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// Quest #1 Exit the forest! 
// Story: Tela's Tales 
// by Firefoxino 
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I continued to march through the hot and rainy forest. The rain arrived without any type of warning, one second it was there.The mud covered everything and I lost the track My stomach gurgled in clear hunger.

I couldn’t take it so I climbed on a tree and searched for a prey, I found from up there the nest of some animals. I climbed down and looked to see which animal it was, the nest was full of snakes which hissed immediately after I looked inside. I positioned myself and fired a blob of silk inside coating the entire nest and trapping the snakes that were inside..

“I’m so hungry… I hope these one are as filling as that rabbit.” I murmured fishing around in the silk, catching all the snakes I could take. I carefully took them by the head avoiding being bit, there were five in total inside, I snapped their necks twisting the heads, immediately after I opened my mouth to eat and they became a fine black mist that filled my stomach quite right.

“Now, that was a good one.” I said surprised, they were very tasty. With my belly full I resumed walking around trying to find any kind of tracks. I didn’t have any luck so I decided to climb a tall tree and look around from there, after climbing up I started to look around, there was forest as far as the eye could see but I also saw a tower popping up from the tree’s canopy.

I climbed down and walked towards the tower, at least I would have a roof over my head. After an hour of walking I finally reached a small clearing where the tower was built, the lights were on, on the first floor so I climbed on the walls and entered through the open window on the second floor. I crawled inside and entered what seemed like an office of some kind, it was full of cobwebs and dust seemingly abandoned. It is also there that I noticed how truly little I was, I barely reached the door handle!

I went near the door in front of the window and tried to open it, unfortunately it made much more sound than I expected… “What was that!?” The highest of the three voices I heard before shouted.

“We should check it out, we can earn our cutie mark in burglar catchers!” The aggressive one proposed.

“That sounds like a horrible idea Scoot.” The southern said naming the aggressive voice. I heard their- ‘Footsteps? Those are NOT footsteps….’ I thought hearing the clear sound of hooves hitting the stone floor, I crawled up on a wall and waited hanging upside down, the tower was round and the door lead directly on the staircase. After some seconds passed I saw three little horses walking up from the stairs ‘So cute....’ I thought.

“There’s nothing here.” The southern one said, the voice apparently came out of the filly with the ribbon, unfortunately I couldn’t see the colour it was all grey. Then I noticed the other two were a pegasus and an unicorn, ‘Meh, I’m a drider now what do I know?’ I thought not really mind blown by that. “Maybe it was the wind?” The unicorn said to her friends. 

“Nah, it must have been a burglar, I can feel it.” The pegasus, Scoot,  replied.

They continued to climb the tower passing me by, I just remained there pondering on my next action. ‘Could it be that the tracks I found were the ones these three left? The tracks were very little so maybe… If that’s the case then I can’t eat them!’ I thought. 

‘They seem harmless and they sure are cute enough, I’ll just introduce myself.’ With my decision made I spoke up. “Hey.” 

“Who’s there?” The said in unison looking around.

“I’m up here.” I said.

“Where? I can’t see anything.” The one with the bow said.

“Oh right, let me just come down then.” I said forgetting that they couldn’t see in the dark like me, I walked to the wall and climbed down right next to the unicorn. “Hi.” I greeted them.

“Uh…” They said looking at me.

“It’s still dark isn’t it?” I said sighing.

“Uh, uh” They murmured.

“Fine, let’s go to the first floor.” I decided and walked down the stairs. The first floor was littered with papers and books, the entire room was basically stacked with them, there were obviously a lot of spider webs but those wouldn’t have bothered me anymore.

“Wow what are you?” The little horses asked together.

“I’m a Drider.” I replied showing off my abdomen. 

“A draider?” Scoot asked.

“Drider.” I replied correcting her. 

“How did you get here in Equestria?” The bow one asked.

“Ah that’s a funny story you see I was minding my own business when a magic thing happened and I appeared here.” I said remaining vague about it.

They all looked at each other, then deadpanned “Twilight.” came there unified voices. 

I laughed a bit at that, they were so serious. “Anyway what’s your name? I’m Tela.” I said introducing myself.

“I’m Applebloom.” The bow one said. 

