//------------------------------// // Undying Greed IV // Story: Applejack Gets Lost // by MagicS //------------------------------// The next morning saw the four of them sneaking around through back alleys in the city. They had been warned by the old stallion that if they looked like they were just wandering around aimlessly everypony in the city would know they were new arrivals. So they tried to stay out of sight as best they could, Applejack was pretty confident in her ability to handle any guards that might try to stop them but she’d prefer to avoid any conflict if she could. And according to their host last night the guards were forced into their role just as much as any other pony here. They had gotten lost a few times, the city was large and they had no map and it’s not like they could ask for directions either. Despite Sugar Spirit attempting to. Now the party of four was stuck in an alley hiding behind some trash cans while ponies buzzed around on the street. Applejack couldn’t hear any talking or conversations going on, these ponies were going about their business and nothing else. Despite how large the city was Applejack didn’t see as many ponies as she suspected, she wondered just how many worked in the mines under the volcano. “What do we even do now?” Star Blaze asked. “Do we just wait for night to fall again and put on your camouflage spell?” “He said there were guards at the entrance to the volcano at all times, at best we’d get there and then have to figure out another way in.” Daylight Gleam answered. “I think we should come up with an actual plan for once.” “That’s boring, let’s just go and ask a pony out there the quickest way to the volcano!” Sugar interjected. “No, for the last time, no. We’re not doing that. If King Avarice has the power to automatically put these stupid bands on any pony who enters the city he might have other powers too.” Daylight said as she glared at her pink friend. “I am not going to walk out there, get attacked by guards, and thrown into a volcanic mine.” Applejack nodded. “Yeah, I’ve gotta agree with Daylight on this one. I think it would probably be a bad idea to just start talking to random ponies here. That old timer said King Avarice himself would sometimes come out and do things if he was angry, and a bunch of foreign ponies causing trouble in his town might be a little upsetting.” “Sorry Sugar, three votes to one for being incognito.” Star Blaze shrugged at her. “Ughhhh.” She rolled her eyes and tittered on the ground, tired of standing still for so long. “Fine, so just what are we going to do?” And so it was that the four of them walked down the street with the other ponies trying to look like they fit in as much as possible. Applejack and the unicorns walked with solemn, serious expressions and didn’t speak. They had no idea where they were going, just that it was in the direction of the volcano. Other ponies walking on the street with them looked despondent and had the same empty eyes as the old stallion, Applejack hoped that none of them looked at her too hard to see her eyes weren’t the same. Many of the city ponies were carrying something like boxes or tools but there were enough that weren’t that made Applejack feel okay that she and her companions didn’t have anything either. It was still depressing to her to see all these ponies forced into working for King Avarice, every single one of them had the black band around their necks. It was difficult for Applejack to keep from getting an angry expression on her face. When I get my hooves on this King I’m gonna tell him what’s for. They hadn’t yet come up with a plan for actually getting inside the volcano, Daylight said that until they saw what the entrance was like and how the guards were that there wouldn’t be much point. Applejack had to agree, she was used to winging things anyways if it came down to it. The three unicorns seemed to have winging it as their usual way of doing things too. Passing by a large shop on the street, Applejack glanced inside its window to see ponies tirelessly working on making necklaces fitted with crystals and gemstones. They seemed unusually stressed until Applejack remembered that if what they made wasn’t good enough for the King he’d punish them. As the group turned a corner Applejack saw what she assumed was a guard. They were a unicorn wearing a gray-blue armor with absurdly large pauldrons and a helmet with a small spike for their horn. The guard stood in the middle of an intersection and hawkishly watched the ponies around them for any sign of lollygagging or anything out of the ordinary. But even with his attentive eyes Applejack could see the depression and loathing behind them. The guards were indeed slaves as well. If that guard really looks at us he’d probably notice that we don’t normally come this way, unless he isn’t normally here either. Applejack stopped glancing at him and kept walking forward with the others in tow, trying to look as natural as possible. They proceeded towards Greed Volcano, now close enough that it completely made up the background scenery of the city and they were unable to see around it by looking straight on. The party of four had wandered into a more industrial part of the city, large factory-looking buildings now lined the streets, busy smokestacks on top. This must be where the raw materials that are mined get forged. Among other things. Applejack could see soot covered ponies walking between buildings, a pegasus guard flew in circles around the roofs to make sure things were proceeding as normal. Unfortunately it seemed they had gone down the wrong street, where they were walking ended in a large brick wall. Applejack was worried that stopping and turning around would draw attention so not missing a beat she walked sideways into the factory yard, walking down the side of the large building next to the brick wall to the next street over, hoping that they’d find a way forward there. “I don’t think we should be walking here.” Daylight whispered from behind her. “There’s no place else to go.” Applejack whispered back, glancing up with one eye to make sure the pegasus guard wasn’t paying any extra attention to them. The dirt and gravel crunched under their hooves, it was lucky that there weren’t any gates keeping them out of the factory yard but Applejack couldn’t imagine there was any crime in this city that needed to be prevented. As they passed through the yard and made it to the other side Applejack turned a corner to continue on to the volcano, only to just about walk right into a blue stallion. “Whoa!” She backed up to avoid charging over him while his eyes opened wide and he glanced between the four of them in fear. “Who are you? You shouldn’t be here.” He said nervously. The pony was wearing an engineer’s hat and his coat was messy with soot like the other ponies Applejack had seen. “We’re trying to get to the volcano!” Sugar Spirit instantly responded. “Sugar!” Daylight growled at her while Star Blaze exasperatedly shook his head. Applejack looked into the sky but she could no longer see the pegasus guard from where they were