//------------------------------//
// Quest #2 Travel To The City 
// Story: Tela's Tales 
// by Firefoxino 
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We rested on the side of the road for a bit before finally moving on, while we walked we started to talk about what we wanted to do when we reached this Ponyville. 

“I want to immediately hide.” Applebloom said. “AJ will be mad I was gone so long.” She said with a bit of fear.

“Same.” Said Sweetie Belle.

“And you?” I said noticing that Scootaloo wasn’t saying anything. 

“Hm? Me? I don’t care. I want to tell Rainbow Dash how cool I was when I faced that zombie.” She said punching the air.

“Uh, ok I guess.” I said perplessa by her lack of fear for authoritative figures. “So I never actually asked but what’s the name of your parents?” 

“Hmm, well AJ says they died when I was very little so I don’t really remember them.” Applebloom explained, a bit sad sure but nothing too melodramatic.

“Well my parents are Hondo flanks and Cookie Crumbler, but they are always out of town so I always stay with my sister Rarity.” Sweetie explained. “She is a seamstress and always make the best outfits ever.” She said, bouncing around, thanks to that I noticed that she lost one of her fruits on the ground.

“Wait, let me see your bag.” I told her, she handed it to me with her magic and I took it, I carefully examined it and found out a hole in the side of it. “Oh dear this won’t do, it probably broke when we climbed those trees.” I said and immediately started to produce silk to repair the damage.

After five minutes or so I patched it up good and returned it to her. “There, all done.” I said with a smile.

“That was incredible! How did you do that?” She asked.

“Well patching things up is not difficult, and my silk can be very sticky so I just weaved the silk in a patch and stuck it on.” I said explaining.

“Yes I saw that.” She said eyeing me, “I mean how did you weave it with just your paws?” 

“They are hands.” I corrected her. “And I learned it when I was a scout girl.” I said. “I’ll explain later what I mean, for now, let’s just move on.” I continued at their perplexed faces. “But what about your parents Scoot?”

“My parents are absolutely awesome! They travel the world and wrestle cragadile.” She said with confidence.

“Ok, I guess.” I said shrugging, then I talked to Sweetie. “Don’t worry, I’ll teach you to weave if you like.” I said completely and blatantly lying because I don’t have the slightest idea on how to teach a pony how to weave without hands. 

“You will teach me?” Sweetie asked hopefully.

“Of course Sweetie… “I said a bit unsure, but I couldn’t tell her no then. ‘Seems like I will have to do a lot of late study to become good at this string thing, at least good enough that I can teach a pony.’ I thought. 

“Well at least the sky is clear and there are no clouds incoming, the weather is good and the road is clear.” I said optimistically. “And no giant wolves.” I laughed.

“Please don’t make me think about it.” Scootaloo said. “Imagine having to fight one.” 

“True my pegasus why don’t you-” I was going to say scout ahead by flying but then I noticed how tiny her wings were. ‘She must be really little, I thought pegasi could fly in less than a year from their birth.’ 

“What?” She asked looking at me. 

“Why don’t you tell me more about this Rainbow Dash, I said barely remembering the name saving myself from an awkward situation. She then started to rumble about how great she is and how awesome she is etcetera etcetera.

I barely listened to her, I was more drawn to the fact that at the horizon I could see the light figure of a moon, but it was a little strange, it was too little to be my moon. Not that I was thinking I was still on Earth or something like that even a moron could see that wasn’t the case.

No, I was trying to think of places I knew from my Sci-Fi memory or RPGs but nothing came to mind. ‘Whatever, even if I knew the place I wouldn’t be able to gather where we were on that map even if I could remember it well enough.’ 

We continued to chat along the way, I learned about their city how they live there and how much of a cataclysm magnet it is. The owner of the library, this Twilight Sparkle especially struck me as the kind of person that willingly or not is always in the middle of those cataclysms. We arrived through our walking to a section of hills, not too high but still, it would have taken too much effort to actually climb them. 

“Come on we follow the path in this canyon.” I said pointing to the narrow entrance. They followed forth and we entered.

Our journey was suddenly stopped by the appearance of a tall man, he was clothed with leather armor and on his hip was a sword, the man had a black long beard and two long nasty scars under his right eye. He approached us and said, “Well, well, well, what do we have here? A drider and three little ponies, what are you taking them to your nest to eat them?” He asked pointing at me.

“What? No are you insane?” I asked back shocked.

“Oh well, it’s not exactly my problem you see…” He said and rested a hand on his sword. ‘I don’t like it.’ I thought and started to look around.