“I’m Scootaloo.” The pegasus said.

“I’m Sweetie Belle.” The unicorn finished.

“And we are the CUTIE MARK CRUSADER YAY!” They shouted clapping their hooves together almost deafening me. “And we are also lost.” They said far quieter.

“Aww, you poor little things.” I said looking at their saddened faces, I immediately lowered down and hugged them.

“Uhm, thanks. I guess?” Applebloom said.

“Don’t worry my little horsies I will save you from this dreadful place!” I said swearing to the sky with a fist.

“Uh, ok?” They replied looking at each other.

Then I heard a loud grumble. They all dropped down on their hunches and looked at their bellies before blushing embarassed. “Seems like someone is hungry.” I said poking Sweetie Belle belly, she cutely giggled and covered it with her forelegs. “Don’t worry I’ll go out looking for something for you to eat.” I said and moved to exit the tower, then I continued. “I’ll lock the door with some of my webs so that dangerous animals can’t get in here. Don’t panic I’ll come back.” I said.

“Ok Tela.” Sweetie said. 

“We’ll just go around exploring the tower.” Scootaloo said. 

“Sure.” I said and went out in the night, the door of the tower was completely destroyed, the fragments were everywhere and so I had to seal the entire door frame with silk which took five minutes of work. “This should be enough for small critters.” I said to myself and walked around trying to find something a horse could eat without problem, fortunately the ex owner of this place actually had to eat because there were at least a dozen trees filled with fruits around the clearing of the tower. I made a little sack of silk and used it to collect the fruits.

Picking them up was not a problem thanks to my new spider legs, I tried one of the fruits before giving them to the fillies and so far they were juicy, filled with sugar and very soft. The colouration was a bit off being them a bright blue and purple, but they were good so I took as many as I could and returned to the tower. 

I removed the silk and entered the tower, obviously the fillies weren’t on the first floor, they were probably just exploring so I just called them down. “Girls! The food is here!” I shouted, I heard a yelp from the second floor and then the sound of hooves getting down the stairs.

“Thanks Tela. What did you bring?” Applebloom asked. I showed her the collected fruit and she gasped. “I never saw anything like this.” She said shocked. 

“I thought that in the Everfree grew only what? Three types of fruit?” Scootaloo said.

“Well yes that we know of, we may be very deep inside and those are a new species we never found before.” Sweetie Belle proposed. 

“Probably.” I said, “I never heard about this Everfree forest but if it is as big as you say then it is a possibility. Now eat, I already ate them and they are good to go.” I said presenting the sack of fruits.

The CMC all ate the fruits with gusto, and after ten minutes they were finally full leaving me with three more fruits for myself. I swiftly ate them then noticed that the CMC were all yawning and were almost falling asleep on their hooves. “Did you find a bedroom?” I asked them. 

“Yeah, ‘yawn’, it’s on the third floor.” Sweetie explained rubbing her eyes. I picked her up and put her on my abdomen, I then created two large sacks and put the other two inside of it, I picked the three of them up and climbed the stairs. 

I arrived at the door leading to the bedroom that they found and opened it, the room was a bit ruined but nothing too hideous. There were two bookshelves filled with books and a desk with a broken mirror, on it there was a diary of some kind. I ignored it for now and put the now sleeping fillies on the bed which fortunately was big enough for the three of them, I created a blanket of silk and covered the already existing blanket with it.

They immediately started to cuddle up for heat and went to sleep. ‘So cute.’ I thought, I exited the room and closed the door behind me, I went down to the first floor, I wasn’t exactly tired but I knew I couldn’t stay up all night. I blocked the entrance once again and then attached myself on the ceiling using my silk to remain above the ground, and just like that, upside down and only a spider silk holding me up I went to sleep.

I woke up in the morning alongside the sun, which shone from a window and hit me right in the face, “Stupid fucking sun.” I swore.

“What’s fucking?” A young voice asked from the stairs.

In the scare I retracted the silk I was still hanging from back at full force and slammed against the ceiling then I started to bungee jumping with the silk thread until I snapped it and fell on the ground flat. “N-Nothing.” I said with my face still planted on the ground.

