Hey, I'm back from my dig...I dug up a dead dog...I found its skull.
Anyways, as always edited by PieisGood4U as well as my two new awesome editors Blazinblade7 and dialgex
Thanks guys, you rock
Enjoy the read!
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A sharp, intense pain wracked my body, forcing me from my blissful rest with a strangled yelp.
“Argh! What the hell?”
My eyes flew open to behold the Zende standing next to me, curiously poking at my right leg with a worried expression on his face. Noticing that he had managed to wake me he smiled down at me.
“Ah, you are awake. This is good; I was worried that we might lose you”
“Yes I’m bloody well awake and you are the worst alarm clock ever! Why are you jabbing at me with those bloody hard hooves?”
“I was assessing the damage to your limb. Prior to my incarceration here I was something of a travelling healer, visiting towns and curing ills. I believe the damage to your leg could be easily fixed with some of my potions.”
“That’s great!” If this old zebra knew his stuff then I might be back on my feet, I mean hooves, quicker than I had hoped. Using Zende as a prop I managed to get up, waving my arms slightly to achieve balance with my currently uneven weight. “Where are they?”
“Unfortunately, they were confiscated by the dogs when I was captured”
“Of course they were” I heaved a sigh “Hey, is Summer around here?”
“Right behind you, idiot”
I whirled round, nearly falling over in the process. It was true, she had been standing behind me the entire time.
“All right then. Summer, exactly how strong is your magic?”
She blushed as if I had asked her bra size or something. Hell, for all I know I may very well have done the unicorn equivalent. Oh well, social stigma be damned.
“I mean, is it strong enough to take out all the guards?” I clarified
She seemed far more confident with this question, probably because it involved tactics rather than her personally.
“I reckon I could get them all if they bunched up, but it’s a moot point. This damn lock around my head blocks any magic build-up. If I try to gather any energy then the ring will block it and cause me to zap myself”
“I think I might be able to do something about that, but we will need to go where guards cannot see us first”
“I know a place” Zende spoke up
He indicated one corner of the cage where the light couldn’t fully reach. The darkened corner would be perfect for hiding our activities from the guards. Zende went first, followed by Summer a couple of minutes later. I waited a bit longer before dragging my crippled ass into the darkness.
In the shadows we could barely make out each other’s faces but I could still get a vague idea of where everything was. Reaching around my back, I grabbed hold of my long braid and flipped it over my shoulder before I began to burrow around in its coppery depths. It wasn’t long until I found what I was looking for, a small rolled up bundle of cloth that I carefully extradited from my braid. Unrolling it on the floor, I began to pick out objects by feel alone before bringing them before my eyes for inspection. I breathed a sigh of relief. None of the lockpicks had been damaged by the events of the last day. Good, our escape pretty much relied entirely upon these small tools.
You might be asking yourself why I have lockpicks hidden inside my hair. Well, a magician never reveals his secret. Especially the secret to how he once escaped a tiny iron box that was submerged in a river.
That wasn’t even part of my act. I’d just annoyed a casino owner who just so happened to be a mobster as well.
Finding Summer’s face in the darkness, I worked my hand upwards until I found her horn and the ring locked upon it. Trying to ignore her stammering protests at such intimate closeness to her horn, I leaned forward and got to work.
Picking a lock that you’ve never seen before whilst in complete darkness whilst a nervous unicorn trembles underneath your hands isn’t the easiest thing in the world and was definitely going to take a while, so whilst I worked I struck up a conversation with Zende.
“Hey, Zende, you’ve been here a while right?”
“That is correct; they kept me around to assist in the healing of injured pit fighters…which would be much more effective if they allowed me the tools of my trade.”
“Right, so what’s the deal with Lord High Fleabag? I mean, he doesn’t exactly look like the healthiest doggie in the window”
“Yes, you noticed that too eh?”
“Pretty damn hard to miss when he has a fit whenever a shadow comes near him”
“Indeed, I theorize that it is the drink he consumes with such endless thirst. I have overheard the guard dogs voicing their concerns to each other. They say that the drink is water found from a spring deep within the cave. A spring that runs black as purest night. Redtooth was just a normal dog when he first struck upon the water. After consuming it he felt stronger and fiercer. Only a few weeks later he was as you see him now, a giant among dogs. He challenged the old Alpha and defeated him in single combat, ripping the old dog to bits. The mine under his leadership became a far different place, his bottomless greed forcing the dogs to dig further and further down. It was then that they began to attack caravan routes and capture travels under Redtooth’s orders. They have been growing steadily more and more daring, even going so far as to attack smaller towns in Equestria.”
So, it was that weird drink that gave Redtooth the crazies? Better not take a swig of that stuff then, probably terrible for my liver.
“So the dogs weren’t always like this?”
“Oh, it’s true that Diamond Dogs have always been a very…aggressive race. Very rough around the edges, but those situated close to the Equestrian borders tend to be more civilized, even going so far as to trade with ponies.”
