//------------------------------//
// Chapter 12. Lab Rat Days, Part 3 
// Story: Meta Gamer in Equestria: The Blight of Bane. 
// by reflective vagrant 
//------------------------------//

My legs were cramped and my arms could hardly reach anywhere I needed them to as I moaned one aching moan after another.
"If this is torture, chain me to the wall,"  I muttered to myself just loud enough for it to not be called a whisper.
Sharp Sentry, the pegasus guarding me, cocked his head with a confused look.  As he did so, I finally turned off the hot water and stepped out of what I was told was the second largest bath tub in the castle.  The largest was sadly in one of the few areas I was not allowed.  Even so, the tub I did have access was just large enough to let me sit in and bathe myself, though standing just wasn't an option.
As I dried myself, I found my aquatic features seemed more lively and I had a solid spring in my step.
I spoke out loud to nobody in particular.  "Why is it I can only seem to get a hot shower when I'm a prisoner?"
Sharp Sentry adjusted the amulet on his neck that matched mine and spoke back, "I couldn't really say."


With a quick check up on my shoulder by one of the medical staff after the shower I was washed and refreshed.  After getting dressed properly with the wound patched up again, I didn't really know what to do.  My belly was full, and I wasn't exactly going to get a job while I was a prisoner.
I called to Sharp Sentry,  "Should we just go back to the cell?  I don't really know what else I'd need."
He looked down in thought. A few other servants and guards nearby gave me the familiar odd look of not understanding my words, but went back to what they were doing so quickly I almost didn't catch them doing it. My sense of not feeling welcome kicked back in as I saw the ponies around me made absolutely no eye contact after that and seemed to want to hurry past me.
Sharp Sentry brought his head back to attention, "I could give you the tour, Moss."
I gave a huff of disappointment.  "They don't seem too receptive of me.  I don't think lingering about is a good idea."
I turned when I heard a groan from Sharp Sentry.  His face was failing to hide an underlying frustration.
"Is something wrong?"
He looked about and then signaled me to follow him into an empty room.  Just within the doorway he whispered to me.
"I'm not supposed to tell you this, but the fact is that the whole castle has been informed to try to either make you feel welcome or continue on without noticing you like you belong.  I've also been given the task to try to convince you to go to the study some time in the next hour."
I looked down and touched my collar.  "You guys were planning on giving me this thing regardless how I answered, weren't you?"
As I looked back up, I could see him shake his head again.  "I don't know.  I'm not that high up.  There were probably a few scenarios they had in mind where they might have had to do something else, but I wasn't savvy to them."
I looked back down, noticing how he seemed to be leaning to one side with his back hooves.
"You were one of the guards that I had to be chained to back when, weren't you?  One of the ones that got lifted up into the air?"
He scrunched his mouth with indignity and looked away.  "If the other guard on my side of you hadn't grabbed on to me, I would have just used my wings and not gotten hurt."
I cracked a smile and gave my best suave and solemn whisper.  "Today, I repay my debt."
"What?  What are you-"  he started to ask before I raised my hand to interrupt him.
"It's in reference to a... a play from my world.  Just for you, I'll take the tour."





"So that's the main hall, and the kitchens down.  Remember the west wing and the upper part of the central tower are the two areas restricted for you and you should be fine.  I'll show you the ball room and the rest of the east wing under your cell right after we-"  Sharp Sentry gave a light cough and a nudge.  "After we take a brief look at the study."
I gave him a nod back and smiled inwardly.  'One debt paid, three to go.'  I thought to myself as we approached the study doors.
Right as we entered the doors, I found myself in front of the white pony who was just leaving.
"Oh my!"  The unicorn said with a blush.  I recognized her as Fluttershy's friend, Rarity.
As our eyes locked, her eyes widened, her ears were at full attention and the blush on her face deepened.  She turned her head to address the ponies behind her at the table while not breaking eye contact with me.
"I'm afraid I left something in my boutique..."  She seemed indecisive for a moment.  "...Incorrectly patterned?  I think I need to go fix it, right now."
She ran past me and down the hall.  While I watched her move with sudden urgency, I couldn't help but feel bad about making her upset.  'Make that four to go.'