“Because you see, you are not going to leave here alive. Fire!” He shouted and an arrow immediately hit my bag, I was pulled down from it and almost fell over. Then from behind a rock, I saw another man, this one had metal armor and sported a crossbow, his face was covered by a helm. 

“Oh yeah, good shot was that.” He said, “Now don’t make any sudden moves laddie and no one will have to die immediately.”

The girls screamed in fear when the arrow hit then they fell silent except Scootaloo. “Hey! You can’t do this!” She shouted. 

“Shut up horse!” The first man shouted and kicked her in the face making her fall on the ground holding her muzzle in pain. “You will only be good for work after we sell you to the slave market.” He continued laughing. 

In his incompetence though he forgot about me. I was more than angry in that moment so I ripped the arrow out of the bag and quickly stabbed the man in his knee, he fell down screaming, I seized the opportunity and immediately bit him hard on the neck. The other man quickly tried to reload his crossbow.

“Scoot take him!” I shouted with a mouthful of blood, the man I bit in the meantime started to convulse before going still. He was still breathing but was completely paralyzed, he gurgled a bit but I quickly forgot about him, Scootaloo in the meantime was wrestling with a man at least four times her size. 

She wasn’t winning but at least he couldn’t reload his crossbow, I shot a blob of silk against his foot which made him trip, I quickly went near him as he hit the ground and looked over his helm, I didn’t see his face and just bit down on his neck. Like the other, he convulsed and got paralyzed.

“Sigh, what a mess.” I said cleaning my mouth from the blood. “Come on girls take whatever you need and let’s go.” I ordered. Scootaloo quickly snagged the crossbow for herself alongside some darts, Sweetie outright refused to touch them and AB didn’t want anything from them. I was a D&D player though and knew that everything can be sold. 

So I took the sword, I then stripped them down leaving them without any armor and draped the sets over my abdomen, I searched in their pockets but there was nothing useful just some coin and a loaf of bread. I put the two men near a rock and then slapped them both two times. “Now you will think twice before attacking children.” I said sternly, “Come on girls let’s go.” 

After we left the scene they all voiced their doubts. “This is not Equestria.” Sweetie said. “What were those?” 

“Those were Humans, a race of bipedal creatures.” I explained briefly.

“What did they want to do with us?” Applebloom asked.

“Probably sell you as slaves, or worse.” I said not wanting to share my thought with her on the worst-case scenario.

“That was awesome!” Scootaloo said with a bloody muzzle. “Can we do it again?” 

“Oh lord Scoot, come over here I’ll try to see if I can do anything to heal that injury.” I said worriedly walking to her. 

“Don’t worry, I'm fine. Besides we don’t have any medical equi-ecui- whatever.” She said stuttering on the final word.

“Equipment.” Sweetie Belle helpfully provided.

“What are you? A dictionary?” Scootaloo replied.

“Girls, please don’t argue. Come on let’s see if they had a camp nearby where we can find some stuff.” I said, we eventually discovered their camp inside of a cave, there was even a cart there, probably from a raided caravan. 

I searched inside for anything valuable and with luck, I found lots of clothes and food, but also some small pockets full of silver and copper coins, the symbols on them were completely foreign to me. “Weird, but not so uncommon. This seems a somewhat normal medieval time so using metals for coins is normal.” I said to myself.

“Hey, Tela!” I heard from outside. “Did you find anything useful?” Applebloom asked.

“Ya, some coins, clothes and other little things like food.” I replied coming out, they were all looking around too, trying to find something useful in the backpacks that were around the little fire pit, the charcoal now cold.. “How about you?” 

“Nothing useful, food, water, clothes, and this strange bottle.” Sweetie said pulling out a red colored glass bottle with a deep red liquid inside. I took it from her magic and looked it over.

“Weird… It’s best if we keep it, just so if it is worth something.” I said and put it back in the bag. I looked around and noticed that there were no horses around. ‘How did they bring the cart here without horses? And if they brought horses then why leave them instead of keeping them?’ I thought it was a bit strange after all. In the end, we decided to remain at the camp and rest up a bit, I wasn’t worried about the bandits if they wanted to return I would have dealt with them, night fell quickly during the hours of rest. They talked about how incredibly harsh their punishments will be when they go home and similar things. 

“Ok, girls I’m going for a quick snack.” I said to them, they nodded and went to sleep in the cart. I went out to hunt down some more rabbits, foxes, and snakes, I was incredibly hungry that night. Suddenly in the middle of the night I felt something very wrong with me, I felt like I was cramped, my legs hurt, my everything hurt, I fell down on my knees and thrashed on the ground for a bit before going still. 