“Oh you aren’t hurt are you?” Applebloom said coming near me to try and lift me, she put her body under my torso and lifted me with almost no effort from her part. 

“I’m fine.” I said dusting myself off. “But damn Applebloom you are strong.” I said impressed.

“Shucks that comes from me working on a farm with my sister Applejack.” She said dusting her bow. “It’s also why Ah’m already up.” She said as a matter of fact.

“Yeah, I woke up cause the sun almost blinded me.” I said. “Come on we can go out and collect some more food for breakfast for you three.” I told her.

“Uhm how do I close this?” She asked pointing to the silky door.

“Do you see the lid on the upper right corner of the door? The one that now is on the floor.” I said pointing it. She nodded and took it, “Now just press it against the rest of the door and you are good to go.” I explained, she did that and went over to me.

“And what about your food for breakfast?” She asked later on.

“I- I have special food for myself so I need to take it alone.” I tried to say coming up with an excuse, utterly failing at that I probably rolled a 1 there. 

“You have to eat meat?” She asked neutrally. 

“Uh, yes? How do you know?” I asked a bit shocked. 

“I live on a farm and I eat fish.” She said nonchalantly.

“Oh ok then. I’ll go around hunting a rabbit while you retrieve the fruit. Ok?” I proposed.

“Sounds good.” She said nodding. 

“Ok now wait a second.” I said and started creating a little sack for her to use, I made it so that it can be put on her back like a saddlebag, I had to waste a bit of time to get it right but in the end I made it. 

“Wow, that was so cool.” Applebloom said with awe.

“Oh, it was nothing, I’m not as good as others with my thread.” I said smiling to her.

“You just need practice that’s all. I’m sure you will make webs even more beautiful than the ones a normal spider does.” She said.

“Thank you Applebloom.” I said, "Now trot off to pick fruit, if something attacks you throw the bags to it and it should slow it a bit, I didn’t make them very sticky.” 

“How do you make them less sticky?” She asked, interested.

“I use my spinneret in a different way and I can just feel it inside of me when i do.” I said, I didn’t even know how I did that exactly, the instinct just took over when I weaved it and somehow I made it. Weird.

I waved her off and walked into the forest once again in search of prey. I backed away from the big bear footprints, instead I followed the much more manageable bunny tracks. I followed them until I found them eating in a little clearance in the middle of the forest, I went on a tree and aimed for a bunny. ‘Butt aiming.’ I thought almost falling down from the laughs that the thought brought, I recovered and this time actually aimed, I fired and hit two bunnies who were close together, the others all fled but I had what I wanted. I dropped down from the tree and took the two, I bit them and then ate them with my black mist power. Now full I went back to the forest when a giant creature attacked me, it was much bigger than me, it was a wolf of some kind but far more muscular and threatening. 

From he scare I jumped in the air to avoid being bitten by it and landed on a branch a good ten meters above me. “Oh god!” I said putting a hand on my heart. “Stupid fucking wolves…” I murmured, “Now that I think about it I can do super jumps? This situation is becoming cooler by the minute.” I said in awe, I jumped through and between the branches and eventually lost my pursuers returning to the tower, I saw Applebloom entering the tower just then and I followed. 

“Hi Applebloom.” I greeted her upon entering.

“Hi Tela.” She said, “I’m going to wake up the others, so we can all eat.” She decided and trotted on the stairs.

“Uh I already ate.” I said a bit awkwardly. 

“Oh, but why?” She asked visibly saddened.

“It’s not the best sightseeing experience to see me eat. Trust me.” I said to her.

“Ok…” She said with her ears low and slowly making her way upstairs occasionally turning around to plead at me with her big eyes. But I couldn’t let my resolve crumble, I had to say no, they were only children. ‘It’s better if they never see a drop of blood if I can help it.’ 

From there they ate breakfast and we went out to explore around, Applebloom says that she can’t find the way home but she swears that the path was here somewhere. In the end we went too far into the forest and I had to climb on a tree to find the tower, we returned defeated and with the girls a little bit more saddened.

The next day we decided to explore the tower, the first floor didn’t hold anything else interesting, the second floor was apparently a storage room which unfortunately basically lost everything that was inside, there were empty bottle and dust. The third floor was the one with the bedroom where the CMC slept, I finally remembered about the journal and so Sweetie took it saying that she wanted to look at it for a bit. 

