So!
There I was, finally getting to see the architectural fever dream that was that enormous stone and lumber city, clinging to the side of a mountain with a couple thousand foot drop right below.
The place was pretty darn big. I mean, not like some star-faring Eredar invasion ship, but still pretty darn huge.
Flying, well, being dragged along while the Master flew up to it, was enough to put its scale into sharp perspective. I mean, from the Master's lair, you could see it over there in the distance like some bulbous glittering wart on the side of an incredibly steep mountain. Teasingly suspended over a drop that looks more like the fall from a table than a naturally occurring geological formation. I mean, don't get me wrong, a mountain's a mountain, but even among mountains, some are more impressive than others.
These mountains, the ones around the Master's lair? They look like someone just stuck a fork in the ground and yanked them up like molten stone and let them freeze. I'm not kidding either!
The town sits in this little flat spot between them... surrounded by a little ring of hills that goes from there directly to mountains that should give anything without wings the constant fear of unexpected and random death by avalanche or rockslide.
Hells, even the Sweatstain's "orchard" is partially in the hilly portion. And you know how demented she is? She apparently thought to herself, "You know? I might be a horrible blight upon all things decent, reaking with the stench of months without bathing and the sour stale scent of sweat that has dried and killed off anything that might approach me, but there's a hill in the way of my apples... I think I'm going to plant some more GOING STRAIGHT UP THE FREAKING SIDE BECAUSE I HATE MYSELF!"
Well... probably not worded quite like that, but the fact remains that she didn't even care that some of the hills are 5 or 6 stories high and almost vertical climbs... she just went right on planting.
But THIS mountain? There's no apple trees. It's just perilous drops and jagged cliffs.
Oh... and apparently a rail line so the peasants don't have to scramble over the corpses of the hundreds of laborers that likely fell to their deaths constructing it.
You know... appearances and all.
Anyway, so, yheah. This place is huge. The city starts a little further down the mountain, but apparently someone thought that cities shouldn't just fall off the face of the planet at some point and decided to terraform a part of it. The end result? There's a giant section of the mountain face that's been cut away, leaving an exposed plateau of bedrock upon which the majority of the city has been built.
Everything was white marble and colored banners. Fancy ponies wandering around with their noses so high in the air you'd think they were trying to escape the rank odor of the dredges below them. Shops and displays were EVERYWHERE, and while the place looked pretty clean, I knew there had to be some slime in a place like this.
I mean, if the rulers of the place were calling for a warlock, you know there's got to be someone who needs killing.
But anyway, that was the city. The Master wasn't going to the city.
The Master was going to the palace... which was most certainly not a castle by any stretch of even my imagination.
Hells no. That thing was too big and too fancy.
Gleaming white marble and polished metals made up every inch of the palace's outer wall. Armed ponies in golden armor patrolled the avenues around it. Pegassi flew through the skies, looking like golden streaks as they watched for intruders. There were even some of the horny ones glaring daggers of patently disinterested neglect across any who dared to look upon their faces.
In short, it was like a version of home... you know... without the fire and screaming victims burning alive for ambience.
Excess.
Utter excess.
And the ones who lord over this bloated turd of a palace are the ones that summoned the Master.
No wonder she's been biding her time.
Even if she killed them outright, she'd need more minions to move all this stuff to the Lair.
...
What? A Warlock's lair is important. That's why they tend to destroy things wherever they go... to keep anyone from thinking about taking anything they left behind.
Pestilent scavengers, peasants, but they do need to live if we want to have sacrifices on hand.
Sigh.... the things we demons put up with to make make our masters happy.
-~oOo~-
By the time we got to the palace throne room, I think I'd been drug trough a few miles of glossy, stone hallways. Paintings, tapestries, stained glass windows, promenades, galleries, dining halls, and countless other grand proofs of the senseless opulence of the royalty that had been, tactlessly, scattered along our route. I'm not even joking when I say that the drains in the floor were worked metals with gold filigree and probably required hand.... hoof... polishing on a daily basis.
The amount of wealth these idiots maintained should have sent their country into an age of misery and starvation, the masses clamoring for bread crusts or resorting to cannibalism to sate their endless hunger.
You know... or summoning demons to get what they need. Supply and demand and all that.
Instead, every one of the animals that wandered those halls was done up in little suits or dresses... skirting around us like trained pets or maybe even professional wallflowers.
Regardless, we finally came to a set of double doors the size of most castle gates.
