???’s POV
“How did everything go wrong so fast?” A voice sounded out in the darkness, a young male voice brimming with a sadness that shouldn’t be there said. Another sound rang through the air like the chiming of bells then light briefly lit up the area revealing a dark cell full of people of all species cramped together.
“What did you expect to happen when you face a large group of bandits all on your own? Make them back down through sheer force of will?” The sarcasm was palpable from the new raspy female voice where the light was originating from. The light was dark green in color bathing the surrounding people in the same color but uncovering the two having a conversation in the corner of the room.
“I just thought that if I was strong enough… ugh i’m sorry” Once the male finished speaking he lifted his grey paws up to his muzzle and covered his face out of guilt and sadness. The female let out a sad sigh and trotted over to her friend and sat down next to him and put her hoof over his shoulder for comfort
“It’s not completely your fault, you don’t have to carry the weight of the world on your back. We’re all partially at fault for just letting you try to do all the work for us” The mare leaned closer to her disheveled friend
“And for what it's worth, i’m sorry” The room was silent from the sentimental moment… until the room started to shake then promptly stopped
“What was that” A earth pony in the crowd sounded out a bit startled then the room shook once more this time dust fell from the roof covering the crown in dust before it stopped
“Wait… “ The marte from before stood and slowly trotted to the center of the room and inspected the ceiling for a moment before a shocked look came over he features
“Everyone away from the center of the room!” She yelled as she dived back to the corner to cover her friend as the ceiling suddenly fell in narrowly missing some of the inhabitants of the room but obscuring their vision with dust. For a tense few moment everyone watched to dust settle until they saw a tall figure stand up and speak
“Why is nothing going to plan!”
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*Earlier*
Michael’s PoV:
We’ve been walking in silence for about two hours now and I know we’re both thinking about the same thing and its possible outcomes and the long we think of this the more we’ll be dreading the end of our walk. I looked to my right at Triton who was looking down the worn road in silence showing he was in deep thought just as I guessed and after this long of just silence and the slight wind i’ve had enough and tried to make some small talk.
“So… where ya from?” wow that was a weak conversation starter
“Hmm? My family runs a farm in the opposite direction of the town, were one of the main providers of meat products and woodwork in the area” Triton puffed out his plumage in pride and smiled at the mention of his family business.
“That’s cool, got any siblings” At that question his smile dimmed a small bit but didn’t disappear completely.
“Yeah I have a sister but, she moved away a few years ago and I kind of miss her ya’know” He looked at me and shrugged but what he said just made me think of my family so I stopped that train of thought before it derailed completely and responded
“Hey if we’re lucky we might find her on the way” I tried to end on positive note but the mention of our journey we grew silent and thought of what awaited us at the end of this long road. The blowing wind growing colder brought my attention back to my surrounding and made me look up to see the sun drawing closer to the horizon giving me an idea of what to do next.
“Look we need to talk about what to do about this town situation so… why don’t we set up camp for the day and talk about it over dinner alright?” Triton perked up at my proposal and smiled
“Okay, i'll go get some firewood from the forest nearby and you can get started on setting up our bedrolls” He removed his roll from his back and clawed it to me which I grabbed and opened his wings to fly off but before he left I had flashbacks of the timber wolves from before
“Oh one more thing, try not to alert the whole forest your there okay” I was going to raise an eyebrow at him but remember the gesture is lost on him so I just started to walk over to the side of the road to set up camp.
“It’s fine I won’t, be back in a bit” then he took off to what I think is the west to a nearby patch of forest to gather wood. While he was gone I unrolled the bedrolls with little difficulty then walked around the area looking for stones for the fire pit which was also easy due to the plain grass being pretty short, all in all it only took about five minutes to do everything and Triton still has the pots and pans as far as I know so with some spare time I decided to practice with my sword. I just practice swinging it in different directions and getting used to using on or two hands when necessary, it is perfectly balanced for a sword but when I swing i still off balance myself when moving and swinging so the most movement I can manage is to slowly walk in any direction except backwards.
By the time I had finished practicing Triton had returned with some wood and what looks to be a canteen of water with him, He landed and I put away my sword and walked over to see if he needed any help. He was breathing a bit harder then when I last saw him but he did tell me that he was a weaker flier then most so that might be why.
“Need any help?” He nodded and gave me some of the wood to set up into a nice cone shape in the makeshift fire pit I made then took out the fire starter and with a few strikes of it sparks flew out and ignited the wood and grass into a nice orange flame. I smiled and went back to my back to prepare the fish, we don’t have a lot of different types of spices so we settled on fish rubbed with salt and a bit of pepper roasted over a fire. I cut and speared both halves of my fish on a stick and posted it next to the fire to cook. I took my seat on my bed with Triton to the opposite of me past the fire both of us staring into the flames waiting.
“We need a plan” Surprisingly Triton spoke first and turned and reached into his satchel and retrieved the map an opened it.
“We need to go into this city for the train service, there’s no way around it” He stood and moved his bed to next me to plan.
“See, we can’t go any other direction because we’ll just get lost or hurt doing so” he was right, The map showed that there wasn’t a safer route then on the train through. We were located at the bottom right coast on the stretch of coast between the forest and water and apparently after the town a desert starts next to a spire with a skull on it which does not bode well for use if we travel by foot or paw.
“The train is the only way for us to travel into equestria proper and if there are bandits then they have effectively taken over their own slice of equestria” I felt slightly impressed and confused as to why no one has noticed a whole corner of a continent being cut off from trade or guards… oh I think I know what happened now.
“We really need a plan to get through this town.” my words made Triton nod in agreement.