I blacked out after that and returned to my senses the next morning, the sun was already up and I looked around. I was still in the same place where I blacked out but next to me there was my body, or at least my abdomen, opened up like a tin can and completely lifeless. I checked myself out and noticed many things, first: I was taller, not much but still noticeable, I also felt good, like after you take a nice long hot bath. I stood up and checked out my own exoskeleton, it was dry but still a bit shiny I lifted it up and it was surprisingly light.

“So cool…” I said to myself, I walked over it but I also felt a bit of… extra weight. I looked down and saw my own old teenager titties hanging there. “Oh welcome back you two, you enjoyed your vacation?” I asked them. Of course, they didn’t answer that would have been weird, I shrugged feeling them jiggle around, it was a familiar sensation at least. I took my exoskeleton and dragged it to the bandit old camp.

I arrived at the camp seeing the old cart almost completely destroyed, the wheels were not there, and many other parts were missing too. “What happened?” I asked out loud.

“Oh, Tela! You are back.” Sweetie said looking up from her book, “Did you grow up?” She asked noticing my new stature. “And why do you have that with you?” 

“Oh, this?” I said pointing at my exoskeleton “I molted during the night and grew up.” I simply told her. 

“Just like that?” She asked skeptically.

“Yep.” I replied easily. “So what happened here?” I asked.

“Scoot and Applebloom wanted to create a new CMC cart to carry our stuff around, the cart was too big before.” She explained.

“Uh, cool. And what are you reading?” 

“Simple stuff apparently, it explains here that any self-respecting necromancer should know at least two cantrips and six different spells. It also says that beginners can only throw around two spells of first level every day, which is weird, Twilight can throw much more than just that.” She said looking pensive.

“And what cantrips and spells did you learn?” I asked her, evidently this world used a D&D magic system which is good, at least I know the bounds of the magic. 

“There was a little list here but ultimately I chose Icy Touch and Minor Illusion.” She said and made some motion with her horn which also sparkled with magic, then she called used her magic and summoned a voice from behind the cart, "Hey scoot, ab, this is a test wooooo." She said with a spectral voice.

“That’s uh cool?” I said uncertainly.

“Sure is, and for the other… Well, I don’t know, I never tested it cause it is for attack only and I didn’t want to use it on my friends.” 

“Understandable, let me look around if I can find a bug or something for you.” I said and started to look around, fortunately, I found a beetle laying around on a rock, I took it in my hands and brought it to Sweetie, I stuck the beetle down with some of my silk and moved next to her. “Fire at will.”

She repeated some strange motions and words before a spectral skeletal hand appeared from nowhere and grasped the bug, killing it immediately. “Good job.” I said ruffling her mane.

“Hehe, thanks Tela.” 

“Hey, girls we are almost finished and- Tela?” She said interrupting what she was saying, “Did you?” 

“Grow up yes.” I said immediately. “I grow very fast don’t worry, continue.” I said motioning her with my hand.

“Oh, ok. Me and Scoot are almost done with the cart and we can move on in a little while.” She said proudly and returned to work on the vehicle. 

“Also Tela, I learned how to use firebolt.” She said and demonstrated it by blasting a fiery projectile against a tree burning the bark a bit. “And there are a lot of spells here too, but I can only seem to do these six. Magic missile, Ray of sickness, Find familiar, False Life, Sleep and Protection from good and evil.” She listed, they were good spells for a beginner, especially sleep.

“Wonderful Sweetie, but we can’t exactly try them without wasting them. So for now just memorize them all to perfection.” I said to her, she nodded and returned to reading her book. 

“All done!” Scoot shouted and jumped down from the new cart landing on a scooter, the cart was made out of ripped off pieces of the larger wagon, the back wheels were larger then the front and miss matched, the back wheels were just ripped straight from the larger wagon the spokes making them go well past the wagons sides while the front sloped down on wheels made from the tops of food barrels. It was rough but looked sturdy enough. the scooter was similar it looked like the handlebars were made of wood and the stick connecting it to the bored was taken from the metal skeleton of the wagons canopy.  The wheels were made from the same barrels as the charts front wheels. 

“Wonderful, come on let’s move out!” I shouted pointing forward, and so we started our long journey to reach the nearest city. Along the way, they played with my old exoskeleton and Sweetie studied her book.

