• Published 26th Jan 2013
  • 12,765 Views, 103 Comments

Vinyl and Octavia Machete Their Way Through The Jungle - DoctorSpectrum



“If we don’t survive this, Vinyl… I’m going to kill you.”

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Chapter Ten: All That Glitters...

“Now that I have you in an inescapable position, will you two mares finally concede defeat and allow me access to my treasure?” Baron von Darkhoof bellowed, advancing towards Vinyl and Octavia. Stumblefeather attempted to follow suit, but somehow miss-stepped and bumped into a wall.

Vinyl scoffed, unfazed by Darkhoof’s attempt at intimidation. “Pfft, after we’ve gone through and disabled half the traps in the temple for you? You wish, featherbrain.”

“And why do you keep referring to the treasure as yours?” Octavia added. “If it belongs to anypony, it belongs to the Amarezon tribe! Whom we… stole the tablets from…” she added awkwardly.

“Bah! They only think they are the rightful owners!” Darkhoof barked. “But in truth, both the tablets and the treasure belong to me!” He cleared his throat before continuing. “You see, I wasn’t always as I am now – a baron. Until a few years ago, I –”

“Wait a sec,” Vinyl interrupted. “Are you seriously about to monologue? I thought only badly written characters in Daring Do stories did that. And they at least do it when their victims are kinda helpless!”

“Yes, she has a point,” Octavia agreed. “This is reality, not some poorly written story featuring weak caricatures of everypony involved.”

“Shut up!” Darkhoof shouted. “You’re the one who asked me for my backstory, Octavia! Don’t complain!”

“Well, actually, I asked you why –”

“Ssh!” Stumblefeather interrupted. “I want to hear the story!”

“You see, I wasn’t always a baron as I am now,” Baron von Darkhoof said, continuing his story from earlier. “Until a few weeks ago, I –”

“Cannot believe that we are actually listening to this,” Octavia muttered underneath her breath. Vinyl either didn’t hear her or didn’t care.

“ - owner of a pie shop,” Darkhoof continued. Octavia had missed part of his speech whilst voicing her opinion on the situation. Darkhoof glanced back at his cutie mark, which was of course his trademark pie. Octavia found herself starting to pay attention now – she had been wondering why Darkhoof had a pie for a cutie mark.

“It was a satisfying life, and one that I enjoyed,” Darkhoof said, reminiscing. For the first time since Octavia and Vinyl had met him, he was speaking at a relatively normal volume. “I’m not so arrogant as to assume that ponies would come from all over Equestria to taste my pies, but they certainly came from all over Las Pegasus. Once I even had one of the Wonderbolts come! But then everything changed… on that day.”

Octavia yawned. “Does anypony have the time?” she asked. Next to her, Vinyl and Stumblefeather were lying on the ground with their hooves to their faces, entranced with Darkhoof’s story. Octavia sighed, and continued listening to Darkhoof.

“My father had recently passed away, and I was cleaning out his house. It was an arduous task, until I found a most interesting item in his attic… one of the stone tablets you just inserted into that door.”

Vinyl’s ears perked up higher than they had been prior. Octavia, however, merely frowned. “How could you have found the tablet in your father’s attic? Both of them were in the temples here in the Amarezon until we acquired them a few days ago.”

“I’m getting to that!” Darkhoof barked. “Reading through an old journal of my father’s, which I found with the tablet, I discovered that he had been an intrepid explorer in his youth, yet had never informed me! He had stolen this tablet, but had felt guilt at stealing it after finding out how sacred the treasure is to the tribe who created the tablets and temples.” Darkhoof waved a hoof around, pointing around the room. “Apparently, the hieroglyphs in both here and the temples all go to great lengths to describe what the treasure is and how sacred it is.”

“What is it?!” Vinyl asked excitedly, swishing her tail in impatience.

Darkhoof let out a short, sharp laugh. “I don’t know,” he said. “My father’s journal didn’t mention it, and I can’t translate the hieroglyphs myself.”

Octavia pointed a hoof over her shoulder. “You know, the door to the treasure room is open. We could all just go and –”

“Ssh!” Vinyl and Stumblefeather hissed at her.

