The train let out a cloud of steam and there was the sound of metal against metal as it started to pull away from the station.
I looked after it for a long moment before Twilight moved a bit closer to my side, nosing in beneath my chin.
I smiled and shifted to look at her, “I’m okay,” I said and smirked, “We’ll see them in a couple of months.”
“Hearts and hooves,” Sunset agreed from the other side of Sparks with a smile, “Think Luna suspected anything?”
“Nope,” I said and shifted my wings, “Don’t think so anyway. And I think I figured out how to hide where we are in the dream realm.”
“Well,” Sunset said and kissed Twilight on the cheek, “I’m looking forward to seeing the city again.”
Sparks nodded, “And seeing everypony else,” she agreed before she frowned and looked at me, “What was that package you gave to Princess Celestia anyway?”
I grinned, “oh, nothing, just settling a bet,” I said before I looked around, “Let’s head back,” I then added.
Us being exposed like this always made the Guard nervous and I didn’t want to make their already difficult job harder than it had to be.
Sparks nodded, “We should,” she agreed, “Teleport?”
Sunny shook her head, “We’re not in a hurry,” she said and smiled at her, “No need for you to do that when we might as well just take the barge back with everypony else.”
I nodded in agreement, “No hurry,” I said, “We’re not doing anything but going to bed when we get back anyway,” I said and glanced towards the sun, quite high in the sky already.
We’ll not be back home before noon at this rate.
I looked over towards Moon Glow, “We’re heading back home when everypony is ready, Moon Glow,” I told her, “No need to hurry, we’ll move with everypony else.”
The pegasus nodded, “Yes sir,” and trotted over to talk to the guard in charge of the train depot.
“I wish this place wasn’t so dangerous,” Sunny said softly and looked towards the trees on the other side of the palisade as the gates covering the train tracks were pushed closed and locked down, “It’s beautiful.”
I nodded in agreement and then looked at Twilight, “You know… with those obelisks set up… do you think you can tune them to keep anything bigger and smaller than a large pony out?”
She looked thoughtful, “Possible,” she admitted, “It will require quite a bit of fine tuning, but should be possible. To cover a large area however is going to need hundreds of them, if not thousands depending on the size of the area,” she said and sighed softly, “They need to be set up in a circle around the area, maybe the entire valley.”
Sunset frowned, “Couldn’t you make a big something in the middle, like the crystal heart keeping the winter away from the crystal empire?”
Sparks shook her head, “Thought about it,” she said and shrugged, “Making a dome like that, sure. But it wouldn’t be strong enough nor would it be possible to tune it to allow some things through and not others.”
I sighed softly, “A hundred times something as big as that thing in your workshop is… a lot of solid stone blocks. And we don’t have a quarry or even a good source of stone. We’re going to have to import them, aren’t we?”
Sparks nodded, “Unfortunately, yes. And the best material would be a crystalline structure, not granite as we made the prototypes out of.”
“Oh. Awesome.”
She shifted her wings, “Actually, I talked to Cadance about it a couple of days ago,” she said as the guards started to herd us towards the dock in the river, “She said that she needed to check, but the Crystal Empire should be able to supply the obelisks. At least the physical ones, we would still need to enchant them, but getting them pre-cut would save us a lot of time and effort.”
I slowly nodded, “And how much would it cost?”
Sparks shifted her wings a bit uncomfortably, “She didn’t know of hoof. But she guessed that if we’re buying that many, it could go as low as five hundred bits for each.”
That’s a… that’s a big, big cash of bits still. And even if we got a really good price, that was likely hundreds of thousands of bits.
Sadly, it was something we really, really would need if we would ever get to be self sustainable. We needed farming ground.
And as long as pony eaters roamed the forest floor, that wasn’t going to happen.
So I just nodded, “Check with her how much it will cost and what’s needed,” I said with a small sigh, “We’ll find the Bits. Somehow.”
Well, we're the government. If we weren’t running at a deficit we would be doing things wrong anyway.
I just really hated owing money.
“It’ll be fine,” Sunset said and led the way onto the barge.
I nodded and followed to look out over the water, taking in the scent of the forest around us and the water of the river.
Sunset was right. If we could just stop things from trying to eat us, this place would be idyllic. Plenty of food and resources, good climate as long as you didn’t mind rain a couple of times a day.
Sparks walked up to stand by Sunny's other side and she looked at us, “Sunset’s right,” she said, “We’ll figure it out. I’ll talk to Midnight and see if we can’t make them smaller or something or maybe we’ll figure out a way to need less of them.”
Sunny looked around, “Where did she go anyway?”
“She teleported back,” Sparks said and settled a wing across Sunsets back, pulling her closer, “She has a meeting with the guard commander tomorrow about her latest ballista design.”
“Well, upgrades are always nice,” I agreed and settled down to sit on the deck of the barge as it started to move.
They were right.
We’ll figure it out. It is what we do.
Somehow.
...it's that book, isn't? Nice
Now Sunny finally has her porn.
You don't plan to publish that book, do you?
I'm a bit disappointed Page is NOT thinking like a human in this situation.
What would a human do?