“Hey Tela?” Applebloom started. “You never told us anything about your parents. How are they?” 

“Oh well, they are good they live in my hometown and sometimes comes to visit. Well I mean they won’t be able to visit me here but what can you do?” I told her shrugging.

“Don’t you miss them?” She asked tilting her head.

“Of course I do.” I replied softly. “But it’s not like I can do anything about it, so moping around won’t help. I prefer to laugh and move on.” I replied.

“I guess… And are they like you?” She asked then.

“What do you mean?” I asked raising an eyebrow.

“I mean are they all spidery like you?” 

“Oh, well. No.” I told her. “You see, I was a human before, like those bandits we faced before. One day I was walking around town after my work shift and entered this strange store, inside I saw many incredible things but suddenly from a wall behind the counter another Drider exited destroying the wall, it attacked me and then the shopkeeper fired some magic at me and here I am.”  Applebloom was staring at me disbelievingly same for Sweetie. “I was actually reborn because I came out of an egg not long ago, I adjusted just fine to the situation and learned how to use this new body which might I say it is far more efficient than a human one, at least I can climb far better.” I told them wiggling my legs.

“Incredible…” They said in awe. “So how old are you?” 

“I’m actually 20, I’ll turn 21 this September, although I may not, I don’t know what day was when I hatched so meh.” I said. “Now if you excuse me I have work to do.” I told them and started to weave my silk. 

“Wooow” Sweetie said.

“Pretty neat uh? She showed me that when we went out to take some fruit.” Applebloom recalled.

“How do you do that?” Sweetie asked.

“I was a scout girl and they taught me how.” I told them, and resumed my work. 

“What are you making?” They asked.

I sighed. “I’m trying to improve my technic so I can weave faster and better, mostly I’m trying to make some… things.” I said.

“Ok?” They asked looking at each other.

“You go and play or something I’ll tell you when I’m done alright?” I told them, they nodded and started to play around with a ball of silk they asked me to create on the spot. We traveled for roughly six hours before I called for a break, Scoot can say whatever she wants but she was absolutely drenched in sweat.

We stopped near a little lake and all went inside to bathe and wash off the filth and sweat of the day, Scoot dared to go inside and then exit immediately, so I grabbed her by her torso and forcibly bathed her using a towel I made out of silk to scrub her filthy mane and coat. 

Next were her wings which showed ample signs of needing a good preening, I gently started to pull off the broken and weak feathers, every time she squirmed I threatened her to stick her on the spot. Eventually, it was over and she appeared much cleaner than before, I even put a little bow on her head.

“Aww, look at her, such a wonderful princess.” I said jokingly.

The girls laughed at their friend misadventure while Scoot steamed with outrage and embarrassment. “What do I hear? ‘Tela please wash us too!’ Oh, but of course I wouldn’t dream of leaving you out.” I said to myself, and swiftly grabbed Applebloom and dragged her inside the lake.

She was fairly easier to wash and didn’t squirm as much, in a handful of minutes we were done and she was pristine. Sweetie Belle didn’t even have to be dragged she was already washing herself. “My sister says that a proper lady must always be clean.” Was her reasoning.

I shrugged and finally started to wash myself too, it required a bit of trial and error to find all the right part to wash but eventually I got around it, cleaning the abdomen though was a real pain, it was big and was difficult to reach especially the silk gland. Eventually, I managed to wash everything and happily exited the lake. “Now that was refreshing.” I said stepping out of the water.
. 
“Ok, now can we go?” Scoot asked impatiently, I looked up and saw that the sun was going down, we remained still for longer than I thought, “No, we make camp now and continue tomorrow morning, let’s, camp girls!” I ordered, we started a fire, I ate my dinner and everyone was now around the fire. 

“Ok, I call the first scary story of tonight. Who can make the others screams in fright wins.” I said with a maniacal grin. “So who wants to hear the terrifying story of the Flying Dutchman?” 

And so I began my story, I told them of the infamous ship with its crew of undead pirates and that they will come to take them when they will die. “...and so the ship will arrive and claim your SOUL!” I shouted at last making scoot eep in fright and Applebloom run inside the cart. Sweetie though.

“I liked it.” She said clapping her hooves. 

“Thank you. Now, who’s next?” I asked. Scoot gulped and said she didn’t have any story, same for the others. “Woohoo I won.” 

Satisfied with my win I went to sleep on a tree and drifted off. I suddenly woke up, my senses in full alarm, ‘What was that? I swear I felt something moving, I saw it.’ I looked around and saw it, a single wolf. As big as the others that attacked us in the forest, it didn’t see me so I seized the opportunity.

