//------------------------------//
// Kero's House 
// Story: The Olden World 
// by Czar_Yoshi 
//------------------------------//

Kero's villa was exceptionally classy, decorated with curved furniture and large patches of simple, unbroken colors that had the feel of emulating a bygone age. Leather chairs and a velvet couch flanked a curly-legged table sporting a record player, several well-trimmed potted plants filled niches along the walls, and even the wastebasket was decorative, forged from an iron wire mesh with several crumpled-up papers in the bottom. That said, so was the rest of Skyfreeze, so Starlight couldn't tell if Kero liked opulence or just didn't care to change the default style.

The most striking feature, however, were the wall paintings.

Valey whistled, long and low, her eyes slowly panning the collection of frames. Each contained portraits spanning every medium of a dapper, bottle-green griffon with a tiny bow tie perched snugly on his neck, expressions ranging from smug to satisfied to even an alluring wink. Appreciatively, she flicked her tail. "Either this guy had an ego the size of the moon, or really, really liked dudes."

"Those are definitely portraits of himself," Darkwind remarked, standing next to her in the doorframe. Behind him, Harshwater sighed in relief.

"Well..." Valey lifted a tentative hoof. "It looks like a legit luxury lair, and I'm not getting any butt warnings, so the door's probably not trapped? Here goes-"

A small spark of magic flickered when her hoof crossed the threshold, and she yanked it back with lightning reflexes... until with a slight crackle and another magical fluctuation, the record player in the corner clicked and began to turn, emitting a slow, crooning classical waltz. Valey blinked. "Huh. I guess he set up his house to play music when he entered, or something. What is this, a love song?"

Gerardo raised a talon. "That's one of the griffish greats, a third-century masterpiece known as Gorissimo's Lament. Regrettably, it's been too many years since I studied such things to recall its meaning with perfect clarity, though I believe it was written following the composer's lover being abducted by conniving pirates. Or perhaps he was dumped. My memory fails me."

"Maybe she dumped him to join a crew of pirates?" Valey shrugged. "Either way, this place is feeling legitimately egotistical enough to me to probably not be a trap, and I'm still not picking up anything dangerous." She bit her lip. "Well... maybe a little. Enough that he's probably got a sword cane or something laying around. But less than I usually take as a safe threshold for falling asleep at night."

She stepped inside to no further effect, and Starlight and the mercenaries followed her, brought up by Maple, Willow and Amber. Willow promptly blanched at the decorations, and Amber gave a thoughtful frown.

"If there's anything you folks need, have Shinespark take care of it," Arambai said, pushing Shinespark through the door after them. "Me and Matryona here have some catching up to do. Page me with that sound stone in an emergency, but really, if it can wait, I'll be a lot happier for it."

Amber continued staring distastefully at the decorations. "Girls, if we're going to stay here tonight or any nights after, we're going to have to do something about the decorations, because having that same griffon staring at me like that from that many angles while I sleep is going to be really creepy."

"I agree." Willow nodded. "Arambai? Can you send someone by later to pick up any garbage we need to get rid of?"

"They're not garbage!" Harshwater pouted. "If you don't want Kero's paintings, give them to me!"

Gerardo looked at her and shrugged. "Well, if somebody would enjoy them..."

"Sounds like you've got it worked out," Arambai said, turning away with a wave. "Like I said, get at me later if there's anything that needs doing, or if you finish up here and feel like taking an evening tour of anywhere we can reach in time. Later, ponies."

He and Matryona paced away, leaving the door standing open. Starlight glanced at it, thought... and with no more effort than that it slid closed, locking seamlessly and soundlessly with a magical security only she could control.

"Well!" Gerardo folded his talons. "Does anyone wish to bet on whether the first valuables we find are-"

"Hey, look what I found!" Amber interrupted, crouching near a large box with a door that swung outward. Inside were row upon row of broad, cherry-red bottles filled with red and brown and amber liquid. She looked up, grinning. "I guess someone really was high-class, huh?"

Maple frowned. "Is that all alcohol?"

"Alcohol?" Shinespark wrinkled her nose. "Not for me, thanks."

"Looks like it is!" Valey slipped in beside Amber, pulling out a bottle and inspecting it. "Wow, this is a lot. Imagine how much fruit someone had to mash up and let rot to make all this."

Gerardo nodded. "I've been known to partake myself on occasion, but this seems like quite a substantial personal stash. I wonder how fast a lone griffon can go through this, or if it's merely for stature?"