Well he would track down the nests of all the large predators and annihilate them with overwhelming firepower. Or set out poisoned bait. Can't eat people if you're extinct after all.
10946868
Because hunting a apex predator to extinction never had bad effects...
10946889
Well yes, but no. Humans have made lots of apex predators extinct over the last 12,000 years and it has not always been overall bad.
Some of the ponies ARE meat eaters themselves though? So they are not removing an apex predator per say, more just replacing one if they then "cull" whatever is the natural prey source themselves to bring things back into balance (think removing wolves and then hunting deer to control the population as an example).
10946895
True, but we found out the hard way that PERSISTANT and CONSTANT predators are what shape prey behavior. Deer don't avoid water sources, when humans hunt, because humans don't live there.
Then begins the cycle of deer eating the new growth, the beavers having no rivers to dam, the rodents and water fowl having no lakes, and so on. Apex predators are KEY STONE species, they influence their entire local ecology, down to the habitat itself.
A lot of 'somehows' in this chapter... Page may be getting overwhelmed with everything.
?
And yet somehow Crystal Heart kept Sombra away, what its the problem here?
10946948
Dunno if it's different in the comic, but technically Cadence kept Sombra away with her love shield before the crystal heart was located.
MEANWHILE ON THE TRAIN...
*Cadance bangs on doors separating train carts*
Cadance: CELESTIA! I'm happy for you but you'll have time to read the smut later! You need to sleep so your internal clock gets back to normal.
*Celestia yells thru the door*
Celestia: I am not reading..leave me alone!
Cadance: Auntie Sunbutt..I can feel love energy remember? Plus we all felt your royal cart rhythmically rocking BEFORE the train started to move.
Celestia: ...BUCK YOU!
Starting Gavourments yes. Standing ones are in the red for greed of the top positions. Who neefs more than 50.000€+ per month
10946515
True, but think of the import restrictions they probably have on them. Buying enough to tie to the chariot so that it could break the sound barrier would likely cost more than constructing a modern military jet airport.
10946948
Love magic hurting things that are made of evil isn't going to help against non-sapient predators.
Hah, that's not gonna make the ride back easier on Cadance
10946889
True, but in cases like this it's worth considering the lives of citizens over the food chain.
Unless there's like a super powerful, even BIGGER predator.
...building in the jungle without a ful survey of the wildlife probably wasn't the best idea.
page kinda has to know that ballista aren't cutting it, even a smoothbore cannon would do a lot towards deterring predators, even if its just firing blanks. but that would be introducing ponies to firearms and given their advanced metallurgical technology they'd skip the 500 or so years of learning to respect them.
At last, now we must await the result!
Also, I really don't think skimping on the redundancy of a way stone network meant to keep the valley safe is a good idea, just ask the wood-elves of Athel Loren from the Warhammer setting. If that thing fails, it'll be spectacularly lethal for everyone, especially since they'll be relying on the protected area for their food supply.
10947143
Yeah, Page touched on that before, complete with imagination dive into the trenches. Goodness knows what he'll do once someone inevitably comes up with the idea by themselves sooner or later.
Grammar jackboot:
'She didn't know off-hoof'
that hole plan is going to take a shit load of power to get up and running , after it is up it should be easy to keep going.
Nice
10946921
This is all true, and if Page's country wanted to have the ecosystem run itself, then we would have a problem. But since when have equestrians shied away from taking over for nature?
The everfree forest, a place so feared by the populous, merely because it's not artificially regulated. And it's not like they're taking the entire jungle over. Plus, they have Fluttershy, someone who can reliably communicate with the non-dinosaur animals of the area, and properly maintain the ecosystem is one way or another.
10947284
they haven't really been able to study the rexassaurs
Dear Prince Page,
I was so caught up in reading 50 Shades of Neigh that I seem to have completely lost the paperwork for increasing the interest on the debt Nocturnia owes to the crown this year. I suppose we'll just say it was 0% interest this year.
Send more if you want me to misplace it next year, too.
-Celestia
10947339
Blank 'Plagarist' Page is at it again!
Page: "Besides, if you can't get the arcane enchantments to all synch up and work properly, we can always just use them as ballista bolts. Those nice sharp pointy tips on the ends of those crystal obelisks should be able to penetrate their armored asses. "
Twilight: "Why would we want to kill any slaves of the Rexosaurus--not that anypony's seen evidence that such exist. Shouldn't we rather kill the beasts? "
Page: "youknowistillsometimesthinklikeahumantwilight"
10947112
ummm... who says that the ultimate super apex predator everyone really needs to worry about has to be BIGGER!?
i.chzbgr.com/original/8079156992/h03560EC2/the-problem-with-parasprites
Page: "Whoa! Would you look at that! "
Twilight: "Yipe! I didn't see that coming! "
Fluttershy: "Th-th-that poor rexosaurus never s-s-stood a chance! "
Midnight: "Parasprites! EVERYPONY!! BUGGOUT!! This settlement is a wash!! "
Blank Page sounding like a true government official right here.
I grinned, “oh, nothing, just settling a bet,”
Did it really take 2 year's to write Celestia her porn?
11511209
Excellent pfp
11617225
Thank you. I stole it from some guy in an alleyway in 1999.