“Thank you, Stumblefeather. Messy unicorn,” Darkhoof said, nodding at each of them in turn.

“Hey! My name’s not messy unicorn! It’s –”

“Reading about the treasure,” Darkhoof continued, ignoring Vinyl, “I found out about the powers it is said to be able to grant, primarily great strength and the ability to heal at an accelerated speed. I am assuming that that’s why you also seek it?”

“Yeah, but for better reasons than whatever yours are!” Vinyl said. Octavia nodded in agreement.

“Vinyl isn’t exaggerating for once. We want it so that we can save somepony,” she said, trying not to give away too many details. “What do you want it for?”

“Why do you think?” Darkhoof asked, a malicious grin on his face. “I want it because of the power that it can grant, of course!”

“Then how in the hay is it your inheritance?” Vinyl protested, standing up. Her teeth were bared, as though she were a growling dog.

“Because my father found the first tablet,” Darkhoof said. “Therefore, I have to fulfil the legacy he began.”

As Darkhoof spoke, Octavia suddenly remembered something that Green Grass had told them when they were in the village. “This particular tablet went missing decades ago…” That proved that Darkhoof’s tale was at least partially correct.

“That still doesn’t make the treasure yours!” Vinyl growled, breaking Octavia out of her thoughts.

“Of course it does,” Darkhoof replied nonchalantly. “Because you see, in that moment when I realised what a notorious explorer my father had been prior to his retirement, I felt great rage. Why was I a mere pie-shop owner when I could have been something greater had he continued his profession? What if he had acquired the treasure all of those years ago, and I had inherited it, gaining its power?

“From that moment forth, I cast off my old name, and declared myself Baron von Darkhoof! From then on, I would be the pony I should have been if it weren’t for my father’s incompetence! And all I need to complete that is the treasure of the pyramid.”

Baron von Darkhoof glared at Octavia. “Are you happy, Octavia? You now know why I place that treasure above all else– that I may finally cast aside all aspects of my previous life, and live the life I should have.”

Not put off at all by Darkhoof’s revelations, Octavia rolled her eyes. Once, she may have been swayed or even slightly scared by his story, but the Amarezon had toughened her up surprisingly well in the past few days. “Personally, I would have rather just headed into the next room and seen what the treasure was, but since it seemed to give you satisfaction, I suppose there was no harm in hearing your story.”

“Bah! You filthy Earth Ponies are all alike!” Darkhoof snarled. “Stumblefeather, attack Messy Unicorn! I’ll handle Octavia! Let nothing stand between us and the treasure!” With that, Darkhoof leapt at Octavia, flapping his wings slightly so as to make the distance.

“Oof!” Octavia spluttered as he slammed into her, knocking her to the ground. Although she had attempted to prepare for the impact, he was faster and stronger than she had thought.

Meanwhile, Vinyl Scratch was attempting to snare Stumblefeather with her telekinesis, and was finding it to be a much more difficult process than she had thought it would be. Stumblefeather was flying in mid-air so erratically that Vinyl couldn’t aim accurately enough.

“Heh, just try and catch me!” Stumblefeather laughed as he started flying backwards – whether due to incompetent flying or on purpose, it was impossible to tell.

“What the hay is wrong with you, Stumblefeather?” Vinyl asked. Fortunately, due to his dodging, Stumblefeather hadn’t yet found an opening to attack the unicorn. “Why are you working with Darkhoof? Didn’t you hear him just before? All he cares about is himself!”

“He only appears that way!” Stumblefeather argued, attempting to dive-bomb Vinyl but swooping upwards at the last moment as Vinyl’s horn began to glow once more. “There’s a good reason why I’m so devoted to Darkhoof.” Stumblefeather slowly hovered to the ground and sat down. “You see, when I was just a colt, living on the streets of –”

“Oh, we are not having another blasted monologue-slash-origin story!” Octavia shouted out, overhearing Stumblefeather from her struggle with Darkhoof. To the pegasus’ surprise, Octavia was much stronger than he had expected – Earth Ponies were much tougher than other pony races, after all.

