At the Orchard of Madness

by NeuPferdfurt

Secrets of Sweet Apple Ackers

“That’s right! You better run, you measly mutts! And don’t you dare come back!”
Rainbow Dash was glowing with utter triumph as she watched the diamond dogs run until they were out of sight.
"Who kicks da mutt- in da butt?! It's Rainbow! It's Dash! It's Rainbow! It's Dash!"

Applejack laughed.
“Easy there, flygirl. We couldn’t have done it without you. But if you want to be especially neighbourly today, you should help me clean things up around here...”

The pegasus wasn’t even listening to her. She was thundering through the air, performing a little airshow in honour of... well, the one and only Rainbow Dash. Applejack sighted and started inspecting the damage the attackers had caused.

This was highly unusual. Diamond dogs didn’t normally come this close to Ponyville. And besides, all the Apple family had were - pause for dramatic effect - apples. Since when did diamond dogs care about apples? For that matter, since when did diamond dogs care about anything other than gems? And Applejack was sure as sugar there were no gems around these parts, she had spent a considerable portion of her young life with her snout down in the dirt of this land. And yet, the dogs had been wrecking havoc on her property. It just didn’t make any sense. Not that the actions of diamond dogs were known to make a lot of sense... But at least they usually had some sort of germ-related motive.

Applejack considered sending Rainbow Dash over to Twilight Sparkle to tell her about the attack, but obviously the victorious pegasus was too busy celebrating her own awesomeness to do anything useful right now. So she sent Apple Bloom instead.

-

“Diamond dogs this close to a pony settlement?”
Twilight was shaking her head.
“Not to be overly curious, but are you sure you didn’t do anything... unusual recently?”

Applejack was raising an eyebrow.
“Unusual? Me? I’m far too busy doing usual stuff all day.”

Twilight assisted Big Macintosh and Applejack with her magic, using levitation spells to clear debris.

“Well, they are gone now, and perhaps they really won’t bother coming back...”

Applejack stopped what she was doing to look at the unicorn pony.
“...But you don’t think so.”

“Diamond dogs don’t give up that easily. They also don’t learn from their mistakes until they have repeated them at least a few times." She was inspecting a dog-shaped hole in the barn, where Rainbow Dash had shown one of the dogs a short-cut out of the structure. "So my guess is that they’ll be back.”

Applejack nodded. That made sense.
“So I reckon we’ll have to look out for them from now on. BigMac, Rainbow and I can take shifts.”

Twilight agreed, and offered to assist them as well.
“Our top priority should be to confront them and ask them about their motives, or catch one of them if they are uncooperative. Then we can find out what they want.”

“Sounds like a plan to me.”

-“I say, excuse me, gentle ponies!”

The two fillies turned around. The voice belonged to a strange figure in a cloak and a large hat, the stranger’s features concealed in the shadows.

Applejack frowned.
“You again. Is this what I think it is? ‘Cause the answer is still no. Also, now is not a good time to be talking business.”

“Who is that?”, Twilight asked, lowering her voice.

Before the workhorse could reply, the stranger dashed towards them with surprising speed, coming to a halt only inches away from their snouts, the sleeves of his oversized coat dangling.

“Oh, but consider! It appears to me that now would be the most excellent time to discuss a little transaction. Why, with all these diamond dog raids, surely you can see that this land is no longer holding any future for agriculture! My offer still stands. I believe it is quite reasonable, especially given the circumstances.”

“Your offer is preposterous! Besides, we are NOT selling this land, no matter how much you’d pay us. It belongs to mah family, and one day it will belong to our lil'ones and their lil'ones and so forth.”
Applejack’s eyes had turned into narrow slits.
“I reckon I find it mighty suspicious that you should know about our recent diamond dog predicament. I reckon I find it mighty suspicious you’re showing up right after they’ve run off.”

The stranger was clearly caught off guard. He began uttering unintelligible noises and waving the sleeves of his coat. Twilight was reminded of a pathetic squid spraying ink into the face of a predator to distract it.

“Uiuiuiuiuiuiuiuiuiii... Wriblwizwirbl... Nowisienowie... No matter! Where were we? Ah yes! We were discussing the details of you selling these worthless, diamond-dog infested acres to me...”

The two young mares’ eyes met, and they nodded. Applejack could hardly conceal a mischievous grin.