Each must have weighed several tons, the glimmering gold of their faces depicting scenes of worship and servility. Flanking the doors were more of the armored horse beasts, likewise in spotless gold armor that must have weighed several hundred pounds.
They bore their burden with stoic faces and professionalism.
Aaaand, I might have just the tiniest bit of respect for the rulers if they take out their displeasure upon the guard by forcing them to wear armor better suited as ship anchors.
But that's besides the point.
And then, the doors opened and the Master ran in like some kind of screaming peasant. It was... not one of her more glorious moments.
The room was huge. Pillars climbing stories into the air with hanging plants and chandeliers. Stained glass windows depicting dancing horses and taxpayers groveling. Kind of a mish-mash really... but horses everywhere.
Seriously, this place really loves their horses.
And there, coming down from a raised section at the back, with three fekking SOLID GOLD THRONES, each almost a story tall, were three of the largest horsebeasts I've ever seen.
The smallest, a pink thing with mane and tail candy striped and heavy mascara, wore a helm that looked like a spearhead with a great purple jewel impaled on its end.
The second, a cobalt blue pony with a wedge of the living night sky sprouting from her head and buttocks, strode regally down the steps, eyes a deep turquoise that seemed to suck the light from the room. Upon her head, a crown of purest midnight, glinting with obsidian nightmares, and upon her chest, a peytral of silver, lacquered to a nearly ebon shine.
The last, a massive mare of cream, towered over the others, her mane and tail writhing with the colors of sherbert and eyes like pools of liquid ruby, bore a three pointed crown of gold almost as tall as the Master, and a peytral that set a soulstone plain as day for any that could see it.
In short, the 'princesses' were fekking giants with more armor than any of the Master's minions... oh... and the big one is apparently a warlock as well.
Sonova—! RIVAL WARLOCK!
I was about to start up the fireworks when the Master shrank my bubble until I was just barely able to pull my face off one side if I crushed my ears on the back.
She hissed back at me to "behave" and immediately asked them what was wrong.
The Master should not be acting like this. It's... unnatural. She should be yelling and slinging spells or grovelling in the guise of a faceless peasant while scheming to slide a dagger between their ribs. I mean, the third option of quiet dignity is there, but that was kinda blown when she ran in and started sucking up.
Then again, the white one ~is~ rather large... larger even than the Sweatstain's 'brother'... perhaps she simply means to provoke a reaction that doesn't involve violence?
I mean... warlock... yheah... but, it ~could~ happen I suppose.
I was roused from my musings when the Master gasped.
Whirling around, I stabbed through the bubble and leapt at their throats!
..
Fine... I kind of struggled to turn in the little pink bubble, smooshed my face up against it in vain, and tried to draw enough breath to hiss threateningly but only managed a croaking cough as the Master said she'd do her part and give up her magic.
No warlock would EVER give up their magic. Magic is power and warlocks are more power hungry than anything alive... and most things that are not.
The dark one stated that the Master misunderstood and continued to explain that magic couldn't just go away... that it had to go somewhere... that somepony must keep it safe.
The pink one stepped forward and said that somepony... that particular somepony... was the Master.
SCORE! Free magic!
Of course, the Master was messing with me... she decided to follow that little nugget up by asking 'why'.
And the huge one, the giant horse with the sorbet colored tentacle rape mane and tail? She just kind of walked up and said that they didn't think Tea wreck knew a forth alicorn princess existed.
Who the fek is Tea wreck? No clue... I was trying to breathe while they were talking and the Master apparently got distracted enough that she didn't think to put little air holes in the bubble this time.
But, as I was starting to pass out, I saw the three horses get in a circle around the Master, light up their head mounted pikes and make a fekking SUN in the middle of that throne room.
Then they squished it, crushed it down, and poured it directly into the Master's horn.
And as I blacked out, I finally figured out what was happening.
The Master had been subtly using the dark powers of Ettiquette until she had convinced them to give her all their magic on their own.
Brilliant. Bloody fekking brilliant. Now she's got their power and they can take the blame for letting this Tea wreck guy piss people off!
Maybe I should have studied harder. I mean, she just took over a country by convincing the arcane royalty to give her their stuff... how amazingly wicked is that? It's like asking the hangman to show you how the gallows work and getting the guy to climb up there with a noose around his neck and jump off for a personal demonstration!
Oh... and yheah... I blacked out. Happens when you don't get any fresh air for half an hour.
Details.
-~oOo~-