standing. “You’re new here aren’t you?” The stallion asked. “Well whatever, I don’t care what you get up to but I can’t be caught standing around.” He moved to walk past them when Applejack grabbed him by the shoulder. “Wait, please! Can you just tell us where the entrance to the volcano is?” He shot her a glare. “If you leave me alone then fine.” He pointed down the street he came from. “Go down here, turn right at the first intersection, then left, right at the second street, left at the third street, and then you’re heading on straight to the volcano’s entrance.” He shook off Applejack’s hoof and started to walk away. “Thank you.” Applejack said to him. He snorted. “Not like me telling you matters, there’s nothing you can do.” Applejack and the others ignored his parting remarks and followed his directions. As they got closer and closer to the volcano they started to notice more guards walking around, but they were never confronted. It seems the guards were either willfully ignoring them or only looking for ponies that didn’t appear to be working. Maybe they did know Applejack and her group were new but figured they had already been pushed into their new jobs. Finally making the last turn the earth pony and three unicorns found themselves on a straight road lined with large brick walls painted a foreboding black. At the very end of the road was an ornate golden gate that was left open, the end of the actual city. Beyond that gate were huge slabs of hexagonal stones all put together to make up the ground all the way to the base of the volcano. And at the base of the huge volcano an entrance had been built out, it looked like the mouth of a lion with large stone steps at the bottom and fangs carved at the top with reinforced columns of stone lining it. There were two guards just like they had expected standing watch outside it. “So what do we do now?” Star Blaze asked. “There’s no other way in and we’d never get past those two guards without them noticing, in fact they definitely already see us walking right now.” He was right, Applejack had continued to just walk down the walled-in road so as not to ruin their “disguise” but now they had very little time to figure out what they would actually do when they would get to the guards. “Well there’s no place to hide and we can’t just stop, that’d get them onto us real quick.” Daylight said. “There’s only two of them, let’s just keep walking forward like everything is normal and then knock them out.” “But what if there’s some kind of password or magical alarm or something we don’t know about?” Star shot back to her. Applejack was getting a little nervous, they had already passed the golden gate and now it was less than a hundred feet before they’d have to explain to the guards just what they were doing here. Or suddenly attack them if it came down to it. Whichever. “Let’s just talk to them! Come oooon, you haven’t been listening to me at all.” Sugar Spirit said from behind them all. She was starting to whimper and bounce around, a surefire signal to the guards that they were abnormal ponies for the city. “Sugar, that’s crazy, these are guards enslaved by an evil, crazy, unicorn king. We can not just walk up to them and say “Please let us into your king’s volcano so we can put a stop to him and steal all his treasure”, okay?” Daylight tried to express to her. Sugar was about to respond but Applejack beat her to it. “Actually, that aint a bad idea.” She said as she kept walking along over the hexagonal stones, all their hooves making a loud thunk with each step. “Excuse me?!” Daylight incredulously asked. “What are you thinking?” Applejack kept her face forward as she walked towards the entrance. “Look, these guards are just as empty and broken as all the other ponies in here. They’re doing their job purely out of fear and routine. You notice how everypony has said that what we’re doing is pointless? Well then what point is there in these guards stopping us? If we can’t do anything to King Avarice then they might as well just let us on through, right? That’s what I’m gonna ask them.” Daylight quickly walked up beside her and stared her in the eye. “That. Is. Stupid.” Applejack just smiled back. “Oh, believe me, I’ve seen stupid. This aint even half stupid.” The unicorn just threw up her hooves and kept walking. By now the guards were fixing them with a long stare, any sort of ruse would be impossible now. Applejack saw that they were both unicorns from the spiked helmets they wore. So Applejack just walked up and greeted them like she would any other ponies. “Howdy! Name’s Applejack and these are my friends Daylight Gleam, Star Blaze, and Sugar Spirit. How are you two doing today?” They just blankly stared at her with the same empty, defeated, eyes that every pony in the city had. “New? You should go to one of the guards on patrol and have them find jobs for you. We can’t leave our post.” The one on the right said. “Sorry, no can do, we’re here to take down your king and free you all from his enslavement.” Applejack said cheerfully while Star Blaze and Daylight Gleam both facehooved, but Sugar Spirit also nodded happily along. Both guards sighed, this time the one on the left spoke up. “You’re not the first newcomers to say that. And you wont be the last. It’s always the same at first, some adventurer gets trapped in here, thinks they can just defeat King Avarice and save everypony. It never happens.” He looked despondently at the ground. “The city and everything in it belongs to King Avarice. Forever.” “And we can’t just let you into the volcano. King Avarice wouldn’t like that.” Right guard said to Applejack. “Well isn’t that exactly why you should just let us pass? Cause it would be bad for him?” Applejack replied. The guards just looked at each other before Right responded again. “We hate the king as much as anypony living here, but we don’t want to face his wrath if he learns we let you in. Besides it’s not like you can do anything, any resistance is pointless.” “Then isn’t it pointless for you to be guarding here and stopping us from going in?” Daylight Gleam facehooved again. She couldn’t believe the conversation was actually going like this. The guards again looked at each other for a moment. Left answered Applejack. “I guess, but still, King Avarice...” Applejack stepped forward and put her hoof on his shoulder, giving him a sympathetic look. “Do you really have anything to lose? The four of us are trying to do a lot of good here. We want to help.” Left fidgeted a little, clearly uncomfortable. He glanced at Right for a second and then turned back to Applejack, finally his face loosened up and he stepped back, gesturing towards the steps that led up into the lion’s mouth. “Fine, you can just go in, we wont stop you or notify any other guards. But it’s pointless. I had hope once too, we all did. But it’s all gone now.” “Thank you.” Applejack started walking up the steps with her comrades following her. At the top of the steps she looked back over her shoulder at the two guards. “And it’s not pointless. We’ll save you, I promise.” And the party of four stepped into Greed Volcano.