“Why – won’t – you – fall?!” Darkhoof shouted. He and Octavia had their hooves locked in struggle against each other, each trying to gain some leverage over the other and knock them over. Although Darkhoof was strong for a pegasi, Octavia was an Earth Pony, and she had natural strength to counter Darkhoof’s.

Octavia smirked. “You may have defeated me in a fight a few days ago, Darkhoof, had we fought then. But the Amarezon has toughened me up, and I’m now stronger than ever!” If it weren’t for the pegasi she was fighting, Octavia would have given a little rear of joy.

“Is that so?” Darkhoof grunted. He was tempted to reply with what was in his mind a witty comeback, but he had a feeling that Octavia may end up winning their duel after all. “Well in that case, I suppose that I’ll just have to grab the treasure before you!” With that, Darkhoof’s wings spread out and he let go of Octavia’s hooves. He flew into the air over her, and straight into the treasure room. “Come, Stumblefeather!” he called.

“…which is why I still work with Darkhoof,” Stumblefeather finished. He had been talking to Vinyl whilst Octavia and Darkhoof had been struggling, in spite of Octavia’s warning.

“Huh. Well, I guess that makes sense,” Vinyl said. She was sitting down opposite Stumblefeather, having temporarily stopped fighting in order to listen to his story. “But I wonder why Darkhoof – hey, where is Darkhoof?” she asked, looking around the room.

“He’s gone into the next room!” Octavia shouted out as she galloped after Darkhoof. “Don’t you two pay any attention?!”

Vinyl leapt up onto her hooves and sped after Octavia as fast as she could. “That featherhead!” she shouted. “He’d better not get to that treasure, or he’s gonna pay!”

Behind her, Stumblefeather slowly got up and into the air. Watching Vinyl from behind, he was mumbling under his breath. “So after this, you want to- how about we – would you be interested in - …oh, shut up, Stumblefeather.” He flew into the air and after the two mares.

The next and apparently final room of the pyramid consisted almost entirely of a set of stairs leading downwards. At the bottom was a small slab covered in pink flowers, not unlike the coffins which the mummy ponies had emerged from in the temple Octavia and Vinyl had recently visited. Surrounding the base of the slab was a small pool of water.

As Octavia entered the room, followed a moment afterwards by Vinyl, she noticed Darkhoof already down by the slab, sliding its cover off. “Aha!” he shouted enthusiastically. “Finally, this treasure shall be mine!”

Octavia had already begun trotting down the stairs at this point, not speeding up in case she tripped over and fell down. “Not on your –”

“Buck that!” Vinyl interrupted, leaping over Octavia and down the stairs, disregarding her own health in her haste to stop Darkhoof. She landed on top of the slab. “This treasure is for me and Octavia!”

“Bah! In your dreams, Messy Unicorn!” Darkhoof shouted, giving an almighty shove and pushing the lid of the slab off, causing Vinyl to fall to the stairs in the process. Peeking into the open slab, he said “This treasure is –”

“No!” Vinyl shouted, climbing to her hooves hastily. “That treasure’s –”

“...missing,” Darkhoof frowned. “There’s nothing in here.” Not believing the villain, Vinyl too looked into the slab.

“Not true!” she said. “There’s one of these flowers in here. And it looks like it’s not as damaged by our fight as these ones lying around here.” By now, Octavia and Stumblefeather had climbed down the stairs and were standing around, ready for whatever happened next.

“Bah! As if I give a buck!” Darkhoof spat. There was a moment of silence, both parties unsure what to do now that the goal they had been striving for had been taken from them. Vinyl Scratch had a sad expression on her face, and was looking mournfully up the stairs leading out of the room. It had been such a long journey, and yet now they were going to leave without their prize?

“These flowers are tasty,” Stumblefeather said, breaking the silence. With nothing pressing to do, he had picked up one of the flowers that had been on the ground, crushed during Vinyl and Darkhoof’s struggle, and began to eat it. “It tastes kinda tingly, though.”

“What part of ‘I don’t give a buck’ don’t you understand?” Darkhoof asked Stumblefeather, scowling.