It was creeping towards the cart where the girls were sleeping, I jumped and went over it then when I was upon it I grabbed it with my legs restraining it. “GIRLS! WAKE UP!” I shouted, I heard shuffling and frantic hoovesteps from the cart and the head of Sweetie came out looking around. 

The wolf was kicking and squirming trying to push me off of it, I grabbed it with all my strength, “Sweetie now it’s a good time for those spells!” I shouted. I heard a twang and a crossbow bolt appeared in the wolf’s shoulder making it howl in pain, Then  I saw Scoot reloading another bolt.

Sweetie was beginning her incantations while Applebloom took a sturdy looking branch from the almost spent fireplace and smashed it on the wolf face. I started to punch it but,when I saw that it was a little dazed I bit it in the neck. 

I saw Sweetie’s horn shining with power and three ethereal projectiles came forth hitting the wolf square in the body, the wolf howled weakly, its heart started to beat slower and slower until it finally stopped.

“Done. Wonderful work girls, you were EPIC!” I said praising them for a job well done. 

“Thanks, Tela,” Applebloom said. “What do we do with this now?” She asked.

“Let me take care of it.” I opened my mouth and consumed the whole body, I felt myself full once again and happily, I walked to the others.

"Alright girls, let's get some more sleep, we will continue in the morning," I said and returned back to my branch.

The next morning I woke up with the sun, I went down from my branch and started preparing breakfast for the girls. "Good morning." I said to them when they exited the cart.

"Good morning…" they yawned and went to eat their food, with the breakfast done we were almost ready to move on.

"Hey, scoot." I called her. 

"Yes?" She replied looking at me.

"Are you ok?" I asked worried about any possible trauma from the recent attacks.

"I feel pretty good, why you ask?" 

"I just asked cause ya know, attacking a wolf, almost being kidnapped…" I said

"Are you kidding? That was incredible!" She said happily and trotted off to her scooter. "Come on girls!" 

"Coming!" They shouted, snuffing the fire and trotting to the cart hopping onto it. I went inside too and we continued our journey!

The journey under the sun turns out is horrible, it wasn't extremely hot, but it was still bothersome especially when you have a giant butt like me. A very sexy one mind you but not exactly a heat dissipator, the girls weren't fairing any better, they sweated and had their tongues out like a dog.

"Some heat uh?" I asked with a little laugh.

"Yeah… I'm melting help!" Sweetie shouted from the floor.

"It's not that hot." Scoot replied still pulling the cart.

"You are against the full force of that chill and refreshing wind," I told her.

"Uh, you can too? Just pull your head out." She said looking at us. I remained there for a bit. Then facepalmed hard, same for the others.

In the end we all laughed and finally found relief in the chill wind. Finally after two days of travel we finally arrived at the crest of a hill and saw before us a majestic city.

The city was at the foot of a mountain, it was completely circled by a giant wall with three roads leading to the entracces, the city was enormous, filled with houses, shops and schools, attached to the mountain there was a giant structure with many towers, coloured in a mighty white and with blue rooftops, the city below was buzzing with life and activity which reminded me of something.

"What are you doing?" Sweetie asked me.

"I'm making a top." I said sighing.

"What's that?" She asked.

"A piece of cloth to cover one chest, I don't like to wear those at all, if it was me I wouldn't even bother, but alas it is not "proper" to go without it so I must bear with it." I said disgruntled.

"Weird." Sweetie said.

"You said it girl."

"That city is really big." She continued.

"Sure is, look there are markets and shops, we can buy whatever we need there." I pointed out putting on my top and shivering into the sensation of restrain.

"Alright girls let's go introduce ourselves, to the city." I ordered, scoot kicked off and sped up to the city entrance. When we arrived at the door we saw just how big it was, the door was immense so much so it could make someone like me pass through ten times over.

"Halt." A guard said blocking us with a spear. "What are you carrying with you?"

"Uh, nothing too important, it is mostly for transportation." I replied.

"Sure thing Drider… let me check." The guard said snapping at me, which really didn't shock me.

The guard looked around but didn't find anything illegal and told us we could go in. "I'll keep an eye on you spider." He said to me.

"Well that was something." I told the girls.

"Sure was, can't we just do to him what we did to the bandits?" Scoot said.

"Unfortunately not, those were bandits this is a guard we will get in trouble." I replied. "Come on, don't let it get to you, look around we have a wonderful city to explore, let's go!"