an earth pony village being raped, pillaged, robbed, and killed by large screaming berserkers, only for them to flee just before the equestrian military shows up to see hell on Equus.
This right here
👌
10386707
We are a violent bunch, aren't we? I hope our first contact with... Anyone, will have a better first impression.
10384458
"Human, we have been watching you over these past few months and have come to the conclusion that:The two of us need a break. We'll see you in... How long did you say your species lived? 85 years? See you in 60 years! Ready Sister?" *Poof!*
“Monsters?”
“They mostly come out at night.... Mostly.”
“”
Hopefully it’s not a nest of the four way eels.
“2) I did not expect all your...creative suggestions for what to do to Father. I honestly don't know whether to be impressed or concerned.“
Little cute mare, sweet and lovely, but abused and traumatised who only wants someone to understand and give her some love... Yep, the perfect definition of waifu, the sacrifice has been made, you will never know what can answer the call of this summoning...
Amber is seriously spooked. This one will be hard to crack...
Heyo! I found more typos for you:
Should be "as you helped Amber..."
Confidants? Sounds like a spy movie! 🕵 Should be "far less confident."
Should be "I never knew if he was telling the truth..."
This cult definitely needed to be taken apart, but I hope the Princesses move their rump for once.
There is a human lose on Equestria !