“You know, I don’t think that I have seen these flowers before. Not in the Amarezon or elsewhere,” Octavia commented as she picked another damaged one up, recalling one of the books she had read about the Amarezon prior to her holiday. A thought crossed her mind as she examined the flower, and she glanced over to Vinyl to see whether she had had a similar one. Vinyl was staring directly back at her – it was if the two were attempting to communicate telepathically and see whether the other had had the same thought.

Unfortunately, Octavia’s careless comment seemed to have given Darkhoof the same idea, as he picked up one of the flowers. Speaking relatively quietly, he began, “What if…”

“…the treasure wasn’t actual treasure…” Vinyl continued.

“…but a flower that could enhance the body of the pony who ate it?” Octavia finished, pleased that Vinyl shared her theory yet dismayed that Darkhoof was as well.

“Uh, guys? I don’t think that’s it,” Stumblefeather pointed out. “I just ate one, and I don’t feel any different.” There was a moment of silence as the ponies considered his words.

“Well, duh,” Vinyl said as she thought it over. “That flower was crushed and broken, just like all of the ones around here. They’re probably all too ruined to have an effect. Assuming that the flower is the treasure, of course.”

Without thinking, Octavia began, “But what about the one –”

“ – that was in the slab?” Darkhoof finished for her, pulling the only undamaged flower out of the slab and holding it over his head. “I believe that’s mine now!”

“Oh no you don’t!” Vinyl shouted, levitating the flower out of Darkhoof’s hooves and over her head. “This is my flower!” She was focused entirely on Darkhoof, not willing to give him a split-second of opportunity in which to take the flower from her.

Unfortunately, focusing entirely on Darkhoof meant that Vinyl didn’t notice Stumblefeather swooping over her until it was too late. “You know, I don’t think that this really is the treasure, but I’d better grab it anyway or else Darkhoof will be really annoyed at me,” he said casually as he grabbed it with his hooves.

His victory was short-lived, however, as Vinyl simply enveloped the flower in her telekinetic field once more. “Catch, Octavia!” she shouted as she threw it over to the grey pony.

“No, you catch it!” Octavia replied, throwing the flower back as Darkhoof leapt at her as he had earlier. For the next few moments, the flower was thrown between the ponies, before Vinyl managed to catch it in her telekinetic field once more. Rather than throw it over to Octavia, she instead dropped it to the ground and lightly put a hoof on top of it.

“Alright, that’s it!” she shouted. “Darkhoof, Stumblefeather, if you two know what’s good for you, you’ll accept your damn defeat and get outta here – or I crush the flower and nopony wins.”

“How foalish do you think I am?” Darkhoof laughed. “You don’t want to destroy the flower – you want it as badly as I do.”

“I’d rather neither of us have it than you have it, Darkhoof!” Vinyl growled in response. Her eyes narrowed. “Now, are you two gonna go, or what?”

“Vinyl! What are you doing?” Octavia asked, moving slightly closer to her unicorn friend. Vinyl smiled at her.

“Don’t worry, Octavia. No way can we leave this room without a flower. Darkhoof, Stumblefeather – I don’t see you leaving.”

“Make us!” Darkhoof laughed.

Not intimidated in the least, Vinyl’s mouth spread into the grin which she had worn on her face for most of the journey. “Five,” she simply said.

“Five what?” Stumblefeather asked, confused.

“Five seconds until I just crush the damn thing anyway,” Vinyl said. “Oh wait,” she added, looking at her bare hoof, “it’s now four seconds.”

“You’re not serious, are you?” Darkhoof asked, a hint of fear entering his voice.

“Three.”

“Vinyl? Please tell me that this is a bluff,” Octavia asked. “For your father’s sake.”

Instead of answering, Vinyl simply answered, “Two.” Nopony moved. “One.”

“Stumblefeather! Take the flower!” Darkhoof shouted, leaping forwards whilst he did so. “There’s no way that Messy Unicorn will actually –”

CRUNCH!

There was silence as everypony watched Vinyl lift her hoof off the ground. She scraped some nectar and petals off her hoof casually, as though unaware of what she had actually done. She turned to Octavia. “You ready to go, Octavia?”

Octavia’s mouth opened once or twice before she realised that she wasn’t actually saying anything. She cleared her throat before answering, “But Vinyl… you just destroyed the flower! The entire point of our journey!”

