//------------------------------// // V - Silver Sigil - Little Duke // Story: [Untitled.Uncertainty] // by GMBlackjack //------------------------------// Silver Sigil dashed through the planes in a frantic flight from the Grove forest and that awful, awful blob. His first encounter with a large evil - and he had failed miserably, frozen under the pressure, going so far as to forget the activation phrase! Seriously, how could he have possibly forgotten “Silver Amulet”, literally the description of the device he was attempting to activate? Eventually he stopped his mad dash through the lands and gathered his bearings. Somehow, he had gone a completely different direction than he had intended to and--- Oh, Celestia, he was going to be late! Somehow this thought chilled him to the bone further than the blob had. Losing a valuable amulet and being late to a lesson? He was so dead. So dead. No way around it. In a panic, he sprinted as fast as his tired hooves would take him back to the monastery. ~~~ Steadfast Hoof was sitting in his monastery, which was a small building carved into a large rock at the edge of Griffonstone.He sat there contemplating where his apprentice could be. The stallion was rarely late by even a second, and certainly never as late as he was now. Just when Steadfast started to get up to search for the young stallion, Silver burst through the door in a panic. “M-m-master Hoof! Th-th-th--” he attempted to say, stuttering even more that usual due to his exhaustion and panic. “Easy Silver,” Steadfast said, putting a hoof on his shoulder, noting the stallion’s torn robes. “What Happened?” “Th-there is a large evil blob on the outskirts of the G-Grove!” came Silver’s reply, after a brief moment to collect himself. “Mm? There’s always an evil of one sort or another near the Grove, why’s this one got you so riled up?” Only the most evil things in that forest should have given him any trouble at all, considering the amulet- A deep silence filled the room as Silver cringed away from Steadfast’s gaze. “…What happened to your amulet?” Steadfast said. After a few moments of silence that seemed like an eternity, a sense of dread creeped up the back of his mind. “I-I, um… it s-slapped it out of my hoof! I-it wouldn’t activate…” Silver said, beginning to panic once more. Steadfast’s expression became stern. He gave out a small humph and gathered his own golden amulet off of a hook on the wall. “Lets go see I suppose… at the very least we have to recover your amulet.” “Um… o-ok…” Silver said as he looked around for what he could use to help, but doubted that Master Steadfast would let him use any of the remaining artifacts, not after he had lost the apprentice amulet that had been entrusted to him. He settled for grabbing a wooden pole and strapping it onto his back. So what if he didn’t know how to use it? He wanted something. Steadfast chuckled and shook his head, stepping out the door and walking down the path that would take them to the Grove Forest, with Silver close at his hooves. ~~~ The Mass could feel a power moving towards it. Practically the same as the amulet from before, but much more powerful. That particular little interaction was going to be more trouble that it had initially thought. It stopped its spreading for the time being, focusing instead on finding the previous amulet, planning to devise a defense against it. No sense in getting wiped off the face of this rock so soon after it had arrived, now was there? ~~~ Zecora pondered what to do with this strange newcomer. On one hoof, she seemed harmless enough. But on the other she arrived at the exact same time as that… “meteor” that caused her danger charm to explode. She sat watching the gentle black smoke rise from the impact site of the main chunk of the meteor, yet she noted that she could not smell any fire. Then she noticed that the forest was deadly silent- not a sound at all. The Everfree was a forest filled with strange creatures big and small, it was extremely rare for none of them to be making a sound. “Strange happenings abound, and yet there is no sound,” she told her guest ” Investigate this is what I shall, for I would hate to see this place squished, you are welcome to accompany me through the chaparral, if you wish.” The yellow pegasus pony simply shook her head ”No, I think I’ll just stay here… if you don’t mind, seems much safer.” Zecora nodded, picked up her bags for traveling, “Very well, just do not touch my brew” she said, nodding at the bubbling pot “for there could be a nasty spell if you do.” The yellow pony simply nodded at this and settled down into her chair a little bit more. Zecora still didn’t know quite what to think of this pony, but that could wait until the problem of the meteor was solved. She stepped out of the door, and began the trek to where the fragment had fallen. ~~~ A charcoal black Pegasus watched from his perch on the side of a mountain that had once been a dragon’s lair. He had watched all the chaos unfurl, from the meteor, to the explosion, to the griffons and that pony with the amulet being attacked from just afew moments ago. Now he was currently watching a black sludge expand from around the back of the Grove forest with his trusty telescope. He wasn’t quite sure weather it was standard Grove weirdness, or if it was caused by that meteor from earlier. Regardless, it was quite interesting, and might further his… “research.” He had been watching events unfold ever since he had spotted the strange meteor in the sky several days ago. Bizarrely, given its size he should have noticed it even before then, with his particular skill set and variety of telescopes. This bothered him immensely, and he had immediately started putting several plans into action. Now that the “meteor” had landed, none of them seemed to be enough. Eventually, he came to a decision on what to do. It was time for him to put his talents to use. He compacted his trusty platinum telescope and walked back into the lair. He had preparations to make, and places to go. Samples to gather, and Evils to interrogate. ~~~