I turned back to the study and found a small number of ponies I recognized sitting at a table.  Speaks with Talons was there too, off a little ways and scratching his back on one of the rough edges of the crystalline walls.
"Well speak of Discord.  We were just talking about you, Moss.  Care to join us?"  princess Twilight called out to me.
I just about went over and sat down, but noticed everypony at the table looking directly at me, giving me a slight creep out.
I gave a slight glance to Sharp Sentinel, finding him positioning himself at a guarding position to where I could sit at the empty spot at the table and still be in range of him.  As he did so, I gingerly walked over to the table while pressing my amulet, took the cushion off the seat, moved the chair and sat on the floor next to Moon Beam and princess Twilight.
"Alright.  I'll bite.  What are you guys wanting from me?" 
I half expected princess Twilight to turn around and scowl at Sharp Sentry, but I found him receiving a scowl from Moon Beam instead.
"What makes you think we want anything from you?"  Twilight asked with a uncomfortable tone and an uneasy laugh.
"Well for one..." I began but stopped when I felt somepony lifting my hand up.
I turned to see a rainbow maned pegasus hovering over the table with my hand in her front hooves.  "Huh.  So these are the hands that-"
"Rainbow Dash!"  Princess Twilight interrupted in haste.  Both I and the pegasus mare turned to see her giving the pegasus mare a death glare.
The pegasus mare backed off and gave an uneasy reply, "Right.  Well, you guys need to get to your egg head stuff anyway."  She swung her front hoof in an energetic motion.  She then went to pick up a suit of chain mail and a set of war saddle bags at the entrance.  "I think its time I take your report back!"
With that, she threw both in the air and bolted so fast I couldn't see her clearly.  But then I saw her out of the study window a few seconds later flying off into the distance, already in her armor.
I shook my head and looked at the remaining ponies.  Starlight was sitting patiently and Zecora had found her way to the table alongside Speaks with Talons, who noted my style of sitting without a chair and mimicked it.
"Well, for one I know all of you are fairly high up in the chain of command, or at least well connected to somepony that is, and you still invited me to sit.  Second, everypony here locked eyes on me the moment I walked in, but everypony else in the castle has been avoiding eye contact like the plague.  So just come out and say it.  What did you want?"
Everypony seemed uneasy for a moment and Moon Beam seemed to want to say something, but differed to Starlight.
Starlight looked over to the guards at the door, who promptly locked the doors and did a proper headcount of every pony inside the room.
When the guards nodded back, Starlight started explaining,  "Well, you see, when the owl that came with you to this world shared..."
She rolled her eyes at me when I started looking at Speaks with Talons and Zecora with worry.  "Oh, stop worrying!  These two knew about the familiar almost as soon as we did.  They aren't nearly as bias as the Fey.  It's fine."
She reset herself and continued on her main point.  "When your familiar shared his tactical information on the invaders, one thing scared us in particular.  They were using a deceptive strategy.  They've been letting the corpses of their  weaker soldiers pile up on the battlefields and have been holding back their stronger warriors and mages.  Soon, they will feel we've gotten complacent enough and unleash their own magics into the war in an attempt to overwhelm us before we can get ready.  Magics like yours."
Moon Beam took over when Starlight nodded at her.  "While Tempest was surprised, our intelligence has been expecting their inevitable use of necromancy and have had a standing order for the soldiers to dispose of as many of the corpses as they can find.  We have also been reviewing the materials I extracted from your familiar to better understand how to counteract their other magics."
I looked at her in confusion.  "Wait, you extracted information from the owl?  I thought it was Princess Luna using her Astral Judgement to extract information from him."
Moon Beam became unsteady for a moment before Starlight chimed in. "Princess Luna only used her Astral Judgement to determine if your familiar was being truthful and was actually our ally.  Once we determined that, it wasn't necessary to force the information from him with Astral Judgement.  Normal, non trauma inducing, dream walking suffices once trust is established."
Moon Beam smiled and came right back to the conversation.  "Although Princess Luna is certainly considered the strongest by far, she isn't the only dream walker in Equestria.  While there is a chance that anypony could be born with the rare gift, it is far more common for thestrals to be born with it, and gifted thestrals choose to train it far more frequently than those gifted in the other tribes.  Despite thestrals always being only a small sliver of the population, about eighty five percent of all trained dream walkers throughout our nation's history have been thestrals."
"The point is!"  Princess Twilight called out as soon as Moon Beam was finished. "The point is, we can only study so much about the invaders' magic through Moon Beam's notes and the spell books and scrolls that came with you and we're about finished with those.  While we can replicate the end effects well enough, we can't duplicate their magic perfectly with our methods."  She gestured up to her horn with her eyes.  "We need an actual invader to perform magic so that we can study it as it happens with their style."
I sat there for a long moment, knowing exactly what they were asking of me but still letting it sink in.
I took a deep breath.  "Or rather, you need someone that is like an invader to do the same."
The others at the table all nodded together in unison and the princess answered me.
"Yes.  We need you to figure out how to use your magic.  As much of it as you can."