Darkwind pushed forward as well, eyeing the cache of spirits. "Regardless, if you don't want it, we'll take it back to our compound. A lot of that is vintage."

"Sure. Cool. You do that." Valey started shoveling bottles out, careful not to smash any. "And we will keep this super cool chilly box that's making them cold. We could probably get real fruit to stay fresh a ton longer with this if we took it on the airship, you think?"

Maple nodded appreciatively. "We could do that. Should I start taking down the paintings, now? Or did someone else want to do that?"

"Mine!" Harshwater zipped to a wall, tearing a portrait of Kero's smiling face free as gently as possible and cradling it against her chest.

Gerardo followed her with his eyes for a moment before giving up and sighing. "Well, I was going to ask if anyone wanted to place bets on precisely how many wall safes are hidden within this forest of artwork, but I suppose we'll find out soon enough on our own. Anyone for one? Three? I'm betting on two, myself."

"And there one is already," Shinespark droned, watching as Harshwater removed the room's largest painting and revealed the massive door of a safe. "Who wants to guess the combination?"

Gerardo reached out a talon. "At first glance, I suppose I'd try..."

The door clicked open.

"Hmm!" Pleased, he stepped away. "All zeros. Apparently, he believed his own room would provide security enough. Hah!"

"Yeah? Now who wants to see what's inside?" Valey stepped back as well, raising an eyebrow as the sizable safe swung outward.

The safe's wall cavity was big enough that it had likely been intended as more of a vault, a place to store larger heirlooms like weapons or statues or even more paintings. If it was intended for money... Starlight shook her head. Maybe some ponies in Skyfreeze really were just that rich. But Kero's was taken up by a single large crate, the make and model of which triggered something unpleasant in her memory. She felt the feeling of deja vu increase as Shinespark levitated it out and onto the ground. "Safe to open?" Shinespark asked, looking at Valey.

Valey nodded. "Ninety-nine percent sure I know what's inside, so yeah. As long as it's not me who opens it."

Shinespark slid the lid off, making room for everyone to peer in.

"What is that?" Amber asked with a cross between fear and fascination. "It's all black and... Is that the moon glass you were talking about, Maple?"

"Obsidian. Moon glass. That's it, all right," Shinespark monotoned, staring into the crate. "And a lot of it. Whoever got this into Ironridge must have done a remarkably good smuggling job."

"That was us," Darkwind gruffly said. "Years ago, not long after it first fell. Kero told us we had a job to bring a crate full of this to Ironridge. It had recently been outlawed as contraband, but Kero had allies in the Griffon Empire powerful enough to pull strings with the shipping companies and help us smuggle it in. Unfortunately, when we got here, whoever it was that gave him the job failed to materialize. I don't know if they got caught, or what. But it was far less trouble to hide the glass here in Ironridge than it would have been to smuggle it back out and try to sell it, so that's what we did. Ever since then, we've been looking for ways to get rid of it so it's not something we're caught with. Slipping away pieces here and there as compensation to ponies who aren't likely to talk about it... that sort of thing. What you see here is about half of what we originally started with."

Shinespark grimaced, giving him a worried look. "Stopping it from leeching into society is exactly why it was outlawed in the first place..."

"Well, don't look at me." Darkwind shrugged. "We knew our chain of command. If you have an issue with how it was handled, your issue is with Kero. If you can find him."

Valey nodded. "Yeah, let's just put this somewhere safe for now and let that yellow dude deal with it. There are more rooms in this place than just this one. Maybe he left a clue of where he was going somewhere. Like the trash can! Did anyone check what he threw away?"

Gerardo perked up. "Parsing through his rubbish bucket? Well, at least he separated his garbage from his recycling. On it, right away."

Willow, Maple and Amber looked between themselves. "Girls? Anyone feeling bold enough to check the bedroom?" Willow asked.

They nodded, Harshwater continued to collect portraits, and the ponies began to spread out... until Starlight noticed a small lump still at the back of the vault safe. "Hey!" she announced, pulling on it with her telekinesis. "There's still something else here!"

It was a small, velvet drawstring bag, and from the size and shape she had a sneaking suspicion it contained another piece of moon glass. That was weird. Why would one be all alone, separated from the others? Maybe it was something else. Starlight held it out, waiting for Valey to give the okay to open the bag.

"Yeah, yeah, let's see, here..." The batpony swiped it, stared at it, rubbed her flank with a hoof... and trotted over to the couch and shook it out. A piece of moon glass fell free, just as Starlight had predicted, but it was accompanied by a letter.