“Yes, you foal!” Darkhoof bellowed at Vinyl. “Why would you do that?! You destroyed my life’s goal!”

Vinyl shrugged. “Well, it shut you up for a few seconds. C’mon, Octavia. Let’s get outta here.” Silently, she began to trot up the stairs and out of the room, followed by Octavia after a moment of hesitation.

“No… no… This cannot be!” Darkhoof shouted out. He kicked a wall in anger, causing some sediment and dust to fall from the ceiling.

“Because that doesn’t sound generic and villain-like at all,” Octavia said sarcastically, rolling her eyes.

“Why?!” Darkhoof bellowed. “Why?! Why?! Why?!” With each word, he kicked the wall again, causing cracks to slowly emerge and then grow larger. After a moment, there was a rumbling sound in the distance, and the ceiling began to shake.

“Uh-oh,” Vinyl said, glancing upwards. She and Octavia were at the top of the stairs now. “That doesn’t sound so good.” As she spoke, cracks spread across the ceiling. “Buck!” Vinyl swore, grabbing Octavia by the hoof and dragging her out of the room as fast as she could. “Let’s get outta here, Tavi!”

OCTAVIA!” Octavia shouted in protest. “I thought that you’d stopped doing that! And I can gallop perfectly fine by myself!”

“Sorry, heat of the moment,” Vinyl admitted, leading the way out. The two mares were now galloping as fast as they could through the pyramid, and with good reason – Darkhoof must have, miraculously, weakened a supporting column or something similar, as it sounded as though the entire pyramid was falling down.

“Wait a moment,” Octavia said, stopping as the two mares entered the room in which they had nearly drowned. “Stumblefeather and Darkhoof don’t appear to be following us.”

Vinyl sighed. “And my heart bleeds for them, Octavia, but we really need to get out of here. If they wanted to get out, they would. Now c’mon.” She was about to dive into the underwater passage connecting the area before and after the wall.

“But what if something has happened to them?” Octavia asked, looking back. “What if…Darkhoof’s wing was trapped underneath a falling piece of stone, and Stumblefeather is trying to help him? They might need us!”

I need you,” Vinyl said gently, putting a hoof on Octavia’s shoulder. Octavia blushed slightly, misinterpreting this before Vinyl added, “You’re the best friend a pony could have, Octavia. I don’t want you going off and getting yourself killed.”

“And I appreciate that, Vinyl, but… Are you comfortable with the death of two ponies on your conscience?” Octavia asked, torn between what to do.

“You already saved them once,” Vinyl pointed out. There was a loud cracking noise above the two mares and Vinyl briefly glanced upwards before continuing. “When I first told you about why I was really in the Amarezon, you agreed to come with me to the pyramid. Please, Octavia. Just follow me this one last bit and then it’ll all be over.”

Octavia sighed and glanced back the way they had come one last time. “Fine, Vinyl. Although, I honestly don’t know how you can sleep at night.”

“With headphones in listening to some of the best bass drops in Equestria,” Vinyl answered as she slipped into the water. Whether she had intentionally misinterpreted Octavia’s question or not was impossible to tell. “Say, you wanna come round to my place sometime when we’re back in Canterlot?”

Blushing once more, Octavia slipped into the water after the unicorn. “It would be my pleasure.”

==============

Vinyl and Octavia rushed out of the pyramid’s entrance as fast as they could, expecting it to cave in around their heads at any moment. Unlike in movies, the pyramid didn’t break apart moments after they came out – it took a few more minutes before loudly collapsing in on itself. There was no sign of either Stumblefeather or Darkhoof.

Both Vinyl and Octavia were lying on the grass in front of the steps to the pyramid, panting after their marathon out of the pyramid. Once they had regained their breaths, Vinyl asked, “What now?”

“I suppose that we shall have to light some sort of signal fire so that we can hopefully be found by some pegasi,” Octavia suggested. The two mares got up and after a good half hour of searching, found enough dry wood and kindling to sustain a large fire. Although Octavia hadn’t tried it before, she had read in books how to start a fire without matches, and after a while she eventually got the hang of it enough to light the fuel.