I was silent for a while, contemplating this knowledge. The Diamond Dogs in the show hadn’t been very nice but they had still had some semblance of civility, otherwise Rarity’s whining wouldn’t have worked on them. It’s pretty hard to guilt trip something that honestly doesn’t care about you. We continued this silence for a while, me working on the lock whilst Zende observed my nimble fingers and Summer tried to stay still.
It was Summer who broke the silence this time meaning that she loses the Quiet Game. Fluttershy would be disappointed.
“You realise you weren’t brought in alone right?”
“I wasn’t?”
“Nope” she waved a hoof to another part of the cage where a slumbering form slept, the occasional rise and fall of that giant barrel chest the only indication that it wasn’t an out of place boulder.
“Is that Iron Will?”
“You mean the champion? Yeah, apparently the dog’s figured he wasn’t worth the special lock-up after your skinny flank managed to beat him. How’d you do that by the way? No offence, but you don’t exactly look like a combat specialist.”
“I got lucky” this response just received a snort of disbelief from her.
“Well, things should get interesting when he wakes up” Summer stated
“What do you mean?”
“Well I mean it should get interesting when he begins to rip us all to bits in an apocalyptic rage. Interesting is a rather subjective term in such a situation”
“Hmm, I’m not so sure. Zende, would you be able to check him out? Look for any signs of a forced medication, an injection or something.”
The old zebra looked hesitant at first but was reassured by my confident tone. With a nod, he left the shadows to inspect the slumbering mound. I continued to work on the lock, twisting my pick and testing the lock’s tumblers for the right angle. The lock was surprisingly complicated for such a little thing and my frustration was growing with each failed attempt. I began to jab at the lock harder, trying to force it open. The pick in my hand slipped out of the lock accidentally, sliding down the Summer’s horn and eliciting a gasp from the mare.
“Idiot! Don’t you know how sensitive horns are!?”
“…no?”
She sighed in pent up frustration, apparently sick of my naivety. Was it my imagination or was she blushing? I couldn’t make it out properly in the darkness. Just how sensitive was a unicorn’s horn? Oh goddess, all those fanfics couldn’t actually be right about horns being sexual could they? How intimate was I being with Summer here? Was I going to have to petition her father for her hoof in marriage? I hope not. I mean she seems like a nice enough mare, although she comes off a little strong, but I really don’t think it would work between us. I mean, she’s a magical unicorn and I’m a dimensionally displaced luck-infused satyr. Think of the children.
I swiftly banished these thoughts from my mind and returned the pick to its correct place. I could just feel the lock beginning to give, ready to yield under my assault and yield to beg for mercy…metaphorically speaking, when Zende returned.
“You were correct Ace, marks on his back appear as if he had been injected with something”
“Any idea what?”
“If I had to take a stab in the dark I’d say they gave him some magic pixie dust that sent him to the land of sunshine and smiles.”
“…Really?”
“Of course not! Obviously they gave him some rage inducing serum to make him into the monster we saw in that ring. What do you think?"
“Honestly, I thought this was the land of sunshine and smiles but my misconceptions are becoming more apparent by the hour”
“…did you even just listen to what I had just said?”
“Yeah of course I did. I just didn’t care. Better question, when do you think it will wear off?”
Zende heaved a sigh, mirroring Summer’s sigh from earlier. Damn, it looks like everyone’s getting a bit exasperated with me. You know what this calls for?
A party!
I quickly glanced around in case a pink party pony had appeared to bring smiles to the faces of all the prisoners with the help of her party cannon. No such luck. I guess even Pinkie Pie has her limitations. It was then that I realised that Zende had been droning on about some medical jargon, I tuned in just in time to catch the gist of his lecture.
“…due to his massive size and thus, the size of the heart needed to push blood around his body, I’d say he’d be able to reject whatever chemical they gave him within a couple of hours of its introduction to his body”
“Sweet, so how long ago were we brought in here? Assuming, of course, that they injected him just prior to our fight”
“Judging by the guard rotations, as well as the growth of fungus on this rock that I found” he proudly displayed a small, green-covered rock to me “you were brought in around a couple of hours ago”
Huh, that’s lucky.
One day I will stop being surprised by these probability defying coincidences and just accept the fact that my goddess likes to cheat.
With a click, the lock finally surrended to me and fell off of Summer’s horn. She practically squealed with joy at her liberty from the magic blocking device. I had to put out a hand to prevent her from rushing out of the cloaking shadows.
“Hold your horses there, Summer. If those guards see you without this little bit of horn bling then they’ll undoubtedly try to pimp you up again. Better stay hidden until I can get the guards together for you to blast”
She was hesitant to remain still, wanting to go and blast the guard dogs right away, but she eventually submitted to my superior logic. I twirled the magic blocking ring around my finger before concealing it, and my lock picks, back in my hair.
“Alright then, you two stay put. I’ve got to go talk to a bull about some dogs”
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At some point I will stop with these 'clever' titles, but I've got about ten more I want to use so...you're going to just have to suffer through them.
Barrel-of-fun