I allowed it and she started reading right away, we left her in the bedroom and went up even more, there we found a closed door. We tried and tried but the door wouldn’t budge no matter what so we gave up on that. 

“Lame, can’t we just bash in with a branch or something?” Scootaloo suggested. 

“The door seems to be very sturdy, so no I don’t think we can.” I said shooting down her idea.

“Come on girls let’s go downstairs and get Sweetie Belle, then we are going to make dinner.” She said.

“Make dinner.” Scootaloo said with irony rolling her eyes. “Not like we are going to eat fruits again.” She said.

“Don’t be picky, there isn’t a lot of variety of food here.” Applebloom said sternly.

“Come on, let’s go.” I said. They went to the third floor while I returned to the first one.

The CMC returned after a bit and scurried to the little table that remained somewhat in one piece in the room, they sat in front of the very small table and started to eat their fruit. 

“So what did you find in that journal Sweetie?” I asked.

“Uhm, lots of spells. Like a big lot of those.” She said gulping down her food. This unicorn was called Bonez. Its journal is filled with strange spells I have never seen before… Fireballs, Ice cone and so on, all of those are really dangerous.” She explained. “Just who was this pony? Somepony like Twilight? But she never showed us these spells…” She said looking down in thought.

I put a finger on my chin and thought about what she said then replied. “Listen, I don’t think you need to learn those combat spells-” I was suddenly interrupted by the sound of something smashing against the door. “What was that?” 

Another hit sound and this time the door slightly shook as well, “What the?” I asked before the door was slammed open and a walking corpse entered the room, the zombie was in a severe state of decomposition with a big chunk of his face missing, it emitted a foul odor and had a tree branch lodged in his leg. 

That was also when I truly noticed how small I was compared to a human, I arrived barely at his knee with my head. “AAAAAAAAH!” Sweetie belle shrieked diving behind me trembling like a leaf. 

“What is that?!” Applebloom asked shouting and pointing at it.

“Zombie.” I said eyeing it carefully.

“Cool!” Scootaloo said. “Do we have to beat it?” She also asked.

“Unfortunately. Sweetie stay with Applebloom, Applebloom you stay away from this thing, Scootaloo I’m trusting you to keep it focused on you until I am ready.” I said coming up with a plan. I couldn’t use my blob of silk, it was simply too tiny to work so I had to think smart.

Scootaloo saluted and shouted in his face. “Hey, flybag!” Making him follow her. I seized the opportunity and started to create a long string, when I finished I created another one and weaved them together. I stuck one end of it to the wall and the other end to the wall in front of it. 

“Scootaloo make him trip!” I told her, she nodded and jumped over the silk, the zombie did not and fell face first into the stone floor. I took the wood table leg and ripped it off creating a club for me. I went near the zombie and smashed his head with it over and over until it stopped moving.

I turned around covered in blood and brain, I was panting a bit but I was fine. “Ok girls, I don’t know what that was but-” 

“There’s another one!” Sweetie Belle said pointing at the stairs, a lone zombie was there, he was without arms and was crawling like a worm to descend the stairs. 

“Oh for fuck sake.” I swore and smashed his head too. “Come on girls we have to find out where this one came from, stick behind me and don’t wander off.” I ordered, they followed my instructions and went behind me in a straight line. We went up the stairs and reached the fourth floor were the door was now wide open, inside the room there were hundreds of bottles filled with eyes, fish and other creatures. There was a table made of marble full of bones and ritual circles.

On the wall in front of the door there were a pair of shackles with the zombie’s arms still attached to it. “Necromancer…” I said looking around, “We are in the tower of a necromancer.” 

“What’s a necromancer?” Sweetie asked.

“A necromancer is a mage which managed to revive and control the dead to do his bidding, they are very powerful foes but they are not all evil. But when they are bad, oh boy, they are nasty.” I explained to her. I saw that on a shelf there was a big black book with a red pentagram on it, I took it and handed it to Sweetie Belle. “Here this is probably his spell book for necromancy, see if you can find anything useful in that thing to help us defeat the zombies, or maybe some spells to kill them instantly or something.” I said. I wasn’t worried about her studying necromancy, I wasn’t one to judge after all, and having someone like a necromancer helping us out would have been very useful. 