Silently, the two mares watched the fire burn, keeping a careful watch to make sure that it didn’t spread out of control. “Kinda weird, huh?” Vinyl asked, breaking the silence. “We managed to get through this entire jungle, and now we mightn’t survive if a rescue crew doesn’t find us.” Although she chuckled slightly, the dark truth of her words failed to cause the same effect in Octavia.

“I suppose that is true,” Octavia sighed. “It is a pity about Stumblefeather and Darkhoof though. Stumblefeather, at least, seemed to be a nice enough stallion.”

“Got a crush on him, Octavia?” Vinyl teased, quickly leaping at the opportunity.

“Of course I don’t!” Octavia denied. “He was just… nice.”

“Whatever. You can’t hide it from me.” Vinyl grinned. “Anyway, they might have survived.”

“Of course they did,” Octavia said in a deadpan tone. “I’m sure that even right now they’re struggling to fight their way out of all that rubble.”

“I’m serious!” Vinyl protested. “I didn’t really think about it at the time, but there had to be a window in there somewhere, right? How else would the flowers get their light?!”

“…I suppose that is a valid point,” Octavia agreed. “So you think that they may have simply flown out of a window?”

“Anything’s possible,” Vinyl said, shrugging. Silence returned as Octavia threw some more sticks onto the fire. It was producing heavy amounts of smoke, but unless there were pegasi out at this very moment, then it would all be a waste of time.

“Say, Vinyl,” Octavia said, breaking the silence, “I have something which I wish to ask you.”

“Shoot,” Vinyl said, getting down and lying on the ground.

“Why did you crush the flower? It was the whole reason that we travelled here!”

“I was wondering when you were going to ask about that.” Vinyl’s grin slowly turned into something more mischievous. “Remember how I said that there was no way we were leaving that room without a flower?” she asked.

Octavia’s jaw slowly dropped as she realised what Vinyl was implying. “You mean…?”

“Yep. When Darkhoof was grabbing that one out of the slab, I found another undamaged flower on the ground,” Vinyl replied. She opened her saddlebag and levitated out the flower out to prove her point. “I just pretended that Darkhoof’s was important so that it wouldn’t look suspicious if we casually left without a fight.”

“So then why did you crush the flower if we already had one?” Octavia asked, confused now. “You could have just given it to Darkhoof, and we could have left peacefully.”

“C’mon, Octavia. You really think that Darkhoof will do good things if he got the power from this thing?” Vinyl asked. She examined the flower one more time before carefully returning it to her saddlebag.

“True,” Octavia conceded simply. She sat down next to Vinyl, having gotten tired of standing by now. “I hope that that flower truly is the treasure. We never got any confirmation of it.”

“There was nothing else in that room,” Vinyl pointed out. “Even if the treasure was something else, then we’ve still done the best we can.”

Octavia agreed, and, for several hours, the two mares simply threw more fuel onto the fire or scavenged around for food. It wasn’t until several hours later that their wish came true – a pegasus whom had been looking for them noticed their fire and found them. Octavia recognised her as the rainbow-maned pegasus whom she had met on the first day of the tour.

“Whoah! It’s about time I found you two!” she said as she landed. “We’ve been looking for you for days now!”

“Sorry about that – you would not believe how our last few days have been,” Octavia said politely. “Will you or some other pegasi be able to return us to the tour group?”

“Sure thing,” the pegasus said, hovering back into the air. “I’ll just make some cloud signals, and the rest of ‘em will be here in a dash!” Octavia and Vinyl thanked her. Although they had ultimately achieved their goal, the past few days had nevertheless been incredibly hectic and tiresome, and all that both of them wanted now was a large bed to fall asleep in.

Before flying upwards to arrange the necessary clouds, the pegasus turned to the two mares and said, “Hey, if the Wonderbolts found out that I found you guys, do you think they’d let me in?”

==============

A few days later, Octavia and Vinyl Scratch were on the train headed back to Canterlot with the rest of the tour group. Whenever anypony asked them what had happened to them during those few days they were lost in the jungle, they told the majority of the truth for simplicity’s sake. At least, Octavia did. Vinyl had great fun in telling everypony about how she and Octavia had fearlessly macheted their way through the jungle.