“Of course. Oh, but where are my manners? I reckon you must take me for some kind of hillbilly. Why don’t you come inside, maybe we can discuss these matters over a glass of home-made cider."
Now I may be honesty incarnated, Applejack thought, but that just now was a very little 'maybe'.
"You don’t mind mah good friend Twilight here helping me out with this? In case there’ll be big fancy legal terms and such. ”

“Oh, but of course not, my little pony! But I promise to speak in words simple enough for you to understand.”

The fillies’ smiles grew a little larger. ‘My little pony’. Oooh, they would not go easy on this one!

-

Before he knew it, the mysterious stranger was strapped to a chair in Applejack’s cellar.
“I say, this is highly unusual!”

“Oh, I agree with you”, Applejack said, “I am a little confused mahself. Why don’t you help us shed some light into this situation?”

Twilight turned the lamp so its light flooded directly into the stranger’s face. The creature hissed and retracted deeper into his cloak.

“First of all, who the hay are you? Why do you want to cheat me out of mah land? And why this silly disguise?”
Applejack bit into the stranger’s hat and pulled it away.

The two ponies gasped.

“Suck mah apples and call me a horse...!”

The creature had eight eyes, and mandibles for a face.

Still staring at the creature, Applejack said:
“Twilight, would you go fetch me a broom? I need to flatten a spider.”

“Maybe we should try getting a few answers out of him first? Because afterwards it might be more difficult.”

“What answers? He’s a giant talking spider. That’s all Ah need to know.”

“I am NOT a spider! I am a proud nerubian, thank you very much, and I protest against this barbaric treatment!”

“Oh boy, you’ve seen nothing yet... Alright, then. Take two. So you decided to send diamond dogs to bully me into selling the Apple farm. Why is that? What do you want?”

“I said it before, I’ll say it again! I need to acquire this land.”

“Is that so... Are the likes of you that fond of apples?”

“Maybe we are. They are rich in vitamins, after all.”

Twilight was levitating the broom.

“Alright, alright! It is not the apples per se, you see... It is what they’re growing on.”

“You're after dirt? Let's try that again.”

The arachnid was wriggling in his chair. He was clearly torn between his fear of brooms and the desire to keep his secret.

“You see... I was sent by the university of my home country to identify sites of archaeological interest in these parts.”

“Archaeowhatnow?”
Applejack actually had to turn to Twilight for this one.

“He says he is some sort of scientist. He is looking for ancient ruins and artifacts.”

“Scientist mah big fat...!”

“Eee-Ah!”

“Gesundheit, sugar cube. Anyways, you know what I think, pincerhead? I think that foreign country of yours is planning an invasion, a spider invasion on top of that, and you want my farm for a bridge-head! Well, you can forget that! I’ve a mind to use the broom on you after all...”

“Please, have mercy! I am coming in peace! You don’t understand how important this site is to my people!”

“And you don’t understand how important it is to me to keep ‘your people’ out of it! (It's a farm-pony thing.) It’s broom time, Twilight! Twilight...?”

The unicorn pony seemed to be pondering about the things their prisoner had said.
“You know, Applejack... Perhaps he is telling the truth.”

“So what? He is still a creepy foreign spider who wants to steal mah land.”

“I protest! I always intended to pay you! Somewhat...”

“Look, I'm not sure we can trust him either", Twilight said, "But as this town’s librarian and a student of Canterlot, I think we should give him a chance. If there really are ancient relics to be found, discovering them might benefit our understanding of history as well. I’m sure we can compromise.”

“Now hold on just a gosh-darned second...!”

“I am not talking about selling your land, Applejack! I hope that much is clear. Besides, Equestrian law strictly prohibits signing territory over to non-ponies. I was rather thinking in terms of a limited search, under our supervision. I’d take full responsibility.”

Applejack was shaking her head.
“I don’t like this one bit. But if it’s that important to you, sugar cube... I guess we can figure something out.”

Applejack was bringing her face closer to the restrained nerubian.
“I’ll have my eye on you, spider boy.”

The eight eyes of the spider creature were staring back at her, without blinking. She shivered.
I reckon I might be outnumbered in that department...

-

The mane six had gathered on a hill just outside Sweet Apple Acres where the Nerubian archaeologist and his diamond dogs stooges had deployed their camp.

He started explaining to them how his studies had lead him to conclude that the area around Ponyville, and especially Sweet Apple Ackers, were concealing the remains of an ancient civilization.

Applejack didn't like this change in perspective.
“Mah Granny Smith and her folks were the ones who founded Ponyville. They say this place was nothing but wilderness.”