“Now let’s go, we must find a way out of the forest.” I said.

“But why?” Applebloom asked.

“Duh, zombies found us.” Scootaloo replied rolling her eyes.

“Exactly he could have released dozens of them around the tower we are not safe here, let’s go.” I gathered as many valuable objects I could find like a handful of gems that were hidden inside a drawer, and with that we departed from the tower and entered the forest, direction unknown and goal obscure we entered with a hope to find civilization. We walked through the midday hot forest leaving behind our only refuge so far, I put myself in the lead of the group with Applebloom behind me, Sweetie in the middle and Scootaloo as our back. 

I climbed on a tree to search for any sign of civilization but didn’t find any, so we continued. Hours passed in basically silence, the CMC started to feel the heat and the fatigue of walking, thankfully my half spider body gifted me with lots of heat resistance and heat dissipation, I was also the only one that didn’t have a problem travelling through the incredibly dissestato terrain.

After five hours of walking we took a break, the girls went to a nearby pond to drink a little, the pond wasn’t big but was connected through two rivers, and i saw some animals drinking from it so I knew it was safe. I on the other hand, climbed on a tree and scouted ahead, finally after all this time I saw the end of the forest.

“Hey girls! I see the end of the forest!” I shouted to them. Suddenly I saw a figure moving from just out of my field of vision and instinctively ducked, a giant wolf like the ones I have encountered before almost caught me. 

“Goddammit!” I swore scared from the sudden attack, I looked around and saw that the wolf was preparing to lunge at me again, I jumped on a tree branch further up and continued to jump through the branches to reach the girls.

“GIRLS!” I shouted. “Get close,  we are under attack!” 

“Where?” They shouted. 

“Up here!” I said and let a string of silk fall down, they grabbed it with their hooves, somehow, and I dragged them all up on the tree. The wolves appeared from the bushes and tried to snap at us. 

“Can’t we do anything?” Scootaloo asked.

“No, those are not simple zombies, those are damn big wolves. It’s better if we stay here until they get bored of us.” I said, they all nodded and so we stayed there waiting. We had to wait for three hours before they left and by that time the sun was down, leaving us in the darkness. 

“Ok girls, you stay here, I’ll scout around to see if they are gone and to find some food for us.” I said. 

“Uhm Tela…” Applebloom said. 

“What is it Applebloom?” I said looking back at her, she was squirming left and right in sinc with her friends.

“We need to use the bathroom.” She whispered.

“Damn…” I said with a whisper, “Ok give me a minute to see if they are truly gone and then I’ll let you down, don’t go too far.” I said and with that I climbed down from the tree. I could see clearly in the night and so I started to look around, fortunately the wolves did go away, with this information I put the CMC back on the ground and they did what they had to. 

After that I improved our makeshift base with a security string so that they can’t roll over and fall, I told them to just sleep for now and that we will continue in the morning. When they went to sleep I went out to hunt, I found some more rabbits for me and two snakes as a bonus. I returned to the camp and went to sleep above the CMC.

I woke up again with the sun almost burning out my eyes, “Good morning.” I said murmuring.

“Morning Tela.” Applebloom said greeting me.

“Come on, wake the others up, we are almost out of this forest.” I said. Fortunately the other two didn’t need too much effort to wake up and so we started walking off to the exit. After another three hours of walking we finally exited the forest.

“YEAH!” Scootaloo shouted. “We did it!” She started jumping up and down in a circle, then the others registered exactly what happened and joined her. 

I laughed at their antics and waited for them to finish, when they were spent from the happiness of getting out alive I started to look around finding a convenient road just ahead of us, the road was made of dirt and basically hugged the entire forest from what I could see. 

“Ok girls, left or right?” I asked.

“Uhmm.” They said in unison. “Right.” Scoot said.

“I agree.” Applebloom confirmed and sweetie nodded.

“Right it is then. I mean it is the right choice after all.” I said punning around.

“Oh great she also make puns.” Scootaloo said rolling her eyes. 

“Come on girls, the faster we move the faster we find a city.” I said optimistically.