"Huh." Valey glanced at the sealed envelope, placing the glass back in its bag while being extremely careful not to touch it with her bare hooves. "Spooky. Let's see... 'To whomever should find this.' What is this, a will?"

"Did he leave anything for me?" Harshwater's voice echoed from the next room over.

Bourbon shrugged, glancing at it from over the back of the couch while the rest of the ponies and Gerardo came back over, curious. "Kero left a will? What does he say in it?"

"Birdo?" Valey shrugged, holding out the envelope. "You love talking enough. Care to read it?" She also offered it to Starlight. "Or since this is technically your house..."

Starlight shook her head, and it was passed to Gerardo instead. Clearing his throat, he slit the seal with one talon, unfurling a sheet of parchment and beginning to narrate. "Ahem. It seems this is indeed a last will and testament of sorts, and..." His eyes skimmed the page's length. "Oh, what have we gotten ourselves into...?"





Greetings.

My name is, or was, Kero. If you're in my house, reading the contents of my private safe, it means I'm either dead, wish I was, or have been hit by a very successful burglar. If you fall into the last category, please, keep reading. You deserve a little for your effort. Otherwise, it's not like I can afford to care.

Congratulations. You're in my house. Everything that was mine is now yours. You probably feel accomplished about it. Or maybe you're noticing I didn't trap anything, and your nerves are starting to get to you. Don't worry. The only traps here are ones of your own making. If you're smart, like I would be, you'd stop reading this letter, take what you found, and get on living the good life. But there's at least a chance I was done in by heroes, and if that's the case... it sure stinks to be you.

Because I'm going to tell you about some jobs. Missions I've done or been doing in Ironridge, ones that are messy or had consequences I can't quite clean up after. Believe it or not, just because I'll tell my company to do anything doesn't mean I'm a bad guy... At least, that's what I tell myself so I can get to sleep at night. So if you're lucky, you can ignore all this and get on with your bad selves. And if you're like me... have fun picking up after me.

First thing: check my study. In my desk, top drawer on the left. It's not locked, and the only piece of paper there. Looks like a checklist with some names on it. Find that, read it a few times, and then read the rest of this letter.





Gerardo and everyone looked around. "Checklist?" he suggested.

"On it." Valey saluted, and was gone in a flash. Several seconds later, she returned, a single page dangling from her fanged grin. "Here ya go."

Maple took it gently, scanning it back and forth. "What's this?" she hummed. "It just looks like a lot of names with no indication of who or what it's for... Most of them have checks next to them, but some don't, especially at the end. And there are so many! The writing is small, but it runs over onto the other side of the page."

Shinespark frowned. "A hit list, maybe?"

"I don't think so," Willow said, reading over Maple's shoulder. "Look. White Chocolate's name is here with a check by it, and we know she's alive and well."

"Hrrrmm..." Amber scrunched up her face. "Some of these have two checks, you know. Also, I don't get Ironridge naming conventions as well as Riverfall, but is it just me, or do most of these sound like mare names?"

Valey peered at the paper as well, leaning over everyone's heads. "...Yeah, those are all mare names. Beats me why. Birdo, keep reading!"

"Ahem..."





Did you read it?

Good. If you're a hero, brace yourself for outrage. If you're a villain, prepare for a whole lot of jealousy.

I got a job for our team. Doesn't matter who gave it, only that it paid well. But someone wanted us to track down Sosan mares who were down on their luck... The kind of ponies who get abandoned by depressed, jobless mates, or who were relying on the city's good fortune to get by before the bust. Anyone who looks like they're barely taking care of themselves, really. And this job was to find as many as possible, get someone to flirt with them, and get them with foal.

Why? I haven't a clue. Maybe it's a cruel prank. If so, it paid well enough for me to put someone on it. Maybe someone's misguided, and thought the attention would be a mercy. To ponies like that? Maybe it was. I can't stand in their horseshoes. Whatever the case, I had a stallion named Shad in the unicorn division I put on that. Don't worry about him; he enjoyed it.

Does anything about that strike you as wrong? Predatory, maybe? When I think about it, it doesn't sit easy with me. So I've tried my best to pick up after the job. I pretend Shad was just living it up, and try to apologize to these mares with obsidian from my stash you undoubtedly discovered. If you need to support yourself and your growing family, and it can give you a talent to help with that, you might give it a look. Besides, I need to get rid of it. It's a win-win for everyone.