The big arachnid sighed.
“That certainly was what it looked like to them at the time. After all, the place had been deserted for millenia, long before your ancestors even arrived here. But the fact of the matter is, prior to that period this general area was densely populated for at least a million years without interruption. The stranger things- the ones you call ‘alicorns’ - must be aware of that. They might even have contributed in covering up the evidence.”

Twilight frowned.
“Before I even get into asking why you’d assume the alicorns would cover up the existence of an entire civilization- what makes you think it was even there in the first place?”

“Excellent question. You see, I have been studying historical records from the native species of this region. Many of these peoples have degenerated into isolated tribes of hunter-gatherers, and the remnants of their science and history have become myths as they were passed on from generation to generation. Still, my studies allowed me to deduce that the last people to inhabit this region in great numbers were the very ancestors of my loyal crew...”

He gestured towards the diamond dogs, who were busy scratching themselves or licking their necklaces.

“...They may not look like it, but their ancestors had developed very sophisticated spells allowing them to control the weather, a task I understand is now performed by one of the breeds of your species. But something went terribly wrong. There was a great calamity. As a consequence, the magical metropolis they had inherited from thousands of generations of sophonts before them was destroyed in a matter of days. Very few of the inhabitants survived, and those who did soon started to split up into clans fighting over the remains of their former wealth. The village of my friends here is situated in what used to be an upperclass neighbourhood, which is why the area is so rich in the gems they are so eager to dig out. However, the great city also covered ‘Ponyville’, and it is here were I hope to make the most important find of my career...”

“And that would be...?”

The nerubian was stretching out several of his hairy legs to point at something behind the ponies. It was supposed to be a dramatic gesture, but overall it looked rather silly.

“Behold! The PYRAMID OF THE SUN!”

The fillies stared into the direction he was pointing his limbs.

“My word, you don’t seem as impressed as you most certainly should be.”

“That’s ‘caus we don’t see anything.” Applejack snorted.

“Right in front of you, mare! The very elevation you are looking at!”

“What, old Billyhill? What’s so special about him?”

"I've once brought a very special young colt up there to watch shooting stars", Pinkie Pie said, "But then he was gone and there was only a smoking rock where he had been... I lose more colts that way."

The nerubian was losing what little patience he had.
“Can’t you decipher its peculiar shape for what it is? It is a pyramid, if I've ever seen one!”

Twilight examined the hill carefully. It was hard to believe this thing was really an ancient, overgrown structure. Though now that the archaeologist had mentioned it... From this distance and angle, the elevation looked awfully geometrical. It was also considerably larger than the other hills on the farm.

“I’d like to send my crew out right away to start with the excavation! First we’ll have to remove these trees, of course...”

He saw Applejack’s expression and the steam she blew out of her nostrils. He curled up into a whining little ball.

“Yeeeah. I don’t think this will be necessary”, Twilight intervened, “I am sure we can find a spot without trees just large enough so we can dig a tunnel and find out if the hill actually holds what you think it does.”

“Let me be very specific about this”, Applejack said, “If you or your dogs damage even one tiny root of one of mah babies, you will have to answer to me...”

Rainbow landed near the spot where Fluttershy was tending to the injured diamond dog's wounds.
“... And I am going to lend her a hoof. You remember me, right?”
She was displaying a predatory grin.

The dogs whined and backed away as traumatic scenes flashed before their inner eyes.

“That’s what I thought.”

Twilight thought it was time to discuss another important matter.
“The Apple family will need compensation, of course. You were planning on buying the land, right? Why don’t you buy a digging permit instead? Limited in time and area, of course, just like I proposed. Furthermore, we need you to pay reparations for the damage caused by your men during the earlier attack. Also, by Rainbow Dash as she was fighting them.”

The nerubian wasn’t very happy about this, having only a limited budget at his disposal, but he realized he needed to win the ponies over to his project.
“Oh, alright then. How about two rolls of web for the permit? Plus two as reparation?”

Twilight frowned and turned to Applejack.
“He wants to pay in spider webs?”

“That’s what he was saying from the beginning. Told yah’ it was a lousy deal.”

The nerubian ordered two diamond dogs to present the webs to the ponies.
Rarity had been hiding behind the others to bring as much distance between her and the arachnid as possible. Now she literally threw her friends and the dogs out of the way, her horn glowing, her eyes glittering with greed.

“FIRST QUALITY SPIDER SILK! SHE ACCEPTS!”

“Rarity, I think Applejack should decide that herself...”

“SHE ACCEPTS!”

The white unicorn was hugging a silk roll, babbling sweet nonsense, and the work horse shrugged.
“It’s a deal, Ah guess...”