“Hey Octavia?” Vinyl whispered to Octavia. The train journey ran overnight, and the two were sharing a cabin. Both were tucked up in bed, trying to get to sleep.

“Yes, Vinyl?” Octavia asked sleepily.

“You remember how I told you that you should totally come over to my place when we’re back in Canterlot?”

“Yes… vaguely,” Octavia yawned. “I also recall you inviting me to one of your ‘gigs’.”

“Scratch both of those! I have an even better idea!” Vinyl said excitedly.

“What is it?”

“We’re going out drinking!”

THE END

Author's Note:

Huzzah, I'm finished! I hope that everyone who has read this far has enjoyed V&OMTWTTJ, and that you're all satisfied with the ending.

If you're interested in reading the sequels, which are much more humorous and (in my opinion) better, they can be found here and here.

Comments ( 26 )

It was a great OctaScratch friendshipping. Loved it from start to finish.. I can't wait for more OctaScratch from you, man.

2330600
Thank you! Comments like this really do make my day!

2330891
The next story I have in mind is OctaScratch, but it's just a one-shot. Hopefully I can continue to satisfy :raritywink:

Well.
That was, indeed, satisfying.
Thank you for providing this to lighten up my day. OctaScratch is always fun to read, the characters just seem to bounce off so well.
Keep writing~
:heart:

so will they be using the flower or with they be taking the seeds and try to grow more and possibly return some to the temple later

very good dude

So glad I finally got around to reading the conclusion of this.

Any story that pairs up Vinyl and Octavia in a non-romantic fashion is always something I'm interested in checking out, and this story--despite a bit of a mouthful for a name--was pretty good in that.

I think my biggest critique of it is the rather open-ended ending. It's left really unclear whether the flower they got was actually important in any way or if it just happened to be there. A little resolution on that point might have been nice.

2781599
Glad to hear you liked it! I purposely left the stuff with the flower ambiguous because I thought it would be a bit unlikely that they could instantly tell that the flower was the treasure. I did hint pretty strongly that it was the treasure though, and I purposely left it open to interpretation so that people can make their own headcanons as to whether it is the real treasure.

Thanks for reading! :twilightsmile:

2816467>>2816528
Fixed and fixed. Thanks for catching those.

Finally done!

Great stuff!

Now to read the sequel :twilightsmile:

3150423
Real reason: That literally never occurred to me until you mentioned it just then.
In-universe reason: They were... panicking... I guess?

I imagine this is how a "Daring Do" book would be but with the added pleasure of OctaScratch. I enjoyed that so much that I started it 7 hours or so ago and I didn't put it down. I'm going to start reading the sequel right now. :3 I originally found this story by clicking on the latest one and thought, "With a series this long and intricate looking, I must start from the beginning. I was not disappointed. :3

3772731
Thanks for sticking through the entire thing, that really means a lot to me! :twilightsmile:

Hopefully you'll enjoy the other ones just as much!

3772952

Oh I have so far. :) If fatigue weren't taking over, I would attempt the ninja story right away, but I'll have to save the last 3 for tomorrow.

One of the most adorable title pics ive ever seen.

Honestly when I first came across this I didn't pay it much attention.

But now that I've read it I regret not reading it earlier!

4268129

Applejack, around 2:00

Kinda liked Stumblefeather...:pinkiesad2: Really good read! And now... ON TO THE SEQUEL!!!

Best book I've read so far!!!!

Next to fallout equestria this is by far my favorite piece of derivative fiction.

Welcome to the start of the longest non-Pratchett series, ever.

Hey, awesome stuff! ^-^ I can't wait to read the rest!

You are and most likely will forever be one of my heroes.
I so enjoyed University Days and love the pairing in general a whole lot.

And you managed to quench my thirst for more. Even better!
After reading this story and your comment of "the next ones beeing even better" I am more than looking forward to them.

Thanks for beeing an awesome writer and making my day with your stories.

Sincerely,
Nate

7348186
Thanks for the kind words :twilightsmile:

8099838
Gravity. Not really relative. Only the directions... WHICH are also marked with North n such... like the direction she s supposed to.

One could be a smartass and going for the "relative approach" ... and end up with Vinyl... lost on the moon :3

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