Also, some of them just can't care for their young, even with the help of the obsidian. It might have something to do with these strange reports I've gotten of the new brands disappearing. I wonder if this is somehow a defective batch. If I were paranoid, I'd almost suggest this wasn't a coincidence, but giving the obsidian to the mares was my idea, and I don't think the two clients are related.

As I was saying, though. My company has a lot of families on board. It turns out that when you're with a group of fifty-odd ponies who are constantly traveling, you look to them for relationships. We have a nursery and everything to care for our young. So I try my best to follow up with these mothers as long as possible, and if it looks like it can help, take their foals and raise them ourselves. They're half ours, after all. It's our responsibility to clean up after our jobs.





When Gerardo finished that section, Maple looked sick. "White Chocolate was... That was systematic?" she managed. "What she told me about Shad, and how they found each other and he seemed interested despite who she was, and..."

"Hold on, just how many names are on this list?" Valey snatched it from her and poured over it. "Hmm hmm hmmm... Gonna guess one check means they gave the moon glass, and two means they're caring for the foal? Huh. Uh-huh... Wow, there have got to be at least seventy names here. I know you guys are busy being offended, but this Shad guy is one lucky dude."

"Seventy!?" Bourbon paled, and her ears went back. "I can't imagine having even a tenth of that many partners, let alone children. How... how do...?"

Amber shrugged. "Easily. I mean, the concerning part is that someone paid them to do this, right?"

"Did you know about this?" Maple fixed the mercenaries with a glare.

Darkwind nodded. "I knew Kero was finding ponies to give away the obsidian to, and that we were occasionally adding foals of half-Ironridge parentage. It wasn't important for me to know the specifics, and they likely didn't know." He swept a wing at his three comrades.

Rainstorm was looking incredulously at Maple and Amber. "How is the part of this that bothers you that this was a job? Mercenaries do their jobs, and they let the creatures hiring them worry about morals. I just... Seventy different..." She shook her head, looking stunned.

"I said at least seventy, yo," Valey remarked, still scanning the list. "Let me count, here."

Rainstorm exhaled, slumping against a wall.

"We're from Riverfall," Amber said, looking apologetically at her. "For stallions there, that's more or less normal. It's just what everyone is used to, and there's such a huge gender imbalance that stallions who are willing to do that are really rare."

Gerardo cleared his throat, still scanning the will. "I think this is a problem best left to Arambai, regardless," he decided. "We'll bestow this list on him, and let him decide how and whether he wishes to use it in cleaning up and restoring after this week's tragedies. In the meantime, there is one last section of this will..." He tapped the parchment, then looked at Maple and Starlight with a dangerous eye. "Are you quite sure you want to hear it?"

Maple looked warily back. "Is it anything like that one?"

"Well, not exactly..." Gerardo looked uneasily at it, and then began one more time to read.





Still reading? Congratulations. There's one more important thing you should know.

You likely noticed the lone piece of obsidian bound with this letter. That piece is special. I don't know why, but the most valuable job of my entire career has been to take it and keep it as safe as possible. To guard it with my life, and more. That's why I said if you were reading this and I wasn't dead, I might wish I was.

Of course, if I'm dead, do I care what happens to it? Maybe a necromancer could punish me beyond the grave, but I don't care. It's yours now. You get to decide what to do with it.

My advice? Buy yourself an airship ticket to the Griffon Empire. Head straight to the capital, and present this piece to High Prince Gazelle. Explain you got it after my demise. With luck, he'll be so happy to see it safe, he'll grant you whatever your heart desires. And Gazelle is a very powerful person. There's not a lot that's out of his reach.

Of course, you have no reason to trust me, so you could smash it, or throw it in a river and hope it stays lost for a thousand years. Or you could keep it for yourselves. If you know enough dark magic, you could even try to find out what's inside that makes it so special. I don't know, but I know such magic exists. But think about it this way: if I was a petty griffon who wanted to murder my successors, I would have done it by trapping this room, instead of leaving it up to a choice you could make or avoid. This is a stupid way to try to trick you. Ask my company, if they're still alive. They'll tell you I'm smarter than that.

Whatever you do, good luck. Anyone who can defeat me is left with large shoes to fill.

...One other thing. The password to my small safe is Rilla. There's a significant amount of money in there. That's your reward for reading this far.

-Kero





Gerardo and everyone else in the room looked blankly at each other. Eventually, he put down the manuscript to signify that he was done. Still, no one spoke.

"It would seem..." Gerardo coughed into his sleeve, then held up the dangling velvet pouch. "That we have, like it or not, suddenly had another high-value deliver-the-mysterious-item quest thrust upon us, and must now decide what to do."