“What if we just sneak into the town and release everyone we might have a chance to fight or at least stall for time until we can get to the train” That plan sounded good but it had too many holes for things to go wrong but for now its all be got. We grabbed out now roasted fish and ate while we spoke
“If go in at night it could help I guess” we were both uncertain about what to do so I proposed this idea.
“What we need is a good look at the town so how about we get there first then decide what to do” Triton mulled over my idea then nodded thinking its a good idea so we both stood up and threw out stick into the fire and crawled into our bedrolls to go to sleep. I laid there for quite a while before sleep finally greeted me.
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*Dawn*
I was jolted awake by a nightmare that I couldn't remember, leaving with that foggy disoriented feeling that made me question where I was for a second of I quickly recalled what’s happening and sat up from my bedroll. Triton was still asleep and it looks to be just past three in the morning so I was a bit cold and the wind wasn’t blowing anymore. I couldn’t shake that feeling of restlessness and nervous energy from jolting awake so I quietly stood from my bed then rolled it up and put it by my bag. I grabbed my sword and walked a bit away from Triton to practice swinging my sword, I unsheath my sword and just practiced what I needed to while thinking about my current predicament deeply. I have been pulled into another reality by what seemed to be a racial cult via reality destruction meaning my world… my family may be gone forever. My thought traveled to all the happy and sad times i’ve been through with them, My brother and sisters faces crossed my mind along with questions on what would they do in my situation. I didn’t register the fact that my swings have started to get faster and I started moving, my face showed no hints to the turmoil going on inside of me. My thoughts turned back to the people who brought me here and their motives for this… there might be more of them which means there might be more items like this sword or more powerful then it. The thought made my next swing hesitate before continuing on its path, if there is more then if I get my hands on them I could try to fix everything if that's even possible in the first place.
“Your up early?” Triton’s voice brought me out of my head and back to reality directing my attention to Triton who looked to be ready to go, I looked past him to see most of the camp packed up and his bag hanging from his side along with what remains of our firepit snuffed out leaving my bag on the ground.
“Nightmare… ” There was a small stretch of silence at my admission then Triton looked back up at me and gave me the closest a griffin can have to a grin
“Yeah, I didn’t sleep to well either” He turned and nodded towards my bag
“Let’s get going, if we leave now we should be able to see the coast and by evening the town should be in sight” I nodded and put away my sword and walked over to my bag silently noting how sweaty I am. After strapping everything on and taking a swig of water I turned to Triton and nodded signaling i’m ready to go so he turned down the path along with me and we walked a bit faster than yesterday.
It was a few hours after the sun passed noon when we caught sight of the coastline. The was air is bit more humid and the land gave way to the sea with a small cliff as a drop off, The wind started to pick up due to us being closer to the sea.
“Were almost there now, we should be able to see the town in a few hours” Triton relayed our position to me while checking the map leaving me to inspect the water. I could see a bunch of different species of fish and crustaceans swimming about even from this far away.
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It had officially become night and we just caught sight of the town and it’s worse than we thought. We had just passed a sign post that would have said the town name but it was deface and covered with the words KEEP OUT and LEAVE in paint. The village itself was hard to make out due to the sizable wooden barrier surrounding it like a wall, Triton perked up for a moment and pointed at the wall where I could barely make out small figures patrolling the wall.
“We shouldn’t be out in the open” I whispered to Triton who looked to me and nodded and we jogged to the edge of the forest to make a plan. When we reached the woods we crouched down behind some bushes and I went to speak to Triton but when I looked at him he looked shocked staring at me wait… behind me. I slowly turned my head but stopped when I felt something cold and sharp press into my adam’s apple and when I looked back at Triton he was in a similar predicament with a unicorn covered in black leather armor holding a knife to his neck.
“Stand, slowly” A scratchy voice spoke from behind me and slowly pulled the knife up with me following but stopping with me in a crouch due to the size difference and with a claw landing on my shoulder as I guide, I couldn’t see Triton when the turned me away from him and led me deeper into the forest but I could at least hear steps from behind me. I kept quiet and slowly tried to turn my head to see my attacker and my head didn’t get far as the knife nicked me a bit but not drawing blood but, I did get a glimpse of them. They are a griffin as far as I could tell and wearing similar leather as the pony but was much shorter than Triton where he came up to my upper chest they came to the middle of my ribs. And they had a bandolier of knives on their chest which means I could get out of this or at least get a fighting chance.
“Who are you?” I said to my captor trying to keep her attention on me as I slowly reached for their knives
“Keep walking” they responded without pause or hesitation
“Well that’s rude, I just wanted to know the name of my newest friend” my hand was almost there now I just need to distract her a bit.
“I said keep walking and be silent!” I was getting to them at least a little bit as their voice was laced in annoyance now I got to confuse her
“Hey, why is a raven like a writing desk?”
“Wha-” I ducked my head around the knife while grabbing the knife on their bandolier only cutting my chin but I wasn’t paying attention to that now as I grabbed her with my right hand by the beak and putting the knife to her neck and turning around to the other one then stomping down on the talon with the knife making her drop it.
“You really should pay more attention” I kicked away the other knife and stared at the other attacker while Triton looked to be grimacing for some reason.
“If you could kindly let go of my friend and refrain from harming us i’ll consider releasing your friend here with her neck attached!” I wouldn’t really do that but I was angry and wanted to see them scared.
“Alright laddie we won’t touch ya, now release the lass now won’t ‘cha” The voice behind me made me flinch and I slowly turned around to see a camp full of similarly clothed people ranging from ponies to griffins and a minotaur
“I need to pay more attention” the clearing was filled with the sound of my face palm.